Chapter III: Introduction (2)

He was succeeded at once by his brother Alfred. Another victory of the Danes at Wilton compelled Alfred to make peace. For a time the Danes withdrew from Wessex, and employed their energy in subjugating Mercia. Burhred, who had married Alfred’s sister, was driven from the throne, and retired to Rome to die. A Danish agent, named Ceolwulf, was put in his place, and the country laid under heavy contribution. But Ceolwulf in his turn was displaced, and the Danes took possession of much of the country themselves, conquering among other places the five great towns, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, and Stamford, known as the five Danish Burghs, or, with the addition of York and Chester, the seven Burghs. They also carried their invasions northward, and Cumberland and part of Strathclyde were overrun and peopled by them, under the command of Halfdene. Nor was the treaty with the East Anglian Danes permanent. Guthrum sailed round the coast and captured Wareham and Exeter. To oppose them on their own element, Alfred introduced a new form of ship, of greater size and length than had hitherto been used, and succeeded in winning a great naval victory in Swanage Bay. But the Danish forces were gradually closing round him. London and Essex had been taken, and a colony of Danes had conquered South Wales. At length, attacked in all directions, his kingdom of Wessex was practically limited to the country of the Somersœtas; and, unable to make head against his enemies, the King took refuge among the impassable morasses of the river Parret. It is during this time of his exile that the well-known story of the burnt cakes is told. But while apparently completely beaten, Alfred succeeded in gathering a new army, issued from his seclusion, and attacking the Danes at Edington (878), near Westbury, completely defeated them. The consequence of this battle was the Treaty of Wedmore. By this treaty the kingdom of East Anglia was surrendered to the Danes, and a line was drawn to separate their kingdom from that of Wessex. This line from the Thames ran along the Lea to Bedford, then along the Ouse till it struck Watling Street, and then followed Watling Street to the Welsh Border. The greater part of Mercia was thus restored to Wessex. In exchange, Anglia and Mercia beyond this line were ceded to the Danes, who were to hold them as vassals of the West Saxon king, and who were to become Christians. The limits of their occupation are still to be traced by the occurrence of the termination “by” in the names of the towns; it was in many instances appended to the name of the Danish holder of the manor. Guthrum, on his baptism, took the name of Æthelstan, and many difficulties in the chronology of the legends of the time may be solved by supposing that the Æthelstan mentioned in them is Guthrum, and not the Æthelstan who reigned in the year 925. This treaty, although it curtailed the supremacy of Wessex, made the kingdom in fact stronger, and secured a temporary rest for the whole of England. Mercia, that part of it at least which remained English, was governed by its Alderman Æthelred, and by the King’s daughter Æthelflæd, known as the Lady of the Mercians. On the death of Gutred, the Danish King of Northumbria, Alfred re-established his power there, and the peace and prosperity of England were further increased by the fact that the energy of the Danes was for the present chiefly directed against France and Belgium. Guthrum died in 890, and though the treaty was confirmed by his successors, the defeat of the Danes in Belgium threw fresh invaders into the kingdom. In 893, Hasting, a well-known sea-rover, in alliance with the Anglians and Northumbrians, committed fresh ravages in all directions; but at last, having ventured up the Lea, Alfred hit upon the expedient of draining the river, and leaving their ships aground. After this they were glad to retreat, but lesser expeditions were constantly vexing the coast. The reign of Alfred is thus divided into two periods of Danish war, between which, and at the close of his life, there occurred intervals of peace.

[Sidenote: Appreciation of Alfred’s character.]

It has been usual to attribute to Alfred most of the marked peculiarities of English civilization, the formation of shires, the establishment of juries, and so on. Such assertions will not bear examination. As a lawgiver, he collected the laws of the three principal states over which he ruled--Kent, Mercia, and Wessex--which had been already recorded by the Kings Æthelberht, Offa, and Ine. As a warrior he was on the whole victorious, and understood the necessity of establishing a fleet, which he appears to have constructed on a different principle from that of the Danes, the ships being longer, and serving less as mere stages on which to fight. As a governor he was impartial and strict; his police was severe, the system of mutual responsibility became universal, and under him the idea of morality began to mingle with the idea of injury to the commonwealth, which had been the Saxon notion of crime. His son Eadward, who succeeded him, was probably as great as his father, but he had not the love of literature which forms the marked characteristic of Alfred’s public life. It has been questioned whether Alfred could himself read; however this may have been, he was so conscious of the necessity of literature for the people that he set himself to work to make translations for them. “The History of the World on Christian Principles,” by Orosius, Bede’s “History of the Anglo-Saxon Church,” and Boethius’ “Consolation of Philosophy,” were the works he translated. Besides his own literary work, he established conventual schools at Shaftesbury and Athelney, and probably a more general one at Oxford. The love of the people, whom his indefatigable energy saved from their barbarous and pagan invaders, has attributed to their hero an original genius of which there are no distinct proofs. What is really known of him is, that he was an able, honest, persevering governor, gifted with that power and habit of method and organization which is perhaps more useful in advancing early civilization than greater and more splendid gifts. Upon Alfred’s death, though England, as a whole, had suffered by the loss of the country granted to the Danes, or, as it was called, the Danelagu, Wessex had assumed a position of superiority, and was regarded as the representative state of the English. This position it fully vindicated during the reigns of Eadward, Alfred’s son, who succeeded him, and of the four next kings, till the kingdom of Wessex grew to be the kingdom of England, and exerted an imperial supremacy over the whole island.

[Sidenote: Supremacy of Wessex.]

[Sidenote: Eadward the Elder. 901-925.]

