THE VICTORY OVER THE DANES.
Encouraged by his dream, and animated by the number and the elation
of his followers, Alfred led his army onward toward the part of the
country where the camp of the enemy lay. He intended to surprise them;
and, although Guthrum had heard vague rumors that some great Saxon
movement was in train, he viewed the sudden appearance of this large
and well-organized army with amazement.
He had possession of the hill near Edendune, which has been already
described. He had established his head-quarters here, and made his
strongest fortifications on the summit of the eminence. The main body
of his forces were, however, encamped upon the plain, over which they
extended, in vast numbers, far and wide. Alfred halted his men to
change the order of march into the order of battle. Here he made an
address to his men. As no time was to be lost, he spoke but a few
words. He reminded them that they were to contend, that day, to rescue
themselves and their country from the intolerable oppression of a
horde of pagan idolaters; that God was on their side, and had promised
them the victory; and he urged them to act like men, so as to deserve
the success and happiness which was in store for them.
The army then advanced to the attack, the Danes having been drawn out
hastily, but with as much order as the suddenness of the call would
allow, to meet them. When near enough for their arrows to take effect,
the long line of Alfred's troops discharged their arrows. They then
advanced to the attack with lances; but soon these and all other
weapons which kept the combatants at a distance were thrown aside, and
it became a terrible conflict with swords, man to man.
It was not long before the Danes began to yield. They were not
sustained by the strong assurance of victory, nor by the desperate
determination which animated the Saxons. The flight soon became
general. They could not gain the fortification on the hill, for Alfred
had forced his way in between the encampment on the plains and the
approaches to the hill. The Danes, consequently, not being able to
find refuge in either part of the position they had taken, fled
altogether from the field, pursued by Alfred's victorious columns as
fast as they could follow.
Guthrum succeeded, by great and vigorous exertions, in rallying his
men, or, at least, in so far collecting and concentrating the separate
bodies of the fugitives as to change the flight into a retreat, having
some semblance of military order. Vast numbers had been left dead upon
the field. Others had been taken prisoners. Others still had become
hopelessly dispersed, having fled from the field of battle in diverse
directions, and wandered so far, in their terror, that they had not
been able to rejoin their leader in his retreat. Then, great numbers
of those who pressed on under Guthrum's command, exhausted by fatigue,
or spent and fainting from their wounds, sank down by the way-side to
die, while their comrades, intent only upon their own safety, pressed
incessantly on. The retreating army was thus, in a short time, reduced
to a small fraction of its original force. This remaining body, with
Guthrum at their head, continued their retreat until they reached
a castle which promised them protection. They poured in over the
drawbridges and through the gates of this fortress in extreme
confusion; and feeling suddenly, and for the moment, entirely relieved
at their escape from the imminence of the immediate danger, they shut
themselves in.
The finding of such a retreat would have been great good fortune for
these wretched fugitives if there had been any large force in the
country to come soon to their deliverance; but, as they were without
provisions and without water, they soon began to perceive that, unless
they obtained some speedy help from without, they had only escaped the
Saxon lances and swords to die a ten times more bitter death of thirst
and famine; and there was no force to relieve them. The army which had
been thus defeated was the great central force of the Danes upon
the island. The other detachments and independent bands which were
scattered about the land were thunderstruck at the news of this
terrible defeat. The Saxons, too, were every where aroused to the
highest pitch of enthusiasm at the reappearance of their king and
the tidings of his victory. The whole country was in arms. Guthrum,
however, shut up in his castle, and closely invested with Alfred's
forces, had no means of knowing what was passing without. His numbers
were so small in comparison with those besieging him that it would
have been madness for him to have attempted a sally; and he would not
surrender. He waited day after day, hoping against hope that some
succor would come. His half-famished sentinels gazed from the
watch-towers of the castle all around, looking for some cloud of
distant dust, or weapon glancing in the sun, which might denote the
approach of friends coming to their rescue. This lasted fourteen days.
At the end of that time, the number within this wretched prison who
were raving in the delirium of famine and thirst, or dying in agony,
became too great for Guthrum to persist any longer. He surrendered.
