MASTER NEGA TI VE NO. 92-80653 MICROFILMED 1992 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as part of the . „ . „ "Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project Funded by the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States - Title 17, United States Code - concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material... Columbia. University Library reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. AUTHOR: GREEN JOHN RICHARD TITLE: THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND PLACE: LONDON DA TE : 1884 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARHFT Master Negative # Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record ! 942.01 1 G8231 Green, John Richard, 1837-1883. The conquest of England; bv John Richard Green ... Lon- don, Macmillan and co., 1^83-. 1884 • 2d ed. XXXV, (ij, 636 p. f ront , (port .) maps. 22J«. Edited by Alice Stopford Green Covers the period 829-1071. Restrictions on Use: .TfepK:ir,rt«s;-«S,-;!SU. ^gris-s; Library of Congress DA152.G79fl ia37gl, 2—21363 TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA FILM SIZE: S^tp.JX^- REDUCTION RATIO- \\> . IMAGE PLACEMENT: 14 I Of^ IB IIB '~~ DATE FILMED: 1^^^ ^/^^ k3__ INITIALS r^V " HLMEDBY: RESEARCH iFlIBllCA-riONS. INC WOODnRrnr:i7 rT it *- ^ t BIBLIOGRAPHIC IRREGULARITIES MAIN ENTRY: G-eP.F.k) roHxj t ?)cmi?t> Bibliogra phic Irregularities in the Original Document List volumes and pages affected; include name of institution if filming borrowed text. Page(s) missing/ not available: yolumes(s) missing /not available:. Illegible and/ or damaged page(s):. Page(s) or volumes(s) misnumbered:. 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', ■: ■•> ' Vi *?V' :.^.- *. -/, ii^ < ir Ik i\i^^^ 1. -I v^ i-*^ XJ » 1 4 ■ :■ THE CONQUEST OF ENGLANI>. Till': CONQUEST OF EiNGLANJ) k i:v JOHN RicrrAiii) ciiieen, ma., ll.I)., iioNoitAKv Kr:r.L<)\v oj jf;sis C(»i.i,h;i:, oxfoht*. WITH PORTRAIT AND MAPS. SECOM) KDITIOS. M A C j\I I L L A N AND CO. 1884. Th: lliijht of Tiaudatioti and U'produi.Con is JU^crr >{. i^^nii^^ Q SZ3I < * » * ■ • • • • PREPACE. A FEW words of introduction are needed to the following unfinished story of the *' Conquest of England," in which I may explain how far these pages in their present form represent the final Avork and intention of their writer. I cannot do this save by giving some short account of how the book was written, and the tale of the two volumes, the "Making of England" and the "Con- quest of England/' forms in fact but one story. After Mr. Green had closed the fourth volume of his History of the English People^ an ap])arent pause in the illness against which he had long been struggling made it seem possible that some years of life might yet lie before him. For the first time he could look forward to labour less fettered and hindered than of old by stress of weakness, in which he might gather up the fruit of past years of preparation ; and with the vehement ardour of a ]ZA%\^ ■■MMIffllllllffilWaH*" Vlll PREFACE. new hope he threw himself into schemes of work till then denied him. But he had scarcely begun to shape his plans when they were suddenly cut dowm. In the early spring of 1881 he was seized by a violent attack of illness, and it needed but a little time to show that there could never be any return to hope. The days that might still be left to him must henceforth be conquered day by day from death. In the extremity of ruin and defeat he found a higher fidelity and a perfect strength. The way of success was closed, the way of courageous effort still lay open. Touched with the spirit of that impassioned patriotism which animated all his powers, he believed that before he died some faithful work might yet be accomplished for those who should come after him. At the moment of his greatest bodily weakness, when fear had deepened into the conviction that he had scarcely a few weeks to live, his decision was made. The old plans for work were taken out, and from these a new scheme was rapidly drawn up in such a form that if strength lasted it might be wrought into a continuous narrative, while if life failed some finished part of it might be embodied in the earlier Ilistorij. Thus under the shadow of death the Making of England was begun. During the five PREFACE. IX summer months in which it was written that shadow never lifted. It was the opinion of his doctors that life was only prolonged from day to day throughout that time by the astonishing force of his own will, by the constancy of a resolve that had wholly set aside all personal aims. His courage took no touch of gloom or disappointment ; every moment of comparative ease was given to his task ; when such moments failed, hours of languor and distress were given with the same unfaltering patience. As he lav worn with sickness, in his extreme weakness unable to write a line with his owji hand, he was forced for the first time to learn how to dictate ; he had not even strength himself to mark the corrections on his printer's proofs, and these too were dictated by him, while the references for the volume were drawn up as books were carried one by one to his bedside, and the notes from them entered by his directions. With such sustained zeal, such eager conscientiousness was his work done, that much of it was wholly re-written five times, other parts three times; till as auturan drew on he was driven from England, and it became need- ful to bring the book rapidly to an end which fell short of his original scheme, and to close the last chapters with less finish and fulness of labour. X PREFACE. The spring of 1882 found the same frail and suffering life still left to him. But sickness had no force to quench the ardour of his spirit. Careful only to save what time might yet remain for his work he hastened to England in May, and once more all sense of weakness seemed to vanish before the joy of coming again to his own land. He had long eagerly desired to press forward to later periods of English history, in which the more varied forces at w^ork in the national life, and the larger issues that hung on them, might give free play to his own personal sympathies. But the conditions of his life shut out the possibility of choice ; and he resolutely turned again to the interrupted history of early England, to take u]) the tale at the period of its greatest obscurity and difficulty. In the scheme which was drawn up at this time the present volume was to have closed with the ''Conquest of England" by the Danes. This plan was in fact a return to the division adopted in the Short History of the English People, where the conquest by Swein was looked on as the turning-point of the story, and a new period in the history of England began from the time when the English people first bowed to the yoke of foreign masters, and ''kings from Denmark were succeeded by kings from Normandy, and these PREFACE. XI by kings from Anjou." The eight chapters which l)riu<'- the narrative to the Danish Conquest form the work that filled the last months of his life— a work still carried on with the same patient and enduring- force, and done with that careful haste which comes of the knowledge that each month's toil may be the last. The book in this earlier form was finished and printed in the autumn, though in the pressing peril of the time the final chapters were so brief as to be scarcely more than outlines. Once more he was forced to leave England for tlu; south. In spite of fast-increasing illness, and oppressed by heavy suffering, he there reviewed his whole work with earnest care. It seemed to him still fiu- from his conception of Avhat it might be ; the difficulty of the subject roused in him a fresli desire to bring it home with living interest to Lis readers; and he believed this might be done by some added labour on his part. He resohed to make important changes in the original plan and m its order, to rewrite some portions, and to extend the history beyond the Conquest of Enghmd by the Danes to its Conquest by the Normans. The printed book was at once cancelled. With a last efiort of supreme ardour and devotion, he set himself to a task which he was never to finish. A new Xll PREFACE. opening chapter was formed by drawing together the materials he possessed for a sketch of the English people at the opening of their long struggle with the invaders. But as the chapter drew towards its end his strength failed. The pages which now close it were the last words ever written by his hand— words written one morning in haste, for weakness had already drawn on so fast that when in weariness he at last laid down his pen he never again found strength even to read over the words he had set down. But even then his work was not over. In this last extremity of weakness his mind still turned constantly to the story of his people. He would still hope, night by night, that on the coming day there might be some brief moment in which he could even yet dictate the thoughts that were shaping themselves in his mind— some larger account of the history of the English shires which was now taking form after long thinking, or some completer view of the rule of the Danish kings, or some insight of a more sure judgement and knowledge into the relations of the Norman Conquest. Many years before, listening to some light talk about the epitaphs which men might win, he had said half unconsciously, *• I know what men will say of me : ' He died PREFACE. Xlll learning ; ' " and he made the passing word into a noble truth. *' So long as he lived he strove to live worthily." By patient and laborious work, by reverence and singleness of purpose, by a long self-mastery, he had '* earned diligently *' his due reward in experience, knowledge, matured wisdom, a wider outlook, and a deeper insight. It was impossible for him not to know that his powers were only now coming to their full strength, and that his real work lay yet before hira. " I have work to do that I know is good;" he said when he heard he had only a few days to live. *' I will try to win but one week more to write some part of it down." Another conquest than this however lay before him. It was as death drew nearer still that for the first time he said, ''Now I am weary ; I can work no more." Thus he laid down with uncom- plaining patience the task he had taken up with unflinching courage. " God so granted it him." In those last days, as in his latest thouglits, the great love he bore his country was still as it had ever been the true inspiration of his life. The single aim that guided all his work till the end came, was the desire to quicken in others that eager sense which he himself had of how rich the inheritance of our fathers is with the promise of the future, and to XIV PREFACE. 1)ring home to every Englishman some part of the beauty that kindled his own enthusiasm in the story, whether old or new, of the English People. A very few words will explain the work w^liich was left to me by my husband to do in preparing this volume for publication. In the earlier part of the book I have carried out the alterations in the order of subjects which had been decided on by him, and the first six chapters may be looked on as representing his final plan, save that some alterations w^ould have been made in the first chapter, and some passages, such as the account of the shires, were not rewritten iis he had intended. Chapters vii. and viii. were left in a wholly unfinished state, having been laid aside lor consideration and revision. The materials for them had not even been drawn into any consecutive order, and I am responsible for the division and naming of these chapters, and in great part for the arrangement of the subjects. The closing chapters (ix., x., xi.), which have been included in the book according to Mr. Green's later plan, stand on a different footing from the rest. They w^ere written many years ago, I believe in 1875, and were then laid aside and never revised in any way. The materials for them existed partly ^^vjir-^if «.-',-'gi" -^-«-. 758-793 793-806. Three CONTENTS. Causes which led to the developeraent of the ''justice of the king" The king and his court The king's progresses Their influence on public justice The results of the consolidation of Britain into the Kingdoms — In the growing importance of tlie king . In the decline of the aetheling In the elevation of the thegn In the loss of power of the folk-moot . In the change of character of the Witenagemot Causes which led to the overthrow of the balance of power the Three Kingdoms .... Internal condition of Northumbria Its religious and intellectual life . Invasion of th) northmen and its results The apparent strength of Mercia . Its real weakness ... . . The superiority of Wessex derived from the character of the country From the varied composition of the kingdom From its administrative order Tlie character of Ecgberht's supremacy PACK 29,30 31 32 33 among CHAPTER II. THE COMING OF THE WIRINGS. 829- 858. 787. 793, 794. Tlie first coming of the pirates . Their raids on Northumbria . The significance of their attack . Growth of the Scandinavian peoples Conditions of their life Character of their country . . 33, 34 . 34, 35 . 35 36 36—38 38,39 40,41 41,42 43 44 45 45,46 46 47 48,49 . 50, 51 51 52 52,53 54,55 . 56 - CONTENTS. » igion . . t A.J). 800. 810. 834. C. 820. 832. [ 838. 839. 837 et seq. 837-845. 845. 845-848. 838. 851. 855. 853. 854. Their early customs and religion . TheWikings Their mode of warfare .... The causes of their wanderings . The two lines of their attack on Europe Settlement of the northmen in South Jutland Their attack on the Franks .... The death of Godfrid and civil war in South Jutland Descent of the northmen on the Isle of Sheppey Their descent on Ireland .... Thorgil's settlement in Ireland Its effect in arousing the West-Welsh to arms Effect of the pirate attacks in arresting the consolidation of England The political relations of Wessex and Kent . The military resources of Wessex Eelation of the Church to the Prankish kings Peculiar position of the English bishops National character of the Church . Effect upon the Church of the pirate invasion Its alliance with the West-Saxon kings Death of Ecgberht and accession of ^Ethelwulf Extension of the Wiking settlement in Ireland The Wikings attack Wessex Death of Thorgils 856. 856. 857. The pirates leave Wessex to attack Frankland Importance of Kent Pirate-raids on East-Anglia and Kent . iEthelwulf 's victory at Aclea Pirate settlement in the Isle of Sheppey -^thelwulf s foreign policy .... -^thelwulf 's conquest of the North-Welsh . ^thelwulf's pilgrimage to Rome . The Franks under Charles the Bald -^thelwulf's visit to Charles the Bald, and his Judith Wessex rises against -<3Ethelwulf . uEthelwulf retires to Kent and is succeeded ir Wessex by ^thelbald 83,84 b marriage with XXI PAGE 57,58 58 59 60,61 62 62 63 63,64 64 65,66 66 67 68 69 69,70 70 71 72 72 73 73 74 75 76 76,77 77,78 77,78 79 79 79,80 80 81 81 82 82, 83 ' • n-. ■. xxu CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. THE MAKING OF THE DANELAW. 858—878. A.D. 858. 860. 866. PAGE 866. 867. 868, 869. 870. 871. 849. 871. 871. 871. 874. 875. 876. 876. 877. Death of ^thelwulf 85 85 86 86 87 87,88 89,90 90,91 91,92 92,93 94 95 96 96 96,97 97 98 99, 100 99 101 101 102 102 103 104 105 106 -ffithelbald dies and is succeeded by ^thelberht . Death of uEthelberht and accession of ^thelred . Extent of the Scandinavian conquests . The importance of Britain to the pirates First appearance of the Danes .... Their mode of warfare ...... Attack of the Danes on East-Anglia under Ivar the Boneless Their attack on Northumbria and conquest of York . Ruin of the religious houses . . ... Position of the Primate of York -^thelred drives the Danes back from Mercia The Danish conquest of East-Anglia under Ivar and Hubb Martyrdom of Eadmund of East-Anglia Mercia pays tribute to the Danes The danger of Wessex . The Danish attack on Wessex The birth of Alfred . His childhood His position as Sscundarius . Political significance of his marriage .... Danish victory at Reading and encampment on Ashdown Importance of this position ^thelred's victory at Ashdown Alfred becomes king Alfred buys peace from the Danes .... The Danish conquest of Mercia Halfdene conquers Bernicia and ravages Cumbria and Strath- clyde ......... The pirates gather their forces for a final attack on Wessex Guthrum's attack on the southern coast Alfred recovers Exeter from the Danes 106, 107 . 107 . 108 108, 109 CONTENTS. XXUl A.D. 878. 878. 878. lies 876. 7/. 880. The Danes overrun Wessex . Alfred falls back behind Selwood His refuge in Athelney . iElf red's victory at Edington The peace of Wedmore Its political consequences Its effect on the European struggle with the pirates The importance of the Danish settlement in Britain The Danish settlement in Northumbria Traces in Yorkshire of this settlement . The northern trade . . . . Traces of their settlement in York . . Their political organization and the Trithings . The Danish settlement in Mid-Britain . The political organization in Mid- Britain The distribution of settlers .... The Danish settlement in East-Anglia . The character of Guthrum's kingdom . Its English institutions, and adoption of Christianity the Danes ........ Relations of the Danelaw with the Scandinavian realras Relation of the Danelaw to Wessex .... Real significance of the Danish settlement .* • • PAGE 109 . 109 ,110 . 110 ,111 • • 111 • • 111 • • 112 • • 113 • • 114 • • 115 . 116, 117 • • 118 • • 119 • ■ 120 • • 121 • • 122 . 122, 123 • • 123 • • 124 ty by • • 125 . 126 ,127 • • 128 • • 129 CHAPTER IV. iELFRED. 878—901. Results of the want of political organization in the Danelaw Danger of JElfred's position .... f8-884. Years of peace Material and moral disorganization in Wessex Military disorganization and weakness of the fyrd Extinction of the free ceorls and growth of the theg about by the war 135 iElfred's employment of the thegns for military service . . 136 Alfred's re-construction of the military system . . . 136, 137 b 2 . 130 . 131 . 131 132. 133 133—135 ns brought A.D. 897. / 878-884 884. 884. 886. 886. C. 887. 890. 893. 893. 894. 898. 896, 897. xxiv CONTENTS. His creation of a navy 137 ^^^^ The reorganization of public justice 139 The new relation of the king to justice .... 140 141 Importance of English Mercia 142 Effect of the Danish wars on the kingly houses of Britain . .143 -Alfred becomes king of the Mercians .... 143 144 iElfred's work in introducing a common law among the English P^^P^^s 145,146 The descents of the Danes on Frankland .... 147 148 Renewal of the Danish attack on England 143 The rising of East-Anglia 149 London under the Danes of East-Anglia . . . .149 150 Alfred recovers London from Guthrum . . . . .151 Frith between Alfred and Guthrum 151 The division of Essex . . . , ^ . 151 152 Importance of the recovery of the Thames valley and of London 152, 153 Upgrowth of a new national sentiment . . . . 153 1 54 The intellectual ruin brought about by the Danish wars . 154, 155 Importance of Wessex for the preservation of English civilization 156 Alfred's restoration of learning 156 157 He draws men of learning to his court .... 158 159 iElf red's work in the formation of English literature . . 160, 161 English the first prose literature of the modem world . .162 .Alfred's translations ig2 164 The Bishop's Roll of Winchester 1(54 iqq Alfred's work on the Chronicle 166 167 The historical importance of the Chronicle I67 Death of Guthrum jgg Growth of the Scandinavian kingdoms .... 168 169 Harold Fair-hair jg9 Impulse given to the pirate-raids 169 170 Renewal of the Danish attack on southern Britain . . .170 Hasting ravages Wessex jyj The rising of the Danelaw . ^ jyj Alliance of the Danes and the Welsh 172 Hasting's occupation of Chester . . . . . . .173 Defeat of the Danes and ending of the war . . . 173 1 74 iElfred's life 1 74' 175 His love of strangers . . i'jq I .; A.D. J©01. >01. »0I. ►07. HO. >11. »12. »13. 9|B, 919. '921. ^fil, 922. 917, 918. 922. 922. CONTENTS. Foundation of Athelney Othere and Wulfstan .... The organization of iEIfred's court The royal revenue .... iElfred's connexion with the Continent His relations with the Welsh His relations with Bernicia and the Scots Growth of the Scot kingdom Death of .Elfred Character of Alfred .... XXV PAGE 177, 178 178, 179 . 180 181,182 182, 183 . 183 . . 184 184, 185 . 186 186—188 CHAPTER V. THE HOUSE OF iELFRED. 901—937. Ead ward the Elder 189,190 Peace with the Danes ^9^^ Eadward takes the title of " King of the Anglo-Saxons " . . 192 The weakness of English Mercia 193 Eadward fortifies Chester 194 195 Outbreak of war with the Danes 195 Eadward' s kingdom threatened from the north and from the south 196 Eadward's annexation of the Thames valley Opening of war with East-Anglia Eadward's conquest of southern Essex. iEthelflsed seizes the line of the Watling Street The Watling Street ^thelflaed's advance on the Upper Trent i5i]thelflsed secures the line of the Avon Eadward's advance on the Ouse . He conquers Northampton .... He completes the conquest of East-Anglia, Essex, and the Fens ^thelflaed attacks the Five Boroughs . Death of ^thelflaed Eadward completes the conquest of Mid-Britain Mercia made part of the West-Saxon kingdom Political results of the conquest of the Danelaw 196, 197 . 198 . 198 . 198 199, 200 200, 201 201, 202 203, 204 . 204 204, 205 206, 207 . 207 207, 209 . 209 . 209 tato XXVI CONTENTS. CONTENTS. A.D. 924.. 924. 925. 925. 926. / 912. 926-930. 929. 933- om of the Tlie growth of commendation Growth of the new territorial character of the kingship Importance of the oath of allegiance . Danger of Eadward's position His fortification of the north-west frontier . Relation of Wessex to Bernicia and the kingd( Scots The northern league against Eadward . Submission of the north to Eadward . ^thelstan becomes king .... His policy . Submission of the northern league to iEthelstan Submission of the Welsh .... -^thelstan becomes King of Northumbria . Fusion of Danes and Englishmen Character of ^Ethelstan's Witenagemots The work of the Witenagemots for public order The regulation of trade and of coinage The origin of frith-gilds .... Use of the word " shire " . . . . West-Saxon origin of the shire The early extension of the shire-system in Wessex The extension of the shire over Mercia . The extension of the shire over the Danelaw The position of the shire-reeve Importance of his financial work . Growth of his authority .... The imperial claims of J^thelstan The real weakness of his empire ... Danger from the northmen of Ireland . Danger from the northmen of Gaul Hrolf's settlement in Gaul .... The results of this settlement on France and on England Relations of the Danelaw and Normandy The growth of the Norman duchy The effect on the foreign policy of the English ki iEthelstan's alliances with foreign powers . The dangers which threatened William Longsword His successful alliance with the House of Paris mgs PAaE 1 209, 210 i A.D. ^34. 210,211 i 211,212 m 212, 213 ■ 37. 213, 214 M 215,216 fl . 216 ■ 216,217 ■ 217,218 1 . 219 I 219,220 M 220, 221 , ■ . 221 1 222, 223 M 223 225 ■ 225, 226 1 227, 228 ■ 228 230 I 230. 231 1 231. 232 1 232 234 1 936. »36. 234 236 1 236, 237 1 . 238 ■ . 239 1 940. . 240 I 240, 241 I 941. . 242 1 242, 243 m 943. . 243 1 243. 244 M 244. 245 m . 246 fl >44. »44. 247, 248 ■ 248 250 H 249. 250 1 250. 251 1 . 251 1 945. 945. 946. XXVll PAflE Results of his policy seen in the renewal of the northern league against uiEthelstan 252, 253 The significance of the league 253 The battle of Brunanburh 254, 255 CHAPTER VI. WESSEX AND THE DANELAW. 937—955. Political consequences of the battle of Brunanburh Restoration of the Northumbrian under-kingship . The weakness of the monarchy .... Political reorganization of Britain Position of the ealdormen The ealdormanries of East-Anglia and Essex Eric Blood-axe xEthelstan sets Eric as king in Northumbria ^^thelstan continues his former policy with regard to Lewis From-over-sea king of the West-Franks . The support given to him by ^thelstan The difficulties of Lewis and failure of iEthelstan schemes ... .... Death of iEthelstan and accession of Eadmund . Eadmund's policy The revolt of the Danelaw . The position of Wulfstan of York . The revival of the English Danelaw Growth of the Norman power Invasion of Normandy by Lewis . Reduction of the Danelaw by Eadmund Political relations of Eadmund with the north Cumbria under the Northumbrian and West-Saxon kin Norwegian settlements in Cumbria The grant of Cumbria to the Scottish kings . Eadmund's reform of the custom of the feud Normandy freed from the West-Franks Death of Eadmund . 256 . 257 . 257, 258 . 258, 259 . 259, 260 . 260, 261 . 262, 263 . 263, 264 Normandy 265 . 265 . 266, 267 s political . 267, 268 . 268, 269 . 269, 270 . 270 . 271 272 . 272, 273 . 273 . 273, 274 . 274 ITS . 275, 276 . 276, 277 . 277, 278 . 278, 279 . 280 . 280 ^ J» '/ xxviii CONTENTS. A.D. c. 94.0. Before 946 946. 947. 94.7, 948. 948. 949-952. 954. 954. 955, 955. 955. 956. 956. 956. 957. 957-958. 958. 959. The ehildliood and youth of Dunstan He becomes a monk • • , He is made Abbot of Glastonbury Eadred becomes kino- Dunstan becomes counsellor to Eadred Significance of Eadred's coronation Submission of the north to Eadred The rising of Northumbria under Eric Hiring Eadred ravages Northumbria and Eric is driven out Uiaf, Sihtric's son, rules in Northumbria Final submission of the Danelaw . Northumbria made into an earldom Dunstan's school at Glastonbury . ^thelwold's school at Abingdon . Their influence on English literature Eadred claims imperial supremacy over the ^hole of Britain Jliaared's death CHAPTER VII. THE GREAT EALDORMEN. 955—978. Changes in the political state of England Growth of the royal power . Its weakness . Position of the ealdormen Limitations to their power Accession of Eadwig Strife of the three political parties in the realm Coronation of Eadwig . Exile of Dunstan . • • • iElfhere made ealdorman of Mercia The significance of this step Eadwig's marriage to ^Ifgifu The revolt against Eadwig and diVision of the kingdom Ea gar made king of the Mercians, and return of Dunstan i^catii of Eadwig and accession of Eadgar PAOE 281—284 . 284 . 285 . 286 286, 287 287, 288 . 289 289, 290 . 291 291, 292 292, 293 . 293 294, 295 295, 296 296—298 298. 299 299. 300 V A.T>. 059. 064. 301, 302 302, 303 ^M . 330 M . 304 \W^' . 305 i|75. . 305 306, 307 iL. 307, 308 . 309 078. . 309 V'-^ . 310 \ . 311 3^ 311-313 ! B . 314 B . 315 H ^g states Cranborn* CONTENTS. Creation of two West-Saxon ealdormanries Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury . The union of the king and the primate in the governi realm Character of Eadgar .... The peace and order of his government Relations of England with the surroundin Eadgar's relations to the Danelaw His policy towards the Danish settlers . The industrial condition of England . Customary rents and payment of labour Instances of Hurstbourn and Dyddenham The rural society as shown in the manor of The class of slaves .... The protection given them by the Church The inland trade of the country . The "chapman" The gleeman The revival of literature under Dunstan His revival of historical learning. Historical school of Worcester . The decline of monasticism during the Danish w Its revival in middle and southern England The influence of tlie secular clergy The political position of the bishops . Eadgar and the ealdormen . The rule of Eadgar His coronation His death Disputed succession to the crown Eadward the Martyr .... Growth of the contest between the nobles and the Murder of Eadward .... Accession of ^Ethelred II. . Death of Dunstan . lent ais crov vn XXIX PAOE 315-317 . 317 of the 317—319 320,321 321, 322 323, 324 325, 326 327, 328 328—330 330, 331 331, 332 332, 333 . 333 334, 335 . 335 336, 337 . 338 .. 339 . 340 341,342 342, 343 344, 345 . 346 347, 348 348, 349 349, 350 . 351 351,352 352 353 354 355 356 357, 358 XXX CONTENTS. i I / A.r>. 900-936. 936-965. 965-986. 986. 980-991. 991. 992 992 992. 994. 995. 997-999. c. lOOO. 1002. 943-996. 996-1026. 1002. 1002. CHAPTER VIII. THE DANISH CONQUEST. 988—1016. The breaking up of the old social organization of English The creation of the Danish monarchy under Gorm the Old Its extension under Harald Blue-tooth • • • Decline of his power .... His death and the accession of Swein * • • • Svvein's hurial-feast for Harald • • . . Swein driven from Denmark becomes a wiking . New pirate raids on England Battle of Maldon Character of ^thelred the Unrtedi^r . ^thelred's policy towards the ealdormen Tlie dangers which threatened England ^Ethelred's treaties with the Norwegian host and Normandy Breach of the peace between English and Norwegians Olaf Tryggvason The union of Olaf and Swein in an attack on England Their league is broken up by the English policy . Renewed attacks of the pirates ^thelred's vigorous measures of defence Swein recovers his Danish kingdom .... Death of Olaf ^Ethelred's alliance with the Normans " • • • Character of the Norman duchy The difficulties that threatened it from without and within The policy of its dukes Condition of Normandy under Richard the Fearless The reign of Richard the Good • • • • • Importance of the English alliance with Normandy Strife between iEthelred and his nobles The massacre of St. Brice's day PAGE the 359—361 361—363 363—365 365, 366 . 366 367, 368 . 369 . 369 . 370 371,372 373, 374 374, 375 with 375, 376 377, 378 . 378 . 379 380, 381 . 382 . 383 . 384 . 385 . 386 . 387 387, 388 . 389 . 390 . 391 392, 393 393—394 395, 396 ^ A.D. I003. I 1004. 1004-1006. 1006. , I007. IO07-1OO9. I 009, lOlO. % ,1012. 1013. 1014. 1014. ♦ I015. 1016. * I016. 1016. 1016. 1016. L017. 1020. CONTENTS. Swein again attacks Wessex And East-Anglia .... Continued strife among the ministers of ^thelred Changes among the ealdormen . The high reeve Eadric . Pirate raids on Wessex ^thelred's internal reforms . His military and naval reforms . The revenue of the crown . National taxation .... Fresh attack of the Danes under Thurkill The Danish fleet bought off by tribute The great invasion under Swein . His conquest of England The flight of ^Ithelred and its results The death of Swein .... Cnut chosen King by the Danish host . His attack on England .... Political strife in England, and treachery of Eadric Death of iEthelred and accession of Eadmund Ironsi Cnut's siege of London The battle of Assandun and division of England Death of Eadmund Ironside CHAPTER IX. THE REIGN OF CNUT. 1016—1035. Cnut King of England His measures for the settlement of the realm His marriage with Emma .... The character of the Danish conquest . Modified by the political condition of England And of Scandinavia ..... Results of the Conquest .... Character of Cnut's rule .... His government according to national laws and custom The rise of Godwine . XXXI PAOB . 396 . 397 . 398 . 399 399, 400 . 400 . 401 . 402 403, 404 405, 406 406—408 408, 409 . 410 . 411 411,412 . 412 . 413 . 413 414, 415 415,416 . 416 417,418 . 418 . 419 . 420 . 420 421,422 422, 423 . 423 . 424 . 425 425, 426 . 427 V-. XXXll CONTENTS. CONTENTS. li 1025. 1027. 1028. 1031. The local organization of the realm under Cnut His developement of the administrative system His institution of the Royal Chapel His maintenance of the land-tax His military system His policy towards tlie Church His temper towards England The peace of his reign . His conception of government Developement of English trade Growth of Oxford. Nottingham . Gloucester and Worcester The sea-ports. Chester Bristol .... The ports of the southern coast The trade of the eastern coast The ports of the east coast . York . • • • • • Early London Conditions of the English settlement there Settlement round St. Paul's . First settlement of the " Cheap " The " East-Cheap " Growth of London under the West-Saxon ml Its early municipal life . . . , Extension of London to the northward Growth of its trade under Eadgar Extension of eastern London Importance of London under Cnut Cnut's foreign policy .... His pilgrimage to Rome His conquest of Norway His policy towards the Scot kings Relations of the Scot kings with the house of Alfred The political arrangement between Cnut and Malcolm Lothian becomes part of the Scottish realm . The danger which threatened Cnut from Normandy 1023-1035. State of Normandy under Robert the Devil PAGE . 428 V A-D. 1027. . 429 1035. . 430 ^1035. . 431 . 432 '( 432, 433 «. . 434 434, 435 435, 436 « . 436 ■ 437—439 ■ . 439 m . 440 n 440—443 f 1035. 443 445 ♦'- :■: 445 447 ,,lf36. 447 449 449, 450 JB40. 450 452 JS-1042. . 452 '.g[§4.2. . 453 ^■43. 454, 455 456, 457 . 458 459, 460 460, 461 . 462 463, 464 464, 465 465, 466 Has. . 466 . 467 ^§46. . 468 ■K7. . 469 469, 470 . 471 47. 471,472 472, 473 ' . 474 Birth of William the Conqueror He becomes Duke of Normandy Death of Cnut The break-up of his empire CHAPTER X. THE HOUSE OF GODWIN E. 1035—1053. The policy of Cnut carried on by Godwine . Godwine's support of Harthacnut in Wessex Harald Harefoot chosen king at Oxford The division of England .... The murder of the iEtheling Alfred . Its results Death of Harald Harefoot Reign of Harthacnut The iEtheling Eadward summoned to England His coronation The position of Godwine The state of Normandy under duke William Character of William The Norman sympathies of Eadward the Confessor The state of England at his accession . The earldom of Northumbria .... The earldom of Mercia The earldom of Wessex The supremacy of Earl Godwine .... The jealousies aroused by it The outlawry of Swein Opposition to Godwine' s policy towards Scandinavia Effect of Normandy on English politics Lanfranc Revolt against William in Normandy . William's victory at Val-^s-Dunes His mastery of Normandy Relations of the French kings to Normandy and Anjou xxxiu PAQR 475 476 476 477 478, 479 479 480 480 482 483 484 484. 485 485. 486 . 487 487, 488 . 489 . 490 491. 492 492. 493 495—497 497. 498 498. 499 499. 500 . 501 . 501 502, 503 . 503 . 504 . -505 . 506 .. 507 . 508 XXXIV CONTENTS. CONTENTS. XXXV I . A.D. io4a I 1 1049. 1049. 1030. 1050. 1051. 1051. 1051. 1051. 1062. William's alliance with France against Anjou . . . . Eesults of William's victories on the course of events in England and on its relations with foreign states Flanders Its commercial and political importance The Empire Its relations with the new religious movement Its alliance with the Papacy The rising of Lower Lorraine, Holland, and Flanders William's attempt to form an alliance with Flanders Traditional policy of alliance between England and Flanders Its maintenance by Godwine His precautions against William's policy The council of Rheims .... Its political significance .... The Norman alliance with Flanders broken off The alliance of Flanders secured for England Svvein restored to his English earldom . Strife between Eadward and Godwine about the Primacy Kobert of Jumieges made Archbishop of Canterbury . Widening of the quarrel between Godwine and the king The outbreak of open strife .... Siward and Leofric support the king . The flight and outlawry of Godwine . Godwine and his sons take refuge in Flanders and Ireland Results in England of his flight . The visit of William the Norman Godvrine's position in Flanders . The return of Godwine .... The meeting with the king at London , The restoration of Godwine and his house . The position maintained by the king . The position of Siward and Leofric Godwine and the primacy .... Stigand replaces Robert as archbishop . The character of Godwine .... Note on the growth of the royal administration PAGE 509 . 510 . 511 . 512 . 513 . 514 . 515 . 516 516,517 . 517 . 518 . 519 519, 520 . 520 . 521 . 522 532, 524 . 524 . 525 . 526 . 527 . 528 . 529 . 529 . 530 . 531 . 532 . 533 . 534 534, 535 . 536 536, 537 . 537 . 538 539—541 542—548 1053 CHAPTER XL TUE NORMAN CONQUEST. 1053—1071. The attitude of William of Normandy He carries out his scheme of alhaHce with Flanders The difficulties which followed his marriage with Matilda His victory at Mortemer Death of Godwine Harold becomes Earl of Wessex His character His policy towards the crown And towards the rival earls . Siward and the Scot kings . Death of Siward . Tostig made earl of Northumbria Significance of this step Alliance between the house of Leofric and Wales Settlement of the earldoms under Harold Death of the ^theling Eadward . The growth of Harold's ambition His election as king met by the claims of William The Norwegian invasion and battle of Stamford Brid^,-< The Norman invasion and battle of Senlac Coronation of WiUiam . Rising against William . National revolt of the English The close of the Conquest Note on Archbishop Stigand Note on the character of Harold PAGB 549, 550 550, 551 . 552 . 553 . 554 . 554 . 555 . 556 . 557 558, 559 . 560 . 560 560—563 . 564 564, 565 . 565 566, 567 . 568 . 569 569—572 . 573 . 574 575. 576 576. 577 578—581 582—585 li M PORTRAIT Engraved hy G. J. SroDART/rom a chalk drawing by F. Sandys. f \ )• LIST OF MAPS. I 1 11 * I* I. England, 1883 II. Lines of Northern Invasions III. England at the Treaty of Wedmore . IV. The Campaigns of Eadward and iEthelflsed V. England under the Ealdormen . VI. Early Oxford VII. Early Chester VIII. Early York IX. Early London To face page 1 » » 62 )» ?> 112 J) jj 197 » » 316 • • • 437 • • • 441 • • • 451 To face page 455 1 1 ' 4 ^ mmmmm I." .! . I ii 11 I'l ! EKGLAA^D, 1883. London: Jttacanillaa & Co: Pfiffe i THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAPTER 1. THE ENGLAND OF ECGBERHT. Few periods of our history seem drearier and more unprofitable to one who follows the mer(i course of political events than the two hundred years which close with the submission of the English states to Ecgberht/ The petty and ineffectual strife of the Three Kingdoms, Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex, presents few features of human interest, while we are without the means of explaining the sudden revolu- tions which raise and depress their pow(3r, or their final subsidence into isolation and inaction. It is only when we view it from within that we see the importance of the time. It was in fact an age of revo- lution, an age in which mighty changes were passing over every phase of the life of Englishmen ; an age in which heathendom was passing into Cliristianity, the tribal kino; into the national ruler, the sethelino- 1 See " Making of England," chap. viii. (A. S. G.) B Social changes ?';? Britain. The England of Ecgberht. C/iaracter of its population. I III > t s ( :2 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. cuAi\ I. into tlic tliegu ; aii age in which English society saw the bc^innini:j:s of the change which transformed the noble into a lord, and the free ccorl into a dependent or a serf; an age in whicli new moral conceptions told on the fabric of our early juris[)rudence and in which custom began to harden into written law. Without, the new England auain became a member of the Euro- pean commonwealth, wdiile witliin, the very springs of national life were touched hy the mingling of new blood with the blood of the nation itself. The ethnological character of the country hnd in fact changed since the close of the age of conquest. The area of the ground subject to English rule was far greater than in the days of Ceawlin or iEthelfrith, but in the character of its popuLition the portion added was very difTercnt from the earlier area ; for while the Britons had been wholly driven off from the eastern half of the island, in the western part they remained as subjects of the conquerors. It was thus that in Ecgberht's day Britain had come to consist of three long belts of country, two of which stretched side by side from the utmost north to the utmost south, and the population of each of which was absolutely diverse. Between the eastern C(jast and a line wdiich we may draw along the Selkirk and Yorkshire moorlands to the Cots wolds and Selwood, lay a people of Avholly English Ijlood. AVestward again of the Tamar, of the western hills of Hereford- shire, and of Offa s Dyke, lay a people whose blood w^as wholly Celtic. Between them, from the Lune to the coast of Dorset and Devon, ran the lands of the Wealhcyn, of folks, that is, in whose veins « CHAP. I. ^ The England of Ecgberht. of race. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. British' and English blood ^' already blending together and presaging in their mingling a wider blending of these elements in the nation as a whole. The winning of Western Britain opened in fact a The mixture way to that addition of outer elements to the pure ' English stock which has gone on from that day to this without a break. Celt and Gael, Welshman and Irishman, Frisian and Flamand, French Huguenot « and German Palatine, have come successively in, Mdth '^ a hundred smaller streams of foreign blood. ' The intermingling of races has nowhere been less hindered by national antipathy ; and even the hindrances inter- posed by law, such as Offa's prohibition ol' marriage between English and Welsh, or Edward III.'s prohibi- tion of marriage between English and Irish, have met with the same disregard. The result is that so far as blood goes few nations are of an origin more mixed than the present English nation; for there is no living Englishman who can say with certainty that the blood of any of the races we have named does not mingle in his veins. As regards the political or social structure of the people, indeed, this inter- mingling of blood has had little or no result They remain purely English and Teutonic. The firm English groundwork which had been laid by the character of the early conquest has never been dis- turbed. Gathered gradually in, tribe by trib(3, fugitive by fugitive, these outer elements were quietly absorbed into a people whose social and political form was already fixed. But though it would be hard to dis- tinguish the changes wrought by the mixture of race B 2 v) CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. C/ianicter of its pojndutlon. /^h THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND, into the tlicgii ; an age in whieh English society .saw the LcG;innino;s of the change Avliich transformed tlie o o o noble into a lord, and the free ccorl into a dependent or a serf; an age in whicli new moral conceptions told on the fabric of onr early jnris[)rudence and in which custom beo^an to harden into written law. Without, the new England a^ain became a member of the Euro- })ean commonwealth, while witliin, the very springs of national life were touched by tlie mingling of new blood with the blood of the nation itself. The ethnological character of the country hnd in fact changed since the close of the age of conquest. The area of the ground subject to English rule was far greater than in the days of Ceawlin or yEthelfrith, but in the character of its popuhition the portion added was very different from the earlier area ; for while the Britons had been wholly driven off from the eastern half of the island, in the western part they remained as subjects of the conquerors. It was thus tliat in Ecgberht's da}'^ Britain had come to consist of three long belts of country, two of which stretched side by side from the utmost north to the utmost south, and the population of each of which was absolutely diverse. Between the eastern C(jnst and a line which we may draw along the Selkirk and Yorkshire moorlands to the Cots wolds and Selwood, lay a people of wholly English blood. Westward again of the Tamar, of the western hills of Hereford- shire, and of Offa s Dyke, lay a people whose blood was wholly Celtic. Between them, from the Lunc to the coast of Dorset and Devon, ran tlie lands of the Wealhcyn, of folks, that is, in whose veins CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. British and English blood ^e already blending together and presaging in their mingling a wider blending of these elements in the nation as a whole. The winning of Western Britain opened in fact a Tke .nature way to that addition of outer elements to the pure ""^ '''^'^ English stock which has gone on from tliat day to this without a break. Celt and Gael, Welshman and Irishman, Frisian and Flamand, French Huguenot and German Palatine, have come successively in, with a hundred smaller streams of foreign blood. ' The intermingling of races has nowhere been less hindered by national antipathy ; and even the hindrances inter- posed by law, such as Offa's prohibition of marriacre between English and Welsh, or Edward III.'s prohibi- tion of marriage between English and Irish, have met with the same disregard. The result is that so far as blood goes few nations are of an origin more mixed than the present English nation; for there is no living Englishman who can say with certainty that the blood of any of the races we have named does not mingle in his veins. As regards the political or social structure of the people, indeed, this inter- mingling of blood has had little or no result They remain purely English and Teutonic. The firm English groundwork which had been laid by the character of the early conquest has never been dis- turbed. Gathered gradually in, tribe by trib.i, fugitive by fugitive, these outer elements were quietly absorbed into a people whose social and political form was already fixed. But though it would be hard to dis- tinguish the changes wrought by the mixture of race B 2 ^ \ CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. Character of the country. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. from the changes wrought by the lapse of time and the different circumstances which surround each generation, there can be no doubt that it has brought with it moral results in modifying the character of the nation. It is not without significance that the highest type of the race, the one Englishman who has combined in their largest measure the mobility and foncy of the Celt with the depth and energy of the Teutonic temper, was born on the old Welsh and English borderland, in the forest of Arden. Side by side with this change in the character of its population had gone on a change in the character of the country itself. Its outer appearance indeed still remained much the same as in earlier days. Not half its soil had as yet been brought under tillage ; as the traveller passed along its roads, vast reaches of forest, of moor, of fen, formed the main landscape before him • even the open and tilled districts were broken every- where by woods and thickets which the farmer needed for his homestead, for his fences, for his house-build- ing, and his fire. But limited as was its cultivation Britain was no longer the mere sheet of woodland and waste which the English had found it. Popu- lation had increased,^ and four hundred years of labour had done their work in widening the clearings and thinning the woods. We have already caught glimpses of such a work in the moorlands of the north, in the fens of the Wash, in the thickets of Arden, as the monk carried his axe into the forest, or the thegn planted tillers over the grants that had been ^ Lingard ("Ang.-Sax. Church," i. 185) infers this from the new upgrowth of churches. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. carved for him out of the waste " folk-land." The study of such a tract as the Andredswc^ald would show the same ceaseless struggle with nature — Sussex- men and Surrey-men mounting over the South- downs and the North-downs to hew their way forward to the future meeting of their shire-bounds in the heart of the Weald, while the vast herds of swine that formed the advance guard of the Cant- wara who were cleaving their way westward along the Medway, pushed into the "dens" or glades in the woodland beyond. We can see the general results of this industrial warfare in a single district, such as Dorset. When the English landed in Britain no tract was wilder or less civilized ; its dense forest-reaches in fixct checked the westward advance of the conquerors, and forced them to make their way slowly along the coast from the Stour to the Exe. Even when the Dor- ssetan were fairly settled there, the names of their hundreds and of the try sting places of their courts show the wild state of the land. The hundred-moots gather at barrow or den, at burn or ford, in comb or vale, in glade or woodland, here beside some huge boulder or stone, there on the line of a primaeval foss-dyke, or beneath some mighty and sacred tree.^ ' For barrow-trysts, cf. Albretesberga (afterwards Cran- bourne), Badbury, Modbury, Langeberga, Chalbury, Hunes- berga ; for " duns," Canendon (Wimbourne), Faringdon, Gloch- resdon : for boulders, Stane (Cerne Abbas), Golderonestone, some monolith by Burton Bradstock ; for trees, Cuferdstroue, a tree on Culliford Barrow in Whitcomb parish ; for foss, Concresdic or Combsditch ; for glade, comb, burn, ford, \^'ood, Cocden, Uggescomb, Sherborne, Tollerford, Ayleswood. CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. Dorset. 6 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. But even its hundred names show how soon the winning of the land began. Dorchester tells of the new life growing up on the Eoman ruins, Knolton and Gillmgham of the new "tons" and "hams" which rose about the settlements of the conquerors • while Beaminster, Yetminster, and Christchurch recall the work o^ the new Christendom that settled at last on the soil. Nowhere indeed was the industrial work of the Church more energetic • we have seen how Ealdhelm planted centres of ao-ricul- ture as well as of religion at Sherborne and Ware- ham, and if more than a third of the shire belonged in later days to the clergy, it was in the mlin because monk and priest had been foremost in the reclamation of the land.' Much indeed remained to be done. As late as the eve of the Norman conquest but thirty or forty thousand inhabitants were scattered over the soil;^ the king's forest-rights stretched over wild and waste throughout half the county and even m the parts that had been won for culture' scrub and brushwood broke the less fruitful ground' while relics of the vanished woodland lingered in the copses beside every homestead, the "pannage woods" of beech and oak, and the " barren woods "of other timber that gave no mast to the swineherd. itsiMai But in spite of all, the work of civilization had be- gun. Little boroughs that, small as they were, already ./ ^l ?^ Conquest, the Bishop was the largest proprietor in the ^hole shire; he held in fact a tenth of it, while twice as ", A^r. K '^-^'^t^^Sious houses at Shaftesbury, Cerne, Milton, and Abbotsbury. Eyton, " Dorset Domesday," 156. Eyton, " Dorset Domesday," 152. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. formed. centres of social and industrial life were rising beside the harbours of the coast or clustering under the shelter of the great abbeys. Even where the bulk of the land lay waste, pastures stretched along the lower slopes of the moorland, whose herbage, though too rough and broken for the scythe, gave fair "•razing ground to the herds of the township, while by stream and river ran the meadow-lands of home- stead after homestead, clear of scrub aad thicket, o-irt in by ditch and fence. About the homestead stretched the broad acres of the corn-land, with gangs of eight oxen, each dragging its plough through the furrows. All the features of English life, in fact, all its characteristic figures were already there. We see mills grinding along the burns, the hammer riugs in the village smithy, the thegn's hall rises out of its demesne, the parish priest is at his mass-book in the little church that forms the centre of every township, reeves are sjatherino; their lord's dues, forester and ver- derer wake the silent woodland with hound and horn, the moot gathers for order and law beneatb the sacred oak or by the grey stone on the moor, along the shore the well-to-do salt-men are busy with their salt- pans, and the fishers are washing their nets in the little coast hamlets, and setting apart the due of fish for their lords. ^ CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. 1 No manor was complete without its mill, and T'omesday gives 272 mills in Dorset, some simply winter-mills, somo on streamlets that have now wholly vanished. Most of the smiths lived in the country towns. Though salt was already dug from the Cheshire mines, the want of communication forced each district to supply itself as it could, and we find in Domesday between 8 CHAP. I. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. _ Side by side, however, with this industrial change England of ^^ ^^^ temper and aspect of the country was goincr rnJlLe 'of w \ T'\ P' ''^'^ '''^°°' ^° ^*' "'^""^ ^'^^■ Christianity. ^^ ^ ^^^e already noted the more striking and pic- turesque sides of the revolution which had been wrought in the displacement of the old faith and the adoption of the new, the planting of a Church on the soil with its ecclesiastical organization, its bishops, Its priests, its court, and its councils, its language, its law, above all the new impulse given to political con- solidation by the building up of Britain into a single religious communion. But these results of the new faith were small and unimportant beside the revolu- tion which was wrought by it in individual life. From the cradle to the grave it had forced on the English- man a new law of conduct, new habits, new concep- tions of life and society. It entered above all into that sphere within which the individual will of the freeman had been till now supreme, the sphere of the home; it curtailed his powers over child and wife and slave ; it forbade infanticide, the putting away of wives, or cruelty to the serf. It challenged almost every social conception; it denied to the kino- his heritage of the blood of the gods ; it proclaimed slavery an evil, war an evil, manual labour a virtue. It met the feud face to face by denouncing revenge. It held up gluttony and drunkenness, °the very seventy and eighty salt-men along the Dorset coast, seemingly villeins but paying such large rent as to prove their trade a profitable one. Fishers too were found along the coast, villeins Ike the sa^t-men, and like them paying dues to their lords. Eyton, Dorset Domesday,'' pp. 50, 51. 9 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. essence of the old English '' feast," as sins. It claimed to control every circumstance of life. It interfered with labour-customs by prohibitions of toil on Sundays and holy days. It forced on a rude com- munity to which bodily joys were dear, long and painful fasts. Even profounder modifications were brought about by the changes it wrought in the per- sonal history of every Englishman. Ceremonialism hung round every one in those old days from the cradle to the grave, and by the contact with Christen- dom the whole character of English ceremonialism was altered. The very babe felt the change. Baptism succeeded the ''dragging through the earth" for Hertha. A new kin was created for child and parents in the " gossip " of the christening. The next great act of life, marriage, remained an act done before and with assent of the fellow-villagers ; but new bonds of affinity limited a man's choice ; and while the old hand-plighting and wed survived the priest's blessing w^as added. The burial-rite was as completely altered. The burial-fire was abolished ; and instead of restinsf beneath his mound, like Beowulf on some wind-swept headland or hill, the Christian warrior slept with his fellows in his lowly grave beneath the shade of the village church. But if the old faith was beaten by the new its strife loUh it. was long in being killed. A hundred years ^^«^^^«^^'^'- after the conversion of Kent, King Wihtrsed had still to forbid Kentish-men ''offering to devils."^ At the very close of the eighth century synods in Mercia and Northumbria were struggling against the heathen 1 Thorpe, "Anc. Laws," i. 41. ^ 10 CHAP. I. _ The England of Ecgberht. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. practice of eating horse-flesli ' at the feast to Woden. In spite of this resistance however, Wodenism was so completely vanquished that even the coming of the Danes failed to revive it. The Christian priest had no longer to struggle against the worship of TJmnder or of Frigga. But the far older nature-worship, the rude fetichism which dated back to ages long l)efore history, had tougher and deeper roots. The new religion could turn the nature-deities of this primaeval superstition into devils, its spells into magic, its spae- wives mto witches, but it could never banish them from the imagination of men ; it had in the end even to capitulate to the nature-worship, to adopt its stones and its wells, to turn its spells into exorcisms and benedictions, its charms into prayers. How persistent was the strength of the older belief we see even at a later time than we have reached. ^' If witches or diviners," says Eadward, -perjurers or morth-workers, or foul, defiled, notorious adulteresses be found anywhere within the land, let them be driven from the country and the people cleansed or let them wholly perish within the country ''^ ^thelstan, Eadmund, and ^thelred,^ are as vigorous m their enactments ; and the Church Councils were fierce in their denunciations of these lower super- stitions. - We earnestly forbid all heathendom,'' says a canon of Cnut's day. " Heathendom is that men worship idols ; that is that they worship heathen gods, 1 Confess. Ecgberti, Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," ii. 163. Haddan and Stubbs, "Councils," iii. 459. 2 Thorpe, '^ Anc. Laws," i. 173. 2 Ibid. i. 203, 247, 317. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. and the sun or the moon, fire or rivers, water- wells or stones, or great trees of any kind ; or that they love witchcraft or promote ' morth-w^ork ' in any wise, or by ' blot ' or by ' fyrht," or do anything of like illusions." ^ '' If witches or diviners, morth-workers or adidteresses, be anywhere found in the land, let them be diligently driven out of the country, or let them wholly perish in the country, save that they cease and amend." ^ The eff*ort of the kings and the Church w^as far from limiting itself to w^ords. In the tenth century w^e hear of the first instance of a death in England for heresy, in the actual drowning of a witch- wife at London Bridge.^ But against many a heathen usage even Councils did not struggle. Easter-fires, May-day-fii^es, Mid- summer-fires, with their numerous ceremonies, the rubbing the sacred flame, ^ the running through the glowing embers, the throwing flowers on th(3 fire, the baking in it and distributing large loaves and cakes, with the round dance about it, remained village- customs. At Christmas the entry of the boar s head, decked with laurel and rosemary, recalled the sacrifice of the boar to Frigga at the Midwinter feast of the old heathendom. The Autumn-Feast lingered on un- challenged in the village harvest-home with the sheaf, in old times a symbol of the god, nodding gay with flowers and ribbons on the last wagon. As the plough- man took to his plough he still chanted the prayer that, though christened as it were by the new 1 Laws of Cnut. Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," i. 379. 2 Ibid. 3 Cod. Dip. 591. 4 Kemble, ''Sax. in England," i. 360. 11 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. Survival of heathen customs. I 12 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. The clergy. I! THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. faith, remained in substance a ciy to the Earth- Goddess of the okl, " Earth, Earth, Earth, Mother Earth, grant thee the Almighty One, grant thee the Lord, acres waxing, and sprouts wantoning and the broad crops of barley, and the white wheat- crop, and all crops of earth/N So as he drove the first furrow he sang again, - Hail, Mother Earth, thou feeder of folk, be thou growing by goodness of God, filled with fodder, the folk to feed/' ^ But if Christianity failed in winning a complete victory in this strife with the primeval religion which the tradition of ages had almost made a part of human thought and feeling, its outer victory over individual and social life was unquestioned. One of its momentous results was the intrusion into the social system of a new class, that of the clergy. The shorn head had its own social rights. Bishop, priest lesser clerk, had each his legal "wer" as weU as king, thegn, ceorl. The churchmen formed a distinct element in the state, an element to which in num- bers, wealth, influence, jurisdiction, character, nothino- analogous existed in the older English society; a class with its own organization, rule, laws, discipline, carefully defined by written documents in face of a world where all was yet vague, fluctuating, traditional. But this class had hardly taken its place m English society when influences from without and from within began to modify its relation to the general body of the state ; and yet more radical modifications were brought about by the Danish wars. The very character of the Church was changed. English 1 Cockajne, '^ Saxon Leechdoms, etc.," vol. i. pp. 402—405. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1,3 CHAP. T. The England of Ecgberht. r Christianity had in its earlier days been specially monastic. But the development of the country was fast changing the relation of monasticism to its re- ligious needs. The earlier monasteries had been prac- tically mission-stations — centres from which preachers w^t out to convert the country, and from which aftc^r its conversion priests were still sent about to conduct its worship. But as the country became Christian the place of these missionaries was taken by the parish priest. The influence of the unmonastic clergy, the seculars as they were termed, superseded that of the regulars. It was not by monasteries but by its parochial organization that the Church was henceforth to penetrate into the very heart of English society. It was only by slow degrees that the parish, or The Growth kirkshire as it was then called, attained a settled form. parish. The three classes of churches which we find noted in the laws mark so many stages in the religious annexa- tion of the land. The minster, or mother church, which levied dues over wide tracts ^ recalled the earlier days when the Church still had an exclusively monastic form, and its preachers went forth from monastic centres to evangelize the country. The next stage was represented by the manorifil church, the establishment within this wide area by lord after lord of churches on their own estates ^ for the service of their dependants, the extent of whose spiritual jurisdiction was at first coincident with that of the estate itself A third class of small churches without 1 Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," i. 263, 265 ; Stiibbs, " Const. Hist." i. 262. 2 See Thorpe, "Anc. Laws," i. 191, 263. i 14 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAP. I. burial-grounds represented the growing demands of England of P^P^l'"^ religion. From Baeda's letter to Archbishop Ecgberht. Ecgberht we see that the establishment of manorial churches, that is, of what we commonly mean by a parochial system, was still far from complete, at least in Northumbria, in the middle of the eighth century ; but in the half century that followed, it had probably extended itself fairly over the land. An attempt was also made to provide a settled livelihood for the parish priests in the " tithe " or payment of a tenth of the farm-produce by their parishioners ; ^ but the obligation to pay this was still only imperfectly recognized, and the repeated injunctions of kings and synods from ^thelstan downwards witness, by their repetition, to the general disobedience. It is probable that the priest as yet relied far more for his subsistence on his dues, on the ''plough-alms'' after Easter, the ''church-shot" at Martinmas, and " light-shot" thrice in the year, as well as the "soul- shot " that was paid at the open grave. The parish Nothing is more remarkable in this extension of to^shil. *^^ ecclesiastical system than the changes wrought by it in the original unit of English social life. The stages by which the township passed into its modern form of the parish, and by which almost every trace of its civil life successively disappeared, are obscure and -hard to follow, but the change began with the first entry of the Christian priest into the township.^ The 1 " A tithe of young by Pentecost, and of earth-fruits by All HaUows mass," Laws of ^thelred. Thorpe, "Anc. Laws," i. 319. See Laws of Eadward and Guthrum, ib. p. 171. 2 Stubbs, *' Const. Hist." i. 96, 104, 260. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. village church seems often to have been built on the very mound that had served till then for the gatherings of the tunsfolk. It is through this that we so often find in later days the tun-moot held in the church- yard or ground about the church, and the <3ommon practice even now of the farmers gathering for con- ference outside the church porch before morning service may preserve a memory of this freer open- air life of the moot before it became merged in the parish vestry. The church thus became the centre of village-life; it was at the church-door as in the moot, that *' banns " were proclaimed, marriages or bargains made ; even the '' fair," or market, was held in the church-yard, and the village-feast, an institution no doubt of immemorial antiquity, was Jield on the day of the saint to which the church was dedicated ; while the priest himself as its custodian, displaced more and more the tun-reeve or elder. It was he who preserved the weights and measures of the little community,^ who headed the '' beating " of its bounds, who administered its oaths and ordeals,^ who led its four chosen men to hundred-moot or folk-moot, and sometimes even to the field. The revolution which was transforming the free township into the manor of a lord aided in giving the priest a public position. Though the lord's court (;ame to absorb the bulk of the work of the older tun-moot, the regulation and apportionment of the land, the enforcement of by-laws, the business of its police, yet the tun-moot retained the little that grant or 1 Lingard, "Anglo-Saxon Church," i. 171. 2 Ibid. ii. 132 et seq. 15 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. 16 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAP. I. custom had not stripped from it ; and it is thus that, England of ^^ ^^^ election of village officers, of churchwarden and Ecgberht. waywarden, as well as in its exercise of the right of taxation within the township for the support of church and poor, we are enabled to recognize in the parish vestry with the priest at its head the survival of the village-moot which had been the nucleus of our early life.'^ Pilgrimages. AVithout, the new faith brought England for the first time, as we have seen, into religious contact with the western world through the mission-work of Boniface and his followers in Germany, and into political contact with it through the relations w^iich this mission-work established with the Empire of the Franks. But a social contact of a far closer and more national kind was brought about by the growth of pilgrimages. At the time which we have reached, pilgrimages were among the leading features of English life. The spell which the mere name of Eome had thrown over AVilfrid and Benedict Biscop had only wrought the more widely as years went on. From churchman it passed to layman, and the enthu- siasm reached its height when English kincs laid down their crowns to become suppliants at the shrine of the apostles. Fresh from his slaughter of the Jutes in the Isle of Wight, the West-Saxon Cead- walla " went to Eome, being desirous to obtain the peculiar honour of being washed in the font of bap- tism within the church of the blessed apostles, for he had learned that in baptism alone the entrance of heaven is opened to mankind, and he hoped that 1 Stubbs, *' Const. Hist." i. 104. m THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. laying down his flesh as soon as he was baptized, he being cleansed, should immediately pass to the eternal joys of heaven. Both which things came to pass as he had conceived them in his mind. For coming to Eome," in 689, *' he was baptiz(id on the holy Saturday before Easter Day, and being still in his white garment he fell sick, was freed from the flesh," on the 20th of April, '' and was associated with the blessed in heaven." ^ Twenty years later a king of the Mercians and a king of the East Saxons quitted their thrones to take the tonsure at Eome,^ and in 725 even Ine of Wessex gave up the strife with the anarchy about him, and made his way to die amidst the sacred memories of the holy city. The pilgrimages of the kings gave a new energy to the movement, and from this time the pilgrims' way was thronged by groups of English folk, " noble and ceorl, layman and clerk, men and women." ^ The dangers and hardships of the journey failed to deter them. The road which the pilgrims followed was mainly the same by which English travelk rs now-a- days reach Italy ; they landed at Quentavic near Boulogne, which was then the chief port of the northern coast of Gaul, and crossing the high grounds of Burgundy at Langres * journeyed along the Saone valley and Savoy to the passes of Mount Cenis. It was in these Alpine districts that the 1 Bsed. H. E. lib. V. c. 7. ^ Ibid. lib. V. c. 19. 3 Bsed. H. E. lib. v. c. 7, " Quod his temporibus plures de gente Anglorum, nobiles, ignobiles, laici, clerici, viri et femioae, certatim facere, consuerunt." ^ Bseda, "Lives of Abbots of Wearmouth," sec. 21. C 17 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. Their dangers. Il 18 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 19 li CHAP. I. troubles of the pilgrims reached their heighlj; for England of ^^ ^^ Archbishop of Canterbury could be frozen Ecgberht. to death in traversing them ^ we may conjecture how severe must have been the sufferings of poorer travellers ; but to the natural hardships of the journey was added the hostility of their fellow-men. To the robber lords of the mountain valleys pilgrims were a natural prey. It was in vain that Offa and Cnut alike sought protection for their subjects from Charles the Great and the Emperor Conrad. Imperial edicts told little on the greed of these hungry moun- tain wolves ; an archbishop was plundered in Cnut's own day ; and soon after the marauders were lucky enough to pillage three bishops as well.^ It was in vain that the wayfarers gathered into companies for mutual protection ; ^ for the country with its defiles and precipices was itself on the side of their assail- ants, and in the opening of the tenth century we hear of the surprise and slaughter of two bodies of English pilgrims in the mountains. Their But neither the dangers of the journey nor the fever that awaited them at its close checked the rush of pilgrims.* The increase in number indeed had been accompanied by a falling off in the character of the travellers. In some cases the exemption from port-dues which was granted to pilgrims seems to 1 Will. Malm. " Gest. Pontiff." (Opera, ed. Migne, col. 1453). 2 Angl. Sacr. ii. 129. 3 We find eighty Englishmen in the train of Abbot Ceolfrid of Wearmouth. Bseda, " Lives of Abbots of Wearmouth," sec. 21. * " Magna febris fatigatio advenas illic venientes visitare seu gravare solet." Life of St. Winibald, ap. Canis. p. 126, quoted by Lingard, "Anglo-Saxon Church," ii. 127. popularity. CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. have been used as a cover for smugo-Hna • while the custom of enforcing a visit to the shrine of St. Peter as a penance for ecclesiastical crimes must have introduced a criminal element into the pilgrim companies. The association was the easic^r as the unshorn hair and beard which the law imposed on the " banished " man was also the customary mark of the pilgrim. Poverty too told hardly on the virtue of the women devotees; and Boniface, with a touch of priestly exaggeration, protests that by the middle of the eighth century Englishwomen of evil life could be found in every city in Lombardy.^ But the religious impulse never ceased to supply worthier pilgrims than these ; there was indeed so con- stant a stream of Englishmen traversing Eome from shrine to shrine, listening to its wild legends, gathering relics, books, gold- work, and embroidery, that it was necessary by Offa's day to found a distinct quarter of the town, called the " Saxon School/' for their reception and shelter. It would be hard to trace out the multifold forms Writtm and in which the new religion impressed itself upon the social and political organization of the peophi whom it had won. We have already seen the influence which it exerted on the intellectual development of the country, but if the art of writing, as the missionaries introduced it, made a revolution in our litiirature, it made an even greater revolution in our law. Law, as all early tribes understood it, was simply the custom of each separate people as uttered from memory by its " law-man," under check of his assessors and 1 Lett. Bonif. (ed. Giles), Ixiii. p. 146; cf. xlix. p. 104. C 2 unwritten law. 20 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. m Early English codes. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. of the gathered folk. Such utterances were looked on as changeless and divine. The authority of the past was in fact unquestioned ; the people itself was conscious of no power to change the customs of its fathers ; and it was only by an unconscious adapta- tion to the varying circumstances of each generation that this oral law was ceaselessly modified. But with the writing down of these customs the whole con- ception of law was changed. Not only was its sacred character, as well as the mystery which veiled its sources in the memory of the law-man, taken from it, but the mere writing them down fixed and hardened the customs themselves and took from them their power of adaptation and self-development ; for change in^ the laws could henceforth only be wrought con- sciously, and on grounds of reason or necessity which questioned or set aside the authority they drew from the past. What caused this revolution to be so little felt was the slowness with which it was wrought. Great as was the fame of iEthelberht's code among scholars like Baeda, it was long before the rival states followed the example of Kent. There is nothing to warrant us in believing that written law reached Wessex before Ine, or Mercia before Off*a, or that it ever reached Northumbria at all. The sphere, too, of the written code remained a narrow and partial one; it restricted itself for the most part to such customs as were affected by the new moral concep- tions which Christianity brought in and the new social order it created, or to the changes in police or in land-tenure which sprang from the natural advance THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. of population and wealth.^ jEtlielberht*s laws are little more than a record of the customary fines for penal offences, with a provision for the legal status of the new Christian priesthood, ^ and in the Kentish codes that follow, it is mainly on the ecclesiastical side that the area of legislation is widened.^ Ine found himself forced by the advance of industry and by a new state of public order to deal largely with the subjects of agriculture and police,* while fresh provisions were needed to regu- ^ The earliest codes we possess are those of Kent, the laws of ^thelberht (ab. 600), those of Hlothere and Eadric < 673— 685), and those of Wihtraed (ab. 690). Ine's laws (676 — 705) are our only West-Saxon code. The Mercian code of Offa (755 — 794), though used by Alfred in his compilation, is now lost. '^ Out of ninety clauses, forty-one fix the fines iov injury to various parts of the body. Almost all the laws refer to violent attacks on person or property : there is no mention of trade or agriculture. The Church is mentioned in the first provision alone. ^ The Church is not mentioned in Hlothere and Eadric's laws, of whose sixteen provisions about half are fines for violence, the rest being for the most part regulations as to plaints in a suit, chapmen, and man-stealing; but those of Wihtrsed are almost wholly ecclesiastical. ^ A fourth of Ine's laws are concerned with agriculture in some way or other, such as the fencing of lands, protection of woods, cattle-stealing and maiming, trespass, firing of fences, &c. Few relate to acts of violence, but nearly a quarter of the whole code is concerned with theft, while the subject of trade comes for the first time prominently forward. Legal procedure again is largely treated. Under internal police we may place the provisions for determining the relations of a man with his lord, for regulating the quitting of lands, and the like. The laws against mutilation of cattle, no doubt records of early custom, are really directed against damage done to what was the general medium of exchange, for a mutilated beast was useless for purposes of barter. 21 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. 22 CHAP. I. ^ The England of Ecgberht. m Earbj English jurispru- dence. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. late the position of the Welsh who had submitted to his sword ; but in other ways the bounds of his legislation are as narrow as those of the Kentish code, nor, so far as we can gather from Alfred's com- pilation, were those of Offa any wider. To the last indeed, the whole of our family law, with the bulk of our village and of our land law, remained purely oral The new moral ideas which were generated alike by Christianity and by the settlement of the community Itself m more peaceful and industrious form told with equal force on English jurisprudence. A glance at the early history of our national justice shows that Its original groundwork was the right of feud Older than - the peace of the folk," far older than - the kings peace,'' which was to succeed it, was the "frith '' or peace of the freeman himself, the right that each man had to secure for himself safe life and sound limb. He lay, as the phrase ran then, - in his own hand.- It was his right to fight his foe, his right and even his duty personally to exact vengeance for wrong done to him ; and his kinsmen were bound by their tie of blood to aid him alike in self-defence and m revenge. Traces of this older state of things m which every freeman was his own absolute guarditn and avenger, ran through the whole structure of 1 -Mund" or "hand" meant the protection conferred by any one and the peace consequent on it, and " mand-bryce/' o*r ^T r : ""' '^' "^'^'"' ^''^^^^ - - ^^- P-ce and the sum paid as atonement for such a - breach of the peace."-- Essays note that be ore paying the "wite," or fine for the breach of the folk-peace, a culprit has to pay the hot, or atonement to the wronged man for the breach of his own peace. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. our later jurisprudence and procedure. A man might slay one whom he found in his own house within closed doors with his wife, or daughter, or sister, or mother ; ^ he might slay the thief whom he caught red-handed in the actual commission of his theft,^ or the accused man who would not come in peacefully to make answer to the charge.^ But as a general right, that of unregulated vengeance had long passed away before Saxon or Engle reached Britain. The conquerors came as *' folks " ; and the very exist- ence of a folk implied a *' folk-frith " of the community as a whole. Every man of the folk lay in "the folk's hand " ; and, wrong-doer as he might be, it was only when the " hand " was opened, and its protec- tion withdrawn, that the folk could suflfer him to be maimed or slain.* The earliest conception therefore of public justice was a solemn waiver on the part of the community of its right and duty of protection in the case of one who had wronged his fellow member of the folk. Till such a waiver was given the wrong- doer remained in the folk's " mund " ; and to act against him without such a waiver or without appeal to the folk was to act against the folk itself, for it was a breach of the peace or frith to which his " mund" entitled him. It was the demand for such a withdrawal of the public protection that constituted 1 LI. JElfred, 4. Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," i. 91. 2 LI. Ine, 12, 16, 21, 28, 35. Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," L 111—125. 3 LI. Eadw. and Guthr. 6. Thorpe, '' Anc. Laws," i. 171. * " It was a fundamental rule of German law tha.t vengeance must be authorised by previous permission of the Court, or if it preceded the judgment, it must afterwards be justified before the tribunal." — " Essays in Angl. Sax. Law," p. 264. 23 CHAP. T. The England of Ecgberht. 24 CHAP. r. „ Tne England of JEcgberht. '1:1 The feud and the. folk. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. demand. Thrice, and before good witness, had the summons to the folk-moot or court to be given by the accuser to the man he charged with the crime, and that at his own house, at the sunsetting, and seven days before the moot. Eefusal thrice repeated on the pait of the accused to hearken to the summons to make answer in the folk-moot, or to submit to Its doom, was a contempt of the folk ; but only after three-fold refusal was the folk's "mund" with- drawn from him ; till then the wronged man who sought his own vengeance for the wrong broke the tolk-frith and became a wrong-doer in his turn It was thus that folk-moot and hundred-moot assumed a judicial character. Originally they were no courts of justice in the modern sense of the word • they did not decide on the truth or falsehood of the charge made, still less did they assign a punishment for wrong done. The wrong was still between man and man ; its punishment, if punished it was, must be exacted by the wronged man or his kinsfolk from the wrong-doer by sheer fighting ; but ere the fight could begm the leave of the folk at large had to be sought and given. The license ran in words long preserved in S - 7; I ';""' '''''' p"^"'^^-'" " y- -ay f. w 1 , ! ''' '"'^ ^ ^'''''''^ •^^"l*^ be procured. It was needful that the folk should decide that the man had a right to fight ; and ti.. accused thus found bmself fronted by the oath,Hhe solemn appeal to • ^Ifred, 42. Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," p. 91 179-T85 "°""'*'°'' °^ °'*^' '^ ''^"'■P''' "^^'- ^-^^'" ^01. i. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 2.5 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. heaven. It may be that here again men looked on their fellow-men as being in the " mund," not only of the folk, but in a higher sense of the gods they served, and that, as the appearance of the accuser before the moot was a seeking for the discharge of the; wrong- doer from the protection of the folk, so the oath was a seeking for his discharge from the protection of his heavenly lord and guardian. But whether such a conception, or more dim and vague ideas of awe and dread, as of a vengeance of the gods on men who wronged them by falsehood, gave birth to the oath, it was the soul of the judicial process before the folk- moot. By a fore-oath the accuser stated his charge against the accused ; ^ and if the accused met oath with oath the appeal was complete. With th(3 truth or falsehood of the charge the folk had nothing to do : what it had to do was to judge whether the charge was of such a sort, and made in such a way, as to give the accuser fair ground for seeking amends from the accused. If such was its judgment, the folk with- drew its " mund," and suffered the two contending parties to wage their war. But its jurisdiction was not yet exhausted. As a people interested in its own peace and order, the folk "^-^ ^ '^"^ had still the right as it had the power to determine how this war should be waged. Even in the earliest days custom had thrown its bonds round the wild right of private war. It had forbidden all secret vengeance, such as poisoning, all mutilation or cold- blooded cruelty, all concealment of the deed. Though 1 He might show, without oath, the wound with which he charged him, and this stood in place of the oath. The bound. ^ 2(? THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAP. I. in vengeance or self-defence a man might slay his foe ^i&' ""'"^ ^™' ^^'* '' ^^ ^ ^^^ ^^^y another man in ^_^^- revenge or self-defence/' ran a law which, late as the date of Its embodiment in writing may be, is clearly a record of primeval usage, " let him take to himself none of the goods of the dead, neither his horse, nor helmet, nor shield, nor any money, but in wonted manner let him arrange the body of the dead man his head to the west, his feet to the east, upon his sliield, if he have it ; and let him drive deep his lance, and hang there his arms, and to it rein in the dead man's steed ; and let him go to the nearest vill and declare his deed to the first man he meets, that he may make proof and have defence against the kindred and friends of the man he has slain/' ^ The same web of custom threw itself round the wider warfare of the kin As late as the days of Alfred ' we see the kindred of the slain man gathered, their quic^.k secret ride over the country, the foe's house surrounded and besieged • but not for seven days, ran law or custom, must attack be made, for seven days the vengeance-seeker and his kmsfolk must watch the house, while the wrona-doer within takes counsel with them of his household whether to surrender or to fight. If within these days he chose to surrender, for thirty days more they lay about the house, while the wrong-doer sent about his friends and kinsmen to find men who would aid him m the atonement for his crime,^ and it was not till these were gathered that taking one of his 1 Hen. I. 83, sec. 6. Thorpe, "Anc. Laws," i. 591 LI. Alfred, 42. Thorpe, *' Anc. Laws," i. 91. 3 LI. Eadmund, ii. 7. Thorpe, - Anc. Laws," i. 251 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. house as 'a spokesmen he gave him pledge that he would make full atonement, and with this pL^dge the spokesman came forth to the kindred of the slain. Again in their turn these gave pledge that the slayer mio'ht draw near in peace and himself giv(i pledge for the *' wer," or atonement for his crime. It was only when he stood before them and gave his free pledge for this payment, and strengthened it by giving security for its completion, that the ieud was at an end. AVith all these bounds and limitations, Iiowever, the feud became more and more incompatible with the o-rowing sense of humanity and public order. '' Both I and all of us," said Eadmund in a proclamation to his people,^ "hold in horror the unrighteous and manifold fightings that exist among ourselves." It jarred too with the conception of personal responsibility that Christianity had introduced, and which was deepening as the bonds of kinship grew weaker with the progress of society. Eadmund's law, indeed, struck a heavy blow at the very principle of kinship: — *' If h(mcefortli any man slay another, let him bear the feud himself (save that by the aid of his friends and within twelve months he make amends with the full wer), to be borne as he may. If his kinsmen forsake him and will not pay for him, it is my will that all the kindred be out of feud, save the actual doer of the deed, provided that they do not give him either food or protection. . . . Moreover, if any of the other man's kinsmen take vengeance upon any man save the actual doer of the deed, let him be foe to the king 1 LI. Eadmund. Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," i. 246. 27 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberhi. Eadmund -s refornii^. 28 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. The '\foWs justice." THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. and all his friends and forfeit all that he has." ^ It was only slowly that so great a change in custom and feeling as this law implies could be actually brought about, and the feud still remained, however hampered by reforms, the base of our criminal procedure ; but its enactment shows that the change had begun, and that two conceptions from whose union our modern justice was to spring, the conception of personal responsibility for crime, and the conception of crime as committed primarily not against the individual but against the public peace, were from this time to exercise a deepening influence on national sentiment In the reforms of Eadmund however we have passed long beyond the jurisprudence of the time of Ecgberht. At the opening of the ninth century English thought was still far from our modern conceptions of justice or law, from the conception of crime as committed primarily against the public peace, as cognizable only by public authority, and as corrected by public punishment. As yet, and for centuries to come, all that either king or community attempted to do was to bring the right of private vengeance and self-protec- tion within definite and customary bounds, to subject it to the previous sanction and permission of the folk in the folk-moot, to provide means for averting it where no good grounds existed for its exercise by solemn oath or ordeal of innocence on the part of the accused, or where such grounds really existed to pro- vide and extend the sphere of a fixed and customary atonement in place of actual blood-shedding. Scant, however, as such a justice may seem to modern eyes, ^ LI. Eadmund. Thorpe, " Adc. Laws," i. 249. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 29 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. it would have been practically effective for the pur- poses of public order had any adequate machinery existed for imposing the will of the folk on accuser and accused. But the folk-moot had no din^ct means of enforcing' its doom. If a man thrice refused, after due summons, to appear before it, or appeared but refused to bow to its decision, he put himself indeed by his very act out of the folk, and out oi* its pro- tection; he became, in a word, an ^'outlaw," who might be hunted down like a wolf, and knocked on the head by any man who met him.^ But beyond this general hostility the folk had no means of forcing such an offender to submit to its judgment. A yet weightier obstacle to eflScient justice was often found in the course of procedure itself. Accuser and accused brought kinsmen and friends in their train to the folk-moot, whether to sway its doom or to enforce it, or to guard against vengeance without lav^. With such a crowd of adherents at the moot, it must always have been hard for meaner men to get justice against king's thegn or country thegn, and as the nobles rose to a new height above the people, it was easy for them to hold hundred- moot and even folk -moot at bay. Kent was among the most civilized and orderly parts of England, but at an even later time than this we find the great men of Kent setting the doom of its folk-moot absolutely at defiance.^ It was this difficulty more than all else that must Th>^ '^king's have led to the passing of the "folk's justice" into '""'''^' ''the justice of the king." From the earliest days 1 "Ess. in ADg.-Sax. Law," 271, 275, 283. 2 Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," i. 217. justice.^ 30 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. The hinges court. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. tke king had been recognized not only as a political and military leader, but as a judge ; and he was the one judge whose position gave him the power of en- forcing his dooms, for by himself or by his ealdorman the whole military strength of the kingdom or shire could be called out to bring a culprit to submission. It was natural that as the local courts found them- selves more and more helpless against the great lords they should appeal to a force before which the greatest lords must bow ; and that the baffled Witan of Kent should pray ^thelstan that, " if any man be so rich or of so great kin that he cannot be punished or will not cease from his wrong-doing, you may settle how he may be carried away into some other part of your kingdom, be the case whose it may, whether of villein or thegn." ^ The extension, too, of thegn- hood, and the growth of private jurisdictions or sokes, exempt from the common jurisdiction of the hundred-moot, gave a new scope to the justice of the king. 2 As such private jurisdictions grew more and more frequent, they not only weakened the older justice of the people, but forced on the royal court a large development of its judicial activity, if the justice of the lords was to be hindered from passing into a means of extortion and tyranny. Such a development was made easy by the very character of the king's court. The English king was a great landowner, and like other great landowners he 1 Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," i. 217. 2 Stubbs, "Const. Hist." i. 214, &c. "It is probable that, except in a few special cases, the sac and soc thus granted were before the Conquest exemptions from the hundred courts only, and not from those of the shire." THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. was driven from one 'Will" to another ibr actual subsistence. He was in constant motion, for payments were made in kind, and it was only by mo^ ing from manor to manor that he could eat up his rents. A Northumbrian king had to consume his customary dues in one vill at the foot of the Cheviots and in another on the Don. A king of Wessex had no other means of gathering his rents from his demesQe on the Exe or on the Thames. The king's court therefore was really a moving body, a little army (mating its way from demesne to demesne, but with a, home in our modern sense nowhere, encamping at one or another spot only for so long as the rent-in-kind sufficed, and then after a day or two rolling onward. In the stories of the time^ we see the king's fore- runners pushing ahead of the train, arriving in haste at the spot destined for the next halt, l)roaching the beer-barrels, setting the board, slaying and cook- ing the kine, baking the bread ; till the long company come pounding in through the muddy roads, horse- men and spearmen, thegn and noble, bishop and clerk, the string of sumpter horses, the big waggons with the royal hoard or the royal wardrobe, and at last the heavy standard borne before the king himself. Then follows the rough justice-court, the hasty council, the huge banquet, the fires dying down into the darkness of the night, till a fresh dawn wakes the fore-runners to seek a fresh encampment. Such was in greater or less degree the life of every ^ See for Ine, Will. Malmesbury, " Gest. Reg." (Hardy), vol. i. p. 49 ; for ^thelstan, the Saxon Life of Dunstan (Memorials of Bunstan, pp. 17, 18). 31 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. 32 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. The court on jyroffreifs. M THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. great noble, and sucli necessarily was that of the king. But with the growing consolidation of England into a single realm these movements took a more ceremonious and political form. Custom came to regulate the seeming disorder of the royal progress ; each manor, each town, knows and makes its customary payments in kind, thegn and villein render their customary service, while the royal clerk reads from the custom- roll and ticks off the dues paid and the service done. " Watching the king,'* in fact, finding horses for his journey, or boats for his sail, guarding his person, supplying his larder, become the customary tenures by which towns hold their freedom. The progresses grow regular and methodical ; men know when their king will be among them, they know where to bring their suit, their plea, their gift to him. As the king moves through forest and waste, his progress is a chase ; he finds his foresters in waiting with the villeins bound to customary service in driving the deer. As he passes over the " king's highway," land- lord and thegn are called to give account for broken road or broken bridge. In his rough justice-court there is the appeal to be heard, the false moneyer to be branded, the outlaw to be hanged at the nearest oak. The ''king's peace" is about him as he goes; his " grith," the breach of which no fine can atone for,^ spreads for a given space around his court : a double '' bot " and fine protects all who are on their way to him ; if a brawler fight over his cups in the king's hall, he may die at the king's will.^ The court 1 ^thelr. iii. Thorpe, "Anc. Laws," i. 293. 2 Ine. sec. 6. Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," i. 107. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 33 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. itself is no longer the mere train of personal at- tendants which followed a provincial king; it is a little army that needs its officers to order and marshal it, its chamberlain to command the house- hold to deck the rough halls with courtly hangino-s for the king's stay, to issue from the hoard"" the gold drinking-cups for the king's table, to pay and command the body guard ; its staller to order its move- ments, to direct the horses, the sumpter mules, the lono- string of waggons, as well as to ^^ park " the vast ^ encampment for the night ; its dish-thegn and cup- thegn to provide the beeves and bread, the wines and ale, for its daily consumption. The creation of these great officers of the household, some of ^vhom we find already existing in Alfred's time, was one of the most important results of the royal progresses. But a yet more important result was the Tmpulse they gave to the change in our system of justice, for at a time when the public needs called for a judicial power which should be strong enough to enforce its doom upon noble and churl, and supreme alike over folk-moot and soke, the progresses of the king carried such a power into every corner of the realm. "^ The developement however of English justice was Gro.tkoftke Dut one ol the mfluences that were telling through- ^^'^oship, out the period on the transformation of the English kmgship. As England drew together into its Tliree Kmgdoms the wider dominion of the king removed him further and further from his people, liftincr him higher and higher above the nobles, and clothing him more and more with a mysterious dignity. Every reign raised the sovereign in the social scale. The ?A THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 35 i CHAP. I. bishop, once ranked equal with him in value of The life, sank to the level of the ealdorman. The ±.cgberht. ealdorman himself, in earlier days the hereditary ruler of a smaller state, became a mere delegate of the kino". The king, if he was no longer sacred as the son of Woden, became yet more sacred as *' the Lord's Anointed." By the very fact of his consecration he was pledged to a religious rule, to justice, mercy and o-ood ^o-overnment : but his *' hallowinor " invested him also with a power drawn not from the will of man or the assent of his subjects but from the will of God. Treason ao^ainst him thus became the worst of crimes, while personal service at his court was held not to decade but to ennoble. The theo;ns of his household found themselves officers of state ; and the develope- ment of politics, the wider extension of home and foreign affairs, gradually transformed these royal servants into a standing council of ministry for the transaction of the ordinary administrative business, and the reception of judicial appeals. The (Bthel'mg The risc of the royal power was furthered by the and the thegn. ^j^^^^^g^ which passed at this time over the character of the English noble. Not only was the character of this class profoundly affected by the consolidation of the smaller folks into larger realms, but its w^hole relation to the king was radically changed. The superiority of the setheling over the ceorl was a tra- ditional superiority which reached back to the very infancy of the race, and which consisted in an actual difference, as both believed, of blood and origin. The tribal king was simply the noblest among the sethe- lings. But w^ith the extinction of the smaller king- CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. ships, and the subjection of both classes to one of the greater monarchies, the position of the hereditary noble was changed. He was no longer of the same blood with the king ; while the wider area of the state, and the number of sethelings it necessarily in- cluded within it, lowered his individual position and brought him nearer to the ceorl. At the same time he was being displaced from his older position by nobles of a new and distinct class. Service with the kings, as we have seen, begot the class of thegns ; and while the hereditary noble dwindled with the growth of kingship, the noble by service necessarily rose with it. An sethelinor of the Middles Eno-lish inevitably grew less and less important as the Mercian kingdom widened its bounds from sea to sea, while a thegn of the Mercian court grew as inevitably greater. And to the greatness that came of his relation to a greater master the thegn added a corresponding superiority of wealth. The possessions of the village noble might lift him above his fellow villager, but they could not vie with the wide domains which the kings of the great states carved out of the folk-land for their thegns.^ The sethelings thus died down into a social class, while the thegns took their place as a political nobility dependent on the crown. A further developement of the royal power sprano- from the changes wrought in the older national ^^'^^^G^^^ot institutions by the disappearance of the tribal king- ships in the larger monarchies of the Three Kingdoms. ^ These grants had become so frequent, that even by Ine's time, though some gesiths remained landless, this was exceptional. Stubbs, "Const. Hist." i. 181, note 3. D 2 The 36 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. i I THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. The life of the earlier English state was gathered up in its folk-moot. There throno:h its representatives, chosen in every hundred-moot, the folk expressed and exercised its own sovereignty in matters of justice, as of peace and war. But when the folk sank into a por- tion of a wider state, its folk-moot sank with it ; if it still met, it was only to exercise one of its older functions, that of supreme justice- court, while political supremacy passed from it to the court of the far-off lord.^ And as the folk-moot died down into tlie later shire-moot or county-court, the folk's influence on government came to an end. Folk-moots of Surrey- men or South Saxons could exercise no control over a king of Wessex. Folk moots of Hwiccas or North Eno;le could bring: no check to bear on a kino; of Mercia. Nor was the loss of this influence made up by the control of the nobler class. Beside the folk-moot, and acting with it, had stood the Witenagemot, the group of sethelings gathered to give rede to the king, and through him to propose a course of action to the folk. On these the growth of the monarchies did not tell as directly as on the folk-moot. Nobles could still gather about the king ; and while the folk-moot passes out of political notice, the Witenagemot is heard of more and more as a royal council. But if the name remained, the meeting itself became a wholly diff*erent one. The decline in the class of sethelings, their dis- placement by the thegn, would alone have altered its character. The distance of the king from the nobles' homes, as the lesser realms were gathered into the Three Kingdoms, altered it yet more. When a West- 1 Stubbs, '' Const. Hist." i. 140, 141. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Saxon king called his Witan to Exeter he probably expected few thegns from Sussex or Kent. When he called them to Kent he can hardly have seen many from Cornwall or the Defn-s^tan. From the opening of the age of consolidation, therefore, the Witenagemot naturally changed into a mere gather- ing of bishops and great ealdormen, as well as of the royal thegns in service at the court ; ^ and it retained this form under the kings of a sino-le England, with just such an increase of numbers as necessarily resulted from the welding of the three realms into one. The seventeen bishops of the English sees, about an equal number of ealdormen, whom we may again presume to be actual rulers of the various folks and under-kingdoms, a few abbots, and some fifty or sixty nobles and thegns, comprised the list at its fullest. But the usual gatherings hardly exceed in number those of Off*a's court; and even under later kings, such as Eadgar, the usual AVitenao-e- mots number some nine prelates, five ealdormen, and fifteen thegns.^ Such a council might in many ways r(3flect the national temper, but it was in no sense a repre- sentative of the nation. On occasions of peculiar solemnity indeed, such as that of a coronation or the 1 Stubbs, "Const. Hist." i. 146. The Witenagemot that gathered round such a king as Offa consisted only of the five bishops of the Mercian kingdom, of the five or six ealdormen who may have ruled over the older kingdoms or folks that were included within it, and of some ten or a dozen thegns who probably held high offices in the royal household. 2 See for the whole of this subject, Stubbs, " Const. Hist." i. cap. vi. 37 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. Its character. :|»! 38 CHAP. I. ■»» Ml The Fngland of Ecgberht. The Three Kingdoms. I THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. promulgation of a code of laws, the old theory of a folk-moot ratifying the decisions of the Witan and the kino; rose ao;ain into life, and the retinues in the train of noble and prelate represented by their shouts of " Aye, aye," the assent of the collective freemen. But such an assent was a mere survival of the past ; in practice it was an empty form, and the occasions on which it was called for were rare and exceptional/ In ordinary times the Witenagemot was little more than a royal council, whose members were named and summoned by the king,^ and which widened now and then into aristocratic assemblies that foreshadowed the *' Great Council '' of the later Baronage. That the movement towards national consolidation should have stopped so long at the creation of the Three Kingdoms is one of the problems of our early history. But as the eighth century drew to its close, the internal conditions of these states and their relations to one another show^ed that the long-delayed ^ The decisions of one of ^^thelstan's Witenagemots are made in common with "tota populi generalitate." Cod. Dip. 364. But " that such gatherings shared in any way the constitutional powers of the Witan, that they were organized in any way corresponding to the machinery of the folk-moot, that they had any representative character in the modern sense as having full powers to act on behalf of constituents, that they shared the judicial work, or, except by applause and hooting, influenced the decisions of the chiefs, there is no evidence whatever." — Stubbs, ''Const. Hist."i. 142. 2 ^^thelstan speaks of the Witan at his great meetings as '•Witan whom the king himself has named." Thorpe, "Anc. Laws," i. 241. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. revolution was near at hand. The most ])rominent cause of the break up of the political system of the Three Kingdoms was one that had already told fatally on the lesser kingships. In the earlier life of the English peoples, political individuality found its centre and representative in their royal stocks ; and the number of the separate folks was shown in the number of their kings. Kent and Sussex fcmnd room for at least two in each realm ; East Anglia and Wessex seem at times to have had many ; there were separate royal stocks for peoples like the Hecanas and Hwiccas, or the South-Mercians and Middle-Engle. It was only through the extinction or degradation of these kingly families that national union was possible ; and it is as a main step in bringing this about that the formation of the larger states during the seventh and eighth centuries is so important in our history. With the gradual extension of the Three Kingdoms the bulk of the smaller kingships disappeared.^ Some kings lingered on for a time as under-kings ; some sank into ealdormen, w^ho drew their power from the appointment of the conquering over-lord ; some, no doubt, perished altogether with the chancers of time and of war.^ But a new period began from the moment that the extinction of the royal stocks told on the Three Kingdoms themselves. ^ Thus the Lindsey kings were extinct before 678, when their land was disputed between Mercia and Northumbria ; nor do we hear of any Middle-English king after Peada. I'he stock of Deira ended with Oswini. The kings of Sussex are not heard of after its conquest by Ecgberht, nor those of Wight after its conquest by Ceadwalla. 2 Stubbs, "Const. Hist." i. 198, kc. 39 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. 40 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgrberht. Northumhria. