A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

Chapter II: Introduction (1)

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The history of civilization can be traced in great lines which have more or less followed a similar direction throughout all Europe. The interest of a national history is to observe the course which these lines have followed in a particular instance; for, examined in detail, their course has never been identical. The period occupied by what we speak of as English history is that, speaking broadly, during which the great mediæval systems--feudalism and the Church--have by degrees given place to modern society, of which the moving-springs are freedom of the individual, government in accordance with the popular will, and freedom of thought. The object of a History of England is therefore to trace that change as it worked itself out amid all the various influences which affected it in our own nation. The peculiar circumstances of the Norman conquest prevented the complete development in England of either of the great Continental systems. Neither the feudal system nor the system of the Roman Church are to be found in their completeness in England. The separation of England from the Empire, the entire destruction of the Roman occupation by the German invaders, prevented that contact between German and Roman civilization from which Continental feudalism sprang. And though, if left to itself, the civilization of the early English would have ripened into some form of feudalism, it was caught by the Conquest before the process was completed. The Normans brought with them, indeed, the external apparatus of the completed system; but in the hands of their great leader, and grafted upon the existing institutions of the country, it assumed a new form. The power of the King was always maintained and the power of the barons suppressed, while room was left under the shadow of a strong monarchy for the growth of the lower classes of the nation. In the same way, the Church was always kept from assuming a position of supremacy, and its subordinate relations to the State maintained. The establishment of this new form of government may be held to occupy the first period of our history since the Conquest, lasting till the reign of John. During that time the barons, who had more than once attempted to establish the same virtual independence as was enjoyed by their fellows abroad, were taught to recognize the power of the Crown. The legislation of Henry I. and Henry II., and the establishment under the latter of a new nobility dependent for their status upon their ministerial services, coupled with the incorporation of the national system of justice with the feudal system of the conquerors, united all classes of Englishmen and consolidated the nation, but in so doing raised to an alarming degree the power of the Crown. The miserable reign of John, and the tyrannical use he made of the power thus placed in his hands, called attention to the dangers which beset the administrative arrangements of his father. The total severance of England from France, which took place in his reign, and his rash quarrel with the Church, completed the work of national consolidation, but placed the united nation in antagonism to the throne. The nobility, which in other countries were the natural enemies of all classes below them, were thus forced to assume the lead of all who desired a reasonable amount of national freedom.

The struggle to harmonize the relations which should exist between the Crown and the subject occupies the second period of our history. It assumes several forms; sometimes the dislike of foreigners, sometimes a desire for self-taxation, sometimes it seems little more than an outbreak of an over-strong nobility. But whatever its form, the fruits of the struggle were lasting. The rival claims of King and nation, acknowledged and regulated by the wisdom of Edward I., gave rise to that balanced constitution which in its latest development still exists among us. But it would seem that this great advance in government had been somewhat premature. In other nations institutions resembling our Parliament sprang into existence, and faded away before the power of the Crown, an effect which can be traced chiefly to the strong line of division separating the commonalty from the nobles. Without support from the nobility, and in all its interests in direct antagonism to it, the commonalty, after supporting the Crown in the destruction of the baronage, found itself in presence of a power to which it was unable to offer any resistance. Several causes already mentioned had in England weakened the sharp definition of classes, but there was a great risk even there of a similar failure of constitutional monarchy. It was as the leader of the nobility that Henry IV. first rose into importance in the reign of Richard II., and subsequently obtained the crown. The limitation of the franchise in the reign of Henry VI., and the consequent subserviency of Parliament, were steps towards the elevation of an aristocratical influence, which, had it grown till its suppression by the Crown was rendered necessary, would have reproduced in England the historical phenomena visible in France. Fortunately the nobility were not at one among themselves. The various sources from which they derived their origin, the close family connections, and personal interests, split them into factions, which, taking advantage of a disputed succession, brought their quarrel to the trial of the sword with such animosity that the nobility of England was virtually extinguished.

