Such was the Scottish inroad and its results. It is wrongly placed, and

some of the details may be suspected, but the outline of the story may,

I think, be admitted. [Sidenote: Danish invasion of the year 1006.] But

of the Danish invasion there is no doubt at all. In the month of July a

vast fleet appeared off Sandwich, and Kent and Sussex were ravaged

without mercy. Æthelred for once seems to have seriously thought of

personal action against the enemy.[635] He gathered together an army

from [Sidenote: An English army raised, but in vain.] Mercia and Wessex,

which was kept throughout the whole autumn in readiness for an

engagement. But nothing came of this unusual piece of energy. The old

causes were still at work, and the enemy, perhaps remembering the

reception which they had met with at the hands of Ulfcytel, seem now to

have avoided a battle.[636] They plundered here and there, and went

backwards and forwards to their ships, till, as winter approached, the

English army dispersed, and the King returned to his old quarters at

Shrewsbury. There is a vein of bitter sarcasm in the way in which the

tale is told in the Chronicles. The writers keenly felt the incapacity

of their rulers, and the degradation of their [Sidenote: The Danes go

back to Wight. November, 1006.] country. The Danes went back to their

“frith-stool”[637]—their safe asylum, their inviolable sanctuary—in the

Isle of Wight. Presently, at Christmas, when no resistance was likely,

they went forth to their “ready farm,” to the quarters which stood

awaiting them, as it were to gather in their crops and to enjoy the fat

of their own land.[638] [Sidenote: Great plundering expedition in the

winter of 1006–7.] That is to say, they went on a plundering expedition

which carried them further from their own element than they had ever yet

ventured. They marched across Hampshire to Reading, and thence up the

valley of the Thames, “doing according to their wont and kindling their

beacons”—that is, no doubt, wasting and burning the whole country. They

thus dealt with Reading, with Wallingford, with Cholsey. They were now

in the midst of a land where almost every step is ennobled by memories

of Ælfred. Out of mere bravado, it would seem, they climbed the

neighbouring height, the long ridge of Æscesdún, which looks down on the

spot where, [Sidenote: 871.] in the great King’s first campaign, victory

had for a moment shone on the West-Saxon banners. They marched along the

ridge till they reached the vast barrow which, under the corrupted form

of Cuckamsley,[639] still preserves the name of Cwichelm, one of the two

West-Saxon [Sidenote: 636.] Kings who first submitted to baptism. This

was a spot where, in times of peace, the people of that inland shire had

held their local assemblies, and some unknown seer had risked the

prediction that, if the Danes ever got so far from the sea, they would

never see their ships again. The falsehood of the prophecy was now

shown. The Danes crossed the range of hills; they marched down on the

other side, and went on to the south. At Kennet, now Marlborough, an

English force at last met them, but it was speedily put to flight. The

Danes then turned homewards. They passed close by the gates of the royal

city of Winchester, displaying in triumph to its inhabitants the spoils

of the inland shires of Wessex, now become the defenceless prey of the

sea-rovers.[640]

This was the most fearful inroad which England had yet seen, one which

showed that the parts furthest from the sea were now no more safe from

Danish ravages than the exposed coasts of Kent and Sussex. The King kept

[Sidenote: Witenagemót of Shrewsbury. 1006–7.] his Christmas at

Shrewsbury, and there the Witan met. All heart and hope seemed to be

gone; no one could devise any means of withstanding the force which had

now harried every shire in Wessex. Nothing could be thought of but the

old device; the broken reed was again to be leaned upon; ambassadors

were sent, once more offering [Sidenote: Tribute again paid to the

Danes. 1007.] money as the price of the cessation of the ravages. The

offer was accepted; but the price was of course again raised; thirty-six

thousand pounds was to be paid, and the Danish army was to receive

provisions. They were fed during the whole winter at the general cost of

England, and early in the next year the sum of money demanded was paid.

[Sidenote: Two years’ respite. 1007–8.]

We can never speak or think of these wretched attempts to buy peace

without a feeling of shame, and yet, in this case at least, the payment

may not have been such utter madness as it appears at first sight. Of

course nothing more than a respite was ever gained; when the Danes had

spent the money, they came again for more. And it would seem, from the

example of Ulfcytel, that a respite could be as easily won by a manful,

even if not perfectly successful, resistance. Still this payment did

gain for the country a breathing-space at a time when a breathing-space

was absolutely needed. We hear nothing of any more invasions for two

years, and there was at least an attempt made to spend the interval in

useful legislation and in putting the country into a more efficient

state of defence. Æthelred and his favourites, as usual, spoiled

everything; but we need not attribute their cowardice and incapacity to

all the Witan of England. As far as we can see, the schemes of the

legislature were well considered; a respite was needed in order to

devise any scheme at all, and humiliating as it was to buy that respite,

such a course may have been absolutely necessary. But in this reign

everything was thwarted by executive misconduct. Æthelred first laid on

his Witan the necessity of consenting to all this degradation, and he

then frustrated their endeavours to make such degradation needless for

the future.

[Sidenote: Eadric made Ealdorman of the Mercians. 1007.]

Meanwhile the reigning favourite attained the height of his greatness.

He was made Ealdorman of the Mercians,[641] dishonouring the post once

held by the glorious daughter of Ælfred. It was most likely at this time

that he received the King’s daughter Eadgyth in marriage. We have now to

repeat the same comments which we made in the case of Ælfric. That old

enemy, after his last treason [Sidenote: 1003.] four years before, now

vanishes from history, and his place [Sidenote: Inexplicable treasons of

Eadric.] as chief traitor is taken by Eadric. The history of Eadric from

this moment is simply a catalogue of treasons as unintelligible as those

of his predecessor. Why a man who had just risen to the highest pitch of

greatness, son-in-law of his sovereign and viceroy of an ancient

kingdom, should immediately ally himself with the enemies of his King

and country, is one of those facts which are utterly incomprehensible.

But that it is a fact there is no good reason to doubt. Our best

authorities for this period, the writers nearest to the time, those

least given to exaggeration or romantic embellishment, distinctly assert

that it was so, and we have nothing but ingenious guesses on the other

side.

[Sidenote: Legislation of the years 1008–1009.]

The next year is one memorable in the annals of our early legislation,

and the year which followed it is still more so. The civil functions of

the King and his Witan were in full activity during the two years of

respite. The laws of Æthelred form several distinct statutes or

collections of clauses, most of which are without date; but, of the few

dated ordinances, one belongs to the former of these two years, while

another may, on internal evidence, [Sidenote: Laws of 1008.] be safely

set down as belonging to the same period. The former statute[642] deals

mainly with ecclesiastical matters, but it also contains provisions both

of a moral and of a political kind. On these points however we get much

more of general exhortations than of really specific enactments. The

whole reads like an act of penitence on the part of a repentant nation

awakened by misfortune to a sense of national sins. Heathenism is to be

cast out, an ordinance which shows what had been the effect of the

Danish invasions. Such a precept would have been needless in the days of

Ine or Offa. But now, not only were many heathen strangers settled in

the land, but we may even believe that some native Englishmen may have

fallen off to the worship of the gods who seemed to be the stronger.

Some of the clauses are vague enough. All laws are to be just; every man

is to have his rights; all men are to live in peace and

friendship—excellent advice, no doubt, but hard to carry out in any time

and place, and hardest of all when Æthelred and Eadric were to be the

chief administrators of the law. Punishments are to be mild; death

especially is to be sparingly inflicted; Christian and innocent men are

not to be sold out of the land, least [Sidenote: Laws against the

slave-trade.] of all to heathen purchasers.[643] This last prohibition

is one which is constantly repeated in the legislation of this age,

showing at once how deeply the evil was felt, and how little legislation

could do to get rid of it. We must never forget that slavery was fully

established throughout England, though the proportion of slaves varied

greatly in different parts of the country. The slave class was recruited

from two sources. Englishmen were reduced to slavery for various crimes

by sentence of law, and the children of such slaves followed the

condition of their fathers.[644] Welsh captives taken in war formed

another class, and the proportion of slaves to freemen was unusually

large in the shires on the Welsh border. Slaves of both classes were

freely sold to the Danes in Ireland, and the words of the statute seem

to imply that the kidnapping of persons of free condition was not

unknown.[645] Both these practices our present statute endeavours to

hinder. The same prohibition was re-enacted under Cnut,[646] but the

practice survived all the laws aimed against it, and we shall see, as we

go on, it was in full force a few years after the Norman Conquest. The

intention in this enactment is as good as it could be; but the enactment

is vague, no definite penalty is attached to breaches of the law, and we

are not surprised to hear that it had little practical effect. Some of

the other precepts are even vaguer. We may sum up the whole by saying

that all virtues are to be practised and all vices avoided; all

church-dues are to be regularly paid, and all festivals are to be

regularly kept, especially the festival of the newest English saint, the

martyred King Eadward.[647] The whole is wound up with a pious and

patriotic resolve of real and impressive solemnity. The nation pledges

itself to fidelity to God and the King. It will worship one God and be

true to one royal lord; it will manfully and with one accord defend life

and land, and will pray earnestly to God Almighty for his help.[648]

In all this we see a spirit of real reform and real earnestness

thoroughly suited to the time. And if some of the ordinances of the

Witan are somewhat vague and dreamy, we find one at least of a more

definite and practical kind. [Sidenote: The formation of a fleet

decreed.] The happy days of Eadgar are to be restored, when yearly after

Easter the royal fleet of England sailed forth, and when no enemy dared

approach the land which it guarded.[649] Under the wretched advisers of

his son this regular order had doubtless been neglected. Ships had

sometimes been assembled, but certainly not as a matter of regular

yearly course. It is singular how seldom, in dealing with an enemy so

essentially sea-faring, we hear of any attempt at [Sidenote: 992.]

action by sea. The gallant sea-fight of sixteen years earlier[650]

stands almost alone. But now the good old practice was to be renewed,

and the royal fleet was to assemble yearly [Sidenote: Ordinances against

desertion from the land-force.] after Easter.[651] Nor was the

efficiency of the land-force forgotten. It was secured by heavy

penalties against deserters. A fine of one hundred and twenty shillings

was incurred in ordinary cases; but when the King was present in person,

desertion placed the life and estate of the culprit at the royal

mercy.[652] The contributions for the repair of forts and bridges were

to be strictly discharged,[653] and generally everything to do with the

defence of the land was to be put on the best footing that might be.

[Sidenote: Decrees of Enham,]

The decrees of the undated Council of Enham[654] are marked as belonging

to the same period, by the repetition of nearly the same enactments,

often in nearly the same words. They contain much the same moral and

religious exhortations, and much the same ordinances for the mustering

of the land and sea-force, for the repair of the forts and bridges, for

the punishment of deserters and of those [Sidenote: drawn up in the name

of the Witan only.] who damage a ship of war. But the most remarkable

thing about this statute is that it is drawn up in the name of the Witan

only, without any mention of the King.[655] But there is no need to

infer that there was in this case any departure from the usual

legislative process. The Witan only are mentioned; but the action of the

Witan implies the action of the King, just as in many places in the

Chronicles, where the King only is mentioned, the action of the King

implies the action of the Witan. We may indeed fairly suppose that both

these statutes were more distinctly the work of the Witan, and less

distinctly the work of the King, than in most other cases. The laws of

Ælfred were the work of the King, which he submitted to the Witan for

their approval.[656] So, we may be sure, was the case with the laws of

the other great Kings who came after him. But we may well believe that

the laws of Æthelred were the work of Æthelred only in the sense in

which the Great Charter was the work of John. Both statutes breathe the

same spirit, a spirit widely different from anything likely to come

forth from Æthelred or his immediate counsellors. They clearly sprang

from the best elements of wisdom that the Great Council of the nation

could still supply. They show a real desire to mend the ways of the

nation, to make satisfaction to God and man for the past, and for the

future to work manfully alike for national reformation and for the

national defence. The whole tone is at once pious and patriotic; and the

piety is of a kind which, while it strictly enforces every

ecclesiastical observance, by no means forgets the weightier matters of

the law, judgement, mercy, and truth. In all this we can hardly fail to

trace the hand of good Archbishop Ælfheah.

[Sidenote: The fleet raised by contributions of districts.]