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Nortlmmbria was no longer the formidable kingdom which we have seen carrying its arms to the Clyde in the days of Eadberht. The withdrawal of that king to a cloister had been the close of its greatness, for after a year's reign his son Oswulf was slain by the thegns of his household/ and with his death peace and order seem to have come utterly to an end. Oswulf was in fact the last undisputed representative of the royal line of Bernicia. The kingly house fell with him, and from this moment a strife for the crown absorbed the whole energy of Northumbria. The throne w^as seized by ^Ethelwold Moll ; ^ and a victory over his opponents at the Eildon Hills near Melrose so strengthened his power that Offa, just settled in Mercia, gave him his daughter to wife. But after six years of rule ^thelwold Moll lost his kingdom in a fight at Winchanheale in 765;^ and his place was taken by another claimant, Alchred.* The history of Northumbria became from this hour a mere strife between these rivals and their houses. Alchred, victorious over two risino;s under ealdor- men,^ was driven in 774 to take refuge amono; the Picts by ^thelred, the son of ^thelwold ; but after four years of strife ^thelred followed his rival into exile ; and his successor, Alfwold " the son of Oswulf" interrupts for nine years, from 779 to 788, the rule of the warrinoj houses. Alfwold's reic^n ^ " Occisus. ... a sua familia," Sim. Durh. Gest. Keg. a. 758. 2 Sim. Durk Gest. Reg. a. 759. ^ sij^^, j)^^}^^ q, p,^ a. 765. ^ Alchred claimed descent from Ida through Bleacmann. Flor. Wore. a. 765 ; but Simeon adds "ut quidam dicunt." Gest. Reg. a. 765. ^thelwold's descent was even more doubtful : " of uncertain descent." ^ Sim. Durh. Gest. Reg. a. 774. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. however was as stormy as the rest. In one rising an ealdorman was '' burnt " by two of his fellow^-ealdor- men; and in 788 another ealdorman rose and slew the king.i With his slaying the two houses again came to the front ; for two years Alchred's son, Osred, occupied the throne ; and on his flight ^ in face of a revolt of his ealdormen, the son of iEthelwold Moll, ^thelred, was again recalled to the kingdom after eleven years of exile. Jithelred shrank from no blood-shedding to secure his throne. The tw^o children of his predecessor w^ere drawn by false oaths from their sanctuary at York to be shiin at his bidding,^ and Osred, who was drawn by like pledges from Man, found a like doom. For a while this ruthlessness seems to have succ(?eded in producing some sort of peace, but the long anarchy of thirty years had left the land a mere chaos of bloodshed and misrule, and all that saved it from utter ruin was the wide extension of its ecch^siastical domains. The waste and bloodshed of its civil wars stopped short at the bounds of the vast possessions which had been granted to its churches ; the privilege of sanctuary which they enjoyed gave shelter to the victims of the strife ; and the learning and culture of Bseda and of Archbishop Ecgberht still found un- troubled homes at Jarrow or York. Its intellectual life was thus able to go on amidst the wreck of its political life; and in the midst of the anarchy a scholar passed from the schools of Northumbria to become the literary centre of the w^est. Born about ' Sim. Durh. *' Gest. Reg." a. 788. 2 sim. Durh. " G. R." a. 792. 3 Sim. Durh. ''Gest. Reg." a. 792. 41 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. Alcuin. if 42 CHAP. 1. The England of Ecgberht. ;'.| i^ Nortliumhrla and the Wikings. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 735 withiij the walls of York, Alcuin had reached early manhood at the retirement of Eadberht from the throne.^ He had been entrusted, like other noble youths, to Archbishop Ecgberht in his boyhood ; and was placed under the schoolmaster iEthelberht, who follow^ed Ecgberht in his see on his death. In 766, when Alchred had just mounted the throne, he seems to have accompanied Jj^thelberht on a journey to Eome, and some time after his return himself took charge of the school of York. The years of his teaching there, from 7^7 to 780, were the age of its greatest fame and influence ; ^ so strangely in fact was the Church isolated from the secular fortunes of the realm about it that amidst the growing anarchy of Northumbria not only scholars from every part of Britain, but even from Germany and Gaul, are said to have crowded to Alcuin's lecture-room, while his friend, Archbishop ^^Ithelberht, w^as busy in building a new and more sumptuous church at York, as well as in journeys to Kome in w^hich he could gather books for its library. It was on his return from a journey to get the pallium for ^thelberht's successor in 781 that Alcuin, now the most famous of European scholars, met Charles the Great at Parma, and was drawn by him from his w^ork in Britain to the wider work of spreading intellectual life among the Franks. But 1 For Alcuin, see article on him by Stubbs in " Diet. Christ. Biogr." vol. i. p. 73. 2 "Eo tempore in Eboraica civitate famosus merit o scholam magister Alchuinus tenebat, undecumque ad so confluentibus de magna sua scientia communicans." Vit. S. Liudgeri, quoted by Lingard, "Anglo-Saxon Church," vol. ii. p. 203. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. though hi$ home was now in a strange land, Alcuin's heart still clave to his own Northumlma. The news of its fresh disorder, and the slaying c»f Alfwold in 788, drew from him prayer after prayer to Charles for leave to revisit his country ; and in 790, soon after the recall of ^thelred Moll to the throne, he seems to have returned to the north of Britain. If so, he must have witnessed the bloody deeds by which iEthelred strove to secure his crown ; and we can- not wonder at his finding omens of ill in " that rain of blood which," as he wrote after his departure to the king, ''we saw in Lent, at a time when the sky was calm and cloudless, fall from the lofty roof of the northern aisle of the church in York." ^ But he could hardly have dreamt how fatally the omen was to be fulfilled by the first descent of the northmen only a few months after his return to Gaul. Their in- cursion again roused civil strife. In the spring of 796 king ^^thelred w^as slain, and whatever was now the connexion of the Northumbrian with the Prankish court, the wrath of Charles against a race whom he denounced as " murderers of their lords " was hardly allayed by Alcuin's intercession. ^ All cause of inter- vention how^ever was removed by the accession of Eardwulf, who succeeded in restoring order for the next ten years ; ^ but wdth the death of Eardwulf in 806 the northern kingdom vanishes from history till its submission to Ecgberht seventeen years later.* ^ Ale. Op. (Migne), pt. i. epist. xiii. 2 Haddan and Stubbs " Councils," iii. 498. 3 Sim. Durh. "Gest.Reg." a. 796. ^ In his " Gesta Regum," Simeon of Durham practically ceases 43 CHAP. I. The Fngland of Ecgberht. 44 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. Mercia. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Broken indeed by ceaseless strife Nortliumbria was ready to fall before a conqueror s sword. But no such doom seemed to threaten Mercia. In Mercia the royal stock went on unchallenged. No civil war disturbed the rule of Offa or of Cenwulf. No foreim ruler dared to threaten the Middle Kins'dom as Charles had threatened the North. As the eiofhth century drew to its close, indeed, Mercia seemed destined rather to absorb its fellow states than to be absorbed by either of them. Northumbria was torn by anarchy. Wessex lay almost hidden from sight behind the forest- screen of the Andredsweald. All that the outer world saw of Britain was the realm of the Mercian kings. From Dover to the Kibble, from Bath to the Humber, the great mass of the island submitted to their sway ; and to the Frankish court the lord of this vast domain was already " king of the English." The ability of OfFa and Cenwulf as rulers, as well as the length of their reigns, heightened the impression of Mercian strength. But even at the summit of their power, a close obsei^ver might have seen the inherent weakness of the structure they had built up. The kingdom in fact was held together simply by the sword. It stretched from sea to sea ; but both on the eastern and the western coast its subject-provinces only waited the hour of trial to turn against it. The Welsh of North- Wales were ready to at 803 -J there are two ecclesiastical entries in 830 and 846, then from 849 the chronicle is for some time wholly drawn from southern sources, and without reference to the north. In his *' Historia de Dunelmensi Ecclesia " there is a like gap between 793 and 867. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. rise at any moment. Kent, a possession essential to the communication of Mercia with the western world, had risen against Offa and again risen against Cenwulf. The East-Anglians were now preparing to renew the strife which they had waged for centuries against the west- ern Engle. And within Mercia itself there seems to liave been little of that administrative organization which might have compensated for the hostility of its dependencies. The existence of five great ealdor- men seems to point to a perpetuation of the purely local government in the provinces which made up the central realm. It was characteristic indeed of the looseness of its political structure that Mercia had no marked centre of government. Northumbria found a centre at York. Wessex recognised its royal town in Winchester. But Tamworth was simplj^ a royal vill at which the Mercian kings dwelt more frequently than elsewhere. Mercia in fact owed its greatness wholly to the character of its individual kings. A single defeat under -^thelbald had already revealed its inherent weakness ; and the same revelation was to follow its later defeat under Beorhtwulf. Wessex on the other hand, smaller as was its area and later as was its developement than that of its fellow-kingdoms, had a vigour and compactness which neither of them possessed. Its military strength was really greater than theirs. From the first moment of their descent upon Britain the Gewissas had seized a region of surpassing military value. The Gwent was a natural fortress, backed by the sea, screened from attack on either side by impassable woodlands, by Selwood and the Andredsweald, and presenting alono- 15 CliAP. I. The England of ificgberht. Wessex. 46 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. Ill r THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. its front two parallel lines of heights, whose steep escarpments rose like walls in face of any assailants. Their main settlement, Winchester, lay in the centre of this region ; and a series of roads which diverged from it carried forces easily to any threatened point of the border. However Wessex might grow, the Gwent remained its heart and centre ; and the inaccessibility of the Gwent was shown by its security from any inroad till the coming of the Danes. Northumbrian hosts might pour over Mid-Britain, or Mercian hosts carry their ravages over North - umbria, but neither Mercian nor Northumbrian ever appeared before Winchester. The bulk of the AVest-Saxon fights were fought in the district over Thames ; and if invaders threatened the Gwent itself it was only, like Ceolric, to be thrown back discomfited from the steeps of Wanborough. Even Wulfhere after a great victory could penetrate no further into Wessex than the same steep of Ashdown. The varied composition of Ecgberht's kingdom, in- stead of proving a source of weakness, was itself a source of strength. Its centre was the older W^essex we have described, the region between the Andreds- weald and the Selwood ; a district of purely English blood grouped round a single political and religious centre at Winchester. To the west lay the newer AVessex, a tract which indeed found a single ecclesias- tical centre in Sherborne, but where Welsh and English blood mingled in the veins of the popula- tion, and in which the ethnological character varied from the English element dominant along the skirts of Selwood to the wholly Celtic life of the western THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 47 CHAP. I. The England of Ecgberht. Dyvnaint. . But this newer Wessex was even more West-Saxon in temper than the Wessex of the Gwent. The slowness of its conquest, the gradual settlement of the conquerors over its soil, had bound it firmly to the house of Cerdic, and utterly obliterated its Celtic traditions. And besides this, the two portions were knit together by an administrative order which was hardly known elsewhere. Our ignorance of the early history of Wessex leaves us no means of tracing the origin of this order, but in E 2 as lurked, the '' Wikings," or *' creek-men, adventurers were called, pounced upon their prey, or 1 See the story of Swein, Asleif's son, in the Orkneyinga Saga (tr. by Anderson), c. 72, &c., pp. 117, sq. 2 For derivation and history of this word, see Munch, " Det Norske Folks Hist." pt. iv. p. 237 (German translation). It is used solely by voyagers to the western, never by those to the eastern seas. [For the meaning "men of the Bay," from the Wick, see " Corpus Poeticum Boreale " (ed. by G. Yigfusson and F. York Powell) I. Ixiii. (A. S. G.)] THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. crept along the iron-bound coast, striking h(?re and there up the fiords to harry and to slay. The '^ long- ship " itself in its very construction was above all ''a phate ship ; of great length, but narrow beam and httle depth of keel,i its admirable lines and all but flat bottom showed that it was built exclusively for speed. In rough water indeed the Wiking ships were almost unmanageable, and a storm like that off the coast of Lindisforne in 794 threw them helpless on the beach. Nor were they adapted for long sea journeys ; there was little accommodation for crew or cargo ; and the pirates were forced to moor at each sunset, to make a foray for what cattle might serve for their meal, and sleep beneath a sail ""on the beach. In fighting too, their slightness of con- struction, fastened together as their timbers often were by wattles of tree-roots for lack of iron, ibrbade any use of them in shock of ship against ship ; ' they were in fact lashed together, and their stern and forecastle used as platforms for their fighting crews. But they were well fitted for their special e'l-id. A heavy merchant vessel lay at the mercy of the Wiking's '' keel," as it darted out from covert of 1 The boat found recently under a mound at Gokstad in Norway is about seventy-eight feet long by sixteen and a half teet broad, and between five and six feet deep. She would draw about four feet of water, and was didven by sixteen oars on either side. 2 The ships of the Wikings were not designed for sea fights ; their main object was to serve merely as a means of transport trom one field of plunder to another. See K. Maurer's review of Steenstrup's " Indledning i Normannertiden (Normannerne, Bind VZ'"^ *^^ " Jenaer Literatur-zeitung," 4th series, No. 2, Jan. 13, 18/7, p. 25. (A. S. G.) 59 CHAP. li. The Comine of the ^ Wikings. 829- 858. 60 CHAP. II The Coining of the Wikings. 829- 858. Causes of their movement to the south. W f^ m THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. headland or isle, while its flat bottom and shallow draught of water made every river-mouth a haven, and every river a road into the land that the pirates lusted to pillage. At the causes that drew these men with the close of the eighth century ^ to their attack on western Christendom we can do little more than guess ; for history of the north as yet there is none.^ It may be, as after legend told, that the growth of popula- tion had outstripped the resources of the fiords, and the little commonwealths were forced by very hunger to drive out their younger folk.^ It may be that the work of union which was at last to knit these commonwealths together into peoples and nations, ^ The Scandinavian legends carry the conquests of the North- men back to a far earlier time. But the joint evidence of the English, Irish, and Frankish chroniclers is conclusive in estab- lishing the real date of their fii-st attacks. 2 Munch, in the opening of his great work, " Det Norske Folks Historic," has striven to penetrate the darkness by the help of philology, the older genealogies, &c. ; but his success is far from being commensurate with his industry. 2 Laing ("Sea Kings of Norway," i. 109) shows the impossi- bility of widening the little farms along the fiords, and the con- sequent necessity for constant emigration. It is still seen in the large number of Scandinavian emigrants to America. See Munch, "Det Norske Folks Hist." (Germ, trans.), pt. i. p. 173, and Dudo, " Exuberantes atque terram, quam incolunt, habitare non suliicientes, collecta sorte multitudine pubescentium, veterrimo rila in externa regna extruduntur nationum, ut adquirant sibi prreliando regna, quibusvivere possint pace perpetua " (Duchesne. Histor. Norm. p. 62). Olaf Trygvasson's Saga mentions a tradi- tion that in case of famine all who could not feed themselves, old and sick, were slain. [Steenstrup accepts the theory of over- population (which he attributes to the practice of polygamy) as the cause of emigration. K. Maurer, on the other hand, argues THE CONQUEST OF Ex\GLAND. as well as the 'revolt against it, had already beo-un The men of the north shared with the rest of'the Teutonic family its love of freedom and self-govern- ment; but the severance of settlement from^'settle- ment by long reaches of desolate moorland gave this spirit of independence a harder and fiercer tone than elsewhere. It became a wild and passionate hatred of the subordination and obedience which wider union and a common government necessarily bring with them. No seas were too strange to traverse, no laud too far to fly too, when the northman was called to bow to the rule of a common king. But the full effect of this temper was not to be felt for a hun- dred years, and in seeking for the causes oi^ their action at this earlier time it is perhaps needless to look further than to the hope of plunder. What a spell the sudden disclosure of a world's wealth casts on whole peoples we know from the memories ot the Spain of Charles the Fifth and the Eno-land of Elizabeth. But the expeditions of Cortes or'^E'.aleigh were only the last outbreaks of a passion which had lingered on from the very outset of liuman history. As soon as men gathered in village and seaport the boats of Greek pirates swarmed ov-r the Hellenic seas. Rome in the very height of her power had to battle with pirate fleets which grew with the growing commerce of the Mediterranean. It was the wealth of the Empire, the dream of sacking her from the account given in Landnamabok of Harald Fairhair's attempts to check emigration that the country cannot have been over-peopled See Maurer's review of Steenstrup in Jenaer Literatur-zeitung," Jan. 13, 1877, p. 25. (A. S. G.)] 61 CHAP. II. The Comingr of the ® wikings. 829- 858. 8 62 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAP. II. The Coming of the Wikings. 829- 858. The Wih'ngs and the Franhs. !■ ■? • It W V towns and pillaging her treasures, which drew on her the German peoples in her decay. And now that the world which had reeled under that mighty shock was again organizing itself round powers which recalled the greatness as well as the name of Rome — now that commerce was covering the sea afresh with its merchant boats, and new towns rising within deserted walls, and wealth gathering once more under the shelter of church and abbey, the thirst for plunder woke acrain in the north. The boats which had sailed from its fiords to pillage the dales of their neighbours steered southwards for a richer spoil. From the opening of the ninth century we see them pushing boldly to the south along two distinct lines of advance on either side of Britain, along the coast of Ireland, and along the coast of Gaul. The starting-point of the last advance was a region familiar to us as the original Engle-land,^ but which w^as now known as South Jutland, and whose earlier peoples had been replaced by dwellers of Scandinavian blood. The political geography of the north was far from having taken as yet its after- shape. The kingdom of Swithiod indeed in the lands about Upsala already gave promise of the future Sweden, but only a germ of the later Norway could be seen in the little kingdom of Westfold round the Christiania fiord. Small however as this was, it had shown itself vigorous enough to set up a line of 1 Wulfstan told j^lfred of his sail past "Jutland, Zeeland, and many islands." "In these lands," comments the King, " the Engle dwelt before they came hither to this land." — Alfred's "Orosius," in Pauli's "Life of Alfred," p. 253. Stanfbri's G«o()f- F.sutb': ^^ i! It"' 1^ THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. dependent kings in South Jutland ; ^ and it was the raids of these kings along the Frankish shores that in the year 800, when his powder had reached its highest point, drew Charles the Great to the northern borders of his realm. The garrisons he stationed along the coast, as well as a fleet wdiich he ordered to be built in its harbours, showed how keen was his sense of the danger that threatened the western world. His precautions indeed were not an hour too soon. In 803, during his last struggle with the Saxons, Gudrcid or Godfrid, king both of W(3stfold and South Jutland, advanced with a fleet as far as Sleswick, and gave shelter to the warriors who fled from the sword of the Franks. Five years later a raid of the same king across the Elbe again called the Frankish arms to the north, and Godfrid drew across the peninsula the defensive line of earthworks called the Dane-work to arrest them. So formidable indeed was this freebooter's pn^sence that Charles was already preparing an expedition against Jutland when Godfrid himself challenged the encounter in 810 by a descent on Frisia with two hundred ships, and, making himself master of the country after three combats with its people, boasted that he would soon go and enthrone himself in the emperor's ow^n Aachen. The danger indeed passed cway as suddenly as it had risen, for the northern king was slain by one of his followers ; his kingdom was broken up ; and a nephew, Homing, who^ suc- ceeded him in the Jutish part of it, made peace 1 For these kings in Westfold and South Jutland, see ^[unch ''Det Norske Folks Historic " (Germ, trs.), pt. iv. pp. 134—154/ 63 CHAP. II. The Coming of the Wikings. 829- 858. Their descents on. Frisia. 64 CHAP. IT. The Coming of the Wikings. 829- 858. The Wikings and Ireland. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. with the Franks. But even this peace, and a civil war among the northmen which followed it, did not quiet the emperor's anxiety, for on the eve of his death in the autumn of 811 we find him visiting Boulogne to see the ships whose building he had ordered the year before ; and after restoring the old Koman lighthouse which served to guide ships along the coast, he made his way thence to the banks of the Scheldt, where vessels were also in process of construction. During the early part of the reign of his son, the Emperor I^ewis, a continu- ance of the civil war among the northmen served even more than these fleets to secure the Frankisli coast ; and the aid of the emperor enabled Harokl or Heriold, one of the claimants of the throne, again to detach Jutland from Westfold. But Harold's con- version to Christianity was at once followed by his expulsion from the land ; and from this moment the old attacks were resumed as fiercely as ever, till the strife between Lewis and his sons broke down the barriers between the northmen and their prey, and the pirate-boats ravaged without hindrance from the mouth of the Elbe to the mouth of the Ehine. It was a party of these marauders along the Frankish coast who at last pushed across the Channel to the mouth of the Thames and ravaged in 834 the Isle of Sheppey.^ But whatever influence the ad- vance of the Wikings along the coast of Gaul may have had on the southern or eastern states of Britain, the attention of Ecgberht himself must have been fixed even more intently on their parallel line of 1 Eng. Chron. (Wincli.) a. 832 (4). 65 The Cominer of the Wikings. 829- 858. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. advance to the west.' Ireland was as yet a more chap. „. tempting prey for the pirates than even Gaul.' It was at the monasteries that these earlier raids M'ere mainly aimed ; and nowhere were the monastic houses so many and so rich. It was in these retreats indeed, sheltered as men deemed by their holiness from the greed of the spoiler, that the whole wealth of the country was stored ; and the goldwork and jewelry of their shrines, their precious chalices, the silver-bound horn which king or noble dedicated at their altars, the curiously-wrought covering of their mass-book's, the hoard of their treasure-chests, fired the imagination of the northern marauders as the treasures of th(! Incas fired that of the soldiers of Spain. News spread fast up dale and fiord how wealth such as men never dreamed of was heaped up in houses guarded only by priests and shavelings who dared not draw sword. The Wikings had long been drawing closer to this tempting prey. From the coast of Norway ' a sail of ^ Additional proof that the earlier attacks on southern bntam came from Ireland is given by a hoard of Anglo-Saxon corns, many of them Kentish, found at Delgany in Wicklow to which attention has been drawn by Mr. John Evans. The latest in date are those of Beornwulf, from 820 to 824 while neither in Sweden nor Denmark have such coins been found of earlier date than 830. 2 For the Northmen in Ireland, see especially " The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill," ed. by Dr. Todd, 1867 ; and its learned Introduction. ^ The earlier assailants of Ireland are called " White Loch lann," who are supposed to be Norwegians; the later "Danar" or Danes. But " we cannot be sure that the name ' D.me ' is not sometimes given to the Norwegians." Todd "War of Gaedhil and Gaill," Intr. xxxi. Geographical considerations F 66 CHAP. II. The Coming of the Wikings. 829- 858. The WiJcings and the Welsh. m ^. ¥ W^^ hMi' THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. twenty-four hours with a fair wind brings the sailor in sight of the Shetlancls;' Shetlands and Orkneys furnished a base for the advance of the pirates along the western shores of Britain, where they found a land like their own in the dales and lochs of Eoss and Argyll, and where the names of Caithness and Sutherland tell of their conquest and settlement on the mainland ; while the physical appearance of the people still records their colonization of the Hebrides.' Names such as that of the Orm's Head mark their entrance at last into the Irish Channel;^ and here they had for more than thirty years been ravaging along either coast, but seeking out and plundering above all the religious houses with which Ireland was studded. In 832 however, but four years after the sub- mission of all England to Ecgberht, these raids gave way to an organized invasion ; for the host of a leader named Turgesius ^ or Thorgils, establishing itself at however seem decisive as to the starting-point of the attack on the Isles and Ireland. 1 Munch, "Det Norske Folks Hist." (Germ, trans.) pt. iv. p. 212. 2 Worsaae, "The Danes and Northmen," sec. ix. 3 The "Annals of Ulster" note their first appearance in 794 (really 795), " The burning of Rechru by the Gentiles, and its shrines were broken and plundered." Rechru is probably Lambay Island. From a passage in Caradoc of Llancarvan, this would seem to have been after their defeat in a descent on Glamorgan. Todd, "War of Gaedhil and Gaill," Intr. xxxii.-iii. * Snorro's Saga of Harald Fairhair (Laing's " Heimskriugla," vol. i. p. 304) makes this Thorgils a son of Harald, sent by him to Ireland. But Harald did not begin his reign till thirty years later ; and was then but a boy of ten years old. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. I Armagh, levied tribute from all the north of Ireland. AVhat must have given its main import to this settlement in Ecgberht's eyes was the fact that it brought with it a revival of the struggle with the Welsh. His conquest of Cornwall had seeiaed the last blow in a strife of more than four hundred years ; but the blow was hardly struck when the action of the northmen in the Irish seas roused the West- Welsh to fresh hopes of freedom. The scanty traces of their presence show that the pirates attempted little in the way of settlement on the eastern shores of the Irish Channel ; there was little indeed to tempt them in the wild Bret-land. But behind it lay the richer land of the Engle ; and soon it was not as foes but as friends that they were offering themselves to the AVelsh for a raid on their common enemy. Such an offer could not fail to find a response ; and thus after encountering with varied fortunes the first stray descents upon his coasts, the West-Saxon king found liimself face to face with a rising of the newly- won land across the Tamar,^ backed by armed aid from the northmen. All Cornwall must have risen ; for it was at a spot but a few miles from its border that Ecgberht met the forces of the league, on a lift of dreary granitic upland just westward of its boundary, the Tamar, the heights that bear the name of H(3ngest- dun. But victory was still true to the king; Cornwall was again recovered; and the fight won rest for his own West-Saxon land from the northern 1 Cornwall had been conquered by Ecgberht in 82;5 '• Making of England," p. 432. (A. S. G.) F 2 See 67 CHAP. 11. The Cominff of the ^ Wikings. 829- 858. If' 68 CHAP. II. The Coming of the Wikings- 829- 858. Political organization of Wessex. illtfll THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. marauders through the last two years of Eegberht's reign.^ But if the pirate descents failed to loose Ecgberht's hold upon the west, they had a far more momentous result in arresting at its very outset his work of consolidating the English peoples themselves. This work, it must be remembered, had hardly begun. That the vague supremacy which Ecgberht claimed might have been developed into a real national sovereignty by after efforts of the West- Saxon kings is indeed likely enough, if we compare the real streno-th of Wessex with that of its rival states. But with the coming of the Danes all effort after such a sovereignty was suddenly brought to an end ; and the energy of Wessex had from that moment to be concentrated on the task of self- defence. We have seen the strength which Ecgberht's kingdom drew from the physical characteristics and varied composition of the older and the newer Wessex that lay on either side of Selwood. But the power 1 Eng. Chron. a. 835-(7). In our own English chronicles <'Dena" or Dane is used as the common term for all the Scandinavian invaders of Britain, though not including the Swedes, who took no part in the attack, while Northman gener- ally means '^man of Norway." Asser however uses the words as synonymous, "Nordmanni sive Dani." Across the channel " Northman " was the general name for the pirates, and '' Dane " would usually mean a pirate from Denmark. The distinction however is partly a chronological one ; as, owing to the late appearance of the Danes in the middle of the ninth century, and the prominent part they then took in the general Wiking movement, their name tended from that time to narrow the area of the earlier term of " Nordmanni." See Munch, " Det Norske Folks Historie" (Germ, trans.), pt. iv. pp. 135—137. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 69 CHAP. II. The Comine of the Wikings 829- 858. of the West-Saxon ruler stretched beyond thc^, bounds of Wessex, where eastward of the Andredsweald the so-called -Eastern Kingdom" grouped itself round the centre of Kent. Subject as it was to Ecgberht Kent still retained something of its older greatness • and the existence of the Primate alone would have hmdered it from sinking into a mere dependency of Wessex. Nor did it look upon itself as a conquered country or as linked to Wessex simply by the sword • for Ecgberht claimed to be nearest in blood to the house of Hengest, and to be thus as fully hereditary king of Kent as he was of Wessex. The t^ o kino-- doms therefore were united, not by a suboivlinatio^'n of one to the other, but by their obedience to a common king. Such a relation made it possible to solve the problem of the government of Kent by setting over it as under-king the elder amoncr the sons of the king of Wessex, and by grouping about It Essex, Surrey, and Sussex, to form a realm which bore the name of the Eastern Kingdom.^ DiflPerences so marked as those^ which existed be- its miuta.^ tween the three divisions of Wessex might well have ^'•^«'**^«^*^'* imperilled its political unity; what they actually did was to triple its military strength. We shall see the Danes conquering Northumbria or Mercia in a single campaign. But to conquer Wessex required a threefold effort. AVhen the pirates, after years of -xvage, had practically torn from it the Eastern 1 1 Charter of Ecgberht, 823; "filii nostri ^thelwulfi, quern legem constituimus in Cantia" (Thorpe, - Diplomatarium," p bb). ^thelwulf 's own charter to Chertsey (ib. p. 78) shows that Kent here means tlie whole Eastern Kingdom. 70 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. hI'BII t II- ^■'' CHAP. ir. Kingdom, Wessex itself faced the invaders behind the The Coming Andredsweald ; and even when the older realm had witogs. r^j^ Last been overrun, a West-Saxon king could still lii: fall back on the Wessex beyond Selwood. And to this natural strength was added the strength of a distinct military organization. The fyrd of each folk-district was placed in the hands of an ealdorman appointed by the king; nor was this arrangement confined to Wessex itself, for in each part of the "Eastern Kingdom" also we find an ealdorman acting side by side with the under-king.^ The military value of this organization was soon seen in the freedom and elasticity which it gave to the later resistance against the Danes. Position of But Ecgberht was far from relying only on his the Church. ^^^Yike resources. In his attitude towards the Church he followed no doubt the example of the Frankish kings. From the earlier Pippin to Charles the Great the rulers of the Franks had striven to raise the social and political importance of the clergy. Within their older dominions they looked upon prelate and priest as the main elements of social order and intellectual progress ; in their newer con- quests they planted religious foundations as centres of a new civilization. Motives of hardly less weight would in any case have forced the same policy on Ecsberht. In the realms which his sword had begun to build up into a new England the Church was the one power which he found unbroken. The anarchy of each kino-dom within itself, the strife of one kingdom with another, had only served to give the 1 Eng. Chron. (Winch.), a. 853. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. priesthood a new poHtical weight. In countries where the German invaders found Christianity already established, and bowed to its supremacy, the bishop, enthroned in his Eoman town and repre- senting the Eoman population in its attitude towards the conqueror, had from the first taken a S(3parate pohtical position which strengthened into temporal princedom as time went on. But great as such a position seemed, it in fact brought him to the level of the secular nobles about him. Like them he became necessarily embroiled in civil strife ; like them he was the sport of ill-fortune as of good ; and ill-fortune meant in his case, as in theirs, exile or deposition or death. But an English bishop was from the first one in blood and interest with the whole of his English flock. His diocese was the kingdom. His bishop's seat was the king's town. He sate beside king or ealdorman in folkmoot or witenagemot. His position was as national as theirs ; but it had in it an element of permanence which their position lacked. At the close of the eicrhth century, while kings were being set aside and eing the mere tool of his minister. To the charges uade in later times against the son of Ecgberht the ictual history of his reign gives little countenance. He 1 Stubbs and Haddan, "Councils," iii. 617. 2 Will. Malm. "Gest. Reg." (Hardy), vol. i. p. 151. If CHAP. II. The Coming of the Wikings. 829- 858. TIte WiJcings attack Wessex. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. is reproached with weakness and inactivity, with an unwarlike temper, and with an excessive devotion to the Church. But it is hard to see any want of energy in the king's actual conduct. His steady fight with the Danes, as well as the crowning victory which foiled their heaviest attack at Aclea, show his worth as a warrior ; while the firmness with which he carried out Ecgberht's policy at home and his ejffort to organize a common European re- sistance to the northern marauders show his capacity as a statesman. ^thelwulf had hardly mounted the throne when he had to meet the foe whom his father's sword had driven for a brief space from the land, for not even such a victory as Hengest-dun could long check the attack of the pirates who were cruising in ever growing numbers over the Irish Sea. Their successes, as we have seen, had now given them a base of operations in Ireland itself, the north of which seemed passing into the hands of the Wikings.^ Undisputed master of Ulster, Thorgils dealt a heavy blow at the religion and civilization of the island by the destruction of Armagh, and pressed hard upon Meath and Con- naught. Meanwhile, scattered squadrons were seizing point after point along the shore, raising forts and planting colonies to which Ireland owed the rise of its earliest towns, for Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, and Cork, all sprang from pirate settlements.^ It 1 For the character of Thorgils* settlement, see Todd, "War of Gaedhil and Gaill," Intr. p. xlviii. 2 " It was in 837 or 838 that Dublin was first taken by the foreigners, who erected a fortress there in 841 or 842." Todd, " War of Gaedhil and Gaill," Introd. p. liii. CHAP. II. The Coming of the ^ Wikings. 829- 858. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. was thus from a land that seemed all but their own that the Ostmen, as the Wikings were called in these parts, could direct their attacks against the nnhar- ried country across St. George's Channel. But they found a vigorous and well organized resistance. In ~" 837 an attack on the very heart of the realm was repulsed by the fyrd of Hamton-shire under ealdor- man Wulfheard.^ The bulk of the pirate raids how- ever were as yet directed against the country to the west beyond Selwood, the district which from its half Celtic population was known as that of the Wealh-cyn, and where, in spite of the failure of the Cornwealas in their revolt against Ecgberht, they might still hope for aid from the western Welsh. Here however the local fyrds fought as resolutely as in Hamton-shire. In the very year of Wulf- heard's success ealdorman ^thelhelm at the head of the Dorset-folk fell beaten after a well-fought struggle with a pirate force which landed at Pmt- land ; ^' and three years later King ^thelwulf was himself defeated in an encounter with thirty-five pirate ships at their old landing place of Charmouth ; ' but in 845 the fyrds of Somerset and Dorset, with their ealdormen and their bishop Ealhstan at their head, repulsed the invaders with heavy loss at. the mouth of the Parret, and six years later they were driven back with slaughter by the fyrd and ealdorman of Devon.^ The stout fighting of the men of Wessex w[is no The Wikings doubt aided by a sudden weakening in the position Frauhic^nd. 1 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 837. 2 jj^^ §37^ 2 Ibid. 840. 4 /^,.^ 845^ 8,51 ^ ^r 76 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 829- 858. r. I m 'fit III IV. Hi'- CHAP. II. of their assailants; for in the year of Bishop Ealh- "^^qm/"^ ^^^^'^ victory at the Parret, Thorgils was slain in a wikings. rising of the Irish tribes of the north/ and his host driven from the land, while the Ostmen of the coast wasted their strength in bitter warfare between the older settlers and fresh comers from the northern lands.^ But whether from her own resistance or the weakness of her foes, Wessex at last gained a breathing-space in the struggle : and for twenty years to come only a single descent on her coast disturbed the peace which she had won. The cessation of the strife in one quarter, however, was but the signal for its outbreak in another. The Wikings, as we have seen, had pushed forward from their home in two parallel lines of advance, one, mainly from Norway, by the Shetlands and the Hebrides aloncv the coast of Ireland, the other, mainly from South Jutland, along the coast of Friesland and of Gaul. The last had till now found a formidable barrier in the resistance of the empire. But the wars which broke out only a few years after .^thelwulfs accession between the sons of Lewis the Pious threw open Frank-land to the pirates' arms ; and after pushing up the Seine and the Loire to the sack of Eouen and Nantes they reached the Garonne in 844, and wrecked its country as far as Toulouse. In 845 a mighty host crowned the work of havoc by the sack of Paris; and with fresh fire thus added to their 1 See for date Todd, '' War of Gaedhil and Gaill," Intr. xliii. 2 According to the "Annals of Ulster," the "Dubhgaill," Black Gentiles, or Danes, first came to Ireland in 851, and their coming was at once followed by a great battle with the " Fingaill," or Norwegians. Todd, "War of Gaedhil and Gaill," Intr. Ixxviii. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. greed, fleet after fleet poured along the coast of Gaul. Their aid roused the Bretons into revolt; while victories over the troops of the Franks gave Saintes and Limoges to pillage. The pirate raids threatened to take the form of permanent conquests. One host settled down in Friesland ; another seized the district between the Scheldt and the Meuse ; the fleets which pillaged along the Seine and the Loire began to wnter boldly in the islands of the two rivers ; while in 848 a pirate force mastered the town of Bordeaux and made it a place of arms. From this hour the Wikings were masters of western Frankland, moving with little resistance from river to river, and gathering booty at tlieir will. It may have been the very success of their work, iiowever, on the one side of the Channel that had liindered them as yet from undertaking any very serious work on the other. From the outscit of /Ethelwulfs reign, indeed, their presence had been felt on the eastern coast of Britain ; in 838 we hear i)f descents on Lindsey and East Angiia ; ' and in spite of the silence of our annals these descents were probably often repeated through the years that followed. On Kent naturally their attacks fell more frequently. Nowhere in Britain was there a more tempting field for the spoiler. Its early civilization. Its importance as the road of communication with the Continent, made Kent one of the wealthiest and most thriving parts of Britain; its bounds were steadily enlarging as the Kentishmen cleared their way into the skirts of the Weald, and rescued from ^ Eng. Chron. (Winch.), a. 838. 77 CHAP. II. The Coming of the Wikings. 829- 858. They attack Kent. r if I I.I i 78 CHAP. IT. The Cominff of the Wikiiigs. 829- 858. The victory at Aclea. \> Hk'" I THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. the woodland the fertile tract along the upper Med- way ; and if the silting up of the Wantsum had closed the harbour of Eichborough, the growing trade with Gaul had but passed to Dover and to Sandwich.^ The central borough of Kent, Canterbury, was in size and wealth among the greatest of English cities ; and it was the seat of a Primacy which the suppression of that of Lichfield left without a rival in southern Britain. AVhat was yet more important in the pirates' eyes was the wealth of its religious houses. Half Thanet belonged to the abbey at Minster ; while the estates of the two monasteries at Can- terbury were scattered over the whole face of the shire. While ^thelwulf guarded Wessex, it was here that his son j^thelstan met the assailants of his kingdom in the east. In 838 the same force which ravaged Lindsey and East Anglia slew ealdorman Herebriht and many with him in a descent on the flats of the Mersc-wara, and harried and slew in Kent itself.^ In the next year, after a raid on Canterbury, the pirates pushed up the Thames to London and Eochester.^ Then for a while the land had rest, till in 851 the under-king and ealdorman of Kent repulsed a raid upon Sandwich, and even captured nine of the pirate ships. The squadron, however, which they thus beat off was only the advance guard of a host which was now preparing for an attack ; and in the course of the same year a fleet of three hundred and fifty ^ This must have been very early; as Dover was already a port in Ealdhelm's day, and Sandwich in Wilfrid's. 2 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 838. s jn^^ 839. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. "9 CHAP. II. The Coming: of the Wikings. 829- 858. pirate vessels, starting, as it would seem, from the settlement which had been made in the island of Betau, moored at the mouth of the Thames,^ sacked Canterbury, pillaged London in spite of the eflforts of the Mercian king, Beorhtwulf, who advanced to oppose them, and pushed through Surrey into the heart of Britain. Here however ^thelwulf, sum- moned at last to his aid by the Kentish king, threw himself across their path; and a long and stubborn fight at Aclea ended in the defeat of the marauders. More pirates fell on the field, boasted the conquerors, than had ever fallen on Eno-lish ground before ; and the completeness of the repulse was seen in the withdrawal of the host to its old field of plunder across the Channel. But the Wikings were far from any thought of abandoning their prey. Two years later two ealdormen, it the head of the fyrds of Kent and Surrey, fell after a well- fought fight with a host in Thanet ; ^ while in 855 the pirates encamped for the whole winter in tlie Isle of Sheppey. What was needed to shake off* this persistent attack Conquest of of the Wikings from Gaul was, as ^Ethelwulf saw, %fiX^' the alliance and co-operation of the Frankish king who was struggling against them in Gaul itself. If the first result of the pirate storm had been to farther English unity by allying the new English state with the English Church, its second result was to force the state into closer relations with its fellow states of Christendom. At the beginning of his reign ^Ethel- wulf had opened communications with the Emperor 1 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 851. 2 /^,-j ^ 353^ :i^ 5, Pl 80 CHAP. II. The Coining of the Wikings. 829- 858. mi THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Lewis the Gentle for common action in meeting the common danger ; but it is in his hater years that we see the first distinct announcement of an international policy, the first English recognition of a common interest among the western nations, in the resolve of the king to cross the seas for counsel and concert wdth Charles the Bald. Work, however, had to be done before he could quit the realm.^ On both sides of the Channel, as we have seen, the appearance of the foe from the north had given a signal for the uprising of the Celt ; and while in Gaul the Bretons had shaken off the yoke of Charles the Bald and set up again a Breton kingdom under Breton kings, in Britain the West-Welsh had risen against their West- Saxon overlords, and the North-Welsh had thrown off the Mercian supremacy. So formidable indeed was the last revolt that in 853, two years after the battle of Aclea, the Mercian king Burhred, Beorhtwulf s successor, was forced to appeal to his West- Saxon overlord for aid ; and it was only a march of their joint forces into the heart of North Wales, with the conquest of Anglesea, that forced the Welsh ruler, Eoderic MawT, again to own the English supremacy and to pay tribute to Mercia. In spite of the wintering of a pirate force in Sheppey, the two triumphs of ^thelwulf in Surrev 1 Eng. Ohron. (Winch.) a. 853 ; Asser (ed. Wise), p. 6. One part of ^thelwulf's preparation was the grant of a sixth part of the rents from his private dominions for ecclesiastical and chari- table purposes (Asser, ed. Wise, p. 8). By an early fraud this was represented as a grant of a tenth of the whole revenue of the kingdom, and as the legal origin of tithes. See Kemble, " Saxons in England," ii. 480 — 490. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. and in Wales left Britain sufficiently tranquil in 854 to suffer hnn to leave its shores. His first journey liowever recalls to us how much more the danger from the marauders seemed to men of that day a religious than a political one. He undertook a pil- grimage to Eome. We know little of the pilarimage or of his stay at the imperial city, though it lasted a whole year and cannot but have served to draw closer the connexion of the English Church with the Mother-Church from which it sprang. From Eome however he passed at length to the court of the Franks. Blow after blow had shattered the Frankish state since Ecgberht half a century earlier quitted Charles the Great to seek his throne in Wessex. The vast realm had been torn to pieces by the dissensions of its rulers, as well as by the revival of national spirit among the peoples out of whom It had been built up. A ring of enemies had gathered round it on every border. Sclaves and Magyars pressed on its German frontier. I'he Saracens wasted Italy. The northmen' carried fire and sword over western Frankland. the country west of the Meuse and the Ehone, a fragment of the old J^rank realm which had fallen in the strife that fol- lowed the death of Lewis the Gentle to his youngest son Charles the Bald. The reign of Charles had as yet been one of terrible misfortunes ; for brave and active as he was, his vigour spent itself fruitlessly on the crowd of foes who surrounded him, on the rising of the Breton, the revolt of Gascony, the strife of his own house for rule, the never-ceasing forays of the northmen. Beaten and baffled as he seemed how- G 81 CHAP. II. The Comine of the Wlklngs. 820- 858. jSthelwulft visit to Charles the Bald. •' '"if' i(i i! ! M 82 CHAP. II. The Coining of the Wikings. 829- 858. ./Ethehmlf's return and death. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. ever, Charles fought on; and the struggle of the harassed king, if it failed to save his own realm, did somewhat to save ^thelwulf s. The visit of ^thel- wulf to the Prankish court, where he spent three months in the summer of 856, was a recognition of their common work ; and his marriage with the Frank king's young daughter, Judith, with which the visit closed, marks probably the conclusion of a formal alliance, perhaps of a common plan of operations with Charles the Bald/ But the policy of ^thelwulf was in advance of his age. England had hardly as yet realized the need of national unity, and outside the king's council chamber there can have been few who understood the need of union between the nations of Christen- dom. The descents of the Wikings had as yet with a single exception been but isolated plunder-raids, and their very success against the invaders would help to blind Englishmen to a Qense of their danger. The new connexion with the Frankish king, on the other hand, may have roused suspicions of a plan for setting aside the elder sons of j^thelwulf in favou; of the issue of his marriage with Judith ; and if such suspicions were once aroused, they would be quickened by the coronation of the queen, a ceremony which was ^ Eng. Chron. a. 855 ; Prudent. Tree. Ann. a. 856 (ap. Pertz. i. 450), who dates the betrothal in July, the marriage at Yerberie on the Oise on Oct. 1, says that Hincmar, "imposito capiti ejus diademate reginae nomine insignit, quod sibi suseque genti eatenus fuerat insuetum." The marriage can have only been a formal one, as Judith was but twelve years old. The marriage of Judith to ^thelbald, on his father's death, had no doubt the same purely political meaning. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. as yet against the wont of the West Saxons.^ Whatever was the cause of the rising, on his return at the close of 856 ^thelwulf found Wessex in arms. In a gathering at Selwood^ its thegns had pledged them- selves to place the king^s eldest living son, ^thelbald who on the death of his brother ^^thelstan a few years back had succeeded him in charge of the Eastern Kingdom, on the throne of Wessex, and their course was backed by Bishop Ealhstan of Sher- borne. Swithun, on the other hand, remained true to ^thelwulf, .and the Kentishmen welcomed him l)ack to their shores. But ^thelwulf had no mind for civil strife. He was already drawing fast to the grave, and if we judge his conduct by the past history of his reign, rather than by the charges of weakness which later tradition brought against him, w(; may see in his summons of a Witenagemot to settle this question, the reluctance of a noble ruler to purchase power for himself by again rending England asunder m face of the foe. The voice of the Witan bade ' Asser (ed. Wise), p. 9 ; Will. Malm. " Gest. Reg." (Hardy), i. 1 69. At some time before ^thelwulf s journey the question of the succession had been settled in a somewhat peculiar way. His next successor would naturally be his eldest son, the - Eastern King " ^thelstan ; but, whether from the failing health which th(. death ot ^thelstan soon after may indicate or no, it seems to have been needful to look further, and to arrange that the crown shouM pass at his death to his three brothers successively in the order of their birth, setting aside the children of all of them. .Shelstan died before his father's return; and the next son, ^thelbalcl, may tu Tfr. '''" ^^" ^"'^'^ coronation of his youngest brother ^Ifred at Rome, or on the marriage with Judith, as threatening His right of succession under this arrangement. 2 Asser (ed. Wise), p. 8. G 2 83 CHAP. IT. The Cominfir of the ^ Wikings. 829- 858. 84 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAP. II. The Coming of the Wikings. 829- 858. ^thelwulf content himself with the Eastern King- dom; and abandoning Wessex to ^thelbald, the king dwelt quietly in this under-realm for the brief space of life which still was left liim.^ 1 Will. Malm. " Gest. Reg." (Hardy), i. 170 ; Asser (ed. Wise), p. 9. m ;! CHAPTER III. THE MAKING OF THE DANELAW. 858—878. A FEW months after liis withdrawal to the Eastern realm brought ^thelwulf to the grave at the opening of 858;' and iEthelbald enjoyed but for two years longer the crown which revcit had given him. The reign of his brother ^thelberht;-^ who followed him in 860, was almost as short and uneventful ; and for some years there was little to break the peace of the land save a raid of the 'north- men on Winchester/ which was avenged by the men 1 "Idibus Januarii," Prud. Tree. Ann. a. 858, (ap. Pertz. i. 451.) ^ ^ 2 By ^thelvvulf's will ^thelberht, who succeeded him as under-king in Kent, should have remained there at ^tbelbald's death, while Wessex feU to his younger brother ^thelred ; but the will must have been set aside by the Witan as inconsistent with the arrangement by which the brothers were to follow one another in order of age. Both the bequest and the setting aside are of the highest import for our after history; the first as the earliest known instance of a claim to "bequeath" the crown as a personal property, the second as showing such a claim to be as yet not admitted. ^ This was under Weland, whom we find before and after The final attack on Britain, ,1 f I 86 CHAP. 111. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. of Hamptonsliire and Berkshire under their ealdor^ The^M^king men,^ and a ravaging of the eastern shores of Kent iii^' ^y P'""^^^^ ^^^^ G^^l i^ 864. But with the death of 878. ^thelberht and the accession of his next surviving brother ^thelred in 866, the northern storm broke with far other force upon Britain.^ Its occupation had now indeed become almost a necessity for the Wikings. It was the one measure which could draw their other conquests together. They already occupied the Faroes and the Shetlands, the Orkney isles and the Hebrides. On either side of Britain they were a settled power. The east coast of Ireland was dotted with their towns, while westward their settlements formed a broken linJ from Friesland to Bordeaux. But in the very heart of their field of operations Britain still lay un- conquered, for their descents on its shores had only ended as yet in hard fighting and defeat. And yet it was the winning of Britain which was needed above all to support and widen their conquests to the east- ward and westward of it. Had the pirates once be- come masters of this central post the face of the west must have changed. Backed by a Scandinavian Britain, their isolated colonies along the Irish coast must have widened into a dominion over all Ireland, while their this in the Seine and the Somme. Munch, '' Det Norske Folks Hist." pt. iv. pp. 200, 209-10. 1 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 860. 2 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 866. ^thelred's accession marks a new step forward in the consolidation of Wessex. Kent and its dependencies are no longer left detached as a separate under- kmgdom ; and the king's younger brother Alfred, who would otherwise have succeeded to the Kentish under-kingdom, becomes " Secundarius " (Asser, ed. Wise, pp. 19, 22). THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. settlement along the Frankish coast might have grown into a territory stretching over much of Gaul. "^ In a word, Christendom would have seen the rise of a power upon its l)order which might have changed the fortunes of the western world. Such polittcal considerations indeed can hardly have affected any save the leaders of the northern warriors, but for every warrior there was the ceaseless pressure of the pirates' greed. ^ Now that its abbeys were wrecked there was little booty to be got from Ireland ; and even Gaul, wasted as it had been for half a century, was ceasing to be a prey worth much fighting for! Britain however still lay practically untouched.'' No spoiler's hand had fallen on most of its greater mon- asteries. No pirate's hand had as yet wrung ransom from its royal hoards. From the opening of Jithelred's reign therefore Britain became the main field of northern attack. The name, however, under which its assailants were known suggests that a reason for the choice of this new field of \N^arfare, even more powerful than greed or ambition, lay in the appearance of a new body of assailants. 2 It is now that we first hear of the Danes. The assailants of the Franks had been drawn, as we have seen, from the northmen of South Jutland, those of Ireland from the northmen of Nor- way. But w^hile these earlier Wikings were doino- their work on either side of Britain, another people of 1 Hen. Huntingdon, ''Hist. Angl." lib. v. prooem. (ed. Arnold, p. 138) puts this well. " Baci vero terram .... non obtinere sed praedari studebant, et omnia destruere, non dominari cipiebant." 2 See Dahlmann, " Gesch. von Dannemark," i. p. 65. 87 CHAP. 111. The Making of the Danelaw. 858- 878. m The comhuj of the Danes. I^Hi' 88 CHAP. III. The Makinff of the ^ Danelaw. 858- 878. Character of their warfare. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. the same Scandinavian blood had been taking form along the south-western coast of the present Sweden, and had spread from thence over Zeeland with its fellow isles and the north of our Jutland.^ These were the men who now came to the front under the name of the Danes ; and that they brought a new force and a more national life to the struggle is plain from the character which it immediately took. The petty squadrons which had till now harassed the coast of Britain made way for hosts larger than had fallen on any country in the west ; while raid and foray were replaced by the regular campaigns of armies who marched to conquer, and whose aim was to settle on the land they had won. The numbers in which the Danes drew together showed their consciousness that the work they were taking in hand was work such as the pirates had never taken in hand before. But their numbers are far from explaining the rapidity and completeness of their success in the coming strife. The real force of the northern warriors in fact everywhere lay not in numbers but in their superiority as soldiers to the men they met. As assailants indeed their natural advantages were great ; for their mastery of the sea gave them along every coast a secure basis of opera- tions, while every river furnished a road for their advance.^ But the caution and audacity with which 1 From Othere's voyage (in JElfred's ^'Orosius") which is our earliest historical authority, it is clear that the Danes had reached these limits before the close of the ninth century. 2 It is possible that the boats which may be seen making up the Humber with the tide to Goole and the Trent, and which are stm known as ''keels," may fairly represent to us ''keels" of THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 89 H {t 858- 878. they availed themselves of these advantages showed chap. hi. a natural genius for war. To seize a headland or a The Making slip of land at a river mouth, to draw a trench across i^aneiaw. it and back their trench with earthworks, to haul up their vessels within this camp and assign it a camp- guard, was the prelude to each northern foray ; and it was only when their line of retreat was secured that they pushed into the heart of the land.^ From the moment of their advance caution seemed exchano-ed for a reckless daring. But their daring was far from being reckless. They were in fact the first European warriors who realized the value of quick movement in war. The earliest work of the marauders was to seize horses ; once mounted, they rode pillaging into the heart of the land; and the speed with whi(ih they hurried along baffled all existing means of defence. While alarm beacons were flaming out on hill and headland, while shire-reeve and town-reeve were mustering men for the fyrd, the Dane had already swooped upon abbey and grange. When the shire- host was fairly mustered the foe was back within his earlier times. Their large, red-brown sails, about seventy feet long, are but a few feet shorter than that of the Wikings' ship of Gokstad ; sails of that kind rising above the fringe of reeds and over the long reaches of marsh-land must often ha^re struck terror into the dwellers on the Humbrian shores. (A. S. G.) ^ In their own land, which was penetrated throughout by arms of the sea, no spot lay more than ten miles i'rom the water, and the whole country was thus necessarily exposed to pirate raids, such as those of the Wendish sea-rovers \^ ho for a time made a part of the coast of Jutland a mere desert. It was under these conditions that the Danes had learned their special mode of warfare. See Dahlmann's " Geschichte von Dannemark," vol. i. pp. 129, 136. (A. S. G.) m ' r! t 11' I P f mu ii 90 CHAP, III. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Danelaw. 858- 878. The Danes in Ireland. _ camp ; and the country folk wasted their valour upon The Maidng entrenchments which held them easily at bay till the Danelaw, black boats were shoved off to sea again. Nor was this all. The Danes were as superior to their opponents m tactics as in strategy. An encounter between the shire-levies and the pirates was a struggle of militia With regular soldiers. The Scandinavian war-band was a band of drilled warriors, tried in a hundred forays, knit together by discipline and mutual trust grouped round a leader of their own choosinc. and armed from head to foot. Outnumber them as'they might, a host of farmers hurried from their ploughs armed with what weapons each found to hand, were no match for soldiers such as these. It was now nearly fourteen years since the Danes had appeared in the western seas. In 852 a force of these -Dubhgaiir^ or Dark Strangers made its way to the Irish coast under a sea-king called Olaf the Fair, himself no Dane, but a son of one of the petty rulers of the Norwegian Upland ; ^ and after hard fighting with the -Finn-Gaill" or White Strangers, the Norwegians whom it found in possession of the pirate field, the Danes withdrew to return four years after in overwhelming force. From 856 the Wikincrs about Ireland submitted to Olaf, and his occupation of Dubhn made it the centre of the Ostmen.^ At the same time Ivar the Boneless, who, whether a son of the 1 The Landnama Book caHs him a son of King Ingialld, who came of the stock of Halfdan Whitefoot, King of Upland. ^^^ Todd, ^'^ War of Gaedhil and Gaill," Intr. p. Ixxviii.-ix. Ostmen was the name given to the pirates settled on the east coast of Ireland. (A. S. G.) THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 91 Danelaw. 858 878. mysterious Eagnar Lodbrok or no, was a Skioldung, chap. m. or of the kingly race among the Danes, seems from The Miking the Irish annals to have been fighting in LVIunster. ""^ ^^* But for ten years we see nothing more of these leaders or of their Danish followers ; and it is not till 866 that we find them united in an attack on the greater island of Britain. While the Ostmen gathered in a fleet of two hundred vessels under Olaf the Fair, and threw themselves on the Scot- kingdom across the Firth of Forth, a Danish host from Scandinavia itself, under Ivar the Boneless, landed in 866 on the shores of East-Anglia.^ We can hardly doubt that this district had been the object of many attacks since the raid on its shores which is recorded more than twenty years before,^ for the Danes were suff*ered to winter within its bounds, and it was only in the spring of 867 that they horsed themselves and rode for the north. Their aim was Northumbria ; and as they struck over Mid-Britain for York they found the ^country torn by the wonted anarchy, and two rivals contend- ing, as of old, for the throne. Though the claimants united in presence of this common danger, their union 1 The English Chronicle calls it a *'micel here," but names no leader, ^thelweard however calls it '' classis tyranni Igwares ; " and the Chronicle names Inguar and his brother Hubba as leaders of the "here" when it conquered East-Anglia four years later. The lists of after writers are made up of all the names men- tioned in the subsequent story. I have omitted all reference to the legend of Ragnar Lodbrok's death, which does not make its appearance for a couple of centuries. 2 Eng. Chron. a. 838. / ■Bi! The Danes in York. . m \ ^ k 92 CHAP. III. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. T.e ^r r? '*'• '^^' ^'^'^^^ ^'''^ «^i^^d York at their .££:' f "* ™ ' T*! "°" ^*^^^ ^''^ ^'^''' '^' Northum- __ brian host to shelter within its defences, which seem still STB. to have consisted of a wooden stockade crowning the mound raised by the last Roman burghers round°their widened city.^ The flight and seeming panic of their iocs roused the temper of the Northumbrians : they succeeded in breaking through the stockade, and pouring in with its flying defenders, were already masters of the bulk of the town when the Danes turned in a rally of despair. From that moment the day was lost. Not only were the two kings slain, but their men were hunted and cut down over all the country-side, till it seemed as if the whole host of Northumbria lay on the fatal field.^ So overwhelmino- was the blow that a general terror hindered all further resistance; those who survived the ficrht " made peace with the Pagans ; " and Northumbria sank without further struggle into a tributary kingdom of the Dane. ° But the loss of its freedom was only the first result of this terrible overthrow. With freedom went the whole learning and civilization of the North. These as we have seen, were concentrated in the great abbeys which broke the long wastes from the Humber to the Forth, and whose broad lands had as yet served as 1 Sim. Durh. "Hist. Dun. Ecc." lib. ii. c. vi 2 ''Non enim tunc adhuc iUa civitas firmos et stabilitos muros ilh^s temporibus habebat." Asser (Wise), p. 18 '• r"'"'/^'^^™'* e^ parte omnes Northanliymbrensium coeti TslrTw" 7'^^^^;^" ""'"^ '^""'^'^"^ '''^'' oocubuerrt " battle as Palm Sunday, or March 21, 867. Jiuin of Northumbria. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. .refuge for what remained of order and industry in the growing anarchy of the country. But it was mainly the abbeys that roused the pirates' greed ; and so unsparing was their attack after the victory at York • that, in what had till now been the mam home of English monasticism, monasticism wholly passed away. The doom that had long ago fallen on Jarrow and Wearmouth fell now on all the houses of the coast. The abbey of Tynemouth was burned. Streoneshealh, the house of Hild and of C'admon vanished so utterly that its very name disappeared' and the little township which took its place m later days bore the Danish name of Whitby. It was the same with the inland houses. Cuthbert's Melrose, Ceadda's Lastingham, no longer broke the silence of Tweeddale or Pickering. If Wilfrid's church at Ripon still remained standing,^ his abbey perished; and though Archbishop ^thelberht's church stiU lowered over York in the glory of its new stonework, we hear no more of library or school. As a see indeed, York in time profited by the blow. On the general fabric of the church in the north it fell heavily ; after the sack of Holy Island the Bishop of Lindisfarne was hunted from refuge to refuge with the relics of Cuthbert ; ' the Bishop of Lindsey was driven to seek a new home in the south ; while the bishopric at Hexham came wholly to an end.^ But the ruin of its fellow sees .-,) ^^?i"*', ^°^^^«^' ^^^ I'ot ravaged nor its abbeys destroyed till Halfdene's raid in 875. 2 It was destroyed by Eadred in 948. 3 Sim. Durh. " Hist. Dunelm. Ecc." lib. ii. c. vi * Stubbs, "Const. Hist." i. p. 274. 93 CHAP. III. The Making of the Danelaw. 858- 878. ii t i II 94 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Danelaw. 858- 878. W CHAR III. brought to York a new greatness. As representative of ^^'onhe'"^ conquered Nortliumbria, and as the one power which Danelaw * t x -*■ remained permanent amidst the endless revolutions of the pirate state which superseded it, the Primate at York became the religious centre of the North at a moment when the North regained the political in- dividuality it seemed to have lost since the days of Eadberht.' The gain of the primacy, however, was a small matter beside the losses of the country at large. The blows of the Dane were aimed with so fatal a precision at the centres of its religious and intel- lectual life that of the houses which served as the schools, libraries, and universities of Northumbria not one remained standing in the regions over which the conquerors swept. So thoroughly was the work of destruction done that the country where letters and culture had till now found their favourite home remained for centuries to come the rudest and most ignorant part of Britain. _ As yet, however, the Danes seem to have had little aim but plunder ; and they were hardly masters of Deira when, setting up Ecgberht as an under- king,^ they turned to seek new spoil in the south. They seized the passage of the Trent at Nottingham, formed their winter camp there,' and threatened Mercia in the coming spring. But their way was suddenly barred. At the threat of invasion the Mercian king Burhred, with his Witan, called for aid 1 Stubbs, " Const. Hist." i. p. 273. = " Sub suo dominio regem Ecgberhtum prfefecerunt," Sim Durh. " Hist. Dunelm. Ecc." lib. ii. c. vi. « Asser (ed. V/ise), pp. 19, 20; Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 868. The Danes threaten Mercia. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 95 858- 878. from his West-Saxon overlord.' The inaction of chap i„ .Ethelred through the strife in Northumbria shows The linking that in spite of the submission at Dore ' the northern i>»nei^'w realm stood practically without the West-Saxon supremacy. But time and the policy of the house of Ecgberht had tightened the bonds which linked central Britain to the West-Saxon crown ; and the appeal for help against the Welsh in ^thelwulfs days, as now for help against the Danes, shows that Mercia thoroughly recognized its position as an under-kingdom. The call was heard, and a rapid march brought ^thelred's host to the Danish front at the passage of the Trent. At the head of his joint army of Mercians and West-Saxons the kincr sought at once to give battle. The Danes however were too good soldiers to be' drawn into the field ; they fell back on their invariable policy of fighting behind earthworks ; and the defences of their camp proved too strong to be broken through, even by the fierce attacks of the English host.'' But if ^thelrecl failed to crush the Dane, he at any rate saved Mercia, for a peace between Danes and Mercians at last parted the combatants. While iEthelred withdrew to Wessex, the Danes fell back baffled to winter 98 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. cHAP^iii. Britain promised to be as easy and complete as its ^om^^ work in the north. Danelaw 858- 878. The leader in the new fray was no longer Eao-nar's son, Ivar, who seems to have returned to his conquest ^BeMirJ'' ^^ "^^^^^' "^^^^^ ^^^ brother Hubba had put afresh to sea with a Wiking fleet which we shall find later on in the Bristol Channel ; but Guthrum or Gorm, who may (as later genealogies told) have been of kin to the Gorm who was soon to draw the Danisli people together into a kingdom of Denmark. With him marched Basgsecg, the Danish King of Bernicia. and a crowd of jarls, Sidroe the Old and Sidroc the Young, Osbern, and Frsena, and Harald among them.' In 871 their host sailed up the Thames past London, and seized a tongue of land some half a mile from Heading for its camp.^ The country which was to form the scene of the coming struggle was the square of rough forest-country to which the abundance of ''bearroc" or box-trees among its woodlands gave the name of Berkshire,^ a district wedged as it were into an angle which the Thames makes as it runs from its head-waters eastward to Oxford and then turns suddenly to the south to cleave its way throuo-h chalk uplands to Beading and the Kennet valley. The bulk of the shire was still wild and thinly peopled, for chalk downs spread over the heart of it from the Thames to Hampshire, and the fertile 1 We know these as having fallen at Ashdown. Asser (ed Wise), p. 23. 2 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 871. 3 Asser (ed. Wise), p. 1. "Ilia paga qu^ nominatur Bearroc- scire, quae paga taliter vocatur a Berroc sylva, ubi buxus abundantissime nascitur." THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Kennet valley to the south lay pressed between these uplands and the barren and tangled country about Windsor. But the northern escarpment of the downs looked over the broad reaches of the Vale of White Horse, where the deep clay soil lent itself to tillac^e where English settlements clustered thickly and manors of the West- Saxon kings were scattered over the land. One of these king's-tuns, that of Wantage/ had been the birthplace of the youngest of ^thelwulf s sons, the ^theling .Elfred.^ Young as he still was, ^fred's life had been a stirring and eventful one! He was but four years old when he was sent with a company of nobles to Eome,^ on an embassy which paved the way for ^thelwulf s own visit tw^o years later, and he returned to the imperial city in his father's train. The boy's long stay there, as weU as ' "In viim regia quae dicitur Wanading," Asser (ed. Wise), . -u ^.Z f^^^f^ "^« *he main authority must be the work at- tributed to Asser. Its authenticity, which was disputed by Mr. Wnght {" Biographia Britannica Literaria "), is admitted by almost all other scholars ; though the critical examination of Pauh "Life of Alfred/' pp. 4-11) shows in how damaged a state the book has come down to us. In spite of all difficulties however '• no theory of the authorship or date of the work " says Mr. Ear e ("Parallel Chronicles," Intr. p. Ivi.), "has ev;r been proposed which on the whole meets the facts of the case ,n «o'. t'^^V *r* ^""l^ '"^ *^' ^°^ ^*«^1^' '^' it ^^^ bitten in 893. Asser has embodied the whole contents of the existing chronicle from 851 to 887, a point at which there are gooS grounds for believing the Chronicle, as Alfred found it, to have ended. This coincidence "is strongly in favour of the professed ^ Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 853. H 2 99 CHAP. III. The Hakine _ of the Danelaw. 8S8- 878. 'El/red. Il 1 i lOD CHAP. III. The Makiner of the ^ Danelaw. 858- 878. i^' THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND, at the Prankish court, left a mark on his mind which as Ills political position. we can trace through all his after life. English ^ Alfred was to the core, his international temper, his freedom from a narrow insularism, his sense of the common interests and brotherhood of Christian nations, pointed back to the childish days when he looked on the wonders of Eome or listened to the scholars and statesmen who thronged the court of Charles the Bald. There was little, as we have seen, to break the peace of the land as the JEtheling grew to manhood save passing raids of the northmen from Gaul, and the vigour and restlessness of the boy's temper found no outlet for itself but in the chase. But the thirst for knowledge was already quickening within him. It was one of the bitter regrets of his after life that at this time, when he had leisure and will to learn, he could find no man to teach him. But what he could learn he learned. • The love of English verse which never left him dated from these earlier days. It was a book of English songs which (if we accept the story in spite of its difficulties)' his mother promised to the first of her sons who learned to read it. The beauty of its letters caught Alfred's eye, and seizing the book from his mother's hand, he sought a master who repeated it to him till the boy's memory enabled him to recite its poems by heart.^ As yet however his temper had little political importance ; for he stood far from the throne. But death was already paving his way to it. ^thelbald enjoyed the crown but two years after his father's 1 See Pauli's criticisms, "Life of Alfred," p. 51. 2 ^ssgj. ^g(j -v^Tise), p. 16. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. death ; and only six years later the death of ^thel- berht in 866, and the accession of his one surviving brother ^thelred, set Alfred next in the accepted order of succession to the West-Saxon throne. The stress of events too called him now to sterner studies than those of letters, for though the consolidation of the Eastern Kingdom with the rest of the monarchy hmdered him from becoming its under-king, he held an oflice, that of Secundarius, in which we may per- haps see a germ of the later Justiciarship ; and it was in discharge of these new duties that he marched at mneteen with his brother to the Trent. The policy ofEcgberht's house aimed at a close union with Central Britain : a sister of iElfred's was alr.3ady wife of the Mercian king ; and in ^Elfred's union at this moment with the daughter of an ealdorman of the Gainas, we see a trace of the same policy which brought about in later days the marriage of his own d'aughter with the Mercian ^thelred.' But the marriage °feast was roughly broken up, for the young husband was seized in the midst of it with a disease, probably that of epilepsy, from which he was never afterwards to be wholly free. Neither sickness nor marriage how- ever held Alfred back from the field ; he fought in the West-Saxon ranks at Nottingham ; ^ and now that the Dane attacked his own Wessex he led the van of his brother's host. It may have been to save the home of his child- hood that the young ^theling fought so stoutly in the after fights. But king and people fought as stoutly as Alfred himself, for now that they were 1 Asser (ed. Wise), p. 59. 2 E^g. Chron. a. 868. 101 CHAP. IK. The Hakine of the Danelaw. 868- 878. ; I I Success of the Danes. 102 CHAP. III. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Danelaw. 858- 878. u ___ attacked on their own ground the West Saxons turned ^^'ofth^''^ fiercely at bay. We have seen how from the first the Danelaw, q^qj^^ had bccu scrccued from invasion by the im- penetrable barriers that guarded it on every side, and how the hosts of its earlier assailants had fallen back before steeps such as those of Wanborough and Ash- down. A far difi'erent fortune however seemed to await the Danes. They had no sooner reached Eeading than one of their marauding parties was cut to pieces by a force hastily gathered under the ealdor- man of the district ; and the check gave JEthelred and his brother time to hurry to the field ; ^ but though the king at once assailed the camp which the pirates had formed by running an entrenchment from the Kennet to the Thames, a desperate fight ended in his repulse, and the defeat threw open Wessex to the invaders. As the beaten Englishmen fell back along the Thames the pirates pushed rapidly by the ancient track known as the Eidgeway along the edge of the upland which looks over the Vale of White Horse, till on the height of Ashdown they threw up entrench- ments and again encamped.^ The march of the Danes showed their genius for war. They had in fact thrown themselves on their enemy's rear, and not only cut off" his communications with the Gwent but turned its very escarpments against him, for it was ^thelred and not the Danes that had to storm the heights of Ashdown in the coming struggle. From such a post indeed all Wessex lay at the mercy of the invaders. But they had still 1 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 871 ; Asser (ed. V^ise), p. 21. 2 Eng. Chron. (Winch) a. 871. The hattle of Ashdoun. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. to fight for it ; for neither iEthelred nor Alfred were men to give up hope at a single blow. Four riays after the fight at Eeading the English army, reinforced probably by the men of Wantage and the neigh- bourhood, stood again face to face with its foes, and .Elfred, who led the advance, at once attacked them.^ Posted, however, as they were on a hill covered with thick brushwood and sheltered by their usual en- trenchments, the Danes held the ^theling's troops stoutly at bay; and though message after message called ^thelred to his aid the king refused to march till the mass he was hearing was done. " God first and man after," ^thelred answered his brotlier's cry ; and iElfred could only save his men from utter rout by charging again and again 'Mike a wild boar" up the slope. The king however showed a cool judge- ment in his delay, for his men were w^ell in hand before he moved ; and the general advance of his army at last cleared the fatal hill. The fight raged fiercest round a stunted thorn- tree which men in after days noted curiously (" I have seen it with my own eyes," says Asser), and here with loud shouts Dane and Englishman battled ha^:d. But the shouts were hushed at last. The day went for ^thelred. King Bsegsecg fell beneath the sword of the king himself ; and five pirate Jarls lay among the corpses which were heaped upon the field.^ But routed as it was, Guthrum's host sought shelter in the camp at Eeading, and its entrenchments again held the brothers at bay. The West Saxons still 1 Asser (ed. Wise), pp. 22, 23. 2 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 871. 103 CHAP. III. The Makingr of the Danelaw. 858- 878. Alfred hecomes king. I > .•' I: 104 CHAP. III. The Makingr ^ofthe ^ Danelaw. 858- 878. ■ > ftTi' The Danes master Mercia. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. indeed kept their mastery in the field, beating back the Danes as they tried a new dash along the hne of the Kennet, and holding them in check at Basing when with forces strengthened by the arrival of fresh troops from the Thames they struck south- ward^ for Hampshire. But the camp at Beading remained impregnable, and every hour of deLay told fatally against ^thelred. Already weakened by these fierce encounters, the West-Saxon leader was hampered above all by the difficulty of holding his levies together. Men called from farm and field and looking for support to the rations they brought with them were eager to fight and go home ; while the Danes were constantly reinforced by fresh comers, and spurred to new efi*orts by the need of procuring supplies from the country they won. A change in the relative weight of the two armies at last showed itself, for a new raid upon Surrey brought the pirates better luck than its predecessors ; and after a brave fight at Merton, in which their king was mortally wounded, the West Saxons drew off beaten from the field.^ When ^Ethelred's death in April 2 added its gloom to the gloom of defeat, and Alfred took his place on the throne, the young king (he numbered but two and twenty years) stood almost alone in front of the enemy, for at the news of his brother's death the English levies had broken up and gone home. At this very hour a large fieet of Danes pushed up Thames to join their fellows at Beading, and ^Elfred ^ Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 871. J Flor. of Wore, dates it three weeks after Easter, which, in o7l, would make it April 23. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. was forced to hurry from his brother's grave at Wim- borne with what men he could muster to meet a fresh advance of the foe. But with such forces little could be done to check their march. They seem already to have entered the Gwent and to have encamped at Wilton, the early -tun" to which our Wiltshire owes its name, before Alfred could meet them ; ^ and a desperate attack which the young king made on them there was roughly beaten off. A succession of petty defeats forced Alfred at last to a shameful truce ; and at the counsel of his Witan he bought with 'hard money the withdrawal of the Danes from the land. The shame was hard to bear, for though bargains of this sort had been common enough in Ireland and Gaul, a purchased peace had as yet scarcely been known among Englishmen ; and the distress of Alfred may be seen in a vow of alms to the holy places in Rome and even in far-off India for deliverance from his foes, which marked this dark hour of his liistory.^ But if the gold won a respite for Wessex, it left the pirates free to complete their work in the centre of the island. Granting peace, no doubt on terms of tribute, to the ruler of Mid-Britain, the host after 1 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 871 ] Asser (ed. Wise), p. 25. 2 Eng. Chron. (Canterbury) a. 883. " This year Siglielm and .mhelstan carried to Rome the ahns which the king v^owed to send thither, and also to India, to St. Thomas and St. Bartliolomew, when they sat down against the army at London.'* The Danish " here " retired after the truce to winter at London (Eng. Chron. a. 872) ; but we have no account of Alfred's sitting down against them ; and as this is a late copy of the Chronicle, its entry may be a mere blunder for Asser's entry, " Paganorum exercitus Lundoniam adiit et ibi hiemavit," or rather Huntingdon's copy of this, '^quando hostilis exercitus hiemavit apud Lundoniam." 105 CHAP. irr. The Making: of the Danelaw. 858- 878. Hi I* 'i ■ I m^ i CHAP. irr. The Making of the Danelaw. 858- 878. Division of the i ^^ THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. a year spent in Northumbria returned to its camp at Torksey in Lincolnshire to gather fresh forces for a new campaign;^ then, in the spring of 874, the Danes burst upon Mercia. We hear of no resistance. King Burhred fled over sea without striking a blow to find refuge and a grave at Eome ; while his con- querors, setting up a puppet king, Ceolwulf, in his room, took oath of vassalage from him and his subjects, and wintered at Repton, sacking and firing the great abbey which served as the burial-place of the Mercian kings.^ Their mastery of central Britain however only Banish host. Served to give the Danes a firmer base from which to complete their conquest of the island, both in north and south. With the spring of 875 their force broke asunder ; one part of it with Halfdene at its head marching northward to the Tyne to complete the reduction of Bernicia.^ The aim of the pirates still remained mainly that of plunder, and the religious houses which had escaped till now fell in this fiercer storm. Coldingham, the house of Ebbe, was burnt to the ground. Bishop Eardulf was driven from Lindisfarne, carrying with him the body of Cuthbert as his chiefest treasure, to wander with it for years from one hiding-place to another.^ When little 1 Eng. Chron. (Winch) a. 873. 2 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 874 ; Asser (ed. Wise), p. 26. ^thel- weard, a. 872. "Myrcii confirmant cum eis foederis pactum stipendiaque statuunt." From the Chronicle it seems that the Danes took part of Mercia, leaving part to Ceolwulf. Is this the beginning of the division into Danish and English Mercia ? 3 Eng. Chron. a. 875. 4 Sim. Durh. " Gest. Reg." a. 875. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. remained to glean from the wasted land Halfdene led his men through Cumbria, where Carlisle was entirely de- stroyed, and on through Strath-Clyde ^ to the north, where the Scot king Constantino was battling for life against Thorstein, a son of Olaf the Fair, and the Norwegian Jarl Sigurd who had now established him- self in the Orkneys. Thorstein and Sigurd" overran the northern parts of the realm while Halfdene advanced from the south, till the Scots, pressed between the two pirate hosts, bought peace for the moment by the cession of Caithness. But while one portion of the host was thus busy beyond the Humber, Guthrum was leading the other half from their winter- quarters at Repton to Cambridge to prepare for a final onset upon Wessex. The greatness of the contest had now drawn to Britain the whole strength of the northmen. Ireland won a long rest as its Ostmen flocked to join their brethren over the sea ; and the force of the pirates in Gaul was so weakened that Charles was able to drive them from their stronghold at Angers. But the weakness of the pirates to east and west only pointed to a general concentration of their force upon Britain, and it was with a host swollen by reinforcements from every quarter that Guthrum in 876 set sail for the south. ^ Alfred had equipped a few ships which served to 1 " Pictos atque Stretduccenses depopulati sunt,*' Sim. Durh. "He made raids on the Picts and the Strath-Clyde Wealhs," Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 875. ^anducunt Pihtis bellum Cum- brisque," ^thelweard, a. 875, lib. iv. c. 3. Skene notes this as " the first appearance of the term of Cumbri or Cumbrians, as applied to the Britons of Strath-Clyde." 2 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 875 ; Asser (ed. Wise), p. 27. 10^ CHAP. iir. The Makingr of the Darelaw. 858- 878. I d I m I 108 CHAP. III. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Danelaw. 858- 878. Gutkru'ni'ii i^econd attack on Wessex. __ J»eat off some smaller parties that attacked the coast "Sr^ r/^^ ^^"^^ «^-d-- -- l^elpless to meet sucTa - • fleet as now put out from the harbours of East Analia Coasting by Dover, Guthrum made like the earlie^ marauders for the Dorset coast, and seized a neck of hand near Wareham between the Piddle and the Frome for his camp. Alfred at once marched on these Imes ; but they were too strong to storm ; and gold we can hardly doubt, again bought a treaty in which. the pirates swore on every reUc that could be gathered as well as on their own Odin's ring, a sacred bracelet smeared with the blood of beasts offered at tile gods altar, to quit the king's land. Alfred's ^old was no sooner loosened however than half of the northern host took horse and, striking across country, seized Exeter to winter in.^ The seizure of the city may have been looked on by the Danes as no breach of faith, for Exeter was still in part a iJritish town ; but it was just this that made their presence there so serious a danger, and through the wmter ^Ifred girded himself for a resolute effort to W them out before their success could cause a Welsh rising. At break of spring in 877 the West- baxon army closed round the town, while a hired fleet cruised off the coast to guard against rescue. A storm which drove their boats on the rocks of Swanage foiled the efforts of the freebooters who remained at Wareham to rescue their brethren, and THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 109 * Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 877. milir- "T'^TJ t"^^ ''' ""' ^'^' "'^ris custodiendas com- misit. — Asser (ed. Wise), p. 29. CHAP. in. TbeUakmir of the Exeter was at last starved into surrender, while Guthrum again swore to leave Wessex.'' ...^..^ The Danish host withdrew in fact into the Severn '^^l. valley to winter at Gloucester. ' But iElfred had hardly |||- disbanded the army which had taken Exeter when ThelH^p^-ise Hubba, Ivar's brother, with a fleet which had "-^ ^^'^^ been ravaging in the Bristol Channel, struck up the Severn to Guthrum's aid. All thought of the oath they had sworn at once passed from the minds of the invaders ; and at the opening of 878 Hul)ba with a squadron of twenty-three ships made his way to the coast of Devonshire, while the main body of the northern host again crossed the Avon and pushed by a swift and secret march as far as Chippenham.^ The surprise of Wessex was complete. The Danes were in the heart of the Gwent before tidings of their advance could call either king or people to arms, and the whole district east of^the Selwood lay at their mercy. To gather the fyrd of Hampshire or Wilts or Berkshire in face of the pirates was impossible. Their activity made them masters of the laud ; " many of the folk they drove beyond sea" over the Bristol Channel, "and the greater part of the rest they forced to obey them." •* iElfred alone remained untouched by the terror about him. Falling back through the Selwood on the westernmost fragment of Wessex, the land of the Somer-ssetas and Defn-ssetas, he seems even there to » Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 877. 2 ^thelweard, a. 877, lib. iv. c. 3. 5 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 878 ; Asser (ed. Wise), p 30 * Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 878. J' f- ■ I ^^^ THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CH.P. XIX. have found Ms efforts to gather a force baffled for 8-^- *^^^7^d t^e king made its way with difficulty to the S78. marshes that occupied the heart of Somersetshire ^ J^rom Langport to the site of the later Bridgewater the country between Polden Hill and the Quantocks was little more than a vast morass drained by the deep channel of the Parret. The local names of the district, Sedgemoor, on whose half-reclaimed flats Monmouth was to meet his doom, the " zoys '' or rises crowned now-a-days with marsh-villages, such as Chedzoy and Middlezoy, preserve a record of the flood-drowned fen in which Alfred sought shelter. In the midst of it, at a point where the Tone flowina northwards from Taunton strikes the Parret lies Athelney, a low lift of ground some two acres in extent, girded m by almost impassable fen-lands It was at Athelney that the king threw up a fort and waited for brighter days.^ A jewel of blue enamel inclosed in a setting of gold with the words round it "Alfred had me wrought " was found here in the seventeenth century and still recalls the memories of this gallant stand.' It was only later legend ^ that changed it into a solitary flight, as it turned the three months of -Mfred s stay in this fastness into three years of hiding. The three months were in fact months of 1 "Alfredo," sajs ^thelweard, a. 886, "quem ingenio quem occursu, non superaverat civilis discordia s^va " ^ 2 Asser (ed. Wise), p. 30. 3 Eng. Chron. (WinchO a. 878; Asser (ed. Wise), p. 33. centurv ofTh W ''* """'' ""'^^^ '' *^^ ^^ -' ^he tenth century, of which fragments break our actual text of Asser THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Ill Defeat of the Danes. CHAP, III. The Making of the ® Danelaw. 858- 878. active preparation for a new struggle. Athelney was a position from which Alfred could watch closely the movements of his foes, and with the first burst of spring he found himself ready to attack them. What- ever disunion may have thwarted him before must now have been hushed, for the fyrd of Devonshire gathered round its Ealdorman Odda, and faUing suddenly on Hubba, whose squadron was harrying its coast, cut his men to pieces ; ^ while the men o'f Somerset rallied round their Ealdorman, ^thelnoth. In the second week of May, 878, the whole host of the West Saxons mustered under their young king's standard at Ecgberht's stone on the east of Selwood. Till now their gathering had been hidden irom the Danes by this great screen of woodland, and when they burst through it into the older Wessex the surprise may have been as complete as when the Danes burst in from Chippenham. Whatever was the cause of his success, Alfred no sooner found their host at Ethandun or Edington, near Westbury, than he defeated it in a great battle, and drove the beaten warriors to seek shelter in their camp. But the camp at Edington, unlike the camps which had liitherto repulsed the English, had no outlet by river to the sea ; it was possible to cut off its supplies, and a siege of fourteen days forced the Danes to surrendex.^ The struggle had been a short one, but tlie com- pleteness of iElfred's victory was seen in its results. ^/ Wed^Ze The spirit of the assailants was utterly broken ; and while the bulk of the pirate host withdrew under a 1 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 878 ; Asser (ed. Wise), p. 33 2 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 878 ; Asser (ed. Wise), pp. 33, 34. <■' !-^ The Peace I f vm % 112 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. ui but; Danelaw. 858- 878. cHAP^ni. leader named Hasting to their old quarters in Gaul TheMajdng Guthrum, the leader of the rest, bound himself by Danelaw. ^ solemn Peace at Wedmore, a village on the north of the Polden Hills.Ho become a Christian, and to quit Alfred's realm. The treaty itself is lost,^ but Its provisions are no doubt marked in the events that followed. Not only did the Danes withdraw from all England south of the Thames, but they left in Alfred's hands all England westward of the Watlino- Street, the land of the Hwiccas, the upper part of the valley of the Thames, and the whole valley of the Severn. The rich pastures along the Cherwell the downs of the Cotswolds, the forest-tract of Arden, the flats which lay about the still deserted ruins of the later Chester, Oxford, Worcester, and Gloucester, were thus rescued from heathen rule. The rescue of this district however was a small matter beside the fact that Wessex itself was saved. In the dark hour when Alfred lay watching from his fastness of Athelney, men believed that the whole island had passed into the invader's hands. Once settled in the south, as they were already settled in central and northern England the Danes would have made short work of what resistance lingered on elsewhere, and a few years would have sufficed to make England a Scandinavian country. All danger of this" had vanished with the Peace of Wedmore. The whole outlook of the pirates was changed. Dread as Alfred might the sword that hung over him, the Danes 1 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 878 ; Asser (ed. Wise), p 35 2 The existing "Alfred and Guthrum's Peace," is, as we shall see, of later date. I li I ii «< >. W.6r. E.Gr^ LaiuioA: MacmUl&n ft Co . \ J THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. n.3 CHAP, III. Danelaw. 858 878. !f m Its effect on Europe themselves were as yet in no mood to renew their .„.,■ .,. attack upon Wessex ; and with the abandonment of TheSTidng this attack not only was all hope of winning Britain ' "^ "" as a whole abandoned, but all chance of making it a secure base and starting-point for wider Scandinavian conquests passed away. The tide of invasion in fact had turned; and Europe felt that it had turned. The struggle with the West Saxons had been marked by a general pause m the operations of the pirates elsewhere, for their number was so small in relation to the area over which they fought that their concentration for any great struggle in one quarter meant their weakening and retreat in another. It is clear from the general aspect of the war in Gaul, that the conquest of the Danelaw and the absorption of a large force in its settlement had already weakened the strength of the northern onset upon the Franks. The courage of the peoples across the Channel rose as the pressure of the northmen became lighter; and we see in every quarter ^ a growing resistance to the invaders. But this resistance took a new vigour when the Danes were thrown back from Wessex. The spell of terror was broken. Nowhere had the attack been so resolute ; nowhere had the forces of the pirates been so great ; nowhere had their campaigns been con- ducted on so steady and regular a plan ; nowhere had they so nearly reached the verge of success. And nowhere had they so utterly failed. The ease and completeness with which the invaders had won the bulk of Britain only brought out in stronger relief the completeness of their repulse from the; south. *\ 114 CHAP. III. The Makiner of the Danelaw. 858- 878. The Danelmv. m m The Danes in Northumhria. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Great however as were the results of ^Elfred's victory, the fact remained that the bulk of Britain lay still in Danish hands. If we look at it in its relation to England as a whole, the treaty of Wedmore was the acknowledgement of a great defeat. Bravely as the house of Ecgberht had fought, the work of Ecgberht was undone. The dominion which he had"^ built up was wrecked like the dominion of the Karolings ; and for the moment it seemed yet more completely wrecked. The blows of the northmen had fallen indeed as heavily on the one dominion as on the other ; but in the Karolingian Empire their settlements were scattered and few, nor had they any importance save in furthering the tendency of its various peoples to fall apart into their old isolation. In England, on the other hand, the Danes had won the bulk of the land for their own. Beaten as they were from Wessex, all northern, all eastern, and a good half of central Britain remained Scandinavian ground. The settle- ments of the northmen in Frankland, those in Fries- land or on the Loire, even the more permanent Norman settlements at a later time on the Seine, were too small to sway in other than indirect ways the fortunes of the states across the Channel. But in Britain the Danish conquests outdid in extent and population what was left to the Endish kino- and the realm of iElfred saw across Watling Street a rival whose power was equal to, or even greater than, its own. Nor was this conquest a mere work of the sword. With the change of masters went a social revolu- tion, for over the whole space from the Thames to THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. the Tees the Danes throughout Alfred's day were settling down on the conquered soil. Their first settlement was in Deira, in the area occupicid by the present Yorkshire. Though their victory at York had left this district in their hands as early as the spring of 868, they contented themselves for the next seven years with the exaction of tribute from an under- king, Ecgberht, whom they set over it, while they mastered East-Anglia and crushed Mid-Brit.ain, and made their first onset on Wessex. But in 875, while Guthrum prepared to renew the attack on isifred, Halfdene with a portion of the Danish army at Eepton marched northward into Northumbria. It is possible that he was drawn there by a rising of the country in which Ecgberht had been driven from the throne and Ricsig set as under-king in his place ; but if so the death of Eicsig marks the close of this rising, and Halfdene marched unopposed to the Tyne. From his winter-camp there he '^subdued the land and oft- times spoiled the Picts and the Strathclyde A^'ealhs." ^ With the spring of 876 however, while Guthrum and /Elfred were busy with the siege of Wareham, he fell back from Bernicia to the south, and '^parted " amono- his men '^the lands of Northumbria. Thenceforth,'' adds the chronicler, '' they went on ploughing and tilling them." 2 That this " deal " or division of the land did not, in spite of Halfdene's conquests on the Tyne, extend to Bernicia we know from the fact that hardlj^ a trace of Danish settlement can be found north of tlie Tees.^ But the names of the towns and villages of Deira show 1 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 875. 2 j^^j^ g-g 3 Taylor, "Words and Places," p.. 112. I 2 115 CHAP. III. The Making of the Danelaw. 858- 878. \ » I' i i' 116 CHAP. III. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Danelaw. 858- 878. 1! Their settlements. hi i _ US in how systematic a way southern Northumbria ^^ofthe^^ ^^^ P^^^^^ among its conquerors. The change seems Danelaw. ^^ }^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ foUowed the conquest of the Normans. The English population was not displaced, but the lordship of the soil was transferred to the conqueror. The settlers formed a new aristocracy, while the older nobles fell to a lower position ; for throughout Deira the life of an Enghsh thegn was priced at but half the value of the life of a northern *' hold." Some of the new settlements can be easily traced through the termination '^ by," a Scandinavian equivalent for the English ''tun" or ''ham," while others may be less certainly distinguished by their endings in " thwaite " or " dale ; " and in each of the Ridings of Yorkshire we still find at least a hundred local names of this Danish type. Where they cluster most thickly is in the dales that break the wild tract of moorland along the coast from Whitby to the Tees valley, to which the new comers gave the name of Cliff-land or Cleveland. Around W^hitby itself, the " White-by " of the northern settlers, the little town that rose on either side its river-mouth beneath the height on which the ruins of Streoneshealh, the home of Hild and Cadmon, stood blackened and desolate, the country is thickly dotted with northern names. Memories of the pirate faith, of Balder and of Thor, meet us in Baldersby ^ or Thornaby as in the lost name of Presteby or Priest's town ; other hamlets give us the names of the warriors themselves as they turned to "plough and tilV' Beorn and Ailward, ^ Now Baldby Fields. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Grim and Aswulf, Orm and Tol, Thorald and Swein.^ A few names of far greater interest hint how race distinctions still perpetuated themselves in the group of little townships. Three Englebys or Inglebys and two Normanbys tell how here and there lords of the old Engle race still remained on a level with the conquerors, or how Northmen or Norwegians who had joined in the fighting had their share in the spoil.^ At the other extremity of this district, in the valley of the Tees, a curious coincidence almost enables us to detect the spot from which the settL^rs came. On the coast of South Jutland we find two towns in close neighbourhood, Middleburg and Aarhus ; while in the Tees valley Middlesborough is as closely neighboured by its " Aarhus-um " or Airsome. It is hardly possible not to believe that the great iron-mart of Cleveland must look for its mother-city to the little Jutish township, as the Boston of the New World looks for its mother-city to the Boston of the Old.^ Cleveland remainedfor centuries to come a thoroughly Scandinavian district ; of its twenty-seven lords in Domesday, twenty-three still bore distinctively Danish 1 Barnby, Ellerby, Grimsby, Aislaby (Asulvesbi), Ormsby Tolesby, Swainby, Thoraldby. 2 Atkinson, "Glossary of Cleveland Dialect," Intrcd. xiv. &c. Even the judicial institutions of the settlers survive m " Thing- wall," a spot by Whitby, which has vanished from the modern map, but whose name Mr. Atkinson discovers in a " Memorial of Benefactions to Whitby Abbey" as "Thingvala." 3 Atkinson, " Cleveland Dialect," Introd. p. xiii. note. The South Jutland " Hjardum " probably finds a like successor in the Cleveland " Yarm " or " Yarum." 117 CHAP. III. The Making of the Danelaw. 858- 878. Their trade. 118 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Danelaw. 858- 878. Wii frf !' cHAP^iii. names, and names of a like character seem at a yet later '^of'th^''^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ prevailed even among its serfs. ^ What drew settlers so thickly there was no doubt the neigh- bourhood of the sea ; as ease of access from the sea. drew them to the valley of the Ouse. The swift tide up the Humber, the '' Higra " as it came to be called from the sea god CEgir, carried the northern boats past the marshes of Holderness to the trading port, the " Caup- manna-thorpe " or Cheaj)man's Thorpe, established by the new comers to the south of York.