Eadward’s first difficulty was with his cousin Æthelwulf, the son of Alfred’s elder brother Æthelred. This prince claimed the throne. He landed in England, was driven to Northumbria, where he was chosen king, and then, in company with Eohric, the King of East Anglia, marched up the Thames to Cricklade. He was however defeated, and with his ally killed by a portion of the English army near the Ouse. The consequence was the renewal of the acknowledgment of the supremacy of Wessex by Guthrum II. of East Anglia. In conjunction with his sister, the Lady of the Mercians, Eadward attempted to secure himself from further molestation by the erection of numerous stone castles. These castles, which seem to have been built on a new and better plan than any before erected, became also in many instances the origin from which towns sprang; for laws were passed creating them into markets, and forbidding bargains to be made without the walls. Some sort of monopoly of trade was thus secured for fortified posts. On the death of Æthelflæd, Mercia, both Anglian and Danish, submitted to Eadward’s authority. He continued the active government of his sister, and went on with her work of fortress-building. An invasion by the Danes of Northumbria in conjunction with the Welsh, who hoped to find Mercia unguarded, was signally defeated. The Welsh kings swore alliance to Eadward, and the Danes of Northumbria, and even the Kings of Scotland and Strathclyde, acknowledged him as their “father and lord.” Eadward was thus in fact master of the whole of England, and had completed more thoroughly the work of Ecgberht. The greatness of his position is clearly marked by the marriages of his children with the greatest Princes of the Continent. One married Charles the Simple of France, a second Hugh the Great, Count of Paris, a third Otto I., Emperor of Germany.

[Sidenote: Æthelstan. 925-940.]

[Sidenote: Battle of Brunanburh. 943.]

The greatness Eadward had thus secured descended to his son Æthelstan, with whom the grandeur of the Saxon monarchy reached its highest point. He married one of his sisters to a Northumbrian prince, Cytric, receiving his allegiance for Benicia from the Tees to Edinburgh, and, on the death of Cytric, incorporated the country with his own dominions. Cytric’s two sons fled, the one to Ireland, where the Danes received him willingly, the other (Guthrith) to Constantine, King of Scotland. The consequence of the escape of these princes became evident in after years. In 934, Constantine and his heir Eorca, Owen or Eugenius, King of Cumberland, made war upon England, but were defeated and compelled to acknowledge the supremacy of Æthelstan. The attention of the English King was subsequently drawn abroad, where he upheld the cause of his nephew, Louis de Outre-Mer, son of Charles the Simple, against the attacks of his brothers-in-law, the German Otto and Hugh of Paris. It was while thus employed that the Scotch kingdoms again rose in insurrection. A great conspiracy against Æthelstan appears to have been formed, at the head of which were Anlath, son of that Guthrith who had fled to Scotland, Constantine, Owen, and several princes of the Danes from Ireland. Their object was the re-establishment of the Danish power in Northumbria. The attempt was completely thwarted by the great battle of Brunanburh, near Beverley, in Yorkshire. Not long after this decisive victory Æthelstan died. His splendid reign is further marked by legislation of a more original description than that of his predecessors. He ordered, among other things, that every man should have a lord who should be answerable for him to justice, and rendered more systematic the arrangement of mutual responsibility, which appears to have been one of the principles of Saxon police.

[Sidenote: Eadmund. 940-946.]

[Sidenote: Eadred. 946-955.]

His younger brothers, Eadmund and Eadred, followed in his footsteps, defeating the Northumbrian rebels, who from time to time elected kings of their own, but were completely conquered by Eadred. He so thoroughly incorporated the country with his own, that its ruler could no longer claim the title of king. Both Bernicia and Deira were bestowed as an earldom on Osulf, who had assisted in the conquest of the rebels, and remained in the hands of his family till the Norman Conquest. Eadmund also maintained his supremacy over Scotland, with which country his relations were of a very friendly nature, as he granted a part of the kingdom of Strathclyde, consisting of Cumberland and Galloway, to King Malcolm, to be held by military service.

[Sidenote: Rise of Dunstan.]

The policy of Eadred and of his successors seems so closely connected with the rise of Dunstan, that it may be justly attributed to him. The monkish historians, to whom we owe our knowledge of this great man, have overlaid his history with mythical stories, and have given him a character and policy to suit their own purposes. In their eagerness to secure the name of the greatest statesman of the age in support of their pretensions against the secular clergy, they have drawn him as a youth of miraculous gifts, of severe monkish asceticism, whose claim to greatness consisted in the establishment of the Benedictine rule. In the same way they have painted his opponent King Edwy [Eadwig] in the blackest colours. The common story tells us that, after a childhood passed in learning, so deep as to excite a suspicion of magic, illness drove Dunstan to the cloister at Glastonbury; that he there established the Benedictine rule, entering with such vehemence into its spirit that his asceticism almost turned his brain. On the accession of Edwy, the young king, it is said, deserted the assembly of the nobles, to pass his time in the company of the beautiful Ælfgyfu [Elgiva], his mistress. Dunstan is represented as violently dragging the unworthy king back to his proper place, as securing the banishment of Ælfgyfu, and with his partisans cruelly putting her to death upon her return. Edwy is then described as raging fiercely against all the monks in his kingdom. In truth, it is in politics rather than in ecclesiastical discipline that Dunstan’s greatness must be sought, and he must take his place in history rather as a conciliatory and patriotic governor than as an ascetic and violent churchman.

