No More Learning

a
When Offa died in 796, the consolidation of central and south-eastern
England into an orderly state under a stable dynasty had continued long
enough to make it seem improbable that the work would have to be done
a second time. The Mercian kingdom was still far from comprising all
England. Wessex and Northumbria were still independent. But in
both states the rulers had accepted Mercian brides, and neither seemed
sufficiently strong to thwart Mercia's further expansion. Nor was internal
faction apparently to be feared. Offa's death brought the crown to
Ecgfrith his only son; but though this prince died within a few months
of his accession leaving no heir, no struggle arose over the vacant throne.
The Mercian witan arranged the succession peaceably among them-
selves, their choice falling on the aetheling Coenwulf, a member of the
royal kindred who seems to have been only distantly related to Offa.
This orderly election, if compared with the faction fights which regularly
disgraced Northumbria under similar circumstances, is in itself good
evidence of the political progress made by Mercia in the eighth century,
and Coenwulf's subjects may fairly have looked forward to a further
expansion taking place under his leadership.
At Coenwulf's accession the ruler of Wessex was Beorhtric, a weak
man who had married Eadburh, Offa's third daughter, and who was
almost a Mercian vassal. Of his reign (786–802) little of note is
recorded except that it was disturbed one summer by the landing of
rovers coming from Hörthaland in Norway on the coast of Dorset. This
is the first recorded appearance in England of the so-called Vikings, a
most ominous event as the future was to prove. In the Norse sagas
the word vikinger means a free buccaneer of any nationality, and the
phrase “to go in viking” denotes freebooting as opposed to trading
voyages, both being regarded as equally honourable activities. Not only
England but all Western Europe was soon to rue their advent. One
other event of Beorhtric's days had far-reaching consequences. In con-
junction with Offa he drove into exile an aetheling called Ecgbert, whose
father Ealhmund had for a time been under-king in Kent (784-786).
This Ecgbert was destined to return and become the ancestor of
England's future kings.
.


## p. 341 (#387) ############################################

Anarchy in Northumbria. Coenwulf of Mercia
341
In Northumbria in Offa's closing years we also hear of piratical
raids. In June 793 heathen men, whether Danish or Norse cannot
be decided, ravaged the church at Lindisfarne and captured many of
the monks to sell as slaves. Next summer they came again and attacked
Wearmouth and Jarrow where Bede had spent his days. These inroads
however did not continue, nor can they have disturbed the Northumbrians
very much. For the magnates of Bernicia and Deira for many years
past had been flying at each other's throats with wearisome monotony.
Harryings and burnings had become the rule, and king after king had
met with deposition or a violent death. Aethelred, son of Moll, held
the throne when the heathen ships appeared. He had married Offa's
second daughter, and, like Beorhtric, may be regarded as almost Offa's
vassal; but the alliance had brought him little strength. In 796 he
was murdered at Corbridge on Tyne. His immediate successor reigned
for only twenty-seven days, and then fled making way for Eardwulf,
a prince whose reign of ten years (796–806) is merely a chronicle of
plunderings and executions ending in his deposition. Clearly it is
useless to peer into the gloom and turmoil of the North in these days.
One event only seems of importance as it affected the ultimate position
of the boundary of England. It was in these years that the Galloway
bishopric of Whithern (Candida Casa), hitherto subject to York,
came to an end, the Picts of this district throwing off their subjection
to the English and uniting with the British kingdom of Strathclyde.
Coenwulf ruled over Mercia for a full quarter of a century (796–821).
On the whole he shewed himself a man of resource and energy; but his
reign was not without its difficulties, and he seems to have been unable
to reap any advantage either from the want of enterprise of the West
Saxons or from the chaos which reigned among the Northumbrians. In
his days nothing occurred to alter the balance of power in England.
Mercia remained the leading state ; nor is there any record of attacks on
its coasts by sea rovers. The king's first recorded activity is a war
against the North Welsh, which led to a battle at Rhuddlan. We learn
this from the Annales Cambriae. As this campaign was followed up
later in his reign by another against the South Welsh, it may be useful
at this point to say a few words about the general condition of Wales
in the years that followed the building of Offa's celebrated boundary
dyke. Our information is scanty, but sufficient to prove that the land
was subdivided into many chieftaincies or so-called “ kingdoms. " The
most important tribal units, counting from North to South were
(1) Gwynedd or North Wales (in Latin Venedotia), (2) Powys, (3) Cere-
digion (Cardigan), (4) the promontory of Dyfed (in Latin Demetia),
(5) Ystrad Tywi (the Vale of the Towy), (6) Brycheiniog (Brecknock),
(7) Morgannwg (Glamorgan), and (8) Gwent (Monmouthshire). The
traditional primacy or overlordship over these and many other smaller
units lay with the kings of Gwynedd, whose territories comprised the
a
CH. XIV.


