Athelstan died in 941. Two of his brothers, and one brother’s son occupied the throne successively during the next eighteen years. Then, in 959, Edgar, a grandson of Alfred, then only sixteen years of age, was by the Witan made King. He was called _The Peaceable_; during his reign of sixteen years, no foe, foreign or domestic, vexed the land. Northumbria, extending as far north as the Forth, with Edwinsburh its border fortress—garrisoned by Danes and Anglo-Saxons—having long been a trouble to the Kings of Wessex, Edgar divided the earldom. He made Oswulf Earl of the country beyond the Tees—including the present county of Northumberland; and Osla, Earl of Deira, where the Danes had ruled, with York for his chief town; but the Danes were allowed to live peaceably under their own laws. And Edgar granted Lothian, containing the counties of Linlithgow, Edinburgh, and Haddington, to Kenneth, King of Scots, to be held under himself. And thus Lothian was ever after held by the Scottish Kings, and its English speech became the official language of Scotland. With Strathclyde, west of the Solway, under a Scottish prince, the map of the Kingdom of Scotland was now broadly traced out. Edgar commuted the annual Welsh tribute to 300 wolves’ heads. He appointed standard weights and measures, maintained an efficient fleet, and was altogether a fine example of a man who—although of small stature and mean presence—by vigour of mind and will, ruled ably and well in rude times. He was really _Basileus_,—lord-paramount of all Britain. After his coronation at Bath, which was not before he had reigned thirteen years—he sailed with his fleet round the western coasts. Coming to Chester, it is related that eight Kings, viz.: Kenneth of Scotland, Malcolm of Cumberland, Maccus of the Western Isles, and five Welsh princes did homage to him. They are said to have rowed him in a boat on the Dee—he steering—from the palace of Chester to the minster of St. John, where there was solemn service; and then they returned in like manner. But these halcyon days for England of peace and settled government ended with Edgar. He died in 975, leaving two sons—Edward by a first wife— Ethelred by a second. Edward succeeded, but reigned only four years, being assassinated at the instigation of his step-mother, who desired the crown for her son. Edward was in consequence styled _The Martyr_. Ethelred was named _The Unready_. He was weak, cowardly, and thoroughly bad; his long reign of thirty-eight years, was one duration of wretchedness and confusion. He had hardly begun to reign when the foreign Danes began to be troublesome, and this time it was a farther stage of invasion: they meant not plunder or partial settlement, but conquest!