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Title: The Political History of England, Volume I (of 12): From the Earliest Times to the Norman Conquest
Author: Hodgkin, Thomas
Language: English
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ENGLAND, VOLUME I (OF 12) ***
_THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND_
_Seventy-five years have passed since Lingard completed his_ HISTORY
OF ENGLAND, _which ends with the Revolution of 1688. During that
period historical study has made a great advance. Year after year
the mass of materials for a new History of England has increased;
new lights have been thrown on events and characters, and old errors
have been corrected. Many notable works have been written on various
periods of our history; some of them at such length as to appeal
almost exclusively to professed historical students. It is believed
that the time has come when the advance which has been made in the
knowledge of English history as a whole should be laid before the
public in a single work of fairly adequate size. Such a book should
be founded on independent thought and research, but should at the
same time be written with a full knowledge of the works of the best
modern historians and with a desire to take advantage of their teaching
wherever it appears sound._
_The vast number of authorities, printed and in manuscript, on which a
History of England should be based, if it is to represent the existing
state of knowledge, renders co-operation almost necessary and certainly
advisable. The History, of which this volume is an instalment, is an
attempt to set forth in a readable form the results at present attained
by research. It will consist of twelve volumes by twelve different
writers, each of them chosen as being specially capable of dealing
with the period which he undertakes, and the editors, while leaving
to each author as free a hand as possible, hope to insure a general
similarity in method of treatment, so that the twelve volumes may
in their contents, as well as in their outward appearance, form one
History._
_As its title imports, this History will primarily deal with politics,
with the History of England and, after the date of the union with
Scotland, Great Britain, as a state or body politic; but as the life
of a nation is complex, and its condition at any given time cannot
be understood without taking into account the various forces acting
upon it, notices of religious matters and of intellectual, social, and
economic progress will also find place in these volumes. The footnotes
will, so far as is possible, be confined to references to authorities,
and references will not be appended to statements which appear to be
matters of common knowledge and do not call for support. Each volume
will have an Appendix giving some account of the chief authorities,
original and secondary, which the author has used. This account will
be compiled with a view of helping students rather than of making long
lists of books without any notes as to their contents or value. That
the History will have faults both of its own and such as will always in
some measure attend co-operative work, must be expected, but no pains
have been spared to make it, so far as may be, not wholly unworthy of
the greatness of its subject._
_Each volume, while forming part of a complete History, will also in
itself be a separate and complete book, will be sold separately, and
will have its own index, and two or more maps._
Vol. I. to 1066. By Thomas Hodgkin, D.C.L., Litt.D., Fellow of
University College, London; Fellow of the British Academy.
Vol. II. 1066 to 1216. By George Burton Adams, M.A., Professor of
History in Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
Vol. III. 1216 to 1377. By T. F. Tout, M.A., Professor of Medieval
and Modern History in the Victoria University of Manchester;
formerly Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford.
Vol. IV. 1377 to 1485. By C. Oman, M.A., Fellow of All Souls’
College, and Chichele Professor of Modern History in the
University of Oxford.
Vol. V. 1485 to 1547. By H. A. L. Fisher, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of
New College, Oxford.
Vol. VI. 1547 to 1603. By A. F. Pollard, M.A., Professor of
Constitutional History in University College, London.
Vol. VII. 1603 to 1660. By F. C. Montague, M.A., Professor of
History in University College, London; formerly Fellow of Oriel
College, Oxford.
Vol. VIII. 1660 to 1702. By Richard Lodge, M.A., Professor of
History in the University of Edinburgh; formerly Fellow of
Brasenose College, Oxford.
Vol. IX. 1702 to 1760. By I. S. Leadam, M.A., formerly Fellow of
Brasenose College, Oxford.
Vol. X. 1760 to 1801. By the Rev. William Hunt, M.A., D.Litt.,
Trinity College, Oxford.
Vol. XI. 1801 to 1837. By the Hon. George C. Brodrick, D.C.L.,
late Warden of Merton College, Oxford, and J. K. Fotheringham,
M.A., Magdalen College, Oxford, Lecturer in Classics at King’s
College, London.
Vol. XII. 1837 to 1901. By Sidney J. Low, M.A., Balliol College,
Oxford, formerly Lecturer on History at King’s College, London.
The Political History of England
IN TWELVE VOLUMES
EDITED BY WILLIAM HUNT, D.LITT., AND REGINALD L. POOLE, M.A.
I.
THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST
THE
HISTORY OF ENGLAND
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO
THE NORMAN CONQUEST
BY
THOMAS HODGKIN, D.C.L., LITT.D.
FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON
FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1906
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE PREHISTORIC FOREWORLD.
B.C. PAGE
Palæolithic Man in Britain 1
Neolithic Man in Britain 3
Pre-Celtic stone-workers 4
Celtic workers in bronze and iron 5
Brythons and Goidels 6
Dolicho-cephalic and Brachy-cephalic men 7
CHAPTER II.
CÆSAR IN BRITAIN.
Pytheas the geographer: his description of Britain 8
Cæsar’s conquest of Gaul 9
55. His first invasion of Britain. The voyage 11
The landing 13
First skirmish and naval disaster 14
British war-chariots 15
Return to Gaul and thanksgivings in Rome 16
54. Second invasion. Cassivellaunus heads the
resistance of the Britons 17
Battle of the Thames 18
Mandubracius, a rival candidate to Cassivellaunus 18
Cassivellaunus makes a nominal submission 19
Cæsar returns to Gaul 19
Cæsar’s description of Britain 20
His motives for the invasion 21
Note on Cæsar’s points of arrival and departure in
his expeditions to Britain 23
CHAPTER III.
THE CENTURY OF SUSPENSE.
Coin-kings of Britain--
Commius 26
Tincommius, Verica and Eppilus 26
Dubnovellaunus 26
Tasciovanus at Verulamium 27
Cunobelinus: Shakespeare’s Cymbeline 28
CHAPTER IV.
THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF BRITAIN.
A.D.
41. Claudius, Emperor of Rome 29
Aulus Plautius, commander of expedition to
Britain 30
Mutinous disposition of the troops 31
Battle of the Medway (?) 31
Claudius arrives to complete the conquest 32
Camulodunum captured 32
44. Cogidubnus and Prasutagus, subject allies of
Rome 33
47. Aulus Plautius returns to Rome 34
Ostorius Scapula, the new _legatus_ 35
War against the Silures 35
51. Caratacus defeated: sent a captive to Rome 36
52. Didius Gallus, governor 37
59. Veranius, governor 37
Suetonius Paulinus conquers the Druids of
Anglesey 38
Revolt of the Iceni under Boadicea 39
Camulodunum sacked 41
London and Verulam sacked 42
Defeat and death of Boadicea 43
61. Recall of Suetonius 44
Trebellius Maximus, an incompetent governor 45
71. Petillius Cerialis, governor, subdues the
Brigantes 46
75. Julius Frontinus completes the conquest of the
Silures 46
78. Agricola, governor, conquers the Ordovices 47
Wise administration of Agricola 47
79. Probable foundation of Eburacum 48
80. Agricola subdues all the country up to the river
Tanaus 49
81. Possible foundation of some of the stations on the
Roman Wall 50
82–84. Agricola’s Caledonian campaigns 50
84. Recall of Agricola 51
CHAPTER V.
THE ROMAN OCCUPATION.
The Roman Wall between Tyne and Solway 53
_Circa_ 120. Probably built by Hadrian 54
Manner of its construction 55
The _Prætenturæ_ or camps on the line of the
wall 56
Troops garrisoning the wall 57
_Circa_ 140. Wall of Antoninus Pius between Firths of Forth and
Clyde 58
185. Ulpius Marcellus, governor 59
208. The Emperor Severus in Britain 60
Builder or rebuilder of the wall (?) 61
211. Severus dies at Eburacum 62
Third century a time of disintegration of the
empire 63
284. Accession of Diocletian. His system of
partnership-emperors 64
287–293. Usurpation of Carausius 65
293. Carausius assassinated by Allectus 65
296. Emperor Constantius overthrows Allectus 66
306. Death of Constantius. Proclamation of Constantine 67
367. Theodosius (father of the emperor) checks the
ravages of the barbarians in Britain and
relieves London 68
383. Usurpation of Maximus 69
The _Notitia Imperii_ 70
409. The usurper Constantine withdraws the legions to
Gaul 72
Roman roads 73
Sepulchral inscriptions 74
Mithraism and Christianity 75
Character of Roman occupation of Britain 77
CHAPTER VI.
THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST.
Previous location of Jutes and Saxons 80
Angles related to Longobardi 81
Latin authors on the Anglo-Saxon conquest--
The chronicler, Prosper Tiro 82
_Life of Germanus_ 83
English authors on the conquest--
Bede 86
The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ on the conquest-- 87
Kent 88
Sussex 89
Wessex 90
Deira and Bernicia 94
British version of the conquest--
Gildas 95
Nennius 100
Summary of results-- 107
Did King Arthur exist? 107
500 or 516? British victory of Mount Badon 99, 107
577. Victory of Ceawlin, the West Saxon, at
Deorham 92, 107
March of King Cunedag from Lothian to Wales 102
Did the Anglo-Saxon conquest involve the
extermination of the Britons? 110
CHAPTER VII.
THE COMING OF AUGUSTINE.
553. Procopius held Britain to be the abode of departed
spirits 113
577? Gregory and the Anglian lads in the Forum at
Rome 115
596. Gregory sends Augustine to Britain 116
597. Interview of the missionaries with Ethelbert, King
of Kent 117
Ethelbert baptised 119
Augustine sends report of his mission to
Rome 120
597. Gregory’s reply and letters to the Kentish king
and queen 121
Essex partly converted. St. Paul’s Church in
London built 122
Conferences of Augustine with Welsh bishops 123
605? Death of Augustine. He is succeeded by Laurentius 125
616. Death of Ethelbert 125
Ethelbert as Bretwalda 126
The kings of Kent and Essex apostatise 127
Vision of Archbishop Laurentius. The King of Kent
returns to Christianity 128
CHAPTER VIII.
EDWIN OF DEIRA.
Anglian settlement of Northumbria 131
547. Ida, King of Bernicia. His building of Bamburgh 132
593–617. Reign of Ethelfrid, grandson of Ida 133
603. Battle with the Scots at Dawston Burn 134
613. Battle with the Welsh at Chester 135
Early history of Edwin, son of Aelle, King of
Deira 136
617. Edwin defeats Ethelfrid at the river Idle 137
Edwin as Bretwalda 138
625. Marriage with Ethelburga of Kent 139
626. Attempted assassination of Edwin 140
Edwin and Paulinus 141
Debate at Goodmanham. Acceptance of Christianity 142
627. Baptism of Edwin and his family 142
633. Battle of Heathfield against Penda of Mercia and
Cadwallon of Wales. Edwin defeated and slain 144
CHAPTER IX.
OSWALD OF BERNICIA.
563. St. Columba and the religious settlement of
Iona 147
615. Oswald, son of Ethelfrid takes refuge at
Iona 150
633. Consequences of the Battle of Heathfield.
Disastrous reign of Osric and Eanfrid 151
634. Oswald returns to Northumbria. Victory of
Heavenfield over Cadwallon 152
Oswald rules from Bamburgh 154
St. Aidan’s mission planted at Lindisfarne 155
Oswald as Bretwalda 157
642. Oswald defeated by Penda at Maserfield and
slain 158
Canonisation of Oswald 159
CHAPTER X.
OSWY AND PENDA.
Early history of Mercia 160
Conversion of Wessex by Birinus 161
Conversion of East Anglia 163
637. Egric, King of East Anglia, slain in battle with
Penda 164
654. His successor, Anna, shares the same fate 165
Oswy reigns in Bernicia and Oswin in Deira 165
Marriage of Oswy with Eanfled, daughter of
Edwin 165
Murder of Oswin, King of Deira 167
Death of St. Aidan 167
Ravages of Penda 168
Penda’s son, Peada, converted to Christianity 169
655. Battle of the Winwaed. Penda defeated by Oswy and
slain 170
CHAPTER XI.
TERRITORIAL CHANGES--THE CONFERENCE AT WHITBY--THE GREAT PLAGUE.
History of Northumbria. Alchfrid, King of
Deira 171
The Bewcastle Cross 172
658. History of Mercia. Wulfhere, son of Penda, throws
off the yoke of Oswald 173
653. Sigebert, King of Essex, becomes Christian 175
Temporary relapse of East Saxons into heathenism 176
Wars between Wessex and Mercia 178
Division between Celtic and Roman Churches on the
question of date of Easter 179
664. Synod convoked at Whitby to settle this
question 180
Chief combatants on either side 182
First appearance of Wilfrid 183
The dispute settled in favour of the Roman
Easter 186
Ravages of the great plague 188
671. Death of Oswy 190
CHAPTER XII.
KING EGFRID AND THREE GREAT CHURCHMEN: WILFRID, THEODORE, CUTHBERT.
671–685. Chief events of Egfrid’s reign 191
Wilfrid, Bishop of York: his journey to
Gaul 193
Ceadda appointed in Wilfrid’s absence 195
Theodore of Tarsus chosen for see of Canterbury 195
669. Theodore arrives in England 196
He restores Wilfrid to diocese of York 198
Egfrid’s wives: Etheldreda and Ermenburga 199
Magnificence of Wilfrid 200
Ermenburga and Theodore both hostile to
Wilfrid 201
678. Wilfrid’s diocese divided against his will 202
He appeals to Rome 203
Wilfrid’s imprisonment and exile 204
His missionary work in Sussex 204
678. Early life of St. Cuthbert 205
685. He is made Bishop of Lindisfarne 207
685. King Egfrid’s death on the battlefield of
Nechtansmere miraculously revealed to
St. Cuthbert 207
Aldfrid, King of Northumbria 208
687. Death of St. Cuthbert 208
690. Death of Theodore 209
687. Wilfrid returns to his diocese 209
692. The quarrel breaks out again. Wilfrid’s second
journey to Rome 209
705. Death of Aldfrid. Usurpation of Eadulf. Accession
of Osred 210
Synod by the Nidd: the dispute with Wilfrid
settled 211
709. Death of Wilfrid 212
CHAPTER XIII.
THE LEGISLATION OF KING INE.
686. Cadwalla, King of Wessex 215
688. His pilgrimage to Rome 216
Ine reigns over Wessex 216
726. His abdication and pilgrimage to Rome 217
Laws of early Kentish kings 218
693. Ine promulgates his laws 219
Open-field system of agriculture 221
Position of the _ceorl_ (free husbandman) 223
Position of the _theow_ (serf) 225
Law of the _wergild_ 227
Position of the thegn 228
Position of the ealdorman 229
Compurgation or oath-helping 229
693. The kings and their _witan_ 231
Note on Anglo-Saxon money--
Pounds, shillings and pence 233
History of prices: purchasing power of money 234
Special monetary terms: _Mancus_, _Thrymsa_,
etc. 235
CHAPTER XIV.
THE EIGHTH CENTURY.
Review of the life of Bede 237
735. Death of Bede 239
709. Death of Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne: his
literary works 241
The poet Cynewulf: verses on the Ruthwell
Cross 242
Religious decline: Bede’s letter to Archbishop
Egbert 243
Sham monasteries 244
Rapid succession of Northumbrian kings: Ceolwulf
and Eadbert 245
_Circa_ 756. Northumbrian capital transferred to Corbridge 247
716–757. Ethelbald, King of Mercia 249
His wars with Wessex 249
757–796. Offa, King of Mercia 250
Offa’s Dyke 251
Correspondence between Offa and Charlemagne 252
786. Cynewulf, King of Wessex--romantic story of his
death 255
784–802. Beorhtric, King of Wessex: his evil-minded wife,
Eadburh 255
CHAPTER XV.
EARLY DANISH INVASIONS--EGBERT AND ETHELWULF.
790. First affray with the Danes 257
Scandinavian ravages in the ninth century 259
Danish methods of fighting 261
Consolidation of England due to the Danes 262
802. Egbert becomes King of the West Saxons 263
829. Egbert, Overlord of Mercia, and Bretwalda 264
Northumbria recognises Egbert’s supremacy 264
835–838. Danish raids 265
839. Death of Egbert: accession of Ethelwulf 265
Ethelwulf’s ministers: Swithun and Ealhstan 266
851. Victory over the Danes at Ockley 267
853. War with Rhodri Mawr, King of Wales 267
855. Ethelwulf with his little son Alfred visits
Rome 268
He endows the _Schola Saxonum_ at Rome 270
856. His second marriage to Judith, daughter of Charles
the Bald 270
Rebellion of Ethelbald and division of the
kingdom 271
Death of Ethelwulf. His testamentary gifts 271
CHAPTER XVI.
ETHELWULF’S SONS--DANISH INVASIONS TO THE BAPTISM OF GUTHRUM.
848. Birth of Alfred the Great 272
His childhood: two visits to Rome 273
Episode of the book of ballads 273
858. Ethelbald marries his father’s widow, Judith 274
860. Death of Ethelbald: accession of Ethelbert 275
866. Ethelbert succeeded by Ethelred: Alfred
_Secundarius_ 275
Danish invasions. Martyrdom of St. Edmund, King of
East Anglia 277
871. “The year of battles” 278
Battle of Aescesdune: the Danes defeated 279
Death of Ethelred: accession of Alfred 280
The Danes harry Mercia 281
875–883. Wanderings of the body of St. Cuthbert 282
876. Danish attacks on Wessex renewed under Guthrum 283
877. Danes at Chippenham: Alfred retires to Athelney 283
878. Ubba slain: Alfred defeats the Danes at
Ethandune 284
“Peace of Wedmore.” Baptism of Guthrum 285
CHAPTER XVII.
ALFRED AT PEACE.
878–892. Fourteen years of comparative peace 286
_Circa_ 886. _Aelfredes and Guthrumes Frith_: its conditions:
boundary between the two nations 287
Family life of Alfred 289
His mysterious sicknesses 290
His exertions to raise the intellectual level of
his subjects: foreign scholars invited to his
court 291
His translation of Gregory’s _Regula Pastoralis_ 292
His translation of Orosius’s _History_ 293
Narrative of Arctic voyager Ohthere 294
His share in composition of _Saxon Chronicle_ 295
His translation of Bede’s _Ecclesiastical
History_ 295
His translation of Boethius’s _Consolation of
Philosophy_ 296
Administration of his household 298
Alfred’s Dooms 299
Greater leniency in the penalties inflicted, as
compared with those under Ine 301
Local moots 302
Condition of the servile class 303
_Folcland_ and _Bocland_ 304
CHAPTER XVIII.
ALFRED’S LAST DAYS.
892. Danish invasions recommenced 307
893. Faithlessness of the pirate Hasting 309
894. The Danes at Chester 310
895. Danish encampment by the river Lea 311
896. End of the invasion: pestilence 312
897. Alfred’s navy: sea-fight at the Isle of
Wight 313
900? Death of Alfred: his burial-place 314
Note on the extent of the Danelaw--
Distribution of the Danes in districts east
of the Watling Street boundary as evidenced
by place-names 315
CHAPTER XIX.
EDWARD AND HIS SONS.
900. Accession of Edward “the Elder” 318
900–904? Rebellion of Ethelwald 319
Conquest of Danish kingdoms beyond the Watling
Street 320
912–918. Prowess of Edward’s sister Ethelfled, “the Lady of
the Mercians”. Her fortresses 321
Edward continues her work of castle-building 323
924. Alleged recognition of Edward as overlord by
Constantine II., King of Scots 325
924–925. Death of Edward: accession of Athelstan 328
Doubts as to Athelstan’s legitimacy 329
Character of Athelstan. His relation to
continental powers 330
Story of the adoption of Hakon of Norway 331
Dealings with Northumbria and the Scots 332
937. Battle of Brunanburh. Discussion of its
site 334
Ballad of Brunanburh 335
Athelstan as “King of all Britain,” and
_Basileus_ 336
Mysterious death of Athelstan’s brother,
Edwin 337
940. Death of Athelstan. Succeeded by his brother
Edmund 338
942. Edmund delivers the Five Boroughs from Danish
thraldom 340
943. Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, helps the Danes
against Edmund 340
945. Alleged “cession of Cumberland” to Malcolm, King
of Scotland 341
946. Edmund assassinated by a robber. Accession of
Edred 339
948. Eric, of Denmark, chosen King of Northumbria.
Edred’s war with him and Archbishop Wulfstan 342
954. End of the Northumbrian kingdom 342
955. Death of Edred 343
CHAPTER XX.
EDGAR AND DUNSTAN.
955–959. Short and troublous reign of Edwy 344
Early history of Dunstan 345
Coronation banquet of Edwy. Dunstan forces Edwy to
return to his nobles 349
957. Banishment of Dunstan 350
958. Archbishop Oda annuls the marriage of Edwy and
Elfgiva 351
957. Edgar set up against Edwy. Division of the
kingdom 351
958–959. Death of Edwy. Edgar sole king 352
Recall of Dunstan, who is made Bishop of
Worcester 352
960. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury 352
966. Westmorland harried by Thored 353
968. Thanet harried by Edgar 353
Monastic reform; expulsion of _canonici_ 354
Oswald and Ethelwold help on the reform 355
973. Edwin’s coronation. Water pageant on the
Dee 356
Legendary dealings with Scottish and Welsh
kings 357
Story of Edgar’s immense navy 357
Character of Edgar. His marriage with Elfrida 359
975. Death of Edgar 359
CHAPTER XXI.
EDWARD THE MARTYR--OLD AGE OF DUNSTAN--NORMANS AND NORTHMEN.
975. Accession of Edward “the Martyr” 360
Anti-monastic policy of Elfhere in Mercia.
Banishment of Oslac, Earl of Northumbria 361
977–979. Three meetings of the Witenagemot on the monastic
question. Catastrophe at Calne 362
978. Edward assassinated at Corfe 364
Accession of Ethelred II. 365
Closing years of Dunstan. His remonstrances
against Ethelred’s spoliation of Church lands
at Rochester 365
988. Death of Dunstan 365
Story of the Dukes of Normandy 367
927. Duke William Longsword 368
943. Duke Richard the Fearless 369
Origin of the house of Plantagenet 370
Harold Blue-Tooth, King of Denmark 371
Sweyn of Denmark dethrones his father 371
Harold Fair-hair, King of Norway 372
CHAPTER XXII.
ETHELRED THE REDELESS.
Imbecility of this king 374
Severe criticisms of the Saxon Chronicle on his
management of affairs 375
982–1016. Calendar of thirty-four years of Danish
invasions 376
991. Lay of Brihtnoth, hero of the battle of
Maldon 378
Saxon armour 381
Payments of tribute to the Danes: _gafol_
(commonly called Danegeld) 382
992. Beginning of the “inexplicable treasons” of
Ealdorman Elfric 383
994. Sweyn and Olaf Tryggvason invade England 384
Bishop Alphege ambassador to Olaf 384
995–1000. Subsequent career of Olaf Tryggvason 385
1000. Norway conquered by Denmark and Sweden 385
Ethelred ravages Cumberland 385
1002. Marriage of Ethelred to Emma of Normandy 386
Massacre of Danes on St. Brice’s Day 387
1008. Taxation ordered for building of ships 388
1009. Treasons of Ealdorman Edric Streona 388
London vainly attacked by the Danes 389
1011. Canterbury sacked by the Danes 389
1012. Archbishop Alphege martyred 390
1013. Sweyn and his son Canute land in England 391
The English submit. Ethelred flees to Normandy 392
1014. Death of Sweyn. Return of Ethelred 393
1014. Canute’s brutal mutilation of hostages 394
1015. More villainies of Edric Streona 394
1016. Edmund Ironside, son of Ethelred, continues the
war 395
Death of Ethelred. Accession of Edmund II.
(Ironside) 396
Series of battles between Edmund and Canute 396
Edmund defeated at Assandune 397
Partition of the kingdom. Death of Edmund 397
CHAPTER XXIII.
CANUTE AND HIS SONS.
1016. Canute sole King 399
Edwy “King of the Ceorls” 399
Four great earls under Canute 401
Edric killed: Thurkill banished 401
1017. Canute marries Emma, widow of Ethelred 402
Numerous executions 402
Family of Leofwine 402
Godwine, son of Wulfnoth 403
1018. Danish troops dismissed 404
1023. Translation of the body of St. Alphege 405
Northumbrian and Scottish affairs 406
1018. Great Scottish victory at Carham: loss of the
Lothians 408
1031. Malcolm II. owns the supremacy of Canute 409
1026. Canute’s pilgrimage to Rome 410
Alliance with Emperor Conrad II. 413
1025. Canute’s unsuccessful campaign against St. Olaf,
King of Norway 415
Canute orders the murder of Jarl Ulf, his
brother-in-law 414
1028. St. Olaf defeated. Norway conquered 414
Relations with Normandy 415
1035. Death of Canute 416
England divided between his sons Harold Harefoot
and Harthacnut 417
1036. Unsuccessful expedition of the Etheling
Alfred 418
His murder, and cruel treatment of his followers 419
1037. Queen Emma banished to Flanders 420
Disputes between Harold and Archbishop Ethelnoth 420
1040. Death of Harold: accession of Harthacnut 421
Severe tax laid upon the people 421
1041. Edward, son of Ethelred, invited over from
Normandy 421
1042. Death of Harthacnut 422
CHAPTER XXIV.
LEGISLATION OF THE LATER KINGS.
Importance of property in cattle 424
_Judicia Civitatis Lundoniæ_: Insurance against
cattle-stealing 425
1042. The Anglo-Saxon Hundred and its _gemôt_ 428
The Danish _wapentake_ 429
The Anglo-Saxon _burh_ and its development into
the borough 429
The _trinoda necessitas_: _fyrd-fare_, _burh-bote_
and _bridge-bote_ 432
The shire and its _gemôt_ 432
Ealdormen, earls and shire-reeves 434
Table of _wergilds_ in the _North-leoda
laga_ 435
_Rectitudines singularum Personarum_ 436
Various classes of dependants; the _geneat_,
_cotsetla_ and _gebur_ 437
Tendency towards administrative strictness. The
offence of _oferhyrnesse_ 438
The _borh_ or warrantor: institution of the
_tithing_ 439
Ordeals 440
Grants of _sake_ and _soke_ 441
Tendencies towards feudalism 441
CHAPTER XXV.
EDWARD THE CONFESSOR.
1042. Accession of Edward 442
1043. Harsh treatment of Queen Emma 442
1045. Edward marries Edith, daughter of Earl Godwine 443
1047. _Foreign relations_: Magnus of Norway 444
1048. Edward joins the Emperor Henry III. against
Baldwin 445
1049. Edward’s vow of pilgrimage to the Holy Land:
Westminster Abbey planned 445
_Internal History_: ships paid off: army tax
(_here-gyld_) abolished 445
Siward, Earl of Northumbria 447
Leofric, Earl of Mercia 448
Vast power of Earl Godwine and his family 448
Misconduct of Sweyn, son of Godwine 449
1049. Sweyn murders his cousin Beorn 451
1052. Death of Sweyn 451
Edward’s foreign relatives: their unpopularity 452
Ecclesiastical favourites: Robert Champart 452
1051. Eustace of Boulogne and the men of Dover 453
Godwine heads resistance to the foreigners 454
Exile of Godwine and temporary ruin of his
family 455
Visit of William the Norman to England 457
1052. Death of Queen Emma 457
Return of Earl Godwine and reinstatement of his
family 459
Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury 460
Death of Earl Godwine: his son Harold all-powerful 461
1057. Return and death of the Etheling Edward 461
_Scottish affairs_: Macbeth’s murder of the young
King Duncan 462
1054. Siward of Northumbria aids Malcolm against
Macbeth 463
1055. Death of Siward. His earldom given to Tostig 463
1037. _Welsh affairs_: Victories of Griffith ap
Llewelyn 464
1055. Leofric’s son Elfgar outlawed 465
Harold’s wars with Griffith 466
Griffith marries Aldgyth, daughter of Elfgar 467
1063. Death of Griffith 467
1064? Harold’s visit to Normandy and oath to Duke
William 469
1065. Northumbria rebels against Tostig Godwineson 470
Tostig banished: his earldom given to Morkere, son
of Elfgar 471
Harold marries Aldgyth, widow of Griffith 471
Dedication of Westminster Abbey 472
1066. Death of Edward the Confessor 472
CHAPTER XXVI.
STAMFORD BRIDGE AND HASTINGS.
1066. Election of Harold 474
Duke William prepares to invade England 475
Appearance of the comet 476
Unsuccessful invasion of Tostig 477
Invasion of Harold Hardrada of Norway and
Tostig 479
Sept. 20. Edwin and Morkere, sons of Elfgar,
defeated at Fulford 479
Harold marches northward 480
Sept. 25. Battle of Stamford Bridge. Harold
Hardrada and Tostig slain 481
Sept. 28. William the Norman lands at Pevensey 482
Story of the voyage of his fleet 483
William entrenches himself at Hastings 483
Movements of Harold 485
Battle of Hastings (or Senlac). Numbers and
weapons of the hostile armies 486
Incident of the Malfosse 488
Harold slain 489
William’s supper on the battlefield. Disposal of
the body of Harold 490
Battle Abbey 491
APPENDIX I. On Authorities 493
II. Genealogy of Northumbrian kings 509
III. Genealogy of West Saxon kings before Egbert 510
INDEX 511
MAPS.
(AT THE END OF THE VOLUME.)
Roman Britain.
Anglo-Saxon Britain.
ERRATA.
Page 332, line 12, _for_ “Guthred” _read_ “Guthfred”.
Page 333, line 3, _for_ “North Wales” _read_ “part of South Wales”.
CHAPTER I.
THE PREHISTORIC FOREWORLD.
The history of England if we wish to take it in its narrowest sense
begins with the migrations of the Angles, Jutes and Saxons in the fifth
century after Christ. Yet, remembering that we have dwelling close
beside us and mingling their blood with ours a gallant little people
who own no descent from the Anglo-Saxon invaders, and remembering also
how magical was the effect on all the barbarian races, of contact
with the all-transmuting civilisation of Rome, we cannot surely leave
altogether untold the story of those five centuries during which our
country was known to the rest of Europe not as Anglia but as Britannia.
Can we absolutely stop even there? It is true that the conscious
history of Britain, the history that was written by chroniclers and
enshrined in libraries, begins, as do the histories of all the nations
of Western Europe, with the day when they came first in contact with
the Genius of Rome. But is it possible to avoid trying to peer a little
further into the infinite, dim and misty ages that lie beyond that
great historic landmark? This is what our teachers of natural science
have endeavoured to do on our behalf, labouring with the spade of the
excavator and the collected specimens of the comparative anatomist to
read a few of those faded pages of the history of Britain which had
already been long illegible when Julius Cæsar landed on our shores.
And first we listen to the voice of Geology. After toiling through
the all-but eternities of the Primary and Secondary systems of
rock-formation, she seems to heave a sigh of relief as she enters the
vestibule of the Tertiary system. New heavens and a new earth, an earth
not utterly unlike that upon which we now dwell, seem to lie before
her, and she names the four vast halls through which she leads her
disciples “the Dawn of the New,” “the Less New,” “the More New,” and
“the Most New” (Eocene, Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene). In the last
of these halls, which is represented by a mere line on the geological
ground plan, yet which may easily have had a duration of 200,000 years,
we at last find our fellow-countryman, the first human inhabitant, as
far as we know, of the British Isles. In certain well-known caves on
the south coast of Devonshire (Kent’s Cavern and Brixham) there were
found some sixty years ago flint implements undoubtedly fashioned by
human hands, along with the remains of hyenas and other animals long
since extinct in the British Islands, and these were lying under a
stalagmite floor which must have taken at least 12,000 years, and
may well have taken 100,000 years, for its formation. It was thus
conclusively proved that Palæolithic man whose handiwork has been
found in many other European countries, especially in the wonderfully
interesting caves of Aquitaine, lived also, how many millenniums ago
none can say, in the limestone caves of Britain. Besides these dwellers
in caves and probably of an even earlier period than they, were the
other Palæolithic men who have left abundant traces of their presence
in the spear-heads, flints, scrapers and other large stone implements
which are often found in the gravel deposits of ancient rivers.
The Old Stone-workers, as this earliest known race of men is called
to distinguish them from Neolithic men, their immeasurably remote
descendants or representatives, knew, of course, nothing of the use
of metals, and generally fashioned their flint implements or their
bone needles in a somewhat rough and unworkmanlike manner. They
knew nothing of the art of the weaver, and can therefore have had
no other clothing than the skins of beasts. Neither did they ever
manufacture anything in the nature of pottery; so that shells and the
skulls of animals must have been their only drinking cups. But the
relics of their primeval feasts show that they were in all probability
not cannibals, and the very few Palæolithic skulls which have been
preserved show a type decidedly nobler than some of the backward races
of the present day. Curiously enough the men who had made so little
advance in the homely industries of life had nevertheless a distinct
feeling for graphic art. “By far the most noteworthy objects” in the
Palæolithic caves “are the fragments of bone, horn, ivory and stone,
which exhibit outlined and even shaded sketches of various animals.
These engravings have been made with a sharp-pointed implement, and
are often wonderfully characteristic representations of the creatures
they portray. The figures are sometimes single; in other cases they are
drawn in groups. We find representations of a fish, a seal, an ox, an
ibex, the red-deer, the great Irish elk or deer, the bison, the horse,
the cave-bear, the rein-deer and the mammoth or woolly elephant.”[1]
Whatever may have been the precise relation of the Pleistocene period
to the Great Ice Age--a point as to which there is some difference of
opinion--it is admitted that at some time or other after that when
the hyena howled in the Brixham Cave, and when Palæolithic man left
there his rudely worked flint implements, the conditions of life in
Northern Europe changed. The Arctic zone invaded the larger part
of the Temperate zone, and a great cap of ice covered not only the
Scandinavian countries and the greater part of Russia but Ireland,
Scotland and England, at least as far south as the valley of the
Thames. Now were our chalk hills rounded into smoothness, now were many
of our river beds hollowed out, and untidy heaps of “terminal moraine”
deposited where the glaciers debouched into the valleys. This dismal
change, destructive of all the higher organic life and continuing
possibly over a period of thousands of years, makes, in our island at
any rate, an impassable barrier between two races of mankind. When
the great ice deluge subsided, when the winter-tyrant returned to his
true Arctic home, when the oak and the pine began again to appear
upon the hills, and flowers like our own bloomed in the valleys, then
the Neolithic man, the “New Stone-worker,” came upon the scene and
scattered abundant evidences of his presence over the land. From that
period--date we cannot call it, for we have no evidence which would
justify us in making the roughest approximation to a date--man has been
continuously a dweller in this island, Neolithic man at length yielding
ground to the immigrant Celt, the Celt to the Saxon, the Saxon to the
Dane and the Norman.
At this point Ethnology must intervene and take up the story of the
ages which has thus far been told by her sister Geology. Of what race
were the men who after the retreat of the great desolating glaciers
came to inhabit this our island? We know that on the one hand they
were in a decidedly more advanced state of civilisation than their
Palæolithic predecessors. Instead of the rough unshapely pyramids of
flint which the Old Stone men used for axes and chisels, Neolithic
man went on shaping and polishing his implements till scarcely a
fault could be found in the symmetry of their curves. He continued,
of course, to hunt and fish as his predecessor had done, but he had
also some knowledge of agriculture, he was a breeder of cattle and
he knew how to weave cloth and to bake pottery. He no longer lived
principally in caves, but sometimes in a fairly constructed house,
often, for security, built on the edge of a lake. But, strange to say,
with all these great advances towards civilisation, he does not seem to
have felt any of that passion for picture-drawing which distinguished
his predecessor “the artistic hunter of the Reindeer period”.[2] The
physiological characteristics which differentiate Neolithic man from
the Celt, his conqueror, will be more fully dwelt on when we come to
the next act in the drama; but meanwhile it may be stated that the race
was not a tall one. Professor Rolleston says: “I have never found the
stature to exceed 5 feet 9 inches in any skeleton from a barrow which
was undoubtedly of the ‘stone and bone’ [_i.e._, Neolithic] period”.
There is some reason to think that they were dark complexioned with
black and curly hair, but it must be admitted that the evidence for
this statement is not very conclusive.
On the whole Ethnology decides that these earliest inhabitants of
our island after the Great Ice Age were a non-Aryan race, strangers
therefore to that great and widely scattered family to which, as far as
language is concerned, all the great European peoples save the Turks,
the Hungarians and the Finns, ultimately belong. Of course since no
vestige of language survives to indicate their nationality, even this
universally accepted classification, or rather refusal to classify,
must be considered as purely conjectural. In the words of Professor
Rolleston: “The race which used stone and bone implements, may, so
far as the naturalist’s investigations lead him, have spoken either
a Turanian or an Aryan tongue: what he sees in their skulls and their
surroundings impresses him with the notion of an antiquity which may
have given time enough and to spare for the more or less complete
disappearance of more than one unwritten language”. The important fact
to lay hold of is that the whole of the long period of Stone-workers
in this country is pre-Celtic. Any name which we may for purposes
of convenience give to these aborigines of Britain, whether the now
nearly discarded word Turanians, to mark their exclusion from the
Aryan family; or Iberians, to indicate a possible connexion with the
mysterious Basques of the Pyrenees; or Silurians, in order to show
a possible survival of their type in the countrymen of Caractacus;
is only like an algebraical symbol, a label affixed to a locked box,
denoting our ignorance of its contents.
Perhaps the most important fact known in connexion with the Neolithic
inhabitants of Britain is that recent discoveries show that they were
the builders of Stonehenge. That a race of men using no implements of
iron should have succeeded in rearing those huge blocks into position
on the plain of Wiltshire is a stupendous marvel, equalling in its
way the erection of the pyramids of Ghizeh, the placing of the great
stones in the temple at Baalbek, or the superposition of the 300-ton
block of Istrian marble on the tomb of Theodoric, at Ravenna. This
discovery seems to throw some doubt on the generally received notion
that Stonehenge was connected with Druidical worship, since that was
probably of Celtic origin. It is possible that Stonehenge may be the
“magnificent circular temple to Apollo” which, according to Diodorus
Siculus, existed in an island which may be identified with Britain.
* * * * *
To the age of stone succeeded the age of bronze, and to the age of
bronze succeeded that of iron. Both in our island belong to the
domination of the Celts, except in so far as the age of iron may be
said to have lasted through Roman, Saxon and Norman domination down
to our own day. It is admitted by all that the Celtic immigrants came
in two successive waves, the distinction between which may be seen
to this day, or if not always seen in physical type, at least always
heard in the language of their descendants. The first wave, which is
generally known as the Gaelic, eventually rolled to the Highlands and
islands of Scotland and to the shores of Ireland, and is represented
philologically by the kindred dialects of Gaelic and Erse. The second
wave, popularly known as the Cymric, overspread the whole east and
centre of Britain, the Gaels being probably forced to retire before
their Cymric conquerors. To this race belong the Welsh and the Bretons
of France; and Cumberland and Cornwall once spoke their language.
Some of our most recent authorities on British ethnology, believing
the term Cymri to be of late origin and the term Gaelic to have some
misleading associations, prefer to speak of Goidels and Brythons (early
national names) instead of Gaels and Cymri; but the distinction between
the two races and the main lines of their geographical distribution
are generally accepted, and are not affected by this question of
nomenclature.
It is probable, then, that at some period whose date cannot yet be even
approximately conjectured, and from some quarter which we may guess,
but can only guess, to have been the north of Germany, a bronze-using
race of warriors and hunters, ancestors of the modern Highlander and
Irishman, crossed the sea and established themselves in the island of
Britain, or, as it was, perhaps, then called, Albion. Later on, but how
many centuries later none can say, another race, kindred but probably
hostile, invaded our shores, drove the Gaels or Goidels before them,
established themselves in the best parts of the southern portion of
the island, and, being themselves called Brythons, gave to the whole
land the name by which the Romans called it, Britannia. As we know that
iron had been introduced into the country before the arrival of the
Romans, we may conjecture that this second Celtic wave consisted of
the wielders of weapons of iron, and that this was one cause of their
victory over the Goidels. The Brythons, thus settled in the valley of
the Thames and above the chalk cliffs of Sussex, were the enemies whom
Cæsar encountered when he invaded Britain.
A word may be said as to the relation of these Aryan invaders to the
presumably non-Aryan aborigines, the Neolithic men to whom allusion
was previously made. It used to be supposed that these aborigines
disappeared before the men of bronze and iron as completely as the
aborigines of Tasmania have disappeared before the Anglo-Saxon
immigrant. More careful investigation has led our recent ethnologists
to deny this conclusion. In the first place, there are features in the
rude polity of the historic Celts which suggest a doubt whether they
really constituted the whole population of the country. Their chiefs
are warlike leaders, their rank and file are themselves owners of
slaves. Everything about them seems to show that they were, like the
Spartans, a comparatively small ruling race surrounded by a subject
population, which they perhaps needed to keep severely in check.
Then the testimony of the tombs--and it is after all to the tombs
that we must chiefly resort for information as to the fate of these
buried peoples--decidedly confirms the theory of the survival of the
aborigines and of their blending to a considerable extent with their
Celtic conquerors. The stone-using people buried their dead in oblong
mounds technically known as “long barrows” generally some one hundred
to two hundred feet long by forty or fifty feet wide. The skulls found
in these long barrows, lying side by side with implements of stone,
are uniformly of the type known as Dolicho-cephalic, that is, the
width from ear to ear is very considerably less than the length from
the eyes to the back of the head. With the introduction of bronze
we at once find a noticeable difference both in the shape of the
tomb and the appearance of its occupant. The mound is now circular,
generally from forty to sixty feet in diameter, the “round barrow” of
the archæologist; and the skulls found in it are at first uniformly
of the Brachy-cephalic type, square and strong, the width generally
about four-fifths of the length. The important point to observe for
our present purpose is that as we pass from the early Celtic to the
late Celtic type of barrow--a transition of which we are assured by
the gradual introduction of iron as well as by other signs known
to archæologists--the character of the skulls undergoes a certain
modification towards the Dolicho-cephalic type. The conclusion arrived
at by the greatest investigator of British barrows, Dr. Greenwell, is
that “ultimately the two races became so mixed up and connected as to
form one people. If this was the case, by a natural process the more
numerous race would in the end absorb the other, until at length, with
some exceptions to be accounted for by well-known laws, the whole
population would become one, not only in the accidents of civilisation
and government, but practically in blood also.”
CHAPTER II.
CÆSAR IN BRITAIN.
Down to the middle of the first century before Christ the British Isles
were scarcely more known to the civilised nations of southern Europe
than the North Pole is to the men of our own day. The trade which had
probably long existed in the tin of Cornish mines had been purposely
kept in mysterious darkness by the Phœnicians who profited thereby,
so that Herodotus, the much inquiring, only mentions the Tin-islands
(Cassiterides) to say that he knows naught concerning them. That trade
had now probably become, save for the short passage of the channel, an
overland one, and enriched the merchants of Marseilles. A citizen of
that busy port, Pytheas by name, who seems to have been contemporary
with Alexander the Great, professed to have travelled over the greater
part of Britain, and afterwards to have sailed to a great distance
along the northern coast of Germany. It was the fashion of later
authors, such as Polybius and Strabo, to sneer at his alleged voyage
of discovery and to doubt his veracity, but the tendency of modern
inquiry is in some degree to restore the credit of this Marco Polo of
pre-Christian times, to show that in some points he had a more correct
knowledge of geography than his critics, and to deepen our regret that
his work is known to us only in a few passages selected and perhaps
distorted by his hostile reviewers. It must be admitted that if he
reported that the circumference of Britain was 40,000 stadia (about
5,000 of our miles), and that he had traversed the whole of it on
foot,[3] his statement was not altogether consistent with fact.
Such, however, was all the information that the Greeks and Romans
possessed concerning our island near the middle of the first century
B.C., at the time when Cicero was thundering against Catiline, and
Pompey was forcing his way into the temple at Jerusalem. Her time,
however, for entrance on the great theatre of the world was near
at hand, and it was for her a fortunate circumstance, and one not
inconsistent with the part which she has played thereon in later ages,
that the man who brought her on to the stage should have been himself
the central figure in the world’s political history--Gaius Julius Cæsar.
Sprung from one of the oldest and proudest families of Rome, yet
nephew by marriage of the peasant-soldier Marius, Cæsar, the high-born
democrat, possessed in his own person that combination of qualities
which has ever been found most dangerous to the rule of a narrow and
selfish oligarchy. The outworn machine which men still called the Roman
republic was obviously creaking towards an utter breakdown, and must
soon, if the provinces were not to be bled to death by greedy senators,
be replaced by the government of a single man, whether that man were
called king, or general, or dictator. The only question was who that
single man should be. Cæsar felt that he was the man of destiny,
foreordained to stand on that awful eminence. He flung out of the Roman
forum and senate-house, teeming as they were with squalid intrigues
and echoing to the cries of ignoble factions, and at the age of forty
set himself to a ten years’ apprenticeship to empire on the banks of
the Loire and the Saône, amid the vast forests of Britain or of Gaul.
The French historian, Michelet, has finely said: “I would that I could
have seen that pale countenance, aged before its time by the revelries
of Rome: that delicate and epileptic man, walking at the head of his
legions under the rains of Gaul, swimming across our rivers or riding
on horseback among the litters in which his secretaries were carried,
and dictating five or six letters at once: agitating Rome from the
furthest corners of Belgium: sweeping two millions of men from his path
and in the space of ten years subduing Gaul, the Rhine and the northern
ocean”.
At the end of the first three years of Cæsar’s proconsulship (58–56
B.C.) having apparently almost completed the conquest of Gaul, he stood
a conqueror on the southern shore of the Straits of Dover, looked
across at the white cliffs of Albion, and dreamed of bringing that
mysterious island within the circle of Roman dominion. Pretexts for
invasion were never lacking to an adventurous proconsul. There were
close ties of affinity between many of the northern tribes of Gaul
and their British neighbours. Some tribes even bore the same name.
The Atrebates of Arras were reflected in the Atrebates of Berkshire;
there were Belgæ in Somerset and Wiltshire as well as in Belgium; even
men call Parisii were found, strangely enough, in the East Riding of
Yorkshire. Then there was also the connexion, whatever may have been
its value, between the religion of the continental and the insular
Celts. Our information concerning the Druids (chiefly derived from
Cæsar himself) is somewhat vague and unsatisfactory, but there is
no reason to doubt his statement that the Druidic “discipline” had
originated in Britain and had been carried thence into Gaul, and thus
any religious element that there may have been in the resistance of the
Gallic tribes to Roman domination would look across the channel for
sympathy and inspiration.
There was already a certain amount of commercial intercourse between
Britain and Gaul, and Cæsar endeavoured to ascertain by questioning the
merchants engaged in that trade what was the size of the island, what
were its best harbours, and what the customs and warlike usages of the
natives. On none of these points, however, could he obtain satisfactory
information. The proconsul therefore sent a lieutenant named Volusenus
with a swift ship to reconnoitre the nearer coast, but he returned in
five days without having ventured to land. Meanwhile, as the object
of the general’s prolonged stay in the territory of the Morini became
more and more evident, messengers from certain of the British tribes
began to cross the channel, charged--so Cæsar says--with a commission
to promise “obedience to the rule of the Roman people,” and to give
hostages as a pledge of their fidelity. The arrival of the ambassadors
and their attempt to turn the proconsul from his purpose by fair speech
and unmeaning promises we may well believe. How much the Regni and the
Cantii knew about the rule of the Roman people, and what intention
they had of loyally submitting to it, may be left uncertain. Cæsar,
however, availed himself of the opportunity to send over with these
returning envoys a certain Celtic chieftain named Commius, whom he had
himself made king of the continental Atrebates, and on whose fidelity
he thought that he could rely, to exhort the native tribes peacefully
to accept the dominion of the Roman people, as the representative of
whom Cæsar himself would shortly make his appearance among them. This
mission of Commius proved quite fruitless. As soon as he landed--so he
said--the Britons arrested him and loaded him with chains, and it was
only after the defeat which will shortly be described that they sent
him back to Cæsar. As we find Commius only four years later taking a
leading part in the insurrection of the tribes in the north of Gaul,
and professing an especial hostility to all who bore the name of
Roman, we may, perhaps, doubt whether, even at this time, his pleas
for subjection were as earnest, or the chains imposed upon him by the
Britons as heavy, as Cæsar’s narrative would seem to imply.
Cæsar had determined to make his exploratory voyage with two legions,
the Seventh and the Tenth. He perhaps hoped that actual war would
not be necessary to bring about the formal submission of the tribes
on the coast, and he therefore did not take with him more than the
8,000 to 10,000 men, which were probably the actual muster of two
legions, and a body of cavalry whose precise number is not stated. As
fighting, however, might, after all, prove to be necessary, he took
care that one of the legions which accompanied him should be the famous
Tenth on whose courage and devotion he often relied, not in vain. To
transport the legions he had collected about eighty cargo ships (_naves
onerariæ_), many of which had been employed the year before in his
naval campaign off the coast of Brittany. He had also a certain number
of galleys (_naves longæ_) capable of being rowed much faster than
the heavy transport ships could sail. On these latter his staff of
officers, quæstors, legates and prefects were embarked, and no doubt
the proconsul himself was their companion.
The fleet set sail about midnight on August 26, B.C. 55, or on some
day very near to that date. The port of embarkation was probably near
to Cape Gris Nez and at the narrowest part of the channel, but almost
every sentence of the following narrative has been the subject of
an animated topographical discussion, and Cæsar himself mentions no
names of places that can be certainly identified.[4] Whatever may have
been the harbour from which the legions embarked it was not the same
which had been appointed as a rendezvous for the cavalry. These latter
were to be borne upon a little fleet of eighteen transports which
were detained by a contrary wind at a port eight miles farther up the
channel. As we shall see, their ill fortune in the matter of weather
continued throughout the expedition, and their consequent inability
to co-operate with the legions may have been the chief cause of the
expedition’s failure.
As for the main body of the fleet, it must have made an extremely
slow voyage, for it was not till the fourth hour of the day (about
8.30 A.M.) that the foremost ships caught sight of the shores of
Britain. The landing was evidently not to be unopposed: on all the
hills armed bodies of the enemy were drawn up. The word used by Cæsar
signifies properly “hills,” but as he goes on to say that “the sea
was commanded by such steep mountains that a weapon could easily be
hurled from the higher ground to the shore,” we are probably right in
understanding these “hills” to be the well-known chalk cliffs of Kent.
Seeing therefore no suitable place for landing, Cæsar signalled for his
fleet to gather round him, and lay quietly at anchor for five hours.
Summoning his staff he imparted to them such information concerning the
nature of the country as he had been able to gather from Volusenus,
and explained that in maritime warfare such as that in which they were
now engaged, liable to be affected by rapid changes of the weather and
the sea, it was pre-eminently necessary that they should give prompt
obedience to his orders. At about 3 P.M., apparently, the fleet weighed
anchor, and, wind and tide having become favourable, moved forward
about seven miles and there halted opposite a level and open shore
which seemed well adapted for landing.
The barbarians, however, who were of course watching Cæsar’s movements,
sent forward their chariots and their cavalry, and following
themselves with rapid movements were on the spot to oppose the Romans’
disembarkation. It seemed for some time as if their opposition would
be effectual. The ships drawing many feet of water could not approach
near to the land, and the soldiers, with their hands encumbered by the
_pilum_ or the sword and their bodies weighted with the heavy armour of
the Roman legionary, found it no easy matter to jump from the ships,
to stagger through the slippery ooze, to defend themselves against
the attacks of the nimble and lightly armed barbarians. Seeing this,
Cæsar ordered up the galleys, which were rowed rapidly backwards and
forwards between the transports and the shore, and from the decks of
which slings, bows and _balistae_ freely employed worked havoc among
the barbarians, already disposed to terror by the unwonted sight of
the triremes. But as the soldiers still hesitated, chiefly on account
of the depth of the water into which it was necessary to plunge, the
standard-bearer of the Tenth legion, after a short prayer to the gods
for good luck to his legion, leapt into the sea, shouting with a loud
voice: “Jump! comrades! unless you would see your eagle fall into the
enemy’s hands. I at any rate will do my duty to the Republic and our
general.” His example was contagious. All the soldiers leapt from
the ships and were soon engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with the
Britons, each man rallying to the standard that was nearest to him
as it was hopeless in such a _mêlée_ to form regular rank by legions
and cohorts. The barbarians, charging with their horses into deep
water, were sometimes able to surround smaller parties of the invaders
or to harass them from a distance with their darts. Hereupon, Cæsar
filled the boats of the long ships and some of the lighter skiffs with
soldiers, who rowing rapidly backwards and forwards carried help where
it was most needed.
It was probably at this stage of the encounter that an incident took
place which is recorded not by Cæsar himself but by Valerius Maximus,
an anecdote-collector of a later date. He tells us that a legionary
named Scæva with four comrades rowed to a rock surrounded by the sea
and from thence dealt destruction with their arrows among the Britons.
Before long the ebbing tide made their rock accessible from the shore
and the other soldiers thought it was time to row back to their
ship. Scæva, refusing to accompany them, was soon surrounded by the
barbarians, with whom he fought single-handed. Many he killed, but he
himself suffered fearfully. His thigh was pierced by an arrow, his face
smashed by a stone, his shield broken. At last he threw himself into
the sea and swam to his vessel. Cæsar and the officers began to applaud
him for his bravery, but he flung himself at the proconsul’s feet and
with tears implored forgiveness for the military crime of the loss of
his shield.
When the great body of the soldiers had at last struggled to the
shore and could fight on firm land, Roman discipline soon prevailed
over barbarian ardour. The Britons took to flight, but the absence
of cavalry, bitterly regretted by Cæsar, checked pursuit. Next day
there came ambassadors from the dispirited Britons praying for pardon,
bringing the liberated Commius and promising to obey all Cæsar’s
orders. After a grave rebuke for having violated the laws of nations
by imprisoning his messengers, the proconsul granted his forgiveness
and ordered the natives to hand over hostages for their good faith.
A few were given, the rest who were to be sent by the more distant
tribes were promised but never came. The reason of this failure of
the negotiations (if they had ever had a chance of success) was the
catastrophe which befel the lingering squadron with its freight of
cavalry. On the fourth day after Cæsar’s landing, the eighteen ships
with the horsemen on board drew nigh to Britain. Already they were
descried by their comrades on shore when so violent a storm arose that
they were hopelessly beaten off their course. Some were driven straight
back to the harbour which they had quitted, others with imminent danger
of shipwreck drifted down channel and at last, waterlogged and nearly
helpless, regained some port in Gaul.
On the night which followed this disastrous day, a night of full moon,
the unusually high tide, a marvel and a mystery to these children of
the Mediterranean, surrounded the Roman ships which had been drawn up,
as they hoped, high and dry on the beach. Cables were broken, anchors
lost, some of the ships probably dashed against one another; it seemed
as though Cæsar would be stranded without ships and without supplies
on the inhospitable shore of Britain. He at once sent out some of his
soldiers to collect supplies from the Kentish harvest fields, and set
others to repair those ships, whose repair was yet possible, at the
expense of their hopelessly ruined companions. He admits an entire loss
of twelve, but leaves us to infer that the remainder were patched into
some sort of seaworthiness. By this time undoubtedly the one thought of
both general and army was how to get safe back to Gaul; and naturally
the one thought of the Britons, who knew all that had occurred, was how
to prevent that return. The promised hostages of course never appeared;
and a troop of barbarians ambushed in a neighbouring forest watched for
a favourable opportunity of attacking the Romans. That opportunity
came one day when the soldiers of the Seventh legion were out foraging
in the harvest fields. The sentinels in the Roman camp descried a cloud
of dust rising in the direction whither their comrades had gone, and
brought word to the general, who at once suspected that the precarious
peace was broken and that mischief was abroad. Sallying forth with four
cohorts he found that it was even so. The barbarians had emerged from
their ambush, had fallen upon the unsuspecting legionaries, quietly
engaged in reaping the British harvest, had slain a few of them and
were harassing the rest with “alarums and excursions” by their cavalry
and their charioteers.
At this point Cæsar interrupts his narrative to describe the British
custom of using chariots in war, a custom which was evidently strange
and disconcerting to the Roman soldiery. “This,” he says, “is their
manner of fighting. First they drive their horses about in all
directions, hurling darts, and by the very terror of their horses and
clashing of their wheels often throw the ranks [of their enemies]
into confusion. Then when they have insinuated themselves between the
squadrons of the [hostile] cavalry they leap from their chariots and
fight on foot. The charioteers meanwhile gradually draw out of the fray
and so place the cars that if their friends should be overborne by the
multitude of the enemy they may easily take refuge with them. In this
way they combine the rapid movements of cavalry with the steadiness
of infantry, and have acquired such a degree of dexterity by daily
practice that they can hold up their galloping horses in the steepest
descents, check and turn them in a moment, run along the pole or sit on
the yoke, and then as quickly as possible fly back into the car.” It
will be observed that Cæsar says nothing about the famous scythe-armed
chariots of the Britons which, as has been often suggested, would
surely on a battlefield be as dangerous to friends as to foes.
Cæsar’s arrival rescued his troops from their perilous position, and
he was able to lead them back in safety to the camp. Many stormy days
followed, during which warlike operations were necessarily suspended
on both sides, but the barbarians employed the interval in beating up
recruits from all quarters, attracted by the hope of plunder and of
making an end at one blow of the army of invasion, whose scanty numbers
moved them to contempt. When fighting was resumed the legions easily
repelled the British attack, and some horsemen who had been brought
by Commius, though only thirty in number, enabled Cæsar to pursue the
flying foe for some distance, to kill many of them and to lay waste a
wide extent of country with fire and sword. The usual group of penitent
ambassadors appeared the same day in Cæsar’s camp; the usual excuses
were offered; were accepted as a matter of necessity; and twice the
number of hostages was ordered to be surrendered. It did not greatly
matter how many were demanded, for Cæsar had no intention of awaiting
their delivery. Soon after midnight the Roman fleet set sail, and the
whole army returned eventually safe to Gaul, though two of the ships
bearing 300 men drifted down the coast of Picardy, and the soldiers,
attacked by no fewer than 6,000 of the Morini, had much ado to defend
themselves till the general sent a force of cavalry to their succour.
On the arrival of Cæsar’s despatches in Rome the senate ordered a
solemn _supplicatio_ or thanksgiving to the gods, which was to last
for twenty days. The British expedition had been a daring and a showy
exploit, but no one knew better than Cæsar himself that it had been an
entire failure, and that nothing had really been done towards bringing
a single British tribe under “the rule of the Roman people”. If this
island was to be conquered, it was plain that a much larger force than
two legions would be needed for the work. This Cæsar recognised, and
accordingly he determined to make another attempt next year (B.C. 54)
with five legions (perhaps about 21,000 men) and 2,000 cavalry. The
previous campaign had evidently convinced the general of the importance
of mounted men for this kind of warfare. He was also determined to
have a longer interval before the autumnal equinox for the conduct of
his campaign than he had allowed himself in the previous year, and
accordingly somewhere about July 23 he set sail from the Portus Itius.
He would, in fact, have started at least three weeks earlier, but the
wind had been blowing persistently from a point a long way to the north
of west. As soon as it shifted to the south-west, the fleet (which
with all its companions consisted of 800 ships) started at sunset. In
the night, however, the wind fell and the tide (which probably neither
Cæsar nor any of his officers understood) carried the ships far out of
their course. When the sun arose they saw that Britain was far behind
them, on their left hand. Dropping their sails, they took to the oars,
and Cæsar has words of well-deserved praise for his sturdy soldiers,
who rowed so well that they made the heavy transport ships keep up with
the lighter galleys which, as before, accompanied them. By a little
after noon they reached the coast of Britain, apparently at their old
landing-place. Their disembarkation was not now opposed; the Britons
having, as it seems, lost heart when they saw so vast a flotilla
approaching their shores.
Notwithstanding his larger armament, Cæsar’s second invasion was in
many respects a mere _replica_ of the first, and it is hardly worth
while to describe it in equal detail. There was again a violent
tempest which swept the fleet from its anchorage, destroyed forty of
the ships, and obliged Cæsar to waste ten precious days in repairing
the remainder. Toilsome as the task must be, he judged it advisable
to draw all his ships up on land and surround them with a wall of
circumvallation. When we remember that this was the precaution adopted
by the Greeks who warred in Troy, we see how little essential change
had been wrought in naval warfare in the course of 1,000 years.
Meanwhile the Britons had assembled in large numbers in order to oppose
the progress of the invaders, and had entrusted the national defence to
a chief named Cassivellaunus who ruled over some of the tribes north
of the Thames. Hitherto he had made himself apparently more feared
than loved by his dealings with neighbouring tribes: the Trinobantes,
especially, who dwelt in the district now known as Essex, had seen
their king murdered and their king’s son made a fugitive by his orders;
but now in the supreme hour of danger the hard, unscrupulous soldier
was by general consent chosen as a kind of dictator.
After some preliminary skirmishes in which the heavily armed Roman
legionaries suffered severely from the dashing onslaught and rapid
retreat of the British chariots and cavalry, Cæsar determined to
cross the Thames and beard the lion Cassivellaunus in his den. He
was stationed on the north bank of the river which was fordable, but
defended by sharp stakes placed in the bed of the stream. It is not
quite clear from Cæsar’s account how this obstacle of the stakes was
dealt with by his soldiers. Possibly they may have been partly removed
by the cavalry whom he says that he sent first into the water. They
were followed by the legionaries, who went, he says, so swiftly and
with such a dash, though only their heads were out of water, that the
enemy, unable to stand before the combined rush of horsemen and foot
soldiers, left their stations on the bank and scattered in flight.
As was so often the case with these Celtic tribes, domestic discord
in some degree lightened the labours of the invader. We have seen
that Cassivellaunus had obtained by violence the sovereignty of the
Trinobantes of Essex. Mandubracius, the son of the dead king, had fled
to Gaul and cast himself on the protection of Cæsar, in whose train
he returned to Britain. There was still probably a party in favour
of the dethroned family, and it was not a mere formality when Cæsar
ordered the tribe to accept Mandubracius for their chief, to supply
his troops with corn, and to deliver forty hostages into his hands.
Five other tribes whose unimportant names are given by Cæsar came in
and made their submission; and from them the general learned that not
far distant was the town (_oppidum_) of Cassivellaunus, filled with a
multitude of men and cattle, and defended by forests and marshes. “Now
the Britons,” says Cæsar, perhaps with a sneer, “call any place a town”
(_oppidum_) “when they have chosen a position entangled with forests
and strengthened it with rampart and ditch, so that they may gather
into it for shelter from hostile incursion.” Thither then marched Cæsar
with his legions. He found a place splendidly strong by nature and art,
but he determined to attack it from two sides at once. After a brief
defence, the natives collapsed before the headlong rush of the Romans,
and streamed out of the camp on the opposite side. Many were slain,
many taken prisoners, and a great number of cattle fell into the hands
of the Romans.
In order probably to divert the forces of his enemy from his own
_oppidum_, the generalissimo Cassivellaunus had sent orders to the
four kings of Kent to collect their forces and make a sudden attack on
the naval camp of the Romans. The attack was repulsed by a vigorous
sortie: many of the Britons were slain and one of their noblest leaders
taken prisoner. Hereupon Cassivellaunus, recognising that the fortune
of war was turning against him and that his own confederates were
falling away, sent messengers to offer his submission and obtain peace
through the mediation of his friend, perhaps his fellow-tribesman,
Commius. Cæsar, who had his own reasons for desiring a speedy return
to Gaul and who doubtless considered that enough had been done for
his glory, accepted the proffered submission. He “ordered hostages to
be delivered, and fixed the amount of tribute which was to be yearly
paid by Britannia to the Roman people. He forbade Cassivellaunus to
do any injury to Mandubracius or the Trinobantes,” and with these
high-sounding phrases he departed. As he carried back many captives and
not a few of his ships had perished in the storm, he had to make two
crossings with his fleet, but both were accomplished without disaster.
Of Cassivellaunus himself no further information is vouchsafed us, nor
do we know what was the fate of the abandoned allies of Rome.
The great general in this instance “had come and had seen” but had
not “conquered”. Most valuable, however, to us is the information
which he has given us concerning our sequestered island, though in
some cases it is evidently inaccurate. We need not linger over Cæsar’s
geographical statements, though it is curious to see how certain errors
of earlier geographers still lingered on even into the Augustan age of
Roman literature. Thus he thinks that, of the three sides of Britain’s
triangle one looks towards Gaul and the east, another towards Spain and
the west, while the third, which has no land opposite it, faces north.
Besides Ireland, which is half the size of Britain, there are other
islands, apparently on the west, concerning which certain writers have
said that they have continual night during thirty days of winter. As
to this Cæsar was not able to obtain any definite information, but his
own _clepsydræ_ (water clocks) showed him that the nights in July were
shorter in Britain than on the continent.
“Of all the natives far the most civilised are those who inhabit the
district of Kent, which is all situated on the coast: nor do these
differ greatly in their manners from the inhabitants of Gaul. Those who
live farther inland sow no corn, but live on milk and flesh, and are
clothed in skins. All the Britons however dye themselves with woad,
which gives them a blue colour and makes them look more terrible in
battle. They wear long hair and shave every part of the body except the
head and the upper lip. Ten or a dozen men have their wives in common,
especially brothers with brothers, fathers with their sons, the
woman’s offspring being reckoned to him who first cohabited with her.”
This ghastly statement is probably a mere traveller’s tale, utterly
untrue of the Celts of Britain or of any other Aryan tribe. It has been
thought that it may possibly have been derived from an institution
something like the Sclavonic _mir_, which caused all the descendants of
one married couple for two or three generations to herd together in a
single household. “The interior of Britain is inhabited by tribes which
are, according to their own tradition, aboriginal: the sea-coast by
those which for the sake of plunder have crossed over from Belgic Gaul,
and after carrying on war have settled there and begun to cultivate
the land. It is in consequence of this that nearly all of them have
the same tribal names as those of the states from which they came.
There is an infinite number of inhabitants, and one constantly meets
with buildings almost like those of Gaul, as well as a great number of
cattle.”
“They use either golden money or thin bars of iron of a certain
weight which pass for money.” Thus (according to the best reading
of a much-disputed passage) does Cæsar speak as to the numismatic
attainments of the Britons. We shall probably never know more than this
as to the iron currency or quasi-currency of our predecessors; but
the statement as to their gold currency has been entirely confirmed
by modern discoveries. The most curious fact, however, in connexion
with the pre-Roman gold coinage of Britain is that it is evidently an
imitation, though a most barbarous imitation, of the coinage of Philip
II. of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. In the British
imitations the fine classical features of the Macedonian monarch are
twisted into the ignoble profile of a savage, while the curls of the
hair and the leaves of the laurel crown, mechanically repeated and
magnified, fill up the greater part of the coin. The effigy of a
charioteer on the reverse of the coin is attempted to be copied in the
same grotesque fashion with rather less success than the drawing of a
child upon its slate. The charioteer himself is gradually resolved into
a cluster of atoms, and though the likeness of the horse is for some
time preserved, he is furnished with eight legs and gradually dwindles
away into the spectre of a rocking-horse. Yet these queer pieces
of money which occasionally turn up in English soil are intensely
interesting, as showing how the influence of Greek art penetrated
even into our world-forgotten island three centuries before the birth
of Christ, travelling possibly by the same commercial route between
the Euxine and the Baltic by which the Runes passed up from Thrace to
Scandinavia, and the highly prized amber descended from Stralsund to
Odessa.
Cæsar proceeds to inform us that “tin (_plumbum album_) is found in the
midland parts of the country [as to this he was of course misinformed];
iron in the maritime regions, but in small quantities; all the bronze
used is imported. There is timber of all kinds, as in Gaul, save the
fir and the beech. They do not think it right to eat hares, geese or
poultry, but keep these animals as pets. The climate is more temperate
than that of Gaul, the cold less intense.” One regrets to learn from
Strabo, who wrote half a century after Cæsar, that though “the climate
is rainy rather than snowy, even in clear weather mists prevail so long
that through the whole day the sun is visible only for three or four
hours about noon”.
In reviewing the history of Cæsar’s invasions of Britain we naturally
inquire what was his object in fitting out those expeditions, why did
they fail and why did he acquiesce in their failure. Whatever may have
been the motive of the first (which, according to him, was chiefly the
assistance given by the Britons to the cause of his Gaulish enemies),
the second expedition at any rate, on which from 20,000 to 30,000 men
were employed, cannot have been a mere reconnaissance, undertaken in
the interests of scientific discovery. It was no doubt politic to
stimulate the zeal of his partisans in Rome by voyages and marches
which appeared to be
Beyond the utmost bounds of human thought,
but the general would hardly have spent so much treasure and risked the
lives of so many of his legionaries without some hope of substantial
advantage to himself, his soldiers, or the republic. Evidently the
Britons fought better than he expected. Probably also, the forests
and the marshes of the country made the movements of his troops
exceptionally difficult. We can perceive also that the country was not
so rich as he had hoped to find it--an important consideration for a
general who had to reward his soldiers by frequent opportunities of
“loot”. “We already know,” wrote Cicero to his brother Quintus, “that
there is not an ounce of silver in that island nor any hope of booty
except slaves, among whom I do not think you will expect to find any
skilled in literature or music.” The only spoil that we hear of Cæsar’s
carrying back from Britain was a breastplate adorned with precious
pearls, which he dedicated in the Temple of Victory at Rome.
One argument which doubtless influenced Cæsar against attempting a
third expedition was derived from the peculiarly stormy and baffling
character of the sea at the Straits of Dover. Each of his expeditions
had been endangered and all but ruined by these unaccountable tides,
these suddenly rising gales. He had to learn by bitter experience how
different was that strange chopping sea from the peaceful waters of the
Mediterranean. Had he been able to survey the channel more thoroughly,
he would probably have found it worth while to make his passage at
a broader part of it, like that which now separates Newhaven from
Dieppe; perhaps even to anticipate the Saxon chieftains of the fifth
century, to occupy the Isle of Wight, or to seek for his fleet the
shelter of Southampton Water. After all, however, a sufficient reason
for not renewing the attempt to conquer Britain was to be found in the
precarious state of Roman dominion in Gaul. Cæsar evidently thought
that his work in that country was practically finished in B.C. 55,
when he first set his face towards Britain. Far otherwise: the hardest
part of that work was yet to come. Five months after Cæsar’s return
from his second expedition he heard the terrible tidings of the utter
destruction of fifteen Roman cohorts by the Eburones. Then followed
the revolt of Vercingetorix, bravest and most successful of Gaulish
champions; the unsuccessful siege of Gergovia; the siege, successful
but terribly hard to accomplish, of Alesia. Certainly we may say that
the two years and a half which followed his return from Britain were
among the most anxious, and seemed sometimes the most desperate stages
in all that wonderful career which ended when, ten years after he had
sailed away from Britain, he fell pierced by more than twenty dagger
wounds--
E’en at the base of Pompey’s statua,
Which all the while ran blood.
NOTE
ON CÆSAR’S POINTS OF ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE IN HIS EXPEDITIONS TO
BRITAIN.
I. As to the point of embarkation from Gaul, the controversy lies
principally between Boulogne and Wissant, Sir George Airy’s suggestion
that Cæsar sailed from the estuary of the Somme being not easy to
reconcile with his own statement that he went to the country of the
Morini, “because thence was the shortest transit to Britain”.
Boulogne, which was called by the Romans first Gesoriacum and then
Bononia, was undoubtedly the regular harbour for passengers to Britain
under the empire, and there would be little doubt that Cæsar started
thence if he had not told us that the second expedition (presumably
also the first) sailed from Portus Itius. It is not clear why Cæsar
should have called Gesoriacum by any other name.
The advocates of Wissant identify the Itian promontory with Cape Gris
Nez, well known to all passengers from Dover to Calais, and think that
its name would be naturally shared with the neighbouring village of
Wissant, which was probably at one time nearer to the sea than it is
now. On the whole, though the arguments on both sides are pretty evenly
balanced, those in favour of Wissant seem slightly to preponderate.
II. Sailing, then, from some port in Picardy (either Boulogne or
Wissant), Cæsar reached a part of the British coast which from his
description looks like the chalk cliffs west of Dover. So far there
is not much difference between the commentators, but what happened
in the afternoon when, after his long halt, he found the wind and
tide both in his favour, gave the signal to weigh anchor, and “having
advanced (_progressus_) about eight miles from that place, brought his
ships to a stand at a level and open beach”? Certainly the natural
rendering of these words would seem to be that he went seven English
miles up channel, and so if he had really anchored off Dover he would
reach Deal, and that port would be, as it has been generally supposed
to be, the scene of the world-historical landing of the first Roman
soldiers in Britain. It must be admitted, however, that there are great
difficulties in this hypothesis. The most careful and minute inquiries
that have been made seem to show that on that day (the fourth before
the full moon) and at that hour (3 P.M.), the tide, if it ebbed and
flowed as it does now, would be setting down, not up, the channel: and
accordingly many authors have come to the conclusion that Cæsar sailed
westward for those seven miles and landed either at Hythe or Lymne
(well known afterwards to the Romans as Portus Lemanis), or possibly at
some such place as Appledore, now inland but then at the head of a very
sheltered bay.
The discussion is much complicated by the undoubted fact of the great
changes which have taken place in that part of the coastline, and Dr.
Guest is perhaps entitled to argue that these changes may have so
altered the set of the tides as to allow him to postulate an eastward
flowing tide when Cæsar weighed anchor in the afternoon. It must,
however, remain for the present a disputed question: Cæsar’s word,
“_progressus_,” on the one side, the present course of the tides on the
other. On the whole it seems to me that the balance of probability is
slightly in favour of Deal.
Among the authors who have written on this question may be mentioned
Airy, Lewin, Appach, in favour of some port west of Dover; Long,
Merivale, Guest, in favour of Deal. Guest’s arguments are perhaps
the most satisfactory, but justice should be done to the extremely
painstaking little treatise of Appach (_Caius Julius Cæsar’s British
Expeditions_, etc., 1868), who, however, surely attempts the impossible
in his elaborate back-calculations of the winds and tides of two
thousand years ago.
On the question of the point of departure from Gaul, reference may
be made to T. R. Holmes’s _Conquest of Gaul_ (London, 1899) and to
F. Haverfield’s review of that book in _English Historical Review_,
xviii., 334–6.
CHAPTER III.
THE CENTURY OF SUSPENSE.
The second invasion of Britain by Cæsar took place, according to Roman
reckoning, in the year 700 from the foundation of the City. The next,
the successful invasion which was ordered by his collateral descendant
in the fourth generation, the Emperor Claudius, took place in the year
797 of the same reckoning. There was thus all but a century between the
two events; that century which more powerfully than any other, before
or after, has influenced the course of human history; yet which for
that very reason, because in our chronology the years change from B.C.
to A.D., the historical student sometimes finds it hard to recognise in
its true perspective.
As far as the work of the literary historian goes, Britain is almost a
blank page during the whole of this century. It may be said that to the
eyes of the Romans, her own mists closed round her when Cæsar left her
shores, B.C. 54, and did not rise till Aulus Plautius approached them,
A.D. 43. But the patient toil of the numismatist[5] has discovered the
names of some British kings and enabled us to say something as to their
mutual relations; a few brief notices of Roman historians have faintly
illumined the scene; and it is now just possible to discern the actual
lineaments of one who is not entirely a creature of romance--the royal
Cymbeline.
As has been already mentioned, a certain Commius, king of the
continental Atrebates, was sent on an unsuccessful mission to Britain
before Cæsar’s first invasion. In the mighty refluent wave of the
Gaulish revolt against Rome, Commius either was actually swept away
from his former fidelity or was suspected of being thus disloyal.
However this might be, a foul attempt at his assassination, planned by
Cæsar’s lieutenant, Labienus, converted him into an embittered enemy of
Rome. He took part in the great campaigns of Vercingetorix; when they
failed he sought succour from the other side of the Rhine; as captain
of a band of freebooters he preyed on the subjects of Rome. At length
(B.C. 51), seeing that further resistance was hopeless, he made his
submission to Mark Antony, his only stipulation being that he might
be allowed to go and dwell in some land where he would never again be
offended by the sight of a Roman. With these words he vanishes from the
pages of the historian of the Gallic war. As we find about the same
time, or a little later, a certain Commius coining money in Britain, it
is, at least, a tempting theory that the Roman-hating Gaulish refugee
came to our island and reigned here over his kindred Atrebates and
other tribes besides.
Actual coins of Commius are, it must be admitted, not too certainly
extant, but the large number of coins struck by three British kings who
are proud to proclaim themselves his sons, clearly attest his existence
and justify us in attributing to him considerable importance. These
three British kings were Tincommius, Verica and Eppillus, and their
dominions stretched from Hampshire to Kent. Their reigns probably
occupied the last thirty years before the Christian era, and their
coins exhibit an increasing tendency towards Roman manners and Roman
art. The old barbaric survivals of the Macedonian effigies gradually
disappear; classical profiles are introduced and the cornucopiæ, the
eagle and the lion sometimes make their appearance.
A British prince who was apparently a contemporary and a neighbour,
possibly a rival of the family of Commius, was named Dubnovellaunus.
The obverse of his coins shows a remarkable similarity to some of
those of the just-mentioned King Eppillus. But the interesting fact
in connexion with this otherwise unknown British chieftain is that a
monument in the heart of Asia Minor preserves his name and records
his dealings with the Roman Imperator. In the Turkish town of Angora
on the side of a desolate Galatian hill stand the ruins of the marble
temple of Augustus and Rome: and on the walls of the porch of that
temple is a long bilingual inscription, recording in Latin and Greek
the most memorable events of the fifty-eight years’ reign of the
fortunate Augustus. Towards the end we find this passage: “To me fled
as suppliant the Kings of the Parthians Tiridates and afterwards
Phraates, Artaxares, son of Phraates, King of the Medes: the Kings of
the Britons Dumnobellaunus and Tim ...” (the end of the last name being
obliterated). It is not likely that if there had been many similar
instances of British princes imploring the protection of Augustus they
would have been left unrecorded in the monument of Angora; and it is
therefore probably with some little courtly exaggeration that the
contemporary geographer Strabo says: “Certain of the rulers of that
country [Britain] by embassies and flattering attentions have gained
the friendship of Cæsar Augustus and made votive offerings in the
capital and have now rendered almost the whole island subject to the
Romans”. This is certainly untrue. “The taxes which they bear are in no
wise heavy and are levied on imports and exports between Britain and
Gaul. The articles of this commerce are ivory rings and necklaces, and
amber and vessels of glass and all such trumpery. It is not therefore
desirable to put a garrison in the island, for it would require at
least one legion and some cavalry in order to ensure the collection of
the tribute, and the expense of keeping up such a force would equal the
revenue received, since it would be necessary to lessen the customs
duties if you were also levying tribute and there would be always a
certain amount of danger attending the employment of force.” A very
clear and sensible statement surely of the reasons which induced the
cautious Augustus finally to abandon his thrice contemplated[6] scheme
for the conquest of Britain.
The British kings whom we have lately been describing reigned chiefly
south of the Thames. North of that river in Middlesex, Herts and
Essex (the district occupied by Cassivellaunus at the time of Cæsar’s
invasion) there was reigning, probably from about B.C. 35 to A.D. 5,
a chief named Tasciovanus, practically unknown in literary history
but abundantly made known to us by his coins, which, though still
for the most part barbarous, show some signs of Roman influence. His
capital was Verulamium, the little Hertfordshire town which now bears
the name of the martyred Saint Alban. On his death, which probably
occurred about A.D. 5, he was succeeded by his two sons, one of whom,
Cunobelinus, reigned at Camulodunum (the modern Colchester) over the
Trinobantes and probably other tribes. Of him not only are the coins
numerous and well known, but as the Cymbeline of Shakespeare’s drama,
his name will be in the mouths of men as long as English literature
endures. Of course the Cymbeline of the play has very little in common
with the faintly outlined Cunobelinus of history. The lovely Imogen,
faithful to her husband unto seeming death; the clownish Cloten,
the wicked queen, the selfish boaster Leonatus; all these are mere
creatures of the poet’s brain, of whom neither the romancer Geoffrey
of Monmouth nor his copyist Holinshed had ever spoken. Yet in the
conception of Cymbeline’s character, as an old king who rules his
family and his court with little wisdom, there is nothing which clashes
with historic truth; and the way in which Shakespeare has described the
attitude of these little British princes towards the great, distant,
dreadful power of Rome is surely one of the many evidences of his power
of realising by instinct rather than by reason the political condition
of a by-gone age. It may be noted in passing that Geoffrey of Monmouth
informs us, whatever his information may be worth, that Kymbelinus, as
he calls this king, “was a great soldier and had been brought up by
Augustus Cæsar. He had contracted so great a friendship with the Romans
that he freely paid them tribute when he might very well have refused
it. In his days our Lord Jesus Christ was born.”
A certain Adminius, who seems to have been a son of Cunobelinus, being
expelled by his father, fled to the Roman camp in Germany with a small
band of followers, and their humble supplications to the Emperor
Caligula (37–41) caused that insane egotist to vaunt himself as the
conqueror of Britain. A pompous epistle conveyed to the Senate the news
of this great triumph, and the bearers thereof were especially charged
to enter the city in a state-chariot and to deliver their important
communication only in the Temple of Mars and to a crowded assembly. But
the buffoonery of the nephew was to be followed by the serious labour
of the uncle. The conquest of Britain was now nigh at hand.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF BRITAIN.
In the year 41 after Christ’s birth the short madness of Caligula’s
dominion over the world was ended by his assassination in one of the
long corridors of the Palatine. His uncle Claudius, the despised
weakling of the imperial family, dragged forth trembling from his
hiding-place behind a curtain, and to his intense surprise acclaimed
as Augustus by the mutinous Prætorians: this was the man for whom by a
strange destiny was reserved the glory of adding Britain to the Roman
Empire. Yet Claudius, for all his odd ways, his shambling gait, his
shaking head, his stammering speech, was by no means the mere fool whom
his relatives, ashamed of his physical deficiencies, had affected to
consider him. He wrote in countless books the story of his imperial
ancestors and his own; he knew the old Etruscan tongue, a knowledge,
alas! now lost to the world, and translated treatises written therein;
he cleared out the harbour of Ostia; he planted flourishing colonies;
he brought water to Rome from the Æquian hills by the aqueduct which
bears his name. Could the poor timorous old man have ventured to rely
on himself, and to act on his own initiative, his name had perhaps
been revered as that of one of the best emperors of Rome. It was his
reliance on his wives and his freedmen, the government of the boudoir
and the servants’ hall, which ruined his reputation with posterity.
It was probably in the same year in which Claudius succeeded to the
empire, or it may have been a year later, that old King Cunobelinus
died in Britain and was succeeded by his two sons, Caratacus[7] and
Togodumnus. There was, as usual, an exiled prince (whose name was
Bericus) claiming Roman assistance for his restoration to his country,
but whether he was one of the sons of Cunobelinus or not, neither
history nor the coins inform us. The petition of the exiled Bericus
was granted by Claudius, and an expedition was resolved on, nominally
for his restoration (from this point onwards his name disappears
from history), in reality for the conquest of Britain (A.D. 43). The
command of the expedition was entrusted to Aulus Plautius, a senator of
high rank--he had been consul fourteen years before with the Emperor
Tiberius--and was possibly a kinsman of Claudius by marriage. Under his
orders marched four legions[8]:--
The Second: Augusta.
The Ninth: Hispana.
The Fourteenth: Gemina Martia; and
The Twentieth: Valeria Victrix.
All of these but the Ninth were withdrawn from service in Germany,
and that legion came from Pannonia, in modern language Hungary west
of the Danube. The Second and the Twentieth legions found a permanent
home in our island; the Ninth, a grave; the Fourteenth after a
brilliant career was withdrawn to Italy after about twenty-five years
of British service. We have no exact statement of the number of the
army of Plautius. The legions, if at their full complement, should
stand for 20,000 men: the cavalry and cohorts of the allies should at
least double that number. We are probably not far wrong in putting
the invading force at 50,000, but the difficulty of forming an exact
estimate is shown by the divergence between the calculations of two
such experts as Mommsen and Hübner, the former of whom reckons the
total at 40,000, and the latter at 70,000 men.
Not without great difficulty (says our sole authority, Dion Cassius)
was the army induced to depart from Gaul. The soldiers grumbled
sorely at being called to do military service “outside of the
habitable world,” and Claudius deemed it advisable to send to them
his freedman-minister Narcissus to overcome their reluctance. The
glib-tongued Greek mounted the general’s rostrum and began to harangue
them greatly to his own satisfaction. But it was too much for the
patience of the veteran legionaries to hear this imperial lackey, this
liberated slave, preaching to them about their military duty. They
shouted him down with a well-concerted cry of _Io Saturnalia_ (Hurrah
for the slaves’ holiday), and then with the curious illogicality of
soldiers they turned to Plautius and said that for his sake they would
willingly follow wherever he led them. All this hesitation had caused
considerable delay, but at last the flotilla bearing the soldiers
embarked in three divisions, in order that the whole expedition might
not be put to the hazard of a single landing. The soldiers were much
disheartened when they found the winds or the tides apparently drifting
them back to the port from which they had started, but then a meteor
flashing from east to west seemed to indicate that their voyage
would be prosperous and encouraged them to proceed. Their landing,
or, more properly speaking, their three landings, were accomplished
without difficulty, for the Britons, believing that the expedition was
postponed on account of the mutiny, had made no preparations, and now
fled to the forests and the marshes, hoping that the experience of the
great Julius would be repeated and that this expedition also might soon
return empty-handed.
Plautius had therefore hard work to discover his foe, but he did
at last come to close quarters, first with Caratacus and then with
Togodumnus, both of whom he overcame. Either now or in the following
operations, Togodumnus perished, but his brother survived to be for
many years a thorn in the side of the Roman general. A British tribe
named the Boduni, of whose geographical position we are ignorant,
but who were subjects of the Catuvellauni, came in and offered their
submission. Plautius left a garrison among them and marching forward
arrived at the banks of a river, possibly the Medway, which the
barbarians fondly hoped could not be traversed without a bridge.
The Roman general, however, had in his army many Gaulish soldiers,
probably those dwelling near the mouths of the Rhine and the Waal, who
were accustomed to swim with all their armour on across the swiftest
streams. These men, at the word of command, plunged into the river,
swam across, attacked the dismayed and carelessly encamped barbarians,
and directing their weapons especially against the horses harnessed to
the chariots made the usual cavalry tactics of the Britons impossible.
The young Vespasian (future emperor, and conqueror of the Jews) and his
brother Sabinus were ordered to lead some more troops across the stream
and complete the victory, which they did, slaying multitudes of the
barbarians. Still the Britons made a stubborn resistance, till at last
an officer named Cnæus Hosidius Geta, a kind of Roman paladin who had
before this done knightly deeds in fighting against the Moors, almost
single-handed and at the imminent risk of capture, achieved a victory
which compelled them to retire, and for which he received the honours
of a triumph.
Hereupon the Britons withdrew behind the Thames, at that time and place
a broad and shallow stream flowing wide over the marshes of Essex.
The barbarians knew well its deeps and its shallows, and could find
their way across it in safety. Not so the Romans, who suffered severe
loss in attempting to follow them. As a mere question of strategy
Plautius could probably have marched up the stream and crossed it at
some narrower part of its course. He determined, however, to reserve
this achievement for the emperor who had apparently already arranged
to visit Britain and pluck the laurels planted for him by his general.
Claudius prepared reinforcements, including, we are told, a number
of elephants (not very serviceable, one would have thought, in the
Essex marshes), sailed from his own port of Ostia to Marseilles,
then travelled, chiefly by water, up and down the great rivers of
Gaul, arrived at the camp of Plautius, crossed the Thames, the proper
appliances having no doubt been prepared by the loyal general, and then
marched on Camulodunum, which he took, making the palace of Cunobelinus
his own. The fall of the powerful kingdom of the Catuvellauni brought
with it the submission, voluntary or forced, of many neighbouring
tribes.
Claudius was saluted not once but many times as Imperator by his
soldiers, and returning to Rome after a six months’ absence he was
hailed by the Senate with the appellation of Britannicus, an honour
which was also bestowed on his six-year-old son. He rode in his
triumphal chariot up to the capitol, and he erected some years later in
honour of this conquest a triumphal arch which spanned the Via Lata
(now the Corso), and which was still standing almost perfect till the
seventeenth century, when it was destroyed (1662) by Pope Alexander
VII. Some fine sculptured slabs from this arch are still preserved in
the Villa Borghese at Rome, along with fragments of an inscription
which record that “Tiberius Claudius Augustus, Germanicus and Pious,
tamed the Kings of Britain without any loss [to the republic], and was
the first to bring her barbarous races under the control of Rome”.
* * * * *
The capture of Camulodunum involved the downfall of the house of
Cymbeline, and the acceptance, at any rate the temporary acceptance,
of Roman domination in all the south-eastern part of Britain. While
Caratacus escaped to South Wales and there organised a desperate
resistance to the Roman arms among the Silures, most of the smaller
British chieftains seem to have bowed their necks beneath the yoke. An
inscribed stone still standing in Goodwood Park, but originally found
at Chichester, seems to record the building of a temple to Neptune and
Minerva for the safety of the imperial house, at the command of King
Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus, “legate of Augustus in Britain”. This
inscription is an interesting confirmation of the statement made by
Tacitus that “certain cities were handed over to King Cogidubnus who
remained till our own day most faithful to the emperor, according to
the old and long-established custom of the Roman people to make even
kings the instruments of their dominion”.[9]
It was probably about the same time that Prasutagus, King of the Iceni,
who inhabited Norfolk, Suffolk and a part of Cambridgeshire, became
a subject ally of Rome. Farther south the invaders were making less
peaceful progress, if it be true, as we are told by the biographer
of the future Emperor Vespasian, that he in these early years of the
conquest “fought thirty battles as commander of the Second legion,
subdued two powerful nations, took more than twenty towns and brought
into subjection the Isle of Wight”. We learn from another source
that he was once, when surrounded by the barbarians and in imminent
peril of his life, rescued by his brave son Titus, and further that
it was the elder soldier’s distinguished successes in this British
war which won him the favour of the Roman people, and led to his
being eventually clad in the imperial purple. An interesting evidence
of the rapid development of this first act of the Roman conquest is
afforded by the fact that a pig of lead mined in the Mendip Hills has
been discovered, bearing the name of Claudius and his son with a date
equivalent to A.D. 49, only six years after the landing of the legions.
In the year 47, Aulus Plautius left Britain to receive the honour of
an ovation, then almost exclusively reserved for the imperial family,
and to find his wife Pomponia (a woman of gentle nature but touched
with sadness) tending towards “a foreign religion” which, there is
good reason to believe, was none other than Christianity. He probably
left the frontier of the Roman dominion nearly coincident with a line
drawn diagonally from the Bristol Channel to the Wash, though outlying
districts like Cornwall and Devonshire were not yet assimilated by the
new lords of Britain. But even so the fairest and most fertile half of
Brythonic Britain was now apparently won for the empire.
To the new Roman _legatus_, Ostorius Scapula, fell the hard labour of
fighting the Goidelic nation of the Silures who occupied the hills
and valleys of South Wales and were nerved to desperate resistance by
the counsels of their willingly adopted leader Caratacus. Wales must
therefore undoubtedly have been the main objective of the general, but
meanwhile even the part of the country already conquered was not too
secure. The lands of the friendly tribes were being overrun by the
still unsubdued Britons beyond the border, who thought that winter
and the change of commander would both be in their favour. Ostorius,
who knew the importance of first impressions, hurriedly collected a
sufficient number of troops to repel and harass these marauders, but
the stern measures which he took for the defence of the line between
Severn and Trent so angered the Iceni (proud of their unconquered
condition, “the allies not the subjects” of Rome) that they took up
arms, gathered round them a confederacy of the neighbouring tribes
and drew themselves up in battle array in a position difficult of
access and protected by an embankment, probably of turf. Without
much difficulty, Ostorius stormed this rude fort, using only the
irregular allied troops and without moving the legions from their
quarters. As these irregulars were mostly cavalry and the Icenian
camp was impervious to horsemen, the riders had to fight on foot,
but nevertheless they won. Deeds of great valour were performed on
both sides, and the son of Ostorius won the civic crown for saving
the life of a Roman citizen. With the Iceni forced back into sullen
tranquillity, and with the wavering tribes round them now siding
with the victors, Ostorius was free to turn his attention to the
difficult problem of Wales. He led his army into the territory of the
Decangi,[10] who probably inhabited what is now Flintshire; he ravaged
their fields; he gazed on the sea which separated him from Ireland; he
would perhaps have anticipated the conquest of Anglesey had not some
hostile movements among the Brigantes of Yorkshire, threatening his
communications with the Midlands, warned him against a further advance.
When the Brigantes were chastised and in a manner reconciled, he turned
again to the work which he probably ought never to have delayed--the
vanquishing of the Silures.
This war against the Silures evidently occupied many years, and it
is almost admitted by the Roman historian that Caratacus won many
victories. Gliding rapidly, however, over this unpleasant interval,
Tacitus brings us to the final battle--decisive so far as Caratacus
was concerned--which, as a result of the strategy of Caratacus, was
fought not in the territory of the Silures but in that of their
northern neighbours the Ordovices. On the border of three counties,
Shropshire, Hereford and Radnor, is the district in which tradition or
the conjecture of learned men has placed the battlefield. High up soars
Caer Caradoc, commanding a splendid view of the distant Wrekin. Not far
off are the strongly marked lines of Brandon Camp (possibly the work of
the soldiers of Ostorius); the quiet little village of Leintwardine,
encircled by the rapid waters of the Teme, sleeps at the foot of hills,
any one of which may have been the chosen position of the British king.
Tacitus describes to us the way in which that position, already strong
by the steepness of the hill and the treacherous deeps and shallows
of the river, was further strengthened by a barrier of stones where
approach seemed least difficult. Caratacus flew from rank to rank,
exhorting his countrymen, descendants of the men who had repulsed the
great Julius, to do their utmost on that eventful day which would
decide their freedom or their slavery for ever. Ostorius, on the other
hand, awed by the strength of the British position, was almost inclined
to evade the encounter, but the legionaries loudly demanded battle and
the officers backed their ardent entreaties. Ostorius thereupon moved
forward and crossed the river without great difficulty. At the stone
wall matters for a time went ill with the Romans and death was busy in
their ranks, but after they had formed a _testudo_, with their locked
shields held on high, they succeeded under its shelter in pulling out
the stones of the roughly compacted wall. Once inside the camp, the
well-drilled ranks of the Romans soon pierced the disorderly crowd
of the barbarians, who had neither helmet nor breastplate to protect
them from the sword and the _pilum_ of the legionary, from the rapier
and the spear of the auxiliary cohorts. The victory was a brilliant
one, and though Caratacus himself escaped, his wife, his daughter and
his brethren fell into the hands of the Romans. The liberty of the
fugitive prince was of short duration. Having escaped to the court of
Cartimandua, Queen of the Brigantes, he was by her basely surrendered,
in chains, to the victorious general. This event which may possibly
have taken place some time after the battle, happened, as Tacitus
remarks, in the ninth year after the commencement of the British
war. This probably means A.D. 51 or 52, the same year in which the
inscription was engraved on the triumphal arch of Claudius.
The exhibition of the captive British king who had for so many years
defied the power of Rome, was made the occasion of a splendid Roman
holiday. The prætorian cohorts were drawn up in the meadows outside
their camp (near where now stands the Villa Torlonia), and through
the lane formed by their glittering spears passed first the train of
the followers of Caratacus, bearing the golden torques, the embossed
breastplates and other ornaments which he himself had won in former
wars from vanquished kings, then his brothers, his wife and his
daughter, and last of all Caratacus himself. He did not crouch or fawn,
but looked boldly in the emperor’s face, and (if the speech recorded
by Tacitus be not a mere rhetorical exercise) with quiet dignity
reminded his conqueror that but for adverse fortune he might have
entered Rome in very different guise as an ally, not as a captive.
“I had horses, men, arms, wealth. Do you wonder that I was reluctant
to lose them? If you wish to lord it over all the world, must others
at once accept slavery? Slay me if you will, and I shall soon be
forgotten. Preserve my life and I shall be an eternal memorial of your
clemency.” The courageous and manly address touched the not ignoble
nature of Claudius, who granted pardon to the British king and all his
family. He was required, however, to offer thanks for his preservation
to the emperor’s wife, Agrippina, mother of Nero, who sat haughtily
on a tribunal of her own, not far from that of her husband: “a new
and strange sight,” says Tacitus, for Roman soldiers to behold. Far
better known than the speech thus recorded by Tacitus is the remark
of the British king, preserved by the Greek historian Dion. After his
liberation, when he was taken round through the streets of Rome, and
saw all the wonders of the city, he said: “And yet you who possess all
these things, and many others like them, actually covet the shanties
of Britain”. With the capture and pardon of Caratacus, the house of
Cymbeline disappears from history. It is implied that he and his family
spent the rest of their days in Italy.
* * * * *
For the next seven years (A.D. 52–59), under Didius Gallus and
Veranius, the history of Roman conquest was void of striking events.
Didius was elderly and disinclined to risk his already great reputation
by distant operations against the natives. Veranius, who was probably
younger, certainly more adventurous, promised his master Nero (who
succeeded Claudius in 54) that in two years the province should be at
his feet, but died in his first year of office, with his high hopes
unrealised. However, these two governors had apparently succeeded in
pushing the Roman frontier northward as far as Chester and Lincoln:
they had checked, though not subdued, the Silures, and had rescued
their ally Cartimandua from the perilous position in which she had
been placed by her indignant subjects, as a punishment for summarily
dismissing her husband and handing herself over to his armour-bearer.
Probably these seven years of rest were really useful to the cause
of the empire. The more civilised tribes in the south and east were
adopting Roman ways, and some of them, at any rate, were growing fat on
Roman commerce, and if the subordinate officials of the empire would
have used their power with moderation Britain might have become Roman
without more blood-spilling. Unfortunately, these conditions were not
observed, and a day of vengeance was at hand.
In the year 59 Suetonius Paulinus, one of the two greatest generals
that obeyed the orders of Nero (Corbulo, conqueror of Armenia, being
the other), was appointed _legatus_ of Britain, and began his short but
memorable career. Believing that he had a tranquil and easily governed
province behind him, and desiring to rival the fame of Corbulo, he
determined to attempt the conquest of Anglesey, which was invested
with a mysterious awe as the high place of Druidism. After all, the
difficulties of the enterprise were spiritual rather than material. A
flotilla of flat-bottomed boats transported the legionaries across the
Menai Straits; of the cavalry some swam, and some, we are told, forded
the channel. But there on the other side stood not only a dense mass of
armed men, but women, dressed like Furies with their hair hanging down
and with lighted torches in their hands, were rushing about through
the ranks, and Druid priests, with their hands upraised to Heaven, in
terrible voices called down vengeance on the foe. At the unaccustomed
sight the awed legionaries hung back; then the cheering speech of the
general and their own reflection--“We must never let ourselves be
frightened by a parcel of women and priests”--revived their fainting
courage. They carried the eagles forward, hewed down the armed Britons,
and used the terrible torches to burn the hostile camp. A fort and
garrison were placed in the island in order to maintain the conquest,
and the woods in which human sacrifices had been offered and cruel
auguries practised with the bleeding limbs of men, were by Roman axes
cleared from the face of the earth.
All seemed going splendidly for Roman dominion in Britain when a
breathless messenger brought to the tent of Suetonius (A.D. 60)[11] a
tale not unlike that with which we were thrilled half a century ago at
the outbreak of the Indian mutiny. The outburst of the flame of British
discontent was in the country of the Iceni, and the exciting cause was
the shameless and heartless greed of the Roman officials. The capital
of the new province at this time seems to have been Cymbeline’s old
city, Camulodunum (the modern Colchester), which had been turned into
a Roman colony, a place in which the time-expired veterans might spend
their old age, surrounded by their families, and lording it with no
gentle mastership over their British slaves. High in this town, which
took its name from Camulus, the Celtic war-god, rose the great temple
dedicated to Claudius and Rome, a temple which was almost a fortress;
but the town itself was surrounded by no walls, a piece of improvidence
for which Tacitus justly blames the generals, who were thinking more
of pleasurable ease than of military utility. In the chief house of
the colony resided Catus Decianus, the _procurator_, who represented
the emperor in all civil and financial matters, as Suetonius, the
_legatus_, represented him in military affairs. Of all the grasping
and unjust officials who made the name of the empire hated, this Catus
seems to have been one of the worst. While oppressing the peasants by
rigorous exaction of tribute, he demanded from the chiefs the return
of the property (probably the result of confiscations from their own
fellow-countrymen) which Claudius had bestowed upon them, saying that
gifts such as this, of course, reverted to the giver. The financial
distress of the unhappy province was aggravated, according to Dion, by
the selfish timidity of the philosopher Seneca, Nero’s minister, who
chose this opportunity suddenly and harshly to call in loans to the
amount of 10,000,000 sesterces (about £90,000 sterling), which he had
lent at usurious rates of interest to the natives or the settlers in
Britain.
Thus all was ready in Essex for revolt, when Norfolk and Suffolk, the
country of the Iceni, were the scenes of outrages which set fire to the
gathered fuel. King Prasutagus, the old and apparently loyal ally of
Rome, who had long been famous for his wealth, died leaving the emperor
and his own two daughters his joint heirs. There were old examples of
this testamentary liberality in Roman history, both Pergamum and Cyprus
having been bequeathed by their kings to the Roman people. Prasutagus
hoped, we are told, by this display of confidence in the honour of the
emperor that he would, at least, safeguard his kingdom and his family
from violence. Bitterly was this hope disappointed. At the bidding of
the _legatus_, centurions tramped across his kingdom; at the bidding
of the procurator, clerks of servile condition swept bare the palace
of its treasures, just as if all had been lawful prize of war. Nor did
they even stop there. With incredible stupidity, as well as wickedness,
the governor ordered or permitted the widow of Prasutagus, herself
daughter as well as spouse of kings, to be beaten with rods, and gave
over her two daughters to be violated. The chiefs of the Icenian nation
were banished from their ancestral homes, and the kinsmen of the royal
family were treated as slaves. At this all the manhood of the nation
rose in rebellion; the widowed queen, who is known to posterity as
Boadicea,[12] put herself at the head of the maddened confederates (for
the Iceni were at once joined by the Trinobantes, possibly also by some
of the other neighbouring tribes), and the numbers of the insurgent
army are said to have reached 120,000.
Of the long harangue which Dion represents Boadicea as having
delivered to her army “from a tribunal made after the Roman fashion
of peat-turves,” it is not necessary to quote anything here, as it
is obviously but a literary exercise by a Greek rhetorician. The
most interesting things which it contains are the description of the
grievances endured under the Roman rule, as the rhetorician imagines
her to have painted them, and her invocation of the Celtic goddess,
Andraste,[13] whom she seems to invoke as the special protectress
of her nation. The description which the same author gives of the
appearance of the warrior-queen is life-like, and we must hope that it
is trustworthy. “Tall in stature, hard-visaged and with fiercest eye:
with a rough voice: with an abundance of bright yellow hair reaching
down to her girdle: wearing a great collar of gold: with a tunic of
divers colours drawn close round her bosom and a thick mantle over it,
fastened with a clasp. So she was always dressed, but now she bore a
lance in her hand to make her harangue more terrible.”
The first onset of the barbarian army was directed against the hated
colony, and thus there were soon a hundred thousand or more enraged
Britons howling round, not the walls, but the unwalled enclosure of
Camulodunum. Help for the defenceless city there was none or next to
none. The four brave legions were far away: one in quarters at Caerleon
upon Usk, two fighting with Druids in Anglesey or quartered at Chester,
one, the nearest, at Lincoln. The greedy procurator, Catus, when
appealed to for help, sent two hundred imperfectly armed soldiers to
reinforce the scanty garrison, and then began to arrange for his own
speedy flight to Gaul. Within the city there were treachery and the
paralysis of despair. No ditch was dug nor even the hastiest rampart
reared: the non-combatants, the old men and the women, were not sent
away; as passive as if in profound peace they awaited the approach of
the multitude of the barbarians. The city was stormed at once: the
great temple-citadel, in which the few soldiers were collected, stood a
two days’ siege and then likewise fell. Both here and in the two Roman
cities which were yet to fall, indescribable horrors of murder, rape,
ghastly and insulting mutilations are reported to have been practised
by the barbarians. The Ninth legion under its commander (Petillius
Cerialis), marching southward to the rescue, was met by the exultant
conquerors, routed and almost destroyed. All the foot soldiers perished
in the battlefield or in the flight; only Cerialis himself with his
cavalry escaped to his former camp and was sheltered behind its
fortifications.
Some part of these dismal tidings must have been brought to Suetonius
on the shore of the Menai Straits. “With marvellous constancy,” says
Tacitus, “he marched through the midst of enemies to Londinium, a place
which is not indeed dignified with the name of colony, but which is
greatly celebrated for the number of its merchants and the abundance of
its supplies.” This is the first mention of London in history. At this
time it had not apparently attained anything like the dimensions of
which even Roman London could boast in later times. It formed an oblong
which measured probably about 800 yards from east to west and 500 from
north to south, and covered a little more than 600 acres. The northern
boundary was almost certainly the line of Cheapside and Cornhill, the
southern that of Upper and Lower Thames Street. The eastern and western
frontiers of the city are still obscure, but it is generally admitted
that neither St. Paul’s on the west nor the Tower on the east would
have been included within it. Such was the little busy city which
Suetonius reached at the end of his daring march. He heard there, if
he had not heard before, the terrible news of the loss of the Ninth
legion. He probably also learned at the same time that the officer in
charge of the Second legion, daring to disobey his general’s orders,
was lingering at Caerleon, instead of marching to join him in the
defence of the eastern portion of the province. The double ill-tidings
upset all his plans for the defence of London. His army, which
consisted of the Fourteenth legion and a detachment of the Twentieth,
amounted only to about 10,000 men; provisions were running short, and
the perpetual raids of the enemy made foraging difficult. It was too
late to save Verulam, once a British capital, now a Roman _municipium_,
which Boadicea had taken and where the bloody scenes of Camulodunum
had been only too faithfully repeated. Now, with a heavy heart,
notwithstanding the prayers and the tears of the citizens, Suetonius
decided that London also must be left to its fate; by the loss of that
one city all the rest of the province might haply be saved. Only this
much he could grant, that those of the male inhabitants who could march
with his troops might do so. Those whom the weakness of their sex or
the weariness of age, or even their attachment to their homes, retained
in the city were left, and were soon massacred by the barbarians, who
took no captives and had no desire for ransoms, feeling that now was
their day of vengeance, and foreboding that that day would be short.
The Roman historians compute the loss of life in the three cities at
70,000 persons, by no means all Romans, but including many of British,
perhaps also of Gaulish extraction, who in the years of peace had
become peaceable and trade-loving subjects of the empire.
The movements of Suetonius, after he had decided to abandon Londinium
to its fate, are not clearly indicated by Tacitus, but it seems
probable that he retraced his steps northward in order to effect a
junction with the troops which he had left at Chester and with the
wreck of the Ninth legion still bravely defending itself at Lincoln.
Boadicea with her vast horde of exultant Britons was probably hanging
on his rear. Battle was inevitable, but the Roman general had some
power of choosing the ground, and he chose it in a place protected on
each side by the steep hills of a narrow defile and on the rear by a
forest. The enemy could only move towards him across the open plain
in front and there could be no lurking in ambush. The line was not too
long to prevent the legionary soldiers from being drawn up in close
ranks; on each side of them were the more lightly armed cohorts of the
allies, and the cavalry were massed upon the wings. In great disorderly
squadrons the Britons prepared to charge, full of fierce exultation at
their past successes and so certain of their impending triumph that
they had brought their wives, in waggons drawn up at the farther side
of the plain, to behold their victory.
The barbarians came on with loud clamour and menacing war-songs; the
Romans awaited them in silence and perfect order till they were within
reach of a javelin’s throw. Then at the signal given, raising the
battle-cry, they hurled the _pilum_ and rushed at the double against
the slow-marching barbarians, broke their ranks, and pierced through
the dense mass like a wedge. After a desperate hand-to-hand struggle,
the barbarians, whose lack of defensive armour had caused them to
suffer terribly from the arrows and the _pila_ of the Romans, fled in
disorder before them. The fugitives reached and were stopped by the
waggons. The pursuers, maddened probably by the remembrance of the
horrors of the sack of the three Roman cities, hewed down not only the
fugitive combatants but the women, and even the horses that drew the
chariots. So the victory was won. The Romans admitted a loss of some
800 killed and wounded, and claimed to have slaughtered a little less
than 80,000 Britons. The apparent accuracy of these words, “a little
less,” need not deceive us as to the general untrustworthiness of such
estimates as these, but the victory was undoubtedly decisive, and, as
such things are reckoned, glorious. Boadicea is said by Tacitus to have
ended her life by poison. Dion Cassius, with less probability, says
that she died of disease.
Far away in Monmouthshire there was another suicide, the result of
this great encounter. “Poenius Postumus, prefect of the camp of the
Second legion” (who had presumably held the command in the temporary
absence of the _legatus_), “when he heard how well things had gone with
the Fourteenth and the Twentieth, enraged with himself because he had
cheated his own legion of like glory, and had, contrary to military
rule, disobeyed the orders of his superior, pierced himself through
with his own sword.” Possibly he was neither a coward nor a mutineer,
but a man suddenly called to assume a crushing load of responsibility
in a terrible crisis, who had failed to read aright the signs of the
times. The Fourteenth legion, which had borne the greatest part of the
work in the suppression of the rebellion, was called, when its officers
would stimulate its military pride, the “Tamers of Britain” (_Domitores
Britanniæ_). The renown which it had acquired caused its services to
be eagerly sought for in the great game of Cæsar-making which followed
upon the death of Nero. It was transferred to Belgic Gaul in A.D. 70,
helped to quell the insurrection of Civilis, and never afterwards
returned to Britain.
The tenure of office by Suetonius Paulinus was a very short one. He had
indeed shown himself
A daring pilot in extremity;
but Nero, who with all his viciousness was not destitute of
statesmanlike ability, probably considered that the pilot ought not to
have taken his ship into such dangerous channels. After replacing the
losses of the Ninth legion by the transfer of some 7,000 soldiers from
Germany, the emperor sent a certain Julius Classicianus as successor to
the detested _procurator_ Catus. Suetonius seems to have been in favour
of stern repression, laying waste with fire and sword the territories
of all the tribes of doubtful loyalty. Classicianus, on the other hand,
held that the real foe that had now to be fought was famine, especially
since the insurgents, intent on the plunder of the Roman warehouses,
had neglected the sowing of their spring corn. Differences soon arose
between the merciful _procurator_ and the stern _legatus_. To settle
the quarrel Nero sent one of his freedmen, named Polyclitus, who
travelled with great pomp and a long train of attendants, burdensome
to the provinces through which he passed, but calculated to impress
the Roman soldiery with a sense of his importance. The barbarians, on
the other hand, who had heard from what a low and servile condition
Polyclitus had risen, marvelled that so great a general and so brave an
army should tamely submit to the arbitrament of a slave. They profited,
however, by that docility; for Polyclitus, though, as his after career
showed, not averse from plundering on his own account, made a report to
the emperor in favour of the lenient policy of the _procurator_, and
Suetonius, after an eventful lieutenancy of not more than two years,
was recalled to Rome (A.D. 61).
In the ten years that followed the recall of Suetonius (A.D. 61–71),
years which witnessed the downfall of Nero and the terrible civil war
which shook the empire after his death, no great commotion disturbed
the much-needed repose of the exhausted province. In the career of
Trebellius Maximus, the governor who held nominal power for the greater
part of this time, we have a typical instance of the bickerings,
sometimes between the civil and military authorities, sometimes, as in
this case, between the chief _legatus_ and his military subordinates,
which varied the monotony of existence in a conquered province. Tacitus
tells us that Trebellius, who was an indolent man, with no experience
of camp life, endeavoured to hold the province by mere good nature; a
policy not altogether impracticable, because the barbarians had now
begun to look more favourably on the pleasant vices of civilisation.
The army, however, despised and hated the governor for his avarice and
meanness, and their discontent was fomented and forcibly expressed by
Roscius Coelius, the _legatus_ of the Twentieth legion. “It is your
fault,” said the governor to him, “that discipline is relaxed and the
troops are on the verge of mutiny.” “It is yours,” replied Coelius,
“that the soldiers are kept poor and defrauded of their pay.” Soon
not the legionaries only, but the humbler auxiliaries, dared to hurl
their taunts at the governor, who, at last alarmed for his safety, fled
to some obscure hiding-place. Drawn out from thence, he prolonged,
apparently for a little while, the precarious tenure of his rule; the
implied bargain between him and the army being: “To you licence to
do as you please; to me unthreatened life”. Then the situation again
became desperate. The miserable Trebellius escaped to Germany, took
refuge in the camp of the insurgent Emperor Vitellius, did not share
his transient success, and never returned to Britain.
When the civil war was ended by the triumph of the strong, sensible,
common-place emperor Vespasian, a new impulse was given to Roman
conquest in Britain. Petillius Cerialis, a near relative of the new
emperor, a capable if somewhat rash soldier, the same who, at the
head of the Ninth legion, had vainly sought to stem the torrent
of Boadicea’s rebellion, held office for four years (A.D. 71–75),
during which time he humbled and perhaps subdued the Brigantes,
who ever since Cartimandua’s marital troubles had been more or less
at enmity with the empire. This conquest, if really made at this
time, involved the addition of Yorkshire to the empire, perhaps the
foundation of Eburacum (York), once the capital of Roman Britain.
Julius Frontinus (A.D. 75–78) followed Cerialis, and completed the
long-delayed subjugation of the Silures in South Wales, who at this
time, twenty-four years after Caratacus had been led in triumph through
the streets of Rome, were still unreconciled to the Roman dominion. An
interesting point in connexion with the name of Julius Frontinus is
the fact that nearly twenty years after his return from Britain (A.D.
97) he was appointed by the Emperor Nerva _Curator Aquarum_, and in
that capacity, though he was already advanced in years, carried great
reforms and corrected many abuses which had grown up in connexion with
the water-supply of the Eternal City. His treatise on the subject
is still the source from which we derive almost all our information
concerning the splendid aqueducts of Rome.
In the year 78, the Emperor Vespasian appointed as his _legatus_ the
most celebrated and probably the greatest of the governors of Britain,
Gnæus Julius Agricola. Verging as he was upon his fortieth year he was
in the very prime of his matured and disciplined strength. He knew
Britain well, having served when quite a young man as tribune (a rank
nearly corresponding to our lieutenant) under Suetonius Paulinus,
and having probably heard the clamour of the barbarian multitude who
crowded round the chariot of Boadicea. Again, ten years later, he
had been sent over to Britain to confirm the doubtful loyalty of the
Twentieth legion. Since then he had been governor of the important
province of Aquitaine, afterwards consul, and he was actually holding
the distinguished and well-paid office of Pontifex Maximus when he
was appointed to the British command. What was more important for his
future fame and for our knowledge of the history of Britain, he had
given his daughter in marriage to that master of grave historic style,
shot with indignant epigram, Cornelius Tacitus. When the new governor
landed in Britain, both soldiers and natives thought that, the summer
being now nearly ended, there would be no more fighting that year.
Not so, decided Agricola. The Ordovices, dwellers in North Wales, had
lately almost destroyed an _ala_ (squadron) of cavalry stationed
within their borders. This insolence, it was felt, must be chastised,
and the might of Rome speedily displayed by the new _legatus_, who at
once marched against them with a moderate force of legionaries and
allies. The Ordovices refused to descend into the plain and fight there
on equal terms. Agricola having climbed the hills of Denbighshire at
the head of his troops, defeated and all but destroyed that clan of
mountaineers. He looked westwards to the sacred Isle of Anglesey,
once conquered by his old general Suetonius, but almost immediately
abandoned on account of the terrible tidings from Camulodunum. He
had no ships in which to cross the Menai Straits, but he had among
his auxiliary troops men, probably from the mouths of the Rhine and
the Waal, expert swimmers and skilled in finding possible fords, and
these men laying aside the cumbrous loads which the Roman soldier was
accustomed to carry, dashed into the stream, appeared on the shore
of Mona and received the submission of the surprised and terrified
islanders, who thought that till ships appeared in the straits they at
least were safe from conquest. Having thus displayed his power, the
governor now set himself to win the hearts of the natives by reforms
in the administration, especially the financial administration, and
redress of grievances. The burdens which rested upon the provincials
of Britain were of two kinds, the _tributum_ and the _annona_: the
former a payment in money which was, it may be presumed, remitted by
the revenue officers direct to Rome; the latter a payment in kind of
the various stores needed for the sustenance of the army--fodder, lard,
fish, firewood, but pre-eminently corn; and these things would of
course not be sent out of the country but consumed in the various camps
and cities where the soldiers were quartered. There was some good work
to be done by Agricola in equalising the assessments to _tributum_,
or rendering them proportionate to the ability of the British town or
village responsible for its payment. But the chief abuses seem to have
arisen in connexion with the _annona_. Fraudulent revenue officers
would probably contract for the harvest on low terms before it was
reaped, would gather it into the granaries, close the doors and laugh
in the faces of the unhappy natives who were ordered to furnish so
many bushels of corn and could only comply with the order by buying it
from them at their own extortionate price. Then they would purposely
fix the place where the _annona_ had to be delivered, as far off as
possible, in districts traversed by the poorest of roads. All these
various abuses were, we are told, at once removed or greatly mitigated
by the firm hand of Agricola.
It was not enough to remove causes of complaint. He would also win
over the natives to positive affection for the Roman rule. He was
constantly urging all the wealthier Britons to come into the towns and
to take part in building operations. Everywhere temples, market-places,
well-built houses were rising, reared by British natives, and pledges
for their future loyalty. He gathered round him the sons of the chiefs,
had them instructed in liberal arts, praised their aptness to learn
at the expense of their Gaulish contemporaries, listened before long
to eloquent declamations, delivered, of course, in the Latin tongue,
by young Britons, gracefully clad in the Roman toga. The bath and the
luxurious banquet offered their attractions not in vain to the late
hunter of the forests, and as Tacitus sarcastically observes “the
simple folk called that civilisation (_humanitas_) which was really the
beginning of slavery”.
The summer of A.D. 79, the second year of Agricola’s command, seems
to have been chiefly occupied in measures for completing the military
occupation of the recently conquered territory, that is, probably,
Yorkshire, Lancashire and Northumberland, the country of the Brigantes.
“He himself chose the site of the camps; he himself reconnoitred the
forests and the estuaries” (probably of the Tees, the Wear and the
Tyne, and perhaps also Solway Firth), “and meanwhile he gave the enemy
no rest, but was for ever harassing them by sudden excursions, and when
he had terrified them sufficiently, then by holding his hand he gave
them an inducement to desire peace. In consequence hereof many native
states which up to that time had treated the empire on a footing of
equality now gave hostages and laid aside their animosity. They found
themselves surrounded with forts and garrisons, and all was done with
so much science and system as had never before been applied to any
newly conquered part of Britain.” It is possible that Eburacum, which
at this time, or very soon after, became the headquarters of the Ninth
legion, was one of the strong places thus founded or fortified by
Agricola.
The record of the year 80, the third year of Agricola’s command, is
one of the most interesting to all north-country Englishmen, but it is
unfortunately also one of the most obscure. It will be well to quote
the words of Tacitus as they stand, without attempting conjectural
amplification. “The third year of expeditions opened up to us new
tribes, all the nations up to the estuary called Tanaus having their
lands laid waste. The enemy cowed by these operations did not dare to
harass the army, though it was buffeted by fierce tempests, and thus
a respite was afforded which was employed in building more forts.
It was observed by military experts that no general ever showed
greater ability in his choice of suitable sites for such defences.
No fort founded by Agricola was ever stormed by hostile violence,
or surrendered, or abandoned by its fugitive garrison: yet frequent
sallies were made from them, for they were fortified against a tedious
siege by a yearly renewed stock of provisions. This gave the defenders
courage for the winter; each garrison relied on itself for its safety,
and the enemy were driven to despair by the uselessness of their
attacks. For aforetime they had been wont to recoup themselves for the
losses of the summer by the successes of winter, but now they found
themselves repelled in both seasons alike.” We have here evidently to
deal with an extensive system of fortification; but we are provoked by
being unable precisely to identify the region in which it took place.
What is the meaning of the estuary called Tanaus “up to which Agricola
ravaged the land”? It is certainly not the Tay (which was indicated
by the corrupt reading Taum); it may be the Firth of Forth; only that
estuary is immediately after called Bodotria. The little Scottish river
Tyne near North Berwick has a kind of estuary, and Mommsen’s conjecture
that this is the Tanaus of Tacitus would have much probability, were
it not so near to the far mightier estuary of the Forth that it is
difficult to imagine any one choosing it as a landmark. The better
known Tyne of Newcastle would be clearly the strongest claimant if the
course of the narrative did not seem to have already carried us to the
north of it. No piece of water would meet the geographical condition
better than the splendid estuary of the Tweed, so well fitted by
nature for a limitary stream, but no other passage of any author has
been found in which any name resembling Tanaus has been applied to
that river. In the next year (A.D. 81) Agricola undoubtedly reached
and fortified the narrow neck of land between Clyde and Forth (Clota
and Bodotria); but the point practically at issue is this: “May we
understand that we have in this passage of Tacitus a description of
the building by Agricola of some at least of the forts between Tyne
and Solway on the line which was afterwards marked by the Roman wall?”
It has been often suggested, and in the opinion of the present writer
with some probability, that we may. In that case great additional
interest attaches to Chesters, Housesteads and others of the ruined
Roman stations in Northumberland, when we think that they may have been
planned by the exceptional military genius of Agricola.
With the three remaining campaigns of this general (A.D. 82–84) we
have no special concern, as they were all fought beyond the limits of
England. We must not follow him as he cruises about the Kyles of Bute
and the Mull of Cantire, gazes across to Ireland (an island, Tacitus
thinks, with better harbours and more frequented by merchants than
England), nor discuss his opinion, often expressed to his son-in-law,
that with one legion and a moderate supply of auxiliaries he could
have added Hibernia to the empire. Nor must we linger over Tacitus’
celebrated description of the great fight on the Mons Graupius,[14]
and the spirited war-speech of the Caledonian hero Galgacus, which
according to Tacitus preceded the encounter. Almost immediately after
this victory--perhaps more dearly bought and less decisive than would
appear on the surface of the Tacitean narrative--Agricola, whose term
of command was already of exceptional length, was recalled to Rome.
The Emperor Domitian’s jealousy of a soldier whose admiring legions
might insist on proclaiming him as a candidate for the empire, may have
been, as Tacitus suggests, the sole reason for his recall; but nearer
danger was also threatening Rome from the region of the Danube, and,
as Mommsen has pointed out, one of the British legions was actually
recalled for service in Pannonia. True statesmanship as well as mean
personal jealousy may have prompted the recall of so adventurous a
general from the scene of his triumphs. Agricola made no attempt to
resist his supersession, but returned to Rome, lived there as a private
but harassed citizen, declining the governorship of Syria (which was
offered to him with a hint that it would be dangerous to accept it),
and died at Rome in the fifty-fourth year of his age on August 23, A.D.
93. The suggestions of foul play and of poison stealthily administered
by order of Domitian are mentioned, but hardly endorsed, even by the
suspicious pen of his son-in-law. That son-in-law was absent from Rome
at the time of his death, but describes the deathbed scene from the
reports of the bystanders; and his farewell to the departed spirit of
the beloved one, the celebrated peroration of the Life of Agricola, is
one of the most beautiful things in Roman literature.
CHAPTER V.
THE ROMAN OCCUPATION.
With the departure of Agricola the literary history of Roman Britain
comes to an end. For three centuries longer the legions were to remain
in our island, and the buildings which they reared, the altars which
they inscribed, the roads which they constructed, tell us something of
the life which they led during that long space of time, as long as the
whole period that has elapsed from Elizabeth’s days to ours. Archæology
has much to tell us concerning it, but history is almost altogether
silent. A few sections of Dion Cassius, some confused notices in
the _Historia Augusta_, a page or two of Ammianus Marcellinus, are
practically all that is left to us of the written history of our
country from Agricola to Stilicho. We need not here discuss the causes
of a silence so tantalising and so irremediable; how far it may have
sprung from Roman contempt of a distant and mist-enveloped island, how
far from a decay of courage and hopefulness in the Romans themselves,
symptoms of the impending ruin of their empire; it is enough that the
pages are for us left blank and can now never be filled.
The greatest monument of Roman power in Britain and that which has
yielded the most fruitful results to archæology is the Roman Wall
between the two estuaries of Tyne and Solway. Almost all that we know
of Roman life in Britain during the second century centres round
this one great work. Towards the end of the first century a change
took place in the organisation of the defence of the empire on the
frontiers. Hitherto the republic, and after it the empire, had been
satisfied to keep a strong body of troops in all the imperfectly
conquered provinces, and to plant well-garrisoned castles near the
river or the range of mountains on the other side of which were the
barbarians of Europe or Africa, or the hostile monarchies of Asia. Soon
after the death of Nero a different system was adopted, involving the
formation of a definitely marked boundary which when not protected by
very strong natural barriers was guarded by an actual wall of stone
or earth upon which the garrisoned fortresses were strung, like beads
on a chain. Not only in Britain are traces of these limiting walls
to be found, but also in Germany, between the Lower Rhine and the
Danube, and in the Dobrudscha on the western shore of the Black Sea:
and there is reason to believe that a similar wall of defence shut out
the barbarians of Mount Aures who threatened the provincials of Roman
Africa.
“The real authors of the frontier system were the Flavian and Antonine
Emperors, and the period extending from the accession of Vespasian to
the death of Marcus Aurelius, or, roughly, from 70 A.D. to 180 A.D.,
witnessed its complete organisation. The interest of these emperors in
the matter was no doubt quickened by the growing anxiety, an anxiety
unknown to the Augustan age, but perceptible in Tacitus, as to the
increasing pressure from without upon the empire.... It is well for
students of the British frontier to remember that the emperor with
whose name the organisation of the imperial frontier system is most
closely connected is Hadrian.”[15]
There has been much discussion about this matter. As we shall see,
there is good reason for connecting the name of a later emperor,
Severus, with the building of the wall, but, on the whole, the
testimony of inscriptions and the labours of archæologists tend to
confirm the clear statement of the biographer Spartianus (writing,
it is true, a century and a half after the event): “Hadrian visited
Britain, in which island he corrected many things that were amiss,
and was the first to draw a wall across for eighty miles, in order to
divide the barbarians and the Romans”. In all the long list of Roman
emperors it would be hard to find a more fascinating figure than that
of this great wall-builder. By no means the best of his class, far
surpassed in moral excellence by Trajan, Antoninus and Marcus, but
removed by an immeasurable distance from the worst, from such men as
Nero, Domitian and Commodus; architect, artist, author, and, above
all things, indefatigable traveller, Publius Ælius Hadrianus united a
truly Greek versatility and brilliancy of intellect to all the Roman’s
strong sense of duty towards the great _Res Publica_, and willingness
for Rome’s sake to sacrifice many of the sensual gratifications in
which his soul only too clearly delighted. The traveller who wanders
for hours through the ruins of the vast collection of luxurious palaces
which is called the _Villa Hadriani_, or who, in sunny Athens, sees
the arch which bears the proud inscription, “On this side the city of
Theseus, on that the city of Hadrian,” can in some measure realise the
self-denial which must have been involved in Hadrian’s presence with
the legions during the setting out of eighty Roman miles of wall[16]
across the misty moors of Northumberland and Cumberland.
It was probably in the year 120, three years after his accession to
the empire, that Hadrian visited Britain. The journey may have been
only part of his pre-arranged tour through the western portion of his
dominions, but it is also possible that it was the result of some
recent and special disaster in Britain to the Roman arms. Some forty
or fifty years afterwards the orator Fronto alluded to “the great
number of soldiers slain by the Britons during the reign of Hadrian,”
and it is allowable at least as a matter of conjecture to couple these
words with the ominous disappearance of one of the legions stationed
in Britain from the army list of the empire. The unlucky Ninth legion,
once quartered at Lincoln, afterwards at York, had been, as we have
seen, nearly destroyed in the insurrection headed by Boadicea. It had
again suffered most severely, under Agricola, from a night attack made
by the Caledonians before the battle of Mons Graupius. And now, just
about this time, either in the later years of Trajan or the earlier
years of Hadrian, it vanishes clean out of the lists of the Roman
army and is replaced by the Sixth legion, surnamed the Victorious,
which was brought over to Britain and stationed at Eburacum. There is
some discussion as to the earlier cantonment of the legions, whether
four or three, that had been quartered in Britain, but as to the
general question of their allocation during, at least, the second
and third centuries of our era there can be no doubt. The Second
legion (_Augusta_) at Isca (Caerleon-upon-Usk); the Sixth (_Victrix_)
at Eburacum (York), and the Twentieth (_Valeria Victrix_) at Deva
(Chester), have left abundant tokens of their long-continued presence.
From all these legions, however, considerable drafts were taken to
assist in the building of the wall from Tyne to Solway, the existing
remains of which must now be described. At the two ends of its course,
where it has had the ill-fortune either to meet with the fierce
industrial energy of the dwellers by the estuary of the Tyne, or to
attract the envious glances of the farmers of fertile Cumberland, the
wall has practically ceased to exist, though it has seldom passed that
way for more than two or three miles without leaving some traces,
however faint, of its presence to reward the quest of the earnest
antiquary. But in the central part of its course, where it has left
the busy haunts of men and climbed the bleak moorlands and the steep
basaltic cliffs of Western Northumberland and Eastern Cumberland, it
still exists in what its great historian, Dr. Bruce, used to call “an
encouraging state of preservation”. For twenty miles or more it goes
striding over mountain and moor, religiously climbing every cliff and
dipping down into every hollow of the sharply outlined, serrated,
whinstone range. Sometimes we see only the rough rubble-work which
formed the core of the wall, but more often the well-hewn square blocks
which faced its northern and southern sides are still visible. The
height attained by it is in one or two places as much as nine feet,
but its more usual altitude is four to five feet. It was probably
when perfect about seventeen feet high; and its width, as we know
from the existing remains, varied from six to eight feet. The line
of the wall once fixed, its builders seem to have pursued a nearly
uniform plan, regardless of the help which they might have derived
from natural defences. Thus in one place it crowns the heights of
some steep basaltic cliffs at whose feet lies a small Northumbrian
lake. No desperation of bravery would ever have caused a Brigantian
chief to dash across that lake and climb those pinnacles of columnar
basalt: still even here the wall pursues its undeviating course, and,
so far as we know, retained its undiminished height. It is possible,
however, that in such a case as this it was meant as a defence, not
against barbarians, but against the weather. Snowstorms sometimes sweep
violently across these bleak moorlands, and it may have been thought
desirable to provide the Roman sentinel, pacing backwards and forwards
between camp and camp, with some shelter from their fury.
Along the line of the wall are situated fortified enclosures of
three kinds which now go by the names of camps, mile-castles and
turrets. The _camps_, of which there were seventeen, between Tyne and
Solway, and which were probably called by the Romans _Prætenturæ_ or
_Stationes_, vary in size from three to six acres. They were destined
for the housing of one cohort--a body of men varying in size from 600
to 1,000--with, no doubt, a certain number of camp-followers, and in
some cases a considerable troop of horses. Public buildings, known by
antiquaries as the prætorium, the forum and the like, are to be found
generally in the centre of the camp, sometimes on the side most exposed
to the enemy’s attacks: and the quarters of the officers may generally
be distinguished from those of the common soldiers by the elaborate
arrangements for warming them, known as hypocausts. In these the floor
of the room is supported on ranges of short pillars (generally about
eight or nine inches high), between which the hot air circulated, being
brought by flues from the furnace at a corner of the camp, in which it
is evident that the fuel used was often the coal of Northumberland. The
great number of oyster-shells, the beef-bones and mutton-bones found
near many of the camps give us an indication of the food supplied to
the officers, perhaps also to some of the privates. Many interesting
illustrations of the immense length of time that the Roman occupation
of Britain endured may be derived from these _Prætenturæ_. Thus we have
several inscriptions recording the repair of a granary or a temple
ruined by age (_vetustate conlapsum_): and in the sacred well of the
nymph Coventina, just outside the camp of Procolitia, there were found
16,000 coins ranging over a period from A.D. 100 to 300 which had
been thrown into the well by generations of Roman soldiers as votive
offerings to the goddess.
Besides the larger camps, there were, as has been said, also smaller
forts, erected at regular intervals of a thousand Roman paces, which
are now known by the designation _mile-castles_; and other still
smaller enclosures, hardly more than sentry boxes, about three to the
mile, which are called, not very aptly, _turrets_, and of which very
few specimens still remain.
The soldiers by whom the line of the wall was defended did not
belong to the legions, though legionaries had been employed in its
construction. They belonged to various auxiliary corps recruited in
the outlying provinces of the empire, and they were theoretically less
Roman, less Italian, than their comrades enlisted in the legions,
though this distinction was practically to a large extent breaking down
in the second and third centuries of the empire. While Britons were
being enlisted for service abroad, Asturians from Spain, Frisians and
Batavians from Holland, Tungrians from Belgium, Lingones from Gaul,
even Dalmatians and Dacians from the distant provinces which bore their
names, were tramping from station to station along the mighty wall
of Hadrian, bathing in the chilly waters of the Tyne, or hunting the
deer on the misty slopes of Cross Fell. Most gladly would we learn how
these detachments of soldiers, which for something like three centuries
guarded the British _Limes Imperii_, were recruited; whether fresh
drafts came, for instance, from Spain and from Dalmatia to replace the
veterans who had earned their discharge, or whether the sons of the
barracks kept the barracks full, in which case there would be probably
an ever-increasing strain of British blood in the limitary garrisons.
But on this point we lack definite information, which may possibly be
supplied to us by the spade and the pick-axe of future excavators.
The total number of actual soldiers on the line of the wall has been
computed at 10,000. In addition to these there would undoubtedly be a
certain number of domestic servants, grooms, camp-followers of various
kinds, besides the wives and concubines of the soldiers, so that we
may probably conjecture the population of the _Limes_ at not less
than 20,000, a much larger number of persons than is to be found in
that beautiful but solitary region to-day. Not only the numbers but
the nationality of these vanished dwellers by the Tyne and Irthing
strike us by their strange contrast with the present. Besides the
Asturian and Dalmatian soldiers there must have been merchants and
money-lenders and camp-followers of all kinds, speaking many tongues,
upon these wind-swept moorlands. In the museum at South Shields is a
sepulchral monument representing a woman seated, holding in her right
hand a jewel-box, in her left implements of needlework. Underneath is a
bilingual inscription, telling us in Latin that the figure represents
“Regina, freedwoman and wife of Barate the Palmyrene, herself of the
[British] nation of the Catuallauni, who died at the age of thirty”.
In characters akin to Hebrew the Oriental part of the inscription
says simply, “Regina, the freedwoman of Barate. Alas!” The blended
nationality, the British girl bought, enfranchised, loved and too soon
lost by the Syrian,--merchant perchance or usurer,--who followed the
flight of the eagles of Rome, are all brought before us by these few
roughly carved lines, and they tell a story of world-wide empire, in
which, perhaps, the Britain of our own day could offer the closest
parallel to Rome.
Under the Emperor Antoninus Pius (138–161), the successor of Hadrian,
another wall was built, some fifty or sixty miles north of the first,
between the Firths of Forth and of Clyde. There were no stones in
this wall, which was made of layers of turf, and, moreover, it has
suffered cruelly (from an archæological point of view) through the
operations necessary first for the cutting of a canal and afterwards
for the building of a railroad between the two seas; but an abundance
of inscribed stones tell us much concerning the names and occupations
of the soldiers by whom it was garrisoned, and abundantly confirm the
testimony of historians who attribute its erection to Antoninus Pius
(138–161), one of the best and noblest of Roman emperors. Doubtless, at
the time of its building, the country between the two walls (comprising
the county of Northumberland and the whole south of Scotland) was
subject to Roman rule. The precise period when that district was
finally lost to the empire is still unknown to us. The philosopher
emperor, Marcus Aurelius (161–180), was closely occupied with the
defence of the empire against the barbarians of the Middle Danube,
and his name is scarcely mentioned in connexion with the history of
Britain. We are told, however, that “the Britannic war pressed heavily
on his mind,” and that he sent a second Agricola to settle it. This
general of Marcus, Calpurnius Agricola, was not, as far as we know,
descended from his great namesake, the general of Domitian.
