ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SAXON OCTARCHY.
"Over the hawk's station, over the hawk's banquet of heads,
Over the quivering of the spears, reddening was the wing;
Over the howling of the storm the course of the sea-gull was seen;
Over the blood, whirling and flowing, the exulting ravens were
screaming,
They hovered above the treasure of the fierce-winged race,
And their clamour went spreading through the sky."
CYNDDELU'S DEATH OF OWEN.
During the period in which the events occurred that are narrated in the
opening pages of our last chapter, another body of Saxons had arrived
in Britain, and settled down in Essex, where under Erkenwin they laid
the foundation of that kingdom or state, which eventually extended
into Middlesex, and included London--then a town of considerable note,
though bearing no marks of its high destiny, as its few houses heaved
up and overlooked the Thames. Little did the fisherman dream, as he
turned back to gaze upon his humble home, where the morning sunbeams
fell, that the hut in which he had left his children asleep, stood
where a city would one day rise, that should become the metropolis
of England, and the envy of surrounding nations. Still less did those
ancient Saxons, as they landed in the marshes of Essex, ever imagine
that they were marching onward towards a town, whose renown would one
day spread to the uttermost ends of the earth, a city which would at
last arrest the gaze of the whole wide world, whose grandeur would only
be eclipsed by its greatness, and stand the sun of the earth, defying
all eyes to point out, amid the blaze of its splendour, where its
brightness began or where it ended. But while the tide which bore on a
new population was thus setting in, and the kingdom of East Anglia was
formed by a portion of the Saxon tribe, who have left no other names
behind than those given to the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk, the
most formidable force that had hitherto arrived in Britain, since the
time of the Romans, landed between the Tweed and the Firth of Forth.
Forty ships were at once anchored near the mouths of these rivers, and
from them stepped on shore, Ida and his twelve sons, with a number
of nameless chiefs, who belonged to the tribe of Angles, and a long
train of Saxon followers, all of whom had sworn to acknowledge Ida as
their king, for he also claimed descent from the inexhaustible stock
of Woden. Between the Clyde and the Humber, the country was divided
amongst many of the British tribes, all of whom had their separate
king, or chief, and were ever doing their utmost, unconsciously, to aid
the conquest of the Saxons, by waging war with each other. Bernicia
and Deira, as they were afterwards called, were at the time of Ida's
landing governed by the following kings or chiefs, for it is difficult
to distinguish their proper titles, named Gall, Dyvedel, Ysgwnell,
Urien, the patron of Taliesin the bard, Rhydderc the generous, Gwallog,
Aneurin, himself a poet, together with other sovereigns whose very
names have perished, and who all appear to have, for once, united, and
made a bold stand against the advance of Ida.
We have now the light of these ancient bards to guide us through
this remote period, and some of them fought in the battles of which
they have left us descriptions. Chief amongst these British warriors
appears to have been Urien; Taliesin calls him the "shield of heroes,
the thunderbolt of the Cymry," and compares his onset to "the rushing
of mighty waves, and fiery meteors blazing athwart the heavens." Ida,
they designated the flame-man, or flame-bearer, so terrible was the
devastation which he made. Many battles were fought between these
renowned chieftains. It was on the night which ushers in the Sabbath,
when the "Flame-bearer" approached, with his forces divided into
four companies, to surround Goddeu and Reged, provinces over which
Urien governed. Ida spread out his forces from Argoedd to Arfynnydd,
and having assumed this threatening position, he daringly demanded
submission and hostages from the Britons. Urien indignantly spurned the
proposition, and turning to his brother chieftains, exclaimed: "Let us
raise our banners where the mountain winds blow--let us dash onward
with our forces over the border--let each warrior lift his spear above
his head, and rush upon the destroyer, in the midst of his army, and
slay him, together with his followers." Taliesin, who was present, and
fought under the banner of Urien, thus describes the "Battle of the
Pleasant Valley:" "When the shouts of the Britons ascended, louder than
the roaring of the waves upon the storm-tossed shore, neither field nor
forest afforded safety to the foe: I saw the warriors in their brave
array, I saw them after the morning's strife--oh, how altered! I saw
the conflict between the perishing hosts, the blood that gushed forward
and soaked into the red ground:--the valley which was defended by a
rampart was no longer green. Wan, weary men, pale with affright, and
stained with blood, dropped their arms and staggered across the ford;
I saw Urien, with his red brow--his sword fell on the bucklers of his
enemies with deadly force--he rushed upon them like an eagle enraged."
