EGBERT, KING OF ALL THE SAXONS.
"O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!
When that my care could not withhold thy riots,
What wilt thou do, when riot is thy care?
O, thou wilt be a wilderness again,
Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants!"--SHAKSPERE.
Egbert was no sooner apprised of the death of Brihtric, than he
hastened out of France, to take possession of the throne of Wessex,
and never had a Saxon sovereign that had hitherto swayed the perilous
sceptre come armed with the experience of the new king. He had studied
in the stern school of Charlemagne, had narrowly scanned the policy
pursued by that great monarch, both in the council and in the camp, and
was well prepared to collect and reduce to order the stormy elements
which had so long been let loose over Britain; for, in addition to the
civil discords which shook the land, the Danes had already invaded
our island. Few kings had ever received a warmer welcome from their
subjects than that which awaited Egbert on his accession, for he was
the last descendant of the race of Cerdric. Kent, Essex, and East
Anglia, had already acknowledged the power of Mercia; Northumbria had
long been rent asunder by internal dissensions; and Sussex was by this
time united to Wessex. Having thus doubled its strength and enlarged
its territories, the kingdom over which Egbert reigned was, with the
exception of Mercia, the only independent state that stood unbroken
amid the ruins of the Octarchy.
Kenwulf sat firmly upon the throne, whose foundation Offa had so well
consolidated. Egbert watched him with an eagle eye, but though ever on
the alert, the Mercian king was too wary to become an aggressor; and
the Wessex sovereign knew too well the strength of his rival, to be
the first to commence an attack. Both kingdoms seemed overhung with
the same threatening sky, but no one could tell on which it would
first break, though all could foresee that, in spite of its remaining
so long stationary, the storm must at last burst forth. As the petty
states around them crumbled to pieces, were gathered up and built in
upon other foundations, so did each silently seek to possess himself
of the ruins and overtop the other, making an outward parade of their
strength; yet each tacitly acknowledging, by their forbearance,
how much they envied, yet respected, their neighbours' power. Like
two expert wrestlers, each retained his hold, without venturing to
overthrow his adversary. This state of things could not last long;
yet while Kenwulf lived, he kept the balance so equally poised, that,
with all his ambition, Egbert ventured not to touch the scale. The
king of Mercia died, and, from that moment, Wessex slowly gained the
ascendancy. Hitherto Egbert had contented himself by carrying his arms
into Cornwall and Devonshire, and waging war with the Britons. After
Kenwulf's death, he aimed at the sole sovereignty of Britain, and
circumstances soon favoured his long-meditated conquest. Had Egbert
died first, Kenwulf would have aspired to the same power.
The Mercian king left his son Kinelm, who was only seven years of age,
and heir to the throne, to the charge of his sisters. Windreda, the
eldest, was not long before she caused her brother to be put to death.
His tutor, Askebert, was the instrument chosen by this unnatural sister
to accomplish the deed. It is said that she promised to share with him
the sovereignty. Under the pretence of hunting, the unsuspicious prince
was led into a neighbouring wood, and there murdered. The spot in which
the body was interred was, after some time, discovered by a herdsman,
who went in search of one of his cows which had gone astray; a miracle
in the old monkish legends is appended to the discovery. The sceptre of
Mercia was wrested from the hands of Windreda by her uncle, Ceolwulf,
who, however, did not retain it long before he was driven from the
throne by Beornwulf, which revolution soon shook the kingdom of Mercia
to its very centre. Egbert still stood aloof; the time for action had
not yet arrived. He foresaw that the last usurper would not long remain
inactive; nor was he wrong. Beornwulf rushed headlong into a war with
Wessex. The battle took place at Wilton, which, in ancient times, was
called Ellan; and although the Mercians mustered together the largest
force upon the field, Egbert, after a sharp contest, won the victory.
Although the king of Wessex did not carry his victorious arms at once
into Mercia, he lost no time in annexing Kent to his dominions, thus
weakening at once his rival's power. To accomplish this, he despatched
his son Ethelwulf, the father of our Alfred the Great, with a strong
force into Kent, who drove the vassal king across the Thames. Egbert
next promised to support the East Anglians, if they would rise and
declare themselves independent of the Mercian king. He kept his word.
Beornwulf fell in the first battle. Ludecan succeeded him, and also
perished in the next contest. Wiglaf then took the command of the
Mercian forces, but before he had time to strengthen his army, and
make up for their previous defeats, Egbert was upon him, and the power
of Wessex was at last triumphant. Wiglaf fled into the monastery of
Croyland, and appears to have been so closely pursued, that he was
compelled to seek shelter in the very cell which the daughter of
Offa occupied--the sanctity of which the invaders respected: here he
remained four months. What a shock must the feelings of the fair nun
have undergone when the last defender of Mercia rushed into her little
apartment to save his life--from the very night when she fled from her
father's palace, pale and woe-begone, and horror-struck at the murder
of her intended husband--from that very night had the fortune of her
family begun to decline, and now she was all that remained of the once
powerful house of Offa. What changes had that Saxon princess witnessed,
what shifting scenes could she recal as she sat in the solitude of her
cell, contemplating the past as it rose before her!
