later years with a great question affecting the national church. When Anselm visited England in 1078, Archbishop Lanfranc consulted him about those whom the English had set up for themselves as saints, and took Ælfheah, who was looked upon by his countrymen as a saint and a martyr, as an example. Lanfranc denied the right of Ælfheah to these honours. Anselm, however, asserted that he was worthy of them, because he died in the cause of justice. Lanfranc was convinced, and did devout honour to his predecessor. At his command Osbern, a monk of Canterbury, wrote lives of Ælfheah in prose and in verse. These compositions were used in the service on the day of the martyrdom of St. Alphege, the name by which the archbishop appears in the Calendar. The prose life remains. It is a piece of hagiology rather than an historical biography. Osbern also wrote an account of the translation of the saint, which was read on the anniversary of that event. A plain and trustworthy account of the death of Ælfheah is contained in the contemporary chronicle of Thietmar, bishop of Merseburg, who states that he had his information from an Englisman named Sewald. Osbern and Florence of Worcester give many particulars of the death with the evident object of heightening the effect and proving the voluntary character of the martyrdom. They apparently depended on some common source.
ÆLFHERE (d. 983), ealdorman of the Mercians, was a kinsman of King Eadgar. He was the head of the anti-monastic party, which, on the death of Eadgar in 975, attempted to overthrow the ecclesiastical policy he had pursued. Ælfhere and the great men who held with him turned the monks out of the churches in which Eadgar and Bishop Æthelwold had established them. In recording the ‘unrighteous and unlawful doings’ of Ælfhere in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the writer makes his lament in verse. There were two sides to the question, and the secular clergy and many of the landowners had reason to complain of the aggressions of the monks. After the murder of Eadward, Ælfhere joined with Dunstan in bringing the body of the king, with great pomp, from Wareham to Shaftesbury. He died in 983, and was succeeded in his ealdormanship by his son Ælfric [see Ælfric, fl. 950–1016]. The name of Ælfhere is subscribed to most of the charters of the time. Latin writers have blackened the character of this enemy of the monks. William of Malmesbury accuses him in one passage of the murder of King Eadward. The charge is of course untrue, as it implies an action wholly contrary to his policy. He also tells an idle tale of the repentance of Ælfhere, and the loathsome death which marked the divine vengeance for his misdeeds.
ÆLFRED (d. 1036), ætheling, was the younger of the two sons of King Æthelred and Emma, daughter of Richard the Fearless. On the conquest of England by Swend in 1013, Ælfred and his brother Eadward were sent over to Normandy under the care of Ælfhun, bishop of London. The æthelings were received at the court of their uncle Richard the Good, whither their mother had fled not long before they came. A promise obtained by Emma from Cnut as a condition of her marriage to him, that the succession to the English throne should be limited to such children as she might bear him, shows that she was careless of the claims of her sons by her former marriage. The English æthelings were, however, held in honour at Rouen, and their cousin Duke Robert attempted to enforce their rights by an invasion of England. His fleet was kept away from our shores by a contrary wind, and the attempt failed. The story told by William of Jumièges that, in spite of this failure, Cnut, feeling his end near, offered that half his kingdom should go to the æthelings, may be rejected as wholly improbable. At the death of Cnut, in 1035, their rights were disregarded by the English witan, for the remembrance of the ill conduct of their father set men against them. The kingdom was divided. Harold reigned at London over the land north of the Thames, and Emma, at Winchester, ruled Wessex in the name of her son Harthacnut, whose cause was upheld by Earl Godwine. The next year Ælfred, with the consent of his brother Eadward, and perhaps in concert with him, made an attempt on England. He landed at Dover, with some force which must have been composed of Normans, and marched westward, intending to have an interview with his mother at Winchester. Owing to the absence of Harthacnut, English feeling had begun even in Wessex to turn towards
