King Egbert (Ecgberht) - 800-836
Departure of the Romans,
Settlement of the various English tribes,
449 The Jutes,
477 The Saxons,
520 The Angles,
The
dominion of the Romans in Britain had been complete. The country, as
far as the Frith of Forth, had been brought under Roman civilization.
But in England, as elsewhere, the continuance of that form of
civilization had produced weakness; and the unconquered Britons of the
North, known by the name of Picts, broke into the Romanized districts,
and pushed their incursions far into the centre of the country. On all
sides, the nations outside the Empire were breaking through its limits
and threatening its existence. The danger which threatened the very
heart of the Empire, from the advance of the Goths into Italy, compelled
the Romans in 411 to withdraw their legions from Britain, and leave the
inhabitants of the island to fight their own battles with the Picts.
When these enemies formed an alliance with the pirates of Ireland, known
by the name of the Scots, and with the German pirates of the North Sea,
known as English or Saxons, the civilized Britons were unable to make
head against them, and found it necessary to seek for aid among the
invaders themselves They therefore made an arrangement with two Jutish
chiefs or Ealdormen, Hengist and Horsa, to come to their assistance. The
German rovers consisted of three nations, the Saxons, the inhabitants
of Holstein, who had advanced along the coast of Friesland; to the north
of them the Angles or English, who inhabited Sleswig; and still further
to the north, the Jutes, whose name is still perpetuated in the
promontory of Jutland.
The
first landing place of the Jutish allies of the Britons was in the Isle
of Thanet, separated at that time by a considerable inlet from the
British mainland. Their aid enabled the Britons to drive back the
Pictish invaders. But their success, and the settlement they had formed,
enticed many of their brethren to join them, and their numbers were
constantly increasing. Increase of numbers implied increased demand in
the way of payment and provisions. Quarrels arose between the new comers
and their British allies. War was determined on. The inlet which
divided Thanet from the mainland was passed, and at Aylesford, on the
Medway, a battle was fought, which, though it cost Horsa his life, put
the conquering Barbarians into possession of much of the east of Kent.
The victory was followed by the extermination of the inhabitants;
against the clergy especially the anger of the conquerors was directed.
The country was thus cleared of the inhabitants, and the new comers
settled down, bringing with them their goods and families and national
institutions. This process was repeated at every stage of the conquest
of the country, which thus became not only a conquest but a
re-settlement. The Jutish conquest of Kent was followed, in 477, by an
invasion of the Saxons, who, under Ella, overran the south of Sussex,
and captured the fortress of Anderida near Pevensey; and in 495, by a
fresh Saxon invasion under Cerdic and Cymric, who passed up the
Southampton water and established the kingdom of the West Saxons. A
momentary check was given to the advance of the conquerors, in 520, at
the battle of Mount Badon. But almost immediately fresh hordes of Angles
began conquering and settling the East of England, where they
established the East Anglian kingdom, with its two great divisions of
Northfolk and Southfolk. Between that time and 577, the date of a
victory at Deorham, in Gloucestershire, the West Saxons had overrun what
are now Hampshire and Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, and the valley
of the Severn, reaching almost as far as Chester; while the Angles,
entering the Humber and working up the rivers, established themselves on
the Trent, where they were known as Mercians or Border men, and formed
two Northern kingdoms, that of Deira in Yorkshire, and that of Bernicia,
extending as far as the Forth. The capital of this last-named kingdom
was Bamborough, founded by Ida, and called after his wife Bebba,
Bebbanburgh, or Bamborough.