A fleet then was to be raised, a fleet such as guarded the land in the

days of Ælfred and Eadgar. But how was the fleet to be raised? This

question leads us to a most remarkable statement in our authorities, the

details of which are puzzling in the highest degree, but as to the

general bearing of which there can be no doubt.[657] The cost of the

fleet was to be borne by the nation at large, individuals or districts

being made to contribute according to their means and extent. In those

days land was of course taken as the only standard of property on which

the assessment could be made. It does not appear that either individuals

or districts were called on to make any contributions in money to the

royal treasury. They were to contribute in kind, according to a scale

laid down by the Witan, in the shape of ships, or of things needful for

the ships or their crews. There can be no doubt that, in the reign of

Æthelred, this was a much wiser arrangement; money which had to pass

through the hands either of the King or of his favourite would most

[Sidenote: The system not a new one.] likely not have appeared again in

the form of ships. The practice was not one which was invented for the

nonce. There is evidence to show that a contribution of ships in

[Sidenote: 995–1005.] kind was the ancient custom. In the will of

Archbishop Ælfric, which must of course have been drawn up a few years

before this time, that prelate bequeaths a ship to his flock in Kent and

another to his former flock in Wiltshire.[658] This gift must have been

intended to relieve the people of those shires from some part of their

share in this doubtless heavy impost. It is hardly possible that the

bequest can have any other object; one can think of no other motive

which could lead an Archbishop or any one else to leave [Sidenote: The

contribution made by shires.] a ship to a shire, especially to an inland

shire. This evidence seems to show that the contribution was made by

shires, that each shire had to furnish a certain number of ships

according to its extent, the assessment on individuals or on smaller

districts being doubtless settled in the Scirgemót. This was most likely

the old and regular way of raising a fleet, the way in which the great

fleets of Ælfred [Sidenote: This assessment the origin of ship-money.]

and Eadgar had been raised. But this vote of King Æthelred’s Witenagemót

does not only look backward; it looks forward. There can be no doubt

that, in this ancient way of gathering together a fleet, we have the

germ of the famous ship-money of the seventeenth century.[659] The writs

discovered by Noy calling on maritime, and sometimes on inland, counties

and places to furnish ships, and [Sidenote: 1634–5.] the writs issued by

Charles the First in pursuance of the precedents thus discovered,

undoubtedly take their root in the statute of the thirtieth year of King

Æthelred. They are the degenerate successors of that great vote of the

Witenagemót of 1008, just as that vote was the more lawful successor of

earlier votes in the days of England’s greatest Kings. There is of

course one all important difference between the two cases. The

contributions levied by Charles were levied by an usurping stretch of

the royal prerogative; the contributions levied by Ælfred, Eadgar, and

Æthelred were granted, in due form of law, by the Great Council of the

nation. But the impost was the same, though the authority by which it

was raised was lawful in the one case and unlawful in the other. The

earlier writs of ship-money under Charles demanded actual ships, just as

in the case before us. And there was a call for special heed to the

fleet in the days of Charles, just as much as there was in the days of

Æthelred. To say nothing of the general complications of Europe, the

Algerine corsairs, though not quite so formidable as Swegen’s Danes, did

serious damage to English commerce, and they sometimes actually landed

and plundered on the English and Irish coasts. The objection was to the

illegal shape in which the demand came. And the later writs, which,

under pretence of a composition for the actual ships, levied a tax by

royal authority over the whole country, were a further abuse. Money came

into the King’s clutches, not only without any lawful right, but without

any kind of guaranty that it would be applied to the purposes for which

it professed to be raised. This was the very evil against which the

ancient mode of contributions in kind effectually guarded.

[Sidenote: Embassy to Normandy. 1009?]

Besides these vigorous preparations at home, there seems some reason to

believe that an attempt was made at this time to strengthen England by

foreign help. It was plainly felt that the peace bought from the Danes

had secured only a breathing-space, that their attacks would soon begin

again, and that it was necessary to employ the blessed interval in

obtaining support from every possible quarter. It was not unnatural to

hope that the marriage of Emma had gained for England a continental

ally, and we are told, on secondary but not contemptible authority, that

Æthelred now sent to his brother-in-law Duke Richard, asking for both

help and counsel.[660] There is nothing unlikely in the statement; but,

whatever may have been given by Richard in the way of counsel, it does

not appear [Sidenote: No Norman help given.] that a single Norman ship

or Norman soldier was sent to the help of England. Hugh, the betrayer of

Exeter, is the only recorded contribution which either Norman chivalry

or Norman churlhood made to the defence of our shores against the Dane.

Nor indeed was there any strong reason why Richard should help his

brother-in-law, unless he had taken up the cause as a kind of crusade,

and had stepped in as a Christian champion against the heathen invaders.

But Richard and his subjects were Normans before they were Christians,

and all the traditions of Norman policy tended to fraternization with

their Danish kinsmen. Such fraternization with the Danes had already

caused, certainly a dispute, perhaps an open war, with England. Richard

the Good in no way departed from this traditional policy. [Sidenote:

Richard’s treaty with Swegen.] According to a Norman account, told with

great confusion as to time, Richard was, either now or a few years

later, actually bound by a treaty with Swegen, not only to receive sick

and wounded Danes in his dominions, but to allow the spoils of England

to be sold in the Norman ports.[661] This was the old ground of quarrel,

but Æthelred was just now not likely to retaliate by another invasion of

the Côtentin. And, according to another story, told with equal confusion

as to dates, Richard, like his father, did not scruple to accept the

help of two heathen Kings of the North in his warfare with his Christian

neighbours.[662] At a later time indeed he could not well refuse shelter

in his dominions to his sister with her husband and children; [Sidenote:

Richard keeps aloof from English affairs.] but anything like even an

attempt at active interference in English affairs on the part of

Normandy was delayed till the reign of his son Robert.

[Sidenote: The fleet assembles at Sandwich. 1009.]

At last the great fleet was gathered together at Sandwich. So great a

fleet had never been seen in the reign of any King. No man living had

seen such an one, nor was such an one spoken of in any book. There the

ships were, enough and ready to guard the land against any foe.[663]

And, under Ælfred or Æthelstan, we may be sure that those ships would

have kept the seas clear from every foe, or else they would have met the

invaders face to face on their own element. But in the reign of Æthelred

domestic treason ruined everything. The fleet raised by such

unparalleled efforts was doomed to do no more for England than any other

preparations which had been made during this miserable reign. The fleet

was ready, but there was discord among the commanders. Eadric, in his

own rise, had raised along with himself several of his brothers,[664] of

one of whom, Brihtric, we read a character quite as bad [Sidenote:

Affair of Wulfnoth and Brihtric.] as of Eadric himself. This man, at

this time or a little earlier, brought unjust charges to the King, of

what kind we are not told, against a leader named Wulfnoth, described as

“Child Wulfnoth the South-Saxon.”[665] Orders were given to seize

Wulfnoth; he fled, and persuaded the crews of twenty ships, most likely

the contingent of his own shire, to flee with him. They presently began

to plunder the whole south coast. Brihtric then followed him with eighty

ships, thinking to win great fame,[666] and to bring back Wulfnoth alive

or dead. But a violent storm, such as had never before been known, beat

his ships to pieces, and dashed them against the shore, where presently

Wulfnoth [Sidenote: Brihtric’s ships burned by Wulfnoth.] came and

burned them. A hundred ships were thus lost in one way or another; but

these must have been only a small portion of so great an armament. Yet

an unaccountable [Sidenote: Utter dispersion of the fleet.] panic seized

on all men. In the emphatic words of the Chronicles, “When this was

known to the other ships where the King was, how the others had fared,

it was as if all were redeless; and the King gat him home, and the

Ealdormen and the High-Witan, and forsook the ships thus lightly; and

the folk then that were in the ships took the ships eft to London, and

let all the nation’s toil thus lightly perish, and there was no victory

the better that all Angle-kin had hoped for.”[667]

The fleet was lost just when it was most needed. Æthelred, Wulfnoth, and

Brihtric had, among them, [Sidenote: Renewed Danish invasion. 1009.]

wrought the utter ruin of their country. As might have been looked for,

and as evidently was looked for, the Danes, when they had spent their

money, came again. First [Sidenote: Thurkill’s fleet.] came a fleet

commanded by an Earl Thurcytel or Thurkill, who plays a great part in

the history for about twelve years to come.[668] In the month of August

this detachment was followed by a still larger one, under the command of

Heming and Eglaf.[669] The treason of Wulfnoth had left neither fleet

nor army to withstand them. The two fleets met at Sandwich, whither

their crews marched to Canterbury [Sidenote: Canterbury and East-Kent

buy peace.] and assaulted the city. But the citizens, in partnership

with the men of East-Kent, bought them off with a payment of three

thousand pounds. We may here, as before in East-Anglia,[670] see the

action of the local Witan, and in the distinct mention of the

East-Kentish men[671] we may see traces of the time when Kent had two

Kings, as it even now has two Bishops.[672] The Danes then went back to

their ships; they sailed to their old quarters in Wight, and thence

ravaged Sussex, Hampshire, and even Berkshire. Æthelred seems now to

have plucked up a little heart; the spirit which had been kindled by the

vigorous preparations of the last two years had not quite died away. He

gathered an army from all England, and placed detachments [Sidenote:

Efforts of Æthelred frustrated by Eadric.] at various points along the

coast. At one time, when the Danes were returning, laden with booty,

from one of their plundering expeditions, the King stopped their way

with a large force, both Æthelred and his people having, so we are told,

made up their minds to conquer or die.[673] But, by one of those

inexplicable treasons of which we have so many in this reign, Eadric

dissuaded the King from the intended battle,[674] and the Danes were

allowed to [Sidenote: November 11, 1009.] go back to their ships

unmolested. After Martinmas they took up their winter quarters in the

Thames; they ravaged Essex and other parts on both sides of the river,

and again [Sidenote: Vain attempts of the Danes on London.] made several

assaults on London. But the old spirit of the city was as strong as

ever; every attempt of the Danes was beaten off, to the great loss of

the assailants, by the citizens themselves, seemingly without any

further help. [Sidenote: January, 1010.] After Christmas they set out

again, and plunged yet further into the heart of the country than they

had ever [Sidenote: Oxford burned.] ventured before. They crossed the

Chiltern hills, reached Oxford, and burned the town. They then turned

back, as if intending another attack on London. They went on in two

divisions, plundering on both sides of the Thames. But hearing that a

force was gathered against them in London, the northern division crossed

the river at Staines. They then marched through Surrey back to their

ships, and passed Lent in repairing them.[675]

[Sidenote: Progress of the Danish ravages.]

In each of these campaigns, if plundering expeditions in which no

resistance is met with can be called campaigns, the ravages of the Danes

become wider and more fearful, spreading every year over some portion of

the land which had hitherto remained untouched. And, in the same

proportion, the spirit of the English and their power of resistance

[Sidenote: Last year of resistance.] seem to die away. We have now

reached a year even more frightful than any that went before it, a year

which seems to have finally crushed England. It is in this year that we

meet with the last resistance that was offered to the invaders during

this stage of the war. It was not till four years later, when it was too

late, that the national spirit again awoke after the flight and return

of [Sidenote: April, 1010.] Æthelred. After Easter the Danish fleet

sailed forth, and this time it attacked East-Anglia. They landed near

[Sidenote: Ulfeytel’s second battle, at Ringmere, May 18.] Ipswich, at a

place called Ringmere. But there a hero was waiting for them. In this

reign however a hero was commonly accompanied by a traitor to thwart his

efforts. This time Ulfeytel was not taken by surprise; he stood

[Sidenote: The battle lost by the treachery of Thurcytel.] ready for

them with the whole force of East-Anglia. The battle began, and was for

a while doubtful; but before long a Thegn of Danish descent, Thurcytel,

surnamed Marehead, set the example of flight, which was followed by the

whole army, save only the men of Cambridgeshire, who stood their ground

and fought valiantly to the last.[676] The slaughter was great, and, as

usual, it fell heavily on the chief men, that is doubtless mainly on the

_comitatus_ of Ulfcytel. There died Æthelstan, a son-in-law of the

King,[677] the noble Thegn Oswig and his son, and Eadwig or Eadwine

[Sidenote: [1002.]] the brother of Eafic, whose murder was recorded

eight years before.[678] There too died Wulfric the son of Leofwine a

man of the stamp of Brihtnoth, at once bountiful to ecclesiastical

foundations and true to his country in the [Sidenote: [1004.]] day of

battle.[679] Through his bounty the great monastery of Burton had been

called into being six years earlier. But it is more to our purpose to

note that, on the field of Ringmere, Wulfric, in noble contrast to the

spirit which was so rife throughout the land, must have come as a

volunteer, defending a part of the country which was not his immediate

home. According to some accounts, he held the rank of Ealdorman in one

of the shires of north-western Mercia, and among his vast possessions,

scattered over a large part of Mercia and southern Northumberland, we

find none that could have given him any special personal interest in

East-Anglian warfare. The Danes kept possession of the battle-field;

they harried all East-Anglia for three weeks; they burned Thetford and

Cambridge, and then, partly on horseback and partly in their ships,

returned to the Thames. This second burning of [Sidenote: [1004.]]