## p. 342 (#388) ############################################

342
Wales in the eighth century. Nennius
vales of the Clwyd and Conway, the promontory of Lleyn, the fastnesses
of Snowdon and Cader Idris, and the comparatively fertile plains of the
Isle of Môn, not yet known as Anglesey, their “principal seat” being at
Aberffraw, a small port near Holyhead, whose history goes back to the
days of Cadwalader, the contemporary of Oswy. But the superiority of
the house of Cunedda, from whom Cadwalader descended, was often
merely honorary, and it had long been challenged by princes of South
Wales, the Dextralis pars Britanniae, as the Welsh termed it. In this,
the more spacious and less mountainous half of Wales, a fairly strong
principality, later to be known as Deheubarth, was emerging out of
conquests made by Seisyll of Ceredigion at the expense of Dyfed, Ystrad
Tywi and Brycheiniog. The larger part of these districts in the course
of the eighth century were tending to unite under one chief, and already
in Offa's day men regarded Dinefwr on the Towy, some fifteen miles
east of Carmarthen, as a principal seat or capital, the possession of
which carried with it the primacy of South Wales.
For judicial and fiscal purposes most of the tribal units were sub-
divided into “cantrefs” of very varying sizes, but on the average
rather larger than the English hundreds, each of which in theory was
built up of a hundred “ trefs” or hamlets. For ecclesiastical purposes
there were yet other divisions. Out of the many monastic churches
founded in the sixth century four had come to stand out as the most
important and had become centres of episcopal organisation. These
were Bangor and Llanelwy, otherwise St Asaph, in Northern Wales,
Llandaff in Morgannwg, and Mynyw (in Latin Menevia), otherwise
St David's, in Dyfed. The Welsh Church, too, no longer held aloof
from Rome as in earlier days. About 768 it had adopted the Roman
Easter, led by Elbodug, a monk of Caer Gybi or Holyhead, and a
student of Bede's works. To Wales this peaceful revolution meant as
much as the decision come to at Whitby had meant for England a
hundred years earlier. With the acceptance of the Roman date for
Easter, Wales threw itself open to the influence of the Continent, and
not only so, but also to greatly increased intercourse of a non-military
character with the English kingdoms. At the date of the fight at
Rhuddlan, Elbodug was still living. He died about 809, “ chief bishop
in the land of Gwynedd. " Among his disciples was Nennius, famed as
the editor of the Historia Brittonum, from which come so many of the
folk tales concerning Arthur and the first coming of the Saxons into
Britain. Nennius seems to have lived in Deheubarth, probably near the
borders of Brycheiniog. He was writing just about the time that
Coenwulf ascended the Mercian throne, and his book soon acquired a
considerable popularity, not only in Wales, but also in England, Ireland,
and Brittany. Nennius wrote shocking Latin, and complains that in-
cessant wars and pestilence had dulled the senses of the Britons; but
his work, puzzle-headed as it is, shews that the monasteries of Wales still


## p. 343 (#389) ############################################

Coenwulf and Archbishop Wulfred. Beornwulf 343
had some learning. He himself refers to Isidore, Jerome, Prosper, and
Eusebius, and there are also other indications that some of the Welsh
monks of his day were acquainted with parts of the writings of Ovid and
Cicero, with Eutychius the grammarian, and Martianus Capella.
The Mercian attack on Wales in 796 was not pressed very far, as
Coenwulf soon had other work to do in repressing a rebellion which
broke out in Kent. The leader of this revolt was Eadbert Praen,
presumably a descendant of the old Kentish kings. For two years he
had some success, and then Coenwulf captured and blinded him, and set
up his own brother Cuthred instead as under-king of Kent. But this was
not all. During the revolt Archbishop Aethelheard had remained loyal
to the Mercian cause, in spite of the affront that Offa had put upon the
see of Canterbury in 786. Rather than yield to the rebels he had
gone into exile, and there exists a letter to the Kentish leaders in which
Alcuin pleads for his restoration. In return for this loyal conduct
Coenwulf not only restored him to his rights, but agreed with him to
undo Offa's work and suppress the recently erected Mercian archbishopric.
Aethelheard accordingly journeyed to Rome to lay the matter before
Pope Leo III, and having obtained his approval called a synod together
at Clovesho in 803 which promulgated the deprivation of Archbishop
Higbert and the restoration of the old metropolitan rights of Canter-
bury. It might have been expected that after this the old alliance
between Tamworth and Canterbury would have been effectively restored,
but it was not so. Archbishop Aethelheard died in 805, and was suc-
ceeded by a Kentish man named Wulfred, an ambitious prelate who
resented Mercian control and desired independence for Kent. He soon
quarrelled with Coenwulf over questions of property, especially over
the nunnery of Minster in Thanet and over the important estate of
Harrow in Middlesex. The trouble is said to have extended over six
years and to have led to appeals to the Papacy, while it is certain that
the archbishop shewed his independence by coining money which does
not bear any king's name. These turmoils and Welsh campaigns take up
the remainder of Coenwulf's reign ; but it must not be supposed that he
was altogether unmindful of the claims of the Church. Existing land-
books shew that he was a benefactor to Worcester, and he is also credited
with the foundation of Winchcombe Abbey. There is also some evidence
that about 813 Wulfred was attempting monastic reforms at Canterbury!
Coenwulf died in 821, it is said at Basingwerk in Flint, still occupied
with plans for extending the Mercian frontier westwards from Chester to
the Conway. His successor was his brother Ceolwulf, who continued the
Welsh policy with success, capturing the fort of Deganwy near Llandudno
and overrunning Powys. Ceolwulf's accession, however, was not un-
challenged, and two years later we find him deposed in favour of a
duke called Beornwulf. We are quite in the dark as to Beornwulf's
Birch, Cart. Sax. , No. 342.
CH. XIV,


## p. 344 (#390) ############################################

344
Ecgbert of Wessex. Conquest of Cornwall
origin and the reasons for his elevation to the throne, but we may
suspect the hand of Archbishop Wulfred in the background. For
shortly afterwards we find Beornwulf making grants to Wulfred, and
the abbess Cwenthryth, Coenwulf's daughter, compelled to resign
Harrow to the see of Canterbury. The dispute about the succession
between Ceolwulf and Beornwulf marks the beginning of evil days for
Mercia. The unity and solidity, which had appeared so well established
under Offa, disappears; the Mercian magnates fall a prey to faction,
and almost as it were in the twinkling of an eye the supremacy of
Mercia is wrecked for ever.
It is time now to turn again to the affairs of Wessex. When
Beorhtric died in 802, poisoned, so the tale goes, by his wife, the West
Saxon witan saluted as their king that Ecgbert whom Offa and Beorhtric
had driven out of England. The choice was most happy; for Ecgbert
was a man of experience, who had spent some time in Frankland, and
possibly witnessed Charlemagne's Saxon campaigns. He had returned
to Wessex about 799, but not before he had marked how the great
Frank administered his kingdom. His elevation to the throne clearly
meant a less dependent Wessex and so was distasteful to the Mercians.
At any rate on the very day of Ecgbert's election the men of the Hwicce
took horse and crossed the Upper Thames at Kempsford near Cirencester
led by Aethelmund, a Gloucestershire magnate whose estates lay at
Deerhurst and Berkeley. They were met by a West Saxon alderman
named Weoxtan with the levies of Wiltshire. In the fight which
ensued both leaders were killed, but the Mercians had to retreat, after
which Ecgbert had several years of peace for organising his kingdom.
We know nothing of his acts as an administrator, but in 814 we find
him imitating Coenwulf and engaged in expanding his borders westwards
at the expense of the Welsh of Cornwall. As the Chronicle puts it,
“he laid waste West Wales from eastward to westward," and thence-
forth apparently held it as a ducatus or dukedom annexed to his regnum
or kingdom of Wessex, but not wholly incorporated with it. Thus arose
that Welsh-speaking duchy or earldom of Cornwall, which almost ever
since has formed a quasi-royal appanage in the hands of Ecgbert's suc-
cessors, and which maintained its distinct nationality to the eighteenth
century. The exact stages of its reduction to submission cannot be
followed. We only know that in 825 the West Welsh were once more
in arms and that Ecgbert again put them down and, as a later document?
phrases it, “ disposed of their territory as it seemed fit to him, giving a
tenth part of it to God. ” In other words he incorporated Cornwall
ecclesiastically with the West Saxon diocese of Sherborne, and endowed
Ealhstan, his fighting bishop, who took part in the campaign, with
an extensive Cornish estate consisting of Callington and Lawhitton,
both in the Tamar valley, and Pawton near Padstow. One is naturally
Crawford Charters, No. VII.
1