The
junction of these two kingdoms underAethelfrith, about 600, established
the Kingdom of Northumbria; thus was begun the process of consolidating
the several divided English kingdoms. This tendency to consolidation is
marked by the title of Bretwalda, which is given to the chief of the
nation dominant for the time being. The name had been applied to Ella of
Sussex, to Ceawlin of Wessex, and was held at the time of the
establishment of the Northumbrian power by Aethelberht of Kent. There
were thus two pre-eminent powers among the English - Northumbria, under
its king Aethelfrith, claiming supremacy over the middle districts of
England, including the Mercians and Middle English; and Kent, under
Aethelberht, paramount over Middlesex, Essex, and East Anglia; while a
third kingdom, that of Wessex, though large in extent and destined to
become the dominant power, was as yet occupied chiefly in improving its
position towards the west. Beyond these lay the district still in the
possession of the Britons. The possessions of this people were now
divided by the conquest of the English into three - West Wales, or
Cornwall; North Wales, which we now call Wales; and Strathclyde, a
district stretching from the Clyde along the west of the Pennine chain,
and separated from Wales by Chester, in the hands of the Mercians, and a
piece of Lancashire in the hands of the Northumbrians.
It
was while the kingdoms of Northumbria and Kent were thus in the balance
that the conversion of the English to the Christian faith began.
Aethelberht of Kent had married Bercta, the daughter of the Frankish
King of Paris. She was a Christian; and Gregory the Great at that time
occupying the Roman See, which was rapidly rising to the position of
supremacy in the Christian Church, took advantage of the opening thus
afforded, and despatched a band of missionaries under a monk named
Augustine to convert the people. In 597 they landed in Thanet. By the
influence of the Queen they were well received, and established
themselves at Canterbury, which has ever since retained its position as
the seat of the Primacy. The Kings of Essex and East Anglia followed the
example of their superior Lord, and became Christians. The Northern
kingdom was still heathen. But Eadwine, who succeeded Aethelfrith on the
Northumbrian throne, surpassed his predecessor in power. On
Aethelberht’s death, he received the submission of the East Anglians and
men of Essex, and conquered even the West Saxons. Kent alone remained
independent, but was compelled to purchase security by a close alliance
with Eadwine, who married a Kentish princess. With her went a priest,
Paulinus; and priest and Queen together succeeded in converting Eadwine,
and bringing the Northern kingdom to Christianity. Heathenism was
however not extinct. It found a champion, Penda, King of the Mercians.
In alliance with the Welsh king he attacked and defeated Eadwine, in
633, at the battle of Heathfield, and united under his power those who
were properly called Mercians and the other English tribes south of the
Humber. He also conquered the West Saxon districts along the Severn, and
thus established what is generally known as the Kingdom of Mercia.
Paulinus had fled from York after the battle of Heathfield. But the
contest between heathen and Christian was renewed by Oswald, Eadwine’s
successor; for Paulinus’ place was taken by Bishop Aidan, a missionary
from Columba’s Irish monastery in Iona, who had established an Episcopal
See in the Island of Lindisfarne. From thence missionaries issued, who
continued the work of conversion, to which Oswald chiefly devoted his
life. Birinus, sent from Rome, with the support of Oswald, succeeded in
converting even Wessex, and establishing a Christian church at
Dorchester. Penda still continued in the centre of England to uphold the
cause of heathendom. At the battle of Maserfield he conquered and slew
Oswald, and re - established his religion for a time in Wessex. But at
length, in 655, he succumbed to Oswi, Oswald’s successor, and with him
fell the power of heathendom. It seemed as though Irish Christianity,
and not Roman, would thus be the religion of England. But Rome did not
suffer her conquests to slip from her hand. A struggle arose between the
adherents of the two Churches. The matter was brought to an issue in
664 at a Council at Whitby. The Roman Church there proved predominant.
And this victory was followed by the appointment of Theodore of Tarsus,
an Eastern divine, to the See of Canterbury. Under him the English
Church was organized. Fresh sees were added to the old ones, which had
usually followed the limits of the old English kingdoms. Canterbury was
established as the centre of Church authority. Theodore’s ecclesiastical
work tended much both to the growth of national unity and to the close
connection of Church and State which existed during the Saxon period.