But while this faction fight, and the great French war which preceded it, attract the attention chiefly during the third period of the history, a quiet advance of great importance had been going on, sheltered by the more obvious movements of the time. The same spirit which had found its expression in the establishment of the Constitution, had indirectly, if not directly, influenced every class of the nation. The exclusive merchant guild had given place to the craftsman’s guild. The wars in France, the alienation of property fostered by the legislation of Edward I., the Black Death, which had robbed the country of at least a third of its labouring hands, had sealed the fate of serfdom, and established in England the great class of free wage labourers. The same alienation, the gradual increase and importance of trade, and the formation and introduction of capital, had formed a middle class of gentry, from which the successful merchant was not excluded. Nor had this political growth been unaccompanied by an advance of thought. The failure of the crusades, the last great exhibition of material religion; the Franciscan revival; the philosophy of Bacon and his successors; the bold declaration of independence on the part of Wicliffe, and the grasping and repellent character of the Roman Court, had shaken the Church to its foundations. The storm which had shaken the surface of English society had left its depths unmoved and undisturbed by the great work of extermination proceeding overhead; these processes of growth had been gradually continuing their course during the whole of the third period. Thus, then, when Edward IV. emerged from the troubles of the Wars of the Roses as King of England, his position, though it might seem very similar to that of a king who had triumphed over his nobility, was yet considerably modified. The nobility were no doubt gone, but it was not the Crown which had crushed them. The Church, indeed, threw all its influence on the side of the Crown, but it was in the consciousness of the insecurity of its position in the hearts of the people that it did so. The King and his Commons stood face to face, with no intermediate class to check their mutual action, but the Commons were already free, and headed by a rapidly rising body of wealthy secondary landowners or merchants. Nevertheless, the immediate effect of the destruction of the nobility was completely to check constitutional growth, and to establish a government which was little short of arbitrary.

The Italian statecraft, which the influence of the Renaissance rendered paramount, for the moment increased the tendency to absolutism; and in the reign of Henry VIII., though a shadow of popular government yet remained, the will of the king was little short of absolute. What may be called the fourth period of our history is occupied by the establishment of this arbitrary power, and the gradual awakening of national life, under the influences of the Renaissance, and of the circumstances which accompanied the Reformation, which tended to modify it in the reign of Elizabeth. When Protestantism and the vigorous young thought of the reawakened nation became linked indissolubly with the fortunes of the sovereign in her national war against Spain, the mere necessity of the union tended much to put a practical limit to the arbitrary character of the new monarchy. It was the miscomprehension of the necessity of this union between king and people which produced the contests which occupy our history during the reign of the Stuarts.

Bred in the theory of monarchy by Divine right, the logical offspring of feudalism, when separated from the Empire and the Church, the Stuarts were willing to accept the arbitrary power of their predecessors, but would not acknowledge the necessity of harmonious action with the people, on which alone, as things then were, such arbitrary authority could rest. The middle class of gentry had been increasing in power and influence till they were now in a position to assume that leadership in the nation which the destruction of the nobles had left vacant. And behind them there was the bulk of the people, whose Protestantism, the religious character of the late national struggle, and the love of truth engendered by the Renaissance, had raised to enthusiastic Puritanism. The constitutional life, checked for a time by the Tudor monarchy, again sprang into existence. In the struggle which ensued it was the enthusiastic party which ultimately triumphed, and its leader, Cromwell, is seen mingling his conscientious efforts at the establishment of constitutional government with a religious fervour too great to be sustained.

But his rule, freed from those parts for which, as yet, the gentry at all events were unprepared, established, definitely and for ever, the necessity of recurring sooner or later to the constitutional principles of the fourteenth century. In the Revolution of 1688 those principles triumphed. But they triumphed in the hands no longer of a great enthusiastic leader, but of a party, which found its chief supporters in a limited number of noble houses, whose aristocratic pride was injured by the arbitrary power of the sovereign, and whose influence in the formation of Parliament promised them political superiority under the establishment of parliamentary government. From that time till the present the scene of the contest has been changed. A party struggle of some thirty years gave place to the unchecked predominance of parliamentary rule. And the last period of our history has been occupied by the efforts of the excluded nation to make their voice heard above that of a nominal representation, consisting in reality of the representatives of a dominant class, under the influence either of the great Whig families or of the Crown.

GENEALOGIES OF THE LEADING FAMILIES

(_The founder of the family a kinsman of William I._)

DE BOHUNS (HEREFORD, ESSEX, NORTHAMPTON).

(_Family founded at the Conquest._)

BEAUCHAMP

(WARWICK).

