elect the King.[149] It is strange how people’s eyes are blinded on this
subject. It is not uncommon to hear people talk about the times before
and shortly after the Norman Conquest as if the Act for the Settlement
of the Royal Succession had already been in force in those days. It is
strange to hear a number of princes, both before and since the Conquest,
popularly spoken of as “usurpers,” merely because they came to the crown
in a different way from that which modern law and [Sidenote: Popular
misconceptions on this subject.] custom prescribe. It is strange that
people who talk in this way commonly forget that their own principle, so
far as it proves anything, proves a great deal more than they intend. If
Harold, Stephen, John, were usurpers, Ælfred and Eadward the Confessor
were usurpers just as much. Ælfred and Eadward, no less than John,
succeeded by election, to the exclusion of nephews whom the modern law
of England would look upon as the undoubted heirs of the crown. It is
stranger still to hear others talk as if hereditary succession,
according to some particular theory of it, was a divine and eternal law
which could not be departed from without sin. Those who talk in this way
should at least tell us what the divine and unchangeable law of
succession is; for in a purely historical view of things, nearly every
kingdom seems to have a law of succession of its own. Our forefathers at
any rate knew nothing of any such superstitions. The ancient English
kingship was elective. It was elective in the same sense in which all
the old Teutonic kingdoms were elective. Among a people in whose eyes
birth was highly valued, it was deemed fitting that the King should be
the descendant of illustrious and royal forefathers. In the days of
heathendom it was held that the King should come of the supposed
[Sidenote: Kings commonly chosen out of a particular family.] stock of
the Gods. Thus in every kingdom there was a kingly house, out of which
alone, under all ordinary circumstances, Kings were chosen; but within
that kingly house the Witan of the land had a free choice. The
[Sidenote: The eldest son of the last King has a preference, but no
more.] eldest son of the last King would doubtless always have a
preference; if he was himself at all worthy of the place, if his
father’s memory was at all cherished, he would commonly be preferred
without hesitation, probably chosen without the appearance of any other
candidate. But a preference was all to which he was entitled, and he
seems not to have been entitled even to a preference unless he
[Sidenote: Minors constantly passed by.] was actually the son of a
crowned King.[150] If he were too young, or otherwise disqualified, the
electors passed him by and chose some worthier member of the royal
family. Ælfred and Eadred were chosen in preference to the minor sons of
elder brothers. Eadward the Confessor was chosen in preference to the
absent son of an elder brother. At the death of Eadgar, when the royal
family contained only minors to choose from, the electors were divided
between the elder and the younger brother. Minors who had been once
passed by might or might not be elected at a later vacancy. Æthelwold,
the son of Æthelred the First, who had been passed by in favour of his
uncle Ælfred, was again passed by on Ælfred’s death, because no claim
could compare with that of Eadward, the worthy son of the most glorious
of fathers. The children of Eadmund were passed by in favour of their
uncle Eadred, but on Eadred’s death the [Sidenote: A certain preference
acquired by the recommendation of the last King.] choice fell on the
formerly excluded Eadwig. And as a certain preference was acquired by
birth, a certain preference was acquired by the recommendation of the
late King. So Eadgar recommended his elder son Eadward to the electors;
so Eadward the Confessor recommended Harold. Æthelwulf had long before
attempted, by the help of a will confirmed by the Witan, to establish a
peculiar law of succession, which soon broke down.[151] But it is clear
that a certain importance was attached to the wishes of a deceased and
respected King, as conveying a distinct preference. But it conveyed
nothing more than a preference; the person who enjoyed such preference,
whether by birth or by nomination, could still be passed by without
breach of constitutional right. From these principles it follows that,
as any disqualified person in the kingly house might be passed by, so,
if the whole house were disqualified, the whole house might be passed
by. [Sidenote: Harold the son of Godwine lawfully chosen.] That is to
say, the election of Harold the son of Godwine, the central point of
this history, was perfectly good in every point of view. The earlier
election of Cnut was [Sidenote: Cnut’s election good in form, but made
under _duresse_.] equally good in point of form; only it was an election
under _duresse_—_duresse_ a little, but not much, stronger than that
under which an English Chapter elects its Bishop.
An ancient English King then was, not the father of his people, but
their child, their creation. And the assembly which had elected him, and
which could depose him, claimed to direct him by its advice and
authority [Sidenote: Direct share of the Witan in every branch of
government.] in almost every exercise of the kingly power. Every act of
government of any importance was done, not by the King alone, but by the
King and his Witan. The Great Council of the nation took an active share
even in those branches of government which modern constitutional
theories mark out as the special domain of the Executive. That laws were
ordained, and taxes imposed,[152] by the authority of the Witan, that
they sat as the highest court for the trial of exalted and dangerous
offenders, is only what we should look for from the analogy of modern
times. It is more important to find that the King and his Witan, and not
the King alone, concluded treaties, made grants of folkland, ordained
the assemblage of fleets and armies, appointed and deposed the great
officers of Church and State. Of the exercise of all these powers by the
assembled Witan we shall find abundant examples in the course of this
history. Now these are the very powers which a modern House of Commons
shrinks from [Sidenote: Difference between the direct and indirect
action of Parliament.] directly exercising. These are the powers which,
under our present system, Parliament prefers to entrust to ministers in
whom it has confidence, ministers whom it virtually appoints, and whom
it can virtually dismiss without any formal ceremony of deposition. And,
in our present state of things, little or no harm, and some direct good,
comes from Parliament preferring an indirect course of action [Sidenote:
Direct action necessary in early times.] on these subjects. But in an
earlier state of things, a more direct agency of the Parliament or other
national assembly is absolutely necessary. The assembly has to deal, not
with a ministry whom it can create and destroy without any formal
action, but with a personal King, whom it has indeed elected and whom it
can depose, but whose election and deposition are solemn national acts,
his deposition indeed being the rarest and most extreme of all national
acts. In such a state of things the power of the King may be strictly
limited by law; but, within the limits which the law prescribes to him,
he acts according to his own will and pleasure, or according to the
advice of counsellors who are purely of his own choosing. In such a
state of things the King and the nation are brought face to face, and it
is needful that the national assembly should have a much more direct
control over affairs than is at all needful when the ingenious device of
a responsible ministry is interposed between King and Parliament. Long
after the days of our ancient Witenagemóts, in the days of Edward the
Third for instance, Parliament was consulted about wars and negotiations
in a much more direct way than it is now. The control of Parliament over
the Executive is certainly not less effective now than it was then; but
the nature of our present system makes it desirable that the control of
Parliament should be exercised in a less direct way than it was then.
Our present system avoids, above all things, all possibility of direct
personal collision between Parliament and the sovereign. But such direct
personal collisions form the staple of English history from the
thirteenth century onwards. In earlier times we seldom come across any
record of the debates of our national councils, though we often know
their determinations. How far such collisions commonly took place in
early times[153] we have but small means of knowing. They were perhaps
less to be looked for in the tenth or eleventh century than in the
thirteenth or fourteenth. In the later times the King had to deal with
his Parliament as with something external to himself, something which
laid petitions before him which he could accept or reject at pleasure. A
struggle in those days was a struggle between the King and an united
Parliament. Nowadays, as we all know, the struggle takes place within
the walls of Parliament itself. But we can well believe that, in this
respect as in so many others, the earliest times were really more like
our own [Sidenote: Joint action of the King and the Witan.] than the
intermediate centuries were. An ancient Witenagemót did not petition; it
decreed; it confirmed the acts of the King which, without the assent of
the Witan, had no validity; it was not a body external to the King, but
a body of which the King was the head in a much more direct sense than
he could be said to be the head of a later mediæval Parliament. The King
and his Witan acted together; the King could do nothing without the
Witan, and the Witan could do nothing without the King; they were no
external, half-hostile, body; they were his own council, surrounding and
advising him. Direct collisions between the King on the one hand and an
united Gemót on the other were not likely to be common. And as to the
great powers of the Witenagemót, as to its direct participation in all
important acts of government, there can be no doubt. They are legibly
[Sidenote: Diminution of parliamentary action after the Conquest.]