With the accession of Commodus (180–192), son of Marcus, the long
and glorious period of the patriot emperors came to an end, and the
ruin of the empire began. The foolish and headstrong boy, who was now
lord of the Roman world, sacrificed some of the best generals in
his service to his jealous and cowardly suspicions, and while he was
devoting himself to the bloody pastimes of the amphitheatre, allowed
the necessary work of the defence of the frontier to fall behind.
“The tribes in the island of Britain,” we are told by Dion Cassius,
“over-passed the wall which separated them from the Roman armies,
committed widespread ravages, and cut to pieces a Roman general with
the troops under his command.” Which of the two walls is here referred
to is not easy to say. It may be conjectured, however, that the wall
of Antoninus had been already broken down in the reign of Marcus,
during the “heavily pressing” Britannic war, and that we have here a
description of one of those barbaric demolitions of which we find such
abundant traces in the wall of Hadrian. To chastise the barbarians and
to restore the broken _Limes_ Commodus sent probably his best general,
the sturdy old soldier, Ulpius Marcellus. If discipline were relaxed
in the legions on the British frontier, here was certainly the man to
restore it. St. Paul himself was not more resolute to “buffet his body
and bring it into subjection” than this chief of many legions. A scanty
sleeper himself, he framed ingenious plans to keep his centurions
and officers at night harassed and awake. An old man with toothless
and tender gums, he would eat only the stale hard bread which he had
brought from Rome, in order that he might not fall into gluttony and
excess. Such was the man who restored for a time the honour of the
Roman arms, and who chastised the barbarians so thoroughly that all men
marvelled that he was not, on his return to Rome, condemned to death by
the jealous Commodus.
The assassination of Commodus (192), followed in less than three months
by the murder of his excellent successor, Pertinax, and by the sale
of the imperial dignity to the highest bidder, introduced a dreadful
period of civil war in which the whole empire had nearly fallen asunder
in ruin. Of the three candidates for the purple, Pescennius Niger
in Syria, Albinus in Britain, and Septimius Severus on the Middle
Danube, Severus, who had the advantage of being nearest to the capital
and was therefore first acclaimed as emperor, was also at last the
victorious one, but he had a hard fight, especially with Albinus, who
led the three legions which still composed the army of Britain to a
bloody battle in the plains of Lyons. The confusion of the times and
the absence of the Roman legions were undoubtedly favourable to the
restless barbarians. The wall of Hadrian was broken through; the Mæatæ,
who lived immediately to the north of it, burst into the province, and
the governor, Virius Lupus, purchased a precarious peace by paying a
large sum to the invaders. It may be easily imagined that the condition
of Britain after such an ignominious conclusion of a campaign, and even
after the return of the disaffected legions of Albinus, was far from
satisfactory, but it was apparently not till 208 that Septimius Severus
set forth from Rome to bring the affairs of the province into order.
He was already more than sixty years of age, his joints were racked by
gout and his heart was sore through the fierce dissensions of his two
sons, Caracalla and Geta, and the evils which these foreboded for the
empire. Yet even these dissensions urged him the more to undertake the
expedition, for he hoped that common labours and common dangers might
in some degree tend to draw the two hostile brothers together, and that
the necessary hardships of a camp life under our northern skies might
restore some of the moral tone which had been lost amid the vicious
indulgences of Rome. In this hope, it is true, he was completely
disappointed. The hatred of Caracalla, especially for his brother,
waxed fiercer and fiercer, and included also his father, for whose
death he longed with scarcely concealed eagerness. Borne in his litter,
on account of his sufferings from gout, the brave old soldier traversed
the greater part of Caledonia, hewing down forests and throwing
causeways across marshes; slaying, of course, multitudes of barbarians,
but losing also 50,000 of his own troops (so we are told, but the
estimate is probably exaggerated) by hostile ambuscades, severities of
weather, even by the swords of his own soldiers, who often killed their
own comrades to prevent their falling into the hands of the barbarians.
He had a mind, too, to explore the secrets of Nature, and compared with
wonder the all-but perpetual day of midsummer and the scanty measure of
light at midwinter in northern Scotland.
The dates of Severus’ campaign are only obscurely indicated, but it
seems probable that by the year 210 the subjection of the Caledonians
had been apparently completed. Severus, accompanied by Caracalla and
his staff, was riding on horseback, notwithstanding his physical
infirmity, towards a certain place of meeting which had been appointed
for the barbarians, that they might surrender their swords and swear
fidelity to the empire. Caracalla, riding behind him, drew his sword
and made his horse rear and prance, intending, apparently, to be
brought into collision with his father and thus to kill him by apparent
misadventure. A warning shout from some member of the staff caused the
emperor to look round and the parricidal design was foiled. Severus
said nothing, but rode calmly on, took his place on the tribunal and
went through the ceremony that had been arranged. He then sent for
his son and two of his chief ministers (one of them the great lawyer
Papinian), having ordered that a naked sword should be placed in the
middle of the tent. He sternly rebuked his son for the impious deed
which he had meditated in the sight of the allies and the enemies
of Rome, and then, changing his tone, said: “If you still desire to
slay me, here is the sword, draw it and destroy me. Or, since I have
associated you with me in the empire, give your orders to Papinian and
let him be my executioner. You are young and strong: I am old and shall
lay me down to rest without a sigh.” The invitation was not accepted,
for Caracalla shrank now from the guilt of manifest parricide. But the
father’s words revealed too plainly the bitterness of his soul. Many
cruelties and much needless bloodshed had marked his own ascent to
power, but they were surely all avenged by the misery of that day in
the land of the Caledonians.
It was possibly in this same year 210, at any rate during his stay in
Britain, that Severus completed a great and necessary work--the repair
of the wall of Hadrian. So grievously had this long barrier suffered at
the hands of the barbarians that reconstruction seemed to the soldiers
engaged in it like an actual fresh construction. It is only thus that
we can explain the language of the careless, inaccurate authors of the
_Historia Augusta_, who, forgetful apparently of the fact that they
have already assigned the credit of the work to Hadrian, now say of
Severus: “The greatest glory of his reign is that he fortified Britain
by a wall drawn across the island and ending on both sides with the
ocean, for which achievement he received the name of Britannicus”.
Attempts have been made to explain the apparent discrepancy between
the two accounts by assigning part of the fortification to Hadrian and
part to Severus--for instance, the earthen mounds to the former and
the stone wall to the latter; but a careful study of the existing
remains does not favour these theories. It seems better to admit that
the writer was careless and forgetful, and that British affairs and the
story of the Roman wall were of infinitely less importance to him than
they are now to us, dwellers in Britain.
Severus was doomed to discover, like Edward Plantagenet a thousand
years later, how deceptive were victories over the Northern
mountaineers. Next year (211) the Mæatæ were again up in arms and were
joined by the Caledonians. Filled with wrath he ordered his troops
again to invade their land, repeating often the lines of Homer:--
Let not one of the race escape the steepness of ruin,
None, your avenging hands, not e’en the babe at the bosom.
He was preparing himself once more to set forth in his litter in the
short dark winter days for the northern moorlands, when sickness
attacked him, aided, some men thought, by Caracalla and the physicians,
and on February 4, 211, the old man died at Eburacum. He had lived
sixty-five years and reigned seventeen, and he was the last Roman
emperor of whose doings in our land we have any detailed description.
Scarcely had Severus died when his sons, renouncing apparently all
thoughts of vengeance on the Caledonians, left the wintry north and
returned to the delights of Rome. The hardly suppressed enmity of the
brothers now broke out into open flame; and after various ineffectual
attempts, always foiled by the younger man’s vigilance, Caracalla’s
centurions slew Geta in his mother’s arms. Wheresoever the name of
his victim occurred on the monuments, it was erased by order of the
murderer. This strange manifestation of posthumous vindictiveness has
left traces in our own country (for instance on a monument in the
abbey-church of Hexham) as well as on the Arch of Severus in Rome, and
in an inscription near the Second Cataract of the Nile.
Caracalla himself was assassinated in 217, but emperors of his kindred
wore the imperial purple down to the year 235, and thus the dynasty
of Severus may be said to have lasted for more than forty years.
Both in coins and inscriptions the princes of this house have left
an exceptionally full record in the British province. From 235, the
date of the murder of Severus Alexander (an excellent young emperor,
last of his line), down to 284, a period of almost half a century, the
Roman empire was in a state of absolute disintegration. The barbarians
were pressing fiercely on its frontiers. This was the era of the
first and terrible invasion of the Goths (244–270), an invasion which
after awful losses on both sides, and the death of a Roman emperor
from the pestilence caused by the war, ended in the abandonment to
the barbarians of the great province of Dacia, won for the empire by
the victories of Trajan. It was the era, too, of a most humiliating
defeat by the Persians, and the conversion of a Roman emperor into a
footstool for the Persian king. But more dangerous, if possible, than
the external foes of the empire, was its internal disorganisation. In
these forty-nine years no fewer than fifteen emperors were recognised
at Rome, besides a multitude of obscure competitors (commonly known as
the thirty tyrants) in the provinces. It is needless to say that the
reigns, which thus lasted on an average little more than three years,
were generally terminated by mutiny and murder; needless to dilate on
the miserable collapse of law and order which inevitably followed from
such continual changes in the depositary of supreme power in the state.
Of this dismal period there is, naturally enough, no written record
in the annals of Britain. Undoubtedly the wave of Roman influence
ebbed; we can hardly be wrong in thinking that now, at any rate, if not
before, the country between the two walls was permanently abandoned to
the barbarians. The Northumbrian camps were probably also sacked, and
we may, if we will, read some pages of that long unwritten chapter in
the ruined walls of the camps erected by Hadrian and Severus, in the
places where fire has evidently passed upon the corridors of a Roman
villa, destroying the elaborate bathing arrangements of tribune or
centurion.
For the empire as a whole this interregnum of anarchy came to an end in
the year 284 when Diocletian, the second Augustus, ascended the throne.
This man, of obscure, even of servile origin, showed statesmanship of a
rare order, rescuing the water-logged and all-but foundering vessel of
the state from destruction, and steering it into a harbour in which it
rode safely for a hundred years. His chief expedient was the division
of the imperial power, in recognition of the fact that the vast fabric
of the empire could no longer be upheld by a single ruler, and that
if the supreme Augustus would not have rivals he must have partners.
Dividing the empire into four great sections called prefectures, he
chose for himself the prefecture of the East, including Egypt, Syria,
Asia Minor and Thrace. His contemporary and colleague, the stout old
soldier Maximian, who, like himself, bore the title of Augustus, ruled
Italy, southern Germany and the greater part of Roman Africa. After
Diocletian had reigned seven years he associated with himself in
addition two junior partners, not Augusti but merely Cæsars; Galerius
who governed the Illyrian lands, which in the meaning then given to
the name stretched from Cape Matapan to the Danube. To the youngest
of all, Constantius Chlorus, was assigned the prefecture of the west,
stretching from Tangier to Hexham, and including three great “Dioceses”
as the divisions intermediate between prefectures and provinces were
called: Western Africa and Spain, Gaul and Britain. A noble portion
was this, for the junior partner of the imperial firm, and one which
might have satisfied the ambition even of a Napoleon. But there was
one annoying drawback to the greatness of the western Cæsar. After all
the rest of the empire had been restored to tranquillity the island of
Britain still remained outside the imperial orbit, and what made this
circumstance the more exasperating was the remembrance that it was
due to the treachery of an officer chosen by the emperors themselves.
Desiring to check the piratical expeditions of the Franks and Saxons
who were already beginning to infest both coasts of the British
channel, Maximian, who was at that time ruling and warring in Gaul,
had entrusted the command of a naval squadron to a certain Carausius,
a man of mean extraction, born either in Flanders or Ireland,[17] who
had already distinguished himself by his bravery and his skill in
naval warfare. From his strong place of arms at Gesoriacum (Boulogne),
Carausius soon made his power felt by the barbarians, but before
long Maximian had reason to suspect that the officer of the empire
was himself in secret league with at least some of the pirates and
shared their plunder. He summoned Carausius to appear before him, but
that astute personage, suspecting the motive for the summons, hastily
quitted Boulogne and sailed for Britain, which in the disorganised
condition of Roman affairs he had not much difficulty in making his own.
Having declared himself emperor and having even constrained the
two legitimate Augusti to recognise him as a quasi-partner of their
dignity, Carausius actually succeeded in maintaining his position
for six years (287–293), perhaps the only time in the history of our
island when there has been a veritable “Emperor of Britain”. Of the
character of his government we have unfortunately no information
except some sentences of invective from professional rhetoricians; but
at least the numismatist has reason to remember his reign which has
supplied our museums with a multitude of coins. In these, while the
obverse represents the head of the self-made emperor, a middle-aged
common-place man who looks like a self-made manufacturer, the reverse
bears sometimes the well-known Roman emblems of the wolf and the
twins; or a lion with a thunderbolt in his mouth symbolises the valour
of Augustus; or a female milking a cow the fertility of his kingdom;
while in some of them the association with Jovius and Herculius (the
titles of the two legitimate Augusti) attests his share in the imperial
partnership.
Notwithstanding this interchange of compliments it was felt at
headquarters that it was time that this separatist empire should
come to an end, and it was in fact chiefly to accomplish this that
Constantius had been created Cæsar of the west. The history of the
campaign has to be gathered with difficulty from the rhetoric of
Mamertinus and Eumenius, two professional panegyrists of the conqueror,
but we seem to perceive that Carausius or his pirate allies still held
the harbour of Boulogne, and that it was necessary to seal up the
channel with beams of timber and cargoes of stone to prevent their
exit. Stormy weather then delayed for some time the operations of
Constantius, and meanwhile Carausius had been assassinated by one of
his officers named Allectus, who at once assumed the purple and struck
coins describing himself as Pious, Fortunate and August.
For nearly three years Allectus reigned. At last, in 296, Constantius
set forth for the overthrow of this new usurper. “Other emperors,”
cries his flatterer, “have received the credit of victories won
under their auspices though they themselves were tarrying in Rome.
You, unconquered Cæsar! put yourself at the head of your troops;
you gave the signal to start, when sea and sky were alike turbid,
notwithstanding the hesitation of the other leaders. The wind struck
obliquely on your sail: you made your vessel tack. All the soldiers,
enraptured, cried: ‘Let us follow Cæsar wherever he leads us’. Fortune
did indeed favour you. We have heard from the companions of your voyage
how the mists hung low over the back of the sea so that the hostile
fleet stationed in ambush round the Isle of Wight never saw you pass.
As soon as they touched the shore of Britain your unconquered army
set fire to all their ships, urged surely, by some warning voice of
your divinity, to seek their safety only in fight and victory.” And
so, with more of these pompous periods, the orator describes how
the usurper Allectus fled as soon as he saw the imperial fleet, and
fleeing fell into the hands of the soldiers of Constantius, how half
dead with terror he thus hastened to his death, and by his neglect of
all military precautions handed over an easy victory to the imperial
troops. “Scarcely one Roman was killed while all the hills and plains
around were covered with the ugly bodies of the slain. Those dresses
worn in barbarian fashion, those locks of bright red hue were now all
defiled with dust and gore. That standard bearer of rebellion himself
[Allectus], having in the hope of concealment stripped off the purple
robe which he had degraded by wearing it, now lay with scarce a rag
to cover his nakedness.”[18] The orator then goes on to describe in
words of turgid obscurity how some of the soldiers of Constantius,
parted from the main body of the fleet in the fog which had baffled the
look-out of Allectus, wandered to the “oppidum Londiniense,” and there
were fortunate enough to meet and defeat the remains of the “mercenary
multitude” of the usurper’s forces which had taken refuge in that town.
We thank even the bombastic orator for some slight indication of what
was passing in the streets of the little Roman London at the end of the
third century.
It was, as we have seen, in the year 296 that Britain was recovered
for the empire by Constantius. Ten years afterwards that emperor, in
failing health and knowing that he had not long to live, was looking
anxiously eastwards for the arrival of his favourite son, the offspring
of his concubine Helena, the brave and brilliant soldier Constantine.
Diocletian and Maximian had both abdicated the empire. Constantius
Chlorus was now raised from the rank of Cæsar to the higher rank
of Augustus, but he shared that dignity with a jealous colleague,
Galerius, who had been allowed to name the two new Cæsars. Of those
two junior partners Constantine was not one. Worse than that, he was
retained as a kind of hostage at the Bithynian palace of Galerius, and
it was doubtful whether father and son would ever be allowed to meet
again. But in a moment of irresolution or of alarm Galerius gave the
desired permission, and Constantine, not risking the chance of its
withdrawal, departed from the court without formal leave-taking and
hurried across Europe to Boulogne where his father was then residing.
It was currently reported two centuries later that in order to prevent
the possibility of pursuit he ordered the post-horses at each imperial
_mutatio_, which he did not himself require, to be either killed or so
mutilated as to make them unfit for travel. Gibbon derides this “very
foolish story,” but it is not easy to understand why, if untrue, it
should have obtained such general acceptance.
However this may be, it is certain that Constantine arrived safely at
his father’s headquarters at Boulogne, shared with him the labours of
a short campaign against the Picts, and was present in his chamber,
in the Prætorian palace at Eburacum, when, worn out with toil and
disease, Constantius Chlorus breathed his last (July 25, 306). His own
elevation to the imperial dignity by the soldiers, who enthusiastically
hailed him as Augustus, followed immediately after, and we may fairly
suppose that the same place which had witnessed the death of the father
witnessed also the accession of the son. He speedily quitted Britain
in order to take part in that desperate game of empire, with partners
constantly changing and occasionally putting one another to death,
from which after eighteen years he finally arose sole emperor. With
all this later life of his, with his adoption of Christianity, with
his choice of a new capital by the Bosphorus, with his convocation of
the Nicene council, we have here no concern; but it is worth while to
emphasise the fact that a reign so immensely important for all the
after-history of Europe and of the world began in our island by the
slow, wide-wandering river Ouse. Thus in a certain sense York is the
mother-city of Constantinople.
We come now to another blank half century in the history of Roman
Britain. Save for an obscure hint of the presence of the Emperor
Constans, son of Constantine, at some time between 337 and 350, we have
scarcely any information as to British affairs from the proclamation of
Constantine in 306 to the despatch of the elder Theodosius to Britain
in 367. This general, father of the more celebrated emperor of the
same name, was sent by the Emperor Valentinian to restore some degree
of order in the unhappy island, which had suffered from rapacious
governors, from accusations of disloyalty cruelly avenged, and more
recently from bloody inroads of the Picts and Scots with whom were
now joined a tribe who are called “the most valiant nation of the
Attacotti,” but who, if we may believe the extraordinary statement of
St. Jerome, were actually addicted to the practice of cannibalism. In
the three years of Theodosius’ command, the northern invaders were
driven back to their mountains, the inhabitants of “that ancient town
which was formerly called Londinium but which (in the fourth century)
“more often bore the name Augusta” were relieved from their terrors: a
new province, the geographical position of which is not made known to
us, was staked out and received the name Valentia, in compliment to the
emperor. For the time, but probably not for a long time, the blessings
of “the Roman peace” were restored to Britain. The general who had
achieved this result was shortly after executed at Carthage, a victim
to the cowardly suspicion and jealousy of the Emperor Valens, brother
of Valentinian. Soon, however, the whirligig of Time brought about a
strange revenge. Valens himself perished in the awful catastrophe of
Hadrianople, the battle in which the Visigoths utterly routed a great
Roman army, the battle which first brought home to the minds of men
the possibility of the collapse of the Roman empire. The nephew of
Valens, the young and generous Gratian, looking round for some man who
as partner of his throne might avert the menaced ruin, found none more
suitable than the son and namesake of the murdered pacifier of Britain,
and accordingly, in the year 379, Theodosius (whom historians have
surnamed the Great) was hailed as Augustus at Constantinople.
But now did Britain begin to rear that crop of rival emperors who were
the curse of Europe during some of the dying days of the western
empire. In 383 a general named Maximus, of whom an unfavourable
witness, the ecclesiastic Orosius, testifies that he was “vigorous
and honest and would have been worthy of the diadem if he had not, to
obtain it, broken his oath of loyalty” was almost against his will
declared emperor by the army. He crossed over into Gaul, carrying
with him no doubt the bulk of his army. He skilfully played on the
disaffection of Gratian’s legions, offended at the partiality which
he had showed for his barbarian auxiliaries; a general mutiny was
organised; Gratian fled for his life, was pursued and murdered near the
city of Vienne. For five years Theodosius had to endure the enforced
partnership in the empire of his benefactor’s murderer: then in 388 the
smouldering hatred broke out into a flame, and after a hard struggle
Maximus was defeated and slain at Aquileia, on the northern shore of
the Adriatic (388). According to traditions current two centuries
later, this usurpation of Maximus and his consequent withdrawal of the
British legions in order to vindicate his claims to the empire, were
most important factors in the overthrow of Roman power in Britain.
A large army, on paper, still existed in the island. It was probably
about the year 402 that the last edition of the _Notitia Imperii_,
that edition which has been handed down to posterity, was issued from
the imperial chancery. In this most valuable document--an army list
and official directory of both the eastern and western portions of
the empire--we still find cohorts of infantry and wings of cavalry
stationed _per lineam valli_ (along the line of the Wall) as they had
been for three centuries. We may, however, doubt whether any Roman
soldiers were actually keeping the line of the Wall so late as 402. It
is remarkable that very few coins have been found in the ruins of the
camps of a later date than the reign of Gratian (375–83). If there were
any such military units still there, they were probably but the ghosts
of their former selves.
To understand the political condition of our island at this time we
must have recourse to the pages of the _Notitia_, which elaborately
sets forth the various degrees of the civil and military hierarchy of
the empire. On one page we find:--
THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRÆTORIAN PREFECT OF THE GAULS.
“Under his disposition are the Vicarii of Spain, of the Seven
Provinces of Gaul and of Britain.”
On a later page:--
“The Spectabilis VICARIUS BRITANNIARUM.”
Under his disposition were five (civil) governors:--
The Consularis of Maxima Cæsariensis.
„ Valentia.
The Præses of Britannia Prima.
„ Britannia Secunda.
„ Flavia Cæsariensis.
The limits and geographical position of these five districts (we are
not entitled to call them provinces) have not yet been ascertained,
though they have been often conjectured. It may be hoped that
the discovery of further inscriptions may enable us to fix them
decisively.[19]
Besides these civil officers there were, according to the rearrangement
of offices made by Diocletian, certain military commandants, called
_comites_ and _duces_, of whom the count was, contrary to medieval
usage, generally of higher rank than the duke.
The _Notitia_ introduces us to three of these officers:--
1. The Comes Britanniæ.
2. The Comes Litoris Saxonici per Britanniam.
3. The Dux Britanniarum.
As to the first it gives us no information beyond the simple fact
that the Provincia Britannia was “under his disposition”. The obvious
conjecture is that numbers 2 and 3 were subject to him, but this is
not asserted, and it perhaps militates against this theory that they,
like him, belonged to the second grade in the official hierarchy, the
_spectabiles_. It is possible that his special duty was the defence
of Mid-Britain against the imperfectly subdued tribes of the Welsh
mountains, and that the Second legion at Caerleon and the Twentieth at
Chester were for a time under his orders for this purpose. The more
interesting title for us is that of “The Count of the Saxon Shore in
Britain”. He had under his command the garrisons of seven fortified
places dotted around the eastern and south-eastern coast of England,
from the Wash to Beachy Head.[20] He had also at his bidding the
prefect of the Second “Augustan” legion, which had been moved from
the quarters it had so long occupied at Caerleon-upon-Usk to Rutupiæ,
or Richborough, close to the Isle of Thanet. The meaning of this
arrangement is obvious. Like the Martello towers, which were reared
along the same coasts last century, these fortresses were raised and
garrisoned in order to defend that part of the projecting coast of
Britain which was most exposed to the attacks of the Saxon pirates,
already no doubt swarming in these seas in the fourth century, and
to become far more formidable in the fifth century. The words, “per
Britanniam,” added to the title of the _spectabilis comes_, are used
because, as the _Notitia_ informs us, there was another Saxon shore
which needed to be guarded on the other side of the channel; and, taken
in this connexion, there is a special interest for us in the words of
Apollinaris Sidonius, bishop of Clermont,[21] which show that in the
succeeding century the coasts of Gaul, as well as of Britain, were kept
in constant alarm by the Saxon sea-rovers.
3. Of the Duke of the Britains we have only here to remark that he
appears to have had under his disposition the Sixth legion, stationed
at York, and numerous detachments of auxiliary troops in Yorkshire,
Westmorland and Lancashire, and _item per lineam valli_ (also along
the line of the wall) the various auxiliary cohorts raised in Spain,
Gaul and Germany, to whom reference has already been made, and who are
to all students of the literature of the Roman wall among the most
interesting elements of the army of the empire.
Meanwhile events were rapidly ripening towards the catastrophe which
was to make the solemn _Notitia Imperii_ a mere hunting-ground for the
archæologist. In 395 died the great Emperor Theodosius, who had for a
generation staved off the ruin which seemed inevitable at the death
of Valens. He was succeeded by his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius,
who, with about equal incapacity, presided over the collapse of the
eastern and the western half of the empire. For the first thirteen
years, however, of the reign of Honorius his incapacity was somewhat
veiled by the courage and ability of the Vandal soldier Stilicho,
whom Theodosius had left as the guardian of his son. When in the year
400 Alaric, the far-famed King of the Goths, entered Italy, Stilicho
undertook the long and wearisome campaigns, partly, as it would seem,
north of the Alps, but chiefly in what we now call Piedmont and
Lombardy, by which Alaric’s designs on Rome were foiled, and at last in
the year 403 the Goths were driven forth from Italy. But in order to
avert the danger which thus threatened the heart of the empire, it was
necessary seriously to weaken the defence of its extremities. One of
the three Roman legions quartered in Britain (probably the Twentieth)
was recalled to Italy and apparently never returned. Three years after
the repulse of Alaric came in 406 the great cataclysm of the irruption
of barbarian hordes, Vandals, Sueves, Burgundians and Alans into Gaul,
which led, though not immediately, to the severance of Gaul and Spain
from the empire. The inrush of the barbarians spread terror even into
Britain, and caused the soldiers, weary of the inept government which
was manifestly ruining the empire, to elect an emperor on their own
account, and set up, as it were, a “government of national defence”.
But revolutionary rulers of this kind are more easily proclaimed than
established. First a certain Marcus was proclaimed: then as they found
that “he did not suit their tempers” he was slain, and a British
citizen named Gratian was invested with the purple, crowned with the
diadem and surrounded with a bodyguard. After four months Gratian
also was deposed and murdered, and thereupon a private soldier of
the meanest rank, named Constantine, who had nothing but that great
historic name to recommend him, was robed in the imperial purple. He at
once crossed over into Gaul, where he maintained himself with varying
fortune for three or four years, being even once, in 409, for a short
time recognised as a legitimate partner in the empire by Honorius. With
his later fortunes, however, and with the whole story of the fall of
the Roman empire in the west we have no further concern. We have heard
of the exit of the legions, but we never hear of their return, and we
are probably justified in fixing on the date 407, the period of the
usurper Constantine’s departure from our island, as the end of the
Roman occupation of Britain.
Writers and readers must alike lament the extremely jejune character of
the history of that occupation. Since we lost the guidance of Tacitus,
we have had scarcely anything that could be called a continuous and
intelligible narrative of events; nor, unless some happy fortune could
restore to us the lost books of Ammianus, is such literary assistance
now to be expected. We are thus thrown back on such information as
inscriptions, buried ruins, finds of coins may afford to the patient
archæologist. And these have done something for us, though we may
reasonably hope that the judicious use of the spade and pickaxe, guided
by science and not by mere capricious quest for curiosities, may do
much more.
We may here notice very briefly some of the chief contributions which
archæological research has thus made to history.
1. Of all the marks made by our imperial conquerors in this island, the
most distinct and ineffaceable was that made by them as road-makers.
Often indeed their works survive only as boundaries between parishes
or counties, but sometimes we can see the track still going straight
to its mark over hill and dale, and we say instinctively, “That must
be a Roman road”. It was certainly not mere unskilfulness or ignorance
of the science of road-making which led the _stratores viarum_ to draw
their lines across the country with this uncompromising directness.
The prime object of the officer charged with the work was essentially
military, and for watching the movements of barbarian insurgents
or preventing the ravages of marauders, the crests of the hills
successively surmounted by the marching legions were invaluable posts
of observation.
The chief highways of the Romans, known to us for the most part by the
names given to them by our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, converging, as most
of them do, towards “the town anciently named Londinium,” coincide
in a remarkable manner with the main lines of our modern railroad
communication. The Watling Street, running from the neighbourhood of
London to Etocetum (a little north of Birmingham) and thence to Deva
(Chester) and so on into Lancashire, corresponds with the London and
North-Western Railway; while another road which generally bears the
same name and which traverses Yorkshire and Northumberland is less
accurately represented by the North-Eastern. Erming Street, from London
to Doncaster, is often not far from the line of the Great Northern;
and Abona (on the Avon near Bristol) and Isca Damnoniorum (Exeter)
were reached by roads bearing now no special names, but imitating in
their general course the Great Western and South-Western Railways.
One great artery, the Fosse Way, may be clearly traced between
Axminster (in Devonshire) and the great colony which now bears the
name of Lincoln; but this road has no representative in our railway
system. The imperfect character of the Roman conquest of the district
which we now call Wales is evidenced by the feeble and fragmentary
traces of Roman roads now to be found in the principality. There was,
however, a road traversing the country from north to south, from
Carnarvon to Carmarthen, and thence by a somewhat circuitous course to
Caerleon-upon-Usk, and part of this road is still known by the name of
Sarn Helen. Is it possible that there is in this name some vague and
inaccurate remembrance of the mother of Constantine?
2. The sepulchral inscriptions which have been discovered in large
numbers in various parts of the island give us a little insight
into the domestic relations of the Roman garrison, as the votive
altars do into their sentiments concerning religion. The former
class of inscriptions always begin in the usual Roman style with a
dedication to the _Dii Manes_, the shade-gods, or, as we should say,
the spirit of the departed one, and often add some endearing epithet
to the name, such as “a well-deserving husband,” “a most religious
wife who lived for thirty-three years an unspotted life”. Where the
age is mentioned it is most frequently that either of a child or a
person in middle life, the numbers between thirty and forty being of
frequent occurrence. This is probably accounted for by the fact that
veterans, whether officers or privates, would generally return to their
native land to spend the last years of their lives. The religious
inscriptions bring before us some interesting phenomena, but are so
far characterised by one memorable omission, that of the new religion
which was destined to supplant the old. The ordinary Olympian deities,
Jupiter, Mars, Bellona, Neptune, are of course commemorated, though
in a somewhat perfunctory fashion; and the official divinity of the
emperors, living and dead, is duly recognised. But we have also a
number of altars to gods bearing uncouth Celtic names: Belatucader,
Anociticus, Cocidius and the like, plainly showing that the Roman
soldiers, like the Assyrian settlers in Palestine,[22] wished to keep
on good terms with the gods of the land. Even more conspicuous is
the devotion of the Roman soldiers to “the unconquered Mithras”. The
strange Oriental cult called Mithraism, probably a form of sun-worship,
spread rapidly through the Roman empire in the second and third
centuries, and seemed likely at one time to be a successful rival
to Christianity. It is marvellous to see in the palace of the Roman
emperors at Ostia a chapel with all the emblems of Mithraic worship,
and then to find the remains of a similar chapel with precisely
similar emblems, though broken and mutilated, on the bare hillside of
Housesteads in Northumberland. The favourite symbol of this strange
dead religion is a young man, crowned with a tiara, bestriding a bull,
into whose side he is driving deep a short sword or dagger. Whatever
this curious bas-relief may represent--and some have seen in it a
symbol of the sun, the unconquered hero entering the constellation
Taurus--it was no doubt faithfully reproduced in that little chapel on
our northern moorlands, and it is perfectly figured on a small marble
tablet lately discovered under the pavement of a London street while
the workmen were repairing a sewer.
Thus, of so many strange pagan superstitions we have abundant vestiges,
but of Christianity in Roman Britain we have singularly few traces.
It is true that here and there among undoubtedly Roman remains the
Christian monogram (X P) or Christian formulæ such as _Vivas in Deo_
or _Spes in Deo_ have been met with.[23] In the recent excavations
at Silchester a small building which is almost certainly a Christian
basilica has also been discovered, but these are slight evidences for
the existence of a faith which was certainly professed by multitudes
ere the legions quitted Britain. As to the actual date of the
introduction of Christianity into our island we must be contented
to confess our ignorance. The story contained in the book of Papal
Lives, which was reproduced by Bede, that a certain King Lucius of
Britain, about the year 180, sent over to Pope Eleutherus, asking
for missionaries to instruct his people in the Christian faith, must
be dismissed as the fable of a later age; nor can we speak with much
certainty concerning the so-called proto-martyr, St. Alban, who is said
to have suffered for the faith in the persecution of Diocletian. There
can be no doubt, however, that there were some converts to Christianity
in Britain during the second century, and in the third century it
must have become the dominant religion here as in the rest of the
empire. Towards the end of that century our island, which produced so
many rival Cæsars, produced also one of the most famous of heretics,
Pelagius, and, of course, the existence of his heterodoxy implies also
the existence of the orthodoxy out of which it sprang. Thus, though
we cannot help sometimes relying on the “argument from silence,” the
present condition of our archæological information concerning the
existence of Christianity in Roman Britain shows us how untrustworthy
may sometimes be that very argument.
3. It is, however, partly in reliance on such negative evidence that we
venture to assert that the Roman occupation of Britain was before all
things a military occupation, and that they either did not attempt, or
did not succeed in the attempt, largely to win over the inhabitants to
their own ways and to accustom them to that civic life which had been
the cradle of their own civilisation. In Italy itself, in Gaul and in
most of the provinces of western Europe we find abundant evidence of
the municipalisation of the conquered tribes. “Decurio” and “Duumvir,”
which we may represent by town councillor and mayor, are indications of
rank which we meet with continually on provincial tombstones in those
countries; but in Britain amid the crowd of inscriptions to centurions,
tribunes and other military officers who served here we meet with only
one here and there to civic dignitaries. “The highest form of town life
known to the Romans was naturally rare in Britain. The _coloniæ_ and
_municipia_, the privileged municipalities, with institutions on the
Italian model, which mark the supreme development of Roman political
civilisation in the provinces, were not common in Britain. We know only
of five: Colchester, Lincoln, Gloucester, and York were _coloniæ_,
Verulam probably a _municipium_, and despite their legal rank none of
these could count among the greater cities of the empire. Four of them,
indeed, probably owed their existence not to any development of Britain
but to the need of providing for time-expired soldiers discharged from
the army.”[24] There was, of course, a certain number of towns such as
Londinium which had sprung out of pre-Roman settlements, some of which
no doubt grew and prospered exceedingly with the growth of commerce due
to the prevalence of “the Roman peace,” but these towns were apparently
not modelled on the Roman pattern, and what may have been the nature of
their institutions can only be a matter of conjecture.
It seems probable that the prevailing type of social organisation
during the Roman period was the _villa_ or great estate owned by a
Roman proprietor and dotted over with the cottages of British serfs
or slaves, whose labour was directed for his lord’s benefit by a
_villicus_ or farm bailiff, sometimes himself a slave. Whether or no
this system lasted on to any great extent after the Saxon invasion (the
barbarian invader seating himself in the place of power and claiming
all his ousted predecessor’s rights), and whether it thus passed in
the course of centuries into the feudal manor, is one of the most
interesting questions now debated by our archæologists. Mr. Seebohm
is the most conspicuous advocate of this Roman-villa theory, which
cuts right across the theories of Kemble and Freeman, who held that
the Teutonic invaders brought with them to our island and everywhere
established a system of free but co-operative land-ownership,
resembling that described in the _Germania_ of Tacitus. The discussion,
as has been said, is one of great interest to all who desire to get
below the surface in the history of the past ages of Britain, but many
positions will probably be won and lost before the battle is finally
decided.
The same may be said of the larger question, how far the influence
exerted by our Roman conquerors during the four centuries of their
stay lasted on after the departure of the legions. That Britain was
not assimilated as Gaul was, is admitted by all, the mere fact that
Welsh is not, like French, an offshoot from Latin, being in itself a
sufficient proof of the difference between the two conquests; but why
the Romanisation of Britain was so much less thorough; how far it did
after all extend; and what influences modified or destroyed it; these
are all questions still unsolved, to which, however, we may, perhaps,
some day get an answer from a more thorough and scientific study of
Celtic literature, and of Romano-British antiquities.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST.
With the departure of the Roman legions from Britain we enter upon a
period of even denser darkness than those which we have been lately
traversing, nor is the veil lifted till by the mission of St. Augustine
(596) our island is again brought into the family of the Christian
nations of Europe. The two centuries during which the voice of
authentic history is thus silent, from 407 to 596, were the period of
the fall of the Roman empire in the west and the establishment in its
stead of the great Teutonic kingdoms, Frankish, Burgundian, Visigothic,
from which the states of modern Europe are descended.
Owing to the extremely imperfect character of our information
concerning the Anglo-Saxon conquest, which was for us the chief
event of these two centuries, and the fact that scarcely any of it
is contemporary, some of it obviously legendary and fabulous, it is
impossible to speak with any confidence as to its details. Almost
every date may be challenged: “probably” or “to the best of our
knowledge” are qualifying clauses which should be prefixed to almost
every statement. It may be well, however, first to set forth in broad
outlines the main facts which are beyond the reach of controversy. No
one doubts that about the middle of the fifth century, if not before,
the Romano-Celtic inhabitants of Britain were invaded by Teutonic
tribes from the shores of the German Ocean and the Baltic. The tribes
chiefly concerned in the invasion were the Saxons and the Angles, but
the smaller nation of the Jutes are said to have been the first to
undertake a definite scheme of conquest, and it is asserted with much
positiveness that they came at first as auxiliaries to help the Britons
against the Picts of Caledonia and the Scots of Ireland, who were
ravaging the undefended land. To the Jutes is attributed the foundation
of the kingdom of Kent and a settlement in the Isle of Wight. The far
more numerous Saxons who followed them established the two kingdoms of
the South Saxons and East Saxons, which are represented by the modern
counties of Sussex and Essex; and after the lapse of two generations
the West Saxons, invading Hampshire, laid there the foundation of
the great kingdom of Wessex, which gradually included almost all the
country south of the Thames. Their kings eventually became lords of the
whole of Britain, and were ancestors through females of the sovereign
who now sits upon the throne. The Angles, who were apparently the
latest comers of all, founded the kingdoms of East Anglia (Norfolk
and Suffolk), Mercia (the midland counties), Deira (Yorkshire), and
Bernicia (Durham, Northumberland, and East Scotland as far as the Firth
of Forth).
A few words must be said as to the ethnological relations of these
three tribes. It is not disputed that they all belonged to the great
Low German family of nations, to which the Goths probably belonged and
from which the Dutch and most of the inhabitants of northern Germany
are descended. As to the little nation of the Jutes we require further
information. They were once said to be identical with the Goths,
and more recently they have been connected with the inhabitants of
Jutland. The first identification is certainly wrong, the second, for
philological reasons, is doubtful.[25] It seems that at present the
question must be left in suspense.[26]
The Saxons were placed by the geographer, Ptolemy (who wrote early in
the second century), in the country now known as Holstein, but in the
fourth century the name seems to have been applied to a much wider
range of people. The Saxons with whom Charlemagne waged his stubborn
wars at the close of the eighth century, inhabited the whole of
Westphalia, Hanover and Brunswick and other lands beside. From any part
of that country our Saxon ancestors may have come.
Of the Angles, who in the first century after Christ were living on the
right bank of the Elbe, near its mouth, Tacitus gives us an interesting
account. He tells us that they, together with the kindred tribes
between Elbe and Oder, worshipped the great goddess Nerthus, whose
image, ordinarily kept in the dark recesses of a sacred island, at
certain seasons paraded the lands of her votaries in a chariot drawn
by kine. Wherever the image of the goddess came, mirth reigned and war
ceased; but when her pilgrimage was ended, the image and the chariot,
returning to the dark island, were washed in a sacred lake, beneath
whose waters all the slaves who had taken part in the ceremony were at
once engulfed, in order to ensure their silence as to the mysteries
which they had beheld. A more interesting fact for us is the close
relation which, according to Tacitus, existed between the Angli and the
Longobardi, the tribe by whom, after long wanderings through central
Europe, the conquest of Italy was at last achieved in 568, possibly at
the very time when some of their old Anglian neighbours were beginning
to fit out their barks for the invasion of England. This ethnological
connexion is confirmed by the similarity of names to be found among
the two nations, a similarity which is but slightly veiled by the
changes which in the course of five centuries turned the Lombards from
a people speaking Low German to one with a High German language. Thus
the Adelperga of the Lombards corresponds to the Ethelberga of the
Anglo-Saxons; Sisibert to Sigeberht, Alipert to Alberht, Rotopert to
Rodberht, Adelbert to Ethelberht, and Audoin to Edwin. Moreover, the
great historian of the Lombards, Paulus Diaconus, who wrote towards
the end of the eighth century, tells us that their queen, Theodelinda,
adorned her palace at Pavia with pictures representing the Lombard
invaders of Italy in the very garb which they then wore, and which had
become antiquated in the two centuries that had elapsed before his own
time. “Their garments,” he says, “were loose and for the most part
made of linen, _such as the Anglo-Saxons are wont to wear_, adorned
with wide borders woven in various colours.” This is a valuable note
of costume, for its own sake, and a striking confirmation of the close
relationship once existing between the ancestors of two great nations
now joined in friendly alliance.
* * * * *
After this sketch of the antecedents of the three new actors on
the stage of British history, it remains for us to examine the
evidence--the slender evidence, as has been already said--as to their
proceedings during the conquest. It will be well to consider this
evidence under three heads:--
(1) The slight notices contained in the works of contemporary or nearly
contemporary Latin authors.
(2) The story of the conquest as given to us by the descendants of
the invaders, that is, especially by Bede and the authors of the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
(3) The same story as told by the descendants of the conquered, that
is, especially by Gildas and Nennius.
1. In the fifth century the writing of history in the Roman empire
had practically dwindled down to the composition of short books of
chronicles, generally by ecclesiastics. As literary compositions they
have no merit: they are generally very short, giving only three or
four lines to each year, and they have no sense of the proportionate
importance of the events which they record. But they give us for
the most part absolutely contemporary evidence, and the historian,
therefore, accepts them gratefully, with all their defects. One such
chronicle, by no means the best of its kind, is generally known by the
name of Prosper Tiro (a friend and correspondent of St. Augustine),
though it is certain that it was not written by him but by some
ecclesiastic of the period, with semi-Pelagian views. This dull and
second-rate writer gives us the two following precious entries, the
only contemporary evidence that we possess as to the Saxon invasions:
“The fifteenth year of Arcadius and Honorius [A.D. 409]: at this time
the strength of the Romans was utterly wasted by sickness; and the
provinces of Britain were laid waste by the incursion of the Saxons”.
“The eighteenth year of Theodosius II. [A.D. 441]: the provinces of
Britain which up to this time had been torn by various slaughters and
disasters, are brought under the dominion of the Saxons.”
There are two points in these entries to which the reader’s attention
should be particularly directed: the first, that the Saxon invasions
are represented as beginning in 409, almost immediately after the
departure of the usurper Constantine with the legions; the second, that
the subjugation of Britain by the Saxons is assigned by the chronicler
to 441, not 449, the date usually current on the authority of Bede. It
should be remarked, in passing, that if the chronicler supposed that
the whole of Roman Britain (which he calls Britanniæ, in the plural)
came under the dominion of the Saxons (or Saxons, Angles, and Jutes)
in that year, he was certainly mistaken. But some important stage in
the conquest, if we may trust this, our only contemporary authority,
was evidently reached in the year 441, and it was the climax of a
series of aggressions which had apparently been going on for thirty-two
years.
It should be mentioned that one other nearly contemporary authority,
the Greek historian Zosimus, alludes to the collapse of Roman rule in
Britain, which he attributes to a revolt of the natives, following
on the departure of the usurper Constantine with the legions. His
language, however, is obscure and even self-contradictory, and he
throws little light on the situation.
The authority which we have next to consider is the _Life of St.
Germanus_, written by the presbyter Constantius about the year 480.
It will be seen that this document is not strictly contemporary, the
writer being separated by an interval of about half a century from the
chief events recorded by him: and, moreover, there is throughout the
Life a tendency to glorify the saint by attributing to him various
manifestations of a miraculous or semi-miraculous kind, which does not
increase our confidence in his trustworthiness as a historian. But
all students of early medieval history are accustomed to this kind of
document, in which every remarkable event in the life of the subject
of the biography is invested with a halo of thaumaturgic sanctity, and
though they are not the sort of historic materials which we prefer,
we must accept them (while making our own private reservations as to
the amount of faith which we repose in all their details) or give up
writing the story of the Middle Ages altogether.
In the case before us, the missionary Germanus, whose adventures in
Britain are related by the biographer, was a great and well-known
historical personage. He had held, under the empire, the high military
dignity of duke of the Armorican shore (Normandy and Brittany), had
been consecrated Bishop of Auxerre against his will, had thereupon said
farewell to the delights of sportsmanship, and entered earnestly on
the duties of his new calling. He had as a fellow-missionary, Lupus,
who many years after, as Bishop of Troyes, earned great renown by
dissuading the savage warrior, Attila, from an attack on his cathedral
city. It is a striking testimony to the character of both men that
their contemporary, Apollinaris Sidonius, when he wishes to celebrate
the virtues of another eminent prelate, Anianus, Bishop of Orleans,
can find no higher term of praise than this: “He was equal to Lupus
and not unequal to Germanus”. Such were the two men who in the year
429 were sent at the bidding of Pope Celestine, and in conformity with
the resolutions of a synod of Gaulish bishops, “to purge the minds of
the people of Britain from the Pelagian heresy and bring them back to
the Catholic faith,” that is, to the Augustinian teaching on free-will
and the Divine grace. Their zealous preaching won over the multitude
to their side, but the Pelagians, who seem to have been found chiefly
among the wealthier Britons, challenged them to a public discussion, in
which their simple earnestness prevailed over the elaborate rhetoric of
the gaily clothed orators on the other side. A miracle followed: the
restoration of sight to a little girl of ten years old, the daughter
of “a certain man of tribunician rank”. After visiting the tomb of the
martyred Saint Alban and exchanging relics with the keepers of the
shrine, they resumed their journey, but, unfortunately, Germanus was
for several days confined by a sprained ankle to a humble cottage in
the country. The cottage itself and all the little hovels round it were
thatched with reeds from the marsh, and fire having broken out in the
little settlement, the saint’s life seemed to be in jeopardy, but he
refused to stir, and his cottage alone remained unconsumed.
Then followed the celebrated incident of the Hallelujah battle which
is the chief reason for referring to the mission. The scene of the
encounter is not made known to us, but it evidently took place in a
mountainous country, possibly in Wales.[27] The first sentence of
the biographer, describing the campaign, is so important that it
must be translated literally: “In the meanwhile the Saxons and the
Picts, driven into one camp by the same necessity, with conjoined
force undertook war against the Britons, and, when the latter deemed
their strength unequal to the contest, they sought the aid of the
holy bishops, who, hastening their arrival, brought with them such
an accession of confidence as was equivalent to a mighty host”. The
biographer then describes the baptism of the larger part of the
army on Easter day; their eagerness for battle while they were still
moist with the baptismal water; the choice of the battle-field by the
veteran officer Germanus; that battle-field a valley surrounded by
mountains; the placing of an ambuscade whose duty it was to signal to
him the approach of the foe. At the signal given the bishops gave the
word “Hallelujah,” which was repeated in a tremendous shout by the
multitudes carefully posted out of sight, and was repeated from peak
to peak of the surrounding mountains. Hereat the terror-stricken foes
imagined not only rocks hurled down upon them, but the very artillery
of heaven let loose for their destruction. Casting away their arms they
fled in all directions, and the larger number of them were swallowed up
in the river which they had just crossed; the Hallelujah victory was
complete, a victory like that of Gideon over the Midianites, won by
moral means alone.
This narrative when we remember its nearly contemporary character has
an important bearing on the history of Britain in the fifth century. It
seems to show that, twenty years after the withdrawal of the legions,
the condition of the Britons was not absolutely desperate. There were
still among them wealthy men and eloquent ecclesiastics dressed in
costly garments, and the people were not too much engrossed by the
mere struggle for existence to have leisure to listen to the elaborate
arguments about original sin, free will and assisting grace which
formed the staple of the Pelagian controversy. Moreover the union of
the Saxons with the Picts in the hostile army is surely a point of no
small importance. If we connect it with the previously quoted entry
of Tiro, assigning to the year 409 the beginning of a series of Saxon
devastations, we may suspect that the commonly received story which
attributes the Teutonic invasions entirely to the folly of the Britons
who called in the Saxons to help them against the Picts, is, if not
altogether false, at any rate an exaggeration of one not very important
incident in the contest.
* * * * *
2. For the story told by the invaders, our chief authorities are Bede
and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. (_a_) It must be confessed that for
this part of the history we do not get much assistance from the monk
of Jarrow, the Venerable Bede. He was probably the most learned man
of his time in Europe; his conception of the duty of a historian
is a high and noble one, and when we reach the seventh century, the
golden age of Northumbrian Christianity, we shall find his assistance
invaluable; but, writing as he did in 731, he was separated by nearly
three centuries from the great Saxon invasions, and it seems clear
that he had little or nothing derived from the genuine traditions of
his race to say concerning them. The first book of his _Ecclesiastical
History_ is therefore little more than a mosaic of passages from
Orosius, Eutropius, and, pre-eminently, the Briton Gildas (hereafter
to be described), from whom he derives almost the whole history of the
Caledonian invasion, and of the calling in of the Saxons as defenders
against the attacks of the Picts. It is, however, to Bede that we owe
the first mention of the British king Vortigern as well as of the names
of Hengest and Horsa. It must remain an unsolved question from what
source Bede derived the name of Vortigern, the inviter of the Saxons
into Britain. Gildas, who is his main authority for this part of the
story, while hinting at the personality of Vortigern, hides his name.
After describing the three invading nations, the Jutes, the Saxons
and the Angles, Bede continues: “Their generals” (according to strict
grammatical construction this should refer not to the Jutes but to
the Angles) “are said to have been two brothers, Hengest and Horsa,
of whom Horsa was afterwards slain in war by the Britons. To this day
a monument inscribed by his name exists in the eastern parts of Kent.
These two were sons of Wictgils, the son of Witta, the son of Wecta,
the son of Woden, from whose stock the royal families of many provinces
derived their origin.” Bede then goes on to describe how the bands of
the three nations already named began to pour into the island, how
they made a treaty with the Picts whom they had previously conquered
and driven far away, and how they then turned their arms against their
British allies. From this point he merely copies Gildas, describing in
lamentable tones the ravage wrought by his countrymen. It is pointed
out by Bede’s latest editor, Plummer, that such information as the
Northumbrian monk possessed concerning Kent would be naturally derived
by him from his Kentish friends, Albinus, abbot of Canterbury, and
Nothelm, priest of the church of London, to both of whom he expressly
refers in his preface. But apparently even their traditions could not
carry him very far. Save for such information as the conquered race
could supply, Bede’s mind was little more than a blank as to events in
England between the ages of Honorius and Gregory the Great.
The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ is the great historical monument of our
race in its youthful days, and probably owes its original inception to
the wise encouragement of Alfred. As that great prince ruled in the
later years of the ninth century it is plain that the interval between
the historian and the events recorded is even greater in the case of
the Chronicle than in that of Bede. To a considerable extent the early
annals in the Chronicle are founded upon Bede’s history, and so far we
may safely neglect them since they add nothing to the evidence already
before the court; but there is also a certain amount of information,
especially relating to the kingdom of Wessex, to which we find nothing
that corresponds in Bede; and this part of the Chronicle--whatever
it may be worth--must of course be treated as a primary authority.
What is the real historical value of the statements which we find in
it concerning yet heathen England? There is evidently in them some
admixture of the fabulous. When we find, as we shall do, a Saxon
chieftain, Port, described as the founder of Portsmouth, the _Portus
Magnus_ of the Romans, and Wihtgar made the name-giver to the Isle
of Wight, which had been known as Vectis for centuries before he was
born, we feel that we are in the presence of traditions, not genuine
but manufactured out of etymology. Moreover the dates so elaborately
given by the Chronicle seem to have been arranged (as was pointed
out by Lappenberg) on an artificial system with recurring periods of
eight and four years; which looks like the work of men with slender
materials trying to make the bricks of history without the straw of
genuine chronology. There is a good deal of distrust of the earlier
portions of the Chronicle in the minds of historical students, side by
side with a high appreciation of its general fairness, and gratitude
to the scribes who have preserved for us so much of the records of
the past, even though their narrative is often somewhat arid. On the
whole it seems the wisest, in fact the only possible course, to take
thankfully the information which the Chronicle gives us as to these
two mist-enshrouded centuries, not absolutely maintaining its accuracy
in every particular, but yielding to it a provisional assent, until
either by internal or external evidence it shall be proved to be
legendary or impossible.
It may be as well to state here that there are various manuscripts
of the Chronicle hailing from different ecclesiastical centres, the
divergences of which in the later centuries of Anglo-Saxon history
are sometimes of great importance. For the present, however, this
question does not arise. Save for a few not very important Northumbrian
interpolations, the manuscripts of the Chronicle may be considered
as one, and their source of origin may be considered to have been
Winchester, the focus of all West Saxon government and culture.
The allusions made in the Chronicle to the departure of the Romans
from Britain are naturally very scanty: “In 409 the Goths broke up the
city of Rome, and never after that did the Romans rule in Britain”.
“In 418 the Romans gathered together all the gold-hoards that were in
Britain and hid some in the earth, so that no man thenceforth should
ever find them, and some they took with them into Gaul.” Let us proceed
therefore to examine the evidence furnished from this source as to the
foundation of the kingdoms of Kent, Sussex, Wessex, and Northumbria. As
to the early history of East Anglia, Essex and Mercia the Chronicle is
altogether silent.
_Kent._--A.D. 449.[28] Wyrtgeorn [Vortigern] invites the Angles to
Britain. They come over in three “keels” and land at Heopwines-fleet
[Ebbs-fleet in the Isle of Thanet], and he gives them lands in the
south-east of the country on condition of their fighting the Picts.
This they do successfully, but they send home for more of their
countrymen, telling them of the worthlessness of the Britons and the
goodness of the land. Their generals were two brothers, Hengest and
Horsa, sons of Wictgils with the pedigree as given by Bede.
A.D. 455. Hengest and Horsa fight with Vortigern at Aegeles-threp
[Aylesford on the Medway]. Horsa is slain. Hengest assumes the title of
king, and associates with himself his son Aesc.
A.D. 456. Hengest and Aesc fight with the Britons at Crecgan-ford
[Crayford, about six miles south-east of Woolwich], and slay 4,000
of them. The Britons evacuate Kent and with much fear flee to
London-borough.
A.D. 465. Hengest and Aesc fight with the “Welshmen” [Britons] near
Wippedes-fleote, and there slay twelve Welsh nobles, themselves losing
one thane, whose name was Wipped.
A.D. 473. Hengest and Aesc fight with the “Welshmen,” and take booty
past counting. The Welsh flee “as a man fleeth fire”.
That is all the information vouchsafed us as to the conquest of Kent,
which was evidently not an easy matter, taking as it did nearly thirty
years to finish. Possibly ere the strife was ended the invaders
somewhat modified their views as to the military worthlessness of the
Britons. London, which is transiently mentioned here in the annal for
456 is not mentioned again in the Chronicle till 851. We hear of it,
however, in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History in 604. The history of Kent
is a blank from the year 473 till 565 when Ethelbert, who afterwards
embraced Christianity, began his long reign of fifty-three years.
_Sussex._--We know from other sources that, far on into the Middle
Ages, Sussex was divided from Kent by the dense forest of the
Andredesweald or Andredesleag, and accordingly the conquest of one
country by no means necessitated the conquest of the other, which is
assigned to a considerably later date than that given for the landing
of Hengest and Horsa.
A.D. 477. Aelle with three sons and three keels come to the place
called Cymenes ora. He slays many “Welshmen,” and drives others to take
refuge in the wood that is called Andredesleag.
A.D. 485. He fights with “Welshmen” near Mearcredesburn.
A.D. 491. “Aelle and Cissa begirt Andredesceaster and slay all who
dwell therein, nor was there for that reason one Briton left alive.”
This wholesale butchery of the British defenders of the Roman fortress
of Anderida, overlooking Pevensey Bay, has naturally attracted much
attention, and is constantly appealed to by those who maintain that
the earlier stages of the Saxon conquest were an absolute war of
extermination. It is to be observed that Aelle, who founded an
exceptionally short-lived dynasty, is not credited with any long line
of ancestors reaching back to the mythic Woden. Chichester, capital of
the South Saxon kingdom, founded probably on the site of the Roman city
of Regnum, is said to have derived its name from Cissa, son of Aelle.
_Wessex._--As might naturally be expected in a chronicle having its
birth-place in Winchester, the historical details as to Wessex are much
fuller than for the other kingdoms; so full that it is possible to
relinquish the mere annalistic form and to weave them into a continuous
narrative. In 495 (more than half a century after Tiro’s date of the
Saxon conquest) two chieftains, Cerdic and Cynric his son, came with
five ships to a place called Cerdices ora, and on the very day of their
landing fought a battle with the “Welshmen”. The scene of the landing
was probably somewhere in the noble harbour of Southampton Water. The
two chieftains were not as yet spoken of as kings, but bore the lower
title of _ealdormen_. Of Cerdic, however, the Chronicle recites the
usual half-legendary pedigree, reaching back through eight intervening
links to Woden, from whom (of course under later Christian influences)
the line is traced back to Noah and Adam. These pedigrees, or at least
the genuine Teutonic portion of them, may very probably have been
preserved in the songs of minstrels, and obviously belong to that
element of the Chronicle which is independent of Bede. We may look
upon the divine ancestor Woden as marking the limit of the minstrel’s
memory or knowledge, and we shall therefore probably be justified in
concluding that the West Saxon tribe possessed some sort of continuous
historical tradition reaching back for eight generations behind Cerdic
(himself a middle-aged man in 495), or about to the beginning of the
third century. No wonder that kings whose very flatterers could not
trace back their lineage to an earlier date than that of the Emperor
Severus, felt their dynasties new and short-lived in presence of the
immemorial antiquity of Rome.
In 508, the two chiefs slew a British king named Natanleod and 5,000
men with him. Evidently by this time they must have been at the head of
a large number of followers. We are told that “the land”--apparently
the scene of the battle--was named after the slain king; and it is
generally supposed that this gives us the origin of the name Netley,
well known for its ruined abbey and its military hospital. Eleven
years later (in 519) they assumed the title of kings, being no longer
contented with the humbler designation of ealdormen, and fought the
Britons at Cerdicesford, a place identified with Charford on the Avon,
about six miles south of Salisbury. Meanwhile, however, there had been
other Saxon invasions of the same region. In 501 is placed the visit
of the legendary Port with his two sons to Portsmouth, and the death
of a young Briton of very high birth who vainly tried to defend his
land from their invasion. In 514 certain West Saxon reinforcements
are represented as arriving (perhaps in the Isle of Wight) under the
leadership of another eponymous hero, Wihtgar, and his brother Stuf,
nephews of Cerdic; and, probably with their help, in 530 Cerdic and
Cynric took possession of the Isle of Wight, after slaying many Britons
at Wihtgaræsbyrg or Carisbrooke. The statements in the Chronicle about
the conquest of the Isle of Wight, obscure and confused in themselves,
become yet more so when we compare them with an earlier passage
interpolated from Bede, in which the Jutes, not the West Saxons, are
represented as the conquerors of the Isle of Wight. Of course two
tides of Teutonic conquest may have passed over the island, but it
is difficult to bring the two lines of tradition into their proper
relation to one another.
In 534, Cerdic, who must now have been an old man, ended his life and
his near forty years of British warfare, and Cynric his son reigned
alone. We may sum up the total of Cerdic’s achievements by saying
that he seems to have completed the conquest of Hampshire and the
Isle of Wight, and that he probably fixed his royal residence at the
Romano-British city of Venta Belgarum, thereafter to be known as
Winchester. The fact that it required the labour of a lifetime to
achieve the conquest of a moderate-sized English county, sufficiently
shows that the Britons were not the mere Nithings (men of naught) whom
Hengest and some of Hengest’s Teutonic countrymen have represented them
to have been.
Of the reign of Cynric, which, according to the Chronicle, lasted
from 534 to 560, we have but little told us in that work. We hear
of a battle at Old Sarum in 552 and of another four years later at
Beranbyrig which is identified with Barbury in the north of Wiltshire.
Apparently the achievement of his reign was the addition of the greater
part of Wiltshire to the West Saxon kingdom. We may so far anticipate
the evidence of the British writers as to say that the twenty-six
years of Cynric probably coincide with part of the forty-four years of
comparative peace which they describe as following the British victory
of Mount Badon.
Far fuller of decisive events was the memorable reign of Ceawlin,
son of Cynric, which is assigned to the years between 560 and 592.
He was the eldest of a gallant band of brothers whose mutually
resembling names, Cutha and Cuthwine and Ceol and Ceolric, have given
no small trouble to the genealogists. The eighth year of his reign was
signalised by an event, unprecedented as far as we know in the history
of Anglo-Saxon England, namely, war between the invaders themselves.
The object of the West Saxon attack in 568 was Kent, whose young king
Ethelbert, after but three years of kingship, saw his land invaded
by Ceawlin and his brother Cutha. The battle-place was Wibbandune,
possibly Wimbledon in Surrey, and there two of Ethelbert’s ealdormen
were slain and himself put to flight. What terms he may have made with
the victors we know not, but he was not permanently dethroned, since
twenty-eight years afterwards we find him welcoming to his palace in
Canterbury the missionaries from Rome.
Three years later (571) a vigorous attack was made by Cutha on the
Britons, north of the Thames. A battle was fought at Bedford in which
Cutha himself was slain, but victory crowned the Saxon arms in the
general campaign, and four towns in Oxfordshire and Bucks (of which
Aylesbury alone has retained its importance till the present day) were
added to the kingdom of Wessex. The year 577 was of immense importance
in the history of the Saxon progress. In that year a great battle was
fought at Deorham, in Gloucestershire, about ten miles east of Bristol.
There were arrayed on the one side Ceawlin and his brother Cuthwine, on
the other three British kings, Coinmail and Condidan and Farinmail, all
of whom were slain. Three great cities of Roman foundation (“ceastra”
as the Chronicle calls them) were the price of victory: they were
Gloucester, Cirencester and Bathanceaster or Bath. All historians are
agreed as to the importance of this victory, which not only added
Gloucester and (probably) part of Somerset to the West-Saxon kingdom,
but by cutting off the Cymry of “West Wales” (Devon and Cornwall) from
their brethren north of the Bristol Channel practically ensured their
eventual if slow submission.
“In 584 Ceawlin and Cutha fought with the Britons in the place that
is called Fethan-lea,[29] and Cutha was slain, and Ceawlin took many
‘towns’ and innumerable quantities of booty and departed in anger to
his own land.” The chronicler seems to be here telling us of a Saxon
reverse. Though Ceawlin captured many towns and took vast heaps of
spoil he lost his son in the great battle and departed in wrath,
assuredly in effect defeated, to his own land. After defeat came
apparently domestic treason and civil broils. The entries for 591 to
593 show us the proclamation of a certain Ceolric, brother or nephew
of Ceawlin, and a battle in 592 evidently not with the Britons, but
between Saxon and Saxon, fought at Wodnesbeorge,[30] which resulted in
the “driving out” of Ceawlin. Next year (593) Ceawlin with two others,
probably princes of his house, named Cuichelm and Crida “perished”.[31]
The wording of the annal shows pretty plainly that they all died a
violent death, whether on the battlefield or by assassination, whether
as friends or foes, it is impossible to say; but there can be no doubt
that the sun of Ceawlin’s fortunes, which had at one time shone so
splendidly, set in clouds and storms.
In 597 (apparently on the death of Ceolric) Ceolwulf, nephew of
Ceawlin, “began to reign over the West Saxons, and he fought
continually and successfully either with Englishmen or with Welshmen
or with Picts or with Scots”. He was, however, reigning at the time of
Augustine’s mission, and with that event the historical interest which
has been slightly stirred by the story of the West Saxons’ advance is
transferred to another quarter. Throughout the seventh century Kent and
Mercia and pre-eminently Northumbria claim our attention so absorbingly
that we cannot spare much thought for the obscure annals of Wessex.
Concerning the two Northumbrian kingdoms, Deira and Bernicia, we have
no information in the Chronicle for the first hundred years after the
landing of Hengest and Horsa. We are then under the year told that Ida
(descended in the ninth generation from Woden) was the founder of the
royal line of Northumbria; that he built Bebbanburh (Bamburgh) and that
this celebrated fortress was in the first instance surrounded with a
fence and afterwards with a wall. The chronicler then tells us that
in 560, on the death of Ida, Aelle (eleventh in descent from Woden)
began to reign over Northumbria and reigned for [nearly] thirty years.
The chronicler here either wilfully or inadvertently has suppressed
something of the truth. From his language one might have conjectured
that Aelle was of the lineage of Ida, and had succeeded peaceably to
his ancestor. Instead of this peaceable succession, however, we know
from other sources that we have here to deal with two rival kingly
lines, whose feuds and reconciliations make an important chapter in
Northumbrian history. The true situation was this: essentially the
kings of Ida’s line were rulers of Bernicia, while Aelle and his
descendants ruled Deira. That is to say: from their steep rock-palace
of Bamburgh the sons of Ida reigned by ancestral right over all the
eastern portion of the lands between Tyne and Forth, between the wall
of Hadrian and the wall of Antoninus. Similarly Aelle and his sons,
firmly settled in the great Roman city of Eburacum, governed the
country between Tyne and Humber; but each king ever aspired to extend
his sway over the other kingdom and often succeeded for a while in
doing so. Thus we have constant vicissitudes but a general tendency
towards the union of the two kingdoms into one Northumbria, which obeys
now an “Iding,” now an “Aelling” ruler. What strifes and commotions
may have attended the transition from one line to another we can only
in part discern. We are only obscurely told that in 588 Aelle’s line
was ousted, and that Ethelric the son, and after him Ethelfrith the
grandson of Ida reigned over all Northumbria.
* * * * *
3. We now come to the British version of the conquest. Though a
nation is naturally reluctant to tell the story of its own defeat,
we might have expected to receive from a comparatively civilised and
Christianised people, such as the Romano-Britons of the fifth century,
some intelligible literary history of so important an event as the
Teutonic conquest of their island. This expectation, however, is
dismally disappointed. We have practically nothing from the vanquished
people, but the lamentations of the sixth century author Gildas, and
the obviously fable-tainted narratives of the puzzle-headed Nennius of
the eighth century.
Gildas, who obtained from after ages the surname of “the Wise,” seems
to have been a native of Scottish Strathclyde and was born early in the
sixth century; he became a monk and at the age of forty-four wrote what
Bede truly calls “a tearful discourse concerning the ruin of Britain”.
His object in this discourse was to rebuke the ungodliness of his
countrymen and to remind them of the tokens of the Divine wrath which
they had already received. He is consequently, for our purpose, a most
disappointing writer. We go to him for history and we get a sermon,
but we ought in fairness to remember that he never proposed to give us
anything else. A large part of his treatise consists of reproductions
of the denunciatory passages of the old Hebrew prophets: a more
interesting section, but one outside our present purpose, consists
of fierce invectives against five wicked, or at least unfriendly,
kings of Wales. But there are a few chapters, the only ones that now
concern us, in which, in pathetic tones, he tells us something as to
the circumstances of the invasion of his country. He harks back to the
departure from Britain of the usurper Maximus (383), to which, rather
than to the later usurpation of Constantine, he traces her defenceless
condition. Stripped of the multitude of brave young men who followed
the fortunes of Maximus and never returned, and being themselves
ignorant of war, the Britons were “trampled under foot by two savage
nations from beyond seas, namely the Scots from the north-west and
the Picts from the north”. The description of the invaders as coming
from beyond the seas is important. The term “Scots” at this time and
for four centuries afterwards means primarily the inhabitants of the
north of Ireland, and only secondarily the offshoot from that race who
settled in Argyll and the Isles. These invaders, of course, were as
Gildas calls them “_transmarini_”: but it is possible that the Picts
also, some of whom we know to have been settled in Wigtonshire, came
across the shallow land-girdled waters of Solway Firth, instead of
attacking the yet undemolished wall, and thus that they too seemed to
the dwellers in North-west Britain to be coming from “beyond the seas”.
According to Gildas the Britons sent an embassy to Rome, piteously
imploring help against the invaders. The Romans came, drove out the
barbarians and exhorted the inhabitants to build a wall between the
two seas, which they accordingly did, from Forth to Clyde, building it
only of turf. A fresh invasion followed, a second embassy, again utter
rout and slaughter of the enemy, but, alas! there came also a solemn
warning from the Romans that they could not wear out their strength in
these constant expeditions for the deliverance of Britain, and that its
inhabitants must henceforth look to their own right arms for safety;
but nevertheless before they abandoned them they would help them to
build a wall, this time of stone not of turf, on the line between Tyne
and Solway. Moreover, they built a line of towers along the coast right
down to the southern shore where their ships were wont to be stationed,
and then they said farewell to their allies, as men who expected never
to see them again.
All this part of Gildas’s story is quite untrustworthy. No one who
has carefully studied the architecture of the two walls and the
inscriptions along their course will attribute their origin or even
any important restorations of them, to those troublous years of dying
Rome, the years between 390 and 440. Gildas is here evidently retailing
the legend which had sprung up among an ignorant and half-barbarised
people as to the great works of the foreigner in their land, and
he has not only in this matter “darkened counsel by words without
knowledge,” but he has grievously misled his worthy follower Bede, who
is brought into hopeless perplexity by his attempt to reconcile his
own more correct information about the Roman walls with the unsound
Welsh traditions or conjectures which he found in Gildas. The tearful
narrative proceeds: There is more misery in Britain: civil war is
added to barbarian invasion, and food, save such as can be procured
by hunting, vanishes out of the land. In 446 the poor remnants of the
Britons send their celebrated letter to that Roman general whose name
was at the time most famous among men: the letter which began, “To
Aetius,[32] thrice consul, the groans of the Britons,” and went on to
say, “The barbarians drive us to the sea: the sea drives us back on
the barbarians: we have but a choice between two modes of dying, either
to have our throats cut or to be drowned”. But not even this piteous
request brought help, for Aetius was too busily occupied with his wars
against Attila and the Huns to be able to spare thought or men for
the defence of Britain. However, pressed by the pangs of hunger, the
Britons grew bolder and even achieved some small measure of success
against their enemies. The impudent Hibernian robbers returned to their
homes; the Picts at their end of the island remained quiet for a time,
though both nations soon began again their plundering forays. But with
success came luxury, drunkenness, envy, quarrelsomeness, falsehood, all
the signs of a demoralised people. And then for the punishment of the
nation came first a pestilence so terrible that the living scarcely
sufficed to bury the dead, and then, direst plague of all, the fatal
resolution to call in foreign aid.
“A rumour was spread that their inveterate enemies were moving for
their utter extermination. A council was called to consider the best
means of repelling their fatal and oft-repeated invasions and ravages.
Then all the councillors, together with the proud tyrant,[33] with
blinded souls, devised this defence (say rather ruin) for their
country, that those most ferocious and ill-famed Saxons--a race hateful
to God and man--should be invited into the island (as one might
‘invite’ a wolf into the sheepfold) in order to beat back the northern
natives. Never was a step taken more ruinous or more bitter than this.
Oh, the depth of these men’s blindness! Oh, the desperate and foolish
dulness of their minds! ‘Foolish are the princes of Zoan, giving unto
Pharaoh senseless counsel.’[34] Then that horde of cubs burst forth
from the den of their mother, the lioness, in three _cyuls_ (keels),
as their language calls them, or as we should say, ‘long-ships’. They
relied on favourable omens and on a certain prophecy which had been
made to them, in which it was predicted that for 300 years they should
occupy the land towards which their prows were pointed, and for half of
that time they should lay it waste by frequent ravages. Thus, at the
bidding of that unlucky tyrant did they first fix their terrible claws
into the eastern part of the island, pretending that they were going
to fight for the deliverance of the country, but in truth intending to
capture it for themselves. Then the aforesaid mother-lioness, learning
how the first brood had prospered, sent another and more numerous array
of her cubs, who, borne hither in barks, joined themselves to these
treacherous allies.”
Space fails us to repeat in his own words the whole of the author’s
pitiful story. Somewhat condensed it amounts to this: The strangers
claimed that liberal rations should be given them in consideration
of the great dangers which they ran. The request was granted and
“shut the dog’s mouth” for a time. But soon they began to complain
of the insufficiency of these rations: they invented all sorts of
grievances against their hosts, and used these as a justification
for breaking their covenant with the British king, and roaming with
ravage all over the island. “The flame kindled by that sacrilegious
band spread desolation over nearly all the land till at last its red
and savage tongue licked the coasts of the western sea.” The towns
[_coloniæ_] were levelled to the ground with battering rams; the
farmers [_coloni_], with the rulers of the Church, with the priests
and people, were laid low by the flashing swords of the barbarians or
perished in the devouring flames. Coping-stone and battlement, altars
and columns, fragments of corpses covered with clots of gore, were all
piled together in the middle of the ruined towns, as in a horrible
wine-press. Burial there was none, save under the ruins of the houses
or in the maw of some beast of prey or ravenous bird. Some of the
miserable remnant who had escaped to the mountains were caught there
and slain in heaps. Others, pressed by hunger, submitted and became
slaves of the conquerors; others fled beyond the sea. A very few who
had fled to the mountains, there on the tops of precipitous cliffs
or in the depths of impenetrable forests succeeded in dragging out a
life, precarious truly and full of terrors, but still a life in their
fatherland.
At last the tide turned. Some of the invaders returned to their
own homes, and the unsubdued mountaineers saw the remnant of their
countrymen flocking to them from every quarter and beseeching them
to save them from extermination. A little band of patriots was thus
formed, under the leadership of Ambrosius Aurelianus, a man of modest
temper but of high descent, and in fact the only Roman sprung from
the wearers of the purple who had survived the storm of the invasion.
Under this leader the patriots dared to challenge the invaders to a
pitched battle, which, by the favour of the Lord, resulted in their
victory. From that time the struggle went on with varying fortune, now
the citizens, now the enemy triumphing, till the year of the siege of
Mount Badon, which was also the year of the birth of Gildas, and from
which forty-four years had elapsed to the time of his present writing.
That was the last and greatest slaughter of “the scoundrels”. From that
time onwards external war had ceased, and for a space the hearts of all
men, delivered from despair and chastened by adversity, turned to the
Lord, and all men, whether kings or private persons, whether bishops or
simple ecclesiastics, kept their proper ranks and orders in the state.
Of late, however, on the decease of the men of that generation, morals
had again declined, anarchy had begun to prevail, and owing to the
frequent occurrence of civil wars, the cities were no longer inhabited
as securely as of old.
Gildas then proceeds to describe further the demoralisation of
his countrymen, and especially the outrageous vices of the five
contemporary British kings, Constantine, Caninus, Vortipor, Cuneglas,
and Maglocunus (or Maelgwn), upon all of whom he pours forth the vials
of his righteous indignation; but into this part of his discourse there
is no need for us to follow him. However little to our taste may be the
somewhat inflated rhetoric of this author, it is important always to
remember that he lived about two centuries nearer to the Saxon conquest
than our next authority on the subject, Bede, and we must gratefully
acknowledge that he does give us a few valuable facts of which we
should otherwise be ignorant. His description of the horrors of the
invasion, though highly coloured, is sufficiently paralleled by the
well-attested events of the later Danish conquest to be not altogether
improbable. His mention of Ambrosius Aurelianus, the modest descendant
of emperors (perhaps of Maximus or the usurper Constantine), and the
brave leader of revolt against the invaders, looks like historical
fact, and the story of the British triumph at Mount Badon is not made a
whit less probable by the patriotic silence of the Chronicle concerning
a Saxon disaster. Both the place and the date of that great battle have
been the subjects of long debate. Mons Badonicus used to be thought to
represent Bath, and after a good deal of discussion this identification
seems again to be coming into favour.
The sentence in which Gildas appears to connect the date of the
battle with his own birth is almost hopelessly obscure and the text
is probably corrupt; but on the whole it seems most probable that
he meant to say, as above suggested: “The battle of Mount Badon was
fought forty-four years ago, and in that year I was born”. The _Annales
Cambriæ_ (a compilation of the tenth century) give 516 for the year
of the battle, a date which would fix the composition of the tearful
discourse to 560. Mommsen prefers 500 for the date of the birth of
Gildas. In any event there is a strong inducement to connect at least
a part of the long period of comparative peace which, according to
Gildas, followed the battle of Mount Badon with the confessedly
uneventful reign of Cynric, the West Saxon.
* * * * *
We now pass on to the other writer of British origin who dealt with the
history of the Anglo-Saxon conquest--namely, _Nennius_. If one has to
speak in rather severe terms of the literary quality of this writer’s
work and of the value of his testimony as a historian, it must be
remembered in extenuation of his many faults that he lived at a time
and in a nation in which literary excellence and the acquisition of
accurate knowledge of the past were made well-nigh impossible by the
hard pressure of daily life, brutalised and barbarised as it was by
perpetual wars both from without and from within. We shall have again
to notice the same phenomenon of the utter decay of the historical and
literary faculty in a highly cultured people when the Danes ravaged
the monasteries of Northumbria, and it is but justice to these poor
stammerers of a vanished age to remember how much more easily a nation
might then be deprived of its whole literary heritage than can ever now
be the case since the invention of printing.
There have been long and sharp discussions as to the age, the country,
and even the personality of the author who is generally known as
Nennius. The following pages represent the chief conclusions arrived at
by a German student of Celtic literature, Professor Zimmer, who in his
book, _Nennius Vindicatus_, has surely vindicated his client’s right
to exist, though he admits as fully as any one that client’s terrible
deficiencies as a historian. We may now, then, venture to assert
that Nennius, the author of the _Historia Brittonum_, was born about
the middle of the eighth century, that he lived in South-East Wales,
probably near the borders of Brecon and Radnor, that he wrote his book
in or about the year 796, and that it was subjected, about 810, to a
very early revision by a scribe who calls himself Samuel, and who lived
in North Wales. For some reason or other the book had considerable
popularity both in England and on the continent, especially in
Brittany, but it suffered much at the hands of ignorant transcribers,
and a narrative, not originally very lucid, has in some places been
made almost unintelligible, owing to the transposition of some of the
leaves of manuscript which have fallen out and been replaced in a wrong
order. The restoration of these wrongly sorted chapters to their proper
place in the book is one of Professor Zimmer’s greatest achievements.
The work of an ill-informed and uncritical scribe such as Nennius
evidently was,[35] subject also to all these adversities in the course
of its transmission to us, and originally written three centuries
and a half after the events recorded, might be considered so poor an
authority as to be unworthy of our further notice. But, in the first
place, we have practically no other British authority save Gildas for
the events which interest us so deeply; and, secondly, the author has
at one point incorporated in his work a document much earlier and much
more valuable than his own. This is the so-called “Genealogies of the
Kings,” which occupy sections 57 to 65 of the _Historia Brittonum_, and
which, though they consist chiefly of strings of names, the ancestors
of Anglian kings, are of a comparatively early date, since they bring
the history down only to 679 (being thus slightly earlier even than
Bede), and have this especial interest for us that we have here,
imbedded in a passionately Celtic work, information otherwise lacking
as to the rulers of the Anglian kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia in
the sixth century.
Probably the most valuable piece of information conveyed to us by
Nennius, relating, it is true, rather to the history of Wales than
to that of England, is derived from these same _Genealogiæ Regum_.
It is to the effect that Maelgwn, King of Gwynedd (North Wales), was
descended in the fifth degree from a certain Cunedag, who with eight
sons marched southward from Manau Guotodin (which is identified with
the district of Lothian), and drove “the Scots” from the region of
Gwynedd, to which they never returned. This southward march took place,
he says, 146 years before Maelgwn reigned. Now, Maelgwn, who was one
of the five kings so fiercely denounced by Gildas, is a historical
personage who certainly reigned in North Wales and whose death is dated
in 547. He is also a link in the chain of Welsh kings who continued
to reign so long as Wales had any independent rulers. The statement,
therefore, amounts to this, that a little before 400, say in 380, or
about the date of the usurpation of Maximus, a chieftain named Cunedag
with his eight sons, and, doubtless, a large army, marched right across
Britain from the Firth of Forth to the Menai Straits, drove out the
“Scots,” that is the Irish invaders who were in possession of the
country, and established a dynasty which endured for nine centuries
(380–1283), till Llewelyn and David, the last royal descendants of
Cunedag, were slain by the order of Edward Plantagenet. This is a
fact unrelated to any other that has been handed down to us, but
which suggests the reflection how many great movements of population,
all memory of which has perished, may have been going forward in our
island during these mist-covered fifth and sixth centuries of our
era. Moreover, the fact that we have here apparently an instance of
a Pictish king conducting a campaign of extermination against the
“Scots,” though these Scots were in Wales, throws some doubt on the
conventional theory that all the calamities of undefended Britain were
due to a war in which the Picts and the Scots were acting in concert.
As to the actual events of the Anglo-Saxon conquest Nennius leads us
into a perfect jungle-growth of legend and fable, but adds very little
to our real information. He repeats the name of the unhappy Vortigern
and blackens it with all sorts of foul crimes, such as murder and
incest. He blends his narrative with alleged scandals, not only untrue
but historically impossible, against the saintly Germanus. He hints
that there was rivalry and discord between Vortigern and Ambrosius; and
here we can neither confirm nor refute his statement, though certainly
the story as told by Gildas does not give us the impression that they
were contemporaries. He tells us that when Hengest sent for the second
draft of his followers they came over in sixteen keels, and that in one
of those keels was “a girl fair of face and very stately in person,
the daughter of Hengest” (the name Rowena is not mentioned till a
much later age). The damsel serves the king with strong drink. “Satan
enters into the heart of Vortigern, and through an interpreter whose
name was Ceretic [this little detail looks like genuine tradition] he
asks for the maiden in marriage, promising to give half his kingdom in
exchange, and he does in fact give her the district of Kent, though a
prince named Guoyrancgon was then reigning there and knew not that he
was being thus handed over into the power of the pagans.” Hengest then
proceeded to give his new son-in-law fatherly advice, which he assured
him would effectually secure his kingdom: “I will invite my son and
his nephew, for they are warlike men, that they may fight against the
Scots, and do thou give unto them those regions which are in the north,
next to the wall which is called Guaul”. Obeying this recommendation,
Vortigern invited them and they came, “to wit Octha and Ebissa with
forty keels; but whilst they were sailing round the Picts they laid
waste the Orkney islands, and came and occupied many countries beyond
the Frisian Sea [the Firth of Forth?] as far as the boundary of the
Picts”. A dark and difficult passage truly; but there is some reason
to think that there may be in it a germ of historical truth, and that
there was really a Jutish settlement in Scotland.
After this the story relapses into mere romance. We hear of enchanted
towers, of a wonder-working child who was afterwards known as the
enchanter Merlin, and who apparently calls up the spirit of the dead
Ambrosius. Then we are introduced to Vortimer, the brave son of
Vortigern, who defeats the barbarians in four great battles; but,
dying soon after, he desires to be buried on a hill above the place
where they had first landed, since he has a prophetic intimation that
they shall not dwell in the land for ever, but shall one day be driven
forth; a prophecy the fulfilment of which still lingers. Discouraged by
the victories of Vortimer, Hengest now resorts to stratagem, and calls
for a conference to which both Britons and Saxons are to come unarmed,
and at which they shall establish a league of lasting friendship.
Privately, however, he orders his followers to hide each man a small
knife under his foot in the middle of his boot, and when he calls out
“_Eu Saxones nimmath tha saxas_” (Ye Saxons grasp the daggers), out
flash the deadly weapons; the 300 senators of Vortigern are slain, and
he himself is taken prisoner and loaded with chains till he consents to
give Hengest Essex and Sussex for his ransom. The story ends with the
death of Vortigern. “Some say that he died a broken-hearted wanderer,
hated by all his people, and others that the earth opened and swallowed
him up on the night on which the enchanted citadel was burned.”
The traitorous conference and Hengest’s cry to his followers seem to
have about them a slight savour of probability, but it will probably
be the opinion of any one who carefully peruses the chapters of
Nennius of which a slight outline has here been traced, that they are
for the most part of as much historical value as the Arabian Nights’
Entertainments. But the elements of which this strange work is composed
are of various value. After a sketch of the life of St. Patrick which
is taken from a well-known source and which need not here detain us,
Nennius gives an important paragraph which seems to be taken from
his earlier Northumbrian authority, and, if so, is entitled to more
respectful attention: “On the death of Hengest, his son Octha crossed
from the northern region of Britain to the kingdom of Kent. From him
are descended the present kings of that country. Then did Arthur fight
against the Saxons in those days along with the leaders of the Britons,
but he himself was leader in the wars.”[36] The author then proceeds
to give us the sites of twelve great battles fought by Arthur. Of the
eighth, he says it was “in the castle of Guinnion, whereat Arthur
carried on his shoulders the image of the holy Mary, ever a Virgin, and
the pagans were turned to flight in that day, and a great slaughter was
made among them by the power of Christ and his Virgin Mother. The ninth
battle was fought in the city of the legion (_Castra Legionis_).[37]...
The twelfth was fought at Mount Badon, at which 960 men fell in one day
at one onslaught by Arthur, and no one felled them but he alone, and in
all the wars he stood forth as conqueror.”
The scenes of the twelve battles fought by Arthur have been variously
identified, some authors placing them in South Wales and some in the
Scottish lowlands. Except as regards Castra Legionis and Mons Badonis,
there is something to be said for the latter set of identifications,
which seem to agree with the Northumbrian origin of the document quoted
by Nennius.
Is there any historical truth in the personality of Arthur, or is he
a mere creature of romance? The answer to that much-debated question
depends on the degree of credit which, upon a review of the whole case,
we may consider ourselves at liberty to attach to these few sentences
of Nennius. All the rest that has been said concerning him, whether by
pseudo-historians, such as Geoffrey of Monmouth, by avowed romancers
like Sir Thomas Malory, or by poets like Tennyson, is confessedly
but the product of imagination, some of it very beautiful, some of
it rather foolish; but Nennius, and he alone, can answer for us the
question whether Arthur ever really was.
It is believed that the reader has now been introduced to all the
authentic information which has been handed down to us concerning
the great revolution or rather series of revolutions which changed
Britannia into Engla-land. The chroniclers of the twelfth century,
William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, Florence of Worcester, for
the most part honourable and truth-seeking men, have dealt with these
historical materials, each after his own fashion, seeking to weave them
into a connected and harmonious narrative; but it is generally agreed
by those who have carefully studied their works that they knew no more
than we as to the events of the fifth and sixth centuries, and that
historical science can gain little or nothing, for this part of the
history of England, from a study of their chronicles. Much less, of
course, does it behove us to give any attention to the mere romances
which Geoffrey of Monmouth and the storytellers of his school imagined
about the fictitious kings of England, from Brut to Lud. Already in
the seventeenth century these sports of fancy were beginning to be
appraised at their true value by scholars like Milton, who rehearsed
but evidently did not believe them. Now, happily, no English historian
thinks it necessary to waste his time and the time of his readers by
proving their utter unreality. Still, no doubt the mind of every
historical student longs for a continuous and rightly co-ordinated
narrative of events, and dislikes to see the evidence presented in
such disjointed fashion as that in which it has been here submitted to
the reader. This however appears to be for the present a disagreeable
necessity. Great danger seems to attend every attempt to make one
plain story out of the various materials supplied to us by Bede, the
Chronicle, Gildas and Nennius. It may be that the labours of future
investigators may enable them to achieve this result; but the time is
not yet.
One or two great landmarks may perhaps be accurately discerned through
the mist. The united testimony of Prosper Tiro and the biographer of
Germanus seems to justify us in asserting that the Saxon assaults upon
Britain were contemporaneous with those of the Picts, and never really
ceased throughout the first half of the fifth century. The allusion
in the Chronicle to a burial of treasure and flight of the Romans in
418 perhaps refers to some otherwise unrecorded invasion of the Saxons
and to a consequent emigration of the Romanised Britons to Gaul. That
such an emigration on a large scale must have taken place somewhat
early in the century seems to follow as a necessary consequence from
the fact that the Armorican peninsula received then that name of
Britannia, Bretagne or Brittany which in one shape or other it has ever
since retained, and that already in 469 we find Apollinaris Sidonius
speaking, as a matter of course, of the inhabitants of that region as
Britons.[38]
There was probably an invasion of Kent in 441 by a Teutonic tribe,
whom we may perhaps call Jutes, and this invasion was less of a mere
piratical raid and more of an abiding conquest than the previous
expeditions. We notice the same difference three centuries later in the
Danish invasions. Vortigern is probably an historical character, and
his marriage with the daughter of the Teutonic chief was the sort of
event which might well strike the minds of contemporaries and linger
long in the songs of later generations. Probably, however, he was not a
“king”--Roman institutions would hardly have allowed of the formation
so early of a regal dynasty--but a great and powerful landowner who
armed his dependants and wielded practically something like kingly
power. His invocation of Jutish aid to repel a Pictish invasion may
be historically true, but far too much has doubtless been made of
the whole affair by British fabulists, anxious to excuse the failure
of their countrymen and determined to make the luckless Vortigern
the scapegoat of their nation. “We were betrayed!” is the natural
exclamation of every vanquished people.
Ambrosius Aurelianus, the descendant of Roman wearers of the purple,
is almost certainly a historical personage, though it is impossible to
fix the time and place of his operations. So, too, with a shade less
of probability is Arthur, or Artorius, whom we may fairly credit with
having stayed for a time the torrent of the Saxon advance by the great
victory of the Mons Badonicus won at some time between 500 and 516. In
both these British champions, however, we ought probably to see not
Cymric kings, but Romano-British generals, wielding a power like that
of the Roman _duces_ and _comites_, and perhaps even commanding bodies
of men trained in some of the traditions of the Roman legion. Most
important, on this view of the case, are the words of Nennius himself:
“Arthur fought against the Saxons along with the kings of the Britons,
but he himself was _Dux Bellorum_”.
The short and business-like entries of the Chronicle as to the
successive victories which marked the extension of the West Saxon
kingdom seem in the main worthy of belief, though we cannot rely
with much confidence on the dates attached to every entry. It does
not surprise us to find no record of the Saxon defeat at the Mons
Badonicus, nor, as has been said, does such silence lessen the
probability of its having actually occurred. Ceawlin, the hero of the
West Saxons, is undoubtedly a real figure in history, and we may in
the main accept with confidence the history of his battles, especially
of his crowning victory at Deorham, which undid the work of Mount
Badon, and, by giving the command of the Severn Valley and the Bristol
Channel to the Saxons, finally separated “West Wales” from Wales. The
domestic strife which disastrously ended his career and hurled him from
his throne is pretty clearly hinted at in the Chronicle, and we may
be allowed to conjecture that it was the continuance of this internal
discord which prevented for a long while the further development of
Wessex; which made the rising power of Mercia instead of the West Saxon
state the protagonist in the conflict with Wales; and which struck the
annals of the latter kingdom in the seventh century with barrenness.
When Ceawlin died, in 593, already the great pope who was to reunite
Britain to Christian Europe was presiding over the Roman Church, and we
may be said now at last to see land, the _terra firma_ of authentic and
continuous history.
On reviewing the whole course of the Teutonic conquest of our island
we cannot fail to be struck by the different rates of speed at which
that conquest proceeded at different times. By about the middle of the
sixth century the invaders seem to have possessed themselves of nearly
all the country lying to the east of a line drawn from Berwick-on-Tweed
through Lichfield to Salisbury. After that period, however, their
advance, never very rapid, becomes extremely slow. Wales the Saxons
never conquered. “West Wales,” as Devon and Cornwall were called, were
not subdued till the ninth century. Cumberland, which formed part of
the Celtic kingdom of Strathclyde, does not seem to have become English
till the close of the seventh century, and even then was very loosely
joined to the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria. It is to be hoped that
we may one day obtain some clearer light on the reason for this great
difference in the rate of conquest between the eastern and western
halves of the island; how far it may have been due to the different
resisting powers of two Celtic races, the “Brythonic” and “Goidelic”;
whether earlier Saxon settlements along the shore of the German Ocean
facilitated the work of the new invaders; or whether the flat alluvial
lands of the east, more easily overrun by mounted bands of freebooters
than the rough mountainous country of the west, were the chief factors
in the problem.
A question which has been often and fiercely discussed and on which
probably the last word has not yet been said is: “How far did the great
movements of invasion which we have been discussing amount to an
actual replacement of one population by another?” or, in other words:
“Are the Englishmen of to-day pure Saxons and Angles or partly Celts?”
In considering this question two factors have to be considered: (1) the
amount of new population imported into the country; and (2) the degree
to which the invaders carried the process of extermination of the older
inhabitants. As to the first point we are furnished with extremely
scanty information by all our authorities. The mythical “three keels”
and “five keels,” which the chroniclers speak of as containing the
whole forces of the invaders, point only to a scanty number of
warriors, accompanied probably by their horses, but certainly not by
their wives and children. The story of the legendary Rowena, on the
other hand, suggests--what is doubtless the truth--that the invaders,
once established in the land, sent speedily for the wives and daughters
whom they had left by the Elbe or the Baltic. One late authority speaks
of the Saxons as inviting over so many of their kith and kin that an
island which they had previously inhabited was left almost void of
people. Undoubtedly every indication of language and of later social
state points to the conclusion that the invasions were not mere raids
of freebooting warriors, but great national migrations such as were
the fashion in the fourth and fifth centuries after Christ, such as
Claudian describes as headed by Alaric and such as Ennodius paints in
his laudation of Theodoric.
Moreover, even for such a great national displacement we may find a
sufficient cause in the condition of central Europe between 432 and
452. During all these years the fear of the mighty Hunnish war-lord
Attila lay like a nightmare upon Europe; not upon the Romanised men
of the southern cities only, but quite as much upon the Teuton in his
forests, for the Teuton loathed the very smell of the Hun, and, when
forced to submit to him for a time, chafed under his yoke and as soon
as possible escaped from his abhorred neighbourhood. Now when we find
it stated by the Roman ambassadors to his court[39] that Attila had by
the year 448 made “all the islands in the ocean” subject to him, we who
know that the coasts of the Baltic, of Denmark and the Scandinavian
peninsula were all looked upon as islands by the classical geographers,
may not improbably conjecture that the pressure of the Hun was felt by
the Angle and the Saxon as it had been felt before by his kinsmen the
Goth and the Burgundian. We have every reason therefore to conjecture,
if we cannot hold it for proved, that there was an immense transference
of Teutonic family life from the lands bordering on the Elbe to the
banks of the Thames, the Humber and the Tyne.
But it is on the second factor of the equation, on the extent of
denudation of the older, the Celtic stratum of the people, that the
controversy chiefly turns. The theory of the virtual extermination
of the Britons from at least the eastern half of the island is thus
stated by its most illustrious champion, Freeman: “Though the literal
extirpation of a nation is an impossibility, there is every reason
to believe that the Celtic inhabitants of these parts of Britain
which had become English at the end of the sixth century had been
as nearly extirpated as a nation can be”. In support of this theory
Freeman appeals to the absolutely Teutonic type of the language
spoken by Englishmen before the Norman conquest, to the Teutonic
character of their institutions and to the terrible entry in the
Chronicle concerning the capture of Anderida: “491. Now Aella and Cissa
encompassed Andredes-ceaster and slew off all that dwelt therein: nor
was there afterward a single Briton left there.”
It cannot be said that the tendency of recent inquirers is in
favour of so strong an assertion as this of the entire obliteration
of the British element in any part of our island. Physiological
investigations, the measurement of skulls and the examination of
graves, do not confirm the hypothesis of the absolute disappearance
anywhere of the pre-Saxon races. The study of institutions does not
confirm it: the more closely these are examined the more does the
conviction grow that some Roman or Celtic elements are imbedded in
the generally Teutonic character of the Anglo-Saxon state. And even
the celebrated passage concerning the slaughter at Anderida is not,
perhaps, so conclusive an argument as it appears at first sight.
Nothing is said there which necessarily implies a determination to
destroy a whole people. We may see in it only the cruel action of
assailants maddened by the stubborn defence of a fortress which may
have long held the Saxons at bay; and even the fact of the emphatic
mention in the Chronicle of this one bloody deed seems to imply that
it was not the usual accompaniment of Saxon conquest.
When we examine carefully the pleadings on both sides we see that the
disputants are not so far apart as they suppose themselves to be.
No one denies that the general framework of society in Anglo-Saxon
Britain, like the language, was Teutonic, or that the masters of
the land were English and looked upon the Romanised Celts whom they
called _Wealas_ as an alien and inferior race. But, on the other hand,
Freeman himself admits, though reluctantly, that the majority of the
British women would be spared to be the wives or concubines of the
invaders, and nearly all the slaves to be their thralls. This admission
is fatal to the claim of the ordinary Englishman of to-day, after
all the upheavings and down-sinkings of the various social strata,
to be a pure-blooded Teuton. The evidence of language tends in the
same direction. It is certainly surprising--and the advocates of the
extirpation-theory have a right to point triumphantly to the fact--how
small a number of Romano-Celtic words crept into the language spoken
here before the Norman Conquest. But the words which did thus survive
are, for the most part, such words as women would use in connexion with
the affairs of the household, words like rasher and rug. When we thus
review the circumstances of the Saxon conquest, and especially when
we remember the immense influx of Celtic blood which we have received
in later centuries from the Gael and the Erse folk, we may perhaps
conclude that we should accept and glory in the term Anglo-Celt, rather
than Anglo-Saxon, as the fitting designation of our race.
CHAPTER VII.
THE COMING OF AUGUSTINE.
During the two centuries in which Britain had been forgotten by the
rest of Europe, great events, most of them disastrous events, had been
happening in the world. The imperial city, Rome, had been four times
captured and plundered by barbarian armies. After the third of these
captures (that by Totila in 546), we are told that the mighty city
remained for six weeks absolutely empty of inhabitants, neither man nor
beast being left therein. During these two centuries the vast empire
of Attila the Hun which seemed likely at one time to be a universal
monarchy had risen into greatness and had fallen into ruin; so, too,
had risen and fallen the fair fabric raised in Italy by the converted
barbarian Theodoric; Clovis the Frank had become, from chief of a petty
principality, lord of a mighty realm, which under his sons had spread
over the greater part of the two countries which we now call France and
Germany; Justinian had framed his imperishable code, and the Bishop of
Rome had become the unquestioned patriarch of the west.
Two references to our island made by the greatest historian of the
period serve to emphasise its utter seclusion from the world of
civilisation and culture. Procopius in his immortal history of the
Gothic siege of Rome,[40] tells us that at a certain period of the
blockade (537) when the Gothic leaders began to despair of taking the
city they opened negotiations with Belisarius, the imperial general,
and endeavoured to persuade him to retire from Italy on condition of
receiving a formal cession of the island of Sicily. The absurdity of
the suggestion consisted in this, that Sicily, which was the natural
prize of the greatest sea power in the Mediterranean, was already
hopelessly lost to the Gothic kingdom; and this fact gave point to the
sarcastic reply of Belisarius: “And we, too, will allow the Goths to
possess the whole island of Britain which is much larger than Sicily
and which _once_ belonged to the Romans, as Sicily once belonged to
you. For when any one has received a favour it is fitting that he
should repay it in kind.” So utterly had Britain fallen out of the
orbit of the empire that a heroic Roman general could even afford to
joke over its disappearance.
Again, towards the end of his history,[41] Procopius, who evidently
wishes to follow the example of Herodotus in supplying his readers with
the best information in his power about strange and savage lands, gives
a detailed description of Britain. “It is divided into two parts by a
wall built by ‘the men of old’. On the eastern side of that wall all
is fresh and fair; neither heat nor cold excessive; fruits, harvests,
men abound; a fertile soil is blessed with abundance of water. But on
the western side things are altogether different, so that no man can
live there even for half an hour. Numberless vipers and serpents and
other venomous beasts abound there, and so pestilent is the air that
the moment a man crosses the wall he dies.” Furthermore, a strange
story was told concerning this island, for the truth of which Procopius
does not vouch, but which he repeats lest he should be thought to be
ignorant of a matter of common notoriety. “On the shore of the Channel
opposite to Britain are many villages inhabited by fishermen who are
exempt from the usual tribute ‘payable to the Kings of the Franks’ on
condition of their undertaking in rotation the duty of rowing over
to Britain the spirits of the dead. The boatman whose turn it is to
undertake this duty lies down at nightfall to snatch a brief slumber.
At dead of night a knock is heard at the door of his hut and a muffled
voice calls him and his fellows forth to their duty. They see ships,
not their own, anchored in the harbour. Embarking on these they seize
the oars and push off from land; at once the ships, though apparently
empty, are pressed down to the water’s edge by an unseen cargo. When
they reach the shore of Britain a disembarkation as invisible as the
embarkation takes place. They see no man; only a voice proclaims the
names of the invisible passengers, the offices they held in life, the
husbands of the dead wives, if any such should be among the number.
Quickly do they return to the Gaulish shore, and now the ship is not
sunk deeper than her keel.” Gladly would we learn in whose interest
and at what period of the great struggle this wild story was put in
circulation concerning a country which had been for at least three
centuries in the full prosaic daylight of Roman civilisation.
It was probably about the year 553 that Procopius of Cæsarea wrote
this strange story, worthy of the age of Orpheus and the Argonauts,
concerning our ghostly island. Some twenty years later, the celebrated
scene between Gregory and the fair-haired Yorkshire lads was enacted
in the Roman forum.[42] We cannot avoid listening once more to the
thousand times quoted words of Bede:--[43]
“I may not pass by in silence the event which according to the
tradition of the elders was the cause of Gregory’s abiding interest
in the salvation of our people. They say that on a certain day the
news of the arrival of some merchants caused a concourse of intending
purchasers to assemble in the forum where their goods were displayed.
Among the rest came Gregory who saw there, beside the other market
wares, certain boys set up for sale, with fair skins and beautiful
faces, noticeable for their golden hair and comely shapes. When he
beheld them, he asked from what part of the world they came. The
merchant told him that they came from the island of Britain, whose
inhabitants all presented the same appearance. Again he asked whether
they were Christians, or still involved in the errors of Paganism.
‘They are Pagans,’ was the reply. Hereupon he heaved a sigh from his
inmost heart, and said: ‘Alas! the pity of it! that the Prince of
Darkness should own as his subjects men of such shining countenance,
and that such grace of outward form should veil minds destitute of
heavenly grace within’. Again he asked what was the name of that
nation. The merchant answered: ‘They are called Angles’. ‘Well named,’
said he, ‘for they have angelic faces and ought to be co-heirs with
the angels in heaven. What is the name of that province from which
they have been brought?’ ‘The inhabitants of that province are called
Deiri.’ ‘Well again: rescued _de ira_ and called out of wrath into the
mercy of Christ. How is their king named?’ ‘Aelle.’ Playing on the
name he said: ‘Alleluia. It must needs be that the praises of God the
Creator resound in those regions.’”
It has been conjectured that the lads who stood on that fateful morning
for sale in the Roman forum had lost their liberty owing to the wars
waged between their lord, Aelle of Deira, and Ethelfrith of Bernicia.
The grave and reverend ecclesiastic who spoke to them in that historic
forum which still doubtless showed the senate-house and rostra of the
republic, and was overlooked by the palaces of the empire, was a man
who himself was sprung of a senatorial family and had worn the purple
of the prefect of the city. A year or two, however, before the dialogue
in the forum, about 575, he had laid aside that splendid robe and
donned the coarse scapular of a Benedictine monk. His stately palace
on the Cælian he had turned into a monastery, which still exists and
bears his name, though originally dedicated to St. Andrew. Such was the
man who, intensely Roman at heart as well as Christian, brought Britain
once again within the attraction of Rome.
In the first fervour of his missionary zeal, Gregory himself started on
the northward road, but was recalled by the command of the pope.[44]
Then came the years which he spent as papal nuncio (_apocrisiarius_)
at the splendid but not altogether friendly court of Constantinople;
his return to Rome; his rule as abbot in his monastery; and lastly his
election in 590 by the enthusiastic and unanimous voices of the people
to the office of pope, vacant by the death of Pelagius II. Still the
vision of the conversion of Britain remained dear to his heart; but in
the distracted state of Italy, living, as he said, “between the swords
of the Lombards,”[45] he was for some time unable to take any steps
towards its fulfilment. In September, 595, he wrote to the steward of
the papal estates in Gaul, directing him to buy as many English slaves
as he could, of the age of seventeen or eighteen, that they might be
distributed to various monasteries and there taught the elements of
the Christian faith. The terms of this commission give us a strong
impression of the regularity of the export of slaves from Britain to
Gaul. And where such a regular slave-trade exists we may generally
infer the prevalence of a chronic state of war.
At last, in 596, he sent forth his friend Augustine, prior of his
monastery of St. Andrew’s, with a company of monks, upon the great
enterprise. Augustine himself, a somewhat timorous and small-souled
man, who lacked the great qualities of his patron, when he had reached
the south of Gaul and heard from the bishops of that province dire
stories of Saxon barbarism, turned faint-hearted, and conversation
with his companions increased rather than allayed his fears. At last
they came to the inglorious conclusion “that it would be safer to
return home than to visit a barbarous, fierce and unbelieving nation,
of whose very language they were ignorant”. Augustine himself started
on the return journey, bearer of the unanimous request that they might
be excused from undertaking so perilous and laborious a mission, and
one of such doubtful issue. Probably he had not reached Rome when he
received a letter (dated July 23, 596) in which the pope informed the
whole company that it would have been better never to have begun a
good work than to turn back disheartened from its accomplishment. He
exhorted them not to be daunted by the difficulties of the journey,
nor discouraged by the words of evil-speaking men, but to press on
with zeal to finish the work which God had given them to do; knowing
that the greater the labour the richer would be the eternal recompense
of reward. At the same time a letter of commendation to Etherius,
Archbishop of Arles, probably smoothed their labours and did something
to allay their fears.
In truth the mission upon which the trembling monks were despatched,
though of immense importance, was one of no great danger, and it would
probably be safe to say that the missionaries of all the Christian
Churches have in the last two centuries cheerfully faced greater perils
and undergone greater hardships in the service of the Gospel of Christ,
than were the portion of Augustine and his friends. Ethelbert, the
king of Kent, whose court was the objective of their campaign, was far
the most powerful of the English kings, and in his reign, which had
now lasted more than thirty years, he had, we are told, “stretched
the bounds of his empire as far as the river Humber”.[46] His wife,
Bertha, daughter of Charibert, king of the Franks, and grand-daughter
of Clovis, was allowed to worship after the Christian manner without
let or hindrance, having her own private chaplain, Bishop Liudhard, and
we may fairly suppose that the messengers who came to preach the same
faith, bringing introductions from Frankish kings and prelates as well
as from the great Bishop of Rome, were safe from insult or molestation
in the wide region included in the over-lordship of her husband, the
limits of which they probably never overstepped.
At last after long and leisurely journeyings, visits to the courts
of Frankish kings, and the formation of a staff of interpreters,
Augustine and his companions, forty in number, landed, apparently in
the spring of 597, on the shores of Britain. Their landing-place was in
that extreme north-eastern corner of Kent which still bears the name
of the Isle of Thanet, though it has lost its insular character. In
the seventh century the little stream of the Stour, which flows round
this region and which then emptied itself into the channel called the
Wantsum, was a considerable river, probably tidal, 600 yards broad and
fordable only in two places. Thus Thanet was then a genuine island, and
here Augustine and his little band took up their temporary quarters.
Sending some of their Frankish interpreters to Ethelbert they informed
him that they had come from Rome, the bearers of the best of all good
news, and that if he would hearken to their counsels they could without
any doubt promise him eternal happiness in heaven and a future kingdom
without end in the presence of the living and true God. The king
replied with words courteous but cautious: “Remain in that island in
which you now are, while I consider what I shall do with you. Meanwhile
I will supply you with the necessaries of life.” After certain days
Ethelbert crossed the Wantsum and held a conference with the strangers.
The place of meeting was fixed in the open air, for the old king,
notwithstanding his life-long intercourse with Christians, feared that
he should be fascinated by magical arts if he met the missionaries
within doors. Soon Augustine and his forty companions were seen to
approach, bearing on high a silver cross by way of banner and a painted
picture of the Saviour, and chanting litanies, in which they prayed the
Lord to grant eternal life to themselves and to those for whose sake
they had come from far. At the king’s command they took their seats,
and then one of their number, probably Augustine himself, through the
medium of an interpreter, set forth to the king “how the mild-hearted
Saviour by His own throes of suffering redeemed this guilty world and
opened the kingdom of heaven to believing men”. The king replied: “Fair
are the words which you speak and the promises which you make to me,
but since they are new and vague I cannot give my assent to them, nor
leave those rites which I, together with the whole English nation,
have so long practised. But since you have come from so far, and, as
I perceive, desire to share with us that which you hold to be best
and truest, we will not be grievous unto you, but rather receive you
with friendly hospitality and make it our business to supply you with
needful food; nor will we forbid you to attach to yourselves all whom
you can, by your preaching, win over to your faith.”
Herewith, permitting them to leave the Isle of Thanet, he assigned them
quarters in the capital of his kingdom. This was the once insignificant
town of Durovernis, situated at the point where the Roman road to
Richborough diverged from the road between London and Dover. As the
capital of the Jutish kingdom this roadside station had already
attained to some importance under the name of Cantwaraburh, but showed
little promise of the world-wide fame which it was to achieve under its
more modern name of Canterbury. As the missionary band approached their
destined home they raised aloft the silver crucifix and the picture,
chanting with one accord a litany which may be thus translated:--
From this city, Lord! we pray
May Thy wrath be turned away.
We have sinned: but let Thy pity
Spare Thy house in yonder city.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
This litany was one which had been sung for more than a century on
Rogation days in the churches of Gaul, and we must not, therefore,
seek in its words for any special application to the little Saxon city
towards which the missionaries were gazing. As it happened, however,
there was already in that city a Christian church, erected probably
in the very last years of the Roman occupation of Britain,[47] and
dedicated to St. Martin of Tours. Here Ethelbert’s queen had since her
marriage been allowed to attend a Christian service, celebrated by
her Frankish chaplain, Liudhard. It was the opinion of Pope Gregory
that the Frankish ecclesiastics of Gaul had been somewhat neglectful
of their duties in reference to their heathen neighbours of Britain,
and probably the court chaplain Liudhard was not altogether exempt
from this reproach. However this may be, the church of St. Martin,
now handed over to the Roman mission, became a centre of religious
activity. The preaching and the prayers, the vigils and the fasts
of the white-robed strangers, their patient and self-denying life,
their professed willingness to suffer death itself on behalf of the
Christian faith, produced a great impression on the minds of the men
of Kent, rough doubtless and barbarous, but able to appreciate that
which they beheld of noble and godlike. They began to flock to the
church and crave the administration of baptism; and at last even the
king presented himself at the sacred font and received baptism at the
hands of Augustine. From that day the process of conversion went on
rapidly, but we are assured that no pressure was put by the king on his
subjects to compel them to follow his example, “since he had learned
from his teachers that the service of Christ must be a voluntary
matter and not a thing of compulsion”. He at once, however, provided
the missionaries with a residence in Canterbury suitable to their
dignity, and notwithstanding their life of abstinence and renunciation
he made to them grants of lands in various districts, thus beginning
that series of donations to the Church by Anglo-Saxon kings which was
continued by them for near five centuries with splendid liberality, and
the carefully preserved records of which constitute one of our most
valuable sources of information on the social condition of England
before the Norman conquest.
The mission having thus far met with such marvellous success Augustine
felt that the time was come for him to assume a regular ecclesiastical
position, and accordingly he journeyed to Arles, where the archbishop
of that see, in accordance with orders received from Gregory,
consecrated him as archbishop of the English nation.[48] Divers doubts
and questionings having occurred to the soul of the new metropolitan he
despatched, about 600, two of his brethren, Laurentius and Peter, to
lay his difficulties before his Roman patron. The questions asked are
of an extraordinary kind, and startle us by their strange juxtaposition
of things momentous and things indifferent. Thus a question whether
it is permissible for two brothers to marry two sisters, to whom they
themselves stand in no kind of relationship, is followed by another,
whether a man may be permitted to many his father’s widow. It is
difficult to believe that the framer of such a question can have even
read St. Paul’s letters to the Christians of Corinth. However, if the
archbishop’s questions seem to us rather surprising, the pope’s answers
are noble and statesmanlike. Especially memorable is his answer to the
inquiry: “The faith being one, what can I say as to the diverse customs
of the Churches, as, for instance, where the mass is celebrated in one
way in the Holy Roman Church and in another way in the Churches of
Gaul?” Pope Gregory replied, “You, my brother, know well the custom
of the Roman Church in which you were reared. But my pleasure is that
you should anxiously select whatever custom you may find, whether in
the Roman or in the Gaulish or any other Church, which is pleasing to
Almighty God, and teach the customs which you have thus gathered from
many Churches to the Church of the Angles, which is yet new to the
faith. For things are not to be prized according to the places from
which they originate, but places are to be loved according to the good
things to which they give birth.”
The letter containing these answers was carried, not by the returning
messengers of Augustine, but by a fresh mission from Rome, consisting
of Mellitus, Justus, Paulinus, and Rufinianus. They brought with
them also a woollen _pallium_ for Augustine, the symbol of his
archiepiscopal dignity, many relics of saints and ornaments for the
churches and the precious gift of a large number of manuscripts.
While entrusting Augustine with the precious _pallium_, a gift which
he was somewhat chary of bestowing, Pope Gregory at the same time
provided for the erection of an archiepiscopal see at Eburacum. In
future, after Augustine’s own death, the archiepiscopate of the south
was to be placed at Lundonia; and thereafter London and York, the two
archiepiscopal centres of their respective provinces, were to have
equal power, priority of dignity being assigned to whichever prelate
might happen to have been first ordained. The messengers brought also
letters specially directed to the King and Queen of Kent. In the
letter to Ethelbert, Gregory struck a note which was often heard in
his correspondence: “Moreover, we wish your Glory to know that, as we
are assured in Holy Scripture by the words of Almighty God, the end of
this present world is nigh at hand and the unending reign of the Saints
is about to begin. Before that day comes many things must come to pass
such as have not yet been seen: changes in the air, terrors in the
sky, tempests out of season, wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes.
All these things, it is true, will not happen in our own day, but
after our days they will follow.” In the letter to Bertha, the pope,
while gently hinting that one so well grounded in the true faith ought
long ago to have effected the conversion of her husband, praises her
for what she has done in protecting and befriending the missionaries;
exhorts her to use all her influence in order to keep her husband
steadfast in the faith. He assures her that her memory will be revered
like that of Helena who turned her son Constantine to Christianity, and
that the fame of her great work has reached not only to Rome but even
to Constantinople (delightful thought for the daughter of barbarian
kings), and that its completion will bring joy to the angels in heaven.
In a letter addressed to the messenger Mellitus, containing some
thoughts which had come into the pope’s mind during his long musings
after the departure of his legation, Gregory desires him to direct
Augustine on no account to destroy the temples of the idols, but
to sprinkle them with holy water, construct altars and enrich them
with relics. The old pagan sacrifices of animals to their false gods
are, of course, to cease, but as a sort of concession to the festive
propensities of the converts, on the day of the dedication of the
church or on the birthday of the martyr whose relics were there
deposited, the people were to be encouraged to make little huts of
boughs all round the newly consecrated church, and therein, after
slaying animals for feasting, not for sacrifice, to express with joy
and gladness of heart their gratitude to the Giver of every good
gift. A remembrance of the Jewish feast of tabernacles seems to cross
the mind of the pontiff as he thus ordains the conversion of pagan
sacrifices into Christian festivities.
The story of the conversion of the English nation to Christianity is an
interesting one, and if at this point of our narrative religious topics
seem to claim too large a share of our attention, it must be remembered
that our chief, almost our only authority for this period is the
_Historia Ecclesiastica_ of Bede, a splendid piece of historical work,
but still one which, by the law of its being, concerns itself rather
with the Church than with the State. Church affairs, however, sometimes
throw an important light on political changes. We should be in entire
ignorance as to the time and manner of the conquest of London by the
invaders but for Bede’s information that: “Augustine ordained Mellitus
as bishop (604), and sent him to preach in the province of the East
Saxons, who are separated from Kent by the river Thames and are close
to the eastern sea. Their metropolis is the city of Lundonia, situated
on the banks of the aforesaid river and itself the mart of many nations
flocking thither by land and sea: over which people [the East Saxons]
at that time Saberct reigned, nephew of Ethelbert through his sister
Ricula. He was, however, in a subordinate position to Ethelbert, who,
as has been already said, ruled all the races of the English up to the
river Humber. When, therefore, that province [Essex] had received the
word of truth from the preaching of Mellitus, Ethelbert built in the
city of Lundonia a church to the holy apostle Paul, in which was fixed
the episcopal seat of Mellitus and his successors.”
At the same time Augustine consecrated Justus, who, as we have seen,
was a colleague of Mellitus in the Roman legation, Bishop of Dorubrevi,
“which from an old chieftain of theirs named Hrof the English nation
calls Hrofaescaestre” (Rochester). These two bishoprics, Canterbury and
Rochester, both founded in the one kingdom of Kent, seem to represent a
certain political duality in that region,[49] as if it were the normal
state of affairs that East and West Kent should have separate rulers.
However this may be, it is well for us to bear in mind that the title
of king was one of rather vague significance. Besides the great and
powerful kings of the eight chief provinces there was many a cluster of
petty princes dignified with the name of kings, of whom the national
history can take no notice, but whose names figure royally in charters
and testamentary documents.
It was probably soon after the arrival of the messengers from Rome,
and to some extent in compliance with Gregory’s wishes, that some
important but, unhappily, resultless overtures were made by Augustine
to the rulers of the Welsh Church. Using the powerful advocacy of
Ethelbert, he invited the doctors and bishops of the British province
to meet him about the year 602 at a place in the west of England which
was known long after as “Augustine’s oak”. There Augustine addressed
the Welsh ecclesiastics and besought them to enter into the Catholic
peace, and undertake with him a common labour for the conversion of
the heathen. The chief point on which he insisted was the necessity of
their conforming to the Roman practice in the calculation of Easter,
a wearisome matter of debate as to which we shall hear more than
enough in the century of Anglian history that now lies before us.
When argument failed, the Roman advocate proposed to have recourse to
miracle: “Let some sick man be brought into our midst, and the party
whose prayers avail to heal him shall be deemed to be the advocates
of the cause approved by God”. Unwillingly the Britons consented. A
blind Englishman was introduced into the assembly. The prayers of the
Welshmen failed to restore him to sight, but the prayers of Augustine,
we are told, succeeded. Then, it is said, the Britons professed to
be convinced that the course recommended by Augustine was the way of
righteousness, but declared that they could not, without the consent of
their countrymen, abandon their ancient customs. They therefore pleaded
for a second conference, which was to be held at some place which is
not named, and was to be attended by a much larger body of clergy.
To this second conference came seven bishops from Wales, possibly
including some from Cornwall, and a whole troop of learned doctors,
most of whom hailed from the great and noble monastery of Bangor.[50]
On their way to the council they turned aside to ask the advice of a
certain holy hermit, whether they should hold fast their old traditions
or accept the teaching of Augustine. “If he is a man of God,” said
he, “of course you must follow him.” “But how can we prove whether
he be or no?” The answer showed a rare insight into the true spirit
of Christianity: “The Lord said: Take my yoke upon you and learn of
Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart. If, therefore, this Augustine
is meek and lowly of heart, it is probable that he bears the yoke
of Christ himself and offers it to you to share it with him. But if
he is proud and discourteous, he is not of God and we need not care
for his words.... Arrange therefore, that he shall first reach the
place of meeting, and if, when you draw near, he rises to receive
you, be assured that he is a servant of Christ and listen to him with
deference, but if he despises you and does not choose to rise to you
who are the larger party, then let him be despised by you.” So it came
to pass. The Britons when they arrived found Augustine seated on a
chair of state, and he made no motion to arise therefrom. His demeanour
may have been the result of shyness or absence of mind, but they set
it down to pride, and being filled with wrath they made a point of
contradicting everything that he said. Soon doubtless the dispute
waxed warm, and cries of “Quarto-deciman,” “The last quarter of the
waning moon,” “The cycle of eighty-four years,” “The cycle of eighteen
years,” “The blessed apostle John,” “The prince of the apostles,
Peter,” with every variety of intonation, from the sharp notes of the
Italian cleric to the gruff voices of the Celtic mountaineer, resounded
through the air. Augustine seems to have done his best, too late, to
calm the ruffled spirits of his hearers. “Ye do many things,” he said,
“contrary to our custom: nay, contrary to the custom of the universal
Church, but if on three points ye will hearken to me we will patiently
bear your divergence on all others. These three points are, that ye
shall celebrate Easter at its own right time: that ye shall administer
baptism according to the usage of the Apostolical Roman Church,[51]
and that ye shall join with us in preaching the word of the Lord to
the English nation.” The Cambrians, however, refused to comply with
any of these conditions or to accept Augustine as their archbishop,
muttering one to another: “He would not even rise to receive us when we
were strangers: if we once submit ourselves to his authority he will
treat us as the dust under his feet”. Before the disputants parted from
one another, Augustine raised his voice in threatening prophecy: “If
you will not accept peace with your brethren, you will have to accept
war with your enemies: and if you will not preach the way of life to
the English nation, you shall suffer from their hands the requital of
death”. A prophecy which Bede considered to have afterwards received
its fulfilment in the bloody battle of Chester.
It certainly must raise our opinion of the absolute honesty of Bede as
a historian to find him, whose sympathies are all on the side of Roman
as against British Christianity, thus faithfully describing a scene
in which his hero Augustine certainly plays an unattractive part. The
Welshmen may have erred in attributing his conduct to pride, but his
most ardent champions must admit that he showed a grievous want of
tact in this important interview. It was a golden opportunity that was
offered for the reconciliation of two great hostile races at the feet
of one Saviour, and that opportunity once lost never returned. The
wound which the Saxon invasions had caused, still comparatively fresh,
might possibly have been then healed by first intention. Unhealed
then, it went festering on for centuries; and more than once or twice
since the days of Augustine, Christianity, which ought to be the great
reconciler of men, has proved itself the great divider between Celt and
Saxon. Soon probably after this fatal interview, Augustine died (May
26, 605?), and was succeeded in his archiepiscopal see by his friend
Laurentius, a companion of his labours from the beginning, and the man
whom he had himself in his lifetime ordained to be his successor.
The death of Ethelbert of Kent, which occurred in February 24, 616,
about eleven years after that of Augustine, serves as the occasion to
our one most trusted authority for giving us some valuable information
as to the political condition of our island. It will be well therefore
to translate in full a few sentences from the _Ecclesiastical History_.
“In the year of our Lord’s Incarnation, 616, Aedilberct [Ethelbert],
King of the Cantwaras, after a glorious reign on earth of fifty-six
years, entered the eternal joys of the heavenly kingdom. He was the
third among the kings of the English nation who ruled over all their
southern provinces which are separated from the northern ones by the
river Humber, and the boundaries adjoining: but he was the first of
all to mount to the Kingdom of Heaven. [He came, as I have said, third
in the other list.] For the first to wield dominion of this kind was
Aelle, King of the South Saxons; the second Caelin, King of the West
Saxons, who was called Ceawlin in their language; the third, as we
have said, Aedilberct, King of the Cantwaras; the fourth who possessed
it was Redwald, King of the East Angles, who even in the lifetime of
Aedilberct won the leadership for that same nation of his.” Bede then
proceeds to give us the names of three more leader-kings--names which
will figure largely in the following chapters of this history--Aeduini
(Edwin), Oswald and Oswiu (Oswy), all kings of Northumbria.
The Chronicle when it has to speak of Egbert the West Saxon and his
acquisition of supreme power over the English people, remarks that
“he was the eighth king that was _Bretwalda_” (or according to a
better attested reading _Brytenwealda_), and then repeats the above
list as given by Bede, adding Egbert’s name at its close. On the
strength of this passage historians have concluded, no doubt rightly,
that _Bretwalda_ or some similar word was the title given to these
exceptionally powerful English kings whom we find from time to time
during the period of the so-called Heptarchy wielding practically the
whole power of English Britain, and this idea of a “Britain-wielder”
seems to be now generally accepted as explanatory of the name. There
has been much discussion as to the attributes of this _Bretwalda_
sovereignty of Britain, but it cannot be said that any very definite
conclusion has yet been arrived at. It was probably what the Greeks
called a “hegemony,” rather than a formal and constituted sovereignty:
a leadership and preponderating influence such as the King of Prussia
possessed in Germany even before he was formally proclaimed emperor.
It will be observed that during Ethelbert’s reign his nephew, the East
Anglian Redwald, won the leadership from him. Evidently there were some
unrecorded vicissitudes in the life of Ethelbert.
The death of Ethelbert (who had married a second wife after the decease
of Frankish Bertha) seems to have been shortly followed by that of his
nephew, Saberct the East Saxon. Now was it too plainly seen how slight
a hold the new religion, promoted as it had been by royal favour and
the fashion of a court, had upon the hearts of the people. The hegemony
of Kent, sapped as it had apparently been in the lifetime of Ethelbert,
entirely disappeared at his death. Moreover his son Eadbald, who had
set his heart on wedding his widowed stepmother, and who could by no
means induce Archbishop Laurentius to sanction such an incestuous
union, openly revolted from the Church and went back to paganism. In
the frequent fits of insanity by which he was afterwards afflicted, the
faithful saw the work of unclean spirits and the permitted chastisement
of his sin.
Nor did affairs go better for Christianity in the neighbouring kingdom
of Essex. King Saberct had left three sons, joint-successors to his
kingdom, who during their father’s lifetime had yielded a sort of
fitful adherence to Christianity, but had not submitted to the rite of
baptism and remained apparently pagans at heart. Their quarrel with
Mellitus, Bishop of London, arose out of his refusal to permit them to
partake of the communion. They saw the bishop standing at the altar
administering the eucharist to the people; and “Why,” demanded they in
angry tones, “do you not give us some of that pure white bread which
you used to give to our father, and which we see you still handing
forth to the people?” Mellitus explained that it was not permitted to
give the bread except to those who had undergone the rite of baptism;
but they persisted that they had no need of baptismal purification, yet
meant to have a share of the consecrated bread. When Mellitus still
refused they said: “If you will not gratify us in so small a matter
you shall not stay in our province,” and drove him forth from their
kingdom. Mellitus, arriving in Kent, conferred with his brethren,
Laurentius and Justus, as to what should be done in the face of the
gathering storm-clouds. They unanimously came to the conclusion that
the better course was to return to their own country, and there serve
God with unharassed minds, rather than abide in that barbarous land
and carry on their fruitless labours among a population rebellious to
the faith. Mellitus and Justus accordingly left their respective sees
and betook themselves to Gaul, meaning there to abide till the hourly
expected end of the world, of which Gregory had so often warned them,
should be revealed. Shortly after their departure the three arrogant
East Saxon kings who had expelled Mellitus fell in battle against the
Gewissas or men of Wessex. But though the idolatrous rulers were gone,
their influence upon the people remained, and it was long before the
city of London could be persuaded to tolerate in its midst the votaries
of the new faith.
Thus it seemed that the seed sown by Augustine, which had sprung up
so quickly, having no deepness of earth, was about to wither away
as quickly before the parching blasts of persecution. A dream, or
a trance, or a mysterious mental struggle through which Archbishop
Laurentius passed, prevented the utter abandonment of the great
enterprise. In the night before his intended departure from Britain,
having laid him down to rest in a chamber of the monastery dedicated
by Augustine to St. Peter and St. Paul, Laurentius saw in a vision
the Apostle Peter who indignantly rebuked him for his faint-hearted
desertion of the flock committed to his care. With every sentence came
a blow from the apostolic scourge on the shoulders of the faint-hearted
archbishop, and this chastisement endured through many hours of the
secret and solitary night. In the morning Laurentius found that his
back was covered with wales from St. Peter’s lash, and going straight
to the palace he showed his wounds to the king. Eadbald asked in wrath
who had dared thus to chastise so eminent a man, and being told that
it was the long dead apostle of Christ, he was stricken with fear,
abandoned his idolatrous rites, put away his forbidden wife, received
baptism, and thenceforward promoted to the utmost of his power the
cause of the new religion.[52]
Thus then Laurentius did not take his hand from the plough. His
brethren, Mellitus and Justus, were recalled by Eadbald from Gaul,
but the newly converted king, less powerful than his father, availed
not to persuade the stubborn Londoners to receive Mellitus into their
midst. Not long after (February 2, 619) Laurentius himself died, and
was succeeded in the archiepiscopal see by Mellitus. He too died
(April 24, 624) after a five years’ tenure of office, and was succeeded
by Justus. Thus, one after another, Pope Gregory’s missionaries were
passing away, and their bodies were laid in the portico which, like
the great _atrium_ of the church of St. Ambrose at Milan, stood in
front of the slowly reared church of St. Peter and St. Paul. But the
Christianity of the Saxons in the south was still but a sickly and
shallow-rooted plant. It was left for the Angles of Northumbria to show
a genuine, hearty, popular conversion to the new faith, and to produce
that splendid series of saintly kings, bishops and princesses who have
made the seventh century for ever memorable in the history of English
Christianity.
CHAPTER VIII.
EDWIN OF DEIRA.
As our attention in dealing with the history of the seventh century
will now be fixed chiefly on Northumbria, that being the region where
Christianity won its most glorious victories and as it was at this
time undoubtedly the predominant state in Britain, it is necessary
at the cost of a little repetition to describe the course of the
English settlements in that northern land. And first, a word as to
its geographical limits. The district which was popularly called
_Northhymbraland_, and which consisted politically of the two kingdoms
of _Beornice_ (Bernicia) and _Dearnerice_ (Deira), stretched from the
Firth of Forth to the river Humber. It is important to remember that
we have here no concern with the medieval and modern boundary between
England and Scotland, in which Tweed and Cheviot are the principal
factors. St. Cuthbert, born on the slopes of the Lammermoor Hills,
was no Scot but an Englishman; and Edinburgh, which is to us the
very type and symbol of Scotticism, was in all probability founded
by the English prince whose name stands at the head of this chapter.
Between these two great natural frontiers, the Forth and the Humber,
the bounding lines ran--as they still do, more than is generally
recognised--north and south rather than east and west. The western half
of the lowlands of Scotland, together with Westmorland and the greater
part of Cumberland, formed the British kingdom of Strathclyde, and
was--with the exception of some intervals of subjection to its Anglian
neighbours--under the rule of kings of Celtic race, whose capital
was the strong rock-fortress of Alclyde or Dumbarton. South of the
kingdom of Strathclyde the high land which now sunders Yorkshire from
Lancashire probably formed for some generations the boundary between
the Angles and the Britons; yet not even up to that boundary was the
Anglian dominion pushed in the first invasion, for we hear indistinctly
of a British kingdom of Elmet, otherwise called Loidis, which probably
included at any rate the upper part of the valleys of the Wharfe,
the Aire and the Calder, all Yorkshire streams. As to the boundary
between the two Anglian kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira we cannot speak
with absolute certainty, but we are told on trustworthy authority[53]
that it was the River Tees. The fact that both kingdoms were so often
united under one sovereign perhaps made the assignment of precise
boundaries less needful. Thus, to recapitulate these facts in terms of
modern geography, Bernicia included probably all the three Lothians,
the counties of Berwick, Peebles and Roxburgh, the eastern half of
Northumberland and the county of Durham; while Deira claimed the North
and East Ridings of Yorkshire.
Surveying the ethnological condition of this region during the fifth
and sixth centuries we can dimly discern a few important changes.
There are some indications of a settlement of Frisians in that which
we now call the Border country, and it is thought that they gave their
name to the town of Dumfries. The time of their migration, however,
is altogether uncertain, and as they were a Low German tribe, nearly
allied in blood to both Angles and Saxons, we may conjecture that
in the course of generations they so melted into the great Anglian
population by which Bernicia was overrun as to be indistinguishable
therefrom. Another national movement, about which we have more certain
information, was that migration of the Pictic chief Cunedag from
Lothian to Anglesey, about 380, to which attention has already been
called, and which gave to Wales a line of sovereigns that endured for
nine centuries. Then followed, about the middle of the fifth century,
that settlement of the Jutes on the east coast of Scotland to which
reference was made in our sixth chapter, and of which Hengest’s son and
nephew, Octha and Ebissa, were leaders. This settlement is mentioned
only by Nennius, but as we meet with it in that part of his history
which is borrowed from an earlier Northumbrian annalist, we may
probably accept it as historic fact that the Jutes thus bore a part
in the migrations which Teutonised the eastern half of Caledonia as
well as Britannia. Octha is spoken of in a later chapter of Nennius as
having passed over from the northern part of Britain into Kent on the
death of his father Hengest, and become the ancestor of the kings of
Kent who were reigning in the historian’s lifetime.
In the shadowy traditions of the Welsh bards we hear of a certain Ossa
Cyllelawr or Ossa the Knife-man, who is spoken of as a great antagonist
of Arthur, and who appears to be a genuine progenitor of the Bernician
kings. It is apparently his son Eobba who bears the terrible title,
“The Great Burner of Towns,” which is generally given to the next
link in the pedigree, Ida, King of Bernicia. Here, at last, we are on
firmer historical ground, for this is that Ida of whom we read in the
Chronicle (here quoting Bede) that “he began to reign in 547, and that
from him sprang the royal line of Northumbria,” that “he reigned twelve
years, and that he built Bebbanburh [Bamburgh], which was at first
surrounded by a hedge and thereafter with a wall”.[54] Notwithstanding
the comparative shortness of his reign, Bernician Ida from his
rock-fortress of Bamburgh evidently wielded a mighty power, and we are
probably right in attributing to him the first great extension and
consolidation of the Anglian power between the Tees and the Firth of
Forth. He had twelve sons, six of whom followed him in rather quick
succession during the last half of the sixth century. We have no hint
of civil war or domestic treason, and it is therefore reasonable to
suppose that many of these warlike kings fell in battle with their
Celtic neighbours in the west. This is indeed hinted by the scanty
notices in Nennius’s history.
We appear to be justified in speaking of Ida as king of Northumbria,
though that may not have been the title given to him by his
contemporaries, for it seems to be the outcome of the very confused
notices in Nennius’s _Historia Brittonum_ that Deira as well as
Bernicia was subject to his sway. But on the death of Ida (560), if we
may trust the Chronicle, a prince of another line claiming descent from
Woden through eleven generations of mortal men, Aelle or Ella, began to
reign over the southern kingdom, Deira, and reigned for twenty-eight
years. Were the relations between the two dissevered kingdoms friendly
or hostile? It is impossible to say. The presence of the Deiran slave
boys in the Roman forum suggests the latter hypothesis; the fact that
Acha, the daughter of Aelle, was married to Ethelfrid of Bernicia
suggests the former. Possibly a war between the two Anglian kingdoms
had been followed by peace and a matrimonial alliance. However this may
be, on the death of Aelle in 588, Ethelric of Bernicia, son of Ida,
succeeded--assuredly not peaceably--to the throne of Deira, which,
after five years of reigning, he handed on together with his ancestral
kingdom to his son Ethelfrid.
The reign of Ethelfrid which lasted for twenty-four years, from 593 to
617, was undoubtedly an important period in the history of Northumbria.
