thus disposed of, his brother, Æthelred the Unready, ascended the
throne. Dunstan, compelled to assist at the coronation, did so
only to denounce curses on the new king He had to withdraw from
Court. His policy was at an end. Mercia and the North fell away
from Wessex. The King’s own character, at once weak and cruel, was
not such as to inspire confidence; and we accordingly enter upon
a period of almost inexplicable treasons, weakness, and disorder.
The Danes reappear on the coast, and what has been spoken of as
the third period of Danish invasion begins. The fleets were no
longer merely piratical expeditions, but were commanded by kings
of whole countries, and towards the end of the period the object
was no longer plunder, or even settlement, but national conquest.
The change was closely connected with the gradual consolidation
of the three Northern kingdoms of Europe--Norway, Sweden, and
Denmark, in each of which, as in England, one sovereign had now
become paramount. The chief personage in these invasions is Swegen
or Swend, son of the King of Denmark. In the year 982 he made
his appearance on the English coasts, and Southampton, Chester,
and London were either taken or destroyed. The kingdom was in no
condition to offer a firm resistance. Internal dissensions had
already begun. The King was at enmity with the whole of Dunstan’s
party. We hear of a fierce quarrel with the Bishop of Rochester.
The allegiance of Mercia and Northumbria was more than doubtful.
East Anglia, where resistance to a kindred people might have been
least expected, alone succeeded in checking the Danes. There, under
Brihtnoth, the great battle of Maldon was fought, which forms the
subject of one of the greatest of the Anglo-Saxon poems. Such
single instances of resistance were of no real avail. Sigeric of
Canterbury, who had succeeded to Dunstan’s position and policy,
and was therefore by no means unfriendly to the Danes as the
opponents of Wessex, induced the King to entertain a fatal plan
of buying off the invaders. With the consent of his Witan, he
raised £10,000, with which he bribed the Danish hosts. This was
the origin of the tax known as Danegelt, which became permanent,
and lasted till the reign of Henry II. The effect of such a bribe
was naturally only to excite the Northern robbers to further
efforts. Accordingly, in 994, Swegen and Olaf of Norway made their
appearance, and England was assaulted by the national fleets of
Denmark and Norway. Divided by faction, undermined by treason,
and without a leader, the English knew no expedient but the
repetition of bribes. Olaf, as a Christian, was indeed induced to
return to his own country, but Swegen’s invasions were continuous.
Supported by the disloyal chiefs of the North, he ravaged in turn
Dorsetshire, Hampshire, Sussex, and Kent. And when, in the year
1000, a temporary lull occurred, Æthelred, with a madness which
seems almost inconceivable, insisted on quarrelling, first with the
King of Cumberland, who is said to have refused the disgraceful
tribute demanded of him, though willing to serve with his forces
against the Danes, and afterwards with the Normans in France.
An expedition undertaken against this people with ridiculous
ostentation was easily defeated. A peace was made, and hostility
changed into alliance, cemented by the marriage of the King with
Emma, a Norman Princess. In her train came certain followers, who
obtained high office and military commands, and added a fresh
element of weakness to already weakened England. But though
contemptible in the field, with the craft and cruelty of a weak
mind Æthelred planned the massacre of all the Danes in Wessex. Many
of these were settled quietly in different parts of the country,
or billeted and living on friendly terms with their landlords.
On the 13th of November 1002, on the festival of St. Brice, the
cruel plan was carried out. Among other victims was a sister of
Swegen’s who had become a Christian; she was put to death with
circumstances of unusual barbarity, it is said, at the instigation
of Eadric _Streona_, or _the Gainer_. This man henceforward plays
a prominent part in the history. Though of low birth, he had
contrived to make himself the favourite of the King, whose daughter
he subsequently married. Selfish, unscrupulous, and treacherous,
his influence as the King’s adviser was most pernicious; while, if
it suited his own ends, he never hesitated to betray his master.