Born at the beginning of King Æthelstan’s reign, and trained partly at Glastonbury, where he found and studied books left by wandering Irish scholars, and partly at the King’s Court like other young nobles of the time, an illness induced him to devote himself to the Church. His interest secured him the Abbey of Glastonbury at the early age of seventeen. He shortly returned to the Court, became the King’s treasurer, and as an influential minister joined himself to the party which he found pre-eminent during the reign of Eadred. That king was a constant invalid, the influence of the Queen Mother was paramount, and she was supported by the chiefs of East Anglia and those whose views were national rather than provincial. The kingdom of Northumbria was in a state of ceaseless confusion. Again and again the Danes and Ostmen raised insurrections there. Wulstan, the Archbishop of York, with constantly shifting policy, at one time supported the insurgents, at another persuaded the Northern Witan to submit to Eadred. At length, in a final insurrection, he was overcome and imprisoned. The affairs in Northumbria had to be settled. It is here that the national policy of the dominant party made itself felt. Contrary to the views of the Wessex nobles, who would have wished for active interference of the government, the kingdom was reduced to the condition of an earldom under Osulf. But English supremacy being thus established, Wulstan was released, and self-government both in Church and State permitted. This conciliatory policy was interrupted by the death of Eadred.

[Sidenote: Edwy. 955-957.]

[Sidenote: Eadgar. 957-975.]

The new King Edwy, nephew of Eadred, was a mere child, and a palace intrigue, headed by Æthelgyfu and her daughter Ælfgyfu, who had obtained influence over the lad, drove the Queen Mother Eadgyfu from the Court, and established the power of the Wessex party. Unpopular among the Wessex nobles and in his own monastery, Dunstan was driven abroad, and took refuge in Ghent. But his party was still strong in England. Indignant probably at a violent resumption of grants from the Folkland, the nobles of England, with the exception of Wessex, set up Edwy’s younger brother Eadgar as a rival king, and were sufficiently powerful to oblige Edwy to divide the kingdom and content himself with the territories of Wessex south of the Thames. Dunstan was recalled by his partisans. He received from King Eadgar the sees of Rochester and of London; and when, on the death of Edwy, Eadgar succeeded to the undivided sovereignty of the kingdom, Dunstan rose with him, and became his chief minister and Archbishop of Canterbury.

[Sidenote: Dunstan’s government.]

[Sidenote: Division of Northumbria.]

As minister, Dunstan had both Church and State to reform. In both, decay had made great progress. The increased importance of the English King had raised him to a position very different from that of the tribal monarch. Along with the King had risen his dependants, the old members of the Comitatus. His Thegns or servants, rendered rich by grants of the public land, had gradually succeeded the old nobility by birth, of the German races. The troubled situation of the country had driven the freeholders more and more to seek safety by placing themselves and their land in a state of dependence on the Thegns. Even as early as Alfred every man was obliged to have a lord. At the same time the spirit of provincialism was strong, each district which had been a separate kingdom wishing to maintain its own independence. Dunstan seems to have understood that a change in the character of the monarchy was inevitable, and that national unity could only be secured by upholding that change, placing the monarch in what may be regarded as an imperial position over the subject kingdoms, and allowing the separate districts as much self-government as possible. Within the kingdom of Wessex itself, and perhaps of Mercia also, he established a strict police, and suppressed disorder with a strong hand. Beyond that, the largest freedom was permitted. Thus, the subordination of Northumbria was further secured by its division into three parts. The district between the Tees and the Humber was intrusted to Oslac. From the Tees to the Tweed remained in the hands of Osulf, while the Lothians between the Tweed and the Forth were given out on military service to the King of Scotland; and in subsequent history it was this district, peopled with English and Danes, which formed the civilized centre of the Scottish kingdom. But, when the supremacy of Wessex was thus secured, the Danes of the North were allowed to keep their own customs and make their own laws. Similarly, friendship with the Northmen of Ireland was maintained, and through their friendship the King was enabled to keep up a powerful fleet, which constantly sailed round the coasts, and kept them free from foreign invasion. The tradition that Eadgar was rowed upon the Dee to Chester by eight tributary kings, whether the fact be true or not, points to the imperial position which Dunstan had secured for him. In the Church the same policy was pursued. The great disturbances of the kingdom had thrown much power into the hands of the Church, the most permanent element of society. This increase of influence had been followed by an increase of secularity. The bishops became statesmen, and even commanders of armies. The older form of monasticism died out. Marriage of priests was constant. Livings began to be handed on from father to son. There was some chance of the establishment of an hereditary priestly caste. In Ghent, Dunstan had become acquainted with the Benedictine rule lately established there. He saw its efficiency for securing discipline among the clergy. Like other strong rulers, he regarded anarchy with aversion, and was therefore anxious to introduce the rule into England. He intrusted the work to his friend Æthelwold, whom he made Bishop of Winchester, and to Oswald, whom he raised to the See of Worcester. In Wessex and Mercia he carried out his reform with vigour, even with violence: but, as in his secular government, he kept himself under the restraints of prudence. Thus, when Oswald was appointed Archbishop of York, he made no efforts to restrain the marriage of the clergy, and in Dunstan’s own See he yielded to the prejudices of the people, and allowed the abbeys to continue in the hands of secular clerks. The title of Eadgar the Peaceful, and a reign of seventeen years unbroken by any great foreign war, attest the success of Dunstan’s policy.

[Sidenote: Eadward the Martyr 975-979.]

[Sidenote: Fall of Dunstan.]

