of the Danes at Wilton compelled Alfred to make peace. For a
time the Danes withdrew from Wessex, and employed their energy
in subjugating Mercia. Burhred, who had married Alfred’s sister,
was driven from the throne, and retired to Rome to die. A Danish
agent, named Ceolwulf, was put in his place, and the country laid
under heavy contribution. But Ceolwulf in his turn was displaced,
and the Danes took possession of much of the country themselves,
conquering among other places the five great towns, Lincoln,
Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, and Stamford, known as the five
Danish Burghs, or, with the addition of York and Chester, the seven
Burghs. They also carried their invasions northward, and Cumberland
and part of Strathclyde were overrun and peopled by them, under the
command of Halfdene. Nor was the treaty with the East Anglian Danes
permanent. Guthrum sailed round the coast and captured Wareham and
Exeter. To oppose them on their own element, Alfred introduced a
new form of ship, of greater size and length than had hitherto been
used, and succeeded in winning a great naval victory in Swanage
Bay. But the Danish forces were gradually closing round him. London
and Essex had been taken, and a colony of Danes had conquered South
Wales. At length, attacked in all directions, his kingdom of Wessex
was practically limited to the country of the Somersœtas; and,
unable to make head against his enemies, the King took refuge among
the impassable morasses of the river Parret. It is during this
time of his exile that the well-known story of the burnt cakes is
told. But while apparently completely beaten, Alfred succeeded in
gathering a new army, issued from his seclusion, and attacking the
Danes at Edington (878), near Westbury, completely defeated them.
The consequence of this battle was the Treaty of Wedmore. By this
treaty the kingdom of East Anglia was surrendered to the Danes, and
a line was drawn to separate their kingdom from that of Wessex.
This line from the Thames ran along the Lea to Bedford, then along
the Ouse till it struck Watling Street, and then followed Watling
Street to the Welsh Border. The greater part of Mercia was thus
restored to Wessex. In exchange, Anglia and Mercia beyond this
line were ceded to the Danes, who were to hold them as vassals of
the West Saxon king, and who were to become Christians. The limits
of their occupation are still to be traced by the occurrence of
the termination “by” in the names of the towns; it was in many
instances appended to the name of the Danish holder of the manor.
Guthrum, on his baptism, took the name of Æthelstan, and many
difficulties in the chronology of the legends of the time may
be solved by supposing that the Æthelstan mentioned in them is
Guthrum, and not the Æthelstan who reigned in the year 925. This
treaty, although it curtailed the supremacy of Wessex, made the
kingdom in fact stronger, and secured a temporary rest for the
whole of England. Mercia, that part of it at least which remained
English, was governed by its Alderman Æthelred, and by the King’s
daughter Æthelflæd, known as the Lady of the Mercians. On the death
of Gutred, the Danish King of Northumbria, Alfred re-established
his power there, and the peace and prosperity of England were
further increased by the fact that the energy of the Danes was for
the present chiefly directed against France and Belgium. Guthrum
died in 890, and though the treaty was confirmed by his successors,
the defeat of the Danes in Belgium threw fresh invaders into the
kingdom. In 893, Hasting, a well-known sea-rover, in alliance
with the Anglians and Northumbrians, committed fresh ravages in
all directions; but at last, having ventured up the Lea, Alfred
hit upon the expedient of draining the river, and leaving their
ships aground. After this they were glad to retreat, but lesser
expeditions were constantly vexing the coast. The reign of Alfred
is thus divided into two periods of Danish war, between which, and
at the close of his life, there occurred intervals of peace.
[Sidenote: Appreciation of Alfred’s character.]
It has been usual to attribute to Alfred most of the marked
peculiarities of English civilization, the formation of shires,
the establishment of juries, and so on. Such assertions will not
bear examination. As a lawgiver, he collected the laws of the
three principal states over which he ruled--Kent, Mercia, and
Wessex--which had been already recorded by the Kings Æthelberht,
Offa, and Ine. As a warrior he was on the whole victorious, and
understood the necessity of establishing a fleet, which he appears
to have constructed on a different principle from that of the
Danes, the ships being longer, and serving less as mere stages on
which to fight. As a governor he was impartial and strict; his
police was severe, the system of mutual responsibility became
universal, and under him the idea of morality began to mingle with
the idea of injury to the commonwealth, which had been the Saxon
notion of crime. His son Eadward, who succeeded him, was probably
as great as his father, but he had not the love of literature which
forms the marked characteristic of Alfred’s public life. It has
been questioned whether Alfred could himself read; however this
may have been, he was so conscious of the necessity of literature
for the people that he set himself to work to make translations
for them. “The History of the World on Christian Principles,” by
Orosius, Bede’s “History of the Anglo-Saxon Church,” and Boethius’
“Consolation of Philosophy,” were the works he translated.