## p. 345 (#391) ############################################

Battle of Ellandun.
Ecgbert conquers Kent
345
a
led to ask, were these three properties really equivalent to a tenth of all
Cornwall ; for if so, it is very noteworthy to find such large estate units
already evolved as early as 825. All that can be said in answer is that
the evidence of Domesday Book, written 260 years later, does not alto-
gether bear out this conclusion, but yet is more in harmony with it than
might have been expected ; for that survey credits these three properties
with 130 ploughlands, which is about an eighteenth part of the total
ploughlands recorded for all Cornwall. At any rate, then, we may
regard this gift as transferring a very considerable stretch of land, and
its effect would be to open up West Wales not a little to English influ-
ences. Little, however, seems actually to have been done in the way
of
settling West Saxon colonists in the country, if we may judge from the
sparsity of the English type of place-name everywhere but in the Tamar
valley. The rest of Cornwall remains to this day a land of trefs,"
that is to say, of petty hamlets, bearing such names as Trenance,
Tregony and Trevelyan, of which quite a handful are required to form
a parish, although this is not called after any one of them, but by the
name of the saint to whom the church is dedicated. Nor would it seem
were new local divisions introduced by the conquerors. The so-called
Cornish shires, such as Pydershire or Wivelshire, seem to be really the
old Welsh “ cantrefs. ” The term “shire ” must however have been
applied to them almost from the first conquest ; for King Alfred's
will only sixty years later has an allusion to “Streatnet on Triconshire,”
that is to say to Stratton near Bude in Triggshire.
The settlement of Cornwall was hardly effected when news came that
the Mercians had again invaded Wiltshire. Ecgbert thereupon led his
army eastwards and came up with Beornwulf's forces at Ellandun, a
village near Swindon now called Nether Wroughton, but as late as
the fourteenth century known as Elynton! A pitched battle ensued
in which the Mercians were completely routed. This victory must be
regarded as a turning point in England's development, for it led to
a permanent alteration of the balance of power in England in favour
of the West Saxons. To follow up his advantage, Ecgbert at once
despatched his son, Aethelwulf, accompanied by Bishop Ealhstan,
against Kent, a district which he could claim with some show of reason
as he was the son of Ealhmund. Aethelwulf's march was as successful as
his father's. Baldred, the Kentish under-king, appointed by Mercia, soon
fled northwards over the Thames, and thereupon, as the chronicle has it,
the men of Kent and Surrey submitted to Wessex, admitting that
“they had been wrongly forced from Ecgbert's kin. ” Sussex and Essex
a few weeks later followed suit ; and finally the East Anglians also rose,
and re-established their independence of Mercia, by attacking Beornwulf
from the east and slaying him in battle.
No series of events could well be more dramatic than the successive
1 Feudal Aids v. 207 ; Domesday Book, 1. 65 b. Elendune.
CH. XIV.


## p. 346 (#392) ############################################

346
Ecgbert overthrows Mercia. Wiglaf restored
disasters which brought about the collapse of Mercia in 825. Wessex
and Mercia, as it were, changed parts. Within a year the Mercian
kingdom dwindled to half its former size, while Wessex expanded so
that it may be regarded henceforth as including all England south of
the Thames. Kent, it is true, still retained its individuality in the
hands of Ecgbert's son, as an under-kingdom enjoying its own special
customs, and as the chief seat of church government; but its affairs were
nevertheless directed from Winchester, and the archbishops of Canterbury
could no longer look to Tamworth for protection, but were brought
much more under West Saxon influences.
For the Mercians the immediate question after 825 was, could they
maintain their independence or must they accept Ecgbert as an overlord.
They evidently went on with the struggle, but their new king, Ludeca,
fared no better than Beornwulf. He fell in battle in 827 with five of
his dukes. Wiglaf then succeeded, but likewise made no headway, and
soon fled into exile. Meantime Ecgbert, with the help of the East
Anglians, overran the Midlands at will, and for the moment was acclaimed
lord of all men south of the Humber. In 829 he even projected an
attack on Northumbria, and led his army to Dore, a frontier village in
the Peak district. The Northumbrian king at this time was Eanred
(808–840). He came to Dore and apparently bought off Ecgbert's
hostility with offers of homage and perhaps of tribute. Too much has
sometimes been made of these episodes
. They have even been treated
as marking the unification of England under a single overlord, but cer-
tainly they had no such result. Ecgbert's position in Mercia was really
precarious, and the very next year we find Wiglaf restored to his
kingdom. Patriotic West Saxon tradition in later days liked to picture
Ecgbert as a “ Bretwalda” worthy to be classed with Edwin and Oswy
and the other ancient heroes who in Bede's pages stood pre-eminent as
wielding an imperium before the rise of Mercia ; but eulogy must not be
mistaken for sober history. It would seem, on the contrary, that
Ecgbert's power soon waned, and that Wiglaf's restoration was due to a
Mercian revival. The Wessex chronicle gives no hint that Ecgbert was
active in Mercia after 830, nor do any Mercian notables attest his
landbooks. It has indeed been suggested that the Aethelstan, who
ruled East Anglia in Ecgbert's later years, was one of his sons, but this is a
guess incapable of proof and hardly in harmony with the independence
admittedly enjoyed by the East Anglians shortly afterwards.
Ecgbert's last years are of interest not because of any growth of
unity in England but because they witnessed the re-appearance of the
Vikings and the consequent rise of a new and grave danger for all the
English kingdoms. All through the first quarter of the ninth century
Scandinavian long-ships had been harrying Western Scotland and
Ireland, coming by way of the Faroe islands and the Orkneys. Beginning
in 795 with attacks on Skye, they had in 802 come south to Iona and


