CHAPTER VI

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THE DANISH KINGS IN ENGLAND.[818] 1017–1042.

I have thought it right to narrate the course of events by which the Danish power was established in England at nearly as great detail as I purpose to narrate the central events of my history. The Danish and Norman Conquests are so closely connected with one another as cause and effect that the history of the one is an essential part of the history of the other. I now come to a period of nineteen [Sidenote: Character of the reign of Cnut.] years of a widely different character. The reign of Cnut[819] was, as regards the isle of Britain, almost a repetition of the reign of Eadgar. Within the realm of England itself we do not hear of a single disturbance. And the forces of England had now but seldom to be employed against Celtic enemies within her own island. One Scottish invasion of England, one English invasion of Wales, make up nearly the whole of the warfare of this reign within our own seas. There was indeed warfare enough elsewhere, warfare in which Englishmen had their share. But the details of Cnut’s wars in the Scandinavian North are often not a little doubtful, and, even if they were far better ascertained, they would not call for any minute attention at the hands of an historian either of England or of Normandy. After Cnut’s power was once fully established in England, we have next to no purely English events to record. Still there are few periods of our history which call for more attentive study. We have to contemplate the wonderful character of the man himself, his almost unparalleled position, the general nature of his government and policy. A few particular events which directly connect English and Norman history will also need a special examination. Of one event, more important than all in its results, no man could discern the importance at the moment. While [Sidenote: 1027 or 1028.] Cnut sat on the throne of England, William the Bastard first saw the light at Falaise.

[Sidenote: Character of the reigns of the sons of Cnut.]

The remainder of the period contained in this Chapter, taking in the reigns of the two sons of Cnut, is of a different character. The reigns of those two worthless youths were short and troubled, and the accounts which we find in our best authorities are singularly contradictory. But the seven years between the death of Cnut and the election of Eadward are highly important in many ways. Several men who were to play the most important part in the times immediately following, men formed under Cnut, but who, while he lived, were overshadowed by their sovereign, now come forth into full prominence. Foremost among them all is the renowned name of Godwine, Earl of the West-Saxons. These reigns also prepared the way for the Norman Conquest in a most remarkable, though an indirect manner. The great scheme of Cnut, the establishment of an Anglo-Scandinavian Empire, fell to pieces after his death through the divisions and misgovernment of his sons. Harold and Harthacnut disgusted Englishmen with Danish rule, and led them to fall back on one of their own countrymen as their King. But the English King thus chosen proved to be, for all practical purposes, a Frenchman, and his French tendencies directly paved the way for the coming of William. Now it is not likely that any power whatever could have permanently kept all Cnut’s crowns upon the same head. But had his sons been at all worthy of him, a powerful dynasty, perhaps none the less English in feeling because Danish in blood, might well have been established in England. Under such a dynasty it is still possible that England might have been conquered in the open field. But it is quite impossible that the path of the Conqueror should have been made ready for him in the way that it actually was by the weakness of Eadward and the intrigues of the foreign favourites with whom he surrounded himself.

§ 1. _The Reign of Cnut in England._ 1017–1035.

[Sidenote: Cnut’s position at Eadmund’s death.]

The death of Eadmund left Cnut without a rival.[820] He had already been twice chosen to the English crown; once by the voice of the Danish host on the death of his father [Sidenote: February, 1014.] Swegen,[821] and a second time, more regularly, by the vote [Sidenote: April, 1016.] of the majority of the English Witan after the death of Æthelred.[822] He was also most likely entitled by the Treaty of Olney to succeed to the dominions of Eadmund. He was in actual possession of the larger half of the kingdom. But Cnut, if valiant, was also wary; it might be too much, especially at this stage of his life, to attribute to him any actual shrinking from bloodshed; but he at least fully understood the value of constitutional forms, and he had no wish to resort to violence when his purpose could be better accomplished by peaceful means. He was determined to be King of all England;[823] he was equally determined not to parade the right of conquest offensively before the eyes of his new subjects, but to rest his claim to the crown on an authority which no man [Sidenote: Witenagemót of London. Christmas, 1016–1017.] could gainsay. He accordingly assembled the Witan of all England in London,[824] no doubt at the usual Midwinter festival. Before this assembly the King of the Mercians [Sidenote: Cnut claims the crown by virtue of the Treaty of Olney.] and Northumbrians[825] set forth his claim to the kingdom of Wessex and East-Anglia, as the designated successor of Eadmund according to the Treaty of Olney. The danger lay from a possible competition, not so much on the part of the infant children of Eadmund as on that of his [Sidenote: Testimony of the witnesses to the treaty.] brothers.[826] The witnesses of the Olney compact were brought forward and questioned by Cnut. They affirmed that no portion of the kingdom had ever been assigned to the brothers of Eadmund; those princes had received no portion during his life, and they were entitled to no right or preference at his death. As for his sons, Cnut, the adopted brother of Eadmund, had been named by him as [Sidenote: Cnut chosen King of all England. January, 1017.] their guardian during their minority.[827] Cnut was then formally acknowledged as King of all England, his recognition, it would seem, being accompanied by a formal exclusion of the brothers and sons of Eadmund.[828] How far the electors acted under constraint, we know not; but it is certain that no act was ever more regular in point of form, and in no recorded transaction do the popular principles of the ancient English constitution stand forth more clearly. The usual compact[829] between King and people was gone through, with a further mutual promise on the part of Danes and English to forget all old grudges. Money was, as a matter of course, to be paid to the Danish army. The new King was crowned, no doubt in Saint Paul’s minster, by Archbishop Lyfing.[830] Measures [Sidenote: Outlawry of the two Eadwigs.] for the security of the new dynasty were taken. With regard to the Ætheling Eadwig, who is described as a prince of high character and the object of universal esteem, the jealousy of Cnut was not satisfied with his exclusion from the crown. A decree of outlawry was passed against him, as also against another Eadwig, who is unknown to us, except that he bears the strange title of King of the Churls.[831] This last Eadwig is said to have made his peace [Sidenote: Murder of the Ætheling Eadwig.] with the King; but Eadwig the Ætheling—so at least the rumour of the time said—was treacherously murdered by Cnut’s order before the year was out.

In this important Gemót a division of England was made which shows how thoroughly at home the new King [Sidenote: Cnut’s preference for England,] already felt in his new kingdom. It is clear from the whole course of Cnut’s reign that of all his dominions England was that which he most prized. In the midst of his most brilliant victories England was always his favourite dwelling-place, better loved than his native Denmark, better loved than any of the other lands which he brought under his power. In the roll-call of his titles England held the first place. England was his home; she was, as it were, the love of his youth; her crown was the prize which he had won with his own right hand, when he had as yet neither inherited the ancestral kingship of Denmark nor spread his dominion over Norwegians, Swedes, and [Sidenote: and for the Saxon part of England.] Wends. And he not only made himself at home in England; he made himself specially at home in the purely Saxon part of England. Already King of the Northumbrians and Mercians, it would not have been wonderful if he had fixed the seat of his rule in his own half-Danish realm, and had dealt with East-Anglia and the Saxon shires as conquered dependencies. And we may conceive that the future history of England might have been different in many ways, if York had been permanently established by Cnut as the capital of the kingdom. But Cnut, when once chosen King by the Witan of all England, was determined to fill in everything the place of the Kings of the English who had been before him. Those Kings were primarily Kings of the West-Saxons; the other English kingdoms were dependencies of the West-Saxon state. They had gradually been more or less closely incorporated with the dominant realm, but they still remained distinct governments, each with its own Ealdorman and its own Gemót. This form of administration was continued, and was more definitely [Sidenote: His fourfold division of the kingdom.] organized by Cnut. England was divided into four great governments, answering to the four most powerful and permanent among the seven ancient kingdoms.[832] For his [Sidenote: He retains Wessex in his own hands, and appoints Earls over Northumberland, Mercia,] own immediate share he kept, not Northumberland or Mercia, but Wessex, the cradle of the royal house which he had supplanted. Over the others he appointed Earls, a title which now throughout the kingdom displaces the more ancient name of Ealdormen.[833] Thurkill obtained or [Sidenote: and East-Anglia. January, 1017.] kept East-Anglia. Eric the King’s brother-in-law was confirmed in, or restored to, the government of Northumberland, with which he had been invested a year before.[834] Eadric, as the reward of his treasons and murders, was again appointed to his old earldom of Mercia. But the signatures to the charters show that the title of Earl was by no means confined to these three great [Sidenote: Other Earls.] viceroys. As before with the title of Ealdorman, so now its equivalent Earl was the title borne alike by the governor of an ancient kingdom and by the subordinate governor of one or more shires.[835] We can trace the names of several such Earls, both English and Danish, [Sidenote: First appearance of Earl GODWINE.] through the charters of Cnut’s reign. And among them we see, as filling a marked and special position, the name of one who was presently to become the first man in the English Empire—one who rose to power by the favour of strangers, only to become the champion of our land against strangers of every race—one who, never himself a King, was to be the maker, the kinsman, the father of Kings. From an early stage of the reign of Cnut we see a high and special place among the great men of the realm filled by the deathless name of Godwine the son of Wulfnoth.

We feel that we are at last drawing near to the real centre of our history when we bring in the name of the great champion of England against Norman influence, the father of the King who died as her champion against Norman invasion. The sudden and mysterious rise of this great man is one of the most striking features of our history, and his origin is perhaps the most obscure and difficult question of all the obscure and difficult questions [Sidenote: Sudden promotion of Godwine by Cnut.] which our history presents. With no certain explanation of so singular a promotion, we find, from the very beginning of the reign of Cnut, Godwine, an Englishman, whose parentage and whose rank by birth are utterly doubtful, holding high office under the Danish monarch, honoured with a connexion by marriage with the royal house, and before long distinctly marked out as the first [Sidenote: Different statements as to Godwine’s origin.] subject in the realm. One account makes him a kinsman of the traitor Eadric; another makes him the son of a churl, seemingly on the borders of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, who won the favour of the Danish Earl Ulf by incidental services done to him after the battle of Sherstone.[836] But, whatever was his origin, it is clear that his advancement was one of the first acts of the reign of Cnut. [Sidenote: Godwine wins Cnut’s favour, and is raised to the rank of Earl. [Before 1018.]] Among the foremost men of his newly won kingdom, Godwine recommended himself to the discerning conqueror by his valour in war, his prudence in counsel, his diligence in business, his eloquence in speech, his agreeable discourse and equable temper.[837] I infer that Godwine had distinguished himself in the war on the side of Eadmund, but that he was early in offering his allegiance to the conqueror.[838] The rank of Earl—with what jurisdiction we know not—was the reward of these merits. We find him holding that dignity in the second year of Cnut’s reign,[839] and it is not unlikely to have been conferred upon him in the very Gemót of which we have just been speaking. He became a personal favourite with the King, high in his confidence, and he soon rose to greater power and dignity still.

[Sidenote: Cnut’s marriage with Ælfgifu-Emma.]

Cnut’s power now seemed firmly established; at the same time he thought it expedient to resort to more than one means of strengthening it. In the month of [Sidenote: July, 1017.] July in this year he contracted a marriage which is one of the most singular on record. The widow of Æthelred, Ælfgifu-Emma, was asked to share the English throne a second time. Nothing loth, she came over from Normandy, married the new King, and took up her old position as Lady of the English.[840] Fifteen years before, she had in her youth crossed the sea on the same errand; now, a mature widow, she gave herself to a man who was much younger than herself, who had overturned the throne of her first husband, and had driven her children [Sidenote: Motives for the marriage.] into banishment. Cnut’s motives for this singular marriage are not very clear, unless, as one historian suggests, it was part of his system of reconciliation. He wished, we are told, to win the hearts of the English, and to make as little change as possible in the appearance of the English court, by putting again in her old place a Lady to whom they were accustomed.[841] But this would seem to imply that Emma enjoyed a popularity among the English, which the foreign woman, the cause of so many evils, was not likely to have won. If a connexion with the ducal house of Normandy was all that Cnut aimed at, a marriage with one of Duke Richard’s daughters would have seemed a more natural alliance for the young conqueror than a marriage with their dowager aunt. But it is possible, after all, that personal preference may really have led to this strange match. There is some slight reason to think that Cnut and Emma may have met for the purposes of negotiation during the siege of London.[842] And Emma, though much older than Cnut, may still have kept much of the beauty which won her the title of the Gem of the Normans.[843] The marriage was, after all, less strange than one which had scandalized the West-Frankish court two generations earlier. Eadgifu, the daughter of Eadward, the sister of Æthelstan, the widow of Charles, the mother of Lewis, had, when already [Sidenote: 951.] a grandmother of some standing, eloped with the young and handsome Count Herbert, and had bestowed two half-brothers on her royal son.[844] At any rate, whatever may have been Cnut’s motive in his marriage with the royal widow, it is certain that at the time of his forming this more exalted connexion he was, like so many of the Norman Dukes, already hampered by an earlier connexion of that doubtful kind of which I have often spoken.[845] [Sidenote: Cnut’s relations with Ælfgifu of Northampton.] Cnut had already taken as his concubine or Danish wife, Ælfgifu of Northampton, the daughter of Ælfhelm the murdered Earl of the Northumbrians. By her Cnut believed himself to be the father of two sons, Harold and Swegen, who after his death succeeded to two of his kingdoms. But scandal affirmed that neither of them was really of kingly birth. The barren Ælfgifu successively passed off on her confiding husband or lover two children whom she affirmed to be their common offspring, but of whom Swegen was in truth the son of a priest and Harold the son of a shoemaker. Ælfgifu was certainly living at the time of Cnut’s marriage with her namesake; whether either of her supposed sons was born after that date is not so clear. But it was doubtless the existence of one or other of these children which made Emma stipulate, as she is said to have done, that the throne should pass to Cnut’s children by her, to the exclusion of those by any other wife. The King agreed, no doubt only so far as he constitutionally could; the marriage took place, and was blessed with the births of Harthacnut and Gunhild. Emma seems to have utterly forgotten, not only the memory of Æthelred, but the existence of her children by him; her whole love was transferred to the young Danish King and to the children whom she bore to him.

The marriages of Emma would seem to have needed a bloodbath as their necessary attendant. Her bridal with Æthelred was almost immediately followed by the great massacre of the Danes;[846] her second bridal with Cnut was followed in the like sort, if not by an actual massacre, yet by a considerable slaughter of Englishmen who were felt to be dangerous to the Danish monarch. The whole course of the year was marked by executions [Sidenote: Fate of the children of Æthelred.] and banishments. The Ætheling Eadwig, the most dangerous of Cnut’s possible competitors, was removed as we have seen.[847] The rumour of his assassination at least implies that he died during the year in some way or other. Of the other sons of Æthelred’s first marriage we can give no account, except of those who seem to have been already dead. His children by Emma were safe in Normandy, and they did not come back to England with their mother. The romantic marriage of Eadmund Ironside with Ealdgyth the widow of Sigeferth[848] had given him two sons, Eadmund and Eadward, who were of course mere babes, and who, from the date of their [Sidenote: The sons of Eadmund sent to Sweden, and thence to Hungary.] mother’s marriage, would seem to have been twins. These children were now sent out of the kingdom. The scandal of the time affirmed that Eadric, the common author of all evil, counselled their death.[849] Cnut shrank from the shame of slaying them in England; but—according to one version, by the advice of Emma[850]—he sought means to have them put out of the way in some distant land. His half-brother, Olaf or James, the son of his mother Sigrid,[851] now reigned over Sweden. To him he sent the babes, begging him to put them to death. The Swede, a zealous propagator of Christianity in his own dominions,[852] abhorred the crime, but stood in fear of his brother’s power. He therefore sent the children to the King of the Hungarians, the sainted Stephen,[853] to be saved alive and brought up. Both lived, and one will appear again in our history, to become the source through which the old kingly blood of Wessex found its way into the veins of the later rulers of England and Scotland.

[Sidenote: Executions at the Christmas Gemót of 1017–1018.]

The Ætheling Eadwig, whatever was his end, clearly did not die by any judicial sentence. But the Christmas Gemót of this year, held in London,[854] was marked by the deaths of several men of high rank, some of whom at least, whatever may have been their guilt or innocence, seem to have died in a more regular way by the hand of the executioner. These were Æthelweard, the son of Æthelmær distinguished as the Great;[855] Brihtric, the son of Ælfheah of Devonshire, and Northman, the son of the Ealdorman Leofwine. This last name introduces us to a family which was to play a most important part in the times immediately before and immediately after the Norman Conquest.[856] Of Leofwine personally we know nothing; the fate of his son Northman is in one of our accounts specially connected with the fate of Eadric.[857] One thing is plain, that Northman’s offence, whatever it was, was something wholly personal to himself and in no way touched the rest of his family.[858] This fact, together with the advancement of Godwine, should be carefully borne in mind. Whatever was the justice or injustice of these executions,[859] they were at least no part of any deliberate plan for exterminating the English nobility and substituting Danes in their place.[860] We shall soon see that the policy of Cnut led him to an exactly opposite course.

[Sidenote: Treatment of the sons-in-law of Æthelred.]

The new King however kept a careful eye on all who were in any way connected with the English royal family. The sons-in-law of Æthelred seem to have awakened the suspicions of Cnut almost as strongly as his sons. Of the daughters of Æthelred three were certainly married, to Eadric, to Uhtred, and to an unknown Æthelstan.[861] A fourth is said to have been the wife of Ulfcytel, and to have passed with his East-Anglian government to the Dane Thurkill. All these men were gradually got rid of by death or banishment. Æthelstan and Ulfcytel had had the good luck to die in open battle. We have already seen how easily Cnut was led to consent to the death of [Sidenote: Thurkill banished. 1021.] Uhtred,[862] and we shall presently see Thurkill himself, to whom Cnut in a great measure owed his crown, driven [Sidenote: Eadric put to death. Christmas, 1017.] into banishment. The remaining son-in-law of Æthelred, the infamous Eadric, met the reward of all his crimes in this same Christmas Gemót. So short a time had he enjoyed the dignity which he had kept or recovered by so many treasons. That he was put to death at this time is certain, but that is nearly all that can be said. The renown, or rather infamy, of his name drew special attention to his end, and the retributive justice which lighted on the traitor became a favourite subject of romance.[863] [Sidenote: Motives for his execution.] The immediate cause or pretext of his death can hardly be ascertained; but the feelings of Cnut towards him may easily be guessed. Eadric, notwithstanding all his crimes, was an Englishman of the highest rank; in the absence of available male heirs, his marriage made him in some sort the nearest representative of the royal house; the very success of his repeated crimes shows that he must, somehow or other, have obtained the lead of a considerable party. In all these characters he was dangerous; Cnut must have felt that a man who had so often betrayed his former masters would have as little scruple about betraying him;[864] he could hardly avoid confirming him in his earldom in the assembly of the former winter, but he had doubtless already made up his mind to seize on the first opportunity to destroy him. We may believe that Cnut, as we are told in most versions of the story, gave himself out as the avenger of his adopted brother; but the removal of the arch-traitor was a step which prudence, as prudence was understood by Cnut at that stage of his reign, called for fully as much as justice.

[Sidenote: Character and influence of Eadric.]

The character and career of Eadric, like those of Ælfric, his predecessor in office and in crime,[865] form one of the standing puzzles of history. It is hard to understand the motives for such constant and repeated treasons on the part of one who had, solely by royal favour, risen from nothing to the highest rank in the state. It is equally difficult to understand by what sort of fascination he could have found the means either to work his treasons or to blind the eyes of those who suffered by them. That both his crimes and his influence have been much exaggerated is highly probable. It is likely enough that he has been made the scape-goat for many of the sins both of other individuals and of the whole nation. A tendency of this kind to lay all blame upon some one man is not uncommon. Thus in our Norman history we have seen all the mischief that happened attributed at one time to Arnulf of Flanders, and at another to Theobald of Chartres.[866] But exaggeration of this kind must have had some substantial ground to go upon. Without necessarily believing that Eadric personally wrought all the countless and inexplicable treasons which are laid to his charge, it is impossible to doubt that he knew how to exercise an extraordinary influence over men’s minds, and that that [Sidenote: Two classes of treasons ascribed to Eadric.] influence was always exerted for evil. It may be observed that the crimes attributed to him fall into two classes. His treasons on the field of battle, at Sherstone and at Assandun, were wrought openly in the sight of two armies, and, asserted as they are by contemporary writers, we [Sidenote: Difference in the credibility of the two kinds of charges.] cannot do otherwise than accept them. But there is another class of charges which do not rest on the same firm ground. Such are his supposed share in the deaths of Eadmund and Eadwig, his advice to destroy the children of Eadmund, and other cases where his counsel is said to have led to various crimes and mischiefs, or to have thwarted the accomplishment of wise and manly purposes. Some of these charges are not found in our best authorities, and, of those which are, some may well be merely the surmises of the time, going on the general principle that, whenever any mischief was done, Eadric must needs be the doer of it. The annalists could not well be mistaken as to Eadric’s conduct on the field of Assandun; they might easily be mistaken as to any particular piece of advice said to have been given by him to Æthelred, to Eadmund, or to Cnut. In these last cases their statements prove little more than the universal belief that Eadric was capable of every wickedness. But that universal belief, though it proves little as to this or that particular action, proves everything as to Eadric’s general character. After making every needful deduction, enough is left, not only to brand the name of Eadric with infamy, but to brand it with infamy of a peculiar kind, which holds him up as a remarkable study of human character as well for the philosopher as for the historian. We have much more both of crime and of sorrow to go through in the course of our history; it is at least some comfort that no sinner of the peculiar type of Eadric will occur again.

[Sidenote: Leofwine succeeds Eadric in Mercia. Christmas, 1017.]

By the death of Eadric his earldom of Mercia became vacant. It was most likely conferred on Leofwine, the father of the slain Northman, who had seemingly hitherto held the ealdormanship of the Hwiccas under the superior rule of Eadric.[867] And an earldom held by Northman, perhaps that of Chester, is said to have been conferred on his brother Leofric, who some years later succeeded his father in the government of all Mercia.

The next year we hear that a fleet of thirty pirate ships, seemingly coming to attack England, was cut off by Cnut. Thus, as a contemporary writer says, he who had once been the destroyer of the land had now become its [Sidenote: Payment of Danegeld. 1018.] defender.[868] In the same year a heavy Danegeld was paid, doubtless that which had been agreed upon in the treaty between Cnut and Eadmund at Olney.[869] London paid ten thousand five hundred[870] pounds, and the rest of England paid seventy-two thousand. This is something like a measure of the position which the great merchant city [Sidenote: Cnut dismisses the greater part of his fleet.] held in the kingdom. Cnut was thus able to satisfy the claims of his fleet, and he now kept only forty ships in his pay, sending the rest back to Denmark. The crews of these ships seem to have been the germ of the famous force of the _Thingmen_ or _Housecarls_, of whom, and of the peculiar legislation which affected them, I shall presently have [Sidenote: Witenagemót of Oxford. 1018.] much to say. This same year a Witenagemót was held, which marks an æra in the reign of Cnut, and which may be looked upon as the winding up of the severities which almost necessarily followed upon the conquest. A large body of the chief men of both nations, Danish and English, assembled at Oxford, the town where a like assembly, [Sidenote: 1015.] three years before, had been dishonoured by the murder [Sidenote: Renewal of “Eadgar’s Law.”] of Sigeferth and Morkere.[871] Danes and English alike united in a decree for the observance of the laws of King Eadgar.[872] This is the first time that we have met with this formula in England, though we have already come across it in Norman history, when Cnut’s grandfather [Sidenote: Import of the phrase.] Harold is said to have restored the laws of Rolf.[873] It has here the same meaning which it has in earlier and in later examples. The renewal of the laws of Eadgar has the same meaning as the renewal of the laws of Rolf after the expulsion of the French from Normandy, as the renewal of the laws of Cnut after the expulsion of Tostig from Northumberland, as the often promised and often evaded renewal of the laws of Eadward in the days of the Norman Kings of England. It does not always imply that the princes spoken of were specially looked on as lawgivers. Eadgar and Cnut had undoubtedly some claim to that title, but we know not that Rolf had any, and Eadward certainly had none. But the demand does not refer to codes of law issued, or believed to be issued, by any of these princes. The cry is really, as an ancient writer explains it,[874] not for the laws which such a King enacted, but for the laws which such a King observed. It is in fact a demand for good government in a time of past or expected oppression or maladministration. It is, as in this case, a demand that a foreign King should take the best of his native predecessors as his model. The name of the last King who left behind him a name for just and mild government is taken as the embodiment of all just and mild government. The people in effect demand, and the King in effect promises, that his government shall be as good as that of the popular hero whose name is put forward. Now, with a foreign conqueror for their King, with the ancient kingly house cut down to a few exiled children, with the flower of the ancient nobility cut off in the carnage of Assandun, Englishmen looked back with yearning to the days of their native rulers. The reign of Æthelred was a time which the national memory would be [Sidenote: The memory of Eadgar acceptable both to the English and to the Danes.] glad to deal with as a blank. English imagination leaped back to the glorious and happy days of the peaceful Basileus, when Englishmen beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks, when the mountains brought peace and the little hills righteousness, when the Lord of Wessex could boast that, within the four seas of Britain, all Kings fell down before him and all nations did him service. And the name of Eadgar was one which would be hardly less acceptable to the Danes than to the English themselves. When their King was more and more throwing off the feelings of a conqueror, when he was more and more closely making himself at one with the realm which he had won, when the Earls and Thegns of the conquered land stood around his throne on a perfect level with the proudest of their conquerors, when the mass of the victorious army had just been sent away to their own homes, the Danish followers of Cnut might well tremble, not only for their supremacy over the vanquished English, but almost for their equality with them. To them the name of Eadgar may well have represented a prince who was raised to the throne in a great measure by Danish swords, who, while he defended his island against Danish invasions, did full justice to the Dane within his own realm, who guaranteed to his Danish subjects every right that they could desire, and whose fondness for them, among other strangers, was the only fault with which Englishmen could reproach him.[875] Danes and Englishmen therefore joined in looking back to Eadgar as the ideal of kingship, and in demanding of their common sovereign that he should take that incomparable[876] example as the model of his government. Men of both nations looked back to the happy days of Eadgar, as in after days the Northumbrians, groaning under the tyranny of Tostig, looked back to the happy days of Cnut himself [Sidenote: Contrast between Cnut and the Norman Kings.] and demanded the renewal of his law. They looked back to them, as Englishmen under the Norman yoke looked back to the happy days of Eadward, and put forth the vain demand that their foreign lords should rule them, not merely according to the same formal enactments, but in the same spirit of justice and mercy in which the royal saint was held to have ruled. That prayer was not, and could not be, granted, till the swords of Robert Fitzwalter and Simon of Montfort had won back for us more than the laws of Eadward in another shape. The great Dane was more happily placed. With him the renewal of the ancient laws was neither an empty nor an impossible promise. If by renewing the laws of Eadgar was meant the establishment of a rule as strong and as just and as safe against foreign invasion as that of Eadgar, King Cnut fully kept his word.[877]

Cnut had now been absent from his native country for five years. He had stayed in England ever since his return [Sidenote: 1014–5.] thither after he had been driven out by the solitary military exploit of King Æthelred the Unready.[878] It was clearly his intention to make England the seat of his empire,[879] but as he was now, by the death or deposition of his brother Harold, sovereign of Denmark,[880] and as [Sidenote: Cnut visits Denmark. 1019.] England was perfectly quiet and reconciled to his government, he deemed it expedient to pay a visit to the land of [Sidenote: He is accompanied by Godwine, who is said to have distinguished] his birth.[881] He took with him Godwine, whose conduct in this foreign journey, perhaps in one of Cnut’s northern wars, procured him a still higher degree of his sovereign’s esteem.[882] According to one account, it was by a gallant [Sidenote: himself in a Wendish war.] action in an expedition against the Wends that the English Earl gained Cnut’s special favour. An English contingent under Godwine’s command served in the Danish army. The two armies lay near together, and a battle was expected the next day. Godwine, without the King’s knowledge, attacked the enemy by night at the head of his countrymen, routed them utterly, and occupied their camp. In the morning Cnut missed the English portion of his army, and hastily inferred that they had deserted, or even gone over to the enemy. He marched however to the Wendish camp, and there, to his surprise, found Godwine and the English in possession, and nothing left of the Wends but their dead bodies and their spoil. This exploit, we are told, greatly raised both Godwine and the English in general in the opinion of Cnut. The tale has a mythical sound; but, whatever may be the truth or falsehood of its details, that Godwine rose still higher from the time of this Danish expedition is beyond doubt. Cnut [Sidenote: Godwine marries Gytha, sister of Earl Ulf.] now admitted him to his most secret counsels, and gave him in marriage Gytha, the sister of the Danish Earl Ulf, the husband of his own sister Estrith. This Ulf, the son of Thurgils Sprakaleg, is one of the most famous characters in the Danish history or romance of the time. Like some other heroes of the North, his parentage was not wholly human. The father of Thurgils, Biorn, was the offspring of a bear, who carried off a human damsel.[883] Ulf himself is said to have served in Cnut’s English wars, and according to one version, it was to him that Godwine owed his earliest introduction to Cnut.[884] But in English history he plays hardly any part.[885] His marriage we shall have to speak of again as one of the events which connect England and Denmark and Normandy; but his real or imaginary exploits and treasons,[886] and his death by order of his brother-in-law, belong wholly to [Sidenote: Her long and chequered life.] Scandinavian history. But his sister Gytha, the wife of the greatest of living Englishmen, became thoroughly naturalized in England. She shared the momentary banishment of her husband in the days of Norman intrigue, and she lived to undergo an eternal banishment in the days of Norman dominion. No mother was ever surrounded by a fairer or more hopeful offspring; none ever underwent a longer series of hopeless bereavements. She saw a nephew on the throne of Denmark, a daughter and a son on the throne of England. She saw her other children and kinsfolk ruling as princes in England and allying themselves with princes in foreign lands. But she also saw her brother cut off by the hand of his kinsman and sovereign; she saw one son stained with the blood of a cousin, and another son stained with treason against his house and country. Of her remaining sons she saw three cut off in one day by the most glorious of deaths, while the sole survivor dragged on his weary days in a Norman prison. No tale of Grecian tragedy ever set forth a sadder and more striking record of human vicissitudes, of brighter hopes in youth, of more utter desolation in old age, than the long and chequered life of her whom our notices are at least enough to set her before us as a wife worthy of Godwine, a mother worthy of Harold.

[Sidenote: Cnut returns to England.]

The next year Cnut came back to England as his real home and abiding-place, the seat of his Anglo-Scandinavian Empire. At Easter a Witenagemót was held at Cirencester, at which took place the last recorded instance of [Sidenote: Witenagemót at Cirencester. April, 1020.] severity on Cnut’s part towards any Englishman. An [Sidenote: Æthelweard banished.] Ealdorman Æthelweard—which, among all the bearers of that name, we can only guess—was banished.[887] But it must have been at this same Gemót that an appointment was made which showed how thoroughly at home the stranger King had made himself in his new country. The last banishment of an Englishman by the Danish conqueror was accompanied by the exaltation of another Englishman to a place in the realm second only to kingship. [Sidenote: Godwine appointed Earl of the West-Saxons. [1020–1052.]] It was now that Godwine received a title and office which no man had borne before him, but which, saving the few months of his banishment, he bore for the thirty-two remaining years of his life, the title and office of Earl of the West-Saxons.[888] Cnut, it will be remembered, in his fourfold division of the kingdom, while he appointed Earls over Northumberland, Mercia, and East-Anglia, kept Wessex under his own immediate government. He was now already King of two kingdoms, and he had no doubt by this time began to meditate a further extension [Sidenote: Nature and import of the office.] of his dominion in the North. He found, it would seem, that the King of all England and all Denmark needed a tried helper in the administration of his most cherished possession, and a representative when his presence was needed in other parts of his dominions. Wessex then, the ancient hearth and home of English kingship, now for the first time received an immediate ruler of a rank inferior to that of King. Godwine became the first, and his son Harold was the second and last, of the Earls of the West-Saxons. To reduce the ancient kingdom to an earldom was not, as has been sometimes imagined, any badge of the insolence of a conqueror; the act was in no way analogous to the change of Northumberland from a kingdom to an earldom under Eadred. The case is simply that the King of all England and all Denmark, King in a special manner of the old West-Saxon realm, found the need of a special counsellor, and in absence of a viceroy, even in this his chosen and immediate dominion. No man of the kindred or nation of the conqueror, but Godwine, the native Englishman, was found worthy of this new and exalted post. Through the whole remainder of the reign of Cnut, the great Earl of the West-Saxons ruled in uninterrupted honour and influence. The wealth which he acquired, mainly, it may be supposed, by royal grant, was enormous. His possessions extended into nearly every shire of the south and centre of England. Whether the son of the churl or the great-nephew of the traitor, he was now, three years after the completion of the Danish Conquest, beyond all doubt the first subject in the realm.

[Sidenote: Consecration of the church on Assandun. 1020.]

The year of Cnut’s return and of Godwine’s great promotion beheld the King engaged in a remarkable solemnity on the spot which had witnessed his last battle, his only distinct victory, in his great struggle with English Eadmund. On the hill of Assandun, Cnut, in partnership with Thurkill, at once as Earl of the district and as his chief comrade in the battle, had reared a church, which was consecrated, in the presence of the King and the Earl, by Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, and several other bishops. That the ceremony was performed by the Northern Metropolitan was probably owing to a vacancy in the see of Canterbury. Lyfing, who had crowned Cnut, died in the course of the year, and was succeeded by Æthelnoth the Good,[889] who had baptized or confirmed him.[890] The ceremony at Assandun doubtless took place between these two events. In Essex, a region rich in woods, but poor in good building stone, timber was largely used both in ecclesiastical and in domestic buildings for ages after this time. Cnut however employed the rarer material, and the fact that his church was built of stone and lime was looked on as something worthy of distinct record.[891] The stone church of Assandun was something remarkable in Essex, exactly as the wooden church of Glastonbury[892] was something remarkable in Somerset. But the building was small and mean, at least as compared with the stately pile which the next conqueror of England reared in memory of his victory. The foundation of Cnut and Thurkill, for a single priest,[893] was poor and scanty, compared with the lordly Abbey of Saint Martin of the Place of Battle.[894] But the minster of Battle simply spoke of the subjugation of a land by a foreign conqueror; the minster of Assandun told a nobler tale. It was reared as the hallowing of his victory, as the atonement for his earlier crimes, by a prince who, conqueror as he was, had learned to love the land which he had conquered, to feel himself one with its people, and to reign after the pattern of its noblest princes. The Abbot of Battle and his monks were strangers, brought from a foreign land to fatten on the [Sidenote: First appearance of STIGAND, [Priest of Assandun, 1020; Bishop of Elmham, 1044; of Winchester, 1047; Archbishop of Canterbury, 1052].] spoils of England.[895] The single priest of Assandun lived to show himself one of the stoutest of Englishmen. Stigand, the first priest of Cnut’s new minster, now the friend and chaplain of the Danish conqueror, in after years displaced a Norman intruder on the throne of Augustine, and was himself hurled therefrom at the bidding of a Norman King.[896]

The consecration on Assandun might pass as the formal act of reconciliation between the Danish King and his [Sidenote: Later years of Cnut. 1020–1035.] English subjects. From that day the internal history of England, for the remaining fifteen years of the reign of Cnut, becomes a blank. We now hear only of the King’s wars abroad, of his acts of piety at home, of several instances in which his hand was heavy upon his own countrymen; but, after the outlawry of Æthelweard, we find no record of the death or banishment of a single [Sidenote: Danes make way for Englishmen.] Englishman. In fact these years form a time of the gradual substitution of Englishmen for Danes in the highest offices, while no doubt Danes of lower degree were, like their sovereign, fast changing themselves into Englishmen. Nearly all the Danish holders of earldoms whom we find at the beginning of Cnut’s reign vanish [Sidenote: Thurkill banished from England. November, 1021.] one by one. Of the outlawry of the two greatest of their number we find distinct accounts. The year after the ceremony at Assandun, Thurkill, the co-founder with the King, who, in the account of their joint work, appears almost as the King’s peer, was driven into banishment.[897] With him his English wife Eadgyth had to leave her country; if she was the daughter of Æthelred, and the widow of either Ulfcytel or Eadric,[898] we are almost driven to infer that the marriage was contracted after the consecration on Assandun, that the connexion with the ancient royal family awakened Cnut’s jealousy, and was in fact the cause of Thurkill’s banishment. One cannot help feeling a certain interest in the fate of one who had so long played an important and, on the whole, not a dishonourable, part in English history. The savage pirate gradually changed into the civilized warrior; if at one time he was the enemy, he was at another the defender, of England. The heathen who had striven to save a Christian martyr from his persecutors had developed the good seed within him till he grew into a founder and restorer of Christian churches. With the banishment which I have just recorded the history of Thurkill, as far as England is concerned, comes to an end. But his banishment was merely local; he was held to be dangerous in England, and he was therefore removed from the country, but his removal was little more than an honourable ostracism. He kept, or soon won back, his sovereign’s favour; there is no evidence that he ever came back to England; but two years later he was formally [Sidenote: Thurkill made Viceroy of Denmark. 1023.] reconciled to Cnut; he was established as his viceroy in Denmark, seemingly as guardian to one of the King’s sons who was meant to succeed him in that kingdom.[899] The only sign of suspicion shown on Cnut’s part was his bringing back the son of Thurkill with him to England, [Sidenote: Eric banished. 1023?] evidently as a hostage. Eric also, the Danish Earl of the Northumbrians, was banished a few years later than Thurkill, on what occasion, and at what exact time, is [Sidenote: Hakon banished. 1029.] unknown.[900] Somewhat later again we find the banishment of Eric’s son Hakon, “the doughty Earl.” Hakon was doubly the King’s nephew, as the son of his sister and as the husband of his niece Gunhild, the daughter of another sister and of Wyrtgeorn King of the Wends.[901] We have no details, but we are told that Cnut feared to be deprived by him of his life or kingdom.[902] Hakon seems however not to have been formally outlawed, but to have been merely sent away to fill the post which his father had held as viceroy in Norway.[903] This fact, coupled with Thurkill’s similar viceroyalty in Denmark, shows that Cnut could trust men in other countries whom he thought [Sidenote: His death. 1030.] dangerous in England. The year after his removal from England Hakon died at sea, or, according to another account, was killed in Orkney.[904] His widow seems to have stayed in England; she married another Danish [Sidenote: 1046.] Earl, Harold,[905] and was herself, in her second widowhood, banished from England when England had again a native [Sidenote: Ulf put to death. After 1025.] King.[906] Cnut’s brother-in-law Ulf came to a worse end still; that he died by the command of Cnut there is no reason to doubt, but we have no certain information as to the circumstances. According to our Danish historian it was a perfectly righteous execution, while the romantic tale of the Norwegian saga represents it as a singularly [Sidenote: The banished Danish chiefs succeeded by Englishmen.] base and cold-blooded assassination.[907] The point of importance for us is that these eminent Danes had no successors of their own nation in their English offices. There remained plenty of Danish Thegns and some Danish Earls; but in the later years of Cnut the highest places were all filled by Englishmen. Ranig retained the subordinate earldom of the Magesætas; Thored was Staller, and, at least in Harthacnut’s reign, he held the earldom of the Middle-Angles.[908] But Godwine and Leofric held the first rank in southern and in central England, and, on the banishment of Eric, the government of Northumberland went back to the family of its ancient Earls.[909] It is most remarkable, in tracing the signatures to the charters, to trace how the Danish names gradually disappear, and are succeeded by English names.[910] The Danes who remain seem to have been all in quite secondary rank. No doubt Cnut had largely rewarded his followers with grants of land, and we can well believe that some of these new Danish thegns often behaved with great insolence to their English neighbours.[911] But the general principle of Cnut’s government is not affected by any local wrongs of this kind. Cnut, from the very beginning, admitted Englishmen to high office; still, in the earlier years of his reign he appears mainly as a foreign conqueror surrounded by those whose arms had won his crown for him. He gradually changes into a prince, English in all but actual birth, who could afford to dispense with the dangerous support of the chieftains of his own nation, who could venture to throw himself on the loyalty of those whom he had subdued, and to surround himself with the natural leaders of those whom he had learned to look on as his own people.

[Sidenote: Character of Cnut.]

This gradual change in the disposition of Cnut makes him one of the most remarkable, and, to an Englishman, one of the most interesting, characters in history. There is no other instance—unless Rolf in Normandy be admitted as a forerunner on a smaller scale—of a barbarian conqueror, entering a country simply as a ruthless pirate, plundering, burning, mutilating, slaughtering, without remorse, and then, as soon as he is firmly seated on the throne of the invaded land, changing into a beneficent ruler and lawgiver, and winning for himself a place side by side with the best and greatest of its native sovereigns. Cnut never became a perfect prince like Ælfred. An insatiable ambition possessed him throughout life, and occasional acts of both craft and violence disfigure the whole of his career. No man could charge him with that amiable weakness through which Eadmund lent so ready an ear to protestations of repentance and promises of amendment even from the lips of Eadric. Cnut, on the other hand, always found some means, by death, by banishment, by distant promotion, of getting rid of any one who had once awakened his suspicions. Reasons of state were as powerful with him, and led him into as many unscrupulous actions, as any more civilized despot of later times. But Englishmen were not disposed to canvass the justice of wars in which they won fame and plunder, while no enemy ever set foot on their own shores. They were as little disposed to canvass the justice of banishments and executions, when, for many years, it was invariably a Dane, never an Englishman, who was [Sidenote: Cnut’s position typical of that of the Danes in England.] the victim. The law by which the Dane settled in England presently became an Englishman received its highest carrying out in the person of the illustrious Danish King. As far as England and Englishmen were concerned, Cnut might seem to have acted on the principle of the Greek poet, that unrighteousness might be fittingly done in order to win a crown, but that righteousness should be done in all other times and places.[912] The throne of Cnut, established by wasting wars, by unrighteous executions, perhaps even by treacherous assassinations, was, when once established, emphatically the throne of righteousness and peace. As an English King, he fairly ranks beside [Sidenote: Cnut’s letter from Rome. 1027.] the noblest of his predecessors. His best epitaph is his famous letter to his people on his Roman pilgrimage.[913] Such a pilgrimage was an ordinary devotional observance according to the creed of those times. But in the eyes of Cnut it was clearly much more than a mere perfunctory ceremony. The sight of the holy places stirred him to good resolves in matters both public and private, and, as a patriotic King, he employed his meeting with the Pope, the Emperor, and the Burgundian King, to win from all of them favours which were profitable to the people of his various realms. No man could have written in the style in which Cnut writes to all classes of his English subjects, unless he were fully convinced that he possessed and deserved the love of his people. The tone of the letter is that of an absent father writing to his children. In all simplicity and confidence, he tells them the events of his journey; he tells them with what honours he had been received, and with what presents he had been loaded, by the two chiefs of Christendom, and what privileges for his subjects, both English and Danish, he had obtained at their hands. He confesses the errors of his youth, and promises reformation of anything which may still be amiss. All grievances shall be redressed; no extortions shall be allowed; King Cnut needs no money raised by injustice. These are surely no mere formal or hypocritical professions; every word plainly comes from the heart. England had more than led captive her conqueror; she had changed him into her King and father.

[Sidenote: The Laws of Cnut. 1028–1035.]

The same spirit which breathes in Cnut’s letter breathes also in the opening of his laws.[914] The precept to fear God and honour the King here takes a more personal and affectionate form. First above all things are men one God ever to love and worship, and one Christendom with one mind to hold, and Cnut King to love with right truthfulness.[915] The laws themselves deal with the usual subjects, the reformation of manners, the administration of justice, the strict discharge of all ecclesiastical duties and the strict payment of all ecclesiastical dues. The feasts of the two new national saints, Eadward the King and Dunstan the Primate, are again ordered to be kept, and the observance of the former is again made to rest in a marked way on the authority of the Witan.[916] The observance of the Lord’s day is also strongly insisted on; on that day there is to be no marketing, no hunting; even the holding of folkmotes is forbidden, except in cases of absolute necessity.[917] All heathen superstition is to be forsaken,[918] and the slave-trade is again denounced.[919] The whole fabric of English society is strictly preserved. The King legislates only with the consent of his Witan.[920] The old assemblies, the old tribunals, the old magistrates, keep all their rights and powers. The Bishop and the Ealdorman[921] still fill their place as joint presidents of the Scirgemót, and joint expounders of the laws, ecclesiastical and secular.[922] The King, as well as all inferior lords,[923] is to enjoy all that is due to him; the royal rights, differing somewhat in the West-Saxon and the Danish portions of the kingdom, are to be carefully preserved, and neither extended nor diminished in either country.[924] No distinction, except the old local one, is made between Danes and Englishmen. The local rights and customs of the Danish and English portions of the kingdom are to be strictly observed.[925] But this is only what we have already seen in the legislation of Eadgar.[926] The Danes spoken of in Cnut’s laws, as in Eadgar’s, are the long-settled Danish inhabitants of Northumberland and the other countries of the _Denalagu_; no kind of preference is made in favour of Cnut’s own Danish followers; we cannot doubt that a Dane who held lands in Wessex had to submit to English law, just as a West-Saxon who held lands in Northumberland must, under Eadgar no less than under Cnut, have had to submit to Danish law. On one point the legislation of the great Dane is distinctly more rational and liberal than the legislation of our own day. Trespasses on the King’s forests are strictly forbidden; but the natural right of every man to hunt on his own land is emphatically asserted.[927] And as Cnut’s theory was, so was his practice. No King was more active in what was then held to be the first duty of kingship, that of constantly going through every portion of his realm to see with his own eyes whether the laws which he enacted were duly put in force.[928] In short, after Cnut’s power was once fully established, we hear no complaint against his government [Sidenote: Personal traditions of Cnut.] from any trustworthy English source.[929] His hold upon the popular affection is shown by the number of personal anecdotes of which he is the hero. The man who is said, in the traditions of other lands, to have ordered the cold-blooded murder of his brother-in-law, and that in a church at the holy season of Christmas,[930] appears in English tradition as a prince whose main characteristic is devotion mingled with good humour.[931] In the best known tale of all, he rebukes the impious flattery of his courtiers, and hangs his crown on the image of the crucified Saviour.[932] He bursts into song as he hears the chant of the monks of Ely,[933] and rejoices to keep the festivals of the Church among them. He bountifully rewards the sturdy peasant who proves the thickness of the ice over which the royal sledge has to pass.[934] One tale alone sets him before us in a somewhat different light. He mocks at the supposed sanctity of Eadgyth the daughter of Eadgar; he will not believe in the holiness of any child of a father so given up to lust and tyranny. It is needless to add that the offended saint brings the blasphemer to a better mind by summary means.[935] This tale is worth noting, as it illustrates the twofold conception of the character of Eadgar which was afloat. Cnut is represented as accepting the Eadgar of the minstrels, not the Eadgar of the monks, nor yet the Eadgar of history, who is somewhat different from either. But even in this tale Cnut is described as showing something of the spirit which breathes in his Roman letter. The King who loathed the supposed tyranny of Eadgar could hardly have been conscious of any tyranny of his own.

[Sidenote: Cnut’s ecclesiastical policy.]

In ecclesiastical matters Cnut mainly, though not exclusively, favoured the monks. His ecclesiastical appointments, [Sidenote: 1020.] especially that of good Archbishop Æthelnoth;[936] who had baptized or confirmed him, do him high honour. [Sidenote: His ecclesiastical foundations.] He was also, after the custom of the age, a liberal benefactor to various ecclesiastical foundations. According to one account, not Assandun only, but all his battle-fields were marked by commemorative churches.[937] But as Assandun was Cnut’s only undoubted victory on English soil, and as men do not usually commemorate their defeats, we may conclude that, in England at least, Assandun was his only foundation of that kind. That church, as we have seen, was a secular foundation, seemingly for one priest only. A more splendid object of Cnut’s munificence throws an interesting light on the workings of his mind. The special object of his reverence was Eadmund, the sainted King of the East-Angles, a King martyred by heathen Danes, a saint who was the marked object of his father’s hatred, and by whose vengeance his father was held to have come to his untimely end.[938] The Christian Dane, King of all England, was eager to wipe away the stain from his house and nation. He made provision for the restoration of all the holy places which had in any way suffered during his own or his father’s wars.[939] But the first rank among them was given to the great foundation which boasted of the resting-place of the royal martyr. [Sidenote: Saint Eadmund’s Bury rebuilt and the foundation changed. 1020–1032.] The minster of Saint Eadmund was rebuilt, and, in conformity with the fashionable notions of reformation, its secular canons had to make way for an Abbot and monks. Some of the new inmates came from Saint Benet at Holm,[940] another foundation which was enriched by Cnut’s bounty.[941] One hardly knows whether Cnut most avoided or incurred suspicion by his special devotion to the resting-place of [Sidenote: Cnut’s visit to Glastonbury. 1032.] another Eadmund. He visited Glastonbury in company with Archbishop Æthelnoth, once a monk of that house. There, in the building which tradition points to as the first Christian temple raised in these islands, the building which history recognizes as the one famous holy place of the conquered Briton which lived unhurt through the storm of English Conquest, in the “wooden basilica” hallowed by the memory of so many real and legendary saints, did the Danish King confirm every gift and privilege which his English predecessors had granted to the great Celtic sanctuary.[942] A hundred and fifty years after the visit of Cnut, the wooden basilica, which had beheld so many revolutions, gave way to the more powerful influence of a change of taste and feeling, and on its site arose one of the most exquisite specimens of the latest Romanesque art, now in its state of desolation forming one of the loveliest of monastic ruins.[943] At some distance to the east of this primæval sanctuary stood the larger minster of stone reared by Saint Dunstan. In Cnut’s days it was doubtless still deemed a wonder of art, though it was doomed before the end of the century to give way to the vaster conceptions of the Norman architects. The invention and translation of the legendary Arthur were as yet distant events, and the new tomb of King Eadmund Ironside still kept the place of honour before the high altar.[944] There the conqueror knelt and prayed, and covered the tomb of his murdered brother with a splendid robe on which the gorgeous plumage of the peacock was reproduced [Sidenote: Translation of Saint Ælfheah. June, 1023.] by the skilful needles of English embroideresses.[945] Equal honours were paid by Cnut to another victim of the late wars, in his devotion to whom he was expiating the crimes of his nation, though not his own or those of his father’s house. The body of the martyred Ælfheah was translated from Saint Paul’s minster in London to his own metropolitan church, in the presence, and with the personal help, of the King and of all the chief men of the realm, lay and clerical. The ceremony was further adorned with the presence of the Lady Emma and her [Sidenote: His gifts to Winchester, Ely, and Ramsey.] “kingly bairn” Harthacnut.[946] That the two monasteries of the royal city of Winchester came in for their share of royal bounty it is almost needless to mention. But towards them the devotion of Emma, who claimed the city as her morning-gift, seems to have been more fervent than that of her husband.[947] Cnut’s personal tastes seem to have led him to the great religious houses of the fen country, where the dead of Maldon and Assandun reposed in the choirs of Ely and Ramsey.[948] Nowhere was his memory more fondly cherished than in the great minster which boasted of the tomb of Brihtnoth. There he was not so much a formal benefactor as a personal friend. But he was held in no less honour at Ramsey, the resting-place of Æthelweard. There he built a second church,[949] and designed the foundation of a society of nuns, which he did not bring to perfection. The local historian of the house rewards his bounty with a splendid panegyric, which however is fully borne out by his recorded acts.[950] Nor was his bounty confined to England, or even to his own [Sidenote: Cnut plants English Bishops in Denmark.] dominions. In his native Denmark he showed himself a diligent nursing-father to the infant Church, largely providing it with bishops and other ecclesiastics from [Sidenote: His gifts to foreign churches, &c.] England.[951] On his Roman pilgrimage, the poor and the churches of every land through which he passed shared his bountiful alms. It is also said that, by the counsel of Archbishop Æthelnoth, he gave gifts to many foreign churches. One special object of his favour was the church of Chartres, then flourishing under its famous Bishop Fulbert.[952] Emma too, the foreign Lady, was not backward in her gifts to churches, both English and foreign. She gave to the metropolitan church of Canterbury an arm of the Apostle Bartholomew, bought of an Archbishop of Beneventum whom the fame of the wealth of England had led hither to dispose of his holy treasure.[953] She had also a great share in rebuilding the famous minster of Saint Hilary at Poitiers, where a large portion of her work still remains.[954]

Such then was Cnut’s internal government of England. The conqueror had indeed changed into a home-born King. At no earlier time had the land ever enjoyed so long a term of such unmixed prosperity. We have now to behold the great King in his relations to foreign lands. And, if a series of ambitious wars and aggressions forms a less pleasing picture than a tale of peaceful and beneficent government, we shall at least see England raised to a higher position in the general system of Christendom than she held at any earlier, perhaps at any later time.

§ 2. _The foreign Relations of Cnut._ 1018–1035.

Cnut had come into England as a conqueror and destroyer; but his reign, as far as the internal state of England [Sidenote: Unparalleled internal peace during the reign of Cnut.] is concerned, was a time of perfect peace.[955] No invasion from beyond sea, no revolt, no civil war, is recorded during the eighteen years of his government. A single Scottish inroad and victory of which we shall presently hear was wiped out by the more complete submission of the northern vassal of England. Within England itself we read of no district being ravaged either by rebels or by royal command; we read of no city undergoing, or even being threatened with, military chastisement. This is more than can be said of the reign either of Eadgar the Peaceful or of Eadward the Saint. No doubt the whole nation was weary of warfare; after a struggle of thirty-six years, England would have been glad of a season of repose, even under a far worse government than that of Cnut. But a period of seventeen years in which we cannot see that a sword was drawn within the borders of England was something altogether unparalleled in those warlike ages, something which speaks volumes in favour of the King who bestowed such a blessing on our land. It is true that the old enemies of England were now the fellow-subjects of Englishmen, and that the first attempt of her new enemies came to nought without a blow being struck. Danish invasions ceased when Denmark and England had the same King, and the first Norman invasion, as we shall presently see, ignominiously failed. But a great deal is proved by the absence of any recorded attempt on the part of any Englishman to get rid of the foreign King. No one thought of taking advantage of Cnut’s frequent absences from England in the way in which men did take advantage of the similar absences of William the Norman. It is quite impossible that England and all Cnut’s other kingdoms should have been kept down against their will by the King’s [Sidenote: The Housecarls or Thingmen.] Housecarls. It is now that we first hear of this famous force, the name of which will be often heard during the following reigns, even after the Norman Conquest. Hitherto England had possessed nothing that could be called a standing army. When a war had to be waged, the King or Ealdorman called on his personal followers, attached to him by the ancient tie of the _comitatus_, and on the general levy, the _fyrd_ or militia, either of the whole kingdom or of some particular part of it. But no English King or Ealdorman had hitherto kept a standing military force in his pay. But Cnut now organized a regular paid force, kept constantly under arms, and ready to march at a moment’s notice.[956] These were the famous Thingmen, the Housecarls, of whom we hear so much under Cnut and under his successors. This permanent body of soldiers in the King’s personal service seems to have had its origin in the crews of the forty Danish ships which were kept by Cnut when he sent back the greater part of his fleet in the second year of his reign. In his time the force consisted of three thousand, or at most of six thousand, men, gathered from all nations. For the power and fame of Cnut drew volunteers to his [Sidenote: A revival of the _Comitatus_.] banner from all parts of Northern Europe. The force was in fact a revival of the earliest form of the _comitatus_, only more thoroughly and permanently organized. The immediate followers, the hearth company, of earlier Kings and Ealdormen had been attached to them by a special tie, and were bound to bear to them a special fidelity in the day of battle.[957] The Housecarls or Thingmen of Cnut were a force of this kind, larger in number, kept more constantly under arms, and subjected to a more regular discipline than had hitherto been usual. Receiving regular pay, and reinforced by volunteers of all kinds and of all nations, they doubtless gradually departed a good deal from the higher type of the _comitatus_, and came nearer to the level of ordinary mercenaries. So far as the force consisted of foreigners, they were mercenaries in the strictest sense; so far as it consisted of Englishmen, they were mercenaries in no other sense than that in which all paid soldiers are mercenaries. The housecarls were in fact a standing army, and a standing army was an institution which later Kings and great Earls, English as well as Danish, found it to be their interest to continue. Under Cnut they formed a kind of military guild with [Sidenote: The military laws of Cnut.] the King at their head. A set of most elaborate articles of war determined the minutest points of their duty.[958] Fitting punishments were decreed for all offences great and small, punishments to be awarded by tribunals formed among the members of the guild. But all the provisions of the code relate wholly to the internal discipline of the force and to the relations of its members to one another. Of the position in which they stood to the community at large we hear absolutely nothing. And it should be remembered that all our details come from Danish writers and those not contemporary. Our English authorities tell us nothing directly about the matter. [Sidenote: The institution continued by later Kings.] From them we could at most have inferred that some institution of the sort arose about this time; we never read of housecarls before the reign of Cnut, while we often read of them afterwards. That a body of soldiers, many of them foreigners, were guilty of occasional acts of wrong and insolence, we may take for granted even without direct evidence. That under a bad King they might sometimes be sent on oppressive errands we shall presently see on the best of evidence. But that under the great Cnut they were the instruments of any general system of oppression, that they held the nation in unwilling submission to a yoke which it was anxious to throw off, is proved by no evidence whatever. And when England was again ruled by Kings of her own blood, the housecarls became simply a national standing army, and an army of which England might well be proud. The name of the housecarls of King Harold became a name of fear in the most warlike regions of the North,[959] and it was this brave and faithful force which was ever foremost in fight and nearest to the royal person alike in the hour of victory and in the hour of overthrow.

[Sidenote: Foreign policy of Cnut.]

We have still to speak of Cnut’s relations with lands beyond the bounds of England. This subject starts several important points in the history of foreign lands; but, as far as English history is concerned, most of them may be passed by in a few words. Within our own island, we hear little of Wales, and out of it, Cnut’s wars with the other Scandinavian powers and his relations to the Empire, though highly important, have hardly any bearing on English history. The case is different with his dealings both with Scotland and with Normandy, both of which, the latter especially, call for a somewhat fuller examination.

Cnut, as King of all England, alike by formal election and by the power of the sword, of course assumed the same Imperial claims and Imperial style which had been borne by the Kings who had gone before him. As King of all England, he was also Emperor of all Britain, Lord [Sidenote: Relations with Wales.] of all Kings and all nations within his own island. Of his relations with his Welsh vassals we are driven to pick up what accounts we can from their own scanty annals. Early in Cnut’s reign, on what provocation we know not, [Sidenote: Eglaf plunders Saint David’s. 1022?] the exploit of Eadric Streona[960] was repeated. Wales was invaded by Eglaf, a Danish Earl in Cnut’s service, probably the same who had joined in Thurkill’s invasion of England, and who, according to some accounts, was brother of that more famous chief.[961] He ravaged the land of Dyfed and destroyed Saint David’s.[962] This is our sole [Sidenote: 1035?] fact, except that in one of the last years of Cnut’s reign, a Welsh prince, Caradoc son of Rhydderch, was slain by the English.[963] Our own Chroniclers do not look on these matters as worthy of any mention. With Scotland the case is somewhat different, especially as the affairs of that kingdom are closely mixed up with those of the great [Sidenote: Affairs of Northumberland and Scotland.] earldom of Northumberland. We have seen that, on the fourfold division of England, the great Northern government was entrusted to the Dane Eric, who seems however [Sidenote: Earldom of Eric;] not to have disturbed the actual English possessors.[964] He most likely kept a superiority over them till his own banishment,[965] after which it is clear that the family of the [Sidenote: of Eadwulf Cutel.] former Earls remained in possession. The reigning Earl, Eadwulf, the son of the elder Waltheof and brother of Uhtred, is spoken of as a timid and cowardly man, who, according to one account, now surrendered Lothian to King Malcolm for fear that he might avenge the victories won over him by his brother.[966] But if any cession was made to the Scots at this time, it was most likely [Sidenote: Battle of Carham. 1018.] extorted by Malcolm by force of arms. For the second year of Cnut was marked by a Scottish invasion and a Scottish victory of unusual importance.[967] King Malcolm entered England, accompanied by Eogan or Eugenius, seemingly an Under-king of Strathclyde. A great battle took place at Carham on the Tweed, not far from the scene of the more famous fight of Flodden, in which the Scots gained a decisive victory over the whole force of the Bernician earldom. The slaughter, as usual, fell most heavily upon the English nobility. Bishop Ealdhun is said to have fallen sick on hearing the news, and to have died in a few days. His great work was all but done. The height of Durham was now crowned by a church, stately doubtless after the standard of those times, of which only a single tower lacked completion.[968] It was doubtless owing to the confusion which followed the Scottish inroad that three years passed between the death of Ealdhun and the succession of the next Bishop Eadmund.[969] According to one theory, which I shall discuss elsewhere,[970] the annexation of Lothian to the Scottish kingdom was the result of this battle. It is equally strange that a prince like Cnut should have consented to the cession of any part of his dominions, and that he should have allowed a Scottish victory to pass unrevenged. But we do not, in our English authorities, find any mention of Scottish [Sidenote: Affairs of Cumberland.] affairs till a much later stage of his reign. According to the Scottish account, Duncan, the grandson of Malcolm through his daughter Beatrice, who now held the under-kingdom of Cumberland or Strathclyde, refused, though often summoned, to do homage to Cnut.[971] His refusal was cloked under a show of feudal loyalty; his homage was due only to the lawful King of the English; he would do no kind of service to a Danish usurper. Cnut, after his return from his Roman pilgrimage, marched against his refractory vassal, with the intention of incorporating [Sidenote: Submission of Duncan.] his dominions with the English kingdom. Certain Bishops and other chief men stepped in to preserve peace, and a compromise was brought about. Duncan withdrew his claim to independence; Cnut relinquished his design of complete incorporation; the Under-king of Cumberland was again to hold his kingdom on the old terms of vassalage. Such is the Scottish story, which characteristically puts Cumberland in the foreground, and leaves out all mention both of Scotland proper and of Lothian. It may very likely be true in what it asserts; it is eminently false in what it conceals. For there is no doubt that Cnut’s dealings with his northern neighbours were by no means confined to Cumberland, but touched Scotland itself quite as nearly. It is just conceivable that both Duncan and his grandfather Malcolm refused homage to Cnut on the ground that the Dane was an usurper of the English kingdom. If so, they were perhaps brought to reason at an earlier time than would appear from our own Chronicles only. According to a French historian, an expedition of Cnut against the Scots was hindered, and peace was restored, by the intercession of the Lady Emma and her brother Duke Richard. According to a Norwegian saga, two Scottish Kings, probably Malcolm and Duncan, submitted to [Sidenote: Submission of Scotland. 1031.] Cnut in the early years of his reign. However all this may be, it is certain, on the highest of all authorities, that the whole kingdom of Scotland did in the end submit to his claims. Cnut, like William after him, was not minded to give up any right of the crown which he had won. The more famous ceremony of Abernethy forty [Sidenote: [1073.]] years later was now forestalled. As the younger Malcolm then became the man of the Norman, so now the elder Malcolm became the man of the Dane.[972] Cnut, after his return from Rome—in the very year of his return, according to those who give the later date to that event—marched into Scotland, meeting, it would seem, with no [Sidenote: Malcolm, Jehmarc, and Macbeth do homage to Cnut. 1031.] opposition. Malcolm now, if not before, rendered the long-delayed homage, and he was joined in his submission by two other Scottish chiefs, the lords of Argyle and of Moray, on both of whom our Chronicles bestow the title of King. With the otherwise obscure Jehmarc is coupled a name which holds no small place in history, but which is far more famous in romance. Along with the homage of the elder Malcolm King Cnut received also the homage of Macbeth.

[Sidenote: Import of the homage of the Under-kings.]

This fact that the Under-kings, or princes of whatever rank, within the kingdom of Scotland, did homage to Cnut is worthy of special notice. It seems to be a step beyond the terms of the original commendation to Eadward the Elder. It seems to be a step towards the more complete submission made by William the Lion to Henry the Second and to the homage done by all Scotland to the Lord Paramount Edward. The choice of the English King as Father and Lord over the King and people of the Scots did not make this or that Scot his “man.”[973] But now, not only King Malcolm, but Jehmarc and Macbeth became the “men” of the King of all England. Yet the fact may perhaps be explained another way. When we remember the later history, we shall perhaps be inclined to look for the cause of this change in the slight authority possessed by Malcolm over the lesser Scottish princes. His legendary character paints him as a King who granted away all his domains, and left himself nothing but the hill of Scone, the holy place of the Scottish monarchy.[974] And more authentic history shows that Jehmarc and Macbeth, princes ruling on the western and eastern shores of the island, were so far independent of the King of Scots that the homage of Malcolm alone would have been no sufficient guaranty for the retention of the Scottish kingdom in its proper submission to the Imperial crown. Macbeth indeed was the representative of a line which had claims on the Scottish crown itself. Cnut therefore prudently exacted the homage of Malcolm’s dangerous vassals as well as that of Malcolm himself. [Sidenote: Death of Malcolm. 1034.] Malcolm, already an old man, survived the ceremony only three years, and died in the year before the death of his far younger over-lord.[975] He was succeeded by his grandson Duncan, whose son Malcolm, surnamed Canmore, afterwards so famous, received, as usual, the apanage of Cumberland.[976]

[Sidenote: Cnut’s Northern wars.]

Cnut’s wars in the North of Europe have but little connexion with English history, and there are few events for [Sidenote: Authorities for their history.] which our historical materials are more unsatisfactory. Our own Chronicles help us to the dates of some of the more prominent events; the Norwegian sagas[977] and the rhetorical Latin of the Danish historian help us to abundance of details, if we could only accept them as authentic; the Danish chronicles are meagre beyond words. Happily, to unravel the difficulties and contradictions of their various statements is no part of the business of an English historian. It may be enough for our purpose to keep ourselves to those events which the contemporary chroniclers of England thought worthy of a place in our own [Sidenote: Revolutions of Norway.] national annals. The most important among them is the loss and reconquest of Norway by Cnut, and his wars with its renowned King Olaf the Saint.[978] Norway had, after [Sidenote: 1000.] the death of Olaf Tryggvesson,[979] formed part of the dominions of Swegen, and it was entrusted to the government of his son-in-law Eric, who afterwards held the [Sidenote: 1015.] earldom of Northumberland.[980] When Eric went to England with Cnut, Hakon the son of Eric remained as Earl in Norway, but was soon driven out by Olaf Haraldsson. Of this prince, afterwards canonized as a saint and martyr, we have heard somewhat already;[981] but the part assigned to him in English affairs evidently belongs to romance and not to history. His career in his own country is more [Sidenote: Reign of Saint Olaf. 1015–1028.] authentic and more important. The rule of Olaf was at first acceptable to the country; but both his virtues and his faults gradually raised up enemies against him. He was preeminently a reformer. His strictness in the administration of justice, the first of virtues in a prince of those times, is highly praised.[982] He was moreover a zealous Christian; his whole soul was devoted to spreading throughout his kingdom the blessings of religion and civilization, and to reforming the manners and morals of his people in every way. He brought bishops and other churchmen from England, and, not satisfied with the evangelization of his own kingdom, he employed them as missionaries in Sweden, Gothland, and the neighbouring islands.[983] But, just like the elder Olaf, his choice of means was often less praiseworthy than the excellence of his objects. The reformer tried by harshness and violence to force on a rude people manners and institutions for which they were not ready, and the Christian missionary sank into a persecutor of those who clave to the creed of their fathers. In his lofty ideas of kingly power, Olaf set little store by the rights either of the ancient chiefs or of the free peasantry of the land, and, in dealing with these enemies, he did not shrink from acts of merciless cruelty.[984] Meanwhile Cnut was keeping as careful an eye on Norway as his father had kept on England; but, like his father, he knew how to bide his time. A summons to Olaf to hold the crown of Norway as his vassal was rejected;[985] war followed, [Sidenote: Cnut’s defeat at the Helga. 1025.] and Cnut’s first expedition was unsuccessful. Olaf allied himself with the Swedish King Omund, and their joint forces inflicted a defeat on Cnut’s combined Danish [Sidenote: Cnut’s intrigues in Norway. 1027.] and English army at the river Helga in Scania.[986] Two years later, by dint of bribes and promises and by studiously taking advantage of Olaf’s growing unpopularity, Cnut contrived to raise up a powerful party in Norway which was prepared to accept his own pretensions.[987] In the next year, when Cnut sailed to Norway with fifty ships, Olaf was completely forsaken by his people, and [Sidenote: Cnut expels Olaf, and is chosen King of all Norway. 1028.] had to take refuge in Russia. Cnut was everywhere welcomed, and he was chosen King of all Norway by the Thing at Trondhjem, just as he had been, eleven years before, chosen King of all England by the Gemót at London.[988] A later attempt of Olaf to recover his kingdom [Sidenote: Olaf killed at Stikkelstad. 1030.] was resisted by the Norwegians themselves; he fell in the fight of Stikkelstad, and the Church looked on him as a martyr.[989]

[Sidenote: Cnut’s friendly relations with the Empire.]

Cnut, King of five or, as some reckon, six kingdoms, seems to have looked upon himself as Emperor of the North, and to have held himself in all respects as the peer of his Roman brother.[990] Earlier and later Danish Kings were fain to own themselves the vassals of Cæsar; but before the power of Cnut the Roman Terminus himself had to give way. With the Frankish Emperor Conrad the mighty ruler of Northern Europe was on the best terms. Cnut, as we have seen, made his acquaintance and friendship in his Imperial capital, and bore a part in the splendours of his Imperial consecration. The alliance was cemented by a treaty of marriage between their children, and by a cession of territory on the part of the potentate [Sidenote: Marriage of Gunhild to King Henry of Germany. 1036.] higher in formal rank. Gunhild, the daughter of Cnut and Emma, was betrothed to Conrad’s son King Henry, afterwards the renowned Emperor Henry the Third. The marriage however did not take place till after the death of the bride’s father, and Gunhild, like her predecessor Eadgyth, was destined to be neither the wife nor the mother of an Emperor. Gunhild, like Eadgyth, died before her husband succeeded to the Empire, and his successor was the offspring of his second and better known marriage with Agnes of Poitiers.[991]

[Sidenote: Cnut recovers the frontier of the Eider.]

The more strictly political result of the friendship between Cnut and Conrad was the restoration of the ancient frontier between Denmark and Germany. After the victorious expedition of Otto the Second into Denmark, a German mark had been established beyond the Eider, extending from that river to the Dannewirk, the great bulwark which Gorm and Thyra had reared against the Southern invader. This was the first step in that process which has gradually Germanized a part of Southern Jutland, [Sidenote: 1864–6.] and which has at last handed over an unwilling Scandinavian population as the victims of Prussian greed of territorial aggrandizement. Cnut, by treaty with the Emperor, and seemingly as the price of his daughter, recovered the ancient frontier with which Charles the Great had been content, and which remained the boundary of the two realms till that general removing of ancient landmarks which belongs only to the more refined diplomacy of modern times.

[Sidenote: Affairs of Normandy.]

We have now, last of all, to look to the position of Cnut with reference to the Duchy of Normandy. I have already, in speaking of Cnut’s ecclesiastical policy, had occasion to mention the close connexion which he kept up with more than one part of Gaul. He was the special friend of Duke William of Aquitaine, surnamed the Great, a prince whose tastes were in many respects congenial with his own. He sent him embassies and gifts, among them a splendid book of devotions in golden letters.[992] But Cnut’s most important relations among the states of Gaul were with the great duchy which lay opposite to his southern shores, and where his banished stepsons were being brought up as his possible rivals. The last event in the internal history of Normandy which I recorded was the [Sidenote: [997.]] great revolt of the Norman peasantry at the beginning of the reign of Richard the Good. The new Duke was, in the full sense of the word, a Frenchman. Whatever had become of the original homage of Rolf, the commendation of Richard the Fearless to Hugh the Great[993] was still in [Sidenote: Friendly relations with France. 996–1031.] full force. Richard was the loyal vassal and faithful ally of the Parisian King; his friendship with Robert, the second King of that house, seems to have always remained unbroken, and the two princes acted together in various expeditions. The Normans were by this time thoroughly naturalized in their Gaulish possessions. In the records of the time they appear as recognized and honoured members of the French monarchy. The memory of their foreign and heathen descent is forgotten; their prince is no longer the mere Duke of Pirates,[994] whom a loyal Frenchman spoke of as seldom as he could; the cherished ally of the Parisian King is now spoken of with every respect as the Duke of Rouen.[995] The chief French historian of the time is as ready to exaggerate the external power and influence of the second Richard as ever his own Dudo was to exaggerate those of his father.[996] Richard, on the other hand, did not hesitate to have his gifts to his own Fécamp confirmed by his over-lord,[997] and he dated his public acts by the regnal years of the King.[998] And no wonder; for it is plain that the Norman Duke [Sidenote: Strict alliance between King Robert and Duke Richard.] was the mainstay of the French kingdom. Robert, though the most pious of men, could not avoid either temporal warfare, ecclesiastical censures, or domestic oppression.[999] In the last two classes of afflictions Norman help could hardly avail him, but in all Robert’s wars Richard proved a steady and valuable ally. The help of the Norman [Sidenote: 1003.] Duke enabled his over-lord to maintain his claims over the ducal Burgundy,[1000] and Norman troops served along with those both of the French King and of the German Cæsar in a war against their common vassal of Flanders. The [Sidenote: 1006.] Imperial and royal saints united their forces against the city of Valenciennes, and the more purely temporal help of [Sidenote: Friendly relations with Britanny.] the Norman Duke was arrayed on the same side.[1001] With his Breton neighbours or vassals Richard was on good terms. The friendship between him and the Breton Count Geoffrey was cemented by an exchange of sisters between [Sidenote: 1008.] the two princes. Richard married Judith of Britanny,[1002] and Hadwisa of Normandy became the wife of Geoffrey, on whose death her sons, Alan and Odo, were placed under the guardianship of their uncle and lord.[1003] With another neighbour and brother-in-law Richard found it less easy to remain on friendly terms. His sister Matilda had married Odo the Second, Count of Chartres, the grandson of the old enemy Theobald. The town and part of the district of Dreux had been given to Odo as her marriage [Sidenote: War with Odo of Chartres.] portion,[1004] and this, on her death, he refused to give back. A war followed, which was made conspicuous by the foundation of the famous castle of Tillières,[1005] which long remained a border fortress of Normandy. Of course every effort of Odo to take or surprise the Norman outpost was rendered hopeless by Norman valour, and yet we are told that Richard found it expedient to resort to help of a very questionable kind to support him against his enemy. The Normans were now Frenchmen; Duke Richard and his court of gentlemen[1006] had doubtless quite forgotten their Scandinavian mother-tongue; some traces of the old nationality may still have lingered at Bayeux, but, as a whole, Normandy was now French in language, feeling, and religion. But the old connexion with the North was still cherished. We have already seen how the friendly reception which the Danish invaders of England met with in the Norman ports had led to hostile relations between Normandy and England.[1007] So now we have the old story of Harold Blaatand over again.[1008] Richard, like his father, does not scruple to bring heathen invaders into Gaul to help him against his Christian enemies. And, just as in the second appearance of Harold Blaatand, this shameful help is called in at a time when there seems to be no need for if, at a time when the Norman arms are completely victorious. Odo could surely have been crushed by the combined forces of Normandy and Britanny,[1009] even if King Robert was not disposed to repay [Sidenote: Brittany ravaged by two heathen Kings, Lacman and Olaf. 1013?] in kind the services of his loyal vassal. The tale however, as we find it, represents the Norman Duke as entering into a league with two heathen Kings, who were engaged in inflicting the most cruel ravages on his own vassals and allies of Britanny, having just taken and burned the frontier city of Dol.[1010] These Kings are described as Lacman of Sweden and Olaf of Norway. With regard to the former there must be a mistake of some kind, as no King bearing any such name occurs in Swedish [Sidenote: Identity of this Olaf with Saint Olaf Haraldsson.] history. But we are given to understand that the Olaf spoken of was no other than the famous Olaf Haraldsson the Saint.[1011] One story of the early life of Olaf seems to be about as mythical as another; but something is proved when two independent narratives agree. Of the busy career in England which the Northern legend assigns to Olaf not a trace is to be found in any English writer. But the presence of Olaf in Normandy is asserted alike [Sidenote: Richard allies himself with them.] by Norman and by Norwegian tradition. According to the Norman tale, the ravagers of Britanny left their prey, sailed to Rouen in answer to the Duke’s summons, [Sidenote: Mediation of King Robert.] and were there honourably received by him. But if Duke Richard did not shrink from such guests at Rouen, King Robert was naturally afraid of their appearance at Paris. After the treatment which the Bretons had received, all Gaul was endangered by their presence.[1012] The King then held, what is so rare in the history of France, so common in that of England and Germany, an assembly of the Princes of his realm.[1013] The royal summons was obeyed both by the Duke of the Normans and by the Count of Chartres. Peace was made by the mediation of the King; Count Odo kept his town of Dreux, and Duke Richard kept his new fortress of Tillières. The heathen Kings were to be got rid of as they might. Duke Richard persuaded them by rich gifts to go away then, and to promise to come again if they were wanted. One of them, Olaf, was converted to Christianity with many of his comrades. He was baptized by Archbishop Robert, and his career of sanctity begins forthwith.[1014]

[Sidenote: Amount of truth to be found in these stories.]

Stories of this kind can hardly be admitted into history without a certain amount of dread lest the historian may prove to have opened his text for the reception of a mere piece of romance. They are stories which we cannot venture unhesitatingly to accept, but which we are not at all in a position unhesitatingly to deny. They are stories of which it is safest to say that the details are sure to be mythical, but that there is likely to be some groundwork of truth at the bottom. It is impossible to read this tale of the alliance of Richard the Good with Olaf and Lacman, without a lurking feeling that it may be the tale of Richard the Fearless and Harold Blaatand moved from its old place and fitted with a new set of names. If we get thus far, it is hardly possible to avoid going a step further, and asking whether the mythical element is not strong in the tale of Harold Blaatand himself. And it is hardly less difficult to read the story of the two heathen Kings, of whom one is converted, while the other seemingly goes away stiffnecked in his old errors, without asking whether the tale is not merely a repetition of the history of the dealings of Æthelred with Swegen and Olaf Tryggvesson twenty years before.[1015] Still we are hardly justified in altogether rejecting stories which we cannot disprove, and which rest on authority, certainly not first-rate, but still such as we are generally content to accept for statements which have no inherent [Sidenote: Their witness to the abiding connexion between Normandy and the North.] unlikelihood about them. And after all, in this particular case, the mere existence of the stories proves something of more importance than the particular facts which they profess to relate. Whether the tales either of Harold or of Olaf be historically true or not, the fact that such tales could obtain belief, and could find a place in recognized Norman history, shows that a strong feeling of connexion between Normandy and the Scandinavian mother-land must have lived on, even after all outward traces of Scandinavian descent had passed away.

[Sidenote: Foreign expeditions and conquests of the Normans.]

Another feature in Norman history, which has its beginning in the reign of Richard the Good, is still more closely connected with our immediate subject. It was in the days of this prince that the Normans of the Norman duchy began to play an independent part beyond their own borders, and to enter on that series of foreign expeditions and foreign conquests of which the Norman Conquest of England was the last and greatest example.[1016] The earlier Dukes had founded the duchy; they had enlarged its borders; they had defended it against aggression from without, and had developed its resources within. The alliance between Richard the Good and King Robert had caused the Norman arms to be felt and dreaded throughout the length and breadth of Gaul. But now the limits both of the Norman duchy and of the French kingdom became too narrow for the energies both of the sovereigns of Normandy and of their subjects. The part played by the Normans in Europe had hitherto been

## partly defensive and partly secondary. They had withstood French,

English, and German invasions, and they had aided their lords, ducal and royal, at Paris in a variety of military adventures. But now that no invader was to be feared, now that the Norman state held a fully established position in France and in Europe, the old Scandinavian spirit of distant enterprise and distant conquest awoke again. The Christian and French-speaking Norman was now as ready to jeopard his life and fortune in distant lands as ever his heathen and Scandinavian forefathers had been. The days of the actual crusades had not yet come, but already, while warfare of all kinds had charms, warfare against misbelievers was beginning to be clothed with a special charm in the eyes of the Christian chivalry of Normandy. As yet no distant conquest had been undertaken by any Norman Duke. Yet even under Richard the Good we find the power of Normandy employed beyond the bounds of the French kingdom, and in a cause which was not that of any immediate interest [Sidenote: Burgundian War. 1024.] of the Norman duchy. Besides the campaign in which Duke Richard vindicated the claim of his over-lord over the ducal Burgundy, he carried his arms beyond the frontier of the Western Kingdom into that further Burgundy which still kept its own line of Kings, and which was soon to return to its allegiance to Cæsar. Reginald, Count of the Burgundian Palatinate, had married Richard’s daughter Adeliza. Towards the end of Richard’s reign, this prince fell into the hands of his turbulent neighbour, Hugh, Count of Challon[1017] and Bishop of Auxerre. Hugh was a vassal of France, while Reginald’s dominions were held in fief of the last Burgundian King, the feeble Rudolf, himself little better than a vassal of the Emperor. But neither King nor Cæsar stepped forward to chastise the wrong-doer or to set free the captive. It was a Norman army, under the young Richard, son of the Duke, which presently taught the Count-prelate that a son-in-law of the Duke of the Normans could not be wronged with impunity.[1018]

But far greater and more enduring exploits than these were wrought during the reign of Richard, not by the public force of the Norman duchy, but by the restless energy of private Norman adventurers. An attempt to establish a Norman settlement in Spain came to nought; but in this period were laid the foundations of that great Norman settlement in Southern Italy which had such an [Sidenote: Exploits of Roger of Toesny in Spain. 1018.] important effect on the future history of Europe. Roger of Toesny was the first to carry the Norman arms into the Spanish peninsula. Spain had long before attracted the attention of a Norman sovereign; it was to Spain, as a heathen land, to which Richard the Fearless had persuaded the unbelieving portion of his Scandinavian allies to depart.[1019] It was in Spain, as the battle-ground of Christian and Saracen, that Roger now sought at once to wage warfare against the misbeliever and to carve out a dominion for himself. Roger was of the noblest blood of Normandy, boasting a descent from Malahulc, uncle of Rolf,[1020] and he may well have looked down upon the upstart gentlemen whose nobility had no higher source than the tardy bridal of their kinswoman Gunnor.[1021] Roger fought manfully against the infidels, and marvellous tales are told of his daring, his hard-won victories, his deeds of cannibal ferocity.[1022] He married the daughter of the widowed Countess of Barcelona, a princess whose dominions were practically Spanish, though her formal allegiance was due to the Parisian King. This marriage was doubtless designed as the beginning of a Norman principality in Spain; but the scheme failed to take any lasting root.

[Sidenote: Norman Conquest of Apulia and Sicily. 1016–1090.]

The exploits of the Normans in Italy, which began in the reign of Richard, form a theme of the highest interest, but one on which it is dangerous to enter, lest I should be drawn too far away both from my central subject and from those which directly bear upon it. On English, and even on Norman, affairs the influence of these great events was [Sidenote: The Conquest of England perhaps partly suggested by it.] merely indirect. One can hardly doubt that the wonderful successes of their countrymen in the South of Europe did much to suggest to the minds of those Normans who stayed at home that a still greater conquest nearer home was not wholly hopeless. The unsuccessful attempt of Duke Robert, which we shall presently have to mention, and the successful attempt of his greater son, may well have been partly suggested by the exploits of the sons of Tancred in Apulia. When private adventurers thus grew into sovereigns, what might not be done by the sovereign of Normandy himself, wielding the whole force of the land which gave birth to men like them? For it must be remembered that the Norman conquest of Apulia was no national enterprise, no conquest made in regular warfare waged by the Duke of the Normans against any other potentate. Private Norman adventurers, pilgrims returning from the Holy Land, Norman subjects under the displeasure of their own Duke,[1023] gentlemen of small estate whom the paternal acres could no longer maintain, gradually deprived the Roman Empire of the East[1024] of the remnant of its Western possessions, and won back the greatest of Mediterranean islands from the dominion of Mahomet to that of Christ. The sons of Tancred of Hauteville began as wikings who had changed their element; they gradually grew into Counts, Dukes, Kings, and Emperors. And, when the first horrors of conquest were over, no conquerors, not even Cnut himself, ever deserved better of the conquered. The noble island of Sicily, so long the battle-field of Europe and Africa, the land which Greece, Rome, Byzantium, had so long striven to guard or to recover from the incursions of the Carthaginian and the Arab, became, under her Norman Kings, the one example of really equal and tolerant government which the world could then show. Under the Norman sceptre the two most civilized races of the world,[1025] the Greek and the Saracen, could live together in peace, and could enrich their common country with the results of skill [Sidenote: Conquest of Sicily by Henry the Sixth. 1194–5.] and industry such as no Northern realm could rival. For once we are driven to blush for our common Teutonic blood, when we see how this favoured portion of the world, the one spot where contending creeds and races could display their best qualities under the sway of a common and impartial ruler, was enslaved and devastated and trodden under foot by the selfish ambition of a Teutonic invader.

The relations of Richard with England, his war with Æthelred,[1026] his dealings with Swegen,[1027] his reception of his fugitive brother-in-law and his children,[1028] have been already [Sidenote: Unbroken peace between Richard and Cnut.] spoken of. With Cnut he seems to have maintained perfect peace. His nephews, the sons of Æthelred and Emma, found shelter at his court, but only shelter. Of any attempt on their behalf, of any interference in the internal affairs of England, the wary Duke seems never to have thought. We must hasten on to the reign of another Norman prince, whose relations to our island were widely different.

[Sidenote: Death of Richard. 1026.]

Richard died after a reign of thirty years. Before his death he assembled the chief men of his duchy, and by their advice he settled the duchy itself on his eldest son Richard, and the county of Hiesmes on his second son [Sidenote: Reign of Richard the Third.] Robert as his brother’s vassal.[1029] Disputes arose between the brothers; Robert was besieged in his castle of Falaise, and when peace was made by the submission of Robert, the Duke did not long survive his success. After a reign of two years he died by poison,[1030] as was generally believed, [Sidenote: Robert succeeds. 1028.] and was succeeded by his brother.[1031] Robert, known as the Magnificent,[1032] is most familiar to us in English history as the father of the Conqueror. But he has no small claims on our notice on his own account. What the son carried out, the father had already attempted. Robert was in will, though not in deed, the first Norman conqueror of England.[1033] In the early part of his reign he had to struggle against several revolts in his own dominions. [Sidenote: He suppresses revolts at home.] We are not directly told what were the grounds of opposition to his government; but we are at least not surprised to hear of revolts against a prince who had attained to his sovereignty under circumstances so suspicious. But Robert overthrew all his domestic enemies,[1034] and he is at least not charged with any special cruelty in the reestablishment [Sidenote: He reduces Britanny to submission.] of his authority. With Britanny he did not remain on the same friendly terms as his father. His cousin Alan refused his homage, but he was brought to submission.[1035] In this warfare Neal of Saint-Saviour, who had so valiantly beaten off the English in their invasion of the Côtentin, appears side by side with a warrior whose name of Ælfred raises the strongest presumption of his English birth. The banishments of the earlier days of Cnut will easily account for so rare an event as that of an Englishman taking service under a foreign prince.[1036] But it was as the protector of unfortunate princes that Robert seems to have been most anxious to appear before the [Sidenote: He restores Baldwin of Flanders.] world. Baldwin of Flanders, driven from his dominions by his rebellious son, was restored by the power of the Norman Duke.[1037] A still more exalted suppliant presently implored his help. His liege lord, Henry, King of the French, was driven to claim the support of the mightiest of his vassals against foes who were of his own household. [Sidenote: King Robert and his sons.] King Robert had at first designed the royal succession for his eldest son Hugh, whom, according to a custom common in France, though unusual in England, he caused [Sidenote: Hugh is crowned and dies before him.] to be crowned in his lifetime.[1038] Hugh, a prince whose merits, we are told, were such that a party in Italy looked to him as a candidate for the Imperial crown,[1039] was, after some disputes with his father, reconciled to him, and died before him. Robert then chose as his successor his second son Henry, who was already invested with the [Sidenote: Henry crowned in his father’s lifetime.] duchy of Burgundy. Henry was accordingly accepted and crowned at Rheims.[1040] But the arrangement displeased Queen Constance, who was bent on the promotion of her [Sidenote: Death of King Robert.] third son Richard. On King Robert’s death, Constance and Richard expelled Henry, who took refuge with his [Sidenote: Henry expelled, and restored] Norman vassal, and was restored by his help, Richard being allowed to receive his brother’s duchy of Burgundy.[1041] [Sidenote: by Duke Robert. 1031.] The policy of Hugh the Great had indeed won for his house a mighty protector in the descendant of the pirates.

[Sidenote: The English Æthelings in Normandy.]

But there were other banished princes who had a nearer claim upon Duke Robert than his Flemish neighbour, a nearer personal claim than even his lord at Paris. The English Æthelings, his cousins Eadward and Ælfred, were still at his court, banished from the land of their fathers, while the Danish invader filled the throne of their fathers. Their mother had wholly forgotten them; their uncle had made no effort on their behalf; Robert, their cousin, was the first kinsman who deemed it any part of his business to assert their right to a crown which seemed to [Sidenote: Contradictory evidence as to the relations between Cnut and Robert.] have hopelessly passed away from their house. That Robert did make an attempt to restore them, that the relations between him and Cnut were unfriendly on other grounds, there seems no reason to doubt. But when we ask for dates and details, we are at once plunged into every kind of confusion and contradiction. The English writers are silent; from the German writers we learn next to nothing; the Scandinavian history of this age is still at least half mythical; the Norman writers never held truth to be of any moment when the relations of Normandy and England were concerned. That Robert provoked Cnut by threats or attempts to restore the Æthelings, and also by ill-treating and repudiating Cnut’s sister, seem to be facts which we may accept in the bare outline, whatever we say as to their minuter details. That Cnut retaliated by an invasion of Normandy, or that the threat of such an invasion had an effect on the conduct of the sovereigns of Normandy, are positions which are strongly asserted by various authorities. But their stories are accompanied by circumstances which directly contradict the witness of authorities which are far more trustworthy. In fact, the moment we get beyond the range of the sober contemporary Chronicles of our own land, we find ourselves in a region in which the mythical and romantic elements outweigh the historical, and moreover, in whatever comes from Norman sources, we have to be on our guard against interested invention as well as against honest error.

[Sidenote: Marriages of Estrith with Ulf and Robert.]

We have seen that Estrith, a sister of Cnut, was married to the Danish Earl Ulf, the brother-in-law of Godwine, to whom she bore the famous Swegen Estrithson, afterwards King of the Danes, one of the most renowned princes in Danish history. We are told by a crowd of authorities that, besides her marriage with Ulf, Estrith was married to the Duke of the Normans, that she was ill-treated by him in various ways, and was finally sent back with ignominy to her brother. Most of the writers who tell this story place this marriage before her marriage with Ulf, and make the Danish Earl take the divorced [Sidenote: Supposed wars between Cnut and Robert.] wife of the Norman Duke. With this story several writers connect another story of an invasion, or threatened invasion, of Normandy undertaken by Cnut in order to redress his sister’s wrongs. The most popular Danish writer even makes Cnut die, in contradiction to all authentic history, while besieging Rouen. We read also how the Norman Duke fled to Jerusalem or elsewhere for fear of the anger of the lord of six Northern kingdoms. Details of this kind are plainly mythical; but they point to some real quarrel, to some war, threatened if not actually waged, between Cnut and Robert. And chronology, as well as the tone of the legends, shows that the whole of these events must be placed quite late in Cnut’s reign. [Sidenote: Robert probably married Estrith.] The natural inference is that the marriage between Robert and Estrith took place, not before Estrith’s marriage with Ulf, but after Ulf’s death. The widow was richly [Sidenote: after Ulf’s death. c. 1026.] endowed; her brother had atoned for the slaughter of her husband by territorial grants which might well have moved the greed of the Norman. A superior attraction nearer his own castle may easily account for Robert’s neglect of his Scandinavian bride, a bride no doubt many years older than the young Count of Hièsmes. Within three years after Estrith’s widowhood, Robert became the father of him who was preeminently the Bastard.[1042]

[Sidenote: Robert’s intervention on behalf of the Æthelings. 1028–1035.]

It seems impossible to doubt that Robert’s intervention on behalf of his English cousins was connected with these events. The reign of Robert coincides with the last seven years of the reign of Cnut, so that any intervention of Robert in English affairs must have been in Cnut’s later days. Each prince would doubtless seize every opportunity of annoying the other; the tale clearly sets Robert before us as the aggressor; but as to the order of events we are left to guess. It would be perfectly natural, in a man of Robert’s character, if the repudiation of Estrith was accompanied, or presently followed, by the assertion of the claims of the Æthelings to her brother’s crown. The date then of the first contemplated Norman invasion of England can be fixed only within a few years; but the story, as we read it in the Norman accounts, seems credible enough in its general outline.[1043] The Duke sends an embassy to Cnut, demanding, it would seem, the cession of the whole kingdom of England to the rightful heir. That Cnut refused to surrender his crown is nothing wonderful, though the Norman writer seems shocked that the exhortation of the Norman ambassadors did not at once bring conviction to [Sidenote: Robert’s unsuccessful attempt] the mind of the usurper.[1044] The Duke then, in great wrath, determines to assert the claims of his kinsmen by force of [Sidenote: to invade England.] arms. An assembly of the Normans is held, a forerunner of the more famous assembly at Lillebonne, in which the invasion of England is determined on. A fleet is made ready with all haste, and Duke Robert and the Ætheling Eadward embark at Fécamp. But the wind was contrary; instead of being carried safely to Pevensey, the fleet was carried round the Côtentin and found itself on the coast of Jersey.[1045] All attempts were vain; the historian piously adds that they were frustrated by a special Providence, because God had determined that his servant Eadward should make his way to the English crown without the shedding of blood.[1046] The Duke accordingly gave up his enterprise on behalf of his cousin of England, and employed his fleet in a further harrying of the dominions of his cousin of Britanny.[1047] At last Robert, Archbishop of Rouen, the common uncle of Robert and Alan,[1048] reconciled the two princes, and the fleet seems now to have sailed to Rouen.[1049] Thus far we have a story, somewhat heightened in its details, but which may be taken as evidence that Robert, who had restored the fugitive sovereigns of France and Flanders, really thought of carrying on his calling of King-maker beyond the sea. Robert, a thorough knight-errant, doubtless designed the restoration of his cousin in perfect good faith, and with no more intention of any gain to himself than he had shown in the [Sidenote: Probable results of the success of such an invasion.] restorations of Baldwin and Henry. But if a Norman army had once landed in England, it would not have been so easy to bring it home again as it was to bring home an army which had simply marched into France or Flanders. Cnut, with no Tostig, no Harold Hardrada, to divert him from the main danger, and with the force of his other kingdoms ready to back him, would most likely have speedily crushed the invader. But had it been otherwise, one can hardly fancy that the results of the English expedition would have been of as little moment as the results of the French and the Flemish expedition. In France and Flanders Robert had simply turned the scale between two princes of the same house. But if a Norman army had set one of the sons of Æthelred on the English throne, the result would have been something more than a mere personal change of sovereign. Had Eadward held his crown by virtue of a victory won by Norman troops over Cnut’s Danes and Englishmen, the practical aspect of such a revolution could have hardly differed at all from the revolution which did take place under William. The prince thus established in his kingdom would have been, according to formal pedigrees, the _cyne-hlaford_, the descendant of Ælfred, Cerdic, and Woden. But half-Norman by birth, wholly Norman in feeling, raised to his throne by Norman swords, Eadward would have reigned still more thoroughly as a Frenchman than he did reign when, a few years later, he came to the crown in a more peaceable way. The storm, or whatever it was, which kept back Duke Robert from his invasion of England, put off the chances of a Norman Conquest for nearly forty years.

[Sidenote: Cnut said to have offered the succession of Wessex to the Æthelings.]

The Norman writers wind up their story with an assertion which is much less credible than their account of the expedition itself. Robert, on his return from his Breton expedition, was met in the very nick of time[1050] by ambassadors from Cnut offering half of the kingdom of England to the sons of Æthelred. The lord of Northern Europe was sick, and felt himself near his end; he therefore wished for peace during the remnant of his days.[1051] Of course this is not to be understood as an offer of an immediate surrender of any part of his dominions. What is meant is that Cnut offered to secure peace with Normandy by acknowledging Eadward as his successor in the kingdom of Wessex. The Norman and the Danish accounts may be set one against another. Any number of embassies may have passed between the two princes; any amount of mutual threatenings may have been exchanged; but Cnut’s fear of Robert and Robert’s fear of Cnut may [Sidenote: Improbability of the story.] be set aside as equally mythical. The Norman story is utterly improbable. Nothing could be more unlikely than a disposition made by Cnut in favour of either of his stepsons. He could have no personal motive for alienating any portion of his dominions from his own children. In almost any other case the influence of his wife would supply a natural and sufficient motive for such an arrangement. But all that we hear of Emma leads us to believe that her whole heart was set on Harthacnut and Gunhild, and that she was not at all likely to use her influence on behalf of her sons by Æthelred. And had Cnut made any such disposition in favour of Eadward or Ælfred, it could hardly have failed to leave some trace in English history. But among all the disputes which followed on the death of Cnut, we hear not a word of the claims of the Æthelings, we hear nothing of any single voice raised in their favour.[1052] Still that tale may have been the distortion of something which really happened. We must not forget that Harthacnut was Robert’s cousin no less than Eadward. It may be that some announcement or confirmation of Cnut’s intentions in his favour, as opposed to the succession of Harold or Swegen, may have been made by Cnut to the Norman Duke. Such an announcement might easily have been mistaken by Norman writers, ill informed about English affairs, for a disposition in favour of another son of Emma.

[Sidenote: Deaths of Cnut and Robert.]

Whatever the relations between Cnut and Robert may have been, the two princes died in the same year.[1053] When Cnut made his pilgrimage to Rome, religious motives were doubtless the leading cause of his journey. But the politic King knew how to make use of the errand which was to profit his soul in order to advance at once his own power and credit and the interests of the many nations over which he ruled. A fit of purer religious enthusiasm, a fierce impulse of penitence for past sins, carried Robert of Normandy on the more distant pilgrimage to Jerusalem.[1054] On his return he died at the [Sidenote: Robert dies at Nikaia. July 2, 1035.] Bithynian Nikaia; some say by the same fate by which he was suspected of having made away with his own brother.[1055] In his lifetime he had begun to rear the noble abbey of Cerisy, where, after many changes and mutilations, some parts still remain to witness to the severe grandeur of the taste of Robert and his age.[1056] But the bones of its founder were not destined to rest among its massive pillars or beneath the bold arches which span the width of its stately nave. The relics which he had collected in the East were borne by his chamberlain Toustain to the sanctuary which he had founded,[1057] but the great Duke of the Normans[1058] himself found his last home in the lands beyond the Hellespont, beneath the spreading cupolas of a Byzantine basilica at Nikaia.[1059] The Norman thus died a stranger and a pilgrim in a land of another tongue [Sidenote: Cnut dies at Shaftesbury. November 12, 1035.] and another worship. The Dane too ended his days in a land which was not his by birth; but it was in a land in which, if he had entered it as a destroyer, he had truly reigned as a father. Cnut, Emperor of six kingdoms, but in a special manner King of the old West-Saxon realm, died within the West-Saxon border, at a spot hallowed by memories of Ælfred, beneath the shadow of his minster at Shaftesbury.[1060] As an English King by adoption, if not by birth, he found a grave among the English Kings who had gone before him, in the Old Minster of his West-Saxon capital. The two rivals, if rivals they were, passed from the Western world almost at the same moment; the death of Cnut happened about the time when the death of Robert must have become known in England and in Normandy. The dominions of both rulers passed away to their spurious or doubtful offspring. The son of Herleva succeeded in Normandy; the supposed son of “the other Ælfgifu” succeeded in [Sidenote: Contrast between their successors.] England. But if there be a wide difference between the fame of the two fathers, it is far more than overbalanced by the difference between the fame of their sons. A reign of a few obscure years of crime and confusion forms the sole memory of the Bastard of Northampton, while the world has ever since rung, and while it lasts it can hardly ever fail to ring, with the mighty name of the Bastard of Falaise.

§ 3. _The Reign of Harold the Son of Cnut._ 1035–1040.

[Sidenote: Extent of Cnut’s Empire.]

The good fortune of Cnut had raised him up an Empire in Northern Europe to which there was no parallel before or after him. Setting aside descriptions of his power which are manifestly gross exaggerations, he united the kingdom of England and its dependencies with the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway. As to his intentions with regard to the disposition of these vast dominions after his death our information is unfortunately most [Sidenote: Comparison between the partition of the Empire of Cnut and that of Charles.] meagre. It seems clear that, like Charles the Great, he designed a partition among his children; it is not clear whether, like Charles, he designed to keep up any kind of connexion among his various kingdoms, by the investiture of one among his sons with any Imperial superiority over the others.[1061] Like Charles, he had established his sons as kings during his lifetime in his subordinate [Sidenote: England the centre of Cnut’s Empire.] kingdoms. I say subordinate kingdoms, because nothing can be plainer than that, in Cnut’s eyes, Denmark and Norway were little more than dependencies of England. [Sidenote: The Scandinavian States ruled by Under-kings.] England was the seat of his own dominion, while the Scandinavian kingdoms were entrusted to viceroys or Under-kings. Swegen, with his mother Ælfgifu, had reigned in Norway; Denmark, it would seem, had been placed at one time under Harold and at another under Harthacnut. In both countries we see signs of disaffection towards Cnut’s government, while we see none such in England. The rule of Swegen and his mother is said to have been highly oppressive in Norway. In Denmark we even hear of an attempt, headed by Earl Ulf and said to be favoured by Queen Emma, to displace Cnut in favour of Harthacnut. The reason assigned is the preference shown [Sidenote: Impossibility of retaining the connexion between England and Scandinavia.] by Cnut to England and Englishmen. If then Cnut had any idea of permanently annexing his Scandinavian possessions to his English Empire, any idea, in short, of reducing Denmark and Norway to the condition of Wales and Scotland, such schemes had very little chance of any lasting success. Wales and Scotland were part of the same island with England, yet to keep them in any lasting subjection was always hard; to keep countries so remote as [Sidenote: Ephemeral nature of such] Denmark and Norway was hopelessly impossible. Empires like those of Alexander, Charles, and Cnut are in their own [Sidenote: Empires in general.] nature ephemeral. The process of their formation may, as in the cases of Alexander and Charles, leave results behind it which affect the whole later history of the world; but the Empires themselves are ephemeral. As united dominions, swayed by a single will, they last only as long as there is an Alexander or a Charles at their head; they fall to pieces as soon as the sceptre of the great conqueror passes into weaker hands. So it was with the Anglo-Scandinavian Empire of the great Cnut. With our scanty knowledge, we cannot positively either assert or deny that he dreamed of preserving any kind of union [Sidenote: Cnut’s designs not carried out.] among his vast and widely severed dominions. If he did entertain such thoughts, his designs were scattered to the winds immediately upon his own death. When he died, Swegen was in possession of Norway, and Harthacnut in possession of Denmark. It appears that England also was designed for the son of Emma, Cnut’s specially royal offspring, the one son who was the child of a crowned King and his Lady. What provision, if any, was made for Harold by his father’s last dispositions does not appear. But things turned out far otherwise than Cnut had [Sidenote: Swegen expelled from Norway. 1036.] intended. Swegen was almost immediately driven out of Norway, and Magnus, the son of Saint Olaf, was received as King. In Denmark Harthacnut kept possession, though the aspect of Magnus was threatening. In England, as usual, all attempts to influence the free choice of the Witan before the vacancy came to nothing. If Cnut tried to do more than exercise that vague power of recommending a successor which the law vested in him, his bequest went for as little as the older bequest of Æthelwulf had gone.[1062]

[Sidenote: State of England on the death of Cnut.]

The events which immediately followed the death of Cnut are told with much contradiction and confusion; but, by closely attending to the most trustworthy authorities, it is not very hard to make out the general order [Sidenote: The West-Saxons for Harthacnut.] of events.[1063] It appears that the will of the late King in favour of Harthacnut was upheld by the West-Saxons with Godwine their Earl at their head. That the English were divided, some being for Harthacnut and some for one of the sons of Æthelred, is a statement which seems hardly to rest on sufficient authority.[1064] On the other hand, Harold, the supposed son of Cnut and of Ælfgifu of Northampton, also appeared as a candidate. [Sidenote: Northumberland, Mercia, and London for Harold.] He seems to have been supported by Earl Leofric of Mercia, by the great body of the thegns north of the Thames, and by the “lithsmen,” the sea-faring folk, of London. It would even seem that he ventured on a daring act, whether we call it an act of sovereignty or [Sidenote: Harold spoils Emma.] of violence, before the election was held. He sent to Winchester and despoiled the Lady Ælfgifu-Emma of the treasures which had been left her by Cnut.[1065] Personally, as the event proved, both candidates were equally worthless; but each had strong political motives on his side, and it is clear that men’s passions were deeply stirred by the struggle. As far as we can see, Harold was the candidate of the North, Harthacnut of the South; Harold was the candidate of the Danes, Harthacnut of [Sidenote: Apparent motives of the two parties.] the English. At first sight this division of parties seems exactly opposite to what might have been expected. Harthacnut, the son of a Danish father and a Norman mother, had not a drop of English blood in his veins. Harold, if he was what he professed to be, the son of Cnut by the other Ælfgifu, was English at least by the mother’s side; if he was what scandal asserted him to be, the son of a shoemaker by some nameless mother, he was doubtless English on both sides. The election of Harthacnut involved the continuation of the connexion with Denmark; the election of Harold would again make England an independent and isolated kingdom. Yet English feeling lay with Harthacnut, Danish feeling lay [Sidenote: Attachment of the West-Saxons to Harthacnut as the legatee of Cnut.] with Harold. The explanation is probably to be found in the personal position of Cnut towards his West-Saxon subjects. He had lived more habitually among them than among the people of any other part of his dominions; the greatest of living Englishmen had been his minister and representative; he had in every way made Wessex his home, and Wessex had flourished under his government as it had never flourished before. It was no wonder then if the wishes of Cnut with regard to the succession or to anything else were looked on by the West-Saxon people as a sacred law. Harthacnut too, if not the descendant of their ancient rulers, was at least a kingly bairn, the son of a crowned King and his Lady. Who was Harold the bastard, whose parents no one knew for certain, that he should rule over them? If Harthacnut was at this moment in Denmark, his earliest days had been spent in England, while we have seen reason to believe that the earliest days of Harold had been spent in [Sidenote: Aspect of the connexion with Denmark.] Denmark. The continued connexion with Denmark which was implied in the choice of Harthacnut might even appear to patriotic Englishmen as an argument in favour of the Danish King.[1066] In the later days of Cnut the connexion with Denmark had taken a form which must have been distinctly gratifying to English, and above all to West-Saxon, national feeling. The lord of all Northern Europe had worn his Imperial crown in the old West-Saxon capital; he had thence sent forth his earls and his sons to govern his dependent realms of Denmark and Norway. As it had been in the days of Cnut, so men deemed that it would be in the days of Harthacnut. Denmark, like Mercia or Northumberland, would be only another earldom whence homage, and perhaps tribute, would be paid to the Imperial court and the Imperial treasure-house at Winchester. The sons of Æthelred were strangers; no man in England had seen them since their childhood; their claims had been made the pretext for a threatened foreign invasion; no sentiment attaching to their remoter ancestry could at all counterbalance the sentiment which attached to the undoubted, the royal, the chosen, son of the King who had given England eighteen years of peace, prosperity, and foreign dominion. West-Saxon feeling therefore took the shape of loyalty to the undoubted son of the late King, of obedience to his declared wishes as to the succession. Earl Godwine and all the men of his earldom were for Harthacnut.

[Sidenote: Motives in favour of Harold among the Danes and Northern English.]

On the other hand, it is not hard to see how Harold might appeal to a very intelligible line of feeling in the minds of the Danish and half-Danish inhabitants of Northern England. His bastardy would in their eyes be no objection. Whether we look on his mother as a mere concubine or as bound to Cnut by an irregular or uncanonical marriage, her children would, according to Danish notions, be as fit to reign as the children of the Norman Lady. Indeed a powerful vein of Northumbrian sentiment might not unnaturally attach to the grandson of the murdered Earl Ælfhelm. Harold’s election might seem to be the overthrow of the West-Saxon dominion over Danes and Angles; a day might seem to be coming in which Winchester would have to bow to York. And if the son of Ælfgifu thus had a local connexion with Northumberland, he had also a local connexion with Mercia. Whether by birth, by residence, or by maternal descent, the daughter of Ælfhelm was in some way Ælfgifu of Northampton, and her son might call on Mercian local feeling to support the claims of a countryman. Again, if Harold, after having been designed for the crown of Denmark and brought up in Denmark as a future Danish King, had been deprived by his father’s later arrangements of any share in either England or Denmark, Danish and Northumbrian feelings would centre round him still more strongly. He would become the embodiment of any jealousies which had been called forth by Cnut’s open preference of England to Denmark, by his preference of the Saxon part of England to the Anglian and Danish lands. It was better to have a King who should reign over England without Denmark, better to have a King who should reign over Northumberland and Mercia without Wessex, than for a West-Saxon King, of whatever ancestry, to hold both Northumberland and Denmark as dependencies. The old provincial feelings, often concealed but never completely stifled, ever ready to break out on any strong provocation, now broke out in their fulness. The Danish provinces sided with Harold. And with them we find a new element, the “lithsmen,” the nautic multitude [Sidenote: Danish settlement in London.] of London. The great city still kept her voice in the election of Kings, but that voice would almost seem to have been handed over to a new class among her population. We hear now, not of the citizens, but of the sea-faring men.[1067] Every invasion, every foreign settlement of any kind within the kingdom, has in every age added a new element to the population of London. As a Norman colony settled in London later in the century, so a Danish colony settled there now. Some accounts tell us, doubtless with great exaggeration, that London had now almost become a Danish city.[1068] But it is certain that the Danish element in the city was numerous and powerful, and that its voice strongly helped to swell the cry in favour of Harold. Northumberland, Mercia, and London thus demanded that the son of Ælfgifu of Northampton should, if possible, be King over all England; in the worst case they would have him, like Eadgar and like Cnut, for King over all Northumberland and Mercia.

There was perhaps no country except England in which such a question could have been settled in that age otherwise than at the cost of a civil war. But the firmly rooted principles of English law, the habit of constant meeting and discussion, had already produced some germs of the feeling to which the great English historian of Greece has [Sidenote: The controversy peacefully decided in the Witenagemót.] given the name of “constitutional morality.”[1069] The controversy was a sharp one; but it was decided, not on the field of battle, but in the debates of the Witenagemót. The usual midwinter meeting may, or may not, have been [Sidenote: Gemót of Oxford. Christmas, 1035?] forestalled by a few weeks; certain it is that, soon after the death of Cnut, the Witan of all England met in full Gemót at Oxford. That town was, no doubt, on this as on other occasions, recommended for the purpose by its position on the frontiers of the two great divisions of the kingdom. The national council proceeded to debate [Sidenote: Godwine maintains the claims of Harthacnut.] the claims of the two candidates. The great Earl of the West-Saxons, supported by the whole force of his earldom, strove to play the same part which Dunstan had played in the last recorded debate of the kind in a full and free Assembly of the Wise.[1070] His eloquent tongue set forth the claims of Harthacnut, the candidate recommended alike by undoubted kingly birth and by the wishes of the glorious sovereign whom they had lost. But this time the charmer charmed in vain. All that Godwine could gain for the son of the Lady was a portion of his father’s [Sidenote: The division of the kingdom proposed by Leofric,] kingdom. The proposal of a division seems to have come from Leofric, now Earl over all Mercia,[1071] who on all occasions appears as a mediator between the extreme parties of the North and the South. To this course he was prompted alike by his personal temper and by the geographical position of his earldom. Godwine and his party withstood for a while even this proposal; but the majority [Sidenote: and voted by the assembly.] was against them; the assembly decreed the division of England between the two candidates.[1072] Once more, but now for the last time in English history, the land had two [Sidenote: Harthacnut reigns in Wessex; Harold reigns north of Thames,] acknowledged Kings. Harold reigned to the north of the Thames and Harthacnut to the south. We are not distinctly told whether the two Kings were to be perfectly independent of each other, or whether, as in the case of Cnut and Eadmund, any Imperial supremacy was reserved [Sidenote: seemingly as superior lord.] to either of the half-brothers.[1073] But several indications seem to show that such a supremacy was reserved to Harold, and this supposition may perhaps help to explain some of the difficulties in the narrative which follows. Nor are we told of any stipulations as to the succession. It would follow, almost as a matter of course, that, if either of the brothers died childless, the survivor would be elected to [Sidenote: Rumoured refusal of Archbishop Æthelnoth to crown Harold.] his share of the kingdom. According to one account, Archbishop Æthelnoth, the friend of Cnut, still refused to consecrate Harold as King. He placed the crown and sceptre on the altar; Harold might seize them if he dared; but while a son of Emma lived, he, Æthelnoth, would crown no King but a son of Emma, and every Bishop of his province was equally forbidden to perform the rite. If this tale be true, it was an assertion of independence on the part of the ecclesiastical power for which we might in vain seek a parallel in the English history of those times. Æthelnoth, as a member of the Gemót, might give his vote for whichever candidate he thought good; but when the election was once made, he had clearly no right as Archbishop to refuse to consecrate the King chosen by the majority. But the tale is most likely a fiction. There seems to be little doubt that Harold was regularly crowned at Oxford by Æthelnoth, either now or after his later election to the whole kingdom.[1074] But, if the tale be true, and if it belongs to this time, it plainly implies the Imperial supremacy of Harold. With a mere King of the Mercians and Northumbrians, whether an Under-king or an altogether independent sovereign, the Archbishop of Canterbury, a West-Saxon subject, could have nothing to do.

[Sidenote: Harthacnut remains in Denmark.]

The kingdom was thus divided. The King-elect of the West-Saxons was in no hurry—the affairs of his Northern kingdom did not allow him to be in a hurry—to take personal possession of the fragment of a realm which was [Sidenote: Regency of Emma and Godwine in Wessex. 1035–1037.] all that Godwine had been able to keep for him. Emma appears to have been invested with a kind of regency in her son’s name, while Godwine still held his office as Earl, and with it the administration of the West-Saxon kingdom. It is specially mentioned that Harthacnut’s housecarls remained with Emma.[1075] The housecarls of Harthacnut had doubtless been the housecarls of Cnut; their loyalty was personal to their master, and it would naturally pass to his widow and her son. But that their presence was allowed in the West-Saxon kingdom and capital under the administration of Godwine clearly shows that they had not been employed during the late reign as instruments of oppression, and that they were not looked on with any general hatred by the people at large.

It was in the course of the next year that an event happened of which advantage has ever since been taken by hostile tongues and pens to stain the character of the great Earl of the West-Saxons with a charge of the blackest treachery. But even in the period on which we are now entering, a period in which we have at every step to weigh the conflicting statements of national and political partizanship, there is no event as to which the various versions of the tale are more utterly at variance with each other. The story is told with every conceivable variety of time, place, and person, and even our earliest and best authorities contain statements which cannot be reconciled [Sidenote: Attempt in favour of the Æthelings. 1036.] with one another. Thus much seems certain; first, that, about this time, one or both of the sons of Æthelred and Emma made an attempt to recover their father’s kingdom; secondly, that Ælfred, the younger of the two Æthelings, fell into the power of Harold and was cruelly put to death; thirdly, that Godwine was suspected of being an accomplice. [Sidenote: Conflicting versions of the story.] But beyond this, there is hardly a detail of the story which can be asserted with any confidence.[1076] The first point, that the attempt, whatever was its nature, took place soon after the death of Cnut and the first election of Harold, is placed beyond all doubt by the complete agreement of the best authorities. But very respectable secondary authorities have altogether misplaced the date, and they have thus given occasion for a lower class of compilers to load the story with endless mythical and [Sidenote: _Norman Version._] calumnious details. According to the Norman account, both the Æthelings had a share in the attempt. As soon as the death of Cnut was known in Normandy, Eadward [Sidenote: Invasion of England by Eadward.] set sail with forty ships and landed at Southampton. But the English, whether for love or for fear[1077] of their Danish King Harold, met them as enemies. Eadward fought a battle and defeated the English with great slaughter. But, reflecting how great was the strength of England and how small was the force which he had brought with him, he presently sailed away, taking with him great plunder. Soon after Eadward’s return, Ælfred set sail from Wissant[1078] and landed at Dover. As he went onwards into the country, Godwine met him, received him friendly, and seemingly did homage to him.[1079] The Earl and the Ætheling supped together, and talked over their plans. But in the night Godwine seized Ælfred, tied his hands behind his back, and thus sent him and some of his companions to London to King Harold. Others he put in prison, others he embowelled.[1080] Among those who were sent to London, Harold caused Ælfred’s chief companions to be beheaded, and the Ætheling himself to be blinded. In that state he was sent to Ely, naked and with his legs tied under his horse’s belly. He had not been long at Ely when he died, as the weapon with which his eyes had been cut out had wounded the brain.[1081]

[Sidenote: In this version his coming is hostile.]

