SAXON LONDON.
A Glance at Saxon London--The Three Component Parts of Saxon
London--The First Saxon Bridge over the Thames--Edward the Confessor
at Westminster--City Residences of the Saxon Kings--Political
Position of London in Early Times--The first recorded Great Fire of
London--The Early Commercial Dignity of London--The Kings of Norway
and Denmark besiege London in vain--A Great _Gemot_ held in
London--Edmund Ironside elected King by the Londoners--Canute
besieges them, and is driven off--The Seamen of London--Its Citizens
as Electors of Kings.
Our materials for sketching Saxon London are singularly scanty; yet some
faint picture of it we may perhaps hope to convey.
Our readers must, therefore, divest their minds entirely of all
remembrance of that great ocean of houses that has now spread like an
inundation from the banks of the winding Thames, surging over the wooded
ridges that rise northward, and widening out from Whitechapel eastward
to Kensington westward. They must rather recall to their minds some
small German town, belted in with a sturdy wall, raised not for
ornament, but defence, with corner turrets for archers, and pierced with
loops whence the bowmen may drive their arrows at the straining workers
of the catapult and mangonels (those Roman war-engines we used against
the cruel Danes), and with stone-capped places of shelter along the
watchmen's platforms, where the sentinels may shelter themselves during
the cold and storm, when tired of peering over the battlements and
looking for the crafty enemy Essex-wards or Surrey way. No toy
battlements of modern villa or tea-garden are those over which the
rough-bearded men, in hoods and leather coats, lean in the summer,
watching the citizens disporting themselves in the Moorfields, or in
winter sledging over the ice-pools of Finsbury. Not for mere theatrical
pageant do they carry those heavy axes and tough spears. Those bossed
targets are not for festival show; those buff jackets, covered with
metal scales, have been tested before now by Norsemen's ponderous swords
and the hatchets of the fierce Jutlanders.
In such castle rooms as antiquaries now visit, the Saxon earls and
eldermen quaffed their ale, and drank "wassail" to King Egbert or
Ethelwolf. In such dungeons as we now see with a shudder at the Tower,
Saxon traitors and Danish prisoners once peaked and pined.
We must imagine Saxon London as having three component
parts--fortresses, convents, and huts. The girdle of wall, while it
restricted space, would give a feeling of safety and snugness which in
our great modern city--which is really a conglomeration, a sort of
pudding-stone, of many towns and villages grown together into one
shapeless mass--the citizen can never again experience. The streets
would in some degree resemble those of Moscow, where, behind fortress,
palace, and church, you come upon rows of mere wooden sheds, scarcely
better than the log huts of the peasants, or the sombre felt tents of
the Turcoman. There would be large vacant spaces, as in St. Petersburg;
and the suburbs would rapidly open beyond the walls into wild woodland
and pasture, fen, moor, and common. A few dozen fishermen's boats from
Kent and Norfolk would be moored by the Tower, if, indeed, any Saxon
fort had ever replaced the somewhat hypothetical Roman fortress of
tradition; and lower down some hundred or so cumbrous Dutch, French, and
German vessels would represent our trade with the almost unknown
continent whence we drew wine and furs and the few luxuries of those
hardy and thrifty days.
In the narrow streets, the fortress, convent, and hut would be exactly
represented by the chieftain and his bearded retinue of spearmen, the
priest with his train of acolytes, and the herd of half-savage churls
who plodded along with rough carts laden with timber from the Essex
forests, or driving herds of swine from the glades of Epping. The churls
we picture as grim but hearty folk, stolid, pugnacious, yet honest and
promise-keeping, over-inclined to strong ale, and not disinclined for a
brawl; men who had fought with Danes and wolves, and who were ready to
fight them again. The shops must have been mere stalls, and much of the
trade itinerant. There would be, no doubt, rudimentary market-places
about Cheapside (Chepe is the Saxon word for market); and the lines of
some of our chief streets, no doubt, still follow the curves of the
original Saxon roads.
