Denton and Haughton Examiner, etc. — 1887-02-12 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

DEATH OF EDWARD THE MARTYR.— The moat remarkable circumstance attending Edward was his death, which took place on the 18th of March, 979, after a reign of four years. He bad been hunting in the neighbourhood of Corfe Castle, the residence of his step.inother Elfrida, and resolved to pay her a visit. The Queen hastened te receive him and premed him earnestly to alight ; this the prince, who most probably had good reason to suspect her feelings towards him, declined, observing that he had merely time to accept a draught of wine. In the act of drinking it, he was stabbed in the back by an assassin whom Elfrida had bribed to commit the crime which was to elevate her son Ethelred to the throne. Finding himself wounded, the youthful monarch set spurs to his horse and fled ; but fainting from loss of blood, fell, and perished miserably. The parties sent after him by the murderess easily traced the route he bad taken by the track of blood. The body was brought back to Corte Castle and thrown into a well, where it wasafterwards found, and removed first to Wareham and afterwards to Shaftesbury, where it WE1..4 interred in a church founded by King Alfred. Shortly after his death the monks spread the report that miracles were worked at his tomb; the blind were said to receive their sight, the lame to have recovered the use of their limbs. Elfrida to atone for her crime, founded two convents, to one of which, at Andover, she retired, and passed the resent her days in penitence. Edward was canonised by the Roman Church, and is generally known as St. Edward the Martyr.—Casseas Illustrated .liistory f England. . . •  FEATS OF ARCAPll,—Giraldus Cambrensis, speaking of the ancient Britons of Wales as famous for their dexterity with the bow in the time of our second Henry, says, • There is a particular tribe in Wales ' named the Vents; a people brave and warlike, and who far excel the other inhabitants of that country in the practice of archery. Luring a siege, it happened that two soldiers, running in baste towards a tower situated at a little distance from them, were attacked with a number of arrows from the Welsh, which, being shot with prodigious violence, some penetrated the oak doors of a portal, although they were the breadth of bur lingers in thickness. The heads of the arrows were afterwards driven out, and preserved in order to continue the remembrance of such extraordinary shooting with the bow. It happened also in a battle, at the time of William de 13rusa, as he himself relates, that a Welshman having directed hie arrow at ahorsesoldier, who was clad in armour, and had under it his leather coat, the arrow pierced through the man's hip and also struck through the saddle, and mortally wounded the horse on which he sat. Another Welsh soldier, having shot an arrow at a horseman who was protected by stout armour in the same way, the shaft penetrated through his hip and fixed in the saddle; but what is most remarkable is, that as the horseman drew his bridle to turn round, he received another arrow in his hip on the opposite side, which also passing through, he was firmly fastened to the saddle on both sides.' lathe memorable battle between the English and Scotch near Halidowne (or Halidonm Hill, in 1402, the arrows of the English archers were no strong and propelled with such terrible strength that no armour could repel them, they 'mune through the men at arms, bored the helmets, pierced their very swords, beat their lances to the earth, and easily shot those who were more slightly armed through and throdgh,' says an old historian. Philip de Comines confessed timt the English archers in his day excelled , those of all other nations ; and Sir John Forteseue wrote, ' The might of the realme of England standyth upon archers.' The first Emperor Napoleon said that the old English archers were the beet light infantry of their day. Each could discharge twelve arrows per minute, and, send them from a distance of twe hundred yards-Unite through oaken planks varying in thickness from an inch and a half to two ibehes:— . The World of Wonders.