## p. 347 (#393) ############################################

Ecgbert and the Danes. Accession of Aethelwulf 347
Donegal and thence spread east and west along the coasts of Ulster
and Connemara. By 825 they had fairly encircled Ireland and plun-
dered most of its shrines. In England, on the other hand, no raids are
heard of for forty years after the attacks on Lindisfarne and Jarrow in
Offa's days, and it was not till 834 that the danger re-appeared as the
result of the establishment of Danish exiled chieftains in Frisia, as the
Netherlands were then called, by Louis the Pious. In that year con-
siderable fleets set out from Denmark and the North to attack the
Frankish Empire, and coming to the mouths of the Rhine burnt the im-
portant Frisian trading ports of Dorestad and Utrecht.
The general
situation on the Continent is dealt with in other chapters. Here
we have only to note that a detachment of this force also came to
England and entering the Thames ravaged the island of Sheppey. Two
years later the Frisian provinces were again attacked and the town of
Antwerp sacked. Again a small detachment came across to England.
This time the raiders landed in Dorset, and Ecgbert himself met them at
Charmouth not far from Lyme Regis. The Vikings had only 35 ships,
with crews about 1200 strong, but the fight none the less went against
the king, and the victors gained the impression that Wessex was worth
attacking. At any rate in 838 there arrived a larger fleet which came
to land in Cornwall. Once more Ecgbert marched to meet the raiders
to find that the Cornish had risen to join them. Victory, however, lay
with the English, the allied Danes and Welsh being put to flight at
Hinxton Down, a moor on the west bank of the Tamar near Callington.
As a result it would appear that a bishop, definitely subject to Canter-
bury, was shortly afterwards appointed for Cornwall in the person of one
Kenstec, whose see was placed in the monastery of Dinnurrin! . This
was Ecgbert's last achievement. He died in the summer of 839.
The accession of his son Aethelwulf, which almost corresponds in
point of time with the death of Louis the Pious and the break-up of the
Carolingian Empire on the Continent, introduces a new phase into
English affairs. Hitherto the main thread of English history has been
concerned with the rivalries between the English kingdoms and with the
gradual growth of civilisation and a tendency to union under the
auspices of the Church. But for the next forty years internal progress
ceased, and as in Frankland, so in England, the one constant feature of
the times was the ceaseless struggle which every province in turn had to
wage against Danish invaders. In 839 the Viking raids could still be
regarded as merely a passing inconvenience, and the English people
hardly realised the full extent of the danger which threatened them ;
but from that date the raids grew more persistent and better organised
year by year, and it soon became apparent that the object of the invaders
was not merely plunder but the complete conquest of the country.
1 Birch, Cart. Sax. , No. 527. Can the latter part of Din-uurrin represent Guerür,
the name of the saint buried at St Neots ? Asser, c. 74.
CH. XIV.


## p. 348 (#394) ############################################

348
Character of the struggle with the Vikings
overrun,
a
Before Aethelwulf died, the heathen fleets had already taken to wintering
in England, and in the days of his sons the struggle reached its climax.
The Viking armies then penetrated into all parts of the island, ravaging
and burning unmercifully, and three of the four English kingdoms,
Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia, one after another succumbed to
their onslaughts. At times it even looked as if Wessex, the strongest
kingdom of them all, would also go under. Many battles went against
its armies and more than once all the shires south of the Thames were
In their hour of trial however the West Saxons found a saviour
in the famous Alfred, Aethelwulf's youngest son.
Under his leadership
they again took courage, and at last beat back the invaders and com-
pelled them to confine their settlements to the northern and eastern
portions of the country. The England, which emerged from the struggle,
was an entirely changed England. The four kingdoms of Ecgbert's day
had been replaced by a division of the country into two well-marked
spheres, one of which was English and Christian while the other was
Danish in law and custom, and, in part, heathen. The Danish portion,
subsequently known as the Danelaw (Denalagu), had however little
political cohesion, being composed of a large number of petty com-
munities under a variety of independent rulers, some styled kings and
others “jarls,” who were mutually distrustful of each other, whereas the
English portion formed a comparatively compact state, looking for
guidance and defence to the house of Ecgbert, which alone survived of
the four older royal houses.
In the hard-fought struggle much had
been lost. Letters and the arts had practically perished; Christianity
had received a severe shock, and monastic life had either disappeared
or become degraded. But in spite of this partial lapse into barbarism
much had also been gained, the new settlers being men of vigorous
physique and character and eager to develop trade and industry. Their
language, too, and their social and legal institutions were not so different
from those of the English as to preclude the hope of amalgamation, and so
a situation arose much more favourable than might have been expected
for the ultimate unification of the country into a single state, provided
that the West Saxon dynasty could retain its vigour and prestige.
The change from Ecgbert to Aethelwulf, just as the period of turmoil
began, was by no means a gain for Wessex. The best that can be said
for the new king is that he was well-meaning and devout; but he was not
the man to intimidate invaders or enlarge his patrimony. He was content
to regard Beorhtwulf and Burhred, the kings who ruled in Mercia in his
days, as his equals; and, so far as we know, he only once led an army
across the Thames, and then not to coerce the Mercians but to assist
them in a campaign against the Welsh. Aethelwulf's real bent was
towards works of piety, and in later days he was best remembered for
his donation to the Church. Landbooks refer to this transaction as a
decimatio agrorum, and some have connected it with the institution of