The unity of the people was expressed in the single archiepiscopal See
of Canterbury and in the Synods; while the arrangement of bishoprics and
parishes according to existing territorial divisions connected them
closely with the State.
The contest for
supremacy between Mercia and Northumbria still continued. After the fall
of Penda, the supremacy of the Northern kingdom was for some time
unquestioned. But sixty years later, during the reign of three Christian
kings, Ethelbald, Offa, and Cenwulf (716-819), Mercia again rose to
great power. Offa indeed came nearer to consolidating an empire than any
of the preceding kings, although he is not mentioned among the
Bretwaldas. It is said that he corresponded on terms of something like
equality with Charlemagne; and the great dyke between the Severn and the
Wye which bears his name is supposed to mark the limits of his
conquests over the Britons.
With these princes
the supremacy of Mercia closed, for a great king had in the year 800
ascended the throne of Wessex. Ecgberht had lived as an exile in his
youth at the court of Charlemagne, and there probably imbibed imperial
notions. During his reign of thirty-six years he gradually brought under
his power all the kingdoms of the English, whether Anglian or Saxon. In
823, at the great battle of Ellandune, he defeated the Mercians so
completely that their subject kingdoms passed into his power. Four years
later Mercia owned his overlordship, and Northumbria immediately after
yielded without a struggle. These great kingdoms retained their own line
of sovereigns as subordinate kings. Ecgberht continued the hereditary
struggle against the British populations, with the West Welsh or
Cornish, and the North Welsh or Welsh, and in each instance succeeded in
establishing his supremacy over them. North of the Dee, however, his
power over the British population did not spread. Thus the kingdom of
the West Saxons absorbed all its rivals, and established a permanent
superiority in England.
Already, however, a
new enemy, before which the rising kingdom was finally to succumb, had
made its appearance; a year before his death, Ecgberht was called upon
to defend his country from the Danes. This people, issuing from the
Scandinavian kingdoms in the North of Europe, had begun to land in
England, to harry the country, and to carry off their spoil. At first as
robbers, then as settlers, and finally as conquerors, for two centuries
they occupy English history. Their first appearance in this reign was
at Charmouth in Dorsetshire. Subsequently, in junction with the British,
they advanced westward from Cornwall. This led to the great battle of
Hengestesdun, or Hengston, where the invaders were defeated (835). It
seems not unnatural to trace the appearance of the Northern rovers in
England to the state of the Continent. Driven from their own country by
want of room, obliged to seek new settlements, they found themselves
checked by the organized power of Charlemagne’s empire. They were thus
compelled to find their new home in countries they had not yet visited.
The reign closed with the capture of Chester, the capital of Gwynedd,
the British kingdom of North Wales.
The reign of
Aethelwulf, the successor of Ecgberht, was chiefly occupied in constant
war with the Danes. Various success attended his efforts. The great
battle at Ockley (851), where they were heavily defeated, for a time
kept them in check; but, on the whole, the invaders constantly gained
ground, and at last, in 855, for the first time so far changed their
predatory habits as to winter in the Isle of Thanet. Another
characteristic of Aethelwulf’s reign is the connection with Rome which
he established. When his youngest son Alfred was still a child, he sent
him to Rome, where the young prince was anointed; and two years
afterwards he himself took the same journey, was received on the road by
Charles the Bald, King of France, and spent a whole year in Italy. He
there re-established the Saxon College, and by his engagement to supply
funds for its support seems to have originated the well-known Peter’s
Pence. His connection with Charles the Bald was further cemented by his
marriage with Judith, daughter of that king. After Aethelwulf’s death
she married her stepson Aethelbald, was divorced by him, returned to
France, married Baldwin of Flanders, and was the ancestress of Matilda,
wife of William the Conqueror. These connections show the rising
importance of England, and the entrance of the country into the general
politics of Europe. Something in Aethelwulf’s government, perhaps his
lengthened absence abroad, or the step he had taken in getting Alfred
anointed, excited discontent. His eldest surviving son, Aethelbald,
conspired with other nobles to exclude him from the country, and he was
forced to consent to a compromise, accepting as his own kingdom, Kent
and the Eastern dependencies of Wessex, while his son ruled over the
rest of the kingdom.
