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The Beauties of England and Wales (v. 16)
The Beauties of England and Wales - v. 16 Author:John Britton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 46 broke down the slight walls, and entered, conflicting proinis-1 cuously with their enemies ; but having abandoned the great advantage of superior disciplin... more »e, the English rushed only to destruction. No nation could hope to excel the northmen in personal intrepidity or manual dexterity: from their childhood they were exercised in single combat and disorderly warfare : the disunited Northumbrians were therefore cut down with irremediable slaughter. Osbert and Ella, their chiefs, and most of their army perished. The sons of Hagnar inflicted a cruel and inhuman retaliation on Ella, for their father's sufferings. They divided his back, spread his ribs into the figure of an eagle, and agonized his lacerated flesh by the addition of the saline stimulus." It may here be observed, that the differences found in the accounts of our historians, relate to the particular circumstances attending the arrival of Itagnar Lodbrog in England, the causes which produced his fatal catastrophe, and to the manner in which the two Northumbrian kings fell victims to the vengeance of his sons. The substantial part, however, of the calamitous, but interesting history, is established beyond contradiction or doubt. It is evident that Lodbrog perished in Northumbria; that York, the metropolis of that kingdom, was captured and totally destroyed by his sons; that Osbert and Ella perished, either in the same battle or in two successive conflicts with the Danes; and in fine, that Yorkshire was the theatre on which first began to be acted the horrible drama which extended, for the space of a century, its bloody scenes over all England. This sanguinary conflict was decisive of the fate of North- umbria, which from an Anglo-Saxon now became a Danish kingdom. Inguar, or Ivar, established his throne at York; the ...« less