The princes of these various dynasties showed in their dealings with one another, and in their relations with foreign powers, the same characteristics of boldness and energy as had always marked the action of the race.  Even the queens and princesses evinced, by their courage and decision, that Anglo-Saxon blood lost nothing of its inherent qualities by flowing in female veins.

For example, a very extraordinary story is told of one of these Saxon princesses.  A certain king upon the Continent, whose dominions lay between the Rhine and the German Ocean, had proposed for her hand in behalf of his son, whose name was Radiger.  The consent of the princess was given, and the contract closed.  The king himself soon afterward died, but before he died he changed his mind in respect to the marriage of his son.  It seems that he had himself married a second wife, the daughter of a king of the Franks, a powerful continental people; and as, in consequence of his own approaching death, his son would come unexpectedly into possession of the throne, and would need immediately all the support which a powerful alliance could give him, he recommended to him to give up the Saxon princess, and connect himself, instead, with the Franks, as he himself had done.  The prince entered into these views; his father died, and he immediately afterward married his father’s youthful widow—­his own step-mother—­a union which, however monstrous it would be regarded in our day, seems not to have been considered any thing very extraordinary then.

The Anglo-Saxon princess was very indignant at this violation of his plighted faith on the part of her suitor.  She raised an army and equipped a fleet, and set sail with the force which she had thus assembled across the German Ocean, to call the faithless Radiger to account.  Her fleet entered the mouth of the Rhine, and her troops landed, herself at the head of them.  She then divided her army into two portions, keeping one division as a guard for herself at her own encampment, which she established near the place of her landing, while she sent the other portion to seek and attack Radiger, who was, in the mean time, assembling his forces, in a state of great alarm at this sudden and unexpected danger.

In due time this division returned, reporting that they had met and encountered Radiger, and had entirely defeated him.  They came back triumphing in their victory, considering evidently, that the faithless lover had been well punished for his offense.  The princess, however, instead of sharing in their satisfaction, ordered them to make a new incursion into the interior, and not to return without bringing Radiger with them as their prisoner.  They did so; and after hunting the defeated and distressed king from place to place, they succeeded, at last, in seizing him in a wood, and brought him in to the princess’s encampment.  He began to plead for his life, and to make excuses for the violation of his contract by urging the necessities of his situation and his father’s dying commands.  The princess said she was ready to forgive him if he would now dismiss her rival and fulfill his obligations to her.  Radiger yielded to this demand; he repudiated his Frank wife, and married the Anglo-Saxon lady in her stead.