On his death he
bequeathed his own dominions to Aethelberht, his second son, while
Wessex was, upon the death of Aethelbald, to pass in succession to his
two sons, Aethelred and Alfred. In spite of this will, on the death of
Aethelbald five years later, Aethelberht of Kent succeeded in making
good his claims to Wessex also, and upon Aethelberht’s death, after a
reign of five years, marked only by renewed attacks of the Danes, both
kingdoms passed without question to Aethelred.
It
was during the reign of Aethelred that the Danes first established
themselves permanently in the country. In 867 Ingvar and Hubba, said to
be the sons of Ragner Lodbrog, a great Scandinavian hero, invaded
England. Legend says that this invasion was intended to exact vengeance
for the death of their father, who had been cruelly put to death by Ella
of Northumberland. There are chronological difficulties in the way of
accepting this story, which are increased by the fact that the Danish
landing was really in East Anglia. Thence, in 867, they advanced into
Northumbria and took York. The anarchy in which Northumbria lay, caused
by the rival claims of Osberht and Ella to the throne, rendered its
conquest easy. In 868, they marched towards Mercia, and took Nottingham.
Burhred, the King of Mercia, then implored the aid of Aethelred and his
brother Alfred, who so far succeeded that they drove the Danes back to
Northumbria. From thence, in 870, an invasion, under many leaders, whose
connection is not very clear, was directed against East Anglia. They
were there joined by Guthrum, another Danish leader, and their combined
forces pressed victoriously onwards through Croyland, to Peterborough,
Huntingdon, and Ely. After defeating the English at Thetford, they took
Edmund, the Saxon King of East Anglia, prisoner, and, upon his refusal
to accept the pagan religion, put him to death. For his constancy he was
honoured with the title of Saint Edmund. East Anglia was thus
completely in possession of the Danes, and Guthrum took to himself the
title of king. East Anglia became henceforward for some time the
principal point of Danish settlement in England. From thence the
invaders passed into Wessex, under the command of Bagsecg and Halfdene.
They were vigorously met by Aethelred. They pushed on, however, as far
up the Thames as Reading, near which town a series of battles was
fought, at Englefield, where the Danes were beaten; at Reading, where
the fortune of the day was changed; and subsequently at the great battle
of Ashdown, where the victory of the English was regarded as being due
to Alfred, who, being in command of half the army, attacked and defeated
the enemy, while his brother was losing the precious moments in prayer
for success. Though the victory of Ashdown was complete, it did not
close the war. Almost immediately afterwards we hear of battles at
Basing and at Merton, in which the Danes were again successful. These
battles took place just before the death of Aethelred.
He
was succeeded at once by his brother Alfred. Another victory of the
Danes at Wilton compelled Alfred to make peace. For a time the Danes
withdrew from Wessex, and employed their energy in subjugating Mercia.
Burhred, who had married Alfred’s sister, was driven from the throne,
and retired to Rome to die. A Danish agent, named Ceolwulf, was put in
his place, and the country laid under heavy contribution. But Ceolwulf
in his turn was displaced, and the Danes took possession of much of the
country themselves, conquering among other places the five great towns,
Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, and Stamford, known as the five
Danish Burghs, or, with the addition of York and Chester, the seven
Burghs. They also carried their invasions northward, and Cumberland and
part of Strathclyde were overrun and peopled by them, under the command
of Halfdene. Nor was the treaty with the East Anglian Danes permanent.
