Chapter V (4)

The Witan met early in the next year. All notion of resistance seems to have been given up, but another attempt was made to buy off the enemy.[685] An embassy was sent to the Danes, and another peace was patched up. The price was, of course, again raised, and it now reached forty-eight thousand pounds. But such a sum was not at once forthcoming, and it was not actually paid for a full year. This negotiation seems not to have gained for the country even that temporary repose which had been gained by earlier payments; the delay of payment may even have provoked the enemy to fresh ravages. At all events, we read that they went on harrying the land just as before. And the Chronicles may well say that all these evils came upon the land through lack of counsel,[686] when we find how Æthelred and Eadric employed any momentary respite that the nominal [Sidenote: [1000.]] peace may have given them. It is the old story of eleven years before, when Æthelred wasted such time and strength as he had left in a needless, and probably unjust, attack [Sidenote: Eadric invades Wales, and ravages Saint David’s. 1011.] upon his Cumbrian vassal. So now Eadric and his master picked out this time, of all others, for an expedition into Wales. We are not told what special offence the Welsh princes had given just at this moment. Border skirmishes were no doubt always going on along the Mercian frontier; but the present expedition was clearly something much more serious, and it must have had a special cause. It is a highly probable conjecture[687] that, just as in the case of Malcolm, the wrath of the English over-lord was aroused by a refusal on the part of the Welsh princes to contribute to the Danegeld. The expedition, at all events, made a deep impression on the Welsh, as it is the only warfare with England which their national chroniclers think worthy of record for many years before and afterwards.[688] An English army entered South Wales, under the command of Eadric, who, as Ealdorman of the Mercians, would be the natural commander. With him was joined in command another Englishman, whose name is too hopelessly disfigured in the Welsh accounts to be recovered.[689] They marched through the whole of South Wales, as far as that remote bishopric whither Saint David had fled from the face of man. There they plundered whatever rude forerunners already stood on the site of the most striking group of buildings in Britain. A force which was able to accomplish such a march must have been equally able to do some real service against the Danes; but against them not a blow seems to have been struck.

But later in the year, in September, a fearful blow indeed was struck on the other side. Perhaps it was not more fearful, there is some reason to believe that it was in itself less so, than some other events of this dreadful war; but it is clothed with special importance on account [Sidenote: Siege and capture of Canterbury. Sept. 8–29, 1011.] of the rank and character of a single sufferer. The Danes now again besieged Canterbury,[690] and on the twentieth day the city was betrayed to them by a traitorous churchman, one Ælfmær, whose life had been saved by Archbishop Ælfheah on some unrecorded occasion. The Danes seem on this occasion to have been in an unusually merciful mood. This was most likely owing to the influence of Thurkill, who, if he had not already embraced Christianity, certainly did so soon afterwards. The most authentic accounts distinctly exclude any general massacre, though the later narratives give us a harrowing picture of slaughter and torture, worked in doubtless from the stock accounts of Danish barbarities elsewhere. That the metropolitan church was sacked and burned is a matter of course for which we hardly need any evidence. The number of captives was untold; the rich would doubtless be ransomed, and the rest sold for slaves. Ælfmær, the Abbot of Saint Augustine’s, was, for some unexplained reason, allowed to escape. But Ælfweard the King’s reeve, Leofrune, Abbess of Saint Mildthryth’s monastery in Canterbury, and Godwine, Bishop of Rochester,[691] were all carried [Sidenote: Captivity of Archbishop Ælfheah.] away. And with them was another captive, whose name has made the capture of Canterbury to stand out more conspicuously than most of the events of this age, Ælfheah, Primate of all England.

[Sidenote: Life of Ælfheah. Born, 954.]

Ælfheah was a man of noble birth, who, according to the standard of piety recognized by his age, had early in life forsaken, not only his paternal estate, but his widowed mother, in order to become a monk. At Deerhurst, at Bath, perhaps at Glastonbury, he strove after all monastic perfection. According to some reports, he was first Prior of one of the two great monasteries of Somerset, and afterwards [Sidenote: Bishop of Winchester, 984.] Abbot of the other.[692] But it is more certain that he was advanced to the bishopric of Winchester, by the special favour of Dunstan, at a comparatively early age. [Sidenote: Archbishop of Canterbury, 1009.] A few years before the present time he had, as we have seen, been raised to the metropolitan throne. The Archbishop was now led away captive by the Danes. According to the most trustworthy account, he at first promised them a ransom,[693] in expectation of which they kept him seven months in their ships. Meanwhile, not only the ransom of Ælfheah, but the general ransom of all England remained unpaid. The forty-eight thousand pounds, the price of the pretended peace, was still [Sidenote: Witenagemót at London, Easter (April 13), 1012.] owing. To settle this debt, Ealdorman Eadric—the King is not named—and the other Witan met in full Gemót. The Danes meanwhile lay in the Thames near Greenwich. On the Saturday after Easter the Danes seem to have held some kind of festival, at which they got very drunk on wine lately brought from the south. This was no doubt one fruit of that commerce between the Danes and the Norman ports which Duke Richard and his people found so profitable. The Normans exchanged the wines of Aquitaine for the tribute-money or the slaves of England. The Danes in their drunkenness now called on Ælfheah for the payment of the promised ransom. He refused; he would pay nothing; he had sinned in promising to pay; [Sidenote: Murder of Ælfheah. April 19th, 1012.] no one should give anything for his life; he offered himself to them to deal with him as they pleased. They then dragged the Archbishop to their husting or place of assembly. Thurkill tried to save him, offering gold and silver, anything save his ship only, to save the holy man’s life. But the rest would not hearken, and they began to pelt the Archbishop with stones, logs of wood, and the bones and skulls of oxen,[694] the remains of their late feast. At last one Thrim, whom Ælfheah had converted and whom he had confirmed the day before, moved by a feeling of pity, clave his head with his battle-axe. The conduct of the Danes both before and afterwards shows that this attack on the Archbishop was a mere sudden outbreak, caused half by drunkenness, half by wrath at the Archbishop’s failure to make the promised payment. Thurkill had not been able to save the Archbishop’s life, but it must have been owing to his influence, and to that of any other converts whom Ælflheah had made, that the body was allowed to be taken to London with all reverence. It was there received by two Bishops, Ælfhun of London and Eadnoth of Dorchester, and was buried in Saint Paul’s minster.