## p. 349 (#395) ############################################

Aethelwulf's Donation. The Danes winter in England 349
tithe, but clearly it had quite a different character. The chronicler
Asser, who places the gift in 855, says that the king freed a tenth part
of his land from royal dues and dedicated it to God for the redemption
of his soul. This must mean that he gave very considerable properties
to the monastic houses of Wessex ; but we are left in the dark whether
the king was dealing only with his private booklands, which he had power to
dispose of by will, or with all the crown lands in Wessex. It is noticeable,
however, that Aethelwulf is found creating “bookland” in favour of
himself, perhaps with his donation in view. Aethelwulf also main-
tained close relations with Rome, sending his youngest son, Alfred, on a
visit to Pope Leo IV in 853, and himself undertaking the journey
thither two years later. Considering the progress made by the Vikings,
the time chosen for his pilgrimage seems most ill advised. In all parts
of England ever since Ecgbert's death the Viking raids had been growing
in audacity. For example, in 841 one force had overrun Lindsey, while
in 844 another had slain the king of Northumbria. In 851 a fleet of
no less than 350 ships appeared in the Thames, whose crews burnt
Canterbury and then stormed London and put Beorhtwulf of Mercia to
Alight. A gleam of success gained this year may perhaps account for
Aethelwulf's false confidence, his troops winning a victory at a place
called Oakley (Acleah)' over a contingent of the Danes which had
recrossed the Thames to raid in Surrey. This victory, however, meant
little ; for the enemy after their defeat only retreated to East Kent and
remained in Thanet over the winter. This wintering in 851 marks the
end of the period of mere raids. In 855 the outlook became even
darker. Some heathen bands that year harried the province of the
Wreocensaete along the upper Severn, and others wintered in Sheppey.
Aethelwulf, however, was quite blind to the signs of the times. Instead
of returning from Rome as quickly as possible, he remained out of
England over a year, and on his way back turned aside to visit the West
Frankish King, Charles the Bald. At his court he committed a further
folly, marrying Charles's daughter, Judith, a girl of thirteen. This high
alliance flattered the elderly king's vanity, but the news of it greatly
offended his grown-up sons and drove Aethelbald, the eldest, who was
acting as regent, to rebel and claim the western parts of Wessex for
himself. Aethelwulf on his return had perforce to acquiesce in this, and
for the remainder of his life Wessex was in reality partitioned and
Ecgbert's work to a large extent undone.
During the middle years of the century, while the English kingdoms
seem to be going down hill, it is interesting to observe the development
of an opposite tendency in Wales and Scotland. In both these Celtic
districts rulers of ability appeared and effected some advance in the
direction of national unity. In Wales, the movement first attracts
1 Perhaps Oakley, by Gravesend, the site of several synods, closely adjoining
Clovesho.
a
CH. XIV.


## p. 350 (#396) ############################################

350
Wales under Rhodri. Scotland under Kenneth
a
attention about the time of the battle of Ellandun, when Merfyn the
Freckled established a new dynasty in Gwynedd in the place of the
ancient house of Cadwallon. Merfyn, however, was completely eclipsed
in energy by his son, the celebrated Rhodri Mawr (844-878), who won
undying fame among his countrymen by conquering Powys and the
greater part of Deheubarth. The unity thus achieved did not, it is
true, long endure, but considering that it was attained in the face of
constant Viking raids, the feat was undoubtedly a memorable one. In
Scotland, a similar task, but on a much larger scale, was undertaken by
Kenneth Mac Alpin (844–860). This prince, beginning merely as king
of the Dalriad Scots, in a reign of sixteen years not only added the
realm of the Picts to his dominions, but also made himself a terror to
Northern Bernicia, advancing in his raids into Lothian as far south as
Dunbar and Melrose. He may, in fact, be reckoned the true founder of
the Scottish kingdom as it was to be known to history, and the first
Scot to advance the claim that the frontier of England should be set
back from the Forth to the Tweed.
It was in 858, while these events were in progress in the North, that
Aethelwulf died, leaving a will, no longer extant, in which it appears that
he unwisely recognised the partition of Wessex. This mistake was for-
tunately remedied in 860, when events enabled his second son Aethelbert
to regain Aethelbald's share of the kingdom, and five years later the
realm passed entire to yet another brother, Aethelred. The short reigns
of Aethelbald and Aethelbert were not without their disasters. In 861
the Vikings sacked Winchester, and in 865 so ravaged East Kent that
Archbishop Ceolnoth had to allow clerks to fill the places of monks at
Canterbury, while in the rest of the country learning had so decayed
that scarcely a scholar remained who could read the mass in Latin. Worse,
however, was yet to come. With Aethelred's accession we enter the
most stormy period of the ninth century. Fresh swarms of allied sea
kings then arrived determined to find homes in England. Our primary
authority, the West Saxon Chronicle, is silent as to the names of the
leaders, but according to later traditions they were Ingwar, Ubba and
Halfdene, three brothers who are regarded by the Scandinavian saga
writers as sons of the half mythical Ragnarr Loðbrók, in legendary song
the greatest of all sea rovers. These chiefs landed first in East Anglia,
then ruled by a prince called Edmund. Their immediate object,
however, was not to overthrow this king but to obtain horses. In this
they succeeded and then, either in 866 or 867, rode round the fens and
north across Lindsey to attack Deira, where the usual civil war was in
progress between Aelle and Osbeorht, two rival claimants for the
Northumbrian throne. Legend tells us that they came to avenge the
death of Ragnarr Loðbrók, who is said to have been killed in an earlier
raid in Northumbria, but probably they chose Northumbria for attack
because its dissensions made it an easy prey. York was quickly taken,