We are apt to think of him only in connexion with that relentless
persecution of his young brother-in-law, Edwin, which we shall soon
have to consider; but he was certainly a powerful ruler, this fierce
pagan sovereign of Northumbria. Read what Bede the Northumbrian, who
had often heard his name mentioned with reluctant admiration in the
cloisters of Jarrow and Wearmouth, says concerning him: “In these days
the kingdom of the Northumbrians was governed by Ethelfrid, a most
valiant king and most covetous of glory, who, more than all the chiefs
of the Angles, harassed the nation of the Britons, so that it would
seem fitting to compare him to Saul, King of Israel, except for this
one point that he was ignorant of the Divine religion. For no ealdorman
or king made wider tracts of land, after destroying or subduing their
inhabitants, either tributary to the English nation or open to their
occupation, than this king. So that the blessing which the patriarch,
anticipating the deeds of Saul, bestowed on his own son might fittingly
be applied to Ethelfrid: ‘Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf. In the
morning he shall devour the prey: in the evening he shall divide the
spoils.’”
In the year 603, when Ethelfrid had been ten years on the throne,
“Aidan, King of the Scots who inhabit Britain,”[55] resenting the
Anglian king’s encroachments, prepared to invade Bernicia. Here at
last we have the word Scots clearly used not of our western but of
our northern neighbours. For these are the Scots who crossed over the
straits between Ulster and Cantyre and founded in Argyll and the Isles
that kingdom of Dalriada which was one day to give a monarch, Kenneth
MacAlpine, to the whole of North Britain and impose on Caledonia the
name of _Scotland_. It is important also to observe that by this time
all the dwellers in what we now call Scotland professed the Christian
faith, the great mission of St. Columba to the Northern Picts and his
settlement in Iona having taken place in 565, thirty-eight years before
the events with which we are now concerned. The invasion of King Aidan,
the friend and in a certain sense the nominee of St. Columba, though
made by him at the head of a huge host, proved unsuccessful. He was met
(says the patriotic Englishman Bede) by Ethelfrid with but few men.
The two armies joined battle at Degsastan, probably the high moorland
which forms the watershed between Liddesdale and Upper Tynedale, and
which by one little stream, the Dawston Burn, still preserves the name
of that old battlefield of the nations. Ethelfrid’s brother, Theodbald,
with all the division of the army which he commanded, fell before the
Scottish onslaught, but in another part of the field Aidan suffered
so severe a defeat that he was forced to fly ignominiously from the
bleak moorland, covered with the corpses of his followers. The battle
of Dawston Rig seems to have been in truth the Flodden of the seventh
century. Bede, writing 128 years afterwards, says: “Never from that day
to this, hath any king of the Scots dared to join battle in Britain
with the nation of the Angles”.
Some years after this victory over the Scots, Ethelfrid won another
of equal importance over the Cambrian Britons (613?). The Archbishop
Augustine, as we have seen, in his last conference with the Welsh
ecclesiastics, warned them that if they were unwilling to preach the
way of life to the English nation they should suffer a bloody requital
at their hands.[56] And now Ethelfrid, having all the hosts of Deira
and Bernicia at his disposal, collecting a large army, marched,
probably by a branch of the Watling Street,[57] from York across
Yorkshire to Manchester, and appeared full of the menace of battle
before the walls of the city on the Dee, which, once known as Deva,
now, 200 years after the last Roman soldiers had quitted Britain,
still bore the name of the Camp of the Legions. In later times this
name--_Caerlegion_ in Welsh, _Legacaestir_ in the English tongue--has
been shortened to Chester, and thus this picturesque old city, which
still keeps its medieval walls and is crowded with interesting relics
both of Roman and of Norman domination, claims not unworthily the
right to be _the_ Chester among all the many Chesters in our land, the
representative of all the cities which have arisen on the site of the
camps of the legions.
On the eve of the battle, Ethelfrid descried a number of men clad in
priestly garb who occupied what they deemed to be a place of safe
shelter at a little distance from the British army. They were in fact
a large deputation from the monastery of Bangor (which contained not
fewer than 2,100 inmates), and they had come, sanctified by a three
days’ fast, to aid the British king Brochmail by their prayers. “Who
are those men?” cried Ethelfrid, “and what do they there?” Learning
the reason of their presence, he exclaimed, “If they are calling on
their God against us, they also are fighting against us, though it be
not with arms but with curses,” and he directed the first movements of
his army against them. This unexpected opening of the game seems to
have confounded Brochmail, who is accused by Bede of having in cowardly
panic forsaken the holy men whom he was especially bound to protect.
However this may be, 1,200 of the Bangor monks were slain and only
fifty escaped. The British king and his men fled in disgraceful rout;
Ethelfrid’s victory was complete; the city of the legions was taken and
sacked and remained apparently “a waste Chester” for near 300 years.
Thus for more than twenty years had Ethelfrid of Bamburgh marched from
victory to victory. Meanwhile his foe and brother-in-law, Edwin, son
of Ella, the rightful heir of Deira, was leading the life of a hunted
fugitive, “an ascender of the stairs of other men,” hearing perchance
of the victories of the enemy of his house, as Charles Stuart in
his places of refuge in Holland or France heard of the triumphant
campaigns of Cromwell. There is, indeed, a tradition that Edwin, when
a boy, had sought shelter at the court of Cadvan, the British king of
North-West Wales, and that this was the cause of Ethelfrid’s vigorous
assault on the British confederacy; but this story seems hardly
consistent with the pagan character of Edwin’s upbringing. For some
time he seems to have sought shelter with a sovereign of the new and
rising state of Mercia, whose daughter he married; but probably on
her death he wandered forth again into exile. And thus after long and
various experiences of the sad life of a fugitive in different kingdoms
of the land, he found his way to the court of Redwald, King of the
East Angles, and received a promise of protection from that powerful
monarch. When Ethelfrid, however, heard that his hated rival was
harboured at the East Anglian court, he sent messenger upon messenger
to Redwald, offering him large bribes to take the life of his youthful
guest. Long did Redwald refuse to do anything that would bring so dark
a stain upon his kingly honour, but at last the third messenger, who
brought not only more magnificent bribes, but the threat of war in
the event of refusal, prevailed. In the first watch of the night an
East Anglian noble, friendly to Edwin, entered the fugitive’s bedroom,
called him forth outside the palace, told him his danger, counselled
him to flee, and promised to lead him to a safe hiding-place, where
neither Redwald nor Ethelfrid would be able to find him. Edwin thanked
him for his warning, but refused to be the first to break covenant with
his host by showing a doubt of his protection, and wearily exclaimed:
“If I must die let me die here, rather than begin again that life of a
fugitive which I have already led for so many years in every province
of Britain”. His friend left him and he remained alone with his sad
thoughts in the darkening night.
Suddenly a man whose face and garb were alike unknown to him, stood
before him and asked him why he sat there so mournfully on his seat
of stone, while all within the palace were wrapped in sleep. “What
is it to thee,” said the weary exile, “where I choose to spend the
night?” “But I know,” answered the stranger, “both why thou art here,
and why thou art so sad and what thou fearest. Now what wouldst thou
give to any one who should free thee from thy anxieties and persuade
Redwald not to deliver thee into the hands of thy enemies?” “All that
I possess,” said Edwin. “And what if he assured thee that thou shouldst
overcome thine enemies and become a king greater than any English
king before thee?” “I would give the gratitude which he deserved to
any one who could confer on me such benefits.” “And how, if he could
point out to thee a new way of life and salvation better than any
that thy fathers have known? Wouldst thou hearken to his voice and
obey his counsels?” “Assuredly I would,” said Edwin. The stranger put
his hand upon his head and said: “When next thou shalt receive this
sign, remember what thou hast promised and fulfil it.” With that the
stranger, whether he were living man or spirit, zealous missionary or
martyred apostle, vanished into the darkness. A little cheered by the
vision but still melancholy and anxious, Edwin was sitting yet before
the palace when lo! his friend the courtier returned to him with joy in
his countenance and said: “Arise, dismiss thy cares, go to thy couch
and slumber with a quiet mind. The danger is past. The queen, to whom
in secret Redwald disclosed his purpose, persuaded him not for any
of Ethelfrid’s gold to sell his far more precious kingly honour, or
sacrifice the friend who had sought his protection in extremity.” When
day dawned it was seen that Edwin’s friend had spoken truly. The king
dismissed Ethelfrid’s messengers with a final refusal, and knowing now
that he would have to face that king’s anger, resolved to anticipate
the blow and to restore the fugitive to his kingdom. Hastily collecting
his army he came upon the surprised and imperfectly prepared Ethelfrid
on the banks of the Idle, a little river of Nottinghamshire, and there
won a decisive victory. It was true that Redwald’s own son, Regenheri,
perished in the fight, but Ethelfrid himself was also slain, and the
power of Bernicia for a season annihilated. It was a memorable day for
the dwellers in the fens by the Humber, and six centuries later the
historian, Henry of Huntingdon, still heard the proverb: “As when the
Idle river grew foul with Anglian blood.”
This great battle which for the time overthrew the Bernician dynasty
and gave the dominion of all Northumbria to Edwin of Deira was fought
probably in the year 617. Edwin, who was born in 585, and whose life
since he was a child of three years old had been passed in exile, was
therefore a man thirty-two years of age when he thus recovered his
father’s kingdom. The sons of Ethelfrid fled to the Celts of Scotland,
and at least one of them sought the friendly shelter of Iona. Edwin
no doubt fixed his capital at York, that great and important city
which under its Anglian name of Eoforwac carried on the traditions
of Roman Eburacum. The fact that the Roman name subsisted still with
so little change in the language of the conquerors makes it probable
that there was here no such utter destruction and desolation as at
Anderida and Chester, but that there was a continuous civic life from
the departure of the last Roman soldier to the enthronement of the
first Anglian king. How gladly would we exchange much of the scanty
knowledge of the invasion that we do possess for the details of the
capture of the Roman capital of the north;[58] but over this conquest,
as well as over that of the sister city of Londinium, there hangs a
pall of impenetrable darkness. The lines of the Roman city may still be
traced with considerable precision; the noble ruin of the multangular
tower clearly marks its western corner, but we have not yet recovered,
possibly shall never recover, the site of the once stately edifice
where the Roman _Dux Britanniarum_ dwelt aforetime, and where in
all probability the Anglian kings of Deira held their court. There,
however, we may safely imagine Edwin enthroned; from thence his armies
marched forth along one or other of the great network of Roman roads
which centred at Eburacum. One of his earliest conquests was probably
that of the British kingdom of Elmet or Loidis which still lingered
on in the dales of the West Riding, but seems to have come to an end
about this time. Having consolidated his power over Northumbria, Edwin
became the mightiest of all the English kings. The title of Bretwalda
was recognised as rightfully belonging to him, and all the other kings
of Britain, Anglian, Saxon, Celtic, for a time at least acknowledged
him as in a certain sense their superior. Even the islands of Man and
Anglesey were added by him to his dominions, the latter island probably
deriving from this conquest by the Angles the name which it still
bears. Only Jutish Kent still maintained its independence, and with its
king Edwin before long formed a close tie of alliance. An unexplained
phenomenon in these first ten years of Edwin’s reign, during which,
still heathen, he seems to have been pursuing a career of unbroken
success, is the disappearance of East Anglia from the scene. It was the
might of Redwald the East Anglian which broke the power of Ethelfrid
on the great day of the battle at the river Idle, and yet we hear of
Edwin, still apparently in the lifetime of his benefactor, establishing
his supremacy over all the kings of the Angles and Britons, including
therefore among his subject allies even Redwald himself.
It was probably about the year 624 when Edwin was in full middle life,
and his sons, by his first Mercian wife, were growing up towards
manhood, that he made proposals of marriage to the Kentish princess,
Ethelburga. She, like himself, must have been middle-aged. Her father,
Ethelbert, had been for some years dead, and her brother, Eadbald, had
the disposal of her hand. Mindful of the stripes and the warnings of
Laurentius, Eadbald was now loyal in his adherence to Christianity,
and replied to Edwin’s messengers “that it was not lawful to give a
Christian maiden in marriage to a pagan, lest the faith and sacrament
of the heavenly King should be profaned by intercourse with an
earthly king who was ignorant of the worship of the true God”. To
this objection (a remarkable one as coming from the offspring of the
union between the Christian Bertha and the pagan Ethelbert) Edwin
replied that he would do nothing contrary to the Christian faith of the
princess if she became his bride; that she might bring with her as many
ministers of that faith as she pleased, whether male or female, and
should have full liberty of worship along with them; and, moreover, he
held out hopes that he himself might become a convert to Christianity
if on examination by the wise men of his kingdom it should be found
more holy and worthier of the Most High than the religion which it
offered to supersede. After this reassuring statement, Eadbald’s
objections were withdrawn. Ethelburga was sent northwards to meet her
bridegroom, and in her train came Paulinus, who was now consecrated on
July 21, 625, by Archbishop Justus, bishop of York, which was virtually
equivalent to bishop of Northumbria.
Paulinus, who is certainly the noblest figure in the Roman mission
to England, was constant in preaching the Christian faith in season
and out of season to the men of Northumbria. He met at first with
but little success, but a year after his arrival, in April 20, 626, a
foully attempted crime brought him in a strange way nearer to his goal.
The history of Wessex for some generations after the dethronement of
Ceawlin in 592 is obscure and inglorious. Her once powerful kings seem
to have accepted without a murmur the supremacy first of Kent and then
of East Anglia, and if now they resented the rapidly extended dominion
of Northumbria they sought to overthrow it not in fair fight but by
the dastardly hand of the conspirator. The kings of the West Saxons at
this time were Cynegils and Cwichelm, the latter of whom, perhaps in
concert with his colleague, sent an assassin named Eomer, armed with
a poisoned dagger, to the court of Edwin. The king was then dwelling
in a royal villa near the Yorkshire Derwent (one of the many English
rivers bearing that name), and there Eomer presented himself with a
pretended message from his master. While Edwin listened intently to
his words he drew the deadly weapon from its sheath and made a sudden
onslaught upon the king. A faithful thegn named Lilia, who dearly loved
his lord, having no shield ready to hand, rushed in between and broke
the force of the blow, but not even the sacrifice of his life saved the
monarch from a wound; and before Eomer was hewn down by the swords of
the surrounding soldiers he had succeeded in stabbing one of them named
Fordheri with his fatal weapon. That very night--it was the night of
Easter Sunday, 626--Edwin’s queen was delivered of a daughter, to whom
was given the name of Eanfled. Touched by the mingled congratulations
and exhortations of Paulinus, Edwin gladly consented that his infant
daughter, along with eleven members of his household, should receive
baptism on the eve of the following Whitsunday. For himself, though he
was inclined to listen to the advice of Paulinus, all other matters had
to be postponed to the great campaign of vengeance which, as soon as he
had recovered from his wound, he undertook against the vile West Saxon
murderers. In this campaign he was completely successful. Having slain
five kings and much people, and returned victorious from the war, he at
once abandoned the worship of idols and began seriously to consider the
question of making a formal profession of Christianity.
It was apparently during this religious interregnum that the King and
Queen of Northumbria received each a letter from Pope Boniface V. The
letters, verbose and unpersuasive in style, can hardly have had much
influence on the fresh and vigorous intellect of the Northumbrian king,
but no doubt the fact that they should have been written at all by
the father of western Christendom was felt as a compliment to Edwin’s
greatness. Still, however, the king hesitated before making a final
breach with the traditions of his fathers and accepting Christ instead
of his ancestral Woden. Unable to dismiss the subject from his thoughts
he sat much apart in solitary places and there mused upon the parting
of the ways. While he thus sat one day, Paulinus came unbidden into
his presence, laid his hand upon his head and said: “Rememberest thou
this sign?” With that the scene outside the East Anglian palace came
back vividly into Edwin’s memory. He was about to fall at the feet
of Paulinus, but the bishop lifting him up said in a gentle voice:
“Behold thou hast escaped by the Divine favour the snares of thine
enemies: thou hast received the kingdom which was promised thee: delay
not to stretch out thy hand and grasp the third blessing, even eternal
life”.[59]
Thus admonished Edwin determined to delay no longer his profession of
Christianity, but wisely resolved to associate as many as possible
of his counsellors with him, and to make the great change the act of
the nation rather than of the king alone. Then followed the memorable
and well-known scene in the Witenagemot, or meeting of the wise men,
perhaps at York, perhaps at the royal villa by the Derwent. When the
subject of the proposed change of faith was mooted in the assembly
of the elders, its first and most strenuous advocate was found to be
the chief priest Coifi, who complained that his past years spent in
zealous service of the gods had brought him no proportionate share of
the royal favour. To this sordid calculator of the worldly advantages
to be derived from this or that form of faith, succeeded an unnamed
ealdorman who, in words as well fitted to the twentieth century as to
the seventh, painted the short, perplexing and precarious life of man
“like a sparrow flitting through your hall, O king! when we are seated
round the fire at supper-time, while the winds are howling and the
snow is drifting without. It passes swiftly in at one door and out at
another, feeling for the moment the warmth and shelter of your palace,
but it flies from winter to winter and swiftly escapes from our sight.
Even such is our life here, and if any one can tell us certainly what
lies beyond it, we shall do wisely to follow his teaching.” Moved
by these and similar arguments the elders and counsellors of the
king, unanimously as it would seem, voted for the proposed religious
revolution.
After Paulinus had expounded to the assembly the doctrines of
Christianity, Coifi exclaimed: “Long ago had I suspected that the
things which we were worshipping were naught, for the more earnestly I
sought for truth in that worship the less did I find it. Now I openly
profess that in this new preaching alone is the way of eternal life to
be found. O king! let us at once give over to the flames the temples
and altars which we have consecrated so vainly.” The king gladly
consented, but asked who should deal the death-blow. “I,” said Coifi.
“Who more fitting than I to destroy, in the new wisdom which is given
me, the idols which I worshipped in my folly?” He besought the king to
give him arms and a war-horse, and though the multitude, who knew that
it was forbidden to one of their priests to bear arms or to ride on
anything but a mare, deemed him to be insane, he mounted the charger,
rode to a great temple in the neighbourhood, hurled his lance into its
sacred precincts and called upon his companions to give to the flames
the shrine itself and all the enclosures by which it was surrounded
from the gaze of the multitude. A hundred years afterwards men still
showed at Goodmanham on the Derwent, east of York, the ruins of this
great iconoclasm.
The overthrow of the old faith was followed by the visible triumph of
the new. On Easter eve, 627, just a year after his escape from the
dagger of the man of Wessex, Edwin was baptised by Paulinus in the new
wooden church of St. Peter at York, a church which he was shortly to
replace by a more elaborate edifice in stone. His sons by the Mercian
princess before long followed his example: his young children, the
offspring of Ethelburga, and even a little grandson Yffi, son of
Osfrid, together with a great number of the nobles of the court, were
all solemnly received into the Christian Church. The preaching of
Paulinus, so long resultless, now seemed to be bearing abundant fruit.
Up in remote Bernicia, where the royal villa of Yeavering nestled under
a hill, an outlying sentinel of the Cheviots which still bears the name
of Yeavering Bell, Paulinus was engaged for twenty-six consecutive days
catechising and baptising in the river Glen the multitudes who flocked
to him. Returning to Deira, to the Roman station of Cataractonium,
he there baptised many converts in the river Swale, no church or
oratory having yet been erected for Christian worship. In his zeal he
overpassed the strict limits of Northumbria: he crossed the Humber,
preached the Gospel in Lindsey, converted the “prefect” of the city of
Lincoln, and baptised a multitude of people at noon-day in the river
Trent, King Edwin himself honouring the ceremony by his presence. One
of the many converts who went down on that day into the river with
Paulinus described the scene to a youth who when an abbot, in his
reverend old age, passed the tradition on to Bede, telling him that
the great missionary was a man of tall stature, slightly stooping,
with black hair, thin face, aquiline but slender nose, in his general
aspect at once venerable and awe-inspiring. His constant attendant was
a certain deacon James, a courageous and energetic man, who also lived
to be a contemporary of the historian.
In after years of turbulence and discord men looked back on the reign
of Edwin as a sort of golden age. They said that then a woman with her
new-born babe might cross Britain from sea to sea unharmed by any man.
In many a place where he saw a clear fountain bubbling up beside the
public way he would order stakes to be erected, upon which brazen pots
were hung, and none dared to touch them save the thirsty travellers for
whose use they were designed. His state was indeed kingly. Not only in
war was his standard displayed; but in peace also, as he was journeying
from villa to villa and from province to province, attended by a long
and brilliant train of servants, a banner with a tuft of feathers,
called by the Romans _tufa_ and by the English _thuuf_ and hinting
perhaps at something like imperial dignity, was borne before the mighty
king of Northumbria.
But this splendour of regal power was early overshadowed. It was not,
after all, from Eburacum that the word of power was to go forth which
was to bind the various Teutonic races of England into one nation. The
Anglian power was not thoroughly established over Wales, and already
the destined rival of Northumbria, the Mercian kingdom, was rising into
baleful pre-eminence. Singularly enough, it was from these two powers
which are said to have sheltered Edwin in the time of his evil fortunes
that his ruin came. Cadwallon, King of Gwynedd, descended from that
Maelgwn whom Gildas vituperated under the name of “The Great Dragon of
the Island,” was son of Cadvan, at whose court, it is said, Edwin had
passed his boyhood. Doubtless Cadwallon keenly resented the position
of inferiority to which his nation had been reduced by Ethelfrid’s
great victory of Chester, which shut them off from Strathclyde, as
Ceawlin’s victory of Deorham had shut them off from Devon and Cornwall.
When Edwin, once Cadvan’s humble guest, had become the mightiest
prince in Britain, Cadwallon, unwilling to accept his yoke, had taken
refuge--so say the Welsh annals--in Ireland. He had now returned and
was determined to strike one more blow for independence and for liberty
of passage to Strathclyde. With this intent he formed an alliance with
the ruler of Mercia, Penda, who became king in 626, a year before
Edwin’s baptism; who was still pagan; and who in his dull ferocity
was as typical a specimen of the old faith as Edwin of the new. The
alliance of the Welsh Christian and the English pagan for the overthrow
of the newly born Christianity of Northumbria was scarcely felt to be
unnatural, so intense was the bitterness engendered by the Paschal
controversy and the varying fashions of ecclesiastical tonsure.
The armies met at Heathfield, which is identified with Hatfield Chase
on the north-east of Doncaster, on October 12, 633. We have no details
of the encounter: we only know that Edwin was defeated, that he and his
eldest son Osfrid were slain, and that Cadwallon and his ally roamed
in savage wrath over the plains of Yorkshire and Northumberland. The
Christian, even more ferocious than the pagan, spared neither sex nor
age, recognised no claim to mercy drawn from the profession of one
common faith, and vowed (this surely when out of hearing of his ally)
that he would root out the whole brood of Angles from the land of
Britain.[60]
Edwin’s second son fled for refuge to the court of the Mercian king,
and was afterwards slain by him, in violation of his sworn promise of
protection. The widowed Ethelburga fled to the court of her brother,
the King of Kent, under the escort of Paulinus. The royal infants--such
was the terror of the times--were separated from their mother, and it
was left for a brave soldier named Bass, one of Edwin’s thegns, to
bring to the Kentish court the girl Eanfled, her brother Wuscfrea, and
their little nephew Yffi, the orphaned son of Osfrid. The widowed queen
afterwards sent the boys to the court of her cousin, Frankish Dagobert,
that they might be safe from the new rulers of Bernicia, but both died
in infancy in that foreign land. As for Paulinus he seems to have bowed
his head to the storm of the recrudescent paganism of Northumbria. He
vacated his Yorkish see, and was appointed Bishop of Rochester, in
succession to Romanus, who had been drowned in the Mediterranean when
sent on a mission to Rome. He died in 644. The ill-starred union of
Mercian paganism and British fanaticism seemed to have accomplished its
purpose. Northumberland was a wilderness and Northumbrian Christianity
a vanished dream.
CHAPTER IX.
OSWALD OF BERNICIA.
When the cause of Christianity and, as connected with it, the hope of
eventually building in the new England a civilised and well-ordered
state seemed at its darkest, light arose from an island in the
Hebrides; it spread to a rough storm-beaten rock on the Northumbrian
coast; it illumined one of the noblest and loveliest pages in the
history of our nation, the reign of Oswald of Bernicia.
The conversion of the southern Picts to Christianity is believed to
have taken place more than two centuries before the date that we have
now reached. Near the close of the fourth century when the Roman empire
had already begun to crumble into ruin, St. Ninian, a Briton educated
at Rome, filled with veneration for the soldier-saint, Martin of Tours,
came to the region between the Roman Wall and the Grampians, preached
Christianity with much success to the Picts who dwelt in that country,
and built a monastic church dedicated to St. Martin, on one of the
promontories of Galloway which project south into the Irish sea. This
church, built of stone, and thereby differing from the humbler wooden
churches of the period, was called _Candida Casa_ (a name represented
in its modern successor Whithern), and it is said to have been still
in course of erection when Ninian heard of the death of the holy man
in whose name he dedicated his beautiful “white house”. Nearly two
centuries passed away. There was much intercourse of various kinds
between the dwellers in the Hebrides and their neighbours the Scots
of Ireland. The Dalriadic kingdom, Scottish (that is Erse) by race
and Christian by religious profession, was set up in Argyll and the
adjacent islands; but the Picts north of the Grampians whose relations
to Dalriada were generally hostile, remained obstinately heathen.
All this was changed by an event which took place about the year
563--the arrival of St. Columba from Ireland. Whatever accretions of
superstitious legend may have grown up around the name of this saint,
the historic importance of the great apostle of the Picts cannot be
denied, and can hardly be over-stated.
Born in Donegal, in the year 521, a scion of the princely clan of
the Hy Neill, descended from Irish kings both on his father’s and
his mother’s side, the young Irishman in his boyish days showed such
zeal in his attendance at church that his baptismal name of Colum
was changed to Colum-cille or Columba of the church. He was ordained
priest, but the bent of his religious temper like that of most of his
Irish contemporaries was all towards the monastic profession. During
his early middle life he was busily engaged in founding monasteries,
the first in point of date being that of Derry, and the most famous
that of Durrow in the diocese of Meath. But in his fortieth year,
561, he became entangled in one of the ever-recurring civil wars of
his distressful country. A great battle was fought at Cuildremhne,
in Connaught, near the boundary between that province and Ulster.
Columba’s kinsfolk, the northern Hy Neill, prevailed and the King of
Ireland, commanding the clans of the southern Hy Neill, was defeated.
Though his friends’ cause triumphed, the battle appears in some
unexplained manner to have injured Columba’s religious position in his
native country. He seems to have been excommunicated by some of his
brethren, possibly on account of his alleged responsibility for the
strife. At any rate he now resolved to quit his country and, perhaps as
a penance for his sins, to take up his abode in some place from which
he could not even see the shores of his beloved Ireland. Such a place,
after some wandering, he found in the then little known island of Hy,
famous to after ages under the name of Iona; where, as tradition tells,
he ascended a hill which still bears the name of Cul-ri-Erin (back
turned to Erin), and when he found that no line of the Irish coast,
however dimly seen, could thence be discerned on the horizon, amid all
the cluster of surrounding islands, he determined to make that little
spot his dwelling-place. Iona is separated from the much larger island
of Mull by a channel about one mile broad. It is only three miles long,
and from a mile to a mile and a half in breadth; yet in this little
space there is considerable variety of scenery; hills, the highest of
which attains to an elevation of 320 feet, “retired dells, long reaches
of sand on shores indented with quiet bays, little coves between bare
and striking rocks, and on the west wild barren cliffs and high rocky
islets opposed to the sweep of the Atlantic”.[61] As Bede says: “it is
not large but computed as containing five families according to English
reckoning”. (The word “families” is rendered “hides” in the English
_Chronicle_, and this is an important passage as showing what were
the average dimensions of a “hide of land” in early Saxon times.) The
ruins now visible on the island are those of a Benedictine abbey of the
thirteenth century. No traces remain of the buildings, probably wooden,
raised by St. Columba, but there are many interesting natural features
which may be recognised in the nearly contemporary life of the saint
written by the ninth abbot of Iona, Adamnan.
The objects which Columba set before himself after his migration to
Iona were political as well as religious. His kinsmen, the Scots of
Dalriada, were harassed and oppressed by the pagan Picts in the east of
the island, whose king, Brude, had in the year 560 inflicted a crushing
defeat on the Scottish king, Gabhran. Columba would fain convert the
Pictish conqueror to Christianity, and at the same time obtain more
generous treatment for his beaten countrymen; and by the magic of
his personality he achieved a striking success in both directions.
King Brude in 565 embraced Christianity, and relations of peace and
friendship were established between him and the man whom, in 574,
Columba succeeded in placing on the throne of Dalriada, Aidan, Prince
of Strathclyde. The thirty-four years of Columba’s life, after his
great migration, were spent in establishing monasteries in the land of
the northern Picts, in the Hebrides and in his native Ireland, to which
he paid several visits, and where the once excommunicated partisan was
now an honoured, almost worshipped guest. These Columban monasteries,
“the family of Iona” as they were called, were of a distinctly
different type from that of the monasteries of the Benedictine rule.
Like all the Irish monastic establishments they partook largely of the
tribal character. The tribe gave the land, contributed to the support
of the monks, had a right to receive, apparently without special
charge, their religious ministrations, and in certain circumstances
had also a right to nominate one of its members as abbot, though the
first claim upon this coveted office resided in the family of the
founder. It was thus that the first nine abbots of Iona were all
descended from the same family, the northern Hy Neill, from which St.
Columba himself had sprung. This tribal character of the monasteries
suited the genius of the Celtic populations, and was one reason of the
success of the missionaries in converting them to Christianity. It has
been truly said[62] that “these large monasteries, as in their external
aspect they appeared to be, were in reality Christian colonies into
which converts, after being tonsured, were brought under the name of
monks”.
The large part thus played by the monasteries in the work of conversion
impressed in its turn a peculiar character on the churches of Ireland
and Hebridean Scotland, rendering them more exclusively monastic
and less purely episcopal than the churches of Italy and Gaul. This
divergence resulted in part from the nature of things, and was due
to the differences of place and time in which the conversion of the
several countries was respectively effected. The Bishops of Lyons and
Vienne, of Toledo and Seville began their work while the Roman Empire
was still standing, were to some extent moulded by its form, shared the
prosperity and the influence of its great towns and were essentially
magnates of cities. Columba, his comrades and his pupils, came into a
much ruder and more primitive state of society. The rough tribal rulers
whom they converted had scarcely any cities worthy of the name. The new
missionaries planted their monasteries in such rural places as promised
them the supply of their simple wants, or even only safety from the
attacks of a midnight foe--often on an island in a lake or surrounded
by the ocean--and there, not so much by eloquent preaching as by mere
rightness and simplicity of living, succeeded in converting whole
populations to the religion of Christ. The conversions thus obtained
seem to have been for the most part more genuine and more durable than
those which were first effected in the large cities of the old Roman
world and from thence radiated outwards into the country.
It has seemed necessary to emphasise this distinction between the two
types of ecclesiastical organisation (the fourth century Gaulish and
the sixth century Irish Churches) because the difference reappears in
our own history. The Roman mission under Augustine and his successors,
and especially under Paulinus in Northumbria, seems to have gone on the
old urban and episcopal lines, while the far more successful mission
from Iona, with which we have now to deal, was monastic, many-centred
and rural. In the year 597, the very year of Augustine’s arrival
in England, St. Columba died. He is one of the most vividly seen
personalities of the early Middle Ages: a man of somewhat hot temper in
youth, softened and controlled in later life, with a stately beauty of
feature which seemed to correspond with his princely descent, and with
a kind of magnetic power of attracting to himself the devotion of his
followers, a lover of animals and beloved by them. One of his natural
gifts was an extraordinarily strong and resonant voice which, when he
sang the psalms of the church, could be heard distinctly for more than
a mile. A great open-air preacher, an organiser and a poet--he eagerly
championed the cause of his brother bards before an Irish synod--he
might, perhaps, not unfittingly, be called the John Wesley of the sixth
century.
In 615, about eighteen years after the death of Columba, when his
fellow-tribesman Fergna was ruling, fourth in the series of abbots, at
Iona, a party of refugees from the south crossed the little channel and
landed on the shore of the island, craving shelter and sanctuary. They
were some of the attendants of Ethelfrid, the late King of Bernicia,
who had been slain “when the river Idle ran foul with Anglian blood,”
and they brought, besides other noble youths, Oswald, that king’s
second son, and implored the brethren to protect him from the avenging
might of Edwin. There was no shadow of a claim for this young Anglian,
son of an obstinate pagan, on the hospitality of the Irish monks, but
the request was willingly granted. Oswald and the young nobles his
companions were kindly received, were soon baptised, and instructed
in the doctrines of Christianity, and growing up to manhood on the
sequestered Hebridean isle, probably looked forward to no other sort
of life than that which was led by the simple-hearted monks their
entertainers.
All this was changed, in 633, by the great and unlooked-for catastrophe
of Heathfield. The two Northumbrian kingdoms, united under the strong
rule of Ethelfrid and Edwin, fell once more apart. Osric, cousin of
Edwin, son of his uncle Elfric, ruled in Deira, and Eanfrid, eldest son
of Ethelfrid, in Bernicia. These two young princes, each of whom had
made profession of the Christian faith, both apostatised and returned
to paganism. Possibly the sordid calculations by which Coifi had
justified his renunciation of the faith of his fathers weighed with
them now in the opposite scale, and they felt themselves justified in
deserting the Christians’ God, who had abandoned their land to the
tender mercies of Penda and Cadwallon. But the triumph of paganism
was short. Osric, who with inadequate forces besieged Cadwallon while
holding the “municipium” of York, was killed and his whole army cut to
pieces by a sudden sally of the Welsh king. This happened in the summer
of the year which followed the battle of Heathfield, and, apparently
in the following autumn, Bernician Eanfrid, coming with twelve chosen
warriors to treat of peace with Cadwallon, was treacherously slain
by his orders. So full of gloomy memories was this year, 634, that
the monkish chroniclers, who afterwards drew up a scheme of Anglian
chronology, decided that it should not come into the number of the
years, and silently included it in the glorious reign of him who
succeeded the apostates.
This successor was Oswald, who came from Iona evidently determined to
play the part of a Christian hero-king, and who endured to his life’s
end steadfast in that decision. By one bold stroke he delivered his
nation, Bernicia, from the Cambrian ravagers. “When he arrived after
the death of his brother Eanfrid with a small army, and fortified by
the faith of Christ, the wicked general of the Britons with the immense
forces which, as he boasted, nothing could resist, was slain by him at
the place which is called in the English tongue Denisesburn,’ that is,
the stream of Denis.” So runs the first simple statement of Bede as to
this important encounter which for ever settled the question whether
the Celt or the Teuton was to be supreme in Northern Britain. From Bede
himself, as a kind of afterthought, and from Adamnan, the biographer of
St. Columba, we get some additional particulars which enable us to see
more clearly if not the strategic features of the battle at least what
was passing in the minds of the combatants. It seems that the battle
itself was fought not at “Denisesburn” but at Heavenfield, a little on
the north of the Roman wall, which probably was an important element
in the problem that the Anglian king, with his great inferiority of
forces, had to solve.[63] The great Roman work, striding across the
country in its uncompromising way, here traverses a high moorland which
separates the main stream of the Tyne from its northern affluent, and
in this portion of its career it is from 700 to 800 feet above the
level of the sea. Though none of its stones are here remaining, we can
yet trace the high mounds and deep fosses of its companion, the line of
fortification on the south, which is known by the name of the _vallum_.
Between these two lines, that of stone and that of earth, ran the
Roman road, still probably in Edwin’s day capable of being traversed,
notwithstanding 230 years of neglect. Along this road Cadwallon may
have marched, and by it he may have encamped for the night, while
somewhere, behind either wall or _vallum_, Oswald may have placed in
ambush his father’s veterans. He himself was in a mood of religious and
patriotic exaltation. On the day before the battle he had in his sleep
a vision of the blessed Columba, whom he had never seen with the eyes
of the flesh. The saint’s beautiful face shone with angelic brightness:
his figure rose majestic till it seemed to touch the clouds: he spread
his mantle over the Anglian camp. Addressing Oswald in the words which
Moses spake to Joshua he told him to be strong and of a good courage,
for the Lord would be with him. Let him march out on the following
night to battle: his foes should be all scattered in flight, and the
Welsh king should be delivered into his hands.
Awaking, Oswald assembled his council, told them his dream and received
the unanimous promise of the army that if they won the victory they
would make profession of the Christian faith. He then caused a large
wooden cross to be prepared and a hole to be dug, in which it was
firmly planted, he himself holding it erect with both hands while
his soldiers filled in the soil. When this was done he cried to the
host with a loud voice: “Let us all bend our knees and together call
upon God Almighty, the Living and the True, that He in His pity will
defend us from our proud and cruel foe: for He knoweth that this is a
just war that we have undertaken for the deliverance of our people”.
All obeyed his command and prayed to the God of the Christians. That
night, just before dawn, they moved out of camp, attacked the probably
unsuspecting Britons, and inflicted upon them a crushing defeat. Many
of the enemy must have perished on the wide moorland; some who probably
fled southwards with Cadwallon, their king, were whelmed in the deep
waters of the Tyne. Cadwallon himself met his death (how we know not)
on the banks of the little Rowley Burn, some five miles south of the
Tyne and ten miles from the field of battle. Such was the event which
ruined the British hopes of a reconquest of the island, which confirmed
the endangered work of Ethelfrid, ratified the victory of Chester, cut
off the Britons of the south from their kinsmen in Strathclyde, and
confined the former to that mountainous rectangle of territory which we
know as Wales. The son of the slain king, “Cadwallader the Blessed,”
perhaps strove for a time to maintain the high, almost imperial
pretensions of his father, but his long reign seems to have been on
the whole disastrous, and when he died a pilgrim at Rome in the year
681, the Welsh chronicler himself admits that “thenceforth the Britons
lost the crown of the kingdom and the Saxons gained it”.[64] The two
centuries which followed the battle of Heavenfield are the darkest and
dreariest in the history of Wales.
Returning in triumph, as Columba in vision had promised him, Oswald
proceeded to his father’s wooden palace at Bamburgh, and from thence,
apparently with little difficulty, extended his rule over all
Northumbria. In Bernicia he would, of course, as the son of Ethelfrid,
find many loyal hearts ready to greet him; and even Deira, now that
Edwin and his progeny were off the stage, had possibly a welcome for
the man who was not only the deliverer from British oppression, but
also on his mother’s side descended from the old line. For it will be
remembered that Acha, wife of Ethelfrid, was daughter of Aelle of Deira.
Thus, then, did Bamburgh, which is now a lonely village by the German
Ocean, become “the royal city,” the most strongly fortified abode of
the most powerful king in Britain,[65] the centre of a realm which
stretched from the Humber to the Firth of Forth, and apparently,
through the rest of the seventh century, the destined capital of
England, if England should ever attain to unity. The traveller who
now visits this dethroned queen of Northumbria will see much that,
however noble and picturesque, must be eliminated by an effort of the
imagination if he would picture to himself the Bamburgh of King Oswald.
The massive keep that “stands four-square to every wind that blows,”
dates from the reign of Henry II.; the great hall of the castle now
ingeniously restored by a modern architect, was originally of the time
of Edward I.; some of the still existing buildings were reared by a
benevolent ecclesiastic in the reign of George III.; but the natural
features of the place are unchangeable and unchanged, and in looking
upon them we know that we behold the same scenes that met the eye of
the conqueror of Cadwallon. Such is the rock itself, an upheaved mass
of basalt upon whose black sides the tooth of time seems to gnaw in
vain; such are the long sandy dunes which gather round its base; such
the Inner and Outer Farne Islands, fragments of basalt rising out
of the ocean at distances ranging from three to six miles from the
castle; such the far-off peninsula, which when the tide flows, becomes
Holy Island; such the long range of Cheviot on the western horizon,
snow-covered for many months of the year. Such, we might almost say,
is the fierce wind which, from one quarter or another, seems for
ever attacking the lonely fortress, and which assuredly battered the
“timbered” palace of Oswald as it now batters the time-worn fortress of
the Plantagenet.
Scarcely had Oswald seated himself on the Northumbrian throne when he
began to labour for the conversion of his new subjects to Christianity,
a Christianity, however, not altogether after the fashion which
Paulinus had taught to Edwin of Deira, but rather according to that
which he himself had learned of his friends, the monks of Iona. The
abbot Seghine paid him a visit, probably soon after his accession,
and heard from his own lips the marvellous story of his vision of
Columba and the victory of Heavenfield; and one of his monastic family
was despatched to teach the Northumbrians the religion of Christ.
This missionary was a man of narrow intellect and austere temper, who
soon returned to Iona with the unwelcome tidings that it was but lost
labour to try to teach a nation so barbarous and untamable. At the
council whereat this report was rendered sat a man, probably in early
middle life, the monk Aidan. “It seems to me, my brother,” said he,
“that thou hast been somewhat too hard on these poor unlearned folk,
and hast scarcely remembered the apostolic precept to give milk to
babes till such time as they may be able to understand and to keep
the more sublime commands of God.” The eyes of all in the council
were turned upon the speaker who had so opportunely spoken words of
wisdom. “Aidan shall be bishop,” “Aidan shall be ordained to preach
to the Northumbrians,” was the unanimous decision of the assembly. He
accordingly went southward, and for the next sixteen years (635–51) was
the great missionary bishop of Northumbria.
It must have seemed to Aidan when he visited the palace of the
king, his patron, as if it was a special act of Providence that had
fixed that palace where he found it. For here on the storm-beaten
Northumbrian coast, within six miles from the royal dwelling, lay
an island whereupon he could establish his monastery, and wherein
he could be out of the world yet within reach of the world like his
prototype Columba in Iona. This island which was given him by the king
for his possession, bore then and has borne intermittently ever since
the name of Lindisfarne; but even at this day for once that its legal
designation of Lindisfarne is mentioned, you shall hear it a thousand
times called by the endearing appellation of Holy Island, given to it
probably twelve centuries ago when it first received the imprint of
Aidan’s sandals. The island is but a small one, only about 1,000 acres
in extent, with three fair-sized farms, and a population of about 800
persons, chiefly engaged in fishing, and in winter often hard pressed
for subsistence. The beautiful ruins of the Benedictine abbey, the
parish church, the castle, built in the Commonwealth period, all belong
to ages long posterior to the time when it first became “Holy Island”;
but here, as at Bamburgh, the natural features of the landscape are
so unchanged that it requires but little effort of the imagination to
enable the beholder to travel backward through the centuries to see
Cuthbert praying among the sea-gulls, or Aidan slowly pacing the long
spit of sand which lay between him and the palace of the king. It will
be seen that it is spoken of as an island, and such for all practical
purposes it has ever been; for though on the north it stretches out a
long sandy arm to the mainland, and at dead low water travellers may
reach it from thence all-but dry shod, still their path, traversing
three miles of wet sand and leading them through the waste of waters on
either hand, seems to sever them from the mainland rather than to unite
them thereto, and the inhabitants are at this day islanders in heart
and feeling.
Here then dwelt the Celtic apostle of Northumbria, and from hence did
he diffuse that influence which accomplished the lasting conversion of
the northern Angles to Christianity. In this work he was powerfully
aided by King Oswald. In all the history of Christian Church and
state during eighteen centuries there are few fairer chapters than
that which deals with the intercourse between Oswald and Aidan. There
was evidently something in the character of the Celtic bishop which
won for him more than the veneration, the love, of the Anglian king.
Aidan was a man of absolute simplicity of character, intent on one
purpose alone, that of spreading the Christian faith in the kingdom of
Northumbria, utterly indifferent to wealth, and fame, and power, and
yet without that harshness and austerity which the men of one idea so
often display, and which made many of the noblest of medieval saints
unloveable. Herein, and in his genuine, not feigned, contempt of riches
we trace a certain resemblance between the saint of Lindisfarne and
the saint of Assisi. Bede describes the character of Aidan with an
enthusiasm all the more trustworthy, because he regretfully observes
that “his zeal for God was not according to knowledge, since he kept
the day of the Lord’s Pascha according to the manner of his race, that
is from the fourteenth day to the twentieth”. He says of him, however,
that “herein did he chiefly commend his doctrine to others in that he
taught none otherwise than as he lived among his friends”; words which
remind us of Chaucer’s often quoted description of the “Poure Persoun
of a Toun”:--
But Criste’s loore and his Apostles twelve
He taughte, but first he folwed it hymselve.
It was a strange, but, as Bede says, a most beautiful sight, when
the missionary who as yet had not fully mastered our English tongue
would preach to the people; when Oswald, whose boyhood passed at
Iona had made him master of the difficult Gaelic tongue, stood forth
as interpreter, and translated to his own grim warriors and to the
servants of his palace “the words of the heavenly life” as they fell
from the lips of Aidan. Occasionally, but not too often, for he
dreaded the fascinations of a court, Aidan would accept the royal
invitation and appear with one or two of his clergy in the great hall
at Bamburgh. Even then after a short and hurried repast he would go
forth speedily with his friends to read the Scriptures, to chant the
Psalter, or to pray. But the scene enacted at one such courtly festival
lingered for generations in the memory of men. It was Easter day (the
heterodox Easter, as it may be feared), and the king and the bishop
had just sat down to the mid-day meal. The bishop was on the point
of stretching forth his hand to bless the royal dainties which were
served in a splendid silver dish, when the king’s almoner abruptly
entered and told his master that a multitude of poor persons gathered
from all quarters had arrived, and were sitting in the streets and in
the courtyard of the palace, plaintively demanding alms from the king.
Thereupon Oswald at once ordered the victuals to be distributed among
the beggars, and the dish itself to be broken up into fragments, one of
which should be given to each of them. Aidan, who was himself a most
generous benefactor of the poor, was so delighted with the deed that he
clasped the king’s right hand and exclaimed, “May this hand never see
corruption!”
Devoted as Oswald was to the Christianisation of his people he was
no pious _roi fainéant_, but a strong and successful monarch who
made his power felt at least from the Firth of Forth to the Bristol
Channel. Bede tells us, perhaps with some unconscious exaggeration of
the glory of his native Northumbria, that “he received under his sway
all the nations and provinces of Britain, which are divided into four
languages, those of the Britons, the Picts, the Scots, and the Angles”.
As he evidently here uses “Angles” as equivalent to Angles and Saxons,
this sentence represents Oswald as accomplishing more than Egbert was
to achieve two centuries later, and as practically the lord of our
whole island. Consistently herewith he represents him as the sixth of
the Bretwaldas; and Adamnan, who at first calls him merely “regnator
Saxonicus,” says that after the victory of Heavenfield he was “ordained
by God emperor of the whole of Britain”. But all these statements must
be taken with considerable reservation. Oswald wielded evidently during
the seven years of his reign the predominant power in the island, but
we are not to think of him as interfering with any of the details of
administration in Wessex or East Anglia, still less in Wales or among
the Scots of Dalriada. With Wessex, indeed, we are expressly told that
he formed ties both of relationship and of religion. When Cynegils,
King of the West Saxons, who had been converted to Christianity by
the preaching of Birinus, was baptised, his godfather, the man who,
according to ecclesiastical phrase, “received him emerging from the
sacred laver,” was Oswald of Bernicia, who also became his son-in-law,
accepting from the old West Saxon king the hand of his daughter in
marriage.
From the character of our one chief authority, Bede’s _Ecclesiastical
History_, it naturally but unfortunately follows that we are left in
almost total ignorance of the political events in Oswald’s reign.
Gladly would we know, for instance, whether the fierce Mercian,
Penda, bowed his head even for a time under the yoke of Northumbrian
supremacy, but on this point we are left without information. There are
hints of earlier wars and fightings between the two states, but all
that we can certainly say is that on August 5, 642, Oswald and Penda
met in battle at a place called Maserfield,[66] and that though Penda’s
brother fell in the fight the Mercian king “was victorious by diabolic
art,” and Oswald lay dead on the battlefield. He died praying: when he
saw himself girt round by the Mercian host and knew that his death was
inevitable, he cried aloud: “Lord, have mercy on the souls of my army,”
and the remembrance of this prayer passed into a proverb: “‘Lord, pity
their souls,’ as Oswald said when he was falling to the ground”.
Oswald was in his thirty-eighth year when he died, the second
Northumbrian prince in the prime and vigour of his days, who had
fallen before the elderly barbarian, Penda. The brutal heathen had his
head and hands severed from the body and fixed on stakes; but before
long, at a turn of the wheel of fortune, these relics, now deemed to
be endowed with miraculous power, were carried to distant sites where
they met with more honourable treatment. The head was deposited in the
monastery at Holy Island, and in after years shared the migrations of
the relics of St. Cuthbert: the hand, “the uncorrupted hand” which
Aidan had blessed, was enshrined at Bamburgh: the body, by the order
of Oswald’s niece, Osthryd, now Queen of the Mercians, was reverently
laid in the monastery of Bardney in the centre of Lincolnshire. In
his lifetime Oswald had, with some display of force, extended his
dominion over this South-Humbrian land, mindful of which fact the
patriotic monks were loth to receive the body of their conqueror, but a
pillar of fire hovering at night over the coffin showed them that the
corpse to which they were refusing admittance would be a precious and
wonder-working relic, and turned their aversion into eagerness for its
possession. Numerous in fact were the miracles alleged to be wrought
by the dissevered fragments of the kingly body, and even by the dust
of the battlefield on which he had fallen. The day of his martyrdom,
August 5, was appropriated to the cult of Saint Oswald, and the fame of
the new saint and his wonder-working relics spread rapidly not only in
England but in Ireland and on the Continent.
CHAPTER X.
OSWY AND PENDA.
The Mercian victory of the Maserfield was doubtless followed by a
ravaging expedition into Northumbria. When the waters of the flood
subside we find that country again split into the two kingdoms of
Bernicia and Deira. In the former reigned Oswy (or Oswiu), brother of
the martyred Oswald; in the latter, Oswin, son of that Osric, Edwin’s
cousin, whose one year’s reign preceded the accession of Oswald. For
seven years (644–651) these two kings reigned side by side in the
northern land, but before their further career is described it is
necessary to turn back and consider more closely the history of that
midland kingdom which was running so even a race with Northumbria for
the supremacy in Britain.
The causes and the stages of the development of the Mercian power, and
even the origin of the Mercian state, are alike hidden from us. All
that can be said is that in the early part of the seventh century we
find the Mercians, an Anglian tribe, manifesting themselves in force in
Staffordshire and Shropshire along the Welsh _March_ from which they
perhaps derived their name. As the century proceeds, they conquer or
ally with themselves the Middle Anglians, who seem to have inhabited
Leicestershire and some of the country adjacent thereto; as well as
the South Angles in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Hertfordshire,
who sooner or later became incorporated in the new state. The agent in
these great changes was probably Penda himself, the strong-willed pagan
who, in 626, at the age of fifty, ascended the Mercian throne, which
he occupied for nearly thirty years. Of his alliance with Cadwallon
of Wales, and his successful wars with the Northumbrian kings, Edwin
and Oswald, enough has already been said in previous chapters; but his
dealings with Wessex and East Anglia require some further notice.
In the year 628, as we learn from the Chronicle, Cynegils and Cwichelm
fought with Penda at Cirencester and made a treaty there. These are
the two Kings of Wessex, apparently reigning together as father and
son, who sent the assassin to deal that murderous blow at the life of
Edwin which was foiled only by the self-devotion of the loyal thegn,
Lilla. That event and the retaliatory campaign of Edwin against Wessex
no doubt preceded by some years this war of 628 between Wessex and
Mercia. Of the details of the treaty by which the war was ended we know
nothing, but it has been conjectured with some probability[67] that it
included a cession of the north-western conquests of Ceawlin to Mercia,
and the acceptance by Wessex of the line of the Thames as her northern
boundary.[68]
Penda’s next intervention in the affairs of his southern neighbours
took place in 645, three years after his overthrow of Oswald. Wessex
had in the meantime become Christian, chiefly through the preaching of
a certain Birinus, who had received his commission from Pope Honorius
on his assurance “that he would scatter the seeds of the holy faith in
the innermost parts of England whither no teacher had preceded him”.
The orthodoxy of Pope Honorius has been sorely attacked on account of
his unfortunate vacillations on the subject of the Monothelete heresy,
but his evident interest in the conversion of our remote island should
be allowed to plead on his behalf as at least one who was zealous for
the Christian faith. Birinus discharged the commission entrusted to him
with energy and success. We have but little authentic information as
to his life, but it seems clear that in respect of the conversion of
the kingdoms he held the same relation towards Wessex that Augustine
had held to Kent, Paulinus to Deira, and Aidan to Bernicia. The
influence of Northumbrian Christianity aided the zealous missionary,
and, as we have seen, Oswald of Bernicia stood sponsor for his future
father-in-law when in the year 635 Cynegils, the aged King of Wessex,
received the sign of baptism. Cwichelm, son of Cynegils and partner
of his throne, the chief actor apparently in the murderous attempt
upon Edwin of Deira, followed his father’s example in the following
year, but died soon after, and when old Cynegils died (641) five
years later, he was succeeded by another son, named Cenwalh, who
still persisted in heathenism. Soon, however, as Bede remarks, he who
refused the offer of the heavenly kingdom, lost his earthly crown.
Growing tired of his wife, who was a daughter of Penda, he divorced
her, and this repudiation naturally brought upon him the wrath of
the Mercian king. Expelled from his kingdom (645) by the victorious
arms of Penda, Cenwalh took refuge in East Anglia, at that time the
most enthusiastically Christian of all the English kingdoms, with the
possible exception of Kent. The persuasions of the East Anglian king,
Anna, induced him to make profession of Christianity, and when, after
three years’ exile (648), he succeeded in recovering his ancestral
kingdom, Cenwalh continued faithful to his new creed, and for the
remaining twenty-eight years of his reign he ruled as a Christian king.
Thus Wessex, before the seventh century was half way through, accepted
the faith of Christ.
The place which witnessed the baptisms of these West Saxon kings, and
in which Birinus fixed his episcopal seat, deserves a passing notice.
The Dorchester of Oxfordshire (which must on no account be confounded
with the county-town of Dorset) is now a pleasant but obscure village
on the left bank of the Thames about twelve miles south-east of Oxford.
It is in a country full of archæological interest. High on a hill to
the west rises what has been truly called “the mighty camp of Sinodun,”
a relic apparently of pre-Roman times; and nearer may be traced the
so-called “dykes” of the Thames, the work probably of Roman engineers.
In the village itself is a fine old abbey church with architecture
of various ages, a church which might yet serve on occasion as a
cathedral. There is also a great charm in the antique appearance
of the place with its picturesque houses, some of them dating from
the seventeenth century. Brought thus in contact with the spirit of
the past, and freed from the importunate clamours of the industrial
present, the traveller finds it not hard to re-create the scenes of
the yet more distant past, to imagine Birinus preaching in his little
wooden church, or Cynegils and his thegns riding through the swollen
river. But for all this, it is hard to bring home to oneself the truth
that this village was an ecclesiastical, and almost a literary centre,
while Oxford, if it existed at all, was an obscure cluster of cottages;
that she was the ecclesiastical metropolis, first of Wessex and then
of Mercia, and that royal Winchester and stately Lincoln are both in a
certain sense the daughters of Dorchester.
The shelter which King Anna gave to the fugitive Cenwalh was an act of
generous courage in the ruler of a country which had already suffered
much and was to suffer more at the hands of the terrible Penda. It
will be remembered that Redwald, King of East Anglia, who had shown
hospitality to Edwin, died a heathen, though more than tolerant of
Christianity; but his successor, Earpwald (617–28), yielding to the
persuasions of the Northumbrian king, allowed himself to be baptised.
After a short reign Earpwald was assassinated by a worshipper of the
old gods.[69] Heathenism and anarchy then prevailed in East Anglia
for three years, at the end of which time Sigebert the Learned,
brother or half-brother of Earpwald, returned from Gaul, in which
country he had spent some years, having incurred for some reason the
hatred of Redwald. In Gaul he had become a Christian and had pursued
those studies which had procured for him his surname “the Learned”.
When raised to the East Anglian throne, he successfully attempted
the reconversion of the country to Christianity, from which it never
afterwards relapsed. He also--a noteworthy fact--“established a school
in which boys might be instructed in letters,” following herein the
example set him by the King of Kent, and bringing his school teachers
from Canterbury. In all his works, scholastic and religious, he was
zealously aided by Felix, a missionary-bishop from Burgundy, who had
fixed the seat of his episcopate at Dunwich, a city on the coast of
Suffolk, long since swallowed up by the ocean. While the trained
ecclesiastic, Felix, supplied the organising and educating influences
needed by the infant Church of East Anglia, an enthusiastic energy
was imparted to it by an Irish monk named Fursa, a man of vivid
imagination, full of his marvellous revelations of the world of
spirits, one whom, when we read the story of his visions as it is told
us by Bede, we are almost persuaded to call the unlettered Dante of
the seventh century. As men in Florence said when they saw the poet
pass, “That man has been in hell,” so the awe-struck Angles of Norfolk
and Suffolk noted on the cheek and shoulder of Fursa the scars of the
burning inflicted upon him for a slight offence by the foul fiends
whom he had seen in one of his visions; and they remembered how in the
depths of winter, and though he was thinly clad, the sweat streamed
down his face while he rehearsed the terrible story.
Thus then, in the fourth decade of the seventh century, East Anglia
became Christian: and already in her history was manifested that
extraordinary desire of men in high places to save their own souls
at the cost of leaving their duties to their fellows unfulfilled,
which was, it may be said, the glory and the shame of Anglo-Saxon
Christianity. After two or three years of reigning, Sigebert
abdicated in 634, received the tonsure, and retired to a monastery.
He was succeeded by his cousin Egric, but ere the new king had
been long on the throne, the terrible Penda (probably crossing the
fens which separated the two kingdoms) invaded East Anglia (637?).
Some remembrance of Sigebert’s capacity and valour in war seems to
have dwelt in the minds of his late subjects, who saw themselves
out-numbered by the Mercian hosts. They surrounded the monastery, and
when their clamorous cries for Sigebert failed to draw him from his
retirement, they pulled him out by main force and compelled him to
place himself at their head. But he, mindful of his vow, refused to arm
himself with any other weapon than a rod, and remained passive through
all the tumult of the battle. He was slain and Egric with him; the East
Anglian army was cut to pieces, and Penda, as usual, triumphed.
It will be observed, however, that in these inter-Anglian contests
annexation scarcely ever follows victory. The conquered people choose
another king, over whom the conqueror no doubt asserts some sort of
supremacy, and all goes on as before. So was it now. Anna, the son
of Eni, of the royal East Anglian stock, but how nearly related to
Sigebert we are not informed, succeeded his kinsman and reigned for
some seventeen or eighteen years (637–654). During this time, as we
have seen, he gave shelter to the fugitive King of Wessex, Cenwalh, and
converted him to Christianity. He is chiefly noted for his “saintly
progeny” of daughters and granddaughters, some of whom married into the
royal houses of Kent and Mercia, carrying thither their enthusiastic
zeal for the propagation of the Christian faith, and nearly all of
whom became eventually abbesses in Britain or Gaul. The reign of this
excellent king came to an end about 654. It is scarcely necessary to
state the cause of his death. He was slain, probably slain in battle,
by the nearly octogenarian Penda. Thus had three kings of East Anglia
as well as two kings of Northumbria fallen before the all-conquering
Mercian. But the tale of his victories was well-nigh told. Let us turn
back to consider what had been happening in Northumbria during the
twelve years that had elapsed since the death of Oswald.
Two kings, as has been said, with perplexingly similar names, had been,
perhaps by some tumultuary vote of their countrymen, raised to the two
now separate Northumbrian thrones: Oswy, son of Ethelfrid, to reign in
his great grandfather Ida’s palace at Bamburgh, as king of Bernicia;
Oswin, collateral descendant of Aelle and Edwin, to reign at York over
Deira. Soon after his accession Oswy, who though only about thirty
years of age, was a widower with at least two nearly grown-up children,
sent a priest named Utta, “a man of much gravity and truth, and for
that reason held in high honour even by princes,” to solicit from the
king of Kent the hand of his niece Eanfled, the exiled daughter of
Edwin of Deira. It was arranged that Utta should travel to Kent by
land, but--perhaps from fear of robbers--he was to return with the
maiden by sea. Before his departure the priest sought Aidan’s blessing
and prayers for his safe journey. The saint foretold that he would
meet with contrary winds, rising to a tempest, but gave him a bottle
of holy oil to cast upon the raging waters. All happened as Aidan had
foretold. The ship in which Utta and his precious charge were embarked
was assailed by a tremendous storm: no anchors would hold; the sailors,
finding the ship beginning to fill with water from the waves that swept
over her, gave themselves up for lost. Then the priest, remembering
Aidan’s gift, poured oil from his flask upon the waters and the sea
ceased from its raging. Probably the violence of the storm has been
somewhat exaggerated by the narrators; but it is interesting to note
that modern seamanship does not disdain to use an expedient which
in the seventh century was deemed miraculous. One object in Oswy’s
matrimonial alliance was doubtless that of strengthening his claim on
the men of Deira by his union with Edwin’s daughter. Another result
which he perhaps did not foresee was the revival in an acuter form of
the strife between the Roman and Celtic Churches for the possession
of Northumbria, since Eanfled represented the Roman Christianity of
Augustine and Paulinus, while Oswy, like Oswald, had learned in his
youth the Christianity of the Hebrides which was represented by his
friend the saintly Aidan.
It was probably more or less the aim of every Northumbrian king to
reunite the two kingdoms over which Edwin and Oswald had ruled as one
realm. Thus Oswy may from the beginning have seen with impatience the
rival power of Oswin of Deira. The latter was a man dear alike to
martial thane and to devout Churchman: “fair of face, tall of stature,
pleasant of speech, courteous in manner, and open-handed both to the
noble and to the base-born. This truly royal dignity of his, displayed
both in his looks and in his actions, won for him the love of all, so
that from nearly all the [other] provinces [of the land] men of noblest
birth flocked to do him service.”
To this kingly soul was conjoined the virtue, rare in kings, of
humility, to illustrate which Bede tells a well-known story. It appears
that Aidan, from his island home in Lindisfarne, now often extended his
missionary journeys far and wide through Deira, and, though he made a
point of travelling on foot, had accepted from Oswin the present of a
horse to enable him to cross the manifold rivers of Yorkshire. Meeting
one day a poor man who asked of him an alms, and having apparently no
money in his scrip, he gave to the astonished beggar the horse with
all its royal trappings, “for he was very pitiful, a nourisher of the
poor and, so to speak, a father of the miserable”. When the king heard
this he very naturally asked the bishop the reason of his strange
procedure. “I had specially chosen that horse for your use, and if it
was a question of giving horses to beggars at all, I had others, much
cheaper ones, in my stable which would have served your purpose as
well.” Hardly with justice Aidan answered: “What art thou saying, O
King? Is my steed, the offspring of a mare, dearer to thee than that
poor man, a son of God?” And thereupon they went into the palace to
dine. The bishop sat apart in his own place; the king who had just come
in from hunting stood at the fire with his courtiers warming himself.
Suddenly the reproving words of the bishop darted into his soul. He
ungirded himself of his sword, which he handed to a courtier, and
hastening to the bishop fell at his feet and asked forgiveness, “for
never henceforward will I cavil at any act of thine in giving from my
treasures what thou wilt to the children of God”. The bishop assured
him of his forgiveness and bade him sit down joyfully to the feast.
Oswin obeyed, and his merry laugh soon resounded through the hall, but
the mantle of his late sadness fell upon Aidan who began to weep. “Why
these tears, my father?” said a priestly companion in the Celtic speech
which the men of Deira could not understand. “I know,” answered the
bishop, “that this king will not live long. I never saw so humble a
prince, and this people is not worthy to have such a ruler.”
Too soon were Aidan’s forebodings justified. In the seventh year of
Oswin’s reign the disputes between the two Northumbrian kingdoms
reached a head, and their armies met in the field near Catterick, in
Yorkshire. Finding himself hopelessly out-numbered, Oswin dismissed his
soldiers to their homes and fled to the house of one of his followers
named Hunwald whom he believed to be a loyal friend. Unfortunately
Hunwald betrayed him to Oswy, whose officer Ethelwin was admitted into
the house by the treacherous host and slew Oswin, together with his
faithful henchman, Tondheri, who had shared his flight. This deed,
which was evidently considered no fair act of war, but a foul and
detestable murder, took place at Gilling (near Richmond in Yorkshire),
on August 20, 651. At the request of Queen Eanfled, Oswin’s near
kinswoman, a monastery was erected on the spot by Oswy as a sort of
expiation of his crime. Prayers in that monastery were daily offered
for the souls of the two kings, the murderer and the murdered, but the
blot on Oswy’s memory remained. Twelve days after the death of his
royal friend and disciple (Aug. 31, 651), Aidan also died after having
for seventeen years held the see of Lindisfarne. The shortness of the
interval after Oswin’s death, and the close connexion with that event
in which it is mentioned by Bede, seem to authorise the conjecture that
grief at this treacherous murder of a Christian prince by his professed
brother in the faith may have hastened the death of the toil-worn
prelate. He died, not at Lindisfarne, but at a certain _villa regia_
“not far from the city,” says Bede, “of which I have already spoken”.
It is generally assumed, perhaps too hastily, that this royal _villa_
was on the site of the modern village of Bamburgh, close to the foot of
the rock on the top of which stood undoubtedly both the palace and the
town of Bebbanburh. A tent was spread for the dying saint contiguous to
the church on its western side. He died leaning against a buttress of
the church, and the lovers of miracles noticed that when the village
and the church were wrapped in flames in the course of one of Penda’s
ravaging expeditions, this buttress against which the dying saint had
leaned his head was the only part of the fabric which survived the
conflagration.
The Northumbrian ravages of Penda may possibly have been of frequent
occurrence. Besides that just mentioned there was at least one more in
the lifetime of the saint, possibly soon after the death of Oswald.
In this expedition also he sought by the aid of fire to achieve the
conquest of the fortress which, in fact, remained impregnable till the
invention of gunpowder. Destroying all the hamlets in the immediate
neighbourhood of the royal city, he collected their ruins together,
an immense mass of wooden beams, brushwood, straw-thatch and other
inflammable materials, and piling them up against the lowest end of the
cliff, waited for a favourable breeze to kindle his fire. It happened
that at this time Aidan had retired from monastic Lindisfarne to the
yet more solitary Farne Islands, where, but for the myriads of sea-fowl
which resort thither in the breeding season, he could be alone with
his Creator. Looking across the two miles of sea which separated him
from Bamburgh, the saint saw clouds of smoke arising and balls of fire
flying high over the castle walls. With hands and eyes uplifted towards
heaven he cried: “See, O Lord, what ills Penda worketh”. Thereat, says
the legend, the wind changed, the flames beaten back from the fortress
were driven upon the besiegers, who, with some of their number badly
burned and all utterly affrighted, at once desisted from the siege of
the city.
But there must have been peaceful intervals in the long duel between
Mercia and Northumbria. In one of these intervals, Alchfrid, Oswy’s
son, sought and obtained the hand of Penda’s daughter, Cyneburga, in
marriage. This led to a similar request from Penda’s son, Peada, King
of the Middle Angles, for the hand of Alchfleda, daughter of Oswy. He
was told that the only terms on which his suit could be successful were
that he and all his people should receive the Christian faith. His
brother-in-law, Alchfrid, strongly urged him to the same conclusion,
and he consented to listen to the teaching of the Christian priests.
When he heard of the promise of a heavenly kingdom, the hope of a
resurrection and of future immortality, he declared that he would
gladly accept such a religion as that, even though no virgin-bride was
to be the prize of his conversion. He came in 653 with a long train
of thegns, soldiers and servants, and was baptised by Finan, Aidan’s
successor, at a royal _villa_ called Ad Murum, close to the Roman wall,
and twelve miles from the sea. The conversion of Peada was followed
by the mission of four priests to the Middle Angles, that is the
inhabitants of Leicestershire. The preaching of these men, seconded by
the royal influence, was most successful, and practically the whole of
that tribe came over to the new faith. Mercia, properly so called, on
the west of the country of the Middle Angles, was still heathen, but
even there Penda did not prohibit the preaching of Christianity. He
does not seem to have had any deep-rooted objection to the doctrine of
the Nazarene, though it was not for him, the descendant of Woden, to
worship a deity so unlike the gods of his fathers. He did not, however,
conceal his hatred and contempt of those men who, professing the faith
of Christ, did not bring forth works according thereto, saying that
they were poor and despicable wretches who did not obey the God in whom
they professed to believe.
At last when the old king was close upon his eightieth year, the
ever-smouldering quarrel with Northumbria broke out again into flame.
Oswy felt that the repeated raids of Penda must by some means be
brought to an end. He offered quantities of costly royal ornaments
as the price of peace, but in vain. Penda would give no promise to
cease from ravaging. “Then,” said he, “if the barbarian will not be
mollified by our gifts, let us offer them to the Lord God as the
price of victory.” His daughter dedicated to sacred virginity; twelve
estates given for the foundation of as many monasteries; these were
his vows to the Most High, and having made these promises he moved
forward with confidence to the war, though his army was much smaller
than that of the enemy; though his young son, Egfrid, was a hostage
in Penda’s hands; though his nephew, Ethelwald, Oswald’s son, who had
been elected King of Deira, was apparently on the side of the enemy;
and though Ethelhere, brother of the martyred Anna, now marched to
battle in the host of the terrible pagan who had bound East Anglia to
his chariot-wheels.[70] Alchfrid, son of Oswy, fought by his father’s
side, notwithstanding his affinity with Penda. If we may trust the
fitful light of Nennius’s history, Penda was again in this attack on
Northumbria allied with the Britons, and Catgabail, King of Gwyneth,
went with him to the war, but by a stealthy night march evaded the
necessity of fighting.
The armies met on the banks of the Winwaed, possibly the Went, a stream
in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The exaggerated traditions of a later
day assigned to the Mercian king thirty regiments, each as large as
the little army of Oswy, under the command of as many noble generals.
Evidently, however, there was no little treachery in Penda’s camp. The
Welsh king, as we have seen, deserted on the night before the action.
Ethelwald, in the hour of conflict, drew off his troops, and from a
safe distance watched the event of the battle. Possibly there were
others in the Mercian army who at heart sympathised with the Christian
king. At any rate, Oswy won a signal victory (November 15, 655). Nearly
all the thirty Mercian generals, including the East Anglian Ethelhere,
were killed. Multitudes of fugitives were drowned in the waters of
the Winwaed, swollen with autumnal rain. Most important of all, the
octogenarian Penda, the slayer of five kings, perished in the fight,
and with him fell the last hopes of English heathendom.
CHAPTER XI.
TERRITORIAL CHANGES--THE CONFERENCE AT WHITBY--THE GREAT PLAGUE.
The victory by the Winwaed left Oswy undoubtedly the mightiest king in
Britain. It may be convenient to enumerate here the chief territorial
changes during the latter half of the seventh century which can be
discerned between the succession of bishops and the miracles of saints
that form naturally the chief subject of Bede’s _Ecclesiastical
History_.
1. Northumbria, at any rate after Oswy’s victory, may have stretched
along the eastern coast from Aberdeen or the Cromarty Firth nearly to
the Wash. We are distinctly told that “he subdued the nation of the
Picts or at least the largest part of them to the Anglian kingdom,”
and it is generally agreed that this must refer to the Picts north
of the Firth of Forth, which was at this time the ordinary Anglian
boundary. Southward, the dominions of which Oswy was overlord probably
now included the whole of Yorkshire. It seems, however, to have been
an accepted principle that when the overlord was king in Bernicia
there must be an under-king in Deira. For seven years, as we have
seen, the comely and gracious Oswin, either as equal colleague or as
such under-king, reigned in Deira (644–51). After his murder and the
consequent extinction of the direct male line of the descendants of
Aelle, Oswald’s son, Ethelwald, ruled over the southern kingdom. Did
his dubious conduct on the battle-plain of the Winwaed fail to secure
for him the favour of his victorious uncle? We cannot say, but it is an
ominous circumstance that soon after that event he vanishes from the
scene and is replaced by Alchfrid, son of Oswy by his first marriage.
We have heard of this prince as assisting in the conversion of his
brother-in-law, Peada, to Christianity; we have seen him fighting by
his father’s side against his father-in-law, Penda; we shall find
him taking a leading part in the discussions about the date of Easter
and generally befriending the Roman party; but besides these facts we
hear also of some action on his part, possibly in the way of overt
rebellion, whereby he added to the “labours” of his father. Whatever
the date of this rebellion, if such it were, after 664 we hear no more
of Alchfrid.
The mystery, however, that hangs over the life and death of Alchfrid
almost heightens the interest which is attached to a monument raised
to his memory, the celebrated Bewcastle Cross. There in the midst of
a wide and desolate moor, as desolate, perhaps, now as it was twelve
hundred years ago, rises an obelisk fourteen and a half feet high,
once surmounted by a cross which has now disappeared, bearing in
Runic letters the sacred name “Gessus Christus” (so must our Anglian
ancestors have spoken of the Saviour), and an inscription which, though
not yet deciphered beyond dispute, certainly says that the stone was
raised as a memorial of “Alchfrith, son of Oswy, and aforetime King”.
Other runes give us the names of Alchfrid’s wife, Cyneburga, of her
sister (?) Cyneswitha, and of her brother Wulfhere, King of Mercia. An
inscription seems to record that it was reared in the first year of his
brother Egfrid, that is in 670. This date gives additional interest
to the quaint but not ungraceful specimens of Anglian art with which
the obelisk is enriched, to the flowing tracery of vine-leaves and
grape-clusters, the birds and dogs, the figures of John the Baptist and
our Lord, and (in the lowest compartment of all) the standing figure of
a man with a bird on his wrist, perhaps King Alchfrid himself with his
falcon. Even should the reading of one line of the inscription, “Pray
for his soul’s great sin,” prove too fanciful to be accepted by future
students, we have in the other utterances of this monument enough to
invest with a peculiar interest the name of Oswy’s son and Penda’s
son-in-law.
After the death of this prince, two younger sons of Oswy are spoken of
on somewhat doubtful authority as successively holding the position of
Deiran under-kings. It seems clear that there was in the two provinces,
Bernicia and Deira, a certain reluctance to coalesce, an unwillingness
of each to submit to the king chosen by the other, which it is not
difficult to understand. Whatever may have been its cause, this
tendency to estrangement between its two great provinces had doubtless
something to do with the early downfall of Northumbria.
The southern boundary of Oswy’s kingdom was at this time a somewhat
uncertain one. In the first place, what is now the county of Lincoln,
or, as it was then called, Lindissi, was for generations the regular
prize of war between Northumbria and Mercia. It was added to his
dominions by the victorious Edwin, and if lost through his defeat by
Penda, it was recovered by Oswald, but, as we have seen, so little was
his yoke beloved that the monks of Bardney in Lincolnshire at first
refused to give shelter to his bones. Under Penda it was doubtless
again annexed to Mercia, and probably shared the fortunes of that
middle kingdom until, between 671 and 675, it was recovered from
Wulfhere, son of Penda, by Oswy’s son and successor, Egfrid. It was
once more regained for Mercia by Ethelred, probably about the year 679,
and apparently never after owned the sway of a Northumbrian king.
2. After the victory of the Winwaed, Oswy seems to have been virtually
master of Mercia. He continued his son-in-law, Peada, as under-king of
Southern Mercia, that is the part of the kingdom south of the river
Trent, but he apparently kept Northern Mercia in his own hands. In
the spring of the following year, however, at the very time when the
newly converted nation was celebrating the Easter festival, Peada was
murdered, and dark suspicions prevailed that his young Christian wife
was an accomplice in the crime. It is not hinted that Oswy himself
had instigated the deed, but doubtless the horror of it added to the
dislike with which the people of Mercia viewed the Northumbrian rule.
Three years after old Penda’s death, three of his veteran generals
successfully conspired against the Northerner, brought out of his
hiding-place a young son of their late master, named Wulfhere, whom
they had till then successfully concealed, expelled Oswy’s thanes,
and restored the independence of the Mercian kingdom, apparently with
its old boundaries. The new king Wulfhere was a zealous Christian--as
indeed, strange to say, were all the children of Penda--and reigned for
seventeen years well and gloriously (659–675). We hear of no attempt by
Oswy to recover his supremacy over Mercia, although, as we have seen,
his son did recover that shuttle-cock of battle, Lindsey. Wulfhere’s
chief wars seem to have been with the Kings of Wessex, over whom he
won several victories. The extent of his power is most clearly shown by
the fact that having formed a friendship with Ethelwalh, King of the
South Saxons, and persuaded him to be baptised, he handed over to him
the Isle of Wight and the district occupied by the Meonwaras in the
east of Hampshire, which he had wrested from the King of Wessex. The
son of Penda officiated as godfather to the new convert, whose example
in accepting the Christian faith was followed by many of his thanes and
soldiers, but not as yet by the bulk of the South Saxon people.
3. Of political events in the kingdom of the East Angles in the period
now under review, we find scarcely a trace. Shut off from the rest
of England by the great fen-lands, which covered almost the whole of
the modern counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon, East Anglia seems to
have generally kept the even tenour of her own solitary way, which
was at this time the way of holiness. If we may judge of the people
from their rulers, we should be inclined to conjecture that, under the
influence of the preaching of Felix and Fursa, this isolated district
of England was passing through a phase of religious fervour like that
which made its counties the stronghold of Lollardy in the fourteenth,
and of Puritanism in the seventeenth centuries, sending at the latter
period so many stern enthusiasts to fight in the new-modelled army
of Cromwell. Of course, in the seventh century religious zeal took
a direction which would have brought it into fierce collision with
the Ironsides of Naseby and Marston Moor. All the fairest fruits of
Christianity at this time were ripened in the cloister, and a monastic
life seems to have had irresistible attractions for the ladies of the
royal East Anglian race. King Anna, who, as we have seen, fell in
battle against Penda in the year 654, left three daughters, two of whom
were the wives of kings, but all of whom ended their lives as abbesses
in a convent, and in the next generation two daughters of one of these
saintly ladies (one of them also a queen consort) followed their
mother’s example.
4. Very different at one time was the religious history of the kingdom
of the East Saxons, represented by the two modern counties of Essex and
Middlesex. When we last heard of the affairs of this little kingdom
Mellitus had been contemptuously driven forth from his episcopal
seat in London because he refused to administer the white bread of
the communion to the heathen sons of King Saberct (617?). Since that
time a generation had passed away, and Essex was still heathen. The
king now reigning in London--one of the many Sigeberts who about this
time perplex the student of Anglo-Saxon pedigrees--was, we are told,
a friend and a frequent visitor to Oswy of Northumbria. In the halls
of Bamburgh and Ad Murum the conversation often turned on religious
subjects; and “How,” said the Northumbrian king, “can you think that
these things are gods, which are made by the hands of men? You take
a piece of wood or stone, and what is not needed for the purpose of
idol-making you either burn in the fire or shape into some common
household utensil which, when it is done with, is pitched out of doors
and trodden under foot of men. How can these things be divine? We must
think of the true God as incomprehensible, unseen, omnipotent, eternal,
the righteous ruler of the world, who does not dwell in perishable
substances but has His eternal seat on high. We can understand, too,
that the beings whom He has created, if they will learn His will and
do it, shall receive from Him eternal rewards.” Many dialogues of this
kind at last produced an effect. The East Saxon king was baptised by
Finan of Lindisfarne, Aidan’s successor, at the same royal _villa_
of Ad Murum which had witnessed the baptism of Peada, the Mercian.
Returning to his own kingdom he sought to bring his subjects over to
his new faith and sent to Oswy for a missionary (653). Hereupon Cedd,
one of a family of zealous Northumbrian converts who had been preaching
Christianity in Mercia, was recalled from his work in the Midlands
and sent to Essex, where he carried on a most successful mission, was
consecrated as bishop, and, apparently for the first time, founded the
church of London on a secure basis. Sigebert, however, was slain after
a reign of some years by two noblemen of his kindred who were offended
by his meek submission to the counsels of the bishop, and after one
intervening reign,[71] two kings named Sighere and Sebbi reigned over
the East Saxons jointly, but always in subjection to the overlordship
of Wulfhere, King of Mercia, whose “sphere of influence” evidently
included all the south of England with the doubtful exception of Wessex.
The accession of these two kings probably took place soon after
660, but dates as well as accurate pedigrees are grievously wanting
for all this portion of history. In 664 a terrible pestilence, which
ravaged Essex as well as all the rest of England, shook the newly-born
faith of the people and divided their rulers. Sighere and all his
subjects openly apostatised from the faith of Christ, sought out the
old half-ruined heathen fanes, and began once more to worship the
idols replaced therein. Sebbi, on the other hand, and the men under
his sway remained steadfast in their profession of Christianity. Nor
does the relapse into heathenism of the other half of the kingdom seem
to have been of long continuance. The zeal of the overlord Wulfhere
soon remedied that error. He sent his Mercian bishop, Jaruman, on a
mission to the East Saxons, the third which had been despatched to
that wavering people, and Jaruman, backed by the authority of his
sovereign, without much difficulty overturned once more the idol-altars
and brought back the recalcitrant East Saxons within the embraces of
the Church. From this time onwards London, its bishops and its commerce
become of ever-increasing importance in the pages of the historians.
5. The political history of Kent during this period offers little of
interest. The king whose name figures most largely in the pages of
Bede is Erconbert (640–64). He married Sexburh, daughter of Anna, one
of the devout East Anglian family, and, partly perhaps owing to her
influence, Church and State were more closely welded together in this
than in any of the other kingdoms. “He was the first of all the English
kings who by his princely authority ordered the idols throughout his
kingdom to be abandoned and destroyed, and the fast of the forty days
[of Lent] to be observed. And in order that these commands might be
despised by none, he proclaimed fit and proper punishments against the
transgressors.” Thus in Kent we have reached the second stage in the
establishment of Christianity, which is now no longer merely tolerated
or approved by the sovereign but dominant and in a certain sense
persecuting.
6. The obscure history of the South Saxon kingdom has been already
touched upon in connexion with that of Mercia. Suffice it to remind
the reader that under the protecting hand of the great Midland king,
who evidently wished to make of this kingdom a counterpoise to the
power of Wessex, it included not only the modern county of Sussex but
also the Isle of Wight and a good deal of the east of Hampshire; and
that though its royal family were Christian the bulk of the people
remained idolators. This religious isolation of the South Saxon people
is generally attributed to the fact already alluded to, that they
were separated from the rest of England by the mighty forest of the
Andredeswald, that “dark impenetrable wood” which yielded in later
ages to the axes of the charcoal-burners of Sussex and Kent, so that
the country which we call the Weald is now left comparatively bare and
treeless. It is hard for us who now know the chief town of the coast
of Sussex as virtually a suburb of London, to imagine the time when
Sussex, isolated in its heathen barbarism, remained virtually another
world to the inhabitants of Essex and Middlesex.
7. The history of the West Saxon kingdom, for which such a brilliant
future was reserved in the coming generations, is for the seventh
century obscure and uninteresting. Partly, of course, this may be
accounted for by the fact that our one transcendent authority for this
period, Bede, is himself a most patriotic Northumbrian, and cares
little for distant Wessex. But even after making allowance for this
weighting of one of the scales, it is impossible not to recognise the
fact that in the West Saxon line during the greater part of the seventh
century we meet with no such powerful personalities as Edwin, Oswald,
and Oswy, nor do we find there any symptoms which would have warranted
a beholder in looking for the eventual appearance of the splendid
figures of Alfred, Edward, and Athelstan.
As we have seen, the fortunes of Wessex in her conflict with Mercia
were at this time generally unprosperous. In 628 there was the
disastrous war with Mercia. Then came the preaching of Birinus, the
baptism and death of Cynegils and his son, the accession of the still
heathen Cenwalh and his expulsion by his enraged brother-in-law of
Mercia. He returned, perhaps, on the invitation of his kinsman Cuthred,
to whom he made an enormous grant of property (3,000 “lands” or hides)
at Ashdown in Berkshire. Having embraced Christianity in his exile, he
completed the conversion of Wessex to the new faith. Unsuccessful as
he seems generally to have been in his wars with Mercia, he met with
better fortune in his campaigns against the southern Britons. In 652
we are told that he fought--assuredly with the “Walas,” though this
is not expressly stated--at Bradford-upon-Avon. He thus apparently
completed the conquest of Wiltshire, and it may well have been within a
generation after Cenwalh’s victory that Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury,
built that quaint little church, dedicated to St. Lawrence, which still
stands overlooking the south-country Bradford, and which is nearly the
best surviving monument of true Saxon architecture. Six years later
(658) Cenwalh again fought with the Welsh at Peonnum (or the Pens,
generally identified with Pensel Wood on the south-eastern border of
Somerset), and this time we are distinctly told that he drove them as
far as the river Parret. The larger half of the county of Somerset
thus became definitively West Saxon, and the far-famed sanctuary of
Glastonbury and the poetic valley of Avalon now owned the sway of a
king who, though a Saxon, was also a Christian.
An important acquisition certainly: yet the very fact that it had
still to be made, illustrates the extremely gradual character of the
Saxon conquest of Britain. Two hundred years have now elapsed since
the accepted date of the landing of Hengest, one hundred and seventy
since Cerdic, one of the latest of the invaders, set foot on the shore
of Southampton Water, and yet the West Saxons have only just crossed
the Mendip Hills; nearly half of Somerset and the whole of Devonshire
and Cornwall have yet to be won. The other records of the reign of
Cenwalh relate to his battles, generally unsuccessful, with the Mercian
kings. His fellow-Christian, young Wulfhere, ravaged what was left of
West Saxon territory north of the Thames, as far as Ashdown. While the
territory of Wessex had been in some degree growing towards the west,
it was, as we have already seen, curtailed towards the east by the
loss of the district of the Meonwaras and the Isle of Wight which were
handed over by Wulfhere to Sussex. Altogether there was little in the
fortunes of the West Saxon dynasty under Cenwalh, or under the obscure
rulers who followed him, to betoken that the hegemony would one day be
theirs. When towards the end of the century Caedwalla and Ine appear
upon the scene, the prospect somewhat brightens, but the victories of
the first and the laws of the second must be dealt with in a later
chapter.
From this brief review of the relations of the various English
kingdoms to one another towards the close of the seventh century, it
will be abundantly evident how far we yet were from anything like
national unity. There does not even seem to be any dawning feeling
of fellowship of race. Angle wages with Angle and Saxon with Saxon
a long and embittered warfare; and more than once a Mercian or West
Saxon king avails himself of British help to win the victory over
his kinsfolk. If Anglo-Saxon unity was at length obtained, and we
know that it was not till far on in the tenth century that it was
even approximately realised, this result was due undoubtedly to two
great causes: the influence of the national Christian Church and the
necessity of self-defence against the Scandinavian invaders. With the
first of these causes alone we have here to deal. It cannot be doubted
that zeal for their new-born Christian faith was already in some
measure drawing the English kings together. When Oswald of Bernicia
stood sponsor for West Saxon Cynegils, when his brother Oswy persuaded
East Saxon Sigebert to forsake the follies of idolatry, a moral
bond of union was formed, which might be developed into a political
relationship. The consciousness of common interest in the _Civitas
Dei_ might well become, and eventually did become, a consciousness of
fellow-citizenship in one great country.
In order however that the Church might exert this unifying influence
on English politics it was essential that she should be of one mind
herself; but at this time the unfortunate division between the Roman
and the Celtic Churches on the utterly unimportant questions of the
shape of the tonsure and the right calculation of Easter did much to
prevent so desirable a consummation. Utterly unimportant they seem to
us, and probably few ecclesiastics of any school of thought would now
deny their triviality; but there is a well-known law of theological
dynamics that the bitterness of feeling between rival Churches is in
inverse proportion to the magnitude of the issues between them; and so
it proved at this crisis. Owing to the different quarters from which
the different English kingdoms had received their Christianity, the
religious map of England was divided in the following manner. Kent and
East Anglia were firm in their following of Rome. Wessex also, which
had been won for Christianity by Birinus, was steadily, though perhaps
not enthusiastically, Roman. Bernicia, till late in the reign of Oswy,
clung firmly to the teachings of Iona. Deira seems to have been
generally on the same side, though the remembrance of the teaching of
Paulinus, kept alive, as it was, by the teaching of his follower James
the Deacon, had probably modified the strength of its Celticism; and
Alchfrid the king, influenced by the persuasions of his friend Cenwalh,
King of Wessex, had embraced with fervour the party of Rome. Mercia and
Essex, both of which had been evangelised by Northumbrian missionaries,
seem to have been somewhat half-hearted in their adherence to the
Celtic traditions.
Such being the condition of things, Oswy, in conjunction with his
son and colleague, Alchfrid, convoked in the year 664 a synod at
Streanæshalch to discuss the thorny question of the difference
between the Churches. The place was well fitted to be the scene of a
memorable meeting. Its Saxon name, which, according to Bede, signified
lighthouse-bay, well indicates that conspicuous cliff on the Yorkshire
coast which we now know so well by the more common-place name of
Whitby, given to it some three centuries later by its Danish destroyers
and rebuilders. Hither, to this wind-beaten rock, had the holy Hilda,
great-niece of Edwin of Deira, removed her convent from the more
northern Hartlepool; and here she dwelt, ruling her double monastery of
monks and nuns in all gentleness and purity, while the little Elfleda,
Oswy’s youngest daughter, whom he had vowed to God on the eve of his
great battle with Penda, was growing up under her tuition into all
the virtues of a perfect nun, and preparing to take her place one day
as abbess of the convent. To the student of English literature Whitby
monastery is for ever memorable as the home of the first English poet,
Caedmon, who there, while sitting in the cow-byre, received the command
from a heavenly visitor to sing “the beginning of things, the going
forth out of Egypt, the suffering and the resurrection of the Lord”.
At this place, then, all that was eminent for holiness in the infant
Church of Northumbria came together to discuss the then all-important
question of the true date for the keeping of Easter. However
uninteresting from a religious point of view this question may now
appear, the practical inconvenience of its unsettled condition was
clearly seen in the household of King Oswy. Here was he, following
the Celtic usage, celebrating his Easter feast on the fourteenth day
of the lunar month which included the vernal equinox, while his wife,
Eanfled, daughter of Edwin and granddaughter of Ethelbert of Kent,
refused to recognise as a possible Easter any Sunday earlier than the
fifteenth of the same month. Hence it might possibly happen, nay, in
the very next year after the council it actually would have happened,
that in the very same palace the king would be celebrating Easter
Sunday with all the feasting and the gladness which were considered the
suitable accompaniments of the day of the Lord’s resurrection, while
the queen and all the holy men and women of her party would be sitting
in the sadness of Lent preparing to follow in imagination the Dolorous
Way by which on the successive days of Passion week the Saviour would
be led up to the crowning grief of Calvary. The difference, as the
fair-minded Bede is careful to explain, was not the same as that which
separated the so-called Quarto-decimans from the Western Church, and
which was finally condemned at the Council of Nicæa. That party,
adhering strictly to the Jewish usage, celebrated Easter at the same
time as the old Passover on “the fourteenth day of the first month,”
on whatever day of the week that day might happen to fall. Not so,
however, with the sons of Iona. Columba, Aidan and all the saints of
the old Celtic Church remembered the Crucifixion on a Friday and the
Resurrection on a Sunday, whether those days fell on the fourteenth
or sixteenth of the lunar month or not. Thus the correct date for the
Christian seasons for both parties had to be arrived at by a compromise
between the week reckoning and the month reckoning; the only question
at issue being the form of that compromise and the limits of permitted
deviation. The Celt contended that the pendulum must swing between
the fourteenth and the twentieth days of the moon’s age; while the
Roman ecclesiastic allowed it to swing only between the fifteenth and
the twenty-first. A small difference truly to cause such long and
heated arguments, yet, as we have seen, where a house was divided
against itself on this question, it might occasion no little practical
inconvenience.
There was much that was illogical and unscientific in the arguments
on both sides of the controversy. The fathers from Iona were fond
of appealing to the authority of the beloved Apostle John, which,
so far as it proved anything, proved not their contention but that
of the old, universally condemned Quarto-decimans. The supporters
of the Roman usage loudly asserted the necessity of following St.
Peter, who certainly cannot be proved, nor can with much probability
be even conjectured, to have ever expressed an opinion on the point
at issue between the Churches. Much stress did they also lay on the
unchanging custom of the Roman Church, whereas that Church had in
fact shown its good sense by modifying its calendar in some important
particulars in deference to the calculations of the more scientific
fathers of Alexandria. Doubtless the real arguments, appealing to the
heart rather than to the head, were on the one side the remembrance of
saintly Christian lives, such as those of Columba and Aidan, producing
a natural reluctance to admit that such men had lived and died in
grievous error; and on the other side a feeling of impatience that
the inhabitants of a few rocky islands in the wild Atlantic should
set their judgment against the richly endowed and stately Churches of
Paris, Arles and Vienne, of Milan and of Rome.
On the Celtic side of the controversy were ranged the saintly Hilda
herself, and Colman, Bishop of Lindisfarne, who, after the short
intervening episcopate of Finan, had succeeded to the dignity held by
the universally venerated Aidan. It was probably hoped, too, that King
Oswy would be a stout defender of the usages which he and his brothers
had learned in their long boyish banishment at Iona. On the other side,
eager for union with Canterbury and Rome, stood Eanfled, the queen,
and her step-son, Alchfrid of Deira. There, too, was James the Deacon,
the follower of Paulinus, who for thirty-one years had maintained the
cause of Roman Christianity in Deira. Highest in ecclesiastical rank
on this side was Agilbert the Frank, Bishop of Dorchester, a learned
man who had studied for some years in Ireland--then a great centre of
theological study--but had apparently not cared to add the knowledge
of Anglo-Saxon to his other accomplishments, for we are told that
Cenwalh, King of Wessex, once his friend and admirer, growing weary at
length of his “barbarous” way of talking, planted down at Winchester a
rival bishop who could talk with him in Saxon. This gave Agilbert such
offence that he resigned his diminished see of Dorchester, and returned
to Gaul, where he was appointed Bishop of Paris. That migration was,
however, yet in the future, and it was still as Bishop of the West
Saxons, though possibly of the divided see, that Agilbert appeared to
support his sovereign’s friend, Alchfrid, in the great controversy.
The hint about Agilbert’s “barbarous” Frankish language is especially
interesting to the philologer as showing how widely the language of
the Franks, probably from its admixture with degenerate Latin, was
beginning to diverge from the kindred Anglo-Saxon. Two generations
previously at the court of Ethelbert, the Kentish courtiers seem to
have conversed without difficulty with the companions of their Frankish
queen.
When all were seated, King Oswy arose and made a speech on the need for
unity of practice between men who were all seeking the same heavenly
kingdom. Let them inquire which was the true rule for the calculation
of Easter, and all follow that. He then called on his own bishop,
Colman, to set forth the reason for his rule. Colman replied with
the usual reference to the holiness of his predecessors and to the
authority of the beloved Apostle John. Bishop Agilbert being called
upon to reply, acutely conscious of his inability to speak in the
English tongue, prayed that the task of replying might be assigned to
one of his disciples, named Wilfrid the presbyter, who fully shared
all his opinions and could clearly set them forth in the king’s own
language without the intervention of an interpreter.
Herewith there stepped on to the stage of English history an actor who
was never to be long absent thence through more than forty troublous
years. Wilfrid, who was now about thirty years of age, was the son of
a Northumbrian thegn, a youth brought up in the rude luxury of a rich
Anglian’s hall, with horses, armour and goodly raiment at his disposal;
but at the age of fourteen a harsh step-mother in his home, and some
instinct of aspiration after a holier life, sent him to Lindisfarne,
where he learned much, but gradually became dissatisfied with the
Celtic position of isolation from Rome. Queen Eanfled, encouraging his
disaffection, assisted him to visit the court of her cousin, Erconbert
of Kent, from whence in his twentieth year he set out for Rome. On his
way through Gaul the bright and handsome Northumbrian had offers of
worldly preferment and a rich marriage from the Archbishop of Lyons,
but refusing all such worldly advantages, he pressed on to “the tombs
of the apostles”. Though to the reader of the pontifical annals, Rome
in the middle of the seventh century, with its Monotheletic controversy
and its Lombard wars, may not seem a very inspiring theme, it is
clear that the great world-city, with its stately ruins and statelier
church-organisation, exerted a powerful fascination over the mind of
the young Northumbrian, and during all the rest of his life we find
him, like another Loyola, staunch in his resolve to live or die for
the defence of the Holy See. He learned from a certain Archdeacon
Boniface “the daily lessons from the four gospels, the reasonable mode
of calculating Easter, and many other things relating to the discipline
of the Church of which he had been ignorant in his own country,” and
then returning through Gaul he again visited his friend, the Archbishop
of Lyons, and received from him the monastic tonsure. The archbishop
was still minded to make him his heir, and apparently with some such
expectation Wilfrid remained for three years in attendance upon him.
By one of those reverses of fortune to which the courtier-prelates of
Merovingian Gaul were frequently subject, Wilfrid’s patron lost both
office and life, and Wilfrid himself narrowly, and only on account of
his foreign origin, escaped sharing his doom.[72] Returning at last
(in 658), after long wanderings, to his native Deira, he there found
Alchfrid reigning, a man like-minded with himself in his preference
of Rome to Iona. He settled eventually in a monastery at Ripon, from
which Eata, friend and pupil of Aidan, had been expelled on account of
his adherence to the Celtic usages by the hotly partisan king. Here
Wilfrid, a year before the convocation of the synod, had been ordained
as priest by Bishop Agilbert and installed as abbot of the monastery,
which seems to have been to the end of his days the most dearly loved
of his homes.
Such was the man, already well versed in the Paschal controversy, and
deeply tinged with the Roman and Gaulish contempt for the religion of
the Hebrides, to whom the grateful task was assigned of demolishing the
arguments of Colman. “The Easter which we observe,” said he, “is that
which I myself have seen celebrated at Rome, home and burial-place of
the two great apostles. Wheresoever I journeyed, intent on learning and
on prayer, throughout Italy and Gaul I found this feast celebrated.
This feast, Africa, Asia, Egypt, Greece, nay, and the whole Christian
world through all its various nations and languages do observe,
save only these two obstinate nations, the Picts and the Britons
(inhabitants of the two furthest isles in the ocean and of only a part
even of them), who do with stupid energy strive against the opinion of
the whole world.” So spoke the haughty, foreign-fashioned ecclesiastic;
and when we have heard this first tactless utterance of his, we are the
better able to understand why all the forty years of his episcopate
were more or less passed in strife. Colman plaintively asked if
Wilfrid would call the blessed apostle John stupid. Wilfrid replied
that St. John like St. Paul might do many things to conciliate Jewish
prejudice, and that after all, his usage being that of the earlier
Quarto-decimans, did not coincide with the Celtic Easter which must
always fall on a Sunday. “No,” he ended, “you who shut out the 21st day
of the moon from your calculation, agree neither with John nor with
Peter, neither with the Law nor with the Gospel.”
The debate then drifted off into a discussion of “the cycle of
Anatolius,”[73] and an appeal by Colman to the virtues of Columba and
his successors who had kept the Celtic Easter. “Surely,” he pleaded,
“the miracles which they had wrought showed that their teaching was
acceptable in the sight of God.” “I do not deny,” answered Wilfrid,
“that these men of whom you thus speak were God’s servants. I think
that if any Catholic calculator had come to them and taught them the
better way, they would have obeyed his monitions. And however holy
your, or I would rather say our, Columba may have been, however mighty
in signs and wonders, can you prefer his authority to that of the
blessed Prince of the Apostles, to whom the Lord said, ‘Thou art Peter,
and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall
not prevail against it, and I will give thee the keys of the kingdom
of heaven’?” As Wilfrid made this closing quotation the king turned
to Colman and said: “Is it true that these words were spoken by the
Lord to Peter?” “It is true, O king!” was the answer. “Can you produce
any instance of a similar power conferred on your Columba?” “We have
none,” answered Colman. Said the king: “Do both parties agree without
controversy on this point, that these words were spoken pre-eminently
to Peter and that to him the keys of heaven were granted by the
Lord?” Both answered: “We do”. Thereupon the king thus announced his
conclusion: “Then I say to you that this is the door-keeper whom I am
loth to contradict, and whose ordinances I desire to obey to the utmost
of my power, lest haply when I arrive at the doors of the kingdom there
shall be none to open them unto me if I have lost the favour of him who
keeps the keys thereof”.
The Bernician king evidently conceived of heaven as of a Northumbrian
palace hall: and not unnaturally he, who knew his hands to be stained
with the blood of his gracious kinsman Oswin, desired to enlist the
sympathies of the most powerful patron possible on his side against
the day when he should have to plead for entrance therein. Oswy’s
decision was, of course, final. All over Northumberland the Roman
customs as to Easter and the tonsure now prevailed. Bishop Colman, who
could not reconcile himself to the new ways, abdicated his see and
returned to Iona, accompanied by all the Irish monks from Lindisfarne
and by thirty Anglian brethren who shared their opinions. From Iona
he afterwards went to Ireland and founded a monastery on an island
off the coast of Mayo, which had not a very successful career. Cedd,
bishop of the East Saxons, who had acted as interpreter and to some
extent as mediator between the two parties, accepted the decision of
the synod, and returned to enforce it in London and the rest of his
diocese. Everywhere now throughout Teutonic Britain unity with Rome
was established, and little more than a century elapsed before all the
Celtic communities in Iona, in Ireland, even in sturdy recalcitrant
Wales, had adopted the Roman Easter and the coronal tonsure.[74]
The change was one which probably ought upon the whole to be considered
beneficial. Unity was the thing now most needed, both politically and
ecclesiastically, and unity had to be achieved by the State through
the Church. It was, therefore, well that this pebble, which broke the
full flow of the stream towards unity, should be removed out of the
way by the synod of Whitby. It was well, also, that there should be no
hindrance to free and full intercourse between the ecclesiastics of
England and those of the continent. True, the civilisation of Italy
and Gaul in the seventh century was nothing to boast of. To Cicero
or to Marcus Aurelius it would have seemed like barbarism: but it
was superior to the barbarism of the Saxon, perhaps in some respects
superior even to the undoubtedly high civilisation, at this time, of
Celtic Tara and Armagh. Still it was not all gain that resulted from
the decision of the synod of Whitby and the rupture of the spiritual
bond that had bound Lindisfarne to Iona. Even Bede, with all his
loyalty to Rome and abhorrence of the Celtic Easter, seems to feel
this fact; else why does he introduce just at this point an eloquent
panegyric on the simple life of Colman and his predecessors, their
genuine poverty and the faithfulness with which they at once handed to
the poor any money which they received from the rich? “At that time
the religious habit was held in great veneration, so that wheresoever
cleric or monk appeared, he was joyfully welcomed by all as the servant
of God; those who met him on the road with bent necks rejoiced to
receive the blessing of his lips or of his extended hand: they listened
eagerly to his words of exhortation. The priests and clerics of that
day had no care for anything else but preaching, baptising, visiting
the sick--in a word, for the salvation of souls. So utterly were
they delivered from the poison of avarice, that no one of them would
receive land or presents even for the building of monasteries, unless
absolutely compelled to do so by secular rulers.” In these and similar
sentences Bede hints at the degeneracy of his own times and seems to
mourn that more of the spirit of Iona had not lingered in the Anglian
Church. In Columba, Aidan, Colman and their disciples, as has been
already said, we seem to see something of that absolute indifference
to wealth, that kinship with Nature and her children, that almost
passionate love for Poverty and the Poor which, six centuries later,
was to shed a halo round the head of Francis of Assisi. These men were
zealous missionaries, “humble and holy men of heart”: the men who were
about to replace them in the organised and regularly affiliated Church,
though by no means devoid of missionary zeal, nor of the spirit of
self-denial, were before all, great ecclesiastics and lordly rulers of
the Church.
The year 664 which witnessed the assembling of the synod at Whitby
was, for other reasons, a sadly memorable one to the English nation.
In that year, on May 1, there was a total eclipse of the sun, and
this, to the unscientific minds of our ancestors, seemed to be in some
mysterious way connected with a terrible visitation of pestilence
which, apparently in the summer and autumn, swept over our island,
beginning at the southern shore and from thence passing northward till
it reached Northumbria, and crossed over into Ireland; everywhere
carrying off multitudes of people. On July 14, Erconbert, King of
Kent, and Deusdedit, archbishop, both died within a few hours of each
other, apparently smitten by the pestilence. Later on, probably in
the same year, Tuda, the new Bishop of Lindisfarne, and Cedd, the
interpreter-bishop of the Whitby synod, fell victims to the same
wide-wasting enemy. We have already had occasion to notice the effect
which this terrible calamity had in causing many of the East Saxons
to relapse for a time into idolatry. The stories concerning the
plague with which Bede crowds his pages are generally of the edifying
death-bed sayings uttered by its victims and the visions of supernal
bliss vouchsafed to them before their departure. Intent on these
spiritual aspects of the visitation, and not sparing his readers one
of the miracles which he had heard of as marking its course, Bede has
not recorded any of its physical symptoms as Thucydides has done in
his memorable description of the Plague of Athens. We learn, however,
from other sources[75] that it was intensely infectious, that one of
the symptoms was inflamed swellings, and that the faces of the patients
were tinged with a ghastly yellow colour. Probably, therefore, it
belonged to the same type of disease as the yellow fever which is
now so suddenly fatal in tropical countries. We perceive from Bede’s
narrative that its force was not expended by the visitation of 664, but
that it returned at intervals during the next twenty years, and that
there was one outbreak of especial violence in the year 686 from which
Bede’s own monastery of Jarrow suffered severely. The coadjutor-abbot
Eosterwine of the sister convent of Wearmouth died of the plague in
his thirty-seventh year; and at Jarrow the pestilence carried off all
the monks who could read or preach or sing the antiphons, save only
the abbot Ceolfrid and one little boy whom he had trained. The old man
and the child kept up an abridged form of the daily service without
the antiphons for one week. Then, as the tears of Ceolfrid had almost
prevented him from taking part in this mutilated service, they summoned
up courage to sing the whole psalter through, antiphons and all, till
at last a full choir had been trained to help them to bear the burden.
It is generally believed, though it cannot be proved, that the little
boy who thus officiated with Ceolfrid was Bede.
In reading Bede’s _Ecclesiastical History_ it is impossible not to be
struck with the especial severity wherewith the plague raged in the
monasteries both of men and women. At Lindisfarne, at Ely, at Wearmouth
and Jarrow, at Carlisle, at Barking and at Lastingham in the East
Riding of Yorkshire, the plague committed great ravages, often carrying
off nearly all the inmates. The manager of a modern school or hospital
will not be surprised at this, when he remembers that the monastic rule
enjoined the use of woollen garments and prohibited linen; that the
more ascetically disposed monks or nuns washed themselves only three
or four times in the year; and that the monks lay down to rest in the
same woollen garments and with the same unloosed shoes which they had
worn and in which they had worked throughout the day. This self-denial,
especially in the sons and daughters of princely houses, sprang from
a noble motive: it had been perhaps originally ordained as a protest
against the luxurious life of the young Roman nobility for whom
The Bath and Wine and Women made up life.
But it was none the less a calamity for Europe that an unnatural
and unneeded divorce should have been made between Christianity and
cleanliness. Sanitary science, during the long medieval centuries and
even for some time after they had ended, had little chance of making
its way in the world. Exactly one thousand years after the pestilence
of 664 were felt the first foreboding symptoms of the Great Plague of
London.
* * * * *
There is little else to record as to the reign of Oswy of Bernicia
after the departure of the ecclesiastics from Whitby. In consequence
of the death of Archbishop Deusdedit, the two Kings of Northumbria and
Kent took counsel “concerning the state of the English Church” (this
joint action of North and South in an ecclesiastical matter was itself
an important event), and decided to send one of the late archbishop’s
clergy named Wighard to Rome that he might there be consecrated as his
successor. This step was taken probably in the year 667, and though at
the time unsuccessful, for Wighard and nearly all his companions died
of pestilence soon after their arrival in Rome, it led to important
results.
Towards the end of his reign Oswy suffered from declining health.
Like so many other kings and ecclesiastics of Anglo-Saxon stock, he
desired to go to Rome and, if it might be, end his days there, and
he would fain have had Wilfrid, now a consecrated bishop, as guide
of his journey. With this view he offered large moneys to the young
ecclesiastic--the very offer seems to show the difference between
Wilfrid’s character and Aidan’s--but apparently the disease made too
rapid progress for the fulfilment of his design. The journey to Rome
had to be abandoned; Oswy died on February 15, 671,[76] and Egfrid his
son, son of Eanfled and grandson of Edwin of Deira, reigned in his
stead.
CHAPTER XII.
KING EGFRID AND THREE GREAT CHURCHMEN: WILFRID THEODORE, CUTHBERT.
The purely political events of the reign of Egfrid, as far as we know
them, are soon told. Coming to the throne, as we have seen, in the year
671, he reigned for fourteen years. At the very beginning of his reign
he gained (says Wilfrid’s biographer) a great victory over “the bestial
hordes of the Picts who, chafing at their subjection to the Saxons and
hoping to throw off the yoke of servitude,” mustered “like a swarm of
ants under the leadership of an audacious chieftain named Bernhaeth,
but were attacked by Egfrid at the head of his cavalry and utterly
routed. So great was the slaughter that two rivers were filled with the
corpses of the slain, and the victorious Northumbrians passed dry-shod
over them in pursuit of the foe.” About four years later, apparently,
Egfrid fought Wulfhere, King of the Mercians, defeated him and put
him to flight, and thus won back that debatable land, the province of
Lindsey. In 679 he fought a great battle on the banks of the Trent with
Ethelred, Wulfhere’s brother and successor, who had married his sister
Osthryd. The victory in this battle perhaps remained doubtful, but it
brought sore distress in its train, for in it fell Egfrid’s brother
Alfwin, under-king of Deira, a youth eighteen years of age, who was, we
are told, “much beloved by both provinces”. It seemed as though this
calamity would cause the flame of war to burn more fiercely than ever
between the Northumbrian and the Mercian kings, but the Archbishop
Theodore interposed his peaceful counsels. The amount of _wergeld_ to
be paid as compensation for the death of Alfwin was arranged by him.
Lindsey was probably handed back to Mercia, and a treaty of peace,
which remained unbroken for many years, was concluded between the two
kingdoms.
In the year 684, against the advice of St. Cuthbert and all his best
counsellors, King Egfrid, for reasons which we can only conjecture,
sent an army to Ireland and “miserably wasted that harmless nation
which hath ever been most friendly to the nation of the English; so
that not even churches and monasteries were spared by the hostile
band”. The Irish defended themselves to the best of their ability,
but had at last to take refuge in curses and prayers to heaven
for vengeance, the answer to which, in the opinion of the English
historian, was not long in coming. For in the next year Egfrid, again
refusing to listen to Cuthbert’s counsels, rashly ventured on an
expedition against the Picts dwelling north of the Firth of Forth. The
enemy, feigning flight, drew him into the recesses of the mountainous
country, then turned and fell upon him, cutting the greater part of his
army to pieces and slaying the king himself. The scene of this battle,
which was fought on May 20th, 685, is not mentioned by Bede, but is
given by other authorities as Nechtansmere or Nechtan’s Fort (Dûin
Nechtan), and is identified with Dunnichen, about five miles east of
Forfar.
By the battle of Nechtansmere Northumbria’s fair prospects of
permanently holding the hegemony of the English states were for ever
destroyed. “From that time,” says Bede, “the hopes and the manhood
of the Anglian [Northumbrian] kingdom began to dissolve and to fall
into ruin. For the Picts recovered the lands once possessed by them,
which the Angles had held; also the Scots [men of Dalriada] who were
in Britain, and a considerable part of the Britons recovered their
freedom. Many of the English nation were slain with the sword, or bound
to slavery or else escaped by flight from the land of the Picts.”
Among the latter was Trumwine, the Northumbrian Bishop of Abercorn
on the Forth, who fled from his see and had to beg for an asylum for
himself and his followers from the monks of Whitby. Apparently the
result of this battle was the loss by Northumbria of all the territory
north of the Cheviots and the Solway as well as of the southern part
of the kingdom of Strathclyde. The Northumbrian kingdom survived
indeed for some centuries and even recovered for a short time some
part of its lost territories, but it survived for the most part in
a maimed and enfeebled condition like the Athenian state after the
battle of Aegospotami. The prestige of the kingdom was gone; no more
did any great Bretwalda issue his commands to subject princes from
his rock-built palace at Bamburgh; and soon anarchy and intestine
feuds completed the ruin which had been begun on the fatal day of
Nechtansmere.
Such, as has been here indicated, is the short and disastrous political
history of Egfrid’s reign; but to understand its true significance we
must devote some attention to the biography of three great churchmen
whose lives were closely intertwined with that of the Northumbrian
king. They are:--
Wilfrid, who lived from 634 to 709; Theodore, who lived from 602 to
690; and Cuthbert, who lived from 630 to 687.
After Bishop Colman, disheartened by the defeat of his party in the
synod of Whitby, had left Northumbria and returned to Iona, an Irishman
named Tuda, an advocate for the Roman Easter, was consecrated as his
successor, but, as has been said, died almost immediately afterwards,
a victim to the plague which was ravaging England. On his death there
was a discussion between the Northumbrian kings and the Wise Men of the
kingdoms who should be elected to the vacant see. The choice naturally
fell on Wilfrid, the champion of the Roman cause, young, noble and
victorious. At the same time it seems to have been generally agreed
that the seat of the episcopate should be removed from sea-girdled
Lindisfarne, too full perhaps of the memories of Iona, to York, the
capital of Deira, the city whose walls and palaces, even in their ruin,
testified to the greatness of that Rome with whom Northumbria was now
entering into such full and perfect fellowship. Objecting, however,
that it was difficult to find in Britain bishops to perform the act of
consecration, who were not more or less tainted with what he called
the heresy of the Quarto-decimans, Wilfrid begged that he might be
sent to Gaul to receive consecration there from bishops in undoubted
communion with the Roman see. The kings consented: a ship, a retinue
of attendants and a large store of money were placed at Wilfrid’s
disposal that so the new bishop (whose preference through life was
always strongly marked for the gorgeous and the stately) “might arrive
in very honourable style in the region of Gaul”. The journey was
successfully performed: a great assembly of twelve bishops was convened
at Compiègne (664); among them Agilbert, late bishop of Dorchester, now
of Paris, Wilfrid’s ally at the Whitby synod, doubtless now rejoicing
at finding himself once more among men to whom his speech was not
strange. These men received Wilfrid in the presence of all the people
with demonstrations of high honour: they made him sit on a golden chair
which was then, according to their usual custom, lifted on high and
borne by the hands of bishops alone into the oratory, while hymns and
canticles sounded through the choir.
Were the stately ceremonies and the well-furnished episcopal dwellings
of Merovingian Gaul too attractive to the æsthetic soul of Wilfrid,
and was he loth to return to the rude wooden churches and the rough
untrained psalmody of his fatherland? This can only be conjectured,
but it seems certain that he committed one of the great errors of his
life by lingering too long, certainly for more than a year, in Gaul,
instead of returning at once to Northumbria and there beginning his
episcopal career. At last, in the year 666, he set sail for England,
accompanied, says his biographer, by 120 armed retainers besides his
clerical followers. The clergy sang loud their psalms, to cheer the
arms of the rowers, but in the midst of their psalmody a mighty tempest
arose and drove them on the coast of Sussex. The inhabitants, still
heathen and barbarous, flocked to the stranded vessel and began to
strip it of its treasures and to divide its passengers among them as
their slaves. Wilfrid offered them money and spoke words of peace and
conciliation, but the natives proudly answered, “All is ours that the
sea throws up on the shore”. Meanwhile, a priest of the Saxon idolatry,
standing on a high mound near the shore, ceased not to curse the
Christian strangers and sought by his magic arts to render vain their
efforts for deliverance. At last one of Wilfrid’s companions flung a
stone--“a stone,” says his biographer, “blessed by all the people of
God”--which hit the high priest on the head and wounded him to the
death. His fall discouraged the South Saxons; the 120 soldiers fought
bravely with the much larger forces of their foes; Wilfrid and his
clergy prayed like Moses, Aaron and Hur upon the mountain; the Saxons
were thrice repulsed, and at length victory, cheaply earned by the loss
of five of Wilfrid’s followers, crowned the exertions and the prayers
of the Northumbrians. A miraculously early tide floated the vessel off
the shore and she reached Sandwich without further misadventure.
But when at last Wilfrid reached his diocese, he found unpleasant
tidings awaiting him there. Weary of his long delay, King Oswy had
appointed Bishop Ceadda (famous in English hagiology as St. Chad) to
the bishopric of York. The act was certainly irregular, and Wilfrid had
good cause to complain, but with more meekness than might have been
looked for, he accepted the rebuff and retired to his dearly loved
monastery of Ripon, a place which more than all others, except perhaps
Hexham, was enriched by his labours and preserves his memory. Moreover,
at the request of Wulfhere of Mercia and Egbert of Kent he undertook
some volunteer episcopal work in those two kingdoms, travelling about
with his band of singers, masons, and teachers of every kind of art,
and everywhere founding monasteries or reforming them according to the
strict rule of St. Benedict which he had minutely studied at Canterbury.
After three years this parenthesis in Wilfrid’s life came to an end,
owing to the intervention of the new archbishop, Theodore, to whose
history we now turn. We have seen that the Kings of Northumbria and
Kent, taking counsel together after the death of Archbishop Deusdedit,
sent Wighard to Rome as the bearer of their request that he might be
consecrated archbishop, and that after their arrival in Rome Wighard
and nearly all of his companions fell victims to the pestilence then
raging in the Eternal City. Thereupon the Pope, Vitalian, whose courage
and skill had already been displayed on the occasion of the unwelcome
visit of the Emperor Constans to Rome, deliberated anxiously with his
council on the question whom he should send as archbishop to Canterbury
in place of the dead Englishman. After some hesitation and two refusals
of the dignity, his choice fell upon Theodore, a learned Greek monk,
who was at that time living in Rome and who had possibly come over to
Italy in the train of the Emperor Constans. Theodore, who was, like
the apostle Paul, a native of Tarsus in Cilicia, was now sixty-six
years of age, and dreaded not so much the duties of the office as the
hardships of the long journey to a remote and chilly island. However,
the abbot, Hadrian, an African, who had himself refused the offered
dignity and had recommended Theodore to the Pope, volunteered to
accompany his friend, having already twice made the journey through
Gaul; and Vitalian, who seems to have entertained some groundless fear
as to the perfect orthodoxy of this Greek monk on the great question
of the Monothelete controversy, gladly consented to this arrangement.
But however free Theodore might be from Greek errors of doctrine, the
fashion of his tonsure, which professed to be after the example of St.
Paul, and which consisted in the shaving of the whole head, declared
but too plainly to the world his Greek origin. He had therefore, after
being ordained sub-deacon, to wait four months till his hair had grown
sufficiently to enable him to receive the Roman tonsure, which made
a crown of baldness on the top of the head. He was then consecrated
archbishop by Vitalian, and set forth on May 27, 668, with his friend
Hadrian for his distant diocese. His journey through Gaul seems to
have been performed in a very leisurely manner, and we are expressly
told that he tarried for a long time with Agilbert, by whom he was
cordially received, and with whom he doubtless had much conversation
concerning affairs on the other side of the channel. Meanwhile Egbert,
King of Kent, being informed of the events which had happened at Rome,
sent his “prefect” Radfrid to escort Theodore into his kingdom. But
notwithstanding this special embassy, we are told--and the information
throws a curious light on the European politics of the time--that
Ebroin, the all-powerful mayor of the palace, would not permit
Hadrian to accompany his friend, because he suspected that he was
the bearer of some message from the Emperor to the kings of Britain,
which might be adverse to the interests of the Frankish kingdom. It
is with some surprise that we learn that a statesman of the seventh
century contemplated the possibility of a combination of England and
Constantinople against France. After a time Ebroin, having satisfied
himself that no secret embassy such as he feared had ever formed part
of Hadrian’s instructions, permitted him to follow Theodore, by whom
he was made abbot of the great monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul at
Canterbury, the Westminster Abbey of the Kentish kingdom.
Theodore of Tarsus arrived at Canterbury and was enthroned there on May
27, 669, thus commencing a memorable career, which lasted for more than
twenty-one years. “Soon,” says Bede, “having traversed the whole island
wherever the tribes of the English abode, and being heartily welcomed
and listened to by all, he spread abroad the right way of living and
the canonical rule for the celebration of Easter; Hadrian everywhere
appearing as his companion and helper. For he was the first of the
archbishops to whom the whole Church of the English agreed to give the
hand of fellowship.” We see at once how great a step towards national
unity, at least as far as the English people was concerned, was taken
under the guidance of this Oriental stranger, who came from under the
shadow of Mount Taurus. Unfortunately there is no evidence that he did
anything to break down the middle wall of partition which the arrogance
of Augustine had raised between the English and the Welsh Churches;
while, to the yet unreconciled Celts of Ireland and the Hebrides his
very appointment was in the nature of a challenge.
Bede proceeds to describe to us how Theodore’s copious stores of
learning, both sacred and secular, were made available for the people.
He tells us of the multitude of disciples who flocked to his daily
lectures and those of his friend Hadrian; of the knowledge “of the
metrical art, of astronomy and of ecclesiastical arithmetic,” which,
along with the sacred Scriptures, they imparted to their hearers. “A
proof hereof is,” says he, “that to this day there survive some of
their disciples, who know the Latin and Greek tongues as well as that
wherein they were born. Nor in fact were there ever happier times since
the days when the English first landed in Britain, since now, under the
leadership of most valiant and Christian kings, they were a terror to
all the barbarous nations; the desires of men were strongly directed
towards the new-found joys of the heavenly kingdom; and all who desired
to be instructed in the sacred Scriptures had teachers near at hand,
who could impart to them that knowledge.” There can be no doubt that
Theodore possessed a genius for organisation such as had not been
displayed by Augustine or any of the subsequent prelates, and that
to him more than to any other single person is due the structure of
the Anglo-Saxon Church, such as it remained till the Norman conquest.
One change which he perceived to be necessary for the good of the
Church, but which also inevitably tended towards the augmentation of
his own power, was an increase in the number of bishoprics. Hitherto
the tendency had been to have one bishopric only for each of the
English kingdoms, an arrangement quite unlike that which had generally
prevailed throughout the Roman empire, in some parts of which almost
every town that was above the rank of a village had its own episcopal
ruler. Such great unwieldy bishoprics as Northumbria, Mercia or Wessex,
were not likely to be administered efficiently by a single bishop,
while, on the other hand, their very magnitude suggested dangerous
thoughts of rivalry with a primate whose immediate sway extended only
over a part of Kent. Thus Theodore was impelled by every motive, public
and private, to strive to break up the existing bishoprics into smaller
portions. In that process the wise but masterful old man certainly did
not show himself to any undue extent a respecter of persons.
One of the first cases in which Theodore had to exert his
archiepiscopal authority was that of the bishopric of York. However
aggrieved both king and people might have been by Wilfrid’s
long-delayed return, there was no doubt that the intrusion of another
bishop into a see already filled was entirely contrary to the
canons; and, moreover, from the strict Roman point of view Ceadda’s
consecration to the episcopate was not safe from attack, inasmuch
as two “Quarto-deciman” bishops had taken part therein. When all
these various objections were stated by Theodore to Ceadda, the
simple-minded and unambitious old man at once declared his willingness
at Theodore’s call to resign a dignity of which he had never deemed
himself worthy. “No: not the episcopate,” was Theodore’s answer. “To
that I will reordain you with all due formalities; but stand aside
for the present from this see, which of right belongs to Wilfrid.”
Thus Wilfrid, after three years of suspension, was once again bishop
of the great diocese of York, extending from the Humber to the Firth
of Forth, or even beyond. For Ceadda meanwhile a place was quickly
found, the scarcely less important bishopric of Mercia; and Theodore’s
regard for the saintly old man was shown by ordering him no longer to
perform his long episcopal journeys on foot, but to ride through his
diocese. When Ceadda hesitated, mindful of his beloved Aidan’s example,
Theodore insisted, possibly himself provided him with a steed, at any
rate with his own archiepiscopal hands lifted him into the saddle.
Ceadda’s tenure of the Mercian episcopate was short, as he fell a
victim to the plague in 672. He died, however, not only in the odour
of sanctity, but, what is better, surrounded by the unfeigned love
of his monastic brethren, and able to speak even of the Angel of the
Pestilence as “that lovable guest who hath been wont of late to visit
our brotherhood”.
All the ecclesiastical events which have been described in this
chapter, save the last, took place in the reign of Oswy. In the year
671, as we have seen, a new monarch, Egfrid, ascended the Northumbrian
throne. He had already been for some years the nominal husband of
one of the saintly members of the East Anglian family, Etheldreda, a
daughter of King Anna, but she, though Egfrid was her second husband,
was at heart a devoted nun and insisted through life on keeping
her virginity unstained. Here was already cause for trouble in the
Northumbrian palace, trouble which was aggravated by the interference
of Wilfrid, who, in defiance of apostolic precept and the Church’s
law, made himself the champion of the cause of the disobedient wife,
and at last (probably in the first or second year of Egfrid’s reign)
with the hardly won consent of her husband arrayed her in the veil of
a “_sanctimonialis femina_”. She retired first to the monastery of
Coldingham, then ruled by Ebba, the aunt of Egfrid. After a year’s
residence therein she became abbess of the great convent which she
had herself founded in the Isle of Ely on lands devised to her by her
first husband. There, after bearing rule for seven years, she died. The
signal triumph of religious zeal over worldly ambition and luxury which
her life displayed was celebrated in enthusiastic and acrostic verse by
her admirer Bede. She was undoubtedly one of the most popular saints of
the Anglo-Saxon epoch, and her name in the abbreviated form of Audrey
still possesses a certain attraction for Englishmen.
The place which Etheldreda had vacated by the side of Egfrid was at
once filled by a second wife named Ermenburga, who was persistently
hostile to Wilfrid, and is accordingly likened to Jezebel by his
enthusiastic biographer. There was, however, much in Wilfrid’s position
at this, the most glorious period of his career, which might well rouse
the jealousy of the secular rulers of the nation. Between 671 and 678
he was probably the foremost man in all Northumbria. He built great
basilicas, the marvels of the age, at Hexham[77] and at Ripon.[78]
At the dedication of the basilica at Ripon, Wilfrid stood before the
altar, which was draped in purple and marvellously enriched with gold
and silver, and there rehearsed, in the presence of the Northumbrian
kings, the great gifts of landed property which the royal house had
bestowed upon the Church, and also enumerated the places which had
belonged in old time to the British Church and to which, though then
desolate, it was evident that the English Church meant to assert her
claim. When his sermon was ended a great feast was spread, to which the
kings and all their followers were invited, and which lasted amid great
rejoicings for three days and nights.
Of Wilfrid’s wonderful churches no trace now remains above ground.
We are told that the church of Hexham was “supported by various
columns” (perhaps taken from Roman temples) “and many porches,
adorned with walls of wondrous length and height, and with variously
winding passages, leading now up, now down, by stately staircases”.
Both at Ripon and Hexham the crypt “carried deep down into the earth
with marvellously smoothed stones” still remains; and at Hexham
inscriptions, bas-reliefs and the shape of the stones employed show
us all too plainly that the Roman camps along the line of the wall
were the quarry from whence Wilfrid’s marvellously smoothed stones
were obtained. But the great bishop was not giving all his time to
his architectural labours. He rode from end to end of his diocese,
ordaining priests and deacons in great numbers, and attracting to
himself the love and devotion of the powerful abbots and abbesses,
who very generally, either by present transfer or by testamentary
disposition, arranged that he should become lord of the lands of
their monasteries. Many Anglian nobles also sent their sons to be
brought up in the bishop’s house, in order that they might either by
his introduction enter the life of religion, or if they preferred
the profession of arms, might by him be recommended to the king. In
everything that Wilfrid touched the same note of sumptuous magnificence
might be discerned. Thus, on the day of the dedication of the church
at Ripon, he presented to it “the four illuminated Gospels traced in
purest gold on purple parchment, which he had caused to be transcribed
for the welfare of his soul, also a bookcase for these books, all made
of the purest gold and adorned with the most precious jewels”. But all
this pomp and splendour (though coupled with personal abstinence and
the practice of monastic austerities) was rearing up for Wilfrid a host
of lifelong enemies; at their head Queen Ermenburga, who ceased not
to remind her husband of “all the worldly pomp of Bishop Wilfrid, his
riches, the multitude of his abbeys, the grandeur of his buildings, and
the numberless host of his followers adorned with royal raiment and
equipped with arms”.
The jealousy which the royal pair felt at the greatness of the Bishop
of York was powerfully aided by their alliance with Archbishop
Theodore. For the formation of this alliance it is quite unnecessary to
accept the biographer’s story of bribes out of ecclesiastical property
offered by the king and accepted by the archbishop. On the contrary,
it might almost have been foretold by any one who was acquainted with
the two men, Wilfrid and Theodore, that they must necessarily sooner
or later come into collision. They were both men of great intellectual
stature, both devoted to the Roman obedience and intent on bringing
the English Church fully into that obedience, but they would do it in
different ways. Theodore, as Metropolitan of the whole land, would
enforce Church order, subdivide the unwieldy dioceses, and make his
strong hand felt by every bishop and abbot in every corner of the
English kingdoms. Wilfrid had no thought of resigning any part of his
power over his vast diocese, in which he was virtually independent.
Nay more, faint as are the traces of such a scheme in history, it
is difficult not to suppose that Wilfrid was cognisant of Gregory’s
original plan for the establishment of two independent archbishoprics
in Britain, one at London and the other at York, and hoped to
convert--as was actually done half a century later--his bishopric into
an archbishopric. Such an arrangement would be far more in accordance
with ecclesiastical precedent throughout the Roman empire than that
which actually prevailed, since the general usage had been to place
the Metropolitan in the chief city of the province. All the venerable
associations which now cluster round the name of Canterbury should
not cause us to forget the fact that it is merely owing to a series
of accidents (foremost among them the relapse of the East Saxons
into idolatry) that the chief pastor of the English Church now bears
the title of Archbishop of Canterbury. Either Londinium or Eburacum,
pre-eminently the latter, had better right to give an archbishop to
England than the little insignificant city of Durovernis.
Intent on his schemes of Church reform and full of the paramount
authority symbolised by his archiepiscopal _pallium_, Theodore visited
Northumbria and found there in the royal palace a ready acquiescence
in his grand project for the division of the diocese. He at once, in
Wilfrid’s absence, ordained three new bishops who were to divide among
themselves a large part of his diocese, leaving him probably the city
of York and a certain part of Deira as his portion.[79] It was a strong
measure to adopt, certainly, not courteous nor perhaps canonically
correct in the absence of the bishop whose diocese was thus invaded;
and it is no wonder that Wilfrid sought an interview with the king
and archbishop, and demanded by what right they, without any cause of
offence alleged against him, thus defrauded him in robber-fashion of
property given him by the king for God’s service. They answered, says
his biographer, in the presence of all the people with the memorable
words: “No accusation is made against thee of having done injury to
any man, but the decision which we have come to in thy case we will
not change”. Hereat Wilfrid signified his intention of appealing to
Rome (678) against this unjust act of spoliation. The flatterers who
surrounded the king laughed aloud at his words, but he turned round and
rebuked them sternly, saying: “You laugh now, evidently rejoicing at
my condemnation, but on the anniversary of this day bitterly shall ye
weep to your own confusion”. And in fact men noted with awe that it was
on the exact anniversary of Wilfrid’s interview with the king that the
body of the beloved under-king, Alfwin, was brought back to York from
the battlefield on the banks of the Trent, and was received by all the
people with tears and rent garments and passionate lamentations.
And now began that long duel between prelate and king, with visits
to Rome, confiscations, imprisonments, reconciliations, repentances,
which lasted with some intermissions and some changes in the person of
the royal disputant, for nearly thirty years, and which in some of its
vicissitudes reminds us of the contention between Henry Plantagenet
and Thomas Becket. It is a history with much intrinsic interest, and
rendered additionally interesting to us by the fact that the Life of
Wilfrid by Eddius, in which it is recorded, was written some years
before the Ecclesiastical History of Bede, and is probably the earliest
extant piece of Latin writing that has proceeded from an Anglo-Saxon
pen. Skilfully escaping from the toils of his enemies (whose emissaries
by a laughable mistake attacked and plundered a harmless bishop named
Winfrid instead of him), Wilfrid landed in Friesland, made friends
with the king of the Frisians, and began that career of missionary
enterprise in Germany which was continued by his disciple, Willibrord,
and in later years by the West Saxon, Boniface, with vast results
on European history. He then travelled through Gaul, visiting King
Dagobert II., whom, when an exile in Ireland, he had sped on his way to
France, and thus had helped to recover his father’s throne. Dagobert’s
gratitude now showed itself by assisting Wilfrid on his journey to
Rome. In Italy he was befriended in a similar way by the Lombard King
Perctarit, who had himself once led the life of a hunted fugitive,
and refused to surrender him to his foes. Arriving at Rome, where he
spent the winter of 679–80, he laid his complaint before the recently
consecrated Pope, Agatho the Sicilian, and claimed his protection.
A council was held in the Lateran basilica, where Theodore’s
representative, a monk named Coenred, stated the case for Canterbury.
Wilfrid’s petition was read, setting forth that he did not refuse to
consent to the division of his bishopric, but claiming that he should
be consulted as to the persons intruded upon him as colleagues; and
the synod having listened to the representations of “the most holy
Archbishop Theodore” and “the God-beloved Bishop Wilfrid” decided in
favour of the latter.
Armed with this papal decree, and not doubting of the triumph which it
would procure for him, Wilfrid presented himself at the Northumbrian
court, but was at once accused of having obtained the decree by
bribery, thrown into prison and despoiled of his personal possessions.
One of the most precious of these, a reliquary, was appropriated by
Ermenburga to her own use, and always carried about by her, whether
she abode in her bedchamber or rode abroad in her chariot. Wilfrid’s
first place of imprisonment was the royal city of Bromnis.[80] On the
refusal of the governor, whose wife had fallen dangerously ill, to act
any longer as jailer of so holy a man, Egfrid sent him to another of
his cities named Dynbaer (Dunbar), another proof, if any were needed,
how far northward at this time stretched the kingdom of Northumbria. At
last after he had undergone a rigorous imprisonment for nine months,
the dangerous illness of Ermenburga (which seemed to take the form of
demoniac possession), and the entreaties and warnings of the saintly
Ebba, brought about Wilfrid’s liberation from the dungeon, but not his
restoration to his bishopric. He went forth as an exile into Mercia,
where he was favourably entertained by a nephew of King Ethelred and
received land for the foundation of a monastery. But as Ethelred was
Egfrid’s brother-in-law, he soon ordered Wilfrid to quit his kingdom.
He turned his steps to Wessex and there for a little space had rest,
but soon was expelled thence also, King Centwine having married
Ermenburga’s sister. It is easy to see how hard the lot of a fugitive
from one of the English courts might be made by the matrimonial
alliances that were so frequent between them.
Thus expelled from Christian England the hunted fugitive turned his
thoughts to the land of the South Saxons: “a heathen province of our
race” (says the biographer) “which for the multitude of its rocks
and the density of its woods remained impregnable by all the other
provinces”. Here Ethelwalh, himself a Christian, as we have seen,[81]
was reigning over a still heathen people, and to him Wilfrid confided
the whole story of his wrongs. The king made with him a covenant of
peace so strong that, as he declared, no terror of the sword of any
hostile warrior and no gifts however costly should avail to move him
from the troth then plighted. In this inaccessible corner of the land
which we now name Sussex, Wilfrid remained for five years, preaching
the story of the creation of the world, its redemption, the day of
judgment, the rewards and punishments to come, with such eloquence and
fervour that he achieved the conversion of the entire people, thus
ending in the year 686 the long spiritual campaign for the conversion
of England which was begun in 597 by the arrival of Augustine. King
Ethelwalh gave him his own villa of Selsey for his episcopal seat,
adding to it a gift of land amounting to eighty-seven hides.
