THE CONQUEST OF THE DANELAW
Alfred’s death left Wessex and western Mercia still faced by a mass
of more or less hostile Danish settlers in the Danelaw and Deira, but
fairly well knit together by the consciousness of sufferings endured
and victories gained in conjunction, and with a growing sense of
national unity. At first it is doubtful whether Eadward I. intended to
subjugate the Danelaw; but he was quickly made aware that there was
hardly any alternative. His cousin Aethelwald, son of Aethelred I., who
had been passed over on account of his youth in favour of Alfred, and
conceived himself to have a better title to the throne than Eadward,
rose in revolt, and was supported by the Danish settlers.
Aethelwald succeeded in establishing himself as King of York, and
invaded Mercia with a Danish army. Eadward promptly retaliated by
invading East Anglia; this was precisely the plan laid down by
‘Byzantine’ tacticians for checking Saracen raids from Syria. It
succeeded admirably--the Danes hurried back from Mercia to save their
homes. By accident they came upon the Kentish troops isolated, and
after a furious engagement gained a Pyrrhic success. Nearly every man
of note on both sides fell, including, on the Danish side, both the
English claimant and Eric, King of East Anglia. There was, perhaps,
more indecisive fighting, but in 903 a treaty was made with Guthrum II.
of East Anglia on the basis of the _status quo ante_. For six years
thereafter there was peace throughout England, except in anarchic
Northumbria, which appears to have been a sort of dumping-ground for
everything that was restless and unsettled in north-western Europe.
In 910 the Danes, perhaps goaded into action by restless spirits
from the Continent, again raided Mercia. Eadward apparently decided
to repeat his strategy of 902, and collected a large army and a
fleet of 100 ships in Kent, but the distress of the Mercians forced
him to hasten to their aid. Having effected a junction with the
Mercian forces, he intercepted the Danes as they returned from the
Severn Valley, into which they had penetrated, and near Totanhael
(Tottenhall), in Staffordshire, inflicted on them a heavy defeat. Three
‘kings,’ two jarls, and seven höldrs, or great landowners, fell, and
the pillaging propensities of the settlers of the Danelaw received a
rude check.
Aethelred, the ‘Lord’ of Mercia, died in the same year; but his widow,
Aethelflæd, the sister of Eadward, took up his task with energy.
Aethelflæd is one of the most remarkable figures in English history.
She was not only an administrator, but a strategist and military
organizer--a combination almost without parallel in a woman. How deeply
her extraordinary qualities had impressed her contemporaries is shown
by the fact that upon her husband’s death she succeeded quietly to
the exercise of his power. It is tantalizing that more is not told of
Aethelflæd, but even in the dry and scanty notices of the ‘Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle’ she stands out as a great ruler, the worthy daughter of her
heroic father.
Aethelflæd’s capacity was soon to be displayed. The weakness of
Mercia as compared with Wessex during the Danish wars lay in its lack
of fortresses. It will have been noted that all Hæsten’s raids were
directed against it, obviously because there was little fear of being
obstructed, as in Wessex, by thickly placed _burhs_, and attacked by
the warlike and energetic _burh-ware_. Aethelred had evidently made
some steps to remedy the deficiency of fortified places, and in 907
he repaired and occupied Deva, thenceforward to be pre-eminently the
‘Chester’ of England. Probably, however, the comparative poverty of
Mercia retarded the systematic fortification of the towns, but now
Aethelflæd took up the scheme with energy. In the preceding year she
and her husband had built a _burh_ at Bromesberrow, between Hereford
and Tewkesbury, and in 911 she fortified Scargate (site doubtful) and
Bridgenorth. Meanwhile Eadward fortified Hertford, conquered southern
Essex, and fortified Maldon and Witham as advance posts against
Colchester. So discouraged were the Danes that they sued for peace, but
almost immediately broke it.
After Easter, in 912, the jarls of Northampton and Leicester raided
Mercia. They wasted the country about Hocneratun (? Hook Norton), but
were repulsed at Lygton (Leighton Buzzard). Aethelflæd guarded against
further attacks by fortifying Tamworth and Stafford.