So completely is he identified with the disasters of England, that
there is scarcely any criminal act of the reign that is not traced
to him. But his repeated treasons do not seem to have destroyed
the trust which Æthelred and his nobler son Edmund placed in him.
After the massacre of St. Brice the Danes naturally sought revenge.
Exeter was taken by the treachery of Hugh the Frenchman, one of
Emma’s followers. Wiltshire and Salisbury were deserted by the
traitor Ælfric. Again East Anglia, under Ulfcytel the Ealdorman,
made the only show of resistance; but here too, treason, not of
the commander but of the soldiers, themselves of Danish origin,
proved fatal. Famine and civil quarrels added to the misery of
the English. Again Eadric is visible, ruining rival Thegns, and
advising still further use of bribes. In 1006, he had succeeded in
getting made Ealdorman of the Mercians. His family rose with him,
and in 1008, when at last a great national fleet was collected, the
quarrels of his brother Brihtric and his nephew Wulfnoth destroyed
its utility.
[Sidenote: Thurkill’s invasions.]
[Sidenote: Swegen’s invasion.]
[Sidenote: England submits to Swegen. 1013.]
In the same year, a fresh host, one division of which was commanded
by Thurkill or Thurcytel, one of the most formidable of the
Danish sea kings, made its appearance In 1010, the English were
again defeated at the battle of Ipswich, and the country was in
a condition of absolute collapse. Mercia and Wessex itself were
overrun. The cause of Æthelred looked so hopeless, that Eadric
the Gainer thought it time to change sides, and after the capture
of Canterbury and the death of the Archbishop St. Alphege, the
Witan was collected under Eadric, without the participation of the
King, and a further large tribute paid, while by some arrangement,
probably the cession of East Anglia, Thurkill was drawn to the
English side. This step of Thurkill seems to have opened Swegen’s
eyes at once to the inutility of single invasions, and to the
possibility of himself effecting some similar arrangement. He felt
confident of the support of Northumbria and Mercia against Wessex.
He therefore moved his fleet to the Humber, and advanced to York.
He had not miscalculated. The whole of the Danelagu joined him, and
with this assistance, leaving his son Cnut behind him in command of
the fleet in the Humber, he advanced into Wessex. His success was
constant. Oxford was taken, and the royal town of Winchester. At
Bath the Danish conqueror received the submission of the Thegns of
the West. London, which we find constantly rising in importance,
alone held out, nor was it till Æthelred deserted the city that it
surrendered. But then, there being no longer any opposition, Swegen
was, in fact, King of England. Æthelred sought and obtained an
asylum in Normandy, till recalled by Swegen’s death the following
year.
[Sidenote: Restoration of Æthelred. 1014.]
The Danes acknowledged Cnut as King, but the bulk of the English
wished to retain the House of Cerdic, if Æthelred would pledge
himself to rule better. This he promised to do, and his cause
for a time was successful. Cnut had to retreat to his ships.
Nevertheless, we hear of another large tribute, but it was paid
probably to a fleet of Danish auxiliaries serving upon the English
side. Eadric had of course again joined the victorious party; but
again his persistent treachery was the destruction of the country.
He enticed Sigeferth and Morkere, Thegns of the Five Danish Burghs,
to Oxford, and there murdered them. Sigeferth’s widow was kept a
prisoner, and taken in marriage by Edmund Ironside, Æthelred’s
son. This prince thus acquired possession of the Five Burghs, and
secured an influence which enabled him to take up a position in
opposition to Eadric. On the renewal of the invasion by Cnut both
Eadric and Edmund collected their forces; but, angry at the new
rivalry he was experiencing, Eadric led his troops to join Cnut.
Wessex was thus thrown open, and by a strange inversion of affairs,
Edmund, with Utred of Northumberland, occupied the northern part of
England, while the Danes, under Cnut and Eadric, held Wessex and
the South. In 1016, Æthelred died.
