The Wash.—The Five Burghs.—The Humber.—York.—Northumberland.—Stamford
Bridge.
The Thames certainly brought many Danes in ancient times to the country
south of Watlinga Stræt; but the large bay on the eastern coast of
England, called the “Wash,” and the rivers Humber, Tees, and Tyne,
attracted still more of them to the eastern and northern districts. The
Wash especially seems to have been one of the landing places most in
favour with them. Whether it were its situation, directly opposite to
Jutland on the one side, and on the other, on a line with the fruitful
midland districts of England; or whether it were rather the rapid
current which sets in there that attracted the ships of the Vikings, is
a point that we must leave undecided. This much, however, is certain,
that the first and richest settlements of the Danes were around this
bay; and from it afterwards extended itself quite up to the frontiers of
Scotland, the so-called “Danelagh;” which was a district so considerable
as to comprise fifteen of the thirty-two counties, or shires, then
existing in England, and amongst them the extensive county of
Northumberland.
South of the Wash, and extending towards the Thames, lay East Anglia
(Norfolk and Suffolk); which, a century after the commencement of the
Vikings’ expeditions, was already in the hands of the Danes. Alfred the
Great was compelled to cede it, together with several adjacent tracts of
country, by formal treaty, to the Danish King Gudrun, or Gorm. It is
certain that it had at that time, like Kent, received many Danish
settlers, particularly from the neighbouring Jutland, and their number
continually increased. Yet in East Anglia they seem to have been
scarcely more in a condition to compete with the Anglo-Saxons, in regard
to population and power, than in Kent. It was only on the coast, and
indeed only on that of Norfolk, that they had any settlements, as the
Scandinavian names of places still preserved there show. These districts
lay too near to the main strength of the Anglo-Saxons. The Saxon
inhabitants did not easily suffer themselves to be expelled, and the
Danish dominion there could not, consequently, become of permanent
importance.
But to the north and west of the Wash the Danes obtained a very
different footing. In the province called Mercia (or the Marches), which
formed the centre of England, and in that of Lindisse (or, in old Norsk,
Lindisey), which extended from the Wash to the Humber, they were not
only in possession of a great number of villages and landed estates,
which they had selected to settle on, but had likewise made themselves
masters of several towns, and particularly the five strong fortresses of
Stamford, Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, and Lincoln. These places, which
as early as Alfred’s reign belonged to the Danes, and which were
distinguished by their size, their commerce, and their wealth, obtained
the name of “The Five Burghs” (Femborgene). They formed, as it were, a
little separate state, and possessed in common their own courts of
judicature, and other peculiar municipal institutions. The hostile and
dangerous neighbourhood of the Saxons naturally compelled them to
coalesce together as much as possible; and for a very long period they
formed the chief support of the Danish power in England. Protected by
them from all attacks from the south, the Scandinavian settlers were
enabled securely to continue establishing themselves in the more
northern districts. To arrest the sudden attacks of the Britons in the
west, the Danes also had, on the north-eastern frontier of Wales, the
city of Chester, whose name (_Anglo-Saxon_, Lægeceaster, from the Latin
castra, a camp) shows that it had been a fortified place still earlier,
under the Romans.
Chester formed one of the principal entrances from Wales into the
midland parts of England, as well as into what was then called
Northumberland: under which name was comprised, at least by the Danes
and Norwegians, all the country to the north of the rivers Mersey and
Humber, from sea to sea, and up to the Scottish frontier. Covered by the
“Five Burghs,” it was here that the greater part of Danish England lay.
It was a country filled, particularly in the north-west, with mountains,
and intersected by numerous rivers. Near these, valleys opened
themselves in every direction, of which the largest and most
considerable lay around the tributary streams of the Humber, in what is
now Yorkshire. A separate kingdom had existed here from the oldest
times; and here the Danes, like the Britons, the Romans, and the
Anglo-Saxons before them, possessed the most important city in the north
of England. Built on the river Ouse, which falls into the Humber, it
carried on an extensive trade; and, as the principal seat of the
Northumbrian kings and chiefs, was doubly important. The Britons called
it “Caer Eabhroig,” or “Eabhruc,” the Romans “Eboracum,” the
Anglo-Saxons “Eoforwic,” and the Danes “Jorvik;” whence it is plain that
the form “York,” now in use, is derived.
The Humber and York were for the north of England much what the Thames
and London were for the south. It is not therefore surprising that York
came to possess within its walls the largest and most splendid cathedral
in England, which still towers aloft, a proud and awe-inspiring monument
of the power and religious enthusiasm of the middle ages; nor that the
history of York comprises, so to speak, the whole of that of
Northumberland.
The soil of south England received the dust of the Christian Danish
kings, and of Canute the Great, the hero of Christendom. But the north
of England held the bones of many a mighty Danish chieftain, who had
never renounced his belief in the ancient gods; and, in the
neighbourhood of York, one of the most renowned of heathen heroes, King
Regner Lodbrog, met his death. The names of Regner and his sons were
reverenced and feared in England from their earlier Viking expeditions.