We shall read later in our story how the claim of Ælfheah [Sidenote: Was Ælfheah a Martyr?] to the title of martyr was afterwards disputed by his foreign successor Lanfranc. But the honours paid to the English Archbishop were strongly defended by the more generous Anselm, on the ground that, though Ælfheah did not die for any point of Christian belief, yet he died for Christian justice and charity, as refusing to plunder his people in order to obtain a ransom for himself.[695] Ælfheah is not the only one in the list of our ancient martyrs whose technical claim to the honours of martyrdom may fairly be doubted. As in the case of the young King Eadward, the name was freely bestowed on any good man who died by an unrighteous death. According to the most trustworthy narrative, Ælfheah, however innocently, brought his death upon himself, by making a promise and then failing to perform it. Hagiographers have of course surrounded him with a halo of sanctity and miracle, and they have clearly exaggerated the evil deeds of his destroyers. But, putting all exaggerations aside, it is easy to see in Ælfheah a thoroughly good and Christian man, one of those men of simple, straightforward, benevolent, earnestness, of whom the English Church in that age produced many. He was undoubtedly a saint, and it seems hard to refuse him the title of martyr. He had at least as good a right to it as many martyrs of earlier times, who brought on themselves a death which they might have avoided by provoking or challenging their heathen enemies.

[Sidenote: The money paid to the Danes.]

Soon after the Archbishop’s murder, the forty-eight thousand pounds, the ransom of England, was paid, oaths [Sidenote: Thurkill enters the English service. 1012.] were sworn, and the Danish fleet dispersed. But Thurkill, whose whole conduct had shown a distinct leaning to Christianity, now entered the English service.[696] As we afterwards find him a zealous Christian, he was doubtless baptized now, if he had not been already baptized by Ælfheah. He brought with him forty-five ships, the crews of which were to receive food and clothing from the King, and they engaged in return to defend England against every enemy.

[Sidenote: Character of Thurkill.]

Thurkill is a character of much interest, as he in many points resembles, on a smaller scale, his wonderful countryman Cnut. He came to England on an errand of destruction, and he was gradually won over to be the stoutest defender of the land which he came to ravage. He was not a mere Pallig,[697] to accept English wealth and honours, and then to go over to the enemy at the first opportunity. When he swore oaths to Æthelred, he honestly devoted himself to the master whose bread he ate. He fought valiantly for England, and his ships for a while were the only refuge where the native King of the English could find shelter. If we find him at a later time once more on the Danish side, it was probably not till death had set him free from all personal ties to his first master, certainly not till English Ealdormen had set him the example of acknowledging the foreign King.

[Sidenote: Swegen’s last invasion of England. July, 1013.]

