The
recent, as well as more ancient achievements of their countrymen
tended to support this idea; and the English princes particularly
Athelstan and Edgar, sensible of that superiority had been accustomed
to keep in pay bodies of Danish troops, who were quartered about the
country, and committed many violences upon the inhabitants. These
mercenaries had attained to such a height of luxury, according to the
old English writers,[*] that they combed their hair once a day, bathed
themselves once a week, changed their clothes frequently; and by all
these arts of effeminacy, as well as by their military character, had
rendered themselves so agreeable to the fair sex, that they debauched
the wives and daughters of the English, and dishonored many families.
But what most provoked the inhabitants was, that instead of defending
them against invaders, they were ever ready to betray them to the
foreign Danes, and to associate themselves with all straggling parties
of that nation.
The animosity between the inhabitants of English and Danish race, had,
from these repeated injuries, risen to a great height, when Ethelred,
from a policy incident to weak princes embraced the cruel resolution of
massacring the latter throughout all his dominions.
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