Guthrum sailed round the coast and captured Wareham and Exeter. To
oppose them on their own element, Alfred introduced a new form of ship,
of greater size and length than had hitherto been used, and succeeded in
winning a great naval victory in Swanage Bay. But the Danish forces
were gradually closing round him. London and Essex had been taken, and a
colony of Danes had conquered South Wales. At length, attacked in all
directions, his kingdom of Wessex was practically limited to the country
of the Somersœtas; and, unable to make head against his enemies, the
King took refuge among the impassable morasses of the river Parret. It
is during this time of his exile that the well-known story of the burnt
cakes is told. But while apparently completely beaten, Alfred succeeded
in gathering a new army, issued from his seclusion, and attacking the
Danes at Edington (878), near Westbury, completely defeated them. The
consequence of this battle was the Treaty of Wedmore. By this treaty the
kingdom of East Anglia was surrendered to the Danes, and a line was
drawn to separate their kingdom from that of Wessex. This line from the
Thames ran along the Lea to Bedford, then along the Ouse till it struck
Watling Street, and then followed Watling Street to the Welsh Border.
The greater part of Mercia was thus restored to Wessex. In exchange,
Anglia and Mercia beyond this line were ceded to the Danes, who were to
hold them as vassals of the West Saxon king, and who were to become
Christians. The limits of their occupation are still to be traced by the
occurrence of the termination “by” in the names of the towns; it was in
many instances appended to the name of the Danish holder of the manor.
Guthrum, on his baptism, took the name of Aethelstan, and many
difficulties in the chronology of the legends of the time may be solved
by supposing that the Aethelstan mentioned in them is Guthrum, and not
the Aethelstan who reigned in the year 925. This treaty, although it
curtailed the supremacy of Wessex, made the kingdom in fact stronger,
and secured a temporary rest for the whole of England. Mercia, that part
of it at least which remained English, was governed by its Alderman
Aethelred, and by the King’s daughter Aethelflæd, known as the Lady of
the Mercians. On the death of Gutred, the Danish King of Northumbria,
Alfred re-established his power there, and the peace and prosperity of
England were further increased by the fact that the energy of the Danes
was for the present chiefly directed against France and Belgium. Guthrum
died in 890, and though the treaty was confirmed by his successors, the
defeat of the Danes in Belgium threw fresh invaders into the kingdom.
In 893, Hasting, a well known sea-rover, in alliance with the Anglians
and Northumbrians, committed fresh ravages in all directions; but at
last, having ventured up the Lea, Alfred hit upon the expedient of
draining the river, and leaving their ships aground. After this they
were glad to retreat, but lesser expeditions were constantly vexing the
coast. The reign of Alfred is thus divided into two periods of Danish
war, between which, and at the close of his life, there occurred
intervals of peace.
It
has been usual to attribute to Alfred most of the marked peculiarities
of English civilization, the formation of shires, the establishment of
juries, and so on. Such assertions will not bear examination. As a
lawgiver, he collected the laws of the three principal states over which
he ruled - Kent, Mercia, and Wessex - which had been already recorded
by the Kings Aethelberht, Offa, and Ine. As a warrior he was on the
whole victorious, and understood the necessity of establishing a fleet,
which he appears to have constructed on a different principle from that
of the Danes, the ships being longer, and serving less as mere stages on
which to fight. As a governor he was impartial and strict; his police
was severe, the system of mutual responsibility became universal, and
under him the idea of morality began to mingle with the idea of injury
to the commonwealth, which had been the Saxon notion of crime. His son
Eadward, who succeeded him, was probably as great as his father, but he
had not the love of literature which forms the marked characteristic of
Alfred’s public life. It has been questioned whether Alfred could
himself read; however this may have been, he was so conscious of the
necessity of literature for the people that he set himself to work to
make translations for them. “The History of the World on Christian
Principles,” by Orosius, Bede’s “History of the Anglo-Saxon Church,” and
Boethius’ “Consolation of Philosophy,” were the works he translated.
