Cannings-marsh, burning all the way. When they had gone so far as they then would, then came they at mid-winter to their ships.
A. 1101. In this year sent the king and his witan to the army, and desired peace, and promised them tribute and food,on condition that they would cease from their plundering. They had then over-run, 1st, East-Anglia, and 2d, Essex, and 3d, Middlesex, and 4th, Oxfordshire, and 5th, Cambridgeshire, and 6th, Hertfordshire, and 7th, Buckinghamshire, and 8th, Bedfordshire, and 9th, half of Huntingdonshire, and 10th, much of Northamptonshire; and south of Thames, all Kent, and Sussex, and Hastings, and Surry, and Berkshire, and Hampshire, and much of Wiltshire. All these misfortunes befel us through unwise counsel, that they were not in time offered tribute, or fought against; but when they had done the most evil, then peace and truce were made with them. And nevertheless, for all the truce and tribute, they went everywhere in bands, and plundered our miserable people, and robbed and slew them. And then in this year, between the Nativity of St. Mary and St. Michael's-mass, they besieged Canterbury, and got into it through treachery, because Elfmar betrayed it, whose life the archbishop Elphege had before saved. And there they took the archbishop Elphege, and Elfward the king's steward, and the abbess Leofruna,[1] and bishop Godwin.[2] And abbat Elfmar[3] they let go away. And they took there within all the men in orders, and men and women: it is not to be told to any man how many there were. And they remained within the city afterwards as long as they would. And when they had thoroughly searched the city, then went they to their ships, and led the archbishop with them.
Was then captive
he who erewhile was
head of the English race
and Christendom.
There might then be seen
misery, where men oft
erewhile saw bliss,
in that hapless city,
whence to us came first
Christendom and bliss,
'fore God, and 'fore the world.
And they kept the archbishop with them so long as until the time that they martyred him.
A 1012. In this year came Edric the ealdorman, and all
