585.

head of the West Saxons, made a lasting only compassion but indignation; and as impression on the Western Britons in a the sufferer would be a tyrant if he could, series of battles, where he was probably it becomes difficult either to pity him or to resisted by the valiant Arthur.* It was blame the oppressor so much, as in better considerably more than a century before times nature would dictate or morality the country from the Humber to the Tweed, would require. There are crimes enough and probably to the Frith of Forth, in the happiest ages of the world to exerA. D. were reduced by the Angles to two cise historical justice; and it can scarcely 547. principalities, known in our history by be regretted that our scanty information the Latinized names of Deira and Bernicia, relating to the earliest period of Saxon rule of which the union at a later period formed should leave it as dark as it is horrible. the kingdom of Northumberland. Christianity brought with it some 595. Even after the establishment of the mitigation. The arrival of Augustine Angles in Mercia, or the central part in Kent with forty other missionaries, sent of England, the whole western portion by Gregory the Great to convert the Saxof the island continued to be held by the ons, is described in picturesque and affectCeltic race. Cornwall, South Wales, North ing language by Bede, the venerable histoWales, Cumberland, and Strathcluyde, rian of the Anglo-Saxon church. It cannot were the divisions of territory manfully de- be doubted that the appearance of men who fended by the Kymbric or Cambrian Brit- exposed themselves to a cruel death for the ons. Eight Saxon principalities occupied sake of teaching truth and inspiring benevthe rest of England, which from the union olence, could not have been altogether withof the two Northumbrian principalities were out effect among the most faithless and considered as seven, from which circum- ruthless barbarians. Liberty of preaching stance, as well as from some loose alliance what they conscientiously believed to be among them, our writers have called the Divine truth, the only boon for which they period of these governments by the name prayed, Ethelbert king of Kent, who had of the Heptarchy. In the wilds of Caledo- married a French and Christian princess, nia were, at least, two independent tribes, freely bestowed upon them. They found -the Scots, beyond all doubt of the same both the Christian religion and the British race with the Irish, and the Picts, of dis- language extinct in the Saxon territory; puted origin, but of whom the early and a tremendous proof of the ferocity of the universal prevalence of a Teutonic lan- warfare which had raged in this island for guage in the north-eastern plains of Scot- a hundred and fifty years. With the clerland seems to render it probable that they gy of the British principalities they were were Teutons, either of the Germanic or speedily engaged in a controversy about of the Scandinavian branch. It will not be the time of the great festival of 602. wondered that every thing relating to this Easter, which was chiefly important last tribe should be involved in thick dark- as incompatible with the communion beness, by those who consider that they tween that clergy and the western church, ceased to be a nation, and became, and with their obedience to the patriarchal 842. by conquest or succession, subjects see of Rome. Despairing of healing this of the Scotch princes in the early part of breach of unity by reason, we are told by the ninth century, when nothing is known Bede that Augustine proposed to leave it of the internal revolutions of Caledonia. to the determination of God, by agreeing The island of Great Britain, about the year that the party which should perform a mi700, was thus divided among fifteen petty raculous cure was to be considered as sancchiefs, who waged fierce and almost un- tioned by the interposition of heaven. Aubroken war against each other. The ties gustine cured a blind man, but without the of race were gradually loosened. The Ger- immediate removal of obstinate prejudice. man invaders spilt their kindred blood as Many such miracles, however, are related, freely as that of the native Britons. The to which happier consequences are asevents of this period scarcely deserve to be cribed; nor ought the veracity of the narknown, and there are few means of ascer- rators to be undistinguishingly assailed, taining them. The uniform succession of when a belief in miraculous powers was acts of treachery and cruelty ceases to in-universal. A man of good understanding terest human feelings. It wears out not might easily ascribe to his own prayers, or still more to those whom he valued more * Saxon Chronicle. The words Konung, Kyning, King, Kong, Koenig, and others like them, in the than himself, those recoveries which imTeutonic languages, denoted every sort of command, mediately followed them. As the miracufrom the highest to that of a very narrow extent. lous facts are seldom related by professed

In an ancient Francic version of the New Testa

ment, Cornelius, the pious centurion, is styled Ko- eye-witnesses, the progress of insensible nung. It would be a gross fallacy to understand exaggeration accounts for many of those these terms in their modern sense, when we meet them in Anglo-Saxon history. narratives, without either assenting to the

