he said, was not the proper occasion for effecting their end.  Alfred was, it was true, an Anglo-Saxon by descent, but he was a Norman by birth and education.  All his friends and supporters were Normans.  He had come now into the realm of England with a retinue of Norman followers, who would, if he were successful, monopolize the honors and offices which he would have to bestow.  He advised the Anglo-Saxon chieftains, therefore, to remain inactive, to take no part in the contest, but to wait for some other opportunity to re-establish the Saxon line of kings.

The Anglo-Saxon chieftains seem to have considered this good advice.  At any rate, they made no movement to sustain young Alfred’s cause.  Alfred had advanced to the town of Guilford.  Here he was surrounded by a force which Harold had sent against him.  There was no hope or possibility of resistance.  In fact, his enemies seem to have arrived at a time when he did not expect an attack, for they entered the gates by a sudden onset, when Alfred’s followers were scattered about the town at the various houses to which they had been distributed.  They made no attempt to defend themselves, but were taken prisoners one by one, wherever they were found.  They were bound with cords, and carried away like ordinary criminals.

Of Alfred’s ten principal Norman companions, nine were beheaded.  For some reason or other the life of one was spared.  Alfred himself was charged with having violated the peace of his country, and was condemned to lose his eyes.  The torture of this operation, and the inflammation which followed, destroyed the unhappy prince’s life.  Neither Emma nor Godwin did any thing to save him.  It was wise policy, no doubt, in Emma to disavow all connection with her son’s unfortunate attempt, now that it had failed; and ambitious queens have to follow the dictates of policy instead of obeying such impulses as maternal love.  She was, however, secretly indignant at the cruel fate which her son had endured, and she considered Godwin as having betrayed him.

After this dreadful disappointment, Emma was not likely to make any farther attempts to place either of her sons upon the throne; but Harold seems to have distrusted her, for he banished her from the realm.  She had still her Saxon son in Normandy, Alfred’s brother Edward, and her Danish son in Denmark.  She went to Flanders, and there sent to Hardicanute, urging him by the most earnest importunities to come to England and assert his claims to the crown.  He was doubly bound to do it now, she said, as the blood of his murdered brother called for retribution, and he could have no honorable rest or peace until he had avenged it.