written in every page of our early history. The vast increase of the
power of the crown after the Norman Conquest, the gradual growth of a
systematic feudal jurisprudence, did much to lessen the authority and
dignity of the national councils. The idea of a nation and its chief, of
a King and his counsellors, almost died away; the King became half
despot, half mere feudal lord. England was never without national
assemblies of some kind or other; but from the Conquest in the eleventh
century till the second birth of freedom in the thirteenth, our national
assemblies do not stand out in the same distinct and living shape in
which they stand out both in earlier [Sidenote: The old freedom won back
in the thirteenth century.] and in later times. Here again we owe our
thanks to those illustrious worthies, from the authors of the Great
Charter onwards, who, in so many ways, won back for us our ancient
constitution in another shape. I have said that no political party can
draw any support for its own peculiar theories from that obscurest of
subjects, the constitution of the Witenagemót. But no lover of our old
historic freedom can see without delight how venerable a thing that
freedom is, how vast and how ancient are the rights and powers of an
English Parliament. Our ancient Gemóts enjoyed every power of a modern
Parliament, together with some powers which modern Parliaments shrink
from claiming. Even such a matter of detail as the special security
granted to the persons of members of the two Houses has been traced, and
not without a show of probability, to an enactment which stands at the
very front of English secular jurisprudence, the second among the laws
ordained by our first Christian King and the Witan of his kingdom of
Kent.[154]
[Sidenote: The King not a puppet in the hands of the Witan.]
As the powers of the Witan were thus extensive, as the King could do no
important act of government without their consent, some may hastily leap
to the conclusion that an ancient English King was a mere puppet in the
hands of the national council. No inference could be more mistaken.
Nothing is clearer in our early history than the personal agency of the
King in everything that is done, and the unspeakable difference between
a good and [Sidenote: Vast importance of the personal character of the
King.] a bad King. The truth is that in an early state of society almost
everything depends on the personal character of the King. An able King
is practically absolute; under a weak King the government falls into
utter anarchy. Change the scene, as we shall presently do in our
narrative, from the days of Eadgar to those of Æthelred—change it again
from the long, dreary, hopeless, reign of Æthelred to the few months of
ceaseless energy which form the reign of the hero Eadmund—compare the
nine months of Harold with the two months which followed his fall—and we
shall see how the whole fate of the nation turned upon the personal
character of its sovereign. With such witnesses before us, we can the
better understand how our forefathers would have scouted the thought—if
the thought had ever occurred to them—of risking the destiny of the
nation on the accidents of strict hereditary succession, and how wisely
they determined that the King must be, if not the worthiest of the
nation, at any rate the worthiest of the kingly house. The unhappy reign
of Æthelred showed the bad side of even that limited application of the
hereditary principle which was all that they admitted. Under her great
Kings England had risen from her momentary overthrow to an Imperial
dominion. At home she had a strong and united government, and her
position in the face of other nations was one which made her alliance to
be courted by the foremost princes of Europe. The accession of the minor
son of Eadgar, a child who, except in his crimes and vices, never got
beyond childhood, dragged down the glorious fabric into the dust. So
greatly did national welfare and national misfortune depend on the
personal character of the King. The King, it is true, could do nothing
without his Witan; but as his Witan could do nothing without him, he was
not a shadow or a puppet, but a most important personal agent. He was no
more a puppet than the Leader of the House of Commons is a puppet. We
may be sure that the King and his immediate advisers always had a
practical initiative, and that the body of the Witan did little but
accept [Sidenote: Overwhelming personal influence of an able King.] or
reject their proposals. We may be sure that a King fit for his place, an
Ælfred or an Æthelstan, met with nothing that could be called
opposition, but wielded the assembly at his will. Princes clothed with
far smaller constitutional powers than those of an ancient English King
have become the ruling spirits of commonwealths which denied them any
kind of independent action. Agêsilaos guided the policy of Sparta, and
Francesco Foscari guided the policy of Venice,[155] with a personal
influence almost as commanding as that which Periklês exercised in the
pure democracy of Athens or Aratos in the mixed constitution of the
Achaian League. So when a great King sat on the West-Saxon throne, we
may be sure that, while every constitutional form was strictly
observed,[156] the votes of the Witan were guided in everything by the
will of the King. But when the King had no will, or a will which the
Witan could not consent to, then the machine gave way, and nothing was
to be seen [Sidenote: Importance of the King as the Executive.] but
confusion and every evil work.[157] Again, the King was not only the
first mover, he was also the main doer of everything. The Witan decreed,
but it was the King who carried out their decrees. Weighty as was the
influence of his personal character on the nature of the resolutions to
be passed, its influence was weightier still on the way in which those
resolutions were to be carried out. Under a good King counsel and
execution went hand in hand; under a weak or wicked King there was no
place found for either. Sometimes disgraceful resolutions were passed;
sometimes wise and good resolutions were never carried into effect. The
Witan under Æthelred sometimes voted money to buy off the Danes,
sometimes they voted armies to fight against them; but, with Æthelred to
carry out their votes, it mattered little what their [Sidenote:
Influence of the King as _Hlaford_ of all the chief men.] votes were.
Add to all this the boundless influence which attached to the King from
his having all the chief men of the land bound to him by the personal
tie of thegnship. He was the _Cyne-hlaford_, at once the King of the
nation and the personal lord of each individual. Though his grants of
folkland and his nominations to the highest offices needed the assent of
the Witan, yet in these matters above all his initiative would be
undoubted; the Witan had only to confirm, and they would seldom be
tempted to reject, the proposals which the King laid before them. He was
not less the fountain of honour and the fountain of wealth, because in
the disposal of both he had certain decent ceremonies to go through.
[Sidenote: General importance and influence of the King.] Add to all
this that in unsettled times there is a special chance, both of acts of
actual oppression which the law is not strong enough to redress, and of
acts of energy beyond the law which the nation easily forgives in the
case of a victorious and beloved prince. Altogether, narrowly limited as
were the legal powers of an ancient English King, his will, or lack of
will, had the main influence on the destinies of the nation, and his
personal character was of as much moment to the welfare of the state as
the personal character of an absolute ruler.
§ 4. _The Imperial power of the King and his relation to the Dependent
Kingdoms._
The King and his Witan then, in their joint action, formed the supreme
legislature and the supreme tribunal [Sidenote: England strictly one
kingdom, but much local independence retained by the incorporated
kingdoms.] of the English kingdom. That kingdom, from the days of
Æthelstan onwards, took in the whole Teutonic portion of Britain,
together with those Celtic lands to the south-west which had been
incorporated and to a great extent Teutonized. This whole region, at
least from the overthrow of the last Northumbrian King under Eadred,
formed in the strictest sense one kingdom; the revolt of the Mercians
against Eadwig was only a momentary interruption of its unity. The
ancient divisions were indeed by no means forgotten; above all, the
great Danish land beyond the Humber still retained a lively memory of
its former independence. Both Northumberland and the other incorporated
kingdoms kept much of the form of distinct states; each state had its
local Witenagemót, presided over by its local Ealdorman or Earl, who
exercised, by commission from the King and his Witan, full royal
authority within his own province. But I have already explained that,
vast as were the powers of an ancient Ealdorman, he was still only a
great magistrate, not a prince, even a dependent prince. The whole land
formed one kingdom under one King, and the King and his Witan held
direct authority in every corner of it. But this kingdom of the English
was not the only title and dignity to which the house of [Sidenote:
Superiority or Empire of the West-Saxon Kings over all Britain.] Cerdic
had attained. The King of the English was also Emperor of the whole isle
of Britain. I must now explain somewhat more at length the nature of
this British Empire, as distinguished from the English kingdom which was
[Sidenote: Statement of the question. First, the fact of the
superiority. Secondly, the force of the assumption of strictly Imperial
titles.] only part of it. In this inquiry two special points call for
notice. There is, first, the fact that the English Kings did exercise a
superiority of some kind over the whole of Britain, a fact which has
sometimes been called in question by local prejudice. There is,
secondly, the question as to the exact nature of that superiority, and
as to the motives which led the Kings of the tenth and eleventh
centuries to assume distinctively Imperial titles. It must not be
forgotten that in those days such titles were not assumed at random; the
idea of the Roman Empire was still thoroughly understood, and indeed the
Roman Empire itself, both in the East and in the West, was in one of its
most flourishing periods.
