238 ROGER OT AVENDO VER. [A.D. 1016. clergy as the laity, assembled, and -with one consent elected Cnute, and, going to him, they made peace with him and did him fealty. The citizens of London alone, and the nobles who were there, raised to the throne Eadmund Ironside, the king's son, who, after his elevation to the royal dignity, boldly advanced into Wessex, and being joyfully received by all the people, reduced that province to his sway. On hearing of which the greatest part of the kingdom submitted to Eadmund. Cnute, too, entered Dorset and sought to reduce it ; but Eadmund meeting him at a place called Pennum, gave him battle, on the ninth of June, and put him to the rout with all his men. Second and third battles between Eadmund and Cnute. After this victory, king Eadmund met Cnute a second time in Worcestershire, after Midsummer. Having well ordered his forces, and set his best men in the fittest places, he bade them remember that they were fighting for their country and children, their wives and their inheritances ; and when his manly address bad kindled the spirits of all, he ordered the trumpets to sound and his forces to advance. The battle having joined with tremendous clamour, they fought at first with their spears and then with their swords. King Eadmund fought in the first rank, where he carried all before him, laying low his enemies without intermission, and manfully playing the part of a stout soldier and a good king ; but because the wicked earl Eadric, with the earls Ahnar and Aldgar, and many others who ought to have supported him, were treacherously fighting on the side of the Danes, Eadmund's side was too weak ; notwithstanding, on the first day of the contest, which was the twenty-fifth of June, so severe and so bloody was the battle, that in the end neither army could fight for very weariness, and accordingly they spontaneously separated. But the next day, king Eadmund would have utterly crushed all the Danes, had it not been for the treachery of earl Eadric ; for when they were fighting with spirit on each side, the latter, seeing that the English were prevailing, cut off the head of a certain man, and held it up, exclaiming, " It is in vain for you English to fight, for you have lost your head ; flee, then, with speed ; for herehold in my hands the head of king Eadmund. On hearing