In this battle, the Britons appear to have been victorious--others
followed in which they were defeated, for the "flame-bearing man"
spread terror wherever he trod. He, however, at last fell by Owen the
son of Urien, one of the poets, who also perished by the hand of one
of his own countrymen, and his death was bemoaned by the British bard
Llywarch, in such a plaintive strain that there are few compositions
which excel this ancient elegy, for its beautiful pathos and wild,
mournful images; some of these are as follows: "I bear a head from the
mountains; the body will ere night be buried under the cairn of stones
and earth! Where is he that supported and feasted me? Euryddiel will
be joyless to-night. Whom shall I praise, now Urien is no more? The
hall is stricken into ruins,--the floor desolate, where many a hound
and hawk were trained for the chase. Nettles and weeds will grow over
that hearth, which, when Urien lived, was ever open to the tread of
the needy; the shout of the warriors as they uplifted the mead cups,
no more will be heard rioting. The decaying green will cover it, the
mouldering lichen will conceal it, the thorn will above it grow; the
cauldron will become rusted that seethed the deer, the sword of the
warrior will no longer clank over it, no sound of harmony will again
be heard there; where once the blazing torches flashed, and the deep
drinking horn went round, the swine will root, and the black ants
swarm, for Urien is no more!" Such were the immortal echoes that
floated around our island, nearly a thousand years before Shakspere
"struck the golden lyre."
After the death of Urien, another severe battle was fought in the north
between the Britons and Angles, who accompanied Ida. Aneurin, who was
in the fight, has composed the longest poem which has descended to us
descriptive of those ancient conflicts; it is called the "Gododin,"
and was held in such reverence by the Welsh bards, that they entitled
him their king. It is frequently alluded to by the minstrels of the
period. The poem descriptive of the battle of Cattraeth, from which
Aneurin escaped, when three hundred and three score British nobles,
all wearing the "golden torque," fell, contains nearly a thousand
lines. Only three renowned warriors survived this awful combat; the
bard was amongst the number. The British chieftains had been drinking
the pale mead by "the light of rushes" all night long; with the first
streak of dawn, they set out to attack the Saxons; when they came in
sight of the enemy, they "hastened swift, all running together--short
were their lives." Like the melancholy chorus in a dirge is this "pale
mead" banquet ever repeated throughout the poem; its effects are sadly
deplored, it is ever turning up and coming in upon the end of some
sorrowful reflection; "pleasant was its taste, long its woe--it had
been their feast, and was their poison--it was a banquet for which
they paid the price of their lives." Hear Aneurin's own words: "The
warriors that went to Cattraeth were furious--pale golden wine and mead
had they drank; they were three hundred and three score and three, all
wearing golden torques, who hastened to battle after the banquet. From
the edges of the keen-slaying swords, only three escaped the war-dogs,
Aeron and Dayarawd, and I, from the flowing blood were saved. The
reward of my protecting muse." The battle appears to have been fought
in the morning of one of their festive days; and in the grey dawn, the
intoxicated chiefs ran upon the enemy all together, probably having
boasted over their cups that one would outstrip the other, and be the
first to dye his sword in Saxon blood. The scene of the battle cannot
now be ascertained; that it was in the north we have proof, from the
men of Bernicia and Deiri being present.
After these events, the kingdom called Mercia was established; it
appears to have extended over our present midland counties, occupying
the most important space which stretches from the Severn to the
Humber, and even pushing its frontier upon the borders of Wales.
This formed the eighth kingdom, state, or colony, established by the
Saxons since the day when Hengist and Horsa first entered the service
of Vortigern--a period occupying but little more than one hundred
years, and during that time there was scarcely an interval in which
the Saxons had not either to defend their hard-won possessions, or aid
their countrymen when they were close pressed. The Britons had still
their own kingdoms in Wales, Cornwall, a portion of Devonshire, and the
district of Strathclyde; and some of these they maintained even after
the death of Alfred.
We will now take a rapid glance at the eight kingdoms established by
the Saxons, for although Bernicia and Deiri are frequently classed
together as one state, and called Northumbria, and were occasionally
under the sway of one sovereign, they were, nevertheless, distinct
kingdoms for a time. Thus an octarchy was established, formed of the
following eight distinct states.
First, the Jutes, who had gained Kent, where Hengist first established
himself, and to which his followers added the Isle of Wight, and a
portion of the opposite coast of Hampshire. This formed the kingdom of
Kent.
Second, the South Saxons, who landed under Ella, and, after many a
severe combat with the Britons, founded the kingdom of Sussex.
Third, the East Saxons, who, under the command of Erkenwin, gradually
spread over the counties of Essex, Middlesex, and the southern portion
of Hertfordshire, which afterwards became known as the kingdom of Essex.
Fourth, the West Saxons, who, headed by Cerdric, conquered the
inhabitants of Surrey, part of Hampshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire,
Dorsetshire, Somerset, a portion of Devonshire and Cornwall, (though
long after this period) and finally, founded the kingdom of Wessex.
Fifth, East Anglia, containing Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, the Isle
of Ely, and some portion of Bedfordshire, all included in the state or
kingdom of East Anglia.
Sixth, Deiri, which included the counties of Lancaster, York,
Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Durham.
Seventh, Bernicia, where Ida first landed, and which extended from
Northumberland into Scotland, somewhere between the rivers Forth and
Tweed.
Eighth, and last, Mercia, which swallowed up the chief portion of the
midland counties, and was divided into the north and south by the river
Trent, though all were within the limits of the dominion of Mercia.
Such were the kingdoms that formed the Saxon Octarchy, and which were
no sooner established, than one state began to wage war against the
other, in which they were occasionally aided by the Britons.