The Danes of England now summoned to their help some of the Vikings on
the Continent, and a fleet under two jarls, Ohthere and Hroald, came
‘over hither south from the Lidwiccians’ (_i.e._, Brittany), and sailed
up the Bristol Channel. They, as usual, shunned Wessex, where the
watchful Eadward was guarding the coast with an army; but wasted South
Wales, and captured Cimelauc, Bishop of Llandaff, whom Eadward ransomed
for forty pounds of silver. They then pushed on to raid Mercia, but
were quickly attacked by the levies of Hereford and Gloucester, and
defeated, Jarl Hroald being slain. ‘And they drove them into a park,
and beset them there without until they gave them hostages that they
would depart from the realm of King Eadward.’ The fleet made two
ineffectual raids at Watchet and Porlock, both of which were repulsed
with slaughter; and after lying at Bradanrelice (Flat Holm) until its
crews were wasting away with famine, retreated first to the Welsh coast
and then to Ireland. The energetic King at once hastened eastward and
besieged Bedford, which surrendered after a month’s blockade; while the
Lady of Mercia kept watch on Northumbria, and fortified Eddisburh and
Warwick.
The not very effective intervention of the fleet of Ohthere and
Hroald was the last attack on Wessex by Vikings from the Continent.
Thenceforward Eadward and Aethelflæd were able to push forward the
conquest of the Danelaw with little interference. During the next three
years they steadily fortified, and practically shut up the Danelaw in
a line of _burhs_. In 916 they made a great combined advance. Guthrum
II., King of East Anglia, attempted to stem the attack by establishing
a base on English soil at Tempsford, at the junction of the Great
Ouse and the Ivel, while the jarls of Leicester and Northampton made
a raid on the neighbourhood of Aylesbury. The counter-attack was a
hopeless failure. Aethelflæd stormed Derby after a furious resistance,
while Guthrum in vain attacked Bedford and Wiggingamere, and had to
retreat on Tempsford, only to be assailed there by an English army of
_burh-ware_ from all the eastern fortresses. ‘They beset the burh and
fought against it until they broke into it, and slew the King and Earl
Toglos, and Earl Manna his son, and his brother, and all them that were
therein, and would defend themselves, and they took the others and all
that was therein.’ Eadward followed up the victory with energy. Though
it was ‘in harvest,’ every available man in Kent and Surrey crossed the
Thames, joined the men of Essex and the stormers of Tempsford, and
marched upon Colchester. ‘They took it, and slew all the garrison, and
seized all that was therein, except those men who fled away therefrom
over the wall.’
The last hope for the independence of the Danes of England lay in a
Viking fleet which had just appeared on the East Anglian coast. Its
crews landed, rallied the broken levies of their kinsmen, and, in
conjunction with them, besieged Maldon. Before they could complete
their cordon, a strong body of English troops, probably part of the
victors of Tempsford and Colchester, entered the _burh_, and the
combined force made a sortie, repulsed the besiegers, and, by a
vigorous pursuit, completely broke them. It was the beginning of the
end. No time was given for the broken foe to recover. Late as was the
season, Eadward kept the field; from every county the _land-fyrd_ and
_burh-ware_ marched in hot haste to reinforce or relieve the army in
Essex. Northampton, Huntingdon, and Cambridge surrendered, and with
them all East Anglia.
This was practically the end of the independence of the Danelaw.
Next year, 917, brother and sister made their last advance together,
and captured Leicester and Stamford, and on June 12 Aethelflæd died.
She had been her brother’s right hand, and so well had she performed
her part that little now remained to be done. By 919 Eadward had
consolidated his rule as far as the Humber, had occupied and secured
southern Lancashire, and had received homage from Regnald, the Danish
ruler of Deira; Ealdred, the English chief of Bernicia; Constantine
III., King of Scotland; and Donald, King of Strathclyde. Ealdred’s
submission was natural; the more shadowy allegiance of Constantine and
Donald was obviously prompted by fear of the Vikings, whose settlements
in Scotland included all the northern and western islands, and much
of the adjacent mainland. When Eadward ‘the Elder’ died in 824 his
supremacy over Britain was such as no monarch had yet enjoyed, and his
power passed undiminished to his son Aethelstan.
Aethelstan’s reign passed by largely in peace chequered by rebellions
which were quickly suppressed. Aethelstan rather prematurely annexed
Deira, deposing its Danish vassal king; but he was strong enough to
keep down the turbulent Danes of Northumbria. He had more difficulty
with Constantine of Scotland, who soon began to regret the engagement
into which he had entered with the English ‘Basileus’ of all Britain.