A. D.

800.

miracle or disputing the honesty of the his- termine. In the beginning of the ninth torian. A just conviction of the excellence century, Egbert, king of Wessex, who of the cause in which they were engaged long lived at the court of Charlemagne, disposed them more readily to believe that acquire a great authority over his conProvidence interposed in its favor. One of temporary princes, though he was conthe greatest men of the eighteenth centu- tent with the title of king of Wessex, and ry* has intimated his opinion that such in- with the dignity and influence of Bretterposition might have actually occurred. walda. He was the lineal descendant of Whoever ascribes the order of nature to a Cerdic, the founder of the kingdom of supreme mind must indeed believe it to be Wessex, the most noble and powerful of possible for that mind to suspend and alter the Saxon chiefs, the legendary descent of the course of events. But there is probably whose family from Odin the deified hero no miracle of the middle age which re- of the North ranked them among the proquires any other confutation than a simple geny of the gods; and he became the comstatement of the imperfection and inade- mon ancestor of all the dynasties who have quacy of the testimony produced in its sup- since permanently filled the throne of Engport. land. This eminent place in history, or

No form of Christianity was likely not to genealogy, has given more of the appearhave sanctioned a doctrine so agreeable to ance of a change of government to his acthe general feelings of a zealous and igno- cession than in reality belonged to it. The rant age as the continuance of miraculous chief alteration in the system consisted in powers. It does not seem to have any con- confining the supremacy to the royal line nexion with the properly theological dog- of Cerdic. As there had been a series of mas of the church of Rome. Many Protest- Bretwaldas for centuries before him, so ants were, some perhaps still are, favora- there continued to be subordinate kings ble to it. Probably no Protestant establish- long after his time. Their disobedience, ment has expressly renounced it. It was indeed, was more and more considered as the peculiar misfortune of the Roman Cath- rebellion by the kings of Wessex, but by olic church, that, however disposed some their own partisans it was still regarded as of its most distinguished memberst might a continuation of the ancient struggle for have been to suffer such claims to slumber superiority, in which neither party were and gradually to die out, their precise and inferior in right. Having reduced 823. rigid definitions of the infallibility of the Essex, Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, church have placed the character of their and aided the East Angles of Norfolk religion too much at the mercy of every in transferring their obedience from the ignorant, credulous, or fraudulent Catholic, Mercians to himself, and having in four who may persuade himself, or others, that years more subdued Mercia, his authority he possesses those powers which the uni- as Bretwalda was acknowledged in all the versal church cannot strongly condemn provinces southward of the Humber. To without renouncing those high pretensions the Northumbrians, however, he seems to which she once unfortunately sanctioned. have granted milder terms of dependOne Saxon state appears to have gene- ence. Mercia continued obedient for a rally aimed at, or attained, an undefined very short period, and the Welsh afforded ascendency over the others. Though the constant exercise to his arms. At his death authority thus exercised was necessarily in 836 he weakened the power of 836. fluctuating and irregular, yet the prince his successor, and lessened the influwho held it had a distinct appellation in ence of the Bretwalda, by bequeathing all the Anglo-Saxon language. He was called his own dominions, except Wessex, to a as by an official title Bretwalda,‡ or wield- younger son. No sooner had Egbert made er of the Britons, for so they soon learned some approaches towards regular governto style themselves; seven chiefs had filled ment, than a new and fiercer race of piratthis station during three hundred years:- ical barbarians, unsoftened by Christianity, a king of the South Saxons, one of the after a pause of two centuries, appeared in West Saxons, one of Kent, one of the East England, which they continued to ravage Angles, together with three successive for almost two centuries more. They were kings of Northumberland. It was evident- Scandinavians, known in France under the ly tending towards a regular and heredita- name of Normans, and in England by that ry magistracy, but in whose hands the pow- of Danes; they had scarcely any natural er of arms which had transferred it from inducement to spare countries which they province to province was now finally to de- had visited only to plunder, and where they did not hope to dwell; they were less than + Discours de l'Abbé Fleury sur l'Histoire Ecclesi- others liable to retaliation, and they had astique, in their general purport, and as far as the neither kindred, nor family, nor home.

