Capitolo 67
strengths more uneven still. Alfred did his maximum withstand the tide of
the sick fortune, with the limited one and doubtful authority that he contained;
but all were in vain. Ethelred, used down, probably, with the anxiety
and depression that the situation of its kingdom brought on him,
lingered for once, and then it died, and Alfred was from general approval
called to the throne. This was of year 871.
It was a matter of moment to find a sure and sure place of deposit
for the body of Ethelred that, as a Cristiano killed in to contend with
pagans, a martyr would be considered. Its memory was honorable as that
of one that had sacrificed his/her life in defense of the Christian faith.
They knew well a lot that you protect his/her lifeless rests they would not be sure
from the revenge of his/her enemies unless they had put indeed
over the course of these desperate raiders. There was, far to the
south, in Dorsetshire, on the southern coast of England a convent,
to Wimborne, a very sacred stain, worthy to be selected as a place of
real burial. The stain has continued sacred a present day; and
it now has on the place, as it is supposed, of the ancient convent, a
great authoritative church or cathedral, full of monuments of first days,
and thrilling all the observatories with his/her architectural and solemn grandeur.
Here they brought the body of Ethelred and they buried him/it. It was a
place of sacred isolation, where there a solemn calm reigned and
frightens that any hostility of _Christian_ would ever have challenged to disturb.
The sacreligious paganism of Danish, would have respected however
it but small, if theirs had ever found access to him; but they did
not. The body of Ethelred was unperturbed; and, many centuries
later, of the travellers that visited the stain recorded the fact that
there was there a monument with this registration:
"IN HOC CORPO OF QUIESC'T CRAZY PERSON ETHELREDI REGIS SAXONUM OF THE WEST, MARTYRIS,
HERE YEAR DOMINOES DCCCLXXI., XXIII. APRILIS, FOR MANUS DANORUM
PAGANORUM, OCCUBUIT."[1]
Man is commonly the opinion receipt of the death of Ethelred. And