Alfred was once more in possession of his kingdom.
During the fourteen days that elapsed between the victory on the field
of battle and the final surrender of Guthrum, Alfred, feeling that
the power was now in his hands, had had ample time to reflect on the
course which he should pursue with his subjugated enemies; and the
result to which he came, and the measure which he adopted, evince,
as much as any act of his life, the greatness, and originality, and
nobleness of his character. Here were two distinct and independent
races on the same island, that had been engaged for many years in a
most fierce and sanguinary struggle, each gaining at times a
temporary and partial victory, but neither able entirely to subdue or
exterminate the other. The Danes, it is true, might be considered as
the aggressors in this contest, and, as such, wholly in the wrong; but
then, on the other hand, it was to be remembered that the ancestors of
the Saxons had been guilty of precisely the same aggressions upon the
Britons, who held the island before them; so that the Danes were,
after all, only intruding upon intruders. It was, besides, the general
maxim of the age, that the territories of the world were prizes open
for competition, and that the right to possess and to govern vested
naturally and justly in those who could show themselves the strongest.
Then, moreover, the Danes had been now for many years in Britain. Vast
numbers had quietly settled on agricultural lands. They had become
peaceful inhabitants. They had established, in many cases, friendly
relations with the Saxons. They had intermarried with them; and the
two races, instead of appearing, as at first, simply as two hostile
armies of combatants contending on the field, had been, for some
years, acquiring the character of a mixed population, established and
settled, though heterogeneous, and, in some sense, antagonistic still.
To root out all these people, intruders though they were, and send
them back again across the German Ocean, to regions where they no
longer had friends or home, would have been a desperate--in fact, an
impossible undertaking.
Alfred saw all these things. He took, in fact, a general, and
comprehensive, and impartial view of the whole subject, instead of
regarding it, as most conquerors in his situation would have done, in
a _partisan_, that is, an exclusively _Saxon_ point of view. He
saw how impossible it was to undo what had been done, and wisely
determined to take things as they were, and make the best of the
present situation of affairs, leaving the past, and aiming only at
accomplishing the best that was now attainable for the future. It
would be well if all men who are engaged in quarrels which they vainly
endeavor to settle by discussing and disputing about what is past and
gone, and can now never be recalled, would follow his example. In
all such cases we should say, let the past be forgotten, and, taking
things as they now are, let us see what we can do to secure peace and
happiness in future.
The policy which Alfred determined to adopt was, not to attempt the
utter extirpation of the Danes from England, but only to expel the
_armed forces_ from his own dominions, allowing those peaceably
disposed to remain in quiet possession of such lands in other parts of
the island as they already occupied. Instead, therefore, of treating
Guthrum with harshness and severity as a captive enemy, he told him
that he was willing not only to give him his liberty, but to regard
him, on certain conditions, as a friend and an ally, and allow him
to reign as a king over that part of England which his countrymen
possessed, and which was beyond Alfred's own frontiers. These
conditions were, that Guthrum was to go away with all his forces and
followers out of Alfred's kingdom, under solemn oaths never to return;
that he was to confine himself thenceforth to the southeastern part
of England, a territory from which the Saxon government had long
disappeared; that he was to give hostages for the faithful fulfillment
of these stipulations, without, however, receiving on his part
any hostages from Alfred. There was one other stipulation, more
extraordinary than all the rest, viz., that Guthrum should become a
convert to Christianity, and publicly avow his adhesion to the Saxon
faith by being baptized in the presence of the leaders of both armies,
in the most open and solemn manner. In this proposed baptism, Alfred
himself would stand his godfather.
This idea of winning over a pagan soldier to the Christian Church as
the price of his ransom from famine and death in the castle to which
his direst enemy had driven him--this enemy himself, the instrument
thus of so rude a mode of conversion, to be the sponsor of the new
communicant's religious profession--was one in keeping, it is true,
with the spirit of the times, but still it is one which, under the
circumstances of this case, only a mind of great originality and power
would have conceived of or attempted to carry into effect. Guthrum
might well be astonished at this unexpected turn in his affairs. A
few days before, he saw himself on the brink of utter and absolute
destruction. Shut up with his famished soldiers in a gloomy castle,
with the enemy, bitter and implacable, as he supposed, thundering at
the gates, the only alternatives before him seemed to be to die of
starvation and phrensy within the walls which covered him, or by a
cruel military execution in the event of surrender. He surrendered at
last, as it would seem, only because the utmost that human cruelty
can inflict is more tolerable than the horrid agonies of thirst and
hunger.