In this Norman version the coming of Ælfred is simply part of a Norman invasion. Eadward had come with a force large enough to fight a battle; Ælfred’s force, we [Sidenote: _Version in two of the Chronicles._] are told, was still larger.[1082] The oldest English version, which it must not be forgotten takes the form of a ballad, knows nothing of any warlike expedition, and speaks of [Sidenote: Ælfred’s companions slain [by Godwine].] Ælfred only. According to this account, Ælfred came to England, whence or under what circumstances we are not told, and wished to go to his mother at Winchester. In this purpose he was hindered by men who were powerful at the time, and who unjustly favoured Harold. In one version these men are nameless; in another Godwine is named as their chief.[1083] Then the Ætheling and his companions are seized; some are killed outright, some are put in bonds, some sold as slaves, others blinded or put to various tortures and horrible deaths.[1084] No worse deed had ever been done since the Danes came into the land.[1085] All this was done, according to one version, by Godwine, according to the other, by Harold. The Ætheling still lived; so he was taken to Ely in a ship, blinded while still on board, given thus blinded to the monks, with whom he lived till he died soon after, and then was buried honourably in the minster.[1086]

There is yet quite another version, that of the special panegyrist of Emma, according to whom, it must be remembered, Eadward and Ælfred are not sons of Æthelred, but younger sons of Cnut and Emma, sent over to Normandy [Sidenote: Harold forges a letter from Emma to the Æthelings.] for education.[1087] Harold, anxious to destroy his half-brothers, forges a letter to them in the name of their mother. She tells them that she is Lady, only in name; Harold has usurped the kingdom and is daily strengthening himself; he is winning over the chief men by gifts, threats, and prayers. Yet the feeling of the nation is still in their favour rather than in that of Harold. Let one of her sons come over to her quickly and secretly; she can then consult with him what is to be done.[1088] The Æthelings fell into the snare; Ælfred, the younger of the brothers, went with a few comrades into Flanders; there he stayed a short time with the Marquess Baldwin, and increased his company by some adventurers from Boulogne.[1089] He then set sail, and came near to some point of the English coast which is not further described. But, as the inhabitants came down to the shore with evidently hostile intentions, he changed his course to another point equally undetermined. There he landed, and tried to go to his mother; on the way he was met by Godwine, who swore oaths to him and became his man.[1090] By the Earl’s advice he turned [Sidenote: Ælfred received by Godwine,] aside from London,[1091] and lodged at Guildford. There Godwine quartered Ælfred’s comrades in different houses in the town, leaving a few only to attend on the Ætheling himself. He feasted Ælfred and his companions, and withdrew to his own house, evidently in or near Guildford, promising to return in the morning to do his due service [Sidenote: but seized by the agents of Harold.] to his lord.[1092] But in the night the emissaries of Harold suddenly appeared in the town, seized the comrades of Ælfred, and sold, slew, or tortured them according to the usual story. The Ætheling was taken to Ely; there he was first mocked by the soldiers, then loaded with heavy fetters, brought before some kind of tribunal, and, by its sentence, blinded and finally put to death.[1093] The monks of Ely took his body and buried it, and miracles were of course wrought at his tomb.

[Sidenote: Estimate of the evidence.]

These are the main versions of the tale, the details of which, as well as some other accounts, I shall discuss elsewhere. Now when we come to compare them with one another, what is the judgement to which we ought to come? That Ælfred landed, that he and his comrades were cruelly put to death, there can be no doubt; but had Godwine any share in the deed? Before we examine the evidence, we must first try and understand what the real state of the case was. The unhappy fate of Ælfred caused him, according to the universal English instinct, to be looked on as a martyr; his tale became a piece of hagiology, to which, as to other pieces of hagiology, ordinary ways of thinking were not to be applied. This way of looking at the matter began very early; but, in order really to get to the bottom of the question, we must try and understand how things must have looked at the moment of Ælfred’s landing.

[Sidenote: Statement of the case.]

First of all, whatever was the crime either of Godwine or of Harold, we must remember that, in any case, it was not the kind of crime which the exaggerated language of some of our narratives would lead us to think. Godwine might be a traitor in the sense of one who betrays any fellow-creature to his ruin; on the worst showing, he was not a traitor in the sense of one who betrays or rebels against his lawful sovereign. Ælfred was not, as the legends of his martyrdom might seem to imply, a lawful King driven from his throne. Harold was not an usurper, keeping the lawful heir out of his lawful possession. Godwine was not a rebel, conspiring to betray a prince to whom his allegiance was lawfully due. According to any version of the story, Ælfred appeared in England as the enemy of a settled government, established by a regular vote of the legislature. As such it was the part and duty of the King, of the Earl, and of the whole people, to resist him. He was a pretender to the crown entering the kingdom at the head of a foreign force, whether great or small. There has never been any time or place in which such a pretender would not have been at once arrested; there have been few times and places in which such a pretender would not have been speedily put to death. Against the arrest of Ælfred not a word can be said in any age; his execution was perhaps more deeply offensive to the public feeling of the eleventh century, a time when the shedding of blood by the sentence of law was singularly rare,[1094] than it would have been to the public feeling of the fifteenth or the sixteenth century. The real question is whether either the arrest or the execution was accompanied with any circumstances of [Sidenote: Ælfred’s position analogous to that of the Stewart Pretenders.] treachery or needless cruelty. The sons of Æthelred were very much in the position of the elder and younger Pretenders in the reigns of George the First and Second. In both cases the power which had a right to dispose of the crown had disposed of it, and had not disposed of it in their favour. Now no man could have blamed any officer, civil or military, in the service of King George, for arresting either James or Charles Edward Stewart. In so doing he would simply have been doing his duty to his King and country. If either Pretender had been arrested, his execution would doubtless have been a very harsh measure; but it would have been a perfectly legal measure; he was attainted, and he might have been as regularly executed as Monmouth was. Nay, the letter of the law, as the law stood till the reign of George the Third, as it was actually enforced as late as the reign of Charles the Second, would have condemned the pretended Prince of Wales to indignities and torments quite as cruel as any that Harold Harefoot inflicted on the Ætheling and his companions.[1095] To have put James or Charles Stewart to death in the horrible form which the law decreed for the traitor would doubtless have called forth as fierce a storm of righteous indignation as was called forth by the death of the Ætheling Ælfred. Still the act would have been legal; it might have inflicted undying shame on the King and his counsellors who ordered it, but it would have been no ground of blame whatever against the gaoler, the sheriff, or the executioner. So it was with the case of Ælfred. According to one account, first Eadward and then Ælfred entered the land at the head of a foreign army; they tried, in short, to repeat the exploit of Cnut, to forestall the exploit of William. In banished men, eager for a restoration to their country on any terms, such conduct may admit of many excuses. Still, on the face of it, they put themselves in the position of open enemies of their country. If Eadward really landed at the head of a Norman army, if he really fought a battle against an English force at Southampton, those who withstood him were as plainly doing their simple duty as the men who fought at Maldon or on Senlac. Even if we reject this version, if we believe that Ælfred entered the country, not with an army but with a mere escort of strangers, still he was coming, seemingly without any invitation from any party in the country, to disturb a settlement which the legislature of the kingdom had established, and which he was not likely to upset except by force of arms. Men who run such desperate risks must take the consequences. [Sidenote: The real question as to Godwine; Was he guilty of treachery or needless cruelty?] If Godwine, as a military commander, fought against Eadward, if, as a civil magistrate, he arrested Ælfred, he simply did his duty and nothing else. The only question would be, as I before put it, Was there any treachery or needless cruelty in the matter? Now cruelty is perhaps of all charges that which most needs to be looked at with reference to the habits and feelings of the age. What one age looks on as mildness another age looks on as barbarity. But it is clear that the cruelties which were wrought by Harold on his captives deeply revolted the public opinion of the time in which he lived. As for deliberate treachery, that is a crime in all ages alike. If then we set aside accusations which rest on mere misconception of the case, the question remains whether the evidence is enough to convict Godwine either of personal treachery towards the Ætheling or of any share in the savage cruelties of Harold.

[Sidenote: Inconsistency of the ordinary story with the fact of the division of the Kingdom.]

Now in reading any version of the story one great difficulty at once presents itself. Godwine is always described as acting a part which, in his real position at the time, he cannot have acted. Not one of the versions of the tale takes any notice of the division of the kingdom. They all seem to look on Harold as sole King and to look on Godwine as his minister, or at least as his subject. Yet we know that, at this time, Godwine was neither Harold’s minister nor Harold’s subject. Harthacnut was still the acknowledged King, at all events King-elect, of the West-Saxons; Emma was still sitting at Winchester as regent in his name; Godwine, who had secured for them this remnant of dominion, was the chief minister and general of the Lady and her son. If Godwine acted in any way in the interest of Harold, it could only have been because Harold was, as I suggested above, the superior lord of his own sovereign—because the invasion, or attempt of whatever kind, made by the Æthelings threatened not only the rights of the King of the West-Saxons, but also the rights of the Emperor of Britain. This is certainly possible, but it is rather straining a point; nothing of the sort is at all implied in the language of any of the writers who tell the tale. They all, even the best informed, seem to know nothing of the kingship of Harthacnut and the regency of Emma. This seeming ignorance of writers, some of them contemporary, on such a point shows in the most remarkable way how soon and how completely the first ephemeral reign of Harthacnut was forgotten. But their forgetfulness certainly goes a good way to lessen the trustworthiness of their own tale. In fact the story as it stands cannot be made to agree with the known facts of the history. Godwine cannot have played the part attributed to him by his enemies while the arrangement decreed by the Witenagemót of Oxford was still in force. But the historical character of that arrangement is undoubted. That the kingdom really was divided, that Godwine really was at this time not the minister of Harold but the minister of Harthacnut, are facts which cannot be gain-sayed. The details of the story of Ælfred cannot have happened in the manner and at the time in which they are said to have happened. It was perhaps a feeling of this inconsistency which led several later writers to shift the story to a later time, to the time immediately following the death, not of Cnut, but of either Harold or Harthacnut. But the part played by Harold is the most essential part of the story; the tale cannot be fitted in to a later time except by a complete change of its circumstances. [Sidenote: The direct evidence against Godwine fails.] Altogether I think it must be allowed that the direct evidence brought to implicate Godwine in any guilty share in the business altogether breaks down.

[Sidenote: Early suspicions against Godwine.]

On the other hand, we have to explain the fact that Godwine was suspected, that the suspicion arose early and prevailed extensively, and that it was not confined to Godwine’s foreign enemies and slanderers. Godwine indeed was not the only person who was suspected. One tale or legend accused Emma herself; another laid the guilt to the charge of Lyfing, Bishop of Devonshire, a prelate who often appears as a powerful supporter of Godwine’s policy; in another version, if Godwine was the instigator, the English people in general seem to have been his accomplices.[1096] Still Godwine was specially suspected, and suspected while the memory of the event was still fresh. His own special apologist and panegyrist seems to imply that the charge against him was a mere invention of the Norman Archbishop Robert.[1097] This however was not the case; Godwine was formally accused and formally acquitted [Sidenote: [1040.]] of the crime soon after the accession of Harthacnut, four years after the event. He was acquitted, as we shall presently see,[1098] by the solemn judgement of the highest court in the realm, and he is fully entitled to the benefit of that acquittal. Still the mere fact of his accusation has to be explained. The charge, brought at such a time and in such a shape, could not have been a mere Norman slander. Godwine’s accuser, in fact, was an Englishman of the highest rank. Nor would a mere Norman slander ever have been embodied in popular songs, or have found [Sidenote: Some ground for the suspicion must be supposed.] a place in any version of the English Chronicles. Such a suspicion—strong, early, native—proves something. Godwine, guilty or innocent, must have done some act which, to say the least, was capable of an unlucky misconstruction. By putting together one or two hints in the different accounts, we may perhaps come to a probable conjecture as to what his share in the matter really was. There is one version, and only one, which, while consistent with Godwine’s innocence, explains the early and prevalent suspicion as to his guilt. Let us look how things stood. [Sidenote: Probable state of the case.] It seems that the feeling which broke out openly in the next year was already beginning to show itself; men were beginning, even in Wessex, to be weary of the absent Harthacnut. Well they might; to wait so long for an absent King, who, still uncrowned, unsworn, unanointed, could not be looked on as full King, was something of which no man had seen the like. It was not wonderful if popular feeling was, as we are told, veering round, whether wrongfully or not, in favour of Harold.[1099] At such a moment, a son of Æthelred, either knowing the state of the kingdom or eager to try his chance in any case, lands in England. We of course dismiss the story which speaks of actual invasion and warfare, which is probably a mere repetition of the attempted invasion by Duke Robert. [Sidenote: Godwine probably met Ælfred.] But the Ætheling was in England; if Godwine really wished to preserve the settlement which gave Wessex to a son of Emma, it might well occur to him to ask whether the game could not be better played with the present son of Æthelred than with the absent son of Cnut. He may have sought an interview with the Ætheling; he may even have pledged himself to his cause. But if a son of Æthelred was at large in England, the throne of Harold would be endangered as well as the throne of Harthacnut. Harold and his emissaries would be on the alert. The prince who had, perhaps before his election, seized on Emma’s treasures at Winchester, would not, in such a case, be very scrupulous about respecting the frontiers of his brother’s kingdom. Perhaps, if he were superior lord, he might have a real right to interfere in a matter which [Sidenote: Ælfred probably seized by Harold without Godwine’s connivance.] clearly touched the interests of the whole Empire. At any rate, if the Ætheling and his companions were known to be lodged in a West-Saxon town not very far from the borders of the Northern kingdom, it is perfectly conceivable that they might be seized by the agents of Harold, against the will or without the knowledge of Godwine. When the Ætheling was once seized and carried off, Godwine might well think that the game was up, that the star of Harold was fairly in the ascendant, and that neither interest nor duty called on him to plunge Wessex into a war with Northumberland and Mercia either to deliver Ælfred or to revenge his wrongs. Such conduct would not be that of a sentimental and impulsive hero; it would be that of a wary and hard-headed statesman. Such conduct would involve no real treachery; but it might easily give rise to the suspicion of treachery. If Godwine received the Ætheling, if Harold’s agents afterwards seized him, it would be an easy inference that Godwine betrayed him to Harold. As soon as the tale had once got afloat, mythical details would, as ever, gather round it. When Godwine was once believed to have betrayed Ælfred, it would be an obvious improvement on the story to make him a personal agent in the barbarities to which his supposed treason had given occasion. It is clear that the ordinary narrative, as it stands, cannot be received; but in some such explanation as this we may discern the probable kernel of truth on which the fabulous details gradually fastened themselves.[1100]

[Sidenote: Probable innocence of Godwine.]

On the whole then I incline to the belief that the great Earl, every other recorded deed of whose life is the deed of an English patriot, who on every other occasion appears as conciliatory and law-abiding, who is always as strongly opposed to everything like wrong or violence as the rude age in which he lived would let him be, did not, on this one occasion, act in a manner so contrary to his whole character as to resort to fraud or needless violence to compass the destruction of a man of English birth and kingly descent. The innocence of Godwine seems to me to be most likely in itself, most consistent with the circumstances of the time, and not inconsistent with such parts of our evidence as seem most trustworthy. But in any case, even if, while casting aside palpable fables and contradictions, we take the evidence, so far as it is credible, at the worst, even then it seems to me that the great Earl is at least entitled to a verdict of Not Proven, if not of Not Guilty.

[Sidenote: Disappointment of the hopes]

The next year after the unlucky attempt of Ælfred[1101] was marked by the breaking down of the short-lived arrangement [Sidenote: of the West-Saxons.] which had been made between the two sons of Cnut. The West-Saxons had seemingly supported Harthacnut as the representative of that policy of his father which had raised Wessex, not only to the headship of England and of all Britain, but to the practical headship of all Northern Europe. No hope on the part of any people was ever more grievously disappointed. No contrast could be greater than the contrast between Wessex in the days of Cnut and [Sidenote: Degrading position of Wessex.] Wessex in these two years of Harthacnut. Wessex was no longer the chosen dominion, Winchester was no longer the chosen capital, of an Emperor of the North, whose name was dreaded on the Baltic and reverenced on the Tiber. The old Imperial kingdom had sunk to be, what it had never been before, a dependent province ruled by representatives of an absent sovereign. A King of the Danes, who did not think England worthy of his presence, held the West-Saxon kingdom, seemingly as a vassal of the King of the Mercians and Northumbrians, and entrusted it to the government of his Norman mother. It would doubtless be no excuse in English eyes that Denmark was now threatened by Magnus of Norway,[1102] and that Harthacnut’s first duty was to provide for its defence. To the West-Saxon people it would simply seem that they had chosen a King whom no entreaties on the part of his English subjects could persuade to come and take personal possession of his English kingdom. Being absent, he must have remained uncrowned, and his lack of the consecrating rite would alone, in the ideas of those times, be enough to make his government altogether uncertain and provisional. Even the influence of Godwine could not prolong—most likely it was not exerted to prolong—a state of things so essentially offensive to all patriotic feeling. It was felt that to accept the rule of Harold would be a far less evil than to keep a nominal independence which was practically a degrading bondage. Popular feeling therefore set strongly in favour of union with Mercia and Northumberland, even under the doubtful son of Ælfgifu of [Sidenote: Harthacnut deposed in Wessex, and Harold chosen King over all England. 1037.] Northampton. “Man chose Harold over all to King, and forsook Harthacnut, for that he was too long in Denmark.”[1103] That is, I conceive, the Witan of Wessex, in discharge of their undoubted constitutional right,[1104] deposed their King Harthacnut, and elected the King of the Mercians and Northumbrians as their immediate sovereign, the election being, as it would seem, confirmed by a vote of the Witan of all England. Harold was thus called by the universal voice of the nation to be King over the whole realm. The southern kingdom, just as at the final election of his father,[1105] was again joined to the northern. England again became one kingdom under one King, an union which since that day has never been broken.

The reign of the new King of the English was short and troubled. His first act was the banishment of the Lady [Sidenote: Banishment of Emma. 1037.] Emma, who was sent out of the land at the beginning of winter.[1106] She did not return to Normandy, as that country was now in all the confusion attendant on the minority of its new sovereign, the future Conqueror. She betook herself to the court of Baldwin of Flanders, which we shall henceforth find serving as the general place of refuge for English exiles. She was received with all honour by Baldwin and his Countess Adela.[1107] Two of the near kinswomen of Baldwin will play a prominent part in our future history; one of them indeed, his daughter Matilda, the wife of the great William, was destined, within thirty years, to fill the place from which Emma herself had been driven.

[Sidenote: Character of Harold.]

Of the administration of Harold himself we hear hardly anything. The tale which affirms that he reigned without the usual consecrating rite charges him also with entire neglect of Christian worship, and of choosing the hour of mass for his hunting or other amusements.[1108] Other accounts however imply that he was not wanting in the conventional piety of the age.[1109] He at least, like other Kings, kept chaplains in his personal service, so that he can hardly have been the avowed heathen or infidel which he appears in the hostile picture. Ecclesiastical affairs however do not seem to have been in a flourishing [Sidenote: Ecclesiastical appointments.] state under his government. We read, as to be sure we read in the reigns of Kings of greater claims to sanctity, of bishoprics being held in plurality and [Sidenote: Death of Archbishop Æthelnoth. 1038.] being sold for money. Good Archbishop Æthelnoth died [Sidenote: Eadsige succeeds.] in the second year of Harold’s sole reign, and was succeeded by Eadsige, who appears at once in the threefold character of a royal chaplain, a monk, and a suffragan Bishop in Kent.[1110] We also find another royal chaplain, [Sidenote: Promotion of Stigand and Lyfing.] Stigand, the priest of Assandun, appointed to a bishopric, deposed, seemingly before consecration, because another competitor was ready with a larger sum, and finally reinstated, whether by dint of the same prevailing arguments we are not told.[1111] Lyfing, Bishop of Devonshire, also received the see of Worcester in plurality.[1112] These appointments are worthy of notice, as throwing some light on the otherwise utterly obscure politics of this reign. Stigand, the old chaplain of Cnut, was the firm friend and [Sidenote: Reconciliation between Harold and the party of Godwine.] counsellor of his widow.[1113] Lyfing was the right hand man of Earl Godwine. That these men shared in the promotions of which Harold had an unusual number to distribute, that Lyfing especially became the King’s personal friend,[1114] seems to show that a perfect reconciliation was now brought about between Harold and the party which had opposed his original election. We may infer that Emma was sacrificed to the King’s personal dislike, a dislike which, it seems to be implied, was shared by the mass of the people.[1115] But there seems to have been no disposition on Harold’s part to bear hard in any other way on his former antagonists. A certain amount either of generosity or of policy must have found a place in his character.

It is probably a sign of degeneracy and weakness on the part of Harold’s government that the vassal kingdoms no longer remained in the same state of submission to which they had been brought during at least the later days of Cnut. North Wales was now gathering strength [Sidenote: Inroad of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn; battle of Rhyd-y-Groes and death of Eadwine. 1039.] under the famous Gruffydd son of Llywelyn. His first exploit was an inroad in which he reached as far as the Severn, and fought a battle at Rhyd-y-Groes, near Upton-on-Severn, a place which, perhaps owing to this event, still retains its British name. In that fight several eminent Englishmen were killed, and among them Eadwine, a brother of Earl Leofric.[1116] In the next year, the last year of [Sidenote: Duncan’s siege of Durham and his defeat. 1040.] the reign of Harold,[1117] Duncan, King of Scots, on what occasion we are not told, repeated the exploit of his grandfather, and with much the same success.[1118] He crossed the frontier and besieged Durham. The strength and prosperity of the city, though probably thrown back by the defeat of Carham,[1119] had vastly increased since its first [Sidenote: Bishop Eadmund of Durham. 1020–1042.] creation by Ealdhun. Ealdhun’s successor Eadmund, called to the see, as the story went, by a miraculous voice,[1120] had finished the work of his predecessor. The minster of Durham had been brought to perfection,[1121] and the city of Durham had gained strength and population enough to withstand an attack by its own efforts. In the invasion of Malcolm the infant settlement had been delivered by the intervention of Earl Uhtred; the invasion of Duncan was driven back by the valour of the citizens themselves. The Scots were put to flight; of the chief men of the army the greater part were killed in the battle; the remainder owed their escape to their horses. The soldiers of meaner degree, who had suffered less in the actual combat, were slaughtered without mercy in the pursuit.[1122] Northumbriam barbarism showed itself now as on the former occasion. The bloody trophies of victory were collected in the market-place of Durham, and a garland of Scottish heads again adorned the battlements of the rescued city.[1123]

[Sidenote: Harthacnut prepares to assert his claims. 1039.]

The reign and life of Harold were now drawing to an end. Harthacnut was not at all disposed to acquiesce in the arrangements which had wholly shut him out from England. His Northern possessions were now safe. A treaty had been concluded with Magnus, according to which, as in some other instances of which we have heard, each King, in case of the other dying childless, was to succeed to his kingdom.[1124] Harthacnut therefore was now able to turn his thoughts in the direction of England, and a message from his mother in Flanders is said to have further worked upon his mind.[1125] He began to make great preparations for an invasion of England,[1126] but for the present he merely sailed to Flanders with ten ships,[1127] and there passed the winter with his mother. The time however was not spent in idleness. His preparations were busily carried on, and in the course of the next year he found himself at the head of a considerable fleet.[1128] No invasion however was needed, as an event which was probably not unexpected[1129] opened the way for his accession [Sidenote: Death of Harold. March 17, 1040.] without difficulty or bloodshed. King Harold, who had been for some time lying sick at Oxford, died in that town in the month of March.[1130] He was buried at Westminster, a spot which is now mentioned in our Chronicles for the first time.[1131] Its mention however seems to show that the smaller monastery which preceded the great foundation of Eadward enjoyed a greater amount of reputation than we might otherwise have been led to think. Harold, who could not have been above two or three and twenty years old, left no recorded posterity. We hear nothing of wives, mistresses, or children of any kind.

§ 4. _The Reign of Harthacnut._ 1040–2.

[Sidenote: Harthacnut unanimously chosen]

Immediately on the burial of Harold, probably at the Easter festival, the Witan of all England, English and Danish, unanimously chose Harthacnut to the kingdom.[1132] [Sidenote: King. Easter? 1040.] The only undoubted, and now the only surviving, son of Cnut united all claims. No attempt seems to have been made on behalf of Eadward the surviving son of Æthelred, and the events of the last reign were not likely to have prejudiced men in his favour. The universal belief of the moment was that the choice of Harthacnut was the right and wise course.[1133] An embassy, of which Ælfweard, Bishop of London and Abbot of Evesham, was a leading member,[1134] was sent to Bruges, to invite the newly-chosen [Sidenote: Harthacnut lands. June 17.] King to take possession of his crown. He and his mother accordingly set sail for England in the course of June; he landed at Sandwich, and was presently crowned at Canterbury by Archbishop Eadsige.[1135]

[Sidenote: His character.]

The expectations which had been formed of Harthacnut were grievously disappointed. One worthless youth had made way for another equally worthless. Writers in the Norman interest, and members of foundations to which he was lavish, try to clothe him with various virtues.[1136] But the utmost that can be claimed for him is an easy species of munificence which showed itself on the one hand in bounty to monasteries and to the poor,[1137] and on the other in providing four meals daily for his courtiers.[1138] But all his recorded public acts set him before us as a rapacious, brutal, and bloodthirsty tyrant. His short reign is merely a repetition of the first and worst days of his father, while he could not, like his father, invoke even the tyrant’s plea of necessity in palliation of his evil deeds. Harthacnut had been unanimously chosen King; he had been received with universal joy; there was no sedition within the country, and no foreign enemy threatened it. But his conduct was that of a conqueror in a hostile land. His first act was to wring a heavy contribution from his new subjects for an object which in no way concerned them. We now learn incidentally that the standing navy of England, both under Cnut and under Harold, had consisted of sixteen ships, and eight marks were paid, seemingly yearly, either to each rower singly or to some group of rowers.[1139] [Sidenote: Harthacnut’s first Danegeld.] Harthacnut had come over with sixty ships, manned by Danish soldiers, and his first act was to demand eight marks for each man of their crews, a piece of extortion which at once destroyed his newly gained popularity.[1140] He then began to revenge himself on his enemies alive [Sidenote: Harold’s body disinterred.] and dead. His first act in this way was an act of senseless brutality towards the dead body of his half-brother the late King. The dead Harold, the Chronicles tell us, was dragged up and shot into a fen. Other writers tell the story with more detail.[1141] Some of the officers of his household, Stir his Mayor of the Palace,[1142] Eadric his dispenser, Thrond his executioner, all, we are told, men of great dignity, were sent to Westminster to dig up the body, and in their company we are surprised to find Earl Godwine and Ælfric Archbishop of York. Westminster was neither in Godwine’s earldom nor in Ælfric’s diocese, so that both these chiefs of Church and State seem out of place on such an occasion. We are however told that Ælfric was something more than an instrument in the matter; it was specially at his advice that Harthacnut was guilty of this cowardly piece of spite, one which, like the brutalities of Harold himself towards the comrades of Ælfred, did not [Sidenote: and buried again.] go without imitators in more polished times. The body of Harold was treated on the restoration of Harthacnut much as the body of Oliver Cromwell was treated on the restoration of Charles the Second. The late King was dug up, beheaded, and thrown, according to this account, into the Thames. The body was afterwards brought up by a fisherman, and received a second burial. The large Danish population of London had a burial-place of their own without the walls of the city, the memory of which is still retained in the name of the church of Saint Clement Danes. There Harold’s body was again buried, secretly, we may suppose, though the act is spoken of as a tribute of honour paid by the Danes of London to the King whose accession to the throne had been so largely their own doing.

No act could have been more offensive to the Danes settled in England than these insults offered to the body [Sidenote: Harthacnut’s second Danegeld. 1040–1.] of their own chosen prince. Harthacnut’s next act was to enrage all his subjects, English and Danish, by laying on them another enormous Danegeld of about twenty-two thousand pounds, with another sum of more than eleven thousand pounds for thirty-two ships, probably a fresh contingent which had just come from Denmark.[1143] He was now, before he had been a year on the throne, thoroughly [Sidenote: Godwine and Lyfing accused of the death of Ælfred. 1040.] hated.[1144] As if on purpose to increase his unpopularity, he next attacked the two leaders of the national party, Earl Godwine and Bishop Lyfing. Archbishop Ælfric, who appears almost in the character of a spiritual Eadric, is said to have accused them to the King of being concerned in the death of his brother Ælfred. Some other persons unnamed joined with him in bringing the charge.[1145] Of the two defendants the Bishop was the easier victim. Lyfing lost his bishopric of Worcester, which was given to his accuser to hold in plurality,[1146] as it was held by several Archbishops of York before and after. Lyfing however recovered Worcester in the course of the next year, as the [Sidenote: Trial and acquittal of Godwine.] price, we are told, of money paid to the King.[1147] Whether the deposition of Lyfing was effected with any legal forms we are not told; but the Earl of the West-Saxons certainly underwent a regular trial before the Witan. The proceedings form a curious illustration of the jurisprudence of the age. The functions of witness, judge, and juror were not yet accurately distinguished, and compurgation,[1148] whenever compurgation could be had, was looked on as the surest proof of innocence. Godwine asserted his own innocence on oath, and his solemn plea of Not Guilty was confirmed by the oaths of most of the Earls and chief thegns[1149] of England. We must not judge of the value of such an acquittal by the ideas of our own time. In a modern trial, some of Godwine’s compurgators would have had to act as his judges; some would have been examined as witnesses to the facts; others might, at least in the case of a less illustrious defendant, have appeared as witnesses to character. In the rude state of the law in those times, these distinctions were not thought of. But it does not follow that substantial justice was not done. Godwine’s acquittal was as solemn as any acquittal could be. All the chief men of England swore to their belief in his innocence. The only difference between such an acquittal and a modern acquittal on a trial before the House of Lords is that, in the ancient mode of procedure, the voices of those who of their own knowledge affirmed Godwine to be innocent, and the voices of those who accepted his innocence [Sidenote: Value of the acquittal.] on their witness, were all reckoned together. Godwine then was acquitted, after the most solemn trial which the jurisprudence of his own time could provide. He is in fairness entitled to the full benefit of that acquittal. The judgement of a competent tribunal is always worth something, though its worth may be overbalanced by facts or probabilities the other way. There are those who hold, in defiance of all fact and all reason, that Sir Thomas More and Anne Boleyn must have been guilty, because English courts of justice pronounced them to be guilty. I am surely asking much less if I ask that Godwine may be held to be innocent, because an English court of justice, whose verdict is outweighed by no facts or probabilities the other way, solemnly pronounced him to be innocent.[1150]

[Sidenote: Godwine purchases the favour of Harthacnut by a magnificent ship.]

One circumstance which in our days would at once throw suspicion upon the verdict proves nothing at all according to the ideas of those days. Ages after the time of Harthacnut, in times which by comparison seem as yesterday, English judges did not scruple to receive presents from their suitors, and English sovereigns did not scruple to receive presents from their subjects. It is always possible that such presents may be bribes in a guilty sense; it is always equally possible that they may not. It therefore proves nothing either way when we read that the Earl of the West-Saxons, solemnly acquitted by his peers, had still to buy his full restoration to the friendship of his highest judge at the cost of a magnificent gift. We have already seen how dear a possession a ship was in Danish eyes;[1151] we have seen how acceptable a gift it might be in English eyes.[1152] We have seen too what an astonishing amount of adornment the warriors of the North lavished upon these cherished instruments, almost companions, of their warfare.[1153] Though we hear nothing of any warlike exploits of Harthacnut,[1154] he had enough of the wiking in him for a well-equipped ship to be the most acceptable of all gifts.[1155] Godwine therefore gave Harthacnut a ship with a beak of gold, manned with eighty chosen warriors armed with all the magnificence of the full panoply of [Sidenote: Arms of the soldiers.] the time. Each man had on each arm a golden bracelet of sixteen ounces weight; each was clad in a triple coat of mail; each bore on his head a helmet partly gilded; each was armed with all the weapons which could be needed in warfare of any kind.[1156] Each bore on his left arm a shield with gilded boss and studs; his right hand bore the javelin, the English _ategar_, for the distant skirmishing at the beginning of a battle. But each too was ready for the closest and most deadly fight. Each was girded with a sword with a gilded handle, and from each man’s left shoulder hung, also adorned with [Sidenote: The Danish axe.] gold and silver, the most fearful weapon of all, the Danish battle-axe.[1157] This is our first mention[1158] of the weapon [Sidenote: 1066.] which Englishmen were, twenty-six years later, to wield with such deadly prowess upon the height of Senlac, and [Sidenote: 1203–4.] which, after the lapse of a hundred and forty years, the descendants of English exiles were still found wielding in defence of the throne of Constantine and Justinian.[1159]

[Sidenote: The Danegeld levied by the housecarls. 1041.]

Meanwhile all England was astir at the imposition of the Danegeld. Men had deemed that such imposts had passed away for ever in that Witenagemót of Oxford where Cnut the Danish conqueror changed into Cnut the English King. No enemy was in the land; Denmark, the old foe, was a sister kingdom; Normandy, the new foe, was hindered by her domestic troubles from threatening any of her neighbours; the overthrow of Duncan before Durham had taught Scotland to respect the frontiers of the Imperial state.[1160] But here was a tax such as had been heard of only in the darkest and saddest hours of the reign of Æthelred. Taxes of this kind always came in slowly,[1161] and this particular tax came in with special slowness. Military force was needed to extort payment; the housecarls, who do not seem to have been sent on such errands in the days of Cnut, were now turned into tax-gatherers, and were sent into every shire in England to collect the King’s tribute.[1162] That soldiers entrusted with such a duty behaved with insolence and violence we might take for granted in any age. In their conduct we may probably find the historical groundwork for those wonderful tales of Danish oppression in which later and rhetorical writers indulge.[1163] No doubt this collection of the Danegeld was accompanied by much oppression; but there is no evidence that it was oppression inflicted by Danes as Danes on Englishmen as Englishmen. As far as we can see, the state of things under Harthacnut must have been something like the state of England under John and Henry the Third. The natives, of whatever race, and the settlers who were fairly naturalized in the country, were all alike taxed for the sake of the mere strangers who had come in the King’s train.[1164] We cannot suppose that a Danish citizen of London, or a Danish thegn who had received a grant of lands from Cnut, was let off his share of the tribute on proof of his Danish birth. The discontent which was doubtless common to the whole kingdom at [Sidenote: The housecarls killed at Worcester. May 4, 1041.] last broke out in one

## particular quarter. The citizens of Worcester and the men of

Worcestershire generally rose in revolt and attacked the housecarls. Two of their number, Feader and Thurstan, fled, like the Danes at Oxford,[1165] to a tower of the minster.[1166] The people followed them to their hiding-place, and slew them. The murder deserved legal punishment, but Harthacnut preferred a form of chastisement for which unluckily he could find precedents in the reigns of better princes than himself.[1167] He is said to have been further stirred up to vengeance by one who ought to have been the first to counsel mercy. Archbishop Ælfric had, as we have seen, received the bishopric of Worcester on the deposition of Lyfing;[1168] it would seem that the citizens refused to receive him.[1169] They were doubtless attached to their own patriotic pastor, and they may well have been unwilling to be again made an appendage to the Northumbrian metropolis. In revenge for this injury, Ælfric, we are told, counselled the terrible punishment which Harthacnut now decreed for his flock. The offending city and shire were to feel the full extremity of military vengeance; the town was to be burned, the country harried, and the inhabitants, [Sidenote: The Earls sent against Worcester.] as far as might be, killed. For this purpose Harthacnut sent nearly all his housecarls—unhappily we are not told their numbers—under the command of all the chief men of England. The three great Earls, Godwine of Wessex, Leofric of Mercia, Siward of Northumberland,[1170] and their subordinate Earls, among whom Thored of the Middle-Angles or Eastern part of Mercia,[1171] and Ranig of the Magesætas or Herefordshire[1172], are specially mentioned, were all sent against the one city of Worcester. Ten [Sidenote: [1051.]] years later, when Eadward the Confessor required the like chastisement to be inflicted on the town of Dover, Godwine utterly refused to have any hand in such a business, and distinctly asserted the right of every Englishman to a legal trial. But in that case the alleged crime had been done in Godwine’s own earldom, and no doubt Godwine’s power was much less under Harthacnut than it became under Eadward, most likely much less than it had been under Cnut. As things now stood, it was hardly possible to disobey, unless the Earls had been prepared for [Sidenote: The housecarls.] the extreme measure of deposing the King. England in fact in this age felt for the first time both the good and the bad consequences of the existence of a standing army. We shall hereafter see what the housecarls could do for England under a patriotic King; we now see what they could do against Englishmen at the bidding of a rapacious tyrant. It was not at the head of the forces of their several governments that the Earls were bidden to attack the offending city. Those forces would have taken some time to bring together, and, when they were brought together, they would doubtless have sympathized with their intended victims. The King had now at his command a body of Janissaries, who could march at a moment’s notice, a force bound to him by a personal tie, and ready to carry out his personal will in all things. It was no doubt deemed a great stroke of policy to implicate in the deed all the chief men of the land, English and Danish, by putting them at the head of the King’s personal force. But it seems plain that the Earls showed little zeal in the bloody errand on which they were sent. Placed as they were, they could hardly avoid doing much mischief to property, but they were evidently determined to shed as little blood as might be. [Sidenote: Worcester burned and the shire ravaged.] Their approach was well known[1173]—most likely they took care that it should be well known—to those against whom they were coming. The inhabitants of the shire took shelter in various places, while the men of the city itself entrenched[1174] themselves in an island of the Severn, whose name of Beverege reminds us of one of the losses which our national _fauna_ has undergone.[1175] They held out for four days; on the fifth peace was made, and they were allowed to go where they would. But the city was burned, and the army marched away with great plunder.[1176] The vengeance of Harthacnut and Ælfric was thus partly satisfied, and the Archbishop, having thus witnessed the harrying of the diocese upon which he had been forced, seems to have been not unwilling to give back the see to its earlier possessor. As Ælfric still held it at the time of the burning of the city,[1177] it seems to follow that Lyfing’s reappointment [Sidenote: Patriotic Bishops of Worcester.] happened soon after this conclusion of peace. And it is a natural conjecture that the restoration of the popular prelate and the exclusion of the Northumbrian Metropolitan was one of the articles agreed on between the Earls and the citizens. Worcester has been happy in its Bishops in more than one great crisis of our history. Side by side with Godwine we find Lyfing; side by side with Harold we find Wulfstan; and in later times, when the part of Godwine is played again by Simon of Montfort, we find Walter of Cantelupe walking in the steps of Lyfing, and [Sidenote: [1265.]] saying mass and hearing the confession of the martyred Earl on the morning of the fight of Evesham.[1178]

Harthacnut had still another great crime in store; but the burning of Worcester seems to have set the final seal to the shame and hatred which he had drawn upon himself [Sidenote: Harthacnut recalls Eadward from Normandy. 1041.] among all classes of his people.[1179] It may have been a desperate effort to win back some measure of popularity which now led him to send for his half-brother Eadward out of Normandy.[1180] He could have had no personal affection for a brother whom he had never seen, and the influence of Emma would hardly have been exercised in Eadward’s favour. But the events of the next year showed that popular feeling was now veering round towards the ancient royal family. The memory of Cnut had secured the throne to two of his sons in succession; but this feeling could hardly have survived the evil deeds of Harold and Harthacnut. Harthacnut himself was childless; he was also, young as he was,[1181] in failing health.[1182] The recall of Eadward at once provided him with a successor in case of his death, and with one whose presence would be some support to him while he lived. Foreign writers tell us that he associated Eadward with him in the kingdom.[1183] For this statement there is no English authority, and it is not according to English customs. But to have given Eadward the government of a part of the kingdom, whether as Earl or as Under-king, would have been in no way wonderful. We do not however hear anything of such an arrangement; Eadward is set before us as living in great honour at his brother’s court, but no English writer describes him as holding any administrative office.[1184]

One thing however Eadward did, which, had men’s eyes been open to the future, would have seemed to them a sure sign of the evil to come. Emma had brought with her Hugh the French churl, who betrayed Exeter to the Dane.[1185] So her son, even when coming back as a private man, brought with him the advanced guard of that second swarm of strangers who were finally to bring the land into bondage. Among other Frenchmen, Eadward brought with him to England his nephew Ralph, the son of his sister Godgifu by her first husband Drogo of Mantes.[1186] He must now have been a mere youth; but he lived to be gorged with English wealth and honours, to bring his feeble force to oppose the champions of England, and to be branded in our history as “the timid Earl,”[1187] who sought to work improvements in English warfare, and himself turned and fled at the first sight of an armed enemy.

[Sidenote: The Northumbrian Earls.]

The latest internal events of the reign of Harthacnut call our thoughts once more to the great Northumbrian earldom. They set vividly before us the unrestrained barbarism of that part of the kingdom. I have already described the strange career of Uhtred, and how he at last died, by the connivance of Cnut in his early days, but by the personal vengeance of an enemy whom he had himself unwisely omitted to slay.[1188] A fate almost literally the same now overtook one of his descendants and successors, whose story introduces us more directly to one of the great actors [Sidenote: Eadwulf Cutel.] of the next reign. Uhtred, as we have seen, was succeeded by his brother Eadwulf Cutel, at first, it would seem, under the superiority of the Danish Eric.[1189] The reign of Eadwulf was both short and inglorious; he did not long survive the defeat of the forces of his earldom at Carham.[1190] He was succeeded, but in the Bernician earldom only, by his nephew Ealdred, son of Uhtred by the daughter [Sidenote: Ealdred of Bernicia puts Thurbrand to death,] of Bishop Ealdhun.[1191] The new Earl presently put to death Thurbrand the murderer of his father. Whether this was done by way of public justice or of private assassination does not appear, and the savage manners of the Northumbrian Danes most likely drew no very wide distinction between the two. But at all events the deadly feud went on from generation to generation. A bitter enmity raged between Ealdred and Thurbrand’s son Carl, evidently a powerful thegn.[1192] The two, we are told, were constantly seeking each other’s lives.[1193] Common friends contrived to reconcile them, and, like Cnut and Eadmund, they were more than reconciled; they became sworn brethren. In this character they undertook to go together on a pilgrimage to Rome; but this pious undertaking, like so many other undertakings of that age, was hindered by stress of weather.[1194] They returned to Northumberland together. The reconciliation on Ealdred’s part had been [Sidenote: and is murdered by Carl.] made in good faith; not so on the part of Carl. He invited the Earl to his house; he received and feasted him splendidly, and then, we are told, slew him in a wood, according to the most approved formula of assassination.[1195] [Sidenote: Eadwulf of Bernicia. 1038?] Ealdred was succeeded in Bernicia by his brother Eadwulf. The succession of the Earls of Yorkshire or Deira is less easy to trace, but, at some time before this year, the [Sidenote: Siward of Deira.] Southern earldom must have come into possession of the famous Siward, whom we have already seen acting as its Earl at the burning of Worcester.[1196] Siward, surnamed Digera or the Strong,[1197] was a Dane by birth. His gigantic stature, his vast strength and personal prowess, made him a favourite hero of romance. He boasted of the same marvellous pedigree as Ulf; perhaps indeed Siward and Ulf might claim a common forefather on the non-human side. His name is attached to several charters of the reign of Cnut, but he does not seem to have risen to Earl’s rank in his time. He married Æthelflæd,[1198] a daughter of Earl Ealdred, a marriage which seems to have been his only connexion with the house of the Northumbrian Earls. Whether he laid any claim to the Bernician earldom in right of his wife it is hard to say; he was at any rate ready to abet the criminal designs of Harthacnut against its present possessor. Eadwulf seems to have been a ruler of more vigour than his uncle of the same name; at least we hear, though rather darkly, of a devastating campaign carried on by him against the Britons, a name which here can mean only the inhabitants of Strathclyde.[1199] He was however in ill odour at the court of Harthacnut; probably he and the men of his earldom had been among the foremost in pressing the claims of Harold. He now came to make his peace with the King, and was received by him to full friendship.[1200] But Harthacnut was as little bound by his plighted faith as Carl. As Cnut had allowed or [Sidenote: Eadwulf murdered by Siward, who obtains all Northumberland. 1041.] commanded the slaughter of Uhtred at the hands of Thurbrand, Harthacnut now allowed or commanded the slaughter of Eadwulf at the hands of Siward the husband of his niece. The murderer forthwith obtained the whole earldom of Northumberland from the Humber to the Tweed, but it would seem from the words of a local writer that he obtained [Sidenote: Oswulf son of Eadwulf.] possession of it only by force.[1201] Oswulf, the young son of Eadwulf, did not obtain any share of the ancient heritage of his house, till he was invested with a subordinate [Sidenote: 1065.] government on the very eve of the Norman Conquest.

[Sidenote: Death of Bishop Eadmund.]

The Bernician earldom was thus disposed of. Early in the next year Harthacnut had also the disposal of the [Sidenote: Harthacnut sells the see of Durham to Eadred. 1041–2.] Bernician bishopric. The King was, it would seem, keeping the Midwinter festival at Gloucester,[1202] and Bishop Eadmund was in attendance. He died while at the court, and his body was taken to Durham for burial. Harthacnut presently sold the see to one Eadred, who seems to have given nearly equal offence by his simony and by the fact of his being a secular priest.[1203] It is set down as a mark of divine vengeance that he did not like to take full possession of the see. At the time appointed for his [Sidenote: Death of Eadred. 1042.] installation, he fell suddenly ill, and died in the tenth month from his nomination.[1204]

The reign of Harthacnut was now drawing to an end. [Sidenote: War with Magnus; defeat of Swegen Estrithson. 1042.] As far as it is possible to make out anything from the tangled mazes of Scandinavian history and legend, it would seem that he was engaged in another war with Magnus after he had fixed himself in England.[1205] He had left as his lieutenant in Denmark his cousin Swegen, the son of Ulf and Estrith. Swegen came to England for help against Magnus,[1206] and was despatched to Denmark a second time with a fleet. He was defeated by the Norwegian King, and came back to England.[1207] But he [Sidenote: Death of Harthacnut. June 8, 1042.] found his royal cousin no more. Harthacnut died during his absence, by a death most befitting a prince whose chief merit was to have provided four meals a day for his courtiers. “This year,” say the Chronicles, “died Harthacnut as he at his drink stood.”[1208] It was at the marriage-feast of Tofig the Proud, a great Danish Thegn, who held the office of standard-bearer,[1209] with Gytha, the daughter of Osgod Clapa, a man who fills a considerable space in the annals of the next reign.[1210] Tofig is chiefly memorable as the first beginner of that great foundation at Waltham which is so inseparably connected with the memory of our last native King. He held large estates in Somerset, Essex, and elsewhere. According to the legend, a miraculous crucifix was found on his lordship of Lutgaresbury in Somerset, on the top of the peaked hill from which the place in later times took its name of Montacute. For the reception of this revered relic he built a church on his estate of Waltham in Essex, and made a foundation for two priests. The place was then a mere wilderness, unmarked by any town, village, or church; Tofig had only a hunting-seat in the forest. But along with the building of the church, he gathered a certain number of inhabitants on the spot, and thus, like Ealdhun at Durham, founded the town as well as the minster of Waltham.[1211] This was in the days of Cnut. Tofig must have been an elderly man at the time of his marriage with Gytha,—his eulogist indeed tells us that his youth was renewed like that of the eagle.[1212] His son Æthelstan was of an age to take a share in public affairs, and his grandson Ansgar was able to hold great offices a few years later. Gytha then can hardly fail to have been his second wife, and he seems not to have long survived his marriage. But the bridal, held at the house of Gytha’s father at Lambeth, was honoured with the presence of the King. As Harthacnut arose at the wedding-feast to propose the health of the bride,[1213] he fell to the ground in a fit accompanied by frightful struggles,[1214] and was carried out speechless by those who were near him. He died, and his body was carried to Winchester and buried by that of his father Cnut in the Old Minster.[1215] With him the direct line of Cnut came to an end. The times were such that the land could not long abide without a King. Even before the burial of Harthacnut another great national solemnity had taken place. If Swegen cherished any hopes of the English succession, they vanished when, on his return to England, [Sidenote: Eadward chosen King. June, 1042.] he found a son of Æthelred already called to the throne of his fathers. “Before the King buried were, all folk chose Eadward to King at London.”[1216]

[Sidenote: End of the preliminary part of the history.]

I have thus gone through the whole of that part of my history which I look upon as introductory to its main subject. We have now gone through all the events which form the remoter causes of the Norman Conquest. [Sidenote: The Norman Conquest begins with the election of Eadward.] The accession of Eadward at once brings us among the events which immediately led to the Conquest, or rather we may look upon his accession as the first stage of the Conquest itself. Swegen and Cnut had shown that it was possible for a foreign power to overcome England by force of arms. The misgovernment of the sons of Cnut hindered the formation of a lasting Danish dynasty in England; the throne of Cerdic was again filled by a son of Woden; but there can be no doubt that the shock given to the country by the Danish Conquest, especially the way in which the ancient nobility was cut off in the long struggle with Swegen and Cnut, directly opened the way for the coming of the Norman. Eadward did his best, wittingly or unwittingly, to make the path of the Norman still easier. This he did by accustoming Englishmen to the sight of strangers—not national kinsmen like Cnut’s Danes, but Frenchmen, men of utterly alien speech and manners—enjoying every available place of honour or profit in the country. The great national reaction under Godwine and Harold made England once more England for a few years. But this change, happy as it was, could not altogether do away with the effects of the French tastes of Eadward. With Eadward then the Norman Conquest really begins, and his election therefore forms the proper break between these two great [Sidenote: Position of the leading men of this and the next generation.] divisions of my subject. The men of the generation before the Conquest, the men whose eyes were not to behold the event itself, but who were to do all that they could do to hasten or to delay it, are now in the full maturity of life, in the full possession of power. Eadward is on the throne of England; Godwine, Leofric, and Siward divide among them the administration of the realm. The next generation, the warriors of Stamfordbridge and Senlac, of York and Ely, are fast growing into manhood. Harold Hardrada is already following his wild career of knight-errantry in distant lands, and is astonishing the world by his exploits in Russia and in Sicily, at Constantinople and at Jerusalem. Swegen Estrithson is still a wanderer, not startling men by wonders of prowess like Harold, but schooling himself and gathering his forces for the day when he could establish a lasting dynasty in his native land. In our own land, the younger warriors of the Conquest, Eadwine and Morkere and Waltheof and Hereward, were probably born, but they must still have been in their cradles or in their mothers’ arms. But among the leaders of Church and State, Ealdred, who lived to place the crown on the head both of Harold and of William, was already a great prelate, Abbot of the great house of Tavistock, soon to succeed the patriot Lyfing in the chair of Worcester. Stigand, climbing to greatness by slower steps, was already the chosen counsellor of Emma, a candidate for any post of dignity and influence that chance might open to him. Wulfstan, destined to outlive them all, had begun that career of quiet holiness, neither seeking for, nor shrinking from, responsibility in temporal matters, which distinguishes him among the political and military prelates of that age. In the house of Godwine that group of sons and daughters were springing up which for a moment promised to become the royal line of England. Eadgyth was growing into those charms of mind and person which perhaps failed to win for her the heart of the King who called her his wife. Gyrth and Leofwine were still boys; Tostig was on the verge of manhood; Swegen and Harold were already men, bold and vigorous, ready to march at their father’s bidding, and before long to affect the destiny of their country for evil and for good. Beyond the sea, William, still a boy in years, but a man in conduct and counsel, was holding his own among the storms of a troubled minority, and learning those arts of the statesman and the warrior which fitted him to become the wisest ruler of Normandy, the last and greatest Conqueror of England. Thus the actors in the great drama are ready for their parts; the ground is gradually clearing for the scene of their performance. The great struggle of nations and tongues and principles in which each of them had his share, the struggle in which William of Normandy and Harold of England stand forth as worthy rivals for the noblest of prizes, will form the subject of the next, the chief and central portion of my history.

APPENDIX.

NOTE A. p. 13. THE USE OF THE WORD “ENGLISH.”

My readers will doubtless have remarked—indeed I have, in the text, expressly called their attention to the fact—that, in speaking of the Teutonic inhabitants of Britain looked at as a whole, I always use the word “English,” never the words “Saxon” or “Anglo-Saxon,” which are more commonly in use. I do this advisedly, on more grounds than one. I hold it to be a sound rule to speak of a nation, as far as may be, by the name by which it called itself in the age of which we are speaking. This alone would be reason enough for using the word “English” and no other. But besides this, the common way of talking about “Saxons” and “Anglo-Saxons” leads to various confusions and misconceptions; it ought therefore to be avoided on that ground still more than on the other.

I am not aware of any instance in which a Teutonic inhabitant of Britain, living before the Norman Conquest, and speaking in his own tongue and in his own name of the whole nation formed by the union of the various Teutonic tribes in Britain, uses the word “Saxon.” “Engle,” “Angel-cyn,” are the words always used. The only exceptions, if we can call them exceptions, are certain charters in which the King of the English is called “King of the Anglo-Saxons.” Of these I shall presently speak (see below, p. 540, and Appendix B). But I am not aware that the word “Anglo-Saxon” is ever used in English writings except in the royal style, and even there it is excessively rare. It is quite certain that the word “Anglo-Saxon” was not used, any more than the word “Saxon,” as the ordinary name of the nation. An inhabitant of one of the real Saxon settlements might indeed call himself a Saxon as opposed to his Anglian or Jutish neighbours. But even in this case it is remarkable that we very seldom find the word “Saxon” used alone. It is almost always coupled with one of its geographical adjuncts, “West,” “East,” or “South.” Cuthred’s army at Burford (see pp. 38, 517) is not spoken of as the “Saxon” but as the “West-Saxon” host, even though its adversaries were Angles. But the word “Saxon” is never used, in the native tongue, to express either the whole nation or any part of it which was not strictly Saxon. On the other hand, the words “Engle” and “Angel-cyn” are constantly used to express, not only the whole nation, but particular parts of it which were not strictly Anglian. The Chronicles use the words in this sense from the very beginning. They expressly tell us that Hengest and Horsa were, in strictness, not Angles, but Jutes; yet their followers are called “Engle” (473), and the Teutonic settlers as a whole are called “Angel-cyn” (449). One single passage in the Chronicles (605), which has another look, I shall have presently to speak of as being most distinctly an exception which proves the rule. “Engle,” in short, in native speech, is the name of the whole nation, of which the “Seaxe” are a part.

On the other hand, for reasons which I have already stated (see p. 13), all the Teutonic settlers in Britain have always been known to their Celtic neighbours as “Saxons.” They were so in the fifth century; they are so still. In the Pictish Chronicle, for instance, Lothian is always “Saxonia.” On the continent too the word was sometimes used to describe the Teutonic settlers in Britain before they were fully consolidated into one kingdom. At the very beginning Prosper (see Appendix C) talks of Saxons, while Prokopios (see above, pp. 22, 31) talks of Ἄγγιλοι. As Gregory the Great calls the Jutish Æthelberht “Rex Anglorum” (Bæda, Hist. Eccl. i. 32), so Einhard speaks of certain Northumbrians, who therefore were strictly Angles, as Saxons. Ealhwine (Alcuin), who was certainly a Northumbrian, is called (Vita Karoli, 25) “Saxonici generis homo,” and one Ealdwulf, who seems also to have been a Northumbrian, appears (Annals, 808) as “de ipsa Britannia, natione Saxo.” But I suspect that this way of speaking was peculiar or nearly so to Einhard. A generation earlier, Paul Warnefrid has several passages which illustrate the uncertain way in which the Teutonic settlers in Britain were for a long time spoken of on the Continent. But though he uses the words “Angli” and “Saxones” as it might seem indiscriminately, there is no case in which it is clear that he applies the Saxon name to any but real Saxons, while he uses the Anglian name to take in those who were not real Angles. First of all, in ii. 6 the Saxons who joined in Alboin’s invasion of Italy are distinguished as “vetuli Saxones.” In iii. 25 he records the conversion of the English, how “Beatus Gregorius Augustinum, ... in Britanniam misit, eorumque prædicatione ad Christum _Anglos_ convertit.” In v. 30 we read of the “ecclesiæ _Anglorum_;” but in c. 32 the banished prince Bertarid “ad Britanniam insulam _Saxonumque_ regem properare disponit;” and in c. 33, “navem ascendit ut ad Britanniam insulam ad regnum _Saxonum_ transmearet.” Here a West-Saxon King is doubtless meant. In vi. 28 we find two persons, seemingly Ine and his wife Æthelburh, described in the text as “duo reges _Saxonum_,” and in the heading as “duo _Anglorum_ reges.” Lastly, in vi. 37 the fashion of pilgrimage is attributed to “multi _Anglorum_ gentis nobiles et ignobiles;” and in the same chapter _Saxones_ is used in its common meaning of Old-Saxons. Altogether, “Anglus” is the received and usual name even from the earliest times; it became more usual as time went on, and after the nation was consolidated, when the “Rex Anglorum” was known on the continent as a great potentate, any other way of speaking altogether died out, and foreign nations always spoke of us as we spoke of ourselves. The opposition between “Saxon” and “Norman,” so commonly made by modern writers when speaking of the days of the Conquest, is never found in any contemporary writer of any nation. The rule on this head during the period of the Conquest is very plain. In the English Chronicles, in Domesday and other legal documents, and in the Bayeux Tapestry, the opposition is made between “French” and “English.” “The King’s men, French and English,” form an exhaustive division. In Latin writers, especially those on the Norman side, the opposition is made between “Normans” and “English.” “Normans” and “Saxons” are not opposed till long after. The earliest instance that I know of the usage is in Robert of Gloucester, who opposes “Normans” and “Saxons” exactly as Thierry does, in verses which Thierry has not inappropriately chosen for the epilogue of his work;

“Of þe Normannes beþ þẏs hey men, þat beþ of þys lond, And þe lowe men of Saxons, as ẏch understonde.” (Vol. i. p. 363, ed. 1810.)

It is possibly owing to the comparative laxity of the foreign use of the words that even the native use is not quite so strict in Latin writings as it is in those which are composed in the native tongue. Native writers, when following, or translating from, Welsh authorities, often follow the Welsh usage, and use the word “Saxones” in positions where, if they had been speaking in their own persons, they would certainly have used the word “Angli.” There is one instance, and, as far as I know, one instance only, of this Welsh usage having made its way into the English speech. In the entry in the Chronicles under the year 605, the word “Saxon” does occur for once in the wider sense. But the word is not used by the Chronicler in his own person, nor is it put into the mouth of any Angle or Saxon. It is found in a speech of Augustine to the Welsh Bishops; “Gif Wealas nellað sibbe wið us, hy sculon æt _Seaxena_ handa forwurðan,” a prediction which was accomplished by the invasion of the Anglian Æthelfrith. Here is a story, probably preserved by Welsh tradition, in which a Roman speaking to Welshmen is made to adopt a Welsh form of speech. The contrast between this passage and the ordinary language of the Chronicles makes the ordinary usage still more marked. In Latin the usage is more common. Asser, as a Welshman, naturally speaks of “Saxones,” and his so speaking is a strong proof of the genuineness of his work. Florence of Worcester therefore, in that part of his Chronicle in which he copies Asser, keeps Asser’s language, and speaks of “Saxones,” whereas, when speaking in his own words or translating from the English Chronicles, he speaks of “Angli” from the beginning. No doubt the subjects of Ælfred, the books, poems, &c. to which the name “Saxon” is thus applied, were strictly Saxon; but no West-Saxon, speaking in his own tongue, would have called them so. Ælfred calls his own tongue “English,” and nothing else; but Asser naturally called it “Saxon.” So Bæda, as long as he draws from Welsh sources or repeats Welsh traditions, uses the words “Angli” and “Saxones” almost indiscriminately (Hist. Eccl. i. 14, 15, 22); but, as soon as he begins fairly to speak in his own person, he always uses “Angli” (i. 23 et seqq.). Exactly the same distinction will be found in the use of the words by Æthelweard and Henry of Huntingdon, who constantly use the word “Saxones” in what we may call the Welsh stage of their histories. But Henry uses “Anglus” also from the beginning, and, when he gets fairly clear of Welsh matters, he uses it exclusively. It is most curious to see him, as in the Prologue to the fifth Book, fall back on the Welsh way of speaking when he has to make a summary of what has gone before. And as the Welsh way of speaking affected these writers, we find writers who had occasion to speak of Pictish matters affected in the like way by Pictish usage. Thus Æddi or Eddius, the biographer of Wilfrith (c. 19, 20), speaking of the relations between Picts and Northumbrians, uses the Pictish mode of speech; he speaks of “Saxones,” and says that the Picts “subjectionem Saxonum despiciebant.”

Besides these instances of Celtic influence on English speech, it is not uncommon to find in the charters the word “Saxonice” used as a definition of language, where the vernacular definition would undoubtedly have been “on Englisc.” In West-Saxon charters the usage is in truth no more than we might have looked for. The words and things spoken of were Saxon in the strict sense. Bæda too not uncommonly (iii. 7 et al.) uses “Saxon” as a description of language; but it is usually, if not always, when he is speaking of persons or places which are strictly Saxon. He may therefore mean “Saxon” as opposed to “Anglian.” But the usage certainly now and then passes these bounds, and we find the word Saxon and its derivatives applied to objects which were not strictly Saxon. Thus in a charter of Ecgfrith of Mercia in 796 (Cod. Dipl. i. 207), we find the words “celebri vico qui _Saxonice_ vocatur æt Baðum.” Though even here it is worth remarking that the place spoken of, though at that time under Mercian rule, was in a district which was originally Saxon and which became Saxon again. So in a deed of Archbishop Oswald as late as 990 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 253) we read how a certain grant “in ista cartula _Saxonicis_ sermonibus apparet.” But the land spoken of is in Worcestershire, also a district originally Saxon. It is more remarkable when in a charter of Archbishop Wulfred in 825 (Cod. Dipl. i. 280), the Synod of Clovesho is said to be “de diversis _Saxoniæ_ partibus congregatum.” As the document chiefly relates to Mercian affairs, it is clear that “Saxonia” here means England generally. The word is used in the same sense at an earlier time in a petition of Wilfrith to Pope Agatho (Eddius, c. 29), in which he describes himself as “episcopus _Saxoniæ_.” So again in the letter—whether genuine or not, matters little—of Eleutherius of Winchester in William of Malmesbury (i. 30), he is described as “pontificatus _Saxoniæ_ gubernacula regens.” In this passage “Saxonia” might mean Wessex; but Hwætberht, Abbot of Wearmouth (Bæda, Hist. Abb. Wiremuth, c. 14. p. 329 Hussey), also calls himself “Abbas cœnobii beatissimi apostolorum principis in Saxonia.” It should of course be remembered that these are letters addressed to foreigners, and in which a foreign mode of speech is naturally adopted. Still, when I have these examples before me, and when I remember how late it was before the names “Anglia” and “Englaland” became thoroughly established in use, I am inclined to think that “Saxonia” may be the older name of the two. We have seen (see p. 79) that the name Englaland dates only from the last period of the Danish wars; the earliest use of it that I have come across is not earlier than the reign of Æthelred, being found in the treaty with Olaf and Justin in 991 (see p. 79, and below, Note DD). Here the word _Englaland_, _Ænglaland_, is twice found. From the latter days of Æthelred and the reign of Cnut the territorial name becomes more and more commonly used. (It is needless to say that the entry in the Canterbury Chronicle for 876 and the long insertion at 995 are not contemporary.) It would seem then that the name of England was first used in opposition, not to Wales or Scotland, but to the Scandinavian lands. As opposed to the lands of the Scot and the Briton the strict territorial name was rather _Saxony_ than _England_. It was only natural that it should be so. The part of Britain occupied by the Teutonic invaders, the English land as distinguished from the English people, would receive its first territorial name from the Celts of the island, and that name would naturally be, as we have seen in the case of Lothian, “Saxonia.” In dealing with foreigners, even Englishmen might, in the days of Wilfrith or Hwætberht, use the only territorial name which their country had as yet acquired, and, in the days of Wulfred, the same word might be now and then used as a rhetorical flourish. I am therefore inclined to think that there is really more authority for calling England, as a whole, “Saxony,” than there is for calling Englishmen, as a whole, “Saxons.” The Latin name _Anglia_ is most likely older than the English _Englaland_. But it is hard to say when it came into contemporary use. It seems to be unknown to Bæda, but it is familiar to Æthelweard. A rarer form, “Angul-Saxonia,” “Anglo-Saxonia,” is now and then found, as in a charter of Eadward the Elder in Cod. Dipl. v. 165, and in a doubtful charter of Æthelred (see below, p. 557). So in a Frankish ecclesiastical writer in Duchesne, Rer. Franc. Scriptt. i. 665, Queen Balthild is said to come “de ultramarinis partibus Angli-Saxoniæ.” Still, whatever may have been the case in earlier times, all these usages had died out long before the time of the Norman Conquest. After all England and all Britain had been brought into subjection to a Saxon dynasty, we hear no more about “Saxons” or “Saxony.” The latest instance that I can remember of “Saxonice” being used for “on Englisc” is in a passage of Florence of Worcester (1002, see p. 306), where he says that the Norman Emma was “_Saxonice_ Ælfgiva vocata.” The expression stands almost by itself; but it should be remembered that it is of the West-Saxon speech that it is used. During the period of the Conquest, as the people are always “Angli” and their land “Anglia,” so it is always the English language (“lingua Anglica or Anglicana”), never the Saxon, which contemporary writers oppose to the French.

The fact that the word “Saxon” is thus occasionally used in Latin, in cases where we always find “English” used in the native tongue, is, I think, mainly to be attributed to the tendency, one which has more or less influence on almost all Latin writings then and since, to use expressions which sounded in any way grander or more archaic than those which were in common use. I suspect that the occasional use of “Saxon” instead of “English” was very much of a piece with the use, not uncommon in the charters, of “Albion” to express Britain. To talk of “Saxonia,” “Saxonice,” &c. was doubtless one of the elegancies of the _Kanzleistyl_ of those days. It is an archaism, just as when, in a charter of Eadwig (Cod. Dipl. ii. 324; cf. 391), we read of the “Gewissi,” a name which had passed out of use ages before. Once or twice we find “Teutonice” instead of either “Anglice” or “Saxonice.” The decrees of the Synod of Cealcyth in 787 (Labbe and Cossart, vi. 1873) were published “tam Latine quam _Teutonice_, quo omnes intelligere possent.” So in the Encomium Emmæ (ii. 18) we once find the word used where either English or Danish is intended, and the expression is an unusual and affected one as applied to either. In a most remarkable story told by Giraldus (Itin. Kamb. i. 6. p. 64 Dimock), a Welshman is said to speak to Henry the Second “quasi Teutonice,” and is presently answered “Anglice.” But Giraldus elsewhere (i. 8. p. 77), in his curious philological discussion, distinguishes “Anglice” and “Teutonice,” though his “Teutonice” does not seem to be _High_-Dutch. There can be no doubt that this use of “Teutonice” was simply an instance of “the grand style.” It is less clearly so when Fordun (ii. 9) says that in Scotland “duabus utuntur linguis, Scotica videlicet et Theuthonica.” For he writes at a time when men were just beginning to be unwilling to give the English name to the Teutonic speech of Scotland. But in earlier times we may be sure that, when men said either “Teutonice” or “Saxonice” instead of “Anglice,” the unusual word was chosen mainly as being finer. Still, in the great mass of instances, the use of the word “Saxon,” affected and archaistic as it is, is still accurate. It is rarely used out of the strictly Saxon districts, while “Anglus” and its derivatives are freely used out of the strictly Anglian districts. The title of “Rex Saxonum,” so common in the age of Ælfred, was, as I have elsewhere said (see p. 54), the most accurate which he could assume. Still it appears only as a Latin title; in his vernacular will and his vernacular laws he is only “King of the West-Saxons.” (See p. 52, and Cod. Dipl. ii. 114.) It might be thought to have an English equivalent in the Abingdon Chronicle under 867, where we read, “Her feng Æþered Æþelbryhtes broþor to _Seaxna rice_,” but as all the other copies have “_West-Seaxna rice_,” it is most likely a slip of the pen.

The name “Anglo-Saxon,” though rare, is a genuine and ancient description of the nation. There are some, though rare, vernacular examples of its use (see below, pp. 549, 556), to which I shall have to refer again. It is also used rather more commonly in Latin, as by Asser (M. H. B. 483 A), by Florence of Worcester (A. 1066), by Simeon of Durham (X Scriptt. 137). In the Latin charters, especially those of Eadwig, it is not uncommon (see the list in pp. 554–558). So in a charter of Eadward the Elder which has been quoted already (Cod. Dipl. v. 168, 169), as he calls the land “Angul-Saxonia,” so he twice calls himself “Angul-Saxonum rex.” The word is not uncommon in foreign writers; it occurs for instance in the singular passage of Lambert of Herzfeld (1066) in which Harold is called “Rex Angli-Saxonum.” To go back to earlier writers, it is found in Paul Warnefrid (iv. 23), where, describing the manners of the Lombards, he says, “Vestimenta eis erant laxa et maxime lintea, qualia _Angli-Saxones_ habere solent.” In c. 37, “Cunibertus rex Hermilindam e _Saxonum Anglorum_ genere duxit uxorem.” Here the name Eormenhild, cognate with the royal Kentish names Eormenred, Eormenburh, Eormengyth, and Eormengild, seems to show almost for certain from what part of England the Lombard King brought his wife. But presently in vi. 15 the West-Saxon Ceadwalla appears as “Cedoaldus rex _Anglorum-Saxonum_,” though in the heading he is “Theodebaldus rex _Anglorum_.” (These passages show how fast the Anglian name was spreading over the Saxon and Jutish districts.) The compound name is used also by Widukind in a very amusing passage (i. 8; cf. p. 567), where, having mentioned how certain Saxons settled in Britain, he adds, “Et quia illa insula in angulo quodam maris sita est, _Anglisaxones_ usque hodie vocitantur.” So Prudentius of Troyes (Pertz, i. 449) calls Æthelwulf “Edilvulfus rex _Anglorum-Saxonum_.” Elsewhere (i. 451) he gives him his usual title of “Rex Occidentalium Saxonum.” In another passage (i. 452) he records how in 860 a Danish fleet sailed “ad Anglo-Saxones.” And in a third, under the year 844 (Pertz, i. 441), “Nortmanni Britanniam insulam ea quam maxime parte quam _Angli-Saxones_ incolunt impetentes.” So in the Annals of Quedlinburg (Pertz, iii. 32), “_Angli-Saxones_ in Britannia fidem percipiunt;” in those of Weissemburg, 1066 (Pertz, iii. 71), “Comes Willihelmus qui et Basthart (see vol. ii. p. 582) _Anglos-Saxones_ et regem illorum occidit regnumque obtinuit.” In the Annales Altahenses, 1066 (Pertz, xx. 817), we hear of “Angli-Saxonici.” In the Life of Saint Boniface (Pertz, ii. 338) London or “Lundenwich” is so called “_Anglorum Saxonumque_ vocabulo;” and in Aimon of Fleury (Pertz, ix. 375) Lewis the son of Charles the Simple flies “ad _Anglo-Saxones_.” All these passages remind us of the “Prisci Latini,” and all are in the plural. Orderic too once or twice uses expressions to the same effect. Thus he (666 A) makes certain Normans say “Saxones Anglos prostravimus.” Elsewhere he makes Wimund (525 B) speak of the original English conquerors as “Angli-Saxones.” Again, speaking in his own person (722 B), he recounts the Norman exploits, and adds, “Hoc Itali et Guinili _Saxonesque Angli_ usque ad internecionem experti sunt.” And again in 887 B, where he is talking of Welsh matters and the prophecies of Merlin, he speaks of “Saxones Anglos, qui tunc pagani Christicolas Britones oppugnabant.” But these unusual phrases are clearly mere flourishes, just as when he calls the Byzantine Empire “Ionia” and its inhabitants “Danai” and “Pelasgi.” The passage reminds one of the comment of William of Poitiers (137), where, after describing the valour of the English at Senlac, he adds, “Gens equidem illa natura semper in ferrum prompta fuit, descendens ab antiqua Saxonum origine ferocissimorum hominum.” But he never calls the English of his own time “Saxons.”

“Anglo-Saxon” then, unlike “Saxon,” is a description which is fully justified by ancient authority. But it is quite clear that it is a description which never passed into common use. It is found mainly in charters and as a peculiarity of one or two writers, who doubtless thought that it had a grander or more learned sound than the usual name. The name by which our forefathers really knew themselves was “English” and none other. “Angli,” “Engle,” “Angel-cyn,” “Englisc,” are the true names by which the Teutons of Britain knew themselves and their language. The people are the English, their tongue is the English tongue, their King is the King of the English. The instances of any other use are to be found in a foreign language, and are easily accounted for by exceptional causes. And even these exceptional usages had quite died away before the stage of our history with which we are immediately concerned. The people whom William overcame at Senlac, and over whom he was crowned King at Westminster, knew themselves and were known to their conquerors by the name of ENGLISH and by the name of ENGLISH alone.

But it is sometimes argued that, though our forefathers confessedly called themselves English, yet we ought, in speaking of them, to call them something else; that, though Ælfred called his own tongue English, we ought to correct him and call it Saxon. Now the presumption is surely in favour of calling any people by the name by which they called themselves, especially when that name had gone on in uninterrupted use to our own days. Our national nomenclature has never changed for a thousand years. In the days of Ælfred, as now, the Englishman speaking in his own tongue called himself an Englishman. In the days of Ælfred, as now, his Celtic neighbour called him a Saxon. As we do not now speak of ourselves by the name by which Welshmen and Highlanders speak of us, some very strong reason indeed ought to be brought to show that we ought to speak of our forefathers, not as they spoke of themselves, but as Welshmen and Highlanders spoke of them. But the reason commonly given springs out of mere misconception and leads to further misconceptions. From some inscrutable cause, people fancy that the word English cannot be rightly applied to the nation, its language, or its institutions, till after the Norman element has been absorbed into it; that is, they fancy that nothing can be called English till it has become somewhat less English than it was at an earlier time. The tongue which Ælfred, in the days of its purity, called English, we must not venture to call English till the days when it had received a considerable infusion of French. This notion springs from an utterly wrong conception of the history of our nation. The refusal to call ourselves and our forefathers a thousand years back by the same name springs from a failure to take in the fact that our nation which exists now is the same nation as that which migrated from Germany to Britain in the fifth century. In the words of Sir Francis Palgrave, “I must needs here pause, and substitute henceforward the true and antient word English for the unhistorical and conventional term Anglo-Saxon, an expression conveying a most false idea in our civil history. _It disguises the continuity of affairs, and substitutes the appearance of a new formation in the place of a progressive evolution._” (Normandy and England, iii. 596.) People talk of the “English” as a new nation which arose, in the thirteenth century perhaps, as a mixed race of which the “Saxons” or “Anglo-Saxons” were only one element among several. Now in a certain sense, we undoubtedly are a mixed race, but not in the sense in which popular language implies. We are a mixed race in the sense of being a people whose predominant blood and speech has incorporated and assimilated with itself more than one foreign infusion. But we are not what our High-Dutch kinsmen call a _Mischvolk_, a mere _colluvies gentium_, a mere jumble of races in which no one element is predominant. People run over the succession of the various occupants of Britain—Romans, Britons, Saxons, Danes, Normans—sometimes as if they were races each of which ate up the one before it, sometimes as if they were, each in the same sense, component elements of the modern English nation. The correct statement of the case is much clearer and simpler. A Low-Dutch people, which took as its national name the name of one of its tribes, namely the Angles, settled in Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries. It has occupied the greater part of Britain ever since. It has ever since kept its unbroken national being, its national language, its national name. But it has at different times assimilated several foreign elements. The conquered Welsh were, as far as might be, slaughtered or driven out; but a small Welsh infusion into our language, and therefore no doubt a small Welsh infusion into our blood, is owing to the fact that the women were largely spared. A small Welsh element was thus assimilated. The Danish element, far greater in extent than the Welsh, hardly needed assimilation; the ethnical difference between the Englishman and the Dane was hardly greater than the ethnical difference between one tribe of Englishmen and another. Lastly came the Norman, or rather French, element, which was also gradually assimilated, but not till it had poured a most important infusion, though still only an infusion, into our institutions and our language. Thus, besides the kindred Danes, we have assimilated two wholly foreign elements, British and French, what our forefathers called _Bret-Welsh_ and _Gal-Welsh_. But these elements are not coequal with the original substance of the nation. In all these cases, the foreign element was simply incorporated and assimilated into the existing Low-Dutch stock. The small Welsh element, the large Danish and French elements, were absorbed in the predominant English mass. The Briton and the Norman gradually became Englishmen. The kindred Dane of course became an Englishman with far greater ease. All adopted the English name; all adopted, while to some extent they modified, the English tongue. If we confine the name “English” to the men, the speech, the laws, of the time after the last assimilation had become complete, if we talk of “Saxons” as only one coequal element among others, we completely misrepresent the true history of our nation and our language. Such a way of speaking cuts us off from our connexion with our forefathers; it wipes out the fact that we are the same people who came into this island fourteen hundred years back, and not another people. We have absorbed some very important elements from various quarters, but our true substance is still the same. We are like a Roman _gens_, some of whose members, by virtue of the law of adoption, were not Fabii or Cornelii by actual blood, but which none the less was the Fabian or Cornelian _gens_. If we allow ourselves to use, as people constantly do, the words “Saxon” or “Anglo-Saxon” as chronological terms, we altogether wipe out the fact of the unbroken life of our nation. People talk of “Saxons” and “Anglo-Saxons” as of races past and gone. Sometimes, especially in architectural disquisitions, they seem to fancy that all “the Saxons” lived at one time, forgetting that Harold is removed from Hengest by as many years as Charles the First is removed from Harold. A man, a word, a book, a building, earlier than 1066 is called “Saxon;” whether the same man, word, book, or building, after 1066 is “Norman,” I have never been able to find out. Waltheof, born before 1066, was of course a “Saxon;” what were the children whom he begot and the buildings which he built after 1066? This chronological use of the word “Saxon” implies one of two alternatives; either the “Saxons” were exterminated by the Normans, or else the “Saxons” turned into Normans. People talk of “the Saxon Period” and “the Norman Period,” as if they followed one another like the periods of geology, or like Hesiod’s races of men. The “Norman Period” is a phrase which may be admitted to express a time when Norman influences were politically predominant. We may speak of a Norman period, as we may speak of an Angevin period or an Hanoverian period. But, if we are to talk of a “Saxon period” at all, it is a period which began in 449 and which has not ended in 1877.

The most grotesque instance of this confused sort of nomenclature is to be found in the technical language of unscientific philologers. The gradual result of the Norman Conquest on the English language was twofold. The English language, like other languages, especially other Low-Dutch languages, was, at the time of the Conquest, already beginning to lose, in popular speech at least, the fulness and purity of its ancient inflexions. This process the Norman Conquest hastened and rendered more complete. It also brought in a great number of foreign words into the language, many of which supplanted native words. The result of these two processes is that the English of a thousand years back, like the Scandinavian or the High-Dutch of a thousand years back, is now unintelligible except to those who specially study it. But the English language has never either changed its name or lost its continuity. In the eyes of the scientific philologer, it is the same English tongue throughout all its modifications. But by unscientific philologers, the language, from some utterly mysterious cause, is not called English until the two processes of which I speak are accomplished. Before those processes begin, it is “Saxon” or “Anglo-Saxon;” while they are going on, it is “_Semi-Saxon_”—a name perhaps the most absurd to be found in the nomenclature of any human study. It is manifest that, with such a nomenclature as this, the true history of the English language and its relation to other Teutonic languages never can be understood.

One word as to the name “Anglo-Saxon.” I have shown that it is a real ancient name, used, though very rarely, in English documents, and somewhat more commonly in Latin ones. But it was always a mere formal description; it never became the familiar name of the nation. The meaning of the word also is commonly completely misconceived. In modern use “Anglo-” is a prefix which is used very freely, and which is certainly used in more than one meaning. We have heard of “Anglo-Saxons,” “Anglo-Normans,” “Anglo-Americans,” “Anglo-Indians,” “Anglo-Catholics.” I cannot presume to guess at the meaning of the prefix in the last formation; but I conceive “Anglo-Normans” to mean Normans settled in England, and “Anglo-Americans” to mean Englishmen settled in America. By “Anglo-Saxons,” I conceive, in the vulgar use of the word, is meant Saxons who settled in England (meaning of course in Britain), as opposed to the Old-Saxons who stayed in Germany. It is as when Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 708 C) inaccurately talks of an “adventus Saxonum in Angliam,” while the accurate Bæda (Hist. Eccl. i. 23) talks of the “adventus Anglorum in Brittaniam.” And it would seem that this really was the sense in which the compound name was used by some of the foreign writers. Indeed, as soon as the Teutonic part of Britain came to be commonly known by the name of “Anglia,” some such phrase as “Anglo-Saxones” would be, from a continental point of view, not an unnatural description of the Saxons of the island as distinguished from those of the mainland. It is plain that all remembrance of continental “Angli” must have passed away from the mind of Widukind when he made the grotesque derivation—one not all peculiar to himself—which was quoted in p. 541. But this is not the meaning of the word “Anglo-Saxon” as used by Asser, Florence, and King Æthelstan. “King of the Anglo-Saxons,” as a title of Æthelstan or Eadred, meant simply “King of the Angles and Saxons,” a way of describing him which was clearly more correct, though far less usual, than the common style of “Rex Anglorum.” In the ancient Coronation Service (see vol. iii. chap. xi. and Appendix E; Selden’s Titles of Honour, 116), in the same prayer we twice read “Anglorum vel (= et) Saxonum,” once “Anglo-Saxonum.” The latter form is clearly a mere abbreviation, perhaps a mere clerical error. That, under a purely Saxon dynasty, the title of “Rex Anglorum” became regular and universal, that “Rex Saxonum” died completely out, that “Rex Anglo-Saxonum” was always rare, is the most overwhelming proof that “English” was the real and only recognized name of the united nation. “Anglo-Saxon” then, in certain positions, is a perfectly correct description. But it is dangerous to use it, because it is so extremely liable to misconstruction. Again, its correct use is so very narrow, that the term becomes almost useless. It has no real meaning except in the plural. It is quite correct to call Æthelstan “King of the Anglo-Saxons,” but to call this or that subject of Æthelstan “an Anglo-Saxon” is simply nonsense. I have as yet only once lighted on the use of the word in the singular, namely in the Vita Alchuini, 11 (Jaffé, Monumenta Alcuiniana, p. 25), where a certain priest is described as “Engelsaxo.” See Mullinger, Schools of Charles the Great, 113. As a _chronological_ term “Anglo-Saxon” is equally objectionable with “Saxon.” The “Anglo-Saxon period,” so far as there ever was one, is going on still.

I speak therefore of our forefathers, not as “Saxons” or even as “Anglo-Saxons,” but as they spoke of themselves, as Englishmen—“Angli,” “Engle,” “Angel-cyn.” I call their language, not “Saxon” or even “Anglo-Saxon,” but, as Ælfred called it, “English.” I thus keep to the custom of the time of which I speak, and I also avoid the misconception and confusion which must follow any other way of speaking. But the different shapes which names have taken in later times allow us to make an useful distinction between the two uses of the same word. In Latin it was necessary to use the single word “Anglus” to express both the whole nation and one particular part of it. But we can now speak of the whole nation as “English,” while we can speak of the tribe from which the nation borrowed its name as “Anglian.” When I wish pointedly to distinguish the men, the language, or the institutions of the time before 1066 from those of any time after 1066, I speak distinctively of “Old-English,” as our kinsmen speak of “Alt-Deutsch.”

I now leave the subject with a reference to the golden words of Sir Francis Palgrave, England and Normandy, iii. 630–2.

NOTE B. pp. 28, 133. THE BRETWALDADOM AND THE IMPERIAL TITLES.

It is almost impossible, after the connexion between them which Sir Francis Palgrave so earnestly strove to establish, to treat the question of the Bretwaldas apart from the question of the Imperial titles borne by the English Kings of the tenth and eleventh centuries. The unbroken connexion between the two is the very life and soul of his theory. And in discussing the matter we must never forget that it is to Sir Francis Palgrave, more than to any other scholar, that we owe the assertion of the great truth, without which all mediæval history is an insoluble puzzle, that the Roman Empire did not come to an end in the year 476, but that the Empire and Imperial ideas continued to be the very life of European politics for ages after. On this head I must refer my readers to Mr. Bryce’s brilliant Essay on the Holy Roman Empire, where the whole doctrine is drawn out with wonderful clearness and power. (See also Historical Essays, First Series, p. 126.) But Sir Francis Palgrave, as usual, made too much of his theory; his very learning and ingenuity carried him away. The Imperial doctrine itself, as put forth by him, was greatly exaggerated, and connecting, as he did, the Bretwaldadom with the later Imperial style, he was disposed to make as much as possible of the Bretwaldadom. Mr. Kemble, on the other hand, is equally disposed to make as little as possible of the Bretwaldadom, and I must say that he slurs over the question of the Imperial titles in a strange way. In both parts of the controversy, Sir Francis Palgrave may have given a wrong explanation; but he has at least given a very elaborate and ingenious explanation. Mr. Kemble leaves passages which must have some meaning without any explanation at all. For my own part, I cannot help adding that, years ago, when I first began these studies, I was altogether carried away by the fascination of Sir Francis Palgrave’s theories. I soon saw their exaggerated character, and how utterly unfounded a great part of them were. I was thus led to go too far the other way, and altogether to cast aside the notion of any Imperial sovereignty in our Kings. Later thought and study have at last brought me to an intermediate position, for which I trust that stronger grounds will be found than for either of the extremes.

The name _Bretwalda_ comes from the well-known passage in the Chronicles under the year 827, where it is found only in the Winchester version, all the others having different spellings, _Brytenwalda_, _Bretanenwealda_, _Brytenwealda_, _Brytenweald_. The only other place that I know where any of these forms or anything like them occurs is in a charter of Æthelstan in 934, in which that King is described (Cod. Dipl. v. 218) as “Ongol-Saxna cyning and _Brytænwalda eallæs ðyses iglandæs_;” the Latin equivalent (p. 217) is “Angul-Saxonum necnon et totius Britanniæ rex, gratia Dei regni solio sublimatus.” Mr. Kemble (ii. 13, 20) argues that the reading _Bretwalda_ is a false one, and that the meaning _wielder_, _ruler_, or _Emperor of Britain_, or _of Britons_, is altogether wrong. He takes the true reading to be _Brytenwealda_, which he derives from the adjective _bryten_, so as to mean _wide ruler_, quoting the word _Bryten-cyning_ and other similar cognates as compound forms. As a piece of Teutonic scholarship Mr. Kemble is most likely right, but I doubt whether his correction of the etymology is of much strictly historical importance. When the entry in the Chronicles was made, the title must have been familiar, and it must have conveyed some meaning. And the forms _Bretwalda_ and _Bretanenwealda_ seem clearly to show that those who used those forms meant them, rightly or wrongly, to mean _wielder of Britain_. In the charter of Æthelstan again, though the Latin and the English do not exactly translate one another, I think it is plain that _Britanniæ Rex_ was meant to be the equivalent to _Brytænwalda_. I have therefore no scruple in keeping to the more usual form and in attaching to it the commonly received meaning. Less correct as a matter of scholarship, I conceive it to be more correct as a matter of history.

But the passage in the Chronicles, as is well known, is founded on an equally well-known passage in Bæda (ii. 5). Bæda there reckons up seven Kings, Ælle of Sussex, Ceawlin of Wessex, Æthelberht of Kent, Rædwald of East-Anglia, Eadwine, Oswald, and Oswiu of Northumberland, as having a supremacy, if not over all Britain, yet at least beyond their own immediate kingdoms. This supremacy he first calls _Imperium_ and then _Ducatus_. The latter somewhat lowly form may perhaps be a warning against attaching any exaggerated importance to the other. The Chroniclers translate the “Imperium hujusmodi” of Bæda by the words “_þus micel rice_.” They record Ecgberht’s conquest of Mercia, and say that “he wæs se eahteþa cyning se þe Bretwalda wæs.” They then give Bæda’s list of seven, with Ecgberht for the eighth. It is of course an obvious difficulty that several Kings, especially of Mercia, who seem to have been at least as powerful as any of those on the list, such as Penda and Offa, and Æthelbald, whom Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 728 D) speaks of as “rex regum,” are not found on the list. The writer of the entry, a subject of Ecgberht or one of his successors, no doubt simply copied Bæda’s list and added the name of Ecgberht, unwilling perhaps to record the glories of princes of the rival kingdom. Now this objection quite upsets the old notion with which Mr. Kemble makes himself so merry, of a regular Federal monarchy under an elective Emperor or Bretwalda; nor do I attempt to be wise above what is written or to define anything with precision as to the nature of a supremacy of which we have such slight records. Still the passages both in Bæda and the Chronicles must have a meaning. They show that those seven Kings did exercise a supremacy of some kind beyond the limits of their own kingdoms, which supremacy Ecgberht was held to have continued or to have revived. This supremacy is equally a fact whether those seven princes bore any special title or not. That the Bretwaldadom of Æthelberht carried with it some real dominion beyond the limits of Kent is shown by the ease with which Augustine went and held a synod in a distant part of England and a part still heathen. (See Bæda, ii. 2.) This could hardly be except by virtue of a safe conduct from the common over-lord. Indeed Bæda’s words are explicit—“adjutorio usus Ædilbercti regis.” The supremacy of Ecgberht needs no comment, and Mr. Kemble himself (ii. 19) calls attention to the fact that _Ducatus_, one of the words used by Bæda, is used by Ecgberht himself in three charters (Cod. Dipl. vi. 79, 81, 84), in which Ecgberht dates the year of his _Ducatus_ ten years later than the beginning of his reign as King, exactly like the years of the _Regnum_ and the _Imperium_ of the later Emperors.

I believe then there was a real, though not an abiding or a very well defined, supremacy which was often, perhaps generally, held by some one of the Teutonic princes of Britain over as many of his neighbours, Celtic and Teutonic alike, as he could extend it over. I believe that this fact was remembered in the days of Ecgberht and of Æthelstan, and that Æthelstan probably looked on himself as the successor of Ceawlin in his wider no less than in his narrower dominion. What I cannot bring myself to believe is that Ceawlin looked on himself as the successor of Maximus and Carausius. Sir Francis Palgrave (i. 398) really seems to have believed that Ælle the South-Saxon, the first recorded Bretwalda, was called to the post of Emperor of Britain by the choice of the Welsh princes. Now it is not easy to see in what Ælle’s Bretwaldadom consisted. It is possible that the Jutes of Kent, and the settlers who had already begun to make the east coast of Britain a Teutonic land, may have invested him with some sort of general leadership for the better carrying on of the Conquest. It is possible that he may have brought under tribute some Welsh tribes which he did not root out, and that he may so far have presented a dim foreshadowing of the glories of Æthelstan and Eadgar. But the days of the Commendation had not yet come. It is utterly incredible that Ælle held any authority over any Welsh tribe, save such as he won and held at the point of the sword. It is utterly incredible that any Welsh congress ever assembled to make him Cæsar, Augustus, Tyrant, Bretwalda, or anything else. Cnut and William indeed were chosen Kings of the English by electors, many of whom must have shared as unwillingly in their work as any Welsh prince could have shared in the work of investing Ælle with an Imperial crown. But the times were utterly different; Cnut and William were not mere destroyers; they took possession of an established kingdom, and it was not their policy to destroy or to change one whit more than was absolutely necessary for their own purposes. But Ælle, who did to Anderida as Joshua did to Jericho and to Ai, was little likely indeed to receive an Imperial diadem at the hands of the surviving Gibeonites. The dream of a transmission of Imperial authority from the vanquished Briton to his Teutonic conqueror seems to me the vainest of all the dreams which ingenious men have indulged in.

What then was the Bretwaldadom? As we may fairly assert that the passages which I have already quoted imply a real supremacy of some kind, so, on the other hand, we may be equally sure that whatever they imply was something of purely English growth, something in no way connected with, or derived from, any older Welsh or Roman dominion. Nothing is proved by the fact that Æthelberht imitated the coinage of Carausius and put a wolf and twins on his money. Nothing was more common than for the Teutonic states everywhere, and for the Saracen states too, to imitate the coinage which supplied them with their most obvious models. But on a coin of Carausius the wolf and twins had a most speaking meaning; on a coin of Æthelberht they had no meaning at all. It may be that Eadwine assumed some ensigns of dignity in imitation of Roman pomp; the _tufa_ may have the special meaning attached to it, or it may not; Eadwine, with the Roman Paulinus at his elbow, might well indulge in a certain Imperial show, without any need of traditions handed on from Maximus and Carausius. These are, I believe, the only attempts at evidence to prove that the Bretwaldadom had a Roman origin; and they prove about as much as King Ælfred’s notion (see his Laws, Thorpe, i. 58) that the immemorial Teutonic (or rather Aryan, see Il. ix. 629) practice of the _wergild_ was introduced by Christian Bishops in imitation of the mild-heartedness of Christ. The title of Bretwalda, or Brytenwealda, as borne by Æthelstan, was most likely equivalent to _Imperator_ or _Basileus_; but if it was used by Ælle or Ceawlin, I cannot think that it had any such meaning in their day.

It does not however seem that the supremacy of the early Bretwaldas necessarily reached over the whole of Britain or even over the whole of the Teutonic kingdoms in Britain. A marked predominance in the island, a distinct superiority over other states than his own, seems to have been enough to win for a prince a place on the list as given by Bæda and the Chronicler, though there might be other states over which his dominion did not reach. The supremacy of Ælle, and even that of Ceawlin, must have been very far from reaching over all Britain. The supremacy of Æthelberht is expressly limited by Bæda (ii. 5) to the English states south of the Humber; “Tertius in regibus gentis Anglorum cunctis australibus eorum provinciis quæ Humbræ fluvio et contiguis ei terminis sequestrantur a borealibus, _imperavit_.” This excludes all the Celts and also the Northumbrians. And it is worth noting that at least this same extent of dominion is elsewhere (v. 23) attributed by Bæda to Æthelbald of Mercia, whose name does not appear on his list; “Hæ omnes provinciæ [all England east of Severn and Hereford west of it] cæteræque australes ad confinium usque Hymbræ fluminis, cum suis quæque regibus, Merciorum regi Ædilbaldo subjectæ sunt.” On the other hand, the dominion of Eadwine is distinctly said not to have taken in Kent, and it seems implied that it did not take in the Picts and Scots; “Aeduini ... majore potentia cunctis qui Brittaniam incolunt, Anglorum pariter et Brettonum populis præfuit, præter Cantuariis tantum.” Sir Francis Palgrave indeed (ii. cccix.) attributes to Eadwine a dominion over the Picts and Scots. The words of Bæda however seem to me to exclude it; I understand him as attributing to Eadwine a dominion over the Britons only, that is the Welsh (probably of Strathclyde), as distinguished from the Picts and Scots. And the words which follow might seem to imply that Oswiu was the first to extend the power of Northumberland beyond the Forth. After describing the dominion of Eadwine he adds, “Sextus Oswald et ipse Nordanhymbrorum rex Christianissimus, iisdem finibus regnum tenuit; septimus Osuiu frater ejus, æqualibus pene terminis regnum nonnullo tempore coercens, Pictorum quoque atque Scottorum gentes, quæ septemtrionales Brittaniæ fines tenent, maxima ex parte perdomuit ac tributarias fecit.” So afterwards (iii. 24), “Osuiu ... qui gentem Pictorum maxima ex parte regno Anglorum subjecit.” Yet elsewhere (iii. 6) he attributes to Oswald also a dominion over Picts and Scots; “Denique omnes nationes et provincias Brittaniæ, quæ in quatuor linguas, id est Brettonum, Pictorum, Scottorum, et Anglorum, divisæ sunt, in ditione accepit.” It should be remembered that there was a family connexion between the Pictish royal family and that of Bernicia, and the words just quoted might imply a voluntary acceptance of Oswald on the part of the northern tribes. The peculiarity of Ecgberht’s position was that he had received a formal submission from all the English princes in Britain, and that he was able to do what no other Bretwalda had done, to hand on his power to his children. This dominion Eadward and Æthelstan won back and strengthened after the Danish invasion, and extended it over Scotland and Strathclyde. Now begins the use of the Imperial style, and I accordingly go on to give some examples of the various titles assumed by our Kings from Æthelstan to Cnut. One such instance, that in which Æthelstan uses the title of “Brytenwealda,” I have already quoted (see above, p. 367). Among the others I select such as either illustrate the use of the Latin Imperial titles, or which distinctly claim a dominion beyond the English kingdom, or which are remarkable on some other ground. I shall abstain from quoting those which present nothing beyond the mere use of the word _Basileus_, which is almost as common as _Rex_. Those which are found in charters marked by Mr. Kemble with an asterisk I mark with an asterisk also.

1. Ego Æðelstanus rex Anglorum per omnipatrantis dexteram totius Britaniæ regni solio sublimatus. Cod. Dipl. ii. 159; cf. v. 193.

*2. Quinto anno ex quo nobilissime gloriosus Rex Anglo-saxones regaliter gubernabat, tertioque postquam authentice Northanhumbrorum Cumbrorumque blanda mirifici conditoris benevolentia patrocinando sceptrinæ gubernaculum perceperat virgæ, ii. 160.

Ego Æþelstan rex et rector totius Britanniæ cæterarumque Deo concedente gubernator provinciarum. ii. 161; cf. v. 215.

*3. Ego Æðelstanus ipsius [altitonantis sc.] munificentia Basileus Anglorum, simul et _Imperator regum_ et nationum infra fines Brittanniæ commorantium. ii. 164.

*4. Ego Æðelstanus divinæ dispensationis providentia tam super Britannicæ gentis quam super aliarum nationum huic subditarum _imperium_ elevatus Rex. ii. 167.

5. Ego Æðelstanus florentis Brytaniæ _monarchia_ præditus rex. ii. 173.

6. Ego Æðelstanus rex _monarchus_ totius Bryttanniæ insulæ, flante Domino. ii. 204.

7. Ego Æþelstanus divina mihi adridente gratia rex Anglorum et _curagulus_ totius Bryttanniæ. ii. 215.

8. Ego Æðelstanus Angulsaxonum rex non modica infulatus sublimatus dignitate. v. 187.

9. Ego Æðelstan, Christo conferente rex et primicerius totius Albionis, regni fastigium humili præsidens animo. v. 201, 204.

10. Ego Æðelstanus, omnicreantis disponente clementia Angligenarum omniumque gentium undique secus habitantium rex. v. 214.

11. Ego Æðelstanus ... favente superno numine Basileus industrius Anglorum cunctarumque gentium in circuitu persistentium. v. 229.

12. Æðelstanus, divina favente clementia, rex Anglorum et _æque totius Britanniæ orbis curagulus_. v. 231.

*13. Ego Eadmundus divina favente gratia Basyleos Anglorum cæterarumque provinciarum in circuitu persistentium primatum regalis regiminis obtinens. ii. 220.

14. Ego Eadmundus rex Anglorum necnon et Merciorum. ii. 265.

15. Eadmundi regis qui regimina regnorum Angulsaxna et Norðhymbra, Paganorum Brettonumque septem annorum intervallo regaliter gubernabat. ii. 268.

16. Hoc apparet proculdubio in rege Anglorum gloriosissimo beato Dei opere pretio Eadredo, quem Norðhymbra Paganorumque ceu cæterarum sceptro provinciarum rex regum Omnipotens sublimavit, quique præfatus _Imperator_ semper Deo grates dignissimas largâ manu subministrat. ii. 292.

17. Ego Eadred rex divina gratia totius Albionis monarchus et primicerius. ii. 294.

18. Eadredus rex Anglorum, gloriosissimus rectorque, Norþanhymbra et Paganorum _Imperator_, Brittonumque propugnator, ii. 296.

19. En onomatos cyrion doxa. Al wísdóm ge for Gode ge for werolde is gestaðelad on ðæm hefonlícan goldhorde almæhtiges Godes per Jesum Christum, cooperante gratiâ Spiritûs Sancti. He hafað geweorðad mid cynedóme Angulseaxna Eádred _cyning and cásere totius Britanniæ_ Deo gratias· for ðem weolegað and árað gehádade and lǽwede ða ðe mid rihte magon geærnian. &c., &c. ii. 303.

20. Ego Eadredus Basileos Anglorum hujusque insulæ barbarorum. ii. 305.

21. Ego Eadred gratia Dei Occidentalium Saxonum rex. v. 323.

22. Ego Eadwig industrius Anglorum rex cæterarumque gentium in circuitu persistentium gubernator et rector, primo anno _imperii_ mei. ii. 308; cf. 329, 348.

23. Ego Eadwig divina dispositione gentis Angligenæ et diversarum nationum industrius rex. ii. 316.

24. Ego Eadwig egregius Angulsaxonum Basileus cæterarumque plebium hinc inde habitantium. ii. 318; cf. v. 344, 354.

25. Ego Eadwig totius Albionis insulæ illustrissimus _archons_. ii. 323; cf. iii. 24.

26. Eadwig numine cœlesti gentis Gewissorum, Orientaliumque necnon Occidentalium etiam Aquilonalium Saxonum archons. ii. 324; cf. v. 349.

27. Eadwi Rex, nutu Dei Angulsæxna et Norðanhumbrorum _Imperator_, Paganorum gubernator, Breotonumque propugnator, ii. 325.

*28. Anno secundo _imperii_ Eadwiges totius Albionis insulæ _imperantis_. ii. 341.

29. Ego Eadwi rex omnium gentium huic insulæ cohærentium. v. 341.

30. Ego Eadwig non solum Angul-Saxonum Basileus, verum etiam totius Albionis insulæ gratia Dei sceptro fungens, v. 361.

31. Ego Eadwig _imperiali_ Anglo-Saxonum diademate infulatus, v. 379.

32. Ego Eadwig rex Saxonum. v. 395.

33. Ego Eadgar Britanniæ Anglorum _monarchus_. ii. 374.

*34. Ego Eadgarus Anglorum Basileus, omniumque regum insularum oceani quæ Britanniam circumjacent, cunctarumque nationum quæ infra eum includuntur _Imperator_ et dominus ... _monarchiam_ totius Angliæ ... Anglorum _imperio_ ... Ego Eadgar Basileus Anglorum et Imperator regum gentium. ii. 404–6.

35. Ic Eádgár cyning éac þurh his [Godes] gife ofer Engla þeóde nú úp árǽred, and he hæfð nú gewẏld tó minum anwealde Scottas and Cumbras and éac swylce Bryttas and eal ðǽt ðis igland him on innan hæfd. iii. 59.

36. Ego Eadgar divina allubescente gratia totius Albionis _Imperator Augustus_. iii. 64.

*37. Signum Eadgari et serenissimi Anglorum _Imperatoris_. iii. 109.

38. Ego Eadgar gratia Dei rex Merciorum cæterarumque circumquaque nationum. vi. 3.

39. Ego Eadgarus gentis Anglorum et barbarorum atque gentilium Rex ac prædux. vi. 69.

*40. Ego Æðelred Dei gratia Anglorum rex _imperiosus_. iii. 204.

*41. Ego Æðelredus famosus totius Brittannicæ insulæ _Imperator_. iii. 251.

42. Ego Æðelredus totius Albionis Dei providentia _Imperator_. iii. 290.

43. Ego Æþelred rex totius insulæ. Ego Æþelred rex et rector angul sexna. iii. 316, 317.

44. Ego Æðelred gentis gubernator Angligenæ totiusque insulæ corregulus Britannicæ et cæterarum insularum in circuitu adjacentium. iii. 323.

45. Ego Æðelredus ipsius [celsitonantis Dei] opitulante gratia Brittaniarum Rex. iii. 337.

*46. Ego Æðelredus Anglorum _Induperator_.

Ic Æðelred mid Godes gyfe Angelþeóde cyning and wealdend eác óðra iglanda ðe hér ábútan licgað. iii. 348.

*47. Ego gratia summi Tonantis Angligenûm, Orcadarum, necne in gyro jacentium _monarchus_ Æðelredus. iii. 346.

*48. Ego Æðelredus totius Britanniæ _Induperator_. iii. 355.

49. Prædicta _Augusta_ [Ælgifu-Emma]. iii. 358.

*50. Æðelred rex Anglo-Saxoniæ atque Norðhymbrensis gubernator _monarchiæ_, paganorumque propugnator, ac Bretonum cæterarumque provinciarum _Imperator_. vi. 166.

51. Æðelredus, gratia Dei sublimatus rex et _monarchus_ totius Albionis. vi. 167.

52. Ego Cnut totius Britanniæ _monarchus_. vi. 179.

53. Ego _Imperator_ Knuto, a Christo Rege regum regiminis Anglici in insula potitus. iv. 1.

54. Ego Knut telluris Britanniæ totius largiflua Dei gratia subpetente subthronizatus rex ac rector. iv. 7.

55. Ego Cnut _Basileon Angelsaxonum_ disponente clementia creantis. iv. 18.

*56. Ic Cnut þurh Godes geve Ænglelandes kining and ealre ðáre eglande ðe ðǽrtó licgeð. iv. 23.

57. Ego Cnut rex totius Albionis cæterarumque gentium triviatim persistentium Basileus. iv. 35.

58. Ego Cnut, misericordia Dei Basileus, omnis Britaniæ regimen adeptus. iv. 45.

Of these forms, Nos. 10, 11, 13 are used over and over again with various slight changes. The forms “totius Britanniæ” or “Albionis rex” or “Basileus” occur constantly. They are distinctly more common than the simple “Anglorum rex.” “Anglorum Basileus” and forms to the like effect are also common. In fact a charter which does not in one way or the other assert a dominion beyond the simple royalty of the English nation is rather the exception. On the other hand we now and then, as in Nos. 21, 32, come upon forms which are startling from their very simplicity. No. 32, I suppose, belongs to the days when Eadwig was reduced to the kingdom of Wessex. Meanwhile Eadgar in his Mercian charter, No. 38, seems to claim, what doubtless was the case, the external dominion of the crown as belonging to himself rather than to his West-Saxon brother. Nos. 14, 15, 16, 18, 27, 50 are remarkable for the use of the word “Angli” and “Angulseaxe” in a sense excluding Northumberland. In No. 14 indeed “Angli” excludes the Mercians. It might be almost rendered “Saxons.” So completely had “Anglus” become the national name, even in the most purely Saxon parts of the country.

Some of these titles call for some special notice. _Brytenwealda_ I have already spoken of. No. 19 is remarkable as the only one in which the title of _Cæsar_ occurs in any shape. _Casere_ is the regular English description of the continental Emperors, but I know no other instance of its application to an English King. (Perhaps the most striking instance of its use is where Alfred in his Boetius calls Odysseus “án _cyning_ þæs nama Aulixes, se hæfde twa þioda under þam _kasere_ ... and þæs kaseres nama wæs Agamemnon.”) This solitary English use of the word is a remarkable contrast to the fact that _Kaiser_ altogether displaced _König_ as the title of the German sovereign. In fact none of these titles ever came into common use, even in Latin, much less in English. _Basileus_, so common in charters, is very rare anywhere else. It occurs twice in Florence, once (975) where Eadgar is called “Anglici orbis Basileus,” and again (1016) where Eadric at Sherstone is made to talk of “dominus vester Eadmundus _Basileus_;” and once in the Ramsey History, c. 87, where the writer speaks of “Ædgari victoriosissimi Anglorum _Basilei_ munificentia regalis.” _Imperator_, less rare than _Cæsar_, is less usual than _Basileus_. _Prædux_ in No. 39 reminds one of the _ducatus_ of Bæda and of Ecgberht’s charters (see above, p. 551). The oddest titles of all are _Primicerius_ and _Curagulus_ or _Coregulus_. Probably _Curagulus_ means _caretaker_, but with the idea of _Rex_ or _Regulus_ floating in the mind of the scribe, which accounts for the spelling _Coregulus_. I am uncertain whether the words _monarchus_, _monarchia_, are to be reckoned as strictly Imperial. They are so used by Dante in his famous treatise “De Monarchia;” but it is clear that they have no such special meaning in the rhetoric of Dudo. They may have been used with equal vagueness in the kindred rhetoric of our charters. Thus for instance in a doubtful grant of Eadgar, dated 958, in possession of the Chapter of Wells, Eadgar is made to call himself “Rex Merciorum et Norðanhymbrorum atque Brettonum;” and afterwards, “divina favente gratia totius regni Merciorum monarchiam obtinens.”

That of these titles _Casere_, _Basileus_, and _Imperator_ are meant to be Imperial in the strictest sense I have no doubt. If the title of _Basileus_ stood alone, it might possibly be merely an instance of the prevalent fondness for Greek titles; the King might be called _Basileus_ only in the same vague way in which his Ealdormen are called _satrapæ_ and _archontes_. Yet even this would be unlikely; _satrapa_ and _archon_ were not established titles, assumed by a single potentate in a special sense, and which the diplomacy of the age confined to that potentate. But _Basileus_ was simply Greek for _Imperator_. To be addressed as _Imperator_ and _Basileus_ by the ambassadors of Nikêphoros (Einhard, an. 812. “Laudes et dixerunt, Imperatorem eum et Basileum appellantes”) is reckoned among the most brilliant triumphs of Charles the Great. It was the formal acknowledgment of the claims of the Western Cæsar at the hands of his Eastern colleague or rival. So, later in the ninth century, the title of _Basileus_ became the subject of a curious diplomatic controversy between the rival claimants of the dignity which it denoted, Basil of the New, and Lewis of the Old, Rome, and the Western disputant went very deep into the matter indeed. (See the letter of Lewis, “Imperator Augustus Romanorum,” to Basil, “æque Imperator Novæ Romæ,” in the Chronicle of Salerno, cap. 93 et seqq.; Muratori, t. ii. p. ii. p. 243. See Comparative Politics, 49, 353.) So Liudprand (Legatio, c. 2) complains that the Nikêphoros of his day refused the title to Otto; “Ipse enim vos non _Imperatorem_, id est βασιλέα sua lingua, sed ob indignationem ῥῆγα, id est _Regem_ nostra vocabat.” So late as John Kinnamos, lib. v. 9 (pp. 228, 229, ed. Bonn), Frederick Barbarossa is only ῥὴξ Ἀλαμανῶν; the Eastern Emperor alone is βασιλεύς and αὐτοκράτωρ. That the titles _Casere_ and _Imperator_ are strictly Imperial hardly needs proof; the only question is whether we are to look for a strictly Imperial meaning in every instance of the use of the noun _imperium_ and the verb _imperare_.

The use of _Basileus_ seems more common in England than anywhere else; yet we find it in Abbo (i. 43) of Charles the Third;

“Urbs mandata fuit Karolo nobis Basileo, Imperio cujus regitur totus prope kosmus, Post Dominum, regem dominatoremque potentem.”

_Imperator_ (see Ducange, in voc.) seems to have been used by several Kings of Castile, on precisely the same ground on which it was used in England, namely that they were Emperors, independent of Rome or Byzantium, but holding an Imperial power over princes within their own peninsula. So Robert de Monte, 1153 (Pertz, vi. 503), “Quia principatur regulis Arragonum et Galliciæ, Imperatorem Hispaniarum appellant.” The West-Frankish and French instances which Ducange quotes seem very doubtful. Charles the Bald, it must be remembered, really was Emperor in his last years. The oddest thing of all is the fact that the Saxon Kings Henry and Otto were saluted _Imperator_ by their soldiers in the sense of the days of the Roman Republic. See Widukind, i. 39; iii. 49. Henry was “pater patriæ, rerum dominus et Imperator ab exercitu appellatus;” Otto “triumpho celebri rex factus gloriosus, ab exercitu pater patriæ Imperatorque appellatus est.” (See p. 143.) In this sense not only Cæsar, but Cicero also was Emperor. Perhaps the strangest description of all is that of Charles the Fat in Will. Malms. ii. 111, “Ego Karolus imperator, gratuito Dei dono rex Germanorum et patricius Romanorum, atque imperator Francorum.”

It is worth noticing that, though some of the most distinctly Imperial descriptions are found in charters whose genuineness is undoubted, yet the proportion of them which are found in doubtful or spurious charters is remarkably large. This fact in no way tells against the Imperial theory, but rather in its favour. A forger will naturally reproduce whatever he thinks most characteristic of the class of documents which he is imitating; but, in so doing, he is likely somewhat to overdo matters. A forger, thus attempting to copy the style of a charter of Eadgar or Æthelred, perhaps actually reproducing a genuine charter from memory, would naturally fill his composition with the most high-sounding of all the titles that he had ever seen in any genuine charter. The most purely Imperial style would thus find its way into forgeries in greater abundance than into genuine charters. Still the spurious documents are, in this way, evidence just as much as the genuine ones. The doubtful and spurious charters have therefore a certain value; their formulæ are part of the case, and I have not scrupled to add them to my list.

With regard to the assertion of the Imperial character of English royalty in later times, the doubtful title of “monarcha” or “monarches” still goes on. Thus in the charter of William Rufus to John of Tours, preserved in manuscript at Wells, the King is described as “Willelmus Willelmi regis filius, Dei dispositione monarches Britanniæ.” So, long after, in a letter from Henry the Sixth to James the Second of Scotland (correspondence of Thomas Bekynton, ii. 141), the English King is made to say, “verum et notorium est supremum jus et directum dominium regni Scotiæ ad regem Angliæ utpote totius Britanniæ monarcham de jure pertinere.” So in i. 119 of the same collection, where Henry the Sixth petitions Pope Eugenius the Fourth for the canonization of Ælfred, the West-Saxon King is described as “Sanctus et Deo devotissimus rex Aluredus, qui incliti regni Angliæ primus monarcha erat.” It was also held necessary at various times to deny any superiority of the continental Emperors over England. Thus it was declared in Edward the Second’s reign (1330), “Quod regnum Angliæ ab omni subjectione Imperiali sit liberrimum” (Selden, Titles of Honour, p. 21. b. i. c. 2). And in 1416 a renunciation of all supremacy was required from Sigismund, King of the Romans, before he was allowed to land in England (see Selden, u. s.; Lingard, iii. 505; Bryce, 207. But the account in Redman, p. 49, and Elmham, Liber. Metr. p. 133, is much less explicit). So late as Elizabeth’s reign, Sir Thomas Smith, in his Commonwealth of England (10), describing the union of the English kingdoms into one, goes on to explain that “neither anyone of those Kings, neither he who first had all, tooke any investiture at the hands of the Emperor of Rome, or of any other superiour or forraine Prince, but held of God to himselfe, and by his sword, his people, and crowne, acknowledging no Prince in earth his superiour, and so it is kept and holden at this day.” But beside this denial of all Imperial supremacy anywhere else, we also find the Imperial character of our sovereigns from Edward the First to Elizabeth from time to time directly asserted. Thus there are two cases in which the title of Emperor is given to Edward the First, in both cases with distinct reference to his supremacy over Scotland. The elder Robert Bruce (Palgrave, Documents, p. 29) claimed the kingdom from Edward the First as _Emperor_. “Sire Robert de Brus ... prie a nostre Seignur le Rey, come son sovereyn Seigneur e _son Empeur_.” So when the question is raised whether the controversy between the candidates for the Scottish crown should be judged by the Imperial law or by any other, one of the Prelates consulted (“episcopus Bibliensis,” perhaps a Bishop of Byblos _in partibus_) answers that the King of England must follow the law of his own realm because “he is Emperor here” (Rishanger, Riley, p. 255). “Dixit quod dominus rex secundum leges per quas judicat subjectos suos debet procedere in casu isto, _quia hic censetur Imperator_.” So Professor Stubbs (Const. Hist. ii. 491) quotes a statute of 1397 in which Richard the Second is described as “entier emperour de son roialme.” The title is also challenged for Henry the Fifth in a negociation at the siege of Rouen. In the riming Chronicle of John Page (Historical Collections of a Citizen of London, Camden Society, 1876) an English knight is made to say of his own King,

“And he ys kyng excellent, And unto non othyr obedyent, That levythe here in erthe be ryght, But only unto God almyght, With-yn hys owne Emperoure, And also kyng and conqueroure.”