Besides his own literary work, he established conventual schools at
Shaftesbury and Athelney, and probably a more general one at Oxford. The
love of the people, whom his indefatigable energy saved from their
barbarous and pagan invaders, has attributed to their hero an original
genius of which there are no distinct proofs. What is really known of
him is, that he was an able, honest, persevering governor, gifted with
that power and habit of method and organization which is perhaps more
useful in advancing early civilization than greater and more splendid
gifts. Upon Alfred’s death, though England, as a whole, had suffered by
the loss of the country granted to the Danes, or, as it was called, the
Danelagu, Wessex had assumed a position of superiority, and was regarded
as the representative state of the English. This position it fully
vindicated during the reigns of Eadward, Alfred’s son, who succeeded
him, and of the four next kings, till the kingdom of Wessex grew to be
the kingdom of England, and exerted an imperial supremacy over the whole
island.
Eadward’s
first difficulty was with his cousin Aethelwulf, the son of Alfred’s
elder brother Aethelred. This prince claimed the throne. He landed in
England, was driven to Northumbria, where he was chosen king, and then,
in company with Eohric, the King of East Anglia, marched up the Thames
to Cricklade. He was however defeated, and with his ally killed by a
portion of the English army near the Ouse. The consequence was the
renewal of the acknowledgment of the supremacy of Wessex by Guthrum II.
of East Anglia. In conjunction with his sister, the Lady of the
Mercians, Eadward attempted to secure himself from further molestation
by the erection of numerous stone castles. These castles, which seem to
have been built on a new and better plan than any before erected, became
also in many instances the origin from which towns sprang; for laws
were passed creating them into markets, and forbidding bargains to be
made without the walls. Some sort of monopoly of trade was thus secured
for fortified posts. On the death of Aethelflæd, Mercia, both Anglian
and Danish, submitted to Eadward’s authority. He continued the active
government of his sister, and went on with her work of fortress
building. An invasion by the Danes of Northumbria in conjunction with
the Welsh, who hoped to find Mercia unguarded, was signally defeated.
The Welsh kings swore alliance to Eadward, and the Danes of Northumbria,
and even the Kings of Scotland and Strathclyde, acknowledged him as
their “father and lord.” Eadward was thus in fact master of the whole of
England, and had completed more thoroughly the work of Ecgberht. The
greatness of his position is clearly marked by the marriages of his
children with the greatest Princes of the Continent. One married Charles
the Simple of France, a second Hugh the Great, Count of Paris, a third
Otto I., Emperor of Germany.
The greatness
Eadward had thus secured descended to his son Aethelstan, with whom the
grandeur of the Saxon monarchy reached its highest point. He married one
of his sisters to a Northumbrian prince, Cytric, receiving his
allegiance for Benicia from the Tees to Edinburgh, and, on the death of
Cytric, incorporated the country with his own dominions. Cytric’s two
sons fled, the one to Ireland, where the Danes received him willingly,
the other (Guthrith) to Constantine, King of Scotland. The consequence
of the escape of these princes became evident in after years. In 934,
Constantine and his heir Eorca, Owen or Eugenius, King of Cumberland,
made war upon England, but were defeated and compelled to acknowledge
the supremacy of Aethelstan. The attention of the English King was
subsequently drawn abroad, where he upheld the cause of his nephew,
Louis de Outre-Mer, son of Charles the Simple, against the attacks of
his brothers-in-law, the German Otto and Hugh of Paris. It was while
thus employed that the Scotch kingdoms again rose in insurrection. A
great conspiracy against Aethelstan appears to have been formed, at the
head of which were Anlath, son of that Guthrith who had fled to
Scotland, Constantine, Owen, and several princes of the Danes from
Ireland. Their object was the re-establishment of the Danish power in
Northumbria. The attempt was completely thwarted by the great battle of
Brunanburh, near Beverley, in Yorkshire. Not long after this decisive
victory Aethelstan died. His splendid reign is further marked by
legislation of a more original description than that of his
predecessors. He ordered, among other things, that every man should have
a lord who should be answerable for him to justice, and rendered more
systematic the arrangement of mutual responsibility, which appears to
have been one of the principles of Saxon police.