(_Family founded at the Conquest._)

MOWBRAY (NOTTINGHAM, NORFOLK).

MORTIMERS (MARCH).

(_Family founded at the Conquest._)

NEVILLES (WESTMORELAND, WARWICK).

MARSHALLS AND BIGODS.

(_Family founded at the Conquest._)

FITZ-ALAN (ARUNDEL).

(_Family founded in Henry I.’s reign._)

DESPENSERS.

LANCASTERS.

DE LA POLES.

William de la Pole = Catherine, daughter of
Great Merchant at Kingston, | Sir John Norwich.
advanced £1000 to Edward |
III., for which he was |
made a Banneret. |
|
Michael de la Pole = Katherine Wingfield.
Earl of Suffolk 1385. |
Impeached and exiled. |
Died at Paris 1388. |
|
Sir Michael = Katherine, daughter of
Restored to his Earldom | the Earl of Stafford.
1399. In the French |
wars. Died at Harfleur |
1415. |
|
+-----------------------+----+
| |
Michael William, 4th Earl = Alice, grand-
3rd Earl of Suffolk. Commanded at Verneuil and | daughter of
Died at Agincourt Orleans. Brought Margaret | Chaucer.
1415. of Anjou over. Duke of |
Suffolk 1448. Impeached, |
banished, murdered in the |
boat, 1450. |
|
+-------------------+
|
John de la Pole = Elizabeth, sister
Duke of Suffolk 1463. | of Edward IV.
Died 1491. |
|
+---------------------------+------------+------------+
| | |
John, Earl of Lincoln. Edmund. Fought at Richard. Fought
Lord Lieutenant of first for Henry VII. for the French.
Ireland. Declared heir- Subsequently took Died at Pavia 1525.
apparent by Richard III. offence and withdrew His dukedom of
Joined Lambert Simnel. to his aunt Margaret Suffolk given to
Died at Battle of of Burgundy. Was given Charles Brandon.
Stoke 1487. up. Imprisoned in the
Tower. Executed as
a Yorkist 1513.

BEAUFORT (SOMERSETS), AND STAFFORD (BUCKINGHAMS).

WOODVILLES

(COURTENAYS. GREYS.)

ENGLAND BEFORE THE CONQUEST.

[Sidenote: Departure of the Romans.]

The dominion of the Romans in Britain had been complete. The country, as far as the Frith of Forth, had been brought under Roman civilization. But in England, as elsewhere, the continuance of that form of civilization had produced weakness; and the unconquered Britons of the North, known by the name of Picts, broke into the Romanized districts, and pushed their incursions far into the centre of the country. On all sides, the nations outside the Empire were breaking through its limits and threatening its existence. The danger which threatened the very heart of the Empire, from the advance of the Goths into Italy, compelled the Romans in 411 to withdraw their legions from Britain, and leave the inhabitants of the island to fight their own battles with the Picts. When these enemies formed an alliance with the pirates of Ireland, known by the name of the Scots, and with the German pirates of the North Sea, known as English or Saxons, the civilized Britons were unable to make head against them, and found it necessary to seek for aid among the invaders themselves They therefore made an arrangement with two Jutish chiefs or Ealdormen, Hengist and Horsa, to come to their assistance. The German rovers consisted of three nations--the Saxons, the inhabitants of Holstein, who had advanced along the coast of Friesland; to the north of them the Angles or English, who inhabited Sleswig; and still further to the north, the Jutes, whose name is still perpetuated in the promontory of Jutland.

[Sidenote: The Jutish settlement in Kent. 449.]

[Sidenote: The Saxons in Sussex. 477-495.]

[Sidenote: The Angles in East Anglia. 520.]