Thetford, a town which had already been once burned six years before,

shows, like so many other cases in these wars, the ease with which, when

houses were almost wholly built of wood, a town was destroyed and again

rebuilt. [Sidenote: Further ravages.] After a few days they set out

again, ravaged Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, where they had been

before, and the districts, hitherto seemingly untouched, of Bedfordshire

and Hertfordshire. The state of things which now followed cannot be so

well described as in the words of [Sidenote: State of the country as

described by the Chroniclers.] the Chronicles. “And when they were gone

to their ships, then should the force go out eft against them if they

should land; then went the force home, and when they were east, then

man[680] held the force west, and when they were at the south, then was

our force at the north. Then bade man all the Witan to the King, and man

then should rede how man should guard this land. And though man somewhat

red, that stood not so much as one month. And next was there no

headman[681] that force would gather, and ilk fled as he most might, and

next _would no shire so much as help other_.”[682] A state of things

like this, where the utter corruption of the general government

paralyses all national action, gives every encouragement to local and

personal selfishness. Such selfishness is at all times rife enough in

the ordinary mind. In times of any local pestilence or other misfortune,

the districts which are exempt are often inclined to hug themselves in

their supposed safety, to be unwilling to take any active exertion for

the relief of others, or even to take the needful precautions for their

own defence. And, in the times of which we speak, war of all kinds, a

Danish invasion, a border war with the Welsh or the Scots, was a scourge

at least not more out of the common way than a visitation of cholera or

cattle-plague is now. That the Danes should be somewhere in the land had

begun to be taken for granted. Each district had thus learned to think

only of its own momentary safety, and to be careless about everything

else. And this would be especially the case in a country, like England

at that time, where the different parts of the kingdom were still very

imperfectly welded together, where the habit of common action was still

new and needed the strong arm of an able King thoroughly to enforce it.

Even in this wretched year we may mark three stages of degradation. The

first expedition met with real resistance, resistance which, had not

Ulfcytel and Wulfric been betrayed by Thurcytel, would probably have

been successful. In the second stage, though it does not appear that a

blow was struck after the battle of Ringmere, yet there was at least the

show of calling out troops against the enemy. But before the year was

out we hear of a third Danish expedition, to which it would seem that

not the least shadow of resistance was offered. At the end of November

the enemy set forth again. They now struck deep into the heart of the

country, going much further from their own element [Sidenote:

Northampton burned. November, 1010.] than they had ever been before.

They marched to Northampton, burned the town, and ravaged the

neighbourhood. They then struck southwards, ravaged Wiltshire, and by

midwinter they came back to their [Sidenote: Extent of the ravages up to

this time.] ships, burning everywhere as they went. Sixteen shires—our

authorities stop to reckon them up[683]—had now been ravaged with fire

and sword. Northumberland and the western and northern shires of Mercia

were still untouched; and the western part of Wessex, which had suffered

severely in former years, seems to have seen no [Sidenote: [1003.]]

enemy since Swegen’s march from Exeter to Salisbury. But the shires of

East-Anglia (seemingly reckoned as one only), Essex, Middlesex,

Hertford, Buckingham, Oxford, Bedford, Cambridge, Huntingdon,

Northampton, Kent, Surrey, Sussex,[684] Hampshire, Wiltshire, and

Berkshire, had all been more or less harried by the terrible Thurkill.

The spirit of the nation was now crushed, and its means of defence were

utterly exhausted.

[Sidenote: Peace again purchased. 1011.]

The Witan met early in the next year. All notion of resistance seems to

have been given up, but another attempt was made to buy off the

enemy.[685] An embassy was sent to the Danes, and another peace was

patched up. The price was, of course, again raised, and it now reached

forty-eight thousand pounds. But such a sum was not at once forthcoming,

and it was not actually paid for a full year. This negotiation seems not

to have gained for the country even that temporary repose which had been

gained by earlier payments; the delay of payment may even have provoked

the enemy to fresh ravages. At all events, we read that they went on

harrying the land just as before. And the Chronicles may well say that

all these evils came upon the land through lack of counsel,[686] when we

find how Æthelred and Eadric employed any momentary respite that the

nominal [Sidenote: [1000.]] peace may have given them. It is the old

story of eleven years before, when Æthelred wasted such time and

strength as he had left in a needless, and probably unjust, attack

[Sidenote: Eadric invades Wales, and ravages Saint David’s. 1011.] upon

his Cumbrian vassal. So now Eadric and his master picked out this time,

of all others, for an expedition into Wales. We are not told what

special offence the Welsh princes had given just at this moment. Border

skirmishes were no doubt always going on along the Mercian frontier; but

the present expedition was clearly something much more serious, and it

must have had a special cause. It is a highly probable conjecture[687]

that, just as in the case of Malcolm, the wrath of the English over-lord

was aroused by a refusal on the part of the Welsh princes to contribute

to the Danegeld. The expedition, at all events, made a deep impression

on the Welsh, as it is the only warfare with England which their

national chroniclers think worthy of record for many years before and

afterwards.[688] An English army entered South Wales, under the command

of Eadric, who, as Ealdorman of the Mercians, would be the natural

commander. With him was joined in command another Englishman, whose name

is too hopelessly disfigured in the Welsh accounts to be recovered.[689]

They marched through the whole of South Wales, as far as that remote

bishopric whither Saint David had fled from the face of man. There they

plundered whatever rude forerunners already stood on the site of the

most striking group of buildings in Britain. A force which was able to

accomplish such a march must have been equally able to do some real

service against the Danes; but against them not a blow seems to have

been struck.

But later in the year, in September, a fearful blow indeed was struck on

the other side. Perhaps it was not more fearful, there is some reason to

believe that it was in itself less so, than some other events of this

dreadful war; but it is clothed with special importance on account

[Sidenote: Siege and capture of Canterbury. Sept. 8–29, 1011.] of the

rank and character of a single sufferer. The Danes now again besieged

Canterbury,[690] and on the twentieth day the city was betrayed to them

by a traitorous churchman, one Ælfmær, whose life had been saved by

Archbishop Ælfheah on some unrecorded occasion. The Danes seem on this

occasion to have been in an unusually merciful mood. This was most

likely owing to the influence of Thurkill, who, if he had not already

embraced Christianity, certainly did so soon afterwards. The most

authentic accounts distinctly exclude any general massacre, though the

later narratives give us a harrowing picture of slaughter and torture,

worked in doubtless from the stock accounts of Danish barbarities

elsewhere. That the metropolitan church was sacked and burned is a

matter of course for which we hardly need any evidence. The number of

captives was untold; the rich would doubtless be ransomed, and the rest

sold for slaves. Ælfmær, the Abbot of Saint Augustine’s, was, for some

unexplained reason, allowed to escape. But Ælfweard the King’s reeve,

Leofrune, Abbess of Saint Mildthryth’s monastery in Canterbury, and

Godwine, Bishop of Rochester,[691] were all carried [Sidenote: Captivity

of Archbishop Ælfheah.] away. And with them was another captive, whose

name has made the capture of Canterbury to stand out more conspicuously

than most of the events of this age, Ælfheah, Primate of all England.

[Sidenote: Life of Ælfheah. Born, 954.]

Ælfheah was a man of noble birth, who, according to the standard of

piety recognized by his age, had early in life forsaken, not only his

paternal estate, but his widowed mother, in order to become a monk. At

Deerhurst, at Bath, perhaps at Glastonbury, he strove after all monastic

perfection. According to some reports, he was first Prior of one of the

two great monasteries of Somerset, and afterwards [Sidenote: Bishop of

Winchester, 984.] Abbot of the other.[692] But it is more certain that

he was advanced to the bishopric of Winchester, by the special favour of

Dunstan, at a comparatively early age. [Sidenote: Archbishop of

Canterbury, 1009.] A few years before the present time he had, as we

have seen, been raised to the metropolitan throne. The Archbishop was

now led away captive by the Danes. According to the most trustworthy

account, he at first promised them a ransom,[693] in expectation of

which they kept him seven months in their ships. Meanwhile, not only the

ransom of Ælfheah, but the general ransom of all England remained

unpaid. The forty-eight thousand pounds, the price of the pretended

peace, was still [Sidenote: Witenagemót at London, Easter (April 13),

1012.] owing. To settle this debt, Ealdorman Eadric—the King is not

named—and the other Witan met in full Gemót. The Danes meanwhile lay in

the Thames near Greenwich. On the Saturday after Easter the Danes seem

to have held some kind of festival, at which they got very drunk on wine

lately brought from the south. This was no doubt one fruit of that

commerce between the Danes and the Norman ports which Duke Richard and

his people found so profitable. The Normans exchanged the wines of

Aquitaine for the tribute-money or the slaves of England. The Danes in

their drunkenness now called on Ælfheah for the payment of the promised

ransom. He refused; he would pay nothing; he had sinned in promising to

pay; [Sidenote: Murder of Ælfheah. April 19th, 1012.] no one should give

anything for his life; he offered himself to them to deal with him as

they pleased. They then dragged the Archbishop to their husting or place

of assembly. Thurkill tried to save him, offering gold and silver,

anything save his ship only, to save the holy man’s life. But the rest

would not hearken, and they began to pelt the Archbishop with stones,

logs of wood, and the bones and skulls of oxen,[694] the remains of

their late feast. At last one Thrim, whom Ælfheah had converted and whom

he had confirmed the day before, moved by a feeling of pity, clave his

head with his battle-axe. The conduct of the Danes both before and

afterwards shows that this attack on the Archbishop was a mere sudden

outbreak, caused half by drunkenness, half by wrath at the Archbishop’s

failure to make the promised payment. Thurkill had not been able to save

the Archbishop’s life, but it must have been owing to his influence, and

to that of any other converts whom Ælflheah had made, that the body was

allowed to be taken to London with all reverence. It was there received

by two Bishops, Ælfhun of London and Eadnoth of Dorchester, and was

buried in Saint Paul’s minster.

We shall read later in our story how the claim of Ælfheah [Sidenote: Was

Ælfheah a Martyr?] to the title of martyr was afterwards disputed by his

foreign successor Lanfranc. But the honours paid to the English

Archbishop were strongly defended by the more generous Anselm, on the

ground that, though Ælfheah did not die for any point of Christian

belief, yet he died for Christian justice and charity, as refusing to

plunder his people in order to obtain a ransom for himself.[695] Ælfheah

is not the only one in the list of our ancient martyrs whose technical

claim to the honours of martyrdom may fairly be doubted. As in the case

of the young King Eadward, the name was freely bestowed on any good man

who died by an unrighteous death. According to the most trustworthy

narrative, Ælfheah, however innocently, brought his death upon himself,

by making a promise and then failing to perform it. Hagiographers have

of course surrounded him with a halo of sanctity and miracle, and they

have clearly exaggerated the evil deeds of his destroyers. But, putting

all exaggerations aside, it is easy to see in Ælfheah a thoroughly good

and Christian man, one of those men of simple, straightforward,

benevolent, earnestness, of whom the English Church in that age produced

many. He was undoubtedly a saint, and it seems hard to refuse him the

title of martyr. He had at least as good a right to it as many martyrs

of earlier times, who brought on themselves a death which they might

have avoided by provoking or challenging their heathen enemies.

[Sidenote: The money paid to the Danes.]