^ Like all men of the north the pirates were as keen traders as tliey were hard fighters ; ^ their very kings were traffickers. Biorn, Harald Fair-hair's son, was '' Biorn the Merchant," and St. Olaf was a partner in the trade ventures of his Jarls. The main end of their raids was to gather slaves for the slave-mart ; * but they 1 Atkinson, " Cleveland Dialect," Introd. pp. xx., xxi. 2 Taylor, " Words and Places," p. 254. " Caupmansthorpe near York. ... the form of the word shows us that here the Danish traders resided just as those of Saxon blood dwelt together at Chapmanslade." ^ Skiringsal in the Wik was now the centre of northern trade. " The Sleswig ships brought to it German, Wendish, Prussian, Russian, Greek, and Eastern wares, as well as merchants and adventurers from these lands. In Skiringsal indeed the Halgo- lander might be seen driving bargains with the Prussian, the Trondheimer with the Saxon and the Wend, the Sondmoringer with the Dane and the Swede ; beside the walrus-skins and furs from the north one might see amber from Prussia, costly stuffs from Greece and the East, Byzantine and Arabian coins and northern rings, while the harbour lay full of big and little ships of varied build, among which the kingly long-ship was distin- guished not only by its size but by its magnificence." Munch, ''Det Norske Folks Historie," (Germ, transl), pt. iv. p. 141. * We see the actual working of this slave-trade in Olaf Trygvasson's story. He was captured in his childhood, "with TH£ CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. brought with them the furs, oils, skins, and eider- down of their northern lands to barter for the wares of the south. Their settlements along the north coast were as much markets as pirate-holds ; and York, which from this time became more and more a Danish city, was thronged at the close of a century with Danish merchants and had become the centre of a thriving trade with the north. The new comers have left their mark in some of its local names : the street leading to its eastern outlet is still Guthrum's Gate ; and the church of St. Olave reminds us how at the eve of the Norman Conquest the Danish population had spread to the suburbs of the town. Over the central vale, from York to Catterick, we find the ''byes" planted as was naturally the case pretty thickly, with a '' Balderby " among them that suggests how the northern myths were settling on English soil with the northern marauders ; and if the eastern wolds present few traces of their homes, they are frequent along the western moors. Of the life or institutions however of these settlers we know little, for from the moment of their settlement to the his mother Astrid and his foster-father, Thorolf, by an Esthonian wiking, as they were crossing the sea from Sweden on their way to Novgorod, and were divided among the crew and sold. An Esthonian called Klerkon got Olaf and Thorolf for lis share of the booty, but Astrid was separated from her son Olaf, then only three years old. Klerkon thought Thorolf too old for a slave, and that no work could be got out of him to repay his food, and therefore killed him, but sold the boy to a man called Klserk for a goat. A peasant called Reas bought him from Klserk for a good cloak, and he remained in slavery till he was recognized by his uncle. " Laing, " Sea Kings of Norway," Introd. vol. i. p. 96. 119 CHAP. III. Tbe Makine of the ^ Danelaw. 858 878. Their organization. 120 CHAP. III. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. m m H _ conquest of the Norman, northern England is for two TheMaking Jmndred years all but hidden from our view The sTi- ■ .IT"" ^^''^ ^""^^ ^^'^^^ Trithings, or Eidings, 878. which probably dates from this time, may answer in some degree to older divisions ; the East Eiding or district of the wolds to an earlier Deira of the English conquerors which seems in later times to have retained some sort of existence as an under-kingdom, while the bounds of the West Eiding roughly correspond with those of Elmet, as Eadwine added it to his Northumbrian realm. But the arrangement by which the Trithings were linked together, the adjustment of their boundaries so that all three met in York itself, had clearly a distinct political end, and marks a time —such as that of the Danish kings— in which York was the seat and capital of the central power. The division of the Trithings into Wapentakes, which answer here to the Hundreds of the south, is probably of the same date. In England, as in Iceland, the word may have been originally used for the closing of the district-court, when the suitors again took up the weapons they had laid aside at its opening, and have finally extended to the district itself, i The change of the English name ''moot" for the gathering of^the freemen in township or wapentake into the Scandi- navian -thing'' or -ting," a change recorded, as we have seen, by local designations, is no less significant of the social revolution which passed over the north with the coming of the Dane. The year after Halfdene's parting of Deira among his followers saw another portion of the Danish host ^ Stubbs, "Const. Hist." i. 109. The Danes in Mid-Britain. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. settle in Mid-Britain. While Alfred was still in the midst of his struggle with the Danes about lilxeter, "in the harvest-tide of 877, the Here went into Mercia, and some of it they parted, and some they handed over to Ceolwulf " who till now had served as their under-king for the whole.^ The portion they took for themselves is for the most part marked by the presence in it of their Danish names. " Byes " extend to the very borders of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Eutland, and Northamptonshire, while from the rest of Mercia they are almost wholly absent.^ It was this western half of the older kingdom, our Cheshire, Shrop- shire, Staff^ordshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Oxfordshire, which remained under Ceolwulfs rule,^ and to which from this time the name of Mercia is confined, while the eastern or Danish 1 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 877. For Ceolwulf see ib. a. 874. " That same year they gave the Mercian kingdom to the keeping of Ceolwulf, an unwise thegn of the king " (Burhred, who had fled to die at Rome), " and he swore oaths to them, and delivered hostages to them that it should be ready for them on whatever day they would have it, and that he would be ready both in his own person and with all who would follow him for the behoof of the army." 2 The country about Buckingham however, which formed the southern bound of the '' Five Boroughs," has no " byes." Those about Wirral in Cheshire are an exception which I shall have to notice later on. We find too "byes " extending some few miles into our Warwickshire. I shall afterwards explain why I set aside the notion of Watling Street being the boundary of Danish Mercia. 3 In 896 we find three ealdormen among the Witan of this part of Mercia. Cod. Dip. No. 1073. The number in the un- divided Mercian realm seems to have been five. 121 CHAP. III. The Making of the Danelaw. 858- 878. 'I li 122 CHAP. III. The Makinff of the ® Danelaw. 858- 878. m THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. half was known, at any rate in later days, as the district of the Five Boroughs,^ Derby, whose name superseded the older English '^ Northweorthig," Leicester, Lincoln, Stamford, and Nottinghani. Politically this state differed widely from Danish Northumbria. While Northumbria was an organized kingdom under the stock of Inguar or Ivar, with a definite centre at York and a general administrative division into Trithings and Wapentakes, the indepen- dence of the Five Boroughs was unfettered by any semblance of kingly rule. Their name suggests some sort of confederacy; and it is possible that a common - Thing ^' may have existed for the whol.' district ; but each of the Boroughs seems to have had Its own Jarl, and Here or army, while (if we may judge from the instance of Lincoln and Stamford) the internal rule of each was in the hands of twelve hereditary - law-men/^ There was a like difference in local organization. In the country about Lincoln we find both Trithings and Wapentakes, as on the other side the Humber, but there is no trace of tiu^ Trithing in the territory of the four other Boroughs. The distribution of settlers over this midland Danekw was as varied as their forms of rule. They lay thickest in the Lindsey uplands, where the lands seem to have been treated throughout as conquered country, and to have been parted among the con- querors by the rude rope-measurement of the time. Lincolnshire indeed contains as many names of ,..l.^^^''''°'^ ^""'^ ^'^'"'^^ ''' *^^ ^^^^ °^ Eadmund, Eng. Chron. (Wmch.) a. 941. * THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 123 CHAP. III. The Making of the Danelaw. 858- 878. northern settlements as the whole of Yorkshire ; ^ and its little port of Grimsby, whose muddy shores were thronged with traders from Norway and the Orkneys, came at last to rival York in commercial activity.^ In the districts of the other four towns the names of such settlements are far less numerous ; it is only in Leicestershire indeed that we find anything like the settlements of the north.^ In East Anglia the northern colonization was of TheDane.<^m a yet weaker sort than in Mid-Britain. Although ^""'^ ^"^^'''' this district had been in Danish hands since the fall of Eadmund in 870, its real settlement dated ten years later, when Guthrum led back his army from Wessex after the Frith or Peace of Wedmore. In 880 '' the army went from Cirencester to East Anglia, and settled the land, and parted it among them."* Guthrum's realm, however, included for more than East Anglia itself. The after war of 886 and the ^ Isaac Taylor, "Words and Places," p. 122, numbei-s some three hundred. 2 "When Kali was fifteen winters old, he went with some merchants to England, taking with him a good cargo of mer- chandise. They went to a trading place called Grimsby. There was a great number of people from Norway, as well as from the Orkneys, Scotland, and the Sudreyar. . . . Then he, Kali, made a stanza — " Unpleasantly we have been wading In the mud a weary five weeks ; Dirt indeed we had in plenty While we lay in Grimsby harbour." Anderson, " Orkneyinga Saga," pp. 75-6. This however was in the twelfth century. 2 In Leicestershire Taylor finds one hundred such names, in Northampton and Notts fifty each, in Derby about a dozen. " Words and Places," p. 122. 4 ^^^^ Chron. (Winch.) a. 880. 124 CHAP. III. Danelaw. 858- 878. THE CONQUEST OE ENGLAND. ___ frith that followed it show that Essex was detached '^''l?^''^ fr^^ the Eastern or Kentish kingdom, to which it had belonged since Ecgberht's day, and brought back to Its old dependence on East Anglia. With Essex passed its chief city, London, now wasted by pillage and fires, but soon to regain its trading activity in Danish hands, and whose subject territory carried Guthrum's rule along the valley of the Thames as far as the Chilterns and the district attached to Oxford, which now became a border-town of English Mercia. To the north too Guthrum seems to have wielded the old East- Anglian supremacy over the southern districts of the Fen. In extent therefore his kingdom was fully equal to either of the two rival states of the Danelaw. But its character was far less northern. The bulk of the warrior-settlers may have already found homes on the Ouse or the Trent ; it is certain at any rate that in East Anglia their settlements were few. The '^byes'^ of Norfolk and Sufi*olk lie clustered for the most part round tlie mouth of the Yare ; and this was probably the one part of this district where distinct pirate communities existed ; throughout the rest of it the Danes must simply have quartered themselves on their English subjects. In the dependent districts to north and south they seem rather to have clustered in town-centres, such as Colchester and Bedford, or Huntingdon and Cam- bridge, where Jarl and Here remained encamped, receiving food and rent from the subject Englishmen who tilled their allotted lands.' 1 Robertson, " Scotland under Early Kings," vol. ii., Appendix, ''The Danelagh." ^^ THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. The small number of its settlers, however, was not the only circumstance which distinguished East Anglia from the rest of the Danelaw. Its local institutions remained English, while it was far more closely con- nected with the English kingdom than its fellow states. We find no trace of Trithing or Wapentake within its bounds. It was from the first too a Christian kingdom. A promise to receive baptism was part of the terms of surrender on Guthrum's side after his defeat at Edington; and '^ about three weeks after King Guthrum came to Alfred .... at Aire near Atlielney, and the king was his godfather in baptism, and his chrism-loosing ^ was at Wedmore ; and he was twelve days with the king, and he greatly honoured him and his companions with gifts."' The policy of binding to him as far as he could this portion of the Danelaw was carried on by Alfred in the later frith made between the two kings with ^^the witan of all the English-folk " '' and all the people that are in East Anglia," which after marking the boundaries of the two realms, fixed the '' wer " or life-value of both Englishman and Dane at the same amount,^ s.^ttled the same procedure for claims to property, and pLxlged either party to refuse to receive deserters from the army or dominions of the other. ^ ^ Probably the loosing of the fillet bound round the head at confirmation after the anointing of the brow with the chrism. 2 Eng. Ghron. (Winch.) a. 878. ^ '* If a man be slain, we estimate all equally dear, English and Danish." Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," i. 155-6. ^ " All ordained when the oaths were sworn that neithei" bond nor free might go to the host without leave, no more than any of them to us." Thorpe, '^ Anc. Laws," i. 156-7. 125 CHAP. iir. The Making of the Danelaw. 858- 878. The East- Anglian Kingdom. I!' J) 126 CHAP. irr. The Making of the Danelaw. 858- 878. The Danelaw and the North. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. From the Tees to the brink of the Thames valley, from the water-parting of the country to the German Sea, every inch of territory lay in Danish hands. The Danelaw was in fact by far the most important conquest which the northern warriors had made. In extent as in wealth and resources it equalled indeed, or more than equalled the Scandinavian realms them- selves. To bring this great possession under their overlordship became, we cannot doubt, the dream of the kings who were beginning to build up the petty realms about them into the monarchies of the North ; and it is possible that we find the earliest trace of that ambition which afterwards brought Swein and Harald Hardrada to the shores of Britain in a tale which, oddly as it has been disguised, may in its earlier form be taken as a fair record of the relations between the northern homeland and its outlier in the south. *'At this time," says the Saga of Harald Fair-hair,^ '' a king called ^thelstan had taken the kingdom of England." Chronological difficulties hinder us from seeing in this jEthelstan the later kincr of Wessex,^ and guide us to Guthrum of East Andia, who had taken the name of ^thelstan at his baptism,"^ or to his son and successor who may have borne the same double name. Whichever of these kings it was, " he sent men to Norway to King Harald with this errand, that the messengers should present him with a sword, with hilt and handle gilt, and also its whole 1 Laing, " Sea Kings of Norway," i. 308. 2 In the opinion of the editors of the " Corp. Poet. Boreale " (G. Yigfusson and F. York Powell) this ^thelstane was the King of Wessex. Yol. i. 262, ii. 489. (A. S. G.) 3 ^thelweard, a. 889, lib. iv. c. 3. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. sheath adorned with gold and silver and set with precious jewels. The ambassadors presented the sword hilt to the king saying, ' Here is a sword which King ^thelstan sends thee, with the request that thou wilt accept it.' The king took the sword by the handle ; whereupon the ambassadors said, ' Now thou hast taken the sword according to our kino-'s desire and therefore art thou his subject, as thou hast taken his sword.' King Harald saw now that this was a jest, for he would be subject to no man. But he re- membered it was his rule, whenever anything raised his anger, to collect himself and let his passion run off, and then take the matter into consideration coolly. Now he did so and consulted his friends, who all gave him the advice to let the ambassadors ia the first place go home in safety. '' The following summer King Harald sent a ship westward to England, and gave the command of it to Ilauk Haabrok. He was a great warrior, and very dear to the king. Into his hands he gave his son Hakon. Hauk proceeded westward to England, and found the king in London where there was just at the time a great feast and entertainment. When they came to the hall Hauk told his men how they should conduct themselves ; namely, how he who went first in should go last out, and all should stand in a row at the table, at equal distance from each other ; and each should have his sword at his left side but should fasten his cloak so that his sword should not be seen. Then they went into the hall, thirty in number. Hauk went up to the king and saluted him, and the king bade him welcome. Then Hauk 127 CHAP. III. The Making of the ^ Danelaw. 858- 878. f^ -# .1 128 CHAP. III. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. V2<) Danelaw. 858- 878. took the child Hakon, and set it on the king's knee. '^''IfthS^^ The king looks at the boy, and asks Hauk what Danelaw. ^^^^ meaning of this is. Hauk replies, ' Harald the king bids thee foster his servant-girl's child.' The king was in great anger, and seized a sword which lay beside him, and drew it as if he was going to kill the child. Hauk says, * Thou hast borne him on thy knee, and thou canst murder him if thou wilt ; but thou wilt not make an end of all King Harald's sons by so doing.' On that Hauk went out with all his men, and took the way direct to his ship and put to sea — for they were ready — and came back to King Harald. The king was highly pleased with this ; for it is the common observation of all people that the man who fosters another's children is of less consideration than the other. From these trans- actions between the two kings it appears that each wanted to be held greater than the other; but in truth there was no injury to the dignity of either, for each was the upper king in his own kingdom till his dying day." The Danelaw But whatever may have been the relation of the and England. -n\ i x xi n t JJanelaw to the Scandinavian homeland, there can be no doubt of the importance of this great settle- ment viewed in its relation to the country beyond its borders. It was a first step towards the conquest of England. The hard fighting of Wessex, the genius of Alfred, had for the moment checked the conqueror's advance. But what he had won was never lost. Small as were the differences of manners and institutions between Englishman and Dane, the Danelaw preserved an individuality and 858- 878. character which even the re-conquest by the West chap m Saxon kings failed to take from it. If it submitted for The ^king a while to English rule, it remained a Danish and not ^aneUw. an English land ; and when the final attack of the Danish kings fell on England, the rising of the Danelaw in Swein's aid showed that half his work was done already to his hand. From the landing of Ivar to the landing of Cnut the attack of the Dane on Britain is really a continuous one; but the heritage of their victory was to pass into the hands of a later conqueror, and the bowing of all England to a Norman king is only the cJose of a work which began in the parting of Northern and Central England among the Danish holds. !( \i ¥\ vlHi CHAPTEK IV. ALFRED. 878—901. The Masters as tliey were of the bulk of Britain, the the^Danelaw. pressure of the Danes on the England that resisted them must in the end have proved irresistible had their military force remained undiminished and had their political faculty been as great as their genius for war. As we have seen, however, they showed as few traces of political faculty or of any power of national organization as in their own Scandinavia, while the number of their fighting men was lessening every day. Already the conquest of northern Britain had done much to save the south ; for the attack of Guthrum on Wessex might have proved as successful as the attack of Ivar on Northumbria, had Ivar s men remained in the ranks of the Danish host in- stead of settling down as farmers beside the Ouse or the Trent. Peace too, and the Christianity which Guthrum embraced, yet further thinned the Danish ranks ; and at the close of the last campaign against Wessex a large part of the invaders followed Hasting to seek better fortune in Gaul. But even those who remained on English ground clung loosely THE CONQUEST OE ENGLAND. to their new settlements. It was not Britain but Iceland that drew to it at this time the hearts of the northern rovers ; and the Eaglish Danelaw often served as a mere stepping-stone between Norway and its offshoot in the northern seas. Of the names of the original settlers of Iceland which are recorded in the Landnama, its Domesday book, more than a half are those of men who had found an earlier settlement in the British Isles.' At the moment we have reached, however, even Alfred's eye could hardly have discerned the weakness of the Danelaw. It was with little of a conqueror's exultation that the young king turned from his victories in the west. He looked on the peace he had won as a mere break in the struggle, and as a break that might at any moment come suddenly to an end. Even in the years of tranquillity which followed it there never was an hour when he felt safe against an inroad of the Danes over Watling Street, or a landing of pirates in the Severn! *'0h, what a happy man was he," he cries once, "that man that had a naked sword hangino- over his head from a single thread— so as to me it always did!"^ And yet peace was absolutely 1 Dasent, translation of Njal's '* Saga," Intr. p. xii. The most trustworthy accounts, such as that of the Landnamabc»k, of the first settlements in Iceland show how mixed the population of the British Islands then was. Besides the overwhelming numbers of the northmen, there are found men and women of Danish, Swedish, and Flemish descent who joined in the emigration from Britain to Iceland. (A. S. G.) 2 ^Ifred's Boethius, in Sharon Turner's " Hist. Anglo-Sax." vol. ii. p. 45. K 2 131 CHAP. IV. -ffilfred. 878- 901. yEIfred's work of restoratioi/. i; 132 CHAP. IV Alfred. 878 901. I THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. needful for tlie work that lay before him. If the deliverance of Wessex had shown the exhaustion of the Dcines, Wessex itself was as utterly spent by fifty years of continuous effort, and above all by the last five years of deadly struggle. Law, order, the machi- nery of justice and government, had been weakened by the pirate storni. Schools and monasteries had for the most part perished. Many of the towns and vilkiges lay wrecked or in ruin. There were whole tracts of country that lay wasted and without in- habitants after the Danish raids. Material and moral civilization indeed had alike to be revived. All how- ever might be set right, as the king touchiiigly said, *' if we have stillness ; " ^ and in these first years of peace the work of restoration went rapidly on. yElfred had to wrestle indeed with the penury of the royal Hoard ; for so utterly had it been drained by the payments to the pirates and the cost of tiie recent struggle that the sons of ^thelwulf had l)een driven to the miserable expedient of debasing the currency, and it was not till jElfred's later days that the coinage could be raised to a sounder standard.^ He had to wrestle too yet harder with the slurgishness of his subjects. There were scarcely any who would undertake the slightest voluntary labour for the common benefit of the realm ; persua- sion had after long endurance to pass into command ; and even commands were slowly and imperfectly carried out.'^ Great however as were the obstacles, 1 Pref. to Pastoral Book (ed. Sweet). 2 Robertson, " Hist. Essays," p. 64. 2 Asser (ed. Wise), p. 59. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 13.3 CHAP. IV Alfred. 878- 901. the work was done. Forts were built iu places specially exposed to attack/ and wasted lands were colonized afresh. Bishop Denewulf of Winchester tells us how his land at Bedhampton ''when my lord first let it to me was unprovided with cattle and laid waste by heathen folk ; and I myself then provided the cattle, and there people were after- wards." - So too new abbeys were founded at Win- chester and Shaftesbury ; while the king's gratitude for his deliverance raised a relimous house amons: the marshes of Athelney. Busy however as iElfred was with the restoration ///« miiitanj of order and good government, his main efforts were "''M"^^- directed to the military organization of his people.'^ He had learned durinsf the years of hard fio^htinef with which his life began, how unsuited the military system of the country had become to the needs of war a^ th3 Danes practised it. The one national army was the fyrd, a force which had already received in the Karolingian legislation the name of " landwehr " by which the G-erman knows it still. The fyrd was in fact composed of the whole mass of free landowners who formed the folk : and to the last it could only be summoned by the voice of the folk-moot. In theory therefore such a host represented the whole available force of the country. But in actual war- fare its attendance at the king's war-call was 1 Asser (ed. Wise), p. 58. 2 Thorpe, '* Diploma tarium," p. 162. 3 Stubbs (''Const. Hist." i. 220 et sen[.) has examined this subject ; but we have little real information about it from contemporary documents. U CHAP. IV -ffilfred. 878- 901. Hill THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. limited by practical difficulties. Arms were costly; and the greater part of the fyrd came equipped with bludgeons and hedge-stakes, which could do little to meet the spear and battleaxe of the invader. The very growth of the kingdom too had broken down the old military system. A levy of every freeman was possible when one folk warred with another folk, when a single march took the warrior to the border, and a single fight settled the matter between the tiny peoples. But now that folk after folk had been absorbed in great kingdoms, now that the short march had lengthened into distant expeditions, tlie short fight into long campaigns, it was hard to recon- cile the needs of labour and of daily bread with the needs of war. Eeady as he might be to follow the king to a fight which ended the matter, the farmer who tilled his own farm could serve only as long as his home-needs would suffer him. Custom had fixed his service at a period of two months. But as the industrial condition of the countrv advanced such a service became more and more difficult to enforce; even in Ine's day it was needful to fix heavy fines by law for men who ''neglected the fyrd," ^ and it broke down before the new conditions of warfare brought about by the strife with the Danes. However thoroughly they were beaten, the Danes had only to fall back behind their entrenchments, and wait in patience till the two months of the host's service were over, and the force which besieged them melted away. It was this which had ao^ain and ao-ain neutralized the successes of the West-Saxon kines. o 1 Ine's Law; Thorpe, '' Anc. Laws," i. 134 5. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. It was the thinning of their own ranks in thci hour of victory which forced ^Ethelred to conventions such as that of Nottingham, and Alfred to conventions such as that of Exeter. The Dane in fact had changed the whole conditions of existing warfare. His forces were really standing armies, and a standing army of some sort was needed to meet them. It was to provide such a force that the kings, from iElfred to iEthelstan, gave a new ext(^nsion to the class of thegns.^ The growth of this class had formed, as we have seen, a marked part of the social revolution which had preceded the Danish wars. But a fresh importance had been given to the thegn by the shock which the structure of society had received from the long struggle. The free ceorl had above all felt the stress of war ; in his need of a protector he was beginning to waive freedom for safety, and to " commend " himself to a them who would fiorht for him on condition that he followed his new '' lord " as his '' man " to the field. On the other hand, the lands wasted by the Danes were repeopled for the most part by the rural nobles, who provided the settlers with cattle and implements of culture, and in turn received service from them.^ So rapid was this process that the class of free ceorls seems to have become all but extinguished, while that of thegns in its various degrees — king's thegn, the *' baron " of the later feudalism ; middle thegn, a predecessor of the country knight ; and lesser thegn, 1 Stubbs, ''Const. Hist." i. 220 et seq. 2 Cod. Dip. 1089. See Robertson's remarks, "Hist Essays," Intr. p. liv., note. 135 CHAP. IV. iElfred. 878- 901. m ti The thegn-class *• .« 136 CHAP. IV. iElfred. 878- 901. r^w^ The new army. \ THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. or all who possessed '' soke," or private jurisdiction within their lands ^— came to include the bulk of the landowners. The warlike temper of the thegnhood, its military traditions, its dependence on the king at whose summons it was bound to appear in the host, above all, its wealth, enabled it to bring to the field a force well equipped and provided with resources for a campaign ; and it was with a sound instinct that Alfred and his house seized on it as the nucleus of a new military system. Its special recognition as a leading element in our social organization belongs most probably to his days or to those of his son ; and a law which we may look upon as part at least of the king's reforms gave the class of thegns at once a wide military extension by subjecting all owners of five hides of land to thegn service.^ By a developement of the same principle, which we find established in later times, but whose origin we may fairly look for here, the whole country was divided into military districts, each five hides sending an armed man at the king's summons, and providing him with victuals and pay. Each borough, too, was rated as one or more such districts, and sent its due contingent, from one soldier to twelve. Whih' this organization furnished the solid nucleus of a well-armed and permanent force, the duty of every freeman to join the host remained binding as before. 1 Cnut's Laws, sec. 72. Thorpe, '' Anc. Laws," i. 415. 2 Thorpe, '' Anc. Laws and Inst.," i. 191. " If a ceorl thrived so that he had fully five hides of his own land, church and kitchen, bell-house and ' burh '-gate-seat, and special duty in the king's hall, then was he thenceforth of thane-right worthy." Compare the " North peoples' Law," sees. 5 and 9, ibid. pp. 187, 189. 878- 901. navy. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1.37 But a simple reform met some at least of the diffi- chap. iv. culties which had as yet neutralized its effectiveness. iEiSd. On the resumption of the war we find that .Alfred had reorganized this national force by dividing the fyrd into two halves, each of which took by turns its service in the field, while the other half was exempted from field-service on condition of defending its own burhs and manning the rough entrenchments round every township.^ A garrison and reserve force was thus added to the army on service ; and the attendance of its warriors in the field could be more rigorously enforced. Further than this it was impossible to go. P>ut the Creation of a results of the new system were seen when the war broke out again in later years. The balance of war- like effectiveness passed from the invaders to the West Saxons. The fyrd became an army. In the skilful choice of positions, in the use of entrench- ments, in rapidity of marching as well as in the shock of the battle-field, the Danes found themselves face to face with men who had patiently learned to be their match. The reorganization of the fyrd how- ever was only a part of the task of military reform which Alfred set himself. Alone among the rulers of his time he saw that the battle with the pirates must really be fought out upon the sea. Clear them from the land as he might, safety was impossible while every inch of blue water which washed the English coast was the northman's realm. But to win the sea was a harder task than to win back the land. iElfred had only to organize the national army ; he 1 Enor. Chron. a. 894. '* t 11' Mi it 138 CHAP. IV. Alfred. 878- 901. H >f^n\ II 4 M 1 i, '- J 1 1 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. had to create a national fleet. It was not indeed that Englishmen had ever lost their love for the sea; fishers and coasters abounded from the first alon^/ the Northumbrian shore, and ports such as Yarmouth and London can hardly have depended for traffic on foreign shipping. That no mention is made in earher times of a *' ship-fyrd," or assessment for the equipment of a fleet, is due to the fact that the struggles of earlj England had as yet been land struggles within the bounds of the country itself; but on the first outbreak of a foreign war, the war of Ecgfrith with Ireland, the Irish coast was ravaged by a fleet which must have been raised through a public contribution and manned by sailors accustomed to stormy seas.^ In the south indeed no English navy seems to have existed during the earlier period of the northern attacks. The seizure of Wareham, however, spurred Alfred to create a fleet.^ He built larger .ships than had as yet been used for warfare ; and thougli forced by the greater skill of the northmen in sea matters to man his vessels with ''pirates '' from Friesland, their action did much to decide the fate of Exeter. This naval force was steadily developed.^ In Alfred's later years his fleet was strong enough to encounter the pirate-ships of the East Anglians ; and in the reign of his son an English force of a hundred vessels asserted its mastery of the Channel.* 1 A.D. 684. B^da, H. E. lib. iv. c. 26. (A.S.G.) 2 Asser, a. 877 (ed. Wise, p. 29) : — " Jussit cymbas et galeas, id est, longas naves fabricari per regnum." 3 See Eng. Chron. a. 897. * We can hardly attribute to Alfred tbe law that we find in force in Eadgar's day, by which a ship was due from every three CHAP. IV. Alfred. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1.39 A work of even greater difficulty than tbe re- organization of fyrd or fleet was the reorganization of ])ublic justice. Here iElfred's efforts again fell in with |Jf ; the silent revolution which was undoing the older ^jj^iand institutions of the English race. The change in the vMkjmiice, character and conception of the kingship, which was being brought about by the consolidation c.f the peoples into a single monarchy, as well as by the new tie of personal allegiance which bound men to the " lord of the land," was brino;ino: with it a corresponding modification in the notions of justice and local government. The ''peace of the folk " was becoming more and more, both in feeling and in fact, "the king's peace," ^ while public justice was more and more conceived of as emanating from the power and action of the sovereign, rather than as a right inherent in the community itself. That this (change of sentiment was of far older date than Alfred's time we see from the language of the king. The conception of justice as inherent in the local jurisdictions or as flowing from the will of the people has wholly vanished. In Alfred's mind justice flows to every court from the king himself, of whose judicial power each is representative, and who, as the fountain and .source of justice, was bound on appeal to correct or confirm the judgement of alL "It is by gift from God and from me," he says to all who claim jurisdiction, '* that you occupy your office and rank." - hundreds, probably of the coast-shires ; but some such law there must have been to account for EadwardVfleet. 1 See Stubbs, " Const. Hist." i. 208-^. ' '* Dei dono et meo sapientium ministerium et gradus usurpastis," Asser (ed. Wise), p. 70. t I ! 140 CHAP. IV. JElfred. I'! 878- 901. V (i'ijiculties. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Not only did an appeal lie to him personally from every court, but we find him exercizing this jurisdic- tion through delegated judges, in whose action aav see the first traces of the judicial authority of the Royal Council. '' All the law dooms of his land that were given in his absence he used to keenly question, of whatever sort they were, just or unjust ; and if he found any wrongdoing in them he would call the judges themselves before him, and either by his own mouth or by some other of his faithful men seek out why they gave doom so unrighteous, whether through ignorance or ill-will, or for love or from hate of any, or for greed of gold."^ The law was in fact now the king's law: offences against it are off*ences against the king ; ami contempt of its courts is contempt of the kino-.^ This new conception of justice received a powerful impulse from the growing inefficiency of the " folk's justice" itself. Alfred's main work, like that of bis successor, was to enforce submission to the justice of hundred-moot and shire-moot alike on noble and ceorl, " who were constantly at obstinate variance with one another in the folk-moots before ealdorman and reeve, so that hardly any one of them would grant that to be true doom that had been judged for doom 1 Asser (ed. Wise), p. 70 : " Nam omnia pene totius suje regionis judicia, quae in absentia sua fiebant, sagaciter investi- gabat, qualia fierent, justa aut etiam injusta ; aut vero si aliquaiii in iUis judiciis iniquitatem intelligere posset, leniter advocates illos ipsos judices, aut per se ipsum, aut per alios suos iidele.s quoslibet, interrogabat," &c. 2 " Of er-hyrnesse ; " first heard of in LI. Eadw. I. sec. i. (Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," i. p. 161), and so dating from Alfred's day. s THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. by the ealdorman and reeves."^ But even the doom of the folk-moot was subject on appeal to the justice of the king.2 Judicial business, in foct, occupied a large part of Alfred's time. He was busied, say^s his biographer, **day and night" in the correction of local injustice, "for in that whole kingdom the poor had no helpers, or few, save the king himself." ^ The work was one which brought with it bitter; resistance, and the strife even with men of his own house for law and justice left pain and disappoint- ment in Wilfred's heart. " Desirest thou power ? " he asks in one of his writings. " But thou shalt never obtain it without sorrow, sorrow from strange folk, and yet keener sorrows from thine own kin- dred." ^ "Hardship and sorrow!" he breaks out agam ; " not a king but would wish to be without these if he could. But I know that he cannot."^ Gloom or anxiety however failed even for a mc^ment ^0 check his activity in the work of restoration.^ ^ Asser (ed. Wise), p. 69. ^'Nobilium et ignobilinm iui ssepissime in concionibus comitum et prsepositorum perti- nacissime inter se dissentiebant, ita ut pene nullus eorum quic- quid a comitibus et proepositis judicatum fuisset, verum esse concederet." As Stubbs (-Const. Hist." i. 112, note) points out, this shows " that ealdorman and geref a, eorl and ceorl, had their places in these courts," and that, ^' although the officers might declare the law, the ultimate determination rested in eacia else with the suitors." 2 Asser (ed. Wise), p. 70. 3 j^i^ ^^ ^c^ 4 Alfred's Boethius, in Sharon Turner's "Hist. Anglo-Sax" vol. ii. p. 43. 5 75, p. 45 6 Later tradition (Will. Malm. " Gest. Reg." (Hardy), i. p. 186) attributed to Alfred the institution of the shire, the hundred, and the tithing ; and Professor Stubbs (" Const. Hist." i. 112) suggests 141 CHAP. IV. -ffilfred. 878- 901. Englis/t Mercia. 1- ^ #Jl^*WS*|BJ.«#!«Aa9iU-i 142 CHAP. IV. ti -ffilfred. 878- 901. M m i THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. He was as busy without Wessex as within. lu the division of Britain at the peace of Wedmore he had saved from the grasp of the Danes the western portion of the Mercian kingdom, the upper valleys of the Thames and the Trent, the whole valley of the Severn with the outlier of the Hwiccan territory in Arden, and the more northerly region of our Shrop- shire and Cheshire. Of what vital importance this tract was to prove we shall see in the after part of our story. It was from it that iElfred drew the teachers who began the intellectual and religious restoration of the rescued realm. It was from it that his dauorhtci* o in later days advanced to the conquest of Mid-Britain. It was of more immediate value as parting the Welsh- men from the Danes, and thus paving the way for that complete reduction of the former which was the necessary prelude to any effective struggle with the settlers of the Danelaw. But what immediately fronted the young king was the question of its government. The question was one of great moment, a real ground for this. ** The West-Saxon shires appear in history under their permanent names, and with a shire organization much earlier than those of Mercia and Northumberland ; while Kent, Essex, and East Anglia had throughout an organization derived from their old status as kingdoms. It is in Wessex, further, that the hundredal division is supplemented by that of the tithing. It may then be argued that the whole hundredal system radiates from the West-Saxon kingdom, and that the variations mark the gradual extension of that power as it won its way to supremacy under Egbert or Ethelwulf, or recovered territory from the Danes under Alfred and Edward, Athelstan, Edmund, Edred, and Edgar. If this be allowed, the claim of Alfred, as founder, not of the hundred-law, but of the hundredal divisions, may rest on something firmer than legend." 143 CHAP. IV. iElfred. 878- 901 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. not only in its bearing on Mercia, but in its bearing on the future of England itself. The royal stocks, once the centres and representatives of the separate folks, were dying out one by one. In the earlier days of Ecgberht the only kings that retained politii^.al hfe were those of Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex, with the tributary realms of East Anglia and of Kent. Of these the Kentish kings soon came to an end, while the strife over the succession in Northumbria sprang from the virtual extinction of its royal stock. But the action of Ecgberht even in the moment of his triumph showed that so long as the royal races ex- isted at all any real union of the English peoples in one political body was practically impossible. The difficulty indeed could hardly have been The Mercian solved save by some violent shock ; and the shock ^^^^^^^''^^^^^ru- was given by the coming of the Danes. Before fifty years were over the royal houses of Northumbria, of East Anglia, of Mercia, were brought to an end. The .two claimants to the northern throne p(irished in the battle of York. The martyrdom of Eadmund closed the East-Anglian line ; while that of Mercia ended in the flight of Burhred to Eome before the inroad of Guthrum. It was thus that the position of iElfred differed radically from that of Ecgberht ; for even had he wished to restore the mere supremacy over Mercia which Ecgberht had wielded, he had no royal house through which to restore it. He was driven in fact by the very force of things to be not merely a West-Saxon over-lord of Mercia, but a Mer- cian king. He made no attempt to fuse Mercia into Wessex ; it remained a separate though dependent •ii .• II P 144 CHAP. IV iElfred. 878- 901. Ill m THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. state with its Mercian witenag^emot and Mercian ruler iEthelred, who may have sprung from the stock of its older kings. But iEthelred was simply Ealdor- man of the Mercians. Though Alfred uses in his dealings with Mercia only the general title of '' King," it was as King of the Mercians that he acted ; their Ealdorman owned him as his lord, and their Witan met by his licence. How thoroughly Alfred asserted royal rights in Mid-Britain may be seen indeed from his Mercian coinage. Coinage in the old world was the unquestioned test of kingship, and a mint which iElfred set up at Oxford^ within the borders of the Mercian Ealdormanry proves even more than the submissive words of Witan or Ealdorman the reality of his rule. In fact Wessex and Mercia were now united, as Wessex and Kent had long been united, by their allegiance to the same ruler ; and the founda- tion of a national monarchy was laid in the personal loyalty of Jute and Engle and Saxon alike to the house of Cerdic.^ 1 " We have in the British Museum," Mr. Barclay Y. Head has been good enough to write to me, "a whole series of Alfred's coins, struck at various mints, and among them are some discovered some twenty or thirty years ago at Cuerdale, which read ' ORSNAFORDA.' It is usual to attribute these to Oxford." On a subsequent personal examination however he finds that the word has been misread, and is clearly *' OKSNAFORDA," which must be taken as the earliest authen- tic form of the town's name. No written evidence for Oxford's existence can be found before its mention in the Chronicle in 912 in the following reign. 2 We find ^thelred an Ealdorman under Burhred, c. 872-4 (Kemb. Cod. Dipl. 304). His first extant charter under Alfred is of 880, as ** dux et patricius gentis Merciorum," and already j / THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Important as was the union of Wessex and Mercia in itself as a step towards national unity, it led to a step yet more important in the fusion of the customary codes of the English peoples into a common law. The sphere of the written codes might be narrow in relation to the whole hody of customary law, but they had by Alfred's day come to be regarded as its representatives, and thus to be specially representative of the tribal life w^hich the customary law embodied. As king therefore of Wessex, of Kent, and of Mercia, ^ifred found him- self an administrator of three separate codes, whose differences, however sliglit, reflected the distinctions which held each of these states apart from the married to JSthelflaed, who signs it. In 884 he signs as '' Mer- ciorum gentis ducatum gubernans" (Cod. Dip. 1066); in 888 as "procurator in dominio regni Merciorum" (ib. 1068). The gi-ant of 880 is "cum licentia et impositione manus ^Elfredi regis, una cum testimonio et consensu seniorum ejusdera gentis (Merciorum)." " Alfred rex " signs first, then " ^Jthen^d dux," then "^thelflffid conjunx" (Cod. Dip. 311). Another grant in 883 is with Alfred's " leave and witness " (ib. 313). And so, in 896, when ^thelred summons the Mercian Witan, " that did he with king Alfred's witness and leave" (ib. 1073). In a charter however of 901 (Cod. Dip. 330), Alfred's last year of reiga, there is no mention of Alfred, but of "^thered ^il(elfliedque) dei gratia monarchiam Merciorum tenentes honorificeque gubernantes et defendentes ; " the grant is made solely "cum licentia et testimonio pantorum procerum Merciorum;" and signed " Eo-o ^thered, Ego ^thelflged," without titles. This does not however represent a new position taken by ^thelred at zKlf red's denth and Eadward's accession, though it is notable that ^tlielweard, a. 894 (lib. iv. c. 3), calls him "rex," for in 903 we find a Mercian ealdorman aslsing a grant from " Eadwardum regem, ^thelredum quoque et ^thelfledam, qui tunc principatum et potestatem gentis Merciai sub praedicto rege tenuerunt " (Cod. Dip. 1081). 145 CHAP. IV. Alfred. 878- 901. Alfred's laws. i\ Mi i» m n ii' msamimm.imiam 146 -Alfred. 878- 901. ii THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IV. other. Of a new legislation, or of the brinrinoj a larger sphere of English life within the scope of the written law, the kino^ had no thoug-ht. The ver^' notion of new legislation indeed, ungrounded on custom, was without hold on him or his people. '* I durst not," he says frankly, *' venture to set down in writing much of my own, for it was unknown to uk* what of it would please those who should come after us." All that he could venture on was a certain amount of rejection ; " many of those dooms which seemed to me not good, I rejected them by the counsel of my witan ; " but the main work was simply a work of compilation.^ '' Those things which I met with, either of the days of Ine, my kinsman, or of Offa, king of the Mercians, or of JEthelberht, who first among the English race received baptism, those which seemed to me the rightest, those I have gathered together and rejected the others." ^ But impretending as the work might seem, its import- ance was great. With it began the conception of a national law. The notion of separate systems of tribal customs passed away with the weakening of the notion of tribal life : and the codes of Wessex, Mercia, and Kent blended in the doom-book of a common England. ^ Of the seventy-seven clauses of Alfred's law, fifty- three re- late to personal injuries ; these are taken from the Kentish codes, especially that of JEthelherht, with but slight change save in the amount of the fine. The rest are mainly borrowed from Ine, whose agricultural laws however are wholly omitted ; and there are a few miscellaneous laws, which may be Alfred's own, or taken from the lost code of Offa. 2 Thorpe, " Anc. Laws and Instit." i. 59. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. The king's work of peace, however, was now drawing to an end. We have seen how anxiously, while girding himself for the coming strife, Alfred was looking out through these six years of quiet from 878 to 884, over the West-Saxon frontier.^ What helped him to give rest to his land— as he knew well— was not only the peace of Wedmore, but the work which the pirates had found to do on the other side of the Channel ; for their defeat in England had thrown them back on their old field of attack in the land of the Franks. The esta- blishment of the Danelaw gave them a l)ase of operations for descents on the opposite const,' and when the host under Guthrum sailed home to East Anglia after its repulse from Wessex, it was in order to sail off again to the Scheldt. Tbe close of the struggle in England threw in foct the whole weight of the pirate onset on the Franks. It fell above all on northern Frankland, and soon the Scheldt, the Meuse, and the Rhine were full of pirate squadrons. The Frank kings fought bravely as of old, though their strength was still broken by the dynastic quarrels which the dream of restoring the empire of Charles the Great stirred up perpetually among his descendants. But the resistance of Wessex roused a new vigour among its neighbours. Lewis the G^erman 1 Among other causes for anxiety was the desertion of Englishmen to the Danes. In Cod. Dip. 1078, we hear of an ealdorman, Wulfhere, who "simm dominum regem ^ilfredum et patriam, ultra jiisjurandnm quam regi et suis omnibus opti- matibus juraverat, dereliquit." This is a very early instance of the oath of allegiance. 2 Eng. Chron. 880-4. 147 CHAP. IV. iBlfred. 878- 901. The Danes in Frankland. \ m Jill L 2 148 CHAP. lY. Alfred. 878- 901. Their attach on England. i THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. fought the pirates hard on the Scheldt, while two grandsons of Charles the Bald, Lewis and Carloman, who mounted the throne of the West Franks in the year after the peace of Wedmore, checked Guthrum by a victory at Saucourt on the Somme. The contest however drew larger hosts to Guthrum's aid, and an overpowering force poured up the Ehine and harried Lorraine as far as Aachen. Lewis the German and Lewis of the West Franks alike passed away in this hour of gloom, while Carloman, still battling with the pirate host as it poured from Aachen over western Frankland, died in 884. But the hard fighting told. The old ease with which the northmen passed from land to land as resistance drove them to seek fresh ground for their forays was coming fast to an end. On both sides of the sea their ho&ts found men ready to meet blow with blow. When the pirates who had quitted the Loire steered for Wessex, Alfred's new fleet was ready for them ; and a brisk engagement, in which four of their ships were sunk or captured, drove them from the coast.^ The bulk of their hosts, who had followed Hasting to northern Frankland, had to fio;ht a stubborn fic^ht at Haslo against the Emperor Charles. Before blows such as these the Wikings were driven to draw their whole force tos^ether, and in 884 the fleet of the northmen was concentrated in the Somme. To rest idle however was to starve, and part of their host soon moved to Lorraine, while part pushed up the Thames and beset Rochester.^ But the old days of panic were over, and Rochester held bravely out till 1 Eng. Chron. a. 882. 2 Eng. Chron. a. 885. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. .Alfred could hurry to its relief and drive its besiegers to the sea with the loss of their horses.^ Short as the campaign had been, it was to have important results. Though the repulse of the pirates had been quick enough to hinder a general rising of the Danelaw in their aid, the Danes of Guthrum's kinoxlom had already set aside the Frith of Wedmore and mven help to their brethren.^ No sooner, therefore, bad the pirate-force retreated from Rochester than West- Saxon ships from Kent appeared off* the East-Anglian coast to punish this breach of faith. A squadron of the freebooters was captured at the mouth of the Stour, and its crews slain. The insult was avenged by a sudden and successful rally of the East Anglians in which the king's ships were destroyed, but the measures which Alfred took in the next year show that the rally was followed by submission, and that a fresh peace had been made between the com- batants on terms that implied Guthrum's recognition of the superior strength of the West-Saxon king. The Essex which the Danes had occupied till now as a dependency of their East-Anglian realm must have been the older kingdom of the East Saxons, a tract which included not only the modern shire that bears their name, but our Middlesex and Hei-tford- shire, and whose centre, or " mother-city," was Lon- don. London had as yet played little part in English history ; indeed for nearly half a century after its conquest by the East Saxons it wholly disappears ^ "Equis, quos de Francia secum addiixerant." — Asser (ed. Wise), p. 37. This shows the size of their shij^s. 2 ^thelweard, a. 885, lib. iv. c. 3. 149 CHAP. IV. Alfred. 878- 901. ir^l li ^^Ifred and London. ir *^^^9!^i^^imm'->^mu^\''»-:mm!'^(m''»m^^'^''':mi^-^'^-i)y»im:j^.r . ^^'m^s^''-:"'^^^mini 150 OHAP. IV. iElfred. 878- 901. m I i ii'l 111 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. from our view. Its position, however, was such that traffic could not long fail to re-create the town, and the advantages which had drawn trade and population to the Eoman Londinium must have already been at work in repeopling the English London. Its growth however was for a while to be arrested; for the conquest of the town by Ecgberht in his general reunion of the English states was quickly followed by the struggle with the Danes. To London the war broudit all but ruin ; so violent in fact was the shock to its life that its very bishoprick seemed for a time to cease to exist.^ The Eoman walls must have been broken and ruined, for we hear of no resistance such as that which in later days made the city England's main bulwark against northern attack; and in 851 it was plundered by the marauders, who again wintered at Fulham in 880, when the city was probably subjected anew to their devastations. At the peace of Wedmore it must have been left like the rest of Essex in the hands of Guthrum. But with the war of 886 came its deliverance, for at the close of the strife with East Anglia we find London in Alfred's hands. Whether he had won it by actual siege or no,^ he '' peopled " or '' settled " it, and handed 1 Stubbs, *' Const. Hist." i. 275. 2 "Obsidetur a rege Alfredo urbs Lnndonii," says ^thel- weard ; but Earle {'' Parallel Chron." p. 310) argues that this is a mere misconception of the Chron. a. 886, " gesette Alfred cyning Lundenburg," ^thelweard substituting " besette " for "gesette," "besieged" for *' colonized" or "peopled." All the later authorities follow the Chronicle, or Asser's " restauravit et habitabilem fecit." Asser (ed. Wise), p. 52. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. it over to the Mercian ealdorman ^thelred to hold asrainst the Danes. The cession of London, however, was only part of the sacrifice by which Guthrum won peace. The geographical boundaries which it names show that the " Frith between Alfred and Guthrum," which has commonly been identified with the Frith concluded at Wedmore, is really the peace of 886 ; and that its pro- visions represent a territorial readjustment by which East Anglia bought peace from the king. The older Essex was broken into two parts by an artificial line of demarcation between Guthrum's realm and the Mercian ealdormanry, a line which passed from the Thames up the Lea as far as its sources near Hertford^ thence struck straight over the Chilterns, and down their slopes into the valley of the Ouse at Bedford, and thence followed the countless bends of Ouse to the point w^here its course was cut by the line of the Watling Street near Stony Stratford.^ In other words, the western half of the East-Saxon kingdom was torn away from the eastern half to form a district ^ Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," i. 153. At this point where the line hit the Watling Street the territories of Guthrum and Mereia ceased to march together, and it was therefore needless further to define the boundaries of either. But the border-line refers strictly to these two realms ; and the common reading of it, as if from this point Watling Street formed the bound between the rest of the Danelaw, i.e. the territory of the Five IJoroughs and Mereia, has no foundation in the actual text of the frith. There must have been a separate frith between the Five Boroughs and English Mereia, no doubt with a like definition of the boundary line, as there was certainly such a frith between Wessex and Northumbria (Eng. Chi'on. a. 911), but l^oth are lost. 151 CHAP. IV, Alfred. 878- 901. The division of Essex. I" f! !ill> n- i 152 CHAP. IV. iEIfred. 878- 901. 'fl Position of tite Danes revensed. I THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. around London.^ The division may be but the return to an earlier arrangement; for some such partin must have taken place when Ecgberht joined Essex t( his '' eastern kingdom " of Kent, while London was still left in Mercian hands. This arrangement however was so soon put an end to by the reunion of Londor. and Essex in the kingdom of Guthrum, that it would have left hardly a trace of its existence but for the permanent severance which was now made by the Frith of 886. It was this which gave both territories the shape which they still retain, which fixed the border of Essex at the Lea, and annexed to London that district, which from its position between West Saxon and East Saxon, either now or at some earlier time, was known as the land of the Middlesexe. In a military point of view the recovery of the Thames valley, with the winning and fortification of London, was of great moment, for it closed to the Danes that water-way by which in past times the pirates had advanced to the attack of Wessex. Its military results however proved to be the least results of the war. Till now ^fred's victories had seemed 1 Asser (ed. Wise), p. 5, says of London, "Quae est sita in aquilonari ripa Tamesis fluminis, in confinio East-Seaxum, et Middle-Seaxum, sed tamen ad East-Seaxum ilia civitas cum veri- tate pertinet." It may be doubted whether " Middle-Sexe " were heard of before this assignment of the old East-Saxon borderland as a '^Pagus" for London in 886, when the need arose for a distinguishing name for its inhabitants. I shall however deal afterwards with the bearing of this division on the general question of the "shires;" here we need only note that the question has hardly arisen, as the line of the Frith is far from representing the later lines of the shires along its course. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. a mere saving of Wessex, a temporary repulse of the Dane from a part of Britain. But the character of the war, as it reopened in 885, showed how much greater a work than this had been done at Atlielney and Edington. With the Frith of Wedmore the whole military position of the Danes had in fact been reversed. From an attitude of attack they ha.l been thrown back on an attitude of defence. The north- men had foiled to crush the house of Cerdic, and already it seemed as if the house of Cerdic was turning to crush the northmen. The driving off of the pirates, the attack on East Anglia, the reco\^ery of London and the lands about it, showed England that in Wessex and its king the country possessed a force not only strong enough to withstand the Danes, but strong enough to take in hand the undoing of what the Danes had done. The consciousness of such made itself felt. If- any date can the foundation of a national monarchy, as distinct from the earlier supremacy of king over kino-, it is the year 88G. In that year, says the Chronicle, '' all the Angel-cyn turned to J^lfred, save those that were under bondage to Danish men." ^ The old tribal jealousies were, if not destroyed, at least subordinated to the sense of a common patriotism, and a sense of national existence becfan from this moment to give o life and vigour to the new conception of a national sovereignty. If the Dane had struck down the a change at once be given for dominion of Ecgberht, it was the Dane who was more than its restoration. 1 Eng. Chron. (Winch.) a. 886. to bring about even tl 153 CHAP. IV. iEIfred. 878- 901. ■•1 Hise of national sentiment. II' .♦'' i.t 154 CHAP. IV. -ffilfred. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 878- 901. Iiitellectiial ruin of England. a a foreign foe, the Endish consciousness of its own 11 Set face to face with jjeople was waking to existence ; the rule of the stranger was crushing pro- vincial jealousies and deepening the sense of a common nationality ; while the question of political and military supremacy was settled as it had never been settled before. Wessex alone had repulsed the Dane. The West Saxons had not only kept their own freedom ; they had become the only possible champions of the freedom of other Englishmen. The old jealousy of their greatness was lost in a craving for their aid, for it was plain that deliverance from the invader, if it came at all, must come through the sword of the West-Saxon king. It was no wonder then that the eyes of Northumbrian and Mercian turned more and more to Alfred, or that his work gleamed over England like a light of hope. His slow patient undoing of the evil which the Danes had dont.^ in Wessex was a promise of its undoing throughout the nation at laro^e. But if the growth of this sentiment gave a moral strength to JElfred's position, the sentiment itself gained largeness and dignity from the conception of national rule which it found embodied in the king. Hardly had this second breathing-space been won in the long conflict with the enemy than ^Elfred turned anew to his w^ork of restoration. The ruin that the Danes had wrought had been no mere material ruin. When they first appeared off her shores, England stood in the forefront of European culture ; her scholars, her libraries, her poetry, had no rivals in the western world. But all, or THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. nearly all, of this culture had disappeared. The art and learning of Nortlmmbria had been destroyed at a blow ; and throughout the rest of the Danelaw the ruin was as complete. The very Christianity of Mid-Britain w\as shaken ; the sees of Dunwich and Lindsey came to an end ; at Lichfield and Elmham the succession of bishops became broken and irregular ; even London hardly kept its bishop's stool. But its letters and civilization were more than shaken ; they had vanished in tlie sack of the o-reat abbevs of the Fen. Even in Wessex, which ranked as the least advanced of the English kingdoms, Alfred could recall that he saw as a child '' how the churches stood filled wdth treasures and books, and there was also a great multitude of God's servants ; " but this was •' before it had all been ravaged and burned." ^ " So clean was learning decayed among English folk," says the king, " that very few were there on this side Humber that could understand their rituals in English, or translate aught out of Latin into English, and I ween there were not many beyond the Humber. So few of them were there, that I cannot bethink me of a single one south of Tliames when I came to the kingdom." ^ It was in fact only in the frag- ment of Mercia which had been saved from the invaders that a gleam of the old intellectua] lioht 1 " I remembered also how I saw, before it had all been i-avaeeJ and burned, how the churches throughout the whole of J^]ngland stood filled with treasures and books, and there was also a erreat multitude of God's servants." — Pref. to J^lfred's translation of Gregory's Pastoral (ed. Sweet). 2 Pref. to Pastoral (ed. Sweet). 155 CHAP. IV, iElfred. 878- 901. it ,*" 156 CHAP. IV. Alfred. 878- 901. JElfreiVs intellectual work. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. lingered in the school which Bishop Werfrith had gathered round him at Worcester. It is in his efforts to repair this intellectual ruin that we see Alfred's conception of the w^ork he had to do. The Danes had no doubt brought with them much that was to enrich the temper of the coming England, a larger and freer manhood, a greater daring, a more passionate love of personal freedom, better seamanship and a warmer love of the sea, a keener spirit of traffic, and a rano;e of trade-ventures wdiicli drao^lll THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. was instinct with piety. Everywhere throughout his writings that remain to us the nam(i of God, the thought of God, stir him to outbursts of ecstatic adoration. But of the narrowness, the want of pro- portion, the predominance of one quality over another which commonly goes with an intensity of religious feeling or of moral purpose he showed not a trace. He felt none of that scorn of the world about him which drove the nobler souls of his day to monastery or hermitage. Vexed as he was by sickness and (constant pain, not only did his temper take no touch of asceticism, but a rare geniality, a pe(3uliar elasticity and mobility of nature, gave colour and charm to his life. He had the restless outlook of the artistic nature, its tenderness and susceptibility, its quick apprehension of unseen danger, its craving for affection, its sensitiveness to wrong. It was with himself rather than with his reader that he communed, as thought of the foe without or of ingratitude and opposition within broke the calm pages of Gregory or Boethius ; but the loneliness that breathes in such words never begot in him a contempt for men or the judgement of men. Nor could danger or disappointment check for an hour his vivid activity. From one end of his reign to the other every power was bent to the work of rule. His practical energy found scope for itself in a material and administrative restoration of tlie wasted land ; his intellectual energy breathed fresh life into education and literature ; while his capacity for inspiring trust and affection drew the hearts of Englishmen to a common centre, and began the up- building of a new England. Little by little men 18- CHAP. IV. Wilfred. 878- 901. I f i\\^ 188 CHAP. IV. iElfred. 878- 901. \ THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. came to recognize in Alfred a ruler of higher and nobler stamp than the world had seen. Never had it seen a king who lived only for the good of his people. Never had it seen a ruler who set aside every personal aim to devote himself solely to the welfare of those whom he ruled. It was this grand self-mastery that won him love and reverence in his own day, and it is this that has hallowed his memory ever since. '^ I desire/' said the King, *'to leave to the men that come after me a re- membrance of me in good works." His aim has been more than fulfilled. His memory has come down to us with a living distinctness through the mists of exaggeration and legend which time gathered round it. The instinct of the people has clung to him with a singular afiection. The love which he won a thousand years ago has lingered round his name from that day to this. While every other name of those earlier times has all but faded from the recollection of Englishmen, that of Alfred remains fomiliar to every English child. I CHAPTER V. THE HOUSE OP ^.LFEED. 901—937. With the death of iElfred the work for which he had so long prepared passed into the hands of his son.^ Eadward seems only partially to have shared ^ 1 For Eadward's reign the great authority is the English Chronicle. The portion of this work due to Alfred's pen, or Avritten under his supervision, probably ends in 891 [Earle, ''Parallel Chron." Tntr. xv.-xvii.], but from 891 to Eadward's death in 924 the annals are carried on by a writer of singular force. Of the years from 894 to 897 Earle says, " This is the most remarkable piece of writtng in the whole series of Chronicles. It is a warm, vigorous, earnest narrative, free from the rigidity of the other annals, full of life and originality. Compared with that passage every other piece of prose, not in these Chronicles merely, but throughout the whole range of extant Saxon litera- ture must assume a secondary rank." [*' Parallel Chron." Intr. xvi.] But the years that follow, though told with less warmth and fulness, are told in the same spirit. From 901 to 910 indeed the narrative is scanty; but from 910 to 924 "we have a steady, regular, well-written narrative, homogeneous and unmixed in matter, like the head-piece of this section, and unlike all the rest of the Chronicle. It is all sieges and battles, and fortifications, and garrisons, and surrenders, and armed pacifications. It is a model of uniformity, both in matter and manner." [Earie, " Parallel Chron." Intr. X7iii.] Etulward the Elder. r 901- 937. 190 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAP. V. his father's taste for letters ; while his younger brother, The House of ^thelweard, mastered both Latin and En^flish in the -Alfred. ' . . ^ palace-school/ Eadward's studies, like those of most of the young nobles, were restricted to books and songs in his own tongue.^ But he was already famous as a warrior who had rivalled the glory of ^thelred in the storm of the pirate camp on the Colne as well as in the victory of Buttington ; and with his father's warlike ardour he inherited his political capacity. Like iElfred he was able to set aside for years the dreams of mere warlike enterprize ; and his earlier reign, though troubled for a while by the revolt of a claimant of his throne, was in the main a time of peace. The failure of their last attack had left the English Danes little minded to quarrel with Wessex, while the strength of their Wiking allies was thrown for some years into the strife on the other side of the Channel, where Hrolf was establishing himself in the valley of the Seine. The peace indeed was far from being unbroken. Alfred's death had revived the question of the suc- cession ; the order established under ^thelwulf by which his sons followed one another to the exclusion of their children was now exhausted ; and it can only have been by a decision of the Witenagemot that the children of ^thelwulfs elder sons were set aside, and the royal stock settled in the descendants of 1 "In qua schola utriusque linguae libri, Latinse scilicet et Saxonicse, assidue legebantur." Asser (ed. Wise), p. 43. 2 He and his sister ^Ifthryth, who married Count Baldwin, "et psalmos et Saxonicos libros et maxime Saxonica carmina studiose didicere." Ih, ^ V f ?' ^ M THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Alfred, the youngest. That this decision expressed the national will was shown at Eadward's accession. When his cousin ^Ethelwald, king ^thelred's son, rose to claim the crown, he found himself without support and forced to fly from Wessex.^ The shelter which he found among the Danes of Northumbria and his acceptance as their king, marks the first step in that union of Danes and Englishmen w^hich was to be the work of the coming century ; and the impression of this must have been strengthened when in 905 he moored off the eastern coast and roused the Danes of East-Anglia to follow him in an attack on Wessex.' Eadward however anticipated the blow by appearing with an army on the Ouse ; and the fall of ^thelwald in a fight with the Kentish division of this force ended the war. The Wedmore Frith was renewed at Ittingford in 906,^ and Wessex enjoyed four years more of undisturbed tranquillity.* 1 Eng. Chron. (Winch.), a. 901. 2 mj^ ^ 905. 3 Ihid. a. 906. * For this period the earlier English Chronicle of Winchester is largely supplemented by a Chronicle drawn up at Worcester (that known as Tiber. B. iv. of the Cotton Collection, and the " D " of Mr. Earle. " Parallel Chron." Intr. xxxix. etc.). What distinguishes this Worcester Chronicle is a large insertion of northern annals, beginning in 737 ; the earlier of which may be due (Stubbs, Archaeol. Journ. No. 75, p. 236, note) to Bishop Werfrith of Worcester, one of Alfred's literary assistants, who sate from 873 to 915. But for ^theilflsed's campaigns we have, inserted, a wholly independent Mercian Chronicle, ending with her death, and equal in fulness of detail to the parallel Winchester Chronicle, wliich restricts itself to Eadward's exploits and omits those of his sister. There are difficulties indeed in reconcihng these accounts chronologically. The death of ^thelflsed is placed in the Mercian Chromcle at 918 ; in the 191 CHAP. V. The House ot iElfred. 901- 937. / I f 192 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. ■^" ft 901- 937. King of the Angul- Saxons. \ w CHAP. V. That EadwarcVs patience however by no means The House of implied any abandonment of iElfred's policy, above all his plans for a national union, was shown in a change of the royal style. With Alfred the con- nexion of his two realms had remained to the last a purely personal connexion. He had been Mercian king among the Mercians ; he had remained AVest- Saxon kino^ amons^ the men of Wessex. But from the first moment of his reign Eadward showed his resolve to look on the two dominions he ruled as a single realm, and to blend their peoples in some sort into a single people. He is no longer king of the West-Saxons or of the Mercians, but '' King of the Angul- Saxons.^' ^ The title is no doubt a transitional one ; it represents the effort of the king to look on the Mercian Engle and the Saxon Gewissas as a single folk rather than any actual fusion of the one with the other ; we know indeed that the separate life of Mercia under ^thelred and iEthelflaed remained Winchester Chronicle at 922. The latter is probably the more correct, for we find Leicester, which according to the Mercian Chronicle had submitted to the Lady in 918, still Danish and leading a Danish here against her brother in 921 ; and as the preceding dates, at any rate from ^thelred's death, are linked in series with this final one, I have ventured to place them also four years later than the year assigned to them by the Worcester chronicler. 1 " Angul Saxonum rex" is his common description in the charters of his reign, a description almost confined — as we shall see— to Eadward. See Kemble, Cod. Dip. 333, 335, 1080, 1083, 1084, 1090, 1091, 1092, 1093, 1094, 1095, 1096. In a charter of 901, his first year (Cod. Dip. 1078), his " Angul Saxonum rex " explains itself by an after phrase, ** Omnium judicio sapien- tum Gewissorum et Mercensium." ■ THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 195 It was probably to aid in the re-peopling of the chap, v town that a secular house of the Mercian Saint, Thei^seof Werburgh, was founded in the nortli -eastern quarter ^""'^' 90 1- 937. ;\ of the city : and the security of the little settlement may have been provided for by a custom which we find existing in later days, that bound every hide in the shire about it to furnish a man at its town-reeve's call to repair walls and bridge.^ Small as the settlement was, the end of the Mercian Outbreak rulers was gained by their seizure of the town, for ""-^ ^^'' ^''"''' the shortest road between Wales aiid the Danelaw was now in their hands. That the check was felt by the Danes was shown by a growing restlessness which broke out at last in open warfare. A raid of the pirates over Mercia in 910^ had to be repulsed at Tottenhale by a joint force of Mercians and West- Saxons under Eadward himself, who avenged the attack by following the beaten host across the border and harrying their land there for five wrecks. ^ The blow seems to have roused the warlike spirit of the 1 It was only by slow degrees that the new town extended itself over the ruins of the old. St. Werburgh's house stood alone in its north-eastern quarter ; and ouly the southern half of the city, where we find on either side of Bridge Street the chui-ches of St. Bridget and St. Michael, can represent the town of ^thelflaed, for yet more to the south the church of St. Olaf marks a later extension which can hardly be earlier than the days of Cnut. 2 Eng. Chron. (Wore), a. 910. The raid is told in greater detail by ^thelweard, whose Chronicle, till now a mere version of the English Chronicle of Winchester, becomes independent from about 893 to its close in 975. His whole work, however, is all but worthless. 3 Eng. Chron. (Winch.), a. 910. 2 /' 106 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAP. V. The House of -Elfred. 901- 937. \ Eadward and the Thames valley. whole Danelaw. In 911 Eadward was drawn south- ward by danger from the sea, where in the preceding year a pirate force had landed in the Severn and been driven back with difficulty by the fyrds of the neigh- bouring shires. It marks the quiet work that had been done in the years of rest which Alfred had gained, that Eadward was able to muster a hundred ships and to ride master of the Channel. But with his stay in the south Mercia was left to its ow^n resources ; and the Northumbrians resolved to avenge the losses of their brethren across Trent. A " frith " like that of East-Anglia had bound them till now to Wessex, but this was broken, and setting aside the offers of accom- modation made by Eadward and his Witenagemot,^ the pirate host under its kings Ecwils and Halfdene poured ravaging over Mercia. But distant as Eadward himself was, his forces were already on the march, and as the Danes fell back loaded with spoil they were overtaken and attacked. The English victory was complete, and thousands of Danes fell round their two kings on the field. If Ealdorman ^thelred led the host to this triumph, the effort must have been his last ; for he died in 912,^ and the changes which followed on his death told on the whole character of the conflict. Within Mercia itself the change was little, for ^Ethelflaed, who remained its sole governor, had acted throughout as joint-ruler with ^thelred. But for Wessex it was great. The death of ^thelred enabled Eadward to take a new step in the disintegration of the shrunken 1 Eng. Chron. (Winch.), a. 911. 2 Eng. Chron. (Winch.), a. 912. 1 ^ I 1' > :u i 4:s^w»i*' --si.>. i I i, 1* ■tj! THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Mercian realm, aud he now took from Mercia London and Oxford " and the lands that belonged to them," ' in other words, the lower valley of the Thames. The annexation was important, not only as pointing for- ward to Eadward's plans of a yet wider re-union, but as doing away with the barrier which Alfred had set between Wessex and the Danelaw b)^ the in- terposition of the Mercian Ealdormaniy. In bringing his border into contact with that of the Danelaw, Eadward announced that the time of rest was over, and that a time of action had begun. His course, however, was marked by extreme caution. It was easy to secure the line of the Thames by renewing, as Alfred had done, the older walls of London, a work of reparation which has left its mark everywhere among the Eoman brickwork and masonry ; while the deep morasses along the valley of the Lea still offered a fair check to any attack from the Danes in Essex. But at the point where the boundary of the Danelaw struck to the north-west from the Lea across the bare uplands of the Chil terns the way lay open to an in- road, and it was to guard this open ground that Eadward seized the ford over the Lea, first by a fort or stockaded mound on the northern side of the river between the little streams of the Maran and the Beane, and then by a like fort on the southern bank, two ''burhs" which have since grown into our Hertford.^ The bend of its present shire-line east- ward along the upper course of the Stort and so round by the crest of the Chilterns, may represent the land which Eadward took across the line fixed by the 1 Eng. Chron. (Winch.), a. 912. 2 j^. a. 913. 1^7 CHAP. V. The House of iEIfred. 901- 937. \ ^h. 198 CHAP. V. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 937. Ethelfloid and the Watlinfj Street. _ Frith to form a district for liis new fortress ; but its ^''^^ed''' ^^^^^^^^ ^^'^^ ^^t the only sign of a break with East 901. Anglia. Essex, shorn as it was of its western half along the Thames and the Chilterns, still remained a part of Guthrum's kingdom ; but Eadward now pro- ceeded to shear away a fresh portion of it by entering its southern districts with an army, and taking post at Maldon on the Blackwater, while his men reared a '' burh " a little inland at Witham. With the erection of this fortress the Danes were thrown back on the valley of the Colne, and cut off from all access to the mouths of the Thames or the Blackwater, while southern Essex passed into English hands. The line of Guthrum's Frith was now there- fore abandoned, and Eadvvard's frontier led from the sea along the valley of the Chelm, straight westward to Hertford, and thence along the brink of the Thames valley. For the next four years however the kino- made no further advance, though he was doubtless busy throughout them in organizing his later campaigns and in aiding the more active enterprize of his sister. While ^thelflsed strengthened her western frontier against any inroad from the Welsh by the erection of forts at Scargate and Bridgenorth,^ she barred any further raids of the Danes upon Meroia by firmly establishing herself on the flank of the Danelaw, and seizing the line of the Watling Street. None of the roads that traversed Eoman Britain have remained so famous as this great line of communi- 1 Eng. Chron. a. 912. This entry however is only preserved in two chronicles, Earle's B. and C, the older Cott. Tibb. A. vi. and B. i., both of Worcester ori^^in. S THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. I >t 1 199 CHAP. V. 901- 937. cation. It stretched from London over the chalk _ downs of Hertfordshire through a lonely and thickly- '^^^^l^^ wooded country to Verulamium, and descending into the low claylands of the Ouse at Dunstable, again mounted the Northamptonshire slopes at Stony Strat- ford to pass over the clearer tract beyond Towcester into the basin of the Trent. From the moment that it stooped to the lower ground of Central Britain its course was dictated by the woodland of Ardem It ran closely along the edge of this great, forest, by the bounds of our Leicestershire, and bending round its northern skirt to pass through the narrow gap of open country which parted Arden from Cannock Chase, struck over the central water-shed of Britain to Wroxeter in the Severn valley. From this point its line seems originally to have been prolonged to the Welsh coast near Anglesea ; but the size and im- portance of Chester under the Roman occupation show that a branch road from Wroxeter to that city must soon have come into existence, and along this branch road the main stream of traffic, both to Wales and to north-western Britain, was from that time directed.^ As the English conquerors crossed its course, however, the tract must have sunk for a while into disuse and silence. But the strangers were awed by the long line that they met so often in their progress, and which their fancy associated with the Milky Way, whose white line of stars were thrown athwart the sky as the white line of the road was thrown athwart 1 For Watling Street see Guest, **Origines Celticse," ii. 218 et seq. It is doubtful whether the road from Dover to London can claim the name. ■'.( 200 CHAP. V. 901- 937. Tamv'.ortli and Hfafford. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. _ Britain. In their after legend it became '^the road ^""m^l '^ ^^^^ I^ing Wsetla's sons made over England from the eastern sea to the sea in the west ; " and the memory of this long -lost myth lingers in its later name of the Watling Street.^ While Eadward was guarding his flank against the East-Engle, ^thelflsed wrought a lii^e work for Mercia by the fortification of two burhs which com- manded this road.2 The first was Tam worth, whose site marked the point where the new and direct line to Chester diverged from the older Watling Street. A rise of ground (now known as the Castle Hill) breaks the swampy levels at the junction of the Anker with the Tame ; and a vill of the Mercian kings had been established here at an early time, which with the little " worth " that grew up about it commanded what was then the only practicable passage over either river to the plains of the Trent. On this rise ^thelflged threw up a huge mound, crowned with a fortress, portions of 1 The name is at any rate as old as Alfred and Guthrum's Frith in 897. Their boundary ran from Bedford " upwards on the Ouse unto Watling Street." (Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," i. 153.) Flor. Wore. a. 1013 explains the name, " id est, strata quam filii Wsetlse regis ab orientale mare usque ad oceidentale per Angliam straverunt." Chaucer in his " House of Fame " says, " So there, quoth he, cast up thine eye, See yonder, lo, the galaxie, The which men clept the Milky Way, For it is white, and some — par fay Y-callin it han Watlinge Street." Dr. Guest however prefers, I cannot see why, a derivation from **gwyddel," the ^'broken men" or robbers in the woods aloncr its course. "Orig. Celt." ii. 234, 235. ^ 2 Eng. Chron. (Worcester), a. 913. '/ A 1^ ' 201 CHAP V. 901- »37. / THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Whose brickwork may still be seen as one zig-zags chap v up the steep aseent. From Tamworth however she The 57.. of soon turned to a yet more important point As the ""— *• road struck to the north-west, it entered a narrow pass between the heights of Canno<;k Chase and the channel of the Trent, across which ran the little stream of the Sow, on its way to the greater river Ihe road crossed this stream at a " stone ford " or paved point of passage ; and in guarding this point by the fortress which has grown into our Stafford ' JEthel- flajd not only blocked all access to the upper Trent but occupied what, in the physical state of England at the time, was the most important strategical point of Middle Britain.^ To the north of Arden the Mercian border was now fairly secure. Chester blocked all passage over the Dee ■ Stafford all passage along the Trent valley ; Tamworth any march along the older line of Watling Street on the upper Severn. But to the south of the great forest Mercia stdl remained accessible by the Fosse Road Ihe Fosse Way was one of the two great lines of communication which ran athwart Britain from the north-east to the south-west. Its course was roucrhlv parallel to that of its fellow-road, the Icknield Wav"^ and It closely resembled it in character. As the Ick- nield Way ran along the face of the chalk ran^e from the Gwent of East-Anglia to the Gwent about Old ^ Eng. Chron. (Worcester), a. 913. J- [*', ^r'*'"'''* "^^^ recognized by the two successive castles wh.ch the Conqueror built here, one in the town itself, the other on a more distant height. Freeman, " Norm. (?onq." iV 318 ' See "Making of England," p. 121. and the Fosse Way. 202 CHAP. V. The House of Alfred. 901- 937. Eadward's (idvance into Mid-Britain. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Sarum, so the Fosse Way ran from Lincoln to Bath along the face of the oolitic range which stretched across Mid-Britain from the estuary of the Severn to the estuary of the Humber.' Its course thus led direct from Leicester into the valley of the Avon, and by the Avon valley to the lower Severn and South Wales. It was to block this road and secure central Mercia that -^thelfltied turned as soon as she had ended her work on the Watling Street.' After erectino; a for- tress at Eddisbury, she chose as her main barrier the settlement of the Wserings on a little rise near the slug- gish waters of the Avon, about midway along its course, and here she fortified the ''burh" Avhich has grown into our Wseringawic or Warwick. For the defence of this settlement she reared ^ between town and river one of those mounds which marked the defensive warfare of the time, and which, stripped as it is of every trace of the fortress with which she crowned it, and covered with works of far later date, still remains to witness to the energy of the lady of Mercia. But though the lines of Trent and Avon were alike secure, and the roads to Wales on either side of Arden wholly in her hands, ^thelflsed's caution was not yet satisfied, and two years more were spent in setting up ^'burhs" at Cherbury, Warbury, and Runcorn,'^ at the confluence of the Weaver and the Mersey. Meanwhile in southern Britain the long delayed 1 For the Fosse Way see Guest, ''Four Roman Ways," "Orig. Celt." ii. 236-237. 2 Eng. Chron. (Worcester), a. 914. 3 "In fine autumni." Flor. Wore. i. 123. * Eng. Chron. (Wore), a. 915. k -« \ \\ k THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. contest became more and more imminent. The king's course was still a slow and cautious one. He had cleared his eastern flank by the conquest of southern Essex, and secured his border-line in that quarter by the " burhs " at Witham and Hertford. But his warfare in the east had probably ended in a new frith with the East-Anglians ; for after a rest of four years we find liis advance directed not against East-Anglia, but against the Danes of Mid-Britain or the Five Boroughs. The nearest of their settle- ments lay just northward of the valh^y of the Thames, in the upper valley of the Ouse. Here, in earlier days, the house of the Bokings had planted their ''ham" of Buckingham on the little stream, and since the making of the Danelaw this ''ham" had been the southernmost of the Danish settlements in Mid-Britain ; with Bedford and Huntingdon in fact it formed a line of towns, each with its jarl and army, which held the valley of the Ouse. It was in the hands of Jarl Thurcytel " and his holds " when in 918 Eadward marched to attack it. A siege of four weeks made him its master ; ^ and here as elsewhere he built " burhs " on either side the river to guard its passage, as well as to bar any raid upon the valley of the Thames. The capture of the town, however, was followed by the submission of its jarl and its holds ; and the severity of the blow was shown by a like submission of " almost all the chief men that belono-ed to Bedford, and also many that belonged to North- ampton."' Their submissixDn drew the king onward both 1 Eng. Chron. (Winck), a. 918. 203 CHAP. V. The House of iElfred. 901- 937. i 'if..i 204 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAPPY, to the eastward and to the north. In 919 he ^^'^?fted! ""^ marched along the Ouse through the flat meadows 9"^- of Olney upon Bedford/ which offered no resistance, Con~^ltof ^^^ ^'^^^^^ ^^ guarded by a '^burh" on the southern Mid-Britain, bank of the stream. Two years later, in 921, he pushed forward on to the uphind of Mid-Britain, and seized and fortified the site of the ruined Towcester. Meanwhile he was providing with his old caution against danger at either end of his long line by erecting fresh fortresses at Maldon in Essex, and at Wigmore in our Herefordshire. But cautious as his advance had been, its real import could no longer be disguised, and the seizure of Towcester roused the Danes of Mid-Britain into action. Not only the Danes of Northampton and of Leicester but the whole force of the Five Boroughs made a fierce onset on the burh at Towcester. Fierce as it was, however, it was beaten off* by the new townsmen. Eadward hastened to secure the town, which must have been guarded as yet only by a trench and stockade, with a wall of stone ; ^ and the presence of his arms brought about the submission of Northampton, with Jarl Thurfrith and its host, as well as the district which obeyed it, a district which stretched as far as the Welland. E^^Jia. ^""^ "^^'^^ ^^'^ ^^^g ^^^ ^1^^^^ pressing on the Five Boroughs, a far fiercer conflict was raging on his flank. The Danes of East-Anglia had sprung to arms even before their fellow Danes in central Britain ; and in this quarter fighting had been going on through the whole year. Early in the spring the Danes of Hunt- 1 Eng. Chron. (Winch.), a. 919. 2 j^ a. 921. I ^V THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 205 90I- 937. mgdon threw themselves fruitlessly on the new burh chap. v. at Bedford; and then quitting Huntingdon set up iheSu^eof a fresh encampment at Tempsford, where they were '^""''' soon attacked by the English fyrd of the neigh- bouring districts. The capture of Tempsford, with Its king, jarls,' and warriors, gave fnish heart to the assailants ; and a force of Englishmen drew together from Kent, Surrey, and Essex for the siege of Col- chester. Their success was again complete ; the town was stormed, and its defenders slain ; while a counter raid of the Danes upon Maldon ended in the utter rout of the pirates. It was at this moment that the completion of the walls of Towcester and the submission of Northampton set; Eadward free to act in the east. His first blow was at the district about the Fens. A few miles march over the flat Ouse country brought him to the spot where the English village of Godmanchester was rising by the ruins of the Eoman Durolipons on the road that skirted the Wash. On a rise across the river which was then the " Hunters-down," stood the fortress which the owners had so lately abandoned— a fortress of importance as commanding the passage of the Ouse, whose site, as well as that of the burh with which Eadward replaced it, is still marked by the mounds which rise over the river.^ Master of the whole Ouse valley, a fresh march of the king to Colchester, and his rebuilding of the town, was followed by the sudden submission of all the Danes of East-Anglia and Essex, as well as of 1 Toglos and Manna, Eng. Chron. (Winch.), a. 921 2 Eng. Chron. a. 921. ^ 1 206 CHAP, y THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. JElfred. 901- 937. JEthelflad attacks the Five Borougha. tlie ^' here " which found its centre at Cambridge ; TheHouseof and no part of the Fen country remained to the Danelaw save the northern tract about Stamford. The town stood on a stone -ford over the Welland, and was one of the Five Boroughs, with its twelve lawmen and Danish burghers and common lands beyond the w^alls. But it submitted when the king and his fyrd marched on it in 922 ; and its obedience was secured by a mound and fort which Eadward raised over against it on the opposite bank of the river in what became a southern ^' burli " of lesser size.^ What had made the king's triumph in Mid-Britain so easy and complete was to a great extent, no doubt, the energy of his sister in the west. While the English shire-levies cleared East-Anglia on one flank of his advance, ^thelflsed was mastering the Five Boroughs on the other. The march of Eadward on Northampton had in fact been made possible by the triumphs of the Mercian host in the valley of the Trent. As the river curves from the heights of Cannock Chase to the eastward, it receives the waters of two important afiluents from the north and south. The Derwent flows down to it from the crags of the Peak, while the Soar wanders to it through the grassy levels of our Leicestershire. On one of these rivers the earlier English conquerors had planted their settlement of North-weorthig, w^hose position in the waste among the wild animals of the chase was marked by the new name it had received from the Danes, the name of Deora-by, or Derby. ^ Under the Danes the place 1 Eng. Chi^on. (Winch.), a. 922. 2 ^thelweard, a. 870, lib. iv. c. 2. i1 tW "y 20\ 901. 937. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Z f : ^ ' *^ ^'^" ^thcM^d's attack. In ^'*^'' the August of 917 it passed into her hands/ and in that t\rt "p *'" ^^"^^ ^"^ ^- ««- fl-k" that of the Soar, to attack the second of the Five sail to hlv r ; Tu' '' ^''^ '^"^ ''^^-^^' «he is said to have heard of the submission of York ' of ^thelfed s death.' But the blow came too late to save the Danelaw. Only two of the Five Borol s iet of'tl TTI T^^^^^""^ ■' -d Eadward' siege of the first of these, Nottingham, completed the work of the year. The town stood ;n the bend of the Derwent and the Soar. It was here that the oad from the south crossed the great river, for furtle along Its course the marshes of Axholme hindered a shown at the very outset of the Danish wars when its se.u^ by the pirates foiled the efforts of ^thelred and Alfred to save the north from their grasp In size and wealth it was probably with Lincob the most gical point It was more important than any, for it 1 Eng. Chron. (Wore), a. 917. ' Eng. Chron. (Wore), a. 918, says of the Workmen- "Sn™ gave her pledge, some bound themselves witlz oaTh th«t .7 would be at her reding " (command) ' *''^* ^^^^ (Winthtrt ^r '' ''-''''''' ^* ''^ "- ^^^- Chron. A-. 208 CHAP. V. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. -Alfred. 901- 937. The principle of personal allegiance. (I commanded the navigation of the Trent, while it was ^^'^?fred!°^ ^^^ key alike of Northumbria and Central Britain. The closing of Eadward's forces upon Nottingham^ in 922 was thus the crisis of the war. The town yielded and was secured for the while by the fortress on the southern bank of the river, while the king reaped the fruits of his success in the submission of the whole Mercian Danelaw, for Lincoln, whose fate is not mentioned, no doubt submitted on the fall of Nottingham. With the clearing of the Trent valley the conquest of Mid-Britain was complete. Guthrum's kingdom and the Five Boroughs had alike bowed to Eadward's sword. But the work of conquest was far from being the only work of Eadward during these memorable years. It is indeed the administrative reconstruction which w^ent hand in hand with the king's campaio-n that accounts for the slowness and caution of his advance. How firmly he clung to the idea which his title of "King of the Anglo-Saxons" embodies, the idea of a single people ruled directly by a sinde king, was shown in his dealing with the Mercian ealdormanry. On the death of ^thelflged the last traces of Mercian independence were suppressed ; the girl whom his sister had left behind her was sent to a nunnery ; and the kingdom, with its Welsh de- pendencies, brought under Eadward's direct govern- ment.^ The districts of the conquered Danelaw were 1 Eng. Chron. (Winch.), a. 922. - '' And all the people of the land of Mercia . . . submitted to him ; and the kings of the North-Welsh, Howel and Cledauc and Jeothwel and all the North- Welsh people sought him to be their lord." Eng. Chron. (Winch.), a. 922. ri THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 209 »oi- »37. w»y from Meti! Ih '""° " "■ \"«-7 "i*'"* ^^y.' indeed wcr ™L I ^oX "'°°'' ,"' *' ^'™K'« first settlement in Brit^Jn th. ■ j 7 "^ ■•eyoM the stage TZ^ 'pT^td '^.rT tegaried as inkereot in the freeman himself ,Z n wh,ch ashare in the common land of «e .ribe falls to the share of the freeman beeanse he s fee ' l1aS;lfteS inT""' ''^' "^^ ;» in "he .ao^tmeJt 'o^tb-e" '^n:'T^!,fZ f-.hes, yet h.nd had even then becorne .e in'epar able a«c<,mp.„. . „f .^^ ,^^^^^^ ^^^ " ep„. :: ala LttT B« r ' /"'r ""»- '- tion nf fh 7 * ^""^ ^"°g '^efoj-e the rela- t on of the freeman to the land wholly obliterated tl^ older conception of personal freedom"^ In earhlr stood equal m law-moot or in witenaarmnf o i the landless man might choose ^^^'^1:^ But at the close of the Danish wars we find a new organization of the people almost c<,mplete tII tendency towards personal dependence, a^d tow,! a social organization based on personal dependence S received an overpowering impulse from the strtfe The ^ Stubbs, "Const. Hist." i. I94. , ! 210 CHAP. V. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 901- 937. Its influence on the English kingship. AP. V. long insecurity of a century of warfare had driven the ^^&^°^ ^^^^1' ^^^ free tiller of the soil, to seek protection more and more from the wealthier landowner or thegn beside him. The poorer freeman "com- mended" himself to a lord who promised aid; and as the price of this aid surrendered his freehold to receive it back as a fief laden with conditions of mili- tary service. Henceforth his lord owns the land he tills ; he is his leader to the host, he is the lord of the court at which he seeks for justice. The military, the judicial, the political organization of the people had thus become inseparably linked to the ownership of land.^ How quickly the principle of personal allegiance to a lord of land widened into a general theory of dependence we see from the changes it brought about in the English kingship. Whatever bonds of the older tribal sort might link the children of Alfred to the men of their own Wessex, it was only as possessors of the soil, as lords of the land, that they could claim the obedience of Mercian or Northumbrian. To the tribal character of the king- ship, w^hich blended the king with those whom he ruled, was thus added a territorial character in which he stood wholly apart from them, and in which the relation was no longer one of traditional loyalty but of actual subjection. Still more was this the case with the conquered Dane. No tie of traditional loyalty bound the northern settler on the Ouse or the Trent to the kings who had struck him down. The only possible tie could be that of acknowledging 1 Stubbs, "Const. Hist." i. 217-222. \ \\\ THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 211 CHAP. V. eoi. 937. The oath of allegiance. the new master as a lord, and claiming his " peace " or chap, v protection m exchange for allegiance. It is thus that The i7„«'„ the conquest of the Danelaw was followed by the "^^ *" earliest instances of those oaths of allegiance which mark the substitution of a personal dependence on the king as lord for the older relation of the freeman to the king of his race. Eadward had already proposed to the Witan of his own Wessex,' that for the maintenance of the public peace they should " be in that fellowship in which the king was and love that which he loved, and shun , that which he shunned, both on sea and land • " and this principle of personal aUegiance he applied to his new conquests. As he pushed over the country, the Damsh hosts who yielded to him swore to hold him for their lord, to be one with him, to will all that he willed, to keep pe,ace with all in his peace. At Buckingham, Jarl Thurcytel "sou.* •il ^\: I! I THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 213 CBAP. V. while drive the West Saxons back over the Watling Street. With the existing military system in fact, it ^^%¥£^f®*^^ was impossible to bridle the Danes by efficient gar- i^_ risons, while to bring them to a contented acquies- ®— " cence in English rule was necessarilj- a work of time. We can hardly doubt that it was a sense of this danger in his rear, as well as of the formidable nature of the work to be done in the north, which made Eadward halt for a while at the Trent. Instead of a direct march on Northumbria he turned to a distant line of operations, whose aim seemed rather that of defence than of attack. From an}' direct onset of the Northumbrian Danes on his front the king was nearly secure. The fortresses at Nottingham and Stafford, with the other "burhs" on their flank and rear, made a passage of the Trent difficult, if not im- possible. But on his north-western flank Eadward felt more open to attack. Not only might the Danes of Northumbria break over the westc^rn moors by the old Roman road from York to the Kibble to call the North Welsh to arms, but the Ostmen from Ireland might by a short march across the same wild tract bring aid to their brethren in Northumbria. It was indeed this constant succour from Ireland which made the after conquest of the northern Danelaw so long and arduous a task : and we can hardly doubt that it was a sense of the need of isolatino; Northumbria from both Welshmen and Ostmen er(3 he could safely attack it which guided the work of Eadward in the north-west. In seizing the estuaries of the Dee and the Mersey His/ortresscs by her "burhs" at Chester and Runcorn, ^thelflsed north-west. Mfm m M ^Pti ^mjm^/Sftn^m-r^vir- /*■ Hi 214 CHAP. V. The House of iBlfred. 901- 937. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. had closed the natural landing-places by which the Ostmen could make their way to York ; but the king aimed at barring their path by fortresses which commanded every road across the moors. While with his own host therefore he set about the building of a town at Thelwell in 923, he sent a Mercian force to occupy the old Eoman town at Mancunium. To the north of the estuary of the Mersey a triangular mass of hill and moorland juts out from the Pennine range towards the sea, a tract whose slopes and stream- valleys are now the homes of a mighty industry, but which then was silent and desolate.^ On the southern side of this tract its waters gathered together at a point where the road over the moors from Eboracum came down upon the plain ; and at this point had grown up under the Eoman occupation the town of Mancunium. Since ^thelfrith's day the town had doubtless lain in ruin : but life was probably already flowing back to a site marked out for the dwellino; of man, when in 923 Eadward renewed and " manned " the walls of Manchester.^ In the following year he linked these outlying strongholds with his general line by a burh at Bakewell, on a tributary of the upper Derwent among the hills of the Peak, a point about mid-way between Manchester and the new English conquest of Derby, while he strengthened the key of his position on the Trent by throwing a bridge over the river at Nottingham, and securing it by a second mound and stockade on the southern bank.^ 1 It still formed part of ^N'orthumbria. Eng. Chron. (Winch.), a. 923. " Manchester in Northumbria." 2 Eng. Chron. (Winch.), a. 923. 3 j^^^^ a. 924. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. t•■^^l I '» 215 CHAP. V. 901- 937. Wessex a nd the north. Efficient as these fortresses were for purposes of defence, they were as efficient for purposes of attack ; Th^onjeof for from Manchester, or Bakewell, or Nottingham alike, the forces of Eadward could close upon York, whether by the western moors, or through the fast- nesses of the Peak, or by the marshy levels along the Don. Eadward seems in fact to have been preparing for a more formidable struggle than any he had as yet undertaken, a struggle not with the Danes of North- umbria only, but with the leagued peoples of all northern Britain. His victories had wholly changed the political relations which had till now existed between the northern states of Britain and the West- Saxon kings. During Alfred's days, as through the earlier days of his son, fear of the Danes had driven the Britons of Strath-Clyde, with the Bernicians under the house of Eadwulf, to seek the friendship, if not the aid, of the house of Cerdic. The same fear had told even more powerfully on the kingdom of the Scots. Pirate raids had been shattering the Scot- realm for a hundred years, when in ^Elfred's days^ a Norse Earldom was set up in the Orkneys and became the base for a more systematic attack. From this base the *' white strangers '^ had ever since been conquering and colonizing the western Hebrides and winning inch by inch the mainland.