The first landing-place of the Jutish allies of the Britons was in the Isle of Thanet, separated at that time by a considerable inlet from the British mainland. Their aid enabled the Britons to drive back the Pictish invaders. But their success, and the settlement they had formed, enticed many of their brethren to join them, and their numbers were constantly increasing. Increase of numbers implied increased demand in the way of payment and provisions. Quarrels arose between the new-comers and their British allies. War was determined on. The inlet which divided Thanet from the mainland was passed, and at Aylesford, on the Medway, a battle was fought, which, though it cost Horsa his life, put the conquering Barbarians into possession of much of the east of Kent. The victory was followed by the extermination of the inhabitants; against the clergy especially the anger of the conquerors was directed. The country was thus cleared of the inhabitants, and the new-comers settled down, bringing with them their goods and families and national institutions. This process was repeated at every stage of the conquest of the country, which thus became not only a conquest but a re-settlement. The Jutish conquest of Kent was followed, in 477, by an invasion of the Saxons, who, under Ella, overran the south of Sussex, and captured the fortress of Anderida near Pevensey; and in 495, by a fresh Saxon invasion under Cerdic and Cymric, who passed up the Southampton water and established the kingdom of the West Saxons. A momentary check was given to the advance of the conquerors, in 520, at the battle of Mount Badon. But almost immediately fresh hordes of Angles began conquering and settling the East of England, where they established the East Anglian kingdom, with its two great divisions of Northfolk and Southfolk. Between that time and 577, the date of a victory at Deorham, in Gloucestershire, the West Saxons had overrun what are now Hampshire and Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, and the valley of the Severn, reaching almost as far as Chester; while the Angles, entering the Humber and working up the rivers, established themselves on the Trent, where they were known as Mercians or Border men, and formed two Northern kingdoms, that of Deira in Yorkshire, and that of Bernicia, extending as far as the Forth. The capital of this last-named kingdom was Bamborough, founded by Ida, and called after his wife Bebba, Bebbanburgh, or Bamborough.

The junction of these two kingdoms under Æthelfrith, about 600, established the Kingdom of Northumbria; thus was begun the process of consolidating the several divided English kingdoms. This tendency to consolidation is marked by the title of Bretwalda, which is given to the chief of the nation dominant for the time being. The name had been applied to Ella of Sussex, to Ceawlin of Wessex, and was held at the time of the establishment of the Northumbrian power by Æthelberht of Kent. There were thus two pre-eminent powers among the English--Northumbria, under its king Æthelfrith, claiming supremacy over the middle districts of England, including the Mercians and Middle English; and Kent, under Æthelberht, paramount over Middlesex, Essex, and East Anglia; while a third kingdom, that of Wessex, though large in extent and destined to become the dominant power, was as yet occupied chiefly in improving its position towards the west. Beyond these lay the district still in the possession of the Britons. The possessions of this people were now divided by the conquest of the English into three--West Wales, or Cornwall; North Wales, which we now call Wales; and Strathclyde, a district stretching from the Clyde along the west of the Pennine chain, and separated from Wales by Chester, in the hands of the Mercians, and a piece of Lancashire in the hands of the Northumbrians.

[Sidenote: Conversion of the English. 597.]

It was while the kingdoms of Northumbria and Kent were thus in the balance that the conversion of the English to the Christian faith began. Æthelberht of Kent had married Bercta, the daughter of the Frankish King of Paris. She was a Christian; and Gregory the Great at that time occupying the Roman See, which was rapidly rising to the position of supremacy in the Christian Church, took advantage of the opening thus afforded, and despatched a band of missionaries under a monk named Augustine to convert the people. In 597 they landed in Thanet. By the influence of the Queen they were well received, and established themselves at Canterbury, which has ever since retained its position as the seat of the Primacy. The Kings of Essex and East Anglia followed the example of their superior Lord, and became Christians. The Northern kingdom was still heathen. But Eadwine, who succeeded Æthelfrith on the Northumbrian throne, surpassed his predecessor in power. On Æthelberht’s death, he received the submission of the East Anglians and men of Essex, and conquered even the West Saxons. Kent alone remained independent, but was compelled to purchase security by a close alliance with Eadwine, who married a Kentish princess. With her went a priest, Paulinus; and priest and Queen together succeeded in converting Eadwine, and bringing the Northern kingdom to Christianity. Heathenism was however not extinct. It found a champion, Penda, King of the Mercians. In alliance with the Welsh king he attacked and defeated Eadwine, in 633, at the battle of Heathfield, and united under his power those who were properly called Mercians and the other English tribes south of the Humber. He also conquered the West Saxon districts along the Severn, and thus established what is generally known as the Kingdom of Mercia. Paulinus had fled from York after the battle of Heathfield. But the contest between heathen and Christian was renewed by Oswald, Eadwine’s successor; for Paulinus’ place was taken by Bishop Aidan, a missionary from Columba’s Irish monastery in Iona, who had established an Episcopal See in the Island of Lindisfarne. From thence missionaries issued, who continued the work of conversion, to which Oswald chiefly devoted his life. Birinus, sent from Rome, with the support of Oswald, succeeded in converting even Wessex, and establishing a Christian church at Dorchester. Penda still continued in the centre of England to uphold the cause of heathendom. At the battle of Maserfield he conquered and slew Oswald, and re-established his religion for a time in Wessex. But at length, in 655, he succumbed to Oswi, Oswald’s successor, and with him fell the power of heathendom. It seemed as though Irish Christianity, and not Roman, would thus be the religion of England. But Rome did not suffer her conquests to slip from her hand. A struggle arose between the adherents of the two Churches. The matter was brought to an issue in 664 at a Council at Whitby. The Roman Church there proved predominant. And this victory was followed by the appointment of Theodore of Tarsus, an Eastern divine, to the See of Canterbury. Under him the English Church was organized. Fresh sees were added to the old ones, which had usually followed the limits of the old English kingdoms. Canterbury was established as the centre of Church authority. Theodore’s ecclesiastical work tended much both to the growth of national unity and to the close connection of Church and State which existed during the Saxon period. The unity of the people was expressed in the single archiepiscopal See of Canterbury and in the Synods; while the arrangement of bishoprics and parishes according to existing territorial divisions connected them closely with the State.

