“Prelates and chiefs, ancients and younger men, if one so young as myself may deliver opinions in this assemblage, I would say let us take heed ere we tamper any more with Danemarck. The woes of the Anglo-Saxons first began when the Danes crossed the seas in their nailed ships and came among them first to rob and plunder, and next to seek a settlement in this fat and fertile land of England. Our rubric is filled with Saxon martyrs butchered by the Danes. This noble house of religion where we now consult was plundered and burned by the Danes; and the Danes slew all the ancient brotherhood of the house, and did the foulest things upon the tombs of the four Saxon virgins and saints—Saint Etheldreda, Saint Sexburga, Saint Ermenilda, Saint Withburga. I am lately from the Abbey of Peterborough, where I read upon the monumental stones the names of the good Saxon abbats and monks of that house that were murthered by the Danes. The same thing happened at Crowland, and at fifty more religious houses. The Danes have been the great makers of Saxon martyrdoms. The worst famed of our Saxon kings are those who submitted to them or failed in conquering them; the name of King Alfred is honoured chiefly for that he defeated the Danes in an hundred battles, and checked their rapacity and blood-thirstiness.” “Oh, Hereward of Brunn!” said the bishop of Lindisfarne, “this is all true; but all this happened when the Danes were unconverted Pagans.” “But good my Lord Bishop of Lindisfarne,” quoth the Lord of Brunn, “let us note well the conduct of the Danes since they have been Christian men, and we shall find as Saxons that we have not much to praise them for. Had it not been for the unmeet alliance between Lord Tostig and the strangers, and the invasion of Northumbria and York, and the need King Harold lay under of breaking that unholy league, and fighting Tostig in the great battle by Stamford Bridge, King Harold would never have been worsted at the battle of Hastings, for his armed forces would have been entire, and fresh for the fight, instead of being thinned as they were by that first bloody combat, and worn out by that long march from York unto Hastings.” “It was an army of Norwegians that fought King Harold by Stamford Bridge,” said the Prior of Ely.