## p. 351 (#397) ############################################

Ingwar conquers Northumbria and East Anglia 351
and in 867 both Aelle and Osbeorht were killed in a joint attempt to
regain it. With their deaths the independence of Deira came to an end;
but it would appear that the comparatively unfertile districts of Bernicia
did not much attract the invaders, with the result that the country from
the Tees northwards to the Scotch boundary remained subject to English
princes, seated at Bamborough. These rulers retained for their diminished
territories the name of Northumberland, which after this gradually
ceases to be applied to the Yorkshire districts actually adjoining the
Humber. Their small principality, however, could hardly be regarded
as a kingdom, and so they soon dropped the title of king and came
to be styled either dukes or later still “ high-reeves of Bamborough. ”
Having secured their footing in the vale of York, the Danes next
marched south along the Trent to Nottingham to see whether they could
not also establish themselves in the ancient Mercian homeland. Attacked
thus in the very heart of his kingdom, Burhred invoked help from the
West Saxons; but though Aethelred, who was Burhred's brother-in-law,
willingly came to his aid, the allied kings apparently dared not risk a
pitched battle, and in 868 the Mercians were reduced to buying a truce
by offers of tribute. For the moment this satisfied the Vikings, who
withdrew once more to Deira. There they stayed quiet for a year,
but
in the autumn of 869 they again rode south, perhaps to meet fresh re-
inforcements, and after harrying Eastern Mercia from the Humber to
the Ouse determined to try their luck against Edmund of East Anglia,
whose territories they had spared on landing. Details of their march
southwards are missing ; but it was doubtless then that the fenland
monasteries of Bardney, Medeshamstede, Crowland and Ely, after
Worcester the chief centres of Mercian learning and civilisation, were
destroyed, and much of Lindsey and Middle Anglia given over again
to heathendom. Burhred made no efforts, it would seem, to organise
defensive measures for these districts, but a much stouter resistance
awaited the Viking forces at Thetford, where they proposed to take up
their winter quarters. Again details are very confused and scanty, but
it is clear that the English forces were decisively beaten, and we are told
that Edmund himself was captured by Ingwar and Ubba and put to
death on November 20 at Hoxne in Suffolk by their orders because he
refused to abjure Christianity. In the spring of 870 all East Anglia sub-
mitted, and there, too, heathendom and the worship of Thor and Woden
was partially re-introduced, but their fallen king's memory was so cherished
by the vanquished East Anglians that he soon came to be regarded as a
saint and martyr, and a generation later the site of his tomb at Bead-
ricesworth had grown to be a new Christian centre, which in a short time
became famous under the name of St Edmund's Bury.
What became of Ingwar after Edmund's death is not known. It is
possible that he returned to Deira to secure his first conquests and went
thence to Scotland to assist the Irish Vikings, who, led by Olaf the
CH. XIV.


## p. 352 (#398) ############################################

352 Halfdene attacks Wessex. Accession of Alfred
a
White, the Norse king of Dublin, were about this time attacking the
Strathclyde Britons. He may even be the Ivarr whose death is reported
in the Annals of Ulster as occurring in 872. In England, at any rate, he
ceases to be heard of, and his place as leader of the Danish army fell to
Halfdene, represented as his brother, and to another sea king called
Bagseng. These chiefs, by no means satisfied with the territories and
booty already won, determined next to invade Wessex and surprise its
king by a winter attack. They accordingly set out in the autumn to
march by land into the Thames valley, and neglecting London descended
late in December on Reading, in Berkshire. Here they set up a fortified
camp at the point where the river Kennet joins the Thames. In de-
scribing the measures taken to repel this invasion, the West Saxon
Chronicle suddenly becomes much more detailed, and so it is possible to
follow the numerous engagements of the next few weeks with considerable
minuteness, and even to gain some idea of the tactics employed. The
most favourable encounter to the West Saxons was a fight which took
place in January 871 to the west of Reading on the slopes of Ashdown.
In this Aethelred fought in person and with the aid of his brother
Alfred slew Bagseag and several other Danish leaders. But this success
was counterbalanced by a defeat at Basing in Hampshire only a fort-
night later, and by yet another disaster in March at a hamlet called
Marton on the outskirts of Savernake Forest in Wiltshire,
Amid all this gloom Aethelred's reign terminated. He died about
Easter, leaving only infant children, and was buried at Wimborne,
one of Ine's foundations in Dorset. Aethelred's death was no real
disaster for the West Saxons, for it opened the succession to his brother
Alfred, who, in a reign of twenty-eight and a half years (871-899) was
destined to prove himself one of the most remarkable characters known
to history. Born at Wantage, in Berkshire, the youngest of Aethelwulf's
sons by his first wife Osburh, Alfred was a married man just turned
twenty-three when he was acclaimed king by the West Saxon magnates.
His wife was Ealhswith, daughter of Aethelred Mucel, a leading Mercian
duke, who witnesses many of Burhred's landbooks. Before his election
Alfred was already known as a prince of courage and energy, who,
according to his biographer Asser, had shewn in boyhood a taste for
learning, which unfortunately had not been gratified, as he could get no
proper masters. His health, however, had never been robust, and he
must have taken up his task with many misgivings, having the disasters
of eastern England before his eyes. The fate of central Wessex, indeed,
seemed hanging by a thread a month later, when the Danes gained
another well-contested battle at Wilton ; but as it turned out Alfred
was to have a four years' respite. After nine costly encounters, none of
which had been at all decisive, the Danes began to think that the
conquest of Wessex was too difficult and that Mercia would prove a
more remunerative prey. Both sides, therefore, as at Nottingham three


## p. 353 (#399) ############################################

Burhred of Mercia. Collapse of Mercia
353
a
years before, found themselves anxious to treat, and a peace was patched
up on the understanding that the Viking army should abandon its hold
on Berkshire and withdraw across the Thames.
This peace shews well the complete want of national feeling in
ninth-century England. It was now the turn of the Midlands to feel
the fury of the “army”; but just
army "; but just as Burhred, entangled it would
appear in a conflict with the Welsh, had not come forward to help his
brother-in-law, Aethelred, in his peril, so now Alfred pledged himself to
inactivity while the Vikings laid their plans for the final ruin of Mercia.
Their first move was from Reading to London, where they spent the
spring of 872, watched by the West Saxons from across the Thames,
until Burhred agreed to ransom the town and its dependent districts by
the payment of a heavy tribute. Worcestershire documents which
allude to this levy, or geld as the Saxons called it, still exist, and also
pennies minted by Halfdene at London. The promise to evacuate
south-eastern Mercia was redeemed by the army transferring itself once
again to Deira, but it soon came back to Lindsey and encamped for
the winter at Torksey on Trent in the immediate vicinity of Lincoln.
From this base it could ravage at leisure all the country watered by
the tributaries of the Middle Trent, and by the end of 873 it had
pushed so far into Mercia that it was able to winter at Repton, revered
as the burying place of the Mercian dynasty, only a few miles from
Tamworth and Lichfield. One would like to know details of this cam-
paign and hear more of the fate that overtook Leicester and Nottingham,
but unfortunately no native chronicle exists to give vividness to the
death struggle of Mercia. All we know comes from the West Saxon
account, which merely states that Burhred's spirit was so entirely broken
that in 874 he abandoned his kingdom and fled abroad, dying at
Rome shortly afterwards. His vacant throne was promptly filled by
one Ceolwulf, “ an unwise king's thegn,” but this ruler was little more
than a puppet set up with Halfdene's connivance, a semivir, as William
of Malmesbury terms him, who was forced by the Danes to swear that
he would hold his kingdom for the behoof of the army and deliver it up
whenever required. This transaction is pretty good evidence that the
Danes had overrun more territory than they could hope to hold, but
that their leaders were expecting reinforcements, and anticipated in the
near future a need for additional settlements. The “ army” accordingly
retired from Repton, and not being united on a common plan broke up
into two sections, one of which withdrew to Deira under Halfdene, while
the other, under Guthrum, Oscytel and Anwind, sea kings not hitherto
mentioned, went to Cambridge.
Halfdene's plan was apparently to regain for York its former depend-
encies. He established his base for the winter on the Tyne, and from
thence in 875 organised savage raids into every corner of Bernicia, then
ruled by Ricsig, and also into the territories of the Picts and Strathclyde
a
C. MED. H. VOL. III. CH, XIV.
23


