HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

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chap. factions , animosities , and dissensions of the jIII. nobility. 'Edric had impelled his brother Brightric |to prefer an accusation of treason against Wolfnoth, 1governor of Sussex , the father of the famous earl |Godwin; and that nobleman, well acquainted 1with the malevolence as well as power of hisenemy, found no means of safety but in desertingwith twenty ships to the Danes. Brightricpursued him with a fleet of eighty sail ; but hisfliips being shattered in a tempest, and strandedon the coast, he was suddenly attacked by Wolf-noth , and all his vessels burnt and destroyed.The imbecility of the king was little capable ofrepairing this misfortune: The treachery of Edricfrustrated every plan for future defence : And theEnglilh navy , disconcerted , discouraged , anddivided , was at last scattered into its severalharbours.

It is almost impossible, or would be tedious,to relate particularly all the miseries to which theEnglilh were thenceforth exposed. We hear ofnothing but the sacking and burning of towns ;the devastation of the open country ; the appear-ance of the enemy in every quarter of thekingdom ; their cruel diligence in discovering anycorner, which had not been ransacked by theirformer violence. The broken and disjointednarration of the ancient historians is here welladapted to the nature of the war, which wasconducted by such sudden inroads , as would havebeen dangerous even to an united and wellgoverned kingdom , but proved fatal , where