In Henry the Eighth’s time the words “Empire” and “Imperial Crown” are constantly used in a way which cannot fail to be of set purpose. The Statute of Appeals of 1537, in renouncing all jurisdiction on the part of the Roman Pontiff, clothed the renunciation in words whose force can hardly be misunderstood, and which seem designed expressly to exclude the supremacy of the Roman Cæsar as well. The emphatic words run thus; “Whereas by divers and sundry old authentic histories and chronicles, it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England _is an Empire_, and so hath been accepted in the world; governed by one supreme head and King, having the dignity and royal estate of _the Imperial Crown_ of the same ... without restraint, or provocation to _any foreign prince or potentate of the world_.” So again, “to keep it from the annoyance as well of the See of Rome _as from the authority of other foreign potentates_ attempting the diminution or violation thereof” (Selden, p. 18; Froude, Hist. Eng. i. 410–412). In an Irish Act of the same reign a further step is taken, and the King is distinctly spoken of as Emperor. As Selden (u. s.) puts it, “The Crown of England in other Parliaments of later times is titled the Imperial Crown; the Kings of England being also in the express words of an Irish Parliament titled _Kings and Emperours of the Realm of England and of the Land of Ireland_, and that before the title of Lord of Ireland was allied with King.” As for Elizabeth, at her coronation her herald formally proclaimed her as “most worthy Empress from the Orcade isles to the mountains Pyrenee.” (See Strickland’s Life of Elizabeth, p. 166, where a very strange interpretation is put on the words.) “The mountains Pyrenee” are a flourish which seems to have come from the days of Henry the Second, when Gilbert Foliot (Ralph of Diss, X Scriptt. 542) speaks of “dominationis suæ loca quæ ab boreali oceano Pirenæum usque porrecta sunt.” (So William of Newburgh, i. 94.) And the special mention of the “Orcade isles” might seem to come out of a charter of Æthelred (Cod. Dipl. iii. 346); “Angligenum, Orcadarum necne in gyro jacentium monarchus.” So in 1559, in the debate on restoring to the Crown the ecclesiastical jurisdiction surrendered under Mary, those who opposed Elizabeth’s spiritual claims still pointedly admitted her Imperial position in temporal matters. Archbishop Heath says, “She being our Sovereign Lord and Lady, our King and Queen, our Emperor and Empress, other Kings and Princes of duty ought to pay tribute unto her, she being free from them all” (Strype’s Annals, I. Append. No. 6). And in the first English translation of Camden’s Britannia (London, 1625), the title of the book is given as “The true and Royall history of the famous Empresse Elizabeth, Queen of England.”

Lastly, a pamphlet was published in 1706, when the Union with Scotland was under debate, headed, “The Queen an Empress, and her three kingdoms an Empire,” proposing a curious scheme for a British Empire, with subordinate Kings, Princes, and a Patriarch of London. It is of course an imitation of the constitution of _the_ Empire, but the writer refers once or twice to the days of Eadgar for precedents.

The Imperial position of the English King seemed naturally (see p. 134) to carry with it the Papal position of the English Primate. Britain is another world, a world beyond the sea, distinct from the “orbis Romanus.” On this head I have collected a good many extracts in Comparative Politics, 351. So Eumenius Constantio, Pan. Vet. v. 11; “Quam Cæsar, ille auctor vestri nominis, eum Romanorum primus intrasset, alium se orbem terrarum scripsit reperisse, tantæ magnitudinis arbitratus, ut non circumfusa oceano sed complexa ipsum oceanum videretur.” (Cf. R. de Diceto, i. 438, ed. Stubbs.) As another world then, Britain is entitled to its own Cæsar, “mundi dominus” within his own four seas, and no less to its own Pontiff. As Florence (see above, p. 559) calls Eadgar “Anglici _orbis_ Basileus,” and as in No. 12 of our extracts we heard of “totius Britanniæ orbis,” evidently in this sense, so Pope Urban (Eadmer, Vit. Ans. ii. c. 4) salutes Anselm with an analogous title, as “comparem vel ut _alterius orbis apostolicum_ et patriarcham jure venerandum,” or as William of Malmesbury (Gest. Pont. ap. Scriptt. p. Bed. 127) puts it still more strongly, “Includamus hunc in orbe nostro, quasi _alterius orbis papam_.” The same idea, one degree less strongly expressed, is found in William of Jumièges’ (vi. 9) description of Lanfranc as “gentium transmarinarum summus pontifex.” This of course connects itself with the not uncommon description of England and the English King as “partes transmarinæ,” “rex transmarinus,” &c. See for instance Flodoard, A. 945. So, on the other side, in the Fulda Annals, 876 (Pertz, i. 389), “Karolus ... ablato regis nomine, se Imperatorem et Augustum _omnium regem_ cis mare consistentium appellare præcepit.”

I have thus, I trust, brought together quite evidence enough to show what was the meaning and purpose of the Imperial style which was anciently adopted by our Kings, and distinct traces of which still survive in more than one familiar expression to this day. I do not doubt that other scholars, in their several lines of study, must often light on other passages bearing on the subject. I will wind up with one more, not the least remarkable of the number, that in which Abbot Baldric, the poetical panegyrist of the great men of his day, describes (Duchesne, Rer. Franc. Scriptt. iv. 257) the great William as one

“Qui dux Normannis, qui Cæsar præfuit Anglis.”

NOTE C. p. 30. THE EARLY RELATIONS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND THE CONTINENT.

The notices of Britain between the time of the English Conquest and the conversion of the English to Christianity are indeed few and far between. They are chiefly to be found in an episode of Prokopios (Bell. Goth. iv. 20), from which I have made two quotations in the text (pp. 22, 30). That the Brittia of Prokopios is Britain, and not, as Dr. Latham (Dict. Geog., art. Britannicæ Insulæ) fancies, Heligoland, Rugen, or some other island, I have no kind of doubt, and Mr. Kemble seems not to have entertained any. The difficulty is what his Brettania is. It strikes me that he had heard both of the continental and the insular _Britannia_, and that he fancied them to be two islands. His Brittia therefore is Britain and his Brettania is Britanny. (Cf. Zeuss, _Die Deutschen_, 362; “Βριττία, Britannia, und Βριταννία, Hibernia, wahrscheinlich durch Vermengung mit Britannia cismarina, Bretagne.”) John Kinnamos (ii. 12, p. 67 ed. Bonn), ranks Βρίττιοι καὶ Βρετανοί among the Crusaders. Allowing for the primary error of fancying Britanny to be an island, his geographical description is really not so monstrous as might be thought. His well-known story about the souls of the dead being ferried over to Brittia, and his confused and marvellous account of the Roman wall, show how strange and mysterious a land Britain had already become. But the two passages which I have quoted are distinct and intelligible. For an island inhabited by Angles, Frisians, and Britons we need not go far afield.

Prokopios tells us nothing of the process by which these three nations came into the island. There is, as far as I know, only one foreign notice of the English Conquest, which is however probably contemporary with one stage or another of it. This is in the Chronicon Imperiale of Prosper (see Dict. Biog. and Potthast’s _Wegweiser_ in Prosper), written either in the fifth or in the sixth century. Here we have two entries (Duchesne, Rer. Franc. Scriptt. i. 198, 199; M. H. B. lxxxii.); the former saying that “hac tempestate [the time of Constantine the Tyrant, 407–411; cf. Zôsimos, vi. 5], præ valitudine Romanorum, vires funditus attenuatæ Britanniæ.” The other says that, some time before the death of Aëtius in 454, “Britanniæ usque ad hoc tempus variis cladibus eventibusque laceratæ, in ditionem Saxonum rediguntur.” I am however not sure that Prokopios has not a dark and confused allusion to the Armorican migration when he speaks of vast numbers of people coming from Britain to settle in the land of the Franks, on the strength of which it was that the Frankish Kings claimed the dominion of the island (τοσαύτη ἡ τῶνδε τῶν ἐθνῶν πολυανθρωπία φαίνεται οὖσα ὥστε ἀνὰ πᾶν ἔτος κατὰ πολλοὺς ἐνθένδε μετανιστάμενοι ξὺν γυναιξὶ καὶ παισὶν ἐς Φράγγους χωροῦσιν. οἱ δὲ αὐτοὺς ἐνοικίζουσιν ἐν γῆς τῆς σφετέρας τὴν ἐρημοτέραν δοκοῦσαν εἶναι, καὶ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ τὴν νῆσον προσποιεῖσθαί φασιν). In an earlier passage Prokopios makes Belisarios (ii. 6) make the Goths the offer of Bretannia as an island much larger than Sicily. This is evidently in mockery, and it seems to imply that both Britain and Britanny were looked on as lands which had quite passed out of all practical reckoning on the part of the Empire.

Prokopios goes on, in the same chapter, to tell a long story, which is discussed by Mr. Kemble (Saxons in England, i. 23; cf. Zeuss, Die Deutschen, 362), of an English princess (παρθένου κόρης, γένους Βριττίας ... ἧσπερ ἀδελφὸς βασιλεὺς ἦν τότε Ἀγγίλων τοῦ ἔθνους), who was betrothed to Radiger, son of the King of the Varni, who, on his father’s death, instead of fulfilling his engagement, married his father’s widow, a sister of Theodberht, King of the Franks, who reigned from 534 to 537. The incestuous marriage, which was repeated in after days by Eadbald of Kent and Æthelbald of Wessex, is expressly said to have been contracted in obedience to the dying commands of Radiger’s father (cf. Soph. Trach. 1199–1207), by the advice of his chief men, and in conformity with the custom of the nation (καθάπερ ὁ πάτριος ἡμῖν ἐφίησι νόμος). The English princess however gathers a vast fleet and army, takes with her one of her brothers, not the King, as its commander, sails to the mouth of the Rhine, fights a battle, defeats Radiger, and compels him to send away his step-mother and marry her. The tale, which is told in great detail, is doubtless mythical in its details; but we may, with Mr. Kemble, accept it as pointing to the possibility of some intercourse, both peaceful and warlike, between the insular and the continental Teutons. But I cannot follow Mr. Kemble when he goes on (i. 25) to build up, on the expressions of a German ecclesiastical writer, a theory of insular Saxons aiding the Frank Theodoric in a war with the Thuringians. The author of the Translation of Saint Alexander (Pertz, ii. 674) is not speaking of any particular detachment of Saxons from Britain coming over to Germany to take a part in a particular war. By a strange perversion, this writer of the ninth century derives the continental Saxons, as a nation, from the English in Britain; “Saxonum gens, sicut tradit antiquitas, ab Anglis Britanniæ incolis egressa, per Oceanum navigans Germaniæ litoribus studio et necessitate quærendarum sedium appulsa est.” On this the editor remarks, “More solito traditio res gestas invertit, ita ut Saxones non e Saxonia Britanniam, sed ex Britannia Saxoniam appulisse dicantur.” The legend is no doubt a corruption of the legendary origin of the Saxons given by Widukind, i. 3–6. On the sense in which the English had a better right to the name of “Old-Saxons” than the Saxons on the continent, see Zeuss, Die Deutschen, 188.

It is worth remarking that Jordanes, though he devotes his second chapter to a description of Britain, simply gives an account patched up from Cæsar, Livy, Strabo, and Dio, and seems to describe the Britons as still the inhabitants of the island, without any reference to the settlement of the English. He makes another reference to Britain in his fifth chapter, but it is of a purely mythical kind.

I doubt whether there is any mention of England in Gregory of Tours, except in the two passages where he records the marriage of Æthelberht with the daughter of Chariberht. He does not use the words Saxon, Angle, or Britain, but he speaks of Kent as if the name were familiarly known. “Charibertus ... filiam habuit quæ postea in Cantiam, virum accipiens, est deducta” (iv. 26). So afterwards (ix. 26) he speaks of “filiam unicam quam in Cantia regis cujusdam filius matrimonio copulavit.”

Coming down later among continental writers, there is a well known passage in the Annals of Einhard (A. 786) in which he speaks of the English Conquest and of the Armorican migration as its consequence. Charles leads his army “in Brittanniam cismarinam,” and the Annalist goes on to explain; “Nam quum ab Anglis ac Saxonibus Brittannia insula fuisset invasa, magna pars incolarum ejus mare trajiciens in ultimis Galliæ finibus Venetorum et Coriosolitarum regiones occupavit.” There is another mention of the Armorican migration in Ermoldus Nigellus, iii. 11 (Pertz, ii. 490). Lantpreht (Lambert), whose command lies in Britanny, is thus described;

“Prævidet hic fines, quos olim gens inimica Trans mare lintre volans ceperat insidiis. Hic populus veniens supremo ex orbe Britanni, Quos modo Brittones Francica lingua vocat. Nam telluris egens, vento jactatus et imbri, Arva capit prorsus, atque tributa parat. Tempore nempe illo hoc rus quoque Gallus habebat, Quando idem populus fluctibus actus adest.”

On the whole it would seem that a certain amount of intercourse was kept up between the Franks in Gaul and the Southern English states, but that to the world in general Britain had become an unknown land about which any fables might be put forth.

NOTE D. p. 38. THE RELATIONS OF CHARLES THE GREAT WITH MERCIA AND NORTHUMBERLAND.

All the passages bearing on the relations of Charles the Great with Mercia, Northumberland, and Scotland are collected by Sir Francis Palgrave, English Commonwealth, i. 484 et seqq. The cream of the matter is contained in the account given by Einhard, A. 808; “Interea rex Nordanhumbrorum de Brittania insula, nomine Eardulf, regno et patria pulsus, ad Imperatorem dum adhuc Noviomagi moraretur venit, et patefacto adventûs sui negotio, Romam proficiscitur Romaque rediens, per legatos Romani pontificis et domni Imperatoris in regnum suum reducitur.” One of the legates was “Aldulfus diaconus de ipsa Brittania, natione Saxo,” spoken of in p. 534. That Eardwulf became the man of Charles there seems no doubt. Pope Leo says “vester semper fidelis exstitit.” The submission of the Scots is also mentioned by Einhard in the Life of Charles, c. 16; “Scotorum quoque reges sic habuit ad suam voluntatem per munificentiam inclinatos, ut eum numquam aliter nisi _dominum_, seque _subditos et servos ejus_, pronunciarent.” One would suppose that the Scots both of Ireland and of Britain are included. This mention of the Scots comes between the dealings of Charles with Alfonso of Gallicia and those with Haroun al Rashid. The relation both of the Scots and of the Northumbrians seems to have been a relation of _commendation_, a term on which I shall presently have much to say. The Scots doing homage to Charles on account of his gifts is not unlike the homage which we shall find done by certain French princes to Eadward the Confessor.

The relations between Charles and Offa, and their temporary difference, are also fully explained in the passages collected by Sir Francis Palgrave. A number of important letters will be found in Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, iii. 486 et seqq.; Jaffé, Monumenta Alcuiniana, 155, 167, 290, et al. There is a long mythical account of it in the Vita Offæ Secundi, pp. 13 et seqq. From thence Sir F. Palgrave quotes the story that Archbishop Janberht had promised to admit a Frankish army into England (Vita Offæ, 21). This is doubtless a good deal exaggerated, but notice should be taken of a very remarkable expression in the account given in Cod. Dipl. i. 281 of the relations between Offa’s successor Cenwulf and Archbishop Wulfred. It is plain that a deep impression had been made on the minds of Englishmen by the dealings of Charles in the matters of Eardwulf, Ealhwine, and Janberht; “Tunc in eodem concilio cum maxima districtione illi episcopo mandavit quod omnibus rebus quæ illius dominationis sunt dispoliatus debuisset fieri, omnique de patria ista esse profugus, et numquam nec _verbis domni Papæ nec Cæsaris_ seu alterius alicujus gradu huc in patriam iterum recipisse.” Cenwulf clearly held that neither the Bishop of Rome nor the Emperor of Rome either had any jurisdiction in his realm of Mercia. The odd description of Offa as the Western and Charles as the Eastern potentate comes from a very suspicious source, namely the Life of Offa, p. 21; “Ego Karolus regum Christianorum orientalium potentissimus, vos, O Offane, regum occidentalium Christianorum potentissime, cupio lætificare,” &c. But the expression is singular enough to be worth quoting, if only on account of its very singularity, as it is the sort of thing which one can hardly fancy a forger inventing.

The influence of Charles in English affairs is strangely exaggerated in a passage of John of Wallingford (Gale, 529); “Rex Pipinus obiit regni ejus anno xii. Successitque Karolus filius ejus anno ab Incarnatione Domini DCCLXIX. Porro iste, sicut alia regna, sic et Angliam tempore hujus regis Offæ sibi subegit.”

The description of Offa in the Chronicle of Saint Wandrille (Pertz, ii. 291) as “Rex Anglorum sive Merciorum potentissimus” should be noticed.

NOTE E. p. 48. THE CHANGES IN NOMENCLATURE PRODUCED BY THE DANISH SETTLEMENT.

Mr. Kemble has gone (Saxons in England, i. 77–84) very minutely into the subject of the old divisions of England, and he has collected a great number of names, some of which can be easily identified, while others can only be guessed at and some are quite hopeless. But it is plain (see Kemble, i. 78, 79) that the West-Saxon names, Wilsætas, Sumorsætas, Dornsætas, are all older than Ælfred’s time, while the names of the present Mercian shires are later than Ælfred, and have supplanted earlier names, as appears from Mr. Kemble’s list of old Mercian shires (i. 81), some of which are quite unintelligible. One or two very obvious instances will be enough for my purpose. Thus the principality of the Hwiccas has long formed two whole shires, Worcester and Gloucester, and part of another, Warwick. The Magesætas seem to be divided between Herefordshire and Shropshire. Lincolnshire contains several principalities, Gainas, Lindisfaras, &c., but the traces of their original independence are not wholly lost even at the present day.

In Wessex most of the shires, Berkshire, Somerset, Dorset, Devonshire, are clearly not called from towns. Somerset and Dorset have cognate towns in Somerton and Dorchester; but they are merely cognate; the shire is not called after the town. But Hampshire, the County of Southampton, is simply _Hamtunscír_, from the town of Hampton. Hampshire was the first conquest; no doubt it had originally no local name like the other shires, but was simply _Westseaxe_ or _Westseaxnarice_. When therefore it became a mere shire, it had to take a new name, and was named from the town. It may be asked why the shire which contained the capital was called from the town of Hampton and not from the royal city of Winchester. I can only suggest that some prerogative of the crown or some privilege of the citizens may have kept the capital more distant from the body of the shire than Hampton was.

Wiltshire is a case intermediate between Hampshire and Somerset. The Wilsætas are a tribe, and have their chief town Wilton. But the form _Wiltunscír_ shows that the shire is immediately called from the town, whence the _t_ in the modern form Wiltshire.

In Mercia, on the other hand, all the shires are now called from towns with one, perhaps two exceptions. _Shropshire_ seems to be rather cognate with Shrewsbury than directly derived from it, and alongside of _Scrobbesbyrigscír_ the _Scrobsœtas_ continue to be heard of. Rutland, at once the smallest and the most modern of Mercian shires, is, oddly enough, the only one which has a distinct territorial name, not even cognate with that of any town. Rutland, as a distinct shire, is later than Domesday, where it appears, strangely enough, as a kind of appendage to Nottingham. How it gained the rank of a shire, while the adjoining and larger district of Holland did not, would be an interesting question for local antiquaries.

I have no doubt that the Mercian shires were mapped out afresh after the reconquest. That the redistribution was not made by the Danish invaders is plain from the fact that the boundary laid down between Guthrum and Ælfred is not attended to in marking out the divisions of the shires. We may conceive that the work was begun by Ælfred, or rather perhaps by Æthelred and Æthelflæd in that part of Mercia which was assigned to them by the peace with Guthrum, and that it was further carried on by Eadward the Elder after the recovery of Danish Mercia. In this we may see the groundwork of the legendary belief that Ælfred first divided England into shires and hundreds. With the shires within his own kingdom there was no need to meddle. Gneist (Englische Verwaltungsrecht, i. 56) enlarges on the share of Ælfred in this matter, but leaves out Eadward.

As for the nomenclature of towns and villages, it would seem that places were more commonly named directly after individuals in the course of the Danish Conquest than they had been by the earlier English occupiers. At least, among the names given during the English occupation, those which are formed from the proper name itself are less common than those which are formed from the patronymic ending in -_ing_. These last again raise the question, how far they are called after historical individuals and how far they are tribe-names called after some mythical patriarch. This last view will be found discussed at length by Kemble, Saxons in England, i. 59 and Appendix A. (See also Comparative Politics, 395.) Names like Toot_ing_, Bens_ing_ton, Gill_ing_ham, give the typical forms. On the other hand (see Kemble’s note, p. 60), it should be remembered that this familiar form _ing_, being so familiar, has often swallowed up others; thus Eth_an_dún, Æbb_an_dún, Hunt_an_dún, forms of quite different origin, have been corrupted into Ed_ing_ton, Ab_ing_don, Hunt_ing_don. Birm_ing_ham again has been thought to to be a corruption of _Bromicham_, but Mr. Kemble (i. 457) admits it as a genuine patronymic from the Beormingas. On the other hand, Glæst_inga_byrig, a genuine patronymic, has been corrupted into Glast_on_bury, and a wrong derivation given to the name.

An exact parallel to the Danish system of nomenclature is supplied by a later and less known, though very remarkable, settlement of the same kind, the Flemish occupation of Pembrokeshire in the twelfth century. The villages in the Teutonic part of that county bear names exactly analogous to those of Lincolnshire, only ending in the English _ton_ instead of the Danish _by_. Such are Johnston, Williamston, Herbrandston, and a crowd of others.

NOTE F. p. 54. ÆTHELRED AND ÆTHELFLÆD OF MERCIA.

The Chronicles speak of Æthelred as Ealdorman of that part of Mercia which was kept by Ælfred, in 886, when London was entrusted to his keeping. See also the extract from Asser in Florence, where he is described as “Merciorum comes.” He married Ælfred’s daughter Æthelflæd, and he appears, even in the older state of things in Mercia, to have held a special position under Burhred, as in a charter in Cod. Dipl. ii. 99, confirmed by “Burhred rex Merciorum,” he describes himself as “Æðelred Deo adjuvante Merciorum dux,” a title which suggests those of “Francorum” and “Anglorum dux.” His reappointment by Ælfred must have been one of the King’s first acts after the peace with Guthrum, as we find a charter of his of the year 880 in Cod. Dipl. ii. 107, in which his style runs thus; “Ego Æðelred, gratia Domini largiflua concedente, dux et patricius gentis Merciorum cum licentia et impositione manûs Ælfredi regis, una cum testimonio et consensu seniorum ejusdem gentis episcoporum vel principum, pro redemptione animarum nostrarum et pro sospitate necnon et stabilitate _regni Merciorum_.” So in a charter of 883 (Cod. Dipl. ii. 110), which begins in Latin and goes on in English, and which even in the English part comes nearer than usual to the inflated style of the Latin documents; “Ic Æðelræd ealdorman inbyrdendre Godes gefe gewelegod and gewlenced mid _sume dæle_ Mercna _rices_ ... mid Ælfredes cyninges leafe and gewitnesse, and mid ealra Myrcna witena godcundra hada and woroldcundra.” The words “sume dæle” seem to mark Æthelred as holding a smaller territorial jurisdiction under Ælfred than he had held under Burhred, and the formula reminds one of Cnut’s style (Florence 1031); “Rex totius Angliæ et Denemarciæ et Norreganorum et _partis Suanorum_.” Mercia however is still a kingdom, like Ireland up to 1801, and Æthelred looks very like a Lord Lieutenant holding an Irish Parliament. Heming’s Worcester Cartulary (93) records another Mercian Gemót held by Æthelred; “Þa ðe gere gebeon Æðelred alderman alle Mercna weotan to somne to Gleaweceastre biscopas and aldermen and all his duguðe, and þæt dyde be Ælfredes cyninges gewitnesse and leafe.”

The position of Æthelred in Mercia is thus described by William of Malmesbury (ii. 125); “Ille [Elfredus] duo regna Merciorum et West-Saxonum conjunxerit, Merciorum nomine tenus, quippe commendatum duci Etheredo, tenens.” He had already said (ii. 121), “Londoniam, _caput regni Merciorum_ [“caput regni, Merciorum”?] cuidam primario Etheredo in fidelitatem suam cum filia Ethelflædi concessit.” This use of “regnum” is like the use of the same word as applied to Bavaria under the Agilolfing Dukes. (See Waitz, iii. 302.)

It may perhaps be thought that Æthelred and the Lady felt themselves more nearly on an equality with their brother than they had done with their father; at least in a charter of 901 (Cod. Dipl. ii. 136) they seem to assume a more royal style; “Æðelred Æð[elflædque o]pitulante gratuita Dei gratia _monarchiam Merciorum_ tenentes honorificeque gubernantes et defendentes.” And it may be a sign of a higher rank that Æthelred, who in Ælfred’s time (as in 886) is called only Ealdorman, in Eadward’s reign is twice called “Myrcna _hlaford_” in the Chronicles. One time is in 911, when his death is recorded (though he is called “Ealdorman” in other entries of the same event), and again in 919, when his daughter Ælfwyn is spoken of. Florence too in 912 calls him “dux et patricius, dominus et subregulus Merciorum;” and again in 919, “subregulus.” This last title he also gives him in Ælfred’s time in 894, but in 886 he is only “comes.” However this may be, in another charter of 904 (Cod. Dipl. ii. 148), granted to a subordinate Ealdorman Æthelfrith, the supremacy of Eadward is distinctly recognized; “prædictus dux rogavit Eaduuardum regem et Æðelredum quoque et Æðelflædam qui tunc principatum et potestatem gentis Merciorum sub prædicto rege tenuerunt, omnes etiam senatores Merciorum.”

As Æthelred is “Myrcna hlaford,” so Æthelflæd always appears in the Chronicles as “Myrcna hlæfdige,” and in Florence as “Merciorum domina.” Lady, I need hardly say, was in Wessex the highest female title, being reserved for the King’s wife. But in Mercia, as not being affected by the crime and punishment of Eadburh, the title of Queen seems to have gone on. In the Chronicles (888) we read of Ælfred’s sister, the widow of Burhred, as “Æðelswið cwén.” “Hlæfdige” therefore may perhaps have been meant as a title less distinctly royal; but in the Annales Cambriæ (917) we read, “Ælfled regina obiit.”

On the whole it seems plain that the position of Æthelred, and still more the position of his widow, was something above that of an ordinary Ealdorman. It should be remembered that he was the first Ealdorman of what had not long before been a mighty kingdom, and this _quasi_-royal position was a natural stage in the process of incorporation.

NOTE G. pp. 58, 119. THE COMMENDATION OF 924.

My narrative of the relations between England and Scotland, and my view of the dependence of the Scottish crown on the English Empire from 924 to 1328, are grounded on what I believe to be the sure witness of ancient authorities, read to a great extent under the guidance of Sir Francis Palgrave. All notion of any legal or permanent dependence such as I assert is cast aside by the late Mr. E. W. Robertson in his book entitled “Scotland under Early Kings.” That book is one which, though I hold many of its views to be erroneous, cannot be passed by without notice. It is a work of deep research and ability, and Mr. Robertson has the advantage of an acquaintance with Celtic literature to which I can make no pretensions. And I find with especial pleasure that, on several points where our theories do not clash, Mr. Robertson and myself have come independently to the same conclusions. Still on the points at issue I confess that, after reading Mr. Robertson’s arguments, I remain of the same opinion as I was before. He has thrown a certain amount of doubt on a few details which are not absolutely essential, but I think that he has utterly failed to upset those clear passages of the Chronicles on which the belief which I share with Sir Francis Palgrave mainly rests. Unluckily the scheme of my work does not allow me to grapple in detail with all Mr. Robertson’s arguments as to the earliest stages of the question. But I confess that I feel strongly inclined to enter minutely into them in some other shape. The subject is one excellently suited for a monograph. I have myself dealt with some parts of it somewhat more fully in my Historical Essays (First Series, p. 56). But I feel that the question is very far from being exhausted, and I trust that some other champion of the rights of Eadward and Æthelstan may be forthcoming.

The point which forms the immediate subject of this Note is the Commendation of Scotland to Eadward in 924, the most important point in the whole dispute. The choosing of Eadward as Father and Lord by the King of Scots and the whole people of the Scots is, both in the thirteenth and in the nineteenth century, the primary fact from which the English controversialist starts. William of Malmesbury, or even Florence of Worcester, may have blundered or exaggerated about Eadgar’s triumph at Chester or about any other point of detail, but, as long as the fact of the great Commendation is admitted, the case of the West-Saxon Emperors of Britain stands firm. That Commendation is recorded, as clearly as words can record it, not in a ballad or in a saga, not in the inflated rhetoric of a Latin charter, but in the honest English of the Winchester Chronicle. Than its words no words can be plainer; “And hine geces þa to fæder and to hlaforde Scotta cyning and eall Scotta þeod, and Rægnald and Eadulfes suna and ealle þa þe on Norþhymbrum, bugeaþ, ægþer ge Englisce, ge Denisce, ge Norþmen, ge oþre, and eac Stræcled Weala cyning, and ealle Stræcled Wealas.” I add the translation of Florence, who places the event in 921, not however as holding that it adds anything to the authority of the original record; “Eo tempore rex Scottorum cum tota gente sua, Reignoldus rex Danorum cum Anglis et Danis Northhymbriam incolentibus, rex etiam Streatcledwalorum cum suis, regem Eadwardum seniorem sibi in patrem et dominum elegerunt, firmumque cum eo fœdus pepigerunt.” Now if we are not to believe a fact on such evidence as this, there is nothing in those times which we can believe. It is strange that, in the obvious place for treating of the subject, in the text of his history at vol. i. p. 59, Mr. Robertson has not a word to say about the matter, but passes over the year 924 as if it were bare of events. But in an Appendix (vol. ii. p. 394) he discusses the matter at some length. To the truth of the famous record which I have quoted at pp. 58, 119 of my own text Mr. Robertson makes several objections.

First, he alleges that the Northumbrian Danes did not submit to Eadward. It is almost enough to answer that this passage is evidence that they did. If we are not to accept the distinct statements of the Chronicles, we are altogether at sea in the history of these times. Mr. Robertson’s reason for doubting the truth of the statement is that it is inconsistent with certain passages in other English writers—he might have added in the Chronicles themselves—which attribute the first annexation of Northumberland to Æthelstan in 926. But there is nothing irreconcileable in the two statements. I gave the explanation in the text of my first edition without having heard of Mr. Robertson’s objections; “Eadward’s immediate kingdom reached to the Humber, and his over-lordship extended over the whole island” (p. 58). But, from 926 onwards, the object of Æthelstan and his successors was to extend, not their over-lordship but their immediate sovereignty, over the whole of Northumberland. “Æthelstan cyning feng to Norðhymbra rice.” He became the immediate King of the country, whereas Eadward had been only Father and Lord to its Kings and people. After 926 Northumbrian Kings were often set up, but, except the lords of Bamburgh, of whom I shall speak in another Note, no Northumbrian prince was admitted by Æthelstan to vassalage. He asserted and maintained an immediate dominion over the country. This system was followed by his successors, except during the momentary recognition of Olaf and Rægnald by Eadmund in 943. There is therefore no contradiction. Eadward introduced one state of things in Northumberland and Æthelstan introduced another.

Secondly, Mr. Robertson objects that the Chronicles represent the Commendation to have been made at Bakewell in the Peakland, and that this is inconsistent “with the words which Simeon and Florence place in the mouth of Malcolm Ceanmore” in 1092 (it should be 1093), which “show that, in the opinion of that age, no Scottish King had ever met an Anglo-Saxon sovereign except upon their _mutual_ [sic] frontiers.” Now, if there were any real inconsistency between the two statements, the direct statement of the Chronicle under the year 924 is surely much better authority for the events of the year 924 than an inference made by Mr. Robertson from a speech attributed to Malcolm in 1093. If Malcolm’s speech contradicts the facts of history, so much the worse for Malcolm and his speech. But there is really no inconsistency at all. The Chronicle in no way implies that the Commendation was made at Bakewell, and Malcolm in no way implies that it was not made at Bakewell. The Chronicler puts the Commendation of the King of Scots and the other princes in the same year as the building of the fortress of Bakewell; he may even imply that Eadward’s progress towards the North, of which the fortification of Bakewell was a part, had a share in bringing about the submission of all these Northern Kings. But he does not say that any of them came to Bakewell to make the Commendation. Malcolm says only that the Kings of Scots had been used to “do their duty” (rectitudinem facere) to the Kings of the English only on the confines of their dominions. The assertion may be true or false; but it is quite another thing from asserting that no King of Scots had ever met an English King anywhere but on the frontier. The first place of meeting need not have been the same as that which was usual 169 years later. There is in short nothing to show whether the Commendation took place at Bakewell or anywhere else.

Lastly, Mr. Robertson objects that Rægnald or Regenwald, who is described as one of the princes who submitted in 924, died in 921. I presume that, along with the Commendation of Rægnald in 924, Mr. Robertson sets aside his taking of York, which the Chronicles place in 923. This is asking us to give up a good deal out of deference to his Irish guides. But here again there is no necessary inconsistency. Mr. Robertson refers to the Annals of Ulster. Those Annals (Ant. Celt. Norm. p. 66) undoubtedly kill “Reginald O’Ivar,” not in 921 but in 920; but the name was a common one, and I see no evidence that the two Rægnalds need be the same. The Annals of Ulster themselves show that there was another person of the same name, “Reginald Mac Beolach,” living in the same part of the world in 917, and it would be worth inquiring whether any of these Rægnalds—the name is spelt in endless ways—can be the same as the Rægnald who figures at this time in the history of Gaul (see p. 163). I will not rely on the signatures of two charters of 930 by Regenwald or Reinwald (Cod. Dipl. ii. 168–171), because Mr. Kemble marks them as doubtful. Anyhow I see no proof of error in our Chronicles. There is no real contradiction between the English and Irish authorities; and if there be, I really do not see why the Englishman must needs go to the wall. But granting that Rægnald’s name was wrongly inserted, such a mistake would not touch the main fact of the Commendation. Such a fact as the Commendation of Scotland and Strathclyde is a thing about which there could be no mistake. It is either an historical truth or a barefaced lie. But in mentioning several minor princes who commended themselves at the same time, a wrong name might easily slip in without any evil intention. Several Northumbrian chiefs commended themselves; Rægnald was a famous Northumbrian name; a scribe might easily put Rægnald instead of some other name. The blunder would not be so bad as when Thietmar calls Ælfheah Dunstan (see Appendix OO), or as the utter confusion which the Scandinavian writers make of the names and order both of English Kings and of Norman Dukes.

I have examined this question in full, because it is the root of the whole matter. Other questions raised by Mr. Robertson I must pass by, or reserve for some other opportunity for discussion. I certainly think that the Commendation of 924 is in no way touched by Mr. Robertson’s objections, and I feel sure, from the acuteness which Mr. Robertson displays in other parts of his work, that he would never have satisfied himself with such futile arguments except under the influence of strong national partiality.

Another point, which I have briefly mentioned at pp. 131, 451, is worth notice. The fact that the people, as well as the King, choose Eadward as their lord does not seem to me to imply that he became lord to each

## particular man. In cases where the relation was much closer than between

Scotland and England, the _arrière_ vassal was not the _man_ of the over-lord. Thus John of Joinville, as a vassal of the Count of Champagne, refused to do homage to the King of the French, because he was not his _man_. When Henry the Second exacted an oath of fealty from the vassals of William the Lion, the claim was a novelty, and it was given up by Richard the First, a renunciation which has been perverted into a renunciation of all superiority over Scotland.

But when we reach the final quarrel between Edward the First and John of Balliol, it turns on a question which looks very like a claim on the part of the King of England to jurisdiction in internal Scottish affairs. That is to say, Edward the First, as a feudal superior, received appeals from the courts of the King of Scots, exactly as the King of the French, Edward’s own feudal superior for the duchy of Aquitaine, received appeals from Edward’s courts in that duchy. We can hardly suppose that any such right was contemplated in the original Commendation; it is a notion essentially belonging to a later time. But it was no arbitrary invention of Edward; he did but receive the appeals which Scottish suitors brought before him of their own accord. The truth is that, when the commendatory relation had, in the ideas of both sides, changed into a strictly feudal one, the right of appeal would seem to follow as a matter of course, and neither side would stop to ask whether such a right was really implied in the ancient Commendation.

NOTE H. pp. 63, 125. THE GRANT OF CUMBERLAND.

Nothing can be plainer than the entry on this head in the Chronicles (945), “Her Eadmund cyning ofer hergode eal Cumbraland, and hit let eal to Malculme Scotta cyninge on þæt gerad þæt he wære his midwyrhta ægþer ge on sæ ge on lande.”

Florence simply translates, except that a slight tinge of the later feudalism is perhaps thrown in when he expresses the word “midwyrhta” by “fidelis.” Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 746 C), though bringing in some rather vague matter, is more literal in his version on this point; “Sequenti vero anno totam Cumberland, quia gentem provinciæ illius perfidam et legibus insolitam ad plenum domare nequibat, prædavit et contrivit et commendavit eam Malculmo regi Scotiæ hoc pacto, quod in auxilio sibi foret terra et mari.” William of Malmesbury (ii. 141) merely says, “Provincia quæ vocatur Cumberland regi Scottorum Malcolmo, sub fidelitate jurisjurandi commendata.” Roger of Wendover (ii. 398) adds the two important details, which he could hardly have invented, that Eadmund was helped in his expedition by Llywelyn of Dyfed, and that the sons of Dummail or Donald were blinded; “Eodem anno rex Eadmundus, adjutorio Leolini regis Demetiæ fretus, Cumbriam totam cunctis opibus spoliavit, ac duobus filiis Dummail, ejusdem provinciæ regis, oculorum luce privatis, regnum illud Malcolmo, Scotorum regi, de se tenendum concessit, ut aquilonales Angliæ partes terra marique ab hostium adventantium incursione tueretur.”

The Scottish writers, as I have said in the text, in no way deny the fact of the grant; they are indeed rather inclined, for obvious reasons, to make too much rather than too little of it. Fordun (iv. 24) is more explicit than any of the English writers, and uses the most distinctly feudal language; “Provinciam, quæ vocatur Cumbreland, regi Scotorum Malcolmo rex sub fidelitate jurisjurandi commendavit, hæc ille. Postmodum vero statim inter eos concordatum est, et amborum consilio decretum, ut in futurum, pro bono continuandæ pacis utriusque regni, Malcolmi regis proximus hæres Indulfus, cæterorumque regum Scotorum hæredes qui pro tempore fuerint, Edmundo regi suisque successoribus Anglis regibus homagium pro Cumbria facerent, ac fidelitatis sacramentum.” He goes on to say, in language which seems to come from the same source as the words of Henry of Huntingdon, that neither King was ever to take the Cumbrians, “barbaram aquilonis et perfidam gentem,” into his direct favour or homage, a promise which was afterwards broken on both sides.

The fact of the grant is also admitted in the book called “Extracta ex Cronicis Scocie,” pp. 49, 50, though the compiler vigorously asserts a former Scottish possession which was lost through the Scottish defeat at Brunanburh. Of King Gregory (875–892) we read (p. 46), “Hic etiam strenue totam subjugavit Hiberniam et pene totam Angliam.” Of Constantine (p. 47), “Hic rex xl annis regnavit, et quamvis contra eum bellabant reges Anglorum, Ead_winus_ [sic] et filius suus nothus Adelstanus successive regnantes, et contra Scotos cum Danis pactum et pacem inierunt, qui post iv annos rumpitur, et Angli a Scotis veniam precantes iterum Scotos sibi reconciliarunt. Quo toto tempore rex Constantinus Cumbriam et ceteras terras in Anglia possedit, et regni sui anno xvi dedit Eugenio filio Dovenaldi sperato successori dimidium regni Cumbri hereditarie possidendum.” It is curious to see the frame of mind in which he approaches the mention of Brunanburh; “Infaustus ille dies Scotis, nam quæque dominia temporibus Gregorii et hactenus conquesta, necnon liv annis possessa, quidam scribunt Constantinum regem hoc bello perdidisse.”

So we find it also in Hector Boece (218 _b_), by whose time the story had got further confused, and the grant, or rather treaty, is now attributed to Æthelstan instead of Eadmund; “Secundum legationem omnibus consentientibus fœdus inter Anglos Scotosque veteribus conditionibus est ictum, hac unica adjecta, ut Anglis Northumbria, Danico tum sanguine pene referto, cederent; Cumbria ac Vestmaria Scotis; ea lege, ut Scotorum _princeps_ (ita eum qui secundum regem vita functum summum obiturus est magistratum, uti est significatum antea, vocant nostrates) in verba Anglorum regis ea pro regione juraret.” This passage is worth notice, as showing that the modern use of the word _Prince_, as equivalent to Ætheling, was coming into use in Boece’s time, but that it still needed explanation.

As to the fact and the nature of the grant to Malcolm there can, I think, be no doubt. It was probably the earliest instance in Britain of a fief in the strictest sense, as opposed to a case of commendation. But I wish to keep myself as clear as possible from all mazes as to the ever fluctuating boundaries of Strathclyde or Cumberland. On the whole matter, I would refer to Palgrave, English Commonwealth, i. 440 et seqq.

NOTE I. p. 65. THE CESSION OF LOTHIAN.

The question with regard to Lothian is briefly this. Was the cession of that part of Northumberland to the Scottish crown a grant from Eadgar to his faithful vassal Kenneth? Or was the district wrung by Malcolm from the fears of Eadwulf Cutel, or won by force of arms after the battle of Carham in 1018?

Mr. Robertson (Scotland under Early Kings, i. 96; ii. 390 et seqq., 426 et seqq.), consistently with his theory, strongly adopts the latter view, and maintains the former to be a mere “fabrication.” To me the question seems a very difficult one, about which it will be well to go minutely through all the authorities.

The Chronicles, Florence, William of Malmesbury, Simeon of Durham in his main history, are all silent as to any transfer of Lothian from English to Scottish dominion. And yet nothing is more certain than that Lothian was at one time English and that at a later time it became Scottish. The only question is as to the date of the change. The first beginnings of the Scottish occupation of Lothian are certainly older than either of the dates given above. Indulf, who reigned from 954 to 962, occupied Edinburgh, _Eadwinesburh_, the frontier fortress of the great Northumbrian Bretwalda, which ever after remained in the power of the Scots. This does not seem to have been a conquest made in war. The English forsook the post. “In hujus tempore,” says the Pictish Chronicler (Ant. Celt. Norm. p. 142), “oppidum Eden vacuatum est, ac relictum est Scottis usque in hodiernum diem.” Possibly Edinburgh was a grant made by Eadred on his final acquisition of Northumberland in 954. Eadred’s relations with Scotland were friendly. The Scots made full submission to him on his election in 946; they acted as his allies in his wars with the rebellious Northumbrians; Scots and English, “the men of Alba and the Saxons,” were, according to the Four Masters (vol. ii. p. 668), defeated by the “foreigners”—doubtless the Danes—in 951. If Eadred rewarded his Scottish ally with the grant of Edinburgh, the step would be very like the grant of Cumberland to Malcolm in 945. On the other hand, it is quite possible that the relinquishment of Edinburgh by the English may have been less wholly an act of free will than the grant of Cumberland; it may have been found difficult or useless to maintain so distant a fortress during the troubles of the reign of Eadwig. But on any showing, the event of Indulf’s reign was simply a relinquishment of the single fortress of Edinburgh, though such a relinquishment may well have been felt, especially on the Scottish side, to be merely a step towards the transfer of the whole province. For the date of the great cession our authorities are John of Wallingford (p. 544) and Roger of Wendover (i. 416), who give the earlier date, and Simeon of Durham in his Tract on the Northumbrian Earls (X Scriptt. 81), who gives the later.

According to John of Wallingford, Eadgar (see p. 266 and Appendix KK), in a meeting of the Northumbrian Witan at York (“barones Northumbrenses in concilium convocans apud Eboracum”), divided the ancient kingdom into two earldoms, giving Deira to Oslac and Bernicia (which John confusedly calls Deira) to Eadwulf “Evelchild.” The name of Eadwulf is seemingly due to some confusion with Oswulf, whom John fancies to be dead. But Lothian, the northern part of Bernicia, lying exposed to the incursions of the Scots, was little valued by the English Kings. The King of Scots moreover asserted a claim to it by hereditary right. Kenneth accordingly went to London, accompanied by the two Northumbrian Earls and by Ælfsige Bishop of Lindisfarne, to seek a conference with Eadgar. Eadgar received him friendly, and Kenneth opened his case, praying for Lothian as an ancient possession of the Scottish Kings. Eadgar referred the matter to his Witan (“caussam curiæ suæ intimavit”), by whose consent the province was granted in fief—I cannot avoid the terms of a later jurisprudence—to Kenneth, who did homage for it. Kenneth also promised that the ancient laws and customs of the country should be preserved and the English language retained, an engagement which was strictly carried out (“sub cautione multa promittens quod populo partis illius antiquas consuetudines non negaret, et sub nomine et lingua Anglicana permanerent. Quod usque hodie firmum manet”). Thus the old dispute about Lothian was settled, though new ones often arose (“sicque determinata est vetus querela de Louthion, et adhuc nova sæpe intentatur”).

Roger of Wendover is briefer. He tells how Earl Eadwulf—he does not mention Oslac—and Bishop Ælfsige took the Scottish King to the court of Eadgar; how the King of the English gave Kenneth many magnificent presents, and granted to him the whole land of Lothian. The tenure was that, each year, on the great feasts when the King wore his crown (see the Peterborough Chronicle under the year 1087), the King of Scots should come to his court with the other princes of his realm. Eadgar also assigned to his royal vassal and his successors several houses at different points of the road, at which they could be entertained on their way to the English court, which mansions the Kings of Scots retained down to the time of Henry the Second.

Simeon places the cession after the death of Uhtred in 1016 (see p. 448);

“Quo [Ucthredo] occiso, frater ipsius Eadulf cognomento Cudel, ignavus valde et timidus, et successit in comitatum. Timens autem ne Scotti mortem suorum quos frater ejus, ut supradictum est [see p. 329], occiderat, in se vindicarent, totum Lodoneium ob satisfactionem et firmam concordiam eis donavit. Hoc modo Lodoneium adjectum est regno Scottorum.”

Now, looking at our authorities in the abstract, there is no doubt as to the infinite superiority of Simeon, our very best authority for Northumbrian affairs, over two late and often inaccurate writers like John of Wallingford and Roger of Wendover. If there is an irreconcileable contradiction between the two stories, Simeon’s story is to be preferred without hesitation. I hold that Simeon’s statement distinctly proves that some cession of Lothian was made by Eadwulf, and, if so, we can hardly be wrong in setting down that cession as a result of the battle of Carham. The question is whether this can be admitted, and at the same time some kernel of truth be recognized in the story told by John and Roger. Let us first see what the witness of those writers is worth in itself.

I need hardly say that secondary writers of this sort, even the best of them, must be subjected to much severer tests than any that we apply to the Chronicles, to Florence, or even to William of Malmesbury. We accept nothing, strictly speaking, on their _authority_. We weigh their statements and judge what they are worth, both according to the laws of internal evidence and according to the way in which they may incidentally fall in with or incidentally contradict the statements of better writers. We put very little faith in their details, which are more likely than not to be romantic additions. Still in all cases we acknowledge the likelihood that there is some kernel of truth round which the romantic details have grown. John of Wallingford is undoubtedly a writer whom it is not safe to trust, unless his statements have some strong confirmation, internal or external. Of his way of dealing with matters, I have given some specimens in the course of this volume (see Note GG). Still he is not to be cast aside as wholly worthless. A few pages before the passage with which we are concerned (pp. 535, 540), he shows a good deal of critical acumen in pointing out the chronological impossibility of the tale which makes Rolf an ally of the great Æthelstan (see above, p. 165). Roger of Wendover is, on the whole, a more trustworthy writer than John, and when he comes nearer to his own time, he becomes a very valuable authority; but for times so far removed from their own days, John and Roger must be set down as writers belonging essentially to the same class. Now in comparing their two statements as to the cession of Lothian by Eadgar, we are at once struck by the fact that the two accounts seem quite independent of each other. There is no sign that either narrative is borrowed from the other, no sign that the two are borrowed from some common source. The two stories do not directly contradict one another; but they have nothing in common, except the bare facts that Kenneth received the province from Eadgar, and that Earl Eadwulf and Bishop Ælfsige had a hand in the business. They are two independent witnesses, pointing, as it seems to me, to two independent sources of tradition or lost record. And of the two, the narrative of John of Wallingford certainly has the clearer inherent signs of trustworthiness. If there is any ground to suspect fabrication with a motive—not necessarily in the historian himself, but in those whom he followed—it certainly appears in the narrative of Roger rather than in that of John. Roger gives no account of the circumstances of the grant, he assigns no intelligible political motive for it, he describes no intelligible tenure by which the fief was to be held; he dwells mainly on the magnificence of the presents made by Eadgar to Kenneth, and on points bearing on questions which, when he wrote, were matters of recent controversy and negotiation. The points brought out into the greatest prominence are the duty of the King of Scots to attend at the English court, and the signs at once of English munificence and of Scottish submission displayed in the preparations made for the due reception of the royal vassal. These were points of no small interest in the times when Roger was young, and which were not forgotten when he wrote. There is nothing of this kind in the narrative of John of Wallingford. He has undoubtedly made a false step on ground on which it is very easy to make a false step, namely in the succession of the Northumbrian Earls. Even the accurate Simeon, writing so much nearer to the place and to the time, has himself, in one case at least, done the like (see Note LLL). John’s Eadwulf Evelchild ought to be Oswulf, just as Simeon’s Uhtred, in the account of the battle of Carham, ought to be Eadwulf. But John’s main story fits in very well with the facts of the case. Mr. Robertson (ii. 391) objects that there was no “old quarrel about Lothian.” But the facts show that there was. Surely Lothian was an old Pictish possession which had been conquered by the Angles, and which was sometimes partially won back by its old owners. The wars of Æthelfrith (Bæda, i. 34) and of Ecgfrith (iv. 26) surely make up a very old “querela de Louthion,” but one not too old for Celtic memories to bear in mind. The acquisition of Edinburgh, however made, shows that the Scottish Kings in the tenth century were looking steadily in the direction of Lothian. Kenneth himself, friendly as he now was to Eadgar, had made at least one foray into the country. The Pictish Chronicle (Ant. Celt. Norm. 143) says, “Primo anno perrexit Cinadius et prædavit Saxoniam [Lothian] et traduxit filium regis Saxonum” (see p. 65). The captivity of an English Ætheling is a grotesque exaggeration; but we may accept the fact that Kenneth had some border skirmishes with the local Earl, who in 971, the first year of Kenneth, would be Oswulf. All this shows that the acquisition of Lothian was at this time a favourite object of Scottish ambition. And now that Eadgar and Kenneth were on friendly terms, a grant of the country, like the undoubted grant of Cumberland, like the probable grant of Edinburgh, might be an act of thoroughly good policy on the part of England. A distant province, which it was hard to keep as an integral part of the kingdom, might be prudently granted as a fief to the prince by whom it was claimed, and to whose incursions it lay open. That the conditions spoken of by John of Wallingford, the retention of the laws and language of Lothian, were strictly kept, is proved by the whole later history. The laws and language of Lothian became the laws and language of the historic Scotland.

The cession recorded by John of Wallingford seems therefore to be in itself highly probable. But is it inconsistent with the later, and undoubtedly better authenticated, cession recorded by Simeon of Durham? It does not seem to me to be so; neither did it to Sir Francis Palgrave (Engl. Comm. i. 474, 477) or to Dr. Lappenberg (ii. 141, 207, p. 473 of the original). It may be that the word Lothian, a somewhat vague name, has a slightly different meaning in the two passages; it may be that a cession was made to Kenneth by Eadgar, and a further cession by Eadwulf Cutel to Malcolm. It is less easy to believe, with Sir Francis Palgrave, that Eadwulf’s cession was a cession of the rights of the local Earl, reserved, or not formally surrendered, at the time of the earlier grant by the King. The simplest explanation is to suppose that Lothian was recovered by the English after the great victory of Uhtred in 1006, that it was occupied again by the Scots after their victory at Carham, and that then the cowardly Eadwulf gave up all claim to it. Cnut however, in 1031, if not before (see p. 450 and Note LLL), set matters straight. In that year at least, “Scotta cyng him to beah,” “and wearð his mann”—Malcolm then became the liegeman of the King of all England for Scotland and Lothian and all that he had.

This I believe to be the most probable explanation of this difficult question. The silence of the Chronicles proves nothing either way; it has to be accounted for equally on either view of the story. No transfer of Lothian at any time is mentioned in the Chronicles, yet we know that a transfer did take place at some time. The positive argument from the statement of the Chronicles is always the strongest that can be found; the negative argument from their silence is, under varying circumstances, of every degree of strength and weakness. Here it seems easily accounted for. The Chroniclers are at all times somewhat capricious in their mention or neglect of Scottish affairs. They mention neither the victory of Durham nor the defeat of Carham. And the reigns of Eadgar and Cnut, the periods with which we are immediately concerned, are periods in which the Chronicles are decidedly meagre, as compared with their minute narratives of the reigns of Æthelred and of Eadward the Confessor.

How thoroughly English Lothian was held to be long after either date assigned to the cession appears from the words of the Chronicler, 1091; “Melcolm ... for mid his fyrde ut of Scotlande into Loðene on Englaland.” Florence translates “Northymbriam invasit.” One would like to know whether the “xii. villæ quas in Anglia sub patre illius [Willelmi Rufi sc.] habuerat [Malcolmus]” (Flor. Wig. 1091) were in Lothian or where.

NOTE K. pp. 75, 117. EALDORMEN AND KINGS.

The description of the oldest Teutonic constitution given by Cæsar (Bell. Gall. vi. 23) tells us, “In pace nullus est communis magistratus; sed principes regionum atque pagorum inter suos jus dicunt.” This seems to imply a government by Ealdormen as distinguished from one by Kings. _Pagus_ is the _Gau_ or Shire. So Dio (lxxi. 11), describing the German embassies to Marcus, says, οἱ μὲν κατὰ γένη, οἱ δὲ καὶ κατὰ ἔθνη ἐπρεσβεύσαντο. But Tacitus (Germ. 25, 44) seems to distinguish the tribes “quæ regnantur” from others. So Arminius was suspected of aiming at royalty (Ann. ii. 88); “Regnum adfectans, libertatem popularium adversam habuit.” So Bæda (v. 10) describes the Old-Saxons at the end of the seventh century. They had no King, but _Satraps_, that is doubtless _Ealdormen_; in war-time one Satrap was chosen as a common commander, but his superiority ended with the conclusion of peace. “Non enim habent regem iidem Antiqui Saxones, sed satrapas plurimos suæ genti præpositos, qui ingruente belli articulo mittunt æqualiter sortes, et quemcumque sors ostenderit, hunc tempore belli ducem omnes sequuntur, huic obtemperant; peracto autem bello, rursum æqualis potentiæ omnes fiunt satrapæ.” I have collected some other analogous cases in the Growth of the English Constitution, 172–3 (3rd ed.), and Comparative Politics, 414. In Zosimos (iv. 34) Athanaric is ἄρχων and Frithgar ἡγεμών. We may compare the description of the Alemanni at the battle of Strassburg in Ammianus, xvi. 12. Chnodomarius, the Bretwalda, so to speak, comes first, then some other chiefs by name; “Hos sequebantur potestate proximi reges numero quinque, _regalesque_ decem et optimatum series magna.” Are the _regales_ Æthelings, or are they _subreguli_, _undercyningas_, _ealdormen_?

With regard to the Kentishmen and the West-Saxons, the case seems perfectly clear. We read of the Jutes in the Chronicles, 449, “Heora _heretogan_ wæron twegen gebroðra, Hengest and Horsa.” Here _heretogan_ translates the _duces_ of Bæda, i. 15. And of the West-Saxons in 495, “Her comen twegen _ealdormen_ on Brytene Cerdic and Cynric his súnu.” Afterwards in 519 we find nearly the same words applied to them as to Ida, “Her Cerdic and Cynric Westseaxena _rice_ onfengon.” The word _rice_ I take to mark the change from ealdormanship to kingship. Between the two dates, in 514, is placed the reinforcement under Stuf and Wihtgar. The temporary change from Kings back again to Ealdormen is distinctly asserted by Bæda, iv. 12; “Quumque mortuus esset Coinvalch ... acceperunt subreguli regnum gentis, et divisum inter se tenuerunt annis circiter decem.... Devictis atque amotis subregulis, Cædualla suscepit imperium.” The Chronicles however give an uninterrupted succession of Kings during this time. In 672 Cenwealh dies; his widow Sexburh succeeds—a most rare case of a female reign. Then follow Æscwine in 674, Centwine in 676, Ceadwalla in 685. The change from Ealdormen to Kings in Mercia and East-Anglia is also plainly marked in the remarkable passage of Henry of Huntingdon which I quoted in page 26. And we may with all likelihood, as I there said, assert much the same of Northumberland. But between the case of Wessex and the case of Mercia or Northumberland there would be this difference. In Mercia, and probably in Northumberland, a number of small but quite independent kingdoms or ealdormanships were brought in under the power of a single conqueror, while in Wessex, though there were several Kings at once, a certain national unity was never lost. The change therefore from Kings back again to Ealdormen was possible in Wessex, where it was merely a change in the form of government; in Mercia it would have been the utter dissolution of every tie between the different parts of the country.

The history of the Lombards affords in this respect a singular parallel to the history of the West-Saxons. According to Paul Warnefrid (Gest. Langob. i. 14, ap. Muratori, i. 413), they were at first governed by Dukes, but afterwards they chose a King; “Nolentes jam ultra Langobardi esse sub ducibus, regem sibi ad ceterarum instar gentium statuerunt.” There is no reason to doubt the fact, though it is placed in a mythical age, and though Paul the Deacon is evidently thinking of Saul and the Hebrews. Indeed the change from Judges and “Dukes” to Kings among the Hebrews and Edomites is only another instance of the same law. At a later time, after their settlement in Italy, the Lombards fell back again from Kings to Dukes or Ealdormen. Paul Warn. ii. 32; “Post cujus [Cleph] mortem, Langobardi per annos decem regem non habentes sub ducibus fuerunt. Unusquisque enim ducum [there were thirty of them] suam civitatem obtinebat.” (See Allen, Royal Prerogative, 165.) In comparing these Lombard revolutions with those of the West-Saxons and Old-Saxons, it should not be forgotten that a considerable body of Saxons is said (Paul Warn. ii. 6) to have taken a part in the Lombard invasion of Italy. But parallels may be found in very distant times and places. Compare the twelve Kings of Egypt in the second Book of Herodotus.

That _Heretoga_ and _Ealdorman_ express the same office in different aspects, there can, I think, be no doubt. See Kemble, Saxons in England, ii. 126. I do not however understand Mr. Kemble’s meaning when he says; “The word Heretoga is nowhere found in the Saxon Chronicle, and, to the best of my remembrance, but once in the Charters.” Besides the passage above quoted, it is found in the Chronicles under the years 794 (of Danish pirates), 993 (of English commanders), 1003 (in a proverb), 1121 (of a Duke of Lotharingia). I have not looked through all the Charters for the purpose, but it is used in three successive grants of Bishop Oswald (Cod. Dipl. iii. 259, 260, 262) to express an Ealdorman of the Mercians.

We have just seen _Heretoga_ used in English to translate the High-Dutch _Herzog_; but the Dukes and Counts of Gaul commonly appear in the Chronicles as _Eorlas_. _Eorl_ however, as the later equivalent of _Ealdorman_, is also equivalent to _Heretoga_. Ælfred uses _Heretoga_ to translate the Latin _Consul_, just as, in return, Gaulish Counts and English Ealdormen are constantly spoken of as _Consules_.

On the use of _Ealdor_, _Ealdorman_, _Yldestan_ _þegnas_, to express simply rank and office without any reference to actual age, and for analogous uses in other languages, see Kemble, ii. 128; Heywood’s Ranks of the People, 53; Schmid’s Glossary under _Eald_, _Ealdorman_, &c.; Comparative Politics, 366. We have _Ealdorapostol_, _Ealdorbiscop_, and even, if I mistake not, _Ealdordeofol_. Kemble compares the use of _Senatus_, γέρων, πρεσβύτερος, and the feudal use of _Senior_, _Seigneur_. Πρέσβυς in the sense of Ambassador may be added to the list, and the Latin _Patres_, _Patricius_, express the same general idea. In the same spirit the Ealdorman’s deputy is called his _Younger_; see Ælfred’s Laws, 38, § 2 (Schmid, 92); “gif þises hwæt beforan cyninges ealdormonnes _gingran_ gelimpe, oððe cyninges preôste,” etc. So Lewis the Pious (Waitz, iv. 262, 368) speaks to his officials of “vos et juniores vestri, juniores et ministeriales vestri.”

_Hlaford_, as equivalent, or perhaps something more than equivalent, to _Ealdorman_, seems peculiar to Æthelred of Mercia (see above, p. 382), though of course the word may be applied to an Ealdorman, as it is to Brihtnoth in the Song of Maldon, with reference to those persons to whom he was personally _hlaford_. _Eorl_, I need hardly say, supplanted _Ealdorman_ in later times. The older English meaning of the word _Eorl_ has been already explained. The later special sense in which it is equivalent to _Ealdorman_ came in with the Danes, whose leaders had always been called _Jarls_. The governors of Northumberland, after the incorporation under Eadred, certainly bore the Danish title. Urm, Andcol, Uhtred (the ancestor of a long line of Northumberland Earls), Grim, and Scule, all seemingly Northumbrian chiefs, sign a charter of Eadred in 949 (Cod. Dipl. ii. 292) with the title of _Eorl_. The same title is applied to Oslac both in the Chronicles under 975 (“Oslac se mæra eorl”), and in the laws of Eadgar (Thorpe, i. 278), where the _Earl_ Oslac seems to be pointedly distinguished from the _Ealdormen_ Ælfhere of Mercia and Æthelwine of East-Anglia. So in the Chronicles for 992 “Ælfric _ealdorman_” (the well-known Ælfric, of whom more in Note CC) is no less pointedly distinguished from “Þored _eorl_.” But when the word _Eorl_ is found in this sense in the Chronicles at an earlier date, it is always a sign of later insertion. (See Earle, p. 38.) Whether the title was in use throughout the Denalagu is less clear. Brihtnoth is called _Eorl_ in the poem of Maldon; but this may be a poetical use. He is also called _Ealdor_ in the wide sense in the poem itself, as well as _Ealdorman_ in various documents and in the Chronicles. On the other hand the Chronicles constantly speak of _Ealdormen_, even in Danish districts like Lindesey; but this may be an accommodation to Southern language, and they do so even when speaking of Northumberland. In the purely Saxon districts there can be no doubt that the ancient title of _Ealdorman_ went on uninterruptedly, till, under Cnut, _Eorl_ gradually supplanted it everywhere. See p. 407.

That birth was of less importance in the case of an Ealdorman than in the case of a King appears from the well-known words of Tacitus (Germ. 7), “Reges ex nobilitate, Duces ex virtute sumunt.” This is most curiously illustrated in the Song of Brunanburh, where seven earls of the Danes are killed and five _young_ kings (“Fife lagon On ðæm campstede Ciningas geonge”). The King ruling “ex nobilitate” might be young; the Earl ruling “ex virtute” was likely to be old.

On this whole subject of the origin and growth of kingship see the Authorities and Illustrations to Allen on the Royal Prerogative.

NOTE L. p. 78. ORIGIN OF THE WORD _KING_.

It is enough for my purpose that the word _Cyning_ is closely connected with the word _Cyn_. (See Allen, Royal Prerogative, 176; Kemble, i. 153.) That the two words are of the same origin, as is shown by a whole crowd of cognates, _cynebarn_, _cynecyn_, _cynedom_, _cynehelm_, _cyne-hlaford_ (used in the Chronicles, a. 1014, as equivalent to _gecynde hlaford_), _cynelice_, _cynerice_, _cynestol_. (I copy from Mr. Earle’s Glossarial Index.) In all these words _cyn_ has the meaning of royal. What little I venture to say on the remote Aryan affinities of the word I have said in Comparative Politics, 450, Growth of the English Constitution, 172.

The modern High-Dutch _König_ is an odd corruption; but the elder form is _Chuninc_. The word has never had an English feminine; _Queen_ is simply _cwen_, woman, wife, the same as the Greek γυνή, but in Wessex, from the days of Beorhtric to those of William, _Cwen_ most rarely occurs (Chron. 855 and Chron. Petrib. 1043, though in both these passages it may simply mean _wife_); _Hlæfdige_ (see above, p. 575) is the regular title.

Sir Francis Palgrave’s attempt (ii. cccxli.) to derive the word from a Celtic root _Cen_ (_head_), to say nothing of other objections, could not account for the use of the word among the Teutonic nations on the Continent. Still more ludicrous is the notion of the King being the _canning_ or _cunning_ man, an idea which could have occurred only to a mind on which all Teutonic philology was thrown away. It is however as old as Sir Thomas Smith, who, in the Commonwealth of England (pp. 9, 10) says, “That which we cal in one sillable king in English, the old Englishmen, and the Saxons, from whom our tongue is derived, to this day call in two sillables, _cyning_, which whether it commeth of _cen_ or _ken_, which betokeneth to know and understand, or _can_, which betokeneth to be able, or to have power, I cannot tel.”

The connexion of _Cyning_ with _Cyn_ is closely analogous to the connexion of the word _Þeoden_ (the Gothic _Þiudans_) with _Þeod_ (see Kemble, i. 152) and that of _Drihten_ with _Driht_. In all these cases the ruler takes his name from those whom he rules.

The origin of the word is curiously illustrated in Cardinal Pole’s exposition of the nature of kingship, quoted in Froude’s History of England, iii. 34. “‘What is a king?’ he asks. ‘A king exists for the sake of his people; he is an outcome from Nature in labour [partus naturæ laborantis]; an institution for the defence of material and temporal interests.... In human society are three grades—the people—the priesthood, the head and husband of the people—_the king, who is the child_ [populus enim regem procreat], the creature, and minister of the other two.’”

One can hardly suspect Pole of any Teutonic scholarship, but if he had not the true derivation of the word _king_ before his eyes, the coincidence is remarkable. Not very unlike is the speech of Philip Pot, Great Seneschal of Burgundy in the States General of Tours in 1484. “La royauté est une dignité et non un héritage. Dans l’origine, le peuple souverain créa des rois pour son utilité.” De Cherrier, Histoire de Charles VIII. i. 76.

NOTE M. p. 78. KING OF ENGLAND OR KING OF THE ENGLISH?

It is most curious to see how very modern are those territorial titles which, for some centuries past, European Kings have thought good to assume. In Greek we always find a national sovereign described by the national style; it is always Λακεδαιμονίων, Μακεδόνων, even Περσῶν and Μήδων, βασιλεύς. In Livy (xxxi. 14, xxxv. 13) we no doubt read of “Antiochus rex Syriæ” and “Ptolemæus rex Ægypti.” But this is of course, because the kingship of the Ptolemies and Seleucidæ was so utterly unnational that any but a territorial description would have been absurd. In fact it is a description and not a title. As a description of this kind, the words “Rex Franciæ” actually occur as early as the tenth century. (Flodoard, A. 924.) But this is not a formal title; it is merely the annalist’s vague way of describing or pointing at a prince who had as yet no formal title. If one Rudolf is “Rex Franciæ,” in the very same year another Rudolf is “Cisalpinæ rex Galliæ,” which certainly never was the formal title of any man. The truth is that, throughout the ninth and tenth centuries, the various Frankish Kings had no formal title beyond the vague “Rex Francorum,” common to all of them. The Chroniclers had therefore to describe each King as they might, just as the sons of Charles the Great are indifferently called “Rex super Aquitaniam,” or “Italiam,” Ann. Laur. 781 (Pertz, i. 32); “Rex in Aquitania,” Ann. Egin. 781, and “Aquitaniæ Rex” (ib. 813). But when the French Kings adopted a formal title, _Rex Francorum Christianissimus_ was the style down to the end of the line of Valois. _Franciæ et Navarræ Rex_ came in with Henry of Bourbon. When the ancient style was revived in 1791, and again in 1830, many people seem to have thought it a strange innovation.

In both Empires, down to the last days of each, the style is always “Romanorum Imperator,” Ῥωμαίων βασιλεύς. It is only late in the thirteenth century, and when a prince has to be described by his dominions, that we find such a title as the Trapezuntine style πιστὸς βασιλεὺs καὶ αὐτοκράτωρ Ἀνατολής, Ἰβήρων, καὶ Περατείας. (Finlay, Mediæval Greece and Trebizond, 370.) In earlier days Charles the Great was “Patricius Romanorum.”

In England it would seem that Cnut, and Cnut alone before the Norman Conquest, did call himself “King of England.” In the Preface to his Laws (Thorpe, i. 358; Schmid, 250) he is called “Cnut cyningc, ealles Englalandes cyningc, and Dena cyningc and Norðrigena cyningc.” In the letter from Rome in Florence (1031) he calls himself “Rex totius Angliæ et Denemarciæ et Norreganorum et partis Suanorum.” In a doubtful charter (Cod. Dipl. iv. 50) he is “Rex totius Angliæ regni atque Danorum;” “Cing ealles Englelandes and ealre Dene.” In two most doubtful charters (Cod. Dipl. iv. 25, 41) he is “Kining of Ænglelande,” and “Rex totius Angliæ et Danmarchiæ et Norwagiæ et magnæ partis Swavorum.” In other charters he is either “Rex Anglorum” (as Florence calls him when speaking in his own person) or else he assumes the Imperial style.

It has been suggested that Cnut took up his territorial style as being a conqueror of the land, not a native monarch of the people. But the above instances show that, though he fluctuates between the two forms, he makes no consistent distinction between his hereditary and his acquired kingdoms. Moreover Cnut, like William, was formally elected King, and he was even less likely than William to assume any title which would be offensive to his English subjects. This makes one inclined to look a little further. In the most authentic documents, _Anglia_, _Englaland_, does not occur without a qualification; the words are “_totius_ Angliæ,” “_ealles_ Englalandes.” Is this description so distinctly and unmistakeably territorial as the later forms, “Rex Angliæ,” “King of England”? The _totius_, the _ealles_, strikes me as making a difference. It may show that what is meant is, not “King of England” in the later sense, but “King over the whole land of the English,” as distinguished from Cnut’s earlier and narrower dominion while the kingdom was divided between him and Eadmund. But anyhow Cnut stands alone before the Norman Conquest in the use of this style. After the Conquest “Rex Angliæ” begins to creep in, but at first very rarely. William himself is all but invariably “Rex Anglorum.” Richard is the first King who is systematically “Rex Angliæ” in his charters, and even he is “Rex Anglorum” on his seal. And during his reign his mother stuck to the old style “Regina Anglorum.” The final innovation of “Rex Angliæ” on the seal is due to King John. See Allen, p. 51.

In everything, in short, belonging to our old days it is the people who stand forth and not the mere land. In fact, except in the case of old geographical names like Gaul and Britain, the land can hardly be said to have a being or a name apart from the people. The land is simply called by the name of the people, like Lokroi and Leontinoi in Greek geography, like Franken and Hessen in Germany. So in our Chronicles, in the year 774, we read “gefuhton Myrce and Cantwara,” where _Myrce_ is clearly the people; but in 796 we read “hine læddon on Myrce,” where we must take _Myrce_ for the country. On the use of the name _Englaland_ I shall speak in Note T.

On this modern notion of “territorial sovereignty,” see Maine, Ancient Law, 103. He remarks that “territorial titles were not unknown, but they seem at first to have come into use only as a convenient mode of describing the ruler of a _portion_; the king of a _whole_ tribe was king of his people, not of his people’s lands.” This is, I suppose, the “rex super Aquitaniam,” and the like.

NOTE N. pp. 91, 122. COMMENDATION.

On the subject of Commendation a good deal will be found in Hallam’s Middle Ages (i. 114, edition 1846), and still more in the Supplementary Notes (p. 118; and see specially Waitz, iv. 204). By the time of Æthelstan a lordless man seems to have become something exceptional, and to have needed special legislation (see Æthelstan’s Laws in Schmid, 132. “Be hlâfordleâsum mannum”). The passages from the Capitularies quoted by Hallam imply the necessity of every man seeking a lord, though they leave to him the right of choosing what lord he will seek. There is another remarkable Capitulary of Lewis the Pious in the year 815 (Baluz. i. 552), in which the Emperor grants the power of Commendation, as an accustomed right of his own subjects, to the Spanish Christians who had taken refuge within his dominions from the oppression of the Saracens; “Noverint tamen iidem Hispani sibi licentiam a nobis esse concessam ut se in vassaticum commitibus nostris more solito commendet. Et si beneficium aliquod quisquam eorum ab eo cui se commendavit fuerit consequutus, sciat se de illo tali obsequium seniori suo exhibere debere quale nostrates homines de simili beneficio senioribus suis exhibere solent.” This is remarkable as showing the distinction between the personal Commendation of a man to his lord and the grant of a feudal benefice by that lord. The grant is not necessarily implied, but it is looked on as something which is likely to follow. “Commendati homines” are often mentioned in Domesday, and there are numberless phrases which come to the same thing, though the exact words are not used. There is one very curious story in Hertfordshire (136 _b_), where a certain Godwine held lands for a life or lives of the church of Westminster, but after his death his widow illegally transferred the lordship of the lands to Eadgifu the Fair. “Hanc terram tenuit Godwinus de ecclesia Sancti Petri; non potuit vendere, sed post mortem ejus debebat ad ecclesiam redire, ut hundreda testatur; sed uxor ejus cum hac terra vertit se per vim ad Eddevam pulcram, et tenebat ea die qua Edwardus rex fuit vivus et mortuus.” This Godwine who could not sell his land is distinguished from various “homines” of Eadgifu “qui potuerunt vendere.” See more in vol. v. p. 885.

This process of seeking a lord we find described in the Laws of Ælfred (37, Schmid 90), where the proper formalities are described; “Gif mon wille of bold-getale in oðer bold-getæl hlâford sêcan, dô þæt mid þæs ealdormonnes gewitnesse þe he ǽr in his scire folgode.” And this phrase of _seeking_ or _choosing_ a lord is the very phrase which is used to express the international commendation of Wales and Scotland to the English King. In the Chronicles, 922, we read of Eadward, “and þa cyningas on Norþ Wealum, Howel and Cledauc and Ieoþwel, and eall Norþ Weallcyn _hine sohton him to hlaforde_.” And in the famous passage which describes the great commendation of 924 (see above, p. 576) the words are, “_hine geces þa to fæder and to hlaforde_ Scotta cyning,” &c.

Of the use of the word as applied on an international scale there is an early instance in the letter of Pope Stephen to Pippin (Waitz, iii. 84; cf. 87), where he says, “tam ipsi Spoletani quamque etiam Beneventani omnes _se commendare_ per nos a Deo servatæ excellentiæ tuæ cupiunt.” But the best setting forth of the doctrine between sovereign princes is to be found in the words which Dudo (128 D) puts into the mouth of Hugh the Great, when he explains to young Richard the need of seeking a lord; “Hugo vero Magnus intelligens animadvertisse utrumque affectum voluntatis suæ, aperta cordis sui intentione dicitur respondisse: ‘Non est quippe mos Franciæ, ut quislibet princeps duxve constipatus abundantius tanto milite perseveret cunctis diebus taliter in dominio ditionis suæ, ut non aut famulatu voluntatis suæ, aut coactus vi et potestate, incumbat acclivius Imperatori, vel regi, ducive: et si forte perseveraverit in temeritate audaciæ suæ, ut non famularetur alicui volenter præcopiosa ubertate sufficientiæ suæ; solent ei rixæ dissentionesque atque casus innumerabilis detrimenti sæpissime accidere. Quapropter si placuisset Richardo duci tuo nepoti seipsum flectere ut militaret mihi, vestro saluberrimo consilio sponte filiam meam connubio illi jungerem; et terræ, quam hereditario jure possidet, continuus defensor et adjutor contra omnes adessem.’”

NOTE O. p. 91. GROWTH OF THE THEGNHOOD.

I cannot forbear transcribing the passage in which Mr. Kemble (Saxons in England, i. 183) sums up the general results of the growth of the Thegnhood. “As the royal power steadily advanced by his assistance, and the old, national nobility of birth, as well as the old, landed freeman sunk into a lower rank, the gesið found himself rising in power and consideration proportioned to that of his chief: the offices which had passed from the election of the freemen to the gift of the crown, were now conferred upon him, and the ealdorman, duke, geréfa, judge, and even the bishop, were at length selected from the ranks of the comitatus. Finally, the nobles by birth themselves became absorbed in the ever-widening whirlpool; day by day the freemen, deprived of their old national defences, wringing with difficulty a precarious subsistence from incessant labour, sullenly yielded to a yoke which they could not shake off, and commended themselves (such was the phrase) to the protection of a lord; till a complete change having thus been operated in the opinions of men, and consequently in every relation of society, a new order of things was consummated, in which the honours and security of service became more anxiously desired than a needy and unsafe freedom; and the alods being finally surrendered, to be taken back as _beneficia_, under mediate lords, the foundations of the royal, feudal system were securely laid on every side.”

The supplanting of an older by a newer form of nobility has several parallels in history. The distinction between _patricii_ and _nobiles_ at Rome has some analogies to the distinction between _eorlas_ and _þegnas_ in England. The plebeian could not become patrician, but he could become noble; and this plebeian nobility, derived from the possession of curule magistracies, answered to our thegnhood in being a nobility of office, though in this case it was office conferred by the people and not by a King or other lord. See more in Comparative Politics, 246–270. On the growth of the official _comitatus_ in the courts of the Frankish Kings and Emperors see the chapter of Waitz (iii. 410), “Der Hof und die Reichsversammlung.” He comments on the difference between this and the earlier _comitatus_; but both are instances of the same principle. See also iv. 278 of the same work, “Dabei wird immer auch auf Abstammung, Ansehn des Geschlechtes Werth gelegt; aber ein bestimmter rechtlicher Vorzug war damit nicht verbunden.” He has collected a great number of cases of the use of the word _nobilis_ and other equivalent words in the Carolingian age, that is to say, just at the point when the old notion of nobility had come to an end and when the new one had not fully developed itself. In that immediate stage nobility means simply to have meant free birth, or at all events free birth combined with the possession of land.

NOTE P. p. 95. GRANTS OF FOLKLAND.

I hope to say something more in my fifth volume about the tenure of land in England. I will here only give one or two specimens of the form of these grants.

In 977 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 157) King Eadward makes a grant to Ælfric (which Ælfric?) in these terms; “Aliquam partem terræ juris mei perpetuali donatione libenter concedo cuidam fideli meo ministro [þegn] vocitato nomine Ælfric, ob illius amabile obsequium dignatus sum largiri.” He is to have it in full property, with the right of bequest, and to hold it free of all services “exceptis istis tribus, expeditione, pontis arcisve munitione.” So Æthelred in 982 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 188) grants “ruris quamdam sed communem portionem, quam hujus nationis indigenæ usitato æt Stoce nuncupant onomate, cuipiam mihi _pisticâ_ [one thinks of the πιστοί in the Persians of Æschylus] devotione subnixo vocitamine Leofrico.” The grantee is to have full power of bequest, and to hold the land “ab omni terrenæ servitutis jugo liberum, excepta expeditione, pontis arcisve restauratione.” Fearful curses are imprecated on any one who shall disturb the grantees in their possessions.

Bishops make grants to their own thegns of Church lands to be held for one, two, or three lives, and then to revert to the Church. The Codex contains a great many grants of this kind made by Bishop Oswald, the grant being made by leave of the King and of the reigning Ealdorman of the Mercians. In one, in English, which immediately follows the grant to Ælfric (iii. 159), we find the _trinoda necessitas_ duly excepted. “Sie hit ǽlces þinges freoh búton ferdfare and walgeworc and brygcgeworc and cyrcanláde.”

The consent of the Witan is marked in the grant to Leofric by the words “his testibus consentientibus quorum inferius nomina caraxantur.” So Eadgar (iii. 153) makes a grant “optimatum meorum utens consilio,” &c., &c.

The Codex Diplomaticus is of course the great storehouse of knowledge on this subject.

NOTE Q. p. 101. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE WITENAGEMÓT.

I conceive that my notions about the Witenagemót do not differ essentially from those of Mr. Kemble. The process by which a primary Assembly in a large country naturally shrinks up into a small official or aristocratic body could not be better drawn out than they are in his chapter on the Witenagemót (Saxons in England, ii. 191 et seqq.). He winds up (p. 195) with the words; “At what exact period the change I have attempted to describe was effected, is neither very easy to determine nor very material. It was probably very gradual, and very

## partial; indeed it may never have been formally recognized, for here and

there we find evident traces of the people’s being present at, and ratifying the decisions of the Witan.” In a note on the next page Mr. Kemble goes on to refute the strange notion of Sir Francis Palgrave (ii. ccclxxxvi.) that a property qualification was needed for a seat in the Witenagemót. In fact Mr. Kemble’s remarks are all that could be wished, if he had only brought forward more clearly some of those “evident traces” to which he cursorily alludes.

I will try, partly at least, to fill up the gap. Take for instance the very beginning of recorded English legislation, the Dooms of Æthelberht (Thorpe, i. 2); “Gif cyning his _leode_ to him gehated.” _Leode_ here surely means _people_ in the widest sense. So in the Preface to the Laws of Wihtræd (p. 36); “Ðær þa eadigan fundon _mid ealra gemedum_ þas domas.” The great men propose, the people accept, just as in the _concilia_ described by Tacitus. So the deposition of Sigeberht in 755 (of which more in the next Note) was, according to Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 729 C), who is clearly following some earlier writer, the act of the whole West-Saxon people; “Congregati sunt proceres et _populus totius regni_, et provida deliberatione et _unanimi consensu omnium_ expulsus est a regno. Kinewlf vero, juvenis egregius de regia stirpe oriundus, electus est in regem.” So the “Decretum Episcoporum et aliorum sapientum de Kancia,” addressed to Æthelstan (Thorpe, i. 216), whatever its exact bearing, is drawn up in the name of the “thaini, comites [eorlas], et _villani_ [ceorlas].” So the “Judicia Civitatis Lundoniæ” (p. 228, Schmid, 156) are confirmed by all, “ægder ge eorlisce ge ceorlisce,” in the Latin “comites et villani.” So in the Chronicles a popular element is often mentioned in the election of Kings and in other national acts. In 959 Eadgar was, according to Florence, “ab omni Anglorum populo electus.” In 1016 Eadmund is chosen by the Witan and the citizens (burhwaru) of London. So in 1036 Harold the First is chosen by most of the thegns north of Thames and by the _liðsmen_ or sailors of London. In 1041 “_all folk_ chose Eadward to King.” So in 1066 Harold took the kingdom “as _men_ chose him thereto.” So in 1048, when Godwine proposes to interfere in the wars of the North, “hit þuhte unræd _eallum folce_.” So too Godwine, on his return in 1052, makes his speech in the _Mycel Gemót_ “wið Eadward cyng his hlaford and wið _ealle landleodan_.” So with regard to a local body, in the account of a Scirgemót of Herefordshire in Cod. Dipl. iv. 54, though the thegns (“ealle ða þegnas on Herefordscíre”) are mentioned in a special way, yet the final judgement is given by the popular voice—“be _ealles ðæs folces_ leáfe and gewitnesse.” With regard to the action of the citizens of London, the case no doubt simply was that they, being on the spot, could assert this right, which others at a distance could not do. But it must be remembered that till the eleventh century the Witan did not commonly meet either in London or in any other of the chief towns. Possibly, when a Gemót was held at Winchester or Exeter, the citizens of those towns would hold the same position as the Londoners did when the Gemót was held in their city. Something of this kind seems to be referred to in a charter of Æthelstan (Cod. Dipl. ii. 194) of the year 934—a charter remarkable on other grounds from the vast number of signatures, including four vassal Kings, and evidently passed in what was indeed a _Mycel Gemót_. It is given “in civitate opinatissima [sic] quæ Winteceaster nuncupatur, tota populi generalitate sub alis regiæ dapsilitatis ovanti.” The citizens both of London and of Winchester seem to be mentioned as electors of Kings as late as the accession of Stephen. (See W. Malms., Hist. Nov. i. 11.) Even as late as 1461, Edward Earl of March was elected King by a tumultuous assembly of the citizens of London, and the citizens were foremost in the revolution which placed Richard the Third on the throne in 1483. These elections are fully described in Hall’s Chronicle, pp. 253, 372. (See Growth of English Constitution, 204.) And that of Edward comes out well in the Collections of a London Citizen (Camden Society), 215, where we read how the Earl of March “enteryed unto the cytte of London, and there he toke uppon hym the crowne of Inglond by the avysse of the lordys spyrytual and temporalle, and by the _elexyon of the comyns_. And so he be-gan hys rayne.” These are plainly the last traces of the right which the citizens had more regularly exercised in the elections of Eadmund Ironside and of Harold the son of Cnut.

These passages seem distinctly to imply that every freeman had a theoretical right to attend. Some of the expressions used might be applied without impropriety to a representative assembly; but they could not be applied to a body not representative, unless, in theory at least, it took in the whole nation. These passages prove also that some form of demanding the assent of the people at large was always retained. But the retention of some such usage is almost proved, without going any further, by the custom which still exists of presenting the King at his coronation for the acceptance of the people (see vol. iii. Appendix E). This is at once the last trace of our elective monarchy, and the last vestige of the ancient right of the Teutonic freeman to take a direct

## part in the affairs of the nation. We may see the working of the same

process on the continent in what Waitz, iii. 56, says of the Frankish Assemblies under the Karlings; “Das Volk, oder die Grossen, welche auf den allgemeinen Versammlungen im Namen des Volkes handelten.” But in the quasi-official language of Einhard (Vita Kar. 1) it is “publicus populi sui conventus,” and the Continuator of Fredegar (117 a, 752) speaks of the change of dynasty as made “cum consilio omnium Francorum.”

The charter of 934, which I have just quoted, starts a point of quite another kind, namely the question as to the attendance of the vassal Celtic princes in the English Witenagemót. On this I have said something in p. 132. The attendance of the Welsh Kings is not uncommon, especially in the reign of Æthelstan. They often sign charters with the titles of _subregulus_ or _undercyning_. See the signatures, ranging from 930 to 956 (Cod. Dipl. ii. 170, 173, 193, 196, 203, 292, 304, 326, 413; v. 199, 208, 217), of the _subreguli_ Howel, Morcant, Owen, Juthwal, Tudor, Syferth, Jacob, Jukil, and Wurgeat. The Cumbrian signatures are rarer, but we have those of Eugenius in 931 (v. 199) and 937 (ii. 203), and of Malcolm in 966 and 970 (ii. 413, iii. 59). The signature of Kenneth of Scotland is attached to three charters (Cod. Dipl. ii. 413, iii. 69; Palgrave, ii. ccli. cclii.), but the authenticity of all three has been suspected. Still his presence at the great ceremony at Chester shows that the appearance of the King of Scots in the Witenagemót was a thing that might be looked for. The treaty between Richard the First and William the Lion, by which the novel claims of Henry the Second were given up, contains elaborate rules for the reception of the King of Scots on his way to the King’s court as due of ancient custom (Palgrave, ii. cccxxxix.).

NOTE R. p. 106. THE RIGHT OF THE WITAN TO DEPOSE THE KING.

Mr. Kemble (ii. 219) formally reckons among the powers of the Witan that they “had the power to depose the King, if his government was not conducted for the benefit of the people.” He adds that “it is obvious that the very existence of this power would render its exercise an event of very rare occurrence.” He then goes on to discuss the case of Sigeberht at length, and adds, “I have little doubt that an equally formal, though hardly equally justifiable, proceeding severed Mercia from Eádwig’s kingdom, and reconstituted it as a separate state under Eádgár; and lastly from Simeon of Durham we learn that the Northumbrian Alchred was deposed and exiled, with the counsel and consent of all his people.”

This last Northumbrian case is worth notice, as showing that a perfectly legal proceeding may lurk under words which at first sight seem to imply mere violence. The two Chronicles, Worcester and Peterborough, which record the deposition of Ealhred in the year 774, use the words, “Her Norðhymbra fordrifon heora cyning Alchred of Eoforwic on Eastertid, and genamon Æþelred Molles sunu him to hlaforde.” So Florence, “Festi paschalis tempore Northymbrenses regem suum Alhredum, Molli regis successorem, Eboraco expulere, filiumque ejusdem regis Molli, Æthelberhtum, in regem levavere.” This might suggest the notion of a mere revolutionary act; but the words of Simeon bring out the legal character of the deposition much more strongly; “Alcredus rex, consilio et consensu _suorum omnium_, regiæ familiæ ac principum destitutus societate, exilio imperii mutavit majestatem.” With this new light before us, we better understand the force of the words of the Chronicles, “of Eoforwic on Eastertid.” It is plain that Ealhred was deposed by the Easter Gemót of his kingdom assembled in his capital. Simeon then goes on to speak of Æthelred as “tanto honore coronatus;” and it should be noticed that in 779, when he records the expulsion of Æthelred himself, richly deserved as it was by the treacherous murder of three of his Ealdormen, he does not use the same legal language; “Ethelredo expulso de regali solio et in exilio fugato, cogitur mœstos inire modos miserasque habere querelas. Elfwald vero filius Oswlfi, Ethelredo expulso, regnum Northanhymbrorum suscepit.” So in the Chronicles (778), “And þa feng Alfwold to rice and Æþeldred bedraf on lande.”

To turn to the case of Sigeberht, I have already quoted (see above, p. 400) the words of Henry of Huntingdon, in whose account the legal action of the nation stands out most clearly; but the consent of the Witan appears also in all the other accounts. In the Chronicles (755) we read, “Her Cynewulf benam Sigebryhte his mæge his rices and Wæst-seaxna witan for unrihtum dædum butan Hamtunscire.” So Florence, “Cynewlfus, de prosapia Cerdici regis oriundus, auxilium sibi ferentibus West-Saxonicis primatibus, regem illorum Sigebertum, ob multitudinem suorum iniquorum factorum, regno exterminavit, et loco ejus regnavit; unam tamen provinciam, quæ Hantunscire dicitur, eidem concessit.” And even Æthelweard (ii. 17), who seems to tell the story with a certain royalist leaning against Cynewulf, witnesses to the same facts; “Post decursum unius anni ex quo Sigebryht regnare cœperat, cujus regnum invadens Cynulf abstraxit ab eo, et sapientes totius partis occidentalis facietenus traxit cum eo propter inconditos actus supradicti regis; nec illi derelicta pars potestatis nisi provincia una quæ Hamtunscire nuncupatur.” In this case, as in the case of Ealhred, we may remark the different colourings given to the same action. The deposition of Sigeberht was clearly a legal act, but it might be spoken of as an “invasio,” just as equally legal acts later in our history could be also spoken of as “invasiones.”

With regard to the separation of Mercia from the kingdom of Eadwig, spoken of by Mr. Kemble, the whole of Eadwig’s reign is shrouded in such darkness that, as it forms no part of my immediate subject, I have rather avoided going into it. But at any rate that separation would present one point of difference from any of the other cases. As Eadgar seems to have been Under-king of the Mercians from the death of Eadred, the act by which the Mercians threw off the authority of Eadwig was rather the rejection of the supremacy of an over-lord than the deposition of an immediate sovereign.

Of the other cases which I have mentioned in the text, those which come within the range of my History I have discussed in their proper places. Among the later cases, some may have expected to see the names of Henry the Sixth and Charles the First. But neither of these Kings were, in strictness of speech, deposed. By deposition I understand an act by which a King, whose right to be King is acknowledged up to that time, is, by virtue of such act, declared to be no longer King. This was not exactly the case with Henry the Sixth. When Richard Duke of York claimed the crown in preference to Henry, a compromise was made, by which Henry was to keep the crown for life and Richard was to become his heir-apparent. It was therefore the Yorkist theory that Henry reigned by virtue of this agreement, and that, when he afterwards, as was alleged, broke the agreement, the Crown was thereby forfeited and the Duke became _de jure_ King. (See Growth of the English Constitution, p. 149.) Yet, as we have seen, a kind of popular election was thought needful to confirm the rights of his son. Charles the First, it is still more clear, was not deposed. He was tried and executed _being King_, a process of which English history supplies no other example. The depositions of Edward the Second and Richard the Second are too plain to need comment. James the Second was clearly deposed in Scotland; whether the vote against him in England could be strictly called a vote of deposition is less clear. On the character of this famous vote, logically so absurd, yet practically so thoroughly adapted to all the circumstances of the time, see Macaulay, Hist. of Eng. ii. 623. So on the vote of the Scottish Estates, iii. 285.

I have spoken in the text of that milder form of deposition by which the King was removed from his authority without being formally removed from his office. Of this process the simpler forms of our early constitution will hardly supply an instance, unless we see an approach to it in the engagement (see p. 368) entered into by Æthelred on his restoration to rule in all things by the advice of his Witan. But it was done in the cases of Henry the Third, Edward the Second, and Richard the Second; in the two latter cases the act was a kind of forewarning of the severer punishment which was to follow.

It must be remembered that throughout this argument I am dealing with the legal right of deposition, not with the justice of its exercise in any particular case. As to Sigeberht, and as to Ealhred too, both of them clearly deserved their fate, but how far in either case the West-Saxon and Northumbrian Witan may have been influenced by any personal intrigues of Cynewulf or Æthelred, who play in the two stories respectively the part of Henry of Bolingbroke or William of Orange, is not to the purpose. So too with the later fates of the deposed Kings, with the certain murder of Edward, the all but certain murder of Richard, the constitutional question has nothing to do. The deposed prince was let off the most easily in the earliest case. Sigeberht, deposed from the kingdom of Wessex, was allowed to retain Hampshire as Under-king. Having murdered one of his Ealdormen, he was banished altogether by Cynewulf, the new head King, and he was afterwards killed by a private enemy.

For instances of deposition among other Teutonic nations see Kemble, ii. 221. The most famous case of all, the deposition of Childeric and election of Pippin, was somewhat spoiled by the application to the Bishop of Rome about a matter which it clearly lay within the power of the Frankish nation to settle without his interference.

NOTE S. p. 107. THE ELECTION OF KINGS.

Some passages bearing on the election of Kings by the Witan, that is in truth by the people, have been already quoted (see above, p. 602). At every stage of my history I shall have to call attention to the way in which the right of free election was carried out in practice. But it is worth while to point out how long the old Teutonic feeling survived, and at how late a time it was still formally put forth as a constitutional principle. Nowhere can a better exposition of the ancient doctrine as to the election of Kings be found than in the speech which Matthew Paris (Chronica Majora, ii. 454, ed. Luard) puts into the mouth of Archbishop Hubert at the election of King John. Whether the speech is Hubert’s or Matthew’s matters little; or rather, if it be Matthew’s own, it is the more valuable, as carrying on the ancient tradition still later. No one has any right to be King unless he be chosen by the whole people of the land on account of his merits (“nullus prævia ratione alii succedere habet regnum, nisi ab _universitate regni_ unanimiter, invocata Spiritus gratia, electus”), but if any member of the royal family be worthy, he is to be preferred to any one else (“verum si quis ex stirpe regis defuncti aliis præpolleret, pronius et promptius in electionem ejus est consentiendum”). The preamble is excellent, but the practical inference is strange, namely that Duke John, for his many virtues, should be chosen King. With this speech, made by, or attributed to, an English Archbishop, we may compare the similar doctrine of elective monarchy laid down by a French Archbishop, Adalbero of Rheims, at the election of Hugh Capet in 987; “Non ignoramus Karolum fautores suos habere, qui eum dignum regno ex parentum collatione contendant. Sed si de hoc agitur, _nec regnum jure hæreditario adquiritur_, nec in regnum promovendus est nisi quem non solum corporis nobilitas, sed et animi sapientia illustrat, fides munit, magnanimitas firmat. Legimus in annalibus, clarissimi generis Imperatoribus ignavia ab dignitate præcipitatis, alios modo pares, modo impares successisse.” (Richer, iv. 11.) So again the combination of the elective and hereditary principles, as found in all the old Teutonic kingdoms, is well set forth by Rudolf Glaber, i. 3; “Totius regni primates _elegerunt_ Ludovicum, filium videlicet prædicti regis Caroli, unguentes eum super se regem _hæreditario jure_ regnaturum.” We shall find as nearly as possible the same words in an important passage of our Chronicles (A. 1042).

NOTE T. p. 151. NAMES OF KINGDOMS AND NATIONS.

It should be carefully borne in mind that, throughout the times with which we are dealing, two systems of geographical nomenclature were in use, we might say in rival use. The ancient names, Roman or ante-Roman, still survived, as many of them survive still, as purely geographical descriptions, and the new names, the names of states and kingdoms named after their inhabitants, were still only in process of forming. I have said something of this in an earlier Note (see above, p. 596) with regard to the nomenclature of our own island; the nomenclature of continental countries we shall find to be still more confused. But the two classes of names can be clearly distinguished. _Gallia_ and _Britannia_ were doubtless in their origin names derived from a people, no less than _Francia_ and _Anglia_; but, in the times with which we have to deal, _Gallia_ and _Britannia_ had become purely geographical terms, simply expressing a certain extent of territory on the map, while _Francia_ and _Anglia_ (if the latter name was used at all) were political names, expressing the territory occupied or ruled by _Franci_ and _Angli_. The shifting of names of this latter class are frequent and well known. The modern kingdom of Saxony, for instance, has not an inch of ground in common with the Saxony which was conquered by Charles the Great, and the various meanings of the word Burgundy have become a proverb among the learned and a touchstone to bewray the half-learned. Another cause of confusion is that the ancient geographical names were constantly used, not only in their straightforward geographical sense, but also by way of fine writing, in which case they are constantly used affectedly, and often inaccurately. This is especially the case with Richer. Take for instance the opening of his second book, where he describes the political parties of his own day in the geographical language of Cæsar, “Galli namque Celtæ cum Aquitanis Hugonem Rotberti regis filium, Belgæ vero Ludovicum Karoli sequebantur.” Here we get a real distinction of race and language. The _Celtæ_ and _Aquitani_ are the nations of the Romance tongues, the forerunners of the future French and the future Provençal, while the _Belgæ_ mark the still Teutonic part of the kingdom, whose inhabitants Richer elsewhere (i. 47) distinctly calls _Germani_. But none would guess this from the antiquated phraseology which he chooses. A still more remarkable instance of Richers way of misusing antiquated terms will be found in a passage which seems to have misled Sir Francis Palgrave. Sir Francis, describing the campaign of 944 (see p. 225) says (ii. 543), “Among other vassals or dependants ... Otho was joined by Conrad ‘King of Geneva,’ under which style we might have some difficulty in recognizing the King of Burgundy, yet the title is not undeserving of notice, as embodying the very few remaining recollections of a kingdom practically effaced from historical memory.” This I do not understand. As Sir Francis gives no references, I cannot undertake to deny that Conrad may be called “King of Geneva” somewhere, but he certainly is not so called in any of the most obvious authorities for this campaign. Widukind does not mention him at all. In Flodoard (A. 946) he is, as usual, “Cisalpinæ Galliæ rex.” In Richer (ii. 53) he is “Rex Genaunorum.” (Did Sir Francis read “Genevanorum”?) It is strange geography of Richer to place the Genauni in Burgundy, but we find again in ii. 98, “urbem Vesontium, quæ est metropolis Genaunorum, cui etiam in Alpibus sitæ Aldis Dubis præterfluit.” The ecclesiastical province of Besançon answers almost exactly to _Transjurane_ Burgundy. In iii. 86 the same Conrad is, still more wonderfully, made into “Rex Alemannorum.” Richer, in short, despised the geography of his own age, and used his obsolete names without much discretion.

But this affectation extends to better writers than Richer. Lambert himself constantly uses the word _Galliæ_ in a vague sort of way, or rather as equivalent to Germany. Thus, for instance, we hear of the church of Fulda as one of the chief churches of the Gauls “illius monasterii opes usque ad id temporis florentissimæ erant cunctisque _Galliarum_ ecclesiis eminebant.” A 1063), while Mainz (A. 1074) is “caput et princeps _Gallicarum_ urbium.” And the word is used in the same sense in several other passages under those two years. So, as I have implied in discussing Richer’s description of Conrad, the name “Gallia Cisalpina,” as used by Flodoard, always, I cannot conceive why, means the kingdom of Burgundy or some part of it (see A. 924, 937, 939, 946). Of these the third is the passage referred to in p. 203. M. Gaudet in his note on Richer takes the “Hugo Cisalpinus” there spoken of for Hugh the Black, one of the Princes of the ducal Burgundy who is mentioned by Flodoard the next year. But there can be no doubt that the person meant is Hugh of Provence, the famous King of Italy.

But the great source, not so much of confusion as of vague and strange descriptions or rather indications of kingdoms and states, arises from the fact that none of the states formed by the division of the Carolingian Empire, none at least of those north of the Alps, had as yet won for itself a geographical name. There were old national names in abundance, Saxony, Bavaria, Aquitaine, Britanny, but there were no general names to express the kingdoms of Charles, Lothar, and Lewis, respectively. Each King was a King of the Franks; he reigned over so much of the old Frankish dominion as he could get hold of; he had no distinct and recognized national or territorial title; he and his kingdom had to be described, or rather pointed out, as they might be. We nowhere see this better than in the way in which our own Chronicles under the year 887 record the division of the Empire after the deposition of Charles the Third. The four kingdoms are clearly marked out, but not one of the four has a territorial name; the three which lie north of the Alps are simply pointed to geographically; “Earnulf wunode on þam lande be æstan Rine; and Hroðulf þa feng to þam middel rice, and Oda to þam west dæle, and Beorngar and Wiða to Langbeardna lande.” This is at least clearer than the description given by Erchempert (Hist. Langobardorum, 11; Pertz, iii. 245) of the earlier division between the sons of Lewis the Pious; “Ab hoc Francorum divisum est regnum, quoniam Lutharius Aquensem et Italicum, Ludoguicus [this form, with the _gu_ for the _w_, is worth noting philologically] autem Baioarium, Karlus vero, ex alia ortus genitrice, Aquitaneum regebat imperium.” Here, in the hopelessness of finding a name for Lothar’s kingdom, we find an unique “regnum” or “imperium Aquense,” while Saxony and the rest of Germany are merged in Bavaria, and Neustria is merged in Aquitaine. Another way of distinguishing kingdoms and their inhabitants was to describe them by the names of their rulers, as in the passage of Widukind (i. 29) quoted in p. 155; “Unde usque hodie certamen est de regno Karolorum stirpi et posteris Odonis, concertatio quoque regibus Karolorum et Orientalium Francorum super regno Lotharii.” Here “regnum Lotharii” is of course Lotharingia, Lothringen, Lorraine, though it must be remembered that the name takes in a far wider territory than the modern duchy. So Gregory the Seventh (Jaffé, Mon. Greg. 465) speaks of “regnum Lotharii” and Bonitho (ib. 631) of “Lothariorum regnum.” And in the continuation of Regino (Pertz, i. 618) “Lothariensi regnum” is opposed to Gallia Romana. But it should also be noticed that the Western Kingdom also has no name; its Kings are “reges Karolorum;” it was quite a chance that France was not permanently called _Carolingia_ to match _Lotharingia_. So in Widukind (iii. 2) the Western kingdom is “regnum Karoli,” though in the reign of a Lewis; so, still more distinctly, in the Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium (i. 55, iii. 50; Pertz, vii. 421, 481) the inhabitants of France and Lotharingia are distinguished as “_Karlenses_” and “Lotharienses.” So in the same work (i. 116; Pertz, vii. 452) “Robertus rex _Karlensium_” is coupled with “Richardus rex Rotomagensium.” And strangest of all, in the Chronicle of the Counts of Flanders (Corp. Chron. Fland. i. 86) the Emperor Henry the Third is spoken of as “Rex Lothariensis, qui et Cæsar Imperator Augustus appellatus est.” (So in our own Chronicle, 1126, “þone kasere Heanri of Loherenge;” in the next year we hear of “ðes Caseres wif of Sexlande.”) This way of describing countries by their rulers is very common just at this time, when divisions were springing up for which there were no received geographical names. Thus Germany is sometimes “Terra Heinrici” (Flodoard, 933); Flanders and Normandy are, in our own Chronicles, “Baldwines land” and “Ricardes rice.” But Lotharingia, perhaps as the name of the most purely artificial division of all, is the only name of the class which has survived.

This same passage leads us to the way which (except in the case of Lotharingia, a kingdom which almost always bore the name of its founder) became more usual, that of distinguishing the kingdoms and their inhabitants by some distinctive epithet of race or language, or by some word which simply points to them geographically. The difficulty, as I have already hinted, arises from the still abiding notion of the existence of a single Frankish kingdom, however many might be the Kings among whom its administration was divided. None of the Kings, nor yet the subjects of any of the Kings, would give up their right to be at least one of the Kings of the Franks, to be at least part of the people of the Franks. While such a state of feeling was rife, it was impossible that any King or kingdom should bear any title distinctly and permanently recognized. A King most commonly describes himself simply as “Rex;” any more particular description might have been construed either as a surrender of his own rights or as an infringement of the rights of some other prince. Thus it has often been remarked that in the act of election (see Pertz, Legg. i. 547, cf. the election of Lewis at p. 558) by which Boso was raised to the kingship of Burgundy—the “middel rice” of our Chronicles—he is simply made King without any particular title, and without any particular geographical extent being traced out for his kingdom. It was not so while the Frankish dominions remained undivided. In the days of the early Karlings, the King had a title and his dominions had a name. His dominions were _Francia_; he himself was the _Rex Francorum_. In Einhard, _Francia_ means the whole territory occupied or ruled by the Franks and their King. This comes out very strongly in the Life of Charles, c. 2; “Pater ejus [Pippini] Karolus, qui tyrannos per totam Franciam dominatum sibi vindicantes oppressit, et Sarracenos Galliam occupare tentantes duobus magnis prœliis, uno in Aquitania apud Pictavium civitatem, altero juxta Narbonam apud Birram fluvium devicit.” Here, with the strictest precision, _Gallia_ is a part of _Francia_ and _Aquitania_ is a part of _Gallia_. And this will be found to be the common use throughout the Life and Annals. So the Monk of Saint Gallen (Gesta Karoli, i. 10; Pertz, ii. 735) defines Francia in the widest sense to take in “omnes Cis-alpinas provincias.” But the name _Francia_ gradually came to be confined to two portions of the original _Francia_, one on each side of the Rhine, those where the name still survives alike in _France_ and in _Franken_ or _Franconia_. These two had therefore to be distinguished by various epithets. Thus we find “Francia Teutonica” opposed to “Francia Latina” and “Francia Orientalis” opposed to “Francia Occidentalis.” Sometimes “Francia” and “Gallia” are opposed, as in Ann. Xant. 877 (Pertz, ii. 234), and the use is not uncommon in the Annals of Fulda, as 880 (i. 393). See too specially Bruno, Bell. Sax. 36 (Pertz, v. 342), and Liudprand (Antapodosis, i. 14, 16), who talks of “Franciam quam Romanam dicunt,” and elsewhere (iii. 20) of “Francorum genus Teutonicorum.” See also Widukind, i. 16, 29; Wipo, Vit. Chuon. 1, 6, 27, and especially c. 2, where he describes the Rhine as the frontier of “Gallia” and “Germania,” and reckons up the nations in both countries which formed the kingdom of Conrad, among which are “Franci Orientales,” and “Franci qui supra Rhenum habitant,” an unusual distinction. See also Otto of Freising, Gest. Frid. i. 34, where he speaks of “Orientalis Francia,” and Ann. vii. 5, where he distinguishes “Franci Romani et Teutonici.” In the Annals of Saint Vedast, 887 (Pertz, ii. 203), we find “Franci Australes” and “inferiores;” but in those Annals “Franci” and “Francia” commonly mean the Western kingdom. The word is sometimes used in this sense in the phrases “rex Franciæ” and “regnum Franciæ” (see above, p. 595, and Dudo, 97 D). But _Francia_, as used by writers within the Western kingdom, commonly means the Parisian duchy, and it is only through the successive conquests of the Parisian Kings that the word _France_ has gained that modern meaning which now takes in the old Western kingdom and something more. The ordinary meaning of the word _Francia_ in Flodoard and Richer is plain from such passages as Flodoard, A. 923, 926. It means the dominion of the “Dux Francorum,” whether he be “Rex Francorum” as well or not. In the latter passage, we find a Danegeld levied “per Franciam et Burgundiam,” where _Burgundia_ does not mean the kingdom of Boso, but the duchy which did homage to the West-Frankish King. So in the Vita Hludowici, 49, we find “Francia, Burgundia, Aquitania, et Germania.” _Francia_, in short, as used by these writers, excludes Lotharingia and all the Burgundies; it excludes Aquitaine, Normandy, and Britanny; and it has further to be distinguished as “Latina” or “Occidentalis” from the other _Francia_ east of the Rhine.

In the like sort, we read in the Chronica Regum Francorum, ap. Pertz, iii. 214; “Hic [at the deposition of Charles the Third] divisio facta est inter Teutones Francos et Latinos Francos.” But it is remarkable to trace how early, especially within the Western _Francia_, the word _Franci_ began to mean the Western as opposed to the Eastern Franks. Thus the Astronomer (ap. Pertz, ii. 617) speaks of Lewis the Pious as “monitus tam a _Francis_ quamque a Germanis,” and again (p. 633), “diffidens _Francis_, magisque se credens Germanis.” So Liudprand (Antapod. i. 14, 17) uses “Rex Galliæ” and “Rex Francorum” as synonymous. And the word seems to be used in the same sense by Nithard, i. 5, ii. 3, in the former of which passages _Francia_ seems to be opposed to “universi qui trans Renum morabantur.” So Wipo (31) distinguishes the Western kingdom as “Galliæ Francorum,” and Lambert (1073), unlike Bruno, allows the title of “Rex Francorum” to the Western potentate. Still in Germany _Franci_ kept its natural meaning down to the days of Frederick Barbarossa. “Sic emitur a _Francis_ Imperium,” says Otto of Freising (Gest. Frid. ii. 22). Yet elsewhere (i. 58) he speaks of “Rex Francorum” and “Rex Franciæ” in the other sense. So William of Malmesbury (i. 68), in a passage the whole of which is worth study, says, “Lotharingi et Alemanni, et cæteri Transrhenani populi qui Imperatori Teutonicorum subjecti sunt, magis proprie se Francos appellari jubent; et eos quos nos Francos putamus, _Galwalas_ antiquo vocabulo [did William know the force of the _walas_?] quasi Gallos nuncupant. Quibus et ego assensum commodo,” &c. Elsewhere (iv. 360) he says, “Romanum Imperium prius ad Francos, post ad Teutones, declinavit;” he yet more strangely adds, “orientale apud Persas semper durat.”

In other cases the words _Franci_ or _Francia_ are altogether left out. “Occidentales” alone is used as equivalent to West-Frankish or French, and “Orientales” is used as equivalent to German. Perhaps the most remarkable case of this use is to be found in the treaty between Charles the Simple and Henry of Saxony in 921 (Pertz, Legg. i. 567). Here the two Kings of the Franks are geographically distinguished, as “Gloriosissimus rex Francorum Occidentalium, Karolus” and “Magnificentissimus rex Francorum Orientalium Heinricus.” But in the text of the treaty, where Charles speaks in his own person, he says, “Ego Karolus, divina propitiante clementia, rex Francorum Occidentalium, amodo ero huic amico meo _regi Orientali_ Heinrico amicus.” We find the same use in Dudo, 130 B, and in a very remarkable passage of Richer (iv. 12, 13), where he gives two descriptions of the extent of the Western kingdom in the tenth century. Hugh Capet is made King over “Galli, Britanni, Dahi [doubtless _Dani_, i.e. the Normans], Aquitani, Gothi, Hispani [the county of Barcelona], Wascones.” He then associates his son Robert in the kingdom—“a Mosa fluvio usque Oceanum _Occidentalibus_ regem præfecit et ordinavit.” So in the extract from Thietmar in p. 175, “Occiduæ partes” is the German writer’s description of the kingdom of Charles the Simple. In other passages a King is simply, as it were, pointed at. In Flodoard, 938, Otto is “Rex Transrhenensis,” in Richer, i. 20, his father is simply “Heinricus Transrhenensis,” and in Dudo, 130 B, where the Germans are still “Orientales,” their King is still “Rex Transrhenanus.” So “Rex Orientalis” is opposed to “Rex Galliæ,” Ann. Xant. 873 (Pertz, ii. 235). More curious still is the description of no less a person than Hugh the Great in Flodoard, A. 960; “Richardus, filius Willelmi Nortmannorum principis, filiam Hugonis trans Sequanam [or ‘Transsequani’] quondam principis, duxit uxorem.” So in 946 our Eadmund is “Edmundus rex transmarinus.” See above, p. 565. This way of describing suggests some of those curious mediæval verbs, “transfretare,” “transpadare,” and the like.

Germany in fact was longer than any of the other countries of which we have been speaking in getting a true territorial name for itself, and a true territorial title for its sovereign. We have seen several instances of the use of _Germania_; but then _Germania_, like _Gallia_, is a purely geographical name, and the Eastern kingdom took in a large part of _Gallia_. The kingdom itself is commonly “Regnum Teutonicum” (Lambert, 1073), a phrase which is the more remarkable when we find it coupled with the geographical name _Italia_, as in Gregory’s anathema in Muratori, iii. 336. Lewis the son of Lewis the Pious is repeatedly called “Rex Germanorum” by Prudentius of Troyes (Pertz, i. 441, 443), and “Rex Germaniæ” by Hincmar (Pertz, i. 458). So Henry is “Germaniæ princeps” in Flodoard, 928. But these are mere descriptions, and no such formal title seems to be found earlier than the days of Maximilian. Indeed the German kingdom was so soon swallowed up by the Roman Empire that a distinct title for its King was hardly needed. The kingdom of Boso, on the other hand, though he and his electors shrank from giving it a name, soon found one in common use. Liudprand (Ant. ii. 60) tells how “Rodulfus rex superbissimus Burgundionibus imperabat,” and Wipo speaks familiarly (15, 19) of “Rex Burgundiæ” and “Burgundionum.” Flodoard, however, besides his favourite flourish about Cisalpine Gaul, tells us of “Rex Jurensis” under the years 935 and 940.

Lastly, the Norman duchy, as I have once or twice implied in the text, was also slow in gaining for itself any distinct territorial name. There is no trace of any such name in Flodoard or in Richer. In Dudo’s time the country is beginning, but only beginning to have a name; it is sometimes “Northmannia,” sometimes only “Terra Northmannorum,” “Northmannica regio,” and the like. In the next century the people have become “Normanni,” and their land has become “Normannia,” “Normendie.” “Northmannia,” with Einhard, meant Denmark. In Adam of Bremen “Nortmannia” means distinctively Norway, though he also uses the word “Norvegia.” With him “Nortmanni” always means Norwegians, except in ii. 52, where Richard is described as “Comes Nortmannorum” and his duchy as “Nortmannia.” It is perhaps needless to add that in our own Northumbrian geography the local names Normanton and Normanby point to Northmen, not to Normans, just as the word “Norþmen” is used in our own Chronicles in describing the Commendation of 923.

NOTE V. p. 158. NOTICES OF LANGUAGE IN THE TENTH CENTURY.

The notices of language which we come across in our authors are often highly curious. The Romance languages are now just beginning to be felt to be really languages, and not mere vulgar dialects of Latin. We get perhaps our first glimpse of this feeling in Nithard’s description (iii. 5) of the famous oath of Strassburg in 842. The two languages, the parents of modern High-Dutch and modern French, are distinguished as “lingua Teudisca” and “lingua Romana.” Charles the Bald himself spoke Lingua Romana; Pertz, Legg. i. 472. “Romana,” _Romance_, is the usual description of the new language, as distinguished from the classical “Latina,” though we have seen (see p. 182) at least one instance where “Latinus sermo” means the popular Romance. In the course of the next century the language became nationalized, and in Richer (iv. 100) it appears as “lingua Gallica,” which becomes its usual later name. I leave to professed philologers to fix the exact relation of the “lingua Romana” of Nithard to French and to Provençal respectively. For my purpose it is enough that it is Romance, as distinguished both from Latin and from Teutonic.

