city of London, torpid with inactivity, timid and suspicious, not daring to trust himself to any one, having his conscience tortured, because of the death of his brother Edward, lest he should too soon feel the long-expected vengeance. He did not dare to assemble an army, or to lead it against the enemy, fearing lest the nobles of the kingdom, whom he had unjustly deprived of their inheritance, might abandon him in the field, and give him up to the enemy to be put to death. This was the wretched condition of this wretched king. At last, the king, worn out with all these troubles, withdrew secretly from the city of London, and sailed first of all to Southampton, and from thence to the Isle of Wight, and from thence he sent Emma his queen, with his sons Alfred and Edward, and their tutors, iElfhun, bishop of Durham, and iElfey, abbot of Midesham, into Normandy, to his brother, duke Richard, by whom they were receivea with all honour and respect. Eadric also, the kinsman of king Ethelred, crossed the sea with a hundredand fifty soldiers in the queen's company, as her guard, and resided there with her two years, attending upon her in a magnificent manner. And while they thus crossed the sea in the month of August, Ethelred remained with his fleet in the Isle of Wight till the day of the Nativity of the Lord, intending to follow the queen and his sons immediately that he received any good news from them ; and as he presently heard from the countries across the sea that duke Richard had received his sister and her sons with great joy, king Ethelred crossed over into Normandy in the month of January, and found relief for his miseries in the attentions and consolations of that magnificent duke. A.D. 1014. The tyrant Sweyn, as we have said before, was oppressing England with slaughter and rapine ; first of all carrying off the substance of the people of the provinces, and after that proscribing the nobles ; and in this way both the public treasures and those of individuals were carried off to the ships, together with hostages, from which it appears evidently that Sweyn was by nature not a prince, but a tyrant. The people did not know what to do, because, if they desired war, they had no leader, and if they chose submission, then they had a tyrant for their ruler. But the Deity, who is kind to those who are in necessity, did not allow England to be long tossed about :alamities, since that same tyrant ended his wicked fife this year, on the day of the Puri