Soon after the Archbishop’s murder, the forty-eight thousand pounds, the

ransom of England, was paid, oaths [Sidenote: Thurkill enters the

English service. 1012.] were sworn, and the Danish fleet dispersed. But

Thurkill, whose whole conduct had shown a distinct leaning to

Christianity, now entered the English service.[696] As we afterwards

find him a zealous Christian, he was doubtless baptized now, if he had

not been already baptized by Ælfheah. He brought with him forty-five

ships, the crews of which were to receive food and clothing from the

King, and they engaged in return to defend England against every enemy.

[Sidenote: Character of Thurkill.]

Thurkill is a character of much interest, as he in many points

resembles, on a smaller scale, his wonderful countryman Cnut. He came to

England on an errand of destruction, and he was gradually won over to be

the stoutest defender of the land which he came to ravage. He was not a

mere Pallig,[697] to accept English wealth and honours, and then to go

over to the enemy at the first opportunity. When he swore oaths to

Æthelred, he honestly devoted himself to the master whose bread he ate.

He fought valiantly for England, and his ships for a while were the only

refuge where the native King of the English could find shelter. If we

find him at a later time once more on the Danish side, it was probably

not till death had set him free from all personal ties to his first

master, certainly not till English Ealdormen had set him the example of

acknowledging the foreign King.

[Sidenote: Swegen’s last invasion of England. July, 1013.]

It would seem that Thurkill’s change of side hastened the last act of

this stage of the Danish invasions. We have now not heard anything of

Swegen personally for nine years. He had meanwhile been busily engaged

in warfare nearer home; but as regards England, he clearly was only

biding his time. On the one hand, the country was thoroughly weakened

and disheartened, and seemed to stand ready for him to take possession.

On the other hand, as far as material help went, England had gained

greatly by the accession of the valiant Thurkill and his followers. To

chastise Thurkill, at least to guard against the possible consequences

of his conduct, seems to have been the immediate occasion of Swegen’s

last and greatest invasion.[698] But this motive can have done little

more than hasten a purpose which was already fully determined. Swegen

had no doubt long resolved on the complete conquest of England; but he

may well have seen that Thurkill’s new position rendered his own

presence immediately necessary, lest his schemes should be supplanted by

the establishment of a rival Danish dynasty in the country. However this

may be, Swegen set forth, accompanied by his son Cnut, [Sidenote:

Magnificence of Swegen’s fleet.] afterwards so famous, and reached

England in July. The magnificence of his fleet is described in the most

glowing colours.[699] There is no doubt that, savages as they appear in

warfare, the Northern nations of that age had made no small progress in

many of the arts. The fact is fully proved by the antiquities of that

time and of earlier times which still remain. And the adornment of the

ships which were so dear to the heart of every Northern warrior[700] was

a favourite form of splendour.[701] There may doubtless be some

exaggeration, but there is also doubtless a certain measure of truth, in

the account of Swegen’s splendid fleet, of the birds and dragons on the

tops of the masts which showed the way of the wind, of the figures of

men and animals in gold, silver, and amber, which formed the signs of

the ships, the lions, the bulls, the dolphins, and, what we should

hardly have looked for, the centaurs. With this fleet, armed with the

whole force of Denmark, Swegen crossed the sea, and came first to

[Sidenote: Swegen sails up the Humber.] Sandwich. He then changed his

course, and sailed to the mouth of the Humber, to a country among whose

population the Danish element was large. The work of so many valiant

Kings, of Eadward, of Æthelstan, of Eadmund, was undone in a moment. The

North of England was again severed from the West-Saxon monarchy. The

Danish King sailed up the Trent, he pitched his camp at Gainsborough,

and all the country on the Danish side of Watling-street submitted

without resistance. Embassies [Sidenote: Northumberland, Lindesey, and

the Five Boroughs submit. 1013.] came in from all parts of the North.

The Northumbrians first submitted under their Earl Uhtred, the King’s

son-in-law. We have seen him acting vigorously before,[702] and we shall

see him acting vigorously again; but just now he did nothing to check

the panic, even if he was not the first to be carried away by it.[703]

Next came the men of Lindesey, and, somewhat later, the men of the Five

Boroughs. The conquest of that famous confederacy [Sidenote: 920–22.

942.] had been reckoned among the most renowned exploits of Eadward and

of Eadmund;[704] but their mention now shows that they must still have

kept up some measure of independence and of connexion with each other.

Before long, all the population north-east of Watling-street had

acknowledged Swegen. From all these districts he took hostages, whom he

entrusted to his son Cnut, who was left in command of the fleet. He also

demanded horses and food for his army, and, more than this, the

contingents of the shires which had submitted had to follow him,

willingly or unwillingly, [Sidenote: Swegen enters Mercia;] in his

onward march.[705] With this force he then crossed Watling-street, and

struck south-west, into the strictly English districts of Mercia, into

the one part of England [Sidenote: his horrible ravages.] which had as

yet escaped ravage, some districts of which could hardly have seen war

since the days of Ælfred. The distinction between the Danish and English

districts was clearly marked in his treatment of the two. Hitherto we

have heard of no ravages; but, when he was once within the purely

English border,[706] his cruelties became fearful, and they were carried

on in the most systematic way. He “wrought the most evil that any host

might do;” he is even charged with directly ordering, as his rule of

warfare,[707] the ravage of fields, the burning of towns, the robbery of

churches, the slaughter of men, and the rape of [Sidenote: Submission of

Oxford and Winchester.] women. In this fashion he passed through the

country to Oxford, which had already risen from its ashes. The town was

saved by speedily submitting and giving hostages. Winchester itself did

the like. Swegen then [Sidenote: Swegen repulsed from London.] marched

upon London; but here his fortune was very different. He had to

encounter not only a valiant resistance, but also ill luck of a

different kind.[708] Many of his men, unable to find either ford or

bridge, were drowned in the Thames. At last he assaulted the city. But

the [Sidenote: [994.]] heart of the citizens was as strong as when they

beat off both Swegen and Olaf Tryggvesson nineteen years before. The

presence of King Æthelred within the city was not likely to add much to

the vigour of the defence,[709] but the brave Dane Thurkill was there,

faithfully discharging the [Sidenote: 992, 994, 1009, 1013.] duties of

his new service. For the fourth time during this reign, the invaders

were beaten back from the walls of the great merchant city, the only

resistance that Swegen seems to have met with during this fearful march.

He then turned back into Wessex, first to Wallingford, then to Bath,

destroying in his former fashion as he went. [Sidenote: Swegen marches

to Bath; the West-Saxon Thegns submit.] At Bath the terrible drama was

brought to an end. Æthelmær, Ealdorman of Devonshire, with all the

thegns of the West, came to him, submitted, and gave hostages. Putting

the language of the different accounts together, there can be little

doubt that this was, or professed to be, a formal act of the Witan of

Wessex, deposing Æthelred and raising Swegen to the throne.

Northumberland had already acknowledged him; and, considering that

Swegen brought the contingents of the North of England with him, it is

possible that there may have even been enough of the chief men of

different parts of the kingdom present to give the assembly something

like the air of a general Witenagemót. An election of Swegen was of

course an election under _duresse_ in its very harshest shape, and would

in no way express the real wishes of the electors. [Sidenote: Swegen is

acknowledged King. 1013.] But that some approach to the usual legal

formalities were gone through seems implied in the significant way in

which we are told that Swegen was now looked upon as “full King” by the

whole people.[710] Whether he was crowned is a much more doubtful

matter; the nominal religion of Swegen at this moment is a great

problem, and we may doubt whether, if the apostate sought the Christian

rite, any prelate would have been found to admit him to it. But that

Swegen was acknowledged as King is perfectly plain. He now went

northward to his fleet, seemingly for the purpose of attacking by sea

the one city which still held out. But now the spirit even of the

Londoners at last gave way; out of sheer fear of the [Sidenote: London

submits.] threatened cruelty of the new King, they submitted and gave

hostages. By a strange turning about of events,[711] all England was now

in the hands of Swegen, while the cause of Æthelred was still maintained

by Thurkill and [Sidenote: Æthelred takes refuge in Thurkill’s fleet.]

the Danish fleet in the Thames. The monarchy of Cerdic was now confined

to the decks of forty-five Scandinavian war-ships. The fleet still lay

at Greenwich, the scene of the martyrdom of Ælfheah. Thither,

immediately after the submission of London, Æthelred and Thurkill betook

[Sidenote: Emma and her sons sent to Normandy. August, 1013.]

themselves. The Lady Emma went over to her brother in Normandy, in

company with Ælfsige, Abbot of Peterborough, and she was presently

followed by her two young sons, the Æthelings Eadward and Ælfred, with

their tutor Ælfhun, Bishop of London.[712] Æthelred himself stayed some

time longer with the fleet, but at midwinter he went to the Isle of

Wight, the old Danish quarters, which the adhesion of the Danish fleet

now made the only part of his lost realm accessible to the English

King.[713] He there [Sidenote: Æthelred takes refuge in Normandy.

January, 1014.] kept the feast of Christmas, and in January he joined

his wife and his young children in Normandy, where his brother-in-law

Duke Richard could hardly refuse him an honourable welcome. We seem to

be reading the history of James the Second before its time. Eadric,

according to some accounts,[714] had already gone over with the Lady. Of

Æthelred’s sons by his first marriage, the gallant Æthelings Æthelstan

and Eadwig and their glorious brother Eadmund, we hear nothing. As far

as we can see, Swegen was the one acknowledged King over the whole

realm. If the West-Saxon banner was anywhere displayed, it could have

been only on the masts of Thurkill and his sea-rovers. During the whole

winter, Swegen on his side, and Thurkill on his, levied contributions

and ravaged the land at pleasure.[715]

§ 5. _From the Conquest of England by Swegen to the Death of Æthelred._

1013–1016.

[Sidenote: Importance of Swegen’s Conquest as introductory to William’s

Conquest.]

This conquest of England by Swegen forms an important stage in our

history. It was, for the moment at least, the completion of the Danish

invasions in their third and final shape of actual Danish conquest. And

it was more than this. The Danish conquest by Swegen was, so to speak,

the precedent for the Norman Conquest by William. Swegen’s own

possession of England was indeed but momentary; but he at least held the

kingdom as long as he lived, and he handed on his mission to his son.

The result of Swegen’s invasion showed that the crown of England, of

England so lately united into a single kingdom, could be transferred by

the event of war from the brow of a native sovereign to that of a

foreign invader. It was Swegen’s conquest which made the conquests both

of Cnut and of William possible. Cnut’s conquest was of course only the

completion of Swegen’s. It was Swegen who conceived the idea, and

[Sidenote: Distinction between Swegen’s Conquest and the earlier Danish

invasions.] who actually for the first time carried it out. That idea

was something very different from anything which had been set before the

eyes of any earlier Scandinavian invader. Hitherto England had been

largely ravaged, and had even been partly occupied. But mere ravages

were in their own nature temporary; and the Danes who had settled in

England had been gradually brought into a greater or less degree of

submission to the English King, into a greater or less degree of

amalgamation with the English people. The third stage of the Danish

wars, that which had now for a moment accomplished its object, aimed at

something of quite another kind. It sought, as I have before shown,[716]

not merely to ravage or even to occupy, but to transfer the crown of all

England, the rule of all its inhabitants, English and Danish alike, into

the hands of the King of all Denmark. This object Swegen had now

accomplished. Succeeding events indeed called for the work to be done

over again by his son Cnut. But the example was set; the establishment

of a foreign King in England, his willing or unwilling acknowledgement

by the English nation, were things which had now become familiar. What

Swegen had done Cnut might do, and [Sidenote: Circumstances in favour of

Swegen,] what Cnut had done William might do. Swegen now, like William

afterwards, was singularly favoured by fortune. But the good luck of the

two invaders took quite different shapes. Swegen found an incapable

prince on the throne, under whom no effective resistance was possible.

He was thus able to wear out the strength and spirit of the nation by a

series of successful, though partial, attacks. He was thus able, at the

end of a long series of years, to obtain possession of the whole land

without ever having put his forces to the risk of a decisive engagement.