We also in the course of the narratives of Flodoard and Richer come across several curious passages where the Romance and Teutonic languages are opposed to each other. Thus Charles the Simple has a conference at Worms with Henry of Saxony (“Heinricus Transrhenensis”), when (Richer, i. 20) “Germanorum Gallorumque juvenes, linguarum idiomate offensi, ut eorum mos est, cum multa animositate maledictis sese lacessire cœperunt.” In 948 Lewis and Otto attend a synod, where letters are read in Latin, and are translated “propter reges juxta Teutiscam linguam.” (Flod. in an.; Pertz, iii. 396.) Lewis therefore spoke German no less than Otto. Otto however (see Widukind, ii. 36) could speak French on occasion (“Romana lingua Slavanicaque loqui scit”), which makes the employment of German still more important. In 981 Hugh Capet and Otto the Second met. Otto spoke Latin, and a Bishop translated his speech to Hugh. (Richer, iii. 85.) Hugh therefore did not understand German, and the Romance which he spoke had departed so far from Latin that Latin needed an interpreter. In 996 certain Gaulish and German Bishops meet (Richer, iv. 100), and the Bishop of Verdun is chosen to speak “eo quod linguam Gallicam norat.” The Lotharingian prelate could doubtless speak both languages. These passages seem enough to make out the view which I have everywhere maintained, that throughout the tenth century the Carolingian Kings at Laon were a strictly German dynasty, speaking German as their mother-tongue, while the Dukes and Kings of Paris were already French.

Sir Francis Palgrave’s assertion (i. 72) that “the German Ritterschaft of Otho the Great raised the war-cry in French” is an evident misconception of the passage in Widukind (ii. 17) on which it seems to be grounded. The historian is clearly speaking of the Lotharingian borderers who spoke both languages. His words are simply, “Ex nostris etiam fuere, qui Gallica lingua ex parte loqui sciebant, qui clamore in altum Gallice levato, exhortati sunt adversarios ad fugam.”

Of the speed with which French displaced Danish as the language of Normandy, I have said something in p. 181. For the retention of the ancient speech at Bayeux, after it had been forgotten at Rouen, our chief authority is Dudo, 112 D; “Quoniam quidem Rotomagensis civitas Romana potius quam Dacisca utitur eloquentia, et Baiocacensis fruitur frequentius Dacisca lingua quam Romana; volo igitur ut ad Baiocacensia deferatur quantocius mœnia, et ibi volo ut sit, Botho, sub tua custodia, et enutriatur et educetur cum magna diligentia, fervens loquacitate Dacisca, tamque discens tenaci memoria, ut queat sermocinari profusius olim contra Dacigenas.” (“Contra sermocinari,” in Dudo’s language, is simply to converse with.) So Benoît, 11520;

“Si à Roem le faz garder E norir, gaires longement Il ne saura parlier neient Daneis, kar nul l’i parole. Si voil qu’il seit a tele escole Ou l’en le sache endoctriner Que as Daneis sache parler. Ci ne sevent riens fors romanz; Mais à Baiues en a tanz Qui ne sevent si Daneis non: E pur ceo, sire quens Boton, Voil que vos l’aiez ensemble od vos.”

Wace (Roman de Rou, 2502) says only

“Richart sout en Daneiz, en Normant parler.”

Here “Normant” can mean nothing but French, but it is less clear what he means by it in v. 2377, where we read,

“Cosne sout en Thioiz et en Normant parler.”

Wace probably meant French, but he seems to have misunderstood a passage of Dudo (99, 100) which contains a curious notice of the use of the Danish language, the force of which Dudo himself seems hardly to have understood. William is at a conference with Henry of Germany (really with Otto). Certain Lotharingians and Saxons talk to their own chief Cono; William, by his knowledge of Danish, understands them (“per Daciscam linguam quæ dicebant subsannantes, intelligendo subaudit”). The Saxon Duke Hermann afterwards speaks to William in Danish, and being asked how the Saxons came to understand that language, explains the fact by the constant incursions of the Northmen. Duke Hermann might very well understand Danish, and might speak Danish to William; but the Saxons and Lotharingians would not speak Danish to Cono. What the story seems to point to is that the Low-Dutch of Saxony and Lower Lorraine was so far intelligible to one who understood Danish that he could guess at the general meaning of what was said.

But the most remarkable notice of language at all is to be found in the Tours Chronicle in Duchesne, Rer. Franc. Scriptt. iii. 360, which records the homage of Rolf to Charles (see p. 168), and the traditional origin of the name _Bigot_ as applied to the Normans. When Rolf is called on to kiss the King’s feet, “lingua Anglica respondit, _Ne se bigoth_, quod interpretatur, non per Deum, rex vero et sui illum deridentes, et sermonem ejus corrupte referentes, illum vocaverunt Bigoth. Unde Normanni adhuc Bigothi dicuntur” (see Wace, 9907, et seqq.). Here we read that this famous refusal of Rolf to abase himself was made in a language which by Frankish hearers was looked upon as English. That Rolf spoke English in any strict sense is most unlikely; the tongue in which he answered was doubtless his native Danish. Nor is it enough to say, with Sir F. Palgrave (i. 700), that any Teutonic speech was loosely called English by the French; for Rolf was speaking in the presence of a prince whose native speech was undoubtedly Teutonic. But Charles the Frank spoke High-Dutch; Rolf the Dane spoke a language which, in a wide sense of the words, might be called Low-Dutch. England was the most famous and most familiar country of the Low-Dutch speech, and the Scandinavian talk of Rolf was by his Frankish hearers accordingly set down as English.

NOTE W. pp. 168, 222. THE VASSALAGE OF NORMANDY.

That Rolf became in the strictest sense the “man” of King Charles, I have no doubt whatever. Against plain facts and probabilities we have nothing to set except the shirkings and twistings of Dudo’s rhetoric. Thus he tells us (83 D); “Dedit itaque [Karolus] filiam suam Gislam nomine uxorem illi Duci, terramque determinatam _in alodo, et in fundo_, a flumine Eptæ usque ad mare, totamque Britanniam, de qua posset vivere.” And again (84 A); “Ceterum Karolus rex, duxque Rotbertus, comitesque et proceres, præsules et abbates, juraverunt sacramento Catholicæ fidei patricio Rolloni vitam suam, et membra, et _honorem totius regni_, insuper terram denominatam,” &c. See Palgrave, ii. 361. And he is rather fond of speaking of Normandy as a kingdom or a monarchy; “Tenet sicuti rex monarchiam Northmannicæ regionis;” “Regnum Northmannicæ Britonicæque regionis.” (110 D; 128 B, C; 136 C.) Still the homage of Rolf is perfectly plain, and so is the homage of his son William Longsword. (See pp. 168, 196.) The testimony of Flodoard (927, cf. 933) is express; “Se filius Rollonis Karolo committit.” But whether Richard the Fearless ever did homage to Lewis or Lothar is not so clear. Richard may be included among the “cæteri regni primores” who (see p. 221) did homage to Lewis in 946. Dudo however (126 C) seems very anxious to except him; “Venit rex supra fluvium Eptæ contra Northmannos, cum magno duce Hugone.... Propriis verbis fecit securitatem _regni_ quod suus avus Rollo vi ac potestate, armis et præliis sibi acquisivit. Ipseque et omnes episcopi, comites, et abbates reverendi, principesque Franciæ regni Richardo puero innocenti, ut teneat et possideat, et _nullis nisi Deo servitium ipse et successio ejus reddat_, et si quis perversæ invasionis rixatione contra eum congredi, vel alicujus rixationis congressione invadere _regnum_, maluerit, fidissimus adjutor in omni adversæ inopportunitatis necessitate per omnia exstiterit.” As for any homage to Lothar (see p. 232), I suspect that no such homage was ever rendered. The French writers do not mention it, though they would doubtless have been glad to mention it if it had happened. And Flodoard’s way of speaking of Richard is remarkable. William was “the Prince of the Normans;” Richard is only “the son of William Prince of the Normans” (“filius Willelmi Northmannorum principis;” see p. 232, note 3). But I have no doubt that the homage was lawfully due, and it was most likely its refusal which led to the differences between Lothar and Richard. On the other hand, the Commendation of Richard to Hugh the Great (see p. 222) seems to be quite authentic, and it is clear that it was renewed to Hugh’s son. This appears from a charter, which I am obliged to quote at secondhand from Lappenberg, Norman Kings, p. 30. Richard there uses the words, “cum assensu _senioris mei_, Hugonis, Francorum principis.” The date is 968; the lord therefore is Hugh Capet.

With regard to this matter a remarkable passage of Sir Francis Palgrave (ii. 494–5) must be quoted and commented on. His words are, “A perfect reciprocity was established between France and the ‘Norman Monarchy,’ ... That Dominion which Rollo the Grandsire had won by so many battles, Richard shall henceforward have and hold, owing service to none but God.... Should any enemy attempt to disturb the right of the Norman Sovereign, the King of France shall be his help and aid in all things.... No other service shall Normandy render unless the King should grant the Duke some Benefice within the Kingdom of France. Therefore, as it was explained in after-time, the Duke of Normandy doth no more than promise faith and homage to the King of France. In like manner doth the King of France render the same fealty to the Duke of Normandy; nor is there any other difference between them, save that the King of France doth not render homage to the Duke of Normandy like as the Duke of Normandy doth to the King.”

If I rightly understand Sir Francis Palgrave, his meaning is that the Duke of the Normans ceased from that time to be the man of the _King_ of the French; that he merely entered into a treaty on equal terms with his former lord; that by voluntary commendation he became the man of the _Duke_ of the French; that the later vassalage of Normandy to France was due, not to the kingdom of France but to the duchy, that it had its beginning in the homage done by Richard the Fearless to Duke Hugh, not in the homage done by Rolf to King Charles. I say, if I rightly understand Sir Francis, because I cannot quite reconcile his statements with one another. In one page there “is perfect reciprocity established between France and the Norman monarchy.” Richard has and holds his dominion, owing service to none but God,—yet directly afterwards it is allowed that “the Duke of Normandy promises fealty and homage to the King of France.” It is dangerous to dispute with Sir Francis Palgrave on a question of feudal law, and the more so, as the relations between Normandy and France at once awaken the whole controversy about “liege” and “simple” homage. But surely, even in a case of simple homage, there is not “perfect reciprocity” between him who pays and him who receives the homage; and certainly, in the tale as I read it, I see nothing but the simple relation of lord and man, only clouded over by the big words of Dudo. And as for reciprocity, surely reciprocity of a certain kind was the essence of the feudal relation. Lord and vassal were each to help and defend the other. No one denies that Henry the Second was the vassal of King Lewis the Seventh, if not for Normandy, at any rate for his other continental possessions, but an equal obligation is imposed, in their mutual oath, on Lewis to defend Henry “sicut fidelem suum” and on Henry to defend Lewis “dominum suum.” See Roger of Wendover, ii. 388.

The notion of the independence of Normandy on France comes out very strongly in the speech which Henry of Huntingdon puts into the mouth of William the Conqueror before the Battle of Senlac (M. H. B. 762 D). A much later instance will be found in William of Worcester’s Collections (Stevenson’s Wars in France, ii. 522), when the relations between Normandy and France had again begun to interest Englishmen. We there read of “Normandy, which ducdom, as yt ys sayde by auncyent wrytyng, holdeth of noone higher souverayn in chief but of God.”

The exact relations between Richard the Fearless and the two—if any one cares to reckon the last Lewis, the three—last Karlings I must be content to leave doubtful. When the Duke of the French—the undoubted over-lord of Normandy—became also King of the French the question ceased to be a practical one. As I have said in p. 246, the French King was the lord of the Norman Duke in some character, whether in that of Duke or of King it mattered little. The question was not likely to be stirred again till that change in the relations and mutual feelings between France and Normandy which marked the days of King Henry and Duke William.

NOTE X. p. 180. DANISH MARRIAGES.

The “mos Danicus” with regard to marriage or concubinage, or rather with regard to some third state between marriage and concubinage, is often mentioned in the Norman history of the time. And, though I do not remember the exact words being used in England, yet something of the same kind seems to have existed there also. The ease with which Earl Uhtred (see p. 329) parts with two successive wives, the relations between Cnut and his two Ælfgifus (see p. 411), perhaps the relation between Harold the son of Godwine and the East-Anglian Eadgyth Swanneshals (see vol. iii. Appendix NN), all seem to point to a practice of the same kind. Indeed we shall find (see below, Note SS) that it is by no means clear whether the first wife of Æthelred, the mother of his heroic son, was not in the same way cast aside to make room for the Norman Lady. Instances of the same sort might indeed be found very much later in German, in French, and in English history, and we find a relation essentially the same as far as we can go back in the history of the Aryan race. The “mos Danicus” might just as well be called “mos Achaicus;” the relation between Rolf and Popa at once reminds one of the relation of Briseis to Achilleus, or of Andromachê to Neoptolemos. Briseis is a captive; but she receives the honourable appellation of ἄλοχος (II. ix. 336, 340); she has hopes of becoming even κουριδίη ἄλοχος (II. xix. 298). Still Achilleus’ relation to her in no way hinders him from taking another wife (II. ix. 394), any more than it hinders Diomêdê (ib. 661) from taking her place during her constrained absence. In just the same way, Popa is put away to make room for King Charles’s daughter; but afterwards we read (Will. Gem. ii. 22), “Repudiatam Popam ... iterum repetens sibi copulavit.” (See more in detail, Benoît, v. 7954, and Roman de Rou, 2037.) The “mos Danicus” is opposed to the “mos Christianus.” The tardy bridal of Richard and Gunnor (see p. 253) was done Christian fashion; “_Virginem_ [viraginem?] ... sibi in matrimonium _Christiano more_ desponsavit.” So says William of Jumièges (iv. 18), and he even thinks it necessary to guarantee (v. 5) that the marriage of Alan of Britanny and Hadwisa the daughter of Richard the Good was celebrated “Christiano more.” The expressions used with regard to Sprota herself are many and various. She is in Dudo, 97 A, “conjux dilectissima;” in 110 D, “matrona venerabilis,” a description which, I need hardly say, proves nothing as to her age. In Flodoard, A. 943, her son is “natus de concubina Britanna.” King Lewis, if we may believe William of Jumièges (iv. 3), went a step further, and called young Richard “meretricis filium ultro virum alienum rapientis.” This is mere Billingsgate, as Richard was certainly born before William’s marriage with Liudgardis, though from the Roman de Rou (v. 2073, 2251) one might be led to think otherwise. Elsewhere (iii. 2), in announcing the birth of Richard, William calls her “nobilissima puella, _Danico more_ sibi [William Longsword] juncta, nomine Sprota.” And so Benoît, 8872;

“Icele ama mult e tint chere; Mais à la Danesche manere La vout aveir, non autrement, Ce dit l’estorie qui ne ment.”

The last line is most likely meant as a compliment to William of Jumièges.

The essence of this kind of connexion seems to be that the woman is the man’s wife but that the man is not the woman’s husband. He can evidently leave her at pleasure, but there is no recorded instance of her leaving him. This difference may however be simply the result of the difference of rank between the parties in all the cases with which we have to deal. The wife or mistress of a prince is obviously less likely to forsake him than he is to forsake her. And from a modern Scandinavian writer I gather that Scandinavian manners, at a somewhat later time, allowed of a connexion of nearly the same kind, but one which put the sexes more on a level.

“The term _fylgikona_ (literally companion-woman), which frequently occurs in the Sagas, must have originally meant the same as _frilla_. Later on, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it received a more honourable import, as it was applied to a free woman living with a man in connubial intercourse according to the terms of a formal contract, but without the observance of the usual wedding ceremonies, and especially without consecration by the Church. Connexions of this kind seem to have been rather common, especially in Iceland, and dated from the time when the Church began to lay greater hindrances in the way of obtaining a divorce than had formerly been the case. This connexion would be dissolved at the wish of either of the parties, or in accordance with the terms which had been previously agreed upon, without the intervention of the Church, a result which was not in accordance with Christian views, and could not be applied to marriages proper.... The _fylgikona_ frequently occupied the position of house-wife.” Keyser’s Private Life of the Old Northmen, pp. 35, 36.

As for earlier Frankish laxity, among many strange examples I choose the strangest. “Luxuriæ supra modum deditus [Dagobertus] tres habebat ad instar Salomonis reginas, maxime et plurimas concubinas. Reginæ vero hæ erant, Nantechildis, Wlfegundis, et Berchildis. Nomina concubinarum, eo quod plures fuissent, increvit huic chronicæ inseri.” Fredegar, c. 60.

NOTE Y. p. 197. THE ELECTION OF LEWIS.

We have two main accounts of the election of Lewis. Flodoard (A. 936) tells the tale very briefly; Richer (ii. 1–4), as usual, is much fuller. But the longer version only expands, and in no way contradicts, the shorter one. The main points, that Hugh the Great was the chief mover in the business and that application had to be made to King Æthelstan in England, come out equally in both accounts. Flodoard tells us, in his dry annalistic way, “Hugo comes trans mare mittit pro accersiendo ad apicem regni suscipiendum Ludowico Karoli filio, quem rex Alstanus avunculus ipsius, accepto prius jurejurando a Francorum legatis, in Franciam cum quibusdam episcopis et aliis fidelibus suis dirigit.” We may here note how completely the words “trans mare” had got to mean England and nothing else, and also that _Francia_ seems to be used in a wider sense than usual (see above, p. 614), though not necessarily in a sense taking in the whole of the Western kingdom. Lewis is met at Boulogne by Hugh and the other princes (“cæteri Francorum proceres”), who do homage to him on the sea-shore (“in ipsis litoreis arenis apud Bononiam sese committunt, ut erat utrimque depactum”). He then goes to Laon, and is crowned. Richer (ii. 1) first gives us that geographical distribution of parties which I have mentioned in the text, and of which I have also spoken in an earlier Note (see above, p. 609). He distinctly mentions Hugh’s unwillingness to assume the crown; “Quum Hugo patrem ob insolentiam periisse reminiscebatur, et ob hoc regnare formidaret” (cf. c. 73, where King Lewis says the same), and adds that, through the absence of Lewis and the unwillingness of Hugh, the choice of a King at least seemed freer than usual (“Galli itaque in regis promotione liberiores videri laborantes”). They meet under the presidency of Duke Hugh (“sub Hugone duce deliberaturi de rege creando collecti sunt”). The Duke makes a speech, which we may safely set down as the composition of the historian. Hugh, we cannot doubt, really had a superstitious feeling against taking the title of King, but he is not likely to have made the strong legitimist harangue which is put into his mouth by Richer. He deplores the sin of his father in reigning, even though he had been chosen to reign by the common voice of the nation; “Pater meus vestra quondam omnium voluntate rex creatus, non sine magno regnavit facinore, quum is cui soli jura regnandi debebantur viveret, et vivens carcere clauderetur. Quod credite Deo non acceptum fuisse. Unde et absit ut ego patris loco restituar.” He then goes on to speak of the reign of Rudolf as teaching the same lesson (“quum ejus tempore visum sit, quid nunc innasci possit, contemptus videlicet regis ac per hoc principum dissensus”). He therefore counsels a return to the lawful royal stock (“repetatur ergo interrupta paullulum regiæ generationis linea”). The rest agree, and the embassy is sent to England in the name of the Duke and the other princes (“Ducis benevolentia atque omnium qui in Galliis potiores sunt”).

The real importance of this speech, like that of many other speeches, consists in its setting forth the feelings of Richer, not the feelings of Duke Hugh. It points to a strong royalist tone as prevailing at Rheims when this part of Richer’s history was written, and it is curious to contrast his language now with the language which he uses after the revolution of 987. See p. 240.

William of Normandy is not mentioned in either of these accounts. Dudo (97 D) has quite another story, in which, as I hinted in the text, the first step is taken by Æthelstan, who prays Duke William to restore his nephew. “Audiens autem Alstemus, rex Anglorum pacificus, quod præcellebat Willelmus virtute et potentia Franciscæ nationis omnibus, misit ad eum legatos suos cum donis præmaximis et muneribus, deprecans ut Ludovicum nepotem suum, Karoli capti regis morte jam in captione præoccupati filium, revocaret ad Franciæ regnum,” &c., &c.

It is in recording this election of Lewis that Rudolf Glaber (i. 3) uses those expressions, so well setting forth the union of election and hereditary right, which I have quoted elsewhere (see above, p. 609). He does not mention Hugh at all, though he had just before enlarged on his share in the election of Rudolf.

NOTE Z. p. 205. THE DEATH OF WILLIAM LONGSWORD.

Our accounts of the circumstances which led to the death of William Longsword differ widely from each other. Flodoard (943) simply tells us that Arnulf invited him to a conference, and there caused him to be put to death. “Arnulfus comes Willelmum Nortmannorum principem ad colloquium evocatum dolo perimi fecit.” Thus much we may accept as certain; but the oldest French and Norman versions of the events immediately going before are remarkably unlike, and in later writers we find quite another version of the whole affair.

Richer (ii. 30 et seqq.) connects the murder of William with an insult offered by him to King Otto in the Council held by Otto and Lewis at Attigny. William, whether by accident or by design, was not admitted at the beginning of the meeting. After waiting for some time, he forced his way in in great wrath, and his indignation was further heightened at what he then saw. The two Kings were sitting on a raised couch, the Eastern King, the truer successor of Charles, taking the seat of honour. Below them, on two chairs, sat Hugh the Great and Arnulf. William had lately renewed his homage to Lewis, and was filled with zeal for the honour of his over-lord. He bade Lewis rise, and he himself took his seat immediately below Otto. It was not fit that the Western King should allow any man to sit above him (“ipse resedit, dixitque indecens esse regem inferiorem, alium vero quemlibet superiorem videri”). He then made Otto rise, and made Lewis take the seat left empty by Otto, he himself keeping the place immediately below Lewis, that where Lewis himself had been seated at first; “Quapropter oportere Ottonem inde amoliri, regique cedere. Otto pudore affectus surgit ac regi cedit. Rex itaque superior, at Wilelmus inferior consederunt.” William thus set forth his theory of precedence; the King of the West-Franks first, the Duke of the Normans second, the Teutonic King and the other princes of Gaul seemingly nowhere. Such a doctrine was naturally unacceptable alike to Otto, Hugh, and Arnulf. They dissembled their anger at the time; but, when the council had broken up, and when Lewis and William had gone away together, they met and discussed their wrongs privately. Otto in vague terms (c. 31) exhorted Hugh and Arnulf to vengeance against William; he who had not spared him, King Otto, would certainly not spare them (“qui sibi regi non indulsit, minus illis indulturum”). Richer however does not charge Otto with counselling the assassination of William, unless such a charge is implied in the words, “conceptum facinus variis verborum coloribus obvelat.” Hugh and Arnulf then met together and determined on the murder of William. His death was expedient, because it would enable them to get Lewis altogether into their power, whereas now William supported the King against them (“regem etiam ad quodcumque volent facilius inflexuros, si is solum pereat, quo rex fretus ad quæque flecti nequeat.” c. 32). The plot was laid; Arnulf invited William to the conference at Picquigny; the Norman Duke was there killed by some of the conspirators whose names are not given, but not in the presence or by the avowed orders of the Count of Flanders.

Dudo’s story (pp. 104 et seqq.) is quite different. He knows nothing of the Council of Attigny, nothing of King Otto as having even an involuntary share in William’s murder. With him the first deviser of the scheme is Arnulf, to whom all mischief is as naturally attributed at this stage of Norman history as, at a later stage of English history, it is attributed first to Ælfric and then to Eadric. Arnulf’s quarrel with William arises wholly out of the affair of Herlwin of Montreuil (see p. 201). But certain French princes who are not named join with Arnulf in the conspiracy; “Arnulfus dux Flandrensium supra memoratus, veneno vipereæ calliditatis nequiter repletus astuque diabolicæ fraudis exitialiter illectus, gentisque Franciscæ quorumdam principum subdolo consilio et malignitate atrociter exhortatus, cœpit meditari et tractare lugubrem mortem ejus Willelmi.” From this point the two tales are nearly the same; only Dudo of course throws Arnulf’s talk with William into a characteristic Dudonian shape. Arnulf is not only ready to make up his differences with Herlwin; he asks for William’s protection against King Lewis, Duke Hugh, and Count Herbert; he is ready to become William’s vassal during life, and to make him his successor at his death; “Quamdiu superstes fuero ero tibi tributarius, meique servient tibi ut domino servus. Post meæ resolutionis excessum, possidebis meæ ditionis regnum” (105 A). No one but Dudo could have thought of putting such words into Arnulf’s mouth, even by way of a blind. The assassination itself is described in much the same way as it is by Richer; Dudo also gives us the names of the actual murderers. They are Eric, Balzo, Robert, and Ridulf or Riulf.

Now these two versions, though at first sight so utterly different, do not formally contradict one another. It is quite possible that Arnulf may have been led to his crime by a combination of causes, of which Richer has enlarged on one part and Dudo on another, according to their several points of view. Arnulf may well have had a grudge against William, both on account of the wrong done to him in the matter of Montreuil and also on account of the insult offered to him at Attigny. And in fact the two narratives to a certain degree incidentally coincide. Richer (ii. 31) implies that Arnulf and his confederates already had a grudge against William before the meeting at Attigny; “Quæ oratio [Ottonis sc.] plurimam invidiam paravit, ac amicos in odium Wilelmi incitavit, quum et ipsi, quamvis latenter, ei admodum inviderent.” Dudo, as we have seen, speaks of a conspiracy of Arnulf with other princes of Gaul. It was not at all unnatural that the affair of Attigny should be of primary importance in the eyes of Richer, and that the affair of Montreuil should be of primary importance in the eyes of Dudo. Attigny lay quite beyond the reach of ordinary Norman vision, and William’s doings there might not seem very meritorious in Norman eyes. It was certainly something to have put an open affront upon the Eastern King; but it was perhaps hardly becoming in the independent lord of the Norman monarchy (see page 221, and above, p. 621) to show such ostentatious deference to the Western King. It is therefore quite possible to put together a very probable narrative, taking in the main statements both of Richer and of Dudo, but of course allowing for the rhetorical and exaggerated form into which both of them throw their details. This is very much what is done by Sir Francis Palgrave (Normandy and England, ii. 299 et seqq.), only in one or two places he gives the story a strange colouring of his own. I can find nothing about William being himself too late, either on purpose or by accident. The statement of Richer, as I read it, is simply that, whether by design or by accident, he was shut out of the council-chamber. Again, Sir Francis simply says that William “compelled King Otho to rise;” he says not a word about William’s motive for so doing or about the exaggerated loyalty which he displayed towards Lewis.

One can hardly doubt, on the authority of Flodoard and Richer, that William was really killed at Picquigny by the machinations of Arnulf. But there is quite another story, briefly alluded to by Sir Francis Palgrave in two places (pp. 298, 303), which transfers the scene of the murder from the Somme to the Seine. This version turns up in several shapes. We get it in Rudolf Glaber (iii. 9. Duchesne, vol. iv. p. 38), according to whom the chief criminal was Theobald of Chartres. Theobald the Tricker is the first to devise the plot, and he is also the actual murderer. In concert with Arnulf, William is invited by Theobald to a conference somewhere on the Seine. Rudolf is not clear whether the summons was sent in the name of the King or of the Duke of the French (“promittens se ex parte regis Francorum seu Hugonis Magni, qui fuerat filius Roberti regis, _quem Otto dux Saxonum, postea vero Imperator Romanorum, Suessionis interfecit_”); that is to say, Rudolf already failed to understand that there had been a time when the _Rex Francorum_ was quite a different person from the lord of Paris and the Seine. The story of the murder then follows much as before, with the Seine for the Somme and Theobald for Arnulf; only Theobald kills William with his own hand.

In the Tours Chronicle (Duchesne, Rer. Franc, iii. 360) we find another version; “Guillelmus filius Rollonis ducis Normanniæ a Balzone Curto in medio Sequanæ occisus est, propter mortem Riulfi et filii sui Anchetilli.” Now we found Balzo in Dudo’s account as the name of one of William’s murderers, but we had no account of the man or of his motives. He here appears as the avenger of Riulf, doubtless the Riulf who headed the revolt against William in 932 (see p. 189). We then however heard nothing of Riulf’s death, the statement of Dudo (96 D) being that “Riulfus fugiendo evanuit.” But who is Anchetillus, Anquetil, Anscytel, a palpable Dane like our own Thurcytels and Ulfcytels? And why should Balzo avenge either Ancytel or Riulf? Here comes in the story of William of Malmesbury, which he first tells (ii. 145) as if he fully believed it, and then adds, as more trustworthy (“veraciores literæ dicunt”), an abridgement of Dudo’s story. Anscytel (Oscytel) is the son of Riulf, a Norman chief who had somehow incurred William Longsword’s displeasure, and who greatly troubled him with his revolts. But Anscytel is the faithful soldier of Duke William, and he carries his loyalty so far as to take his father prisoner and to hand him over to the Duke. He does however exact a promise that Riulf shall suffer no punishment worse than bonds. But, not long after, Anscytel is sent by Duke William to Pavia with a letter for a potentate described as the Duke of Italy, asking that the bearer may be put to death (“Comes Anschetillum in Papiam dirigit, epistolam de sua ipsius nece ad ducem Italiæ portantem”). This, I need hardly say, is a story as old as Bellerophontês (Il. vi. 168) and as modern as Godwine (see Note EEE). The Duke of Italy of course abhors the crime, and, equally of course, is in dread of the power of his brother of Normandy. A thousand horsemen are sent to attack Anscytel and his companions as soon as they are out of the city. Anscytel, like the Homeric Tydeus, was small in stature but valiant in war (“vir exigui corporis sed immanis fortitudinis”—μικρὸς ἔην δέμας, ἀλλὰ μαχητής· Il. v. 801), whence his surname _Curtus_. But, less successful than Tydeus (Il. iv. 387; v. 803 et seqq.) or Bellerophontês (Il. vi. 188), Anscytel and his comrades indeed slay all their enemies, but they are also all slain themselves, except Balzo. This sole survivor, unlike Othryadês (Herod, i. 82), does not kill himself, but at once accuses his immediate lord Duke William in the court of his over-lord the King. Besides the treachery practised against Anscytel, Riulf too, contrary to Duke William’s promise, had been blinded in prison. The Duke of the Normans is summoned by his over-lord to answer for the crime, and, somewhat strangely, the court of the Carolingian King of Laon is held at Paris. Thither Duke William humbly comes, and there he is, like Uhtred (see p. 379) and Eadwulf (see p. 527), killed by Balzo under the pretext of a conference.

I need hardly say that this tale, as it stands, is a mere romance; but it is an instructive romance, because it is so easy to trace out the mythical elements out of which it is made up. Still, like most other such stories, it most likely contains its kernel of truth. Balzo may have been one of Riulf’s followers in the Côtentin, who took an opportunity to revenge his chieftain’s defeat. More than this it would be rash to infer. So the story in Rudolf Glaber may justify us in adding Theobald of Chartres to the list of conspirators against William, and the same story falls in with the charge against Hugh brought by Richer. But there is no kind of need to breathe the least suspicion against King Lewis; William was just then his firm friend, and any mention of the King as having a hand in the business seems to be owing only to the fact that the later writers had forgotten what were the true relations between Laon and Paris in the days of William Longsword.

NOTE AA. p. 263. LEADING MEN IN ENGLAND AT THE DEATH OF EADGAR.

Ælfhere of Mercia is called by Florence (983) “Regis Anglorum Eadgari propinquus,” which most likely means kindred by the mother’s side. His name is affixed to most of the charters of the time, and many acts in Mercia are stated to be done by his consent. See, for instance, a charter of Bishop Oswald (Cod. Dipl. iii. 5), where he bears the title of “heretoga.” The Chronicles (A. 975), followed by Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 748 C), who calls him “consul nequissimus,” charge him with actually destroying monasteries. Florence speaks only of his bringing in married priests and their wives. In some cases it appears that former owners of lands then in monastic occupation laid legal claims to them as having been taken from them unjustly. See Hist. El. lib. i. c. 5, 8; Gale, pp. 465, 467. It is curious to find among these claimants against the monastery of Ely no less a person than Ealdorman Æthelwine himself (Hist. El. lib. i. c. 5). Æthelwine, worshipped at Ramsey, was thought much less highly of at Ely, just as we shall find Harold spoken of very differently at Wells and at Waltham.

Of the house of the Ealdormen of the East-Angles, of whom Æthelwine, who has just been mentioned, was the most famous, we can get a still more distinct idea. See Florence, A. 975, 991; Hist. Rams. 387, Gale. Æthelwine was the youngest son of Æthelstan, surnamed the Half-king (Hist. Rams., u. s.), Ealdorman of the East-Angles, who seems to have died about 967, when we find his last signature (Cod. Dipl. iii. 16). He married (Hist. El. ii. 8; Gale, p. 495) Æthelflæd, daughter of Brihthelm, and sister of the famous Ealdorman Brihtnoth, of whom we shall hear more presently. They had four sons, Æthelwold, Ælfwold, Æthelsige, and Æthelwine. Of these, the eldest and youngest were in turn joined with their father in the government of East-Anglia. Æthelwold, whose widow Ælfthryth married King Eadgar in 964 (when Florence calls him “gloriosus dux Orientalium Anglorum”), signs several charters as _dux_ down to 962, probably the year of his death. From that year his youngest brother (see Florence, 992) Æthelwine takes his place. It is not easy to see why Ælfwold was excluded, as he lived on in a private station, and was on good terms with his brother the Ealdorman (Fl. Wig. A. 975). Æthelsige also, the third brother, signs many charters with the title of “minister,” that is, Thegn. Æthelwine died in 992 (Fl. Wig. 992). The portentous title of “totius [Orientalis?] Angliæ aldermannus,” said (see Hist. Rams. p. 462) to have been inscribed on his grave, is hardly credible, but it has its parallels in the title of “Dux Francorum,” borne by the contemporary Lords of Paris, in that of “Princeps Francorum” borne by the Mayors of the Palace in earlier days (Ann. Mett. 621; Pertz, i. 320, &c.), and in that of “Dux Anglorum” given by the Bayeux Tapestry to Harold when Earl of the West-Saxons. Who succeeded him in his earldom is not very clear. He had a son Æthelweard, who died at Assandun in 1016. Florence calls him “Æthelwardus dux, filius ducis East-Anglorum Æthelwini Dei amici,” but the Chronicles call him simply “Æþlweard Æþelwines sunu ealdormannes.” The testimony of Florence shows that “Æþelwines,” the reading of the Abingdon Chronicle, is the right one. Worcester has “Ælfwines,” Peterborough, more remarkably, “Æðelsiges.” The question as to the right of this Æthelweard to the title of “dux” at once leads us to the position of the famous Ulfcytel of East-Anglia, of whom see below, Note HH. With regard to Æthelsige, the question at once arises whether this is the Æthelsige of whom Æthelred speaks in a charter of 999 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 305) as having beguiled him into his spoliation of the see of Rochester. See above, p. 267. This Æthelsige, he complains, corrupted his innocent youth, and he draws a fearful picture of his evil deeds in various ways. He was at last punished by the loss of all his own honours and property. This is no doubt the Æthelsige who signs many of the earlier charters of Æthelred (Cod. Dipl. iii. 171, 190, 202, 212, 216, 222, 224, 228, 280); but it is not clear either whether this is our Æthelsige, or whether either of them is the same as the captain who ravaged South Wales in 991.

Of Brihtnoth, the uncle and ally of Æthelwine, we shall hear again as the hero of Maldon (see p. 270). Of the many ways of spelling his name and kindred names, Brihtric and the like, _Briht_noth is the one which I prefer. _Beorht_ is the older, _briht_ the later form of the word; so that _Beorhtnoth_ and _Brihtnoth_ are the correct earlier and later forms of the name. _Byrhtnoth_ and other spellings are simply transitional and irregular.

Brihtnoth, we learn from the Song of Maldon, was the son of Brihthelm. I take him to be the same as Brihtnoth the Thegn, to whom a grant of land is made by Eadgar in 967 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 15), and who signs as “minister,” another man of the same name signing as “dux.” This elder Ealdorman Brithnoth can be traced back to the beginning of Eadgar’s reign. It is not easy to say to which of these two Brihtnoths the signatures of “Brihtnoth dux” in the latter years of Eadgar belong. Nor is it clear which of the two it is to whom Eadgar makes another grant of land in 967 (Cod. Dipl. vi. 82). But it is certain that our Brihtnoth had attained the rank of Ealdorman before the death of Eadgar in 975. In 991 he was an old man, “Hár hilderinc.” It should be noticed that Brihtnoth the Thegn gives the lands granted him by the King to the church of Worcester, an act eminently characteristic of our Brihtnoth.

There is another notice of Brihtnoth in a charter of Æthelred of 1005 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 339), which seems to contain a reference to a genuine will of his. In the confirmation charter of Eynsham abbey the King—“ego Eðelredus, multiplici Dei clementia indulgente, Angul-Saxonum antedictus rex, cæterarumque gentium longe lateque per circuitum gubernator et rector”—records among other gifts, “villam quæ Scipford dicitur dedit vir prædictus [the founder Æthelmar] ad monasterium antedictum, quam ei Leofwinus suus consanguineus spiritu in ultimo constitutus donavit, _quam Birhtnoðus antea dux præclarus ab Eadgaro patre meo dignis præmium pro meritis accipere lætabatur_; Micclantun similiter ad monasterium dedit, quam ille _Birhtnoðus dux prædictus ultimo commisit dono ab Eadgaro quoque ei antea donatam et in cartula firmiter commendatam_.” We here see the favour in which Brihtnoth stood with Eadgar.

Brihtnoth appears also in the will of Æthelflæd (recited in that of Ælflæd, Cod. Dipl. iii. 271), a document of the reign of Eadgar. Large bequests are made to the Ealdorman by Æthelflæd; but his death seems to have hindered their taking effect, as a different disposal of the property is made by Ælflæd. Mr. Thorpe (Dipl. Ang. 519) identifies this Æthelflæd with the widow of King Eadmund, but his reference to the Chronicles should be 946 instead of 925. Brihtnoth had married Æthelflæd’s sister. As his own widow bore the same name, was she a second wife, or were there two sisters both called Æthelflæd? We find another case of three Æthelflæds in one family, p. 521. In the alleged will of Brihtnoth himself in Palgrave, ii. ccxxiii., I put very little faith.

The accounts of Brihtnoth in the Histories of Ely and Ramsey seem to be mixed up with a good deal of fable. They both (Ramsey, c. lxxi.; Gale, p. 422; Ely, lib. ii. c. 6; Gale, p. 493) tell a story how the Ealdorman, on his march against the Danes, came to Ramsey and asked for food for his army. The niggardly Abbot Wulfsige was ready to entertain the Ealdorman and a few select companions, but he would not undertake to feed the whole host. Brihtnoth, like Alexander, will partake of nothing in which all his soldiers cannot share, and marches on to Ely, where Abbot Ælfsige receives the whole multitude. Brihtnoth accordingly gives to the abbey of Ely certain lands which he had intended for that of Ramsey. This is hardly history; we see too clearly the stories of Gideon and the elders of Succoth and of David and Abiathar the Priest. It is also hard to see how a march to Maldon from any part of Brihtnoth’s government could lead him by either Ramsey or Ely. The Ely History escapes this difficulty by making him Earl of the Northumbrians instead of the East-Saxons, and by making two battles of Maldon. Brihtnoth, victorious in the former, returns to Northumberland; the Danes land again; Brihtnoth comes from Northumberland, taking the two abbeys on his march; he then fights the second battle, in which, after _fourteen days_ of combat, he is killed.

Of the three Thegns of Lindesey or Deira, who played such a cowardly

## part in 993 (see p. 283), two at least are known to us by the charters

of Eadgar’s reign. The account of the affair in the Chronicles is simply, “Þa onstealdon þa _heretogan_ ærest þone fleam· þæt wæs Fræna and Godwine and Friðegist.” Florence expands somewhat; “Duces exercitus, Frana videlicet, Frithogist, et Godwinus, quia ex paterno genere Danici fuerunt, suis insidiantes, auctores fugæ primitus exstiterunt.” The words “ex paterno genere” would imply that the earlier Danish settlers, like the followers of Cnut and of William afterwards, often took English wives. Also Florence translates “heretogan” by “duces _exercitus_,” lest “heretogan” should be taken to imply the permanent rank of Ealdorman. Neither Fræna nor Frithegist ever held that rank. They sign charters in abundance, from the days of Eadgar onwards, but never with any higher rank than that of “minister” or “miles.” Fræna signs a great many charters long after this. In 995 he signs two of Æscwig, Bishop of Dorchester (Cod. Dipl. iii. 286, 288), which probably implies that he belonged to Lindesey and not to Deira. Of Godwine we may suspect that he also was of Lindesey, that he reformed, and rose to the rank of Ealdorman. Godwine, Ealdorman of Lindesey, who died at Assandun in 1016, is most likely the man here spoken of; but Godwine is so common a name that it is impossible to say to whom all the signatures of “Godwine minister” belong. Sometimes two or more Godwines sign without further distinction.

These are the chief men of the days of Eadgar who are also heard of under Æthelred, with the exception of those who are connected with Northumberland, of whom I shall speak in a separate Note (KK). It would also be easy, by the help of the charters, to trace the succession and promotions of several men of less renown.

NOTE BB. p. 265. THE ELECTION OF EADWARD THE MARTYR.

The Chronicles do not, either in prose or in verse, say anything about the disputed election which is said to have followed the death of Eadgar, though three of them notice in verse that the crown passed to a minor. Eadgar dies,

“And feng his bearn syððan Tó cynerice, Cild únweaxen. Eorla ealdor; Þam wæs Eadweard nama.”

Either there is here a play on the words “ealdor” and “cild únweaxen,” or else the passage is a sign how utterly the word “ealdor” had lost its primitive sense.

Florence describes the disputed election very clearly;

“De rege eligendo magna inter regni primores oborta est dissensio; quidam namque regis filium Edwardum, quidam vero fratrem illius elegerunt Ægelredum. Quam ob caussam archipræsules Dunstanus et Oswaldus, cum coepiscopis, abbatibus, ducibusque quam plurimis, in unum convenerunt, et Eadwardum, ut pater suus præceperat, elegerunt; electum consecraverunt et in regem unxerunt.”

William of Malmesbury (ii. 161) makes Eadward be supported by Dunstan and certain Bishops in opposition to the Lady Ælfthryth and a party of the nobles; “contra voluntatem quorumdam, ut aiunt, optimatum et novercæ, quæ vixdum septem annorum puerulum Egelredum filium provehere conabatur, ut ipsa potius sub ejus nomine imperitaret.”

Osbern, the biographer of Dunstan (Anglia Sacra, ii. 113), speaks of Eadward as the heir, but says that some of the chief nobles objected to his election (“in cujus electione dum quidam principes palatini adquiescere nollent”) because of their fears from his supposed character (“existimantes juvenem regem inhumanum futurum, consilia sapientum non curaturum, sed pro libidine omnia acturum”). Eadmer, in his Life of Dunstan (Ang. Sac. ii. 220), makes them dread his severe justice (“quia morum illius severitatem, qua in suorum excessus acriter sævire consueverat, suspectam habebat”). They also object that he was not the son of a crowned King and his Lady (“quia matrem ejus, licet legaliter nuptam, in regnum tamen non magis quam patrem ejus dum eum genuit sacratam fuisse sciebant”). Waitz (iii. 65) remarks, when Pope Stephen anointed the sons of Pippin along with their father, “dass dies geschehen sei, um den vor der Wahl gebornen Söhnen das volle Erbrecht zu geben und die Möglichkeit zu entfernen, dass man etwa später gebornen Söhnen einen Vorrang beilege.” In both these accounts the matter is brought to an issue by the vigorous action of Dunstan.

One would like to know how far there is any truth in these statements of the objections brought against Eadward. One would have thought that there could not have been much to fear from either the virtues or the vices of a boy of his years. But the objection brought against him on the ground of his not being of kingly birth is much more likely to be a piece of genuine tradition. The difficulty about it is that, as Lappenberg remarks, it was an objection which told just as much against Æthelred as against Eadward. For the meaning can hardly be other than that Eadward was born before his father’s coronation at Bath in 974, which Æthelred was also. Otherwise the objection would really be a good one, and it was used long after on behalf of Henry the First against his elder brothers. (Cf. Herod. vii. 2–3.) Perhaps all that was meant was to deny that Eadward had any _preference_ over his half-brother, so that the two boys might be candidates on equal terms.

I may add that the Bath coronation of Eadgar is to me one of the most puzzling things in our history. I should have taken it to be, according to one story, a mere taking again of the crown after the penance for the matter of Wulfthryth; only the Chronicles, which have hitherto freely called Eadgar King, in recording the coronation pointedly call him Ætheling.

NOTE CC. p. 278. THE TWO ÆLFRICS.

Who was Ælfric, and how many Ælfrics were there? An Ælfric, son of Ælfhere of Mercia, had, as we have seen, succeeded his father in the government of that country, and had been banished five years before (see p. 268) the time which we have reached. An Ealdorman Ælfric died fighting for his country twenty-five years later (see p. 293). Most likely these are three distinct persons; but, as the Ælfric of whom we are now speaking was pardoned after crimes which might seem unpardonable, he might easily be thought to be the same as the already banished son of Ælfhere. At the same time it should be noticed that Florence in no way identifies the Ælfric of 991 with the banished Ælfric of 986, while he takes great pains to show that the Ælfric of 991 is the same as the traitor of 992 (“Alfricum cujus supra meminimus”) and of 1003 (“Alfricus dux supra memoratus”). The charters also seem to show that Ælfric the son of Ælfhere and the Ælfric of 991 are two distinct persons. In 983 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 196) we have the signatures of “Ælfhere dux,” “Ælfric dux.” In another charter of the same year we find these two signatures and also those of two persons called “Ælfric minister.” In 984 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 202) we find two signatures of “Ælfric dux” and one of “Ælfric minister.” In 984 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 203) we find “Ælfric ealdorman” addressed along with “ealle þa þegenas on Hámtúnscire.” A mention of Bishop Ælfheah in the charter shows that this means Hampshire and not Northamptonshire, and Ælfric the traitor seems to command the men of Hampshire in 1003 (see p. 318). In Cod. Dipl. iii. 292 we have mention of an “Ælfric ealdorman” who seems to have jurisdiction in Berkshire; his government may easily have taken in the two adjoining shires. I infer, then, that Ælfric the traitor was not Ealdorman of the Mercians, but of Hampshire and Berkshire, and that he was appointed in or before 983, when we find his signature along with that of Ælfhere. Ælfric the son of Ælfhere succeeded his father in Mercia in 983; in 984 therefore there were two Ealdormen of the name, and we find the signatures of both.

Another argument to the same effect is supplied by two charters which evidently refer to the banishment of Ælfric the son of Ælfhere. One in Cod. Dipl. vi. 174, attributed to the year 993, granting certain lands to the monastery of Abingdon, says, “Has terrarum portiones Alfric cognomento puer a quadam vidua Eadfled appellata violenter abstraxit, ac deinde quum in ducatu suo contra me et contra omnem gentem meam reus exsisteret ... quando ad synodale concilium ad Cyrneceastre universi optimates mei simul in unum convenerunt, et eumdem Alfricum majestatis reum de hac patria profugum expulerunt.” The other charter, of 999 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 312, Hist. Abingdon. i. 373), states much the same of a person described as “comes vocitamine Ælfric.” This charter is signed by an “Ælfric dux,” that is, no doubt, Ælfric of Hampshire. “Alfricus cyld,” that is, of course, “cognomento puer,” is spoken of also in the Ely History (i. 12, Gale) as a man of importance, as the son of Ealdorman Ælfhere would be, before Æthelred was King (969–979). The description of the Witenagemót at Cirencester reads very like the banishment in 986.

As for the hero of Assandun, I can only say that the name Ælfric is exceedingly common, and that it is open to us to identify him with any of the men who sign as “Ælfric minister.”

I am thankful that I have only to deal with the lay Ælfrics. There is an ecclesiastical difficulty of the same kind which I cheerfully leave in the hands of Professor Stubbs.

NOTE DD. p. 279. THE TREATY WITH OLAF AND JUSTIN.

The text of the Treaty is given in Thorpe, i. 284; Schmid, 204. It is drawn up between King Æthelred and his Witan on the one side and the invading army on the other. “Þis synd þâ frið-mâl and þâ forword, þe Æðelred cyng and ealle his witan wið þone here gedôn habbað, þe Anlaf and Justin and Guðmund Stegitan sunu mid wæ̂ron.” It must belong to this year, and, if so, it seems to prove that Olaf Tryggvesson was present, and also that he was not yet either King or catechumen. Had the document belonged to the later dealings with Olaf, he would hardly have been placed alongside with Justin and Guthmund, but some notice would have been taken both of his Christianity and of his royal rank. Compare the different language of the treaties of Ælfred with the first and of Eadward with the second Guthrum, Thorpe, i. 152, 166; Schmid, 106, 118. The treaty between Ælfred and Guthrum is drawn up between “Ælfred cynincg and Gŷðrûm cyning and ealles Angelcynnes witan and eal seô þeôd þe on Eâst-Englum beôð.” That between Eadward and the second Guthrum is between “Eadward cyng and Gûðrûm cyng,” and the Christianity of both sides is distinctly set forth. Schmid (p. li.) supposes, either that the Anlaf here spoken of was another person from Olaf Tryggvesson, or else that the name Anlaf is an interpolation in the text. But surely these suppositions are rather violent, when the matter can be explained without recourse to them.

By this treaty provision is made for wergilds, for the reception of merchants, and for various civil contingencies, which clearly imply that a long stay was expected on the part of the Northmen. Neither side is to receive the other’s thieves, foes, or _Welshmen_ (Schmid, 208). “And þæt naðor ne hy ne we underfon oðres Wealh ne oðres þeof ne oðres gefan.” The _Wealas_ of the Northmen must have been simply their prisoners or servants of any kind, many of them perhaps Englishmen. So completely had the word shared the fate of the word _Slave_, as is still more plainly the case with the feminine form _Wylne_.

On the use of the word _Englaland_ in the treaty, see above, p. 538.

NOTE EE. pp. 285, 302. THE RELATIONS OF ÆTHELRED WITH NORMANDY.

The English Chronicles, and also Florence, are silent as to any intercourse, whether friendly or hostile, between England and Normandy earlier than the marriage of Æthelred and Emma. The one passage which has been sometimes thought to refer to one of the events recorded in the text cannot possibly have that meaning. The entry in the Chronicles in the year 1000, “And se unfrið flota wæs ðæs sumeres gewend to Ricardes rice,” can refer only to the Danish fleet. “Unfrið flota” must be taken in the same sense as “unfrið here” in the year 1009. And so it is taken by Florence; “Danorum classis præfata hoc anno Nortmanniam petit.” We are thus left wholly to the testimony of inferior authorities, and we must get such an amount of truth out of them as we can.

I have, in my text, after some hesitation, described two disputes between Æthelred and the Norman Dukes. The first quarrel was with Richard the Fearless in 991, which was appeased by the intervention of Pope John the Fifteenth; the second was with Richard the Good in 1000, which led to open hostilities which are described as an English invasion of the Côtentin. The stories rest respectively on the authority of William of Malmesbury (ii. 165, 6), and of William of Jumièges (v. 4). It is open to any one to reject both stories. It is still more open to any one to reject the second story, the exaggerated character of which is manifest, and the chronology of which must be a year or two wrong. But I do not think that it is safe to take them, with Sir Francis Palgrave (England and Normandy, iii. 103), and Dr. Lappenberg (p. 421 of the original, ii. 154 Thorpe), as different versions of one event, still less to fix, with Sir Francis, that event to the later date of the two.

William of Malmesbury tells us very little in his own name. He says only that Richard the Fearless had provoked Æthelred in various ways (“vir eximius, qui etiam Edelredum sæpe injuriis pulsaverit”), and that Pope John, wishing to hinder war among Christians (“non passa sedes apostolica duos Christianos digladiari”), sent Leo Bishop of Trier into England to make peace. A document then follows, described as the “legationis epistola” of this prelate, which contains an account of his mission, and gives the terms of the peace between Æthelred and Richard, and the names of the plenipotentiaries on both sides. The document is very strange in point of form, as it begins in the name of the Pope, while the latter part clearly gives the actual words of the treaty. Sir Francis Palgrave (iii. 106) objects to the genuineness of the letter that its style is unusual, if not unparalleled, which it certainly is. It runs thus; “Johannes quintus decimus, sanctæ Romanæ ecclesiæ Papa, omnibus fidelibus.” Sir Francis does not mention another objection, namely, that neither in 991 nor in 1001 was the Archbishop of Trier named Leo. The reigning Archbishop in 991 was Eckebert; before 1000 he had been succeeded by Ludolf (Gesta Treverorum, ap. Pertz, viii. 169–171). But Sir Francis (iii. 107) adds, “While we reject the convention in the shape now presented, we accept its import.—The quarrel and the reconciliation are unquestionable verities.” But the quarrel and reconciliation recorded by William of Malmesbury are a quarrel and reconciliation between Æthelred and Richard the Fearless in a definite year 991. They cannot be turned into a quarrel and reconciliation between Æthelred and Richard the Good nine years later. The apparently wrong name of the papal legate is a difficulty either way, but it is not a very formidable one. Lappenberg (p. 422 of the original German) calls Leo “_Vice_bischof von Trier,” which Mr. Thorpe (ii. 154) translates simply “Bishop.” Lappenberg gives no reference for his description of Leo; but a fact in German history may be safely accepted on his authority, and the local history of Trier which I have just referred to contains a statement which curiously fits in with our story. Archbishop Eckebert (977–993), son of Theodoric, Count of Holland, was the son of an English mother, and he kept up a close connexion with England. It is therefore quite natural that either he or an officer of his church should enter with zeal into a scheme for the advantage of a country which Eckebert seems almost to have looked on as his own. The other names are accurately given. John the Fifteenth was Pope, and Æthelsige was Bishop of Sherborne, in 991. Both were dead in 1000. I think it follows that the account in William of Malmesbury cannot possibly refer to a transaction with Richard the Good in 1000. The story is definitely fixed to the year 991.

Is then William of Malmesbury’s account ground enough for accepting a quarrel between Æthelred and Richard the Fearless, and a reconciliation brought about by Pope John Fifteenth? On the whole, I think it is. It is not the kind of transaction which any one would invent, if nothing of the sort happened at all, and it is hard to see to what other transaction the account can refer. The story also, as it seems to me, fits in well with the circumstances of the times. The “legationis epistola” can hardly be genuine in its actual shape as a letter of the Pope, but it seems to be made out of two genuine documents, a letter of Pope John and the text of the treaty. The unusual style might be simply the bungling attempt of a compiler to show which of all the Popes named John was the one here meant. The treaty itself bears every sign of genuineness, and the names of the plenipotentiaries are distinctly in its favour. One of the Norman signatures is that of “Rogerus episcopus,” and there was a Roger Bishop of Lisieux from 990 to 1024. The lesser Norman plenipotentiaries I cannot identify, but on the English side, as the Bishop is right, the Thegns also are right. A mere forger would not have inserted such names as those of Leofstan and Æthelnoth. He would either have put in names quite at a venture, or else have picked out the names of some famous Ealdormen of the time. There could be no temptation for a forger to pitch on Leofstan and Æthelnoth, real contemporary men, but men of no special celebrity.

The reader has still to determine whether, accepting this account of Æthelred’s quarrel with the elder Richard, he will go on to admit a second quarrel with the younger Richard. The only question is whether the story in William of Jumièges is pure invention, or whether its manifestly exaggerated details contain some such kernel of truth as I have supposed in the text. It certainly seems to me that to set the whole affair down as a mere lie is attributing too much even to the Norman power of lying, which I certainly have no wish to underrate. The story, in its general outline, seems to fit in well with the position of things at the time, and even with the character of Æthelred. But if we accept it as thus far true, we must suppose that William of Jumièges transposed the invasion of the Côtentin and the marriage of Emma. He places the latter event first. Now the marriage would follow very naturally on the conclusion of peace, while the invasion would not be at all likely to follow the marriage. Sir Francis Palgrave silently transposes the two events in the same way that I have done. He also connects the invasion, as I have done, with the reception of Danish vessels in the Norman havens. If this was, as I suppose, a breach of the treaty of 991, the wrath of Æthelred becomes still more intelligible. In this view of the matter, looking at the entry in the Chronicles under the year 1000, we can hardly fail to fix the event in that year.

Lappenberg, whose note (p. 422) should be read in the original text, takes the opposite view to Sir Francis Palgrave. He accepts the account of the transaction in 991, but carries back the invasion of the Côtentin to that year. This is at least more probable than Sir Francis’ version, and perhaps some readers may be inclined to accept it rather than my notion of two distinct disputes. But the narrative of William of Jumièges connects the invasion in a marked way with the marriage of Emma, though he has clearly confounded the order of events.

Roger of Wendover (i. 427) boldly carries back the marriage of Emma to some date earlier than 990, and makes the quarrel between Æthelred and her father arise out of his ill-treatment of her. He was misled by William of Malmesbury’s characteristic contempt for chronological order.

NOTE FF. p. 300. ÆTHELRED’S INVASION OF CUMBERLAND.

The Chronicles, followed by Florence, state the fact of Æthelred’s expedition against Cumberland without any explanation of its motives; “Her on þisum geare se cyning ferde in to Cumerlande, and hit swiðe neah eall forheregode.” So Florence; “Rex Ægelredus terram Cumbrorum fere totam depopulatus est.” For the motive of this unusual piece of energy we have, in default of any better authority, to go to Fordun, iv. 35 (vol. i. p. 179 ed. Skene). He attributes it to Malcolm’s refusal to contribute to the Danegeld. Having spoken of several of the payments made to the Danes, he thus goes on;

“Unde rex Ethelredus regulo Cumbriæ supradicto Malcolmo scribens per nuntium mandavit quod suos Cumbrenses tributa solvere cogeret, sicut cæteri faciunt provinciales. Quod ille protinus contradicens rescripsit suos aliud nullatenus debere vectigal, præterquam ad edictum regium, quandocumque sibi placuerit, cum cæteris semper fore paratos ad bellandum.... Hac caussa quidem, et sicut rex in ira motus asseruit, eo quod regulus contra sacramentum sibi debitum Danis favebat, maximam ex Cumbria prædam arripuit. Postea tamen concordes per omnia statim effecti, pace firma de cætero convenerunt.”

This account seems so likely in itself that I have not scrupled to adopt it in the text. But it must be compared with an account given by Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 750 A), which at first sight sounds very different; “Exinde rex Edelred ivit in Cumberland cum exercitu gravissimo, ubi maxima mansio Dacorum erat, vicitque Dacos bello maximo, totamque fere Cumberland prædando vastavit.” Here is no mention of Malcolm, and the Danes are described as being actually in possession of the country, of which the other accounts give us no hint. But that Malcolm was reigning in Cumberland at this time there is no doubt, and if any Danes were settled there, they must have been settled by Malcolm’s consent, willing or constrained. It is of course possible that one ground of Æthelred’s wrath against Malcolm may have been that he had not only refused to pay Danegeld, but had allowed Danes to settle in his dominions. And it may be that we may here have lighted on the clew to the great puzzle of Cumbrian ethnology. That Cumberland and Westmoreland are to this day largely Scandinavian needs no proof. But we have no record of the process by which they became so. In Northumberland and East-Anglia we know when the Danes settled, and we know something of the dynasties which they founded. But the Scandinavian settlement in Cumberland—Norwegian no doubt rather than Danish—we know only by its results. We have no statement as to its date, and we know that no Scandinavian dynasty was founded there. The settlement must therefore have been more peaceful and more gradual than the settlements in Northumberland and East-Anglia, and the reign of Malcolm may have been the time when it happened.

As I understand the story about the ships, the fleet, which had doubtless been gathered in some of the southern ports, was to assemble at Chester, and thence to sail to support the King’s land-force in Cumberland. “His scypu,” say the Chronicles, “wendon ut abutan Lægceaster, and sceoldon cuman ongean hyne: ac hî ne meahton.” But to get to Chester they had to sail round Wales, which Florence expresses by the words “mandavit ut, circumnavigata septemtrionali Brytannia, in loco constituto sibi occurreret.” Lappenberg (430) takes “Monege” in the Chronicles to be Anglesey; his translator (ii. 162), rightly I think, substitutes Man, but he adds the strange assertion, of which there is no trace in the original, that the fleet “was ordered to sail round the north of the island,” as if “septemtrionalis Britannia” meant Caithness. See p. 41, and the Winchester Chronicle, 922.

NOTE GG. p. 315. THE MASSACRE OF SAINT BRICE.

The account of the massacre in the Chronicles stands thus; “On þam geare se cyng hét ofslean ealle þa Deniscan men þa on Angelcynne wæron. Ðis wæs gedon on Britius mæssedæg, forðam þam cynge wæs gecyd þæt hi woldon hine besyrewan æt his life, and siððan ealle his witan, and habban siððan þis rice.”

To this account I have in the present edition ventured to add one piece of local detail, namely the story of the Danes at Oxford who took refuge in Saint Frithswyth’s minster. This is recorded in the charter of Æthelred in Cod. Dipl. iii. 327, which is marked by Mr. Kemble as spurious or doubtful, but which I am now inclined to follow Mr. James Parker (Historical Notices of Oxford, p. 20) in accepting as at all events recording a real fact. The story runs thus; “Omnibus in hac patria degentibus sat constat fore notissimum, quoddam a me decretum cum concilio optimatum satrapumque meorum exivit ut cuncti Dani qui in hac insula, velut lolium inter triticum, pullulando emerserant justissima examinatione necarentur, hocque decretum morte tenus ad effectum perduceretur, ipsi quique in præfata urbe [Oxonefordæ] morabantur Dani mortem evadere nitentes, hoc Christi sacrarium, fractis per vim valvis et pessulis, intrantes, asylum sibi propugnaculumque contra urbanos suburbanosque ibi fieri decreverunt; sed cum populus omnis insequens, necessitate compulsus, eos ejicere niteretur nec valeret, igne tabulis injecto hanc ecclesiam, ut liquet, cum munimentis ac libris combusserunt.” I am now inclined to accept this story, and to hold that it has been wrongly transferred by William of Malmesbury to the time of the murder of Sigeferth and Morkere at Oxford in 1015. His story runs thus (ii. 179). After describing the murder of the two Thegns, much as in the Chronicle, but with some further details, he adds, “clientuli eorum, dominorum necem vindicare conantes, armis repulsi et in turrim ecclesiæ Sanctæ Frideswidæ coacti, unde dum ejici nequirent, incendio conflagrati. Sed mox regis pœnitentia, eliminata spurcitia, sacrarium reparatum; legi ego scriptum quod in archivo ejusdem ecclesiæ continetur index facti.” This certainly looks very much as if William had seen the original of the charter, which records the reparation of the church (“Dei adjutorio a me et a meis constat renovata”), and had put the story at a wrong time. That this is so is almost proved by the date. Æthelred could have had no time for church restoration between the Gemót of 1015 and his death in 1016. Between the massacre in 1002 and the date of the charter in 1004, though the state of things was not very favourable for such works, he had rather more time. The confusion between the two stories was easy. Sigeferth and Morkere and their followers, though not Danes in the same sense as the victims of Saint Brice, were almost certainly of Danish descent.

In Florence we get the first touch of amplification in the general story. The rest of the passage he merely translates, but the words “ealle þa Deniscan men þa on Angelcynne wæron” become “omnes Danos Angliam incolentes, majores et minores, _utriusque sexus_.” This is the first hint of any slaughter of women, and it is confined to Danish women.

William of Malmesbury directly mentions the massacre twice. The first time (ii. 165) it comes in almost incidentally, in a rhetorical passage about the character of Æthelred and the wretchedness of his reign. He speaks of “Danos, quos levibus suspicionibus omnes uno die in tota Anglia trucidari jusserat, ubi fuit videre miseriam, dum quisque carissimos hospites, quos etiam arctissima necessitudo dulciores effecerat, cogeretur prodere et amplexus gladio deturbare.” We begin here to get a dim vision of Danes possessed of English wives or mistresses. In the other passage (ii. 177) he describes the slaughter of Pallig, Gunhild, and their son, which is again brought in incidentally, as the moving cause of Swegen’s great invasion in 1013. Gunhild, “non illepidæ formæ virago,” had given herself as a hostage on the conclusion of peace with the Danes (“accepta Christianitate, obsidem se Danicæ pacis fecerat”). She was beheaded by order of Eadric (“eam cum cæteris Danis infaustus furor Edrici decapitari jusserat”), and, before her own death, she had to see her husband killed in some undescribed way, and her son, a promising lad, pierced with four spears (“occiso prius ante ora marito, et filio, commodæ indolis puero, quattuor lanceis forato”).

I suspect, as I said in the text, that the notion of a massacre of women, which we find even in Florence, arose out of this one tale of Gunhild. In William of Jumièges (v. 6) we get some soul-harrowing details;

“Edelredus, Anglorum rex, regnum, quod sub magna potentissimorum regum gloria diu floruerat, tanto nefariæ proditionis scelere regiminis sui tempore polluit, ut et pagani tam exsecrabile nefas horrendum judicarent. Nam Danos per omne regnum unanimi concordia secum cohabitantes, mortis periculum minime suspicantes, subito furore sub una die perimi, mulieres quoque alvo tenus terræ esse defossas, et ferocissimis canibus concitatis mamillas ab earum pectoribus crudeliter extorqueri, lactentes vero pueros ad domorum postes allisos excerebrari jussit, nullis criminum existentibus culpis.”

Here we have only Danish women and Danish children. In the Roman de Rou (6352 et seqq.) we get the first hint of a massacre of English women. It is not directly asserted, but it seems to be implied.

“En Engleterre erent Daneis Cumunément od li Engleis, Des Englesches fames perneient, Filz et filles asez aveient.” (vv. 6358–6361.)

Then we read an account of nearly the same horrors as in William of Jumièges, with some improvements. The details of the throat-cutting are given more minutely; we hear also of embowelling (“et as auquanz esbueloent”), and not only dogs but bears are employed to tear off the breasts of the women.

“Li dames è li dameseiles Enfoient tresk ’as mameles, Poiz amenoient li gainuns, Ors enchaenez è brohuns, Ki lur traient li cerveles E desrumpeient li mameles.” (vv. 6384–6389.)

In both accounts the destruction is all but complete; certain young men, two or more—“quidam juvenes” in William of Jumièges, “douz valez” in Wace—escape—according to William—in a ship which they found in the Thames, and carry the news to King Swegen in Denmark.

We now turn to John of Wallingford, who died in 1214, and who (Gale, ii. 547) knows much more about the matter. The Danes were far from being such comfortable neighbours to the English as they appear in the two Norman accounts. They held all the chief towns and did much mischief; “optima terræ municipia vel occupaverant vel præparaverant, et genti terræ multas molestias inferebant.” But the chief evil was the way in which they made themselves too agreeable to the English women. They took great care of their persons; they changed their clothes often, they combed their hair every day, and took a bath every Saturday; “habebant ex consuetudine patriæ unoquoque die comam pectere, sabbatis balneare, sæpe etiam vestituram mutare, et formam corporis multis talibus frivolis adjuvare.” The consequence was that many English matrons broke their marriage vows and many noble maidens became mistresses of Danes. Many wars and confusions arose out of these and the other evil deeds of the Danes, till it was settled that each province should get rid of its own Danes; “ut quælibet provincia suos Danos occideret.” They were accordingly all killed on Saturday, their bathing-day. John of Wallingford does not mention the day of Saint Brice, but in 1002 that festival would really fall on a Saturday. Here we get the destruction of women and children; but they are now distinctly the English women who had yielded to the seductions of the Danes and the children who were born of these unlawful unions; “ipsas mulieres suas, quæ luxuriæ eorum consenserant, et pueros, qui ex fœditate adulterii nati erant.” John of Wallingford does not employ either dogs or bears for the torture of the women; he is satisfied with cutting off their breasts; but those who had their breasts cut off and those who were put in the ground—in Italian phrase “planted”—now form two classes, while before there was only one; “mammas quarumdam absciderunt, alias vivas terræ infoderunt.” The number of young men who escape is raised to twelve.

I must now go back a generation or two to Henry of Huntingdon. He was living in 1154, yet he seems to profess to get his information from contemporaries—“de quo scelere in pueritia nostra quosdam vetustissimos loqui audivimus.” Æthelred, according to his account (M. H. B. 752 A), was puffed up with his marriage with Emma (“quo proventu rex Adelred in superbiam elatus”), and so massacred the Danes. He sent letters secretly to every town, ordering them to be put to death at one and the same hour, which was done on Saint Brice’s day. Some were slain with the sword, others were burned; “vel gladiis truncaverunt inpræmeditatos, vel igne simul cremaverunt subito comprehensos.” There is no mention of women, not even of Gunhild. This account of Henry of Huntingdon appears in an abridged form in Æthelred of Rievaux (Gen. Regg. X Scriptt. 362), who sarcastically adds that his royal namesake was “fortior solito,” though directly after he calls him, seemingly in earnest, “rex strenuissimus.”

Roger of Wendover (i. 444) transfers the story to the year 1012. In his version Swegen is present in England at the time of the death of Ælfheah; the tribute is paid; on its payment the Danes and English made a league of brotherhood to have but one heart and one soul; Swegen goes back to Denmark; then comes the massacre, on which Swegen comes back for his last invasion. The instigator of the massacre was “Huna quidam, regis Ethelredi militiæ princeps, vir strenuus et bellicosus.” The relations between Danes and English women are here, as in John of Wallingford, a chief ground of offence, but they take a somewhat different form; “Dani ... per totam Angliam adeo invaluerant, quod uxores virorum nobilium regni et filias violenter opprimere et ubique ludibrio tradere præsumpserunt.” We hear nothing of the Saturday bath and the other attractions of the Danes. Huna—a man who does not appear in history, but of whom we shall hear again in romance—complains of this state of things, and, by his advice, letters for a general massacre on Saint Brice’s day are sent to all parts, much as in Henry of Huntingdon. The Danes, “qui paullo ante cum Anglis, additio juramento, fuerant confœderati ut pacifice cum illis habitarent,” are massacred; the women too—what women we are not told—are killed with their children, but now both are killed by being dashed against door-posts; “mulieres cum parvulis ad postes domorum allisæ animas miserabiliter effuderunt.” Young men (“quidam juvenes”) take the news to Swegen as before.

Immediately after this, Roger goes on to tell the story of Gunhild in a form founded on that of William of Malmesbury, but with some improvements. Not only Gunhild herself, but her husband and son are hostages (“virago prudentissima, inter Danos et Anglos pacis mediatrix exsistens, obsidem sese cum viro et unico quem habebat filio, Ethelredo regi ad pacis securitatem dedit”), a thing plainly impossible in the case of Pallig. William of Malmesbury had mentioned Eadric in connexion with her death, probably because he looked on Eadric as the author of the whole scheme of massacre. But, as Huna fills that post in Roger’s story, Eadric becomes the special gaoler of Gunhild; “hæc quum fuisset a rege Eadrico _duci_”—which he was in 1012, though not in 1002—“ad custodiendum commissa.” Her death, by Eadric’s order, and that of Pallig and their son, follow much as in William of Malmesbury.

Here is a good case of the growth of legend, but the growth of legend is not all. It is easy to see from this last account that the massacre of Saint Brice got mixed up with quite different stories belonging to quite different dates, of which I shall have to speak again.

The massacre of Saint Brice may be compared with the two massacres of the Goths recorded by Ammianus, xxxi. 16; Zôsimos, iv. 26, 27, v. 35. The former, which was done “datis tectioribus litteris,” is distinctly approved by both historians; they speak of the “consilium prudens” and ἀγχινοία of Julius, the Eadric of the story, who took care that Theodosius, unlike Æthelred, should not know of his scheme. The second is a massacre of women and children.

NOTE HH. p. 322. ULFCYTEL OF EAST-ANGLIA.

I have some doubt as to the formal position of Ulfcytel. The Latin writers all give him titles equivalent to Earl or Ealdorman. In Florence (1004) he is “magnæ strenuitatis dux East-Anglorum Ulfketel.” So Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 752 C) calls him “Wlfketel dux illius provinciæ,” and William of Malmesbury (ii. 165) “comes Orientalium Anglorum Ulfkillus.” But the Chronicles introduce him at this point without any title, and though he signs several charters, as in this year in Cod. Dipl. iii. 334, in 1005 (iii. 346), and in 1012 (iii. 358), he uses no higher titles than “minister” and “miles.” On the other hand the Chronicles, in recording his death in 1016, seem to call him Ealdorman by implication; “Godwine ealdorman on Lindesige and Ulfcytel on East-Anglum.” And, as we find him gathering the forces of the earldom and summoning and consulting the local Witan, it is plain that he acted with the full authority of an Ealdorman. It has sometimes struck me that he may have been in some way a deputy of Æthelweard who died along with him at Assandun, the son of the former Ealdorman Æthelwine. See Appendix AA.

William of Malmesbury (u. s.) gives Ulfcytel the praise of being one who “solus ex omnibus ... impigre contra invasores restitit.” He evidently made a great impression on the Danes themselves. We see this, not only from the passage in our own Chronicles quoted in p. 321, but from the mention of him in the Sagas. They speak of him, as William of Malmesbury does, by the contracted form Ulfkill or Ulfkell, as Thurcytel becomes Thurkill. He bears the surname of Snilling, the Bold or Quick, and is described in the Knytlinga Saga, c. 15 (Johnstone, 138), as “mikill höfdingi.” His battle of Ringmere in 1010 (see p. 344) is there strangely transferred to the war of Cnut and Eadmund in 1016. He appears again in the Saga of Saint Olaf (Laing, ii. 11; Johnstone, 93), where the battle of Ringmere is mixed up with the apocryphal and unintelligible exploits of Olaf. It should be marked that East-Anglia is called “Ulfkelsland,” just as our Chronicles talk of “Ricardes rice” and “Baldwines land.” We meet him again in the Jomsvikinga Saga, c. 51 (Johnstone, 101), where he is described as ruler of the whole North of England, and as married to Wulfhild daughter of King Æthelred (“Nordr red fyrir Englandi Ulfkell Snillingr, hann átti Ulfhildi dottur Adalrads konungs”). See Appendix SS.

NOTE II. p. 326. THE RISE OF EADRIC.

I describe Eadric as I find him described in contemporary writers. I fully admit that there is much in his character, actions, and general position which is extremely puzzling; but I cannot undertake to be wise above what is written, or to put a theory of my own in the place of the unanimous witness of all our authorities. It has been ingeniously argued that Eadric was simply a forerunner of Leofric, that he represents a Mercian, therefore an intermediate, policy, which was misunderstood or misrepresented by West-Saxon writers. But all our authorities, West-Saxon as well as Mercian, agree in giving Leofric a very good character; all our authorities, Mercian as well as West-Saxon, agree in giving Eadric a very bad character. He has been called a “Trimmer,” and, as such, he has been likened, not only to the Leofric of the generation following his own, but to the Halifax of a much later age. The obvious answer is that neither Leofric nor Halifax was ever charged with going about murdering people in various parts of the kingdom. Now, as I have already said (see p. 417), many of the particular crimes laid to the charge of Eadric are open to much doubt; but the evident general belief that, whenever any mischief was done, Eadric must have been the doer of it, points to an universal estimate of his general character which cannot have been mistaken.

The first mention of Eadric in the Chronicles is on his appointment to the Ealdormanship of Mercia in 1007. He there comes in without any notice of his character or parentage, but the opinion which the Chroniclers had of him is shown plainly enough in other passages, as when the death of Sigeferth and Morkere is described in 1015 and the battle of Assandun in 1016. Florence first introduces him as “dolosus et perfidus Edricus Streona,” in 1006, when he records the murder of Ælfhelm. William of Malmesbury, as we have seen in the last Note, attributes to him the murder of Gunhild in 1002, and perhaps the whole plot for the destruction of the Danes. Florence gives a fuller character of him in 1007, when recording his appointment as Ealdorman. It runs as follows;

“Rex Edricum supra memoratum, Ægelrici filium, hominem humili quidem genere, sed cui lingua divitias ac nobilitatem comparaverat, callentem ingenio, suavem eloquio, et qui omnes id temporis mortales, tum invidia atque perfidia, tum superbia et crudelitate, superavit, Merciorum constituit ducem.”

These words of Florence seem to have been before William of Malmesbury, when, in his general picture of the reign of Æthelred (ii. 165), after speaking of the treasons of Ælfric, whom he confounds with the son of Ælfhere, he goes on,

“Erat in talibus improbe idoneus Edricus, quem rex comitatui Merciorum præfecerat; fæx hominum et dedecus Anglorum, flagitiosus helluo, versutus nebulo, cui non nobilitas opes pepererat, sed lingua et audacia comparaverat [“non” and “sed” are left out in some manuscripts, but they are clearly needed to make up the sense]. Hic dissimulare cautus, fingere paratus, consilia regis ut fidelis venabatur, ut proditor disseminabat. Sæpe, ad hostes missus pacis mediator, pugnam accendit. Cujus perfidia, quum crebro hujus regis tempore, tum vel maxime sequentis apparuit.”

Henry of Huntingdon too, whose authority is of the most varying degrees of value, but who always represents an independent tradition, says (M. H. B. 752 E), in recording Eadric’s appointment to the ealdormanship, “Dei providentia ad perniciem Anglorum factus est Edricus dux super Merce, proditor novus sed maximus.”

The surname of Streona comes, as we have just seen, from Florence. Eadric also appears as _Heinrekr_ or _Airekr_ Strióna in Snorro (Johnstone, 98), and in another Saga (101), where we are astounded at finding him made a brother of Emma. (The name _Henry_, in any of its forms, is hardly English, but we find in Cod. Dipl. iii. 87 a “Heanric minister,” perhaps one of the Old-Saxons favoured by Eadgar.) In Orderic too (506 B) a later Eadric is said to be “nepos Edrici pestiferi ducis cognomento Streone, id est _acquisitoris_.” The nickname evidently alludes to his great accumulations of property.

To trace Eadric and his father Æthelric by the charters is not easy, as neither name is uncommon. Thus we find in Cod. Dipl. iii. 304, a will of a certain Æthelric in Essex, made in 997, in which an Eadric is mentioned, who however seems not to be his son but his tenant. This Æthelric lay under suspicion of treasonable dealings with Swegen at the time of his first invasion in 994 (“ðam kincge wæs gesæd ðæt he wǽre on ðám unrǽde, ðæt man sceolde on Eást-Sexon Swegen underfón ða he ǽrest þyder mid flotan com”). See Cod. Dipl. iii. 314, a document which the combined signatures of Archbishop Ælfric (see p. 292) and Ealdorman Leofsige (see p. 313) fix to some date between 995 and 1002. Another Æthelric distinguished himself in quite an opposite way in the same part of the world, for he appears as one of the heroes of Maldon (see Thorpe, Analecta, p. 139). This last is probably the Æthelric “minister” and “miles,” who signs many charters from 987 to 1006 (see Cod. Dipl. iii. 228–351). In the last charter, if it be genuine, he describes himself as “the old”—“Æðelric ealda trywe gewitnys.” This is not unlikely to be the Æthelric who appears as a legatee in the will of Wulfric Spot, Cod. Dipl. vi. 148. Then there are one or more churchmen of the name, who, with the titles of “clericus,” “diaconus,” and “monachus” sign a vast number of documents of Archbishop Oswald and his successor Ealdwulf from 977 to 996 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 159–296), and one of whom possibly goes on till 1017 (see Cod. Dipl. vi. 177). I almost suspect that it is in one of these clerical Æthelrics that we are to look for the father of Eadric. It is certain that, among the many persons to whom Archbishop Oswald grants Church lands on the usual terms for three lives, three separate grants are made to a Thegn of his named Eadric. See Cod. Dipl. iii. 164, 216, 241. The dates are 977, 985, 988. May not these be the beginnings of the traitor? An Eadric also appears in Cod. Dipl. iii. 293, and another in vi. 127; but the latter at least is not our Eadric, as he was dead before 993.

The first signature which seems likely to be that of the future Ealdorman is one in 1001 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 317) as “Eadric minister.” He signs many charters by that title, including two (vi. 143) in company with a namesake of the same rank. In 1007 (vi. 157, 159) he of course begins to sign as “dux.” The charter of 1004 (vi. 151) where he appears as “dux” cannot be genuine, as King Æthelred, Archbishop Æthelnoth, and Ealdorman Brihtnoth are made to sign together. Lappenberg also (431, note 2. The passage is left out in Mr. Thorpe’s translation) quotes a charter of Eadgar in 970 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 56) as containing the signatures of Eadric and most of his brothers. But it is quite impossible that this can be our Eadric. Mr. Kemble marks the Latin version, in which alone the signatures occur, as spurious. The English version, which he accepts, has no signatures.

That Eadric rose to power by the fall of Wulfgeat is nowhere said in so many words; but the confiscation of the goods of Wulfgeat and the first mention of Eadric are put by Florence significantly near to one another. Wulfgeat signs a great many charters from 986 to 1005 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 224–345 and vi. 154). But he nowhere appears with any higher title than “minister,” except in one document of 996 (Cod. Dipl. vi. 136) where he appears as “dux.” I suspect that Wulfgeat, as well as Eadric, rose in the beginning through the favour of Archbishop Oswald. At least Oswald grants lands in Worcestershire to a knight of his of that name (“sumum cnihte ðám is Wulfgeat noma,” Cod. Dipl. iii. 259). This was in the reign of Eadward. The confiscation of Wulfgeat’s goods is recorded in the Chronicles for 1006 without remark; “And on þam ilcan geare wæs Wulfgeate eall his ár óngenumen.” Florence says, “Rex Ægelredus Wlfgeatum Leovecæ filium, quem pene omnibus plus dilexerat, propter injusta judicia et superba quæ gesserat opera, possessionibus omnique honore privavit.” There is also a charter of 1006 (Cod. Dipl. vi. 160), in which we find a notice of Wulfgeat as marrying one Ælfgifu the widow of Ælfgar (was this Ælfgar the son of Ælfric?) and as holding some lands which had been taken by Ælfgar from the monastery of Abingdon. His wife is described as sharing both in his crimes and in his fall; “Qui ambo crimine pessimo juste ab omni incusati sunt populo caussa suæ machinationis propriæ, de qua modo non est dicendum per singula, propter quam vero machinationem quæ injuste adquisierunt omnia juste perdiderunt.” Another charter of 1015 (Cod. Dipl. vi. 169) is more express. In this Æthelred grants to Brihtwold the Bishop of the diocese (who succeeded in the year of Wulfgeat’s disgrace), the lands of Wulfgeat at Chilton in Berkshire (“illo in loco ubi solicolæ appellativo usu Cildatun nominant”). Here we read, “Nam quidam minister Wulfget vulgari relatu nomine præfatam terram aliquando possederat; sed quia inimicis regis se in insidiis socium applicavit, et in facinore inficiendi etiam legis satisfactio ei defecit, ideo hæreditatis suberam penitus amisit, et ex ea prænominatus episcopus præscriptam villulam, me concedente, suscepit.” The estate was not given to the see, but to Brihtwold personally, with power to bequeath it. I cannot identify Wulfgeat’s father, which makes it the more probable that he was, like Eadric, a man of low birth.

The appointment of Eadric to the Mercian ealdormanship in 1007 is distinct in all the Chronicles and in Florence. His marriage with the King’s daughter Eadgyth took place before 1009, when Florence speaks of him as the Kings son-in-law, “gener ejus, habuit enim in conjugio filiam ejus Edgitham.” His elevation to the ealdormanship is the most natural date for the marriage. There may perhaps be some reference to this marriage in the wonderful declamation of Walter Map against Æthelred (De Nugis, 202). He charges him with systematically preferring slaves to freemen, and giving the daughters of nobles to “rustici,” that is, in the language of his day, villains. By “servi” and “rustici” he most likely means merely ceorls. “Superbus servi oculus et insatiabile cor in ipsius beneplacito ministrabat.”

NOTE KK. p. 329. THE SUCCESSION OF THE NORTHUMBRIAN EARLS.

I did not come across Mr. Robertson’s “Scotland under Early Kings” till the greater part of the first edition of my first volume was printed. I had therefore no opportunity, till towards the end of the volume, of making any use of his excellent note on the _Danelage_ (ii. 430), which is one of the best parts of his work. The history of Northumberland from the ninth century onwards is there traced out with greater clearness and probability than I have ever seen it dealt with elsewhere. His great point, which he seems to me fully to establish, is, that at the great conquest of Northumberland in Ælfred’s time, Deira only was actually divided and occupied by the Danes, while Bernicia, into whatever degree of subjection it may have been brought to the Danish power, still remained occupied by Englishmen, and under the immediate government of English rulers. The local nomenclature, as Mr. Robertson shows, bears out this view, and it also explains the otherwise puzzling fact that that part of old Northumberland which is quite away from the Humber has kept the name of Northumberland to this day, an usage which certainly began as early as the eleventh century (see Chron. Wig. 1065 and Sim. Dun. 80). Indeed Simeon (147) distinguishes “Eboracum” and “Northimbri” as early as 883; but he is doubtless using the language of his own time, as he is not following the earlier Northumbrian Chronicle. With these Anglian rulers of Bernicia I have no concern till the Commendation of 924, when the “son of Eadwulf,” and again in 926 “Ealdred Eadulfing,” appears among the princes who submitted to Æthelstan. Ealdred’s son was Oswulf, who signs two charters of Eadred in 949 as lord of Bamburgh, “Osulf ad bebb. hehgr̃” (Cod. Dipl. ii. 292), and “Osulf bebb.” (ii. 296). The abbreviation “hehgr̃” stands, according to Mr. Robertson, for _heah-gerefa_. And I can certainly suggest nothing better, though it is strange to find so purely ministerial a title applied to one who seems to have been rather a vassal prince than a mere magistrate. In 954, on the final conquest of Northumberland by Eadred, Oswulf seems to have exchanged this infinitesimal kind of kingship for the earldom over both provinces. See Sim. Dun. 204, who goes on to mention the division of the two earldoms between Oswulf and Oslac; “Qui [Osulfus] postea regnante Eadgaro socium accepit Oslacum. Deinde Osulfus ad aquilonalem plagam Tinæ, Oslac vero super Eboracum et ejus fines curas administrabat.” The appointment of Oslac is noticed by three of the Chronicles in the year 966, and his banishment in 975 is recorded in prose and lamented in verse. The next Earl was Waltheof, who seems to have been a son of Oswulf, and I gather from the words of Simeon (204)—“His [Osulfo et Oslaco] successit “Walthef senior””—that he again held both earldoms. But they must have been again dismembered at some time before 993, when Ælfhelm, who had signed as “minister” in 985 (Cod. Dipl. vi. 121), begins to sign as “dux” (iii. 271). An earlier signature as “Comes” in 990 (iii. 251) is doubtful. Cf. iii. 253. In 997 (iii. 304) he signs as “Norðanhumbrensium provinciarum dux.” The only signature of Waltheof himself that I know of is one of “Wælðeof dux” in 994 (iii. 280). That Uhtred (p. 329) held both earldoms on the deposition of his father and the murder of Ælfhelm seems plain from the words of Simeon (80), “Rex Ethelredus, vocato ad se juvene præfato, vivente adhuc patre Waltheof, pro merito suæ strenuitatis et bello quod tam viriliter peregerat, dedit ei comitatum patris sui, adjungens etiam Eboracensem comitatum.” This last was evidently the earldom made void by the death of Ælfhelm.

The death of Uhtred and the bestowal of the Northumbrian earldom on Eric the Dane by Cnut I have mentioned at pp. 379, 524. Mr. Robertson (i. 95, ii. 442) seems to confine the Northumbrian government of Eric to Deira, while he extends his frontier southward as far as Watling-Street. But the fourfold division of England implies that Eric ruled over all Northumberland. On the other hand, Simeon (81), speaking in his own person (see Stubbs, Preface to R. Howden, i. xxx), in a marked way confines the government of Ealdred, the successor of Eadwulf, to Bernicia. “Aldredus, quem prædictus comes Ucthredus genuerat ex Ecfrida Alduni episcopi filia, ... _solius Northumbriæ_ comitatum suscepit, patrisque sui interfectorem interfecit Turebrandum.” “Northumbria,” it will be seen, is here used in the most modern sense. The obvious inference is that Eadwulf ruled at first in Bernicia only and under the superiority of Eric, but that, on Eric’s banishment, he succeeded to the government of all Northumberland immediately under the King. Simeon gives us no dates, and Siward’s accession to Deira may have followed the death of Eadwulf Cutel. Everything looks as if the reign of Ealdred was very short.

One question remains as to Thored, who signs as “dux” in 979, 983, and 988 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 171, 198, 237), and in the Chronicles (992) is distinguished as “Þored _eorl_” from “Ælfric _ealdorman_.” He was therefore in all probability Earl of Deira or Yorkshire (see Robertson, ii. 441). He is doubtless the same as Thored the son of Gunner, who, according to the Chronicles, harried Westmorland in 966, and, according to some accounts (see below, Note SS), he was the father of Æthelred’s first wife. He was no doubt succeeded by Ælfhelm in 993, and he must himself have been appointed as early as 979. Mr. Robertson conjectures that he succeeded on the banishment of Oslac in 975. But we have seen that Waltheof then succeeded to both earldoms. My conjecture therefore is that the two earldoms were again separated on the accession of Æthelred, Deira being given to Thored. If Æthelred really married Thored’s daughter, this is still more likely.

There can be no doubt that _Eorl_ (see p. 407) is the proper title of a governor of Deira (see Cod. Dipl. ii. 293, and the Laws of Eadgar, Schmid, 198). But the Chronicles do not always observe the distinction. The pointed marking out of Thored as “eorl” and Ælfric as “ealdorman” is an unusual piece of accuracy, and though Oslac, when his banishment in 975 is recorded, is called “se mæra eorl,” yet his appointment in 966 is expressed by the words “feng to ealdordome.”

NOTE LL. p. 339. THE ASSESSMENT OF 1008.

The Abingdon and Peterborough Chronicles for 1008 have, “Hér bebead se cyng þæt mán sceolde ofer eall Angelcyn scypu fæstlice wyrcan; þæt is ðonne; of þrim hund hidum and óf tynum ænne scegð, and of viii hidum helm and byrnan.”

So Florence; “Rex Anglorum Ægelredus de cccx cassatis unam trierem, de novem vero loricam et cassidem fieri, et per totam Angliam naves intente præcepit fabricari.” So Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 753 A) and Lappenberg, ii. 170.

But the Worcester Chronicle (Cott. Tib. B. iv.) reads “of þrym hund scipum and x bé tynum anne scægð.” I quote Mr. Earle’s note, without confidently pledging myself to his interpretation, further than that I feel sure that the assessment must have been made by shires in some shape or other. If anything else were needed to prove it, the bequest of Ælfric so appositely quoted by Mr. Earle, and which I have not scrupled to mention in the text, would alone be enough.

“In this rating of land for raising a navy, the numbers are so unconformable to the statistical numbers preserved elsewhere, and so incommensurate with each other, that they must be received with suspicion. All the texts agree, except D [the Worcester Chronicle], which, of all extant texts, is probably the nearest to the source. In the confusion of the text of D, may possibly be found materials for a future emendation.

“But, taken at its worst, the annal is rich in interest. We learn the curious fact, that it was incumbent on each of the landed subdivisions, to provide the king with a ship and its armour. The government did not levy ship-money, but required each county to find its quota of ships. This would apply as well to the inland districts, as to those on the sea-board. And here we find the explanation of an otherwise inexplicable bequest of good Abp. Ælfric, who died two years before this date. He gave one ship to the folk of Kent, and one to Wiltshire. The will is in Cod. Dipl. 716 [iii. 351]. Doubtless, in each of the cases, the bequest was intended as an alleviation of the heavy imposts under which the people groaned. His gift being to the shire, is an argument that the assessment was by shires. It appears to me probable that each shire had to furnish one ship for every three _Hundreds_ contained in the shire. Thus a shire containing thirty Hundreds would have to furnish ten ships. (Accordingly, D may be right: of þrym hund scipum: ? = of three Hundreds—=Hundertschaften=.) This burden would fall on the whole body of the people, according to their rating. But the wealthy landowners had a special burden besides. He who had property up to or over the extent of ten hides, would have to furnish a _scegð_—and every thane under ten hides, had to furnish a helmet and breastplate.”

The _scegð_, according to Mr. Earle and Dr. Schmid, seems to be a smaller kind of vessel. It is a pity that even Florence was so far carried away by the wish to appear classical as to talk about triremes, instead of using words which might express the different kinds of vessels spoken of.

On Mr. Earle’s showing, the special imposts laid on the great landowners would exactly answer to the Attic λειτουργίαι. But it tells somewhat against his interpretation that both Florence and Henry of Huntingdon follow the reading of the other manuscripts. In any case I must confess that I do not clearly understand about the helm and breastplate.

NOTE MM. p. 343. WULFNOTH OF SUSSEX.

Most writers assume that “Wulfnoth Child the South-Saxon,” as he is called in all the Chronicles, was at once the nephew of Eadric and the father of Earl Godwine. These questions I shall discuss in a later Note, specially devoted to the origin of the Earl. I will only say here that it seems to me that, whoever was the father of Godwine, Florence did not intend to identify the Wulfnoth who, he says, was nephew to Eadric, with Child Wulfnoth the South-Saxon.

That Brihtric, the accuser of Wulfnoth, was a brother of Eadric rests on the authority of all the Chronicles. They all call him “Brihtric, Eadrices broðor ealdormannes.” Florence gives him the character of being “homo lubricus, ambitiosus, et superbus,” and adds that the accusation was unjust. He had also just before given the following list of the brothers of Eadric or sons of Æthelric; “cujus fratres exstiterunt Brihtricus, Ælfricus, Goda, Ægelwinus, Ægelwardus, Ægelmærus, pater Wlnothi, patris West-Saxonum ducis Godwini.” The charters are full—take for instance Cod. Dipl. iii. 355 and vi. 164, 166—of signatures which may be the signatures of those brothers. But all the names are common, except perhaps Goda, unless it be a short form of Godric or Godwine. For instance, one charter in Cod. Dipl. iii. 345, 346 is signed by three distinct Brihtrics, all with the rank of “minister.” In one place (iii. 351), if the document be genuine, “Byrhtríc cinges þegen gewitnys” signs between Eadric and one who may be their father (see above, p. 656). In vi. 155 we have a “Bríhtric reáda” in Dorsetshire, and in the Chronicles (1017) a “Brihtric Ælfehes suna on Defenascire,” who may be the same as the Brihtric of Dorset, but who is of course different from the brother of Eadric. Of Æthelweards we find several in the early days of Cnut. It seems in vain to try to make out anything more about the family; except that, according to Orderic (506 B), Eadric the Wild, so famous sixty years later, was Eadric’s nephew or grandson—“nepos Edrici pestiferi ducis.”

The title of “cild” or “child” given to Wulfnoth is a puzzling one. Florence translates it by “minister,” as if it were the same as Thegn; Henry of Huntingdon by “puer nobilis.” It is found in one other place only in the Chronicles, namely in 1074, where it is applied to the younger Eadgar, as if it were the same as Æðeling. We have seen it (see above, p. 641) as the title of one of the Ælfrics, who in English is “cild” and in Latin “cognomento Puer.” Several men bear the title in Domesday, as “Alnod cilt” (2 et al.), Eadwine, miscalled Godwine, Abbot of Westminster (146), Edward “cilt,” a man of Earl Harold (146, 148, 212, 336b, 340), and several others, Brixi, Eadwig, Leofric, Leofwine, and others, whom I do not profess to identify. See Ellis, ii. 68. In a deed of Bishop Ælfwold T. R. E. in Cod. Dipl. vi. 196, we find the signature of a “Dodda cild” (see vol. ii. Appendix G), seemingly a kinsman of Earl Odda. From all these examples, and from the later use of the word, “Childe Waters” and the like, one would think that “cild” was in some way or other a title of honour, though it is not at all easy to see exactly what it implied in the way of rank or office. On the other hand we find an Æthelric (Æilricus) “cild,” as also an Eadwine “cniht,” among the inferior tenants of Battle Abbey. Chron. de Bello, 14, 15.

The story of Wulfnoth, as well as his personality, is puzzling. We hear nothing of the nature of the charge against him or of the punishment which seems to have been designed for him. In the Chronicles we simply read that the accusation was brought and that Wulfnoth took to flight and began to plunder. Florence says “ne caperetur, mox fugam iniit.” Henry of Huntingdon, who does not mention the charge brought by Brihtric, says “Rex exsulaverat Wlnod.” So William of Malmesbury (ii. 165), who brings the story in only casually, in his general picture of the reign of Æthelred. He says nothing of the flight of Wulfnoth or the pursuit of Brihtric. He mentions the storm and adds, “Paucæ de reliquiis multarum factæ, impetu cujusdam Wulnodi, quem rex exlegatum ejecerat, submersæ vel incensæ.” Nor have we the least hint given as to whither Wulfnoth went, or what he did, after he had burned the hundred ships. He may have joined the Danes or have done anything else in the wiking line; I cannot believe that he went and lived quietly in Gloucestershire. In this uncertainty, modern writers seem to have thought that they had full licence to give play to their imaginations, and the results are remarkable. Mr. St. John for instance and M. de Bonnechose display a minute knowledge of the actions and motives of all parties which certainly cannot be got by the dull process of groping in the Chronicles. Let us hear Mr. St. John (Four Conquests, ii. 21);

“About the vicious and bewildered king, the earl of Mercia and his brethren clung like the fabled serpents about Laocoon. They were seven in all—Edric, Brihtric, Elfric, Goda, Ethelwine, Ethelward, and Ethelmere—and between them was incessantly carried on a reckless struggle for pre-eminence. Being all desirous of monopolizing the favour of Ethelred, they plotted against each other, and pursued their designs with relentless vindictiveness.

“Ethelmere, the youngest of the brothers, had a son, Wulfnoth, who for his courage and capacity had been made Childe of the South-Saxons, a post of great honour and distinction. This excited rancorous envy in the breast of his uncle Brihtric, who, in order to compass his overthrow, accused him of treason to the king. Familiar with the cruel and capricious temper of Ethelred, the young earl effected his escape from London.”

The French writer, M. Emile de Bonnechose (Quatre Conquêtes de l’Angleterre, ii. 17), is almost more remarkable than Mr. St. John. “De nouvelles défections anéantirent bientôt les forces navales des Anglo-Saxons: un de leurs chefs, nommé Wulnoth, père du fameux comte Godwin, prit la fuite avec vingt vaisseaux. Britric, commandant de la flotte, poursuivit le fugitif.” No hint whatever _why_ Wulfnoth fled. Presently (ii. 56) we read of “le service que ce Wulnoth rendit au roi Sweyn en lui livrant une partie de la flotte qu’il commandait et en brûlant le reste,” events of which the Chronicles preserve no mention whatever. More amazing than all, Wulfnoth is elsewhere described (ii. 54) as “_churl_ ou _chef_ des Saxons du sud,” much as if one were to talk of a man being “Roturier or Duke of Montmorency.”

NOTE NN. p. 344. THURKILL THE DANE.

This name, like many others, appears in a fuller form in England than in Denmark. The English bearers of it, all doubtless of Danish descent, are always called Thurcytel. The famous Dane himself always appears, whether in Latin, English, or Danish, in a shortened form, Thurkill or something like it, in various spellings.

Our Thurkill comes before us in very different lights in different accounts. In the Chronicles we first hear of him as commanding the fleet which came in 1009. The three Chronicles all agree in saying that soon after Lammas an innumerable fleet came to Sandwich (“þá cóm sona æfter lafmæssam [“hlammessan,” Petrib.] se úngemætlica únfrið here to Sandwic”), but Abingdon alone adds “þe we heton Ðurkilles here.” Florence distinguishes the fleet of Thurkill from the fleet of Heming and Eglaf (“Danicus comes Turkillus sua cum classe ad Angliam venit: exinde mense Augusto alia classis Danorum innumerabilis, cui præerant duces Hemingus et Eglafus,” &c.). But the two fleets meet in Thanet and sail together to Sandwich. We then hear no more of Thurkill by name till 1013, but it is plain that all the ravages done up to Swegen’s invasion in that year were done by “Ðurkilles here.” In 1013 (see p. 360) we suddenly find him on the English side. He is in London with Æthelred (“forðan þær wæs inge sé cyng Æþelred and Þurcyl mid him”), and directly after (see p. 361) we find him and Æthelred together in the fleet in the Thames. This makes it plain that the forty-five ships which went over to Æthelred in 1012 (see p. 356) were Thurkill’s ships or a part of them. It was plainly then that he changed sides. We hear of his fleet again in 1014, when a Danegeld was paid to it (see p. 371); and again in 1015, when Eadric seduced “_the_ forty ships from the King’s service” (“Eadric ealdorman aspeon _þa_ fowertig scipa fram þam cyningc”). But Thurkill’s name is not mentioned again till 1017 (see p. 407) when Cnut gives him one of the four great Earldoms, namely East-Anglia. In 1020 (see p. 426) he appears along with Cnut at the consecration on Assandun; in 1021 (see p. 428) he is outlawed; in 1023 (see p. 429) he is reconciled to the King and seems to become his lieutenant in Denmark, but we hear no more of him in England.

Florence mentions Thurkill whenever he is mentioned in the Chronicles, except in the account of his reconciliation with Cnut, which appears in the Abingdon Chronicle only. He makes matters somewhat plainer about “the forty ships” in 1015, saying that Eadric “de regia classe xl naves, Danicis militibus instructas, sibi allexit.” He also, in recording Thurkill’s banishment in 1021, adds the name of his wife; “Canutus rex ... Turkillum supra dictum comitem cum uxore sua Edgitha expulit Anglia.” It should be noticed that neither in the Chronicles nor in Florence is there any mention of Thurkill during the wars of Cnut and Eadmund in 1016.

As for the charters we can hardly expect to find him signing during the reign of Æthelred. In Cnut’s time, 1018–1019, we find him signing as “dux” (Cod. Dipl. iv. 1, 3, 6, 9). His signature to the document of Healðegen Scearpa in 1026 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 32) is more puzzling, as it would imply a return of Thurkill to England, of which there is no other trace. But that document, though not marked doubtful or spurious by Mr. Kemble, seems to me most suspicious. Godwine signs as “þegen,” but before all the Earls, and the Earls who sign are Siward, Ælfgar, Thurkill, Leofric, Swegen, Tostig, and Eadred. I cannot identify any Earls Ælfgar and Swegen in the time of Cnut, and the Tostig of those days (see Note WWW) is a half-mythical person. It is very doubtful too (see Note CCC) whether Leofric was an Earl so early as 1026, and Siward seems not to have been an Earl till Harthacnut’s time. I cannot help thinking that an unskilful forger adapted the names from some charter of Eadward, and that Swegen and Tostig are the sons of Godwine moved out of their places. I do not think that we can bring Thurkill back to England without some better evidence than this. We must also take care to distinguish Earl Thurkill from several contemporary Thurkills of lesser degree. There is, for instance, a “Ðurkill minister” who signs in 1023 (iv. 27), and a Thurkill the White (“Ðurcil hwíta”) who figures in a private document at iv. 54. He goes into Herefordshire on the King’s errand along with Tofig the Proud. Of another Thurkill, or the same, there is a long story in the Ramsey History, c. 84.

William of Malmesbury seems to have a special dislike to Thurkill. He mentions him only twice (ii. 176, 181), and both times charges him with being the chief instigator of the murder of Ælfheah, which, from the better authority of Thietmar (see Note PP), we know that he tried to hinder. The first passage runs thus;

“Resederat in Anglia Turkillus Danus, qui fuerat incentor ut lapidaretur archiepiscopus, habebatque Orientales Anglos suæ voluntati parentes. Tam cæteri, dato ab Anglis octo millium librarum tributo, per urbes et agros, quo quisque commodius poterat, dilapsi: _quindecim_ eorum naves cum hominibus regis fidem sequutæ. Turkillus interea regem patriæ suæ Suanum nuntiis accersit ut Angliam veniat.”

This is followed by a rhetorical description, put into Thurkill’s mouth, of the vices and weakness of Æthelred and of England. Here are several manifest misstatements; besides the misrepresentation as to the death of Ælfheah, nothing is plainer than that Thurkill, who stood by Æthelred to the last, did not invite Swegen into England. The only question is whether any trace of truth lurks in the words which seem to attribute to Thurkill a settlement in East-Anglia earlier than his investiture with that earldom by Cnut. The other passage is equally unfair. The removal of Thurkill from England is thus described; “Succedente tempore Turkillus et Iricius, ab Anglia captatis occasionibus eliminati, natale solum petierunt; quorum primus, qui incentor necis beati Elfegi fuerat, statim ut Danemarchiæ littus attigit a ducibus oppressus est.” This last statement is directly contradicted by the Chronicles; but it shows us where William of Malmesbury got his notion of Thurkill, namely from the two tracts of Osbern on the martyrdom of Ælfheah and his Translation. In the latter (Anglia Sacra, i. 144) we get a wonderful account of Thurkill. He is “male audax princeps malorum Thyrkyllus, pauco tempore prædo futurus, sed in æternum damnati spiritus præda mansurus”—a hard fate for the co-founder of Assandun and benefactor of Saint Eadmund’s. He remains in England after the death of Ælfheah, but presently Cnut comes, seemingly on the errand of getting rid of Thurkill and his followers (“Cnut ... diffidens ab illo propter quasdam res male ac perfide actas, quidquid residuum infandi populi esse poterat, sicut tabulæ stilo deleri solent, delevit, ipsumque ducem sex tantummodo navibus munitum in Danamarcam fugavit”). Thurkill goes to Denmark; being suspected of a design to stir up civil wars, he is hunted down and killed, and his body is left unburied (“ne intestina bella moliretur, statim per cuncta regionis illius loca agitatus, ad ultimum ab ignobili vulgo occisus, ferisque et avibus est miserabiliter projectus”). This is plainly the source whence William of Malmesbury got his account of Thurkill’s death; still he knew the history too well to accept Osbern’s introduction of Thurkill (ii. 131) as at first a joint commander with Swegen, and then, after Swegen’s death, his successor (“piratæ ... ducibus Swano et Thurkyllo, principibus Danorum fortissimis, nonnullam terræ Anglorum maculam intulerant. Sed Swano ab omnipotenti Deo terribiliter occiso, Thyrkillus malignæ hæreditatis principatum sortitus est”). Osbern evidently looked on Thurkill as the author of all evil, but he does not again mention him by name. It is worth thinking whether William of Malmesbury’s notion of Thurkill’s settlement in East-Anglia at this time arose from any confusion with the partition which, according to Osbern (see Note PP), was to be made between Eadric and the Danes.

William of Malmesbury’s statement that Thurkill invited Swegen into England probably comes from some confusion with the narrative of the Encomiast. This last writer makes (i. 2) Thurkill go to England by Swegen’s leave to avenge the death of a brother who had been killed there, perhaps in the massacre of Saint Brice. But, once in England, he goes over to the English side, and seemingly obtains some establishment in the country (“meridianam partem provinciæ victor obtinet”). One main object of Swegen’s expedition is said to be to win back, by force or persuasion, Thurkill himself and the forty ships of which he has defrauded his sovereign. We hear however nothing more of him till Swegen is dead. When Cnut goes back to Denmark, Thurkill stays in England (ii. 1). His motives are described at length. He then (ii. 3) goes to Cnut with nine ships, leaving thirty in England, to make his peace with him (“memor quod Sueino fecerat, et quod tunc in terra absque licentia domini sui Cnutonis inconsulte remanserat, cum novem navibus earumque exercitu dominum suum requisivit, ut ei patefaceret quia non contra ejus salutem se recedente remanserit”), and to exhort him to a renewed invasion of England. Cnut accordingly comes, and Thurkill is his right hand man throughout the war with Eadmund.

I do not know whether our Thurkill is the same as “Þorkell Hasi,” brother of Heming and son of Earl Strut-Harold, who accompanies Cnut to England in the Knytlinga Saga, c. 8 (Johnstone, 105). This may be the Heming of Florence, 1009.

The history of Thurkill in our Chronicles seems to hang very well together. Patching it up from Thietmar, I infer that he embraced Christianity before the death of Ælfheah, which he strove to hinder. He then took service under Æthelred, and served him faithfully against Swegen. But I do not know how to cast aside the assertion of the Encomiast that Thurkill was prominent on Cnut’s side during the war with Eadmund. Fabulous as are many of the details, this can hardly be mere invention. He may have changed sides when Eadric beguiled the Danes in the English service in 1015 (see above, p. 376), or after Æthelred’s death, at the Southampton election of Cnut.

Thurkill married (see Florence, 1021) an Englishwoman named Eadgyth. Lappenberg (ii. 197, 207) makes her the widow of Ulfcytel, therefore a daughter of Æthelred. But the name of Ulfcytel’s wife seems to have been Wulfhild (see above, p. 654, and Lappenberg, ii. 168), while Eadgyth the daughter of Æthelred was certainly the wife of Eadric. I suspect that it was Eadric’s widow whom Thurkill married. At the same time I cannot lay my hand on any authority for Thurkill’s wife being a daughter of Æthelred; but it is very likely, and such a connexion would account for Cnut’s jealousy of him (see p. 415).

NOTE OO. p. 347. WULFRIC SPOT.

Wulfric appears in the Chronicles simply as “Wulfric Leofwines sunu” without any further description. So in Florence he is simply “Wlfricus Leofwini filius.” He signs a charter of 1002 (Cod. Dipl. vi. 146) as “minister.” In the confirmation of his will by Æthelred (Cod. Dipl. iii. 332) he is described as “nobilis progeniei minister Wlfricus.” He and all the other men who were slain at Ringmere all come in the Chronicles under the head of “feala oðera godra þegna.” I should infer from this that he never held the rank of Ealdorman; but he is called “consul” by Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 753 C) and Bromton (X Scriptt. 888). So the Burton _Chronicle_ printed in the Monasticon, iii. 47, calls him “illustris et præpotens consul ac comes Merciorum Wulfricus Spott regali propinquus prosapiæ.” The Burton _Annals_ however (Luard, Ann. Mon. i. 183) are satisfied with calling him “quidam nobilis nomine Wlfricus cognomento Spot.” He cannot possibly have been Ealdorman of all Mercia, and if he were a subordinate Ealdorman of one of the shires in which his property lay, he could hardly fail to have been somewhere spoken of as “dux” or “comes.” Sir Francis Palgrave (ii. ccxciii.) suggests that he was Ealdorman of Lancaster, on the strength of his possession of lands between the Ribble and the Mersey. This comes from his will, which is printed in Cod. Dipl. vi. 147. But Lancashire, as a shire, is later than Domesday. The lands between Mersey and Ribble appear there as an appendage to Cheshire, while Lancaster is in Yorkshire. Wulfric’s lands between the Ribble and the Mersey are left to Ælfhelm and Wulfheah, no doubt the murdered Ealdorman and his son, to both of whom other bequests are made as well as to Ælfhelm’s other son Ufegeat. A little way on, he leaves lands “Ælfhelme mínan meáge,” and he afterwards speaks of “Ælfhelm mín bróðor.” This may raise some question as to whether he is speaking of one Ælfhelm or more.

Sir Francis Palgrave (ii. ccxci.) makes Wulfric the son of the person called Leofric the Second, brother of Ealdorman Leofwine and uncle of the famous Earl Leofric. But I do not find this even in the very mythical document on which his genealogical table is founded, and of which I shall have again to speak (see Appendix CCC). The Chronicles distinctly describe Wulfric as the son of Leofwine, that is, not the Ealdorman of that name, but one of the many Thegns who bore it. Thus in Cod. Dipl. iii. 322 (a charter signed by Wulfric himself), we have “Leofwine dux,” as distinguished from “Leofwine minister;” and the confirmation charter of Wulfric’s own foundation is signed by “Leofwine dux” and by two several men described as “Leofwine minister.” It would seem from what I have just quoted that Wulfric was a brother of Earl Ælfhelm, and the Burton Chronicle gives him another brother “dux Alwinus,” that is, Ælfwine or Æthelwine, two not uncommon names, both of which will be found among the signatures, as in Cod. Dipl. iii. 345–6, a document which, I may add, is signed by three Leofwines besides the Ealdorman. Wulfric also makes bequests to a daughter of Morkere and Ealdgyth who was his goddaughter (“ic geann mínre goddóhtor Mórcares and Ealdgyðe ðæt lande” etc.). He mentions only one child of his own, who is spoken of rather mysteriously, without any name, as “my poor daughter” (“ic gean mínre earman dehter”), with a hint that there was something wrong about her. She is to hold the land only while she deserves it (“hwile ðe heo hit geearnian cann”), and Ælfhelm is appointed guardian both of her and of the land. The name of Wulfric’s wife, according to the local Chronicle, was Ealhswith.

The foundation of Burton took place, according to the local Chronicles, in 1004, which is the year of the confirmation charter. Wulfric was buried within his own monastery, not however in the church, but in the cloister; “in claustro monasterii sui antedicti sub arcu lapideo juxta ostium ecclesiæ _superioris_” (Mon. iii. 47). Ealhswith, who seems to have died before him, as she is not mentioned in the will, was also buried in the cloister, “juxta ostium ecclesiæ _inferioris_.” It seems then that the cloister had one door into the choir and one door into the nave, that is to say, the ritual choir was west of the crossing. The first Abbot Wulfgeat and his monks came from Winchester; he is said to have lived till 1026, but I doubt whether he signs any charters.

NOTE PP. p. 352. THE TAKING OF CANTERBURY AND THE MARTYRDOM OF ÆLFHEAH.

Of the siege of Canterbury and the martyrdom of Ælfheah—the Alphege of hagiology—we have four distinct accounts. That in the Chronicles of course claims the first place. It was written before 1023, as it speaks of Ælfheah’s body being still at Saint Paul’s and working miracles there, whereas it was translated to Canterbury in 1023. The witness of the Chronicles I of course accept unhesitatingly. And next to it I am inclined to place the narrative in Thietmar of Merseburg, which he heard when it was fresh from the lips of an Englishman named Sewald. He gives a minute account of the martyrdom, which differs a good deal from the popular version, but which falls in very well with the account in the Chronicles, contradicting it in nothing, but explaining it on one or two points. But, oddly enough, Ælfheah is called Dunstan, a strange mistake to have been made by a contemporary, even though a foreigner, but one which shows how great was the fame of Dunstan, and how small the fame of Ælfheah, in Christendom generally. There is also the Life of Ælfheah by Osbern in Anglia Sacra, ii. 122. This is a mere piece of hagiology, in the common style of such lives, and it contains many statements which are untrue or impossible. It is in fact valuable only as affording practice in the art of unravelling the component elements of a romantic story. But the remarkable thing is that the fourth narrative, that of Florence, departs in several important points from the Chronicles and copies either from Osbern, or, what is more likely, from some third source from which Osbern also copied. Florence’s knowledge and good sense kept him from repeating any of Osbern’s grosser absurdities, but he has not improved his narrative by introducing several details which cannot be reconciled with the Chronicles. Simeon simply copies Florence; Henry of Huntingdon follows the Chronicles, with some slight touches from Florence.

The Chronicles (1011) describe the whole event in detail, but they give us only a picture of plunder and captivity, without any mention of slaughter. The Archbishop and the other persons spoken of and a further countless number of clerks and laymen, men and women, were made prisoners (“hi þær genamon inne ealle þa gehadodan men and weras and wif; þæt wæs unasecgendlic ænigum men hu micel þæs folces wǽs”). The word “genamon” which is applied to the mass of the people is the same word which is applied to the Archbishop, who was not put to death till long after, and to others who we know were not put to death at all. The Chronicles then go on to say how the Danes stayed in the city as long as they would, and when they had searched it thoroughly went to their ships (“ðá hí hæfdon þa buruh ealle asmeade, wendon him þá tó scypan”). Then follows a short poem lamenting the captivity of Ælfheah and the wretchedness of the city; but there is not a word to imply any general massacre. Neither is there anything to imply such a massacre in the shorter narrative of Thietmar. But in Osbern (Ang. Sacr. ii. 136, 137) and Florence we get a soul-harrowing account of every possible horror. Men are slaughtered, burned, thrown from the walls, tortured in horrible ways. Women are dragged by their hair and thrown into the fire. Children are tossed on spears or crushed under the wheels of waggons. The whole ends with a systematic _decimation_ of the surviving adult males. By decimation is here meant the slaying, not of one out of ten, but of nine out of ten. This process leaves their lives to four monks and eight hundred laymen. If this is any clew to the population of Canterbury, the monks of the two minsters must have been fewer, and the general population much larger, than one would have expected. The metropolis of England must have gone down, relatively at least, since the eleventh century.