The fact that the West-Saxon or English Kings, from Eadward the Elder
onwards, did exercise an external supremacy over the Celtic princes of
the island is a fact too clear to be misunderstood by any one who looks
the evidence on [Sidenote: Superiority over Scotland dates from Eadward
the Elder. 924.] the matter fairly in the face. I date their supremacy
over Scotland from the reign of Eadward the Elder, because there is no
certain earlier instance of submission on the part of the Scots to any
West-Saxon King. I pass by the [Sidenote: No earlier supremacy in
Wessex.] instances of Scottish submission to the earlier Northumbrian
Kings, as well as the seeming submission of both Scots and Northumbrians
to the Roman Empire itself in the person of Charles the Great.[158]
These instances do not prove the existence of any permanent superiority;
they are rather analogous to the temporary and fluctuating superiority
of this or that Bretwalda over the other English kingdoms. But from the
time of Eadward the Elder onwards the case is [Sidenote: Submission of
Wales to Ecgberht, 830; to Eadward, 922.] perfectly clear. The
submission of Wales dates from the time of Ecgberht; but it evidently
received a more distinct and formal acknowledgement in the reign of
Eadward. Two years after followed the _Commendation_ of Scotland and
[Sidenote: The Welsh and Scottish people concur with their princes in
the _Commendation_.] Strathclyde.[159] Now it seems to be implied in the
case of Wales, and it is still more plainly stated in the case of
Scotland and Strathclyde, that the people of both those countries had a
share in those acts of their princes by which Eadward was chosen to
Father and to Lord. I conceive this to mean that the Scottish and Welsh
princes acted in this matter by the consent and authority of whatever
body in their own states answered to the Witan in England. In both cases
the commendation was a [Sidenote: Nature of _Commendation_;] solemn
national act. I use the feudal word _commendation_, because that word
seems to me better than any other to express the real state of the case.
The transaction between Eadward and the Celtic princes was simply an
application, on an international scale, of the general principle of the
[Sidenote: the relation unaffected by greatness or smallness of scale.]
_Comitatus_. That relation, like all the feudal relations which it
helped to form, may be entered into either on the greatest or on the
smallest scale. The land which is originally granted out on a feudal
tenure, or which its allodial owner finds it expedient to convert into a
fief held on feudal tenure, may be a kingdom or it may be a rood of land
maintaining its man. So the lord whom a man chooses, and the man who
chooses the lord, may be of any possible rank, from the Emperor and the
Pope with their vassal Kings down to the smallest Thegn and his
neighbouring ceorl. It would even seem that the ceorl himself might be
the lord of a poorer ceorl.[160] The relation is exactly the same,
whatever may be the rank and power of the parties between whom it is
contracted. In every case alike, great or small, faithful service is
owing on the one side and faithful protection on the other. In every
case alike, great or small, the relation may imply a strictly feudal
tenure of land or it may not. Now the Chroniclers, in recording these
cases of Welsh and Scottish submission, make use, as if of set purpose,
of the familiar legal phrases which express the relation of commendation
on the smaller [Sidenote: Process of Commendation on a small scale.]
scale. A man “chose his lord;” he sought some one more powerful than
himself, with whom he entered into the relation of _Comitatus_; as
feudal ideas strengthened, he commonly surrendered his allodial land to
the lord so chosen, and received it back again from him on a feudal
tenure. This was the process of commendation, a process of every day
occurrence in the case of private men choosing their lords, whether
those lords were simple gentlemen or [Sidenote: Instances of
Commendation among sovereign princes.] Kings. And the process was
equally familiar among sovereign princes themselves.[161] Almost all the
northern and eastern vassals of the Western Empire, some of them of
kingly rank,[162] became vassals by commendation. The commendation was
doubtless in many cases far from voluntary, but the legal form was
always the same. The lands of these princes were not original grants
from the Emperors; but their holders found it expedient to come to terms
with their Imperial neighbour, and to place themselves and their lands
in the same position as if their lands had really been Imperial grants.
We might go on to say that the [Sidenote: Commendation of the Normans to
Leo the Ninth. 1053.] Norman conquerors of southern Italy commended
themselves to the Pope whom they took prisoner, and that the Sicilian
kingdoms, on the strength of that commendation, remained for seven
hundred years in the position of fiefs [Sidenote: Commendation of
England to the Pope by John [1213]; to the Emperor by Richard. 1193.] of
the Holy See. The kingdom of England itself was twice commended to a
foreign potentate. John, as all the world knows, commended his kingdom
to the Pope; and his brother Richard had before that commended it to the
Emperor. There was nothing unusual or degrading in the relation; if
Scotland, Wales, Strathclyde, commended themselves to the West-Saxon
King, they only put themselves in the same relation to their powerful
neighbour in which every continental prince stood in theory, and most of
them in actual fact, to the Emperor, Lord of the World. [Sidenote:
Homage of Odo the West-Frank to Arnulf. 888.] Not to speak of a crowd of
smaller instances, Odo, King of the West-Franks, commended himself to
Arnulf of Germany, just as Howel and Constantine commended themselves to
Eadward of Wessex. And this commendation was made before Arnulf became
Emperor and Lord of the World, while he was still the simple King of the
Eastern Franks.[163] The commendation of Scotland and Strathclyde was,
in form at least, a perfectly voluntary act, done with the full consent
of the nations interested. The kingdom of Strathclyde soon came to an
end, and with the Welsh of Wales proper no lasting relations of any kind
[Sidenote: Relations between England and Scotland as friendly as was
usual in such cases.] could be kept up. But between the English
over-lord and his Scottish vassal the mutual compact was not worse kept
than it commonly was in such cases. It was often broken and often
renewed; but this was no more than happened always and everywhere in
those turbulent times. The relations between the English _Basileus_ and
the King of Scots were at least as friendly as the relations which
existed in the tenth century between the King of the West-Franks
[Sidenote: The claims of Edward the First in 1291 rest on the
Commendation to Eadward the Elder in 924.] and his dangerous vassals at
Paris and Rouen. The original commendation to the Eadward of the tenth
century, confirmed by a series of acts of submission spread over the
whole of the intermediate time, is the true justification for the acts
of his glorious namesake in the thirteenth century.[164] The only
difference was that, during that time, feudal notions had greatly
developed on both sides; the original commendation of the Scottish King
and people to a lord, had changed, in the ideas of both sides, into a
[Sidenote: Change of ideas in the meanwhile.] feudal tenure of the land
of the Scottish kingdom. But this change was simply the universal change
which had come over all such relations everywhere. That this point, the
only point which could with any justice have been brought forward
against Edward on the Scottish side, never was brought forward shows how
completely the ancient notion of commendation had gone out of mind.[165]
But the principal point at issue, the right of the over-lord to decide
between two claimants of the vassal kingdom, rested on excellent
precedents in the reigns of Eadward the Confessor and of William Rufus.
Altogether the vassalage—to use the most convenient word—of Scotland
from the [Sidenote: 924–1328.] commendation to Eadward to the treaty of
Northampton [Sidenote: Threefold relation of the King of Scots to the
English Crown.] is one of the best authenticated facts in history. But
it is here needful to point out two other distinct events which have
often been confounded with the commendation of Scotland, a confusion
through which the real state of the case has often been misunderstood.