But with Eadgar’s death, and the accession of his son Eadward, this prosperous state of things ended. For a time Dunstan held his own, but not without strong opposition. Again and again he had to plead his cause before the Witan. And at one synod, at Calne, it was intended to bring the matter to a crisis. Beornhelm, a Bishop of the Scottish Church, was brought forward as a champion by his enemies. His eloquence was carrying the assembly with him, and Dunstan could only appeal to heaven for assistance. Nor was that assistance denied; by accident or design, the floor of the upper chamber where the meeting was held gave way in that part where Beornhelm and his friends were seated, and they were hurried to swift destruction, while Dunstan’s triumphant party remained uninjured on the floor above. But even miraculous interferences did not suppress the enemies of the Prelate. A conspiracy, in which Ælfthryth [Elfrida], the mother of Ethelred, seems to have been chiefly engaged, was formed; and Eadward, returning from the chase, was killed at her castle at Corfe.

[Sidenote: Æthelred the Unready. 979-1016.]

[Sidenote: Third Period of Danish invasion.]

[Sidenote: Battle of Maldon. 991.]

[Sidenote: The first Danegelt. 994.]

[Sidenote: Æthelred’s marriage with Emma.]

[Sidenote: Massacre of St. Brice. 1002.]

[Sidenote: Pernicious influence of Eadric Streona.]

Eadward the Martyr, as his monkish chroniclers call him, being thus disposed of, his brother, Æthelred the Unready, ascended the throne. Dunstan, compelled to assist at the coronation, did so only to denounce curses on the new king He had to withdraw from Court. His policy was at an end. Mercia and the North fell away from Wessex. The King’s own character, at once weak and cruel, was not such as to inspire confidence; and we accordingly enter upon a period of almost inexplicable treasons, weakness, and disorder. The Danes reappear on the coast, and what has been spoken of as the third period of Danish invasion begins. The fleets were no longer merely piratical expeditions, but were commanded by kings of whole countries, and towards the end of the period the object was no longer plunder, or even settlement, but national conquest. The change was closely connected with the gradual consolidation of the three Northern kingdoms of Europe--Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, in each of which, as in England, one sovereign had now become paramount. The chief personage in these invasions is Swegen or Swend, son of the King of Denmark. In the year 982 he made his appearance on the English coasts, and Southampton, Chester, and London were either taken or destroyed. The kingdom was in no condition to offer a firm resistance. Internal dissensions had already begun. The King was at enmity with the whole of Dunstan’s party. We hear of a fierce quarrel with the Bishop of Rochester. The allegiance of Mercia and Northumbria was more than doubtful. East Anglia, where resistance to a kindred people might have been least expected, alone succeeded in checking the Danes. There, under Brihtnoth, the great battle of Maldon was fought, which forms the subject of one of the greatest of the Anglo-Saxon poems. Such single instances of resistance were of no real avail. Sigeric of Canterbury, who had succeeded to Dunstan’s position and policy, and was therefore by no means unfriendly to the Danes as the opponents of Wessex, induced the King to entertain a fatal plan of buying off the invaders. With the consent of his Witan, he raised £10,000, with which he bribed the Danish hosts. This was the origin of the tax known as Danegelt, which became permanent, and lasted till the reign of Henry II. The effect of such a bribe was naturally only to excite the Northern robbers to further efforts. Accordingly, in 994, Swegen and Olaf of Norway made their appearance, and England was assaulted by the national fleets of Denmark and Norway. Divided by faction, undermined by treason, and without a leader, the English knew no expedient but the repetition of bribes. Olaf, as a Christian, was indeed induced to return to his own country, but Swegen’s invasions were continuous. Supported by the disloyal chiefs of the North, he ravaged in turn Dorsetshire, Hampshire, Sussex, and Kent. And when, in the year 1000, a temporary lull occurred, Æthelred, with a madness which seems almost inconceivable, insisted on quarrelling, first with the King of Cumberland, who is said to have refused the disgraceful tribute demanded of him, though willing to serve with his forces against the Danes, and afterwards with the Normans in France. An expedition undertaken against this people with ridiculous ostentation was easily defeated. A peace was made, and hostility changed into alliance, cemented by the marriage of the King with Emma, a Norman Princess. In her train came certain followers, who obtained high office and military commands, and added a fresh element of weakness to already weakened England. But though contemptible in the field, with the craft and cruelty of a weak mind Æthelred planned the massacre of all the Danes in Wessex. Many of these were settled quietly in different parts of the country, or billeted and living on friendly terms with their landlords. On the 13th of November 1002, on the festival of St. Brice, the cruel plan was carried out. Among other victims was a sister of Swegen’s who had become a Christian; she was put to death with circumstances of unusual barbarity, it is said, at the instigation of Eadric _Streona_, or _the Gainer_. This man henceforward plays a prominent part in the history. Though of low birth, he had contrived to make himself the favourite of the King, whose daughter he subsequently married. Selfish, unscrupulous, and treacherous, his influence as the King’s adviser was most pernicious; while, if it suited his own ends, he never hesitated to betray his master. So completely is he identified with the disasters of England, that there is scarcely any criminal act of the reign that is not traced to him. But his repeated treasons do not seem to have destroyed the trust which Æthelred and his nobler son Edmund placed in him. After the massacre of St. Brice the Danes naturally sought revenge. Exeter was taken by the treachery of Hugh the Frenchman, one of Emma’s followers. Wiltshire and Salisbury were deserted by the traitor Ælfric. Again East Anglia, under Ulfcytel the Ealdorman, made the only show of resistance; but here too, treason, not of the commander but of the soldiers, themselves of Danish origin, proved fatal. Famine and civil quarrels added to the misery of the English. Again Eadric is visible, ruining rival Thegns, and advising still further use of bribes. In 1006, he had succeeded in getting made Ealdorman of the Mercians. His family rose with him, and in 1008, when at last a great national fleet was collected, the quarrels of his brother Brihtric and his nephew Wulfnoth destroyed its utility.