During Wilfrid’s sojourn in Sussex his unreconciled enemy King Egfrid
died. The story of his death brings us into close relation with our
third great churchman, Cuthbert, to whose life we now turn. Born
somewhere about 630 in the region of the Lammermoor Hills, the young
Cuthbert, when he was tending sheep by the River Leader, saw one
night in a vision angels carrying a holy soul into heaven. He found
afterwards that it was on the same night, August 31, 651, that the
venerable saint, Aidan, had died. He waited not, however, for this
confirmation of his faith, but at once transferred the sheep to their
owners and descended into the valley of the Tweed to seek admission
into the recently founded monastery of Melrose. After some years’
residence there, he went in the train of the Abbot Eata to Ripon; but
on the arrival of Wilfrid at that place fresh from Rome, and with a
grant from King Alchfrid in his hand, the whole party of Celtic-trained
monks, Cuthbert among them, were forced to leave the pleasant valley of
the Nidd and return to Melrose on the Tweed. There, however, ended his
antagonism to the new teaching. Whether actually present or not at the
synod of Whitby, he certainly accepted its decisions, and after some
years was sent by his friend, Eata, to govern as prior the monastery
at Lindisfarne. It was not altogether an easy task to rule the monks
on Holy Island after the revolution which the decrees of the synod had
caused, but more by gentleness than by sternness Cuthbert succeeded
in enforcing discipline, all the more readily perhaps as in food, in
vigils, in dress, he set an example of rigorous austerity. But after
all, neither as prior nor afterwards as bishop did he ever care for
the possession of power. In character he much more closely resembled
Aidan than either Theodore or Wilfrid. He loved to be alone with Nature
and with God, and was ever moving about among the country folk and
“stirring them up” by his conversation rather than by set sermons “to
seek after the heavenly crown”. There is still shown in a cleft of the
basaltic range of low hills on the mainland overlooking the winding
shore of Holy Island a cave, affording bare shelter from the rain and
none from the wind, where the saint is said to have passed some months
of his life. “Cuddy’s Hole” is to this day the name given to it by the
neighbouring farmers.
Often, too, he seems to have retired to the little island which still
bears his name and which lies at a short distance from the ruined abbey
on Holy Island, being like Lindisfarne itself island or peninsula
according to the state of the tide. There, while apparently still
holding the office of prior, he “began to learn the rudiments of a
solitary life,” and when his education was completed and his spirit
braced for the great renunciation, he gave up his office of prior
(676) and withdrew to the more utter seclusion which was afforded by
one of the little group of Farne Islands, about five miles from Holy
Island and two or three miles from the rock of Bamburgh. These rocky
islets, some thirty or forty in number, are now furnished with two
lighthouses; and the memory of Grace Darling, the courageous daughter
of an old lighthouse keeper, rivals but does not eclipse the fame of
St. Cuthbert. Countless flocks of sea-birds make these rocks their
breeding place; and there are seen the eider ducks, bold in their
gentleness, which calmly hatch their young within a few feet of the
intruding wayfarer, and whose tameness, attributed to the miraculous
working of the saint, has procured for them the name of “Saint
Cuthbert’s Chickens”. Was it the loneliness of these weather-beaten
rocks or the sad cry of the sea-birds that procured for them the evil
reputation of being “unfit for human habitation by reason of the number
of malign spirits by whom they were haunted”? Howsoever that may be,
it is admitted that at the approach of the man of God the evil spirits
departed and the place at his prayer became completely habitable. Here
then Cuthbert built for himself a little round cell made of large
unwrought stones and turf, and so constructed that he could see from it
nothing of earth or sea, but was forced to keep his eyes ever fixed on
the heaven above him. Here, after dismissing the few brethren who had
helped him in his labours, Cuthbert lived absolutely alone for eight
years, enjoying the heavenly visions, but also wrestling with the awful
spiritual terrors, which have ever been the portion of the anchorite.
At length in 684, Tunberct, Bishop of Hexham, one of Theodore’s
intruding prelates, having been for some reason deposed from his see, a
synod was held at “Twyford” on the Alne (probably the modern Alnmouth)
to consider the question of the appointment of his successor. In this
synod, at which Theodore himself presided, the name of Cuthbert was
suggested and received with unanimous approval. It was, however, no
easy matter to induce the anchorite thus to return to the common abodes
of men. At last a deputation of nobles and ecclesiastics, headed by
King Egfrid himself and by Trumwine, Bishop of Pictland, accomplished
the difficult task, and on March 26, 685, Cuthbert received at York
the episcopal charge at the hands of Theodore and six other bishops.
He still, however, remained so far faithful to the wind-swept shores
of the North Sea that he chose Holy Island for his episcopal seat,
persuading his old friend Eata to migrate from thence to the busier
diocese of Hexham.
It must have been during the long negotiations which preceded the
consecration of St. Cuthbert that he pressed upon the unwilling king
his vain dissuasions against the barbarous Irish expedition. Equally
vain, as we have seen, was his attempt to dissuade Egfrid from that
disastrous expedition against the Picts, which was undertaken in the
very first months of Cuthbert’s episcopate. At the time of Egfrid’s
invasion of Scotland Cuthbert was abiding at the Roman city of
Luguvallium (Carlisle), which had been bestowed upon him by the king
at his consecration. There also was dwelling the queen, Ermenburga,
Wilfrid’s enemy, who had gone for shelter during this warlike time
to a convent ruled by her sister. While Cuthbert was going round the
walls of the city on the afternoon of Saturday, May 20, escorted by the
king’s reeve, Paga, and by a multitude of the citizens, he suddenly
stood still, leaning on his staff. With downcast face he gazed upon the
ground, then looked up at the darkening sky and said with a deep groan:
“Perhaps even now the conflict is decided”. He would not more plainly
impart his fears, even to his own clerical companions, but hastening to
the convent warned the queen to be ready to depart on the Monday for
York “lest haply the king should have fallen”. On Sunday he preached a
sermon which hinted at some coming trouble. On Monday came the tidings
of the fatal field of Nechtansmere, fought on the very day and hour
when Cuthbert had his telepathic warning of the disaster.
Egfrid’s widow, Ermenburga, according to her enemy Eddius, “after the
slaughter of the king, from a she-wolf became one of God’s lambs and
was changed into a perfect abbess and a most excellent mother of her
[monastic] family”. Apparently there was no issue of her marriage with
Egfrid, who was succeeded by his half-brother or nephew Aldfrid, either
a son or grandson of King Oswy. He had been for some years an exile
in Ireland and the Hebrides, and had acquired a considerable store of
learning in the Celtic monasteries, so that he was generally known as
Aldfrid the Learned. The twenty years’ reign of Aldfrid (685–705) was
marked by few striking events. Northumbria, as we have seen, was now
shorn of her greatness and was no longer the leading power in Britain.
It was probably as much as Aldfrid could do to preserve his weakened
and diminished kingdom from conquest by its Pictish and Mercian
neighbours. It will suffice briefly to indicate the further fortunes
of the three great Churchmen whose lives had been of late so closely
intertwined with that of Egfrid.
The newly consecrated bishop Cuthbert did not long sustain the weight
of the uncongenial mitre. In 686 he made another journey to Carlisle,
on which occasion he gave the nun’s veil to the widowed Ermenburga.
Here also he received a visit from an old friend of his named Herbert,
who like him led the life of an island-hermit but amid far different
scenes from the stormy Farnes. Herbert dwelt on an island of “that
very large lake from which the young waters of the Derwent issue
forth”--in other words, on St. Herbert’s Isle in Derwent-water--and
had been accustomed to pay a yearly visit to Cuthbert and to hear from
him counsels concerning the life eternal. He now besought his friend,
whose whole soul was filled with thoughts of his coming end, to pray
that they might both die at the same time, a longing which was in
fact fulfilled. Soon after Christmas Cuthbert returned to his lonely
dwelling on the Farnes: at the end of February he was seized by his
last illness. The monks of Holy Island prayed to be allowed to minister
to him in his extreme weakness, but it was not till near the very end
that he suffered them to enter his cell. In the morning of March 20,
687, after many faintly uttered words of advice and farewell, the great
anchorite passed away. There was no English saint, till Thomas Becket
was slain before the altar in Canterbury, who filled half as large a
space in the memories of the English people, at any rate in the North
of England, as Cuthbert of Lindisfarne. The strange migrations of his
corpse in later centuries, the magnificence of its final resting-place,
the wide domains and princely revenues of the Bishops of Durham, whose
chief claim to lordship was derived from the fact that they were the
guardians of his tomb--all these things fixed deep in the mind of the
medieval Englishman the greatness and the glory of the shepherd of the
Lammermoors. Eight centuries after his death we find the soldiers of
“the bishopric” rejoicing over the fall of James IV. on the field of
Flodden, and tracing therein the manifest workings of the anger of the
saint, whom he had offended by the demolition of his castles at Ford
and Norham.
We pass from the hermit to the archbishop. Of Theodore of Tarsus there
is little more which need be related here save that soon after Egfrid’s
death he became reconciled to Wilfrid; asked him to come to London to
meet him, and (according to Eddius) made him a full apology for all
the injustices which he had committed towards him, even expressing a
desire that Wilfrid might succeed him in his archbishopric. He died
on September 19, 690, in the eighty-eighth year of his age after an
archiepiscopate of twenty-two years, and was laid to rest in the abbey
of St. Peter and St. Paul, along with many other primates and princes
of Kent.
The long exiled Bishop Wilfrid was at last, soon after the death of
Egfrid, permitted to return home and restored to some portion of his
lost grandeur (686–87). The death of the hostile king, interpreted by
Wilfrid’s partisans as the judgment of heaven on his despoiler, had
probably something to do with this change of policy, to which also his
reconciliation with the archbishop largely contributed. His restoration
was not, however, by any means to all his old dignities, though he
was once again in possession of his favourite abbeys of Hexham and
Ripon. And even this restoration was only for a time. After five years
of peace the eternal dispute broke out again on Wilfrid’s refusal to
acknowledge the lawfulness of some of the acts of Theodore. He was
banished from Northumbria and took refuge in Mercia, where he dwelt for
ten years (692–702). Then came one more journey to Rome, undertaken
by the brave old man in the sixty-ninth year of his age. His appeal
succeeded, but, as before, the decree in his favour failed to change
the purpose of the Northumbrian king. Aldfrid was still immutably
fixed in his determination to modify nothing in that decision “which
formerly the kings, my predecessors, and the archbishop with their
councillors did form, and which afterwards we, with the archbishop
sent us from the apostolic see and with almost all the [spiritual]
rulers of our race in Britain, confirmed. That decision,” said he to
Wilfrid’s messengers, “so long as I live I will never change for the
writings which, as you say, you have received from the apostolic see.”
Scarcely had this answer been returned when the Northumbrian king was
stricken with mortal sickness, an event in which the partisans of
Wilfrid not unnaturally thought that they could trace the vengeance of
Heaven for his audacious contempt of the papal mandate. It was believed
that on his death-bed he repented of his behaviour towards Wilfrid and
expressed his intention of being reconciled with him in the event of
his recovery, but he died in 705 after lying speechless for many days,
and was unable to give effect to his intentions if such intentions ever
existed.
On the death of Aldfrid a certain Eadulf, of whose relationship to the
royal family nothing is known, usurped the throne. Aldfrid’s son Osred
was a boy of eight years old, but the faithful friends of his father,
headed by Berthfrid, who is described as “a noble next in dignity to
the king,” gathered round him in the fortress-city of Bamburgh. To
quote Berthfrid’s words, as related to us by Wilfrid’s biographer
who, of course, views all events in relation to the fortunes of his
hero: “When we were besieged in the city which is called Bebbanburg
and everywhere girt round by the forces of the enemy, having only
that narrow rock on which to dwell, we came to the conclusion amongst
ourselves that if God would grant to our royal boy the kingdom of his
father, we would promise God to fulfil those things which the apostolic
authority had ordained concerning Bishop Wilfrid. No sooner had we made
this vow than the hearts of our enemies were changed: with quickened
steps they turned towards us swearing to be our friends; the doors were
opened; we were freed from that narrow dwelling; our enemies fled and
we recovered the kingdom.”
This is all the information that we possess concerning a domestic
revolution which, probably on account of its extremely short duration,
is unnoticed by Bede. It seems to be clear that during the two
months of his usurped reign Eadulf absolutely refused to redress the
grievances of Wilfrid, but that in the early months of Osred’s reign
a great synod was held near the river Nidd in Yorkshire to settle
finally the wearisome business. The boy-king presided: Bertwald of
Canterbury was there with all the bishops and abbots in his obedience.
There, too, was Elfleda, the daughter long ago vowed by Oswy to the
service of God, now and for many years past sitting in the seat of
the venerated Hilda as abbess of Whitby: “a most wise virgin,” says
the biographer, “ever the best consoler and counsellor of the whole
province”. She was a great friend of Cuthbert, and had probably at one
time shared the general Northumbrian or, at least, Bernician dislike
to the all-grasping Bishop of York; but the letter which the aged
Theodore had written, almost from his death-bed, beseeching her to
become reconciled to Wilfrid had perhaps changed her mind towards him,
and she now strongly pressed his claims and vouched for the fact that
her step-brother Aldfrid on his death-bed declared his intention of
complying with all the demands made on his behalf by the apostolic see.
The result of the deliberation which followed was that the king, his
nobles and all the bishops swore to maintain peace and concord with
Wilfrid, and on that same day gave him the kiss of peace and broke the
bread of communion with him. At the same time the abbeys of Ripon and
Hexham, with all their revenues, were restored to him, and the thirty
years’ war was at an end. This result was after all a compromise,
and, as has been well pointed out by Dr. Bright, a compromise less
favourable to Wilfrid than that which had been made before. He had lost
the bishopric of York and had to be content with the less important
bishopric of Hexham, but he recovered possession of all his domains and
monasteries in Northumbria and Mercia.
Wilfrid had now four years of peace at the end of his stormy life.
Not long before his death he “invited two abbots and certain very
faithful brethren, to the number of eight in all, to meet him at
Ripon, and commanded the key-bearer to open his treasury, and to set
forth in their sight all the gold and silver with the precious stones,
and then ordered them to be divided into four parts according to his
judgment”. He explained that it had been his intention to make yet
another journey to Rome and offer one of these four portions at the
shrines of the Virgin and the saints. Should death prevent him from
carrying this design into effect, he charged them to send messengers
to offer the gifts in his stead. Of the remaining portions one was to
be given to the poor for the redemption of his soul; another was to
be divided between the rulers of his two beloved abbeys Hexham and
Ripon, “that they may be able by their gifts to win the friendship of
kings and bishops”; the last was to be distributed among the friends
and companions of his exile to whom he had not yet given landed
possessions. From the minute account which the biographer gives of the
whole scene, it seems probable that he was one of the six faithful
brethren permitted to gaze on the opened treasury, and one of the
companions of the exile who received a share in the bequest.
After some further arrangements about the future government of the
abbey of Ripon, Wilfrid journeyed into Mercia, on an invitation from
King Ceolred, reached the monastery of Oundle in Northamptonshire,
and there, in 709, after a short sickness, ended his days, in the
seventy-sixth year of his age. In the forty-six years of his episcopate
he had dedicated churches and ordained bishops, priests and deacons
past counting. His body was taken to Ripon and there interred with
great solemnity. The abbots of his two chief monasteries believed that
they had secured in the departed saint a heavenly intercessor of equal
power with their apostolic patrons St. Peter and St. Andrew, and their
faith was confirmed when, at a great meeting on the anniversary of his
death, they beheld at night a white circle in the heavens reaching all
round the sky and seeming to encompass the monastery of St. Peter at
Ripon with its protecting glory.
The life of Wilfrid with all its strange vicissitudes of triumph
and disgrace is confessedly one of the most difficult problems in
early Anglo-Saxon history. The enthusiastic panegyric of Eddius, the
conventional praise and strange reticence of Bede, leave us still
greatly in the dark as to the real cause of the hostility of the
leading men of Northumbria, both in Church and State, towards one
who seemed made to be a victorious leader of men. The vast blanks
in the history can now be supplied only by conjecture, and any such
conjectural emendation would probably be unjust to one or other of
the disputants, to Wilfrid, to Theodore or to Egfrid. Only this much
may with confidence be asserted, that the dispute, bitter as it was,
turned on no question of doctrine or of morals; hardly in the end on
any question of Church government. It is the possession of the great
monastic properties, both in Northumbria and Mercia, which seems to
be the real bone of contention between Wilfrid and his foes, and when
we read of the large possessions wherewith these were endowed, ten
“families” to one monastery and thirty to another (domains probably
equivalent to at least 1,200 and 3,400 acres), and when we see the
well-filled treasury blazing with gold and jewels, which after all his
reverses gladdens the aged eyes of Wilfrid at the close of his career,
we are, perhaps, enabled to understand a little more clearly what was
the unexpressed grievance in the mind of the Northumbrian kings and
bishops against their greatest ecclesiastic. With justice he exclaimed
again and again, “What are the crimes of which you accuse me?” They
had, it would seem, no crimes to allege against him, but the king felt
that the vast wealth which he had accumulated made him a dangerous
subject, and the bishops thought that he had abused the great position
which he had achieved by his victory at Whitby, to secure for himself
an unfair share of the new riches of the Church. Whatever view may
be taken of the struggle, the very fact of its existence and of the
somewhat sordid interests at stake shows us how far we have already
travelled in less than two generations from the days of Oswald and
Aidan. The victory of the Roman Easter was not all pure gain to the
churches of northern Britain.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE LEGISLATION OF KING INE.
We have now nearly reached the end of the seventh century of our era,
and we may well take note of the fact that it was, not for England
only, a century of great religious change. The world-famous Hegira of
Mohammed happened in 622, when Edwin was reigning in Deira. Throughout
the reigns of the great kings at Bamburgh the invincible armies of
Islam were sweeping over Syria and Egypt, overthrowing the ancient
kingdom of Persia and for seven long years laying siege, all-but
successful siege, to Constantinople. It may be well for us children of
the Saxon to be reminded that our profession of Christianity is not
older than the Mussulman’s allegiance to the faith of the Prophet.
Our ancestors were idolators at the same time as the ancestors of our
Mohammedan fellow-subjects in the east; the same century saw both our
own forefathers and theirs converted from polytheism to monotheism,
from chaotic Nature-worships to “the religion of a book”.
A very noticeable figure in the south of England at the close of this
century was Cadwalla, King of the West Saxons. The kingdom of Wessex
had fallen after the death of Cenwalh in 672 into dire confusion and
disorder. Cadwalla, who was descended in the fourth generation from the
great fighter Ceawlin, was one of the many claimants for the throne.
His first victories, however, were not won over any rival competitors
for the West Saxon crown, but over his South Saxon neighbours. Between
Wessex and Sussex there seems to have existed in these early centuries
an enduring blood-feud. The enmity was not likely to be lessened by
remembrance of the fact, already mentioned, that in 661 Wulfhere, King
of Mercia, had wrested the Isle of Wight and part of Hampshire from the
West Saxons and handed them over to his convert and godson, Ethelwalh
of Sussex. Against Sussex, therefore, Cadwalla, “that most strenuous
young man of the royal race of the Gewissas,” while still an exile,
about 685, directed the arms of the followers whom he had gathered
round him in the forests of Chiltern. He was at first successful,
slaying King Ethelwalh and laying waste the land of Sussex with cruel
and depopulating slaughter, but was repulsed by two ealdormen who acted
as regents after the death of the king. Just at this time, however,
Cadwalla seems to have made good his claim to the crown of Wessex, and
with the forces of the whole West Saxon kingdom now at his back, he set
himself to recover the lost provinces of Wight and the Meonwaras, and
at the same time to extirpate the idolatry which still lingered in that
conservative Jutish population. Herein he seems to have been abetted by
the zealous Wilfrid, who notwithstanding his friendship for Ethelwalh
was willing to work for the good of the Church with Ethelwalh’s
destroyer, and who received from him as the reward of his co-operation
one fourth of the 1,200 hides into which the Isle of Wight was divided.
King Cadwalla, though an apostle of Christianity, reflected, of course,
some of the barbarism of his age. There were two lads of royal blood
(brothers of the last king of Wight) who had escaped to the mainland,
but whose hiding-place was unfortunately discovered. Cadwalla, who had
been wounded in the wars and was resting for a time at a house not
far distant, ordered that the youths should be slain; but a certain
Cyniberct, abbot of the monastery of Redbridge, came to Cadwalla’s
bedside and made earnest intercession, not for the lives of the hapless
lads, but that before their execution “they might be imbued with the
sacraments of the Christian faith”. The request was granted. The two
young princes were converted and baptised, and when the executioner
made his appearance “they joyfully submitted to the temporal death by
which they doubted not that they should pass over into the everlasting
life of the soul”.
The war of Wessex with Sussex continued and soon brought in Kent also,
which came to the help of its southern neighbour. After two years’
ravaging of Kent, the king’s brother Mul, by some sudden turn of
fortune, fell into the hands of the men of that land (687), and they
in their rage and exasperation burned him and twelve of his followers
alive, a savage deed, which was like to have made a truceless war
between the West Saxons and the men of Kent. Strange to say, however,
this work of revenge was not long engaged in by the brother of the
victim. In the year 688, after little more than two years of bloody
reign, Cadwalla, stricken with satiety or remorse, went on pilgrimage
to Rome. He had two great desires: “to be baptised at the threshold
of the apostles and to be speedily freed from the flesh that he might
pass into eternal joy”. Both desires were granted. The devout Syrian
Pope, Sergius I., baptised him by the name of Peter on April 10, 689,
and on the 20th, while yet wearing the white robes of a catechumen, he
died of Roman fever. He was buried in the great church of St. Peter,
and a Latin epitaph in twelve elegiacs was carved over his tomb. The
meteoric career of “the most strenuous Cadwalla” who reigns and ravages
for two years and a half, and at thirty dies “in Christ’s garments” at
Rome, and is buried at St. Peter’s, forms one of the strangest pages in
Anglo-Saxon history.
Cadwalla’s successor, a remote kinsman named Ine, descended from
Cerdic, but not from Ceawlin, reigned for thirty-seven years (688–726)
over the West Saxons. In the sixth year of his kingship the blood-feud
with Kent was ended by a treaty under which the men of Kent bound
themselves to pay 30,000 coins of some kind (the denomination is not
clearly stated) for the murder of Mul. The West Saxon king seems to
have had but little difficulty in holding down Sussex, which before
the end of the eighth century altogether disappears from the list of
the kingdoms. He probably established some sort of protectorate over
Essex, since (apparently about 693) he calls Erconwald, Bishop of
London, “my bishop”. In 715 he fought with Ceolred, King of Mercia,
at Wodensburh.[82] As the result of the battle is not stated we may,
perhaps, infer that the victory was doubtful. The chief operations of
the West Saxon king seem, however, to have been on his Western borders
which were notably extended by him. In 710 he and his kinsman Nun, king
of the South Saxons, fought against Geraint, king of the West Welshmen,
and it was probably to mark and to secure the increase of territory
thus won that Ine built the fortress of Taunton in the valley of the
Tone.
On the other hand there were, as so often happened in the disorganised
West Saxon house, troubles with the king’s own kinsfolk. In 721 it
is said “Ine slew Cynewulf the Etheling”. In the next year, Ine’s
own queen, Ethelburga, appears as the demolisher of the newly raised
fortress of Taunton. Apparently, however, she was warring for, not
against her husband, and we may, perhaps, safely connect this entry
with those which immediately follow it: “Ealdbert went into banishment
into Surrey and Sussex, and Ine fought with the South Saxons,” and
(725) “Ine fought with the South Saxons and there slew Ealdbert the
Etheling whom he had before expelled from his kingdom”. If we are not
erroneously combining these scanty notices, Ealdbert an Etheling of
the royal house rebelled against his kinsman, seized the new fort of
Taunton, was besieged therein by the martial consort of Ine, and on the
storming of that stronghold fled into Sussex, where, three years after,
he was defeated and slain by the West Saxon king.
In 726, sated apparently with rule and strife and victory, the elderly
Ine followed the example of his predecessor, resigned the crown to a
kinsman--apparently a remote kinsman--named Ethelheard, and performed
the great pilgrimage to Rome, “desiring in this life to wander round
the neighbourhood of the holy places, that he might win a kinder
reception from the holy ones in heaven”. According to William of
Malmesbury[83] the king’s wavering and procrastinating temper was
definitely turned towards the Roman pilgrimage by the exhortations of
his wife Ethelburga who acted the following parable in order to give
weight to her words. It happened upon a day that the king and his court
left a certain _tun_ in which they had been dwelling with a profusion
of regal luxury. By Ethelburga’s orders the steward filled the rooms
of the royal abode with rubbish, allowed cattle to wander through it,
defiling its floors, and placed a sow which had just littered, in the
royal couch. Persuading the king, on some pretext or other, to go back
to the _tun_, she turned his natural surprise at the hideous change
into an argument for relinquishing the world. “Where, lord husband, are
now the pomps and delights of yesterday? Like a river hastening to the
sea is all the glory of man. As hath been the delight of our life here
so shall be our torments hereafter.” With these words and with the
sight of the squalid habitation, she persuaded him at once to perform
the great renunciation for which she had so long vainly laboured. The
death of Ine was apparently not so sudden or so dramatic as that of his
predecessor, but there can be no doubt that he died in Rome and never
returned to his native land.
The especial interest, for us, of the reign of Ine lies in the fact
that he was the first King of Wessex who published written laws for
the guidance of his subjects. Till his time such legislative activity
as existed among our ancestors had been confined to the kingdom of
Kent, where it had evidently been called into being by the organising
and civilising influence of the Roman ecclesiastics. “These are the
dooms which Ethelbert the king gave forth in Augustine’s days”: so runs
the title of the document which now stands first in the collection
of Anglo-Saxon laws. This document is little more than a schedule of
the fines to be paid for various offences committed. Though later
legislators are a little less dry and curt in their utterances, the
general character of their work is not greatly different. As with
most of the barbarian codes the repression of crime and the redress
of injuries is their first care. They say little about rights, much
about wrongs. The rules which guided the devolution of property, and
the various customs which made up “folkright” were, no doubt, deeply
engraved on the minds and hearts of the people, and it is not from any
formal enactment of a royal legislator, only from casual allusions to
them, that we have to learn their nature and their history.
After the death of Ethelbert, law-making activity seems to have
slumbered for two generations. Then about the year 680, Hlothere
and Eadric, who were apparently joint kings of Kent, put forth a
small collection of “dooms” adding some items to Ethelbert’s list of
offences and penalties. Eadric’s son, Wihtred, in the year 696, issued
another set of laws, dealing more with offences against morality and
religion--with adultery, Sabbath-breaking, the worship of devils,
the eating of flesh in Lent, and so forth. The strong ecclesiastical
influence under which Wihtred’s laws were framed is evidenced by the
preface which is to this effect: “When Wihtred the most gracious king
of Kent was ruling, in the fifth year of his reign (696), ... the 6th
day of October, in the place which is called Berkhamstead, there was
gathered together for counsel an assembly of great men. There was
Berwald, archbishop of the Britons, also Gybmund, bishop of Rochester:
and every rank of the churches of the land spake in concord with the
obedient people. Then did the great men with the consent of all men
‘find’ these dooms and added them to the law-customs of Kent, as is
hereafter said and spoken.”
The expressions used in this and many similar prefaces in the
collection of Anglo-Saxon laws indicate that which is probably
incapable of definition, the sort of share which the leading men of
Church and State had in the royal legislation. Laws are passed in
the name and by the authority of the king, but he is no uncontrolled
autocrat, and for any important change in the “law-customs” of the
people, the great men of the realm must share the responsibility.
We may now turn from the rather obscure and elliptical “dooms” of the
Kentish kings to the much fuller and more interesting laws of Ine
of Wessex which seem to have been promulgated about 693, a year or
two before those of Wihtred. Like the latter they were framed “with
the counsel and consent of my two bishops, Hedde of Winchester and
Erconwald of London, and of all mine ealdormen and the oldest _witan_
of my people and also of a great assembly of the servants of God”. “My
father Cenred” is also named among the royal advisers, thereby raising
a difficult question as to Ine’s accession to the throne while his
father was still living. The preface ends, “And let no ealdorman nor
any of our subjects after this seek to turn aside any of these our
dooms”.
As it is impossible to give here anything like a complete digest of
the Anglo-Saxon laws, we may leave unnoticed the ordinances for the
repression of crime--especially the crime of theft--which constitute
the larger part of the document before us, and may confine our
attention to those paragraphs which deal with the tenure of land and
with the ranks and orders in the West Saxon state.
In all the earlier stages of a nation’s life, before the people have
begun to flock into great cities, there is no subject of more vital
importance than the relation of the Folk to the Land. In the seventh
century in England this was doubtless governed chiefly by old unwritten
customs which needed not to be formally enunciated because they were
universally understood. Two precious sentences, however, in Ine’s
laws give us a glimpse of the agricultural life of that day, and,
combined with information drawn from other sources, enable us in some
measure to reconstruct the rural community as it then existed. “A
ceorl’s homestead[84] should be fenced in, winter and summer. If he
be unfenced and his neighbour’s beast rush in by the opening which
he has left, he shall receive nothing on account of [the damage done
by] that beast, but must drive it out and bear the loss” (§ 40). “If
ceorls have a common meadow[85] or other divided land[86] to fence,
and some have fenced their portion, others not, and [stray beasts[87]]
eat their common arable or pasture, then those who are responsible for
the opening shall pay the others who have fenced their portion for
the injury that is done and take such compensation as is due from the
[owners of the intruding] cattle” (§ 42).
This law shows clearly that we are here in presence of an institution,
the existence of which is proved by sentences of Tacitus, by
charters of Anglo-Saxon kings, by manor-rolls of many succeeding
generations down to the very last century, the so-called Open Field
System. This system was not socialistic nor what we understand by
the word communistic, and yet it may truly be described in terms
drawn from the life of to-day as a system which formed “a community
of shareholders”.[88] Such a community was settled, by what means,
peaceful or warlike, we need not inquire, on some land cleared,
perhaps, from the forest where they founded what we should call a
village, but what they called a _tun_ or a _ham_,[89] to which they
gave the name of their own little tribe or kinship. The memory of the
Yslings may have quite died out from suburban Islington, and Birmingham
is no longer the little Mercian _ham_ where once the Beormings
clustered, but there seems no sufficient reason to doubt that from some
such settlements as these sprang the numerous _tons_ and _hams_ which
dot the map of England and have given their names to a stalwart progeny
in America and at the Antipodes.[90]
In the village settlements thus formed, of course, the main business
of the inhabitants was agriculture, and this appears to have been
conducted mainly on the Three Field System in which the land that was
not reserved for pasture was put one year under wheat sown in the
winter, the next year under oats or barley sown in the spring, and the
third year lay fallow. Now the peculiarity of the Open Field System is
this, that instead of each owner having his own bit of land separate
from the rest, in which he could practise this rotation of crops by
himself, the community as a whole had three large districts undergoing
that rotation, and in each of these districts the _ceorl_ (as the
Anglo-Saxon village shareholder was called) had a number of separate
strips of land, as a rule not adjacent to one another, assigned to him,
and in the cultivation of these strips he was probably for ever helping
or being helped by the owners of the strips adjoining. The system
appears to us inconceivably complicated and absurd: it can hardly be
even understood without reference to a map[91] in which we see the
strips of varying width, but generally a furlong in length, lying side
by side for a while, and then in another group starting off at right
angles to their former direction, but always preserving this strip-like
formation. Looking on such a map we can better understand what King
Ine meant when he talked of the _gedal-land_ or divided land which it
was the duty of the ceorl owner to fence; since, obviously, if the end
of his strip abutted on the forest or on the pasture in which the cows
of the community were feeding, his carelessness in leaving it unfenced
would work annoyance and loss to many others besides himself.
The causes and the origin of this remarkable system are lost in
prehistoric darkness. It has been well said[92] that “it is the more
remarkable, because with all its inconveniences of communication,
all its backwardness in regard to improvements, all its trammels on
individual enterprise and thrift, all its awkward dependence of the
individual on the behaviour of his neighbours, it repeats itself over
and over again for centuries, not only over the whole of England but
over a great part of Europe”. One thinks that some idea of future
repartitions, some desire to prevent any one individual or family from
getting too strong a grip of the land, must have been at work here
as with the Germans in the first Christian century, of whom Tacitus
wrote: “They change their fields year by year, and there is still land
left over”.[93] To continue the previous quotation: “the system was
particularly adapted to the requirements of a community of shareholders
who were closely joined together in the performance of their work,
the assertion of their rights, the fulfilment of their duties and the
payment of their dues”.
If we now inquire what was the extent of the land thus strangely
divided which was generally owned in the seventh century by the
Anglo-Saxon ceorl, we shall find that the determining factor is his
ability to grapple with the necessary cultivation of the soil; or,
in other words, the size of his estate is expressed in terms of his
ploughing power. The normal English plough-team consisted of eight
oxen yoked two and two together; and the land which it was possible to
plough by such an ox-team was called in English a _hide_, in the Latin
of the later lawyers a _carucate_.[94] The extent of a hide was not
always precisely the same even in the earliest times,[95] and in later
times there are puzzling differences in its dimensions, but as a rule
it seems safe to estimate it at 120 acres.
If a husbandman had only two oxen (in which case he would generally
have to rely on co-operation with his neighbours to get his land
tilled) he could only hope to cultivate the fourth part of a hide. This
was called a _yard-land_ in Old English, or a _virgate_[96] in legal
Latin. An even smaller division was the _ox-gang_ or _bovate_ (the
eighth of a hide), which belonged to the husbandman who had but one ox
to contribute to the common ploughing.[97]
The question now arises, “What was the ordinary holding of the
Anglo-Saxon ceorl during the first ages after his settlement in the
land, and what was his social position?” The answer, of course, must
be mainly conjectural, but especially when we consider the language
of Bede, and his Anglo-Saxon translators, who use “family” as the
equivalent of “hide,” it seems probable that the hide, whatever its
dimensions may have been, was the normal holding of the ceorl in his
day, and all the indications derived from the history of the seventh
century seem to point to the conclusion that the ceorl was a free man,
proprietor of the land which he cultivated, liable to service in the
_fyrd_ or national army, and to certain ecclesiastical payments, but in
every other relation independent. Metaphors are dangerous things, but
we may probably with safety characterise the numerous and sturdy class
of ceorls as the backbone of the Anglo-Saxon community.
On the other hand, whatever the normal property of the ceorl might be,
it is certain that in the course of time holdings would be split up
and the size of proprietorships would vary. While some ceorls--as we
shall see later on--might become owners of as many as five hides and
thus “attain unto thegn-right,” many more would see their holdings
dwindle into virgates and bovates; perhaps even[98] the virgate or
yard-land would become the typical holding of the descendant of the
original ceorl-settlers. The owner of 15 acres or even of 30 acres in
those days when “intensive” cultivation was unknown, would not be able
to do much more than provide food for himself and his family, and in
a rough, undemocratic age would be deemed a person of little account
in comparison with the great thegn or the abbot of a wealthy monastery
who sat in the king’s council and affixed his cross to the king’s
charters. Thus we can easily understand how the _status_ of some, by no
means of all the ceorls might already towards the close of the seventh
century be slowly changing from absolute independence into ill-defined
subjection or payment of rent to some great neighbouring land-owner
whom he was learning to call his _hlaford_, or lord.[99]
Owing to the peculiar mode of its division the arable land of the _tun_
has attracted the largest share of our attention. It is not to be
forgotten, however, that surrounding the three great open fields which
at one time or another came under the plough, there was also a large
meadow in which there was “common of pasture” for the cattle belonging
to the members of the _tun_. Surrounding this, again, and disparting
one tun or ham from its neighbour, there would generally be found a
belt of forest-land, as to which we have some interesting utterances
from the mouth of the West Saxon legislator. The great economic use of
the forest, in addition to the provision of fuel, was its supply of
“mast” for the swine, whose flesh was an important part of the food of
the people. In the forty-fourth of Ine’s laws it is ordained that if
any one cut down a tree under which thirty swine could take shelter
he shall pay a fine of thirty shillings. In the twentieth law we are
introduced to “a foreigner or other stranger”--probably in most cases
a Welshman--pushing towards us through a trackless forest. “Comest
thou peaceably?” is evidently the question that rises to the lips of
the Saxon ceorl as he sees the figure in outlandish garb dimly moving
through the trees. If the stranger would dispel suspicion he must
either wind his horn or shout at frequent intervals; otherwise the West
Saxon may assume that he is a thief and either slay him or capture
and hold him to ransom. In the former alternative, however, he must
at once make the matter known and swear that he took the dead man for
a thief; otherwise he will be liable to judicial process at the hands
of the dead man’s kinsmen. Again,[100] if a man burns a single tree
in a forest, and is afterwards convicted, he shall pay the full fine
of sixty shillings, for “Fire,” says the law-giver, “is a thief,” a
secret, furtive creature that may do much mischief. But if a man goes
boldly into the forest and cuts down trees for his own use, he shall
be fined thirty shillings for the first tree so felled and so on up
to ninety shillings, but no more, however extensive may have been his
depredations, for “The axe is a tell-tale”. He could not have wielded
it so long in the forest without a ringing sound which should have
arrested the attention of the forester.
Of course there was an exception to the general law of the mutability
of holdings in the case of the house of the ceorl with the little bit
of land surrounding it. This, which we should call a homestead, was
called in Anglo-Saxon a _weorthig_, and the fortieth law (already
quoted) warned the ceorl that this must be kept always well fenced
winter and summer, and that if any gaps were left in the hedge
surrounding it he would have no claim against a neighbour for any
damage that might be done by that neighbour’s beast rushing in through
the opening.
The whole of the labour on the land of a ceorl who had the normal
holding of a hide would certainly not be performed by himself and his
family. We have frequent references in the laws to a servile class,
generally known as _theows_, but sometimes--chiefly in the laws of
the Kentish kings--as _esnes_. We may conjecture that this class was
originally formed for the most part out of vanquished Britons spared
by their conquerors; probably also from among the descendants of yet
earlier strata of population, enslaved by the Britons themselves. It
was certainly recruited by the so-called _wite-theows_, men probably
originally of the class of ceorls, who having committed some crime
and being unable to pay the pecuniary penalty for their offence were
condemned to penal servitude, and in such a case generally forfeited
the freedom of their descendants as well as their own. Probably the
larger number of theows were in bondage to land-owners of higher rank
than the ceorl, but one of the laws of Ethelbert of Kent[101] shows
that at any rate the possession of a slave by a ceorl was not a thing
altogether unknown. Our information as to this servile class is,
however, very imperfect, and relates chiefly to the floggings to which
they may be subjected for various offences.[102]
Though the position of the great body of the ceorls, if it has been
rightly stated here, was that of partners in a free and independent
agricultural community, it must be admitted, as previously said, that
we have already in the laws of Ine traces of another, probably an
increasing class of _gafol gelders_ or rent-payers. Land in these cases
was held by free men under a lord, to whom payments had to be made in
kind whenever the lord visited the tenant. In Saxon Britain, as in
Frankish Gaul, the king and his chief nobles lived on the produce of
their estates, not by drawing half-yearly rents and converting them
into money, to be spent in their own distant palaces, but by moving
about from _tun_ to _tun_, from _vill_ to _vill_, and calling upon
their tenants for supplies of food which were consumed upon the spot
by themselves and their retainers, doubtless with much wassail and
jollity. From an estate of ten hides the lord was entitled to claim
ten vessels of honey, three hundred loaves, twelve _ambers_ of Welsh
ale, thirty _ambers_ of clear ale, two full-grown oxen or ten rams, ten
geese, twenty hens, ten cheeses, a full _amber_ of butter, five salmon,
twenty pounds weight of fodder, and a hundred eels.[103]
From the consideration of the middle and lower classes of Anglo-Saxon
society we ascend to consider the rather difficult questions connected
with the higher ranks of that society, the thegns, the eorls, the
ealdormen, about whom the Laws and the Chronicles inform us. In this
examination we should be left in almost hopeless darkness were it
not for two institutions both well known in all the collections of
primitive Teutonic law, and both very repugnant to our modern ideas of
justice, _wergild_ and (so-called) _compurgation_.
The essential principle of the _wergild_ was compensation in money
to the kindred of a murdered man, in order to induce them to abstain
from righting or avenging themselves by force. Far back in the dimmest
ages of the Teutonic foreworld the historical student discerns a
period when all wrongs were avenged by the stroke of the broad-sword.
The right, and more than the right, the sacred duty, of vengeance was
handed on from father to son, and the circle widened from kinsman to
kinsman, till the terrible blood-feud was like to destroy a tribe or
even a nation. Then at some period far back in the ages, the idea was
conceived of exorcising the spirit of revenge by the wand of pecuniary
compensation. Let the relatives of a murdered man receive a _wer_, a
payment in money, proportioned to his rank and position in the tribe,
and, the family honour being thus satisfied, let them forego the right
to revenge. If the injury were something less than death--if it were
maiming, mutilation, the abduction of a wife, unprovoked words of
insult--a proportionate payment in the nature of _wer_ was made to the
sufferer himself. The _wer_ was purposely fixed high according to the
value of money in those days, and if the offender were unable to pay
it, he and sometimes his family with him became the bondslaves of the
injured party. There was thus an element of prevention as well as of
compensation in the punishment inflicted. But in all this we do not
find any thought of punishment inflicted by the state to avenge the
injured majesty of the law; nothing of that feeling which now makes the
murder of the most degraded outcast a matter which must be inquired
into with the utmost diligence by the police and punished by the hands
of the executioner. This thought was indeed in some degree expressed by
the _wite_ or fine for murder, breach of the peace and so on, which was
paid to the king or to one of his officers, but this fine was generally
less in amount and always less in importance than the venerable wergild
payable to the kindred.
The amount of _wergild_ was elaborately proportioned to the station in
society of the injured party--twice as high for the nobleman as for the
squire, three times as high for the squire as for the yeoman (if one
may be permitted to use as a very rough approximation the terms current
in modern society); but it is important to remember that obligation
in this system of law went hand in hand with privilege. If the _wer_
for an injured thegn was high, it was on the level of that wer that
he would have to atone to the king for offences committed by him
against the law of the land.[104] The _wergild_ tariff, however, though
frequently referred to, is not regularly set forth in the laws either
of Ethelbert or of Ine, an omission common to it with many of the other
Teutonic codes, especially that of the Lombards. Probably the amount
of _wer_ payable in each case was so well known through long usage
that the legislator deemed it needless to set it forth anew, but it is
possible also that there was a variable element left, in some cases, to
be the subject of bargaining between the two kins of the injurer and
the injured. Some broad lines of demarcation, however, may be clearly
traced. We know that the ceorl was called a _twy-hynd_ man, because
the ordinary compensation for his violent death was 200 shillings. A
Welshman, however, who owned that single hide of land which seems to
have been the normal property of the well-to-do ceorl, was entitled to
a _wergild_ of only 120 shillings, but if he so prospered as to become
the owner of five hides of English soil then his wergild rose to the
proportionate amount of _600_ shillings.
The class next above the ceorl, the class corresponding with the gentry
of modern times, the large land-holders who do not happen to hold any
official position at the king’s court, were in the ninth century spoken
of as _thegns_; and that word may, for convenience, be used here,
though it is perhaps doubtful whether it was yet used as the simple
designation of a class. In the word thegn the thought of soldiership
and of service to the king seem almost inseparably blended. In the
poem of Beowulf thegns seems to be equivalent to warriors.; while in
the charters of Anglo-Saxon kings the Latin equivalent of thegn is
almost invariably _minister_. In the laws of Ine these men seem to be
generally spoken of as _gesithcund_, men who by birth were entitled to
be comrades and attendants of the king; and it is almost certain that
they are identical with the _twelf-hyndemen_, their wergild being fixed
at 1,200 shillings. Higher than this these laws do not enable us to go,
but the tenor of later legislation supports the conjecture that the
_wergild_ for an ealdorman or for a bishop was 4,800 shillings, for an
archbishop or etheling (member of the royal house), 9,000 shillings,
and for the king himself, 18,000 shillings.[105]
It will be seen that the Ealdorman is here put on a level with the
Bishop. At the point of West Saxon history which we have now reached,
there seems to have been one ealdorman to every shire. He commanded the
_fyrd_ of his shire in battle, he presided along with the bishop and
the reeve in the shire-gemot, of which later laws than Ine’s inform us:
and altogether his position may perhaps be best imagined by comparing
it with that of a modern lord-lieutenant of a county.
* * * * *
Some further light on the ranks and orders in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
is shown by the rather copious ordinances on the subject of that
judicial process which is generally called compurgation. This name is
not technically correct, as it is of ecclesiastical origin and belongs
to later times than those with which we are now dealing; but we have
not yet naturalised “oath-helping” as the Germans have naturalised
_eid-hilfe_, and the word _ath-fultum_, occasionally used in the
Anglo-Saxon laws, has not yet attained the same degree of currency as
_wergild_. With the word “compurgation,” therefore, we must for the
present rest satisfied.
We first meet with this custom in the fourteenth law of King Ine, who
says, “If any one be accused of brigandage he shall clear himself by
120 hides or pay accordingly”. We naturally inquire what is meant by
“clearing oneself by 14,400 acres,” and we receive further light on the
question when we come to law 19 which tells us that “a king’s retainer
(_geneat_) if his wer is 1,200 shillings may swear for 60 hides if he
be a communicant,” on which the later Latin translator adds the gloss,
“for 60 hides, that is for six men”.
We now see more plainly the meaning of “swearing by 120 hides”. A
man accused of such a grave crime against society as brigandage
must, in order to prove his innocence, procure the attestation of
at least two king’s tenants (each presumably holding sixty hides
of land) or twelve land-owners (each owner of ten hides), and they
must swear that they believe him innocent. This is “oath-helping” or
“compurgation”. This swearing process is, as has been often pointed
out, not in the least like our modern examination of sworn witnesses
to fact, nor does it contain the promise of our modern trial by
jury. It is much more akin to the privilege allowed to the defendant
of “calling witnesses to character,” a privilege which, where the
evidence is only circumstantial, often has an important influence on
the verdict. It must be admitted that even with us the force of such
evidence frequently depends in some measure on the social status of the
witness-bearers, but we should shrink from making the bald statement
that a man accused of murder must produce two persons paying income-tax
on £10,000 a year, or twenty persons at £1,000 a year, to declare their
belief in his innocence.
The amount of “swearing power,” if it may be so called, belonging
to each class of men is not very clearly stated. From the passage
quoted above, with its Latin gloss, one is inclined to suppose
that the ordinary ceorl swore for ten hides. It has been recently
argued[106] that he swore only for five or perhaps six hides. There
is, however, evidently something factitious in the ownership of land
thus theoretically assigned to him. We may say, certainly, that the
ordinary ceorl did not possess five, much less ten hides of land; nor
were all thegns, who had probably the same swearing power as the king’s
_geneat_, possessed of sixty hides, say 7,200 acres. We may therefore
rather look upon the number of hides for which ceorl, thegn and king’s
thegn were entitled to swear as a conventional mode of stating for the
guidance of the judge, the weight that was to be attached to their
testimony when they gave it on behalf of a man accused of crime.
Perhaps also there was in this curious tariff of credibility an attempt
to ascertain the extent to which the belief of the vicinage could be
relied on in the prisoner’s behalf. The ordinary ceorl, cultivating
perhaps only one hide, but mingling with a certain number of his fellow
ceorls in the exercise of his daily toil, might vouch for the opinion
of the owners of ten hides; while the king’s retainer, from his wider
field of observation, could vouch for the belief of a district six
times as large.
From a consideration of the laws of Ine and other nearly contemporary
sources, we may, perhaps, safely arrive at the following general
conclusions as to the nature of the social edifice in the eighth
century. At the summit of that edifice we find, of course, the
king. He is king as yet of only a few English shires, a monarch of
far less importance than the Frankish kings before they sank into
inefficiency, yet a much greater man than many who had borne the same
title in preceding centuries. In the early history and charters of the
Anglo-Saxons we are struck with the large number of persons who bear
the title of _cyning_ or _rex_. Edwin slays five kings when fighting
against the Saxons. Four kings were reigning at the same time in
Sussex, three in Essex. There were kings of the Hwiccas (Worcestershire
and Warwickshire) and a separate kingdom of the Middle Angles and
of Lindsey, all of which vanished leaving no trace in the so-called
“Heptarchy” of later historians.[107]
All this, though partly accounted for by the tendency to treat the
kingdom as a family estate and to divide it up at the king’s death
among his surviving sons, shows also that there must have been a strong
movement in the opposite direction, a tendency towards unity and
consolidation to produce the three comparatively large and powerful
kingdoms of Mercia, Wessex and Northumbria, which are practically all
that are of historic importance in the eighth century.
It may have been partly on account of the increasing majesty of the
royal name that the nobility (if we may thus speak of the classes
reaching from the throne down to the lowest stratum of thegn-hood)
became, what perhaps they had not been originally, a class of
_ministri_ and _milites_, servants to the king in peace and in
war. Writers on the early constitution of the Germanic states are
accustomed to dwell on the distinction between the primeval “nobility
by birth” and its successor, “nobility by service”. Without denying the
probability that nobles of the first kind existed among the invaders of
England, we must admit that in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms as we know them
it is the second species, “nobility by service,” in the king’s court
with which we find ourselves chiefly brought in contact. When the king
takes counsel with his _witan_ it is with the archbishop and bishops,
with the ealdormen, the king’s thegns and the “exalted councillors”
(_gethungenan witan_) in their various degrees that he deliberates,
with their concurrence that he makes laws for the welfare of the realm,
and by their cross-made signatures that his charters granting land
are attested. We do not appear to have any accurate information as to
the time of meeting of the _witan_ (_witenagemot_). Nor was the place
of meeting by any means always the same even for each Saxon kingdom,
though Winchester, Kingston, and in later times London, were frequent
homes of the West Saxon _witenagemot_.
The functions of this great council of the wise men of the realm, the
degree to which they shared or controlled the royal power in matters
of legislation, of finance, of the defence of the country, are better
learned by watching the course of national history than from any
attempt to frame a definition of that which was essentially vague,
fluctuating and incoherent. The relation between the _witenagemot_
and the medieval parliaments of the Plantagenets must be felt to be
only one of rather faint analogy. In some respects the contemporary
ecclesiastical councils of Visigothic Spain, at any rate in their later
phases, present a much closer correspondence of type. It certainly
seems, from the language of the Chronicle, that the English witan,
like those councils, had a powerful voice in the election of the king,
though, unlike the Spanish councillors, the Wise Men of Wessex were, in
their choice, for the greater part of the time confined to one royal
line, the men “whose descent goeth unto Cerdic”.[108]
NOTE ON ANGLO-SAXON MONEY.
To understand properly the information about wergilds supplied to
us by the Anglo-Saxon laws, we must devote a little attention to
the Anglo-Saxon currency. Our ancestors a thousand years ago used
for the most part the same pecuniary language that we use to-day.
They generally spoke of pounds, shillings and pence; and the clerkly
ecclesiastics who had to translate these words into Latin employed the
_Libra_, _Solidus_ and _Denarius_, which have given us the well-known
symbols £ s. d. This translation, however, into the terms of Roman
currency has done nothing but confuse our own monetary history. _Libra_
as the translation of pound is unobjectionable, but _solidus_--the only
coin of that name that obtained wide currency, the _solidus aureus_ of
Constantinople--was a gold coin of which 72 went to the pound of gold,
and was in intrinsic value equal to about thirteen shillings of our
present money. No _scilling_ that any Anglo-Saxon legislator ever dealt
with had any such intrinsic value as this. Similarly the _denarius_,
the true denarius of the republic and of the early empire, was a silver
coin intrinsically worth about eightpence of our present currency. No
penny in any Anglo-Saxon coinage ever approached this value; and the
translation of denarius by penny has introduced confusion even into
some well-known passages of the English Bible. Let us, therefore,
for the sake of clearness, wholly disregard the pretended Roman
equivalents, and confine our attention to the true, long-enduring Saxon
denominations, the _pund_, the _scilling_ and the _penig_.
1. The _pund_ meant a pound’s weight of silver. It was purely a “money
of account,” as no coin representing this value was ever struck by any
Anglo-Saxon king. According to the present value of metals, it would be
worth intrinsically somewhat less than £2 sterling.
2. The _scilling_ was also only a money of account, represented by no
actual coin. Its derivation (from _scylan_, to divide) seems to point
to the fact that it was originally a portion of a silver ornament,
probably a torque or an armlet broken off and cast into the scale, for
payment by weight of the trader’s demand. Even so, as we may remember,
St. Oswald ordered his beautiful silver dish to be broken up and
distributed to the starving crowd, who would take these _scyllingas_
into the market and exchange them there for the needed food. At a later
time the _scilling_ acquired a definite value, which, however, varied
much in the different English kingdoms. The Kentish _scilling_ was
one-twelfth of a pound; the Wessex _scilling_, one-forty-eighth; and
the Mercian, one-sixtieth.
3. But however much the _scilling_ might vary, the penny (_pending_,
_pening_ or _penig_) seems in all the English kingdoms to have ever
borne the same proportion to the pound which it bears at present,
namely, as 1 to 240. This enables us to state the varying values of the
_scilling_ in the following manner:--
The _scilling_ of Kent = 20 peningas.
Do. Wessex = 5[109] „
Do. Mercia = 4 „
Here at last, in this lowest and humblest denomination, we get
something which is not a mere “money of account”. The silver pennies
of the Anglo-Saxon kings, which reach from the middle of the eighth
century right down to the Norman conquest, and whose successors formed
practically the only money of the country until the reign of Edward
III., are the glory of the numismatic collector, but suggest strange
thoughts as to the stage of civilisation reached by a country whose
only coin was a little bit of silver, one-twentieth of an ounce in
weight.
A few words must be said (1) as to the intrinsic value, and (2) as to
the purchasing power of these moneys.
(1) As to the first question we are met by the practical difficulty
of deciding what is the present value of silver. Not thirty years ago
silver was worth fully 4s. 6d. an ounce, or £2 14s. a pound; now it
fetches about half that price. But if we take, for convenience, the
larger quotation, representing the old-fashioned ratio between gold and
silver of 15½ to 1, we get roughly the following results:--
The _pund_ = £2 14s. in intrinsic value.
_Scilling_ of Kent = 1/12 of a pound = 4s. 6d. in intrinsic value.
Do. Wessex = 1/48 „ = 1s. 1½d. „
Do. Mercia = 1/60 „ = 10⅘ pence „
The _penig_ = about two pence and three farthings „
(2) The “purchasing power” of money in those days is of course a
different and a far more difficult question. As every one knows,
since the discovery of America and the opening up of enormous fresh
sources of supply of the precious metals, prices have been altogether
revolutionised, and the “purchasing power” of an ounce of gold or
silver has been enormously lessened.
The following are a few indications given us by the laws of Ine and
some of his successors as to the prices prevalent in his time:--
1. An ewe with one lamb, 1 scilling (= 1s. 1½d.).
Present value, £2 10s. Ratio 1 to 44.
2. Maintenance of a peasant’s child, 6 scillings (6s. 9d.) per
annum _plus_ a cow in summer and an ox in winter.
Equivalent to our time to about £6. Ratio 1 to 17.
3. A peasant’s blouse was worth 6 peningas (1s. 4d.).
This was probably a rather elaborate affair, and if
hand-worked might be worth at the present time £1 10s.
Ratio 1 to 22.
4. A sheep’s fleece, 2 peningas (5½d.).
Present price, 7s. Ratio 1 to 15.
From the laws of Athelstan:--
5. A good horse, 24 scillings (£1 7s.).
Present price, £40. Ratio 1 to 30 nearly.
6. A sheep, 1 scilling (1s. 1½d.).
Present price, £2. Ratio 1 to 35.
From the law concerning the Dunsaete (Welsh mountaineers) (tenth
century):--
7. A mare, 20 scillings (£1 2s. 6d.).
Present price, £25. Ratio 1 to 22.
8. A “swine,” 1⅗ scilling (1s. 10d.).
Present price, £1 10s. Ratio 1 to 16.
9. A sheep, 1 scilling (1s. 1½d.).
Present price, £2. Ratio 1 to 35.
10. A goat, ⅖ of a scilling (5½d.).
Present price, 15s. Ratio 1 to 33.
It will be seen from the above rough calculations how impossible it is
to get any fixed proportion between the purchasing power of money in
Anglo-Saxon times and in our own. As to one very important element,
the price of grain, we have no satisfactory information; but from the
records of later centuries (from the thirteenth onwards) it seems
probable that, with frequent and violent fluctuations, it generally
ruled relatively higher than the price of cattle.
On the whole, for historical purposes, if the reader mentally
translates the scilling of Wessex into the pound sterling of our own
day he will probably not go far wrong.
It may be well to add a few other monetary terms belonging chiefly to
the later centuries of Anglo-Saxon history.
1. The _Mancus_ was one-eighth of a pund: or 30 penings. The name is
said to be derived from the Arabic. The Mancus in the time of Athelstan
was the standard price of an ox.
2. The _Thrymsa_ of Mercia was originally a gold coin (derived from the
Roman _tremissis_), but afterwards the word was used to denote a unit
of value, the equivalent of 3 penings.
3. The _Sceatt_ was very nearly equivalent to the pening; but 250 not
240 went to the pund.
4. The _Mark_, a Danish word, denotes the equivalent of half a pound.
5. The _Ora_ was the eighth part of a mark. It was held to be
equivalent to 2½ scillings of Wessex, but there is some difficulty
in the equation of these Danish and Saxon currencies. According to
_Domesday Book_ the Ore contained 20 pence, and accordingly the
Mark would be equal not to 120 but to 160 pence. On the other hand,
Ethelred’s laws, iv., 9, say that the pound contained 15 ores. This
would make the Mark if it was half a pound equivalent to 7½ ores.
(See Chadwick, _l.c._, chapter i., for a discussion of this perplexing
question.)
CHAPTER XIV.
THE EIGHTH CENTURY.
The eighth century was in many ways a memorable one for Europe and
Asia. In the east it was the period of the greatest splendour of the
Caliphs of Baghdad; at Constantinople it saw the rule of the strong,
stern iconoclastic emperors who set the spiritual authority of the
popes at defiance; in Italy it beheld the downfall of Lombard rule, in
Spain the subjection of nine-tenths of the country to the domination of
the Moors.
Even more important than any of these events were the changes which
were going forward in the wide regions subject to the dominion of
the Franks. Here the star of the great Austrasian house, which was
represented by Charles Martel, Pippin and Charlemagne, was steadily
rising. In this century they shouldered aside the last feeble
representative of the Merovingian race, and seated themselves visibly
on that Frankish throne behind which they and their sires had stood
so long as mayors of the palace; and in the end, aspiring yet higher,
at the very end of the century the greatest of the race received the
imperial crown and was hailed as Carolus Augustus by the people of Rome
in the city of the Cæsars.
In this last series of events, as it happened, Englishmen self-exiled
from their country took a prominent part. Willibrord, the apostle
of the Frisians, baptised Pippin and foretold the exaltation of
his house. Wynfrith, otherwise known as Boniface, following in his
footsteps, persuaded or compelled Frisians, Thuringians and Hessians
to embrace that religion which his own forefathers had accepted only
three generations before, and with the religion induced them to accept
also the ecclesiastical discipline of Rome. In his later missionary
operations, gentle or forcible, he was strongly supported by the
Austrasian Pippin, whom he repaid for that support by crowning him
King of the Franks just half-way through the century. Moreover, it was
another Englishman, the Northumbrian Alcuin, head of the great school
for ecclesiastics attached to the church of York, who towards the
close of the century accepted Charlemagne’s invitation to take up his
abode at the Frankish court; became, so to speak, his literary prime
minister, and being full himself of the memories of classical Rome, had
no inconsiderable share in persuading his patron to revive the glories
of the great world-empire, to pass from the condition of a mere King of
the Franks into that of Roman Emperor.
Thus, in this eighth century the Anglo-Saxon race was in various ways
making its mark on Europe; and in our own island its literary history
during this period is not without interest; but politically the century
is one of the most sterile in all our annals. It was an age of little
men, of decaying faith, of slumberous inaction, or else of sanguinary
and chaotic strife. Northumbria especially, during this period, was
falling fast and far from her former high estate. Mercia and Wessex
were engaged in perpetual objectless war, not ennobled by any great
names or chivalrous deeds. Yet possibly even this dreary time was
looked back upon in the next century as a golden age, for it was,
almost till its close, unmarked by foreign invasion. In the year 793
a new and more disastrous chapter was opened by the appearance on the
horizon of the ships of the Vikings.
The unsatisfactory character of this portion of English history is
no doubt partly due to the fact that at an early stage we lose the
guidance of that great writer to whom we are indebted for almost all
that gives freshness and life to the preceding narratives. Bede, the
father of English history, finished his great work in 731, and died
four years later, in 735. Hitherto he has been speaking to us about
the lives of other men; it is now time to listen to what his disciples
have told us concerning his own. Born about the year 672, soon after
the death of Oswy, Bede was taken as a child of seven years old to the
newly founded monastery of Monkwearmouth, and there or in the sister
monastery of Jarrow he passed the rest of his life. He was thus not
only the child of the convent but in a pre-eminent degree the spiritual
heir of Benedict Biscop, the nobly born and cultured Northumbrian,
who had founded these two monasteries, had built in their precincts
two stately stone churches “after the manner of the Romans which he
always loved” (far superior doubtless to the uncouth wooden churches
which satisfied most of the Anglo-Saxon builders), had enriched their
libraries with precious manuscripts and pictures--the trophies of
five journeys to Rome--and had imported artisans from Gaul to teach
the Anglo-Saxon the hitherto unknown mystery of the manufacture of
glass. It is an interesting fact that of both these two foundations of
Benedict Biscop some vestiges still remain, almost unique specimens
of early Anglo-Saxon art. In the porch of the parish church of
Monkwearmouth are some cylindrical “baluster-shafts,” and some slabs
covered with beautiful Anglo-Saxon knot-work. In the parish church
of Jarrow, surrounded as it now is by smoking furnaces and clanging
steam-hammers, there are portions of a wall undoubtedly anterior to the
Norman conquest, and possibly belonging to the very fabric which, as
an inscription tells us, was dedicated in the fifteenth year of king
Egfrid and the fourth year of abbot Ceolfrid (probably 685). Under this
abbot, who ruled Wearmouth as well as Jarrow, Bede spent more than
thirty years of his life, the years of boyhood, youth and early middle
age. With him, according to the pathetic story already related, he
probably sustained as a boy of fourteen the whole burden of chanting
the antiphones, when all the rest of the choir were laid low by the
terrible pestilence. By him doubtless his studies were directed in
later life, when as a studious youth he entered the convent library and
began to pore over the manuscripts, sacred and profane, the splendid
copies of the Vulgate, the treatises of the Fathers, the poems of
Lucretius, Horace, Ovid and Virgil, wherewith the literary enthusiasm
of Benedict had enriched his monastery.
In 716 the abbot Ceolfrid, in the seventy-fifth year of his age,
resigned his office and started on a pilgrimage to Rome. He travelled
slowly, and had only reached the city of Langres in Champagne, when the
weakness of age conquered him, and he lay down and died. His attempted
pilgrimage has, however, a special interest for us, since it has
recently been discovered that one of the manuscripts which he took with
him on his journey as an offering to the Holy Father was none other
than the celebrated Codex Amiatinus, now preserved in the Laurentian
Library, at Florence and, by the admission of all scholars, the chief
authority for the text of Jerome’s great translation of the Scriptures.
Bede survived his old preceptor nearly twenty years, following up with
patient industry the literary career upon which Ceolfrid had started
him. In 731 he completed the great work on _The Ecclesiastical History
of the English Nation_, which has made his name immortal; but besides
this he wrote a vast number of treatises: on _The Interpretation of
Scripture_, on _The Nature of Things_, on _Grammar_ and on _Astronomy_,
and two chronological works entitled _De Temporibus_ and _De Temporum
Ratione_. His books show an especial interest in the computation of
time, the natural result of his study of the great Easter controversy,
the echoes of which must have been still resounding in the days of
his childhood. He was unquestionably the most learned man of his
age, perhaps one might safely say the most learned man of the early
Middle Ages. He was--what even the great Pope Gregory was not--a Greek
scholar; and his Latin style, formed doubtless on a careful study of
the classical authors in the library of the convent, is eminently pure,
and free from turgidity and affectation. His history, in fact, comes
as a delightful surprise to the student who has had to struggle with
the barbarous Latinity of papal epistles, or the astounding grammatical
blunders of Bede’s Frankish counterpart, Gregory of Tours. All this
intellectual attainment on the part of the monk of Jarrow is the more
surprising when we remember how short was the interval which separated
him from actual barbarism. Bede’s father possibly, his grandfather
almost certainly, were rude illiterate pagans; yet we find their near
descendant writing Latin which might almost have passed muster at the
court of Augustus, and by his saintly life and happy death illustrating
the noblest qualities of the Christian character.
Bede’s life ended on May 9, 735. Though the story of his death is one
of the best known in English history, it may hardly be omitted here.
For some months before the end he had suffered much from difficulty
of breathing. The long and weary night watches were gladdened with
psalmody; sometimes with the repetition of his own Anglo-Saxon verses,
one of which may be thus translated:--
Let not man take thought too deeply
Ere his last and lonely journey.
Ponder as he may, he knows not
What of good and what of evil
Shall befall his parting spirit.
He wept with his weeping disciples; then he changed to rejoicing and
gave thanks to God for all, even for his chastisements. “As Ambrose
said, so can I say, too, ‘I have not so lived that I need be ashamed
to abide longer with you; yet neither do I fear to die, for we have a
good Lord’.” In the intervals of sacred song he continued his literary
labours, dictating to a youth by his bedside a translation of the early
chapters of John’s gospel, together with some extracts from a treatise
by Isidore of Seville. This latter was probably one of the Spanish
bishop’s scientific works, for Bede said: “I do not want my lads to
read that which is false, nor that after my death they should spend
fruitless labour on this thing”. The amanuensis said, “There is yet one
chapter of the book which thou art dictating, but I think it too hard
work for thee”; but Bede answered, “No, it is easy; take thy pen and
write speedily”. When the dictation was all-but ended, he distributed
his little treasures, spices, napkins and incense, among his friends in
the monastery. Then said the scribe, “There is yet one more sentence
not written down”. This was dictated. The scribe said, “It is done”.
“Thou hast said truly,” answered Bede. “It is finished. Help me to sit
in yonder place where I have been wont to pray, that sitting there I
may call upon the name of the Father.” And thus, seated on the pavement
of his cell and chanting with laboured breath the _Gloria Patri_, the
father of English history passed away.
In connexion with the name of Bede, allusion must be made to one or
two of his contemporaries who made this period illustrious in the
history of English literature. The herdsman-poet Caedmon has already
been mentioned in connexion with the conference at Whitby. The date of
his death is not recorded, but it probably occurred before the close
of the seventh century. Though recent criticism has thrown some doubt
on his authorship of the poems which were formerly attributed to him,
there can be no doubt that his was a great name in the young literature
of the Anglo-Saxon race, and if Bede, though writing in Latin, may be
considered as standing by the fountain-head of English prose, Caedmon
must be allowed to hold the same place in relation to English poetry.
Aldhelm, abbot of Malmesbury and first bishop of Sherborne, was
probably considered by his contemporaries the greatest scholar of
his age. Like so many of the great ecclesiastics of this period,
Aldhelm was of noble birth, a kinsman, said some, of King Ine himself.
Trained in the monastic school of Hadrian at Canterbury he imbibed
from his Italian instructors a large amount of classical learning,
but not that purity of taste which caused his younger contemporary
Bede to use his learning with discretion. Whatever may have been his
literary failings, there was a fascination about his personal presence
and an earnestness in his religious character which won for him a
large number of loyal disciples, enabled him to develop the little
community gathered by an Irish saint into the famous monastery of
Malmesbury, and made him the literary apostle of Wessex. According
to his great panegyrist, William of Malmesbury, he combined in his
style the excellencies of various nations. Some fastidious readers
in the twelfth century found his works heavy reading. “Unreasonable
judges are they,” said William, “who do not know that every nation
has its own different style of writing. For the Greeks write in an
involved style, the Latins in a guarded one, the Gauls write with
splendour, the English with pomp.... But if you will carefully read
Aldhelm’s writings you will think him a Greek by the acuteness of his
intellect, a Roman by his brilliancy, and an Englishman by his pomp.”
The “pomposity,” or in other words, the turgidity of his style has been
found quite intolerable by later scholars, but was probably considered
an enviable gift by his countrymen, only just emerged from barbarism.
At any rate even to the pompous and somewhat pedantic churchman much
may be pardoned in consideration of the charming anecdote, related on
the authority of King Alfred, that Aldhelm in his younger days seeing
the “semi-barbarous” people accustomed, as soon as Mass was finished,
to stream away to their houses without listening to the words of the
preacher, took his station on the bridge by which they needs must
pass and there sang merry ballads of his own composition, till he had
gained the ear of the hurrying crowd, after which he changed his
tune, gradually interwove with his song the words of Scripture, began
to speak to them of serious things, and, in short, won back to sanity
and devotion the citizens whom he might vainly have endeavoured to
coerce by the terrors of excommunication. Aldhelm was chosen Bishop of
Sherborne in 705 and died in 709.
The names just mentioned are those of men of a somewhat earlier
generation than Bede, and belong, in fact, rather to the seventh
century than to the eighth. Not so with the last upon our list,
Cynewulf, who was born not many years before the death of Bede and
whose literary activity was displayed in the latter half of the eighth
century. We have in this poet a remarkable instance of a man whose very
existence had been forgotten by his countrymen, and whose name, till
a few years ago, was absent from the most carefully written histories
of our literature. In the year 1857, however, a German professor[110]
discovered Cynewulf’s name in a charade prefixed to a collection of
Anglo-Saxon riddles. The clue thus followed led to other discoveries,
and now by the general consent of scholars many poems formerly
attributed to Caedmon are reclaimed for his fellow-Northumbrian
Cynewulf. The Riddles which are sometimes attributed to this poet
are considered by those who have studied them to show, amid much
misplaced ingenuity, considerable sensitiveness to the beauties of
Nature, and some power of description of the battle and the banquet.
It is interesting to observe how rapidly in these early Middle Ages a
literary fashion spread from country to country over the whole west
of Europe. Almost at the same time when the Northumbrian poet was
composing his curious poetical riddles, Paul the Lombard and Peter of
Pisa were discharging at one another acrostic riddles and enigmatic
charades at the court of Charlemagne.
The most important of all the poems which have been conjecturally
assigned to this author is the beautiful “Vision of the Holy Rood,”
some lines of which are carved upon the Ruthwell Cross still existing
in Dumfriesshire. In this poem the author describes the appearance
to him in a dream of the holy wood which had once been a tree in the
forest, and was then cut down and fashioned into a cross for the
punishment of criminals, but received with awe upon its arms the
sacred body of the Lord of mankind. The Rood speaks:--
Then the young hero, who was mightiest God,
Strong and with steadfast mind,
Up to the cross with steps unfaltering trod
There to redeem mankind.
I trembled, but I durst not fail,
I on my shoulders bare the glorious King.
They pierce my sides with many a darksome nail,
And on us both their cruel curses fling.
The death, the burial and the resurrection of the Lord are related in
a similar strain of reverent compassion for the Almighty Sufferer, and
the Rood finally charges the poet to reveal the vision to all men,
inasmuch as the day is coming when Christ will ask who there is that
for His name will taste of bitter death as He did on the cross.
There is something which must needs move our sympathy when we see
the passion of pitying love with which these simple-hearted sons of
warriors received the story of the suffering Saviour. But, as has been
already said, the tide of religious emotion which had flowed so freely
in the seventh was already beginning to ebb in the eighth century. This
decay of religious life in England, or at any rate in Northumbria, is
vouched for in the memorable letter which Bede wrote shortly before
his death to his friend Egbert, who had just been consecrated bishop
and was shortly to become Archbishop of York. The letter itself is a
model of wise exhortation, boldly but respectfully tendered by an aged
saint to a man, his junior in years but his superior in ecclesiastical
rank. Bede is evidently sure of the goodness of his pupil’s intentions,
but anxious lest he should not have sufficient force of character to
make head against the corruption of the times. Ever since the death of
King Aldfrid, which happened thirty years before (705), the decline
in morals had gone on at a rapid pace. He holds the bishops largely
responsible for this degeneracy. They have insisted on retaining
dioceses larger than any one man could possibly administer. They have,
for filthy lucre, given their consent to all sorts of grants which
should never have been made. They and their clergy have clutched
eagerly at the shepherd’s hire, leaving the flock unfed. “There are,
as we hear, many farms and villages on lonely mountains or in brambly
wildernesses, in which for many years the face of a priest has never
been seen, and neither baptisms nor confirmations are ever performed,
and yet not one of the dwellers in such places is ever allowed to
escape from the payment of church-dues.”
But the greatest scandal of all in Bede’s day seems to have been the
foundation of pseudo-monasteries by noble and wealthy laymen, who
intended anything rather than the leading of a life of religious
austerity. Intent apparently on securing the creature-comforts which
a well-endowed monastery afforded; intent also on escaping under the
pretence of a religious life the duties of military service for their
king and country, these pseudo-abbots would obtain a large grant of
land from the king, and would there rear their unholy convents, in
which, freed from all laws, human or divine, they would live their
lives of licentious ease, waited on by troops of menial monks, who had
generally been themselves expelled from genuine monasteries, by reason
of their irregular lives. Nay, sometimes these impostors would go even
further, and persuade a foolish king to grant them a piece of land
adjoining the first donation, and would there erect a nunnery in which
their wives might, without taking any regular vows, pretend to be the
guides and rulers of maidens vowed to Christ.
These abuses had gone so far that the service of the state was
seriously impaired thereby. The lavish grants of land, both to the
genuine and the sham monasteries, had so impoverished the king that
he had no reserve land, from which to reward the sons of his thegns
or poor soldiers who had served him well in war. Hence these young
men either sped across the seas to countries which held out the hope
of a better career, or, being unable to marry, abandoned themselves
to illicit love and sank down into the lowest depths of sloth and
immorality. Bede’s recommendation was that as there were so many of
these places which were profitable neither to God nor man, with no true
service to God performed in them, and quite useless for the defence
of the realm, they, or at any rate one of them, should be seized and
converted into the seat of a new and much-needed bishopric. Such a
deed, far from being blamable as sacrilege, would deserve the praise
due to a most virtuous action. Subjection of all monasteries to some
external supervision and control; the suppression of as many as
possible of those nests of hypocrisy and vice, the sham monasteries;
and the formation of many new bishoprics--these were the remedial
measures which lay nearest to the heart of Bede. Whether Archbishop
Egbert, a noble and pure-minded man, friend of one king (Ceolwulf) and
brother of another (Eadbert), was able to carry into effect any of
Bede’s reforms it is impossible to say; but the subsequent course of
Anglo-Saxon history seems to point to a negative conclusion. It was,
perhaps, partly in these paradises of sin, in the pseudo-monasteries
of England, that the virility of the nation was sapped and the way
prepared for so many a miserable surrender to the Danish invaders.
In the general decline of morals during the eighth century NORTHUMBRIA
was especially conspicuous, if we may draw any conclusion from
its political history. In the course of that century fifteen
kings swayed the sceptre, and of these, five were deposed, five
murdered, two voluntarily abdicated the throne. It is no wonder that
Northumbria, once so glorious, now became the basest of the kingdoms;
that Charlemagne, on hearing of one of these murders, called the
Northumbrian Angles “a perfidious and perverse nation, worse than the
pagans, murderers of their lords”; or that the northern kingdom was
found utterly unable to cope with the storm of Danish invasion when it
beat upon its shores. It would serve no good purpose to give the names
and dates of accession of all these kings, most of whom are to us mere
names in an arid chronicle, but we may single out for special notice
two who reigned in the first half of the century, Ceolwulf and Eadbert.
Ceolwulf, a descendant of Ida but not of Oswald’s line, in the words
of William of Malmesbury “mounted the trembling summit of the kingdom”
in the year 729. He is memorable for us as the friend of Bede and
the sovereign to whom he showed and dedicated his _Ecclesiastical
History_; and for his liberality to the Church he was looked upon with
much favour by ecclesiastics. But the throne did not cease to tremble
when he ascended it. In 731 he was taken prisoner, no doubt, by some
of his rebellious subjects, was forcibly tonsured and consigned to a
monastery. He was, however, soon restored to his kingdom and reigned,
it would seem, with comparative tranquillity for six years, during
which time he must have received and may have read the _Ecclesiastical
History_. In 737 “thinking it contrary to the gravity of the Christian
character to be immersed in worldly affairs,” he abdicated the kingdom
and became a monk at Lindisfarne. The abdication and the monastic
profession were this time probably voluntary. The rare sanctity which
he displayed in the convent procured for him the honour of burial near
the tomb of St. Cuthbert and miracles were believed to be wrought at
his grave.
The chosen successor of Ceolwulf was his cousin Eadbert (737–58),
a strong and strenuous ruler who once more pushed the Northumbrian
border far into Scotland, adding a part of Ayrshire to his dominions,
and so impressing the surrounding states with the terror of his name
that the Angles of Mercia, the Picts, the Scots and the Britons of
Strathclyde, all remained at peace with him during the greater part
of his reign and delighted to do him honour. By a combination of
circumstances, probably unique in English history, the brother of this
powerful king was Egbert, archbishop of York (734–66), the prelate to
whom Bede addressed the letter of counsel just quoted. Egbert’s tenure
of the see was in itself memorable. He was the first occupant of that
see after Paulinus to hold the rank of archbishop and to receive his
_pallium_ from the pope. He did for the church library at York what
Benedict had done for Jarrow and Wearmouth, obtaining for it large
stores of precious manuscripts and laying the foundation of that great
ecclesiastical school the glory of which culminated in Alcuin. As for
his brother, King Eadbert, his fame spread far and wide, and in him the
glory of Oswald and of Oswy seemed about to be revived. But towards
the close of his reign his fortune changed. In the year 756, when he
had been nineteen years on the throne, he, in alliance with the King
of the Picts, led an army against the strong city of Alclyde, the
modern Dumbarton, which was the capital of the kingdom of Strathclyde.
The allied operations were at first successful. Alcuith surrendered
on August 1, but only nine days later almost the whole of Eadbert’s
army perished in its march through Perthshire. We have no hint of the
cause of the disaster, but we may, if we like, imagine a well-planned
ambuscade in some Perthshire glen, an anticipation by nearly a thousand
years of the battle of Killiecrankie.
Was it depression of spirits at this lamentable change in his
fortunes, or was it merely that weariness of reigning which overcame
so many Anglian kings, that drove Eadbert into the monastery? In the
twenty-first year of his reign, notwithstanding the earnest dissuasion
of his neighbour-kings, some of whom, we are told, offered to add
part of their realms to his if he would continue to reign, Eadbert,
“for the love of God, and desiring to take the heavenly country by
storm, received on his head St. Peter’s tonsure,” and handed over his
kingdom to his son Oswulf. He continued in his religious seclusion for
ten years till his death in 768, and was buried at York in the same
_porticus_ of the church which held his brother, the archbishop, who
had died two years before him. There is some reason to suppose that
after the unfortunate issue of Eadbert’s campaign in 756, the border of
Bernicia being withdrawn a long way to the south, the capital of that
kingdom was transferred from Bamburgh to Corbridge in the valley of
the Tyne, some seventy miles south-west of Bamburgh. Corbridge was the
Corstopitum of the Romans, a station on the northern Watling Street,
and still shows some interesting relics of Roman occupation. About the
same time we find indications that Cataractonium, now Catterick, the
most northerly Roman station within the limits of Yorkshire, became a
royal residence, perhaps as a supplemental palace to that at Eburacum.
Thus we see that even four centuries after the departure of the legions
the charm of Roman civilisation still lingered round the places where
they had dwelt, though these are represented in our own day by villages
whose very names are obscure except to antiquaries.
In the latter half of the century the lawful line of Northumbrian
kings, the sons of Ida, was frequently broken by usurpers of unknown
lineage, chief among whom were a certain Ethelwald Moll and his son
Ethelred. The latter, an _impiissimus rex_, in the language of the
chronicler, reigned from 774 to 779, was expelled in the latter year,
and returned in 790 to wreak vengeance on the princes of the lawful
line. The two sons of his predecessor, when apparently little more than
children, were lured from their sanctuary in the cathedral at York by
promises of safety and protection, and were drowned in Windermere by
order of the usurper. Their cousin Osred, who had for a short time
worn the crown, was similarly enticed from the Isle of Man, captured
and slain. Ethelred sought to strengthen himself by an alliance with
Offa, the powerful King of Mercia, whose daughter Elfleda he married
at Catterick in 792, the year of Osred’s murder. But for all his
precautions he could not escape the usual fate of Northumbrian kings.
In 796 he was slain “by his own people” at Corbridge.
The man who sat upon “the trembling throne” at the end of the century
was a certain ealdorman named Eardulf, who six years before his
accession had had a narrow and, as some men thought, miraculous escape
from death. The tyrant Ethelred, whose anger he had somehow incurred,
ordered him to be executed outside the gates of the monastery of Ripon.
The monks with solemn chants bore his body to the church for burial and
left it for the night at the lych-gate. There soon after midnight some
faithful follower found him still alive and helped him to escape. His
resurrection seems to have been concealed from Ethelred, and, as has
been said, the year 800 found him reigning as king over Northumbria.
* * * * *
From Northumbria we turn to the central kingdom of MERCIA. The eighth
century was the time of the greatest glory of that kingdom, and for
many years it seemed as if from that quarter rather than from Wessex
would come the needed consolidation of England; as if Lichfield, rather
than Winchester or even London, might be the destined capital of the
country. It was chiefly under two kings, Ethelbald and Offa, whose
united reigns occupied eighty years (from 716 to 796), that Mercia
attained this high position. Penda’s grandson, Ceolred, King of Mercia,
died insane in 716, being thus punished, according to St. Boniface,
for the sins which he had committed in defrauding the Church of her
possessions and making the vowed virgins of her convents minister
to his lusts. He was succeeded by a remote relation, Ethelbald,
who was not a lineal descendant of Penda, and whom, jealous of his
great qualities, Ceolred had driven forth from his court. In his
fugitive wanderings Ethelbald had visited more than once the far-famed
sanctuary of Crowland,[111] where amidst the vast fens of Lincoln and
Cambridgeshire, dotted over with desolate forest-islands, the holy
man Guthlac, the Cuthbert of Mercia, had made for himself a hermit’s
retreat, and, with only two servants for his companions in that
infinite loneliness, had practised austerities surpassing those of
the hermits of the Thebaid. Guthlac had the usual experiences of the
fever-stricken solitary, being assailed at night by demons with great
heads, hideous faces, long horse-like teeth and horrible harsh voices,
which croaked forth temptation, in the language not of the Angle but of
the Briton. This sorely buffeted but eminently holy man, who died in
714 at the age of forty-one, and whose life in the wilderness lasted
only fifteen years, had during that term acquired great renown as a
saint. His fame spread far and wide through Mercia, and people of
all ranks flocked to him for healing or for counsel. Among these was
the outcast Ethelbald, to whom Guthlac predicted that he should soon
without strife possess the Mercian throne, a prophecy which was shortly
fulfilled when his cousin and enemy was stricken with madness, while
sitting at the banquet with his _gesiths_ all round him.
Ethelbald swayed the sceptre of Mercia for forty-one years (716–57).
He was evidently a strong and strenuous, if somewhat unscrupulous
ruler. In the early part of his reign he had so completely cowed Wessex
and conquered the other four southern kingdoms, that Bede, writing
the concluding paragraphs of his history in 731, could say: “All
the southern provinces up to the boundary of the Humber, with their
respective kings, are subject to Ethelbald, King of the Mercians”. In
733 we find him capturing Somerton, the chief town of the Sumorsaetas;
in 740 he turns his arms northwards and takes advantage of Eadbert’s
absence on his Pictish campaign to ravage Northumbria. But in his
last years fortune frowned upon him. In 750 Cuthred II., King of
Wessex, apparently an active and valiant man, rose in rebellion, and
in 752 won a great victory over Ethelbald at Burford on the slopes of
the Cotswolds, putting him to ignominious flight. Never apparently
did Mercia recover the supremacy over Wessex which she lost on that
battlefield, and in 757 Ethelbald, who must have been an unpopular
master of his household, perished by a night attack of his own guards.
Notwithstanding his early friendship for St. Guthlac, Ethelbald was
not a pious nor even a moral king. There is preserved a remarkable
letter addressed to him by St. Boniface,[112] in which the apostle
of Germany, while praising the vigour and justice of his government,
rebukes him for his outrageous profligacy, and expresses his fear that
some great national judgment, like the Moorish conquest of Spain,
will fall upon the kings and peoples of England for their luxury and
immorality--a remarkable prophecy, as it must have seemed to later
generations, of the Danish ravages.
After a short interval of unrest the Mercian throne was filled by
Offa, a distant relation of Ethelbald, who reigned for nearly forty
years (757–96), and who in some ways seems to deserve the title of the
greatest of Mercian kings. The everlasting contest with Wessex was
renewed, and Offa’s victory at Bensington in Oxfordshire (779) did
something towards obliterating the disgrace of Burford and probably
gave what is now the county of Oxford to the middle kingdom. From
various causes Offa had now acquired so great a predominance that he
was able to carry into effect a change in the ecclesiastical geography
of England which was little less than a revolution. This was the
creation of a new archbishopric for the Midlands. We may imagine that
he reasoned in this wise: “Northumbria has now its archbishopric at
York. The archbishop of Canterbury is too much overshadowed by the
greatness of my rival of Wessex. Why should not I, the most powerful
king in Britain, have an archbishop of my own here in Mercia?”
This reasoning prevailed. In 787 a synod, ever after known as “the
contentious synod,” was held at Chelsea, and thereat, we are told,
seven out of the twelve dioceses of the southern province were
placed under the archbishop of Lichfield, being rent away from their
dependence on Canterbury. The meaning of this change is obvious. There
were now three great English kingdoms: Northumbria, Wessex and Mercia,
and three corresponding archbishoprics, York, Lichfield and Canterbury.
The Thames was the boundary between the central and southern provinces,
except that Essex with Middlesex was included in the latter. East
Anglia was evidently, in ecclesiastical matters as well as in things
political, subject to Mercia, a fact which accounts for the abrupt
entry in the Chronicle for 792[113] (794): “Offa, King of the
Mercians, ordered the head of Ethelbert, King [of the East Angles],
to be struck off”. The new ecclesiastical arrangement lasted for only
sixteen years. In 803 Offa’s successor Cenwulf voluntarily restored all
the metropolitan rights of the see of Canterbury.
There is one still existing memorial by which the name of Offa yet
survives in the mouths of men. This is Offa’s Dyke (called by the Welsh
_Clawdd Offa_), a great earthen rampart flanked by a ditch, which ran
from the mouth of the Dee to the mouth of the Wye, a distance of some
130 miles, and divided the territories of the Mercians from those of
the Welsh. For a considerable portion of its course this rampart is
still visible, in some places only as a low bank but in others showing
a height of 30 feet to the summit of the mound from the bottom of the
ditch on its western side. It nearly corresponds with the present
boundary between England and Wales, except that it cuts off from
England a portion of Hereford and the whole of Monmouth. In part of its
course it is duplicated by another embankment called Wat’s Dyke, about
three miles to the east of it, and this work also, in the belief of
some antiquaries, belongs to the age of Offa. Though we are distinctly
told, on good authority, that the object of this huge work was military
defence, it is probable that, like the _Vallum_ in Northumberland and
the _Pfahlgraben_ in Germany, it was also a geographical boundary, and
served a useful purpose in time of peace, as marking the limit of two
rival jurisdictions and clearly indicating to which of them pertained
the duty of punishing robbery or murder committed on either side of the
border. This dyke probably commemorates the result of the “Devastation
of the southern Britons wrought by Offa” which is noted by the
_Cambrian Annals_ under the years 778 and 784; and the effect of these
campaigns seems to have been to push back the Welsh frontier from the
Severn to the Wye--no unimportant augmentation of the Mercian kingdom.
The diplomatic correspondence of the period shows us how large loomed
the figure of Offa in the eyes of his contemporaries. Pope Hadrian I.
in writing to Charlemagne calls him absolutely “rex Anglorum,” and
at the same time earnestly expresses his disbelief in a rumour which
had reached his ears that the two kings of the Franks and the Angles
were plotting his own deposition from the papacy, and the appointment
of a Frankish ecclesiastic in his place. This, however, was probably
an idle rumour, set afloat by some of Hadrian’s enemies in order to
work upon the fears of the elderly pontiff. Offa, himself, seems to
have received the legates of the Holy See with reverence and to have
availed himself of their help in regulating the affairs of his new
archbishopric. Moreover, he ordained, probably as a thank-offering for
the papal assistance in this matter, that his kingdom should send a
yearly offering of 365 _mancuses_ (about £130), one for each day in the
year, to the holy see.
There were, however, some difficulties connected with the frequent
English pilgrimages to Rome; too frequent according to Alcuin for the
good repute of the Anglo-Saxon dames who engaged in them; and too
frequent, as the tax collectors of Charles the Great considered, by
reason of the number of merchants who, under the guise of holiness,
transacted a profitable business in the transport of specie and
merchandise. These difficulties were, however, set right by a friendly
letter from Charles to the effect that true pilgrims should receive all
due protection from him, but that merchants masquerading as pilgrims
must pay the regular customs dues. This letter, written in 796, was
accompanied by the present of a belt, a Hunnish sword and two silken
vestments, part of the huge spoil taken in the previous year from the
robber hold of the Avars. It seems to have healed an old estrangement
between the two kings dating from 789, the result of the failure of
matrimonial negotiations between them. Charles had solicited the
hand of Offa’s daughter for his son and namesake, and Offa had been
willing to consent, on condition that Charles’s daughter, Bertha,
should become the bride of his son, Ecgferth. On this point, however,
the negotiations broke down, owing to Charles’s well-known reluctance
to part with any of his daughters. For a short time the relations
between the two kingdoms were sorely strained, and decrees forbidding
the entrance of merchants were issued by either angry sovereign, but
gradually the dispute died down, perhaps partly owing to the mediation
of Alcuin, who was English by birth and loyal to his English friends,
but Frank by adoption and a true subject to Charles. At last, as
we have seen, all wounds were healed by the application of an Avar
baldric, a sword and two mantles.
Offa died in 796, and his son and successor Ecgferth followed him to
the grave in four months. This untimely death of a young and hopeful
prince was, according to monastic writers, a punishment for the many
crimes of his father, especially for the execution of the East Anglian
Ethelbert. Cenwulf, who succeeded to the Mercian throne, was not of
Offa’s line, though like him a collateral descendant of Penda. Of his
reign, which lasted well on into the ninth century (796–821), nothing
need here be said, save that in its third year he invaded Kent, which
had revolted from his rule and set up a rival king named Edbert Pren,
possibly a descendant of the old Kentish line. Edbert was defeated and
taken prisoner by the soldiers of Offa, who, after cutting out his
tongue and chopping off his hands, sent him as a prisoner into Mercia.
With all its vaunted prosperity, the central kingdom does not seem to
have made great progress in civilisation since the days of Penda.
* * * * *
Save for some conflicts with Wales, in which the Cymri appear generally
to have been worsted, the history of the WEST SAXON kingdom in the
eighth century consisted chiefly of that protracted struggle with
Mercia which has been briefly sketched in the foregoing pages. But
the story of the death of Cynewulf in 786 is told in the Chronicle
with such vividness and in such detail that an attempt must be made to
reproduce it here. Cynewulf, a kinsman of the victorious Cuthred, had
expelled that king’s successor, Sigebert, and driven him into exile.
After thirty years of reigning, Cynewulf had to meet the face of the
avenger, Sigebert’s brother, Cyneheard, who is called in the Chronicle
“the Etheling”. Learning that the king, slenderly guarded, was visiting
a woman at Merton, Cyneheard with a band of his _gesiths_ surrounded
the house and rode through the gate of the great courtyard to the
door of the lady’s bower. Surprised and unable to summon his guards,
the king rushed to the door, and in the narrow entrance defended
himself bravely and with success till he caught sight of the Etheling.
Then with a sudden burst of rage he dashed forward, sorely wounded
his enemy, but was himself surrounded and slain by Cyneheard’s men.
Meantime the lady’s cries aroused the king’s thegns who were in the
great hall, ignorant of what had happened, and they hastened to the
scene of tumult, each running as fast as he could. The Etheling, who
had no quarrel with them, offered them quarter and money in return for
peace, but they refused his terms and continued fighting, outnumbered
as they were, till they were all slain but one man, “and he,” says
the chronicler apologetically, “was [only] a Welshman, a hostage and
already sorely wounded”.
Next morning, when the main body of the king’s thegns, whom he had left
behind when he rode to Merton, heard what had happened, they galloped
to the house, headed by the Ealdorman Osric, but found the Etheling
in possession and the gate of the courtyard closed against them. A
parley was called, and Cyneheard offered the new-comers their own terms
in money and land if they would join his party and win for him the
kingdom, adding with uncomprehended irony: “There are kinsmen of yours
now with me in the house, and they, I know, will never leave me”. “No
kinsman,” answered the thegns, “can be dearer to us than our lord, and
we will never follow his murderer.” The offer of quarter which they in
turn made to the Etheling’s _gesiths_ was rejected with equal scorn.
“We care no more for your offer,” said they, “than did your comrades
for ours, and they”--now at last the truth came out--“were all slain
with the king.” Then followed fierce fighting round the gates, till at
last the king’s thegns, who were the stronger party, forced their way
in and slew the Etheling and all the men with him, save one who had
already received many wounds and was godson to Ealdorman Osric by whom
his life was preserved. Once again we note the unshakable fidelity of
the “comrades” to their lord.
On the death of Cynewulf, Beorhtric (786–802), a distant kinsman,
succeeded to the West Saxon throne. Royal genealogies were by this time
in much confusion, and all that the chronicler could say concerning
his descent was that “his right father’s kin goeth unto Cerdic”.
Beorhtric’s reign, in itself unimportant, is chiefly interesting to
us by reason of a certain competitor, for the time an unsuccessful
competitor, for the crown. This was none other than a young man named
Egbert, who, it was said, could trace his line back through a brother
of King Ine to Ceawlin and so to Cerdic. His father, Ealhmund, had
been under-king of Kent, whether under Mercia or Wessex it would be
difficult to say; indeed the whole of Egbert’s early career is veiled
in obscurity. All that seems to be certain is that he had pretensions
of some kind to the kingship of Wessex, which made him obnoxious to
Beorhtric and forced him to seek shelter at the Mercian court. Thence,
however, he was driven in 789 when Beorhtric obtained in marriage the
hand of Offa’s daughter, Eadburh. Ethelred of Northumbria having soon
after married another daughter of the same house, there was evidently
no safe resting-place in England for the fugitive prince, who betook
himself to the court of Charles the Great and there abode for thirteen
years till the death of his rival. In 802, Beorhtric died, and Egbert,
returning to England, seems to have been without opposition raised to
the West Saxon throne.
According to Asser, the biographer of Alfred the Great, the death of
Beorhtric was due to his wife. That daughter of Offa, if Asser may
be trusted, as soon as she had established her influence in the West
Saxon palace, “began in her father’s manner to act tyrannically”. She
undermined to the utmost of her power the king’s best counsellors by
slandering them to her husband, and those whom she could not thus
displace she removed by poison. A draught of poison which she had thus
prepared for a young man greatly beloved by Beorhtric was inadvertently
tasted by the king and caused his death, which of course involved
Eadburh’s downfall. Carrying with her great hoards of treasure, she
sought the Frankish court where her husband’s rival, Egbert, had so
lately been sheltered. As she stood in the hall of audience and offered
rich presents to the emperor, Charles said to her, perhaps in jest:
“Choose, Eadburh, which you will have, me or my son who stands here
with me under the dais”. She thoughtlessly answered: “If I may really
have my choice, I choose your son, inasmuch as he is the younger of the
two”. Whereupon Charles answered with a smile: “If you had chosen me,
you should have had my son, but now since you have chosen him you shall
have neither”. An improbable story truly, but one which shows the sort
of legend which already ere the end of the ninth century was springing
up around the name of Charlemagne. Eadburh, however, received from
the emperor the gift of a great abbey which she ruled for some time.
Then, being convicted of unchastity, she was expelled from the convent,
wandered over Europe, begging her daily bread, and died at last in
misery at Pavia. Such was the end of the daughter of the mighty Offa.
So detestable, says Asser, was the memory of Eadburh’s crimes that
for generations the West Saxons would not allow the wife of one of
their kings to be called queen, but would only allow her the title of
consort.
CHAPTER XV.
EARLY DANISH INVASIONS--EGBERT AND ETHELWULF.
Two entries which strictly belong to the eighth century have been
reserved for this place, because they are rather foreshadowings of
what was to befal in the years after 800, than characteristic of what
was happening in the years preceding it. At some unnamed date in the
reign of Beorhtric, King of Wessex, but probably about the year 790,
the Chronicle tells us that “first came three ships of Northmen.[114]
And then the reeve rode thereto and would fain drive them to the king’s
vill, for he knew not what [manner of men] they were and there they
slew him. These were the first ships of Danish men that sought the land
of the English race.” This short but ominous entry is a tocsin ringing
in 300 years of strife. The words of the Chronicle and of its copyist
Ethelweard seem to suggest that the ships’ crews came with peaceful
intent; that the king’s reeve--a man whose office was something like
that of steward or bailiff--tried to exact some payment from them, and
for that purpose to force them to enter some royal settlement, but
found to his cost that these were no sheep that would stand quiet for
his shearing, but fierce war-wolves, capable of turning upon him with
hungry teeth and rending him in pieces.
This first affray with the Danes evidently took place in Wessex; and,
if we may believe the historian Ethelweard, the royal vill where the
reeve resided was Dorchester. But the Scandinavians having seen, as the
Saxons did before them, “the nothingness of the natives,” of course
came again, and this time (793) to Northumbria. Dire presentiments had
already cowed the hearts of the people; hurricanes blew and lightnings
flashed, and (if we like to trust the chronicler) fiery flying serpents
hurtled through the air. Then came a great famine, and then (June
8) “the heathen men” [Danes] “miserably destroyed God’s church at
Lindisfarne with rapine and slaughter”. The desecration of so holy
a place shed horror through western Christendom. “It is now,” wrote
Alcuin to the Northumbrian King Ethelred, “about 350 years that we and
our fathers have dwelt in this most beautiful country, and never before
has such a terrible thing befallen Britain as that which we have now
suffered from the pagans. Nor was it, in fact, thought possible that a
voyage of that kind could ever have been made”--a strange illustration
of the lost seamanship of the Anglo-Saxons. “Lo now the church of
St. Cuthbert is stained with the blood of the priests of God. It is
despoiled of all its ornaments. The most venerable place in Britain has
been given to pagan nations for a prey.”
The ninth century, upon which we now enter, too truly verified the
forebodings of the prophets of evil. It began indeed in glory, with
Charles the Frank acclaimed at Rome as Augustus, and meditating the
revival of the old Roman empire in all its splendour, the protection
of the widow and the fatherless, the humbling of all lawless power,
the foundation of St. Augustine’s City of God. But the new empire had
scarcely been founded when it began to crumble; all through the middle
years of the century it sank lower and lower into the morass. With the
deposition of Charles the Fat in 887 and his death in 888 the last
Carolingian emperor vanished from the scene. Saracen pirates ravaged
the shores of the Mediterranean, besieged Rome (846), rifled the tombs
of the apostles and hurled their lances at the mosaic picture of Christ
in the apse of St. Peter’s. Ere the century was ended, Hungarian Arpad
was renewing in Central Europe the ravages of Attila. Everywhere there
was “distress of nations with perplexity”--perplexity made all the more
terrible by the fact that the popes themselves, the men to whom Europe
looked for counsel and for cheer, were throughout this century for the
most part men of poor and feeble character. It was the age which saw
the posthumous condemnation of Pope Formosus, the age in which the
malevolent credulity of a later generation placed the fable of Pope
Joan.
But greater than all the other calamities which befel Europe during
this period was unquestionably the misery caused by the raids of
Scandinavian free-booters. A well-known story describes how Charles the
Great saw the ships of the Northmen approaching the city in Provence
where he then dwelt. As soon as the pirates perceived that they would
have to deal with the great emperor himself, they sheered off in
well-advised caution, but Charles stood at the eastern window of his
palace gazing at their departing sails, and as he gazed he wept. None
of his courtiers durst ask him the reason of his tears, but he himself
deigned thus to explain them: “I weep for sorrow that they should have
dared in my lifetime to approach this coast, and because I foresee how
much misery they will cause to those who come after me”. Whatever may
be the truth of this story, there is no doubt that Charles’s alleged
prophecy was fatally verified. Engrossed as we generally are by the
story of Danish ravages in England, we are apt to forget that, at least
in the ninth century, France and Germany suffered nearly as much from
the same calamity. All round the coast from Denmark to Spain, wherever
a broad estuary invited their presence, there the Danish pirates
entered and ravaged. The Elbe, the Rhine, the Seine, the Loire and
the Garonne were all furrowed by their keels. Hamburg, Paris, Rouen,
Bordeaux, Marseilles and countless other cities were sacked by them;
some, especially Paris, more than once.
A student of Scandinavian history may well inquire, not why the raids
of the Northmen were terrible in the ninth and two following centuries,
but why they had not begun long before. Here was a poor and hardy
population, inhabiting a country so deeply indented by the sea that it
was impossible for its sons to be mere landsmen; in fact a population
which for more than a thousand years has been more enthusiastically
seafaring than any other in the world. Within a few days’ sail of their
homes were the shores of Britain and of Gaul, countries peopled by
races which had lost their old love of the sea, and were for the most
part sunk in swinish pleasures; rich countries, too, according to the
estimate of that day, everywhere studded with convents in which pious
women or unwarlike men were hoarding up gold and silver and jewels for
the glory of the White Christ. There was yet no settled order in any
of the Northmen’s own lands. The history of Denmark, Sweden and Norway
in the seventh and eighth centuries is mere chaos. The title of king
was easily earned and easily lost. In the sagas of the _Heimskringla_
piracy is treated as the normal occupation of every young Northman
of noble birth. “Eric’s sons warred much in the eastern lands, but
sometimes they harried in Norway.” “There harried Olaf and slew many
men, and burned some out of house and home, and took much wealth.”
Entries such as these (though of a rather later date than we have yet
reached) occur on almost every other page of the great Icelandic epic,
and give us the impression that the young Scandinavian gathered ships
together and “harried” the Baltic lands or the shores of the German or
Atlantic Ocean, in the same way in which the young Englishman went the
grand tour in the eighteenth century, or in the nineteenth became owner
of a ranch.
The ships of the vikings, if we may judge from the few specimens
preserved in the museums of Denmark and Norway, though well built of
their kind, were not much better than large open boats, undecked,
averaging about seventy feet long, and drawing not more than four feet
of water. They had only one mast with a square sail, and they trusted
rather to rowing than to sailing for their progress. Except on the
largest ships, about fifteen or sixteen men at a time, with a like
number relieving them, and sixty or seventy fighting men, or a hundred
in all, may have been the complement of a viking ship. There was no
difference between prow and stern, and the vessel could be worked in
either direction, the steering being managed by an oar at the side. The
high-pointed prow at either end was often fashioned into the likeness
of some animal, generally a dragon or a serpent. It is evident that
such a craft as these, however well adapted for navigation in the long
sheltered fiords of Norway, would not be very safe in an Atlantic
storm.[115] It is probable, therefore, that the Northmen would be
careful observers of the weather, and would generally choose a season
of calm weather for slipping across the German Ocean. Once arrived at
the English or Irish coast, they would choose some island near to the
mainland and make it their lair, from whence they might issue forth
to plunder and destroy. Especially convenient for their purpose, as
for that of their Saxon predecessors, were such islands as Sheppey and
Thanet, separated from fertile Kent only by narrow channels in which
the dragon-ships could lie sheltered from winds and waves. Dear also to
the heart of the Northman buccaneer were the estuaries of great rivers,
Humber, Severn, Thames, Seine and Loire. Here they could collect their
ships, scattered perchance in the course of their passage over the
ocean, could watch the movements of the militia gathering for the
defence of the country, and then at the right moment could row rapidly
up the broad stream, capture and sack some unsuspecting city, and
gather great store of gold and jewels from some rich cathedral. This,
the collection of treasures from the more civilised lands of the south,
was, after all, the chief incentive to the early vikings in their wild
sea-rovings. Herein they were like the first generation of Elizabethan
adventurers in the Spanish main, to whom the plunder of the Plate-fleet
seemed the supreme object of desire, though with the viking, as with
the buccaneer, thoughts of settlement and of conquest came later, and
they who had come to ravage remained to rule.
The _Here_,[116] the great Danish armament which appears and reappears
so often in the pages of the Chronicle--one imagines the studious monk
in his _scriptorium_ trembling as he writes the very word--seems to
have been generally composed of foot soldiers hewing with swords or
wielding their great two-handed battle-axes, armed with strong round
shields and with byrnies or coats-of-mail, and beginning the fight by
sending a cloud of javelins at their foes. Gradually, however, they
learned the advantage of possessing a force of cavalry; and one of
their first exploits on landing was to scour the country for horses,
by means of which they could ravage the land far and wide where their
ships could not carry them. They were, however, in strictness mounted
infantry rather than cavalry. Their horses bore them swiftly to the
battle-field. When they had reached it they dismounted and fought on
foot.
Not even the Icelandic Sagas with all their poetic fire can win us to
unmixed admiration of the lives of these freebooters. They had some
noble qualities, but notwithstanding these they were still barbarians.
They were ancestors of the most chivalrous nations of Europe, and they
possessed some of the qualities inherent in chivalry, such as courage,
endurance, loyalty, honour to the women of their tribe. But on the
other hand--if any reliance is to be placed on the statements of the
Chronicle--they would often swear most solemnly to a treaty and then
ride away and break it. They often tortured their captives; their hands
were heavy on the weak, on little children and on women. This is the
less to be wondered at, since owing to the poverty of their country
they often left their own new-born children to perish. Their blows fell
with especial ferocity on the churches and monasteries of Britain: a
fact which may probably be accounted for by the fact that these were
the chief treasure-houses of the invaded lands.
The assaults of the Danes upon the Saxons, like those of the Saxons
upon the Romanised Britons, fall naturally into three periods,[117] the
first of robbery, the second of settlement, and the third of conquest.
The chronological limits of these three periods may be approximately
fixed as follows: pillage, from 790 to 851; settlement, from 851 to
897; conquest (after a pause of nearly a century), from 980 to 1016.
Terrible as were the ravages of the Scandinavian invaders, it is
generally admitted that on the whole the benefit which resulted
therefrom was greater than the suffering. That benefit was the
consolidation of Anglo-Saxon England into one kingdom. In the
thirty-seven years of the reign of Egbert of Wessex he attained, by
steps which we are about to trace, to a supremacy which was probably
wider than that of any of the Bretwaldas who had preceded him, and
which in some degree justifies the popular conception of his position
as founder of the English monarchy, though the unity of England was
not in truth realised till a century later. But other Bretwaldas had
been nearly as powerful as Egbert, and their overlordship in the hands
of feeble descendants had melted away, while the “particularism” of
the several lesser kingdoms had again successfully asserted itself.
It may be doubted whether Egbert’s supremacy would not have gone the
way of all the previous supremacies, but for that terrible series of
Scandinavian invasions which seemed at the time to threaten not merely
the prosperity but the very life of Anglo-Saxon peoples. For a century
the terrible struggle continued and then ended for a time, to be
renewed indeed with almost equal fury after an interval of rest; but
the effect of that first fierce discipline was greatly to weaken if not
altogether to destroy the spirit of particularism in the Anglo-Saxon
states. After Athelstan’s death in 940 there was scarcely any serious
thought of reestablishing Mercia or Northumbria as a separate kingdom
from Wessex. Hard and cruel were the blows stricken by the hammer of
Thor, but they had the effect of welding Angles, Saxons and Jutes into
one people.
The upward career of EGBERT of Wessex (802–839) must now be briefly
described. As has been said, he returned from exile on the death of his
foe, Beorhtric, and apparently without a contest was raised to the West
Saxon throne. On the very day of his accession there was a great fight
between the Mercians, commanded by the Ealdorman of the Hwiccas and
the West Saxons under the generalship of the Ealdorman of Wilts. Both
Ealdormen were slain, but victory is said to have rested with the men
of Wiltshire. With this exception, the first thirteen years of Egbert’s
reign passed in peace. Cenwulf of Mercia, whose dominions, including,
as they did, Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Essex, wrapped Wessex all round
to the east, was too powerful to be lightly assailed. When Egbert’s old
patron, Charlemagne, died in 814, there was nothing to betoken that the
exile whom he had befriended would achieve anything more than a petty
and precarious West Saxon royalty. In the following year, however,
the long-interrupted movement westward was once more resumed. Egbert
“harried West Wales from east to west”; in other words, he overran
Cornwall from the Tamar to the Land’s End. Though the process of
subjugation was not yet complete, this was the beginning of the end of
Cornish independence.
In 821 Cenwulf, the powerful King of Mercia, died, and there were
troubles in the palace at Lichfield. After the murder of his son,
a child of seven years old, and the deposition of his brother, an
usurper named Beornwulf obtained the crown. The discords thus caused
gave Egbert the opportunity for which he had probably long waited. He
declared war on Beornwulf, met him in battle at Ellandune, probably
in the north of Wiltshire, and after a most bloody fight completely
defeated him. Intent on gathering at once the most important fruits of
victory, Egbert sent his son Ethelwulf to the region of Kent, where
his own father had once held sway. Baldred, King of Kent, the vassal
of Mercia, was expelled; the three south-eastern counties and Essex,
which included the city of London, gladly accepted the rule of Egbert,
who was represented by his son Ethelwulf as under-king, and the long
struggle between Mercia and Wessex for the possession of that corner
of England was at an end. East Anglia, with her bitter memories of
Mercian perfidy, to which her King Ethelbert had fallen a victim thirty
years before, now rose in rebellion, relying on the protection of
Egbert, and succeeded in defeating and slaying the Mercian king (826?).
After Beornwulf’s death Mercia could no longer offer any effectual
resistance. Egbert was soon acknowledged as overlord, and thus by about
the year 829 he had brought under his supremacy, though not under his
personal rule, the whole of England south of the Humber, and acquired
the mysterious title of Bretwalda, which (if the Saxon Chronicle may be
trusted) had been borne by no other sovereign since the death of Oswy,
a century and a half before.
The conqueror next moved against Northumbria, whose king Eanred did not
dare to accept the offer of battle. At Dore, among the hills of North
Derbyshire, not far from Sheffield, “the Northumbrians met him and
offered him obedience and peace, and with that they separated the one
from the other”. This transaction undoubtedly meant the acceptance of
Egbert as overlord, and his supremacy was thus at last assured over the
whole English portion of the island. Nor did he rest content herewith,
for in the next year “he led an army against the men of North Wales and
reduced them to humble” (though not permanent) “obedience”.
The last four years of Egbert’s life were disturbed by the raids of
the Danish invaders. For forty-one years after the raids in which the
Northumbrian sanctuaries were pillaged, the Northmen seem to have left
England unmolested, but during this time they had been sailing round
the north of Scotland, occupying the Hebrides and grievously harrying,
all but conquering, Ireland. Now in 835 Egbert, already a man advanced
in years, heard the grievous tidings that “heathen men were ravaging
the Isle of Sheppey”. Thus the Danes, like the Jutes four centuries
earlier, began their hostile operations with one of those curious
semi-islands which clustered round the coast of Kent. Sheppey, however,
was higher up the estuary of the Thames than Hengest’s Isle of Thanet.
Next year the Danes appeared on the coast of West Dorset. The crews
of thirty-five ships appeared off Charmouth, not far from Lyme Regis.
Egbert himself led his men to battle; there was a terrible slaughter,
in which two bishops and two ealdormen fell, and--ominous confession
of the West Saxon chronicler--“the Danes held the place of slaughter”.
Still, however, we have no hint of permanent occupation.
Two years later, in 838, there was a perilous combination of Northman
and Celt. “A mighty fleet” [evidently Danish] “came to West Wales and
they” [Danes and Cornishmen] “made an alliance to fight against Egbert.
When he heard that, he went forth and fought with them at Hengestdune,
and there he put to flight both Welshmen [Cornishmen] and Danes.”
At Hingston Down, a high moorland overlooking the Tamar, about four
miles north of the place where the great Saltash bridge now spans the
creek, this important victory was won. It was the last piece of work
that the old warrior accomplished. In 839 he “fared forth,” surely not
without some dark forebodings of the hard struggle that lay before his
descendants; and ETHELWULF his son reigned in his stead. The new king
seems to have ruled in person only over the ancestral Wessex, forming
the recently acquired kingdoms in the south-east of the island into a
dependency, of which his brother Athelstan was made under-king.
The teacher to whom the education of Ethelwulf when a boy had been
entrusted by his father, and who retained considerable influence over
him in manhood, was an ecclesiastic of noble birth named Swithun, who
is chiefly now remembered on account of the meteorological phenomena
connected with the day devoted to him in the calendar (July 15,
971).[118] The gentle and devout character of Ethelwulf seems to have
retained through life the impress of the teaching of the unworldly
St. Swithun, but he had also another counsellor by whom he was often
braced to the performance of the difficult work of reigning. This was
Ealhstan, a stirring warrior-prelate, who in 848 won a great and bloody
victory over the Danes, at the mouth of the Parret, in Bridgwater
Bay, fighting side by side with the ealdormen of Somerset and Dorset.
Ealhstan was bishop of the great diocese of Sherborne (including the
counties of Somerset and Devon), while Swithun in 852, towards the
end of Ethelwulf’s reign, was enthroned in the more dignified see of
Winchester.
The influence, in some respects the diverging influence, of these two
counsellors of the king is probably described with truth by the twelfth
century historian, William of Malmesbury. “These two eminent bishops,
seeing the king to be of somewhat dull and lethargic temperament,
stirred him up by frequent admonitions to the performance of his kingly
duties. Swithun, who looked on worldly things with disgust, moulded
the mind of his lord to the love of things heavenly. Ealhstan, who
thought that secular matters also should not be neglected, animated
him to the war against the Danes, himself often furnishing money to
the royal treasury, himself setting the battle in array. Any one who
reads our annals will find that many such affairs were resolutely begun
and gloriously ended by him.” The historian, however, remarks that he
cannot give Ealhstan the unmingled praise which he would willingly
offer, because of his unjust encroachments on the rights of the
monastery of Malmesbury.
Almost every year of Ethelwulf’s reign has its annal in the Chronicle,
telling of Danish ravages. The storm beat most persistently on Wessex.
Southampton (840), Portland (840), Charmouth (843), the mouth of the
Parret (848), Wembury (?) (854), were all scenes of battle with the
Danes, generally, but not always, disastrous for the English. The other
parts of the country did not escape unharmed. In 841 Lindsey, East
Anglia and Kent saw widespread slaughter. In 844 Redwulf, King of
Northumbria, met his death at the hands of the invaders. In 851, three
hundred and fifty ships came to the mouth of the Thames; their crews
took Canterbury and London by storm, and put to flight the king of the
Mercians who had advanced to meet them. There, however, their success
ended. Crossing the Thames into Surrey, they were met by Ethelwulf
and his eldest son Ethelbald leading the West Saxon _fyrd_. Battle
was joined at Ockley, on the edge of the chalk downs which look into
the adjoining county of Sussex, and there the West Saxon king in the
words of the Chronicle, “made the greatest slaughter among the heathen
army that we have heard of till this present day, and there gained the
victory”.
However complete the victory of Ockley might be, its importance is
much diminished by the entry which precedes it in the Chronicle:
“And the heathen men for the first time took up their quarters over
winter in Thanet”. We thus enter on the second of the above-mentioned
periods--the stage of settlement, that in which the Danes came to
England, not merely to plunder and then depart, but to fix their abode
permanently in the country. This choice of Thanet as their winter
quarters must, to the men of Kent who knew anything of the history of
their ancestors, have seemed an ominous recurrence to the strategy of
Hengest and Horsa four centuries previously. There was trouble also
from an older enemy. The men of Wales were now governed by one of
the greatest of their early kings, Rhodri Mawr (Roderick the Great,
844–77); and it seems that the distress of the Saxons under the Danish
attacks gave the Welsh courage to rise against the traditional enemies
of their race. In 853 Burhred, King of Mercia, acting by the advice of
his _witan_, made formal application to Ethelwulf for help against “the
men of North Wales”. The very fact that such an application was needed,
and that it came from the king and council of the Mercian realm,
shows how far England was from having yet attained to that complete
unity which has been incorrectly associated with the name of Egbert.
However, the expedition which Ethelwulf now undertook against the
Cymri, in alliance with Mercia, seems to have been successful, and the
marriage of Burhred to Ethelwulf’s daughter, celebrated at Easter-tide,
doubtless cemented the alliance and may have been a step towards
federation.
Again in this year 853 there was fighting both by land and sea against
the heathen in Thanet. Many men on both sides were slain and drowned.
The two ealdormen who led the forces of Kent and Surrey were at first
victorious, but--as often happened--let victory slip from their
unskilful hands, and both fell on the field of battle. This and many
similar entries bring vividly before us the typical Saxon ealdorman,
leading the _fyrd_ or militia of his shire to battle, displaying plenty
of courage and risking his life freely in the service of his country,
but showing little skill in organising a campaign or even in grasping
its fruits when they fell into his lap. On the other side we see the
men of the Scandinavian islands and long fiords, children of the
sea, equally ready to fight on it or on the land--artful, ruthless,
courageous, and with a splendid ignorance of defeat. Such were the
ravens who were now fixing their talons deep in our exhausted England.
Our next entry is: “In this year” [855] “heathen men first remained
over winter in Sheppey”.
It might have been supposed that the West Saxon king would need all
his energies to put his kingdom in an adequate state of defence and
to organise all round the coast an efficient system of resistance
to the all-penetrating Northmen. Instead of this we find him, with
some surprise, in this very year 855, “going to Rome with much pomp,”
remaining there for a twelve-month, visiting the Frankish court on his
way back, and returning, elderly widower that he was, with a bride
thirteen years old. This strange episode of the pilgrimage was the
fulfilment of a long-cherished design, and may have been partly due to
the pious counsels of St. Swithun, but certainly does not raise our
opinion of the king’s wisdom, while the marriage adventure looks like
mere fatuity. Before Ethelwulf’s departure he made that celebrated
donation to the Church which used to be considered as the introduction
of the tithe-system into England, but which was really “the devotion of
a tenth part of his private property to ecclesiastical purposes”.[119]
He took with him his youngest and favourite son Alfred, who though
still but a little child had already, two years before, made the same
pilgrimage. Travelling through France he was received with royal
honours by Charles the Bald, king of that country, and escorted by
him to the boundary of his kingdom. He perhaps arrived in Rome in time
to see the pontiff Leo IV., who on Alfred’s previous visit had laid
his hands in benediction on the head of the child. On July 17, however
(855), the old pope died, and Ethelwulf and his boy must have witnessed
the tumultuous proceedings which followed, and the state of practical
civil war between the Lateran and St. Peter’s which filled the streets
of Rome with clamour, till at last about the end of September the
iconoclast anti-pope Anastasius was finally overthrown and Benedict
III. took his seat on the chair of St. Peter. It is a curious fact,
but probably a mere coincidence, that precisely at this point of papal
history the romancing chroniclers of the Middle Ages have inserted the
fable of “Pope Joan,” the learned and eloquent Englishwoman who, as
they averred, came to Rome in male attire, habited as an ecclesiastic,
was unanimously chosen pope and wore the tiara for some months or even
years, till her sex was unfortunately disclosed in the midst of a
public procession. If any further proof were needed of the absurdity of
this story (which is no Protestant invention but passed current through
many medieval centuries), it might be furnished by the absolute silence
of the English chroniclers, some of whom may well have conversed with
members of the retinue of the West Saxon king.
Ethelwulf’s devout liberality is recorded by the contemporary papal
biographer, though his Italian ear has failed to catch or to retain his
barbarous name: “At this time a king of the Saxons named ... leaving
his goods and his own kingdom, came for prayer with a multitude of
followers to the thresholds of the Apostles Peter and Paul in Rome. And
he gave to St. Peter a crown of pure gold weighing four pounds; vessels
of pure gold weighing two pounds; a sword bound with pure gold; two
smaller images of pure gold; a paten of silver gilt, Saxon work, four
pounds; a vestment of purple with a golden border; a white surplice
all of silk, embroidered and gold bordered; two large curtains of gold
tapestry.[120] Then the Saxon king, on Pope Benedict’s request that he
would employ the gold and silver [which he had brought with him] in
giving largesse to the people in St. Peter’s church, dispensed gold
to the bishops, presbyters, deacons and all the rest of the clergy
and chief men of Rome, but he gave small silver coins to the common
people.”[121]
A more obviously useful exercise of Ethelwulf’s liberality was
connected with the Schola Saxonum, which is said to have been founded
by his predecessor, Ine, or by the Mercian Offa. In this schola
(something probably between a convent and an academic hostel) young
Anglo-Saxons destined for the ecclesiastical profession probably dwelt
for months or years, learning the Latin of the missal and the tones
of Gregorian plain-song. Its memory even yet lingers in Rome, for the
Church of the Holy Spirit in “the Leonine city” having been placed
near the school of the Saxons still bears the name of “San Spirito _in
Sassia_”. The schola had, however, been unfortunately destroyed by fire
in the year before Ethelwulf’s visit, and patriotism as well as piety
prompted him to spend on its restoration some part of the treasure
which he had brought from England.[122]
After a year’s residence in Rome, Ethelwulf returned to England,
visiting on the way the court of his much younger contemporary, Charles
the Bald,[123] whose daughter Judith, a young girl of thirteen, he
brought home with him as his wife, much to the astonishment, doubtless,
of his subjects and to the annoyance of his sons by his first marriage.
Though it is nowhere distinctly so stated, it seems probable that this
extraordinary second marriage of Ethelwulf had some connexion with
an event which clouded the last years of his life, the rebellion of
his eldest son Ethelbald. This young man had probably exercised some
of the functions of a regent during his father’s absence, and now
stood arrayed in arms to repel him from his kingdom. The fact that he
was abetted by the energetic Bishop Ealhstan and by the ealdorman of
Somerset, who had helped Ealhstan to win his great victory over the
Danes in Bridgwater Bay, suggests the possibility that this rebellion
may not have been due merely to the ambition of an undutiful son, but
may have been prompted by a patriotic desire to wrest the helm of the
state from the hands of an inefficient pilot. Happily, though Ethelwulf
had many partisans, shocked by what they deemed the unnatural conduct
of Ethelbald, civil war was avoided. The gentle old man agreed without
much difficulty to an arrangement whereby the western portion of the
kingdom, the richer and fairer part, was handed over to his son, he
himself retaining the eastern portion. The young Queen Judith, who had
been crowned before her departure from France, now took her place on
the royal throne side by side with her husband, notwithstanding the
“infamous custom” of Wessex which, as has been said, on account of the
evil example of the daughter of Offa, forbade the consorts of West
Saxon kings to sit on the throne or to bear the name of queen.
Less than two years after his return from Rome, on January 13, 858,
Ethelwulf died. His will was much talked of and was considered by his
biographers a model for all future generations. After directing how
his kingdom and his property should be divided between his sons, he
ordained that throughout his dominions one man in ten, whether a native
or a foreigner, should be supplied with meat, drink and clothing by
his successors until the Day of Judgment, always supposing “that there
should still be men and cattle in the land and that the country should
not have become quite desolate,” a striking evidence of the anxieties
caused by the Danish invasions. True to the last to his affection for
Rome, he left a hundred mancuses (twelve and a half pounds of silver)
to buy oil for the lights of St. Peter’s, the same sum for the lights
of St. Paul’s (outside the city), and another hundred for the apostolic
pontiff’s own private use. It does not seem possible to accept the
theories of some recent writers who would fain represent Ethelwulf as a
wise and capable statesman, the deviser of large continental alliances
for defence against the Northmen. On the contrary, he was probably a
man of slender intellect and feeble will, but devout, unworldly and
affectionate, by no means the least lovable of Anglo-Saxon sovereigns.
CHAPTER XVI.
ETHELWULF’S SONS--DANISH INVASIONS TO THE BAPTISM OF GUTHRUM.
During the twenty years which followed the death of Ethelwulf four
of his sons successively filled the West Saxon throne, namely,
Ethelbald, Ethelbert, Ethelred, and Alfred. As the last named is to us
incomparably the most interesting figure, it will be well to insert
here some particulars relating to his childhood which were purposely
omitted from the preceding chapter. For these particulars, as for
almost all that makes the great king a living reality to us, we are
indebted to the little book _De Rebus Gestis Aelfredi_, written by the
Welsh ecclesiastic, Asser.[124]
The question of the date of Alfred’s birth is beset with some
difficulty, but on the whole it seems safest to assign it to the year
848. The place of his birth was undoubtedly Wantage in Berkshire,
about twenty-five miles from Reading. Throughout his life his chief
exploits had reference to the valley of the middle Thames, and if any
one county more than another may claim an interest in his glory, it
is that county which, as Asser says, “has its name from the wood of
Berroc, where the boxtree grows most plentifully”. The mother of Alfred
was Osburga, whom Asser describes as “a very religious woman, noble of
intellect and noble by birth, daughter of Oslac, the renowned butler of
King Ethelwulf, and descended from the old Jutish kings of the Isle of
Wight”.
In 853, when Alfred was only four or five years old, he was sent by his
father to Rome “with an honourable train of nobles and others”. The
Chronicle says that Pope Leo “anointed him as king and adopted him as
his godson”. The pope himself, in a still extant letter to Ethelwulf,
tells the king that he has “invested his son with the girdle, insignia
and robes of the consulate after the manner of Roman consuls”. It is
difficult to suppose that Ethelwulf, who had four strong sons older
than Alfred, can have wished the little five-year-old child, much as he
loved him, to be anointed as king. It has been suggested as a possible
explanation of the ceremony that some of the West Saxon retinue, who
saw the child invested in the splendid _trabea_ of the consul, and
were told that these were the robes once worn by the men who wielded
kingly power in Rome, attached to the ceremony a political importance
greater than was its due. Two years later the boy again went to Rome,
accompanying his father on the visit already described. He returned
with him through France, and doubtless witnessed the marriage ceremony
which gave him a step-mother six years older than himself.
It is probably to the interval between his first and second visits
to Rome that we must refer the episode of the ballad-book prize, the
best-known story of Alfred’s childhood. That story must be told in
Asser’s own words:--
“His father and mother loved him greatly, more than all his brethren;
and so, too, did all men in his father’s court, in which he was ever
nourished. As infancy grew into boyhood, he appeared more comely than
all his brethren and pleasanter in countenance, in speech and in
manners. From his very cradle, notwithstanding the practical bent of
his disposition, his intellect, noble as his birth, inspired him with
an earnest desire for wisdom, but, sad to say, through the shameful
neglect of his parents and guardians, he remained unlettered till the
twelfth year of his age or even later. He was, however, both by night
and day an earnest and frequent listener to the recitation of Saxon
poems, and being an apt pupil he easily retained them in his memory....
“Now one day his mother showed to him and his brothers a certain Saxon
book of poetry which she had in her hand, and said: ‘Whoever shall
soonest learn this _codex_ to him will I give it,’ at which word he,
being urged by some Divine inspiration, and also attracted by the
beauty of an initial letter in the book, anticipating his brothers
(older than he in years but not in grace) answered his mother thus:
‘Will you really give that book to him who shall soonest understand
and repeat it to you?’ ‘Yes, I will,’ said she with a happy smile.
Hereupon he at once took the book from her hand, went to a master and
read it,[125] and having read it he took it back to his mother and
recited it to her.” It is probable that Asser here intended only to
describe the quickness of the child’s apprehension and the strength of
his memory. The story has nothing really to do with Alfred’s learning
to read, which, as we are told, did not take place till his twelfth
year or even later. He took the book to his master, learned the
contents from him and repeated them accurately to his mother. The words
“and read it,” which are the sole stumbling-block to those who would
thus understand the narrative, are possibly due to some slip of the
copyist[126] or to the confused way in which Asser tells his tale.
From the story of Alfred’s childhood we return to the main stream of
Anglo-Saxon history. As has been said, Ethelwulf died in the beginning
of 858. His second son, Ethelbert, probably succeeded him in the
eastern half of his kingdom, while ETHELBALD, the eldest, and possibly
the over-lord, reigned in the west. The only notable fact, and that a
disgraceful one, in Ethelbald’s reign was his marriage to his father’s
young widow, Judith of France. Though the first marriage was perhaps
one only in name, the unlawful union excited the disapprobation of
all Western Europe, and the premature death of Ethelbald in 860 was
probably regarded as a Divine judgment on the sinner. Soon after her
second husband’s death Judith returned to France, and having after two
years eloped with her father’s handsome forester, Baldwin, obtained
with difficulty the paternal forgiveness, and permission to contract
lawful wedlock with her lover. Baldwin, who received a grant of the
borderland of Flanders with the title of count or marquis, was the
ancestor by Judith of a long line of Baldwins, who gave to their
dominions the name of Baldwinsland, and one of whom in 1204 donned
the imperial buskins and was crowned by his fellow-crusaders at
Constantinople Emperor of Rome. From the same romantic union of Baldwin
and Judith sprang also in the seventh generation Matilda, the wife of
William the Conqueror.
ETHELBERT, the second son of Ethelwulf, who succeeded to the throne and
reigned for six years (860–66), probably added the western half of the
kingdom to the eastern, and thus ruled over the whole country south of
the Thames. He held it, says the chronicler, “in good agreement and
much peacefulness,” but already upon his reign was cast the shadow
of coming calamity. “In his days,” says the Chronicle, “there came a
great fleet to land and broke down Winchester.” It is true that the
invaders were afterwards defeated and put to flight by the ealdormen of
Hampshire and Berkshire, but it is alarming to see the facility with
which they gained possession of the capital of Wessex. No doubt this
was owing to the fact that the English had made no systematic attempt
to keep up the great fortresses which they had inherited from the
Romans and which they themselves in their earlier invasion had laid in
ruins.[127] All this was to be altered ere the end of the century by
the fortifying hand of Alfred.
On the death of Ethelbert the third brother, ETHELRED, mounted the
menaced throne and reigned for five troublous years (866–71). He was
assisted in the labour of governing and fighting by his brother Alfred,
who bore the title, unique in Anglo-Saxon history, of _Secundarius_.
Apparently he and Alfred were fonder of one another than any others
of the royal brethren, and had it not been for his early death he had
perhaps achieved renown as enduring as that of his successor. The West
Saxon was indeed a menaced throne. Already a year before the death of
Ethelbert the fiercest of all the Scandinavian storm-winds had begun to
blow. The Danes were now bent upon settlement, not merely on pillage.
In 865 “the heathen army encamped in Thanet and made peace with the men
of Kent, who promised them money therefor, and under cover of the peace
and the promised money, the army stole away by night up country and
harried all Kent eastwards”. Thus was set the fatal precedent of the
payment of ransom. We hear with no surprise that next year there came
a mighty heathen army to England and took up their winter quarters in
East Anglia. There the sailors supplied themselves with horses and made
peace--such peace as it was--with the inhabitants.
Next year (867) the heathen host moved northwards, crossed the Humber
and made for York. The affairs of Northumbria were in their usual
confusion. Osbert, the lawful king, had been driven out, and another
king of non-royal blood named Ella had grasped the reins of power.
This is that Ella to whom, in sagas, is assigned the possession of the
pit full of serpents into which was thrown the viking Ragnar Lodbrog.
Late in the year the two rivals agreed to join their powers and march
against “the army”. Having mustered a large force, they marched to
York, already occupied by the Danes, and took the city by storm. Some
of the Northumbrians, too confident of victory, entered the city. The
walls which were still standing severed their army in twain. A terrible
slaughter was made of them, “some within and some without”. Both the
rival kings were slain and the miserable Northumbrian remnant made
peace with “the army”. In the next year, 868, the Danes, who had now
no thought of returning home, invaded Mercia and took up their winter
quarters at Nottingham. Burhred, King of Mercia, by the advice of his
_witan_ called on his West Saxon brothers-in-law for help. They marched
with the _fyrd_ of Wessex to Nottingham, but finding the Danes strongly
entrenched durst not attack them. “There was no serious fighting
there”; the men of Mercia had to make their own peace, and the West
Saxon _fyrd_ returned inglorious to their homes.
In 869 “the army” remained quartered in York, doubtless strengthening
their hold on Deira, which was rapidly becoming a mere Danish province.
But next year (870) witnessed an event, one of the most memorable
in the whole story of Scandinavian invasion, an event which led to
the canonisation of an English prince, and called into existence the
stateliest but one of English monasteries. The king of East Anglia at
this time was a young man named Edmund, of pure and noble character.
The legends of later centuries have been busy with the story of his
boyhood, representing him as a native of Nuremberg, chosen as his heir
by an East Anglian king as he went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, sent to
England, and after many romantic adventures, obtaining the kingdom of
his patron. Though this traditional history be set aside as altogether
untrustworthy, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that there was
some strain of foreign blood in King Edmund’s ancestry, regal though
it seems to have been.[128] However this may be, all the authorities
agree in fixing his accession to the throne at a very early period of
his life, and it is probable that, though he had already reigned for
about sixteen years, he was not much past the thirtieth year of his
age when in 870 the Danes, under the command of two brothers named
Inguar and Ubba, leaving Mercia, invaded East Anglia and took up their
winter quarters at Thetford. Battle was joined on November 20, and
the invaders won a decisive victory, of which they made use to spread
themselves over the country and destroy all the monasteries which
abounded in that pious land.
Both the Chronicle and Asser seem to imply that King Edmund, “fighting
fiercely,” was slain on the field of battle; but it is hardly
possible altogether to reject another widely credited version of the
story, according to which the young king was taken prisoner on the
battle-field; was offered his life by Inguar on condition of renouncing
his faith and accepting the heathens as his over-lords; steadfastly
refused in any way to compromise his profession of Christianity; was
tied to a tree and made a target for the Northmen’s arrows; till at
last the Danish leaders took pity on his sufferings and ordered the
executioner to strike off his head. This story, which is said to have
been often told by Dunstan, who had it from Edmund’s armour-bearer, was
universally believed two generations after his death, and procured for
the East Anglian king the title of saint and the crown of martyrdom.
The battle in which St. Edmund was defeated was fought at Hoxne, about
twenty miles east of Thetford. The martyr’s body, according to the
legend, was found miraculously guarded by a wolf, and after an interval
of thirty-three years was transferred to the town of Beadoricesworth,
about ten miles south of Thetford, where, in the course of time, the
magnificent abbey of Bury St. Edmund’s rose above the relics of the
saint. Strange to say, the Danish King Canute was the most enthusiastic
of the earlier benefactors of this monastery and ever professed an
especial reverence for the memory of the martyred king. St. Edmund
soon became one of the most popular of English saints, a popularity
sufficiently attested by the ancient churches, between fifty and sixty
in number, distributed throughout more than half the counties of
England from Durham to Devonshire, which are still dedicated to his
memory.[129]
In the course of the same campaign, Inguar and Ubba came to
Peterborough, then called Medeshamstede; and, as a monk of that abbey
pathetically relates, “they burned and brake, slew abbot and monks, and
so dealt with what they found there, which was erewhile full rich that
they brought it to nothing”. And thus ended the year 870.
The year 871, a famous date in English history, “the year of battles,”
the date of Alfred’s accession, now dawned upon the distracted
land.[130] Berkshire was the great battle-ground which was invaded in
January by a Danish host fresh from the slaughter of St. Edmund and his
East Anglians. They came to “the royal town which is called Reading,”
situated on the southern bank of the Thames, took it and entrenched
a camp on its southward side between Thames and Kennet. A party of
plunderers headed by two _jarls_[131] rode westwards as far as the
little village of Englefield, about six miles from Reading, where they
were stopped by Ethelwulf, ealdorman of Berkshire, who had taken up a
position on a hill overlooking the valley of the Pang. In the encounter
which followed, the Danes were defeated, one of the jarls named Sidroc
was slain, and the scanty remnant of his troops crept back to the
Danish camp at Reading. Four days after this engagement, the royal
brothers Ethelred and Alfred, having mustered the troops of Wessex,
came to Reading, cut off many of the straggling plunderers, and tried
to storm the Danish camp. But the heathen made a fierce sally; the
Christians were repulsed; the brave ealdorman Ethelwulf was slain, and
the enemy held the field of slaughter.