In the eleventh century at least, if not in the tenth, the King of Scots
stood to his English over-lord in a threefold relation, grounded on
three distinct acts which are popularly confounded. In this matter, as
in so many others, prevalent ignorance is strengthened by inattention to
historical geography. As it is hard to make people understand that there
has not always been a kingdom of France including Marseilles and
Strassburg, perhaps even including Nizza and Chambery, so it is hard to
make people understand that there were not always kingdoms of England
and Scotland, with the Tweed and the Cheviot Hills as the boundaries
between them. It must be borne in mind that in the tenth century no such
boundaries were known, and that the very names of England and Scotland
were only just beginning to be [Sidenote: Geography of Scotland,
Strathclyde, and Lothian in the tenth century.] heard. At the time of
the commendation the country which is now called Scotland was divided
among three quite distinct sovereignties. North of the Forth and Clyde
reigned the King of Scots, an independent Celtic prince reigning over a
Celtic people, the Picts and Scots, the exact relation between which two
tribes is a matter of perfect indifference to my present purpose. South
of the two great firths the Scottish name and the Scottish dominion were
unknown. The south-western part of modern Scotland formed part of the
kingdom of the Strathclyde Welsh, which up to 924 was, like the kingdom
of the [Sidenote: Relations of the three to one another and to the
English Crown.] Scots, an independent Celtic principality. The
south-eastern part of modern Scotland, Lothian in the wide sense of the
word, was purely English, as in language it remains to this day. It was
part of the kingdom of Northumberland, and it had its share in all the
revolutions of that kingdom. In the year 924 Lothian, like the rest of
Northumberland, was subject only to that precarious superiority on the
part of Wessex which had been handed on from Ecgberht and Ælfred, In the
year 924, when the three kingdoms, Scotland, Strathclyde, and
Northumberland, all commended themselves to Eadward, the relation was
something new on the part of Scotland and Strathclyde; but on the part
of Lothian, as an integral part of Northumberland, it was only a renewal
of the relation which had been formerly entered into with Ecgberht and
Ælfred. It is not uncommon to hear the vassalage of Scotland proper,
that is, the land north of the Forth and Clyde, mixed up with questions
about Cumberland and Lothian. But, at the time of the Commendation of
924, Lothian stood in no relation at all towards Scotland, except that
of simple, most likely not very friendly, neighbourhood. Strathclyde
[Sidenote: Since 908.] was already ruled by princes of the Scottish
royal house,[166] but it was still a kingdom quite independent of
Scotland. The transactions which brought Scotland, Strathclyde, and
Lothian into their relations to one another and to the English crown
were quite distinct from each other. They were as follows:—
First, The Commendation of the King and people of the Scots to Eadward
in 924.
Secondly, The Grant of Cumberland by Eadmund to Malcolm in 945.
Thirdly, The grant of Lothian to the Scottish Kings, either under Eadgar
or under Cnut.
[Sidenote: Popular confusions; true nature of the grant of Cumberland.]
These three events are perfectly distinct, and the relations created by
them are perfectly distinct; but, as always happens when several
relations and tenures co-exist, the three gradually got confounded
together, both in idea and in fact. Both in popular conception and in
the hands of partizan Scottish writers, the second of these three events
is made to obscure the other two. The grant by an English King to a
Scottish King of a country described as Cumberland is something too
clear to be denied; that the Scottish princes held their Cumbrian
dominions as a fief of the English crown, that they did homage for them
to the English King, no Scottish writer has ever ventured to call in
doubt.[167] In truth there seems never to have been any wish to call
this fact in doubt, because the Cumbrian homage, put forth sometimes
even in an exaggerated shape, has formed a convenient means of escape
from the fact of the homage for Scotland proper and from the fact of the
purely English character of Lothian. And the confusion of geographical
terms comes conveniently in. In modern language Cumberland means a
single shire which for ages has been undoubtedly English. In modern
language Lothian means three shires which for ages have been undoubtedly
Scottish. People are thus led to believe that Lothian was from all time
an integral part of Scotland, and also that the homage done by the
Scottish to the English King was done only for the county of Cumberland
as an integral part of England. But in the language of the year 945
Lothian was still an integral portion of England; Cumberland meant a
country, part of which is now English and part Scottish, but which up to
that time was neither English nor Scottish, but the seat of a distinct
Welsh principality. By Cumberland in short is meant, not merely the
modern English county so called, but all northern Strathclyde; that is,
modern Cumberland together [Sidenote: Circumstances of the grant of
Cumberland or Strathclyde.] with a considerable portion of modern
Scotland. In 945 the reigning King Donald revolted against his over-lord
Eadmund; he was overthrown and his kingdom ravaged;[168] it was then
granted on tenure of military service to Donald’s kinsman Malcolm King
of Scots. Malcolm could hardly have earned this favour except by sharing
in the war against Donald, which indeed his actual relation to the
English crown bound him to do. For a long time the fief then granted was
granted out again by the Scottish Kings as an apanage for their own
heirs-apparent. The southern part of this territory was afterwards, as
we shall see at a later stage of our history, [Sidenote: The part kept
by Scotland becomes merged in the Scottish kingdom.] annexed to England;
the northern part was kept by the Scottish Kings, and was gradually,
though very gradually, incorporated with their own kingdom. The
distinction between the two states seems to have been quite forgotten in
the thirteenth century; neither side in the controversies of that time
drew any distinction between the tenure of Fife and the tenure of
Galloway; the claims of the English crown were asserted, admitted, or
denied, [Sidenote: Original distinction between the position of
Strathclyde or Cumberland, and the position of Scotland proper.] equally
with regard to both. Yet the relations between England and Scotland
proper and the relations between England and Strathclyde or Cumberland,
though much the same in their nature, were wholly different in their
origin. The relation in which Scotland stood to England was one of
commendation; the relation in which Cumberland stood to England was one
of original grant. This last fact marks a distinct advance in feudal
ideas. Cumberland was from the beginning a real territorial fief.
Eadward did not grant Scotland to Constantine, because Scotland had
never been his; but Constantine and his people, by their own act, put
themselves in the same position as if it had been so granted. But
Eadmund really did grant Cumberland to Malcolm; he granted him a
territory which he had himself conquered, and which he might have kept
in his own hands. Cumberland in short—including, as must not be
forgotten, the south-western shires of modern Scotland—was held by the
Scottish King or his son as a feudal benefice in the strictest sense.
[Sidenote: Grant of Lothian.]
Cumberland then was truly a fief of the crown of England, but it was not
a fief held within the kingdom of England. This last position, popularly
thought to be the position of Cumberland, was really the position of
Lothian. The date of the grant of Lothian is not perfectly clear.[169]
But whatever was the date of the grant, there can [Sidenote: Lothian an
integral part of England.] be no doubt at all as to its nature. Lothian,
an integral part of England, could be granted only as any other part of
England could be granted, namely to be held as part of England, its
ruler being in the position of an English Earl. If the grant was really
made by Eadgar, this is still more likely to be the case, on account of
the unusual friendliness of the relations between Eadgar and Kenneth.
Eadgar might well grant, and Kenneth might well accept, a purely English
government, held by a tenure which would bind him still more closely to
his English over-lord than either his commendatory relation for Scotland
[Sidenote: Lothian gradually separated from England and merged in
Scotland.] or his feudal relation for Strathclyde. But in such a grant
the seeds of separation were sown. A part of the kingdom which was
governed by a foreign sovereign, on whatever terms of dependence, could
not long remain in the position of a province governed by an ordinary
Earl. The King of Scots, though holding all his dominions by various
kinds of dependent tenure, could not be dealt with in any portion of
them like a simple Earl of the Northumbrians. That the possession of
Lothian would under all ordinary circumstances remain hereditary, must
have been looked for from the beginning. This alone would distinguish
Lothian from all other earldoms. Though it was very common to appoint
the son of a deceased Ealdorman to his father’s dignity, still he had
not so much as a preferential claim; the office was held altogether at
the pleasure of the King and his Witan. But when a province was once
granted to a foreign prince, even though that prince remained a
feudatory of the English crown, this kind of control was parted with for
ever, or could be won back only at the cost of war. [Sidenote:
Distinction between Scotland, Strathclyde, and Lothian gradually
forgotten.] Lothian could not fail to become an hereditary dominion of
the Scottish Kings; it could not fail gradually to lose its distinct
character and the remembrance of its distinct tenure, and to be
gradually merged in the mass of the other dominions of its rulers. By
the time of the great controversy of the thirteenth century the
distinction seems to have been forgotten on both sides, exactly as it
was in the case of Strathclyde. The claims of the English King were the
same over the whole country, over Scotland, Strathclyde, and Lothian;
they were put forward as a whole, and they were accepted or rejected as
a whole. Yet, when we weigh the claims of Edward the First by the letter
of the compacts of the tenth century, if we pronounce them to go a
little beyond the mark in the case of Scotland proper, we must equally
pronounce them to fall a little under the mark in the case of Lothian.