[Sidenote: Thurkill’s invasions.]

[Sidenote: Swegen’s invasion.]

[Sidenote: England submits to Swegen. 1013.]

In the same year, a fresh host, one division of which was commanded by Thurkill or Thurcytel, one of the most formidable of the Danish sea kings, made its appearance In 1010, the English were again defeated at the battle of Ipswich, and the country was in a condition of absolute collapse. Mercia and Wessex itself were overrun. The cause of Æthelred looked so hopeless, that Eadric the Gainer thought it time to change sides, and after the capture of Canterbury and the death of the Archbishop St. Alphege, the Witan was collected under Eadric, without the participation of the King, and a further large tribute paid, while by some arrangement, probably the cession of East Anglia, Thurkill was drawn to the English side. This step of Thurkill seems to have opened Swegen’s eyes at once to the inutility of single invasions, and to the possibility of himself effecting some similar arrangement. He felt confident of the support of Northumbria and Mercia against Wessex. He therefore moved his fleet to the Humber, and advanced to York. He had not miscalculated. The whole of the Danelagu joined him, and with this assistance, leaving his son Cnut behind him in command of the fleet in the Humber, he advanced into Wessex. His success was constant. Oxford was taken, and the royal town of Winchester. At Bath the Danish conqueror received the submission of the Thegns of the West. London, which we find constantly rising in importance, alone held out, nor was it till Æthelred deserted the city that it surrendered. But then, there being no longer any opposition, Swegen was, in fact, King of England. Æthelred sought and obtained an asylum in Normandy, till recalled by Swegen’s death the following year.

[Sidenote: Restoration of Æthelred. 1014.]

The Danes acknowledged Cnut as King, but the bulk of the English wished to retain the House of Cerdic, if Æthelred would pledge himself to rule better. This he promised to do, and his cause for a time was successful. Cnut had to retreat to his ships. Nevertheless, we hear of another large tribute, but it was paid probably to a fleet of Danish auxiliaries serving upon the English side. Eadric had of course again joined the victorious party; but again his persistent treachery was the destruction of the country. He enticed Sigeferth and Morkere, Thegns of the Five Danish Burghs, to Oxford, and there murdered them. Sigeferth’s widow was kept a prisoner, and taken in marriage by Edmund Ironside, Æthelred’s son. This prince thus acquired possession of the Five Burghs, and secured an influence which enabled him to take up a position in opposition to Eadric. On the renewal of the invasion by Cnut both Eadric and Edmund collected their forces; but, angry at the new rivalry he was experiencing, Eadric led his troops to join Cnut. Wessex was thus thrown open, and by a strange inversion of affairs, Edmund, with Utred of Northumberland, occupied the northern part of England, while the Danes, under Cnut and Eadric, held Wessex and the South. In 1016, Æthelred died.

[Sidenote: Edmund Ironside. April to Nov. 1016.]

[Sidenote: Five great battles.]

[Sidenote: Division of England.]

The Witan of the South immediately, under the influence of the conquerors, elected Cnut as his successor, but London and the rest of the Witan chose Edmund. It was plain that Wessex could acknowledge Cnut only through fear, and thither Edmund betook himself, and collected troops. As if to prove what the English could do if well commanded, in a few weeks he fought, on the whole successfully, five great battles. At Pen Selwood in Somerset; at Sherstone, where the English were only prevented from winning by a trick of Eadric’s, who, raising the head of another man, declared it was the head of the slain English king; at Brentford; and afterwards, when Eadric had again changed sides, at Otford in Kent; and Assandun in Essex. In this last battle the whole forces of England were arrayed. The sudden withdrawal of Eadric, who was commanding the Magesætas, or men of Hereford, secured a victory for the Danes, and Edmund had to retreat across England into the country of the Hwiccas, or Gloucestershire. Not yet wholly beaten, he was preparing for a sixth battle, when he was persuaded to make an arrangement similar, though not identical, with that which Alfred had made with Guthrum. He surrendered to Cnut Northumberland and Mercia, retaining for himself Wessex, Essex, East Anglia, and London. On St. Andrew’s Day of the same year, Edmund Ironside died, a misfortune, like most other acts of villainy of the time, attributed to Eadric. With him fell the hope of the English. The treachery of Eadric, the folly of Æthelred, met with their reward, and Cnut was acknowledged King of England.

[Sidenote: Cnut. 1017.]

[Sidenote: The four Earldoms.]

[Sidenote: Cnut’s patriotic government.]