^ From Caithness and the tract to which they have left their name of ''Southern-land," or Sutherland, they pushed over Ross and Moray till, under its present king, Constantine, the Scot-kingdom had practically shrunk to little 1 Soon after 883. Skene, " Celtic Scotland," i. 344, note. , 2 Skene, "Celtic Scotland," i. 341, seq. li M 216 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. i 1 I i CHAP. V. more than the basin of the Tay. Pressed between ^"^^te "' *^e Northmen of the Orkneys and the Danes of the 901- Danelaw, the Scots, and in a lesser degree, their — ■ western and southern neighbours in Strath-Clyde and Bernicia, looked naturally with friendship to the power in the south Avhich held the Danes at bay 'tt'Ztrf , ^•'^ ^''^^ *'i^ tri««iplis of Eadward and his sister kague. the dread of the Danes was lifted from these northern states ; and no sooner was it removed than it was re- placed by a dread of the West-Saxons themselves. As ^thelflsed pushed the Danelaw further from the Welsh border, we see Welsh princes abandoning the West- Saxon alliance, and turning, though unsuccessfully, to the Dane. And at this moment the approach' of Eadward, the steady closing round of his West-Saxon and Mercian hosts, seems to have worked as complete a change of policy in the north. In the gathering of 924 we catch the first signs of that general league of its states which was again and again to front the West-Saxon sovereigns, till it was finally broken by the statesmanship of Eadmund. While Eadward was establishing his base of opera- tions along the south-west of Northumbria, the Scot-king Constantine, with the princes of Strath-Clyde and the lord of Bernicia, seem to have gathered to the aid of the Northumbrians. But if this were so, panic must have broken the dream of war, for we know only of this gatherino- by the submission to which it led. Eadward was already on his march by the route which led through the hills of the Peak, when his advance was arreste^d, probably at the point whose significant name of " Dor " '1 "I I THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 217 901- 937. N or " door " marked the pass that opened from them on chap. v. to the Northumbrian border, and where a hundred The House of years before the north had submitted to Ecgberht. Instead of fighting, the motley company of allies sought Eadward's camp among the hills and owned him as '' father and lord." ^ The triumph over the northern league was hardly JEthehtan. won when in the opening of 925 Eadward died at Fearndun in Mercia,^ and his son ^thelstan mounted the throne.^ After tradition preserved lovingly the 1 " And him chose there to father and lord the Scot-king and aU Scot-folk, and Regnald, and Eadulf's son, and all that dwelt in Northumbria, whether Englishmen or Danish or Northmen or other, and eke the King of the Strath-Clyde Welshmen, and all Strath-Clyde Welshmen." Eng. Chron. (Winch.), a. 924. No passage has been more fiercely fought over t han this, since the legists of the English court made it the groundwork of the claims which the English crown advanced on the allegiance of Scotland ; and it has of late been elaborately discussed by Mr. Robertson on the one side (" Scotland under her Early Kings," ii. 384) and Mr. Freeman on the other ("Norm. Conq." i. Ap- pendix G.). The entry cannot be contemporary, for Regnald» whom it makes king in Northumbria, hati died three years before, in 921, nor is there indeed ground for placing the com- pilation of this section of the Chronicle of Winchester earlier than 975, or the end of Eadgar's reign, some fifty years after the ** Commendation " (Earle, Intro. xix.-xxii.) ; and as the *' imperial " claims of the English crown seem to date pretty much from the later days of Eadgar or the beginning of ^thelred's reign, an entry made at that time would naturally take its form from them. I cannot see any difference between this submission of the league in 924 and the subsequent submissions of the; same confederates after their later outbreaks against ^thelstau, which are clearly mere episodes in the struggle for supremacy in the north. 2 For date see Eng. Chron. (Winch.), a,. 925 ; for place, Eng. Chron. (Wore.) (D.), a. 924. 2 In the Eng. Chron. of Worcester (or Mercia) we are carefully »■ 218 ^HE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. i !^ 901- 937. n p. CHAP.V. memory of ^thelstan's outer aspect, of his slight ^^iE^d!°^ though vigorous frame, and of his golden hair.^ Nor did it dwell less lovingly on the character of his rule. In outer greatness indeed, in his exploits at home as in the position he occupied in the European world, no king of Cerdic's line could vie with the son of Ead- ward. Nor was his temper less great. The sudden failure of our information leaves his reign in some ways darker than those of his predecessors ; for the Chronicle of Winchester breaks down into meagre annals with Eadward's death, and from brilliant his- toric light we pass suddenly into almost utter dark- ness.2 But the king's acts speak for themselves. Through a reign of fifteen years we see no sign of weakness. At home ^Ethelstan proved himself worthy told that ^thelstan was " chosen king by the Mercians, and hallowed at Kingston." The entry shows how stubbornly the Mercian kingdom clung to its separate existence, and how far it was still from regarding itself as fused in a single England. As king of the West-Saxons ^thelstan was doubtless chosen and hallowed at Winchester. ^ Will. Malm. "Gest. Keg." (Hardy), i. 213. See also the tradition of his learning, ib. p. 209 (A.S.G.). 2 From 925 to 975 is the most meagre section of the Win- chester Chronicle (Earle, " Par. Chron." Introd. pp. xviii.-xxii.). The first twelve annals of this period only fill as many lines ; and the story becomes even more jejune as it proceeds, till in Eadgar's day the historic thread is almost wholly lost, though the meagre entries are broken by four great pieces of verse. For ^thelstan's reign we are a little helped by a few insertions m the Worcester copy of the Chronicle (Earle's D.). Our main aid is from William of Malmesbury, who had before him a life of ^thelstan which is now lost. William's enthusiasm for ^thelstan however is partly attributable to the king's bounty to Malmesbury. il i and its allies bowed to him with as little resist- ance. In July ^thelstau was met at a place called Eamot by Howel, King of the North-Welsh, and Owen of Gwent, as well as by the Bernician Ealdred from Bamborough and the Scot-king Constantine, " and with pledge and with oaths they bound fast the peace." ' But the Welsh had still to make amends for their disaffection. Summoning the chiefs of the North- Welsh before him at Hereford, ^thelstan forced them to own his overlordship as Mercian king, to pay a yearly tribute of corn and cattle, and to accept the Wye as a boundary between Welshmen and English- men. The AVest- Welsh must have shared in the restlessness of their race, for from Hereford the king marched to Exeter, and, driving the Britons from the half of the town they had hitherto occupied, girded It with a wall of stone." Then pushing forward to the Land's End, he forced the Cornwealas to an 1 Guthferth, Sihtric's son and successor, was driven out, says T\ ^^: y^'^- ^'^■" ""■ ^^^- T'^« Canterbury Chronicle (Earle, E.) places this in 927. • Lfx"^:-^!"""'- ^^'"■°-^' ^- ^2^- ^'•- ^'^^"^ (" Celtic Scotland," I d51) thinks that by some after words, " and they renounced all Idolatry, and after that submitted to him in peace," the Chronicle " stamps its own statement with doubt." The words however may be only a misplaced bit of the actual convention with the Danes of Deira. As to the submission itself, I think it may fairly be questioned whether this is not the real transaction which the Winchester Chronicler (here of no great authoritv) has transferred to the last year of Eadward the Elder " Will. Malm. " Gest. Eeg." (Hardy), i. p. 214. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 221 4 .ir ' vl 1 1 1i'» CHAP. V 901- 937. engagement on a field which tradition places at the I hamlet of BoUeit by St. Buryans, where two huge Thei^eof stones are said to mark the burial-placci of those who fell in the final overthrow of their rac(i. The Tamar was fixed as a boundary for the West- Welsh of Corn- wall, as the Wye had been made a boundary for the North- Welsh of our Wales. From this moment I indeed we may look upon both peoples as integral parts of the English kingdom, owning their oneness with it by tribute, though in North Wales at least breaking their allegiance by occasional revolt. That iEthelstan's campaigns in the west did their JSthehtan work is plain from the fact that in the later troubles ^oHfZnLa. of his reign we hear no more of West- Welsh or North-Welsh risings. His work too seemed fairly done in the north. As yet all was quiet there, ^thelstan carried out his father's policy of a national union in the person of the king by taking to himself the throne of Northumbria ; already King of Wessex and King of Mercia, he became in 926, after Sihtric's death, king of the Northumbrians.^ The new realm showed no signs of disaffection; thci jarls of the Danelaw indeed, Guthrum and Urm, Odda and Anlaf, Regnwald and Scule, Thurferth and Halfdene, Haward and Gunner, sate peacefully in witenagemots among iEthelstan's ealdormen. In the same great assem- blies Eodward, the Archbishop of Yorl^, sate side by side with the Archbishop of Canterbury. ^ We have 1 Eng. Chron. (Wore), a. 926. 2 In 929, perhaps in a witenagemot at York, we find among the signatures of ''duces et cseteri optimates" those of Guthrum, Urm, Odda, Anlaf, as well as of " Rodeward quoque Archi- m If 222 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. I CHAP. V. abeady seen the importance which the destruction of ^te*"^ ^^^ neighbouring sees, and his lonely position as |oi. representing the Engle and the Christianity of the — ' north, had given to the northern primate. It was through him, above all, that ^thelstan could win hold on the newly-conquered kingdom ; and in 934 the death of Rodward enabled the king to secure, as it seemed, this support by the appointment of a new archbishop of his own, Wulfstan,' while grants to Beverley and Ripon ^ secured the loyalty of the northern clergy. But ^thelstan was as eager to win over Danes as Englishmen. As we have seen, the fusion of the two races had already begun. Even in Alfred's day we find a young Dane among the scholars at Athelney, Frisian sailors manning the royal long ships, and Norwegians like Othere at court, owning the king as their lord. The earlier prsesul cum Eboracensis suffraganeis " (Cod. Dip. 347). The Archbishop signs another charter of the same year with '' [Jrmus Dux " and " Guthrummus dux " (Cod. Dip. 348). At Lewton, in 931, Orm, Guthrum, Ha ward, Gunner, Thurferth, Hadd, and Scule, sign as " duces " (Cod. Dip. 353). In the great Witenage- mot of Colchester in 931 we find Guthrum, Thurum, Ha ward, Regan wold, Hadd, and Scule as *' duces" (Cod. Dip. 1102), and the Archbishop of York. Archbishop Wulfstan again appears in 932 in an equally large witenagemot at Middleton with Uhtred, Thesberd, Guthrum, Urm, Regnwald, Hatel, Scule, Thurferth, and « Imper " (Cod. Dip. 1107), and in the Witenage- mot of Winchester, 934, with "Inhwser, Halfdene, Oswulf, Scule, and Hadd " (Cod. Dip. 364). ^ The first charter with his signature, if genuine, must belong to this year. Cod. Dip. 350, with note. 2 Cod. Dip. 358 (spurious), and the equally spurious riming charters to Beverley, Cod. Dip. 359, 360, preserve the memory of these grants. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 223 i\ I' CHAP. V. days of Eadward saw the Danes of Northumbria take a West-Saxon -^theling for their kino-, and the Danes Thei^woi of East-Anglia follow him as their war-leader. The ^.* war brought the northmen into close relations, if not ^^' with the English, at any rate with their royal house ; and the personal relation which the oath of allegiance had established between the king and his new sub- jects was more than maintained by ^Ithelstan. Odo, one of his favourite clerks and counsellors, whom he raised about 926 to the bishopric of Ramsbury,^ and who afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury, was certainly of Danish blood, and said to be the son of one of the pagan warriors who, landed with Ivar and Hubba.^ In all the northern sagas he is repre- sented, in contrast to his successor, as a friend to the northmen ; and though tales like that, in the saga of Egil Skallogrimson, of the .service of Egil and his brother Thorolf under ^thelstan's banner, can hardly be accepted as history, they at any rate preserve the belief of the north that JEthelstan maintained a force of its warriors at his court, and lovBd to listen to its skalds. As yet this policy of fusion seemed fairly success- His Witena- ful ; for Northumbria showed no signs of resistance, and the king's peaceful march on York was followed by eight years of as peaceful acquiescence in his rule. The submission of the Welsh too seemcid complete ; for 1 Stubbs, *'Registr. Sacr. Anglic." p. U. 2 " Dicunt quidam quod ex ipsis Danis pater ejus esset, qui cum classica cohorte cum Huba et Hinwar veniebant." Vit. S. Oswaldi Anon., Raine's " Historians of Ch. of York," i. 404. " Hie, ut fertur, Ethelstano regi valde carus esset et acceptus," Eadmer's "Life of Oswald," Angl. Sac. ii. 192. (jemoU. 224 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 225 II 937. CHAP. V. their '' under-kings " Howel and Judwal, Morcant and The House of Owen, sate in the great witenao-emots ^ which mark ^^. this period of ^thelstan's reign. In ^thelstan's witenagemots indeed, in the number and variety of their attendants, England saw somewhat of a foreshadowing of national life.^ Never before had Danish jarls and Welsh princes, the primate of the north and the primate of the south, nobles and thegns from Northumbria and East-Anglia as from Mercia and Wessex, met in a common gathering to give rede and counsel to a common king. As witan from every quarter of the land stood about his throne men realized how the King of Wessex had risen into the King of England. Such assemblies could not fail to gather rights about them, though the rights of the witan were determined rather by their actual power as great lords and prelates than by any constitutional theory. But the old Germanic tradition, which associated '^ the wise men " in all royal action, gave a constitutional ground to the powers which the witenagemot exercized more and more as English society took a more and more aristocratic form ; and ^ In that of Lewton in 931 we find Howel and Judwal ; in another of 931, Howel, Judwal, Morcant, Eugenius ; in one of 932, Howel, Judwal, Morcant, Wurgeat ; in the Winchester witenagemot of 934, Howel, Judwal, Teowdor ; in the Frome witenagemot of 934, Howel alone. Cod. Dip. 353, 1103, 1107, 364, 1110. 2 The witenagemot at Lewton in 931 numbered ninety-four persons : two archbishops, two Welsh under-kings, seventeen bishops, fifteen duces, and fifty-nine " ministers." Cod. Dip. 353. That of Colchester (March, 931), numbered sixty-nine attendants ; that of Middleton (August, 932), eighty-six. Cod. Dip. 1102, 1107. V A it CHAP. V. it thus came to share with the crown in the hio-her ...^.. ,. justice, in the imposition of taxes, the making of Theii^seof laws, the conclusion of treaties, the control of war, ^~^' the disposal of public lands, the appointment of ^^' bishops and great officers of state. There were times when it claimed even to elect or depose a king.^ Under .Ethelstan however its work was simply Puhiie oni^n a work of order. The disturbance of society which had been brought about by the Danish wars had forced this work on the king from the very outset of his^ reign.- The laws enacted in a ^' great synod" at Greatley, near Andover, for the central provinces, repeated at a witenagemot at Exeter' for the provinces of the west, aud again pro- mulgated in like meetings of witan at Feversham and Thunresfeld for Kent and for Surrey, were in effect a code for the regulation of public order,* and above all for the defence of property. The defiance of justice by nobles and thegns, before which the local 1 Kemble, " Saxons in Eng." ii. cap. vi. 2 - That they would all hold the frith, as King ^thelstan and his witan had counselled it, first at Greatanlea and again at Exeter and afterwards at Feversham, and a fourth time at Thunres- feld before the archbishop and all the bishops and his witan whom the king himself named who were thereat.'' '* Dooms of London," Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," vol. i. p. 241. " All the witan gave their weds together to the archbishop at Thunresfeld when ^.Ifeah Stybb and Bryhtnoth Odda's son (.ame to meet the witenagemot by the king's command." lb. p. 239. ^ "At midwinter." Thorpe, "Anc. Laws,' i. 221. * We may note that their scope extends only to Wessex • Mercia and the Danelaw had still their separate systems of legislation and government. Q 226 CHAP. V. The House of Alfred. SOl- 937. i Puhlic wealth. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. courts were helpless, stood foremost among the evils of the time. It was an evil which only the growino- developement of the '' king's justice " could meet. '* If any be so rich or of such great kindred/' ran the Exeter law, '*that he cannot be kept back from rob- bery or the defence of robbers, let him be taken out of that country with wife and child and all his goods into that part of this kingdom that the king wills, be he who he may, whether one of the thegns or villeins, on terms that he never return into his own land." ^' Nor could any save the king deal with the abuses of the sokes, or private jurisdictions like the later manorial courts, with '' the lord who denies justice and upholds his evil-doing men," the " lord who is privy to his theow's theft," or the " reeve who is privy to the thieves who have stolen." ^ Other regulations furthered the social revolution which was replacing the freeman bj the lord and his man. For the lord"^ less man, " of whom no law can be got," his kindred were to find a lord in the folk-moot, or he was to be held for an outlaw and slain like a thief.' On the other hand a lord, '' who has so many men that he cannot personally have all in his own keeping," was bound to set over each dependent township ^'reeve, not only to exact his lord's dues, but to enforce his justice within its bounds.^ ^ The growth of public wealth in the midst of this violence was shown by the prominence which the kino- 1 Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," i. 218. : ^X '■ '''• ' lb. p. 201. I'rpeponat sibi singulis villis prtepositum unum " LI u^t heist., Thorpe, "Anc. Laws," i. 217. 227 CHAP. V. 901- 937. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. gives to laws affecting property. Theft becomes one of the greatest of crimes ; no thief was to be s pared who The i^se of was taken *'red handed," or who strove to defend ^^^^* himself or to flee from arrest.^ Trade dealings were protected by regulations whose severity defeated its own end. No man might " exchange anj^ property without the witness of the reeve or of the mass- priest, or of the land-lord, or of the hordere, or of other unlying man." The regulation that all market- ing was to be " within port " or market town, nor was any bargaining lawful on Sundays," had but a brief life, for in the mid-winter meeting at Exeter it was explicitly repealed ;— " Let all the dooms made at Greatley be kept, save those about marketing within port and selling on Sundays."^ Another enactment shows us that the growth of trade to which these regulations point was giving a new importance to the question of the coinage. In the early ages of the English occupation we find only a (coarse imitation of the later Eoman coinage ; and rude and base as this money was, it probably sufficed for a land whose exchange was mainly conducted by barter. The laws against mutilation of cattle — laws really directed against the damage done to a beast which in a perfect state was the general medium of exchange and the fact that these laws are embodied in 1 ne's code, prove that such a mode of payment was still common in the opening of the eighth century in Wessex. But in Kent, the neighbourhood of Gaul and the growth of trade would narrow the sphere of such cattle 1 Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," i. 199. 2 lb. 205, 207,213. 3 lb. 218. Q 2 I I 228 CHAP. V. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 90I' •37. — barter; and the assessment of the "wpr" tT„.^„„T, ^ The House of /EthplliPrlit'c lo • • , throughout ^^ed. ^tlielberht s law in coin shows that specie-pavment 90I- was common there a century before Ine's day It was not however till Offa's reign that the growin.. commerce as well no doubt, as the growth of intert nal trade, forced the regulation of the coinage on the English kings as a political matter ; and it is sianifi- eant that Offa drew his standard of value from tho coinage of the Frankish kings.^ But the union ol the kingdoms had now made the substitution of a national coinage for these local mintages a necessity. r.n tl, '' Y ''"' ""^"'^ ^^"^ ''^" *^« king's lancV' an the new law ; " and let no man mint save within port. 1 he list of towns where mints were established gives lis a rough indication of the comparative great- ness of he boroughs in southern Britain. London «tood at their head with eight moneyers, CanteiW ^owed with seven Winchester with six, Eochester had three coiners, Lewes, Southampton, Wareham anT«^:\hT?f!ff^^^ '^-'' H-4s;chicw; J.ncl other burhs ' but one.^ The real difficulty however lay not in making, but in enforcing the law ; for strong as the crown might be Its strength lay in the king's personal action, and t was for from possessing any adequate police or judicial machinery for carrying its will into eifect io supply such a machinery was the aim of the frith- gilds. Society and justice, as we have seen, had till IZTt r *'■' ^'"' '' *'" '^^"^">^' -^ '"^^ kinsfolk bound together in ties of mutual responsibility to ^ See Robertson, "Histor. Essays," p. 63. / - Ihorpe, "Anc. Laws," i. 207, 209. /: Frith-gilds. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 229 901- 937. each other and to the law. As society became more chap. v. complex and less stationary, it necessarily outgrew TheH^seof these ties of blood, and in England this dissolution of ^^^^^' the family bond seems to have taken place at the very time when Danish incursions and the growth of a feudal temper among the nobles rendered an isolated existence most perilous for the freeman. His only resource was to seek protection among his fellow- freemen, and to replace the older brotherhood of the kinsfolk by a voluntary association of his neighbours for the same purposes of order and self-defence. The tendency to unite in such ^' frith -gilds '' or peace- clubs became general throughout Europe during the ninth and tenth centuries, but on the Continent it was roughly met and repressed. The successors of (Jharles the Great enacted penalties of scourgino-, nose-slitting, and banishment against voluntary unions, and even a league of the poor peasants of Gaul against the inroads of the north men was suppressed by the swords of the Frankidi nobles. In England the attitude of the kings was utterly different. The system known at a later time as ''frank-pledge,'' or free engagement of neighbour for neighbour, was accepted after the Danish wars as the base of social order. Alfred recognized the common responsibility of the members of the " frith-gild '' side by side with that of the kinsfolk, and ^Ethelstan accepted ''frith-gilds" as a constituent element of borough life in the dooms of London.^ In the frith- gdd an oath of mutual fidelity among its members 1 Thorpe, "Anc. Laws," vol. i. Ine, pp. 113, 117; .Alfred, pp. 79, 81 ; ^thelstan, pp. 229, 237. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. %te'^ feast, held once a month in the common-hall, repkeed THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAP. V. 231 901- 937. T/te shire. the gathexxng of the kinsfolk round thei; W ! hearth. But within this new family the aim of the gdd was to establish a mutual responsibility as close as that of ^le old. " Let all share the same lot," ran Its aw; " If any misdo, let all bear it." A member could look for aid from his gild-brothers in atonincr for any guilt incurred by mishap ; he could call on tlem tor assistance in case of violence or wron<. • if f^lselv accused they appeared in court as his compurgators • If poor they supported, and when dead, they buried lum On the other hand he was responsible to them iis they were to the state for order and obedience to the laws. A wrong of brother against brother was a wrong against the general body of the gild, and was punished by fine, or in the last resort by expulsion which left^ the offender a "lawless" man and an outcast. The one difference between these gilds in country and town was that in the latter case, from their close local neighbourhood, they tended inevit- ably to coalesce. Imperfect as their union raiaht be when once it was effected, the town passed Lm L mere collection of brotherhoods into an organized commumty, whose character was inevitably determined by the circumstances of its origin While the frith-gild was thus supplying one at least of the elements of a new munid^^l mZ£. English boroughs, a new organization of the country at lar-ge was going on in the institution of the shire. In the earlier use of the word, " shire " had simply answered to " division." The town of York was paild JElfred. 901- 037. into seven such shires. There were six '' small shires " chap. v. in Cornwall The old kingdom of Deira has left Thei^_se of indications of its divisions in our Richmondshire, Kirbyshire, Eiponshire, Hallamshire, Islandshire, and Norhamshire ; just as their lathes and rapes represent perhaps the old shires of the kingdoms of Kent and of Surrey. The name was used even for ecclesiastical divisions of territory ; a diocese is a '^ bishop's shire ; '' ^ a parish is a '* kirk shire.'' But in its later form of a territorial division for purely administrative purposes, the shire was in fact the creation of an artificial '' folk." Its judicial and administrative forms were all those of the '' folk " transferred within artificial boundaries, and the representative life of folk-moot and hundred- moot was thus preserved in the shire, with all its incalculable consequences in later English history. The shire, so far as we can see historically, is specially a West-Saxon institution. The first traces of it indeed may probably be found in the earliest ages of West-Saxon history. The original Wessex was, as we have seen, the region of the Gwent, and the earliest portion of West-Saxon conquest wit hin that area was the region we call Hampshire. For this region we possess no earlier name, and in the name itself we find traces of a very early date, fo:r Hamp- shire is but an abridged Hamtonshire, the district that found its centre in the tun that is now repre- sented by our Southampton. Had the formation of ^ That of Ealdhelm is styled '' Selwoodshire." ^thelweard, a. 709. On the other hand, we may note that B^da knows only of "dioceses" in Wessex, as he knows only "regiones" in Mercia. ^ The shires. THE COXQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAP^ T. this district taken place iftP,- ti • , . The House of cliester nnrl f 1. " P^^ce altei the revival of Win- Wu.hes..hire,H.eL;Z^^^^^^^^^^ cannot be later than Ihe t^t In' o7 .l"' "'"' century. The name T I *^'' '''^'^'^**» A „i • • however has more to tell n<, A slure is necessarily a district- " «l,. '• a- r neighbour district^ and the art^T 1 1 "" ""^ such a "shearing" between H t '''""'*'" '^^^ is shown in tC , Hampshire and Wiltshire while IVr ' '"''"^^^ ^^'^^^en the two shires the. h St Gewissas at Hamton, but the "t"in / Wiltshire shows Hmf ^-i, \ ^^ ^""^ form of WU ! ""'""^ ^' only a contracted orm 01 A\iltonshire, or the shire that found its tun in our Wilton, the settlement made bv th Gew,s,, the valley of the little WH or Willv ^:'7^:t^^T'''y'-^ ^eenaXinT l^owever tl is "^^^^^^ '^f "°°*^ ^'^ --ifices ; but ^n the rela^ns o r. ""' "" '^^"'^^^ ^"^ *« «-' of the very eariv . ' '"^ "''^''''^-' ^^^ ^nly amongst tbe \tst T ;' *'^ ^^'^^ ^-*i*"^-" thesLeinitse;.- T' '^ *^' ^'''^'''''' "^ 0/ Me 3...e. , 2 fact hat ^ '"-"" f *^^ " ^^"- " - ««nfirmed y tilt tact that Its name first occurs in the laws of Cenwaloh reigned from 643 to 672 (A. S. G.). THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 233 the West-Saxon Ine.' The shire already has its shire- chap v man or shire-reeve, whose primary business must have The ir.>.ot been the collection of the royal farms and dues from '^~''^ each district, but who in assessing these, and deciding *i!- on claims of exemption and the like, must from the first have tended to become the judicial ofiicer we find him under Alfred, and to take his plac, in the shire-moot in that capacity beside bishop and ealdor- nian. It is possible however that in Ine's clay this shire organization did not extend beyond the area of the Gwent, with perhaps its dependency of the pre- sent Berkshire. Wessex indeed was already spread- mg beyond its older bounds; besides Sussex or Surrey, or the districts across the Thames, the West Saxons to the east of Selwood saw a new Wessex to the west of that forest in the regions of the Dors^tan and of the Somerssetan. Their conquests however in this quarter were far from being completed in the reign of Ine ; the conquest, in fact, of the souf h-west dragged on until the reign of Ecgberht, an-i it is hkely enough that amidst the troubles of the kiaadom during this period, the organization of the lo^osely compacted folks of " saetan " or settiers that spread over Its various regions did not receive any definite form till that time. From Ecgberht's day, however we have grounds for believing that the whole of the West-Saxon kingdom was definitely ordered in separate pagi, each with an ealdorman at its head, and thes<. "pagi " can hardly have been other than shires.^ In 1 Thorpe, " Ane. Laws," i. 107. J In the course of the Danish descents at this time the Chronicle mentions ealdormen of Hamton-shire, of the Wilsa;tan,' 234 CHAP. V. 901 937. ■ THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. _ the names of the bulk of them however we note n ''%^r' striking difference from the names of the two earlier shires. The district no longer draws its name from the central " tun." In the case of Somerset indeed such a tun seems to have existed at Somerton, but it does not give its name to the shire. The Somers^etan like the Dorsastan had perhaps never arrived at even the rude unity which in the Wils^tan is seen raisincr their central township to an importance that enabled It to supersede their name, and to give its own name to the district ; while farther west the settlement was so sparse that even the settlers failed to print their name exclusively on the land, and it retained its old Welsh title of Devon or Dyvnaint side by side with -Ueinssetan. In the eastern dominion of the West- Saxon kin^s the new institution adapted itself equally to the older kmgdoms. Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Essex, became shires equally with the " s^tan " of the west, thou..h the retention of their older names showed the stren<.th of their national tradition.^ That the shire had spread over them by ^thelstan's time we may gather from the tenor of his laws, which speak of the shire as the settled political and judicial division throuohout Wessex at large. = It is more doubtful when it spread of Surrey, and of Berkshire, to the east of Selwood ; of Dorset Somerset, and Devon, to the west of it. Ass r mention^ Wilton-sore m 878. He speaks of Chippenham " qua> est sita m sinistral! parte Wiltun-scire " (ed. Wise) r, ,^" "V u tran Jtion of Orosius Alfred speaki of Halgtjd as a " s^yr " Kent however is "Kent-shire" in the record of its fo'k moot under ^thelstan. Thorpe, "Ane. Laws," i. 216. ^thelstan s laws, as I have before pointed out, only concern THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 2.35 Tni^ njn're in Mercia. «37. over Mid-Britain. Into English Mercia it cau hardly chap v have been introduced before the annexation of that ihei^seof district by Eadward in 919 ; > and as the few remain- '^^' lug years of that king are spent in warfare, it ]irobably dates from the days of ^thelstan. The Mercian kingdom, as its bishops' sees show, had been arranged in five distinct regions,— the land of the Lincliswaras that of the Hwiccas, the original Mercia with its de- pendencies and its royal city at Tamworth, the land of the Middle-Engle about Leicester, and the land of the South-Engle with its see at Doi-chester. None of these bore the name of shires ; and in the earliest shire-organization their existence is only partially recognized. The land of the Lindiswaras indeed became Lincolnshire, that of the Middle- Engle may be equivalent to Leicestershire; but the other divisions are broken into smaller districts. Thus in the new ordering of English Mercia the land of the Hwiccas was broken into the shires of Gloucester and Worcester, while that of the Hecanas became Herefordshire ; the clearings of the Hwiccas Wessex, but they concern all Wessex, as their reception in Kentish and Surrey witenagemots proves. The "shire" is always referred to as an old and settled thing. At Thunres- feld, probably in Surrey, the witan pledged themselves "that each reeve should take the wed in his own shire." (Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," i. 241.) The London gild-brothers trace a track "from one shire to another." (lb. 237.) " Let forfang everywhere, be it in one shire, be it in more, be fifteen pence." (lb. 22i5.) 1 I cannot agree with the suggestion that Alfred may have formed the shires of English Mercia. In that case the bounds of the Mercian shires would correspond with the then bounds of the Danelaw. This they do not do ; which makes a dii,te after the eonquest of the Danelaw pretty certain. 236 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 901- 937,' 'rite shire in the Danelaw, W cn.j. V. in the south of Arden were formed into a shire abo.f -.^/.! - ;f thelfl^d's new fortress of Warwick, as the defend ; o«^ districts of the original Mercia along the Dee were made a shire for the fortress of Chester, and the lands of the old South-Mercians at the head waters of the I rent a shire for the fortress of Stafford. All thes,. districts drew their names, like the earlier West &a_xon shires, from their central " town," save Slirop- slure, among whose " scrob," or bush, no local centre may as yet have grown into life. This connexion of the shire with its town centre would necessarily be strengthened when J3thelstan or his successors extended the shire system over Ixuthrum s kingdom or the Five Boroughs • for 'is we have seen, the Danes with their jarls and holds had for the most part clustered in the towns and ruled from thence the districts about them The historic continuity of these districts indeed remained lor the most part unbroken. The land of the Lindis- waras became Lincolnshire; Nottinghamshire mav represent a people of the North-Engle, as Derbyshire the northern, and Staffordshire the southern divisions of the original Mercians; Leicestershire included the land of the old Middle-Engle, as Northamptonshire It may be, that of the South-Engle ; while North- Gyrwa and South-Gyrwa land reappeared as Huntincr. donshire and Cambridgeshire. But here as in the rest of Mid-Bntain the shire-names are wholly dif- ferent in character from those to the south of the Ihames The two "folks" of East-Anglia alone recall the folk-districts and ancient kingdoms of southern Britain; Gainas and Hwiccas, Hecanas 237^ CHAP. V. and Magesffitas, Middle-Engle and South-Engle, the .a., v very name of Mercia itself, alike disappeared from TheiTase.f local nomenclature. What however distinguishes ^— *' tliis district from the rest of Mid-Britain is that •In- here we find a trace of purely artificial divisions. When Eadward in 912 annexed London and Oxford, each town already had "lands which owed obedience thereto," ' lands which could hardly have been other in extent than the present Middlesex and Oxfordshire, though the phrase itself is fair evidence that they had not as yet been brouaht within the shire system. Middlesex, as we have seen, owed its being to the severance of London from the rest of Essex ; and in the " lands " about Oxford we may possibly see the district won at a time when It served as a frontier town against Guthrums realm Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Bedfordshire are other instances of purely military creation, districts assigned to the fortresses which Eadward raised at these points.^ ^ EDg. Chron. a. 912. ' " The arrangement of the whole kingdom in shires is of course a work which could not be completed until it was per- manently united under Eadgar; and the existing subdivisions ll?".r .f ^''."'' """ "" ''^''''^^' ^^'^^ t° ^^^ day at the latest (Stubbs, " Const. Hist." i. 129). In East-Anglia the shire Z^rr\^^Z ^^'° "' '^*^ -Production. In'deed it can hardly have been definitely settled before the Norman Conquest un to fr^T '''"; *? ^*^' ^""^ °^*^"^ ''S^^-^'^ ^' a single shire Norfolk «T'^ ';?'• "*'°*"" °' '''' ''''''' nomenclature in -Norfolk and Suffolk instead of names drawn from its town centres implies that the "shire" had won a weaker .old th"n hear of Yorkshu^e on the verge of the Conquest. ■ ' Durham 238 CHAP. V. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 901- :937. The slure-reeve. _ In one important point the organization of the %te '^ West-Saxon shires does not seem to have been fully carried out in those of the rest of Britain. In Wessex each shire had its ealdorman, the representa- tive no doubt of its old local independence, and the head of its armed force. In Midland Britain, where ealdormen had been accustomed to rule over wider regions than those of the shires, it was perhaps im- possible to identify ealdormanries with each shire, and we find groups of shires falling under the rule of the same great officer.' But the shire-man or -the shire-reeve was present in all ; and his presence gives us the clue to the real grounds of the shire system.' Though its main issues were political, and though its yet more immediate issues probably involved the first great national reconstruction of our judical system, there can be little doubt that its original aim was strictly financial.^ The king's reeve, like the reeve of anv one else, was simply the agent through whom the king received whatever was owing to him, whether the customs of a port, or the dues of his thegns, or the customary '' firm " and services of a town is the county palatine of the Conqueror's minister, formed out of the patrimony of St. Cuthbert. Lancashire was formed in the twelfth century by joining the Mercian lands between Kibble and Mersey with the northern hundreds, which in Doomsday were reckoned to the West Eiding of Yorkshire. Cumberland is the English share of the old Cumbrian or Strath-Clyde king- dom ; Northumberland and Westmoreland are the remnants of Northumbria and the Cumbrian frontier." (Stubbs "Const Hist." i. 129.) ^ 1 Stubbs, i. 131. 2 For shire-reeve, see Kemble, "Sax. in Eng." ii. 157 et seq 3 See Cod. Dip. 1323. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 239 CHAP. V. 901- 937. which lay in his immediate lordship. When the shire — v. was once constituted, such an agent was necessary to TheH^«eof receive that portion of the proceeds of the shire- court which fell to the crown, and by a natural extension of this duty the various sums payable within the limits of the shire as customary dues henots, and the like. Each shire was bound to pro- vide, not only a stated number of men for the fyrd but a stated sum by way of composition for the revenue which the king would have drawn from what had been the folk-land within its bounds, and at a later time a stated number of ships, or their equivalent mj^ ship-money." The gathering of these sums, as well as of the forfeitures and fines incurred for abseuce from moot and host, was the work of the shire-reeve.^ His business, however, was necessarily judicial as well as financial, for half the work of a shne-court came to consist in the ascertainment, the assessment, and the recovery of such royal dues as well as fines and forfeitures owed to the crown' and from presiding over the trial of this class of cases the shire-reeve could not fail to pass, like the later barons of the Exchequer, into the position of a standmg judge of the court. The presence of he ealdorman, and the bishop, who legally sat with him m the shire-moot, and whose presence recalled he folk-moot from which it sprang, would necessarily be rare and irregular, while the reeve was bound JoZ^ T"""^^""^ ^" my reeves," says Cnut, "that they justly no man ITT-"' 7 '"" ""^ ^"^^*^^^ ^' ^^-^-^h : an] that no man need give them anything as farm-aid unless he choose." — Ihorpe, '^ Anc. Laws," i. 413. m. 240 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 901 937. CHAP. V. to attend ; ' and the result of this is sppti in fl. -^^^ in wHeh tl. sM.-.oot soon C^ZZ:^ »«- as the sheriffs com-t. It is difficult to fixthe posit on of the early shire-reeve, or to trace the steps bv which he rose to be a great executive officer/while earl. But from the very nature of the case it is clear that the process must have been continuallv gomg on and that with the very dose relation oV hnance to government in those early times, the presence of the royal reeve in a shire, and . regular presidency of its court, must from the fi have brougl^ home to a Mercian or an East-Anglian the sense of a national king in a more personal and continuous way than any other agency As the years passed in this work of peaceful or- g^uiization, and the realm remained unstirred about him, v^e can hardly wonder that the king looked on himself more and more as " lord of Britain " At his accession he had adopted the style of his prede cessor as "King of the Angul-Saxons " ; » but' one master of Northumbria the consciousness of a Wer 1 It was, in fact, the shire-reevp flnd r...f +i, 1 1 anlea: and by ^tbelred's day this e.eouZ:'^:l^'^: 1099^ ^--t of 926 says ^' Angul-Saxonum rex.'' Cod. Dip. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 241 style. 901- 937. rule blends oddly with the effort to find a common chap. v. name for the lands beneath his sway. Iq 927 he TheSieof calls himself " Monarch of all Britain ; " ^ two years ^^*^ later, in 929, he is administering " the kingdom of all Albion ; ''^ then, after two more years of fluctuation between these titles, we find him in 933 viewing him- self in a more literal way as '' King of the English- folk and of all the nations dwelling with them on every side." ' But in the next year this sobriety of tone is set aside for styles of a more high-flown sort, and ^thelstan announces himself n'ot only as '' King of the Angul-Saxons and of all Britain," but as "Angul-Saxon King and Brytenwealda of all these islands," ' and by a yet higher reach of language as " Basileus of the English and at the same time Emperor of the kings and nations dwelling within the bounds of Britain."^ What the worth of such claims really was we see ^ Cod. Dip. 1100. 2 Cod. Dip. 347. Anghgenarum omniumque gentium undique seciis habitan- tium rex. Cod. Dip. 1 109. In one shape or other this form of the royal style seems to have clung to the English chancery through several reigns. Its real meaning we shall see in Eadre J's day. * His subscription to the Latin charter, ^^ Angul-Saxonom necnon et totius Britannia rex," is rendered in the English copy, Ongol-Saxna cynmg and brytenwealda ealles thyses iglandae. " Cod Dip. 1110. The word - brytenwealda " occurs here for the Ursttime; I find no other instance of it in this reign It is probably borrowed from the entry in the Chronicle which we have before noticed ("Making of England," p. 306, et seq.), and m spite of the ingenious arguments built on it, seems to me merely an instance of the literary archaism and affectation of toe time. ^ Cod. Dip. 349. 242 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. ; f CHAP. V. from the fact that at the moment he used them the ^^&!^' pompous fabric of his - Empire " was crumbling at 901. ^thelstan's feet. Northumbria had risen/ and with ^ti^^tan^s '*' '"'"'''S ^'^'^ ^^g''^ ^ Struggle which was to tax the diplomacy, energies of the West-Saxon kings for thirty years to come, and to end in the virtual disintegration of the English state. In some measure the strife was a result of iEthelstan's own diplomacy. He saw that his holding of the English Danelaw was not merely dependent on himself and the English Danes. The settlement of the northmen across Watling Street was flanked by like settlements in Ireland and in Gaul ; and no lasting peace could be secured with Northern Britain which did not provide against the revival of the struggle by aid from either quarter. The Danes of Deira were closely linked with those of Dublin and Waterford ; their kings were drawn in fact from the same stock, and were often only driven from the one realm to be owned as rulers in the other. ^ Thus Sihtric had been king of Dublin ; and when driven out thence in 920 became king at York. His son Olaf and his brother Guthferth had sailed for Dublin on ^thelstan's annexation of Deira. From the actual incidents of the later struggle the danger seems in fact mainly to have come from this quarter ; but though Eadward's work in the Eibble country may have been directed to providing against 1 The imperial style is used in a grant to the Church of Wor- cester, by which ^thelstan hopes to win the favour of the saints m his war with " Anolafa rege Norrannorum, qui me vita et regno privare disponit." Cod. Dip. 349. 2 Skene, " Celtic Scot." i. 351. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 243 CHAP. v. 901- 937. Ilrolfs settlement in Gaul. descents from Ireknd, we know nothing of the policy ...^.. ,. which was pursued by the English \ings in this Thei^seof quarter, and it is clear that the danger from the ^"^^^* northmen in Ireland occupied ^thelstan's mind far less than the danger from the northmen in 'Gaul. In Gaul the work of the pirates had long b^en shrinking within narrower bounds. They had with- drawn from the Garonne. They were now little heard of in the Loire. But the movement of defeat was also a movement of concentration ; and their attacks fell more heavily than before on the valley of the Seine. Ever since the peace of Wedmore the Seine valley had been the field of the northman Hrolf, or as later story called him, RoUo, a friend of Guthrum of East-Anglia, and who drew, no doubt, much of his strength from the English Danelaw. His work had already produced weighty results on the aspect of French politics ; for it is to Hrolf s forays along the Seine that France owes her capital and the line of her kmgs. Paris rose into greatness as the guard of the Seine valley against his attacks, and with it rose the line of Robert the Strong, a warrior to whom the land round Paris as far as the sea had been granted as a border-land against the northmen. The defence of Paris by Robert's son Odo in 885 raised his house mto rivalry even with the descendants of Cliarles the Great ; and, in the confusion which followed on the death of the successor of Lewis and Carloman, Odo became King of the Western Franks. But his throne was disputed by a Karolingian claimant, Charles the Simple; and a strife for the crown which opened between the king at Paris and this rival king at E 2 244 CHAP. V. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Laon hindered the first from doing his work ao-ainst ^^^^te '' tl^e pirates of the Seine. Beaten off again and again, 901- Hrolf with northern stubbornness still made his'Vay — back to Rouen, and in 912 his obstinacy found its reward, for in the treaty of Clair-on-Epte Charles the Simple granted to the northmen the coast at the mouth of the Seine from the sea to the Epte. Its remits. No event of the time can compare in importance with the settlement of Hrolf and his comrades in their new - Northman's land." In France its effects were felt at once. What mainly brought about the treaty was no doubt the rivalry between the Karolingian house and the house of Robert the Strong. Charles in fact sought to weaken the duchy of Paris by carving Hrolf s country out of it, and by cutting off his rivals from the sea. But the settlement not^'only weakened his rivals, it strengthened Charles himself The dread that the Parisian dukes would strive to win back again the best part of their duchy bound the Normans to the cause of the Karolingian kings ; and that the house of Charles the Great still kept a' hold on Western Frankland for more than seventy years was due mainly to the help it drew from the Normans of the Seine. But all thought of the effects which Hrolf s settlement produced on the fortunes of France is lost for Englishmen in the thought of its effect on the fortunes of England. From the hour when the northmen settled at the mouth of Seine, the story of . the country which then became Normandy interweaves itself with the story of the English people. As we pass nowadays through the northman's land it is English history which is round about us. The names 245 CHAP. V. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. of hamlet after hamlet have memories for Eno-lish ears ; a fragment of castle wall marks the home of The i^^se of the Bruce ; a tiny village preserves the name of the ^~j^" Percy ; while English religion and English literature ®il" look back with a filial reverence to the valley buried deep in its forest of ash- woods, through which wanders the rivulet of "Bec-Herlouin."' In the huge cathe- drals that lift themselves over the red-tiled roofs of Norman market towns we recognize the models of those mightier fabrics which displaced the lowly churches of early England. On the windy heights that look over orchard and meadow-land rise the square grey keeps which Normandy gave to the clifls of Rich- mond and the banks of the Thames. One thought is with us as we pass from Avranches to tlie Bresle, and this thought, the thought of England's conquest by the Norman, becomes a living thing as we stand within the minster which the Conqueror raised at Caen. But long before William's day the fortunes of the Thegroivthof one people had told on those of the other. From the ^^'•"i"^^^^- first hour of the Norman settlement in the valley of the Seine the history of Normandy linked itself closely with that of England, for the rise of a Danelaw across the Channel gave a new force to the Danelaw in Britain.^ Whatever hopes of preservino* ^ See below, p. 504. 2 According to all the Norse sources Gonguhrolf, or Hrolf, was of Norse blood, though in Norman and French accounts Dudo and his successors, who called him Hollo, make him a Danish prince. But though the accounts that make Hrolf a Norwegian are probably right, Steenstrup holds, and Maurer on this point agrees with him, that the overwhelming majority of the host that followed him into Normandy were of Danish descent. See 246 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. fit m I ii si The^^seof Street may have beeu cherished by the house of |oi- ^Jfred passed away with the settlement of their - brethren in this new northman's land.' As help from the Danelaw had created Normandy, so belt, from Normandy was likely to give a new strength to the Danelaw ; and the part which the Irish Ostmen had played till now in succouring and re-arousing the J^ngbsh pirates would probably from this time be played by the followers of Hrolf. The danger grew with the rapid growth of the new settlement Hrolf was a statesman as well as a warrior ; and throughout the reign of Eadward he was building up a state by policy as well as by arms. It was with a states- man s mstmct that he clung to the king who had given him the northman's land. It was Hrolfs sword that supported Charles the Simple against' his enemies, against Odo's son, Duke Eobert of Paris and against Eobert's son, Hugh the Great. Amidst all the king s misfortunes the Norman leader stood hrm to the Karolingian cause ; it was as a loyal sub- jec that he carried his raids over the Parisian duchy and penetrated even to Burgundy, till his energy and fidelity were rewarded by the addition of the Bessin the district about Bayeux, to the northman's land lISZl. . ^X'"'"''' *\"f '' "' '"^ '^'''^^' f^'"^ the power of the Normans had almost doubled at the opening of ^thelstan s reign ; and while the stern hand of their zeitung, 4th series, No. 2, Jan. 13, 1877 p 95 /a ^ r \ ^^ ;F. Hrolf. help to Guthru. against'^ed, sie^4pX THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 247 leader had fashioned his pirates into a people, whose chap. v. numbers no doubt grew with an influx of iiorthmen The House of from the English Danelaw as it passed under West- oTTT Saxon sway, his political ability was shown in the ^—' ease with which the settlement was completed and the peace that he made throughout the land. Nor were the power and ability of his son, William Longsword, less than those of Hrolf himself. William's attitude in the strife between king and duke was that of his father ; while within he carried on with even greater vigour the conversion and civilization of his people. But of this civilization of the Normans, this instinctive drawing closer to the Christendom about them which was to be the key-note of their history, the France and the England of the day knew nothing. They saw simply a settlement in the heart of Western Christendom of men who had for a hundred years past been slaughtering and ravaging over Christian lands. The French spoke of them for years to come as *' pirates,'' and called their chieftain '' the Pirates' Duke." England naturally looked on them as a political danger of the gravest sort. The growing extension of their territory along the coast fronted her southern shore with a Danelaw more powerful than the Danelaw she had struck down ; a Danelaw which threatened the hold of England on the Channel, and cut off its communications with the rest of Christendom. Powerful too as Hrolfs duchy was in itself, it was yet more formidable as giving a new centre to the energy of the northmen. Beneath all the wild talk of the earliest Norman chroniclers we see that Normandy became from the first the ■I ^"— «■ 248 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAP. V. centre of the pirates' life. If the boast fUi V r l Tie House of .'.nfl Tricl, ^K„,/j *l 1-^^ 6 DOast tliat English Alfred. ^iid In^l^ obeyed the commands of William Lonc^s^ord |o.. or the dukes that followed him may be safdy 't - asK e ,t points to a real influence which th Tuk wielded over the body of the Danes in EuXnd :i:/l:r'- :; ^^^ *^^« -^^^ ^^ ^^^ and aS among he northmen which made Normandy so formidable a foe. Every pirate settlement was i I ate of constant ebb and flow. The northman wh aW In " " ^r ''''' ""' ""g^^ be ravaging along he Seme or the Rhine. That Hrolfs men were tdlzng their lands in the Bessin or the Pays de Caux gave no surety that when harvest was gathered or the Colne. And with help such as this the work of the house of Alfred might be undone in an hou tHe mouth of the Seine the eyes of the English kino-s r suit of their anxiety had already been seen in the birth of a foreign policy. It was dread of the Normans which first drew England into eonnex on with lands beyond the sea. Northward, eastward and Vermandois^ as by the great French dukedom and sword . all dreaded, even more than England itself. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 249 attack from Normandy ; and all sought to strengthen' chap. v. themselves against it by bonds of kinship and diplo- Thei^seof macy. While feeing the Danes at home, the English ^~^' kings had sought to guard themselves against attack *Jl" from abroad by joining in this movement of union. The marriage of Alfred's daughter, ^Ifthryth, with Count Baldwin of Flanders was the first instance of a system of marriage alliances which the English kings directed from this moment against the common foe ; and the same purpose may be seen in the marriage of Eadward's daughter Eadgifu with the Frankish liing Charles the Simple.* ^thelstan not only adopted his father's policy, ^thehtans but carried it out on a far wider scale. He had ^^'■ly poiuy. hardly mounted the throne when he wedded one of his sisters, Eadgyth, to Otto, the son of the German king Henry ; } and two years later a fresh political marriage linked him to a power nearer home. The second marriage followed on a change which passed at this moment over French politics. What- ever hopes of aid against the Normans Ethels tan may have drawn from his sister's marriage with Charles, were foiled by the claim to the Frankish crown which was now made by Rudolf of Burgundy, a brother-in- law of Duke Hugh of Paris ; for this fresh attack of the Parisian house necessarily threw Charles back on his old policy of seeking aid from the pirates at Rouen. The English king therefore turned at once to the house which this new phase of poKtics marked out as * Will. Malm. " Gest. Reg." (Hardy), i. 197. ^ Eng. Chron. (Wore), a. 924. " Off* Eald Seaxna cynges suna." But see for date Lappenberg, " Hist. Ang. Sax." ii. 134. 250 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. cH^ V. the pirates' foe, and in 926 a marriage was arranged The^^use of through the intervention of the Count of Boulogne the 901- Hon of Baldwin of Flanders and the English ^Ifthryth - between J^thelstan's sister Eadhild and Hu^h the' Great. The splendid embassy with whieh the Duke of Pans sought Eadhild's hand shows the political importance of the match ; and its weight may have told on the renewal of the struggle between Eudolf ^nd Charles which followed it. But it told more directly on the strength of England by absorbing the which ^thelstan was annexing the Danelaw over the number, and turning into a practical sovereignty his supremacy over the Welsh. o^^VmL ^^^^^ '^'''^^'^ ^thelstan's schemes seemed as Lo.gs.or^, successful as at home. His French confederates not only held their own against the Karolingian king, but gave full occupation to the Norman duke. In 929 indeed the death of Charles the Simple left William Longsword alone in the face of his foes. Eudolf was now the unquestioned master of France ; and in the lolJowmg year his victory over the northmen of the Loire was a signal for a combined attack on the Normans of the Seine. While Hugh the Great pressed them from the south, the Bretons, over whom Hrolf and his son had asserted vague claims of supremacy, and from whom they had wrested the Bessm, put the Norman colonies in the newly won land to the sword and attacked Bayeux But the hopes of ^thelstan were foiled by the vigour of William Longsword. Not only were the ' Will. Malm. -Gest. Reg." (Hardy), i. 216, 217. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 251 V. Alfred. 901- 937. Bretons swept back from the Bessin, but their land chap. of the Cotentin, the great peninsula that juts into the Thei^seof British Channel, became Norman ground, while their leader, Alan, fled over sea to the English court. ^ The choice of his refuge points to the quarter from whence this attack on Normandy had probably come. If direct attack however had broken down, ^thelstan was more fortunate in the skill with which he wove a web of alliances round the Norman land. Flanders was already knit to the new England through Count Arniilf, a grandson of ^Elfred like ^thelstan himself. The Count of Vermandois was on close terras w^ith the English king. The friendship of the Parisian duchy came with the marriage of Duke Huo-h ; while Brittany was still at the king's service, and iEthel- stan could despatch Alan again to carry fresli forays over the Norman border. Already troubled with strife within his own country, William Longsword saw a ring of foes close round him and threaten a renewal of the struggle for life. But the quickness and versatility of the duke were seen in the change of front with which he met this danger. The claims of the Karolingian house on his fidelity had ceased with the death of Charles the Simple ; no Karoling claimant for the throne appeared, and William was able without breach of faith to sell his adhesion to Eudolf of Burgundy. By doing homage to Eudolf in 933 he not only won peace with the Parisian dukes, but a formal cession of his new conquests in the Cotentin ; ^ Alan was Ead ward's ward, and had come in 931 from the English court. See Lappenberg, ii. 138 with the note, and p. 107 with note. 252 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAP. V. and the dissolution of the league left him free to deal Tie^Hottse of with ^thelstan. 1^. A descent of the Ostmen from Ireland on the ne t^'"' ^5 Northumbria warned the English kin<. of revolt of William s power to vex the land, and while it wr.l-« -'WH. fresh dreams of revolt in the Danelaw eLll^d the Scot king, Constantine, to weave anew the threads of the older confederacy against the English king.' In 934/ though the presence of the northern primate and some of the Danish Jarls at his court show that Northumbria still remained true to him ' the growing disturbance forced Jllthelstan to march with an army into the north/ and to send a fleet to harry the Scottish coast. But its ravages, if they forced Constantine to a fresh submission, failed to check his intrigues, or to hinder him from leaguing with Ealdred of Bernicia and the Irish Ostmen to st2 up a fresh rismg of the Danelaw. With the Ostmen Constantine was closely connected through their leader Anlaf or Olaf, a son of the NortlTumbrian kmg, Sihtric, who had found refuge at the Scottish ' Skene, " Celtic Scotland," i. 352. 2 Eng. Chron. (Wore), a. 934 ; (Winch.), a. 933. Ihe grant to Worcester just before his march against "Anoaarege Norrannorum qui me vita et regno privaTdTs pomt Cod. D.p. 349) is attested by " Rodewtldus I^hLpt" copus (a blunder for Wulfstan). and "Healden dux." WuSI IS again present m a witenagemot at Frome at the close of the year on the king's return from the north. December 934 bt .o northern names appear among the duces. Cod. Dip. 1110 ' Sim. Durh. "Hist. Dunelm. Ecc " lib ii o 18 /T ^ 253 CHAP. V. The House of -ffilfred. 901- 937. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. court on his father's death, and on JEtlielstan's annexation of his realm. Constantine had first shown the change which had taken place in his political sympathies by giving Olaf his dau^rhter to wife ; ^ and after the earlier failure of their plans Olaf had sailed to Ireland, and, placing himself at the head of the Ostmen, again lent himself to the plots of the Scottish king. The influence of Olaf was seen in the withdrawal of the northern Jarls from the English court within a year or two after the campaign of 934,2 ^^^ ^Y^^^ ^^ ^3^ j^^ appeared with a fleet off" the Northumbrian coast the whole league at once rose in arms. The men of the northern Danelaw found themselves backed not only by their brethrcm from Ireland but by the mass of states around them, by the English of Bernicia, by the Scots under Oonstan tine, by the Welshmen of Cumbria or Strath-Clyde. It IS the steady recurrence of these confederacies which makes the struggle so significant. The old distinctions and antipathies of race must have already ni great part passed away before peoples so diverse could have been gathered into one host by a common dread of subjection, and the motley charactei* of the army pointed forward to that fusion of both north- man and Briton in the general body of the English race which was to be the work of the years. At the news of this rising ^thelstan again marched Brumnhurh. mto the north. He met his enemies on the unknown ^ Skene, " Celtic Scotland," i. 352. ^ We find no Danish names among the attesting duces through- out the rest of ^thelstan's reign. coming 254 CHAP. V. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 255 T. S- i^^'l ?^ ^^^'''^burh/ and one of the noblest of ^"ifeof English war-songs has preserved the memory of the goi- fight that went on from sunrise to sunset. The — stubbornness of the combat proves that brave men fought on either side. The shield-wall of the north- men stood long against the swords of ^thelstan and his brother Eadmund ; the Scots fought on till they were "weary with war." But the West-Saxons "in bands of chosen ones" hewed their way steadily through the masses of their foe, their Mercian fellow- warriors " refused not the hard hand-play," and at sunset the motley host broke in wild flight. " The Danes," shouts the exulting singer, " had^ no ground for laughter when they played on the field of slaughter with Eadward's children." Five of their kings and seven of their jarls lay amongst the count- less dead. Olaf ^ only saved his life by hastily shoving out his boat to sea and steering for Dul)lin with the remnant of his men, while Constantine left ' The Winchester and other Chronicles insert under 937 the hrst of the four poems which treat of the annals of this period, the Song of Brunanburh. The only other detailed account of the strife IS m the Egils Saga (in Johnstone, "Antiq. Celto-Scandica.." p. 42, &c.) ; out the Saga is of too late a date and too romanti. a character to be used as an historical authority. The site of brunanburh is still undetermined. Mr. Skene (" Celtic Scotland " i_3o,) would fix it at Aldborough; but Mr. Freeman and Professor Stubbs abandon the effort to localize it in despair. Ihe Brunanburh " of the song becomes in the saga " Vinheidi " and in Simeon of Durham (" Gest. Reg." and "Hist. Dunelm.") Wendune ' and " Weondune." Flor. of Worcester places it by the mouth of the Humber. 2 Skene distinguishes this Olaf of Dublin from Olaf, Sihtric's TA Z^^^'T i° ^^''' ''*"™"'^ *° ^'"^^''^ ^i*!' Constantine ("Celtic Scotland," i. 357). CHAP. T. his son covered with death-wounds in the midst of his slaughtered war-band. The old king's faithless- Theiiiseof ness had stirred a special hatred in the conquerors. '*— * " There fled he — wise as he was — to his northern ^" land ! No cause had he, the hoary fighting man, for gladness in that fellowship of swords ! no cause had he, the grey-haired lord, the old deceiver, for boast- fulness in the bill-crashing." ^ 1 Eng. Chron. a. 937. t/ The severance of the north CHAPTER VI. WESSEX AND THE DANELAW. 937^955. Fkom the battle-field of Brunanburh, where " dun kite and swart raven and greedy war-hawk" were ^ nng the corpses with the " grey wolf of the wood," ^thelstan turned with a glory such as no English a fi:htlr- W '^^'*' ^^"^^ ^^^ -urt-singer,C " sS f r r " ^^'^ ^^^'^ ^y Englishmen, since from the east Engle and Saxon sought Britain over the broad sea." A hundred years kter indeed v^tory a doubtful one. "The two brothers, kin<. and ^thelmg, sought their own land, the land of th^ West-Saxons, exulting in the war." But victory a bv ^f J r ''^'^ "'^ion which had been conceived m^!l and partially carried out by Eadward and ^ he Stan, could only be embodied in the king him self, t was only by a common obedience to one who was at once King of the West-Saxons, Kinc of The Mercians, King of the Northumbrians, ' atd Lord of 4 ^ Eng. Chron. a. 937. 2 ^thelweard, lib. iv. c. 5. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. the Jarls of Mid-Britain, that West-Saxon, Mercian, Northumbrian, and Dane, could forget their distinc- tions of locality and race, and blend in a common England. Such a threefold kingship and lordship of the Dane iEthelstan had won in his earliest years of rule ; and the years of peace which had passed since the submission of Northumbria seemed the beginning of a time of national union. But with the rising under Olaf the prospect of union vanisherl like a dream. Vanquished as it was, Northumbria was still strong enough to tear itself away from the kin it's personal grasp, and to force ^thelstan to restore Its old under-kingship with the isolated life which that kingship embodied. The hard fighting of his suc- cessors, if it forced the north to own their supremacy, never succeeded in bringing it again witliin their personal sovereignty : the under-kingdom was indeed replaced later by an earldom, but the land remained almost as much apart from the kingdom at large under earl as under under-king ; and on the very eve of the Norman conquest, no king's writ ran in the Northumbria of Siward. The severance of the north, in fact, was the first step m a process of reaction which was to undo much that the house of ^Jfred had done. The growth of the monarchy, aided as it was by the strife against the Dane and by the personal energy of the kings themselves, had carried it beyond the actual bounds of Enghsh feeling. The national sentiment wliich the war had created, real as it was, was as yet too weak to set utterly aside the tradition of local indepen- dence, and to look solely to a national king. It had S 2:)T CHAP. VI. Wessex and the Danelaw. 937- 955. The system, of ealdorman- rt'es. 258 CHAP. VI. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Wessex and the Danelaw. ©37- 955. carried the monarchy too beyond the actual possibilities 'i.f,T™''f ^'^^^^'^'^e'^t, as we have seen in ^thelstan s efforts to restore order in Wessex, rested Irom the very necessities of the time on the presence and personal action of the king. The administrative machmery by which later rulers, Norman or Angevin brought the land within the grasp of a central power was stm but in its beginning. Their great creation of a judicial machinery for the same purpose had as 3^et hardly an existence. The disorder which taxed the king s energies south of the Thames must have been even greater in the tract over which the war had rolled to the north of it ; and his occasional visits to Mercia or the Danelaw could give little of the succour which Wessex felt from his presence within it. It was the weight of these political and administrative needs that was felt in the second decisive step towards the disintegration of the realm the creation of the great ealdormanries. Alfred indeed had led the way in this creation by his raising ^thelred into the ealdorman of English Mercia! Kut the danger of such a measure at once disclosed Itself, for though ^thelred acted strictly as an officer of the king, summoning the witan by his licence, and seeking confirmation from him for judgement or grant yet the tradition of local kingship and of individual htem the country itself raised him into a power which Eadward felt to be inconsistent with any union of the peoples round a common king. At ^thelreds death therefore, he found no successor ; and on the death of the Lady, his wife, Mercia was taken under the direct rule of the crown. The policy of Eadward was in his THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. earlier years the policy of ^thelstan himself There was no restoration of the Mercian ealdorman, still less any indication of the extension of the system over other parts of the realm. With the shock of Brunanburh, however, and with the renewed isolation of northern Britain, such an extension seems to have become inevitable ; and it was in the later years of ^thel- stan, or in the short reign of Eadmund which fol- lowed, that we find the system of ealdormanries adopted as a necessary part of the organization of Britain. But though this revival of the old political divisions seemed the only form of organization open to the English kings, their subsequent measures show that they were not blind to its defects. If the earlier kingdoms were restored, the place of the king in each was taken by an ealdorman, who, however indepen- dent and powerful he might be, was still named by the West-Saxon sovereign and could be deposed by that ruler and the national witan, while his relation to the folk he governed was that of a stranger, and had none of the strength which the older kiilgs had drawn from their position as representatives of the blood of their races. In the second plact^ these ealdormen were l^ound to the West-Saxon throne by their own royal West-Saxon blood.' As we have seen, the growth of Wessex had been simply an extension of the West-Saxon race, and as a result of this, its various divisions had been committed to the charge of ealdormen chosen from the one royal stock. Different as were the circumstances before 1 Robertson, " Hist. Essays, ' The King's Kin." S 2 259 CHAP. VI. Wessex and tbe Danelaw 937- 9SS. Tig limitations. Mm ;"'f(|ll:l. ( 260 CHAP. VI. Wessex and tne Danelaw. 937- 955. Creation of the eastern ealdormau- ries. THE CONQUEST OF E>;rGLAND. them, .Ethelstan or Eadmund followed the tradition ot their house in committing the states of Mid-Britain to ealdormen of their own blood. Such an arrano-e- ment seemed a security against their reviving tie claims of the folks they ruled to their old national independence, and in this respect it was certainly successful, for from this time we hear of no attempt on the part of any of these states to break away trom the common English realm. But on the other hand, as the history of Wessqx itself in the past had shown. It brouglit with it another danoer. These princes of the blood with the weight of their states behind them could bring heavy pressure to bear on the royal government. Theii- kinship drew them into close relations with the court, which soon became the scene of their struggle for supremacy and of their mutual rivalries, until the anarchy of early Wessex was reproduced in that of England under .Ethelred the Second. The aim of the crown in creating the first of these great ealdormanries, that of East-An^lia,^ was pro- bably to weaken the Danelaw by detaching from it all tJat was least Danish, and that could be thorouohly re-Anglicized as a portion of the English realm The ealdordom was intrusted to .^thelstan, a noble of the royal kiii,^ and stretched far beyond East-Anglia froL'^tt H*?^ its <;reatiou is really ur^certain ; but Lappenblg, irom the Hist, of Eamsey, assigns it to ^thelstan's reign He "exchanged his patrimonial forty hides in his native Cr O f "" 'Vt '"''' '''"''' ^' HatHeld, which E^dgL gave to Ordn..r and his wife. "-Robertson, " Hist. Essa/s," V-i'J- His fathers name was ^thelred (Cod Din 338^ h, t this can hardly be the king of that name 4ho '2'^^^ THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. itself to include the old country of the Gyrwas about the fens,^ with perhaps Northamptonshire, and the district of Kesteven. Probably about the same time was created the ealdormanry of the East Saxons by the elevation of ^Ifgar, the father of Eadmund's queen .^thelflaed at Domerham,^ who was succeeded by Brihtnoth as husband of his daughter, .^Elflsed. Essex ' seems to have included, besides the shire of that name, those of Oxford and Buckingham, and also possibly that of Middlesex w^ith London.^ Taken together, the two ealdormanries formed in fact the kingdom of Guthrum in its largest extent, and as the East-Saxon ealdormen, whether from kinship or no, seem to have uniformly acted in union with those of years before the name of ^thelstan is missed from the charters." He may have been his grandson. iEthelstan's name '* is found in connexion with the charters of his great namesake." (Robertson, "Hist. Essays," 180, with note.) 1 " The diocese of Dorchester, as it existed in the tenth century, though once a portion of the Mercian kingdom, was not included under the jurisdiction of the Mercian ealdorman. Th<} shires of Bedford, Hertford, Cambridge, Huntingdon, and Northampton, with the district of Kesteven, seem to have belonged to the ealdordom of ^thelwine of East-Anglia ; and as in the reign of ^thelred the reeves of Oxford and Buckingham wero brought to task by Leofsige, ealdorman of Essex, the remainder of the diocese would appear to have been placed under the ealdorman of the East-Saxons." Robertson, "Hist. Essays," 181. The boundaries of the eastern ealdormanries however must be regarded as very uncertain. 2 ^Ifgar died about 951-3. Robertson, " Hist. Essays," p. 189. Eng. Chron. a. 946. ^ See note, ante. 4 This however is only an inference from facts in themselves uncertain. 261 CHAP. VI. "Wessex and the DanelaW' 937- 955. 262 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VI. East-Anglia, ^thelstan became practicallv lor i;Zf ^7^ '* ^S''^>'^«^ Danelaw, we see th.t "th r. I ""' ''" ^'^'^^ ^^ ^^'^ Hfe as norThe n as thaf f ' ''""' ^'"''^ ^'^ ^ i^laabited by no ien Si ^^^ """ ™^""^->' taken the countrv n ?' ^odbrog's sons had their hands. . . Kin. Eric too h -^ ""' '"* '^ about him for he kent r^ \ ^ ""^"^ P*^«P"^- -ith liim frol tl ea t 3 T ™'" "'° ''''' ^^^-^ joined hnn W No^^; " n rk"T, '', '" '^'^^"^''^ ^e.,ed hiinse. to h:£ itX*^^^^^^ Hs^tl' ant et art/ ail t " " "'^^^^^ ^^^^ followed him " in, 1 T , '' ^'"^^^ ^^^^« ^^'"^^^ lightly on E^ie as they' : f o:l?; '^'^ ^ the Danelaw Tf tl \ ? ''"'''^ Northmen in and 1.:!:;,, h /.ferittf ^' f °^™ ^" ^^'^ vary their toil with ^7^^^ ' *^''^ "*^'»«^'^^ to Eri' throne^arL^t^Sl^^lf r^ --' a Wiking at heart. ■'! hJlfd ZlT T T^^''''' xieonaes, Iceland, and Bretlanrl ).,. i • i ■ gathered goods." ^ ciettand, by which he Eadward are separately named " either v r u northmen." Eng. Chron. a. 924. ^^^''^' ""^ ^^''^'' Or 1 For Eric, see Sagas of Harald Fair-hair a„rl „f tt , Good; Laing, " Sea Kin-rs " i 30T ^nT^, of ^''^°° *he of Egil Skallagrimson. ''^' ^^^"^l^- ^ee also Saga ' Saga of Hakon the Good : Lain? « Sp„ ir • „ • u, uaing, hea Kings," i. 316-317. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Though ^thelstan's rule over the north had shrunk from a real sovereignty into a vague over- lordship, it is notable that his efforts from this moment were aimed at other lands than the Danelaw. He still remained bent on the ruin of the power which was able to call the Danelaw to arms. Even in the midst of his struggle for life with the great con- federacy of the north the king had been busy plannino- a more formidable attack than ever on the Normans! During his father's last misfortunes, Lewis, the child of Charles the Simple and of the king's sister Eadgifu, had found with his mother a refuge in England,^^! had grown up at his uncle's court. When Rudolf died, and Hugh of Paris, with a cautious policy which time was to reward, refused to grasp the crown, the hearts of the AVest-Franks turned to the young Karoling "over-sea," and at Hugh's insti- gation Lewis was chosen for their king. The envoys who were sent in 936 with the offer of the crown found ^Ethelstan in his camp at York, holding down the earlier disaffection of the Danelaw, but the kino- at once rode to the south ; and an English (embassy crossed the Channel to prepare for the return of Lewis to his father's throne. From the court of Duke Hugji they passed to the court of William Longsword on°a visit memorable as the first instance of direct poli- tical communication between England and Normandy. We know little of the negotiations which ended in the duke's assent to the accession of the Karoling. William, no doubt, saw through the aim of .Ethelstal in his nephew's elevation ; but to refuse Lewis was to set a stronger and more formidable nei^mi<*^>Mk«»««^a,^^^ 268 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VI. "Wessex and the Danelaw. 937- 955. Eadmund. fo a time Lorraine passed into the hands of Lew's But his winning of it caused a sudden change in^e had for three years stood aloof from the control of he Parisian duke, and now the addition of wtine to his ,,,1^ threatened Hugh with a master too™ uk far ft; "^'^^^ '^^^ -^ N~ duke both equally threatened by the kinj. drew together .gainst their common enemy at tlieSomenl when his force was spent by the contest for Lormbe equal strength. If Arnulf of Flanders dreaded the grouch Normandy, he dreaded yet more the grtw of a royal power strong enough to curb the new state which were parting Western Frankland betweeTttm ^im, hke his fellows, into revolt. But though the ambition of Lewis had foiled the policy of Atheist' e kmg dnng to his nephew's cau'se. Vhef rut ^ ot Arnu f s approaching defection and of the attad- Boulogne Ju " f 'P^""^' '"^ *^^ --* ot ±5oulogne. Its ravages however foiled to turn Arnulf W his purpose ; and on the news that in the face s owr inT" • ^^^™ r '''' '^^'y ^^^i hlour ^"™"^' '' '''' ^^^^ '^ i*« English The recall of the fleet may have been due to th. failing health of ^thelstan ■ for on L T ! seventh of October, 040,^ in the midsT of Lr:l- THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. projects, the king died at Gloucester; and the troubles which followed the succession of his brother Eadmund left little room for a display of energy across the sea. Though he had fought by .^thelstan's side at Brunanburh, Eadmund, a child of Eadward's third mnrriage with Eadgifu,! was a youth of eighteen when he mounted the throne. But he had already a policy of his own, and that a policy distinct from the system of ^thelstan.2 " He was no friend to the northmen " ' or to the system of balances by M^hich his brother had used the Norwegians of the Danelaw to hold down tlie Danes. Eric too was in no favour with him As southern England became day by day a realm more jioaceful and highly organized, the instincts of its statesmen must have revolted more and more from I ^thelstan was the only son of Eadward's first marriage • both h,s sons by a second were dead; there remained two younc: sons by his third, Eadmund and Eadred. " ^ In ^thelstan's later years aftpr cnmo »r>.^>„ . „„. , jcais, aioer some more experiments. uch as xn 935 " basileus Anglorum et .que totius Britannia^ oibis curagulus" (Cod. Dip. 1111), or in 937, " rex Anrforum et ffique totius Albionis gubernator" (Cod. Dip. IIU; it i^^ notable that he never recurs to his " Imperator " and " Br;tenwealda "^ the royal s yle had at last settled down into a single form From 938 at any rate it is almost uniformly " Basileus Anglo- rum cunctarnmque gentium in circuitu persistentium,' and the signature "rex totius Britanni^e." (Cod. Dip., a series of c arters from 1116 to 1123, .-c.) EadmL adept's Ind generally Tn oL"T f;^''"P*-"' tl'-gh breaking out here and there, rTJ n ' olV ^^^ Anglorum et curagulus multarum gentium" heie totius Britanma. rex ;" Cod. Dip. 1139), or in 946, "rex tl£r""-r7\ '* Merciorum " (Cod. Dip. 409), but signs almost uniformly "rex Anglorum." ^ Hakon's Saga; Laing, "Sea Kings," i. 317. 269 CHAP. VI. Wessex and the Saoelaw. ©37- 955. Ill;; 270 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAXD. cHAP^vi. the wild barbarism of the north, where Erie with ].• ty«!^. false a.Kl cruel Gunluld beside him relted In "^ Iff: '^!2''' ^T'""^ *^^ °^ere pirate he had landed. So - the word went about that King Eadmund would set another chief over Northumbria." The threat was enough for Eric, who set off on new cruises of piracy only now adding the English coast to his former field of prey ; and at his departure the Danelaw rose once more agamst the English king ^'7t' J^f !!?\' ''"' '^'" "°^^ formidable than that D.nelau. which ^thelstan had faced at Brunanburh, for the rapidity with which the English army met Olaf and Constan me on that bloody field seems to have pre- vented the general rising of the English Danelaw on which the Ostmen had reckoned. But with a bov- king on the throne the spell of terror which the great defeat had thrown over the north was broken T the Danes again called for aid from their kinsmen in Ireland ; and on the reappearance of Olaf in the Humber in 941 the Danelaw took fire.^ The risino was not merely a rising of the Danes north of Humbei^ for after twenty years of quiet submission to the Enghsh rule, even the men of the Five Boroughs now threw off their allegiance and joined their kinsmen in Northumbria in taking Olaf for king ; and the danger was heightened by an unlooked-for defection trom the royal cause. In his appointment of Wulf Mr Skene thmks this Olaf to be the King of Dublin and tt; on h.s death soon after (Eng. Chron. Wineh^, a. 942) h^ Zl sue ^5w?'f 3;^^^^^ ''-' ^^^-^'-- fro. Scotland; ;^CeU:e mM THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Stan to the primacy at York in 934 ^thelstan had trusted to secure a firm support for his rule in the north. We have already noted the new and inde- pendent position which had been given to the see of York by its isolation from the rest of the English Church. Its occupant became in fact even more the religious centre of northern Britain than the primate of Canterbury was as yet of southern Britain ; and as the pagan settlers yielded to Christian influcmces, he rose to still greater importance as the natural centre of union between Englishman and Dane. The quick revolutions in the northern kingship, as well as its occasional parting between two rulers, must have still further heightened the position of a spiritual head who remained unaffected by these changes ; and in Archbishop Wulfstan the power of the primate rivalled the temporal authority of the northern kings. Till now Wulfstan's influence had been steadily ex- erted in support of the English sovereignty ; though the names of the Danish Jarls are absent from ^thel- stan's later witenagemots, Archbishop Wulfstan was still present at the English court ; and in the opening of Eadmund's reign his attitude seems to have re"^ mained the same. He joined with his fellow primate to avert a conflict between the king and the Danes at Lincoln ; and even in 942 we find him at Eadmund's court. ^ But whether he was swept away by the strength of local feeling or alienated by the king's West-Saxon policy, at this moment his coui'se sud- denly changed. Not only did he adopt the northern " Wulfstan archiepiscopus urbis Eboracse metropolitanus " attests a royal grant in 942. (Cod. Dip. 392.) 271 CHAP. VI. Wessex and the Danelaw. 937- 955. Mtiiii 272 CHAP. VI. "Wessex and the Danelaw. 937- 955. Ea(1muncl''s defeat. m THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. cause as his own, but in the after struggle he stood side by side with Olaf as commander of the northern host. Not content with freeing Northumbria, the Ostmen and primate burst in 943 into Mid-Britain, and their storm of Tamworth and of Leicester gave them the valley of the Trent. Eadmund was strong enough to regain the last city, and Wulfstan and Olaf had some dithculty in escaping from his grasp, but the work of even Eadward was undone, and after two years of hard fighting, the primates of York and Canterbury negotiated a peace in which Olaf bowed to baptism and owned himself Eadmund's under-king, but which practically left Eadmund master only of the realm that Alfred had ruled.^ The revival of the English Danelaw was the more formidable that with it went a revival of the Norman power across the sea. The death of ^Ethelstan had been as disastrous to his nephew as to his brother. It left Lewis friendless at a moment when the war on his eastern border turned suddenly against him, and he was driven by Otto from Lorraine. Pressed hard even in his own Frankland by Hugh the Great and Herbert of Vermandois, deserted by Arnulf of Flanders, the young king was thrown back on the policy of his father. He looked for aid to the Normans; and AVilliam Longsword was as ready to return to the policy of Hrolf as Lewis to that of Charles the Simple. Lewis was saved from ruin by Norman help; his fortunes were restored by the Norman sword; Norman diplomacy brought about a peace with Otto and a reconciliation with ^ Eng. Chron. (Wore), a. 943. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Hugh. The power which ^thelstan had threat- ened with destruction stood forward as the lead- ing power in West-Frankland ; and the greatness of Normandy gave encouragement and it may be direct aid to the struggle of the Danela^v against Eadward's son. But if wider hopes of common action dawned on the northmen, they were foiled at this moment of triumph by the murder of the Norman duke; for the wild vigour which had been turned into fighting power by William Longsword crumbled into anarchy as soon as his grasp was loosed ; and his son Richard, a child of ten years old, was hardly seated in the ducal chair in 943 wh«3n strife broke out between the Normans who drew towards the religion and civilization of the land in which they had settled, and those who still clung to the old worship and traditions of the north. Lewis, tliankless for the aid which had saved him, swung back at once to his older purpose, and seized the opening which the strife gave him for carrying out those plans of con- quest over the Normans which had been so fatally interrupted by his schemes on Lorraine. His success was complete, for marching upon Eouen under pre- text of aiding the young duke against th(i pagan reaction, he became master of the whole of Nor- mandy without a blow. The sudden turn of affairs in France may have told on the other side of the Channel; it was at any rate at this juncture, in 994, that Eadmund rallied to a new attack on the Danelaw ; and it was while Normandy lay at the feet of Lewis that he succeeded in dri\dDg 273 CHAP. VI. Wessex and the Danelaw. 937- 955. Recovery of the Danelavx I^i 274 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. ;,» ll^iii CHAR VI. out Olaf, Sihtric's sou, and in again reducing it le&i^l *^ submission.' lis" ^^^ *^^ measures which followed its conquest CiM ®^^^^^'®^^ *^a* t^i«5 young king possessed the political and as well as the military ability of his house. What Sirath-ciyde. most hindered the complete reduction of the Dane- law was the hostility to the English rule of the states north of it, the hostility of Bernicia, of Strath-Clyde, and above all of the Scots. The confederacy against ^Ethelstan had been brought together by the intrigues of the Scot-king, Con- stantine ; and though Constantine in despair at his defeat left the throne for a monastery, the policy of his son Malcolm was much the same as his father's.- Eadmund was no sooner master of the Danelaw than he dealt with this difficulty in the north. The English blood of the Bernicians was probably drawing them at last to the English monarch, for after Brunanburh we hear nothing of their hostility. But Cumbria was far more important than Bernicia, for it was through Cumbrian territory that the Ostmen could strike most easily across Britain into the Danelaw. The Cumbria, however, with which Eadmund dealt was far from being the old Cumbrian kmgdom from the Eden to the Kibble, the southern part of which remained attached to the Northum- brian kingdom, even in the hands of the Danes, while the northern part, now known as Westmoringl-land, ' Hf "^"If^^t its two kings, Olaf, Sihtric's son, and Ragnald, son of feihtric s brother, Guthferth. Eng. Chron. (Winch.), a. 2 Skene, "Celtic Scotland," i. 360-361. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. the land of the men of the western moors, had been colonized by Norwegian settlers/ Though a fragment of the Cumbrian kingdom which the sword of Ecgfrith had made ^ rertiained to the last in the hands of Northumbria, itis bounds had been cut shorter and shorter. Under Eadberht the Northumbrian supremacy had reached as far as the district of Kyle in Ayrshire : and the capture of Alclwyd by his allies, the Picts, in 756, seemed to leave the rest of Strath-Clyde at liis mercy. But from that moment the tide had turned ; a great defeat shattered Eadberht's hopes ; and in the anarchy which followed his reign district after district must have been torn from the weakened grasp of North- umbria, till the cessation of the line of her bishops at Whithern ' tells that her frontier had been pushed back almost to Carlisle. But even after the land that re- mained to her had been in English possession for nearly a century and a half, it was still no English ] and. Its great landowners were of English blood,' and as the Church of Lindisfarne was richly endowed here, its priesthood was probably English too. But the con- quered Cumbrians had been left by Ecgfrith on the soil, and in its local names we find few traces of any migration of the Engle over the moors from the east. There was little indeed to invite settlers save along 1 In 966, "Thored, Gunnar's son, harried Westmoringa-land," Eng. Chron., a. 966. 2 Between 670-675. See "Making of England," p. 358. (A.S.G.) 3 Badulf, the last bishop of Whithern of the Ajiglo-Saxon succession whose name is preserved, was consecrated in 791. Sim. Durh. ad. ann. (A. S. G.) ^ Robertson, " Scotland under Early Kings," vol. ii. p. 434. I 2 275 CHAP. vr. Wessex and the Danelaw. 937- 955. The land of the Western Moors. fi * I ■ 276 CHAP. TI. 937- 955. The Norwegian settlers. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. _ the valleys of the Lune or the Kibble ; elsewhere the th'eTifefal ^^^^ ^'^^^ ^^^^^^ Unbroken stretch of woodland and moorland and marsh which covered our Lancashire must have been almost as wild and unpeopled as the dales scattered among the " Western-Moors " where St. Hubert found a ^^ desert " for his hermitage. Carlisle indeed had carried on an unbroken life from its Eoman and Celtic days ; but it is doubtful whether life had as yet returned to the '' ceaster " on the Lune, our Lancaster; and it was not till the tenth centurj' that Eadward could set up his fort amidst the ruins of Mancunium. The ^^ parting," however, of Deira in 876 amono- Halfdene's warriors drove English fugitives for refuo-e into the desert land. One such we see in a certain Alfred, who ^^came, fearing the pirates, over the western hills, and sought pity from S. Cuthbert and bishop Cutheard, praying that they should give him some lands." ^ But it was only to meet other assail- ants. Along the Irish Channel the boats of the Nor- wegian pirates were as thick as those of the Danish corsairs on the eastern coast ; and the Isle of Man, which they had conquered and half colonized, served as a starting-point from which the marauders made their way to the opposite shores. Their settlements reach as far northward as Dumfriesshire, and south- ward perhaps to the little group of northern villages which we find in the Cheshire peninsula of the Wirral. But it is in the Lake district and in the north of our Lancashire that they lie thickest. ^ Ormside and 1 Sim. Durh. "Hist. S. Cuthb." (Twysden), p. 74. 2 "The Lake district seems to have been almost exclusively THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Ambleside, Kettleside and Silverside, recall the " side " or settle of Orm and Hamel, of Ketyl and Soelvar, as Ulverston and Ennerdale tell of Olafr and Einar. Buthar survives in Buttermere, Geit in Gates- garth, and Skogul in Skeggles Water. The Wikings Solvar and Boll and Skall may be restirg beneath their '' haugr '' or tomb-mound at Silver How, Bull How, and Scale How.^ While this outlier of northern life was being planted about the lakes, the Britons of Strath-Clyde w^ere busy pushing their conquests to the south ; in Ead- mund's day indeed we find their border carried as far as the Derwent;- but whether from the laro-e space of Cumbrian ground they had w^on or no, the name of Strath- Clyde from this time disappears, and is replaced by the name of Cumbria.^ AMiether as Strath-Clyde or Cumbria, its rulers had bc^en among the opponents of the West-Saxon advance ; they were among the confederates against Eadward as they were among the confederates against ^thelstan ; and it was no doubt in return for a like junction in the hos- tilities against himself that Eadmund in 945 '' harried peopled by Celts and Norwegians. The Norwegian suffixes, gill, garth, haugh, thwaite, foss, and feH, are abundant ; while the Danish forms, thorpe and toft, are almost unknown ; and the Anglo-Saxon test-words, ham, ford, worth, and ton, are com- paratively rare." Taylor, *' Words and Places," p. 115. ^ Ibid. p. 116. For the Norwegian settlements in the lakes, see Ferguson's ** Northmen in Cumberland and Westmoreland." 2 Skene, '' Celtic Scotland," i. 362. 3 Westmoringa-land survives, little changed in area, in our Westmoreland ; our Cumberland is the fragment of the Strath- Clyde or Cumbrian kingdom which remained to England after the rest had gone to the Scottish kings. 277 CHAP. VI. Wessex and tne Danelaw. 937- 955. »«J if Cumbria given to Malcolm. m f SI I, ij iiiil ^^^ THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. cH._P.vr. all Cumberland." But he turned his new conquest ttee??^. adroxtly to account by using it to bind to lumself the |37. most dangerous among his foes ; for he granted the - greater part of it to the Scottish king on the%erms that Ma^olm should be " his fellow-worker by sea and land In the erection of this northern dependency we see the same forces acting, though on a more distant field which had already begun the disintegration of the English realm m the formation of the great ealdor- manries of the eastern coast. Its immediate results however were advantageous enough. Scot and Welsh- man, whose league had till now formed the chief force of opposition to English supremacy in the north were set at variance ; the road of the Ostmen wa^ closed ; whi e the fidelity of the Scot-king seemed to alnT ^r"/"P"^'''"*^^^ ^^^^^-8- Cumbria against revot without the support of his "foUow- worker in the south. ''"^f-'^- Hard as Eadmund had been pressed by these outer troubles, he had been far from neglecting the work had been mainly directed to the security of order and d rr'"; y^'^f '"^^* "^*^ *^^ --« f-midaUe be dealt, and his attempts to reform it, have been dready noticed in the sketch given of the history of English justice.^ In spite of all bounds and limitations TstrlSd I ''f\ ^' ''-'''''' ^'^"°— ^^^ '- restrained, the feud in Eadmund's day remained wholly incompatible with the new social'^orderXt ^ Eng. Chron. (Winch.), a. 945. ^ See ch. i. pp. 24-28. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. had been developed alike by Christianity and by the o-rowino; sense of a common national lil'e. Early justice had rested on the family bond, on the theory of the kinsfolk bound together by ties of mutual re- sponsibility for vengeance and aid in self-defence. But as society became more complex it outgrew in great measure these earlier ties of blood ; and the concep- tion of pei^onal responsibility which Christianity had taught helped to weaken the bonds of kinship. Ead- mund shared in the " horror of the unrighteous and manifold fightings " which was felt in his day, and in his attempt to lay on the man-slayer himself the whole ; burden of his deed, to free his kinsfolk from the obligation of bearing the feud, and to protect them from the vengeance of the slain man's kin,^ he not only attacked the custom of the feud, but. struck a heavy blow at the old theory of kinship with its traditional responsibilities. From questions of home government, however, the young king Avas soon called back to outer affairs. For the moment the triumphs of the two cousins on either side of the Channel seemed to have realized the hopes of J^thelstan. In England and France alike the men of the north lay at the feet of Lewis and Eadmund, for the presence of the northern primate and northern Jarls, at the English court for the first time since Brunanburh, showed that the Danelaw was again subdued.^ But the Danelaw had hardly given its allegiance to Eadmund when 1 LI. Eadmund. Thorpe, " Anc. Laws,'* i. 249. 2 For Wulfstan, see Cod. Dip. 409. For the Jarls " Scule " and '^Halfdene," Cod. Dip. 410. 279 CHAP. vr. Wessez and the Danelaw. 037- 955. Death of Eadmund. k ' 1 280 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. -tP^vz. a sudden revolution wrested Normandy from hi. t^'eW- eousm s grasp. A fleet under the King of Denma^' |3.. Harald Blaatand, moored off the 'cotent n nd ~ rotd th' n"*Y r '™- TH^ Normans gathet: round the Danish host, while Duke Hughf jealous of the power Lewis had won from his c^niuest on the Seme, jomed the king's foes; and in 945 a victory of their united forces on th^ Dive broke th Franhsh yoke. Not only was the king's army de! feated, but Lewis himself was taken in the fij and given as a prisoner into the hands of Duke Hugh The demand of Eadmund for his cousin's liberatfon shows that the two kings had been acting in co" " against the northmen, while the answer of Hu^hl notab e as the first of a series of such defiances which from that day to this have passed between the lands ZTvT '' *'i^ "'^'^"^^- " ' -" ^^« ^<^^ the Englishmen's threats ! " said the duke. " Let them come and they will soon find what men of the Frank" andT..,vf T. '' ''^''' '^'' '"^g^* °f '^^ ^r-«ks and pay for their arrogance ! " Master of all England at twenty-four Eadmund could hardly have passed by a hallenge such as this. But the quarrel was suddenly m the M^ ; t'V ^' '" '^^^*^^ '' Pucklechurch m th May of 946, Leofa, a robber whom the king had bamshec from the land, entered the hall, seated\im- selt at the royal board, and drew his sword on the cup bearer when he bade him retire. Eadmund sprang m wrath to his thegn's aid, and, seizing Leofa by th^ • (Hlrd;^'22^• ^'^"^'•^' ^- '''■ ^"'- ^^'- "«-*. Eeg.- THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. hair, flung liim to the ground, but in the struggle the robber drove his dagger to the king's heart. With the death of Eadmund a new figure comes to the front of English aSairs, and the story of Abbot Dunstan of Glastonbury gives us a welcom(3 olimpse into the inner life of England at a time when history hides it from us beneath the weary details of wars with the Danes.' In the heart of Somerset, at the 1 The primary authority for Dunstan's life is an anonymous biography, written about a.d. 1000, a few years aftei- his death, by a Saxon priest. Professor Stubbs, who has collected the various biographies in his "Memorials of S. Durstan," has made it probable that this is a work of an exiled scholar from Liege, who was present in England at the archbishop's death, and was living under his protection. A second work, by Adelard of Ghent, was drawn up in the form of lessons to be read in the service of the monastery at Canterbury, and is hardly of later date than the first. After the Conquest a third life, much expanded, was drawn up by Osbern, and a fourth by Eadmer, both monks of Canterbury, while a littJe later on William of Malmesbury compiled a fifth, whose purpose was to bring out more fully Dunstan's connexion with Glastonbury. Even in the few years that passed between Dunstan's death and the life by Adelard a luxuriant growth of legend had taken place; but it is to the three last biographers that the wilder stories which gathered round the archbishop's name are mainly due. The life by the priest of Liege is simply disfigured by verbosity, and bears traces of deriving most of the earlier biographic details from the talk of Dunstan himself ; its infor- mation and its silences (as in the history of Eadgar) are both probably due to this source. But even this antedates the monastic struggle, which had become so important at the time of its composition, by confusing it with the strife in Eadvrig's reign. ("Memor. of Dunstan," Intro, p. vii.) Such as they are how- ever, all these lives are of value for a time when we have, save in the meagre annals of the Chronicle, no contemporary materials but these and a few other hagiographies. (Stubbs, " Memorials of Dunstan," Intro, p. ix.) 281 CHAP. VI. Wessex and the Danelaw 937- 955. Dunstan. ■I 9M.': «■ hi • li 282 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. m cH^vP^vi. base of the Tor, a hill that rose out of the waste of Z%^f^l flood-drowned fen which then filled the valley of 937. Glastonbury, lay in ^thelstan's day the estate of — Heorstan, a man of wealth and noble blood the kinsman of three bishops of the time and of many thegns of the court, if not of the king himself ^ It was in Heorstan's hall that his son Dunstan, as yet a fair diminutive child with scant but beautiful hair, caught the passion for music that showed itself m his habit of carrying harp in hand on journey or visit, as in his love for the "vain son^s of ancient heathendom, the trifling legends, and funeral chants," ^ relics doubtless of a mass of older poetry that time has reft from us. But nobler strains than those of ancient heathendom were round the child as he grew to boyhood.' Alfred's strife with the north- 1 Bishop Elfege of Winchester and Kynesige of Lichfield were his kinsmen (see Saxon biographer, "Memorials," pp 13 39) bo, says Adelard, {ibid. 55) was Archbishop ^thelm of Canter- bury but this may be a mistake for Bishop .^thelgar of Crediton For his km among the <• Palatini," see Saxon Biogr. " Memor " F-V , f^^^''^^^^' ^thelstan's niece, was also related to him (ibid. p. 17). ^ didii';'''°^'-^"^^^!T-" P- ")' ""^-'t^gentilitatisvanissima didicisse carmma, et historiarum frivolas colere incantationum Hc'ciiin.s. (^theUani) imperii temporibus oritur puer," says the Saxon biographer ("Memor." p. 6). The English Chronide (though n what IS probably a later insertion) takes " oritur " for " is born " ^ar 924 or 92a. But if so, his appearance and expulsion from ^thel tan s court must have been before he was sixteen • his appointment as Abbot of Glastonbury at any rate brfo e Eadmunds death in 946, when he was still but twenty-two and THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. men was fresh in the memory of all. Athelney lay a few miles off across the Polden hills ; and Wedmore, where the final frith was made and the chrism-fillet of Guthrum unloosed, rose out of the neighbourino' marshes. Memories of Ine met the boy as he passed to school at Glastonbury, which still remained notable as a place of pilgrimage, though but a few secular priests clung to the house which the king had founded, and its lands had for the most part been stripped from it.^ The ardour of Dunstan's temper was seen in the eagerness with which he plunged into the study of letters ; and his knowledge bt^came at last so famous in the neighbourhood that news of it reached the court. Dunstan was called iDhere, no doubt as one of the young nobles who received their training in attendance on the king during boyhood and early youth ; ^ but his appearance was the signal for a burst of jealousy among the royal thegns, though many were kinsmen of his own ; he was forced to his career as guide and counsellor of Eadred must have been between the ages of twenty-two and thirty-one. This seems very improbable, and the ''oritur" may perhaps be fairly construed " rises into notice," which would throw back his birth into the days of Eadward. Granting this, Adelard's stateraent that Archbishop ^thelm, who died in the same year with Eadward, first brought him to court, may be true ('' Memor." p. 55 and Introd. p. Ixxviii.). ^ It had a church ''built by no art of man"; to which ^thelstan went on pilgrimage, and where " Hiberniensium peregrini " came to visit the tomb of a younger Patrick, bringing their books with them, which Dunstan read (Sax. Biog. " Memor " pp. 7, 10, 11). 2 His age shows that this must be the meaning of the Saxon biographer's " mter regios proceres et palatinos principes electus." ("Memor." p. 21.) 283 CHAP. VI. Wessex and the Danelaw. 937- 955. "« I' "1 11 284 CHAP. VI. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Wessex and the Danelaw. 937- 955. Made Abbot of withcbuw, and when he was again summoned on the accession of Eadmund his rivals not only drove him from the kmg's train, but threw him from his horse as he rode through the marshes, and with the wild passion of their age trampled him underfoot in the ^ooot Of ,. ^^^ '?"tr''ige brought fever, and in the bitterness of Giu^toniunj. disappointment and shame Dunstan rose from his bed of sickness a monk.^ But in England the monastic profession was at this time little more than a vow of celibacy and clerical life,^ and his devotion took no asce^c turn. His nature in fact was sunny, versatile, artistic, full of strong affections and capable of inspir- ing others with affections as strong. Throughout his life he won the love of women, and in these earlier years of retirement at Glastonbury he became the spiritual guide of a woman of high rank who lived only tor charity and the entertainment of pilorims " He ever clave to her and loved her in wondimis fashion." yuick-witted, of tenacious memory, a ready and fluent speaker, gay and genial of address, an artist, a musi- cian an indefatigable worker alike at books or handi- craft, his sphere of activity widened as the wealth of his devotee was placed unreservedly at his command. We see him followed by a train of pupils, busy with itera ure, harping, painting, designing. In one plea- sant tale of these days a lady summons him to her house to design a robe which she is embroidering, and ^ Sax. Biog. ("Memor." p. 12) ^r!Z^:^L^^ ''^'' ^^ '^' ^- ^— ed as a ' See Stubbs, "Mem. of Dunstan," Introd. Ixxxiii.-y THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. as Dunstan bends with lier maidens over their toil the harp which he has hung on the wall sounds without mortal touch tones which the startled ears around frame into a joyous antiphon. But the tie which bound Dunstan to this scholar-life was broken l)y the death of his patroness ; and towards the close of Eadmund's reign the young scholar was again called to the court. Even in iEthelstan's day he seems to have been known to both the younger sons of Eadward the Elder ; and with one of these, Eadred, his friendship bi3came of the closest kind. But the old jealousies revived ; his hfe was again in danger ; and the game seemed so utterly lost that Dunstan threw himself on th e protec- tion of some envoys who had come at this time from the German court of Otto to the English kino-.i He was preparing to return with them to their home in Saxony when an unlooked-for chance restored him suddenly to power. A red-deer which Eadmund was chasing over Mendip dashed down the Cheddar cliffs, and the king only checked his horse on the brink of the ravine. In the bitterness of anticipatcid death he had repented of his injustice to Dunstan ;; and on his return from the chase the young priest was sum- moned to his presence. "Saddle your horse," said Eadmund, " and ride with me ! " The royal train swept over the marshes to Dunstan's home; and greeting him with the kiss of peace, the king seated him in the abbot's chair as Abbot of Glas ton bury. ^ 1 '' Regni orientis nuncii cum rege tunc hospitantes " Sax Biog. (- Memor." p. 23). I follow the suggestion of Professor Stubbs as to this ** Eastern Realm." 