The fact is that the progress of feudal ideas had wiped out the
distinction, and had brought all tenures to the same level. The
alternative by that time had come to be whether Scotland, as a whole,
that is, Scotland proper, Scottish Strathclyde, and Lothian, should be a
fief of England or an independent kingdom. That Scotland, Strathclyde,
and Lothian were originally all dependencies of England, but held in
three different degrees of dependence, had passed out of mind on both
sides.
[Sidenote: Later history of Lothian.]
It was then to be expected that Lothian, when once granted to the King
of Scots, should gradually be merged in the kingdom of Scotland. But the
peculiar and singular destiny of this country could hardly have been
looked for. [Sidenote: Lothian becomes the historical Scotland.] Neither
Eadgar nor Kenneth could dream that this purely English province would
become the historical Scotland. The different tenures of Scotland and
Lothian got confounded; the Kings of Scots, from the end of the eleventh
century, became English in manners and language; they were not without
some claims to the crown of England, and not without some hopes of
winning it. They thus learned to attach more and more value to the
English part of their dominions, and they laboured to spread its
language and manners over their original Celtic territory. They kept
their ancient title of Kings of Scots, but they became in truth Kings of
English Lothian and of Anglicized Fife. A state was thus formed,
politically distinct from England and which political circumstances
gradually made bitterly hostile to England—a state which indeed kept on
a dark and mysterious Celtic background, but which, as it appears in
history, is English in laws, language, and manners, more truly English
indeed, in many respects, than England itself remained after the Norman
Conquest. As in so many other cases, the people took the name of their
sovereign; the English subjects of the King of Scots learned to call
themselves Scots and their country Scotland. Meanwhile the true Scots to
the north of them, the original subjects of the Scottish dynasty,
forsaken as it were by their natural princes, became the standing
difficulty of their government. The true Scots are known in history only
as a mass of turbulent tribes, alien in customs, language, and feeling
from those who had taken their name—tribes which the Kings of
Dunfermline and Edinburgh had much ado to keep in even nominal
subjection—tribes which, by a strange turning about of relations, were
ready to fight for their English over-lord against the Kings of
Dunfermline and Edinburgh. [Sidenote: Analogy between the history of
Scotland and of Switzerland.] The history of Scotland is in many
respects strikingly analogous to the history of Switzerland. I pass by
the singular likeness in the national character of the two peoples, a
likeness to be traced alike in the virtues and in the defects of each. I
speak only of the outward facts of their history. In the case of
Switzerland, parts of the German, Burgundian, and Italian nations were,
through a variety of political causes, detached from the main body of
their respective countrymen, and became united by a close political tie
to one another. They thus formed an artificial nation,[170] a political
and historical [Sidenote: Their position as artificial nations.] nation,
but not a nation of common blood and speech. In the case of Scotland,
portions of the English, Welsh, and Irish[171] nations were in like
manner detached from the main body of their own people; they became in
like manner politically connected with one another, and grew in like
manner into an artificial nation. In both cases it is often amusing to
hear men claim as their forefathers those who were the bitterest enemies
of their real forefathers. But in both cases it is more important to
mark, what the history both of Switzerland and of Scotland abundantly
proves, that an artificial nation of this kind is capable of as true and
honourable national feeling as any nation of the most unmixed blood and
language. The history both of Switzerland and of Scotland presents so
many materials for honest pride that it is a pity that exaggerations and
perversions of history should have ever been allowed to step in in
either case. And, to cite one point more of likeness, each people has
drawn its national name from a very small portion of its territory and
population. Switzerland, German, Burgundian, and Italian, has taken its
common name from the single small canton of Schwyz. Scotland, English,
Welsh, and Gaelic, has taken its common name from the original small
colony of Irish Scots who settled on the coast of Argyllshire.
[Sidenote: Case of Wales analogous to that of Scotland.]
I have dwelt on the Scottish question at length, both because of its
intrinsic importance, and because the relations between the crowns of
England and Scotland will call for constant notice in the course of our
history. The case with regard to Wales is the case of Scotland over
again. The homage of the Welsh Kings was always due, and was constantly
exacted, from the days of Ecgberht and Eadward onwards. The only
difference was in the [Sidenote: 1283.] final result. Wales was
incorporated with the English [Sidenote: 1328.] kingdom at the close of
the thirteenth century; Scotland obtained perfect independence in the
fourteenth. The life of one man made all the difference. The great
Edward lived thoroughly to secure his Welsh conquest; before he had
thoroughly secured his Scottish conquest, his mission had passed to a
son who could not keep his crown on his head at home.
Before we leave this subject, it may be well to remember what the
relations between a dependent kingdom and its superior lord really were.
The King of the English did not, by virtue of the commendation, claim
any jurisdiction within the dominions of his vassals. The individual
inhabitant of Scotland stood in no relation to [Sidenote: The relation
between Scotland and England international only.] the English King.[172]
The relation was a purely international one. The King and people of the
Scots chose the King of the English as their Father and Lord; it became
his duty to protect them against their enemies, and it became their duty
to serve him against his enemies. But with the internal management of
the Scottish kingdom he had no concern, nor did this or that individual
[Sidenote: The relation often broken on both sides.] Scot become his man
or his subject. Such was the The relation often broken on both sides.
relation; as we go on, we shall see its engagements broken on both
sides. We shall find the Scottish vassal more than once breaking through
his duty of fidelity, and [Sidenote: 1000.] we shall once at least find
the English over-lord of Strathclyde breaking through his duty of
protection, setting up an unjust claim to a tribute which was not
imposed by the original grant, and cruelly harrying the land in revenge
for a perfectly justifiable refusal of his demands.[173] But such
breaches of duty on both sides are in no way peculiar to England and
Scotland; they form a very large portion of the history of any two
[Sidenote: Delicate nature of the relation.] countries between which
such relations existed. The truth is that the feudal or commendatory
relation is a very delicate relation, one which offers constant
temptations to a breach of its duties on both sides, temptations which,
[Sidenote: Analogy with colonial relations.] in a rude age, must often
have been irresistible. The relation is not identical with the modern
relation between the mother country and its colonies and dependencies,
but there are many points of analogy between the two. And we all know
well how very delicate the relation always is between the metropolis and
its colony. But the point to be borne in mind is that the English
over-lord of Scotland, Strathclyde, and Wales claimed no sovereignty
within those countries, but only a superiority over them. He claimed
such a superiority as the King of the French exercised, or claimed to
exercise, over the Duke of the Normans. The relation was less close than
the relation between the Emperor and the German princes, as no common
Diet looked after the common interests of [Sidenote: Attendance of the
Welsh and Scottish princes in the Witenagemót.] all. That the Scottish
and Welsh princes had the right, which they most likely deemed a
burthen, of attending the meetings of the English Witan is certain; it
is equally certain that the attendance of the Scottish and Cumbrian
princes was exceedingly rare.[174] And at any rate they must have come
only in their personal capacity, to transact any business which they
might have with their over-lord and his counsellors. We cannot suppose
that the English Gemót was ever attended by any Scottish or Welsh Witan
beyond the immediate suite of the Scottish and Welsh Kings. The Kings
came, because they were the men of the English over-lord; but the
private Scot or Briton was not the man of the English over-lord, and had
no need to attend the assembly which he summoned. As little can we deem
that the English Gemót took on itself to make laws for Wales or
Scotland. Neither can we deem that the Welsh and Scottish princes,
though they sign the acts of the Gemóts at which they were present, took
any active share or interest in purely English affairs.