Besides his own literary work, he established conventual schools
at Shaftesbury and Athelney, and probably a more general one at
Oxford. The love of the people, whom his indefatigable energy saved
from their barbarous and pagan invaders, has attributed to their
hero an original genius of which there are no distinct proofs.
What is really known of him is, that he was an able, honest,
persevering governor, gifted with that power and habit of method
and organization which is perhaps more useful in advancing early
civilization than greater and more splendid gifts. Upon Alfred’s
death, though England, as a whole, had suffered by the loss of the
country granted to the Danes, or, as it was called, the Danelagu,
Wessex had assumed a position of superiority, and was regarded
as the representative state of the English. This position it
fully vindicated during the reigns of Eadward, Alfred’s son, who
succeeded him, and of the four next kings, till the kingdom of
Wessex grew to be the kingdom of England, and exerted an imperial
supremacy over the whole island.
[Sidenote: Supremacy of Wessex.]
[Sidenote: Eadward the Elder. 901-925.]
Eadward’s first difficulty was with his cousin Æthelwulf, the
son of Alfred’s elder brother Æthelred. This prince claimed the
throne. He landed in England, was driven to Northumbria, where he
was chosen king, and then, in company with Eohric, the King of
East Anglia, marched up the Thames to Cricklade. He was however
defeated, and with his ally killed by a portion of the English
army near the Ouse. The consequence was the renewal of the
acknowledgment of the supremacy of Wessex by Guthrum II. of East
Anglia. In conjunction with his sister, the Lady of the Mercians,
Eadward attempted to secure himself from further molestation by the
erection of numerous stone castles. These castles, which seem to
have been built on a new and better plan than any before erected,
became also in many instances the origin from which towns sprang;
for laws were passed creating them into markets, and forbidding
bargains to be made without the walls. Some sort of monopoly
of trade was thus secured for fortified posts. On the death of
Æthelflæd, Mercia, both Anglian and Danish, submitted to Eadward’s
authority. He continued the active government of his sister, and
went on with her work of fortress-building. An invasion by the
Danes of Northumbria in conjunction with the Welsh, who hoped to
find Mercia unguarded, was signally defeated. The Welsh kings
swore alliance to Eadward, and the Danes of Northumbria, and even
the Kings of Scotland and Strathclyde, acknowledged him as their
“father and lord.” Eadward was thus in fact master of the whole of
England, and had completed more thoroughly the work of Ecgberht.
The greatness of his position is clearly marked by the marriages
of his children with the greatest Princes of the Continent. One
married Charles the Simple of France, a second Hugh the Great,
Count of Paris, a third Otto I., Emperor of Germany.
[Sidenote: Æthelstan. 925-940.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Brunanburh. 943.]
The greatness Eadward had thus secured descended to his son
Æthelstan, with whom the grandeur of the Saxon monarchy reached
its highest point. He married one of his sisters to a Northumbrian
prince, Cytric, receiving his allegiance for Benicia from the Tees
to Edinburgh, and, on the death of Cytric, incorporated the country
with his own dominions. Cytric’s two sons fled, the one to Ireland,
where the Danes received him willingly, the other (Guthrith) to
Constantine, King of Scotland. The consequence of the escape of
these princes became evident in after years. In 934, Constantine
and his heir Eorca, Owen or Eugenius, King of Cumberland, made
war upon England, but were defeated and compelled to acknowledge
the supremacy of Æthelstan. The attention of the English King
was subsequently drawn abroad, where he upheld the cause of his
nephew, Louis de Outre-Mer, son of Charles the Simple, against the
attacks of his brothers-in-law, the German Otto and Hugh of Paris.
It was while thus employed that the Scotch kingdoms again rose in
insurrection. A great conspiracy against Æthelstan appears to have
been formed, at the head of which were Anlath, son of that Guthrith
who had fled to Scotland, Constantine, Owen, and several princes
of the Danes from Ireland. Their object was the re-establishment
of the Danish power in Northumbria. The attempt was completely
thwarted by the great battle of Brunanburh, near Beverley, in
Yorkshire. Not long after this decisive victory Æthelstan died. His
splendid reign is further marked by legislation of a more original
description than that of his predecessors. He ordered, among other
things, that every man should have a lord who should be answerable
for him to justice, and rendered more systematic the arrangement
of mutual responsibility, which appears to have been one of the
principles of Saxon police.
[Sidenote: Eadmund. 940-946.]
[Sidenote: Eadred. 946-955.]