These stories cannot be accepted in the teeth of the speaking silence of the Chroniclers. The narrative of these last is so minute and so pathetic that they could hardly have failed to dwell on the massacre if any massacre had taken place. No doubt some lives were lost; a city was not likely to be taken, least of all by Danes in that age, without the loss of some lives. And here would be material enough for rhetorical hagiologists to work up into the picture given us by Osbern, into which they of course brought in all the horrors that they had ever heard of anywhere.

The reader will perhaps not be inclined to set much store by the authority of Osbern, if he knows the kind of story with which he (ii. 132) introduces the siege. One of the brothers of Eadric, a man “lubricus et superbus” like Brihtric, perhaps Brihtric himself, stirs up the wrath of the thegns of Kent by falsely accusing them to the King, and thereby procuring the confiscation of the estates of many of them. For these misdeeds they kill him and burn his house. Then Eadric, whom the King had made ruler over the whole realm (“totius imperii sui præfectum statuerat”), calls on the King to chastise them. The parts of Eadward and Godwine in a later story are thus transposed. Æthelred refuses to inflict any punishment on the Kentish thegns, affirming the wrong-doer to have been rightfully slain (“jure peremptum”). Eadric then takes the law into his own hands; he collects ten thousand men, who are described as being “optime armati,” and invades Kent at their head. The Kentishmen however resist valiantly, and the expedition fails. He then leagues himself with the Danes (“Danorum conciliabula expetit”) and exhorts them to attack, not Kent only, but the whole of Britain (“ad totius Britanniæ fines invadendos”). He describes the nakedness of the land, how the King—at the age of forty-two—was worn out with years, how the princes and people were all sunk in sloth and luxury. All this happens at a time when Swegen is already dead, and when Thurkill has seemingly succeeded to his power (see above, p. 654). So Eadric and Thurkill agree to divide the kingdom. Eadric is to take the East-Angles, seemingly in addition to his Mercian government, and the Danes are to take the North (“regnum post victoriam æqua sorte dividendum se Orientalibus Anglis principari, illos vero aquilone potiri”). Eadric now joins the Danes in the siege of Canterbury. Thurkill is not personally mentioned, but Eadric presently vanishes from the stage, without any explanation. It might not be hard to resolve this fable into its component parts; it is even possible that Eadric’s attack on the metropolitan city of England is really borrowed from his capture of the metropolitan city of Wales.

A point now arises as to the traitorous churchman who betrayed the city. It is not quite clear whether there were two Ælfmærs or one (see Hook, Lives of Archbishops, i. 466). The Chronicles seem to distinguish Ælfmær the traitor from Ælfmær the Abbot; and Florence distinguishes the traitor as “archidiaconus.” Yet if Ælfmær the Abbot was a different man from Ælfmær the traitor, why should the Danes let Abbot Ælfmær go free, when the Archbishop and the rest were seized? I can only suggest, as seems also to have occurred to Dr. Hook, that the story is the reverse story of that of Cinna the conspirator and Cinna the poet, that the Danes mistook one Ælfmær for the other, and let go the innocent one by mistake.

Abbot Ælfmær undoubtedly kept his abbey, and was afterwards raised to the bishopric of Dorset (W. Thorn, X Scriptt. 1782; Hist. St. Aug. 23, 24). Thorn gives two dates, 1017 and 1022, and makes him resign his see and return to his abbey. He signs various charters of Cnut as Bishop; he also appears as Abbot in a writ of Cnut (Cod. Dipl. iv. 9), addressed to him together with Archbishop Lyfing—therefore before 1020—and Bishop Godwine; also as a witness to the marriage settlement of another Godwine (Cod. Dipl. iv. 10) along with King Cnut and Archbishop Lyfing. We find him also in the doubtful charter of 1023, in Cod. Dipl. iv. 23, 25, where he signs in company with Æthelric, Bishop of Dorset, who otherwise seems to have left off signing in 1009. This Ælfmær must not be confounded with the contemporary Ælfmær, Bishop of the South-Saxons, whose signature also appears to the charter in iv. 25. The annals of his own abbey speak of Ælfmær with great reverence; and, though ordinary traitors might be advanced, a churchman who had had an indirect share in the martyrdom of a saint would hardly meet with any favour at the hands of Cnut or of any one else.

In describing the Archbishop’s martyrdom, I have given no heed to the mythical details in Osbern, but I have formed my narrative from the Chroniclers and Thietmar. There is no contradiction between the two accounts, but each fills up gaps in the other. Thus the statement that Ælfheah first promised a ransom and then refused to pay it comes from Thietmar; this explains the whole story, which otherwise is hardly intelligible. We thus see, what otherwise we do not clearly see, both why the Danes kept Ælfheah so long in bonds, and why they were so bitterly enraged against him when he finally refused to pay. And we can easily see why this part of the story should be left out, as tending somewhat to lessen the martyr’s glory, while it is not easy to see why any one should invent or imagine it. Florence makes the Danes demand a ransom of the Archbishop on one Saturday, and tell him that, if he does not pay it, he shall be killed on the next Saturday (“necem ejus usque ad aliud sabbatum protelant”). He seems to connect the demand with the late vote of the Witan rather than with any promise on the part of Ælfheah himself. The intercession of Thurkill comes from Thietmar; it falls in exactly with his conduct directly after. The words put into his mouth imply that he was already a Christian, which he certainly was, and a zealous one, before long. William of Malmesbury, the consistent persecutor of Thurkill, must be uttering mere calumnies when he says that he was “incentor ut lapidaretur archiepiscopus.” I accept from Florence the name and motive of the Dane Thrim or Thrum, who cleft the Archbishop’s head. The Chronicles simply mention the fact. “Ðrim miles,” “Ðrym dux,” “Ðrim eorl” is a signature attached to more than one charter of Cnut (Cod. Dipl. iv. 17, 23, 25). The documents are suspicious; the title of Earl is specially suspicious. But no one would have invented a signature of Thrim, unless he had seen it attached to some genuine document.

Lappenberg (ii. 177 Thorpe) has some good remarks on the impossibility of Osbern’s general story, though he accepts his account of the horrors at Canterbury. Mr. St. John (ii. 30) amusingly takes Lappenberg to task for “misinterpreting Florence and the Saxon Chronicle.” The truth is that Lappenberg did not misinterpret anything, but that Mr. St. John failed to consult Thietmar, though Lappenberg gave him the reference. Sir Francis Palgrave, when he wrote his small history (p. 297), swallowed the whole tale about Eadric and his brother. M. de Bonnechose (ii. 17) has much to tell us about “un chef farouche nommé Turchtill,” but he does not take him to Canterbury.

As Thietmar’s account of the martyrdom is well worth reading, and as his work is much less accessible than most of my authorities, I transcribe it in full;

“Percepi quoque a relatu prædicti hominis Sewaldi factum miserabile ac idcirco memorabile, quod perfida Northmannorum manus, duce ad hoc Thurkilo, Cantuariæ civitatis egregium antistitem, Dunsten nomine, cum cæteris caperent, et vinculis et inedia ac ineffabili pœna, more suo nefando, constringerent. Hic humana motus fragilitate, pecuniam eis promittit, et ad hanc impetrandam inducias posuit, ut si in his acceptabili redemptione mortem momentaneam evadere nequivisset, semet ipsum gemitibus crebris interim purgaret, hostiam Domino vivam ad immolandum. Transactis tunc omnibus designatis temporibus, vorax picarum charybdis Dei famulum evocat, et sibi promissum celeriter persolvi tributum minaciter postulat. Et ille, ut mitis agnus, ‘Præsto sum,’ inquit, ‘paratus ad omnia quæ in me nunc presumitis facere; ac Christi amore, ut suorum merear fieri exemplum servorum, non sum hodie turbatus. Quod vobis mendax videor, non mea voluntas, sed dira efficit mihi egestas. Corpus hoc meum, quod in hoc exsilio supra modum dilexi, vobis culpabile offero, et quid de eo faciatis in vestra esse potestate cognosco; animam autem meimet peccatricem Creatori omnium, vos non respicientem, supplex committo.’ Talia loquentem profanorum agmen vallavit, et diversa hunc ad interficiendum arma congerit. Quod quum eorum dux Thurcil a longe vidisset, celeriter accurrens: ‘Ne, quæso, sic faciatis!’ infit. ‘Aurum et argentum, et omne quod hic habeo vel ullo modo acquirere possum, excepta navi sola, ne in christum Domini peccetis libenti animo vobis omnibus trado.’ Tam dulci affatu infrenata sociorum ira, ferro et saxis durior, non mollitur, sed effuso innocenti sanguine placatur, quem communiter capitibus boum et imbribus lapidum atque lignorum infusione protinus effundunt. Inter tot frementium impetus potitus est cœlesti jucunditate, ut signi sequentis efficacia protinus testatur.” (Pertz, iii. 849.)

NOTE QQ. p. 360. THE KINGSHIP AND DEATH OF SWEGEN.

That Swegen was acknowledged as King over England seems to be beyond doubt. The Chronicles (1013) say, “And eall þeodscipe hine hæfde þa for fulne cyning.” So Florence; “Ab omni Anglorum populo rex, si jure queat rex vocari, qui fere cuncta tyrannice faciebat, et appellabatur et habebatur.” So Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 754 D); “Suain vero ab omni populo habebatur pro rege;” and again, “Suain jam rex Anglorum.” So, among later writers, Roger of Wendover (i. 447), “Regem Angliæ se jussit appellari;” and Bromton (X Scriptt. 892), “Swanus jam rex Anglorum factus.” William of Malmesbury (ii. 177) loses himself in fine writing; “tota jam Anglia in clientelam illius inclinata.”

On the other hand the English writers are specially fond of giving Swegen the name of _Tyrant_, a name, it must be remembered, which still keeps the meaning which became familiar in the third century (see p. 137), that of “usurper” or “pretender.” We have already seen Florence use the adverb “tyrannice,” and under the year 1014 he begins the account of Swegen’s death with the words, “Suanus tyrannus, post innumerabilia et crudelia mala, quæ vel in Anglia vel in aliis terris gesserat, ad cumulum suæ damnationis,” &c. So William of Malmesbury (ii. 179), rhetorically describing the evil case of England during Swegen’s occupation, says, “Hæsitabatur totis urbibus quid fieret; si pararetur rebellio, assertorem non haberent; si eligeretur subjectio, placido rectore carerent. Ita privatæ et publicæ opes ad naves cum obsidibus deportabantur, quod non esset ille dominus legitimus, sed tyrannus atrocissimus.” This is developed by Roger of Wendover (i. 448); “Swanus ... tyrannus nequissimus ... evidenter apparet ipsum naturalem non esse dominum [cyne-hlaford] sed tyrannum. Hæsitabat populus quid faceret, quia, si bellum quæreret, ductorem non haberet, si subjectionem eligeret, tyrannum rectorem haberet.” The technical and the rhetorical sense of the word are struggling throughout.

It will be seen at once that the former set of passages are much more distinct than the latter, which are intelligible only on the supposition that something happened, just as in the cases of Cnut and William, which at least passed for a regular election. Florence’s scruple about calling Swegen “rex” seems of itself to imply that he had some kind of formal claim to the title. But I imagine that he was never crowned. The remarkable words of the Chronicles that “all the people held him for full King” almost seem to imply that in strictness he was not full King. This would be exactly the position of a King elected but not crowned. No one hints at a coronation, except perhaps the Encomiast, who tells us (i. 5), “Ubi jam sæpedictus rex tota Anglorum patria est _inthronizatus_, et ubi jam pene illi nemo restitit, pauco supervixit tempore, sed tamen illud tantillum gloriose.” But if Swegen had been solemnly crowned and anointed, his panegyrist would hardly have contented himself with so vague a word as “inthronizatus.” Florence again (1013) mentions only Ealdormen and thegns as joining in the submission to Swegen, while in the election of Cnut in 1016 he distinctly speaks of Bishops and Abbots as taking a share. And their absence seems implied in a statement of William of Malmesbury (ii. 177), which, though his narrative is evidently inaccurate in many points, is worth notice. This is that Æthelred (p. 361), before he crossed into Normandy, held a meeting of Bishops and Abbots, as being the only people who still clave to him. “Abbates et episcopos, qui nec in tali necessitate dominum suum deserendum putarent, in hanc convenit sententiam.”

This at once brings us to the problem of Swegen’s religion. There seems no reason to doubt the account of his early baptism, his apostasy, his rebellion against his father. The English and German writers seem to know nothing of any reconversion. With Thietmar, for instance, a writer absolutely contemporary, who wrote while the events of 1016 were the last news of the day (see vii. 27, 28; Pertz, iii. 848), Swegen is to the end the “immitis Danorum rex” (vii. 26) and “Suennus persecutor” (28). But the Danish chroniclers assert a repentance and reconversion. So the Chronicle of Eric (Langebek, i. 158) mentions the baptism of Harold Blaatand and the parricidal war of Swegen, without however mentioning Swegen’s early baptism. Thus we read how Swegen “de regno expulsus, tandem ad Christi fidem conversus, baptizatus est et mox, Deo favente, regnum suum recepit.” So the Chronicle of Roskild (i. 376); “Christianis valde inimicus, quos etiam finibus suis expelli præcepit ... tandem Deum cognovit post flagella, quem cœpit quærere eique credere.” We then read how he founded churches and brought Bishop Bernhard from Norway into Scania. So Saxo first (186) describes his persecutions, and then (188) tells of his conversion, how he was “fortunæ sævitia ad amplectendam religionis caritatem adactus.” He too places Swegen’s baptism at this stage; “Quinetiam cunctis circa se rite peractis, lavacri usum promptissimo religionis tenore percepit.” He then, as well as the Roskild Chronicle, goes on to tell of the churches and bishoprics which he founded, and especially how he brought the English Bishop Bernhard from Norway to Lund. But Adam (ii. 53) attributes all this to Cnut. Saxo becomes (191) almost affecting on Swegen’s piety in his old age; “Sveno senilis animæ laboribus fessus, divinis rebus infatigabilem ultimi temporis curam tribuit,” &c. So the Encomiast (i. 5) tells us of the good and Christian advice, as well as the instructions in the art of government, which he gave to his son Cnut before his death; “Præsciens igitur dissolutionem sui corporis imminere, filium suum Cnutonem quem secum habuit advocat, sese viam universæ carnis ingrediendum indicat. Cui dum multa de regni gubernaculo multaque hortaretur de Christianitatis studio, Deo gratias, illi, virorum dignissimo sceptrum commisit regale.”

When we balance the two sets of authorities, I think we shall hardly be inclined to reject the implied witness of the German and English writers in favour either of a careless writer like Saxo or of an abandoned flatterer like the Encomiast. The English legend of his death implies a kind of half belief in the power of Saint Eadmund which is really not unlikely in such a case. It has a kind of parallel in a story of a Danish chief, perhaps the Guthrum-Æthelstan who was found making a vow to Saint Patrick. (See Dr. Todd’s Introduction to the Wars of the Gaedhill and the Gaill, lxiv, lxv, xciii.) We have the like contradictions as to Swegen’s death. The Encomiast goes on to tell us how he prayed his son that his body might be taken to Denmark, and makes incidentally an admission of some importance. Swegen would not be buried in England; “noverat enim quia pro invasione regni illis odiosus erat populis.” He then dies; “Nec multo post postrema naturæ persolvit debita, animam remittendo cœlestibus, terræ autem reddendo membra.” Saxo also (191) makes him die very quietly, perhaps in the odour of sanctity; “Omni humana concussione vacuus, in ipso perfectissimæ vitæ fulgore decessit.” The English story, as it is told by Florence, I have given in the text. The Chronicle records only that “he ended his days.” William of Malmesbury (ii. 179) had heard more stories than one; “pervasor ... ambiguum qua morte, vitam effudit.” He then goes on to tell the story in a form slightly different from that of Florence: Swegen seems to have reached Bury and to be actually harrying the lands of Saint Eadmund; “Dicitur quod terram Sancti Edmundi depopulanti martyr idem per visum apparuerit, leniterque de miseria conventum insolentiusque respondentem in capite perculerit, quo dolore tactum in proximo, ut prædictum est, obiisse.” The Knytlinga Saga, c. 6 (Johnstone, 89), makes Swegen’s death sudden, but says significantly that he died in his bed; “urdo þau tídindi þar, at Sveinn konungr Haralldsson vard bráddaudr um nott í ’reckio sinni.” The tale then goes on to speak of the legend as one told by Englishmen; “Oc er þat sögn Enskra manna, at Eadmundr hinn helgi hafi drepit hann, med þeima hætti sem hinn helgi Mercurius drap Julianum _níding_.” There is no mention of Saint Mercurius in Florence, but the comparison between Julian and Swegen, according to the English notion of Swegen, is obvious enough, and the name “níding” (= the English “niðing”) applied to Julian is worth notice. In after times Orderic (518 A) attributes the death of Swegen to Saint Eadmund, but without details; “A sancto Edmundo jussu Dei peremptus est.” In Orderic’s eyes Swegen is still “vesanus idololatra.” The same story is told of the Bulgarian King Kalojohannes, who died before Thessalonica in 1207. He was smitten by Saint Dêmêtrios, just as Swegen was by Saint Eadmund. See the Notes to Georgios Akropolites, p. 236 ed. Bonn, and Jireček, Geschichte der Bulgaren, p. 242. There is another tale of the same kind in p. 246.

As for Swegen’s body, Thietmar (vii. 28) says, in a marked but not very clear way; “hujus proles, multum in omnibus patrissantes, dilecti genitoris corpus delatum flebiliter suscipiunt et tumulant, et quidquid dedecoris patri suimet ingeri ab Anglis propositum est, paratis navibus ulcisci studebant.” This must be taken in connexion with the significant remark of the Encomiast quoted in the last paragraph. He presently goes on (ii. 3) to tell us how an English lady (“quædam matronarum Anglicarum”)—had Swegen found his Eadgyth Swanneshals in England?—dug up the body which had been buried in England (“assumpto corpore Sueini regis sua in patria sepulti”), embalmed it, and carried it in a ship to Denmark. She then summoned Cnut and Harold to come and bury their father in the place which he had himself appointed. They come accordingly and bury him honourably in the tomb which he had himself made in the minster of the Holy Trinity of his own rearing (“honorificentiusque illud in monasterio in honore sanctæ Trinitatis ab eodem rege constructo, in sepulcro quod sibi paraverat recondunt”). From the Saga of Olaf Tryggvesson (Johnstone, 101), which says nothing about the manner of Swegen’s death, we find that this minster is Roskild. “Sveirn konungr andadist í Englandi oc færdo Danir han til Danmerkur oc grofo þan í Hroiskeldo hia födr sinum.” The English lady is here left out.

NOTE RR. p. 369. THE SERMON OF WULFSTAN OR LUPUS.

There is, I suppose, no question that the person affectedly described as “Lupus” is really Archbishop Wulfstan. And I have little doubt in fixing the discourse to the year 1014. This is the date given in the heading of one of the manuscripts, while another has 1008. In an insertion in the text itself the discourse is said to have been delivered four years before the death of Æthelred. “Ðis wæs on Æþelredes cyningcs dagum gediht, feower geara fæce ær he forðferde.” This would at first sight look as if the right year were 1012. But the discourse itself contains a passage which shows that it must be later than Æthelred’s flight in 1013. The speaker says (p. 102) that the two most shameful deeds that can be done are to compass one’s lord’s death and to drive him out of the land. Each of these crimes, he says, has been done in England (“ægðer is geworden on ðysum earde”); Eadward has been murdered; we expect the speaker to add that Æthelred has been driven out; but either some words have been lost in the text or else Wulfstan left it to his hearers to fill up the gap for themselves. But in any case the passage would have no force or meaning at any time before Æthelred’s flight. And I am not sure that it is not possible, by a little chronological subtlety, to reconcile the date of 1014 with the other date of four years before the death of Æthelred. The year begins at different times in different reckonings. In a chronology which made the year begin at Lady-day, Æthelred’s death on April 23, 1016 would come in a year 1016–1017, while, if the sermon was preached before March 25, in a year 1013–1014, this might possibly be called the fourth year before the other. It may no doubt have been delivered just at the end of what we should call the year 1013, but the matter of the discourse agrees so well with the matter of the decrees of the Gemót of 1014 that one is strongly tempted to connect the two. It cannot in any case belong to 1012. See p. 361.

It is remarkable how little strictly historical information the speech gives us. Indeed the one historical fact which it mentions is wrong, as Wulfstan says that the body of Eadward the Martyr was burned (“Eadweard man forræde and syððan acwealde and æfter þam forbærnde”). But it is none the less valuable as a picture of the wretchedness of the times, a picture which goes very much into detail in its general descriptions, though without mentioning the names of persons or places. I have summed up most of the chief points in the text. Among the passages which are most worthy of notice are those which relate to the slave-trade. The orator first says (p. 100);

“Earme men syndon sare beswicene and hreowlice besyrwde and ut of þysum earde wide gesealde swyþe unforworhte fremdum to gewealde, and cradolcild geðeowode þurh wælhreowe unlaga for lytelre ðyfðe wide gynd ðas þeode. And freo riht fornumene and ðrælriht genyrwde and ælmesriht gewanode.”

The other passage (102) says;

“Eac we witan full georne hwær seo yrmð gewearð þæt fæder gesealde his bearn wið weorðe, and bearn his modor, and broðor sealde oðerne fremdum to gewealde ut of ðisse ðeode.”

Slavery also brought its own punishment in other ways. The slaves often joined the heathen invaders (“ðeh þræla hwylc hlaforde æthlæpe and of cristendome to wicinge weorðe”); sometimes a thegn’s slave led his own master into slavery (“and oft þræl ðæne ðegen ðe ær wæs his hlaford, cnyt swyðe fæste and wyrcð him to þræle, ðurh Godes yrre”). The lustful excesses of Englishmen, several of whom would hire a harlot in common (p. 102), were avenged by the outrages of the invaders on the wives and daughters of English thegns (“and oft tyne oððe twelfe, ælc after oðrum, scendað and tawiað to bismore micelum ðæs ðegenes cwenan, and hwilum his dohtor oððe nyd magan; þær he onlocað þa læte hine sylfne rancne and rincne and genoh godne ær þæt gewurðe.” p. 103. Cf. Herod, viii. 33). Two or three pirates drove all the people from sea to sea (“oft twegen sæmen oððe ðry hwilum drifað ða drafe Cristenra manna fram sæ to sæ ut ðurh ðæs ðeode gewelede togædere.” p. 103).

Lastly, there is an apparent allusion to the capture of Canterbury and captivity of Ælfheah and others, which certainly falls in better with my notion of that event than with the notion of a general massacre. “We hym gyldað singallice, and hy us hynað dæghwamlice: hy hergiað and hy bærnað, rypað and _ræpiað and to scipe lædað_.” (p. 103). This almost sounds like the poem in the Chronicles about Ælfheah. One might almost have thought that the speech was made during the time of Ælfheah’s imprisonment, but the manifest allusion to the flight of Æthelred forbids this.

NOTE SS. p. 372. THE CHILDREN OF ÆTHELRED.

The list of the children of Æthelred, among the genealogies given by Florence (i. 275, Thorpe), is manifestly imperfect. He is there said to have had by his first wife Ælfgifu, the daughter of Ealdorman Æthelberht, three sons, Eadmund, Eadwig, and Æthelstan, and one daughter, Eadgyth. He then mentions the two sons of Emma, Ælfred and Eadward, but does not mention Emma’s daughter Godgifu. This list is copied by R. Higden (270) and Knighton (2314), only changing Ælfgifu daughter of Æthelberht into Æthelgifu daughter of Ecgberht. The three sons of the first marriage here mentioned are those who survived to play a part in the history, but it appears from the charters that Ælfgifu, if that was her name, was the mother of several other sons. I quote the doubtful charters along with the genuine ones, as this is the kind of point in which one who either forged a charter or wrote down a lost charter from memory would be sure to reproduce what he had seen in genuine documents. Thus in a doubtful charter of 990 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 250) we have the signatures of Æthelstan, Ecgberht or Ecgbriht, Eadmund, Eadred, Eadwig, Eadgar, and Eadward. All sign with the title of “clito,” which is of course equivalent to Ætheling. In iii. 270, we have Æthelstan, Ecgbriht, Eadmund, and Eadred, all with the title of “regis filius.” At iii. 308, a seemingly genuine charter of 998, we have the “clitones” Æthelstan, Ecgbriht, Eadmund, Eadred, Eadwig. In iii. 314 (999) we have Æhelstan and Eadred. In iii. 321 (1001) Æthelstan, Ecgbriht, Eadmund, Eadred, Eadwig, and Eadgar; and the same list in iii. 325 (1002). At iii. 330, in a doubtful charter of 1004, Æthelstan, as the eldest son, signs on behalf of his brothers. In a genuine charter of the same year (iii. 334) we have the same list which I have already quoted with the omission of the name Eadred. In vi. 142 (1002) we have the same list with the name of Eadred. In another of the same year, vi. 146, the list stands, Æthelstan, Ecgbriht, Eadmund, Eadward, Eadwig, Eadgar. In vi. 153 (1005) the list is Æthelstan, Ecgbriht, Eadmund, Eadric, Eadwig, Eadgar, Eadward. In 1007 (vi. 156) it stands, Æthelstan, Eadmund, Eadred, Eadwig, Eadgar, Eadward. In another of the same year (vi. 159) Æthelstan signs on behalf of all his brothers (“Ego Æðelstanus filius regis cum fratribus meis clitonibus adplaudens consensi”). In a doubtful charter of 1013 (vi. 166) the signatures are Æthelstan, Eadmund, Eadward, Ælfred, and Eadwig, and in a genuine one of 1014 (vi. 169) we have Eadmund, Eadwig, Eadward, and Ælfred. Lastly, in 1015 (vi. 171) we have Eadmund and Eadward only.

From all this it seems certain that Æthelstan was the eldest son and Eadmund the third, the intermediate brother Ecgbriht dying, it would seem, about 1005. It now becomes an important point whether Æthelstan was alive at the time of his father’s death. This I shall discuss in another Note. His will (iii. 361), a very important document, of which I shall have to speak again, is witnessed by Eadmund, and contains bequests both to him and to Eadwig. We may perhaps also infer that Eadred was dead as well as Ecgbriht, and Eadric also, if the single signature of that name be not a mistake. But from the mention of “brothers” (“fratres”) of Eadmund as surviving him (see page 405) one might be inclined to think that one at least of Eadmund’s younger brothers, besides Eadwig, was alive at the beginning of 1017. For Cnut had much more reason to dread opposition from Eadmund’s brothers of the whole blood than from the sons of Emma. And if Æthelstan, Ecgbriht, and perhaps Eadred, were dead, Eadgar might be alive. There would also seem to have been an Eadward a son of the first marriage, as (to say nothing of the doubtful charter of 990, and of that of 984, mentioned below) Eadward the son of Emma could not have signed in 1002, though he might in 1005, if the pen was held in the child’s hand. If so, this elder Eadward doubtless died before the birth of his namesake.

Of the daughters of the first marriage Florence mentions only Eadgyth the wife of Eadric. But we seem to have evidence enough for Wulfhild the wife of Ulfeytel (see p. 654) and for Ælfgifu the wife of Uhtred (see p. 330). We also need a fourth daughter to account for the King’s son-in-law Æthelstan, who died in the battle of Ringmere (see p. 347).

The mother of these children, as I have said, is called by Florence Ælfgifu, the daughter of Ealdorman Æthelberht. I cannot however find any Ealdorman of that name. Æthelred of Rievaux (X Scriptt. 362, 372) calls her the daughter of Earl Thored (see p. 661). William of Malmesbury (ii. 179) professes ignorance of her name, and speaks of her birth as ignoble; “Erat iste Edmundus non ex Emma natus, sed ex quadam alia quam fama obscura recondit.” He then goes on to magnify Eadmund, saying that he was one “qui patris ignaviam, matris ignobilitatem, virtute sua probe premeret si Parcæ parcere nossent.” Roger of Wendover speaks nearly to the same effect in i. 451. I do not understand Lappenberg’s note (431, ii. 163 Thorpe), where he quotes the Scholiast on Adam of Bremen as calling her “Afficud,” which he takes to be Ælflæd. Mr. Thorpe (Dipl. Angl. 542) further identifies her with the Æthelflæd whose will he has there printed. But, at least in Pertz’ edition (ii. 51, Schol. 39), the name is “Afelrud,” and she is described as the step-mother of Eadward the son of Eadgar, that is, of course, Ælfthryth. I would rather identify her with the Ælfgifu whose will appears in Cod. Dipl. iii. 359. This cannot belong to Ælfgifu-Emma, as it speaks of her sister Ælfwaru and her brother’s wife Æthelflæd. (These three names again come together in the will of Wynflæd, Cod. Dipl. iii. 293.) It reads to me like the will of a King’s wife, yet it contains bequests not only to the Ætheling but to the Lady. Mr. Kemble gives it the date of 1012, and a bequest to Bishop Æthelwold (1006–1014) shows that it cannot be far from that date. Several questions arise out of this. Was Æthelred’s first wife divorced to make room for the Norman Lady? Or was she only a mistress or Danish wife? I do not think she is ever called “regina,” and Æthelred of Rievaux seems pointedly to contrast her with “regina Emma.” And again, were all these sons and daughters children of one mother? There is a very strange charter (Cod. Dipl. iii. 204) which must be spurious or at least wrongly dated, as Æthelred, born in 969, cannot have had six sons in 984; but the signatures are worth notice from their very strangeness. They run thus, “Æðelstan,” “Eadgar clito,” “Eadmund frater prædicti clitonis,” “Eadweard clito,” “Eadward filius regis,” “Eadwig frater clitonum.” This does not read like a list of sons of one mother. Lappenberg (u. s.) makes Æthelred marry in his seventeenth year, but I have not found his authority. At any rate his third son Eadmund cannot have been born, as Roger of Wendover (i. 422) tells us, in 981, when Æthelred was twelve years old.

It should again be noticed that in the will of Æthelstan (Cod. Dipl. iii. 363) there is no mention of his mother, living or dead, and that he speaks of his grandmother Ælfthryth as having reared him (“Ælfðryðe mínre ealdormódor ðe me áfédde”). Ælfthryth was living in 999, as appears by her signature in Cod. Dipl. iii. 314; perhaps later, as she (Cod. Dipl. iii. 353) addresses a writ to Archbishop Ælfric who lived to 1006. The young Æthelings and their grandmother are again spoken of in the will of Wynflæd (Cod. Dipl. iii. 292), which, as mentioning Archbishop Sigeric, comes between 990 and 994. But here again is no mention of their mother, unless she lurks among the cloud of witnesses, “Ælfwaru, Ælfgifu, and Æthelflæd,” names which we have just before seen in company.

I am afraid therefore that I must leave the first marriage of Æthelred shrouded in some obscurity. The Scandinavian writers cut the knot by giving all Æthelred’s children to Emma. Thus in the Knytlinga Saga (Johnstone, 130) Cnut is called Eadmund’s stepfather, and again (139) Emma is distinctly called the mother of Eadmund and his brothers. So Snorro (ib. 97), speaking of the Norman Dukes, says expressly that Emma, daughter of Richard and sister of Dukes William and Robert, whomever he may mean, married Æthelred, and was mother of Eadmund, Eadward the Good, Eadwig, and Eadgar (“Eadmundr oc Eadvardr hinn gódi, Eatvígr oc Eatgeir”). It is odd that the last two names should have been remembered.

So Thietmar (Pertz, vii. 28) mistakes Æthelstan and Eadmund for children of Emma. Walter Map, on the other hand (De Nugis, 203), confounds the sons of Emma with their nephews, the sons of Eadmund and Ealdgyth. At least Eadward and Ælfred reached Normandy (see p. 361) only by the help of the Hungarian King. Cnut, having married Emma, tries in vain to find her sons; “Rapuerat enim eos, ut præparavit Altissimus, a tumultu et turbine miles quidam, et clam in cymba positos in portum impulit, et regiis ornatos insigniis cum brevi cognitionis et cognationis eorum dispositioni divinæ supposuit. Illi autem in die secundo a mercatoribus Pannoniæ vagientes inventi sunt, et ab Hungarorum rege redempti, et ad avunculum suum ducem [Normannorum sc.] remissi.” This story is one of a whole class of tales of persons exposed in boats. See Historical Essays, First Series, p. 13.

NOTE TT. p. 381. THE ELECTIONS OF CNUT AND EADMUND.

Cnut may be said to have been three times elected to the crown. The first time is in 1014, on the death of his father Swegen (see p. 367), when the election was made wholly by the Danish fleet, and when the Witan of England passed their vote for the restoration of Æthelred. But on the death of Æthelred he seems to have been more regularly elected by a large portion at least of the English Witan. The fact is not stated in the Chronicles, but it is distinctly affirmed by Florence, and the words of the Chronicles (1016), if carefully studied, will perhaps be found to give the statement of Florence a negative confirmation. It is only the latest and least authoritative version of the Chronicles, the Canterbury manuscript, which states the election of Eadmund to have been an act of the Witan of all England; “And æfter his [Æðelredes] ende ealle Angelcynnes witan gecuron Eadmund to cinge.” The three other Chroniclers seem carefully to mark the act as more partial and local. They say only, “And þá æfter his ende ealle ða witan þá on Lundene wǽron and seo burhwaru gecuron Eadmund to cýninge.” When we remember that London was the only place which still held out, and that Wessex itself was in the power of Cnut, we shall probably have little difficulty in accepting the account in Florence. His words are as follows;

“Cujus [Ægelredi] post mortem, episcopi, abbates, duces, et quique nobiliores Angliæ, in unum congregati, pari consensu, in dominum et regem sibi Canutum elegere, et ad eum in Suthamtonia venientes, omnemque progeniem regis Ægelredi coram illo abnegando repudiantes, pacem cum eo composuere, et fidelitatem illi juravere; quibus et ille juravit quod, et secundum Deum et secundum seculum, fidelis esse vellet eis dominus. At cives Lundonienses, et pars nobilium, qui eo tempore consistebant Lundoniæ, clitonem Eadmundum unanimi consensu in regem levavere.”

I accept then the double election, and there can be no doubt that the election of Eadmund was the earlier of the two. The Witan of his party were on the spot, while those who chose Cnut had to come together from various places to Southampton. The election of Eadmund also seems to have been followed by a coronation, while the election of Cnut answered rather to the submission made to William at Berkhampstead, between which and his coronation at Westminster some little time passed. Florence seems pointedly to exclude a coronation of Cnut, while, though he does not distinctly affirm, he seems rather to imply the ceremony in the case of Eadmund. For he immediately adds, “qui solii regalis sublimatus culmine, intrepidus West-Saxoniam adiit sine cunctatione.” And Eadmund’s coronation in Saint Paul’s by Lyfing appears in three later, but two of them very respectable, authorities. Ralph de Diceto, in his series of Archbishops of Canterbury (Ang. Sacr. ii. 683), says of Lyfing, “Hic consecravit Edmundum Ferreum Latus, et postmodum Cnutonem regem Daciæ.” So Bromton (904), “Londonienses cum nonnulla parte procerum Edmundum filium regis Ethelredi in regem levaverunt, qui a Livingo Dorobernensi archiepiscopo apud Londonias consecratus est.” And in the list of coronations in the Rishanger volume (426) we read,

“Anno gratiæ millesimosexto-decimo, Londoniis, coronatio Edmundi Ferrei Lateris, filii regis Ethelredi, qui in eodem anno proditionaliter interfectus, Glastoniæ est sepultus.

“Anno gratiæ millesimo septimo-decimo, Londoniis, coronatio Cnutonis regis, filii _David_. Hic vicesimo regni anno mortuus, apud Wyntoniam est humatus.”

I have no notion whatever why Swegen or Otto should be called David; but these entries in Rishanger, though not contemporary, are not the _obiter dicta_ of a man who is carelessly compiling a story, but the assertions of a man who is giving the results of his special inquiries into a special subject. As therefore there is no contemporary authority to set against them, and as they fit in with the slight indication in Florence, I accept them. Lyfing then was one of the Witan who were in London with Eadmund, and he performed the ceremony of Eadmund’s royal consecration at once on his election. But Cnut remained uncrowned till after his second or third election after the death of Eadmund. This was doubtless one reason among others why, in the agreement between Cnut and Eadmund, the Imperial dignity remained with the West-Saxon.

It is worth noticing that both candidates were most likely chosen over the heads of their own elder brothers. Cnut clearly was so chosen at his first election by the Danish fleet. In choosing a successor to Swegen in his conquered kingdom of England, Harold, who succeeded him in Denmark (see p. 366), was passed by in favour of his more promising brother. At the Southampton election Cnut was chosen on the same grounds on which William was afterwards chosen, because he was the conqueror, and a conqueror far more fully in possession of the conquered land than William was in December 1066. If Harold had any share in the war, he was altogether overshadowed by his brother. But was Eadmund the eldest surviving son of Æthelred? We have seen in the last Note that he had two elder brothers, Æthelstan and Ecgbriht. Of these there can be little doubt that Ecgbriht was dead, but the case is not so clear about Æthelstan. One story, which I shall have to examine in the next Note, seems to hint that he took a part in the war of Cnut and Eadmund and died during its course. His will, of which I have already spoken and shall have to speak again, was made during his father’s lifetime, but it does not follow that he died before his father. The point is an obscure one, but it is worth inquiring into, for to choose a younger brother over the head of an elder, though a perfectly legal measure, was a strong and unusual one. If it be the fact, it does equal honour to both brothers. The merits of Eadmund must have been great, if he was thus preferred to an elder brother, while no praise can be too great for the conduct of Æthelstan in quietly accepting and loyally serving a younger brother thus chosen over his own head.

Another question arises as to the ecclesiastical position of Cnut at the time of the Southampton election. It is not very clear when Cnut was baptized; our notices on this point have to be sought for in rather out of the way places. In the Aquitanian history of Ademar, iii. 55 (Pertz, iv. 140), we read, “Rex Canotus de Danamarcha paganus, mortuo Adalrado rege Anglorum, regnum ejus dolo cepit et reginam Anglorum in conjugium accepit, quæ erat soror comitis Rotomensis Richardi, et factus Christianus utraque regna tenuit, et quoscumque potuit ex paganis de Danamarcha ad fidem Christi pertraxit.” Another manuscript adds, “Pater ejus paganus nomine _Asquec_ solum regnum de Danamarca tenuit.” “Asquec” as the name of Cnut’s father seems at first sight as incomprehensible as the name David, but Pertz is doubtless right in hinting that it is a corruption of his nickname _Tveskiæg_, “Fork-beard,” or, in plain English, _Two-shag_. The religion of Swegen, as we have seen, is a problem, but the chances are certainly against his son being baptized in his infancy. One Danish Chronicler, as we have already seen (see p. 375), makes Cnut be baptized by Unwan, Archbishop of Bremen, in the middle of his war with Æthelred; and this may seem to draw some confirmation from the statement of the Scholiast on Adam of Bremen, 38 (ii. 50); “Knut, filius Suein regis, abjecto nomine gentilitatis, in baptismo Lambertus nomen accepit. Unde scriptum est in libro fraternitatis nostræ Lambrecht rex Danorum, et Imma regina, et Knut filius eorum, devote se commendaverunt orationibus fratrum Bremensium.” If Cnut was baptized by the name of Lambert, he was none the less always called by his heathen name, just as his father was never known as Otto, nor Rolf as Robert. We also read in Osbern’s tract on the Translation of Saint Ælfheah (Ang. Sacr. ii. 144) that Archbishop Æthelnoth was “regi [Cnutoni] propterea quod illum sancto chrismate livisset valde acceptus.” This cannot refer to his coronation, which was not performed by Æthelnoth, and it can hardly refer to his baptism. I suspect therefore that it refers to confirmation, and that Cnut was confirmed at the time of the Southampton election. His case would thus be very like that of the elder Olaf (see above, p. 290), who was confirmed after a much earlier baptism at the time of his peace with Æthelred. The Christianity of Cnut at the time of that election is plainly implied in the words of the oath put into his mouth by Florence.

The final accession of Cnut after the death of Eadmund forms the first entry in each of the four Chronicles under the year 1017; “Hér on þissum geare _feng_ Cnut kyning _tó_ eallon Angelcynnes [Englalandes, Ab.] _ryce_.” The Winchester Chronicle alone, in one of its short and occasional entries, says, “Her Cnut wearð _gecoren_ to kinge.” The expression in the other four is probably chosen advisedly; for, as Cnut succeeded by virtue of the terms of the Olney compact, there was no need of any formal election. Florence, whose fuller account I have followed in the text, uses the words expressive of election only in a sort of incidental way; “Ipse juraverunt illi quod eum regem sibi eligere vellent, eique humiliter obedire.” What he chiefly insists on is the examination of the witnesses—false witnesses, as he says they were—to show that Cnut really was entitled to succeed under the compact. Florence divides the details of Cnut’s accession between the two years 1016 and 1017; he might thus be thought to speak of two distinct assemblies; but as there is no trace of more than one in the Chronicles, I am disposed to think that the two accounts are merely two narratives of the proceedings of the same Gemót, perhaps rather unskilfully borrowed from two sources. Florence begins the year on the first of January, and the ordinary session of a Midwinter Gemót, taking in the twelve days of Christmas, would really extend into both years. The coronation of Cnut, like the coronation of Harold, most likely took place on the feast of the Epiphany. We have seen that there is every reason to believe that the ceremony was performed in Saint Paul’s by Archbishop Lyfing. The coronation, it must be remembered, would involve the ecclesiastical election by clergy and people. See vol. iii. p. 627.

How utterly the real story was forgotten, and above all how utterly the true position of Cnut at the time of his father’s death passed out of his mind, is nowhere better shown than in the version of Walter Map (De Nugis, 202). The English, according to him, especially the Londoners, were so tired of Æthelred that they sent for help to Cnut, who, it would seem, had already founded his Northern Empire. “Erat illa tempestate regum omnium ditissimus et strenuissimus Dacorum rex Chnutus. Hic ab optimatibus Angliæ vocatus, et frequentibus epistolis illectus, non invitis sed invitantibus Anglicis et cum gaudio suscipientibus, cum exercitu nimio in Danesiam illapsus est, quæ nunc usque dicitur a Dacis, ut aiunt, Danesia.” (Where is “Danesey”?) Presently, Cnut comes, “ab invitatoribus suis Londoniensibus susceptus.”

NOTE VV. p. 383. THE WAR OF CNUT AND EADMUND.

The English narratives of this great year of battles agree well together on the whole, and I see no difficulty in accepting the story as it is given in them. The part played by Eadric is indeed hard to understand, but so is his career throughout, and I can see no ground for casting aside the unanimous witness of our authorities and placing any arbitrary conjecture in its stead. We have first the narrative in the Chronicles. The three elder versions agree together, with only the smallest verbal differences; the later Canterbury Chronicle gives the story in an abridged shape; Florence, William of Malmesbury, and Henry of Huntingdon, tell essentially the same story. Their versions are plainly grounded on the history in the Chronicles, seemingly with some help from contemporary songs. This is especially plain in Henry of Huntingdon. His narrative of this campaign, like his narrative of the campaign of Stamfordbridge (see vol. iii. p. 733), is a mere meagre abridgement till he reaches the battle of Assandun, when he lights up and gives a spirited account, which evidently comes from a ballad. In all these accounts, whether coming from Chroniclers or from minstrels, the treason of Eadric stands out distinctly. And it stands out no less distinctly in the account given from the Danish side by the author of the Encomium Emmæ, of which I shall speak more presently.

I will now mention a few points in detail, in which the English writers differ from one another, or which call for attention on any other ground.

It is, I think, plain that Eadmund, on leaving London, was at once accepted by the West-Saxons, or such part of them as he had been able to reach before he was overtaken by Cnut at Penselwood. These would be the forces of Somerset, Dorset, Devonshire, and part of Wiltshire. This we gather from Florence’s account of the battle of Sherstone. The Chronicle says distinctly, “Eadmund cyng ... gerad þa Westsexon, and him beah eall folc tó.” So Florence more fully, “Intrepidus West-Saxoniam adiit sine cunctatione, et ab omni populo magna susceptus gratulatione, suæ ditioni subegit eam citissime; quibus auditis multi Anglorum populi magna cum festinatione illi se dederunt voluntarie.”

No doubt, as soon as Eadmund’s standard was once raised, volunteers would drop in from all parts which were not actually occupied by a Danish military force. The expressions of Florence implying something like a conquest, though of course a perfectly willing conquest, of Wessex by Eadmund will be understood if we remember that Cnut was actually the acknowledged King, by the choice of all the Witan who were not actually within the walls of London. I do not quite understand William of Malmesbury (ii. 180), who seems to think that Eadmund took a force with him from London (“oppidani Edmundum in regem conclamant. Ipse, mox congregato exercitu, apud Pennam juxta Gilingeham Danos fugavit”), and that the West-Saxons did not acknowledge him till after the battle of Sherstone—“quo facto West-Saxonum conversi animi dominum legitimum cognoverunt.”

I see no reason to doubt that the Sceorstan of the Chronicles is Sherstone in Wiltshire, and not Chimney in Oxfordshire, as suggested by Mr. Thorpe in his note on Florence. Mr. Thorpe objects that Florence places the battle “in Hwiccia,” and that Sherstone, as being in Wiltshire, does not answer that description. But Florence also places the battle of Pen “in Dorsetania,” which Pen Selwood is not, though Gillingham is. But both Sherstone and Pen Selwood are so near to the marches of their respective shires, that military operations may well have extended in both cases beyond the border.

As for the details of the battle of Sherstone, I have mainly followed Florence. The story of Eadric pretending that Eadmund was dead no doubt comes from a ballad, but I do not see that that makes it at all untrustworthy. A contemporary ballad, such as that of Maldon or the lost ballad on which Henry of Huntingdon must have founded his account of Stamfordbridge, is surely very good authority. But while Florence and William of Malmesbury place the story at Sherstone, Henry of Huntingdon transfers it to Assandun; he therefore leaves out the incident of Eadric’s striking off the man’s head or otherwise professing to have killed Eadmund, a story which was of course inconsistent with Eadric’s position at Assandun, where he held a command on Eadmund’s side. But this incident is surely an essential part of the story; it is not Florence and William who have added it, but Henry who has left it out. William of Malmesbury simply says that Eadric “gladium in manu tenens quem, in pugna quodam rustico impigre cæso, cruentarat, Fugite, inquit, miseri, fugite, ecce, Rex vester hoc ense occisus est.” Florence is fuller; “Siquidem quum pugna vehemens esset, et Anglos fortiores esse cerneret, cujusdam viri, regi Eadmundo facie capillisque simillimi, Osmeari nomine, capite amputato et in altum levato, exclamat Anglos frustra pugnare, dicens

‘Vos Dorsetenses, Domnani, Wiltonienses, Amisso capite præcipites fugite; En domini vestri caput Eadmundi Basilei Hic teneo manibus, cedite quantocius.’”

(The same stratagem is said to have been employed by an English soldier at the Battle of the Standard. See Æthelred of Rievaux, X Scriptt. 345; “Cujusdam prudentis viri figmento, qui caput unius occisi in altum erigens, regem clamabat occisum, revocati, vehementius solito irruunt in obstantes.” The story is told with great spirit by Peter of Langtoft, i. 480.)

The metrical character of the speech given by Florence was first remarked by Professor Stubbs (R. Howden, i. 82); but we may be sure that both this and the other longer speech are merely expansions of the vigorous little bit of English given us in Henry of Huntingdon, “Flet Engle, flet Engle, ded is Edmund,” which are likely enough to be Eadric’s real words. Still the speech in Florence is valuable (see above, p. 558). It helps us to the party divisions of Wessex at the moment of the battle. The Wilsætas are here reckoned among the followers of Eadmund, but Florence had just before said that Eadric, Ælfmær, and Ælfgar were there “cum Suthamtoniensibus et Wiltoniensibus provincialibus, innumeraque populi multitudine in parte Danorum.” It is plain then that the northern and southern parts of Wiltshire were arrayed on opposite sides. The incident of Eadmund taking off his helmet and hurling his spear at Eadric is found only in William of Malmesbury; “Fugissent continuo Angli, nisi rex, cognita re, in editum quemdam collem procederet, ablata galea caput suum commilitonibus ostentans.” I hope that this is not copied from the like story of William at Senlac; it is an incident which might easily repeat itself; and the notion of Eadmund getting on higher ground to show himself, falls in with the difference between a general fighting on foot like Eadmund and one fighting on horseback like William.

There is nothing in the English accounts which calls for special remark till we come to the battle of Assandun. All the accounts agree as to the treason of Eadric at Aylesford. But it is to be noticed that the remark made in p. 417 as to the two classes of treasons laid to the charge of Eadric applies here. The treasons reported at Sherstone and Assandun must be facts; the treason reported at Aylesford may have been only a general surmise. As to the order of events all agree, only Florence, in his reckoning, goes by the number of armies, Henry of Huntingdon by that of battles. The third army fought two battles, one under the walls of London, the other at Brentford.

As for the battle of Assandun, I have no doubt that the modern Ashington is the true site. In June, 1866, I went over the ground with Mr. Dawkins, Florence in hand. We found that the place exactly answered his description, and I afterwards compared it with the other authorities. Another spot which has been proposed is Ashdown in another part of Essex. I suppose its claims rest on the description of the Encomiast (ii. 9), “in Æsceneduno loco, quod nos Latini _montem fraxinorum_ possimus interpretari.” But this only shows the foreign writer’s imperfect knowledge of English. _Assandun_ is simply, as Florence has it, _mons asini_. Henry of Huntingdon’s form _Esesdun_ may come from substituting the later genitive _asses_ for the older _assan_, or from a confusion with Ælfred’s _Æscesdun_ in 871, or possibly from a shrinking from so unheroic a meaning as _mons asini_. The modern form Assington or Ashington is due to the same corruption which has changed Abb_an_dun and Hunt_an_dun and Ælfred’s Eth_an_dun into Ab_ing_don, Hunt_ing_don, and Ed_ing_ton. The form in -_ing_ is so common that it has swallowed up others which are less familiar. As for the other hill, Canewdon, the local explanation which connects it with the name of Cnut is certainly very tempting, though it is perhaps a little hard to get it out of _Cnutesdún_. But the Domesday form (ii. 44) _Carendun_ is clearly corrupt, and the pronunciation Cánewdon is a very recent corruption, savouring of the schoolmaster. On the lips of the oldest inhabitant it is distinctly Caneẃdon, which brings us near, if not to _Cnuto_, at least to _Canutus_.

The battle of Assandun was distinctly a national struggle on the English side. In the words of the Chronicles, “Þær ahte Cnut sige, and gefeht him ealle Engla þeode.” So just before, Eadmund’s army is called “ealle Engla þeode,” and Florence says that he came “cum exercitu quem de tota Anglia contraxerat.” The presence of Ulfcytel and Godwine witnesses to the presence of the forces of such strongly Danish districts as East-Anglia and even distant Lindesey, while Eadric is distinctly marked in Florence as commanding, among other forces, the equally distant Magesætas; “cum Magesetensibus et exercitus parte cui præerat.”

My account of the battle comes from three sources. The strictly military part of it, the arrangements and intentions of the two generals, comes from Florence. The poetical part, the picture of the King by his Standard and his charge upon the enemy, comes from Henry of Huntingdon; I have even ventured to bring in a few touches from the Encomiast, whose account of this one battle seems to be historical. But it must be remembered that the stratagem of Eadric, which Florence and William of Malmesbury place at Sherstone, is by Henry of Huntingdon moved to Assandun. Eadmund, in his great charge, has nearly reached Cnut’s post in the Danish army, when Eadric cries out “Flet Engle,” &c., takes to flight himself, and the rest of the English army follow him. I hope that I have already shown that the story of Eadmund’s pretended death is in its place at Sherstone, and that its details have been changed to make it suit the circumstances of Assandun. It is also plain from the other accounts that, though the flight of Eadric greatly weakened the English forces, yet the battle went on long after.

I will now turn to the foreign accounts, beginning with the absolutely contemporary Thietmar. We have seen something of him when dealing with the accounts of the martyrdom of Ælfheah. Thietmar clearly took a deep interest in English affairs without fully understanding them. He wrote down the accounts which he heard at the time as well as he could make them out, but in so doing he often made havoc of his story. Still an author to whom the struggle of Cnut and Eadmund was the latest piece of foreign news must have his use; and we shall find that Thietmar here, as before, gives us some hints which, if used cautiously, may be of great value. His account is full of blunders, but there is nothing of perversion, romance, or colouring. His story (vii. 28, ap. Pertz, iii. 849) runs thus. After the death of Æthelred, Harold and Cnut the sons of Swegen, with their Earl Thurgut (“cum duce suimet Thurguto”), besiege London with 340 ships, each manned by eighty men. The city was defended by the Lady Emma—who is described as “tristis nece viri suimet et defensoris”—with her two sons Æthelstan and Eadmund—Æthelred’s first family being as usual mistaken for children of Emma—together with two Bishops and other chief men (“duobus episcopis ceterisque primatibus”). The siege lasted six months; at last the Lady, tired out (“bello defatigata assiduo”), asked for peace. The Danes demanded the surrender of the two Æthelings to be put to death, the payment of 15,000 pounds of silver as the Lady’s ransom, of 12,000 pounds as the ransom of the Bishops, the surrender of all the coats of mail in the city, 24,000 in number (“numerus incredibilis”), and of 300 hostages. If these terms are not agreed to, all would be put to death (“sin autem, omnes ter clamabant eos una gladio perituros”). The Lady (“venerabilis regina”—I need not say that this is a mere title of honour and has no reference to the age of the future bride of Cnut), after some hesitation, consents to these terms. The Æthelings escaped by night in a little boat, and forthwith begin to gather a force for the relief of their mother and of the city. Eadmund one day falls in with Thurgut, who was engaged in plundering. A drawn battle follows, in which both Thurgut and Eadmund are killed. The Danes go back to their ships, and hearing that Æthelstan is coming with a British force to the relief of the city (“intelligentes urbi solatium ab Æthelsteno superstite et _Britannis_ venientibus afferri”), they raised the siege after killing or mutilating their hostages (“truncatis obsidibus”). The strictly contemporary character of the account is shown by the prayer with which the Bishop of Merseburg winds up his story; “Et destruat eos [Danos] atque disperdat protector in se sperantium Deus, ne umquam solito his vel aliis noceant fidelibus. In ereptione civitatis illius gaudeamus et in cetero lugeamus.”

This account sounds very wild, and it is easy to show that there are plenty of mistakes in it. But written as it was at the very time, while the final upshot of the war was still uncertain, it suggests some very important points. To mistake Æthelstan and Eadmund for sons of Emma was a common and easy blunder. But to suppose that Emma had come back to England with Æthelred, that she was now in London, that, with or without the consent of Eadmund, she entered into negotiations with Cnut, are statements which are not found in our Chronicles, but which do not contradict what is found there. They are statements which are perfectly possible; they may even throw light on the marriage of Cnut and Emma in the next year. The mention of the two Bishops again falls in with the fact, which we have got at in another way, that Archbishop Lyfing was in the city. Then, though it is quite certain that London did not stand a continuous siege of six months, beginning with July 1016, yet London must have been besieged off and on for about that time in the course of the year 1016. Then the death of Eadmund is of course wrongly given, and the death of Thurkill also, if by Thurgut we are to understand Thurkill. But this last point is by no means clear, as Thietmar goes on immediately to tell the story of Ælfheah, in which Thurkill, though not Ælfheah (see above, p. 677), appears with his right name. But the thing which is most remarkable in this account is the mention of Harold the brother of Cnut and of Æthelstan the brother of Eadmund. Harold and Æthelstan are men whose existence we know, but not much more about them. There was no temptation to bring them in, unless they had really played a part in the war. I think we may infer that Harold did accompany Cnut, and that Æthelstan had a share in the campaign—that is, that he did not die before his father (see above, p. 691). Moreover Thietmar, who called Ælfheah Dunstan, was quite capable of confounding the two brothers and transposing their names. Let us only read Eadmund for Æthelstan and Æthelstan for Eadmund, and we get a consistent and probable narrative. The tale was probably told Thietmar by some one who came from London and who did not enlarge on the western fights of Pen Selwood and Sherstone. He dwelt mainly on what happened in and near his own city. Æthelstan, it would seem, was killed, as is perfectly probable, in one of the battles near London or in some unrecorded skirmish. The Danes raise the siege, as we know that they twice did, before the armies of Eadmund. Those armies, levied mainly in the western shires, are by Thietmar called _Britanni_. This expression is one of the most remarkable in the whole story. It must have some special force; it is not Thietmar’s usual way of speaking of Englishmen. We can hardly doubt that Thietmar’s English informant, speaking of troops levied mainly within the shires of the old _Wealhcyn_, spoke of them as _Brettas_ or _Wealas_. Altogether I look on this account as worthy of all heed. I have not ventured to insert the death of Æthelstan or the negotiation between Emma and Cnut in the text as thoroughly ascertained facts, but I certainly look upon both as highly probable.

I must now turn to a foreign writer of quite another character, the Encomiast of Emma. I have already mentioned (see above, p. 670) how he makes Thurkill bring Cnut into England. This is before the death of Æthelred. He now (ii. 6) goes on to tell us how, before Cnut himself landed, Thurkill determined to win Cnut’s favour by some great exploit. He therefore lands, in what part of England it is not said, with the crews of forty ships, and fights the battle of Sherstone (“ascendit cum suis e navibus dirigens aciem contra Anglorum impetum qui tunc in loco Scorastan dicto fuerat congregatus”) all by himself against an English force of more than double his numbers (“Danorum exercitus ... medietati hostium minime par fuerat”), over whom he of course gains a complete victory. Eric then (see p. 379), fired by the example of Thurkill, is allowed to go on another expedition, in which he fights several battles and wins much plunder. Cnut then, seemingly looking on the country as his own, forbids further ravages (“rex parcens patriæ, prohibuit ultra eam prædari”), but orders a strict siege to be laid to London, which is oddly called “metropolis terræ,” and which the writer seems half to fancy was on the sea (“undique enim mari quodammodo non pari vallatur flumine”). Just at this time Æthelred died, being removed, according to the Encomiast, by God’s special providence, in order that Cnut might enter the city and that both Danes and Englishmen might have a breathing-space; “Deus itaque qui omnes homines vult magis salvare quam perdere, intuens has gentes tanto periculo laborare, eum principem qui interius civitati præsidebat educens e corpore, junxit quieti sempiternæ, ut eo defuncto liber Cnutoni ingressus pateret, et utrique populo confecta pace paulisper respirare copia esset.” The citizens accordingly bury Æthelred and make a capitulation with Cnut, by which the city is surrendered to him. Cnut accordingly enters the city, and if not crowned, is at least enthroned; “Cnuto civitatem intravit, et in solio regni resedit.” But a part of the troops within the city disapprove of the agreement with Cnut, so on the night after his entrance they leave the city with a young man called Eadmund, a son of the late King; “cum filio defuncti principis egressi sunt civitatem;” so directly after “Ædmund, sic enim juvenis qui exercitum collegerat dictus est.” Eadmund easily gathers an army, because the English were more inclined to him than they were to Cnut; “nec quieverunt quousque omnes pene Anglos sibi magis adhuc adclines quam Cnutoni conglobarent.” Cnut is meanwhile in London, but finding that he cannot trust the Londoners, he first repairs his ships, and then leaves the city and winters in Sheppey, having declined an offer of single combat made to him by Eadmund. Eadmund enters London, where he is joyfully received, and spends the winter, having Eadric with him as his chief counsellor (“erat quoque ejus partis comes primus Edricus, consiliis pollens, sed tamen dolositate versipellis, quem sibi ad aurem posuerat Ædmund in omnibus negotiis”). The next Lent is spent by Eadmund in gathering a vast force with the intention of driving Cnut out of the country. The story now becomes more trustworthy, and we get a spirited account of the battle of Assandun, from which I have not scrupled to draw largely in the text. I need only mention here that the treacherous flight of Eadric is as distinctly asserted as in any English account. The only difference is that it is placed before the battle has actually begun. The words are,

“Ibique, nondum congressione facta, Edric, quem primum comitem Ædmundi diximus, hæc suis intulit affamina, ‘Fugiamus, O socii, vitamque subtrahamus morte imminenti, alioquin occumbemus illico, Danorum enim duritiam nosco.’ Et velato vexillo quod dextra gestabat, dans tergum hostibus, magnam partem militum bello fraudabat. Et, ut quidam aiunt, hoc non caussa egit timoris sed dolositatis, ut postea claruit; quia hoc eum clam Danis promisisse, nescio quo pro beneficio, assertio multorum dicit.”

The Scandinavian writers are, if possible, yet more wonderful. In the Saga of Olaf Haraldsson (Laing, i. 8; Johnstone, 89) we read how, when Æthelred came back from Normandy, or, according to this account, from Flanders, Olaf took service under him and joined in an attack on London, which was then held by the Danes. Olaf with his ships breaks down London bridge and takes Southwark, on which the Londoners surrender and receive Æthelred. Olaf passes the winter in England, and, strange to say, fights the battle of Ringmere in Ulfcytel’s land (p. 93); “Þá atto þeir orrosto micla á Hríngmaraheidi á Ulfkelslandi, þát ríki átti þá Ulfkell Snillingr.” (See above, p. 654.) By a yet more amazing confusion Olaf is next made to take Canterbury; he then has the general command of all England, where he stays three years. In the third year Æthelred dies, and is succeeded by his sons Eadmund and Eadward. Olaf now leaves England, and performs divers exploits in _Valland_ or Gaul. Meanwhile Cnut and Eric come into England, where Eric fights a battle near London, in which Ulfcytel is killed. Cnut fights several battles with the sons of Æthelred with various success. He then marries Emma, by whom he has three children, Harold, Harthacnut, and Gunhild. He then divides the kingdom with Eadmund, who is presently killed by Eadric Streona. Cnut now drives all the sons of Æthelred out of England; they take refuge at Rouen in Valland, where Olaf joins them. They lay plans for recovering England from Cnut, Northumberland being promised to Olaf. Olaf sends over his foster-father Rana (see p. 404) into England, who spends a winter there, collecting forces. In the spring Olaf and the sons of Æthelred go over into England themselves, but after some fighting, the power of Cnut is found to be too strong for them, so Olaf goes into Norway and the sons of Æthelred return to Valland.

Not less amazing is the version in the Knytlinga Saga (c. 7–16; Johnstone, 103 et seqq.). Here again Æthelred is made to return after the death of Swegen with the help of Olaf. Cnut is only ten years old at his father’s death; still, as his brother Harold is dead, he succeeds in Denmark. After three years, it is thought good that he should assert his claims to England. So he sets sail with the Earls Eric and Ulf, and with Heming and Thurkill the Tall, the sons of Strut-Harold (see above, p. 670). They land in England at a place called Fliot; their first battle is fought in Lindesey. They then take the town of Hemingburgh (“Hemingaborg à Englandi”) and go on conquering towards the south. In the autumn Æthelred dies, Emma is just about to leave England, when Cnut stops her and persuades her to marry him (see Appendix ZZ). The English now (p. 129) choose four Kings, sons of Æthelred and Emma (“Eptir andlat Adalrads konungs voru til konunga teknir synir hans oc Emmu drotningar”). The eldest is Eadmund the Strong (“Jatmundr enn sterki”), the others Eadgar, Eadwig, and Eadward the Good (“Jatvardr enn godi,” see above, p. 688). The battle of Sherstone is now fought, but one is rather surprised to find it fought in Northumberland by the banks of the Tees. Eadmund and Cnut both fight on horseback, and meet face to face in the battle. On a report that Eadmund is killed the English take to flight. After this is placed the story of Godwine’s introduction to Ulf (see Note ZZ). Cnut next defeats the sons of Æthelred in a battle at Brentford, then comes (p. 134) the battle of Assundun, which is described as “Assatun to the north of the Daneswood” (“Knutr konungr atti ena þridu orrostu vid Adalradsyni, þar sem heita Assatun: vard þar en mikil orrosta: þat er nordr fra Danaskogum”). A fourth battle and a fourth defeat of the English follows at Norwich. Eadmund and his brothers then take shelter in London. Cnut sails up the river and besieges the city. The English come out to fight, and, while Cnut continues the siege, Eric, with some of the Thingmen, fights a battle against Ulfcytel (“Ulfkell Snillingr”) and puts him to flight. He then wins another battle at Ringmere. Cnut is still besieging Eadmund in London, when it is agreed that the kingdom shall be divided. Then follows the murder of Eadmund. (See Appendix WW.)

All this is wonderful enough, but it is hardly so wonderful as what we read, not in any saga, but in the sober Annals of Roskild (Langebek, i. 376); “Sven Angliam invasit, regem Adelradum expulit et Britanniæ fines potitus, vix tres menses supervixit. Post cujus mortem Edmundus filius Adelradi, quem Sveno expulit, Kanutum filium Suenonis et Olavum filium Olavi regis Norwegiæ, qui ibi obsides fuerant, in vincula conjecit (see p. 375).... Mortuo Edmundo rege Anglorum filius Adelradus in regnum successit. Quod audiens Kanutus, veteris injuriæ non immemor quam pater ejus sibi et Olavo intulerat, cum mille armatis navibus transfretavit, et immensis viribus Angliam invasit, triennium cum Adelrado certavit. Adelradus, fessus et bello et senio, quum obsideretur in Londonia civitate, obiit, relinquens filium Edwardum, quem suscepit ab Ymma regina, quæ fuit filia Rothberti comitis. Kanutus victor exsistens, ipsam Ymmam duxit uxorem, genuitque ex ea filium Hartheknud.”

It is hardly worth while examining these stories in detail, though it would not be hard to point out some of their confusions and transpositions. They should make us thankful for the priceless heritage of our own Chronicles.

NOTE WW. p. 395. THE CONFERENCE OF CNUT AND EADMUND.

The conference between Cnut and Eadmund has grown in the hands of many historians, from Henry of Huntingdon onwards, into a single combat between the two Kings, which, as Mr. Earle says (Saxon Chronicles Parallel, 340), “became in the course of time one of the established sensation scenes of history.” The Chronicles and Florence know nothing of the story. The Chronicles simply say, “And coman begen þa cyningas togædre æt Olanige,” and go on to mention the terms of the agreement. So Florence, who is a little fuller; “Dein uterque rex in insulam quæ Olanege appellatur, et est in ipsius fluminis medio sita, trabariis advehitur, ubi pace, amicitia, fraternitate, et pacto et sacramentis confirmata, regnum dividitur.” The Knytlinga Saga knows nothing of the story, and the Encomiast (ii. 12, 13) describes at great length the negotiation which led to the division of the kingdom, without any reference to a combat. Mr. Earle ingeniously suggests that the notion of the combat arose from a misunderstanding of the words of the Chronicles, as the words “coman togædre” might mean either a hostile meeting or a friendly conference,—the latter of course being their meaning here.

It is hardly worth while to go at length through all the later versions, but the utterly different accounts in William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, and the strange tale of Walter Map, may well be compared together. According to William (ii. 180), Eadmund had already collected a new army in Gloucestershire, and the two armies are standing ready for battle, “quum infestis signis constitissent.” Then Eadmund, to spare further bloodshed (“ne duo homunculi propter ambitionem regnandi tot subjectorum sanguine culparentur”), proposes a single combat. This challenge Cnut refuses, on the ground that he would have no chance against a man so much bigger and stronger than himself as Eadmund was; “Abnuit prorsus, pronuncians animo se quidem excellere sed contra tam ingentis molis hominem corpusculo diffidere.” He proposes instead that, as each of them had a fair claim to a kingdom which had been held by his father (“quia ambo non indebite regnum efflagitent, quod patres amborum tenuerint”), instead of fighting for the kingdom, they should divide it between them. The armies on both sides agree, and the division is quietly carried out, though seemingly against the wishes of Eadmund, who is spoken of as “unanimi clamore omnium superatus.” In Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 756 C, D), when the armies are gathered together in Gloucestershire for the seventh time, the chief men (“proceres”), seemingly on both sides, agree that, instead of another battle, the two Kings shall decide the matter by single combat (“pugnent singulariter qui regnare student singulariter”). The Kings approve, and Henry adds, “nec enim mediocris erat rex Cnut probitatis.” They fight therefore in Olney (“positi igitur reges in Olanie duellum inceperunt”). Henry of Huntingdon seems to have been not quite clear whether he ought to describe a French tournament or a Scandinavian _holmgang_. There is no mention of horses, but we read of the lances being broken, and it is not till then that the champions draw their swords. Then the fight really begins. The people on each side behold and listen to the “horribiles tinnitus et igneas collisiones,” which most likely come from a ballad. The strength of Eadmund however has the better of it (“tandem vigor incomparabilis Edmundi _fulminare_ cœpit.” See above, p. 392). Cnut resists manfully, but begins to fear for his life; he therefore proposes that they shall fight no longer, but divide the kingdom and become sworn brothers (“fratres adoptivi”). Eadmund agrees (“his verbis juvenis mens generosa delinita est”), and they exchange the kiss of peace. Walter Map (De Nugis, 204) has yet another version. The armies meet one another “apud Durherst in valle Gloucestriæ super Sabrinam.” The Danes have the larger host (“Chnutus dimidium Angliæ cum Dacis adduxerat”). Still the Danes are afraid, because of the valour of the English and their own unjust cause. They therefore demand that the matter shall be settled by a single combat of champions (“Fiat pro bello duellum, et victor pugil domino suo regnum obtineat cæteris in pace dimisis”). Eadmund determines to fight himself and not by a champion; so Cnut determines to do the same (“quatinus informis absit imparitas, par enim congressio regum et bene consona”). They meet in the island on horseback, their horses are killed, and they fight on foot. The personal description of the Kings is quite unlike any other (“Chnutus procerus et major et altus, Edmundum grandem et planum, i.e. mediocriter pinguem, tam probo tam improbo fatigavit assultu”). They exchange sarcasms and go on fighting, till the Danes, seeing Cnut in danger, demand that the Kings should make a treaty. They accordingly agree to divide the kingdom and to become sworn brothers (“Daci ... in fœdus eos hujusmodi multis coëgerunt precibus et lacrymis, quatinus æqualiter inter eos divisum possiderent tota vita sua regnum, et post mortem alterius succederet superstes in solidum, factique sunt ibi fratres et amici, fideque firmissima conglutinati”). Roger of Wendover (i. 457–459) tells the same story, but at much greater length and with a much greater display of eloquence. He attributes the first proposal of the single combat to Eadric (“iniquus dux Eadricus”). The fight and the proposal on the part of Cnut are essentially the same as in Henry of Huntingdon. Cnut makes a long speech, in which he sets forth the greatness of his own dominion in words which would have been somewhat beyond the truth some years later (“mihi Dacia servit, mihi Norwegia succumbit, mihi rex Suanorum manus dedit”). Besides the kiss of peace, the exchange of arms and clothes is described (“in signum pacis vestes mutantes et arma, fit Eadmundus Cnuto et Cnuto Eadmundus”). The exchange of garments is also mentioned by Florence in his account of the peaceful conference (“armis et vestibus mutatis ... ab invicem discesserunt”); but if the tradition followed by William of Malmesbury as to the personal stature of the two Kings be at all trustworthy, a judgement of Cyrus would presently have been needed to restore the clothes to their former owners.

The place of meeting, the island in the Severn called Olney, is placed near Deerhurst by the Worcester Chronicler, by Florence, and by Walter Map, all of whom had local knowledge; the other Chronicles do not mention its position. Mr. Earle (Parallel Chronicles, 341) places it close to Gloucester. I have not examined either place for the purpose, but I should be inclined to look on the witness of the Hwiccian writers as decisive.

As for the terms of the treaty, three of the Chronicles simply assign Wessex to Eadmund and Mercia to Cnut. It was perhaps held that Cnut was already King of the Northumbrians, and that his possession of that kingdom could not be called in question. The Worcester Chronicle says more exactly, “and feng þa Eadmund cyng to Westsexan and Cnut to þam norð dǽle.” Florence makes the important addition of East-Anglia, Essex, and London to the share of Eadmund. Henry of Huntingdon gives London to Cnut; “Edmundus regnum suscepit Westsexe, Cnut vero regnum Merce suscipiens reversus est Londoniam.” William of Malmesbury follows the three Chronicles. The Encomiast (ii. 13) talks simply of North and South. The English deputies say to Cnut, “Dominare in _australi_”—for which we must of course read “boreali”—“parte cum quiete, e regione autem sit noster Ædmundus in finibus meridianæ plagæ.” Walter Map (De Nugis, 206) gives quite another division; “Chnutus Lundoniam et illas trans Hichenild partes habebat, Edmundus alias.” This reads like an utter turning about of the whole geography; the Icknild way is an approach to the frontier as traced by Florence; only Cnut is placed in Wessex and East-Anglia, and Eadmund in the rest of the kingdom. I have no doubt as to accepting the line drawn by Florence. Ever since the extinction of the short-lived dynasty of Guthrum, we always find East-Anglia heartily throwing in its lot with Wessex, never with Mercia and Northumberland.

The distinct statement that the Imperial supremacy was reserved to Eadmund is found, oddly enough, only in Roger of Wendover. His text runs thus;

“Dividitur itaque regnum, _Eadmundo dictante_, inter duos, ita _ut corona totius regni regi remaneat Eadmundo_; cedunt ergo in usus ejus totam Angliam ad australem plagam Thamesis fluminis, cum Est-Sexia et Est Anglia et civitate Londoniarum, quæ caput est regni; Cnutone etiam aquilonales partes Angliæ obtinente.”

Roger would of course be by himself no authority on such a point; but it is plain that he is copying Florence. In the text of Florence there is a gap, which can be filled up only, as Mr. Thorpe has filled it, with the words of Roger;

“West-Saxoniam, East-Angliam, East-Saxoniam cum Lundonia [civitate, et totam terram ad australem plagam Tamesis fluminis obtinuit Eadmundus, Canuto aquilonares partes Angliæ obtinente; corona tamen] regni Eadmundo mansit.”

A certain superiority on the part of Eadmund appears also in the words of William of Malmesbury; “Edmundus ... concordiæ indulsit, fœdusque cum Cnutone percussit, sibi West-Saxoniam, illi concedens Merciam.” Henry of Huntingdon (756 C), on the other hand, falls into the mistake of supposing that Cnut occupied London after the battle of Assandun, perhaps that he was crowned then; “Rex Cnut, tanta fretus victoria, Londoniam et sceptra cepit regalia.” In the Encomiast Cnut naturally takes a lofty tone; the other King is to be his tributary. Such at least seems to be the meaning of the words, “Sed tamen vectigal etiam suæ

## partis vester rex, quicumque ille fuerit, exercitui dabit meo. Hoc enim

illi debeo, ideoque aliter pactum non laudo.” It is hard to weigh the exact meaning of these rhetorical writers, but this sounds like something more lasting than the single Danegeld which was undoubtedly to be paid. This last is witnessed by the Chronicles. The Kings, among their other agreements, “þæt gyld setton wið þone here.” So Florence, “Tributo quod classicæ manui penderetur statuto.”

One point still remains. After the death of Eadmund, Cnut, according to the account in Florence, claimed his dominions by virtue of the Olney compact. He asks the witnesses whether any provision had been made for the succession of the brothers or sons of Eadmund, in case Eadmund died before Cnut; “Interrogavit ... qualiter ipse et Eadmundus de fratribus et filiis ejusdem inter se loquuti fuissent. Utrum fratribus et filiis ejus liceret in regno Occidentalium Saxonum post patrem eorum regnare, si Eadmundus moreretur vivente illo.” They made the answer which I have given in the text at p. 405; “Se proculdubio scire quod rex Eadmundus fratribus suis nullam portionem regni sui, nec se spirante neque moriente, commendasset; dixeruntque hoc se nosse, Eadmundum regem velle Canutum adjutorem et protectorem esse filiorum ejus, donec regnandi ætatem habuissent.” Florence goes on to say that their witness was false, and that the false witnesses were, when a convenient season came, characteristically put to death by Cnut. But an agreement that each King should succeed to the dominions of the other, that is, that the adoptive brother should be preferred to the brother by blood, is in every way likely. Such an agreement is directly asserted in the Knytlinga Saga, c. 16 (Johnstone, 139). Cnut and Eadmund divide the land and swear that, if either of them dies childless, he shall succeed to the dominions of the other (“sva, at skipta skylldi i helminga lanndi med þeim, oc hafa halft riki hvarr, medan þeir lifdi; enn ef annarrhvarr anndadiz barnlauss, þa skylldi sa taka allt rikit med frialsu, er eptir lifdi; oc var su sætt eidum bunndin”). In Saxo (192) the agreement between Cnut and Eadmund (whom he calls Eadward) is all on one side; Cnut is to have half the kingdom while Eadmund lives, and the whole at his death (“Edvardus ... pactum cum hoste conseruit, ut quoad ipse viveret, Canutum dimidii regni consortem haberet, extinctus omnium honorum hæredem relinqueret”). This would seem to shut out Eadmund’s children, which seems inconsistent with the account in Florence. But some agreement to exclude the brothers on each side was almost necessary. A claim on the part of one of the Æthelings to succeed Eadmund, a claim on the part of Harold of Denmark to succeed Cnut, would be almost sure to be put forward. And it might be thought to be on the whole for the common interest of both Kings to shut out such claims. The brothers on both sides were much more dangerous than the sons. Cnut most likely had no children as yet. And even if either of the doubtful brood of Ælfgifu of Northampton was already born, he must have still been in his cradle. So were the two little Æthelings, the “clitunculi” of Florence, the sons of Eadmund and Ealdgyth. The words of the witnesses clearly imply that these children were put in a different position from their uncles. The possibility of their coming to the crown is recognized; Cnut is to be their guardian till they are of age to reign. Of course this does not mean that he was to resign in their favour when they came of age; it means only that they were to be in the same position as other minor Æthelings, as the sons of Æthelred the First (see p. 109) or the sons of Eadmund the Magnificent (see p. 63). They were to be passed over for the present; at any future vacancy they might be elected or they might not. An arrangement of this kind seems to agree both with the words of the witnesses and with the circumstances of the case. I assume of course that, if Cnut was to succeed Eadmund, Eadmund was equally to succeed Cnut, just as in the agreement between Harthacnut and Magnus (see p. 508). No other terms would be possible in an agreement between two sworn brothers, in which whatever superiority there was to be on either side was reserved to Eadmund.

NOTE XX. p. 398. THE DEATH OF EADMUND.

The Chronicles are silent as to the manner and place of Eadmund’s death. All that they say is, “Þá to Sc̃e Andreas mæssan forðferde se kyning Eadmund.” Florence adds, “decessit Lundoniæ.” He mentions neither Cnut nor Eadric, and in a later passage he seems to exclude Eadric. At least when Cnut puts Eadric to death, the reason is said to be, “quia timebat insidiis ab eo aliquando circumveniri, sicut domini sui priores Ægelredus et Eadmundus frequenter sunt circumventi.” If Florence had thought that Eadmund was killed by Eadric, he would surely have said so more plainly. The treasons of Eadric towards Æthelred and towards Eadmund are put on a level, and no one ever charged Eadric with the death of Æthelred. Florence, as his whole narrative shows, was not slack at attributing crimes to Eadric, but that he had anything to do with the death of Eadmund he nowhere hints.

The language of the Encomiast (ii. 14) is obscure and mysterious, and his way of speaking of the Deity may be thought slightly anthropomorphic. God, in his wisdom, took away Eadmund, lest the contention for the crown should be renewed, and in order that Cnut might possess the whole kingdom peaceably. The whole passage is remarkable;

“Verumtamen Deus, memor suæ antiquæ doctrinæ, scilicet omne regnum in seipsum divisum diu permanere non posse, non longo post tempore Ædmundum eduxit e corpore, Anglorum misertus Imperii, ne forte, si uterque superviveret, neuter regnaret secure, et regnum diatim adnihilaretur renovata contentione.... Cujus rei gratia eum Deus jusserit obire, mox deinde patuit; quia universa regio illico Cnutonem sibi regem elegit, et cui ante omni conamine restitit, tunc sponte sua se illi et omnia sua subdidit.”

Adam of Bremen, who is not very well versed in English genealogy, says (ii. 51), “Frater Adelradi Emund, vir bellicosus, in gratiam victoris veneno sublatus est.” The murderer, whether Eadric or any one else, is not mentioned, and the words, though they might be taken as accusing Cnut, perhaps rather point to a version more like some of those which I shall presently mention.

We now come to the long string of English writers who accuse Eadric. William of Malmesbury (ii. 180) says that Eadmund died “ambiguum quo casu extinctus;” he then goes on to mention the charge against Eadric as a rumour;

“Fama Edricum infamat, quod favore alterius mortem ei per ministros porrexerit. Cubicularios regis fuisse duos, quibus omnem vitam suam commiserat, quos pollicitationibus illectos, et primo immanitatem flagitii exhorrentes, brevi complices suos effecisse. Ejus consilio ferreum uncum, ad naturæ requisita sedenti, in locis posterioribus adegisse.”

Here the deed is done by two chamberlains of Eadmund. In another version the actual murderer is a son of Eadric. The intention of this change is obvious. The son of Eadric is of course meant to be a son of Eadmund’s sister Eadgyth, so that we get the additional horror of a sisters son killing his uncle. It was either forgotten that a son of Eadric and Eadgyth would be a mere child, or else to kill Eadmund by the hand of a child was thought to be a further improvement. The scene is also placed at Oxford. In this shape we get the tale in Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 756 D);

“Edmundus rex post paucos exhinc dies proditione occisus est apud Oxineford. Sic autem occisus est. Quum rex hostibus suis terribilis et timendissimus in regno floreret, ivit nocte quadam in domum evacuationis ad requisita naturæ, ubi filius Edrici ducis in fovea secretaria delitescens consilio patris, regem inter celanda cultello his acuto percussit, et inter viscera ferrum figens, fugiens reliquit.”

Walter Map (De Nugis, 205–207) has a very strange story, in which, among other things, he takes care to keep the whole tale in his own part of England. He nowhere names Eadric, but, just as before in the case of Æthelred (see above, p. 658), he speaks of a “servus” whose relations to Eadmund would seem to have been somewhat the same as those of Chiffinch to Charles the Second. This man asks the King for the lands of Minsterworth in Gloucestershire, a parish of which Walter himself was parson, and which, according to his account of the division (see above, p. 708), would come within the share of Eadmund. The King does not refuse the gift, but delays it. The servant plans his death, and carries out his purpose at Minsterworth by much the same means as those described by William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon. The King, mortally wounded at Minsterworth, is carried to die at Ross.

Roger of Wendover (i. 459) tells the story in nearly the same words as Henry of Huntingdon, beginning with a panegyric on Eadmund which is essentially the same as the panegyrics on Godwine, Harold, and others (see vol. ii. c. vii. and above, p. 400); “Rex Anglorum Eadmundus, dum justis in regno appareret mansuetus et pius ac injustis terribilis et crudelis, invidit ejus bonitati dux et proditor Eadricus, Merciorum dominus, et qualiter eum perderet infatigabiliter cogitavit.” The opportunity comes when Eadmund is at Oxford, which is evidently looked on as a town within Eadric’s government. The title “Merciorum _dominus_” is odd. We have heard of nothing like it since Æthelred and Æthelflæd. See above, p. 574.

Bromton (X Scriptt. 906) gives three versions, that of Florence, that of Henry of Huntingdon, and a third. He decides in favour of that of Henry; “Verior aliis et authenticior habetur.” His other version contains quite a new story, but one which shows that the story of the murder of Ælfhelm was running in the heads of those who devised it. Nothing else could have suggested the description of Eadric as “Edricus perfidus _comes Salopiæ_ semper proditor.” Eadmund and Eadric are now on good terms; the Earl asks the King to visit him at his house, seemingly either at Shrewsbury or at Oxford. After the evening meal, the King is led to his bedroom. He there finds a figure of an archer of wonderful workmanship, with his bow bent and an arrow ready to shoot. He examines and touches it; the arrow goes off, and pierces and kills Eadmund, that being the end for which the ingenious piece of mechanism was made. This introduction of a mechanical contrivance instead of the simpler forms of murder which we find in the earlier forms of the story may be paralleled with the other mechanical contrivance which appears in the later forms of the story of Eadric’s own death. See Note BBB.

Knighton (X Scriptt. 2316) brings in the death of Eadmund with a most amazing preface. Eadmund has reigned five years, and he is then put to death at Gloucester, seemingly by a vote of the Witan, on a charge of favouring the Danes, a precedent which seems not to have been remembered in 1649. It seems to be only the manner of his death which is left to the ingenuity of Eadric. The words run thus;

“Edmundus quinto anno regni sui apud Gloverniam, pro eo quod barones sui suspicabantur eum proditorem et subversorem communis profectus regni sui [“a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy”], eo quod nimis inclinatus fuit antedictis Danis et prætulit eorum consilium, _consilio regiorum suorum juratorum fidelium_, incurrit mortem infra scriptam. De morte ejus multæ sunt opiniones, sed sufficiat una pro omnibus, quum sit per proditionem occisum Edrici.”

He then tells the story of the archer, which he calls “unum _tristegum_ cum imagine ad similitudinem unius sagittarii.” Ducange (in voce) is puzzled at the “tristegum,” which generally means a structure of three stages, whether a house or a moveable tower. Knighton then tells, as an alternative version, the story of Henry of Huntingdon, only making Eadric himself the actual murderer, but with a further alternative of the two chamberlains. He adds that Eadric at once went to the widowed Ealdgyth, took her two children from her, and carried them away to Cnut.

With regard to the place where all this happened, we have seen that the Chroniclers are silent, that Florence names London, that Henry of Huntingdon names Oxford, while other writers name various other places. Amidst all this contradiction it is safest to cleave to Florence. But Mr. James Parker (History of Oxford, p. 26 and Postscriptum 3) argues strongly on behalf of Oxford. His best argument is that Oxford lies on the road between Gloucester and London, and that it is the last place within the Mercian jurisdiction of Eadric. But this assumes that Eadric was at this moment Earl of the Mercians. He was so at an earlier and at a later time, and it is assumed in the version of Roger of Wendover that Oxford was at this time under his government. But the position of Eadric at this moment is quite uncertain, and a story of a murder done by Eadric in his own earldom, especially a murder done at Oxford, seems to connect this story with the stories of Ælfhelm, Morkere, and Sigeferth, the former husband of Eadmund’s wife Ealdgyth. The mention of Shrewsbury in the so-called Bromton clearly comes from the same mint, and it seems to me that the mention of either Oxford or Shrewsbury is a part of the mythopœic process. Those who put together this version most likely forgot that Oxford lay within Cnut’s share of the kingdom.

In none of these English versions is it hinted that Cnut had any share in the deed. Eadric, in a later stage of the story, pleads the murder of Eadmund as a merit towards Cnut, and that is all. It is only by Cnut’s own countrymen that he is directly charged with the crime. The Knytlinga Saga (c. 16; Johnstone, 139) calmly tells us that Eadric, the confident and foster-brother of Eadmund, killed him—we are not told how—on the receipt of a bribe from Cnut. “Heidrekr Striona het ein rikr madr, _er fe tok til þess af Knuti konungi_, et hann sviki Jatmund konung, oc dræpi hann med mordvigi, oc þetta var hans bani: Heidrekr var þo fostri Jatmundar konungs, oc trudi hann honom sem sialfun ser.” Saxo (192, 193) has a story how, seven years after the agreement with Eadmund, Cnut is saluted at supper by some nameless person as King of all England. The bearers of the news then say that they have killed Eadmund to win Cnut’s favour, on which Cnut puts them to death. This is of course one version of the death of Eadric. See Note BBB. Saxo then adds, “Memorant alii Edvardum [Edmundum, see above, p. 710] clandestino Canuti imperio occisum, ejusdemque jussu pœnam a maleficis gratia demendæ suspicionis exactam. Ut enim innocentiæ suæ fidem adstrueret, seque ei culpæ affinem fuisse negaret, gravius in sceleratos consulendum putavit. _Ea tamen res primum regis apud domesticos favorem quassavit._” These last words are very remarkable. They seem to fall in with several hints from other sources, which seem to show that Cnut, at least in his later days, was much less popular in Denmark than in England.

Snorro, in the Saga of Saint Olaf (Laing, ii. 21; Johnstone, 98), simply says that Eadric killed Eadmund; “Á sama mánadi drap Heinrekr Striona Eadmund konung.” But he adds that Cnut at once drove all the sons of Æthelred out of England, and quotes the poet Sigvat, who is also quoted in the Knytlinga Saga, who says that Cnut either killed or banished all the sons of Æthelred.

“Oc senn sono Sló hvern oc þó Adalráds eda Utflæmdi Knutr.”

The allusion here must be either to Eadmund or to Eadwig (see the next Note), most likely to Eadmund.

Of the manner of Eadmund’s death there is no mention in any of these writers. But the singularly base form of murder which so many English writers attribute to Eadric or his emissaries was not without other examples in that age. The younger Dedi of Saxony was said to have been killed in this way in 1068, and Gozelo, Duke of Lotharingia, in 1078 (see Lambert in annis, pp. 74 and 221 of the lesser Pertz). And the great Countess herself is charged with doing the like to her husband “Gigo, Duke of Normandy,” (Vit. Mat. c. viii; Muratori, v. 393). It is also essentially the same as the way in which the defender of Stamfordbridge was killed (see Hen. Hunt. M. H. B. 762 B), and a large part of a German army is said to have been destroyed in nearly the same way when the Emperor Henry the Fifth invaded Poland in 1109. Dlugoss, Hist. Pol. lib. iv. vol. i. col. 378 (ed. Lips. 1711).

And now as to the truth of the story. I think we can hardly do more than say, with William of Malmesbury, “ambiguum quo casu extinctus.” Eadmund died at a moment most convenient for Cnut. Cnut therefore, whether he really had a hand in his death or not, was sure to be suspected of it. Eadric was held to be capable of every crime, and was popularly believed to be the actual doer of every crime that was done. Eadric therefore was sure to be suspected as well as Cnut. Eadric was doubtless capable of the crime; so, I fear, was Cnut also at this time of his life. But the direct evidence against either does not seem strong enough for a conviction. The silence of Florence, compared with his language elsewhere, tells in favour of Eadric. The silence of all the English writers tells in favour of Cnut. This silence could hardly be owing to his later popularity in England, which has thrown no veil over the other crimes of his early reign. Florence can hardly fail to have heard the charge both against Eadric and against Cnut, but, while speaking of their other crimes, he leaves this out. On the other hand, there is something which tells against Cnut in the studied obscurity and overdone piety of the special panegyrist of himself and his wife.

NOTE YY. p. 406. THE TWO EADWIGS.

Nothing can be plainer than that Eadwig King of the Churls is quite a different person from Eadwig the Ætheling. The two are confounded by Bromton (907), who says, “Consilio Edrici exlegavit Edwinum, Edmundi regis fratrem, qui _ceorlesking_, id est rex rusticorum, appellabatur; postmodum tamen dolose reconciliatus, factione secretariorum suorum fraudulenter occisus est.”

I can offer no guess as to the reason of the singular surname of “ceorla cyning,” which is found in the three Chronicles, Abingdon, Worcester, and Peterborough. Nor can I say anything as to Eadwig’s earlier history. An “Eadwig minister” signs a charter of Æthelred in 1005 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 345), and before that, in 996, land at Bensington had been granted by Æthelred (vi. 136) to three brothers, Eadric, Eadwig, and Ealdred. As to the fate of the King of the Churls, the Worcester and Peterborough Chronicles, followed by Florence, place his banishment in 1017, Florence adding, “vero sequenti tempore cum rege pacificatus est Eadwius.” The Abingdon Chronicle puts off his banishment to the Gemót at Cirencester in 1020. Possibly he was outlawed, reconciled, and outlawed again. We hear nothing of his death.

Of the Ætheling Eadwig, the Worcester and Peterborough Chronicles (1017) simply say, “Cnut cyning aflymde ut Eadwig æðeling.” Abingdon adds, “and eft hine hét ofslean.” Florence, under the years 1016 and 1017, has two stories which it is not very easy to reconcile with one another. I suspect however that they arose, like the other statements of Florence under the years 1016 and 1017, out of two different accounts of the acts of Cnut’s first Midwinter Gemót. The first version, under 1016, immediately follows the vote by which the sons and brothers of Eadmund were set aside. It was followed by a vote of banishment against the Ætheling Eadwig—“Eadwius egregius et reverendissimus regis Eadmundi germanus.” Then Cnut holds a conference with Eadric, and asks him if he can by any means beguile Eadwig to death (“quomodo decipere posset Eadwium, ut mortis subiret periculum”). Eadric answers that there is a man fitter for the purpose than himself, namely a nobleman named Æthelweard—which of all the Æthelweards it is hard to say, but he is described as being “ex nobilissimo genere Anglorum ortus.” Æthelweard, it seems, had better opportunities of familiar intercourse with the Ætheling than Eadric had. Cnut sends for Æthelweard and makes him the largest promises, if he will undertake the murder of Eadwig. “Bring me his head,” says Cnut, “and you shall be dearer to me than a brother.” Æthelweard undertakes the task, but, like Uhtred in the case of Thurbrand, without any intention of performing it. So Eadwig escapes, at least for one while.

Directly after, under 1017, as soon as Florence has recorded the fourfold division of England and the mutual oaths of Cnut and the English, he goes on to say that, by the advice of Eadric (“consilio perfidi ducis Eadrici”), Cnut banished both Eadwigs (“rex Canutus clitonem Eadwium, regis Eadmund igermanum, et Eadwium, qui rex appellabatur rusticorum, exlegavit”). He goes on to say that the King of the Churls was reconciled to Cnut, as I have already said, but that the Ætheling was treacherously murdered within the year by Cnut’s order (“Eadwius vero clito, deceptus illorum insidiis quos eotenus amicissimos habuit, jussu et petitione regis Canuti, eodem anno innocenter occiditur”). This account, which is perhaps really the same as the other, is of course founded on the Abingdon Chronicle.

William of Malmesbury (ii. 180) has quite another story, which recognizes the outlawry, but makes the Ætheling die a natural death. “Frater ejus [Edmundi] ex matre Edwius, non adspernandæ probitatis adolescens, per proditorem Edricum Anglia, jubente Cnutone, cessit; diu terris jactatus et alto, angore animi ut fit corpus infectus, dum furtivo reditu inter Anglos delitescit, defungitur, et apud Tavistokium tumulatur.”

Now we must choose between these stories. The authority of Florence, backed as to the main outline of the tale by the Abingdon Chronicle, is in itself much higher than that of William of Malmesbury. But Florence’s authority is in this case somewhat lessened by the confused way in which he tells the story twice over. Also tales of secret conferences and assassinations are always suspicious, and they are specially suspicious when they bring in the name of Eadric. If Eadwig died anyhow soon after his outlawry, people would be sure to say that he was made away with by Cnut and Eadric. But if he really was so made away with, it is hard to see how the story in William of Malmesbury could arise. Also, if Eadwig was outlawed, and therefore banished, it is hard to see how even Eadric would have the chance of murdering him, unless it is meant that he was treacherously pursued during his days of grace, as Godwine is said to have been (see vol. ii. c. vii). It can hardly mean that the hand of Eadric could reach banished men in foreign lands.

The character of Cnut, at this stage of his career, throws no light on the matter either way. But it is amusing to see Thierry turning the

## particular promise of Cnut to Æthelweard into a general advertisement

for the heads of his enemies; “‘Qui m’apportera la tête d’un de mes ennemis,’ disait le roi danois avec la ferocité d’un pirate, ‘me sera plus cher que s’il était mon frère.’”

NOTE ZZ. p. 409. THE ORIGIN OF EARL GODWINE.

The prominent position of Godwine at the time of Cnut’s death is one of the most conspicuous facts of our history, and the combined evidence of the charters and of the Biographer of Eadward has enabled me to trace up his greatness to the earliest days of Cnut’s reign. But, when we ask for the birth and parentage of the man who became the greatest of English subjects, who so nearly became the father of a new line of English kings, we find ourselves involved in utter obscurity and contradiction. Was he the son of Child Wulfnoth the South-Saxon (see above, p. 663)? Was he the great-nephew of the arch-traitor Eadric? Or was he the son of a churl somewhere near Sherstone, introduced by the Dane Ulf to the favour of Cnut? Or is it possible that none of these accounts rests on any sure foundation, and that we must remain altogether in the dark as to the birth of Godwine and the events of his early life?

I will begin with the one fact which appears to be certain, that is the name of Godwine’s father. While the accounts of him agree in nothing else, all who mention his father at all agree in giving him the name of Wulfnoth. (It is hardly worth while to mention that Fordun, v. 11, makes Godwine a son of Eadric.) I have therefore not scrupled to speak in the text of Godwine the son of Wulfnoth. Still, as Godwine was one of the commonest names at the time, it is not safe to assume every Godwine, or even every Wulfnoth, whom we come across to be the Godwine and the Wulfnoth with whom we are concerned. But any case in which the two names come together is at least worthy of notice. There is absolutely no evidence whether any of the many signatures of various Godwines in the later days of Æthelred belong to the great Earl or not. But when the Ætheling Æthelstan, in his will (Cod. Dipl. iii. 363), makes bequests to two Godwines, and distinguishes one of them as the son of Wulfnoth, this raises a strong presumption, though it does not reach positive proof, that our Godwine is the Godwine intended. And, if the expressions of the bequest fall in with any circumstances in any of the accounts of Godwine, we reach, though still not quite positive proof, yet certainly the highest degree of probability.

What then is our available evidence on the subject? Our own historians, as far as direct statement goes, are silent. Godwine appears in the Chronicles as Earl of the West-Saxons and as chief supporter of Harthacnut, without any hint as to who he was. The writers who speak of his exploits in the time of Cnut are equally silent. Even his own panegyrist, the Biographer of Eadward, has nothing whatever to tell us as to his origin. The silence of the Chronicles is not wonderful; they commonly take people’s position for granted, and introduce them without any particular description. But the absence of any direct statement in all our authorities, good and bad, is certainly remarkable, and the silence of Godwine’s own special admirer, the Biographer of Eadward, is very remarkable indeed.

But, though none of our own historians introduces Godwine as the son or nephew of Wulfnoth, or of Eadric, or of any one else, yet we have, on authority which seems at first sight to be irresistible, two statements that a Wulfnoth was the father of Godwine, one statement that Eadric was the great-uncle of Godwine. Florence (anno 1007), in a passage which I have discussed in other Notes (see pp. 655, 663), says that one of Eadric’s brothers was named Æthelmær, and that Æthelmær was the father of Wulfnoth, the father of Earl Godwine. The Canterbury Chronicle (anno 1008) describes Child Wulfnoth the South-Saxon as “Godwines fæder eorles.” Most writers put these two statements together, and assume Godwine to be the son of Child Wulfnoth and Child Wulfnoth to be the nephew of Eadric. To me it seems that the two accounts are quite distinct, and that their statements are almost irreconcileable. Florence, who speaks of Godwine the son of Wulfnoth as the nephew of Eadric, does not say that Godwine was the son of Child Wulfnoth, nor does he in any way identify Child Wulfnoth with Wulfnoth the nephew of Eadric. The Canterbury Chronicler, who makes Godwine the son of Child Wulfnoth, is equally silent as to any kindred between Child Wulfnoth and Eadric. In fact, the way in which they write seems to shut out—perhaps is designedly meant to shut out—any such kindred either way. Florence speaks of “Wlnothus, pater West-Saxonum ducis Godwini;” directly afterwards he speaks of “Suth-Saxonicus minister Wlnothus.” This is the way in which a man would speak of two distinct Wulfnoths, not of the same. He says that “Brihtric, brother of Eadric, unjustly accused Child Wulfnoth.” This is not the way in which he would speak of a charge brought by one member of the family of which he had just given the pedigree against another member of the same family. _Prima facie_ then, the Wulfnoth spoken of under 1007 and the Wulfnoth spoken of under 1008 are two different persons. Nor is it enough to say that, in the entry under 1008, Florence is translating the Worcester Chronicle, and that he keeps its language without trying to harmonize it with what he had himself just before said. Florence is here not merely translating, for he stops to put in a character of Brihtric of his own composition. It is certain that Florence cannot be quoted on behalf of the view that Godwine was the son of Child Wulfnoth; he seems indeed designedly to exclude any such parentage by distinguishing one Wulfnoth from the other.

The three elder Chronicles, Abingdon, Worcester, Peterborough, give us no information either way. Godwine’s name does not occur in any of them till after the death of Cnut. The Abingdon Chronicle, in describing Wulfnoth, calls him simply “Wulfnoð cild.” To this description the Worcester and Peterborough Chronicles add “þone Suðseaxscian;” the Canterbury Chronicler adds again, “Godwines fæder eorles.” All the Chroniclers knew, and they all thought it right to state, that Brihtric was the brother of Eadric; that he was the uncle of the man whom he was accusing, a fact surely quite as important, is not implied in any way. The combined evidence of all the Chronicles seems to me to go to distinguish Child Wulfnoth the South-Saxon from any Wulfnoth who was nephew to Eadric. The evidence of Florence goes the same way. As to the parentage of Godwine the three elder Chroniclers are silent. Florence affirms him to have been the son of Wulfnoth the nephew of Eadric; the Canterbury Chronicler affirms him to have been the son of Child Wulfnoth the South-Saxon. I do not say that these two statements are logically contradictory; but it certainly seems to me that, as a matter of historical evidence, they are very hard to reconcile.

Now which of these two accounts is the more probable? As far as authority goes, they are much on a level. Neither statement is strictly contemporary; indeed both of them are statements which in their own nature could not be contemporary; Wulfnoth, whoever he was, is described by a form which could not have been used till long after, when his son had become far more famous than himself. Each description is a mere insertion into an earlier text; each may be a mere hasty inference from likeness of name. The authority of Florence on such a matter is quite equal to that of the Canterbury Chronicle, the latest and least authoritative of the four. His statement too, as part of an insertion of some length, describing the character and family of Eadric, has more the air of a deliberately advised statement than the three words of the Canterbury Chronicler, which might have been inserted _currente calamo_. On the other hand, the statement of Florence is most unlikely in itself, while that of the Canterbury Chronicler has some external support of a very remarkable kind.

If we admit that Godwine was the great-nephew of Eadric, we are at once plunged into all kinds of chronological difficulties and into the strangest of family relations. Eadric was put to death in 1017; there is nothing to show that he was at all an aged man, rather the contrary. Godwine must have been at least a grown man in 1018, when he was already an Earl. Is it possible that Godwine was two generations younger than Eadric? Again, Eadric married Eadgyth the daughter of Æthelred; Eadward the son of Æthelred married Eadgyth the daughter of Godwine. Eadric may well have been a good deal older than his wife, who, as the daughter of a man who was born in 969, must have been young, and may have been almost a child, in 1007, the probable year of her marriage (see above, p. 658). Eadgyth again must have been some years older than her half-brother Eadward, who was born between 1002 and 1005 (see p. 686). Eadward again must have been much older than his wife Eadgyth, whose parents were married in 1019 (see p. 423). Still, allowing for all this, can we conceive a man marrying the great-great-niece of his own brother-in-law? The pedigree would stand thus;

Æthelric Æthelred | | +------+-----+ +------+-----+ | | | | Æthelmær Eadric = Eadgyth Eadward. | Wulfnoth | Godwine | Eadgyth.

Eadward may easily have been twenty years older than his wife, but can we believe that he belonged to the same generation as his wife’s great-grandfather?

This seems to me to be a strong objection to the statement of Florence. On the other hand, the statement of the Canterbury Chronicle curiously falls in with the bequest in the will of the Ætheling Æthelstan; “Ic gean Godwine Wulfnóðes suna ðes landes æt Cumtúne, ðe his feder ǽr áhte.” Why should Æthelstan leave Godwine the land which his father had? The bequest follows immediately on one in which the Ætheling leaves to one Ælfmær the land which had formerly been his own (“Ic gean Ælmére ðes landes æt Hamelande ðæ he ǽr áhte”). And this is followed by a very earnest prayer to his father to confirm the grant to Ælfmær (“Ic bidde minne feder for Godes ælmihtiges lufan and for minon, ðæt he ðes geunne ðe ic him geunnen hebbe”), which is not attached to any of his other bequests. Some special cause evidently lurks under such bequests as these. They naturally suggest the idea that the lands bequeathed were confiscated lands which Æthelstan thought it right to restore, in the one case to the former owner himself, in the other case to the former owner’s son. Now the lands of Child Wulfnoth would doubtless be confiscated after his doings in 1009, and a part of them might easily come into the possession of the Ætheling. For a possession of Child Wulfnoth the South-Saxon we naturally look in his own shire. And Domesday shows us two South-Saxon Comptons, one of them held by Harold (21), the other held by a tenant of Earl Godwine (24). Here is indeed no actual proof, but there is a remarkable series of undesigned coincidences in favour of the belief that Godwine was the son of Child Wulfnoth the South-Saxon, and therefore, as I think, against the belief that he was the great-nephew of Eadric.

This evidence, if it stood alone, would probably be thought quite conclusive; but there is another account of Godwine’s birth, which we could hardly, in any case, accept in its literal shape, but the existence of which is, in any case, a phænomenon to be accounted for, and which, when stripped of its romantic details, is in itself by no means devoid of likelihood. This is that Godwine was the son of a churl near the field of Sherstone or elsewhere.

This version appears in several places and in several forms, and it seems to come from more than one independent source of tradition. We hear of it alike in English, in Danish, and in Norman writers. Thus, while some Norman writers, as William of Jumièges (viii. 9), speak of Godwine’s nobility, Wace (Roman de Rou, 9809) expressly calls him

“Quens Gwine, Ki mult esteit de pute orine.”

Among English writers it is first found in a writer of Henry the First’s time, whose accounts of things, though often very strange, are always independent. This is the chronicler whose work is printed in Mr. Edwards’ Liber de Hyda. In his account of Godwine, against whom he is bitterly prejudiced, he says (p. 288), “Fuit nempe ex infimo Anglorum genere ... et licet per omnes fere Angliæ partes potestas ejus extenderetur, principalis tamen comitatus ejus Australis erat, regio quæ lingua eorum dicitur Sudsexia.” So Ralph the Black, a chronicler of no great value who wrote early in the thirteenth century, distinctly asserts the peasant origin of Godwine. His whole story is full of mythical elements, still it is of some importance, because some of the statements in it clearly do not come from the common sources. His story runs thus (p. 160); “_Godwinus Comes filius bubulci fuit_; in mensa regis Edwardi offa suffocatus est, et ab Haraldo filio sub mensa extractus. Hic Godwinus, _a rege Cnutone nutritus_, processu temporis in Daciam cum breve regis transmissus, callide duxit sororem Cnutonis.” (See Note EEE.)

One of the fullest accounts among those which assert Godwine’s lowly origin, and that which has met with most attention from modern writers, is the picturesque tale in the Knytlinga Saga (c. 11; Johnstone, p. 131). Earl Ulf, pursuing the flying English at Sherstone, loses his way. He meets a youth driving cattle, who tells him that his name is Godwine (Gudini), and whom he asks to show him his way to the Danish ships. Godwine speaks of the difficulty of so doing, when the whole country is so enraged against the Danes; he refuses the Earl’s offered gift of a gold ring, but says that he will do what he can for him, and that, if he succeeds, Ulf may reward him at his pleasure. He then takes the Earl to the house of his father Wulfnoth (Ulfnad), who is described as a rich yeoman (bondi), living in very comfortable style. The Earl is well entertained, especially with good drink; he is greatly pleased with the house and its inhabitants, old and young, and stays the whole of the next day there in great comfort. At night Ulf and Godwine are mounted on two good horses, well caparisoned. Wulfnoth and his wife remind Ulf of the dangerous errand on which they are sending their only son, and they trust to his gratitude for a recompense. The Earl is charmed with the handsome countenance and ready speech of the youth; they ride all night, and reach Cnut’s ships the next morning. Ulf treats Godwine as his son, places him by his side, gives him his sister Gytha in marriage, presents him to Cnut, and procures for him the dignity of Earl.

Here we have a story which, whatever else we say of it, at least fits in with the chronology of the time. It must be a confused or perverted shape of the same tradition when Walter Map (199) tells a story in which the part of Ulf is assigned to King Æthelred. The King loses his way in hunting, and comes alone at night to ask shelter in the house of his neat-herd (“ad domus cujusdam custodis vaccarum suarum”). The neat-herd’s son Godwine (“impiger filius custodis, puer nomine Godwinus, pulchrior et melior quam ipsi daret linea priorum”) does all kinds of services for the royal guest, and specially provides him with a supper which would seem to imply a boundless appetite on the part of the unready King. He thus wins the King’s heart, who presently promotes him in every way, makes him a knight, and gives him the earldom of Gloucester (“tulit ergo ipsum rex in thalamum suum, et processu temporis sublimavit super omnes principes regni, et cum cingulo militiæ comitatum ei Gloucestriæ contulit”). The “bubulci filius” shows all manner of natural gifts in his new elevation, and makes himself famous among both Christians and Saracens. He is above all things protector of the English coast, freeing it from pirates, and making England the terror of all nations, instead of being, as she had been before him, the common prey of all of them (“pererrabat omnes Angliæ portus, tum terra tum mari, piratas omnes destruens; et facta est Anglia per ejus operam timor omnium circum jacentium terrarum quæ fuerat earum direptio et præda”). Presently Cnut comes, invited, according to this writer’s story, by the English themselves (see above, p. 693). The story of the war is told with great confusion, but Godwine appears (204) as the chief supporter of Eadmund (“At in hac quid fecit Godwinus tempestate? Multa et valida manu militum collecta, Edmundum Edelredi filium advocavit, et properanti contra eos occurrunt Chnuto apud Durherst in valle Gloucestriæ super Sabrinam”). Then comes the story of the single combat of Cnut and Eadmund (see above, p. 706).

Now, what are we to make of these stories? The one which is most likely to be true in its main features is that in the Knytlinga Saga; but the saga is a saga, and I have given some specimens of its inaccuracies and confusions. In this very story it would be hard to reconcile the author’s conception of the battle of Sherstone with the truth of history; Godwine also was not the only son of his parents, as we shall in course of time hear of his brother (see Edwards, Introduction to Liber de Hyda, xxxvii.; Mon. Angl. ii. 428, 430); and it is more amazing still when the saga goes on to tell us that Godwine and Gytha were the parents, not only of Swegen, Harold, and Tostig, but also of Morkere and Waltheof. Such a tale is not history; the utmost amount of credit which I should ever think of giving it would be to admit it as evidence of a tradition that Godwine was not of illustrious birth, that he was by origin _ceorl_ and not _eorl_, and that he was in some way connected with Earl Ulf. The details might be devised to account for an Englishman of lowly birth marrying the sister of the great Danish Earl. We may, I think, be sure that the real legend is that which attributes Godwine’s rise to a service done to Ulf, and that the story of Walter Map which puts Æthelred instead of Ulf is a later version. Nothing can be wilder than Walter’s general story, but we may be inclined to believe that he preserves a piece of genuine history when he speaks of Godwine’s services towards Æthelred and Eadmund. This agrees in a remarkable way with the bequest and the will of Æthelstan, if we take that as referring to Godwine the Earl. The account in Ralph the Black is most likely an abridgement of that in Walter Map, as both use the same words (“bubulci filius”), and both tell the same story of Godwine’s marriage (see below, p. 746), which is quite different from that in the Knytlinga Saga. Yet we may take Ralph’s words (“a rege Cnutone nutritus”) as a correction of Walter’s story about Æthelred. The account in the Hyde writer is remarkable on two grounds. It asserts Godwine to have been of low birth; it also, like the Canterbury Chronicle, specially connects him with Sussex, while most of the later writers specially connect him with Kent. On the other hand, if any one ventures to put any faith in the geography of the Knytlinga Saga, Godwine must have come from some place near the borders of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. Walter Map does not mention any particular place, but, according to his usual practice of drawing everything to his own side of England, makes Godwine Earl, not of Kent or Sussex, but of Gloucester.

We have then a distinct tradition, turning up in several quarters, some of which at least seem to be independent of one another, which tradition asserts Godwine to have been a man of churlish birth. Taking the story in the Knytlinga Saga as the genuine form of the legend, the English writers and Wace exaggerate, as in such a case they were sure to do, the lowliness of Godwine’s origin. So do the only modern writers who adopt the story. These are Sharon Turner (Hist. Angl. Sax. ii. 494), who talks about “poverty,” “humble mansion,” &c., and Thierry (i. 160), who talks about a “cabane.” But the Wulfnoth of the saga is not a poor man; he is a _ceorl_ and not a thegn; but he has everything good about him, good house, good drink, good horses. His treatment of Ulf seems to be his usual way of entertaining strangers, while the astonishing supper given to Æthelred in Walter Map’s version is a special effort for the purpose. In the Danish writer’s picture, Wulfnoth is, in modern phrase, not a labourer, not even a tenant farmer, but clearly a rich yeoman. Such a man might, in the England of those days, easily rise to thegn’s rank (see p. 90). Eadric had risen from such a rank, or very possibly from a lowlier one (see above, p. 655), to be Ealdorman of the Mercians and son-in-law of the King. Still the rise from the yeoman’s comfortable house to the earldom of the West-Saxons in one generation and to the throne of England in the next is not an every day event. How far is such an exaltation probable in the present case?

I assume that the story of the Knytlinga Saga is altogether irreconcileable with either of the others. Sharon Turner indeed, like Florence in some of his weaker moments, adopts all three stories at once. He accepts the pedigree given by Florence without hesitation, and seemingly without thinking it at all contradictory to the tale of Godwine’s lowly origin. That tale he adopts in its fulness, and he does his best to weave the two together. He even conceives Wulfnoth in his humble estate as probably remembering the high fortunes of his uncle Eadric, and hoping that a similar good luck may attend his own child. Somewhat earlier, in recording the story of Brihtric and Wulfnoth, Mr. Turner calls the latter “the father of Earl Godwine,” and, though he remarks in a note that the words are absent from _some MSS._ of the Chronicles, he does not appear to doubt Child Wulfnoth’s paternity. Now it would be remarkable if a nephew of the powerful Eadric remained in the condition of a herdsman or even in that of a yeoman, while Eadric himself had risen to such greatness, and had raised at least one of his brothers with him. Yet this, however unlikely, is at least possible. But possibility itself can hardly be stretched so far as to make Wulfnoth the naval commander of 1009 the same as Wulfnoth the yeoman of 1016. Doubtless princes and lords, under the frown of fortune, have before now lurked in much lowlier disguises; but one who, outlaw as he was, still had twenty ships at his bidding, was far more likely to take service under King Swegen or to go on with his doings as wiking on his own account, than to betake himself to the tilth of the ground in a western shire. I think we may safely assert that, if Godwine was the son of a West of England yeoman, he was certainly not the son of the South-Saxon naval captain, and was not likely to be the grand-nephew of Ealdorman Eadric.

And now, what is the measure of likelihood in the story itself? First of all, what is always of no small consequence in these questions, if we grant the truth of the tale in its main outlines, we can understand how the other tale arose, while the reverse process is by no means so easy. For, if the tale of the Knytlinga Saga be a fiction, it must be pure invention without motive. One does not see how any confusion or misconception can have led to it. The story of Godwine’s lowly birth is not introduced in the saga, whatever we say of Wace and the Hyde writer, with the least notion of depreciating him. One therefore hardly sees why any one should go out of his way to invent the tale. But if there were several contemporary Wulfnoths, especially if the real one was an obscure person, mere misconception might lead Florence or his informants to fasten the paternity upon the wrong Wulfnoth. Or, if falsification is supposed, its motives are much more obvious than in the other case. To connect Godwine either with Eadric or with Child Wulfnoth would suit foes who wish to brand one whom they called a traitor as the kinsman of earlier traitors. It might suit Danish friends to represent him as connected with one who had so great a share in setting up the Danish throne in England. And, as Eadric, with all his crimes, was clearly the leader of a powerful party, the invention might even suit some among Godwine’s English friends, who might still regard a connexion with Eadric as conferring more of honour than of shame.