Indeed, Edmund’s sons were so young that it was not probable that the Witan would elect them. The only other claimant was Edwy, Edmund’s brother. To secure himself against him, Cnut is said to have employed Eadric to put him to death; and though he escaped on that occasion, he was certainly outlawed, and all the old members of the royal family were kept abroad. The children of Æthelred and Emma, Edward and Alfred, were in Normandy with their mother. The children of Edmund Ironside, Edward and Edmund, were sent first to Sweden, and then to Hungary, where Edward married Agatha, niece of the Emperor Henry II. Cnut’s object, on finding himself King of England, appears to have been to obliterate, as far as possible, the idea of conquest, to rule England as an English king, and making that country the centre of his government, to form a great Scandinavian Empire. To this end, pursuing the policy of Dunstan, he divided England into four great earldoms, representing the old kingdoms. Northumberland and East Anglia were intrusted to Danes; Mercia was given to Eadric; Wessex he kept in his own hands. Eadric’s influence had compelled Cnut thus to promote him, but he so mistrusted him, that within a year he caused him to be put to death. In the same year he sent for Queen Emma from Normandy, and married her, though she must have been much older than himself, with the object apparently either of connecting himself with the late dynasty, or of securing the friendship of the Normans. The next year the Danish fleet was sent home. Englishmen were again put in high office. Thus Leofric was made Earl of the Mercians, and Godwine, of whom we now first hear, and whose origin and rise is variously related, was made Earl of Wessex, presumably the second man in the country. Thus, too, Cnut flattered the feelings of the English by moving the body of St. Alphege, who had been killed by the Danes twelve years before, with all honour to his own Church at Canterbury; and thus, too, he did not scruple to fill the English bishoprics with Englishmen, and even to promote them to high office in Denmark. During his reign England was at peace within its own borders, while Scotland was brought to submission. In 1031, Malcolm, King of the Scotch, and two under-kings, did homage to the English King. A strong, well-ordered government was established, supported for the first time by a standing body of troops, known as the House-carls. Early in the reign Eadgar’s law had been renewed with the advice of the Witan, and, in 1028, Cnut promulgated a code of his own, which is little else than repetition of former laws and customs. But the proof of his good government is this, that just as the law of the great Eadgar was looked on as typical, and demanded by Cnut’s Witan, and as after the Conquest the Confessor’s law was demanded, so we find the people of the North demanding Cnut’s law,--in each case law meaning system of government. His importance as a king is marked by the respect shown him on his pilgrimage to Rome in the year 1027. There, as he tells his people in a letter which he sent them, he negotiated with the Pope, the Emperor, and King Rudolph of Burgundy, for the free passage of English pilgrims and merchants; he received large gifts from the Emperor, and made the Pope promise to lessen his extortions upon granting the Pallium or Archiepiscopal cloak. His daughter by Queen Emma, Gunhild, was, moreover, thought a fitting wife for Henry, afterwards the Emperor Henry III. Cnut died still young in 1035.

[Sidenote: Disputed succession.]

[Sidenote: Importance of Earl Godwine.]

[Sidenote: Harold. 1037.]

[Sidenote: Harthacnut. 1040.]

With him fell his plans, both of the Scandinavian Empire and of good government in England. His sons, Harold and Harthacnut, in no way inherited his greatness; they appear to have been little better than savage barbarians. The succession was disputed between them. Godwine and the West Saxons obtained the South of England for Harthacnut, while Harold reigned in the North. But as Harthacnut did not come to England, but remained in his kingdom of Denmark, Godwine was the practical ruler. This great Earl, whose sympathies were wholly national, was accused of putting to death Alfred, the son of Æthelred and Emma, who seems to have taken advantage of the absence of Harthacnut to aim at re-establishing himself in Wessex. But as the actual murderers were the men of Harold whom Godwine had opposed, it would seem that the charge was a false one. The continued absence of Harthacnut enabled Harold to secure the whole of the kingdom, over which he reigned for two years. On his death, in 1040, Harthacnut stepped unopposed into his position. His short reign was marked by no great events. Godwine, having cleared himself by oath and by compurgation (in which a large number of Earls and Thegns joined) of the charge of murdering Alfred, remained in power. A tyrannical use of the King’s House-carls in collecting a tax produced an outbreak in Worcester, which was punished with brutal severity. And when the King fell dead, while drinking at a bridal feast, the English were glad to be rid of a line of such barbarous sovereigns, and to restore the House of Cerdic in the person of the late king’s half-brother Edward, who, in the absence of direct descendants of the Danish house, entered almost unopposed on the kingdom.

[Sidenote: Edward the Confessor. 1042.]

[Sidenote: Rivalry between Godwine and the French party.]

[Sidenote: Godwine banished. 1051.]

[Sidenote: Return and death of Godwine. 1052.]

It was the eloquence of Godwine which overcame the slight opposition offered to Edward’s election, and secured him the throne. This nobleman thus reached the summit of his power, and two years afterwards his daughter Edith became the King’s wife. Edward’s education and training had rendered his tastes and policy as decidedly French as those of Godwine were national. There thence arose, and continued throughout the reign, a constant enmity between the two parties--the Frenchmen, whom Edward brought over in great numbers and employed particularly as bishops, and the national party, headed by Godwine and his sons. It is the progress of this quarrel which forms the history of the reign, side by side with the efforts of Godwine to push his family prominently forward in opposition to the family of Leofric, Earl of Mercia. On the one hand, the King lavished favours upon his foreign followers. A Frenchman, Robert of Jumièges, became Bishop of London, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury; Ulf, another Norman, became Bishop of Dorchester in Oxfordshire; Ralph, the son of Edward’s sister and the Count of Mantes, was made an Earl; and Eustace of Boulogne, her second husband, was loaded with honours. On the other hand, Godwine succeeded in securing for members of his own family the earldoms of Somersetshire and Herefordshire, and of the East and Middle Angles. The crisis of the rivalry at length arrived. It arose from an outrage committed by the followers of Eustace on the citizens of Dover. The townsmen rose against the insolent Normans and drove them from the city; and when Godwine, as Earl, was called upon to punish the citizens, he positively refused unless they were fairly tried before the Witan. Both sides took up arms,--Godwine and his sons on one side; the King, with Siward of Northumberland, Leofric of Mercia, and his own French partisans on the other. The armies faced each other in Gloucestershire; but Godwine, unwilling to press matters to extremity, accepted the proposal of Leofric that the question should be referred to the Witan. When the Witan assembled, the King was there with a great army. Overawed by this force, the Witan, recurring to the old charge against Godwine and to a late act of violence on the part of his son Swend, ordered Godwine and his sons to appear before them as criminals. This they refused to do unless hostages were given, and as this demand was refused, they would not appear, and were outlawed. Godwine and three sons retired to Baldwin of Bruges, Leofwine and Harold to Ireland. The French party were triumphant. Robert, as we have seen, was made Archbishop, William, another Frenchman, succeeded him as Bishop of London, and Odda, probably an Englishman in the French interest, was given the western part of Godwine’s earldom. Harold’s earldom was given to Ælfgar, son of Leofric. At the same time, to complete the French influence, William of Normandy came over to England, and, as he always declared, received a promise of the succession from his cousin Edward.