His younger brothers, Eadmund and Eadred, followed in his
footsteps, defeating the Northumbrian rebels, who from time to
time elected kings of their own, but were completely conquered by
Eadred. He so thoroughly incorporated the country with his own,
that its ruler could no longer claim the title of king. Both
Bernicia and Deira were bestowed as an earldom on Osulf, who had
assisted in the conquest of the rebels, and remained in the hands
of his family till the Norman Conquest. Eadmund also maintained
his supremacy over Scotland, with which country his relations were
of a very friendly nature, as he granted a part of the kingdom
of Strathclyde, consisting of Cumberland and Galloway, to King
Malcolm, to be held by military service.
[Sidenote: Rise of Dunstan.]
The policy of Eadred and of his successors seems so closely
connected with the rise of Dunstan, that it may be justly
attributed to him. The monkish historians, to whom we owe our
knowledge of this great man, have overlaid his history with
mythical stories, and have given him a character and policy to
suit their own purposes. In their eagerness to secure the name of
the greatest statesman of the age in support of their pretensions
against the secular clergy, they have drawn him as a youth of
miraculous gifts, of severe monkish asceticism, whose claim to
greatness consisted in the establishment of the Benedictine rule.
In the same way they have painted his opponent King Edwy [Eadwig]
in the blackest colours. The common story tells us that, after a
childhood passed in learning, so deep as to excite a suspicion
of magic, illness drove Dunstan to the cloister at Glastonbury;
that he there established the Benedictine rule, entering with
such vehemence into its spirit that his asceticism almost turned
his brain. On the accession of Edwy, the young king, it is said,
deserted the assembly of the nobles, to pass his time in the
company of the beautiful Ælfgyfu [Elgiva], his mistress. Dunstan
is represented as violently dragging the unworthy king back to
his proper place, as securing the banishment of Ælfgyfu, and with
his partisans cruelly putting her to death upon her return. Edwy
is then described as raging fiercely against all the monks in his
kingdom. In truth, it is in politics rather than in ecclesiastical
discipline that Dunstan’s greatness must be sought, and he must
take his place in history rather as a conciliatory and patriotic
governor than as an ascetic and violent churchman.
Born at the beginning of King Æthelstan’s reign, and trained
partly at Glastonbury, where he found and studied books left by
wandering Irish scholars, and partly at the King’s Court like
other young nobles of the time, an illness induced him to devote
himself to the Church. His interest secured him the Abbey of
Glastonbury at the early age of seventeen. He shortly returned
to the Court, became the King’s treasurer, and as an influential
minister joined himself to the party which he found pre-eminent
during the reign of Eadred. That king was a constant invalid, the
influence of the Queen Mother was paramount, and she was supported
by the chiefs of East Anglia and those whose views were national
rather than provincial. The kingdom of Northumbria was in a state
of ceaseless confusion. Again and again the Danes and Ostmen
raised insurrections there. Wulstan, the Archbishop of York, with
constantly shifting policy, at one time supported the insurgents,
at another persuaded the Northern Witan to submit to Eadred. At
length, in a final insurrection, he was overcome and imprisoned.
The affairs in Northumbria had to be settled. It is here that the
national policy of the dominant party made itself felt. Contrary
to the views of the Wessex nobles, who would have wished for
active interference of the government, the kingdom was reduced to
the condition of an earldom under Osulf. But English supremacy
being thus established, Wulstan was released, and self-government
both in Church and State permitted. This conciliatory policy was
interrupted by the death of Eadred.
[Sidenote: Edwy. 955-957.]
[Sidenote: Eadgar. 957-975.]
The new King Edwy, nephew of Eadred, was a mere child, and a
palace intrigue, headed by Æthelgyfu and her daughter Ælfgyfu,
who had obtained influence over the lad, drove the Queen Mother
Eadgyfu from the Court, and established the power of the Wessex
party. Unpopular among the Wessex nobles and in his own monastery,
Dunstan was driven abroad, and took refuge in Ghent. But his party
was still strong in England. Indignant probably at a violent
resumption of grants from the Folkland, the nobles of England,
with the exception of Wessex, set up Edwy’s younger brother Eadgar
as a rival king, and were sufficiently powerful to oblige Edwy to
divide the kingdom and content himself with the territories of
Wessex south of the Thames. Dunstan was recalled by his partisans.
He received from King Eadgar the sees of Rochester and of London;
and when, on the death of Edwy, Eadgar succeeded to the undivided
sovereignty of the kingdom, Dunstan rose with him, and became his
chief minister and Archbishop of Canterbury.
[Sidenote: Dunstan’s government.]
[Sidenote: Division of Northumbria.]