We can not but hope that Alfred was led, in some degree, by a generous
principle of Christian forgiveness in proposing the terms which he did
to his fallen enemy, and also that Guthrum, in accepting them,
was influenced, in part at least, by emotions of gratitude and by
admiration of the high example of Christian virtue which Alfred thus
exhibited. At any rate, he did accept them. The army of the Danes were
liberated from their confinement, and commenced their march to the
eastward; Guthrum himself, attended by thirty of his chiefs and many
other followers, became Alfred's guest for some weeks, until the most
pressing measures for the organization of Alfred's government could be
attended to, and the necessary preparations for the baptism could
be made. At length, some weeks after the surrender, the parties all
repaired together, now firm friends and allies, to a place near
Ethelney, where the ceremony of baptism was to be performed.
The admission of this pagan chieftain into the Christian Church did
not probably mark any real change in his opinions on the question of
paganism and Christianity, but it was not the less important in its
consequences on that account. The moral effect of it upon the minds
of his followers was of great value. It opened the way for their
reception of the Christian faith, if any of them should be disposed to
receive it. Then it changed wholly the feeling which prevailed among
the Saxon soldiery, and also the Saxon chieftains, in respect to these
enemies. A great deal of the bitterness of exasperation with which
they had regarded them arose from the fact that they were pagans,
the haters and despisers of the rites and institutions of religion.
Guthrum's approaching baptism was to change all this; and Alfred, in
leading him to the baptismal font, was achieving, in the estimation
not only of all England, but of France and of Rome, a far greater
and nobler victory than when he conquered his armies on the field of
Edendune.
The various ceremonies connected with the baptism were protracted
through several days. They were commenced at a place called Aulre,
near Ethelney, where there was a religious establishment and priests
to perform the necessary rites. The new convert was clothed in white
garments--the symbol of purity, then customarily worn by candidates
for baptism--and was covered with a mystic veil. They gave Guthrum
a new name--a Christian, that is, a Saxon name. Converted pagans
received always a new name, in those days, when baptized; and our
common phrase, _the Christian name_, has arisen from the circumstance.
Guthrum's Christian name was Ethelstan. Alfred was his godfather.
After the baptism the whole party proceeded to a town a few miles
distant, which Alfred had decided to make a royal residence, and there
other ceremonies connected with the new convert's admission to the
Church were performed, the whole ending with a series of great public
festivities and rejoicings.
A very full and formal treaty of peace and amity was now concluded
between the two sovereigns; for Guthrum was styled in the treaty a
_king_, and was to hold, in the dominions assigned him to the eastward
of Alfred's realm, an independent jurisdiction. He agreed, however, by
this treaty, to confine himself, from that time forward, to the limits
thus assigned. If the reader wishes to see what part of England it was
which Guthrum was thus to hold, he can easily identify it by finding
upon the map the following counties, which now occupy the same
territory, viz., Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex, and part of
Herefordshire. The population of all this region consisted already, in
a great measure, of Danes. It was the part most easily accessible from
the German Ocean, by means of the Thames and the Medway, and it had,
accordingly, become the chief seat of the Northmen's power.
Guthrum not only agreed to confine himself to the limits thus marked
out, but also to consider himself henceforth as Alfred's friend and
ally in the event of any new bands of adventurers arriving on the
coast, and to join Alfred in his endeavors to resist them. In hoping
that he would fulfill this obligation, Alfred did not rely altogether
on Guthrum's oaths or promises, or even on the hostages that he held.