When about to invade England, he suffered shipwreck, and together with
only a few of his men saved himself on the coast of Northumberland. The
Saxon king, Ella, advanced against him from York; a battle ensued, and,
after the bravest resistance, Regner was overcome and made a prisoner.
With true northern pride he would not make himself known to Ella, who
caused him to be thrown into a pen filled with snakes; and it was not
till the dying Regner had sung his swan’s-song, “Grynte vilde Grisene,
kjendte de Galtens Skjebne” (How the young pigs would grunt if they knew
the old boar’s fate), that Ella too late observed to his terror that he
had exposed himself to the fearful vengeance of the king’s sons; who,
guided by the shrewd Ivar Beenlöse, had long been silently preparing for
the conquest of Ella’s kingdom. Ella was vanquished and made prisoner;
and, according to the Norwegian legend, Regner’s sons, to avenge their
father’s miserable death, caused a blood-eagle to be carved on Ella’s
back. The place of Ella’s death is said by some to have been near the
town of “Ellescroft,” or Ella’s Grave. The English accounts make
Regner’s sons, Ingvar and Ubbe, revenge their father’s death in the year
870, by murdering in a most horrible manner King Edmund (who was
afterwards canonized) at the castle of Æglesdon, in East Anglia. They
shot at him as at a mark, then cut off his head, and lastly laid the
body among thorns, in the same forest where their father had been put to
death.
Ivar Beenlöse (the Boneless) succeeded to the kingdom of Northumberland
after Ella; where also such names of subsequent kings as Sigtryg,
Regnald, Godfred, Anlaf (Olaf), and Heric (Erik), unmistakably show
their Scandinavian origin. In Olaf’s time, at the beginning of the tenth
century, the Anglo-Saxon king Athelstane (Adelsteen) succeeded in
subjecting Northumberland, whilst Denmark and Norway, as before
mentioned, were prevented by internal distractions from sending any
effectual assistance to the Danes in England. Olaf fled to Ireland, and
Godfred to Scotland, to assemble the Scandinavian warriors in those
parts, and Athelstane in the mean time destroyed the Danish castle in
York. It is related that Olaf returned with more than six hundred ships,
and again took possession of York. He had with him a great number of
Northmen and Danes from Ireland and Scotland, together with a great many
Celtic Cymri and Britons, and the Scottish King Constantine was also in
his army. Athelstane and this brother Edmund arrayed a mighty force
against them at Brunanborg (Bromford?), where, in the year 937, a battle
was fought; which, though unfavourable to the Danes, afforded the old
northern bards matter for enthusiastic song, of which the Sagas have
still preserved some remains. Subsequently a treaty with King Edmund, in
941, gave Olaf the dominion over the country east and north of
Watlinga-Stræt; but the dispute soon broke out afresh. After the death
of the Northumbrian King Erik in 951, Northumberland ceased to be a
kingdom. From this time it became an earldom (Jarledömme), which was,
however, for the most part, almost entirely independent of the
Anglo-Saxon kings, and governed by Norwegian chieftains. For a long time
it constantly received fresh inhabitants from the mother countries,
Denmark and Norway. Many Norwegians came over; nay, even the King Erik
just mentioned may possibly have been the renowned Norwegian King Erik
Blodöxe, a son of Harald Haarfager, the first absolute sovereign of
Norway. After the death of Harald, Erik became chief sovereign in
Norway; but he and his queen, the notorious Gunhilde, ruled here with so
much cruelty, that the Norwegians gave Erik the surname of Blodöxe
(Blood-axe). Driven from his kingdom, he at length repaired to
Northumberland, where King Athelstane is said to have made him a
tributary king, and where, after many vicissitudes of fortune, he met
his death.