Emboldened by this victory the Danes again sped westward, possibly
intending to harry Somerset and Wiltshire, and occupied Aescesdune,
which Asser translates “the hill of the ash,”[132] and which has
been generally identified with what are now known as the Downs or as
Ashdown Hills. These are a chalk ridge some 600 or 700 feet in height,
which runs for about ten miles east and west through the northern part
of Berkshire and divides the valley of the Thames from that of the
Kennet. The Saxons marched after the enemy in haste and both nations
arrayed themselves for battle. The Danes held the higher ground: the
centre of their army being commanded by their two kings, Halfdene,
brother of Inguar, and Bagseg; while the wings were under the command
of the numerous jarls who followed their standard. On the Saxon side
it was arranged that Ethelred should encounter the kings and Alfred
the jarls. But when the heathens began to march down the hill, and the
Saxons should have received the word to spring forward to meet them,
that signal was not given from the royal tent. There knelt Ethelred,
listening to Mass, and refusing to stir till the rite was ended. “He
would not,” he said, “abandon the service of God for that of men.” On
Alfred, therefore, rested the responsibility of assuming the chief
command and leading the whole army to battle. It is probable, though
not distinctly so stated by Asser, that Ethelred, against whose
personal courage no imputation is made, soon emerged from his tent and
hastened after his fighting “_fyrd_” men. A single stunted thorn-tree,
still standing apparently when Asser wrote, marked the spot where the
clash of the opposing armies was deadliest and where the battle-shouts
were heard the loudest. Long and desperate was the encounter, but at
last, near night-fall, the Saxons prevailed and the heathens fled in
utter confusion, leaving dead on the field Bagseg, the king, five
jarls and many thousands of the rank and file, whose bodies covered the
whole broad ridge of Ashdown.
It was a great victory, certainly, but like so many other battles
in this strange campaign it was utterly indecisive. The Danes who
had succeeded in reaching their stronghold, now marched southward,
apparently threatening Winchester: Ethelred and Alfred followed them,
and after another tough fight were defeated at Basing, near to the
site of that far-famed “Loyalty House” which eight centuries later was
held so gallantly and so long by the Marquis of Winchester for Charles
I. against the army of the Parliament. The Danish victory at Basing,
however, was, as we are expressly told, “a victory without spoils”. The
invaders seem to have renounced their intended attack on Winchester
and turned back to their entrenched camp at Reading. Two months pass,
during which some of the nameless battles that bring the tale of this
year’s conflicts up to nine, may have been fought. When the veil again
lifts we find the Danes apparently attempting to turn the English left,
marching the whole length of Berkshire to Hungerford, and seeking
to penetrate into Wiltshire. The next battle was fought on the edge
of Savernake Forest; Ethelred and Alfred each put their enemies to
flight, “and far into the day they had the victory,” but after many
had fallen on either side, the Danes held the field of slaughter. The
chronicler’s entry is extremely enigmatical, and we are perhaps allowed
to conjecture that in the moment of victory Ethelred received a mortal
wound which changed the fortunes of the day, for our next entry is as
follows: “And the Easter after King Ethelred died, having reigned five
years, and his body lieth at Wimborne”. As we are told at the same
time that “a mickle summer army came to Reading,” we may consider that
two events stand out clearly in these April days of 871, the arrival
from over-seas of a great fresh body of troops, who had not wintered
in England, to reinforce their countrymen at Reading; and the death of
King Ethelred, whose body was not taken to be buried in his own city of
Winchester, but, probably owing to the disturbed state of the country,
had to be interred in the nearer minster of Wimborne in Dorsetshire.
There his epitaph (not contemporary) records that he died “by the hands
of the pagans”.
The accession of ALFRED to the throne, in 871, on his brother’s death,
seems to have passed almost unnoticed in the deadly earnestness of
the great encounter. There were battles at Reading and at Wilton, in
which, as usual, the Saxons seemed to be on the point of winning when
the Danes, turning at the right moment on their disorderly pursuers,
changed defeat into victory, and kept possession of the battle-field.
They were, however, by this time as much wearied and wasted by the
events of this awful year as the Saxons themselves, with whom they now
made peace, a peace which, as the historian remarks with surprise, they
kept for four years unbroken.
During these years, however, from 872 to 875, they were greatly
strengthening their hold on the northern kingdoms. After besieging
London and putting it to a heavy ransom, they marched through Mercia,
occupied successively Torksey on the Trent and Repton in Derbyshire,
dethroned Alfred’s brother-in-law, Burhred (874), and set up in his
stead “a foolish thegn named Ceolwulf,” who bound himself by oaths and
hostages to hand Mercia back to his new lords whenever they should
demand it. Burhred, heart-weary of the strife and the toil of his
twenty-two years of reigning, went to the paradise of Anglo-Saxons,
Rome, died there and was buried in the new church of St. Mary which
Pope Leo IV. had built in the precincts of the Saxon school.
In the next year, 875, while part of the Danish force went to Cambridge
and took up their quarters there, a vigorous detachment, headed by
the fierce Halfdene, crossed the Tyne and invaded Bernicia, whose
inhabitants had driven out a puppet-king named Egbert, reigning there
as vassal of the Danes. This spasmodic stroke for liberty was cruelly
avenged by the ravage of the till then unharried province. It was
probably at this time that the Christian civilisation of Northumbria,
such as we find it in the pages of Bede, received its death-stroke.
Under the leadership of Halfdene, as Symeon of Durham informs us, the
Danish army indulged in a wild revel of cruelty, first mocking and then
slaying the servants and handmaidens of God, and in short spreading
murder and conflagration from the eastern to the western sea. The
devastation was not confined to the Anglian kingdom; the Picts on the
north and the Britons of Strathclyde on the north-west shared in the
general ruin.
This invasion of Halfdene’s set in motion a pilgrimage which was full
of significance for the ecclesiastical history of Northumbria, the
memorable migration of the body of Saint Cuthbert. Now, at last, under
the terror of the pagan hosts, the little isle of Lindisfarne, which
for 240 years had been the spiritual capital of Bernicia, relapsed
into its pristine loneliness. Seeing the widespread ravage wrought by
the heathen men, bishop Eardulf resolved on flight, but could not bear
to leave behind the uncorrupted body of the patron saint. He called
into council Edred, abbot of St. Cuthbert’s monastery at Carlisle,
who reminded him of the saint’s own words: “Dig ye up my bones and
find a home elsewhere as God may direct you, rather than consent to
the iniquity of the schismatics”. St. Cuthbert’s forebodings perhaps
pointed to a recrudescence of the Easter controversy, but the churchmen
rightly held that they were applicable to the far more terrible
invasion of the Danes. Accordingly they took up the body of the
saint (still incorrupt, according to the legend): they took also its
companion relics, the head of St. Oswald, some bones of St. Aidan and
of the three bishops who followed him; and provided with these precious
talismans they set forth on their first great pilgrimage. For eight
years they wandered: at first like sheep over the moors of Northumbria;
then they came down to the western coast at Workington, and were on the
point of setting sail for Ireland when a wind which sprang up, as if by
miracle, drove them back upon the shore. In the hurry of the abortive
embarkation they dropped into the sea the precious and beautifully
illuminated _Lindisfarne Gospels_, but miraculously recovered the
treasure after many days. This manuscript is still preserved in the
British Museum, showing stains as if of sea-water on its pages.
At last, in 883, five years after the peace which will mark the
conclusion of this chapter, the uncorrupted body and its weary
guardians found rest at the old Roman station of Chester-le-Street,
eight miles south of Newcastle, under the shelter of the rule of a
converted Dane, Guthred, son of Harthacnut. “He gave them,” says
the chronicler, “all the land between Wear and Tyne for a perpetual
possession, and ordained that the church which they were about to
build should be constituted a sanctuary, that whosoever for any cause
should flee to the saint’s body should have respite for thirty-seven
days from his pursuers.” Such were the magnificent possessions and
privileges bestowed on the minster which now rose at Chester-le-Street
by the old Roman highway, and which, after a little more than a
century, were to be transferred in 995 to the more famous sanctuary at
Durham.
The year 876 marked the end of the truce and the renewal of the Danish
attacks on Wessex. Three Danish kings, one of whom was the famous
Guthrum, after wintering in Cambridge, stole past the West Saxon
_fyrd_, and apparently by a series of night marches succeeded in
reaching Wareham. Here, surrounded by the rivers Piddle and Frome, they
could feel themselves as secure as in the islands of Thanet or Sheppey.
Worsted, however, by blockade rather than by battle, the Danish kings
came to terms with Alfred. They gave hostages once more of their most
honourable men and swore upon a certain sacred armlet--an oath, says
the chronicler, which they had never given to any other people--that
they would truly depart out of the kingdom. Not all of “the army,”
however, kept this solemn compact. Hostages and oath notwithstanding,
the mounted men rode off to Exeter and entrenched themselves there.
King Alfred’s pursuit with the infantry of the _fyrd_ was vain.
Fortunately, however, the fleet which should have co-operated with
the Danes was overtaken by a fierce storm, and 120 ships filled with
warriors were dashed to pieces on the rocks of Purbeck. Disheartened by
this calamity, the Northmen at Exeter once more swore great oaths, gave
hostages and marched forth from Wessex to their own now vassal kingdom
of Mercia.
This happened in the autumn of 877. Soon after Twelfth night, at the
beginning of 878, another gang of plunderers came suddenly to the
“royal villa” of Chippenham, probably hoping to capture the king
himself. With a small band of followers Alfred escaped to the woods and
morasses of Athelney in Somerset; but though they thus missed their
chief prize, this invasion of Wessex, for some reason unknown to us,
came nearer to success than any which had preceded it. From Chippenham
as a centre the Danes harried the country far and wide; they drove
many of the inhabitants across the sea; those who remained had to
accept them as their lords; it seemed as if Wessex would have to follow
the example of Mercia and Northumbria, and bow its neck to the Danish
yoke. Meanwhile Alfred, in the little island of Athelney--an island
then, because surrounded on all sides by marshes, but an island now
no longer--was gathering his faithful followers round him and quietly
preparing for the recovery of his throne.[133] The little band of
his followers wrought at the construction of a rude fortress, which
was finished by Easter, and which proved impregnable by the heathen
assailants. Behind this earthwork the West Saxon king “greatly stood
at bay,” and from hence he and the men of the Somerset _fyrd_, who
gathered round him under their ealdorman Ethelnoth, made several
successful sallies against the enemy.
Ere long there came to cheer them the tidings of a great victory gained
by the men of Devon, near Bideford Bay, over a Danish army which
seems to have been commanded by Ubba, the murderer of St. Edmund.
After wintering in South Wales, Ubba had crossed the Bristol Channel,
landed in Devonshire and besieged the soldiers of the _fyrd_ in a
poorly fortified stronghold which they had constructed and which was
called Cynuit.[134] The fort had no spring of water near it, and the
victory of the invaders seemed assured, but despair gave courage to the
besieged, who sallied forth at dawn, took the besiegers by surprise,
and slew of them eight hundred. Only a scanty remnant escaped to their
ships; the great raven standard, the flapping of whose wings betokened
victory, was taken, and Ubba himself was among the slain. The death of
the royal martyr of East Anglia was thus at length avenged.
At last, close upon Whitsuntide, Alfred emerged from the forest of
Selwood, which seems to have hitherto served him as cover, collected
round him at “Egbert’s Stone” the men of three counties, Somerset,
Wilts and Hants (who, as the chronicler beautifully says, “were fain
of their recovered king”), and by two days’ marches came up with the
Danish army at Ethandune.[135] Here he won a crushing victory. The
Danes fled to their fortified camp, probably at Chippenham; Alfred
pursued them, shut them up in their stronghold and besieged it for a
fortnight. Then came offers of submission, and a promise to withdraw
from Wessex. Hostages and oaths were again offered to the conqueror,
and--what was more significant--“the army promised that their king,
Guthrum, should receive the rite of baptism”.
Alfred returned to the neighbourhood of Athelney, and there waited for
the pagan chief’s fulfilment of his promise. He was not disappointed;
Guthrum came with thirty of his chiefs to Aller, near Athelney, was
baptised and received in rising from the font the Saxon name of
Athelstan. It is probable, though not expressly stated, that his thirty
warriors were baptised with him. The two kings then went together
to Wedmore, a royal vill under the Mendips, where Alfred for twelve
nights gave the new convert hospitable entertainment. Guthrum-Athelstan
laid aside the white robes of the catechumen at the end of a week,
and departed laden with gifts by his spiritual father. “The army”
cleared out of Wessex and marched to Cirencester. The most dangerous
of Alfred’s wars with the Danes was ended, and the land had rest for
fourteen years.
CHAPTER XVII.
ALFRED AT PEACE.
The fourteen years which followed the Peace of Wedmore (878 to 892)
were, as has been said, in the main years of peace, and may be
considered to justify the heading of this chapter; yet that peace
was not all unbroken, nor was Alfred’s Danish godson always a placid
and peaceful Christian. There were still some slight heavings of the
barbarian sea, which must be shortly described before we turn to the
much more interesting subject of Alfred’s peaceful labours. The main
condition of the Peace of Wedmore was that the Danes should evacuate
Wessex. The agreement that the Watling Street should be the boundary
between the two nations cannot be stated to have been one of the
conditions of the peace now concluded. We have, in fact, no accurate
information as to the territorial arrangements of 878. The extremely
interesting document called _Aelfredes and Guthrumes Frith_ (the peace
of Alfred and Guthrum) must belong to some later year than the meeting
at Wedmore, and the course of the history seems to justify us in
assigning it to the year 885 or thereabouts.[136]
After Guthrum and his men had lingered for some time in the
neighbourhood of Cirencester, they marched across England to East
Anglia (879), and made a permanent settlement there, “occupying and
dividing the land”. This probably means that they exchanged the
destructive excitement of the life of the viking for the peaceful
existence of the husbandman. But when, five years later, in 884, a
division of “the army” which had been ravaging Gaul came to Kent and
besieged Rochester, the sight of their fellow-countrymen, harrying on
the other side of the Thames estuary, seems to have been too much
for Danish self-control. Guthrum “broke peace with King Alfred,” and
probably sent some of his men to help in the siege. Alfred, however,
set to work to besiege the besiegers, who had “wrought another fastness
round themselves,” and in the end forced them to abandon their
enterprise, leave their horses as the prize of victory, and depart over
seas. He then proceeded to chastise the East Anglian Danes for their
breach of faith, sending a fleet against them from Kent which won a
signal victory. Notwithstanding a subsequent defeat, his operations
must have been on the whole successful, for he rescued London from the
Danish yoke and concluded, probably in 885, that treaty with Guthrum
which as before said is still extant, bearing the title of Alfred’s and
Guthrum’s _frith_.
If the provisions of Wedmore had made the Watling Street the boundary
between the two nationalities, which is doubtful, the treaty now
concluded was certainly more favourable to the English. It went from
the Thames northwards “up the Lea to its source, then straight on to
Bedford, and then up along the Ouse to the Watling Street,” which
throughout a large part of its further course became practically the
boundary of the two nations. This line gave to the English king London,
previously abandoned to the Danes, and with London the region round it
north of the Thames and west of the Lea, which had previously formed
part of the kingdom of Essex, but which now, perhaps, received a
special organisation of its own, and the name that it has since borne
for ten centuries, Middlesex. It also gave to Alfred the larger and
fairer half of Mercia, being in fact all that portion of the midland
counties which lies south and west of the London and North Western
Railway,[137] together with half of Hertfordshire and two-thirds of
Bedfordshire. But then, on the other hand, it is true that the rest of
Mercia, East Anglia, Essex (mutilated) and Northumbria were practically
handed over to the Danes, either as personal rulers or as over-lords.
This surrender has often been treated as a wise and politic act of
self-sacrifice on Alfred’s part, a view which was the natural result
of the historical teaching which spoke of Egbert and his descendants as
unquestioned monarchs of all Anglo-Saxon Britain. Now, however, that we
see what a precarious and shadowy thing was the supremacy of the ninth
century Kings of Wessex over northern and midland England, a supremacy
which under a feeble king like Ethelwulf perhaps almost vanished into
nothingness, we can see that the settlement which generally (though
incorrectly) goes by the name of the Peace of Wedmore was not so great
a sacrifice on Alfred’s part as we used to imagine. Bitter doubtless it
was to Alfred as to every patriotic heart among the “Angel-cyn” to see
the Dane so firmly rooted in the north and east of England, but that
was the actual position of affairs, and he, as a statesman, was bound
to recognise it. On the other hand, the larger half of Mercia now came
under Alfred’s personal rule and was irrevocably joined to his realm,
and this great new kingdom was now preparing to enter the lists against
the Scandinavian invaders with a fairer prospect of success than could
ever have been entertained by the disunited, mutually suspicious states
of the “Heptarchy”. As has been already pointed out, the Dane was the
real though involuntary creator of a united England.
It is worth our while to notice the language of the great _frith_
which thus settled the boundary of the two races. It professes to be
concluded “between Alfred, king, and Guthrum, king, and all the _witan_
of the English kinship, and all the folk that is in East Anglia, for
themselves and for their offspring”. “If any man be slain, as we hold
all equally dear, both Englishmen and Danes, the penalty shall be eight
half-marks of pure gold,[138] but if he be a _ceorl_ or freed-man on
_gafol_ [rented] land, the penalty shall be 200 scillings.” “And we all
agreed on this day when men swore their [mutual] oaths that neither
bond nor free shall fare unto the [Danish] army without leave, nor
shall any one of them come to us. Should it happen that one of them
wishes to have business with us, or one of us with them, in respect of
land or cattle, that is to be permitted only on condition of his giving
hostages for the observance of the peace and as a testimony that he
has a clean back,” in other words, that his past record is that of a
peaceable neighbour.
Evidently the continuance of friendly relations between the two races,
parted only by two small streams and the old Roman road, was felt to be
precarious, and both rulers agreed that the less they mingled with one
another the better.
* * * * *
It is pleasant to turn from the monotonous story of the conflict with
the Danes to the subject of Alfred’s family life. In 868, three years
before “the year of battles” and his own accession to the throne, he
married a noble Mercian lady named Ealhswith, daughter of Ethelred,
ealdorman of the Gaini(?), and descended on her mother’s side from the
royal family of Mercia. By this lady (who survived him three years)
Alfred had five children who grew up. The eldest, Ethelfled, when
little more than a child, was given in marriage to Ethelred, ealdorman
of the Mercians, and became, after her father’s death, a personage of
great importance, ruling her mother’s country with spirit and success
under the proud title of “Lady of the Mercians”. The next child,
Edward, who was eventually his father’s successor, had for his especial
companion his sister Elfrida. “When he was not hunting or engaged in
other manly exercises, he was with her learning the psalter or books
of Saxon poetry, showing affability and gentleness towards all, both
natives and foreigners, and ever in complete subjection to his father.”
In after life the two playmates were widely separated. The boy became
Edward the Elder, one of the greatest of English kings; the girl was
sent across the seas to become the wife of Baldwin II. of Flanders, son
of Judith of France, and her husband the handsome forester. After more
than two centuries the brother and sister playmates were once more to
meet in the persons of their progeny, when Elfrida’s descendant Henry
Beauclerk, son of Matilda of Flanders, married Matilda of Scotland,
descended in the seventh degree from Edward the Elder. Of the two
other children of Alfred, we know only that Ethelgiva was early
dedicated to the monastic life, becoming Abbess of Shaftesbury; and
that Ethelweard, the youngest of the family, was a pupil in a court
school founded by his father, probably in imitation of the similar
institutions founded by Charlemagne, in which the sons of the nobility
and some others were taught to read books both Latin and Anglo-Saxon,
and also learned to write. Ethelweard (who must not be confounded with
his kinsman of the same name, author of a chronicle) seems to have
specially profited by this training, and was probably the most learned
member of his family.
An obscure statement of Asser’s with reference to Alfred’s marriage
reveals to us the fact that the great king’s life was in some
mysterious way one long battle with disease. From early boyhood he
suffered from some malady which caused him grievous pain. In his
twentieth year, just about the time of his marriage, this malady left
him, but was succeeded by another which caused him at intervals yet
sharper pain, and always kept him in terror of its recurrence. This
affliction endured from his twentieth till his forty-fifth year, if not
longer.[139] These hints, obscure as they are, heighten our admiration
of the heroic spirit with which Alfred, often suffering from acute
bodily pain, with the ever-present fear of attacks either by disease or
by the Danes, set himself to fulfil his duties towards his subjects in
the wide and comprehensive sense in which he understood them. Of his
wisely planned and efficient schemes for the defence of his realm from
hostile invasion something will be said in the next chapter. We are
now concerned with his earnest endeavours to dispel the intellectual
darkness which brooded over his country, yet of which only the king
himself and a few chosen friends were fully conscious.
It is clear that in the course of the century which elapsed between the
death of Bede and the birth of Alfred, the intellect of England had
suffered a terrible relapse into ignorance and barbarism. It was not
the inroads of the Northmen alone which had brought about this result,
though, of course, the ruin of so many Northumbrian monasteries and the
destruction of so many manuscripts were influences unfavourable to the
cause of learning. But independently of Scandinavian ravages, England
herself was becoming barbarised. In Northumbria the beacon light of
Christianity and culture, which had once shone so brightly, was
quenched in the blood of her kings, murdered and murderers. In Mercia
there was a little more interest in literary pursuits, but apparently
there only; East Anglia and Wessex were intellectually dead. As Alfred
himself says, in the preface to his translation of Pope Gregory’s
_Regula Pastoralis_: “Even before all this burning and ravaging [by
the Danes in the reigns of Ethelwulf and his sons], when the churches
were still filled with books and sacred vessels, and God’s servants
abounded, yet they knew very little of the contents of their books,
because they were not written in their own idiom”. “Formerly men came
from beyond our borders, seeking wisdom in our own land; now, if we
are to have it at all, we must look for it abroad. So great was the
decay of learning among Englishmen that there were very few on this
side Humber, and I ween not many north of it, who could understand the
ritual [of Mass] or translate a letter from Latin into English. No,
I cannot remember one such, south of the Thames, when I came to the
throne.”
To help him in the arduous task of once more bringing the English race
under the influence of literary culture, nay, rather to teach him who
yearned to be the teacher of his people, Alfred sought the aid of
learned ecclesiastics beyond his own borders. With much earnestness he
invited the Welshman Asser, his future biographer, to repair to his
court. From Mercia he imported Plegmund, who became in 890 archbishop
of Canterbury, and Werferth, who eventually returned to the midlands as
bishop of Worcester. From St. Omer came Grimbald, who was consecrated
abbot of the new minster founded by Alfred at Winchester; and from
the lands near the mouth of the Elbe came John the Old Saxon, whose
ancestors had probably fought hard for heathenism against Charlemagne,
but who was himself a learned ecclesiastic. He helped Alfred much
in his literary work, and was made by him abbot of his monastery at
Athelney; an uneasy post, for two of his monks contrived a villainous
plot against his life and his reputation, but were foiled by the
vigorous resistance made by the stalwart Old Saxon, who had been a
warrior in his youth, when the would-be murderers set upon him by night
in the lonely convent church.
These were the chief of Alfred’s literary assistants, and with their
help he enriched his people with translations of some of the most
highly prized works which the dying Roman world had bequeathed to
Teutonic Europe.
1. The passage quoted above concerning the decay of learning in
England comes from the king’s translation of Pope Gregory’s _Regula
Pastoralis_, or as Alfred calls it his _Herd-book_. In this book
the great pope to whom England was so largely indebted for her
Christianity, gave many excellent hints as to the character, duties
and special temptations of the Christian pastor. In his preface, King
Alfred explained the reasons which had moved him to undertake the
work of a translator. He marvelled that none of the good and wise men
who had been in England before him had anticipated him in the work,
but concluded that this was because they expected that learning would
flourish yet more instead of decaying, and that another generation
would be so familiar with Latin as to need no translations. Then on
the other hand he remembered how the Old Testament itself had been
translated from the Hebrew, first into Greek and then into Latin, and
from thence, at any rate in part, into the languages of the other
Christian nations of Europe; and on this precedent he resolved to act.
“For it seems to me desirable,” he said, “that we should turn some of
the books which all men ought to know into that language which we can
all understand, and so bring it to pass (as we certainly may do if we
only have rest from our enemies) that all the free youth of England,
sons of men of substance, shall devote themselves to learning in their
early years before they are fit for other occupations; that they shall
first learn to read English writing, and then if they are still willing
to continue as pupils and desire to rise to the higher ranks of the
state, that they shall be taught the Latin language.”
The king then proceeds to describe his mode of translation: “sometimes
word for word and sometimes meaning for meaning; as I learned the sense
from Plegmund, mine archbishop, and Asser, my bishop, and Grimbald and
John my mass-priests”. He describes the measures which he has taken to
supply every see in his kingdom with a copy of the book, enriched with
an _aestel_ (clasp or book-marker?) worth 300 scillings, and commands
in God’s name that no man shall take the _aestel_ from the book or the
book from the minster. “Thank God! we have now abundance of learned
bishops, but we know not how long this may continue; and I therefore
ordain that each book be always kept in the place to which now I send
it, unless the bishop himself desire to borrow it, or give a written
order for its loan to another.”
2. In order that his subjects might have some knowledge of the history
of that great and splendid Roman past which lay in ruins behind
them, Alfred, always with the help of his ecclesiastic friends,
translated the seven books of the _History of Paulus Orosius against
the Pagans_. The selection was in many respects an excellent one, for
Orosius, a Spanish ecclesiastic of the fifth century and a friend of
St. Augustine, has here set forth, in a concise manner and fairly
interesting style, all that his contemporaries knew of the history
of the world from the building of Babylon to Alaric’s capture of
Rome. He was credulous and inaccurate, and his work, except for the
events of his own age, has no scientific value, but as a manual of
ancient history for the young Anglo-Saxon nobleman it could hardly
have been surpassed. Both Alfred, however, and his readers must have
been somewhat unnecessarily depressed by its perusal; for as the book
had a polemical bearing, _adversus Paganos_, and was intended to show
that the calamities which were befalling the Roman empire in the fifth
century were not due to its adoption of the Christian faith, its author
was naturally led to exaggerate the misery of the world in preceding
ages. While enumerating, therefore, all the murders, pestilences and
earthquakes of which he could find mention in the 5,617 years that had
elapsed since the creation of the world, he omits to notice the long
interspaces of quiet happiness which there had been in some ages and
some countries of the world, and he has no praise for the progress
which Humanity had made in some departments of life from Sardanapalus
to Constantine.
King Alfred and his teachers were evidently sometimes at a loss to
understand the meaning of their author, and it is amusing to see the
ingenious arts by which in such cases they evaded the difficulty. They
decided, no doubt wisely, that the unabridged history would be too long
for their Saxon students, and therefore practised severe compression.
Unfortunately for us this compression applies much more to the later
portions of the history, where Orosius’s testimony is valuable, and
where his translators might have added something of importance, than
to the earlier books where neither he nor they have anything to say
that we care to hear. The long account of Cæsar’s campaign in Gaul is
reduced within the limits of a single sentence, and even the story of
his British campaigns is shortened, though here we derive from the
translation the fact that in Alfred’s opinion the site of Cæsar’s third
battle was “near the river that is called Thames, near the ford that is
called Wallingford”.
Incomparably the most interesting, however, of Alfred’s interpolations
is made at the very beginning of the history, in the long geographical
description which Orosius thought it his duty to prefix to his work.
In translating this chapter the king has allowed himself very great
freedom and sometimes has not improved upon his author; as when
he volunteers a statement, borrowed doubtless from some classical
geographer, that Scotland (by which, of course, he means Ireland) lies
over against the Wendel Sea (or Mediterranean) at its western end.
But when he comes to speak of the Teutonic and Scandinavian lands, he
breaks quite away from Orosius and gives us a detailed ethnological
description of Northern Europe, which, though in some of its details
not easy of interpretation, is far more valuable than the meagre
Orosian sentences for which it is exchanged. And then, suddenly,
without any pretence of following his author’s guidance, he introduces
the weather-beaten forms of two Norwegian pilots, Ohthere and Wulfstan,
and imparts to his subjects and to posterity the information which they
had given him as to their voyages in the North Sea and the Baltic.
Of these two men Ohthere, “who dwelt northmost of all the Northmen,”
was the most adventurous. He told how he had sailed northward as far as
any of the whale-hunters go, keeping the waste land on his right and
the wide sea on his left hand. Then, leaving even the whalers behind,
he had sailed northward for three days more, at the end of which time
he found the coast turning suddenly to the east and then to the south.
After this he had anchored his ship at the mouth of a great river. In
other words, this bold seaman had doubled the North Cape, entered the
White Sea, and probably cast anchor at the mouth of the river Dwina,
somewhere near the site of the modern Archangel. The conversation of
this old salt concerning the whales and walruses of the Polar Sea, the
Fins and their reindeer, their accumulated skins of martens and bears,
and feathers of sea-birds, which constituted the sole wealth of those
desolate regions, evidently made a deep impression on the mind of “his
lord King Alfred”. Though we may be inclined to smile at the naïve
literary device which introduced all these details into the history of
a Spanish presbyter who lived some five centuries earlier, we must be
grateful to the king who preserved for us this record of the exploits
of the Franklins and the Nansens of that long-vanished age.
3. It was not, however, only the history of the Biblical and classical
ages which Alfred desired to render accessible to his people. He knew
that the deeds of their own forefathers since they had entered the
land of Britain, were worthy of their remembrance, and he rightly
judged that the great struggle with the Danes, in which he was himself
engaged, would soon be History, as memorable as anything that was
recorded in the pages of Orosius. With this view, as Geoffrey Gaimar,
a historian of the twelfth century, says, “He caused to be written an
English book of adventures and of laws of the land and of the kings
who made war”. In other words, Alfred’s orders brought into being the
_Saxon Chronicle_. As its latest editor[140] says: “The popular answer
is in this case the right one. The Chronicle is the work of Alfred the
Great. The idea of a national chronicle, as opposed to merely local
annals, was his, and that this idea was realised under his direction
and supervision, I most firmly believe. And we may, I think, safely
place in the forefront of the Chronicle the inscription which encircles
Alfred’s jewel [found at Athelney in 1693 and now in the Ashmolean
Museum at Oxford], AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN, ‘Alfred ordered me to be
made’.”
4. In further pursuance of the same plan a translation of Bede’s
_Ecclesiastical History_ from Latin into Anglo-Saxon was made, as
we have reason to believe, either by Alfred’s own hand or under his
immediate supervision. As this book had become a kind of classic among
churchmen, Alfred allowed himself here less liberty than in some of
his other translations. Some letters, epitaphs and similar documents
are omitted, and there is an almost complete erasure of the chapters
relating to the wearisome Paschal controversy. In other respects the
king’s translation seems to be a fairly accurate reproduction of the
original work.
5. Last, and in some ways most interesting of all the literary labours
of Alfred, comes his translation of the _Consolation of Philosophy by
Boethius_. This is a book which, after enjoying during the early Middle
Ages a popularity perhaps somewhat greater than its merits, has fallen
since the revival of learning into much less deserved oblivion. In it
Boethius, a Roman nobleman who was cast into prison and eventually
executed by order of the Gothic king Theodoric, sets forth the comfort
which came to him in his wearisome imprisonment by meditations
on Divine Philosophy. The problem which perplexed him and which
Philosophy, the spiritual companion of his solitude, sought to solve,
was the world-old one, “Why do the wicked flourish and why are the
righteous afflicted?” Strange to say, though Boethius was a Christian,
and was even in a certain sense a martyr for the Catholic faith, the
Christian solution of the problem is kept almost entirely out of sight,
and the answers suggested are such as might have been given by Socrates
or Epictetus. Boethius believes in a Divine Ruler of the universe,
and the general tendency of the book is towards the strengthening of
belief, but it is belief rather of a theistic than of a definitely
Christian type. However with all its defects and all its strange
silences, the book was one which had a great attraction for many of
the noblest minds of a bewildered Europe, and not least for the great
West Saxon king, who, struggling against the depressing influences of
disease, and ever dreading a fresh outburst of the Danish volcano,
felt that he, too, like the author, had much need of “the Consolation
of Philosophy”. In his other translations he had been working for his
people; in this, which was probably executed towards the close of his
reign, he was, perhaps, working rather for himself, for the solace and
fortification of his own troubled spirit.
We have seen that Alfred did not take a slavish view of the duties
of a translator; and in his _Boethius_ he is more lordly than ever,
omitting, adding, altering with a sublime contempt for mere verbal
accuracy. It is, however, these very changes which make the book
so precious to a student of Alfred’s own character. We see therein
what were the thoughts which were most akin to his nature; we learn
something of the secret springs of his actions; we can almost listen
to the conversations which he held with his bishops and thegns in the
great wooden palace at Winchester.
In the first place, he gives to the whole inquiry a more religious turn
than he found in the original. For “Nature” he substitutes “God”; he
sometimes introduces the name of Christ; he speaks of the Judgment-day,
and his language has throughout that distinctly religious tone which is
so strangely absent from the meditations of Boethius. He takes us into
his royal council and tells us the principles upon which he has sought
to administer the state, using for his instruments three sorts of
ministers, men of prayer, men of war, and men of work, for all of whom
suitable maintenance must be found out of the land. He expands a slight
sentence of Boethius in praise of friendship into a noble passage, in
which he declares that true friendship is not an earthly but a heavenly
blessing; that all other objects of desire in this world are sought
after in obedience to some selfish motive, but a true friend we love
for love’s own sake and because of our trust in his truth, hoping for
no other return. “Nature joins friends together and unites them with an
inseparable love, whereas by our worldly goods and the wealth of this
life we more often make foes than friends.”[141]
Boethius puts into the mouth of Philosophy some words deprecatory of
too great regard for noble birth; but Alfred says boldly on his own
account that “true high birth is that of the mind not of the flesh,” a
memorable utterance in the mouth of the man whose lineage “went unto
Cerdic” and who according to the songs of Saxon bards was descended
from Woden. There are also in this most interesting translation many
passages which show Alfred’s keen perception of the beauties of Nature,
his unfailing interest in geography, and his knowledge of Saxon
folk-lore (as illustrated by his allusion to the bones of Weland the
Smith), besides some which reveal his naïve ignorance of well-known
facts of ancient history, as when he describes the _sella curulis_ as a
kind of carriage, or when he tells us that Cassius was another name for
Brutus. One sees with pleasure that the wise king had a certain gift
of humour, and that he could at times be even sarcastic. He alone,
not his author, is responsible for the following remark attributed to
Philosophy: “Two things honour and power can do, if they fall into the
hands of a fool: they can cause him to be respected and even revered by
other fools”. Whosoever would get at the heart of this great man, the
true founder of the English kingdom, and discover his inmost thoughts,
should carefully study Alfred’s translation of Boethius, and observe
where he neglects and where he reinforces from his own experience the
maxims and arguments of the Roman statesman.
To the interval of comparative peace with which we are now dealing
we may probably assign the reorganisation of the royal household.
Apparently service in the palace was conducted on parallel lines with
service in the army, being performed in both cases by men who had
houses of their own to govern and lands of their own to cultivate. The
king, therefore, ordained that the household should be divided into
three portions, each of which should take palace-duty (“night and day,”
says the biographer) for one month, and then, being relieved by another
detachment, return home for two months’ furlough. The same principle of
threefold division prevailed partially in the simple budget of Alfred’s
exchequer. He divided, says Asser, all the revenue which was yearly
collected by his officers into two parts, one of which was devoted
to secular and the other to religious uses. Of the secular portion
one-third was paid to the household, according to their respective
dignities and special services; one-third to the workmen of various
nationalities whom he had gathered about him for his great works of
building and restoration; and one-third to the foreigners--probably for
the most part scholars or professors of some liberal art--who flocked
in great numbers to his court. Of the religious half of his revenue,
one-quarter went to the poor, one-quarter to the two new monasteries
founded by him at Winchester and Athelney, one-quarter to the court
school, and the remainder promiscuously to the various monasteries in
Wessex and Mercia, and the needy churches in Britain and even in Gaul
and Ireland.
One of the most extraordinary of the king’s benefactions, one which we
might well have doubted had it not been vouched for by the contemporary
evidence of the Chronicle, is thus described therein: “And that same
year [883 for 882] Sighelm and Athelstan carried to Rome the alms which
he had vowed to send thither when he was fighting the [Danish] army at
London: and also to India to St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew”. Of the
campaign before London in the course of which this vow was made we have
no more definite information. The sending of alms to Rome is easily
understood, but the mission of West Saxon almoners to “St. Thomas’s
Christians” in India is indeed a marvellous fact if true. Unfortunately
the tendency of modern criticism is somewhat unfavourable to the
genuineness of the entry.[142]
* * * * *
Though we know not the exact year when Alfred’s Dooms were compiled,
this will be the best place for a brief statement of the legislative
work of the great king.
“These are the dooms which Alfred the king chose, in order that no
man should deem them otherwise than according to his will.” Such is
the opening sentence of the laws. Then follows an elaborate table of
contents including Ine’s laws as well as his own; and then, strangely
enough, we have almost the whole of four chapters of the book of Exodus
(xx.-xxiii.), containing the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic code of
civil law in all its archaic simplicity and with all its Draconian
sternness: the principle of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth”; “whosoever doeth this or that he shall surely die,” the keynote
of the whole. Then, however, comes a reference to the mission of “the
Lord’s Son, our God, who is Jesus Christ, who came into the world, not
to destroy the law but to fulfil it, and to increase it with all good
things. With mild-heartedness and humility did He teach.”
Thereupon follows a description of the Council of Jerusalem as given in
the fifteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, and a rehearsal of
its decrees about “abstaining from fornication, from things offered in
sacrifice to idols, from things strangled and from blood”. The acts of
this council end with the Golden Rule (omitted from the manuscripts on
which the Received Text of the New Testament is founded, but inserted
in _Codex Bezae_ and several early authorities), “And that which ye
will that other men should not do to you, do not ye to other men”.
“On this one doom,” says the king, “let each man meditate that he may
judge each one rightly; nor needs he any other law-book. Let him seek
for no other doom upon his neighbour than he would be willing to have
pronounced upon himself.”
But, as Alfred proceeds to show, since the conversion of many nations
to Christianity, synods have been held at which bishops and other
distinguished _witan_ have been present, and these assemblies, for
the sake of the “mild-heartedness” which Christ taught, have commuted
the death-penalty for the offences named in the Mosaic law to money
payments on the scale set forth by them; and such payments may,
therefore, without sin be taken by the secular lords to whom they are
made payable. Only, there is one crime for which no money payment must
be suffered to atone; and that is treason against a man’s rightful
lord, because Almighty God ordained no remission of punishment to those
who despised Himself, nor could His Son give any such remission to the
traitor who delivered Him to death; and He ordered that a man should
love his lord even as himself.
These passages give us an interesting glimpse of the mental process
which governed the compilation of Alfred’s law-book. In the same spirit
in which he translated Orosius and Gregory for his subjects’ benefit,
he sets before them what he considers the source of all legislation,
the divine ordinances given amidst the thunders of Sinai. He then shows
how that law was modified by the teaching of Christ; he rehearses the
several points of the decree of the Council of Jerusalem, and thence
glides by an easy transition to that tariff of compensations and fines
(payment of _wergild_ and _wite_) by which, in his day, atonement might
be made for all offences, with the one exception here so emphatically
insisted on, the crime of treason against a man’s natural lord. Of
course, modern historical science cannot concede to Church synods the
credit of this great change, which we believe to have been wrought
possibly through long ages in the forests of Germany--namely, the
change by which the blood feud slowly gave place to the exacted _wer_:
but doubtless Christian ecclesiastics accepted the principle, perhaps
in many instances regulated its application; and King Alfred was so
far right in claiming the authority of the Church for the practice of
money compensation instead of the relentless severity of some of the
ordinances of Exodus. The conclusion of Alfred’s Prologue is important
as indicating what was the legislative competence of the king and how
he shared it with the witan.
“I then, King Alfred, gathered these laws together and caused them
to be written down, selecting many which pleased me from among those
ordained by my predecessors. And many of those which I liked not I
abrogated by the counsel of my Witan, ordaining some different way for
the future. For I did not dare to set down in writing many of my own
suggestions, not knowing how they would be liked by those who should
come after. But whenever I found in the laws passed in the days of my
kinsman Ine, or of Offa, King of Mercia, or of Ethelbert, the first
English convert to Christianity, anything that seemed to me to be most
justly decided, such laws I gathered in and the others I left out.”
Generally speaking, Alfred’s laws differ from those of Ine, and still
more from those of Kentish Ethelbert, in the direction of greater
leniency, the amount of fine payable for injuries to the person being
almost always considerably reduced. This tendency, when we compare
Alfred’s and Ethelbert’s laws, is at first sight obscured by the fact
that the fines imposed by the latter are expressed in terms of the
Kentish scilling, which was worth four times as much as that of Wessex,
but when we have made the necessary correction for this difference, it
comes out very clearly. Thus the fine for cutting off the thumb was in
Ethelbert’s code the equivalent of 80 shillings of Wessex, while under
Alfred it was only 30. For the like injury to the middle finger it was
respectively 32 and 15 shillings; for the “gold” or ring finger, 24 and
17.
This remarkable diminution in the scale of pecuniary punishments was
probably due, not simply to “mild-heartedness” on the part of the king
and his _witan_, but also to the economic effect of the Danish ravages.
So much of the portable wealth of the country had been carried off
from hall and monastery to the homesteads of Scandinavia, that the
value of gold and silver remaining in the land was sensibly increased,
and a fine which was reasonable at the beginning of the eighth
century became exorbitant at the close of the ninth. This abatement
of pecuniary penalty is modified in a singular way in the case of
forest trespass. It may be remembered that by the laws of Ine, a man
going into a forest and felling timber for his own use was liable to
a fine of 30 scillings for each tree so felled, up to three, but that
90 scillings was the maximum penalty. Now, by the laws of Alfred the
penalty for each tree so felled was only 5 scillings, but there was no
maximum. A forest-thief, therefore, who cut down twenty trees would
fare worse under the new law than under the old. One would like to
know what were the developments in English forestry which led to this
singular modification of the law.
Our attention begins to be directed to the public assemblies for
the transaction of business, the local _moots_ which, as we know
from other sources, had judicial as well as administrative duties to
discharge, arranging the levy of men for the _fyrd_ and raising money
for the equipment of ships, as well as settling important questions of
inheritance and disputes about property. It was important that such
meetings should not be disturbed by the brawls of unruly partisans of
the litigants, and accordingly we find it enacted that “if any man
fight before the king’s ealdorman in the _gemot_ (meeting), he shall
pay his _wer_ and _wite_ as the law ordains for any assault that he
may have committed, and in addition shall pay a fine (_wite_) of 120
scillings to the ealdorman”.
Law 42 in Alfred’s code illustrates in an interesting manner that
gradual transition from the blood-feud to the law-suit which was
perhaps the most important conquest of Teutonic civilisation. By
the various sections of this law it is provided that no man who has
a grievance against another shall fight his foe until he has first
demanded justice of him. That done, however, and justice denied, he
may, if he have a sufficiently strong body of friends to back him,
besiege the defendant for seven days. Should that blockade bring about
a surrender and a disarmament, he must keep his adversary in custody
for thirty days, sending word to his kinship that they may come and
pay the mulct for which the prisoner is liable. What is to happen if
the surrender does not take place at the end of the seven days, or the
payment at the end of the thirty, we are not informed, but it seems
to be implied that the claimant may then fight and even slay his enemy
without guilt. If the plaintiff have not sufficient power to besiege
his foe, he must ride to the ealdorman and demand his aid. Failing
that, he must seek redress of the king, before he takes it upon himself
to fight his foe. Moreover, a man might always fight for his lord or
his kinsman without incurring the penalties of blood-guiltiness, and
so too he could wage “lawful war” with the seducer of his wife, his
sister, or his mother. We see that the ideas of the old blood-feud and
of the so-called “Fist-right” still lingered in the mind even of so
wise and religious a legislator as Alfred. Redress of wrongs by the
action of courts of law might be the ideal, but in the actual Saxon
world private warfare must still be allowed, and all that the king
could hope to accomplish was to confine it within narrow bounds and
regulate its procedure.
On the condition of the servile class, the _theows_ and _esnes_, in
the time of Alfred, not much light is thrown by Alfred’s Doom-book.
We learn, however, that there was already a large class of free-men
working for wages, for whose holidays, amounting in all to about
thirty-six days in the year, the forty-third of Alfred’s laws made
provision. From this enactment the _theows_ and _esnes_ are expressly
excluded, but it is provided that all men in servile condition shall
have the four Wednesdays in the Ember-weeks, on which days they are
graciously permitted to make a present of their labour to any one who
may have helped them in God’s name, or even to work for themselves.
There is also a curious provision (law 20) exempting from liability the
lord of a monk who has received money on deposit which he has failed to
restore. This passage coincides with some others which seem to indicate
that owing to the ruin of the monasteries wrought by the Danes, many of
the monks, in order to keep body and soul together, accepted a servile
position on the estate or in the house of some great landowner.
There are other indications that during the two centuries which had
elapsed since the legislation of Ine, the tendency which was even
then observable, towards the formation of large landed estates and
the lessening of the number of free and independent ceorls, had been
going forward. One cause which probably contributed to this result
was the conversion of Folkland into Bookland: two terms which, after
puzzling a whole generation of English historians, have at last,
it may be hoped, yielded up their secret to the patient research
of a foreign student of our institutions.[143] Folkland, it seems
now safe to say, was “family land held by common right and without
written evidence”.[144] Bookland was, as it is called by a Latin
interpreter,[145] _terra testamentalis_, land over which the owner
had full power of disposition by will, and his right to which rested
on some “book” or written document, not on folk-right and immemorial
custom. A striking illustration of the difference between the two kinds
of property is afforded by the will of a certain ealdorman Alfred who
was a contemporary of his great namesake the king.[146] This nobleman
leaves the bulk of his large property, which is expressly stated to be
bookland, to his widow and “our common bairn” Aldryth: but there is
also a son, probably not born in wedlock, for whom he wishes to make
provision. After leaving him a certain small “bookland” property, he
adds: “If the king will let him have the folkland in addition to this
bookland, then let him have and enjoy it”; if not, the widow is to
convey to him certain other bookland estates. It is argued with much
force that here we have the case of a nobleman owning large properties
which have been conveyed to him by perhaps recent “books,” written
instruments of purchase and sale, royal donations and the like. But he
has inherited also another, probably smaller, property which has been
in his family from time immemorial, is his by folk-right, and is called
folkland. But this property is held subject to certain customary laws
of inheritance, and is perhaps liable to reversion to other members
of the kinship in default of male heirs. The ealdorman hopes for the
king’s intervention on behalf of his son should any difficulty be made
about his succession to the folkland, and, failing that, desires that
the loss shall be made up to him out of the bookland estate, over which
his disposing power is incontestable.
If, as there is reason to believe, the cases of conversion of folkland
into bookland were frequent throughout the later Saxon centuries, if
the slumbering rights of succession of distant members of the kinship
were being barred by “books” granting the land to members of the royal
household, to convents and churches, or simply confirming ordinary
commercial transactions of sale and exchange, it is easy to see that
the class of “twy-hind” ceorls would be sensibly diminished and the
possessions of the “twelf-hynd” man, the thegn or the king’s retainer
visibly increased. All these causes would augment the number of poor
and struggling freemen who, especially in times of war and invasion
during “the clash of mighty opposites,” were glad to sacrifice some
part of their precarious independence by “commending” themselves to the
protection of some powerful landowner.
CHAPTER XVIII.
ALFRED’S LAST DAYS.
From the peaceful labours which had occupied him for the last seven
years, Alfred was recalled to the weary work of war by tidings of the
return of the dreaded _here_ to the English coast. During those seven
years the chronicler had been nervously noting the deeds of “the army”
beyond seas. They had been fighting chiefly in the north of Gaul,
pressing up the rivers Somme, Seine and Marne, and even laying close
siege for ten months (November, 885, to September, 886) to the city of
Paris itself, a siege which the Emperor Charles the Fat had raised, not
by arms but by the ignominious payment of tribute. It is easy to trace
a connexion between these vehement attacks on Frankish territory and
the resistance which, in our own country, from Athelney onwards, had
been so valiantly offered by Alfred. But now the process was reversed,
and the Northmen, severely handled by a Frankish king, were thrown back
upon England. In the year 887 Charles the Fat, who had disgusted his
subjects by his ignominious treaty with the Danes, was deposed from
his imperial dignity, and Arnulf, his nephew, was chosen king by the
Franks east of the Rhine, by whose aid he won for himself, nine years
after, the grander title of emperor. In 891 he won a great victory over
the Danes near the modern city of Louvain. Hereupon the Scandinavians,
recognising that “Francia” was for the present closed against them by
the might of this new German king, decided to try their fortune once
more on the other side of the channel.
The operations of the five years that followed (892–896[147]) are
described by the Chronicle in great detail and with unusual vividness
and vigour. A recent editor[148] calls the six or seven pages devoted
to these campaigns “the most remarkable piece of writing in the whole
series of chronicles”. It is allowable to conjecture that such a
narrative, if not from Alfred’s own pen, comes from some person in the
immediate neighbourhood of the king. Fresh and vivid, however, as the
narrative is, it is not easy to discover therefrom the precise sequence
of events. Different bands of Danes are seen to be operating in
different parts of the kingdom, and the difficulty which they probably
felt in combining their efforts meets also the historian who seeks to
combine their narratives. Here it will be sufficient to indicate some
of the principal stages of the contest.
The invasion of 892 seems to have been made by two bodies of Danes,
acting to some extent independently of each other. “The great army”
which had been defeated by Arnulf at Louvain, went westwards from
Flanders to Boulogne, embarked from the latter port “with horses and
all” in a fleet of 250 ships, and sailed across to the Kentish coast.
According to their usual custom they made use of a river channel to
penetrate into the interior; but the river up which they fared and
which probably entered the sea at Lymne, has long since disappeared
in that region of silted-up streams. Up the river they towed their
ships for four miles, and there they found a “work” half finished and
defended by a few rustics. Their capture of this work well illustrates
a remark of Asser’s that “of the many forts which Alfred ordered to
be built, some were never begun and others, begun too late, were not
finished when the enemy broke in upon them by land and sea,” causing
tardy repentance and shame on the part of the disobedient builders.
The Danish army then constructed for themselves a “work” at Appledore,
some twenty miles west of Hythe. The nature of these “works,” of which
we hear so much at this point of the history, is explained to us by
the Frankish chronicler who describes the Emperor Arnulf’s victory in
891, and who tells us that the Northmen “had according to their usual
manner fortified themselves with wood and heaped-up earth”.[149] The
description points to a mound crowned with a palisading, such as the
Romans had used to protect their encampments.
Meanwhile another horde, not so large as the first, and fleeing,
not so much from the conquering sword of Arnulf, as from the famine
which waited upon their own destructive footsteps, having crossed the
channel with eighty ships, had entered the Thames and made a “work”
in Kent near the Isle of Sheppey. The leader of this band was the
far-famed Haesten or Hasting, a pirate who had sailed up the Loire to
ravage Central Gaul in the year 866, and in the twenty-six years which
followed had not often rested from the work of devastation. Between
these two invading armies Alfred took up a position (893) in the great
Andredesweald which stretched along the whole length of Kent and Sussex
dividing the two counties, and from thence or from the _burhs_ or
fortresses which he had erected, forays were constantly made with some
success on the unwelcome visitors. So things seem to have remained
through the winter. At Easter the larger host, having broken up from
Appledore, wandered through Hants and Berks, ravaging as they went.
The young “Etheling” Edward, son of Alfred, being informed of their
movements, and having collected his troops, pursued the spoil-laden
plunderers and came up with them at Farnham. He fought them and gained
a complete victory; the booty was all recovered and the robbers in
their desperation swam the Thames without waiting to find a ford, and
made their way up the little stream of the Hertfordshire Colne to the
river island of Thorney. There apparently Edward was forced to leave
them, for the _fyrd_ was divided into two parts, each bound to serve
for six months only. The time for relieving guard had now arrived,
and while one half was marching “thitherward” (to the front) and the
other half homeward, the favourable moment passed away for pursuing the
Danes, whose king had been wounded in the late encounter. Some of the
enemy penetrated to the coast, collected a hundred ships and sailed
westward to make a raid on Devonshire, whither Alfred was forced to
follow them.
Leaving “the great army” for a time, we turn to follow the fortunes
of Hasting. It seems that he had pretended to imitate the example of
Guthrum (who had died three years before, at peace with Alfred), and
had expressed his willingness to become a Christian. He gave hostages,
swore oaths of peace and friendship, and was probably baptised along
with his two sons, the godfathers being Alfred and his son-in-law
Ethelred of Mercia, his stout ally in all these campaigns. But some
turn in the fortunes of war, perhaps the disloyal attitude of the
Danes of Northumbria and Mercia, who were hungering for war, sent
Hasting again into armed opposition. He made a “work” at Benfleet in
the south-east corner of Essex, and as soon as it was finished he
began, as the chronicler says with indignation, to harry that realm
of Mercia which Ethelred, his godfather, was bound to defend. Alfred,
who had been summoned to Exeter by the tidings of another Danish raid,
now returned rapidly to London where a strong _burh_ had been built, a
stout-hearted body of citizens having been sworn to defend it. Marching
forth with these and with his own troops, he assailed the “work” at
Benfleet and carried it by storm. Great spoil was found there as well
as many women and children--a sure token that the Northmen had come
to settle in the land. All the treasure was gathered within the safe
shelter of London-burh, but Alfred, recognising the obligations of
spiritual kindred, though Hasting had so soon forgotten them, restored
to the old pirate his wife and her two sons. After this the two Danish
armies seem to have united and to have made a great “work” at Shoebury
in Essex, not far from the abandoned Benfleet. Hasting henceforward
fades out of the narrative, possibly unwilling to continue to fight
against his generous foe.[150]
The avowed union of all the men of the “Danelaw” (as the district
settled by the Danes was now called), both in East Anglia and
Northumbria, gave a new character to the war. It was no longer a
mere descent of sea-rovers on Kent or Devonshire; it was a terrible
internal struggle, and all along the Watling Street, the boundary
between the two kingdoms, the shuttle of war flew swiftly. Leaving
their camp at Shoebury, the Danes marched up the valley of the Thames
and across the country to the Severn. But now the whole forces of the
kingdom were collected for the contest. Not only Ethelred of Mercia
but “the Ealdormen of Wilts and Somerset and such of the king’s thegns
as were then at home at the works, gathered together from every town
east of the Parret, from both sides of Selwood, from the north of
the Thames and the west of the Severn, and with them came also”--a
memorable addition--“some part of the North Welsh race”. Evidently
the Welshmen had learned by experience that there were worse enemies
than the Saxons, and probably also the righteous rule of Alfred had
won their confidence. The army thus collected marched after the Danes
and came up with them at a place called Buttington on the Severn. For
many weeks the two armies sat watching each other, the river flowing
between them. At last, after the Danes had eaten most of their horses,
they sallied forth and crossed the river to fight. The battle which
followed was a bloody one, many of the king’s thegns falling; but the
slaughter on the Danish side was greater, and victory remained with
the English. Back into Essex fled the beaten remnant of the army, but
having ere winter gathered to them many helpers from the Danelaw, and
having entrusted ships and wives and property to the care of the East
Angles, they once more followed the Watling Street into Cheshire, which
for some reason or other (possibly connected with the Danish conquest
of Ireland) they persistently made the objective of their campaign.
Day and night they marched, till they came to the estuary of the Dee.
Here, still surrounded by its grass-grown walls, lay the silent and
ruined city which had for near four centuries resounded to the shouts
of the twentieth legion, “Valerian and Victorious”. In its desolation
it yet bore the name of “the camp of the legions” (_lega-ceaster_), but
it was “a waste Chester”. A Chester it is still, by its picturesque
medieval architecture pre-eminent above all others of its kind, but
happily no longer waste. The _fyrd_ hastened with all speed after the
_here_, but failed to overtake them ere they had taken refuge in the
ghostly city. They had, therefore, to be satisfied with destroying
all the cattle and corn in the neighbourhood, slaying some straggling
Danes and leaving nought but a hungry wilderness round the survivors.
The blockade of Chester (894) was not a strict one; before long the
Danes, urged by famine, broke out of the city, and escaping into the
friendly Danelaw marched across the country to the island of Mersea at
the mouth of the Blackwater, not far from their old winter quarters in
Essex. At the same time the invaders who had been troubling Devonshire
sailed homeward, but on their way harried the west of Sussex, until the
_burg-ware_ (townsfolk) of Chichester issued forth to battle, routed
them, slew many hundreds, and captured some of their ships. Throughout
this second Danish war, the martial ardour of the inhabitants of the
_burhs_ built or refortified by the king is very conspicuous.
It was now apparently 895, the fourth year since the great _scip-here_
had appeared off the coast of Kent. The Danes who had wintered in
Mersea, still hankering doubtless after the spoil of London, sailed
round to the estuary of the Thames and towed their ships up the
sluggish waters of the Lea, which now forms the boundary between Essex
and Middlesex. Here, about twenty miles above London--that is, probably
in the neighbourhood of Bishop Stortford--they wrought a “work,” and
remained encamped for six months. When summer came a multitude of the
_burg-ware_ of London marched forth to storm the Danish work. This
time, unfortunately, civic valour did not triumph. The _burg-ware_ were
put to flight, and four of the king’s thegns, who had been acting as
their leaders, were slain.
Autumn was now approaching and it was important that the men of Essex
should not be attacked while they were gathering in their harvest.
Accordingly Alfred encamped in the neighbourhood of London. One day he
rode up the Lea to reconnoitre the Danish position, and something in
the course of the river suggested to his mind, fertile in expedients
and enriched by the study of ancient historians, that it might be
possible so to obstruct it as to hinder the escape of the Danes. The
scheme ripened; he set two bodies of troops to erect works above and
below the station of the ships. Ere the works were finished the Danes
saw that their position was being made untenable; they abandoned the
ships--probably by night--and marched off, still no doubt through the
friendly Danelaw, till they came to Bridgnorth on the Severn, where
they again wrought a work and fixed their winter quarters. While the
_fyrd_ rode after them towards the north, the men of London-burh came
out and captured the ships, some of which they broke up and others,
the more serviceable, they towed down stream to London. Such was the
strange campaign of the Lea. Any one who knows the Lea in its present
conditions, who has seen the sleepy bargemen gliding along from lock to
lock, the anglers sitting all day on the banks which Izaak Walton has
made classic ground, all the indescribable restfulness and tranquillity
of the scene, will feel the contrast between this peaceful Present
and the days when Alfred’s men were toiling at their noisy labours
and when the heathens howled forth their execrations on finding their
passage barred by the Saxons.
In the following summer (896) “the _here_ went some to East Anglia,
some to Northumbria, and those who were moneyless got them ships and
fared over sea to the Seine. Thus had the army,” says the chronicler,
“not utterly broken all the English race. But they were more fearfully
broken during those three years by pestilence both of cattle and of
men, especially because the most eminent of the king’s thegns died in
those three years.” The chronicler then gives the name and rank of the
chief victims of the plague: the bishops of Rochester and Dorchester,
the ealdormen of Kent, Essex and Hants, a king’s thegn of Sussex, the
town-reeve of Winchester, a grand constable (king’s horse-thegn) and
many others.
Though the great land invasion was thus defeated, the king had still
to deal with a harassing swarm of sea-pirates, whose long ships named
“ashes,” built of the wood of the ill-omened ash tree, were constantly
appearing off the southern coast, often manned by insurgent Danes from
East Anglia and Northumbria. In order to grapple with these pestilent
enemies Alfred turned shipbuilder. He may have already taken some steps
towards this end, but the following entry in the Chronicle for the
year 897 (= 896) is the earliest definite information that we receive
as to the beginnings of England’s navy: “Then King Alfred bade build
long ships against the ashes; they were full nigh twice as long as the
others. Some had sixty oars, some more. They were both swifter and
steadier and eke higher than the others. They were not built on Frisian
nor yet on Danish lines, but as he himself thought that they might be
most serviceable.”
An engagement of no great importance, which is, however, described in
great detail by the chronicler, took place between the pirates and nine
of the new ships which had been despatched by Alfred to stop their
depredations, and had sealed them up in some estuary or land-locked
bay (such as Brading harbour) in the Isle of Wight. While the tide was
high the crews of the big English ships captured and slew to their
hearts’ content, but when the tide ebbed they were left aground, as the
chronicler says, “very inconveniently” half on one side of the estuary
and half on the other, with the Danish ashes, also aground, between
them. At dead low water the shore was firm enough for the Danish
pirates to climb down out of their ship, paddle across the sands and
challenge a fight with the crews of the three English ships nearest to
them. For such small contending forces the battle seems to have been a
bloody one. One hundred and twenty Danes fell and sixty-two English,
but among these latter were many men of high rank, a king’s reeve and a
king’s companion (_geneat_), and also many of the Frisian captains and
sailors whom Alfred, knowing their nautical skill, had attracted to his
service. When the battle was ended, in came the flowing tide, on which
the Danish ships could float out to sea while the larger ships of the
new navy were still lying “very inconveniently aground”. So the three
pirate ships escaped for the time, but they were sorely strained and
damaged, so that they could not all sail round the coast of Sussex. Two
were wrecked on that coast, and their crews being brought to Winchester
and led into the king’s presence, were ordered by him to be hanged.
This order was not like the usual clemency of the king, but he probably
felt that it was necessary to repress with a strong hand movements
which were now no longer warfare but mere brigandage. The third ship
escaped both the winds and the English pursuers, and landed her crew, a
troop of sore-wounded and weary men, on the East Anglian coast.
Not more than four years of rest seem to have been granted to Alfred
after the repulse of this last invasion before death ended his labours.
There can be little doubt that some part at least of that plentiful
literary harvest which was described in the preceding chapter belongs
to these closing years. Especially interesting is it to note that,
according to the judgment of the most careful modern inquirers,
the king’s metrical translation of Boethius should be referred to
this period. The proem to that translation alludes to “the manifold
worldly cares that oft troubled him both in mind and body” when he was
turning it from Latin into English prose, and then again to the cares,
apparently the yet heavier cares, “that in his days came upon the
kingdom to which he had succeeded,” but which did not prevent him--so
high was his value for the great _Consolatio_--from “working it up once
more into verse” as the reader may now behold it. All these cares were
now at an end, and ended, too, all his noble toil for the defence, the
enlightenment and the guidance of his people. He died on October 26,
900,[151] in the fifty-third year of his age, and was buried in St.
Swithun’s monastery at Winchester. In 903, however (according to the
legend told by William of Malmesbury), as “the delirious fancies of
the canons” declared that the king’s ghost, resuming possession of his
corpse, wandered at night through their cells, the royal remains were
transferred to the New Minster, founded by his son in fulfilment of a
plan which Alfred himself had formed and had confided to his friend and
spiritual adviser, Grimbald the Frank. In the reign of Henry I. the
monks of New Minster migrated from their narrow domain within the city
to a large and convenient site called Hyde Mead, on its northern side,
and in their migration they took with them the body of the king. At the
suppression of the monasteries Hyde Abbey fell into decay, and near the
close of the eighteenth century the Hampshire magistrates purchased the
site for the purpose of erecting thereon a county jail. The tombs were
ruthlessly opened, the stone coffins were turned into horse troughs,
the lead which covered a coffin, presumably Alfred’s, was sold for
two guineas, and apparently the dust of the great king himself was
scattered to the winds. No leader of the Danish army could have shown
greater zest in the work of desecration. This New Minster at Winchester
was consecrated by one of Alfred’s friends, Archbishop Plegmund, and
numbered another of his friends, Grimbald, as first on its list of
abbots. Its records, known as the _Liber Monasterii de Hyda_, furnish
us with some valuable information concerning the reigns of Alfred and
his sons.
As for the great king himself, several of the chroniclers, especially
his kinsman, Ethelweard, and Florence of Worcester, have celebrated his
praises in fitting terms, but his best epitaph is contained in three
simple words of an unknown scribe of the twelfth century, “Alfred,
England’s Darling”. His fame and the glory of his noble character have
grown brighter as the centuries have rolled by, and at this day he is
really nearer to the hearts of Englishmen than all, save one, of his
successors.
NOTE.
ON THE EXTENT OF THE DANELAW.
The political boundaries of the Danish state recognised after the
Peace of Wedmore have been sufficiently indicated by historians, and
it may be said that for all practical purposes they nearly coincide
with the old Roman road called the Watling Street, the sphere of
Danish influence lying to the north and east, that of Saxon influence
and rule to the south and west of that line, which, as previously
remarked, coincides very nearly with the line of the London and North
Western Railway. There is, however, another question both interesting
and important: “To what extent did the Danish population fill up the
district thus assigned to them?” In other words, “How far did the
ethnological coincide with the political boundary?” This is a question
which we have not as yet sufficient materials to answer fully or
accurately. Much study and much patient research on the part of our
local antiquaries, study of dialects and research in sepulchral tumuli,
will probably be needed before we can say with certainty: “Here the
old Anglian population remained preponderant, and here the Danish or
Norwegian immigrants so filled the land as to make it practically a
Scandinavian district”. But in the meantime some help is gained from a
consideration of the place-names in the several districts of England;
only we must beware of looking at the conclusions thus arrived at as
final and irreversible.
Broadly, however, we may say with some confidence that place-names
ending in _ton_, _ham_, _yard_ and _worth_ are Saxon or Anglian;
those ending in _by_, _thorpe_ and _toft_ are Danish; in _thwaite_,
_garth_, _beck_, _haugh_, and _fell_, Norwegian; in _borough_, probably
Anglian; in _wick_ or _wich_, if inland, Saxon, if near the sea-coast,
Danish. Applying these tests we find evidence of considerable Danish
settlements, but no Danish preponderance, in Norfolk and Suffolk. The
great fen district round Peterborough seems to have been an impassable
barrier, and we find no Danish names to the west of it; on the other
hand, the Humber and the Wash must have been constantly visited by the
ships of the vikings, for their shores swarm with Danish names. As has
been said by Mr. Isaac Taylor,[152] “A district in Lincolnshire, about
nine miles by twelve, between Tattersall, New Bolingbroke, Horncastle
and Spilsby, would appear to have been more exclusively Danish than
any other in the kingdom. In this small space there are some forty
unmistakably Danish village names, such as Kirby, Moorby, Enderby,
etc., all denoting the fixed residence of a Danish population.” “The
Danish local names radiate from the Wash.[153] In Leicestershire,
Rutland, Northamptonshire and Yorkshire the Danish names preponderate
over those of the Anglo-Saxon type; while Cambridgeshire,
Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire and the adjacent counties, protected by
the fens, present scarcely a single Danish name.” There can be no more
striking proof of the absolute preponderance of the Danish element
in the north-east corner of Yorkshire (where probably the influence
of the invaders radiated from the estuary of the Tees) than the fact
that Streanæshalc itself, the Anglian sanctuary, home of St. Hilda and
meeting-place of the great Paschal Synod, meekly bowed its head to the
alien yoke and accepted the Danish name of Whitby.
In the midland counties the most striking proof of the numerical
superiority of the Danes was exhibited by the powerful confederation of
the five boroughs, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, Stamford and Derby.
It is true that only one of these bore an unmistakably Danish name,
but the part which they played politically, their strong offensive and
defensive alliance, seems to confirm the generally accepted conclusion
that the five boroughs were essentially a Danish confederation. Going
further north we find very slight indications of Danish settlement in
Durham and Northumberland. This part of Northumbria the invaders seem
to have visited only for ravage, not for settlement, being satisfied to
leave it under the rule of some subservient earl, who might or might
not be of their own race. Further north still, across the Scottish
border, Danish names die out altogether; but when we go far enough
we find abundant traces of the other great stream of Scandinavian
invasion, the Norwegian, and about this a few words must be said in
reference, not to Scotland (Shetland, Orkney, Hebrides, etc.), but to
the western coast of England.
The place-names of Cumberland and Westmorland must always have arrested
the attention of careful philologists. While the names of mountains
and rivers, such as Helvellyn, Blencathra, Glaramara, Derwent, are
for the most part of Celtic origin, we find a great number of names
of villages and some also of hills and streams which evidently are
Scandinavian rather than Celtic. Such are all the multitudinous
_thwaites_ and _ghylls_, the _garths_ and _haughs_, and the frequently
recurring _beck_ for a stream, and _fell_ for a high hill. Mr. Robert
Ferguson called attention to the fact that this multitude of non-Celtic
terminations--so remarkable in a country which actually bears the name
of the Cymri--pointed to a large immigration of Scandinavians, not,
however, of the Danish but of the Norwegian type. Of such immigration
we have scarcely a hint in the chroniclers, but the philological
evidence adduced by Mr. Ferguson[154] is so strong that his conclusion
has been generally accepted by ethnologists. As to the date of this
migration, his theory is that after the Saxon king Edmund in 945
had overrun the district of Cumbria and had left it wasted and bare
of people, the Norwegians from their stronghold in the Isle of Man,
discerning their advantage, covered the Solway with their ships, and
pouring into that land of mountains and lakes and long stream-watered
valleys--a land so like their fatherland--settled there and made it
their own. This migration he would therefore place in the latter part
of the tenth century, between the just mentioned Cumbrian campaign of
Edmund (945) and the similar campaign of Ethelred (1000) which was
undertaken, Henry of Huntingdon says, against “the Danes” yet involved
the ravaging of Cumberland.
However this question of the date may hereafter be settled, there can
be little doubt that the race which peoples these two most picturesque
counties of England is pre-eminently of Norwegian origin. There seems
to have been two other settlements of Scandinavians which deserve
remark. One was in that curious peninsula of Cheshire, called the
Wirral, between the estuaries of Dee and Mersey, a region which teems
with Norse names; and the other, an exceptional instance of a Norse
settlement south of the Watling Street, was in the promontory of
Pembrokeshire, where a number of towns and villages, of which the best
known is the watering-place of Tenby, attest by their names their
Danish origin.
CHAPTER XIX.
EDWARD AND HIS SONS.
With the death of Alfred and the accession of his son EDWARD (called
in later times “the Elder,” to distinguish him from his descendants,
“the Martyr” and “the Confessor”) we enter upon a new century. Like
its predecessor, the tenth century was for Europe generally a time of
gloom, dismay and depression. The break-up of the empire of Charlemagne
went on with increasing rapidity, the imperial title itself becoming
the prize of obscure Italian princes until, about the middle of
the century, the great Otto I. of Saxony (962–73) did something to
restore its lustre and to bring back the Italian peninsula within the
sphere of the imperial unity. In some measure, too, he succeeded in
rehabilitating the office of the papacy, cruelly discredited by the
intrigues of two profligate women, Theodora and Marozia, who had placed
their lovers, their husbands and their young and licentious sons on
the most venerated throne in Christendom. In France the Carolingian
line was yielding to the same process of decay which had destroyed
its Merovingian predecessor; and thirteen years before the end of the
century Hugh Capet followed the example of Pippin and, thrusting the
descendants of Charlemagne into the background, became the acknowledged
king of the diminished territory of France; a position in which he was
somewhat overshadowed by the greatness of his nominal vassals, the
Norman dukes descended from Rollo. For France and Germany it is true
that the invasions of the Northmen had practically ceased, but the
ravages of the Hungarians during the first half of the century were a
terror to Europe. In England, however, this age was not nearly so dark
a time as many of its predecessors. In fact the tenth century saw the
Anglo-Saxon monarchy attain its highest point of power and prosperity,
though it also before its close saw it sink to the lowest depths of
misery and degradation.
The first five years of Edward’s reign[155] were disturbed by the
rebellion of his cousin Ethelwald, son of Ethelred. According to the
theories of strict hereditary succession which have since prevailed,
Ethelwald’s title as representative of an elder son was incontestable,
and in fact Alfred himself according to these theories was but a
usurper, yet it need hardly be said that these theories had no place in
the Anglo-Saxon polity. The son, if a minor, or for any other reason
unsuitable, had no indefeasible right to wear his dead father’s crown.
Among the Saxons, as with most of the other Teutonic nations, the two
principles of inheritance and election were closely, we are inclined to
say illogically, blended. The new king must be of the royal race; in
the case of Wessex his line must “go unto Cerdic”; but he must also be
“chosen and raised to be king” by the _witan_, the wise men or senators
of the kingdom. This ceremony had been duly complied with at Edward’s
accession, and therefore he was rightful king though sprung from a
younger branch of the royal house. Moreover it was a matter of reproach
against Ethelwald that he had “without the king’s leave and against the
bishop’s ordinance married or cohabited with a woman who had before
been hallowed as a nun”. Yet for all this he did not lack adherents,
some of whom probably held that he was wrongfully excluded from the
throne.
Ethelwald’s rebellion was announced to the world by his occupation of
a royal vill at Badbury in Dorsetshire, near his father’s sepulchre
at Wimborne. Thither rode the new king with a portion of the local
_fyrd_, but found all the approaches to the place blocked by order
of the insurgent Etheling. It was rumoured that Ethelwald had said
to his followers, “Here will I die or here will I lie”: nevertheless
his heart failed him when it came to the pinch, and he stole away by
night to Northumbria, vainly pursued by the men of King Edward. The
Danish army in the northern realm accepted him for their king; the men
of East Anglia joined them, and after three years all marched through
Mercia, ravaging as they went, as far as Cricklade in Wiltshire. At
the approach of Edward with his _fyrd_, the insurgents moved rapidly
northwards with the spoil which they had gathered. Edward pursued,
and ravaged all their land between the Cambridgeshire dykes and the
river Ouse, as far northward as the fens. He then sounded a retreat,
but the men of Kent, eager for the fight, though seven times ordered
to withdraw, continued to face the enemy. The battle which ensued was
evidently a defeat of the Saxons, and cost the lives of two ealdormen
and many distinguished nobles of Kent. Practically however it was as
good as a victory, since Ethelwald, “who enticed the Danes to that
breach of the peace,” lay dead upon the field. Peace seems naturally to
have followed upon his death, and thus was ended in 905 what might have
been a dangerous civil war.
The chief work of Edward’s reign was the conquest of the new
Danish kingdoms of East Anglia, Essex and the remainder of Mercia.
The settlement which followed the Peace of Wedmore, a wise and
statesmanlike compromise at the time, had ceased to be applicable to
the existing state of affairs. At every serious crisis of the West
Saxon state the Danes beyond Watling Street at once broke the _frith_,
and their dreaded “army” crossed the Saxon border. It was time that
this intolerable state of things should be brought to an end, and to
its termination Edward, himself “a man of war from his youth,” and
with an army of Saxon veterans at his back, now successfully devoted
himself. We hear of him in 910 beating the Danes at Tettenhall in
Staffordshire; in 911, at some place unnamed, winning a great victory
over the Northumbrian Danes--a victory in which two kings, many _jarls_
and _holds_ (earls and chief captains) and thousands of soldiers of
meaner rank were slain. Then, in 912, he “took possession of London
and Oxford, and all the lands thereto belonging”. This however was
apparently no fresh conquest, but only a peaceful resumption of
territories previously appertaining to Mercia. In 913 he fortified
Hertford, encamped at Maldon in Essex, and received the submission of
the greater part of that kingdom. In 914 and 915 the chief victories
seem to have been won not by the king in person, but by the warlike
energies of the local militia. In the former year they defeated a
plundering host of Northamptonshire and Leicestershire Danes at
Leighton Buzzard, and stripped them of their accumulated spoil. In the
latter, operations after a long interval were begun anew by marauders
from beyond sea. A _scip-here_, or naval armament, from the coast of
Brittany, made its unwelcome appearance at the mouth of the Severn
and captured a Welsh bishop whom Edward ransomed for forty pounds
(of silver); and then the men of Hereford, of Gloucester and of all
the nearest _burhs_ came out against them, slew one of the two jarls
who commanded them and the brother of his colleague, and drove them
into a “park” or enclosed space, which the men of the _fyrd_ beset
so closely that the Danes were forced to give hostages for their
peaceable departure from the country. Apparently, however, they broke
their promises, stole away by night and made two hostile descents on
the coast of Somerset, one at Watchet and one at Porlock, both of
which were successfully repulsed. After betaking themselves to the
two islands of Flatholme and Steepholme, in the middle of the Bristol
Channel, and seeing many of their number die of sheer starvation on
those desolate islands, the remnant departed, first to South Wales and
then to Ireland, and were heard of no more.
The largest share of the credit for the conquest of Danish Mercia
must be given to Edward’s manlike sister, Ethelfled, “lady of the
Mercians”. Daughter herself of a Mercian princess and married to a
husband (Ethelred) who was probably related to the royal line of Offa,
she seems after her husband’s death in 911 to have still commanded, to
an extraordinary degree, the love and loyalty of the Mercian people,
and to have wielded the warlike resources of the Midland kingdom
with wonderful energy and success. Each year she struck a heavy blow
either at the men of the Danelaw, on her right, or at the Welsh of
Gwynedd--now no longer friendly to the Saxon--on her left. With her,
as with her brother, the plan of campaign, generally centred round
some _burh_ which the English ruler built in the hostile territory and
defended against all comers. After Chester had been repaired, probably
by Ethelred, the chief fortresses built and defended by his widow were
Bromesberrow, near Ledbury in Herefordshire, Shrewsbury, Bridgnorth,
Stafford, Eddisbury in the forest of Delamere, Warwick, Chirk in
Denbighshire, Warburton and Runcorn in the south of Lancashire. While
some of these forts were within, most of them were decidedly beyond
the Watling Street line, and their erection betokened the recovery for
the English of an important portion of the Danelaw. The Denbighshire
fort is evidence of the determination of the high-hearted “lady of the
Mercians” to reduce her Welsh neighbours to obedience; a determination
which was shown still more plainly when in June 19, 916, she sent the
Mercian _fyrd_ into South Wales, took Brecon by storm and captured the
wife of the Welsh king with thirty-four other persons, probably nobles
of his court.
By this time, however, the conquering career of Ethelfled was drawing
to a close. Towards the end of July, 917, she “with the aid of God
obtained the _burh_ which is called Derby, with all pertaining
thereto”. The victory, however, was not bloodless. “There were slain
within the gates four of her thegns, of those who were dearest unto
her.” The next year by the same Divine aid “she gained peaceable
possession of the _burh_ of Leicester and subdued to herself the
largest part of the _here_ that owned allegiance thereto. Also the men
of York promised obedience, and some gave bail, while others confirmed
with oaths their covenant to be under her rule.” Apparently the Lady
of Mercia was destined to become also Lady of Northumbria. Not so,
however. “Very swiftly after this covenant was made, twelve nights
before midsummer (918) she died at Tamworth, in the eighth year that
she had held power with right lordship over the Mercians. And her body
lieth at Gloucester in the east porch of St. Peter’s Church.” From this
entry it appears probable that Tamworth was the favourite residence of
the Lady of the Mercians as it had been of her royal predecessors.[156]
What was the precise nature of the political relation between
Ethelfled and her royal brother, it is perhaps impossible to discover.
Clearly the status of Ethelred and his wife was not kingly. He is
correctly spoken of as _ealdorman_ and as _hlaford_ (lord), while she
is described as _hlæfdige_ (lady); yet in all her actions, in her
military movements, her sieges and her treaties, she seems to act as
independently as Penda or Offa. Probably the term which is sometimes
used in the Chronicle, _mund-bora_ (protector), most fittingly
expresses the relation which during Ethelfled’s lifetime Edward held
toward his sister. She is not absolutely independent, yet she governs
her subjects, marches her armies about, and promotes her well-beloved
thegns to honour, as seems meet to her. She is a subject-ally, most
faithful and most valiant of all allies, and he, should she ever need
to call upon him for help, will not fail as her “protector”.
Whatever may have been the precise nature of the peculiar relation
between Wessex and Mercia, it came to an end soon after the death of
Ethelfled. She left, indeed, a daughter named Elfwyn, who seems for
about eighteen months to have wielded her mother’s authority, but in
919, “three weeks before mid-winter,” she was deprived of all power
over the Mercians and led away into Wessex. There are some slight
indications in the Chronicle that this obliteration of Mercia as a
semi-independent state was not altogether acceptable to the people of
the middle kingdom. However this may have been, Edward, now sending
forth into the field the united armies of Wessex and Mercia, carried
forward with irresistible might the process of the unification of the
kingdom. The _burhs_ which he erected between 913 and 924 rounded
off the work of Ethelfled. These were Hertford, Bedford, Huntingdon
and Towcester in the East Midlands, Maldon and Colchester in Essex,
Stamford in Lincolnshire, Nottingham and Bakewell in the country of the
Peak, Thelwall in Cheshire, and Manchester, the last being expressly
stated to have been “in Northumbria”. The work of subduing and
over-aweing the Welsh was not forgotten. In 921 Edward built a _burh_
at Wigmore in Herefordshire, in sight of the long range of Radnor
Forest, and another at the mouth of the Cleddau in Pembrokeshire, a
proof that his arms had penetrated as far as to Milford Haven.
Round all these newly built _burhs_ the tide of battle fiercely ebbed
and flowed ere the people whom they were meant to hold down patiently
submitted to their domination. Thus we hear of an unsuccessful assault
by “the army” of East Anglia and Mercia on the _burh_ at Wigmore;
of “the army” breaking the _frith_ and marching against Towcester.
“And they fought against it all day and thought to carry it by storm,
but the folk that were therein defended it till help came, whereupon
they departed ravaging as they went.” In consequence of this attack,
unsuccessful as it was, Edward surrounded Towcester with a stone wall
which it had not previously possessed. The enemy vainly endeavoured
to imitate Edward’s castle-building policy. The Danes of Huntingdon
and East Anglia built a great fort at Tempsford on the river Ouse (a
little south of St. Neots), “and thought that they should therefrom
with battle and un-peace win back to themselves more of this land”. But
they were disappointed, for the people from the nearest _burhs_ having
gathered themselves together, fought against Tempsford and overthrew
it, slaying the Danish king and two of his jarls, and all who were
found fighting therein.
The year which is marked in the chief manuscript of the Chronicle as
921 but which probably was in truth 918, saw the full tide of English
successes, and in consequence we now hear of the complete submission
of East Anglia and Essex to the rule of Edward. “To him submitted much
folk both of the East Angles and the East Saxons, who had been erewhile
under the Danish power, and all the ‘army’ in East Anglia swore to
oneness with him, that they would all will that which he willed, and be
at peace with those with whom he was at peace, whether by sea or land.
And the _here_ that belonged to Cambridge chose him specially for lord
and protector (_mund-bora_) and confirmed this by oaths as he commanded
them.” In 919, the year after the death of Ethelfled, three kings of
North Wales and all the North Welsh kin sought Edward to be their lord.
His conquest of Nottingham followed, and here we observe with interest
that he garrisoned the newly captured fort with Danes as well as with
Englishmen; also that all the folk that were in Mercia submitted to his
rule, whether they were Danes or Englishmen.
Thus then we now have Edward not wielding the shadowy power of a
Bretwalda, but actual king, personally ruling over all the lands south
of the Humber, acknowledged as over-lord by North Wales, probably
also by Northumbria. Did his overlordship extend yet farther north?
Did Scotland recognise him as supreme king? That question seems to be
answered decisively in the affirmative by the celebrated entry in the
Chronicle for the year 924 which probably should be corrected to 921.
After describing Edward’s operations in the midlands, his building a
bridge over the Trent between the two _burhs_ of Nottingham, his going
from thence into the Peak country and ordering a _burh_ to be built as
near as possible to Bakewell, the chronicler thus proceeds: “Him chose
as father and lord the Scottish king and all the Scottish people; and
Raegnald, Eadulf’s son [king of Northumbria], and all the dwellers in
Northumbria whether they were Englishmen or Danes or Northmen or any
others, and eke the king of the Welsh of Strathclyde and all his people
[did the like]”. The facts here related, as far as they concern the men
of Strathclyde and Northumbria, are not seriously disputed, though one
may note in passing the distinction now first met with between “Danes”
and “Northmen” or Norwegians. But how as to Edward’s over-lordship
of Scotland, which seems to be vouched for by the beginning of the
sentence, and which was made, four centuries later by his namesake,
Edward Plantagenet, the basis of a claim to exercise the rights of lord
paramount? The answer to that question has involved historians on both
sides of the Border in fierce debate. It is, of course, impossible here
to do more than sketch the bare outline of the controversy, but so much
as this must be attempted.
The champions of the English claim to supremacy over Scotland[157]
maintain that “in 921 Edward received--what no West Saxon king had
ever before received--the submission of the Scots and the Strathclyde
Welsh.... In the Latin phrase they _commended_ themselves to him; they
promised him fidelity and put themselves under his protection.” “There
was nothing strange or degrading in this relation; it was the relation
in which in theory all other princes stood to the Emperor.”[158] “From
this time to the fourteenth century the vassalage of Scotland was an
essential part of the public law of the isle of Britain. No doubt
many attempts were made to cast off the dependent relation which had
been voluntarily incurred; but when a king of the English had once
been chosen ‘to father and to lord,’ his successors never willingly
gave up the position which had thus been bestowed upon them.”[159]
On the other side, Scottish historians[160] naturally point to the
fact that it is a Saxon chronicler who makes the statement from which
such mighty consequences are deduced. The law does not allow a suitor
to make evidence for himself; but here is an alleged “commendation”
of which we have no hint in the records of the king and the nation
by whom it is alleged to have been made; only in the chronicles of
the pretended receiver. They further throw doubt on the genuineness
of the passage and suggest that it may be a late interpolation. One
argument against its genuineness is that it seems to represent the
“commendation” as taking place in the heart of Derbyshire, whereas such
a transaction would naturally have been performed on the boundary of
the two kingdoms. Another and more serious objection is that Raegnald
of Northumbria is here named as taking part in the “commendation”
in the year 924, whereas “in the Irish annals, at this period most
accurate and trustworthy authorities for all that relates to the family
of Raegnald,”[161] the death of this chieftain is assigned to a date
three years earlier, 921.
The question at issue, now merely academic but once of vital
importance to the two countries, has been much complicated by
subsequent transactions, alleged cessions of Lothian and Strathclyde
on terms of feudal dependence, homage rendered by Scottish kings for
possessions in England and so forth. The allegation of fact made by
the English chronicler seems entirely worthy of credit. Doubtless for
polemical purposes such a statement if made by a Scottish authority
would have been more valuable; but the writer of the Chronicle was a
contemporary; his work though not very luminous and often careless of
strict chronological accuracy, certainly impresses one’s mind with
a general feeling of its honesty and good faith; there is no trace
of interpolation in the manuscripts (which are all long antecedent
to the reign of Edward I.); nor is there any very obvious reason why
a monastic scribe writing at Winchester or Canterbury should have
invented the transactions here detailed if they never happened. When
the entry is carefully examined and compared with similar passages in
the same Chronicle, it is seen that the writer is not committed to
the statement that the interview took place at Bakewell. Nor will the
objection drawn from the date of Raegnald’s death appear formidable
to any one who knows how loose is the chronology of the Chronicle
everywhere, but especially in this part of it, in which, for reasons
quite unconnected with this controversy, its latest editor considers
that all the events are post-dated by three years.
If then we accept as probably true the statement that “the Scottish
king [Constantine II.] and all the Scottish people chose Edward as
father and as lord,” what does that statement imply? It is perhaps a
mistake to introduce the word “commendation,” though that word may
pretty nearly describe the nature of the transaction. But the word
itself, though known to the Franks and occurring in the Bavarian
law-book, does not seem to have been ever used by our Anglo-Saxon
ancestors. The Teutonic word _mund-byrd_ (protection), which most
nearly corresponds to it, is not used of the transactions of 921,
though it is used shortly before concerning the men of Huntingdon
who “bowed to King Edward and sought his _frith_ (peace) and his
_mund-byrd_”. In such a difficult and obscure discussion, it is surely
better to keep quite close to the original words of the historian,
avoiding all mention of “commendation” and far more of “vassalage,”
which last term, as all agree, does not correctly represent any
relation established in Britain early in the tenth century. Let us
repeat simply that the King of Scots “chose Edward as father and as
lord”.
What then was the meaning of that choice? Did it make “the vassalage of
Scotland an essential part of the public law of the isle of Britain”?
The word “vassalage” no one would insist upon; but may we not also
demur to the expression “the public law of the isle of Britain” at this
period of its history? Where is there a trace in that age of such a
refined juristic conception? Is not everything in the relation between
the races and kingdoms of Britain vague, ill-defined, anarchic? The
Danes make a _frith_ and break it; the West Saxons establish some kind
of supremacy over the Mercians; Edward’s personal rule is advanced as
far as the Humber; he becomes thereby undoubtedly the most powerful
man in Britain; Scots, Northumbrians and Britons of Strathclyde take
note of the fact and desire to become allies--we may safely say
subject-allies--of so mighty a prince, whom they accordingly take
“as father and as lord”. That is all that has yet happened. There
was something here which on the one hand, as the current of the age
swept on towards feudalism, might have been developed into lordship
and vassalage, or, on the other, might have utterly disappeared. In
the next reign the very districts which have thus acknowledged the
superiority of Edward are found fighting against his son. Under such a
weak king as Ethelred the germ involved in the transaction of 921 must
have disappeared altogether. No one can suppose that the Redeless King,
who could not defend his own throne against the attacks of the Danes,
was in any sense “father and lord” of Scotland. Thus the question,
which is academic to us now, was or should have been equally academic
in the thirteenth century. Whatever other grounds Edward I. might have
for claiming high-lordship over Scotland, the dead and buried rights or
duties or courtesies of 921 ought not to have been imported into the
controversy.
Shortly after the events last described, at the end of 924 or the
beginning of 925, King Edward died at Farndon[162] in Mercia. Only
sixteen days after his death his son Elfweard died also, and father and
son were both buried in the New Minster at Winchester. Edward, though
one of the noblest of his race, was a man much less richly endowed
with intellectual gifts than his father. We cease to hear of works
undertaken for the instruction of his subjects, and the great Chronicle
begins to languish in his reign. His character also seems to lack some
of the beauty of his father’s; one can hardly imagine Alfred dealing
with Ethelwald or with Elfwyn exactly in the same manner as his son.
But he was essentially a soldier, probably a strict disciplinarian,
and he, with the help of that Amazon, his sister, carried strongly
and steadily forward the great work which their father had begun, the
recovery of England for the English.
* * * * *
ATHELSTAN, who now succeeded to the throne, and who reigned, probably,
from 924 to 940, was much the eldest of the remaining sons of Edward.
The others were but children, while he was thirty years of age at his
father’s death. Although he cannot have been more than six years old
when Alfred died, we are told that his comely face and winning ways so
endeared him to his grandfather that the latter made him “a premature
soldier,” robing him in a scarlet mantle and girding him with a little
sword, golden-scabbarded, and hung round his neck by a jewelled
baldric. Moreover, Alfred is said to have prayed that the royal child
might one day have a prosperous reign. It is not very easy to reconcile
these stories with the fact, alleged by William of Malmesbury, that the
stain of illegitimacy rested on his birth. The same authority tells
us that he was the son of Egwinna, a noble lady, and then in another
place describes her as the daughter of a shepherd, marked out by a
dream for high destiny, and introduced to Edward by his old nurse, at
whose cottage he was visiting. It is difficult entirely to reject the
statement that there was something irregular about Athelstan’s birth
which caused difficulties about his accession even in that age, not
fastidious about the strict principles of legitimacy. There is also
something slightly suspicious about the emphasis which the chroniclers
lay on the premature death of his half-brother, Elfweard, as if, had
that event not occurred, he would have been at least a partner in the
throne, if not its sole occupant. We need not, perhaps, greatly concern
ourselves with William of Malmesbury’s story of a certain Alfred, the
rival of Athelstan, who opposed his elevation to the throne on the
ground of his illegitimacy, went to Rome to state his case before the
Pope and died in the act of taking an oath, presumably a false oath,
in its support. All this, though it raises a suspicion that for some
reason or other the accession of Athelstan was not wholly unopposed,
is too doubtful and legendary to be made the ground-work of serious
history. We can only say that Athelstan’s day was a glorious one,
if there were some clouds which hung round its sunrise. It should,
perhaps, also be mentioned that Athelstan when a boy had been entrusted
by his grandfather to the care of Ethelred and Ethelfled, and seems
before his accession to the West Saxon throne to have been specially
connected with Mercia.
The coronation of Athelstan took place at Kingston-on-Thames, which
for the rest of this century was the chief crowning place of English
kings. In the new king, whatever may have been the clouds overhanging
his birth, or the difficulties attending his accession, we have a more
splendid type of English royalty than has yet been displayed even by
the great kings of Northumbria. By his family alliances, by the renown
which he inherited from his father, and by that which he achieved
for himself as the successful champion of his people, he obtained a
commanding position among the rulers of western Europe, and he early
assumed and not doubtfully vindicated for himself the proud title of
“lord of the whole of Britain”.
By the marriages of his half-sisters, the daughters of Edward,
Athelstan was brought into close connexion with the most powerful
rulers of France and Germany. Not powerful it is true, though highly
placed, was his brother-in-law, the unfortunate Charles the Simple,
King of France (893–929), who married Edgiva, was dethroned and died in
a dungeon; but his son, Louis IV. (“_d’outre mer_”), after having been
smuggled out of Laon in a truss of straw, was brought to England by his
devoted mother; was reared at the court of Athelstan; recalled to his
native country and played the part of the king of France not altogether
unsuccessfully for eighteen years (936–54). A too powerful subject of
these Carolingian kings, one whose greatness overshadowed their throne
and whose son eventually succeeded in winning it for himself, was Hugh
the Great, Duke of France. This nobleman sought another of Athelstan’s
sisters in marriage, even the Lady Eadhilda, in whom as a chronicler
says “all the elements of beauty which other women have in part,
naturally flowed together in one”. The messenger who came to urge this
suit, and who was himself Athelstan’s first cousin,[163] brought with
him gorgeous gifts, precious relics, consecrated swords, lances and
banners. Among the presents may be specially noted an onyx vase (surely
of antique workmanship) so skilfully carved that on it you seemed to
see the corn waving, the vines putting forth their shoots, the figures
of men moving, and swift horses prancing in their golden trappings. The
pleadings of the ambassador or the splendour of the gifts prevailed.
The lovely Eadhilda became the wife of Hugh the Great, though not for
her but for a successor was reserved the honour of being the mother of
the new line of kings of France. When German Otto, the future Roman
emperor, wished to wed one of the same royal sisterhood, he seems
not to have proffered so humble a request, but in lordly fashion to
have signified his pleasure that a princess should be sent unto him.
Thereupon, Athelstan sent two of his sisters, Edgitha and Elfgiva,
that Otto might choose between them. He chose Edgitha, whose marriage
seems to have been a happy one, and who was much loved by the German
people. Elfgiva, who remained on the continent, had to be satisfied
with the humbler position of wife of a sub-Alpine prince.
A striking feature of Athelstan’s policy was his friendship for the
Scandinavian powers. He probably saw that notwithstanding all that
England had suffered at the hands of the Danes, the Northmen were
tending towards the condition of an organised state, and that it would
be wise for “the lord of all Britain” to cultivate their friendship.
His reign coincided with the last years of the long reign of Harold
the Fair-haired, the first king of Norway, and the legend of the
dealings of the two kings with one another, though probably untrue in
the letter, may well illustrate the relations between the two kings as
remembered by the people.
“One day a messenger of Athelstan appeared at the court of Haarfager
(the Fair-haired one) bearing a sword whose hilt was enwrought with
gold and silver and set with most precious gems. The messenger said:
‘Here is a sword which King Athelstan sendeth thee, bidding thee take
it withal’. Harold grasped the sword, and the envoy completed his
message thus: ‘Now hast thou taken the sword according to our king’s
bidding. Henceforth thou must needs be his thegn.’ Harold dissembled
his vexation and next year sent a ship to England under the command
of his favourite champion, Hawk High-breech, into whose keeping he
gave the little Hakon, the son of his old age by his bondwoman, Thora.
Norseman Hawk was hospitably entertained by the king and bidden to
a right worthy feast in the city of London. After due greetings
interchanged, the old captain took the boy and set him on Athelstan’s
knee. ‘Why dost thou do that?’ said the king. ‘Because King Harold thus
ordereth thee to foster the child of his bondwoman,’ was the reply.
The king was angry and began to feel for his sword, but the messenger
said: ‘Thou hast set him on thy knee, and now thou mayest murder him
if thou wilt, but not so wilt thou make an end of the sons of King
Harold’.”[164] These sons were in truth an almost countless throng,
and the wars and tumults of them, their sons and grandsons, kept
Norway in an uproar for a century. The little lad, however, who sat on
Athelstan’s knee at the great London banquet was actually reared at the
English court and grew up to be King of Norway, being known as Hakon
the Good, and endeavouring with no great success to convert his people
to Christianity.
The determination of Athelstan to be “lord of all Britain” naturally
urged him northwards, since all the region south of the Humber was, or
seemed to be, securely resting under the dominion of Wessex. Into the
extremely difficult and obscure history of the Kings of Northumbria
after the death of Guthred, the friend of the monks of St. Cuthbert,
it is not necessary here to enter. A variety of Sihtrics, Anlafs and
Godfreys flit across the scene, and the confusion is increased by the
fact that there are generally two contemporaneous princes bearing
the same name. It may be remarked in passing, however, that this is
the period of Danish pre-eminence in Ireland (whose capital, Dublin,
is a memorial of Danish rule), and that the fortunes of the two sets
of invaders in Northumbria and in Ireland were almost inextricably
intertwined. Also that we have traces of an Anglian dynasty still
existing at Bamburgh, though probably owning the overlordship of Danish
kings.
Almost immediately after his father’s death, Athelstan had an
interview at the Mercian capital, Tamworth, with Sihtric the Dane,
King of the Northumbrians. Sihtric received Athelstan’s sister (his
only sister of the full blood) in marriage, and probably agreed, as
part of the compact, to embrace Christianity. Next year, however, he
died, after having, according to some of the chroniclers, repudiated
both his new wife and his new religion. Hereupon Athelstan marched
northward (probably in 926), expelled Sihtric’s successor, Guthfred,
and his son, Anlaf, from the country, and “assumed the kingdom of the
Northumbrians,” thus for a time--it was only a short time--governing
directly and not as overlord the whole of what is now England except
Strathclyde.[165] The Chronicle adds that he subjugated all the kings
who were in this island--Howel, King of the West Welsh (Cornishmen);
Constantine, King of Scots; Owen, King of Gwent (North Wales); and
Ealdred, son of Eardulf of Bamburgh. One of the conditions of the peace
which was ratified (probably at Emmet in Holderness) on July 12, 926,
was that all idolatry should be strictly forbidden. Possibly we have
here a combination of the Christian powers in Britain; Saxon, Anglian
and Celtic against the heathen Danes.
If such a combination were formed, it did not long endure, for eight
years later, in 934, we find Athelstan again moving northward to fight
against the kings of Scotland and Strathclyde. The monk of Durham who
records this fact takes care to mention that on his journey Athelstan
presented the church of St. Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street with many
costly ornaments and no fewer than twelve _vills_, and that he charged
his brother, Edmund, in the event of his falling in battle, to bring
his body back to St. Cuthbert’s minster and bury it there. “Having
defeated the two kings both by sea and land, he subdued Scotland
to himself,” says the same chronicler. This was certainly a most
precarious subjugation if it ever took place, for after the lapse of
three years, in 937, Athelstan had to face the mightiest combination
of his foes that any English king had yet had to encounter; and the
very soul and centre of that combination was the hoary Scottish king,
Constantine, who had chosen Edward “to father and to lord,” and whom in
this entry he is represented as having utterly subdued.
The chief factors in this combination were besides Constantine, his
son-in-law, Anlaf (son of the Northumbrian Sihtric), king of the Danes
settled in Ireland; another Anlaf, cousin of the former, and also
king of the Irish Danes; and Eugenius, king of Strathclyde. Such a
formidable combination between two pagan and two Christian kings is in
itself a proof of the fear inspired by the growing power of Athelstan.
King Anlaf is said[166] to have owned 615 ships with which he sailed to
join his allies of Scotland and Cumberland.[167]
The great battle of Brunanburh, in which Athelstan defeated the
confederate army, has been celebrated in a war-song which is in
some respects the most interesting relic that has been preserved of
Anglo-Saxon literature. Unfortunately a tantalising obscurity rests
upon the site of the battle. Numerous identifications have been
suggested, but without discussing or criticising these it may be
allowable here to mention one, of which it may at least be said that it
has not been proved to be impossible. On the coast of Dumfriesshire in
Scotland rises a range of mountains which look across the sandy Solway
to the mountains in Cumberland, and according to popular tradition have
strange weather-sympathy with their Cumbrian brethren. Here is the high
hill of Criffel, which whenever Skiddaw is wrapped in cloud, wears his
cloud-cap likewise, and here is the long, flat-topped, altar-shaped
hill of Burnswark which overlooks Annandale and once dominated the
old Roman road, the northern continuation of the Watling Street. This
road led in the second century from the wall of Hadrian to the wall of
Antoninus, from Carlisle to the neighbourhood of Glasgow. The multitude
of Roman camps which skirt this hill or are to be found in its near
vicinity, show that it was once a most important military position,
and such in some measure it may well have continued to be far on into
Anglo-Saxon times; the Roman roads still, after the lapse of so many
centuries, being the best, often the only, roads available for the
march of armies.
One of these Roman camps bears, and apparently has always borne since
the Anglian occupation, the name of Birrens, which is evidently
connected with the name Birrenswork or Burnswark given to the
altar-shaped hill above it. Now the scene of the great battle was
evidently close to some great hill-fortress. This is testified by the
varying forms of the name, which is called by Ethelweard _Brunandune_,
by Florence of Worcester _Brunanburgh_, by Symeon of Durham _Weondune_
or _Etbrunnanwerc_ or _Brunanbyrig_, and by Geoffrey Gaimar (a twelfth
century writer, but one who often gives us curious little scraps of
valuable information) _Bruneswerce_ or _Burneweste_. It is evident
that in these last forms the name approaches very near to the local
form, Burnswark, which has finally prevailed. It seems probable that
Athelstan, marching rapidly northward to meet the confederate hostile
armies, met them in the great north-western road in Annandale, near
the point where Anlaf Sihtricson had just landed his troops; that the
battle raged, as the ballad tells us, _ymbe Brunnanburh_, all round
the camp-scarred hill of Burnswark, and that when Anlaf fled “over the
yellow sea” (_on fealene flod_) it was the sand-laden waters of the
shallow Solway Firth that witnessed his ignominious flight.
The ballad which is here inserted in the Chronicle, lightening up its
dull pages with a gleam of Homeric brilliance, is familiar to every
English student,[168] and it will therefore not be necessary to do more
than to gather up the information--not very copious or minute--which
is vouchsafed to us by the minstrel in his rushing career of song. The
two chief English heroes were King Athelstan himself, “liberal bestower
of bracelets,” and his half-brother Edmund Atheling, a youth about
seventeen years old. Under their guidance the men of Wessex and Mercia
broke down the stubborn shield-wall of the confederate army. The battle
began at sunrise and lasted as long as the daylight.
Five young kings put asleep by the sword-stroke,
Seven strong earls of the army of Anlaf
Fell on the war-field, numberless numbers
Shipmen and Scotsmen.
The Danish leader was hard pressed by the victorious army; with few
followers he escaped to his warship and saved his life by a scurrying
voyage “over the fallow flood”. Especially does the minstrel triumph
over the humiliation of the old Scottish king, Constantine, the same
who thirteen years before had chosen Athelstan’s sire “to father and to
lord”.
Also the crafty one, Constantinus,
Crept to his North again, hoar-headed hero.
Slender reason had _he_ to be glad of
The clash of the war-glaive--
Traitor and trickster and spurner of treaties,--
He nor had Anlaf
With armies so broken a reason for bragging
That they had the better in perils of battle
On places of slaughter,--
The struggle of standards, the rush of the javelins,
The crash of the chargers, the wielding of weapons,
The play that they played with the children of Edward.
* * * * *
Never had huger slaughter of heroes
Slain by the sword-edge, such as old writers
Have writ of in histories,
Happed in this isle, since up from the East hither
Saxon and Angle from over the broad billow
Broke into Britain with haughty war-workers who
Harried the Welshman, when Earls that were lured by the
Hunger of glory gat hold of the land.
The Anglo-Saxon Tyrtaeus in this shrill song of triumph naturally makes
no mention of the losses on his own side, but we learn from another
source[169] that two of Athelstan’s cousins, Elwin and Ethelwin,
fell “in the war against Anlaf,” which probably means at Brunanburh.
However, one-sided as all our information is about the great battle,
it cannot be doubted that it was a real and important victory for the
English.
The campaigns in Northumbria were apparently the most memorable events
in the reign of Athelstan, but we hear also of his forcing the king of
Wales to pay him tribute, of his visiting Cornwall, probably in hostile
guise, of his expelling the “West Welsh” from Exeter and turning it
into a purely Saxon city. He thus fixed the Tamar as the limit against
the old British population in the south of England, as the Wye had been
fixed further north.[170] It is clear that he came somewhat nearer than
any of his predecessors to the position which would have been described
in feudal times as lord paramount over the whole island. It is not only
that he is generally described in the charters, which he granted with
lavish hand to the monasteries, as _rex totius Britanniæ_, sometimes
substituting for Britannia the half-mythical word Albion, which he must
have learned from his ecclesiastical friends. Nor is it only that he
first uses of himself the Greek word _Basileus_, which was regarded
with awe throughout Western Europe as expressing the mysterious majesty
of the Cæsars at Constantinople. These titles might be regarded as only
the ornaments of style affected by the clerks of this period, or as the
pompous assumptions of regal vanity; but when we find the meetings of
the _witan_ attended, and Athelstan’s charters signed, by Welsh kings
(Howel, Juthwal and Morcant) who are styled _sub-reguli_; when we
find, even at a meeting of the _witan_ held as far south as Buckingham
(in 934), the attesting signature of “_Ego Constantinus subregulus_,”
and when we know that this is Constantine II., King of Scots (900–43),
we feel that there was something real in Athelstan’s claim to be lord
of all Britain; and the story of Constantine’s commendation of himself
to Edward the Elder becomes decidedly more probable, even though “that
old deceiver” did afterwards break his _frith_ and stand in arms
against his patron on the field of Brunanburh.
Athelstan does not seem to have ever married, and we may perhaps
conjecture that he purposely abstained from leaving issue who might
contest the claims of the legitimate descendants of his father. With
one doubtful exception his relations with all his half-brothers and
sisters seem to have been not only friendly but affectionate. That
exception relates to his half-brother Edwin, as to whom the Chronicle
for the year 933 simply asserts: “Now the Etheling Edwin was drowned in
the sea”. Symeon of Durham, however, or rather the Cuthbertine annalist
from whom he quotes,[171] has this ugly entry under the same date:
“King Athelstan ordered his brother Edwin to be drowned in the sea”.
This annal grew by the time of William of Malmesbury into a long and
fanciful narrative, which William himself only half believed, and which
connected the death of Edwin with some opposition to Athelstan at the
time of his accession to the throne, on the ground of his illegitimacy.
This evidently legendary story need not weigh greatly with us, and
is at least balanced by the statement of Henry of Huntingdon, that
Athelstan “was moved to tears by the news of the drowning of his
brother, a youth of great vigour and of fine disposition”.[172]
The person and character of Athelstan are painted in bright colours
by later historians; his manly stature, his yellow hair interwoven
with threads of gold, his free and easy manner of joking with laymen,
while meek and reverent towards ecclesiastics, his majestic deportment
towards the nobles of his realm, and his condescension to the poor;
qualities all of which so endeared him to his subjects that we should
probably not err in calling him the most popular of all the West Saxon
kings. He was a most generous giver to the Church, and his martial
piety, as displayed in the curious document[173] called the Prayer of
Athelstan, breathes a spirit not unworthy of a David or a Joshua. He
died in the prime and vigour of his life, in the forty-seventh year of
his age, October 27, 940, three years after the battle of Brunanburh,
and he was succeeded by his half-brother Edmund. He was buried in the
abbey of Malmesbury, where, by his order, the bodies of his two young
cousins who fell at Brunanburh had already been laid.
Athelstan was succeeded by EDMUND, who reigned from 940 to 946, and he
by Edred, who reigned from 946 to 955. The reigns of these two young
kings, sons of Edward the Elder, will be best considered together, as
they make but one act in the drama, the struggle with Danish revolts
in the northern kingdoms. The personal history of the two brothers,
as far as we know it, is soon told. Edmund, “the dear deed-doer” of
Anglo-Saxon minstrelsy, who had already fought well at Brunanburh, was
eighteen years old when he came to the throne. He was twice married:
his first wife, Elgiva, who after her death was recognised as a saint,
bore him two sons, Edwy and Edgar, both of whom reigned after him. His
second marriage was childless. Edmund was evidently a man of much force
of character, and if his policy in some respects differed from that of
his predecessor--the _Heimskringla_, contrasting him with Athelstan,
says that “he could not away with Northmen”--still, had his reign been
prolonged for the thirty or forty years which might reasonably have
been expected, he might have rivalled the glories of Edward or of
Athelstan. In fact, however, it was prematurely cut short by a felon
stroke, the story of which gives us a strange picture of life in the
West Saxon court. It was the feast of St. Augustine, May 26, 946; the
king and his thegns were banqueting at the royal vill at Pucklechurch
in Gloucestershire. A robber named Liofa, who six years before had
been banished for his crimes, entered the hall, and striding up to an
ealdorman to whom the king had just sent a dish from the royal table,
sat himself down beside him. The guests, deeply drinking, did not
notice the intrusion, but the king’s dish-thegn bade him begone and
was at once assaulted by the robber. Enraged at the man’s insolence
the king leaped up from his seat, grasped Liofa by the hair and hurled
him to the ground. Hereupon the robber unsheathed a dagger and drove
it with all his force into the king’s heart. The royal servants rushed
upon him, and after receiving many wounds, succeeded in tearing him
limb from limb. But the robber had dealt a mortal stroke. The valiant
deed-doer, Edmund, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, was laid in
the tomb at Glastonbury, near the flowering thorn of St. Joseph of
Arimathea, and Edred, his brother, reigned in his stead.
EDRED, who was probably about twenty-three when he was solemnly
crowned at Kingston-on-Thames, suffered from chronic dyspepsia and
died when but little over thirty. Thus his reign, like that of his
great ancestor, Alfred, was one long battle with disease, but he seems
to have followed that ancestor’s example and not to have neglected
his kingly duties for all his sufferings. He came much under the
influence of the rising churchman Dunstan, and was also in some
measure guided by the counsels of his mother, the widowed Edgiva.
Faint as are the colours of Edred’s portrait, he seems to have been
not the least deserving of the princes of his line. The attitude of
these two brothers towards the other rulers of Britain is somewhat
less lordly than that of Athelstan. The proud claim to be “King of
all Britain” disappears almost entirely from their charters, and is
generally replaced by the more modest title “King of the English,”
to which, however, is often added “governor and ruler of the other
nations round about”. Thus the claim to predominance in Britain
is not wholly dropped, but it is put in a somewhat less offensive
form than by the victor of Brunanburh. The Greek word “Basileus,”
doubtless attractive by reason of its very strangeness, still sometimes
makes its appearance; but Edmund’s favourite epithet for himself is
“Industrious,” probably a translation of the Saxon “_daed-fruma_”
(deed-doer), by which the minstrels of the people sang his praises. In
a world which had seen, not long before, the degenerate race of the
_fainéant_ kings of France, deed-doer was an epithet full of meaning.
Let us pass to the history of Danish revolts and their suppression.
From the short and often obscure statements of the chroniclers, it is
hard to discover what amount of permanent success resulted from the
victories of even the most prosperous kings. It certainly seemed as
if Athelstan had made himself undisputed King of Mercia and overlord
of Northumbria, yet, if we may trust Symeon of Durham, Edmund at the
very outset of his reign had once more to accept the Watling Street
as the boundary between himself and a Danish ruler, that ruler being
apparently Anlaf Sihtricson who had been defeated at Brunanburh, but
who now reappeared in Northumbria and fixed his capital at York. In the
next year (942) a fragment of ballad assigns to “the dear deed-doer”
the deliverance of the Five Boroughs (Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham,
Stamford and Derby) from Danish thraldom. But these very five boroughs,
though undoubtedly containing a large Danish population, were expressly
or by implication included in the conquests of Edward and Ethelfled.
Evidently much is left unwritten of this portion of English history.
It seems probable that at the coming of Anlaf there had been a general
rising of the Danelaw, and that the suppression of this revolt, being
more complete than the earlier conquest, took a stronger hold on the
popular imagination. Hence it was that the poet chronicler of Edmund’s
reign attributes to him, not to his predecessors, the deliverance of
the native population:--
Under the Northmen need-constrained
In heathen bondage long time chained.
The result of Edmund’s Mercian campaign seems to have been a treaty of
peace, negotiated by the two archbishops Oda and Wulfstan on the lines
of the peace between Alfred and Guthrum. Anlaf and his brother-king
Raegnald were baptised, Edmund acting as their sponsor; and the Watling
Street was again made the boundary between Englishman and Dane. The
peace thus concluded lasted but a year. In 943 Anlaf and his Danes
were again in Mercia, and--ominous conjunction--Wulfstan, Archbishop
of York, was abetting the invaders. They stormed Tamworth, they took
much spoil and great was the slaughter, but on Edmund’s approach
they retired to Leicester where they were besieged by the king.
Notwithstanding the escape of Anlaf and the rebel archbishop, Edmund
was victorious, and next year (944) he invaded Northumbria and drove
out his two rebellious god-sons, who appear no more upon the scene.
In the following year, 945, Edmund ravaged all “Cumbraland,” a
region which probably included all that was left of the old kingdom
of Strathclyde south of the Solway, the northern portion having
been gradually appropriated by the Scottish kings. We now come to
another of the great academic battlefields between English and
Scottish historians. We are told by the chronicler that having
ravaged Cumberland, “he let it all to Malcolm, King of Scotland, on
condition that he should be his fellow-worker both on sea and land”.
What was the relation thus established between Edmund and Malcolm I.
who had succeeded “the hoary old deceiver” Constantine? Of course
a feudal lawyer of the twelfth century pondering these words would
discover in them a regular case of the relation of lord and vassal.
But they do not in themselves seem to imply more than friendship and
alliance, and it is admitted that the fully developed feudal theory
was not yet known in England. As with the “commendation” of 921, we
may probably conclude that the transaction would mean anything or
nothing according to the after course of events, and the shifting of
the centre of gravity between the two contracting parties. In itself
this “cession of Cumberland” was probably a politic measure, as it
enlisted the sympathies of the Scottish “fellow-worker” on the English
side and interposed a barrier between the vikings of Dublin and their
Northumbrian fellow-countrymen.
On the assassination of Edmund in 946, Edred seems to have taken up the
endless task and laboured at it successfully. “He took to the kingdom
and soon subdued all Northumbria to his power, and the Scots swore to
him oaths that they would do all his will.” Wulfstan, the turbulent or
patriotic archbishop of York, plays a prominent and singular part in
Northumbrian politics during the reign of Edred; and princes of the
royal houses of Norway and Denmark also bear a hand in the perplexing
game. One such was Eric Blood-axe, son of fair-haired Harold of Norway,
who when driven forth from his kingdom by Hakon the Good, Athelstan’s
foster-son, sailed for the Orkneys, ravaged Scotland and the northern
parts of England, but on receiving a message from Athelstan, who
reminded him of the old friendship between himself and his father,
made peace, consented to be baptised along with his wife and children,
and became for a time the peaceful under-king of Northumbria. This
settlement had endured during the life of Athelstan, but on Edmund’s
accession, Eric, knowing that he was not beloved of the new king, and
hearing a rumour that he would set another king over Northumberland,
renounced his allegiance to Winchester, resumed his viking life,
gathered together a new “_scip-here_,” chiefly from among the Irish
Danes, harried Wales and all the southern coasts of England, but ere
long fell in battle against the English.
Another Eric, the son of another Harold, then appeared upon the
scene. This was the son of Harold Blue-Tooth, King of Denmark. In
948 the _witan_ of Northumbria, headed by Archbishop Wulfstan, chose
this Danish prince for their king, though but a year before they
had solemnly plighted faith to Edred. Enraged hereat the Saxon king
marched northwards and “harried over all Northumberland”. So ruthless
or so careless was the work of destruction that even Wilfrid’s famous
minster at Ripon perished in the flames. During Edred’s homeward march
the Danish garrison of York sallied forth, and overtaking the rear of
his army at Chesterford[174] inflicted upon it grievous slaughter.
Exasperated by the defeat, Edred, whose weak health perhaps made him
exceptionally irritable, meditated a second ravage of Northumbria,
but consented to forego his revenge when the _witan_ of the northern
kingdom expelled Eric and paid compensation for the injury which had
been inflicted by their countrymen. We need not follow minutely the
fortunes of King Eric. Expelled and restored twice, if not thrice,
in the anarchy of Northumbria, he is said to have perished in 954,
“deceitfully slain” (according to Roger of Wendover) “with his son
and his brother in a lonely place which is called Stainmoor, by the
treasonable contrivance of Earl Oswulf”. This event is memorable as
finally closing the book of Northumbrian royalty. Oswulf of Bamburgh
succeeds to the chief place in the northern province with the title of
earl, and henceforth we hear no more of kings in Northumbria.
The strange career of the rebel archbishop, Wulfstan, came speedily
to an end. In 952 Edred ordered him to be imprisoned in a fortress
“because he had been often accused to the king,” or according to
William of Malmesbury, “because he meditated desertion to his
countrymen”. Probably the phrase “his countrymen” means merely the men
of Northumbria. It is, however, possible that Wulfstan may have been of
Danish descent. We have clearer information as to the Danish descent
of his contemporary Oda, Archbishop of Canterbury. It certainly throws
a strange light on the relation of the two races, as well as on the
ecclesiastical history of the period, that the first and possibly the
second of the highest places in the English Church should have been
filled by scions of that still barely Christianised stock. In 954,
the year of the extinction of the Northumbrian kingdom, Edred thought
himself safe in giving to Wulfstan the Mercian bishopric of Dorchester,
where, three years after, he died. The only other noteworthy event
in the reign of Edred was “a great slaughter” which in his usual
passionate way he ordered to be made among the inhabitants, probably
the Danish inhabitants, of Thetford in East Anglia in revenge for their
murder of the abbot Eadhelm (952). Three years after this, on Nov.
23, 955, Edred died at Frome in Somerset and was buried in the old
monastery at Winchester. No nightly appearances in his case, as in that
of his great ancestor, seem to have troubled the repose of the dwellers
in the convent.
CHAPTER XX.
EDGAR AND DUNSTAN.
“On the death of Edred, EADWIG [or EDWY] succeeded to the kingdom. Two
years afterwards, his younger brother Edgar succeeded to the kingdom of
the Mercians.”
“In 958, Oda, Archbishop of Canterbury, separated King Edwy from his
wife Elfgyfu, because they were too near akin.”
“In 959, King Edwy died on the 1st of October, and Edgar his brother
succeeded to the kingdom as well of the West Saxons as of the
Northumbrians and Mercians, being then about sixteen years old.”
Such is the only information (with one important exception) vouchsafed
us in the Chronicle concerning the short reign of the unfortunate
Edwy, who when about fifteen years of age succeeded his father Edmund.
These sentences suggest much--internal discord, fraternal rivalry,
a matrimonial union condemned by the Church, the early death of a
broken-hearted husband--but they tell us nothing as to the causes of
these events. Later historians have believed that they found the clue
to the mystery in the one sentence which has not yet been quoted. “And
in the same year [957] Abbot Dunstan was driven away over sea.” However
this may be, the story of Edwy’s reign is so inextricably intertwined
with the life of this man, the most famous English saint between
Cuthbert and Becket, that for a little space history must give place to
biography.
Dunstan was born about the year 925, near the commencement of the reign
of Athelstan. His birthplace was in the immediate neighbourhood of
the great Abbey of Glastonbury; his parents must have belonged to the
higher ranks of Anglo-Saxon society, since he numbered two bishops and
certain members of the royal household among his near kinsmen and was
in some way related to a niece of Athelstan’s. Glastonbury was probably
the only great sanctuary in which the religious life of the Celt had
flowed on without interruption into a Teutonic channel; and it may
have been on account of its old British traditions that it became the
resort of “certain Irish pilgrims who looked on that place with great
affection, especially on account of their reverence for the younger
Patrick, who is said to be there resting in the Lord”.[175] Taught by
these men, the boy early acquired great familiarity with Scripture;
he received the tonsure and performed some of an acolyte’s duties in
the church of the Virgin, but was not as yet definitely vowed to a
religious life. He seems to have been admitted as a lad to some place
about the court of King Athelstan, who probably often visited the
royal estate of his own great ancestor at Wedmore, a few miles from
Glastonbury. But the future archbishop’s experience of court life was
not a pleasant one. He was evidently a lad of quick intelligence with
a nervous and sensitive frame, a soul much exercised by the joys and
the terrors of the world of spirits. He had already seen some visions,
and in the delirium of fever had climbed to the roof of the church at
Glastonbury, his safe descent wherefrom was accounted a miracle. His
young kinsmen, the pages of the court, with their rough and fleshly
natures, could not tolerate this pale and pious playfellow, and they
treated him as bullying schoolboys in later generations have often
treated an unpopular comrade. At last, by an accusation of extracting
from Latin books a knowledge of unholy arts, they obtained an order for
his expulsion from court, which they emphasised in their own brutal way
by throwing him into a marshy pool, and then trampling him down into
the stinking mud. The poor victim escaped to the neighbouring house of
one of his friends, but on arriving there was set upon by the dogs,
who in his besmirched figure scarcely recognised a human being, much
less one of their master’s friends. When they heard his voice, however,
they at once gave him a warm canine greeting, whereupon the young saint
wept at the contrast between the friendliness of the dog and the cruel
animosity of man.
At this point Dunstan had come to the parting of the ways. “The
ancient enemy of mankind,” says his biographer, “sorely tempted him
with suggestions of the delightfulness of family life, and the love
of woman,” but, on the other hand, his kinsman, Elphege, Bishop of
Winchester, strongly urged him to become a monk, and to this advice he
yielded after a sharp attack of some sickness, in the nature of bubonic
plague, from which he was like to have died. It was no doubt the great
monastery of Glastonbury in which he made his profession. Near to
that monastery was the dwelling of an elderly lady named Ethelfled, a
relative and patroness of Dunstan. The saint in his old age sometimes
told the story of the barrel of mead which in answer to Ethelfled’s
prayers was miraculously replenished, when a sudden visit from her
uncle Athelstan found her without sufficient provision of liquor for
all his thirsty courtiers. He told too of the white dove which he
saw alighting on the roof of the blessed matron’s house when she lay
a-dying, and of the converse which on his entering her room he found
her holding with an invisible heavenly visitor.
In Dunstan’s monastic life, both now and later on when he had attained
to high office in the Church, there was always room left for other
occupations besides prayer and psalmody. We are told that “in the
intervals of his study of sacred literature, he diligently cultivated
his talent for playing on the harp, as well as for painting, and that
he became a skilful judge of all articles used in the household”.
At the request of a devout lady who was his friend, he sketched out
for her a design for a stole with various kinds of patterns, which
she could afterwards embroider with gold and gems. A bell was long
preserved at Canterbury fashioned by the saint’s own fingers; and late
in life he presented to Malmesbury Abbey an organ, bells and stoup for
holy water, all of his own manufacture.
After the accession of Edmund, Dunstan, who was still but a youth,
was recalled to court, and probably on account of his literary
qualifications “was numbered among the royal chiefs and princes of
the palace”. What precise official rank these words betoken it would
be difficult to say; but whatever it may have been, he soon lost it
through the machinations of his enemies, who probably again whispered
in Edmund’s ear the old accusation, “Dunstan traffics with the powers
of darkness”. Bowing his head to the storm, Dunstan prepared to quit
the realm, and taking advantage of the presence at court of certain
messengers from “the eastern kingdom,” he begged them to procure him
an asylum in that land. What is the meaning of these words “the eastern
kingdom” is by no means clear. Germany has been suggested, but on the
whole it is perhaps slightly more probable that the biographer--not a
very accurate writer--means by these words to describe East Anglia.
That region, though not strictly a kingdom, was still bound by a
somewhat loose tie to Wessex, and was at this time ruled by a great
noble named Athelstan, who, though properly speaking he was only an
ealdorman, was known in the common speech of men as “the half-king”.
Whatever may have been the exact name of Dunstan’s intended place
of refuge, it was not, in fact, necessary for him to betake himself
thither. The court was at this time staying at Cheddar, that well-known
and beautiful village at the foot of the Mendips, where steep cliffs
and stalactite caves attest the wonder-working presence of the
limestone formation. One day Edmund, while hunting, became separated
from his companions, and found himself following the hounds and the
stag alone. In its desperation the hunted animal made for the cliffs,
leaped from the top and was dashed to pieces. The hounds followed, and
the king followed also, pulling in vain at the bridle of a hard-mouthed
horse, and seeing a terrible death immediately before him. In that
moment Edmund reviewed his past life, and thought with satisfaction:
“I do not remember to have ever wittingly injured any man”. But then
Dunstan’s name came into his mind. “Too true! I have injured Dunstan.
O God, if Thou wilt preserve my life, I will be reconciled to Thy
servant.” The horse stopped, on the very edge of the precipice, and the
king’s life was saved.
Meanwhile, however, the first act of the delivered king was to send for
Dunstan, provide him with a horse and ride with him to Glastonbury.
After offering prayer, the king took the monk’s right hand, gave him
the kiss of peace, led him up to the abbot’s chair and seated him
thereon, saying: “Be thou occupant of this seat and a faithful abbot
of this church. Whatever may be lacking for the performance of divine
service and the due observance of your holy rule, I will supply it
from my royal bounty.” Thus was Dunstan, still in very early manhood,
installed as abbot in the great historic house of Glastonbury. The
Benedictine rule, if it had been adopted in this monastery, had become
much relaxed, but Dunstan at once set to work to restore the discipline
of the brotherhood. He enlarged the buildings, and collected round
him a crowd of young followers, whom he instructed in Holy Scripture,
so that from this monastery, as from a school of the prophets, many
deans, abbots, bishops, even some archbishops went forth to guide and
govern the English Church. At this point of the story we hear much
of Dunstan’s conflicts with the Powers of Darkness, conflicts which
were believed to endure throughout his monastic life. Now the Evil
One appeared to him in the form of a bear, now as a dog, now as a
fox, shaking his tail in terror and shrinking from the keen glance of
the holy man. All these appearances and others like them, which later
ages delighted to record and to magnify, belong to the intellectual
pathology of the cloister and are not to be specially attributed to the
spiritual discernment or the cerebral excitability of this particular
recluse, though we may be permitted to observe that they occupy a more
prominent place and are of a more grotesque character in the authentic
Lives of Dunstan than in the pages of Bede. Unfortunately they have, by
their frequent repetition, somewhat obscured the real greatness of the
alleged devil-fighter, both as ecclesiastic and as statesman.[176]
After the death of Edmund (of which the saint is said to have had
supernatural warnings) his successor Edred took Dunstan into high
favour and committed to him the charge of his treasure and of many of
the deeds relating to his various estates, besides the precious things
accumulated by the old kings his predecessors. All these were deposited
at Glastonbury. Moreover, Edred desired to make his friend bishop of
Crediton, but Dunstan refused, nor could even the entreaties of the
king’s mother, Edgiva, though she had great influence with him, prevail
upon him to consent to take the nominal charge of so distant a diocese.
When Edred’s long struggle with disease was nearing its end, he
ordered Dunstan to bring to him the treasures committed to his charge
that he might make a death-bed division of them among his kinsfolk.
The saint complied with the order, visited Glastonbury and had gone
several stages on the return journey, when he heard a voice from heaven
saying: “Behold! now King Edred has departed in peace”. A yet greater
marvel! his horse, hearing the same voice and “being unable to bear the
presence of the angelic sublimity,” fell down and died on the road.
When Dunstan reached the palace he found that his patron’s death had
taken place at the very same hour at which he had received the heavenly
communication.
We have now reached the same point in Dunstan’s life at which we had
already arrived in the history of the kingdom. Edred dead, and the
boy-king Edwy seated on the throne (955), we come to the well-known
scene at the coronation banquet. Dunstan’s biographer tells us that
after the great ceremony had been performed, when according to the
unanimous choice of all the English nobles, Edwy had been anointed and
hallowed as king, he suddenly leaped up and left the merry banquet and
the company of his own nobles, whom he forsook for the companionship
of two high-born dames, Ethelgiva and her daughter Elfgiva. These
ladies were of royal descent, Edwy’s near relations; and it is a
plausible conjecture, though only a conjecture, that the elder lady
may have acted as foster-mother to the king, who had lost his own
mother in childhood. It was natural, if not politic, for the boy-king
(still scarcely fifteen years of age) to leave the company of the grim
warriors and hoary churchmen who composed his _witan_, and to refresh
himself with the livelier talk of his child-sweetheart and her mother.
But the nobles of the _witan_ felt themselves insulted by the king’s
departure, and Oda, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had Danish blood
in his veins, in a loud and angry voice gave utterance to the general
discontent. “Let some one,” he said, “be chosen who shall bring back
the king to take his place, as is fitting, at our merry banquet.” All
others refused, not liking to face the women’s wrath, but at last Abbot
Dunstan and his relative Kinsige, Bishop of Lichfield, were chosen for
the disagreeable task. When they entered the royal apartment they found
the crown cast carelessly on the ground and the king seated on a couch
between the two ladies. “We are sent,” said they, “by the nobles to
beg you to return at once to your fitting place at the board and not
to disdain to mingle in the joyous feast of your _thegns_.” The boy at
first refused and the women scolded, but Dunstan raised the king from
the couch, put his crown becomingly on his head and led him back, an
obviously reluctant banqueter, to the company of his nobles. Such was
the scene, natural and intelligible enough and worth studying for the
sake of the light thrown by it on the habits of our forefathers in the
tenth century, but by no means justifying either the praise or the
blame which have been bestowed on the chief actors therein, especially
the foul imputations which the monkish biographer has cast upon the
characters of “the two she-wolves,” as he terms them, the ladies
Ethelgiva and Elfgiva.[177]
Dunstan’s intervention at such a time was not likely to recommend
him to royal favour, and it is with no surprise that we read the
Chronicle’s entry for the year 957: “In this year abbot Dunstan was
driven away over sea”. Even his own friends were partially alienated
from him, for his biographer lays the blame of his banishment and
the confiscation of his goods not only on “the impudent virago, that
Jezebel,” Ethelgiva, but also on “the secret machinations of his own
disciples, whom he himself had nurtured in their tender years with
the nectareous sweetness of his teaching”. This is one of several
indications that the struggle, a very obscure one and difficult to
understand, which took place during Edwy’s short reign, was not, as
was formerly supposed, a struggle between the boy-king on the one
hand and an arrogant and united Church-party on the other. There were
ecclesiastics on both sides, and Edwy, at any rate, was no declared
enemy of the Anglo-Saxon Church. There are in the Saxon Cartulary
copies of grants made by him to Glastonbury, to Bath, to Worcester, to
Abingdon and many other monasteries. But there are also grants made by
him in surprising numbers to the thegns of his court, and this lavish
generosity looks like a sign of weakness and may have had something to
do with the revolt against his authority.[178]
Notwithstanding the uproar at Edwy’s coronation, the lady Elfgiva, who
was one of the persons blamed for his absence from the feast, became
soon afterwards his wife. To one document which is assigned to the
year 956 the names of Elfgiva, “king’s wife,” and Ethelgiva, “king’s
wife’s mother,” are attached as witnesses. It was not till two years
after this time that, according to the Chronicle, “Oda, Archbishop of
Canterbury, separated King Edwy from his wife Elfgiva because they
were too near akin” (958). At this point Edwy’s wife and her mother
disappear from authentic history. Writers of little judgment, the
earliest of whom lived a century and a half after the event, tell us
distressing stories of the branding of Elfgiva’s face with a hot iron,
of her or her mother’s flight into Ireland, return and miserable death
under the cruel operation of ham-stringing. The authority for these
tales is poor, their style legendary, the confusion which they make
between Ethelgiva and Elfgiva an additional reason for distrust. On
the whole, though a painful suspicion may rest on our minds that there
was some basis of fact underlying these ghastly traditions, we are not
bound to accept them as history. In any case no one has a right to
impute these cruelties, if ever committed, to Dunstan, who was almost
certainly still in exile at the alleged date of their infliction.
The cartularies further show us that under the reign of Edwy his
venerable grandmother Edgiva, widow of Edward the Elder, was deprived
of some portion of her property, which she recovered after the
accession of Edgar. It is evident, from this and other indications,
that many personal and political questions were involved in the
revolution which has next to be described; and it is probable that
the great ecclesiastical controversy which sounded so loud through
the next twenty years had no connexion therewith. Of that revolution
itself we have most scanty details. The chiefs of the realm, we are
told, dissatisfied with Edwy’s government, proclaimed as king his
brother EDGAR, a boy of some thirteen years old. We hear of no battles.
A compromise was soon arranged, by the terms of which Edgar reigned
in the lands north of the Thames, and Edwy south of that boundary. We
may probably trace here some remains of the old jealousy between the
kingdoms. Edwy retained the allegiance of loyal Wessex, while Mercia,
glad of any pretext for recovering her lost independence, rallied
round the standard of his brother and was joined by East Anglia,
under whose “half-king” Athelstan and his wife Elfwen, Edgar had
been reared from infancy. This compromise was arranged in 957, and
in the following year, or in 959, Edwy died and Edgar reigned alone
over the whole kingdom. There is no suggestion of foul play, but it is
natural to conjecture that Edwy’s early death was caused by worry and
disappointment at the unfortunate turn which his affairs had taken both
in his household and in his kingdom.
The accession of Edgar to the Mercian throne was speedily followed by
the recall of Dunstan from exile.[179] When the young abbot was sent
away “over-sea” by the offended Edwy, he sought shelter in Flanders,
then ruled by a grandson of Alfred the Great, Count Arnulf the Old.
His temporary home was the great monastery of St. Peter’s at Ghent,
and his observation of the strict discipline there maintained by the
abbot doubtless stirred his emulation to begin similar reforms in the
monasteries of England. On his return from banishment he was promoted
to the office of bishop of the Mercian see of Worcester. To Worcester
in 959 the see of London was added, a strange instance of plurality
but probably a temporary expedient resulting from the determination of
the old queen Edgiva and the other advisers of Edgar that the highest
place in the English Church should eventually be filled by the great
reformer. The old Danish archbishop Oda died, probably in 958. His
immediate successor, Elfsige, of whom it was related that he spake
vaunting and contemptuous words of the late archbishop, striking with a
staff insultingly on his grave, was soon punished for his irreverence.
On his way to Rome to receive the pallium, he caught so severe a chill
in the snows of St. Bernard that he died in the land of the stranger.
A second successor, Beorhthelm, was appointed in 959, immediately
before Edwy’s death, but was unceremoniously deposed by Edgar in the
following year to make room for Dunstan. This great saint, who had
now reached the zenith of his orbit, ruled the Church of England with
eminent wisdom and success for twenty-eight years, from 960 to 988,
but evidently his sphere of action was not confined to the Church. It
is probable that much of the success of the undoubtedly successful
reign of Edgar was due to the advice of Dunstan, and if the saint’s
biographers would but have retrenched one half of the miracles which
they have recorded in his honour, and would have described some of the
affairs of state which he guided to a right issue, they would have
conferred a great benefit on history, and they would probably have
placed their favourite’s name high beyond the reach of doubt among the
Christian statesmen of England. At present that reputation, great as
it is and much as it has grown of recent years, is rather a matter of
highly probable inference than of actual proof.
Politically the reign of Edgar the Peaceful, as we know it, is somewhat
barren of events and seems to have been characterised by almost
unbroken tranquillity. Save for the facts that in 966 “Thored son of
Gunner harried Westmorland,” and that three years later “King Edgar
commanded the land of Thanet to be ravaged,” no military operations are
recorded in the Chronicle; and so great is the obscurity that we do not
even know whether the first operation was undertaken in obedience to,
or in defiance of, the orders of the king. Nor can we tell whether the
ravage of the Isle of Thanet was a penalty for some movement of revolt
or a precaution against its occupation by the Danes. On the whole, the
latter hypothesis is perhaps somewhat the more probable.
But by far the most memorable event in Edgar’s reign, and the event
with which his name and Dunstan’s are chiefly connected, was of an
ecclesiastical kind, the famous monastic reform. This movement was
not, as it used sometimes to be considered, primarily a struggle
like Hildebrand’s on behalf of the celibacy of the clergy: it was
essentially a struggle for the reform of the relaxed discipline of
the convents, and the restoration to monks, strictly so called, of
houses and lands which had been gradually filched from them by the
hybrid order of _canonici_. These men may be considered as occupying
a half-way position between the parish priest and the professed monk.
