A.D. 1011.] DANES BESIEGE CANTERBURY. 279 while Almar, abbat of St. Augustine, was permitted to depart, Godwin bishop of Rochester, and Leofrona abbess of St. Mildred, the monks, and an immense number of either sex, were taken ; after which Christ's church was pillaged and burnt ; the monks, with a multitude of men, women, and children, were divided into ten parts : nine were put to death, the tenth was reserved for life, consisting of four monks and eight hundred others. After the people were slaughtered, and the whole of the city pillaged and burnt, archbishop Alfege was dragged forth in fetters, and after being wounded, he was led down to the fleet, and again thrust into confinement, where he was tortured for seven months, that he might be induced by his sufferings to purchase his redemption. Meanwhile the wrath of pitying Heaven was so fierce against the infidel people, that two thousand of them died of excessive pains in their intestines. But when the wicked wretches were not even thus brought to repentance, a certain Dane named Thrum, seeing the holy archbishop suffering such great torments and yet unable to die, moved with impious pity, struck him on the head with an axe ; and so the archbishop, constantly confessing Christ and made a glorious martyr, breathed out his exulting soul to heaven. At the place of his passion, a dry log, which was sprinkled with his blood, in the space of one night sprouted again, and put forth shoots and leaves ; the sight of which miracle so terrified the infidels, that, eagerly kissing the most holy body, they permitted it to be conveyed to London, where it was committed to honourable interment. After the lapse of ten years, the said body, free from every stain of corruption, was raised and borne to Canterbury to a more becoming resting place, where unto the present time the blood continues fresh and the body untainted. After this, the general rage of persecution increasing throughout all England, the perfidious earl Eadric, and all the nobles of every order and dignity, assembled at the city of London before the solemnity of Easter, and there abode with the king until they had paid a tribute of forty-eight thousand pounds to the Danes, that all the Danes in the kingdom might live everywhere in peace with the English, and that each people might have as it were one heart and one soul. This convention was confirmed on either side by