If Ethelred were to know how he is regarded by the historian who pens these lines, he would kick the foot-board out of his casket, and bite himself severely in four places.

To add to his foul history, happening to have a few inoffensive Danes on hand, on the 13th of November, the festival of St. Brice, 1002, he gave it out that he would massacre these people, among them the sister of the Danish king, a noble woman who had become a Christian (only it is to be hoped a better one), and married an English earl.  He had them all butchered.

[Illustration:  Ethelred weds Emma.]

In 1003, Sweyn, with revenge in his heart, began a war of extermination or subjugation, and never yielded till he was, in fact, king of England, while the royal intellectual polyp, known as Ethelred the Unwholesome, fled to Normandy, in the 1013th year Anno Domini.

But in less than six weeks the Danish king died, leaving the sceptre, with the price-mark still upon it, to Canute, his son, and Ethelred was invited back, with an understanding that he should not abuse his privileges as king, and that, although it was a life job during good behavior, the privilege of beheading him from time to time was and is vested in the people; and even to-day there is not a crowned head on the continent of Europe that does not recognize this great truth,—­viz., that God alone, speaking through the united voices of the common people, declares the rulings of the Supreme Court of the Universe.

On the old autograph albums of the world is still written in the dark corners of empires, “the king can do no wrong.”  But where education is not repressed, and where that Christianity which is built on love and charity is taught, there can be but one King who does no wrong.

Ethelred was succeeded by Edmund, called “the Ironside.”  He fought bravely, and drove the Danes, under Canute, back to their own shores.  But they got restless in Denmark, where there was very little going on, and returned to England in large numbers.

Ethelred died in London, 1016 A.D., before Canute reached him.  He was called by Dunstan “Ethelred the Unready,” and had a faculty for erring more promptly than any previous king.

Having returned cheerily from Ethelred’s rather tardy funeral, the people took oath, some of them under Edmund and some under Canute.

Edmund, after five pitched battles, offered to stay bloodshed by personally fighting Canute at any place where they could avoid police interference, but Canute declined, on what grounds it is not stated, though possibly on the Polo grounds.

[Illustration:  Sons of Edmund sent to Olaf.]

A compromise was agreed to in 1016, by which Edmund reigned over the region south of the Thames; but very shortly afterwards he was murdered at the instigation of Edric, a traitor, who was the Judas Iscariot of his time.