Again, if we accept the legend in the saga, we can understand the rather mysterious way in which Godwine himself comes on the stage under the patronage of Cnut and Ulf, better than if we suppose him to have been a member of a powerful English family. We can especially understand the astonishing silence of his own panegyrist. If Godwine had been a scion of any eminent family, or had been of kin to any famous, or even infamous, men, we should surely, somewhere or other, find him described accordingly. But the mass of writers, as we have seen, are utterly silent; no one introduces him with any description at all; those who connect him with Eadric or with Child Wulfnoth do it backwards; they describe Wulfnoth as the father of Godwine, not Godwine as the son of Wulfnoth.

I think then that, if this story stood by itself, there would be little difficulty in accepting it. I mean of course in accepting the general outline of the tale, namely that Godwine was a yeoman’s son who had somehow attracted the favour of Ulf, and who was by him introduced to Cnut. Details are quite another matter. The whole narrative of the war of Cnut and Eadmund in the Knytlinga Saga is so utterly confused and unhistorical that nothing can be safely said as to time, place, or circumstance. And the story in Walter Map, as far as concerns the first rise of Godwine, is even wilder than the saga itself. But the tradition of Godwine’s churlish origin, taken by itself, would have much to be said for it. I am inclined to think that it might hold its ground against the version in Florence. But the statement of the Canterbury Chronicler, backed up by the will of Æthelstan, is a more formidable opponent. The two descriptions fit singularly well into one another, and the coincidence is, on the face of it, undesigned. It is of course possible that Godwine the son of Wulfnoth and legatee of Æthelstan may not have been the great Earl; it is possible that, being the great Earl, he may have been the son of some other Wulfnoth, and not of the South-Saxon Child. But when we put together the Canterbury Chronicle, the will of Æthelstan, and the entries in Domesday, their cumulative force is so great as to make such explanations mere possibilities and no more. If we accept the will as referring to the great Godwine, and if we further accept my conjecture as to the death of Æthelstan (see above, p. 700), we may look on Godwine as a brave young warrior, whose services had, even before the death of Æthelred, entitled him in the Ætheling’s opinion to a restitution of the lands forfeited by his father. This same conception of him, which might well be genuine tradition, appears in an exaggerated form in the version of Walter Map. This view of him is in no way inconsistent with the fact of the favour which he afterwards found with Ulf and Cnut. Neither is his favour with Ulf and Cnut inconsistent with the story of his yeoman origin, but quite the reverse. The main difficulty, one which I do not see the way to get over, is that Wulfnoth the churl and Child Wulfnoth the South-Saxon cannot be the same man.

The two stories thus become alternatives between which we must choose. Godwine was either the son of Child Wulfnoth, or the son of Wulfnoth the churl; in neither case do I believe him to have been the great-nephew of Eadric. I once inclined, of course with the necessary allowances, to the story in the Knytlinga Saga; I had not then weighed the arguments suggested by the will of Æthelstan and the entries in Domesday. On the strength of these last I now incline to the statement of the Canterbury Chronicler. But I leave the critical reader to decide.

NOTE AAA. pp. 409, 425. THE WEST-SAXON EARLDOM.

There is, I think, quite evidence to show that Godwine was raised to Earl’s rank very early in the reign of Cnut, but that he was not invested with the vast government of which we afterwards find him in possession till some years later.

I do not try to identify any of the signatures of “Godwine minister” in the later days of Æthelred. There are a good many of them, and some of them may be signatures of the great Earl; but the name Godwine is so common that it is utterly impossible to say anything either way. But Godwine undoubtedly signs as Earl from the very beginning of Cnut’s reign. The earliest charters of Cnut are of the year 1018, and Godwine signs one of these (Cod. Dipl. iv. 3) as “dux,” though seemingly, as one would expect, as the junior Earl. But, as Cnut kept Wessex in his own hands, while he appointed Earls over Northumberland and Mercia, Godwine could not have been Earl over all Wessex so early as this. He must have been simply the local Earl of some one shire. That shire may have been Kent. He is called Earl of Kent by Eadmer (“Cantiæ comes magnanimus,” p. 4), and it is his usual description in later accounts. But writers who did not take in the position of an Earl of the West-Saxons, and who did not understand that his jurisdiction took in Kent, may have called Godwine Earl of Kent simply because they found him acting as Earl at Dover in 1051. And, on the other hand, we have just seen (see above, p. 727) that there were other versions which call his first earldom Sussex, and even Gloucester. I do not pretend to settle the question, and it is of no great moment. The one important point is that Godwine was raised to high rank in the very beginning of Cnut’s reign, and was raised to higher rank still somewhat later.

That Godwine at a later time, under Harthacnut and Eadward, held an earldom which took in all Wessex—that is the old kingdoms of Wessex, Kent, and Sussex—there is no doubt. He appears as the immediate ruler of Wessex from the death of Cnut onward, and he is distinctly called “West-Saxonum dux” (Fl. Wig. 1041; cf. 1009). It might indeed be thought that his promotion to this greater government did not take place till after the death of Cnut, when Godwine acted as the minister of the absent Harthacnut. But it is clear from the Biographer of Eadward (392) that he was raised to some special rank by Cnut at the time which I have stated in the text. He attracted Cnut’s notice from the very beginning. “Ubi ... regnum cessit Cnuto regi vario eventu bellorum, inter novos adepti regni principes regio adscitos lateri, hic Godwinus ... probatus est.” This quite falls in with his signature as Earl in 1018. But after Cnut’s visit to Denmark in 1019, after Godwine’s exploits and his marriage (see pp. 422–424, and Note DDD), we read, “Quum repatriaret [Cnutus] in Angliam, feliciter actis omnibus, _totius pene regni_ ab ipso constituitur _dux et bajulus_.” So in the next page we read, “Regnante supradicto Cnuto rege, floruit hic in ejus aula primus inter summos regni proceres; et agente æquitatis ratione, quod scribebat scriptum, quod delebat omnes censebant delendum. Et in hujus potentatus solio potenter viguit, donec et hunc regem et ejus totam stirpem Ille qui regna pro libitu suo transfert succidit.” That is, in plain words, Cnut on his return to England in 1020 invested Godwine with an office which made him the first man in the kingdom, and which he kept through the reigns of Cnut’s sons. It was therefore from Cnut and in 1020 that Godwine received the office which we find him holding under Harthacnut, that of “West-Saxonum dux.” The charters tell the same tale. From 1019 onwards (see Cod. Dipl. iv. 9 et seqq.; vi. 179 et seqq.) Godwine always signs before every other Englishman, while in 1018 (iv. 3) Æthelweard signed before him. For a while (iv. 9, 14, 17, 29) we find some of Cnut’s Danish Earls and kinsmen, Thurkill or Eric, signing before him, but Godwine always signs among them, and gradually, as Cnut’s government became more and more English, it became the established rule for Godwine to sign at the head of the laymen. That Godwine then was Earl of the West-Saxons uninterruptedly from 1020 to 1051 there can I think be no doubt. Of the nature of the office and the policy of the appointment I have spoken in the text. It is plain that it was something quite new, something quite different from the ordinary ealdormanship of a shire in Kent or elsewhere.

“Bajulus,” the word used by the Biographer here and afterwards in p. 401 to express Godwine’s position, exactly answers to the Eastern _Vizier_, and the title is specially common in Sicily and the Levant. But the word is the parent of all the various forms of _bailiff_, _bail_, and such like. See Ducange in _Bajulus_, and Roquefort, Glossaire de la Langue Romane, in _Bailleul_.

Thierry has an amusing glimmering of truth when he says (i. 168), “Après une grande victoire remportée sur les _Norwégiens_, Godwin obtint la dignité d’_earl_, ou chef politique de l’ancien royaume de West-Sex, _reduit alors à l’état de province_.” He saw by some happy instinct, for the Life of Eadward was not then published, that Godwine’s great promotion followed on his exploits in the North; but he turned Godwine’s enemies, who are in every account called either Swedes or Wends, into Norwegians, and he placed the appointment between 1030 and 1035, after Cnut’s conquest of Norway. Moreover, of all Cnut’s dominions Wessex was just the part which was the furthest from being reduced to the form of a province.

NOTE BBB. p. 410. THE MARRIAGE OF CNUT AND EMMA.

Cnut’s first wife or concubine is incidentally mentioned in the three principal Chronicles under 1035, in describing the accession of her supposed son Harold. According to Abingdon and Worcester, “Harold sæde þæt he Cnutes sunu wære and _þære oðre Ælfgyfe_ [Ælfgyfe þære Hamtunisca. Wig.], þeh hit na soð nære.” Peterborough has, “Sume men sædon be Harolde þæt he wære Cnutes sunu cynges and Ælfgive Ælfelmes dohtor ealdormannes; ac hit þuhte swiðe ungeleaflic manegum mannum.” We thus learn that “the other Ælfgifu” was daughter of the murdered Ealdorman Ælfhelm and that she was known as Ælfgifu of Northampton. We also learn that the alleged parentage of her son Harold was generally doubted.

Florence (1035) in describing the succession of Swegen in Norway and of Harold in England, calls their supposed mother “Northamtunensis Alfgiva, filia videlicet Alfhelmi ducis et nobilis matronæ Wlfrunæ.” He goes on to mention the popular belief which I have mentioned in the text at p. 411. William of Malmesbury (ii. 188) says, “Haroldus, quem fama filium Cnutonis ex filia Elfelmi comitis loquebatur.”

There is in all this no hint that Ælfgifu of Northampton was in any sense Cnut’s wife; but Roger of Wendover, who elsewhere (i. 473) calls her “Algiva concubina,” says (i. 462), “Anno Domini MXVIII. obiit Algiva, Elfelmi Comitis filia et uxor regis Cnutonis, ex qua duos habuit filios, Suanum videlicet et Haroldum, licet alii dicant eos ex fornicatione generatos.” He then adds, “Misit ergo Cnuto in Normanniam ad ducem Ricardum propter Emmam sororem suam,” &c. The Chronica Regis Cnutonis in the Liber de Hyda (267), which is followed by Roger of Wendover with a good many changes, calls her “Elgiva uxor sua regina,” and directly after says, “defuncta uxore Cnutonis regis, Elfgiva nomine, idem rex misit in Normanniam,” as in Roger. Bromton too (906) first calls her “concubina,” and perverts her name into Ailena; but afterwards (934) she, for it must be the same, is Cnut’s “prima uxor sive amasia.”

In the Knytlinga Saga (c. 16) Swegen appears as the son of Cnut and “Alfifa,” as he also does in Snorro (Laing, ii. 344 et seqq.), according to whom Ælfgifu survived Cnut and governed Norway in the name of her son. So Saxo (196) calls Swegen “quem ex Alvina sustulerat.” He had before (192) spoken of her as the mistress, first of Saint Olaf, then of Cnut. “Eodem tempore Alvvinam ab Olavo adamatam, Canutus eximia matronæ specie delectatus, stupro petiit.” Olaf is thereby “concubinæ facibus spoliatus.” As far as one can make anything out of Saxo’s chronology, this is just after the battle of Assandun.

The Encomiast, in recording Emma’s care, before she marries Cnut, to secure the succession for her own children, says incidentally (ii. 16), “dicebatur enim ab alia quadam rex filios habuisse.” Again, in iii. 1, when recording the accession of Harold, he describes him as “quemdam Haroldum, quem esse filium æstimatione asseritur cujusdam ejusdem regis Cnutonis concubinæ; plurimorum vero assertio eumdem Haroldum perhibet furtim fuisse subreptum parturienti ancillæ, impositum autem cameræ languentis concubinæ. Quod veracius credi potest.”

Notwithstanding the pious care of Roger of Wendover and the Hyde writer to marry this Ælfgifu to Cnut, and to kill her off before his marriage with Emma, there can be no doubt that she was at most a Danish wife after the manner of Popa and Sprota (see pp. 206, 253), that she was alive at the time of Emma’s marriage, and that she survived Cnut. Moreover, if Cnut’s connexion with Ælfgifu began when Saxo says it did, one at least of her sons must have been born after Emma’s marriage. Cnut, it is to be supposed, reformed in these matters, as in others. The Ramsey historian (c. 80; Gale, p. 437) calls him “usus venerei parcus,” and in his Laws (51–57, Thorpe, i. 404–6) he is strict against all breaches of chastity.

And now for the marriage with Emma. There is indeed something very strange about the whole thing. William of Malmesbury (ii. 180) is uncertain whether Emma or her brother Richard was most disgraced by the marriage. “Ignores majore illius dedecore qui dederit, an feminæ quæ consenserit ut thalamo illius caleret qui virum infestaverit, filios effugaverit.” Not to enter into this delicate question, it is worth noticing that Cnut was now about twenty-two, while Emma, married in 1002, could not have been under thirty, and considering the ages of her parents, the daughter of Richard and Gunnor may have been much older. The Scandinavian writers are not startled at a much greater disparity of years, as they boldly make Emma the mother of all the children of Æthelred. (See above, p. 688.) According to the Knytlinga Saga (Johnstone, 129), Emma was in England at the moment of Æthelred’s death, upon which she prepared to leave the country, but Cnut persuaded her to stay and marry him. The war of Cnut and Eadmund is therefore, according to this view, war between a stepfather and a stepson. I need not go about to show that Eadmund was not the son of Emma, and it is equally certain that Cnut did not marry Emma till July 1017, eight months after the death of Eadmund, and that she was in Normandy at the time of Cnut’s proposal. But that she was in England at the time of Æthelred’s death (as is distinctly affirmed by R. Howden, ii. 240), and that Cnut saw her during the course of the war, is quite possible. See above, p. 700. As to her coming to England, there is something amusing in the form of words employed, with some slight variations, by all the English Chroniclers; “And þa toforan Kal. Augusti het se cyng feccean him þæs oðres kynges lafe Æðelredes him to wife, Ricardes dohtor.” She signs Cnut’s charters from this time, beginning in 1018, sometimes as Emma, but more commonly as Ælfgifu. In Cod. Dipl. iv. 9 she is “Ælfgive thoro consecrata regio.”

According to William of Malmesbury (ii. 196), Emma not only hated the memory of Æthelred, which is not very wonderful, but extended her dislike to her children by him; “hæreditario scilicet odio parentis in prolem, nam magis Cnutonem et amaverat vivum et laudabat defunctum.” This account receives a most singular confirmation from the language of her Encomiast, from which it is plain that she wished her first marriage to be utterly forgotten. Not a hint is allowed to escape the courtly panegyrist which might imply that Emma had any earlier connexion with England, or that she had ever been married to Æthelred or to any other man. Cnut, after he had established himself in England and had got rid of Eadric (“omnibus rite dispositis,” ii. 16, cf. c. 15), wanted a wife worthy to be the partner of his Empire (“ut inventam hanc legaliter adquireret et adeptam Imperii sui consortem faceret”). He sends and seeks through many kingdoms and cities, but no help-meet for him is found (“longe lateque quæsita, vix tandem digna reperitur”). At last the Imperial bride is found (“inventa est hæc Imperialis sponsa”) in Normandy; Cnut, we are told, specially preferred the Norman connexion, because the Normans were a victorious people who had established themselves in Gaul by force of arms (“pro hoc præcipue quod erat oriunda ex victrici gente, quæ sibi partem Galliæ vendicaverat invitis Francigenis et eorum principe”). An opportunity is of course seized on for a special “encomium” on the lady herself. Deputy-wooers (“proci”) are sent with gifts and promises; but the prudent Emma, hearing that Cnut had children by another woman, will have nothing to say to him till he swears that none but her own children shall succeed him in the kingdom; “Abnegat illa se umquam Chnutonis sponsam fieri, nisi illi jusjurando affirmaret, quod numquam _alterius conjugis_ filium post se regnare faceret nisi ejus, si forte illi Deus ex eo filium dedisset. Dicebatur enim ab alia quadam rex filios habuisse, unde illa suis prudenter providens, scivit ipsis sagaci animo profutura præordinare.” Cnut agrees, and on these terms they marry. But, by a nearly unparalleled flight of daring (but compare the way in which Matilda is spoken of. See vol. iii. p. 655), the widow of Æthelred, the mother of Eadward, Ælfred, and Godgifu, is twice spoken of as a virgin; “Placuit ergo regi verbum _virginis_, et jusjurando facto _virgini_ placuit voluntas regis.” Presently (c. 18) we hear of the birth of Harthacnut; and we are told that Cnut kept Harthacnut with him as the heir of his throne, while his other lawful sons were sent into Normandy for education (“alios liberales filios educandos direxerunt Normanniæ, istum hunc retinentes sibi utpote futurum hæredem regni”). Now we know that Cnut and Emma had no son except Harthacnut, and by comparing this passage with a later one (iii. 2) it is plain that the sons spoken of are Eadward and Ælfred, and that the intention of the writer is to pass them off as younger sons of Cnut and Emma. A more impudent case of courtly falsehood can hardly be found; but these daring statements of her contemporary flatterer show how little Emma loved either her elder sons or the memory of their father.

NOTE CCC. p. 414. THE FAMILY OF LEOFWINE OF MERCIA.

Of Leofwine himself, as far as I know, no single political action is recorded. But the important part played by his son Leofric and his children naturally awakens a certain interest in the whole family. Our curiosity as to their earlier history would be amply gratified if we could put any trust in a document which is printed in the Monasticon, iii. 192, and which is drawn out in a tabular shape by Sir Francis Palgrave, English Commonwealth, ii. ccxci. This is a complete pedigree of the family, which is attached to one of the manuscripts of Florence, but which its contents show to be not earlier than the reign of John. According to this document, Leofwine was the son of Leofric, the son of Ælfgar, the son of Ælfgar, the son of Leofric, who is placed in the days of Æthelbald of Mercia (716–757; see p. 38). Our Leofwine is made contemporary with Æthelstan, Eadmund, Eadwig, and Eadgar. Now Agêsilaos was the son of Archidamos, and Lewis the Twelfth was the son of the Duke of Orleans who was taken at Azincourt; still it would be amazing if a man who was not only born, but seemingly an Ealdorman, between 926 and 940 was succeeded by a son who himself lived till 1057, and whose widow, seemingly much of his own age, survived the Norman Conquest. Leofric also himself, the famous Earl of the days of Eadward, is made to flourish and to found monasteries for a space of about eighty-two years. He is described as “nobilis fundator multorum cœnobiorum, tempore Edwardi secundi, Ethelredi, Cnutonis, Haroldi, Hardicanuti, et Edwardi tertii regum Angliæ.” Such a document is self-convicted. It is simply of a piece with the wonderful stories of Harold and Gyrth surviving to a præternatural age.

We shall, as usual, come nearer to the truth by turning to the charters. We find a signature of “Leofwine dux” in 994 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 280), from which time his signatures, if they are all those of the same person, go on through the reign of Æthelred and into the reign of Cnut. From one signature in 997 (Cod. Dipl, iii. 304) he appears to have been Ealdorman of the Hwiccas (“Wicciarum provinciarum dux”), but as this charter is signed by two other Leofwines with the rank of thegn, it is of course possible that one of these may have been the Ealdorman of the days of Cnut. Considering the rarity of the name Northman, borne by one of Leofwine’s sons, I should be inclined to look for the father of our Leofwine in a “Norðman dux” who signs in 994 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 280); only, if so, the father signs after the son.

Leofwine, as I hold, succeeded Eadric in the head earldom of Mercia in 1017, and he was most likely succeeded by his son Leofric at some time between 1024 and 1032. The last signature of Leofwine comes between 1021 and 1024 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 29), and he was living and acting in 1023 (see Cod. Dipl. iv. 26). The first undoubted signature of Leofric as “dux” is in 1032 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 39). He therefore succeeded his father in some earldom at some time between those dates, and he was clearly head Earl of the Mercians in 1035 (see p. 482). The natural inference is that it was in the head earldom of the Mercians that he succeeded his father, and therefore that Leofwine, hitherto subordinate Ealdorman of the Hwiccas, was raised to the chief government of all Mercia when that post became vacant by the death of Eadric.

Florence, under 1017, in recording the execution of Northman, gives him the title of “_dux_” and calls him “filius Leofwini _ducis_, frater scilicet Leofrici _comitis_.” This distinction between “dux” and “comes” is unusual. I can only guess that it means that Leofwine and Northman had borne the title of _Ealdorman_ under the old state of things, while Leofric was only _Eorl_ under the new. And that this is the ground of the distinction seems the more likely, because, in a case where the distinction was purely local, where the Chronicles in 991 call Thored _Eorl_ and Ælfric _Ealdorman_ (see p. 279), Florence puts them together as _duces_. The Chronicles however do not mention Northman as an Ealdorman, but rather imply the contrary; “On þisum geare wæs Eadric ealdorman ofslagen, and Norðman Leofwines sunu ealdormannes.” Florence goes on to say that Leofric succeeded Northman in his government; “Leofricum, pro Nortmanno suo germano, rex constituit ducem, et eum postmodum valde carum habuit.” But I find no certain signature of Leofric as “dux” till 1032. His signature with that title is indeed put to the document in Cod. Dipl. iv. 32 which professes to belong to 1026, but of the doubtful nature of that document I have already spoken (see above, p. 667). But in 1023 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 27) he signs as “minister” a grant of Cnut to another man of his own name, Leofric son of Bonda; and in the last charter signed by Earl Leofwine his son seems to be pointedly distinguished from him, “Ego Leofwine dux. Ego Leofric.” I therefore cannot help suspecting that he did not become an Earl till his father’s death, and that Florence forestalled his appointment by confounding it with the elevation of his father. If he was appointed to a subordinate earldom in 1017, it was most likely that of Chester; at least he figures in later and spurious documents as “Leycestriæ comes.”

Besides Northman and Leofric, Leofwine had a son named Eadwine who died in the battle of Rhyd-y-Groes (see p. 506), and another son Godwine. Godwine had a son Æthelwine, who was given, probably as a child, as a hostage to Cnut, and had his hands cut off (“a Danis obses manibus truncatus est”) in the mutilation of the hostages in 1014 (see p. 371). This curious fact we learn from Heming’s Worcester Cartulary, 259, 260.

The relations of Cnut towards this family are singular. The father and one of his sons are high in his favour. A second son is put to death, and the son of a third son is cruelly mutilated. The difference is, I suspect, to be found in the gradual change of Cnut’s own character.

NOTE DDD. p. 415. THE DEATH OF EADRIC.

The accounts of the death of Eadric form an excellent example of the growth of a legend. Each writer knows more about it than the one immediately before him.

The three elder Chronicles, under the year 1017, simply record the execution of Eadric; “On þisum geare wæs Eadric ealdorman ofslagen.”

The Canterbury Chronicler adds the place, London, and volunteers his own conviction that the execution was righteous; “Eadric ealdorman wearð ofslagan on Lundene swyðe rihtlice.”

Florence adds that the execution happened at Christmas, in the palace, and that the body of Eadric was thrown over the wall of the city, and left unburied. He also tells us Cnut’s motive, namely fear lest Eadric should some day betray him, as he had betrayed his former lords Æthelred and Eadmund.

William of Malmesbury (ii. 181) knows Eadric’s fate after death; “Putidum spiritum dimisit ad inferos.” He has also more to tell us than his predecessors about his last sayings and doings in this world. Cnut and Eadric quarrelled, he does not know about what; but Eadric began to go through all his services, and to tell, amongst other things, how he first forsook Eadmund and then slew him for Cnut’s sake. Cnut waxes wroth, and says that Eadric must die, because he has slain his own lord and Cnut’s sworn brother. His blood shall be on his own head, because he has borne witness against himself that he has slain the Lord’s anointed. For fear of a tumult the King has Eadric at once stifled to death (“fauces elisus”) in the room where they were, namely Cnut’s own bed-chamber, and has the body thrown through the window into the Thames.

Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 756 E) makes Eadric come to Cnut directly after the murder of Eadmund and salute him as sole King. Cnut asks the meaning of the title, which Eadric explains, saying how he has brought about Eadmund’s death. Cnut answers that for so great a service he will set him higher than all the Witan of England. So he cuts off his head, and sets it on a pole on the highest tower in London.

Æthelred of Rievaux (X Scriptt. 365) has the same story with a few verbal changes. He sets the head on the highest _gate_ of London. The gate and the tower may or may not be the same thing, but we have now clearly come to the beginning of the practice of exposing heads on Temple-Bar.

Walter Map (De Nugis, 207), who never names Eadric, tells nearly the same story of the anonymous servant of Eadmund of whom he has so much to tell us. After Eadmund’s death at Ross, the servant hastens to Cnut and tells him that he is now full King instead of half-King (“rex integer qui semirex heri fuisti”), and begs him to reward the man who had removed his enemy. Cnut (“licet tristissimus, placido vultu retulit”) asks who his friend is, as he will set him high above all his comrades (“faciam eum præcelsum præ consortibus suis”). The servant says it is himself, on which the King has him hanged on a lofty oak, a kind of death which looks as if Walter Map did not place the story in London.

Roger of Wendover (i. 460) tells William of Malmesbury’s story, only adding the subject of dispute between Cnut and Eadric, which William of Malmesbury could not tell us. Eadric complained of being deprived of his earldom of Mercia, a singular complaint, as Cnut had only that year confirmed him in it. He also tells Henry of Huntingdon’s story as an alternative.

Bromton (X Scriptt. 908) gives both versions with slight improvements on each. William’s version is enriched by the detail that Eadric’s hands and feet were tied when he was thrown out of the window. This was the mode of his death, for in this version we do not hear of his being stifled. To the other story the only addition is that, when his head was set on the gate, his body was thrown over the wall.

Lastly, Knighton (X Scriptt. 2318) follows William, but gives us Eadric’s speech at greater length and tells us that it was made before dinner. Also we now hear that he was thrown into the Thames from the window of a high tower; his hands and feet were tied, and he was thrown out by a machine—a sling or catapult.

These English versions seem to form a series of themselves, and to grow without foreign help. But in the Encomium Emmæ (ii. 15) we have a version older than any of these except perhaps that of the Chronicles, which shows how the intentional or careless perversion of a contemporary writer may depart as widely from the truth as any feat of the imagination of legend-makers. The Encomiast, as we have seen (see above, p. 711), leaves the death of Eadmund shrouded in mystery, and does not say a word implicating Eadric; he also leaves out Eadric’s appointment to the earldom of Mercia, because his object is to represent Cnut as immediately punishing all who had dealt in any way treacherously towards Eadmund. Eadric is therefore made to demand a reward for his treachery at Assandun (“Edricus qui a bello fugerat, quum prœmia pro hoc ipso a rege postularet, acsi hoc pro ejus victoria fecisset”). Cnut says that he who had been faithless to one lord will not be faithful to another, and he accordingly bids Earl Eric to cut off his head with his axe. “Ille vero nil moratus bipennem extulit, eique ictu valido caput amputavit, ut hoc exemplo discant milites regibus suis esse fideles, non infideles.”

In the English series the turning-point is when, in the version of William of Malmesbury, there comes in the first allusion to the Amalekite who slew Saul. When this parallel was once thought of, the true date of Eadric’s execution, namely the thirteenth month after Eadmund’s death, no longer suited the tale; the date of the story was therefore moved back, and Eadric was made to announce the murder of Eadmund and to be put to death at once. For the details, the writers at each stage of course drew on their imaginations.

NOTE EEE. p. 422. THE EXPLOITS AND MARRIAGE OF GODWINE.

I copy this tale from Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 757 B) in the belief that, though its details are most likely mythical, Godwine really rose higher in Cnut’s favour through some conspicuous warlike exploit during Cnut’s visit to Denmark in 1019. The Biographer of Eadward (392) distinctly asserts as much, and he makes both Godwine’s marriage with Gytha and his promotion to the West-Saxon earldom to be the rewards of the qualities which he showed on this journey. Cnut goes to Denmark to subdue certain rebels; “absenti enim rebellare paraverant collo effreni ejus abjicientes potentiam.” This may refer either to disturbances in Denmark itself, of which we get some slight hints elsewhere (see Note GGG, and above, p. 669), or to revolts on the parts of subject nations. Godwine goes with him—“adhæsit comes individuus per omnem viam.” Cnut remarks Godwine’s great qualities, not only his eloquence (“quam profundus eloquio”) but his military capacity; “Hic ejus prudentiam, hic laborum constantiam, hic virtutis militiam, hic attentius expertus est idem rex tanti principis valentiam.” He feels that such a man will be most useful to him in the government of his newly won kingdom of England. He therefore admits him to his most secret counsels and gives him his sister in marriage (“ponit eum sibi a secretis, dans illi in conjugem sororem suam”), and on his return to England he gives him the great promotion of which I have spoken in an earlier Note (see above, p. 731). If then Henry of Huntingdon’s tale of Godwine’s Northern exploit be historical, it must belong to this year, and it seems quite to fall in with the brief hints of the Biographer. He places it in the year 1019; “Tertio anno regni sui ivit in Daciam, ducens exercitum Anglorum et Dacorum in Wandalos.” He then tells the story, and adds, “Quamobrem summo honore deinceps Anglos habuit nec minori quam Dacos.” William of Malmesbury, however (ii. 181), transfers the story to the Swedish war of 1025, waged against Ulf and Eglaf. Cnut wins a victory mainly through the valour of Godwine and the English; “Promptissimis in ea pugna Anglis, hortante Godwino comite ut, pristinæ gloriæ memores, robur suum oculis novi domini assererent.” No details are given; but the English by their valour win fame for themselves and an earldom for their captain; “Angli ... victoriam consummantes comitatum duci, sibi laudem pararunt.” Roger of Wendover (i. 466) also transfers the story to the Swedish war. He tells the tale much as it is told in Henry of Huntingdon, adding, that Godwine took Ulf and Eglaf prisoners. He says nothing about any special reward to Godwine, but of the English in general he says, “ob hanc caussam Cnuto deinceps Anglos summo honore venerans, cum læta victoria ad Angliam navigavit.” But this version is clearly wrong, for in the Swedish war of 1025 Cnut was defeated (see p. 454, and Note MMM); but William of Malmesbury’s statement, that Godwine, already an Earl, received an earldom as the reward of his conduct in this war, is evidently the true version of Godwine’s appointment to the West-Saxon earldom moved to a wrong year.

The Biographer, as we have seen, distinctly makes Godwine’s marriage as well as his promotion to be part of his reward for his exploits in 1019. He marries him to a sister of Cnut himself, but most of the other authorities make Godwine’s wife Gytha to be the sister of Ulf and daughter of Thorgils Sprakaleg—the same epithet as the Homeric πόδας ὠκύς. So Florence (1049), Adam of Bremen (ii. 52—“dedit ejus Wolf sororem copulatam altero duci Guduino”), and Snorro (Laing, ii. 252). The Knytlinga Saga also (c. 11; Johnstone, 133), as we have seen (see above, p. 725), marries Godwine to Ulf’s sister, but seemingly at an earlier time. The words of Saxo (196) are not very clear; “Benevolentiam enim quam Canutus perfidis Ulvonis meritis denegavit, consanguineæ sibi prolis respectui tribuendam putavit. Quinetiam sororem Anglorum satrapæ Godewino nuptiis junxit, gentem genti animis atque affinitate conserere cupiens.” I used to think that this meant that Cnut gave Godwine Ulf’s sister, but it now strikes me that it rather means Cnut’s own sister. The marriage or alleged marriage of Godwine with the sister of Cnut forms the subject of a legend which is found in more than one English writer. Its fullest form is to be found in Walter Map (207). In this version, as soon as Eadmund’s servant (see above, pp. 713, 741) had announced the murder of his master to Cnut and had received his fitting reward, Cnut and his Danes are guilty of all kinds of oppressions and outrages in England. Godwine, having failed to persuade Cnut to act otherwise, revolts against him (“quod Godwinus Chnuto cum multis afferens lacrimis, ad nullam exauditus est populi sui liberationem, et factus est pietate suorum impius et immitis regis Dacorum hostis, restititque regiæ potestati viriliter, et in plurimis eum ipsi dicunt prævaluisse congressibus, pacem semper Anglicis et libertatem exorans”). Cnut, unable to overcome Godwine, makes a feigned reconciliation with him (“facti sunt amici superficie tenus, et libertas Angliæ restituta”). Cnut still goes on laying various plots against Godwine, and at last tells him that he wishes to send him into Denmark to settle things there. As his credentials, the King will give him a letter to his sister, who will presently call together the chief men of Denmark to receive Godwine’s commands. When he is going to sail, his chaplain Brand (“consilio Brandi capellani sui, quem optimum sciebat in subtilibus artificem”)—can this be meant for the Brand who was chosen Abbot of Peterborough late in 1066? (see vol. iii. p. 529; v. p. 224)—counsels him to open the letter; he does so, and finds that it contains an order for the Danes to put him to death (“non enim sum ipso superstite rex unicus Anglorum et Daciæ”). One expression in the alleged letter is singular (“quod comes Godwinus ... extorsit a me tam dolose quam violenter Daciæ regimen per triennium”). Godwine of course substitutes a forged letter, in which he is invested with the regency of Denmark and is promised the King’s sister in marriage. The description which Godwine is made to give of himself is strange enough. He is “Eboracensium comes, dominusque Lincolniæ, Notingam, Leicestriæ, Cestriæ, Huntendunæ, Northamtunæ, Gloucestriæ, quique nobis diu restitit Herefordiæ.” That is to say, Godwine is described as Earl of exactly those parts of England of which he never was Earl; things are turned about in much the same way as they are turned about by the same writer in his account of the division of the kingdom between Cnut and Eadmund (see above, p. 706). Yet the imaginary warfare of Godwine after the death of Eadmund may well be a confused remembrance of real warfare before the death of Eadmund, and one would like to know something about the alleged resistance of Hereford to Cnut, a point on which Walter Map might certainly preserve a genuine tradition. The story here breaks off; but in the romantic Life of Harold (Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, 153, 154) the tale goes on to its natural end. The letter is opened, and another is put in its place, by which the Danes are ordered to receive Godwine as regent, and to give him the King’s sister in marriage. All this is accordingly done, and Cnut then puts the best face upon the matter; he receives Godwine as a brother and gives him the rank of “consul” or Earl. The same story is alluded to in the Chronicle of Ralph the Black (160), who in his account of Godwine (see above, p. 725) tells us how “in Daciam cum breve regis transmissus callide duxit sororem Cnutonis.” The same story is told by Saxo (194) of the way in which Ulf obtained his own wife Estrith. We can further compare the stories of Bellerophontês, Uriah—an analogy which does not fail to present itself to the mind of Harold’s biographer—the messenger of Pausanias in Thucydides (i. 132), and the letter given by King Philip of Swabia to Otto of Wittelsbach, Chronicon Slavorum, vii. 14.

In weighing these counter-statements, there is no doubt that, for anything personal to Godwine, the Biographer’s authority is the highest of any. But his authority will hardly bear up against so many opposite witnesses, especially against the distinct, though implied, statement of Florence (1049). Earl Swegen is there described as “Godwini comitis et Gythæ filius,” and directly afterwards we read of “Beorn comes, filius avunculi sui Danici comitis Ulfi ... ac frater Suani Danorum regis.” Florence himself indeed goes wrong when in a later passage (1067, and again in the Genealogia, vol. i. p. 275) he calls Gytha “soror Suani regis Danorum;” but this is a slip between Swegen Estrithson’s aunt and his sister, and in no way brings Gytha nearer to Cnut. If Gytha had really been Cnut’s sister, it is inconceivable that any one would have turned her, especially in the elaborate and formal way in which it is done by Florence and Adam, into a sister of Ulf. But a sister of the King’s brother-in-law might be much more easily mistaken for the King’s own sister; perhaps she might be laxly called so. But in any case I accept the statements as to the parentage of Godwine’s wife as alternative statements, and I do not admit that Godwine married twice. It seems to me that, when Ulf’s sister had been mistaken for Cnut’s sister, and when two statements had thus arisen about her, the next stage was to cut her into two separate women. Thus William of Malmesbury (ii. 200) marries Godwine, first to a sister of Cnut, who bears one nameless son, and then to a nameless woman, who was the mother of his historical children. This is clearly an attempt to reconcile the statement that Godwine married Cnut’s sister with the fact that Godwine’s children are never spoken of as in any way of kin to Cnut. William’s account of Godwine’s first wife is an excellent specimen of Norman calumny. She gets great wealth by selling English slaves, especially beautiful girls, into Denmark. Her son, while still a boy, is drowned in the Thames, being carried into the stream by a horse given him by his grandfather—Swegen, Wulfnoth, or whom?—and she herself is killed by lightning for her misdeeds. Mr. Thorpe (Diplomatarium, 312) seemingly accepts this tale, as he takes the marriage settlement of a certain Godwine (Cod. Dipl. iv. 10), containing the names of three other Godwines, all alike unknown, to be a record of the imaginary second marriage of the great Earl. Bromton (934) and Knighton (2333) tell William’s story with improvements, making, with a fine perception of dates and ages, Godwine’s first wife to be a daughter of Cnut by Ælfgifu of Northampton. See above, p. 734.

I have no doubt that Godwine had but one wife, Gytha, daughter of Thorgils, sister of Ulf, and aunt of Swegen Estrithson, and that all his sons and daughters were her children.

NOTE FFF. p. 430. WYRTGEORN KING OF THE WENDS.

I cannot pretend to any special knowledge of Slavonic history, and I must confess that I am quite unable to identify this King Wyrtgeorn. There was however a very eminent Slavonic prince at this time, who was closely connected with Cnut, and who spent some time with him in England. I do not know whether the two can anyhow be the same, or whether there has been any confusion between them.

The person I mean is Godescalc the son of Uto or Pribignew the Obotrite, a Wendish prince whose exploits will be found recorded in the Chronica Sclavica, ap. Lindenbrog, capp. 13, 14 (Hamburg, 1706), in Helmold’s Chronicon Slavorum, i. 19–25 (Frankfurt, 1581), in three notices of Saxo, pp. 196, 204, 208, and in a variety of passages of Adam of Bremen, ii. 64, 75; iii. 18, 21, 45, 50, 70. In his youth he was sent as a student to Lüneburg, but, hearing of his father’s death at the hands of the neighbouring Saxons, he gave over his studies, renounced his faith, put himself at the head of his heathen countrymen, and carried on a fierce war with the Saxons of Holstein and Stormaria. The freemen of Thetmarsen alone withstood him. He was then brought to a better mind by a rebuke received from a Christian, which has a somewhat legendary sound. He was soon afterwards taken prisoner by Bernhard the Second, Duke of the Saxons (1010–1062), who after a while released him, seemingly on condition that he should leave the country. He then joined himself to Cnut, entered his service, seemingly as an officer of the Housecarls, served in his wars, and, according to the national Chronicle, was rewarded with the hand of his daughter—no doubt a mistake for sister—whose name is given as Demmyn. He was in England at the time of Cnut’s death. According to the Chronicle he then returned to his own country (“revertens ad patriam post mortem Kanuti,” c. 13), but according to Adam of Bremen (ii. 75) it was not till early in the reign of Eadward (“post mortem Chnut regis et filiorum ejus rediens ab Anglia”). In this case it is not unlikely (see vol. ii. p. 65) that he was banished from England. According to Saxo (20) he served some time under Swegen Estrithson in his war with Magnus, and married his natural daughter Siritha (Sigrid?). The two Swegens are clearly confounded, and Godescalc is much more likely to have married a daughter of the elder Swegen. But his main object was to win back his own inheritance, which after some fighting he regained, and devoted himself to the spread of Christianity among his countrymen. He not only built and endowed churches, but became personally a missionary, translating into the vulgar tongue what the clergy preached in Latin or German. He waged some wars in concert with Duke Bernhard, and his power seems to have been sensibly lessened after that prince’s death. At last, in 1066, he suffered martyrdom at the hands of his heathen subjects, at the instigation of his brother-in-law Blusso. With him suffered John, Bishop of Mecklenburg, who was sacrificed to the Slavonic god Radegast, and others of his companions, both clergy and laity. Godescalc’s wife, the Danish princess, was sent away naked; several of his sons were killed, but one, Henry, took refuge with his cousin Swegen in Denmark, and afterwards avenged his father’s death. On the death of Godescalc, the whole Wendish country fell back into heathenism.

The account of these things in the honest Nether-Dutch of Botho’s Picture Chronicle of Brunswick (Leibnitz, iii. 327) is worth reading. “In dussem sulven jare [1065, but the year of William’s coming to England] vorhoff sick ein grot mort van den Wenden, Gotschalckus wart dot geslagen binnen Lentzin, Answerus wart mit sinen moneken geschent binnen Rosseborge, bischopp Johannes to Mekelenborch de wart mit speten to hauwen in alle stucke, unde worpen sinen licham upp de strate in de goten, unde offerden sin hovet örem affgode Ridegaste. Des konighes dochter to Dennemarcke Gotschalckes wiff, de jageden se ut Mekelenborch naket mit anderen Cristen fruwen, se fenghen unde slogen de Cristen alle, unde to bespottinge se de crütze to hauweden, unde vorstorden gruntliken Hamborch, Sleswick, Mekelenborch unde Oldenborch dat se ane Bischopp stonden LXXX.”

Godescalc is so interesting a character that we should certainly be well pleased to connect him with England as closely as we can. But I do not know how far we are justified in making him the same as the Wyrtgeorn of Florence. There is also a single charter of 1026 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 33) which is signed (along with the Earls Godwine, Hakon, Hrani, and Sihtric) by an Earl Wrytesleof, whose name certainly has a very Slavonic sound.

NOTE GGG. p. 431. THE DEATH OF ULF.

Ulf, as we have seen, plays hardly any part in English history; there seems no doubt that he was put to death by order of Cnut, but the Danish and Norwegian accounts of his death differ very widely. According to Snorro’s Saga of Saint Olaf (Laing, ii. 244), Ulf had joined with Emma in a conspiracy to set Harthacnut on the throne of Denmark, of which kingdom Ulf had been left in command, as well as in charge of the kingly bairn. Cnut comes over into Denmark, and Ulf, finding himself forsaken of all men, asks for grace. This is just at the time of the joint Swedish and Norwegian invasion which led to the battle of the Helga. Cnut bids Ulf come with his men and ships, and they will talk of grace afterwards. Ulf joins the King’s muster and takes a part in the battle. Soon after, on Saint Michael’s Eve (252), Ulf entertains Cnut at Roskild. The Earl was in a good humour, and the King in a bad one. They quarrel over a game of chess, on which Ulf rises to leave the room. Cnut says, “Run away, Ulf the Fearful.” Ulf turns round and reminds him that he did not call him Ulf the Fearful when he himself ran away at the Helga and Ulf saved him. The next morning, as he is dressing, Cnut bids his page go and kill Ulf. The lad comes back, saying that he has not killed him because he has gone to the church of Saint Lucius. Cnut then bids his chamberlain Ivar the White go and kill him in the church, which was accordingly done, after which Cnut gives great wealth to the church of Roskild.

Saxo has quite another story. Ulf first (194) obtains Estrith in marriage by the stratagem which I have already mentioned. He then makes divers plots, takes refuge in Sweden, exhorts Olaf and Omund to an invasion of Denmark, and fights on their side at the Helga (195). Presently, on the birth of her son Swegen, Estrith obtains her husband’s pardon from her brother (196). Then in a feast at Roskild, seemingly at Christmas (“annuo feriarum circuitu repetito”), Ulf, being half drunk, something like Kleitos in the history of Alexander, enlarges on his own exploits, especially his exploits at the Helga against Cnut. He is therefore at once put to death, quite justly, according to Saxo’s declared opinion, though his language is so laboured that one might fancy that he had some doubts about it. He comments thus (197);

“Igitur Ulvo inter ipsa mensæ sacra ab adstantibus interfici jussus, præcipitis linguæ justa supplicia pependit. Ita dum aliena facta parum sobrie meminit, sua cecinit, siccatosque cupide calices proprii sanguinis liquore complevit. Merito enim ex tam petulanti ingenio amaritudinem potius quam voluptatem percipere debuit, quod gloriæ sibi loco arrogasset, ductu suo præcipuis regis viribus ultimam incessisse jacturam.”

Cnut then gives his sister two provinces as a sort of _wérgild_ for her husband. She presently gives them, or a tithe of them, to the church of Roskild; “Quas eadem postmodum sacrosanctæ Trinitatis ædi, præcipua apud Roskildiam veneratione cultæ, decimarum nomine partiendas curavit.” See p. 472.

These stories, different as they are, have manifestly some elements in common. I do not pretend to decide between them. On Ulf’s presence at the Helga, see Note MMM.

NOTE HHH. p. 434. THE PILGRIMAGE OF CNUT.

The disputed date of Cnut’s journey to Rome is discussed by Lappenberg (476, ii. 211 Thorpe). The Chronicles place it in 1031. So does Florence, who adds that he went from Denmark, and describes his alms and his redemption of the tolls by which pilgrims were troubled at various points of the road. He also mentions his vow of amendment before the tomb of the Apostles, and gives a copy of the letter, which he says was sent to England by Lyfing, then Abbot of Tavistock, afterwards the famous Bishop, who had gone with him on his journey. Cnut himself went from Rome to Denmark, and thence to England. In the heading of the letter, Cnut describes himself as “Rex totius Angliæ, et Denemarciæ, et Norreganorum, et partis Suanorum.” The account given by William of Malmesbury is essentially the same, with some abridgements and verbal differences. The description of Cnut as King of the Norwegians seems to point to a time later than his conquest of Norway in 1027. The Encomiast (ii. 20) enlarges with much rhetoric on Cnut’s piety, and says that he himself saw him on his journey in the church of Saint Bertin at Saint Omer’s, where he was much edified by the King’s prayers and almsdeeds. He gives no date, but he seems to imply (19) that it was after Cnut had gained a right to be called Emperor of five kingdoms (see Note NNN). But with so rhetorical a writer, this can hardly be taken as a distinct chronological statement, and it is certain that the complete submission of Scotland, which, as well as Norway, is reckoned among the five, did not happen till after Cnut’s return from Rome (see p. 450). Adam of Bremen (ii. 60–65) seems to put the pilgrimage in the time of Archbishop Libentius, that is, between 1029 and 1032; but I am not clear that its mention at this point is more than incidental, and, at all events, the chronology is confused, as Adam places the pilgrimage after the marriage of Henry and Gunhild, which did not take place till after Cnut’s death (see p. 455, and Note NNN). His description is very odd; “Tempore illo Conradus Imperator filiam Chnut regis Heinrico filio accepit in matrimonium. Cum quibus statim regio fastu Italiam ingressus est ad faciendam regno justitiam, comitem habens itineris Chnut regem, potentia trium regnorum barbaris gentibus valde terribilem.” Cnut himself, in the letter, mentions his dealings with the Pope, the Emperor, and King Rudolf of Burgundy, by which English and Danish travellers, whether pilgrims or merchants, were released from various tolls and exactions, and English Archbishops from the great sums that they had to pay for the pallium. This was at a great meeting at Easter (“quia magna congregatio nobilium in ipsa paschali solemnitate ibi cum domino papa Johanne et Imperatore Cuonrado erat”), at which the concessions made to Cnut were witnessed by four Archbishops, twenty Bishops, and a countless multitude of Dukes and nobles. This leads us to the account of Wipo (Vita Chuonradi, 16), from which it appears that this great gathering was for no less a purpose than the Emperor’s coronation, at which he distinctly says that Cnut and Rudolf were present. He describes the Emperor’s election and coronation, and adds, “His ita peractis in duorum regum præsentia, Ruodolfi regis Burgundiæ et Chnutonis regis Anglorum, divino officio finito, Imperator duorum regum medius ad cubiculum suum honorifice ductus est.” But there is no doubt that the coronation of Conrad happened at the Easter not of 1031, but of 1027.

The Tours Chronicle, in Bouquet, x. 284, places the journey “anno Conradi II. et Roberti Regis XXX.” The thirtieth year of Robert, counting from his father’s death in 996, would be 1026 or 1027. The second year of Conrad means, oddly enough, neither the second year of his German reign, which would be 1025 (see Wipo, c. 2), nor that of his Imperial reign, which would be 1028, but the second year of his Italian reign, which would be 1027, as he was crowned at Milan in 1026. See Arnulf, Hist. Med. ii. 2, ap. Muratori, iv. 14; Sigonius de Regno Italiæ, 354; and cf. Wipo, capp. 11, 12. But the Aquitanian William Godell, who gives the account in nearly the same words as the Tours Chronicle, places it “anno Domini MXXX. et regni sui [Cnutonis] anno XV.” They go on to say, “Fortissimus rex Cnuto Romam perrexit, in eoque itinere tanta munificentia usus est, quanta nullus unquam regum usus fuisse reminiscitur. Ecclesiis enim, pauperibus et infirmantibus et carceratis multa largitus est. Vectigalia insuper sive pedagia itinerum, in ipso itinere aurum et argentum largiendo, vel ex parte minuit, vel ex toto redemit; ut merito transeuntes deinceps per viam illam in æternum dicant: Benedictio Domini super regem Anglorum Cnutonem, benediximus tibi in nomine Domini.”

It seems impossible to withstand this evidence for the year 1027, a year which the Chronicles leave quite blank, and in which Florence mentions only Cnut’s intrigues in Norway, which is quite consistent with a journey from Denmark to Rome. We must therefore accept the date of 1027, and suppose with Lappenberg that the Chroniclers were misled by mistaking a date of MXXVI. for MXXXI., and that the titles in Florence and William of Malmesbury are simply a careless insertion of Florence himself or of some one from whom he copied the letter.

It is worth noticing that though the kingdom of Burgundy was now in its last days, Cnut speaks of Rudolf as a prince of importance through his command of the passes of the Alps; “Rodulphus rex, qui maxime ipsarum clausurarum dominatur.”

NOTE III. p. 434. THE LAWS OF CNUT.

Cnut’s code will be found in Thorpe’s Laws and Institutes (i. 358) and in Schmid’s Gesetze der Angelsachsen (250). The exact date is uncertain. The heading itself tells us only that the laws were enacted by the authority of the Witan (“mid his witena geþeahte,” “venerando ejus sapientum consilio”) in a midwinter Gemót at Winchester. Kemble (ii. 259) refers them to some Gemót between 1016 and 1020. Lappenberg (467, ii. 202 Thorpe) argues, from the fact that Cnut in the heading calls himself King of the Norwegians, and also from the mention of Peter’s pence (c. 9. about “Romfeoh.” Cf. in the letter “denarii quos Romæ ad sanctum Petrum debemus”), that they must be later than the pilgrimage to Rome and the conquest of Norway, that is later than 1028. Schmid in his Preface (lv.), on the ground that Cnut never uses his Danish or Norwegian titles in his English charters, looks on them as an interpolation here. The Norwegian title is absent in one manuscript, and Schmid also quotes a text which contains the words, “And þæt was gewordon sóna swá Cnut cyngc, mid his witena geþeaht, frið and freóndscipe betweox Denum and Englum fullice gefæstnode and heora ǽrran saca getwǽmde.” He therefore holds that the midwinter Gemót spoken of in the heading was one which immediately followed the Oxford Gemót of 1018 (see p. 419). I follow Lappenberg in placing the laws late in Cnut’s reign, because they seem to me to breathe the spirit of that part of his life, the same spirit which we find expressed in the Roman letter. It strikes me that the scribe quoted by Schmid confounded these laws with the renewal of Eadgar’s Law, from which they are evidently distinct.

The hunting code to which I have referred in p. 436 seems to me to carry its own confutation with it. What can be made of such a division of society as we find there? (Thorpe, i. 426; Schmid, 318). First we hear (c. 2) of “mediocres homines, quos Angli ‘les þegenes’ (or ‘læs-þegnas,’ see Schmid’s note) nuncupant, Dani vero ‘yoongmen vocant;’” then (c. 3) of “liberales quos Dani (sic) ‘ealdermen’ appellant;” then (c. 4) of “minuti homines quos ‘tineman’ Angli dicunt;” lastly (c. 12) of “liberalis homo, i. e. þegen.” Schmid (lvi.) seems by no means clear of its genuineness. Kemble however (ii. 80) seems to have no doubt, and he conjectures that the clause (c. 30) in which the right of every freeman to hunt on his own ground is asserted as strongly as it is in the undoubted laws was forced upon Cnut by the Witan. This is going rather far in the way of conjecture.

After reading Cnut’s laws, and comparing them with the testimonies already quoted from Florence and William of Malmesbury (see p. 437, cf. 441), the following declamation of John of Wallingford (Gale, 549) seems strange indeed; “Successitque ei [Eadmundo] ex prædictæ concordiæ conditione Cnuto Danus et hostis potius Anglorum quam regnator, immutavitque statim statuta et leges scriptas patriæ, et consuetudines, et populum, qui sub omni honore et libertate tempore suorum regum exstiterat, sub gravi jugo coëgit, nihilque de Ælfredi boni regis et justi, qui ab undique bonas consuetudines collegerat et scripserat, audire noluit statutis. Sed et omnia quæ vel ipse vel successores legitime sanxerant, ad suam studuit reducere voluntatem. Sicque factum, ut prædia et possessiones et antiqua præclarorum virorum tenementa suæ adscriberet ditioni. Porro quot et quanta sub pallio ejus protectionis facta fuerint injusta, non est scriptura quæ possit explicare.”

NOTE KKK. p. 444. THE HOUSECARLS.

There is no distinct mention in the Chronicles of the institution of the Thingmen or Housecarls, nor does their name occur in any of the English Laws, but the incidental mention of them by the name of Housecarls, or by the equivalent name of _Hiredmen_ (_familiares_, members of the _hired_, court or family), is common in the Chronicles, while grants to housecarls and signatures of housecarls are common in the Charters, and they are mentioned several times in Domesday. The subject is discussed by Lappenberg (467, i. 202 Thorpe), and by Kemble (ii. 118, 124), to whom I owe the remark that the institution was only a revival of the _comitatus_. The “Leges Castrenses” or “Witherlags Ret” are described at length by Saxo (p. 197), and they are drawn out in a tabular form in a separate work by Swegen Aggesson (ap. Langebek, iii. 141). A Danish text follows at p. 159. This however dates only from the reign of Cnut the Sixth, who reigned from 1185 to 1202. In the Chronicle of King Eric (Langebek, i. 159) they are, by a somewhat grotesque mistake, attributed, with several other actions of the great Cnut, to his son Harthacnut. It is not easy to make out from the confused narrative of Saxo when he conceived the force to have been established. According to Swegen (146), the laws were enacted in England after the settlement of the country (“quum in Anglia, omni exercitu suo collecto, Kanutus rex defessa bellicis operibus membra quietis tranquillitate recrearet”) by the advice of Opo, a Dane from Zealand, who is also mentioned by Saxo (197), and his son Eskill. I think that there is little doubt that the date which I have suggested in the text must be the right one. Lappenberg also places the enactment of the “Witherlags Ret” early in Cnut’s reign.

The force was made up of men of all nations. So says Swegen (145); “Tanti regis exercitus, utpote ex variis collectus nationibus, universis videlicet regnis ditioni suæ subjugatis.” It is clear then that, among Cnut’s other subjects, Englishmen might find their way into the force. So Saxo, 197; “Quos quum rex natione, linguis, ingeniis, quam maxime dissidentes animadverteret.” Saxo (196) fixes the number at six thousand; he calls them “clientelam suam sex millium numerum explentem.” (“Clientela,” as used by Saxo, is a technical word, and quite recalls the old _comitatus_.) But Swegen (144) reckons them only at three thousand; “Cujus summa, tria millia militum selectorum explevit. Quam catervam suo idiomate _thinglith_ nuncupari placuit.” I know of no statement as to their numbers in later times, but the force was one which was likely to grow. The “stippendiarii et mercenarii” formed the core of the English army at Senlac, and we find Earls keeping housecarls as well as Kings.

That Cnut did lay down strict laws for the government of the force there is no reason to doubt; but I confess that in the Leges Castrenses, as we have them, there is much that has a mythical sound. Traitors for instance (Saxo, 199; Swegen, iii. 162) were expelled and declared to be “Nithing.” They had the choice of departing by land or by sea. He who chose the sea was put alone into a boat, with oars, food, &c.; but if any chance brought him to shore, he was put to death. This sounds to me very much of a piece with various mythical and romantic tales about people being exposed in boats, of which that of the Ætheling Eadwine in the reign of Æthelstan is the most famous (see above, p. 689). Then again, though no doubt, in Cnut’s army as in other armies, purely military offences would be judged by purely military tribunals, I confess to stumbling at one passage in the Witherlags Ret (Swegen, iii. 149), which sets before us the military assembly as judging among its own members even in causes of real property; “Constitutione etiam generali cautum est, ut omnis inter commilitones orta controversia de fundis prædiis, et agris, vel etiam de mansionis deprædatione ... in jam dicto colloquio agitaretur. Tum vero is, cui commilitonum judicium jus venditionis adjudicabit, cum sex sortitis in suo cœtu, ... territorii sui continuatam possessionem sibi vendicare debet, præscriptionemque lege assignata tuebitur.” If Cnut’s courts martial really exercised this kind of jurisdiction, it was a clear violation of the constitutional rights of Ealdormen, Bishops, earls, churls, everybody; still it need not have interfered with the personal rights of any but members of the guild. I confess however that I should like some better evidence of the fact. It is also rather too great a demand on our faith when we are told that these laws never were broken (save in one famous case) till the reign of Nicolas of Denmark (1101–1130), and when the authority cited for the statement is Bo or Boethius the Wend, an old soldier of Cnut who shared the longevity of the legendary Harold and Gyrth, and was alive in the time of Nicolas (Swegen, iii. 154, 163). The one offender in earlier times was Cnut himself, who in a fit of passion killed one of his comrades. The assembly was perplexed as to the way of dealing with such a culprit, and the King settled the matter by adjudging himself to a ninefold _wérgild_. Saxo, pp. 199, 200. So Swegen, somewhat differently, iii. 151.

There are strict regulations (see Swegen, iii. 147) about the horses of the Thingmen; but these were of course only horses on which they rode to battle (see p. 271), not horses to be used in actual fight.

As for the behaviour of the housecarls to the mass of the people and the feeling with which they were looked at by the mass of the people, we can say very little in the absence of any direct evidence. They were a standing army in days when a standing army was a new thing, and a standing army, as long as it is a new thing, is never a popular institution. And the housecarls at first were not only a standing army, but a standing army largely made up of foreigners and conquerors. Still everything both in the reign of Cnut and in the reign of Eadward would tend to make the force grow more and more national and popular. The time when it was likely to be abused, as we know that it was abused, was in the days of Cnut’s sons. Still, even under Harold the son of Godwine, we can perhaps discern a certain tinge of ill-will in the words “stippendiarii” and “mercenarii,” which seem to breathe the same spirit as the manifest dislike to Danegelds and _heregelds_, perhaps one might say to taxes of every kind. But I see no sign of any strong ill-will between the housecarls and the people at any time. I can find no evidence for the highly-coloured picture given by Mr. St. John (ii. 99) of their insolence in Cnut’s days, though it is likely enough that such things sometimes happened. But the reference which he gives to the Ramsey History (c. lxxxv. p. 441) is only a legend about Bishop Æthelric making a Danish thegn—married, by the way, to an Englishwoman—drunk, and so getting a grant of lands out of him. As for Bromton’s tales about Englishmen having to stand on bridges while the Danes passed, having to bow to the Danes, and the like (X Scriptt. 934), they prove very little indeed. They are parts of an historical confusion which I shall presently have to mention, and they seem to be placed in the time of Cnut’s sons rather than in that of Cnut himself.

One point more remains with regard to the relations of the housecarls to the people at large. Though there is no mention of the force in the genuine English laws, yet in the so-called Laws of Eadward the Confessor (Thorpe, i. 449) and in Bracton (iii. 15. 2, 3) the legal process of “Murdrum,” and in Bracton the Presentment of Englishry also, is traced up to the institutions of Cnut. When Cnut, we are told, sent away the mass of his Danish troops, at the request of the Witan (“rogatu baronum Anglorum,” “precatu baronum de terra”), the Witan pledged themselves that the rest should be safe in life and limb (“firmam pacem haberent”), and that any Englishman who killed any of them should suffer punishment. If the murderer could not be discovered, the township or hundred was fined. Out of this, we are told by Bracton, grew the doctrine, continued under the Norman Kings, that an unknown corpse was presumed to be that of a Frenchman—in Cnut’s time, doubtless, that of a Dane—and that the “Englishry” of a slain person had to be proved. The “Laws of Eadward” of course contain no notice of “Englishry” as opposed to Frenchry—if I may coin such a word; but neither do they mention it as opposed to Danishry. They simply record the promise of the Witan—not an unreasonable one—that Cnut’s soldiers should be under the protection of the law. This is likely enough; anything more is the mere carrying back of Norman institutions into earlier times. In the Dialogus de Scaccario (i. 10) there is no hint of the “Murdrum” and “Englishry” being older than the Norman Conquest. See vol. v. pp. 443, 444.

We shall as we go on come across many passages in which the housecarls both of the King and of the great Earls are spoken of. Among the charters of Eadward are several (Cod. Dipl. iv. 201, 204, 221, cf. 200) containing grants to the King’s housecarls. The three grantees spoken of are called Thurstan, Urk, and Wulfnoth—the last at all events being an Englishman, perhaps a kinsman of Godwine. The two latter writs are addressed to Earl Harold. In the oldest (201), a Middlesex writ, addressed to Bishop Robert, Osgod Clapa, and Ulf the Sheriff, Thurstan is described in the English copy as “Ðurstan min huskarll,” in the Latin as “præfectus meus palatinus Ðurstanus.” As Mr. Kemble says (ii. 123), such a description could not apply to every man in so large a body; so we may infer that Thurstan stood high in the service. There is also the will of Wulfwig, Bishop of Dorchester (Cod. Dipl. iv. 290), which is witnessed by a crowd of people, great and small, from the King and the Lady downwards, including some signatures of large bodies of men; “On eallra ðæs kynges húscarlan and on his mæsse-préostan ... and on eallra ðára burhwara gewitnesse on Lincolne and on eallra ðæra manna ðe seceað gearmorkett tó Stowe.” This immediately follows on the signatures of the Stallers Ansgar, Ralph, and Lyfing, from which Mr. Kemble (ii. 122) infers that the Stallers were the special commanders of the force. Housecarls are also mentioned several times in Domesday (see Ellis, i. 91; ii. 151; Kelham, 238), and in Simeon of Durham (Gest. Regg. 1071; see vol. iv. pp. 304, 513) we find a housecarl not only reckoned among the “principales viri” of Northumberland, but high in personal favour with William; “Eilaf huscarl apud regem præpollens honore.”

NOTE LLL. p. 448. CNUT’S RELATIONS WITH SCOTLAND.

I. The authorities for the Battle of Carham are the Melrose Chronicle (in anno), and two entries of Simeon of Durham, one in his general History (Gest. Regg. in anno), the other in his History of the Church of Durham (iii. 5; ap. X Scriptt. 30). The Melrose writer (p. 155) simply says, “Ingens bellum inter Anglos et Scottos apud Carham geritur.” This entry seems an abridgement of that in Simeon’s Annals; “Ingens bellum apud Carrum gestum est inter Scottos et Anglos, inter Huctredum filium Waldef comitem Northymbrorum, et Malcolmum filium Cyneth regem Scottorum, cum quo fuit in bello Eugenius Calvus rex Lutinensium.” From neither of these accounts should we learn which side was victorious. But in the Durham History Simeon becomes explicit, if not exaggerated; “Universus a flumine Tesa usque Twedam populus, dum contra infinitam Scottorum multitudinem apud Carrum dimicaret, pene totus cum natu majoribus suis interiit.” In the Durham Annals (Pertz, xviii. 507) there is a further notice; “Fuit apud Carrum illud famosum bellum inter Northanhymbros et Scottos, ubi pene totus sancti Cuthberti populos interiit, inter quos etiam xviii sacerdotes, qui inconsulte se intermiscuerant bello; quo audito præscriptus episcopus dolorem et vitam morte finivit.” It is not clear whether this is the event referred to by Fordun (iv. 40), where he tells us that Duncan was sent by Malcolm to meet the Danes and Northumbrians (“qui tunc velut una gens coierant”), who were on their march to ravage Cumberland. He met them and defeated them with great slaughter. Fordun seems to place this before the death of Æthelred; in so confused a writer the chronological difficulty is of no great consequence; it is of more importance that a Northumbrian army, marching to invade any part of Cumberland, would hardly pass by Carham.

There are several points to be noticed here. First, the event of 1018, like the event of 1066, was ushered in by a comet which, though it is not mentioned by our national Chroniclers, seems to have deeply affected local imaginations. “Northanimbrorum populis,” says Simeon in his local work, “per xxx. noctes cometa apparuit, quæ terribili præsagio futuram provinciæ cladem præmonstravit. Siquidem paullo post, id est post triginta dies,” &c. Then follows the account of the battle.

Secondly, Simeon, accurate as he commonly is, has gone wrong—who could feel certain of not going wrong?—among the Earls of his own land. His Uhtred ought (see above, p. 587) to be Eadwulf. It was he, “ignavus valde et timidus,” who now, according to one view (see above, p. 585), ceded Lothian to the victorious Malcolm.

Thirdly, for “Lutinensium” in Simeon we should, according to Mr. Robertson (i. 99), read “Clutinensium.”

Fourthly, the extent of the district from which the English army came should be noticed. It came from the land between Tees and Tweed, that is from old Bernicia, without Lothian. This suggests the question why Lothian, if it was not ceded for the first time till after the battle, did not take a part in the war as well as the rest of the earldom.

Fifthly, the “natu majores” of Simeon are doubtless the “yldestan” of our English Chronicles. See p. 591, and below, p. 777. On this slaughter of the nobility, compare the same result at Assandun, p. 392.

II. With regard to Cnut’s later relations with Scotland, our own Chronicles contain no entries on Scottish affairs earlier than the great submission of 1031. So far as the sagas can be relied upon, they certainly represent Cnut as exercising lordship in Scotland at an earlier time. In Snorro’s Saga of Olaf Haraldsson (Laing, ii. 195) we read how Cnut “reigned over Denmark and England and had conquered for himself a great part of Scotland.” And again we read (Laing, ii. 196; Johnstone, 148), both in prose and verse, how two Kings came to Cnut from Scotland out of Fife, and how he received them to favour, restored their lands, and gave them fresh gifts (“til hans komo tveir konungar nordan af Skotlandi, af Fifi, oc gaf hann þeim upp reídi sína, oc lönd þau öll, er þeir höfdo ádr átt, oc þar med stórar vingiafir”). This is placed while Cnut is still only intriguing, and not yet fighting, against Olaf, that is, at some time before the battle of the Helga in 1025. This story may be merely a transfer to a wrong date of the submission of 1031, or it may be a record of some earlier submission. If the sagas are extremely confused in their chronology, our Chronicles are during this reign extremely meagre in their entries. The Knytlinga Saga also (c. 17; Johnstone, 144) not only makes Cnut subdue a large part of Scotland, but sets his son Harold over it as Under-king, as Swegen was in Norway and Harthacnut in Denmark (see below, p. 775). This seems to be put before the Roman pilgrimage, but the chronology is very confused. The Roman pilgrimage seems to be put after the conquest of Norway. And of a reign of Harold in Scotland nothing, as far as I know, is mentioned elsewhere.

There is also the account in Fordun (iv. 41) of Cnut’s relations with Cumberland, to which I have referred in the text (see p. 449). This story may be true in itself; but the prominence which is given to it certainly looks like an attempt to evade the fact of the submission of Scotland itself. Fordun places the Cumbrian expedition after the Roman pilgrimage, and that he places (iv. 40) in the eighth year of Conrad, meaning seemingly 1032. The refusal of Duncan to do homage is thus described; “Non enim hactenus Anglorum regi Cnutoni, quia regnum invaserat, pro Cumbria Duncanus, quamquam iterum et iterum ab eo submonitus, homagium fecerat, quia non inde sibi de jure, sed regibus Angligenis fidem deberi rex rescripsit.” Cnut then marches against him; that it was with the intention of incorporating Cumberland with the English kingdom, of dealing with the dominions of the recusant as being, in feudal language, a forfeited fief, I infer from the words “Cumbriam suo subdendam dominio pedetentim advenit.” The terms on which peace was finally made are thus described; “Ut regis [Scottorum sc.] nepos Duncanus Cumbriæ dominio libere, sicut predecessorum aliquis liberius tenuit, de cetero gaudeat in futurum, dum tamen ipse futurorumque regum hæredes qui pro tempore fuerint regi Cnutoni ceterisque suis successoribus Anglorum regibus fidem consuetam faciant.” There is nothing unlikely in all this, except perhaps in the extreme loyalty towards the house of Cerdic which is attributed to the Cumbrian Under-king; but we must always remember the strong tendency of Scottish writers to make too much rather than too little of the vassalage of Cumberland to England.

III. We now come to the undoubted submission of Scotland to Cnut in 1031, as recorded in our own Chronicles. I do not understand Mr. Burton (i. 368), when, after quoting Mr. Thorpe’s translation (ii. 128), which is certainly made up confusedly from the Worcester and Peterborough Chronicles, he says that “in only one of the four accepted versions of the original is there anything resembling this.” The Abingdon Chronicle is certainly silent, but Worcester and Peterborough both record the submission, though in different words, and Canterbury follows Peterborough. The Worcester entry runs thus; “Þa fór he [Cnut] to Scotlande, and Scotta cyng eode him on hand and wearð his mann; ac he þæt lytle hwile heold.” Peterborough says, “he [Cnut] for to Scotlande, and Scotta cyng him to beah Mælcolm, and twegen oðre cyningas, Mælbæþe and Iehmarc.” Mr. Robertson (i. 97, ii. 400) seems unable to identify Jehmarc. Mr. Skene (Celtic Scotland, i. 397) makes him the same as Imergi, from whom Somerled, who was killed in 1166, was fourth in descent, and places him in Airergaidhel or Argyll, the old Scottish land of Dalriada. His companion, “Mælbæþa,” “Mealbæaðe,” must be the same as the “Macbeoðe” of the Worcester Chronicle in 1054, that is the Machabæus of Fordun, the Macbeth of Shakespere. The words of the Worcester Chronicler, “ac he þæt lytle hwile heold,” may refer to Malcolm’s death soon after in 1033. Scotland soon fell into confusion, and before long England also.

The submission recorded by our two Chroniclers is not to be doubted; but I confess that I am not quite clear about the date. Both Chroniclers pointedly connect the Scottish expedition with Cnut’s return from Rome (“sona swa he ham com þa fór he to Scotlande,” Wig. “Þy ilcan geare he for to Scotlande,” Petrib.); so it is possible that the true date may be 1027 or 1028 instead of 1031.

Lastly, there is the curious account of Rudulf Glaber (ii. 2) which I have referred to in the text (see p. 450), and which comes in a passage which I shall have to refer to again. In the year 996 a whale as big as an island came out of the North towards Gaul and portended the troubles which were to come upon Gaul and Britain. In Britain especially there was frightful confusion; various Kings were striving and wasting the land, till in the end one got the better of them all; “Viso ... Oceani portento exorsus est bellicus tumultus in universali occidentali orbis plaga, videlicet tam in regionibus Galliarum quam in transmarinis Oceani insulis, Anglorum videlicet atque Brittonum necnon et Scotorum. Siquidem, ut plerumque solet contingere, propter delicta infimi populi, versi in dissensionem illorum reges ac cæteri principes, statimque exardescentes in subjectæ plebis depopulationem scilicet usque dum perducuntur ad suimet sanguinis effusionem. Quod videlicet tamdiu patratum est in prædictis insulis, quousque unus regum earumdem vi solus potiretur regiminis ceterarum.” This lucky King of course is Cnut, who is conceived to be King of the West-Saxons. He seizes the kingdom of Æthelred, who is conceived, it would seem, to be King of one of the British islands called Denmark. “Denique mortuo rege Adalrado, in regno scilicet illorum qui Danimarches cognominantur, qui etiam duxerat uxorem sororem Ricardi Rotomagorum ducis, invasit regnum illius rex videlicet Canuc Occidentalium Anglorum, qui etiam post crebra bellorum molimina ac patriæ depopulationes, pactum cum Ricardo stabiliens ejusque germanam, Adalradi videlicet uxorem, in matrimonium ducens, utriusque regni tenuit monarchiam.” It might be refining too much to hint that this wonderful turning about of the dominions of Cnut and Æthelred had anything to do with the strangely reversed state of geographical parties in 1015–1016 (see p. 377). Then follows the account of the Scottish expedition, as follows;

“Post hæc quoque idem Canuc cum plurimo exercitu egressus, ut subjugaret sibi gentem Scotorum, quorum videlicet rex Melculo vocabatur, viribus et armis validus et, quod potissimum erat, fide atque opere Christianissimus. Ut autem cognovit quoniam Canuc audacter illius quæreret invadere regnum, congregans omnem sui gentis exercitum, potenter ei ne valeret restitit. Ac diu multumque talibus procaciter Canuc inserviens jurgiis, ad postremum tantum prædicti Ricardi Rotomagorum ducis ejusque sororis persuasionibus, pro Dei amore, omni prorsus deposita feritate, mitis effectus, in pace deguit. Insuper etiam et Scotorum regem amicitiæ gratia diligens, illiusque filium de sacro baptismatis fonte excepit.” One does not quite see why either Emma or Duke Richard or Rudolf Glaber should be seized with such a sudden fit of interest in the affairs of Scotland. Still Rudolf’s account is less wonderful than that of a contemporary German writer, Ekkehard the historian of Saint Gallen, who boldly carries Cnut back into the tenth century, and sends Otto the Great over into England to fight against him (Pertz, ii. 119); “Ottone apud Anglos cum _Adaltage_, rege ipsorum, socero suo, aliquamdiu agente, ut junctis viribus Chnutonem Danorum debellaret regem.” Yet Ekkehard was born in 980 and died in 1036.

NOTE MMM. p. 454. THE BATTLE AT THE HELGA.

This battle is not mentioned in the Abingdon and Worcester Chronicles. Peterborough, followed by Canterbury, places it in 1025. No enemies but Swedes are spoken of, and their commanders are called Ulf and Eglaf. “Þær comon ongean Ulf and Eglaf and swiðe mycel here, ægðer ge landhere ge sciphere of Swaðeode.” Many of Cnut’s men, both Danish and English, are killed, “and þa Sweon hæfdon weallstowe geweald.” As for the place of the battle, Cnut is said to go “to Denmearcon mid scipon to þam Holme æt ea þære halgan.” See Earle, Parallel Chronicles, p. 342; only I do not understand how the “Helge-Aa” could be “then the boundary between Sweden and the Danish possessions,” as the old frontier of Sweden and Scania lies some way to the north of that river.

Ulf and Eglaf are doubtless the sons of Rognvald and Ingebiorg, of whom Snorro speaks in the Saga of Saint Olaf, c. 95 (Laing, ii. 119). At any rate the Ulf spoken of cannot be Ulf the son of Thorgils and brother of Gytha (see above, Note FFF), nor can Eglaf be the Eglaf whom we have already heard of (see p. 447). But both Snorro in c. 159 (Laing, ii. 246) and Saxo (194, 195) agree in making no mention of the sons of Rognvald, and in making Cnut fight the battle against the two Kings Olaf of Norway and Omund of Sweden. They also agree in bringing in Ulf the son of Thorgils; only they bring him in in quite different characters. Saxo makes him a traitor who has invited the combined Swedish and Norwegian invasion, while Snorro makes him redeem former misdeeds by saving Cnut when in great danger. In the Annales Islandorum (Langebek, iii. 40) the date is given as 1027 and the death of Ulf Thorgilsson is placed in the same year.

We can hardly be wrong in accepting the presence of Omund and Olaf on the combined witness of all the Scandinavian writers. But the two Ulfs and Eglaf are puzzling. It has sometimes struck me that “Ulf and Eglaf” in our Chroniclers may be a mistake for “Ulf and Olaf,” taking of course Saxo’s view of the conduct of Ulf Thorgilsson. The Peterborough writer might very easily get wrong in his Ulfs, but he was hardly likely to mistake Saint Olaf, whose history he knew very well, for a man of such small renown as Eglaf Rognvaldsson.

It must not be forgotten that it is to this battle that William of Malmesbury and other writers have, with an utter misconception of the result of the battle, transferred Godwine’s exploit of 1019. See above, p. 743. Henry of Huntingdon translates the Peterborough Chronicle. Florence, following Abingdon and Worcester, is silent.

NOTE NNN. p. 455. CNUT’S RELATIONS WITH THE EMPIRE.

Cnut, according to Saxo (196), was lord of six kingdoms; “sex præpollentium regnorum possessor effectus.” But he does not give their names. His commentator Stephanius (p. 212) says, “nempe Daniæ, Sveciæ, Norvegiæ, Angliæ, Sclaviæ, Sembiæ” [Semba or Samland in Eastern Prussia?]. The Encomiast (ii. 19) says, “Quum rex Cnuto solum imprimis Danorum obtineret regimen, quinque regnorum, scilicet Danomarchiæ, Angliæ, Britanniæ, Scotiæ, Nordwegæ, vendicato dominio, _Imperator_ exstitit.” Swegen Aggesson (c. 5; Lang. i. 54) outdoes them all. Cnut’s empire extends over the adjoining realms (“circumjacentia regna suo aggregavit _Imperio_”) from Thule to the Byzantine frontier (“ab ultima Thyle usque ad Græcorum ferme Imperium”), taking in, seemingly, not five or six, but ten kingdoms; “quippe Hyberniam, Angliam, Galliam, Italiam, Longobardiam, Teotoniam, Norwagiam, Sclaviam, cum Sambia sibi subjugavit.” Swegen clearly believes in three Empires, Greek, German, and Scandinavian. His exaggerations may be compared with the exaggerations of Dudo and Rudolf Glaber with regard to the Norman Dukes. On the other hand, Prior Godfrey (Satirical Poets, ii. 148) allows Cnut only three kingdoms, the three most obvious,

“Sic insigne caput trino diademate cingit, Dum Danos, Anglos, Northigenasque regit.”

The Danish writers thus paint Cnut as at least the equal of Conrad; but I am not quite sure that Wipo, in a passage already quoted (see p. 752), where he describes Conrad at his Imperial coronation as walking between the two Kings Cnut and Rudolf, has not a lurking wish to imply that Cnut stood in much the same relation to Conrad that Rudolf did. And the circumstances of the visit, the sight of Pope and Cæsar in all their glory in the old home of both, would be very likely to impress the mind of the still newly-converted lord of Northern Europe, and to make him feel somewhat less Imperial than he felt either at Winchester or at Roskild. But even in Wipo’s account there is nothing to make us think that Cnut did more than yield to Conrad the formal precedence to which he was certainly entitled, and above all at such a moment.

As to the marriage of Gunhild to King Henry there is no kind of doubt; but the plain fact has been clouded over with many fables. That the betrothal took place during the reign of Cnut I infer from the account of Adam of Bremen (ii. 54), who after talking largely of Cnut, Archbishop Unwan of Hamburg, and the Emperor Conrad, goes on to say; “Cum rege Danorum sive Anglorum, mediante archiepiscopo [Unwan], fecit pacem. Cujus etiam filiam Imperator filio suo deposcens uxorem, dedit ei civitatem Sliaswig cum marcha quæ trans Egdoram est, in fœdus amicitiæ; et ex eo tempore fuit regum Daniæ.” But there is no doubt that the marriage was not celebrated till 1036, when Cnut was dead. See Wipo, c. 35, who calls the bride Cunehildis, and the Hildesheim Annals in anno (Pertz, iii. 100), where we read that “regina Cunihild nomine ... in natali Apostolorum regalem coronam accepit et mutato nomine in benedictione Cunigund dicta est.” See also Hepidanni Annales in anno (ap. Duchesne, Rer. Franc. Scriptt. iii. 479). William of Malmesbury (ii. 188) is so far accurate as to place the marriage after Cnut’s death, but he tells the story with great confusion. He grows specially eloquent on the splendour of the bride’s progress, just as Roger of Wendover (iv. 332 et seqq.) does over the marriage of Isabella, daughter of John, with Frederick the Second; but William makes Harthacnut send his sister from England, though Harthacnut certainly was not there in 1036, and he seems to place the marriage after the trial and acquittal of Godwine in 1041. It was probably this confusion which led him to speak of Henry as “Imperator Alemannorum,” for though Henry did not become Emperor till 1046, yet his father died in 1039, leaving to Henry, as Wipo (c. 39) says, “regni rem, Imperii autem spem, bene locatam.” Wace also (Roman de Rou, 6552) tells us;

“Gunnil fu à Rome menée, Et à Rome fu mariée; Fame fu à l’Emperéor; Ne pout aveir plus halt seignor.”

Besides that Henry was not yet Emperor, the marriage was (see the Hildesheim Annals, u. s.) not celebrated at Rome but at Nimwegen. Gunhild died July 18th, 1038, “quasi in limine vitæ,” as Wipo (c. 37) says, before the death of Conrad. There is another inaccurate account of the marriage in Heming’s Worcester Cartulary, 267 (Monasticon, i. 596), where the bridegroom is described as “Imperator Cono” and Brihtheah, Bishop of Worcester, appears as one of the bride’s suite; “Idem vero episcopus Brihtegus quodam in tempore ad Saxoniam Gunnildæ, Cnuti regis filiæ, ductor exstitit, quum eam Imperator Cono uxorem duceret, et quemdam ministrum sibi valde carum, Hearlewinum nomine, socium itineris secus habuit.” But the mistakes of all these writers seem pardonable when we turn to the wonderful romance which some of the Scandinavian writers have devised by rolling together the Roman pilgrimage of Cnut, the marriage of Gunhild, and seemingly also the Italian expedition of Conrad and Henry, which happened (see Wipo, c. 35) soon after Henry’s marriage. Saxo (196) is comparatively brief. After the description of Cnut as lord of six kingdoms, he tells us how he married Gunhild to Henry and then went and restored the authority of his son-in-law over certain rebels in Italy. “Canutus ... eximio sui fulgore etiam Romanum illustravit Imperium. Enimvero ejus principi Henrico filiam Gunnildam nuptum tradidit, eumdemque paullo post Italica consternatione perculsum auxilio prosequutus, pristinæ fortunæ, pressa rebellium conspiratione, restituit.” Swegen Aggesson (c. 5; Langebek, i. 54) is much fuller. Henry, already Emperor, marries Gunhild; he is driven from Rome by a sedition, and comes to crave help of his father-in-law (“quem quum Romani tumultuaria seditione a regio pepulissent solio, socerum adiens ejus auxilium imploravit”). Cnut, seemingly glad of the chance (“nactus occasionem illustris ille præcluisque Kanutus”), sets out to avenge his wrongs. On the road, seemingly by way of pastime, he ravages Gaul (“assumpto exercitu suo, primo Galliam depopulando invasit”); he then harries Lombardy and Italy, which, it will be remembered, Swegen had already reckoned as separate kingdoms, and compels the Romans to receive their Emperor back again (“multimoda virtute compulit Romanos civitatem sibi resignare, tandemque Imperatorem et generum throno suo restituit”). He then goes to France, which is seemingly looked on as something different from Gaul; yet most certainly Latin and not Teutonic _Francia_ is intended, for Cnut goes to Tours (“cum ingenti tripudio ad Franciam usque commeavit, Turonisque profectus,” &c.) and carries off thence (“potenter secum asportavit”) the relics of Saint Martin, which he translates to Rouen, on account of his great love for that city; “eo quod illam [Rothomagum] præ ceteris specialem diligeret.” This wild talk about Rouen must be compared with another equally wild tale which I shall have to mention presently about Cnut dying before Rouen.

It is no wonder that Swegen’s editor says, “Mirum est Suenonem et in hoc et in plurimis historiæ Canuti M. momentis adeo hallucinatum esse.” Swegen wrote about 1186, in the days of Frederick Barbarossa and Henry the Sixth, and it is worth noting how thoroughly both he and his elder contemporary Wace look on the Roman Emperor as the local sovereign of Rome, in opposition to William of Malmesbury’s slipshod talk about “Imperator Alemannorum.”

About Gunhild, William of Malmesbury has a legend which is the same as that of Sir Aldingar and Queen Eleanor in Percy’s Reliques. The King’s name in both tales is Henry. Gunhild left a daughter, Beatrice, Abbess of Quedlingburg (see Struvius, i. 355). The only English princess, Matilda daughter of Henry the Second, who was the mother of an Emperor, was not the wife of an Emperor or even of a King.

On the cession of Sleswick, Adam, as quoted in the text, seems quite explicit. On the Eider as the boundary of the Carolingian Empire, see the Annals of Einhard, 808, 811, 815, 828, and the Annals of Fulda (Pertz, i. 355 et seqq.), 811, 857, 873. Nothing can be plainer than the last passage, “fluvium nomine Egidoram, qui illos [Danos] et Saxones dirimit.” In saying that it remained the boundary till 1866, I should perhaps except the time of confusion, 1806–1814, when the Roman Empire had been dissolved and when the German Confederation had not yet been founded. During these years Holstein, the “Transalbiana Saxonia” of Einhard, was united to the kingdom of Denmark by an act as regular as any act of that irregular time.

NOTE OOO. p. 469. ÆLFRED THE GIANT.

Ælfred is a name so purely English that the presumption in favour of the English birth of any one bearing it in this generation is extremely strong. There is no doubt that Ælfred is the name intended. The giant is “Alvredus cognomento gigas” in William of Jumièges, and “Alvredus” is the name by which he calls the English Ætheling Ælfred. In the Roman de Rou he is “Auvere,” “Alverei,” “Alvere;” the Ætheling is “Auvered” and “Alvred.” So in Mary of France (see Roquefort, ii. 34 and vol. iii. p. 572, iv. p. 796, v. p. 594) Ælfred appears as “Auvert,” “Auvres,” “Alurez,” “Affrus.” The only chance against Ælfred being an Englishman is the chance—a somewhat faint one, I think—that the name may also have been in use among the Saxons of Bayeux. M. Pluquet (Roman de Rou, ii. 17) says that the name is still common in the district, seemingly under the form of “Auvray.” But “Auvray” may be “Alberic;” and we shall find that Ælfred and Eadward were just the two English names which we shall find that a later generation of Normans did adopt.

I have a note, but I cannot lay my hand on the reference, of a charter of Hugh Capet in 967 signed by “Alfredus monachus;” and “Alfridus abbas Sancti Vulmari” signs in 1026 (Chron. Sithiense, p. 175) a charter of Baldwin, Bishop of Terouanne. These two can hardly be the same man, but both may be Englishmen. It is more singular to find the name in Italy. Yet we read in Donizo’s Life of the Countess Matilda (Murat. v. 372),

“Ac Mons Alfredi capitur certamine freni.”

Was the mount called from any English pilgrim, the great King himself perhaps, or did any cognate name exist among Goths or Lombards? The elfish names are mainly English; yet Elberich is said to be the same as Ælfric, and Alboin as Ælfwine. See Miss Yonge’s Christian Names, ii. 346, 347.

Our Ælfred signs two charters with the title of “vicecomes,” one in 1025 and one in 1027. He afterwards became a monk at Cerisy. Roman de Rou, 8717 et seqq. He seems (see Neustria Pia, 660) to have left a son William and a daughter who bears the odd-sounding name of _Athselinoc_. Can this be a corruption of any English name beginning with _æðel_?

NOTE PPP. p. 473. CNUT’S RELATIONS WITH NORMANDY.

The Norman and English writers do not mention the marriage of Robert and Estrith. It is asserted by Saxo, Adam of Bremen, and Rudolf Glaber. But the two former tell the story with much confusion, making Estrith marry, not Robert, but Richard. They both connect this marriage with Cnut’s own marriage with Emma. Saxo’s words (p. 193) are; “Quum Anglorum rebus obtentis nectendam cum finitimis amicitiam decrevisset, Normanniæ præfecti [an odd title] _Roberti_ filiam Immam matrimonio duxit, _ejusque fratri Rikardo_ sororem Estritham conjugio potiendam permisit.” The utter confusion of Saxo’s ideas about the Norman Dukes is manifest. Adam (ii. 52) says; “Chnud regnum Adalradi accepit uxoremque ejus Immam nomine, quæ fuit soror comitis Nortmannorum Rikardi. Cui rex Danorum suam dedit germanam Margaretam pro fœdere. Quam deinde Chnut, repudiatam a comite, Wolf duci Angliæ dedit.... Et Rikardus quidem comes, declinans iram Chnut, Jherosolimam profectus, ibidem obiit, relinquens filium in Nortmannia nomine Rodbertum, cujus filius est iste Willelmus quem Franci Bastardum vocant.” Here we get a little light. The marriages of Richard the Good with Judith and Papia are well ascertained, and there is no room left for a marriage with Estrith. But, as Lappenberg remarks (479. Eng. Tr. ii. 217), Adam’s mention of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem shows that Robert is the person really meant among all this confusion. Lastly, Rudolf Glaber, a better authority on such a point than Saxo or even than Adam, steps in to settle the matter. He describes (iv. 6. p. 47) Robert’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem and his death without lawful issue, “quamlibet sororem Anglorum regis Canuc manifestum est duxisse uxorem, quam odiendo divortium fecerat.” This seems to put the fact of a marriage between Robert and Estrith on firm ground. Among the Danish annalists, the Esrom Annals (Lang. i. 236) simply copy Adam of Bremen; those of Roskild (Lang. i. 377) tell the same tale in different words; “Kanutus victor exsistens, ipsam Ymmam duxit uxorem, genuitque ex ea filium Hartheknud. Kanutus Ricardo suam dedit sororem nomine Estrid. Quæ ab illo repudiata duci Ulf _sine fratris consensu_ [cf. Saxo’s tale quoted in p. 746] est conjuncta.” The name Margaret given by Adam to the Danish princess is remarkable. Estrith might possibly, like Emma and Eadgyth the daughter of Malcolm, have been required to take a Norman name on her marriage. But the name of Margaret, which became popular only through Eadgyth’s mother, is rare throughout the century, and this would perhaps be the first instance of it in the West.

As for the date of the marriage, see Lappenberg, ii. 217, and Pertz’s note to Adam, ii. 52. A dispute between Robert and Cnut which could be connected, even mythically, with Cnut’s death and Robert’s pilgrimage must be placed quite late in their reigns. And as the offender is always looked on as the reigning Duke, 1028, or (if we take the reckoning of Florence under 1026 and the Peterborough Chronicle under 1024) 1026, is the earliest year to which the transaction can be referred. Ulf was killed in 1025. William the Bastard was born in 1027 or 1028. As for Estrith’s dowry, Saxo tells us that Cnut, before her marriage with Ulf, “sororem Sialandiæ redditam regiarum partium functione donavit” (p. 194). After Ulf’s death, execution, or murder, “Canutus violatæ necessitudinis injuriam, ac sororis viduitatem, duarum provinciarum attributione pensavit” (p. 197). He adds that she gave them to the Church of Roskild. The Roskild Annals (Lang. i. 377) makes her rebuild the church with stone, it having before been of wood; “Honorifice sepelivit, ecclesiamque lapideam in loco ligneæ construxit, quam multis modis ditavit.”

I need hardly say that Cnut’s expedition to Normandy is quite mythical. We have already seen (see above, p. 768) a legendary account of a campaign of Cnut in Gaul, including a visit to Rouen, which seems to have grown out of his Roman pilgrimage. The present legend seems further to mingle up with this the pilgrimage of Robert to Jerusalem and the beginning of the Norman exploits in Sicily and Apulia. Saxo, so far as anything can be made out of his chronology, seems to make two Norman expeditions on the part of Cnut. The first (p. 194) seems to be early in his reign; “Rikardum, acerrimum uxoris osorem effectum, patria exegit.” Afterwards (pp. 200, 201) we have the story of his great expedition and death before Rouen. Richard is still Duke, but, for fear of Cnut, he flees to Sicily; “Cujus [Canuti] impetum Richardus Siciliam petens, fuga præcurrere maturavit.” The mention of Sicily is of course suggested by the exploits of the Normans in those regions. Adam, as we have seen, makes Richard flee to Jerusalem. His scholiast adds that the conquest of Apulia was begun by forty of his comrades on their return. The source of confusion is obvious.

This wild story of Cnut’s death before Rouen seems peculiar to Saxo. Several of the other Danish writers distinctly assert his death in England. Chron. Esrom. ap. Langebek, i. 236 (which makes him die in 1037); Chron. Rosk. i. 377. The attempt of Robert against England is described by William of Jumièges (vi. 10, 11) and Wace (Roman de Rou, 7897 et seqq.). I have followed their account in the text. Only two English writers mention it, William of Malmesbury (ii. 180) and John of Wallingford (Gale, 549–550). William mentions only the intended invasion, and says nothing of the embassies before and after it. John of Wallingford tells the story much as William of Jumièges does, only, with the usual confusion, he talks of Richard instead of Robert. But it is plain from the two Williams that Robert was the Duke concerned, so that John of Wallingford is clearly wrong when he places the story in the first years of Cnut—“in primordiis regni sui.”

William of Jumièges (vi. 10) thus describes the message sent by Robert to Cnut; “Mandavit Chunuto regi ut jamjamque satiatus eorum [the Æthelings] exterminio illis parceret, et _sua eis vel sero_ pro sui amoris obtentu redderet.” So John of Wallingford; “Venerunt legati a Normannia ... qui cum Cnutone de regni jure disceptantes juvenibus prædictis regnum postulabant.”

William of Jumièges, it should be mentioned, distinctly implies the personal presence of Robert on board the fleet, but says nothing of that of the Ætheling. Wace (7941) speaks of both Robert and Eadward.

NOTE QQQ. p. 480. THE DIVISION OF CNUT’S DOMINIONS.

That Cnut, like Charles, established a system of under-kingdoms, to be held by his sons in subordination to his own Imperial authority, is distinctly asserted by Saxo (196). “Inde [from Rome, see p. 768] reversus, Haraldum natu majorem Angliæ, Daniæ Canutum, Norvagiæ Suenonem, quem ex Alvina sustulerat, absque ulla majestatis suæ diminutione præfecit. Nam etsi tres provincias totidem filiorum regimini tradidit, nihilominus commune sibi trium _imperium_ reservavit, neque summam penes alium consistere voluit. Præterea teneris adhuc ducibus in officiorum tutelam fortissimorum præsidia sociavit.” The Knytlinga Saga (c. 17; Johnstone, 144) gives a similar account, only instead of England, it makes Harold Under-king over part of Scotland (see above, p. 761); “Knutr konungr hafdi oc til forrada mikinn hlut af Skotlandi, oc setti hann þar Haralld son sinn konung ysir: enn þo var Knutr konungr ysir-konungr [overkonge] allra þeirra.” Now this statement that Cnut established his sons as Under-kings under the guardianship of some of his chief men falls in exactly with the statement in our own Chronicles that Thurkill was established in Denmark as guardian to one of Cnut’s sons (see p. 429). The words of the passage (1023) are, “And he betæhte Þurcille Denemearcan and his sunu to healdenne;” but the details of this arrangement, as described both in Saxo and in the saga, seem open to much doubt. There is not a shadow of evidence that Harold ever reigned as Under-king in England, and the statement that he reigned in Scotland, though very remarkable, is hardly to be accepted without better authority than that of the Knytlinga Saga. The further question arises, who was the son whom Cnut left in Denmark? Not Harthacnut, who succeeded him there, for that kingly bairn was with his mother in England (see Chron. Wig. in anno). It must have been one of the two doubtful sons, Swegen and Harold, whom it may have been convenient to remove from England, together with their mother, “the other Ælfgifu.” She and Swegen, it is well known, were afterwards quartered in Norway, and this looks as if Harold were now, in the like sort, quartered in Denmark. This would prove a change of purpose on Cnut’s part as to the succession of his children, as it was Harthacnut who actually succeeded him in Denmark.

On Swegen’s reign in Norway under the guardianship of his mother, see Saxo, 196; Snorro, c. 252; Laing, ii. 344. I suspect that Saxo conceived the three sons as having been Under-kings in the several kingdoms to which they actually succeeded; but if it be true, as seems likely, that Harold was first quartered as Under-king in Denmark and afterwards displaced to make way for Harthacnut, the fact becomes of importance with reference to the disputed election which followed his death.

As to the division on Cnut’s death there seems no doubt at all. The account given by Adam (ii. 72) runs thus; “Post cujus mortem, _ut ipse disposuit_, succedunt in regnum filii ejus, Haroldus in Angliam, Svein in Nortmanniam, Hardechnut autem in Daniam.... Suein et Harold a concubina geniti erant; qui, ut mos est barbaris, æquam tunc inter liberos Chnut sortiti sunt partem hæreditatis.” This is copied by the Esrom Chronicle, Lang. i. 237; cf. Chron. Rosk. p. 377; Chron. Erici, p. 159. As Harold actually succeeded in England, foreign writers seem to have taken for granted that his succession was in accordance with Cnut’s will; but it is evident that Cnut latterly intended England for Harthacnut.

On the expulsion of Swegen and Ælfgifu from Norway, see Snorro, Saga of Magnus, c. 4; Laing, ii. 363.

NOTE RRR. p. 482. THE CANDIDATURE OF HAROLD AND HARTHACNUT.

I have gathered my account of this disputed election wholly from our own Chronicles, which are the only trustworthy guides. The cause of all the difficulties and contradictions with which the subject is involved, is the fact that the division of the kingdom between Harold and Harthacnut proved a mere ephemeral arrangement, and was set aside within two years. It seems therefore to have quite passed out of mind, except with the very few writers with whom minute accuracy was really an object. No one would find out the fact from Adam of Bremen, from the Encomiast, or even from William of Malmesbury. Of the Danish writers it is needless to speak. The Encomiast (iii. 1 et seqq.) sees, so does William of Malmesbury (ii. 188) still more plainly, that a strong opposition was made to the election of Harold; they do not see that that opposition was so far successful that a temporary sovereignty over a part of the kingdom was secured to Harthacnut. Even Florence, seemingly hesitating, as he sometimes does, between two versions of a story, tells the tale with some confusion. But on comparing the Abingdon, Worcester, and Peterborough Chronicles, the matter becomes much clearer. The Peterborough Chronicle is the primary authority for the division of

## parties in the Witenagemót, for the division of the kingdom between the

two competitors, for the regency of Emma and Godwine on behalf of Harthacnut. Its statements are copied, with more or less of confusion and misconception, by the Canterbury Chronicle, Florence, and William of Malmesbury. The Abingdon and Worcester Chronicles do not distinctly mention the division of the kingdom under the year 1035; but they imply it under 1037, in the words, “Hér man geceas Harald ofer eall to cinge, and forsoc Harðacnut,” which, unless Harthacnut had before possessed part of the kingdom, would be meaningless. Oddly enough, the Peterborough Chronicler does not distinctly mention this second election of Harold, though he perhaps alludes to it in the words, “And he [Harold] wæs þæh full cyng ofer eall Englaland.” Thus the two accounts in the Chronicles fill up gaps in each other, and between the two we get a full and consistent narrative.

I believe the controversy to have lain wholly between the two sons of Cnut, Harold and Harthacnut. That there was a party in favour of one of the sons of Æthelred (see p. 476) is asserted by William of Malmesbury (ii. 188); “Angli diu obstiterunt, magis unum ex filiis Ethelredi, qui in Normannia morabantur, vel Hardecnutum filium Cnutonis ex Emma, qui tunc in Danemarchia erat, regem habere volentes.” But in the Chronicles, where the proceedings in the Witenagemót are described, we hear nothing of any voices being raised on the side of the Æthelings, and William himself says (u. s.) of a time a little later; “Filii Ethelredi jam fere omnibus despectui erant, magis propter paternæ socordiæ memoriam, quam propter Danorum potentiam.” These last words are at least a witness to the freedom of election on this occasion.

The geographical division of parties is clearly marked in the Peterborough Chronicle, which is also the only one which notices the share taken by London in the election. We now hear only of the “liðsmen,” not, as in the election of 1016, of the “burhwaru.” The proposal for a division I understand to come from Harold’s supporters, most likely from Leofric, the natural mediator between the two extreme

## parties. I do not see what else can be the meaning of the expression in

the Peterborough Chronicle that Leofric and others chose Harold _and Harthacnut_ (“Leofric eorl and mæst ealle þa þegenas be norðan Temese and þa liðsmen on Lunden gecuron Harold to healdes Englelandes; _him and his broðer Hardacnute_, þe wæs on Denemearcon”). This proposal—namely the division—Godwine and the West-Saxons resist (“and Godwine eorl and ealle þa yldestan menn on West-Seaxon lagon ongean, swa hi lengost mihton; ac hi ne mihton nan þing ongean wealcan”); that is, they claim the whole kingdom for Harthacnut. At last they are obliged to consent to the division and the regency (“and man gerædde þa þæt Ælfgifu Hardacnutes modor sæte on Winceastre mid þæs cynges huscarlum hyra suna, and heoldan ealle West-Seaxan him to handa; and Godwine eorl was heora healdest man”). Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 758 B) translates this account, but he was evidently puzzled by the words about electing Harold _and Harthacnut_, as he says, “elegerunt Haraldum, ut conservaret regnum fratri suo Hardecnut”—a most unlikely story. The last clause he translates; “Consilium ergo inierunt quod Emma regina cum regis defuncti familia [huscarlum?] conservaret Westsexe apud Wincestre in opus filii sui, Godwinus vero consul dux eis esset in re militari.” Henry says nothing of the second election of Harold in 1037. William of Malmesbury (ii. 188), though telling the story in a most confused way, seems quite to take in the position of Godwine; “Maximus tum justitiæ propugnator fuit Godwinus comes, qui etiam pupillorum [his notion about the sons of Æthelred, as well as Harthacnut, here comes in] se tutorem professus, reginam Emmam et regias gazas custodiens, resistentes _umbone nominis sui_ aliquamdiu dispulit; sed tandem, vi et numero impar, cessit violentiæ.” Mr. St. John (Four Conquests, ii. 106, 107) makes Godwine first assert the rights of the Æthelings, which I suppose is his interpretation of the words of William, and then himself propose the compromise in favour of Harthacnut. For this he refers us to Simeon; but Simeon (X Scriptt. 179) only copies the narrative of Florence, and that narrative, as well as that of the “Saxon Chronicle” [Abingdon as opposed to Peterborough?], Mr. St. John had just before cast aside as “confusing the whole subject.”

I see that the idea of the Imperial supremacy being reserved to Harold has also occurred to Mr. St. John (ii. 110). It was suggested to me by the words of the Peterborough Chronicle (evidently misunderstood by the Canterbury Chronicler), “And he [Harold] wæs þæh full cyng ofer eall Englaland.” This however, as I remarked just above, may perhaps refer to Harold’s second election in 1037. The same idea might also lurk in the other words of the Peterborough Chronicler, quoted in the last page, “gecuron Harold to healdes ealles Englelandes; him and his broðer Hardacnute,” &c. But an Imperial supremacy on the part of Harold seems quite consistent with the general tenor of events, and such a supposition may perhaps render the account of the fate of the Ætheling Ælfred one degree less obscure.

The story of Æthelnoth’s refusal to crown Harold comes wholly from the Encomium Emmæ, iii. 1. But it is possible that the tale, if true, may belong to the second election of Harold in 1037, and may have been thrust back in the confused chronology of the Encomiast. A coronation, sooner or later, seems quite certain. It is asserted by Ralph de Diceto, ii. 238, ed. Stubbs; “Haroldus filius Cnutonis regnavit annis iii. consecratus ab Ethelnodo Dorobernensi archiepiscopo apud Lundonias.” So Roger of Wendover (i. 473); “Prævaluit pars Haroldi, et regni Angliæ illum diademate insignivit.” According to Bromton (X Scriptt. 932), Harold was “ab Ethelnodo Dorobernensi archiepiscopo apud Lundonias consecratus.” But the higher authority of the list of coronations in Rishanger (427) places it at Oxford, which seems to have been Harold’s capital. Believers in the false Ingulf may also entertain themselves with a story about Harold’s coronation robe, and a great deal more about which authentic history is silent. See St. John, ii. 107–110.

NOTE SSS. p. 489. THE DEATH OF THE ÆTHELING ÆLFRED.

I have stated in the text the chief versions as to the death of Ælfred. The different statements may be grouped under two main heads, those which put the event at its right date under the reign of Harold, and those which move it to some other time. It is the former class whose statements we must weigh against other; the latter are useful mainly as illustrating particular points, and as examples of the way in which legends grow.

The earliest English account is that which is found, in different shapes, in the Abingdon and Worcester Chronicles. Peterborough is silent about the whole matter. The story, except a few lines at the beginning, takes the form of a ballad, as it appears in Mr. Earle’s Parallel Chronicles. It is astonishing that Mr. Thorpe should have printed it as plain prose, when it plainly is, not only, like the songs of Brunanburh and Maldon, in rhythm, but actually in rime. This was seen long ago by Dr. Ingram, who not only printed it as verse, but attempted a riming version of his own in modern English. I have in the text analysed the account thus given. The remarkable point is that the Abingdon Chronicle distinctly accuses Godwine, while the Worcester version leaves out his name. In the prose introduction, Ælfred the innocent (“unsceððiga”) Ætheling lands and wishes to go to his mother, who sat at Winchester. Then says Abingdon, “Ac hit him ne geþafode _Godwine eorl ne éc oþre men_ þe mycel mihton wealdan: forþan hit hleoðrode þa, swiðe toward Haraldes, þeh hit unriht wære.” But in Worcester it stands, “Ac þæt ne geþafodon þa þe micel weoldon on þisan lande; forþan hit hleoþrade þa swiðe to Harolde, þeah hit unriht wære.” So the beginning of the ballad stands in Abingdon,

“Ac Godwine hine þa gelette, And hine on hæft sette;”

while in the Worcester version it runs,

“Ða let he [Harold] hine on hæft settan.”

There can be no doubt that here the Abingdon version is the original, and that the Worcester text, which destroys rhythm and rime, was altered by an admirer of Godwine. But as to the prose introduction the case is far less clear; the words “Godwine eorl ne éc oþre men” might just as well be an interpolation. So in Florence the mention of Godwine comes in very awkwardly; “Quod indigne graviterque ferebant potentes nonnulli, quia, licet injustum esset, Haroldo multo devotiores exstitere quam illis, _maxime, ut fertur, comes Godwinus_.”

Florence’s version is made up by modifying the account in the Chronicles, with some touches from other quarters. He makes both brothers come, changing the words “Ælfred se unsceððiga æþeling” into “innocentes clitones Ælfredus et Eadwardus.” While in the Chronicles Ælfred simply wishes to go to his mother (“wolde to his moder þe on Wincestre sæt”), and is hindered by certain men, Godwine or others, in this account both the Æthelings actually visit their mother (“ad suæ matris colloquium, quæ morabatur Wintoniæ, venere”), and Godwine and the other powerful men are simply displeased at their coming (“indigne graviterque ferebant,” as above). Then comes the strangest part of his statement; that Godwine seized and imprisoned Ælfred is simply translated from the ballad, but Florence now introduces the almost incomprehensible assertion that Ælfred, when he was seized, was going to London for a conference with Harold; “Hic quidem [Godwinus] Ælfredum, quum versus Lundoniam, ad regis Haroldi colloquium, ut mandarat, properaret, retinuit, et arcta in custodia posuit [‘hine þa gelette and hine on hæft sette’].” The companions of Ælfred, to the number of six hundred, are sold, killed, or tortured at Guildford; the place is not mentioned in the Chronicles. Emma then sends back her son Eadward, who had stayed with her (“qui secum remansit”) and had not set out with his brother, with all haste to Normandy. Then, at the bidding of Godwine and certain others (“Godwini et quorumdam aliorum jussione”), Ælfred is taken to Ely, and the rest of the story follows as in the ballad.

It is plain that Florence in writing this had one or both of the Chronicles before him, and tried to work in details from other sources which were really inconsistent with the account which the Chronicles gave. One change is of special importance. The ballad simply mentions the companions (“geferan”) of Ælfred without any account of their number or who they were. Florence makes them six hundred, and adds the very important statement that they were Norman knights or soldiers. The Æthelings come, “multis Normannicis militibus secum assumptis, in Angliam paucis transvecti navibus.” This touch clearly comes from the Norman version, which represents the first attempt of the Æthelings as an actual invasion, an idea which the Chronicles do not suggest. It is also plainly from the same source that he got the idea that Eadward had any share in the business.

The ballad in the two Chronicles has about it something of that vagueness which is natural in a poem which is rather a pious lamentation than a narrative. The Norman account, true or false, is at least fuller and clearer. It first appears in William of Poitiers, the Conqueror’s chaplain, the extant part of whose narrative begins at this point. He is followed by William of Jumièges (vii. 8, 9), who is followed by Wace (Roman de Rou, 9759 et seqq.). I have given the substance of their story in the text, and I do not know that there is anything to remark, except that at the end of his tale William of Poitiers turns round and reviles Godwine in an address in the second person, much as at a later stage of his narrative he reviles Harold.

We now come to the version of the Encomiast. He is a perplexing writer to deal with; one knows not what to make of an historian who was either so easily imposed upon or else so utterly reckless as to truth. A contemporary writer who wipes out Emma’s marriage with Æthelred, who looks on the Æthelings as sons of Cnut, who is ignorant that his heroine was actually Queen-regent over Wessex, is really somewhat of a curiosity. His astounding statement (ii. 18) that Eadward and Ælfred were the sons of Cnut I have already spoken of in Note BBB. In his present account (iii. 1) Emma remained in England after the death of Cnut, grieving for the death of her husband and the absence of her sons (“sollicita pro filiorum absentia”). He then goes on; “Namque unus eorum, Hardecnuto scilicet, quem pater regem Danorum constituit, suo morabatur in regno; duo vero alii in Normanniæ finibus ad nutriendum traditi, cum propinquo suo degebant Rotberto.” These last are the sons of whom one, Ælfred, the younger of the two (“Alfridus minor natu,” iii. 4), is the victim of the present story. It is plain therefore that the “liberales filii” of Cnut, spoken of in the former passage, are meant to be the same as the Æthelings. All three brothers being absent, “factum est,” he goes on to say, “ut quidam Anglorum, pietatem regis sui jam defuncti obliti, mallent regnum suum dedecorare quam ornare, relinquentes nobiles filios insignis reginæ Emmæ, et eligentes sibi in regem quemdam Haroldum,” &c., &c. (see above, p. 775). He then goes on with Æthelnoth’s refusal to crown Harold (see above, p. 487), and with Harold’s ungodly manner of life (see p. 504). Then comes the forged letter and the rest of the story, as I have told it in the text. The piece of detail most worthy of notice is the writer’s remarks (iii. 5) on the _decimation_ of Ælfred’s companions (on the alleged decimation at Canterbury in 1012, see above, p. 674);

“Traditi sunt carnificibus, quibus etiam jussum ut nemini parcerent nisi quem sors decima offerret. Tunc tortores vinctos ordinatim sedere fecerunt, satis supraque eis insultantes, illius interfectoris Thebææ legionis exemplo usi sunt, qui decimavit primum innocentes multo his mitius. Ille enim rex paganissimus Christianorum novem pepercit, occiso decimo: at hi profanissimi falsissimique Christiani bonorum Christianorum novem perimerunt, decimo dimisso.”

Now when a writer, whether through ignorance or through design, goes so utterly wrong about the birth of his hero, about the position of his heroine and the general condition of the kingdom, one hardly knows how to accept anything that he tells us. Yet his account, if used with caution, seems to supply some useful hints. His account is the only one which, while consistent with Godwine’s innocence, explains the origin of the belief as to his guilt. If we accept his account of what happened between Godwine and Ælfred, the various statements become intelligible; we see how the opposite stories could arise, which in any other way it is hard to see. The tale of the forged letter has a very odd sound, and the details may easily be mythical. Yet something of the kind would fill up the gap in the Chronicles, in which Ælfred comes over to England without any particular reason for his coming, better than William of Poitiers’ wild tale of a Norman invasion, which is most likely a mere repetition of the attempt of Robert.

The Encomiast seems to have had no notion that Emma was at Winchester, but rather to have fancied that she was in London. Ælfred, before he has landed, is recognized by his enemies, who wish to seize him (“volebant eum adgredi,” iii. 4), but he escapes, lands elsewhere, and sets out to go to his mother (“matrem parabat adire”). When he has got near to her (“ubi jam erat proximus”), he is met by Godwine, who persuades him not to go to London, and takes him to Guildford (“devians eum a Londonia, induxit eum in villa Gildefordia nuncupata”). The mistake is remarkable, for to quarter Emma in London instead of at Winchester implies utter ignorance as to her real position. But it seems quite plain that the Encomiast did not mean to identify Godwine either with the “adversarii” of Ælfred whom he had mentioned just before, nor yet with the “complices Haroldi infandissimi tyranni” (iii. 5), who are spoken of afterwards. And he expressly shuts out the story of invasion and battle which appears in William of Poitiers. The companions of Ælfred are indeed called “commilitones” (iii. 4), but, when Baldwin offers him the help of an armed force, he declines it (“cum marchione Balduino moratus, et ab eo rogatus ut aliquam partem suæ militiæ secum duceret propter insidias hostium”). This seems to forbid the notion of a force such as the Norman writers speak of, a force which could dream of the conquest of England or even of Wessex.

The only other independent witness is the strong partizan of Godwine, the Biographer of Eadward (Vita Eadw. 401). He perhaps shows some wish to slur the story over; but his account of the time between the death of Cnut and the election of Eadward is throughout confused and meagre. He brings in the story of Ælfred only incidentally, not in its chronological place, but much later, when describing the attempts of the Norman Archbishop Robert to sow dissensions between King Eadward and the Earl. He merely says that Ælfred, incautiously entering the country with some French companions, was seized and put to death by torture by order of Harold, his comrades being killed, sold, and so forth. As Godwine was still, under Harold as under Cnut, the chief counsellor of the King (“eo quoque tempore, ut superius, regalium consiliorum erat bajalus.” See above, p. 733), the slanderer Robert took occasion to affirm that the deed was done by Godwine’s advice; but the Biographer strongly asserts the Earl’s innocence.

These are the earliest accounts of the business, all of them written by men who were alive at the time, and of whom the Encomiast of Emma personally knew Cnut, while the Biographer of Eadward personally knew Godwine. Their differences and contradictions are therefore the more amazing; and their one point of agreement is more amazing still, namely, that they all forget, as I said in the text, that Emma and Godwine were ruling in Wessex in the name, not of Harold, but of Harthacnut. The division of the kingdom, the regency of Emma and Godwine, are facts which cannot be doubted; they are affirmed by two of the Chronicles and they are implied by the other two (see above, p. 776). But in telling the tale of Ælfred all this is forgotten. Even the Biographer of Eadward, the formal apologist of Godwine, seems, in the very act of defending him, to forget his real position. The Encomiast, whose version is the most favourable to Godwine’s innocence, seems to know nothing of any King but Harold; Godwine, if not Harold’s minister, is at least Harold’s subject. On comparing all these writers, the question at once arises, How far, when their main story involves so great a misconception, can we trust any of their details? The inconsistency is manifest; it seems to have been felt at the time. The ballad which laments the fate of the Ætheling is found only in those Chronicles which do not directly mention the division of the kingdom. And, even of these, one inserts the ballad in a form which does not accuse Godwine. The Peterborough Chronicler, who is so clear as to the division of the kingdom, says nothing about the fate of the Ætheling. The Norman writers, so eloquent about the fate of the Ætheling, know nothing of the kingship of Harthacnut. Florence, who attempts to combine the two stories, falls into all kinds of confusions and inconsistencies. It was no doubt the feeling of this inconsistency, the feeling that the story, as told, could not have happened at the time to which it is fixed, which made later writers, from William of Malmesbury onwards, move it to various other dates. William’s own account (ii. 188) is very remarkable. He hardly believes the story, because it is not in the Chronicles, but he tells it, because it was a common report; “Quia fama serit, non omisi; sed _quia chronica tacet_, pro solido non asserui.” He therefore had the Peterborough Chronicle before him. So just before; “Sane ne silentio premam quod de primogenito [Ælfred was certainly the younger] Ethelredi Elfredo _rumigeruli spargunt_.” The tale is placed by him in 1040, after the death of Harold and before the arrival of Harthacnut. Sir Thomas Hardy, in his note, proposes to read “mortem Cnutonis” for “mortem Haroldi,” but this is rather destroying evidence than explaining it. Ælfred enters the kingdom; by the treachery of his countrymen, chiefly of Godwine (“compatriotarum perfidia et maxime Godwini”), he is blinded at Gillingham (probably a mistake for Guildford); thence he is taken to Ely, where he soon dies. His companions are beheaded, save one out of each ten, who are allowed to escape.

