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.

There was no occasion, however, for Hardicanute to attempt force for the recovery of his kingdom, for not many months after these transactions Harold died, and then the country seemed generally to acquiesce in Hardicanute's accession. The Anglo-Saxons, discouraged perhaps by the discomfiture of their cause in the person of Alfred, made no attempt to rise. Hardicanute came accordingly and assumed the throne. But, though he had not courage and energy enough to encounter his rival Harold during his lifetime, he made what amends he could by offering base indignities to his body after he was laid in the grave. His first public act after his accession was to have the body disinterred, and, after cutting off the head, he threw the mangled remains into the Thames. The Danish fishermen in the river found them, and buried them again in a private sepulcher in London, with such concealed marks of respect and honor as it was in their power to bestow.

Hardicanute also instituted legal proceedings to inquire into the death of Alfred. He charged the Saxons with having betrayed him, especially those who were rich enough to pay the fines by which, in those days, it was very customary for criminals to atone for their crimes. Godwin himself was brought before the tribunal, and charged with being accessory to Alfred's death. Godwin positively asserted his innocence, and brought witnesses to prove that he was entirely free from all participation in the affair. He took also a much more effectual method to secure an acquittal, by making to King Hardicanute some most magnificent presents. One of these was a small ship, profusely enriched and ornamented with gold. It contained eighty soldiers, armed in the Danish style, with weapons of the most highly-finished and costly construction. They each carried a Danish axe on the left shoulder, and a javelin in the right hand, both richly gilt, and they had each of them a bracelet on his arm, containing six ounces of solid gold. Such at least is the story. The presents might be considered in the light either of a bribe to corrupt justice, or in that of a fine to satisfy it. In fact, the line, in those days, between bribes to purchase acquittal and fines atoning for the offense seems not to have been very accurately drawn.

Hardicanute, when fairly established on his throne, governed his realm like a tyrant. He oppressed the Saxons especially without any mercy. The effect of his cruelties, and those of the Danes who acted under him, was, however, not to humble and subdue the Saxon spirit, but to awaken and arouse it. Plots and conspiracies began to be formed against him, and against the whole Danish party. Godwin himself began to meditate some decisive measures, when, suddenly, Hardicanute died. Godwin immediately took the field at the head of all his forces, and organized a general movement throughout the kingdom for calling Edward, Alfred's brother, to the throne. This insurrection was triumphantly successful. The Danish forces that undertook to resist it were driven to the northward. The leaders were slain or put to flight. A remnant of them escaped to the sea-shore, where they embarked on board such vessels as they could find, and left England forever; and this was the final termination of the political authority of the Danes over the realm of England—the consummation and end of Alfred's military labors and schemes, coming surely at last, though deferred for two centuries after his decease.

What follows belongs rather to the history of William the Conqueror than to that of Alfred, for Godwin invited Edward, Emma's Norman son, to come and assume the crown; and his coming, together with that of the many Norman attendants that accompanied or followed him, led, in the end, to the Norman invasion and conquest. Godwin might probably have made himself king if he had chosen to do so. His authority over the whole island was paramount and supreme. But, either from a natural sense of justice toward the rightful heir, or from a dread of the danger which always attends the usurping of the royal name by one who is not of royal descent, he made no attempt to take the crown. He convened a great assembly of all the estates of the realm, and there it was solemnly decided that Edward should be invited to come to England and ascend the throne. A national messenger was dispatched to Normandy to announce the invitation.

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