[Sidenote: and of William.] William found a hero on the throne; he had

therefore, at the very beginning, to stake all his chances on a single

battle. But in that single battle England lost her hero, and with him

she lost her hope. Swegen and William were thus equally lucky, but

William ran a far more [Sidenote: Character of Swegen.] terrible hazard.

Swegen is apt to be forgotten in a cursory view of English history,

because he is overshadowed by the fame of his son. But Swegen was no

ordinary man. If greatness consists in mere skill and stedfastness in

carrying out an object, without regard to the moral character of that

object, he may even be called a great man.[717] His purpose was

doubtless fixed from the beginning; but he knew how to bide his time,

how to mark and to seize his opportunities. Of that species of glory

which is won by steady and skilful destruction of one’s

fellow-creatures, the glory of an Attila or a Buonaparte, the first

Danish conqueror of England is entitled to a large share. Of the high

and generous purposes which well nigh justify the ambition of Alexander

and of Charles, even of that higher craft of the ruler which goes some

way to redeem the crimes of the Norman Conqueror, we see no trace in his

career. He was so constantly occupied in aggressive warfare that he had

hardly time to show himself as a beneficent prince, even in his native

kingdom, and in England, if he had the will, he never had the

opportunity, of showing himself in any light but that of a barbarian

destroyer.

Swegen then was King—or, as the national writers prefer to call him,

Tyrant[718]—over all England. But it [Sidenote: Death of Swegen.

February 3, 1014.] was only for a very short time that he enjoyed his

ill-gotten dominion. Early in the year after his conquest, about the

feast of Candlemas, he died at Gainsborough. The Danish writers bear

witness to the Christianity of [Sidenote: His religion.] his later

years. During one of his seasons of adversity, he was won back again to

the faith from which he had apostatized; he became a zealous believer, a

founder of churches and bishoprics. But the German and English writers

seem to know nothing of his piety or of his reconversion, unless indeed

the denial of the claims of one particular Christian saint can be held

to be evidence of [Sidenote: Legend of the death of Swegen.] Christian

belief in general. That denial, we are told, was punished by a strange

and horrible death. For such an enemy as Swegen could hardly be allowed

to go out of the world without some accompaniment of wonder and miracle.

For once the discreetest of our Latin chroniclers opens his pages for

the reception of a legend. Swegen, he tells us, had a special hatred for

the martyred [Sidenote: 870.] King Saint Eadmund, the famous victim of

Danish cruelty at an earlier time. He denied him all power and holiness;

he demanded a heavy tribute from his renowned minster; he threatened, if

it were not paid, to burn the town and the townsfolk, to destroy the

minster, and to put the clergy[719] to death by torture. All this is

likely enough; we can well believe that Swegen did thus threaten the

church of Saint Eadmund, and that he died suddenly while preparing to

set out to carry out his threats. The special reverence which Swegen’s

son Cnut showed to Saint Eadmund almost amounts to a proof that his

father was held to have specially sinned against that martyr. Swegen had

held an assembly of some kind which most likely passed for a Witenagemót

of his new realm.[720] He was on his horse, at the head of his army,

seemingly on the point of beginning his march from Gainsborough to the

threatened minster. He then saw, visible to his eyes only, the holy King

of the East-Angles coming against him in full harness and with a spear

in his hand. “Help,” he cried, “fellow-soldiers, Saint Eadmund is coming

to slay me.” The saint then ran him through with his spear, and the

tyrant fell from his horse, and died the same night in horrible

torments.[721] This is a legend of the simplest class. If Swegen died

just as he was about to wreak his sacrilegious wrath on Saint Eadmund’s

minster, his sudden death would naturally be attributed to the vengeance

of Saint Eadmund. The details of the legend are nothing more than a

poetical way of expressing this supposed fact. Swegen thus ended his

days;[722] as to the fate of his soul our authorities differ [Sidenote:

Swegen’s body taken to Denmark.] widely.[723] But the body of the

departed tyrant is said to have been taken to Denmark, and buried at

Roskild, so long the place of coronation and burial of the Danish Kings.

By the death of Swegen his two kingdoms of Denmark and England became

vacant. In Denmark he was succeeded by his son Harold, a prince whose

name has passed altogether out of English, and almost out of Danish,

history. His reign was short; we are told that he was deposed by his

subjects on account of his sloth and luxury.[724] But that he, and not

Cnut, was in actual possession [Sidenote: Swegen succeeded in Denmark by

Harold. 1014.] of the Danish crown for some time after their father’s

death there seems no reason to doubt. As for the English crown, the

crews of the Danish fleet assumed [Sidenote: Double election in England;

CNUT chosen by the Danish fleet.] the right of disposing of it, and

elected Swegen’s other son Cnut, who was present at Gainsborough. This

prince, afterwards so famous, was now a stripling of about

nineteen,[725] and the English, who had bowed to his father, had no mind

to bow to him without a struggle. The Witan, [Sidenote: The English

Witan decree the restoration of Æthelred.] clerical and lay, assembled

in due form, and voted, not the election of one of the Æthelings, but

the restoration of Æthelred. The words of the formal documents exchanged

between the Witan and the absent King peep out in the language of the

Chronicles. They sent to say that no lord could be dearer to them than

their _cyne-hlaford_—their lord by birth—if he would only rule them more

righteously than he did before.[726] Æthelred then sent over

ambassadors, accompanied by young Eadward, his son by Emma—the nobler

offspring of his [Sidenote: Interchange of messages between Æthelred and

the Witan.] first marriage are again unnoticed. He promised by their

mouths to be good lord to his people, to amend all that had been wrong

in his former reign, to forgive all that had been said and done against

him, if only they would be faithful and obedient to him. Another version

adds the very important engagement that he would submit in all things to

the advice of his Witan.[727] Promises were thus exchanged on both

sides; Æthelred was again [Sidenote: Outlawry of all Danish Kings.]

acknowledged, and a decree was passed proclaiming every Danish King an

outlaw from England.[728] The expression [Sidenote: Import of the

expression.] is singular, unless we look at it in connexion with the

actual acknowledgement of Swegen as King. We can hardly conceive a

proclamation of outlawry against a foreign invader, if he were a mere

foreign invader and nothing else. But if we look on Cnut as a son of the

late King and a candidate for the crown, his outlawry by the opposing

party is natural enough. Nor is all this a mere legal subtlety. Cnut

then, like William afterwards, was fully aware of the advantage of

getting, as far as he could, every legal form on his side.

[Sidenote: Æthelred’s return and legislation. Lent, 1014.]

In the course of Lent Æthelred came back to England, and met with a

joyful welcome in London. It was most likely in a Gemót held on his

return that the King and his Witan passed the laws which bear the date

of this year.[729] They relate mainly to ecclesiastical matters, but

they contain the same pious and patriotic resolutions as the codes of

former years, and they also contain some clauses of a special and

remarkable kind. They expressly approve the conduct of certain earlier

assemblies, held under Æthelstan, [Sidenote: Illustration of the

relation of Church and State.] Eadmund, and Eadgar, which dealt with

ecclesiastical and temporal affairs conjointly, and they seem to deplore

a separation between the two branches of legislation which had taken

place in some later assemblies.[730] It is not very easy to understand

the grounds of this complaint, as in most of the earlier statutes of

Æthelred’s reign we certainly find both classes of subjects dealt with.

But, whatever was the immediate ground of censure, the expression is

remarkable, as illustrating a whole class of feelings which were

peculiarly strong in that age, and which afterwards lost [Sidenote:

Identification of the Church and the Nation before the Norman Conquest.]

much of their power. Under our native Kings the Church and the nation

were far more truly one than they were at any time after the Norman

Conquest. The nation was deeply religious; the Church was deeply

national. The same assemblies and tribunals dealt alike with

ecclesiastical and with temporal affairs, without the least idea that

either power had thrust itself into the proper province of the other.

Bishops and Ealdormen were appointed and deposed by the same authority;

they sat side by side to judge and to legislate on matters which, after

the Norman Conquest, would have been discussed in distinct assemblies.

The laws of this year again proclaim that one God and one King is to be

loved and obeyed, that heathenism and treason are alike to be eschewed;

that all moral duties are to be discharged by one countryman to another.

Such is the general summary of the last recorded legislation of

Æthelred, conceived in exactly the same tone as the laws of earlier

assemblies.

The spirit which breathes in the decrees of the assembly breathes also

in a remarkable specimen of the pious oratory of the age, namely the

famous address of Archbishop Wulfstan to the English nation.[731]

Somewhat of exaggeration is always to be looked for in compositions of

this kind, but, after making all allowances, we find a frightful picture

both of national wretchedness and of national corruption. Since the days

of Eadgar everything had gone wrong; sacrilege and unjust judgements,

lust and rapine, the neglect of every natural and artificial tie, had

stalked unpunished through the land. One King had been murdered; another

had been driven into banishment. The abuses of the slave-trade are

specially noticed; men even went so far as to sell their nearest

kinsfolk. The English, in short, had become worse than the Britons whom

they had conquered, even as the Britons were painted by their own

Gildas. For all this the judgement of God had come upon the land; the

enemy wrought his will upon England without let or hindrance; ten

Englishmen would flee before one of the invaders; the last excesses of

cruelty and outrage had to be endured without resistance. The speaker

exhorts to repentance and amendment; he speaks indeed only of repentance

and amendment, and says nothing of the human means of valour and

counsel; otherwise one might conceive that the address was in fact a

speech delivered in the Gemót which passed the laws of this year.

[Sidenote: Æthelred marches against Cnut and drives him out of

Lindesey.]

The nation now seemed to be thoroughly kindled with the spirit expressed

in the discourse of the Primate and in the resolutions of the Witan. And

for one moment the burst of patriotism reached even to the King. For the

first and the last time during his long reign, we see Æthelred engaged

in righteous and successful warfare.[732] Cnut was still at

Gainsborough, where he had agreed with the men of Lindesey, a district

in which the Danish element was large, to furnish him with horses and to

join him in a plundering expedition. But before they were ready,

Æthelred came up with his full force, and drove Cnut away to his ships.

The defeat must have been decisive, as Cnut sailed away altogether from

that part of England,[733] and steered his course southwards to

Sandwich. [Sidenote: Cnut mutilates his hostages.] There he put on shore

the hostages who had been given to his father from all parts of England,

having first subjected them to various mutilations, as the loss of

hands, ears, and noses. He then sailed away to Denmark. Æthelred had

thus for once shown real spirit and vigour, and had done a real service

to his country. For a moment England [Sidenote: Æthelred ravages

Lindesey.] was free from the invaders. But the King disgraced his

victory by ravaging Lindesey—no doubt in revenge for its submission to

Cnut—as cruelly as Swegen or Cnut could have done. The land was harried

with fire and sword, and the people, as far as might be, were

slaughtered. [Sidenote: Payment to Thurkill’s fleet.] Lastly, the King

levied a tribute of twenty-one thousand or, as some say, thirty

thousand,[734] pounds, for the payment of Thurkill’s fleet which still

lay at Greenwich. This fleet, which had so lately been Æthelred’s sole

refuge, remained in his service.[735]

[Sidenote: Great inroad of the sea.]

In the same year, as if to illustrate the law that political and natural

misfortunes generally come together, the [Sidenote: 1014.] sea—in what

part of England we are not told—broke in upon the land, and swallowed up

many towns and a countless multitude of people.[736]

[Sidenote: Great Witenagemót at Oxford. 1015.]

In the next year we again come across the name of the infamous Eadric,

of whom we have so often heard before, and who now begins a new career

of treason even viler and more fatal than anything that has hitherto

been recorded of him. On the other hand we have now reached the

beginning of the short and glorious career of the hero [Sidenote: First

appearance of the Ætheling Eadmund.] Eadmund. This prince seems to have

been the third son of Æthelred;[737] one at least of his elder brothers

seems to have died before him; but, if he was not the eldest of the

royal house by birth, he soon won for himself the first place by merit.