[Sidenote: Supremacy of Mercia. 716-819.]

The contest for supremacy between Mercia and Northumbria still continued. After the fall of Penda, the supremacy of the Northern kingdom was for some time unquestioned. But sixty years later, during the reign of three Christian kings, Ethelbald, Offa, and Cenwulf (716-819), Mercia again rose to great power. Offa indeed came nearer to consolidating an empire than any of the preceding kings, although he is not mentioned among the Bretwaldas. It is said that he corresponded on terms of something like equality with Charlemagne; and the great dyke between the Severn and the Wye which bears his name is supposed to mark the limits of his conquests over the Britons.

[Sidenote: Ecgberht. 800-836.]

[Sidenote: Consolidation under the West Saxons.]

With these princes the supremacy of Mercia closed, for a great king had in the year 800 ascended the throne of Wessex. Ecgberht had lived as an exile in his youth at the court of Charlemagne, and there probably imbibed imperial notions. During his reign of thirty-six years he gradually brought under his power all the kingdoms of the English, whether Anglian or Saxon. In 823, at the great battle of Ellandune, he defeated the Mercians so completely that their subject kingdoms passed into his power. Four years later Mercia owned his overlordship, and Northumbria immediately after yielded without a struggle. These great kingdoms retained their own line of sovereigns as subordinate kings. Ecgberht continued the hereditary struggle against the British populations, with the West Welsh or Cornish, and the North Welsh or Welsh, and in each instance succeeded in establishing his supremacy over them. North of the Dee, however, his power over the British population did not spread. Thus the kingdom of the West Saxons absorbed all its rivals, and established a permanent superiority in England.

[Sidenote: Period of Danish invasion. 790-1013.]

Already, however, a new enemy, before which the rising kingdom was finally to succumb, had made its appearance; a year before his death, Ecgberht was called upon to defend his country from the Danes. This people, issuing from the Scandinavian kingdoms in the North of Europe, had begun to land in England, to harry the country, and to carry off their spoil. At first as robbers, then as settlers, and finally as conquerors, for two centuries they occupy English history. Their first appearance in this reign was at Charmouth in Dorsetshire. Subsequently, in junction with the British, they advanced westward from Cornwall. This led to the great battle of Hengestesdun, or Hengston, where the invaders were defeated (835). It seems not unnatural to trace the appearance of the Northern rovers in England to the state of the Continent. Driven from their own country by want of room, obliged to seek new settlements, they found themselves checked by the organized power of Charlemagne’s empire. They were thus compelled to find their new home in countries they had not yet visited. The reign closed with the capture of Chester, the capital of Gwynedd, the British kingdom of North Wales.

[Sidenote: Æthelwulf. 836-857.]

