THE HISTORY COMETH TO AN END
And so Feargus and his Picts helped Edwy to clear the land of Lindesey
and they sent word out to all the thanes around that Edwy was king of
the lands of his fathers, and if any would not call him king there would
be war with him and all the Picts with him upon his side. And so after
awhile Feargus returned, leaving Alastair to be king Edwy’s captain until
all the land was brought under him. And they won Alban, and on the third
day of their return was a great feast spread, and all the chiefs of that
country were guests and many kings and princes, with Llewellin of Gwynedd
and one MacGilliosa, a stout stranger from Galloway, and many Picts and
Britons from Lothian, who had helped Feargus in times past, as this
history showeth, for the beautiful and noble Torfrida, whose fame was in
men’s mouths as a heroine for all time, was wed to Feargus of Albainn,
son to king Nechtan of the Hundred Battles.
ENGLAND IN PENDA’S DAY
Of the Britain of which the foregoing story treats we know but little,
and the strong Anglo-Saxon bias of many otherwise excellent writers has
obscured what few facts we really possess of the stormy times of the
great and faithful patriot king Penda. It may be the case that the Saxons
had a reputation for cruelty, as the late Mr. Freeman points out, but we
can have no true picture of the England of those times if we imagine that
our English or Saxon ancestors were ever numerous or barbarous enough to
exterminate, as historians would have us believe they did, the native
Welsh or British, except in rare instances. The foregoing story makes it
clear that the “English,” though a strong and well-organised handful of
soldiers, were but a large handful after all, just as the Roman settlers,
and Normans of later times, were but a handful compared to the whole
population. Historians have based their beliefs in the Teutonic origin of
the “English” people of to-day largely on language, on the fact that the
surnames of the majority of the people are English and that the language
they speak to-day is chiefly of English origin. We know now that a
language is not necessarily an index to the race of the people, but that
it is often acquired by contact with another race who spoke it and who
may or may not have been its original owners.
The story shows that the country was at that time covered with vast woods
and forests, with fens and marshes to the east, and with wide stretches
of mountain and waste on the north-west. In all these tracts, as well
as in the strong cities of Roman-British origin, the natives were able
to hold their own, or to make terms with their Anglo-Saxon conquerors.
It was only very slowly that those who served the conquerors as slaves
or villeins adopted English names, as documentary evidence shows, even
in the east of England, which has been assumed rather rashly to be the
most Teutonic part of the island. The bands of outlaws, who were so
noted even as late as the time of Edward III. in the Forest of Arden in
Warwickshire, in Charnwood Forest, in Waltham Forest, and in the Fens of
Bedford, Lincoln, and the East generally, were probably British refugees
or their descendants.
The story of Feargus it is hoped will help the reader to understand the
close kinship of both English and Scots with the “Welsh.” It is certainly
time that we realised the fact that those Britons whom “Anglo-Saxon”
writers have despised were really at that time a civilised and Christian
race who had moreover been in contact with the highest culture the world
possessed for a period of no less than five hundred years. We must
ultimately realise that it is to them and to the admixture of Roman blood
amongst them, rather than to the savage fighting men by whom they were
conquered, or to the still more ruthless Norsemen who came later, that
we owe the great beginnings of the civilisation of which we make so much
to-day.
England in Penda’s time was broken up into at least twenty small kingdoms
which were more or less independent; he made Mercia a great power by his
statesman-like alliances with the smaller kingdoms and with the natives,
both British and Picts, Christian and heathen. These states included the
North English of the Osbert of our story; the Middle English, the South
English, the Hwiccas, and the Gainas and Lindeseymen of Sigmund, whose
names still survive in Gainsborough and in the district of Lindsey
in Lincolnshire. To the east were the East Anglians, to the south the
kingdom of Wessex. To the west of Mercia dwelt the tribes of South
Wales, while the territory of the great Christian race of the Gwynedd
included North Wales and stretched up into the region of Strathclyde,
which, roughly speaking, was composed of Westmorland, Cumberland, and the
central and, excepting Galloway, the western part of Southern Scotland as
far as the river Forth and the great Romano-British city of Camelon on
the Roman wall near Falkirk.
The northern Cymry or Gwynedd had, however, been separated from their
kinsmen to the south owing to the important capture of Chester and the
Wirral Peninsula by Ethelfrith, king of Northumbria in 607. It is to
them we owe one of the most beautiful and refined cycles of folk tales
in Europe—the legends of Arthur and the far earlier mythological stories
translated by Lady Charlotte Guest in the _Mabinogion_, of which they
were a development and somewhat of a medley. In every respect, save
possession of the ruthlessness and strength which characterise savage
races, the Gwynedd were in advance of their conquerors whose very
heathenism was of a comparatively low type.
When Penda began his reign the dominant power was Northumbria, but the
overthrow of its great king Edwin by Penda and Cadwalla, king of the
Gwynedd, brought Mercia to the first place.
The list of Penda’s subsequent victories is a long one and more brilliant
than that of any general of his times, not excepting the Welsh hero
Cadwalla. On his overthrow after thirty years of victory Mercia for a few
months passed under the rule of Northumbria, but was restored to Penda’s
son Wulfere by the act of the Mercians themselves. His older son, Peada,
had married Oswy’s daughter and already adopted Christianity. Under him
and his brother Wulfere Mercia became Christian, though this probably
only meant that the king and court were “converted” and the people were
expected to follow. The men who were really in earnest in the spread
either of Christianity or Heathenism, like Edwin, Penda, Oswald, Oswy,
and Peada, were few. They, and Penda, the great ruler and organiser,
stood out from among their fellows as giants amongst pigmies and gave
their mental and moral backbone to the English people. So solid indeed
were the foundations which Penda had laid in Mercia that for nearly two
centuries after she maintained her place as practically the first power
in Britain.
Penda “the Strenuous,” being a heathen, has received scant justice at the
hands of Christian writers, but even they have reluctantly admitted his
possession of that chief mark of civilisation—tolerance. His character
has also puzzled modern historians, but puzzled them needlessly I think,
for the few facts we have give the key to the position. It is clear that
the advanced and Christian British would not have joined hands with
him had he shown any inclination to force his heathenism upon them. In
the same way had he intended to conquer them, which was the averred
purpose of Christian Northumbria, they would not have chosen him their
political ally, nor would the small midland states around him. What then
seems to have attracted them alike was his unaggressive spirit towards
the unaggressive—the British and the small states—and the tremendous
antagonism he showed to any attempt at aggression on the part of the
larger kingdoms—Northumbria, East Anglia, and Wessex. Though the small
kingdoms are massed together by historians under the general title of
“Mercia” they appear under Penda’s guidance to have really retained
their integrity and their kings and ealdormen and to have formed a
defensive federation rather than a single state. This may have been the
secret of Penda’s power and of Mercia’s greatness.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The land of the North English lay between the Trent and the Don
including the present Nottinghamshire.
[2] Weeping.
[3] The flood of light which fell from the sun when hurled through the
heavens every morning by Luga or Lugh the Gaelic sun god.
[4] Gentlemen.
[5] _Clead mhor_—great sword.
[6] A breastplate.
[7] The Welsh of the kingdoms of Elmet and Loidis conquered by the
Northumbrians.
[8] The hills in Glencorse now known as East and West Kip.