The date of the first Saxon bridge over the Thames is extremely
uncertain, as our chapter on London Bridge will show; but it is almost
as certain as history can be that, soon after the Dane Olaf's invasion
of England (994) in Ethelred's reign, with 390 piratical ships, when he
plundered Staines and Sandwich, a rough wooden bridge was built, which
crossed the Thames from St. Botolph's wharf to the Surrey shore. We must
imagine it a clumsy rickety structure, raised on piles with rough-hewn
timber planks, and with drawbridges that lifted to allow Saxon vessels
to pass. There was certainly a bridge as early as 1006, probably built
to stop the passage of the Danish pirate boats. Indeed, Snorro
Sturleson, the Icelandic historian, tells us that when the Danes invaded
England in 1008, in the reign of Ethelred the Unready (ominous name!),
they entrenched themselves in Southwark, and held the fortified bridge,
which had pent-houses, bulwarks, and shelter-turrets. Ethelred's ally,
Olaf, however, determined to drive the Danes from the bridge, adopted a
daring expedient to accomplish this object, and, fastening his ships to
the piles of the bridge, from which the Danes were raining down stones
and beams, dragged it to pieces, upon which, on very fair provocation,
Ottar, a Norse bard, broke forth into the following eulogy of King Olaf,
the patron saint of Tooley Street:--
"And thou hast overthrown their bridge, O thou storm of the sons of
Odin, skilful and foremost in the battle, defender of the earth, and
restorer of the exiled Ethelred! It was during the fight which the
mighty King fought with the men of England, when King Olaf, the son of
Odin, valiantly attacked the bridge at London. Bravely did the swords of
the Volsces defend it; but through the trench which the sea-kings
guarded thou camest, and the plain of Southwark was crowded with thy
tents."
It may seem as strange to us, at this distance of time, to find London
Bridge ennobled in a Norse epic, as to find a Sir Something de
Birmingham figuring among the bravest knights of Froissart's record; but
there the Norse song stands on record, and therein we get a stormy
picture of the Thames in the Saxon epoch.
It is supposed that the Saxon kings dwelt in a palace on the site of the
Baynard's Castle of the Middle Ages, which stood at the river-side just
west of St. Paul's, although there is little proof of the fact. But we
get on the sure ground of truth when we find Edward the Confessor, one
of the most powerful of the Saxon kings, dwelling in saintly splendour
at Westminster, beside the abbey dedicated by his predecessors to St.
Peter. The combination of the palace and the monastery was suitable to
such a friend of the monks, and to one who saw strange visions, and
claimed to be the favoured of Heaven. But beyond and on all sides of the
Saxon palace everywhere would be fields--St. James's Park (fields), Hyde
Park (fields), Regent's Park (fields), and long woods stretching
northward from the present St. John's Wood to the uplands of Epping.
As to the City residences of the Saxon kings, we have little on record;
but there is indeed a tradition that in Wood Street, Cheapside, King
Athelstane once resided; and that one of the doors of his house opened
into Addle Street, Aldermanbury (_addle_, from the German word _edel_,
noble). But Stow does not mention the tradition, which rests, we fear,
on slender evidence.
Whether the Bread Street, Milk Street, and Cornhill markets date from
the Saxon times is uncertain. It is not unlikely that they do, yet the
earliest mention of them in London chronicles is found several centuries
later.
We must be therefore content to search for allusions to London's growth
and wealth in Saxon history, and there the allusions are frequent,
clear, and interesting.
In the earlier time London fluctuated, according to one of the best
authorities on Saxon history, between an independent mercantile
commonwealth and a dependency of the Mercian kings. The Norsemen
occasionally plundered and held it as a _point d'appui_ for their pirate
galleys. Its real epoch of greatness, however ancient its advantage as a
port, commences with its re-conquest by Alfred the Great in 886.
Henceforward, says that most reliable writer on this period, Mr.
Freeman, we find it one of the firmest strongholds of English freedom,
and one of the most efficient bulwarks of the realm. There the English
character developed the highest civilisation of the country, and there
the rich and independent citizens laid the foundations of future
liberty.
In 896 the Danes are said to have gone up the Lea, and made a strong
work twenty miles above Lundenburgh. This description, says Earle, would
be particularly appropriate, if Lundenburgh occupied the site of the
Tower. Also one then sees the reason why they should go up the
Lea--viz., because their old passage up the Thames was at that time
intercepted.
"London," says Earle, in his valuable Saxon Chronicles, "was a
flourishing and opulent city, the chief emporium of commerce in the
island, and the residence of foreign merchants. Properly it was more an
Angle city, the chief city of the Anglian nation of Mercia; but the
Danes had settled there in great numbers, and had numerous captives that
they had taken in the late wars. Thus the Danish population had a
preponderance over the Anglian free population, and the latter were glad
to see Alfred come and restore the balance in their favour. It was of
the greatest importance to Alfred to secure this city, not only as the
capital of Mercia (_caput regni Merciorum_, Malmesbury), but as the
means of doing what Mercia had not done--viz., of making it a barrier to
the passage of pirate ships inland. Accordingly, in the year 886, Alfred
_planted_ the _garrison_ of London (_i.e._, not as a town is garrisoned
in our day, with men dressed in uniform and lodged in barracks, but)
with a military colony of men to whom land was given for their
maintenance, and who would live in and about a fortified position under
a commanding officer. It appears to me not impossible that this may have
been the first military occupation of Tower Hill, but this is a question
for the local antiquary."
