In this extremity, Ethelred, to whom historians give the epithet of the _Unready_, instead of rousing his people to defend with courage their honor and their property, hearkened to the advice of Siricius, archbishop of Canterbury, which was seconded by many of the degenerate nobility; and paying the enemy the sum of ten thousand pounds, he bribed them to depart the kingdom.

This shameful expedient was attended with the success which might be expected.

The Danes next year appeared off the eastern coast, in hopes of subduing a people who defended themselves by their money, which invited assailants, instead of their arms, which repelled them.

But the English, sensible of their folly, had in the interval assembled in a great council, and had determined to collect at London a fleet able to give battle to the enemy;[*] though that judicious measure failed of success, from the treachery of Alfric, duke of Mercia, whose name is infamous in the annals of that age, by the calamities which his repeated perfidy brought upon his country.

This nobleman had, in 983, succeeded to his father, Alfere, in that extensive command; but, being deprived of it two years after, and banished the kingdom, he was obliged to employ all his intrigue, and all his power, which was too great for a subject, to be restored to his country, and reinstated in his authority.