His younger
brothers, Eadmund and Eadred, followed in his footsteps, defeating the
Northumbrian rebels, who from time to time elected kings of their own,
but were completely conquered by Eadred. He so thoroughly incorporated
the country with his own, that its ruler could no longer claim the title
of king. Both Bernicia and Deira were bestowed as an earldom on Osulf,
who had assisted in the conquest of the rebels, and remained in the
hands of his family till the Norman Conquest. Eadmund also maintained
his supremacy over Scotland, with which country his relations were of a
very friendly nature, as he granted a part of the kingdom of
Strathclyde, consisting of Cumberland and Galloway, to King Malcolm, to
be held by military service.
The policy of Eadred
and of his successors seems so closely connected with the rise of
Dunstan, that it may be justly attributed to him. The monkish
historians, to whom we owe our knowledge of this great man, have
overlaid his history with mythical stories, and have given him a
character and policy to suit their own purposes. In their eagerness to
secure the name of the greatest statesman of the age in support of their
pretensions against the secular clergy, they have drawn him as a youth
of miraculous gifts, of severe monkish asceticism, whose claim to
greatness consisted in the establishment of the Benedictine rule. In the
same way they have painted his opponent King Edwy [Eadwig] in the
blackest colours. The common story tells us that, after a childhood
passed in learning, so deep as to excite a suspicion of magic, illness
drove Dunstan to the cloister at Glastonbury; that he there established
the Benedictine rule, entering with such vehemence into its spirit that
his asceticism almost turned his brain. On the accession of Edwy, the
young king, it is said, deserted the assembly of the nobles, to pass his
time in the company of the beautiful Aelfgyfu [Elgiva], his mistress.
Dunstan is represented as violently dragging the unworthy king back to
his proper place, as securing the banishment of Aelfgyfu, and with his
partisans cruelly putting her to death upon her return. Edwy is then
described as raging fiercely against all the monks in his kingdom. In
truth, it is in politics rather than in ecclesiastical discipline that
Dunstan’s greatness must be sought, and he must take his place in
history rather as a conciliatory and patriotic governor than as an
ascetic and violent churchman.
Born at the
beginning of King Aethelstan’s reign, and trained partly at Glastonbury,
where he found and studied books left by wandering Irish scholars, and
partly at the King’s Court like other young nobles of the time, an
illness induced him to devote himself to the Church. His interest
secured him the Abbey of Glastonbury at the early age of seventeen. He
shortly returned to the Court, became the King’s treasurer, and as an
influential minister joined himself to the party which he found
preeminent during the reign of Eadred. That king was a constant invalid,
the influence of the Queen Mother was paramount, and she was supported
by the chiefs of East Anglia and those whose views were national rather
than provincial. The kingdom of Northumbria was in a state of ceaseless
confusion. Again and again the Danes and Ostmen raised insurrections
there. Wulstan, the Archbishop of York, with constantly shifting policy,
at one time supported the insurgents, at another persuaded the Northern
Witan to submit to Eadred. At length, in a final insurrection, he was
overcome and imprisoned. The affairs in Northumbria had to be settled.
It is here that the national policy of the dominant party made itself
felt. Contrary to the views of the Wessex nobles, who would have wished
for active interference of the government, the kingdom was reduced to
the condition of an earldom under Osulf. But English supremacy being
thus established, Wulstan was released, and self-government both in
Church and State permitted. This conciliatory policy was interrupted by
the death of Eadred.
The
new King Edwy, nephew of Eadred, was a mere child, and a palace
intrigue, headed by Aethelgyfu and her daughter Aelfgyfu, who had
obtained influence over the lad, drove the Queen Mother Eadgyfu from the
Court, and established the power of the Wessex party. Unpopular among
the Wessex nobles and in his own monastery, Dunstan was driven abroad,
and took refuge in Ghent. But his party was still strong in England.