[Sidenote: Edmund Ironside. April to Nov. 1016.]
[Sidenote: Five great battles.]
[Sidenote: Division of England.]
The Witan of the South immediately, under the influence of the
conquerors, elected Cnut as his successor, but London and the
rest of the Witan chose Edmund. It was plain that Wessex could
acknowledge Cnut only through fear, and thither Edmund betook
himself, and collected troops. As if to prove what the English
could do if well commanded, in a few weeks he fought, on the whole
successfully, five great battles. At Pen Selwood in Somerset; at
Sherstone, where the English were only prevented from winning
by a trick of Eadric’s, who, raising the head of another man,
declared it was the head of the slain English king; at Brentford;
and afterwards, when Eadric had again changed sides, at Otford in
Kent; and Assandun in Essex. In this last battle the whole forces
of England were arrayed. The sudden withdrawal of Eadric, who was
commanding the Magesætas, or men of Hereford, secured a victory
for the Danes, and Edmund had to retreat across England into the
country of the Hwiccas, or Gloucestershire. Not yet wholly beaten,
he was preparing for a sixth battle, when he was persuaded to make
an arrangement similar, though not identical, with that which
Alfred had made with Guthrum. He surrendered to Cnut Northumberland
and Mercia, retaining for himself Wessex, Essex, East Anglia, and
London. On St. Andrew’s Day of the same year, Edmund Ironside
died, a misfortune, like most other acts of villainy of the time,
attributed to Eadric. With him fell the hope of the English. The
treachery of Eadric, the folly of Æthelred, met with their reward,
and Cnut was acknowledged King of England.
[Sidenote: Cnut. 1017.]
[Sidenote: The four Earldoms.]
[Sidenote: Cnut’s patriotic government.]
Indeed, Edmund’s sons were so young that it was not probable that
the Witan would elect them. The only other claimant was Edwy,
Edmund’s brother. To secure himself against him, Cnut is said to
have employed Eadric to put him to death; and though he escaped on
that occasion, he was certainly outlawed, and all the old members
of the royal family were kept abroad. The children of Æthelred and
Emma, Edward and Alfred, were in Normandy with their mother. The
children of Edmund Ironside, Edward and Edmund, were sent first to
Sweden, and then to Hungary, where Edward married Agatha, niece of
the Emperor Henry II. Cnut’s object, on finding himself King of
England, appears to have been to obliterate, as far as possible,
the idea of conquest, to rule England as an English king, and
making that country the centre of his government, to form a great
Scandinavian Empire. To this end, pursuing the policy of Dunstan,
he divided England into four great earldoms, representing the old
kingdoms. Northumberland and East Anglia were intrusted to Danes;
Mercia was given to Eadric; Wessex he kept in his own hands.
Eadric’s influence had compelled Cnut thus to promote him, but he
so mistrusted him, that within a year he caused him to be put to
death. In the same year he sent for Queen Emma from Normandy, and
married her, though she must have been much older than himself,
with the object apparently either of connecting himself with the
late dynasty, or of securing the friendship of the Normans. The
next year the Danish fleet was sent home. Englishmen were again put
in high office. Thus Leofric was made Earl of the Mercians, and
Godwine, of whom we now first hear, and whose origin and rise is
variously related, was made Earl of Wessex, presumably the second
man in the country. Thus, too, Cnut flattered the feelings of the
English by moving the body of St. Alphege, who had been killed by
the Danes twelve years before, with all honour to his own Church at
Canterbury; and thus, too, he did not scruple to fill the English
bishoprics with Englishmen, and even to promote them to high office
in Denmark. During his reign England was at peace within its
own borders, while Scotland was brought to submission. In 1031,
Malcolm, King of the Scotch, and two under-kings, did homage to the
English King. A strong, well-ordered government was established,
supported for the first time by a standing body of troops, known as
the House-carls. Early in the reign Eadgar’s law had been renewed
with the advice of the Witan, and, in 1028, Cnut promulgated a code
of his own, which is little else than repetition of former laws
and customs. But the proof of his good government is this, that
just as the law of the great Eadgar was looked on as typical, and
demanded by Cnut’s Witan, and as after the Conquest the Confessor’s
law was demanded, so we find the people of the North demanding
Cnut’s law,--in each case law meaning system of government. His
importance as a king is marked by the respect shown him on his
pilgrimage to Rome in the year 1027. There, as he tells his people
in a letter which he sent them, he negotiated with the Pope, the
Emperor, and King Rudolph of Burgundy, for the free passage of
English pilgrims and merchants; he received large gifts from the
Emperor, and made the Pope promise to lessen his extortions upon
granting the Pallium or Archiepiscopal cloak. His daughter by Queen
Emma, Gunhild, was, moreover, thought a fitting wife for Henry,
afterwards the Emperor Henry III. Cnut died still young in 1035.