The administration of foreigners was so unpopular and so unsuccessful, that Godwine and his family thought that an opportunity had arisen for their return. Unable to procure their restoration by peaceful means, they determined upon using force; and after various expeditions, but feebly opposed by the English, who at heart wished them well, Godwine found himself strong enough to sail up the Thames; and so preponderating was the feeling of the country in his favour, that, as the King refused justice, it was agreed that the matter should be referred to the Witan. What their decision would be was not doubtful, so the French prelates and earls and knights, who had been building feudal castles, at once fled, and Godwine and his sons came back in triumph. Stigand, a priest, who had been originally appointed by Cnut to an abbey raised at Assandun in memory of the Danish victory over Edmund Ironside, and who had acted as principal mediator, was elected to the Archbishopric of Canterbury, left vacant by the flight of Robert. The next year Earl Godwine died suddenly, while at dinner with the King.[1] His death restored the balance between the two great families. While Harold succeeded to the earldom of the West Saxons, and the vacant earldom of Northumbria was given to his brother Tostig, East Anglia was restored to Leofric’s son Ælfgar. Earl Siward of Northumbria had died in 1055.[2]

[Sidenote: Importance of Earl Harold.]

[Sidenote: Death of Edward. 1066.]

The succeeding years are marked by the gradual increase of the power of Harold and his family. In 1055 Earl Ælfgar was outlawed, and his earldom given to Gurth, Harold’s brother. The exiled Earl, making common cause with Griffith [Gryffydd] of Wales, defeated Ralph, the French Earl of Herefordshire. To repair this disaster the war was intrusted to Harold; he prosecuted it with success, and Herefordshire, which he had thus rescued, was added to his earldom. The death of Leofric still further increased the power of the House of Godwine, although Ælfgar, the late Earl, was allowed to succeed him; and finally, Essex and Kent were formed into an earldom for Leofwine, the remaining brother of Harold. Godwine’s sons now possessed all England, with the exception of Mercia. The last probable heir to the throne--the Ætheling Edward, the son of Edmund Ironside--had been brought over from Hungary, but had died almost immediately after reaching England. And when, in 1063, Harold, by employing his men as light troops, succeeded in the final subjugation of Wales, his greatness was such that he must almost certainly have been regarded as the next king. Three years afterwards, in January 1066, King Edward, the last male descendant of Cerdic who reigned in England, died. His last year had been troubled by a great insurrection of the Northern counties against the rule of Tostig. The house of Leofric had had a stronghold in the North, and Tostig’s injudicious vigour in attempting to reduce the barbarous population to order had excited great discontent. His energy seems more than once to have led him into murder. The Northumbrian therefore deposed him, and elected Morcar [Morkere], the grandson of Leofric, in his place. His brother, Edwin of Mercia, who had succeeded his father Ælfgar, made common cause with him; and Harold, whose policy was always conciliatory, found it necessary to persuade the King to confirm Edwin and Morkere in their possessions. Tostig retired as an exile to Bruges. While England was thus troubled, the King died--a good man, devoted to the Church and the monks, and therefore afterwards canonized, but as a king unfitted by his pliant character, and more especially by his love of foreign favourites, to rule over England at such a difficult crisis.

[Sidenote: Harold elected king. 1066.]

[Sidenote: Claims of William of Normandy.]

The Witan at once assembled, and used its power of election. This power was usually exercised within the limits of the royal family; but on this occasion, as there was no claimant of the royal house but Edmund Ironside’s grandson, the child Eadgar, the Witan looked beyond their usual limit, and elected almost unanimously the great Earl Harold. Though thus King of England by the most perfect title, he found himself opposed by two enemies. On the one hand was his brother Tostig, the exiled Earl of Northumberland, who had been a favourite of the late king, and had perhaps himself hoped to be elected; and upon the other Duke William, who, out of a variety of small and insufficient pretexts, had constructed a very formidable claim to the crown of England. He asserted that the Confessor had promised him the kingdom, that he was the nearest of kin, and that Harold had himself sworn to him to be his man, to marry his daughter, and to own him allegiance. The circumstances under which this last event had taken place are not very certain; but it seems to be true that Harold, on some occasion, had been shipwrecked on the coast of France and taken prisoner, and held to ransom, according to the barbarous custom of that day, by Guy, Count of Ponthieu, lord of the country. The intervention of William as superior lord rescued him from his disgraceful position. He spent some time in friendly intercourse at William’s court, and there probably, as was not unusual, made himself the Duke’s man, and did homage. Such an act could be only personal, and could have nothing to do with the kingdom of England, and even as a personal tie was not very binding. It was his knowledge of this which induced William to play the well-known trick upon Harold. When the Earl had taken what he believed to be only a common oath of homage, the cover of the table on which his hands had been placed was withdrawn, and he found he had been swearing upon most sacred relics. With regard to the other claims, it may be said that Edward the Confessor, in accordance with the constitution of England, could not promise the crown to any one, and, moreover, had nominated Harold on his deathbed; while, although William was the cousin of the late king, it was only through Edward’s Norman mother, Emma, that he was so. But when put forward artfully, and mingled with coloured accounts of the injuries suffered by the French in England at the return of Godwine, these claims seemed very plausible to the French, especially when backed by the influence of the Papal See wielded by Archdeacon Hildebrand, afterwards Pope Gregory VII. The Papal support was won partly by representing Harold as a perjured man, partly because the Normans in Italy were regarded as the great champions of the Papal See, but chiefly because Godwine and Harold had throughout sided rather with the party of the secular clergy in England than with that of the monks,[3] and had been national in their views with regard to the Church as well as in other matters. The Pope, Alexander II., was led by Hildebrand to see the opportunity offered, and expressed his approbation of the expedition by sending a consecrated ring and banner.