It would seem that Thurkill’s change of side hastened the last act of this stage of the Danish invasions. We have now not heard anything of Swegen personally for nine years. He had meanwhile been busily engaged in warfare nearer home; but as regards England, he clearly was only biding his time. On the one hand, the country was thoroughly weakened and disheartened, and seemed to stand ready for him to take possession. On the other hand, as far as material help went, England had gained greatly by the accession of the valiant Thurkill and his followers. To chastise Thurkill, at least to guard against the possible consequences of his conduct, seems to have been the immediate occasion of Swegen’s last and greatest invasion.[698] But this motive can have done little more than hasten a purpose which was already fully determined. Swegen had no doubt long resolved on the complete conquest of England; but he may well have seen that Thurkill’s new position rendered his own presence immediately necessary, lest his schemes should be supplanted by the establishment of a rival Danish dynasty in the country. However this may be, Swegen set forth, accompanied by his son Cnut, [Sidenote: Magnificence of Swegen’s fleet.] afterwards so famous, and reached England in July. The magnificence of his fleet is described in the most glowing colours.[699] There is no doubt that, savages as they appear in warfare, the Northern nations of that age had made no small progress in many of the arts. The fact is fully proved by the antiquities of that time and of earlier times which still remain. And the adornment of the ships which were so dear to the heart of every Northern warrior[700] was a favourite form of splendour.[701] There may doubtless be some exaggeration, but there is also doubtless a certain measure of truth, in the account of Swegen’s splendid fleet, of the birds and dragons on the tops of the masts which showed the way of the wind, of the figures of men and animals in gold, silver, and amber, which formed the signs of the ships, the lions, the bulls, the dolphins, and, what we should hardly have looked for, the centaurs. With this fleet, armed with the whole force of Denmark, Swegen crossed the sea, and came first to [Sidenote: Swegen sails up the Humber.] Sandwich. He then changed his course, and sailed to the mouth of the Humber, to a country among whose population the Danish element was large. The work of so many valiant Kings, of Eadward, of Æthelstan, of Eadmund, was undone in a moment. The North of England was again severed from the West-Saxon monarchy. The Danish King sailed up the Trent, he pitched his camp at Gainsborough, and all the country on the Danish side of Watling-street submitted without resistance. Embassies [Sidenote: Northumberland, Lindesey, and the Five Boroughs submit. 1013.] came in from all parts of the North. The Northumbrians first submitted under their Earl Uhtred, the King’s son-in-law. We have seen him acting vigorously before,[702] and we shall see him acting vigorously again; but just now he did nothing to check the panic, even if he was not the first to be carried away by it.[703] Next came the men of Lindesey, and, somewhat later, the men of the Five Boroughs. The conquest of that famous confederacy [Sidenote: 920–22. 942.] had been reckoned among the most renowned exploits of Eadward and of Eadmund;[704] but their mention now shows that they must still have kept up some measure of independence and of connexion with each other. Before long, all the population north-east of Watling-street had acknowledged Swegen. From all these districts he took hostages, whom he entrusted to his son Cnut, who was left in command of the fleet. He also demanded horses and food for his army, and, more than this, the contingents of the shires which had submitted had to follow him, willingly or unwillingly, [Sidenote: Swegen enters Mercia;] in his onward march.[705] With this force he then crossed Watling-street, and struck south-west, into the strictly English districts of Mercia, into the one part of England [Sidenote: his horrible ravages.] which had as yet escaped ravage, some districts of which could hardly have seen war since the days of Ælfred. The distinction between the Danish and English districts was clearly marked in his treatment of the two. Hitherto we have heard of no ravages; but, when he was once within the purely English border,[706] his cruelties became fearful, and they were carried on in the most systematic way. He “wrought the most evil that any host might do;” he is even charged with directly ordering, as his rule of warfare,[707] the ravage of fields, the burning of towns, the robbery of churches, the slaughter of men, and the rape of [Sidenote: Submission of Oxford and Winchester.] women. In this fashion he passed through the country to Oxford, which had already risen from its ashes. The town was saved by speedily submitting and giving hostages. Winchester itself did the like. Swegen then [Sidenote: Swegen repulsed from London.] marched upon London; but here his fortune was very different. He had to encounter not only a valiant resistance, but also ill luck of a different kind.[708] Many of his men, unable to find either ford or bridge, were drowned in the Thames. At last he assaulted the city. But the [Sidenote: [994.]] heart of the citizens was as strong as when they beat off both Swegen and Olaf Tryggvesson nineteen years before. The presence of King Æthelred within the city was not likely to add much to the vigour of the defence,[709] but the brave Dane Thurkill was there, faithfully discharging the [Sidenote: 992, 994, 1009, 1013.] duties of his new service. For the fourth time during this reign, the invaders were beaten back from the walls of the great merchant city, the only resistance that Swegen seems to have met with during this fearful march. He then turned back into Wessex, first to Wallingford, then to Bath, destroying in his former fashion as he went. [Sidenote: Swegen marches to Bath; the West-Saxon Thegns submit.] At Bath the terrible drama was brought to an end. Æthelmær, Ealdorman of Devonshire, with all the thegns of the West, came to him, submitted, and gave hostages. Putting the language of the different accounts together, there can be little doubt that this was, or professed to be, a formal act of the Witan of Wessex, deposing Æthelred and raising Swegen to the throne. Northumberland had already acknowledged him; and, considering that Swegen brought the contingents of the North of England with him, it is possible that there may have even been enough of the chief men of different parts of the kingdom present to give the assembly something like the air of a general Witenagemót. An election of Swegen was of course an election under _duresse_ in its very harshest shape, and would in no way express the real wishes of the electors. [Sidenote: Swegen is acknowledged King. 1013.] But that some approach to the usual legal formalities were gone through seems implied in the significant way in which we are told that Swegen was now looked upon as “full King” by the whole people.[710] Whether he was crowned is a much more doubtful matter; the nominal religion of Swegen at this moment is a great problem, and we may doubt whether, if the apostate sought the Christian rite, any prelate would have been found to admit him to it. But that Swegen was acknowledged as King is perfectly plain. He now went northward to his fleet, seemingly for the purpose of attacking by sea the one city which still held out. But now the spirit even of the Londoners at last gave way; out of sheer fear of the [Sidenote: London submits.] threatened cruelty of the new King, they submitted and gave hostages. By a strange turning about of events,[711] all England was now in the hands of Swegen, while the cause of Æthelred was still maintained by Thurkill and [Sidenote: Æthelred takes refuge in Thurkill’s fleet.] the Danish fleet in the Thames. The monarchy of Cerdic was now confined to the decks of forty-five Scandinavian war-ships. The fleet still lay at Greenwich, the scene of the martyrdom of Ælfheah. Thither, immediately after the submission of London, Æthelred and Thurkill betook [Sidenote: Emma and her sons sent to Normandy. August, 1013.] themselves. The Lady Emma went over to her brother in Normandy, in company with Ælfsige, Abbot of Peterborough, and she was presently followed by her two young sons, the Æthelings Eadward and Ælfred, with their tutor Ælfhun, Bishop of London.[712] Æthelred himself stayed some time longer with the fleet, but at midwinter he went to the Isle of Wight, the old Danish quarters, which the adhesion of the Danish fleet now made the only part of his lost realm accessible to the English King.[713] He there [Sidenote: Æthelred takes refuge in Normandy. January, 1014.] kept the feast of Christmas, and in January he joined his wife and his young children in Normandy, where his brother-in-law Duke Richard could hardly refuse him an honourable welcome. We seem to be reading the history of James the Second before its time. Eadric, according to some accounts,[714] had already gone over with the Lady. Of Æthelred’s sons by his first marriage, the gallant Æthelings Æthelstan and Eadwig and their glorious brother Eadmund, we hear nothing. As far as we can see, Swegen was the one acknowledged King over the whole realm. If the West-Saxon banner was anywhere displayed, it could have been only on the masts of Thurkill and his sea-rovers. During the whole winter, Swegen on his side, and Thurkill on his, levied contributions and ravaged the land at pleasure.[715]