[Sidenote: Disputed succession.]
[Sidenote: Importance of Earl Godwine.]
[Sidenote: Harold. 1037.]
[Sidenote: Harthacnut. 1040.]
With him fell his plans, both of the Scandinavian Empire and of
good government in England. His sons, Harold and Harthacnut, in
no way inherited his greatness; they appear to have been little
better than savage barbarians. The succession was disputed between
them. Godwine and the West Saxons obtained the South of England for
Harthacnut, while Harold reigned in the North. But as Harthacnut
did not come to England, but remained in his kingdom of Denmark,
Godwine was the practical ruler. This great Earl, whose sympathies
were wholly national, was accused of putting to death Alfred, the
son of Æthelred and Emma, who seems to have taken advantage of
the absence of Harthacnut to aim at re-establishing himself in
Wessex. But as the actual murderers were the men of Harold whom
Godwine had opposed, it would seem that the charge was a false one.
The continued absence of Harthacnut enabled Harold to secure the
whole of the kingdom, over which he reigned for two years. On his
death, in 1040, Harthacnut stepped unopposed into his position. His
short reign was marked by no great events. Godwine, having cleared
himself by oath and by compurgation (in which a large number
of Earls and Thegns joined) of the charge of murdering Alfred,
remained in power. A tyrannical use of the King’s House-carls in
collecting a tax produced an outbreak in Worcester, which was
punished with brutal severity. And when the King fell dead, while
drinking at a bridal feast, the English were glad to be rid of a
line of such barbarous sovereigns, and to restore the House of
Cerdic in the person of the late king’s half-brother Edward, who,
in the absence of direct descendants of the Danish house, entered
almost unopposed on the kingdom.
[Sidenote: Edward the Confessor. 1042.]
[Sidenote: Rivalry between Godwine and the French party.]
[Sidenote: Godwine banished. 1051.]
[Sidenote: Return and death of Godwine. 1052.]
It was the eloquence of Godwine which overcame the slight
opposition offered to Edward’s election, and secured him the
throne. This nobleman thus reached the summit of his power, and
two years afterwards his daughter Edith became the King’s wife.
Edward’s education and training had rendered his tastes and policy
as decidedly French as those of Godwine were national. There thence
arose, and continued throughout the reign, a constant enmity
between the two parties--the Frenchmen, whom Edward brought over
in great numbers and employed particularly as bishops, and the
national party, headed by Godwine and his sons. It is the progress
of this quarrel which forms the history of the reign, side by side
with the efforts of Godwine to push his family prominently forward
in opposition to the family of Leofric, Earl of Mercia. On the
one hand, the King lavished favours upon his foreign followers.