2 Kemble places this before 940, on faith of a charter (Cod. 285 CHAP. vr. Wessex and the Sanelaw. 955. 286 CHAr. VI. Wessex and the Danelaw. 937- »5S. Eadred. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. From that moment Dunstan may have exercised some influence on public affairs ; but it was not till Eadmund's murder that his influence became supreme Eadmund was but twenty-five years old when he died ; and as his children, Eadwig and Eadgar, were too young to follow him on the throne, the crown passed to his last surviving brother, the ^thelin^r Eadred ; Eadred had long been bound by a close friendship to Dunstan ; and a friendship as close bound the young abbot to the mother of the kin^ the wife of Eadward the Elder, who seems to hav" wielded the main influence at Eadred's court. It was of even greater moment that Dunstan seems to have been linked by a close intimacy with the " Half-King " iEthelstan. The fact that ^thelstan's wife .Elfwen is said to have been the foster-mother of Eadgar => as well as his own elevation, proves the influence of the East-Anghan ealdorman in the reign of Eadmund • he was in fact already " Primarius," " a post which reminds us of the office of Alfred as " Secundarius " as possibly a germ of the later Justiciarship and which at any rate placed him near to the kina himself in the government of the realm. Under Eadred his influence became yet greater ; he seems to Dip. 384) of that year ; but Professor Stubbs regards his signa- Cod "t>' lnr"1°" "^^ '=^^*^"'y «'^-^ - '^I'bot in 946 r /o?Vr ^' ^""^ ^'^ nomination was probably not much earber (Stubbs, « Mem. of Dunstan," Intro, p. kxx.). ^ Eng. Chron. a. 946. ' 2 Robertson, "Hist. Essays," 180. 3 Sax. Biogr. ('^Memor. of Dunstan "), p 44 "Ouin.^.n. ■f THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 287 CHAP. VI. Wessex and the Danelaw. ©37- 955. realm. have displaced Wulfgar, wliose signature through Eadmund's days had preceded his own, as the leadino* counsellor of the crown, and signs first of all secular nobles through the coming reign.^ It was with the support of ^thelstan that Dunstan from this moment stood among Eadred's advisers. Of his political work indeed we know little, but The fourfold we can hardly mistake his hand in the solemn pro- clamation which announced the kino-'s crownino* at Kingston.^ The crowning of Eadred indeed was a fresh step forward towards a national kingship. His election was the first national election, the first elec- tion by a witenagemot where Briton and Dane and Englishmen were alike represented, where Welsh under-kings and Danish jarls sate side by side wdth English nobles and bishops. His coronation was in the same way the first national coronation, the first * See the charters of these reigns in the Codex Diplomaticus. 2 Cod. Dip. 411, a grant to the "pedisequus" Wulfric, apparently one of a number of coronation grants, at any rate of the first year, "quo sceptra diadematum Angul-Saxna cum Nordhymbris et Paganorum cum Brettonibus (Eadredus) guber- nabat," is prefaced by what looks like a general proclamation of the new sovereign. " Concedente gratia Dei . . contigit post obitum Eadmundi regis, qui regimina regnorum Angul- Saxna, et Nordhymbra, Paganorum Brettonumque, septem annorum intervallo regaliter gubernabat, quod Eadred frater ejus uterinus, electione optimatum subrogatus, pontifical! auctoritate eodem anno catholice est rex et rector ad regna quadripartiti regiminis consecratus, qui denique rex in villa quae dicitur regis, Cyngestun, ubi consecratio peracta est, plura plurimis perenniter condonavit carismata." This is attested by the two archbishops, Odo and Wulfstan, ten bishops, " Howael regulus, Marcant, Cadmo," and by " Urm, Imorcer eorl, Grim, AndcoU eorl," and " Dunstan abbud." /*/,» 288 CHAP Yl. Wessex and the Danelaw. ©37- 955. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. union of the primate of the north and the primate of the south in setting the crown on the head of one who was to rule from the Forth to the Channel ' In the phrase which describes the new king as designated by the choice of the nobles, and by the authority of the bishops consecrated kin^ " we may catch a foreshadowing of the constitutional theory which Dunstan afterwards embodied in the crown- ing and coronation oath of Eadgar at Bath, as his at- tempt to find a general name for the royal dominions m the "Fourfold Eealm " shows a fresh advance towards his final conception of a Kingdom of England.^ 1 At the death of ^thelstan, Northumbria stood apart with xts own under-k.ng so that such a Witenagemot was impossible Eadred hke his brother, commonly signs himself "Rex Anglorum," and styles himself "Rex Anglonim c.terarumq^e T? 1- I, ,. , aenne. Ihe "peoples surrounding" the Enghsh are strictly the " Britons," " Pagans " or Danes o{ ml Bntain and "Northumbrians." Amon^ the variation we find 'rex et pnmicerius totius Albionis," Cod. Dip. 1168-Ind in a number of other charters "totius Albionis monar'chus t ThT ""1 Not'' "r ^"'^°'^^^'" ''■ "«^- I" ^« Sli IS be quem Northymbra paganorumque seu c^eterarum scentro provmciarum Rex Regum omnipotens sublimavit, quique pr^I trT' tdT^^?r r^^ '^'^"'^^'"'"^ larga'Ln'u sSnt trat, Cod. D.p. 424. But another charter of the same venr r' T *'l^ "Imperator" must be taken in a rh'torica rather than technical use; "Eadredus rex Ar.„I„ lAetorical Nordhanymbra, et Paganorum l^perato' SZ"' '■"*°''^"' pugnator," Cod. Dip. L, where ^XZ'. t^wXeZ Sr'i: ..tb""^^'"" "^*""*^'^ "^ *^« Dane of mL Britain In 955 however the style became really Imperial ^Angul^Seaxna Eadred cyninget casere totius Brittanni? Cod' THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 289 937- 95S. Eric Hiring. (1 Eadred's first year was a time of quiet. After chap. vr. the peace with Eadmund, Olaf, Sihtric's son, so Z'^^fSi long the foe of the English kings but now ap- * *"*'"'■ parently acting as their under-king, seems to have reigned beyond the Tees, while Ragnald, Guthferth's son, ruled in our Yorkshire. The north submitted quietly to Eadred's rule, while the Scots renewed the oath of " fellow- workmanship " which they had given to his predecessor in exchange for the cession f Cumbria.^ The country however soon became restless enough to call for the king's presence; and in the following year, 947,2 Eadred advanced to " Taddenescylf," and there received the oath of personal allegiance from the Northumbrian witan. Among them the chronicle makes no mention of any under-kings at all, and Wulfstan stands alone as the foremost man of the north. But formal as the recognition was, neither witan nor archbishop were long bound by it.^ "Within a little while" (apparently before the year was out) " they belied It all, both pledge and oath."* They may have been tempted to a rising by the presence "of the Danish king, Harald Blaatand, or Blue-Tooth off their coast. The Danish kingdom which had baen ' Eng. Chron. a. 946. ^ Eng. Chron. (Worcester), a. 947. ^ Wulfstan however must have been at Eadred's court in 947 J48 and 949, as he signs charters in all these years CCod Din' I' 'if V'' ''''' "«2. 1163, 424, 425, I26), L th.tL can hardly have taken any active part in this rising Eng. Chron. (Wore), a. 947. This is the only chronicle that gives much mfomation as to this reign : that of Winchester tells only Eadred's accession and death. V ill? >A 290 CHAP. VI. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 937- 955, and thp fl. r ^* rr ' conquest of England • the E. t 1 .^T^*^ '"^^ triumphant aHke in he Baltic and the British Channel Fortunatelv 1-wever for Eadred, Harald's efforts in tie lit ^ CTnTr^l^ ?^^^*^^ *^ *^^ support ofl Gorman Duchy, which was still hard pressed by its neighbours and in which he hoped to find a bat for a Danish conquest of Western Frankknd Bu though bent on this aim, he still found room f King of Semland in the Baltic, and if, after the com pletion of his work in Normandy in 945 he turn! to re-establishing the power nf tl "i,^' /f t"™*?'! Brit., it woull accouTfllh^t 'XtT 1^" ILtmgV ''' ^-*^-^^^- - this^i-tul t It is possible that the sight of their English ruler had roused fresh hopes of independence in the br a the Northumbrians. The house of J^lfred w : TdeUe^^^^^^ 1^ '' '^'' P^^^'-l -^-^^ and degeneracy, which was to reveal itself in the pre mature manhood and equally premature deaths f Eadwig and Eadgar, in the weakness of ^Ithelred and the feeble frame of the childless Confessor. Th u . Eadred was m the prime of life, he was suffering from 1 The later English chronicles confound this Vri. v,- ■ with the Norwegian, Eric Blood-axe Zl i! ""^' Bremen, ii. 15 '"Hara.dus Hiring fil L'TuT ^'T ^' Eric (h'lven out THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. a disease which in a few years hurried hini to the tomb ; and the Danish warriors may well have looked with scorn on a sick man's sword.' But no trace of weakness showed itself in the king's action. As soon as winter was over he marched in 948 on the north, and " ravaged all Northumberland, for that they had taken Eric for their king." ^ The firing of the minster at Eipon, where AVilfrid had lavished the resources of liis art, and which had escaped the ruin of the Danish storm, made this raid memorable in the annals of the north ; the king's force was too overwhelming for re- sistance, and it was only as he withdrew to the south over the wrecked country that the Danes ventured to gather in pursuit. They fell on his rear at Chesterford, and so heavy were the West-Saxon losses that Eadred in a burst of wrath threatened to turn back " and wholly ruin the land." But his threat was (Enough. The Danes abandoned Eric, made compensation ^-o Eadred for the men who had fallen, and a^ain submitted to his rule.^ ^ In the rise and fall of Eric we may perhaps see a strife not only between the parties of resistance and of submission, but also between the Danish and Nor- wegian settlers who shared the Danelaw, for hardly had he been forsaken, when in 949 Olaf, Sihtric's son, reappeared in Northumbria, where he ruled for the next three years.^ Olaf no doubt ruled as a 1 See Saxon Biography of Dunstan ; Stubbs, " Memorials of Dunstan/' p. 31. 2 Eng. Chron. (Wore), 948 In 949 the Welsh, Danes, and Northumbrian jarh united for the last time in attesting a charter of Eadred. ^ This is from a late Peterborough Chron. (E), a. 949, as our U2 291 CHAP. VI. Wessex and the Danelaw. 937- 955. A rrcHt of A rch bishop IVtilfsfan. 292 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 937- 955. cHAP^yi. sub-king under Eadred, for there is no record of th/B^efat. further strife ; and the king must throughout these — - years have been quietly getting a firmer grip on the Danelaw. In 952 indeed he ventured on an act which marked him as its master. The submission alter Chesterford had no doubt won pardon for Wulf- stan's share in the revolt that so soon followed his oath-taking at Taddenescylf, as for the share of his fellow-rebels ; but to the English court, where the young king and his ministers were alike swayed by a religious revival, the forswearing of an archbishop took a different colour from that of a Dane, nor had the primate's course during the years that followed been free from charges of fresh disloyalty.^ He " had been often accused to the king," but it was not till 952 that he was seized, and brought as a prisoner before Eadred in the fortress of Jedburgh. ^ The arrest of the archbishop was due no doubt to suspicions of his complicity in a fresh rising in Nortli- umbna, where Olaf was in the same year driven out by his subjects and Eric Hiring again received as their king.' Of the strife that followed through information even from the Worcester Chronicle ceases here, savo .«, . . Wulf Stan's arrest in 952. Skene, " Celt. Scot." i 363, Identifies this Olaf with Sihtric's son; Earle, "ParaL »-nron. .118, note, makes him another Olaf. o.t ^V.^}^^^ '^'°' Wulfstan's presence at Eadred's court in 947 and 948 is hardly compatible with any active sharing in the nsing of the north during these years. He is there still in' 949 (Cod. Dip. 424, 425, 426, 427); but I do not see his name aiterwards. 2 Eng. Chron. (Wore), a. 952. He was released two years after on the death of Eric, ib. 954. 3 This is again from the late Peterborough Chronicle, and may ne North- umhrkin earldom. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 293 937- 955. the next two years we know only the dose, the chap. vi. renewed expulsion of Eric, and the fresh submission of wes^ and the Danelaw to Eadred.^ But short and uneventful as the struggle was, it was the last ; for with the sub- mission of 954 the long work of Alfred's house was done. Dogged as his fight had been, the Dane at last owned himself beaten ; from the moment of Eadred's final triumph all resistance came to an end; and the close of the under-kingdom proclaimed that the north was brought into the general organization of the EngHsh realm. The policy of the great ealdormanries however triumphed again over that of national union. Though Eadred in 954 "took," like ^thelstan, ^' to the kingdom of the Northumbrians,"^ he made no attempt to restore the direct rule of ^thelstan's early years. He contented himself with reducing the under-kingdom to an earldom, and governing it through an Englishman instead of a Dane. Oswulf, who had till now held a semi-independent position as ''high-reeve" of Bernicia, was set over both Bernicia and Deira as earl of the Northumbrians. Dunstan seems to have accomj)anied the king possibly be a mere blunder for Eric's reception in 949, as given in the Worcester Chronicle (D), which knows nothing: of these later events. 1 The account in the Chronicle differs widely here from that of the later Saga of Hakon the Good (Laing's " Sea-kings," i. 318), which takes this Eric for Blood-axe, the son of Harald Fair-hair, who enters Northumbria for plunder, encounters a king named Olaf, " whom King Eadmund had set to defend the hind," and falls in battle against fearful odds. [According to the editors of the Corp. Poet. Boreale (G. Vigfusson and F. York Powell) a yet earlier tradition also points to Eric Blood-axe, i. 259, ii. 489 (A.S.G.).] 2 Eng. Chron. (Wore), a. 954. •294 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. ■lU Z~Z ^?:-*"^^^-'^ -fter its subjugation, at least as Z'h^e^^. for as Chester-le-Street, where he saw the remains III: ^^ .^*- C'flibert still resting in the temporary refuge ^ which they had found after their removal from ctti:;. ,r!'fTl ' '^^ ^* ^'•'^^ P^^^^^^J^ '^'^^^^ his counsel • that Eadred resolved to put an end to the subject royalty of the north and to set up the new earldom of the Northumbrians. The abbot's post probably answered in some way to that of the later chancellor;^ and as we find the hoard in his charge at the end of the reign,' he must then have combined with this the ofHce of the later treasurer Of the details of his political work however during this period nothing is told us. But ot the intellectual and literary work which he was carrying on throughout the reign we are allowed • to see a little more. It was in fact in these lime years that the more important part of his educational work was done. If much of his time was necessarily spent at Winchester or with the royal court, the bulk of it seems still to have been gi4n to his Abbey of Glastonbury, and to the school winch was growing up mthin its walls. He himself led the way in the work of teaching. Tradition told ot the kmdhness with which he won the love of his scholars,^ the psalms sung with them as they journeved ^ Stubbs, " Mem. of Dunst." p. 379. "' In 949 at the close of a grant to Eeculver we find " E^o Dunst^n mdagnus abbas rege Eadredo imperante banc do jfo meo hereditariam Cartulam diotitando composui, et propn" digitorum articulis persciipsi " (Cod Dip 425) ^ ^^ Stubbs, " Mem. of Dunst." Introd. Ixxxvi.' Ixxxvii. It IS an amusing contrast to the common portraiture of i^unstan that at his own Canterbury a hundred years after hi THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 295 CHAP. VI. Wessex and the Danelaw. 937- 955. together, the vision that comforted Dunstan for the loss of one little scholar as he saw the child borne lieavenwards in the arms of angels. In the library of Glastonl)ury some interesting memorials of his _ scholastic work were preserved even to the time of the Eeformation, books on the Apocalypse, a (Collection of canons drawn from his Irish teachers, passages transcribed from Frank and Eopian law-books, notes on measure and numbers, a phamphlet on grammar, a mass of biblical quotations, tables for calculating Easter, and a book on Ovid's Art of Love which jostled oddly with an English homily on the Invention of the Cross.' From its remote site in the west, Glastonbury threw n, mflaenee. off an offshoot into Central Britain. In 955 iEthel- ""^'f'"'' wold, Dunstan's chief scholar and assistant in his educational work, received from Eadred a gift of the Abbey of Abingdon,^ a house which we noted as death he was regarded as the patron and protector of schoolboys. Once, in Anselm's time, when the yearly whipping-day arrived for the Cathedral school the poor little wretches crowded weeping to his shrine and sought aid from their " dear father Dunstan." Dunstan it was, so every schoolboy believed, who sent the masters to sleep, and then set them quarrelling till th«i whipping blew over. 1 " Memor. of Dunst." Intr. cx.-xii. " Several of thcise pieces," says Prof. Stubbs, " contain British glosses, and furnish some of the earliest specimens of Welsh." 2 Chron. Abingd. (ed. Stevenson), vol. i. 124. .^thelwold ''disposuit ultra-marinas partes adire, causa se imbuendi seu sacris libris seu monasticis disciplinis perfectius : sed prsevenit venerabilis regina Eadgifu, mater regis Eadredi, ejus conamina, dans consilium regi ne talem virum sineret egredi de regno suo. Placuit tunc regi Eadredo, suadente matre sua, dare venerabili Athelwoldo quondam locum, vocabulo Abbandun." "V^it. ^thel- 29(J THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. cHAP^vi. growing up in the eighth century by the sid. - f teef- the Than.es, and which\ad since bL Xd by th ||7- mcursions of the Danes. Settling there with a few - clerks from Glastonbury/ the new abbot soon g tLrld a school whose activity naore than rivalled^hat o the house Iron, which it sprang. From these two Mtrcia In both the impulse given by Jilfred had ■ been checked, but not arrested, by the stress of wa So arge a part of the mass of our early literatm. has been lost that we can hardly draw any conclu on from the scarcity of its remains in the p'^^riod wh L folJowed the king's death ; indeed the' larger and more hterary tone of the English Chronicle through he rejgn of Eadward the Elder is a sufficient pro^of that the earlier mtellectual movement had still its representatives through the first years of the strugg tie r r 'T .^''''' "'^^ ^^ ^thelstan's ty he Chromcle smks mto meagre annals, a fortunate chance reveals to us in thp Ka+ti. o '^^uudze sona« P^.i n 1 • ' battle-songs and death- songs embedded in its pages, the existence of a mass of English verse of which all memory would ot" wise have perished. Side by side, too, with th s statelier song we catch glimpses of a wilder Ind woldi ChroB. Abingdon (ed. Stevenson), vol ii 257 T);^ tl writ " ne exeas regno " already e«st 2 '^ *^" OsgalutTolltrr t:r '^"'^^ '^^^^'^^ '^ «'-*-'^. ^^e est etLdri;„:derund:i"''?^^^^^^^^ "^ ^^^-^^' THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 297 CHAP. VI. more romantic upgrowth of popular verse, which wrapped in an atmosphere of romance the lives of ^^^ff^^gf^^ kings such as ^Ethelstan and Eadgar.^ ^_ Dunstan's own youth indeed, his zeal foT letters, — * and the feict that he found books and teachers to meet his zeal, show that the impulse which iElfred had given was far from having spent its force in his grandson's days. But there can be qo doubt that the foundation of the two schools at Glastonbury and Abingdon gave to this impulse a new strength and guidance. It is from them that we must date the rise of the second old English literature, a litera- ture which bears the stamp of Wessex, as the fir$t had borne the stamp of Northumbria. In poetry this literature was, no doubt, inferior to its predecessor ; there was nothing to rival the verse of Cadmon or the poems of Cynewulf. But the later time may justly claim as its own the creation of a statelj' historic verse of w4iich fragments remain in the battle-songs of Brunanburh and Maldon, or the death- songs of Eadgar or Eadward. The love of poetry was seen even in the series of translations to which we really owe our knowledge of the earlier Northumbrian song. Save for a few lines embedded in Bseda or graven on 1 Malmesbury has preserved for us in his ''Gesta Regum" prose versions of some of these ballads. The ballads of ^thelstaii are : — (1) The Birth of the King ; (2) The Drowning of Eadwine } (3) The Craft of Anlaf. There are besides three ballads of Eadgar:— (1) The Slave Queen; (2) Eadgar and .Elfthryth ; (3) Eadgar and the Scot-King. How vigorous this ballad litera- ture was we see from the preservation of these dc'wn to the twelfth century, when they were introduced by the writers of the time into our history, much to its confusion. m II M! THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND the Danelaw', ^^^f^ ^^^^ss has wholly Vanished. What we learn of 937- tadmon orthp, Ivri'nc ^.^ K. i . ., „. ^^i^^i oi 937- 955. Ea/Jre(Vs death. 'Hi fnHf di n^ 1 , , ^ ^^'"xoxicu. vv nat we learn of garb which was given them at this period, and which But the bulk of the work done in this later time was ft rid 7" '' r' '"^^ ^^'-^^ ^' ^^^-^ fr- which t s art d of popular prose. Disappointed as we may be m a literary sense when we front its mass of homihes and scriptural versions and saints' lives and grammar and lesson-books, they tell us of a c er'y quickened to a new desire for knowledge, and o 1 ifLr "^^'^'""^^^^'^^ -^ amon'g'thepeopi: But whatever was the result of Dunstan's literary work 1 was interrupted by Eadred's death. The young king was at the height of his renown. Th E'drt^fc I ^T""' '^ ^'''' ''''^' «^ ^'^Wormen at Eadred s court only seemed to add to its lustre. The ufm and cl "." V'" ^^^ ^''^' ^^ '^^ -^Hh, the wit ' """^ ^"'^^"^ '""^ S*^"!*^' '^' 1"ietly in the witenagemot as they had sat in the witena^e- mots of JSthelstan. There too sat as quietTtlie pnnces of Wales, Morcant and Owen' Such a vesperi recedentibus " Vh V^h^i ia- "/^^^^^^^s statimac Stevenson), ii. 258 ^tl^elwoldi, Chron. Abingd. (ed. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Empire at this juncture by Otto the Great, and the claim of supremacy which the emperor put forth over the countries of the west, may have given a fresh impulse to the assumption of titles which not only expressed the new might of the royal power, but indicated that the English king held himself to l)e fellow and not subject to the German.^ It is at any rate in Eadred's last year of rule that we find the first clear instance of the use of a strictly im- perial style in the titles of our king, for Eadred not only styled himself King of the Anglo-Saxons but " Caesar of the whole of Britain."^ What exact force lay in these pompous titles the English Chancery, if we may use the term of a later time, would possibly have found it hard to explain ; vague however as they were, they no doubt expressed in some sort a claim to political supremacy over the whole British island as complete as that which Otto claimed over th(i western world. But while his clerks were framing these lofty phrases, the king's life was drawing to a close. Throughout his reign Eadred had fought against sickness and weakness of body as nobly as he had fought against the Dane,^ and now that his work was done the over-wrought frame gave way. Dunstan was at Glastonbury, where the royal hoard was then in keeping, when news came in November, 955, that the king lay death-smitten at Frome.* The ^ In 949 there were envoys of Eadred at Otto's court at Aachen. Lappenberg, " Hist. Angl. Sax." ii. 156. •^ Cod. Dip. 433. 3 Sax. Biog. '' Mem. of Dunstan " (Stubbs), p. 31. * Sax. Biog. ''Mem. of Dunstan" (Stubbs), p. 31. 299 CHAP. VI. Wessex and the Danelaw. 937- 955. 11 it 300 CHAP. \I. Wessex and the Danelaw. 937- 955. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. guardians of the hoard were bidden to bring their treasures that Eadred might see them ere he died • but while the heavy wains were still toiling alono- the Somersetshire lanes/ the death-howl of tht women about the court told the abbot as he hurried onward that the friend he loved was dead.^ He found the corpse already forsaken, for the thegns of the court had hurried to the presence of the new king ; and Dunstan was left alone to carry Eadred to his grave beside Eadmund at Glastonbury. 2 ^'f !?.^'^'^ ^"J^''^ ^""- ^^' ^^^' ^^^' C^-n. ad. ann. Yit. Adelardi, "Mem. of Diinst." (Stubbs), p. 58. NroTE.-Tlie two following chapters cannot be considered as expressing Mr Green's final view of the political state of England and of the relations of the ealdormen to the Crown if the tenth century His work on this period was cut hort in the autumn of 1882 by illness and the necessity for leavin! anftren rd TV^^ ^'^^'^" "^^^ ^^^^^^^ sketched outt and then laid aside for future reconsideration. In now printin,; them I wish to state clearly that they are unfinished work which had yet to receive the final examination and judgment of tt suXecrisry\;T. ^^^^^^^^^^^^ '--' ™^-- ^^ t^e CHAPTER VII. THE GREAT EALDORMEN. 955—988. The true significance of English history during the years that followed the triumph of the house of T^lfred over the Danelaw lies in its internal political developement. Foreign afiairs are for the time of httle import, weighty as their influence liad been before, and was again to be. With Eadred's victory the struggle with the Danes seemed to hav(^ reached its close. Stray pirate boats still hung off headland and coast; stray wikings still shoved out in sprino- tide to gather booty. But for nearly half a, century to come no pirate fleet landed on the shores of Britain. The storm against which she had battled s<3emed to have drifted away ; and the land passed from the long conflict into a season of external peace. It is in the social and political changes that were passing over the country during this period and the conflicting tendencies which were at work in producing these changes that we must seek for its real historj-. Here, as elsewhere, the upgrowth of a feudal aristocracy was going on side by side with a vast developement Political condition of England. 302 CHAP. vir. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. if The Great jEaldormen. 955- 988. M The Monarchy. in tlie power, and still more in the pretensions of tli. Crown. The same movement which in other land, was breaking up every nation into a mass of loosely- knit states, with nobles at their head who owned little save a nominal allegiance to their kino- threatened to break up England itself. Wh.tt hindered its triumph was the power of the Crown, and it is the story of the struggle of the monarchy with these tendencies to provincial isolation whicii fills the period between the conquest of the Danelavv and the conquest of England itself by the Norman It was a struggle which England shared with the rest of the Western world, but its issue here was a peculiar one. In other countries feudalism won an easy victory over the central government. In England alone the monarchy was strong enough to hold it at bay. But if feudalism proved too weak to conquer the monarchy, it was strong enough to paralyze its action. Neither of the two forces "could master, but each could weaken the other, and the conflict of the two could disintegrate England as a whole. From the moment when their rivalry broke into actual strife the country lay a prey to disorder within and to insult from without. The upgrowth of the kingly power had been brought about, as we have seen, by a number of varied influences. It had drawn new strength from the dying out of the other royal stocks leaving the house of Cerdic alone, and from the high character of the kings of YElfred's line. A long series of victories, the constant sight and recognition of the king as head of the national host, and the religious character with THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. which the leadership in war against a heathen foe invested him, had added to the royal dignity ; and new claims to authority had sprung from the grldual up-building of England, and the extent of dominion brought under the king's rule, from the balance of Danish and anti-Danish parties in the realm, and from the king's position as common political centre of the English provinces. Along with the advance thus brought about in the authority of th(^ Crown, there went on a change in the old Teutonic con- ception of kingship, and an imitation of Imperial claims aided by intercourse with the Imperial court. The solemn coronation of the king, the oath of fidelity, the identification of loyalty with personal troth to the personal king, the doctrine of treason, the haughty claims to a far-reaching supremacy, the vaunting titles assumed in charters, all point to a new conception of royalty. But the royal claims lay still far ahead of the real strength of the Crown. There was a want of administrative machinery in actual connexion with the government, responsible to it, drawing its ^force directly from it, and working automatically in its name even in moments when the royal power was itself weak or wavering. The king's power was still a personal power. He had to be everywhere and to see for himself that everythincr he willed was done. Eesting on feeling, on tradition" on personal character, the Crown was strong under a king who was strong, whose personal actTon was felt everywhere throughout the realm, whose dread lay on every reeve and ealdorman. But with a weak king the Crown was weak. Ealdormen, provincial 303 CHAP. VII. The Great Ealdormen. 955- 988. 1|. "IPP^ 304 CHAP. VII. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. The Great Ealdormen. 955- 988. The, Ealdormen. witenagemots, local jurisdictions, ceased to move at the royal bidding the moment direct pressure was loosened or removed. Enfeebled as they were, the old provincial jealousies, the old tendency to severance and isolation lingered on and woke afresh when the Crow-n fell to a nerveless ruler or to a child. At the moment we have reached the royal power and the national union it embodied had to battle with the impulse given to these tendencies towards national disintegration by the struggle with the northman. We have seen how the spirit of feudalism was aided and furthered by the Danish wars, by the growth of commendation and the decrease of free allodial owners, and by the importance given to the military temper. In the ealdormen themselves the feudal spirit was strengthened by the memories of pro- vincial independence, and by the continued existence of w-hat had once been older kingdoms and diverse peoples, as well as by the retention of their popular life in the survival of their old judicial and administra- tive forms. Popular feeling and feudal tendencies w-ent in fact hand in hand. The new ealdormen created by the later West-Saxon kings had hardly taken their place as mere lieutenants of the national sovereign before they again began to rise into petty kings, and in the century which follows we see Mercian or Northumbrian thegns following a Mercian or North- umbrian ealdorman to the field, though it were against the lord of the land. Even the constitutional forms which sprang from the old English freedom tended to invest these higher nobles with a com- manding pow^er. In the ^^ great meeting'^ of the THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Witenagemot or Assembly of the Wise lay the rule of the realm, but distance and the hardships of travel made the presence of the lesser thegns as rare as that of the free-men ; and the ealdormen became of increasing importance in the national council. The old English democracy had thus all but passed into an oligarchy of the narrowest kind. But power- ful as they might be, the English ealdormen never succeeded in becoming really hereditary or indepen- dent of the Crown. Kings as weak as .^thelred could drive them into exile and replace them by fresh nominees. If the Witenagemot enabled the great nobles to bring their power to bear directly on the Crown, it preserved at any rate a ft^eling of national unity, and was ready to back the Crown against individual revolt. The Church too never became feudalized. The bishop dung to the Crown, and the bishop remained a great social and political power. As local in area as the ealdorman, for the province was his diocese and he sat by the side of the ealdorman in the local Witenagemot, he furnished a standing check on the independence of the great nobles. The death of Eadred formed the occasion for an immediate outbreak of political strife. The flight of the thegns from his death-bed was the sign of a court revolution. Eadred had died childless, but his brother Eadmund had left two (children,' Eadwig and Eadgar, and the eldest of these was now called to the throne.^ Mere boy of fifteen ^ As he mounted the throne in November, 955, and died in October, 958, Eadwig's reign covers hardly three years. 305 CHAP. VII. The Great Ealdormen. 955- 988. Eadwig. 306 CHAP. VII. The Great £alaorinen. 955- 988. iiifi'^ I'f ' THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. as he Wcas,^ we find the new king the centre of an opposition party, hostile to the system of Eadrecl's reign.- In its outset the struggle seems to have been one for influence between the kindred of the kino-, the leading nobles of Wessex/ and the three wk) had directed afi'airs in Eadred's name, his mother Eadgifu, the great ealdorman of East-Anglia, and Abbot Dunstan of Glastonbury. In this struggle the first party proved successful. The charters of the time show that the king's kinsmen, iElfhere, ^Ifheah, and ^thelmser, stand at this time first among his counsellors,* while Eadgifu was driven from court, as well as bereft of her property.^ The Half-Kin^ Ealdorman iEthelstan, however, and Dunstan^ held 1 Stubbs, "Memor. of Dunst." Introd. Ixxxviii. 2 Stubbs, "Memor. of Dunstan," Introduction, Ixxxviii. Robertson, ''Hist. Essays," 191, conjectures from Dunstan's connection with the East-Anglian house and Eadgifu, as from the combination of "his own disciples" against him at this time that " he had allied himself with the party in the state opposed to the leading nobility of Wessex, who were the principal charac- ters round the throne during the reigns of ^thelstan and Eadmund." 3 The Saxon biographer says that most of Eadmund's nobles " lapsed from the path of rectitude," that is, opposed Dunstan and his fellow-rulers. * The second charter of Eadwig is a grant to ^Ifhere as his "kinsman," descended "a carissimis predecessoribus." Cod. Dip. 437. This was the Mercian ealdorman of later days. The assertion of the twelfth-century biographers of Dunstan that Eadwig banished his kinsmen from court " is contradicted, by every grant and charter of his reign." Robertson, " Hist. Essays," p. 193. 5 She says herself, " Eadred died, and Eadgifu was bereft of all her property." Cod. Dip. 499. 6 Osbern (sec. 25) accuses Eadwig of from the first changing THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. SO"; CHAP. vir. The Great Ealdonnen. 955. 988. their ground^ at court for a while, in spite of the efforts of iEthelgifu, a woman of high lineage, whose influence over Eadwig had played no slight part in the change of counsellors. Darker tales floated about _ of iEthelgifu's purpose to wed the boy-king to her daughter, a marriage which from their kinship in blood the religious opinion of the day regarded as incestuous ; and when the Witan gathered to crown Eadwig, the jealousy of the two parties, as well as the irritation which her influence caused, was seen in a strife at the coronation feast. ^ To realize the import of this strife we must recall The strife of the sacred associations that hung round the crownino- p^J-rtiei. of a king.^ It was in itself a solemn office of the Church. It was the primate of the whole English people who called on the people for their " yea " or " nay." The king's vow to govern rightly wvas given before the altar. He was anointed with holy oil. The crown was set on his head by priestly hands. The prayers of the multitude went up for him to heaven as he was '' hallowed to king." With the new sacredness about him, still crowned with tlie royal his counsellors '* despectis majoribus natu, puerorura consilia sectabatur," of pillaging rich people and churches— and of plun- dermg and outraging the Queen-mother, Eadgifu. Osbern also says that Dunstan by threats and exhortations opposed all this and the marriage, but finding his efforts vain, withdrew. 1 Dunstan signs charters till the coronation : ^thelstan still signs at the head of the ealdormen to the close of the year. 2 The coronation feast took place on the first cr second Sunday after the Epiphany, 956 (Stubbs, "Memor. of Dunstan " Introd. Ixxxviii.). * 3 Stubbs, "Const. Hist.'' i. 170, gives the history of our coronations. X 2 308 CHAP. vir. The Great EaldormeE, 955- 98S. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. crown, still clad in the royal robes that bishops and priests had put upon him, his hair still dripping with the holy oil, the new ruler passed from church to guest-hall, and sate for the first time amidst Witan and people gathered in solemn feast before him as their consecrated head. But the sense of his hallow- ing fell lightly on Eadwig. Withdrawing on slight pretext from the coronation feast, he delayed his return, till whispers ran through the hall that he had retired to his own chamber and the society of ^thelgifu.i The slight stung nobles and bishops to the quick ; and though Archbishop Odo stilled the uproar, the Witan bade Dunstan and Bishop Kynesicre of Lichfield bring back the king, willing or unwilling ^ The envoys found Eadwig between ^thelgifu and her daughter, the crown flung heedlessly at his feet Hot words passed; and as the boy refused to rise Dunstan carried out the bidding of the Witan by dragging him with his own hand to the guest-hall and setting him in his kingly seat.^ The deed was 1 Will. Malm. "Vit. Dunst." sec. 26, " lUe quasi ventris desid- erio pulsatus, primo in secretum, mox in triclinium foeminarum concessit. 2 " Volentem vel nolentem," Sax. Biog. see. 21. 3 Such seems the simple storj of an event on which <' much ha. been written, and an amount of criticism spent altogether out of proportion to the materials for its history." (Stubbs, - Memor of Dunstan, ' Introd. Ixxxix.) The account given by our earliest authority, the Saxon biographer, and of which all later stories are but exaggerations, attributes indeed the whole outbreak to a mon- strous lust of Eadwig for both ^thelgif u and her daughter We may dismiss this the more easily that its narrator clearly forgets that Eadwig was a mere boy, that the daughter became Eadwig's queen not a year later, and that what remains after dismissing THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 309 CHAP. VII. The Great Ealdormen. 955- 988. one not likely to be forgiven, either by Ead^^ig or by iEthelgifu, whom the abbot in his wrath at her resist- ance had threatened with death ; and as the year went on he felt the weight of her hand. Dunstan w^as driven from the realm by a sentence of outlawry ; and men charged to tear out his eyes reached the shore as he put out to sea and steered for the coast of Flanders/ where Arnulf gave him shelter in the great abbey, just restored by the count's munificence, beside wdiich the town of Ghent was growing up. The triumph of the rival party was com])leted at '^f Mercian the close of the year by the withdrawal to a monas- ^"^ ''"'"'^"'•^ tery of the "half-king," iEthelstan, whose ealdor- manry seems for a time to have been parted between his four sons. But the price of this triumph had ' to be paid in a new disintegration of the realm. Before the end of the same year, 956, the leader of the king's kin, ^Ifhere, was made ealdc»rman of the Mercians. The revival of the Mercian ealdor- manry was a far more significant step than the crea- tion of the ealdormanries that had preceded it ; for while they had been but divisions of the Danelaw, this was a parting of that purely English kingdom of the " Angul-Saxons " which Eadward had formed by the union of Wessex and of Mereia, and wdiich had this scandal is quite enough to account for the eve^nt. His story, it must be remembered, was written forty yciars after the occurrence, and here is clearly not derived from. Dunstan himself. ^ Sax. Biog. sec. 23. The importance of his withdrawal to Ghent is well shown by Stubbs (" Memor. of Dunst." Intr. cxx.). The Saxon biographer calls it *' ignotam jam regionem dictu CJallise, cujus poene loquelam ritumque ignorabat." iiHi 310 CHAP. vn. The Great £alaormen. 955- 988. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. served ever since as the nucleus of the growing realm ■ And not only was this inner and purely English kincr' dom broken up, but it was broken into two nearfv equal parts In extent, in population, in wealth, the Mercian ealdormanry, stretching as it did from Bristol to Manchester and from the Watling Street to Offa's Dyke,^ was ittle inferior to the region south of Ihames which was left to the king. The court revolution, in fact, had ended in prisoning Eadwia within the limits of a dominion which was hardl? larger than the dominion of any one of his own ealdormen,' and in leaving him at the mercy of the whicWhf Oh" ""' 'Y^Sesof the royal style, the one phrase wh,ch the Chancery always falls back upon as really descriptive b«i tupt-^K" °VIr r" ^■'^^•^'^ the House of '^,fre/L: lirabr:he^:>^ ''' AnguI-Sa.o„s, and of the peoples that and ^ire,fl"f ' """^ co-extensive with the Mercia of ^thelred and ^thelflsed, save in the valley of the Thames, which mav have passed to the East-Saxon ealdormanry . ^ fromthrln-vlr " k'' "^ T"''*' '° ''' ^' ^^"° "^^ inforn>ation hin" which Tb" ''^""T^^'-^: The charters however give a few o the vet T) '! T t' *'"'• <^) ^^^* f- --e months (e.g. Ood Dip 1191, 1196-7 m which ^thelstan still signs first -rnlt^r" rif -"^^,^'^^- stin signs as ^^ cS 'l* f Tl: Jl^ ^ '"''"^'' «™"P DuDstan's name is no longer found but ^thelstan still signs at the head of the "ducey !ft-i? iT! r""^""' "fflimster" (e.g. Cod. Dip. 1198). (3) In a third^thelstan still signs first, but ^Ifhere signs as "dux " no doubt as Ealdorman of Mercia (Cod, 1179 1181 1182 Ur\ im IT' ui't r'' ''''' ''''' "^0 "9?iiS' : inferior << ^thelsia^u"" ^^^^J^ ^ ^ ^ THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. four great houses who parted all the rest of Britain between them. How helpless the Crown had become ic face of these great houses was shown by the events that fol- lowed. The two court parties w^ho had triumphed over Dunstan and ^thelstan quarrelled over their victory. They had won the king, but their joint possession was disturbed when ^thelgifu in 957 wedded her daughter iElfgifu ^ to Eadwig, and the jealousy of the king's kin was shown by their withdraw^al from the king's court, as well as by their persuading his younger brother, Eadgar, to join in this withdrawal.^ For a while Arch- l)ishop Odo remained at court, though denouncing the marriage as against Church law ; but before the vear ended the disreo;ard of his remonstrances forced side with the first, and who signs on into the next year : but he is clearly distinguishable from the East-Anglian eahlorman by the position of his signature.) As the last charters are few, we may suppose that ^thelstan only withdrew from court towards the end of the year. ^ Cod. Dip. 1201. An exchange of lands is witnessed by "iElfgifu the king's wife, and ^thelgifu the king's wife's mother," besides three bishops and one ealdorman, Byrhtnoth. 2 The charters show that Eadgar remained with his brother up to May, 957 (Cod. Dip. 465). We are however far less aided by these documents than in 956, when their number is very large, perhaps from the abundance of coronation grants. In 957 we have but few, and there is little to show to what part of the year they belong. In one group we find Eadgar and the full court as at the close of 956 (Cod. Dip. 463, 465, May 9) ; in another, though Archbishop Odo and the bishops remain, Eadgar and ^Ifhere are both missing {e.g. Cod. Dip. 467, 468, where but two " duces " sign, Eadmund and ^thelsige) ; in a third Odo is added to the number of absentees, there are few bishops, while to the duces, Eadmund and ^thelsige, are added iElfred, ^Ifric, and ^Ifsige (Cod. Dip. 1209, 1210). 311 CHAP. vir. The Great Ealdormen. 955- 988. 312 CHAP. vir. The Great ialaormen. 95S- 988. 11 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. him also to retire, and Ins solemn sentence "parted King Eadwigand ^Ifgif^, for that they were of kin - The sentence was at onee followed by a^eral re."lt Tlie new ealdorman whom Eadwig had set ove Mid Bntam was the first to move against him ; for it could but have been at J^lfhere's bidding that the M rdant rose and chose Eadgar for their king.^ The eX 2 Ac ^ I. ^i^iiing, wnile Osbern gives another tale ^ot earlier than the later -.rnth^of the Tear T^^ hand, xt " cannot be later than the sprinl of oTs It' '''^''' Eadgar begins to issue charters L Sw^. kk '\'^^' ^'''' Dunstan," Introd. Ixxxix-xc^ Th"^ ^^^^'' " ^''^'>'- "^ biographers that it aro^e o^t^of EaLtrXci ^"""^f IS a confusion of this strn^xr]. ^^^ fj^^^^c^s on monks other abbots, attest his'latest chfrtt in 05J tTelr^ "' '"" as the lait, of Wessex were his stauncLt s„pporterf ^^^^ 7 ' recommended for the c,pp ^f n ^-^ i ^ ^^'PPori^ers— ^If wold, Brithelm of Welira^g hSJhts^ h ""*?' ^''"■^'' '^-' by Malnxesbury as a^.»„1 of Glastll ?ll' '''"' ''^"''' Benedictines at that time in EaXn ^ . ''' ^''"'' ^° struggle between secular and re^lr be "" r^^' "^^ eouif point t:iThroir:sr fZr r ihfc^T r^ THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. manries of tlie eastern coast however, with the Five Boroughs and the Northumbrian earldom, must have joined iElf here in his revolt, for the whole land north of the Thames soon owned the rule of Eadgar, and only Wessex remained faithful to Eadwig/ On tlie youno- king's part no resistance seems to have been possible ; a joint meeting of the Mercian and W(!st-Saxon Witenagemots agreed on the division of the realm ; 1 Will. Malmesbury ('' Vit. Dunst." lib. 2, sec. i.\) says the West-Saxons rose too, but reconciled themselves to Eadwig, per- haps on his abandonment of his wife. Of the northern rising our knowledge is small. It is mentioned in only onei chronicle, and then under a wrong year. The Saxon biographer of Dunstan calls it vaguely a rising of the " northern people " (" a Brumali populo relinqueretur ; " so Eadgar is chosen king of the "Brumales"), but gives no definition of them. With Osbern, who is the first to give a detailed account of this revolution, it was strictly a rising of the Mercians, " virorum ab Humbre fluvio usque ad Tamesium." (Sec. 28.) Eadwig, he says, was in Mercia when the sudden rising took place. " Coacti in turbam regem cum adultera fugitantem atque in inviis sese occultantem armis persequi non desistunt. Et ipsam quidem juxta, Claudiam civitatem repertam subnervavere deinde qua morte digna fuerat mulctavere. Porro regem per diversa locorum semeslra devian- tem ultra flumen Tamisium compulere." (lb.) Eadgar is then chosen king *' super omnes provincias ab Humbre usque ad Tamisium," and war follows for a while. In all this Eadmer follows Osbern. The signatures however of Archbishop Oscytel and of many northern jarls to Eadgar's charter of 959 (Cod. Dip. 480) when Eadgar is "totius Mercise provincise necnon et aliorum gentium in circuitu persistentium gubernator et rector," and which is attested by Dunstan of London and other Mercian bishops, show Northumbria and East-Anglia as taking equal part with Mercia in the revolt. JElfhere signs first amono- the earldormen, followed by ^thelstan and -^^thelwold of East- Anglia. Of northern names we see '* Oskytel dux," and Sigwulf Ulfkytel, Rold, Dragmel, Thurferth, and Thurcytel, among the *' ministri." 313 CHAP. VII. The Great Ealdormen. 955- 988. mmmm "ST 314 CHAP. vir. The Great £al(lormeu. 955- 988. //« end. M THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. and the Thames was fixed as the boundary between the dominions of the two brothers.' The importance of the revolution lay in its reve- lation of the weakness of the monarchy. At its first clash with the forces it had itself built up, the realm of Eadward and ^thelstan shrank helplessly into its original Wessex. The Danelaw with English Mercia again fronted the West-Saxon king, as it had fronted him when Guthrum marched to complete the work of ^ the northmen by the reduction of southern Jintam; and it was now organized into a sincrle pohtical body, owning the rule of Eadgar, '' king " as he called himself, -of the Mercians," or -of the Engle." ^ Eadgar showed his independence by recalling Dunstan from exile, and appointing him in lull Witenagemot to the successive sees of Worcester and of London.^ Eadwig, on the other hand, lay iso- lated m Wessex, and was driven even there to submit to the forces of revolt. In the spring of 958 Odo ended the strife between the Church and the kinc. by gathering an armed band, riding to the hall where the queen was dwelling, seizing her, and carryina her out of the realm. The blow seems to have been^ollowed by a threat of deposition, and Eadwig at last sub- 1 ^'Sicque, universo populo testante, res regum diffinitione sagacmm sejuncta est, ut famosum flumen Tamesis regnum disterminat amborum." Sax. Biog. sec. 24. 2 In the first of Eadgar^s charters of this date (Cod Dip 471) one of 958, attested by the bishops of Dorchester, Lichfield, Here- tord Lmdsej, and Worcester, he styles himself " Kex Andorum " In the second, of 959, he is ''Rex Merciorum." (Cod. Dip. 480 ) As Dunstan was consecrated by Odo, he must have returned before June, 958. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND.. mitted to the archbishop's sentence.^ From that moment he remained powerless in the hands of Odo and of his grandmother, Eadgifu, who returned to court, where she no doubt again resumed her pow^er,^ and after the archbishop's death must have acted as sole ruler. In ^59 however the death of the boy-king of Wessex put an end to the outer seeming of disunion. The king of Mercia was received as their king by the West-Saxons ; and the unity of the monarchy was again restored under the rule of Eadgar. The first measures of the government however showed how utterly it lay in the hands of the great ealdormen of East-Anglia and Mercia, whose co-opera- tion had placed Eadgar on the throne. Their aid had to be paid for ; and the payment they chose was the extension of ealdormanries over the last remaininsr part of Britain, over Wessex itself. From Ecgberht's day at least Wessex had been divided into sh ires, with an ealdorman and shire-reeve at the head of each ; but the natural configuration of the ground, as well as the course of history, had gathered these shires into ^ The life of Oswald, by a Ramsey monk (in Eaine, " Hist. Ch. of York," vol. i.), written between 995 and 1005, gives the earliest detailed account of this. " Antistes (Odo) . , . repente cum sociis equum ascendit, et ad villam qua mulier mansitabat pervenit eamque rapuit et de regno perduxit, regemque dulcibus ammonuit verbis pariterque factis, ut ab impiis actibus custodiret se, ne periret de via justa." This is probably from the informa- tion of Oswald, Odo's nephew, and disposes of the later stories of Osbern and Eadmer. 2 A charter, attested by Odo and Eadgifu (Cod. Dip. 1224) shows their return to court ; and as Odo seems to hav^e died in June, 958 (Stubbs, " Memor. of Dunst." Introd. xcv.), the recon- ciliation must have been early in the year. .315 CHAP. VII. The Great Ealdormen. 955- 988. The West-Saxon ealdormen. m !\ \n 310 CHAP. Til. The Great saldormen, 9SS- 988. II THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND, three great groups : those of the " Central Provinces " or the "shires about Winchester," those of the old Eastern or Kentish kingdon,, and those of the lUa^^icyn beyond Selwood in the west. These tradi- tional dmsions were taken as the basis of a new organization. MUhere was now, as he remained ^iroughout the reign Uhe main pLwer at theTol l^mgs court; and immediately on Ead-^ar's aeces' sion to the We^f S^vnr. +i • -, . ^ close of he 1! the ir- '"^'"' ""''''' *^^ ui uie year, the Mercian ealdorman re- ^Ifheah to the ealdormanry of Central Wessex the ealdormanry as it is sometimes called-of Soul -Pton ; while about 966 the East-Anglian ealdorm n ^rdtr'to^'tr" n' ' "'"^ "*"^" '■'^ *^^ ^^-^ti- of Urdgar to the ealdormanry of the Wealhcyn. Ordgar ' Throughout the numerous charters of FflH<,».' Eadwulf and BryhtferS 7whT^ ^^^f °°- ^^ ^^^^- ^"^ »69 the "ffiinistri ") are addeif .^ V'°''' '^°^ ""^ "^« ^^^^ "^ mihiri ; are added to the number of "duces " anri ;,, Q7i^ we have a "dux ^Ifsige." ^Ifheah «nd nT ^ died during Ead-^ar's rL„ aTflT ^" '^^"^ *° ^^^^^ the later charters! ^ ' ' ''^""'"'"^^ ^-"^ '"'^^'''g i^ = Ordgar was the father of ^lftJ,rv+K *!, •/• „ Wine's brother, .^thelwold, who Sltl't 962. ^''^^ ENGLAND UNDER THE CALOORMEN (As dev'tui«ZZjaA London: Maxvminan ft Co. / THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 31 CHAP. vrr. The Great Ealdormen. 955- 988. ffc and ^Ifheali were both of the royal kin, both liad stood foremost in the group of nobles about Eadw ig ; ^ and their rise may have been due not only to the in- fluence of their kinsmen, but to their own desertion of Eadwig's cause. Only the '' eastern kingdom " was left without an ealdorman, perhaps from Dunstan's reluctance to set a great noble over Kent, where the primate was supreme. With these earlier measures of the reign Dunstan The Primate however can have had little to do ; for soon after the ""''^ ^'''^* first settlement of the realm he became Archbishop of Canterbury,^ and at once made his way to Eome, where he received his pallium at the hands of Pope John the Twelfth. It was only on his return in 960 that he seems to have taken the main direc- tion of affairs. His policy was that of a cool, cautious churchman, intent not so much on outer ao-. grandizement as on the practical business of internal government. While withdrawing, save in the harmless arrogance of royal titles, from any effort to enforce the supremacy of Wessex over W'elshmen or Cum- brians, and practically abandoning the bulk of England itself to the great nobles, the young king and the primate devoted themselves to the enforcement of order and justice in their own Wessex. In itself this union of archbishop and king in the government of the realm was of no small moment. The Church and the 1 ^Ifheah signs a charter of Eadwig in 955 (Cod. Dip. 436), Ordgar as late as 957 (Cod. Dip. 479). 2 For the difficulties as to Odo's immediate suctcessor see Stubbs, *' Memor. of Dunstan," Introd. xciii. The date of the archbishopric is 959 ; the entries in some chronicles under 961 being later interpolations. (Stubbs, *' Memor. of Dunstan," xcvi.) 318 CHAP. VII. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. The Great ■£aIaornieii. 955- 988. M rTlT Monarchy were the two national powers which had been raised to a height above all others through the strife with heathendom and the Danes ; and from the very outset of the strife in Ecgberht's days they had been drawn together as natural allies. But it was only at the close of the struggle that this natural alliance hardened into something like complete unity Dunstan would seem to have contemplated the in- stallation of the Archbishop of Canterbury as . constitutional and fixed adviser of the kin^ in the place of his own West-Saxon prelates : and though this plan was never quite realized, it left no sliXt mark on our later history. The displacement of the bishop of Winchester by the primate of Southern iiritam as the national adviser of the Crown was at any rate a step forward in the process of developement which, even while the monarchy was weakening day by day, was showing the growth of a national sentiment. -Uuring this reign at least the plan was carried out Ihe rule of the realm was in the hands at once of Dunstan and Eadgar ; and king and primate were almost blended together in the thoughts of En^^lish- men So far indeed as their work could be distin- guished, there was a curious inversion of parts The kmg was seen devoting himself to the task of build- ing up again the Church, of diffusing monasticism, of fashioning his realm in accordance with a religious ideal. On the other hand the primate was busy ' Hence his praises from the monastic chroniclers of his own and later days. Thus Eng. Chron. (Peterborough), a. 959 - He upreared God's glory wide, and loved God's' L. He w^! wide throughout nations greatly honoured, because he honoured THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. with the task of civil administration ; and if he dealt with the church at all, dealt with it mainly as a political power to be utilized for the suppoi-t of the monarchy. But in fact it is hardly possibly to dis- tinguish between the work of the one and the work of the other. If we read the accounts of the hagiologists, all is done by Dunstan and we see nothing of Eadgar. If we trust to the scanty records of the Chronicle, Dunstan is unheard of, and the glory of the reign is wholly due to Eadgar. The contemporary charters supply the explanation of the seeming inconsistency ; they show, so far as their evidence goes, that the work was one ; but that its oneness was the result of a common and unbroken action of the primate and the king. In the earlier years of Eadgar, how€;ver, the action of Dunstan must have been far the weightier of the two, for the king was but a boy of sixte(m at his accession. It was not indeed till 966, when he had fully reached manhood, that we can trace the individual action of Eadgar himself in English affairs. The young king was of short stature and slend«3r frame, but active and bold in temper ; ^ and the legendary poetry which gathered round his name suggests that as he grew to manhood there was at least an interval in his reign which saw an outbreak of lawless passion, if not of tyranny. He must God's name earnestly, and God's law pondered oft and fre- quently, and God's glory reared wide and far, gmd wisely counselled most oft and ever for God and for the world." 1 Will. Malm. "Gest. Reg." (Hardy), vol. i. p. 251, "stature et corpulentise perexilis." 319 CHAP. VIL The Great Ealdormen. 955- 988. Eadgar. m\ 320 CHAP. VIL The Great Ealdorinen. 955- 988. H THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. have been married at an early age to ^tlielflajd the White, who became the mother of a boy, his successor Eadward the Martyr ; for already in 965 her death had left hnn free to wed another wife, ^Ifthryth the mother of a second son, iEthelred.' It is before the latter marriage, in the years when he was only passmg into manhood, that we must place the stories which have been saved from the poetry that gathered about his reign, such as that of the violation of a nun at Wilton,^ stories which are mainly of interest as showing that popular tradition handed down a very different impression of Eadgar from that given by the monastic hagiographers, though they may possibly preserve a true record of the excesses of his youth. But if this temper ever existed it must have passed away with riper years. Dim as is our knowledge of the king, his progresses, his energy in the work of religious restoration, the civil organ- 1 The Eng Chron. (Wore), a. 965, makes ^Ifthryth " daughter temponbus u.sse crudelem in cives, libidinosum in Cirg^neT" VVlll. Malm. *' Gest Pnnf if " /^A XT m^ x , vugmes. Cnut as thinking E^^^^^^^^ ""''''' ^^^^^^^^^« servu. in ..K- T ^ ''' ^^^'*^^' maximeque libidinis servu in subjectos propior tyranno fuisset." But the "vitiis" chart L' IT T ^'"'^ '" ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^^ b-* ^^e common hefandT? 1^7 ''.""^^^' ''^' "^^^^^^^ ^^^^-^ -thin ltd harmful fT^ Z '''' '"' ^"*^^"^^^^ ^^ ^^^her drew, and harmful folk allured to this land;" while the "cruelty" may be a popular rendering of the severity of ^7^ and of such acts as the harrying of Thanet THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. ization which went on throughout his r(iign, the traces that remain of his rigorous justice, the union with Dunstan, above all the unbroken peace and order of the land, an order only possible at so early a time when the ruler's hand was felt everywhere throughout the realm, are more than enough to witness his devotion to the task of rule. As we have said, it is impossible in the main acts of his reign to distinguish between the work of the king and the work of the primate. But it was to Eadgar and not to Dunstan that after tradition attri- buted the general character of his reign. A chronicler writing at the close of the Norman rule tells us that among Englishmen of his time there was a strong behef that in any fair judgement no English kino* of that or any other age could be compared with Eadgar.^ The great characteristic of his rule was the characteristic of peace. At his birth Dunstan was said to have heard the voice of an angel proclaiming peace for England as long as the child should reign and Dunstan should live.^ The prophecy, if it was ever uttered, was certainly fulfilled. '' He dwelt in peace," says the chronicler, " the w^hile that he lived. God so granted it him." ^ In the centuries before the Danish w^arfare there had ^ Will. Malm. ''Gest. Reg." (Hardy), vol. i. p. 256. " Merito ergo non infirma inter Anglos fama est nullum, nee ejus, nee super- ioris setatis regem in Anglia recto et sequilibri judicio Edgaro comparandum." 2 Will. Malm. " Gest. Reg." (Hardy), vol. i. p, 235. *• Vulgatum est, quod, eo nascente, angelicam vocem Dunstanus exceperit, * Pax Anglise quamdiu puer iste regnaverit, et Dunstanus noster vixerit.' " ^ Eng. Chron. a. 958. 321 CHAP. VII. The Great Ealdormen. 955- 988. The public peace. 322 CHAP. VII. The Great Ealdormen. 955- 988. n Outer quiet. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. been constant strife either between the English states into which Britain was divided, or between the tribes that made up each separate state. For more than a hundred and fifty years the country had been a scene of fierce and brutal warfare between English- man and Dane. The history of the new England had in fact been a series of troubles within, and then of troubles without. But with the accession of Eadgar foreign war and internal dissension seemed alike to cease. Within, he ''bettered the public peace more than most of the kings who were before him in man's memory."^ His rule over the dependent realms and ealdormanries was no doubt the more tranquil for the wdse limitation of his claims to government or oveilordship. '' God him so helped that kings and earls gladly to him bowed and were submissive to that he willed, and without war he ruled all that himself would." Such a peace within and without was partly, as we have seen, the result of other men's labours, but in no small part it must have been the result of the wisdom and efi"ort of Eadgar and Dunstan themselves. The chronicles tell us in significant words that the king '' earned diligently " the peace in which he dwelt. In his work of peace Eadgar was no doubt favoured by the state of things in the peoples about him. Danger from without lay mostly in the hostility of Scandinavia and of Normandy, or in the attacks of the Ostmen from Ireland. But master as Harald Blaa- tand was both of Denmark and Norway, and recently as his fleets had appeared in the British Channel, 1 Eng. Chron. a. 958. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. he was drawn from all thought of aggrtission in England during the whole reign of Eadgar by the stress of a warfare nearer home against Ger- many and Otto the Great/ Normandy again was entering upon a revolution conducive to English interests. Under Eichard the Fearless her trans- formation from a pirate settlement of north men into a Christian member of the French kingdom and the European commonwealth suddenly took a vigour it had never known before ; and this translbrmation told in favour of peaceful relations with the states about her. The Ostmen, on the other hand, had turned, we know not why, from foes to friends^ and a good understanding had been established between them and the English king which lasted till the con- quest of the Norman. Though Olaf, Sihtric's son, the old enemy of ^thelstan and Eadmund, reigned throughout Eadgar's days in Dublin, we possess coins of Eadgar's which were minted there, and it is possible that the Ostmen may have supplied him with the fleet that accompanied his progress through the Irish Channel.2 Nearer home the English rule over Wales seems to have been quietly relaxed. Under Eadred four Welsh princes had sat in the English Witenagemot ; ' but with the reign of Eadgar their attendanc!^ ceases, and though a war in 968 * may have forced them to ^ Dahlmann, " Geschichte v. Dannemark," i. 79-83 2 Robertson, -Histor. Essays," p. 198. In his later years of rule m Northumbria, Olaf, Sihtric's son, seems to have been united to the English kings by their common opposition to the Danish Eric. 3 Cod. Dip. 433. 4 Annales Cambrise, a. 968. Y :2 323 CHAP. VII. The Great Baldormen. 955- 988. 324 CHAP. VII. The Great Ealdonuen. 955- 988. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. renew the payment of tribute, their dependence on the Crown can have been little more than nominal.^ In the north the settlement effected by Eadmund still held good, in spite of a raid into which the Scots seem to have been tempted by a last risino- of the Danelaw.2 The bribe of the Cumbrian realm sufficed to secure the Scot king as a fellow-worker with Eadgar as effectively as it had secured him as a fellow-worker with Eadmund, while a fresh bond was r::dded by the cession during this reign of the fortress 1 The legends of the twelfth century give a very different colour to these matters. Will. Malm. " Gest. Reg." (Hardy), i. 251, says: "Judvalo regi Walensium edietum imposuerit ut sibi quotannis tributum trecentorum luporum pensitaret, quod cum tribus annis fecisset, quarto destitit, nullum se ulterius posse invenire professus." He has before told the story of the rowing on the Dee, which retains however more of its romantic form in the pages of his contemporary, Florence of Worcester, whose patriotic invention is now beginning to come into play! "Cum ingenti classe, septentrionali Britannia circumnavigate, ad Legionum civitatem appulit, cui subreguli ejus octo, Kynath scilicet rex Scottorum, Malcolm rex Cumbrorum, Maccus pluri- mamm rex insularum, et alii quinque, Dufnal, Siferth, Huwal, Jacob, Juchil, ut mandarat, occurrerunt, et quod sibi fideles et terra et mari cooperatores esse vellent juraverunt. Cum quibus die quadam scapham ascendit, illisque ad remos locatis, ipse clavum gubernaculi arripiens, eam per cursum fluminis Dea3 perite gubernavit, omnique tui-ba ducum et procerum simili navigio comitante, a palatio ad monasterium S. Johannis Baptistie navigavit, ubi facta oratione eadem pomp^ ad palatium remeavit : quod dum intraret optimatibus fertur dixisse tunc demum quemque suorum successorum se gloriari posse re^em Anglorum fore, cum tot regibus sibi obsequentibus potiretur pompa talium honorum.'' Flor. Wore. (ed. Thorpe), i. 142. Historically these legends stand on the same footing as the other romances embedded in Malmesbury. 2 Pictish Chronicle, ad an. in Skene, "Celtic Scot.'* THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. of Edinburgh with the district around it along the southern shore of the Forth to the Scottish king.^ The Danelaw, the great Northumbrian Earldom which had been formed in Eadred's day undi^r Oswulf and which passed in 966 into the hands of Earl Oslac,^ as well as the territory of the Five Boroughs, had almost as little connexion with Eadgar as Cumbria or Scotland. Oslac, the Great Earl as he was called,^ seems to have been nearly independent. We find him seldom sitting in the Witenagemot,* while the name of his predecessor, Oswulf, never appears in these s^reat assemblies. The administrative independence of the Earldom indeed was formally recognized by Eadgar himself in the ordinance drawn up at Wilbar- stone. The special aim of this ordinances was to create a uniform system of law ; *' with the English," says the king, " let that stand which I and my witan have added to the dooms of my forefatheis for the behoof of all my people, only let the ordinance be common to all ; " but he did not venture to carry the uniformity into Northumbria. '' Let secular rights," he says, " stand among the Danes with as good laws as they best may choose.'' ^ The civil constitution of the Hundred indeed was the one reform that he invited them to share with the rest of England ; '' and this I desire, that this one doom be common to us all for security and peace among the people." They were just as independent in religious matters ; 1 Skene, *' Celtic Scot." i. 365. 2 Eng. Chron. (Wore), a. 966. ^ gng. Cbron. a. 975. ^ He signs some half-dozen of Eadgar's charters. 5 Thorpe, '' Anc. Laws," vol. i. p. 273. 325 CHAP. VIL The Great Ealdormen. 955- 988« Isolation of the Danelaw. 326 CHAP. VII. The Great Ealdormen. 955- 988. n Eadgar and the Danes. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. wliile celibacy in priesthood became the law of f ho south, the Northumbrian law ran, - If a priest forsake a woman and take another, let him be excommuni- cated. But severed as it seemed politically from the general body of the English realm, the Danelaw was bemg drawn more and more into unity with the national hfe, and under Earl Oslac the fusion of the Danes with the mass of Englishmen among whom they had settled went quietly on. From the first moment of his settlement in the Danelaw, mdeed, the Dane had been passing into an Englishman. The settlers were few ; they were scat- tered among a large population ; in tongue, in manner m institutions there was little to distinguish them from the men among whom they dwelt/ Moreover 1 Stubbs however points out that "the few customs which the Danes and the Danelaga specially retained are enumerated by Cnut, and seem to be only nominally at variance with those of their neighbours; while of the exercise of separate legislation there is no evidence." (« Const. Hist." i 226 ) 2 -Nothing is known of their native institutions at the time o their first inroads ; and the differences between the customs of the Danelaga and those of the rest of England which follow the Norse occupation are small in themselves and might almost with equal certainty be ascribed to the distinction between Angle and Saxon " (Stubbs, « Const. Hist." i. 227). ^^ The civilisa tion which the Danes possessed was probably about equal to that which the Angles had three centuries before ; they were still heathens, and of their legal customs we know no more than that they used the universal customs of compurgation, wergild, and other pecuniary compositions for the breach of the peace. Their Heathenism they renounced with hardly a struggle, and the rest of their jurisprudence needed only to be translated into English; the Mah-slit' of the Danes is the *wite' of the Anglo-Saxon; and in many cases new names rather than new THE CONQUEST OE ENGLAND. their national temper helped on the process of assimi- lation. Even in France, where difference of language and difference of custom seemed to interpose an im- passable barrier between the northman settled in Normandy and his neighbours, he was fast b(3Coming a Frenchman. In England, where no such barriers existed, the assimilation was yet quicker. The two peoples soon became confounded. In a fe\vr years a northman in blood was Archbishop of Canterbury, and another northman in blood was Archbishop of York.^ That this fusion was furthered by the direct efforts of Eadgar is certain, even from the charges which are brought against him on this score. His laws show that he preserved to the conquered Danelaw its local institutions and local usages ; but he did more than this. He freely recognized the northern settlers as Englishmen. He employed Danes in the royal service and promoted them to high posts in Church and State.^ Such a policy had to be wrought out in the face of no slight opposition. Even in the eulogy M'hich the chronicler passes upon customs date from the Danish occupation ; the eorl, the hold, the grith, the tithing, the wapentake perhaps, supersede the old names, but with no perceptible difference of meaning." Ibid. 228. 1 The Archbishops Odo and Oswald. Eaine's " Lives of Arch, of York," vol. i. p. 118. See also the large number of Danish or Norse names, Frena, Frithegist, Thurcytel, etc., which occur in the list of witnesses to a charter of Ea. ir , w 334 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. cHAP^vii. the sale of a man.^ The position of the slave indeed E^lom?! ^^ ^^^^ greatly ameliorated by the efforts of the 91^. Church. Archbishop Theodore had denied Christian — * burial to the kidnapper, and prohibited the sale of children by their parents, after the age of seven. Ecgberht of York punished any sale of child .or kins- folk with excommunication. Ine freed any slave whom his lord forced to work on Sundays.^ The murder of a slave by lord or mistress, though no crime in the eye of the State, became a sin for which penance was due to the Church. The slave was entitled to his two loaves a day, he was exempted from toil on Sundays and holydays : here and there he became attached to the soil and could only be sold with it ; sometimes he acquired a plot of ground, and was suffered to pur- chase his own release.^ ^thelstan gave the slave- class a new rank in the realm by extending to it the same principles of mutual responsibility for crime which were the basis of order among the free. The Church was far from contenting herself with this gradual elevation ; Wilfrid led the way in the work of emancipation by freeing two hundred and fifty serfs whom he found attached to his estate at Selsey. 1 Sharon Turner, ''Hist. Angl.-Sax." iii. 79, 80. 2 Ine, sec. 3 ; Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," i. 105. 3 " ISTon licet homini a servo toUere pecuniam quam ipse labore suo acquisierit " (Councils, iii. 202). " Thus Edric bought the perpetual freedom of Ssegyfa, his daughter, and all her offspring So, for one pound, ^If wig the Red purchased his own liberty ; and Ssewi Hagg bought out his two sons. Godwin the Pale is also notified to have liberated himself, his wife, and children, for fifteen shillings. Brihtmser bought the perpetual freedom of himself, his wife ^Ifgyfu, their children and grandchildren, for two pounds." Sharon Turner, " Hist. Angl.-Sax." iii. 83. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 335 CHAP. VIL The Great Ealaormen. 988. Manumission became frequent in wills, as the clergy taught that such a gift was a boon to the soul of the dead. At the Synod of Chelsea the bishops bound themselves to free at their decease all serfs on their estates who had been reduced to serfdom by want or crime.' Usually the slave was set free before the altar or in the church-porch, and the Gospel-book bore written on its margins the record of his emancipation. Sometimes his lord placed him at the spot where four roads met, and bade him go whither he would. In the more solemn form of the law his master took him by the hand in full shire-meeting, showed him open road and door, and gave him the lance and sword of the freeman. It was this agricultural society that practically Inland trade made up the nation. In the tenth century England could hardly claim to be a trading country at all. Its one export was that of slaves, its imports mainly of such goods as an agricultural people could not produce for itself. Its inland towns were mere villages that furnished markets for the sale of produce from the country round; wares from more distant points were few. The most important perhaps was salt, for as there was little winter-fodder fo]- cattle, a large part of them were slain at the end of [lutumn, and salted meat formed the bulk of the food till the coming of spring. The salt works of Worcestershire, which had been worked under the Romans, were still busy,2 while the boundless supply of fuel from the ^ Acts of Council of Celchyth, an. 816, cap. x. Stabbs and Haddan, " Councils," vol. iii. p. 583. On " Celchyth," see same vol. pp. 444, 445. (A. S. G.) 2 Cod. Dip. 67, 68. II 336 CHAP. vir. The Great Ealdormen. 955- 988. (T THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Andredsweald encouraged the making of sea-salt alon the coast of Kent.^ Salt- workers indeed were found along the whole southern shore. Metal wares also may here and there have made their way to market : for we find mention of an iron-mine as still beincr worked in Kent in the seventh century,^ and in the ninth there were lead- works in the valley of the Severn.^ The rest of the trade of the country was in the hands of the chapman or salesman who journeyed from hall to hall. His wares must often have been of the costliest kind. The growth of the noble class in power had been accompanied by a corresponding growth in wealth ; and the luxury of their dress and personal ornaments is witnessed by every document of the time. The thegn himself boasted of his gems, of his golden bracelets and rings; his garments were gay with embroidery and lined with costly furs, the rough walls of his house were often hung with silken hanmno-s, wrouo-ht with figures or pictures. We hear of tables made of silver and gold, of silver mirrors and candlesticks ; while cups and basins of the same precious metals were stored in the hoards of the wealthier nobles.' To supply these costly goods as well as the meaner wares of lesser folk must have been the work of the chapman, and gave an importance to this class which 1 Ecgberht makes a grant of salt-works here, with a hundred and twenty loads of wood from the weald to feed the fires. Another grant allows waggons to go for six weeks into the king's forest. Cod. Dip. 234, 288. 2 Cod. Dip. 30. ' 3 Cod. Dip. 237. * See the numerous instances given by Sharon Turner, '* Hist. Angl.-Sax." iii. cap. 5. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. passed away as the customer learned to seek the trader instead of the trader making his wa}^ to the customer,^ and the chapman died down into the pedlar. It was seldom that the travelling merchant ventured to travel alone. In a law of ^Elfred chapmen are bidden to '' bring the men whom they take with them to folk-moot, and let it be stated how many of them there are, and let them take such men with them as they may be able afterwards to present for justice at the folk-moot ; and when they have need of more men with them on their journey, let them de-clare it, as often as their need may be, to the kmg's reeve in presence of the gemot." ^ To move over the coun- try indeed with costly wares was hardly safe at a time when ordinary travellers went in companies for security, and even the clergy on the way to synods were forced to travel together.^ The highways in fact were infested with robbers, aud the outlaw was, through the legal usages of the day, a frequent trouble on the road. The roads too were often rough and hardly traversable ; the repair of ways and bridges, though an obligation binding on every landowner, was so often neglected, that the Church had to aid in the work by laying on her offenders the penance of "building bridges over deep waters and foul ways."* /rru ^^^ cb^P^ian is first mentioned in the laws of Hlothere (Thorpe, "Anc. Laws," i. 33), and in those of Ine {ih p. 119) '' If a chapman traffic up among the people, let him do it before witnesses." 2 Thorpe, "Anc. Laws," i. 83. 3 Lingard, "Ang. Sax. Church," i. 107 * Ibid, i. 336. 337 CHAP. VII. The Great Ealdormen. 955- 988. Its difficulties. J- 338 CHAP. VII. The Great Ealdormen. 955- 988. The gleeman. ill :|l li THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. The safety of travelling was perhaps hardly increased by the presence of other wanderers from hall to hall, who played almost as great a part in the domestic life of the wealthier class as the chapman himself. The visits of the gleeman and the juggler or *' tumbler " were welcome breaks in the monotony of the thegn's life. It is hard not to look kindly at the gleeman, for he no doubt^ did much to preserve the older poetry which even now was ebbing away. When Christianity brought with it not only a new vehicle of writing in the Roman characters, but the habit of writing itself, it dealt a fatal blow at the mass of early poetry which had been handed down by oral tradition. Among the Franks Charles the Great vainly strove to save the old national songs from perishing by ordering them to be written down. In England JElfred did what he could to save them by teaching them in his court. We see them indeed lingering in men's memories till the time of Dunstan. But the heathen character of the bulk of them must have hindered their preservation by transfer to writing, and custom hindered it yet more, for men could not believe that songs and annals handed down for ages by memory could be lost for want of memory. And no doubt the memory of the gleeman handed on this precious store of early verse long after the statelier poems of Cadmon or Cynewulf had been set down in writing. But useful as their work may have been, and popular as were both glee- man and tumbler,^ the character of the class seems to have been low, and that of their stories is marked 1 Eadgar himself speaks of them as " dancing and singing even to the middle of the night." THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. by the repeated prohibition addressed to the clergy to listen to harpers or music, or permit any jesting or playing in their presence. AVith learning indeed the stress of war had dealt roughly since the time of Alfred. The educa- tional effort which he had set on foot had all but ceased, for the clergy had sunk back into wc»rldliness and ignorance; not a book or translation, save the continuation of the English chronicle, had been added to those which Alfred had left, and the sudden interruption even of the chronicle after Ead ward's reign shows the fatal effect wliich the long war was exerting on literature. Dunstan re- sumed Alfred's task, not indeed in the ^ide and generous spirit of the king, but with the activity of a born administrator. It was the sense that the cause of education was the cause of religion itself that inspired Alfred and Dunstan alike with their zeal for teaching. It was this too that gave its popular and vernacular character to the new literature. In iElfric, a scholar of ^thelwold's school at Win- chester,' we see the type of the religious and educa- tional popularizer. He aids the raw teacher with an English grammar of Latin ; he helps the unlearned priest by providing for him eighty English homilies m all as a course of teaching for the year; he assists Bishop Wulfsy and Archbishop WuKstan by furnishing them with pastoral letters to their clergy. His homilies were so greedily read, that his admirers begged from him some English lives of the saints, 1 Lingard, '* Angl. Sax. Church," ii. 311 et seq. z 2 339 CHAP. VII. The Great Ealdormen. 955. 988. Revival of learning. i 340 CHAP. VII. The Great Ealdormeu. 955- 988. Chronicle of Worcester. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. and the prayer of a friend, ^thelweard,^ drew him into editing and writing an English version of the Bible, which, omitting such parts as he judged unedifying for the times, he carried on from Genesis to the book of Judges. It was not only in religious writings that the followers of Dunstan carried on the work of literary revival. The historic impulse which had been given by iElfred and had promised so great a future for our annals in the days of Eadward had died down under his successors. Of no reigns have we in fact more meagre particulars, so far as their military and political events are concerned, than of the reigns of Eadmund, Eadred, Eadwig, and Eadgar. The great Chronicle of Worcester seems to have remained suspended during this period, nor do we know of any other record which could have supplied its de- ficiency. But the intellectual activity of Dunstan's school could hardly fail in the end to fix upon a work so congenial as that of historical composition. To Dunstan himself we owe the life of Eadmund, the martyr-king of East-Anglia, since it was at his sug- gestion that Abbo, the most notable of the French scholars, was summoned from Fleury, and induced to undertake it. His great assistant, ^thelwold of Winchester, was possibly the author of the last con- tinuation of the Chronicle of Winchester, the meagre and irregular annals from the death of Eadward the Elder to the death of Eadgar, which must have been put together in Eadward the Martyr's reign, and ^ This ^thelweard was possibly the ealdorman of that name, whose chronicle has been mentioned. See p. 51, note 1. (A. S. G.) THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. whose defects their author strove to supply by inter- spersing them with the noble historic songs from Cyneheard's Song Book. Dunstan's other great helper, Oswald, unconscious both of ^thelwold's labours and of the nobler work of the annalist of the time of Eadward the Elder, seems to have taken a copy of the original chronicle of iElfred to his church at Worcester, where the meagre jottings with which he linked it to the story of his own day became the beginning of a later chronicle which was after- wards to equal the literary excellence of that of Eadward.^ The final cessation of iEthelwold's chronicle with the death of Eadgar transferred the centre of English historical literature from the Church of Winchester to that of Worcester ; and it was Wor- cester which retained this historical supremacy till ^ The beginning of consecutive annals in this Clironicle at 991 seems to fix its compilation (after working up the Chronicle of 887) at this date. Oswald died a year later, in 992, so that the work lies with him or his successor Bishop Aldulf (992- 1002). Anyhow, the compiler — if the Peterborough Chronicle, as seems probable, accurately represents this Chronicle — knew only the Chronicle of 887 and was ignorant of the Eadwardian annals, the Gesta of Lady ^thelflsed and the continuation of ^thelwold. Consecutive entries do not begin till 991. This Chronicle is the first or lost Chronicle of Worcester, a work which we do not possess in its original form, but whi(3h luckily is still preserved to us almost entire in a copy made for Peterborough in the twelfth century — called the Peterborough Chronicle. In this early part, too, it is virtually copied by the extant "Worcester Chronicle, first composed about 1016, and of which we have more to say hereafter; while the Chronicle of Florence of Worcester is a Latin translation of it made in the twelfth century with large additions, from whatever source they may be derived. 341 CHAP. VII. The Great Ealdormeu 955- 988. 342 CHAP. Til. Tlie Oreat faiaormeii, 955- 988. Decline of mcnasticistn. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. the middle of the twelfth century, from the days of Oswald and ^thelred to those of Henry the First In no place was the historical tradition and the national sentiment cherished with greater tenacity and we shall see how at a far later time, in the En In 853 they strove to conquer Courland in the Baltic-. In 866 they landed under Inguar on the shores of Britain ; and the long and bitter warfare which ended in the establishment of the Danelaw in this island must have absorbed their energies till the strugo-l at home which set Gorm on the throne at Lethra about the close of the ninth century. Of that struggle or of the king's rule in his new realm we know nothing ; but the strength which came of union was soon shown 1 The stories of Othere and Wulfstan, in Alfred's " Orosius," are the first authentic accounts of this eastern Denmark, a name which the description of Othere restricts to the islands and lands east of the Great Belt, and thus denies as yet to Jutland. Wulf- stan too speaks of "Denmark as a well-known kingdom with the same bounds. But of its history at this time we know nothing, save from some sagas which tell of a king's seat at Lethra.' (Dahlmann, i. 61.) The Frankish chroniclers are busy with their assailants from South Jutland ; the English tell of the Danes who reached their shores, but say nothing of their mother-land. Indeed the strength of the latter is only a matter of inference from the vigour of its outer attacks. {'■ THE CONQUEST OF FNGLAND. in Gorm's conquest of Jutland, a conquest which opened up for the Danes a fresh field of activity in the south, and affected their fortunes by bringing them in contact with the Germany which had just disengaged itself from the wreck of the Karolingian Empire. In their attack on the south, however, the, Danes were roughly beaten back; for Gorm, pressing in 934 into Friesland, was met by the German forces under Henry the Fowler, and so utterly defeated that he submitted to pay tribute and to take back the mission priests whom he had driven from the land. Gorm's life closed with the blow, and a few years after ^ he rested with his wife Thyra under their two huge mounds, which still survive in the village of Jelling by the town of Weile. But if his son, Harald Blue-tooth, kept peace with his neighbour in the south, it was that he found fields of action as tempt- ing and less dangerous to east and west and north. It marks the range of the Danish activity that in the midst of the tenth century one of Harald's sons was setting up a kingdom in Semland on the Baltic, while another son, Eric, was taken in 949 for king by the Northumbrian Danes of Britain. Eric's ruk; was a short one, and he fell unaided by his father ; though the Danish fleets were now often seen in the British Channel. But it was not to Britain or to the British Danelaw that Harald Blue- tooth's ambition looked. The Danelaw in Frankland, the Normand}^ which 1 Gorm is supposed to have died about 936. (Dahlmann, " Gesch. V. Dannemark," i. 72.) Harald Blaatand was born at latest in 910. 363 CHAP. VIII. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. Harald Blue-tooth, 'il v 364 CHAP. VII r. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. Harald iwd Sivein. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. had been carved by Hrolf out of the Karolingian realm, was now pressed hard by its foes, and forced to appeal for aid to the mightiest power of the north. In his earliest years we find Harald settled by William Longsword as an ally in the Cotentin ; ' in 944 he was again called to save Normandy from Otto the Great ; and about 963 he once more came to Duke Eichard's aid. At this moment he was at the height of his power, for two years before the divisions of the northmen and his own unscrupulous guile had opened a new field for Danish greed, and enabled him to establish an overlordship over Norway ; ' and with his triumph over Otto he at last disclosed the ambi- tious hopes that had drawn him so often to Norman soil. Harald looked upon Normandy as a starting- pomt for a fresh attack of the northmen on Frankland, and called on the young duke to march at his side.' But he found a sudden bar to his project in the pohtical instinct of the Normans themselves. Hate them as the Franks might, it was to the Franks that their new religion and civilization irresistibly drew them ; and their refusal for ever closed to the Danes all hope of a dominion in Gaul. Though foiled in the west, Harald was still a mighty power in Scandinavia itself ; and even before this overthrow of his Norman hopes he had renewed his father's attack on the south, where Otto the Great had planted the Saxon duchy as a barrier at his very door. Harald was tempted by the Emperor's long ab- sence in Italy to trouble this Saxon land ; but on Otto's 1 Dahlmann, "Gesch. v. Dannemark," i. 74. 2 For date, see Dahlmann, " Gesch. v. Dannemark," i. 78. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. return in 965 he overran South Jutland, drove Harald to his ships, and forced him again to pay tribute and to submit to baptism.^ A fresh absence of Otto led to a renewal of the war in 967, and in 974 it broke out yet more fiercely on the Emperor's death ; but though Harald brought to the field his new subjects from Norway under Jarl Hakon, a decisive victory of the Germans again forced him tc peace. His defeats shook his power ; Norway seems to have slipped from his grasp ; and his later years at home were spent in warfare with his rebel son, Swein. Swein's story carries us at once into the full tide of northern romance ; we are told that he was the child of a slave mother, who served in the house of Palna- toki, a noble of Funen,^ where alone the boy found refuge from his father's hate. Here too Swein learned to cling to the old gods of his people, and thus furnished a centre for the growing disaffection of the eastern parts of the kingdom, where heathen- dom still held its own. Since his last fight with Otto Harald had resolutely embraced Christianity ; he had forsaken the old heathen sanctuary of Lethra to build a castle and church for himself at Roeskilde hard by,^ and his home in his later years sciems to have been the Christianized Jutland. Thence "he sent a message over all the kingdom that all people should be baptized and follow the true faith ; and he himself followed the message, and used power and 1 For date, see Dahlmann, "Gesch. v. Dannemark," i. 81, note. 2 This seems disproved by Otto's having him baptized with Harald, as heir of the kingdom. 2 Dahlmann, " Gesch. v. Dannemark," i. 83. 365 CHAP. VIII. The Banish Conquest. 988- 1016. ft n 366 CHAP. VIII. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. Jomshorff. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. violence when nothing else would do." ^ But his efforts roused a bitter resistance. It was on the shore of Jutland, ran the legend, that Harald saw a great stone, and longing to set it up on his mother's mound, harnessed to it not horses but men. Then as he watched it move he asked of one who stood by, "Hast thou ever seen such a load moved by hands of men ? " " Yes," said the stranger, " for I come from a place where thy son Swein is drawing ' all Denmark to him. See now which is the greater load ! " Harald strove to meet the danger by driving Swein from the land ; but his warriors forsook him, and in a final battle about 986 he was so sorely wounded, it is said by an arrow from Palnatoki's hand, that he fled from his realm to the eastern sea, and died at Jomsborg, a stronghold at the mouth of the Oder, which he had won for himself in the days gone by, and from which he had maintained his mastery of the Baltic.^ Jomsborg, if we may trust its story,^ soon became the great difficulty of Harald's successor. "While Swein ^ was opening his reign with the restoration of heathendom and a persecution of the Christian ^ Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, Laing, " Sea-kings," i. 426. - See the story in the " Encomium Emmse," Langebek, ii. 474. Olaf Tryggvason's Saga (Laing, " Sea-kings," i. 403) makes the strife begin in Swein' s demand of half the kingdom. ^ For the worth of the Jomsviking Saga, see Dahlmann, *' Gesch. V. Dannemark," i. 87, 88, note. * Suan, Sweno, Suen (later written *^ Swend," but never pro- nounced so), Adam of Bremen's *' Svein," and the English '* Swegen " (where the " g " is soft like a " y "), are all different ways of spelling the same sound. See Dahlmann, ** Gesch. v. Dannemark," i. 88, note. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. preachers, Palnatoki and the fiercer of the heathen Danes, resolved to find a secure refuge from the new religion and the civilization it brought with it, sailed to the Baltic, seized Jomsborg, and founded there a state to which no man might belong save on ])roof of courage, where no woman might enter witliin the walls, and where all booty was in common. It may have been that Palnatoki fled thither because his deadly arrow, though it set Swein on the throne, raised inevitably the blood-feud between him and the young king : but in any case the conversion of Joms- borg from a base of Danish power in the Baltic into an independent state was suflicient to call Swein to its attack. Ill luck however beset him : twice, it is said, he was taken by the Jomsborgers and freed for gold ; ^ but peace was at last brought about, and a saga^ tells us how Swein's guile and ambition mingled in the burial-feast for his father Harald. '« King Swein made a great feast to which he invited all th(3 chiefs in his dominions, for he willed to give the succession- feast or heirship-ale after his father Harald. A little time before Strut Harald had died in Scania, and Vesete in Bornholm, father to Bue the Thick and to Sigurd. So King Swein sent word to the Jomsborg Wikins-s ^ The contemporary evidence of Thietmar of Merseburg shows that he was at least once " taken by the Northmen " ; and that the charge of slave-blood was one of his great difficulties. Dahlmann, " Gesch. v. Dannemark," i. 89, note. The; Joms- borg Saga, followed by that of Olaf Tryggvason, makes r.he price of his release a marriage with the Wendish King Burislaf's daughter, Gunhild, who became the mother of Cnut. - Laing, ** Sea-kings of Norway," i. 404. 367 CHAP. VIII. The Danish Conquest. 988. 1016. Swein and the Jomsboiyers. 368 CHAP. vni. The Danish Conqnest. 988- 1016. Sivein the Wildng. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. that Earl Sigwald, and Bue, and their brothers, should come to him, and drink the funeral-ale for their father in the same feast the king was giving. The Jomsboro- Wikings came to the feast with their bravest men, eleven ships of them from Wendland, and twenty ships from Scania. Great was the multitude of people assembled. The first day of the feast, before King Swein went up into his father's high seat, he drank the bowl to his father's memory, and made the solemn vow that before three winters were passed he w^oulcl go over with his army to England, and either kill King ^thelred or drive him out of the country. This heirship-bowl all who were at the feast drank. Thereafter for the chiefs of the Jomsborg Wikings was filled and drunk the largest horn to be found, and of the strongest drink. When that bowl was emptied all men drank Christ's health, and again the fullest measure and the strongest drink were handed to the Jomsborg Wikings. The third bowl was to the memory of St. Michael, which was drunk by all. There- after Earl Sigwald emptied a remembrance-bowl to his father's honour, and made the solemn vow that before three winters came to an end he would o-o to Norway, and either kill Jarl Hakon or drive him out of the country." Whether Hakon slew the Jomsborgers or the Jomsborgers Hakon, Swein had a foe the less ; and the vow of Jarl Sigwald cleared the way for the carrying out of the vow of the Danish king himself. The vow^ however was to be long in fulfilment ; for hardly had the Jomsborgers steered to their doom in the north, w^hen Eric of Sweden, whose throne had been threatened both by Harald and Swein, seized THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. the moment of exhaustion to break Denmark's power in the Eastern Sea. Allying himself with the Poles and their duke, Mieczyslav, his success was even greater than his aim, for after fierce sea-fighting he succeeded in driving Swein not only from the Baltic but from Denmark itself ; so complete indeed was Swein's overthrow, that fourteen years had to pass before he could return to the land. He fell back on the Wiking life of his earlier youth ; and after a fruitless efi*ort to wrest Norway from Jarl Hakon, who now ruled there in his own name, he steered for the Irish Channel. It was a time when the seas were again thronged with northern freebooters. The union of the kingdoms, the stern rule of Harald and Jarl Hakon, the wars of the Danes with Norway, and of Sweden with the Danes, above all the strife of religions, had roused afresh the spirit of adventure and wander- ing. The rovers who had been absorbed for a while by Harald's enterprizes in Frankland and Saxon-land found no work in northern waters during the; peace that followed Swein's expulsion ; and Wiking fieets, as of old, appeared ofi" the English coasts. Swein himself had probably taken part, as a youth, in the piratical attacks which troubled the coasts of Wessex and Kent from 980 to 982 ; and though these were interrupted, it may be by the strife between Harald and Swein, the renewal of the raids in 988 ' might have warned England of the danger that was gather- ing in the north. Three years later indeed, in ^91, came the first burst of the storm.^ A body of Norwegian Wikings landed on the eastern <3oasts, ' Eng. Chron. a. 988. 2 Y.ng. Chron. a. 991. B B 369 CHAP. VIII. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. 370 CHAP. VIIT. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. jEthelmf ,>.n THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. and after plundering Ipswich marched southward upon Essex. ^ At Maid on it met the ealdorman Brihtnoth, who had hastened to save the town. For a while the tide parted the hosts, but as it fell the pirates plunged througli the ford, and threw them- selves on the shield-wall of the Englishmen. The wall was at last broken ; the war-band of Brihtnoth was slain around its lord ; and the broken fragments of his force bore off his body from the field. The defeat presaged ill for the resistance which England under its ealdormen was to offer to the Dane.^ But whatever strength the great ealdorman- ries might have possessed for the conflict was broken 1 Eng. Chron. a. 991. 2 The materials for the history of this time are very scanty. As to the chronicles, we reaHy have only one — that of Worcester — which is preserved to us in the later compilation made at Peter- borough. Fortunately this chronicle is full and vigorous through- out, and in some places, as in 1007, it is clearly the work of a contemporary. It was not till 1043 that Abingdon borrowed a copy of this and used it as a base for the chronicle then being compiled at Abingdon, which till 1043 differs little* from the Worcester account. This chronicle, with the charters and laws, are the only authorities of contemporary and primary value as yet. Two hundred years later came the twelfth-century trans- lators and compilers, Florence of Worcester, William of Malmes- bury, Henry of Huntingdon, differing much in temper from one another, but equally removed in time from the events they narrate, and equally swayed by the patriotic revival of their day. It is true of all — as Mr. Freeman says of the two last — that though they occasionally supply additional details, " it is dangerous to trust them except when they show signs of following authorities which are now lost " ("Norm. Conq." i. 258, note). Beyond these materials we have only the northern sagas, which are yet later and more fabulous; nor is there any contemporary Norman authority till we reach the "Encomium EmmsB." THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. at this moment by the king, ^thelred had now reached manhood ; he was indeed already father of two boys, the younger of whom was to be known as Eadmund Ironside. He was handsome and pleasant of address, and though he was taunted by his opponents with having the temper of a monk rather than of a warrior, there were none who denied his capacity or activity.^ But behind, and absorbing all, was a haughty pride in his own kingship. The imperial titles which had been but sparsely used by his predecessors are employed profusely in his char- ters ; nor was his faith in these lofty pretensions ever shaken even at the time of his greatest misfortunes. His attitude was thus one of stubborn opposition throughout his reign to the efforts of the great, ealdor- men to control the Crown ; it was in fact his revolt Irom this control, and his persistence in setting aside the rede or counsel in which it embodied itseff that earned him the title of " Unrsedig," or the counsel- lacking king, which a later blunder changed into the title of the Unready. Unready, shiftless, mth- out resource, ^thelred never was. His difficulties, indeed, sprang in no small degree from the quick- ness and ingenuity with which he met one danger by measures that created another. A man of ex- pedients rather than wisdom, he devised adminis- trative and financial plans which, though they were to ^ ' William of Malmesbury (- Gest. Reg." (Hardy), i. 268) wonders, Cur homo ut a majoribus nos accepimus neque multum tatuus neque nimis ignavus in tarn tristi pallore tot calamitatum vitam consumpserit." The cause he sees for this is, -Ducum Uefectionem ex superbia regis prodeuntem," and this statement IS no doubt mainly true. B B 2 371 CHAP. VII r. The Danish Conqaest. 988- 1016. il/^ 372 CHAP. VIII. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. serve as moulds for our later policy, he had himself neither the strength nor the patience to carry out to any profitable issue. He was capable of brave fighting, when driven hard. But impulsive, fitful in temper, changeful and ready to fling away the fruits of one course of policy by sudden transition to another, he was filled with a restless energy which never ceased to dash itself against the forces round it. He sought safety in skilful negotiations with the foreigner when it was only to be attained by a firm and consistent government at home. It was with the same quick but shallow cleverness that he seized this moment of national peril to open his real reign by a blow at the great houses that had till now held him down.^ 1 The charters enable us to follow the course of the great ealdormen under Eadward the Martyr. ^Elfhere of Mercia, .Ethelwine of East-Anglia, and Brihtnoth of Essex still sign first as before : but ^thelmjer becomes " dux," and in 981 an *' Eadwine dux » is added. We know from the chronicle in 982 that JEthelmser was ealdorman in Hampshire {i.e. of the *' Wentanienses provincise ") and Eadwine in Sussex. Both these died in 982 ; but ^thelweard, who had been a minister under Eadgar, and was also made dux by Eadward (Cod. Dip. 611), that is, Ealdorman of the Western Provinces (cf. Cod Dip 698)' was destined to larger and higher fortunes. In a charter as- signed to 983, but which if so must be early in that year, we hnd two new names, Thored and ^Ifric, among the duces (Cod.Dip. 636) ; ^Ifric having taken the place of the dead ^thelmier as -dux Wentamensium Provinciarum " (cf. Cod. Dip. 698 and 642). We see however another ^Ifric signing among the "ministri," who must have been son of the great Ealdorman of the Mercians for on ^Ifhere's death in the same year, 983, his name disappears from the charters, and we find two ^Ifrics signing as duces, one no doubt the Ealdorman of Central-Wessex, the other ^If here's successor in his ealdormanry. ^thelwine however succeeds to THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. The death of Brihtnoth, with that of ^thel- wine in the following year/ no sooner left ^thel- red's hands free than change followed chancre. The Northumbrian earldom was made less formidable by its division between ^Ifhelm and Waltheof, the one earl of Deira, the other of Bernicia, to whose older stock he belonged.^ The Mercian ealdormen had ceased with the exile of Mliviv. in 985 and in this year at latest the king set about breaking up this vast power by creating an ealdorman oi the Hwiccas in Leofwine/ ^thelred next secured the dependence of Essex by the appointment of Leofsige as its ealdorman.* Leofsige, as the king himself tells us, was a new thegn of the royal court, who owed his elevation to the royal favour/ xEthelred's attitude was naturally one of standing ^Ifhere's position at the head of the duces ; while thcj Mercian iElfric signs after all but Thored (Cod. Dip. 1279). Both ^Ifrics still sign in 984 ; but in 985 one of them disappears from the charters (Cod. Dip. 1283), and the chronicle tells us that the Mercian ealdorman was banished in that year. ^Ifric of Hamp- shire on the other hand, goes on signing with ^thelwine, Briht- noth, and ^thelweard through the next four years ; and when Brihtnoth dies in 991 and ^thel wine in 992, we find the two West-Saxon ealdormen, ^thelweard and ^Ifric, signing at the head of the duces in 994 (Cod. Dip. 687). With them are Leofwine, Ealdorman of the Hwiccas, Leofsige, Ealdorman of the ''East-Saxons" (Cod. Dip. 698), and ^Ifhelm ''of the Northumbrian provinces," with a certain Northman. 