The King of the English was thus over-lord or external superior of all
the princes of the isle of Britain. [Sidenote: Statement of the case as
to the Imperial titles.] In that character, our Kings, from the days of
Æthelstan onwards, bore titles beyond those of ordinary royalty, titles
which in strictness belonged only to the successors of Charles and of
Constantine. They appear in their public acts as _Basileus_, _Cæsar_,
_Imperator_, _Imperator Augustus_.[175] [Sidenote: 1st. Are they to be
taken as seriously implying Imperial claims?] Several questions at once
arise. Are these titles mere outpourings of vanity, mere pieces of
inflated rhetoric, mere specimens of the turgid style of the tenth
century? Or do they imply a serious claim on the part of the English
Kings to be looked on as something more than mere Kings, to be deemed
the peers of the lords of Imperial [Sidenote: 2nd. If so, are they to be
traced uninterruptedly to the old provincial Emperors?] Rome, Old and
New? And if they do imply such a claim, from what was that claim
understood to be derived? Did the Emperors of Britain in the tenth
century inherit, or claim to inherit, their Imperial rank from the
provincial Emperors who reigned in Britain in the third, fourth, and
fifth centuries? Are we to trace an uninterrupted succession of Imperial
sovereignty from Carausius onwards, through Maximus, Constantine,[176]
Aurelius Ambrosius, and the eight Bretwaldas, down to the _Imperatores_
and _Basileis_ of the days succeeding the commendations of Scotland,
Wales, and Strathclyde? Or are we to see in these titles [Sidenote: 3rd.
Or are they borrowed from the style of the contemporary Emperors,
through a feeling that the position of the English King was an Imperial
one?] merely an imitation of the style of the contemporary Roman
Emperors, Eastern and Western—an imitation not grounded solely on a love
of sounding titles, but on a feeling that the English sovereignty was in
some sort greater than that of ordinary Kings, that it had something in
common with that of the Emperors, that in truth the King of the English
held in his own island a position answering to that which the Emperor of
the Romans held in the rest of the world? These questions have given
rise [Sidenote: The third alternative the true one.] to a large amount
of controversy. My own belief, briefly to sum it up, is that vanity and
the love of sounding titles may well have had some secondary share in
the matter, but yet that these titles were seriously meant as a distinct
assertion of the Imperial position of the English crown. But I do not
believe that there was the least thought of any succession from the
ancient provincial Emperors, or from any phantom of Imperial sovereignty
which may have lingered on among the Welsh at the time of the English
Conquest or afterwards. I believe that these titles were taken in order
to claim for the English crown an absolute independence of the Roman
Empire, and at the same time to assert its right to a superiority over
all the princes of Britain of the same kind as that which the Emperor
exercised, or claimed to exercise, over all the princes of the mainland.
I believe in short that, as the Metropolitan of England was sometimes
spoken of as Pope of another world,[177] so the King of the English
claimed to be Emperor of the same island world, a world over which the
Lord of the greater world at Rome or at Constantinople had no authority.
I will now go on to give the reasons for the conclusions to which I have
come.
[Sidenote: Turgid style of the Latin]
It is undoubtedly true that the Latin charters of our Kings during the
latter half of the tenth century are [Sidenote: Charters of the tenth
century.] the most turgid and absurd of all human compositions. Nothing
is said straightforwardly; no idea is expressed by the word which would
most naturally occur to express it. The Latin language is ransacked for
strange and out of the way terms; and when Latin fails, the writers draw
on whatever store of Greek they enjoyed. They turn the whole into a
piebald or mongrel language, something like the jargon of English
lawyers in the seventeenth century.[178] When such a taste prevailed, it
was no wonder that the names of King, Ealdorman, and Bishop were thought
not [Sidenote: Prevalent use of Greek and other strange titles.] grand
enough, and that the dignitaries of Church and State were described by
strange, foreign, and often quite unintelligible titles, Roman, Greek,
Persian, anything that came uppermost. Again, it is no less true that
[Sidenote: This affectation hardly known in the English Charters.] this
sort of affectation is almost wholly confined to the Latin charters.
Those which are drawn up in English are for the most part simple and
business-like, and in them the use of Imperial titles is much
rarer.[179] Still I [Sidenote: The Imperial titles then conveyed a
distinct meaning, and were not likely to be taken up at random.] cannot
look on such titles as _Basileus_, _Imperator_, _Imperator Augustus_, as
mere outbursts of swelling rhetoric. We must remember that they were all
formal titles, titles to which a very distinct meaning was attached,
titles which expressed a special position and which carried with them a
special reverence, titles which were not then, as they are now, taken up
at random by every upstart who, half in shame, half in self-conceit,
shrinks from calling himself by the straightforward title of King. Any
one who knows what the mediæval theory of the Empire was will understand
that for a man to call himself _Imperator Augustus_ was in those days no
light matter. It was a thing which the vainest potentate would hardly do
without some kind of reason for it. For an ordinary King to call himself
Emperor was very nearly as strong a measure as it would have been for an
ordinary Archbishop [Sidenote: Force of the word _Basileus_.] to call
himself Pope. _Basileus_ again, the favourite title of all, was one
specially Imperial; by a caprice of language it had become the Greek
equivalent of _Imperator_; it was the special title of the Eastern
Emperors, the assumption of which by any other prince was held by them
to be an infringement of their sole claim to represent the old Roman
sovereignty. It is hard to believe that our Kings would have assumed a
title surrounded by such associations, one which had been made the
subject of many disputes, merely to make a sentence in a charter sound
more swelling. It is hard to believe that they would have assumed it
without a direct intention to claim thereby a distinctly Imperial
sovereignty. Still, considering the fondness for Greek titles and Greek
words of all kinds which the charters so constantly display, if the
title of _Basileus_ stood alone, it might not be safe to lay [Sidenote:
Still more distinct import of the other titles.] too much stress upon
it. But when we also meet with _Cæsar_, _Imperator_, and _Augustus_, it
is impossible to believe that any title of the class was assumed without
a meaning. Whatever we say of the Greek title of _Basileus_, these Latin
titles at least were not vague descriptions borrowed from a strange and
half unintelligible language. They were titles in familiar use, titles
which every one understood, titles which the diplomacy of the age
studiously applied to one potentate and to one potentate only. They were
titles whose force and use must have been perfectly well known to every
man who understood the Latin language. It is utterly inconceivable that
such titles should have been [Sidenote: The titles meant to assert an
Imperial position.] taken up at random. They could have had no object
but to claim for the prince who assumed them a sovereignty of the same
kind as that which belonged to the prince for whom they were commonly
reserved.
Granting then that the assumption of the Imperial titles had a meaning,
and that it was not a mere piece of rhetorical vanity, the second
question follows;—Was there any real continuous Imperial tradition
handed on from the days of the provincial Emperors, or were the Imperial
titles simply assumed in imitation or rivalry or whatever it is to be
called, of the contemporary German, Italian, and Byzantine Emperors? My
own conviction is [Sidenote: No continuous tradition from the provincial
Emperors.] very decidedly on the latter side.[180] I do not see how any
continuous Imperial tradition could have been handed on from a Roman
ruler in Britain to a West-Saxon King. Every circumstance of the English
Conquest shuts out such a belief. It is likely enough that in Wales and
Cornwall memories might still linger on from the days when Cæsars and
Augusti reigned in Britain. It is likely enough that Aurelius or Arthur
or any other Welsh leader may have put forward some kind of Imperial
pretensions. But that these princes should have handed on such rights or
claims to their English conquerors and destroyers seems to me utterly
inconceivable. We have seen in the last Chapter how completely the
English Conquest of Britain differed from all other Teutonic conquests.
