8

CHAPTER II.

DEPARTURE OF THE ROMANS. ARRIVAL AND SETTLEMENT OF THE SAXONS.

From A.D. 409 to A.D. 827.

It was observed that the extent of the Roman empire was favourable to the first spreading of the Christian faith. The days, however, of that empire (which is generally thought the fourth empire spoken of by the prophet Daniel) were numbered; and throughout the fourth and fifth centuries of the Christian era, it was gradually weakened and divided by the invasion of the heathen and barbarous nations of the north. The depression of the Christian religion, which was the first consequence of this event, issued in the more signal triumph of the truth. Victorious as were the invading tribes over the degenerate Romans in battle, they were themselves successively conquered by the mild and holy faith which was held by their new subjects; and which thus showed itself able to master the passions of men under the various changes to which human society is liable.

The province of Britain soon felt the effects of the weakening of the Roman empire. The Romans were forced to withdraw their legions from these shores; and as it had been their policy to train the natives in peaceful arts and habits, they left them in a defenceless condition to contend with the Picts and Scots', who were continually harassing and plundering them. The Romans finally left the island in the year 409; and after suffering the evils as well of anarchy as of foreign invasion, the Britons seem to have chosen Vortigern as their king, in the hope of finding a remedy for their ills under a strong and able ruler. A people, however, that has long trusted to others for protection, cannot soon recover those manly habits which none should suffer themselves to lose. Appeal to the Romans for aid was found to be vain, and Vortigern at length invited

5 The Picts seem to have been the Caledonians of the older period, under a new name. The Scoti were a horde which had passed over from Hibernia (Ireland).

the Anglo-Saxons from the coast of Jutland and Holstein, to assist him in repelling those enemies whom he was himself unable to drive out of his kingdom. These heathen foreigners came over in great numbers under the brothers Hengist and Horsa, with whom Vortigern tried to confirm his league by marrying their sister Rowena. They were first settled in the Isle of Thanet, and soon succeeded in driving back the Picts and Scots to their own fastnesses, but by degrees became more fatal enemies to the British than those whom they were summoned to repel. A pretext for quarrelling with Vortigern was soon found; or (as some say) a plot was contrived for massacring him and the principal British nobles. The result of his unwise invitation was, that the Britons were gradually driven into Wales, Cornwall, and Armorica in Gaul, called afterwards, from this circumstance, Bretagne, or Brittany; and that the Saxons, in a period of about one hundred and fifty years, established seven kingdoms in this island, which began to be called England, after the Angles, who had then settled themselves in it. This condition of England is known as the Saxon Heptarchy, from two Greek words which signify seven governments; and the kingdoms thus established were: 1st. Kent, comprehending Kent and Middlesex; 2nd. the South Saxons, which included Sussex, Surrey, and the New Forest; 3rd. Wessex, comprising Hants, Dorset, Wilts, and the Isle of Wight; 4th. the East Angles, comprehending Cambridge, Norfolk, and Suffolk; 5th. Essex, which included part of Herts; 6th. Mercia, embracing the Midland counties; and 7th. Northumberland, the most extensive of all, in which all the northern counties were comprised.

The civil history of England at this time consists only of the wars of these petty kings, of whom some one had often a sort of supremacy over the others, till the year A.D. 827, when Egbert, king of Wessex, after subduing the others, made himself sole master of England.

We may easily believe that the expulsion of the British by a heathen and barbarous people, proved in the first instance a serious hindrance to the Christianity as well as the civilization of the island. The British Church had recently recovered from the effects of a heresy called Pelagianism, (from its author, Pelagius or Morgan, who was a native of

Wales,) through the ministry of St. Germain and St. Lupus, who held a disputation at Verulamium, A.D. 429, by which it was successfully put down. Schools had been established at Bangor and elsewhere; and missions had been sent to spread the Gospel among neighbouring nations. The Saxon invasions put an end for a time to these holy undertakings. The British bishops with their flocks found refuge chiefly in Wales, where the bishoprics founded by St. Asaph and St. David, at places still called after them, attest the piety which yet found a home among the ancient Britons, when England was again given up to the darkness of heathenism..

A state of things thus unhappy, when the Church in England was so depressed that only a few of its Bishops. and Clergy remained, could not but move the zeal of the Church abroad, and the compassion of Gregory I., then Bishop of Rome, was quickened by the sight of some English children exposed for sale in that city. He sent a mission into England, at the head of which was Augustine, the celebrated monk, who afterwards became the first archbishop of Canterbury. He landed in Kent, A.D. 596, and succeeded in converting Ethelbert, the king, already favourably disposed towards Christianity by Bertha his queen, who was a Christian princess.