1 Eng. Chron. a. 992. 2 xhey first sign in 994. Cod. Dip. 687. 3 His first signature is in 994. Cod. Dip. 687. For his ealdormanry see Cod. Dip. 698. 4 Leofsige signs as " dux Orientalium Saxonum." Cod. Dip. 698. ^ " Quem de satrapis nomine tuli ad celsioris apicem dignitatis dignum duxi promoveri ducem constituendo." Cod. Dip. 719. 373 CHAP. VIII. The Danish Conqaest. » 988- 1016. His polinj. 374 CHAP. VIII. The Danish Conqnest. 988- 1016. :W«' Outer (Jitjicult'ieii THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. opposition to the great ealdormen who had overawed the Crown, and Leofeige was the first of the new series of royal favourites, of ministers trained in the royal court, through whom the king sought to counteract the pressure of the great nobles. The favourites whom he chose iodeed, so far as we can trace them, seem by their ability to have justified the king's choice. It was, no doubt, under ^thelred's own guidance that Leofsige, with the West-Saxon ealdormen, iEthelweard and Jilfric, took from this time the main part in the conduct of affairs. But the revolution had only helped to shatter what force remained of national resist- ance, and the first act of these counsellors shows their sense of the weakness of the realm. Many of the difiiculties which ^thelred had to face were not of his own making. The long minority, the rule of iEthelwine, had fatally weakened his cause before he really stood out as king. It must have been during these years that Eadgar's fleet disappeared— and it was the loss of the rule of the seas wiiich told so hardly against England afterwards. Not only was a storm gathering in the east, but dangers were thickening to the south and to the west. The descents of Danish marauders and fleets ought to have warned England to gird itself to meet a far greater peril; they were but ad- vance-guards, but signs of the new restlessness which was gathering hosts such as England had never seen for the expedition under Swein and Olaf threi^ years later. To the southward lay the land of the Normans, now to play a part in English history which was never to cease till the Norman duke was THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. hailed as English king. Westward a new power was growing up in Wales. Utterly unable to unite into a permanent state, the Welsh drew together from time to time under chieftains who won a brief supremacy ; and in these years of peace Meredydd thcj son of Owen had succeeded in making himself master of nearly the whole of what is now called Wales. Silently the clouds drew together. In the very year of the victory of the Norwegians in East-Anglia, JMeredydd was not only at war with the English but had formed an alliance with* the northmen ; and that this union was a real danger we see from the treaty of subsidy which was now negotiated with the enemj' by *the king's counsellors. Already indeed their hope lay less in any lesistance on the part of England itself than in the divisions of its foes. The Norwegian force which had slain Brihtnoth was still on English soil, but instead of attacking it the king's advisers found a sum equal to a fourth of the annual revenues of the Crown, ten thousand pounds, to buy off* its hostility. The treaty was not one of withdrawal ; it was a buying of frith. The Norwegians swore to help -SIthelred against any foes who might attack England ; neither party was to receive the enemies of the othtT.^ The other provisions of the peace are inconsistc^nt with any notion of the fleet sailing away. It may in ^ The treaty of subsidy was negotiated by Archbishop Sigeric, and the ealdormen, ^thelweard of the Western Pro\4nces and ^Ifric of Central Wessex. See Thorpe's " Anc. Laws and Insti- tutes," i. 284. ^ " And that neither they nor we harbour the other's Wealh, nor the other's thief, nor the other's foe." Ih. p. 289. 375 CHAP. VIII. The Danish Conquest. 088- 1016. The two treaties. I 376 CHAP. vni. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. Outhreah of vKir. fact have been the policy of Sigeric and the two ealdormen to hold the Norwegian force to aid against Swein's expected descent, a policy of division which was continued by Bishop ^Ifheah of Winchester when the descent actually came three years later. Their next step was to detach Normandy from their Scandinavian assailants. Trouble had for some time been growing up between the Norman and the English courts, perhaps owing to the aid given by Normans to the earlier predatory descents on the English coasts, and if we trust the one account we have of these transactions, war was only averted by the mediation of the Pope. However this may be, an English embassy appeared at Eouen and con- cluded a treaty with Duke Eichard, the first re- corded diplomatic transaction between the two powers, on terms that neither ^thelred nor the duke should receive the other's foes.^ Had the two treaties been backed by energetic measures of resistance within the realm itself, they would have rendered the enterprise which Swein was now plotting an all but hopeless one; for with the Norman ports closed against him, and the 1 This Norman "frith " rests wholly on the authority of Wil- liam of Malmesbury, - Gest. Reg." (Hardy), i. 270. Mr. Freeman accepts It as true. This treaty implies that both sides had already received the foes of the other. The northmen were doubtless the foes of ^thelred, but who were Richard's ? It is possible tliatDunstan's connexion with Flanders, and his policy of drawing England closer to it, a step which so greatly influenced the after relations of England, was meant by him as a provision against JNormandy, and so was understood by the Norman dukes The treaties with the Norwegians and with Normandy were no doubt accompanied by some arrangement with Wales. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Norwegian host hanging on his flank, the Danish king could hardly have faced a united England. But it was just this national union that every day made more impossible. The pirate force still clung to the Enghsh coast; and in 992 ^thelred gathered a fleet at London of ships furnished by that city and East- Anglia, while the fyrd, drawn probably mainly from Hampshire and the surrounding shires, was in- trusted to the leading of ealdorman ^Ifric of Central Wessex and earl Thored. The joint force was to "betrap" the Norwegians; the fyrd, as we may suppose, holding them in play on land till the fleet had cut off* their retreat by sea. The plan however was foiled by the English leader. ^Ifric had now been ealdorman for nearly ten years, and since the deaths of Brihtnoth and ^thelwine he had stood second in rank and importance only to his fellow West-Saxon ealdorman, ^thelweard ; nor does the story of the chronicle give any grounds for his sudden desertion.^ It may be that he felt ^thelred's ^ It is possible that the danger by which Wessex alone was immediately threatened developed what may have been a purely West-Saxon policy of subsidizing the Norwegian fleet, a policy wliich was represented by the three rulers of Southern Brii:ain, the Archbishop, ^Ifric, and ^thelweard. Their course of action had been formally accepted by the nation in the treaty of the pre- cedmg year ; but may we not see in the plan now proposed for the destruction of the Norwegians the triumph of a party in the kmg's council hostile to the policy of the southern ealdormen, and to any alliance with the enemy ? The betrayal of the Norwegians seems to have been in fact a distinct breach of treaty on the part of England, an attempted act of treachery such as was carried out ten years later on St. Brice's Day, possibly by the advic e of the .''ame party among the Witan. Under these circumstances .Elfric's 377 CHAP. VIIT. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. 4' 378 CHAP. VIII. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. Norwegian and Dane. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. plans to be fatal to his order, or that he distrusted the king's personal hostility, for his flight unaccompanied by his followers looks rather like an act of sudden panic than of deliberate treachery; but whatever were the causes of his action, on the night before tlu^ execution of the joint scheme he stole to the pirates' camp, and his warning enabled them to escape after an engagement with the English fleet/ iElfric's ship was captured in the fight, but the ealdormari may have escaped and accompanied the northmen when, in 993, their fleet sailed along the coast, rav- aged at the mouth of the Humber, and sacked Barn- borough, as ^thelred chose this moment for orderiu^r his son ^Ifgar to be blinded, it may be in punishment for his father's treason.^ The Norwegian fleet however was only the advance guard of the greater host which was gathering in the Irish Channel. The Wikings mustered not only round Swein but round Olaf Tryggvason, a claimant to the throne of Norway, though driven as yet like conduct may have another explanation than that of deliberate treason. His province was in the utmost danger ; he had been responsible for the policy hitherto pursued ; and the sense of th(^ peril of so rash and false a course as that now adopted may have urged him to give warning to the Norwegians so as to avert the catastrophe. This explanation of his conduct would seem to agree with the after-course of the story, with ^Ifric's later return to the first place among the ealdormen, with the fact that his place in Hampshire does not seem to have been filled up during his absence, and that Bishop ^©Ifheah of Winchester ap parently acted instead of him two years later in face of the threatened attack of 994, and carried out in union with Ealdormaii ^thelweard exactly the same policy (A. S. G.). ^ Eng. Chron. (Abingdon), a. 992. 2 j^^ ^ 993 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Swein himself to find a kingdom on the seas. Olaf had been long in the western waters ; his saga makes Inm harry the coasts of Scotland, fight in Man and the Hebrides, and plunder along either coast of the Irish Channel^ before his junction with Sweiu ; and their joint force must have drawn to it all the rovers of the seas.^ The preparations for this aUiance and joint enterprize must have occupied a considerable time, and it is no doubt in the anticipa- tion of this great blow that we must find th<3 secret of English policy in the years which preceded its actual delivery, and especially the secret of the treaty of subsidy which was concluded by ^Ifric and Sigeric with the Norman duke. In September, 994, King Olaf and King Swein, with a joint fleet of nearly a hundred ships, entered the Thames unopposed. It 1 Laing, " Sea Kings," i. 396—398. According to the Saga, " When Olaf left the west, intending to sail to England, lie came to the Scilly Isles lying westward from England in the Ocean. .... While he lay in the Scilly Isles he heard of a seer or fortune- teller on the islands who could tell beforehand things not yet done." Having tried this man's skill, *' Olaf perceived he was a true fortune-teller, and had the gift of prophecy. He went once more to the hermit and asked how he came to have such wisdom. The hermit replied that the Christian's God Himself let him know all that he desired ; and he brought bel'ore Olaf many great proofs of the power of the Almighty. Olaf agreed to let himself be baptized, and he and all his followers were baptized forthwith. He remained here a long time, took the true faith, and got with him priests and other learned men." (A. S. G.) ^ The sense of danger was no doubt quickened by a conscious- ness of intrigue at home, for there were certainly English invita- tions addressed to Swein. See Cod. Dip. 704, where .Etheric, an East-Saxon, is charged with having promised to support Swein on his arrival. 379 CHAP. VIII. The Danlsli Coiiq.ae8t. 988- 1016. II 380 CHAP. VIII. The DBnish Conquest. 988- 1016, THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. was significant of the new station which London was from this time to occupy in our history that their first anchorage on Lady>day w^as ofi" its walls ; and that though they at once attacked the city, they were beaten back by the stout fighting of the burghers and forced at last to sail away, harrying, burning, and man- slaying along the southern coast/ At Southampton they found at last an entry into the land, and taking horse there, the host rode for a w^hile without opposi- tion till their progress was checked by the appearance of iEthelred with an army at Andover. It seemed as if the fortune of England was to be settled by the sword : but the policy of the young king and of his advisers, bishop ^If heah of Winchester and ealdorman iEthelweard ^ of western Wessex, was one of diplomacy rather than of arms. Their secret hope was still to break the storm by dividing northman from northman, and with this view a truce was arran^^ed by which the army of the two kings, on payment of sixteen thousand pounds of gold, and a promise of supplies from all Wessex, took up its winter quarters at Southampton. ^Ethelred's hopes were realized, however, rather by his good luck than by his diplo- macy ; for during the winter's rest news came from Norway of the growing unpopularity of Jarl Hakon, and of the cry of its people for a king of Harald Fair-hair's stock.^ Olaf became eager to end his work in England and to set sail for the north. It 1 Eng. Chron. a. 994. «' They there bore more harm and evil than they ever bethought them any burgh-men should do." 2 JEthelweard always signs first among the duces after ^thel- wine's death. See Cod. Dip. 698. 3 Olaf Tryggvason's Saga, Laing, " Sea Kings," i. 418. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 381 CHAP. VIII. The Banish Conquest. 988- 1016. was therefore with little difficulty that bishop ^Elfheah and ealdorman ^thelweard, aided by the difference of religion between the two kino-s for Olaf was now a Christian and Swein a heathen managed to break their league, and to bring the Norwegian leader to an interview with ^thelred at Andover.^ In return for the king's gifts Olaf ])ledged himself to withdraw from England and return to it no more, and his retreat in the summer of 995 forced Swein also to withdraw. The two years that followed this withdrawal were Weakness of spent in a quiet which might have been used to build %^ZT up an efficient system of national defence.^ But ^ Eng. Chron. a. 994. 2 In the present period William of Malmesbury and Florence of Worcester have given the tone to the general accounts of modern writers. Both have done much to confuse the annals of the time, especially Florence. His work as far as 994 seems to be a literal rendering of the first Worcester (or Peterborough) Chronicle, (though probably taken from the copy preserved in a second Worcester Chronicle, as we may see from the entry at 1004,) with occasional ecclesiastical insertions from a Kamsey Chronicle and other sources, and the usual rhetorical amplifica- tions of the time. After this point various noteworthy insertions occur in his work which are without foundation in, or even in opposition to, the statements of the Chronicle, and especially in the account of Eadric from 1006 onwards. A poor translator of the Chronicle, he seems to have been a violent partizaii, whose patriotism led him to account for every English defeat by a theory of betrayal. The story as the Chronicle gives it is one which is reasonable, if hard to follow from want of detail ; but as the insertions of Florence have moulded it, the treason of the ealdormen accounts for every national defeat, and ^^thelred IS responsible for the slackness of the national resistance. As we have tried to show, however, the causes which underlay the great crash were not the individual action of this or that man, 382 CHAP. VIIT. The Banisli Conquest. 988- 1016. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. nothing was done. The king^s power indeed must have been shaken by the last year's events, for we not only find ^Ifric again in England, but replaced in his old dignity as ealdorman of the Central Pro- vinces, and even in his second place among the royal counsellors.^ We know nothing of the circumstances of his return ; but the fact itself shows that the royal power after its short outburst of vigour was again ebbing before the force of the great nobles. Its weakness told on the state of the realm. In 997, a band of pirates,^ who may have been Ost- men from Ireland, appeared in the mouths of the Severn and the Tamar, harried Cornwall without opposition, and, advancing eastward the year after, carried their raids over Dorset, and finally took up their winter quarters in the Isle of Wight, where they levied supplies from the coasts of Hamp- shire and Sussex." In 999 they pushed still further on, entered the Medway, attacked Rochester, and harried West Kent.^ Whatever may have been the cause of ^thelred's inactivity before, this daring attack at last aroused both king and Witan. Danger threatened again on every hand ; from Norman and from Ostmen, with wikings from Man, and the treason of an ealdorman, or the weakness of a king, but must be sought in the social and political conditions of the time. 1 He signs again as usual from 994. See Cod. Dip. 687, 688, 1289, &c. 2 Eng. Chron. a. 997. 3 Eng. Chron. 998. " And forces were often gathered against them, but as soon as they should have joined battle, then there was ever, through some cause, flight begun, and in the end they ever had the victory.'' 4 Eng. Chron. a. 999. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. northmen from Cumberland. Ship-fyrd and land- fyrd were summoned, but delay followed delay, and the pirates were suffered to withdraw unharmed to the Norman harbours.^ The absence of any attempt three years before to meet Swein's force at sea may 1)6 accounted for by the fact that the EngKsh vessels were too small to face the huge war-ships which were now employed by the Scandinavian kings ; the failure to meet these pirates ^ shows that the naval system which had been built up by Alfred had now been suffered to break utterly down. iEthelred's action at this moment suggests such a failure of the fleet. As if aware of the weakness of Lis own naval forces he now took into his service a force of Danes, with Pallig,^ a brother-in-law of Swein, among them, and used this to clear the seas. The first point at which the king struck was Cumber- land ; the district had only just become mainly Norse in blood, but its position on the western f^oast made it perilous to the realm, and it had no doubt given aid to the Ostmen who had been harrying in the Channel. After descents on the Isle of Man and on Cumberland,^ -^thelred again turned southward to follow the freebooters to their ^ Eng. Chron. a. 1000. 2 " When the ships were ready, then the crew delaj ed from tiay to day, and distressed the poor people that lay in the ships " Eng. Chron. a. 999. 2 Win. Malm. " Gest. Reg." (ed. Hardy), i. 289. ' Eng. Chron. a. 1000. The Norse settlement of Cumberland was such a source of danger in itself, as much probably to Malcolm of Scots as to ^thelred, that I see no reason to prefer the story in Fordun, iv. 34, to that in Henry of Huntingdon, a. 1000 (Arnold), p. 170. 383 CHAP. VI ir. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. 384 CHAP. VIII. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. Death of Olaf. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. refuge across the Channel. If we may trust the Norman chroniclers, the king's descent on the coast of the Cotentin was roughly repulsed, and it may have been the discouragement of this failure which drove him anew to abandon warfare for his old field of diplomacy. The danger from the north, indeed, had now become a yet more pressing one. At the death of the Swedish king, Eric, Swein's fortunes had at last seen a change, for Denmark threw off the Swedish yoke and recalled its king.^ Swein, indeed, had still to war with Eric's son, Olaf, till the mediation of Olaf s mother, whom he wedded, brought peace with Sweden, and enabled him to renew his father's effort to establish a supremacy over Norway. So great was the power of Olaf Tryggvason, that it was only in league with the Swedes and Jarl Hakon's son Eric, that Swein ventured to attack him ; but ill luck threw the Norwegian king, with but a few vessels, into the midst of the enemy's fleet as it lurked among the islands ofi* his coast. The fight in which he fell was long famous in the north. ' " King Olaf stood on the Serpent's quarter-deck, high above the rest. He had a gilded shield and a helm inlaid with gold; over his armour he wore a short red coat, and was easy to be distinguished from other men. When King Olaf saw that the scattered forces of the enemy gathered themselves under the banners of their ships, he asked ' Who is the chief of the force right over against us ? ' 1 About A.D. 1000. Dahlmann, " Gesch. v. Dannemark," i. 92. 2 Probably a.d. 1000. Corp. Poet. Bor. (G. Yigfusson and F. York Powell), ii. 86. See the account of Olaf's building up of a Christian Empire of the north. (A. S. G.) THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. He was answered that it was King Swein with the Danish host. The king replied, ' We are not afraid of these soft Danes, for there is no bravery in them. But who are they to the right ? ' He was told King Olaf with the Swedes. ' Better for the Swc^des,' he said, 'to be sitting at home killing their sacrifices than venturing under our weapons from the Long Serpent ! But whose are the big ships to larboard ? ' That is Earl Eric Hakonson,' said they. ' Ah; said the king, ' he, methinks, has good ground for meeting us, and we may look for sharp fighting with his ment for they are northmen like ourselves.'" It was, indeed. Earl Eric's men that pressed Olaf hardest in the fight that followed ; and at last earl's ship and king's ship lay side by side. - So thick flew spears and arrows into the Serpent that the men's shields could scarce contain them, for the Serpent was girt in on all sides by our ships." Though Olaf's men fcdl fast, '^Einar Tambarskelver, one of the sharpest of bow^ shooters, stood yet by the mast and shot with his bow." But, as he drew his bow, an arrow from Eric's ship hit it in the midst and the bow was broken. What is that ? ' cried King Olaf, ' that broke with such a noise ? ' ' Norway, king, from thy hands ! ' cried Einar. ' No, not quite so much as that,' said Olaf; 'take my bow and shoot!' and he tossed the how to him. Einar took the bow and drew it over the arrow's head. ' Too weak, too weak,' h(3 said, ^ for the bow of a mighty king ! ' and throwing down the bow he took sword and shield, and fought vahantly."! The fight, however, was all but over; 1 Laing, '* Sea Kings of Korway," i. 475. C C M 385 CHAP. VIII. The Danish Conqnest. 988- 1016. i 386 CHAP. vm. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. The Normau marriage. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. SO few were the fighters that Eric could board the Serpent ; the little group about the king were slain ; and Olaf himself, throwing his shield over his head, leaped desperately into the sea. Master by this victory of the north, Swein's hands were free for ' his long-planned attack on England; and in 1002 it was clear that such an attack was impending. To deprive the Danish king of Norman aid and to close the Norman harbours against him was an obvious measure of precaution ; ^ but as yet England had failed in securing the neu- trality of Normandy either by treaties or by force of arms, ^thelred now resolved to bind Normandy to him by a personal bond, and in the Lent of 1002, Duke Eichard's daughter Emma crossed to the shores of England as its king's wife. The step which the king took was one of the highest moment. In it ^thelred broke away from the traditional policy of his house, which from ^thelstan down- Avards had aimed at crushing or curbing the north- men of the Channel, by a measure which could not but link their fortunes with the fortunes of England itself. But Normandy was now a wholly diiferent power from the pirate state which had roused jealous fear in Eadward or ^thelstan. The century which had passed since the settlement of the northmen along the Seine had seen the steady growth ^ " The Jarls of Rouen reckoned themselves of kin to the chiefs in Norway, and held them in such respect that they were always the greatest friends of the northmen; and every northman found a friendly country in Normandy, if he needed it."— St. Olaf's Saga, Laing, "Sea Kings," ii. 16. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 387 CHAP. vrir. The Danish Conquest. 988- 10I6. of the duchy in extent and in power. Much of this was due to the ability of its rulers, to the vi:^our and wisdom with which Hrolf forced order and justice on the new community, as well as to the political tact _ with which both Hrolf and William Longswca^d cluua to the Karolings in their strife with the dukes of Paris. But still more was owing to the steadiness with which both these rulers remained faithful to the Christianity which had been imposed on the northmen as a condition of their settlemc.nt and to the firm resolve with which they tramph^d down the temper and traditions which their people had brought from their Scandinavian homeland and welcomed the language and civilization which came in the wake of their neighbours' religion. The difficulties that met the'dukes were indeed mfficMe. of enormous. Turn to France as they might, it was ' " long before France would turn to them. It dis- beheved in their religious earnestness, it credited wild stories about Hrolf s sacrifices on his death- bed, about the apostasy of William and his boy. It disbelieved in their craving for admission into the body of French nationality and French civilization- it called^ the Normans - pirates," and their cliief the ''pirates' duke.'' The very sovereigns whom they supported looked on them as intruders to be guarded against, and to be thrust out of the land if 'it were possible. They were girt in by hostile states, they were threatened at sea by England, under ^thelstan a network of alliances menaced them with ruin. Once a French army occupied Eouen, and a French king held the pirates' land at his will ; once the c c 2 the Norman dukes. ■•t r 388 CHAP. VIII. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. jjUl Their French policy. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. German lances were seen from the walls of their capital. Nor were their difficulties within less than those without. The subject population which had been trodden under foot by the northern settlers was seething with discontent. The policy of Christianiza- tion and civilization broke the Normans themselves into two parties. A great portion of the people clung to their old religion and their old tongue ; and this body was continually reinforced by fresh incomers from the north or from the English Danelaw, and strengthened by those connexions with its heathen brethren in the Channel which were forced on the duchy by the French attacks. The very conquests of Hrolf and his successor, the Bessin, the Cotentin, had to be settled and held by the new comers, who made them strongholds of heathendom. The strength of this party of resistance was seen in a revolt which shook the throne of William Longsword, in the con- cession it forced from him that his child should be reared in the Bessin, in the pagan reaction which fol- lowed his death and gave a pretext for the invasion of Lewis From-over-sea, as well as in the stubborn resistance to change which must have gone on througli- out the reign of the two dukes who followed William, ere it broke out for the last time in the revolt of Val-es-dunes. But amidst difficulties from within and from without the dukes held firm to their course, and their stubborn will had its reward. In spite of reinforcement from their pirate-brethren, the balance of strength went more and more ao:ainst the men who clung to the northern customs and the northern tonoue. Bv THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 389 CHAP. VIII. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. the end of William Longsword's days all Normandy, save the newly settled districts of the west, was Christian, and spoke French. So too in spite of the hatred and leagues of his neighbours, the Norman never loosed his grip from the land he had won. Attack indeed only widened its bounds, and added to the older duchy the broad lands of the Bessin and Cotentin. The work of the statesman at last com- pleted the work of the sword. As the connexion of the dukes with the Karoling kings had given them the land, and helped them for fifty years to hold it against the House of Paris, so in the downfall of the Karolings the sudden and adroit change of front which ))ound the Norman rulers to the House of Paris in its successful struggle for the Crown secured the land for ever to the northmen. The close connexion which France was forced to maintain with the state whose support held the new royal line on its throne told both on kingdom and duchy. The French dread of the '* pirates" died gradually away, while French influence spread yet more rapidly over a people which clung so closely to the French crown. It was thus that the social and religious chano-e its rebuff. which was in full play at the death of William Longsword took a new strength and vigour throuo-h the days of his successor, Duke Eichard the Fearless, whose long reign stretched over more than half a century, from 943 to 996. It opened, indeed, with a storm of reaction, the terrible strife which all but laid the duchy at the feet of Lewis From-over- sea. But the storm soon died down into a profound repose. Without, all danger passed away. France, 390 CHAP. VIII. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. under its new rulers, was friendly. The England of Eadgar was no longer anxious about Norman aid to the Danelaw. The Breton was overmastered. The Fleming held his hand. And within the duchy itself the Normans had learned the danger of civil strife. So tranquil was the land that hardly an event is recorded on the other side the Channel for the thirty years that cover the reigns of Eadred, Eadgar, and Eadward the Martyr. In this long stillness th(^ fusion of conquerors and conquered, the Christianiza- tion and civilization of the Norman, his assimilation in political and social temper to the France beside him, went steadily on. If the free institutions of the north had passed to Norman soil their very memory was now lost. Save for a dim tradition Jf " the Laws of Hrolf,'' the power of the duke was henceforth unchecked by legal bounds; and th northern sense of equality faded away as the duchj drifted towards the feudalism of the countries around it. A baronage sprang from the friends or children of the dukes, whose houses were to stamp their names on our later history. The kinsmen of Eichard's wife, Gunnor, became heads of great families which played tlieir part on both French and English soil. From her brother Herfast sprang the house of Fitz- Osbern ; from her children came the counts of Eu and of Brionne, as well as the counts of Mortain. The lords of Belesme, the Montgomeries, the Beau- monts, rose into power on the Norman border-land, while within it Gifflxrds and Tancarvilles, Warrennes, and Mowbrays, and Mortimers, came to the front in the tranquil years during which Eichard the e THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Fearless transformed the pirate's land into a feudal Normandy. The reign of Eichard the Good stretched like that of his ftxther over a long tract of years, from 996 to 1026 ; but they were still for the most part years of tranquillity. Within the duchy, indeed, a fierce out- break of the peasantry against the growing feudalism had to be trodden out in blood ; but th.it done all was peace, and the process of civilization and Christianization went steadily on. People and duke, indeed, showed the same temper, the sam(i daring and passionate courage, the same craft, cunning, wariness, secresy, patience, the same steady industry and shrewdness in business, which before many years were over was to make them the best diplomatists, fighters, lawyers and builders of their day. Without, Richard looked on at the revolutions of the France across his borders with little interference, save the giving a general support to the king at Paris. But in spite of this seeming inaction, it was the I'eign of Eichard the Good that saw the most momentous event in the whole history of Normandy. The keen eye of ^thelred detected the change which had come over the temper of the duchy, and saw the possibility of detaching it from the Scandinavian attack by an alliance with its dukes. His descent on the coast of Normandy the year before may indeed have quickened Duke Eichard the Good's wish for the alliance which iEthelred w^as now to propose to him. If JEthel- stan's embassy was the first step to a connexion between the two countries, and the alliance of 991 the second, the marriage treaty of 1001 was the one 391 CHAP. VIII. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. The Enfjlhh coiwcoriou. 392 CHAP. VIII. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. mi THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. which brought the two countries fairly together Events had shown that a mere convention such as that of 991 could not prevent Norman ports from bemg open and Norman aid given to ^thelred's Danish foes. Yet it was of the first importance if the Channel were to be kept clear that these ports should be closed to them. The measure was therefore right in policy ; ^ and in its immediate results proved eminently successful, for from the moment of Emma's marriage Normandy not only stood apart from the Danish attack on its neighbour realm, but drifted more and more into an attitude of hostility against the Dane. It gave refuge to ^thelred when he was driven from his kingdom. It enabled him to return and again seize his crown. It sheltered his children from the hatred of Cnut. It at last plunged into war with the Danish kings for their restoration. But the indirect effects of Emma's marriage were far more momentous than its direct effects, both for England and for Normandy. In severing the duchy from all connexion with its Scandinavian kins- men, as in binding its rulers by blood-ties to the English Crown, it suddenly opened for its rulers a distinct policy, a distinct course of action, which led to the Norman conquest of England. From the moment of Emma's marriage Normandy became a chief factor in English politics. For the next sixty years we shall have to watch the gradual strength- ening of the tie which now for the first time bound"tlie 1 aL'^^*"'' *''^ *™^ °^ Swein's withdrawal, that is, from 997 to 1002, the war had really been a Norman war, fed by fleets tindmg harbour in Norman ports. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. two countries directly together. For fifty years to come England saw a Norman Lady as queen or queen- mother wielding power in the land. The Norman settlement in England began with that of hei- train. AVith the shelter given to ^thelred at the Norman court, which was the first result of the marriage as with its secondary issues in the protection of his children, their Norman training, and the gradual espousal of their claims on the English throne by the Norman nobles, began that interference of the Norman in the fortunes of England which was at last crowned by the victory of Senlac. Few of these issues, however, could be foreseen when iEthelred in the spring of 1002 brought home the duke's daughter as his wife.* All that the king aimed at was to guard against any co-operation of Normandy in the coming attack of Swein, and that result was secured. But Swein had still to be met ; and whatever strength ^thelred had gained for this struggle by his foreign policy was more than com- pensated by the growing weakness within the realm. Since the revolution which followed on the death of Brihtnoth and ^thelwine the number and order of the great ealdormen had remained the same. At their head had stood the tw^o West-Saxon ealdormen, iEthelweard and (in spite of his treason and temp- orary exile) iElfric ; then the Northumbrian ealdor- men, J^lfhelm and Waltheof ; then Leofwine of the Hwiccas, and Leofsige of Essex. Ulfcytel, though probably ruling at this time in East-Anglia, still 1 In Lent 1002. Eng. Chron. (Peterborougli). 393 CHAP. VIII. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. Political iveakness of Emjl-and. 394 CHAP. VIII. The Danish Conqnest. 988- 1016. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. bore only the title of thegn.^ In 999 iEtlielweard seems to have been removed by death, and JEUviv takes his place at the head of the ealdormen, but his three fellows remain as before. Leofsige was as active as of old; and while ^thelred was negotiating his Norman marria,^e the ealdormaii a of Essex was sent to the pirate fleet to buy truce at a cost of twenty-four thousand pounds/ But the king was still secretly at feud with his counsellors ; and in the case of Leofsige the hostility was embittered by the disappointment of the hopes with which /Ethelred had raised him to his post. Favourite as he was, no sooner was he made ealdor- man than his ^^ pride and daring '^ and the oifence he gave to the king equalled those of his fellow-nobles.' ^thelred took refuge in a fresh expedient by raising a new favourite, /Efic, to the post of High Eeeve/ in which we may perhaps again see a foreshadowing of the coming justiciary. But the attempt Avas 1 He first signs as minister in 988 (Cod. Dip. 1289), and is never found as "dux." 2 Eng. Chron. a. 1001. The old Winchester Chronicle has here appended a curious entry of the year, which gives its pro- ceedings in greater detail. 3 " Leof sinum," says ^thelred in a charter (Cod. Dip. 719), ''quern de satrapis nomine tuli, ad celsioris apicem dignitatis dignum duxi promovere, ducem constituendo, scilicet eum unde humiliari magis debuerat. . . . Sed ipse hoc oblitus, cernens so 111 culmme majoris status sub rogatu famulari sibi pestilentes spmtus promisit, superbic^ scilicet et audaci^, quibus nichilominiis ipse se dedidit in tantum ut floccipenderet quin ofPensione multi- moda me multoties graviter ofEenderet." Prrefectum meum ^ficum, quem primatum inter primato. meos taxavi," Cod. Dip. 719. - The King's High Eeeve," En Chron. a. 1002. ^'^' THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. roughly met ; for Leofsige at once broke into ^fic's house, and there slew him.^ In the general disgust at suoh a deed of violence, it was easy for ^thelred to win from the Witan ;i sentence of degradation and banishment against Leofsige ; ' but the outrage had revealed the inner strife within the royal council which was paralyzing all etfective resistance to the Dane. The military measures of resistance were defeated by ^tlielred himself. The chastisement of the Ostmen and the marriage alliance with Normandy had dejDrived Swein of his main sources of help without the realm ; while for the defence of England itself ^thelred counted on the help of northmen like Pallig whom he had drawn into his service by offers of pay/ and who, like the Imscarls that followed them, seem to have been quartered over the country throughout southern Bntam. But however effective these measures mio-ht have been they were frustrated by the king s quick changes of purpose. Distrust grew up between the kuig and the northern mercenaries whom he had hired to meet the coming invasion. The security which iEthelred felt from his connexion with Normandy showed itself in a haughty indifference to their aid, "Non cunctatus in propria domo ejus eo inscio perimere " Cod. Dip. 719. ' Eng. Chron. a. 1002. Leofsige's signature as ealdorman disappears after the year 1001. Cod. Dip. 719, which shows the Witan's part. The charter is of 1012, and shows how the deed rankled in ^thelred's mind ten years after. 2 This employment of hired Danes may have been as much to strengthen him against his own ealdormen as against the north- men— an attempt to bring together a standing army. 395 CHAP. VIIL The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. WeaLnri I 414 CHAP. VIIT. The Danish Conquest. 988- 1016. Dissensions in England. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Fortune already favoured his cause. The loss of Thurkill's military force was not made up by national vigour. The union which had been sealed by solemn pact between JEthelred and his Witan was already at an end ; the English court was again torn with strife ; and though the kino; himself, who was drawing fast to the death which followed in the coming year, could take little part in the struggle, the fight he had fought against the great nobles was taken up fiercely by his son. The contest between Ea.dmund and ealdorman Eadric proved more fatal to England than any of its predecessors. Of the origin or real nature of the quarrel we know nothing, but Eadmund seems to have revolted against the power which Eadric exercised over the king. Its first outbreak was at the Witenag-emot at Oxford, where Eadric is said to have drawn two " chief thegns of the Seven Boroughs " into his chamber and to have slain them. The thegns may have been supporters of Eadmund, for after a short while Eadmund, against his father's will, took the widow of one of them to wife, seized their lands, and made himself head of their people.^ The quarrel had just broken out when Cnut appeared ravao-ine: the Wessex coast, and its results at once showed themselves in the old fatal discord in the face of the national enemy. The host gathered to meet Cnut under Eadric, but no sooner had Eadmund joined it with forces from the North than charges of treachery parted the two leaders, and the English army broke 1 Eng. Chron. a. 1015. As these lands were in Eadric's ealdor- manry this may have been an effort to break up the ealdorman' s power at home, but we have no means of deciding the matter. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. lip Without any Hght. A yet more fatal issue followed, .^thelred must now have been dying, and Eadric, conscious that his death would leave him in the hands of a kmg who was his avowed enemy, saw no resource save one. He joined Cnut with forty ships, and the balance of the war turned at once in favour of the Dane. The men of Wessex submitted to him and with the opening of the year 1016 his host advanced across the Thames, ravaging at its will. It was in vain that Eadmund gathered forces to oppose Cnut and Eadric, for the army was no sooner assembled than It refused to march without the king; and when /Ethelred joined his son, and a more strin<.ent summons called men to tlie royal standard, °the general distrust still paralyzed action. " It was made known to the king that men would betray him • " and ^thelred sailed again in terror to London, while his son fell back on Northumbria and sought aid from his brother-in-law. Earl Uhtred. Their joint army however broke up as soon as Cnut, who had been wasting eastern Mercia unopposed, advanced by Lincoln upon York, and while Uhtred and the North- umbrians submitted to the conqueror, Eadmund fled to join his father in London. It was at this moment that London first took the leading part in English history which it has main- ained ever since. The city stood alone in its loyalty to the house of Cerdic, for almost all England from the Channel to the Forth had now bowed to the Dane But the spirit of its burghers remained unbroken. As Cnut and Eadric advanced from the north to complete their work by a siege of the town, ^thelrcl died 415 CHAP. Till. The Danish Conqaest. 9B8- loie. Eadmund Ironside. I 416 CHAP. VIII. The Danisli Conquest. 988- 1016. Assandun. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. within its walls in April 1016 ; but Eadmund was at once chosen king by those of the Witan who remained with him and by the Londoners. Once crowned, he showed a temper worthy of his line. Quitting London before its investment he hurried into Somerset and Devon, the only shires that still clung to him, where his presence roused part at least of the West-Saxons from their apathy, and again returned with a small force to the relief of the town, which, though girt by a great trench and repeatedly attacked, held its assailants stoutly at bay. The news of his advance forced Cnut to leave the besieging army round London, and to march with an English host under Eadric and two other ealdormen to meet the king. Two indeci- sive engagements on the borders of Wiltshire were followed by the withdrawal of both the fighting forces ; but rapidly gathering a greater host Eadmund took advantage of the opening left by Cnut's retreat, and strikinor alono^ the north bank of the Thames succeeded in his aim. London was relieved and the besiegers were driven to their ships and beaten in a sally at Brentford. The relief indeed was only for a momd when Eric the Norwegian was driven TheSTgnof into exile, Eadwulf, a brother of the murdered ealdor- ' man Uhtred, was suflFered to hold the hereditary pos- session of his house as Earl of Northumbria. Wessex remained for a time the special district of the king. But when, in 1020, possibly as a result of the addition of the Danish monarchy to his English realm, and the administrative difficulties which this brought about, Cnut formed it into an earldom it was the English Godwine whom he chose for its ruler. From the outset of his reign the king had shown favour to Godwine, a thegn of West-Saxon blood, but whose parentage and rank are utterly unknown. The tradition of a humble origin, and his position at the court, show that Cnut was imitating iEthelred's policy in raising " new men " to high place in the royal coun- cils. But whatever may have been his early rank, the ability Godwine showed both in the field and at the (•ouneil board, his eloquence, his pleasant and ready temper, and his laborious industry, were soon rewarded with the hand of Gytha, the sister of jarl Ulf, who was himself wedded to the sister of Cnut. Such an alliance brought the new favourite near to the throne itself ; but it was the prelude to yet greater honours. From 1020 he became the chief councillor of the king ; he held an important office as governor of the realm in Cnut's absence during the wars in the north, and he probably possessed the earldom of Wessex with which we find him invested at Cnut's iienth. By that time, as his signatures show, he ranked first LMf I i I 428 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1016- 1035. The ealdormen. CHAR IX. among the English nobles, and before even the kins- ^^""c^nur °^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^"^S' ^^^^^^ ^^® wealth was enormous and his possessions extended over nearly every shire of southern and central England. The history of England in fact under its Danish conquerors was really a developement of those institutions, whether administrative, fiscal, or judicial, which had been growing into shape under its West- Saxon kings. The conquest brought no violent inter- ruption to this developement— rather, by the social and political revolution it wrought, it enabled the conqueror to carry out the work of his predecessors more rapidly and completely than would have been possible without so great a shock. In the local organization of the realm the circumstances of Cnut's conquest left him no choice but to carry out in its entirety that change in the character of the great provincial governments which had been attempted by ^thelred in the case of Mercia. ^thelred's policy had implied the breaking down of the tra- ditional West-Saxon system of the government of these dependencies by men of royal blood, and the appointment of ordinary delegates of the crown. Under Cnut this system was rapidly extended. The ealdormanries were changed into earldoms and the earls into pure nominees and dependents of the crown, a transformation which was marked by their summary displacement and replacement in their posts ; and the policy of iEthelred, adopted first by his Danish suc- cessor, was finally made the basis of the system of the Norman Conqueror. The administrative system, too, had been taking 429 CHAP. IX. Cnut. 1016- 1035. System of adminisfni' tion. new form under ^thelred, and the stormy character of his reign had shown the difficulties that attended TheS^Ignof tlie change. In his youth indeed when little alter- ation seems to have been made, government was still in the hands of one of the great ealdormen, and even after the king had arrived at full power, Arch- bishop Sigeric seems to have retained something of the same position of standing councillor of'^the realm which Dunstan had identified with the office of the primate. But as years drew on the appear- ance of a new officer at court, the High Thegn, marked the beginning of an attempt on the part of the king to supersede the traditional and constitu- tional advisers by ministers of a more modern type chosen by and dependent on himself. Some such modification had become absolutely necessary under the conditions of the new English kingdom. With the increasing demands for government and adminis- tration over so wide an area, and the growing com- plexity of England's foreign relations, the nee^d of a continuous ministry in constant communication with the king made itself more and more felt, and un- popular as was the institution of the head thegn, it became of the first importance from the wide extent of the empire over which Cnut ruled, and the necessity of delegating his authority during any absence from his English dominions. The office indeed was not only continued by Cnut, but raised by him into a promi- nence it never afterwards lost. The transformation of the head thegn into a " Secundarius Ee.cris " 'u^ the person of Godwine, marked a step towards the crea- tion of the later Justiciary and of the ministerial }l 1 \. If m I m 430 CHAP. IX. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. AP^ix. system which lasted on to the close of the Angevin The Reign of Cnut. 1016. 1035. The king's chaplains. reigns. With the creation, however, of such an officer the system of Dunstan came practically to an end. The primate retained his position as councillor of the realm in virtue of his representation of the liberties of the Church and of the people, but his power was that of a constitutional check, not of a minister of the crown ; while the earls were only sum- moned to the three great Witenagemots to counsel on the affairs of the realm. The ordinary adminis- tration lay therefore wholly in the hands of the king and of his ministers. But for the carrying out of the details of government a staff of secretaries had now become necessary, and there are found from this time in the king's chaplains a group of men, some of whom were foreigners, like Duduc, who may have been chosen specially with a view to the transaction of foreign affairs, while others, like Stigand, were' Englishmen; but all of whom were clearly picked men, and, as we see when they appear as bishops in later days, men of ability. The reward for their work was in most cases an episcopal see, and from now right up to the Eeformation, service at the royal council-board became the ordinary road to a bishopric. It was to this fact that the English episcopate from this time owed its peculiarly political character and its close relations to the crown, and hence the institution of the '' Royal Chapel " is' one of the most important landmarks in our ecclesiastical history. But politically its effects were far greatei'. Administration, indeed, in any true sense was now THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 431 1035. Tajration. for the first time made really possible by the c^xistence chap. ,x. of a body of selected and trained administrators, Thei^Tgnof constantly at work, an^ always at the disposal of the — '' crown for fiscal, political, or judicial purposes, a body '"'' which, reappearing in the justiciary and his ring of assistant secretaries, formed the nucleus of tliat per- manent royal council out of which all our judicial institutions, and to some extent our parliament itself, has sprung. Of even greater moment than ^thelred's adminis- trative changes was his fiscal revolution. The estab- lishment of a land-tax had been attributed in popular fancy to the need of paying Danish tribut.3, as its name of Danegeld shows. But its continuance from this moment, whether Danes were in the lan.i or no, shows that the need of meeting their demands had only forced to the front a financial measure which had become inevitable, and which was necessarily carried on under ^thelred's successors. The land-tax thus imposed formed the chief resource of the crown till the time of the Angevins ; and though the taxation of personalty was introduced by Henry II., the land- tax still remained the main basis of English finance till the beginning of the eighteenth century. Its direct efi-ects from the first in furnishing the crown with a large anS continuous revenue gave a new strength to the monarchy, while its universal levy over every hide in the realm must have strengthened the national feeling. To these two main bases of the royal power, a permanent administration and a fixed revenue, Cnut added a third even more directly important engine ■I IK «lf The hua-carle. ■ 432 CHAP. IX. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1016- 1035. of government in the institution of the hus-carls. ^^^c^uf.^°^ The tendency to provincial isohition, the temptation of the ealdormen to sheer off into independent princes, remained as strong as in ^thelred's day. But now for the first time the king had an armed force ready at his call. The hus-carls whom Cnut retained as a body-guard when he sent home the bulk of his Danish host, three or six thousand men as they were, were too few to hold the land against a national revolt. But they were a force strong enough to repress local rebellion ; they furnished a disciplined nucleus for the fyrd to gather round ; in the field they gave the king a new position as general among his warring lieutenants ; and in more tranquil times they raised him high above the local governors, who had no force save the hasty levy of shire and province at their call. The strength which was given to the French crown by its " archers " in days long after was given to the English crown by the hus-carls. Continued by Cnut's successors to the Norman Conquest, imitated by the Norman kings in the ''paid knights" who held themselves at the king's call, it was in great part to their ex- istence that the new tranquillity which from this time characterized England must have been due. Still more significant of Cnut's * temper than his developement of the existing civil organization of the realm, were his dealings with the Church. His aim seemed to be not only to wipe away the memory of the stern deeds by w^hich he had won his throne, but to identify himself even with the patriotism which had withstood the stranger. The saints he honoured Cintt and the Church. 433 CHAP. TX. were saints who had won martyrdom at the hands of _.. ,. the Danes. Eadmund of East-Anglia was the. martyr The ^^n of of the early Danish conquest, and Cnut n^founded ^~_ the abbey which had grown up over his tomb. ^?i*- Archbishop iElfheah was the martyr of tlie later Danish conquest, when the host of Thurkill harried the land; and Cnut followed the saint's body in its translation to Canterbury.^ On the hill of Assandun the king built a church ^ which commemorated alike the men who had fallen in fight for him, and those who had fallen in fight for Eadmund ; while with a still more marked intent he made his way in later days as a pilgrim to Glastonbury that he might spread a gorgeous pall over Eadmund's tomb.' The religious houses of Ely and Eamsey, the resting- places of Englishmen slain at Maldon and Assandun, were especially enriched by his gifts ; and the, names of Dunstan and Eadward the Martyr were honoured by the anniversaries he instituted in their memory. Nor were these acts of Cnut's mere stratagems to break the nation's discontent at a stranger's rule. They were the signs of a settled policy, "and of a policy which sprang from the temper of the king. Scarcely had the Danish kingdom fallen to him when he began to carry out the same work there. English priests were sent to fill the Danish bishoprics ; even Roeskilde by Lethra, the old royal seat of the first Danish kings, received its bishop from England con- secrated by an English primate. Indeed the change ' In 1023. (A. S. G.) 2 Begun in 1020, finished in 1032. 3 In 1032. (A. S. G.) (A. S. G.) t ! fi I' F F ^lim^^m^tigfm 434 CHAP. IX. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1016- 1035. which liad turned Normans into Frenchmen, and men The Reign of of the Danehiw into Eno^lishmen, was seen workinir Cnnt. . . . ^ with a startling suddenness in Cnut himself. He had the northman's gift of adaptation, the gift of absorbing the character and fashions of the men about him ; and in him the change was made the easier by his youthfulness. Within the young king's heart indeed the wild passions of the North slumbered rather than died. In his own ftxtherland, on his own native seas, if northern legend may be trusted, they leapt into fresh life. The Cnut of the Sagas is to the last the Cnut of the wars with Eadmund, vigorous, unscru- pulous, passionate, revengeful, thirsty of blood. But the wild mood was hushed on English ground. Tlu* traditions, the songs which told of him in after time to Englishmen, were peaceful, gentle, even familiar in tone. " Merrily sang the monks in Ely as Cnut King rowed by," runs a verse of one of these songs which has floated down to us across the ages to tell how the music-loving; kinc: bade his men row near one of his favourite religious houses, " Row, cnihtes, near the land, and hear we these monks sing." Cnut's greatest gift to his people was that of peace. All fear of the pirates was henceforth at an end. The Dane was no longer an enemy. Danish fleets n(t longer hung off" the coasts. On the contrary, it was English ships and English soldiers who now followed Cnut in his northern wars. With him began the long internal tranquillity which was from this time to be the special note of our national history. For seventeen years the country rested in profoun,. . 01 nis reign. Such an internal tran- quility came no doubt in great measure from the exhaustion o the country, from that craving fo peace and order which follows on long T.eriods of anarchy, and which gives a new strengJl to the crown. But the temper, the greatness of Cnut mus have counted for much. The tendency to a sTm - feudalism which had baffled ^thelred was held sternly down. The murder of Eadric showed how ruthlessly Cnut meant to deal with any attempt aT uide d e, .Hie in the banishment'of t:::nnd Ihurkil t was seen that the new earls held their posts solely at the king's will. The political instin " dread fn'' T J" ''"*^*'^^"- "^^^'^^ ^^^^^ Personal diead for in the efficiency of the hus-carls he found a ready and irresistible means of enforcing the common decisions of the government But behind the material forces by which the power of the crown was guarded, and breathing life into he strict fulfilment of his pledge to rule ac^co din" he laws of the English kings, was Cnufs own resolve to reach to the very heart of the man by the fortune which has preserved to us tbp l-;r,„' ^'^^^^'^ After tAn .J t V ^^^ ^ own words. After ten years of rule he addressed his peo])le from the foreign land where he was then in pil Timn^ m a letter memorable as the first personal 'addre^'-^f F P 2 :^si -4 «»i f« ii ( i- i- h CnvCa tcitiptr. .i-.TiiiiifltiMllwiiftBrttoB 436 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1016- 1035. CHAP. IX. an EDglish kinof to Eno;lishmen whicli has readied The Reign of us, but even more memorable for the lio-ht it throws Cnut. . . " on the simple grandeur of his character and the noble conception he had formed of kingship. '' I have vowed to God to lead a right life in all things," he wrote, " to rule justly and piously my realms and subjects, and to administer just judgement to all. If heretofore I have done aught beyond what was just, through headiness or negligence of youth, I am leady with God's help to amend it utterly." No royal officer, either for fear of the king or for favour to any, is to consent to injustice ; none is to do wrong to rich or poor "as they prize my friendship and their own welfare." He especially denounces unjust exactions : " I have no need that money be heaped together for me by unjust demands." " I have sent this letter before me," ends the young king — he was still little more than thirty — ''that all the people of my realm may rejoice in my well-doing; for as you yourselves know, never have I spared nor will I spare to spend myself and my toil in what is needful and good for my people." One of the most important results of the long peace under Cnut, and of the new connexion with the Scandinavian countries which was brought about by his rule, was the developement of English trade and commerce. As yet indeed the inland trade of the country was very small. The rivers were its roads, and it was along the rivers that the trading towns for the most part sprang up. But though the Thames was already a waterway by which London could communicate with the heart of England, no Oxford, THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 437 town save Oxford had as yet arisen along its course, chap. ,x Ihe name of the place tells the story of its birth. iheiSgnof At a point where the Thames suddenly bends for a — *' while to the south, and just before its waters are swollen by those of the Cherwell, a wide aad shallow reach of the river offered a ford by which the cattle- drovers from Wessex could cross the stream, and EARLY OXFORD Scale of Faet LoadoiL: AtacmiUan & C? ^^fAfiii 6ce^t£tcai9 traversing the marshy fields which edged it, mount the low slope of a gravel spit between the two rivers that formed the site of the latter city. On this slope a house of secular canons had grown up l,y the close 01 the ninth century round the tomb of a local saint, Fritheswith or Frideswide ; and at the point where 1016- 1035. mm .n ti II i|t III II P "=™*'««"»WaiM»»ltow,.,ii5;ISi 43) THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1016. 1035. cHAP^ix. the road, reaching its summit, broke into three The Reign of branches, to run northward, eastward, and westward, a little town furnished the germ of the future Oxford.' It probably extended only over the site of three of its later parishes, that of St. Martin, whose claims to be the earliest of its churches were confirmed by its recognition as the '^city church" and by the meeting of the Portmannimot in its churchyard ; ^ that of St. Mildred," whose name shows its Mercian date ; and the parish of All Hallows between them ; while it was linked to the ford by a thin line of houses, the later Fish Street, with a church of St. Aldad or Aldate in the midst of it. The little borough was probably extending its bounds to the westward over the ground marked by the parish of St. Ebbe^ when Alfred established his mint there; and the presence of a mint shows that it was already a place of some importance. The 'loss of London and of the lower Thames valley in the Danish wars had in fact made it a border-town of the Mercian ealdormanry after the peace of Wedmore ; and the mound upon which its castle-keep was afterwards reared may have been among the first of those works of fortification by which /Ethelred and his Lady held their own ^ A charter (Hist. Mon. Abingdon (ed. Stevenson), i. 439) shows the church to be older than Cnut's day. 2 The site of this parish is now covered by Lincoln and Exeter colleges. Mildred, who died towards the close of the seventh century, was niece of Wulfhere of Mercia, and one of the most noted of the old English saints. (A. S. G.) ^ 2 As Ebbe was martyred in 870, the churches of her dedica- tion generally mark the revival under Alfred and his children, and so their parishes may be assigned to this time. 439 CHAP. IX. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. against the Danes. As from this time it grew in nnportance and wealth, Oxford divided with London Thei^Tgnof the traffic along the Thames: we catch our first ^^' glimpse of its burghers when an abbot of Abingdon, ^^' in return for a toll of herrings which their barges paid in passing, consented to cut a new channel for their transit.'^ ^^ What Oxford had become to the trade of the Notthgham. Thames, Torksey and Nottingham were becoming to the trade of the Trent. Nottingham, where ^ Eadward's bridge spanned the river, while his two ' mounds commanded its banks, was growing into importance not merely as a point of contact between England and the north, but as a centre of internal navigation. The town was still a small one, with ])ut two churches, one on either side the river, and its life was purely industrial, for no abbey towered over Its lanes, nor was the rock that overhung it crowned yet with its castle. To keep open the two highways by land and by water that intersected at t;his point was the main duty of the burghers ; they were bound to guard alike " the water of the Trent '' and '' the foss and road that leads to York.'' A fine of eight pounds punished any one who ploughed or trenched within two perches of the road, or hindered in any way the passage of boats along the stream.^ Tolfs for the river traffic formed part of the re\ enues of the town, and the existence of a merchant- gild side 1 Hist. Abingdon (Stevenson), i. 481, " Nam illorum navigium saepius transitum illic habebat." 2 See the description of the town in Domesday Book, and its charter. Stubbs, " Select Charters," 159. mi 440 CHAP. IX. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1016- 1035. Gloucester. 'V. by side with its cnichten-gild showed its trading ^lie Reign of activity. In the richer and busier valley of the Severn, where fisheries were now of great value, for at least sixty-five are mentioned in charters along its course/ Gloucester was fast rising into importance. The foundation of a nunnery there in 681 showed that life had even in the seventh century returned to the ruins of the Roman Glevum, and in the time of urElfred the town was already of sufficient note for him to establish a mint there. In later days the nunnery gave place to a college of secular priests, and that again under Cnut to a Benedictine abbey. But besides its religious fife the position of Gloucester was rapidly giving to the tow^n an increasing political importance. Lying as it did in the border-land be- tween the two races, in a territory where the Welsli blood and the Welsh tongue were still common, Gloucester was destined in the following reign to become one of the state-tow^ns of the realm. As yet how^ever Worcester, as the dwelling-place of ealdor- man and bishop, retained its supremacy ; and the gift of its market dues, w\ain-shilling and load-penny, was the costliest among the many boons which JEthelred and iEthelflsed showered on Bishop Werfrith. Small however as were the beginnings of English trade, it had begun, and a survey of the seaports will show how much it owed to the impulse of the Danes. The port of Chester depended on the trade with Ireland, w^hich had sprung up since the settlement of 1 There were at least thirty-three on the Wye. The salmon fisheries of these rivers were already leased. Cod. Dip. 695. Chester. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 441 the northmen along the Irish coasts. The town-as chap is we know-was one of the most recent in Britain ; for The STgn of Its site had lam waste for three hundred yc^ars before *"""' .^ithelflaed in 907 restored and enlarged its Eoman walls, raised the mound beside its bridge, and created the new Chester which like its predecessor watched ^___,^_______^^^_^ EARLY CHESTER 1 _rr— ---^ ~ Scale of leet — — London: MacTaillan. & C? tanfonVs CtojMsaUfi alike the country to the north, and the Welsh passes to the south and westward of the river. It was probably to aid in its repeopling that the secular house of the Mercian saint, Werburgh,' was founded in 1 Indications of the growth of population in towns may be found m the provision of new churches, dedicated to saints in loie- 103S. !;i 1 1016- 1035. 442 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. cHAP^ix. the north-eastern quarter of the city, while its security ^^^^uf^^^ was provided for by a custom recorded in Domesday, which bound every hide in the shire to furnish a man at its town-reeve's call to repair walls and bridge. The new town probably grew up by degrees over the ruins of the old : St. Werburgh's house stood alone in the north-eastern quarter, and the absence of any older churches in the north-western makes it possible that at first only the southern part of the city, as was likely from its neighbourhood to the bridge, was built over, for here we find on either side of the street leading to the bridge the churches of St. Martin, St. Bridget, and St. Michael ; while yet more to the south the church of St. Olaf pointed, like the twelve law- men who presided in its law-court, to a Danish settlement, the result perhaps of a Danish occupation of the city in the later course of the struggle between the Danelaw and the Eno;lish kings. Chester lay in a wild and half-barbarous region : the country round it, like most of northern England,^ was almost destitute of wheat and grain,^ and formed a vast pasture land, whose inhabitants differed little in their mode of life from their Welsh neighbours o popular favour at the time. The conversion of the English kingdoms gave rise in the seventh century to a number of saints, as for example St. Wilfrid, St. Werburgh, St. Mildred, St. Ethcl- dreda, &c. Saints such as St. Swithin, St. Eadmund, and St. Ebbe in the ninth century marked the early period of the West- Saxon monarchy, as St. Dunstan and St. JElfheah marked its later period. The northern saints of the eleventh century, St. Olaf and St. Magnus, only just preceded the influx of Norman saints to whom so many later churches were dedicated. (A. S. G.) 1 Will. Malm. " Gest. Pontif." (Migne), 308. ^ " Farris et maxime tritico inops " (ib.). THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 443 7^s trade. across the Dee. Their main food was barley-bread or chap. ,.. oat-cake. Only the richer ate meat, the bulk con- TheiiTgnof tented themselves with milk and cheese. > But in — '' spite of such a neighbourhood the town grew fast ; and 'off' the legend which makes it the .scene oi' Eadgar's triumph, when he was rowed upon the Dee by vassal kings, and knelt with them about him in the church of St. John without its walls, shows at any rate its im- portance in Dunstan's day. Its position indeed was as valuable commercially as it was politically ; and its market-place offered one of the wildest and most pic- turesque scenes of the new commercial life. Among tlie piles of cheeses which then, as now, formed the main produce of the Cheshire plain, the piles of baimock and barley- bread, and the crates of fish which the fish- wives brought from the fisheries of the Dee, its sturdy burghers pushed their way through a motl(3y crowd, in which the trader from the Danish towns of Ireland strove in his northern tongue to draw buyers to his gang of slaves, while the Welsh kerne, wrapped in ins blanket, who had driven across the bridge the small and wiry cattle from his native hills, chattered as he might with the hardly less wild Cumbrian from the lands beyond the Ribble. Whatever part the slave trade played in the com- Srhtol merce of Chester, it was the main traffic of Bristol. The rise of Bristol had been probably as recent as that of Its rival port on the western coast ; a, number of coins,^ indeed, which witness to the presence of a 1 Will. Malm. " Gest. Pontif." (Migne), 308. 2 Mr. John Evans writes to me that he has in his collection tour coins of Cnut struck at Bristol by the moneyers ^gel- tr II 444 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAK IX. mint here in Cnut's day, form the first historic evidence ^eR^ignof of the existence of the town itself, though the presence lole- ^f ^ parish of St. Mildred within its bounds suggests *2i*- an earlier life in Mercian days. The trade with southern Ireland, from which its importance sprang, originated at any rate with the planting of Danish towns on the Irish coast, and the rise of Bristol into commercial activity cannot have been earlier than that of Dublin or Waterford. For a trade with Ireland the estuary of the Severn was the natural entrepot, and the deep channel of the Avon furnished a port at that point of the estuary from whence roads led most easily into the heart of Britain. The town however was still a small one in the days of the Confessor,^ nor was its general traffic probably as yet of much conse- quence. But nowhere was the slave trade so active. The Bristol burgher bought up men over the whole fiice of England for export to Ireland, where the Danes, as elsewhere, acted as factors for the slave markets of half Europe. Youths and maidens were above all the object of their search ; and in the market of the town rows of both might be seen chained and roped together for the mart. With a yet viler greed, wine and JElfwine. Hildebrand describes thirty-two varieties of Cnut's coins struck at Bristol which are now in the Stockholm Museum. In the same collection is one coin of ^thelred the Second minted by ^LFPERD ON BRIE—, of which Mr. Evans has also a specimen. (A. S. G.) ^ It was coupled with the manor of Barton in a joint payment of a hundred and ten marks of silver as " feorm " to the royal exchequer, as though it had grown out of this manor at but a recent time (see entry in Domesday). It seems as yet to have been an open borough ; its castle was certainly of far later date. 445 Cnat. 1016- 1035. Sea-porta of the south coast. the girls were hired out for purposes of prostitution ch.p. :.. as well as of sale and often sold in a state of preg- TheRir,„„f nancy. It was m vain that canon and law forbade '^^ that Christian guiltless men should be sold out of the land, and above all to heathen purchasers, or that this prohibition was repeated in the laws of Onut. It was easy indeed to evade such enactments. riie man who had been reduced to slavery bv sentence of law, or the children who inherited his taint of blood could not be held as the guiltless persons mentioned in It ; and no English law would be made to apply to slaves either purchased or taken in war from the neighbouring Welsh. While the trade with the Irish Ostmen was thus raising Chester and Bristol into importance, the towns of the English Channel continued little more than fish- ing towns^ Exeter perhaps may have carried on some slight traffic with the land of the Franks. The town stood two miles above the mouth of the Exe, but shal- ow as Its channel seems nowadays, the small craft of tlie town could easily moor beneath its walls, and the part It played in the after war with the Normans shows tHat It had grown into a strong and wealtliy place, but eastward of Exeter we see only a trace of little ports to which the fisheries were beginning to give life. Oi those on the Dorsetshire coast Wareham was the most thriving ; it was the shire-town, with a house tor the king when he came there on his ridings a dwelling for the shire-reeve, and inns for all the had- mg thegns of the shire ; but like its fellow towns it ' Malmesbury, " Vit. Wulstani," Angl. Sacr. 258. Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," i. 377-379. 11 f li H : i 440 CHAP. IX. The Reign'of Cnut. 1016. 1035. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. had hardly risen to the dignity of really civic exist- ence, it had never bous^ht its " feorm," and each of its burghers paid his dues either directly or througli liis lord to the king's reeve. Further westward Hamton and Portsmouth are but names to us, and it is only when we reach the Kentish coast that we find a real commercial life in Sandwich and Dover. Dover had long been the point of passage for Gaul ; and on the silting up of the channel between Thanet and Kent, Sandwich had risen from a little hamlet on the sandvr flats beside the ruined Eichborough, into the main port of the Channel. Its '' butsecarls " were present in the fleets that the kings gatherer! in the channel ; ^ its ferry-dues and port-tolls formed a good part of the revenue of Christ-Church nt Canterbury, to which Cnut granted them in later days;^ they were rich enough indeed to tempt the greed of his son,^ and to draw the two great Kentish 1 In 1009 ^thelred gathered his fleet there. Tostig took " butsecarls " or sailors from it, doubtless as the best mariners of the coast. 2 Cod. Dip. 737. Cnut grants to Christ-Church the port arid all the "exitus" of its waters, amongst them the right of *' wreck" or "strand," so far as a man can throw from a shi}) fully laden and floating in the river ** securis parvula quam Angli vocant Taper-eax super terram," and on the high seas outside the harbour as far as high- water mark, and beyond this the length of a man's stature as he holds a sprouting branch in his hand and stretches it as far out as he can, " tenentis lignum quod Angli nominant spreot et tendentis ante se quantum potest/' All found on this "strand," be it clothes or net or arms or iron or gold or silver, went half to the finder and half to the monks. 3 Cod. Dip. 758. " Harald the king caused Sandwich to be ridden about to his own hand :— and he kept it to himself well- nigh two herring-seasons." The rival house, St. Augustine, had THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 447 1016- 1035. Trade of the eaal coast. abbeys mto a long strife for their possession. But in c„.p. ,x. spite of the craft that lay at its wharf,"its reckoning T.eSr,nof of time by herring-seasons " shows that Sandwich *"""■ was still a fishing town rather than a merchant port Along the eastern coast however the trade with the north which had followed in the wake of the Danish conquest was now arousing commerce into a far more vigorous hfe "What do you bring to us ]" the merchant is asked in an Old-English dialogue. " I bring skins, silks, costly gems, and gold," he answers besides various garments, pigment, wine, oil, an.l ivory, with brass, and copper, and tin, silver and glass and such like.'- The main trade with the Wash or the Humber was probably of rougher wares than these, the skins and ropes and ship masts which, at a later day, formed the staple of the Baltic trade in the hands of the Hanse towns and above all the iron and steel that tliP Scandi- navian lands so long supplied to Britain. The herring fishery in the German Sea had long been a a great longing for Sandwich, and strove to buy it of Harald or to make a compromise with the monks of Chri.,t Chureh But it d^ndsTen .t ^i^°*/'^^^- °^ «*• Augustine Were^ aemands even "to a third penny of the tolls ^Tlr^ h^ h^ • .i. Meldfhrvfl.'o o •. , wharf o\'er against tl^lfcS'wol I %' " •'"'* "'"'' "* ^yP^"- fl'-*' hoping he got no iod by If " ^"^ ^' *'^^ ''' ^' ^^^'^'^^^^ ' '^--ef 448 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1016- 1035. f CHAP. IX. lucrative branch of employment among the northern The Eeign of j)eoples ; and as this was already absorbing the boata of Dover and Sandwich, we cannot doubt that it formed as large a part of the business of the eastern ports. With the growing rigidity of the ecclesiastical rules for fasting and abstinence the supply of fish as an article of diet became every day a more important matter. The inland-fisher supplied eels, and lampreys, minnows and eel-pouts, from rivers and fish-ponds ; the sea-fisher brought herrings and salmon, skate and haddocks, porpoises, sturgeons, oysters and crabs, mussels, winkles, cockles, flounders, plaice, and lob- sters, as the harvest of the sea.^ "With the whale fishery of the northern ocean, which was to bring wealth in later days to the Humber, the English sea- man, if we may trust a representation of the time, was too timid to meddle. " Can you take a whale ? '' asks his questioner. '' Many," he answers, " take whales without danger, and then they get a great price, but I dare not from the fearfulness of my mind."^ But Dane and Norwegian were traders over a yet wider field than the northern seas ; ^ their barks ^ ^Ifric's Dialogues in the Cotton Library MS. Tib. A. 3 ; quoted in Sharon Turner, " Hist. Ang. Sax." iii. 20. 2 Ibid. p. 22. ^ As early as Harald Fair-hair's time, his son Biorn " ruled over Westfold, and generally lived at Tunsberg, and went but little on war expeditions. Tunsberg at that time was much frequented by merchant vessels, both from the Wik and the north country, and also from the south, from Denmark and from Saxon-land. King Biorn had also merchant ships on voyages to other lands, by which he procured himself costly goods and such things as he thought needful, and so his brothers called him ' the THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 449 Cnnt. I016> 1035. entered the Mediterranean, while the overland route oh.. „ through Eussia brought the silks and gold-work of T..iCo. Constantinople and the East to their Eastland ^^ traders ; and the tempting list of wares which the merchant describes in ^Ifric's dialogue may have feirly represented what the northmen brought to heir markets at Grimsby or York. The growth of this northern trade at any rate is sho.vn by the growth of the ports along the eastern coast. Ipswich was becoming a considerable town with some five hundred houses and between two and three thousand inhabitants; Dunwich too, though even then threatened by the sea, was growing fast. But neither could vie m si.e or wealth with Norwich. Its site at the con- fluence of the Wensum with the Yare, at the highest point o which the tidal water then penetrated, fouTd not fail to call to the town population and traffic ; and the wealth and daring of its six or seven thousand inhabitants soon became proverbial. Many of these were probably Danes ; and the town gave an odd proof of Its connexion with the Scandinavian lands by paying, as Domesday tells us, among its yearlv .nk/with the :::^:r ^::::^-^^ on the eve of an expedition, could leave hit treasure in the hands of one of them. No bishop's minster or earl s castle as yet crowned the hill-top of Lincoln • but the increase of trade was already drawing its lon^ steep street down the slope, at whose foot the Witham Freightman " and " the Merchant." Harald F«,V l. • • o Laing, "Sea Kings," i. 305. I"air-huirs Saga. (i a "^1 li I It II 450 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1016- 1035. Yorlc. CHAP. IX. breaks through the upland to the flats of the Wash. The Reign of In those flats Boston was growing up round the abbey of St. Botulf, to depose Lincoln as Hull deposed York, when the increasing size of vessels made the AYitham and Ouse impassable for traffic. But as yet the tiny commerce needed only vessels that drew little water ; and Lincoln, with its merchant gild and its twelve lawmen ruling the city sokes, was a mart of both inland and outland trade. ^ The centre however of the northern trade was York. In the days of Dunstan^ much of its Eoman glory still lingered on in noble buildings and massive walls, even then crumbling with age ; but its later fortunes under Engle and Dane were marked by the mound which rose on the tongue of land at the junction of Foss and Ouse, a mound which had probably been raised in the early Northumbrian days to command the port, and on which the northern conquerors of York had planted a fortress, whose demolition by iEthelstan announced the subjection of the Danelaw,^ and whose site is now marked by the ruined fortress of yet later days called Cliff'ord's Tower. The city was proud of its population and wealth. It boasted of thirty thousand dwellers ; it really contained some two thousand houses and about ten thousand inhabit- ants, a number far beyond that of any other English town save London.^ The city indeed now not only ^ ** Emporium Lominum terra marique venientium." Will. Malm. " Gest. Pontificum " (Hamilton), p. 312. 2 Life of Oswald (Eaine), " Hist, of Church of York," p. 454, etc. 3 Will. Malm. "Gest. Reg" (Hardy), i. 213. ^ *' Gaudet de multitudine populorum, non minus virorum ac THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 451 fiUed the wedge-like space betweea the Fcss and the Ouse, but stretched to south-east and south-west CHAP. IX. EARLY YORK over TheRelgmof CBUt. 1016. 103&. Londmi; MaxuoillaiL & C? •iUA^rdi Gt>j<-£na^ both rivers in considerable suburbs. Across the Ouse houses gathered thickly round the two churches of mulierum, exceptis parvuHs et pubetinis, quam xxL. milia in eadem civitote numerati sunt." Life of Oswald, p. 454. Strictly construed, this would mean some fifty or sixty thousand dwellers ; G G 2 il 452 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. m 1016-* I035. London. CHAP. IX. St. Mary, Bishops-hill, in the fabric of one of which The Reign of we find fraormcnts of the Eoman work with which Cnut. ? Tr 1 1 this part of York abounds, while across the Foss the fishers gathered in their own Fisher-gate. A third suburb along the Ouse is marked as a Danish quarter by the later church of St. Olaf and by Siward's choice of a burial-place there ; and here no doubt mainly centred the trade and wealth of the town.^ From the first upgrowth of commerce, however, the centre of the whole trading life of England was London. Its early history is lost in obscurity. We know nothing of the circumstances of its conquest, of the fate of its citizens, or of the settlement of the conquerors within its walls. That some such settlement had taken place at least as early as the close of the seventh century is plain from the story of Mellitus, when placed as bishop within its walls ; but it is equally plain that the settlement was an English one, that the provincials had here as else- where disappeared, and that the ruin of the city had been complete. Had London merely surrendered to the East-Saxons and retained its older population and municipal life, it is hard to imagine how, within less than half a century, its burghers could have so wholly lost all trace of Christianity that not even a ruined church, as at Canterbury, remained for the but either number is absurd. Domesday gives 1418 houses for five of its "shires" and one "shire" waste, with 189 for the archbishop's " shire." ^ " Inedicibiliter repleta est, et mercatorum gazis locupleta qui undique adveuiunt, maxime ex Danorum gente." Life of Oswald, (Raine), "Hist. Ch. of York," i. 454. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 453 1016. 1035. use of the Christian bishop, and that the first care chap.ix. ot Mellitus was to set up a mission-church in the The S^Tgn of midst of a heathen population. It is even harder to — " imagine how all trace of the municipal institutions to which the Roman towns clung so obstinately should have so utterly disappeared. But more direct proofs of the wreck of the town meet us in the strav glimpses which we are able to get of its earlier topographical history. The story of early London is not that of a settled community slowly putting off the forms of Roman for those of English life, but of a number of httle groups scattered here and there over the area within the walls, each growing up with its own life and institutions, gilds, sokes, religious houses, and the bke, and only slowly drawing together into a municipal union which remained weak and imperfect even at the Norman conquest. Unluckily it is only here and there that we can even dimly trace the growth of these little com munities. The first which we can clearly follow IS that of the church and monastery of St. Paul The ground which ^thelberht gave Bishop M.jllitus for his mmster and its accompanying buildings, ground which formed the highest point in the city, and whose area corresponds with that of the present precmct of the cathedral-church, was no doubt a spot waste and uninhabited, and thus formed part of the folk-land which was at the king's disposal. ' But from ' T*"! J'°"'»ds of the grant were probably much the same as tliose of the present precincts, with Old Change to the eastward, Pa er-noeter Row to the north, Ave-Maria Lane and Creed Lane to the west, and Carter Lane to the south. |! ■11 I i» .. Earh/ Saxon settlement. 454 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. fi 4i « .fW Wl f4 1016- 1035. CHAP. IX. other indications we may gather that not this spot TheEeignof onlv, but the whole area about it, was waste and un- inhabited. To the north of St. Paul's, for instance, the ground on which St. Martin's-le- Grand w^as planted seems from the rise of this great church there to have been mainly open ground at the eve of the Norman conquest, while to the w^estward it w^as still easy for the Franciscans to find room for their settle- ment as late as the thirteenth century. The space south of the precincts w^as chiefly occupied in later days by the soke of Castle Baynard, a fortress with w^hich the Norman kings bridled the city on the westward, as they bridled it to the east with the Tower,^ and which was probably built, like the Tower itself, on open ground which may have been only recently won from the foreshore of the river. The Avaste state of the ground has left its mark even on the little lane now known as St. Benet's, which stretches along the borders of this soke from Paul's Chain to Paul's Wharf. As one of the first needs for the fringe -of population which w^ould naturally grow up around the precincts was that of access to the river, this lane can hardly have been later in growth than the close of the eighth century, and formed a part of the bishop's liberty ; but as neither this liberty, nor the parish of St. Benet's, which ecclesiastically represented it, extended much beyond the lane itself, w^e may conjecture that it ran through a district which was at this time unoccupied. 1 The soke of Castle Baynard comprised the whole district round the precincts of St. Paul's from Benet's Lane to the Wall, and northward as far as Lud orate. '1 i. „«■■ II ill THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 455 CHAP. TX. JU1XU 1016w 1035. Growt/i of impulation^ The settlement about St. Paul's howev^er was far from being as early as the age of Mellitus, for the Thei^Tgnof work of that missionary was interrupted by the ^'''^'^ apostasy of the East- Saxons, and it is not till half a century later, when London had passed under the Mercian rule ' that we again find bishops settled there. The most famous of these is Erkenwald,' and it is to him and his immediate successors that we must attribute the little ring of churches and parishes such as St. Augustine, St. Gregory, St. Benet, and St. Faith '—which show a growth of population round the precincts of the minster. The legend of Erken- wald for the first time brings us face to face with the new burghers, in their struggle with the monks of Chertsey and the nuns of Barking, at whose house he had died, for the possession of the sainted bishop's remains. They broke into the death-chamber, runs the legend, seized the corpse, and set it in a waggon drawn by oxen to carry it to the city. Their torches, however, were blown out by a mighty storm, they could not ford the swollen waters of the Lea, nor find boats to cross it, and a fresh strife rose over the remains, which only ended in both parties praying for 1 Wulfhere of Mercia sold its bishoprick to Wini in 666 Baeda, H. E. lib. iii. c. 7. 2 Bseda, H. E. lib. iv. c. vi. He became bisliop in 675 or 676, and died about 693. Stubbs, art. on ^'Erkenwald" in "Diet' Christ. Biogr." ii. 178. 3 The dedications to St. Augustine and St. Gregory bear evidence of close association with the conversion of England. St. Benet's or St. Benedict's recalls the fact that it was during Erkenwald's episcopate that the Benedictine rule first began to make its way in England. St. Faith was a favourite early dedication. (A. S. G.) ^^ 456 CHAP. IX. 1016- 1035. The Cheap I i \ ;i m u M THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. ^ miracle to decide between them. At tlieir prayers ^^^nuf"^ ^^^^ "^^^^^^ V^^^^i and suffered the waggon to pass through, the torches re-lighted themselves, the storm ceased, and the burghers brought the body of their saint in triumph into London.' About the same time, in the reign of Wulf here's successor, ^thelred, we catch the first indication of a revival of the trade and foreign commerce of the town in its mention as a mart for slaves, and the presence there of merchants from Frisia : ^ while tow^ards the close of the seventh century its 'Svic reeve" is mentioned in the laws of the Kentish kinsfs.^ If we look for the site of the early community to which reeve and market and burgesses belonged, tradition takes us to the district afterwards known as the Ward of Cheap as the oldest part of London. Nor is the tradition at variance with the indications of the ground itself. Nowhere was life so Ijkely to awake again as along the banks of the Walbrook, then and for centuries to come a broad river-channel, between whose muddy banks the stream was still deep enough to float the small boats used in the traffic up from the Thames to the very edge of the '' Cheap," or market-place at the hythe or port which tradition fixed in the modern Bucklersbury.' But that the 1 We may perhaps find a trace of Erkenwald in the church of AH HaHows, Barking, in the neighbourhood of the Tower. Erkenwald was the founder of the monastery at Barking, and the church and parish may mark the locality of a soke or manor which he had granted to it. 2 Bgeda, H. E. lib. 4. c. 22. 3 *'Laws of Hlothereand Eadric." Thorpe, '' Anc. Laws," i. 35 * Stow's ''London" (ed. Thoms), p. 97. Cheapward runs along the Walbrook from Bucklersbury to the Poultry. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 457 1016- 1035. space between this border of the Cheap and the chap. ,z minster precincts was ah-eady fairly peopled by the The iJgn of close of the eighth century we may gather from the — ' site of two of the churches within this area. From the days of Wulfhere to those of Ecgberht, London save for its temporary subjection to the West-Saxon rule by Ine, remained under the rule of the Mercian kings, one of the greatest of whom, Oifa, is tradi- tionally said to have occupied a kings vill in what must have then been open ground to the north of the little borough we have been describ- ing, at a spot now marked by St. Alban's church m Wood Street. 1 Mildred was a popular Mercian saint of the time : and if the two churches dedicated to her in Bread Street and in the Poultry be, as is likely, of this date, they would show that 'the space between the Cheap and the minster, from Fish Street on the south to our Cheapside on the 1 In Abbot Paul's time, 1077-1003, the Abbey of St. Albin's acquired "plures ecdesias in Lundouiis, quarum unius dona- tionem, scilicet Sancti Albani, pro patronatu alteri.is, nescitur qua consideratione Abbati Westmonasteriensi concessit Fuit autem capella regis Ofla, fundatoris, cui fuit contiimum suum regale palatium. Sed iucuria sequacium et desidiA omnis locus ilje, improba occupatione civium vicinorium, in parvum mansum, hoertatem tamen antiquam retiuentem, coartatur."— Hist Mon S. Albani (ed. Eiley), vol. i. p. 55. That is, an old chapelj perhaps of Offa's king's-tun, was given to St. Alban's after the Conquest, and then made a church under the abbey-saint's name Stow and the ordinary London historians blunder wildly about this. A grant of the last Mercian king, Burhred, of a " gaziferi agelluh m vico Lnndonise, hoc est ubi nomiuatur Ceolmundin". chaga, qui est non longe from (sic) Westgetum positus," (Thorpe I' Diplomatarium," p. 118), points to some dwellings about " VVestgate," the " Ktwgate " of later days. '< 458 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Cnnt. loie- 1035. East- Cheap. CHAP. IX. north, had grown into a single borough before the TheReTgnof clays of Ecgberht.^ The story of the eastern half of London is, in its earliest part, even more obscure than the story of the western half. The great central road from Newgate, which crossed Walbrook at the Poultry, stretches thence throusjli its area to London Brido:e ; and a Cheap grew up, probably at a very early time, on the southern side of this road, the East-Cheap of later days, though far smaller and less important than the Cheap in the west. But this Cheap must at first have stood almost isolated;- it was only slowly that popula- tion spread over the space about it, and dwellings rose scantily and sporadically along the line of commu- 1 That this early London grew up on ground from which the Roman city had practically disappeared may be inferred from the change in the main line of communication which passed through the heart of each. This was the road which led from Newgate to the Bridge. In Roman London this seems to have struck through the city in a direct line from Newgate to a bridge in the neighbourhood of the present Budge Row. Of this road the two extremities survived in English London, one from the gate to the precincts of St. Paul, the other in the present Budge Row. But between these points all trace of it is lost. The lines of the street that ran through the area which it must have traversed are not only not in accordance with it, but thrown diagonally across it. It is the same wherever we dig over the site of the ancient city ; the remains of Roman London which we discover have little or no relation to the lines of the modern times. 2 We see it however extending as early as the close of the eighth century, when Off a (Thorpe, **Anc. Laws," i. 34, note) confirms a gift of two brothers to the church of S. Denys of a plot of ground " in portu qui nuncupatur Lunden-wick," in which we may probably see the origin of S. Dionis Backchurch at the south end of Lime Street just to north of the East-Cheap. 459 CHAP. IX. 1016. 1035. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. nication which led from the bridge over Walbrook to the various gates, and through these to the country lu^^oi beyond. It is thus as a place of traffic that London — ' reappears in history. Its position indeed was such that traffic could not fail to re-create the town, for whether a bridge or a ferry existed at this time,^ it was here that the traveller from Kent or Gaul would stjll cross the Thames, and it was from London that the roads still diverged which, silent and desolate as they had become, furnished the means of communica- tion to any part of Britain.^ The same advantages of site, m a word, which had so rapidly drawn trade and population to the Eoman Londinium would, though in a less degree, draw trade and population to the English London.^ Though its growth was for a while arrested by the early struggle with the northmen, a new life began for the city with its conquest by iElfred. The most important part of his work was his restoration of its walls. Like the rest of the Eoman town the walls themselves had Mien into such decay that they hardly formed any obstacle to an assailant ; and it is 1 The first historical proof of the existence of a, bridge is in Eadgar's day, when a witch was drowned there. " Ba nam man (5ait wif, and adrencte hi set Lundenbricge." Cod. Dip. 52 L 2 See "Making of England," pp. 103, 104. (A. S. G.) 3 The influence of the bishops on its early developement should be noticed. Bishop Theodred in his will (Thorp(s ''Diploma- tarium," p. 512) calls himself -bishop of the Landen-wara " and this close association of bishop, minster, and town is seen in the gathering of the folk-moot at the eastern end of S Paul', summoned by its bell, as well as in the muster of tlie citizens in arms at the western. Beginmnga of municipal life. 4C0 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1016- 1035. fetj cHAP^ix. thus that we hear of no opposition to its repeated TheRdgnof occupation by the Danes. Their condition indeed is illustrated by the fact that the very position of the gates must have become in some cases uncertain ; for the Bishopsgate which dates from this time is considerably to the east of the Eoman gate which it represented. The security however which was given by these walls, the new impulse derived from their re-building, and above all the peace and pros- perity won by the great sovereigns who followed Alfred, are seen in the rapid extension of London through the following century. The " eight moneyers " whom we find allotted to London by /Ethelstan's laws show the position it already held for wealth and im- portance. Under ^thelstan too we find the first document which throws light upon its municipal and commercial life.^ It is the record of a gild of a hundred burghers who with the sanction of the kmg and bishop organize themselves in groups of three, each with its head-man, the whole body beino- united under an ealdorman, with definite provisions for common meeting and common contributions, with a view to the enforcement of a rough police and self-government. The agreement constituting this frith-gild is drawn up by the bishops and reeves belonging to London, and confirmed by the pledges of the frith-gegildas. If this, as it seems, is the act of a voluntary association, we have in it the first indication of the way in which the new London was THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 461 1 The " Judicia Civitatis Lundoni^." Thorpe, "Anc. Laws i. p. 229 et seq. ' »> 1016- 1035. to be formed.' Frith-gilds such as this, church-sokes chap. ix. and lay-sokes, were growing up side by side at ihei^inof various points of the area within the walls, each *"""'• with its separate life and jurisdiction,^ bul; all bound together by a common relation to the king's reeve, port-reeve, or wick-reeve, as well as by those begin- nings of a true municipal life which are to be Teen in the existence of a common Port-mannimot, or moot of the burghers from all parts oi" the city. That this municipal life was furthered by and closely connected with the bishops of the town svas shown by the fact that this moot was called together by the bell from the bell-tower of St. Paul's^ and that it met in the space within the precinct to the east- ward of the church. Nor is it less remarkable that when the burghers gathered for purposes ol" war they mustered on the open space at the west end of the church, and marched under the banner of St. Paul.' It is only by conjecture that we can associate the gild with its ealdorman at its head, whose memory is preserved in the Dooms of J^thelstan, with the Cnichten-gild of Eadgar's day, out of which the later " merchant-gild " may have grown, or with the 1 " London, when it springs into historical light, is a collection of communities based on the lordship, the parish, and the gild • and there is no reason to doubt that similar coincident causes' helped the growth of such towns as York and Exeter " Stubbs "Const. Hist." i. 107. 2 The twelve " lawmen, habentes sacam et socam," at Lincoln Stamford, and Cambridge, show a like organization in other English towns. So at York, " in Eboraco civitate," says Domes- day, " tempore regis Edwardi prajter scyram Archiepiscopi fuerunt sex scywe." 3 stow's " London " (ed. Thorns), p 12 Growth of London. m • II 462 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. m cHAP^ix. " lithsmen " who play so Important a part in Cnut's ^%nur°^ ^^^'' ^^^ ^^^^ ^^'^^ ^^ ^^^^^'® conducted the inland 1016- traffic with Oxford and the towns along the Thames. ^?i*- Still more conjectural perhaps is the connexion of this gild with the borough which grew up to the north of the earlier Lundon-burh, and which has left a trace of itself in the name of Aldermanbury, a name now lost in that of Cripple-gate ward. However this may be, it is probable that it is to this period that we must refer the beginnings of this Ealdorman-bury, as well as of the Loth-bury which lay on the banks of the Wal- brook to the eastward, thou2rh the two borouo-hs were still parted from one another by a space which is now represented by Basing-hall ward, and were ftir from extending northward to the wall.^ But to the eastward of the Walbrook London must have been increasing even more rapidly. While western London was growing into the borough between the Poultry and St. Paul's, eastern London seems still to have remained bare of dwellings save for the little group at its East-Cheap, and the houses which fringed the lanes that led from the Poultry to the Bishopsgate and the Bridge. The most important of these was probably that which led up Cornhill and along our Bishopsgate Street to the great manors of the bishops on the north of the city. As Cornhill was a bishop's soke, it is likely that the string of dwellings which came to creep up its ascent, with their church of St. Peter in the midst of them, were due originally to the needs of this communication with 1 The one monument on the west side of Walbrook which we can certainly assign to this period is the church of St. SwithuQ. 403 CHAP. IX. 1016. 1035. Growth of foreign trade. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. the episcopal manors, while the bounds of the soke, as shown in those of the modern wards, prove it to TheR^nof have been originally a mere lane of houses, straggling, ^''''^ as we may suppose, through an otherwise untenanted area. Bishopsgate ward, which consists simply of that street with the houses on both sides of the road, still more clearly looks back to a time when the lane to the Gate was a mere double line of houses running through an area as yet unoccupied. But with the age of Eadgar came a time of rapid developement which told yet more on eastern than on western London ; for the trade which we find established in the regulations of ^Ethelred^ must have grown up under his father's reign. The commerce with the north, which had come with the Danes, was backed by a trade with the Rhineland as well as by one with Normandy. "The men of Rouen," runs the Institute, " who came with wine and sturgeon, gave as dues six shillings for every big ship and the twentieth piece of every sturgeon. The men of Flanders, and Ponthieu, and Normandy, and France, showed their goods for sale and paid toll. So did the men of Hogge, and Liege, and Neville ; and the Emperor's men, who came in their ships, were held worthy of good laws even as we.'' The sea^faring vessels in which this trade was conducted, no longer able from their size to reach the hythe in the Wal- brook, moored along the Thames itself at Billingsgate and Queenhythe, on whose rude wharves the laws show us piled a strange medley of goods : pcjpper and spices from the far East, crates of gloves and gray 1 "De Institutis Lundonise." Thorpe, " Anc. Laws," i. 300. 11' 461 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1035. tH cHxp^ix. cloths, it may be from the Lombard looms, sacks of Tbe^e^gn of wool, the lowly forerunners of England's own great 1016. export in later days, iron-work from Liege, butts of French wine and of vinegar, and with them the rural products of the country itself— cheese, butter, lard, and eggs, with live swine and fowls. The influence of the port at Billingsgate was seen in the rapid peopling of eastern London. Houses must have been already clustering round the gates; and it is probable that the district just within the Aid-gate,^ which was a soke in the twelfth century,^ was already to some extent peopled by Eadgar's day. If the tradition of the Cnich ten -gild, at any rate, is to be trusted, and if the district without the gate^ then '' desolate " from the Danish ravages was given to the gild as a soke by Eadgar," this would date the beginning of buildings in this quarter and that of the church of St. Botulf, round which they clus- tered as '' the head of the soke," in his reign. Just to the south of this district, and occupying the whole space between the East-Cheap and the Tower, is another large area now represented by Tower AVard. The church of All Hallows, Barking, near the south- eastern angle of this ward, may, as we have said, represent some slight gathering of people there on land belonging to that house at an earlier date, but the bulk of the area is divided between the parishes of St. Dunstan in the East and St. Olave's, Hart 1 Now represented by its ward. ^ When it was held by Queen Matilda. 2 Our Portsoken ward. ^ Stow's ** London " (ed. Thorns), p. 46. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Street, and can therefore hardly have bec^n peopled %fZ 7Z '™t ''^'" '^' ^^^g^ ^f Eadgar and ^thelred If much of this sudden growth of London was due to the new trading energy, much was due to an actual settlement of Danes. Malmesbury indeed speaks of London as having become half- barbarized at this ime by the abundance of its Danish inha- bitants ; their influence is shown by the conversion ot Its Portmannimot into a - Husting '' ; while the churches of St. Magnus and St. Olave at either end 01 the Bridge suggest that the steep slope down to .' ZV 7 "^"'^ ^^^"^^ ^''''' r^^« on either side Walbrook, as well as the similar slope across the water were both peopled by northmen at about this Zlt V'^^" '""^'"'^ '^^^ '^' ^-^-^^ that lies between the present Thames Street and the river was only reclaimed in the days of Cnut ; none of the ear of Cnuts reign; while the whole of En<.land pounds, the townsmen of London were taxed at t^n thousand five hundred pounds. And ^ "th the up giwth of comnxercial activity and wealth there ha'd come as we have seen, a new political importance whxch from the time of the later Danish wars'i.ondon was never again to lose. Under Cnut it became no only the commercial but the military centre of the ' Will. Malm. "Gest. Reg." (Hardy), i. 318. H H 4(55 CHAP. IX The Beign ot Cnat, lOIS. 1035. n Importaih-e Of London. mm 466 CHAP. IX. The Beign of Cnut. 1016- 1035. Cnufa pilgr'wuige. