When he went into the hall to tell these tidings, those present spoke of the dignity of Unn, even to the day of her death. They drank together the wedding-feast of Olaf and funeral honours to Unn, and on the last day of the feast they carried Unn to the burial-mound that they had raised for her. They laid her in a viking-ship within the cairn, as they were wont to bury great chiefs; and they laid beside her much treasure, and closed the cairn, and went their ways. One of the kinsmen was Hoskuld, father of Olaf the Peacock, whose story will be told later on. Chapter VII The Expansion of England While Harald Fairhair was occupied in settling the Hebrides and Orkneys with inhabitants from Norway, and Rollo and his successors were possessing themselves of the larger part of the North of France, England and Ireland were enjoying a period of comparative repose. The twenty-three years of Edward the Elder’s reign were devoted largely to building up the great kingdom which his father, Alfred, had founded, but not consolidated; he brought Mercia more immediately into his power, and subdued East Anglia and the counties bordering on the kingdom of Wessex; before his death Northumbria, both English and Danish, had invited him to reign over them, and he was acknowledged lord also of Strathclyde Britain, then an independent princedom, and of the greater part of Scotland. In all his designs Edward was supported by the powerful help of his sister, Ethelfled, “the Lady of the Mercians,” as her people called her, a woman great of soul, beloved by her subjects, dreaded by her enemies, who not only assisted her brother with advice and arms, but helped him in carrying out his useful projects of building and strengthening the cities in his dominions, a matter which had also occupied the attention of their father. This woman had inherited the high spirit of Alfred; she was the widow of Ethelred, Prince of Mercia, and she ruled her country with vigour after her husband’s death, building strong fortresses at Stafford, Tamworth, Warwick, and other places; she bravely defended herself at Derby, of which she got possession after a severe fight in which four of her thanes were slain. The following year she became possessed of the fortress of Leicester, and the greater part of the army submitted to her; the Danes of York also pledged themselves to obey her. This was her last great success, for in 922 the Lady of Mercia died at Tamworth, after eight years of successful rule of her people. She was buried amid the grief of Mercia at Gloucester, at the monastery of St Peter’s, which she and her husband had erected, on the spot where the cathedral now stands.