As minister, Dunstan had both Church and State to reform. In
both, decay had made great progress. The increased importance
of the English King had raised him to a position very different
from that of the tribal monarch. Along with the King had risen
his dependants, the old members of the Comitatus. His Thegns or
servants, rendered rich by grants of the public land, had gradually
succeeded the old nobility by birth, of the German races. The
troubled situation of the country had driven the freeholders more
and more to seek safety by placing themselves and their land in a
state of dependence on the Thegns. Even as early as Alfred every
man was obliged to have a lord. At the same time the spirit of
provincialism was strong, each district which had been a separate
kingdom wishing to maintain its own independence. Dunstan seems
to have understood that a change in the character of the monarchy
was inevitable, and that national unity could only be secured by
upholding that change, placing the monarch in what may be regarded
as an imperial position over the subject kingdoms, and allowing
the separate districts as much self-government as possible. Within
the kingdom of Wessex itself, and perhaps of Mercia also, he
established a strict police, and suppressed disorder with a strong
hand. Beyond that, the largest freedom was permitted. Thus, the
subordination of Northumbria was further secured by its division
into three parts. The district between the Tees and the Humber was
intrusted to Oslac. From the Tees to the Tweed remained in the
hands of Osulf, while the Lothians between the Tweed and the Forth
were given out on military service to the King of Scotland; and in
subsequent history it was this district, peopled with English and
Danes, which formed the civilized centre of the Scottish kingdom.
But, when the supremacy of Wessex was thus secured, the Danes of
the North were allowed to keep their own customs and make their
own laws. Similarly, friendship with the Northmen of Ireland was
maintained, and through their friendship the King was enabled
to keep up a powerful fleet, which constantly sailed round the
coasts, and kept them free from foreign invasion. The tradition
that Eadgar was rowed upon the Dee to Chester by eight tributary
kings, whether the fact be true or not, points to the imperial
position which Dunstan had secured for him. In the Church the same
policy was pursued. The great disturbances of the kingdom had
thrown much power into the hands of the Church, the most permanent
element of society. This increase of influence had been followed
by an increase of secularity. The bishops became statesmen, and
even commanders of armies. The older form of monasticism died out.
Marriage of priests was constant. Livings began to be handed on
from father to son. There was some chance of the establishment
of an hereditary priestly caste. In Ghent, Dunstan had become
acquainted with the Benedictine rule lately established there.
He saw its efficiency for securing discipline among the clergy.
Like other strong rulers, he regarded anarchy with aversion,
and was therefore anxious to introduce the rule into England. He
intrusted the work to his friend Æthelwold, whom he made Bishop of
Winchester, and to Oswald, whom he raised to the See of Worcester.
In Wessex and Mercia he carried out his reform with vigour, even
with violence: but, as in his secular government, he kept himself
under the restraints of prudence. Thus, when Oswald was appointed
Archbishop of York, he made no efforts to restrain the marriage of
the clergy, and in Dunstan’s own See he yielded to the prejudices
of the people, and allowed the abbeys to continue in the hands
of secular clerks. The title of Eadgar the Peaceful, and a reign
of seventeen years unbroken by any great foreign war, attest the
success of Dunstan’s policy.
[Sidenote: Eadward the Martyr 975-979.]
[Sidenote: Fall of Dunstan.]
But with Eadgar’s death, and the accession of his son Eadward,
this prosperous state of things ended. For a time Dunstan held his
own, but not without strong opposition. Again and again he had
to plead his cause before the Witan. And at one synod, at Calne,
it was intended to bring the matter to a crisis. Beornhelm, a
Bishop of the Scottish Church, was brought forward as a champion
by his enemies. His eloquence was carrying the assembly with him,
and Dunstan could only appeal to heaven for assistance. Nor was
that assistance denied; by accident or design, the floor of the
upper chamber where the meeting was held gave way in that part
where Beornhelm and his friends were seated, and they were hurried
to swift destruction, while Dunstan’s triumphant party remained
uninjured on the floor above. But even miraculous interferences did
not suppress the enemies of the Prelate. A conspiracy, in which
Ælfthryth [Elfrida], the mother of Ethelred, seems to have been
chiefly engaged, was formed; and Eadward, returning from the chase,
was killed at her castle at Corfe.
[Sidenote: Æthelred the Unready. 979-1016.]
[Sidenote: Third Period of Danish invasion.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Maldon. 991.]
[Sidenote: The first Danegelt. 994.]
[Sidenote: Æthelred’s marriage with Emma.]
[Sidenote: Massacre of St. Brice. 1002.]
[Sidenote: Pernicious influence of Eadric Streona.]