Reign of Edwy. his immediate relations, who were hostile to the influence of Dunstan and his friends. The foolish conduct of Edwy, who escaped from the solemnity of the coronation feast, and was by the orders of the witan dragged back by Dunstan, completed the breach. Dunstan was exiled, while Edwy offended the clergy by marrying a lady within the prohibited degrees of relationship. At the same time he weakened his power by reviving the office of ealdorman of Mercia, which had been abolished by Edward the Elder, so parting with direct authority over all England north of the Thames. Meanwhile, Odo the archbishop of Canterbury had denounced the king's marriage as incestuous, and a general revolt followed. All the earldoms declared for Edgar, the king's younger brother, and Edwy only retained possession of that part of England which lay south of the Thames. The revolution showed how weak the English kingship really was; but the division was soon healed by the death of Edwy, and the severed portions were reunited under Edgar. Under Edgar Dunstan again became powerful, and it is difficult to say how much of the policy of Edgar's reign is due to the king and how much to the minister. Edgar was fortunate both at home and abroad. The wars waged against the Danes by the Emperor Otto gave employment to the freebooters of the north. At home his wise administration Reign of Edgar. removed the causes of disaffection and conciliated his various subjects, while his vigorous enforcement of justice, and the untiring energy which he displayed in seeing with his own eyes the carrying out of his injunctions secured for his reign a long reputation as a time Edgar's of peace and prosperity. Edgar's policy seems to have been Policy. to allow each of the great earls to manage the affairs of his own earldom, while he himself confined his attention to the security of the realm and the administration of his own district of Wessex. In pursuance of this plan, every summer was Edgar inspecting his fleet and arranging for a complete circumnavigation of the coast with a view to the suppression of piracy; each winter found him travelling from place to place seeing with his own eyes what was going on, and finding remedies for all abuses. Well, however, as this arrangement worked in the hands of a powerful king like Edgar, it obviously was calculated to lead to very different results in the hands of a weaker man; for earls so free as these would naturally strive after independence, and such independence would naturally lead to anarchy. Indeed, this was exactly what happened all over the world wherever this tempting plan was adopted; and, consequently, its adoption in England makes a turningpoint in the history of the Old English monarchy. Another change of Edgar's reign which led to important consequences was the revival of monasticism. Before the invasions of the Northmen revived. both the north and south of England had been thickly Monasticism studded with monasteries, and the monks had played a great part in the advancement of civilisation. But the barbarities of the Danes had proved their ruin, and even in Wessex very few had survived. Moreover, the temper of the English had been setting against a monastic life, and when Alfred founded his monastery at Athelney he was obliged to bring his monks from abroad; though he found English ladies who were willing to become nuns at Shaftesbury and Hyde. Similar causes had produced a decadence of the same kind in Europe, when, in the tenth century, a revival was brought about by the piety of the monks of the abbey of Clugny, in Burgundy; and their example fired other monasteries. The influence of the movement began to make itself felt in England under Edgar. Ethelwold, abbot of Abingdon, was full of it; Oswald, bishop of Worcester, had himself lived in a Clugniac house; and Dunstan during his exile had been an inmate of a strict abbey in Ghent. Accordingly Ethelwold and Oswald, with the assistance of Edgar and the approval of Dunstan, set on foot a monastic revival in England which took the form both of rebuilding ancient, but ruined, monasteries such as Ely, Peterborough, and Crowland, and also of restoring the use of the monastic rule in cathedrals where it had formerly been in use. The number of new monasteries founded, howЯver, does not appear to have been large, and the north was hardly affected by the movement. Ethelwold. Oswald. There seems, however, to have been much difference of opinion as to the merit of the new movement, and in some places the changes met with a vigorous resistance. On the whole it was thought that the new monasticism was a good thing. It was certainly favourable to learning; and from this time forward the duty of keeping up the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was regularly undertaken by the monasteries, so that the entries, which had become meagre in the extreme, again expand into valuable contemporary narratives, the most useful of which were those kept at