Hitherto we have had to feel our way cautiously along the shores which
skirt the dark sea of History, and have been compelled to put into many
a creek and harbour at a venture, as abler mariners have done before
us; but, in no instance have we stirred, without consulting the compass
and carefully examining the chart which Gildas, Nennius, and Bede,
those ancient voyagers, have drawn up as a guide, and which Turner and
Mac Cabe[4] have carefully examined, and marked anew every point that
is dark and doubtful.
Many events transpired before the final establishment of the Saxon
Octarchy, which we have hurriedly passed over as being of little
importance, and which to have narrated would have carried us again
over the ground already traversed. Of such are the deaths of the Saxon
kings or chiefs; the contests that arose in selecting a successor, and
the bickerings and breakings out, which were necessarily consequent
upon the formation of so many separate states, for few of them could
be called kingdoms. Nor must we suppose, that in all cases where
the conquerors settled down, the ancient inhabitants fled before
them--many, doubtless, remained behind, and gradually intermixed
with the Saxons; of such, probably, would be those who had grown
civilized under the Roman government, and were skilled in the arts
and manufactures, and had still continued to improve in agriculture,
ever since the time of Agricola. Men possessing this knowledge, and
acquainted with these secrets, would, beyond doubt, be tempted to
reside amongst the invaders; and we shall soon arrive at a period,
which will show that civilization had tamed down the martial spirit of
the Saxon, as it had before-time done that of the Britons, and that
they were for a long season as apparently helpless under the attacks
of the Danes, as the ancient inhabitants of the island were under
their own repeated assaults. It would be a work of great labour, and
one that would require an acute analysis, to trace, step by step,
this degenerative process. Many of the Britons emigrated. We have
shown that twelve thousand, under a free king, Riothamus, went out to
war against the Visigoths, but it would only be carrying us into the
history of other countries were we to follow their footsteps. Even the
Britons that remained behind, though dispossessed of nearly the whole
of their country for a long time, "bated not a jot of heart nor hope;"
they clung to their old prophecies, and, through the dark night of
oppression, saw the ruddy streak which they believed would ere long
break into the bright morning of vengeance, when they should drive the
Saxons before them triumphantly out of Britain. Strengthened by this
belief, they fought many a battle which we have not recorded, and even
when defeated, it was only to retire to their "stony paradise," as
their bards called Wales, and there await the breaking of that bright
morning which had so long been foretold. There is something wild and
beautiful in the very idea of this never-to-be-realized hope; it forms
a prominent feature in the character of the Welsh population to this
very day, though now turned into a feeling, which arms them, better
than any other, against the lesser evils of life. They are ever in the
hope of seeing "better days." We can readily fancy that every rumour
of the outbreak amongst the Saxon tribes, must have been received with
as much acclaim in their mountain fortresses, as would the first note
awakened by Aneurin or Llywarch when they struck their harps. We can
picture the eagerness with which they hurried down, to aid one Saxon
chief to make war upon another, scarcely caring which chief conquered,
so long as they themselves escaped, and believing that the body of
every enemy which they left in the field was a unit nearer to the
fulfilment of their fancied Millennium. They never lacked a leader,
if an attack was contemplated, and we probably err not in surmising
that many an onset was made after the night had been consumed "by the
light of the rushes," and while they were brimful of valour and "pale
mead," and heated by the lay which some bard less renowned than Aneurin
chanted. Cattraeth may not be the only instance in which the wearers of
the "golden torques," the ensign of nobility, fell. Still there seems
to have been a hearty faith in the ancient Cymry, which endears them to
us, and in nothing was this evinced more, than in their belief of the
predictions of their bards. A pale ray of light, like the lingering of
a subdued smile, falls upon our page whilst we write, as we contrast
the "then" with the "now." The bards of other days were kings, chiefs,
and renowned warriors; their harps raised them to these dignities:
the bards of the present age are bards only, and however great their
fame, can only receive due honour by first passing through the gate
of death. The extracts with which we have enriched this chapter show
the appreciation of the beautiful, in a barbarous age, and oh! let not
this sentence be forgotten. All that we know of the lives of many of
those ancient British kings, who were great and renowned in their day,
is what has been preserved in the lays of our early bards; but for
these, their very names would have perished, and Urien himself would
never again have awakened the throb of a human heart. The cold contempt
of the proud and the haughty, chilled not the heart of the true
minstrel; with his harp in his heart, he ever goes, making music his
companion, when there is none beside to hear it; and the notes he often
carelessly scatters behind him, if of the true tone, are never lost.
A thousand years pass away, and they still ring as freshly about the
heart as those which we have here gathered, and which Llywarch, above
thirteen hundred years ago, poured forth between his sighs, when he
mourned for the loss of his chieftain, for there is a sadness about the
dirges which we yet feel. The monuments of brass, of iron, and marble,
have ages ago decayed or mouldered away, yet the echoes which arose
from that ancient harp have not yet died. Time destroyeth all things
excepting the Immortality of the Mind.