In 982 (Ethelred II.), London, still a mere cluster of wooden and
wattled houses, was almost entirely destroyed by a fire. The new city
was, no doubt, rebuilt in a more luxurious manner. "London in 993,"
says Mr. Freeman, in a very admirable passage, "fills much the same
place in England that Paris filled in Northern Gaul a century earlier.
The two cities, in their several lands, were the two great fortresses,
placed on the two great rivers of the country, the special objects of
attack on the part of the invaders, and the special defence of the
country against them. Each was, as it were, marked out by great public
services to become the capital of the whole kingdom. But Paris became a
national capital only because its local count gradually grew into a
national king. London, amidst all changes, within and without, has
always preserved more or less of her ancient character as a free city.
Paris was merely a military bulwark, the dwelling-place of a ducal or a
royal sovereign. London, no less important as a military post, had also
a greatness which rested on a surer foundation. London, like a few other
of our great cities, is one of the ties which connect our Teutonic
England with the Celtic and Roman Britain of earlier times. Her British
name still remains unchanged by the Teutonic conquerors. Before our
first introduction to London as an English city, she had cast away her
Roman and imperial title; she was no longer Augusta; she had again
assumed her ancient name, and through all changes she had adhered to her
ancient character. The commercial fame of London dates from the early
days of Roman dominion. The English conquest may have caused a temporary
interruption, but it was only temporary. As early as the days of
AEthelberht the commerce of London was again renowned. AElfred had rescued
the city from the Dane; he had built a citadel for her defence, the germ
of that Tower which was to be first the dwelling-place of kings, and
then the scene of the martyrdom of their victims. Among the laws of
AEthelstan, none are more remarkable than those which deal with the
internal affairs of London, and with the regulation of her earliest
commercial corporations. Her institutes speak of a commerce spread over
all the lands which bordered on the Western Ocean. Flemings and
Frenchmen, men of Ponthieu, of Brabant, and of Luettich, filled her
markets with their wares, and enriched the civic coffers with their
toils. Thither, too, came the men of Rouen, whose descendants were, at
no distant day, to form a considerable element among her own citizens;
and, worthy and favoured above all, came the seafaring men of the old
Saxon brother-land, the pioneers of the mighty Hansa of the north, which
was in days to come to knit together London and Novgorod in one bond of
commerce, and to dictate laws and distribute crowns among the nations
by whom London was now threatened. The demand for toll and tribute fell
lightly on those whom the English legislation distinguished as the _men
of the Emperor_."
[Illustration: BROAD STREET AND CORNHILL WARDS. (_From a Map of 1750._)]
In 994, Olaf king of Norway, and Sweyn king of Denmark, summoning their
robber chieftains from their fir-woods, fiords, and mountains, sailed up
the Thames in ninety-four war vessels, eager to plunder the wealthy
London of the Saxons. The brave burghers, trained to handle spear and
sword, beat back, however, the hungry foemen from their walls--the
rampart that tough Roman hands had reared, and the strong tower which
Alfred had seen arise on the eastern bank of the river.
But it was not only to such worldly bulwarks that the defenders of
London trusted. On that day, says the chronicler, the Mother of God, "of
her mild-heartedness," rescued the Christian city from its foes. An
assault on the wall, coupled with an attempt to burn the town, was
defeated, with great slaughter of the besiegers; and the two kings
sailed away the same day in wrath and sorrow.
During the year 998 a great "gemot" was held at London. Whether any
measures were taken to resist the Danes does not appear; but the priests
were busy, and Wulfsige, Bishop of the Dorsaetas, took measures to
substitute monks for canons in his cathedral church at Sherborne; and
the king restored to the church of Rochester the lands of which he had
robbed it in his youth.
In 1009 the Danes made several vain attempts on London.
[Illustration: LORD MAYOR'S WATER PROCESSION.]