§ 5. _From the Conquest of England by Swegen to the Death of Æthelred._
1013–1016.

[Sidenote: Importance of Swegen’s Conquest as introductory to William’s
Conquest.]

This conquest of England by Swegen forms an important stage in our history. It was, for the moment at least, the completion of the Danish invasions in their third and final shape of actual Danish conquest. And it was more than this. The Danish conquest by Swegen was, so to speak, the precedent for the Norman Conquest by William. Swegen’s own possession of England was indeed but momentary; but he at least held the kingdom as long as he lived, and he handed on his mission to his son. The result of Swegen’s invasion showed that the crown of England, of England so lately united into a single kingdom, could be transferred by the event of war from the brow of a native sovereign to that of a foreign invader. It was Swegen’s conquest which made the conquests both of Cnut and of William possible. Cnut’s conquest was of course only the completion of Swegen’s. It was Swegen who conceived the idea, and [Sidenote: Distinction between Swegen’s Conquest and the earlier Danish invasions.] who actually for the first time carried it out. That idea was something very different from anything which had been set before the eyes of any earlier Scandinavian invader. Hitherto England had been largely ravaged, and had even been partly occupied. But mere ravages were in their own nature temporary; and the Danes who had settled in England had been gradually brought into a greater or less degree of submission to the English King, into a greater or less degree of amalgamation with the English people. The third stage of the Danish wars, that which had now for a moment accomplished its object, aimed at something of quite another kind. It sought, as I have before shown,[716] not merely to ravage or even to occupy, but to transfer the crown of all England, the rule of all its inhabitants, English and Danish alike, into the hands of the King of all Denmark. This object Swegen had now accomplished. Succeeding events indeed called for the work to be done over again by his son Cnut. But the example was set; the establishment of a foreign King in England, his willing or unwilling acknowledgement by the English nation, were things which had now become familiar. What Swegen had done Cnut might do, and [Sidenote: Circumstances in favour of Swegen,] what Cnut had done William might do. Swegen now, like William afterwards, was singularly favoured by fortune. But the good luck of the two invaders took quite different shapes. Swegen found an incapable prince on the throne, under whom no effective resistance was possible. He was thus able to wear out the strength and spirit of the nation by a series of successful, though partial, attacks. He was thus able, at the end of a long series of years, to obtain possession of the whole land without ever having put his forces to the risk of a decisive engagement. [Sidenote: and of William.] William found a hero on the throne; he had therefore, at the very beginning, to stake all his chances on a single battle. But in that single battle England lost her hero, and with him she lost her hope. Swegen and William were thus equally lucky, but William ran a far more [Sidenote: Character of Swegen.] terrible hazard. Swegen is apt to be forgotten in a cursory view of English history, because he is overshadowed by the fame of his son. But Swegen was no ordinary man. If greatness consists in mere skill and stedfastness in carrying out an object, without regard to the moral character of that object, he may even be called a great man.[717] His purpose was doubtless fixed from the beginning; but he knew how to bide his time, how to mark and to seize his opportunities. Of that species of glory which is won by steady and skilful destruction of one’s fellow-creatures, the glory of an Attila or a Buonaparte, the first Danish conqueror of England is entitled to a large share. Of the high and generous purposes which well nigh justify the ambition of Alexander and of Charles, even of that higher craft of the ruler which goes some way to redeem the crimes of the Norman Conqueror, we see no trace in his career. He was so constantly occupied in aggressive warfare that he had hardly time to show himself as a beneficent prince, even in his native kingdom, and in England, if he had the will, he never had the opportunity, of showing himself in any light but that of a barbarian destroyer.