*Burke, v. 511. 4to.

excellent writer was at liberty.

Sax. Chron. A. D. 827; and Bed. ii. 5.

They were, perhaps, the only barbarians

66

who applied the highest title of magistracy scenes of his boyhood are preserved by his to denote the leaders of piratical squadrons, artless biographer, Asser, a monk of St. whom they termed Vikingr, or Sea Kings. David's, which interest us more than the Not contented with their native and habit-conquest of Europe in the ninth century ual ferocity, some of them, called Berser- | would have done. Though he had reached ker, sought to surpass their companions by the age of twelve before he acquired an art working themselves into horrible and tem- then so rare as that of reading, he was deporary insanity. Among these men, tears, lighted with listening to the Anglo-Saxon regarded by all others as a badge of human-songs. Judith, holding in her hands a volity, were forsworn as a disgrace. In their ume of these poems in which the beautiful first incursions they are mentioned by the characters pleased her husband's children, Saxon chroniclers under the general name said to them, "I will give it to the one among of "Heathens," a description which, prob- you who first learns to read it.”—“ Will ably, conveyed their deep horror more you?" eagerly asked Alfred, though the faithfully than any other. Scorned by the youngest. "Yes," said she with a smile of men of the North as unnatural and coward-pleasure. He suddenly snatched the volume ly apostates, it was natural that the Sax- out of her hands, and running to a schoolons, still actuated by the zeal of recent master, in no long time read or recited it to converts, should regard the paganism of her. His great soul was roused by the love of their plunderers with peculiar horror. letters, but not unmanned by it. He served The rich monasteries in which treasure with distinction in the numerous bloody was accumulated became the most attrac- battles fought by his brother against the tive objects of plunder, and the convents men of the North. His accession fell on were the scene of those unspeakable indig- the most troublous times. Only five 871 nities and abominations which may be ima- years before, Rollo had established gined to flow from the excitement of all his followers under a sort of civil governthe evil passions of ferocious savages. Du- ment in a part of Neustria. Alfred was ring the government of Ethelwolf, the son chosen in preference to his nephews on acof Egbert, and of two of Ethelwolf's sons, count of a warlike spirit, which, however English history is little more than an ac- the moralist might speak of its excess,* count of their atrocities. The next reign was suited to the perils of the moment. In opened inauspiciously; but its extraordina- the early years of his reign, Mercia and ry character requires that it should be sep- Northumberland, which obeyed him indiarated from the obscure barbarism which rectly and imperfectly, being ill defended preceded and followed. by their separate chiefs, were over876. run and nearly laid waste by the invaders, who were thus enabled to turn their This greatest of princes, the third whole force against Wessex. Though A. D. son of Ethelwolf by Osberga, a noble compelled to make two disadvantageous Saxon lady, was born at Wantage in treaties in the first seven years with men Berkshire, in 849, and succeeded his by whom no treaty was regarded, he per901. elder brother in 871. In the fifth year severed in making a stand against the inof his age he was sent to Rome with an em- numerable enemies who issued from the bassy, for what reason is unknown. Ethel- North; wave after wave incessantly lashed wolf brought him a few years after on a the British shore; their armies traversed pilgrimage to that city. On his return he the country from Tweed to Thames, abivisited Paris, where his father married Ju- ding in different places till they had condith the daughter of Charles the Bald. Of sumed the resources of the neighboring all the practices which have been abused districts. The Northumbrians, says the for superstitious purposes, there is perhaps ancient chronicler, "became their harrownone more deserving of indulgence than ers and plowers."+ About the same time, pilgrimage, whether we consider its flow- the freebooters in their squadrons carried ing from affectionate remembrance of the desolation into the centre of France, and wise and good, or as tending to open and were encamped on the present site of Parenlarge the mind by intercourse with many is. At last the spirit of the West Saxons and often with more civilized nations. The was worn out: the Danes broke through religious journeys of the western pilgrims the line of defence at Chippenham, overto Rome were in both respects to be honor- ran the country, drove many into exile beed. These pilgrimages, and the society of yond sea, and subdued the rest to their his step-mother Judith, probably contrib- will. All," says the chronicler, "but Aluted to unfold his natural character, as the fred the king." He, unconquered, took a fortunate banishment of Egbert to the court few noble Saxons, established himself in of Charlemagne had contributed to raise that monarch above his competitors. Somel

871.

to

VOL. I.