In 1013 Sweyn, the Dane, marched upon the much-tormented city of ships;
but the hardy citizens were again ready with bow and spear. Whether the
bridge still existed then or not is uncertain; as many of the Danes are
said to have perished in vainly seeking for the fords. The assaults
were as unsuccessful as those of Sweyn and Olaf, nineteen years before,
for King Ethelred's right hand was Thorkill, a trusty Dane. "For the
fourth time in this reign," says Mr. Freeman, "the invaders were beaten
back from the great merchant city. Years after London yielded to Sweyn;
then again, in Ethelred's last days, it resisted bravely its enemies;
till at last Ethelred, weary of Dane and Saxon, died, and was buried in
St. Paul's. The two great factions of Danes and Saxons had now to choose
a king."
Canute the Dane was chosen as king at Southampton; but the Londoners
were so rich, free, and powerful that they held a rival _gemot_, and
with one voice elected the Saxon atheling Edmund Ironside, who was
crowned by Archbishop Lyfing within the city, and very probably at St.
Paul's. Canute, enraged at the Londoners, at once sailed for London with
his army, and, halting at Greenwich, planned the immediate siege of the
rebellious city. The great obstacle to his advance was the fortified
bridge that had so often hindered the Danes. Canute, with prompt energy,
instantly had a great canal dug on the southern bank, so that his ships
might turn the flank of the bridge; and, having overcome this great
difficulty, he dug another trench round the northern and western sides
of the city. London was now circumvallated, and cut off from all supply
of corn and cattle; but the citizen's hearts were staunch, and, baffling
every attempt of Canute to sap or escalade, the Dane soon raised the
siege. In the meantime, Edmund Ironside was not forgetful of the city
that had chosen him as king. After three battles, he compelled the Danes
to raise their second siege. In a fourth battle, which took place at
Brentford, the Danes were again defeated, though not without
considerable losses on the side of the victors, many of the Saxons being
drowned in trying to ford the river after their flying enemies. Edmund
then returned to Wessex to gather fresh troops, and in his absence
Canute for the third time laid siege to London. Again the city held out
against every attack, and "Almighty God," as the pious chroniclers say,
"saved the city."
After the division of England between Edmund and Canute had been
accomplished, the London citizens made peace with the Danes, and the
latter were allowed to winter as friends in the unconquered city; but
soon after the partition Edmund Ironside died in London, and thus Canute
became the sole king of England.
On the succession of Harold I. (Canute's natural son), says Mr.
Freeman, we find a new element, the "lithsmen," the seamen of London.
"The great city still retained her voice in the election of kings; but
that voice would almost seem to have been transferred to a new class
among the population. We hear now not of the citizens, but of the
seafaring men. Every invasion, every foreign settlement of any kind
within the kingdom too, in every age, added a new element to the
population of London. As a Norman colony settled in London later in the
century, so a Danish colony settled there now. Some accounts tell us,
doubtless with great exaggeration, that London had now almost become a
Danish city (William of Malmesbury, ii. 188); but it is, at all events,
quite certain the Danish element in the city was numerous and powerful,
and that its voice strongly helped to swell the cry which was raised in
favour of Harold."
It seems doubtful how far the London citizens in the Saxon times could
claim the right to elect kings. The latest and best historian of this
period seems to think that the Londoners had no special privileges in
the _gemot_; but, of course, when the _gemot_ was held in London, the
citizens, intelligent and united, had a powerful voice in the decision.
Hence it arose that the citizens both of London and Winchester (which
had been an old seat of the Saxon kings) "seem," says Mr. Freeman, "to
be mentioned as electors of kings as late as the accession of Stephen.
(See William of Malmesbury, "Hist. Nov.," i. II.) Even as late as the
year 1461, Edward Earl of March was elected king by a tumultuous
assembly of the citizens of London;" and again, at a later period, we
find the citizens foremost in the revolution which placed Richard III.
on the throne in 1483. These are plainly vestiges of the right which the
citizens had more regularly exercised in the elections of Edmund
Ironside and of Harold the son of Cnut.
The city of London, there can be no doubt, soon emancipated itself from
the jurisdiction of earls like Leofwin, who ruled over the home
counties. It acquired, by its own secret power, an unwritten charter of
its own, its influence being always important in the wars between kings
and their rivals, or kings and their too-powerful nobles. "The king's
writs for homage," says a great authority, "in the Saxon times, were
addressed to the bishop, the portreeve or portreeves, to the burgh
thanes, and sometimes to the whole people."
Thus it may clearly be seen, even from the scanty materials we are able
to collect, that London, as far back as the Saxon times, was destined to
achieve greatness, political and commercial.