Indignant probably at a violent resumption of grants from the Folkland,
the nobles of England, with the exception of Wessex, set up Edwy’s
younger brother Eadgar as a rival king, and were sufficiently powerful
to oblige Edwy to divide the kingdom and content himself with the
territories of Wessex south of the Thames. Dunstan was recalled by his
partisans. He received from King Eadgar the sees of Rochester and of
London; and when, on the death of Edwy, Eadgar succeeded to the
undivided sovereignty of the kingdom, Dunstan rose with him, and became
his chief minister and Archbishop of Canterbury.
As
minister, Dunstan had both Church and State to reform. In both, decay
had made great progress. The increased importance of the English King
had raised him to a position very different from that of the tribal
monarch. Along with the King had risen his dependants, the old members
of the Comitatus. His Thegns or servants, rendered rich by grants of the
public land, had gradually succeeded the old nobility by birth, of the
German races. The troubled situation of the country had driven the
freeholders more and more to seek safety by placing themselves and their
land in a state of dependence on the Thegns. Even as early as Alfred
every man was obliged to have a lord. At the same time the spirit of
provincialism was strong, each district which had been a separate
kingdom wishing to maintain its own independence. Dunstan seems to have
understood that a change in the character of the monarchy was
inevitable, and that national unity could only be secured by upholding
that change, placing the monarch in what may be regarded as an imperial
position over the subject kingdoms, and allowing the separate districts
as much self government as possible. Within the kingdom of Wessex
itself, and perhaps of Mercia also, he established a strict police, and
suppressed disorder with a strong hand. Beyond that, the largest freedom
was permitted. Thus, the subordination of Northumbria was further
secured by its division into three parts. The district between the Tees
and the Humber was intrusted to Oslac. From the Tees to the Tweed
remained in the hands of Osulf, while the Lothians between the Tweed and
the Forth were given out on military service to the King of Scotland;
and in subsequent history it was this district, peopled with English and
Danes, which formed the civilized centre of the Scottish kingdom. But,
when the supremacy of Wessex was thus secured, the Danes of the North
were allowed to keep their own customs and make their own laws.
Similarly, friendship with the Northmen of Ireland was maintained, and
through their friendship the King was enabled to keep up a powerful
fleet, which constantly sailed round the coasts, and kept them free from
foreign invasion. The tradition that Eadgar was rowed upon the Dee to
Chester by eight tributary kings, whether the fact be true or not,
points to the imperial position which Dunstan had secured for him. In
the Church the same policy was pursued. The great disturbances of the
kingdom had thrown much power into the hands of the Church, the most
permanent element of society. This increase of influence had been
followed by an increase of secularity. The bishops became statesmen, and
even commanders of armies. The older form of monasticism died out.
Marriage of priests was constant. Livings began to be handed on from
father to son. There was some chance of the establishment of an
hereditary priestly caste. In Ghent, Dunstan had become acquainted with
the Benedictine rule lately established there. He saw its efficiency for
securing discipline among the clergy. Like other strong rulers, he
regarded anarchy with aversion, and was therefore anxious to introduce
the rule into England. He intrusted the work to his friend Aethelwold,
whom he made Bishop of Winchester, and to Oswald, whom he raised to the
See of Worcester. In Wessex and Mercia he carried out his reform with
vigour, even with violence: but, as in his secular government, he kept
himself under the restraints of prudence. Thus, when Oswald was
appointed Archbishop of York, he made no efforts to restrain the
marriage of the clergy, and in Dunstan’s own See he yielded to the
prejudices of the people, and allowed the abbeys to continue in the
hands of secular clerks. The title of Eadgar the Peaceful, and a reign
of seventeen years unbroken by any great foreign war, attest the success
of Dunstan’s policy.
St Brice's Day Massacre: Mass Murder of the Danes in England - 13th November 1002