Alfred.

3

66

*"Nimium bellicosus." Asser.
† Sax. Chron. A. D. 876.

D

the centre of a morass, surrounded by bogs wife and sons of that famous freebooter and forests, in a spot still called the Isle who had been made prisoners: "he caused A. D. of Athelney, where he remained for a vessels to be built twice as long as those 877. time seemingly forgotten, as much as of the enemy, both steadier and swifter, as deserted. He experienced one of those well as higher, not formed after the Franksudden and total eclipses of fortune, which ish or Frisian model, but as he himself bestow a poetical lustre on heroism, and thought they might be most serviceable."† put genius to the test by reducing it to its His cultivation of the ornamental arts did own resources alone. Though he is said not blind him to the dignity of the useful to have been obliged so to disguise himself arts. He devised means of measuring time as to be roughly reproved by the wife of a in order to improve it, and he was on this cowherd for neglect of the toasting of her occasion the first improver of ship-building, cakes, he began, even in that condition, to and the founder of a naval force. revive the spirit of his followers by striking He continued to compose Anglo-Saxon blows at small parties of the enemy, who, poetry throughout his busy life: his propenignorant of his existence, looked at them sities to literature grew up in a general as if they fell from an invisible hand. He state of the grossest ignorance. "When is said, in the disguise of a harper, to have I took the kingdom, very few on this side visited the Danish camp, remained in it of the Humber, very few beyond, not one three days, examined its approaches and its that I recollect south of the Thames, could disposition, and ascertained the inattention understand their prayers in English, or and disorder of which the impunity could translate a letter from Latin into 878. of his own visit afforded a sufficient English."‡

ness.

proof. In a short time he burst from his fast- He brought together such scholars as the He was received by his oppressed time afforded to remedy this evil, among people with enthusiasm, increased by the whom his biographer, Asser, was conspicumystery of his retreat and return. They ous. Envying their knowledge of 887. flocked to his standard in such numbers as Latin, he acquired that language in to enable him to take by surprise the in- his thirty-eighth year sufficiently to transtoxicated enemy, to whom he made his ex- late Bede, the only book of Saxon history istence known by a successful attack on then extant; Orosius, to whose text he the borders of Selwood, which compelled added his own information or account of Guthrun, the Danish chief, to evacuate Germany and of Northern Voyages; and the territory of Wessex, and to receive Boethius, whose representations of the natfrom Alfred as a conqueror the country to ural equality of men, and whose invectives the north of the Thames, and to the east against tyrants, he, with at least as geneof the Lee and Watling Street to the rous a spirit, rendered into Anglo-Saxon Ouse, together with a part of the depopu- verse. He enforced education by refusing lated Northumberland. This last grant, in to promote the uneducated; and at an adwhich the supremacy of Wessex seems to vanced period of his reign, he who was have been acknowledged, may be consider- called by his biographer "The Truth-teller," ed as an attempt to cure, by settlement thanked God that those who sat in the and tillage, the plundering habits of the chair of the instructor were then capable roving pirates; nor does it appear to have of teaching.

been wholly unsuccessful. The chief con- In any age or country such a prince dition of the treaty was the submission of would be a prodigy. Perhaps there is no 880. Guthrun to baptism, humbling at example of any man who so happily com

least to the pagan chief, and destroy-bined the magnanimous with the mild viring the cement which joined him to tues, who joined so much energy in war Scandinavia; in both respects impairing with so remarkable a cultivation of the his strength and contracting his resources. useful and beautiful arts of peace, and During the sequel of Alfred's reign, the whose versatile faculties were so happily Anglo-Saxons were rather disturbed and inserted in their due place and measure as vexed than endangered by the Danish pow- to support and secure each other, and give For fifteen years after his restoration, solidity and strength to the whole characEngland enjoyed universal repose. During ter. That such a miracle should occur in four years only of the latter part of his a barbarous age and nation; that study reign, he experienced formidable hostilities should be thus pursued in the midst from an invasion conducted by Hastings, of civil and foreign wars by a monarch who the most renowned of piratical heroes, suffered almost incessantly from painful which afforded scope for the virtues as maladies; and that it so little encroached well as abilities of Alfred. He set free the

er.

