64 .ANNALS OF EOGEK DE HOVEDEN. A.D. 941. king, and lands as well ; consigning to everlasting flames those who should take away any portion therefrom. After this, with a very large force he subdued the enemy, and with his army laid waste Scotland, even as far as Feoder and Wertermore, while with his fleet he ravaged as far as Catenes ;4' in consequence of this, king Constantine, being compelled so to do, gave up his son to him as a hostage, together with suitable presents ; and the peace being thus renewed, the king returned to Wessex. In the same year Saint Bristan departed this Ufe. In the year 925, the religious monk Elphege, surnamed the Bald, a kinsman of Saint Dunstan, received the bishopric of Winchester. In the year 927, Anlaf, the pagan king of Ireland and of many of the islands, being encouraged by his father-in-law, Constantine, king of the Scots, entered the mouth of the Humber with a vast fleet, amounting to six hundred and fifteen sail ; on which he was met by king Ethelstan and his brother the Clito Edmund, with an army, at the place which is caUed Brumanburgh.47 The battle lasted from the beginning of the day to the evening, and they slew five minor kings and seven dukes, whom the enemy had invited to their aid, and shed such a quantity of blood, as in no battle before that had ever been shed in England ; and, having compeBed the kings Anlaf and Constantine, and the king of the Cumbrians, to fly to their ships, they returned in great triumph. But the enemy having experienced extreme disaster in the loss of their army, returned home with only a few men. In the year from the incarnation of our Lord 940, Ethelstan, the vatiant and glorious king of the English, departed this life at Gloucester, in the sixteenth year of his reign, and in the fourteenth of the indiction, on the sixth day before the calends of November, being the fourth day of the week ; his body, was carried to the city of Maidulph,47* and was there honorably interred. His brother Edmund succeeded him in the eighteenth year of his age. In the year 941, the Northumbrians proving regardless of the fealty which they owed to Edmund, the mighty king of the English, chose Anlaf, king of the Norwegians 46 Caithness. 47 Or Bninenburgh ; 1 rumley, in Lincolnshire. This battle w as the subject of an Anglo-Saxon poem, which is still in existence. 4"* Malmesbury.