mption which
lies either against the understanding or morals of every one who in
those ignorant ages was dignified with that title, he seems to have
been a man of merit and of virtue. Sweyn, though less scrupulous than
Olave, was constrained, upon the departure of the Norwegian prince, to
evacuate also the kingdom with all his followers.

[MN 996.] This composition brought only a short interval to the
miseries of the English. The Danish pirates appeared soon after in
the Severn; and having committed spoil in Wales, as well as in
Cornwall and Devonshire, they sailed round to the south coast, and
entering the Tamar, completed the devastation of these two counties.
They then returned to the Bristol Channel; and penetrating into the
country by the Avon, spread themselves over all that neighbourhood,
and carried fire and sword even into Dorsetshire. [MN 998.] They
next changed the seat of war; and after ravaging the Isle of Wight,
they entered the Thames and Medway, and laid siege to Rochester, where
they defeated the Kentish men in a pitched battle. After this
victory, the whole province of Kent was made a scene of slaughter,
fire, and devastation. The extremity of these miseries forced the
English into councils for common defence both by sea and land; but the
weakness of the king, the divisions among the nobility, the treachery
of some, the cowardice of others, the want of concert in all,
frustrated every endeavour; their fleets and armies either came too
late to attack the enemy, or were repulsed with dishonour; and the
people were thus equally ruined by resistance or by submission. The
English, therefore, destitute both of prudence and unanimity in
council, of courage and conduct in the field, had recourse to the same
weak expedient which by experience they had already found so
ineffectual: they offered the Danes to buy peace, by paying them a
large sum of money. These ravagers rose continually in their demands;
and now required the payment of twenty-four thousand pounds, to which
the English were so mean and imprudent as to submit [d]. The
departure of the Danes procured them another short interval of repose,
which they enjoyed as if it were to be perpetual, without making any
effectual preparations for a more vigorous resistance upon the next
return of the enemy.
[FN [d] Hoveden, p. 429. Chron. Mailr. p. 150.]

Besides receiving this sum, the Danes were engaged by another motive
to depart a kingdom which