This date, if it rested on any authority, would be far more probable than the other. Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 758 D) pushes on the story yet a reign further. It is now placed after the death of Harthacnut in 1042. On that King’s death the English send for Ælfred, the elder of the Æthelings, to succeed to the Crown. He comes, and brings with him a great number of his mother’s kinsfolk and of other Normans. Now Godwine (“quum esset consul fortissimus et proditor sævissimus”) has determined that the new King shall marry his daughter. But he sees that Ælfred’s high spirit (“quia primogenitus erat et magnæ probitatis”) will not consent to this scheme, while he thinks that the milder spirit of Eadward (“frater minor et simplicior”) will submit to the yoke. Godwine then harangues the Witan (“intimavit igitur proceribus Angliæ”); Ælfred has brought with him too many Normans; he has promised them lands in England; it will not be safe to allow so valiant and so crafty a people to take root in the land; the strangers must be punished lest other strangers should venture to presume on their kindred with Kings to meddle with Englishmen and English affairs (“ne alii post hæc audeant pro regis cognatione se Anglis ingerere”). Ælfred’s Norman companions are then decimated at Guildford, in the fashion above mentioned; but even the tenth part seem to the English too many to be allowed to live (“nimium visum est Anglis tot superesse”); so they are decimated again; the Ætheling is blinded and sent to Ely, as before. Ralph the Black (157) brings in his version incidentally. Under the reign of Harthacnut, he says, “Edwardum fratrem suum a Normannis revocans, secum pacifice aliquamdiu habuit. Nam alter frater, Alureclus scilicet, ad stipitem ligatus a Godwino in Hely peremptus est, ter decimatis commilitonibus apud Guldedune, port mortem Haroldi, antequam regnaret Hardecnutus, _consilio Stigandi archiepiscopi_.” This last strange statement may be taken in connexion with a scandal which charged Emma herself with a partnership in the deed. (See p. 498 and Note SSS.) There is no need to point out that Stigand was not Archbishop until long afterwards.

Bromton (X Scriptt. 934 et seqq.) gives several versions, but decides in favour of one grounded on that of Henry of Huntingdon. He adds several

## particulars, especially that the English nobles were so enraged against

Godwine that they vowed that he should die a worse death than Eadric the betrayer of his _cyne-hlaford_ (“dominum suum naturalem regem”) Eadmund. (It is a little remarkable that these words are used without any hint as to the supposed kindred between Godwine and Eadric.) On this Godwine flees to Denmark and remains there four years, his lands and goods being meanwhile confiscated. But Bromton’s most remarkable version is one in which the death of Ælfred, combined with an attempt to poison Eadward, is attributed to the joint action of Godwine, Harthacnut, and Emma herself. The same scandal turns up again in the Winchester Annals (Luard, Ann. Mon. ii. 22) as part of the legend of Emma and the ploughshares. So also in Bromton himself, X Scriptt. 942. But the Winchester Annalist had just before (Ann. Mon. ii. 17) given his own version. The tale is placed in the reign of Harthacnut. Godwine wishes to open the succession to his own son Harold. He entices Ælfred over—Duke Robert, notwithstanding his death and burial in the East, keeps Eadward back in Normandy—and causes one tenth of his companions to be beheaded, the rest to be tortured and crucified, and the Ætheling himself to be embowelled. Godwine’s instructions to his agents are given in two very graphic speeches. I trust that so pleasant a writer as Richard of the Devizes is not answerable for this stuff. See Mr. Luard’s Preface, p. xi.

Lastly, two charters ascribed to Eadward the Confessor, but of very doubtful genuineness, speak of the murder of Ælfred in a way which ought to be noticed. In the first (Cod. Dipl. iv. 173) Eadward is made to attribute the death of his brother to Harold and Harthacnut conjointly, and to speak of himself as being with difficulty rescued from them; “Invadentibus regnum Swegeno et Cnuto filio regis [ejus?], regibus Danorum, ac filiis ipsius Chnuti Haroldo et Hardechnuto, a quibus etiam alter meus frater Ælfredus crudeliter occisus est, solusque, sicut Joas occisionem Oðoliæ, sic ego illorum crudelitatem evasi.” In the other (Cod. Dipl. iv. 181) the crime is attributed to the Danes generally; “Dani qui ... fratrem meum alium Ælfredum miserabiliter interemptum enecaverant.” Now, even if these charters be spurious, they still have a certain value as witnessing to popular belief on the subject. Neither of them mentions Godwine; had they done so, Godwine’s sons could hardly have been represented as signing them. But the mention of the fact in charters signed by them might imply that the subject was not one which they at all sought to avoid. The second charter is perfectly vague; but the language of the former, attributing the deed to Harold and Harthacnut, is remarkable. That Harthacnut personally had no hand in it needs no proof; neither was Eadward at any time in the least danger at the hands of Harthacnut, who always acted towards him as an attached brother. Is the charge against Harthacnut meant to convey an indirect charge against the representative of Harthacnut, that is, against Emma herself?

I have thus fairly put together, as far as I can, the evidence on this most perplexing question. That Ælfred landed and was put to death by order of Harold there can be no reasonable doubt. But one can hardly say more, except that, of all the accounts of his coming, the least likely is that which connects it with a Norman invasion under the command of Eadward. The charge against Godwine implies a state of things which we know not to have existed; on the other hand it is strange that his one direct apologist should not have used so obvious an argument on his behalf. In my whole history I know no more remarkable instance of mistakes and contradictions on the part of writers who had every means of being well informed.

NOTE TTT. p. 512. THE BURIAL OF HAROLD THE FIRST.

The Peterborough Chronicle (1040) distinctly says that Harold died at Oxford; “Her forðferde Harold cyng on Oxnaforda on XI. Kal. Apr. and he wæs bebyrged æt Westmynstre.” Worcester and Abingdon say merely “Her swealt Harold cyng,” without any mention of the place either of death or of burial. Canterbury has, “Her forðferde Harold cing, and he wearð bebyrged at Westmynstre.” Florence however says “obiit Lundoniæ.” That the place of his death was Oxford can hardly be doubted, when we remember the charter which I have quoted at pp. 505, 509. And the point is of some importance in relation to the burial of Westminster, which becomes still more remarkable in the case of a King who died so far off as Oxford.

As for the disinterment of Harold’s body by order of Harthacnut, two stories seem to have been afloat which Florence tried to put into one. His words are;

“Mox ut regnare cœpit injuriarum, quas vel sibi vel suæ genitrici suus antecessor fecerat rex Haroldus, qui frater suus putabatur, non immemor, Ælfricum Eboracensem archiepiscopum, Godwinum comitem, Stir majorem domus, Edricum dispensatorem, Thrond suum carnificem, et alios magnæ dignitatis viros, Lundoniam misit, et ipsius Haroldi corpus effodere, et in gronnam projicere jussit: quod quum projectum fuisset, id extrahere, et in flumen Thamense mandavit projicere. Brevi autem post tempore a quodam piscatore captum est, et ad Danos allatum sub festinatione, in cœmeterio quod habuerunt Lundoniæ sepultum est ab ipsis cum honore.”

Here we find a mention both of a fen and of the river Thames as places into which the body was successively thrown. If we look into other accounts, we shall find one story speaking of the fen, and another of the river. The Peterborough Chronicle is silent; the Abingdon and Worcester speak of the fen; “He let dragan up þone deadan Harold; and hine on fenn onsceotan.” William of Malmesbury (ii. 188) tells the story like the second part of the story in Florence, except that he adds that the body was beheaded, which Florence does not mention; also he does not choose to mention any of the performers in the disinterment except Ælfric. His account runs thus;

“Per Alfricum Eboracensem episcopum, et alios quos nominare piget, Haroldi cadavere defosso, caput truncari, et miserando mortalibus exemplo, in Tamesim projici jussit. Id a quodam piscatore exceptum sagena, in cœmeterio Danorum Londoniæ tumulatur.”

The special mention of Ælfric is remarkable. It may be that the presence of a prelate was needed to sanctify the insult to consecrated ground; still Ælfweard would have been the more natural performer in his own diocese. And William of Malmesbury elsewhere (De Gest. Pont. 250) distinctly asserts that the deed was done by the special advice of Ælfric; “Habetur [Ælfricus] in hoc detestabilis, quod Hardacnutus _ejus consilio_ fratris sui Haroldi cadavere defosso caput truncari, et infami mortalibus exemplo in Tamensem projici jussit.”

The burying-place of the Danes seems to be first mentioned by William of Malmesbury. Ralph de Diceto (i. 186 ed. Stubbs) marks it as the same as the church of Saint Clement Danes; “Brevi autem post a quodam piscatore ad Danos allatum est, et in cœmeterio quod habuerunt Lundoniæ sepultum est apud sanctum Clementem.” He is followed by Bromton (933), who however only speaks of the church of Saint Clement without any special mention of Danes.

Florence’s list of the dignitaries employed in this matter is followed by most of the later writers. Roger of Wendover calls them “milites et carnifices.” On the relation of the great Earls to the officers of the King’s household, see above, p. 89. The mention of the “major domus” and the seemingly dignified position of “Thrond carnifex” (cf. Jeremiah lii. 12) should be specially noticed.

It is really worth while to transcribe the narrative of M. de Bonnechose (ii. 61); it is so amusingly coloured; “Le corps d’Harold, son frère, fut déterré par ses ordres, décapité, jeté dans un marais, puis dans la Tamise, et il exigea que le comte Godwin, principal ministre des volontés d’Harold, fût un des instruments de la vengeance exercée sur son cadavre et sur une population rebelle, Godwin cependant ne trouva pas, dans son empressement à obéir, une sûreté suffisante; la clameur publique s’élevait contre lui, et le désignait comme l’assassin d’Alfred, frère utérin du nouveau roi; l’archevêque d’Yorck se porta son accusateur devant Hardi-Canut.”

NOTE VVV. p. 516. THE TRIAL AND ACQUITTAL OF GODWINE.

A point to be specially noticed in this trial is the form of words which Florence, the only primary authority who records any form, puts into the mouth of Godwine and his compurgators. They swear that it was not by Godwine’s will or counsel that the Ætheling Ælfred was blinded, and that, whatever Godwine did in the matter, he did at the bidding of his lord King Harold (“Non sui consilii nec suæ voluntatis fuisse quod frater ejus cæcatus fuisset, sed dominum suum regem Haroldum illum facere quod fecit jussisse”). This is clearly an abridged, and it is most likely an inaccurate, report of the oath really taken. It is clearly abridged, because, when Godwine by implication confessed to have done something, he could not fail to explain more at large what it was that he confessed himself to have done. But such a form of words is consistent with the view that Godwine met Ælfred, or even that he arrested Ælfred, within his own earldom, but that he had no hand in the barbarous cruelties which followed in a place out of his jurisdiction. But the mention of Harold as Godwine’s lord again steps in to throw doubt on the whole formula. The only character in which Harold could be called Godwine’s lord was that of superior lord of all Britain, in which character he was the lord rather of Harthacnut than of Godwine. Still, whatever doubts the formula may be open to, it has its worth. It points to the general likelihood that Godwine may have had a share in the events which led to the death of Ælfred, and yet not a guilty share.

William of Malmesbury (ii. 188), though he mentions the oath, does not give any form of words. Roger of Wendover (i. 478), seemingly following Florence, leaves out the clause in which Godwine says that he had acted by order of Harold; “Juravit quod neque ingenio suo nec voluntate frater ejus fuerat interemptus et oculis privatus.” This is remarkable, as Roger (i. 474) asserts the complicity of Godwine with Harold’s doings perhaps more strongly than any other writer. The clause appears again in the writer called Matthew of Westminster, p. 400.

I cannot resist giving some account of the grotesque legend into which the compurgation of Godwine has grown under the hands of the so-called Bromton (X Script. 937, 8). It is transferred to the reign of Eadward. Godwine, it will be remembered (see above, p. 786), is, at his accession, in Denmark. Meanwhile Eadward comes over to England, he is crowned, and reigns justly and mercifully. Godwine, hearing of his justice and mercy, ventures to hope that the latter princely virtue may be extended to himself, and supplicates that he may be allowed to come over and plead his cause. This he does in a “Parliament,” where the King with his Earls and Barons talk a large amount of Norman law. Earl Leofric at last cuts the knot; It is clear that Godwine is guilty; but then he is the best born man in the land after the King himself—therefore it may be presumed, neither the son of Wulfnoth the herdsman nor yet the kinsman of the upstart Ealdorman Eadric—so he and his sons, and I and eleven other nobles his kinsmen, will bring the King as much gold and silver as we each can carry, and the King shall forgive Earl Godwine and give him his lands back again. To this singular way of observing his coronation oath to do justice the saintly monarch makes no objection; Earl Godwine takes his lands, and King Eadward takes the broad pieces. Perhaps they were the very pieces over which he afterwards saw the devil dancing.

NOTE WWW. p. 520. THE ORIGIN OF EARL SIWARD.

All that I can say of Siward (Sigeweard) is that he was most likely a Danish follower of Cnut. A Siward, seemingly the same, signs as “minister” in 1019 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 9) and 1032 (iv. 39). His name is also attached to a doubtful charter of Archbishop Æthelnoth (iv. 53) as “miles.”

The mythical history of Siward will be found in Langebek, iii. 288, also in the Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, ii. 104. The pedigree there given runs thus; “Tradunt relationes antiquorum quod vir quidam nobilis, quem Dominus permisit, contra solitum ordinem humanæ propaginis, ex quodam albo urso patre, muliere generosa matre, procreari, Ursus genuit Spratlingum, Spratlingus _Ulsium_, Ulsius Beorn, cognomento Beresune, hoc est _filius ursi_.” Beorn is Siward’s father. _Ulsius_ should of course be _Ulfius_, and the pedigree of course comes from Florence (see p. 423) or from the source from which Florence drew his pedigree of Ulf. But there is something especially grotesque in making Siward a son of Biorn Ulfsson, who was killed by Swegen the son of Godwine in 1049. The bear who was the ancestor of Siward and Ulf had also, it would seem, known ursine descendants; at least so I understand the legend of Hereward, Chroniques Angl.-Norm. ii. 7. Hereward there kills a bear, “quem incliti ursi Norweye fuisse filium ... affirmabant ... cujus igitur pater in silvis fertur puellam rapuisse, et ex ea Biernum regem Norweye genuisse.” Siward, in the story, after slaying dragons and other such exploits in Orkney and Northumberland, comes to London in the reign of Eadward; he then, under very odd circumstances, kills one Tostig, Earl of Huntingdon, and gets his earldom. The church of Saint Clement Danes (see above, p. 789) was built, we are told, to commemorate the slain followers of Tostig. This Tostig, it seems, was a Dane, who was in disfavour with King Eadward for a curious reason; “Rex eumdem habuit odio, quia duxerat in uxorem filiam comitis Godwini, sororem reginæ.” Afterwards, when an invasion from Norway was threatening (1045?), Siward was made Earl over Northumberland, _Cumberland_, and Westmoreland. The same story is found in Bromton, 945, only there “Bernus,” father of Siward, is himself son of the bear. Such stuff would be hardly worth mentioning, had not Sir Francis Palgrave (Engl. Comm. ii. ccxcvii.) inferred from it the existence of an historical Tostig, Earl of Huntingdon. See above, p. 667. It is, I think, plain that the Tostig of this story (who is, not indeed brother, but brother-in-law of Eadward’s wife Eadgyth) is meant for the son of Godwine, and that the slaying of Eadwulf by Siward has got confounded with the career of Tostig in Northumberland and his expulsion from the earldom. The one bit of history which lurks in all this seems to be the fact of the union of the earldoms of Northumberland and Huntingdon in the person of Siward. See vol. ii. Note G.

NOTE XXX. p. 528. TOFIG THE PROUD.

A certain amount of interest cannot fail to attach to Tofig as Harold’s forerunner in the foundation of Waltham. Of the Waltham history, “De Inventione Sanctæ Crucis,” I shall speak more at large when I come to Harold’s time (see vol. ii. Appendix RR). All that is known of Tofig is collected by Professor Stubbs in his edition of that tract. Nothing but local partiality could describe him as “Tovi le Prude, qui totius Angliæ post regem primus, _stallere_, vexillifer regis, monarchiam gubernabat.” (c. 7; cf. c. 14.) Professor Stubbs does not seem quite clear as to his being Staller, but he certainly was an important person. He appears in Florence as “Danicus et præpotens vir Tovius, Pruda cognomento.” He signs many charters of Cnut, one of them in 1033 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 44) distinctly as “Tovi Pruda.” He appears also with the same surname in Cod. Dipl. iv. 54, where he is sent by Cnut on a special mission into Herefordshire to attend a Scirgemót held by Bishop Æthelstan and Earl Ranig (see p. 520), the account of which, though not illustrating the life or character of Tofig, gives us one of the most living pictures of Old-English jurisprudence. Tofig’s surname was needed to distinguish him from two namesakes, “Tovi hwita” and “Tovi reada,” who sign in 1024. Cod. Dipl. iv. 31. “Tofig minister,” who signs under Eadward in 1054 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 135), and who was Sheriff of Somerset between 1061 and 1066 (see Cod. Dipl. iv. 171, 197, 199), must, if the Waltham narrative be at all accurate, be a different man.

In the name of Tofig’s son Æthelstan, as in that of Ranig’s son Eadwine (see p. 520), we see an instance of the tendency among the Danish settlers under Cnut to identify themselves with England and to give their children English names.

Tofig must have died soon after his marriage with Gytha (see De Inv. 14; “Tandem consummatus in brevi expleverat tempora multa, cui successit filius ejus Adelstanus”). There is, as Professor Stubbs (pp. 1, 13) remarks, some difficulty in reconciling the chronology of the Waltham writer with regard to the Invention of the Cross with the undoubted date of Tofig’s marriage. The Waltham writer places the Invention in the time of Cnut (“regnante Cnuto et Anglis _imperante_”), that is to say seven years at the least before the time of the marriage, whereas Gytha is represented in c. 13 as already Tofig’s wife and as a benefactress to the church. As Harthacnut died at the wedding, we cannot even suppose, what would otherwise be just possible, that by “Cnutus” we are to understand Harthacnut. The easiest explanation seems to be that gifts made by Gytha in her widowhood have been wrongly transferred to an earlier date. I have elsewhere (see vol. ii. Appendix MM) thrown out a hint that this Gytha may possibly be the same as Gytha the wife of Earl Ralph of Hereford.

NOTE YYY. p. 530. EVENTS AFTER THE DEATH OF HARTHACNUT.

The legend to which I have referred in the text has found a place in the text of Thierry (i. 179) and also in that of Mr. St. John (Four Conquests, ii. 127). According to Bromton (934) and Knighton (2326), the English, wearied with the oppressions of the Danes under Harthacnut (see above, p. 758), rose against them after his death, and drove them out by force. Knighton calls the leader of the revolt Howne, and his forces _Howneher_ [Hunanhere]. Thierry makes Godwine the leader instead of Howne. M. de Bonnechose (Quatre Conquêtes, ii. 70–2), though seeing the general absurdity of the story, admits it so far as to accept an expulsion of the housecarls. Saxo (202, 203) has a more wonderful tale than all. He has nothing to say about Howne or about Godwine. Harold, the son of Godwine, is the deliverer (“Danicæ oppressionis simulque domesticæ libertatis auctor”). He causes the Danish forces throughout England to be invited to banquets in different places, so that they are all slain in one night. Of all this there is not a word in any trustworthy writer; the only passage which looks at all like it is a rhetorical expression in the Life of Eadward (“reducto diu afflictis Anglis barbarica servitute redemptionis suæ jubilæo”, p. 394), which however most likely refers only to the extinction of the foreign dynasty and the accession of a native King. Any one who has had any experience of the growth of mythical and romantic tales will soon see what is the origin of this legend. It is plainly nothing in the world but the massacre of Saint Brice moved still further out of its place than it had already been moved by Roger of Wendover (see above, p. 652), and further mixed up with the legend of the death of Ælfred, with which it is connected by both Bromton and Knighton. Knighton’s “Howne” is clearly Roger’s “Huna” over again. Everything in our authentic narrative makes us believe that the election of Eadward was perfectly peaceful. A general driving out or massacre of Danes is simply ridiculous; even an expulsion of the housecarls is supported by no kind of evidence. The housecarls of Harthacnut no doubt became the housecarls of Eadward, and the saintly King, if Godwine had not been at hand to restrain him, was as ready to send them against Dover as his half-brother had been to send them against Worcester.

A more marvellous version than all is to be found in the French Life of Eadward, 532–581 (Luard, pp. 40, 41). Here the Danes, after committing the usual atrocities, rebel against _Harthacnut_, who raises an English army against them, and, after much fighting, overcomes them. Such wild shapes did our history take when it fell into the hands of strangers.

END OF VOLUME THE FIRST.

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Footnote 1:

On this subject I must refer, once for all, to the papers of Dr. Guest in the Archæological Journal and in the volumes of Transactions of the Archæological Institute, especially to the paper on the Early English Settlements in South Britain in the Salisbury Volume. On these questions I have little to do except to profess myself, in all essential points, an unreserved follower of that illustrious scholar. On the difference between _historical_, _traditional_, _mythical_, and _romantic_ narratives see Historical Essays, 1st Series, p. 3.

Footnote 2:

It is really hardly worth while to dispute about the _names_ of Hengest and Horsa. The evidence for their historical character seems to me at least as strong as the suspicion of their mythical character. But whether the chiefs who led the first Jutish settlers in Kent bore these names or any others does not affect the reality of the Jutish settlement. I must confess however that there are names in the Chronicles which strike me as far more suspicious than those of Hengest and Horsa. I mean names like Port and Wihtgar, who figure in the entries for 501 and 544. See Earle’s Parallel Chronicles, p. ix.

Footnote 3:

For all that is to be said on this side of the question, see the eleventh Chapter of Palgrave’s English Commonwealth and the first chapter of Kemble’s Saxons in England. On the other side see Dr. Guest’s paper in the Salisbury Volume.

Footnote 4:

See Guest, Salisbury Volume, p. 35.

Footnote 5:

The account in Ammianus (xxxvii. 8) of the exploits of the elder Theodosius does not speak of the Saxons or of any other Teutons as invaders of Britain, but only as invaders of Gaul. But there seems quite evidence enough to show that, at the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth centuries, Britain was constantly ravaged by Saxon pirates. This is shown by the well-known phrases of _Limes Saxonicus_ and _Littus Saxonicum_, for the true explanation of which I must again refer to Dr. Guest. The Saxon shore or march, like the Welsh march in England, like the Spanish, Slavonic, and other marches of the later Empire, was, not a district occupied by Saxons, but the march—in this case a _shore_—lying near to the Saxons and exposed to their ravages. Ammianus himself, in the passage just referred to, speaks of “Nectaridus comes maritimi tractus” as killed by the Picts at this time. The phrase is analogous to that of “Scythici limitis dux,” etc. in Vopiscus, Aurelian, 13. Claudian also constantly couples the Saxons with the Picts and Scots as among the invaders of Roman Britain who were repulsed by Theodosius and Stilicho;

... “Maduerunt Saxone fuso Orcades: incaluit Pictorum sanguine Thule: Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis Ierne.” Carm. viii. 31. Cf. xviii. 392; xxii. 255.

So Sidonius Apollinaris, Carm. vii. 370 (cf. Epp. viii. 6);

“Quin et Aremoricus piratam Saxona tractus Sperabat, cui pelle salum sulcare Britannum Ludus, et asserto glaucum mare findere lembo.”

Were our keels coracles, or was the British fashion transferred to the Saxon?

Footnote 6:

Yet even this view seems to be pretty well disposed of by Dr. Guest in his Salisbury paper.

Footnote 7:

I use the word “Saxon” throughout only in its correct sense, to express one only among several Teutonic tribes which settled in Britain. The name “Saxon” was never used by the people themselves to express the whole nation, which was called, sometimes “Anglo-Saxon,” but, far more commonly, simply “Angle” or “English.” I shall discuss this point more at length in the Appendix, Note A.

Footnote 8:

I use, as a technical term, this correct and old-fashioned description of the class of languages to which our own belongs. The English language is simply Low-Dutch, with a very small Welsh, and a very large Romance, infusion into its vocabulary. The Low-Dutch of the continent, so closely cognate with our own tongue, is the natural speech of the whole region from Flanders to Holstein, and it has been carried by conquest over a large region, originally Slavonic, to the further east. But, hemmed in by Romance, High-Dutch, and Danish, it is giving way at all points, and it is only in Holland that it survives as a literary language. It should always be borne in mind that our affinity in blood and language is in the first degree with the Low-Dutch, in the second degree with the Danish. With the High-Dutch, the German of modern literature, we have no direct connexion at all.

Footnote 9:

The proper Scots, as no one denies, were a Gaelic colony from Ireland, the original Scotia. The only question is as to the Picts or Caledonians. Were they another Gaelic tribe, the vestige of a Gaelic occupation of the island earlier than the British occupation, or were they simply Britons who had never been brought under the Roman dominion? The geographical aspect of the case favours the former belief, but the weight of philological evidence seems to be on the side of the latter. But the question is one which, as far as purely English history is concerned, may safely be left undetermined.

Footnote 10:

It seems certain that the English seldom occupied a Roman or British town at once. The towns were commonly forsaken for a while, though they were in many cases resettled by an English population. The only question is whether any of the towns preserved a sort of half independence after the conquest of the surrounding country. See Comparative Politics, 130, 422.

Footnote 11:

In Northern Gaul the name of the tribe is commonly preserved in the modern name of its chief town, the original name of the town itself being dropped. Thus Lutetia Parisiorum has become Paris. But in Aquitaine and Provence the cities commonly retain their original names, as Burdigala and Tolosa, now Bourdeaux and Toulouse.

Footnote 12:

Words like _street_ and _chester_; this class is excessively small. See Max Müller, Science of Language, Second Series, p. 269.

Footnote 13:

Words like _Mass_, _Priest_, _Bishop_, _Angel_, _Candle_.

Footnote 14:

See Comparative Politics, 420.

Footnote 15:

I mean the extirpation of anything worthy to be called a nation, of any people who had reached the position which all the inhabitants of the Roman Empire had reached. The dying out of savage tribes before the arts and arms of highly civilized Europeans is another matter.

Footnote 16:

Yet the legend of Hengest’s daughter, as told by Nennius—her name Rowena is a later absurdity—absolutely worthless as a piece of personal history, seems to point to the fact that the invaders not uncommonly brought their women with them.

Footnote 17:

Prokopios, Bell. Goth. iv. 20. Βριττίαν δὲ τὴν νῆσον ἔθνη τρία πολυανθρωπότατα ἔχουσι, βασιλεύς τε εἷς αὐτῶν ἑκάστῳ ἐφέστηκεν· ὀνόματα δὲ κεῖται τοῖς ἔθνεσι τούτοις Ἄγγιλοί τε καὶ Φρίσσονες καὶ τῇ νήσῳ ὁμώνυμοι Βρίττωνες. Prokopios’ account of Britain is mixed up with a great deal of fable, but here at least is something clear and explicit.

Footnote 18:

See the Chronicles under the years 443 and 449, and compare 473, where Hengest and his Jutes are again called “Engle.”

Footnote 19:

It is necessary to make this limitation, because the Danish Kings, as well as Harold the son of Godwine and William the Conqueror, were none of them of the West-Saxon house. But all our earlier Kings were descended from Cerdic in the male line and all our later Kings in the female line.

Footnote 20:

I have given the boundaries somewhat roughly, as they do not always exactly answer to those of the present counties. For details I must refer to Dr. Guest’s paper already quoted, and to his two later papers in the Archæological Journal, vol. xvi. p. 105, and vol. xix. p. 193.

Footnote 21:

Yet some of the passages collected by Sir Francis Palgrave (English Commonwealth, i. 462) would seem to show that parties of independent Welshmen held out in the fen country till a very late date.

Footnote 22:

On the quasi-insular character of East-Anglia, see Dr. Stanley’s paper in the Norwich volume of the Proceedings of the Archæological Institute, p. 58.

Footnote 23:

The Chronicles, under the year 547, record the accession of Ida, and speak of him as the ancestor of the following line of Northumbrian Kings. But we are not told, as in the cases of Hengest, Ælle, and Cerdic, anything about his landing, and the phrase “Ida feng to rice” (cf. 519) implies that this was not the beginning of the settlement. I therefore cannot help suspecting that there is some truth in the legend preserved by Nennius (38), according to which settlers of the kindred of Hengest occupied Northumberland in the preceding century. William of Malmesbury (i. 7) follows the same account, with additional details, but he distinctly adds that no English chief in those parts took the title of King before Ida. See Comparative Politics, 419.

Footnote 24:

The date of Offa is given by Henry of Huntingdon (Mon. Hist. Brit. 714 A). But he had before (M. H. B. 712 A) said, speaking of the days of Cerdic, “Eâ tempestate venerunt multi et sæpe de Germaniâ, et occupaverunt East-Angle et Merce: sed necdum sub uno rege redacta erant. Plures autem proceres certatim regiones occupabant.” This marks the transition from Ealdormanship to Kingship, of which I shall speak in my next Chapter.

Footnote 25:

Crida or Creoda is mentioned in the Chronicles (593), but he is not said to have been the first King of the Mercians. That he was so is a conjecture of Henry of Huntingdon, M. H. B. 714 C.

Footnote 26:

Chronicles, 626. Cf. 654.

Footnote 27:

On the list of Bretwaldas and its historic value, see Appendix B.

Footnote 28:

Bæda, Hist. Eccl. i. 25, 26.

Footnote 29:

See Appendix C.

Footnote 30:

Prokop. Bell. Goth. iv. 20. οὐ πολλῷ πρότερον ὁ Φράγγων βασιλεὺς ἐπὶ πρεσβείᾳ τῶν οἱ ἐπιτηδείων τινὰς παρὰ βασιλέα Ἰουστινιανὸν ἐς Βυζάντιον στείλας ἄνδρας αὐτοῖς ἐκ τῶν Ἀγγίλων ξυνέπεμψε, φιλοτιμούμενος ὡς καὶ ἡ νῆσος ἥδε πρὸς αὐτοῦ ἄρχεται.

Footnote 31:

The Goths in the fourth century were the first Teutonic nation to embrace Christianity, but they were still a wandering tribe, while the conversion of England was a distinct territorial conquest. Armenia again, at the other end of the Roman world, was a territorial conquest more ancient than that of England; but Armenia lay far more open to Imperial influences than England did.

Footnote 32:

See above, p. 25.

Footnote 33:

See the Laws of Ine, 23, 24, 32, 33, 46, 54, 74. (Thorpe, Laws and Institutes, i. 119–149; Schmid, pp. 30–55.) In the time of Ælfred the distinction, at least within the strictly English territory, seems to have died out.

Footnote 34:

Bæda, i. 34; Chron. 603, 605. The latter year is the date of his victory over the Welsh near Chester and the famous massacre of the monks of Bangor.

Footnote 35:

Bæda, ii. 5. See Appendix B.

Footnote 36:

See above, p. 27.

Footnote 37:

Chron. 628. “Her Cynegils and Cwichelm gefuhtan wið Pendan æt Cirenceastre and geþingodon þa.” This I take to mean a cession of territory, most probably of the north-western conquests of Ceawlin. Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire must have been kept longer, as appears from the position of Dorchester as originally a West-Saxon bishopric.

Footnote 38:

See Appendix B.

Footnote 39:

See Appendix D.

Footnote 40:

See Appendix D.

Footnote 41:

For the chronology between the years 752–849 I follow the Northumbrian reckoning preserved by Simon of Durham. See Stubbs, Roger of Hoveden, i. pp. xci, et seqq.

Footnote 42:

Ecgberht’s titles commonly run, “Rex,” “Regali fretus dignitate,” “Occidentalium Saxonum rex,” once, in 820, “Rex Occidentalium Saxonum necnon et Cantuariorum” (Kemble, Cod. Dipl. i. 289), but in one charter of 828 (Cod. Dipl. i. 287) he appears as “Ecgberhtus gratiâ Dei REX ANGLORUM.” In that year he had granted out Mercia to an Under-king and had reduced all the Welsh to submission.

Footnote 43:

One can hardly describe these relations between the different states without using such words as “homage,” “apanage,” and the like, though of course the words were unknown in England at the time.

Footnote 44:

A local invasion of the _Hwiccas_ was repelled at Kempsford by the Wilsætas. The Hwiccas are the people of the old diocese of Worcester. They were therefore doubtless mainly of Saxon blood, yet they now act as Mercian subjects. The war however seems to have been quite local, carried on by the Ealdormen of the two shires.

Footnote 45:

I infer this from the description of the battle of Gafulford in 825, which is said to have been fought between the Welsh and the men of Devonshire, who must therefore have been English, or at least acting in the English interest. Yet Devonshire, and even the city of Exeter, remained partly Welsh as late as the time of Æthelstan.

Footnote 46:

_Norð-Wealas_ in the Chronicles means the inhabitants of Wales in the modern sense, both North and South; they are opposed to the _West-Wealas_, the Welsh of Cornwall.

Footnote 47:

See above, p. 12.

Footnote 48:

On the conquest of Northumberland, see Appendix KK.

Footnote 49:

It is hardly worth while to reckon the puppet Ceolwulf, not of the royal house, set up for a moment by the Danes after the expulsion of Burhred.

Footnote 50:

The exact boundary started from the Thames, along the Lea to its source, then right to Bedford and along the Ouse till it meets Watling-Street, then along Watling-Street to the Welsh border. See Ælfred and Guthrum’s Peace, Thorpe’s Laws and Institutes, i. 152. This frontier gives London to the English; but it seems that Ælfred did not obtain full possession of London till 886. See Earle’s Parallel Chronicles, p. 310.

Footnote 51:

See Appendix E.

Footnote 52:

The story which represents Ælfred as forsaken by his subjects on account of cruelties in the early part of his reign, and as being thus led to reformation, is part of the legend of Saint Neot, not of the history of Ælfred.

Footnote 53:

No one can blame Ælfred for hanging (see Chron. 897) the crews of some piratical Danish ships, who had broken their oaths to him over and over again. His general conduct towards his enemies displays a singular mildness.

Footnote 54:

“I then, Ælfred King, these [laws] together gathered, and had many of them written which our foregangers held, those that me-liked. And many of them that me not liked I threw aside, with my Wise Men’s thought, and on otherwise bade to hold them. Forwhy I durst not risk of my own much in writ to set, forwhy it to me unknown was what of them would like those that after us were. But that which I met, either in Ine’s days my kinsman, or in Offa’s the King of the Mercians, or in Æthelberht’s that erst of English kin baptism underwent, those that to me rightest seemed, those have I herein gathered and the others passed by. I then Ælfred, King of the West-Saxons, to all my Wise Men these showed, and they then quoth that to them it seemed good all to hold.” Ælfred’s Dooms, Thorpe’s Laws and Institutes, i. 58–59; Schmid, p. 69

Footnote 55:

Guthrum of East-Anglia was a nominal vassal all along. But the Northumbrians, whether Danes or English, seem not to have made submission till 893, in the prospect of the last Danish invasion of this reign. Their King Guthred had just died. See the two statements in Simeon of Durham, X Scriptt. pp. 133 (M. H. B. 685), 151, and Palgrave, ii. cccxv. Cf. Chron. and Fl. Wig. 894.

Footnote 56:

Ælfred was thus King of nearly all the Saxon part of England, of very little of the Anglian part. Hence doubtless the title of “Rex Saxonum” which he often uses. He was more than King of the West-Saxons; he was less than King of the English.

Footnote 57:

See Appendix F.

Footnote 58:

Between Eadwig and Eadgar in 957, between Eadmund and Cnut in 1016, between Harold and Harthacnut in 1035. All these arrangements were short-lived, and they were probably not meant to be more than temporary compromises.

Footnote 59:

Florence of Worcester (901) after a splendid panegyric on Ælfred, continues, “Huic filius successit Eadwardus, cognomento Senior, litterarum cultu patre inferior, sed dignitate, potentia, pariter et gloria superior; nam, ut in sequentibus clarebit, multo latius quam pater fines regni sui dilatavit,” &c. &c.

Footnote 60:

Ælfred was, according to custom, chosen in preference to the sons of his elder brother Æthelred, who were minors at the time of their father’s death. On Ælfred’s death one of these sons, Æthelwald, tried to obtain the crown, but the Witenagemót elected Eadward the son of Ælfred.

Footnote 61:

See Chron. 924, and Appendix G.

Footnote 62:

Ealdred the son of Ealdwulf, Lord of Bamburgh. His father had been among the chiefs who did homage to Eadward in 924. On this family, see Appendix KK.

Footnote 63:

See Earle, p. xix. It is much to be lamented that the prose entries in the Chronicles for this important reign are so meagre. On the other hand, William of Malmesbury evidently worked out the life of Æthelstan with unusual care, seemingly from lost sources, and, amidst a great deal of fable, we recover some truth.

Footnote 64:

I shall have to speak again of the foreign policy of Æthelstan in my Chapter on the Early History of Normandy.

Footnote 65:

Florence has some special epithet for each of the conquering Kings of this period—Eadward is “invictissimus,” Æthelstan “strenuus et gloriosus,” Eadmund “magnificus,” Eadred “egregius,” Eadgar “pacificus.”

Footnote 66:

The _Imperial_ character of the English royalty at this time will be spoken of more largely in the next Chapter. See also Appendix B.

Footnote 67:

Leicester (Chron. 918), Stamford (922), and Nottingham (924) were all in possession of Eadward, who built fortresses at the latter two. Perhaps they had joined in the revolt of the Northumbrians in 941; but the words of the Chronicles may lead us to think that Eadward accepted the submission of the Confederation and built forts to keep the towns from rebellion, without interfering with their internal administration. A Danish civic aristocracy may therefore have gone on down to the deliverance by Eadmund, holding the former English inhabitants in more or less of subjection.

Footnote 68:

See Appendix H.

Footnote 69:

On the whole reign of Eadwig, see Mr. Allen’s Essay attached to his work on the Royal Prerogative.

Footnote 70:

The entries in the Chronicles just at this time are singularly meagre.

Footnote 71:

See Brut y Tywysogion, a. 965. With this seems to be connected the famous story of the tribute of wolves in William of Malmesbury, ii. 155.

An Irish campaign and victory of Eadgar (see the spurious charter of 964, Cod. Dipl. ii. 404) seem very doubtful.

Footnote 72:

Chron. 966.

Footnote 73:

With regard to Thanet, the Chronicles witness to the fact; Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 748 A) guarantees its justice; it was done “quia jura regalia spreverant.” Roger of Wendover (i. 414) knows all about it, and says it was because the men of Thanet plundered certain merchants of York.

Footnote 74:

See the Pictish Chronicle, ap. Johnstone, Ant. Celt. Norm. 143.

Footnote 75:

The alleged cession of Lothian is surrounded with so many difficulties that I reserve the question for fuller discussion. See Appendix I.

Footnote 76:

This is Dr. Lingard’s probable conjecture. Hist. of England, i. 262.

Footnote 77:

Laws of Eadgar, in Thorpe’s Laws and Institutes, i. 272, Schmid, p. 195.

Footnote 78:

The best of all authorities, the Chronicles (973), bear witness to the meeting of Eadgar with six kings at Chester, where they renewed their homage to him. Florence, the authority next in value, raises the number to eight; he also gives their names (Kenneth of Scotland, Malcolm of Cumberland, Maccus of the Isles, and five Welsh princes) and describes the ceremony on the Dee.

Footnote 79:

In the ballad in the Chronicles (958) the only fault found with Eadgar is his fondness for foreigners, who are said to have corrupted the morals of the English in divers ways.

Footnote 80:

The scandalous stories told of Eadgar’s private life are, with one exception, that of the abduction of the nun Wulfthryth, mere romances, without a shadow of authority.

Footnote 81:

As long as Man retained its separate Kings or even its separate Lords, it was strictly in the same position in which it was in the days of Eadgar. Even now, as retaining its own Legislature and not being represented in the Imperial Parliament, it is a dependency of the British Crown, like the Channel Islands, not an integral part of the United Kingdom, like England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.

Footnote 82:

I cannot, in this Chapter, lay claim to the same originality which I hope I may fairly claim in the narrative parts of this history. The early political and legal antiquities of England have been treated of by so many eminent writers that there is really little more to be done than to test their different views by the standards of inherent probability and of documentary evidence, and to decide which has the best claim to adoption. Among many other works two stand out conspicuously, Sir Francis Palgrave’s History of the English Commonwealth and Mr. Kemble’s Saxons in England. My readers will easily see that I have learned much from both, but that I cannot call myself an unreserved follower of either. Another most important work is Dr. Reinhold Schmid’s _Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen_ (2nd ed. Leipzig, 1858). The most valuable part is the Antiquarian Glossary, the principal articles of which swell into essays on the most important subjects suggested by the Old-English Laws, supported by the most lavish array of references for every detail. On the whole I think I shall be commonly found maintaining the same constitutional views as Mr. Kemble, except on the point of the _Imperial_ character of the Old-English monarchy, an aspect of it which Mr. Kemble has rather unaccountably slurred over. This point, one which closely connects itself with other studies of mine, is perhaps the one which I have thought out more thoroughly for myself than any other. Sir Francis Palgrave, with his characteristic union of research, daring, and ingenuity, was the first to call attention to the subject; but I must confess that many of his views on the matter seem to me not a little exaggerated.

[I let this note stand as it was first written about eleven years ago; since then the great Constitutional History of Professor Stubbs has gathered together all knowledge on these subjects in a wonderfully short compass. My special obligations to him are recorded in my Fifth Volume. I have also, since this Chapter was written, studied the great work of Waitz, _Deutsche Verfassungs Geschichte_, and other German constitutional writers, some for the first time, others more carefully than I had read them before. I am glad that I do not find more to change than I do. I have not thought it needful to recast the Chapter; but I have changed whatever seemed either inaccurate or misleading, and I have added some fresh illustrations and references, chiefly to Waitz and Sir Henry Maine.]

Footnote 83:

[This was first written in the year 1866.]

Footnote 84:

On the change from _Ealdormen_ or _Heretogan_ to Kings, see Appendix K.

Footnote 85:

See above, p. 54.

Footnote 86:

On all these points see Appendix K.

Footnote 87:

See above, p. 26.

Footnote 88:

See above, p. 54, and Appendix F. Gneist, Englische Verwaltungsrecht, i. 47; “Nach dem Aussterben oder der Verdrängung der mediatisirten Häuptlinge aber treten nahe Verwandte des regierenden Hauses (Athelingi) oder verschwägerte oder sonst nahestehende Grossthane in die Stelling solcher Unterkönige ein, bis die fortschreitende Reichseinheit diese Statthalter allmälig auf dem Fuss blosser Reichsbeamten bringt.” Cf. K. von Maurer, Kritische Überschau, i. 86.

Footnote 89:

See above, p. 62.

Footnote 90:

The modern German princes represent nothing but modern dynastic and diplomatic arrangements; otherwise one might compare this process with the return to ealdormanship in Wessex and Lombardy. [This was written early in 1866, before the reverse process had begun.]

Footnote 91:

On the word “King” see Appendix L.

Footnote 92:

See Appendix M.

Footnote 93:

_Englaland_, in its different forms, does not appear in the Chronicles till the year 1014. _Angel-cyn_, which in 597 clearly means the people, must, in 975 and 986, be taken for the country. So still more plainly in 1002. In many places it may be taken either way. Cf. Appendix A, T.

Footnote 94:

Il. ix. 160. καὶ μοὶ ὑποστήτω ὅσσον =βασιλεύτερός= εἰμι.

Footnote 95:

In tracing the origin and progress of the _Comitatus_ or _Thegnhood_ I find no essential difference between the views of Sir Francis Palgrave and Mr. Kemble. It is only when we draw near to more purely political questions that their theories diverge in any marked way.

Footnote 96:

Tac. Germ. 11. “De minoribus rebus principes consultant; de majoribus omnes; ita tamen ut ea quoque, quorum penes plebem arbitrium est, apud principes pertractentur.” This is exactly the Greek βουλή and δῆμος.

Footnote 97:

For the Assembly of the Achaians, see Il. ii. 51; for that of the Gods, see Il. xx. 4. Compare on the Homeric Assemblies, Grote, Hist. of Greece, ii. 91, and Gladstone, Homer and the Homeric Age, iii. 114. It certainly strikes me that Mr. Gladstone has understood far more thoroughly than Mr. Grote the position of the simple freeman of the Homeric age, which Mr. Grote is inclined to undervalue. So most people are inclined to undervalue the position of our _Ceorlas_. See Hallam, Supplementary Notes, p. 206 et seqq.

Footnote 98:

On the amount of freedom among the Macedonians, see Historical Essays, Second Series, p. 188, and the passages there quoted.

Footnote 99:

See History of Federal Government, i. 37–38.

Footnote 100:

The story is in the _Rig’s-mal_, and will be found in the English translation of Mallet’s Northern Antiquities, p. 365. Jarl, Karl, and Thræll, all born on one day through the power of the God Helmdall, are the respective ancestors of the three classes of men, eorls, ceorls, and _thralls_ or slaves. Karl, among other sons, has Husbandman, Holder, and Smith.

Footnote 101:

Of the history and constitution of these commonwealths I trust to treat more at large in the second volume of my History of Federal Government. I will now only say that, though the amount of independence enjoyed by the ancient Cantons has often been greatly exaggerated, there is evidence enough to show that, in some districts at least, the old Teutonic system can be traced back uninterruptedly as far as we have any records at all, so that we may fairly presume an unbroken succession from the Germans of Tacitus. [See Growth of the English Constitution, p. 161, ed. 3.]

Footnote 102:

This comparison may surprise some who have been accustomed to look on the _ceorlas_ as a very degraded class. There can be no doubt that among the _ceorlas_ there were men of very different positions, that the general tendency of their position was to sink, and that, by the time of the Norman Conquest, some classes of them had advanced a good way on the road to serfdom. But this was not the condition of the whole order even then; still less was it the original conception of _ceorldom_. The original ceorl is a citizen and a soldier; he is, or may be, a landowner; on the one hand he is free, on the other he is not noble. See the remarks in Hallam’s Supplementary Notes already referred to.

Footnote 103:

See Mr. Kemble’s Chapter on “The Mark” in the first volume of The Saxons in England.

Footnote 104:

To Mr. Allen (Royal Prerogative, p. 129) belongs the honour of having first explained what _folkland_ and _bookland_ really were.

Footnote 105:

In Latin _possessores_, the word so fertile in confusions as to the Agrarian Laws. So Aristotle (Pol. vii. 10) lays down the rule, ἀναγκαῖον εἰς δύο μέρη διῃρῆσθαι τὴν χώραν, καὶ τὴν μὲν εἶναι κοινὴν, τὴν δὲ τῶν ἰδιωτῶν. [On this whole subject of communities and common lands much has been said since this Chapter was written. The English reader will find the cream in Sir Henry Maine’s Village Communities.]

Footnote 106:

Cæsar, Bell. Gall. vi. 22. Cf. Tac. Germ. 26; but from c. 16 it would seem that in his time the institution of the _eðel_ had already begun.

Footnote 107:

In Glarus and Appenzell altogether so, and even in Uri to some extent.

Footnote 108:

On the _Comitatus_ see the classical passage of Tacitus, Germ. 13, 14 (cf. 25), and for the working out of the whole in detail, see Mr. Kemble’s two Chapters, “The Noble by Service” in the first volume, and “The King’s Court and Household” in the second.

Footnote 109:

Looked at philologically, this word _Hlaford_ is most puzzling, and the feminine _Hlæfdige_ (Lady) is more puzzling still. But it is enough for my purpose, if a connexion with _Hláf_ in any shape be admitted, whatever may be thought of the last syllable.

Footnote 110:

Maine, Ancient Law, 303. “The person who ministered to the sovereign in his court had given up something of that absolute personal freedom which was the proudest privilege of the allodial proprietor.”

Footnote 111:

Hom. Od. iv. 22;

ὁ δὲ προμολὼν ἴδετο =κρείων= Ἐτεωνεὺς, ὀτρηρὸς =θεράπων= Μενελάου κυδαλίμοιο, βῆ δ’ ἴμεν ἀγγελέων διὰ δώματα ποιμένι λαῶν.

So Il. xxiv. 473;

=ἕταροι= δ’ ἀπάνευθε καθείατο· τῷ δὲ δύ’ οἴω =ἥρως= Αὐτομέδων τε, καὶ Ἄλκιμος ὄζος Ἄρηος, =ποίπνυον= παρέοντε.

Eteôneus is κρείων, Automedôn is ἥρως, yet they are the _Þegnas_ of Menelaos and Achilleus respectively.

Footnote 112:

Bæda, ii. 9. “Lilla minister (þegn) Regis amicissimus.” He saves his _hlaford’s_ life at the cost of his own.

Footnote 113:

See this most remarkable story in the Chronicles, 755; Florence, 784.

Footnote 114:

Herod. vii. 104. ἔπεστι γάρ σφι δεσπότης νόμος, τὸν ὑποδειμαίνουσι πολλῷ ἔτι μᾶλλον ἢ οἱ σοὶ σε.

Footnote 115:

Of this feeling, and the gradual change as the Empire advanced, I have spoken in Historical Essays, Second Series, p. 317. See the passages quoted in the note, Tac. Hist. i. 58, and Spartianus (in Hist. Aug. Scriptt.) Hadrian, 22.

Footnote 116:

Mr. Kemble however (ii. 112) remarks that the greatest men of the kingdom, men like Godwine, Leofric, and Siward, seem never to have held such offices. So in our own day a man who had any chance of becoming First Lord of the Treasury would not stoop to become Lord Chamberlain or Master of the Horse.

Footnote 117:

See Appendix O.

Footnote 118:

On the promotion of Ceorls to higher rank, the following passages are explicit. “We witan þæt þurh Godes gyfe þrǽl wærð tô þegene and ceorl wearð tô eorle, sangere tô sacerde and bôcere tô biscope,” (Be griðe and be munde. Wilkins, 112; Thorpe, i. 334; Schmid, 386). “And gif ceorl geþeàh þæt he hæfðe fullice fîf hîda agenes landes, cirican and kycenan, bell-hûs and burh-geat-setl _and sunder-note on cynges healle_, þonne wæs he þononforð þegen rihtes weorðe.” (Thorpe, i. 190; Schmid, 388. “Be leôd-geþincð and lage.”) The whole of this last document bears on the subject. Compare also the table of Wergilds (Schmid, 396), ii. § 9. On the first extract I may remark that the jingle of beginnings and endings has carried the lawgiver a little too far. In strictness the Ceorl could not become an Eorl (in the older sense of the word); but a Ceorl, or even a Thrall when once manumitted, might become a Thegn, and, once a Thegn, he might conceivably become an Eorl in the later sense.

Footnote 119:

On _Commendation_, see Appendix N.

Footnote 120:

See Appendix O.

Footnote 121:

“Homo”—whence “homagium,” “hommage”—is the constant technical name for the vassal. See Domesday in almost every page.

Footnote 122:

Palgrave, English Commonwealth, i. 354. Maine, Ancient Law, 302, who however seems to forget the _Comitatus_, and brings in the relation of patron and client, which however is itself a form of the _Comitatus_.

Footnote 123:

This was found in a somewhat different form on the continent. See the documents in Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte, iv. 266, one of Charles the Great, which speaks “de tribus causis, de hoste publico, hoc est de banno nostro, quando publicitus promovetur, et wacta, vel pontes componendum.” Waitz remarks, “Statt der Wachtdienste wird bei den Angelsachsen und später auch auf deutschem Boden das sogenannte Burgwerk, die Hülfe beim Burgenbau, genannt.” And to the repair of bridges, some of his documents add that of churches and roads.

Footnote 124:

For continental exemptions under the Karlings, see Waitz, iv. 268.

Footnote 125:

See Appendix P.

Footnote 126:

See Allen, pp. 143, 153, et seqq.; also on the whole subject of the change of Folkland into _Terra Regis_.

Footnote 127:

I have said more on this subject in Growth of the English Constitution, pp. 139, 140.

Footnote 128:

See Eichhorn, Deutsche Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte, iii. 158.

Footnote 129:

This was written before the wonderful changes in Germany (August, 1866), which will supply me with abundant matter for another work.

Footnote 130:

On this whole subject I must again refer to Mr. Kemble, especially to his chapters on the Mark and the Shire.

Footnote 131:

Many of our present shires are historically divisions of kingdoms (see above, p. 48), and the word _Scír_, connected with _scérn_ or _shear_, of course actually means division. But the word is most likely a comparatively modern one; the _Shire_ or _Pagus_ answers to the German _Gau_, on which see Kemble’s chapter on the _Gá_, and the chapter in the first volume of Waitz, _Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte_, “Das Dorf, die Gemeinde, der Gau.”

Footnote 132:

See above, pp. 25, 26. Comparative Politics, 408, 412, 417.

Footnote 133:

See again Mr. Kemble’s chapter on the Gerefa. The _Gerefa_ or _Reeve_ is an officer, especially a fiscal officer, of any kind, from a _Shirereeve_ down to a _Dykereeve_—Mr. Kemble adds, to a _Hogreeve_. In Northern English the word, under the form of _Grieve_, has changed from a public to a private _exactor_. The word is the same as the High-Dutch _Graf_; only the one title has risen and the other has fallen. A _Burggraf_ is a greater man than a _Boroughreeve_.

Footnote 134:

See above, p. 48.

Footnote 135:

Tac. Germ. 11. “Si displicuit sententia, fremitu adspernantur; sin placuit, frameas concutiunt. Honoratissimum adsensus genus est, armis laudare.” Comparative Politics, 466.

Footnote 136:

I must again refer to Mr. Gladstone’s remarks on this subject. Cf. Historical Essays, Second Series, p. 84.

Footnote 137:

[Changes made since this was written have pretty well got rid of the ancient _scirgemót_. See vol. v. p. 465.]

Footnote 138:

See Appendix Q.

Footnote 139:

Hist. of Federal Government, i. 266. We may be sure however, both from the smaller extent of the country and from the political instincts of the Greek mind, that popular attendance never died out so completely in Achaia as it did in England. And in both cases those who lived in the neighbourhood of the place of meeting would doubtless often attend when people from a distance did not. The frequent attendance of the citizens of London in the Witenagemót may be compared with the appearance of a vast crowd of Corinthian citizens of inferior rank in an assembly held at Corinth, which is spoken of as unusual. Polybios, xxxviii. 4. Hist. Fed. Gov. i. 263.

Footnote 140:

Cf. Arist. Pol. iv. 5. 3. οὐ δεῖ δὲ λανθάνειν ὅτι πολλαχοῦ συμβέβηκεν ὥστε τὴν μὲν πολιτείαν τὴν κατὰ τοὺς νόμους μὴ δημοτικὴν εἶναι, διὰ δὲ τὸ ἦθος καὶ τὴν ἀγωγὴν πολιτεύεσθαι δημοτικῶς, ὁμοίως δὲ πάλιν παρ’ ἄλλοις τὴν μὲν κατὰ τοὺς νόμους εἶναι πολιτείαν δημοτικωτέραν, τῇ δ’ ἀγωγῇ καὶ τοῖς ἔθεσιν ὀλιγαρχεῖσθαι μᾶλλον. I suspect that both these descriptions are in a manner applicable to the Old-English constitution. The latter is true on the face of it; the democratic theory veiled an oligarchic reality. But it seems not unlikely that the former may be true also, and that the narrow body into which the ancient free assembly had shrunk up still in practice fairly expressed the sense of the nation.

Footnote 141:

_Witena-Gemót_ = _Sapientum concilium_. Sir Francis Palgrave suggests (i. 143) that _Witan_ is used in the sense of _witnesses_; but _sapientes_ is the common Latin translation. The Senate of Bremen used to be called “Die Wittheit,” and the Senators of all the three Hanseatic Towns were till lately called “hoch- und wohl-Weisheit.”

Footnote 142:

One might say, in all seriousness, ψυχῶν σόφων τοῦτ’ ἐστὶ φροντιστήριον.

Footnote 143:

In 1004 Ulfkytel, acting as Ealdorman of the East-Angles (see Appendix HH), assembles the local Gemót; “Þa gerædde Ulfkytel wið þa witan on East-Englum.” The letter from the Kentish men to Æthelstan, quoted in a former note, reads like an act of acceptance, on the part of a local Gemót, of resolutions passed by the general body.

Footnote 144:

See Appendix Q.

Footnote 145:

See above, p. 102.

Footnote 146:

[On the seeming difference on this point between myself and Professor Stubbs, see vol. v. p. 406.]

Footnote 147:

The powers of the Witan are drawn out in form by Kemble, ii. 204.

Footnote 148:

See Appendix R.

Footnote 149:

See Appendix S.

Footnote 150:

I shall speak of this point when I come to the disputed election after the death of Eadgar.

Footnote 151:

See Ælfred’s will in Cod. Dipl. ii. 112, v. 127; and the account of Æthelwulf’s will in Florence, 855. See Pauli’s Life of Ælfred, pp. 103, 104 (Eng. Trans.).

Footnote 152:

Taxation, in our modern sense, is seldom a matter of great importance in an early state of society. Public or demesne lands, various imposts on lands, feudal dues and compositions of various kinds, largely supply its place. Taxation in the modern sense is scarcely heard of in our earliest history, except for one shameful and unhappy purpose, that of buying off the Danish invaders. For this purpose a real tax, the famous Danegeld, was levied, and levied, as appears by several passages of the Chronicles, by the joint authority of the King and his Witan. So, during the same unhappy reign of Æthelred, we shall find the King and his Witan laying on an impost, of which I shall speak more when I come to it in the course of my narrative, one of a kind intermediate between ship-money and an Athenian λειτουργία.

Footnote 153:

There was a direct collision in the case of that “Good Parliament” of the eleventh century, the famous _Mycel Gemót_ which restored Godwine and his family and drove out the foreign favourites of Eadward. But whether anybody voted against the enactment of the Laws of Æthelstan or Eadgar we have no means of knowing. We have several clear cases of

## parties among the Witan during a vacancy of the crown, and of

differences on questions of foreign policy; but these cases do not touch the present question.

Footnote 154:

Laws of Æthelberht, Thorpe, i. 2. “Gif cyning his leode to him gehated, and heom mon þær yfel gedo, II bote and cyninge L scillinga.”

Footnote 155:

See Historical Essays, Second Series, p. 32.

Footnote 156:

On Ælfred’s deference to the authority of his Witan, see the quotation from his Laws, above, p. 52.

Footnote 157:

The reign of Æthelred in England reminds one of the generalship of Epêratos in Achaia (Polyb. v. 30; Hist. of Fed. Gov. i. 550), but happily for Achaia her General could not remain in office for thirty-eight years.

Footnote 158:

See Appendix D.

Footnote 159:

See Appendix G.

Footnote 160:

A ceorl might have his own _loaf-eaters_ (_Hláf-ætas_. Laws of Æthelberht, 25), and this looks very like a form of the _Comitatus_.

Footnote 161:

Waitz (iii. 87), recording the homage done by Tassilo to Pippin, “ut vasses,” says, “So viel wir wissen ist es das erste Mal, dass Gebräuche und Grundsätze, welche ursprünglich offenbar auf ganz andere Verhältnisse berechnet waren, für die politisch so bedeutenden Beziehungen eines Herzogs zu dem Oberhaupt des Staates zur Anwendung kamen.”

Footnote 162:

Among a crowd of smaller princes the Kings of Denmark, Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia stand out conspicuous. All these were at one time or another vassals of the Empire, though all except Bohemia recovered their independence. The Kings of Poland and Bohemia received the royal title from an Imperial grant.

Footnote 163:

Widukind, i. 29, who however calls him _Imperator_ prospectively. The date is fixed by the Annales Vedastini (Pertz, i. 525, ii. 205), though they give a different colouring to the transaction.

Footnote 164:

See Edward’s own statement, tracing his right up to the Commendation, in Trivet (p. 382, Hog) and Hemingford (ii. 196). It is a pity that any nonsense about Brutus has found its way into some copies of these documents.

Footnote 165:

A Highlander, with his notions (though grounded on a different principle) of personal fidelity to a chief, might perhaps have understood it; but the true Scots had very little to do with the affairs of the kingdom of Scotland.

Footnote 166:

See Robertson, Scotland under her Early Kings, i. 55.

Footnote 167:

See Appendix H.

Footnote 168:

Ibid.

Footnote 169:

See Appendix I.

Footnote 170:

See History of Federal Government, i. 120.

Footnote 171:

Again I keep clear of all mazes about Picts and Scots. My division is true upon any theory, except the wild one of Pinkerton. The Picts were either Irish or Welsh—in the wide sense of those two words.

Footnote 172:

See Appendix G.

Footnote 173:

I refer to the transactions between Æthelred and Malcolm of Cumberland, which I shall speak of in my fifth Chapter.

Footnote 174:

See Appendix Q.

Footnote 175:

See Appendix B.

Footnote 176:

That is of course not Constantine the Great, but Constantine the “Tyrant” of the fifth century.

Footnote 177:

See Appendix B.

Footnote 178:

For a specimen of this style see Macaulay, Hist. of Eng. i. 358.

Footnote 179:

See Appendix B.

Footnote 180:

See Appendix B.

Footnote 181:

The word _Tyrant_ in those times bore a sense which may be called a monarchical antitype of its old Greek sense. The Greek tyrant was a man who obtained kingly power in a commonwealth; the tyrants of the third and fourth centuries were men who revolted against a lawful Emperor. “Licet apud nos incubator imperii _tyrannus_ dicatur,” says Servius (ad Virg. Æn. vii. 266). In both cases, the word in strictness expresses only the origin of power, and not the mode of its exercise. Many of the so-called tyrants were excellent rulers. But the Imperial tyrant had this great advantage over the Greek tyrant, that success might turn him into a lawful Emperor, while the Greek tyrant remained a tyrant always. In mediæval writers the word is constantly used in this later Imperial sense, as equivalent to “usurper” or “pretender.”

Footnote 182:

After all the case of an Emperor or tyrant reigning in Britain and Britain only was excessively rare. It could have happened only in the case of those fleeting tyrants of whom the land was said to be fertile, and who rose and fell without being recorded. All the more famous men of the class, Carausius, Maximus, Constantine, possessed some part of the continental dominions of the Empire, and sought to possess the whole.

Footnote 183:

See above, pp. 38, 39.

Footnote 184:

See p. 39.

Footnote 185:

Grimm’s Gedichte auf König Friedrich (Berlin 1844), p. 65.

Footnote 186:

See Appendix B.

Footnote 187:

I would not be understood as asserting the justice or honesty of any such claim. The Commendation of 924 was wiped out by the renunciation of 1328. From that time Scotland must be looked on as an independent kingdom, and, as such, she rightly entered into the Union with England on equal terms.

Footnote 188:

For the Norman and French history of the tenth century there are three principal authorities. The only writer on the Norman side is Dudo, Dean of Saint Quintin, whose work will be found in Duchesne’s _Rerum Normannicarum Scriptores_. His history is nearly coincident with the century, going down to the death of Richard the Fearless. He is a most turgid and wearisome writer, without chronology or arrangement of any kind. He is in fact one of the earliest of a very bad class of writers, those who were employed, on account of their supposed eloquence, to write histories which were intended only as panegyrics of their patrons. It is only just before the end of his narrative that Dudo begins to be a contemporary witness; up to that time he simply repeats such traditions as were acceptable at the Norman court. Of the two French writers, Flodoard or Frodoard, Canon of Rheims (whose Annals will be found in the third volume of Pertz), is a far more valuable writer in himself, but his notices of Norman affairs are few and meagre. He perhaps avoids speaking of the terrible strangers any more than he can help. Flodoard is a mere annalist, and aspires to no higher rank, but in his own class he ranks very high. He is somewhat dull and dry, as becomes an annalist, but he is thoroughly honest, sensible, and straightforward. His Annals reach from 919 to 966, the year of his death, so that he is strictly contemporary throughout. The other French writer is Richer, a monk of Rheims, whose work was discovered by Pertz, and is printed in his third volume (also separately in his smaller collection, and in a French edition by M. Gaudet, with a French translation, 2 vols. Paris, 1845). He was the son of Rudolf, a knight and counsellor of King Lewis the Fourth, and derived much of his information from his father. He also makes use of the work of Flodoard. He goes down to 998, which was seemingly the year of his death. Richer is not content with being an annalist; he aspires to be an historian. He is much fuller and more vivid than Flodoard, but I cannot look on him as equally trustworthy. On this writer see Palgrave, History of Normandy and England, i. 748. The second volume of Sir Francis’ own work contains a most vivid, though very discursive and garrulous, history of the time before us, full of all the merits and defects of its author. I would refer to an article of mine on it in the Edinburgh Review for April 1859; also to another, “The Franks and Gauls,” in the National Review for October 1860, since reprinted in my first series of Historical Essays.

Footnote 189:

See Appendix A.

Footnote 190:

See Appendix T.

Footnote 191:

Will. Pict. 145. “Hujus milites Normanni possident Apuliam, devicere Siciliam, propugnant Constantinopolim, ingerunt metum Babyloni.”

Footnote 192:

Guil. App. apud Murat, vol. v. p. 274;

... “Sic uno tempore victi Sunt terræ domini duo; rex Alemannicus iste, Imperii rector Romani maximus ille: Alter ad arma ruens armis superatur, et alter Nominis auditi sola formidine cessit.”

Cf. Roger of Howden (404) with his wild account of Robert Wiscard, copied from Benedict, ii. 200.

Footnote 193:

Matt. Paris, p. 804, Wats. “Principum mundi maximus Fredericus, stupor quoque mundi et immutator mirabilis.” P. 806. “Stupor mundi Fredericus.”

Footnote 194:

This time of struggle is the subject of the second volume of Sir Francis Palgrave’s History of Normandy and England. The character of the period cannot be better summed up than it is by Widukind, lib. i. c. 29; “Unde usque hodie certamen est de regno Karolorum stirpi et posteris Odonis, concertatio quoque regibus Karolorum et orientalium Francorum super regno Lotharii.” On the force of these names see Appendix T.

Footnote 195:

I understand by “modern France” the extent of territory which, before the annexations at the expense of the Empire began, was held either by the King of the French in domain or by princes who held of him in fief. From the France of 1870 we must take away the French part of Hennegau, Lothringen and the three Bishopricks, Elsass, the county of Burgundy, Savoy, Lyons, Bresse, the Dauphiny, Provence, Nizza, and Corsica. We must add the still independent part of Flanders, the county of Barcelona, and the Channel Islands.

Footnote 196:

That is, Aquitaine was, up to the Peace of Bretigny, always held in nominal vassalage to France, but, except during the momentary occupation when Philip the Fair had outwitted Edmund of Lancaster, no Parisian King was immediate sovereign of Bourdeaux till Aquitaine finally lost its independence in the fifteenth century.

Footnote 197:

Charles the Third is commonly said to have reunited the whole Empire of Charles the Great, and he certainly reigned over Germany, Italy, Lotharingia, and the Western Kingdom; but he never obtained the immediate sovereignty of the Kingdom of Burgundy, founded by Boso in 879. Boso was succeeded by Rudolf.

Footnote 198:

“The City of Revolutions begins her real history by the first French Revolution.” Palgrave, i. 282. (References to “Palgrave” will, for the future, mean the “History of Normandy and England,” not the “English Commonwealth.”)

Footnote 199:

On the sieges of Paris and the origin of the Parisian dynasty, see more in Historical Essays, first series, “The Early Sieges of Paris.”

Footnote 200:

Richer, i. 5. “Hic [Odo] patrem habuit ex equestri ordine Rotbertum; avum vero paternum, Witichinum advenam Germanum.”

Footnote 201:

See Appendix V.

Footnote 202:

I use this familiar name prospectively, as I know not what other to put in its place. I may add that _Capet_ was at no time really a family name, as people fancied during the French Revolution, and ludicrously described Lewis the Sixteenth as “Louis Capet.”

Footnote 203:

Sir Francis Palgrave has altogether upset the vulgar error which looks on the later Karlings as a line of utterly incapable Kings, like the later Merwings. No two sets of men could be more completely different both in position and in character.

Footnote 204:

See the story of the taking of Luna by mistake for Rome, Dudo, 65.

Footnote 205:

Regino in Anno (Pertz, i. 602), and our own Chronicles.

Footnote 206:

On the battle of Saulcourt, see the Chronicle in Duchesne, p. 4.

Footnote 207:

The _Ludwigslied_ will be found in Max Müller’s German Classics, p. 37.

Footnote 208:

See Benoît de Ste. More, p. 76, and M. Michel’s note. Cf. Dudo, p. 66.

Footnote 209:

See Flod. A. 923, 930 (Pertz, iii. 379), et pass. On the Loire, as at Bayeux, the Normans had Saxon forerunners. Greg. Tur. ii. 18, 19; Zeuss, 386.

Footnote 210:

“Richardus pyratarum dux apoplexia minore periit” is one of the last entries in the history of Richer (t. ii. p. 308, Guadet).

Footnote 211:

The genuine name is _Hrolfr_, _Rolf_, in various spellings. The true French form is _Rou_. The love of the Old-French tongue for making all nouns end in _s_, that is, for making them all of the second declension, made this into _Rous_, and hence came a strange Latin form _Rosus_. The true Latin form is _Rollo_, like _Cnuto_, _Sveno_, &c. From this Latin form modern French writers have, oddly enough, made a form _Rollon_. The strangest form is _Rodla_, which occurs in a late manuscript of the English Chronicles (A. 876. Thorpe’s ed.). This was clearly meant to be an English form of _Rollo_. The English masculine ending _a_ was substituted for the Latin _o_, just as Giso and Odo are in English _Gisa_ and _Oda_. The writer also clearly thought that Rollo was a name of the same type as Robert and others, and he fancied that by putting in a _d_ he was restoring it to its genuine Teutonic shape.

Footnote 212:

Flodoard was perhaps contemporary with the settlement, but we have no narrative of those years from his hand. Richer, if he was very old when he died, may have been an infant at the time of the settlement, but that is all.

Footnote 213:

Dudo, 75 C.

Footnote 214:

Lappenberg (Thorpe), ii. 60.

Footnote 215:

In some accounts he seems to appear even earlier than 876. Duchesne, 25 D.

Footnote 216:

Dudo, 75 D.

Footnote 217:

Ib. 77 C.

Footnote 218:

Ib. C, D.

Footnote 219:

Dudo, 80 B. Cf. Duchesne, 25 A, 34 B.

Footnote 220:

See above, p. 53.

Footnote 221:

Dudo, 84 A.

Footnote 222:

See Appendix W.

Footnote 223:

See Appendix W.

Footnote 224:

See Appendix T.

Footnote 225:

I cannot but think that Sir Francis Palgrave has made too much of this last title, which is surely only a piece of Dudonian rhetoric, like the “satrapæ” and “archontes” of our own charters.

Footnote 226:

See above, p. 164.

Footnote 227:

See the stories in Dudo, p. 85; Benoît de Ste. More, 7146 et seqq.

Footnote 228:

On the division of the land, just like the division of Northumberland and Danish Mercia, see Depping, i. 125.

Footnote 229:

See further on in this Chapter.

Footnote 230:

See Palgrave, i. 700; Lappenberg’s Anglo-Norman Kings, 97; and, more at large, Depping, ii. 339. Such names as _Dieppedal_ (Deep dale) and _Caudebec_ (Cold beck) are good examples. In forming local names from the proper names of men, the familiar Danish _by_ often appears under the form of _bœuf_; but it is more usual to couple the Danish name with a French ending. _Haqueville_, for instance, answers to the English _Haconby_.

Footnote 231:

Palgrave, ii. 68, 259.

Footnote 232:

Dudo, 76 D. “Quo nomine vester senior fungitur? Responderunt, Nullo, quia æqualis potestatis sumus.”

Footnote 233:

Several examples are collected by Lappenberg, p. 19. The dealings of the Assembly touching the abdication of Rolf are given at large by Dudo, 90 D, et seqq. So in 85 B we read, “Jura et leges sempiternas voluntate principum sancitas et decretas plebi indixit.”

Footnote 234:

See Depping, ii. 128, 129.

Footnote 235:

Flod. A. 923. “Ragenoldus princeps Nortmannorum qui in fluvio Ligeri versabantur, Karoli frequentibus missis jampridem excitus, Franciam trans Isaram conjunctis sibi plurimis ex Rodomo prædatur.”

Footnote 236:

The well-known duchy of after times, with Dijon for its capital. This part of the earliest Burgundy always retained its connexion with the kingdom of the West-Franks, while the rest formed the Burgundian kingdom of Boso.

Footnote 237:

Here Lewis the Eleventh was kept in durance by Charles the Bold, on which Philip of Comines remarks (ii. 7), “Le roy qui se vid enfermé en ce chasteau (qui est petit) et force archers à la porte, n’estoit point sans doute: et se voyoit logé rasibus d’une grosse tour, où un comte de Vermandois fit mourir un sien predecesseur roy de France.” There is a curious notice of Charles’s imprisonment in Thietmar of Merseburg (i. 13. Pertz, iii. 741); “Fuit in _occiduis partibus_ quidam rex, ab incolis _Karl Sot_, id est stolidus, ironice dictus, qui ab uno suimet ducum captus, tenebris includitur carceralibus.” Both Thietmar and Widukind (i. 33) attribute to the Eastern King a powerful intervention in favour of Charles, which is perfectly possible, but which it is hard to find in the French writers.

Footnote 238:

On the siege of Eu (Auga), see Flodoard, A. 925; Richer, i. 49. On Eu, see vol. iii. ch. xii. § 2. The way in which Flodoard (A. 923) mentions the first invasion of Normandy is remarkable; “Itta fluvio transito ingressus est [Rodulfus] terram, quæ dudum Nortmannis ad fidem Christi venientibus, ut hanc fidem colerent, et pacem haberent, fuerat data.”

Footnote 239:

See Appendix T.

Footnote 240:

Flod. A. 924. On Maine, see vol. iii. ch. xii. § 3.

Footnote 241:

Dudo gives the account in full, p. 90 et seqq. He makes Rolf survive his abdication five years. Florence of Worcester makes him die in 917, probably by omission or misreading of a letter. Richer seems (but compare his two versions) to kill him at Eu in 925. The one certain thing is that William did homage to Charles in 927. “Karolus igitur cum Heriberto colloquium petit Nortmannorum ad castellum quod Auga vocatur, ibique se filius Rollonis Karolo committit, et amicitiam firmat cum Heriberto.” Flod. in anno. So Richer, i. 53.

Footnote 242:

On the history of the Saxons of Bayeux, see Lappenberg, Anglo-Norman Kings, p. 2. There were also Saxon settlements in Anjou and at Sens.

Footnote 243:

In the Capitulary of Charles the Bald in 843 (Pertz, Legg. i. 426), which Lappenberg refers to, the “Ot lingua Saxonia” is distinguished from the “Bagisinum.” It might seem that the Saxon speech survived in some parts of the country, but not in the city. The document is a list of royal _missi_ and of the districts to which they were sent.

Footnote 244:

There would be whatever difference there may have been—one probably not very perceptible—between the Saxons of Bayeux and the Angles of Eastern and Northern England; there also is greater chance of a certain Celtic intermixture at Bayeux than there is at Derby or Stamford.

Footnote 245:

No country is historically more interesting to Englishmen than Aquitaine, on account of its long political connexion with England; but the connexion was purely political; there are no such abiding traces of real kindred as we see in Normandy, and especially in the Bessin.

Footnote 246:

Benoît, v. 8342;

“Ici trespasse Rous li proz et li vaillanz Od fin duce e saintisme, e pleins de jorz e d’anz.”

Footnote 247:

The tale is told by the Aquitanian chronicler Ademar (iii, 20, Pertz, iv. 123), and M. Francisque Michel (note on Benoît, v. 8349) is inclined to believe it. It runs thus; “Postea vero [Rosus, see above, p. 165] factus Christianus a sacerdotibus Francorum, imminente obitu, in amentiam versus, Christianos captivos centum ante se decollari fecit in honore, quæ coluerat, idolorum, et demum centum auri libras per ecclesias distribuit Christianorum in honore veri Dei in cujus nomine baptismum susceperat.” But the manuscript which Pertz follows in his text does not make the sacrifice take place immediately before his death, and it is as well to see how Ademar’s whole story hangs together. He makes his “Rosus” be defeated by King Rudolf in the battle of Limoges in 930; he then retreats, and finding Rouen unoccupied, takes possession.

Footnote 248:

Dudo, 77 D; Benoît, v. 4122.

Footnote 249:

Will. Gem. iii. 2. See Appendix X.

Footnote 250:

Will. Gem. ii. 22. “Repudiatam Popam ... iterum repetens sibi copulavit.” See more in detail, Benoît, v. 7954. So Roman de Rou, 2037.

Footnote 251:

Dudo, 97 C; Will. Gem. iii. 3.

Footnote 252:

Ademar, iii. 27. “Roso defuncto, filius ejus Willelmus loco ejus præfuit, a pueritia baptizatus, omnisque eorum Normannorum, qui juxta Frantiam inhabitaverant, multitudo fidem Christi suscepit, et gentilem linguam obmittens, Latino sermone assuefacta est.” So, in the same words, in the Chronicle of Saint Maxentius, Labbé, iii. 202. On the use of _Latinus_ for French, instead of _Romanus_, see Appendix V.

Footnote 253:

Flodoard, A. 928.

Footnote 254:

Ib. A. 929; Richer, i. 56.

Footnote 255:

Ib. A. 930. “Aquitanos sibi subditos fecit.” Of course this implies nothing more than homage. Cf. above, p. 156.

Footnote 256:

Flodoard, A. 931. “Brittones qui remanserant Nortmannis in Cornu Galliæ subditi consurgentes adversus eos qui se obtinuerant, in ipsis solemniis sancti Michaelis omnes interemisse dicuntur qui inter eos morabantur Nortmannos.”

Footnote 257:

Dudo, 93 B.

Footnote 258:

The Chronicle of Saint Maxentius, under 937 (Labbé, iii. 202), speaks of Saint Michael’s Mount as founded “in ea Normannia quæ antea vocabatur marchia Franciæ et Britanniæ.”

Footnote 259:

On these marriages see William of Malmesbury, ii. 126, 135. He describes at length the splendid embassy sent by Hugh (see Flod. A. 926) to demand Eadhild. Oddly enough, in c. 135 he calls Hugh “Rex Francorum,” while in c. 128 he utterly confounds the whole genealogy and history of the Parisian Dukes.

Footnote 260:

Her name is by French writers tortured into Ethgiva, Ogive, and what not. She is “Headtgiva” in Aimon of Fleury, Pertz, ix. 375. He says that Lewis [see Appendix A.], “calamitatis paternæ procella semet involvi metuens, ad Anglos-Saxones, maternæ affinitatis invitatus gratia, se contulit, in transmarinis arbitratus se tutiorem manere regionibus, quam inter suos dominus si foret in cubiculo, rex in convivio.”

Footnote 261:

Richer, ii. 1, 73. He was carried out in a bundle of hay or some such stuff (“in fasciculo farraginis”); but whither was he carried? “In partes transmarinas et prope in Rifeos.” As Lewis certainly went as far north as York, does this flourish mean the Cheviots, the Grampians, or what?

Footnote 262:

Dudo, 93 C. “Ipse vero in Britannia, nec in tota Francia usquam morari ob metum Willelmi ducis nequivit, sed profugus expetivit auxilium Alstemi Anglorum regis.” Benoît, 8834;

“En Engleterre au rei engleis Alestan, au proz, au corteis, Là se remist, là s’en foï Deserité e mauballi.”

Footnote 263:

Dudo, 97 B. “Franciscæ gentis principes Burgundionumque comites famulabantur ei; Dacigenæ et Flandrenses, _Anglique et Hibernenses parebant ei_.” Ib. D. “Non solum monarchiam, quam tenebat, regebat; verum etiam affinia regna strenuo consilio moderabat. _Angli parebant ejus mandatis_, Franci et Burgundiones ejus dictis.”

Footnote 264:

It is curious to compare the different ways in which the return of the Bretons is told by Flodoard and by Dudo. Flodoard (A. 936) is willing to magnify even an Englishman in comparison with a Norman. William is not named. “Brittones a transmarinis regionibus Alstani Regis præsidio revertentes terram suam repetunt.” Dudo mixes up their return with the return of King Lewis, which in Flodoard follows it, and he makes Æthelstan something like a suppliant to William (95 D.) He calls Æthelstan “Anglorum Rex _pacificus_.” Was he thinking of Eadgar, who may have come within his own memory?

Footnote 265:

Dudo, 98 A. “Ipseque Alanus postea Willelmi mandatis indesinenter inhæsit.” Cf. 102 B, C; 113 D; 117 D.

Footnote 266:

Flodoard seems to imply that some of these independent Normans entered Britanny, about the same time as this suppression of the Breton revolt, perhaps even in concert with Duke William (A. 931); “Incon Nortmannus, qui morabatur in Ligeri, cum suis Britanniam pervadit victisque et cæsis vel ejectis Brittonibus regione potitur.” Of the return of the Bretons he has two notices. The first is under the year 937; “Brittones ad sua loca post diutinam regressi peregrinationem, cum Nortmannis, qui terram ipsorum contiguam sibi pervaserant, frequentibus dimicant prœliis, superiores pluribus existentes et loca pervasa recipientes.” The second is in the next year, 939; “Brittones cum Nortmannis confligentes victoria potiuntur, et quoddam Nortmannorum castellum cepisse feruntur.” See Palgrave, ii. 178–182.

Footnote 267:

The general line of thought in this paragraph is suggested by Palgrave, i. 106.

Footnote 268:

See above, p. 155.

Footnote 269:

Dudo, 94 et seqq.

Footnote 270:

From this scheme he was dissuaded by the good sense of the Abbot Martin. Those who care to read the Abbot’s sermon on the practical and the contemplative life will find it in Latin (diversified with a little Greek) in Dudo, p. 101 et seqq., and in Old-French in Benoît, v. 11057 et seqq.

Footnote 271:

William of Jumièges (iii. 9) makes Harold Blue-tooth, driven from his kingdom by his son Swegen, take refuge with William Longsword, who allows him to settle in the Côtentin till he can recover his kingdom. Now Harold’s expulsion by Swegen did not happen till long afterwards, and Swegen could hardly have been born when William died. The story no doubt arises from some confusion with Harold’s dealings with Normandy in the next reign, but it may very well preserve a memory of some real Danish colonization of the peninsula with or without William’s permission.

Footnote 272:

Dudo, ii. 112 D. See Appendix V.

Footnote 273:

Richer (i. 47) distinctly calls the immediate subjects of Charles the Simple “Germani.”

Footnote 274:

I of course assume that Hugh had no share in the murder of William, a point which I shall discuss elsewhere.

Footnote 275:

Flod. A. 933. “Willelmus, princeps Nortmannorum eidem regi [Rodulfo] se committit; cui etiam rex dat terram Brittonum in ora maritima sitam.”

Footnote 276:

Flod in A. “Heribertus comes ad Heinricum proficiscitur, eique sese committit.” The matter was serious enough for Rudolf and Hugh to make special peace with Henry, and to give hostages.

Footnote 277:

Richer, ii. 1–4. See Appendix Y.

Footnote 278:

Richer, ii. 2. “Adelstanus rex in urbem quæ dicitur Eurvich, regnorum negotia cum nepote Ludovico apud suos disponebat.” Mark the accuracy of the plural form _regnorum_ (we shall come to it again), as applied to the dominions of the Emperor of Britain.

Footnote 279:

Ib. 3. “Acsi _barbaris_ non satis credens.” The Persians in Æschylus call themselves βάρβαροι, and Plautus says, “Menander scripsit, Marcus vortit _barbarè_;” but why should Richer call his own people _barbari_ as contrasted with the English? Is the word put dramatically into the mouth of Æthelstan, and does _barbari_ literally translate _Wealas_?

Footnote 280:

Richer, ii. 3. “Secus ipsas litoreas arenas collecti, tuguriorum incendio præsentiam suam iis qui in altero litore erant ostendebant.... Cujus [Adelstani] jussu domus aliquot succensæ, sese advenisse trans positis demonstrabat.” The passion for setting fire to everything sometimes seems to be specially Norman; here it is also English and French.

Footnote 281:

Richer mentions Oda only, Flodoard mentions several Bishops and Thegns (fideles).

Footnote 282:

Richer, ii. 4. “Quod si nolint, sese ei daturum suorum aliquod regnorum, quo contentus et suis gaudeat et alienis non sollicitetur.”

Footnote 283:

Ib. “Dux cum reliquis Galliarum magnatibus id sese facturum asserit, si rex creatus a suis consiliis non absistat.” The relation thus mildly described is in cap. 6 called “procuratio.” So Flodoard, A. 937.

Footnote 284:

Richer is an excellent authority for all matters personally concerning Lewis. He got his information from his father Rudolf, a brave and trusty servant of the King. The description here (ii. 4) is highly graphic.

Footnote 285:

Richer, ii. 5; Flod. in anno.

Footnote 286:

Flod. A. 937. “Ludowicus rex ab Hugonis principis se procuratione separans, matrem suam Lauduni recipit.” Richer, ii. 6. “Rex felicium rerum successu elatus, præter ducis procurationem absque eo jam disponebat. Laudunum itaque tendit, ibique matrem suam Ethgivam reginam ad urbis custodiam deputat. Ac exinde quæcumque præter ducem adoriebatur.”

Footnote 287:

See above, p. 161.

Footnote 288:

On this siege, which is of some interest in a military point of view, see Flodoard, A. 938; Richer, ii. 9, 10.

Footnote 289:

Flod. A. 939.

Footnote 290:

Dudo, 103 A.

Footnote 291:

Flod. A. 939; Richer, ii. 11–15. These writers know something of William’s personal share in the campaign, which is asserted by Dudo, 103 B; Will. Gem. iii, 10. According to Benoît (11873 et seqq.), the men of the Côtentin specially distinguished themselves.

Footnote 292:

Flod. A. 939. “Uxorem ipsius Herluini trans mare cum filiis ad Alstanum regem mittit.” Richer, ii. 12. “Erluini uxorem cum natis Ædelstano regi Anglorum servandos trans mare deportat.”

Footnote 293:

Flod. A. 939. William is excommunicated “ab episcopis qui erant cum rege.”

Footnote 294:

Richer, ii. 18. “Cum ejus [Ottonis] pater Saxoniæ solum propter Sclavorum improbitatem rex creatus sit, eo quod Karolus, cui rerum summa debebatur, adhuc in cunis vagiebat.” But Henry was elected in 918, just before Charles’s troubles began, but when he had been a good many years out of his cradle.

Footnote 295:

Flod. A. 959.

Footnote 296:

Ib. “Anglorum classis ab Alstano, rege suo, in auxilium Ludowici regis transmissa mari transito loca quæquæ Morinorum mari deprædatur contigua; nulloque negotio propter quod venerant peracto, remenso mari, propria repetunt loca.” Richer, ii. 16. “Nec multo post et ab Ædelstano Anglorum rege classis regi cum copiis missa est. Audierat enim illum ab iis qui maritima incolebant loca exagitari, contra quos classis dimicaret regique nepoti auxilium ferret. Comperto vero contra regem illorum neminem stare, ipsumque regem in partes Germaniæ prosperum secessisse, mari remenso ad propria remeat.”

There is a marked difference of tone in these two accounts. Flodoard clearly wishes to make as little as he can of the English intervention, while Richer is anxious to make the most. Nor are their statements easy to reconcile. If Æthelstan’s fleet ravaged the Flemish coast, while Arnulf was still not an avowed enemy, that would at once explain Arnulf’s sudden defection. But, according to Richer, it would seem that Æthelstan heard some rumour of Arnulf’s intended treachery, but that, as it was not yet carried out, he had no excuse for action. That we do not hear of English interference during the next stage of the history is probably accounted for by Æthelstan’s death in 940.

Footnote 297:

Flod. A. 939. “Otho rex colloquium habuit cum Hugone et Heriberto, Arnulfo et Willelmo Nortmannorum principe; et acceptis ab eis pacti sacramentis, trans Rhenum regreditur.”

Footnote 298:

Ib. “Proficiscitur Elisatium, locutusque cum Hugone Cisalpino.” Richer, ii. 17. “Rex in pago Elisatio eum Hugone Cisalpino principe locutus.” On this use of the word “Cisalpinus,” see Appendix T.

Footnote 299:

Flod. A. 939.

Footnote 300:

Ib. A. 940. “Rex Ludowicus abiit obviam Willelmo principi Nortmannorum, qui venit ad eum in pago Ambianensi et se illi commisit. At ille dedit ei terram quam pater ejus Karolus Nortmannis concesserat.”

Footnote 301:

Richer, ii. 20. “Wilelmus piratarum dux ... regis factus, tanto ei consensu alligatus est ut jam jamque aut sese moriturum, aut regi imperii summam restituturum proponeret.”

Footnote 302:

Flod. A. 940. Richer (ii. 22) does not mention the presence of William at the siege.

Footnote 303:

Flod. A. 940. “Dedit autem rex Artoldo archiepiscopo, ac per eum ecclesiæ Remensi, per præceptionis regiæ paginam Remensis urbis monetam jure perpetuo possidendam; sed et omnem comitatum Remensem eidem contulit ecclesiæ.”

Footnote 304:

Flod. A. 940; Palgrave, ii. 244.

Footnote 305:

Flod. A. 942. More fully, Richer, ii. 28.

Footnote 306:

See Appendix Z.

Footnote 307:

See above, p. 180, and Appendix X.

Footnote 308:

See above, p. 192.

Footnote 309:

Dudo, 112 D.

Footnote 310:

Flod. A. 943. “Rex Ludowicus filio ipsius Willelmi, nato de concubina Brittanna, terram Nortmannorum dedit.” So more fully in Richer, ii. 34.

Footnote 311:

The original authority, such as it is, for these stories is of course Dudo, with the metrical chroniclers, who mainly follow him, Benoît sometimes adding details of his own. The English reader will find all he can want in Sir Francis Palgrave. I cannot help also mentioning Miss Yonge’s tale of the “Little Duke,” where the whole legend is very pleasantly told, though with too great a leaning to the Norman side.

Footnote 312:

Richer, ii. 37; R. Glaber, i. 3.

Footnote 313:

See above, p. 206.

Footnote 314:

On the influence of Conrad, see Flodoard, A. 948, 949, 952; Richer, ii, 82, 97. Conrad afterwards lost his duchy. Bruno, Archbishop and Duke, brother of Otto, brother-in-law of Lewis and Hugh the Great, uncle of Lothar and Hugh Capet, plays a most important part somewhat later.

Footnote 315:

See above, p. 186.

Footnote 316:

Flod. A. 943; Richer, ii. 35. The Norman writers pass over their Duke’s apostasy, which of course proves very little as to the personal disposition of a mere child, though it proves a great deal as to the general state of things in the country. But Flodoard and Richer are both explicit. “Turmodum Nortmannum, qui ad idolatriam gentilemque ritum reversus, ad hæc etiam filium Willelmi aliosque cogebat.” (Flod.) “Ut ... defuncti ducis filium ad idolatriam suadeant, ritumque gentilem inducant.” (Richer.)

Footnote 317:

Flod. A. 943. “Quidam principes ipsius se regi committunt, quidam vero Hugoni duci.” Richer, ii. 34. “Potiores quoque qui cum adolescentulo accesserant, per manus et sacramentum regis fiunt.... Alii vero Nortmannorum, _Richardum ad regem transisse indignantes_, ad Hugonem ducem concedunt.”

Footnote 318:

Flod. A. 943. “Rex ei ducatum Franciæ delegavit, omnemque Burgundiam ipsius ditioni subjecit.” Richer (ii. 39) says, “Eum rex omnium Galliarum ducem constituit.” This last cannot have been a formal title; it is merely Richer’s characteristic way of affecting classical language in his geography.

Footnote 319:

Flod. A. 943. “Hugo dux Francorum crebras agit cum Nortmannis, qui pagani advenerant, vel ad paganismum revertebantur, congressiones; a quibus peditum ipsius Christianorum multitudo interimitur at ipse nonnullis quoque Nortmannorum interfectis ceterisque actis in fugam, castrum Ebroas faventibus sibi qui tenebant illud Nortmannorum Christianis, obtinet.” Richer does not mention this.

Footnote 320:

Flod. A. 943; Richer, ii. 35. The account of the battle is much fuller in Richer.

Footnote 321:

Flod. A. 943.

Footnote 322:

Richer, ii. 38.

Footnote 323:

Flod. A. 943. “Hugo Arnulfum cum rege pacificavit, cui rex infensus erat ob necem Willelmi.” Richer, ii. 40.

Footnote 324:

Dudo, 114 et seqq.; Benoît, 12809 et seqq.; Roman de Rou, 2799 et seqq.

Footnote 325:

Dudo, 114 C. “Rotomagum properavit cum suis comitibus super his quæ nefario Arnulfi comitis astu acciderant consulturus. Rotomagenses vero adventu regis Ludovici hilares susceperunt eum volenter, putantes ut equitaret super Flandrenses,” &c.

Footnote 326:

Ib. 115 C. “Richardo prædignæ innocentiæ puero largitus est terram hæreditario avi patrisque jure possidendam.” Is not this a repetition of the real grant and homage mentioned above, which did not take place at Rouen?

Footnote 327:

“Poplites coquere.” Dudo, 117 B. “Poplites adurere.” Will. Gem. iv. 3. See M. Francisque Michel’s note on Benoît, 13706.

Footnote 328:

That is, he was carried out in a truss of hay. One can hardly avoid the suspicion that this is the story of Lewis’s own deliverance (see above, p. 184), perhaps itself legendary, turning up in another shape.

Footnote 329:

Flod. A. 944. He seems to distinguish “Nortmanni cum quibus pactum inierant” from “Nortmanni qui nuper a transmarinis venerant regionibus.” Cf. Richer, ii. 41.

Footnote 330:

Flod. A. 944. “Hugo dux Francorum pactum firmat cum Nortmannis, datis utrimque et acceptis obsidibus.”

Footnote 331:

Dudo, 120 B, D.

Footnote 332:

Flod. A. 944. “Baiocas ... civitatem ... quam rex ei dederat, si eum ad subjiciendam sibi hanc Nortmannorum gentem adjuvaret.”

Footnote 333:

Ib. A. 944. “Rex Rodomum perveniens a Nortmannis in urbe suscipitur, quibusdam mare petentibus qui eum nolebant recipere, cæteris omnibus sibi subjugatis.” Richer, ii. 42. “Rex Rhodomum veniens, ab iis qui fidei servatores fuere exceptus est. Desertores vero mare petentes, amoliti sunt, municipia vero copiis munita reliquere.”

Footnote 334:

Flod. A. 944. “Unde et discordiæ fomes inter regem concitatur et ducem.” From Flodoard it would seem that Hugh had fought with some Normans, and from Richer that he received the homage of others, earlier in the year. Hugh’s policy was always double, and Normandy was now very much divided against itself.

Footnote 335:

Flod. A. 945. “Rex Ludowicus collecto secum Nortmannorum exercitu, Veromandensen pagum depredatus.” So Richer, ii. 44.

Footnote 336:

Richer, ii. 47. “Rhodomum rediit, nil veritus cum paucis illic immorari, cum idem consueverit.”

Footnote 337:

Dudo, 122 C.

Footnote 338:

The chronology of Gorm’s reign is of course mythical; some give him quite a short reign; others make two or three Gorms. In short, we have hardly any standing-ground in Danish history before the time of Swegen.

Footnote 339:

See above, p. 191, for the rebellion of his son Swegen, which the later Norman writers misplace. Of Swegen I shall have much to say in my next Chapter.

Footnote 340:

I may for once quote an “Apostropha” of Dudo, 125 D;

“O pius, prudens, bonus, et modestus; Fortis et constans, sapiensque, justus, Dives, insignis, locuplesque, sollers Rex Haygrolde. Quamvis haut sis chrismate delibutus, Et sacro baptismate non renatus: En vale, salveque, et aucto semper In deitate.”

Footnote 341:

See above, p. 210.

Footnote 342:

“Cæsaris burgus” is the approved etymology of our author’s, but I suspect that the place is akin to our _Scarborough_ in name as well as in natural position.

Footnote 343:

Flod. A. 945. “Haigroldus Nortmannus qui Baiocis præerat.” So Richer, ii. 47.

Footnote 344:

Flod. u. s.; Richer, u. s. This last writer brings in Hugh the Great as an accomplice; “Dolus apud ducem a transfugis paratus, qui ante latuerat, orta opportunitate ex raritate militum, in apertum erupit. Nam dum tempestivus adveniret, ab Hagroldo qui Baiocensibus præerat, per legationem suasoriam accersitus, Bajocas cum paucis ad accersientem, utpote ad fidelem quem in nullo suspectum habuerat, securis accessit. Barbarus vero militum inopiam intuitus cum multitudine armatorum Regi incautus aggreditur.”

Footnote 345:

Dudo, 123 C, D.

Footnote 346:

See vol. iii. ch. xii. § 2.

Footnote 347:

Flod. A. 945. “Rex solus fugam iniit, prosequente se Nortmanno quodam sibi fideli. Cum quo Rodomum veniens, comprehensus est ab aliis Nortmannis quos sibi fideles esse putabat, et sub custodia detentus.”

Footnote 348:

Dudo, 125 D. “Jura legesque et statuta Rollonis ducis tenere per omnia cogebat.”

Footnote 349:

In Cnut’s time (Chron. A. 1018) the Witan at Oxford renewed “Eadgar’s law;” so Harold, in answer to the demands of the Northumbrians in revolt against Tostig (Chron. A. 1065), “renewed Cnut’s law.” So on the conquest of Cyprus by Richard the First in 1191 the laws of the Emperor Manuel were restored—on the payment by the islanders of half their possessions. Ben. Petrib. ii. 168.

Footnote 350:

I confess that, once or twice, in writing this paragraph, a doubt has crossed my mind whether “Haigrold who commanded at Bayeux” (see p. 217) was not, after all, some much smaller person than Harold King of the Danes. The Northern writers, as far as I know, do not mention the expedition, the motive of which is not very obvious. But very little can be made out of the Northern stories in any case; the French writers always slur over everything Norman; and the fiction would seem almost too bold even for Norman invention. The details of course cannot be accepted in any case.

Footnote 351:

Flod. A. 945; Richer, ii. 48; Widukind, ii. 39. “Hluthowicus rex a ducibus suis [Hugh?] circumventus, et a Northmannis captus, consilio Hugonis Lugdunum [confusedly for _Laudunum_, which is itself an error] missus custodiæ publicæ traditur. Filium autem ejus natu majorem Karlomannum Northmanni secum duxerunt Rothun; ibi et mortuus est.” On the hostages, see Flodoard and Richer.]

Footnote 352:

Richer, ii. 49, 50. “Ob minas Anglorum nil se facturum; ipsos, si veniant, quid in armis Galli valeant promptissime experturos; quod si formidine tacti non veniant, pro arrogantiæ tamen illatione, Gallorum vires quandoque cognituros et insuper pœnam luituros. Iratus itaque legatos expulit.” Flodoard, contrary to the remark made in p. 203, is less excited against insular intervention.

Footnote 353:

Widukind, ii. 39. “Audiens autem rex super fortuna amici satis doluit, imperavitque expeditionem in Gallia contra Hugonem in annum secundum.”

Footnote 354:

Flod. A. 945. “Qui rex nolens loqui cum eo mittit ad eum Conradum ducem Lothariensium. Cum quo locutus Hugo, infensus Othoni regi revertitur.”

Footnote 355:

Flod. A. 946; Richer, ii. 51. Richer clearly connects the liberation of Lewis with the negotiations with Otto. Widukind (iii. 2) is still more explicit; “Certus autem factus de adventu regis Huga, timore quoque perterritus, dimisit Hluthowicum.”

Footnote 356:

Flod. A. 946. “Qui dux Hugo renovans regi Ludowico regium honorem vel nomen, ei sese cum cæteris regni committit primoribus.” Richer cuts the matter shorter (ii. 51); “Unde et dimissus, data Lauduno, Compendii sese recepit.”

Footnote 357:

Dudo, 126 C. See Appendix W.

Footnote 358:

Dudo, 128 D et seqq. See Appendix W.

Footnote 359:

Dudo, 138 A. “Burgundionibus imperat, Aquitanos arguit, et increpat Britones, et Northmannos regnat et gubernat, Flandrenses minatur, et devastat Dacos et Lotharienses, quinetiam Saxones sibi connectit et conciliat. Angli quoque ei obedienter subduntur, Scoti et Hibernenses ejus patrocinio reguntur.” Cf. p. 185.

Footnote 360:

See Appendix W.

Footnote 361:

Flod. 948. “Hugo, nullam moram faciens, collecta suorum multa Nortmannorumque manu.” 949. “Hugo comes collecta suorum multa Nortmannorumque manu.” “Hugo igitur non modico tam suorum quam Nortmannorum collecto exercitu.”

Footnote 362:

Widukind (ii. 2) has a good deal to tell us about the threats exchanged between Hugh and Otto, and about the straw hats worn by Otto’s soldiers, but he cuts the details of the campaign very short. See Palgrave, ii. 544.

Footnote 363:

Dudo, 129 D.

Footnote 364:

This Lotharingian dispute is not mentioned by Richer, but it appears in Flodoard, A. 944. Lewis and Hugh both sent embassies to Otto, and that of Hugh met with the more favourable reception. Things changed greatly in the course of a year.

Footnote 365:

Dudo, 129 B, makes Henry still King, and presently—finding out his mistake, but not correcting it—he goes on to talk of Otto. This year, 946, Otto lost his beloved English wife Eadgyth. Flod. A. 946; Widukind, ii. 41, iii. 1.

Footnote 366:

See Appendix T.

Footnote 367:

Wid. iii. 3. “Lugdunum [Laudunum] adiit, eamque armis temptavit.” Flodoard (946) says, “Considerata castri firmitate devertunt ab eo.” So Richer, ii. 54.

Footnote 368:

Flod. A. 946; Wid. iii. 3; Richer, ii. 54–6. Widukind places the taking of Rheims before the invasion of France.

Footnote 369:

The accounts here vary a good deal. Widukind says, “Inde Parisius [this name is used, I know not why, by many mediæval writers as an inclinable noun] perrexit, Hugonemque ibi obsedit, memoriam quoque Dionysii martyris [Hugh was lay Abbot of his monastery] digne honorans veneratus est.” Flodoard says, “Reges cum exercitibus suis terram Hugonis aggrediuntur, et urbem Silvanectensem obsidentes, ut viderunt munitissimam, nec eam valentes expugnare, cæsis quibusdam suorum, dimiserunt. Sicque trans Sequanam contendentes, loca quæque præter civitates gravibus atterunt deprædationibus, terramque Nortmannorum peragrantes, loca plura devastant; indeque venientes regrediuntur in sua.” Could Widukind have confounded Paris and Senlis? Richer, who has some curious details (ii. 57), mentions the siege of Senlis (56) but says nothing of Paris, and he quarters Hugh at Orleans (58). Dudo (130 B) makes the Kings meet at Paris, so far confirming Widukind. Dudo doubtless did not care about the fate of Laon or Rheims.

Footnote 370:

Neither Flodoard nor Richer mentions Rouen. All that Richer (ii. 58) has to say of the Norman campaign is, “Post hæc feruntur in terram piratarum ac solo terras devastant. _Sicque regis injuriam atrociter ulti_, iter ad sua retorquent.” But Widukind (iii. 4) has, “Exinde, collecta ex omni exercitu electorum militum manu, Rothun Danorum urbem adiit, sed difficultate locorum, asperiorique hieme ingruente, _plaga eos quidem magna percussit_; incolumi exercitu, _infecto negotio_, post tres menses Saxoniam regressus est, urbibus Remense atque Lugduno [a clear error] cum cæteris armis captis Hluthowico regi concessis.”

Footnote 371:

Dudo, 131–5; Roman de Rou, 3914–4291; Palgrave, ii. 556–586. See also Historical Essays, First Series, pp. 240–243.

Footnote 372:

Against Flanders (Flod. A. 947; Richer, ii. 60); against Rheims (Flod. u. s.; Richer, ii. 62); against Soissons (Flod. 848; Richer, ii. 85).

Footnote 373:

Lewis in 947 (Flod. in anno; Richer, ii. 61); Gerberga in 949 (Flod. in anno; Richer, ii. 86). This was a great meeting of German and Lotharingian princes, and of ambassadors from Italy, England, and Constantinople.

Footnote 374:

Flod. 947; Richer, ii. 63–5. It would seem that some bishops were there in their _princely_ character, to whom Duke Hugh referred the question about the archbishopric of Rheims, which the bishops referred to a more regular synod to be held at Verdun. Widukind says (iii. 5), “Huga autem expertus potentiam regis virtutemque Saxonum, non passus est ultra terminos suos hostiliter intrare, sed _pergenti in eamdem expeditionem anno sequenti_ [the French writers do not imply this] occurrit juxta fluvium qui dicitur Char, manus dedit, juxtaque imperium regis pactum iniit, utilisque proinde permansit.” This is greatly exaggerated.

Footnote 375:

Flod. 947; Richer, ii. 66.

Footnote 376:

Flod. 948; Richer, ii. 67, 8.

Footnote 377:

Flod. 948; Richer, ii. 69–81.

Footnote 378:

I quote some passages from Flodoard illustrating the position of the Kings. “Ingressis gloriosis regibus Othone et Ludowico et simul residentibus ... exsurgens Ludowicus rex e latere et concessu domini regis Othonis.” Lewis offers “inde se juxta synodale judicium _et regis Othonis præceptionem_ purgaret, vel certamine singulari defenderet.” “Interea rex Ludowicus deprecatur regem Othonem ut subsidium sibi ferat contra Hugonem, et ceteros inimicos suos. Qui petitioni concedens,” &c.

Footnote 379:

Flod. 948. The Synod adjourned from Engelheim to Laon and from Laon to Trier, where the anathema against Hugh was pronounced. Flodoard was himself present, being chaplain to Archbishop Artald. Richer, (ii. 82) confounds the two adjournments, and makes the anathema be pronounced at Laon.

Footnote 380:

See above, p. 222.

Footnote 381:

See above, p. 209.

Footnote 382:

Flod. A. 949; Richer, at great length, ii. 87–91.

Footnote 383:

Flod. A. 949; Richer, ii. 95.

Footnote 384:

Flod. A. 950. “Hugo ad regem venit et suus efficitur.” Richer, ii. 97. “Dux ... regi humiliter reconciliari deposcit, eique satisfacturum sese pollicetur.... Hugo itaque dux per manus et sacramentum regi efficitur.”

Footnote 385:

Flod. A. 953.

Footnote 386:

Richer’s narrative (ii. 98) differs from that of Flodoard in introducing Hugh as gathering the army for the Aquitanian expedition, of which the King afterwards takes the command. But Richer’s French translator seems to misconceive his meaning when he renders “_in Aquitaniam_ exercitum regi parat” by “le duc leva une armée _en Aquitaine_.”

Footnote 387:

Flod. A. 951; Richer, u. s., who says that Charles “ex regio quidem genere natus erat, sed concubinali stemmate usque ad tritavum sordebat.” Neither of them gives him the royal title which he certainly bore. Is “Charles-Constantine” perhaps the earliest case of a double Christian name, or is “Constantinus” a mere surname, derived from one of the cities called Constantia?

Footnote 388:

Flod. A. 954; Richer, ii. 103.

Footnote 389:

Flod. A. 965; Richer, iii. 21.

Footnote 390:

Flod. A. 954. “Lotharius puer, filius Ludowici, apud Sanctum Remigium rex consecratur ab Artoldo archiepiscopo, favente Hugone principe et Brunone archiepiscopo, cæterisque præsulibus ac proceribus Franciæ, Burgundiæ, atque Aquitaniæ.” Richer (iii. 1, 2) is fuller, but to the same effect.

Footnote 391:

He married Gerloc or Adela, daughter of Rolf and Popo. Dudo (97 B, C) has a curious story about his courtship.

Footnote 392:

See Flod. A. 942, 951; Richer, ii. 28, 98.

Footnote 393:

Flod. A. 954. “Burgundia quoque et Aquitania Hugoni dantur ab ipso [Lothario].”

Footnote 394:

Flod. A. 955; Richer, iii. 3–5, who puts as good a face as he can on Hugh’s discomfiture, and makes more of a subsequent victory over William, and of a second more successful siege, of which Flodoard says nothing.

Footnote 395:

Flod. A. 956. “Hugo princeps obiit.” Richer, iii. 5.

Footnote 396:

Dudo, 136 D.

Footnote 397:

Flod. A. 960. “Richardus, filius Willelmi Nortmannorum principis, filiam Hugonis trans Sequanam [or ‘Transsequani’] quondam principis duxit uxorem.” Dudo (136, 7) and Sir Francis Palgrave (ii. 690–4) have much to say about this marriage.

Footnote 398:

See Appendix W.

Footnote 399:

Flod. A. 960. “Otto et Hugo filii Hugonis, mediante avunculo ipsorum Brunone, ad regem veniunt ac sui efficiuntur. Quorum Hugonem rex ducem constituit, addito illi pago Pictavensi ad terram quam pater ipsius tenuerat; concessa Ottoni Burgundia.” So Richer, iii. 13.

Footnote 400:

Flod. A. 965. “Otto filius Hugonis, qui Burgundiæ præerat, obiit, et rectores ejusdem terræ ad Hugonem et Oddonem clericum, fratres ipsius, sese convertunt.” According to _L’Art de Vérifier les Dates_ (ii. 495, ed. 1784), “Oddo clericus” is the same as Henry the Great, founder of the first line of Capetian Dukes of Burgundy.

Footnote 401:

See Appendix W.

Footnote 402:

In 958 Arnulf either associated his son Baldwin with him in his government, or else resigned in his favour. On his death in 962 he again took possession. See _L’Art de Vérifier les Dates_, iii. 3.

Footnote 403:

See _L’Art de Vérifier les Dates_, ii. 611.

Footnote 404:

Flod. A. 962. “Seniorem suum [Tetbaldi] Hugonem.”

Footnote 405:

Ib. 945. “Committens [Hugo] eum [Ludowicum] Tetbaldo cuidam suorum.” He had just before called him “Tetbaldus Turonensis.”

Footnote 406:

Dudo, 137 D et seqq.

Footnote 407:

Flod. A. 962. “Tetbaldus quidam.” 964. “Tetbaldum quemdam procerem.”

Footnote 408:

Dudo, 142 C.

Footnote 409:

Ib. 139 C et seqq.

Footnote 410:

Flod. A. 961. “Placitum regale diversorumque conventus principum Suessionis habetur, ad quod impediendum, si fieri posset, Richardus filius Willelmi Nortmanni accedens, a fidelibus regis quibusdam pervasus, et, interemptis suorum nonnullis, in fugam versus est.”

Footnote 411:

Ib. 962. “Tetbaldus quidam cum Nortmannis confligens victus est ab eis, et fuga dilapsus evasit. Qui seniorem suum Hugonem proinde infensum habens ad regem venit, a quo, sed et a regina Gerberga benigne susceptus, et miti consolatione refocillatus abscessit.” Richer only mentions Theobald in connexion with his spoliation of the Church of Rheims and his consequent excommunication, iii. 20. So Flod. A. 964.

Footnote 412:

Dudo, 140 C et seqq.

Footnote 413:

The “Norman Kingdom” was, according to Dudo (147 C, D; 151 C), confirmed by the King and his princes (“Optimates totius Franciæ”—a new use of words seems creeping in) to Richard and his heirs for ever; the question of homage is avoided.

Footnote 414:

Twenty-four years later, in 986, Dudo, then canon of Saint Quintin, was of an age to take a prominent share in public business. Dudo, 155 D.

Footnote 415:

See the detailed narrative in Richer, iii. 67–81.

Footnote 416:

Did the very name of the country, “regnum Lotharii,” suggest to the present Lothar the thought of recovering it? Such a motive would not be out of character with a prince whose indignation was stirred up simply because the Emperor was staying—with his pregnant wife—so near the border as Aachen. So at least Richer tells us, iii. 68.

Footnote 417:

Richer, iii. 69. “Mox dux et aliis primates, sine deliberandi consultatione sententiam regiam attollunt. Sese sponte ituros cum rege et Ottonem aut comprehensuros aut interfecturos aut fugaturos pollicentur.”

Footnote 418:

Ib. iii. 71. “Æream aquilam quæ in vertice palatii a Karolo magno acsi volans fixa erat, in Vulturnum converterunt. Nam Germani eam in Favonium converterant, subtiliter significantes Gallos suo equitatu quandoque posse devinci.”

It is amusing to find the characteristic vanity of the great nation showing itself thus early. Most likely neither Charles nor any later German had ever thought of anything of the kind.

Footnote 419:

Richer, iii. 74–76. See Historical Essays, p. 243.

Footnote 420:

According to Thietmar of Merseburg (iii. 7) Lothar came in person, accompanied by his son. Richer (iii. 79) makes him send ambassadors. The speech put into their mouths seems quite to look on Otto and Lothar as royal colleagues. Otto’s Imperial dignity is not hinted at; I doubt whether Richer ever uses the word Emperor at all.

Footnote 421:

Richer, iii. 81. “Belgicæ pars quæ in lite fuerat in jus Ottonis transiit.”

Footnote 422:

See the narrative, a most full, curious, and interesting one, of Hugh’s journey to the Emperor at Rome, and the snares laid for him on his return by Lothar. Richer, iii. 81–88.

Footnote 423:

Richer, iii. 89, 90.

Footnote 424:

Ib. iii. 91. “A duce reliquisque principibus Ludovicus rex acclamatus.” Others place this event in 978 or 979.

Footnote 425:

Ib. iii. 92–95. Adelaide, widow of Raymond of Septimania or Gothia. Lewis divorced her. Cf. Rud. Glaber, i. 3.

Footnote 426:

Richer, iii. 97–110.

Footnote 427:

Dudo, 155 C. Cf. Flod. A. 965.

Footnote 428:

Richer, iv. 1.

Footnote 429:

Richer, iv. 2, 3.

Footnote 430:

Ib. iv. 5.

Footnote 431:

This is alluded to in the words, “Qui tanta capitis imminutione hebuit [any notion of the legal phrase of ‘_de_minutio capitis’?] ut externo regi servire non horruerit.” Richer, iv. 11.

Footnote 432:

See Appendix S.

Footnote 433:

Richer, iv. 12, 13.

Footnote 434:

See the history of the war in Richer, iv. 14–49.

Footnote 435:

Ælius Spartianus, Pescennius, 1. “Quos tyrannos aliorum victoria fecerit;” a good illustration of the use of the word. The same may be said of Antipopes.

Footnote 436:

See pp. 206, 209, 223.

Footnote 437:

Neither Richer—he was not likely—nor Rudolf Glaber speaks of Richard at all. Dudo, oddly enough, passes by the whole business very briefly; “Nec illud prætereundum quod, Lothario rege defuncto [he forgets Lewis], Hugo dux inthronizatus voluit super Albertum comitem equitare.” (155 D.) William of Jumièges is fuller; “Mortuo Francorum rege Lothario, in illius loco ab omnibus subrogatur Hugonis Magni ducis filius Hugo Capeth, adminiculante ei duce Richardo.” (iv. 19.) The Roman de Rou (5823) is fuller still;

“Par defaute de son lignage, O le cunseil del grant barnage, E por la force de Richart, Par son conseil e par son art, Fu Hugon Chapes recéu, Et en France pour rei tenu ... Par Richart è par sa valor, Ki éu aveit sa seror, Par sun cunseil è par s’amur Fu de France Huon seignur.”

Footnote 438:

See above, p. 223.

Footnote 439:

See above, p. 154.

Footnote 440:

See Flodoard’s description of Lewis’s invasion of Normandy, A. 944; “Ludowicus rex in terram Nortmannorum proficiscitur cum Arnulfo et Herluino et quibusdam episcopis Franciæ ac Burgundiæ.”

Footnote 441:

The different circumstances which led to such different results in France and in Germany I trust to point out in the second volume of my History of Federal Government.

Footnote 442:

With the exception of the three portions of the kingdom which have become wholly detached. See above, pp. 156, 187.

Footnote 443:

Dante, Purg. xx.

Footnote 444:

For this legend in full, see the early chapters of Oudegherst, _Annales de Flandres_. Lyderic, the foundling, is of course of princely birth. It is the same story as those of Cyrus and Romulus.

Footnote 445:

See _L’Art de Vérifier les Dates_, ii. 828.

Footnote 446:

Will. Gem. vii. 38. “Mater ejus Sprota, necessitate urgente, contubernio [was there even a Danish marriage?] cujusdam prædivitis nomine Asperlengi adhæsit. Hic, licet in rebus locuples, tamen molendina vallis Ruelii ad firmam solitus erat tenere.” So M. Jourdain measured cloth only for amusement; so, in some pious legends, Zebedee was a mighty baron of Galilee, whose sons fished for pleasure and not for profit.