Following the _canon_, the rule framed by Chrodegang, Bishop of Metz,
in the latter part of the eighth century, these _canonici_, priests
leading a collegiate life, were bound to chastity and obedience but
not to the renunciation of all private property. Thus their standard
was in some respects lower than that of the regular monks, and if
their rivals are to be trusted--which is perhaps doubtful--they fell
far below even that lowered standard. The staid and decorous William
of Malmesbury laments that his beloved monastery had been turned into
“a stable of clerics”. Florence of Worcester says that Edgar “cast out
from the convents the impostures of clerics,” and many similar passages
might be quoted, in which the monks speak with the utmost bitterness of
their _canonical_ rivals.
The great reform, however, with which the names of Edgar and Dunstan
are associated, consisted not merely in the casting forth of the
canons and the restoration of Benedictine regulars to their homes.
It was also part of a great general movement for the purification of
conventual life and the uplifting of the standard of morals in the
whole Christian community; a movement which began in Eastern France,
spread thence over Flanders, Germany and Italy, and will be for ever
associated with the venerable name of the monastery of Cluny, founded
in 910 by William, Duke of Aquitaine. In the monastery of Cluny and the
religious houses which followed its example, the rule of St. Benedict
was restored in more than its old strictness. The chanting of the whole
Psalter every twenty-four hours; silence so nearly total that the monks
almost lost the habit of speech; the entire prohibition of the flesh of
four-footed animals for food; coarse clothing of a dun colour; absolute
obedience to the ecclesiastical superior, and the entire prohibition of
private property; these were the chief points of the restored monastic
discipline which Dunstan brought back with him from the Continent.
Three other ecclesiastics besides Dunstan threw their weight into
the reforming scale. The first was the venerable archbishop, Oda the
Dane, who, however, died in 958 or 959 while the movement was still
in its infancy. His nephew Oswald, who was consecrated bishop of
Worcester in 961, and who eleven years later received in addition to
that dignity the archiepiscopal mitre of York, was after Dunstan the
most eminent churchman of the age, and zealously seconded the efforts
of his brother of Canterbury. The most active, however, as well as the
harshest and most unpitying of the reformers, was Ethelwold, Bishop
of Winchester, who was, like his teacher Dunstan, of noble birth and
had served as a lad in Athelstan’s palace. He was also like Dunstan
skilful with his hands, and left behind him bells and other implements
of religious service, the products of his own cunning handicraft.
After ruling the monastery of Abingdon he was, in 963, consecrated to
the see of Winchester, where he carried out the work of reform with a
high hand. Both the Old and New Minsters at Winchester had been filled
with _canonici_ many of whom were married. To all Ethelwold offered
but one choice: “Assume the monastic habit or depart hence”. All but
three departed, and Chertsey and Milton Abbas in Dorsetshire were then
similarly purged. The last monastery was situated without the bounds
of Ethelwold’s diocese, but he seems to have held from the king a kind
of roving commission to rebuild and reform monasteries wherever he
would. In pursuance of this commission Ethelwold next visited the great
monasteries of the fen country, Ely and Medeshamstede (now known as
Peterborough). In their most flourishing time these monasteries must
have worn a somewhat desolate appearance, standing as they did in the
midst of the waste of waters which then covered half Cambridgeshire. Of
Peterborough the chronicler expressly tells us that owing to its having
been “fore-done by heathen folk, Ethelwold found nothing but old walls
and wild woods”. Here then no extrusion was necessary; all that the
reformer had to do was to rebuild the fabrics and once more to instal
in the restored abbeys the industrious monks, who would again make
these oases in the fen lands to blossom as the rose.
The Abingdon chronicler tells us of these good deeds of Ethelwold,
naturally magnifying the glory of his convent’s most famous abbot.
Strangely enough we do not hear of any actual foundation of a new
monastery at Canterbury, or expulsion of _canonici_ from the precincts
of the old one, by Dunstan himself, though we know that he was heart
and soul with the new movement. In fact, Dunstan’s tolerance of the
canons, even at Canterbury, and his abstention from deeds of violence
in furtherance of the reform, are singularly at variance with the
character for persecuting harshness which he has somehow acquired in
English history. So, too, his fellow archbishop, Oswald, far gentler
than Ethelwold, if a little more energetic than Dunstan, seems always
to have preferred persuasion to force. At Worcester, instead of
expelling the canons from the cathedral church of SS. Mary and Peter,
he founded a new monastery which he attached to a new cathedral, and
these younger institutions gradually supplanted the old in popular
favour.
* * * * *
Next to ecclesiastical affairs the pageants of the peaceful king’s
reign seem most to have attracted the attention of his contemporaries.
When he had been already reigning as sole king for more than thirteen
years and had attained the thirtieth year of his age, he was solemnly
“hallowed” as king on Whitsunday in the old Roman city of Bath (973).
The reason for this long delay in the king’s coronation is not
obvious, but possibly, as the words of the coronation service seem
to have expressly hailed him as “King of the Saxons, Mercians and
Northumbrians,”[180] the ceremony may have been postponed till some
unrecorded transactions, peaceful or warlike, with the chiefs of the
Danelaw secured their presence at the pageant and showed that the words
of the coronation service were not an idle vaunt. “And straightway
after the hallowing,” says the Chronicle, “the king led all his naval
force to Laegeceaster [Chester], and there came unto him six kings
to meet him, and all plighted faith with him that they would be his
fellow-workers on sea and on land.” This is that celebrated meeting
of Edgar with his British under-kings of which later chroniclers
are so proud. Both Florence of Worcester and William of Malmesbury,
writing in the early part of the twelfth century, record that _eight_
kings were constrained by Edgar to come to his Witenagemot, to bind
themselves to him by an oath of perpetual fidelity, and then to row
him in solemn pomp upon the river Dee, while he sat in the barge’s
prow in regal magnificence. “He is reported to have said that now at
last his successors might boast that they were truly kings of the
English since they would inherit the honourable precedence which was
thus accorded him.” The two historians give us the names of these
eight kings: Kenneth of Scotland, Malcolm of Cumberland, Maccus, “the
archpirate” (that is, the Viking), “king of many islands” (possibly Man
and the Hebrides), and five Welsh kings whose names need not here be
recorded, especially as one at least of them is incorrectly reported.
It is interesting, however, to find this act of vassalage admitted by
a Welsh annalist, though the scene of it is transferred, with much
probability, from Chester to Caerleon-upon-Usk--much nearer than the
former city to the scene of Edgar’s coronation. “And five kings from
Cymry,” says the _Brut-y-Tywysogion_, “Edgar compelled to come to his
court, and in Kaerllion-ar-Wyse he commanded them to row him in a bark
while he himself sat at its prow.” Upon the whole, this celebrated
water procession seems to be attested upon sufficient and trustworthy
authority.[181]
In this connexion a romantic legend may be related which meets us in
the pages of William of Malmesbury. He tells us that Edgar, though
strong and wiry, was of small stature, and that this caused Kenneth
of Scotland to remark that he marvelled why such great territories
should be willing to be subject to such a pigmy of a king. The saying
was carried by tale-bearers to Edgar, who sent for Kenneth as if he
were about to consult him on some most important secret of state.
He drew him apart into a lonely wood, offered him his choice of two
swords which he had brought with him, and called upon him to prove
his strength in a hand-to-hand encounter. “For it is a base thing for
a king to babble at a banquet and not be willing to prove his words
in fight.” Hereupon Kenneth fell at Edgar’s feet and implored his
forgiveness for words which, as he protested, had only been spoken in
jest.
From the same source--one, it must be admitted, of secondary
authority--we derive the well-known story of the yearly tribute of 300
wolves’ heads which he imposed on the Welsh king, Juthwal, a tribute
which is said to have been paid for three years and then of necessity
discontinued because the breed of wolves was exterminated. Magnifying
in similar fashion the resources and the renown of the peaceful king,
Florence of Worcester tells us that he collected a fleet of 3,600
strong ships, one-third of which, when Easter was past, were ordered
to muster in the north of the island and sail to the Straits of Dover,
one-third on the east for a voyage to the Land’s End, and one-third
on the west which sailed to Cape Wrath. Thus was the whole island
circumnavigated and safeguarded against invasion by a foreign foe.
There is probably some historic fact at the bottom of this story, but
no one need accept the enormous numbers vouched for by Florence.
The chief characteristic of Edgar’s reign was the peace which he
maintained in the land and which contrasted so painfully with the
troubled reign of his son. Hence, doubtless, was derived the surname
of the Peaceful, which is that by which he is known in the pages of
Florence of Worcester There was something brilliant and attractive
in his personality, and the staunch support which he gave to the
victorious party in the Church was sufficient guarantee that his good
deeds would not be forgotten. Yet even the monastic chronicler, as an
honest man, could not dissemble the fact that the bright and comely
little king was no saint. He quotes from a poem which after praising
the piety of Edgar and magnifying his power “before whom mighty kings
and earls gladly bowed” concludes thus:--
But one misdeed he did, aye all too oft,
The evil customs of strange folk he loved,
And heathen manners into this our land
Too fast he brought,
And hither introduced outlandish men
And hurtful people drew unto the realm.
But God’s grace grant him that his well-done deeds
Weigh heavier in the balance than his sins,
And guard his soul upon the longsome road.
It will be seen that the poet speaks of introducing foreign vices and
hurtful heathenish customs, but does not distinctly charge Edgar with
personal immorality. Later historians, more out-spoken, tell a story,
which seems to have some foundation in fact, about his seduction of
a novice named Wulfthryth, whom he is said to have carried off from
the abbey of Wilton, and by whom he had a daughter named Edith, who
took the vows of a nun and died an abbess. The long delay of Edgar’s
coronation (which happened, as we have seen, in the fourteenth year of
his reign) has been connected by later writers with this intrigue, and
with an alleged penance inflicted on the king by Dunstan, who is said
to have forbidden him to wear his crown for seven years. Chronological
arguments, however, prove the untruth of this theory.[182] Edgar’s
first wedded wife was apparently Ethelfled the Fair, who was known
also by the epithet of “the Duck”. She was the daughter of a certain
Ordmaer whom Edgar seems to have ennobled by bestowing upon him forty
hides of land at Hatfield, thus giving him the appanage of an earl,
though his birth would appear to have been insufficient to qualify him
for exalted office.[183] By this lady Edgar was the father of a son
known in English history as Edward the Martyr. The married life of
the beautiful Ethelfled, however terminated, whether by her death or
divorce, must have been a short one, for in 964 Edgar married another
woman celebrated for her beauty, Elfthryth or Elfrida, daughter of the
Earl Ordgar, who became ealdorman of Devon and possibly of the two
adjoining counties of Somerset and Dorset.[184] Elfrida, however, had
been previously married, her first husband being Ethelwold, ealdorman
of East Anglia and son of “the half-king” Athelstan. Elfrida exercised
undoubtedly a baneful influence on English history throughout the
closing years of the tenth century; and arguing perhaps from these
known tendencies of her character and from Edgar’s evil record for
sexual immorality, later writers, especially the poetical historian,
Geoffrey Gaimar, have constructed a long and unsavoury romance,
according to which Ethelwold, having first deceived his master as to
Elfrida’s beauty and thus secured her for himself, was afterwards
murdered like Uriah the Hittite in order to make way for his royal
rival. This story, also, though long accepted by historians, vanishes
at the touch of criticism which clearly shows that Elfrida’s first
husband died at least two years before her marriage with Edgar.[185]
But however innocent may have been the story of the peaceful king’s
courtship of his second wife, there can be no doubt that when she was
once seated in the palace her influence on the lives of its inmates was
disastrous.
Edgar survived his coronation but two years. He died in the
thirty-third year of his age, July 8, 975, and was buried in the Abbey
of Glastonbury, which he and his father had so highly favoured.
CHAPTER XXI.
EDWARD THE MARTYR--OLD AGE OF DUNSTAN--NORMANS AND NORTHMEN.
Of the two sons left by Edgar, one, EDWARD, son of “Ethelfled the
Duck,” was about thirteen years old, and the other, Elfrida’s son,
Ethelred, was but seven at the death of their father. This being so, it
is surprising that there should have been any debate as to which son
should succeed to the vacant throne. Possibly the kinsfolk of Elfrida,
a powerful clan, may have raised doubts as to the regularity of Edgar’s
marriage to Ethelfled, or they may have insisted on the superior
position of the child Ethelred as the son of a queen, for Elfrida,
first of all royal consorts since Judith, wife of Ethelwulf, had been
permitted to bear that envied name.[186] The debate was, however,
decided, apparently by the united influence of the two archbishops,
Dunstan and Oswald, in favour of Edward, upon whose head the crown of
England was placed by the kindly hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The politics of the short reign of Edward, which lasted barely four
years, are as obscure and difficult to trace as the cause of its
premature close. It is clear, however, that immediately on the death of
Edgar there was a certain reaction against that king’s monastic policy.
It was in Mercia that this reaction was most powerful, and the leader
in the movement was the ealdorman Elfhere, “enemy of the monks,” as the
Chronicle calls him; “most wicked of consuls,” as he is styled by the
classically minded Henry of Huntingdon. There was a certain Oslac, earl
of Northumbria, who was driven into banishment by Elfhere, and from
the way in which his name is mentioned we are led to conjecture that he
was a partisan of the monks.
Then was in Mercia’s land, as I have heard,
Widely and everywhere the Maker’s praise
Laid low on earth; then many were out-driven,
God’s learned ministers. Then much must mourn
The man who in his breast bore burning love
To God who made him. Then the Glorious King,
The Lord of Victories, Who the heavens doth rule,
Was too much scorned, and shattered were His rights,
Then forth was driven the hero bold of mood,
Oslac, the hoary-headed veteran,
The wise, the eloquent. He forth must fare,
Forth from the land, over the billow’s roll,
Over the gannet’s bath, the whale’s domain.
Yea, o’er the water’s throng, bereft of home.
Then too was seen, high in the firmament,
That star appearing, which brave men of old,
Men wise of soul and skilled interpreters,
Widely denoted by the comet’s name;
Thus through the nations was the Ruler’s wrath
Broadly proclaimed and Famine marked its path.
Thus sings the monk of Winchester. He of Peterborough, after also
deviating into verse, adds in quiet prose: “In this year (975) there
were great disturbances throughout England; and Elfhere the ealdorman
ordered the demolition of many monasteries which king Edgar had
erewhile ordered the holy bishop Ethelwold to establish. And at the
same time the great earl Oslac was banished from England.”
There are hints, especially in the life of St. Oswald of York, that
Elfhere’s anti-monastic policy was connected with a certain amount of
spoliation of the abbey lands, which were probably in some measure
distributed among his followers. On the other hand, we hear that
Ethelwin, Ealdorman of East Anglia, son of “half-king” Athelstan and
brother-in-law of Elfrida, zealously opposed Elfhere’s policy and
championed the cause of the monks. A yet more strenuous defender of
the order was his brother, Alfwold, who slew a certain man accused by
him of fraudulently obtaining some of the abbey lands of Peterborough.
Desiring to obtain absolution for the deed he went to Winchester to beg
it of bishop Ethelwold. In his penitence and remorse, Alfwold in his
hostel unloosed his shoes and went, humble and barefooted, to meet the
great bishop. But Ethelwold, knowing in whose cause he had stricken
the blow, would have none of such needless humiliation. He went forth
clad in full vestments, with holy water, cross and thurible to meet
“the general and defender of the Church”. Prayers were offered, the
acolytes replaced the shoes on the feet of the Church’s champion,
and the rest of the day was spent in rejoicings. “Thus did the pious
chieftain of the East Angles defend all the possessions of the
monasteries with great honour, wherefore he was called the Friend of
God.”
Concerning the actual cause of the struggle we are very imperfectly
informed. The East Anglian chiefs were joined by Brihtnoth, ealdorman
of Essex, brother-in-law of “the half-king,” and for some time it
seemed as if the dispute would have to be settled by force of arms.
Happily this was averted, and in three meetings of the _witan_, held
probably in three successive years, 977, 978 and 979 (the last after
the death of Edward), it was perhaps arranged that the two parties
should compromise on the basis of _uti possidetis_, the monasteries
in East Anglia and Essex not being disturbed, but those in Mercia not
being restored to the monks, at any rate during the lifetime of Elfhere.
At the first of these Witenagemots, which was held at Kirtlington,
in Oxfordshire, Sideman, the aged Bishop of Crediton, who had been
the young King Edward’s teacher and guide, suddenly expired. At the
second, which was held in an upper chamber at Calne, in Wiltshire,
the floor suddenly gave way and “all the chief witan of the English
race” were precipitated into the room below. Some were killed and
many suffered grievous bodily harm. Apparently almost the only one
who escaped quite unhurt was the Archbishop Dunstan, “who stood up
upon a beam”. Naturally, so remarkable an escape brightened the halo
which shone round the archbishop’s name. In later legends the accident
was magnified into a kind of heavenly judgment between the monks and
their opponents; while some modern historians, remembering Dunstan’s
great mechanical skill, have seen in it a cunning device for ridding
himself of his enemies. Happily we are not constrained to adopt either
hypothesis, and the last suggestion is certainly inadmissible. It would
probably tax the ingenuity of the ablest engineer of modern times to
contrive such an apparent accident so as to kill part of the assembly.
Miracle and fraud may therefore both disappear from the discussion. The
event, which undoubtedly happened, is only one of several indications
of the unsoundness of Anglo-Saxon building. There seems reason to
suspect that in the tenth century the political and the domestic
architecture of England were both equally insecure, and that the
apparent glory of the reign of Edgar the Peaceful rested on many rotten
timbers which made easy the collapse of the kingdom under Ethelred the
Unready. Perhaps, also, we may conjecture that the deaths of so many
of England’s chief men and wisest counsellors left the field open for
meaner, weaker, more treacherous statesmen.
In the same year (978) Edward’s short reign came to a bloody end.
The circumstances of his death are somewhat obscure, though there
can be no doubt that he was foully murdered on March 18 at Corfe in
Dorsetshire. We have no contemporary evidence directly connecting his
step-mother with the crime, but this silence, as all chroniclers for
the next thirty years would be somewhat in fear of Elfrida and her
son, cannot be counted strong evidence in her favour. On the other
hand, there is some evidence that Corfe, the scene of the murder, was
the place where Elfrida was at the time dwelling with her boy, and
all the later historians speak unhesitatingly as to the quarter from
which the blow came, though, unfortunately (as we so often find to be
the case), the further removed they are from the date of the event,
the more they profess to know about its details. Thus the biographer
of St. Oswald, who wrote about thirty years after the murder, tells us
that a conspiracy was formed against the king by Ethelred’s thegns,
and carried into effect when the young king, “desiring the consolation
of fraternal love,” paid an evening visit to the house where his
brother was residing with the queen. The partisans of Ethelred gathered
round Edward, who was alone and unguarded. The butler came forward
“ready to serve in his lowly office”; one of the thegns seized the
king’s right hand as if to kiss it; another grasped his left hand and
inflicted on him a mortal wound. The king called out in a loud voice:
“What are you doing, breaking my hand,” and then fell dead from his
horse, which was also mortally wounded by the conspirators. “No chant
was raised; no proper rites of burial performed; the renowned king
of the whole country lay covered with a cheap garment, awaiting the
resurrection day. After the lapse of a twelvemonth, the glorious duke
Elfhere [of Mercia] came to Wareham, found the body lying there naked
but incorrupt, and transferred it to Shaftesbury, where it received
honourable burial.” This account looks a little more like a political
conspiracy and less like a mere private assassination than the story
told in the twelfth century by William of Malmesbury, according to
which the kingly boy returning from the chase, tired and thirsty,
called at his step-mother’s abode, asked for wine, and while drinking
the stirrup-cup was treacherously stabbed by one of Elfrida’s henchmen;
fell from his horse, and with one foot in the stirrup was dragged along
by the frightened steed, a long track through the forest being marked
by the blood of the dying king. This, which is in some respects the
more romantic version of the story, is that which has found its way
into the received text of English history. The feelings of the people
concerning this tragedy may be gathered from the ballad which was
embodied in the Chronicle.
Never was worse deed done by Englishmen
Than this, since first they sought the British land.
Men murdered him, but God him magnified.
In life Eadward was an earthly king;
Now after death he is a saint in heaven.
His earthly kinsmen durst not him avenge,
But grievous vengeance wrought his Heavenly Sire.
On earth his foes his memory would efface,
But the Supreme Avenger spread abroad
In earth and heaven remembrance of that crime.
They who in life refused him reverence,
Now bow on bended knee before his bones.
Thus may we see how wisdom of mankind,
Their clever counsels, their persuasive words,
Are but as nothing ’gainst the thought of God.
Here we can perceive, deep in the heart of the writer, a smouldering
fire of indignation against some persons highly placed and beyond the
reach of man’s revenge, by whom the deed of wickedness was wrought.
The misery which fell upon the nation in the long and dreary reign of
Elfrida’s son is heaven’s answer to the cry of the innocent blood.
Without the Church’s sanction, without any strict warrant for the
epithet, the instinct of the people gave to the victim of Corfe the
name which he has ever since borne in history, “Edward the Martyr”.
The new king, ETHELRED, a boy of ten years old, was crowned at
Kingston-on-Thames a fortnight after Easter, the two archbishops and
ten bishops taking part in the ceremony. Dunstan addressed to him, as
he had done to his father before him, a sermon on the duties of his
kingship, and is said, but on somewhat doubtful authority, to have
uttered at the same time foreboding words as to the calamities coming
upon the kingdom, in punishment for the crime which had given Ethelred
the crown. It seems clear that he withdrew more and more from a share
in the civil, perhaps even in the ecclesiastical, government of the
realm, and spent the ten years of life which yet remained to him
chiefly in religious retirement; in preaching to the crowd of unlearned
persons, lay and clerical, male and female, who gathered round him “to
be fortified day and night with the heavenly salt”; in practising those
mechanical arts which he had loved from boyhood; and in sitting on a
bench in the _scriptorium_ correcting some of the manuscripts which
formed part of the treasure of Canterbury.
In the year 986, however, Dunstan was roused from his meditations by
the extraordinary conduct of young Ethelred, who “on account of certain
dissensions besieged Rochester, and being unable to take it, invaded
and laid waste the patrimony of St. Andrew”. Some light is thrown on
this remarkable entry by a document[187] issued twelve years later, in
which Ethelred laments that his youthful simplicity was imposed upon
by a certain Ethelsin, an enemy of God and man, and that by his advice
he violently abstracted from the church of Rochester a rural property
at Bromley, which he now restores. Dunstan, we are told, warned the
king of the punishment which waited on such crimes, and eventually
induced him by a ransom of 100 pounds of silver to raise the siege of
Rochester. Hereupon he prophesied that “such a king who preferred money
to God, silver to the apostle, the gratification of his avarice to the
earnestly expressed desire of his spiritual father, would draw down on
himself and on his kingdom such calamities as the English nation had
never yet experienced. But he himself, as he had been told by the mouth
of the Lord, should not live to see this righteous retribution.” And so
it proved. Two years later, on May 19, 988, Dunstan expired, probably
in the sixty-fourth year of his age.
That Dunstan was a great saint and a great statesman cannot be doubted.
No small man could have produced the impression which he produced
on his own and on later generations. But what were his own actual
achievements in Church and State it is not easy to discover through
the veil of turgid obscurity woven by his biographers, who are more
intent on recording childish miracles than on painting for us a
truthful and vivid portraiture of the great archbishop. Doubtless the
alleged miracles of the saint were not all the accumulation of later
ages. Partly on account of his mechanical skill and partly from the
peculiarities of his own temperament, a certain thaumaturgic atmosphere
seems to have surrounded Dunstan even in his lifetime. With this we
can now dispense; but while we closely study his life, some of the old
misconceptions as to his character fall away. He was evidently not
the grim and crafty ecclesiastic whom in our childish days we used to
fancy him. On the contrary, with all his enthusiasm for monkhood, his
influence was in fact a moderating one on the party of monastic reform.
Far from being of a cruel nature, he seems, from such indications as
are furnished us, to have been a man of genial and lovable disposition.
He is now generally regarded as a great administrator, and a man of
wide and statesmanlike views; though, as was before remarked, strict
proof of this has hardly yet been adduced. But he seems also to have
been through life a man of nervous, perhaps even of hysterical,
temperament, renowned and envied for his power of shedding copious
floods of tears; a man who saw visions and dreamed dreams; and, above
all, a man who believed himself to be engaged in a perpetual personal
encounter with the Prince of Darkness, who was to him as real and
familiar a presence as the ealdorman of Mercia or the _canonici_ of
Glastonbury.
* * * * *
Before entering on that dreary period of Danish desolation which now
lies before us it will be well to say something as to certain events
which had been happening in France, Denmark and Norway, and which
were about to exercise an enormous influence on the next stages of
development of the English nation. The dukes of Normandy, the French
kings of the race of Capet, the Angevin ancestors of our Plantagenet
monarchs, all date their origin, or at least their greatness, from
the tenth century, from the period between the death of Alfred and
the accession of Ethelred. It is necessary also to take note of
the immediate ancestors of the Danish kings who were about to make
themselves actual sovereigns of England.
The Scandinavian invasions, which tended indirectly towards the
consolidation of England, wrought powerfully towards the disintegration
of the Frankish empire. The ignominious treaty which the last emperor
of the direct line of Charlemagne, his great grandson Charles the Fat,
made with the Danes to induce them to desist from the siege of Paris,
and which had to be paid for by a large ransom, was one of the causes
which led to his deposition from the imperial throne (887). A younger
branch of the Carolingian house continued for just a century longer to
wear the title of Kings of Francia, but their personal domain became
gradually restricted to a little tract of territory surrounding the
city of Laon, and they were ever more overshadowed by the greatness of
the family of Robert, rightly called the Strong, who, though himself a
Saxon alien of somewhat obscure origin, had shown conspicuous valour
in the Danish wars, and whose two sons, Odo and Robert, both crowned
as Kings of France, were the heroes of the mighty siege of Paris. For
thirty-three years (923–56) Hugh the Great, son of this second Robert
and grandson of the first, was far the most powerful man in France:
Duke of Francia, Burgundy and Aquitaine, Count of Paris and Orleans,
Lay Abbot of St. Martin of Tours. But though a kingmaker, son and
nephew of kings, he always refused to be king himself. His son, Hugh
Capet, more ambitious or less scrupulous, in 987 pushed aside the
last powerless descendant of Charlemagne, and ascended that glorious
throne which was uninterruptedly occupied by his descendants, Valois,
Plantagenet, Bourbon, till the awful day of August, 1792, when the
Swiss Guards fell fighting in front of the Tuilleries.
The Norman dukes, who also in this tenth century climbed up into
all but regal state, bore an important part in this revolution. The
hitherto received story of the settlement of the Northmen under their
leader Rolf or Rollo in the fair province to which they gave their
name has been subjected of late to much adverse criticism,[188] and
has been so seriously shaken that hardly anything but the bare fact
survives indubitable, that there was such a settlement in the early
part of the tenth century; that either in 911 or, as is rather more
probable, in 921, Rolf “commended” himself to the French king Charles
the Simple; and that he became his “man” in return for the cession of
a large district on the Lower Seine. This transaction resembled in
some respects the arrangement made a generation before, between Alfred
and Guthrum. It was the surrender of part of the kingdom to ensure the
safety of the remainder, the change of a pertinacious enemy into a
fairly faithful friend. The cession of Normandy to Rolf was, however,
in some ways a more signal success than Alfred’s cession of East Anglia
to Guthrum. Though the Frankish historians persisted for generations in
calling Rolf’s people pirates, the new-comers soon assimilated all and
more than all the civilisation of their Frankish neighbours; and Norman
literature, Norman chivalry, Norman architecture became the envy of
Europe.
On Rolf’s death or abdication in 927 his son, William Longsword, became
duke and reigned for fifteen years. He was a man of keen and polished
intellect, with many noble, even with some holy, aspirations, but with
a strange duality in his nature, perhaps the result of the mingled
strain of Viking and Romanised Frank that was in his blood, for his
mother is said to have been a Frankish lady of noble birth. A conflict
had begun between two sections of his subjects, between the men of
Rouen and its neighbourhood, who were fast becoming Frenchmen, and
the men of the district round Bayeux, who remained obstinate Danes;
and in this conflict William veered first to one side, then to the
other. Moreover in the confused welter of French politics he played
an eminently inconsistent and unwise part, showing that amidst the
intriguing, grasping but adroit counts of Northern Gaul he never felt
himself completely at home, but was uneasily conscious that he was
still looked upon by them as _dux piratarum_. He would fain have been
faithful to the royal line, to which his father owed his legalised
position in the country; and in 936 he heartily co-operated with Hugh
the Great in bringing back Athelstan’s nephew, Louis IV. d’Outremer,
from his English exile and crowning him king; but, changeable as
a weather-cock, he was almost as often found among the enemies
of Louis IV. as in the ranks of his friends. Unfaithfulness begat
unfaithfulness; the man who had been on each side in every quarrel
made himself enemies all round, and in 942, having been treacherously
invited to a conference on an island in the Somme, he was there foully
murdered by a band of noble conspirators, among whom we regret to find
Arnulf of Flanders, grandson of our own Alfred, first and foremost.
On the death of William Longsword, his little son Richard, though
not born in lawful wedlock--this was almost the rule in the Norman
line--was unanimously accepted as his successor. The boy, only ten
years old, was soon plunged into a whirlpool of troubles, from
which even his father’s old and faithful counsellors could hardly
have extricated him, had he not himself shown that cool, patient,
self-sustained courage which earned for him his historical surname,
“the Fearless”. Though the Norman historians may have somewhat
embroidered the romantic history of his captivity and escape, there can
be little doubt that two dangerous neighbours, King Louis IV. and Count
Hugh the Great, coveted the orphan boy’s inheritance; nor that, but for
the loyalty of the Norman warriors to the son of their dead chieftain,
and the astute management of two or three of his father’s old friends,
they would have succeeded in making it their own. Soon after the death
of William Longsword King Louis came to Rouen, ostensibly as the
friend and protector of the little duke. He seems, however, to have
practically taken the government of the country into his own hands,
while the boy Richard, who was transferred to the court of Laon “that
he might be there educated as beseemed a Christian prince,” found the
school of knighthood every day becoming more like a prison. However,
Richard’s faithful guardian, Osmund, succeeded in smuggling him out
of the castle, according to the legend, “in a truss of hay”. The
Normans, tired of the financial exactions of the ministers of Louis,
rose in open revolt and gathered round their just recovered prince; the
invasion of Louis with a formidable army was neutralised by that of
Harold, a chieftain from Scandinavia, who, in 945, on the urgent appeal
of Richard came to the help of his brother-Northmen. A battle followed,
the battle of the Dive, in which Louis was utterly defeated, and he was
soon after taken prisoner. Thus were the tables now turned, Louis who
was of late the jailer being now the captive; nor did he regain his
liberty till he had surrendered the rock fortress of Laon, almost his
last remaining possession, to the omnivorous Count Hugh the Great, and
had--so say the Norman writers--formally released Duke Richard from all
ties of feudal dependence. Whether this be literally true or not, there
is no doubt that Richard “commended” himself to the count of Paris.
Thus even before Hugh Capet became King of France, the duke of Normandy
was already his most powerful vassal. This fact, coupled with the
steady and effectual help which Richard gave to the younger Hugh in his
patient upward progress to the throne, deserves to be remembered when
in later ages we have to deal with the relations, more often hostile
than friendly, between the Norman-English vassal and the French lord
paramount.
At the period which we have reached in English history, the date of
the death of Dunstan (988), Richard the Fearless was a middle-aged man
of fifty-five years. He had been reigning for forty-five years, and
was the father of a numerous progeny--not born in wedlock--by a Danish
woman named Gunnor, whom he married after the death of his lawful wife
Emma, sister of Hugh Capet. His marriage with Emma was childless. In
the year 996 he died and was succeeded by his son Richard the Good.
* * * * *
The origin of the house, which in after ages bore the name of
Plantagenet and which held in the tenth century the countship of Anjou,
is hidden in clouds of legend; but the legend itself does not dare to
say that their forebears were always noble, nor to assign to them, as
to so many of their princely contemporaries, a descent from the great
Emperor Charles. The legendary ancestor of the Counts of Anjou is a
certain Tortulf or Tertullus, a Breton forester to whom a doubtful
Carolingian king, probably Charles the Bald, is said to have assigned
a woodland district known as the Blackbird’s Nest (Nid de Merle), on
condition of repelling the Danish attacks on the valley of the Loire.
The special interest attaching to the history of the Angevin counts,
in addition to the fact that they were the ancestors of so many of
our English sovereigns, lies in the tenacity of purpose with which
they pursued their policy of aggrandisement, gradually converting
their little marchland on the east of Brittany, a small and precarious
possession, into an extensive and powerful state in one of the fairest
regions of France. With their Breton neighbours on the west, with Maine
and Normandy on the north, they were frequently at war, but their
most bitter and enduring conflicts were with the Counts of Blois on
the east, and it was at their expense that the most important of the
Angevin conquests was effected. This is a fact which it will be well to
bear in mind when we find Henry of Anjou and Stephen of Blois, heirs of
a feud which had already lasted in France for two centuries, contending
on English soil for the crown of England.
* * * * *
The history of Denmark during the first century and a half of the
Viking raids is involved in great obscurity; but about the time when
Edward the Elder was reigning in England we emerge into clearer light,
and find a king named Gorm the Old reigning over a united Denmark,
with, however, some obligations of vassalage towards the German king,
Henry the Saxon. On his death or abdication towards the middle of the
tenth century began the long and prosperous reign of Harold Blaatand
(Blue-Tooth), which lasted for about fifty years and was the great
period of consolidation for the Danish kingdom. In 977 Harold, in
conjunction with two Norwegian allies, made an expedition to Norway by
which he obtained possession of a considerable part of that country and
acquired a sort of feudal supremacy over the whole. In his relations
with the German emperors Harold was less fortunate. He was apparently
compelled to submit to Otto I., and as one of the conditions of peace,
he and his son Sweyn were forced to receive Christian baptism. The
conversion of the son at any rate was not sincere, and dissensions
broke out between him and his father. The old king was defeated and
fled the country. He was restored for a short time, again attacked by
Sweyn, and died of his wounds received in battle.
Thus, in the fourteenth year of Ethelred’s reign, the throne of Denmark
was occupied by the stern pagan Swegen or Sweyn. No tenderness will
he show to Christian churches or monasteries in any land that he may
invade; and any king or people that shall do him wrong may expect to
receive terrible retribution.
The early, doubtless in large measure legendary, history of Norway,
as told in the _Heimskringla Saga_, is full of romantic interest, but
is beside our present purpose. The great unifier of the Norwegian
kingdom was Harold Fair-hair, whose long reign ended before the
middle of the tenth century. In the eleventh year of his age he found
himself lord of a small kingdom between Lake Wener and the Dovrefield
Mountains. When he came to manhood he wooed the fair Gytha for his
wife, but the damsel declared that she would marry no man who did
not rule the whole of Norway, as Gorm ruled all Denmark and Eric
the whole of Sweden. Hereupon Harold, having vowed not to cut his
hair till he had accomplished the prescribed task, began a series of
expeditions northwards, which did in the course of years make him
master of the whole of what we now call Norway. He married Gytha,
but she was only one of many wives and concubines by whom he begat
countless children, whose wars and alliances, whose rivalries and
reconciliations, fill Norwegian history in the tenth century as English
history in the fifteenth is filled by the broils of the Plantagenets.
This is that Harold who sent the infant Hakon to be educated at the
court of Athelstan; and Hakon, as has been said, having been educated
by his great foster-father in the Christian religion and trained in
all arts that became a Saxon Etheling, went back to his fatherland,
reigned there after his father’s death as Hakon the Good, and vainly
endeavoured to Christianise his people. Another Harold and another
Hakon followed in quick succession, sometimes owning, sometimes
rejecting, the over-lordship of Denmark. At the period which we have
now reached, the rising star is that of Olaf Tryggvason, great-grandson
of Fair-hair, not yet king of Norway but a great and popular Viking,
whose name will be heard with terror in Essex and in Kent, in Sussex
and in Hampshire.
CHAPTER XXII.
ETHELRED THE REDELESS.
The story of the long reign of Ethelred consists of little else than
the details of Danish invasions, large payments of ransom to the
raiders, and the king’s dealings with the Dukes of Normandy, at whose
court he was at last obliged to take refuge.
Though many historical verdicts have been reversed in our day, Ethelred
the Redeless, the man devoid of counsel--this rather than “the Unready”
is the best translation of his distinguishing epithet--still remains
unchampioned under the stigma of incompetence as great as was ever
displayed by any occupant of the English throne. When we read the
record of his disastrous reign, when we see how systematically he left
undone the things which he ought to have done, and did, with fitful
and foolish energy, the things which he ought not to have done, we
are inclined to ask, “Was this man bereft of reason?” If he had been
absolutely insane we should probably have had a distinct statement
to that effect in the Chronicle, but it may, perhaps, be suggested
that there was some hereditary weakness in his family which in his
case affected the fibre of his brain. Royal families not renewed by
any admixture of plebeian blood have sometimes shown a tendency to
become worn out. We must remember that the descendants of Cerdic had
now been reigning for five hundred years. As compared with the young
and _parvenus_ dynasties which were coming up into power from the
ranks of sailors and huntsmen and tillers of the soil; as compared
with the Norman dukes, the Capetians and the Angevins, the Kings
of Wessex were an old and apparently a weakening stock. There was
certainly brain-power enough in an Alfred, an Edward and an Athelstan,
but perhaps even with them physical hardly kept pace with mental
energy. Alfred the Great was a life-long sufferer from disease. If
he and his son completed each his half century of life, that was more
than was attained by most of their immediate descendants. Athelstan
lived but to the age of forty-six; Edred, a chronic invalid, died at
thirty; Edwy probably under twenty; even Edgar, whose reign seemed a
long one, at thirty-two. Edmund and Edward the Martyr died violent
deaths, and therefore they do not come into this calculation. Ethelred
himself, though he lived long enough to inflict untold misfortunes
on his country, died at the age of forty-eight. All this looks like
a decay of physical power in the house of Cerdic, which may in some
degree account for the fatal “redelessness” of Ethelred. It is true
that there was a revival of the old heroic energy in his son Edmund
Ironside, but even that is coupled with a very short life (we cannot
be sure that his death was due to foul play); and in his half-brother,
Edward the Confessor, though he lived to the age of sixty-two, there is
a sort of anæmic saintliness which marks him out as the fitting son,
intellectually though not morally, of his “redeless” father.
The story of the reign of Ethelred is given us in the Chronicle with
a minuteness of detail such as we have not found there since the days
of Alfred. It is evidently the work of a contemporary, of one who
saw and groaned over the calamities of his people, and who was moved
to passionate indignation by the mingled folly and wickedness of the
rulers of the land. This part of the Chronicle is then a document of
the highest value for the historian, and yet it is one which requires
to be used with some caution on account of the motive by which it is
unconsciously inspired. That motive is the strong tendency which always
leads a beaten army or a beaten nation to argue that the enemy did
not fight fairly, or that “the pass was sold” to them by some traitor
in the camp. It is quite possible that all the accusations brought by
the chronicler are true, especially that the inexplicable treasons
of Elfric and Edric were as monstrous as he describes them; but it
is also possible that they may have been magnified by a patriotic
scribe, looking round for some scapegoat to bear his people’s sins;
and in any event what we have to remember is that we are here reading
what are virtually the articles of an opposition journalist. It is
just possible, therefore, though hardly probable, that in some cases
Ethelred’s ministers and generals, or even Ethelred himself, if they
could be heard in their own defence, might somewhat mitigate the
severity of the sentence passed upon them. A few of these criticisms
are here inserted, but even these will hardly give a sufficient idea
of the tone of condemnation which pervades the whole long reign of
Ethelred in the pages of the Chronicle.[189]
998. “The Danes came to the mouth of the Frome and ravaged Dorset at
their will. The _fyrd_ was often gathered together against them, but
as soon as they should have all got together, then ever for some cause
was flight determined on, and so the Danes in the end always got the
victory. So they quartered themselves for the second time in the Isle
of Wight, drawing their provisions from Hampshire and Sussex.”
999. “The army again came round into the Thames and moved thence up
the Medway to Rochester. Then came the Kentish _fyrd_ against them and
there were they firmly locked in fight. But, alas! the Kentish men too
quickly gave way and fled, because they were not supported as they
ought to have been. Thus the Danes held the place of slaughter, and
took horse and rode far and wide as they chose, and ravaged well-nigh
the whole of West Kent. Then the king took counsel with his _witan_,
and decided that they must go against the enemy with ship-_fyrd_ and
also with land-_fyrd_. But when the ships were ready, then some one
delayed from day to day and harassed the poor folk who were on board
the ships, and ever, when things should have been forwarder they were
later, from one time to another, and so they let the army of their
enemies grow, and they were always retiring from the sea and the
Danes were ever following hard after them. Thus at the end the great
ship-_fyrd_ accomplished nothing but oppression of the people and waste
of money and the emboldening of their foes.”
1006. “The Danish fleet came to Sandwich, and the crews did as they had
ever done, harrying, burning, murdering wheresoever they went. Then the
king called out all the people of Wessex and Mercia, and they lay out
all the autumn, arrayed against the enemy, but all availed nothing as
so often before; for in spite of all this the Danish army marched just
where they pleased, and the _fyrd_ itself did the country folk every
harm, while neither the home army (_inn-here_) nor the foreign army
(_ut-here_) did them any good. As soon as the weather grew wintry, the
_fyrd_ went home, and the Danish army after Martinmas, November 11,
came to their resting-place in the Isle of Wight and helped themselves
to all that they wanted from every quarter. Then in mid-winter they
sallied forth through Hants and Berks to their comfortable quarters at
Reading, and there did as they pleased, kindling their beacons [blazing
villages] wherever they went. Thus fared they to Wallingford which they
burned down, and they then went along Ashdown to Cwichelms-law,[190]
and there abode, out of pure bravado, because it had been often said
that if once they got to Cwichelms-law they would never get back to the
sea. They then went home by another way. The _fyrd_ was assembled at
Cynete (?), and they there joined battle, but soon was that [English]
army put to flight, and afterwards they carried their booty down to
the sea. Then might the people of Winchester see the invading army,
insolent and fearless, marching past their gates to the sea; and they
spread over fifty miles from the sea, gathering food and treasure.”
It would be tedious to follow the chronicler’s example and relate in
detail all the events of these successive raids, which recur with
melancholy monotony through thirty years. The reader is therefore
referred to the accompanying table for the list of the districts
successively ravaged by the invaders.
Year.
982 Portland, by three ships’ crews landing in Dorsetshire.
(London burnt; possibly an accidental fire.)
988 Watchet in Somerset. Goda, a Devonshire thegn slain.
991 Ipswich ravaged. Battle of Maldon. Brihtnoth slain. First
payment of _gafol_ (tribute) to the Danes.
993 Bamburgh stormed. Great booty taken. Both banks of the Humber
ravaged.
994 Brave defence of London, attacked by Olaf and Sweyn. Essex,
Kent, Sussex, Hampshire. Second payment of _gafol_.
997 Cornwall, Devon, Wales, Watchet, Lydford, Tavistock.
998 Mouth of the Frome, Dorset, Isle of Wight. Sussex and Hants
forced to supply provisions.
999 Rochester: Kent.
1001 Battle at Alton in Hampshire. Devonshire. Taunton burnt.
Exmouth defended. Penhoe and Clist (in Devon). Bishops
Waltham in Hampshire burnt.
1002 Marriage of Ethelred with Emma of Normandy. Massacre of St.
Brice’s Day. Third payment of _gafol_.
1003 Exeter stormed and looted. Wilton, Sarum.
1004 Norwich, Thetford. Brave defence of Norfolk by Ulfkytel.
1005 Great famine throughout England.
1006 Sandwich, Isle of Wight, Reading, Wallingford, Cwichelms-law.
1007 Fourth payment of _gafol_.
1008 Ships ordered to be built all over England.
1009 Failure of the new navy. Canterbury, Isle of Wight, Sussex,
Hants, Berks, both banks of the Thames, Oxford. London vainly
attacked. Local payment of _gafol_ by East Kent.
1010 Ipswich, Thetford, Cambridge, Oxfordshire, Bucks, Bedford,
Tempsford (in Bedfordshire), Northampton, Canning Marsh (in
Somerset).
1011 Canterbury.
1012 Martyrdom of Archbishop Alphege. Fifth payment of _gafol_.
1013 Mouth of the Humber, Gainsborough. King Sweyn at Sandwich.
Northumbria and all the country north of Watling Street
submit to him. Oxford, Winchester, Wallingford, Bath, Devon
and London submit to Sweyn. Flight of Ethelred and his family
to Normandy.
1014 Death of Sweyn (Feb. 3), Ethelred recalled. Canute, son of
Sweyn, King of the Danes, occupies Lindsey. Mutilation of
Northumbrian hostages by Canute. Sixth payment of _gafol_.
1015 Dorset, Wilts, Somerset ravaged.
1016 Warwickshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire;
along the fens to Stamford. Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire,
York, submission of Northumbria, London repeatedly attacked.
Death of Ethelred (April 23). Edmund Ironside king. Battle
of Assandune. The kingdom divided between Canute and Edmund.
Death of Edmund Ironside (Nov. 30). Canute sole king.
Dreary and depressing as is the general course of the narrative of
these successive invasions, we have in the early years of the war, not
from the chronicler but from an unknown contemporary poet, a graphic
account of a battle in which the Northmen were valiantly met and all
but defeated. The hero of the battle was Brihtnoth, ealdorman of Essex,
brother-in-law of the half-king Athelstan, and champion of the monks
against Elfhere of Mercia. The scene was laid at Maldon in Essex,
where the dark stream of the Blackwater begins to discharge itself
into its broad tidal estuary. The date was 991, the thirteenth year of
Ethelred. The poet brings before us the ealdorman Brihtnoth arraying
his men-at-arms on the shore of the Blackwater. He rides up and down
their ranks, bidding them hold their shields with firm grasp and fear
naught. He alights from his horse and stands beside “his friends, his
own hearth-warriors,” of whose staunch service he has often made proof.
While he is standing on the bank a Viking herald shouts forth his
threatful message: “The bold sailors have sent me to thee to say that
thou must forthwith send to them a ransom of golden rings. It will be
for your profit by this payment to forego the flight of spears; and you
shall then have peace with the men of the sea.” At this Earl Brihtnoth
gripped tight his shield and shook his slender ashen spear and poured
forth his words of wrath: “The tribute we will give you is naught but
flying spears, the edge of deadly iron, the old and trusted sword. Go
back and tell the folk who sent thee, that here stands an earl with his
warriors who will defend this country, the land of noble Ethelred, to
the uttermost. Now that you have visited our land you shall not depart
all softly to your homes bearing no marks of battle on your bodies.
Rather shall point and edge settle our differences: grim will be the
sword-play ere we pay you tribute.”
After this interchange of defiances, the troops on either side were
drawn up in battle array, but it was some hours before they could close
in conflict. The estuary of the Blackwater was still filled by the
flowing tide, and one bridge over the narrower part of the stream, by
which the enemy might have crossed, was valiantly defended by three
Saxons. “Finding these bridge warders all too bitter,” the Northmen
moved up stream to find a ford. The earl, in the pride of his soul,
allowed many of the hateful people to come to land, shouting aloud:
“Listen, warriors! Free space is now granted you to come quickly to us.
Come as warriors to the war. God only knows who shall hold the field of
slaughter.” “The wolves of rapine” tramped through the water, holding
high their shields over their heads, and found, when they reached
the shore, Earl Brihtnoth waiting to receive them. He had bidden his
men “to weave the war-hedge with their shields” (that is to make the
shield-wall) and hold it firmly against the foe. Then rose high the war
of battle, the ravens gathered together at the sound, and with them
came the eagle, greedy for his prey.
With true Homeric fervour the poet describes the incidents of the
battle that followed. Brihtnoth was wounded early in the fight by the
spear of a Viking, but succeeded in giving his antagonist a death-wound
by his javelin.
Blithe was then the chieftain,
Laughed the moody man: “I thank Thee, Lord of heaven,
For this glorious day’s work Thou to me hast given”.
Soon, however, he received another more deadly wound from a Norse
arrow, and though for a little space he still fought on, ere long “to
earth fell the golden-hilted sword, nor might he longer hold the hard
knife or wield the well-loved weapon”. But still the hoary warrior bade
the youths fight on and show a bold front to the foe, and as he lay he
looked toward heaven and said:--
Thankful I remember, Lord of Nations,
All the joys I in this world have tasted.
Now this one thing do I crave in dying
From Thy hands, O merciful Creator!--
That Thy grace be on my parting spirit,
That my soul in peace to Thee may journey,
To Thy presence, O Thou Lord of Angels,
And that of the Hell-crew none may harm her.
Uttering these words he died, and his corpse was barbarously hacked
by the bands of the heathen. Soon were his two squires, Elfnoth and
Wulfmaer, lying dead beside him, having freely given their lives for
their lord. And now was seen the difference between the brave men and
the infamous (_nithings_). Now fled from the battle those who loved
it not. First in flight was Godric, to whom his good lord had in past
days given many a noble steed, but who now leapt on his master’s horse
and fled fast from the battle, spreading panic among the soldiers,
who thought when they saw the well-known steed that it was Brihtnoth
himself who was thus fleeing from the encounter. Offa, a thegn of
Brihtnoth, upon whom the command of the remnant of the army seems now
to have devolved, had said only the day before when they were holding
_gemot_ (whereat Godric had probably been speaking loud and boastful
words):--
Many speak valiant words in council hall,
Who in the time of need from honour fall.
And now Godric’s cowardice made vain his words. Then did a young
warrior named Elfwine, grandson of an ealdorman of Mercia, speak
heart-cheering words to his fellows, reminding them of all the brave
old times that they had shared together in Brihtnoth’s banquet-hall,
drinking mead and talking of hard-won victories.
Now shall not the brave thegns, my countrymen, upbraid me,
That I from this day’s fighting have shamefully departed,
And sought my home unwounded, when there my chieftain lieth,
Hacked by the hostile broadswords. That were my worst disaster.
Alas! that there my kinsman, my dead lord, lies before me.
Then many of the sailor host Offa laid low in battle,
But all too soon the chieftain brave himself received his
death-blow,
Redeeming thus the promise he to his lord had given,
“Either we twain to castle triumphant ride together
Safe to our homes, or elsewise we both in battle perish,
Sore wounded, life out-bleeding upon the field of slaughter”.
So lay the noble Offa all thegn-like by his master.
The poem both begins and ends abruptly, and is evidently a fragment,
but we know from the Chronicle that the valour of Brihtnoth’s henchmen
was vain to restore the battle, and that Maldon was a Northmen’s
victory. The chief interest of the poem lies in the fact that it so
vividly brings before us the devotion of the thegns to their “dear
lord” (_wine drihten_), reminding us forcibly of the words of Tacitus
concerning the ancestors of these men nine centuries before. “The man
is disgraced for the rest of his life who leaves the battle-field
having survived his chief. The chiefs fight for victory, the
‘companions’ for their chief.” Also, unfortunately, the poet reveals
to us the existence of treachery and cowardice in the Saxon host.
We shall soon come upon notorious instances of men who imitated the
panic-breeding flight of the base Godric rather than the noble stand of
Brihtnoth and his henchmen.
We may gather from the lay of Brihtnoth some notions of the manner
of fighting in use among the Saxons. The battle was evidently fought
on foot, horses being merely used to convey some of the warriors to
the field of battle. The chief weapon seems to be the spear (_gar_
or _franca_), and next to it the dart (_dareth_), though of course
the sword (_sweord_) and dagger or knife (_mece_) are also used. The
use of the bow and arrow (_boga_ and _flan_) seems still to be rather
exceptional, at any rate on the Saxon side. The chief arms of defence
are the _byrne_ or ringed coat of mail and the _bord_ or shield made
of linden wood. To “weave the war-hedge” (_wyrcan thone wighagan_)
with closely interlocked shields is the first duty of an army on the
defensive; to break the shield-wall (_brecan thone bordweall_) is the
highest act of assailant valour.
* * * * *
At the outset of the battle of Maldon we heard the messenger of “the
sea men” suggesting the terms on which they were ready to sell an
ignominious immunity from ravage. It was in 991, the very year of that
battle, that the first payment of what is generally called Danegeld
was made.[191] “And in that year,” says the chronicler, “it was first
decided that men should pay _gafol_ to the Danish men on account of the
many terrible things which they wrought on the sea coast. That was at
first 10,000 pounds. This was the counsel of Archbishop Siric” (Sigeric
of Canterbury, 990–94).[192] Of course this easy and ignominious remedy
for the miseries inflicted by the invaders was only a palliative, not a
cure, and the short breathing-time purchased by the payment not having
been utilised as it was by Alfred to put the country in a better state
of defence, when the importunate beggars came again, they had to be
bought off at a higher figure. The following table shows the dates and
amounts of the successive payments of _gafol_:--
991 | First payment | 10,000 pounds (of silver)
994 | Second „ | 16,000
1002 | Third „ | 24,000
1007 | Fourth „ | 36,000 (in two MSS. 30,000)
1009 | Local payment, East Kent | 3,000
1012 | Fifth „ | 48,000
1014 | Sixth „ | 21,000
|--------
| 158,000 pounds of silver.
|--------
This sum, if we take the pound weight of silver at fifty-four
shillings, would be equivalent in intrinsic value to £426,600 sterling,
or if we take the “purchasing power” of money in the tenth century at
twenty times its present amount, it would be equivalent to a drain of
£8,532,000 from a thinly peopled and exhausted country. Probably, as
the drain went on, the purchasing power of the silver that remained
would be enormously increased and the above estimate may therefore
be too small. The chronicler in most cases simply records the fact
that the king and his _witan_ promised _gafol_ to the army (sometimes
_gafol_ and food) on condition that they should cease from evil; but
under the year 1011, after enumerating the districts of England,
equivalent to sixteen of our present counties, all of which they had
ravaged in that one year, he adds: “All these misfortunes befel us
through evil counsel (_un-raed_) because people did not choose either
to pay them _gafol_ in time or else to fight with them; but when they
had done about as much evil as they could possibly do, then people made
truce and peace with them.... And nevertheless for all this truce and
peace and payment of _gafol_, they went everywhere in bands and harried
the country and captured and slew our poor people.”
In order to meet these terrible demands upon the treasury, Ethelred
imposed the tax called Danegeld, which was possibly the first tax paid
in money and not in kind. The amount of this tax in Saxon times does
not seem to be clearly stated. Abolished by Edward the Confessor in
1052, it was revived and made much more oppressive by the Conqueror
long after all fear of Danish invasion had ceased, and though its
discontinuance was frequently talked of, it does not finally disappear
from the treasury rolls till the year 1163.[193] So persistent is the
clutch of the tax-gatherer when he has once fastened his claws upon his
victim.
* * * * *
In 992 we have the first of the long series of “inexplicable
treasons”[194] of Elfric, ealdorman of Hampshire and Berkshire. The
king and all his _witan_ had decided that all the ships that were of
any value should be collected in London. The command of this naval
armament was entrusted to Ealdorman Elfric, with three colleagues,
two of whom were bishops, and they were ordered to intercept the
invading host while still upon the high seas. But Elfric gave private
warning to the Danish leaders, and on the evening before the day on
which the battle was to have been fought, he stole away by himself
from the _fyrd_, to his great disgrace. The result was that the Danish
fleet escaped, all save one ship, the crew of which was slain; and
the Danes in their turn caught the ships of East Anglia and London at
a disadvantage, and wrought a mighty slaughter among them, capturing
the very ship, all armed and equipped, in which Elfric had been. As
a punishment apparently either for this or for yet another treason,
his son Elfgar was next year blinded by order of the king. And yet
ten years later (1003), when a great _fyrd_ had been collected out of
Wiltshire and Hampshire, Ealdorman Elfric was again placed in command
of it. “But,” says the chronicler, “he was again at his old tricks. As
soon as the two armies were so near together that they could look into
one another’s faces, he feigned himself sick and began retching and
spewing, and called out that he was suddenly taken ill. Thus did he
betray the folk that he should have led to battle. For when the general
is cowardly, then is all the army terribly hindered.” This is the last
time that Elfric is mentioned as in command of an army; but we hear of
him (or another ealdorman of the same name) thirteen years later (1016)
falling at the battle of Assandune. We may, perhaps, doubt whether he
was really a deep-dyed traitor or only a man of weakly and nervous
constitution, unable to face “the flight of spears” and quite unfit to
be put in command of the smallest detachment of soldiers.
In 994 a united effort for the conquest of England was made by a
Norwegian and a Danish chieftain. The Norwegian was Olaf Tryggvason,
great grandson of Harold Fair-hair, hero of a hundred romantic stories,
“fairest and strongest of all men and in prowess surpassing all men
talked of by the Northmen”. He had already visited England as a foe and
had borne a chief part in the battle of Maldon. The Dane was Sweyn, son
of Harold Blue-tooth, whose early career has been already described.
In the autumn of 994 the two comrades with ninety-four ships sailed up
the Thames and fiercely attacked the city of London on September 8, the
Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, thinking to set it on fire.
“But there,” says the Chronicle, “God be thanked, they experienced
more harm and mischief than they ever thought that any citizens should
do unto them. For the holy mother of God showed her mild-heartedness
unto those burghers and delivered them from their enemies.” The
marauding bands then departed and “wrought the most ill that any man
could do in burnings and harryings and man-slayings by the sea coast
of Essex, in Kent, in Sussex and in Hampshire,” and after “they had
worked indescribable evil,” the king and his _witan_ decided to make
the second great _gafol_ payment of £16,000, and “the army” after
once mustering at Southampton, was billeted through the whole land of
Wessex while the silver was being collected. The terms of peace being
thus settled, Ethelred sent a solemn embassage to Olaf, consisting of
Elfheah and Ethelweard. Both these were in their different ways men
worthy of note. Elfheah or Alphege, who was at this time bishop of
Winchester, became twelve years later archbishop of Canterbury, and
as we shall see suffered cruel martyrdom at the hands of the Danes.
Ethelweard, an ealdorman of Wessex, seems to be clearly identified with
the chronicler generally known as Ethelweard, who was of royal blood
(being descended from Alfred’s elder brother, Ethelred I.), and whose
turgid and obscure narrative occasionally sheds a glimmer of light
on the dark places of Anglo-Saxon history. The English ambassadors
conducted Olaf to Andover; and there he was led “with much worship”
into the presence of Ethelred, who bestowed upon him kingly gifts and
received him from the bishop’s hands, when the baptismal rite had been
performed. Under the spell of these new religious influences, Olaf
promised that “he would never again come against the English race in
unfriendly guise,” a promise which, as the chronicler says, he well
fulfilled. Next year (995) he made himself master of the Norwegian
kingdom, and succeeded in inducing all the Norwegian chiefs, north and
south, to become converts to Christianity. After a reign of five years
full of romantic adventures,[195] the Norwegian hero fell in a great
sea-fight against the combined forces of his former ally, Sweyn of
Denmark, and his namesake, Olaf of Sweden. For fourteen years (1000–14)
Norway lay under the yoke of the confederate kings. The increase of
power thus obtained by Denmark may have had something to do with the
success of Sweyn’s schemes for the conquest of England.
* * * * *
Powerless as Ethelred was to defend our island from her foes, he could
at least imitate their ravages in that portion of it which was not
under his immediate rule. “In the year 1000 he marched into Cumberland
and harried very nearly the whole of it.” Even here, however, his
unrivalled genius for failure showed itself. His ships--the remnant
probably of those collected in the previous year--were to have met him
at Chester and co-operated in his campaign. This they failed to do, but
“they sailed to the Isle of Man and ravaged there”. These last words
throw a little light on what is otherwise not only an obscure but an
utterly purposeless proceeding. We know from other sources that Man was
an island stronghold of the Norse pirates, and there are, as we have
seen, indications that from thence a stream of Scandinavian settlers
passed into Cumberland towards the close of the tenth century. It is
true that Norse rather than Danish seems to have been the character of
the settlement in the Isle of Man, but as the Scandinavian sea-rovers
were still acting generally in concert against the English, this fact
need not prevent us from seeing in this Cumbrian raid an act of energy
on Ethelred’s part against the Danish invaders.
* * * * *
Two strangely contrasted events, a marriage and a massacre, fill up
the record for 1002. There had been apparently some desultory warfare
between Ethelred and Richard the Good, son of Richard the Fearless,
duke of Normandy. An expedition against the Cotentin, the western
horn of Normandy, had proved, like many of Ethelred’s undertakings,
unsuccessful, and now the English king, his first wife being dead,
in order to strengthen himself by a foreign alliance, sued for and
obtained the hand of Richard’s sister Emma in marriage. The bride was
brought over to England with much pomp in the spring of 1002 by the
magnates of the realm who had been sent to escort her. An attempt was
made to change her name to the Saxon Aelfgyfu (Elgiva), but the Norman
“Emma” is that by which she has ever been known in history. She bore
to Ethelred two sons, Alfred and Edward (the Confessor). Queen Emma,
who was known as the “_gemma Normannorum_,” was probably beautiful
after the fair type of her Scandinavian ancestors, but her character
is not an attractive one, and indirectly her connexion with the royal
family of Wessex wrought much harm to England. Henry of Huntingdon
(writing of course after the Norman conquest) makes the extraordinary
statement that “from this union of an English king with the daughter
of a Norman duke, the Normans justly, according to the law of nations,
challenged and obtained possession of the English land”. He goes on to
say, however, that a certain man of God had prophesied that because
of the enormous crimes of the English people, their addiction to
murder, treason, drunkenness, and neglect of the house of the Lord, “an
unlooked-for dominion should come upon them from France, and even the
nation of the Scots, whom they held most vile, should also rule over
them to their deserved confusion”.
After narrating the payment of the third _gafol_ to the Danes (24,000
pounds), the chronicler proceeds: “In that year the king ordered all
the Danish men who were in England to be slain on St. Bricius’ Day,
November 13, because the king was informed that they wished to plot
against his life and afterwards against the lives of all his _witan_,
and so to have the kingdom easily for themselves”. A most extraordinary
statement is this, describing an event even more unintelligible than
the other events in this inexplicable reign. The alleged murder of
all Danish men reminds us of the Sicilian Vespers, but the historical
parallel may be deceptive. The Chronicle speaks only of the murder of
“Danish men”; the statements of later Chronicles extending the massacre
to women and children are probably oratorical amplifications. Henry of
Huntingdon gives us an interesting personal touch when he says: “In
our boyhood we heard from some very ancient men that the aforesaid
king sent letters to each city, according to which the English on the
same day and hour, either hewed down the unsuspecting Danes with their
swords or, having suddenly arrested them, burned them with fire”.
Notwithstanding statements like this, it may be safely asserted that
all the thousands of Danish men who were scattered over England, in
the Danelaw and elsewhere, did _not_ perish on St. Brice’s Day. Nor is
this probably the Chronicle’s meaning. We learn from another version
of the Chronicle that in the previous year (1001) Pallig, whom we
know to have been a Danish jarl and brother-in-law of King Sweyn,
“fell off from Ethelred, contrary to all the assurances that he had
given him, although the king had well gifted him with villages and
gold and silver”; and that he had joined the Danes who were invading
Devonshire. On the somewhat doubtful authority of William of Malmesbury
we are assured that this Pallig, his wife and child were killed in
the massacre. This may suggest to us that the real character of the
event of St. Brice’s Day was a kind of _coup d’état_; the summary and
treacherous execution of all the Danes who of recent years had flocked
into Wessex and taken service in the court and camp of Ethelred. Even
so, the deed was sufficiently atrocious, but not impossible, as the
murder of all the Danes on English soil would certainly have been.
* * * * *
Passing over some important events, among them the brave defence of
East Anglia by its ealdorman Ulfcytel (“No worse hand-play did the
Danes ever meet with from Englishmen than that which Ulfcytel gave
them”), we come to the year 1008, for which the Chronicle gives us
the following important but perplexing entry: “Now the king bade that
through all England men should regularly build ships, that is for 300
hides ... and for 10 hides a skiff, and for 8 hides a helmet and coat
of mail”.
There is evidently something omitted in this sentence, and it is
generally agreed that the “Worcester” version of the Chronicle
which fills up the lacuna with the words “one great ship” has much
to recommend it, though the scribe himself may not have understood
correctly the meaning of the passage. We may perhaps draw from it this
conclusion, that in each county every unit of three hundred hides was
called upon to furnish one large warship; the owner of ten hides (1,200
acres?) a light skiff not much bigger than a boat, the owner of eight
hides (960 acres?) a helmet and a coat of mail. Whatever difficulty
there may be in this obscure passage, it is interesting to note that
we have here the origin of “ship-money”. The great case of Rex _v._
Hampden in the Exchequer Chamber was connected by a distinct chain of
causation with the Danish sea-rovers’ movements in the early years
of the eleventh century. As usual, these large preparations came to
nothing, although (says the chronicler) “as the books tell us, never in
no king’s day were so many ships seen in England as were now gathered
together at Sandwich”. But domestic dissension and one man’s treachery
ruined all (1009).
The new traitor who now emerges from obscurity, and for the next ten
years exercises a malign influence on England’s fortunes, is Edric
Streona, who was in 1007 set over Mercia as ealdorman. Florence
of Worcester ascribes to him the murder of Elfhelm, ealdorman of
Northumbria, in a forest near Shrewsbury, and thus draws his general
character: “The aforesaid Edric, son of Ethelric, was a man of low
origin, whose tongue had procured for him riches and rank, clever in
wit, pleasant in speech, but one who surpassed all the men of his time
in envy, faithlessness and cruelty”. We have here a more dangerous type
of man than his predecessor Elfric; a man who will not be afraid to
lead armies to battle, though it may be to their deliberately planned
ruin; a man who will have the courage to plot and execute crimes which
would have been too much for the delicate digestion of Elfric. Edric
had a large band of brothers, who no doubt shared the profits and
the enmities which attended his sudden elevation. One of these named
Brihtric accused a nobleman named Child Wulfnoth to the king, evidently
hoping to profit by the forfeiture of his estates. Thus driven into
rebellion, Wulfnoth took to piracy, persuaded twenty ships’ crews out
of the king’s fleet to join him, and ravaged the southern coast like a
Dane. Brihtric with eighty ships went forth against him, boasting that
he would bring back Wulfnoth, alive or dead, but he was overtaken by a
terrible storm which battered and thrashed the ships and drove many of
them on shore. These Brihtric burned; the others were with difficulty
conveyed up the Thames to London. Thus, through the intrigues of one
man, Edric’s brother, did the great naval force waste its energies on
an inglorious civil war, “and we had not,” says the chronicler, “the
happiness nor the honour that we hoped to derive from an efficient navy
any more than in previous years”. Of course now, when “the immense
hostile army came to Sandwich, there were no ships to meet it”. The
Danes landed in Kent, besieged Canterbury, were bought off by a
special local _gafol_ of 3,000 pounds, and marched on into Berkshire,
harrying and burning. For once Ethelred showed some energy, made a
levy _en masse_ of his people, outmarched the Danes and was on the
point of cutting off their retreat to their ships. The English peasant
soldiers of the _fyrd_ were keen to attack them and avenge the burning
of their homesteads and the slaughter of their brethren, “but it was
all hindered, now as ever, by Edric the ealdorman”. In November the
invaders took up their winter quarters in Kent, drawing their supplies
from the counties on both sides of the Thames, “and many a time they
attacked the town of London. But God be thanked, she yet stands sound
and well, and they have ever fared ill before her walls.”
* * * * *
The years 1011 and 1012 were made sadly memorable by the successful
siege of Canterbury and the murder of its archbishop. The siege lasted
from September 8 to 29, and it is hinted that it would not so soon have
ended but for the treason of Elfmaer, Abbot of St. Augustine’s, whose
life had once been saved by the archbishop whom he now betrayed. This
archbishop was Elfheah or Alphege, whom we met with seventeen years
before when he was sent, as bishop of Winchester, to negotiate with
Olaf Tryggvason. He had been for six years archbishop of Canterbury,
when he had to witness the capture of the hitherto inviolate city
of St. Augustine by the pagans. Besides the archbishop, other great
persons, a king’s reeve, a bishop and an abbess were taken prisoners,
but these latter seem to have been allowed to ransom themselves. “Abbot
Elfmaer”--significant entry--“was suffered to depart.” The Danes
searched the city through and through; and the spoil collected and the
ransoms paid doubtless made this raid one of the most profitable of
their speculations. The archbishop, however, was a perplexing prize.
His captors had formed extravagant ideas of what an archbishop’s ransom
ought to be, and when they named their price, the archbishop would
not hear of his flock being subjected for his sake to such a terrible
exaction; and not only would do nothing himself, but positively forbade
all the faithful to take any steps towards procuring his ransom.
Seven months was the venerable captive kept in the Danish camp, while
the fruitless negotiations went on. At last on April 19, 1012, when
the Danes were all excited by the arrival of the largest _gafol_ that
Ethelred had yet paid them, a _gafol_ amounting to 48,000 pounds weight
of silver; and when their hearts were also merry with wine brought from
the shores of the Mediterranean, the archbishop was brought forth from
his prison. The rude tribunal before which he was brought bore a name
long afterwards well known in England: it was called “the hustings”.
The time was Saturday evening, the eve of the first Sunday after
Easter; the scene strangely dissonant with the many peaceful vespers
of the archbishop’s past. The drunken barbarians, singing perchance
some of their fathers’ rude war-songs, began to pelt the aged prisoner
with the bones left over from their banquet, with the skulls of the
oxen which they had slaughtered. Even so in Valhalla, according to
the Viking mythology, had the gods amused themselves by pelting the
invulnerable Balder with stones and other missiles, until the blind
Hoder, inspired by mischief-working Loki, hurled the fatal mistletoe,
which alone had power to deprive him of life. The brutal game went on
and the air was filled with the drunken laughter of the barbarians at
the old man’s misery. At last one of their number named Thrum, who had
been confirmed by the archbishop only the day before, with kind cruelty
clave his head with a battle-axe. “He fell down dead with the blow and
his holy blood was spilled upon the earth, but his saintly soul went
forth into God’s kingdom.” The martyrdom, for such in truth it was,
took place at Greenwich. Next day the barbarians suffered the saint’s
body to be removed to London, where it was received with all reverence
by the bishop and burghers of the city, as well as by the bishop of
Dorchester, and by them deposited in St. Paul’s cathedral. “And
there,” says the Chronicle, “does God now show forth the wonder-working
power of the holy martyr.” The translation of the remains to Canterbury
will be described in a future chapter. Under the altered form of
Saint Alphege, the name of the murdered archbishop still appears in
the calendar of the English Church, which commemorates the day of his
martyrdom, April the 19th.
* * * * *
Up to this point the Danish invasions of this period have been mere
plundering and blackmailing raids, apparently with no thought of
permanent conquest. Had that been the aim of the sea-rovers, all this
cruel burning and slaughtering would have been beside the mark: for why
should a conqueror utterly ruin a land which he meant to rule? In 1013,
however, a change came over the character of the invasions. They became
part of a regular scheme of conquest; and the old Danish king who
brought with him Canute,[196] his son, determined to make the country
his own. Sweyn landed in the estuary of the Humber: Northumbria,
Lindsey and the Five Boroughs submitted to him and gave him hostages,
whom he sent to the ships to be kept under his son’s guardianship. He
ordered the inhabitants to feed and mount his soldiers; he restored the
full Danish dominion over all the country beyond the Watling Street as
it existed in the darkest years of the ninth century. He then crossed
the Watling Street, harrying the midland counties. Oxford submitted,
so did Winchester. He marched against London, losing many of his
foolhardy soldiers in crossing the Thames. London as usual made a brave
defence. Ethelred was there, and with Ethelred a strange ally, none
other than Thurkill the Dane who had commanded the invading army in
1009. It was Thurkill’s men who had captured Canterbury and murderously
pelted the holy Elfheah; but according to one contemporary authority
Thurkill himself had tried to save him, offering the murderers all his
treasures, “except only his ship,” if they would but be merciful.
Possibly the remembrance of that scene, or some lessons in Christianity
which he may have learned from the captive archbishop, induced him now
to lower the Raven-banner and take service under Ethelred. Possibly,
too, it was this notable defection which caused Sweyn to come over in
person and pluck the ripe fruit, lest it should fall into the hands of
one of his subjects.
The Danish king next moved westward to Bath, and received the
submission of that ancient city and of all the western thegns, each
one of whom had to give hostages, who were sent like the others to the
Humber to be kept under Canute’s guardianship. Even the brave citizens
of London saw that it was useless further to prolong the contest.
They submitted, gave hostages and joined with the rest of England in
acknowledging Sweyn as “full king”. There are indications that this
great revolution was prompted not merely by the desire to end in any
manner the dreadful period of Danish ravagings, but also by utter
disgust at the character of Ethelred, who seems to have been not merely
incapable but also lustful and cruel. In the years which we have been
traversing, there are some strange entries in the Chronicle recording
executions, blindings, confiscations, no doubt inflicted at the command
of Ethelred; and William of Malmesbury, in quoting a letter from
Thurkill to Sweyn, makes him thus describe the condition of England and
her king. “The land is a fair land and a rich, but the king snores.
Devoted to women and wine, he thinks of everything rather than war, and
this makes him hateful to his subjects and ridiculous to foreigners.
The generals are all jealous of one another: the country-folk are weak,
and fly from the field at the first crash of battle.” This letter is
probably not authentic, but its words show what was the traditional
character of “the redeless king”.
Recognising that his sceptre was broken, Ethelred sent the Lady Emma
and her two sons across the sea to her brother in Normandy. He himself
lingered for a while, first on shipboard in the Thames; then in the
Isle of Wight, where he seems to have spent his Christmas; and then
he too escaped to “Richard’s Land,” as the chroniclers call the duchy
of Normandy. Thus then had Sweyn, the heathen and the parricide, king
of Denmark by inheritance and of England by conquest, reached the
summit of his earthly ambition: and having reached it, he was speedily
removed by death. According to the legend related by Symeon of Durham,
his death was a punishment for his contemptuous behaviour towards St.
Edmund of East Anglia. Often had he spoken in a disrespectful manner
of this martyred king, declaring that his saintship was an idle tale;
and, what was more serious, he had announced to the monks of St.
Edmundsbury that unless by a certain day a heavy tax which he had laid
upon their monastery was paid, he would march thither with his men,
give the sanctuary to the flames and put its inmates to death with a
variety of torments. On the very day before his threatened expedition
he was sitting on his horse at Gainsborough surrounded by the armed
assembly of his warriors. Suddenly he cried out, “Help me, comrades!
help! yonder is Saint Edmund who is coming to slay me”. While he was
thus speaking, an unseen hand transfixed him with a spear: he fell
from his war-horse and died at nightfall in great agony. Such is the
legend. The Chronicle records only the simple fact that “at Candlemas
on February 3, 1014, Sweyn ended his days, and all the fleet chose Cnut
for their king”. The dead monarch seems to have reigned as “full king”
over England for barely a month after the flight of Ethelred. His death
led to a sudden shifting of the scene.
* * * * *
“Then all the _witan_, lay and clerical, resolved that they would send
for King Ethelred, and they said that no lord should be dearer to them
than their natural born lord, if only he would govern more righteously
than he had done aforetime. Then the king sent hither his son Edward
with his messengers, and bade greeting to all his people, and said that
he would be to them a gracious lord and would amend all the things of
which they complained, and that everything which they had done or said
against him should be forgiven, on condition that they would all firmly
and loyally adhere to him. Thus was full friendship made fast between
them with word and pledge on either side; and they pronounced every
Danish king outlawed from England for ever. Then came King Ethelred in
spring-tide home to his own people, and gladly was he received by all
of them.”
It was an easy matter for the _witan_ to declare every Danish king an
outlaw; to expel the young and vigorous Canute from the kingdom was a
very different affair. At this time the Dane’s strongest position was
in Lincolnshire, his naval base of operations being still doubtless
the estuary of the Humber. The men of Lindsey had resorted to him at
Gainsborough, and had undertaken to supply him with horses and to go
forth together with him and harry. But now when Ethelred with “a full
fyrd” appeared in Lincolnshire, Canute who was not ready for fight,
stole away to his ships and sailed forth from the Humber, leaving “the
poor folk whom he had deceived” to their king’s vengeance. Ethelred
then “harried and burned and slew every man who could be got at”.
Evidently the long years of war had thoroughly brutalised both the
combatants. Canute, enraged probably by the proceedings of the _witan_,
sailed round to Sandwich, and there landed the luckless hostages who
had been delivered to his father by the northern shires in 1013. He
chopped off their hands and noses and then, apparently, let them
return to their homes. This savage mutilation is the greatest piece of
barbarity that stands recorded against him. Meanwhile the portion of
the fleet which Thurkill commanded lay at Greenwich, and from thence,
though professing to support the cause of Ethelred, ravaged the country
as much as they pleased. Thus for the unhappy peasants there was little
to choose between Thurkill and Canute.
In the following year, 1015, there was a great meeting of the _witan_
at Oxford, and here Edric, of whose treasons we have lately heard but
little, distinguished himself by a characteristic piece of villainy.
There were two thegns, probably brothers, named Sigeferth and Morcar,
men with large estates and holding highest rank in the Five, or as they
were now called, the Seven Boroughs (York and Chester were perhaps
the two new additions to the old group). These men Edric, when he
met them at the _witenagemot_, invited into his chamber and there he
treacherously slew them. According to the somewhat doubtful story of
William of Malmesbury, he had first made their henchmen drunk, and then
when they, too late, sought to avenge their lords, Edric’s followers
overpowered them, chased them into the church of St. Frideswide and
slew them there. The king was evidently consenting to the death of
these men, and purposed to bestow their broad lands on their murderer.
But now came a strange overturn. Sigeferth’s widow had been by royal
order conveyed to Malmesbury, probably with the intention of immuring
her in the convent. Thither also, after a short interval, went the
king’s son, the Etheling Edmund Ironside, whom we now hear of for the
first time, but who was to be the protagonist in the next two years’
combat. He wooed the widow of Sigeferth; he perhaps promised to take
vengeance on her husband’s murderers; he married her, contrary to the
king’s command, and then early in September he marched to the Seven
Boroughs, presented himself as the avenger of the murdered thegns and
the heir of one of them, made himself master of all their domains and
received the submission of their people.
The king was now lying at Cosham,[197] stricken with mortal sickness,
and could exercise little influence on the course of events. The hopes
of the nation must have all rested on Edmund, who certainly showed in
these two years courage and activity, though he may have inherited some
of his father’s incapacity for reading the characters of men. Thus,
notwithstanding the breach between them, which he should have known to
be deadly, he accepted the offered help of Edric Streona who repaired
to his standard in the north, only to exercise his usual paralysing
influence on the army, and then deserted to Canute, inducing the crews
of the forty ships at Greenwich to follow his example.
England was now, in 1016, divided in a fashion not seen before. All
Wessex was submissive to Canute and gave him horses and hostages,
while the district of the Seven Boroughs and probably the whole of
Northumbria went with Edmund, heir by marriage of the influence of
Sigeferth. He summoned the Mercian _fyrd_ to his standard, but the
men replied, curiously enough, that “it did not please them to go
forth, unless the king were with them, and they had the support of the
burgesses of London”. Apparently the Etheling Edmund was more than
half suspected of being a rebel against his father, and in the strange
confusion of the strife the approval of the brave citizens of London
was the only irrefragable sign and seal of rightful lordship. With some
difficulty the sick king was brought from London, where he then abode,
to the northern _fyrd_, but being alarmed by rumours of a conspiracy
against his life, he quitted the camp and returned to London. “Thus
the summoning of the _fyrd_ availed nothing more than it had ever done
before.”
The junction of Edmund’s forces with those of Uhtred, earl of
Northumbria, might seem to promise more effectual resistance to the
foreigner. Practically, however, it resulted in nothing more than a
series of harryings in Shropshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire, from
which Uhtred was suddenly recalled by the tidings that Canute had
marched northwards and was already nearing York. Uhtred abandoned his
harrying and hastened to meet the enemy, but in presence of Canute’s
superior force was obliged to submit, acknowledge the Dane as his
king, and give hostages. The submission availed him naught. After this
surrender he and another powerful Northumbrian named Thurcytel were
put to death by Canute. This crime also was attributed to the malign
influence of Edric Streona. The struggle now centred round London.
There was the sick king; thither his son Edmund went to meet him.
Thither was Canute sailing with his ships, but ere he arrived, an enemy
stronger than he had found entrance. On April 23, 1016, King Ethelred
died, and this dreariest of all English reigns came to an end. Old
as Ethelred seems to us by reason of the evils which he had so long
inflicted on his country, he was still only in the forty-ninth year of
his age.
* * * * *
“After the death of Ethelred, all the _witan_ that were in London and
the citizens chose EDMUND for king, and he boldly defended his kingdom
while his time was,” which was only for seven months. Canute, who was
obstinately set on the conquest of London, made a canal on the south
side of the Thames and passed his ships through it, so as to bring them
into the main stream above the strongly defended bridge. After two
battles in Somerset and Wilts the English king came to the help of the
citizens and defeated the Danes at Brentford. His army, however, was
somewhat lacking in discipline, for “many English folk were drowned in
the river through their own carelessness, pushing on beyond the main
body of the _fyrd_ in the hope of taking booty”. In the battles which
followed on the Orwell, in Mercia, in the island of Sheppey, Edmund
was generally victorious; but all such success was counterbalanced by
the disastrous return of Edric to the English army and by Edmund’s
acceptance of his help. “Never was worse counsel adopted than that.”
The last and greatest of the long series of battles was fought at
Assandune, in the flats of Essex between the Thames and the estuary
of the Crouch. Here, after a long and fierce encounter, victory fell
to the Danes, it is said through the treachery of Edric, who was the
first to take flight and who spread panic through the English ranks
by displaying a severed head, which, he shouted, was the head of
Edmund Ironside. In this battle fell the old traitor Elfric and a very
different man, the brave East Anglian Ulfcytel, besides many other
thegns. There, in fact, fell the flower of the English manhood.
It seemed clear that neither of the opposing forces could utterly crush
the other. By the mediation of Edric a meeting was arranged between the
two kings at Olney, an island in the Severn not far from Gloucester. A
payment, we are not told of what amount, was made to the Danish army,
and the kingdom was divided between the combatants, Wessex to Edmund,
Mercia and Northumbria to Canute. London, faithfully following the
house of Cerdic, was included in the peace, and the now reconciled
Danish mariners were allowed to take up their winter quarters in the
city by the Thames. A peculiar relation, somewhat embellished by the
fancy of later historians, seems to have been established between the
two young partners in the kingdom. Brotherhood in arms was perhaps
sworn to between them; it is alleged that the survivor of the twain
was assured of the inheritance of his partner. Whatever may have been
the precise nature of the tie, it was soon dissolved. On November 30,
1016, Edmund Ironside “fared forth,” and was buried by the side of his
grandfather, Edgar, at Glastonbury. He was only about twenty-three
years of age. A death so opportune for the purposes of Canute and
his followers naturally arouses suspicion. Later historians had no
hesitation in making Edric the murderer. There is also something in
the after-life of Canute which looks like remorse for some great
crime committed against his brother-king. On the other hand it is but
justice to say that there is no hint of foul play in any contemporary
authority; and the death of the young king may perhaps be accounted for
by the fearful labours and anxieties of his last two years of warring
and reigning.
The period which we have lately traversed is one of those dreary times
which a patriotic historian would gladly blot out from the annals of
England, and one is half inclined to resent the exceptional fulness of
detail with which it is treated in the Saxon Chronicle. Yet it is a
time which the student of our social history cannot afford to overlook.
If the thirty years’ war in the seventeenth century left deep scars
on the face of Germany, which were still visible after the lapse of
two hundred years, we must surely believe that the wounds inflicted by
the incessant ravages and harryings of the Danes for more than thirty
years were also deep and long lasting. The utter demoralisation of king
and people, the apparent rottenness of the body politic, as manifested
in the course of the struggle, abate much of our first feeling of
patriotic regret for the Norman conquest, suggesting as they do the
reflection that these Saxons, if left to themselves, would never have
made a strong and stable nation. Much as we condemn the conduct of
Ethelred, we may be inclined to conjecture that all the mischief was
not wrought in his reign. We should perhaps do wisely in mistrusting
a good deal that is told us about the glory and the greatness of the
reign of Edgar. After all, it was in that king’s days that traitors
such as Elfric and Edric were growing up into maturity. Had Edgar left
the country a really strong, well-organised state, it could hardly have
gone down so speedily before the assaults of the sea-rovers. Probably
the new and nobler life breathed into the Saxon people by the great
Alfred lasted during the reigns of Edward and Athelstan and not much
longer.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CANUTE AND HIS SONS.
When in 1016 Edmund Ironside died, there could be little question
that CANUTE must be sole King of England. It was true that Edmund
had left two sons, Edmund and Edward, but they were mere babes and
it was no time for a protracted regency. In the older generation,
of the numerous progeny of the redeless Ethelred (nine sons and six
daughters), there were still left only three whose claims could deserve
consideration. These were Edwy, the son of his first marriage, and two
boys, Alfred and Edward, sons of Emma. These latter, however, besides
the disadvantage of their youth--they cannot have been more than twelve
years of age--were still absent from England, at the court of their
uncle Richard, Duke of Normandy. They seem therefore to have been left
altogether out of the reckoning at this juncture, though one of them a
generation later was to ascend the throne of England, and to be known
under the name of Edward the Confessor. There remained, therefore, as
claimant, of the immediate family of Ethelred, only his elder son,
Edwy, who was probably in his twentieth year, or thereabouts, but who
seems to have borne a high character for wisdom and prudence. But there
was another shadowy competitor for the crown who also bore the name of
Edwy, with the strange epithet, “King of the Churls”. In our complete
ignorance of this man’s previous history we can only guess from whence
he emerged. One such guess is that he claimed to be descended from his
namesake, the brother of Edgar, and that, having put himself forward
as champion of the free tillers of the soil (a class doubtless sorely
suffering from thirty years of anarchy), he was called in derision
“King of the Ceorls”. However this may be, neither Edwy could stand for
a moment against the might of the young Dane, already the acknowledged
sovereign of all England north of the Thames, and with the terrible
“army” at his back, ready at the giving of a signal to break loose from
their winter quarters and resume their terrible harryings of the land.
Canute had apparently no difficulty in decreeing that both the Edwys
should be banished the realm, nor shortly after in putting the son of
Ethelred to death.
The two infant sons of Edmund Ironside were sent by Canute to the King
of Sweden, it is said with a request that they might be quietly put out
of the way. The Swedish king, however, declined to make himself the
Dane’s executioner, and passed the children on to the King of Hungary.
Forty years after our present date, one of them having returned to
England became, not indeed himself a king, but father of a Scottish
queen, and ancestor, through her, of many generations of English
sovereigns. As to the manner in which Canute acquired the power of
dealing thus summarily with the descendants of Cerdic, there is some
uncertainty. One version of the Chronicle says that he was “chosen to
be King of all England,” and so far confirms the elaborate account of
Florence of Worcester. This author says that there was a great meeting
of the _witan_ in London, and that Canute interrogated them as to
the nature of the agreement made between him and Edmund Ironside at
Olney, whereof they had all been witnesses. “Was anything then said
about the right of brothers or sons to succeed Edmund in Wessex, if he
should die in Canute’s lifetime?” Thus interrogated, they said that
they knew for certain that Edmund destined no portion of his kingdom
for his brothers, either in his lifetime or after his death, but that
he looked to Canute as the future helper and protector of his sons
till they should reach the age of kingship. “But herein they called
God to witness of a lie,” hoping to win the king’s favour thereby.
According to this story, Canute’s election to the throne by the _witan_
of London was the result of hard swearing; but the Scandinavian
authorities assert, and some modern historians believe, that the
exclusion of Edmund’s brothers from the succession was really part of
the compact of Olney. The question must probably be left unsettled.
What is not doubtful is the full and undisputed power which the young
Danish conqueror ever thereafter wielded in England, and the peace and
comparative prosperity which for near twenty years she enjoyed under
his sway. Wisely distrustful of his own ability to direct personally
the details of government throughout the whole kingdom, Canute at once
divided it into five districts, four of which he placed under rulers
with delegated power. East Anglia he placed under the government of
Thurkill the Dane, once the ally of Ethelred, but now his own henchman.
What was once Deira was assigned to Yric or Eric, also a Dane, who
seems, as before, to have made York his capital. In old Bernicia
English lords of the family of Uhtred still held sway. Mercia was
handed over to the notorious Edric Streona, while Wessex, the heart and
centre of Anglo-Saxon monarchy, was reserved for Canute’s own especial
rule. Here, and not in any of the Scandinavian lands across the sea,
he resolved to make his home for the remainder of his life. All these
great lords-lieutenant (as we should call them) were probably called
earls, a title copied from the Danish _jarl_ which was now gradually
supplanting the old English ealdorman.
Two of these newly appointed earls did not long enjoy their dignities.
In 1017 the old traitor Edric Streona was put to death by Canute:
“most justly,” says the latest recension of the Chronicles. Florence
of Worcester asserts that “Canute ordered him to be killed within the
palace, because he feared that he might one day be circumvented by his
plots, as had often been the fate of his former lords, Ethelred and
Edmund”. He may have been, as he is depicted in the Chronicle, one of
the vilest of men, or he may have been merely a great opportunist,
the Talleyrand or the Sunderland of a shifting and difficult period;
but even so, it is hard for a man of that stamp to convince his new
employer that he has really changed front for the last time. Thurkill
of East Anglia fell into disgrace in 1021 and was banished. After two
years he was restored to favour, yet not brought back to England, but
entrusted with the regency of Denmark. There is some evidence that he,
like Edric, had married a daughter of Ethelred; and there is reason to
suppose that not only the sons, but even the sons-in-law, of the late
king were viewed with suspicion by Canute.[198]
In the first year of his reign, on July 31, 1017, the young Danish
king, now about twenty-two years of age, took to wife Emma of Normandy,
widow of Ethelred, and probably thirteen years his senior. As to the
motives for this somewhat surprising marriage we have no sufficient
information. It may have been due to a politic desire to secure the
friendship of Normandy; it may have been Canute’s wish to present to
his English subjects an appearance of continuity in the domestic life
of the palace of Winchester; or there may have been--who knows?--a
romantic passion engendered when the future bride and bridegroom met
during the negotiations after the siege of London.[199] The new queen
certainly seems to have faithfully complied with the spirit of the
Scriptural precept about the bride’s forgetting of former ties, but
need she also have forgotten the children of her former marriage? The
son whom she bore to Canute, and who was named Harthacnut, was the
object of her fondest affection. Canute evidently ousted the memory of
the inglorious Ethelred, whose sons Alfred and Edward lingered on at
their uncle’s court, apparently forgotten by their mother, and with no
effort on her part to bring about their return from exile.
It was perhaps only a coincidence, though an unfortunate one, that the
second marriage of Emma, like her first, was accompanied, if not by a
massacre, by a considerable sacrifice of human life. In 1017 Canute
ordered the execution not only of Edwy, of the seed royal, and of
Edric the traitor, but of “Northman, son of Leofwine the ealdorman,
and Ethelweard, son of Ethelmaer the Fat, and Brihtric, son of Elfheah
in Devonshire”. The last name is for us meaningless: Ethelweard is
interesting as denoting the grandson of Ethelweard the Chronicler,
the “Patrician,” as he calls himself; the man of royal descent and
of pompous diction. The name of Northman, son of Leofwine, deserves
further notice as being our first introduction to a family which was
to play an important part in the next half-century of English history.
For five generations, since the very beginning of the eighth century,
the family of Leofwine had borne a high place in the kingdom of
Mercia. This Leofwine himself in 997 signed charters as _dux_, that is
ealdorman, of the province of the Hwiccas. It was his son Northman who
now, we know not on what pretext or under what cloud of suspicion, was
put to death by Canute. The king’s wrath seems not to have extended
to the other members of Northman’s family; for his father Leofwine at
once received the earldom of Mercia, vacated by the death of Edric,
and there are some indications that his son Leofric received a minor
earldom, possibly that of Chester, which may have been previously held
by the slain Northman.[200]
About the same time as the family of Leofwine, a rival family,
one which was to engrave its name yet more deeply on the pages of
English history, begins to make its appearance, not yet indeed in
the Chronicles, but in those invaluable charters which show us by
the names of the attesting witnesses who at any given period were
the most prominent personages in the English court. Godwine, son of
Wulfnoth, is a man over whose ancestry there hangs a cloud of mystery,
the result partly of the poverty of Anglo-Saxon nomenclature, which
makes it often difficult to identify the particular Wulfnoth or Edric
or Ethelweard of whom we are in quest. There are stories about him of
a romantic kind, according to which he, as a cowherd’s son, had the
good fortune to meet a king or an earl who had lost his way after one
of the battles between Canute and Edmund; gave him a night’s shelter,
and was rewarded by patronage which enabled the future Earl Godwine
to get his foot planted on the first rung of the official ladder. For
these stories, which we find chiefly in chroniclers of a much later
age, there appears to be no sufficient foundation. On the whole it
seems probable that he was the offspring neither of a _thegn_ nor of a
_theow_, but sprang from some middle stratum of Anglo-Saxon society.
Whatever his origin may have been, he was evidently a man of energy
and capacity, and he rose rapidly in the favour of Canute, who was
perhaps glad to obtain the services of new men, neither suspected of
too strong an attachment to their former master, Ethelred, nor branded
with the shame of his betrayal. Already, in 1018, he had the rank
of earl, of what district we are not informed. He is said to have
accompanied Canute in 1019 on a visit which he paid to Denmark; and
to have distinguished himself in a war against the Wends, probably in
Pomerania, and on his return to England he was raised to the high and
novel position of Earl of the West Saxons. Up to this time the kings
of Cerdic’s line, while ruling other parts of England by ealdormen or
earls, had kept Wessex, the cradle of their dynasty, under their own
personal control: and their example was followed by Canute himself at
the beginning of his reign. He had now, however, by the death of his
obscure and contemptible brother Harold (1016), become the wearer of
the Danish crown; and possibly cherishing visions of other and more
widely reaching Scandinavian conquests, he determined to keep his hands
free from the mere routine of government even in royal Wessex, and
therefore handed that province over to the administration of his young
and loyal henchman, Godwine. About the same time he further secured the
new earl’s attachment to the Danish dynasty by marrying him to Gytha,
daughter of his cousin, Thurgils Sprakalegg, and sister of his own
brother-in-law, Ulf the Jarl. Such a connexion brought the new man,
Godwine, very close to Danish royalty. It is possible[201] that, during
all the earlier part of his career, Earl Godwine seemed to the English
people almost more of a Dane than a Saxon.
The country was now so tranquilly settling down under Canute’s rule
that he felt himself able to dispense with the presence of “the army”.
To him, as the chosen and anointed ruler of England, the marches
and counter-marches, the harryings and the burnings of these fierce
“sea-people” would be as little agreeable as to Alfred or Ethelred.
One last and fearfully heavy _gafol_, no less than 72,000 pounds of
silver, the equivalent probably of £1,500,000 sterling in our day, had
to be raised and paid them, besides a further sum of 10,500 pounds,
paid by the citizens of London alone. The army then, in 1018, returned
to Denmark, only forty ships and their crews remaining with their
peacefully triumphant king. Everything showed Canute’s desire to banish
the memories of rapine and bloodshed which for so many years had been
gathering round his father’s name and his own. He is said by one writer
to have erected churches on all his battle-fields: he certainly did so
(in 1020) on the bloodiest of them all, on Assandune. Earl Thurkill
(not yet fallen into disgrace) with the archbishop of York, and many
bishops, abbots and monks, joined in hallowing the minster there
erected, a ceremony in which some have seen not only a commemoration
of Canute’s “crowning mercy” but also an act of reparation for some
share, direct or indirect, in the death of his Iron-sided rival.
Another object of his devotion was East Anglian Edmund, who had been so
barbarously done to death by Ingwar and Hubba. To this saint, it may
be remembered, old Sweyn was said to have had a particular aversion,
and from his ghostly apparition he was believed to have received his
death-stroke. To appease the spirit of this royal martyr was now one
of Canute’s most cherished desires. He reverenced his memory with
a devotion as especial as his father’s hatred, and he, apparently,
first gave to the great monastery of St. Edmundsbury that character of
magnificence which distinguished it for so many centuries and gave it a
place in the foremost rank of English sanctuaries.
In the seventh year of the new reign, 1023, Canute made the greatest
of all reparations, that to the memory of the good archbishop whom
drunken Danish seamen had brutally slain. The body of St. Alphege had
been for some eleven years resting in St. Paul’s Church at London. It
was more fitting that it should be laid in his own metropolitan church
of Canterbury, and thither accordingly it was translated by the king’s
orders. The delight with which Englishmen saw this tardy reparation
to their dead countryman’s memory, rendered by a Danish king, shines
forth in the enthusiastic pages of the Chronicle. The writer describes
how “by full leave” of the king, archbishop Ethelnoth and Bryhtwine,
bishop of Sherborne, took up the body from the tomb; how “the glorious
king and the archbishop and suffragan bishops and earls and a great
multitude, clerical and lay, carried on a ship St. Alphege’s holy body
over the Thames to Southwark, and committed the holy martyr to the care
of Ethelnoth and his companions, who then with a goodly band and with
winsome joy bare him to Rochester. Then on the third day came the Lady
Emma with her kingly bairn Harthacnut [aged five], and they all with
great pomp and gladness and singing of psalms bare the holy archbishop
into Canterbury.” The whole proceedings occupied seven days, and on
June 15, 1023, the martyr’s body was finally deposited on the north
side of the altar in Christ Church.
In like manner as Canute had honoured the memory of St. Edmund of
East Anglia and St. Alphege of Canterbury, is he said to have dealt
with the sepulchre of Edmund Ironside at Glastonbury. Towards the
end of his reign he determined (says William of Malmesbury in his
classical style) “to visit the _Manes_ of him whom he was wont to
call his brother Edmund. Having offered up his prayers, he placed
upon the tomb a _pallium_ inwoven with divers colours, representing
figures of peacocks, which may still be seen there.” By his side stood
Ethelnoth, archbishop of Canterbury, the seventh monk who had gone
forth from Glastonbury to preside over the English Church. Before
leaving the venerable minster in which rested the bones of so many of
his predecessors, Canute gave a charter confirming to the church of the
Virgin Mary in Glastonbury all its previous privileges. This charter
was said to be given “by the advice of Ethelnoth, the bishops and my
nobles, for love of the heavenly kingdom, for the pardon of my crimes
and the forgiveness of the sins of my brother King Edmund”.
With the description of these expiatory rites our information as to the
internal history of England under Canute comes to an end. This part of
the Chronicle is extremely meagre, but probably its very sterility is
partly an illustration of the proverb, “Happy is the nation that has
no annals”. After all the agonies of the Danish invasions, now that a
wise and masterful Dane sat upon the English throne, the land had rest
for twenty years. In external affairs Canute played an important part,
which we shall have to consider in relation to (1) Scotland, (2) the
Empire and the Papacy, and (3) Norway.
(1) Events of great and lasting significance took place on the Scottish
border in the reign of Canute, but to understand them we must go back
into the reign of his predecessor, and take up for the last time the
story of the wanderings of the incorruptible body of St. Cuthbert. For
112 years that precious relic had reposed at Chester-le-Street, but in
995 Bishop Aldhun, who had for five years presided over the diocese
which still bore the name of deserted Lindisfarne, filled with fear
of Danish invasions and “forewarned by a heavenly oracle,” carried
the body farther inland, to the abbey of Ripon. After four months it
was considered safe to re-transport it to its former home; but when
the bearers reached a certain place on the banks of the Wear, called
Wrdelau, the holy body became immovable as a mountain and refused to
be carried an inch farther. It was revealed to a monk named Eadmer that
the neighbouring hill of Dunhelm, splendidly and strongly placed in the
midst of a fruitful land, and overlooking the windings of a beautiful
river, was meant to be the saint’s next and final resting-place.
Thither accordingly, with joy and gladness, the holy body was carried.
The little wattled church which was erected over it was the predecessor
of a noble cathedral, the grandest specimen of Norman architecture that
our country can boast: and Bishop Aldhun, who lived for twenty-four
years after the translation, was the first of the long line of bishops
of Durham.
Almost at once we find the prelates of this see important factors in
Northumbrian politics. Aldhun gave his daughter, Ecgfrida (born no
doubt before he became an ecclesiastic), in marriage to “a youth of
great energy and skilled in military affairs,” named Uhtred, who was
practically taking the management of affairs out of the hands of his
father, Earl Waltheof, as that aged man, self-immured in Bamburgh, was
doing naught for the defence of his country. Thus, when in 1006 Malcolm
II., King of Scots, taking advantage, doubtless, of the distracted
state of England during the Danish invasions, collected the whole army
of Scotland, entered Northumbria, laid it waste with fire and sword,
and then besieged the new city of Durham, it was Uhtred who gathered
troops together and went to the help of the bishop, his father-in-law.
As old Waltheof still continued inactive he, on his own responsibility,
summoned the _fyrd_ of Northumberland, joined it to that of the
citizens of York, and with the large army thus collected fell on the
Scottish besiegers of Durham and won a complete victory. King Malcolm
only escaped with difficulty, and a multitude of his followers were
slain. The anonymous chronicler[202] who relates these events, tells
us that “the daintier heads of the slain, with their hair inwoven
according to the then prevalent fashion, were by Uhtred’s orders
carried to Durham, fixed on stakes, and placed at intervals round the
circuit of the walls, having first been washed by four women, to each
of whom he gave a cow as the reward of her labours”. That little detail
concerning the women’s payment for their ghastly toil looks like a bit
of genuine tradition.
Such was the great English victory of 1006. Now for its fatal
reversal twelve years later. The victorious Uhtred, who had become
in the meantime Earl of Northumbria and son-in-law of Ethelred, was,
as we have seen,[203] put to death by order of Canute, or rather
perhaps assassinated at his instigation by a private enemy, just as
the struggle between the Danish and English kings was coming to a
crisis. The Danish earl, Eric, whom Canute had set over Deira, and the
Englishman, Eadwulf Cutel, who had succeeded to some portion of his
brother Uhtred’s power over Bernicia, were probably known by Malcolm to
be inefficient men, not likely to combine for the common defence. In
1018, having made his preparations and formed an alliance with Eugenius
the Bald, King of the Cymri of Strathclyde, Malcolm crossed the Firth
of Forth and marched through Bernicia as far as the Tweed. The men of
Northumbria were already disheartened by the appearance of a comet
which for thirty nights had been hanging, ominous, in the midnight sky;
and too truly were their forebodings justified. At Carham, a place
on the southern bank of the Tweed, a little above Coldstream, almost
within sight of the future battlefield of Flodden, the two armies met
in fight. “Then were the whole people” (says Symeon of Durham) “from
Tees to Tweed on one side, and there was an infinite multitude of
Scots on the other.” Malcolm’s victory on this occasion was far more
decisive than his defeat had been twelve years earlier. “Almost the
whole English force with its leaders perished.” To Aldhun, the aged
Bishop of Durham, the tidings of this defeat--all the more bitter
because sustained at a place which for three centuries had formed part
of the patrimony of St. Cuthbert--came as an actual death-stroke. “Me
miserable!” said he, “that I should have lived so long, to behold this
lamentable slaughter of St. Cuthbert’s men. Now, O Confessor! beloved
of the Lord, if I have ever done aught pleasing in thy sight, repay me,
I pray thee, by not suffering me any longer to survive thy people.”
His prayer was granted. After a few days he died: the first but not
the last Bishop of Durham to have his life made burdensome by the
incursions of the Scots.
This battle of Carham, fought in the second year of Canute’s reign,
deserves more attention than it has generally received from English
historians. It was more important than Brunanburh, we might perhaps
say only a little less important than Hastings, for by it the Border
between England and Scotland, which had fluctuated through many
centuries, was finally fixed at its present limitary streams and
mountains. Edinburgh, it is true, seems to have been lost to the Scots
some sixty years before the time that we have now reached,[204] but
the rich and beautiful country of the Lothians was only now finally
abandoned by the English, “surrendered” (says the anonymous chronicler)
“by the very base and cowardly Eadwulf, who feared lest the Scots
should revenge upon him the death of all the men of their nation who
had fallen in battle against his brother. Thus was Lothian added to
the kingdom of the Scots.” It was for us English a loss disastrous and
irretrievable. Our only compensation is to be found in the fact that
the large Anglian population thus transferred to the northern kingdom
so leavened its speech, its institutions, its national character, that
the Scotland of the Middle Ages was Anglian rather than Gaelic in its
dominating tendencies.[205]
Towards the end of his reign--in 1031 according to the authority, here
somewhat doubtful, of the Saxon Chronicle--“Canute went to Scotland,
and the Scots’ king Malcolm submitted to him and became his man,
but that held only a little while. Also two other kings, Maelbaethe
and Jehmarc.” Of the last of these two kings we know nothing.
Maelbaethe seems to be the same person as the Macbeth of Shakespeare’s
tragedy.[206] He was not yet a king, but obtained the Scottish crown in
the year 1040 by slaying the young king Duncan, grandson and successor
of Malcolm II. It will be seen that the chronicler says nothing about
fighting on Canute’s part. Malcolm II. seems to have bowed to the
inevitable and quietly acknowledged the claim of Canute as English
king to the homage of his Scottish neighbour, a claim which might mean
anything or nothing according to the characters of him who demanded
that homage and him who rendered it. It is interesting to observe that
the author of the _Heimskringla_, in his account of the negotiations
between Canute and St. Olaf, King of Norway, puts into the mouth of
the latter these words: “And now it has come to this, that Cnut rules
over Denmark and over England, and moreover has broken a mickle deal of
Scotland under his sway”. The parleyings here described are supposed
to have taken place five or six years before 1031, the actual date of
Canute’s Scottish expedition, but from traditional history such as this
is, minute accuracy as to dates is not to be looked for.
(2) Towards the end of the year 1026[207] Canute made his memorable
pilgrimage to Rome, a journey which certainly was an important event in
itself, and is almost unique in the history of English royalty. It is
true that Ceadwalla, Ine and Ethelwulf had made the same pilgrimage,
but after Canute the next crowned English king to visit Rome was His
now reigning Majesty, Edward VII. We have, unfortunately, no details of
Canute’s journey, but we know from foreign sources that he was present
at a ceremony of high political importance, the crowning of the “Roman”
Emperor Conrad II. and his Empress Gisela on Easter day, 1027.
The line of Saxon emperors, made memorable by the great deeds of
the three Ottos, came to an end in 1024 on the death of the ascetic
emperor, St. Henry II. The dukes, counts and bishops of the empire,
assembled under the open sky on the meadows of Kamba, after some debate
chose as his successor Conrad the Salic, a nobleman of Franconia, that
beautiful land watered by the Main which now forms the northern half
of the kingdom of Bavaria. The dynasty inaugurated by his election
lasted for another century (1024–1125), and then gave place to the
nearly allied Hohenstauffens of Swabia. This Franconian dynasty it was
which, under three emperors bearing the name of Henry, fought with
the Papacy the stubborn fight of the Investitures, which “went to
Canossa” and warred with Hildebrand. Conrad, the new emperor, was a
strong, masterful, knightly man. The pope who crowned him and before
whom Canute kneeled in reverence, was John XIX., one of the series
of cadets of the house of Tusculum whom the counts of that little
hill-fortress intruded for half a century on the chair of St. Peter.
But though this pope’s elevation was sudden and irregular--the same day
saw him a layman, prefect of the city, and pope--he seems to have borne
a respectable character, quite unlike that of his nephew and successor,
the dissolute lad who took the name of Benedict IX. (1033–1046). No
doubt the aristocratic count-pope bore himself with becoming dignity in
the solemn ceremony of the emperor’s coronation, which was graced by
the presence of two sovereign princes, our own Canute (the splendour of
whose retinue and the liberality of whose almsgiving excited general
admiration) and Rudolf III., descendant of Charlemagne and last king of
Burgundy. There were, however, troubles and disorders in the somewhat
anarchic capital of Christendom. The archbishops of Milan and Ravenna
had a dispute about precedence, which ended in a street-brawl between
their followers and in the flight of him of Ravenna. Worse still, the
German soldiers of the emperor had a fight with the people of Rome, in
which many lives were lost, and by which Conrad’s wrath was so fiercely
kindled that it could only be appeased by the appearance of the Roman
citizens barefooted and disarmed before the German Augustus, abjectly
entreating his forgiveness. All this Canute must have witnessed, but
nothing seems to have weakened the impression of awe and reverence for
the apostolic city, made by his residence in Rome.
In a letter to his people, written from Rome and preserved for us by
two of the twelfth century historians, William and Florence, Canute
sends greeting to the two archbishops, the bishops and nobles, and
all the English people, gentle and simple. He informs them that
his long-cherished desire to visit Rome, there to pray for the
forgiveness of his sins and the welfare of his people, has at length
been gratified. He has visited the sepulchres of Peter and Paul and
every other sanctuary within or without the city. At the great Easter
festival he has met not only Pope John and the Emperor Conrad, but
all “the princes of the nations,” from Mount Garganus (in Apulia) to
the Tyrrhene Sea, and has received gifts from all, especially from
the emperor; vessels of silver and gold, mantles and robes exceeding
precious. Further, from the emperor and from King Rudolf, he has
obtained an assurance that none of his subjects, whether English or
Dane, shall any longer be harassed with the heavy payments at the
mountain passes or the exorbitant customs-duties with which they have
been hitherto afflicted. Nor shall future archbishops, visiting Rome
in quest of the _pallium_, pay the immense sums which have heretofore
been demanded of them. Finally, the king assures his loving subjects
of his desire to administer equal justice to all. Let no _shire-reeve_
or bailiff think to curry favour with him by the oppression of his
subjects. “I have no need that money be accumulated for me by unjust
exactions.” “But let all the debts which according to ancient custom
are due from you [to the Church] be regularly paid; the penny for every
_carucate_ ploughed; the tithe of the increase of your flocks and your
herds; the penny for St. Peter at Rome; the tithe of corn in the middle
of August, and the _Church-scot_ at the feast of St. Martin. If all
these dues are not regularly paid, I shall on my return to England
execute unpitying justice on the defaulter.”
The new emperor was evidently struck by the statesmanlike character
of the Anglo-Danish king, and thought it good policy to draw closer
the relations between them. Canute’s daughter, Gunhild, was betrothed
to Conrad’s eldest son, and in 1036, when she had attained a suitable
age, the marriage was consummated. She died, however, after two years
of wedlock, leaving an infant daughter who afterwards became Abbess of
Quedlinburg. A year after her death her husband ascended the imperial
throne under the title of Henry III. Conrad the Salic also ceded to
Canute such rights--perhaps even then vague and ill-defined--as the
empire claimed to possess over the frontier province of Sleswick,
thus making the river Eider the acknowledged boundary between Germany
and Denmark. Hence, and from the later union between the provinces
of Sleswick and Holstein, sprang in the course of ages that bitter
controversy which was cruelly solved in our own day (1864) by the
cannonade of Düppel.
(3) The pilgrimage to Rome came midway between two expeditions to
Norway, one, a failure, in 1025–1026, the other, in 1028, triumphantly
successful.
The most renowned King of Norway in Canute’s time, and the great
champion of her newly recovered independence, was that strangely
compounded man who was known by his contemporaries as Olaf the Thick,
but whom after ages have reverenced as Saint Olaf (1015–1031). “In
stature scarce of the middle height, but very thick-set and strong
of limb: with light-red hair, broad-faced, bright and ruddy of
countenance, fair-eyed and swift-eyed, so that it was terrible to look
him in the face when he was angry,” this energetic descendant of Harold
Fair-hair, after many reverses, succeeded in establishing himself on
the throne of Norway, and at once set to work to destroy the lingering
remains of heathenism in the north of his kingdom, smashing idols,
making diligent inquiry into the secret “blood-offerings” of horses and
oxen, slaying, banishing, fining all who still persisted in idolatrous
practices. To strengthen himself against the inevitable revival of
the Danish claim of sovereignty, Olaf wooed the elder, and married
the younger daughter of his namesake the King of Sweden, and formed a
fairly stable alliance with that neighbour state. In the early years
of his reign, according to the story of the _Heimskringla_ (in which
much fiction is, doubtless, blended with fact), Canute the Rich sent an
embassy to Olaf, calling upon him peacefully to submit to his claims,
to become his man, and thus save him the necessity of coming with
war-shield to assert his right. To this demand Olaf sent an indignant
negative. “Gorm the Old thought himself a mighty king, ruling over
Denmark alone. Why cannot his descendant be satisfied with Denmark,
England and a mickle deal of Scotland? Is he minded to rule alone over
all the Northlands, or does he mean, he alone, to eat all the kale in
England?”
For the time Canute had to be satisfied with this bold reply; but in
1025 he set forth with a great naval armament from England. A great
battle followed, at the mouth of the Holy River, at the extreme south
of what is now Sweden.[208] Here, by a clever manœuvre of the allied
Kings of Norway and Sweden, Canute’s great ship, _The Dragon_, was
caught in mid-stream and well-nigh sunk by an avalanche of suddenly
unloosed floating timbers. He was delivered by the timely appearance of
Jarl Ulf with his squadron of ships, but the battle was lost. “There
fell many men,” says the Chronicle, “on the side of King Canute, both
Danes and Englishmen. And the Danes held the place of slaughter.”
Soon after this unsuccessful expedition came the event which has left
perhaps the deepest of all the stains on the memory of Canute, the
murder of his brother-in-law and deliverer, Jarl Ulf, “the mightiest
man in Denmark after the king”. At a noble banquet which Ulf had
prepared for his kinsman, the king sat scowling gloomily. To lighten
his mood Ulf suggested a game of chess, in the course of which one of
the king’s knights was placed in jeopardy. “Take back your move,” said
Canute, “and play something else.” Indignant at this style of playing,
Ulf knocked over the chess-board and rose to leave the room. “Ha!” said
the king, “runnest thou away now, Ulf the Craven?” He turned round in
the doorway and said: “Craven thou didst not call me when I came to thy
help at the Holy River, when the Swedes were barking round thee like
hounds”. Night fell: both slept: but next morning Canute said to his
page: “Go to Jarl Ulf and slay him”. The page went, but returned with
bloodless sword, saying that the Jarl had taken refuge in the church of
St. Lucius. Another man, less scrupulous, slew him in the church-choir
and came back to boast of the deed. After this desecration the monks
would fain have closed their church, but Canute insisted on their
singing the Hours of divine service there, as if nothing had happened.
As usual, his penitence took the form of liberality. So great were the
estates with which he endowed the church, that far and wide over the
country-side spread the fame of St. Lucius.
When Canute recommenced operations in 1028 after his pilgrimage to
Rome, not war but internal revolution gave him the victory. He seems
to have had a superiority in naval forces over both the allied kings.
The Swedes, being home-sick, scattered back to their own dwellings.
Olaf fled to Russia, and a _Thing_, summoned by Canute at Trondhjem,
proclaimed him king over all the land of Norway. It is evident that
Olaf’s forceful, sometimes even tyrannical, proceedings had alienated
many of his subjects; but moreover Canute the Rich had, we are told,
for years been lavishing gifts on the Norwegian nobles. “For it was
indeed the truth to say of King Cnut that whenever he met with a
man who seemed likely to do him useful service, such a man received
from him handfuls of gold, and therefore was he greatly beloved. His
bounty was greatest to foreigners, and especially to those who came
from furthest off.” This description, given us in the _Heimskringla_,
of Canute’s practisings with the subjects of St. Olaf, suggests the
question whether similar arguments had not been used with Edric
Streona, and whether the decision of the Saxon _Witenagemot_ in
Canute’s favour may not have been bought in the same manner as that of
the Norwegian _Thing_.
We must not further follow in detail the fortunes of the dethroned
King of Norway. Two years after Olaf’s expulsion from the kingdom he
returned (1030), but fell in battle with his own hostile countrymen.
When the inevitable reaction in favour of his memory set in, his
body was carried to Trondhjem and buried under the high altar of the
cathedral church. Miracles soon began to be wrought by his relics:
there was a tide of pity and remorse for their fallen hero in the
hearts of his people, who found themselves harshly dealt with by their
Danish rulers. Before long Norway recovered her independence, and then
Olaf was universally recognised as not only patriot but saint. The
Church gave her sanction to the popular verdict, and St. Olaf, or St.
Olave, as he was generally called in England, was accepted as one of
the legitimate saints in her calendar, July 29 being set apart for
his honour. Though not to be compared for holiness of character with
our own St. Oswald, or even with Edwin of Deira, he soon became an
exceedingly popular saint, especially with his old Danish antagonists.
More than a dozen churches were dedicated in his name in England,
chiefly in the district where Danes predominated. The most celebrated
of these was St. Olave’s in Southwark, which gave its name, corrupted
and transformed, to the “Tooley Street” of inglorious memory.
Of the closing years of the reign of Canute little is recorded. There
are stories, uncertain and mutually contradictory, of hostilities
between England and Normandy, arising out of Duke Robert’s championship
of the claims of the English Ethelings, sons of his aunt Emma. Whatever
truth there may be in these narratives, they must be referred to
the latter part of Canute’s reign, as Duke Robert did not come into
possession of the duchy till 1028. We may, if we please, assign to
the same period the well-known story of his vain command to the sea
to retire, a story which is told us for the first time by Henry of
Huntingdon, about 120 years after the death of Canute. As Henry tells
it, the courtiers, the blasphemous flatterers of the monarch, disappear
from the scene, and it almost seems as if Canute himself, in one of
those attacks of megalomania to which successful monarchs are liable,
really thought that he could command Nature as if she were one of his
own thegns. Learning better doctrine from the voice of the sea, he
thenceforth abjured the vain ensigns of royalty and hung his crown on
the cross of the Redeemer. To the same peaceful years we may assign the
equally well-known incident of Canute being rowed in his barge over the
fens in the cold days of early February, and hearing the song of the
monks of Ely as they celebrated the Purification of the Virgin Mary:--
Cheerly sang the monks of Ely
As Cnut the king was passing by.
“Row to the shore, knights!” said the king,
“And let us hear these churchmen sing,”
--an interesting ditty for us, as showing that the word “knights”
still kept that meaning of “servants” or “retainers” which it had when
the New Testament was translated into Anglo-Saxon. In the Gospels the
disciples of Christ are always called His “_leorning-cnichtas_”.
King Canute died at Shaftesbury on November 12, 1035, and was buried at
Winchester in the Old Minster where rested so many of the descendants
of Cerdic. Owing to his early appearance on the scene and the various
parts which he had played, we unconsciously attribute to him a greater
age than he actually attained. He was probably little, if at all, over
forty years of age when he died. The transformation of character which
he underwent, from the hard, unscrupulous robber chieftain to the wise,
just and statesmanlike king, is one of the most marvellous things in
history. Perhaps the nearest approach to it is to be found in the
change wrought in the character of Octavian. Both Canute and Augustus
were among the rare examples of men improved by success.
He left four children, Sweyn and Harold Harefoot by a wife or concubine
named Elgiva of Northampton; Harthacnut and Gunhild by Emma of
Normandy. The gossip of the day alleged that Sweyn and Harold were
not really Elgiva’s children, but the sons of ignoble parents foisted
by her on her credulous husband. This tale, however, though echoed by
the Chronicle, may have been an invention of the partisans of their
rivals. What is certain is that both Elgiva and Emma survived Canute.
Either, therefore, the former was no legally married wife, or else she
was divorced to make room for the Norman “Lady”. But the marriages
of these Scandinavian princes, Norse and Norman, were regular only in
their irregularity.
Whatever may have been the testamentary intentions of the dying Canute,
the practical result of his death was to divide his great empire in
the following manner: Norway to Sweyn (who died a few months after his
father), Denmark to Harthacnut, and England to HAROLD HAREFOOT. Of the
latter, the Peterborough text of the Chronicle says: “Some men said
that Harold was son of King Canute and Elgiva, daughter of Ealdorman
Elfhelm; but this seemed very incredible to many men”. Of the two
surviving sons of Canute who now for a few years fill the chief place
in English history, it must be said that they represent only the first
and worst phase of their father’s character, displaying none of the
nobler, statesmanlike qualities of his later years. We sometimes see
in modern life a man who has struggled upwards from the lowest ranks
of society, acquiring a refinement and a culture which he fails to
transmit to a wealthy but coarse-fibred son. So was it with the sons of
Canute, two dissolute young barbarians who degraded by their vices the
ancient throne which they were permitted to occupy.
The events which immediately followed the death of Canute, obscure
in themselves, are variously stated by our different authorities;
but it seems clear that the old division between Mercia and Wessex
again made itself manifest and was connected with another division,
that between the two great houses of Godwine and of Leofwine. An
assembly of the _witan_ was held at Oxford, at which “Earl Leofric
(son of Leofwine) and nearly all the thegns north of the Thames and
the sailors in London, chose Harold as king over all England,” leaving
to Harthacnut the rule over Denmark, in which country he was then
living and reigning. There was apparently no talk of a reversion to
the old line, to the sons of Ethelred or Edmund. The dynasty of Canute
represented peace with the Danes, a respite from the terrible ravages
of the previous generation; and it was probably valued and clung to for
this reason, even as, 500 years later, English parliaments clung to
the house of Tudor, notwithstanding all the flaws in their title, as a
security against the revival of the Wars of the Roses.
This conclusion, however, was not unanimous. The _witan_ at Oxford
had to reckon with the opposition of Wessex, under its powerful earl
Godwine, with that of “the Lady” Emma, surrounded by a strong body of
her dead husband’s _house-carls_ or body guards (an organisation of
which the Chronicle now first makes mention); and with such force as
the lad Harthacnut from distant Denmark might be able to bring to bear
for the vindication of his claims. A compromise was arranged, which
amounted in substance, though perhaps not in form, to a division of
the kingdom. “It was decided that Emma, Harthacnut’s mother, should
sit at Winchester with the house-carls of the king, her son, and hold
all Wessex under his authority, and Earl Godwine was her most devoted
servant.”
This arrangement had in it no element of permanence and might at any
moment be upset by the arrival of Harthacnut. He was, however, but a
lad of eighteen, much involved apparently in the cares of his Danish
kingdom. To Harold Harefoot, the Norman exiles, sons of Ethelred and
Emma, full-grown men, with a hope of possible support from their
cousin, the great Duke of Normandy, might well seem the most dangerous
competitors for his crown. In order to entice these rivals into his
power, Harold is said to have caused a letter to be forged, purporting
to come from “Queen Emma, a queen only in name,” and complaining of
the daily growing strength of the usurper, “who is incessantly touring
about among the cities and villages, and by threats and prayers making
for himself friends among the nobles”. “But they would much rather,”
said the letter, “that one of you reigned over them, than he to whom
they yield enforced obedience. Wherefore I pray that one of you will
come to me swiftly and secretly to receive wholesome counsel from me,
and to learn in what way the thing upon which I have set my heart can
be accomplished.”[209] On the receipt of this message Alfred, the
younger of the two brothers, betook himself to the friendly coast
of Flanders and thence to England, accompanied by a small band of
followers, recruited from among the inhabitants of Boulogne, instead
of the large body of troops which Baldwin of Flanders offered him.
Finding one part of the coast occupied by a hostile force, he sailed
to another, probably nearer to Winchester; and set forth to meet his
mother, thinking that he had now escaped from all danger. He had not
reckoned, however, with the astute Earl Godwine, who was now no longer
the zealous adherent of the queen-dowager, but was prepared to make his
peace with Harold by the sacrifice of her son.[210] He met the young
Etheling, swore to become his “man,” guided him to Guildford, billeted
his followers about in various inns, caused them to be supplied with
meat and drink--especially the latter--in great abundance, and so left
them, promising to return on the morrow.
That night, while they were all sleeping the deep sleep of well-plied
banqueters, the men of Harold came upon them, stealthily removed their
arms, and soon had them all fast in handcuffs and fetters. The cruel
vengeance which followed, taken upon disarmed and helpless prisoners,
excited the deep indignation of Englishmen, and found vent in a ballad,
some lines of which have made their way into that manuscript of the
Chronicle which is attributed to Abingdon:--
Some they blinded; some they maimed;
Some they scalped, some bound with chain;
Some were sold to grievous thraldom;
Many were with tortures slain,
Never was a bloodier deed done
Since to England came the Dane.
There is a persistently repeated story that a cruel parody of the
Roman decimation was inflicted on these unfortunates. By that old
custom lots were cast, and every tenth man so selected was handed
over to the executioner. Now nine out of ten were slain and only
the tenth survived, nor was even he certain of life; for after the
massacre it seemed to the tyrant’s agents that too many still survived
and the sword devoured anew. As for the unhappy Etheling himself,
he was taken round by sea to the Isle of Ely and there imprisoned.
An order having been received for his blinding, he was held down by
four men while the cruel deed was done. He seems to have survived
for some weeks or months, and moved about, a saddening figure, among
the once cheery monks of Ely; but ere long he died, either from the
shock of the operation, or, as one author hints, from insufficiency
of food. It seems clear that these cruelties were not perpetrated by
Godwine himself, who judiciously disappeared as soon as he had left
the slenderly guarded prince at his supper table at Guildford; but
neither the judgment of his contemporaries nor that of posterity, with
one eminent exception,[211] has acquitted the great Earl of Wessex of
complicity in the crime.
The abortive expedition of Alfred, and the defection of Earl Godwine,
left the dowager-queen in a precarious position. Moreover, the hearts
of Englishmen had begun to turn away from Harthacnut who, as they
thought, tarried too long in Denmark, and towards Harold, who was,
after all, the son of a Saxon mother (whether gentle or base born),
and who, notwithstanding the cruelty and craft which he had shown in
the affair of the Etheling Alfred, had qualities of physical strength
and fleetness which gained for him a sort of rude popularity with his
subjects. Thus it came to pass that in 1037 “Queen Emma was driven out
of the country,” as the chronicler laments, “without any tenderness
of heart, against the raging winter”. She went to the court of the
hospitable Baldwin, her nephew by marriage, who assigned to her a
dwelling in the city of Bruges and a princely maintenance. Of this,
however, she took only a small part, sufficient for her absolute needs,
and gratefully refused the rest, saying that she could do without it.
So says the Flemish priest, who doubtlessly met her about this time,
and who, in gratitude for favours received, composed the _Encomium
Emmæ_, on which, in the absence of better sources, we have to rely for
many details of her history.
The election of Harold as king of the whole of England, which now
took place, did not pass without some opposition, especially from
the archbishop of Canterbury, Ethelnoth. When ordered to perform the
ceremony of consecration, he flatly refused, declaring that at Canute’s
command he had vowed to recognise only Emma’s son as his lawful
successor. He would not presume to keep, in defiance of the king, the
crown and sceptre, which had been committed to his charge, but, laying
them on the altar he left them to Harold to deal with as he would,
only declaring that none of his suffragan bishops should presume, on
pain of excommunication, to crown this king or to grant him episcopal
benediction. How the dispute ended Emma’s partisan does not inform us.
Probably Harold, like Napoleon, crowned himself; but we are told that
the refusal of the episcopal benediction so rankled in the young king’s
breast that he relapsed into something like paganism. When others in
Christian fashion were silently gliding into church for Divine worship,
he (the swift-footed hunter) would be surrounding the woods with his
dogs and cheering them on to the chase, or sometimes indulging in less
innocent occupations. Clearly, here was a monarch who had little love
for the Church, and whose character may therefore have been painted a
little too darkly by ecclesiastical chroniclers.
After making an ineffectual appeal for help to Edward, her surviving
son by Ethelred, Emma at last succeeded in inducing Harthacnut to leave
his beloved Denmark and attempt the invasion of England. He arrived at
Bruges, probably towards the end of 1039, with sixty-two ships, and
having no doubt made other large preparations for a hostile expedition,
but none of these were needed. Harold Harefoot died on March 17, 1040,
and was buried at Westminster. On his death a deputation was sent
to Bruges to invite HARTHACNUT to assume the crown, “and men deemed
that they did well in doing so”. Sore, says the encomiast, was the
lamentation of the widows and orphans of Bruges, who deemed that by the
departure of the Lady Emma they were losing their best friend; but she
of course accompanied her son.
Too soon the men of both nations found that they had not done so well
as they supposed, in inviting the lad from Denmark to reign over them.
The crews of his ships were clamouring for money, and to appease them
the new king laid upon his subjects a heavier Danegeld than had been
exacted all through the reigns of Canute and Harold. Then the Danegeld
had been for sixteen ships, at the rate of eight marks for each rower;
now Harthacnut claimed the same rate of pay for his whole fleet of
sixty-two ships. It was indeed “a stern geld,” and the attempt to
levy it caused violent popular commotions. A terrible hurricane had
blown the previous year, probably injuring the harvest, and the high
price of corn resulting therefrom caused the _gafol_ to be felt the
more bitterly. “Thus all men that had before yearned after Harthacnut
became unfriendly to him. He devised no kingly deed during all his
reign, and he caused the dead body of Harold to be taken up and shot
into the marsh.” Worse than this, he took a cruel revenge on the whole
of Worcestershire for the murder of two of his house-carls whom he
had sent to exact the “stern geld” from the citizens of Worcester.
An insurrection had broken out; the house-carls had taken refuge in
a turret of the minster, but had been discovered, dragged forth and
slain. Hereupon, the enraged king ordered Godwine, Leofric and all the
great earls, to assemble their forces; and sent them, six months after
the murder, with orders to harry both city and shire. The inhabitants,
forewarned, took refuge on an island in the Severn, and made so
vigorous a defence that their lives were of necessity spared; but the
minster was burnt, the country was laid waste and the house-carls of
the king, with the followers of the earls, returned laden with booty to
their homes.
Now at last, during the short reign of Harthacnut, a brighter day
dawned for the banished son of Ethelred. Edward was invited over from
Normandy and was “sworn in as king”; that is, probably, associated
in some way with Harthacnut as ruler of the land, and recognised as
his destined successor in the event of his early death, which seems
to have been considered not improbable. The only other event recorded
of the reign of Harthacnut, “the king who devised nothing kingly,” is
his complicity in the murder of Eadwulf,[212] earl of Bernicia, who
had possibly made himself conspicuous as one of Harold’s partisans.
He seems to have been invited to court that he might be formally
reconciled to the new king, but on his way he was murdered by his
nephew, Siward the Strong, who was already earl of Deira, and now,
receiving as the reward of his crime his victim’s earldom of Bernicia,
ruled once again as the kings of Northumbria had ruled aforetime, over
the whole wide region from Humber to Tweed.
Harthacnut’s end was worthy of his life. On a day of June, 1042, a
great feast was given by a Danish nobleman, Osgod Clapa, in honour of
the marriage of his daughter. To this banquet the king was, of course,
invited, and “as he stood at his drink he suddenly fell to the ground
and was seized with dreadful convulsions. Those who were near took
him up, but he never after spake a word. He died on the 8th of June,
and all the people accepted Edward as their king, as was his right.”
Harthacnut died in the twenty-fifth year of his age, having not quite
completed the second year of his reign. Like the old Saxon kings, and
like Canute his father, he was buried in the Old Minster at Winchester.
CHAPTER XXIV.
LEGISLATION OF THE LATER KINGS.
In the period which followed the Norman Conquest “the laws of good King
Edward” was a phrase often on the lips of Englishmen; yet it was but
a phrase, for Edward the Confessor, on the threshold of whose reign
we are now standing, added, as far as can be ascertained, no laws to
the Anglo-Saxon collection. Danish Canute, on the other hand, holds an
honourable place in our legal history; for his Dooms, which fill one
hundred pages in Liebermann’s volume, show somewhat of the instinct of
a codifier as well as a genuine desire to deal equal justice to the
Danish and the English inhabitants of the land.
From the death of Alfred--the last king whose laws have been specially
dealt with--till the death of Canute, an interval elapsed of more than
130 years or about four generations, and in almost every reign some
fresh Dooms received the sanction of the reigning king and his _witan_.
It will be well for us briefly to survey the course of this legislation
and to see what light it throws on the social condition of the country,
and what changes it reveals in political institutions. When we consider
the laws of this period from a social and economic point of view, one
fact stands out at once in strong relief. The immense majority of
these laws relate to one crime, theft, and to one form of that crime,
the theft of cattle. We have before us a population of herdsmen and
sheep-masters whose chief concern it is to guard their live stock from
the sly, roving cattle-lifter, and to recover them when thus purloined.
Herein these tenth-century laws bear a striking resemblance to the
border laws,[213] the code according to which, in the fourteenth,
fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, rough justice was administered
between cattle owners and cattle raiders on both sides of the Scottish
border.[214] Sometimes, too, the grievances which we hear of in these
laws and the rough redress of those grievances which they contemplate,
seem to carry us into the same world of which we have read in stories
of the Wild West of America only one generation ago. It seems probable
that the immense importance thus assigned to the possession and the
theft of cattle is partly due to the fact that, owing to the settlement
of Danes on the north-east of the Watling Street, a large part of
England had now become like Northumberland and Roxburgh, a “border
country,” and was subject to all the insecurity of that position.
In order to give greater assistance to the owner of cattle, Edward
the Elder ordained that every landowner should have men in readiness
on his land to guide those who were seeking to recover their lost
property; and these men were straitly warned not for any bribe to
divert the owner from his quest, nor give shelter to any convicted
thief. Athelstan directed that if any one claimed a beast as his
rightful property, he should get one out of five persons nominated by
the judge to swear “that it is by folk-right his”; and the defendant
must get two out of ten persons similarly nominated, to swear the
contrary. But, perhaps, the most interesting of all this class of
ordinances is that contained in the _Judicia Civitatis Lundoniæ_,
framed by the chief officers of Church and State, the bishops and
reeves (or representatives of the king), not without the consent of
all the citizens. We have in these ordinances, under the sanction
of Anglo-Saxon royalty, some wonderfully modern devices for the
interposition of the community, to lessen the loss inflicted by robbery
on the individual.
The document begins: “This is the decision which the bishops and the
reeves who belong to London, have made and secured with pledges in
our peace-guild, whether of nobles or of commonalty” (_eorlisce_ or
_ceorlisce_), “to supplement the enactments made at various meetings of
the _witan_”. The first chapter ordains that the punishment of death
shall be inexorably inflicted on any thief over twelve years of age
stealing goods to the value of more than twelve pennies, and that any
one endeavouring by force of arms to rescue a thief shall pay a fine of
120 shillings to the king.
The second chapter introduces us to a curious arrangement between the
citizens, in the nature partly of a Trade Protection Society and partly
of a Society for Mutual Insurance against Theft. “Each one of us shall
pay four pennies to a common stock within twelve months, in order to
indemnify the owner for any animal which may have been stolen after
that time, and we will all join in the quest after the stolen animal.
Every one who has a beast worth thirty pennies shall pay his shilling,
except poor widows who have no patron or land.” It may be said, Why
is the prescribed payment four pennies at the beginning of the law
and a shilling at the end? The answer no doubt is that London still
adhered to the currency of Mercia, in which only fourpence went to the
shilling. The contributors were to be arranged in ten groups of ten
each, the oldest of whom was to serve notices and keep the accounts;
and these ten seniors with “an eleventh man” whom they were to choose,
were to form a sort of governing board, keeping the money and deciding
as to contributions into, and payments out of, the common fund. Every
man who heard the summons must join in the quest after the stolen
animal so long as the trace remained. The quest was to be continued
either on the northern or southern march till every member of the guild
who had a horse was riding it. He who had no horse of his own must go
and work for a lord who should ride in the quest instead of him. Then
comes the question at what rate were the stolen beasts to be valued.
The ordinary tariff of compensation is as follows:--
For a horse 10 shillings.
„ an ox 30 pennies or 7½ „
„ a sheep 5 „ or 1¼ „
„ a stolen slave (_theow_), half a pound = 30 shillings.
Apparently if the thief was captured and compelled by a court of law to
refund a higher price than any of the above, if, for instance, he was
made to pay for a valuable ox ten shillings instead of seven shillings
and a half, the surplus was divided among the members of the guild,
the owner receiving only the sum to which he was entitled under the
tariff.
