Page:A literal translation of the Saxon Chronicle.djvu/175

163 and provisions should be delivered to them; and they all accepted these conditions, and they were supported by the whole English nation.

1007.

This year the tribute was paid to the Army; it was thirty thousand pounds: and this year also Ædric was appointed Alderman over all the kingdom of Mercia.

1008.

This year the King commanded that ships should be built and fitted out with diligence throughout England, at this assessment, one vessel from every 310 hides of land, and from eight hides a helmet and a breast-plate.

1009.

This year the ships were ready of which we have before spoken, and inasmuch as we learn from books, so many were never constructed by the English nation in any King's days; and they wore all collected at Sandwich, that they might lie off that port, and defend this land from every foreigner. But yet the country had neither the fortune nor honour to profit more by this fleet than by former armaments.

It was at this time, or a little earlier, that Brihtric the brother of the Alderman Edric accused Childe Wulfnoth the South Saxon the