In 933 he threw off his allegiance; but Aethelstan proceeded northward
with an army and fleet, marched through eastern Scotland to Dunnottar,
and brought him to temporary submission. He was not cowed, however, and
proceeded to organize underhand a great confederacy, which had as its
object the destruction of the power of the overshadowing _Dispensator
regni totius Britanniæ_. His chief motive for this action was probably
that he was hindered in his designs of absorbing Strathclyde and
Northern Bernicia; but common fear of the now mighty English power
had more than anything to do with the formation of the heterogeneous
alliance, which included not only Scotland and Strathclyde, and
probably the Galloway Picts, no less than those of the North, but Anlaf
Guthfrithson, King of Dublin, Anlaf Quaran, claimant to the Danish
crown of York, and three more Viking sea-kings, with a great host of
warriors.
The allied host gathered at Brunanburh, or Brunanwerc, a place the
site of which is absolutely unknown. It must have been on the west
or north-west of England, and, since a great part of the allied host
consisted of Irish Vikings, probably on or near the coast. Professor
Hodgkin, with whom Professor Oman agrees, is inclined to place it
at Birrens, near Carlisle. But there is also a Bromborough near the
mouth of the Mersey, which might be the Brunanburh of the Chronicle.
Professor Oman’s objection is that it is too far from the base of the
Scots. On the other hand, it is as good a place of concentration for
the Irish Vikings as Birrens, and, if the Northumbrians had revolted,
as seems probable from the significant omission of any mention of them
in the ‘Song of Brunanburh,’ the Scots and Britons may have penetrated
so far south. In this case the Scots and Picts would have come through
Lothian, joined the Strathclydians and Galwegians somewhere on the
march, and, passing through Bernicia and Deira, gathered up the
Danes of York, and moved westward to join the Irish Vikings in the
Mersey. Still, it must be admitted that this implies a higher degree
of efficiency than can be supposed to have existed in the inchoate
Picto-Scottish horde. Also, Constantine seems to have escaped by
land, which would have been difficult had the battle been fought at
Bromborough-in-Wirral. There is not a single topographical indication
in the ‘Song’ to help the inquirer. Brunanburh may be Birrens and
may be Bromborough--the probabilities are, perhaps, in favour of
Birrens--but it is not certain that it is either.
However warily the cunning Constantine--‘the hoary warrior,’ ‘the old
deceiver’--had gone to work, Aethelstan had good intelligence of the
coming storm, and marched northward to meet the allies with all the
forces of Wessex and Mercia, accompanied by his brother Eadmund. The
battle that followed was the greatest that had been fought since the
English Conquest. Details we have none, except that the struggle lasted
from dawn to sunset, and that it ended in the destruction of the host
that had gathered to undo the work of Alfred and his children. If the
loss among the leaders be any criterion, the slaughter was fearful.
Constantine himself escaped, but his son fell, and with him lay dead
Eugenius, King of Strathclyde, three Viking sea-kings, seven jarls, and
numberless crowds of lesser folk.
The battle of Brunanburh set the seal on the great task that Alfred had
begun and that Eadward I. and Aethelstan had so well continued. So long
as the House of Ecgberht continued to bring forth strong rulers, the
English Empire held together. The Danelaw was sometimes troublesome;
the Northumbrians were always turbulent vassals; but Eadmund I. and his
successor, Eadred, coped successfully with all disturbances, and with
the fifteen years’ peaceful reign of Eadgar the ideal of English unity
appeared to have been nearly accomplished. Yet it was not to be. A long
minority, factious magnates, and a worthless king, were to accomplish
between them what the mighty sea-kings of the ninth century had failed
to achieve. The result of Brunanburh was to establish the ‘Empire of
the English,’ and to awe foreign enemies for forty years and no more.
Yet few battles of that age were so decisive, and it made a tremendous
impression in Europe. Henry the Fowler of Germany requested the hand of
the English king’s sister for his son Otto, soon to add fresh lustre
to the name of Roman Emperor of the West; and Aethelstan eventually
became the brother-in-law of nearly all the monarchs of Western Europe.
He also seems to have been in alliance with the famous Harald Harfaagr
of Norway, who was working hard at the Sisyphean task of reducing his
wild realm to some kind of peace and order. And yet it must regretfully
be owned that we know hardly anything of one of the greatest and most
successful of English kings--
‘Aethelstan King,
Lord among Earls,
Bracelet-bestower and
Baron of Barons.
_Tennyson’s adaptation of ‘The Song of Brunanburh.’_