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. kingdom, and soon rose to be its political centre as well. When the King of the West-Saxons became finally in fact as well as in name King of all England, Winchester could no longer serve as the seat of the royal power, the capital of the larger state ; and the new necessities of the time led to the rapid rise in political importance of London, whose position, com- manding the highway of the Thames and the great lines of communication which struck from the chief port of the realm across the island, made it the natural centre of the English provinces, while it was no less fitted by position to become the centre of the great empire which Cnut was building up on either shore of the North Sea. The firm hold which Cnut had gained on England during the eight years which followed his coronation now left him free to turn to the afiiiirs of his northern realm. He was already master of Denmark. Norway however had risen in revolt in the same year as his conquest of England, 1015, and his nephew, Jarl Hakon, having been driven out, a native ruler, the famous St. Olaf, had mounted the throne. For a time Cnut took no measures of revenge, but remained firm to his policy of the consolidation of his power in England and Denmark. In 1025, however, the peace and security of his empire left him free to turn his thoughts to the assertion of his supremacy, and to make a formal demand for the submission of Norway. The mocking answer of Olaf was not followed at once by open war, but led to a train of negotiations in which the prudence and skill of Cnut showed themselves. While attempting to break the alliance ¥ THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 467 r- '^1 between Swedeu and Norway, and to spread dis- chap.ix. affection and distrust among the Norwegians, he Thei^J^.f sought to strengthen his hold in Denmark itself by — *' leaving as its ruler his son Harthacnut, a child of *!i*' seven years old, in the charge of his brother-in-law, Ulf. His next step showed the large political concep- tions which ruled his action. The Scandinavian king- doms had up to this time lain outside the European commonwealth, the terror and scourge of Western Christendom. Heathenism still held its ground in the forests of the North, and the peoples of Europe saw m the pirates the deadly enemies alike of their civili- zation and of their religion. Cnut's first aim was by a decisive act on his own part to bring his northern kingdom into a new union with Christendom. He undertook a pilgrimage to Rome. As a West-Saxon kmg he was indeed but following in th(i steps of his predecessors for more than three hundred years past, but no Danish king or jarl had ever yet left the shores of Denmark as a pilgrim ; and there was no longer any doubt as to the chara(;ter which the young king meant to impress on the govern- ment of his northern realm when at twenty- six he set sail for Rome. From the moment of his landing on the coast of Flanders the political character of his journey was clearly marked, whether he turned aside to secure the friendship of Count Albert at Namur, or astonished Bishop Fulbert of Chartres by the wisdom and splendour of a king who had till now been in the eyes of Europe but a leader of heathen pirates. As he journeyed along the pilgrims' route, he se.3ured by treaties with the masters of the Alpine passes safety H H 2 t( 4 468 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Cnut. 1016- 1035. His Northern Empire. W CHAR IX for English merchants and travellers to the Papal ^^^foSr **^ ^^^^' ^^^^ ^^ -^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ *^^ ^^P^ immunity from all tolls and taxes for the Saxon school which had grown up there. His political work was completed in the spring by his meeting at Eome with the Emperor Conrad, when the master of the two kingdoms of Denmark and England was strong enough to wring from the Emperor the restoration of the land beyond the Eider which had been seized by Otto the Second, and to throw back the German frontier to that river ; while a treaty was arranged for the future marriage of Cnut's daughter to the son of Conrad, afterwards the Emperor Henry III. But from his triumphant pilgrimage Cnut returned to fresh troubles at home. England indeed remained peaceful ; but Denmark had revolted in favour of the child Harthacnut and the regent Ulf, and torn by civil strife was in no state to resist the combined attack with which it was threatened by Norway and Sweden. Cnut, however, backed by the steady loyalty of his English realm, and strengthened by the new naval power which it had developed in these years of pros- perity, was able to make himself quickly master of Denmark and to repulse the invasion of the allied fleets ; and in the following year, 1028, he sailed from England to Norway with fifty great ships, and drove King Olaf out of the land, over which he set his nephew, Hakon, as jarl. A last rising of the Norwegians against his power, in 1030, was at once stamped out, and till his death Norway owned his rule. Lord of three realms, Cnut could now turn to the THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 469 CHAP. IX. 1016- 1035. The Scotfhh Jdngdom. last troubles that seemed to threaten him, and act as ._. .. decisively on the borders of his English realm as in TheSTgnof the northern seas. His power was shown by the ease ^''''^* with which he crushed difiiculties that had hardly tried the resources of the earlier English kings. A rising of the Welsh had been checked in the first years of his rule by the march of an army on St. David's, and among the last events of his reign we hear of the slaying of a Welsh prince by the English. These later years were marked too by his action in putting an end to the dangers which sprang from the new attitude of the Scottish kings. W^e have already seen how the political relations of the Scots witli their southern neighbours had been aff'ected by the action of the Danes. Pressed between the Norse jarls settled in Caithness and the Danelaw of central England, the Scot kings were glad to welcome the friendship of Wessex ; but with the conquest by the house of Alfred of the Danelaw, and the extension of the new English realm to their own southern border, their dread of English ambition l)ecame in its turn greater than their dread of the Dane. In the battle of Brunanburh, the Scot king Constantine fought side by side with the northmen against ^thelstan. Eadmund's gift of southern Cumbria showed the price which the Engiish kings set upon Scottish friendship. The district was thence- forth held by the heir of the Scottish crown, and for a time at least, the policy of conciliation seems to have been successful, for the Scots proved Eadred's allies in his wars with Northumbria. But even as allies, they were still pressing southwards on the 470 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. cHARix. English realm. Across the Forth lay the English '^^^ir''^ Lowlands, that northern Bernicia which had escaped 1016- t^^ Danish settlement that changed the neighbour- *^* ing Deira into a part of the Danelaw. It emerged from the Danish storm as English as before, with a line of native ealdormen who seem to have inherited the blood of its older kings. Harassed as the land had been, and changed as it was from the Northumbria of Bseda or Cuthbert, Bernicia was still a tempting bait to the clansmen of the Scottish realm. ^JfNm'ther ^^^ important post was already established on ''BemLT Northumbrian soil. "Whether by peaceful cession on Eadred's part or no, the border fortress of Edin- burgh passed during his reign into Scottish hands. It is uncertain if the grant of Lothian by Eadgar followed the acquisition of Edinburgh ; but at the close of his reign the southward pressure of the Scots was strongly felt. " Eaids upon Saxony" are marked by the Pictish chronicle among the deeds of King Kenneth; and amidst the troubles of ^thelred's reign a Scottish host swept the country to the very gates of Durham. But Durham was rescued by the sword of Uhtred, and the heads of the slain marauders were hung by their long twisted hair round its walls. The raid and the fight were memorable as the opening of a series of descents which were from this time to form much of the history of the north. Cnut was hardly seated on the throne when in 1018 the Scot king, Malcolm, made a fresh inroad on Northumbria, and the flower of its nobles fell fighting round Earl Eadwulf in a battle at Carham on the Tw^eed. For a time the blow passed unavenged ; and it was not till THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 471 CHAP. IX. Cnut' 1016- 1035. Its results. 1031 that Cnut was forced by fresh outbreaks to march upon the Scots. The might of the great con- The^aof queror must have been overwhelming, fc»r Malcolm submitted without a battle ; but his pledge to become Cnut's '' man " seems to have been part of a political arrangement by which the possession of his conquests was confirmed to the Scottish king, and by which the northern half of the old Northumbrian kingdom became henceforth part of the Scottish realm. Few gains have told more powerfully cm the poli- tical character of a kingdom than this. King of western Dalriada, king of the Picts, lord of Cumbria, the Scot king had till now been ruler only of Gaelic and Cymric peoples. " Saxony," the land of the English across the Forth, had been simply a hostile frontier, the land of an alien race, whose rule had been felt in the assertion of Northumbrian supremacy and West- Saxon overlordship. Now for the first time Malcolm saw Englishmen among his subjects. Lothian, wdth its Northumbrian fiirmers and seamen, became a part of his dominions. And from the first moment of its submission it was a most important part. The wealth, the civilization, the settled institutions, the order of the English territory won by the Scottish king, placed it at the head of the Scottish realm. The clans of Cantyre or of the Highlands, the Cjonry of Strathclyde, fell into the background before the stout farmers of northern Northumbria. The spell drew the Scot king in course of time frora the very land of the Gael. Edinburdi, an En;3[lish town in the English territory, became ultimately his accustomed seat. In the midst of an Endish 472 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1016. .1035. Pill Vd ff| , ,! CHAP.IX. district the Scot kings gradually ceased to be the The^^^nof Gaelic chieftains of a Gaehc people. The process at once began which was to make them Saxons, Englishmen in tongue, in feeling, in tendency, in all but blood. Nor was this all. The gain of Lothian brought them into closer political relations with the English crown. The loose connexion which the king of Scots and Picts had acknowledged in owning Eadward the Elder as father and lord, had no doubt been drawn tighter by the fealty now owed for the fief of Cumbria. But Lothian was English ground, and the grant of Lothian made the Scot king ''man" of the English king for that territory, as Earf Eadwulf was Cnut's " man " for the land to the south of it. Social influences, political relations, were henceforth to draw the two realms together; but it is in the cession of Lothian that the process really began. 1-ihe/in s h ^^ ^^^ moment this settlement of the north was 'NannZy'.' cliiefly important as freeing Cnut's hands to deal with dangers which we are now gathering in the south. The policy by which iEthelred had detached Normandy from its old association with the Danes was at last bearing fruit. Of the line of Cerdic none remained to dispute Cnut's throne save the two sons of Eadmund Ironside, who had found a distant refuge in Hungary, and their uncles, the sons of ^thelred by his second marriage with Emma, the ^thelings Alfred and Eadward. From the time of their father's flight from England, these had remained at the Norman court, and though in wedding Emma anew to Cnut, Eichard the Good virtually pledged himself to give no Norman aid to his nephews' claims, their presence at Eouen The I 473 CHAP. IX. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. was Still a check on the English king. C^hildren as they were of Emma, and bred up from childhood at TheiS^of the ducal court, the two JEthelings seemed to everv ^— TV^ 1 /» T , ^ 1016- isorman members of the ducal house and Normans ^^' like themselves ; and from after events we see how readily the Norman knighthood would ha\ e followed them in any effort to gain the English crown. Every day made the chance of such an attack a more for- midable danger ; for not only was Normandy growdncr last in population and military power, but the energy of its people was already in secret revolt against the peaceful system of their dukes. The duchy was seething with hot-blooded soldiers, longing for enter- prize, as well as envious of the Danes who put into their harbours with booty won on English ground ; and an occasional march to aid the Parisian king, or to avenge a wrong offered by the Burgundian duke, or to drive off neighbour princes from the ])order, w^as all that Eichard's peaceful reign offered in the way of outer w^arfare, while his stern hand crushed roughly out all chance of disorder at home. Little by little therefore the old northern spirit of wandering and venturing found outlets elsewhere. Roger de Toesny led a troop of warriors to Spain ; and some Norman pilgrims in Apulia grew fast into a war-band which was to change the destinies of southern Italy. England offered a nearer field for adventure than Italy or Spain ; and, wedded as he was to a Norman wife, Cnut must have watched jealously the temper of the Norman people through the reigns of Richard the Good and of his son and successor Richard the Bohert the Devil. m 474 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1016. 1035. ml CHAP. IX. Third. The danger which he dreaded at last actually The^eignof fronted him on the accession of Robert-Eobert the Devil as men called him in after time— who became duke of N'ormandy on his brother's death in 1028. The land was now ringing with the marvellous victories over Greek or Moslem which Normans were winning in far-off fields ; poor knights and younger sons, sick of peace and good order, were streaming off, in band after band, over Alps and Pyrenees ; and the restless temper of his people stirred the blood in the veins of their duke. From the first Eobert showed his war- like activity, crushing revolt within his duchy, brino-- mg hrittany back into submission, restoring Count Baldwin to power in Flanders, and seating King Henry in the face of all opposition on the French throne. But France offered no such. scope for greed and ambition as the land over the Channel. England was nearer than Spain or Apulia, and the title of the sons of ^thelred gave a fair pretext for attack. We are left to Norman writers for the incidents of the quarrel, and we know nothing of its cause, or of the grounds which induced Eobert to set aside the claims of his sister and of the child she had borne to Cnut. But if greed and ambition were strong enough to set these aside, the claims of the sons of iEthelred, who were equally akin to him, gave Eobert a fair pretext for attack. The Norman baronage at once backed him in his plan of invasion, and the duke set sail with the eldest of the two ^thelings, Alfred. Mn"a.. ^^^^ Robert's fortune would have been that of the later conqueror may well be doubted. Cnut was at the height of his power, and the one chance of THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. I: i: I 475 Cnut. 1016- 1035. success against him lay in an English rising which chap.ix. might have welcomed the ^theling. But contest The STp of there was to be none. Eobert's project broke down " before the obstacle which has so often foiled attacks on the English shore ; for a storm carried the Norman fleet down the Channel, and flung it wrecked on the (ioast of Jersey. It may have been the bitterness of this failure which drove the duke from his throne. Pilgrimages to the Sepulchre of Christ were now growing common in Normandy, and Eobert announced his purpose of going as pilgrim to the Holy Land. But some prevision of the doom which awaited him drove the duke to name his successor ere he left. Claimants of the duchy there were in plenty, whether of the stock of Eichard the Fearless or of the stock of Eichard the Good. Child of his own, Eobert had but one. In the little dell which parts the two cliffs, the two "fells" which have given their name to Falaise, one may still hear the chatter of the women who wash their linen at the brook. One^ of such a group, a tanner's daughter of the town, had caught the light fancy of Eobert, and became the mother of his boy. At the moment of the child's birth the gossips noted the sturdy grasp with which his fingers seized and held the straws scattered on the floor. He would be no Norman, they laughed, to let go what once he had gripped. The laugh proved a true prophecy, but none of the laughers knew how mighty a prize that hand was in after days to grif». It was this boy, William, whom the duke forced his barons to choose as their future lord ere he left the land which he was never to see again; for after a few 47(5 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1016- 1035. nil' cHAP^ix. months' stay, lie died on his return at Nicsea in Juty, ^^cLtr^^ ^^^^' "^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ Normandy on fire. The boy-duke was a child and a bastard, scorned for age as for shame of birth by the haughty lords whom the upgrowth of feudalism had made powers in the land. Even the dukes before him had found it hard to secure peace and order in a country which was filled with turbulent nobles, and whose people had still the wild northern blood with its love of lawless outbreak stirring in their veins. '' Normans must be trodden down and kept under foot," sang one of their poets, '' and he who bridles them may use them at his need." But no child-duke could bridle them. The great border nobles held William's rule at de- fiance. On every height and mound rose square keeps of solid stone, which helped their builders to hold the child-duke at bay. The land became a chaos of bloodshed and anarchy, while William saw his friends murdered beside him, and was driven from refuge to refuge by foes who sought his life. That the boy whose reign began in this wild storm was to tear England from the grasp of the Dane and to hold the land at his will, Cnut could not know. What he saw was the drifting away of the danger to his throne from the ^thelings across the Channel. From a boy-duke of eight years old, from this chaotic Normandy, small aid could come to the sons of ^thelred. But it was at the moment when his last difficulty vanished that Cnut's vigour suddenly gave way. Long and eventful as his reign had been he was still only a man of forty when he died, in November, 1035, leaving his work all unfinished. Dfath of Cnut. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 477 The empire he had built up at once fell to pieces chap. ix. at the tidings of his death. Norway threw off the ^^^ ^^^ »' Danish yoke by driving out Cnut's son Swein, and i^'. chose as king the child Magnus, son of Olaf ; while ^— *' Swein fled to Denmark to share the kingdom with his brother Harthacnut till his death a fiiw months after. For years to come Harthacnut's en(irgies were wholly absorbed in guarding Denmark from the danger of Norwegian invasion, and his treaty wit.h Magnus that if either of the kings died childless his dominions should pass to the other, showed the insecurity of the house of Cnut even in Denmark itself. The. kingdom of England which was to have fallen to Harthacnut by his father s will, and doubtless was to have carried with it the overlordship of the whole empire, lay beyond the reach of the hardly-pressed rulcir of Den- mark ; it was claimed by another son of Cnut, Harald, and itself fell asunder into two parts. A tragic fate, too, awaited the house of Cnut. Before seven years were past the same weakness which had cut short his own life had carried off his four children, not one of them having reached twenty-four years of age, and all childless save Gunhild, the wife of the German, Henry HI., whose only child became a nun. The race of Gorm in the direct line of descent thus became extinct in little more than a hundred years after he had finished his work of the creation of the Danish kingdom Position of Godwine. CHAPTER X. THE HOPSE OF GODWINE. 1035—1053. The death of Cnut left Godwine the greatest political power in the land. For years he had stood second only to the king in his English realm ; as carl of Wessex he was master of the wealthiest and most powerful portion of the kingdom ; and Cnut's absences on foreign campaigns had accustomed Englishmen to look on Godwine as the real centre of administrative government. The will of Cnut that he should be succeeded by Harthacnut in the English kingdom and the over-lordship of his northern realms, embodied no doubt not the king's purpose only, but that of the minister who hal been his '-hief counsellor for fifteen years past ; and repre- sented that connexion with the North, that main- tenance of a Scandinavian empire, which was as yet the policy of Godwine as it had been the policy of the king. For English as was his blood, and English as his policy was to become in later days, Godwine can have shared but little the general drift of English feeling against the Dane. As vet, indeed 479 CHAP. X. 1035- 1053. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. he must have seemed to Englishmen more Dane than Englishman. He had risen through the favour, he The i^se of had guided the counsels of a Danish conqueror. His ^'^'^'' renown as a warrior had been won in Danish wars. He was wedded to a wife of Danish blood, and his two eldest children, Swein and Harold, bore the Danish names of Cnut's elder boys. It was no wonder therefore that he supported on Cnut's death the continuance of that union of England with Denmark which Harthacnut's succession secured. But the internal policy of both king and minister GodwMs had made their outer policy impossible. Their ^''^^'^ whole system of government and administration had nursed English feeling into a new and '^ vigorous life. To England Cnut had been an English ^king. If he had ruled other lands it was from Winchester, as dependencies of his English crown. The very Danes who had settled iia England had learned through his long and peaceful reign to look on themselves as Englishmen, and on Denmark as a foreign land. But Harthacnut had scarcely been seen in England; from early childhood he had been trained in Denmark as its king, and it might well be thought that his rule meant the rule of England from a Danish throne. If the influence of Godwine and the Lady Emma at Winchester was strong enough to hold the West-Saxon earldom true to the claims of Harthacnut, the rest of England called for a national king. In pleading for the succession of Harthacnut, Godwine doubtless seemed to the people at large to be pleading for Danish rule. To his fellow earls he seemed no doubt pleading for his 480 CHAP. X. The House of Godwine. 1035- 10S3. IJarald Harefoot. IHvuion of Evgland, THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. own ; and political rivalry united with national feeling in urging Earl Leofric of Mercia to withstand him. It marks the hold which Cnut's greatness had given him on the affections of Englishmen that even in setting aside Harthacnut they showed no will to set aside his father's line. Not a cry was raised for the children of ^thelred. Cnut's death, indeed, had at once been followed by a descent of the ^theling Eadward with forty Norman ships at Southampton, but the attack had failed, and its failure was decisive.' It was Cnut's elder son Harald, "Harefoot," as he was called for his swiftness of foot, who, Dane as he was, at any rate represented an England separate from Denmark, that Leofric and the " liths- men," a merchant-gild of London, called to the throne. The hus-earls of the dead king were still with Emma at Winchester, and a word from Godwine would have plunged England into war. But warrior as he had shown himself in earlier days, it is the noblest trait in the character of Godwine throughout his political career that he shrank from civil blood- shed. The Witan gathered at Oxford to decide the question of the succession; Leofric demanded a division of the realm, and stubborn as was God- wine's resistance, he yielded at last to the doom of his fellow nobles. For the moment indeed his in- fluence, and it may be dread of the dead king's hus-earls, saved his own earldom, which was suffered to remain faithful to Harthacnut : but the rest of England took Harald for its king. It was, however, impossible that such a division of the realm could last long. The strife which had THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. again broken the land into two parts was indeed the renewal of the old contest between Wessex and the rest of England, but the new attitude of London marked a decisive and important change From the moment that London sided, not with Wessex but with England, the relation of parties was altered, and the ultimate victory of the national will over provincial jealousies could be no longer doubtful. If the new division of England between two claimants recalled the compromise of Olney there was stiU a significant difference. It was the kincr of the joint Mercian and Northumbrian realms who was now over-lord, while the West-Saxon ruler sank to the position of under-king Such a settlement struck a hard blow at the authority of Earl Godwine. Under Cnut he had been second only to the king in his power over all England ; with a stranger such as Harthacnut he would have ruled supreme. But Leofric's action limited his power to Wessex, and even in Wessex it would seem as if Emma was a formidable rival, for 1^ as is stated, she had been already robbed by Harald of Cnut's treasure, she still preserved Cnut's body of hus-earls round her at Winchester. The continued absence of Harthacnut, too, who was still held in Denmark, weakened Godwine's position. Even in his own earldom men's minds turned from the absent to the present king ; and it would seem that public feeling was wholly against (Jodwine's policy, for the Chronicle says " the cry was then greatly in favour of Harald." So difficult indeed was his position in Wessex, that It woke the ^thelings over sea to a fresh attempt. I I 481 CHAP. X. The House of uodwine. loss- less. ihn'fhr of yElfred. 482 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. iiiili I CHAP. X. It may be that Emma, hopeless of inducing Hartha- "^Godw^r^ ^^"^ ^^ ^^^^ possession of his West-Saxon kingdom, 1035- had turned to the children she had so long foro-otten — ' in Normandy. It was at any rate in peaceful guise, and with the pretext of visiting his mother, that iElfred, the younger ^theling, landed with a train of Normans at Dover, and rode through Surrey towards Winchester. He may have hoped that the old West- Saxon loyalty would spring into fresh life as he neared the AVest-Saxon capital ; but whatever was his purpose it was ended by a brutal deed. At Guild- ford he was seized, carried over the Thames to Harald Barefoot, and by Harald's orders blinded, and left to die among the monks at Ely, while the Normans who followed him were put to the sword or sold for slaves. Even among Englishmen the cruel act was followed by a thrill of horror. ''Viler deed was never done in this land since Dane came here," sang an English minstrel. Over sea it kindled among the Normans a thirst for vengeance which never ceased till the day of Senlac. And justly or unjustly, the Norman hate centred itself on Godwine. What his part in the matter had been it is hard to tell. Whether or not the seizure was made by Godwine's men is a matter of doubt, but it was made in Godwine's earldom ; and the success of Alfred would have overthrown Godwine's power. So general was the conviction that the deed lay at his door, that in the next reign the earl was charged with the guilt by Archbishop ^Ifric, and forced to purge himself solemnly of the charge by oath before the altar. But though Godwine was acquitted by the Witan THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 483 1035- 1053. Godivine. }%.f''T ""^ ^'*'''^>''^^' ^^« ««tl^ ^-eighed little ch.p. x. with Alfreds kindred. Emma believed that it was TheiTu^of tlie earl who had given up her son, and Eadward **"'^''"- looked on him as his brother's murderer. It was no wonder that throughout the length and breadth of Normandy men held that the blood of ^Elfred and of the Normans who followed him rested upon Godwine and his house. The political action of the earl after the murder gave strength to the Norman belief. Godwine's loss of power had already been great. His influence was now bounded by Wessex, and even in Wessex it was seriously threatened. The compromise which reserved southern England to Harthacnut had every hour grown more impossible ; men wearied of waiting for a king who never came, and it seemed as if Wessex had to choose between submission to Harald Barefoot, or a rising in fiivour of the line of Cerdic. But Godwine had as yet no mind to al)andon the house of Cnut, though it seems as if despair of Hartha- cnut's coming was already swaying him to Ihe side of Harald when Alfred landed. His landing pre- cipitated a change of policy which had already l)ecome inevitable, and the murder made further hesitation impossible. It was the alliance with Emma which had enabled the earl to hold Wessex for Harthacnut, and now that Emma was parted trom him by her belief in his guilt, Godwine was forced from the position he had held so stubbornly. A new Witenagemot was gathered in 10-37 to re- ceive his submission. Emma was driven from the country ; Harthacnut was forsaken by the earl and I I 2 484 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Bl'kl CHAP. X. the men of AVessex, " for that he was too long in ^ God^ne.'^ Denmark/' and Harald became king over all the land. 1035. Godwine remained earl of Wessex. But if he had 1053. forsaken Harthacnut, Emma was still faithful to her son. blie seems to have cared little for her children by ^thelred, whom she had not seen since their boyhood, and to have concentrated her love on her younger children by Cnut. When the sentence of the Witenagemot therefore drove her from Winchester, she took refuge not in Normandy, which was now backing the ^theling Eadward, but in Flanders. Her teuiper was active as of old. From ''Baldwin's land" her messengers again pressed Harthacnut to strike a blow for his heritage ; and in the winter of 1039 he sailed to Flanders to devise plans with his mother for a great invasion, and returned to the north at the opening of spring to put himself at the head of the fleet which he was preparino-. But death had already removed his rival. In March, 1040, Harald Harefoot died at Oxford, and was carried to Westminster for burial. When Harthacnut touched at Bruges with his fleet he was met by the news that the English Witan had chosen him for their king; and in the following June he landed peacefully at Sandwich with the fleet of sixty vessels which had been gathered for the conquest of the kingdom. The fierce vengeance of the young sovereign, it may be of Emma, tore up his prede"^ cessor's body from its resting-place and flung it into a fen. Godwine again found himself in hard straits. He had to clear himself by solemn oath of the charge of betrayal of Alfred brought against him by Arch- THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. bishop ^Ifric. All memory of the stand he had made for the succession of Harthacnut was lost in the fresher memory of his submission to Harald. But costly gifts enabled him to retain his earldom through Harthacnut's reign. The two years of the young king's rule were marked by little save heavy taxation for payment of the Danish host which was to have won back England, and by the stern sup- pression of resistance to this Danegeld at Worcester. Discontent would probably have passed into revolt, had not the certainty of his approaching end turned men's minds to the ^theliug Eadward. The rise of a new sympathy for the house of Cerdic had been seen in the charge brought against Godwine, and the misrule of Harald and Harthacnut had rendered the succession of another Dane impossible. Even Harthacnut turned to his mother's son ; and ere he died Eadward was summoned by the king himself from his refuge in Normandy, and recognized as heir to the throne. A halo of tenderness spread in after-lime round this last king of the old English stock. IjCgend told of his pious simplicity, his blitheness and gentleness of mood, the holiness that won him in after-time his title of Confessor, and enshrined him as a saint in the abbey church at Westminster. His w£ls the one figure that stood out bright against the darkness when England lay trodden under foot by Norman conquerors ; and so dear became his memory that liberty and independence itself seemed incarnate in his name. Instead of freedom the subjects of William or Henry called for the '' good laws of Eadward the 485 CHAP. X. The House of Godwine. 1035- 1053. The yEtJielinff Eadward. I035' 10S3. ■f -^^^ THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. u??'' , ^'""^'"'f' But it wa., in fact, as a mere shadow of 'tf^Z"' tJ^« P-«t that the exile returned to the land that had .^^. cast him out in his childhood. His blue eyes and flaxen hair, indeed, were those of his race ; but the fragile form the delicate complexion, the transparent womanly hands of Eadward told that no great warrior or ruler was to mount in him the throne of ^thelsfaxn and Eadgar. He was a stranger too in the realm. Thirty years had passed since the child had been driven from English shores, and save in his fruitless descent on Southampton he had never touched them since. He had grown to manhood at the Norman court. His memories were not of the father who had died in his childhood, or of the mother who had forsaken him through Ion., years of exile, but of the Norman dukes who had^hZ^f him, of his uncle Eichard the Good, of his cousins Richard and Robert, of Eobert's son William, the young kinsman who was battling with a storm of rebedion and treachery in the land which Eadward Wed. In all but name, indeed, he was a Norman He spoke the Norman tongue ; he used in Norman fashion a seal for his charters ; his sympathies lay naturally with the friends of his Norman life. The i^ng ishmen among whom he found himself when Harthacnut summoned him to his court were all strangers to him, and the shy, timid exile of forty him to throw himself into new associations. It is characteristic of Eadward's sympathies that ailing as his half-brother was, he seems again to have quitted England after his recognition as heir to the crown THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 48" CHAP. X. 103ft- 1053. and to have been still in Normandy in the summer of 1042, when Harthacnut ''died as he stood at his .The House of ' (rodwuxe. drink " at a marriage feast in Lambeth. It was not, indeed, till the Easter-tide of 1043 that Eadward saw himself crowned at Winchester ^Eadvxird' by the* two archbishops as English king. I'he months that lay between this crow^ning and the death of his predecessor had probably been months of busy negotiation with the English nobles, and above all with the earl of Wessex. For jealously as he had been looked on by Harthacnut, Godwine was still the greatest power in the land. Earl Siward was hardly settled in his distant Northumbria, and th(3 mutilated Mercia of Leofric could not vie in extent or power with the great West-Saxon earldom. Wealth , character, political experience, the memory of his long supremacy under Cnut, and of his personal sway for two years over Wessex after Cnut's death, as well as a sense of the skill and daring with w^hich he had faced and lived throuo^h the ill-will of Harald and the hatred of Harthacnut, gave Godwine in fact at this moment a weight beyond that of any other Englishman. Nor did it seem likely that this weight w^ould be thrown on Eadward's side. The great house to which his wife belonged seems to have clung almost as densely to the earl as his own sons. Two of her brother Ulfs children, Beorn and Osbeorn, were in England at this time, and closely linked to the earl ; while their elder brother, Swein Estrithson, as he was called, was fight- ing in the northern seas for the crown of Denmark. But at the news of Harthacnut's death, Swein sailed back to Enoiand to claim a crown which seemed easier 488 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1035- 1053. Ml! n cH^x to Win Kinship, gratitude, political tradition aliko ^ttnl,- -emed to sway Godwine to Swein's side both in hi .... claims to the Danish and the English thrones. Th earl owed all to Cnut, and Swein was not only hi o.^ wifes nephew, but he was Cnut's sister's son and nearest m blood, now Harthacnut was dead, to' he kmg who had raised Godwine to the power he Md His support of Cnufs will, his fidelity to Harthacnut, show that three years before Godwine had looked to a union of the crowns of England and Denniark as of high political value, and sudi a union might easily have been brought about by the crowninc. of Swein, and his return to the North with a force of Enghshmen. But whatever may have been the strength of Godwine's family sympathies, he mut soon have seen that it was impossible to indulge them As m his stubborn effort to secure half En^and for Harthacnut, Godwine found himself face to face with cZJ \l\ " f f P'"P^'- '^^' -orthlessness of Cnut s children had wiped out the memory of Cnufs greatness and wisdom. It was indeed theVery policy of Cnut, tne English and national character of his rule, which had roused into new and stronger life the national consciousness of Englishmen, a consciousness ^viiich now expressed itself in the sudden assertion of their wi 1 to have no stranger to rule over them, but one of their own royal stock. Before Kin^ Plarthacnut was buried, says the chronicle, "all folk chose Eadward for their kino- " That there was still dispute among the nobles at the Witenagemot shows that the acclamation of the people found fierce opposition, while the assertion of THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. State of Normandy. 489 CHAP. X. 1035- 1053. Swein Estrithson in after days that his claim was bought off by a promise of the crown should he t^ House of outlive his rival, points to intricate negotiations before Eadward was accepted by all. The negotia- tions may have been aided in some measure by pressure from the Norman court. The earlier troubles of the young duke's reign were now settling down, and under the guardianship of Rail' of Wacey the Norman baronage was brought back into a partial obedience, and the pacification of Normandy was aided by a movement w^hich fell in with the religious excitement of the time. In the universal disorder which raged over feudal Gaul men turned to the Church as the one body which had preserved some sense of its duty to save men from oppression and bloodshed. Anarchy had been worst in th(i south, and from the south came a reaction against it. The bishops and abbots of Aquitaine met in s}'nod to bid men lay aside their arms, to denounce the warfare and robbery about them, and to proclaim a "Truce of God." As the preachers preached this new gospel, the crowds they gathered stretched out their hands to heaven with shouts of '' Peace ! Peace ! " The " Covenant" spread like fire through southern and east(irn France ; but the first zeal of its preachers had to content itself with more moderate demands on human passion before it could penetrate to the west, and the uni- versal peace dwindled to a suspension of arms from the sunset of Wednesday to the sunrise of the following Monday. Even this proved too hard a doctrine for Norman ears. But a timely famine backed its advocates with sims of the wrath of God, m- 490 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. tr cX nZT ;lw ir? n^"*", ^''"''' - "'^- ,.,-„i ^. • enacted that for four days and five - n,ghts m every week men should be free from dread of wound or death, and castle and borough and X! from dread of attack. "^ ^^ duke s efforts to restore order in the land. William was no longer the mere child whom his father left belund Inm. Young as he was, and he was still n fifteen, he must have been already showing signs o him m after days out of the common herd of men From boyhood he was a mighty hunter, and the twang of the bow that no arm but his could wield was heard m the Norman woodlands. The temper too whxch marked his later years was ripening under the stress of hxs eventful history. No boy ev^r had a rougher- training. Friends had been hewn down or poisoned beside him, and he had been driven from refuge to refuge by foes who would have slain him If they could. The watchfulness, the patience, the cunmng, which lay throughout his life side by side with a mighty energy and an awful wrath in Wi ham s temper, had their first upgrowth in these early days of peril ; and with them must have been ah-eady awakening under the same pressure, that pohtical sense, that wide outlook and clearness of vision, which lifts William so high above the statesmen 01 ins time. EaO^ard But even if the young duke himself had looked No^nandy, With mdifference on the fortunes of a kinsman whom THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 491 1035- 1053 he had known from his childhood, the sympathies of chap. x. his nobles would have been with one whom they TheH^seof looked upon as himself almost a Norman ; and if we ^^^ set aside the Norman boast that England at this juncture yielded to the threats of the court of Rouen, we may take the boast at least as an indication that the influence of that court was used to support the claim of Eadward. Even after his recognition as king, this influence must still have been emiployed in overcoming his fears. Eadward seems to have hung back from the crown. The men among whom he was to go were strangers to him and worse than strangers. Those who were to be his counsellors had been the counsellors of kings who had long held from him the throne of his race. Those who were to be his warriors were the men who had but a year before driven off his fleet from Southampton. The memory of his brother's murder hung about him, rankling in his mind, as we shall see, for years ; and the most powerful of the earls who called him to the English throne was the man whose hands he believed to be red with his brother's blood. If the Norman story be true, it was not till hostages for his safety had been sent to the court at Rouen that Eadward would consent to cross the seas. When he landeid on the shores of his new realm he brought with him a train that showed his reliance on Norman support. In later days William asserted that his cousin, prescient of his coming childlessness, had promised in the fashion which was getting common in the northern states, and of which there had been many instances among the Danish kings, to bequeath his realm to him on his 492 CHAP. X, 1035 1053. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Th.^ . f'""^^' ^^'^^ ^^i« ^^^s SO is likely enough, thoudi the ^tfe^ bequest was one which English nobles were hardly .... likely to recognize. But in any case the young duke must have seen the shadow of his after-conquest falling over England, as its new king sailed from Norman shores with a train of Norman knights and Norman churdimen. Foremost among these in rank was Eadward s nephew Ealf, a son of his sister Godgifu, by her Norman marriage with Droc^o of Mantes. Another Norman kinsman, Odo or Odda was probably in his train; and Richard the son of bcrob may have been among the Norman knights who formed the kings guard. Two Norman priests, \\illiam and Ulf, came as his chaplains. But cW to Eadward stood one to whom he had owed much in his exile, and his affection for whom was of lone standing, Eobert, abbot of Jumi^ges. Robert either accompanied or soon followed the king to England and was soon seen to possess his confidence Is no other man possessed it. From the moment of their landing, however, the king and his group of strangers found themselves lonely and helpless in the land. With his accession indeed the long struggle of the ealdormen for a virtual independence seemed at last to have reached its aim. The land appeared about to break up into three great fiefs, as little dependent on the central monarchy as the fiefs of the continent. Siward ruled as he listed in the north, and no royal writ ran across the Humber. Leofric was almost as much his own master m Mid-Britain. Wessex, instead of ciyinc a firm standing-ground to the house of Cerdic was THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 493 Tlic state of England. now in the hands of a master who overawed the chap. x. crown. Even more than in Cnut's days God wine's TheH^seof voice was supreme m the council-chamber. The i^^. policy and government were alike his own, and in ^^—' both he showed his wonted ability. Without, indeed, the realm was secured from attack by the turn of foreign affairs; for Normandy was a frie^nd to the Norman-bred king, and the strife between Magnus of Norway and Swein Estrithson for the throne of Denmark shielded England from any invasion by the northmen. Friendly embassies, too, camii from the French court, while the earlier marriage of the Em- peror Henry III. with Gunhild, a daughter of Cnut and Emma, had linked him by blood to Eadward, and strengthened the friendly intercourse between the German and English courts which had gone on from the days of Eadward the Elder. Near home Gruffydd, the son of Llewelyn, was building up a formidable power over the western border, but he was too busy as yet with his Welsh rivals to seem a serious danger ; while in the north Macbeth, who had lately risen through the murder of King Duncan to the throne of Scotland, showed himself a peaceful neighbour. It was rather within than without that Godwine's work had to be done, and that it was well done was proved by the peace of the land ; while the popularity which he won in Wessex shows his good government of his own earldom.^ 1 The political structure of Cnut's administration indeed had been tested by the troubles and revolutions which followed on his death ; and the new strength of the crown was shown in the fact that none of these troubles had in the least affected that 494 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. m BI CHAP.X. But however wise and successful Godwine^s rule ^'ffinl '' ^^g^^ be^ we shall see in years to come how bitterly it 1035. structure. Even the fourfold division of the English earldom. — and the severance of Wessex from the crown was retained, in spite of the return of the line of Wessex to the throne Part of this no doubt may be due to the influence of Godwine, but in fact the continuance of Godwine's power may in itself be looked upon as a proof of the strength of the administrative system and tradition of which he was the embodiment That system remained indeed in all respects firmly established through- out the whole reign of the Confessor to the very conquest of the Normans. The military organization continued unchan-ed as we see later from the hus-carls quartered at towns like Wall in cr ford and Dorchester ; while from the description of the new armament used by Harold in his later wars with the Wel.h it was clearly with this picked body of troops, and not with the tyrd of the neighbouring shires, that he won his victories in houth Wales ; and they formed the real strength of his army both at Stamford Bridge and at Senlac. Of the Hoard again we catch a glimpse in the legend of Hugolin, which shows that the Danegeld, if still an unpopular tax, was yet rigidly levied, and formed the main-spring of the royal finance ; and in the troubles of Emma we see the first instance of that vital importance to the crown of the possession of the hoard or treasure, as well as of the command of the body of hus-carls whose pay was drawn from it. The administrative machinery too was not only maintained, but developed in the more organized form which the Eoyal Chapel assumed under Godwine and Harold, an incidental proof of which is given in the adoption of the Norman practice of authenticating all documents issued in the king's name by the royal seal ; a step which created the Chancellor, as the Hoard had already created the Treasurer and as the levy of Danegeld, and the necessity of giving formal acquittance of the sums levied under it to the sheriffs, must already, in however inchoate a way, have originated the system of the Exchequer. With the consolidation of the royal adminis- tration no doubt there went on also a corresponding develope- meuL of the royal justice, in the shape of appeals to the kirg himself from subordinate jurisdictioDs ; and with the growina THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 495 1035- 1053. Shvard of Nortlmmhria. was resented by the king who found himself a puppet chap. x. m his hands. Eadward was indeed powerless in his inei^seof realm. He could not even hope, like his predecessors, '""™" to snatch a fragment of authority by pitting one great noble against another. In Northumbria Siward^'had but just won his earldom by a deed of blood. By his marriage with the daughter of a former Northumbrian earl, Ealdred, he had in 1038 become master of Deira or Yorkshire, but Bernicia had passed to Ealdred's brother Eadwulf. Three years later, however, Eadwulf was cut down at the very court of Harthacnut by Siward, who thus in 1041 became invested with the whole Northumbrian earldom from Humber to Tweed. The new earl, with his giant stature, his Danish blood", the personal vigour which earned him the surname of Digera or the Strong, was a fitting representative of the district over which he ruled. His stc^rn, rough handling kept the wild- Northumbrians in awe ; but dreaded as his ruthlessness might be, it brought little peace or order to the land.i Northumbria in deed stood apart from the rest of Britain. The old anarchy had pressure of public business we find that the gi-eat office which had been instituted by Cnut in his appointment of a Secundarius was continued under the Confessor in the rule of Ctodwiue and Harold, the predecessors of the Norman Justiciar. At the time of the Norman Conquest therefore, the administrative system which has sometimes been called Norman was alrcidy growing up at the English court, and the true work of the Conqueror and his successors lay in its extension and developement. 1 "Licet dux Siwardus ex feritate judicii valde timeretur tamen tanta gentis illius crudelitas et Dei incultus habebatur ut vix triginta vel viginti in uno comitatu possent ire quin aut mterficerentur aut depnjedarentur ab insidiantiuia latronum multitudine" (Vit. Edw. (Luard), 421). 496 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAP.X. deepened with the settlement of the Danes. The lift TTATICft f\f T»/~WO/~l Ct TTT/-\-r»*-v V^^.-^^J Jl 'it t t THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND, 497 1035- 1053. ^ter' ^*^^<^« ^*^^e haunted with robbers, so that men could hardly travel with safety even in companies of thirty at a time ; its distance from the south made the attendance of his thegns at the Witenagemots scant and uncertain ; and the visits of the king which in Eadgar's day were few, seemed to have ceased al- together under the Confessor. It was the home of savage feuds, of strife handed on from father to son even m the house of its earls. Marriage sat as lightly on them as bloodshedding ; ' and the rude violence • Earl Uhtred, who held Northumbria under ^thelred and Cnut, married the daughter of Bishop Ealdhun of Durham, and with her got a share of the bishop's lands. He sent her back however to her father, and returned her lands with her ; and took in her stead a rich burgher's daughter, whose father gave her to him on the simple terms that he should kill his enemy Thurbrand. But as he either could not or would not kill Thurbrand, the burgher s daughter in time ceased to be his wife, and he wedded ^thelreds daughter ^Ifgifu (gi^. Durh. "De Obsess. Dunelm." bloodshedding, and feuds of vendetta handed on from father to T,X, " Uf '■«;1/°"W "ot kill Thurbrand, Thurbrand owed him no thanks for i . When Uhtred submitted to Cnut, and came Cono^'^Tf ^ y "/'""' ''"""' "^"'^^l" (^— ' "Norm. tT\ a L " "" "^^^ '''■'''"'' ^'''^«'" and behind it stood Thurbrand with armed men, who forthwith cut down Uhtred and forty of his companions. The feud slumbered till Ealdred, Uhtred s son by the bishop's daughter, got his father's earldom. Then, whether by law or oy murder, Thurbrand was slain. His son Carl took up the feud, and he and E.arl Ealdred went about seeking each other's lives. Friends strove to make peace between them ; they were reconciled ; they became even sworn brothers exchanging blood 2) ; they vowed to go on pilgrimage to Rome together; and when driven back by stress of weather. TkLT fu ;,' ': 'r' "* '"^ '^"^^ ^^^ ^^^^ "^ ^s woods. There in the woodland he slew him, and a stone cross on the 10S5 10S3. Lcofric of Mercia. of their life was unchecked even by religion. Churches chap. x. gave no sanctuary against deeds of blood, and since Thei^seof the conquest of the north by the Danes not a single monastery of any historic importance survived in the land once thronged by religious houses. North- umbria, indeed, wild and uncivilized as it was, gave Siward work enough to do in simply holding it down, and as yet prevented any real danger to the power of Godwine from the northern earl. Leofric of Mercia, on the other hand, had held his earldom since the days of Cnut, and claimed to be descended from royal English blood. At the death of Cnut his influence, as we have seen, had been strong enough to match the power of Godwine, and to bring about the division of England between spot recalled the crime for centuries after (Sim. Durb . '* De Obsess. Dunelm." (T\\^sden), 81). The murder of his broi^her Eadwulf, who succeeded him in Bernicia, began the fortunes of Siward. But Siward had married Ealdred's daughter, and if he himself slew Ealdred's brother, the blood-feud with Thurl^rand's house for Ealdred's death fell none the less to his son. Some years after the Norman conquest, as Carl's sons were feasting '' in the house of their elder brother at Seterington in Yorkshire," and unarmed, a body of Earl Waltheof's youn» thegns fell suddenly upon them. " The whole family, all the sons and grandsons of Carl, were cut off save one son, Sumorled, who chanced not to be present, and another, Cnut, whose character had won him such general love that the murderers could not bring themselves to slay him" (Freem. " Norm. Conq." iv. 525 • Sim. Durh. "Gest. Reg." a. 1073, and more largely, " De Obsess.' Dunelm." (Twysden), pp. 81, 82). The young thegas came back with spoil—** deletis filiis et nepotibus Carli reversi sunt multa in variis speciebus spolia reportantes " (Sim. Durh. '< De Obsess. Dunelm." (Twysden), p. 82), while Waltheof "a.vi sui inter- fectionem gravissima clade vindicavit" (ib. p. 81). K K 498 CHAP. X. The Honse of Godwine. 1035- 1053. G(xh(nne of Wessex. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Harald and Harthacnut ; and his importance must have increased with the submission of all England to Harald in 1037. To the end of his life he remained amongst the foremost powers of the land, and took rank as one of the three great earls. In mere extent, however, Mercia was now but a shadow of its former self. Even in the days of Cnut the Hwiccas of Worcestershire formed a separate government ; under Harthacnut the breaking up of Mercia was yet more complete. The Magessotas of Hereford were gathered into a distinct earldom on the west, while the eastern provinces of Mercia had been shorn off to form a new earldom of the Middle-English of Leicester, with probably Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. Some of these districts returned in later days to the house of Leofric, and even at this time they may have still owned his supremacy, but his direct rule seems to have been confined to Cheshire, Staffordshire, Shrop- shire, and the border of North Wales. Not only did Godwine's experience of government, his wealth, his ability, lift him high above Siward or Leofric, but the very earldom he held far out- weighed the earldoms of Mid-England or the North. Wessex embraced almost all southern England, and southern England was the wealthiest and most im- portant part of the realm. The full effects indeed of the separation of Wessex from the crown, and its formation into an earldom, could hardly be felt in Cnut's day, while all England was still but a part of a larger empire. But they were felt in the days of the Confessor, when the hereditary king of the West- Saxons found himself displaced from his own native THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 499 1035- 1053. realm by Godwine and his house. Eadward was chap. x. the first descendant of Alfred who was not. lord of The House of CH)dwine. Wessex. He had indeed no local hold on the land at all ; he was simply king, and it may possibly have been owing to this that he found his home no longer at Winchester but at Westminster. The fact indeed that this creation of a West-Saxon earldom, so obviously a mere expedient to meet the exigencies of the Danish rule, was not at once reversed, and the old connexion of Wessex with the crown restored on the accession of the Confessor, shows how absolutely powerless that king was from the first in the hands of Earl Godwine. Nor could Eadward look to either of the rival earls for aid in disputing with the all- powerful Godwine the mastery of his kingdom. And yet by a singular irony of fate it was just through this mastery of Godwine's that England remained a kingdom at all. Had the three earldoms been of equal weight, or their possessors men of the same temper, the energies of Godwine as of his fellow- earls might have been spent in the building up of a separate dominion. It was his superiority of power as well as his keener ambition that drew him from the mere establishment of a great fief to the larger ambition of ruling the land. With such an aim the earl saw that his profit lay, not in weakening or annihilating the authority of the crown, but in seizing that authority for his own purposes, and in paving the way by a dexterous use of Eadward for the succession of the house of God- wine to the throne. Such a design can alone- account for the steady policy of annexation by which he at K K 2 ¥ ^ Bin policy. 500 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1035 1053. CHAP. X. once began to draw all England into his own hands ''^0^1."' or those of his kindred. The importance of keeping .«« watch over Wales, and of preserving the means of com! munication with it as Gruffydd built up a national sove- reignty, may explain the establishment of Godwine's eldest son, Swein, in the border-district of Hereford. But a new earldom was created for him by the addition to this district of two other Mercian shires the shires of Oxford and Gloucester ; and this earldom was again sweUed by the detachment of Berkshire and Somerset from Godwine's own Wessex. The position of Oxford as commanding the line of the Thames, and of Gloucester as commanding the lower Severn, gave Swein's earldom a military as well as a political importance. But while in Swein the house of Godwine pressed upon the west, a grant of the East-Anglian earldom to the second son, Harold, gave it the mastery of the east. In the very heart of England Godwine set his nephew Beorn, a brother of Swein Estrithson, as earl of the Middle-English about Leicester. The addition to Beorn's earldom of Nottingham and the old land of the Gyrwas and I.indiswaras made him master of the Trent, as Swein of the Severn and the Thames; and by 1045 the whole English coast from Humber round to Severn mouth had passed into the hands of the house of Godwine, Nor was this all. Two years after the kino's coronation Eadgyth, Godwine's daughter, became Eadward's wife. We can hardly doubt the meaning of this step. In setting Eadgyth beside the king Godwine aimed at meeting the secret hostility of E.rtennwn of his potver. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. the court, and detaching Eadward from the Norman councillors who, as he was conscious, w^ere busy working against him. The influence of Robert of Jumieges, who had been appointed bishop of London a year before, was as certain as his ill-will, and the memory of his brother's doom was stirred busily in Eadward's mind by the strangers round him. But so vast a stride towards the mastery of the realm as Godwine was making would of itself awake Eadward's suspicion, and hardly fail to rouse jealousy in other minds besides the king's. The house of Godwine had no hold on the North. In central England Leofric could hardly look with satisfaction on the advancing supremacy of his old rival. Godwine might still indeed have defied the eff'orts of the Norman courtiers, and the jealousies of his fellow earls, had he retained the confidence of the nation at large. But the national trust which his good government had won was at this moment shaken by the deeds of one who stood next to him in his own house. The first blow at Godwine's power came from the lawless temper of his eldest son, Swein. In the opening of 1046, a year after Eadgyth's marriage, Swein carried off the abbess of Leominster from her nunnery, and sent her back great with child. Such an act was too daring an outrage on the religious feeling of the country to pass unheeded. Ere C 'hristmas came the young earl fled, outlawed it would seem, from his earldom to the court of Bruges ; in the summer of 1047 he again left Baldwin's land, perhaps to take part in the war in the northern seas. God- wine was carefully watching the changes which went 501 CHAP. X. The House of Godwine. 1035- 1053. s^ i Di^ulties Godwine. 502 CHAP. X. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. _ on in the North, for both the rival chiimants to the ^Go&°' dominions of Harthacnut, Magnus and Swein, alike 1035. laid claim to the English crown. But a year before — • Magnus had threatened England with invasion, and a great fleet had been gathered at Sandwich to meet his expected attack. It had been averted by successes of Swein Estrithson, which drew the host of Magnus to Denmark instead of the Channel ; but the Norwe- gian king was now again victorious, and his triumph promised a renewal of the danger to England. Swein had been driven from all but a fragaient of the Danish realm ; the union of Denmark and Norway seemed certain ; and the forces of the two realms in the hands of Magnus would in such a case have been thrown on English shores. Opposition It was no wonder therefore that Swein hastened to 2wliZ 1^^^ cousin's help ; or that Godwine proposed in the Witan of 1047 to send a squadron of fifty ships to support his nephew's cause. But politic as the plan was, it met with a resistance which shows how greatly the earl's influence was shaken. The proposal, it is said at Leofric's instigation, was rejected, and Swein Estrithson was left to fight his battle alone. The result was the coming of that peril which Godwine foresaw. A new and overwhelming defeat drove Swein from his last hold in Denmark, and brought about the submission of the whole Danish kingdom to Magnus. Luckily for England, the conqueror's death at once followed his victory, and the two northern lands again parted from one another. Harald Hardrada bectme kmg m Norway : Swein Estrithson was welcomed back by the Danes ; and the strife which shielded 503 CHAP. X. The House of Godwine. 1035- 1053. England from Scandinavian attack broke out afresh on more equal terms. The decision of the Witan was far from proving any heedlessness of the safety of the realm ; had the attack come which Godwine feared, an English fleet was ready at this very time to meet it in the Channel. Their will was simply against in- tervention in the North itself, against actual meddling in a distant quarrel, and no doubt against spending English blood in the support of a nephew of Godwine. Enough, it may have been thought, had been done for Godwine's house at home. England could hardly be called on to spend blood and treasure in winning a throne for his nephew abroad. But behind this natural hesitation of wiser men stirred the bitter enmity of the Norman group w^hich Eadward had gathered round him. Even at this moment their opposition took a new vigour from the events which were passing over sea. Ever since his kinsman left Normandy for the WUlitwi and English shores, William had been slowly rising to his «"y'«'^^- destined greatness. Troubles on the French frontier, occasional outbreaks of a baron here and there, failed to shake the hold on the land which tightened with every day of the young duke's grasp. Bound him the men who were to play their part in cur history were already grouping themselves. William Fitz- Osbern was growing up as William's friend and adviser. The duke's half-brother, Odo, was already Bishop of Bayeux. But chance had brought a wiser counsellor to "William's side than Odo or Fitz-Osbern. In the early years of his rule, Lanfranc, a wandering scholar from Lombardy, had opened a school at 504 CHAP. X. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. The w or p™'^?'- ^^"fr^'^'^ ^^« the son of a citizen of 'fe,&<" P'lvia, where he had won fame for skill in the Romin X035- law Whether driven out by some civil revolution - or drawn by love of teaching to the west, Lanfranc made his way to Nomandy ; and troubled as was the time, the fame of his school at Avranehes soon spread throughout the land. A religious conversion however interrupted his work. Lanfranc quitted his scho ars to seek the poorest and lowliest monastery he could find m Normandy, and came at last to a Httle valley edged in with woods of ash and elm tlirough which a "bee " or rivulet ran down to the Ris?e, where Herlouin, a knight of Brionne, had found shelter from the world. Herlouin was busy building an oven with his own hands when the stranger greeted him with "_ God save you." " Are you a Lombard V' asked the Kn.ght-abbot, struck with the foreign look of the man. " I am," he replied : and paying to be made a monk, Lanfranc fell down at the mouth of the oven and kissed Herlouin's feet. The religious impulse was a real one ; but in spite of the break from the world and its learning which Lanfranc sought in this retirement at Bee, he was destined to be known as a great scholar and statesman rather than as a saint. It was in vain that he dreamed of seeking a yet sterner refuge in some solitude. The abbot s will chained him to the monastery, and Lan- franc s teaching raised Bee in a few years into the most famous school in Christendom. The zeal which drew scholars and nobles alike to the little house of Herlouin was in fact the first wave of an intellectual movement which was now spreading from Italy to THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 505 CHAP. X. 1035- 1053. Revolt in Noriaandy. the ruder countries of the West. The whole mental activity of the time concentrated itself in the group The i^e of of scholars who gradually gathered round Lanfranc ; ™^*' the fabric of the canon law and of mediaeval scholas- ticism, with the philosophic scepticism wliich first awoke under its influence, all trace their origin to Bee. But Lanfranc was to be more than a great teacher. The eye of the young duke saw in the Lombard one who was fitted to second his own ardent genius ; and in no long time the prior of Bee stood high among his counsellors. William was soon to need wise counsel. Youno- as he was, the pressure of his heavy hand already warned the strongest that they must fight- or obey. In the more settled land about the Seine order was now fairly established ; and in the coming contest it held firmly by the duke. But in the Bessin and Cotentin, where the old heathen and Norse traditions had been strengthened by recent Danish settlements, the passion for independence was strong. The great- est lords of the Cotentin and the Bessin, Neal of St. Sauveur, Randolf of Bayeux, Hamon of Thorigny, Grimbald of Plessis, waited but the signal to rise. And in 1047 the signal was given. Hitherto his bastard birth had done William little hurt, for of the descendants of Richard the Fearless or Richard the Good who might have claimed his duchy, some were churchmen, some had perished in the troubles of his youth, one had been his guardian and pro- tector ; while his cousin Guy, grandson oi* Richard the Good by his daughter's marriage with a Count of Burgundy, had been reared from childhood i - 506 CHAP. X. The House of Godwine. 1035- 1053. Val-es-D Lines. |!f THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. with William and gifted with broad lands at Vernon and Brionne. But Guy saw in the temper of the West a chance of winning the duchy from the bastard, and its lords were quick at answering- his call. So secret was the plot, that William was hunting in the woods of the Cotentin when the revolt broke out, and only a hasty flight from Valognes to Falaise saved him from caj)ture. As he dashed through the fords of Vire with Grimbald on his track the Bessin and Cotentin were already on fire behind him ; and their barons gathered at Bayeux swore on the relics of the saints that they would smite William wherever they might find him. They were soon to find him on the battle-field. The men of the more settled duchy beyond the Dive, the men of Caux and Hiesmes, the burghers of Lisieux and Eouen, of Evreux and Falaise, stood firmly by the duke. But AVilliam had no mind to stand the shock alone. Hardly twenty as he was, his cool head already matched the hot ardour of his youth ; and he rode across the border to throw hiaiself at the feet of the French king and beg for aid. The old alliance between the house of Hrolf and the house of Hugh Capet, shaken as it had been of late, was still strong enough to secure the help he sought ; and King Henry himself headed a body of troops which stood beside William's Normans on the field of Val-es-Dunes to the south-eastward of Caen. The fight that followed was little more than a fierce combat of horse surging backwards and forwards over the slopes of the upland on which it was fought, and ended in the rout of the rebel host. The milk of the THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Orne were choked with the bodies of men slain in its fords or drowned in its stream. The victory at Val-es-Dunes was the turning point in William's career. It was not merely that he had shown himself a born warrior, that horse and man had gone down before his lance, that he had faced and routed the bravest warriors of the Bessin ; nor was it only that with this victory the struggle of the wild northman element in the duchy against civilization, against the French tongue, against union witli Western Christendom, was to cease. It was that William had mastered Normandy. '' Normans," said a Norman poet, "must be trodden down and kept under foot, for he only that bridles them may use th(3m at his need ; " and the young duke had bridled them to use them in a need which was soon to come. The valour which had so sullenly withstood him on the downs above Caen, gave itself from that houi* into its master's hands, and, mere youth of twenty as he was, William stood lord of Normandy as no duke had stood its lord before, lord of a Normandy whose restless vigour was spending itself as yet in the ^ inning of realms for adventurers over sea, but was ready to spend itself now in winning realms for its duke nearer home. Far off as the conquest was, it was at Val-es-Dunes that William fought his first fight for the crown of Cerdic. It was the men who had sworn to smite him on the relics of Bayeux who were to win for him England. It was France, however, rather than England, which directly felt the change in William's attitude, for in the year after Val-es-Dunes, WiUiam measured swords 507 CHAP. X. The HouBe of Godwine. loss- less. Williania victory. w-i France and A njou. Pi I 508 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1035- 1053. CHAP. X, with the greatest of the then French powers. Girt ^Gofe'' i^ ^^ every side by great feudatories, the crowned descendants of Hugh Capet had been saved from utter ruin by the firm support of the dukes of Normandy, and the counts of Anjou. It was the Norman sword which had aided them to resist Burgundian disloyalty, and it was the sword of Norman and Angevin alike which saved them from the ambitious supremacy of the house of Blois. But it was just these two powers whose growth had now changed them from supports of the French crown into its most formidable dangers, and the policy of the French kings, unable to meet either single-handed, became more and more a policy of balance between them. At this time Anjou was the more pressing of the two foes. From a small province on either side the lower course of the Mayenne, with a few castles scattered over the lands of Blois and Touraine to the south and to the east of it, it had grown into the largest and most power- ful state of central France. Southern Touraine had been gradually absorbed. Northern Touraine had been won bit by bit. A victory of the Angevin count, Geoffrey Martel, left Poitou at his mercy, and the seizure of Maine brought his dominion to the Norman frontier. Geoffrey was soon at war with the king, and it was to purchase William's aid against this powerful vassal that King Henry had helped the duke to put down the revolt of the Cotentin. The bargain was faithfully carried out, and the victory of Val-es-Dunes was hardly won when the young duke and his Normans joined Henry in an ITar with Anjou. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 509 1035- 1053. attack on the Count of Anjou. A wooded hill- chap. x. country formed the southern border of the) Norman Thei^aeof duchy, and from the hills of Vire and Mortagne the ®®*^^®" rivers Mayenne and Sarthe flow down to the heart of Geoffre/s country to Le Mans and Angers. It was on this border that war broke out in 1048, centering round Domfront and Alenfon, towns which command the head-waters of the two streams. But the duke's success was as rapid and decisive as before. While Geoffrey marched to meet the French army, William surprised Alengon, avenged the insult of its burghers, who had hung skins over its walls on his approach, with shouts of "Hides for the tanner,'' by ruthlessly hewing off hands and feet, and returned as rapidly to secure the surrender of Domfnmt. The quick, sturdy blows put an end to the war ; Geoffrey Martel made peace with king and duke, and the peace left the two fortresses he had won in the hands of William, to serve as a base for his future conquest of Maine. If Val-es-Dunes had left William master of Nor- mandy, the defeat of Count Geoffrey left him first among the powers of France. But it was not France only which was watching William's course. His new strength told at once on English politics. The victory of his cousin over the rebels who would have made him a puppet duke, must have spurred Eadward to struggle against the earl who had made him a puppet king, and his little group of foreign counsellors would watch the triumphs that followed Val-^s-Dunes as if every victory of William was a blow at Godwine and his house. W^e shall soon see that William himself k |i'l 'I I" Norman aims in England. 510 CHAP. X. The House of God wine. 1035- 1053. Flanders. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. was watching closely the struggle between Godwin e and the king. What shape the young duke's dreanig may have taken, whether he had already conceived the design which was two years later disclosed of fol- lowing his cousin Eadward on the English throne, we cannot tell. But communications must have already passed between the Norman group around Eadward and the court of Eouen ; and the nomination of an English prelate from among the circle of Norman courtiers showed the new confidence which Eadward was drawing from his cousin's victories. In the year of William's triumph over Geoffrey Martel one of the king's Norman chaplains, Ulf, was raised to the see of Dorchester, a diocese which stretched from the Humber to the Thames. As yet, however, there was nothing in William's attitude to mark hostility to the house of Godwine. But the next step in the young duke's policy was to set their attitude to each other in a clearer light. Already the course of events was drawing England into relations with the western world at once closer and more extensive than any she had formed since the days of ^thelstan. The first breath of the later Conquest passes over us as English politics interweave themselves with the politics, not of Scandinavia only, but of Normandy and France, of Flanders and Bou- logne, of the Empire and the Papacy. It was to this wider field that the contest between Godwine and the Normans was to drift ; and to follow the thread of English politics at this moment we have to turn to Flanders. Flanders was now one of the leadino- states of Western Christendom. The wild reach of THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 511 CHAP. X. 1035- 1053. forest and fen which Caesar had seen stretching alono- the Scheldt and the Lower Ehine, a reirion veiled in ^^^ ?o?8e of ^ vodwiiie. bitter mist and swept by the frost- winds of the northern seas, had been subdued by the Eoman sword, and won from the dying empire by men of kindred stock with the English conquerors of Britain. A portion of this wild land, the great trianghi of terri- tory between the Scheldt, the Channel, and the Somme, which was known as Flanders, became a county in the storm of the Danish inroads. Its counts won their lordship by hard fighting against the northmen. But the quick rise of Flanders to wealth and greatness was due to the temper of the Flemings themselves. At the time we have reached their steady toil was already laying the foundation of that industrial great- ness which the land preserved through the Middle Ages, and of that commercial activity which was to make it ere a hundred years had gone by the mart of the world. The industry of the Flemings found from the first a shelter in their counts. All the tradi- tions of the country ascribed to its rulers a love of justice which lifted them above the princes of their time. Story told how Lyderic, the founder of their race, beheaded his eldest son for taking a basket of apples from an old woman without payment. The very feuds of the land were bounded by strict rule. Baron might wage his petty war with baron ; but old usage and enacted law forbade the extension of the strife to husbandman or trader. Hot as the quarrel might be, too, fighting was its only outlet, for none might harry or imprison within the count's domain. (. f iH I CHAP. X. 1035- 1053. Its importance. 512 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. It was in the peace and order which this strict ^Godw.''^ ^"^^ secured that the Flemings toiled their way to wealth. The counts understood and identified them- selves with their people's love of industry and freedom, and Arnulf the Old, our Alfred's grandson by the mother s side, became the iElfred of Flemish history. The little boroughs of the land grew up for the most part beneath the shelter of its vast abbeys; names such as those of St. Omer, St. Gherkin, St. Amand, St. Vedast, show that municipal life was almost a creation of the Church. Even the lordly Ghent of after days was but a borough which had clustered round the abbey of St. Bavon. But it was to Arnulf that tradition ascribed the institu- tion of the great fairs which raised them into centres of commercial life, as well as the introduction of the weaving trade which made Flanders the earli- est manufacturing country of Western Christendom. With equal sagacity the counts saw that the most precious gift they could confer on this rising industry was the gift of freedom. " Little charm," says Bald- win of Mons, " is there in a town for men to dwell therein save it be sheltered by the uttermost liberty." The freedom of settlement, the security of trade, the right of justice within their walls, the liberty of bequest and succession, which the Flemish boroughs were already acquiring, were soon to ripen into an almost complete self-government. The rapid pros- perity of the country gave a corresponding importance to its rulers ; and this importance was heightened by the situation of Flanders as a borderland between France and the Empire. Feudatories of the Emperor THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 513 1035- 1053. Revival of the Empire, as of the kiug at Paris, though for different portions chap. x. of their dominion, the counts soon learned to use Thei^seof their double allegiance to win a practical independence '' of either suzerain. The present ruler of Flanders Baldwin of Lille, had reached a yet higher position than his predecessors. His wife was the sister of King Henry of France. He was among the most powerful vassals of the empire. The Empire had risen at this moment to a heio-ht unknown since the days of Charles the Great * a height from which it was from that hour slowly to fall. The wide dominion of Charles had be<;n broken up by the quarrels of his house, the incursions nf the northmen, and the rise of a national temper in the peoples whom he had bound into a state. But the tradition of a single Christendom with one temporal as with one spiritual head lived on in the minds of men ; and in the German king Otto the Great the tradition again became a living fact. Conqueror of Italy, crowned at Rome as Emperor of the world the claims of Otto to the supremacy of Western Christendom found no acknowledgement in Spain in what we now call France, nor in England ; in our own laud indeed the assumption of imperial titles by Eadgar and ^thelred looks like a purposed answer to the imperial claims of Otto and his successors. But even apart from its claims over realms which denied Its sway, the Empire stood from the hour of this revival high both in strength and extent above all other European powers. Lords of Germany and of the greater part of Italy, of the subject realms of Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland to the east, of the L L 514 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1035- 1053. The religious moveineni cHAP^x. equally subject realms of Lorraine and Burgundy to ^GodSiJe.°^ ^^^ ^^^^' wielding a more doubtful supremacy over Denmark and Hungary, the successors of Otto saw their rule owned from the Eider to the Liris, from Bruges to Vienna, from the Visttda to the Ehone. It was this mighty domain which passed in 1039, three years before Eadw\ard's accession to the English throne, into the hands of the second of the Franconian line, the Emperor Henry the Third. None of its rulers had shown a nobler temper or a greater capacity for action. In seven years Bohemia w\as quieted, Hungary conquered, and public peace established throughout Germany. But the projects of Henry w^ere wider than those of a merely German king. He crossed the Alps to put himself at the head of a movement for the reform of the Church. A new^ religious enthusiasm was awakening throughout Europe, an enthusiasm which show^ed itself in the reform of monasticism, in a passion for pilgrimages t(» the Holy Land, and in the foundation of religious houses. We have seen how energetically this move- ment was working in Normandy ; it was the coldness, if not the antagonism, that the house of Godwdne showed to it which was the special w^eakness of their policy in England. Godwine himself founded no religious house ; he was charged by his enemies witli plundering many. His son Swein outraged the religious sentiment of the day by his abduction of an abbess. But if it was repulsed by the house of Godwine, the revival found friends elsewhere. Leofric of Mercia was renowned for his piety and his bounty to religious houses. Eadward himself THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 515 CHAP. X. 1035- 1053. was saintly in his devotion. In England how^ever, as abroad, the first vigour of the revival spent itself on TheHi^seof the crying scandal of the day, the feudalization of ^''*™'** the Church by grants or purchase of its highest offices as fiefs of lord or king, and by their trans- mission like lay estates from father to son. It was against this abuse that Henry specially The Empire directed his action. In the theory of the Empire a T^ ^'"^ ••111 T r> 1 FajKVcy. spiritual head w^as as needful for Christendom as a secular head; Emperor and Pope were alike God's vice-gerents in His government of the w^orld. But the Papacy w^as now on the verge of a more complete feudalization than the meaner prelacies of th(3 Western Church. Three claimants now disputed the chair of St. Peter ; of these, two had been raised to it by the Eoman barons, one by bribery of the Roman people. Their deposition, the elevation of a German Pope, edicts against the purchase of ecclesiastical offices, showed Henry's zeal in the purification of the Church. It was shown still more grandly when the bishop whom he had called to the Papacy as Leo IX. re- nounced at a warning from the deacon Hildebrand the papal ornaments to which he had no title but the nomination of the Emperor, and only resumed them after a formal election by the clergy of Rome. Henry ow^ned the justness of the princijile, and Leo became his coadjutor in the settlement of Christendom. From the reforms of Henry the Third dates that revival of the Papacy which w-as soon to deal a fatal blow at the Empire itself. Hildebrand, tJie future Gregory the Seventh, w^as in Leo's train as he re- turned over the Alps, and continued to mould the L L 2 ! I«l IMI iki 516 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1035- 1053. Normandy and Flanders. CHAP.X. policy of the Papacy in accordance with his own ^ God^^e.^' liigli conception of the commission of Christ's Church on earth. But for the moment the ecclesiastical reforms of the Emperor were interrupted by the troubles of the Empire itself. Henry's greatness stirred the jealousy of his feudatories ; and though his wonderful activity held the bulk of his realm in peace he was met in Lower Lorraine, the Low Countries of later history, by a rebellion under its duke. In this rising Duke Godfrey was backed by two powerful neighbours, the count of Holland and the count of Flanders. It was probably in the spring of 1049, at the moment when Baldwin of Lille announced by daring outrages his defiance of the Emperor, that a demand for his daughter's hand reached him from the court of Eouen. In itself the demand was natural enough. William had been pressed by his baronage to take a wife ; and kinship alone might have drawn the duke to take her from the house of Flanders. It was no long time since Baldwin the Bearded, the present Count Baldwin's father, had married in his old age a daughter of Eichard the Good, a cousin of "William as of the English Eadward, and her presence at the court of Bruges would aid in the promotion of further alliances. But we can hardly doubt that political interest had more weight with William than the thought of kinship. A marriage with Matilda of Flanders would strengthen his hold on France, whose growing jealousy formed one of his greatest difficulties. Matilda's mother, Adela, was a sister of Kiug Henry ; and the connexion between the courts THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 517 Godwine. 1035- 1053. of Paris and Bruges was of the closest kind. Even chap. x. in a war with France the friendship of Flanders The House of would cover the weakest side of the Norman frontier. But it is likely enough that England already occupied as large a part in William's plans as France. We can hardly doubt from his visit but two j^ars later that dreams of an English crown wer(i already stirring within him. And in any projects upon England it was of the highest import to secure the friendship of Flanders. It was the more important that Baldwin's friendship Em/land and seemed already to have been won by the great English ^^""^^^'■*- house in which William must even now have discerned the main obstacle to his success. In seekino- the alliance of the count of Flanders, Godwine was only following the traditional policy of the English kin^s, A common dread of the northmen had long held the two countries in close political connexion ; and the marriage of a former Count Baldwin with ^Ifth- ryth ^ the daughter of Alfred, was part of a system of alliances by which Eadward the Elder and .^thelstan strove to bridle Normandy in its earlier days. Even when that dread of the northmen died away, a friendly intercourse went on between the two countries. It was at Count Arnulfs court that Dunstan sought refuge in his exile ; and one of the archbishop's bio- graphies is due to a Flemish scholar. Commerce too linked England with '' Baldwin s land," as Flanders was generally styled. Bruges formed the great mart for the countries of the Lower Rhine ; and the merchants of Bruges were seen commonly enough in 1 Seep. 183. 518 CHAP. X. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1035- 1053. The policy of William. Thei- , ^'^^^^^et^^f London. Flemings indeed were amon. ^Ml."^ the strangers whose encouragement was laid as a fault lo.,.,. to Eadgar's charge. In the later days of .flthelred the political relations between the two countries became of a less friendly kind. It was from a Hemish harbour that Cnut steered to English shores and It was at Bruges that Emma and Harthacnut Planned their invasion of England. But aid to Warthacnut and Emma was less offensive to Eadward than It would have been to Harald Harefoot, and even the reception of some Danish pirates in the Scheldt, with English booty on board, was hardly of weight enough to prevent the renewal of the old English friendship during the Confessor's roii affected above all by this new turn in Flemish politics. But whether his visit was a result of this match or no, the sympathies of Count Eustace can hardly fail to have given fresh weight to the pressure which Robert was bringing to bear on the king against Godwine. That the count of Boulogne was looked upon with hostility by Godwine's party, we see from the precau- tion which Eustace took of arming his men as he approached the earl's town of Dover on his return at the opening of September. His fears of a conflict were soon realized. One of his soldiers while roucrhlv seeking lodgings wounded a burgher who refused them ; the towjismen attacked the count ; and after THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. the fall of some twenty men on either side Eustace was driven from Dover and fled almost alone to Eadward. The king summoned Godwine in wrath from Tostig's marriage-feast, and bade him as earl of Wessex avenge the wrong done to his brother-in-law. With his usual skill Godwine seized on the op])ortunity which the demand gave him. A contest was plainly at hand between Eadward and the earl ; but the fioht at Dover enabled him at once to take ground, not as an enemy of the king, but as an enemy of the foreigners who surrounded the king. He rt?fiised to attack his own people on a stranger's behalf; and with his sons, Swein and Harold, summoned the men of their three earldoms to follow him in arms. Fighting in fact at once broke out between Swein's men and the men of Earl Ralf in Herefordshire. For the moment the bold stroke promised to be successful. Eadward lay defenceless in the midst of Swein's earldom. The followers of the three earls imraediatel}^ gathered at their call a few miles oflf Gloucester, in a force so '' great and countless " as to show^ wdiat careful preparation the house of Godwdne had made beforehand for the blow. From his camp on the Cotswolds the earl demanded the surrender into his hands of Eustace and the Normans in Ralf s castle. But quick as had been Godwine's stroke, others w^ere as quick as he. The earls of Mercia and Northum- berland were doubtless on their w^ay to the usual autumnal meeting of the Witan ; but on the summons of the panic-struck king they called up the whole strength of their earldoms, and hurried with the smaller force about them to Gloucester. 527 CHAP. X. The House of Godwine. 1035- 1053. fll 528 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. mveof ^^^"^^^^ ^^s at once refused, and as the Mercians GodwineB and Northumbrians gathered round Eadward they CHAP. X. The approach of Leofric and Siward, with the men ^GofSinl°^ "'^1^^^ R^lf brought up from Herefordshire, changed 1035- the whole face of affairs. The surrender of Count Failure of Godwim ^^'''' clamoured to be led against Godwine and his sons. Dexterous as the earFs policy had been, it had utterly broken down. His aim had been to stand before England as the foe of strangers and not of the kiiig. But the sudden rescue wrought by Siward and Leofric forced him, ^^oath" as he was, to stand boldly out in arms against Eadward himself ; and it marks the power which the monarchy had now gained over the national sentiment, in great measure from God wine's own policy and action, that the moment this attitude was fairly taken the earFs strength fell from him. But with the sentiment of loyalty was rising also the conscious- ness of national unity. The day had passed when Mercian or Northumbrian could shed West-Saxon blood as the blood of strangers. The wiser folk on both sides deemed it " unrsed " or wisdom-lacking to join battle ; '' seeing that there was most that noblest was in England in the two hosts.'' His fight. Not less striking than the force of either sentiment was the new consciousness of national law. The great dispute was left to the judgement of the Witenagemot which was summoned on the twenty-first of September, so fast had events marched, at London. The two hosts were parted by the river ; Godwine and his sons lay at Southwark ; Eadward and the Mercian and Northumbrian earls encamped on the northern shore. The Witan no sooner met than they gave an THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. earnest of their coming judgement by the outlawry of Swein. The reversal of Godwine's worst d(ied showed what had most shaken his power over Englishmen ; but Godwine still clung to his son. Outlaw as he now was, he kept Swein beside him. The earl trusted to the political skill which had rescued him from so many dangers, and Bishop Stigand of Winchester, one of his stoutest partizans, negotiated busily with the king. But while Stigand crossed and recrossed the river Godwine's host melted away; and a final summons to appear before the Witan drov(5 him from Southwark. A sentence of outlawry on the part of the Witan and the host followed him in his flight over sea. The triumph of the king and of the primate was complete. Godwine with three of his sons, Swein, Tostig, and Gyrth, made their way to Baldwin's court. Two others, Harold and Leofwine, struck westward to Bristol and sailed thence to Dublin, where a native king, Dermot, was now lord alike of Irish and Danes. It is plain that the policy of the house of Godwine, closely linked as it was with the northmen through Gytha and her kindred, had secured a hold on these western seas by an alliance with the Danish Ostmen, as it secured a hold on the eastern channcd through its alliance with Baldwin. The orders given to Bishop Ealdred of Worcester to seize Harold as he fled mark the importance which the new government attached to this danger in the West; but his pursuers "might not or would not" overtake him. The cautious phrase of the chronicler shows that, if Swein's inlawing and Godwine's daring stroke for supremacy in the M M 529 CHAP. X. The Honse of Godwine. 1035- 1053. Its results. 530 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1035- 1053. CHAR X. realm had brought about a national resistance, there ^GodwiSl^^ was no bitter hostility against his house. The earl's flight, indeed, seems to have been unexpected ; it is likely that many in the host at Westminster meant simply to back the king in his appeal against God- wine's last demands ; and the sudden disappearance of the great minister who had so long stood at the head of English affairs struck a panic into men's hearts. Murmurs passed from lip to lip that the land was lost now the land's father was gone. We see the power of this sentiment in the moderation of the acts which followed Eadward's triumph. Godwine's daughter, indeed, the king's wife Eadgyth, was put away and sent to a monastery. The earldom of Swein was broken up, and while part of it fell to the king's nephew Ealf, a part of it, along with the western portion of Wessex, was placed under the rule of another kinsman of Eadward's, Odda. The East- Anglian earldom of Harold was given to Leofric's son ^Ifgar. Spearhafoc was driven from the see he claimed, and one of the king's Norman chaplains, William, was raised to the bishopric of London. But we hear of no further reactionary measures ; nor is there any sign that, powerful as he now was, the Norman primate used his power to make England Norman. Neither Siward nor Leofric, indeed, were men to sufi*er their success to be turned to merely Norman uses ; and his conduct in this hour of in- dependence shows that Eadward had till now favoured the Norman group around him simply as a counter- poise to the oppression of Godwine. But in one breast the fall of the house of Godwine THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. must have raised hopes which, baffled as they were to be again and again, were never thenceforth to die. In the triumph of the earl's policy in Flanders William of Normandy had sufi'ered the great defeat of his life. The marriage he had striven to bring about was denied him, while the marriage with Tostig bound Baldwin more firmly than ever to Godwine's house. But the fall of the earl opened chances of success in the aims which, we can hardly doubt, were now growing clearer before him. In the followiag Easter- tide, 1051, "came Earl William from beyond sea with great following of Frenchmen; and the king welcomed him and so many of his fellows as seemed him good, and let him go again." There is something startling in the simple words which record the first landing of William on English shores. Of 1;he import of his coming we are told nothing by the English chronicler. But the Norman knights of the duke's train brought back tales to their own land of a fresh promise made to William by his royal kinsman that he would bequeath him his crown ; and, tru(3 it is, the tale deepened the conviction of every Norman that England was soon to be his own.^ But Godwine was watching the turn of English feeling with other eyes than those of William. News of the popular panic at his flight must soon have ^ Note the growth of the Norman convention from its begin- ^i^^g (1) witli Eadward's accession and the rumoured promise of succession ; (2) its progress with Primate Robert's visit to Rouen and promise ; (3) and with William's visit to Eadward and promise. The very number of the promises throws grave doubt on the truth of any, but it shows the growing belief in the Norman pretensions. M M 2 531 CHAP. X. The House of Godwine. 103S. 1053. William visits England. The plans of Godivine, r 532 CHAP. X. The House of Godwine. 1035- 1053. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. reached him over sea ; nor can we doubt that the great treasure which he carried to Flanders w^as lavished to support the sympathy felt for him in his exile, and to spur Baldwin to the efforts which we find the count making to induce Eadward to receive him again. But for months all was in vain. Winter and spring wore away, and still the king was stubborn in his refusal of pardon. At last Godwine girded himself to win his return by force. His first step was to free himself from the miserable son who had cost him so much. Brutal as Swein was, there is something pitiful in the tenacious affection with which Godwine had clung to him in spite of his crimes ; but the earl saw at last that whatever welcome England might have for himself, it had no welcome for Swein. And his departure on a pilgrimage, in which he found his grave, removed the one great obstacle to Godwine's reconciliation with his country. Already friends were stealing over sea to Bruges, '' happy to be exiles in his exile," ^ while messages came from other friends who remained but called for his return, and pledged themselves to live and die with him.^ Through the spring of 1052, Godwine was busy equipping a fleet in the Yser, while Harold gathered ships at Dublin, and when midsummer came all was ready. Eadward was still resolute against the earl; his 1 Yita Edw. (ed. Luard), 404. 2 " And during the time that he was here in the land, he enticed to him all the men of Kent, and all the butsecarls from Hastings and everywhere there by the sea-coast, and all the east end, and Sussex, and Surrey, and much else in addition thereto. Then all declared that they would live and die with him." Eng. Chron. (Peterborough), a. 1052. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 533 1035. 1053. Return of Godivine. own prayers and the embassies both of Baldwin and chap. x. the French king, whose interposition again throws Theiotweof light on the wide reach of Godwine's political con- nexions, alike failed to move him ; and a fleet and land force was gathered at Sandwich to meet his coming. The earl had already started, but his fiirst attempt ended in utter failure, for he was driven back to Bruges by a storm, and for a month all seemed at an end. But the failure had given a false security to Eadward. At the beginning of September the king's fleet withdrew to London to refit, and at the moment when the coast lay open Eadward learnt that Harold had left Dublin to join his father. The young earl turned into the Bristol Channel to make a descent on Porlock, and while the brutal ravages of his Danish shipmen woke the king's dread of an attack from the West, Harold's own ships rounded the Land's-End and entered the Channel. Godwine and his son met off* the Isle of Wight, sailed eastward along the coast, and entered the Thames. The country rose as they advanced. Vessels put off from every little port they touched, manned by seamen who vowed to live and die with Godwine ; and when the earl's fleet moored before London it far outnumbered the fifty vessels of the king. Eadward, however, was hardly less active and resolute than his foes, and a large; force lay marshalled along the northern bank of the Thames. But Godwine was too consummate a statesman to derive success from mere force of arms. He stilled the wild outcry for battle which burst from his men, as the king delayed to give answer to the prayer of =i. 534 CHAP. X. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1053. His restoration _ the earl for restoration to land and goods. Bloodshed ^ctote."^ woi^leof unlaw, deemed ill-doom, and red unrede in the land." ,rr-. ' 1035-'' When the hosts which had gathered on either side *^' the Thames streamed back to their homes, the ^'^'^Sfinhis ' position. triumph of Godwine seemed complete. The king had been forced to give him the kiss of peace. His Nor- man rivals were in flight over sea» His old posses- sions were restored. The influence which had rested before on his own supreme ability, on long ex- perience and possession of authority, on the gradual accumulation of lands and honours, on the annexation of province after province by his house, rested now on the basis of a national acceptance, of a recall and a restoration which the solemn decision of the Witenagemot approved as national acts. But the earl's keen eye could hardly fail to see that th(5 revolution of 1051 had given a mighty shock to his power; even his restoration, triumphant as it was, failed to give back to his house its old supremacy. If Ead- ward had been beaten in his efi*ort to ruin Godwine, he had shown what strength remained to the crown. If the two rival earls preferred Godwine to a Norman rule they were far from purposing to sink back into their old inferiority. The settlement whi(3h followed the earl's return throws light on the long negotiations which Bishop Stigand conducted with the Witan be- fore the vote of Godwine's outlawry was recalled, and leaves little doubt that the fresh arrangement was one of mutual concession. The dignity of the crown was jealously preserved. Gofiw'me and In the very hour of his triumph Godwine strove Eadvxinl. I'll 536 CHAP. X. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 1053. __ to soften as far as he might Eadward's humiHation ^'a«r' At the first sight of the^ing he flung dol Ms 103.. arms and . threw himself at Eadward's feet praying for the king's peace. It was only when Eadward yielded to his prayer and the prayer of the Witan that the earl took back his arms again from the king's hand and accompanied him into the palace. Even the change of the king's advisers remained a partial one If Eadward was forced to abandon his Norman archbishop and the Norman advisers of Godwine's exile, a Norman court was still left to him He remamed surrounded by Norman stallers and chap- iains, his writs were drawn by a Norman chancellor. lHough the two kinsmen of the king had played a foremost part in the earl's overthrow they were left uninjured. French as he was, Ealf retained his earldom of the Mages^tas. Odda, if he lost the earldom built up for him out of the western shires ot Wessex, seems to have been compensated by the creation of an earldom of the Hwiccas out of the shires of Gloucester and Worcester. The same signs of compromise appeared in the new relations of Godwine with the rival earls, ihe house of Leofric had profited most by his fall. Whatever had been the steps of its growth the Mercian earldom which had once been reduced to httle more than three shires, Stafi-ordshire, Cheshire, and Shropshire, now reached again east- ward over Lincoln and stretched westward to Oxford and the Thames ; and as if to build up again the old realm of Mid-Britain, Leofric's son ^Ifgar had received at Eadward's hand Harold's earldom of Godwine and the Earls. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 537 ' : East-Anglia. Siward, master of Northumbria from the chap. x. Tweed to the Trent, for Nottinghamshire now passed Thei^seof into the Northumbrian earldom, was rewarded for ^l~^''' his share in Godwine's overthrow by a part of *?f?" the counties of Northampton and Huntingdon, a gift which served the political purpose of provid- ing a barrier between the possessions of Leofric and his son. Such a division of England raised Leofric and Siward to a new equality wdth Godwine : but his submission to it was probably a part of the terms of his recall. Wessex returned to Godwine as of old ; East-Anglia was also restored ; but Leofric and Siward retained the possessions they had won. In the settlement of Church matters there was Godwim and a like spirit of compromise. Spearhafoc, the^ claimant ^^ ^^''''■''^• whom Godwine had backed in his occupation of the see of London, disappeared ; and the Norman bishop, William, returned as soon as the storm was over to his see. We hear nothing of ^Ifric, the kinsman whom the earl had striven to raise to the primacy ; but the question of the appointment to the see of Canterbury was too important a one for Godwine to yield. In the tumult which broke out when Eadward was forced to receive the earl back again, Archbishop Robert of Canterbury fled from London and crossed the Channel. His life indeed was in danger ; his knights had been forced to cut their way out of London ; and a formal outlawry in the Witenagemot, on the ground that he and his Frenchmen had been foremost in making strife between Godwine and the king, followed him over sea. But Godwine was far from resting content with Robert's flight. The elevation of the Norman to 538 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHA^ X. the primacy had been the crowning defeat of that ^Go&''^ policy by which he was concentrating all power in ,o3|- State or Church in the hands of his house. And now — ■ that his power had returned, he fell back on his older plan. There had been recent instances of the deprivation of bishops by a sentence of the Witan : and though we have no record of such a step, we may gather that Robert was himself deprived of his see. It was given to Bishop Stigand of Winchester, whose action in the late contest marked him as an ardent partizan of the house of Godwine. Eobert at once hastened to Rome to appeal against the intrusion of Stigand into his see. It was plain that the strife between the rival primates must widen into a strife between England and the papacy. No canonical power could be alleged for Robert's removal : and to churchmen generally the elevation of Stigand could seem nothing but a defiance of all ecclesiastical law. In Normandy sympathy for the exiled archbishop was naturally even keener. The memory of the slaughter of Normans by Englishmen at the seizure of iElfred was quickened by tales of the slaughter of Normans on Godwine's return. The driving out of the Norman prelates, the outlawry of the Norman courtiers, were taken as outrages to the Norman name, and the elevation of Stigand remained as the most galling sign of Godwine's triumph. "^Sr/ '^^'^ *"''"'P^ however was the last which Godwine was to wm. His long administration was fast draw- ing to its close, and the sickness which was soon to end his life seems to have fallen on him immediately after his restoration. But alike in his overthrow and THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. his success he had shown the qualities which had so long placed him at the head of the State. It is in the transitional moments of a nation's history that it needs the cool prudence, the sensitive selfishness, the quick perception of what is possible, which ' dis- tmguished the adroit politician whom the death of Cnut had left supreme in England. Living in a time of transition he was himself a fit representative of his time ; his birth disputed, his connexions Danish his policy English, a skilled warrior, but statesman rather than warrior, and administrator rather than conqueror. Beginning as a royal favourit(^ he died the "land-father" of the English people; from the court dependent he passed insensibly into the patient statesman ; on the one side he appeared a grasping noble, on the other a wise ruler. The first great lay statesman of English history, he owed his elevation neither to hereditary rank nor to ecclesias- tical position, but to sheer ability ; the first minister who over-awed the crown, his pliability, his good temper, his quick insight, his caution, and bis patience, showed that he possessed the qualities of the adroit courtier. Shrewd, eloquent, an active administrator, Godwine united vigilance, industry, and caution, with a singular dexterity in the man- agement of men. In the range of politics indeed he was unfettered by scruples. His deadness to the religious sentiment of his day was shown by the way in which he held aloof from the ecclesiastical and monastic revival of the time, and by his support of Stigand, unworthy as he was, from political motives. His indifference to the- moral judgements of the men 539 CHAP. X. The House of Oodwine. lois- 10S3- 540 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. m CHAP. X. about him found expression in whatever share he may ''go&'' ^^^^ ^^^ ill the murder of JElfred, and in his steady 1035- adherence to the son whose crimes had openly out- ^ — ^' raged public feeling. His far-reaching ambition and keen selfishness were seen in the aggrandizement of his house, and in the vast wealth at his command, as well as in his dexterous use of it. But in spite of this absence of moral sympathy, his fertility of conception, the range of his designs, the quietness of his strokes, his dogged perseverance, and his cool- ness and self-command in success, added to his long administrative experience, left him without a rival in the conduct of government. His policy both abroad and at home marked the daring and originality of his genius. In foreign affairs he was the first among English statesmen whose diplomacy and international policy had a European breadth, and concerned itself alike with Scandinavia, the Empire, the Papacy, France, Flanders, and the Irish Ostmen. At home his government was one of peace, for warrior as he had been in his youth, he was absolutely without military ambition, and sought only political success. It was nevertheless in this field of home politics that the transitional character of his genius most truly asserted itself. Holding down feudalism, yet him- self aiming at a great feudal revolution, building up in the council-chamber the power of the crown, yet himself turning the king into a puppet, he was the creator of a wholly new policy. He was the first to develope in the people at large a common interest in the English nation, an interest stronger even than the instinct of allegiance to the house THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. of Cerdic ; and the new '' loyalty '' which was thus his creation strengthened the authority of the crown, even while it superseded the king. The true work of Godwine lay in the building up of tlie English people, the awakening of a new loathing of foreigners and of a new sense of kinship, and the gathering of the nation into that brotherhood which looked to him as the "land-father." 541 CHAP. X. The House of Godwine. 1035- 1053. 542 CHAP. X. The Honse of uodwlne, loss- less. Kotes. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. (The following note, on tU Growth of tU Royal Administration have been drawn up from sorm fragmentary papers, very rough and imperfect, and wholly unrevised.) In the history of the royal administration three stages are distinctly marked, each of which indicates a fresh step in the progress of the kingly rule. In the time of Alfred the great officers of the court were the four heads of the royal household, the Hordere the Staller, the Dish-thegn, and the Cup-thegn Under ^thelred the appointment of the High-reeve shows the hrst efPort of the crown to create a minister of state. Finally m the re,^n of Cnut we may trace the beginnings of that ad- mimstrative body which was to become so important under the Confessor, the Clerks of the Chapel, or the "King's Chaplains." J Z °. ''! °* ^^^ '^"^y West-Saxon court are at least as old as ^Ifred, and, whether borrowed or not in their actual form trom the Frankish court, sprang naturally from the needs of the king s household for its inner regulation and finance, for its movements through the country, and for its commissariat. The Hordere was the officer of the court in its stationary aspect as the S aller or Constable was of the court on progres's ; wMle the hardly less important functions of the commissariat of this^ moving army were shared between the Steward and the West-Saxon monarchy any veal power. The dish-thegn and cup-thegn lost importance as the court became stationarylnd no longer maintained a vast body of royal followers. The staller retained only the funoti*nn« r.f i^^a- - ^tctnei Pnn<.+«hlo I I' functions of leading m war as the feudal constable, which in turn passed away with later changes in the i^^cr^- ^'' '-'-' ^^-^ ^^^^ ^ P-ition of growing V.r' ^f-f ^g^^ camerarius cubicularius ; the hr^gel-thegn, or keeper ot the wardrobe; the dispensator, thesaurarL, hofd;re' THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. are all grouped by Kemble (- Sax. in Eng." ii. 106) as names for the same great officer. The first instances given by hint are ^Ifric thesaurarius, under Alfred, ^thelsige camerarius, under Eadgar and Leof ric hr^egel-thegn, under ^thelred. No doubt the " Hoard " contained not only money and coin, but the costly ornaments and robes of the crown. Of all the officers of the court he was far the most important, (1) as head of the whole royal service; (2) as exercizing control over the royal palace or household wherever it might be, and charged with care, '' de honestate palatii sen specialiter ornamento regali;" (3) as receiver of royal dues for the crown-lands, and head of the royal gerefan ("we may presume that he had the general management of the royal property, as well as the immediate regulation of the household. In this capacity he may have been the recognized chief of the cyninges tungerefan, or king's bailiffs on the several estates ; for we find no traces of any districtual or missatic authority to whom these officers could account " Kemble, - Saxons in Eng." ii. 106) ; (4) as " dispensator" of the crown ; and (5) through this, and in his charge "de donis annuis mihtum," as head of the household troops ; and (6) of the budding diplomatic service through his care - de donis diversarum legationum" (Hincmar 22, ap. Kemble, "Sax. in Eng." ii 106) If under the changing conditions of the West-Saxon monarchy the importance of the Hordere in some of these offices declined, If his control over the household became less important, and his headship of the royal troops passed into other hands, and his charge of the royal demesnes practically ended with the com- mutation into money-rents of the dues derived from them, he found his importance as treasurer growing at every change in the system of finance, and in the organization of the exchequer in Its judicial as well as fiscal developement. A second stage in the progress of kingly rule was raarked by the creation under ^thelred of the High-reeve, the first effort of the crown to create a minister of state, a deputy of its executive and judicial power beside the hereditary ealdorman, &c. Fiercely opposed, this institution became permanent under Cnut in the vice-royalty " of Godwine ; under the Confessor in that of Harold ; and from it under the Norman kings sprang the Justiciar. With the consolidation of the royal administration there went on no doubt a corresponding developemeat of the 543 CHAP. X. The House of Godwine. 1035- 1053. Notes. ■^ 544 CHAP. X. The Honse of Oodwine. 1035- 1053. Notes. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. royal justice in the shape of appeals to the king himself from subordinate jurisdictions ; and the growing pressure of this may have been the cause, if not of the institution of the Secundarius under Cnut, at any rate of the continuance of this great officer under a king like the Confessor who needed no vice-gerent through absence from his realm, as it was certainly the cause of the change of his name under the Norman kings to that of Justiciar. It was thus the origin of the three great divisions of the "king's court- with their staff of officers, while its executive functions passed to the offspring of the third body of ministers whose origin dates from the foreign kings of England, the clerks ot the royal chapel. The Royal Chapel marks the third stage in ministerial organ- ization. The high-reeve indeed early turned into a power which overawed the crown, and the rapid extension of the sphere of the capellam may mark a side of the struggle for the inde- pendence of the crown. The king's chaplains are first seen as a body under Cnut, but rapidly mount into power under the Confessor, when the "king's writ," issued through them, begins to be the efficient organ of the royal will throughout the realm. From their head, the chancellor, comes our equitable court of justice, from the rest our secretaryships of state, with the whole fabric of modern administration. The system had its origin in lands whose circumstances differed from those of England. In Frankish and other Continental courts, where the customary Teutonic law had to be worked side by side with a Roman written law, the Roman clerk (apocrisiarius, referendarius, cancellarius) was needed to decide whether orders were accordant to law or not (Kemble Sax. in Eng." ii. 114), or conflicted with the written iurispru- dence, and to affix or withhold the royal signet accordingly. 2^0 such need, however, existed in England, and the presence of the royal chaplains, with their head the chancellor, may be best accounted for by administrative reasons ; indeed, their institution coincides with the new class of royal writs which came in from the ear y years of Cnut's reign, issued by the king's personal authority without any confirmation by the Witan. In the first appearance of the chancery under Cnut we see traces of a Lotharingian organization, in the persons of foreign chaplains whose presence was probably due to their foreign training, and to the experience they may have brought of the Imperial THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. chancery Eadsige (Flor. Wore. (Thorpe), i. 193, on his eleva- tion to the archbishopric under Harald) the later archbishop of Canterbury, and Stigand the priest of Assandun (Flor. Wore Thorpe) 1. 199; he was chaplain to Harald), who were among he chaplains, were indeed Englishmen. Wythmaan, however to whom Cnut in his early days gave the abbacy of R^mT;,' was "Teutonicus natione" (Hist. Rames., Gale, iii. 404). L Daduc ("De Lotharingia oriundus," Flor. Wore. (Thorpe) i 218; "natione Saxo,;' Hunter. " Eccl. Doc." p. 15) was at ;he elase of Cnut s reign, m 1033, bishop of Wells, and in high favour with the king. The manors of Banwell and Congresbury were possessiones quas hiereditario jure a rege ante episoopatum pro- meruerat (Hunter « Eccl. Doc." p. 15), and he seems in some way to have held the abbacy of Gloucester. He was probably therefore a "capellanus." Hermann, wliowas made bishop of the Wils^tas in the first years of the Confessor's reign, had probably been inherited by him from his Danish predecessors, and may have belonged to this eariy group of foreign chaplains. To the same group would belong Leofric who (if Florence is right) must have been Reg.nbold s predecessor («' Regis eancellario liofrico Bry- tonico mox Cridiatunensis et Cornubiensis datus est pra^sulatus/' Flor. Wore. (Thorpe), 1. 199). Now, Leofric was " apud Lothar- mgos altus et doctus " (Will. Malm. " Gest. Pontif." p 201 inauence in his choice of Lotharingian clerks. This alliance went on between Eadward and Henry ; the intrigues and negotT W before the Council of Rheims may be connected with These' Lotharingians entering the chapel. Under the Confessor the Royal Chapel underwent marked changes alike in its organization and in its character. From 1045 we find a chancellor at the head of the clerks holding th^ whQ tT ; t'""^"' '"' '^^°"^''* •°*'' "- "' Enid! while the uniform tenour of the writs, and the replacing of the old English writing in the royal documents by the light French band in use among foreign clerks, alike point to some new arrangement of the secretarial work, and more exact TglnizaT t on of the chancery on foreign models. From this moment also we meet with almost exclusively foreign names, and these of ZT """ "' Lotharingians, but of Normans. The group of Lotharingians who had served under Cnut seems indeed to N N HA', CHAP. X. The HoQse of God wine. I03S- I053. Notes. 546 CHAP. X. The Hoaae of God wine. 1035- 1053. Notes. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. have been wholly broken up. Duduc had even in Cnut's time been rewarded by the see of Wells; Hermann was in 1045 appointed by Eadward to the bishopric of the Wilssetas ; and in the same year Leofric was made bishop of Devonshire and Cornwall. It is possible that the promotion of Hermann and Leofric was designed to clear the way for the French chancery that now took the place of the Lotharingian, the members of which must have been so closely connected with Godwine's policy since the days of Cnnt ; and that this new organiza- tion of the royal chapel, following so soon on the appoint- ment of Robert of Jumieges to the see of London (in 1044), marks an important step in Eadward's opening struggle with the earl. The earliest signatures given by Kemble {" Sax. in Eng." ii. 1 15) date from 1045, i.e. from the opening of the strife between the king and Godwine— a significant date. They are those of Hermann capellanus (Flor. Wore. a. 1045) ; Wulfwig cancellarius (Cod. Dip. 779); Reginboldus sigillarius (Cod. Dip. 810) ; Reginboldus cancel- larius (Cod. Dip. 813, 824, 825, 891) ; with a staff of the same date, ^Ifgeat notarius (Cod. Dip. 825), Petrus capellanus (ib. 813, 825), Baldwinus capellanus (ib. 813), Osbernus capellanus (ib! 825), Robertus capellanus (ib. 825). Then, in 1047, Florence gives Heca as chaplain, afterwards bishop of Selsey ; and, in 1049, Florence also notes Ulf as chaplain, who became bishop of Dorchester in 1051 ; Cynesige as chaplain, afterwards arch- bishop of York; and William, 1051, bishop of London (for these Kemble gives no signatures). Two other names are from Florence : Godmann, chaplain in 1053, and Gisa in 1060. It may be that this organization of the chancery or chapel marks Eadward's first period ; his struggle with Godwine, and the foreign names of the staff, would suggest this idea. Godwine's triumph may have given a temporary blow to this new administrative scheme, for Kemble notes two chaplains, Cynesige and William, as signing in 1051, but none after, save Gisa in 1060 (Kemble, "Sax in Eng." ii. 116). The charter in which Wulfwig figures as " regime dignitatis cancellarius " (Cod. Dip. 779) is noted by Mr. Freeman as " doubt- ful." He afterwards succeeded Ulf as bishop of Dorchester. The group therefore really begins with the Norman Reginbold. Reginbold "appears in Domesday {180b) by the description of THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. ' Reinbaldus Canceler ' as holding lands in Herefordshire T.R.E " .... After the Conquest " he still held lands in Berkshire (5G6, 60, 63), Gloucestershire (1666), and Wiltshire (685), if he IS, as he doubtless is, the same as ' Reinbaldus de Cirencestre ' and ^Renbaldus presbyter.' He was dean of Cirencester (Ellis, 1. 398), and besides his lay fees he held several churches in Wiltshire (Dom. 655)." (Freeman, " Norm. Conq." ii. 357 358). The permanence of the new organization is shown by his remaining with his fellows after the restoration of 1052. Thus he signs the Waltham charter as "rec^is Cancel larius" with Peter and Baldwin as king's chapllins (Cod. Dip. 813). Of the Rotary ^Ifgeat I find no other notice Peter and Baldwin, as we see, remained in the c'bancery with Reginbold to the end of the reign, when Baldwin became abbot of S. Edmundsbury (Freeman, " Norm. Conq." ii. 586 '' He had been a monk of S. Denis, a certain presumption, though not amounting to proof, of his French origin"). Before his abbacy of S. Eadmund's he had been prior of Earl Odda's chmch at Deer- hurst. (See charter in Monast. iv. 665. On Abbot Leofstan's illness, King Eadward -Baldwinum, S. Dionysii mooachum, ejus artis peritum, dirigendumcuravit."— Will. Malm. '' (Jest Pontif " (Hamilton), p. 156.) Osbern's name indicates his Norman blood but I know no more of him. Robert is of course the abbot of Jumieges, and probably the real mover in the whole matter Promotion, indeed, to sees did not necessarily vacate the mmio^terial post, for Robert begins to sign as bishop of London m 1046 (Cod. Dip. 784), but this see would leave him free to assist in the chancery. Ulf too must have been added to It soon after 1045, for in 1049, when named to Dorchester he is described as the king's ^'preoste " (Eng. Chron (Ab )' 1049), and -regis capellanus" (Flor. Wore. (Thorpe), i 203) William, too, who is named '' chaplain of the king " , Flor. Wore (Thorpe), i. 207), on his promotion to London in 1051, must have been introduced into the chancery after 1045, perhaps taking Robert's place on his rise to the primacy. Gisa alone among these later chaplains was a Lotharincrian • he was appointed bishop of Wells in 1060. His solitary figure' cannot have materially changed the French aspect of the chancery throughout Eadward's reign. The fact that Walter, the Lotharingian who at the same time became bisliop of Hereford, N N 2 547 CHAP. I, : The House of Godwine. 1035- 1053. Notes. I 648 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. CHAP. X. The House of Godwine. 1035- 1053. Notes. was Eadgytk's chaplain, may show that clerks were again bein1s of his profession (only printed in Freeman, " Norm. Conq." ii. note CC.) are : " Quo tempore ego Wulstanus ad Wigorn- iensem Wicciorum urbem sum ordinatus episcopus, sanctam Dorobernensem ecclesiam cui omnes antecessores meos constat fuisse subjectos, Sfcigandus jampridem invaserat, metropolitanum ejusdem sedis vi et dolo expulerat, usumque pallii quod ei abstulit contempta apostolicfe sedis auctoritate temerare prsesumpserat. Unde a Romanis Pontijicihus Leone, Victo7'e, Stephano, Nicolao, THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Alexandro, vocatus, excommu7i{catus, damnatus est. I]:)se tamen ut coepit, in sui cordis obstinatione permansit. Per idem tempus jussa eorum Pontificum in Anglicam terram delata sunt pro- hibentium ne quis ei episcopalem reverentiam exhiberet, aut ad eum ordinandus accederet. Quo tempore Anglorum prsesules, alii Romam, nonnuUi Franciam sacrandi petebant ; quidam vero ad vicinos coepiscopos accedebant. Ego autem Alredum Ebora- censis ecclesipe antistitem adii ; professionem tamen de canonica obedientia usque ad prsesentem diem facere distuli." The " perjuriis et homicidiis inquinatus " in Orderic's description of Stigand's de- position (Ord. Vit. (Duchesne) 516 B) may mean the bloodshed, &c., at the Gemot of 1052, but the "perjuriis" must go with the " dolo " of Wulfstan. None would have him. He did not consecrate Westminster. Harold in later days chose Ealdred to li allow him as king. Stigand indeed stood with Harold beside the bed of the dying Eadward ; but it was only to hear himself denounced as Eadward predicted the coming woe. " Cognoscebant enim per sacri ordinis personas Christian! cultus religionem maxime violatam, hocque frequentius declamasse tum per legatos et epistolas suas Romanum Papam, tum in frequentibus monitis ipsum regem et reginam : sed divitiis et mundana gloria irrecu- perabiliter quidam diabolo allecti, vita3 adeo neglexerant disci- plinam ut non horrerent jam tunc imminent em incidere in Dei iram." Vita Edw. (Luard), 451 — 432. *' Cunctisque stupentibus et terrore agente tacentibus, ipse archiepiscopus qui debuerat vel primus pavere, vel verbum consilii dare, infatuato corde submur- murat in aurem ducis, senio confectum -et moi'bo, quid diceret nescire." Vita Edw. (Luard), 431. The ''divitiis" above points to the ground which common rumour assigned for Stigand's obstinacy. His presence with the earl at the king's bedside only shows that Harold was still driven to cling to him, though h(i, with all England, held him to possess no spiritual power. 5S1 CHAP. A I. The Norman ConqueBi. 1053- 1071. Notes. 3''! 582 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 583 CHAP. XI. The Norman Conquest. 10S3- 1071. Notes. (/ iMve reprinted from an article written hy Jfr. Green in the Saturday ^^yiwt for August 22, 1868, Hie following passages, xohxch deal with tJie character of Harold, and, in the scarcity of materials, furnish some commentary on the text.—K. S. G.) " The death of Godwine in the very hour of his triumph be- queathed the direction of English afPairs to his son, Earl Harold It IS the special merit of Mr. Freeman's elaborate researches mto the later history of Eadward's reign that they bring home to us the fact that the man, who in common narratives starts into rule for a single year by his seizure of the crown, had in reality been the ruler of England for twelve years before. The corona- tion of Harold was, as he fairly puts it, the natural climax of the life of one who at twenty-four years old ' was invested with the rule of one of the great divisions of England ; who seven years later became the virtual ruler of the kingdom; who at last, twenty-one years from his first elevation, received, alone among English kings, the crown of England as the free gift of her people. The obvious lesson of all this is that Harold can no longer be judged from the single stand-point of Senlac. The year of his great close is simply the last of an administration which extended over thirteen years ; and it is the general tenour of that administration, rather than of any isolated events in it, that must really give us the measure of Harold. He came to power It must be remembered, unfettered by many of the obstacles that had beset his father. The revolution which had restored his house had freed him from the internal rivalry of a foreign party at the court. The defeat of Macbeth and the elevation of a nominee of England to the Scottish throne removed all danger from the north. If any fears of a Danish reaction still lingered, they must have been removed by the death of Osgod Clapa. Siward and Leofric, the two formidable counterpoises to the power of his house, passed away in the first years of his rule. Godwine had carried with him to his grave a thousand party resentments, gathered along a tortuous course of political intrigue. The one great moral obstacle that stood between England and his family had died with Swein. None of the jealousy which Eadward displayed towards the supremacy of his first minister seems to have displayed itself towards his second. For twelve years he was the undisputed governor of the realm. And this political supremacy 'was backed by high personal qualities. . . . The character of the Earl, however, remains singularly obscure. The very nature of his administration itself, during the greater part of it, is dark and mysterious. The three last years of it, indeed, are luemorable enough — the years of the Welsh campaign, the expulsion of Tostig, the accession to the Crown ; but the ten that precede them defy even the industry of Mr. Freeman. . . . With the exception of his doubtful voyage through France, it is notable that throughout the rule of Harold England is without any foreign relations whatever ; for the embassy to the Imperial Court in 1054 had a simply domestic purpose, and the nomina- tion of a few Lotharingian bishops does not aii'ect the really insular nature of his policy. Nor is this absence of outer rela- tions compensated by any internal activity. Mr. Freeman marks, indeed, the predominance of ecclesiastical administration as the characteristic of this earlier period of Harold's rule ; but when we look closer into the mass of details, there is simply no ecclesiastical administration whatever, no conspicuous synod, no great Church reform — nothing, in a word, but the appointment of a few prelates in the place of others, the attempted introduc- tion of the rule of Chrodegang, and, so far as Harold himself is concerned, the foundation of a single religious house. ... In his civil administration, as in his foreign and ecclesiastical, it is difficult to grasp any new or large conception in th(5 mind of Harold, such as those which lift his Norman rival into greatness. Take him at his best, there is little more than a sort of moral conservatism, without a trace of genius or originality, or even any attempt at high statesmanship. Take him at his worst, and we can hardly fail to see a certain cunning and subtlety of temper that often co-exists with mediocrity of intellectual gifts, In the internal government of the realm he simply follows out his father s policy, while avoiding his father's excesses. For one great political scandal he is solely responsible. It may not have been with a deliberate purpose of neutralizing the great CHAP. XI. The Norman Conquest. 1053- 1071. Notes. i| 584 CHAP. XI. The Norman Conquest. 1053- 1071. Notes. s THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. constitutional check on an English king that he allowed tl e highest dignity of the English Church to remain throughout hi.s rule in a state of suspension. But if we acquit him of a purpose which would be a crime, it can only be on the plea of an indiffer- ence to the true relations of the State which was even worse than a crime. In all other respects his civil administration during his first ten years of rule is the mere continuation of his father's. There is the same scheme of family aggrandizement, carried ont in even a less scrupulous way. To gain the paternal earldom of Wessex, indeed, Harold had been compelled to resign his own lordship of East-Anglia to the rival power of Mercia. But two years after, when he was firm in his saddle and the death of Siward had added the north to the domain of his family, Harold dealt a sharp blow at the one house that held him in check. . . . There are but four accounts left of the banishment of Earl JKlfgar in 1055, and of these three agree in declaring the earl guiltless, or nearly guiltless. The fourth, which avers that he publicly confessed his guilt, but that the confession escaped him unawares, is ' that of the chronicler who is most distinctly a partisan of Harold's.' . . . Harold was forced, in- deed, to consent to his victim's restoration ; but when Leofric's death threw his father's earldom into his hands, he wrested back East-Anglia and girded Mercia round with the chain of the possessions of his house. It is impossible, in the absence of facts, to explain the change of policy that followed. It may have been that the house of Leofric, confined now to a few central counties of the realm, was no longer dangerous as a foe, and might be useful as a friend. It may have been that Harold was jealous of the power of Tostig and of his influence with the king. All that we know is that Harold suddenly reversed his whole previous policy, and in spite or in consequence of his brother's feud with the sons of .^Ifgar, intermarried with their house. The marriage was quickly followed by the rising of Northumbria against its earl, and the rising was clearly prompted by Mercian instigation. But was the instigation simply Mercian ? Harold was now the fast friend of Eadwine and Morkere ; the expulsion of Tostig removed the only possible rival to his hopes of the Crown; the division of Northumbria into two earldoms, so evidently stipulated as the price of Morkere's accession, told only to Harold's profit. It is certain that when the two brothers THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. stood face to face the charge was openly made that the revolt had been owing to the machinations of Harold. It is certain that the charge was so vehemently urged and received so much credence, that Harold thought it needful to purge himself legally by oath. Anyhow, in spite of the violent opposition of the king, the royal minister yielded every point to the insurgents, and his brother fled over sea. It is, we repeat, impossible from sheer dearth of information to disentangle the threads of this com- plicated web of intrigue and revolution, or to pronounce with any certainty on the character of Harold's course in^the matter. If Harold was simply using England as a vast chess-board, and moving friends and foes in an unscrupulous play for power, he was amply punished. The revenge of Tostig proved the ruin of Harold. The victory of Stamford Bridge was the prelude of the defeat of Senlac. . . . Even hero-worship can hardly err in its praises of that final struggle, and the critic who rates Harold lowest may own that there are supreme moments when even the commonplace gather grandeur ere they pass away. But the character of the man ond of his ruje is to be gathered, not from the hour of heroic struggle, but, from xhe years that preceded it. A policy of mere national stagflation witlan and without sprang from the natural temper, the povar+y o*^ purpose, the narrow- ness of conception, of a mind which It is impossible to call great." 5S5 CHAP. XI. The Norman Conquest. 1053- 1071. Notes. i'J iM' INDEX. It Abbo of Fleury writes the life of St. Eadmund", 340 Abingdon, ^Ethelwold made abbot of, 295 and note 2 ; school at, 296 ; Northumbrians visit Eadred at, 298, 710 te ; Eadwig's benefactions to, 312, note 2 ; clerks from Glas- tonbury accompany iEthelwold to, 343, note 2 ; dealings of its abbots with the burghers of Ox- ford, 439 ; Chronicle of, 370, note 2 Aclea, battle of, 74, 79, 80 Adela, sister of King Henry of France, marries Baldwin, Count of Flanders, 513, 516 ; betrothed to Richard III. of Normandy, 521 Adelard of Ghent, his life of S. Dunstan, 281, note Administration, royal. 542 ; its de- velopement under i'Ethelred, 429- 431 ; under Cnut, 493, notey under Eadward, ib. M?ic made High Reeve, 394 and note 4 ; slain by Leofsige, 395 and 710 te 1 ^Ifgar, ealdorman of Essex, fatlier- in-law of King Eadmund, 261 iElfgar, son of Leofric, made earl of East-Anglia, 530, 536 ; makes alliance with Gruffydd of North- Wales, 564 ; outlawed, ib. ; re- stored, ib. ; succeeds Leofric in Mercia, ib. iElfgar, son of ^Elfric, blinded, 378 -^Ifgifu, daughter oi' ^Ethelgifu, marries Eadwig, 311 ; parted from him by sentence of Arch- bishop Odo, 312 ; seized and carried out of the realm, 314, 315, 7iote 1 JElfgifu, daughter of .Ethelred II., marries Earl Uhtred of North- umbria, 399, 496, 710 fe iElfheah, St., bishop ol Wincliester, carries on the policy of iElfric, 377, note ; negotiates a truce with Swein and Olaf, 380 ; negotiates a treaty between Olaf and ^Ethel- red, 381 ; translated to Canter- bury, 402, 7iote 1 ; his injunctions for the ol)servance of religious duties, 402 ; seized by Thurkill as hostage for the Danegeld, 409 ; his martyrdom, ib. ; his body translated to Canterbury, 433 ^Ifheah, kinsman of l^adwig, 306 ; made ealdorman of Central Wessex, 316 Jillflielm, ealdorman of the North- umbrianProvinces,372,«o^e ; made earl of Deira, 373 ; slain, 398 and 7iote 2 ; Florence's legendary account of his murder, ib., note 2 -^Ifliere, kinsman of Eadwig, be- comes one of his chiei' counsellors, 306 and 7iote 4 ; made ealdorman of Mercia, 309 ; his rise traced in the charters, 310, note 3 ; revolts against Eadwig, 312 ; his influence with Eadgar, 316 ; his independ- ence of the Crown, 348 and 7ioie 2; his title of "Heretoga," ib. 588 INDEX. INDEX. 589 heads the anti-monastic party, 352 ; supports the claim of Eadward to the Crown, ib. ; trans- ktes the body of Eadward from Wareham to Shaftesbury, 357 ; his death, ih. iElrtaed, dau«,diter of ^Ifgar, eahlor- nian of Essex, marries his suc- cessor, Brihtnoth, 261 /Elfred, King of Wessex, his birtli at Wantage, 99 ; his visit to Rome in early childhood, ih. ; authorities for his life, ih.^ note 2 ; visits Rome and Gaul with his father, 99 ; his early love of letters, ib. ; becomes next heir to the Crown by the accession of ^thelred, 10 1 ; becomes Secundarius, 87, note 2, 101 ; his marriage, 101 ; his sickness, //;. ; marches witli -£thelred against the Danes at Nottingham, ih. ; leads the van at Ashdown, 103 ; succeeds ^thelred as king, 104 ; first King of Wessex who was also King (if the Mercians, 48 ; defeated by the Danes at Wilton, 105 ; buys their withdrawal from Wessex, ih. ; sends alms to Rome an(l India, ib. and note 2 ; doubtful story of his besieging the Danes at London, ?6., note 2 ; marches upon Guthrum's camp near Ware- ham, 108 ; makes a treaty with the Danes, ib. ; besieges them in Exeter, ib. ; falls back upon Siunerset, 109 ; encamps at Athel- ney, 110; musters the West-Saxon host at Ecgberht's stone, 111 ; defeats the Danes at Edington, ih. ; treaty of Wedmore, 112 ; his work of restoration, 131-132 ; founds abbeys at Winchester, Shaftesbury, and Athelney, 133 ; his military reforms, 133-135 ; his extension of the thegn-service, 135, 136 ; his reorganization of the fyrd, 136, 137 ; creates a na- tional fleet, 137, 138 and note 2 ; his conception of public justice, 139 and note 2 ; his difficulties in enforcing justice, 140-141 ; be- comes King of Mercia, 143 ; sets up a mint at Oxford, 144, 438 ; at Gloucester, 440 ; his laws, 26, 14() and note 1, 338 ; drives the Danes from the siege of Rochester, 149 ; his struggle with Guthrum, ib. ; his [second] peace with Guthrum, 125 ; its true date, 151 ; its terms, 151 and note; becomes master of London, 150 and note 2 ; restores and peoples it, ih. ; renews its walls, 197, 459 ; rise of national sentiment under, 153- 154 ; his intellectual work, 156- 158 ; his chaplains, 157 ; educa- tion of his children, 157 and note 2, 190 and note 2 ; of his nobles, 157, note 2, 160 ; his zeal for learning, 157 and notes, 158 ; sends for scholars from over-sea, 158 ; learns Latin, 158 and note 1 ; story of Asser's visit to, 158- 160 ; his work in the creation of English prose, 160, 161 ; his translations, 162-164, 168 ; work in the English Chronicle, 166 and note 3, 167 ; its effects, 167 and note 2 ; holds Hasting at bay for a year, 171 ; his negotia- tions with Hastinc', ib. ; risinct of the Danelaw against him, th. ; defends Exeter, 172 ; cuts otf the retreat of the Danes on the Lea, 173 ; his mode of life, 174, 175 and notes ; his love of strangers, 176 and notes ; his court, 180 ; his budget, 181, 182 ; his foreign policy, 182, 183 ; his dealings with the North-Welsh, 183 ; his alliance with the Scot kingdom, 186 ; his death, ib. ; his character, 186-188 ; officers of the royal household in his time, -542 iElfred, son of Jjlthelred, his resi- dence at the Norman Court, 472 ; prepares to invade England with Robert the Devil, 474 ; lands at Dover, 482 ; seized at Guildford, ib. ; blinded, ib. ; dies at Ely, ib. Alfred, an English fugitive from Deira, settles in Westmoringa- land, 276 -^Ifric, archbishop of Canterbury, his death, 402, note 1 ^Elfric, archbishop of York, charges Godwine with the death of the ^theling iElfred, 482, 484 ^Elfric succeeds ^thelmaer as eald- ornian of Central Wessex, 372, note ; negotiates a treaty with the Norwegian Wikings, 375, 7iote 1 ; joint leader of the fyrd with Thored, 377 ; joins the Norwe- gians, ih. ; returns, and is rein- stated, 382 ; becomes tirst among the ealdormen on death of JEthel- weard, 394 ; heads the fyrd of Wiltshire and Hampsliire against Swein, 396 : his failure and its causes, 397 and note 1 ^Elfric, son of ^Ifliere, succeeds his father as ealdorman of Mercia, 357, 372, Jiote ; exiled, ib., 374 ^Elfric, scholar of Bishop ^thel- wold, his grammar and homilies, 339 ; writes an English version of the Bible, 340 -^Ifric, kinsman of Godwine, elected archbishop of Canterbury, 524 ; political import of his election, 524, 525 ; set aside by Eadward, 525 ^Elfsige, ealdorman, 311, note 3, 316, note 1 ^Elfstan, abbot of St. Augustine's at Canterbury, his struggle with Christ Church for the possession of Sandwich, 446, note 3 ^Ifthryth, daughter of Alfred, her education, 157, note 2, 190, note 2 ; marries Baldwin II. of Flanders, 182, 249 ^Elfthryth, daughter of ealdorman Ordgar, 316, 320, note 1, 321, notes ; wife of JEthelwold of East- Anglia, 316, noie2: of Eadgar, 316, note 1, 320, 344 ; mother of ^thelred II., 320 -^Ifwen. wife of ^thelstan the " Half-King," foster - mother of Eadgar, 286 -^thelbald, second son of ^thel- wulf, king of Kent, 83 ; suc- ceeds his father in Wessex, 84 ; his marriage with Judith, 82, note ; his death, 100 ^thelberht, third sonof Jjlthelwulf, 85 ; succeeds ^thelbald in Kent, 85, note 2; in Wessex, 85 ; his death, 86, 101 iEthelberht, king of Kent, gives Bishop Mellitus the site for St. Paul's Church, 453 ; his laws, 20, 21 and notei> 1 and 2 ^thelberht, schoolmaster at York, 42 ; Alcuin educated under, ib. ; succeeds Ecgberht as archbishop of York, ib. ; rebuilds the min- ster, ib. ^thelfla3d (daughter of iElfred), wife of ^thelred, ealdorman of Mercia, 144, note 2 ; joint-ruler of Mercia with ^thelred, 196 ; restores Chester, 194, 441 ; seizes the line of the Watling Street, 198 ; fortifies Scargaie and Bridge- north, ib. ; Tamworlh, 200 ; Staf- ford, 201 ; Eddi>bury, War- wick, Cherbury, \i^arbury, and Runcorn, 202 ; takes Derby and Leicester, 207 ; receives the sub- mission of York, ib., note 2 ; her death, 207 ; its date, 191, note 4 ; account of her campaigns in the Chronicle, ib. ^thelfloed, niece of zEthelstan, a kinswoman of Dunstan, 282. note 1 ^thelflaed, daughter of ^Ifgar, marries Eadmund, 261 ^thelflaed the Wliite, first wife of Eadgar, and mother of Eadward the Martyr, 320 ^thelgar, bishop of Crediton, pos- sibly a kinsman of Dunstan, 282, note 1 JEthelgifu influences Eadwig against Dunstan, 307 ; causes Dunstan to be outlawed, 309; marries her daughter to Eadwi., 420 ; Eadric charged with desertion at, 418 ; Cnut builds a church at, 434, 578 ; Stigand priest of, 545, 578 Asser, authority of his work, 99 ; his visit to ^Elfred, 158-159 Athelney, iElfred encamps at, 110 ; his jewel found at, ib. ; iElfred founds a monastery at, 133, 177 ; John the Old-Saxon made abbot of, 15&, 178 ; a scholar of "Pagan" race at, 176 and note 4 ; dilhculty of obtaining English monks for it, 177 and note 1 ; settlement of strangers at, 178 and note;- failuTe of the scheme, ib. Avlesford, reconciliation of Eud- mund and Eadric at, 417 B Bseda, Alfred's translation of, 162, 164 and note 3, 167 and nole 1 Badulf, last English bishop of Whithern, 275, note 3 Bagsecg, king of Bernicia, joins Gutlirum's attack on Wessex, 98 ; slain art Ashdown, ib. note 1, 103 Bakewell fortified by Eadward tiie Elder, 214 Baldwin Iron-arm, count of Flan- ders, his marriage, 183 Baldwin II., count of Flanders, his marriage with Jj^lfred's daughter .Elfthryth, 183, 249 Baldwin (III.) of Mons, 512 Baldwin (IV.) the Bearded, restored tcr power by Robert the Devil, 474 ; marries a daughter of Rich- ard the Good, 516 Baldwin (V.) of Lille, marries the sister of King Henry of France, 613, 516 ; revolts against the Em- peror, 516 ; William's proposed alliance with, 516-517 ; its policy, ■ 518 ; his alliance with God wine, ih. ; excommunicated by Leo IX., 519 ; perseveres in his rebellion, 521 ; submits, 522 ; renews his alliance with Godwine, ib. ; shel- ters God wine and his sons, 529 ; sends embassies to Eadward in Godwine's behalf, 533 "Baldwin's Land," name given to Flanders, 484, 517 Baldwin, chaplain to Eadward the Confessor, 546, 547 ; a monk of St. Denis, 547 ; his skill in medi- cine, ib. ; prior of Deerhurst, ib. ; made abbot of St. Edmundsbury, ib. Ballads, English, preserved by William of Malmesbury, 297, note 1 Bamborough sacked by the Nor- wegians, 378 Barking, church of All Hallows at, 456^ note 1, 464 ; Erkenwald dies at, 455 ; nuns of, their struggle with the Londoners for his re- mains, ib. Barton, manor of, its connexion with Bristol, 444, note *''Basileus," style of iEthelstan, 241 Basing, the Danes checked at, 104 Bath, Eadgar crowned at, 351 ; sub- mission of Western Wessex to Swein at, 411 Battle Abbev, site of Harold's stand- ard marked by its high altar, 572 Bayeux, capital of the Bessin, 246 ; attacked by the Bretons, 250 gathering of the rebel Norman barons at, 506 ; Odo, bishop of, see Odo Beaduheard, the king's reeve at Dorchester, slain by the Wikings, 51 Bec^-Herlouin, its situation, 245 ; Lanfranc at, 504 ; fame of its school, 504-505 Bedford, its chief men submit to Eadward the Elder, 203, 211 ; taken and fortified by Eadward, 204 ; attacked by the Danes, 205 ; by Thurkill, 408 Bedfordshire, its origin, 237 ; in- cluded in the East-Anglian ealdormanry, 261, note 1 Benedict, anti-pope, gives the pal- lium to Stigand, 579 Benet, St., church in London dedi- cated to him, 454, 455 and note 3 595 Beorhtwulf, king of Mercia, defeated by the Wikings, 79 Beorn, son of Ulf, his presence in England, 487 ; made earl of the Middle-English, 500; extent of his earldom, ib. ; opposes Swein's demands for restoration, 523 ; consents to act as mediator for Swein, ib. ; murdered, ib. Beowulf, sjng of, 53 Berkshire, its fyrd defeats the Wik- ings, 86 ; the Danes in, 98 ; mean- ing of the name, ib. and 7iote 3 ; character of the country, 98, 99 ; raids of Hasting upon, 171 • earliest dependency of Wessex, 233; detached from Wessex and joined with Hereford. &c., under Swein, 500 Bernicia ravaged by Halfdene, 106 ; remains an English state, 184 ; its alliance with Alfred, ib. ; rising of its people against iEthelstan'i 253 ; Oswulf high-reeve of, 293 ; united with Deira under Oswulf ib. ; under Waltheof, 354 ; under phtred, 399 ; under Siward, 495 ; its independence of the Danelaw', 470; its northern part becomes Scottish, 471 ; see Northunibria Bessin, the, granted to Hrolf, 246 ; wrested by the Normans froni the Bretons, 250; stronghold ot lieathendom in Normandy, 388 ; Richard the Fearless reared there, ib. ; its revolt against William, 505 ' Beverley, JEthelstan's grants to, 222 and note 2 Bible, ^Ifric's translation of, 340 Billingsgate, 463, 464 Biorn, son of Harald Fair-hair, 118 ; called "the merchant," ib., 448, note 3 ; king of Westfold, 448, note 3 : slain by his brother Eric, 263 Bishops, English, their national character, 71 ; their rolotion to the Crown and the ealdormen, 305, 347 ; growth of their political importance, ib., 348 ; appointexi by the Crown, 348, 524 ; usually promoted from the Roval Chapel, 430 - r J Bishopsgate, its site, 460 BishopshiU (York), churches of St Mary in, 452 ; remains of Roman work in, ib. "Bishop's shire," old name for a diocese, 231 Boethius, iElfred's translation of 162, 164, 168 Bokings, their " ham " in the upper valley of the Ouse (Buckingham), Bolleit, ^thelstan defeats the Corn- wealas at, 221 ** Boors," 330 Bordeaux conquered by the Wik- iugs, 77 Boston, its rise and growth, 4.':0 Botulf, St., abbey ol, the town of Boston grows up round it, 450 • church in London dedicated t^ him, 464 Boulogne, Charles th(! Great at, 64 • muster of a Wiking fleet at, 170 • counts of, see Eustace Brentford, Danes defeated at, 416 Bretons, the, attack Normandv 250 ; repulsed, 251 " ' Brice's day, St., massacre of the Danes on, 396 Bridgenorth, Danes ercamp at 174 • fortified by ^thelfl;»d, 198 ' Bridges, their constru.ition imposed as a penance, 337 Brihtnoth, ealdorman of Essex 316 ''r'^iii. "'^''^^^^ ^Itii^d, daughter ot Altgar, ealdorman of Essex and succeeds his f^ither-in-law' 261 ; supports the cause of the monks, 352; slain at Maldon, 3/0 ' Brihtnoth, brother of Eadric. 407 nole 1 * Brionne, home of Herlouin, 504 • counts of, their descent from' Gunnor, 390 Bristol, its rise, 443-444 ; its mint, 444 ; its condition under Eadward the Confessor, ib. and note: its T/^'t'^ ''^'*^* ^*^ slave-trade with Ireland, 444-445; Harold and Leotwinesail to Dublin from 529 ' Britain, character of its population Q Q 2 ?l U 696 INDEX. INDEX. 597 in Ecgberlit's day, 2 ; mixture of races in, 3 ; character of the country, 4 ; progress of cultivation in, 4-5 ; industrial life, 6-7 ; hrst appearance of the Wikings in, 50- 51 ; importance of its conquest to the Wikings, 86 ; first appearance of the Danes in, 87, 91 ; concentra- tion of the Wildng forces on, 107 Tritons, see Cumbria, Strath-Clyde, Welsh Brittany, claim of the Norman dukes to supremacy over, 250 ; influence of ^Ethelstan over, 251 ; he makes its peace with Normandy, 266 ; subdued by Robert the Devil, 474 ; dukes of, see Alan Bruges, its trade, 517 ; Harthacnut's invasion planned at, 518 ; Swein, son of Godwine, takes refuge at, 501 ; Ealdred bishop of Worcester at, 523 ; Godwine at, 532 Brunanburh, battle of, 254 ; authori- ties for, lb. and note 1 ; its im- portance, 256 Brytenwealda, style of ^Ethelstan, 241 and note 4 Bryhtferth, ealdorman, 316, note 1 Buckingham, southernmost of tlie Danish settlements in Mid-Britain, 203 ; held by Jarl Thurcytel, ib. ; taken and fortified by Eadward the Elder, ib. Buckinghamshire, its origin, 237 ; overrun by Thurkill, 408 ; joined with Essex, &c., under Leofwine, 565 Bucklersbury, site of the port of London, 456 Budget, Alfred's, 181, 182 Bull How, 277 Burhred, king of Mercia, conquers Anglesea, 80; marries ^Elfreds sister, 101 ; death at Rome, 106 Burislaf, king of the Wends, 367 Bur-thegn, 542 Butler, see Cup-thegn Butsecarls of Hastings, 532, note 2 ; of Sandwich, 446 and note 1 Buttermere, 277 Buttington, battle of, 172 "By" in place-names, mark of Danish settlement, 116 C Caen, council at, enacts the obser- vance of the Truce of God, 490 Caithness, northmen in, 66, 107, 215 ; concj^uered by the Orkney Jarls, 55S Calne, witenagemot at, 353 Cambridge, the Danes at, 107 ; tlu^y submit to Eadward the Elder, 206, 211 ; lawmen at, 461, note 2 Cambridgeshire represents South Gyrwa-land, 236 ; forms part of the East Anglian ealdormanr\% 261, note 1 Canterbury, its wealth and import- ance, 78 ; raid of the Wikings on, ib. ; sacked by them, 79 ; mint at, 228 ; secular clerks at, 345 : sacked by Thurkill. 409; the body of St. ^Iflieah translated to. 433 ; Christ-church at, Cnut's grants to, 446 and note 2 ; arch- bishops of, their position, 71 ; supersede the West-Saxon bishops as national advisers of the Crown, 318 ; their relation to the Crown altered by the new system <>f administration, 430 ; see MUhanh, iElfric, iEthelm, Ceolnoth, Dun- stan, Eadsige, Odo, Plegmund, Robert, Sigeric, Stigand, Theodore Carham, battle of, 470 Carl, son of Thurbrand, 496, note *' Carl," Scandinavian form of " ceorl," 57 Carlisle destroyed by the Danes, 107 ; its unbroken life, 276 Carloman, king of the West Franks, defeats Guthrum at Saucourt, 148 ; his death, ib. Cattle, the general medium of ex- change in early ages, 227 Caupmanna-thorpe, settlement i»f Danish traders, 118, note 2 Ceadwalla, king of Wessex, his pilgrimage, baptism and death, 16, 17 Celchyth, see Chelsea Cenwalch, king of Wessex, places the royal seat at Winchester, 232 Ceolnoth, archbishop of Canterbury, his alliance with Eccrberht, 73 Ceolwulf set up as king of Mercia by the Danes, 106, 121 and note Ceorl, the English, 57 ; displaced by the thegn, 135, 330 ; gradually degraded into the villein, 360 Chancellor, ofiice of, its origin, 493, 7iote, 545 ; see Leofric, Re'ginbold, Wulfwig Chancery, see Chapel Chapel, the royal, its institution, 430, 431 ; its origin and growth, 542, 544 ; later developements from, 544 ; its composition in Cnut's day, 544, 545 ; Lotliar- ingians in, ib. ; its organization under Eadward, 493, note, 545, 546 ; Norman clerks in, 546 Chaplains, the king's, their adminis- trative work, 430, 431 Chapmanslade, 118, 7iote 2 Chapmen, 336 ; law of Alfred con- cerning, 337 ; of Ine, ib., note 1 ; first mention of, ib. Charles the Bald, his alliance with J^thelwulf, 82; Alfred at his court, 100 ; drives the northmen from Angers, 107 Charles the Fat defeats Hasting at Haslo, 148 Charles the Great, his meeting with Alcuin, 42 ; his wrath against the Northumbrians allayed by Alcuin's intercession, 43 ; his precautions against the northmen, 63, 64 Charles the Simple disputes the West-Frankish throne with Odo 243 ; grants to the northmen the territory between the mouth of the Seine and the Epte, 244 ; his alliance with Hrolf against the dukes of Paris, 246 ; marries a daughter of Eadward the Elder, 219; the crown claimed against him by Rudolf of Burgundy, ib. ; renews his alliance with the Normans, ib. ; his death, 250 Charmouth, battle of, 75 Cheap, East, its origin and growth, 458 and note 2 ; ward of, the oldest part of London, 456 ; its extent, ib. Cheddar, Eadmund'3 hunting adven- ture in, 285 Chelsea (Celchyth), svnod of, 335 Cherbury fortified by Jithelfla}d, 202 Chertsey, monks of, 455 Cheshire, salt-mines in, 7 note; its origin as a shire, 236 Chester occupied by Hasting, 173 ; besieged by ^t'helred, ib. ; its importance, 194; "renewed" by JEthelred and iEthelfianl, ib. and note 2, 441 ; church of St. Wer- burgh at, 195 ; its growth, ib.,not€ 1 ; its trade 440 ; provision for its security, 442 ; traces of Danish settlement in, ib. ; its lawmen, ib. ; its churches, ib. ; its market, 443 ; church of St. John without the M-alls, ib. ; legend of Eadgar's triumph at, ib., 324 note 1 ; character of its surrounding country, 442, 443; submits to William, 576 Cheotcr-le-Street, Dnnstan visits St. Cuthbert's shrine at, 294 Chesterford, battle of, 291 Chichester, mint at, 228 Chippenham, Danes at, 109 ; Asser's account of its situation, 233, n. 2 Chronicle, the English, its origin, 164-166 and notes; its growth under .'Elfred, 166 and note 3, 167 ; its account of the reign of Eadward the Elder, 189, note-, of the reign of ^thelstan, 218, note 2 ; chronological difticulties in, 191, note 4 ; poems in, 254, note 1 ; its character during the reigns of Eadward and iEthelstan, 296 ; its praise of Eadgar, 318, 7iote, 319 ; Chronicle of Peterborough, 341, note 2 ; Abingdon, 370, note 2 ,• Winchester, 164-166, 191, note 4, 218 and note 2 ; Worcester, 340, 341, 191, note 4 Chrism-loosing, 125, note 1 Christ-church, Cantei-bury, Cnut's grants to, 446 and note 2 Christianity, range of its influence, 8-9 ; its strife with heathenism, 9-11 ; it creates a new social class 12, 13 ; modifies township into 11 598 INDEX. INDEX. 599 parish, 13-16 ; links England with Europe, 16-19 ; its effect on early law, 19-22 ; on jurisprudence, 22-24; on the feud, 24-28; on heathen literature, 338 ; on educa- tion, 339 ; on slavery, 334 Christina, daughter of the ^theling Eadward, 556 Church, the English, its industrial work in Dorset, 6 ; its character after the Danish wars, 12 ; its condition in Northumbria, 41 ; its relations with the Mercian kings and with Ecgberht, 72 ; its alliance with the Monarchy, ih., 318 ; its efforts in behalf of slaves, 334 ; Cnut's dealings with, 432-433 ; its reform under the Confessor, 514, 515 Churches, three classes of, 13; be- come the centres of village life, 15 : their date indicated by their dedications, 438 and note 3 ; 441, note ; 455, note 2 ; 465 Churchyard, the tunmoot held in the, 15 Clair-on-Epte, treaty of, 244 Cledauc, king of the North-Welsh, becomes subject to Eadward the Elder, 208, note 2 Clergy, the, new social class, 12; its rights, ib. ; "regular" and "secular," 131,345, 346; decline of discipline in the Danish Avars, 346, 347 Cleveland, its settlement by the Danes, 116 Clifford's Tower, at York, marks the site of the Danish fortress, 450 Cluny, monastic reform at, its influ- ence on England, 344 Cnichtengild at Aldgate, 464 ; its possible connexion with the older frithgild an^l the later merchant- gild, 461 ; at Nottingham, 440 Cnut, son of Swein, chosen king by the Danes at Gainsborough, 4l3 ; iEthelred marches against, ih. ; mutilates English hostages, 420 ; returns to Denmark, 413 ; ravages the coast of Wessex, 414 ; joined by Eadric, 415 ; receives the sub- mission of Wessex and North- umbria, ih. ; lays siege to London, ih. ; meets Eadmund on the bor- ders of Wiltshire, 416 ; renews the siege of London, ih.; for- saken by Eadric, 417 ; causes Uht- red to be slain, ih. ; gives his earldom to Eric, ih., 420 ; defeats Eadmund at Assandun, 417 ; makes a treaty with Eadmund at Olney, 418 ; his age, 419 ; his temper, ih. ; his character and that of his rule, 425-427 ; his dealings with the ealdormen, 420, 428 ; murders a brother of Ead- mund and drives his children into Hungary, ih. ; children of his first marriage, 421 ; marries Emma, ih. ; contrasted with the earlier Danish conquerors, 423, 424 ; makes England his centre, 424 ; sets aside Danes for English- men, ih. ; employs English soldiers and English priests in the north, ih. ; banishes Thurkiil and Eric, ih. ; sets Hakon as ruler in Nor- way, ih. ; sets Ulf as ruler in Denmark, ih., 426 ; elected and crowned at London, 425 ; renews Eadgar's laws, ih. ; dismisses his Danish fleet and host. ih. ; his hus-cails, ih., 432 ; visits Denmark, 425 ; date of his accession to its throne, ih. note ; his laws, 426 ; organization of England under him, ih. ; makes Eadwulf earl of Northumbria, 427 ; makes Wessex an earldom under Godwine, ih. ; makes Godwine his vice-gerent, ih. ; changes the ealdormanries into earldoms, 428 ; continues iEthelred's administrative policy, 428, 429 ; his dealings with the Church, 432-433 ; his character in English tradition, 434 ; in the Sagas, ih. ; tradition of his visit to Ely, ih. ; peace of his reiiru, 434-435 ; his letter to his English people, 436 ; his prohibition of the slave-trade, 445 ; Norway re- volts against him, 466 ; leaves Harthacnut ruler in Denmark, 467 ; goes to Rome, ih. ; secures the safety of the Alpine j^paeses. I ih. ; his meeting with the Em- peror Conrad, 468 ; regains the land won from Denmark by Otto II., ih. ; betroths his daughter to Conrad's son, ih. ; drives Olaf out of Norway, ih. ; sup- presses a Welsh rising, 469 ; Malcolm of Scotland submits to him, 471 ; grants Lothian to Malcolm, ih. ; his death, 476 ; break-up of his empire, 477; extinction of his house, ih. ; per- manence and stability of his ad- ministrative system, 493, 7iote ; his chaplains, 545 •Codes, early English, 20, 21, note 1 Coin, its early use in Kent, 228 ; growing use of, 227-228, 329, note Coinage the test of kingship, 144 ; Eadgar's coinage, 349, note 5 Coins, Anglo-Saxon, found at Del- gany in Wicklow, 65, note 1 ; of Alfred, 144, note 1 ; of Eadgar, struck at Dublin, 323 ; of iEthel- red II. and Cnut, struck at Bristol, 443 and note 2 Colchester taken by the English, 205 ; rebuilt by Eadward'' the Elder, ih. ; witenagemot at, 221, note 2 ; 224, note 2 Coldingham burnt by the Danes, 106 Commendation, growth of, 210 Conquest, the Danish, its signifi- cance, 52, 128-129 ; its causes, 359 and note ; authorities and materials for its history, 370, note 2 ; dif- ference between the earlier and the later, 422-424 ; its effect on English institutions, 428 Conquest, the Norman, 574-577 Constable, see Horse-thegn Constantine, king of Scots, his strug- gle w^ith Thorstein and Sigurd, 107 ; cedes Caithness to them, ih. ; joins the Northern league against Eadward, 216; submits to Ead- ward, 217 and note 1 ; to iEthel- stan, 220, 252 and note 4; his alliance with Olaf and the Ostmen, 252, 253 ; defeated at Brunanburh, 254, 255 ; retires to a monastery, 274 •^' Con^stantinople, English refugees at, 574 Conrad, Emperor, hifi meeting witli Cnut at Rome, 468; its results, ih. ; betroths his son to Cnut's daughter, ih. Copsige, Tostig's depaity in North - unibria, 562 note ; seeks the Ber- nician earldom, ih.; expels Oswulf, ih. ; slain, ib. Corfe, Eadward the Martyr slain at, 355 Cork founded by the Wikinn-s, 74 Cornhill, soke of the bishops of London, 462 ; church of St. Peter on, ib. Cornwall, revolt of, against Ecgberht, 67 ; its final conquest, 220 ; early divisions of, 231 ; harried by Wikings, 382; bishop of, see Leofric Coronation, its meaning and impor- tance, 307, 308 Cotentin, the, conquej-ed by William Longsword, 251 ; ^thelred II. repulsed in a descent on, 384 ; stronghold of heathendom in Normandy, 388; revolts against William the Conqueror, 506 Council, royal, first traces of its judicial authority, MO ; its origin in the royal chapel, 431 Councils, Church, their canons against " heathendom " and witch- craft, 10, 11 ; become merged in the witenagemot, 348 ; see Caen, Chelsea, Rheims. Court, the king's, its character, 30, 31 ; its means of subsistence, 31 ; its progresses, ih., 32 ; its great officers, 180, 542 Cranborne, manor of, 332, 333 Crediton, bishops of, see JEihels^as-, eotric Crowland sacked by Danes, 96 Crown, the, earliest kiown instance of an attempt to bequeath, 85, note 2 ; main bases of its power, 431 ; sources of its revenue, 403, 404, note 2 ; see King, Monarchy Cuckamsly (Cwichelmslowe), Danes at, 400, 401 < 1 600 INDEX Cuerdale, coins of uElfred found at, 144, note 1 Cumberland, its origin as a shire, 237, note 2 ; 277, note 3 ; iEthelred II. makes a descent on, 383 ; danger to England and Scotland from, ih. and note 4 Cumbria ravaged by Halfdene, 107 and note 1 ; its extent in the time of Eadmund, 274 ; its southern part called Westmoringa-land, ih. ; character of country and people, 275, 276 ; the name replaces that of Strath-Clyde, 277 ; harried by Eadmund, 277, 278 ; granted to Malcolm king of Scots, 278; re- sults of the grant, z6., 469 ; kings of, their opposition to the West- Saxons, 277 ; see Oswine, Strath- Clyde Cumbrians, their name transferred to the Britons of Strath-Clyde, 184 ; join the northern league against ^thelstan, 253 Cuthbert, St., wanderings of his relics during the Danish invasions, 93, 106 Cup-thegn or butler, his office, 542 ; held by iElf red's grandfather, 180 Cwichelmslowe, see Cuckamsly Cyneheard's Song-Book, 341 Cynesige, chaplain to Eadward the Confessor, 546 ; archbishop of York, ib. ; consecrates Harold's church at Waltham, 580 D " Dale " in place-names, mark of northern settlement, 116 Dalriada, the Scots of, subject to the Picts, 185 ; kings of, see Kenneth Danegeld, the king's demesne ex- empt from, 404, note 2 ; the first national land-tax, 405 andinote 1 ; its nominal origin, 431 ; continued as a regular land-tax,z7;. ; its amount in Cnut's first year, 465 ; resistance to it at Worcester under Hartha- cnut, 485 ; see Land-tax Danelaw, the, 114-124; its relation to the North, 126 ; its results on English history, 128, 129 ; its weakness, 130; rises against iElfred, 171 ; conquered by Eadward and ^thelflaed, 203- 208 ; effect of its conquest on the character of the English king- ship, 211 ; its bond of allegiance to Eadward, 212 ; its alliance with the Ostmen, 213 ; its peace- ful submission to iEthelstan, 221 ; historical continuity of the districts in, 236 ; shires in, ih. ; emigration from, into Nor- mandy, 247 ; rises against ^Ethel- stan, 253 ; against Eadmund, 270 ; reduced to submission, 274 ; its struggles with Eadred, 289-293; its isolation under Eadgar, 325 ; fusion of races in, 326, 327 and notes ; absence of religious houses in, 342 ; joins Swein, 410 Danes, their early settlements on the isles of the Baltic, 53 ; effect of their attacks in arresting the con- solidation of the English peoples under Ecgberht, 68 ; different uses of the name, 65, note 3, 68, note ; their first appearance in Ireland, 76, note 2, 90; in Britain, 87, 361 ; their settlements in Sweden, Zeeland, and northern Jutland, 88 and note 1 ; character of their warfare, 88-90 ; earliest authority for their settlements, 88, note 1 ; their struggle with the Norwegian settlers in Ireland, 76, note 2, 90 ; winter in East-Anglia, 91 ; con- quer Northumbria, 92 : destroy its abbeys, 93 ; set up Ecgberht as under-king of Deira, 94 and note 2 ; winter at Nottingham, 94 ; attacked by -^swith, St foundation at Oxford, 438 * " Frith," 22 R R H' ♦ ^ 610 INDEX. INDEX. CIl Frith of Weclmore, 112 ; between Alfred and Gutlirum, 125 ; its true date, 151 ; its provisions, 151, 152 Frith-gilds, their origin, 228, 229 ; their constitution and objects, 230 ; an element of municipal life in towns, ib. ; irith-gild of London, 229, 460 ; its possible connexion with the cnichten-gild and merchant-gild, 461 Froine, witenagemot at, 224, note 1, 252, note 3 ;'Eadred dies at, 299 Fulford, battle of, priests slain at, 562, note Fulham, Danes winter at, 150 "Fylki" correspond to "folks," 57 Fyrd, the, corresponds with the Karolingian "land-wehr," 133 ; its composition and its defects, 133-135 ; fines for neglect of, 134 ; re-organized by Alfred, 137 ; by iEthelred II. and Eadric, 402 G Gainas, [^Ethelred] ealdorman of the, his daughter mai'ries iElfred, 101 Gainsborough, northern England submits to Swein at, 410 ; Swein dies at, 412 ; Cnut chosen king by the Danes at, 413 ; J^thelred marches upon, ib. Galmanho, suburb of York, 560 ; Siward buried there, ib. Gamel, son of Orm, 562, note Gamel-bearn, a Northumbrian, re- volts against Tostig, 562, note " Garth " in place-names, 276, note 2 Gatesgarth, 277 Geoffrey Martel, count of Anjou, his conquest of Poitou and Maine, 508 ; his war with King Henry, ib. ; with William of Normandy, 509 Germany, its friendly intercourse with England, 493 ; kings of, see Arnulf, Conrad, Henry, Lewis, Otto Ghent, its origin, 512 ; Dunstan takes refuge at, 309 Gild, see Cnichten-gild, Frith-gild, Merchant-gild " Gill " in place-names, 276, note 2 Gisa, chaplain to Eadward the Con- fessor, 546 ; a Lotharingian, 547 ; made bishop of Wells, ib. ; con- secrated at Rome, 580 Glastonbury, birth pbice of Dunstan, 282 ; its school and church, 283 ; jEthelstan's pilgrimage to, ih. ; tomb of St. Patrick at, ib. ; Irish pilgrims at, ib. ; Dunstan made abbot of, 285 ; its school under him, 294 ; memorials of his scholastic work at, 295 and note I ; its influence on English literature, 296, 297 ; wide range from which its scholars were drawn, 296, note 1 ; decline of monastic rule at, 343 and note 2 ; clerks from, accom- pany ^thelwold to Abingdon, 296 and note 1, 343, note 2 : Ead- mund, Eadred, and Eadmund Ironside buried at, 300, 418 ; Cnut's pilgrimage to, 433 Glamorgan, descent of the northmiin on, 66, note 3 Gleemen, preservers of the old national poetry, 338 ; their popu- larity, ib. ; hostility of the Church to them, 339 Glonieorn, son of Heardolf, 562, note Gloucester (Glevum), its importance, 440 ; iElfred's mint at, ib. ; Guth- rum winters at, 109 ; ^thelstan dies at, 269 ; Eustace of Boulogne visits, 526 ; monastery at, 440 ; Duduc abbot of, 545 Gloucestershire, part of the land of the Hwiccas, 235 ; detached from Mercia and joined with Hereford, &c., under Swein, 500 ; witli Worcester under Odda, 536 Godfrey, count of Lorraine, revolts against the Emperor, 516 ; ex- communicated by the Pope, 519 ; submits, ib. Godfrid or Gudrod, king of West- fold and South Jutland, attack Sleswick, 63 ; the " Danework," ib. ; conquers Frisia, ib. ; slain, ib. ; division of his kingdoms, ib. Godgifu, daughter of iEthelred and Emma, 493 ; marries Eustace of Boulogne, 519 Godmanchester (Durolipons), 205 Godmann, chaplain to Eadward the Confessor, 546 Godwine, traditions of his origin, 427 ; marries Gytha, ib. ; leff as ruler of England in Cnut's ab- sence, ib. ; made earl of Wessex, ib. ; his importance and wealth, ^ 427, 428 ; becomes " Secundarius Regis," 429 ; his position at Cnut's death, 478 ; supports the claims of Harthacnut, 479 ; opposed by Leofric of Mercia, 480 ; charfjed with the death of the iEtheiiii«r Alfred, 482, 484 ; clears himself by oath, ib. ; forsakes Hartha- cnut and joins in the election of Harald, 483, 484 ; his influence, 487, 493 ; his good government, 493 ; his share in Cnut's adminis- trative system, ib., note ; his power over the Crown, 499 ; promotion of his house, 500 ; opposed by Eadward' s Norman counsellors, 501 ; opposition of the Witan, 502 ; his alliance with Baldwin of Flanders, 518, 522 ; his attitude towards the religious revival, 514 ; his relations with Stigand, 578 ; supports the claim of iElfric to the see of Canterburv, 524 ; his enmity with Robert of Jumi- eges, 501, 525, 526 ; refuses to avenge Count Eustace on the citizens of Dover, 527 ; gathers forces near Gloucester, ib. ; en- camps- at Southwark, 528 ; sum- moned before the Witan, 529 ; outlawed, ib. ; flies to Flanders, ib. ; his alliance with the Ostmen, lb. ; regrets at his departure, 530 ; equips a fleet in the Yser, 532 ; sympathy with, ib. and 7wfe 2 ; embassies from France and Flan- ders in his behalf, 533 ; failure of his first attempt at return, ib. ; meets Harold off Wight, ib. ; his restoration, 534. 535 ; change in his position, 535; his relations with Eadward after his return, 536 ; with the earls, 536, 537 ; with the Church, 537, 538 ; Nor- man feeling against him, 538 ; his character and work, 539-541 ; his death, 554 ; position of 'his house after his death, ib., 567 and note 1 Gokstad, Wiking's ship found at, 59, note 1 Gorm the Old, Denmark united under, 362 ; at Haslo, ib. ; con- quers Jutlanfl, 363 ; invades Fii«'s- land, ib. ; defeated by Henry the Fowler, ib. ; his di^ath, ib. nnd note; extinction of his race, 477 Gorm, see Guthrum Gospatric joins the revolt of North- umbria against Tostig, 562, note Greatley (Greatanlea), witenagemot at, 225 and note 2 Grimbald of St. Om(ir, abbot of Winchester, 158 Grimbald of Plessis, 505 Grimsl)y, its commercial import- ance, 123 and note 2 " Grith," the king's, 32 Gruffydd, son of Llewelyn, growtli of his power in Wales, 493 ; his alliance with iElfgar, 564 Guildford, the ^theling Alfred seized at, 482 Gunhild, wife of Eric Bloody- Axe, 262 "^ Gunhild, daughter of Burislaf kin- of the Wends, wife of Swein, 367 Gunhild, daughter of Cnut and Emma, betrothed to Henry of Germany, 468 ; her marriage. 493; her only child becomes a nun, 477 Gunnor, wife of Richard the Fear- less, 390 Guthferth, Sihtric's son, driven out of Deira, 220, note 1 Guthferth, brother of Sihtric, takes refuge in Dublin, 242 Guthrum or Gorm, leader of the Danes, attacks Wessex, 98 ; de- feated at Ashdown,103; marches to Cambridge, 107 ; his second attack on Wessex, 108; makes a treaty with Alfred at Wareham, ib. ; winters at Gloucester, 109 ; joined by Hubba, ib. ; marches to Chip- penham, ib.; defeated at Edingtcn, R R 2 ^1 I i I ♦•' 612 INDEX. m !; Ill; treaty of Wedmore, 112 and divides East-Anglia, 123 becomes master of London, 124 character and extent of his realm 124, 125 ;. baptized at Aire, 125 his chrismloosing, ib. and note 1 called JEthelstan in baptism, 126 ; story of his relations with Harald Fairhair, 126-128 ; his defeat at Saiicourt, 148 ; his submission to .iElfred, 149 ; his [second] peace with iElfred, 125, 151 and note; his friendship with Hrolf, 243 ; his death, 168 Guy of Burgundy, grandson of Richard the Good, 505 ; his pos- sessions in Normandy, 506 ; re- volts against William, ib. Guy, couni: of Ponthieu, captured by the Normans at Mortemer, 553 Gwent, the, the earliest Wessex, 231 ; its military advantages, 45, 46 ; Danes in, 105, 109 Gyrth, son of Godwine, flies with him to Flanders, 529- ; made earl of East-Anglia, 565 ; accom- panies Tostig to Rome, 580 ; slain by William at Senlac, 571. ' Gyrwas, country of, included in the East- Anglian ealdormanry, 261 ; joined with Nottingham and Leicester under Beorn, 500 Gyrwas, North, their land repre- sented by Huntingdonshire, 236 Gyrwas, South, their land repre- sented by Cambridgeshire, 236 Gytha, sister of Ulf, marries God- wine, 427 Gytha of Hordaland, 16£) H Hafursfiord, battle of, 169 and note 2 ; its date, 170, note 3 Hakon, son of Harald Fairhair, drives Eric Bloody-Axe from Norway, 263 Hakon, Jarl, ruler of Norway under Harald Blaatand, 365 ; Norway revolts against him, 380 ; defeats the Jomsborgers, 407 Hakon, nephew of Cnut, sent to rule in Norway, 424 ; driven out, 466 ; restored by Cnut, 468 Halfdene ravages Bernicia, 93, note 1, 106 ; expels Bishop Eardulf from Lindisfarne, 106 ; burns Coldingham, ib. ; destroys Car- lisle, 107 ; ravages Cumbria and Strath-Clyde, ib. and note 1, 116 ; divides Deira, 116 Halfdene, king of Northumbria, his defeat and death, 196 Halgohmd, 179 ; called a "scyr" by jElfred, 234, note 2 HalUimshire, survival of the ancient divisions of Deira, 231 " Ham " in place-names, 276, note 2 Hamon of Thorigny, 505 Hamtonshire ; victories of its fyrd over the Wikings, 75, 86 ; Wiking raids upon, 171 ; origin and meaning of its name, 231, 232 ; date of its formation, ib. ; its relation to Wiltshire, ib. ; ealdor- men of, 233, note 2 ; see Wessex (Central), Wulflieard Hamton, see Southampton Hampshire, see Hamtonshire "Hand" or "niund," its meaning, 2^ and note Hanse Towns, their trade with England, 447 Harald, son of Cnut, 421 ; claims the crown of England, 477 ; called Haref oot, 480 ; his claims supported by Leofric and the lithsmen of London, ib. ; becomes king of all England save Wessex, ib. ; seizes Sandwich, 446 and note 3 ; robs Emma of Cnut's treasure, 481 ; causes the ^theling iElfred to be blinded, 482 ; chosen king in Wessex, 484 ; his death and burial, ib. ; his body outraged by Hartha- cnut, ib. Harald Blaatand, king of Denmark, date of his birth, 363, note; his policy in Normandy, 280 ; his designs upon Britain, 289, 290 ; his son Eric in Northumbria, 290 and note ; his war with Otto tlie Great, 323 ; his son king of Sem- land, 290, 363; his overlordship over Norway, 363 ; his alliance INDEX. 613 with Norman dukes, ib. ; invades the Saxon Duchy, ib. ; defeated by Otto, 365 ; again attacks Germany on Otto's death, ib. ; becomes a Christian, ib. ; transfers his royal seat to Roeskilde, ib. ; goes to dwell in Jutland, ib. ; opposed by liis son Swein, 366 ; drives Swxin from Denmark, ib. ; his defeat and death, ib. ; story of his burial-feast, 367, 368 Harald, son of Swein, becomes king of Denmark, 413 ; probable date of his death, 425, note Harald Fairhair (Harfager), king of Westfold, 169 ; becomes king of Norway, ib. ; drives out the Wikings from the Orkneys and founds an earldom there, 170 and note 3 ; his relations w^ith ^thelstan [Guthrum], 126- 128 ; his death, 262 Harald Hardrada becomes king of Norway, 502 ; invades England, 569 ; his overthrow at Stamford Bridge, ib. Harald, jarl, joins Guthrum's attack on Wessex, 98 ; slain at Ashdown, ib., note 1 Harald, see Strut-Harald Harold, son of Godwine, 479 ; earl of East-Anglia, 500 ; opposes Swein's restoration, 523 ; flies to Bristol, 529 ; takes refuge in Ire- land, ib. ; gathers ships at Dublin, 532 ; descent on Porlock, 533 ; joins his father, ib. ; his earldom restored, 537 ; succeeds Godwine as earl of Wessex, 554; his rela- tions with Eadward, ib. ; with England, 555, 582 ; his character, ib.^ 583, 585 ; his plans for the succession to the Crown, 556 ; his policy in the distribution of the earldoms, 557, 584 ; and towards iElfgar, 564 ; takes possession of the earldom of Hereford, 565 ; his power and his aim, 566 ; failure of his foreign policy, 567 ; his oath to William, ib. ; obscurity of his administration, 583 ; his change of policy, 584 ; his pos- iBible share in the rising of Northumbria, 584-r)85 ; present at Ead ward's death, 581 ; suc- ceeds him as king, 568 ; crowned by Ealdred, 581 ; defeats the Norwegians at Stamford Bridge, 569 ; marches back to London, ib. ; encamps on Senlac, 570 ; his death, 572.;, his huscarls, 493, note Harold or Heriold, claims the throne of Jutland, 64 ; his conversion and expulsion, ib. Harthacnut, son of Cnut, ruler in Denmark under the guardian- ship of Ulf, 467 ; appointed by Cnut to succeed him in England, 477, 478 : his treaty with Magnus, 477 ; his claim supported by Godwine and Emma, 479 ; chosen king of Wessex, 480 ; forsake q by Wessex, 483, 484 ; plans invasion of Eng- Lmd, 484 ; chosen king, ib. ; character oi" his reign, 485 ; sends for Etidward, ib. ;]m death, 487 ; redistribution of earldoms in Jiis time, 498 Harthacnut or Hardegon, a Nor- wegian conqueror, supposed an- cestor of Gorm the Old, 361, «ote 1 Haslo, battle of, 148 Hasting, leader of the Wikings, 112 ; his defeat at Haslo, 148 ; his struggle with King Odo, 170 ; invades Kent, 170, 171 ; held at bay by Alfred, 171 ; en- camps on the Colne, ib. ; the Danelaw rises in his aid, ib. ; attacked by Eadward and iEthel- red, 172 ; his attack on the Severn valley, ib. ; defeated, 173 ; occvipies Chester, //;. ; besieged and driven out by ^thelred, ib. ; withdraws to a camp on the Lea, ib. ; rejoined by the. fleet from Exeter, ib. ; returns to Frankland, 174 Hastings, mint at, 228 ; its sailors pursue Swein, 523 ; sapport God- wine, 532, note 2 ; battle of, 570- 572 " Haiigli" in place-names, 276, note 2 " He{?.thendom," decrees against, under ^thalred JL, 402 and note G14 INDEX. ^.!f 2 ; under Cniit, 10, 11 ; strife of Christianity with, 9-11 ; survival of its customs, 11, 12 Hebrides, the, Wiking settlements in, 66, 215 ; conquered by tlie Orkney jarls, 558 Heca, bishop of Selsey, 546 Hecanas, their land becomes Here- fordshire, 235 Helinandus, chaplain to Eadward the Confessor, 548 Heming, king of South Jutland, 63 ; peace with the Franks, 63, 64 Hengestdun, battle of, 67 Henry the Fowler defeats Gorm the Old, 363 Henry III., Emperor, betrothed to Cnut's daughter, 468; his marriage, 493 ; his character and policy, 514 ; liis ecclesiastical reforms, 515, 519 ; revolt against, 516 ; the rebels excommunicated by Leo IX., 519 ; calls on Eng- land for help, 521 ; the rebels submit, 521, 522 Henry, king of France, restored by Robert the Devil, 474 ; fights at Val-es-Dunes, 506 ; his war with Geoflrey of Aujou, 508 ; joined by William, 508, 509; favours Godwine. 533 ; his policy, 552 ; his inv^asion of Normandy, ih. ; its failure, 553 Heorstan, fatlier of St. Dunstan, 282 Herebriht, ealdorman, slain bv the Wikings, 78 Hereford, the North- Welsh chiefs submit to ^thelstan at, 220 ; bishops of, see Walter ; earls of, we Harold, Ralf, Svvein Herefordshire, the land of the Hecanas, 235 ; and of the Mage- saetas, 418, 498 ; severed from the Mercian earldom, 498 ; fight- ing between Nonnans and English in, 527 ; raid of ^Ifgar and Gruf- fydd upon, 564 Heretha-land, 50, note Hereward heads a revolt in the fens, 577 Herfast, brother of Gunnor, 390 Herlouin, founder of Bee, his re- ception of Lanfranc, 504 Herlwin, count of Ponthieu, attacked by Flanders, 267 Hermann, bishop of the Wilsajtas (Ramsbnry), 545, 546 Hertford founded by Eadward the Elder, 197 Hertfordshire, its origin, 237 ; forms part of the East-Anglian ealdor- manry, 261, note 1 ; joined with Essex, &c., under Leofwine, 565 ; William marches into, 572 Hexham, see of, its extinction, 93 Hildebrand, counsellor of Pope Leo IX., 515 ; of Nicholas II. and Alexander II., 579 High-reeve or High-thegn, office created by ^Ethelred, 394, 429, 543 ; becomes permanent under Cnut, it), ; developes into the "Secundarius Regis" and the justiciar, ib. ; see ^fic, Eadric, Wulfgeat "Higra," 118 Hlothere and Eadric, laws of, 21, notes 1 and 3, 337, note 1 Ht)ard, the, Dunstan in charge of, 294, 299 ; accompanies the king in Dunstan's day, 403, note 2 ; settled at Winchester in Ead- ward' s day, ib. ; its contents, 403, 543 ; their sources, 403, 404 ; its importance under Eadward, 493, note Holland, the count of, revolts against the Emperor Henry III., 516 Holy Island, see Lindisfarne Ilordere, the, his various titles, 542 ; his functions, 543 ; growth of his importance as treasurer, ib. ; earliest holders of the office, ib. Horseflesh, use of, 10 Horse-thegn or constable, his office, 542 Howel, king of the North- W^elsh, becomes subject to Eadward the Elder, 208, note 2 ; submits to iEthelstan, 220 ; present in his witenagemots, 224 and note 1 Hra}gel-thegn, 542 Hrolf, friend of Guthrum of East- Anglia, 243 ; his forays along the Seine, ib. ; their results, ib. ; his INDEX. 615 attacks upon Rouen, 244 ; his settlement in Frankland, ib. ; probably of Norse blood, 245, note ; supports Charles the Simple against the dukes of Paris, 246 ; receives grant of the Bessin, ib. Hubba, brother of Ivar, 91, note 1, 96 ; conquers East-Anglia, ib. ; commands a Wiking fleet in the Bristol Channel, 98 ; joins Guth- rum in the Severn, 109 ; defeated by the fyrd of Devon, 111 Hubert, St., his hermitage, 276' Hugh the Great, son of Odo of Paris, 246 ; marries iEthelstan's sister Eadhild, 250 ; attacks Nor- mandy, ib. ; brings back " Lewis From- beyond-sea," 265 ; leagues with William Longsword and Arnulf of Flanders against Lewis, 268 ; makes peace with Lewis, 272 ; joins Harald Blaatand and the Normans against him, 280 ; receives him as a captive, ib: ; his defiance to Eadmund, ib. Hugh, Norman reeve of Exeter, 396 ; surrenders it to Swein, ib. Hundred, division of the shire, pos- sibly instituted by ^Elfred, 141, note 6 ; first appears by name under Eadgar, 349, note 3 ; names of hundreds in Dorset, 5 and note Huntingdon occupied and fortified by Eadward the Elder, 205 ; Danes of, attack Bedford, ib. ; encamp at Tempsfard, ih. ; swear allegiance to Eadward, 211 Huntingdonshire represents North- Gyrwa-land, 236 ; forms part of the East-Anglian ealdormanry, 261, note 1 ; joined to Northum- bria under Siward, 537 Hungary, Eadmund Ironside's children take refuge in, 420, 472 ; conquered by the Emperor Henry III, 514 Hurstbourn, its labour-roll, 331 Huscarls instituted by Cnut, 425, 432 ; remain with Emma at Winchester, 480, 481 ; their de- velopement under Harold, 493, note Huscarl-tax, its probable origin, 404, note 2 Husting, the Danish, 465 Hwiccas, land of the, one of the five regions of the Merci m kingdom, 235 ; divided into the shires of Gloucester and Wc^rcester, ib.\ their clearings in the south of Arden become "V^''arwickshire, 235, 236 ; earldom of, severed from Mercia by Cnul, 498 ; given to Odda, 536, 557 ; ealdormen of, see Leofric, Leofwine; earls of, see Odda Iceland, emigration from the Dane- law to, 131 and note 1 ; colo- nized by the northnum, 169 Icknield Way, 201 India, JElfred sends alms to, 105 Ine, king of Wessex, his pilgrimage to Rome and death, 1 7 ; his laws, 21 and notes 1 and 4 ; their pro- visions concerning the AVelsh, 22 ; concerning slaves, 334 ; concern- ing chapmen and trade, 337, note 1 ; extent of the shire-organiza- tion in his time, 233 Ingelram, count of Ponthieu, marries the sister of William the Conque- ror, 519 ; excommunicated by the Council of Rheims, 520 In guar, see Ivar Ireland, advance of the Wikinge upon, 62, 65, 66 ; their settle- ments in, 74; its earliest towns founded by them, ib. ; first appear- ance of the Danes in, 76, note 2, 90 ; see Dublin, Ostmen Iron supplied by Scandinavia to Britain, 447 Ipswich plundered by Norwegian Wikings, 370; its importance, 449 Islandshire, survival of the ancient divisions of Deira, 231 " Itene Wood," 174 Ittingford, the frith of Wedmore renewed at, 191 Ivar or Inguar the Boneless, leader tti 616 INDEX. INDEX. 617 of the Wikings, attacks Munster, 90, 91 ; brother of Hiibba, 91, note 1, 96 ; attacks East-Anglia, 91 ; conquers it, ib., note 1, 96 ; returns to Deira, 98 ; his race become kings of Northiimbria, 122 Jarrow burnt by the "Wikingp, 51 " Jarl " corresponds to the English " ^theling/' 57 Jedburgh, Wulfstan prisoner at, 292 Jelling, burial-mounds of Gorm and Thyra at, 363 Jeothwel, king of the North-Welsh, becomes subject to Eadward the Elder, 208, note 2 John XII., Pope, gives the pallium to Dunstan, 317 John the Old- Sax on made abbot of Athelney. 158, 178 and 7iote 1 Jomsborg, Harald Blaatand's strong- hold on the Baltic, 366 ; Harald dies there, ib. ; its independence under Palnatoki, 367 ; Swein's dealings with, 367, 368 ; its jarls defeated by Jarl Hakon, 407 ; see Palnatoki, Sigwald Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, her marriage with ^tliel- wulf and coronation, 82 and notCy 83 ; her marriage with Baldwin Iron-arm, 183 Judith, sister or daughter of Bald- win of Lille, marries Tostig, son of Godwine, 522 Judwal, king of North-Wales, story of his tribute to Eadgar, 324, note 1 ; present in ^thelstan's witanagemot, 224 and vote 1 Jurisprudence, early English, 22 Justice, public, its original ground- work, 22 ; earliest conception of, 23 ; re-organized by Alfred, 139, 140 ; difficulty of enforcing, 29, 140, 141 ; its regulation under iEthelstan,225, 226 ; folk's justice, 28 ; king's justice, 29, 30 Justiciar, his ' office, lol, 429, 493, note 543 Jutland, settlement of the Danes in, 88 ; conquered by Gorm, 363 Jutland, South, the original Engle- land, 62 ; its kings dependent on the kingdom of Westfold, 62-64 ; kings of, see Godfrid, Harold, Heming K Kenneth MacAlpin, king of the Scots of Dalriada, succeeds to the Pictish throne, 185 ; Edinburgh ceded to him, 324 ; and perhaps Lothian, 470 ; his " raids upon Saxony," ib. Kent, lingering heathenism in, 9 ; its Witan petition ^thelstan to enforce justice, 30 ; revolts against Offii and Cenwulf, 45 ; its relation to Wessex under Ecgberht, 69 ; its wealth and importance, 77, 78 ; its f^Td defeated by the Wikings in Thanet, 79 ; its eastern shores ravaged by pirates from Gaul, 86 ; united to Wesex at the accession of ^thelred, ib., note 2 ; invaded by Hasting, 170, 171 ; early use of coin in, 227, 228 ; kingdom of, its shires perhaps represented by the lathes, 231 ; becomes a shire of the West-Saxon realm, 234 ; called "Kent-shire," ib., note 1; iron-mines in, 336 ; salt-works in, ib. and note 1 ; harried by pirates |. from Ireland, 382; by Thurkill, 407 ; supports Godwine, 532, note 2 ; joined with Essex, &c., under Leofwine, 565 ; revolts against Odo of Bayeux, 574 ; kings of, seeMthelhsdd, ^thelberht, ^thel- stan, iEthelwulf, Eadric, Hlothere Kesteven, 261 and 7iote 1 Kettleside, 277 King, the, his judicial powers, 30 : appeals to, ib.; his justice super- sedes the folk's justice, ib.; hh court, 31 ; his " grith," 32 ; his progresses and their results, 32, 33 ; growth of his dignity, 33, 34, 303 ; his consecration, 34, 307, 308 ; organization of his house- hold, 34, 180 ; change in the con- ception of his position, 139 ; be- comes the source of justice, ib. ; his supreme jurisdiction, 140 and note 1 ; principle of personal al- legiance, 208, 209 ; his territorial character, 210 ; importance of his presence and personal action, 258, 303 ; weakness of his position, 301, 302 ; his share in the appoint- ment of bishops, 347, 524 ; growth of the royal administration, 542 ; his writ, 544 " King's Court," 544 Kingdoms, the Three, 1, 2, 39 ; their influence on the kingship, 33, 34 ; on social classes, 34, 45 ; on folk- moot and witenagemot, 36-38 ; weakness of Northumbria and Mercia, 38-45 ; their break-up, 45-49 Kings, tribal, their relation to the iEthelings, 34 ; number of, in the earlier states, 39 ; thefr extinction, ib. and note 1 Kingston, crowning of ^thelstan at, 217, 7iote 3 ; of Eadred, 287 and note 2 ; of ^thelred II., 356, note 1 Kirbyshire, survival of the ancient divisions of Deira, 231 Kirkshire or parish, 13, 231 Kirtlington, witenagemot at, 353 Kyle in Ayrr^hire, 275 Kynesige, bishop of Licliiield, kins- man of Dunstan, 282, note 1 ; sent with Dunstan to bring Ead- wig back to the coronation- feast, 308 Labour-rents at Hurst bourn, 331 ; at Dyddenham, ib., 332 Lake district, Norwegian settlements in, 276 and note 2, 277 Lambay Island, 66, note 3 Lambeth, Harthacnut dies at, 487 Lancashire, its origin, 237, note 2 ; Norwegian settlers in, 276, 277 Lancaster, 276 Land, its possession the test of free- dom, 209 Landnama-bok, 131 Land's End, iEthelstan at, 220 Land-tax, its beginnirg, 405 and note: its assessment, 405, 406 ; the basis of English linance, 431 ; its effects, ib. ; its amount, 465 ; see Danegeld Land-wehr, the, 133 Lanfranc, a citizen of Pavia, at Av- ranches, 504 ; his school at Bee, 505, 506 ; opposes William's mar- riage, 551 ; reconciler! with him, ib. ; negotiates at Rome, 552 Laon, city of the West- Franks, 266 Lastingham destroyed by Danes, 93 Lathes of Kent, 231 Law, early conception of, 19, 20 ; W'ritten law, its limited sphere, 20 ; criminal law, Eadmund's reform of, 27, 278, 279 Lawmen at Cambridge, 461, note 2 : Chester, 442 ; Lincoln, 122, 450, 461, note 2; Stamfoid, 122, 461, note 2 Laws of iElfred, 145, 146 and note 1 ; ^thelberht, 20, 21 and jwtes 1 and 2 ; ^thelstan, 225 and note 4, 234 and note 2 ; Cnut, 444 ; Eadgar, 425, 426 ; I:[lothere and Eadric, 21, notes 1 and 3 ; Wiht- raed, ib. ; Ine, 21 and notes 1 and 4 Legates sent by Alexander II., 580 ; their share in Wulfstan's elevation, ib. Leicester, 235 ; one of the Five Boroughs, 122 ; taken by iEthel- flaed, 207 ; date of it? submission, 191 note 4 ; stormed bv the Ost- men, 273 ; recovered by Ead- mund, ib. Leicestershire, 235 ; Danish set- tlements in, 123 ; severed from Mercia and joined with Notting- ham, &c., under Beorn, 498, 500 Leo IX. becomes Po])e, 515 ; his reforms, 519 ; excommunicates the rebel princes, ib. ; qv ashes Spear- hafoc's appointment to London, 526 ; taken prisoner by the Nor- mans, 551 ; lays Normandy under interdict, ib. Leofa, slayer of Eadraiind I., 280 I I 013 INDEX. INDEX. 619 Leofric, son of Leofwine, ealdorman of the Hvviccas, 427 ; earl of Mercia, 480 ; opposes Godwine's policy, ih. ; supports the claims of Harald, ib. ; demands a division of the realm, ih. ; his royal des- cent, 497 ; his influence, ih., 498 ; opposes Godwine, 502 ; his share in the religious revival, 514 ; joins the king at Gloucester, 527 ; his death, 564 Leofric, chancellor to the Confessor, 545 ; bishop of Crediton, ih., 546 Loofsige, ealdorman of Essex, 373 awiinotes 4 and 5 ; his jurisdiction over the reeves of Oxford and Buckingham, 261, note 1 ; sent to buy a truce with the pirates, 394 ; his " pride and daring," ih. and notes ; slays iEfic, 395 and note 1 ; banished, ih., note 2 Leofwine, bishop of Lichfield, 579 Leofwine, ealdorman of the Hwiccas, 372, note 1, 373 ; of Mercia, 420, 426 Leofwine, son of Godwine, flies to Dublin, 529 ; his earldom, 565 Leominster, the abbess of, 501 Leonaford, 159 Lethra, 362 and note Lewes, mint at, 228 ; tolls of, 333 Lewis the Gentle, Emperor, sup- ports Harold in Jutland, 64 Lewis the German, his struggle with pirates, 147, 148 ; his death, 148 Le\yis III., king of the West- Franks, defeats Guthrum at Sau- court, 148 ; his death, ih. Lewis " From - over - sea," son of Charles the Simple and Eadgifu, at the court of ^thelstan, 265 ; re- called by the West-Franks, ih. ; breaks with Hugh of Paris and the Normans, 266 ; recalls his mother, ih. ; his alliance with iEthelstan and Arnulf of Flanders, 267 ; break-up of their league, 267, 268 ; his war with Otto, ih ; league of Hugh, William, and Arnulf against, 268 ; driven from Lorraine, 272 ; reconciled with William, Otto, and Hugh, ih. ; master of Normandy, 273^; taken prisoner by Harald "^Blaatand and the Normans, 280 ; his liberation demanded by Eadmund, ih. Lewton, witenagemot at, 221, note 2, 224, notes Lichfield, bishops of, see Kynesii;e, Leoiwine Liege, a priest of, his Life of St. Dun- stan, 281, note Limerick founded by Wikings, 74 Limoges pillaged by Wikings, 77 Lindisfarne plundered, 51, 93 ; Bishop Eardulf expelled from, 106 Lincoln, one of the Five Boroughs, 122 ; its law-men, ib., 450, 461, note 2 ; submits to Eadward the Elder, 208 ; its growth, 449 ; con- nexion of its merchants with the North, ib. ; its merchant-gild, 450 Lincolnshire, 235,236; trithingsand wapentakes in, 122 ; Danish set- tlements in, ih. ; attached to the Mercian earldom, 557 ; joined with Leicester and Nottingham under Beorn, 498, 500 Lindiswaras, land of, becomes Lin- colnshire, 235, 236 Lindsey, kings of, 39, note 1 ; de- scents of the Wikings on, 77 ; its bishop expelled by the Danes, 93 ; submits to Swein, 410 ; negotiates with Cnut, 413 Literature under iElfred, 154-158 ; English prose, its birth, 160 ; its character, 161 and notes ; Alf- red's translations, 162-164, 168 ; the Chronicle, 165-167. and notes; literature under Alfred's succes- sors, 296 and note 2 ; influence of the Glastonbury school on, 297, 298 ; difterence between the first and second schools of, ih. ; its re- vival under Dunstan and Eadgar, 339, 342 Lithsmen of London, 462 ; support Harald Harefoot's claims, 480 Lochlann, White, 65, note 3 London, the mother-city of Essex, 149; under Mercian rule, 455- 457 ; conquered by Ecgberht, 150 sacked by the Wikings, 79, 150 Danes winter at, 105, note 2 doubtful story of ^Elfred's besieg- ing them there, ih. ; becomes sub- ject to Guthrum, 124, 150 ; passes into iElfred's hands, 150 ; re- peopled by him, ih. and note 2 ; its walls restored, 197, 459 ; in- trusted to iEthelred of Mercia, 151, 171 ; its severance from Essex and formation of its dependent shire, 151, 152 and note, 237 ; its situation, 152, note ; its men attack the Danes in Essex, 172, 173 ; taken from Mercia and an- nexed to Wessex by Eadward the Elder, 197 ; mint at, 228 ; pos- sibly included in the East-Saxon ealdormanry, 261 ; ^thelred II. gathers a fleet at, 377 ; repulses Swein and Olaf, 380 and note 1 ; successfully resists Swein, 411 ; sends hostages to him, ih. ; ^thel- red returns to, 413 ; Jithelred dies at, 415, 416 ; besieged by Cnut and Eadric, ih. ; Eadmund chosen king in, 416 ; its defence against Cnut, ib. ; ceded to Cnut, 418, note ; Cnut crowned at, 425 ; ob- scurity of its early history, 452 ; disappearance of Roman life from, 452, 453, 458, note 1 ; its heathen- ism, ih. ; its growth, 453 ; church and monastery of St. Paul at, ib. ; its trade, 456, 459, 463, 464 ; sokes in, 454 ; churches in, ib., 456 ; its growth under Bishop Erkenwald, ih. ; its oldest part, 456 ; site of its port, ih. ; its wic-reeve or port- reeve, ^■6., 461 ; Off'a's vill in, 457 and note ; East-cheap, 458 ; its bridge, 459, note 1 ; its geogra- phical posit ion, 459; its importance under iEthelstan, 460 ; its frith- gild, ih. ; its eight moneyers, ih., 228 ; cnichten-gild, 461 ; mer- chant-gild, ih., 480 ; connexion of its municipal with its ecclesias- tical life, 459, note 3, 461 ; its portmannimot, 461 ; its growth under ^thelstan's successors, 462, 463 ; under Eadgar and iEthelred, 463-465 ; Danes settled in, 465 ; its taxation in Cnut s first year, ih. ; becomes the c.,275, note 1 Thored, ealdorman, 372, note ; leader of the fyrd with iElfric, 377 Thorgils, leader of the Wikings, 66 and note 4 ; settles in Ulster, 74 ; destroys Armagh, ib. ; slain, 76 Thorstein, son of Olaf the Fair, in- vades the Scot kingdom, 107 " Thrall," 57 Thunresfeld, witenagemot at, 225 and note 1, 234, note 2 Thurbrand, 496, note Tluircytel, Jarl, holds Buckingham, 203 ; submits to Eadward the Elder, ib., 211 Thurferth, Jarl, of Northampton, submits to Eadward the Elder, 204, 211 Thurkill, son of Strut-Harald of Zeeland, 407 ; sent to England by Swein, ib. ; his ravages, ib. ; defeats the East-Anglian fyrd, 407, 408 ; bought off by ^Ethelred, ib. ; sacks Canterbury and seizes Arch- bishop iElfheah, 409; enters iEthelred's service as a mercenary, ib. ; defends London against Swein, 411 ; rejoins the Danes, 41 3 ; makes peace between Harald and Cnut, ib. ; ealdorman of East- Anglia, 420 ; banished, 424 " Thwaite " in place-names, 116, 276, note 2 Thyra, wife of Gorm the Old, 363 Tithes, their institution, 14 and note 1, 80, note " Toft " in place-names, 276, note 2 Tolls on the sale of slaves, 334 ; at Lewes, ib. ; on herrings at Abing- don, 439 ; at Sandwich, 446, note 3 " Ton " in place-names, 276, note 2 Torksey, Danes encamp at, 106 ; its trading importance, 439 Tostig, son of Godwine, marries Judith of Flanders, 522 ; flies with Godwine to Flanders, 529 ; Ead- ward's favour to, 555 ; visits Pope Nicolas, 567, note 1, 580 ; earl of Northumbria, 560 ; his character, 561 ; his stern just- ice, ^6., 562, note ; becomes the sworn brother of Malcolm, 563 ; rising of Northumbria against him, 567 ; its leaders, 562, note ; goes to Flanders, 567 ; goes to Norway and joins Harald Hard- rada in an invasion of England, 569 ; engages " butsecarls " at Sandwich, 446, note 1 ; his over- throw at Stamford Bridge, 569 Tottenhale, Danes defeated at, 195 Toulouse, Wikings at, 76 Touraine conquered by the counts of Anjou, 508 Towcester fortified by Eadward the Elder, 204 ; attacked by Danes, ib. Township, the, its relation to the parish, 14-16 Trade, ^thelstan's regulations con- cerning, 227 ; inland trade in the tenth century, 335-337, 436-440 ; developement of external trade, 440 et seq ; impulse given by the Danes, 440 ; trade on the east coast, 447 ; of the northmen, 447, 448 ; of London, 463 ; of Flanders, 511, 512 ; between England and Flanders, 517 Trithings in Deira, 120 ; their divi- sions, ib. ; in Lincolnshire, 122 Treasurer, see Hordere Treasury, see Hoard Truce of God, 489, 490 Tun -moot, the, its place of meeting, 15 ; survival in parish vestry, 16 Tun-reeve, the, superseded by the parish priest, 15 Tunsberg, its trade, 448, noteZ Tynemouth, burning of, 93 U XJfegeat blinded, 398, note 2 Uhtred, son of Waltheof, made earl of Northumbria, 399 ; defeats the Scots, ib.^ 470 ; his marriages, 399, 496, note ; joins Swein, 410 ; joins Eadmund, 415 ; submits to Cnut, ib.^ 496, note ; his feud with Thurbrand, 496, note ; murdered, ib., 417, 420 XJlf, his marriage with Estrith, 426 ; ruler of Denmark, 424, 426 ; guar- dian of Harthacnut, 467 Ulf, Norman chaplain of Eadward, 492, 546, 547 ; bishop of Dorches- ter, 510, 546, 547 ; his flight, 534 Ulf, son of Dolfin, 562, vote Ulfcytel, ruler in East-Anglia, 393, 394, note 1, 397 ; his northern blood, 397 ; independence of East- Anglia under him, il. ; defeated by Swein, 398 ; by Thurkill, 408 ; joins Eadmund, 417 ; slain at Assandun, 417, 418 Ulster, Wikings in, 74 Ulverston, 277 "Unrsedig," ^thelred the, 371 Val-es-Dunes, battle of, 506 Varangians, the, English among, 574 Vermandois, counts of, 251 Vestry, parish, 16 Villeins, their tenure, 329, 330 ; de- grees of their social rank, 331, note 1 ; free socially though not politically, 333 ; the free ceorls gradually degraded into, 360 " Vinheidi," 254, note 1 is 632 INDEX. INDEX. G33 i^^ w Walbrook, 456 Wales, North, see Welsli Walter, a Lotharingian, 547 ; chap- lain to Eadgyth, 548 ; bishop of Hereford, 547 ; consecrated at Rome, 580 Waltham, Harold's church at, 580 Waltheof, earl of Northumbria, 354 Waltheof, earl of Bernicia, 373, 399 Waltheof, son of Siward, 560 ; joins the revolt against Tostig, 562, note ; legends of his exploits, ib. ; avenges Ealdred's death, 496, note Wantage, 99 and note 1 Wapentake, meaning and origin of the word, 120 ; its use in Lincoln- shire, 122 Warbury, ^thelflsed at, 202 Wardour, story of iElfred at, 175 Wareham, shire-town of Dorset, 445 ; Guthrum encamps near, 108 ; mint at, 228 ; Eadward the Martyr buried at, 356 Warwick, its origin, 202 ; fortified by iEthelflsed, ib. ; gives its name to a shire, 236 ; its feorm, 404 Warwickshire, its origin, 235, 236 Waterford founded by Wikings, 74 Watling Street,-199 ; origin of name, 200 and note 1 ; seized by Mihoi- fl«d, 198 Wealh-cyn, 2, 75 ^ Wearmouth, burning of, 51 Wedmore, peace of, 112 ; its effect on Europe, 113 ; on the Danes, 153 ; on the English, ib., 154 Weile, burial-mounds near, 363 Weland the Wiking, 85, note 3 Wells, bishops of, see Duduc Welsh, North, their relation to Mer- cia, 44 ; revolt against it, 80 ; their alliance with the Danes, 172 ; become subject to Alfred, 183 ; to Eadward the Elder, 208, note 2 ; to iEthelstan, 220 ; kings of, pre- sent in ^thel Stan's witenagemots, 224 and notes ; Eadgar's relations with, 323, 324 ; united under Meredydd, 377 ; at war with Mer- cia, 409 ; rising of, suppressed by Cnut, 469 ; Gruifydd ap Llewelyn's power, 493, 564 ; league of Grnf- fydd and ^Ifgar, 564; revolt against the Normans, 574 ; kings of, see Cledauc, Eugenius, Gru- fFydd, Howel, Jeothwel, Judwal, Llewelyn, Meredydd, Morcant, Owen, Roderic, Teowdor, Wur- geat Welsh, West, provisions concerning them in Ine's law, 21-22 ; rise against Ecgberht, 167 ; defeated at Hengestdun, ib. ; revolt against Alfred, 172 ; subdued by iEthel- Rtan, 220-221 Wends, raids on Jutland, 89, note ; kings of, see Burislaf "Wendune" or "Weondune," 254, note 1 " Wer " assessed in coin in the laws of iEthelberht, 228 Werburgh, St., church of, at Chester, 195, 439 Werfrith, bishop of Worcester, his school, 156 ; literary work, ib., 175 ; possible share in the Wor- cester Chronicle, 191, note 4 Werwulf, chaplain to Alfred, 157 Wessex, earliest written law in, 20 ; its military strength, 45 ; its geo- graphical advantages, 45-46 ; its varied composition, 46, 68, 69 ; its extension west of Selwood, 233 ; its administrative order, 47 ; its connexion with the "Eastern Kingdom," 69 ; its military organ- ization, 69, 70 ; revolts against ^thelwulf, 83 ; closer union with Kent, 86, note 2 ; its isolation in face of the Danes, 97 ; surprized by them, 109 ; its exhaustion, 132 ; its revival under Alfred, 133 e< seq. ; decline of monasticism in, 177 and note, 343 ; oath of alle- giance to Eadward in, 211 ; change in its relations to northern Britain, 215 ; probable date of its shire organization, 233 ; extension of the shire-system to its eastern dependencies, 234 ; organization of its shires, 238 ; foreign alli- ances of its kings, 249 ; source of the second old English literature, 297 ; its three divisions, 316 ; its new organization under Eadgar, ib. ; ravaged by Thurkill, 408 ; by Cnut, 414 ; submits to Cnut, 415 ; made into an earldom, 427 ; ad- heres to Harthacnut, 479, 480; accepts Harald as king, 483, 484 ; kings of, see Alfred, JEthelbald, iEthelberht, ^thelred, ^thelstan, ^thelwulf, Ceadwalla, Cenwalch, Eadgar, Eadmund, Eadward, Ead- wig, Ecgberht, Harthacnut, Ine ; earldom of, its extent and import- ance, 498 ; altered position of the king in, 498-499 ; Somerset and Berkshire detached from, 500 ; earls of, see Godwine, Harold Wessex, the original or Central, 46, 231 ; later ealdormanry, 315, 316 ; submits to Swein, 411 ; ealdormen of, see ^Ifheah, ^Ifric, ^thel- mser Wessex, Western, mixture of blood in its population, 46 ; its strong West-Saxon character, 47 ; eal- dormanry of, 315, 316 ; submits to Swein, 411 ; ealdormen of, see -^thelmaer, ^thelweard Westfold, kingdom of, 62 ; kings of, see Biorn, Godfrid, Harald Westminster, Harald Harefoot buried at, 484 ; home of Ead- ward the Confessor, 499 ; William crowned at, 573 Westmoreland, 237, note 2 Westmoringa-land, the modern Westmoreland, 277, note 3 ; colon- ized by Norwegians, 274, 275 ; harried by Thored, 275, note 1 ; character of country and people, 275, 276 ; English fugitives in, 276 Whitby, Danish settlement, 93, 116 Whithern, English bishops of, 275 and note 3 ; see Badulf Wic-reeve of London, 455, 461 Wiglaf, king of IVIercia, deposed by Ecgberht, 48 ; restored, 49 Wight, extinction of its kings, 39, note 1 ; Wikings winter in, 382, 400 ; meeting of Godwine and Harold off, 533 Wigmore, Eadward the Elder at, 204 Wiheal, Uhtred slain at, 496, note Wihtraed, king of Kent, his laws, 9, 21, notes 1 and 3 Wikings, the name, 58 and note 2 ; their two lines of attack, 62, 76 ; raids on South England, 75-80, 85, 86 ; on Gaul, 76, 77 ; greed for booty rather than dominion, 87 ; importance for them c-f Britain, 86 ; concentration of their forces on it, 107 ; see Danes, Norwegians, Ostmen Wilbarstone, 325 William Longsword, son of Hrolf, his policy, 247 ; his war with Hugh the Great and tl e Bretons, 250, 251 ; conquers the Cotentin, 251 ; does homage to Rudolf of Burgundy, ib. ; ^thelstan's ne- gotiations with, 266 ; his war with Arnulf of Flanders, 267 ; excommunicated, ib. ; leagues with Husjh and Arnulf against Lewis, 268 ; rejoins the Karo- lingian party, 272 ; alliance with Harald Blaatand, 364 ; revolt against, 388 ; murdered, 273 William, son of Robert the Devil, his birth, 475 ; appc>inted by Robert as his successor, ib. ; anarchy of his early years, 476 ; his boyhood, 490 ; his temper, ib.; his counsellors, 503 ; re\'olt against him, 505 ; his escape, 506 ; seeks aid of the French king, ib. ; Val-es-Dunes, 506, 507 ; helps King Henry against (jeoffrey of Anjou, 508, 509 ; his vengeance on Aleneon, 509 ; wins Domfront, ib. ; seeks the hand of Matilda of Flanders, 516 ; the marriage for- bidden, 521 ; visits England, 531 ; alleged promises of the Crown to, 491, 531 and note; marries Matilda, 551 ; threatened with excommunication, ib. ; his quarrel and reconciliation with Lanfranc, ib. ; revolts against, 552 ; attacked by France and An- jou, ib. ; his plan of dc fence, 552, 553 ; its success, 553 ; Harold's oath to, 567 ; his claim against Harold, 568 ; lands at Pevensey, 569 ; his exploits at Senlac, 634 INDEX. INDEX. 635 571 ; his victory, 572 ; advance over soutliern England, ib.; London submits to, 573 ; his crowning, ib. ; founds the Tower, ib. ; his charter to London, ib. ; his rule, ib. ; returns to Nor- mandy, 574 ; takes Exeter, ib. ; subdues the north, ib. ; occupies York, ib. ; Eadwine and Morkere submit to, ib. ; general rising^ against, 574, 575 ; his vow of vengeance on the north, 575 ; buys off the Danes, ib. ; relieves Shrewsbury, ib. ; ravages North- umbria, ib. ; his march to Chester, 576 ; last revolt against, ib. ; Ely surrendered to, 577 ; receives the fealty of Malcolm, ib.^ William, a Norman priest, chaplain to Eadward the Confessor, 492, 546, 547 ; made bishop of Lon- don, 537, 546, 547 William of Arques, 552 William of Eu, 552 William Fitz-Osbern, friend of Wil- liam the Conqueror, 503 ; left as regent in England, 574 ; relieves Exeter, 575 Wilssetan, bishops of, see Ramsbury ; ealdormen of, 233, 7iote 2 Wilton gives its name to Wiltshire, 232 ; victory of the Danes at, 105 Wiltshire, origin of its name, 232 ; " Wiltun-scire," 233, note 2 ; its relation to Hampshire, ib. ; Swein marches into, 396 ; plundered by Thurkill, 408 ; war against Cnut in, 416 Winchester, centre of the older Wessex, 46 ; advantages of its position, ib. ; raid of the Wikings on, 85 ; its abbey, 133 ; its mint, 228 ; iEthelw^old's school at, 339; clerks supplanted by monks in its cathedral church, 344 ; the royal Hoard in, 403, note 2 ; sub- mits to Swein, 411 ; dwelling- place of Emma after Cnut's death, 480, 481 ; Eadward the Confessor crowned at, 487 ; surrendered to William, 572 ; witenagemots at, 221, note 2, 224, note 1 ; bishops of, see iEKheah, iEthelwold, Dene- wulfjStigand, Swithun ; Chronicle of, its origin, 164-166 ; its account of the reign of Eadward the Elder, 189 no ^e, 191, note 4 ; its character during the reign of ^thelstan, 218, note 2 ; its last continuation possibly due to Bishop ^thelwold, 340 Wini buys see of London, 455, note 1 Winchanheale, 40 Wimborne, ^thelred I. buried at, 105 AVirral, northern settlers in, 276 Witenagemot, the, changes in its character, 36, 37 and note I ; not a representative of the nation, 37, 38 and note 1 ; a royal council named by the king, 38 and note 2 ; its composition under ^thelstan, 221 and note 2, 224 and notes ; its rights, 224, 225 ; its work in restoring public order, 225 ; at Eadred's crowning, its national character, 287 and note 2 ; presence of northern jarls and Welsh princes in, under Eadred, 298 ; increasing importance of the ealdormen in, 305 ; its measures of defence against the Danes, 401, 405, 406, 408, 409 ; recalls ^thel- red II., 412 ; assembled by Cnut to sanction his election as king, 425 ; chooses Harald for king, 480 ; tries and acquits Godwine, 482 ; chooses Harthacnut for king, 484 ; rejects God wine's proposal to help Swein Estrithson, 502 ; God- wine outlawed by. 529 ; Godwine restored and the "Frenchmen" outlawed by, 535 ; iElfgar out- lawed by, 564 ; of Kent, petitions ^thelstan to enforce justice, 30 ; of Mercia and Wessex, divides the realm between Eadwig and Ead- gar, 313, 314, note 1 ; of Wessex, banishes Emma, 483, 578 ; deposes Stigand, 578, 579 ; forsakes Har- thacnut and chooses Harald as king, 484 ; witenagemot at Calne, 353 ; Colchester, 221, note 2, 224, note 2 ; Exeter, 225 and note 1, 227 ; Feversham, 225 and note 1 ; Frome, 224, note 1, 252, note 3 ; Greatley, 225 and note A ; Kirt- lington, 353 ; Lewton, 221, note 2, 224, notes; London, 425, 528, 534 ; Middleton, 221, note 2, 224, 7iote 2 ; Oxford, 414, 425, 480 ; Thunresfeld, 225 and note I, 234, note 2 ; Winchester, 221, note 2, 224, note 1 ; Worcester, 580 ; York, 221, note 2 Witham, Eadward the Elder at, 198 Witch drowned at London Bridge, II, 459, note 1 Witchcraft, decrees against, 10, 11 Worcester, Bishop Werfrith's school at, 156 ; becomes the centre of English historical literature, 341 ; its importance, 440 ; resistance to Harthacnut's Danegeld at, 485 ; see of, annexed to that of York, 348 ; bishops of, see Aldulf, Dun- Btan, Ealdred, Werfrith ; first or lost Chronicle of, its origin and composition, 191, note 4, 341 and note; preserved in tlie Peter- borough Chronicle, 341 note 1, 370, note 2 ; its influence on the later historians, 342 ; its import- ance, ib. and note; its character in reign of ^thelred II., 370, note 2 ; extant Chronicle of, its date, 341, note 2 ; witenagemot at, 580 Worcestershire, 235 ; salt-works in, 335 ; severed from Mercia, 498 ; joined with Gloucester under Odda, 536 " Worth " in place-names, 276, note 2 Wreckage in Thanet punished by Eadgar, 350 ; rights of, at Sand- wich, 446, note 2 Writ, the king's, 544 Writing, introduction of, 19, 20 Wulfeah blinded, 398, note 2 Wulfgar, ealdorman, counsellor of the Crown under Eadmund, 287 Wulfgeat made high reeve, 398 ; deprived, ib. and note 2 Wulfheard, ealdorman of Hamton- shire, defeats the Wikings, 5 Wulfhere, king of Mercia, sells the see of London to Wini, 455 Wulfhere, an English ealdorman, deserts to the Danes, 147, note 1 Wulfnoth, Child, the South-Saxon 407 and iiote 1 Wulfstan, St., prior of Worcester, 580 ; made bishop of Worcester, ib. ; consecrated by Ealdred, ib. ; his repudiation of Stigand, 580-581 Wulfstan, archbishop of York, 222 ; present in jEthelstan's witenage- mots, 221, note 2, 252, note 3, 271 ; his influence in the north, 271 ; his policy, ib. ; mediates between Eadmund and the Danes, ib. ; joins the Danish party under Olaf, 272 ; accompanies Olaf and his host into Mid-Britain, ib. ; helps to negotiate a peace be- tween Eadmund and Olaf, ib. ; returns to court, 279 ; swtars al- legiance to Eadred, 289 ; breaks his oathyib.; present at Eadred's court, .ib., note 3, 293, note 1 ; arrested, 293 ; released, ib., note 2 Wulfstan, his voyage up the Baltic, 179 ; jElfred's comment on it, ib., 61, note ; his account of Denmark, 362, note Wulfwig, chancellor to Eadward the Confessor, 546 ; made bi&hop of Dorchester, ib. ; his consecration, 579 Wurgeat, under-king of the North- Welsh, 224, Jiote 1 Wye, river, boundary between Welsh and English, 220, 221 ; lisheriea in, 440 note Wvthmann, German chaplain of Cnut, made abbot of Kamsey, 545 York, Alcuin bom at, 42 ; its school, ib. and note 2 ; seized by the Danes, 92 ; its defences, ib. and note 2 ; victory of the Danes at, ib. and note 3 ; the mirister re- built, 42 ; disappearance of its library and school at the Danish conquest, 93 ; Danes winter at, 95 ; traces of Danish settlement in its local names, 119 ; ciipital of Damsh Northumbria, 120, 122 ; submits to iEthelflsed, 207 and m»mm^asi!^sm^ 636 INDEX. ^^^^!m note 2 ; •witenagemot at, 221, note 2 ; ^thelstan receives the West-Frankish envoys at, 265 ; submits to Cniit, 415 ; its trade, 119, 450, 452 and note ; Roman re- mains at, in Dunstan's time, 450 ; its castl«-mound and Danish for- tress, ib. ; its population, ib. and note 4 ; its extent, 451 ; its suburbs, 452 ; its fishermen, ib. ; its Danish quarter, ib. ; its churches, ib. ; Siward dies at, 560 ; occupied by William, 574 ; stormed, and its garrison slaughtered, 575 ; " shires" in, 230, 231, 451, note 4, 461, note 2 ; see of, its importance after the Danish conquest of Northum- bria, 95 ; Worcester annexed to it, 348 ; see Archbishops Yorkshire, traces of Danish settle- ment in its local names, 116, 117 and notes; trade of the Danish set- tlers in, 118, 119 ; its ridings arid wapentakes, 120 ; traces of the ancient divisions of Deira in, 231; late introduction of the name, 237, note 2 ; see Deira Yser, river, Godwine's fleet in, 532 Z Zeeland, settlement of the Danes in, 88 ; jarls of, see Strut-Harald, Thurkill THE END. Ijondon: r. clay, soks, and taylor, PRl^^TRs. f sT* - ■'■i Hi ^- i ' f1 •- .^ OLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRAP^ h This book is due on the date indicated below, o >j ey»^'' ■ "^ ? '^'^^m'te period after the date of h Vr» T •%,, ■>' . ■^.. ,J> /-:r.^i.. » ri^- / .^- ^ COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY ,4 0032257210 o!.2.01 08231 \ " - ^X"-'"^ » -I ♦ »-t' ' n 1 - ) ■:9M f .** .>: *ij'"'-* - "^^ ^ vV^""« 'h^r ■ ■ V • ,^- '''^l^^'^TV.-'V »-^ '^^ ^. #* ? t r \ \ \ i PHOTOCOPY ^ U', vt ^s^ I S£P4 7 I8H