A great Witenagemót was held this year at Oxford, a city whose renown as

the seat of a great University belongs to later times, but which the

whole course of these wars shows to have been already a place of

[Sidenote: History of Oxford.] considerable importance. Its importance

however would seem to have been comparatively recent. The well-known

legend of Saint Frithswyth[738] cannot be accepted as historical; but it

may be taken as some presumption that Oxford had already become a

habitation for man early in the eighth century. But there is no certain

historical mention of the place till the early years of the tenth

century, [Sidenote: 912.] when it appears as one of the chief

acquisitions of Eadward the Elder. As it was a frontier town of Mercia

and Wessex, we might have expected to find it playing a historic part in

far earlier days; but in those times the now utterly insignificant

Bensington[739] seems to have been the chief military post of the

frontier. So the now no less insignificant Dorchester was the

ecclesiastical capital of a vast diocese, of which the diocese of

Oxford, as it stood before recent changes, formed only a small portion.

Oxford however was now a place of note; in the new nomenclature of

Mercia it had given its name to a shire; and it must have derived some

further importance from the presence of the minster which bore the name

of the heroine of the local legend. That minster, after an unusual

number of changes in its foundation, has at last settled down into the

twofold office of the cathedral church of the modern diocese and the

chapel of the largest college in the University. The town is mentioned

in several charters of the tenth century, one of which, as we have seen,

records the burning of the minster in the general massacre of the

Danes.[740] It had [Sidenote: 1009–1013.] been, as the course of our

story has told us, taken, retaken, and burned in the wars of Swegen. In

this year the town, so lately rebuilt after its burning, was the scene

of an assembly which was evidently attended by a more than usually

numerous body of the Wise Men.[741] Eadric was now guilty of a crime of

the same kind as that by which [Sidenote: 1007.] he destroyed Ealdorman

Ælfhelm at Shrewsbury nine [Sidenote: Murder of Sigeferth and Morkere by

Eadric.] years before. Among the assembled Witan were Sigeferth and

Morkere, the sons of Earngrim, two of the chief thegns in the Danish

Confederacy of the Seven Boroughs.[742] These chiefs were invited by

Eadric to his own quarters,[743] where he slew them at a banquet.

Æthelred, if he had not ordered this villany, at any rate made himself

an accessory after the fact; he confiscated the property of the murdered

thegns, and ordered Ealdgyth, the widow of Sigeferth, to be led as a

prisoner to Malmesbury. All this would seem to imply some co-operation

on the part of the Witan; it may even imply some real guilt in Eadric’s

victims; but it in no way lessens the guilt of Eadric and Æthelred. When

such things were done, we can understand that men may have thought the

rule of the Dane at least not worse than the rule of such Englishmen. A

gleam of romance now flashes across the [Sidenote: Marriage of Eadmund

and Ealdgyth.] dreary tale of crime and misfortune.[744] The Ætheling

Eadmund had seen the fair widow of Sigeferth, and was smitten with a

sudden passion for her. There was no time to be lost; he followed her to

her retreat and married her against the will of his father.[745] The

marriage was not without political consequences. Eadmund seems to have

looked upon himself, and to have been looked upon by his wife, as the

lawful heir of her former husband. Possibly the wealth and dignities of

Sigeferth, or some part of them, may have come through his marriage. At

any rate Eadmund, at Ealdgyth’s suggestion, demanded the lordships of

Sigeferth from his father,[746] and was refused. [Sidenote: His

establishment in the Five Boroughs. August, 1015.] He then went to the

Five Boroughs, took possession of the estates of Sigeferth and Morkere,

and received the submission of the men of the confederacy.[747] He thus

secured for himself a kind of principality in the North of England, a

fact which, in the war which was about again to break out, led to some

singular inversions of the usual military geography.

For Cnut had sailed away to Denmark only to sail back to England on the

first opportunity.[748] He is said to have proposed to his brother

Harold, the reigning King, to make a division of Denmark and to share in

a joint expedition to England.[749] The former proposal at least was

rejected; whether Harold accompanied his brother to England is less

certain;[750] but in any case he was utterly overshadowed by the fame of

Cnut, and he soon vanishes from history altogether. According to one

account, the voyage was undertaken at the express suggestion of

Thurkill, who sailed to Denmark and there made his peace with Cnut.[751]

Thurkill was certainly on Cnut’s side in the war of the next year; he

may have thought himself absolved from his duty to Æthelred by that

prince’s flight; but on the whole it is more likely [Sidenote: Cnut

invades England. Summer, 1015.] that his change of sides happened later.

At any rate, Cnut set sail with a fleet whose numbers are variously

stated at two hundred ships[752] and at a thousand,[753] and of whose

stateliness we read as brilliant an account as of those of his father.

Moreover we are told that the whole of the crews consisted of men of

noble birth in the flower of their age.[754] With this splendid company,

Cnut sailed first to Sandwich, and thence steered along the south coast

to Fromemouth; that is to the harbour of Poole and Wareham, the common

mouth of the Dorsetshire [Sidenote: He ravages Wessex.] Frome and the

Dorsetshire Trent. He then harried the shires of Somerset, Dorset, and

Wiltshire, while King Æthelred lay sick at Corsham in the last-named

shire. The Ætheling Eadmund now began to levy an army in his new

principality,[755] and Eadric seemingly did the same in his old Mercian

government. But the traitor was still [Sidenote: Plans of Eadmund

hindered by Eadric.] at his old tricks. When the two divisions came

together, Eadric made several attempts to destroy his brother-in-law,

the result of which was that the two armies separated, [Sidenote: Eadric

rebels, seduces the Danish fleet, and joins Cnut.] leaving the field

open to the enemy. Eadric now openly rebelled; he seduced the crews of

forty Danish ships in the royal service, those doubtless which were left

from Thurkill’s fleet, and joined Cnut. This may have been the time when

Thurkill himself took service under his native prince. Or it may have

been after Æthelred’s death and the election of Cnut by a large body of

the English Witan.[756] In the latter case, at all events, his

allegiance to his old master was no longer binding; the war between Cnut

and Eadmund might seem to him a struggle between two candidates for the

English crown, in which he, as a Dane, might honourably take the side of

the candidate of his own nation.

This defection of Eadric—perhaps of Thurkill—settled [Sidenote: Wessex

submits to Cnut.] the fate of Southern England. All Wessex now submitted

to the invader; hostages were given and horses were furnished. The

kingdom was now practically divided; but—owing mainly to the romantic

marriage and settlement of Eadmund—it was divided in a manner exactly

opposite from that which might have been naturally looked for. The

Thames is, as usual, the boundary; but the English Ætheling reigns to

the north, the Danish King to the south, of that river; the Mercians and

Northumbrians are arrayed under the Dragon of Wessex, while the

West-Saxons themselves serve, however unwillingly, under the Danish

Raven. On these strange terms the war began again early in the next

year, the last year of [Sidenote: Cnut and Eadric invade Mercia.

January, 1016.] this long struggle. Just before the Epiphany, Cnut and

Eadric, with their mixed force of Danes and West-Saxons, crossed the

Thames at Cricklade,[757] and entered Mercia. They harried Warwickshire

in the usual fashion, ravaging, [Sidenote: Vain attempts of Eadmund to

keep an army together.] burning, slaying, as they went. The Ætheling now

gathered an army in Mercia, but his troops refused to fight, unless King

Æthelred and the Londoners joined them. The army then dispersed in the

wonderful way in which armies did disperse in those days. Presently the

Ætheling put forth proclamations, summoning every man to join his

standard, and denouncing the full penalties of the law against all who

held back.[758] By these means he gathered a larger army; he then sent

to his father, who was in London, praying him to join him with whatever

forces he could gather. Æthelred did so, and joined his son’s muster

with a considerable body of troops. But the old ill luck was at work;

the only thing that can be said is that Æthelred was most likely dragged

to the field from his death-bed. The two divisions had hardly joined

when the King found out, or professed to find out, treacherous plots

against his person. These he made an excuse for disbanding the whole

army and going back to London. [Sidenote: Eadmund and Uhtred join

forces.] With such a King what could be done? Eadmund withdrew to

Northumberland, the government of his brother-in-law Uhtred. That Earl,

it will be remembered, had been, to say the least, somewhat hasty in

submitting to [Sidenote: [1013.]] Swegen, but he now gladly joined

Eadmund. All men deemed that the Ætheling would raise a third army in

[Sidenote: Ravages of the two armies.] Northumberland, and would march

against Cnut. But he and Uhtred contented themselves with ravaging three

Mercian shires which had refused to help them against the Danes,[759]

namely Staffordshire, Shropshire, and Cheshire. Cnut meanwhile went

plundering on his side through the shires of Buckingham, Bedford,

Huntingdon, Northampton, then by Stamford, through Lincolnshire and

Nottinghamshire, on towards York. The ravaging of his country and the

danger of his capital caused Uhtred to [Sidenote: Northumberland under

Uhtred submits to Cnut.] cease his own ravages and to hasten homewards.

He found further resistance useless;[760] he submitted to Cnut and gave

hostages. The Dane was now again lord of all England,[761] save only

London and whatever extent of country could be held in obedience from

London. But now the vengeance of the old feud came upon Uhtred.

Thurbrand, whom he had before engaged and omitted to [Sidenote: Murder

of Uhtred.] kill, was now allowed to kill him. As Uhtred came to pay his

homage to his new prince at a place called Wiheal, a curtain was drawn

aside, and armed men stepped forward, who slew the Earl and forty of his

companions, among whom one Thurcytel son of Navena is specially

mentioned.[762] This evil deed also was attributed to Eadric, [Sidenote:

Eric made Earl of the Northumbrians.] the common author of all evil. The

earldom of Northumberland was given by Cnut to a Dane named Eric, who

had married his sister Gytha, and had held the government of Norway

under Swegen.[763] But it seems that Eadwulf Cutel, the brother of the

murdered Uhtred, either was allowed to hold Bernicia under the supremacy

of Eric, or else succeeded to the whole when Eric was banished some

years later. The whole North was thus lost; it was again as thoroughly

under Danish rule as it had been before the conquests of Eadward. And,

worse still, Wessex was under Danish rule too, and it had even outrun

Northumberland in its submission. But London still held out; Cnut

therefore hastened to subdue the last stronghold of the national life.

Events had followed fast upon one another. Christmas had passed before

Cnut crossed the [Sidenote: Cnut prepares to attack London.] Thames, and

Easter had not come when he crossed it again. He hastened with all speed

to his fleet in the Dorset haven, and prepared to sail with his whole

force against the still faithful city. Eadmund, either now or

earlier,[764] hastened to join his father in its defence. Cnut was on

his voyage, but he seems to have gone more leisurely than might have

been expected after the speed [Sidenote: Death of Æthelred. April 23,

1016.] of his march from Yorkshire.[765] He had only reached

Southampton, when tidings were brought of the death of Æthelred. He died

on Saint George’s day, probably of the same sickness of which we read

the year before, and was buried in Saint Paul’s Minster.

§ 6. _The War of Cnut and Eadmund._ 1016.

The throne was now again vacant; England was at last set free from the

worst and weakest of her native Kings. Æthelred had misgoverned his

kingdom till the rule of heathen invaders was felt to be at least not

worse than his. He had been deposed and driven out; his kingdom had been

reduced to the decks of a few hired Danish ships. He had been restored;

adversity had wrought no lasting reform; he had thrown away every

advantage, and his kingdom was again confined within the walls of

London. That true-hearted city was once more the bulwark of England, the

centre of every patriotic hope, the special object of every hostile

attack. Beyond its walls, all was either actually in the hands of the

invader or exposed to his power. The Witan of England, Bishops, Abbots,

Ealdormen, [Sidenote: Double election to the crown of Cnut and Eadmund.