[Sidenote: William’s preparations.]

[Sidenote: Tostig’s invasion.]

William, immediately after the death of the Confessor, sent to demand the crown, which was of course refused. He then proceeded to collect troops, not only his own Norman feudatories, but also large bodies of adventurers from other parts of France. Aware of the intended invasion, Harold collected his forces, and occupied the Southern coast. But William was so long in coming, that Harold’s militia army, anxious to return to their agricultural works, and straitened for food, could not be kept together. He was left with his immediate followers, his House-carls and Thegns. Just then, when his great host had disappeared, news was brought to him that Tostig had invaded the North of England. Foiled in a weak attempt upon the South near Sandwich, and refused aid by William of Normandy, Tostig had fallen in with the fleet of Harold Hardrada, King of Norway. This king was a great warrior, who had served in the armies of the Byzantine Empire, and fought in Africa and Sicily. He was easily persuaded to join Tostig, and reinforced by the Earls of Orkney, they together sailed up the Ouse, and reached Fulford on the way to York. Edwin and Morkere, the sons of Ælfgar, whose sister Harold had lately married, honestly opposed them, but after a severe battle they were beaten. Arrangements by which the North was to join Harold Hardrada were being made at Stamford Bridge upon the Derwent, when Harold, who had hastened with extreme rapidity from the South, fell upon the invaders. They were taken by surprise, and some, but slightly armed, were overcome; but the bridge over the Derwent was held with determination, and a fierce battle was fought on the other side. The English were entirely triumphant, both Tostig and Harold Hardrada being slain. The Norwegian fleet was forced to withdraw. This was on the 25th of September.

[Sidenote: Landing of William.]

[Sidenote: Battle of Hastings. Oct. 14.]

[Sidenote: Death of Harold.]

On the 28th King William landed at Pevensey. Harold was still at York when the news reached him. He hastily gathered what troops he could round the nucleus of his own immediate followers who had been with him at Stamford Bridge. All the South of England joined him gladly, both from Wessex and East Anglia. But Edwin and Morkere, in their jealousy of the rival house, forgot their patriotism and Harold’s good deeds to themselves, and deserted him. With such an army as he had, Harold took up his position upon the hill of Senlac, where Battle Abbey now stands. This hill runs out from the North Sussex hills southward like a peninsula. There Harold erected palisades, and arranged his men with a view to defensive action only. This step was rendered necessary by the difference of the armies; the English fought all on foot, a large proportion were irregularly armed militia, and the hand javelin--not the bow and arrow--was their national missile. The Normans, on the other hand, fought as chivalry on horseback, and had many archers. Once in the plain Harold’s army might have been crushed by the charge of the mailed cavalry. But repeated charges uphill against an entrenched foe, stubborn and heavily armed, could not but wear out the mounted knight. Our descriptions are all from Norman sources, and the contrast between the religious Norman and the jovial Englishman is fully brought out. On the one side, the night is said to have been passed in prayer, and on the other in revelry. There were certainly, however, priests and monks upon the side of the English, and probably this story is a monkish exaggeration. Harold drew up his forces with his own picked troops upon the front of the hill, between the dragon banner of Wessex and his own banner adorned with a fighting man. The backward curves of the hill were occupied by his worse armed troops. He himself, with his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine, took their place beside the standard. The French advanced in three divisions,--the Bretons, under Alan, on the left; the Normans, under their Duke and his two brothers, Robert and Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, in the centre; the adventurers, under Roger of Montgomery, on the right. They galloped forward, preceded by Taillefer, a minstrel, tossing his sword aloft and singing songs of Charlemagne. But their efforts were vain. The heavy axe of the English hewed down man and horse if any reached the barricade, and the French had to draw back. The Bretons began the flight, and the Normans soon followed, but the English militia were not steady enough to withstand the excitement of victory. The veteran centre stood firm, but the troops opposed to the Bretons broke from their position in pursuit. William saw his advantage, rallied his troops, drove back the pursuers, and made a second vehement assault upon the barricade. The Earls Gyrth and Leofwine were killed, the barricade in part removed, but still Harold held his ground, and William had to have recourse to stratagem before he could secure a victory. His present comparative success had been caused by the accidental over-eagerness of the English. He determined to try whether he could not again induce them to break their line. The Normans turned in apparent flight, the English, heated by the long fight, rushed forward in pursuit. The Norman cavalry turned round and rode down their pursuers, and, driving them before them, again charged up the hill; while the archers, whose skill had been somewhat foiled by the shields of the English, were ordered to drop a flight of arrows upon the heads of Harold and his men. The plan was fatally successful; the battle was still stubbornly contested, though no longer in serried ranks, when Harold fell, pierced in the eye by an arrow. With him disappeared all hope of English success. His body was found, and buried under a cairn by the sea, till afterwards removed to his minster of Waltham.

STATE OF SOCIETY

449-1066

[Sidenote: The Mark system.]