A Frenchman, Robert of Jumièges, became Bishop of London, and
afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury; Ulf, another Norman, became
Bishop of Dorchester in Oxfordshire; Ralph, the son of Edward’s
sister and the Count of Mantes, was made an Earl; and Eustace of
Boulogne, her second husband, was loaded with honours. On the other
hand, Godwine succeeded in securing for members of his own family
the earldoms of Somersetshire and Herefordshire, and of the East
and Middle Angles. The crisis of the rivalry at length arrived. It
arose from an outrage committed by the followers of Eustace on the
citizens of Dover. The townsmen rose against the insolent Normans
and drove them from the city; and when Godwine, as Earl, was called
upon to punish the citizens, he positively refused unless they were
fairly tried before the Witan. Both sides took up arms,--Godwine
and his sons on one side; the King, with Siward of Northumberland,
Leofric of Mercia, and his own French partisans on the other. The
armies faced each other in Gloucestershire; but Godwine, unwilling
to press matters to extremity, accepted the proposal of Leofric
that the question should be referred to the Witan. When the Witan
assembled, the King was there with a great army. Overawed by this
force, the Witan, recurring to the old charge against Godwine and
to a late act of violence on the part of his son Swend, ordered
Godwine and his sons to appear before them as criminals. This they
refused to do unless hostages were given, and as this demand was
refused, they would not appear, and were outlawed. Godwine and
three sons retired to Baldwin of Bruges, Leofwine and Harold to
Ireland. The French party were triumphant. Robert, as we have seen,
was made Archbishop, William, another Frenchman, succeeded him as
Bishop of London, and Odda, probably an Englishman in the French
interest, was given the western part of Godwine’s earldom. Harold’s
earldom was given to Ælfgar, son of Leofric. At the same time, to
complete the French influence, William of Normandy came over to
England, and, as he always declared, received a promise of the
succession from his cousin Edward.
The administration of foreigners was so unpopular and so
unsuccessful, that Godwine and his family thought that an
opportunity had arisen for their return. Unable to procure their
restoration by peaceful means, they determined upon using force;
and after various expeditions, but feebly opposed by the English,
who at heart wished them well, Godwine found himself strong enough
to sail up the Thames; and so preponderating was the feeling of
the country in his favour, that, as the King refused justice, it
was agreed that the matter should be referred to the Witan. What
their decision would be was not doubtful, so the French prelates
and earls and knights, who had been building feudal castles, at
once fled, and Godwine and his sons came back in triumph. Stigand,
a priest, who had been originally appointed by Cnut to an abbey
raised at Assandun in memory of the Danish victory over Edmund
Ironside, and who had acted as principal mediator, was elected
to the Archbishopric of Canterbury, left vacant by the flight of
Robert. The next year Earl Godwine died suddenly, while at dinner
with the King.[1] His death restored the balance between the two
great families. While Harold succeeded to the earldom of the West
Saxons, and the vacant earldom of Northumbria was given to his
brother Tostig, East Anglia was restored to Leofric’s son Ælfgar.
Earl Siward of Northumbria had died in 1055.[2]
[Sidenote: Importance of Earl Harold.]
[Sidenote: Death of Edward. 1066.]
The succeeding years are marked by the gradual increase of the
power of Harold and his family. In 1055 Earl Ælfgar was outlawed,
and his earldom given to Gurth, Harold’s brother. The exiled Earl,
making common cause with Griffith [Gryffydd] of Wales, defeated
Ralph, the French Earl of Herefordshire. To repair this disaster
the war was intrusted to Harold; he prosecuted it with success,
and Herefordshire, which he had thus rescued, was added to his
earldom. The death of Leofric still further increased the power of
the House of Godwine, although Ælfgar, the late Earl, was allowed
to succeed him; and finally, Essex and Kent were formed into an
earldom for Leofwine, the remaining brother of Harold. Godwine’s
sons now possessed all England, with the exception of Mercia. The
last probable heir to the throne--the Ætheling Edward, the son of
Edmund Ironside--had been brought over from Hungary, but had died
almost immediately after reaching England. And when, in 1063,
Harold, by employing his men as light troops, succeeded in the
final subjugation of Wales, his greatness was such that he must
almost certainly have been regarded as the next king. Three years
afterwards, in January 1066, King Edward, the last male descendant
of Cerdic who reigned in England, died. His last year had been
troubled by a great insurrection of the Northern counties against
the rule of Tostig. The house of Leofric had had a stronghold in
the North, and Tostig’s injudicious vigour in attempting to reduce
the barbarous population to order had excited great discontent.