*Isle of the Nobles

† Saxon Chron. A. D. 897.

Alf. Pref. to translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care. Wise's Asser, 81.

on the duties of government as to leave him tion; his humbler knowledge was imparted for ages the popular model for exact and with more simplicity; his virtue was more watchful justice,-are facts of so extraor- natural; he had the glory to be the delivdinary a nature, that they may well excuse erer as well as the father of his country; those who have suspected that there are and he escaped the unhappiness of suffersome exaggeration and suppression in the ing his authority to be employed in religious narrative of his reign. But Asser writes persecution.

with the simplicity of an honest eye-wit- Alfred died on the twenty-sixth of Octoness. The Saxon Chronicle is a dry and ber, in the year 901, in the fifty-third undesigning compend. The Norman his- year of his age and thirtieth of his AD torians, who seem to have had his diaries reign. and note-books in their hands, choose him

901.

The period of a century and a half which as the glory of the land which was become elapsed from the death of Alfred to the their own. There is no subject on which permanent establishment of a foreign famiunanimous tradition is so nearly sufficient ly on the Anglo-Saxon throne, is occupied evidence, as on the eminence of one man by the reigns of fourteen kings, of whom over others of the same condition. The ten were of the royal family of Wessex, bright image may long be held up before and of the posterity of Alfred; three were the national mind. This tradition, how- Scandinavians, who during thirty years ever paradoxical the assertion may appear, mastered their Saxon neighbors; one was is in the case of Alfred rather supported a powerful lord, who paved the way for the than weakened by the fictions which have Norman invader by an assumption of the sprung from it. Although it be an infirmity crown without the descent from Cerdic, or of every nation to ascribe their institutions the fabulous pedigree from Odin, to which to the contrivance of a man rather than to the choice of a Saxon king had hitherto the slow action of time and circumstances, been limited. There are few events in this yet the selection of Alfred by the English period which can be particularly related in people as the founder of all that was dear this brief narrative; but it was distinguishto them is surely the strongest proof of the ed by some remarkable transactions, of deep impression left on the minds of all of which, as they were productive of lasting his transcendent wisdom and virtue.-Ju- and grave consequences, a summary stateries, the division of the island into counties ment is necessary. These are, principally, and hundreds, the device of frankpledge, the rise and progress of the ecclesiastical the formation of the common or customary power in spite of divisions among the law itself, could have been mistakenly at- clergy; the struggles of the Scandinavians, tributed to him by nothing less than gene- who had colonized the northern and eastral reverence. How singular must have ern counties, to wrest the remainder from been the administration of which the re- the house of Wessex; and the gradual membrance so long procured for him the connexion and intercourse with Normancharacter of a lawgiver, to which his few dy, which silently prepared the Saxons for and general enactments so little entitled a change of dynasty. As that revolution him! in the reigning family was followed by ex

Had a stronger light been shed on his tensive mutations of laws, language, prop time, we should have undoubtedly discover-erty, and manners, it will be proper to ed in him some of those characteristic pe- close this period by a short account of culiarities which, though always defects, what may be stated with probability on the and generally faults when they are not dark and disputed subject of Anglo-Saxon vices, yet belong to every human being, government and society.

1066.

and distinguish him from his fellow-men. The only institution of the civil- 901. The disadvantage of being known to pos-ized Romans which was transmitted to terity by general commendation, instead of almost entire into the hands of the discriminating description, is common to barbarians was the Christian church. Alfred with Marcus Aurelius. The char- However imperfect their conversion might acter of both these ornaments of their sta- be, it was sufficient to guard that venerable tion and their species seems about to melt establishment from overthrow. The bishops into abstraction, and to be not so much por- succeeded to much of the local power of traits of man as models of ideal perfection. the Roman magistrates: the inferior clergy Both furnish an useful example that study became the teachers of their conquerors, does not disqualify for administration in and were the only men of knowledge dispeace or for vigor in war, and that scrupu- persed throughout Europe: the episcopal lous virtue may be combined with vigorous authority afforded a model of legal power policy. The lot of Alfred forbade him to and regular jurisdiction, which must have rival the accomplishments of the imperial seemed a prodigy of wisdom to the disorsage. But he was pious without supersti-lderly victors. The synods and councils