Page:A literal translation of the Saxon Chronicle.djvu/180

168 1011.

This year the King and his Witan sent to the Army, and desired peace, promising tribute and supplies of provision, on condition that they should cease from plundering. At this time they had overrun the following districts: 1st, East Anglia; 2dly, Essex; 3dly, Middlesex; 4thly, Oxfordshire; 5thly, Cambridgeshire; 6thly, Hertfordshire; 7thly, Buckinghamshire; 8thly, Bedfordshire; 9thly, half of Huntingdonshire; and 10thly, south of the Thames, all Kent, and Sussex, and Hastings, and Surrey, Berkshire, Hampshire, and great part of Wiltshire. All these calamities befel us through ill-advisedness, because tribute was not offered them sufficiently soon; but when they had done all possible mischief, we then compounded with them for peace and quietness. Yet notwithstanding this treaty and tribute, they went not forth the less frequently in every direction, marching in separate divisions, and carrying off or slaying our miserable countrymen. And this year, between the nativity of St. Mary and Michaelmas, they besieged Canterbury, and gained an entrance through treachery, for Ælmar, whose life had been saved by Archbishop Ælfeah, betrayed the town to them. And they seized the Archbishop Ælfeah, and Ælfword the King's sheriff, and the