The reign of Æthelwulf, the successor of Ecgberht, was chiefly occupied in constant war with the Danes. Various success attended his efforts. The great battle at Ockley (851), where they were heavily defeated, for a time kept them in check; but, on the whole, the invaders constantly gained ground, and at last, in 855, for the first time so far changed their predatory habits as to winter in the Isle of Thanet. Another characteristic of Æthelwulf’s reign is the connection with Rome which he established. When his youngest son Alfred was still a child, he sent him to Rome, where the young prince was anointed; and two years afterwards he himself took the same journey, was received on the road by Charles the Bald, King of France, and spent a whole year in Italy. He there re-established the Saxon College, and by his engagement to supply funds for its support seems to have originated the well-known Peter’s Pence. His connection with Charles the Bald was further cemented by his marriage with Judith, daughter of that king. After Æthelwulf’s death she married her stepson Æthelbald, was divorced by him, returned to France, married Baldwin of Flanders, and was the ancestress of Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror. These connections show the rising importance of England, and the entrance of the country into the general politics of Europe. Something in Æthelwulf’s government, perhaps his lengthened absence abroad, or the step he had taken in getting Alfred anointed, excited discontent. His eldest surviving son, Æthelbald, conspired with other nobles to exclude him from the country, and he was forced to consent to a compromise, accepting as his own kingdom, Kent and the Eastern dependencies of Wessex, while his son ruled over the rest of the kingdom.

[Sidenote: Æthelbald. 858-860.]

[Sidenote: Æthelberht. 860-866.]

On his death he bequeathed his own dominions to Æthelberht, his second son, while Wessex was, upon the death of Æthelbald, to pass in succession to his two sons, Æthelred and Alfred. In spite of this will, on the death of Æthelbald five years later, Æthelberht of Kent succeeded in making good his claims to Wessex also, and upon Æthelberht’s death, after a reign of five years, marked only by renewed attacks of the Danes, both kingdoms passed without question to Æthelred.

[Sidenote: Æthelred. 866-871.]

[Sidenote: Danish conquest of East Anglia. 870.]

It was during the reign of Æthelred that the Danes first established themselves permanently in the country. In 867 Ingvar and Hubba, said to be the sons of Ragner Lodbrog, a great Scandinavian hero, invaded England. Legend says that this invasion was intended to exact vengeance for the death of their father, who had been cruelly put to death by Ella of Northumberland. There are chronological difficulties in the way of accepting this story, which are increased by the fact that the Danish landing was really in East Anglia. Thence, in 867, they advanced into Northumbria and took York. The anarchy in which Northumbria lay, caused by the rival claims of Osberht and Ella to the throne, rendered its conquest easy. In 868, they marched towards Mercia, and took Nottingham. Burhred, the King of Mercia, then implored the aid of Æthelred and his brother Alfred, who so far succeeded that they drove the Danes back to Northumbria. From thence, in 870, an invasion, under many leaders, whose connection is not very clear, was directed against East Anglia. They were there joined by Guthrum, another Danish leader, and their combined forces pressed victoriously onwards through Croyland, to Peterborough, Huntingdon, and Ely. After defeating the English at Thetford, they took Edmund, the Saxon King of East Anglia, prisoner, and, upon his refusal to accept the pagan religion, put him to death. For his constancy he was honoured with the title of Saint Edmund. East Anglia was thus completely in possession of the Danes, and Guthrum took to himself the title of king. East Anglia became henceforward for some time the principal point of Danish settlement in England. From thence the invaders passed into Wessex, under the command of Bagsecg and Halfdene. They were vigorously met by Æthelred. They pushed on, however, as far up the Thames as Reading, near which town a series of battles was fought,--at Englefield, where the Danes were beaten; at Reading, where the fortune of the day was changed; and subsequently at the great battle of Ashdown, where the victory of the English was regarded as being due to Alfred, who, being in command of half the army, attacked and defeated the enemy, while his brother was losing the precious moments in prayer for success. Though the victory of Ashdown was complete, it did not close the war. Almost immediately afterwards we hear of battles at Basing and at Merton, in which the Danes were again successful. These battles took place just before the death of Æthelred.

[Sidenote: Alfred. 871-901.]

[Sidenote: Treaty of Wedmore.]

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A History of England, Period I. Mediæval MonarchyChapter II: Introduction (1)

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