The ordinance continues: “Whosoever takes up that which is the
common cause of all of us shall be our friend. We will all be one,
in friendship and in enmity. The first man to strike down a thief
shall receive twelve pennies from the common purse for having made so
good a beginning. The owner of a stolen animal is not to relax his
diligence” (because of the insurance), “but must pursue it to the end,
and he shall be reimbursed for the expenses of his journey out of the
common fund.... We will meet once a month if we have leisure ... with
filling of casks and everything else that is suitable, and we must then
see which of our decisions have been complied with, and the twelve
men shall have their food together, and eat as much as seems good to
themselves and dispose of the food that is left [to the poor] according
to the will of God.”
The state of society here presented to us is one of peculiar interest.
We seem to see these cattle-owning citizens of London, whose flocks
and herds were grazing outside the walls of the city in Smithfield
or Moorfields. They follow the track of their stolen beasts across
the wilds of Middlesex or Surrey (“the Northern and the Southern
March”). When the cattle are caught, fierce vengeance is taken on
the depredator. If the pursuit fails, the luckless owner can, after
all, console himself with the tariff price which he receives from the
guild treasury. And then once a month they meet to settle the affairs
of their guild, “with filling of casks and everything else that is
suitable,” and so a vista is opened, at the end of which after the
lapse of centuries, we behold the stately banquets of the Guild-hall of
London.
It is possible that to this need of grappling with agrarian crime we
owe the institution of the Hundred which was a prominent feature in the
organisation of medieval England, after as well as before the Conquest,
and exists, though now little more than a survival, even in our own
day. It is at least worthy of notice that the first clear mention of
the Hundred-court, which is in the reign of Edgar, occurs in close
connexion with the theft of cattle, and we might almost be justified in
saying that this is the main business which in those beginnings of its
existence was thought likely to come before it.
There has been much discussion as to the kind of unit, five-score of
which made up the Anglo-Saxon Hundred, but on the whole the prevailing
opinion seems to be that it was composed, in theory at least if not
invariably in practice, of a hundred hides or households.[215] The
charter, if we may so call it, of the Hundred-court is furnished us
by a document which is believed to date from the reign of Edgar and
which begins: “This is the arrangement, how men shall hold the Hundred.
First, that they always gather themselves together once in four weeks:
and that each man shall do right to the rest. Second, that they set
forth to ride after thieves. If occasion arise, let a man [whose beast
has been stolen] give notice to the Hundreds-man, and he then to the
Tithing-men, and let them all fare forth as God shall point the way,
that they may arrive there [at the place where the beast is hidden].
Let them do justice on the thief as was before ordained by [King]
Edmund, and hand over the price to him who owns the animal and divide
the rest [of the fine] half to the Hundred and half to the lord.”
We observe that we have here a regular local court, armed with very
summary powers and able to inflict fines, probably heavy fines, after
it has restored the value of the stolen property to the rightful owner.
Of these fines, however, the Hundred-court may retain for itself only
half, the other half going to “the lord”. The assumption that there
will be in every case a lord, who will thus share in the profits of the
criminal jurisdiction exercised by his neighbours of the Hundred, seems
to mark a step towards the manorial jurisdiction of later centuries and
strikes a somewhat different note from that sounded in the laws of Ine.
It would seem that there was a tendency among powerful and lawless men
to treat the Hundred-court with contempt and ignore its jurisdiction.
“If any one shall put difficulties in the way and refuse to obey the
decision of the Hundred and this is afterwards proved against him,
he shall pay 30 pennies to the Hundred: and for a second offence 60
pennies, half to the Hundred and half to the lord. If he do it the
third time he shall pay half a pound (120 pennies), and for the fourth
offence he shall forfeit all that he has and be outlawed, unless the
king allow him to remain in the land.” By the time that Canute took the
matter in hand[216] sharper remedies had been found to be necessary.
He who refused the judgment of the Hundred was fined--apparently for
the first offence--30 shillings, not pennies. For a similar contempt of
the Earl’s court he had to pay a fine of 60 shillings, and twice that
amount for despising the judgment of the king.
Before passing from the subject of the Hundred, it should be observed
that the corresponding institution in most of the Danish counties of
England was called the _wapentake_, a name which is said to be derived
from that clashing together of their weapons whereby the Scandinavians,
like their Teutonic predecessors in the days of Tacitus, were wont
to signify their assent to the propositions laid before them by the
masters of their assemblies. The counties in which the Wapentake
generally took the place of the Hundred were York, Lincoln, Nottingham,
Derby, Leicester and Rutland.[217]
“And let men seek the Hundred-gemôt in such manner as was arranged
aforetime, and three times in the year let them hold the Burh-gemôt
and twice the Shire-gemôt, and there let the bishop of the shire and
the ealdorman be present, and there let both of them expound God’s
law and the world’s law.” By these words of King Edgar[218] we are
brought into contact not only with the Hundred, but also with two other
organisations still very prominent in the political life of England,
the Borough and the Shire.
The _Burh_ or _Burg_, in the sense of a fortified town, first comes
into notice about the beginning of the tenth century and is evidently
the offspring of the Danish invasions. Not that the word was not before
that time in familiar use among the Anglo-Saxons,[219] but that it
seems rather to have denoted the walled enclosure round the dwelling
of a great landowner, than the close-packed streets of a medieval
borough. The breaking of such a _burh_ (_burh-bryce_), the forcible
entry into the precincts of a dwelling, was punished by the laws of
Ine and Alfred with fines carefully graduated according to the rank of
the owner. “A king’s _burh-bryce_ is 120 shillings; an archbishop’s,
90; another bishop’s or an ealdorman’s, 60; a _twelf-hynd_ man’s, 30;
a _six-hynd_ man’s, 15 shillings. The breaking down of a ceorl’s hedge
(_edor-bryce_) is 5 shillings.”[220] The meaning of the law evidently
is, that “the man whose _wer_ is 600 shillings will probably have some
stockade, some rude rampart round his house; he will have a _burh_,
whereas the ceorl whose _wer_ is 200 shillings will not have a _burh_,
but will only have a hedge round his house”.[221]
It was into a country full of unwalled _tuns_ or villages, and
scattered country houses calling themselves _burhs_, but poorly
protected by moat and stockade, that the Danes came pouring in the
reigns of Egbert, Ethelwulf and Alfred. Winchester itself, as we have
seen, was “broken down” by them. York and London were taken, and
apparently in this, the first stage of their invasion, no town which
they seriously attacked was able to resist their onslaught. But then
the invaders gave their victims a lesson in self-defence. As soon
as they had taken up a position in town or country they fortified
themselves by erecting a strong “work” (the word is of constant
occurrence in these pages of the Chronicle), and the hardest part of
Alfred’s task was often the capturing of these hastily reared Danish
fortifications. In the years of peace between the invasions of Guthrum
and of Hasting, Alfred, imitating his opponents, reared many _burhs_
which he filled with armed men. The establishment of these forts which
stood up as islands out of the hostile sea, had evidently much to do
with the deliverance of the land from the flood of Danish invasion in
the terrible years between 892 and 896. The entry of the Chronicle for
the year 894 tells us how a portion of the invading army was attacked
“by bands of Englishmen, almost every day and night, both from the
_fyrd_ and also from the _burhs_; for the king had divided his _fyrd_
into two parts so that they were always half at home and half out,
except the men whose duty it was to hold the _burhs_”. And a little
farther on we hear of the valorous deeds of the _burh-ware_ of Chester
and of London, which had an important influence on the successful issue
of the war.
We have seen, in a previous chapter, how the stalwart brother and
sister, Edward and Ethelfled, reconquered central England for the
English, and how they secured their conquests by the great line of
forts which they planted everywhere along and sometimes far within
the frontier which had divided the two nations. Chester, Shrewsbury,
Bridgnorth, Stafford, Warwick, Bedford, Huntingdon, Manchester and
many more, were _burhs_ which owed their foundation or renewal to the
stout-hearted Lady of the Mercians and her brother. It must not be
forgotten, however, that the bulk of the population around, and even in
some of these _burhs_, must have remained Danish. Leicester, Stamford
and Nottingham are included in the list of forts founded by Edward
and his sister, yet they with Lincoln and Derby made up that Danish
confederation of the Five Boroughs with which Edmund had to fight in
942 and which went over so readily to Sweyn in 1013.
In the main, however, we may no doubt consider these new, strongly
fortified _burhs_ or, as we may now venture to call them, “boroughs” as
the homes of loyal Englishmen, keen for resistance to an invading foe,
but also keen for commercial enterprise. Very early the kings perceived
the importance of insisting on internal peace and orderly life within
the limits of the borough. Thus Edmund claims for it the same right of
inviolate sanctuary as for the church itself. “If any man seek refuge
in a church or in my _burh_ and any one thereafter assault him or
treat him ill, he who does this shall be liable to the same punishment
as is aforesaid.” Where security was thus provided for, against
external enemies by thick walls and deep ditches, against internal
strife and anarchy by the proclamation of the king’s peace, wealth was
sure to accumulate. Markets were fixed in boroughs, and in order to
guard against the ever-dreaded theft of cattle it was ordained with
increasing stringency that purchases and sales should take place within
their limits. By a law of Edgar[222] it was directed that in every
[large] borough thirty-three men should be chosen as “witnesses”;
in the smaller boroughs and the hundreds twelve would suffice; and
from these we must suppose a smaller number were chosen to attest the
validity of every sale by which cattle changed hands. Judging from
the example of Londonburh, the greatest of all the boroughs, we may
conclude that in these trading, fighting, debating communities much
of the most vigorous life of England was to be found in the tenth and
eleventh centuries.
We have to note in passing that the obligation to assist in the
maintenance and repair of these national defences was one of those
which pressed upon all free Englishmen. _Fyrd-fare_, _burh-bote_ and
_bridge-bote_, the duty of serving in the national army, the duty
of building or repairing fortresses, and the like duty in respect
of bridges, constituted the triple obligation, the often-mentioned
_trinoda necessitas_, from which no estate of thegn or of ceorl, with
whatever other immunities it might be favoured, was ever, except in
very rare cases, allowed to be exempt.
* * * * *
Returning to the consideration of King Edgar’s law about local
government we observe that it ordains that the _shire-gemôt_ shall
be held twice a year under the presidency of the bishop of the shire
and the ealdorman. The question of the origin of the existing forty
counties into which England is divided is an extremely interesting one,
but it can hardly yet be said to have received its final solution. We
can see at a glance that some of our counties such as Kent, Essex,
Middlesex, Sussex, Surrey, represent old kingdoms or sub-kingdoms of
the early “Heptarchic” period. Norfolk and Suffolk are but the two
divisions of East Anglia. Yorkshire and Northumberland may stand fairly
well for Deira and Bernicia, the generous endowment of St. Cuthbert’s
tomb being interposed between them in the shape of the county of
Durham. The formation of the three counties of Cumberland, Westmorland
and Lancashire out of Celtic Strathclyde and its adjoining territory is
a late and somewhat obscure piece of history; while on the other hand
the emergence of Cornwall, Devon, and perhaps we may add Somerset, out
of the former kingdom of West Wales, is pretty easily understood by
what the Chronicle tells us of the successive victories of West Saxon
kings. Wessex itself, as we see from the Chronicle, must have been at
an early period, at any rate in the course of the eighth century,
divided into its four often-mentioned shires, Hampshire, Berkshire,
Wiltshire and Dorset. When, however, all these older counties have
been dealt with, there yet remains before us an interesting question
as to the formation of the counties which are still known colloquially
as “the shires,” the score of counties which lie between the Thames
and the Humber, between Wales and East Anglia, and which evidently
represent pretty fairly the old kingdom of Mercia. These, as a rule,
cluster each one round some borough which has given its name to the
county. One half of these are called after strong places which, as
we are distinctly told, owed their foundation or their renewal to
Edward and Ethelfled; these ten being Cheshire, Shropshire,[223]
Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Huntingdonshire,
Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Warwickshire and Herefordshire, and we
may reasonably conjecture that the remaining shires were carved out
nearly at the same time and on a similar plan. There is a great and
obvious distinction between all these midland shires named after one
central _burh_, and counties which recall the name of a tribe such as
the Sumorsaetan or the South Saxons. The reason for that distinction
is evidently that the Mercian shires were made as part of a definite
political organisation, after the repulse of the Danish invaders by
whom many of the old landmarks had been overthrown.[224] It is probable
that many territorial divisions which would have become counties, had
Mercia kept the peaceful tenor of her way through the ninth and tenth
centuries, districts such as those of the Pecsaetan in the county of
the Peak and the Gyrwas in the county of the Fens, may have disappeared
from the map of central England owing to the ravages of the Danes. That
map is in fact, as remarked by Maitland, a palimpsest, under whose
broad black county-names many erased characters lie hidden.[225]
We have seen that a law of King Edgar’s ordains that the ealdorman
shall sit by the side of the bishop at the meeting of the shire, and
shall expound worldly law while the bishop gives utterance to the
divine. In the early period of the West Saxon monarchy, when there
was an ealdorman to every shire, this enactment causes no difficulty;
but it is clear that during the course of the ninth century there was
a constant tendency to lessen the number of ealdormen and increase
the size of their dominions, and we can then no longer say that every
shire had its own ealdorman. Some men like Ethelred, brother-in-law of
Edward the Elder, ealdorman of Mercia; like Athelstan the half-king
of East Anglia; and like all the later Northumbrian earls, ruled over
territories as large as the old Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. In the reign
of Canute we have seen that three earls--as the ealdormen were now
called--ruled over three-fourths of England. If the law of Edgar still
continued in force, we must imagine these great officials travelling
from shire to shire, and holding the _gemôt_ in each. It is a probable
suggestion, however, that when the power of the ealdorman was thus
widely extended, new officers, the shire-reeves, from whom our modern
sheriffs derive their title, were called into being, in order to
administer the counties under the ealdorman. This suggestion can
hardly, however, be yet spoken of as more than a conjecture.[226]
The ealdorman, as was just now remarked, changed his title in the
eleventh century for that of earl. There can be no doubt that this
change was due to Danish influence and was an imitation of the word
_jarl_, by which the chiefs of the Danish host were often designated.
Eorl was, however, also a word known to the Anglo-Saxons, and by
its use in the laws of Ine and elsewhere it seems to have been very
nearly equivalent to thegn. In the laws of Ethelred of Kent, of
Alfred and of Athelstan, it is frequently used as the antithesis to
ceorl, “no man whether eorl or ceorl” being used in the same way that
“gentle or simple” was used in the middle ages. Between this generic
use of the word, however, and the title of powerful rulers like
Leofric and Godwine there was a wide and important difference; and
to avoid confusion it seems better to use the word earl only in its
later signification, in which it replaces the term ealdorman and is
equivalent to the Danish _jarl_ and the Latin _comes_. One important
point to notice is that never before the Norman Conquest does the title
of earl become absolutely hereditary, though there are certain great
families which seem to have had practically an overwhelming claim to
share the earldoms among them. No earl, however, even in the latest
days of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, seems to have had a recognised right
of transmitting his earldom to his son.[227]
We have several incidental evidences of the social changes wrought by
the two unquiet centuries between Egbert and Canute. The tendency of
all those marches and counter-marches, those harryings and hardly held
“places of slaughter,” to depress the peaceful cultivator and raise the
mere fighting man, is shown by a curious document called “The Northern
People’s Laws” (North-leoda laga) and supposed to date from the tenth
century. In this document we have the most complete table of wergilds
that is anywhere to be found in Anglo-Saxon law.[228] In the following
table they are, for convenience of comparison, converted into West
Saxon shillings of five penings each:--
The Wergild for the king is 18,000 shillings.
Archbishop and Etheling 9,000 „
Bishop and ealdorman 4,800 „
_Hold_ and king’s high-reeve 2,400 „
Mass-thegn (priest) and secular thegn 1,200 „
Ceorl 160 „
Here we see that the ceorl, the free agriculturist, has sunk in the
social scale. He was a two hundred, he is now only a hundred and
sixty man. The wergilds in the upper ranks of society are, perhaps,
unaltered, but, as before remarked, we have very imperfect information
about these till we come to this very document. The important thing
to observe is the position of the _hold_. This is a Danish word and
signifies properly a fighting man. Here, however, this simple Danish
warrior, possibly without any large landed possessions, has only by his
sword carved his way up into a position in which he boasts a wergild
fifteen times as great as that of the honest Saxon ceorl. He is half
as big a man as a bishop or ealdorman, and twice as big as an ordinary
thegn.[229]
* * * * *
Another interesting document which dates probably from the reign
of Canute is that which is called the _Rectitudines singularum
personarum_,[230] and is a compendium of the whole duty of man, or at
least of the services which he is bound to render to those above him
in the social order. The thegn has his obligations--in the language of
a much later age, “property has its duties as well as its rights”--he
must be “worthy of his book-right,” that is, observe the conditions
of his charter and do three things on account of his land, serving
with the _fyrd_, _burh_-building and bridge-work. Also on many estates
other obligations accrue at the king’s behest: such as making the
fence for the game on the king’s demesne; the equipment of a war-ship;
keeping watch on the coast, at the royal headquarters or in the _fyrd_;
alms-giving; Church-scot, and many other payments of various kinds.
The _Geneat_ seems to have belonged to a class dependent on a lord,
but in a certain sense superior. He had “to pay rent (_land-gafol_) in
money or in kind, to ride and guide, lead loads, reap and mow, cut the
deer-hedge and keep it in repair, build and fence round the fortress,
make new roads to the _tun_, keep ward and go errands far and near just
as one may order him about”. It is evidently supposed, however, that he
has a horse, probably several horses of his own, although he has to be
thus submissive to the bidding of a lord. We may, perhaps, see in these
_geneats_ the descendants of ceorls who, under the pressure of the
times, have lost their absolutely independent position and have been
fain to “commend” themselves to the protection of some great thegn or
religious house.[231]
The cottager (_cotsetla_) is personally free and does not pay rent,
but he has to render a certain amount of service to his lord in return
for his holding, the normal size of which is five acres. The amount of
service varies according to the custom of different estates; but a very
usual arrangement is that he shall work every Monday throughout the
year for his lord and three days every week in harvest time.
“The _Gebur’s_ duties,” says the document, “are various; in some places
they are heavy, in others they are quite moderate.” He seems, however,
to have somewhat less of personal freedom than the men belonging to
either of the two previous classes. His minimum of work is for two days
in the week; he has to put in three days, not only in harvest time,
but from the beginning of February to Easter; and all the time from
Martinmas (Nov. 11) till Easter he may be called upon, in rotation with
his fellows, to lie out at night beside his lord’s fold keeping watch
over the sheep. On some lands the _gebur_ pays _gafol_ of honey, on
some of meat and on some of ale. The lord provides him with implements
for his work and utensils for his house, but then, _per contra_, when
his time has come to take the journey (of death) his lord takes all
that he leaves behind. Evidently the _gebur_ is, if not yet actually a
serf, in a condition much nearer serfdom than either the _geneat_ or
the _cotsetla_.
After this follow descriptions of the duties of the bee-keeper, the
pork-butcher, the swine-herd, the sower, the shepherd, the wood-ward
and many other agricultural labourers; the whole forming a most
interesting picture of a large and well-managed English estate in the
eleventh century.
* * * * *
In studying the laws of Alfred’s successors throughout the tenth
century, we are struck by the evident desire of the royal legislators
to draw tighter the reins of government and to combat the tendencies
towards disintegration and anarchy which they found in the body
politic. Under Edward the Elder the great pact between Alfred and
Guthrum was the corner-stone of the social fabric and to deal out equal
justice between Englishman and Dane was the chief aim of a righteous
ruler, but, unfortunately, the king found that he had much cause to
complain of timid, corrupt and inefficient servants. The offence of
_oferhyrnesse_, contempt of the royal word and commandment, is one
which is now first mentioned, and of which we often hear afterwards
from Edward and his descendants. Of this offence, punishable by a fine
of 120 shillings, any _gerefa_ (“reeve” or magistrate) was guilty who
failed to administer justice according to the testimony of the sworn
witnesses, or to hold his _gemot_ once in every four weeks for the
administration of justice. _Oferhyrnesse_ was also the offence of any
person who presumed “to cheapen except in a port,” that is, to conduct
any process of bargain and sale except within the limits of a market
town and in the presence of a _port reeve_, to whose testimony he could
afterwards appeal to prove that he was not dealing in stolen goods.
Strong and vigorous ruler as _Athelstan_ was, he needed to put forth
all his powers in order to repress the growing tendency to anarchy and
injustice. “If any of my _gerefan_,” says he, “disobey this edict or be
more slack concerning this matter than I have ordained, he shall pay
the penalty of his _oferhyrnesse_, and I will find some one else who
will attend to what I say.... I have learned that our peace is worse
held than I like, and my _witan_ say that I have borne it too long. I
have therefore ordered that all such peace-breakers shall get out of my
kingdom with wives and children, and all that they have, and shall go
whither I direct. If they return to this realm they shall be treated
like thieves caught in the act.” King Athelstan’s influence, however,
was not always exerted on the side of increased severity. The citizens
of London record that he conveyed to the archbishop his opinion, that
it was a lamentable thing that so young a man as one between the ages
of twelve and fifteen should be put to death for any offence, or any
man for stealing a chattel of less value than twelve pennies, and that
he altered the law accordingly, raising the limit of age and of value
in both cases.
In order to make the punishment of crime, especially of the one most
common crime, cattle-stealing, more certain, it was ordered by Edward
the Elder[232] that every man should have his _geteama_, a person
doubtless of known character and position, who would act as his
advocate or guarantor in any transactions of purchase and sale. It
was probably a development of the same idea when Edgar ordained as
follows: “This then is what I will, that every man shall be under a
_borh_ whether he be within boroughs or without them and that witnesses
be appointed in every borough and in every hundred”.[233] The law was
repeated and strengthened by Canute who thus announced his decision:
“And we will that every free man if he be over the age of twelve years
shall be included in a hundred and a tithing, that he may have right
to clear himself from accusation and right to receive _wer_ if any one
assail him. Otherwise he shall have none of the rights of a free man
be he householder (_heorth-faeste_) or follower. Let every one then be
brought into the hundred and have a _borh_, and let the _borh_ hold
him and bring him at all times to judgment. Many a powerful man wishes
by hook or crook to protect his man and thinks that he can easily
do it, whether he be free or _theow_. But we will not tolerate this
injustice.”[234]
Of this institution of the _tithing_, whereby the poorer class of
free men were grouped together in clusters of ten, we heard among the
citizens of London in the reign of Athelstan. That grouping was for
purposes of mutual protection; this seems rather to be in order to
enforce mutual responsibility. It is not to be wondered that organisms,
so low down in the social system, have not made much mark in the
Anglo-Saxon law-book; but it seems to be generally agreed that from
them was derived that institution of frank-pledge which, under the
Norman kings, was so efficient a machine for the repression of disorder.
* * * * *
In the laws of the later Anglo-Saxon kings we seem to hear less about
oath-helping and much more about ordeals than we heard in the laws of
their predecessors. Does this change betoken the growth of superstition
or a decay of honesty and public spirit and a diminished confidence
in the veracity of the oath-helpers? The chief modes of ordeal among
the Anglo-Saxons were three, and an accused person seems to have had
his right of choosing between them. In all there was a direct appeal
to the Almighty to show by the ordeal the innocence or guilt of the
accused; and the Church by solemn services, prayers and fastings gave
her sanction to the appeal. (1) If the ordeal was by cold water, the
accused person was hurled into a vessel of water, after a prayer had
been uttered that “the creature, water” might reject this person if
he were guilty or receive him if innocent, according to the course of
nature, into her bosom. In this ordeal to float was fatal, to sink was
salvation. (2) In the ordeal of fire the accused must carry a mass of
red-hot iron weighing one pound a distance of nine feet, or must plunge
his hand up to the wrist into a vessel of boiling water to pick out
of it a stone. After either of these trials the hand was bandaged and
sealed up. If, after the lapse of three days, when the bandages were
removed, there was raw flesh visible, the man was guilty, if the hand
showed clean skin he was innocent. If the crime laid to his charge were
that of conspiring against the king’s life, then the ordeal must be
of threefold severity; the mass of hot iron must weigh three pounds,
or the arm of the accused must be plunged in up to the elbow. (3) The
ordeal of the test-morsel (_corsnaed_) was chiefly practised upon
ecclesiastics and consisted in the obligation to swallow a piece of
bread or cheese upon which a solemn anathema had been pronounced for
any but an innocent partaker. As Ethelred said in one of his laws:[235]
“If an accusation is laid against a servant of the altar who has no
friends and who cannot call upon any oath-helper, let him go to the
_corsnaed_ and there fare as God shall will”.
* * * * *
The judicial processes even in the ordinary courts of the realm
certainly seem to us sufficiently blundering and barbarous; but at the
end of the period which we are now considering, other courts of private
jurisdiction were coming into being, and whether they administered
better or worse justice who shall say? In the reign of Canute we first
find a clear case of a grant of _sake_ and _soke_ to the Archbishop
of Canterbury, a kind of grant which was given with lavish hand by
the king whose reign lies next before us, Edward the Confessor.[236]
Without entering upon the question whether the Danish king was really
the first to bestow this special privilege upon his courtiers, lay or
ecclesiastical, we may safely assert that, at any rate in the eleventh
century, our kings were freely attaching judicial functions to the
ownership of lands. For this is, undoubtedly, what is meant by these
words _sake_ and _soke_, or _sac_ and _soc_. The first probably means
a “matter” or “cause”;[237] the second, “a seeking out” or “inquiry”.
The meaning in any case is clear. The abbot or wealthy thegn who “had
sake and soke” had, merely in right of the king’s grant, and generally
as appurtenant to the land which the king had given him, the right to
try causes of dispute arising in his district. Apparently that right
included both what we should call civil and criminal causes; and,
of course, the right must have carried with it power to enforce his
decisions, and also--no unimportant matter--the right to receive the
fines and other profits arising from the administration of justice.
What may have been the limits of this jurisdiction--for there must
surely have been some causes too grave for any mere holder of _sake_
and _soke_ to meddle with--and how it may have impinged upon the
sphere in which _shire-mot_ and _burh-mot_ exercised their powers, are
questions the answer to which is not yet before us. It is evident,
however, that we have here judicial tribunals which might very easily
grow into the manorial courts which flourished under the Norman
and Plantagenet kings and the survivals of which exist among us to
this day. And altogether the whole effect produced on our minds by
a comparison of the laws of these later kings with the laws of the
heptarchic kings is, that during the three centuries which elapsed from
Ine to Canute the distinction between classes had been growing broader,
that the eorl was mightier and the ceorl much weaker than in that
older stratum of society; that, though certainly feudalism was not yet
materialised in England, the spirit which prompted it was in the air;
and that, possibly, even without any Norman Conquest, something like
the Feudal System might have come, by spontaneous generation, in our
land.
CHAPTER XXV.
EDWARD THE CONFESSOR.
(1042–1066.)
EDWARD, son of Ethelred, last visible scion of the old royal West
Saxon stock, seems to have succeeded, on Harthacnut’s death, without
opposition, to the throne of his forefathers. If the most powerful man
in the kingdom, Earl Godwine, had any reason to fear the accession of
the brother of the murdered Alfred, he determined to run all risks,
and by actively co-operating in the new king’s election to establish
a claim on his gratitude which might outweigh the remembrance of the
deeds done by the zealous adherent of Harold Harefoot. The large
influence of Godwine in the king’s counsels did not imply, as it
would have done some years before, the continuance in power of the
king’s mother. On the contrary, in the very next year after Edward’s
accession, and seven months after his coronation at Winchester, the
king, with his three most powerful subjects, Godwine, Leofric and
Siward, rode from Gloucester to Winchester (November 16, 1043), and
coming suddenly upon “the Lady” Emma, deprived her of all the vast
treasures that she had accumulated, “her lands, her gold, her silver
and her precious things untellable,” and ordained that she should
live thereafter, unimprisoned indeed, but deprived of all her ancient
state, in the royal city of Winchester. Thus she lived on for eight
years longer, till her death on March 14, 1052; but in all the stirring
scenes which preceded that event the busy, managing “Old Lady”[238]
seems to have taken no part. Her party, if she had one, struck down
by that hasty ride of the king and his three nobles, never after
raised its head. The reason assigned by the chronicler for this harsh
procedure toward the widow and mother of two kings, seems to bear the
stamp of truth. “This was done,” he says, “because she was, before,
very hard on the king her son, and she did less for him than he
would, both before he was king and afterward,” meaning no doubt both
before and after his association with Harthacnut. In other words, the
queen-dowager, who evidently disliked her first husband and gave all
her pent-up love to her second, had become so complete a Dane at heart
that she would not lift a finger to help the surviving son of Ethelred,
and for this unfriendliness she was sorely punished when he had power
to avenge his wrongs.
Soon after Emma’s downfall, the place of “Lady” in the palace of
Winchester was again filled, by the marriage of Edward to Edith,
daughter of Earl Godwine (January 23, 1045). It was a marriage only
in name; for the king, to the admiration of his monastic biographers,
retained through life the virgin purity of his saintliness; but the
daughter of Godwine undoubtedly exercised some influence on the
counsels of her royal spouse, though in what direction that influence
was exerted is one of the not fully solved riddles of this difficult
reign. The reign is difficult, chiefly because of the singular nullity
of the sovereign’s character. Religious and kindly natured, Edward (who
received after his death the half canonisation conveyed in the title of
“Confessor”) seems to have had scarcely a will or mind of his own. He
is always under the dominion of some stronger nature, Saxon earl, or
Norman bishop, or wedded queen: and it is rarely possible to discover
what were his own true sympathies and antipathies. We have constantly
to guess to which of his councillors we must attribute the praise or
the blame of the actions which were nominally his own.
To avoid confusion, it will be well to describe the events of this
reign under four heads: foreign relations; internal troubles; wars with
the Scots; and wars with the Welsh.
To us, who judge after the event, the dissolution of the splendid
Anglo-Scandinavian Empire of Canute seems a natural and inevitable
consequence of the death of its founder; but in all likelihood it was
not so regarded by contemporary observers. Both Magnus of Norway and
Sweyn of Denmark may well have aspired to rule England as heirs or
quasi-heirs of Canute the Rich, and in order to guard against their
attacks, the new King of England was compelled to keep a large fleet in
readiness, which was generally assembled at Sandwich.
Magnus of Norway was a bastard son of St. Olaf’s, whose very name bore
witness to the irritable temper of his father. His mother, Alfhild,
when in travail, was brought nigh unto death, and when the child was
born the by-standers were for long in doubt whether it were alive. But
the king was asleep, had given strict orders that he should never be
roused from his slumbers, and none, not even his favourite minstrel
Sigvat, dared to disobey. Fearing lest the child, dying unbaptised,
should become “the devil’s man,” a priest hastily baptised it, the
minstrel standing god-father, and giving it the name Magnus in honour
of Carolus Magnus, “the king whom he knew to be the best man in all
the world”. (And this was full two centuries after the death of
Charlemagne.) The anger of the awakened king, when he learned what had
happened during his slumbers, was charmed away by the smooth-tongued
Sigvat. Thus did the name Magnus enter not only into the dynastic
lists, but into the common family nomenclature of Norway and Iceland.
The child Magnus, grown to man’s estate and succeeding to his father’s
kingdom, vindicated the unconscious prophecy of his name, and was for
a time the greatest monarch of the North. Whereas in the previous
generation, Denmark had conquered Norway, it now seemed probable that
Norway would conquer Denmark, so hard was the king of the latter
country pressed by Magnus. This Danish king was Sweyn, not, of
course, the son of Canute, who had died some years before, but Sweyn
Estrithson, son of the murdered Ulf (of the overthrown chess-board) and
of Canute’s sister, Estrith. As Ulf’s sister was Gytha, wife of Earl
Godwine, Godwine’s many sons and daughters were of course first cousins
to the King of Denmark.
In the year 1047 Sweyn Estrithson, vigorously attacked by Magnus, sent
an earnest petition to England that fifty ships might be despatched to
his succour. “But this seemed an ill counsel to all people, because
Magnus had great sea-power, nor was it adopted.” Unhelped, Sweyn
was expelled from his kingdom. The Danes had to pay money to their
conquerors--a new and bitter experience for them--and to own Magnus for
their king. There, however, the career of Norwegian conquest stopped.
In that very year, Magnus, when riding through the forest, was thrown
violently by his shying steed against the trunk of a tree and received
an injury from which he died. His uncle, Harold Hardrada, who succeeded
him, and who will be heard of again in the history of England,
could not prevent Denmark from reverting to its former ruler, Sweyn
Estrithson, who founded there a dynasty which endured for 300 years.
Though schemes of conquest, such as are attributed to Magnus, died with
him, there was some renewal of the old piratical raids. In 1048 two
Norse buccaneers came with twenty-five ships to Sandwich, were repelled
from Thanet, but successfully raided Essex, and sailing thence to
“Baldwin’s land” (Flanders), found there a ready market for the fruits
of their cruel industry. The shelter given by Flanders to these and
other depredators, induced Edward to acquiesce the more willingly in a
proposal made to him by his kinsman, the Emperor Henry III., that he
should help to guard the narrow seas against Baldwin, who had broken
out into rebellion against the empire, had demolished the palace reared
by Charlemagne at Nimeguen, and had done many other ill turns to his
sovereign lord. To punish these despites Henry had gathered a large
army, and Edward helped him by keeping guard with a fleet at Sandwich.
No naval engagement followed, but the pressure thus effected by land
and sea was effectual, and before long “the emperor had of Baldwin all
that he would”.
The Emperor Henry III., who thus drew Edward into the circle of
European politics, was chiefly memorable for the beneficial influence
which he exerted on the papal court, procuring the election of bishops
of high character, generally Germans, instead of the dissolute lads who
had been too often of late intruded into the papacy. One of the best of
Henry’s German popes was Bruno of Toul, who ruled as Leo IX. from 1048
to 1054. To him in the year 1049 Edward, by the advice of his _witan_,
sent as ambassadors the Bishops of Sherborne and Worcester, to pray for
absolution from a vow of pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which he had made
in his years of poverty and apparently hopeless exile. The Witenagemot
represented to him with good reason that the fulfilment of such a vow
would now be inconsistent with his higher duties to his country and
his subjects; and the aid of the pope was sought to cut the casuistic
knot. In the following year the two bishops returned, bringing the
papal absolution from the vow of pilgrimage, coupled, it is said,
with an injunction to build or restore a monastery in honour of St.
Peter, and fill it with monks who should spend their days in prayer
and psalmody. The condition was one in itself delightful to the heart
of the pious king. From the unfulfilled vow of pilgrimage, from the
journey of the two bishops to Rome, and from the reply of the venerable
Leo, sprang that noble sanctuary, the name of which will endure as long
as men speak the English language, the great Abbey of Westminster.
* * * * *
The internal history of England during the twenty-two years of Edward’s
reign is chiefly a record of the struggles of two or three great nobles
for supremacy in his councils. It is true that some measures were taken
for lightening the burdens of the people. “In the year 1049,” says the
Abingdon chronicler, “King Edward paid off nine ships and they went
away with their ships and all: and five ships remained, and the king
promised them twelve months’ pay. In the next year he paid off all
the shipmen.” The result is told us by his brother chronicler: “In
1052 [1051] King Edward took off the army tax (_here-gyld_) which King
Ethelred formerly instituted. It was thirty-nine years since he began
it: and this _gyld_ oppressed the English people during all that time.
This tax ever claimed priority over all the other _gylds_ by which the
people were in various ways oppressed.” As has been pointed out,[239]
the tax here spoken of is not the Danegeld, a levy of money to be paid
as blackmail to foreign invaders, but it is _here-gyld_, “army tax,”
or rather, in strictness, “navy tax,” a levy of money to be paid to
the naval defenders of the country, an imposition therefore which
may be fittingly compared to the ship money of the Middle Ages. But
the previously quoted entry concerning the exactions in the reign of
Harthacnut shows how easily the _here-gyld_ might be increased till it
became an intolerable burden, and we can thus the better understand the
joy of the nation at its removal.
The position of Edward appears during the whole of his reign to have
been not unlike that of the later kings of the two first Frankish
dynasties. If he were not a mere _roi fainéant_, a puppet in the
hands of an all-powerful Mayor of the Palace, he was at any rate like
a Carolingian Louis or Lothair, with large theoretical claims, with
little real power, and quite overshadowed by a few great earls, who had
not indeed yet made their offices hereditary; who were still in theory
removable officers of the crown; but who ruled wide provinces, raised
considerable armies among their own _house-carls_, and above all,
possessed wealth probably much exceeding any that could be found in the
treasure-house of the king. One of these great French nobles, Hugh the
Great, had so played his cards as to prepare the way for the elevation
of his own son to the actual seat of royalty, when the time should come
for its relinquishment by the descendants of Charlemagne. It seems
not improbable that the example of Hugh the Great was much before the
eyes of Godwine, and that through life he kept steadily in view the
possibility that sons issuing from his loins might one day sit upon the
English throne, now after five centuries about to be left vacant by the
dying dynasty of Cerdic.
Godwine, Leofric and Siward: these were the three greatest names in the
English Witan when Edward came to the throne, and all three should be
still memorable to Englishmen; Godwine, by reason of his great place in
history, and the other two by reason of their renown in English poetry;
Leofric being commemorated in the Godiva of Tennyson, and Siward in the
Macbeth of Shakespeare.
The kingdom of England, imperfectly welded together by Egbert and
Alfred, and since then modified by the large infusion of Scandinavian
blood into its northern and eastern districts, showed throughout
this period a strong tendency to split up again into its three old
divisions, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex. Northumbria, as we have
seen, was reconstituted as one earldom by the bloody deed of Siward the
Strong, who slew his uncle Eadwulf, and so joined Bernicia to Deira. A
strong, stern, unscrupulous Dane, whose martial character is attested
by the well-known story of his death (hereafter to be related), he
nevertheless seems to have ruled well his great province and was
apparently a loyal subject of King Edward.[240]
Leofric, son of Leofwine, was sprung, as has been said, from a family
which for more than two centuries had been eminent in Mercia, and it
is probable that he and his offspring bore with unconcealed dislike
the overshadowing competition of the great upstart house of Godwine.
He is often spoken of as Earl of Mercia, and perhaps had some sort
of pre-eminence over other earls in that district, but his immediate
jurisdiction seems to have been confined to the three counties of
Cheshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire. Godwine’s nephew by marriage,
Beorn, son of Ulf and Estrith, was quartered on his eastern flank in
Derby, Nottingham, Leicester and Lincoln. Sweyn, Godwine’s eldest
son, ruled the Mercian counties of Hereford, Gloucester and Oxford,
besides a part of Wessex. Well might the proud Mercian noble feel that
his title was but a mockery, while such large slices of Mercia were
given to his rivals. Both Leofric and his wife Godiva were munificent
benefactors to the Church. Whatever may be the foundation for the
beautiful legend of Godiva’s absolute surrender of herself for the
lightening of her people’s burdens, we certainly should not, from
his record in history, have inferred that her husband Leofric was an
avaricious or close-fisted lord.
We turn to the earldoms which throughout the greater part of Edward’s
reign were subject to the family of Godwine. He himself held, of
course, that great and enriching office, the earldom of Wessex, which
had been long ago conferred upon him by Canute, and which practically
included all the lands south of the Thames; excepting that Somerset and
Berkshire appear to have been carved out of them, to form what in later
times would have been called an appanage for his eldest son, Sweyn, in
addition to the three Mercian counties which, as we have already seen,
were included in his earldom. His second son, Harold, called Earl of
the East Angles, ruled not only the two strictly East Anglian shires,
but also Huntingdon, Cambridge and Essex, which probably included
Middlesex.[241] The three sons who came next in order, Tostig, Gyrth
and Leofwine, were but boys at the time of Edward’s accession and were
as yet unprovided with earldoms; but even so, it is evident if we look
at the map, that more than half, and that the fairest half, of England
was subject to Earl Godwine and his family.
Of the character of this man, certainly the most powerful and probably
the ablest Englishman of his time, very varying judgments were formed,
even in his lifetime; and after his death the antipathy of the Norman
and the regretful sympathy of the Saxon writers, naturally led to
very divergent estimates concerning it. Nor is the controversy even
yet ended; for the enthusiastic championship of the great historian
of the Norman Conquest has not unnaturally provoked an equally
vigorous storm of censure. To the present writer he does not appear a
high-minded patriot, nor yet, considering the age in which he lived,
a detestable villain. Hard, grasping, capable, remorseless, intent on
the aggrandisement of his family, and by no means successful in forming
their characters, he nevertheless may be credited with a certain amount
of love for his country, and for the Anglo-Danish race which now
peopled it. Himself English by birth and Danish by marriage and by all
his early official training, he was determined that, if he could help
it, no third element should be imported by the Norman sympathies of the
king, to oppress the common people and to snatch away the prizes of
government from the nobles. It is when he risks life and dearly loved
treasure in maintaining this contention, that he seems to us almost a
patriot.
The first shock to the stately edifice of Godwine’s power was given by
the disordered passions of his eldest son. In 1046, after a successful
campaign in Wales, “when Sweyn was on his homeward journey, he ordered
that the Abbess of Leominster [named Edgiva] should be fetched unto
him, and he had her as long as he pleased and afterwards let her go
home”. Such is the short dry record by the chronicler, of a deed which
shocked the not too sensitive conscience of the eleventh century,
and which appears to have led to the dissolution of the nunnery of
Leominster, the outlawry of Sweyn and the allotment of his earldom
to others. It seems, however, from later allusions to the matter,
that it was not the forcible abduction but the lascivious seduction
of a consecrated virgin of which the son of Godwine was guilty.
Sweyn betook himself in 1047 to that refuge of all English outlaws,
“Baldwin’s land,” and from thence after a time went to Denmark, where
by some crime or immorality of the nature of which we are not informed,
he “ruined himself with the Danes”. In 1049 he returned to England,
and began to hover about the coasts of Kent and Sussex, off which the
king was lying with a fleet, operating against Baldwin of Flanders and
watching the proceedings of another outlaw, Osgod Clapa. This man, who
had once been in high favour at the English court, had held the office
of Staller or Chamberlain, and had been honoured by the presence, the
ill-omened presence, of Harthacnut, at his daughter’s marriage feast,
but had now fallen into disgrace, and led for some years the life of
a buccaneer, imitating the ravages of the old Vikings and requiring
the manœuvres of a royal fleet to keep him at bay. The Chronicle has
much to tell us about Osgod Clapa’s and his wife’s movements, but he
possesses for us no political significance, and we have only to note
his death which happened “suddenly in his bed,” as the chronicler tells
us, in the year 1054.
Returning to the tempestuous career of the outlawed Sweyn, we find
that his petition for forgiveness was at first rejected by the king,
influenced as it was supposed by the criminal’s brother and cousin,
Harold and Beorn, who were averse to surrendering his forfeited
earldom. Then some change seems to have come over the more generous
Beorn, who, on Sweyn’s entreaty that he would intercede for him to
the king, consented to do so, and set off with him to march along the
Sussex shore, making for the king’s station at Sandwich (1049). Many
were the oaths which Sweyn had sworn to him, and “he thought that for
his kinship’s sake he would not deceive him.” Thus beguiled he fared
forward, putting himself ever more completely in the outlaw’s power;
and even when his cousin proposed that instead of journeying eastwards
to Sandwich, they should go westwards to the little town of Bosham, a
favourite haunt of the Godwine tribe, off which his ships were lying
at anchor, the unsuspecting earl consented. “For my sailors,” said
Sweyn, “will desert me, unless I show myself speedily among them.” But
when they had reached the place and Sweyn proposed that they should go
together on board of his ship, Beorn, whose suspicions were by this
time aroused, stoutly refused to do so. Resistance was now too late.
Sweyn’s sailors forcibly laid hold of Beorn, threw him into the boat,
and tightly bound him. They then rowed him to the ship, spread sail,
and ran before the wind to Exmouth, where the prisoner was slain and
buried in a deep grave, from which his friends afterwards lifted his
body, that they might carry him to Winchester and bury him beside his
uncle, King Canute. After such an atrocious and dastardly crime, one
would have expected that Sweyn, if he could not be laid hold of and
brought to justice, would at least have been banished from the society
of all honourable men. And for the moment, though he escaped as usual
to Baldwin’s land and dwelt at Bruges, he was solemnly proclaimed a
_nithing_ or vile person (the most ignominious term in the Teutonic
vocabulary) by the whole host, with the king, his brother-in-law, at
their head. Yet with that fatuous facility in wrong-doing which seems
to mark the conduct of all leading Englishmen in this bewildering
century, by the mediation of Ealdred, Bishop of Worcester (afterwards
Archbishop of York, and by no means the worst of the ecclesiastics
of the period), Sweyn was brought back from his exile in 1050, his
outlawry reversed, and his old earldom, which involved the rule over
five counties, restored once more to his own keeping. The only thing
that can be said in his favour is that he does seem to have felt some
remorse for his many crimes. When next year he shared the general
downfall of his house and was once more driven into banishment, instead
of scheming for his return and restoration to power, he went on
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, visited the sacred shrines, and died on his
homeward journey at Constantinople (Michaelmas, 1052).
The history of the Godwine family is now modified by events at King
Edward’s court, which gave them the opportunity of assuming the
character of national champions against the dominion of foreigners. We
hear a good deal about the Norman favourites who flocked to Edward’s
court, but it is not easy to ascertain how numerous these were, or
how far a king, all whose nearest relations were Normans, and who had
spent the best years of his life in a foreign land, exceeded the limits
of moderation and good policy in bestowing lands and offices on his
friends of foreign birth. Among these were the kinsfolk of his own
sister, Godiva, whom it would be hard to blame him for having invited
to his court, though one of them, her second husband, Eustace, Count
of Boulogne, when he came sorely offended the Saxons by his insolent
demeanour. Another, Ralph, sometimes called Ralph the Timid, Godiva’s
son by her first husband, was entrusted by his uncle with the earldom
of the Magasaetas, corresponding to the modern county of Hereford. A
feebly arrogant man, he too probably added not a little to Edward’s
unpopularity, and he appears to have gathered round him a number of his
countrymen, whom the Chronicle calls sometimes Frenchmen (_Frencysce_)
and sometimes Welshmen.[242] These men seem to have been already
anticipating the baronial oppressions of a later century, and building
their strongholds to overawe the common folk. Of one such fortress the
patriotic chronicler writes that the foreigners had erected a castle in
Herefordshire in the district of Earl Sweyn, and there wrought all the
harm and disgrace that they could do to the king’s men.
The ecclesiastically minded Edward, however, seems to have chosen his
chief friends from among the Franco-Norman churchmen whom he had known
in his youth. Chief among these was Robert Champart, formerly Abbot of
Jumièges on the Lower Seine, whom Edward made Bishop of London near the
beginning of his reign, and who, according to an often-quoted story,
obtained such an ascendency over the feeble mind of his patron that “if
he said that a black crow was white, the king would rather trust his
mouth than his own eyes”. Owing to the feeble health of the Archbishop
of Canterbury, Robert of London probably had from the first a
controlling voice in the affairs of the southern province, and when at
last, in October, 1050, the aged Eadsige was gathered to his fathers,
Edward desired to make his favourite ecclesiastic archbishop. There
was, however, an undercurrent of opposition; the chapter met in haste
without the royal mandate and elected one of their number, Aelfric,
archbishop. The monastic candidate was a relation of Earl Godwine’s,
who put forth all his influence to procure the confirmation of his
election, but in vain. The Norman’s power over the king was too great;
at the Witenagemot held in London at Midlent, 1051, Robert Champart
was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. He went speedily to Rome and
returned with the indispensable pallium. This rebuff to Earl Godwine
was perhaps the first indication of the precarious tenure of his power.
At any rate from this time onward, if not before, the influence of the
king’s clerical master was thrown heavily into the scale against him.
Such apparently was the state of affairs at the English court, and such
the smouldering fires of jealousy and distrust, when in the summer of
1051 Eustace of Boulogne came on a visit to his brother-in-law. The
visit paid, he and his retinue took the homeward road through Kent,
and after baiting at Canterbury, made for Dover as their resting-place
for the night. When the little troop were still some miles short of
Dover, he and his men dismounted, put on their coats of mail and thus
rode on, martial and menacing. When they reached Dover they showed at
once their intention to take up their quarters wherever it pleased
them. They were probably not without some legal justification for what
seems to us a somewhat high-handed procedure, for Count Eustace was
son-in-law and brother-in-law of English kings, and royal personages
in the west of Europe seem to have possessed in the eleventh century
some rights of compulsory hospitality similar to those of which we
hear so much in later centuries under the name of “purveyance”. It
was therefore probably not so much the claim itself as the insolent
manner in which it was urged by armed foreigners, which exasperated the
citizens of Dover. A quarrel arose between one of the Frenchmen and
the householder upon whom he was quartered. The householder received
a wound which he repaid by a mortal blow. Thereupon the count and his
men mounted their horses, and attacked the householder, whom they
slew on his own hearthstone. A general _mêlée_ followed, the result
of which was that twenty of the citizens were slain, and nineteen of
the strangers, many of whom were also wounded. Count Eustace, with the
survivors of his train, made his way back to the king, and in angry
tones, concealing his own followers’ misconduct, called for vengeance
on the men of Dover. Hereupon Earl Godwine was summoned to the royal
presence and ordered to execute the king’s wrath against the citizens.
This command he absolutely refused to obey. The men of Dover belonged
to the county which he had longest ruled and with which he was most
closely connected,[243] and he would have nothing to do with that which
he considered to be their unjust chastisement. It was then decided
(apparently under the Norman archbishop’s influence) that a Witenagemot
should be held at Gloucester, at which the old charge of complicity in
the death of the Etheling Alfred was to be brought against Godwine. The
great earl, moreover, had at this time on foot an expedition against
the “Wealas” (that is Frenchmen), who were distressing the inhabitants
of Herefordshire, from the castle which they had there erected. That
matter, and the counter-accusations brought by the “Wealas” against
Godwine, were apparently to be also discussed at the Gloucester meeting
of the _witan_.
Things seemed to be gathering up towards a civil war, in which Godwine
and his sons would have had against them, not only the king and his
French favourites, men like Robert of Jumièges and Ralph the Timid,
but also Siward of Northumberland and Leofric of Mercia, who were
hastening with their armies to the help of the king. This last fact
seems to show that the tyrannical conduct of Edward’s Norman kinsmen
was not the sole question at issue in this summer of 1051. Jealousy and
dread of the overmastering power of the house of Godwine also had their
share in the great debate, nor perhaps were the old rivalries between
the one southern and the two northern kingdoms altogether absent. It
seemed as though a collision between the _fyrds_ of Northumbria and
Mercia, and those of Wessex and East Anglia was inevitable; but even
at the eleventh hour wiser counsels prevailed. To some of the leaders
on the king’s side the thought occurred, that the impending battle
would be a grievous mistake, “inasmuch as almost all that England had
of noblest was in the two armies, and a battle between them would
but bring one common ruin and leave the land open to invasion by the
enemies of both”. On Godwine’s side also there was great unwillingness
“to be compelled to stand against their royal lord”. Thus a peace--as
it proved only a precarious peace--was patched up, and all subjects in
dispute were referred to a great national meeting of the _witan_, which
was to be held in London at Michaelmas.
By consenting to this delay, and by changing the venue from Gloucester
to London, the Godwine party seem to have thrown away their chances.
The earl and his sons came to his dwelling at Southwark with a great
multitude of West Saxons, “but his army ever waned, and all the more
the longer he stayed”. The magic of the king’s name was still too
mighty to be resisted. The thegns who were in subjection to Harold
were told to transfer their allegiance to the king himself; Sweyn the
seducer was once more outlawed; the negotiations soon became a mere
desperate appeal from the Godwine party for hostages and safe conduct,
and at last they received the royal ultimatum: “Five days in which to
clear out of the country, or judgment against you,” probably on the old
charge of complicity in the murder of Alfred, combined with new charges
of treachery against the king. Hereupon the whole family took their
departure. Godwine with his wife and three of his sons, Sweyn, Tostig
and Gyrth, went to the patrimonial Bosham, “shoved out their ships,
betook them beyond sea, and sought the protection of Baldwin, with
whom they abode the whole winter”. There was especial fitness in those
exiles seeking shelter in “Baldwin’s land,” for immediately before
the downfall of the Godwine family Tostig had become the bridegroom
of Judith, sister of Baldwin V., the reigning Count of Flanders. The
other two sons, Harold and Leofwine, rode hard to Bristol, vainly
pursued by Ealdred, Bishop of Worcester, whom the king had ordered to
capture them. Much buffeted by storms, they beat out from Avonmouth,
and at last arrived on the coast of Ireland, where they spent the
winter as guests of Diarmid, King of Leinster. To complete the ruin of
the family, Godwine’s daughter Edith, “who had been hallowed to Edward
as queen, was forsaken by him; all her property in land, in gold, in
silver and in all things was taken from her,” and she was committed
to the care of her husband’s half-sister, the Abbess of Wherwell in
Hampshire. Well may the chronicler who records these events say: “It
must have seemed a wonderful thing to any man that was in England, if
any man had said beforehand that so it should happen, inasmuch as he
was so high uplifted that he ruled the king and all England, and his
sons were earls and the king’s darlings, and his daughter [now sent to
a nunnery] was wedded and married to the king”.
Soon after the expulsion of Godwine and his sons a memorable event
occurred: the landing in England of William the Norman, who came on a
visit to the king in 1051. In 1035, the year of the death of Canute,
Robert Duke of Normandy, King Edward’s first cousin, had died at Nicæa
in Bithynia on his way home from the Holy Land. Before starting on this
pilgrimage he had presented to the nobles of Normandy his illegitimate
son, William, child of Herleva, the daughter of a tanner of Falaise,
and called upon them to recognise him as his successor. The child was
only about seven years old, but as his father said, “He is little but
he will grow, and if God please he will mend”. Moreover, his lord
paramount, the King of France, had promised to maintain him in his
duchy. The nobles were loath to accept as their future ruler one whose
illegitimacy for various reasons was considered more disgraceful than
that which tarnished the shield of many of his ancestors, but being in
some degree constrained, perhaps surprised, by the sudden action of
their masterful duke, they consented and acknowledged themselves the
“men” of the little bastard. When the tidings of Duke Robert’s death
in the distant Orient arrived, no rival candidate was set up, and the
plighted faith of the Norman nobles was not formally violated, but
there seems to have been a general relapse into anarchy. Private wars
between noble and noble were waged continually. Three guardians of the
boy-duke were slain, one after another, and two attempts were made
to kidnap, perhaps to murder him. But out of this welter of warring
ambitions and treasons sometimes fomented by the liege-lord in Paris
who had sworn to protect him, the young duke gradually grew up a bold,
athletic, soldierly man; chaste and clean-living, though himself the
child of illicit love; devout, though when occasion arose he could defy
the thunders of the Church; beyond everything self-centred and capable
of holding on through long years to an ambitious project once formed
with infinite patience, and of carrying it into bloody effect without
a shadow of remorse. Four years before his visit to England, in 1047,
William, with the help of his liege-lord, Henry of France, had defeated
the rebellious nobles of his duchy in the great battle of Val-es-dunes,
a few miles east of Caen. In 1048 he took the two strong castles of
Domfront and Alençon on the frontier between Normandy and Maine, thus
preparing the way for the conquest of the latter country which followed
six years later (1054), and which made him without question the most
powerful of all the vassals of the French king.
Even as it was, however, he was already a mighty prince when he came,
probably in the autumn of 1051, to visit his elderly cousin, a man in
all respects as utterly unlike himself as it is possible to imagine. A
fateful visit indeed was that, though its details are passed over in
provoking silence by all the chroniclers and biographers both of host
and guest. When we remember that the man who thus came as a visitor to
our land was he from whose loins have sprung all the sovereigns who
have ruled over us for eight centuries, how gladly would we have heard
some circumstances of this peaceful invasion: of his first sight of the
white cliffs of Dover; his voyage up the Thames; his intercourse haply
with some of the merchants of the rising city of London; his talks with
his temporarily widowed cousin in his palace in the west of London,
near the island of Thorney; but for all this we have only imagination
to draw upon. The strangest thing is that though during this visit
some promise was almost certainly made, or some expectation held out
by Edward, that William should be the heir of his kingdom, even this
though constantly alluded to by the Norman writers is never by them
definitely connected with this visit. Of one thing we may be tolerably
sure that the visit indicates the high-water mark of Norman influence
at Edward’s court. Robert of Jumièges, the all-powerful archbishop
of Canterbury; William, the king’s chaplain, bishop of London; Ulf,
another chaplain, and a scandal to his profession, bishop of the vast
diocese of Dorchester--all these were Normans, while Godwine, the
Englishman, and his progeny of earls were all absent from the kingdom.
Are we wrong in conjecturing that but for that absence the visit had
never been paid? However, after a stay probably of a few weeks, William
returned to his own land, and shortly after another member of his
house, that one to whom all his claims to interfere in English politics
were indirectly due, set forth on a longer journey. “On March 14, 1052,
died, the Old Lady, mother of King Edward and Harthacnut, named Imme
[Emma], and her body lies in the Old Minster [Winchester] with King
Canute.”
There can be no doubt that dislike of the arrogance of Edward’s Norman
favourites was one cause, though possibly not the sole cause, of the
remarkable revolution which took place in the year 1052. All through
the winter of 1051–52 Godwine in “Baldwin’s land” and Harold in Ireland
were preparing their forces, in order to compel a reversal of the
decree of exile against them. Edward’s counsellors were also on the
alert, and prepared at Sandwich a fleet of such strength that when
Godwine with his ships issued forth at midsummer from the neighbourhood
of Ostend he found the royal armament too strong for him and declined
battle. Then followed three months of indecisive action, in which,
curiously enough, the chief events recorded are the raiding expeditions
against certain districts of England, made by the men who professed to
come as her deliverers. “Earl Godwine hoisted sail with all his fleet
and went westwards right on to Wight and harried the country there so
long until the people paid them as much as they ordered them to pay.”
This sounds more like Vikings extorting _gafol_ than like the patriot
statesman coming to deliver his country from foreign oppression. “Then
did Harold return from Ireland with nine ships and landed at Porlock,
and much folk was there gathered against him, but he did not shrink
from procuring him food. He landed and slew a good lot of people[244]
and helped himself to cattle and men and property as it came handy,”
and then sailing round the Land’s End, joined his father at the Isle
of Wight, and so they sailed together to Pevensey. Meantime the royal
fleet was weakened by continual desertion. The old Kentish loyalty to
Earl Godwine revived in full force, and “all the _butse-carlas_ (common
sailors) of Hastings and all along by that coast, all the east end of
Sussex and Surrey and much else thereabouts came over to Godwine’s side
and declared that they would live and die with him.”
Thus Godwine’s fleet rounded Kent, reached the northern mouth of
the Stour and sailed up towards London; some of the ships, however,
improving the occasion by sailing inside the Isle of Sheppey and
burning the town of King’s Milton. On September 14 Godwine was at his
old home at Southwark, his troops drawn up in array on the Surrey
bank of the Thames, his ships waiting for a favourable tide to pass
through the bridge and encompass the king’s dwindling fleet. Battle,
however, between Englishmen and Englishmen, now as in the previous
year, was felt to be a terrible thing. The men of London were decidedly
favourable to the cause of the banished earls, and when their humble
petition to the king for the renewal of his favour to them met with
stern refusal, it was all that Godwine could do to prevent the popular
discontent from breaking out into some sudden act of mutiny. This
state of tension did not last long. The foreign favourites saw that
their cause was lost; they scattered, some to the west, some to the
north; Robert of Canterbury and Ulf of Dorchester rode out of the
eastern gate of the city, and after slaying and otherwise maltreating
many young men (who probably sought to stay their flight) reached the
Naze in Essex and there got on board a crazy ship, which crazy as it
was, seems to have borne them in safety over to Normandy. “Thus,”
says the chronicler, “did he, according to the will of God, leave his
pallium here in this land, and that archiepiscopal dignity which _not_
according to God’s will he had here obtained.”
The Frenchmen gone, peace was easily negotiated between the cipher-king
and his powerful ministers. To Earl Godwine, his wife, his sons and
his daughter, full restitution was made of all the offices and all the
property of which they had been deprived. “The Lady” was fetched back
from her convent and again installed in the palace. “Friendship was
made fast between Godwine’s family and the king; and to all men good
laws were promised, and outlawed were all the Frenchmen who before
perverted law and justice,[245] and counselled ill-will against this
land, save those (few) persons whom the king liked to keep about him,
because they were loyal to him and to his people.” At a great meeting
of the _witan_, held outside of London, Earl Godwine appeared and made
his defence, clearing himself, we are told, before his lord King Edward
and before all the people of the land, of all the things that were laid
to his charge and to that of his sons.
The chief agent in these negotiations was Stigand, Bishop of
Winchester, a very noticeable figure in the ecclesiastical history of
the times, a busy, diplomatising person who had been a keen partisan
of the Lady Emma’s; had shared her downfall and had afterwards been
appointed to the bishopric of Winchester, which he now exchanged
for the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury, practically, though not
canonically, vacant by the flight of Robert of Jumièges. His position,
which was already in the eyes of strict churchmen a doubtful one so
long as his predecessor lived, was not improved by his tardy journey
to Rome in the year 1058 in quest of his pallium, for he had the
misfortune to receive it from the hands of a Pope, Benedict X.,
who, though apparently chosen in a regular manner, did not second
Hildebrand’s reforms, and being deposed in favour of Nicholas II.,
bishop of Florence, figures in ecclesiastical history as an anti-pope.
A pallium conferred by such hands was held to bring with it no
blessing; on the contrary, by committing the English metropolitan to
the losing party, which opposed the famous Gregory VII., it had a very
important influence on subsequent events, and gave to the buccaneering
expedition of William the Bastard something of the character of a
religious crusade.
To the great earl himself the revolution of 1052 brought no long
enjoyment of power. Godwine fell sick soon after his landing in
England, and though he recovered for a time, his health was evidently
much shaken. In the following year, when King Edward was keeping
Easter at Winchester with Godwine, Harold and Tostig for his guests,
as they sat at meat, the earl “suddenly sank down by the king’s
footstool, bereft of speech and strength. They carried him into the
king’s bower, hoping that the attack would pass off, but it was not
so. He continued so, speechless and powerless, from Easter Monday
till the following Thursday [April 15, 1053], when he died. He lieth
there within the Old Minster; and his son Harold took to his earldom
(Wessex), resigning that which he had hitherto held (East Anglia),
which was given to Elfgar,” son of Leofric and Godiva. In the face of
this perfectly straightforward and circumstantial account given by
the Saxon chronicler, of the death of an elderly statesman, after a
hard and laborious life, from a stroke of apoplexy or paralysis, it
is unnecessary to reproduce the idle legends of Norman historians two
generations later, who represented that death as the fulfilment of a
blasphemous imprecation of the divine vengeance on himself if he had
had part or lot in the murder of the Etheling Alfred.
Earl Harold succeeded not only to the earldom but also to the political
predominance of his father, and for the remaining thirteen years of
Edward’s reign we may safely consider him as the real ruler of the
kingdom. Only it must be observed that though Harold was the king’s
efficient man of business, the chosen companion of his sports and
of his leisure was another brother, Tostig, who in the year 1055
received the earldom of Northumbria. This peculiar position of favour
in the palace and absenteeism from his province led to complications
which will be related hereafter. For the present our notice of the
internal affairs of the kingdom may close with the fact that in the
year 1057 the Etheling Edward, son of Edmund Ironside, came to England
accompanied by his wife, Agatha, a kinswoman of the Emperor Henry
III., and by what a Saxon ballad-maker quaintly calls “a goodly team
of bairns”. Probably it was the intention of the older Edward that his
namesake should succeed him on the throne, though he may have at times
vacillated between the more remote but known kinsman in Normandy and
the nearer stranger from Hungary. But whatever the king’s intentions
may have been, they were foiled by sickness or some less innocent
agency. “We know not,” says the chronicler, “for what cause that was
done that he might not see his kinsman, King Edward. Woe was that
wretched mishap, and harmful to all this people that he ended his life
so soon after he came to England, for the unhappiness of this poor
folk.” There is a mystery in all this which it is vain now to try to
penetrate. Only one cannot help again remarking the lack of virility in
these latest scions of the house of Cerdic. Assuredly neither William
the Bastard nor Harold Godwineson, would have been content to linger
out forty years of life in exile, nor when returned to their native
land would have been so easily snuffed out of existence as was this
prince, the descendant of fifteen generations of West Saxon kings.
* * * * *
We pass from the internal affairs of England to the notices, scanty,
but possessing for us a peculiar interest, concerning wars with
Scotland in the reign of Edward. We have seen that in 1018 the Scottish
king, Malcolm II., by his victory at Carham wrested from Northumbria
all its territory north of the Tweed. This king died in 1034, the
year before the death of Canute. His own death seems to have been a
violent one, but he had certainly murdered the man who, according to
the complicated law of succession then prevailing, had the best right
to succeed him on the throne, and had thus secured the succession for
his grandson, a lad named Duncan. The short reign of this young man--it
lasted only six years--was marked by some exciting events. In the year
1035 he led “an immense army” across the Border and laid siege to the
new city of Durham. The siege lasted a long time, but in a successful
sally of the besiegers the greater part of the Scottish cavalry was
destroyed, and in the disordered flight of the army the infantry were
also cut to pieces, and their heads being collected and brought within
the walls were stuck upon stakes to adorn the market place of the
city of St. Cuthbert. Then followed war, on the whole unsuccessful
war, between Duncan and his cousin Thorfinn, the Scandinavian earl
of Orkney and Caithness. Duncan was driven southward, and in August,
1040, he was murdered by the general who had hitherto been fighting
his battles, Macbeth, Mormaer or Earl of Moray. There was nothing in
this event to take it out of the ordinary category of royal murders in
Scotland at this time. It took place not under Macbeth’s own roof but
on neutral ground, at a place called Bothgowanan or the Smith’s bothie;
the victim was not the venerable greybeard whom Tragedy brings before
us, but a young man still “of immature age,” whose grandfather had not
many years before killed the brother of Macbeth’s wife and ousted her
family from the royal succession. In fact, we may almost say, looking
to the vicissitudes of the two families who at this time alternately
ruled Scotland, that it was Duncan’s turn to be murdered. Macbeth,
who reigned from 1040 to 1058, seems to have been on the whole a good
king, though reigning by a more than doubtful title. It is possible
that he imitated his contemporary Canute by going on pilgrimage, as a
chronicler tells us that in the year 1050 Macbeth, king of Scotland,
scattered silver broadcast among the poor of Rome.
Such was the man against whom, in 1054, Siward the Strong, earl of
Northumbria, moved with a large army accompanied by a fleet. Siward
being himself brother-in-law of the murdered Duncan was uncle of the
young Malcolm Canmore, who was now seeking to recover his father’s
throne. We have also a hint from a later historian that there were
Normans in the Scottish army. It is suggested, on rather slender
evidence, that these were some of Edward’s favourites, displaced by
the revolution of 1052, who had taken refuge at the court of Macbeth;
and it is possible that their presence there may have had something
to do with Siward’s expedition. However this may be, it is clear
that a battle was fought on July 27, in which the Northumbrian earl
was victorious, but at a heavy cost. His own son, Osbeorn, was slain
(“with all his wounds in front,” as his father rejoiced to hear), and
his sister’s son, Siward, as well as many of his own and the king’s
_house-carls_. Some of these _house-carls_, we are expressly told,
were Danes as well as Englishmen. There was a great and unprecedented
capture of booty, but Macbeth himself escaped. He reigned, though
probably with broken power, for four years longer, till 1058, in which
year he was finally defeated and slain by Malcolm III. This prince, who
is generally known by his epithet of Canmore (the Large-headed), is he
who by his marriage with Margaret, daughter of the Etheling Edward,
brought the blood of the old Saxon kings into the veins of the royal
family of Scotland and indirectly into that of England also. Matilda,
wife of Henry Beauclerk, daughter of Malcolm Canmore and Margaret, is
the link which connects the Saxon with the Norman dynasty, Alfred with
Victoria.
The year after his invasion of Scotland (1055) old Siward the Strong
died of dysentery. Of him is told the well-known story that when he
found his death drawing nigh, he said: “What a shame it is that I, who
could not find my death in so many battles, should now be reserved
for an inglorious death like that of a cow. At least arm me with
coat of mail, sword and helmet: place my shield on my left arm, my
gilded battle-axe in my right hand, that I, who was strongest among
soldiers, may die a soldier’s death.” His command was obeyed, and thus
honourably clad in armour he breathed out his soul. The great earldom
of Northumbria, made vacant by the death of Siward, was bestowed on
the king’s favourite brother-in-law, Tostig, who, however, held it not
for long. Siward’s son, Waltheof, seems to have been little more than
a child at his father’s death, but, though now passed over in the
distribution of earldoms, he received, ten years after, the earldom
of two southern counties, Northampton and Huntingdon, which had once
formed an outlying portion of his father’s dominions, and he had a
great share in the events which followed the Norman Conquest.
* * * * *
The affairs of Wales, during the reign of Edward the Confessor, centred
chiefly round the person of Griffith ap Llewelyn, “the head and shield
and defender of the Britons,” as he is called by a Welsh chronicler; a
terrible thorn in the side of England, as he must have appeared to his
Saxon contemporaries. This man, whose father, Llewelyn, died in 1021,
soon after achieving the supremacy in Wales, had been for sixteen years
throneless and probably an exile. In 1039 Griffith slew the King of
Gwynedd (North Wales), and being himself of a North Welsh house became
practically supreme over all the Britons. And not over the Britons only
did he win victories. “During his whole reign,” says the _Chronicle of
the Princes_, “he pursued the Saxons and the pagan nations and killed
and destroyed them and overcame them in a multitude of battles.” The
life of a Welsh king at this time was necessarily one of continual
turmoil. There was the ever-present rivalry between Gwynedd and Dyved
(North and South Wales), barely held in check from time to time by the
strong hand of such an one as Griffith. There were “the pagans,” the
Danes of Dublin and Wexford, always ready to cross the narrow seas and
harry the Welsh coast. Apparently the Christian Irish must sometimes
have shared in these raids, for “the Scots” (which doubtless still
means the Irish) are frequently alluded to as enemies of Griffith. In
addition to this there was the long feud with Mercia, which had lasted
for so many centuries, but which was now occasionally interrupted when
it served the purpose of both Wales and Mercia to combine against
Wessex.
In 1039, in the first year of Griffith’s reign, he won a great victory
over the Mercians at “the Ford of the Cross” by the river Severn,
slaying Leofric’s brother, Edwin, “and many good men besides,” as the
Saxon chronicler admits. Then there was a check to Griffith’s career
of victory. In 1042 he was taken prisoner by the pagans of Dublin,
but two years later we find him at the head of his forces, defeating
the Danish invaders with great slaughter. A namesake and rival,
Griffith, son of Rhyddarch, whose father had reigned in South Wales,
stirred up rebellion against him in 1046, but he was defeated by a
joint expedition of Griffith, son of Llewelyn, and Earl Sweyn, son of
Godwine. This co-operation of Wales and Mercia is memorable for more
reasons than one, since it was on his return from this expedition that
Sweyn Godwineson sinned that great sin with the Abbess of Leominster
which ruined his career and, for a time at least, blighted the fortunes
of his father.
There were some smaller skirmishes between Welshmen and Englishmen,
but, omitting these, we pass on to the year 1055, when a war broke
out which was partly caused by the discords and rivalries of English
nobles. Godwine was now dead, and Harold was all-powerful. Leofric of
Mercia, Godiva’s husband, still lived, but must have been an old man,
since we find his grandsons, only ten years later, men in the vigour
of manhood. For some reason or other--it is difficult not to see the
hand of the great rival family in the affair--a charge of treason
was brought against Leofric’s son, Elfgar, who had, we may remember,
received the earldom of East Anglia when it was resigned by Harold on
succeeding to Wessex. A general Witenagemot was now summoned to London,
before which “Earl Elfgar was charged with being a traitor to the king
and to all the people of the land, and he confessed this before all
who were gathered there, though the words shot forth from him against
his will”. So says the Peterborough chronicler, a strong partisan of
the Godwine family. The Abingdon chronicler, who disliked them, says
that “The Witenagemot in London outlawed Earl Elfgar without any guilt
on his part”. The Worcester chronicler vacillates and says, “almost
without guilt of his”. It is hopeless now, after the lapse of eight
centuries and a half, to retry a cause which excited such differences
of opinion among contemporaries. What is undoubted is that Elfgar’s
earldom was given to Tostig Godwineson, who had just received the great
earldom of Northumberland, and that the outlawed Elfgar betook himself
to Ireland, raised there a fleet of eighteen ships and sailed across to
Wales, where he threw himself on the hospitality and help of Griffith
ap Llewelyn. With a great force of Irishmen and Welshmen Griffith
marched against Ralph, the timid Earl of Hereford. This man, the king’s
nephew, had collected a large number of the militia, but, in order
probably that he might follow the French fashion of fighting, had
mounted them on horses, the consequence of which was that “ere a single
spear had been thrown, the English people fled, forasmuch as they had
horses, and a good lot of them were slain, about four or five hundred,
and not one on the other side”. Thus was Hereford laid at the mercy
of the invaders, among whom there were probably some of the “pagans”.
They carried the city by storm, burned both it and the minster, thereby
breaking the heart of the good Bishop Athelstan, its builder; slew the
priests in the minster and many others besides, and carried off all the
treasures.
A proclamation went throughout almost the whole of England for the
gathering of a _fyrd_ at Gloucester, and Harold took the command.
But then “people began to speak about peace”: a conference was held
at Billingsley in Shropshire; and, as the Worcester chronicler
sarcastically remarks, “when the enemy had done all the harm that
was possible, then people took counsel that Earl Elfgar should be
inlawed again and receive once more his earldom”. But though peace and
friendship were supposed to have been “fastened” at Billingsley, war
with Wales broke out again next year (1056), apparently in part owing
to the martial ardour of Harold’s mass-priest, Leofgar, who succeeded
the good old Athelstan as Bishop of Hereford. This extraordinary
person, to the amazement of the chronicler, had worn his moustaches
all through his priesthood until he was bishop;[246] and now “he
abandoned his chrism and his rood, his ghostly weapons, and took to his
spear and his sword after he had become bishop and so joined the army
against the Welsh king, and was there slain and his priests with him;
Elfnoth the sheriff also and many other good men; and the others fled
away” (June 13, 1056). A dreary campaign followed, with much waste of
horses and men, but at last old Leofric, with Harold and the universal
pacificator, Bishop Ealdred, succeeded in making a peace, one of the
conditions of which was Griffith’s oath that he would be King Edward’s
loving and loyal under-king. Two years after, however, Elfgar, now
Earl of Mercia and the head of his family (old Leofric having died
the year before), was again expelled and again restored by the help
of his Welsh friend, co-operating apparently with a certain Magnus,
who brought ships from Norway, but about whom our information is very
unsatisfactory.
It was probably about this time that the union between Wales and
Mercia was made yet closer by the marriage of Griffith to Aldgyth, the
beautiful daughter of Elfgar. His career, however, was drawing to a
close. Successful as his expeditions had generally been, his people
seem to have grown tired of the constant fever of strife with their
neighbours. In 1063 war again broke out, and this time Harold was
determined to deal a crushing blow. A sudden march to Griffith’s castle
at Rhuddlan, on the north coast of Wales, failed to accomplish the
arrest of the king, but was marked by the burning of the town and all
the ships in the harbour with their tackle. In May, Harold sailed from
Bristol all round Wales, receiving hostages and promises of obedience
from the people; and Tostig meanwhile operated with a land force in the
interior of the country. On August 5 Griffith was slain by some of his
own followers, “because of the war which he waged against Earl Harold,”
and his head, with the prow of his ship and the ornament thereon, was
brought as a trophy to the conqueror. Thus, as a Welsh chronicler says,
“The man who had been hitherto invincible was now left in the glens of
desolation, after taking immense spoils and after innumerable victories
and taking countless treasures of gold and silver and jewels and purple
vestures”.
The kingdom was handed over to two brothers of Griffith on the usual
conditions of oaths of fealty, hostages and tribute: but how little
such promises availed in the disordered condition of the country,
was seen two years after when a hunting lodge, which Harold, hoping
to have the king there as his guest, began to build at Portskewet in
Monmouthshire, was destroyed (August 24, 1065) by Caradoc, son of
another Griffith, who was ruling in South Wales. Nearly all the men
who were engaged on the work were slain, and the ample stores there
collected were carried away. “We do not know who first counselled this
piece of folly” (the building of a hunting-lodge in an enemy’s country)
is the dry remark of the Worcester Chronicle.
* * * * *
From these border wars we must now return to watch the course of
events at Edward’s court during the closing years of his reign. The
year 1064, which is an absolute blank in the Saxon Chronicles, is
generally chosen for an event, undated, perplexing and mysterious,
namely, Harold’s visit to the court of William the Norman, and his
oath of fealty to that prince. About this oath, his subsequent breach
of which figured so largely in the indictment preferred against him on
the battlefield of Hastings, Norman writers have much to say, Saxon
writers nothing, nor does the witness even of the Normans always agree
together. It is impossible to doubt the truth of the main outlines
of the story, but unfortunately it is equally impossible to fill in
the details. Did Harold go to Normandy with express purpose to assure
William of his nomination by Edward as the successor to his throne?
Did he go thither in order to obtain the liberation of two of his
kinsmen, hostages once given to the English king and transferred to
the keeping of the Norman duke? Or was his visit to Rouen involuntary
and accidental, the result of shipwreck and felonious detention by a
lawless count? All of these versions of the story have been given, and
though the last is the one which is generally received and on the whole
the most probable, to speak with any certainty on the question seems
impossible. All that will be attempted here will be to describe some
of the chief scenes of the fatal journey as they are depicted in that
all-but contemporary record, the Tapestry of Bayeux.
We see Harold taking leave of the aged king who, white-bearded, and
adorned with crown and sceptre, is seated on his throne. With hawk on
hand, preceded by his dogs and followed by his squire, Harold rides to
the family property at Bosham and enters the church at that place to
worship. He embarks, and crosses the channel with a favouring breeze
filling his sails. There is no suggestion in the pictures of storm or
shipwreck, though these seem to be almost required by the course of
events. Whatever the cause may have been, Harold, when he lands in
the territory of Guy, Count of Ponthieu, is arrested by the count’s
orders, and is conducted, still with the hawk on his hand, but with
dejected countenance and with spurless heels, to Beaurain, where he
is imprisoned. Parleys (no doubt as to the amount of ransom demanded)
follow with his captor: but at this point William of Normandy’s
messengers arrive, who vigorously plead the cause of Harold and press
for his liberation. The result of the negotiations and of the payment
by the Norman duke of a heavy ransom (as to this the Tapestry is
silent) is that Guy conducts his prisoner to William, who receives
him in his palace as an honoured guest. William and Harold undertake
together a campaign in Brittany under the shadow of Mont St. Michel.
The soldiers are seen crossing the river Couesnon (the boundary between
Normandy and Brittany), and holding high their shields above their
heads as they wade the water breast-high. Some of the men are in danger
of being swallowed up by the quicksands, from which they are drawn
by the strong arm of the tall-statured Harold. At the close of this
campaign Harold is knighted by Duke William, who with one hand places
the helmet on his head, and with the other fastens the straps of his
coat of mail.
Then follows at Bayeux the fateful scene of the oath-taking. The duke,
attended by his courtiers (a full assembled parliament according to the
poet Wace), sits on his throne, and Harold stands before him between
two great coffers, which (as we know from other sources) were filled
with the bones of some of the greatest saints in Normandy. He puts a
hand on each coffer-lid and swears; but what is the purport of the
oath? The Tapestry itself simply says that he makes his oath to Duke
William. Of the Norman writers some represent him as swearing that he
will marry William’s daughter, Adela (a little damsel not half his
age); others, as becoming in the fullest sense of the word William’s
vassal; others as undertaking to hand over to him the Castle of Dover;
but almost all give us the impression that in some way or other Harold
was cognisant of William’s determination to assert his claim as heir
to his cousin of England, and promised to aid him therein when the
occasion should arise. What burden an oath thus exacted under duress
should have laid upon the conscience of the swearer, and how the
contract was affected by the undoubted fact that the consent of the
_witan_ was necessary for any disposal of the crown either by Edward or
by Harold, are questions of casuistry on which much has been said, but
which need not be discussed here. We note, however, that the Tapestry
gives no support to the often-repeated story that Harold was beguiled
into taking the oath on relics of greater and more awful sanctity than
he was aware of. Whether the whole episode were mere misadventure or
the failure of some cunningly devised scheme on Harold’s part, one
cannot but marvel at the lightness of heart with which he threw himself
into the power of the most dangerous of all his rivals, at a time when
he needed all his vigilance and all his ability in order to secure the
splendid prize for which he had so long been labouring.[247]
The year following that usually assigned to Harold’s visit to Normandy
(1065) witnessed another revolution in the fortunes of one member of
the Godwine family. Tostig, Earl of Northumbria, was, as has been
said, an especial favourite at court, and seems to have been the best
beloved brother of the royal “Lady,” Edith. He was, not, however, by
any means equally popular with the men of his own Northumbrian earldom,
who seem to have complained both of his frequent absences and of the
stern, almost bloodthirsty, character of his government when he did
appear among them. There was a general rising of all the thegns in
Yorkshire and Northumberland; they decreed in some tumultuous assembly
the outlawry of their earl, then hunting in Wiltshire with the king;
they massacred all the men of his household, whether English or Danes,
upon whom they could lay their hands, and seized his weapons stored up
in the arsenal at York, his gold, his silver and all his money about
which they could obtain information. These massacres and robberies seem
to have taken place both at York and Lincoln; and the insurgent thegns
then proceeded to elect a new earl to reign over them. This was the
young Morkere, grandson of Leofric. Elfgar, the twice-banished Earl
of Mercia, was now dead; his eldest son, Edwin, had succeeded him in
Mercia, and to Edwin’s younger brother, Morkere, was given the splendid
but difficult office which had been wrested from Tostig. In support of
their rebellious acts--for they were nothing less--the northern thegns
marched to Northampton, where Morkere was joined by his brother, Edwin,
at the head of the Mercian _fyrd_ and--ominous conjunction---of many
Welsh auxiliaries. Once more civil war seemed inevitable, but the good
offices of Harold were sought for as mediator between the insurgents
and the king. He failed, however, to reconcile the Northerners and his
brother; and after two _gemots_ held at Northampton and at Oxford
the negotiations ended in an entire surrender to all the demands of
the rebels (October 28, 1065). The outlawed Tostig went over sea with
his wife and followers to his brother-in-law, Count Baldwin; the
grant of his earldom was confirmed to Morkere, and the insurgent army
at last returned northward, not, however, till they had so wasted
Northamptonshire with fire and sword and carried off such quantities
of cattle that it was years before that county recovered from their
ravages.
What was the precise part taken by Harold in this revolution, which
implied in some degree the depression of the house of Godwine and the
elevation of the rival house of Leofric, it is very difficult now
to discover. Everything that he did may be fully accounted for and
justified by a patriotic abhorrence of civil war, a recognition of the
fact that his brother’s government had been arbitrary and unpopular,
and a noble willingness to place the welfare of England before the
private advantage of his own family. On the other hand, there are
curious traditions as to an enmity subsisting from boyhood between the
two brothers, Harold and Tostig, and some even of their contemporaries
averred that the whole revolution was planned by Harold for the
overthrow of his brother. This suggestion seems most improbable, but it
is evident that, whether as a cause or consequence of the disgrace of
Tostig, Harold does from this time forward unite himself more closely
to the house of Leofric, whose granddaughter, Aldgyth, widow of the
Welsh king, Griffith, and sister of Edwin and Morkere, he seems to have
married about this time. This marriage, which rendered it impossible
for him to fulfil one at least of the articles of his covenant with
William of Normandy, may have been the first intimation to his great
rival that Harold regarded the promise made to him as of none effect.
Whatever may have been Harold’s feelings as to his brother’s disgrace,
there can be no doubt that it cut King Edward to the heart, and
probably, as one of his biographers hints, hastened his end. He was now
apparently a little over sixty years of age, a man of moderate stature,
with milk-white hair and beard, with broad and rosy face, white and
slender hands and a certain royalty of aspect. Already perhaps that
belief in the healing efficacy of his touch had begun to spread among
the multitude, which engendered the mass of miracles wherewith his
memory was afterwards loaded. These miracles being strangely supposed
to be in some way specially connected with the royal office, led to the
practice of “touching for the King’s evil,” which was continued till
the reign of the last Stuart.
Through all these later years of his reign he had been intently
watching the progress of his great church in the Island of Thorney by
the Thames. Its foundations of large square blocks of greystone, its
apsidal end, its central tower and two towers at the west end with
their beautiful bells, and the long rows of its columns with their
richly adorned bases and capitals, are enthusiastically described by
his biographer. He came to Westminster on December 21, 1065, “and
caused the minster to be hallowed which he had himself built to the
glory of God and St. Peter and all God’s saints, and the hallowing of
this church was on Childmass day” (December 28), but he was not himself
present at the hallowing, and his death took place on Twelfth night
(January 5, 1066).
The death-bed sayings of the old king, as reported by his biographer,
are perhaps best known in Tennyson’s poetical version of them, but
have, even unparaphrased, a poetical beauty of their own. After
describing the vengeance of God which was coming upon England for her
sins, and his pitiful prayer to the Most High that this punishment
might not endure for ever, he repeats the words which he has heard
from the saints whom he has seen in vision: “The green tree which
springs from the trunk, when it has been severed thence and removed
to a distance of three acres, shall return to its original trunk and
shall join itself to its root whence first it sprang. Then shall the
head again be green and bear fruit after its flower; and then may you
certainly hope for better times.” Most of the bystanders listened with
awe and wonder to the dying king’s prophecy, but Archbishop Stigand,
with his hard worldly wisdom, said: “The old man is in his dotage”.
But Edward not only uttered this perplexing prophecy; he also, there
can be little doubt, uttered some words which amounted to a bequest of
his crown, as far as he had power to bequeath it, not to William but to
Harold. There seems no reason why we should reject the story told in
the quaint verses of the Chronicle--
Nathless, that wisest man, Dying made fast the realm
To a high-risen man, Even to Harold’s self,
Who was a noble earl: He did at every tide
Follow with loyal love All of his lord’s behests,
Both in his words and deeds: Naught did he e’er neglect
Whate’er of right belonged Unto the people’s king.
“And now was Harold hallowed as king, but little stillness did he there
enjoy, the while that he wielded the kingdom.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
STAMFORD BRIDGE AND HASTINGS.
Upon the death of Edward the Confessor the election and coronation of
HAROLD, son of Godwine, followed with the briefest possible interval.
No serious notice seems to have been taken, at the time, of any claim
to the crown which might be made on behalf of Edgar the Etheling,
grandson of Edmund Ironside, the undoubted heir, on what we call
legitimist principles, of the house of Cerdic. Though the year of
Edgar’s birth is doubtful, he was certainly little more than a boy
at his great-uncle’s death, and it is probable that the ascertained
weakness of his character made the Wise Men of the kingdom unwilling to
entrust even the nominal government of England at such a critical time
to his nerveless hands.
The election of Harold was undoubtedly contrary to all the traditions
of West Saxon royalty, but there are some considerations which may
have made it seem a less revolutionary proceeding, and the new king
somewhat less of an upstart, than they have appeared to later ages. Let
the cloud which rests over Godwine’s birth and parentage be admitted,
but it must be remembered that Harold was on his mother’s side a near
kinsman of Canute, that in his veins flowed the blood of Gorm the Old
and Harold Bluetooth, kings of Denmark in the preceding century, and
that the then reigning King of Denmark was his own first cousin. As
has been already said, Godwine and his tribe must have always appeared
half-Danish to the Saxon people, and though the claims of the house
of Cerdic were disregarded by his election they had been equally
disregarded by the elections of Canute, Harold and Harthacnut of whom
Harold Godwineson may have seemed in some sort the natural successor.
But that this view of the case would not be accepted in Normandy,
all men knew full well, and none better than the new king himself.
The Bayeux Tapestry, almost immediately after its picture of
Harold enthroned, represents “an English ship coming to the land
of Duke William”. Whatever this may mean, whether the flight of
some Norman favourite to his native land, or a desperate attempt at
self-exculpation and reconciliation on the part of Harold, it is
followed with ominous rapidity by the picture, “Here William orders
ships to be built,” in which the axes of the woodmen are felling the
trees of the forest; that again by a picture, “Here they drag the
ships to the sea,” and that by a lively scene, “These men carry arms
to the ships and here they drag a cart with wine and arms”. After
this in a scene which is not pictorially represented and at a date of
which we are not accurately informed, William assembled his barons at
Lillebonne and endeavoured to obtain from them a vote in favour of an
expedition for the assertion of his rights to the throne of England.
The expedition, however, appeared to the Norman nobles too dangerous,
the naval power of England too great to give a hope of success, and
notwithstanding the eloquent pleadings of William’s trusty henchman,
William Fitz Osbern (son of one of the murdered guardians of his
childhood), the assembly broke up in confusion without giving the
desired promise of support. The assent, however, which he had been
unable to obtain from the united baronage of the duchy, he succeeded in
winning by entreaties and promises from the barons singly in private
conference. The contingents of men, the numbers of ships which each
baron undertook to furnish, were all set down in a book, in which were
found the names not only of William’s own subjects but of volunteers
from the neighbouring provinces of Brittany, Maine and Anjou. It was,
so to speak, the memorandum of a great Joint Stock Company of conquest,
which was entered in that “Domesday Book of the Conquerors,”[248]
and though the precise rate of dividend was not there set down, it
is evident that the lordships and estates in the doomed land, which
William promised to his shareholders, bore some definite relation to
the size of their contributions.
It remained only, according to medieval ideas, to get the blessing of
heaven’s representative on the great spoliation. William had himself
in his earlier days all-but brought an interdict on his realm by his
marriage with Matilda of Flanders who, for some reason not very clearly
explained, was held to be canonically unfitted to be his wife. But that
breach with the Holy See had been healed through the mediation of the
great churchman Lanfranc, Prior of the Abbey of Bec; and Lanfranc’s
influence may probably now have been employed to obtain from Pope
Alexander II. a formal approval of the invasion of England. The oath of
Harold, so solemnly taken and so flagrantly broken, and his marriage
to Aldgyth, after having promised to marry William’s daughter Adela,
may possibly have been pressed against him at the court of Rome and may
have helped towards the composition of the bull which was now issued
denouncing Harold as a usurper and proclaiming William as Edward’s
rightful heir. It is probable, however, that in the mind of Hildebrand,
the master-spirit of the papal court, though not yet actually Pope,
the independent attitude which the English Church had sometimes
assumed, and notably the unfortunate fact that Archbishop Stigand had,
during the lifetime of his own predecessor, received his pallium from
the anti-pope Benedict X., were the chief reasons for the Church’s
enthusiastic partisanship on the Norman side. The word Crusade was not
yet heard in the Christian world, nor was it to be heard till near
thirty years later, when Peter the Hermit at the Council of Clermont
was to utter his fiery declamation against the misbelievers; but a
virtual crusade was preached against Harold and his adherents, and all
Europe knew that whenever William’s shipbuilding should be ended and
he should be ready to sail, his troops would march to battle under the
protection of a banner consecrated by the successor of St. Peter.
The Norman preparations, begun in the early months of 1066, lasted on
through the summer and almost up to the autumnal equinox. Meanwhile, a
portent in the heavens and the attacks of another foe were depressing
the spirits of Englishmen. Soon after Easter “the comet star which some
men call the hairy star,” which had for some time been creeping nearer
to the sun, unnoticed in the early morning hours, began to blaze forth
in the north-west in the evening sky. From April 24 till May 1 was the
period of its greatest brilliancy, and it probably disappeared early in
June. In the Tapestry we see six men pointing fearful fingers towards
a star which trails a rudely drawn streamer of light behind it, and we
are informed that “These men are marvelling at the star”. The comet
here depicted is now known to be one which regularly returns to our
firmament at intervals of some seventy-five or seventy-six years. Its
return in 1758 verified the prediction of the astronomer Halley, then
no longer living, and it is expected that once more in the year 1910
Englishmen will be gazing upwards, and with less fearful hearts than of
old, will “wonder at the star”.
The less shadowy terror of the spring of that year came from the king’s
banished brother Tostig, who now by right or wrong was determined to
win back his lost earldom. He had gathered a considerable force of
ships and men, no doubt chiefly in “Baldwin’s land,” among the subjects
of his brother-in-law; and he had probably already made overtures of
alliance to the Duke of Normandy and the King of Norway. He came,
however, unaccompanied by allies “from beyond sea into Wight with as
large a fleet as he could procure and there people paid him both money
and provisions; and he went thence and did all the harm that he could
along the sea-coast until he came to Sandwich”. The naval armament
which Harold had collected in anticipation of the Norman attack availed
to keep the southern coasts clear from further ravages by Tostig, who
took on board a large number of _butse-carlas_, some willingly and some
unwillingly, and steering northwards entered the Humber, and began
to ravage Lincolnshire. The two northern earls, Edwin and Morkere,
however, having summoned the _fyrd_ succeeded in driving him out of the
country. Most of his _butse-carlas_ took the opportunity to desert,
and with a dwindled force of twelve smacks he sailed for the Forth.
The Scottish King, Malcolm Canmore, took him under his protection and
helped him with provisions, and there he abode all summer.
The delay of these summer months, during which invasion was impending
from two quarters at once, was disastrous for England. When Harold
had collected his fleet and army, “such a land force both by land and
sea as no king of the land had ever gathered before,” he went to the
Isle of Wight and there lay at anchor all the summer, keeping the
land force always close beside him on the coast. Had William made his
invasion then, it may fairly be conjectured that he would never have
sat on the throne of England. But when the day of the Nativity of St.
Mary (September 8) was come, the men’s provisions were exhausted, and
it was impossible to keep them longer under the standards. They were
accordingly allowed to go home, and the king rode up to London, while
his fleet sailed round to the Thames, and meeting unfortunately with
bad weather, many of the ships perished ere they reached their haven.
If Harold thought that peril from either of his foes was over for that
year he was terribly mistaken. Even while the fleet and army were
scattering from the Isle of Wight, the whole aspect of affairs in the
north was being changed by the sudden and unexpected arrival off the
northern coast of Harold, King of Norway, with an immense fleet of
more than three hundred ships. This Harold, surnamed Hardrada (the
man of hard counsel), was, even if we may not believe all that the
saga-men told concerning him, one of the most romantic figures of the
time. A half-brother of the sainted Olaf, by whose side he fought when
but fifteen years old at the fatal battle of Stiklestadt, he appears,
after some four or five years of a fugitive existence, as one of the
chiefs of the Varangian soldiery at the court of Constantinople. The
tall statured Scandinavian--his height is said to have been nearly
seven feet--rose rapidly in the Byzantine service, and it was hinted
that the inflammable Empress Zoe would have gladly welcomed him as
one of her numerous husbands or lovers. The life of a soldier was,
however, more to his taste than the dissipations of a luxurious court.
He wrought great deeds in the eastern waters and shared with the
veteran Byzantine general, George Maniaces, the glory of a temporary
re-conquest of Sicily. Even then, however, that element of keen egotism
in his character which won for him his title of Hardrada made itself
visible; and his country’s _skalds_ delighted to tell of the clever but
dishonourable stratagem by which he out-witted his brother general when
they were casting lots for choice of quarters. Strange to say, one of
the most interesting memorials of this Norwegian chief is still to be
seen amid the lagunes of Venice. There, in front of the noble gateway
of the arsenal, sit two great marble lions, brought by the Venetian
general Morosini from the Piraeus, trophies of that fatally memorable
expedition in which he converted the Parthenon into a ruin. On the
flanks of one of these lions is a nearly effaced Runic inscription,
recording the conquest of the port of Piraeus by three chieftains with
Scandinavian names. “These men,” says the inscription, “and Harold
the Tall, laid considerable fines on the citizens because of the
insurrection of the Greek people.” With difficulty Harold escaped from
the prison in which he was confined by the jealous caprice of Zoe, and
after charging over the great chain which was stretched across the
Bosphorus, sailed out into the Euxine and thence up one of the great
rivers into the heart of Russia. The king of Novgorod gave him his
daughter Elizabeth to wife, and in the year 1045 Harold reappeared
laden with treasure in his native Norway. He was sometimes the ally,
sometimes the foe of his nephew Magnus the Good, on whose premature
death in 1047 he succeeded peaceably to his throne. For fifteen years
he waged almost incessant, generally successful, war with the King of
Denmark, but in 1062 he concluded a treaty with that prince, which left
him free to attempt the larger and more daring enterprise to which he
was tempted by the example of Canute and the overtures of Tostig, even
the conquest of England.
Harold made first for the Orkneys, then under the rule of the sons of
the Norseman, Earl Thorfinn. From thence he sailed along the coast of
Scotland, till, either in the Forth or the Tyne, he met his promised
ally, Tostig, who “bowed to him and became his man”. They went both
together, landed in Cleveland, which they harried; set fire to
Scarborough; and at last reaching the mouth of the Humber, sailed with
all their enormous fleet up that river and the Ouse, and landed near
York. The Earls Edwin and Morkere came forth to meet them with as large
a force as they could muster, but were utterly defeated in a great
battle fought at Fulford, two miles from York, on September 20, 1066.
The two earls escaped alive from the field, but were unable to make any
further opposition to the invaders, who entered York in triumph and
received the submission of the city. “Then after the fight came Harold
and Tostig into York with as many people as to them seemed good, and
they took hostages from the city and also received provisions, and so
went thence to their ships, having agreed to full peace, that they [the
people of York] might all go south with them and conquer this land.” It
was to be an expedition of Northumbrians, Scots and men of Orkney, as
well as Norsemen, under the command of Harold Hardrada, against Harold
Godwineson and the men of Mercia and Wessex.
The invaders had in this instance reckoned without their host. They
thought they had only the young and somewhat inefficient sons of Elfgar
to deal with, whereas the namesake of Hardrada, “Harold our king” (as
one of the chroniclers calls him), had heard the unwelcome news of
their presence in his kingdom, and with almost Napoleonic swiftness of
decision, was bearing down upon them. It was only on September 8 that
he had dismissed his fleet and army in Hampshire. His journey to London
may have occupied a day or two, and we know not how soon the tidings
of the invasion reached him; but already on September 24, with all the
_fyrd_ that he could assemble in the south, he was at Tadcaster, and on
the following day he marched through York. Hardrada and Tostig, whom he
had perhaps hoped to surprise cooped up within the city, had marched
eastwards some seven or eight miles to Stamford Bridge, on the river
Derwent, where they expected to receive the hostages whom Yorkshire was
to offer for her fidelity. Against them marched the English Harold, so
suddenly, and with such successful precautions against their obtaining
information of his movements, that at first when Hardrada saw afar off
the steam of the horses and thereunder fair shields and white byrnies
(coats of mail), he asked Tostig what host that might be. Tostig
answered that they might be some of his kinsmen coming in to seek the
king’s friendship, but that he feared it meant “unpeace,” and so it
proved. The host drew nearer and nearer, and like the flashing of the
sunlight reflected from a glacier was the gleam of their weapons.[249]
There was a short parley ere the armies closed. English Harold sent
to offer his brother a third of his kingdom, that there might be
peace between them. “’Tis pity,” said Tostig, “that this offer was
not made last winter. Many a good man had then been living who now is
dead, and better had it been for the whole realm of England; but if
I accept these terms, what shall Harold of Norway have in return for
his labour?” Then came the celebrated answer (and it is worthy of note
that the Norse story-teller has preserved it): “Seven foot’s room, or
so much more as he may need, seeing that he is taller than other men”.
Tostig honourably refused to make any peace by the sacrifice of his
ally; and the battle was joined, a terrible battle which lasted all
day long and wrought great slaughter. The English at last succeeded in
breaking the invaders’ shield-wall, and, surrounding them on all sides,
poured their missiles upon them with deadly effect. Mad at this breach
in his ranks, Hardrada leapt in front of his men and made a clear space
round him, hewing with both his hands, but he was at last wounded in
the throat by an arrow and fell dead upon the field. There was a little
lull in the conflict, and Harold Godwineson offered peace to Tostig
and the surviving Northmen, but they all whooped out with one voice
that they would rather fall each one across the other than take peace
of the Englishmen. Tostig seems to have fallen in this second battle.
Then another pause, and a host of men, well-armed but breathless, came
rushing up from the Norwegian ships in the river. They wrought great
havoc in the English ranks, and had well-nigh turned the fortune of
the day; but it was not to be. The new-comers were so spent with their
march, that at last they threw away their “byrnies” and so fell an
easier prey to the English axes.
So ran the story of the fight of Stamford Bridge as told by the
descendants of the Norsemen. The English chronicler, with much less
detail, describes Harold Godwineson’s unlooked-for attack upon the
Scandinavians. According to him, the bridge itself was the key of
the position and victory was impossible for the English until it was
crossed. In its narrow entrance one Norwegian long held the English
host at bay: an arrow availed not to dislodge him, but at length one
of Harold’s men crept under the bridge and pierced him through the
corselet. Then the king of the Englishmen came over the bridge and
the victory was won. Great slaughter was made both of the Norsemen
and Flemings, but Olaf, the son of Harold Hardrada, was left alive.
With him, with a certain bishop who accompanied him, and with the Earl
of Orkney, the English Harold made terms. “They all went up to our
king,” says the chronicler, “and swore oaths that they would ever keep
peace and friendship with this land; and the king let them depart with
twenty-four ships. These two folk-fights [Fulford and Stamford Bridge]
were both fought within five days” (September 20 to 25, 1066).
Short time had Harold for rest at the great northern capital, York. It
was probably in the earliest days of October that news was brought to
him that on September 28 William of Normandy had landed at Pevensey.
Let us hear the story of what happened from that day to the fatal
October 14 in the few simple words which are all that the only Saxon
chronicler (he of Worcester) can bring himself to devote to the
subject. “Then came William, Earl of Normandy, into Pevensey, on the
eve of St. Michael (Sept. 28), and as soon as his men were fit [a
possible allusion to sea-sickness which they had endured], they wrought
a castle at Hastings-port. Tidings of this were brought to King Harold,
and he gathered then the great host and came towards him at the Hoar
Apple Tree, and William came against him at unawares ere his people
were mustered. But the king nevertheless withstood him very bravely
with the men who would follow him, and there was a mighty slaughter
wrought on both sides. There was slain King Harold and his brothers,
the Earls Leofwine and Gyrth, and many good men, and the Frenchmen held
the place of slaughter.”
“He dies and makes no sign.” This is all that the Saxon chroniclers,
whose guidance we have followed through six centuries, or any native
English historians have to tell us of the death of the Saxon monarchy.
One is half disposed to leave the matter there, and not to repeat
the stories, many of them, as we may suspect, falsely coloured or
absolutely untrue, and often quite inconsistent with one another, with
which the Norman chroniclers and poets have enriched their jubilations
over England’s downfall. But as this can hardly be, an attempt will
be made to present only the broad outlines of the story, omitting
all reference to recitals obviously fictitious, and for brevity’s
sake declining to enter into any of the controversies which have been
fiercely waged round certain parts of the narrative.
By about the middle of August William’s preparations were completed,
and his fleet, collected near Caen at the mouth of the river Dive,
was ready to sail. For a whole month the wind was contrary to them--a
fateful month during which, as we know, but as William possibly did
not know, Harold’s crews were being paid off and his army disbanded.
A slight westward veering of the wind enabled the ships to creep a
hundred miles up the Norman coast to St. Valery, at the mouth of the
Somme. Some vessels seem to have been lost by storm, but at last,
after a fortnight’s further detention at St. Valery, a favourable
breeze blew--men said as the result of the exhibition of the relics
of the saint and prayers for his intercession--and on the night of
September 27 the fleet set forth on the great expedition. Though one
chronicler puts the number of ships as high as 3,000, we are informed
on what seems to be good authority[250] that they were 696. William’s
own ship, named the _Mora_, the fastest of the fleet, had a lantern
at the mast-head to serve as a signal to her consorts, a vane above
the lantern to show the direction of the wind, and on the prow a
bronze figure of a child with bow and arrow aiming for England. When
dawn was breaking the _Mora_ found herself alone, having outsailed
all the others. A sailor sent to the mast-head reported that he saw
nothing but sky and sea. The duke cast anchor, told his companions not
to lose heart, and cheered them and himself with a mighty breakfast,
accompanied with copious draughts of wine. On a second journey to the
mast-head the sailor reported that he saw three or four ships; on a
third, that the whole fleet were in sight and approaching rapidly. By
nine o’clock in the morning, September 28, 1066, the fleet was all
assembled off the coast of Sussex, a few miles north-east of Beachy
Head, and the landing, absolutely unopposed, was effected without
difficulty on the long flat shore of Pevensey, in sight of the ruins of
Roman Anderida.
The most notable incident of the landing, if true, is the well-known
story of William’s fall. It is said that he, being first to spring to
land, stumbled and fell with both his hands on the shore, that all
round him raised a cry: “A bad omen is that,” but he with a loud voice
said: “Lords, by the splendour of God, I have taken seizin of this land
with my two hands. No property was ever let go without a challenge.
Now all that is here is ours.” From Pevensey the army marched eastward
to Hastings (a distance of about fifteen miles), and there entrenched
themselves in a strong camp with high earthen ramparts, fosse and
palisades. They also began to ravage the country for some miles round
Hastings, a fact which is attested both by the entries in Domesday
Book and by a picture in the Bayeux Tapestry, “Here a house is being
burnt”. The tidings of William’s landing, however swiftly carried to
York, can hardly have reached Harold before October 1. They, of course,
necessitated another forced march back to London, so rapidly had the
shuttle to fly backwards and forwards in the loom of war. Harold
reached London probably about October 6, and waited there for a short
week, expecting the arrival of the troops whom he summoned from all
quarters for the defence of the country. This summons seems to have
been well responded to from the home counties and East Anglia; and
some fighters came, we are told, from Lincoln and Yorkshire. But Edwin
and Morkere, the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria, are accused of not
having rallied as they should have done to the support of the king,
who had saved them from utter destruction at the hands of Hardrada.
The accusation which comes to us on the authority of so well-informed
and generally so impartial an historian as Florence of Worcester, is
one which cannot be passed over in silence. At the same time it is but
fair to observe that the troops of the two northern earls had suffered
severely at Fulford, and that there was very little time to collect new
levies and bring them into the field from Northumberland and Cheshire
before October 14. The impression left on one’s mind by the conduct of
these two young earls, is rather one of inefficiency than of deliberate
treachery. At the same time it must be admitted that when Harold broke
with Tostig, perhaps also with his sister Edith, and allied himself
with the house of Leofric, he adopted a policy which brought him little
help abroad or happiness at home.
On October 12--after a hasty visit to Waltham where he had built a
great minster in honour of the Holy Rood--Harold marched southward
and took up a position on the last spur of a low range of Sussex
hills, about seven miles to the north-west of Hastings. He is said to
have been earnestly entreated by his younger brother, Gyrth, Earl of
East Anglia, to adopt a more cautious line of policy, to anticipate
William’s ravages of Sussex and Surrey by ravaging them himself, and
to force the Norman to advance through a wasted land and attack him
in the strong position of London. The advice would seem to have
been wise; and surely a fortnight’s delay would have given Harold a
better fighting instrument than the hasty levies which reinforced the
war-wearied and march-wearied men of Stamford Bridge. But Harold was
exasperated by the ravages which William had already begun in the
country round Sussex. He patriotically refused to imitate those ravages
in counties which had ever shown a special affection for him and for
his father’s house. There are also some slight indications that he
somewhat under-rated the strength of William’s army, and hoped by a
sudden stroke like that at Stamford Bridge to sweep it into the sea.
However this may be, on the morning of Saturday, October 14, Harold’s
army was drawn up in line on the ridge now crowned by the abbey and
town of Battle, and William’s army, having marched forth that morning
from Hastings, confronted them on the hill which now bears the name of
Telham. As for the battlefield itself, the chronicler, as we have seen,
calls it “the Hoar Apple Tree”; one Norman historian, Orderic, calls it
Senlac or Epiton, but it will probably always be best known by the name
which is, of course, only approximately correct, the battlefield of
Hastings. There is no evidence that there was even a village there when
the battle was fought. The position of Harold’s army was on a hill of
moderate height, 260 feet above the sea level, so surrounded by narrow
valleys, which might almost be called ravines, as to make it singularly
difficult of approach by cavalry. In order to render it yet more secure
against such an attack, Harold had, according to one writer,[251]
strengthened it by a fence or palisade as well as by a fosse drawn,
perhaps somewhat lower down, right across the field.
As to the numbers engaged on each side we have no information that is
worth anything, only absurd and exaggerated estimates, especially on
the part of the Norman writers concerning the size of the English army.
As a mere conjecture, founded on the dimensions of the battlefield,
there is something plausible in the suggestion[252] of 10,000 to 15,000
as the number of William’s soldiers, and the same or a little less
for those of Harold. There cannot be much doubt that the quality of
the invading troops was superior to that of the defenders. William’s
men were Normans, trained and seasoned by twenty years of fighting,
supplemented by brave adventurers, with whom war was probably a regular
profession, drawn from all parts of France. The backbone of Harold’s
army was doubtless his bodyguard of house-carls, terribly thinned by
the fierce fight at Stamford Bridge, and these were reinforced by the
peasants of the _fyrd_, brave men but little used to arms and hastily
summoned from the neighbouring counties. Still they had the advantage,
such as it was, of standing on the defensive in a position which had
evidently been chosen with considerable military skill.
The chief weapon of the Normans was the sword, of the English the
great two-handed battle-axe, the use of which was borrowed from their
Danish antagonists. Both sides seem to have been armed with lances,
and the best troops in both armies were clothed in long coats of mail,
which were wanting, however, to the peasants of the English _fyrd_.
The long kite-shaped shield, covering the greater part of the person,
was carried by both nations, but the English were perhaps superior in
the defensive tactics of the shield-wall, formed by men standing close
together, shoulder to shoulder, and locking their shields into what
the classically educated Norman writers called a _testudo_. On the
other hand, William was evidently much the stronger in archers and in
cavalry, and it was this superiority which eventually won for him the
victory. The Normans fought of course under the standard blessed by
the Pope, the Saxons under the well-known Dragon-banner of Wessex, and
another which was perhaps of Harold’s own devising and which bore the
likeness of a full-armed fighting man. On the English side we hear of
no leaders besides Harold and his two brothers, Gyrth, Earl of East
Anglia, and Leofwine, Earl of Essex and Kent, both of whom seem to
have fallen early in the battle. The lack of a strong lieutenant, who
could have taken the direction of the defence when the king fell, had
probably something to do with the issue of the fight. On the Norman
side, as we might expect, the names of many leaders are given us, but
we need only notice here William’s half-brother, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux
(son of the tanner’s daughter), who salved his episcopal conscience
by fighting with a heavy mace instead of with a sword, thus hoping to
avoid the actual shedding of blood; Count Eustace of Boulogne, the hero
of the flight from Dover; and William Fitz-Osbern, the faithful friend
of the Norman duke as his father had been before him.
We may pass over the account of the messages which are said to have
been exchanged between the two rival chiefs, including a proposition by
Duke William that, to save the effusion of Christian blood, they should
settle their differences by single combat; and we may also pass over
the story of the diverse ways in which the two armies spent the night
before the battle, the English in song and revelry, crying “Wassail”
and “Drink to me”; the Normans in confessing their sins and receiving
absolution from the numerous priests who accompanied the army. Thus we
come to the morning of Saturday, October 14, at nine A.M., when, as
before said, the two armies stood fronting one another in battle array.
As to the positions of the various divisions of the English army, we
have no sufficient indication, except that we are told that the men of
Kent claimed the right to march in the van, and strike the first blow
in the battle, and that the Londoners made a similar claim to guard
the person of the king, being grouped round his standard which was
planted in the centre of the ridge. As to William’s army, we are told
that he put in his first line his archers (apparently light armed), in
his second his mail-clad infantry, and in a third, behind them all, he
ranged his cavalry. Moreover, there was in each of these lines another
threefold division according to nationalities: the Normans in the
centre, the Bretons on the left, and the Frenchmen (the men from the
central regions of France) on the right.
The prelude to the battle was a romantic incident which showed that the
day of chivalry had dawned. A minstrel--or as one narrator calls him,
an actor--named Taillefer craved of Duke William the boon of striking
the first blow. He had sung on the march some staves of the great Song
of Roland, describing the death of that hero and of Olivier in the
gorge of Roncesvalles, and now he pranced forth before the duke--
On the rough edge of battle ere it joined.
He took his lance by the butt-end as if it had been a truncheon, threw
it in the air and caught it by the head. Three times he did this and
then he hurled it into the hostile ranks and wounded an Englishman.
Then, after repeating this performance with his sword, while the amazed
English looked on as at a feat of conjuring, he set spurs to his horse
and galloped fiercely towards the ranks of the foe. One Englishman he
sorely wounded and one he slew, and then a cloud of darts and javelins
was hurled at him and the bold minstrel fell down dead.
For six hours the battle which was now joined raged with nearly equal
fortune on both sides. No doubt the first rank of light-armed archers
discharged their missiles, and the mailed foot-soldiers pressed forward
to take advantage of any impression which they may have made on the
hostile ranks; but also (if we may trust the Tapestry) even at this
early period of the battle the cavalry were charging (uphill, of
course) and dashing themselves against the English shield-wall. So
far, on the whole, they dashed themselves in vain, though already thus
early in the fight Gyrth and Leofwine seem to have fallen. At length
the Norman horsemen, recoiling from a fruitless charge, tumbled into
a fosse, ever after known as the Malfosse, which they had scarcely
noticed in their advance, and rolled over and over in dire confusion,
hundreds of them lying a crushed and helpless mass on the plain. Some
of the English who were pursuing shared the same fate; and one of the
most spirited pictures in the Tapestry shows how “Here the English and
French fell together”. This disaster had very nearly proved the ruin
of the invading army, for the large body of varlets or camp followers
stationed in the rear to guard the harness, or stores and baggage of
the troops, seeing what had befallen their masters, were about to quit
the field in headlong flight, and such a movement might well have
spread panic through the ranks of the army. But then Bishop Odo of
Bayeux, wielding his big mace, and with a coat of mail over his alb,
shouted out words of encouragement and reproof, and stayed the panic of
the varlets. About the same time apparently, and under the influence
of the same panic-fear, a rumour spread through the ranks that William
himself was slain. He had indeed three horses killed under him in the
long and dreadful struggle, but, as far as we know, he received no
wound at any time, and now lifting up the nose-piece of his helmet he
showed his full face to his followers whose confidence was at once
restored.
As has been said, for six hours the battle hung doubtful. From three
o’clock onwards victory began to incline to the Norman side, chiefly
owing to two manœuvres, the credit of both of which is assigned to
William personally. In the first place, finding himself otherwise
unable to break the terrible shield-wall, he took a hint from the
disaster of the Malfosse itself, and ordered his followers to feign
flight. After men have long stood on the defensive, galled by missiles
from afar, the temptation to believe that the victory is won and that
they may charge a flying foe is doubtless immense. At any rate Harold’s
troops yielded to it, apparently more than once, and each time when
pursuers and pursued had reached the plain, the Normans turned and
their cavalry encircled and destroyed numbers of the English. The other
manœuvre was, we are told, an order given to the archers to shoot high
up into the sky, so that their arrows might fall from on high on some
unshielded part of their enemies’ persons. Perhaps we have here another
illustration of the fact that, for a conflict with missile weapons, it
is not all gain to occupy a position on a hill. This is what the Scots
learned to their cost in 1402 at Homildon Hill and the English in 1881
at Majuba. At any rate it seems to have been by this change of tactics
that the decisive blow was struck. It was by an arrow falling from on
high that Harold’s right eye was pierced. The wound was mortal and the
king fell to the ground. Whatever life may have been left in him was
extinguished by four Norman knights (one of them the hateful Eustace of
Boulogne) who not only slew but mutilated their fallen foe.
The English seem still to have fought on for some time after the
death of their king, but without purpose or discipline. The Normans
were not disposed to give quarter, and apparently the greater number
of the mail-clad house-carls fell where they had been fighting. The
lighter-armed men of the _fyrd_ fled, and, according to one account,
their pursuers followed them into a part of the field where, from the
broken nature of the ground and the abundance of ditches, their own
ranks--they were evidently mounted warriors--fell into some confusion,
and seeing this the fugitives made a rally. Owing probably to the
fading light William and his comrades believed this to be a movement
of fresh troops brought up against them. They halted, and Eustace of
Boulogne counselled retreat, but a blow between the shoulders dealt
suddenly from behind caused him to fall to the ground, while William
pressed on undaunted and found that the victory was indeed his, and in
the old Saxon phrase the Normans “held the place of slaughter”. The
Norman duke caused his Pope-blessed standard to be planted on the brow
of the hill in the same place where Harold’s banner had floated. After
rendering thanks to God for his great victory, he ordered his supper to
be prepared on the battlefield in the midst of the thousands of corpses
of both armies, whom the survivors all through the following Sunday
were busily engaged in burying, or in removing from the field that they
might be carried to their homes for burial.
The body of Harold himself, grievously disfigured, but recognised,
according to a well-known story, by his lady-love, “Edith with the
swan’s neck,” is said to have been given by the Conqueror to William
Malet, a nobleman half Norman and half English, and a kinsman of the
house of Leofric, with instructions that it should be buried under a
great cairn on the coast of that Sussex which he had vainly professed
to guard. According to one story, Gytha, Godwine’s widow, vainly
offered to buy her son’s body back from his foe at the price of his
weight in gold; but it is probable that William before long relented
and allowed the body of his fallen rival to be disinterred and buried
with befitting solemnity in the great minster of the Holy Rood at
Waltham.
William himself, in fulfilment of a vow made on the eve of the contest,
founded on the field of slaughter a stately abbey which bore the name
of Battle, and in which masses were long said for the repose of the
souls of those who had fallen in the fight, whether conquerors or
conquered. The building of the abbey with all its dependencies must
have done much to alter the face of the battlefield; and now for near
four centuries the abbey itself has been hidden and changed by the
manor house reared within its precincts, in Tudor style, by the family
to whom it was granted on the suppression of the monasteries. Change
upon change has since befallen the noble dwelling-house which still
bears the name of Battle Abbey; and its gardens and groves, its tall
yew hedges and terraced lawns, though all most beautiful, make it hard
to reconstruct with the mind’s eye the eleventh century aspect of “the
place of slaughter”. Only the well-ascertained site of the high altar
of the Abbey Church on the crest of the hill enables us to say with
certainty, in the language of the Bayeux Tapestry--
HIC HAROLD REX INTERFECTUS EST.
With the battle of Hastings ends the story of England as ruled by
Anglo-Saxon kings. The causes of the change, so full of meaning for
all future years, which transferred the English crown from the race of
Cerdic to the race of Rollo, cannot be dwelt upon here: perhaps some of
them have been sufficiently indicated in the course of the preceding
narrative. It is enough to say that a great and grievous transformation
had come over the Anglo-Saxon character since the days of Oswald
and even since the days of Alfred. The splendid dawn of English and
especially of Northumbrian Christianity in the seventh century had
been early obscured. The nation had lost some of the virtues of
heathendom and had not retained all that it had acquired of the virtues
of Christianity. Of its political incapacity the whole course of its
history during the last century before the conquest is sufficient
evidence; and it is probably a symptom of the same general decay that
for two centuries after the death of Alfred no writer or thinker of any
eminence, with the doubtful exceptions of Dunstan and Elfric, appears
among his countrymen. A tendency to swinish self-indulgence, and the
sins of the flesh in some of their most degrading forms, had marred
the national character. There was still in it much good metal, but if
the Anglo-Saxon was to do anything worth doing in the world, it was
necessary that it should be passed through the fire and hammered on the
anvil. The fire, the anvil and the hammer were about to be supplied
with unsparing hand by the Norman conquerors.
APPENDIX I.
AUTHORITIES.
All that portion of archæological science which deals with prehistoric
man is of recent origin, and the conclusions arrived at as to our
own island, even by the most careful inquirers, must be accepted
provisionally, as liable to much modification by the labours of future
students. Meanwhile the results generally accepted by scholars may be
found well stated by Professor BOYD DAWKINS (_Early Man in Britain_,
1880), by Dr. JOHN BEDDOE (_The Races of Britain_, 1885), and by the
Rev. Canon GREENWELL and GEO. ROLLESTON (_British Barrows_, 1877).
All these authors deal chiefly with the results of excavation in the
caves and sepulchral barrows of Britain. The measurement of the skulls
disinterred from thence and the character of the vessels found in
proximity to the bodies, are the chief criteria by which they decide
on the racial character of the occupants. Professor JOHN RHYS (_The
Early Ethnology of the British Isles_, 1890, and _Celtic Britain_, 2nd
edit., 1884) approaches the subject of British ethnology rather from
the side of early traditions and the evidence, somewhat meagre and
unsatisfactory, of Celtic annalists, but with much help from philology.
Passing from the consideration of prehistoric man to the notices of
Britain furnished by the writers of classical antiquity we come first
to the Greek and Roman geographers. The chief Greek writers are Strabo
and Ptolemy. STRABO, who was a native of Asia Minor, lived at the
Christian era, and may be considered a slightly younger contemporary of
Augustus. His colossal work on geography was written in his old age,
and was probably finished about A.D. 19. Though he was an extensive
traveller, he never visited Britain: his knowledge of our island seems
to be chiefly derived from Cæsar, and he is altogether wrong as to its
geographical position, believing it to lie alongside of the coast of
Gaul from the Pyrenees to the mouths of the Rhine. He imagined Ireland
to be entirely north of Britain.
PTOLEMY, who was a native of Egypt, was a contemporary of the Antonine
emperors, and probably wrote about A.D. 150. He was essentially an
astronomical geographer, whose object was to fix the latitude and
longitude of every place of which he took note. His industry was
extraordinary, and his scientific conceptions were somewhat in advance
of his age; but owing to the inaccurate information upon which he had
often to rely, his results are sometimes very far from correct. Thus,
though he gets England and Ireland almost into their true position,
correcting the errors of Strabo concerning them, he pulls Scotland so
far round to the east that it is at right angles to England, and its
northernmost point almost touches Denmark.
PLINY, who was born in A.D. 23 and perished in the great eruption of
Vesuvius in A.D. 79, is the only Latin geographer who tells us much
about Britain, and his descriptions do not add much to our knowledge,
but relate chiefly to natural history and to the cultivation of the
soil.
For the Roman conquest of Britain our chief authorities are, of course,
CÆSAR and TACITUS. The former, in the fourth and fifth books of his
history of the _Gallic War_, describes in a few brief, soldier-like
sentences the incidents of his two invasions, hardly attempting to
conceal their ill-success. The latter, in the fourteenth book of his
_Annals_, gives us the story of the insurrection of the Britons under
Boudicca and its suppression by Suetonius Paulinus. An earlier book in
the same series undoubtedly gave the history of the conquest of Britain
under Claudius, but this is unfortunately lost. He gives us, however,
in his _Life of Agricola_, a pretty full account of the events which
signalised the command of his father-in-law, Julius Agricola (A.D.
78–84), and a slight notice of some events which occurred under his
predecessors. Unfortunately Tacitus, superb as he is in delineation of
character and scornful summaries of palace intrigues, fails grievously
as a military historian, which happens to be his chief function when
he is concerned with the history of Britain. Mommsen (bk. viii., chap.
5) says: “A worse narrative than that of Tacitus concerning this war
(Paulinus against Boudicca) is hardly to be found even in this most
unmilitary of authors”.
To make up for the loss of the earlier books of Tacitus’s Annals we
have the history of DION CASSIUS, a Greek rhetorician who wrote his
_Roman History_ about A.D. 222. Though a useful compiler, Dion is, of
course, no contemporary authority for the conquest of Britain under
Claudius. Such as he is, however, we have to depend on him almost
entirely for our knowledge of that event.
After we lose the guidance of Tacitus, our information as to Roman
Britain becomes excessively meagre. Even the work of Dion Cassius
after A.D. 54 is lost in the original, and only exists for us in an
epitome--a tolerably full one, it must be admitted--made in the twelfth
century by XIPHILINUS, an ignorant and careless monk of Constantinople.
In addition to this, however, we receive a feeble and flickering light
from the collection of memoirs called the HISTORIA AUGUSTA. This book,
the result of the joint labours of some five or six authors whose very
names are a subject of controversy, relates in clumsy and uncritical
fashion the chief events in the lives of the Roman emperors during
the second and third centuries. Poor as is the performance of these
authors, and though they were probably separated by an interval of one
or two centuries from the events which they record, we have reason
to be grateful to them for the information which they supply to us,
especially as to our two most illustrious conquerors, Hadrian and
Severus. For the reign of the latter emperor we may also glean a few
facts from the work of the Greek historian HERODIAN.
The story of the imperial pretenders, Carausius and Allectus, and of
the suppression of their independent royalty, is told in a certain
fashion by two panegyrists, called MAMERTINUS and EUMENIUS, in their
orations before the triumphant emperors; but it is hard to extract
solid history out of their windy rhetoric.
A historian to whom we owe much, and should doubtless owe far more if
a perverse literary fate had not deprived us of nearly half of his
work, is the life-guardsman AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, who lived in the
latter half of the fourth century and wrote the history of the Roman
empire from A.D. 99 to 378. As it is, possessing only those books which
tell of the years from 353 to 378, we derive from him some valuable
information as to the British campaigns of the elder Theodosius. If we
possessed the earlier books of his history, we should almost certainly
know much more than we do as to the appearance of Roman Britain in
the second century and the mode of life of its native inhabitants,
for Ammianus is fond of showing off his geographical knowledge, and
resembles Herodotus in the interest which he takes in the manners and
customs of half-civilised races. His Latin style--he was a Syrian Greek
by birth--is extraordinarily affected and often obscure, but for all
that, few literary events could be more gratifying to the historical
student than the recovery of the lost books of Ammianus.
For the social, military and religious life of the Romans in Britain
an invaluable source of information is contained in the inscriptions
which are collected in the seventh volume of the _Corpus Inscriptionum
Latinarum_ (Berlin, 1873). Many of the most important will be
found in the _Lapidarium Septentrionale_, edited by Dr. Bruce
(Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1875). Inscriptions discovered more recently
must be looked for in the volumes of the _Ephemeris Epigraphica_,
published by the _Academie der Wissenschaften_ at Berlin, or in the
_Archæological Journal_ and the proceedings of local antiquarian
societies.
OROSIUS, a disciple of St. Augustine, has done something to lighten the
darkness which hangs over the end of Roman rule in Britain. In the last
book of his _Histories_, which were meant to show that the calamities
of the empire were not due to the introduction of Christianity, he
tells us with some little detail the story of the military revolt
of the year 406, of which we also learn some details from the Greek
historian Zosimus. A chronicler who generally bears the name of another
friend of St. Augustine’s, PROSPER TIRO, but who was evidently a
theological opponent of that saint, and whose personality is really
unknown, inserts in his Chronicle two all-important dates for the Roman
evacuation of Britain and for the Saxon invasions. The contemporary
poet, CLAUDIAN, writing in 403, also gives us in a few lines some
important information as to the former event. This is practically the
last trustworthy notice as to our island that we find in the works of
any classical writer. Henceforth our history for many centuries is
written for us entirely by ecclesiastics, and this must be the modern
historian’s excuse for the strongly ecclesiastical colour which he is
obliged to give even to a political narrative. One such ecclesiastical
authority is _The Life of Germanus_ by the presbyter CONSTANTIUS, as
has been previously said. This _Life_ has suffered much from later
interpolations. See an elaborate analysis of it by Levison in the
_Neues Archiv_, vol. xxix.
The next writer who lifts any portion of the pall which hides the
history of our island in the fifth and sixth centuries is GILDAS,
the author of the _Liber Querulus_ “concerning the ruin of Britain”.
Rightly is the book called querulous, for it is one long drawn out
lamentation over the barbarities of the Saxon invaders and the
irreligion of the Britons which had brought this ruin upon them. If
Gildas, who wrote probably between 540 and 560, had chosen to tell
us simply all that he had seen or heard from men of the preceding
generation concerning Saxon raids and Cymric resistance, his work
would have been one of the corner-stones of English history. As it
is, we have to be thankful for the few facts that he imparts to us
between sob and sob over the wickedness of the world. A critical
edition of this author by Mommsen will be found in vol. xiii. of the
_Auctores Antiquissimi_ in the _Monumenta Germaniæ Historica_. An
excellent edition with notes by the Rev. Hugh Williams, Professor of
Church History at the Theological College, Bala, is now in course of
publication for the Hon. Society of Cymmrodorion.
More perplexing, but fuller of matter, good, bad and indifferent, is
the work of the much later Welsh ecclesiastic, NENNIUS, who lived about
two centuries and a half after Gildas. This author exhibits a degree
of ignorance and puzzle-headedness which gives one a very unfavourable
idea of the intellectual condition of a Welsh monastery about the year
800. His chronology is wildly incorrect, and he intermingles with
solemn history stories of dragons and enchanters worthy of the _Arabian
Nights_; but he has inserted into the middle of his book extracts from
the work of a much earlier author (probably a Northumbrian Celt living
under Anglian rule) who described the contests of English and Welsh
between 547 and 679. This part of the book (to be found in chapters 57
to 65 of Nennius) has probably a real historic value. It is important
to note that it is in this portion that the name of King Arthur is
found. As already mentioned (p. 100) we are much indebted to the
labours of Prof. Zimmer (_Nennius Vindicatus_) with reference to this
important but most provoking writer.
Turning from the Welsh to the English authorities we come to the
illustrious name of BEDE, the greatest scholar of his age and the best
historian whom any European country produced in the early Middle Ages.
His main work, the _Historia Ecclesiastica_, was finished in the year
731, about four years before his death. There is an excellent edition
of this book and of some of the smaller historical works of Bede by the
Rev. Charles Plummer (2 vols.: Oxford, 1896). The historical importance
of this work begins with its account of the conversion of England to
Christianity; and, for all the events of the seventh century and the
early part of the eighth, it is priceless. As to the events which
marked the Roman occupation of Britain, Bede probably had no other
sources of information than those which we also possess. For the two
centuries of darkness between the departure of the last Roman soldier
and the arrival of the first Roman missionary he had evidently very
scanty sources to draw from, and in fact he springs, almost at one
bound, from the year 450 to 596.
For the closing years of the seventh century we have another valuable
authority in the _Life of Wilfrid_, written by his contemporary,
EDDIUS (_Historians of the Church of York_, edited by J. Raine, Rolls
Series): and this is the more important as, for some reason or other,
Bede shows sometimes a curious reticence as to Wilfrid’s career. There
is a very careful comparison of the two narratives, that of Bede
and that of Eddius, by Mr. B. W. Wells in the sixth volume of the
_English Historical Review_ (1891), pp. 535–50. His conclusions are not
favourable to Eddius’s veracity.
In the eighth century, after we have lost the invaluable guidance of
Bede, we may derive some help from the letters of two great Churchmen,
BONIFACE and ALCUIN, both published in _Monumenta Germaniæ Historica_
(_Epistolae_, vols. iii. and iv., 1892 and 1895).
For the whole period from the Saxon invasion onwards we rely with
increasing confidence on the great historical document, or collection
of documents, which is sometimes called the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
but which, following Freeman’s example, we generally designate by the
simple but sufficient name of _The Chronicle_ (Plummer, 2 vols., 1892).
The reason for introducing the notice of it here is that, according to
the opinion of its latest editor, we arrive, in the ninth century, at
the time of the first compilation of this work, so all-important for
the students of our national history. If he is right in thinking that
the impulse toward the commencement of this great undertaking was given
by King Alfred--a belief which seems to be shared by Mr. Stevenson,
the editor of Asser--it cannot have begun to assume its present shape
till near the year 900. Some materials, however, for the building of
such an edifice must have been gradually accumulating for at least two
centuries; in what shape, of what kind, of what degree of historical
trustworthiness, we shall, perhaps, never be able to determine. There
were probably rhythmical pedigrees of the kings and some stories of
their exploits handed down through generations of minstrels; and, at
any rate since the introduction of Christianity, some simple annals
such as that to which Bede alludes when he says that 634, the year
of the reign of two apostate Northumbrian kings, was, “by those who
compute the times of kings,” taken away from them and included in the
reign of their pious successor Oswald. This hypothesis, however, will
not help us much when we come to consider how Alfred’s literary friends
could recover accurate dates and details of events during the preceding
150 years of darkness, and we must probably admit that for that period
there may have been a good deal of imaginative chronology of the kind
suggested by Lappenberg, as already stated on p. 87. Thus all this
earlier portion of the Chronicle has to be used with caution, and we
dare not lay any great stress upon the historical character of its
statements; only let not its authority be unduly decried, seeing that
for a good part of the road it is the only light that we have.
Even after we emerge into the fuller light of the seventh century, and
when we have no reason to doubt the truly historical character of the
Chronicle, we cannot award it the praise of minute accuracy in matters
of chronology. Continually historians have found it necessary to
correct its dates by one, two, or three years; and even the foundation
date of Egbert’s accession, which used to be given on the authority of
the Chronicle to 800, has had to be shifted to 802.
The Chronicle, if begun under the influence of Alfred (probably
at Winchester), was continued in various monasteries on somewhat
independent lines, and thus, as its latest editor points out, “instead
of saying that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is contained in seven MSS.,
it would be truer to say that those MSS. contain four Anglo-Saxon
Chronicles”. These are represented by the four chief MSS. which are now
known to scholars by the four letters A, C, D, E. The first of these
MSS. is at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, the second and third in
the British Museum, and the fourth in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
Very briefly stated, the distinguishing characteristics of these four
MSS. are as follows:--
A (sometimes marked by an Anglo-Saxon letter in order to distinguish it
from a later and unimportant manuscript to which also that initial has
been given) is also called, from its former owner, Archbishop Parker’s
manuscript, or the Winchester Chronicle. There can be little doubt that
this manuscript was originally a native of Winchester, and began to be
compiled there in Alfred’s reign. A Winchester book it continued till
the year 1001, after which it seems to have been transferred to Christ
Church, Canterbury, where it was probably lying at the time of the
suppression of the monasteries. This manuscript, in many respects the
most valuable of all, ends with the year 1070.
C is associated on good authority with the monastery of Abingdon. “Its
language [says Professor Earle] is of the most ripe and polished kind,
marking the culmination of Saxon literature.” It closes in 1066, but
a short postscript has been added in the Northumbrian dialect. One
important feature in this manuscript is its inclusion of what is called
“The Mercian Register,” describing the great deeds of the Lady of
Mercia from 902 to 924. In the next century it is distinguished by the
hostile tone which it adopts towards Earl Godwine and his family.
D, which is generally called the Worcester Chronicle, but which seems
to have a closer connexion with Evesham, is, in its present shape, a
late compilation, none of it probably being of earlier date than 1100.
It seems to be closely allied to C, but differs from that manuscript by
its friendlier attitude towards Godwine. It is the only version which
gives us any account of the battle of Hastings. It ends thirteen years
after the Conquest.
E, the Laud manuscript or Peterborough Chronicle, is of great
importance, inasmuch as it alone continues the history down to so late
a date as 1154, and its great variety of style makes it a leading
authority for the history of the English language. In its present shape
it is emphatically a book of the Abbey of Peterborough, and loses no
opportunity of glorifying that religious house. It probably owes its
origin to a disastrous fire which happened at Peterborough in 1116, in
which all the muniments of the abbey perished. A manuscript akin to D
seems to have been then brought thither from some other monastery, and
this copy of it, with sundry interpolations, has been made to replace
the perished Chronicle. A and E are the two Chronicles which Plummer
and his predecessor Earle have chosen as the corner-stones of their
editions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, but passages are inserted from
C and D where these authorities give us important variations.
For the personal history of Alfred the Great and some information
as to the events of his reign, we have the very important treatise
by his contemporary, ASSER, _De Rebus Gestis Aelfredi_ (Stevenson,
1904). Asser was a Welsh ecclesiastic, belonging to the diocese of
St. Davids, who came about the year 880 to the court of King Alfred,
seeking protection from the tyranny of his native sovereigns, sons
of Rhodri Mawr. That protection was freely accorded, and the king,
perceiving Asser to be a learned man, stipulated that he should spend
at least half of every year in the land of the Saxons. Eventually he
became bishop of Sherborne, and no doubt ceased altogether to reside
in Wales. He died apparently in 910, about ten years after his patron.
