Λ D. 842. AFFLICTIONS OF THE ENGLISH. 05 pursue you with flames and carnage." On the same day or the succeeding one, another messenger would come running and out of breath, and say, "Whither, ye nobles, are you going? The Danes, leaving their northern regions, have already burnt your houses, already carried off your property, tossed your children on the points of their spears, and committed violence on the wives of some, while those of others they have carried away with them." Thus then, both king and people, being distracted by so many evil rumours and sinister reports, were relaxed both in hands and heart, and pined away with consternation of mind. Consequently, not even when they were victorious, did they experience any joy, as usually is the case, nor did they entertain any assured hopes of safety. The following is the reason why the justice of God raged so fiercely, and his wrath was so greatly inflamed against them. In the primitive church of the English, religion shone forth with most brilliant lustre, inasmuch as kings and queens, nobles and princes, as well as bishops of churches, being inflamed with ardent desire for a heavenly kingdom, sought either the walls of the monastery or voluntary exile, as I have already shown. But in process of time all traces of virtue waxed so faint in them, that they would allow no nation to be their equal for treachery and wickedness, a thing which is especially notorious in the history of the kings of Northumberland ; for just as their impiety has been described in my account of the actions of the kings, in the same way did men of every rank and station persist in a course of deceit and treachery, and nothing was esteemed disgraceful except piety, while innocence was considered most deserving of a violent death. Di consequence, the Lord Almighty sent down upon them, like swarms of bees, nlDst bloodthirsty nations, who spared neither age nor sex, such as the Danes and the Goths, the Norwegians and the Swedes, the Yandals and the Frisians ; who, from the begin-ing of the reign of king Ethelwulph down to the time of the arrival of the Normans and of king "William, that is to say, for a period of three hundred and thirty years, dreadfully afflicted this country, and laid it waste with desolation far and wide. Sometimes also, in consequence of the nearness of Britain, as the avengers and scourges of God for the misdeeds of the people, they invaded the country of France ; but, having made D 2