By the intercession of Siward, Wiglaf was permitted to occupy the
throne of Mercia, on condition that he paid tribute to Egbert--the
abbot of Croyland attested the payment. Prior to this period, the
Northumbrians grew weary of being without a king, and Eanred now
sat upon the throne. During the reign of Kenwulf he had been bold
enough to invade Mercia. As Egbert had by this time subdued the whole
Octarchy, with the exception of Northumbria, he determined to carry his
victorious army into Deiri and Bernicia. Eanred well knew that it was
useless to measure arms with a monarch who had already compelled five
Saxon kingdoms to acknowledge his power, so he came forth submissively,
and, like the rest, became a tributary vassal to the king of Wessex.
Egbert next invaded Wales, and penetrated into the very heart of
Snowdon: victory still attended him. From the Tweed to the Land's End
of Cornwall, no one now arose to dispute his sovereign sway. No Saxon
king had ever before ruled over such a vast extent of territory, for
he was at last sole king of England, although he never assumed that
proud title; neither did any Saxon king after him ever rule over such a
length and breadth of land.
We have before stated that, during the reign of Offa, the Danes had
landed in England; they first arrived with three ships, approached
one of the royal cities, when the sheriff of the place, thinking they
were foreign merchants, rode up with a few attendants to inquire their
business. Their answers being unsatisfactory, he ordered them to be
driven away, when they fell upon him, and he, with all who accompanied
him, were slain. The Danes then plundered the town; but before they
escaped to their ships, Offa's soldiers attacked them. After this
defeat, they returned again, landed in Northumbria, ravaged the
country, sacked the abbey of Lindisfarne, slew several of the monks,
then retreated with an immense spoil to their ships. At several other
parts of the island they had also landed, before Egbert occupied the
throne of Wessex. In the year 832 they came again; Egbert had made
the whole kingdom of the Octarchy bow before the power of Wessex, and
doubtless had sat down, expecting to doze away the remainder of his
days peaceably upon his throne, when tidings came that a number of
these savage pagans had landed in the Isle of Sheppey, slaughtered
several of the inhabitants, and, laden with plunder, had again escaped
to sea without a single vessel pursuing them.
The next year, the Danes came with thirty-five ships, and were met
by Egbert at Charmouth, in Dorsetshire, and if the English were
not defeated in this engagement, they lost a considerable number
of men, amongst whom were two bishops and two ealdermen; while the
Danes sustained but little loss, and escaped, as before, with their
ships. So serious had the ravages of the sea-kings now become, that a
council was held in London, to devise the best means to prevent their
depredations. At this council Egbert presided, and, according to the
charter which Wiglaf granted to the abbey of Croyland, wherein direct
allusion is made to a promise given at the time, there were present,
"Egbert, and Athelwulf his son, and all the bishops and great ealdermen
of England, consulting together as to the best means of repelling the
constant incursions of the Danes on the English coast." These northern
invaders soon found ready allies amongst the remnant of the ancient
Cymry, who still inhabited a corner of Cornwall and the adjacent
neighbourhood, and were as ready as in the days of king Arthur, to
league themselves with any enemy who was bold enough to attack the
Saxons. But the martial spirit of the ancient Britons had all but died
out; the few embers that remained, when stirred, retained all their
former glow, then faded again in their old ashy grey, and sank into a
lesser compass at every touch; for the smouldering waste had slowly
gone on, year after year, and no new fuel having been added, the hidden
sparks huddled hopelessly together--Liberty had neglected to come,
as the bards had promised she would do: the altar and the spark were
still there, but the long-looked for sacrifice never came, which was to
light the whole island with its blaze. Still, the old Cymry were not
yet dead; they hailed the Danes as their deliverers, and thinly as they
were sprinkled over the surrounding country, they gladly mustered what
force they could, and joined the stormy sea-kings at Hengston Hill,
in Cornwall. Egbert met them with a well-appointed army, and defeated
their united forces with terrible slaughter.
The following year, Egbert died, after a reign of thirty-seven years,
and was succeeded by his son, Ethelwulf, the father of Alfred the
Great. The king of all the Saxons sank into his grave, with the fond
hope that the whole Octarchy had now become united like one family,
all acknowledging one sway; that the civil dissensions by which each
separate state had so long been torn asunder had for ever ceased; and
as the Danish invaders had not again appeared since their dreadful
defeat at Hengston Hill, he closed his dying eyes, and left his country
at peace. But scarcely was he within his grave, before the northern
hordes again poured into England, spreading greater consternation than
the Saxons had ever done amongst the Britons. The hour of retribution,
which the Cymry had so long looked for, was fast approaching, but few
of their ancient race lived to witness its fulfilment; for time, and
conquest, and slavery, and death, had left but few of those early
inhabitants behind, whose forefathers first landed upon our island,
and called it the Country of Sea Cliffs. But we have reached another
of those ancient landmarks, which stand wide apart along the shores of
History, the grey monuments which overlook that still sea of death,
where nameless millions have for ages been buried. From these we must
now turn away to gaze upon another race, more savage and uncivilized
than the preceding invaders ever were, when, nearly four centuries
before, they first rowed their long chiules over the same stormy seas,
and marvelled to find an island in the ocean, which contained walled
cities and stately temples, and tall columns, that might have vied with
classic Rome. To the Danes must we now turn--those children of the
creeks, who, under the guidance of their sea-kings, followed the road
of the swans, as they called the ocean, and hewed out a home with their
swords, wherever the winds or the waves wafted or drifted them.
=Invasion of the Danes.=