April, 1016.] Thegns, all who were without the walls of London, met in

full Gemót, and chose Cnut to the vacant throne. They may well have

deemed that further resistance was hopeless, and it should not be

forgotten that the full glory of the character of Eadmund had not yet

displayed itself. He had shown a gallant spirit, but he had as yet

achieved no signal success; the harrying of the three Mercian shires

was, to say the least, a very harsh measure; and he may have shown

somewhat of turbulence and self-will in the affair of his marriage and

settlement in the Five Boroughs. The assembly therefore passed him by;

they chose—perhaps they could hardly help choosing—the Conqueror; they

hastened to Southampton, they abjured the whole house of Æthelred, they

swore oaths to Cnut and received oaths from him that he would be a good

and faithful lord to them before God and before the world. It was

perhaps at this time that he received baptism or confirmation at the

hands of Æthelnoth the future Archbishop; but he does not seem to have

received the ecclesiastical rite of coronation.[766] And even his

election did not represent the voice of all England. We now meet with,

what is so common in German, and so rare in English, history, a double

election to the crown. Cnut was chosen at Southampton, but the citizens

of London, with such of the other Witan as were within the city, held a

counter Gemót—no doubt the earlier of the two in date—and with one

voice[767] elected the Ætheling Eadmund. His coronation at the hands of

Archbishop Lyfing followed. The town which had been of late the usual

place for the consecration of Kings, Kingston in Surrey, was probably in

possession of the enemy; at all events the rite was done within the

walls of the city, no doubt in the minster of Saint Paul, where the late

King had just been buried. Whether Eadmund was the eldest surviving son

of Æthelred is uncertain;[768] there could be no doubt as to [Sidenote:

Short and glorious reign of Eadmund.] his being the worthiest. Now,

after the long and dreary reign of his father, England had once more at

her head a true King of Men, a hero worthy to wield the sword of Ælfred

and Æthelstan. The change came at once; with her new King England

received a new life; after twenty-eight [Sidenote: 988–1016.] years of

unutterable weakness and degradation, we now come to seven months of

almost superhuman energy. [Sidenote: Change wrought by a single worthy

leader.] We see that all that had been wanting through that long and

wretched time was a worthy leader; we see that, without such a leader,

the English people were helpless; we see that, under such a leader, even

after all that they had gone through, they were still capable of

exertions which, twenty or even ten years before, would have driven back

the invaders for ever. Everything that could weaken and demoralize a

people, everything that could thoroughly weigh down and dishearten them,

had fallen on the English nation during the long misgovernment of

Æthelred. A generation had grown up which had been used from its

childhood to see invaders land and ravage at pleasure. They had seen the

noblest local efforts thwarted by incompetence and treachery at

head-quarters. They had seen a King and his counsellors incapable of any

better device than that of buying off the heathen invader for a moment.

They had seen the strength of the nation, while the enemy was preying on

its vitals, wasted on distant, bootless, and unrighteous enterprises.

They had seen the basest of traitors basking in the royal smiles, while

the true and valiant defenders of their country were left unrewarded and

unnoticed. Such had been the unvaried course of English history for

eight and twenty years. But, even after all this, the heart of the

English people still was sound. The wretched Æthelred had ended his

days, and under his glorious son hope and courage woke to life again. In

the days of the father, one shire would no longer help another; in the

days of the son, the most distant parts of the land sent their

contingents to the national armies of England. Those armies, instead of

flying at the first blow, instead of disbanding before a blow was

struck, could now face the enemy in pitched battle after pitched battle.

The standard of England again waved over fields on which the English

arms were often crowned with victory, and where defeat at least never

was disgrace. Once only in the course of his long reign had Æthelred

dared to meet a Danish King in open fight. Now six great battles in

seven months showed what Englishmen could still do under a King worthy

of his people. The year of the battles of Eadmund is worthy to

[Sidenote: 871.] be placed alongside of the year of the battles of

Ælfred. But the traitor still lived to thwart the noblest efforts of the

hero; Eadric still remained the evil genius of the reign of Eadmund no

less than of the reign of his father.

[Sidenote: Eadmund acknowledged in Wessex.]

Eadmund, surnamed Ironside,[769] was now King in London; but Cnut, by

virtue both of his election and of military possession, was King over at

least the whole of Wessex, Mercia, and Northumberland. The first act of

Eadmund was to go forth from London to try to win back the immediate

realm of his forefathers, the kingdom of the West-Saxons. He was at once

acknowledged, and English troops flocked to him from all quarters.[770]

Meanwhile the rival King, having received the homage of the Witan at

Southampton, continued his voyage towards London. He [Sidenote: Cnut

besieges London, May 7, 1016.] halted at Greenwich,[771] and prepared to

form the siege of the city. The course of the ships up the river was

checked by the bridge—a wooden forerunner, no doubt, of that London

bridge which lasted down to our own times, and which was no doubt made

the most of as part of the defences of the city. But Cnut dug a deep

ditch to the south of the river, so that the ships evaded the obstacle,

and sailed round to the west side of the bridge.[772] He then dug

another ditch round that part of the city which was not washed by the

Thames, so that London was again hemmed in on every side. But every

attempt on the walls was again baffled by the valour of the citizens,

and at last Cnut found it more to his interest to check the progress of

his rival in the West than to go on with an [Sidenote: He raises the

siege.] undertaking which seemed utterly hopeless. He raised the siege,

and marched after Eadmund. The English King was now collecting troops on

the borders of the three shires of Somerset, Wiltshire, and Dorset. Cnut

had followed so fast that Eadmund had had time to gather only a small

force; still he did not fear to meet the enemy in battle.[773] The

armies met at a point near the border of the three shires, but just

within the bounds of Somerset, on the edge of the high ground covered by

the forest of Selwood. The place is spoken of as the Pens, a Celtic name

which describes the lofty position of the ground, and which is

appropriately found in the immediate neighbourhood of large traces of

præ-Teutonic [Sidenote: _First battle_, at Pen Selwood; victory of

Eadmund.] antiquity.[774] Here, on a spot which perhaps had been the

scene of West-Saxon victories over an earlier enemy, did Eadmund, with

his small force, formed mainly no doubt of the levies of the district,

venture to give battle to the tried troops of his rival. He put his

trust in God; he boldly attacked the enemy, and he defeated [Sidenote:

_Second battle_, at Sherstone (July 1016); victory doubtful.] him.

Eadmund then collected a larger army, and on Monday in July[775] he

again engaged the enemy in another border district, at Sherstone in

Wiltshire, just on the marches of Wessex and Mercia. Of this battle

fuller details have been preserved. The eastern shires of Wessex were in

the possession of Cnut, so that the men of Hampshire and part of

Wiltshire fought on the Danish side. With the Danes also were, not only

the traitor Eadric, but at least two other English Ealdormen, Ælfmær,

surnamed Darling,[776] and Ælfgar the son of Meaw. With Eadmund were the

men of Devonshire, Dorset, and part of Wiltshire—those of Somerset are

not mentioned, but they can hardly fail to have been on the English

side. At any rate, while the pure Saxons of Hampshire were arrayed on

the side of Cnut, the army of Eadmund must have largely consisted of men

of Welsh descent. The King placed his best troops[777]—no doubt mainly

his own followers—in front, and the inferior part of his army in the

rear. He exhorted them in a speech setting forth the motives obvious at

such a time, and led them to the place of action. The trumpets sounded;

the battle began; the javelins were hurled at the onset, and the close

combat was still carried on, as at Maldon, with the sword.[778] King

Eadmund fought in the front rank, doing the duty alike of a general and

of a private soldier.[779] The two hosts fought for a whole day, without

any marked advantage on either side. The next day the fight began again;

the English had now plainly the better, when a new act of treachery on

the part of Eadric for a while threw their ranks into disorder. Smiting

off the head of a man whose features were much like those of the English

King, he held it up, calling on the host of Eadmund to flee. The English

wavered, and some were on the point of flight, when Eadmund, like

William at Senlac, tore off his helmet, showed himself alive to his

army, and hurled a spear at Eadric. He unluckily missed the traitor, and

slew another soldier who was near him.[780] The English then took heart

again; they attacked the Danes with still greater vigour, and kept up

the battle till twilight, when the two hosts again separated. Neither

side had gained any decided success; neither host, it would seem, kept

possession of the place of slaughter. But if neither side could claim

the formal honours of victory, the practical advantage was [Sidenote:

Cnut again besieges London.] clearly on the side of the English. For in

the night Cnut marched stealthily away from his camp, went back to his

ships, and again began the siege of London. Eadmund [Sidenote: Eadmund

reconciled with Eadric.] then crossed into Wessex to gather fresh

troops; and now his faithless brother-in-law Eadric came to him, as to

his natural lord,[781] made his peace with him, and swore oaths of

future fidelity. Eadmund, unconquered by the arms of Cnut, was not proof

against the kind of warfare in which Eadric was so skilful. The hero had

the weakness again to admit the traitor to his favour and confidence.

[Sidenote: Eadmund wins the _third battle_, and delivers London; he] At

the head of his new troops,[782] Eadmund marched towards London, and in

a third battle he drove the Danes to raise the siege and go back to

their ships. Two [Sidenote: then wins the _fourth battle_, at

Brentford.] days afterwards he fought his fourth battle at Brentford,

where the Danes were again defeated, but many of the English were lost

in trying to ford the river without due heed. Eadmund now returned to

Wessex to gather [Sidenote: Cnut besieges London in vain the third

time.] fresh troops, and meanwhile Cnut sat down, for the third time

within these few months, before London. The city was again attacked on

every side; but again all attacks by land and by water were in vain.

Almighty God, say the Chroniclers, saved the city.

[Sidenote: Great plundering expedition of the Danes.]

King Eadmund was now gathering a greater force than ever from all parts

of England.[783] Meanwhile the Danes, finding all their attempts on

London fruitless, set out on a plundering expedition on a great scale.

They sailed away from London, they coasted along the shores of Essex;

they then entered the Orwell, and thence they marched across East-Anglia

and spread themselves over Mercia, plundering, burning, slaying,

according to their wont. Then, gorged with plunder, those who were on

foot went back to their ships, and sailed up the Medway, the fierce and

swift-flowing stream which washed the fair walls of Rochester.[784]

Those who had horses seemed to have reached the same trysting-place by

land. But King Eadmund followed them with his fourth army, which must

have been partly at least levied in Mercia, as he was [Sidenote: _Fifth

battle_, at Otford; victory of Eadmund.] now north of the Thames. He

crossed the river at Brentford, the scene of his last success, he

followed the Danes into Kent, met them at Otford, and gained an easy

victory. The Danes fled with their horses into Sheppey—the [Sidenote:

855.] corner of England in which a Danish host had first wintered.[785]

The King pressed on and slew as many as he could; but his evil genius

Eadric now again appeared [Sidenote: Further treasons of Eadric; he

saves the Danes from destruction.] in his old character. By the same

incomprehensible means of which we have so often heard, Eadmund was

hindered from following up his victory. The traitor contrived to detain

the King at Aylesford, and the Danish army was saved from utter

destruction.

The last act of this great drama was now drawing near. Since the end of

April, Eadmund had gathered four armies; he had fought five pitched

battles; he had been decidedly victorious in four of them, and he had,

to say the least, not been decidedly defeated in any. Never had the

efforts of one man been greater or more successful; Ælfred himself, in

his most hard-fought campaigns, had not worked for England with a truer

heart [Sidenote: Eadmund collects a fifth army from all England.] than

his valiant descendant. Eadmund again marched westward, he gathered a

fifth army, and made ready for a sixth battle. The war, which in the

beginning might have almost passed for a local struggle, had now become

thoroughly national. Cnut had now to fight, not against Wessex, but

against England, and there is nothing which leads us to think that he

now had any English followers under his banners. Eadmund’s new host was

gathered from all parts of England, even from districts whose

inhabitants were largely of Danish origin. We have no complete list of

the shires which sent contingents, but we incidentally find that men

came from districts as far apart from each other as Herefordshire,

East-Anglia, and Lindesey. The Danes meanwhile sailed along the coast of

Essex, and entered the estuary of the Crouch. There they left their

ships, while the army went on a plundering expedition into Mercia, which

is spoken of as being more fearful than any that had gone before it.

After this they returned towards their ships, the latter part of their

course leading them along the high ground [Sidenote: _Sixth_ and last

battle, at Assandun.] which lies south of the Crouch. Along these

heights Eadmund followed them, and at last overtook and engaged them in

the sixth and last battle of this wonderful year, the memorable fight of

Assandun.[786] At the end of the range, two hills of slight positive

height, but which seem lofty in the low lands of the East of England,

look down on the swampy plain watered by the tidal river. Between the

hills and this lowest ground lies a considerable level at an

intermediate height, which seems to have been the actual site of the

battle. Of the two hills one still keeps the name of Ashington, an easy

corruption of the ancient form, while the other, in its name of

Canewdon, perhaps preserves the memory of the Danish conqueror himself.