He had made it for his _interest_ to fulfill them. By giving him
peaceable possession of this territory, after having, by his
victories, impressed him with a very high idea of his own great
military resources and power, he had placed his conquered enemy under
very strong inducements to be satisfied with what he now possessed,
and to make common cause with Alfred in resisting the encroachments of
any new marauders.
Guthrum was therefore honestly resolved on keeping his faith with his
new ally; and when all these stipulations were made, and the treaties
were signed, and the ceremonies of the baptism all performed, Alfred
dismissed his guest, with many presents and high honors.
There is some uncertainty whether Alfred did not, in addition to the
other stipulations under which he bound Guthrum, reserve to himself
the superior sovereignty over Guthrum's dominions, in such a manner
that Guthrum, though complimented in the treaty with the title of
king, was, after all, only a sort of viceroy, holding his throne under
Alfred as his liege lord. One thing is certain, that Alfred took care,
in his treaty with Guthrum, to settle all the fundamental laws of both
kingdoms, making them the same for both, as if he foresaw the complete
and entire union which was ultimately to take place, and wished to
facilitate the accomplishment of this end by having the political and
social constitution of the two states brought at once into harmony
with each other.
It proved, in the end, that Guthrum was faithful to his obligations
and promises. He settled himself quietly in the dominions which the
treaty assigned to him, and made no more attempts to encroach upon
Alfred's realm. Whenever other parties of Danes came upon the coast,
as they sometimes did, they found no favor or countenance from him.
They came, in some cases, expecting his co-operation and aid; but he
always refused it, and by this discouragement, as well as by open
resistance, he drove many bands away, turning the tide of invasion
southward into France, and other regions on the Continent. Alfred, in
the mean time, gave his whole time and attention to organizing the
various departments of his government, to planning and building towns,
repairing and fortifying castles, opening roads, establishing courts
of justice, and arranging and setting in operation the complicated
machinery necessary in the working of a well-conducted social state.
The nature and operation of some of his plans will be described more
fully in the next chapter.
In concluding this chapter, we will add, that notwithstanding his
victory over Guthrum, and Guthrum's subsequent good faith, Alfred
never enjoyed an absolute peace, but during the whole remainder of his
reign was more or less molested with parties of Northmen, who came,
from time to time, to land on English shores, and who met sometimes
with partial and temporary success in their depredations. The most
serious of these attempts occurred near the close of Alfred's life,
and will be hereafter described.
* * * * *
The generosity and the nobleness of mind which Alfred manifested in
his treatment of Guthrum made a great impression upon mankind at the
time, and have done a great deal to elevate the character of our hero
in every subsequent age. All admire such generosity in others, however
slow they may be to practice it themselves. It seems a very easy
virtue when we look upon an exhibition of it like this, where we
feel no special resentments ourselves against the person thus nobly
forgiven. We find it, however, a very hard virtue to practice, when a
case occurs requiring the exercise of it toward a person who has done
_us_ an injury. Let those who think that in Alfred's situation they
should have acted as he did, look around upon the circle of their
acquaintance, and see whether it is easy for them to pursue a similar
course toward their personal enemies--those who have thwarted and
circumvented them in their plans, or slandered them, or treated them
with insult and injury. By observing how hard it is to change our
own resentments to feelings of forgiveness and good will, we can the
better appreciate Alfred's treatment of Guthrum.
Alfred was famed during all his life for the kindness of his heart,
and a thousand stories were told in his day of his interpositions
to right the wronged, to relieve the distressed, to comfort the
afflicted, and to befriend the unhappy. On one occasion, as it is
said, when he was hunting in a wood, he heard the piteous cries of a
child, which seemed to come from the air above his head. It was found,
after much looking and listening, that the sounds proceeded from an
eagle's nest upon the top of a lofty tree. On climbing to the nest,
they found the child within, screaming with pain and terror. The eagle
had carried it there in its talons for a prey. Alfred brought down
the boy, and, after making fruitless inquiries to find its father and
mother, adopted him for his own son, gave him a good education, and
provided for him well in his future life. The story was all, very
probably, a fabrication; but the characters of men are sometimes
very strikingly indicated by the kind of stories that are _invented_
concerning them.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ALFRED.]