Elsewhere the conquerors became more or less Romanized; they rejoiced to
receive from the reigning Emperor the investiture of some Roman dignity,
some empty title of Consul or Patrician. From the assumption of the
Imperial dignity itself our whole race shrank with a kind of
superstitious awe till the spell was broken by the coronation of the
great Charles. This last motive indeed was one which could have no
effect upon the mind of Ælle or Ceawlin; but its place would be fully
supplied by utter ignorance, carelessness, and contempt for the titles
and institutions of the vanquished. Consul, Patrician, Augustus, all
would be [Sidenote: Real position of the “Tyrants” or provincial
Emperors.] alike unintelligible and despicable in their eyes. And,
before we rule that an English Bretwalda or an Emperor of Britain was in
any sense a successor of the so-called Tyrants[181] or provincial
Emperors, let us remember what the position of these Tyrants or Emperors
really was. Carausius, Maximus, Constantine, and the rest, never called
themselves Emperors of Britain. According to the strict Imperial theory,
an Emperor of Britain is an absurd impossibility; the titles assumed by
Eadgar are in themselves as ridiculous as the titles assumed by those
who in later times have called themselves “Emperor of Austria,” “Emperor
of Hayti,” “Emperor of Mexico,” “Emperor of the French.” The Emperor is
essentially Lord of Rome and of the World; and it was only by setting
itself up as being in some sort another world that Britain could lay any
claim to either a Pope or an Emperor of its own. [Sidenote: Not Emperors
of Britain, but pretenders to the whole Roman Empire while possessing
only a part.] But the very last thought of the old Tyrants or provincial
Emperors would have been to claim any independent existence for Britain,
Gaul, or any other part of the Empire of which they might have gained
possession. Nothing could be further from their wishes than to set up
anything like a separate national kingdom. They were pretenders to the
whole Empire, if they could get it, and they not uncommonly did get it
in the end. A man who began as tyrant often became a lawful Emperor,
either by deposing the reigning Emperor or by [Sidenote: Carausius.
286–294.] being accepted by him as his colleague. Carausius, the first
British Emperor according to this theory, held not only Britain but part
of Gaul. It must not be thought that part of Gaul had been annexed to
the dominions of a national sovereign of Britain, as Calais was by
Edward the Third and Boulogne by Henry the Eighth. Britain and part of
Gaul were simply those parts of the Roman Empire of which Carausius, a
candidate for the whole Empire, had been able actually to possess
himself. At last Carausius was accepted as a colleague by Diocletian and
Maximian, and so became a lawful Cæsar and Augustus. [Sidenote:
Allectus. 294–297.] Allectus was less fortunate; he never got beyond
Britain, and instead of being acknowledged as a colleague, he was
defeated and slain by Constantius. Constantius himself reigned in
Britain; but no one would call Constantius a British Emperor, and
Carausius was a British Emperor [Sidenote: Magnentius. 350.] just as
little. Magnentius, Maximus, Constantine, were simply Emperors whose
career began in Britain and not in [Sidenote: Maximus. 383–388.] Syria
or Africa; they were not content to reign as British [Sidenote:
Constantine. 407.] Emperors or Emperors of Britain; they speedily
asserted their claim to as large a share of the Roman world as they had
strength to win and to keep. Now it is perfectly possible, especially if
any of the Welsh princes were descendants of Maximus, that a remembrance
of these Emperors may have survived in Britain, and it is not unlikely
that the conquest of Gaul by an Emperor who set forth from Britain may
be the kernel of truth round which much of the mythical history of
Arthur has [Sidenote: No analogy between these Emperors and the English
Bretwaldas.] gathered. But it is certainly hard to understand the
analogy between a Roman general, trying to obtain the whole Roman
Empire, but who is unable to obtain more than Britain or Britain and
Gaul, and a Teutonic chief, winning by his own sword some sort of
superiority over the other princes, Celtic and Teutonic, within the isle
of Britain. The essence of the position of Carausius and his successors
is that they aspired to an universal dominion, and with such dominion
any independent or national existence on the part of Britain would have
been utterly inconsistent. The essence of the position of an English
Bretwalda or Basileus is that he is the very embodiment of an
independent national existence, that he aspires to a dominion purely
insular, that he claims supremacy over everything within the island, but
aspires to no conquests beyond it. He is a “Wielder of Britain,” Emperor
so far as he is independent of either continental Empire, Emperor so far
as he exercises Imperial power over vassal princes within his own
island. I can see no likeness between him and a Roman general, who
aspires to reign on the seven hills, but who is unluckily shut up
against his will within the four seas of Britain.[182]
I infer then that the Imperial style which was affected by our Kings
from Æthelstan onwards was not derived by any continuous tradition from
any earlier British or Roman [Sidenote: Explanation to be found in the
circumstances of the time.] Empire. It is in the circumstances of their
own kingdom, and in the general circumstances of Europe during the ninth
and tenth centuries, that we must look for the causes which led them to
challenge Imperial rank. Ecgberht, [Sidenote: Charles and Ecgberht.] it
should not be forgotten, was the friend, the guest, and no doubt the
pupil, of Charles the Great.[183] Ecgberht [Sidenote: 802.] was chosen
to the West-Saxon throne two years after the Old Rome re-asserted, in
the person of Charles, her right to choose her own Emperor. We cannot
doubt that, through his whole career, he had Charles before him as his
model, and that his object was to win for himself the same kind of
dominion in his own island which Charles had won on the continent. But
Ecgberht never assumed any higher style than that of King of the
English, and even that, as far as we know, but once only.[184] In his
days the unity of the Western Empire still remained unbroken under his
benefactor and his benefactor’s son. It was enough for the West-Saxon
King to feel himself well nigh the only independent prince in Western
Christendom, [Sidenote: The plans of Ecgberht, checked yet in the end
helped by the Danish invasions, were fully carried out by Eadward and
Æthelstan.] without setting himself up as a rival Emperor. The schemes
of Ecgberht, checked under his immediate successors by the Danish
invasions, were in the end really promoted by those invasions, through
the weakening and destruction of the other English kingdoms. At last his
whole plan was carried out in the latest days of Eadward, and it was
established in a more thoroughly organized form by Æthelstan. The whole
isle of Britain was now, in different degrees of subjection and
dependency, under the supreme dominion of the West-Saxon Kings. Now, and
not before, begins the use of the Imperial titles. [Sidenote: Greatness
of the position of Æthelstan.] Æthelstan, in whose reign the connexion
between England and the continent was unusually busy, Æthelstan, Lord of
all Britain, connected by marriage and friendship with all the greatest
princes of Europe, could hardly fail to take in the greatness of his own
position. He might well feel [Sidenote: His assumption of the Imperial
style.] himself to be the peer of Emperors. He was the one prince whose
dominions had never, since his own nation entered them, acknowledged any
superiority in the lord of either Rome. Of our island at least might be
said, whether in honour or in reproach,
“De tributo Cæsaris nemo cogitabat;
Omnes erant Cæsares; nemo censum dabat.”[185]
[Sidenote: Points of analogy between his position and that of the
Emperors.] Whatever vague and transitory homage Cæsar may have received
from Scots or Northumbrians, it is certain that no King of the
West-Saxons ever knew a superior beyond the limits of his own island.
But, from the days of Ecgberht onwards, every King of the West-Saxons
had claimed or aspired to a superiority of his own through the whole
extent of his own island; and now Æthelstan had converted those lofty
dreams into a living reality. Gaul, Spain, Italy, Denmark, the Slavonic
and other less known lands beyond the Elbe, all had bowed to the
dominion of the first Teutonic Cæsar. To England alone he had been a
model and a counsellor, but not a master. As the one perfectly
independent prince in Western Christendom, Æthelstan was the equal of
Emperors, and within his own island he held the same position which the
Emperors held in the rest of the world. Like an Emperor, he not only had
his own kingdom, governed under him by his own Dukes or Ealdormen, but
his kingdom was surrounded by a circle of vassal princes who paid to him
the homage which he himself paid to no superior upon earth. As no other
prince in Western Christendom could claim for his own kingdom the same
perfect independence of all Imperial superiority, so no other prince in
Western Christendom could show, in a crowd of dependent princes, so
perfect a reproduction of the Imperial majesty. And [Sidenote: No
universally acknowledged Emperor at this time.] it must not be forgotten
that during the first half of the tenth century there was not, as there
was before and after, any one Emperor universally acknowledged by all
the Christian states of the West. The days of the Carolingian Cæsars
were past; the days of the Saxon Cæsars were not yet come. Guy, Lambert,
Berengar, [Sidenote: 888–896.] were Augusti not less fleeting, and far
more feeble, than any of the tyrants of whom Britain had once been so
fertile. The King of the English and Lord of all Britain might well feel
himself to be a truer representative of Imperial greatness than Emperors
whose rule was at most confined to a corner of Italy. He was, beyond all
doubt, the second among Western Kings. The Kings of the Eastern Franks,
not yet Emperors in formal rank, but marked out in the eyes of all men
as the predestined heirs of Charles, were the only rulers who could be
held to surpass him in power and glory. Without waiting for any formal
coronation, the soldiers of Henry and Otto had saluted their victorious
Kings as _Imperatores_ and _Patres Patriæ_, and, with the same feeling,
Æthelstan assumed, or received from his counsellors, the titles which
placed [Sidenote: Revival of the Empire under Otto [962], not likely to
make the English Kings withdraw their Imperial claims.] him on a level
with them. The new birth of the Empire during the reign of Eadgar, the
coronation of Otto the Great, which at once restored to the Imperial
crown no small share of its ancient power and dignity, would by no means
tend to make our princes lay aside any Imperial claims which they had
already asserted. Eadgar was on the best terms with his Imperial uncle;
still it might be thought needful to assert that England owed him no
kind of homage, and that the other princes of Britain owed homage to
Eadgar and not to Otto.