On Assandun then, a site marked by entrenchments which are perhaps

witnesses of that day’s fight, perhaps of yet earlier warfare, Eadmund

drew up his forces in three ranks, he made the speech usual before

action, and at first seemed disposed to await the attack of the

enemy.[787] The King took the post which immemorial usage fixed for a

royal general, between the two ensigns which were displayed over an

English army, the golden Dragon, the national ensign of Wessex, and the

Standard, seemingly the personal device of the King.[788] But Cnut had

no mind to attack; most likely he wished to avoid a battle altogether,

and merely sought to get back to his ships with his plunder. At all

events he had no mind to attack the English as long as they were posted

on a spot where the ground gave them the advantage. Yet the moment was

favourable for battle; the Raven fluttered her wings, and Thurkill,

overjoyed at the happy omen, called for immediate action.[789] But Cnut,

young as he was, was wary, and would fight only after his own fashion.

He gradually led his troops off the hills into the level ground,[790]

that is, the intermediate height between the hills and the swampy plain.

The main object of Eadmund was to cut off the Danes from their ships; he

had therefore no choice but to leave his strong post and to come down to

the lower ground. This movement differed from that of those English

troops at Senlac, who, in defiance of Harold’s orders, left the hill to

pursue the Normans in their real or pretended flight. At Senlac, in

withstanding horsemen, the one thing to be done was to keep the strong

post against all assaults; at Assandun, English and Danes, using much

the same tactics and the same weapons, could meet on equal terms on the

level ground. If Eadmund gave up the advantage of his strong position

for defence, he gained the advantage of the charge down hill for his

[Sidenote: First attack of the English.] attack. He accordingly began

the battle with a furious assault upon the Danes; he even forsook the

royal post, and, charging sword in hand in the front rank, he burst like

a thunderbolt upon the thickest of the enemy.[791] The Danes held their

ground manfully, and the fight was kept up with equal valour, and with

frightful slaughter, on both sides. But on the whole the Danes had the

worse, and they were beginning to give way, when Eadric again betrayed

his lord and King and all the people of English kin.[792] He was in

command of the Magesætas or men of Herefordshire and of the forces of

some other parts of his [Sidenote: Treacherous flight of Eadric.] old

earldom; at the head of these troops, according to a previous agreement

with Cnut, the English Ealdorman, the brother-in-law of the King, took

to flight. The battle however was kept up till sunset, and even by the

light of the moon; but, after the flight of Eadric, the English had to

maintain the struggle on very unequal terms. All England fought against

Cnut; but Cnut had the victory.[793] [Sidenote: Slaughter of the English

nobility.] The slaughter of the English nobility,[794] of the chief

leaders and of the King’s own following, was fearful. There died

Godwine, Ealdorman of Lindesey, wiping out, it may be, by a valiant

death the errors of an earlier stage of his life.[795] There died the

hero Ulfcytel, brave and faithful as ever; the first English leader who

had checked the career of Swegen, and who now ended his glorious life by

dying sword in hand in fight against the son of his old enemy.[796]

There died one of the many Ælfrics of our story, redeeming on this

hard-fought field the infamy which his more celebrated namesake had

brought upon his very name. There died one personally unknown to us, but

a scion of a house than which none has been more famous in our history,

the East-Anglian Æthelweard, the son of Æthelwine the Friend of

God.[797] And, in times like these, not only the temporal chiefs, but

Bishops and Abbots also, had not scrupled to take the field against the

invader. Wulfsige of Ramsey came with the heir of the great house to

which his monastery owed so much. Five and twenty years before he had

played the churl towards the host of Brihtnoth on its march to

Maldon.[798] Like Godwine of Lindesey, long years of national

wretchedness had brought him to a more patriotic frame of mind, and he

now, in his old age, came to give to his King and country such help as

his years and calling allowed him. Eadnoth of Dorchester,[799] once

Provost of Wulfsige’s minster, came, either through love of his old

companions or in the train of Godwine and the valiant men of his own

diocese. These holy men, we are told, came only to pray and not to

fight,[800] and in the case of the aged Wulfsige we may well believe

that it was so. But we cannot forget that other English prelates, before

and after, did not shrink from wearing weapons and commanding armies. We

have seen that, in this age, Archbishop Ælfric not only bequeathed ships

to his dioceses, but personally commanded fleets,[801] and it may well

be that the arm of Eadnoth, if not that of Wulfsige, was found as strong

as those of Ealhstan in an earlier, and of Ealdred in a later,

generation.[802] At all events, whether they came to pray or to fight,

the prelates met with no more mercy from [Sidenote: Victory of the

Danes.] the Danish sword than the lay chieftains. At last, under cover

of night, the King and the remnant of his army escaped; Eadmund

Ironside, for the first time in this year of battles, was a fugitive.

The Danes hardly dared to pursue; but they kept possession of the place

of slaughter. They tarried on the field all night; in the morning they

buried their own dead; they gathered the spoils of the slain English,

and left their bodies to the fowls of the air and to the beasts of the

land.[803] They then went to their ships and sailed towards London,[804]

most likely meaning to begin the siege a fourth time. When they were

gone, some of the scattered English ventured to return and carry off the

bodies of the slain leaders. Æthelweard and Wulfsige found an honourable

grave in their own church at Ramsey; the body of Eadnoth lay in the

rival minster of Ely, the resting-place of Brihtnoth.[805]

[Sidenote: Results of the battle.]

The real blow to England in this battle was the loss of so many of the

chief men whom it was hard to replace. This remarkable slaughter of the

nobility is emphatically pointed out in all our narratives,[806] and it

is not unlikely that it had a real political effect, like the cutting

off of the mediæval baronage in the Wars of the Roses. But as a mere

military success, Cnut’s victory at Assandun does not seem to have been

very decisive. At any rate, instead of being followed up by any vigorous

blow, it led only to a conference and a compromise between [Sidenote:

Eadmund prepares for a seventh battle.] the contending Kings. Neither

the spirit nor the resources of Eadmund were worn out. Indeed he seems

to have been readier than his rival to try his fate once more in a

seventh battle. As undaunted as ever, he made his way into

Gloucestershire, and there began gathering recruits for a new

campaign.[807] He seems to have been actually ready with a fresh army,

when Cnut, with his victorious host, came after him. But no battle took

place. Eadric—still, strange to say, in the King’s confidence—and the

other Witan who were with him, the relics of Assandun, persuaded

Eadmund, much against his will,[808] to consent to a conference and a

division of the kingdom. The two Kings drew near to the Severn from

opposite sides, Eadmund from the west, Cnut from [Sidenote: Conference

of Olney.] the east. They met in an island of the river, called

Olney,[809] to which the Kings were, seemingly together with chosen

witnesses,[810] rowed over from their several banks of the river. The

meeting was a friendly one; we can well believe that two such valiant

captains as Cnut and Eadmund might, in the course of their warfare,

conceive a real respect for each other. But, among the many great

qualities which Cnut, in after times, gradually developed out of his

original barbarism, this particular virtue of generosity towards

personal rivals is one of which we see few signs. Without imputing to

Cnut any actual treachery, we may feel sure that in this, as in most

other acts of his life, he was guided by policy rather than by

sentiment. Still, from whatever motives, the two Kings treated one

another with the utmost courtesy. [Sidenote: Division of the kingdom

between Eadmund and Cnut.] A division of the kingdom was the essential

principle of the treaty; the two Kings now agreed on details. They

settled the extent of their respective dominions, and also the amount of

money which, as a necessary consequence of any treaty with Danes, was to

be paid to the Danish fleet. They moreover swore oaths of friendship and

brotherhood, and, like the heroes of Homer,[811] they exchanged arms in

token of mutual good will.[812] The terms of the treaty, indeed the fact

of Cnut’s consenting to any treaty at all, show how formidable the power

of Eadmund must still have seemed. The Imperial dignity remained to the

English King, who, unlike his rival, was already a King in the fullest

sense of the word, a King crowned and anointed. With this over-lordship

of the whole realm, Eadmund kept the immediate dominion of all England

south of the Thames, together with East-Anglia, Essex, and London. Cnut

took the remainder, the larger portion of the kingdom. As compared with

the division between Ælfred and Guthrum, the dominions of Eadmund were

larger on one side and smaller on another. Eadmund gained Essex and

East-Anglia, which, in the earlier division, fell to the lot of the

Danes, while he lost the part of Mercia which was kept—or, more

strictly, won back—by Ælfred. It would seem that each prince was to

succeed to the dominions of the other, at all events if he died

childless. The brothers of the two Kings seem to have been formally shut

out. The sons of Eadmund were left in the usual position of minors. No

immediate provision or stipulation was made for them; but their position

as Æthelings, entitled to a preference on any future vacancy, seems to

have been distinctly acknowledged. It is hardly possible that a lasting

separation of the two parts of the kingdom was seriously meant. Such a

division could not have lasted longer than the joint lives of the two

reconciled competitors, and it would probably have been annulled at no

distant time by the first quarrel between them.[813]

England had thus once more for a moment, as in the days of Eadwig and

Eadgar, two Kings. But her two Kings were this time not hostile kinsmen,

but reconciled enemies. After the conference at Olney, the newly made

brothers parted. Cnut’s army returned to their ships, which had

doubtless stayed in the Thames near London. The citizens beneath whose

walls the power of Cnut and his father had been so often shattered, now

made peace [Sidenote: The Danes winter in London.] with the Danish host.

As usual, money was paid to them, and they were allowed to winter as

friends within the unconquered city.

[Sidenote: Death of Eadmund Ironside. November 30, 1016.]

But meanwhile a sudden event set aside all the late engagements and made

Cnut master of the whole realm. On Saint Andrew’s day King Eadmund

Ironside died in London. The manner of his death is uncertain.[814]

Perhaps the overwhelming toil of the last seven months may have worn out

the strength even of one whose vigorous frame had won him his

distinctive surname. The personal exertions of Eadmund must in truth

have been greater than those of any other man in the two armies. Besides

actual marching and fighting, there was the going to and fro after each

battle to gather fresh troops. This labour must have pressed more

severely on Eadmund than on any one else, far more severely than on

Cnut, who had his army always ready at hand. It is therefore quite

possible in itself that the death of Eadmund was natural, and such a

belief is in no way [Sidenote: Suspicions against Eadric;] contradicted

by our best authorities. But, according to a report which obtained a

wide belief, he died by the hand, or at least by the practice, of

Eadric. The traitor, or some kindred wretch in his employ, slew the King

and brother whom he had so often betrayed, and that by a specially base

and treacherous form of assassination. [Sidenote: against Cnut.] That

Cnut himself had a hand in the deed is an obvious surmise, and one which

his conduct immediately afterwards certainly does not belie. But no

English authority hints at any such suspicion; the only writers who

attribute the murder to Cnut, or who even imply that he was ever accused

of the crime, are to be found among the Danish King’s own countrymen.

But whether the death of Eadmund was natural or violent, whether Cnut

was or was not the instigator of the murder, if murder there was, he at

least reaped all the advantage of the opportune end of his former rival

and now sworn brother. The unbroken succession of the West-Saxon Kings,

of the English Emperors of Britain, had now come to an end. The remains

of the last, and one of the noblest, of that great line were carried to

the common sanctuary of Briton and Englishman, and the body of Eadmund

Ironside was laid by that of his grandfather [Sidenote: Eadmund’s tomb

at Glastonbury.] Eadgar in the great minster of Glastonbury.[815] In

later times, through all the rebuildings of that wonderful pile, the

memory of the hero of Sherstone and Assandun still lived. Till men arose

in whose eyes art, history, and religion were alike worthless, he held a

worthy place among a galaxy of royal tombs which Winchester or

Westminster could hardly surpass.[816] Behind the high altar, in his own

chapel as a canonized saint, rested the body of Eadgar the Peaceful.

Before the altar lay the supposed remains of the legendary Arthur and

his yet more legendary Queen. North and south slept two champions of

England, alike in name and in glory. On the north side lay Eadmund the

Magnificent, one of the brother heroes of Brunanburh, the conqueror of

Scot and Cumbrian and Northman, the deliverer of English cities from the

heathen yoke. To the south lay his namesake and descendant, as glorious

in defeat as in victory, the more than equal rival of the mighty Cnut,

the man who raised England from the lowest depth of degradation, the

guardian whose heart and arm never failed her, even if his ear lent too

easy credence to the counsels of the traitor.[817]