Swegen then was King—or, as the national writers prefer to call him, Tyrant[718]—over all England. But it [Sidenote: Death of Swegen. February 3, 1014.] was only for a very short time that he enjoyed his ill-gotten dominion. Early in the year after his conquest, about the feast of Candlemas, he died at Gainsborough. The Danish writers bear witness to the Christianity of [Sidenote: His religion.] his later years. During one of his seasons of adversity, he was won back again to the faith from which he had apostatized; he became a zealous believer, a founder of churches and bishoprics. But the German and English writers seem to know nothing of his piety or of his reconversion, unless indeed the denial of the claims of one particular Christian saint can be held to be evidence of [Sidenote: Legend of the death of Swegen.] Christian belief in general. That denial, we are told, was punished by a strange and horrible death. For such an enemy as Swegen could hardly be allowed to go out of the world without some accompaniment of wonder and miracle. For once the discreetest of our Latin chroniclers opens his pages for the reception of a legend. Swegen, he tells us, had a special hatred for the martyred [Sidenote: 870.] King Saint Eadmund, the famous victim of Danish cruelty at an earlier time. He denied him all power and holiness; he demanded a heavy tribute from his renowned minster; he threatened, if it were not paid, to burn the town and the townsfolk, to destroy the minster, and to put the clergy[719] to death by torture. All this is likely enough; we can well believe that Swegen did thus threaten the church of Saint Eadmund, and that he died suddenly while preparing to set out to carry out his threats. The special reverence which Swegen’s son Cnut showed to Saint Eadmund almost amounts to a proof that his father was held to have specially sinned against that martyr. Swegen had held an assembly of some kind which most likely passed for a Witenagemót of his new realm.[720] He was on his horse, at the head of his army, seemingly on the point of beginning his march from Gainsborough to the threatened minster. He then saw, visible to his eyes only, the holy King of the East-Angles coming against him in full harness and with a spear in his hand. “Help,” he cried, “fellow-soldiers, Saint Eadmund is coming to slay me.” The saint then ran him through with his spear, and the tyrant fell from his horse, and died the same night in horrible torments.[721] This is a legend of the simplest class. If Swegen died just as he was about to wreak his sacrilegious wrath on Saint Eadmund’s minster, his sudden death would naturally be attributed to the vengeance of Saint Eadmund. The details of the legend are nothing more than a poetical way of expressing this supposed fact. Swegen thus ended his days;[722] as to the fate of his soul our authorities differ [Sidenote: Swegen’s body taken to Denmark.] widely.[723] But the body of the departed tyrant is said to have been taken to Denmark, and buried at Roskild, so long the place of coronation and burial of the Danish Kings.

By the death of Swegen his two kingdoms of Denmark and England became vacant. In Denmark he was succeeded by his son Harold, a prince whose name has passed altogether out of English, and almost out of Danish, history. His reign was short; we are told that he was deposed by his subjects on account of his sloth and luxury.[724] But that he, and not Cnut, was in actual possession [Sidenote: Swegen succeeded in Denmark by Harold. 1014.] of the Danish crown for some time after their father’s death there seems no reason to doubt. As for the English crown, the crews of the Danish fleet assumed [Sidenote: Double election in England; CNUT chosen by the Danish fleet.] the right of disposing of it, and elected Swegen’s other son Cnut, who was present at Gainsborough. This prince, afterwards so famous, was now a stripling of about nineteen,[725] and the English, who had bowed to his father, had no mind to bow to him without a struggle. The Witan, [Sidenote: The English Witan decree the restoration of Æthelred.] clerical and lay, assembled in due form, and voted, not the election of one of the Æthelings, but the restoration of Æthelred. The words of the formal documents exchanged between the Witan and the absent King peep out in the language of the Chronicles. They sent to say that no lord could be dearer to them than their _cyne-hlaford_—their lord by birth—if he would only rule them more righteously than he did before.[726] Æthelred then sent over ambassadors, accompanied by young Eadward, his son by Emma—the nobler offspring of his [Sidenote: Interchange of messages between Æthelred and the Witan.] first marriage are again unnoticed. He promised by their mouths to be good lord to his people, to amend all that had been wrong in his former reign, to forgive all that had been said and done against him, if only they would be faithful and obedient to him. Another version adds the very important engagement that he would submit in all things to the advice of his Witan.[727] Promises were thus exchanged on both sides; Æthelred was again [Sidenote: Outlawry of all Danish Kings.] acknowledged, and a decree was passed proclaiming every Danish King an outlaw from England.[728] The expression [Sidenote: Import of the expression.] is singular, unless we look at it in connexion with the actual acknowledgement of Swegen as King. We can hardly conceive a proclamation of outlawry against a foreign invader, if he were a mere foreign invader and nothing else. But if we look on Cnut as a son of the late King and a candidate for the crown, his outlawry by the opposing party is natural enough. Nor is all this a mere legal subtlety. Cnut then, like William afterwards, was fully aware of the advantage of getting, as far as he could, every legal form on his side.

[Sidenote: Æthelred’s return and legislation. Lent, 1014.]