The success of the mission of St. Augustine reflects honour upon Gregory, at whose desire it was undertaken. Unhappily, however, that Bishop and his successors took occasion, from the circumstance of Rome having been instrumental in reconverting England to the Faith, to invent a claim of supremacy for the Church of Rome over that of England, which had been unknown till then. The archbishop of Canterbury, it was urged, held his see as a Bishop suffragan, or dependent, on the see of Rome, and could not exercise his functions until he had received a pall (for which he was sometimes obliged to pay a large sum of money) from the Pope. This claim was frequently resisted, more or

6

6 The pall was perhaps originally a robe, but afterwards it was a small piece of woollen cloth, put on the archbishop's shoulders when he officiated, which lay over the rest of his habit. Its rudeness and the nature of the material were to be emblems of humility and of the pastoral office.

7 The Bishop of Rome is generally called the Pope, although this title (which means Father) originally belonged to all bishops.

less successfully, on political and ecclesiastical grounds by the English Church, and, as we shall see in the course of our history, gave occasion to sad heart-burnings and jealousies; but it was finally rejected at the Reformation.

But to return: within about one hundred years from A.D. 596, the Christian faith had spread itself through all the kingdoms of the Heptarchy; and God raised up many eminent men for that great ministry. The names of St. Chad, bishop of Lichfield; St. Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, with others, are worthy of being ever honoured by Englishmen. Under the Divine blessing granted to the labours of these and other men of God, the rude Saxons submitted themselves to the yoke of Christ. Churches were built, and tithes and other endowments set apart for the maintenance of religion throughout the island; and the foundations were thus laid of that system of the pastoral ministry in parishes, which is to our own day the source of such unspeakable comfort and benefit.

CHAPTER III.

INVASION OF DANES. REIGN OF ALFRED.

From A.D. 827 to A.D.

900.

THE period of the Heptarchy was more favourable to learning and religion than perhaps is commonly supposed. The Venerable Bede, who died A.D. 735, and was the author of a history of the English Church, with other valuable works, and the learned Alcuin, who was born and educated in England, though he resided chiefly at the court of the Emperor Charlemagne, were probably more distinguished scholars than were to be found at that time in other parts of Europe. It pleased God, however, to suffer the country to be afflicted for about two hundred years after Egbert became king of England, by invasions of the Danes, who were still heathens, and who, wherever they made their inroads, not only laid waste the country, but burnt the churches and monasteries, and put the clergy to death.

These invaders were but feebly resisted by Ethelwulf, who succeeded his father Egbert on the throne, A.D. 837, and was a prince of an indolent and superstitious character. He is chiefly remarkable for a visit which he paid to Rome, whither he had sent his son Alfred to be confirmed by Pope Leo IV., and where Ethelwulf resided a year, when his kingdom could ill spare his presence. During his time, and through the reigns of his three elder sons, Ethelbald, A.D. 858, Ethelbert, A. D. 860, and Ethelred I., A.D. 866, who reigned successively, the Danes gained many victories, attended by great cruelty and rapine, and began to aim at making a permanent settlement in the fertile fields of England. When Alfred, the fourth son of Ethelwulf, became king, A.D. 871, nothing could be more wretched than the state of the country. For a time, indeed, he made head against the Danes; but they arrived in such swarms that he found it necessary to withdraw from the struggle, and even to conceal himself in the cottage of a herdsman, whose humble labours he shared. While thus awaiting better times, he is said to have been chid one day by the herdsman's wife for having failed to turn a cake that was being baked, which she had set him to watch. The woman, who little suspected the quality of her inmate, told him sharply that "he could eat a cake, though he was too lazy to turn it." She was much dismayed on discovering Alfred's rank by the arrival of some of his faithful followers, who entreated him to lead them once more against the Danes. In order to acquaint himself with the plans of his enemies, he is said to have entered their camp in the disguise of a harper. He found the camp unguarded, and the Danes given wholly to riot and feasting. He was thus enabled to attack them with advantage, and he defeated them with great slaughter: but he made a mild use of his victory, and Gothrum, the Danish chief, with many of his principal followers, were afterwards admitted to holy baptism.

From this period the reign of Alfred was one of true glory and usefulness. The Danes were bravely repulsed from time to time; and when on one occasion the wife and children of Hastings, their leader, were surprised and brought to Alfred, he generously sent them back, observing that he did not make war with women and children.

This