Here then, as it seems to me, and not in any traditions of Ambrosius or
Carausius, is to be found the true explanation of the otherwise
startling title of Emperor of [Sidenote: Full import of the Imperial
titles.] Britain. That title was meant at once to assert the
independence of the English crown upon any foreign superior, and to
assert the dependence of all the other powers of Britain upon the
English crown. It was meant to assert that the King of the English was,
not the homager but the peer, alike of the Imperator of the West and of
the Basileus of the East, and it was meant to assert that Scots, Welsh,
and Cumbrians owed no duty to Rome or to Byzantium, but only to their
Father and Lord at [Sidenote: They go out of use after the Norman
Conquest, because insular dominion is no longer the chief object.]
Winchester. The Imperial titles last in common use down to the Norman
Conquest; after that their employment is rare, and they gradually die
out altogether. And why? Because the Norman and Angevin Kings, though
they were by no means disposed willingly to abate a tittle of the rights
of their predecessors within the four seas of Britain, were far from
looking on insular dominion as the main object of their policy. They
were Kings of England, and they knew the strength and value of England;
some of them had wisdom enough to value England for her own sake; still
in the eyes of all of them, one main value of England was to serve as a
nursery of men and a storehouse of money to serve their plans of
continental ambition. They were Kings of England, but they were also
Counts of Anjou, Dukes of Normandy and Aquitaine, striving after an
equality with their liege lord at Paris, sometimes perhaps after a
superiority over him. The British Empire in which Æthelstan gloried, and
in which Cnut in the midst of his Northern triumphs gloried no less, was
assuredly not despised by the wisdom of Henry of Anjou. But if it was
one object of his policy, it was not the only one. In the eyes of the
Poitevin knight-errant who came after him, it seemed hardly worth
keeping; and it was something which could not be kept in the grasp of
John and Henry the [Sidenote: The old claims take a more strictly feudal
shape under Edward the First.] Third. At last in the great Edward there
again arose a true Bretwalda, one who saw that the dominion of Æthelstan
and Eadgar was a worthier prize than shadowy dreams of aggrandizement
beyond the sea. But by this time the notion of a British Empire had
given way to more purely feudal ideas, and his claims to supremacy took
their shape [Sidenote: Later traces of the ideas.] accordingly. But
traces of the old ideas still lingered on. Through the fourteenth, the
fifteenth, the sixteenth centuries, a chain of instances may be put
together which show that the idea of an Empire of Britain was not wholly
forgotten.[186] Even when no Imperial claims were put forward on behalf
of England, it was thought needful carefully to shut out all claims on
the part of any other power to Imperial supremacy over England. And in
the sixteenth century, along with the revived study of our early
history, the Imperial titles themselves revive in a more definite form.
The Imperial character of the English sovereignty was strongly asserted
both by Henry the Eighth and by Elizabeth. In the days of Charles the
Fifth a denial of all dependence on the Roman Cæsar may have been no
less needful than a denial of all dependence on the Roman Pontiff. Henry
may well have deemed it prudent to take the same precautions against his
Imperial nephew which Eadgar had taken against his Imperial uncle.
Protests of the like sort were again made in the reign of Elizabeth. We
find her more than once formally described as Empress, an Empress whose
Empire reached from “the Orcade isles to the mountains Pyrenee.” In this
last description we find the key to the style. An Empire implied
subordinate kingdoms. Elizabeth claimed to be Empress as being
independent of the continental Emperor; she also claimed to be Empress
as having a royal vassal within her own island. The same phrases which
assert the independence of England upon the Austrian Emperor also assert
the dependence of Scotland upon the English Empress.[187]
This then I believe to be the true account of the Imperial titles and
Imperial pretensions of the English Kings in the tenth and eleventh
centuries. Our Kings meant to assert at once their own perfect
independence and the dependence of the other princes of Britain upon
them. [Sidenote: Growth of the English system of dependencies.
827–1869.] It is perhaps worth notice that in all this we may see the
beginnings of a system which has gone on to our own day. From the days
of Ecgberht onwards the House of Cerdic has never been without its
dependencies. Their sphere has gradually been enlarged; as nearer
dependencies have been incorporated with the central state, another more
distant circle of dependencies has arisen beyond them. Wessex held the
supremacy over England; England held it over Great Britain; Great
Britain held it over Ireland and a crowd of smaller islands and
colonies; the United Kingdom holds it over colonies and dependencies of
every kind, from Man to New Zealand. Since the days of the Roman
Commonwealth, no other land has had so large an experience of the
relations between a central power and half-incorporated states of
various kinds. [Sidenote: Imperial character still retained by England.]
In this sense, England is now a more truly Imperial power than any other
in the world. Putting aside the local associations of Rome and
Constantinople, no modern state comes so near to the notion of an Empire
as understood either by Æthelstan or by Otto. There is therefore an
historical meaning in the familiar phrases of “the British Empire” and
“the Imperial Parliament,” whether any remembrance of ancient Bretwaldas
and Basileis was or was not present to the minds of those who devised
them.
[Sidenote: Summary.]
I thus bring to an end my survey of the political condition of England
and its dependent states in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The
dominion won by Eadward and Æthelstan was handed over unimpaired to
William the Bastard. We have seen what that dominion was. There was a
home monarchy in which the power of the King was strictly limited by
law, but in which his personal influence was almost unbounded. There was
also an external lordship over a body of vassal princes who had the
right and the duty, though perhaps but seldom the will, to appear in the
Great Council of their Over-lord along with the Bishops and Ealdormen of
his own realm. [Sidenote: The old Kingdom and Empire transferred to
William.] This dominion was, by the forced election of the English
Witan, transferred to the hands of the Norman Conqueror. Under his
successors the character of the monarchy [Sidenote: Gradual changes]
gradually altered, but it altered far more through a change in the
spirit of the administration than through actual [Sidenote: after the
Conquest.] changes in the laws. The power of the crown was vastly
increased in the hands of William and his sons, and in other respects
the kingdom gradually changed from the old Teutonic to the later
mediæval form. But it was always the constitutional doctrine that
William, a legal claimant of the crown, received the crown as it had
been held by his predecessors. It follows that a thorough knowledge of
the position of those predecessors, of the nature of their authority and
of the limits on their power, is absolutely necessary, if only to
understand the position of the Norman Kings, what changes they made and
what changes they did not make. What was the real nature and amount of
those changes, political and social, will be shown in my last volume.
And, along with them, I shall deal more specially with some points, like
language and art, the earlier forms of which are most fittingly treated
of by way of comparison with their later forms. For the present we turn
for a while from the history and state of England as they stood under
Ælfred and his immediate successors, to trace out the early history of
the land which became closely connected with England in the course of
the tenth century, and which sent forth the conquerors of England in the
eleventh.