In the course of Lent Æthelred came back to England, and met with a joyful welcome in London. It was most likely in a Gemót held on his return that the King and his Witan passed the laws which bear the date of this year.[729] They relate mainly to ecclesiastical matters, but they contain the same pious and patriotic resolutions as the codes of former years, and they also contain some clauses of a special and remarkable kind. They expressly approve the conduct of certain earlier assemblies, held under Æthelstan, [Sidenote: Illustration of the relation of Church and State.] Eadmund, and Eadgar, which dealt with ecclesiastical and temporal affairs conjointly, and they seem to deplore a separation between the two branches of legislation which had taken place in some later assemblies.[730] It is not very easy to understand the grounds of this complaint, as in most of the earlier statutes of Æthelred’s reign we certainly find both classes of subjects dealt with. But, whatever was the immediate ground of censure, the expression is remarkable, as illustrating a whole class of feelings which were peculiarly strong in that age, and which afterwards lost [Sidenote: Identification of the Church and the Nation before the Norman Conquest.] much of their power. Under our native Kings the Church and the nation were far more truly one than they were at any time after the Norman Conquest. The nation was deeply religious; the Church was deeply national. The same assemblies and tribunals dealt alike with ecclesiastical and with temporal affairs, without the least idea that either power had thrust itself into the proper province of the other. Bishops and Ealdormen were appointed and deposed by the same authority; they sat side by side to judge and to legislate on matters which, after the Norman Conquest, would have been discussed in distinct assemblies. The laws of this year again proclaim that one God and one King is to be loved and obeyed, that heathenism and treason are alike to be eschewed; that all moral duties are to be discharged by one countryman to another. Such is the general summary of the last recorded legislation of Æthelred, conceived in exactly the same tone as the laws of earlier assemblies.

The spirit which breathes in the decrees of the assembly breathes also in a remarkable specimen of the pious oratory of the age, namely the famous address of Archbishop Wulfstan to the English nation.[731] Somewhat of exaggeration is always to be looked for in compositions of this kind, but, after making all allowances, we find a frightful picture both of national wretchedness and of national corruption. Since the days of Eadgar everything had gone wrong; sacrilege and unjust judgements, lust and rapine, the neglect of every natural and artificial tie, had stalked unpunished through the land. One King had been murdered; another had been driven into banishment. The abuses of the slave-trade are specially noticed; men even went so far as to sell their nearest kinsfolk. The English, in short, had become worse than the Britons whom they had conquered, even as the Britons were painted by their own Gildas. For all this the judgement of God had come upon the land; the enemy wrought his will upon England without let or hindrance; ten Englishmen would flee before one of the invaders; the last excesses of cruelty and outrage had to be endured without resistance. The speaker exhorts to repentance and amendment; he speaks indeed only of repentance and amendment, and says nothing of the human means of valour and counsel; otherwise one might conceive that the address was in fact a speech delivered in the Gemót which passed the laws of this year.

[Sidenote: Æthelred marches against Cnut and drives him out of
Lindesey.]

The nation now seemed to be thoroughly kindled with the spirit expressed in the discourse of the Primate and in the resolutions of the Witan. And for one moment the burst of patriotism reached even to the King. For the first and the last time during his long reign, we see Æthelred engaged in righteous and successful warfare.[732] Cnut was still at Gainsborough, where he had agreed with the men of Lindesey, a district in which the Danish element was large, to furnish him with horses and to join him in a plundering expedition. But before they were ready, Æthelred came up with his full force, and drove Cnut away to his ships. The defeat must have been decisive, as Cnut sailed away altogether from that part of England,[733] and steered his course southwards to Sandwich. [Sidenote: Cnut mutilates his hostages.] There he put on shore the hostages who had been given to his father from all parts of England, having first subjected them to various mutilations, as the loss of hands, ears, and noses. He then sailed away to Denmark. Æthelred had thus for once shown real spirit and vigour, and had done a real service to his country. For a moment England [Sidenote: Æthelred ravages Lindesey.] was free from the invaders. But the King disgraced his victory by ravaging Lindesey—no doubt in revenge for its submission to Cnut—as cruelly as Swegen or Cnut could have done. The land was harried with fire and sword, and the people, as far as might be, were slaughtered. [Sidenote: Payment to Thurkill’s fleet.] Lastly, the King levied a tribute of twenty-one thousand or, as some say, thirty thousand,[734] pounds, for the payment of Thurkill’s fleet which still lay at Greenwich. This fleet, which had so lately been Æthelred’s sole refuge, remained in his service.[735]

[Sidenote: Great inroad of the sea.]

In the same year, as if to illustrate the law that political and natural misfortunes generally come together, the [Sidenote: 1014.] sea—in what part of England we are not told—broke in upon the land, and swallowed up many towns and a countless multitude of people.[736]

[Sidenote: Great Witenagemót at Oxford. 1015.]

