,88 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

chap. concerning the barbarity of this massacre : Theni. rage of the populace , excited by so many in- jjuries, sanctified by authority, and stimulated by jexample, distinguished not between innocence iand guilt, spared neither sex nor age, and was :not satiated without the tortures , as well as ,death, of the unhappy victims. Even Gunilda,sister to the king of Denmark, who had married :Earl Paling, and had embraced Christianity, wasby the advice of Edric, earl of Wilts, seized andcondemned to death by Ethelred , after seeingher husband and children butchered before herface. This unhappy princess foretold , in theagonies of despair , that her murder would soonbe avenged by the total ruin of the Englishnation.

Never was prophecy better fulfilled; and •never did barbarous policy prove more fatal tothe authors. Sweyn and his Danes , who wantedbut a pretence for invading the English , appearedoff the western coast, and threatened to take fullrevenge for the slaughter of their countrymen.Exeter fell fstst into their hands, from the negligenceor treachery of earl Hugh, a Norman, who hadbeen made governor by the interest of QueenEmma. They began to spread their devastationsover the country ; when the English, sensiblewhat outrages they must now expect from theirbarbarous and offended enemy , assembled moreearly and in greater numbers than usual, and madean appearance of vigorous resistance. But allthese preparations were frustrated by the treachery