Abingdon, Worcester, and Peterborough. Chronicle. In 975 Edgar died. His son Edward, who was not more than thirteen, became king, but three years later he was murdered by a party which had always been in favour of the accession of his halfReign of brother Ethelred; and Dunstan, though he remained arch- Edward. bishop of Canterbury, was deprived of all political influence. This event brings to a close a well-defined period of English history, for with the accession of Ethelred the invasions of the Danes were renewed, and Renewal of the Danish Invasions-Feeble Resistance of the English-Canute's Reign-Rise of Godwin-Reigns of Harold and Hardicanute. Reign of THE accession of Ethelred was followed by the virtual exclusion of Dunstan from power, and the direction of affairs fell into the hands of his opponents. When Ethelred grew up he showed himself to be the worst sovereign of his race-vicious, idle, cruel, ill-advised, and unlucky in everything he undertook. It is, however, unfair to throw upon Ethelred responsibility for all the disasters of his reign; something must be allowed for general causes, and it is doubtful whether the skill of even Alfred or Edgar could have stemmed the tide of misfortunes which Ethelred had to meet. Renewed men. The Northmen, instead of being a mere group of scattered tribes, had now settled down into the three powerful kingdoms of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden; and while the Swedes directed their attacks upon Russia and the southern shores of the Baltic Invasions of Sea, the Norwegians and Danes, sometimes separately and the Northsometimes in unison, brought all their forces to bear upon the British Isles. Moreover, the Northmen of the Danelaw sympathised with the new comers, and gave them active assistance; the hardly smouldering jealousy of the ealdorman broke out into open flame; local jealousy was rife; and for some unexplained reason Edgar's fleet seems to have disappeared, so that the Northmen came and went at will. The invasions began in 980 by the plundering of Cheshire, Thanet, and Southampton, where 'most part of the townsmen were slain or made captive.' For seventeen years no competent leader seems to have Weakness of the English. arisen, and the country became perfectly demoralised by the atrocities of the ubiquitous Northmen. Single shires and ealdormen fought well; but, in the words of the Chronicle, 'no shire would help other,' and no one seemed able to organise a national resistance. Dunstan died in 988, and his successor Sigiric enjoys the sinister distinction of being the first to propose that the Danes should be bought off by a money payment. Then a treacherous attempt was made to betrap' the enemy after the conclusion of a truce; but the plan was betrayed by Elfric, the most trusted of the king's ealdormen. In 993 Bamborough was stormed, and the country north and south of the Humber was pillaged; but when an army was collected, it was 'the leaders first of all who began the flight.' At last Ethelred contrived to divide his assailants by making a separate treaty with Olaf, king of the Norwegians, who ever after kept the peace; and in 1002 he secured the neutrality of the Normans by a marriage with Emma, the sister of their duke Richard. However, a massacre of all the Danes who had recently settled in England, which was carried out on St. Brice's day, served only to exasperate Sweyn of Denmark, whose sister had been put to death. His attacks went on as before, and constant gifts of money and provisions only served to whet the appetite of the invaders. Throughout this miserable time the only bright spots are supplied by the valour of the Londoners, who held their town during a succession of sieges, and throughout the whole reign blocked the road up the Thames, and by the conduct of individual ealdormen like Brihtnoth of Essex and the brave Ulfcytel of East Anglia, who gave the Danes 'worse hand-play than they ever had before among the English.' The actions of these heroes, however, only serve to place in stronger light the ignominy of Ethelred, who never seems to have adventured his person in battle, and whom the Chronicle describes in 1005 as 'beginning to consider' what could be done after fifteen years of disaster. However, in 1007 an able man, Eadric, became ealdorman of Mercia. His low birth made him distasteful to the nobles, his avarice is shown by his nickname of Streona or the Grasper, and he was undoubtedly treacherous; but he does seem to have made some effort to turn the tide. The want of a fleet was supplied by the contributions of the whole country; but when it assembled, the quarrels of the leaders and an unlucky storm dashed the hopes of the nation, and ‘it Ravages of seemed as if it had been all hopeless.' The country became the Danes. more demoralised than ever; and the Danes marched hither and thither, burning, ravaging, and slaying, just as they pleased. Brihtnoth. Eadric. At length, in 1013, Sweyn came over in person and attempted a |