## p. 354 (#400) ############################################

354 Danes settle in Northumbria and the Five Boroughs
>
Britons. Nothing permanent was achieved by these devastations, but
they have some importance in church history, because they led Bishop
Eardulf, who had charge of the shrines of St Aidan and St Cuthbert, to
abandon his see at Lindisfarne, so long the spiritual capital of the
North, and to set out on an eight years' pilgrimage through the moors
of Cumberland and the coasts of Solway in search of a more secure
asylum.
And now at last we reach the stage of real colonisation. In 876
Halfdene returned to York and “dealt out" Deira to his followers,
“who thenceforward continued ploughing and tilling it. " No Danish
Domesday Book tells how the allotment of estates was carried out, or
what proportion of the English owners preserved their lands, but it
must in the main have been a process of imposing Danish warriors on
English cultivators, very similar to the settlement of Normans, carried
out 200 years later by William the Conqueror, except that the Danish
armies contained a large class of freedmen, the so-called liesings or “men
loosened from bondage," to whom no exact counterpart can be found in
the later invasion. This half-free class had to be accommodated with
land as well as the fully-free classes, the holds and bonde who formed the
upper and middle grades of Viking society', but they were not of suffi-
cient social standing to become independent landowners, being often of
alien race and descended from prisoners of war, slaves and bankrupts.
How exactly they were dealt with can only be guessed, but it seems not
unlikely that they received holdings in the villages similar to those of
the English corls, only that they held them by a distinctly freer tenure
as members of the conquering armies. Nor is it fanciful to recognise their
descendants later on in the peasant class known as sochemanni, who held
a position in the society of the eleventh century just above the villani or
ordinary cultivators, and who are found in very considerable numbers in
just those parts of England where the Danes are known to have settled,
but not at all or only in triling numbers elsewhere.
A year later portions of Mercia were similarly colonised.
harvest,” so runs a laconic entry in the Wessex Chronicle," the army
went into Mercia, and some part of it they apportioned, and some they
delivered to Ceolwulf. ” No clue is vouchsafed as to the identity of the
army concerned, and no names are mentioned either of the leaders or the
districts implicated. It is clear, however, from subsequent events that the
districts left to Ceolwulf comprised all western Mercia from the Mersey
to the Thames, and that the boundary fixed upon ran north and south
from near the Peak in Derbyshire to a point just east of Tamworth on
the Watling Street, and then along that high-way south-eastwards to
the headwaters of the Worcestershire Avon and the Welland and perhaps
even further, past Towcester to Stony Stratford on the Ouse. To the
east of this boundary Danish customs and law were imposed upon the
1 Cf. Seebohm, Tribal Custom, pp. 240-276.
6 After


## p. 355 (#401) ############################################

Guthrum renews the attack on Wessex
355
Mercian villages, and Danish political terminology introduced instead of
English. Politically also there was a considerable re-organisation, the
land being divided into five districts, each with its own “army” under
an independent jarl, and each having for its centre a fortified camp,
which the settlers could garrison in times of stress. The five centres
selected were Lincoln, Stamford, Nottingham, Derby and Leicester, and
as the term burh at this date still had the meaning of “a fortified place,"
they soon came to be specially known as the “Five Boroughs. "
Meantime in East Anglia and south-east Mercia affairs did not
progress so swiftly towards a settlement. The rank and file of the
army, which encamped in Cambridge in 875, would doubtless have been
well content to form “borough districts" between the Thames and the
Welland similar to those which were being set up between the Welland
and the Humber, but their leader, Guthrum, coveted Alfred's dominions
as well, and when he heard that fresh fleets were in the English Channel
attacking the southern coasts of Wessex, he could not resist joining in
the enterprise. Already in 875 there is mention of Alfred fighting the
Vikings at sea. The next year a fleet appeared off the coast of Dorset
over a hundred strong. The chronicler, Aethelweard, alludes to it as a
western army. ” The bulk of it therefore doubtless came from Ireland,
but help reached it from Guthrum. Landing near Poole harbour, the
allied vikings proceeded to harry the surrounding districts, and then
seized Wareham after out-manoeuvring Alfred's forces. When winter
approached, Alfred thought it best to offer terms. The vikings however
treacherously deceived him, and, having accepted a sum of money on
the condition that they would decamp, slipped out of Wareham
suddenly and made a dash for Exeter, with the intention of using it as a
base from which to ravage Devon. In 877 the luck turned. While
Alfred kept the viking land-force shut up in Exeter, their fleet came to
grief in a storm off Swanage. This disaster placed the marauders in a
precarious position. Before the end of the year they had to capitulate,
and if Aethelweard's account is to be believed, retired to Gloucester.
Once more Wessex appeared to be saved. In reality the worst crisis of
all was at hand. About midwinter Guthrum threw his whole army
unexpectedly upon Wessex, and almost surprised Alfred at Chippenham
where he was keeping Christmas. At the same moment Halfdene's
brother Ubba, sailing from Dyfed, invaded North Devon. The brunt
of Guthrum's invasion fell upon Wiltshire, but other shires also suffered
severely, and so great was the general terror that many of the West
Saxon leaders fled over sea.
Alfred however never despaired ; getting
away with difficulty from Chippenham, he retired into the marshlands
of Somerset and stockaded himself with Aethelnoth, the alderman of the
district, in the island of Athelney at the junction of the Tone and
Parret. There he remained on the defensive till the news came that the
men of Devon, led by their alderman Odda, had defeated Halfdene's
a
CH. XIV.
23–2