Between the Northumbrian Jarledömme—whence the dignity of the Northern
“Jarls” began to extend itself to the rest of England, which has still
preserved it in the title of “Earl”—as well as between the Danish part
of England and the proper kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons in general,
disputes must naturally have prevailed of a more or less sanguinary
kind. As a necessary consequence of this, the Danish kings, in their
later expeditions against the Anglo-Saxons for the purpose of conquest,
resorted to, and sought support in, the Danish part of the north of
England, in the districts near the Humber. In the year 1013, King Svend
Tveskjæg anchored in this river with a powerful fleet, when he came over
to conquer England. In conjunction with his son Canute, who afterwards
completed the conquest, he had previously lain at anchor at Sandvik
(Sandwich), in Kent. From the Humber he anchored in the river Trent, at
Gegnesburgh (or Gainsborough), in Lincolnshire; whence he harried the
whole of eastern, and part of southern England. The Old Danish land to
the north of Watlinga-Stræt was the first to pay him homage; the rest of
England soon yielded to him, and King Ethelred was obliged to fly to
Normandy. But just as Svend, in the midst of his victorious career, had
returned to Gainsborough—just as he was fleecing and levying
contributions both on laity and clergy—he suddenly fell from his horse
at an assize, or _Thing_, in a fit of illness, and died the following
night, the 3rd of February, 1014. Monkish chronicles relate that it was
St. Edmund who killed him. Ethelred, who now returned to England, in
vain ordered a strict search to be made for the body of Svend, with the
view of wreaking a cowardly vengeance on the impotent corpse of the man
who, when alive, had been so terrible an antagonist to him. But the body
had been secretly conveyed to York, where it was kept concealed during
the winter (but scarcely in the cathedral, although that church had been
founded long before, and was, perhaps, even considerably enlarged by the
Norwegian princes who resided at York). Towards the spring it was
brought over to Denmark by some Englishwomen, who were probably of
Scandinavian extraction, and placed in the cathedral of Roeskilde, in
one of the pillars in the grand choir.
Under the Danish rule, the Danish-Norwegian population in the north of
England increased considerably, both in strength and numbers; although
Christianity, by the wise arrangements of Canute, and particularly by
his severe laws against heathenism, was almost completely disseminated
there. Even after the Danish dominion had come to an end by the death of
Hardicanute in 1042, and the Anglo-Saxon kings had again taken the helm,
the old warlike spirit of the north continued, in spite of Christianity,
to stir in the Northumbrian people. The successors of the Vikings still
preferred, to a natural death, a glorious one on the field of battle;
but Christian tenets no longer permitted them to be marked, when on the
bed of sickness, with the point of a spear, in order to consecrate
themselves to Odin, according to the heathen custom. The mighty Danish
jarl Sivard (Sigeward or Siwerd) reigned over them at that time, who had
fought in many battles both in England and Scotland, whereby his name
became immortalized in Shakspeare’s “Macbeth.” When the news was brought
to him that his son had fallen in battle, he inquired whether he had
received his death wound in front or behind. Being answered,
“Before;”—“In that case,” he exclaimed, “I have reason to rejoice, for
no other death was befitting my son, or me.” When Siward himself
afterwards lay on his death-bed, and felt the approach of dissolution,
an old chronicler (Henry of Huntingdon) represents him as breaking out
into sorrowful complaints, and exclaiming, “How shameful it is for me,
that I have never been able to meet death in my numerous battles, but
have been reserved to die with disgrace like an old cow. Clothe me at
least in my impenetrable armour, gird me with my sword, cover my head
with my helmet, place my shield in my left, and my gilded axe in my
right hand, that I, the bold warrior, may also die like one.” Attired in
full armour, he passed gladly to his fathers in the year 1055, and
doubtless with the secret hope of enjoying in Valhalla a continuation of
that proud martial life for which there would soon have been no longer
room either in Northumberland or in the parent lands of Scandinavia.
Shortly after the death of Siward, the country near York also became the
theatre where one of the last celebrated Vikings of the north fell.
Harald Haardraade was indeed a Christian, and a king in Norway; but with
him, as with many of his cotemporaries, Christianity dwelt only on his
lips. In his heart he was still the bold Viking, who valued Hildur’s
bloody game more than holy psalms, and who preferred conquest on foreign
shores to the peaceful government of an hereditary kingdom. Whilst still
young he had distinguished himself in expeditions in the East, and in
the Greek Empire. It seemed to him disgraceful that those lands,
particularly in the north of England, which had once belonged to his
forefathers, should for ever be wrested from Norway. He therefore agreed
to assist Toste Godvinsön against his brother, the English King Harald
Godvinsön; but on the condition that he himself, if he succeeded in
conquering Harald, should have the dominion of England, whilst Toste was
to have the half of it as jarl, or earl. They landed in the Humber; but
in the battle which shortly afterwards took place (in 1066) at Stamford
Bridge, a little to the east of York, both Toste and Harald fell. Thus
the latter gained no more of England’s soil than the English King Harald
had offered him before the battle, namely, “seven feet of earth, or as
much as he was taller than other men.”
This was one of the last serious attempts on the part of Denmark or
Norway to reconquer England; and in the same year the Normans, after the
battle of Hastings, in which King Harald fell, seized the kingdom which
their Danish kinsmen had formerly possessed. William the Conqueror went
in person against the Northumbrians; but before he disembarked he is
said to have broken up the tumulus on the coast (by the Humber?) in
which, according to the legend, Regner Lodbrog’s son, Ivar Beenlöse, had
ordered himself to be buried, in order to avert the attacks of
foreigners. William had to combat long before he could reduce
Northumberland; but, as we shall afterwards see, he never succeeded in
subduing that spirit of freedom and independence which the Danes and
Norwegians had planted there.
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