Asser’s _Life of King Alfred_ which ends practically with the year 887,
giving no account of the last thirteen years of his reign, is a very
inartistic work, containing annalistic notices, taken apparently from
the Chronicle, strangely jumbled up with those interesting personal
details as to the character and habits of the great king which give
it in our eyes all its value. It has been singularly unfortunate in
its transmission, since the only copy of which we have any certain
knowledge perished in the great fire at the Cottonian Library in 1731.
Happily, it had been already printed three times, but unfortunately
those three editions all contained several large interpolations made by
its first editor, Archbishop Parker, from a mistaken desire to round
off its information by extracts from other authors. Partly owing to
these interpolations, its genuineness has been subjected to severe
attacks, which have sometimes seemed likely to be successful. Its
character, however, has been triumphantly vindicated by its latest
editor, Mr. W. H. Stevenson, who has succeeded in separating the
original text of the _Life_ from the interpolations of its editors, and
thus presenting it with all its naïve charm, often also, it must be
admitted, with all its provoking verbiage and obscurity, to the lovers
of the greatest Anglo-Saxon king. In the same volume Mr. Stevenson
has printed the _Annals of St. Neot’s_, which were formerly, without
justification, ascribed to Asser, and from which some of the worst
interpolations into his real work were derived. It is an important
testimony to the authentic character of Asser’s work that large
extracts have been made from it by so judicious a compiler as Florence
of Worcester.
For the reconstruction of English history in the tenth century our
materials are very unsatisfactory. The impulse given by Alfred to the
composition of the Chronicle seems to have soon exhausted itself, and
for fifty years after the death of his son (925 to 975) it is, as Earle
has said, “wonderfully meagre: a charge which is often unreasonably
alleged against these Chronicles in the most undiscriminating manner,
but which may be justified here by a comparison with the historical
literature of two earlier generations”. Its aridity is in some degree
atoned for by the ballads, such as that on the battle of Brunanburh,
which are inserted at intervals in its pages; but with all the poetic
interest attaching to these pieces they can hardly be considered a
satisfactory substitute for history. In these circumstances we have to
be thankful for such help as can be derived from biographies of the
saints; especially from the nearly contemporary _Life of Dunstan_,
by an anonymous Saxon priest who is known only by his initial B.
(_Memorials of St. Dunstan_, edited by Stubbs, Rolls Series), and the
similar anonymous but contemporary _Life of Oswald_, Archbishop of York
(_Historians of the Church of York_, edited by J. Raine, Rolls Series).
The later lives of Dunstan, by Adelard, Osbern and Eadmer (all included
in Stubbs’s _Memorials of St. Dunstan_), soon fade off into legend, and
must be used with caution.
We ought to have been greatly helped at this period by the work of
ETHELWEARD the historian (_Monumenta Historica Britannica_, Petrie,
1848), who was of royal descent, was apparently for a time Ealdorman
of Wessex, and wrote near the end of the tenth century. Unfortunately
the basis of his work seems to have been the Chronicle itself, and when
he has any additional facts to communicate, his style is so pompously
obscure that it is difficult to make out what he means. In default,
therefore, of adequate contemporary authorities, the historian is
obliged to lean more than he has yet done on the compiling historians
who wrote in the century which followed the Norman Conquest. Of these,
happily, there is a goodly number, and they are on the whole very
favourable specimens of their class.
(1) FLORENCE OF WORCESTER (edited by B. Thorpe, English Historical
Society, 1848–49), a monk of whom we know nothing save that he died in
1118, having earned a high reputation for acuteness and industry, took
as the staple of his narrative the work of an Irish monk named Marianus
Scotus, who was settled at Mainz and composed a World-Chronicle
reaching down to the year 1082. With the material thus furnished him
Florence interwove extracts specially relating to English history from
Bede, Asser and the Chroniclers, bringing down his recital to 1117,
the year preceding his death. His work was almost entirely that of
a compiler, but it was conscientiously and thoroughly done, and its
chief value for us is that though his story approaches most nearly to
that told in the Worcester Chronicle (D), it is not a mere transcript
of that work, and he evidently had access to some manuscript of the
Chronicle which is now lost. The important position which he holds in
relation to Asser has already been described.
(2) Some important facts concerning Northumbrian history may be gleaned
from the ill-arranged pages of SYMEON OF DURHAM (edited by T. Arnold,
Rolls Series, 2 vols., 1882–85). This author, who was born a few years
before the Conquest, became a monk at Durham about the year 1085, and
spent probably the rest of his life by the tomb of St. Cuthbert. Soon
after 1104 he wrote a _History of the Church of Durham_, which supplies
some valuable information not to be found elsewhere, as to the history
of events in the north of England during the thirty years following the
Danish invasion of 875. In his old age Symeon began, but apparently
did not finish, a _History of the Kings_, which in its present state
is a piece of patchwork put together from various sources, and in its
chaotic condition corresponds only too closely with the reality of
Northumbrian history during that dismal period. Its chief value for
the historian is that it incorporates an old Northumbrian Chronicle by
an anonymous writer (perhaps called _Gesta veterum Northanhymbrorum_)
describing the chief events which happened in that part of the country
from the end of Bede’s history to the accession of Egbert (731–802).
For a full discussion of the materials used by Symeon in this work the
reader is referred to Mr. Arnold’s preface and to Stubbs’s preface to
Roger Hoveden. It cannot be said that even his explanations make the
matter very clear. An interesting tract, _De Obsessione Dunelmi_,
which has been attributed on insufficient evidence to this author, is
bound up with his works.
(3) HENRY OF HUNTINGDON (edited by T. Arnold, Rolls Series, 1879) was
born about eighteen years after the Conquest and died soon after the
accession of Henry II. He was an archdeacon in the diocese of Lincoln,
and composed at the request of his bishop a _History of the English_,
of which various editions were published in his lifetime, the first
probably about 1130, and the last soon after 1154. Henry relies chiefly
on the Peterborough Chronicle, but he seems also to have possessed
some other manuscript, of which he occasionally gives indications.
Unfortunately he relies not only on manuscripts and Chronicles, but
also to a large extent on his own imagination. From materials not
much ampler than those which we possess, he is fond of constructing a
rhetorical narrative with many details, for which it is almost certain
that he had no authority. Occasionally there seems reason to believe
that he is repeating popular traditions or fragments of popular songs,
but upon the whole it is safer not to rely greatly on his facts, where
these are not corroborated by other historians.
(4) A much greater historian than Henry was his slightly younger
contemporary, WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY (edited by Stubbs, Rolls Series,
2 vols., 1887–89), who was probably born about 1095 and died, or at
any rate discontinued his literary labours, soon after 1142. For an
elaborate discussion of these dates see Bishop Stubbs’s preface. As he
remarks, William “deliberately set himself forward as the successor
of the Venerable Bede: and it is seldom that an aspirant of this sort
came so near as he did to the realisation of his pretensions”. His
most important work for our purpose is the _Gesta Regum_, but from
his _Gesta Pontificum_ (Hamilton, Rolls Series, 1870) some facts
relating to civil history may be gleaned. He is especially minute in
all points connected with his own monastery of Malmesbury and with that
of Glastonbury, in which he seems to have been for some time a guest.
He has a wide outlook over continental affairs, and though he has been
convicted of many inaccuracies and is unfortunately not sufficiently
careful as to the authenticity of the documents quoted by him, we must
admit his claim to be considered a really great historian. The _Gesta
Regum_ became at once a popular and standard history, and was the
source from which a crowd of followers made abundant quotations.
(5) A great patron of learned men, and especially of historians, was
Robert, Earl of Gloucester, natural son of Henry I. To him William
of Malmesbury dedicated his chief historical works, and it was from
materials contained in his library that GEOFFREY GAIMAR (edited by
Hardy and Martin, Rolls Series, 2 vols., 1888–89) wrote his _Estorie
des Engles_. Scarcely anything is known about the author, except that
he wrote before 1147, the date of the Earl of Gloucester’s death, and
that he was probably an ecclesiastic and a Norman. His history is a
rhymed chronicle in early French, and is to a large extent based on the
English Chronicle; a proof that he understood Anglo-Saxon, though it
was not his native tongue. He evidently, however, had access to other
sources of information now closed to us, and this gives his _Estorie_
a certain value, notwithstanding the author’s occasional tendency to
glide off into unhistorical romance, as for instance in the long and
legendary story which he tells about Edgar’s marriage with Elgiva. His
geographical indications are sometimes worthy of special notice.
For sixty years after 982 the fortunes of England were so closely
intertwined with those of Denmark and Norway that it is impossible
wholly to overlook the contributions which Scandinavian authors have
made to our national history. These consist chiefly of the great
collection of Icelandic Sagas popularly known as the _Heimskringla_,
and formerly made accessible to the English reader only by LAING’S
_Sea-Kings of Norway_, now in much completer form in the Saga Library
of MORRIS and MAGNUSSON. Three volumes of the Heimskringla have been
published: the fourth is still to appear. For a full and exhaustive
account, however, of the rich Dano-Icelandic literature of which the
so-called Heimskringla is only a portion, we must turn to the noble
work of VIGFUSSON and POWELL, the _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_ (two vols.,
Oxford, 1883), and to _Vigfusson’s_ Prolegomena to the _Sturlunga Saga_
(Oxford, 1879). It is shown by these authors that while the name of
Snorri Sturlason is rightly venerated as that of the chief literary
preserver of these sagas, an earlier Icelandic scholar named Ari,
born in the year after the Norman Conquest, was the first to bring
them into some sort of relation with exact chronological history. The
narratives seem to be wonderfully true in feeling but often false in
fact. Probably a good deal of rather tedious critical work has yet to
be done before the Heimskringla can be definitely and safely correlated
with the Saxon Chronicle, but we may safely go to that collection of
sagas and to the literature of which it forms part, the true Iliad
and Odyssey of the Scandinavian peoples, for a picture of the manner
of life, the characters and the ideals of those Danish and Norwegian
sea-rovers who were the terror of Angle and Saxon, but from whom we
ourselves are largely descended.
For the reign of Canute and his sons we are sometimes placed under
obligation by the author of the _Encomium Emmæ_ (_Monumenta Germaniæ
Historica_, vol. xix., 1866), a panegyric on the widow of Ethelred and
Canute, written apparently by an ecclesiastic of Bruges, who had shared
her bounty when she was living in exile. The author sometimes deviates
in the most extraordinary way from historic truth, but he seems to have
been well acquainted with the facts, though he dishonestly concealed
them to please his patroness.
With the extinction of the Danish dynasty and the revival of West
Saxon royalty we enter upon a new period, in which our historical
literature assumes a controversial character which it has not hitherto
possessed. In previous centuries there has been no practical danger
in speaking of _The Chronicle_, the amount of matter common to the
various copies being so large and the divergencies between them so
comparatively unimportant. Now, however, it is necessary to speak of
_The Chronicles_ in the plural, since they often give us absolutely
different versions of the same event. The Abingdon Chronicle, as before
remarked, is hostile to Godwine, while Worcester (or Evesham) and
Peterborough generally favour his cause. Winchester is almost silent
for this period. There is a nearly contemporary _Life of Edward the
Confessor_ in Latin by an unknown author (printed at the end of the
volume, _Lives of Edward the Confessor_, in the Rolls Series, 1858),
from which some noteworthy facts may be collected, but the value of the
work is lessened by the writer’s evident determination to praise to the
uttermost Godwine and all his family, in order to recommend himself to
Edward’s widow Edith, daughter of Godwine, to whom this _Vita Edwardi
Regis_ is dedicated. In comparison with his wife’s family the king
himself comes off rather poorly.
The life of the Confessor was soon caught up into the region of
hagiological romance, and loses historical value accordingly. It does
not seem possible to build any solid conclusions on the _Vita Edwardi
Regis_ by Aelred, itself borrowed from the twelfth-century biographer
Osbert, still less on the curious and interesting _Estoire de Seint
Ædward le Rei_, a French poem written about 1245 and dedicated to
Eleanor, queen of Henry III. (_Lives of Edward the Confessor_).
* * * * *
The Norman historians, who now of course become of first-rate
importance for the history, are fully described in the second volume.
It will be sufficient here to mention the names of the most important:
WILLIAM OF POITIERS, WILLIAM OF JUMIÈGES (both contemporaries of the
Conqueror), ORDERICUS VITALIS (a generation later) and WILLIAM WACE,
author of two French metrical Chronicles, the _Roman de Brut_ and
the _Roman de Rou_. The latter poem describes with much detail and
some poetic power the events of the Norman invasion of England, but
its author wrote about a century after the event, and the degree of
reliance which may be placed on his statements, where not supported
by more strictly contemporary authority, is still a subject of debate
among historians. Editions by Pluquet (1826) and Andresen (1877–79)
are mentioned with commendation, but the most convenient edition
for an English student is that prepared by Sir Alexander Malet with
a tolerably close translation of Pluquet’s text into English rhyme
(London, 1860).
The other all-important document for the story of the Conquest, the
BAYEUX TAPESTRY, has been reproduced in facsimile, with a valuable
illustrative commentary, by F. R. Fowke (London, 1875, reprinted in
abridged form in the Ex Libris Series, 1898). Discussing the date and
origin of this celebrated work, he rejects the traditional connexion
of the Tapestry with Queen Matilda, but believes it to be strictly
contemporary with the Conquest, having been “probably ordered for his
cathedral by Bishop Odo and made by Norman work-people at Bayeux”.
Refer also to Freeman’s _Norman Conquest_, vol. iii., note A, for a
discussion of the authority of the Tapestry.
* * * * *
Of the Welsh authorities for this period contained in this volume the
present writer cannot speak with confidence. The chief appear to be (1)
the _Annales Cambriæ_, supposed to have been compiled in the year 954
and afterwards continued to 1288.
(2) The _Brut y Tywysogion_, or Chronicle of the Princes, which
begins in 680 and ends with 1282. It is thought to be based on a
Latin chronicle written in the middle of the twelfth century by a
Pembrokeshire monk named Caradog of Llancarvan.
(3) The _Brut y Saesson_, or Chronicle of the Saxons (800–1382), seems
to be chiefly founded on the last-named work, but with some additions
from English sources; of no great value, at any rate for pre-Conquest
history.
It is to be wished that some scholar would carefully sift the Welsh
chronicles and poems, and tell us what are the solid historical facts
that may be gathered from their pages.
* * * * *
Without attempting to give a list, however imperfect, of modern books
dealing with the early history of England, it may be permitted to
mention a few of the chief land-marks.
The history of Roman Britain has yet to be written. Every year
excavations, inscriptions, coins add a little to our knowledge of
these tantalisingly obscure centuries. Perhaps the best short sketches
to which the student can be referred are the chapter on Britain in
MOMMSEN’S _Provinces of the Roman Empire_ (translated by Dickson:
London, 1886), and a similar chapter in EMIL HÜBNER’S _Römische
Herrschaft in West Europa_ (Berlin, 1890). Both these scholars are
complete masters of all that epigraphy has to tell concerning the Roman
occupation of Britain. In the early chapters of various volumes of the
_Victoria County History of England_, Mr. F. HAVERFIELD is bringing the
Roman archæology of the counties there described thoroughly up to date.
It is to be hoped that these may all before long be combined by him
into one great work on _Britannia Romana_.
For Anglo-Saxon history perhaps LAPPENBERG’S _Geschichte von England_
(translated by B. Thorpe: London, 1881) is still the most trustworthy
guide; but the _Making of England_ and the _Conquest of England_ by
JOHN RICHARD GREEN have all the characteristic charm of that author’s
historical work; perhaps also it should be said, his characteristic
tendency to translate a brilliant hypothesis into historical fact. The
truly monumental history of _The Norman Conquest_ by E. A. FREEMAN
will assuredly always remain the great quarry from which all later
builders will hew their blocks for building. Even those who differ
most strongly from his conclusions must bear witness to his unwearied
industry and single-minded desire for historical accuracy, whether
he always compassed it or not. One of Freeman’s antagonists, C. H.
PEARSON, offers some useful suggestions in his _History of England
during the Early and Middle Ages_; and the same author’s _Historical
Maps of England during the First Thirteen Centuries_ contain an immense
amount of carefully collected geographical material, and deserve to be
more widely known than they are at the present time. Another doughty
combatant, J. H. ROUND, in _Feudal England_ (London, 1895), has set
himself to demolish Professor Freeman’s theories as to the battle of
Hastings and some other matters.
SIR JAMES RAMSAY’S _Foundations of England_ (1898) is an extremely
careful digest of all the authorities bearing on the subject.
W. BRIGHT’S _Early English Church History_, C. F. KEARY’S _Vikings in
Western Christendom_ and C. PLUMMER’S _Life and Times of Alfred the
Great_ are all helpful books.
Where English and Scottish history touch one another the works of E. W.
ROBERTSON, _Scotland under Her Early Kings_ and _Historical Essays_;
W. F. SKENE, _Celtic Scotland_, and ANDREW LANG, _History of Scotland_,
will be found useful, and should be consulted in order to see the
arguments of the champions of Scottish independence.
For the history of institutions reference should be made to Bishop
STUBBS (_Constitutional History_); F. W. MAITLAND (_Domesday Book and
Beyond_); H. M. CHADWICK (_Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions_);
J. M. KEMBLE (_The Saxons in England_); F. PALGRAVE (_The Rise and
Progress of the English Commonwealth_); H. C. COOTE (_The Romans of
Britain_--worth studying, with distrust, as an extreme statement of the
survival of Roman customs in Britain); F. SEEBOHM (_The English Village
Community_); and P. VINOGRADOFF (_Villainage in England_, _The Growth
of the Manor_ and an essay on “Folkland” in the _English Historical
Review_ for 1893, which has been generally accepted as containing the
true explanation of that much-discussed term of Anglo-Saxon law).
A good edition of the Anglo-Saxon Laws was prepared in 1840 by BENJAMIN
THORPE and published by the Record Commission. A more complete edition,
with full commentary, was made by REINHOLD SCHMID and published in
Leipzig in 1858. Even this is now being surpassed by the work of
FELIX LIEBERMANN (Halle, 1898–1903), who has published an excellent
text, but whose commentary on the laws has yet to appear. For the
charters and other similar documents of the Anglo-Saxon kings we may
refer to KEMBLE’S _Codex Diplomaticus_ (6 vols., 1839–48); BIRCH’S
_Cartularium Saxonicum_ (3 vols., 1885–93), and HADDAN and STUBBS’S
_Councils_ (3 vols., 1869–78), which are splendid collections of this
kind of material for the historical student. As convenient manuals,
_Diplomatarium Anglicum Aevi Saxonici_ by BENJAMIN THORPE (1845);
STUBBS’S _Select Charters_ (1895), and EARLE’S _Handbook to the Land
Charters_, will be found useful.
For a much more detailed list of authorities than can here be given
the reader is referred to the excellent manual on _The Sources and
Literature of English History_ by Dr. CHARLES GROSS of Harvard
University (1900).
APPENDIX II.
GENEALOGY OF NORTHUMBRIAN KINGS.
[Illustration]
_DEIRA._ _BERNICIA._
Yffi.
|
+------------+---------------+
| |
Elfric. AELLE, IDA,
| †588. †560.
| | |
| | ETHELRIC,
| +-----------------+-----------------------+ †593.
| | | | |
OSRIC, N. Cwenburh,==EDWIN,==Ethelburga, Acha.==ETHELFRID,=Bebba.
†634. | daughter | †633. | daughter of | †617.
| | of King of | | Ethelbert, |
| | Mercia. | | King of Kent. |
| | | +------------+ +----------------------+---------------------+
| | | | 3.| 2.| 1.|
OSWIN, Hereric. Osfrid. 2° Eanfled.==OSWY,==1° Riemmelth, OSWALD,==Cyneburga, EANFRID,
†651. | | | †671.| perhaps a †642. | daughter of †634.
Hilda, Yffi. | | British | Cynegils,
abbess of | | princess. | King of
Whitby. +---------------------------+ | | Wessex.
| +--------------+ |
| | | |
ALDFRID, EGFRID, ALCHFRID, Alchfleda, ETHELWALD,
brother or nephew married King of Deira, married Penda, King of Deira,
of Egfrid, 1° Etheldreda, married son of Penda. †soon after 655.
†705. daughter of Anna, Cyneburga,
| King of East daughter of
OSRED, Anglia, Penda, King
†716.[253] 2° Ermenburga, of Mercia,
†685. †664 (?).
APPENDIX III.
GENEALOGY OF WEST SAXON KINGS BEFORE EGBERT
[Illustration]
CERDIC, †534.
|
CYNRIC, †560.
+---------+------------------------+
| |
CEAWLIN, †593. Cutha (or Cuthwulf).
| +------+-------------------------------------------+
| | |
Cuthwine. CEOLRIC, CEOLWULF,
+-------------+ †597(?) †611.
| | | |
Cuthwulf. Ceadda. CYNEGILS, †641(?). Cuthgisl.
| | +-------+--+-------------+------------------+ |
| | | | | | |
Ceolwald. CENBERHT, CWICHELM, CENWALH, CENTWINE, Cyneburga, Cenfrith.
| †661. †636. †672. married the sister of married |
| +--------+ | Ermenburga, Queen Oswald, Cenfus.
| | | | of Northumbria, King of |
Cenred. CADWALLA, Mul, CUTHRED I., †685. Northumbria. AESCWINE,
| †689. burnt 687. †661. †676.
|
|
| A descendant of
+-+----+ Cerdic.
| | +------------+
| | | | [A] [A]
Ingild. INE,==Ethelburh. ETHELHEARD, CUTHRED II., CYNEWULF,
| †726. †740. †754. a kinsman of Cuthred II.,
| †786.
Eoppa. N.
| +-----------+-----------+
Eaba. [A]| |
| SIGEBERT, Cyneheard,
EALHMUND, †757. the Avenger.
sub-King of Kent.
| [254]
EGBERT. BEORHTRIC,
†802.
FOOTNOTES.
[1] Geikie, _Prehistoric Europe_, p. 13.
[2] Geikie, p. 119.
[3] Bunbury (_History of Ancient Geography_, i., 591) disputes this
translation, and contends that Pytheas only said that he travelled (not
necessarily on foot) over such parts of the island as were accessible.
[4] See Note at the end of this chapter.
[5] Pre-eminently of Sir John Evans, on whose great work on ancient
British coins this chapter is founded.
[6] In B.C. 34, 27 and 25 (Dion Cassius, xlix., 38; liii., 22 and 25).
[7] The popular form of this prince’s name, Caractacus, is not
justified by the MSS., but one would not think it necessary to restore
the true form by the omission of one letter, were it not that the
correct spelling brings us nearer to the Welsh equivalent, Caradoc.
[8] That these four legions took part in the Plautian conquest of
Britain is undoubted. It may perhaps, however, be questioned whether
all sailed with Aulus Plautius at the very outset of the expedition.
The fact that the army was divided for the purpose of the crossing into
three portions looks rather as if it consisted of three legions: and
the fourth might form the nucleus of the reinforcements which came with
the Emperor Claudius.
[9] _Agricola_, xiv.
[10] The name of this tribe is doubtful.
[11] For the reasons in favour of the date 60 instead of 61 (given by
Tacitus), see Henderson, _Life and Principate of Emperor Nero_, p. 477.
[12] Her name seems to have been really Boudicca, meaning the
Victorious. The form Boadicea rests on no authority and conveys no
meaning, but it is now too late to change it.
[13] Several names of British gods begin like Andraste. A little
farther on Dion speaks of the sacred grove of Andate or Victory; and we
find dedications to Ancasta, Anociticus, and Antenociticus.
[14] From a misreading of this name is derived the modern Grampian.
[15] These sentences are quoted from Prof. Pelham’s paper on “The
Roman Frontier System” (_Transactions of Cumberland and Westmorland
Antiquarian Society_, xiv., 170–84), in which the reader will find an
admirable statement of the object of the Roman frontier defences and
the manner of their construction.
[16] Equivalent to seventy-three and a half English miles: the distance
from Wallsend to Bowness.
[17] The term “Menapian” may apply to either country.
[18] Notwithstanding the positive statement of the panegyrist that
the victory over Allectus was won by Constantius in person, the merit
of it is assigned by some of the historians to the Prætorian Prefect
Asclepiodotus. It is, perhaps, impossible to frame a satisfactory
narrative out of the very fragmentary materials at our disposal.
[19] It has been shown by Mr. Haverfield that Britannia Prima included
Cirencester (_Arch. Oxon._, p. 220).
[20] They were Branodunum (Brancaster in Norfolk), Gariannonum
(Caistor, near Yarmouth), Othona (at the mouth of the Blackwater in
Essex?), Regulbium (Reculver in Essex), Rutupiæ (Richborough), Dubræ
(Dover), Lemannæ (Lymne), Anderida (close to Beachy Head), Portus
Adurni (not yet identified).
[21] Epist. viii. 6.
[22] 2 Kings xvii. 27.
[23] See _English Historical Review_, xi., 420, for a list of these
evidences of Christianity in Britain, drawn up by Mr. Haverfield.
[24] Quotation from Haverfield, _Victoria History of Norfolk_, i., 282.
[25] See Stevenson’s _Asser_, p. 166, for reasons against it.
[26] Possibly their name may be connected with that of the Eudoces,
a tribe mentioned by Tacitus as neighbours of the Angli. But that
identification, if confirmed, would not add much to our knowledge.
[27] It is conjectured, but only conjectured, that it took place at
Maes Garmon (the field of Germanus?), near Mold in Flintshire.
[28] It will be observed that this date is eight years later than that
given by Tiro. It is probably derived from Bede (i., 15), who, however,
does not seem to have had any definite information as to the exact year
of the first invasion, though he certainly places it in the reigns of
the Emperors Marcian and Valentinian III., that is (according to his
inaccurate reckoning) somewhere between 449 and 455.
[29] The site of Fethan-lea is not ascertained. Dr. Guest’s
identification of it with Faddiley in Cheshire, and the large
consequences thence deduced by him (_Origines Celticæ_, ii., 287–309),
can hardly survive the strenuous attack made on them by Mr. Stevenson
in the _Eng. Hist. Rev._, xvii., 637.
[30] Probably in Wiltshire (_ibid._, 638).
[31] “Forwurdon,” not the usual peaceful and beautiful “forth-ferdon”
(fared forth).
[32] Or Agitius, as Gildas calls him.
[33] The name of Vortigern, inserted here in Gale’s edition, is absent
from the best, though found in a few manuscripts.
[34] Isaiah xix. 11.
[35] Nennius makes such a muddle of his chronology that he virtually
asserts that Christ was born A.D. 183; and he accepts the idle tales
about Brutus, ancestor of the Britons, and descendant of Aeneas,
which had been apparently fabricated by Irish students of Virgil two
centuries before he wrote.
[36] _Sed ipse erat dux bellorum._
[37] This may be either Chester or Leicester.
[38] Ep. i., 7. This is a very important passage, as showing at what an
early date British refugees were settled near the mouth of the Loire
in such numbers as to be an important element in Gaulish politics.
Arvandus, once Prætorian prefect of Gaul, was accused before the
Emperor of high treason because he had corresponded with the King of
the Visigoths, inviting him to attack “the Britons situated on the
Loire,” who were evidently loyal to the empire. In another letter of
the same writer (Ep. iii., 9) we find him pleading with his friend
Riothamus, a Breton chief (or king), for the restoration of some slaves
who have been coaxed away from a friend of his by “Britannis clam
sollicitantibus”. This same Riothamus, described by Jordanes as “rex
Brittonum,” fought with Euric, King of the Visigoths, on behalf of the
empire (_Jord. de rebus Geticis_, xlv.).
[39] _Excerpta e Prisci historia_, p. 199 (ed. Bonn).
[40] _De Bello Gothico_, ii., 6.
[41] _De Bello Gothico_, iv., 20.
[42] Between 575 and 578, or possibly between 585 and 590.
[43] This story is told in similar but by no means identical words in
an early life of Pope Gregory, probably written by a monk of Whitby
who was a contemporary of Bede’s, and discovered by Paul Ewald: _Hist.
Aufsätze an G. Waitz gewidmet_. It has been suggested that Bede copied
from this biography. To me it seems more probable that Bede and the
biographer, independently of one another, repeated the common _traditio
majorum_.
[44] Benedict I., if the earlier date is correct; otherwise Pelagius
II. On the fourth day of Gregory’s journey a grasshopper alighted on
the page of the Bible which he was reading during the noontide halt.
“_Ecce locusta_,” he said, and interpreted the sign as meaning _Loco
sta_, “Stay where you are”. In that hour arrived the papal emissary
commanding him to return to Rome.
[45] “Inter Langobardorum gladios”: a favourite expression of Gregory’s.
[46] Bede, _Hist. Eccl._, i., 25. Evidently the defeat sustained
(according to the Chronicle) in 568 at the hands of Ceawlin, king of
Wessex, had been more than made good.
[47] This follows from the date of St. Martin’s death, which was about
402.
[48] Archiepiscopus genti Anglorum ordinatus est (_Hist. Eccl._, i.,
27). Observe that Bede without hesitation uses the word _Angli_ to
denote the whole Anglo-Saxon-Jutish nationality.
[49] See Kemble, _The Saxons in England_, i., 148.
[50] In the county of Flint about ten miles south of Chester: not to be
confounded with Bangor on the Menai Straits or with the Irish monastery
of Bangor in County Down.
[51] See H. A. Wilson in Mason’s _Mission of St. Augustine_, pp. 248–52.
[52] As in the case of the _stigmata_ of St. Francis, modern science
has shown that it is possible to accept the historic truth of this
narrative without admitting the hypothesis, either of miracle or of
fraud.
[53] That of Richard of Hexham (_circa_ 1141. Prologue to his
_History_). Simeon of Durham (_circa_ 1104) says that “all the country
between Tees and Tyne was then [in the seventh century] a waste
wilderness, the habitation of wild animals, and therefore subject to no
man’s sway” (_Vita Oswaldi_, cap. i.).
[54] “_Ond rixode twelf gear, ond he timbrode Bebbanburh, seo waes
aerost mid hegge betyned, ond aefter mid wealle_.” Mr. Bates, whose
_History of Northumberland_ is a most helpful guide to this part of our
history, reminds us that this “hackneyed passage is an interpolation
of a Kentish scribe in the eleventh century”. Still, though we may not
quote it as a first-rate authority, there seems no reason for rejecting
it altogether.
[55] _Hist. Eccl._, i., 34.
[56] Or as the Saxon chronicler quaintly puts it, “that if Welshmen
would not be kith and kin (sibbe) with us they should by Saxon hands
perish”.
[57] We may probably conjecture that the rapid far-reaching campaigns
of early English kings, such as Ethelfrid, were rendered possible by
the still solid condition of the great Roman roads, which in the Middle
Ages fell grievously into decay. Thus even the civilisation of the
Roman empire fought for the barbarians.
[58] This remark was made by Professor Freeman.
[59] In telling this story Bede hints that Paulinus received by
supernatural means the particulars of an earlier supernatural
appearance; but he does not put forward this theory very confidently,
and we may, perhaps, sufficiently account for the incident if we
suppose that Paulinus himself, unknown at that time to Edwin, was the
chief actor in the first scene, the memory of which he revived at an
opportune time to strengthen the wavering faith of the king.
[60] It must be remembered that this is the Anglian version of the
story, possibly unjust to Cadwallon, and that the Britons had the
wrongs of two centuries to avenge.
[61] Skene, _Celtic Scotland_, ii., 89.
[62] By Skene, _u.s._, ii., 63.
[63] Nennius (_Hist. Brit._, § 64) says “in bello Catscaul”. _Cat_
is an old English word for battle; _caul_ is probably corrupted from
_guaul_, the word elsewhere used by Nennius for the Roman wall (_cf._
§§ 23 and 38).
[64] _Brut y Tywysogion_, _s.a._, 681.
[65] “Urbs regia” (Bede, iii., 6); “urbs munitissima” (Simeon of
Durham, _Historia Regum_, § 48).
[66] Generally identified with Oswestry (Oswald’s tree) in Shropshire.
[67] By Freeman: _Norman Conquest_, i., 36 (3rd ed.).
[68] Except parts of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire surrounding
Dorchester.
[69] “A viro gentili nomine Ricberto” (Bede, _Hist. Ecc._, ii., 15).
[70] In some way which is not explained, Ethelhere was himself “the
author of the war”. Possibly as suggested by Mr. Bates (_Archæologia
Aeliana_, xix., 182–91), his marriage with a great niece of Edwin gave
him some claim to the throne of Deira.
[71] That of Swithelm.
[72] The whole of this story about the so-called Dalfinus, Archbishop
of Lyons, as related by Wilfrid’s biographer is encompassed with
historical difficulties. See Bright’s _Early English Church History_,
pp. 218 ff. (3rd ed.).
[73] An attempt to arrange the recurrences of Easter in a cycle of 19
years.
[74] The southern Irish conformed in 634; the northern Irish in 692;
the northern Picts, 710; the monks of Iona, 716; the Britons in Wales,
768.
[75] Chiefly Celtic. See Bright’s _Early English Church History_, p.
237, n. 2.
[76] For the reasons for dating Oswy’s death in 671 rather than a year
earlier according to the text of Bede, see Plummer’s note on _H. E._,
iv., 5.
[77] Hagustald.
[78] In Hrypum.
[79] This is Eddius’ account of the transaction. According to Bede a
dispute arose between Egfrid and Wilfrid. The latter was deposed and
then his diocese was divided.
[80] Site not known.
[81] P. 174.
[82] The identification of this place with Wanborough, near Swindon, is
disproved by Stevenson (_Eng. Hist. Rev._, xvii., 638).
[83] _Gesta Regum Anglorum_, i., 35 (first recension).
[84] Weorthige.
[85] Gaers-tun.
[86] Gedal-land. Mr. Seebohm translates “land divided into strips”.
[87] There is evidently an omission of some such words.
[88] Vinogradoff, _The Growth of the Manor_, p. 150.
[89] The nature of the difference between the tun and the ham has
perhaps yet to be discovered. For brevity’s sake the former word only
will be used in the following discussion. Neither “town” nor “township”
is a quite satisfactory translation.
[90] The theory that place-names containing the element _ing_
necessarily points to a settlement by a community, though generally
accepted, is contested by Prof. Earle and Mr. Stevenson, who consider
that _ing_ is sometimes merely the equivalent of the genitive singular
(_Eng. Hist. Rev._, iv., 356).
[91] Such as those in Seebohm’s _Village Community_.
[92] By Vinogradoff, _l.c._, 176; compare also Maitland, _Domesday Book
and Beyond_, p. 337.
[93] _Germania_, xxvi.
[94] From _caruca_, a plough. There is a general correspondence between
the two terms hide and carucate, but it would not be safe to treat them
as always precisely equivalent to one another.
[95] The size of a hide might partly depend on the nature of the soil.
Obviously in some soils a team of six oxen would accomplish a much
larger day’s work than in others. Kemble, _The Saxons in England_, i.,
101, argues for a hide of about 33 acres.
[96] From _virga_ = a yard.
[97] For convenience of reference the following table is appended,
but it must be remembered that these are rather average results than
scientifically exact formulæ. See Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_,
p. 239, for varying sizes of Hides, Virgates and Bovates.
1 Bovate or Ox-gang = 15 acres.
2 Bovates = 1 Virgate or Yard-land = 30 acres.
8 Bovates or 4 Virgates = 1 Carucate or Hide = 120 acres.
[98] As alleged by Mr. Seebohm.
[99] The laws of Ine which speak of the subjection of a free man to a
lord are 3, 21, 27, 39, 67 and 74.
[100] Law 43.
[101] Law 16. _Ceorles birele_ evidently means a ceorl’s female slave.
[102] Vinogradoff (_Growth of the Manor_, 202) minimises the element
of personal slavery in the early Anglo-Saxon community: “Even in the
earliest stage of English life it could not be said that English
society was a slave-holding one.... Slavery turns out not to be a
fit economic and social basis for a primitive, half-agricultural,
half-pastural society: the slaves are difficult to keep and awkward to
deal with.... They are mostly provided with small households of their
own and used as coloni.”
[103] Ine, 70. The _amber_ is said to have contained four bushels, but
Maitland (_Domesday Book_, etc., p. 440, n. 6) doubts its having been
so large.
[104] Ine, 11, 12.
[105] There seems to have been a tendency as legislation advanced to
increase the distance in respect of _wergilds_ between the king and his
subjects.
[106] Chadwick, _Anglo-Saxon Institutions_, pp. 144–48.
[107] See Chadwick, chapter viii., for references on this point.
[108] Chadwick (_Excursus_, iv.) takes a different view and practically
denies the elective power of the _witan_.
[109] There are some indications that in early times the shilling of
Wessex may have contained only 4 peningas.
[110] Heinrich Leo.
[111] This name, or rather Cruland, was afterwards corrupted into
Croyland.
[112] Ep. 73 (Mon. Hist. Germ., Epist. iii., 340).
[113] It is now recognised that the dates in the Chronicle from 754 to
851 are two, or in some cases three years behind the true dates.
[114] The words from Haerethaland which follow in the text are thought
by Steenstrup (_Normannerne_, ii., 15–20) to be an interpolation. In
the following chapters the example of the Chronicle will generally be
followed, in calling the Scandinavian invaders Danes, without entering
on the debated question which of them came from Denmark proper and
which from Norway.
[115] See Keary, _The Vikings in Western Christendom_, pp. 139–42.
[116] _Here_ is simply the Anglo-Saxon equivalent for army; but in the
Chronicle it almost invariably means the Danish army, while _fyrd_ is
the word used for the English troops, which were in the nature of a
militia.
[117] This fact has been especially emphasised by Freeman, _Norman
Conquest_, i., 43–45.
[118] This date, as will be seen, is not that of his original burial,
which probably took place near the beginning of July, 862, but the
date of the “translation” of his remains to the cathedral, which was
accomplished more than a century later.
[119] Stubbs, _Const. Hist._, i., 249, and 258.
[120] The translation of some of the terms used is conjectural.
[121] _Liber Pontificalis_, ii., 148 (ed. Duchesne).
[122] This restoration of the Schola Saxonum rests only on the
authority of William of Malmesbury, and is doubted, but hardly
disproved, by Mr. Stevenson in his edition of Asser, pp. 245–46.
Notwithstanding the high authority of Monseigneur Duchesne, quoted
by Mr. Stevenson, it does not seem to me probable that the _scholæ
peregrinorum_ were essentially military establishments, though they may
have assumed somewhat of that character under the stress of the Saracen
invasions in the ninth century.
[123] Charles the Bald was at this time thirty-two years of age.
Ethelwulf cannot have been less than fifty and may have been
considerably older.
[124] The reader is referred to the Appendix for an account of the
controversies which have arisen respecting this book. It is enough
to say here that we seem to be justified in accepting it as a
contemporary, and in the main a truthful account of the life of the
great king. It ends, however, with the year 887.
[125] Tunc ille statim tollens librum de manu sua magistrum adiit et
legit. Quo lecto matri retulit et recitavit.--Asser, _De Rebus Gestis
Aelfredi_, § 23.
[126] As Mr. Stevenson suggests, if _et_ be a copyist’s mistake for
_qui_ (both represented by contractions), the difficulty would vanish.
[127] This is pointed out by Mr. Oman in “Collected Essays” in _Alfred
the Great_.
[128] Florence of Worcester’s words (borrowed from St. Edmund’s
earliest biographer Abbo), “Ex antiquorum Saxonum prosapia oriundus,”
seem, according to the usage of the time, to refer to the Old Saxons
of the continent. If he had meant merely to say “from an old Saxon
family,” he would probably have said “antiqua” rather than “antiquorum”.
[129] _Studies in Church Dedications_ (ii., 327), by Miss
Arnold-Forster.
[130] In describing the events of this year the writer follows the
guidance of the late Mr. W. H. Simcox, who personally identified most
of the battle-sites, and the results of whose investigations are
contained in an excellent paper in the _English Historical Review_, i.,
218–34.
[131] The title of the Danish battle leaders, next in rank to the king.
[132] On philological grounds Mr. Stevenson disputes the propriety of
this translation and asserts that Aesc must be the name of a person.
The present appearance of Ashdown Hills seems, however, to correspond
admirably with Asser’s description. It is better not to complicate the
discussion by an argument derived from the strange figure of a White
Horse (so-called) cut upon their northern side, as that figure, with
all its picturesque interest, is not a safe guide to a historical
identification.
[133] At this point the _Chronicle of St. Neots_, a late and
untrustworthy authority written perhaps early in the twelfth century,
inserts the well-known story of the burning of the cakes, which does
not form part of the genuine text of Asser’s _Life_.
[134] The site of this fortress has been much discussed but is not yet
satisfactorily settled. See Stevenson’s _Asser_, p. 262.
[135] Edington in Wiltshire, a little east of Westbury. Near this place
is another White Horse, at Bratton Castle, but we have not sufficient
evidence to connect this with Alfred’s victory.
[136] This was pointed out half a century ago by Dr. Reinhold Schmid,
the accurate German editor of the Anglo-Saxon laws.
[137] It is interesting to note that the Watling Street is still the
chief boundary between the counties of Warwick and Leicester. Through a
large part of its course the London and North Western Railway so nearly
coincides with this old Roman road that the traveller faring northwards
may consider himself to be looking forth from the right-hand window
over the “Danelaw” and from the left over “Saxony”.
[138] The value of the mark of pure gold is not yet clearly
ascertained. Mr. Chadwick (_Studies in Anglo-Saxon Institutions_,
p. 50) argues from this passage that a single mark of gold = 300
scillings, and that the fine hereby imposed was 1,200 scillings, equal
to the wergild of a West Saxon noble. But in that case one would
have expected to have some more distinct indication of rank than is
contained in the words “gif man ofslagen weorthe”.
[139] For some valuable suggestions on the mysterious subject of
Alfred’s diseases see Plummer’s _Life and Times of Alfred the Great_,
pp. 28, 214.
[140] Plummer, _Two Saxon Chronicles_, ii., civ.
[141] Quotations are given from Mr. Sedgefield’s translation, which
has the great merit of distinguishing Alfred’s interpolations by a
different type from the original text.
[142] Against the genuineness of the passage are its omission from Ã,
the earliest and best MS. of the Chronicle, from Asser, and from the
original text of Florence of Worcester. See Stevenson, _Asser_, pp.
287–90.
[143] Professor Vinogradoff in his essay on Folkland contributed to the
_English Historical Review_, vol. viii.; further illustrated by his
_Growth of the Manor_.
[144] “Terra popularis, communi jure et sine scripto possessa.” This
was Spelman’s definition (1626), and Vinogradoff shows good ground for
reverting to it with a slight modification, instead of adopting Allen’s
theory that the folkland was land owned by the nation like the _ager
publicus_ of Rome.
[145] See Cnut’s laws, ii., 13.
[146] Kemble, _Codex Diplomaticus_, No. 317; Birch, _Cartularium
Saxonicum_, No. 558.
[147] Not 893–97 as Chronicle.
[148] Earle, _Two Saxon Chronicles_ (1865), p. xvi.
[149] _Reginonis Chronicon_, _a._ 891.
[150] In _Eng. Hist. Rev._ (1898), xiii., 444, Mr. W. C. Abbott argues
that Hasting is possibly identical with Hásteinn, one of the first
settlers of Iceland.
[151] Probably; but the Chronicle gives the date 901, and Mr.
Stevenson, _Eng. Hist. Rev._ (1898), xiii., 71, argues strongly for 899.
[152] _Words and Places_, pp. 175–76.
[153] Might it not be added “and from the Humber?”
[154] _The Northmen in Cumberland and Westmorland_ (1856).
[155] Edward’s reign probably lasted from 900 to 924, but owing to
discrepancies between the MSS. of the Chronicles no date in the reign
can be stated with certainty, the differences varying from one to three
years.
[156] Offa calls it his _palatium regale_ in one of his charters
(Birch, _Cart. Sax._, 240).
[157] Especially Freeman, whose words are quoted in the rest of this
paragraph. But see also for a later vindication of the correctness of
the chronicler’s statement, Plummer, _Saxon Chronicles_, ii., 131.
[158] _Historical Essays_, i., 60, 62.
[159] _Norman Conquest_, i., 59.
[160] Robertson, Skene and Lang.
[161] Robertson, _Scotland under her Early Kings_, ii., 397.
[162] It was pointed out in the _Athenæum_ for Nov. 4, 1905, that
this place rather than Farringdon, in Berkshire, corresponds with the
Farndune of the Chronicle.
[163] Adolf, son of Baldwin of Flanders.
[164] Heinskringla, _Story of Haarfager_, 41 and 42.
[165] It was probably at this time that Athelstan, as we learn from
William of Malmesbury, rased to the ground the fortress which the Danes
had aforetime built in York, “that there might be no place in which
these perfidious ones could take refuge,” and generously divided among
his men the vast booty which he found there.
[166] By Symeon of Durham, not by the Chronicle, which here is
singularly barren of information except such as is contained in the
“Lay of Brunanburh”.
[167] The twelfth century chronicler, Florence of Worcester, says
that with these ships he entered the Humber; and this statement has
been frequently copied by later historians. It is not, however, to be
found in any contemporary or nearly contemporary record, and it is
now generally regarded with suspicion, for the obvious reason that an
invader, coming from Ireland with the intention of co-operating with
the Kings of Cumberland and Scotland, would be more likely to land on
the western than on the eastern coast of Britain.
[168] Especially since it was turned into spirited yet closely literal
English verse by Tennyson, from whose poem a few passages are here
quoted.
[169] William of Malmesbury, _Gesta Regum_, ii., 135.
[170] _Ibid._, 134.
[171] Probably of the tenth century, therefore nearly contemporary.
[172] See Plummer, _Saxon Chronicles_, ii., 137, and Freeman, _Hist.
Essays_, i., 10–15, for a full discussion of the question.
[173] See Birch, _Cartularium Saxonicum_, 656.
[174] Possibly Chesterfield.
[175] _Life of Dunstan_, by B. (a Saxon monk, nearly contemporary).
[176] The celebrated story of the Devil and the hot tongs is not told
by any contemporary of Dunstan’s, but by the much-romancing Osbern
about 130 years after his death. The identical pair of tongs with which
the saint is said to have seized the Devil’s nose is still shown at the
priory of Mayfield in Sussex.
[177] An excellent summing up of the whole case will be found in E. W.
Robertson’s _Historical Essays_, p. 192.
[178] The short reign of Edwy furnishes 150 pages to the _Cartularium
Saxonicum_.
[179] The Chronicle and the biographers agree in postponing Dunstan’s
return till after Edgar’s accession to the undivided realm, but his
signatures to charters seem to require an earlier date.
[180] See Robertson’s, _Historical Essays_, p. 211.
[181] As pointed out by Mr. W. H. Stevenson in the _English Historical
Review_ (1898), xiii., 506, an important attestation to the meeting
of the kings (though not to the water procession) is furnished by the
ecclesiastical author Elfric, himself a contemporary of Edgar and a
pupil and friend of bishop Ethelwold. In his poetical _Life of St.
Swithin_, written about 996, he contrasts the happy days of Edgar with
the disastrous reign of his son, and says: “All the kings of this
island of Cymri and of Scots, eight kings, came to Edgar once upon a
time on one day and they all bowed to Edgar’s government”.
[182] Robertson’s _Historical Essays_, p. 203.
[183] _Ibid._, p. 169.
[184] As stated by Robertson, _ibid._, p. 168.
[185] See Freeman’s _Historical Essays_, first series, 15–25, for a
refutation of the legend of Elfrida’s marriage.
[186] See Robertson’s _Historical Essays_, pp. 166–71. There is no
evidence that Elfrida shared her husband’s coronation, but she is the
first king’s wife after Judith to sign charters as _Regina_.
[187] Kemble’s _Codex Diplomaticus_, 700.
[188] Especially by Sir H. Howorth, _Archæologia_, xlv., 235–50.
[189] The following passages are almost all taken from the Peterborough
version of the Chronicle which was based for this part of the narrative
on a Canterbury Chronicle. Hence, doubtless, the fulness of the entries
relating to Kent.
[190] Now corrupted into Skutchamfly Barrow, eight and a half miles
from the White Horse in Berkshire.
[191] The term Danegeld seems to be properly applicable to the tax
imposed on the king’s subjects in order to provide for the payment
to the Danes. The payment itself is generally called _gafol_ in the
Chronicle.
[192] It is stated in Ethelred’s Treaty with Olaf (Liebermann, i.,
220–228) that the sum promised to the invaders was “22,000 pounds of
gold and silver”. The document is, on other grounds, an interesting
one, as it seems to show a serious effort to secure permanent peace
between the two nations.
[193] Stubbs’ _Constitutional History_, i., 118, 623.
[194] Freeman, _Hist. of Norm. Conq._, i., 279.
[195] Admirably told to English-speaking readers in Longfellow’s “Saga
of King Olaf,” which is, in fact, a paraphrase of this part of the
_Heimskringla_.
[196] The name of this well-known historical personage was undoubtedly
Knut or Cnut. It is so written both in the Scandinavian _Sagas_ and in
the English Chronicle. But the Latinised form Canutus preserves the
remembrance of a helping vowel which may have been often used, even by
contemporaries, at least in England. At this day the Danish name Knothe
is always pronounced Kinnoté in Northumberland. The important point is
to remember that the accent is on the last syllable: Canúte, not Cánute.
[197] In Hampshire, near Portsmouth.
[198] This is Freeman’s suggestion, _Norman Conquest_, i., 415.
[199] This also is Freeman’s suggestion (_u.s._, i., 411).
[200] See Freeman, _u.s._, i., 737–40.
[201] As suggested by J. R. Green, _Conquest of England_, 479.
[202] Author of the tract, _De Obsessione Dunelmi_, added to the
history of Symeon of Durham.
[203] See _supra_, p. 396.
[204] In the reign of Indulph (954–962) according to a Pictish
chronicle quoted by Skene, _Celtic Scotland_, i., 365.
[205] It does not appear necessary to discuss the previous question of
the alleged “cession of Lothian” by Edgar, the evidence for which is
very slender.
[206] As to this identification, see Skene, _Celtic Scotland_, i., 397,
405–6.
[207] Certainly not 1031, as stated in the Chronicle. Canute’s presence
at Conrad’s coronation makes this date impossible. So considerable an
error throws doubt on the chronological accuracy of, at any rate, this
part of the Chronicle.
[208] In Scania, which then belonged to Denmark.
[209] This story of the forged letter is taken from the author of
the _Encomium Emmæ_, who, as a contemporary, and as one who actually
conversed with Queen Emma, seems to be entitled to credence,
notwithstanding some strange misstatements, due, perhaps, rather to
insincerity than to ignorance.
[210] Mr. Plummer (_Saxon Chronicles_, ii., 210–15) argues that
Godwine’s hostile action towards the Etheling was taken in the interest
not of Harold but of Harthacnut.
[211] Freeman, _Norman Conquest_, i., 489–501 and 779–87.
[212] Son of Uhtred and nephew of Eadwulf Cutel.
[213] Or _Leges Mar chiarum_, a digest of which was published in 1705
by William Nicolson, Bishop of Carlisle (a later edition in 1747).
[214] It is perhaps not a mere coincidence that some even of the
special terms of the _Leges Marchiarum_ are also to be found in the
laws of Edgar and Ethelred. Such are _foul_ or _ful_ for “guilty,” and
_trod_ for the track of a stolen beast.
[215] Compare Vinogradoff, _The Growth of the Manor_, p. 144; Chadwick,
_Anglo-Saxon Institutions_, 239–48, and the remarkable article by Mr.
W. J. Corbett in vol. xiv. of _Transactions of the Royal Historical
Society_, N.S., on the “Tribal Hidage”.
[216] Cnut, ii., 15 (in Liebermann, i., 320).
[217] Rutland was not, however, formed into a separate county till
after the Norman Conquest.
[218] Edgar, iii., 5 (_ibid._, 202).
[219] _Burg_ is, of course, one of the best-known words of the common
Teutonic stock. It is enshrined in Luther’s hymn “Ein’ feste Burg ist
unser Gott,” and in hunting for the traces of Roman encampments in
Hesse and Nassau, I have found that the name by which they are best
known in the countryside is “Die alte Burg”.
[220] Ine, 45 (Liebermann, i., 108); Alfred, 40 (_ibid._, 72).
[221] Maitland, _Domesday Book_, etc., p. 184.
[222] IV., 2, 4 and 5 (Liebermann, i., 210).
[223] If Ethelfled’s fortress of Scergeat may be identified with
Shrewsbury.
[224] As Freeman puts it: “I believe the cause of this distinction
[between Somerset and Northamptonshire] to be that West Saxon England
was made only once, while Mercian England had to be made twice” (“The
Shire and the Gâ” in _English Towns and Districts_, p. 124).
[225] Some of these names are probably contained in that curious
document, the Tribal Hidage, on which Mr. Corbett has commented in
_Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_, vol. xiv., N.S.
[226] See Chadwick, _Anglo-Saxon Institutions_, 262.
[227] If any exception is to be made to this statement it will be with
reference to the half-independent earls of Bamburgh.
[228] The _wers_ are calculated in the Scandinavian or, perhaps,
Northumbrian money, the _thrymsas_, each equivalent to three penings.
[229] See Vinogradoff (_The Growth of the Manor_, p. 131) on this
illustration of “the arrogant superiority of the Danish conquerors”.
He remarks on the growth of the pretensions of the invaders since the
treaty between Alfred and Guthrum which put the Northmen warriors only
on the same level as the twelf-hyndmen, or ordinary thegns.
[230] Schmid, p. 371; Liebermann, p. 444.
[231] This is Professor Vinogradoff’s view, _Growth of the Manor_, p.
233.
[232] Edward, i., 1 (Liebermann, i., 138).
[233] Edgar, iv., 3 (Liebermann, i., 210). This law is important as it
helps us clearly to distinguish between _burh_, a borough, and _borh_,
an association for mutual defence and for the enforcement of mutual
responsibility.
[234] Cnut, ii., 20 (_ibid._, i., 322).
[235] Ethelred, viii., 22 (Liebermann, i., 266).
[236] See Maitland, _Domesday Book_, etc., p. 260. He thinks it
probable that many grants of similar privileges of an earlier date have
perished.
[237] The German _sache_, preserved in our expression “for God’s sake,”
and the like (Maitland, _Domesday Book_, etc., p. 84).
[238] _Sco ealde Hlaefdige_ is the term used in the Chronicle to
describe the queen-dowager. It will be remembered that there was in
Wessex a peculiar distaste to the title “Queen”.
[239] By Freeman, _Norman Conquest_, ii., 124–25 and 615.
[240] For some years the county of Huntingdon was strangely added to
Northumbria as a portion of his earldom. For the complicated question
of the limits of the earldoms under Edward, see Freeman, _Norman
Conquest_, vol. ii., note G.
[241] Freeman, _u.s._
[242] _Welisce menn._--Of course the word Wealas and its derivations
meant simply non-Teutonic and had no necessary connexion with the
British population of what we now call Wales.
[243] Some doubt has been thrown on the early connexion of Godwine with
Kent.
[244] “_Mycelne ende thes folces_,” says the Peterborough chronicler;
“thirty good thegns,” say the Abingdon and Worcester chroniclers,
“besides other folk.”
[245] Literally “had raised up un-law and deemed un-dooms”.
[246] This is Mr. Plummer’s excellent suggestion for the interpretation
of a passage in the Chronicle which had previously baffled the
commentators.
[247] It must always be remembered that we have nothing but bare
conjecture to go upon for the date of Harold’s visit to Normandy. There
are some reasons for placing it much earlier than 1064.
[248] Freeman, _Norman Conquest_, iii., 300.
[249] The following description of this battle is taken for the most
part from the Saga of Harold Hardrada in the Heimskringla, and has no
doubt a good deal of the character of fiction.
[250] Wace (ed. Malet, p. 60), who gives the number on his father’s
report.
[251] Wace, author of the _Roman de Rou_. The question of the existence
of this “palisade” has been discussed at great length by Mr. Round who
denies, and by Mr. Archer and Miss Norgate who affirm, its existence
(see _English Historical Review_, vol. ix., 1894). The question remains
full of difficulty, the doubt being whether to attach most weight to
the obscure utterance of one writer or to the silence of many. The
conclusion to which the present writer is disposed to come is that
there was some sort of hastily constructed fence, meant as a protection
against cavalry, but that in the actual battle, which was waged chiefly
between opposing bodies of infantry, it played an unimportant part and
may have been soon thrust out of the way, as much by the defenders as
by the assailants of the position.
[252] Made by Baring, _Eng. Hist. Rev._, vol. xx., 1905.
[253] After the death of Osred in 716 the genealogy of the Northumbrian
kings becomes uncertain.
[254] The pedigree of all these kings is uncertain. All that can be
said of them is that “their right ancestry goeth to Cerdic”.
INDEX.
Abercorn (Aebbercurnig), 192.
Abingdon, monastery at, 355, 419.
Acha of Deira, wife of Ethelfrid, 133, 153.
Adamnan, Abbot of Iona, 148, 151, 157.
Adela, daughter of William the Norman, 469, 476.
Adminius, son of Cymbeline, 28.
Adolf, son of Baldwin of Flanders, 330.
Ad Murum, royal villa at, 169, 175.
_Aelfredes and Guthrumes Frith_, 286–288.
Aelfric, Archbishop of Canterbury, 452.
Aelle, King of Deira, 94, 115, 133, 135, 171.
Aelle, King of Sussex, 89, 90, 110, 126.
Aesc, King of Kent, 88, 89.
“_Aestel_,” clasp or bookmarker? 292.
Aetius, 96, 97.
Agatha, wife of Etheling Edward, 461.
Agatho, Pope, 203.
Agilbert, Bishop, 182, 183, 193, 196.
Agricola, Calpurnius, 58.
Agricola, Gnæus Julius, conquers Ordovices, 47;
fortifies North of England, 50;
his Caledonian campaign, 50;
recalled to Rome, 50.
Aidan, King of the Scots, 133, 134, 148.
Aidan, missionary bishop, 155–169, 181, 182, 198.
Albinus, Abbot of Canterbury, 86.
Albinus, British usurper defeated at Lyons, 59.
Albion, 6, 9.
Alchfleda, daughter of Oswy, 168.
Alchfrid, son of Oswy, 168, 170–172, 180, 182, 183.
Alclyde. See Dumbarton, 130, 246.
Alcuin, Northumbrian scholar, 237, 252, 258, 498.
Aldfrid the Learned, 208.
Aldgyth, daughter of Elfgar, 467, 471.
Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury, 178, 241.
Aldhun, Bishop of Lindisfarne, first Bishop of Durham, 406–408.
Alexander II., Pope, blesses Norman invasion, 476.
Alfhild, mother of Magnus of Norway, 444.
Alfred the Great, King of the English, birth (in 848?) at Wantage,
272;
journey to Rome (in 853), 272;
(in 855), 268, 273;
story of the book of poetry given to him, 273;
“secundarius” under his brother Ethelred, 275;
fights with the Danes at Ashdown, 279;
his accession to the throne (871), 281;
in hiding at Athelney, 283;
conquers the Danes, peace with Guthrum, 285;
renewed fighting and peace with Guthrum, 287;
family life, 289;
feeble health, 290;
literary culture, 291;
translation of the _Regula Pastoralis_, 292;
of Orosius, 293;
his connection with the _Saxon Chronicle_, 295;
translation of Bede’s _Ecclesiastical History_, 295;
of Boethius, 296;
expenditure, 298;
mission to India? 299;
laws, 299–395;
last wars with the Danes (892–896), 306–313;
death, 314;
buried in the New Minster, 314.
Alfred, an ealdorman, 304.
Alfred, son of Ethelred the Redeless, 386, 392, 418–420.
Alfwin, King of Deira, 191, 202.
Alfwold, defender of monks, 361.
Allectus, assassinates Carausius, 65;
slain by Constantius Chlorus, 66.
Aller, Guthrum baptised at, 285.
Alphege (or Elfheah), Archbishop, 384, 389, 390.
_Amber_, a measure, perhaps four bushels, 226.
Ambrosius, Aurelianus, 98, 99, 102, 103, 107.
Ammianus Marcellinus, historian, 52, 72, 73, 495.
Anastasius, anti-pope, 269.
Anatolius, cycle of, 185.
Anderida (Andredesceaster), 89, 110, 138, 483.
Andover, treaty with Danes at, 384.
Andraste, Celtic goddess, 40.
Andredesleag, or Andredesweald, forest of, 89, 177, 308.
Angles, 79–81, 114, 157.
Anglesey, or Mona, 35, 38, 47, 131, 138.
_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 87–94, 245–482 _passim_, 498–500, 505.
Anglo-Saxon money, 232–235.
Anjou, origin of Counts of, 370.
Anlaf, King of Irish Danes, 333.
Anlaf, son of Guthred, 332.
Anlaf, son of Sihtric, 333, 340.
Anna, King of East Anglia, 162–164, 174, 176.
_Annales Cambriæ_, 100, 506.
Antoninus Pius, Emperor, builds a wall of turf, 58, 94, 334.
Apollinaris Sidonius, Bishop of Clermont, 71, 84, 106.
Appach, on Cæsar’s British Expeditions, 24.
Appledore, Cæsar’s landing-place? 24;
Danish attacks, 307, 308.
Arcadius, Emperor, 72.
Archbishop of Mercia at Lichfield, 250.
Ari, an Icelandic scholar, 504.
Armorica. See Brittany.
Arnulf, King of the Franks, 306.
Arnulf the Old, Count of Flanders, 352, 369.
Arpad the Hungarian, 258.
Arthur, or Artorius, 104, 105, 107, 132.
Asclepiodotus, Pretorian Prefect, 66 n.
Ashdown (Aescesdune), 178, 278.
“Ashes,” Danish ships, 312.
Assandune, battle of, 383, 397.
Asser, Alfred’s biographer, 255, 272, 277, 284 n., 291, 292, 500.
Athelney, island of, 283, 284, 291, 295.
Athelstan, son of Edward the Elder (924–940), 328;
connection with rulers of France and Germany, 330;
friendship with Scandinavian powers, 331;
“lord of all Britain,” 332, 333;
battle of Brunanburh, 334–336;
his person and character, 337;
prayer of, 338;
death and burial, 338;
laws of, 425, 438.
Athelstan, Bishop of Hereford, 466.
Athelstan, son of Egbert, 265.
Athelstan, the half-king, 347, 352.
Athelstan, West Saxon almoner, 299.
_Ath-fultum_, or oath-helping, 229.
Atrebates, British tribe, 10.
Attacotti, allies of Picts and Scots, 68.
Attila, his raids a possible cause of Saxon migration, 97, 107, 109,
112.
Augustine, his mission, 118–125.
Augustine’s Oak, conference at, 123.
Avonmouth, 455.
Aylesbury (Aegelesburh), 92.
Aylesford, battle of, 88.
Avalon, vale of, 178.
Axminster (Ascanmynster), 74.
Badbury (Baddanburh), Ethelwald’s rebellion begins at, 319.
Badon. See Mount Badon.
Bagseg, Danish king, 279.
Bakewell (Badecanwiellon), 323, 326.
Baldred, King of Kent, 264.
Baldwin I. of Flanders marries Judith, widow of King Ethelbald, 274.
Baldwin II. of Flanders marries Elfrida, daughter of Alfred, 289.
Baldwin V. of Flanders, 418, 420, 450, 455, 471.
Baldwin’s land, 445, 450, 451, 455, 458, 477.
Bamburgh (Bebbanburh), built by Ida, 94, 132, 133, 153, 154, 175,
247, 281, 332, 408.
Bangor, monastery in Flint, 122, 124, 135.
Barbury (Beranbyrig), battle of, 91.
Bardney (Beardanig), monastery of, 159, 173.
_Basileus_, Athelstan’s title, 336, 339.
Basing, Danish victory at, 280.
Bass, a thegn of Edwin, 145.
Bates, Cadwallader J., 132, 170 n.
Bath (Bathanceaster), 92, 356, 392.
Battle Abbey, 490, 491.
Bayeux, Tapestry of, 468, 475, 484, 469, 488, 491, 506.
Beaurain, Harold, imprisoned at, 468.
Beddoe, Dr. John, 493.
Bede, the Venerable, 82, 85, 86, 88 n., 90, 114, 117 n., 120, 125,
133, 141 n., 156, 187, 189, 237–240, 497.
Bedford (Bedcanford), 92, 323.
Belgæ, a British tribe, 10, 91.
Belisarius, scoffing allusion to Britain, 113.
Benedict Biscop, 237, 238.
Benedictines, 115, 148, 155, 195, 354.
Benedict III., Pope, 269.
Benfleet (Beamfleot), Danish fort at, 309.
Bensington, Offa’s victory over Wessex at, 250.
Beorn, son of Ulf, 448, 450, 451.
Beorthelm, Archbishop, 352.
Beorhtric, King of Wessex, 254.
Beornwulf usurps the throne of Wessex, 264.
Beowulf, poem of, 228.
Bericus, an exiled British prince, 30.
Berkshire, the wood of Berroc, 272.
Bernhaeth, a leader of the Picts, 191.
Bernicia, kingdom of, 80, 94, 130–132, 134, 137, 160, 171, 179, 247,
281, 332, 408, 422.
Bertha, daughter of Charlemagne, negotiations for her marriage with
Ecgferth, son of Offa, 252.
Bertha, wife of Ethelbert of Kent, 117, 121, 127, 139.
Berthfrid, regent of Bernicia, besieged in Bamburgh, 210.
Bertwald, Archbishop of Canterbury, 211, 219.
Bewcastle Cross, 172.
Bideford Bay, Danes defeated at, 284.
Billingsley, conference at, 466.
Birinus, apostle of Wessex, 158, 161, 162, 179.
Birch, _Cartularium Saxonicum_, 338 n., 508.
Blois, Counts of, 370.
Boadicea (Boudicca), Queen of the Iceni, 40, 42, 43.
Boduni, a British tribe, 31.
Boethius’ _Consolation of Philosophy_, translated by Alfred, 296, 297.
Boniface, Archdeacon, Wilfrid’s teacher, 184.
Boniface (Wynfrith), apostle of the Germans, 203, 236, 237, 248, 250,
498.
Boniface V., Pope, 141.
“Bookland,” 304.
Border of Scotland fixed, 409.
_Borh_, association, 439.
Bosham, 450, 455, 468.
Bothgowanan, Duncan murdered at, 462.
Boulogne (Gesoriacum), 23, 64, 65, 67, 307, 418.
Bovate or oxgang, 223.
Brachy-cephalic or square-headed race, 7.
Bradford-on-Avon (Bradanford), Cenwalh defeats “Walas” at, 178.
Brandon Camp, perhaps the work of Ostorius, 35.
Brecon stormed by the English, 322.
Brentford (Bregentford), Danes defeated at, 396.
Bretwaldas or Brytenwealdas, 126, 138, 157.
Bridgnorth (Brycg), Danish “work” at, 311;
Saxon “burh” at, 321.
Brigantes, a British tribe, 35, 36, 46, 48.
Bright, Dr., referred to, 188 n., 211, 507.
Brihtnoth, hero of Maldon, 362, 378, 379.
Brihtric, brother of Edric Streona, 388, 389.
Bristol, 455, 467.
Britain, Cæsar’s description of, 19.
Britannia, Roman Diocese of, 70, 132.
British coinage, 20.
Brittany, 83, 106, 469, 475.
Brochmail, a British king, 135.
Bromesberrow, fortress built by Ethelfled, 321.
Bromnis, royal city of, 204.
Bronze Age, 5.
Bruce, Dr., historian of the Roman wall, 55.
Brude, a Pictish king, 148.
Brunanburh (? Burnswark), battle of, 334–337.
Brut, a fictitious king, 101 n., 105.
_Brut-y-Saesson_, 506.
_Brut-y-Tywysogion_, Welsh Chronicle quoted, 153, 357, 506.
Bryhtwine, Bishop of Sherborne, 405.
Brythons, 6, 108.
Buckingham (Buccingaham), King of Scots at, 337.
Bunbury, Mr., on Pytheas, 8.
Burford, Mercians defeated at, 249.
“Burg-ware,” 310, 311.
_Burh_, _Burg_, Borough, 429–432;
_Burh-bryce_, 430;
burhs founded by Ethelfled and Edward, 431;
_Burh-gemôt_, 429.
Burhred, King of Mercia, 267, 276, 281.
Bury St. Edmund’s (Beadoricesworth), abbey of, 277, 278, 393, 405.
_Butse-carlas_, common sailors, 458, 477.
Buttington, Danes defeated at, 310.
Cadwalla, King of Wessex, 178, 214–216.
Cadwallader the Blessed, 153.
Cadwallon, King of Gwynedd, 144, 145, 151, 153, 154, 160.
Cadvan, a Welsh king, 136, 144.
Caedmon, a Northumbrian poet, 180, 240.
Caer Caradoc, Caratacus defeated at, 35.
Caerleon-upon-Usk (Isca), 41, 42, 55, 71, 74, 357.
Cæsar, Gaius Julius, 9, 494;
first invasion of Britain, 11–16;
second invasion, 16–19;
description of Britain, 19, 20;
points of arrival and departure in expeditions to Britain, 23, 24.
Caledonia, 60, 79, 132, 134.
Caligula’s pretended conquest of Britain, 28.
Calne, floor collapses at, 362.
Cambridge (Grantanbrycg), Danes at, 281, 283.
Camulodunum, a Roman colony, 28, 32, 39, 41, 76.
Camulus, a Celtic war-god, 39.
Caninus, British king, 99.
Canonici, hybrid order of, 353, 355.
Canute, King of England (1016–1035), lands with father, Sweyn, 391;
mutilates hostages at Sandwich, 394;
ruler of Wessex, 396;
victory at Assandune, peace with Edmund Ironside and Danish
occupation of London, 397;
executes Edric Streona, 401;
marries Emma of Normandy, 402;
dismisses “the army,” 404;
pilgrimage to Rome, 410;
two expeditions to Norway, 412–415;
death and burial, 416, 417, 420;
laws of, 429, 434, 436, 439, 440.
Canterbury (Durovernis, Cantwaraburh), 92, 118, 119, 122, 196, 267,
355, 389, 405, 453.
Cantii, a British tribe, 10.
Caracalla, 60–62.
Caradoc of South Wales, 467.
Caratacus, 29, 31, 33, 34;
defeated by Ostorius, 35, 36;
betrayed by Cartimandua and taken to Rome, 36.
Carausius, Count of the Saxon shore, 64;
Emperor of Britain and slain by Allectus, 65.
Carham, English defeated at, 408, 461.
Carisbrook (Wihtgarasburh), 91.
Carlisle (Luguvallium), 207, 208, 282, 334.
Cartimandua, Queen of the Brigantes, 36, 37.
Carucate, defined, 222.
Cassiterides or Tin Islands, 8.
Cassivelaunus, a British chief, 17–19.
Castra Legionis (Chester or Leicester), 104.
Catgabail, a British king, 170.
Catterick (Cataractonium), 143, 167, 247, 248.
Catus Decianus, Roman procurator, 39, 41.
Catuvellauni, a British tribe, 31, 32, 58.
Ceadda. See St. Chad.
Ceawlin, King of Wessex, 92, 93, 107, 108, 117, 126, 140.
Cedd, a missionary, 175, 186, 188.
Cedred, King of Mercia, 216.
Celestine, Pope, 84.
Celtic gods, 39, 40 n., 75.
Celtic words in English, 111.
Celts, 5.
Cenred, father of King Ine, 219.
Centwine, King of Wessex, 204.
Cenwalh, King of Wessex, 162, 163, 177, 178, 180.
Cenwulf, King of Mercia, 251, 253, 263.
Ceol, brother of Ceawlin, 92.
Ceolfrid, Abbot, 189, 238.
Ceolred, King of Mercia, 212, 248.
Ceolric, brother of Ceawlin, 92, 93.
Ceolwulf, King of Northumbria, 245.
Ceolwulf, King of Wessex, 93.
Ceolwulf, puppet-king of Mercia, 281.
_Ceorl_, his holding of land, 223;
a _twy-hynd_ man, 228;
gradual descent in the social scale, 441.
Cerdic, founder of Wessex, 90, 91, 178.
Cerdic, house of, its decay, 374, 461, 474.
Cerdices ora, 90.
Ceretic, an interpreter, 103.
Chadwick, H. M., 230 n., 231 n., 232 n., 288 n., 428 n., 508.
Champart, Robert, Abbot of Jumièges, Archbishop of Canterbury,
452–454, 457, 459.
Charford (Cerdicesford), Cerdic defeats Britons at, 91.
Chariots of the Britons, 15.
Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, 251, 252, 255, 258, 259, 263, 290,
444, 445.
Charles the Bald, King of the Franks, 268, 270, 370.
Charles the Fat (do.), 258, 306, 367.
Charles the Simple (do.), 330, 368.
Charmouth (Carrum), battles with Danes at, 265, 266.
Cheddar, King Edmund’s escape from death at, 347.
Chelsea (Cealchyth), the contentious synod at, 250.
Chertsey (Ceortesig) monastery purged, 355.
Chester (Deva, Laegeceaster), 37, 41, 125, 135, 138, 144, 153, 310,
321, 356.
Chesterford, Danes defeat Edred at, 342.
Chester-le-Street (Cuncacestre), 282, 333, 406.
Chichester (Cisseceaster), on site of Regnum, 90, 310.
Chirk (Cyric), Ethelfled builds a fortress at, 321.
Chippenham, royal villa at, 283, 285.
Christianity in Roman Britain, 75, 76.
Chronicle of St. Neot’s, 284 n., 501.
Chrodegang, Archbishop of Metz, 353.
Cirencester (Corinium, Cyrenceaster), 92, 161, 285.
Cissa, King of Sussex, 89, 90, 110.
Classicianus, Julius, Roman procurator, 44.
Claudian, poet, 496.
Claudius, Emperor, sends Aulus Plautius to Britain, 29, 31, 32.
Cledemutha (mouth of river Cleddau), Saxon burh at, 323.
Cluny, monastery of, 354.
Clyde, Firth of, 50, 58.
Codex Amiatinus, taken by Abbot Ceolfrid to Rome, 238.
Coelius Roscius, legatus of twentieth legion, 45.
Coenred represents Theodore at Rome, 203.
Cogidubnus, inscription at Chichester about, 33.
Coifi, a pagan priest, 141, 142, 151.
Coinmail, a British king, 92.
Coins, Macedonian, imitated by Britons, 20;
of British chiefs, 26, 27;
of Carausius, 65.
Colchester, 76, 323.
See also Camulodunum.
Coldingham, monastery of, 199.
Colman, Bishop of Lindisfarne, 182–187.
Coloniæ, Roman, 76, 98.
Colne, river, Hertfordshire, 308.
Columba. See Saint Columba.
_Comes Britanniæ_, 70.
Commius, King of the Atrebates, sent by Cæsar to Britain, 10;
imprisoned by Britons, 10–14;
attempted assassination by Labienus, 25, 26;
submits to Mark Antony, 26.
Commius coins money in Britain, 26.
Compurgation, 226.
Condidan, a British king, 92.
Conrad II., Emperor, 410.
Constans I., Emperor, 68.
Constans II., Emperor, 195.
Constantine, Emperor, 67, 121.
Constantine, British king, 99.
Constantine, usurper, 72, 95.
Constantine II., Scottish king, 327, 333, 337.
Constantius, a presbyter, 83, 496.
Constantius Chlorus, Emperor, 64–67.
Coote, H. C., 508.
Corbett, W. J., 428 n.
Corbridge (Corstopitum), 247, 248.
Corfe, murder of Edward the Martyr at, 363.
Cornwall. See West Wales.
_Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_, 495.
Cosham, Ethelred the Redeless sick at, 395.
_Cotsetla_ (cottager), 437.
Counties of England, formation of, 432, 433.
Coventina, goddess, 56.
Crayford (Crecganford), Britons defeated at, 89.
Cricklade (Cricgelad), Danes at, 320.
Crida, death of, 93.
Crowland or Croyland, sanctuary of, 248.
Cuichelm, West Saxon prince, death of, 93.
Cumberland (see also Strathclyde), 6, 108, 317, 341, 356, 385.
Cunedag, King of North Wales, 102, 131.
Cuneglas, a British king, 99.
Cunobelinus (Cymbeline), a British king, 25, 28, 29, 32.
Cutha, son of Cynric, 92, 93.
Cuthbert. See St. Cuthbert.
Cuthred, kinsman of Cynegils of Wessex, 177.
Cuthred II., of Wessex, 247.
Cuthwine, brother of Ceawlin, 92.
Cwichelm, King of Wessex, 140, 161.
Cymbeline. See Cunobelinus.
Cymenesora, 89.
Cymri, 6, 63, 93, 253, 267, 357, 408.
Cyneberct, Abbot, 215.
Cyneburga, daughter of Penda, 168, 172.
Cynegils, King of the West Saxons, 140, 158, 161, 162, 177, 179.
Cyneheard the Etheling, 253.
Cyneswitha, name on Bewcastle Cross, 172.
Cynewulf, King of Wessex, 253.
Cynewulf, Saxon poet, 242.
Cynewulf the Etheling, 217.
Cynric, King of Wessex, 90–92, 100.
Cynuit, fort at, 284.
Dalfinus, of Lyons, 184 n.
Dalriada, kingdom of, 134, 146, 148, 158.
Danegeld, 381;
table of payments of, 382;
of Harthacnut, 421.
See 446.
Danelaw, 287, 309–311, 315–317.
Danes, 257–262, 275–285;
table of ravages of (982–1016), 376–378.
Danish Here or Army, 261, 306, 321, 404.
Danish pre-eminence in Ireland, 332.
Dawkins, Professor Boyd, 493.
Dawston Rigg (Degsastan), Aidan defeated by Ethelfrid at, 134.
Deal, Cæsar’s landing-place? 23, 24.
Decangi, a Welsh tribe, 35.
Decurio, title of, 76.
Deira, kingdom of, 80, 94, 115, 130–133, 137, 138, 160, 171, 180,
276, 401.
Deorham, Ceawlin defeats Britons at, 92, 107.
Denisesburn. See Heavenfield.
Denmark, early history of, 371, 417, 418, 444, 445.
Derby (Deoraby), 316, 322, 340.
Derwent in Yorkshire, 140, 141, 480.
Derwentwater, St. Herbert’s Isle, in, 208.
Deusdedit, Archbishop, 188.
Diarmid, King of Leinster, 455.
Didius Gallus, Roman governor of Britain, 37.
Diocletian, Emperor, 63;
his prefectures and dioceses, 64;
abdicates, 67.
Dion Cassius referred to, 27 n., 30, 37, 40, 43, 52, 59, 494.
Dive, Louis IV. defeated at the, 369;
William’s fleet at, 482.
Dolicho-cephalic or long-headed race, 7.
Donation of Ethelwulf, 268.
Dorchester in Dorset, 257.
Dorchester in Oxfordshire, 162, 182, 343.
Dore, conference at, 264.
Dover (Dofere), 23, 24, 453, 469.
Druids, 5, 10, 38.
Dublin, 332, 341, 464.
Dubnovellaunus, a British king, 26, 27.
Dumbarton or Alclyde, 130, 246.
Dunbar (Dynbaer), 204.
Duncan, grandson of Malcolm II., 409, 462, 463.
Dunstan, Lives of, by various authors, 501.
Dunstan. See St. Dunstan.
Dunwich, bishopric founded, 163.
Durham (Dunhelm), St. Cuthbert’s body rests at, 407;
Malcolm II. defeated at, 407;
Duncan defeated at, 462.
Durovernis. See Canterbury.
_Duumvir_, title of, 76.
_Dux Britanniarum_, 70, 138.
Dyved, South Wales, 464.
Eadbald, King of Kent, 127, 128, 139.
Eadbert, King of Northumbria, 245, 246.
Eadburh, daughter of Offa, wife of Beorhtric, 255, 256.
Eadhelm, Abbot, murdered, 343.
Eadhilda, daughter of Edward the Elder, marries Hugh the Great, 330.
Eadmer, a monk, 407.
Eadsige, Archbishop of Canterbury, 452.
Eadulf, usurper, 210.
Eadwulf Cutel, 408, 409.
Eadwulf, nephew of Eadwulf Cutel, 422.
Ealdbert rebels, 217.
Ealdorman, office of, 90, 229, 268, 434–435.
Ealdred (or Eldred), Bishop of Worcester, afterwards Archbishop of
York, 451, 455, 466.
Ealdred, son of Eardulf, 333.
Ealhmund, King of Kent, 254.
Ealhstan, Bishop of Sherborne, 289.
Ealhswith, wife of King Alfred, 289.
Eanfled, daughter of Edwin, 140, 145, 165, 167, 181, 182.
Eanfrid, King of Bernicia, 151.
Eanred, King of Northumbria, 264.
Eardulf, Bishop, 282.
Eardulf, King of Northumbria, 248.
Eardulf of Bamburgh, 333.
Earl and ealdorman, 434, 435.
Earle, John, 221 n., 306 n.;
land charters, 508.
Earpwald, King of East Anglia, 163.
East Anglia, 80, 126, 136, 139, 140, 158, 162–164, 174, 179, 324,
351, 448, 484.
Easter, debates on true date of, 123, 179, 180–188.
East Saxons, kingdom of, 80, 122, 127, 174–176, 180, 324.
Eata, Bishop of Hexham, 184, 205, 207.
Ebba, aunt of Egfrid, 199, 204.
Ebbs-fleet (Ypwines-fleot), Hengest lands at, 88.
Ebissa, a Jutish chief, 103, 131.
Ebroin, Frankish mayor of the palace, 196.
Eburacum (see also York), 46, 48, 54, 55, 62, 67, 94, 121, 138, 144,
247.
_Ecclesiastical History_, Bede’s, 85, 86, 115–213 (_passim_), 295.
Ecgferth, son of Offa, 252, 253.
Ecgfrida, wife of Uhtred, 407.
Edbert Pren, King of Kent, 253.
Eddisbury, “burh” built at, 321.
Eddius’ _Life of Wilfrid_, 203, 497, 498.
Edgar Etheling, grandson of Edmund Ironside, 474.
Edgar, the Peaceful, King of England (959–975), previously King of
Mercia and East Anglia, 344, 351, 352;
monastic reforms, 353–356;
crowned at Bath (973), and rowed by eight kings on the Dee, 356;
marries Elfrida, death and burial, 359.
Edgitha, daughter of Edward the Elder, marries the German Otto, 331.
Edgiva, daughter of Edward the Elder, marries Charles the Simple, 330.
Edgiva, Abbess of Leominster, 449, 465.
Edgiva, queen of Edward the Elder, 339, 348, 351, 352.
Edinburgh, 140, 407.
Edith, daughter of Godwine, wife of Edward the Confessor, 443, 455,
470, 484.
Edith, daughter of King Edgar, 358.
Edith with the swan’s neck, Harold’s lady-love, 490.
Edmund Ironside, king (1016), son of Ethelred the Redeless, his
battles with the Danes, 395, 396;
recalls Edric Streona, defeated at Assandune, 397;
conference with Canute at Olney, death, 397;
suggestions of foul play in his death, 397, 405, 406.
Edmund, King of East Anglia. See St. Edmund.
Edmund, King of the English (940–946), son of Edward the Elder, at
Brunanburh, 333;
delivers the Five Boroughs from the Northmen, 340;
ravages Cumberland, 317, 341;
his relations with Malcolm I., 341;
assassinated by Liofa at Pucklechurch and buried at Glastonbury,
339.
Edmund, son of Edmund Ironside, 399.
Edred, Abbot, 282.
Edred, King of the English (946–955), crowned at Kingston-on-Thames,
339;
his bad health, 339;
subdues Northumbria, 341, 342;
English defeated at Chesterford, 342;
revenges the murder of Abbot Eadhelm at Thetford, 343;
death at Frome and burial at Winchester, 343.
Edric Streona, traitorous ealdorman, 388, 389, 394–398, 401.
Edward, son of Edmund Ironside, 399, 461.
Edward the Elder, son of Alfred, King of the West Saxons (900–924?),
childhood, 289;
accession, 318;
suppresses rebellion of Ethelwald, 320;
wars with the Danes, 320–324;
builds fortresses in the Midlands, 323, 324;
alleged supremacy over Scotland, 325–328;
dies, 328;
laws of, 437 n.
Edward the Confessor (1042–1066), 386, 392, 393, 422, 423;
son of Ethelred the Redeless, crowned at Winchester, 442;
harsh treatment of his mother, 442;
founds Westminster Abbey, 446;
his Norman favourites, 451–453;
fall of Godwine, 455;
visit of William the Norman, 456, 457;
return of Godwine, 458, 459;
Scotch affairs, 461–463;
Welsh affairs, 464–467;
visit of Harold Godwineson to Normandy, 468, 469;
Tostig outlawed, 470, 471;
death at Westminster, 472;
bequeathed crown to Harold, 473.
Edward the Martyr, son of King Edgar (975–978), crowned by Dunstan,
360;
murdered at Corfe, 363;
buried at Shaftesbury, 364.
Edwin, brother of Leofric, 464.
Edwin, half-brother of Athelstan, drowned, 337.
Edwin of Deira, 126, 135–144, 154.
Edwin, son of Elfgar, Earl of Mercia, 470, 477, 479, 484.
Edwy or Eadwig, King of the English (955–959), son of King Edmund,
344;
scene at his coronation, 349;
his lavish generosity, 350;
marries Elfgiva, 351;
kingdom divided with brother Edgar, 351;
death, 352.
Edwy, “King of the Ceorls,” 399.
Edwy, son of Ethelred the Redeless, 399, 402.
Egbert, puppet-king of Bernicia, 281.
Egbert, Archbishop of York, brother of King Eadbert, 243, 245, 246.
Egbert, King of Kent, 195, 196.
Egbert, King of the West Saxons (802–839), early history and exile,
254, 255;
accession, 263;
overruns Cornwall, 263;
victory over Mercia, 264;
supremacy acknowledged by Northumbria, 264;
battles with the Danes, 265;
death, 265.
Egbert’s Stone, 284.
Egfrid, son of Oswy, 169, 172, 173, 190–193.
Egric, King of East Anglia, 164.
Egwinna, mother of Athelstan, 329.
Eleutherus, Pope, 76.
Elfgar, son of Elfric, 383.
Elfgar, son of Leofric, 460, 465–467, 480.
Elfgiva or Elfgyfu, daughter of Ethelgiva, wife of King Edwy, 344,
349–351.
Elfgiva, daughter of Edward the Elder, 331.
Elfheah, Archbishop. See Alphege.
Elfhelm, father of Elgiva of Northampton, 417.
Elfhelm, Ealdorman of Northumbria, murdered by Edric Streona, 388.
Elfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia, leader of anti-monastic party, 360,
361, 364.
Elfleda, daughter of Offa, wife of Ethelred, King of Northumbria, 248.
Elfleda or Ethelfleda, daughter of Oswy, 180, 211.
Elfmaer, Abbot of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, 389.
Elfnoth, Sheriff, slain in battle with the Welsh, 466.
Elfnoth, squire to Brihtnoth, 379.
Elfric, traitorous ealdorman, 383, 388, 397, 398.
Elfric, ecclesiastical author, 357 n., 358, 491.
Elfric, father of Osric of Deira, 151.
Elfrida or Elfthryth, wife of King Edgar, 359, 360, 363.
Elfrida, wife of Baldwin II. of Flanders, 289.
Elfsige, Archbishop of Canterbury, 352.
Elfweard, son of Edward the Elder, 328, 329.
Elfwen, wife of half-king Athelstan, 352.
Elfwine at Maldon, 380.
Elfwyn, daughter of Ethelfled of Mercia, 323.
Elgiva or Aelgyfu, a name given to Queen Emma, 386.
Elgiva, wife of King Edmund, 338.
Elgiva of Northampton, wife of Canute, 416, 417.
Ellandune, battle of, 264.
Ella, King of Northumbria, 276.
Elmet or Loidis, kingdom of, 131, 138.
Elphege, Bishop of Winchester, 346.
Elwin, cousin of Athelstan, fell at Brunanburh, 336.
Ely, monastery at Isle of, 199, 355, 419.
Emma, wife of Ethelred II. and Canute, 386, 392, 402, 405, 416, 418,
420, 421, 442, 443, 457.
Emma, sister of Hugh Capet, 370.
Emmet in Holderness, peace of, 333.
_Encomium Emmæ_, 420, 505.
Englefield, Danes defeated at, 278.
Eobba of Bernicia, “the great burner of towns,” 132.
Eoforwic. See York.
Eomer, an assassin, 140.
Eosterwine, coadjutor-abbot, 188.
_Ephemeris Epigraphica_, 496.
Epiton, one name of site of “battle of Hastings,” 485.
Eppillus, a British king, 26.
Erconbert, King of Kent, 176, 183, 188.
Erconwald, Bishop, 216, 219.
Eric Blood-axe, under-king of Northumbria, 341, 342.
Eric or Yric, Earl of Deira, 401, 408.
Eric, son of Harold Blue-Tooth, 342.
Ermenburga, wife of King Egfrid, persistent enemy of Wilfrid, 199,
201, 203, 207, 208.
Erming Street, 74.
Esnes or _theows_, 225, 303.
Essex. See East Saxons.
Estrith, sister of Canute, 444.
Ethandune, Danes defeated at, 285.
Ethelbald, King of Mercia, 248, 249.
Ethelbald, son of Ethelwulf, King of the West Saxons (856–860),
fought at Ockley, 267;
rebels against his father, 270;
marries Judith, his father’s widow, 274;
dies, 274.
Ethelbert, King of East Anglia, 251.
Ethelbert, first Christian King of Kent, 92, 97, 117, 122, 125, 126,
127, 139;
his “dooms,” 218.
Ethelbert, son of Ethelwulf, King of the West Saxons (860–866), 274,
275.
Ethelburga, a Kentish princess, wife of Edwin of Deira, 139, 145.
Ethelburga, wife of Ine, 217.
Etheldreda, wife of King Egfrid, 199.
Ethelfled, daughter of Alfred, Lady of the Mercians, 289, 321, 322,
329.
Ethelfled, patroness of Dunstan, 346.
Ethelfled the Fair, wife of King Edgar, 359.
Ethelfrid or Ethelfrith of Bernicia, 94, 115, 133–138.
Ethelgiva, daughter of Alfred, abbess of Shaftesbury, 289.
Ethelgiva, mother-in-law of Edwy, 349–351.
Ethelheard, King of Wessex, 217.
Ethelhere, under-king of East Anglia, 169, 170.
Ethelmaer the Fat, 402.
Ethelnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury, 405, 406, 420.
Ethelnoth, ealdorman of Somerset, 284.
Ethelred, ealdorman of Mercia, 289, 308.
Ethelred, ealdorman of the Gaini, 289.
Ethelred of Mercia, 173, 191, 204.
Ethelred, son of Ethelwulf (866–871), accession, 275;
wars with the Danes, 276, 278–280;
battle of Ashdown, 279;
death, 280.
Ethelred II., the Redeless, King of England (978–1016), 317, 328;
son of King Edgar, crowned at Kingston-on-Thames, 365;
Danish invasions, 375–396;
Ethelred harries Cumberland, 385;
marries Emma of Normandy, 386;
massacre of St. Brice’s Day, 386, 387;
Sweyn and Canute invade England, 391;
London submits, 392;
king escapes to Normandy, 392;
recalled, 383;
dies at London, 396.
Ethelred, son of Ethelwald Moll, usurper in Northumbria, 247, 255.
Ethelric, King of Bernicia and Deira, 94, 133.
Ethelsin, evil counsellor of Ethelred, 365.
Ethelwald Moll, usurper in Northumbria, 247.
Ethelwald, son of Oswald, 169, 170, 171.
Ethelwald, son of Ethelred I., rebels against Edward the Elder, 319.
Ethelwalh, King of Sussex, 174, 204, 215.
Ethelweard, the historian, 257, 334, 384, 501.
Ethelweard, grandson of the historian, 402.
Ethelweard, son of Alfred, 290.
Ethelwin, cousin of Athelstan, fell at Brunanburh, 336.
Ethelwin, officer of Oswy, 167.
Ethelwin, son of half-king Athelstan, 361.
Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, 354, 355, 361.
Ethelwold, son of half-king Athelstan, husband of Elfrida, 359.
Ethelwulf, ealdorman of Berkshire, 278, 279.
Ethelwulf, King of the West Saxons (839–858), son of Egbert,
under-king of Kent, 264;
succeeds his father in Wessex, 265;
his two counsellors Swithun and Ealhstan, 266;
victory over the Danes at Ockley, 267;
helps Mercia against the Welsh, 267;
gives tithe to the Church, 268;
journey to Rome, 268–270;
marriage to Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, 270;
his will and death, 271.
Etherius, Archbishop of Arles, 116.
Etocetum, station on the Watling Street, 73.
Eudoces, possibly Jutes, 80.
Eugenius, King of Strathclyde, 333.
Eugenius the Bald, King of Strathclyde, 408.
Eumenius, panegyrist, 65, 495.
Eustace, Count of Boulogne, 452, 453, 487, 489, 490.
Evans, Sir John, on British coins, 25.
Exeter (Isca Damnoniorum, Exanceaster), 74, 283, 326.
Exmouth (Exanmutha), Beorn buried at, 451.
Farinmail, a British king, 92.
Farndon (Farndune), near Newark, Edward the Elder dies at, 328.
Farne Islands, 154, 168, 206.
Farnham, Danes defeated at, 308.
Felix, Bishop of Dunwich, 163, 174.
Fergna, Abbot of Iona, 150.
Fethan-lea, battle of, 93.
Finan of Lindisfarne, 169, 175, 182.
Fitz Osbern, William, 475, 487.
Five Boroughs, the, 316, 391, 394, 431.
Flatholme, Island of (Brada Relice), Danes take refuge at, 321.
Fleet, built by Alfred, 312; by Ethelred II., 387.
Florence of Worcester, historian, 105, 277 n., 314, 333, 334, 354,
356, 357, 400, 484, 501, 502.
_Fædus Anglorum et Danorum_, 381 n.
Folkland, 303, 304.
Fordheri, soldier of Edwin, stabbed, 140.
Ford of the Cross, battle of, 464.
Forth, Firth of, 49, 50, 58, 102, 132, 154, 157, 477, 479.
Fosse Way, 74.
Freeman, E. A., on virtual extermination of Britons, 110, 111;
on capture of York, 138;
on alleged English supremacy over Scotland, 325. Also quoted, 161,
262, 325 n., 337 n., 383 n., 401 n., 402 n., 403 n., 420 n.,
433 n., 448 n., 475, 507.
Frisian Sea (Firth of Forth?), 103.
Frisians in the Border country, 131.
Frome, King Edred dies at, 343.
Frome mouth of, Danish raid, 381.
Frontinus, Julius, Roman governor of Britain, 46.
Fulford, English defeated at, 479, 481, 484.
Fursa, an Irish monk, missionary to East Anglia, 163, 174.
_Fyrd_, or national militia, 223, 229, 261 n., 268, 302, 320, 376,
389, 396, 486, 489.
Gabhran, Dalriadic king, 148.
Gaels, 6.
_Gafolgelders_, or rent payers, 226, 228.
_Gafol_, tribute paid to Danes, 376, 381.
Gaimar, Geoffrey, 295, 334, 359, 503.
Gainsborough, death of Sweyn, 493.
Galerius, Augustus, 67.
Galgacus, Caledonian chief, 50.
_Gebur_, 436.
_Gedael_ land, 221.
Geikie, Professor, 3 n., 4 n.
_Gemot_, meeting, 302.
Genealogies of the kings, Nennius, 101.
_Geneat_, king’s retainer, 229, 230, 313, 436, 437.
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 28, 105.
Geraint, Welsh king, 216.
Germanus. See St. Germanus.
_Gesithcund_, comrades of the king, 228.
Geta, son of Emperor Severus, 60, 62.
_Geteama_, a warranter, 438.
Gewissas, or men of Wessex, 128, 215.
Gildas, Welsh ecclesiastic, author of _Liber Querulus_, 86, 95–100,
144, 496.
Gilling, near Richmond, Oswin murdered at, 167.
Glastonbury (Glaestingaburh), 178, 339, 344, 347, 359, 397, 406.
Gloucester (Gleawanceaster), 76, 92, 322, 454, 466.
Godiva, sister of Edward the Confessor, 452.
Godiva, wife of Leofric, 447, 448, 465.
Godric, his cowardice at battle of Maldon, 380.
Godwine, son of Wulfnoth, ancestry, 403;
made Earl of Wessex, 404;
supports Harthacnut, 417, 418;
supports Harold Harefoot and slays Alfred, son of Ethelred, 418,
419;
his family, 447–451;
opposes Norman influence, 451–454;
exiled with family, 455;
restored, 459;
death and burial at Winchester, 460.
Goidels, 6, 108.
Goodmanham, site of heathen temple, 142.
Gorm the Old, King of Denmark, 371, 413, 474.
Gratian, a British usurper of Empire, 72.
Gratian, Emperor, 68, 69.
Green, J. R., 404 n., 507.
Greenwell, Dr., on British barrows, 7, 493.
Greenwich (Grenawic), 390, 394, 395.
Gregory I., Pope, sends Augustine to convert the English, 114, 115,
120, 121, 139.
Griffith ap Llewelyn, King of Wales, 464–466, 472.
Griffith, son of Rhyddarch, revolts against the preceding, 465.
Grimbald, Abbot, friend of Alfred, 291, 292, 304.
Guaul, or Roman Wall, 103.
Guest, Dr., on Cæsar’s landing-place, 24;
on Fethan-lea, 93.
Gross, Dr. Charles, _The Sources and Literature of English History_,
508.
Guildford (Gyldeford), the Etheling Alfred arrested at, 419, 420.
Guinnion, castle of, scene of one of Arthur’s battles, 104.
Gunhild, daughter of Canute, wife of Emperor Henry III., 412, 416.
Gunnor, wife of Richard, Duke of Normandy, 370.
Guoyrancgon, King of Kent, 103.
Guthfred, a later King of Northumbria, 332.
Guthlac, hermit of Crowland, 249.
Guthred, converted Danish chief, 282.
Guthrum, Danish chief, Alfred’s foe, 283–287.
Gwent, part of South Wales (Glamorgan and Monmouth), 333.
Gwynedd (North Wales), 102, 321, 464.
Gybmund, Bishop of Rochester, 219.
Gyda, wife of Harold Fair-hair, 372.
Gyrth, son of Godwine, 404, 444, 482, 484, 486, 488.
Gyrwas, tribe in the Fens, 433.
Gytha, wife of Godwine, 404, 444, 490.
Haddan and Stubbs’s Councils, 508.
Hadrian, Abbot of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, 195, 196, 241.
Hadrian, Emperor, builder of the Roman Wall, 53.
Hadrian I., Pope, 251.
Hakon the Good, King of Norway, reared in England, 331, 332, 372.
Halfdene, a Danish king, 279, 281.
Hallelujah battle, 84.
Harold, a Scandinavian chief, 369.
Harold Blue-Tooth, King of Denmark, 371, 474.
Harold, brother of Canute, 404.
Harold Hardrada, King of Norway, 445, 477–481, 484.
Harold Harefoot, son of Canute, King of England, 416–421.
Harold II., son of Godwine, Earl of East Angles, 448;
intercedes for Sweyn, 450;
exiled with family, 455;
in Ireland, 458;
becomes Earl of Wessex, 460;
real ruler of England, 461, 465;
wars with Elfgar and the Welsh, 466, 467;
visit to Normandy, and oath to William, 468–470;
crowned king, 473, 474;
defeats Tostig and Harold Hardrada at Stamford Bridge, 481;
visits Waltham, 484;
collects army near Battle, 485;
battle of Hastings, 487–490;
death, 482, 489, 490;
burial at Waltham, 490.
Harold the Fair-haired, King of Norway, 331, 372.
Harthacnut, son of Canute, King of England, 402, 405, 416–418,
420–423, 450.
Hartlepool (Heruteu), Hilda’s convent at, 180.
Hasting or Haesten, Danish chief, 308, 509 n.
Hastings, battle of, 485–490.
Hastings, port, 458, 482, 484.
Hatfield. See Heathfield.
Haverfield, F., 70 n., 75 n., 77 n., 507.
Heathfield, battle of, 144, 150, 151.
Heavenfield, or Denisesburn, battle of, 151–154, 157.
Hedde, Bishop of Winchester, 219.
_Heimskringla_, the, 260, 338, 372, 385, 409, 480 n., 504.
Helena, mother of Constantine, 66, 121.
Hengest, King of Kent, 86, 88, 89, 91, 102–104, 132.
Henry Beauclerk, 289, 314, 463.
Henry of Huntingdon, 105, 337, 360, 386, 415, 503.
Henry III., emperor, marries Gunhild, 412.
Heptarchy, 231, 288.
Herbert. See St. Herbert.
_Here_ or army, Danish, 261, 306, 312, 321, 323.
Hereford, 465, 466.
_Here-gyld_, or war tax, 446.
Herleva, mother of William the Norman, 456.
Herodian, Greek historian, 495.
Hertford (Heorotford), 323.
Hexham (Hagustald), 62, 64, 195, 199, 209.
Hiberni, 97.
Hide of land, 148, 222.
Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, 180.
Hildebrand, Pope, 353, 476.
Hingston Down (Hengestdune), battle of, 265.
_Historia Augusta_, 494.
_Historia Brittonum_, of Nennius, 101, 132.
Hlothere’s and Eadric’s dooms, 218.
Hoar Apple Tree, Harold II. at, 482, 485.
_Hold_, a Danish title, 436.
Holy Island, or Lindisfarne, 154, 155, 158, 182, 183, 188, 205, 207,
246, 258, 282.
Holy River, Canute defeated at, 413.
Holy Rood, Cynewulf’s poem on, 242, 243.
Honorius, Emperor, 72, 82.
Honorius, Pope, 161.
Horsa, brother of Hengest, 86, 88.
_House-carls_, or body-guard, 418, 422, 447, 463, 486, 489.
Housesteads, Mithraic chapel at, 75.
Howorth, Sir H., 367 n.
Howell, King of Cornwall, 333, 336.
Hoxne, St. Edmund defeated at, 277.
Hübner, Emil, 507.
Hugh Capet, King of France, 367.
Hugh the Great, Duke of France, 330, 367, 369, 370, 467.
Hundred and Hundred Court, 427–429.
Huntingdon (Huntandun), _burh_ built at, 323.
Hunwald betrays Oswin, 167.
Hwiccas, tribe in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, 263, 402.
Hyde Abbey, Winchester, 314.
Hythe, 307;
Cæsar’s landing-place? 24.
Iceni, British tribe, 33–35;
revolt of, 38–43.
Ida, King of Bernicia, 94, 132.
Idle, Ethelfrid defeated by Edwin, 137.
India, alleged mission to, 299.
Indulf, 408 n.
Ine, King of Wessex, 134, 138, 147, 150, 154, 156, 178, 186, 216.
Ine’s laws, 218–232.
Inguar, Danish chief, 277–279.
Inscriptions, Roman, 58, 74.
Insurance against theft of cattle, 426.
Iona, 134, 138, 147, 150, 154, 156, 180, 186.
Ireland, 50, 79, 102, 144, 148, 182, 260, 294, 310, 332, 333, 442,
458.
Isle of Man, 138, 248, 317, 356, 385.
James, deacon, attendant on Paulinus, 143, 180, 182.
_Jarls_, 278, 435.
Jarrow (in Gyrwum), monastery at, 133, 189, 237.
Jaruman, Bishop of Mercia, 176.
Jehmarc, Scottish king, submits to Canute, 409.
John XIX., Pope, visited by Canute, 410.
John, the Old Saxon, friend of King Alfred, 291, 292.
_Judicia Civitatis Londoniæ_, 425.
Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, wife of Ethelwulf, 270, 271,
274.
Judith of Flanders, wife of Tostig, 455.
Justus, Bishop of Rochester, 120, 122, 127, 128, 139.
Jutes, 79, 80, 106;
possible colony of, in Scotland, 103.
Juthwal, Welsh king, 336;
tribute of wolves’ heads, 357.
Kemble, J. M., 77, 508.
Kenneth, King of Scotland, 134, 356, 357.
Kent, 79, 88, 89, 104, 106, 138, 140, 176, 179.
Kent’s Cavern, 2.
King’s Milton (Middeltun thaes cynges), 458.
Kingston (Cyngestun), 232, 329, 339, 365.
Kinsige, Bishop of Lichfield, 349.
Kirtlington, Witenagemot at, 362.
Lanfranc, Prior of Bec, 476.
Lang, Andrew (_History of Scotland_), referred to, 326, 507.
Laon, 367–370.
_Lapidarium Septentrionale_, 496.
Lappenberg, historian, 87, 507.
Laurentius, Archbishop of Canterbury, 120, 125, 127, 128, 139.
Lea (Lyge), river, 287, 311.
_Leges Marchiarum_, 424, 425.
Legions, Roman:--
Second, 30, 33, 42, 43, 55, 71.
Sixth, 54, 55, 71.
Seventh, 11.
Ninth, 30, 41, 42, 54.
Tenth, 11.
Fourteenth, 30, 42, 44.
Twentieth, 30, 42, 45, 46, 55, 72, 310.
Leicester (Ratae, Ligeraceaster), 316, 322, 340.
Leighton Buzzard (Lygtun), battle at, 321.
Leofgar, Bishop of Hereford, 466.
Leofric, son of Leofwine, Earl of Mercia, 403, 417, 422, 442, 447,
448, 454, 465, 466.
Leofwine, ealdorman of the Hwiccas, 402, 417.
Leofwine, son of Godwine, 449, 455, 482, 486, 488.
Leo, Prof. Heinrich, 242.
Leominster, Abbess of, 449, 465.
Leo IV., Pope, blesses Alfred, 269.
Levison on _Life of Germanus_, 496.
_Liber Pontificalis_, 270.
Liebermann, Felix, on Anglo-Saxon laws, 508.
Lilia, thegn of Edwin of Deira, 140, 161.
Lincoln (Lindcylene), 37, 41, 76, 143, 316, 340, 470, 484.
Lindisfarne gospels, 282.
Lindisfarne. See Holy Island.
Lindsey (Lindissi), 143, 173, 191, 192, 266, 391, 394.
Liofa, murderer of King Edmund, 338.
Lichfield, archbishopric of, 248, 250, 263.
Liudhard, Queen Bertha’s chaplain, 117, 119.
Loidis or Elmet, British kingdom of, 131, 138.
Lombards, affinity with Anglo-Saxons, 81.
London (Londinium, or Augusta, Lundonia, Lunden-burh), 41, 42, 66,
68, 73;
early mention of, in the Chronicle, 89;
bishopric founded at, 122;
relapses into idolatry, 128;
Sigebert, king in, 175;
reconverted to Christianity, 176;
diocese of, 250;
capture by Danes (851), 267;
besieged by Danes, 281;
rescued by Alfred, 287, 299;
_burh_ built at, 309;
resumption from Mercia by Edward the Elder, 320;
Dunstan, Bishop of, 352;
defence against Danes, 376, 377;
attack of Sweyn, 384;
submits to Sweyn, 392;
Ethelred II.’s illness and death at, 395, 396;
faithful to house of Cerdic, 397;
chooses Harold Harefoot as king, 417;
_Witan_ held at, 454;
Duke William’s visit to, 457;
Earl Godwine’s defence before _Witan_ at, 459;
King Harold II. at, 478, 480.
Longfellow’s Saga of King Olaf, 385 n.
Lothian, 102, 131, 326;
lost by England, 409.
Louis IV. of France reared in England, 330, 368, 369.
Lucius. See St. Lucius.
Lud, a fictitious King of Britain, 105.
Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, 83.
Lymne (Portus Lemanis), suggested as Cæsar’s landing-place? 24;
Danes at, 307.
Macbeth, or Maelbaeth, King of Scotland, 409, 447, 462, 463.
Maccus, “arch-pirate,” rows in Edgar’s boat, 356.
Mætæ, Caledonian tribe, 60, 62.
Maelgwn, or Maglocunus, King of North Wales, 99, 102, 144.
Magasaetas (Herefordshire), 452.
Magnus I., King of Norway, 443–445.
Magnus, a Norwegian, helps Earl Elfgar, 467.
Maitland, F. W., 430 n., 433, 508.
Malcolm I., King of Scotland (943–954), 341.
Malcolm II., King of Scotland (1005–1034), 407–409, 461.
Malcolm III. (Canmore), King of Scotland (1058–1093), 463, 477.
Malcolm, King of Cumberland, 356.
Maldon, _burh_ at, 323;
battle of, 378, 379.
Malet, William, 490.
Malfosse, at battle of Hastings, 488, 489.
Malmesbury, monastery of, 266, 338, 346, 395.
Mamertinus, panegyrist, 65, 495.
Man, Isle of, 138, 248, 317, 356, 385.
Manau Guotodin (Lothian), 102.
Manchester (Mancunium, Mameceaster) in Northumbria, 323.
_Mancus_, value of, 235.
Mandubracius, British chief, 18, 19.
Marcellus, Ulpius, ascetic Roman general, 59.
Marcian, Emperor, 88 n.
Marcus Aurelius, Emperor, troubled by Britannic war, 58.
Marcus, a military usurper, 72.
Margaret, grand-daughter of Edmund Ironside, wife of Malcolm III.,
463.
Mark, value of, 235.
Maserfield or Oswestry, battle of, 158, 160.
Matilda of Scotland, wife of Henry I., 289, 436.
Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conqueror, 275, 289, 476.
Maximian, Emperor, 64, 67.
Maximus, usurper of the empire, 69, 95.
Mearcredesburn, battle at, 89.
Medeshamstede. See Peterborough.
Mellitus, Archbishop of Canterbury, 120–122, 127, 129, 174.
Melrose (Magilros), monastery of, 205.
Menai Straits, 41, 47, 102.
Meonwaras, district of, in Hampshire, 174, 178, 215.
Mercia, 80, 108, 136, 144, 160, 173, 248, 289, 340, 344, 351, 448,
464.
Merlin, 103.
Mersea, island in Essex, 310, 311.
Middle Anglians, 160, 169.
Middlesex, 287, 448.
Milton Abbas (Middeltun) monastery purged, 355.
Mithras, worship of, 75.
Mommsen, 507.
Mona. See Anglesey.
Money, Anglo-Saxon, 231–235.
Monkwearmouth, monastery, 133, 237.
Monothelite controversy, 196.
Mons Graupius, 50.
Moots, 302.
_Mora_, Duke William’s ship, 483.
Morcant, a Welsh king, 337.
Morcar, murdered by Edric, 394.
Morini, Gaulish tribe, 10, 16, 23.
Morkere, son of Elfgar, 470, 471, 477, 479, 484.
Mount Badon, battle of, 92, 99, 100, 104, 105, 107.
_Mund-bora_ or protector, 322, 324.
_Municipia_, 76, 151.
Mul, brother of Cadwalla, burned by men of Kent, 215, 216.
Natanleod, British king, slain by Cerdic, 90.
Navy of Alfred, 312;
of Edgar, 357, 358;
of Edward the Confessor, 445.
Naze, in Essex (Eadulfesnaess), 459.
Nechtansmere (Dunnichen), King Egfrid defeated at, 192.
Nennius, historian, 100–105, 131, 132, 152 n., 497.
Neolithic man, 2–5.
Nerthus, goddess of the Angles, 81.
Netley (Natanleaga), scene of Cerdic’s victory, 91.
New Minster, at Winchester, Alfred’s burial-place, 314, 328, 355.
_Nithings_, 81, 380, 451.
Nobility by birth and by service, 231.
Normandy, early history of, 367–370.
Normans, weapons of, 486.
Northampton, 464, 470.
Northman, son of Leofwine, put to death by Canute, 402.
Northmen or Norwegians in Cumberland, 316;
distinguished from Danes, 325;
at Stamford Bridge, 481.
Norway, 372, 417, 444, 478.
Northumbria, 94, 130–173, 245–248, 325, 332, 341–343, 388, 395, 396,
406–408, 463, 470, 479.
Nothelm, priest, friend of Bede, 86.
_Notitia Imperii_, Army list of Roman Empire, 69, 70.
Nottingham (Snotingaham), 276, 316, 323, 340.
Nun, King of Sussex, 216.
Ockley (Aclea), Danes defeated at, 267.
Octha, son of Hengest, 103, 104, 131, 132.
Oda, Archbishop of Canterbury, 340, 343, 349, 351, 352, 354.
Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, 487, 488.
Odo, King of France, 367.
_Oferhyrnesse_, contempt of royal power, 438.
Offa, King of Mercia, 248, 250–253, 255.
Offa’s Dyke (Clawdd Offa), 251.
Offa, thegn of Brihtnoth, 380.
Ohthere, an Arctic explorer, 294.
Olaf, King of Sweden, 385.
Olaf, son of Harold Hardrada, 481.
Olaf the Thick. See St. Olaf.
Olaf Tryggvason, King of Norway, 372, 384, 385.
Olney, in Gloucestershire (Olanig), conference at, 397.
Oman, Professor, 275 n.
Open field system of farming, 221.
_Ora_, eighth part of a mark, 235.
Ordeals, 439, 440.
Ordericus Vitalis, 505.
Ordgar, father of Elfrida, 359.
Ordmaer, father-in-law of Edgar, 359.
Ordovices, a British tribe, 35, 46, 47.
Orosius, ecclesiastic and historian, 69, 86, 293, 498.
Osbeorn, son of Siward, 463.
Osbern, biographer of Dunstan, 348 n., 501.
Osbert, King of Northumbria, 276.
Osburga, mother of Alfred, 272.
Osfrid, son of Edwin, 143, 144.
Osgod Clapa, “Staller,” 412, 450.
Oslac, Earl of Northumbria, 360, 361.
Oslac, father of Osburga, 272.
Osmund, Richard’s guardian, 369.
Osred I., King of Northumbria, 210.
Osred II. (do.), murdered, 248.
Osric, ealdorman, 254.
Osric, King of Deira, 151.
Ossa Cyllelawr, Bernician king, 132.
Osthryd, Queen of Mercia, 158, 191.
Ostorius Scapula, Roman governor, 34;
defeats Caratacus, 35.
Oswald, King of Northumbria. See St. Oswald.
Oswald, Bishop of Worcester, 354, 355, 360.
Oswin, King of Deira, 160, 165, 171.
Oswulf, King of Northumbria, 247.
Oswulf, Earl of Northumbria, 342.
Oswy, King of Northumbria, 126, 160, 161, 165, 171–173, 180–190.
Oundle (Undalum), Wilfrid dies at, 212.
Owen, King of Gwent, 333.
Oxford (Oxnaford), 162, 320, 417, 473.
_Ox-gang_, or _Bovate_, the eighth of a Hide, 223.
Paga, king’s reeve, at Carlisle, 207.
Palæolithic man, 2.
Palgrave, Sir F., 508.
Palisade at Hastings, 485 and n.
Pallig, killed in massacre of St. Brice, 387.
Pallium, sign of archbishop’s rank, 120, 121, 202, 252, 453, 459, 460.
Papinian, Roman lawyer, 61.
Parisii, a British tribe in Yorkshire, 10.
Parret (Pedride), river, 178, 266.
Paulinus, Bishop of York, 120, 139–143, 145, 154, 180.
Paulinus, Suetonius, conquers Anglesey, 38;
marches to London, 41;
defeats Boadicea, 42;
recalled, 44.
Paulus Diaconus, historian of the Lombards, 81.
Pavia, death of Eadburh at, 255.
Peada, son of Penda, 168, 173.
Pearson, C. H., 507.
Pecsaetan, tribe in the Peak district, 433.
Pelagian heresy, 76, 84.
Pelham, Professor, quoted, 53 n.
Pembrokeshire, Danish colony in, 317.
Penda, King of Mercia, 144, 158, 160–173.
Penny, Anglo-Saxon, 233.
Peonnum (the Pens or Penselwood), 178.
Perctarit, Lombard king, 203.
Peter, sent to Pope Gregory, 120.
Peterborough (Medeshamstede), sacked by Danes, 278;
visited by Bishop Ethelwold, 355.
Petillius Cerialis, commands ninth legion, 41;
governor of Britain, 45.
Pevensey (Pefenesea), 89, 458, 482, 483.
Picts, 68, 79, 84–86, 93, 95, 97, 102, 103, 106, 134, 147, 157, 171,
191, 192, 281.
Place-names as evidences of nationality of settlers, 315.
Plague, 176, 188, 189, 238, 312.
Plautius, Aulus, conquers southern Britain, 25, 30–32, 34.
Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, 291, 292, 314.
Pliny, 494.
Plummer, Chas., editor of Bede, 86, 190 n., 290 n., 295 n., 325 n.,
337 n., 419 n., 466 n., 497.
Poenius Postumus, Roman officer, kills himself, 43.
Polybius, historian, 8.
Polyclitus, Nero’s freedman, 44.
Porlock (Portloca), Danish raid on, 321;
Harold Godwineson’s, 458.
Port, mythic eponymous hero, 87, 91.
Portland, Danes attack, 266.
Portsmouth, legendary foundation of, 87, 91.
Portskewet, Harold’s lodge at, 467.
Portus Itius, 16, 23.
Pound, Anglo-Saxon, 232.
Prætenturæ, or stations on the Roman Wall, 56.
Prasutagus, King of the Iceni, 33, 39.
Prices, history of, 234, 426.
_Prisci historia_, quoted, 109 n.
Procolitia, station on the Roman Wall, 56.
Procopius, historian, 112, 113.
Prosper Tiro, chronicler, 82, 103, 496.
Pseudo-monasteries, 244.
Ptolemy, geographer, 80, 493.
Pucklechurch, King Edward murdered at, 338.
Purbeck, Danish fleet wrecked near, 283.
“Purveyance,” 453.
Pytheas, Greek geographer, 8.
“Quarto-decimans,” 124, 181, 182, 193, 198.
Quedlinburg, Canute’s grand-daughter Abbess of, 412.
Radfrid, Frankish noble, escorts Theodore to England, 196.
Raegenheri, son of Redwald, 137.
Raegnald of Northumbria, 325–327, 340.
Ragnar Lodbrog, the Viking, 276.
Ralph the Timid, Earl of the Magasaetas, nephew of Edward the
Confessor, 452, 454, 465.
Ramsay, Sir J., 507.
Reading, 278, 279, 281.
_Rectitudines singularum personarum_, 436, 437.
Redwald, King of East Anglia, 126, 136, 137, 139, 163.
Redwulf, King of Northumbria, 266.
Regni, British tribe, 10, 90.
Regnum. See Chichester.
_Regula Pastoralis_ of Pope Gregory, translated by Alfred, 291, 292.
Repton (Hreopandun), occupied by Danes, 281.
Rhuddlan, burnt by Harold II., 467.
Rhys, Professor John, 493.
Richard of Hexham, historian, 131 n.
Richard I., Duke of Normandy, 369, 370.
Richard II. (do.), 386, 399.
Richborough (Rutupiæ), 71, 118.
Ricula, sister of Ethelbert, 122.
Ripon (_In Hripum_), 195, 199, 209, 342, 406.
Robert, Duke of Normandy, 456.
Robertson, E. W., historian, 326, 356, 359 n., 360 n., 507.
Robert, King of France, 367.
Robert the Strong, Duke of Francia, 367.
Rochester (Durobrevi, Hrofaescaestre), 122, 145, 286, 365.
Roderick the Great (Rhodri Mawr), Welsh king, 267.
Roger of Wendover, 342.
Rolf or Rollo, settles in Normandy, 367.
Rolleston, Professor, on Neolithic man, 4, 493.
Roman roads, 73.
Roman Wall, between Firths of Forth and Clyde, 58, 103.
Roman Wall, between Solway and Tyne, 52, 94, 146, 152;
description of, 56;
garrison of, 57.
Romanus, Bishop of Rochester, 145.
Round, J. H., 485 n., 507.
Rowena, daughter of Hengest, 103, 109.
Rowley Burn, Cadwallon’s death at, 153.
Rufinianus, emissary to Rome, 120.
Runcorn (Rumcofa), Saxon fortress built at, 321.
Runic inscription on Bewcastle Cross, 172;
about Harold Hardrada, 479.
Ruthwell Cross, 242.
Rutupiæ. See Richborough.
Saberct, King of the East Saxons, 122, 127, 175.
Sabinus, brother of Vespasian, 32.
St. Aidan, 155–168, 181, 182, 187, 282.
St. Alban, 27, 76, 84.
St. Alphege (Elfeah),384;
martyrdom of, 389, 390;
translation of relics, 405.
St. Augustine, Archbishop of Canterbury, 82, 112–125, 338.
St. Boniface. See Boniface.
St. Brice’s Day, massacre on, 386, 387.
St. Chad (Ceadda), Bishop of York, 195;
of Lichfield, 198.
St. Columba, 134, 147–150, 154, 181, 182, 187.
St. Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, 130, 158, 192, 205, 208, 282,
406.
St. Dunstan, early life, 344–348;
Abbot of Glastonbury, 347;
influence on Edred, 339;
at Edwy’s coronation, 349;
exiled, 350;
Bishop of Worcester and London, 352;
Archbishop of Canterbury, 352;
share in monastic reform, 353–356;
story of St. Edmund’s martyrdom, 277;
crowns King Edward the Martyr, 360;
escape at the meeting at Calne, 362;
remonstrance with Ethelred, 365;
death, 365;
character, 360, 491;
lives of, by various authors, 501.
St. Edmund, 276–278, 393, 405.
St. Frideswide, church of, at Oxford, 394.
St. Germanus, 83–85, 102, 106.
St. Guthlac, 249.
St. Herbert of Derwentwater, 208.
St. Jerome, 68.
St. Joseph of Arimathea, 339.
St. Lucius, King of Britain, 76, 414.
St. Martin of Tours, 119, 146.
St. Ninian, 146.
St. Olaf, King of Norway, 410, 413–415, 444.
St. Oswald, 126, 150–159, 171, 173, 179, 282.
St. Patrick, 104.
St. Paul, church in London dedicated to, 122, 391.
St. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, 265, 266, 357.
St. Thomas, Christians of, in India, 299.
Sake and Soke, 440, 441.
Sandwich, 375, 388, 389, 394, 444, 445, 450, 458, 477.
San Spirito in Sassia, church in Rome, 270.
Sarn Helen, a Roman road, 74.
Sarum, Old (Searoburg), battle of, 91.
Savernake Forest, battle near, 280.
_Saxon Chronicle._ See _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_.
Saxon Shore in Britain, Count of, 70.
Saxons, origin and appearance in Britain, 71, 79–81, 84, 104, 106.
Scarborough burnt, 479.
_Sceatt_, value of, 235.
Schmid, Professor Reinhold, 286 n., 381 n., 508.
_Schola Saxonum_, at Rome, 270.
_Scilling_, value of, 232.
_Scip-here_, Danish fleet, 311, 321, 342.
Scotland, 134, 138, 192, 246, 324–328, 333, 335, 356, 357, 406–410,
461–464.
Scots, 68, 79, 93, 95, 102, 103, 134, 148, 157.
Sebbi, King of East Saxons, 175, 176.
Sedgefield, W. J., translation of Alfred’s Boethius, 297 n.
Seebohm, F., 77, 508.
Seghine, Abbot of Iona, 154.
Selsey, bishopric founded, 205.
Selwood, Forest of, 284.
Seneca, as money-lender in Britain, 39.
Senlac or Epiton, site of “battle of Hastings,” 485.
Seven Boroughs, 394, 395.
Severus, Septimius, Emperor, 59–62, 90.
Sexburh, Queen of Kent, 176.
Shaftesbury (Sceaftesburh), 364, 416.
Sheppey (Sceapig), Isle of, 265, 268, 308, 458.
Sherborne (Scireburne), Bishopric of, 242.
Ship-money, 388.
_Shire and Shire Gemot_, 429, 432, 433.
_Shire-reeve_ (sheriff), 434.
Shoebury (Sceoburh), Danish fort at, 309.
Shrewsbury (Scergeat, Scrobbesburh), “burh” built at, 321, 433 n.
Sideman, Bishop of Crediton, 362.
Sidroc, a Danish jarl, 278.
Sigebert the Learned, King of East Anglia, 163, 164.
Sigebert, King of the East Saxons, 175, 179.
Sigebert, King of the West Saxons, 253.
Sigeferth, thegn, murdered by Edric, 394.
Sigeric, Archbishop of Canterbury, 381.
Sighelm, West Saxon almoner, 299.
Sighere, King of the East Saxons, 175, 176.
Sigvat, minstrel to King Olaf, 444.
Sihtric, Northumbrian king, 332.
Silchester, Christian Basilica at, 75.
Silures, a British tribe, 33–35, 37, 46.
Silurians, 5.
Simcox, W. H., on sites of Alfred’s battles, 278 n.
Sinodun camp, 162.
Siward the Strong, Earl of Northumbria, 422, 442, 447, 454, 462, 463.
_Six-hynd_ men, 430.
Skene, W. F., on Celtic Scotland, 148, 149, 326, 409 n., 508.
Slavery, 114–116, 225, 226 n., 303.
Snorri Sturleson, Icelandic scholar, 504.
Somerton captured, 249.
Southampton (Hamtun), Danes attack, 266.
South Anglians, 160.
Southwark (Suthgeweore), 455, 458.
Spartianus, on the Roman Wall, 53.
Stafford, “burh” built at, 321.
Stamford (Steanford), 316, 323, 340.
Stamford Bridge, battle of, 480–482, 485, 486.
Stainmoor, King Eric slain at, 342.
Steenstrup, J. C., 257 n.
Steepholm (Steapa Relice), Danes at, 321.
Stevenson, W. H., Editor of Asser, 221 n., 270 n., 274 n., 279 n.,
284 n., 299 n., 357 n., 359 n.
Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, 459, 472, 476.
Stilicho, Roman general, 72.
Stonehenge, neolithic work at, 5.
Stour, river, 117, 458.
Strabo, geographer, 8, 27, 493.
Strathclyde, kingdom of, 95, 108, 130, 144, 148, 153, 281, 325–327,
332, 333.
Streanæshalch. See Whitby.
Stubbs, Bishop, 268, 383 n., 508.
Stuf, nephew of Cerdic, 91.
Sumorsætas, 249.
Sussex, kingdom of, 80, 89, 174, 176, 177, 194.
Swearing power, scale of, 130.
Sweyn Estrithson, King of Denmark, 443–445.
Sweyn, or Swegen, King of Denmark, 371, 384, 385, 391–393.
Sweyn, son of Canute, 416, 417.
Sweyn, son of Godwine, 448–452, 455, 465.
Swithelm, King of East Saxons, 175 n.
Swithun. See St. Swithin.
Symeon of Durham, historian, 131, 281, 333, 334, 337, 340, 393, 502.
Tacitus, P. Cornelius, historian, 33, 35, 37, 41, 43, 46, 49, 50, 77,
81, 380, 494.
Taillefer, minstrel, 487, 488.
Tamworth (Tameweorthig), 322, 332, 340.
Tanaus, river, position discussed, 49.
Tasciovanus, British king, 27.
Taunton (Tantun), fortress built by King Ine, 216.
Taylor, Isaac, on distribution of Danes in England, 315, 316.
Telham, hill of, 485.
Tempsford (Temesanford), Danish fort at, 324.
Tettenhall, Danes defeated at, 320.
Teutonic conquest of England, 106–109.
Teutons pressed westward by Huns, 109, 110.
Thanet (Tenet), Isle of, 117, 118, 267, 268, 275, 353, 445.
Thegn right, 223.
_Thegns_, 228, 435.
Thelwall, Saxon “burh” at, 323.
Theodbald, brother of Ethelfrid, 134.
Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, 195–209.
Theodosius the Elder, 68.
Theodosius I., Emperor, 68, 71, 72.
Theodosius II. Emperor, 82.
_Theows_, or _esnes_, 225, 303.
Thetford, 277, 278, 343.
Thora, mother of Hakon, 331.
Thored, son of Gunnor, 353.
Thorfinn, Earl of Orkney, 462, 479.
Thorney Island (in Hertfordshire), 308.
Thorney Island (at Westminster), 457, 472.
Thorpe, Benjamin, 508.
Three Field System of farming, 221.
Thrum, gives _coup de grâce_ to Saint Alphege, 390.
_Thrymsa_, value of, 235.
Thurcytel of Northumbria, 396.
Thurgils Sprakalegg, cousin of Canute, 404.
Thurkill, Danish leader, 391, 392, 394, 401, 404.
Tincommius, British king, 26.
_Tithing_, 439.
Titus in Britain, 33.
Togodumnus, British chief, 29, 31.
Tondheri, servant of Oswin, 167.
Tonsures, Greek and Roman, 179, 186, 196.
Torksey occupied by Danes, 281.
Tortulf, or Tertullus, ancestor of Counts of Anjou, 370.
Tostig, son of Godwine, 449, 455, 461, 463, 465, 467, 470, 471, 477,
479–481, 484.
Towcester (Tofeceaster), relief and fortification of, 323, 324.
Trebellius Maximus, Roman governor, 45.
_Tributum_, Roman, 47.
Trinobantes, British tribe, 17–19, 28, 40.
_Trinoda necessitas_, 432, 436.
Trondhjem, Canute declared King of Norway at, 414.
Trumwine, Bishop of Abercorn, 192, 207.
Tuda, Bishop of Lindisfarne, 188.
_Tufa_ or _thuuf_ ornament on banner of Edwin, 143.
Tunberct, Bishop of Hexham, 206.
_Twelf-hynd_ man, 228, 305.
Twyford (Alnmouth), synod at, 206.
_Twy-hynd_ man, 228, 305, 430.
Ubba, Danish chief, murderer of St. Edmund, 277, 278, 284.
Uhtred, Earl of Northumbria, 396, 407, 408.
Ulf, Bishop of Dorchester, 457, 459.
Ulfcytel, ealdorman of East Anglia, 387, 397.
Ulf the Jarl, brother-in-law of Canute, 404, 413, 414, 444.
Utta, priest sent by Edwin to King of Kent, 165.
Valens, Emperor of Rome, 68.
Valentia, province of Britannia, 68.
Valentinian I., Emperor of Rome, 68.
Valentinian III., Emperor of Rome, 88.
Valerius Maximus, historian, 13.
Val-ès-Dunes, battle of, 456.
Vallum runs parallel to Roman Wall, 152, 251.
Veranius, Roman governor of Britain, 37.
Verica, British king, 26.
Verulamium (St. Albans), Britanno-Roman town, 27, 42, 76.
Vespasian, officer under Aulus Plautius, afterwards Emperor, 32, 33,
45, 46.
Vikings, 237, 260, 341, 456.
Villa, Roman, 77.
Vinogradoff, Professor Paul, 220 n., 221 n., 226 n., 304 n., 428 n.,
437 n., 508.
Virgate, extent of, 223.
Virius Lupus, Roman governor of Britain, 60.
Vitalian, Pope, 195.
Volusenus, 10, 12.
Vortigern, British king, 86, 88, 97, 102–104, 106, 107.
Vortimer, son of Vortigern, 103.
Vortipor, British king, 99.
Wace, William, 469, 483 n., 485 n., 505.
Wales, 34, 35, 41, 47, 74, 101, 102, 108, 123, 131, 144, 158, 186,
253, 336, 342, 449, 464, 466.
Wallingford, 376.
Waltham, minster at, 484, 490.
Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria, 407.
Waltheof, son of Siward, 463.
Wantage, birth-place of Alfred, 272.
Wantsum, in Kent, 117.
Wapentake, Danish equivalent for hundred, 429.
Warburton (Weardburh), Saxon burh at, 321.
Wareham (Werham), 283, 364.
Warwick (Waerinewic), Saxon burh at, 321.
Watchet (Wecedport), attacked by Danes, 321.
Watling Street, 73, 287, 309, 324.
Wat’s Dyke, 251.
“Wealas,” Romanised Celts, 111.
Wedmore, treaty of, 285.
Weland the Smith, 287.
Welsh. See also Cymri, 89, 90, 93, 177, 178, 309, 321, 356.
Welsh Church, 123, 124, 197.
Wembury (Wicganbeorg), Danes attack, 266.
Wendel Sea, or Mediterranean, 294.
_Wer_, 300, 302.
Werferth, Bishop of Worcester, 291.
_Wergild_, 226, 228, 229, 300, 435.
Wessex, 158, 161, 179, 180, 448, 464;
source of chronicle, 87, 88;
foundation, 80, 90;
its decline, 140, 177, 178;
revival under Egbert, 263–265.
Westminster Abbey, 446, 472.
Westmorland, harried, 353.
West Wales (Cornwall), 6, 34, 93, 108, 123, 265, 333, 336.
Wherwell, abbess of, 455.
Whitby (Streanæshalch), synod of, 180–188.
White Sea, explored, 294.
Whithern (Candida Casa), 146.
Wictgils, father of Hengest, 86, 88.
Wighard, candidate for archbishopric, 190.
Wight, Isle of, 33, 66, 80, 91, 174, 178, 214, 215, 375, 392, 458,
477, 478.
Wigmore (Wigingamere), burh built at, 323.
Wihtgar in Isle of Wight, 87, 91.
Wihtred’s laws, 218, 219.
Wilfrid, his education, 183;
at Ripon, 184;
his arguments at Synod of Whitby, 185;
elected Bishop of York, 193;
Ceadda (St. Chad), appointed to same see, 195;
dispute settled by Theodore of Tarsus, 198;
builds Hexham Abbey, 200;
his quarrels with Egfrid and Aldfrid, 202–212;
his visits to Rome, 203, 209;
death, 212.
William, Bishop of London, 457.
William Fitz Osbern, follower of William of Normandy, 475, 487.
William of Jumièges, historian, 505.
William Longsword, son of Rolf, 368, 369.
William of Malmesbury, historian, 105, 241, 266, 336 n., 337, 342,
354, 356, 357, 364, 392, 394, 503.
William of Normandy, 456, 457, 460, 461, 467–469, 471, 475–477, 482,
484–486, 489, 490.
William of Poitiers, historian, 505.
Willibrord, missionary to Germany, 203, 236.
Wilton, Danish victory at, 281.
Wimbledon (Wibbandune), battle of, 92.
Wimborne (Winburne), Ethelred I. buried at, 280.
Winchester (Venta Belgarum, Wintanceaster), 88, 90, 91, 182, 232,
275, 297, 314, 342, 343, 355, 416,418, 423, 451, 457, 460.
Windermere, princes drowned in, 247.
Winfrid, Bishop, 203.
Winwaed, perhaps river Went, battle of, 170, 171.
Wippedes-fleote, battle of, 89.
Wissant, possible place of Cæsar’s embarkation, 23.
_Wite_, 227, 300, 302.
_Witenagemot_, 141, 232, 267, 301, 319, 336, 337, 356, 362, 452, 454,
455, 459, 465.
_Wite-theows_, 225.
Woden, 86, 90, 133, 141.
Wodensburh (Wansborough?), 216.
Wodnesbeorge, battle of, 93.
Worcester (Wigraceaster), insurrection at, 422.
Workington, Lindisfarne gospels at, 282.
Wrdelau, St. Cuthbert’s body at, 406.
Wulfhere, King of Mercia, 172, 173, 178, 191, 195.
Wulfmaer, squire to Brihtnoth, 379.
Wulfnoth Child, rebels against Ethelred, 388.
Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, 340–342, 353.
Wulfstan, Norwegian pilot, 294.
Wulfthryth, a novice at Wilton, 358.
Wuscfrea, son of Edwin, 145.
Wynfrith. See Boniface.
Xiphilinus, abbreviator of Dion Cassius, 495.
Yard-land, extent of, 221, 222.
Yeavering, palace of Edwin of Deira, 143.
Yffi, son of Osfrid, 142, 145.
York (Eburacum, Eoforwic), 67, 94, 121, 138, 141, 193, 198, 257,
276, 322, 332, 340, 342, 470, 479, 482, 484.
Zimmer, commentator on Nennius, 100, 497.
Zosimus, Greek historian, 83.
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GEORGE PHILIP & SON Ltd THE LONDON GEOGRAPHICAL INSTITUTE.
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Transcriber’s Notes
Inconsistencies in hyphenation and spelling were not changed, except in
a few cases where an Index entry was made consistent with the text on
the page it referenced.
Simple typographical errors were corrected.
The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page
references.
In the Genealogy charts, the dagger † apparently indicates the last
year of the King’s reign.
Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of pages, have been collected,
resequenced, and positioned just before the Index.
Page 68: A possibly unbalanced quotation mark has not been remedied.
Page 87: For consistency with the text preceded by “(_a_)” on page
85, the text beginning with “The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_” on page 87
perhaps should be preceded by “(_b_)”.
The two illustrations just above this Note are maps.
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