In the next year we again come across the name of the infamous Eadric, of whom we have so often heard before, and who now begins a new career of treason even viler and more fatal than anything that has hitherto been recorded of him. On the other hand we have now reached the beginning of the short and glorious career of the hero [Sidenote: First appearance of the Ætheling Eadmund.] Eadmund. This prince seems to have been the third son of Æthelred;[737] one at least of his elder brothers seems to have died before him; but, if he was not the eldest of the royal house by birth, he soon won for himself the first place by merit. A great Witenagemót was held this year at Oxford, a city whose renown as the seat of a great University belongs to later times, but which the whole course of these wars shows to have been already a place of [Sidenote: History of Oxford.] considerable importance. Its importance however would seem to have been comparatively recent. The well-known legend of Saint Frithswyth[738] cannot be accepted as historical; but it may be taken as some presumption that Oxford had already become a habitation for man early in the eighth century. But there is no certain historical mention of the place till the early years of the tenth century, [Sidenote: 912.] when it appears as one of the chief acquisitions of Eadward the Elder. As it was a frontier town of Mercia and Wessex, we might have expected to find it playing a historic part in far earlier days; but in those times the now utterly insignificant Bensington[739] seems to have been the chief military post of the frontier. So the now no less insignificant Dorchester was the ecclesiastical capital of a vast diocese, of which the diocese of Oxford, as it stood before recent changes, formed only a small portion. Oxford however was now a place of note; in the new nomenclature of Mercia it had given its name to a shire; and it must have derived some further importance from the presence of the minster which bore the name of the heroine of the local legend. That minster, after an unusual number of changes in its foundation, has at last settled down into the twofold office of the cathedral church of the modern diocese and the chapel of the largest college in the University. The town is mentioned in several charters of the tenth century, one of which, as we have seen, records the burning of the minster in the general massacre of the Danes.[740] It had [Sidenote: 1009–1013.] been, as the course of our story has told us, taken, retaken, and burned in the wars of Swegen. In this year the town, so lately rebuilt after its burning, was the scene of an assembly which was evidently attended by a more than usually numerous body of the Wise Men.[741] Eadric was now guilty of a crime of the same kind as that by which [Sidenote: 1007.] he destroyed Ealdorman Ælfhelm at Shrewsbury nine [Sidenote: Murder of Sigeferth and Morkere by Eadric.] years before. Among the assembled Witan were Sigeferth and Morkere, the sons of Earngrim, two of the chief thegns in the Danish Confederacy of the Seven Boroughs.[742] These chiefs were invited by Eadric to his own quarters,[743] where he slew them at a banquet. Æthelred, if he had not ordered this villany, at any rate made himself an accessory after the fact; he confiscated the property of the murdered thegns, and ordered Ealdgyth, the widow of Sigeferth, to be led as a prisoner to Malmesbury. All this would seem to imply some co-operation on the part of the Witan; it may even imply some real guilt in Eadric’s victims; but it in no way lessens the guilt of Eadric and Æthelred. When such things were done, we can understand that men may have thought the rule of the Dane at least not worse than the rule of such Englishmen. A gleam of romance now flashes across the [Sidenote: Marriage of Eadmund and Ealdgyth.] dreary tale of crime and misfortune.[744] The Ætheling Eadmund had seen the fair widow of Sigeferth, and was smitten with a sudden passion for her. There was no time to be lost; he followed her to her retreat and married her against the will of his father.[745] The marriage was not without political consequences. Eadmund seems to have looked upon himself, and to have been looked upon by his wife, as the lawful heir of her former husband. Possibly the wealth and dignities of Sigeferth, or some part of them, may have come through his marriage. At any rate Eadmund, at Ealdgyth’s suggestion, demanded the lordships of Sigeferth from his father,[746] and was refused. [Sidenote: His establishment in the Five Boroughs. August, 1015.] He then went to the Five Boroughs, took possession of the estates of Sigeferth and Morkere, and received the submission of the men of the confederacy.[747] He thus secured for himself a kind of principality in the North of England, a fact which, in the war which was about again to break out, led to some singular inversions of the usual military geography.

For Cnut had sailed away to Denmark only to sail back to England on the first opportunity.[748] He is said to have proposed to his brother Harold, the reigning King, to make a division of Denmark and to share in a joint expedition to England.[749] The former proposal at least was rejected; whether Harold accompanied his brother to England is less certain;[750] but in any case he was utterly overshadowed by the fame of Cnut, and he soon vanishes from history altogether. According to one account, the voyage was undertaken at the express suggestion of Thurkill, who sailed to Denmark and there made his peace with Cnut.[751] Thurkill was certainly on Cnut’s side in the war of the next year; he may have thought himself absolved from his duty to Æthelred by that prince’s flight; but on the whole it is more likely [Sidenote: Cnut invades England. Summer, 1015.] that his change of sides happened later. At any rate, Cnut set sail with a fleet whose numbers are variously stated at two hundred ships[752] and at a thousand,[753] and of whose stateliness we read as brilliant an account as of those of his father. Moreover we are told that the whole of the crews consisted of men of noble birth in the flower of their age.[754] With this splendid company, Cnut sailed first to Sandwich, and thence steered along the south coast to Fromemouth; that is to the harbour of Poole and Wareham, the common mouth of the Dorsetshire [Sidenote: He ravages Wessex.] Frome and the Dorsetshire Trent. He then harried the shires of Somerset, Dorset, and Wiltshire, while King Æthelred lay sick at Corsham in the last-named shire. The Ætheling Eadmund now began to levy an army in his new principality,[755] and Eadric seemingly did the same in his old Mercian government. But the traitor was still [Sidenote: Plans of Eadmund hindered by Eadric.] at his old tricks. When the two divisions came together, Eadric made several attempts to destroy his brother-in-law, the result of which was that the two armies separated, [Sidenote: Eadric rebels, seduces the Danish fleet, and joins Cnut.] leaving the field open to the enemy. Eadric now openly rebelled; he seduced the crews of forty Danish ships in the royal service, those doubtless which were left from Thurkill’s fleet, and joined Cnut. This may have been the time when Thurkill himself took service under his native prince. Or it may have been after Æthelred’s death and the election of Cnut by a large body of the English Witan.[756] In the latter case, at all events, his allegiance to his old master was no longer binding; the war between Cnut and Eadmund might seem to him a struggle between two candidates for the English crown, in which he, as a Dane, might honourably take the side of the candidate of his own nation.