## p. 356 (#402) ############################################

356 Battle of Edington. West Mercia submits to Alfred
9
brother. The king then put himself once more at the head of the levies
of central Wessex, his men meeting him early in May 878 on the
borders of Wiltshire just to the east of Selwood Forest. Two days
later he fell upon Guthrum's army at Edington (Ethandun) near
Westbury, and so utterly defeated it that a fortnight later at Chippenham
a peace was agreed to. The terms arranged were remarkable; for
Guthrum not only promised that he would withdraw his army from
Wessex, but also that he would accept baptism. The ceremony was
accordingly performed in June at Aller near Athelney, the chrism-
loosing taking place at Wedmore, a village near Glastonbury. The
departure of the Danes from Wessex was carried out before long. In
879 we find them at Cirencester, and from that time forward the West
Saxons were never again in any serious danger of being conquered by
the Northmen.
To the Mercians, in the yet unravaged valley of the Severn, the
peace made at Chippenham, often inaccurately called the “Peace of
Wedmore," only meant an increase of danger. The move to Cirencester
seemed clearly to portend that Guthrum hoped to find satisfaction in
Gloucestershire and Worcestershire for his failure in Wessex, and the danger
seemed all the greater when it became known, in the summer of 879, that
a new fleet of vikings had arrived in the Thames and landed at Fulham.
In this predicament the magnates of the Hwicce decided to take an impor-
tant step. To depend on the puppet king Ceolwulf for defence was
clearly useless. They accordingly turned to the victor of Edington, and
led by Aethelred of Gloucester their foremost duke, and by Werfrith,
the Bishop of Worcester, offered Alfred their allegiance. How many of
the leading Mercians supported Aethelred in this submission to Wessex
is not recorded. All that can be said is that we find Aethelred after
this treated by Alfred to some extent as a vassal and given in charters
the title of “Duke of the Mercians. " Thus ended the independent
kingdom of Mercia.
On the Danes the effect of this politic stroke was immediate. In
880 the province of the Hwicce was evacuated without any fighting, and
Guthrum withdrew from Cirencester and marched his army back into
East Anglia, while the Fulham fleet returned to Flanders. Next there
followed the apportionment of Hendrica, Essex and East Anglia among
Guthrum's followers, while in Middle Anglia a second series of boroughs
were set up, at Northampton, Huntingdon, Cambridge and Bedford, each
ruled by a more or less independent jarl and each with its dependent
territory defended by its own “ army. " Guthrum's own sphere was large
enough to be regarded as a kingdom. It had Norwich, Thetford,
Ipswich, Colchester and London for head centres, and when first
established stretched westwards over half the district of the Ciltern-
saete. We may guess in fact that it was the creation of Guthrum's new
Danish kingdom which first brought about the division of this old


## p. 357 (#403) ############################################

Alfred's reforms. The Boroughs of Wessex
357
province into the two portions known to us to-day as Oxfordshire and
Buckinghamshire; for the former, when we get information about it in
the eleventh century, shews no signs of Danish colonisation and was
regarded as subject to Mercian law, whereas the latter was then peopled
to a considerable extent by sochemanni and was held to be a portion of
the Danelaw,
The followers of Halfdene and Guthrum when once settled proved
fairly peaceable neighbours to Wessex and her Mercian ally, and in the
next two decades only gave trouble on one or two occasions when roused
by the appearance of fresh fleets from abroad. This furnished Alfred
with a much needed opportunity for re-organising his realm, and it is his
great glory that he not only took up the task with patient doggedness,
but shewed himself if possible even more capable as a reformer in peace
than as a leader in war. It is impossible for want of space to follow his
reforms in detail, but a few of the more noteworthy developments due
to his constructive statesmanship may be glanced at. First we may
take his military reforms. These comprised the improvement of his naval
force by the enlistment of Frisians, and the division of the fyrd, or
national levy, into two parts, the one to be available as a relief to the
other at convenient intervals, so that the peasant soldiers might have
proper opportunities of attending to the needs of their farms and therefore
less excuse for deserting in the middle of a campaign. But more impor-
tant than either of these was the gradual creation in all parts of his
kingdom of fortified strongholds, defended by earthworks and palisades
of timber, in imitation of the Danish “boroughs,” and the subdivision of
the ancient West Saxon shires into smaller districts of varying size, each
charged with the upkeep of one or more forts. The evidence for this is
found in the many references to the “men of the boroughs” that begin
to appear in the chronicle as the reign proceeds and even in the land-
books, such as the Worcester charter), which sets forth how Aethelred,
with Alfred's consent, “worked " a borough at Worcester for the pro-
tection of the bishop and monks and granted them the right to take a
scot (burh-wealles-scaeting) for its maintenance. This, of course, is a
Mercian instance, but a list of the boroughs of Wessex and of the
hidages assessed on their appendant districts has also chanced to be
preserved, which cannot be of a date much after Alfred's death, and this
mentions some twenty-fivestrongholds scattered up and down his kingdom.
Of these, the more important along the south coast were Hastings, Lewes,
Chichester, Porchester, Southampton, Wareham, Bridport and Exeter;
and along the north frontier, Barnstaple, Watchet, Axbridge, Bath,
Malmesbury, Cricklade, Wallingford and Southwark (Suthringa geweorc).
It seems also likely that the scheme of hidage recorded in this document
1 Birch, Cart. Sax. , No. 579.
? Ibid. , No. 1335. Maitland treats of this list under the title “The Burghal
Hidage. ' Domesday Book and Beyond, pp. 502–4.
a
CH, XIV.


## p. 358 (#404) ############################################

358
Alfred's laws and literary activity
Own.
was of Alfred's devising ; for the figures run smaller than in the eighth
century Mercian scheme, though still based on a unit of 1200 hides,
and we know of no other occasion so likely to have required a reform
of fiscal arrangements as the creation of the borough districts.
Passing to civil reforms the most arduous of all perhaps was the com-
pilation of a fresh edition of the West Saxon laws.