A.D. 1066. EDWARD, KTJTG OF ENGLAND, DIES. 553 Irving in a most pious manner, and whom I know to have died in a most christian manner. They assured me that they were messengers of God, and that they had been sent to me ; and they added these words : ' Since the nobles of England, and the dukes, and the bishops, and the abbots are not the servants of God, but of the devil, God has given this kingdom, for one day, into the hand of the enemy, and devils will traverse the whole of this country.' And when I said that I would report this to the people, that, being sinners, they might make confession, and satisfaction, and amend their ways, and obtain mercy, as the Ninevites had done—' Nothing of this,' said they, ' will happen because they will not repent ; and God will not have mercyupon them.' And I replied: 'And when may are mission of these terrible calamities be expected V To this question they replied—' With respect to this, it will be like the case of a green tree when it is cut asunder in the middle, and a part of it is cut off and carried to a distance from the trunk ; when that part without the assistance of any one shall begin again to flourish, and to bear fruit, then a remission of these evils may be expected.' " And the English experienced the truth of this prophecy, inasmuch as England became the habitation of foreigners, and subject to the dominion of strangers, so that in a short time there was no Englishman, either duke, or pontiff, or abbot, nor was there any prospect of an end of all this misery. Therefore the peaceful king of England, Edward, the glory of the English, the son of king Ethelred, exchanged his temporal kingdom for an eternal one, after he had reigned twentyfour years, on the fourth indiction, and the fifth day of the week, on the vigil of the Epiphany of the Lord—so that most blessed king died, and was buried the next day at London, in the church which he himself had built in a new style of architecture, from which many people who built churches afterwards, took pattern, and emulated that work of his in a most costly manner. In this king the line of the English kings ended, which is recorded as not having been interrupted from the time of Cedric, the first king of the West Saxons, of the race of the Angles, but to have lasted five hundred and seventy-one years, with the exception of the breaks in the succession caused by a few Danes, who, when the sins of the English nation required such a chastisement, reigned for a time. Now, then, since a sufficient account is contained in the