His energy seems more than once to have led him into murder. The
Northumbrian therefore deposed him, and elected Morcar [Morkere],
the grandson of Leofric, in his place. His brother, Edwin of
Mercia, who had succeeded his father Ælfgar, made common cause
with him; and Harold, whose policy was always conciliatory, found
it necessary to persuade the King to confirm Edwin and Morkere in
their possessions. Tostig retired as an exile to Bruges. While
England was thus troubled, the King died--a good man, devoted to
the Church and the monks, and therefore afterwards canonized, but
as a king unfitted by his pliant character, and more especially
by his love of foreign favourites, to rule over England at such a
difficult crisis.
[Sidenote: Harold elected king. 1066.]
[Sidenote: Claims of William of Normandy.]
The Witan at once assembled, and used its power of election. This
power was usually exercised within the limits of the royal family;
but on this occasion, as there was no claimant of the royal house
but Edmund Ironside’s grandson, the child Eadgar, the Witan looked
beyond their usual limit, and elected almost unanimously the great
Earl Harold. Though thus King of England by the most perfect
title, he found himself opposed by two enemies. On the one hand
was his brother Tostig, the exiled Earl of Northumberland, who
had been a favourite of the late king, and had perhaps himself
hoped to be elected; and upon the other Duke William, who, out of
a variety of small and insufficient pretexts, had constructed a
very formidable claim to the crown of England. He asserted that the
Confessor had promised him the kingdom, that he was the nearest of
kin, and that Harold had himself sworn to him to be his man, to
marry his daughter, and to own him allegiance. The circumstances
under which this last event had taken place are not very certain;
but it seems to be true that Harold, on some occasion, had been
shipwrecked on the coast of France and taken prisoner, and held to
ransom, according to the barbarous custom of that day, by Guy,
Count of Ponthieu, lord of the country. The intervention of William
as superior lord rescued him from his disgraceful position. He
spent some time in friendly intercourse at William’s court, and
there probably, as was not unusual, made himself the Duke’s man,
and did homage. Such an act could be only personal, and could
have nothing to do with the kingdom of England, and even as a
personal tie was not very binding. It was his knowledge of this
which induced William to play the well-known trick upon Harold.
When the Earl had taken what he believed to be only a common oath
of homage, the cover of the table on which his hands had been
placed was withdrawn, and he found he had been swearing upon most
sacred relics. With regard to the other claims, it may be said
that Edward the Confessor, in accordance with the constitution of
England, could not promise the crown to any one, and, moreover,
had nominated Harold on his deathbed; while, although William was
the cousin of the late king, it was only through Edward’s Norman
mother, Emma, that he was so. But when put forward artfully,
and mingled with coloured accounts of the injuries suffered by
the French in England at the return of Godwine, these claims
seemed very plausible to the French, especially when backed by
the influence of the Papal See wielded by Archdeacon Hildebrand,
afterwards Pope Gregory VII. The Papal support was won partly by
representing Harold as a perjured man, partly because the Normans
in Italy were regarded as the great champions of the Papal See,
but chiefly because Godwine and Harold had throughout sided rather
with the party of the secular clergy in England than with that of
the monks,[3] and had been national in their views with regard to
the Church as well as in other matters. The Pope, Alexander II.,
was led by Hildebrand to see the opportunity offered, and expressed
his approbation of the expedition by sending a consecrated ring and
banner.
[Sidenote: William’s preparations.]
[Sidenote: Tostig’s invasion.]