A weak government, too easy, suffers evils to grow which often make the most rigorous and illegal proceedings necessary.

Through an extreme lenity it is on some occasions tyrannical.

This was the condition of Ethelred's nobility, who, by being permitted everything, were never contented.
Thus all the principal men held a sort of factious and independent authority; they despised the king, they oppressed the people, and they hated one another.

The Danes, in every part of England but Wessex as numerous as the English themselves, and in many parts more numerous, were ready to take advantage of these disorders, and waited with impatience some new attempt from abroad, that they might rise in favor of the invaders.

They were not long without such an occasion; the Danes pour in almost upon every part at once, and distract the defence which the weak prince was preparing to make.
In those days of wretchedness and ignorance, when all the maritime parts of Europe were attacked by these formidable enemies at once, they never thought of entering into any alliance against them; they equally neglected the other obvious method to prevent their incursions, which was, to carry the war into the invaders' country.
[Sidenote: A.D.