This defection of Eadric—perhaps of Thurkill—settled [Sidenote: Wessex submits to Cnut.] the fate of Southern England. All Wessex now submitted to the invader; hostages were given and horses were furnished. The kingdom was now practically divided; but—owing mainly to the romantic marriage and settlement of Eadmund—it was divided in a manner exactly opposite from that which might have been naturally looked for. The Thames is, as usual, the boundary; but the English Ætheling reigns to the north, the Danish King to the south, of that river; the Mercians and Northumbrians are arrayed under the Dragon of Wessex, while the West-Saxons themselves serve, however unwillingly, under the Danish Raven. On these strange terms the war began again early in the next year, the last year of [Sidenote: Cnut and Eadric invade Mercia. January, 1016.] this long struggle. Just before the Epiphany, Cnut and Eadric, with their mixed force of Danes and West-Saxons, crossed the Thames at Cricklade,[757] and entered Mercia. They harried Warwickshire in the usual fashion, ravaging, [Sidenote: Vain attempts of Eadmund to keep an army together.] burning, slaying, as they went. The Ætheling now gathered an army in Mercia, but his troops refused to fight, unless King Æthelred and the Londoners joined them. The army then dispersed in the wonderful way in which armies did disperse in those days. Presently the Ætheling put forth proclamations, summoning every man to join his standard, and denouncing the full penalties of the law against all who held back.[758] By these means he gathered a larger army; he then sent to his father, who was in London, praying him to join him with whatever forces he could gather. Æthelred did so, and joined his son’s muster with a considerable body of troops. But the old ill luck was at work; the only thing that can be said is that Æthelred was most likely dragged to the field from his death-bed. The two divisions had hardly joined when the King found out, or professed to find out, treacherous plots against his person. These he made an excuse for disbanding the whole army and going back to London. [Sidenote: Eadmund and Uhtred join forces.] With such a King what could be done? Eadmund withdrew to Northumberland, the government of his brother-in-law Uhtred. That Earl, it will be remembered, had been, to say the least, somewhat hasty in submitting to [Sidenote: [1013.]] Swegen, but he now gladly joined Eadmund. All men deemed that the Ætheling would raise a third army in [Sidenote: Ravages of the two armies.] Northumberland, and would march against Cnut. But he and Uhtred contented themselves with ravaging three Mercian shires which had refused to help them against the Danes,[759] namely Staffordshire, Shropshire, and Cheshire. Cnut meanwhile went plundering on his side through the shires of Buckingham, Bedford, Huntingdon, Northampton, then by Stamford, through Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, on towards York. The ravaging of his country and the danger of his capital caused Uhtred to [Sidenote: Northumberland under Uhtred submits to Cnut.] cease his own ravages and to hasten homewards. He found further resistance useless;[760] he submitted to Cnut and gave hostages. The Dane was now again lord of all England,[761] save only London and whatever extent of country could be held in obedience from London. But now the vengeance of the old feud came upon Uhtred. Thurbrand, whom he had before engaged and omitted to [Sidenote: Murder of Uhtred.] kill, was now allowed to kill him. As Uhtred came to pay his homage to his new prince at a place called Wiheal, a curtain was drawn aside, and armed men stepped forward, who slew the Earl and forty of his companions, among whom one Thurcytel son of Navena is specially mentioned.[762] This evil deed also was attributed to Eadric, [Sidenote: Eric made Earl of the Northumbrians.] the common author of all evil. The earldom of Northumberland was given by Cnut to a Dane named Eric, who had married his sister Gytha, and had held the government of Norway under Swegen.[763] But it seems that Eadwulf Cutel, the brother of the murdered Uhtred, either was allowed to hold Bernicia under the supremacy of Eric, or else succeeded to the whole when Eric was banished some years later. The whole North was thus lost; it was again as thoroughly under Danish rule as it had been before the conquests of Eadward. And, worse still, Wessex was under Danish rule too, and it had even outrun Northumberland in its submission. But London still held out; Cnut therefore hastened to subdue the last stronghold of the national life. Events had followed fast upon one another. Christmas had passed before Cnut crossed the [Sidenote: Cnut prepares to attack London.] Thames, and Easter had not come when he crossed it again. He hastened with all speed to his fleet in the Dorset haven, and prepared to sail with his whole force against the still faithful city. Eadmund, either now or earlier,[764] hastened to join his father in its defence. Cnut was on his voyage, but he seems to have gone more leisurely than might have been expected after the speed [Sidenote: Death of Æthelred. April 23, 1016.] of his march from Yorkshire.[765] He had only reached Southampton, when tidings were brought of the death of Æthelred. He died on Saint George’s day, probably of the same sickness of which we read the year before, and was buried in Saint Paul’s Minster.

§ 6. _The War of Cnut and Eadmund._ 1016.