Footnote 447:

There is something ludicrous in the way in which Dudo (137 B, C), after spending all his powers of prose to set forth the marriage of Emma, goes on to explain in verse that she was not fated to be the mother of a Duke of the Normans.

Footnote 448:

Dudo, 152 C. “Subscalpenti voluptuosæ humanitatis fragilitati subactus, genuit duos filios, totidem et filias, ex concubinis.”

Footnote 449:

Dudo (u. s.) makes her to be “ex famosissima nobilium Dacorum prosapia exorta,” but he allows that the Duke “eam prohibitæ copulationis fœdere sortitus est sibi amicabiliter.” He marries her (“inextricabili maritalis fœderis privilegio sibi connectit”) at the advice of the great men of the land. So William of Jumièges (iv. 18) vouches for the nobility of her birth and for her marriage being celebrated “Christiano more.” But his continuator (viii. 36) has a curious legend—the same as one of the legends of our Eadgar—to tell about her first introduction to Richard. See also Roman de Rou, 5390–5429, &c., 5767–5812.

Footnote 450:

See Chron. S. Max. ap. Labbé, ii. 202. We there read, “Ricardus Christianissimus factus,” probably not without an allusion to his apostasy in his childhood.

Footnote 451:

So Wace, 5873;

“Clers establi ki servireient, E provendes dunt il vivreient.”

Footnote 452:

See Neustria Pia, 210; Lincy, “Essai Historique et Littéraire sur l’Abbayes de Fécamp” (Rouen, 1840), p. 6. The expressions of Dudo, 153 B et seqq., and of William of Malmesbury, ii. 178, might easily mislead.

Footnote 453:

See p. 164.

Footnote 454:

See Hist. of Fed. Government, i. 574.

Footnote 455:

Roman de Rou, 5955–5974.

Footnote 456:

Will. Gem. v. 2; Roman de Rou, 5975–6118. See above, p. 172.

Footnote 457:

I do not mean merely because the word “parlement” occurs several times in the Roman de Rou. It is there used in its primitive sense, as translating “colloquium.” With this Norman revolt we may compare the revolt in Britanny in 1675, described in the Count of Carné’s “Etats de Bretagne.” See especially the “Code Paysan” at i. 377. The part of Rudolf of Ivry is played by the Duke of Chaulnes.

Footnote 458:

Will. Gem. v. 2. “Nam rustici unanimes per diversos totius Normannicæ patriæ comitatus plurima agentes conventicula, juxta suos libitus vivere decernebant. Quatenus, tam in silvarum compendiis quam in aquarum commerciis, nullo obsistente ante statuti juris obice, legibus uterentur suis. Quæ ut rata manerent, ab unoquoque cœtu furentis vulgi duo eliguntur legati, qui decreta ad mediterraneum roboranda ferrent conventum.”

Footnote 459:

Roman de Rou, 6070;

“Asez tost oï Richard dire Ke vilains _cumune faseient_.”

It does not necessarily follow that the word “commune” was used at the time, though I know no reason why such may not have been the case. It would be quite enough if Wace applied to the union of the peasants a name which in his time had become perfectly familiar, in the instinctive feeling that the earlier movement was essentially a forerunner of the later. Compare the “conjurationes” so strictly forbidden in the Carolingian Capitularies. See Brentano on Gilds, p. lxxvi; and for a full account of these “conjurationes,” Waitz, iv. 362–364.

Footnote 460:

Roman de Rou, 6001–6015.

Footnote 461:

Mark the brutal levity with which Rudolf’s cruelties are dismissed by William of Jumièges (v. 2); “Qui [Rodulphus] non morans jussa, cunctos confestim legatos cum nonnullis aliis cepit, truncatisque manibus et pedibus, inutiles suis remisit, qui eos talibus compescerent, et ne deteriora paterentur suis eventibus cautos redderent. His rustici expertis, festinato concionibus omissis, ad sua aratra sunt reversi.” So Roman de Rou, where various other tortures are spoken of, vv. 6093–6118. The same sentiment comes out in the speech which Orderic (713 A) puts into the mouth of the monks of Molesme; “Exinde principum institutione, et diutina consuetudine usitatum est in Gallia, ut rustici ruralia, sicut decet, peragant opera, et servi servilia passim exerceant ministeria.... Absit ut rustici torpescant otio, saturique lascivientes cachinnis et inani vacent ludicro, quorum genuina sors labori dedita est assiduo.”

Footnote 462:

Albereda, the wife of Rudolf, built the famous tower of Ivry. See Will. Gem. viii. 15.

Footnote 463:

See Palgrave, iii. 44.

Footnote 464:

Our main authorities for this period are essentially the same as those to which we have to go for our knowledge of earlier times. The English Chronicles are still our principal guide. For the present they may be quoted as one work, as the differences between the different manuscripts, pointed out by Mr. Earle in the Preface to his Parallel Saxon Chronicles, are not as yet of much strictly historical importance. Florence of Worcester gives what is essentially a Latin version of the Chronicles, with frequent explanatory additions, which his carefulness and sound sense render of great value. The Charters and Laws of the reign of Æthelred are abundant, and, besides their primary value as illustrating laws and customs, the signatures constantly help us to the succession of offices and to a sort of skeleton biographies of the leading men of the time. These, the Chronicles, Laws, and Charters, form our primary authorities. The later Latin Chroniclers, from William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon onwards, supply many additional facts; but their accounts are often mixed up with romantic details, and it is dangerous to trust them, except when they show signs of following authorities which are now lost. This is not uncommonly the case with both Henry of Huntingdon and William of Malmesbury. Local histories, like those of Ely, Ramsey, and Abingdon, supply occasional facts, but the same sort of cautions which apply to the secondary writers of general history apply to them in a still greater degree. We now also begin to draw some little help from foreign sources. The Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus, the Chronicles of Swegen Aggesson, the various Sagas, especially the famous Saga of Olaf Tryggvesson, are very hard to reconcile with the more authentic notices in our own Chronicles; but among much that is doubtful and much that is clearly fabulous, they often help us to facts, and to the causes and connexions of facts, which our own writers leave obscure. The Norman writers also begin to be of some importance for the events which connect England and Normandy. For the early part of the reign of Æthelred we have no contemporary Norman writer, but the accounts in the Roman de Rou and in William of Jumièges at least show us what was the Norman tradition. Later in the period, we have, in the Encomium Emmæ (reprinted in the nineteenth volume of Pertz by the name of “Gesta Cnutonis”), the work of a contemporary Norman or Flemish writer, which, though throughout unfair and inaccurate, is worth comparing with our English writers. Occasional notices of Danish and English affairs are sometimes to be gleaned from the German writers, like Adam of Bremen and the contemporary Thietmar of Merseberg.

On the whole the materials for this period are ample, and, as regards England, they are fully trustworthy. The difficulty lies in reconciling the English and continental narratives.

Footnote 465:

“Unready” must mean “lacking _rede_” or counsel. Walter Map (De Nugis, 199) calls him “Edelredus, quem Anglici _con_silium [_in_silium? see below, p. 317] vocaverunt, quia nullius erat negotii.” “Magnificus,” the epithet of Eadmund the First, means rather “worker of great deeds”—the Greek μεγαλοπράγμων,—than “magnificent” in the vulgar sense.

Footnote 466:

See Appendix AA.

Footnote 467:

Fl. Wig. A. 975. “Congregato exercitu, monasteria Orientalium Anglorum maxima strenuitate defenderunt.”

Footnote 468:

“Amicus Dei.” Fl. Wig. 975, 991, 992, 1016. See Appendix AA.

Footnote 469:

See Appendix AA.

Footnote 470:

For a full examination of her story, I would refer to the first Essay in my Historical Essays, first series.

Footnote 471:

“Fabius Quæstor Patricius Æthelwerdus,” as he thinks good to call himself, the author of the earliest and most meagre of our Latin Chronicles, was descended (see his own Prologue) from one of the sons of Æthelred the First who were excluded to make way for Ælfred (see above, p. 108).

Footnote 472:

Fl. Wig. 975. See Appendix BB.

Footnote 473:

The correct description is “the Old Lady.” See Chron. (Abingdon), 1051. Lady (_Hlæfdige_), it will be remembered, not _Queen_, is the usual title of the wife of a West-Saxon King.

Footnote 474:

See Eadmer, Anglia Sacra, ii. 220, Osbern, 112, and Lingard’s note, Hist. of England, i. 274.

Footnote 475:

Fl. Wig. A. 976. The poems in the Chronicles certainly seem to me to connect the banishment of Oslac with the predominance of Ælfhere and the anti-monastic party.

Footnote 476:

See Appendix KK.

Footnote 477:

The Chronicles bitterly lament the crime, without mentioning the criminal. Florence distinctly charges Ælfthryth with it. In the hands of William of Malmesbury (ii. 162) the story becomes a romance, which gets fresh details in those of Bromton (X Scriptt. 873 et seqq.). The _obiter dictum_ of William of Malmesbury (ii. 165), that Ælfhere had a hand in Eadward’s death, is contrary to the whole tenor of the history. See Chron. 980; Fl. Wig. 979.

Footnote 478:

I know not what to make of the incredible story in Goscelin’s Life of Saint Eadgyth (Mabillon, Ann. Ord. Ben. vii. 622), that the Witan or some of them (“regni proceres”) wished to choose his heroine, a natural daughter of Eadgar and already a professed nun, as Lady in her own right. A female reign had not been heard of since the days of Sexburh.

Footnote 479:

Chron. and Fl. Wig. in anno. See also the charter of 998 in Cod. Dipl. iii. 305, and Appendix AA. The beginnings of a legendary version may be seen in William of Malmesbury (ii. 165) and Roger of Wendover (i. 423).

Footnote 480:

Fl. Wig. 987. The English and Welsh Chronicles both put the cattle-plague a year earlier, and do not mention the disease among men.

Footnote 481:

On the contradictory statements as to Æthelred’s first wife and her children, see Appendix RR.

Footnote 482:

The full form of this name, _Swegen_, is always used by the English Chroniclers; but in Danish pronunciation it seems to have been already cut down into _Svein_ or _Sven_. The Latin forms are _Suanus_ and _Sueno_.

Footnote 483:

This is in marked contrast to the affairs of the Empire, on which our Chroniclers evidently kept a careful eye, and of which they contain many notices.

Footnote 484:

See the Saga of Olaf Tryggvesson, c. 29; Laing, i. 395. Swegen is called Suein Otto by Adam of Bremen, ii. 25.

Footnote 485:

Adam Brem. u. s.; Sax. Gram. lib. x. p. 185, ed. Hafn. 1644.

Footnote 486:

See the “Saga om Oloff Tryggwasson,” “Historia Olai Tryggwæ Filii,” Upsala, 1691, or Laing’s Sea-Kings of Norway, i. 367.

Footnote 487:

Adam Brem. ii. 32; Saxo, lib. x. p. 188. Swegen, already King, is driven out by Eric of Sweden. To reconcile the chronology is hopeless. Saxo calls the English King _Eadward_.

Footnote 488:

Chron. A. 980. “And þý ilcan geare wæs Legeceasterscír gehergod fram norð scipherige.” Florence has, more distinctly, “Civitatis Legionum provincia a Norwegensibus piratis devastatur.” Northmen of all kinds are often confounded under the name of Danes, but none but genuine Norwegians are likely to be spoken of in this way. _Leicester_ here, as often, is not the midland Leicester, but Chester.

Footnote 489:

Chron. and Fl. Wig. in anno. “Goda se Defenisca þegen” was killed, according to the Chronicles. Florence calls him “satrapa Domnaniæ.” Satrapa seems to be sometimes used as a formal title inferior to Ealdorman. See Cod. Dipl. iii. 356, where Leofsige is raised from the rank of _satrapa_ to that of _dux_.

Footnote 490:

The Chronicles give no names; Florence mentions Justin and Guthmund; but the treaty presently to be mentioned, gives the name of Olaf as well.

Footnote 491:

The original Old-English text is printed in Thorpe’s Analecta Anglo-Saxonica, p. 131; there is a modern English translation in Conybeare’s Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon poetry, xc. The poem, of which unfortunately the beginning and ending are lost, is evidently local and contemporary. I therefore do not hesitate to accept the main facts of the battle and the names of the actors as trustworthy, much more trustworthy than if they were found in a Latin prose chronicle a century or two later. The speeches, no doubt, are, like most speeches in history, the invention of the poet.

Footnote 492:

The church, a massive Romanesque building, may not unlikely have been raised, like so many other churches on battle-fields, to commemorate the event.

Footnote 493:

“Þa he hæfde þæt folc fægre getrymmed, he lihte þa mid leodon, þær him leofost wæs, þær he his heorð-werod holdost wiste.” (Thorpe, p. 132.)

This “heorð-werod” or _hearth company_ are the personal following or _comitatus_ (see above, p. 86) of the chief; to their exploits the poem is chiefly devoted. This battle of Maldon, like all our battles, will be found to contain many details leading to the illustration of the last and greatest battle on Senlac.

Footnote 494:

William of Malmesbury says of Harold (iii. 241), “Rex ipse pedes juxta vexillum stabat cum fratribus, ut, in commune periculo æquato, nemo de fuga cogitaret.” So Brihtnoth bids his men form a firm rank with the “board-wall” or line of shields;

“Hu hi sceoldon standan, And þone stede healdan, And bæd þæt hyra randan Rihte heoldon Fæste mid folmum, And ne forhtedon na.” (p. 132.)

Mr. Conybeare mistook the meaning of the passage and the tactics of the English army when he translated “and þone _stede_ healdan,” “how to guide their _steeds_.” It means “how to hold their _stead_ or place.”

The English habit of fighting on foot is noticed with some exaggeration in the earliest description of our nation; ἄλκιμοι δέ εἰσι πάντων μάλιστα βαρβάρων ὧν ἡμεῖς ἴσμεν οἱ νησιῶται οὗτοι, ἔς τε τὰς ξυμβολὰς, πεζοὶ ἴασιν· οὐ γὰρ ὅσον εἰσὶ τοῦ ἱππεύειν ἀμελέτητοι, ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ ἵππον ὅ τι ποτέ ἐστιν ἐπίστασθαι σφίσι ξυμβαίνει, κ.τ.λ. Prokopios, Bell. Goth. iv. 20.

Footnote 495:

The only other Maccus whom I know anything of is the Under-king of Man, who was one of the princes who rowed Eadgar on the Dee. But what could he, or any one of his family or nation, be doing in the _comitatus_ of an Ealdorman of the East-Saxons?

Footnote 496:

Compare however the discussion among the revolted Karians as to crossing the Maiandros. Herod. v. 118. Compare on the other hand the challenge to cross the Wear given by Edward the Third to the Scots in 1327. Froissart, i. c. xix. (vol. i. p. 20. ed. 1559); Longman, Edward III. i. 14. So the Parthians and Antonius, Plut. Ant. 49.

Footnote 497:

The weapon of close fight at Maldon, as at Brunanburh, was on both sides the sword. The Danish axe had not yet been introduced into England, and as late as Stamfordbridge Harold Hardrada wielded the sword. The _bill_ is twice mentioned, and it is put into the hand of Brihtnoth himself; but it is plain that the bill here spoken of was a sword and not an axe;

“Ða Byrhtnoð bræd Bill of sceðe, Brád and brún-ecg.” (p. 136.)

Earlier in the poem the defensive and offensive weapons of the English appear distinctly as “Bord and brád swurd.” The early use of the epithet “brown” applied to a sword, common in later ballads, should be noticed.

Footnote 498:

The likeness struck Mr. Conybeare strongly, p. lxxxviii.

Footnote 499:

So I understand the lines,

“Wende þæs for-moni man Þa he on meare rád, On wlancan þam wicge, Þæt wære hit ure hlaford.” (p. 138.)

Compare the flight of the French serving-boys on their masters’ horses at the approach of Chandos in 1369. Froissart, c. cclxxvii. (i. 383, 384); Longman, Edward III. ii. 167.

Footnote 500:

“Forþan wearð her on felda Folc totwæmed, Scyld-burh tobrocen.” (p. 138.)

Footnote 501:

So says the Ely History (ii. 6), which, on such a point, may be trusted. The Abbot supplied the loss with a mass of wax.

Footnote 502:

Is this Ælfwine a son of the banished Ealdorman Ælfric? “Ælfwine minister,” occasionally, but not very commonly, signs charters about this time.

Footnote 503:

So I understand the passage, as does Mr. Conybeare. But we have no mention of any inroad of this army into Northumberland.

Footnote 504:

Ammianus, xvi. 12. “Comites ejus, ducenti numero, et tres amici junctissimi, flagitium arbitrati post regem vivere vel pro rege non mori, si ita tulerit casus.” In this case, the King having surrendered, they “tradidere se vinciendos.”

Footnote 505:

Fl. Wig. A. 991. “Utrinque infinita multitudine cæsa, ipse dux occubuit, Danica vero fortuna vicit.” The Ely historian tries hard to turn the battle into a victory.

Footnote 506:

See her life in Bæda, iv. 19, 20.

Footnote 507:

The Ely History (ii. 3) gives the legend. With the slight improvement of painting Ælfthryth as a witch, it is the story of Joseph and Zuleikha, or of Bellerophontês and Anteia, over again, with such changes as were needed when the tale was transferred from a married woman to a widow. It should be remembered that Ælfthryth’s first husband Æthelwold seems to have been a nephew of Brihtnoth.

Footnote 508:

Hist. El. ii. 7. “Torquem auream, et cortinam [curtain] gestis viri sui intextam atque depositam, depictam in memoriam probitatis ejus, huic ecclesiæ donavit.” See Palgrave, Eng. Com. ii. ccccvi; Lingard, i. 278.

Footnote 509:

The Chronicles say expressly, “On þam geare man gerædde ƿæt man geald _ærest_ gafol Deniscum mannum,” &c. But there is a curious piece of evidence to show that the possibility of such a measure was thought of long before. In the will of King Eadred in the Liber de Hyda, p. 153, he leaves sixteen hundred pounds “to þan þæt hi mege magan hu[n]gor _and hæþenne here him fram aceapian, gif hie beþurfen_.” The manuscript seems to be very corrupt, but there can be no doubt as to the meaning. The words are left out in the Latin and later English versions which follow.

Footnote 510:

Fl. Wig. A. 990. “Clericis a Cantuaria proturbatis, monachos induxit.”

Footnote 511:

See the preamble to the Peace in Thorpe, i. 284. Cf. Chron. and Fl. Wig. 991. The Chronicle mentions only the Archbishop, not the Ealdormen.

Footnote 512:

See above, p. 264, and Appendix CC.

Footnote 513:

I do not know where Æthelweard’s ealdormanship lay. If this Ælfric was Ealdorman of the Mercians, it is clear that his government would be directly threatened by an enemy who had probably had possession of a large part of East-Anglia and Essex.

Footnote 514:

See the Treaty in Thorpe, i. 284; Schmid, 204; and Appendix DD.

Footnote 515:

Chron. in anno. “Þa gerædde se cyning and ealle his witan.” So Florence; “Consilio jussuque regis Anglorum Ægelredi procerumque suorum.”

Footnote 516:

His name is Ælf_stan_ both in the Chronicles and in Florence, through some confusion with a predecessor of that name, who died in 981.

Footnote 517:

See Appendix FF. Thored in the Chronicle is _Eorl_, Ælfric is _Ealdorman_. This distinction clearly marks out Thored as of Danish birth, or as holding a government within the Danish part of England.

Footnote 518:

Ammianus, xxvii. 8. “Lundinium vetus oppidum, quod Augustam posteritas appellavit.” xxviii. 3. “Ab Augusta profectus, quam veteres appellavere Lundinium.” He however himself elsewhere (xx. 1) speaks of “Lundinium” without any addition. The popular name of London survived the official name of Augusta, just as Sikyôn survived Dêmêtrias, as Mantineia survived Antigoneia, as Jerusalem survived Ælia Capitolina.

Footnote 519:

Tac. Ann. xiv. 33. On the origin of London, see Guest, Archæological Journal, 1866, No. xci. p. 159. Cf. Vita S. Bon., Pertz, ii. 338. “Pervenit ad locum ubi erat forum rerum venalium, et usque hodie antiquo Anglorum Saxonumque vocabulo appellatur Lundenwich.”

Footnote 520:

Bæda, Eccl. Hist. ii. 3.

Footnote 521:

Chron. 896. On the probability that the present Tower occupies the site of a fortress of Ælfred, see Mr. Earle’s note, p. 310.

Footnote 522:

Thorpe, Laws and Inst. i. 228; Kemble, Saxons in England, ii. 521.

Footnote 523:

Instituta Lundoniæ, Thorpe, i. 300.

Footnote 524:

Thorpe, i. 300; Lappenberg, Gesch. des hansischen Stahlhofes, p. 5. The great privilege of the “homines Imperatoris, qui veniebant in navibus suis,” seems to have been that they were, with certain exceptions, allowed to buy and sell on board their own ships, which doubtless exempted them from certain tolls to which others were liable.

Footnote 525:

See W. Malms. i. 93. Cf. above, p. 38.

Footnote 526:

Thorpe, i. 300. “Homines Imperatoris, qui veniebant in navibus suis, bonarum legum digni tenebantur, sicut et nos.”

Footnote 527:

See Appendix AA.

Footnote 528:

So it stands in the English version of the Brut y Tywysogion, in anno; “And Maredudd, son of Owain, paid to the Black Pagans a tribute of one penny for each person.” But in the Annales Cambriæ the transaction takes the milder form of a redemption of captives; “Maredut redemit captivos a gentilibus nigris, nummo pro unoquoque dato.”

Footnote 529:

His own dominions are described (Brut, 991) as Dyfed, Ceredigion, Gower, and Cydweli, answering to the modern counties of Pembroke, Cardigan, Caermarthen, and part of Glamorgan. In 985 he conquered Mona or Anglesey, Merioneth, and Gwynedd generally.

Footnote 530:

He is called Owen, Guyn, and Etwin. Was this last name borrowed from the English Eadwine? His English ally appears in the Brut as “Eclis the Great, a Saxon prince from the seas of the south.” The Annals call him Edelisi, that is, doubtless Æthelsige. See Appendix AA.

Footnote 531:

Brut y Tywysogion, 991. “Maredudd hired the pagans willing to join him.”

Footnote 532:

On Æthelred’s relations with Normandy see Appendix EE.

Footnote 533:

This is the conjecture of Lappenberg, ii. 153, Eng. Tr.

Footnote 534:

Will. Malms, ii. 166. “Et de hominibus regis vel inimicis suis nullum Ricardus recipiat, neque rex de suis, sine sigillo eorum.” _Sigillum_ does not necessarily imply a seal in the later sense; a signature of any kind is enough.

Footnote 535:

See above, p. 269.

Footnote 536:

Chron. in anno. “Ac seo halige Godes modor on þam dæge hire mildheortnesse þære burhware gecydde, and hi ahredde wið heora feondum.” A good deal of the simple earnestness of the English is lost in Florence’s Latin, “Dei suæque genetricis Mariæ juvamine.”

Footnote 537:

Flor. Wig. “Furore simul et tristitia exasperati.”

Footnote 538:

It would, I imagine, be very hard to find out the exact point in Olaf Tryggvesson’s life when, according to his Saga (c. xiii.), he made expeditions in Britain, Ireland, and Scotland, attacking the heathen and keeping peace with the Christians. It would be hardly more difficult to identify the daughter of an Irish King and widow of an English Ealdorman, whom Olaf marries in the next chapter. See above, p. 269.

Footnote 539:

I conceive this to be the distinction intended by Florence, when he says “de tota West-Saxonia _stippendium_ dabatur [“and hi mon þær _fedde_ geond eall Westseaxena rice,” say the Chronicles]; de tota vero Anglia _tributum_, quod erat xvi. millia librarum, dependebatur.”

Footnote 540:

The confirmation of Olaf implies his previous baptism, and thereby remarkably confirms that part of the legend. But Adam of Bremen (ii. 34) has two quite different accounts, according to one of which Olaf learned Christianity in England for the first time, while, according to the other, he was converted in Norway by English missionaries. The one point in which all versions agree is to connect his conversion with England in some shape or other.

Footnote 541:

Ann. Camb.; Brut y Tywysogion, 994.

Footnote 542:

See Thietmar, iv. 16; Adam Brem. ii. 29.

Footnote 543:

The charters of this year in the Codex Diplomaticus (iii. 284, 286, and 288), one of King Æthelred and two of Æscwig, Bishop of Dorchester, belong to a meeting before the death of Sigeric, by whom they were signed. Those of the same year at pp. 281 and 290, which Ælfric signs as Archbishop-elect, must belong to a later meeting, probably that at which he was elected. He was consecrated next year (Chron. and Fl. Wig.). Had he held the bishopric of Ramsbury without consecration?

Footnote 544:

So the Chronicles, but only in the late Canterbury manuscript (Cott. Domit. A. viii.). This fact however is probably authentic; but what can be made of the story of Ælfric driving out the seculars from Christ Church, where Sigeric had already brought in monks? See above, p. 278.

Footnote 545:

See Bæda, Eccl. Hist. iv. 27, and the prose and verse lives of Saint Cuthberht in his Opera Historica Minora, pp. 3, 49. Also Sim. Dun., Eccl. Dun. lib. ii. c. 6, et seqq. (X Scriptt. 13).

Footnote 546:

Flor. Wig. 995.

Footnote 547:

Sim. Dun., Hist. Dun. iii. 2. “Comitans sanctissimi patris Cuthberti corpus universus populus in Dunelmum, locum quidem natura munitum, sed non facile habitabilem invenit, quoniam densissima undique silva totum occupaverat.” Compare the description of Durham given by William of Malmesbury, De Gest. Pont. p. 270, ed. Hamilton; “Dunelmum est collis, ab una vallis planitie paullatim et molli clivo turgescens in tumulum; et licet situ edito et prærupto rupium omnem aditum excludat hostium, tamen ibi moderni collibus imposuerunt castellum.” He then goes on to speak of the river and its fish. See also the Old-English poem on Durham printed at p. 153 of the Surtees edition of Simeon, and which is referred to by Simeon himself in his History of the Church of Durham, iii. 7. William also might seem to have had the poem before him.

Footnote 548:

A still closer parallel, though on a far smaller scale, may be found in Ireland in the ruined cathedral and archiepiscopal fortress which crown the famous rock of Cashel. Only at Sitten the church and the castle are on two distinct heights, as if Cashel and Glastonbury were set side by side.

Footnote 549:

Cod. Dipl. iii. 299.

Footnote 550:

Cod. Dipl. iii. 302. “Collecta haud minima sapientum multitudine in aula villæ regiæ quæ nuncupative a populis et [æt?] Calnæ vocitatur. Ac sic paucis interpositis ymeris [_himeris_, ἡμέραις] rursus advocata _omnis exercitus_, caterva pontificum, abbatum, ducum, optimatum nobiliumque quamplurimorum ad villam quæ ab indigenis Wanetincg agnominatur,” &c. &c. The whole passage is remarkable and valuable.

Footnote 551:

Thorpe, i. 280; Schmid, 198. The Wantage laws are said specially to be “æfter Engla lage.”

Footnote 552:

So Schmid, p. li. The use of the word _Wapentake_, a division confined to the North, and the special mention of the Five Boroughs, seem quite to bear out this conjecture.

Footnote 553:

“On _Norð_walum,” say the Chronicles; so in Florence “_septemtrionalem_ Britanniam.” These phrases do not mean _North Wales_ as opposed to South, still less _North Britain_, in the sense of Scotland, but simply what we now call Wales as opposed to Cornwall. The part ravaged was doubtless the northern coast of the Bristol Channel.

Footnote 554:

Cod. Dipl. iii. 311.

Footnote 555:

That is, if we may trust the doubtful charters in Cod. Dipl. iii. 309, 311.

Footnote 556:

Cod. Dipl. iii. 306. See above, p. 267.

Footnote 557:

See the Chronicles (followed by Florence) for the years 998 and 999. I have worked the two descriptions together.

Footnote 558:

For the suggestion of the general line of thought in this paragraph I am indebted to Lappenberg, ii, 161.

Footnote 559:

See above, p. 104. Compare the practice of the Frankish Assemblies, Waitz, iii. 508.

Footnote 560:

Compare on this head a remarkable passage of William of Malmesbury, ii. 165. “Verumtamen multa mihi cogitanti mirum videtur cur homo, ut a majoribus accepimus, neque multum fatuus, neque nimis ignavus, in tam tristi pallore tot calamitatum vitam consumpserit. Cujus rei caussam si quis me interroget, non facile respondeam; nisi ducum defectionem, ex superbia regis prodeuntem.” This hardly goes to the root of the matter; but William’s perplexity clearly shows that the traditional character of Æthelred did not paint him as a mere idiot, but as a man with the capacity, though only the bare capacity, for better things. See also Palgrave’s Hist. of England and Normandy, iii. 103.

Footnote 561:

Such I understand to be the object of the departure of the Danish fleet. The Chronicles and Florence are quite colourless. “Se unfrið flota wæs ðæs sumeres gewend to Ricardes rice.” “Danorum classis præfata hoc anno Nortmanniam petit.” But Roger of Wendover (i. 434) inserts the qualification “hostiliter,” which is followed by Lappenberg (429. Eng. Tr. ii. 161). On this whole matter see Appendix EE.

Footnote 562:

On this Cumbrian expedition see Appendix FF.

Footnote 563:

See above, p. 291.

Footnote 564:

See above, p. 63.

Footnote 565:

See Appendix EE.

Footnote 566:

See Appendix SS.

Footnote 567:

See above, p. 253.

Footnote 568:

On this marriage and its results see the opening of the sixth book of Henry of Huntingdon. He clearly sees the connexion of events, and he as clearly believes that William’s kindred with Emma gave him some right to the English crown. “Ex hac conjunctione regis Anglorum et filiæ ducis Normannorum, Angliam juste, secundum jus gentium, Normanni et calumniati sunt et adepti sunt.” This is perhaps the strangest theory of international law on record.

Footnote 569:

Herod. v. 97. αὗται δὲ αἱ νέες ἀρχὴ κακῶν ἐγένοντο Ἕλλησί τε καὶ βαρβάροισι.

Footnote 570:

No writer mentions this but Geoffrey Gaimar (4126. M. H. B. 814), who is followed by Sir F. Palgrave (iii. 109). Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 751 E) and Æthelred of Rievaux (X Scriptt. 362) distinctly make him send messengers. The statement of the Chronicles, which of course would be decisive, is less distinct, but it looks the same way; “And ða ón ðam ilcan lenctene com seo hlæfdige, Ricardes dohtor, hider to lande.” “And on ðysan ylcan geare, on lencten, com Ricardes dohtor Ymma hider to lande.”

Footnote 571:

I cannot answer positively for Harold the son of Cnut, but we shall come across evidence which makes it probable that he visited Denmark.

Footnote 572:

Chron. 855, and Florence (after Asser) more at length.

Footnote 573:

Greg. Turon. iv. 26; Bæda, i. 25.

Footnote 574:

See the section on Nomenclature in vol. v. p. 556.

Footnote 575:

Flor. Wig. A. 1002. “Eodem anno Emmam, _Saxonice_ Ælfgivam vocatam, ducis Nortmannorum primi Ricardi filiam, rex Ægelredus duxit uxorem.” On the use of the word “Saxonice” see Appendix A. On the name Ælfgifu see vol. ii. Appendix BB, and vol. iii. Appendix S.

The Lady signs a great number of charters during the reigns of her husbands and sons by the name of Ælfgifu (in various spellings). “Emma” is rare, but we find it in Cod. Dipl. iv. 1; iv. 64; vi. 172, and once “Ælfgyfa Imma,” iv. 101. Of a charter of 997 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 299), where “Ælfgyua Ymma regina” makes a grant to Christ Church, I can make nothing. Mr. Kemble does not mark it as spurious, but the date shows that there is something wrong about it.

Footnote 576:

Geoffrey Gaimar (4138. M. H. B. 815), who is followed by Sir F. Palgrave (iii. 110), gives her as “drurie” or “dowaire,” Rockingham, Rutland, and the city of Winchester itself. In the course of our story we shall find both Emma and her successor Eadgyth specially connected with Winchester, and we shall also find that Emma unhappily possessed the city of Exeter or some rights over it.

Footnote 577:

Eadgar the Ætheling was elected in 1066, but never crowned.

Footnote 578:

Will. Malms. ii. 165. “Etiam in uxorem adeo protervus erat ut vix eam cubili dignaretur, sed cum pellicibus volutatus regiam majestatem infamaret. Illa quoque conscientiam alti sanguinis spirans in maritum tumebat.”

I cannot light on Sir Francis Palgrave’s authority for making Emma fly back to Normandy within a year or two after her marriage (iii. III).

Footnote 579:

Will. Malms. ii. 177.

Footnote 580:

I have here tried to put together the account in the Winchester Chronicle (C.C.C.C. clxxiii.), which alone mentions Pallig and the Hampshire campaign, with the account of the operations in Devonshire given in the other versions. Æthelingadene has been taken for Alton in Hampshire, but the name Æthelingadene would hardly become Alton, and the place is in Sussex. See Cod. Dipl. iii. 324.

Footnote 581:

The men of higher rank are commonly foremost. See above, p. 274. Compare the battle of Strassburg in Ammianus (xvi. 12). “Exsiluit subito ardens optimatium globus, inter quos decernebant et reges, et sequente vulgo inter alios agmina nostrorum irrupit.”

Footnote 582:

Their descriptions, as given in the Winchester Chronicle, are worth noticing. There is Wulfhere the Bishop’s Thegn, and two other thegns who are called from their dwelling-places, Leofric æt Hwitciricean (Whitchurch) and Godwine æt Worðige (Worthy Martyr), Bishop Ælfsige’s son. This is Ælfsige, Bishop of Winchester, who was translated to Canterbury in 950, but died of the cold on the Alps on his way to Rome to get his pallium. (Flor. Wig. 959.)

Footnote 583:

See Mr. Earle’s note on the Chronicles, p. 334.

Footnote 584:

I get this from the words of the Winchester Chronicle, which mentions one part of the story only, combined with those of Florence, who mentions only the other part. The Winchester writer mentions the campaign in Hampshire, the treason of Pallig, the burning of Teignton, the peace, and adds, “and hy foran þa þanon tó Exanmuðan.” Florence has, “Memoratus paganorum exercitus, de Normannia Angliam revectus, ostium fluminis Eaxæ ingreditur.” This seems to be a satisfactory way of explaining it. The other Chronicles have simply, “Her com _se here_ to Exanmuðan.”

Footnote 585:

The language of the Chronicles is remarkable. The fleet comes to Exmouth, “and eodon þa up to þære byrig.” There was no need to mention what borough. But Florence adds “urbem Exanceastram.”

Footnote 586:

See W. Malms. ii. 134; Palgrave, English Commonwealth, i. 463.

Footnote 587:

Mr. Kerslake very ingeniously traced out the boundary between the English and Welsh parts of Exeter in a paper read at the Exeter meeting of the Archæological Institute in 1873. The Welsh quarter, which lies to the north, is marked by the dedication of the churches within it to Welsh saints.

Footnote 588:

Thorpe, i. 220, 228; Schmid, 152, 156.

Footnote 589:

W. Malms. u. s. “Urbem igitur illam, quam contaminatæ gentis repurgio defæcaverat, turribus munivit, muro ex quadratis lapidibus cinxit.” Eadward the Elder had before fortified Towcester with a stone wall (“lapideo muro,” Fl. Wig. 918), but the wall of Exeter is distinctly said to have been of squared stone. The difference between a hedge and a wall was known ages before, when Ida fortified Bamburgh. “Sy wæs ærost mid hegge betined, and þær æfter mid wealle” (Chron. 547); but this “wall” need not have been of stone.

In short our accounts help us to four stages in the history of fortification. First, the hedge or palisade; secondly, the wall of earth, or of earth and rough stones combined; thirdly, the wall of masonry, as at Towcester; fourthly, the wall of squared stones, as at Exeter. The fifth stage, the Norman Castle, does not appear till the reign of Eadward the Confessor.

Footnote 590:

Chron. in anno. “Þær fæstlice feohtende wæron, ac him man swyðe fæstlice wiðstod and heardlice.”

Footnote 591:

Fl. Wig. in anno. “Dum murum illius destruere moliretur, a civibus urbem viriliter defendentibus repellitur [paganorum exercitus].”

Footnote 592:

Ib. “Unde nimis exasperatos more solito,” &c.

Footnote 593:

“Æt Peonnho” in the Chronicles; there seems no reason to doubt that this is the place.

Footnote 594:

Fl. Wig. in anno. “Angli pro militum paucitate Danorum multitudinem non ferentes.”

Footnote 595:

Cod. Dipl. iii. 318. “Talibus mandatorum Christi sententiis a meis frequentius præmonitus consiliariis, et ab ipso summo omnium largitore bonorum dirissimis hostium graviter nos depopulantium creberrime angustiatus flagellis, ego Æðelredus rex Anglorum [an unusually lowly style], ut supradictæ merear particeps fore promissionis, quoddam Christo et sancto suo, germano scilicet meo, Eadwardo, quem proprio cruore perfusum per multiplicia virtutum signa, ipse Dominus nostris mirificare dignatus est temporibus,” &c. &c. So afterwards, “quatenus adversus barbarorum insidias ipsa religiosa congregatio cum beati martyris cæterorumque sanctorum reliquiis,” &c., and “adepto postmodum, si Dei misericordia ita providerit, pacis tempore.” The observance of Eadward’s mass-day was ordered in 1008.

Footnote 596:

Cod. Dipl. vi. 140.

Footnote 597:

Ib. iii. 322. Ælfthryth could not have been dead very long, as she signs the charter of 999, in Cod. Dipl. iii. 312.

Footnote 598:

So William of Malmesbury, ii. 165; “Exagitabant illum umbræ fraternæ, diras exigentes inferias.” Yet Æthelred had no share in the murder; he only reaped, quite unconsciously, the advantage of his mother’s crime.

Footnote 599:

The joint action of the King and the Witan is well marked in the Chronicles; “Þa sende se cyning to þam flotan Leofsige ealdorman; and he þa, þæs cyninges worde and his witena, grið wið hi gesette.” Leofsige signs a charter of 997 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 304) as “Orientalium Saxonum dux.” He probably succeeded Brihtnoth. See above, p. 270. We find another mention of him in Cod. Dipl. vi. 129.

Footnote 600:

Chron. and Fl. in anno. See also Cod. Dipl. iii. 356, where the story is told. Æfic was “dish-thegn” to the young Æthelings. See Cod. Dipl. iii. 293. He had a brother Eadwine or Eadwig, mentioned in the same will, of whom we shall hear again. In Cod. Dipl. iii. 356 Æthelred calls him “præfectus meus, quem primatem inter primates meos taxavi.”

Footnote 601:

Cod. Dipl. iii. 356. “Inii consilium cum sapientibus regni mei petens, ut quid fieri placuisset de illo decernerent, placuitque in communes nobis eum exsulare et extorrem a nobis fieri cum complicibus suis.” Leofsige’s lands, after some difficulties on the part of his widowed sister Æthelflæd, who was herself banished, were granted in 1012 to Godwine, Bishop of Rochester, as personal property. There must be a mistake when “Leofsige ealdorman” signs a doubtful charter as late as 1006. Cod. Dipl. iii. 351.

Footnote 602:

“On þam ilcan lenctene.” I do not know why Mr. Thorpe translates it “autumn.”

Footnote 603:

To this meeting belongs the grant to the Thegn Godwine (Cod. Dipl. vi. 143), as it is signed by “Ælfgifu conlaterana regis.” But the following document (No. 1297) belongs to an earlier meeting, I suspect to an intermediate one. This year Eadwulf Archbishop of York died and was succeeded by Wulfstan Bishop of London, not Abbot Wulfstan, as Florence has it. Now the Charter quoted above (Cod. Dipl. iii. 322) is signed by Eadwulf and by Wulfstan as Bishop. This of course belongs to the first meeting. The Charter to Godwine, which the Lady signs, is also signed by Wulfstan as Archbishop. But No. 1297 (Cod. Dipl. vi. 145) is signed by Wulfstan as Bishop, and not by Eadwulf. This seems to point to an intermediate Gemót, held while the see of York was vacant, and at which Wulfstan was probably nominated to it.

Footnote 604:

On the details of the massacre, see Appendix GG.

Footnote 605:

See Appendix GG.

Footnote 606:

See above, p. 280.

Footnote 607:

Florence mentions him at Exeter, the Chronicles not till later in the year, but they seem to take him for granted.

Footnote 608:

The Chronicles have, “her was Exanceaster abrocen þunruh þone Franciscan _ceorl_ Hugan, ðe seo hlæfdige hire hæfde geset to gerefan.” But Florence has, “per _insilium_, incuriam, et traditionem Nortmannici _comitis_ Hugonis, quem regina Emma Domnaniæ præfecit.” Henry of Huntingdon (752 B) says, “Hugonem Normannum, quem ibi regina Emma vicecomitem [gerefan?] statuerat, in perniciem compegerunt.” Florence seems to have read _eorl_ where our copies of the Chronicles have _ceorl_; also he seems to make Hugh Ealdorman of Devonshire, while in the Chronicles he is only reeve of Exeter. The “Frenchmen” of the Chronicles may always be Normans or not; most likely Hugh was a Norman.

The “_in_silium” of Florence is an attempt to express in Latin the negative form “unræd.” See above, p. 261.

Footnote 609:

Flor. Wig. “Civitatem Exanceastram infregit, spoliavit, murum ab orientali usque ad occidentalem portam destruxit.” This does not imply the complete destruction of the city. But Henry of Huntingdon says, “urbem totam funditus destruxerunt,” which is doubtless an exaggeration.

Footnote 610:

“Alfricus dux supra memoratus” says Florence; it is clear that this is Ælfric, the traitor of 992.

Footnote 611:

See above, p. 280.

Footnote 612:

Chron. 1003. “Þa gebræd he hine seocne, and ongan he hine brecan to spiwenne, and cwæð þæt he gesicled wære.”

Footnote 613:

Like Lydiadas at Ladokeia and Philopoimên at Sellasia. See Hist. Fed. Gov. i. 450, 497.

Footnote 614:

Flor. Wig. “A suis inimicis sine pugna divertit mœstissimus.” The Chronicles, and after them Florence and Henry, quote a proverb, “Þonne se heretoga wacað, þonne bið eall se here swiðe gehindred.”

Footnote 615:

See many passages in Grote’s History of Greece, especially the remarks on the death of Epameinôndas; x. 477.

Footnote 616:

Il. xx. 216;

κτίσσε δὲ Δαρδανίην, ἐπεὶ οὔπω Ἴλιος ἱρὴ ἐν πεδίῳ πεπόλιστο, πόλις μερόπων ἀνθρώπων, ἀλλ’ ἔθ’ ὑπωρείας ᾤκεον πολυπιδάκου Ἴδης.

Πολυπίδακος however would be the most inappropriate of epithets for Old Sarum, which, in the days of its greatness, was “well provided otherwise of all commodities, but wanted water so unreasonably as (a strange kind of merchandise) it was there to be sold.” (Godwin, translating William of Malmesbury, Gest. Pont. p. 183.)

Footnote 617:

The Chronicler here, though writing in prose, gets poetical, and calls the ships “horses of the wave”—“þær he wiste his yð hengestas.”

Footnote 618:

On Ulfcytel, see Appendix HH.

Footnote 619:

Chron. in anno. “Þa gerædde Ulfcytel wið þa witan on East-Englum.” Flor. Wig. “Cum majoribus East-Angliæ habito concilio.” See Kemble, ii. 257.

Footnote 620:

So I understand the narrative in the Chronicles, which seems to imply that the measures of Ulfcytel were taken as soon as the Danes began their march, but before they reached Thetford, while Florence does not mention Ulfcytel as doing anything till after he hears of the burning of the town.

Footnote 621:

I modernize the words of the Chronicles. “Swa hi sylfe sædon, þæt hi næfre wyrsan handplegan on Angelcynne ne gemetton, þonne Ulfcytel him to brohte.” So Florence, “ut enim ipsi testati sunt, durius et asperius bellum in Anglia numquam experti sunt quam illis dux Ulfketel intulerat.” Cf. Will. Malms. ii. 165.

Footnote 622:

Chron. in anno. “Þær wearð East-Engla folces seo _yld_ [_yldesta_] ofslægan.” See on the sense of this word and its cognates, p. 75.]

Footnote 623:

Cod. Dipl. iii. 339; vi. 152.

Footnote 624:

On the rise of Eadric, see Appendix II.

Footnote 625:

On Wulfgeat, see Appendix II.

Footnote 626:

See Appendix KK.

Footnote 627:

“Id est Oppidi Canis,” says Florence. Perhaps Godwine was only a _butcher_, as Lappenberg makes him. This is the more usual mediæval sense of _Carnifex_, but the surname sounds as if he were an official person.

Footnote 628:

I give this story a place in the text with fear and trembling. Did it not rest on the authority of Florence, I should at once cast it aside as legendary. The hunting-party has a very mythical sound, being in fact part of the legend of Eadgar and Ælfthryth. (Cf. Dio, lxix. 2; ὡς ἐν θήρᾳ δῆθεν ἐπιβεβουλευκότες αὐτῷ.) And one might be a little suspicious as to Eadric’s position at Shrewsbury. Why should Eadric be more at home there than Ælfhelm? The teller of the tale might almost seem to have looked on Eadric as already Ealdorman of the Mercians, and as therefore naturally called on to receive his Northumbrian brother in one of the chief towns of his government. But for Florence to insert, like William of Malmesbury, a mere piece of a ballad without even the attraction of a miracle, is most unlikely. Florence, as I shall presently show, is not infallible, but few writers are less given to romance. I therefore accept the story, though I do not feel perfect confidence in it.

Footnote 629:

This story comes from a separate tract by Simeon of Durham on the Earls of the Northumbrians (X Scriptt. 79). By some strange confusion, it is there put under the year 979, the first year of Æthelred. If it happened at all, it must have happened in this year, the only one which suits the position of the King, Bishop, and Earl spoken of. Ealdhun became Bishop in 990, and removed the see to Durham in 995. Malcolm began to reign in 1004; a Northumbrian earldom became vacant in 1006. This fixes the date. The authority of Simeon is, I think, guaranty enough for the general truth of the story, and the silence of the Chronicles and Florence is not conclusive as to a Northumbrian matter. The story also derives some sort of confirmation from a passage of Fordun (Scot. Hist. iv. 39, p. 683, Gale), which is very vague and confused, but which at least implies warfare of some kind between Malcolm and Uhtred. “Othredum itaque comitem Anglicum, sed Danis subditum, cujus inter eos simultatis exortæ caussam nescio, Cumbriam prædari conantem, receptis prædis, juxta Burgum bello difficili superavit.”

Footnote 630:

See p. 292.

Footnote 631:

See Appendix KK.

Footnote 632:

The heads of the handsomest of the slain Scots, with their long twisted hair, were exposed on the walls of Durham. They were previously washed by four women, each of whom received a cow for her pains. So at least says Simeon, p. 80.

Footnote 633:

See Appendix II.

Footnote 634:

Sim. Dun. p. 80. So J. Wallingford, 546.

Footnote 635:

Florence says, “Cum iis fortiter dimicare statuit;” but there are no words exactly answering to them in the Chronicles.

Footnote 636:

So Florence, again without direct support from the Chronicles; “illi cum eo palam confligere nullatenus voluerunt.”

Footnote 637:

See Mr. Earle’s note, p. 335.

Footnote 638:

Chron. “And se here com þa ofer þa Martines mæssan _to his fryðstole Wihtlande_, ... and þa to þam middan wintran eodon him to _heora gearwan feorme_, út þurh Hamtunscire into Bearrucscire to Readingon.” So H. Hunt. M. H. B. 752 D. “Quæ parata erant hilariter comedentes.”

Footnote 639:

Chronn. “And wendon him ða _andlang_ Æscesdune to Cwichelmes hlæwe.” It has been distinctly shown by Mr. James Parker that Æscesdún means the whole ridge which the Danes marched along from the east to the barrow at Cwichelmes hlæw. On the Scirgemót—was it not something more than a mere Scirgemót?—at Cwichelmeshlæw, see Cod. Dipl. iii. 292. The prophecy comes from the Chronicles; it is left out by Florence.

Footnote 640:

The Chronicler here becomes very emphatic and eloquent, setting down no doubt what he had seen with his own eyes. Florence, harmonizing eighty or ninety years after, is much briefer.

Footnote 641:

See Appendix II.

Footnote 642:

Thorpe, i. 304; Schmid, 220.

Footnote 643:

Cap. 2. “And úres hláfordes gerǽdnes and his witena is, þæt man cristene menn and unforworhte of earde ne sylle, ne huru on hǽðene leóde, ac beorge man geórne, þæt man þá sáwla ne forfare, þa Crist mid his ágenum lífe gebohte.” The same practice is forbidden in the Capitularies of Charles the Bald. See Waitz, iv. 288. So Smaragdus de Via Regia, c. 30 (D’Achery, i. 253); “Prohibe ergo, clementissime rex, ne in regno tuo captivitas fiat.”

Footnote 644:

The _witeðeow_ seems to be forbidden by a capitulary of Charles the Great. Aquis, 813 (Pertz, iii. 189); “Ut vicarii eos qui pro furto se in servitio tradere cupiunt non consentiant.”

Footnote 645:

This seems to be implied in the word _unforworhte_—in the Latin text (Schmid, 237) _insontem_.

Footnote 646:

It occurs in nearly the same words in the Statute of Enham, c. 9, and in the Laws of Cnut, Thorpe, i. 376.

Footnote 647:

Cap. 16 (Thorpe, i. 308). “And Sce Eâdwardes mæsse-dæg witan habbað gecoren, þæt man freólsian sceal ofer eal Engla-land on xv. Kal. Aprilis.” Mark the way in which the Witan, as a matter of course, pass an ordinance on this matter, which a century or two later would have been held to be a matter of purely ecclesiastical concern.

Footnote 648:

Cap. 34, 35. “Ealle we scylan ǽnne God lúfian and weorðian, and ǽnne cristendóm georne healdan, and ælcne hǽðendóm mid ealle áweorpan.”

“And utan ǽnne cyne-hláford holdlíce healdan; and líf and land samod ealle werian, swá wel swá we betst magan, and God ealmihtigne inwerdre heortan fultumes biddan.”

Footnote 649:

Will. Malms. ii. 156.

Footnote 650:

See p. 280.

Footnote 651:

Cap. 27.

Footnote 652:

Cap. 28.

Footnote 653:

Cap. 26.

Footnote 654:

Thorpe, i. 314; Schmid, 226.

Footnote 655:

It is headed, “Be Witena gerǽdnessan.” The statute begins, “Ðis sindon þá gerǽdnessa, þe Engla rǽd-gifan gecuran and gecwǽdan, and geornlice lǽrdan, þæt man scolde healdan.” And many clauses begin, “And witena gerǽdnes is.” Mr. Kemble (ii. 212) remarks, “If it were not for one or two enactments referring to the safety of the royal person and the dignity of the crown, we might be almost tempted to imagine that the great councillors of state had met, during Æðelred’s flight from England, and passed these laws upon their own authority, without the King.”

This is possible, and even tempting, but on the whole I think they must belong to the years 1007–9. The great importance given to naval preparations seems distinctly to refer them to this time. After the return of Æthelred from Normandy in 1014 we read of no attempt at naval warfare.

Footnote 656:

See above, p. 52.

Footnote 657:

See Appendix LL.

Footnote 658:

Cod. Dipl. iii. 352.

Footnote 659:

On the ship-money see Mr. Bruce’s Prefaces to the Calendars of State Papers for 1634–5, pp. xxv. et seqq., and for 1635, pp. x. et seqq.

Footnote 660:

Hen. Hunt. M. H. B. 753 A.

Footnote 661:

Will. Gem. v. 7. But this writer makes Swegen sail to Northumberland immediately after the massacre in 1002, whereas he did not go thither till 1013. So it is impossible to fix the time to which the treaty should be referred. William may have confounded York and Exeter, or the treaty may belong to a time later than Swegen’s invasion of Northumberland.

Footnote 662:

Will. Gem. v. 8; Roman de Rou, 6868.

Footnote 663:

I here follow the words of the Chronicles almost literally.

Footnote 664:

See Appendix HH.

Footnote 665:

See Appendix MM.

Footnote 666:

Chron. “And þohte þæt he him micles wordes wyrcan sæolde.”

Footnote 667:

“Þa ðis þus cuð wǽs tó þam oðerum scipum þær se cyng wǽs, hu ða oþre geferdon, hit wæs þa swilc hit eall rædleas wǽre; and ferde sé cyning him hám, and þá ealdormen and ða heahwitan, and forleton þa scipu ðús leohtlice; and þæt folc þa þæt on ðam scipon wæron fercodon [þa scypo] eft to Lundene, and leton ealles þeodscypes geswinc ðus leohtlice fórwurðan, and næs sé sige na betere þe eall Angelcyn tó hopode.”

Footnote 668:

On the career and character of Thurkill, see Appendix NN.

Footnote 669:

See Chron. and Florence in anno, and cf. Appendix NN.

Footnote 670:

See above, p. 323.

Footnote 671:

“East-Centingas.” Chron.

Footnote 672:

That is, if Rochester, with the strange diocese which modern arrangements have attached to it, can any longer be looked upon as a Kentish bishopric.

Footnote 673:

Flor. 1009. “Rex ... multis millibus armatorum instructus, et, ut totus erat exercitus, mori vel vincere paratus.” But the Chronicles guarantee only the devotion of the army, not that of its leader.

Footnote 674:

The Chronicles say only “Ac hit wæs þa þuruh Eadric ealdorman gelet, swa hit gyt æfre wæs.” Florence describes the meaning of this “letting;” “Insidiis et perplexis orationibus ne prœlium inirent, sed ea vice suos hostes abire permitterent, modis omnibus allaboravit.”

Footnote 675:

One can hardly conceive that the movements of the Danes were at all regulated by Lent and Easter; yet the language of our authority seems to imply it.

Footnote 676:

Chronn. in anno. The Danes are met by “Ulfcytel mid his fyrde.” We then read, “sona flugon East-Engle. Þa stod Grantabricscir fæstlice ongean.” The treason of Thurcytel and the names of the slain also come from the Chronicles. Florence adds the name of the place, Ringmere, which occurs also in the confused accounts in the Sagas. See Appendix HH and TT.

Footnote 677:

See Appendix SS.

Footnote 678:

See above, p. 314.

Footnote 679:

See Appendix OO.

Footnote 680:

“Man,” according to the familiar German idiom; it is impossible to modernize the English without it, unless the whole force were to be lost.

Footnote 681:

_Heafodman_ = _Captain_, like the German _Hauptmann_.

Footnote 682:

“And þonne hi tó scipon ferdon, þonne sceolde fyrd ut éft ongean þæt hi up woldan; þonne ferde seo fyrd ham, and þonne bí wæron be easton þonne heold man fyrde be westan, and þonne hí wæron be suðan, þonne wæs ure fyrd be norðan. Þonne bead man eallan witan to cynge, and man sceolde þonne rædan hu man þisne eard werian sceolde. Ac þeah mon þonne hwæt rædde, þæt ne stód furðon ænne monað. Æt nextan næs nan heafodman þet fyrde gaderian wolde, ac ælc fleah swa hí mæst mihte, ne furðon nan scír nolde oþre gelæstan æt nextan.”

Footnote 683:

The Chronicles and Florence give the names. William of Malmesbury, though professing to be at least half an Englishman, is too dainty to copy the uncouth names of English shires. “Cum numerentur in Anglia triginta duo pagi, illi jam sedecim invaserant, _quorum nomina propter barbariem linguæ scribere refugio_.” (ii. 165.)

Footnote 684:

The Chronicles reckon Hastings, “Hæstingas,” as distinct from Sussex.

Footnote 685:

Chron. and Flor. Wig. in anno. Thietmar, who, for a time, becomes an authority of some value, is amusing in the way in which he brings in English affairs (vii. 26, ap. Pertz, iii. 847). “Audivi sæpius numero, Anglos, ab angelica facie, id est pulcra, sive quod in angulo istius terræ siti sunt, dictos, ineffabilem miseriam a Sueino, Haraldi filio, immiti Danorum rege, perpessos esse, et ad id coactos, ut qui prius tributarii erant principis apostolorum Petri ac sancti patris eorum Gregorii spirituales filii, immundis canibus impositum sibi censum quotannis solverent, et maximam regni suimet partem, capto ac interemto habitatore, tunc hosti _fiducialiter_ in habitandam inviti relinquerent.” This last clause reads more like a description of the settlement of Guthrum than of anything that happened in Swegen’s time.

Footnote 686:

“Ealle þas ungesealða us gelumpon þurh _unrædes_.” Is there an allusion to the name of Æthel_red_, and is this the origin of his nickname of _Unready_? See above, p. 261.

Footnote 687:

It is suggested by Lappenberg, ii. 175.

Footnote 688:

The last entry is in 991 (see above, p. 284). The next is in 1033. Yet these Chronicles are rather lavish than otherwise of notices of English affairs.

Footnote 689:

Brut y Tywysogion, 1011. “One year and one thousand and ten was the year of Christ, when Menevia was devastated by the Saxons, to wit, by Entris and Ubis.” Annales Camb. 1012. “Menevia a Saxonibus vastata est, scilicet Edris et Ubis.” Ann. Menevenses, 1011 (Angl. Sacr. ii. 648). “Menevia vastatur a Saxonibus, scilicet Edrich et Umbrich.” Here at last we get Eadric’s right name; who Ubis or Umbrich may have been it is vain to guess.

Footnote 690:

On the siege of Canterbury and martyrdom of Ælfheah, see Appendix PP.

Footnote 691:

The signatures of Godwine of Rochester seem to extend from 995 to 1046. Professor Stubbs (Reg. Sac. Angl. 17, 18) seems uncertain whether they belong to one man or two. The famous Odo held the see of Bayeux for as long a time.

Footnote 692:

Will. Malms, ii. 184. But see Wharton’s note to Osbern, Anglia Sacra, ii. 124. Ælfheah’s sojourn at Glastonbury seems doubtful. He was a monk at Bath, and he probably was Abbot there. (Flor. Wig. 984.) It should be remembered that Bath was then an independent abbey. See vol. iv. p. 421.

Footnote 693:

See Appendix PP.

Footnote 694:

Pelting people with bones at dinner seems to have been an established Danish custom. It is allowed as the punishment of certain lesser offences by Cnut’s “Witherlags Ret.” Swegen Aggesson, ap. Langebek, iii. 148. See also a mythical story in Saxo, 115.

Footnote 695:

See vol. iv. p. 442.

Footnote 696:

On Thurkill’s conduct, see Appendix NN.

Footnote 697:

See above, pp. 308–309.

Footnote 698:

See Encomium Emmæ, i. 2, and Appendix NN.

Footnote 699:

Encomium Emmæ, i. 4.

Footnote 700:

Compare the saying of Thurkill just before; he will give any quantity of gold and silver, anything _except his ship_, to redeem the life of Ælfheah.

Footnote 701:

Compare the description of the splendid ship given by Godwine to Harthacnut, Flor. Wig. 1040. Archbishop Ælfric also leaves King Æthelred his best ship with its accoutrements. Cod. Dipl. iii. 351.

Footnote 702:

See above, p. 329.

Footnote 703:

He “soon” (sona) submitted, say the Chronicles; “sine cunctatione” says Florence. William of Malmesbury (ii. 176) makes the most of it; “Non quod in illorum mentibus genuinus ille calor, et dominorum impatiens, refriguerit, sed quod princeps eorum Uhtredus primus exemplum dederit.”

Footnote 704:

See above, p. 62.

Footnote 705:

“Sibi lectos auxiliarios de deditis sumens,” says Florence. This seems also implied in the words of the Chronicles; “And hé þá wende syððan suðweard mid _fulre fyrde_.” _Fyrd_ means the legal military array of an English district; the Danish army is always _here_.

Footnote 706:

The Chronicles distinctly mark the geographical limit of his ravages; “And syððan hé com ofer Wætlinga stræte, hi wrohton þæt mæste yfel þe ænig here don mihte.”

Footnote 707:

Flor. Wig. “Suis edictum posuit, videlicet, ut agros vastarent,” &c.

Footnote 708:

William of Malmesbury (ii. 177), in the middle of his confused narrative of this reign, lavishes a vast amount of fine writing on this siege of London. The drowning of the Danes in the Thames is attributed to the valour of the citizens, with which it clearly had nothing to do. His character of the Londoners does not badly describe that of the English generally; “Laudandi prorsus viri, et quos Mars ipse collata non sperneret hasta, si ducem habuissent.” But the Londoners had a leader, only William throughout refuses to name any honourable act of Thurkill.

Footnote 709:

Florence ventures to say, “Æthelredus ... muros viriliter defendit.”

Footnote 710:

See Appendix QQ.

Footnote 711:

Compare Thucydides’ comment (iv. 12) on the battle at Pylos, where the natural parts of the Lacedæmonians and the Athenians were reversed in the like way; ἐς τοῦτό τε περιέστη ἡ τύχη ὥστε Ἀθηναίους μὲν ἐκ γῆς τε καὶ ταύτης Λακωνικῆς ἀμύνεσθαι ἐκείνους ἐπιπλέοντας, Λακεδαιμονίους δὲ ἐκ νεῶν τε καὶ ἐς τὴν ἑαυτῶν πολεμίαν οὖσαν ἐπ’ Ἀθηναίους ἀποβαίνειν.

Footnote 712:

The Chronicles distinctly make Emma and her sons go at two different times, and they rather imply that Emma went of her own accord. “_Seo hlæfdige wende_ þa ofer sǽ to hire broðor Ricarde and Ælfsige abbod of Burh mid hire; and se cyning sende Ælfun bisceop mid þam æðelingum Eadwearde and Ælfrede ofer sǽ.” Florence and William mix up the two things together, but this trait in Emma’s character should not be forgotten.

Footnote 713:

William of Malmesbury (ii. 177), seemingly to avoid naming Thurkill, confuses everything. He makes Æthelred fly secretly from London to Southampton, and thence to the Isle of Wight. He there holds a synod of Bishops and Abbots (see Appendix OO), makes a long speech to them, and sends Emma and the children across. Roger of Wendover tells the same story, only without mentioning the Bishops. William of Jumièges (v. 7) has a romance about Æthelred bringing over some hidden treasures which he kept concealed at Winchester. He fancies that Æthelred was living there, whereas the city was in the power of Swegen. William, by this secret flight of Æthelred, at least avoids this absurdity.

Footnote 714:

Roger of Wendover sends him across with a hundred and forty “milites.” For a minute and highly-coloured version of the whole story, see Mr. St. John, ii. 34.

Footnote 715:

Chron. 1013. “Þa bead Swegen ful gyld and metsunge to hís here ðóne winter, and Þurkyl bead þæt ylce to ðam here þé læg æt Grenawíc, and for eallon þam hí heregodon swa oft swa hí woldon.”

Footnote 716:

See above, pp. 44, 162, 268.

Footnote 717:

The epithet of Great however, in Danish annals, belongs not to him but to his grandson Swegen Estrithson. Chron. Roskild. ap. Langebek, i. 378.

Footnote 718:

See Appendix QQ.

Footnote 719:

“Clericos,” says Florence; for Saint Eadmund’s was then held by secular priests. It was Cnut who first placed monks there.

Footnote 720:

Florence calls it “generale placitum,” the same name which he applies to the “mycel gemót,” the “magnum placitum,” of the next year.

Footnote 721:

“Magno cruciatus tormento, tertio nonas Februarii miserabili morte vitam finivit.”

Footnote 722:

“Swegen geendode his dagas,” says the Chronicle, not a very usual expression. It is applied two years afterwards to Æthelred, and, long before, under 946, to the first Eadmund.

Footnote 723:

“Animam remittendo cœlestibus,” says the Encomiast (i. 5); “diro corporis cruciatu ad tartara transmissus,” says Roger of Wendover (i. 449).

Footnote 724:

The Encomiast (i. 3 et al.) has more to tell of Harold than other writers. He makes Harold the younger brother, which seems odd. Harold is not mentioned by Saxo, but his name is found in the Danish chronicles. According to the Chronicle of Eric (Lang. i. 159), the Danes deposed Harold and elected Cnut, then deposed Cnut, on account of his frequent absences from Denmark, and restored Harold, on whose death Cnut finally succeeded. In the Knytlinga Saga, c. 8, Harold dies before Swegen.

Footnote 725:

The Knytlinga Saga seems (Johnstone, 101) to make him only ten years old in 1008; but nothing can be made of its chronology.

Footnote 726:

Chron. “And cwædon þat him nan hlaford leofra nære þonne heora gecynda hlaford [in the Canterbury Chronicle _cyne-hlaford_], gif he hi rihtlicor healdan wolde þonne he ær dyde.”

Footnote 727:

Flor. Wig. 1014. “Promittens se ... in omnibus eorum voluntati consensurum consiliis acquieturum.”

Footnote 728:

Florence says only, “Principes se non amplius Danicum regem admissuros in Angliam unanimiter spoponderunt.” But the Chronicles say expressly, “æfre ælcne Deniscne cyning utlah of Englalande gecwædon.”

Footnote 729:

Thorpe, i. 340; Schmid, p. 242.

Footnote 730:

§§ 36, 37, 38. “And wíse wǽran worold-witan þe tó god-cundan rihtlagan worold-laga settan, folce tó steóre, and Crist and cyninge gerihtan þá bóte, þár man swá scolde manega for neóde gewildan tó rihte.”

“Ac on þám gemótan, þeáh rǽdlice wurðan on namcúðan stowan, æfter Eádgares líf-dagum, Cristes lage wanodan, and cyninges lage lytledon.”

“And þa man getwǽmde, þæt ǽr wǽs gemǽne Criste and cyninge on woroldlícre steóre, and á hit weorð þé wyrse for Gode and for worlde; cume nú to bóte, gif hit God wille.” Cf. § 43, where the three Kings are named.

Footnote 731:

Printed in Hickes’ Thesaurus, vol. i. pt. iii. p. 99. See Appendix RR.

Footnote 732:

Northern tradition assigns to Olaf Haraldsson, afterwards Saint Olaf, a share in this campaign on the English side. But the account, like most of the accounts in the sagas, is utterly unintelligible. See Appendix VV.

Footnote 733:

The comment of the Chronicler is remarkable; “And wearð þæt earme folc þus beswicen þurh hine.” Cnut betrayed them to Æthelred!

Footnote 734:

The Chronicles say twenty-one, Florence, thirty thousand. Henry of Huntingdon follows the Chronicles.

Footnote 735:

See Appendix NN.

Footnote 736:

Chron. and Flor. in anno. Henry of Huntingdon introduces the fact with the words, “Addidit autem Dominus malis solitis malum insolitum.”

Footnote 737:

On the children of Æthelred see Appendix SS.

Footnote 738:

See the story in Will. Malms. Gest. Pont. p. 315, ed. Hamilton.

Footnote 739:

See the Chronicles in the years 571 and 777.

Footnote 740:

See above, p. 316, and Appendix GG, and the curious story recorded in the charter of Æthelred, 995, in Cod. Dipl. vi. 128. We there hear of the church of Saint Helen, which has vanished in later times, and we get the name of “Winsige, præpositus on Oxonaforda.”

Footnote 741:

Chron. in anno. “þæt mycel Gemót.” Flor. Wig. “Magnum placitum.” W. Malms. “Magnum concilium.” The one Charter (Cod. Dipl. vi. 167) of this year, and therefore probably of this Gemót, is a grant to Bishop Beorhtwold (Brihtwold) of Sherborne of lands at Chilton in Berkshire, formerly held by Wulfgeat, who was disgraced and his property confiscated in 1006.

Footnote 742:

The Five Boroughs with the addition of York and Chester. Such at least is the probable conjecture of Lingard, i. 296.

Footnote 743:

If Eadric was now restored to his old office of Ealdorman of the Mercians, Oxford would be a town in his government, and the duty of hospitality towards the Witan from other districts would naturally fall upon him. See above, p. 327.

Footnote 744:

The marriage of Eadmund and his establishment in the North are recorded by the Chronicles and by Florence, but more fully by William of Malmesbury. As his details in no way contradict, but in some degree explain, the account in the Chronicles, I do not scruple to follow him.

Footnote 745:

“Visam concupivit, concupitæ communionem habuit,” says William. That the “communio” was a lawful marriage is clear from the distinct words of the Chronicles and from William’s own words afterwards. The presence of Ealdgyth at Oxford suggests a question whether the Witan usually brought their wives with them to these assemblies. The question is not a frivolous one, as it bears on another, namely the time which meetings of this sort usually lasted.

All the Chronicles speak of Eadmund’s wife as Sigeferth’s widow, and Florence gives her the name of Ealdgyth. But in the will of Wulfric (Cod. Dipl. vi. 149) we find an Ealdgyth wife of Morkere. Is there a mistake of any kind, or did the brothers marry wives bearing the same name?

Footnote 746:

I speak vaguely, because William of Malmesbury surely goes too far when he speaks of “comitatus Sigeferdi, qui apud Northanhimbros amplissimus erat.”

Footnote 747:

Was this submission willing or unwilling? The Chronicles are neutral. “Gerad sona ealle Sigeferðes áre and Morcores; and þæt folc eal to him beah.” Florence says, “Terram Sigeferthi et Morkeri invasit, ac populum illarum sibi subjugavit.” But William has, “Comitatum ... suapte industria vendicavit, hominibus ejusdem provinciæ in obsequium ejus facile cedentibus.”

Footnote 748:

The Roskild Annals (Langebek, i. 376) make Eadmund imprison Cnut and Olaf of Norway (who is here said to have accompanied Swegen); but who, in other accounts (see Appendix VV), was vigorously fighting on the English side. They escape from prison and fly to Bremen, where Archbishop Unwan baptizes them. For this writer’s wonderful succession of the English Kings, see also Appendix VV.

Footnote 749:

Encomium Emmæ, ii. 2.

Footnote 750:

The presence of Harold is asserted by Thietmar, vii. 28.

Footnote 751:

This is the version of the Encomiast, ii. 3. See Appendix NN.

Footnote 752:

Enc. Emmæ, ii. 4.

Footnote 753:

Chron. Rosk. ap. Lang. i. 376.

Footnote 754:

Enc. Emmæ, ii. 4. “In tanta expeditione nullus inveniebatur servus, nullus ex servo libertus, nullus ignobilis, nullus senili ætate debilis. Omnes enim erant nobiles, omnes plenæ ætatis robore valentes.” When nobles were so plentiful, one is tempted to ask in what nobility consisted?

Footnote 755:

“Be norðan,” say the Chronicles.

Footnote 756:

See Appendix NN.

Footnote 757:

They crossed “cum multo equitatu,” says Florence; “mid his here” say the Chronicles, only the Peterborough and Canterbury manuscripts (one of which, Canterbury, omits the words “mid his here”) add “clx. scipa.” Do they mean that Cnut sailed up the Thames? The other reading is distinctly preferable.

Footnote 758:

Here is a distinct allusion to the various passages in the laws of this reign, denouncing penalties on those who fail to attend the royal muster. See above, p. 337.

Footnote 759:

The Chronicles mention the ravaging without assigning any cause; Florence adds, “quia adversus Danorum exercitum ad pugnam exire noluerunt.” William of Malmesbury sets forth the policy of this severe course at some length.

Footnote 760:

“Bea þa for nede,” say the Chronicles; William of Malmesbury again expands at some length. Simeon (X Scriptt. p. 80) makes Cnut summon Uhtred to submit, to which summons the Earl returns a spirited reply. But after Æthelred’s death he yielded. The chronology is wrong, as Uhtred certainly submitted before Æthelred’s death, but the facts are likely enough.

Footnote 761:

His extent of territory is well marked by William of Malmesbury; “Commendatis West-Saxonibus, et Merciorum parte quam subjecerat, ducibus suis, ipse in Northanhimbros profectus.” London probably protected Essex. We hear nothing of East-Anglia, but see Appendix NN.

Footnote 762:

The murders of Uhtred and Thurcytel are mentioned in the Chronicles; Florence adds the name of Thurbrand. The other details come from the tract of Simeon before quoted. The share of Eadric in the business comes from one version of the Chronicles.

Footnote 763:

The Earl thus appointed appears as Yric, Egricus, Iricius, Hyrc. Yet Mr. Thorpe not only, in his edition of Florence, invests Eadric himself with the earldom, but thrusts—without any sign of interpolation—this erroneous statement into the text of his translation of Lappenberg (ii. 186), whereas, in the original (452), Lappenberg is silent about the fate of Uhtred altogether. On the past history of Eric, see the Saga of Olaf Haraldsson, c. 13; Laing’s Heimskringla, ii. 192.

Footnote 764:

The Chronicles seem to place Eadmund’s departure for London after the submission of Uhtred, Florence places it before. William says, “Ita subjectis omnibus, Edmundum, per semetra fugitantem, non prius persequi destitit [Cnuto] quam Londoniam ad patrem pervenisse cognosceret.”

Footnote 765:

William adds, “usque post pascha quievit, ut cum omnibus copiis urbem adoriretur.”

Footnote 766:

On all the points of the Double Election, see Appendix TT.

Footnote 767:

“Unanimi consensu,” says Florence.

Footnote 768:

See Appendix SS.

Footnote 769:

This surname is not only found in the Latin writers, but also in the poem in the Chronicles on the return of Eadmund’s son Eadward in 1057;

“Eadmund cing Irensíd was geclypod For his snellscipe.”

Footnote 770:

On the order of events in the war of Cnut and Eadmund, see Appendix VV.

Footnote 771:

The date is fixed in the Chronicles, “to þam gangdagum;” so in Florence, “circa rogationes.”

Footnote 772:

The first ditch is recorded in the Chronicles, which say expressly, “Hi ða dulfon áne mycle díc on suð healfe.” William of Malmesbury (ii. 18o), though he places the work later, after the battle of Sherstone, speaks of the other ditch which surrounded the city, reaching no doubt from the river to the river again; “fossa etiam urbem, qua fluvio Tamensi non alluitur, foris totam cinxerat.” That these are not two descriptions of the same ditch appears from the account in Florence, which takes in both; “in australi parte Tamensis magnam scrobem foderunt, et naves suas in occidentalem plagam pontis traxerunt; dein urbem alta lataque fossa et obsidione cingentes,” &c. &c. I therefore, with Lappenberg (ii. 188), understand the story as I have told it in the text; the phrase “traxerunt” (so in the Chronicles “drogon”) seems to mean that the ships were towed along the new-made canal.

Footnote 773:

Flor. Wig. “In West-Saxoniam abierunt propere, et regi Eadmundo Ferreo-Lateri spatium congregandi exercitum non dedere, quibus tamen ille cum exercitu quem in tantillo spatio congregaret, Dei fretus auxilio, audacter in Dorsetania occurrit.” On “Dorsetania” see Appendix VV.

Footnote 774:

The scene of Eadmund’s battle “æt Peonnan wið Gillingahám” (Chron.), “in loco qui Peonnum vocatur, juxta Gillingaham” (Flor.), is undoubtedly Pen Selwood. I am far from being so certain whether the spot “æt Peonnum” (Chron. 658), where Cenwealh defeated the Welsh, is the same, or another of the Pens in the same county. The word _Pen_ (head) is a specimen of the Celtic names which still survive in the local nomenclature of this Teutonized, but not purely Teutonic, district. Close to Pen Selwood, “Pen Pits” and a neighbouring encampment called Orchard Castle supply good primæval studies. The latter is not unlike a miniature model of the more renowned hill of Senlac.

Footnote 775:

“Æfter middansumere,” say the Chronicles; Florence adds that the first day of the battle was “Lunæ dies.”

Footnote 776:

“Ælmær Dyrling,” “Ælmarus Dilectus.” Florence alone adds, “Algarus filius Meawes,” and implies, still more distinctly than the Chronicles, that Ælfmær and Ælfgar, as well as Eadric, were bound to Eadmund by some special tie—“qui ei auxilio esse debuerunt.”

Footnote 777:

Flor. Wig. “Optimum quemque in primam aciem subducit, cæterum exercitum in subsidiis locat.” We must remember these tactics when we come to the great fight of Senlac.

Footnote 778:

“Lanceis et gladiis pugna geritur.” See above, p. 273.

Footnote 779:

“Strenui militis et boni imperatoris officia simul exsequebatur” (so Il. iii. 179, ἀμφότερον βασιλεύς τ’ ἀγαθὸς κρατερός τ’ αἰχμητής), says Florence, who grows eloquent on Eadmund’s exploits. This praise must have been common to every general of those days who deserved to be called a general at all; yet it is often recorded to the special honour of particular commanders, as we shall find it in a very marked way of both Harold and William. William of Malmesbury (Hist. Nov. ii. 34) speaks in the same way of Earl Robert of Gloucester; “Ubicumque commode fieri posse videbat, et militis et ducis probe officium exequebatur.” Yet Abbot Suger, in his life of Lewis the Fat (c. 20; Duchesne, Scriptt. Franc. iv. 304), blames his own hero because “ultra quam deceret majestatem, miles emeritus militis officio, non regis, singulariter decertabat.” So Orderic (885 D) says of William of Flanders, “ipse ducis et militis officio plerumque fungebatur unde a caris tutoribus pro illo formidantibus crebro redarguebatur.”

Footnote 780:

On this incident, see Appendix VV.

Footnote 781:

Fl. Wig. “Ut naturalem dominum [no doubt _cyne-hláford_] requisivit illum.”

Footnote 782:

Ib. “Exercitu vice tertia congregato.” The armies seem always to disperse after an action, whether a victory or a defeat. I conceive that the local levies, like the Highlanders ages afterwards, returned home after each battle, while the immediate following of the King or Ealdorman largely remained with him. An invader had the advantage that all his troops were _comitatus_; the Danes had no means of going back to their houses and families.

Footnote 783:

Flor. Wig. “Rex Eadmundus Ferreum Latus exercitum fortem de tota Anglia quarto congregavit.”

Footnote 784:

I adopt the description of William of Malmesbury, evidently a fragment of a ballad; “Fluvius ille Rofensem urbem præterfluens, violentus et rapaci gurgite minax, mœnia pulcra lavat.”

Footnote 785:

See above, p. 45. Was it any confused remembrance of this fact which led the Encomiast (see Appendix VV) to make Cnut’s army winter in Sheppey now?

Footnote 786:

On the site of Assandun see Appendix VV.

Footnote 787:

The battle of Assandun in several points suggests that of Senlac, and the details given of Assandun help to explain several questions connected with the later fight. Henry of Huntingdon preserves some very valuable hints on this head.

Footnote 788:

Hen. Hunt. “Loco regio relicto, quod erat ex more inter draconem et insigne quod vocatur Standard.” The full importance of this passage will be seen at a later stage of my history. The West-Saxon Dragon figures prominently in Henry’s narrative of the battle of Burford in 752 (see above, p. 38). In Saxo (p. 192) the dragons become eagles, but this is clearly only by way of being classical, as one Tymmo, a valiant Dane from Zealand, figures as _aquilifer_ on the other side, when he surely ought to have been _corvifer_.

Footnote 789:

The Danish Raven, according to the story, opened its mouth and fluttered its wings before a victory, but held its wings down before a defeat. The legend is well known; I get it on this occasion from the Encomiast, whose tale is chiefly valuable as witnessing to the presence of Thurkill. See Appendix VV.

Footnote 790:

Flor. Wig. “Interea Canutus paullatim in æquum locum suos deducit.”

Footnote 791:

Ibid. “Rex Eadmundus aciem, sicuti instruxerat, velociter movet, et repente signo dato Danos invadit.” This seems to imply the charge down hill. In the rhetoric of Henry of Huntingdon we may spy out fragments of a ballad which may have rivalled those of Brunanburh and Maldon; “Loco regio relicto ... cucurrit terribilis in aciem primam. Vibrans igitur gladium electum et brachio juvenis Edmundi dignum, _modo fulminis_ fidit aciem,” &c. So Hist. Ram. lxxii. (Gale, i. 433); “Ædricus ... videns Ædmundum _furore fulmineo_ hostium aciem penetrantem.” Cf. Draco Normannicus, i. 318;

“Fulguris instar habens hostibus ense fremit.”

As the Danes no doubt keep their shield-wall, we may compare the charge of the Alemanni in the battle of Strassburg, Ammianus, xvi. 12; “Barbari in modum exarsere flammarum, nexamque scutorum compagem, quæ nostros in modum testudinis tuebatur, scindebant ictibus gladiorum adsiduis.”

Mark that the sword is still the English weapon.

Footnote 792:

Chron. “Eadric ... aswác swa his cynehlaforde and ealre Angelcynnes þeode.”

Footnote 793:

Chron. “Þær ahte Cnut sige, and gefeht him alle Engla þeode.” See Mr. Earle’s note, p. 340.

Footnote 794:

Chron. “And eall Angelcynnes duguð þar wearð fordon.”

Footnote 795:

See above, p. 283.

Footnote 796:

Will. Malms. ii. 180. “Ulfkillus Est-Anglorum comes, perpetuam jam famam meritus tempore Swani, quando, primus omnium piratas adorsus, spem dedit posse illos superari.”

Footnote 797:

See above, p. 264.

Footnote 798:

See the story in Appendix AA.

Footnote 799:

Florence, by an odd forestalling, calls him “Lindicolinensis.”

Footnote 800:

“Qui ad exorandum Deum pro milite bellum agente convenerant,” says Florence. So the Ramsey historian (lxxii.); “Qui, cum multis aliis religiosis personis, juxta morem Anglorum veterem, ibidem convenerant, non armis, sed orationum suppetiis, pugnantem exercitum juvaturi.” Yet I confess that the calm way in which the Chronicles reckon the prelates among the slain alongside of the ealdormen looks to me the other way.

Footnote 801:

See above, pp. 279, 340.

Footnote 802:

Ealhstan, Bishop of Sherborne, fills a prominent place in the wars of the ninth century. See the Chronicles in the years 823, 845. (Cf. 871 and Will. Malms. ii. 131, for other fighting prelates of that age.) Of Ealdred’s exploits, mostly unlucky, we shall hear much in the course of the next fifty years. Another warrior Bishop will be found in the Chronicles under the year 1056.

Footnote 803:

Enc. Emm. ii. 11.

Footnote 804:

Enc. Emm. ii. 11. “Londoniam repetentes, saniora sibi quærunt consilia.” I do not fully understand these words.

Footnote 805:

Hist. Ram. lxxiii.; Hist. Elien. ii. 21 (Gale, 502; Stewart, 196). The Ramsey historian grudges the possession of Eadnoth’s body to the rival house, and will hardly believe the miracles which were said to vindicate the claim of Ely. It is rather odd that the Ely historian mentions neither the miracles nor the burial of Eadnoth, but he goes on to say that the Ely monks went to the field with certain of the relics of their church, which were lost. Some, he says, said that Cnut carried them away and placed them at Canterbury. Such a pious robbery would be quite in harmony with Cnut’s later character.

Footnote 806:

Fl. Wig. 1016. “Occisus est in ea pugna ... totus fere globus nobilitatis Anglorum, qui nullo in bello majus umquam vulnus quam ibi acceperunt.” W. Malms. ii. 180. “Ibi Cnuto regnum expugnavit, ibi omne decus Angliæ occubuit, ibi flos patriæ totus emarcuit.” H. Hunt. M. H. B. 756 B. “Illic igitur miranda strages Anglorum facta est; illic occisus est ... omnis flos nobilitatis Brittanniæ.” For the entry in the Chronicles, see p. 393, note 3.

Footnote 807:

See Appendix WW.

Footnote 808:

Flor. Wig. “Licet invitus, ad ultimum quum consentiret.”

Footnote 809:

On this conference between Eadmund and Cnut, and the process by which in most later accounts it has grown into a single combat between the rival Kings, see Appendix WW.

Footnote 810:

So I infer from the proceedings of Cnut after the death of Eadmund.

Footnote 811:

As Glaukos and Diomêdês, Il. vi. 230 et seqq.; Hektôr and Aias, vii. 303. Compare the brotherhood among the early Moslems; Muir’s Life of Mahomet, iii. 17. The same institution is found among the Dalmatian Morlacchi, where the sworn brothers or sisters (_Pobratimi_ and _Posestrime_) were united by a special religious ceremony. See Fortis, Viaggio in Dalmazia, i. 58 (cf. Grote’s Greece, ii. 117); Petter, Dalmazien, i. 226. It seems to exist among other Slaves as well, and we shall come across other cases in our own story.

Footnote 812:

“Armis et _vestibus_ mutatis,” says Florence, but, if the tradition as to the personal stature of the two kings be correct, a judgement of Cyrus would have been presently needed to restore the clothes to their former owners.

Footnote 813:

See the extract from the Encomium in Appendix WW.

Footnote 814:

See Appendix XX.

Footnote 815:

Chronn. “His lic lið on Glæstingabyrig mid his ealdan fæder Eadgare.”

Footnote 816:

On the Glastonbury tombs, see Willis, Architectural History of Glastonbury, p. 33. The first burying-place of Eadmund was before the high altar (Will. Malms. de Ant. Glast. Eccl. ap. Gale, p. 306). His tomb must have been removed on the Invention of Arthur in the time of Henry the Second.

Footnote 817:

“De bellis vero regis Edmundi, et de fortitudine ejus, nonne hæc scripta sunt in historiis veterum cum laude summa?” H. Hunt. M. H. B. 755 D.

In a Melrose manuscript, lately printed at Göttingen (for which I have to thank Dr. Pauli), there are verses in honour of Eadmund’s later Scottish descendant William the Lion and of Eadmund himself. His panegyric runs;

“Firma basis fidei, plebis protectio, regni Tutor solque suo tempore solus erat. In cives clemens, in principe civis, in hostes Atrox, multiplici dote beatus homo.”

His battles and victories are reckoned at twelve;

“Mirum! bis seno conflixit Marte, thriumfus, Tot totiens victis intitulavit eum.”

A West-Saxon poet might perhaps not have added;

“A! nullum ejus post ortum breviter fero talem, Anglia se doleat non genuisse virum.”

Such a reign as Eadmund’s was not likely to be rich in documents. There is one charter (Cod. Dipl. iii. 369) of “Eadmundus æðeling rex,” granting lands “æt Pegecyrcan” (Peakirk in Northamptonshire) to the New Minster at Winchester. Its style, less turgid than that of most Latin documents of the kind, may be characteristic either of the man or of the circumstances of the time. The time when Eadmund was most likely to exercise acts of sovereignty in Northamptonshire would be in the autumn of 1016, between the battles of Otford and Assandun, when he was drawing troops from Lindesey and other distant parts of the kingdom.

Footnote 818:

Our authorities for this period are nearly the same as those for the reign of Æthelred. The Chronicles and Florence are still our main guides, and, as Florence draws nearer to his own time, he more commonly inserts independent matter which is not to be found in the Chronicles. We get the same kind of supplementary help as before from the secondary English authorities, the later and the local writers. We have the same hard task as before in trying to reconcile the English accounts with the various Scandinavian sagas and chronicles. The Encomium Emmæ becomes of greater importance, but it must still be used with caution, as it is clear that the writer, though contemporary, was deeply prejudiced and often very ill informed. We now also begin to draw our first help from one most valuable document, the contemporary Life of Eadward the Confessor, published by Mr. Luard. This was written, between the years 1066 and 1074, by one who was intimately acquainted with Godwine and his family, and it helps us to many facts and aspects of facts which are not to be found elsewhere. But the most important point with regard to our authorities for this time is that we must now cease to quote the English Chronicles as one work. The differences between the various copies now begin to assume a real historical importance. The narratives often differ widely from each other, and often show widely different ways of looking at men and things. They show that something very like the distinction of Whig and Tory can be traced as far back as the eleventh century. I first pointed out the difference of feeling which the different Chronicles display with regard to Godwine in a paper on the Earl’s Life and Death, in the Archæological Journal for 1854–1855. Since that time Mr. Earle, in the Introduction to his “Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel,” has gone fully and exhaustively into the matter from his point of view, and has given what may be called biographies of the various records which are commonly confounded under the name of “the Saxon Chronicle.” I shall hereafter follow Mr. Earle’s nomenclature (grounded on that of Jocelin, Secretary to Archbishop Parker), and shall quote them as follows. The manuscript commonly quoted as “C. C. C. C. clxxiv.” I quote as the _Winchester_ Chronicle. For our period this Chronicle contains only a few entries added at Canterbury. “Cott. Tib. B. i.” is the _Abingdon_ Chronicle, the only one hostile to Godwine. “Cod. Tib. B. iv.” is the _Worcester_ Chronicle. “Bodl. Laud. 636” is the _Peterborough_ Chronicle, strongly Godwinist. (This part however was composed at Worcester, the Chronicle being transcribed and continued at Peterborough.) “Cott. Domit. A. viii.” is _Canterbury_, the least valuable of all, but of more importance now than in earlier times.

Footnote 819:

_Cnut_ or _Knud_, in one syllable, is this King’s true name, and the best Latin form is _Cnuto_, according to the usual way of Latinizing Scandinavian names. See above, p. 165. The form _Canutus_ seems to have arisen from Pope Paschal the Second’s inability to say _Cnut_. The later King Cnut, the supposed martyr, was therefore canonized by him as “Sanctus Canutus.” See Æthelnoth’s Life of Saint Cnut, capp. iv. vi. xxxiii. (Langebek, iii. 340, 382). The writer, an English monk settled in Denmark, thinks the lengthening of the name a great honour, and compares it with the change from Abram to Abraham; but he somewhat inconsistently cuts down his own name to _Ailnothus_.

Footnote 820:

Nothing can be made of the unintelligible story in Snorro (c. 25; Laing, ii. 21, and see Appendix VV), according to which the sons of Æthelred and Emma, assisted by Olaf of Norway and his foster-father Rane, made an unsuccessful attempt upon England after Eadmund’s death. The tale may have arisen from some confusion with the later attempt on behalf of the Æthelings made by Duke Robert of Normandy. Snorro is throughout, as we shall often have occasion to see, most ill informed on English affairs. Can this Rane be the same as Ranig, whom we find Earl of the Magesætas twenty years later?

Footnote 821:

See above, p. 367.

Footnote 822:

See above, p. 381.

Footnote 823:

On Cnut’s apparently territorial title, see Appendix M.

Footnote 824:

On the accession of Cnut to the whole kingdom, see Appendix TT.

Footnote 825:

I borrow the title from Florence’s description of Cnut’s son Harold, “Rex Merciorum et Northhymbrorum,” in recording the analogous event of 1037.

Footnote 826:

On the brothers of Eadmund who were living, see Appendix SS.

Footnote 827:

See above, p. 397, and Appendix WW.

Footnote 828:

Fl. 1016. “Fratres et filios Eadmundi omnino despexerunt, eosque reges esse negaverunt.” Compare the former exclusion of the whole house of Æthelred. See above, p. 381.

Footnote 829:

Fl. 1017. “_Fœdus_ etiam cum principibus et _omni populo_ (see Appendix Q) ipse, et illi cum ipso percusserunt.”

Footnote 830:

See Appendix TT.

Footnote 831:

On the two Eadwigs, see Appendix YY.

Footnote 832:

The fourfold division is well marked in a Charter of Æthelred (Cod. Dipl. iii. 314), which is said to be witnessed by thegns “ǽgðer ge of West-Sexan, ge of Myrcean, ge of Denon, ge of Englon.” The “Danes” here must mean the Northumbrians, and the “English,” distinctively so called, the East-Angles.

Footnote 833:

Florence calls Thurkill and Eric _comites_, Eadric alone _dux_. I conceive that _comes_ is meant to translate _eorl_, and _dux_ to translate _ealdorman_. Probably Eadric kept the English title; if so, it was its last use in the old half-kingly sense, and in a year or two the title dies out altogether from the Chronicles, though its use still goes on in private documents, and even in Cnut’s own Laws.

Footnote 834:

See above, p. 379.

Footnote 835:

So we now apply the title of Lord Lieutenant—the nearest modern approach to the ancient Ealdorman—both to the Viceroy of the ancient kingdom of Ireland and to the military chief of a single county.

Footnote 836:

On the origin of Godwine, see Appendix ZZ.

Footnote 837:

Vita Eadw. ap. Luard, p. 392. “Quum consilio cautissimus, tum bellicis rebus ab ipso rege probatus est strenuissimus. Erat quoque morum æqualitate tam cunctis quam ipsi regi gratissimus, assiduo laboris accinctu incomparabilis, jocunda et prompta affabilitate omnibus affabilis.” Presently he is “profundus eloquio.” William of Malmesbury also (ii. 197) speaks of Godwine’s eloquence; “Homo affectati leporis, et ingenue gentilitia lingua eloquens, mirus dicere, mirus populo persuadere quæ placerent.”

Footnote 838:

See Appendix ZZ.

Footnote 839:

See Appendix AAA.

Footnote 840:

On the marriage of Cnut and Emma, see Appendix BBB.

Footnote 841:

Will. Malms, ii. 181. “Ut, dum consuetæ dominæ deferrent obsequium, minus Danorum suspirarent imperium.”

Footnote 842:

See Appendix VV.

Footnote 843:

Hen. Hunt. M. H. B. 752 A. “Emma, Normannorum gemma.” So Godfrey, Prior of Winchester, in the Epigrammata Historica printed in Wright’s Satirical Poets, ii. 148;

“Splendidior gemma meriti splendoribus Emma.”

Footnote 844:

Flod. A. 951; Richer, ii. 101; Palgrave, ii. 619. Lewis himself was much younger than his wife Gerberga, daughter of Henry the Fowler and widow of Gilbert of Lotharingia.

Footnote 845:

See Appendix BBB.

Footnote 846:

See above, p. 315.

Footnote 847:

See above, p. 406.

Footnote 848:

See above, p. 374. Alberic of Trois-Fontaines (51) makes them children of Eadwig.

Footnote 849:

Flor. Wig. 1017.

Footnote 850:

This rumour is preserved by the so-called Bromton, 907. Though the authority of this writer is as low as anything can be, the trait is characteristic, and savours of a contemporary scandal-monger.

Footnote 851:

Sigrid, widow of Eric the Victorious, and mother of Olaf of Sweden, was mother of Cnut by her second marriage with Swegen. J. Magni Hist. Goth. xvii, 17, 18 (Rome, 1554) Olaf died in 1018. Swedish tradition says much of his friendship and hereditary alliance with England, especially with King “Mildredus” or “Eldredus,” of all which I find no trace in English history.

Footnote 852:

Adam Brem. ii. 50, 56.

Footnote 853:

Florence, followed by Roger of Wendover, calls the Hungarian King Solomon. But Solomon did not begin to reign till 1063. Stephen died in 1038. Thwrocz, Chron. Hung. c. xxxiv.; Scriptt. Rev. Hung. (Wien 1746), p. 98. The Chronicles at this stage are silent on the matter, but the poem in the Worcester Chronicle under 1057 says that Cnut sent Eadward “on Ungerland to beswicane”—Sweden is not mentioned. Adam of Bremen (ii. 51) gives them another refuge; “in Ruzziam exsilio damnati.” So Karamsin, Hist. de Russie, ii. 48.

Footnote 854:

So Florence; “in nativitate Domini, cum esset Lundoniæ.” A different order of events might perhaps be inferred from the Chronicles; but Florence is clearly more careful in his arrangement in this place.

Footnote 855:

“Æðelmæres þæs greatan,” say the Abingdon, Worcester, and Peterborough annalists. What kind of greatness is implied? This may be the Æthelweard who is said to have failed to slay Eadwig; but this Æthelweard and this Æthelmær must be distinguished from the real or supposed brothers of Eadric. So Brihtric must be distinguished from the Brihtric of the year 1009.

Footnote 856:

See Appendix CCC.

Footnote 857:

Hist. Eves. 84. “Cnuto ... fecit occidi Edricum ... cum quo etiam et aliis pluribus suis militibus, quidam potens homo, Normannus vocabulo, frater scilicet hujus Leofrici comitis, perimitur ejus jussione.”

Footnote 858:

See below, p. 418.

Footnote 859:

Florence (1017) asserts their injustice; the victims died “sine culpa.”

Footnote 860:

As Lappenberg (ii. 200) seems to think, on the strength of a passage in the Ramsey History, c. 84. If this be the necessary meaning of the Ramsey writer, his authority is very small on such a point, and the general course of Cnut’s conduct looks quite the other way.

Footnote 861:

See Appendix SS.

Footnote 862:

See above, p. 379.

Footnote 863:

On the different versions of the tale, see Appendix DDD.

Footnote 864:

So Florence; “Quia timebat insidiis ab eo aliquando circumveniri, sicut domini sui priores Ægelredus et Eadmundus frequenter sunt circumventi.”

Footnote 865:

See above, pp. 278, 326.

Footnote 866:

See above, p. 205, 233.

Footnote 867:

See Appendix CCC.

Footnote 868:

Thietmar, viii. 5. “In Anglis triginta navium habitatores piratæ a rege eorum, Suenni regis filio, Deo gratias, occisi sunt; et qui prius cum patre hujus erat invasor et assiduus destructor provinciæ, nunc solus sedit defensor, ut in Libycis basiliscus arenis cultore vacuis.”

Footnote 869:

It took some time to collect these large sums. Thus the Danegeld voted in 1011 was paid in 1012. See above, pp. 350–355. This Danegeld is referred to in Heming’s Worcester Cartulary, 248 (Mon. Angl. i. 595), a passage to which I shall have to refer again.

Footnote 870:

£10500, according to the Abingdon and Worcester Chronicles and Florence. £11000, according to the Peterborough and Canterbury Chronicles.

Footnote 871:

See above, p. 373.

Footnote 872:

The Abingdon Chronicle has only, “And Dene and Engle wurdon sæmmæle æt Oxnaforda.” The Worcester annalist makes the important addition, “to Eadgares lage.” So Florence; “Angli et Dani apud Oxenafordam de lege regis Eadgari tenenda concordes sunt effecti.”

Footnote 873:

See above, p. 218.

Footnote 874:

William of Malmesbury has a remarkable passage to this effect; “Omnes enim leges ab antiquis regibus, et maxime ab antecessore suo Ethelredo latas, sub interminatione regiæ mulctæ perpetuis temporibus observari præcepit [Cnuto]; in quarum custodiam etiam nunc tempore bonorum sub nomine regis Edwardi juratur, non quod ille statuerit, sed quod observarit.” (ii. § 183.)

Footnote 875:

See above, p. 65.

Footnote 876:

“Incomparabilis Eadgarus,” says Cnut in his Glastonbury Charter, which, if spurious, as marked by Mr. Kemble (Cod. Dipl. iv. 40), is at least older than William of Malmesbury (ii. § 185).

Footnote 877:

“Nec dicto deterius fuit factum,” says William of Malmesbury, ii. 183. So in ii. 181; “Ita quum omnis Anglia pareret uni, ille ingenti studio Anglos sibi conciliare, æquum illis jus cum Danis suis in consessu, in concilio, in prœlio, concedere.”

Footnote 878:

See above, pp. 370–375.

Footnote 879:

Adam Brem. ii. 63. “Aliquando visitans Danos, aliquando Nortmannos [Norwegians], sæpissime autem sedit in Anglia.”

Footnote 880:

See above, p. 366.

Footnote 881:

Chronn. in anno; Fl. Wig.

Footnote 882:

On the exploits and marriage of Godwine see Appendix EEE.

Footnote 883:

Saxo (193) tells the tale at length. Florence also (1049) admits the pedigree; “Ulfus, filius Spraclingi, filius Ursi.” “Ursus” is seemingly the half-human Biorn, not the bear himself. Cf. Appendix WWW.

Footnote 884:

See Appendix ZZ.

Footnote 885:

He signs, as far as I know, only two Charters; one (Cod. Dipl. iv. 15) in company with Leofwine, the other (Cod. Dipl. vi. 190) in company with Leofric. This last, which is very unusual, is not signed by Godwine, and the “Harold eorl” who signs it must, as I shall presently show, be distinguished from his son.

Footnote 886:

Saxo, 195–7. See Appendix GGG.

Footnote 887:

All the Chronicles, and also Florence, mention this banishment of Æthelweard.

Footnote 888:

On Godwine’s West-Saxon earldom, see Appendix AAA.

Footnote 889:

Chron. and Flor. Wig. in anno.

Footnote 890:

See Appendix II.

Footnote 891:

The Canterbury Chronicle is fuller than the others on this head, calling the building “an mynster of stane and lime.” This is one of the passages which have been strangely applied to prove that stone architecture was hardly known in England before the Norman Conquest. Any one who knows the buildings of Essex, as compared with those of Somerset or Northamptonshire, will at once see that the notice of a stone building as something singular must be purely local. The present church of Ashington contains no detail earlier than the last years of the twelfth century; but I suspect that the walls are mainly those of Cnut’s minster.

Footnote 892:

Will. Malms. ii. 185, and see below.

Footnote 893:

Chron. Cant. “And gief hit [the minster] his anum preoste þas nama was Stigand.” William of Malmesbury (ii. 181) calls it “basilica,” but goes on to say, “Nunc, ut fertur, modica est ecclesia presbytero parochiano delegata.” The words “minster,” “monasterium” (as applied to the church as distinguished from the conventual buildings), “moutier,” are used very vaguely, and often mean merely a church of any kind.

Footnote 894:

Perhaps the little collegiate church of Battlefield, founded to commemorate Henry the Fourth’s victory, called the Battle of Shrewsbury, is a nearer parallel to Assandun than Battle Abbey or Batalha.

Footnote 895:

The monks of Battle came from Marmoutier. Chron. de Bello, p. 7.

Footnote 896:

I assume, with Mr. St. John (Four Conquests, ii. 69), that this Stigand is no other than the future Archbishop. Stigand the priest signs charters of Cnut in 1033 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 46) and 1035 (vi. 185), and one without date (vi. 187), and one of Harthacnut in 1042 (iv. 65). He seems to be the only person of the name who signs. He was chaplain to Harold Harefoot (Fl. Wig. 1038), as well as to Cnut and Eadward.

Footnote 897:

Chron. and Fl. Wig. in anno. See Appendix NN.

Footnote 898:

See Appendix NN and SS.

Footnote 899:

See Appendix QQQ.

Footnote 900:

Eric’s last signature is in 1023. Cod. Dipl. iv. 26.

Footnote 901:

See Appendix FFF.

Footnote 902:

Fl. Wig. 1029. “Timebat enim ab illo vel vita privari vel regno expelli.” Hakon’s connexion by marriage with Cnut rests on the authority of Florence, in anno. His blood-kindred as his sister’s son comes from Snorro, c. 19 (Laing, ii. 15).

Footnote 903:

Snorro, c. 139 (Laing, ii. 192). This is what Florence (1029) must mean, when he says, “Quasi legationis causa, in exsilium misit.”

Footnote 904:

The Chronicles contain no mention of Hakon’s banishment, but the Abingdon Chronicle mentions his death at sea in 1030; “And þæs geres ǽr ðám fórferde Hacun se _dohtiga eorl_ on sǽ.” Florence (1030) records his death at sea, but also mentions the other account. In the wild invective of Osbern (Trans. S. Elf. ap. Ang. Sac. ii. 144) we have an Earl Hakon, perhaps the same, who stabs himself; “propono ducem Haconem proprio se mucrone transverberantem.” A charter of 1031 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 35), with a signature of Hakon, must be spurious or inaccurate in its date.

Footnote 905:

Florence (1044) mentions the second marriage of Gunhild. This Harold signs a charter of 1033 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 43), and another (vi. 190) along with the Earls Ulf, Eglaf, Leofric, and Eric. These signatures must be carefully distinguished from the early signatures of Harold the son of Godwine.

Footnote 906:

Fl. Wig. 1046.

Footnote 907:

See Appendix GGG.

Footnote 908:

Fl. Wig. 1041, and vol. ii. Appendix G. Thored was perhaps Thurkill’s nephew. At least a “Ðorð Ðurcylles nefa” signs a charter of Cnut in 1023 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 38), but of course it may be another Thored and another Thurkill. There are many signatures which may belong to this Thored, as iv. 23, vi. 187, and vi. 191, where he appears as “Ðored steallere.”

Footnote 909:

On the Northumbrian Earls, see Appendix KK.

Footnote 910:

There is one charter of Cnut (Cod. Dipl. iv. 43) signed by a crowd of Danish names otherwise unknown. But this is a charter relating wholly to Northumbrian affairs, and the signatures are no doubt those of local thegns, many of whom were most likely not followers of Cnut, but descendants of the Danish settlers in Ælfred’s time.

Footnote 911:

Something of this sort, which is quite likely in itself, is implied in some stories told by the Ramsey historian, who enters into much detail about various Danish thegns at this time. For instance, in cap. lxxxiv. (p. 440) we read about the Dane Thurkill when summoned before the Bishop’s court; “Quo citato apparere contemnente, a severitate tamen meritæ ultionis censuit episcopus ad tempus temperandum, _ne Anglus Dacum ad regis injuriam injuste vexare diceretur_.” Cnut however steps in to support the law against his grantee.

In cap. lxxxvi. again is a story about a Danish thegn, who greatly oppressed the neighbouring “rustici,” who conspired his death. He is “vir factiosus et dives, qui Anglorum animos ex suo ponderans, illis Dacos fore semper exosos, quod patriam suam invasissent, et sibi insidias, occulte tamen propter metum regis, ab eis parari arbitratus.” He escapes by selling his estate to the Bishop, who was always on the look-out for such chances, and who gave it to Ramsey abbey. The really important point in the story is an allusion to Welsh robbers (“Britones latrones”) as still possible in Huntingdonshire in the time of Cnut.

Footnote 912:

Eurip. Phœn. 534;

εἴπερ γὰρ ἀδικεῖν χρὴ, τυραννίδος πέρι κάλλιστον ἀδικεῖν τἄλλα δ’ εὐσεβεῖν χρεών.

Footnote 913:

On the disputed date of Cnut’s journey to Rome, see Appendix HHH.

Footnote 914:

See Appendix III.

Footnote 915:

i. I. “Þæt is þonne ǽrest, þæt hió ofer ealle óðre þingc ǽnne God æfre, woldan lúfian and wurðian, and ǽnne cristendóm ánrǽdlice healdan, and Cnut cingc lúfian mid rihtan getrywðan.” Cnut’s Laws form two divisions, ecclesiastical and secular (woruldcunde), but both alike are enacted by the King and his Witan. I quote the Ecclesiastical as i., the Secular as ii.

Footnote 916:

i. 17. The words of Æthelred’s statute (see above, p. 337) are repeated.

Footnote 917:

i. 15. Cf. the Capitularies, Waitz, iv. 311, 315.

Footnote 918:

ii. 5.

Footnote 919:

ii. 3.

Footnote 920:

“Mid mínan witenan rǽde” is the form in the preamble of the Secular Laws.

Footnote 921:

ii. 18. Here the English title Ealdorman is used, but in a later clause (ii. 72) we find the highest rank described as Earls, clearly in the later and not in the earlier sense of the word, as the Earl is distinctly marked as superior to the King’s Thegn.

Footnote 922:

ii. 18. “And þǽr beo on þǽre scire bisceop and se ealdorman, and þǽr ægðer tǽcan ge Godes riht ge woruld-riht.” See Appendix K.

Footnote 923:

i. 20.

Footnote 924:

ii. 12, 14, 15.

Footnote 925:

ii. 15, 45, 49, 63, 66, 72, 84.

Footnote 926:

See above, p. 66.

Footnote 927:

ii. 81. On the severe hunting code which bears the name of Cnut see Appendix III.

Footnote 928:

Hist. Rams. c. 85. p. 441. “Quum quadem vice rex Cnuto more assueto regni fines peragraret.” Cf. below, p. 441.

Footnote 929:

See Appendix III.

Footnote 930:

See Appendix GGG.

Footnote 931:

Prior Godfrey (Satirical Poets, ii. 148) thus sums up his character;

“Quique cruentus erat et in hostes prædo superbus, In sibi subjectos regis habebat opus. Mensæ sæpe suæ convivia festa relinquens, Pauperibus monachis intererat socius. Post posita pompa turbæ mediator agentis, Conservus servis serviit ille Dei.”

Footnote 932:

Hen. Hunt. M. H. B. 757 E. Cnut, as a constitutional King, had less power over the elements than the despotic Lewis the Eleventh. See the story in Kirk, Charles the Bold, ii. 10.

Footnote 933:

Hist. El. ii. 27 (p. 505). Every one knows the lines, somewhat modernized as they must have been by the transcriber;

“Merie sungen ðe muneches binnen Ely, Ða Cnut ching reu ðer by; Roweð, cnihtes, noer ðe land, And here we þes muneches sæng.”

Footnote 934:

Hist. El. ii. 27 (p. 505).

Footnote 935:

Bromton, X Scriptt. 909.

Footnote 936:

Fl. Wig. 1020. “Æthelnothus, qui bonus appellabatur, nobilis viri Ægelmari filius.” Æthelnoth was not improbably brother of Æthelweard, one of the victims of 1017. If so, his promotion was of a piece with the favour shown by Cnut to the father and son of Northman, a fellow-sufferer with Æthelweard. See above, p. 414. William of Malmesbury (ii. 184) tells us of the influence for good which Æthelnoth exercised over Cnut; “Regem ipsum auctoritate sanctitudinis in bonis actibus mulcens, in excessibus terrens.” See also the extract from Osbern (Trans. S. Elph. Ang. Sacr. ii. 144) in Appendix TT.

Footnote 937:

Will. Malms. ii. 181. “Loca omnia in quibus pugnaverat, et præcipue Assandunam, ecclesiis insignivit.”

Footnote 938:

See above, p. 366.

Footnote 939:

Will. Malms. ii. 181. “Monasteria per Angliam suis et patris excursionibus partim fœdata, partim eruta, reparavit.”

Footnote 940:

Will. Malms, u. s.; Rog. Wend. i. 464; Tho. Eli. ap. Ang. Sacr. i. 608; John of Oxenedes, p. 19. Earl Thurkill, the Lady Emma, and Ælfwine, Bishop of the East-Angles, aided in the foundation. The monks came partly from Holm, partly from Ely; the Abbot “Uvius” or Wido—either of them very strange names—was from Holm. Of the canons, some took the vows, others were provided for elsewhere. The change of foundation took place in 1020, but the new church was not consecrated till 1032. Flor. Wig. in anno.

Footnote 941:

John of Oxenedes, pp. 19, 291.

Footnote 942:

Cnut’s visit to Glastonbury is described, and the charter given at length, by William of Malmesbury, ii. 184, 5. See Cod. Dipl. iv. 40.

Footnote 943:

On the “lignea basilica,” represented by the Lady chapel, commonly called that of Saint Joseph, see above, p. 427. On its history, see Professor Willis’s Architectural History of Glastonbury, pp. 3, 47, where the tract of William of Malmesbury De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiæ is made use of with the author’s accustomed skill.

Footnote 944:

See above, p. 399.

Footnote 945:

Will. Malms. Gest. Reg. ii. 184. “Super sepulcrum pallium misit versicoloribus figuris pavonum, ut videtur, intextum.”

Footnote 946:

The translation is recorded by Florence and all the Chronicles, under the year 1023, but the Worcester Chronicle alone enters into any details. Osbern, the biographer of Ælfheah, describes his translation at great length in a special tract; Anglia Sacra, ii. 143.

Footnote 947:

Will. Malms, ii. 181.

Footnote 948:

See above, pp. 275, 394.

Footnote 949:

Hist. Rams. lxxxi. p. 437. The description of the second church, built near the first, reminds one of Glastonbury, and is worthy the attention of the architectural antiquary.

Footnote 950:

Ib. lxxx. “Interea Cnuto rex Christianissimus nulli prædecessorum suorum regum comparatione virtutum vel bellica exercitatione inferior, cœpit sanctam ecclesiam enixissime venerari, et religiosorum caussis virorum patrocinari, eleemosynis profluere, justas leges, vel novas condere, vel antiquitus conditas observare. Quumque non solum Angliæ, sed et Daciæ simul et Norguegiæ principaretur, erat tamen humilitate cernuus, usus venerei parcus, alloquio dulcis, ad bona suadibilis, ad misericordiam proclivis, amatorum pacis amator fidissimus, in eos autem, qui vel latrocinio vel deprædatione jura regni violassent, ultor severissimus.”

Footnote 951:

Adam of Bremen (ii. 53) mentions several of them, as Bernhard in Scania, Gerbrand in Zealand, Reginberht in Funen. These hardly sound like the names of Englishmen. Gerbrand signs an English charter as Bishop of Roskild in 1022. Cod. Dipl. iv. 13.

Footnote 952:

Will. Malms. ii. 186.

Footnote 953:

This very curious story is told at length by Eadmer (Hist. Nov. ii. 416). The Archbishop comes “audita divitis fama regni Anglorum.” Eadmer contrasts the days of Cnut with his own; “Illis quippe diebus hic mos Anglis erat patrocinia sanctorum omnibus sæculi rebus anteferre.” Æthelnoth gave the Archbishop a splendidly embroidered cope, a specimen of English workmanship (“cappam illi valde pretiosam aurifrigio ex omni parte ornatam dedit”).

Footnote 954:

Chron. S. Max., Labbé, ii. 209. “Anno MXLIX. Kalendis Novembris dedicatum est monasterium S. Hilarii Pictavensis.... Istud monasterium magna ex parte construxerat regina Anglorum per manus Gauterii Coorlandi.” This must mean Emma and not Eadgyth.

Footnote 955:

Compare Snorro’s description of the reign of Cnut (c. 139; Laing, ii. 194); “In his whole kingdom [seemingly both England and Denmark] peace was so well established that no man dared break it. The people of the country kept their peace towards each other, and had their old country law: and for this he was greatly celebrated in all countries.”]

Footnote 956:

On the Housecarls, see Appendix KKK.

Footnote 957:

See, above all, the account of the “heorð-werod” of Brihtnoth at Maldon. See above, p. 271.

Footnote 958:

On the “Witherlags Ret” or “Leges Castrenses” of Cnut, see Appendix KKK.

Footnote 959:

See vol. iii. ch. xiv., end of § 2.

Footnote 960:

See above, p. 351.

Footnote 961:

See above, p. 344, and Lappenberg’s note at p. 475 in the original. Mr. Thorpe (ii. 210) has turned Eilaf or Eglaf into Ulf, to the utter perversion of Lappenberg’s meaning. Eglaf’s name is attached to several charters of Cnut. See Cod. Dipl. iv. 2, 28, 29. On the death of Cnut he is said (Brut y Tywysogion, 1036), for what cause we are not told, to have left England and to have sought a refuge in Germany. One can hardly doubt as to the identity of these two Eglafs; yet the words of the Brut (1020) might almost make us think that Eglaf was some wandering wiking; “After that Eilad (al. Eilaf) came to the isle of Britain, and Dyved was devastated and Menevia was demolished.”

Footnote 962:

Ann. Camb. 1022. “Eilaf vastavit Demetiam. Menevia fracta est.”

Footnote 963:

Ann. Camb. 1035; Brut. 1033.

Footnote 964:

See above, p. 379.

Footnote 965:

See above, p. 429.

Footnote 966:

On the Northumbrian Earls see Appendix KK, and on the cession of Lothian see Appendix I.

Footnote 967:

On Cnut’s relations with Scotland, see Appendix LL.

Footnote 968:

Simeon (Hist. Eccl. Dun. iii. 5); “De ecclesia quam inceperat solam turrim occidentalem imperfectam reliquit.”

Footnote 969:

Simeon, Hist. Dun. iii. 6; Flor. Wig. 1020.

Footnote 970:

See Appendix I.

Footnote 971:

See Appendix LLL.

Footnote 972:

See Appendix LLL.

Footnote 973:

See above, p. 131, and Appendix G.

Footnote 974:

Fordun, iv. 43 (Gale, p. 686). But see Robertson, i. 100 et seqq.

Footnote 975:

Fordun, iv. 44; Chron. 1034.

Footnote 976:

Fordun, iv. 44. “Malcolmo Cumbriæ regionem pater statim ut coronatus est donavit.”

Footnote 977:

The Saga of Olaf Haraldsson or Saint Olaf forms the greater part of the second volume of Mr. Laing’s translation of Snorro’s Heimskringla. I use it freely, though with caution, for Northern affairs. It is at all events more trustworthy than Saxo and Swegen Aggesson.

Footnote 978:

See Adam of Bremen, ii. 55 (cf. 59). His words are remarkable; “Inter Chnut et Olaph, regem Nortmannorum, continuum fuit bellum, nec cessavit omnibus diebus vitæ eorum; Danis pro imperio certantibus, Nortmannis vero pugnantibus pro libertate. In qua re justior mihi visa est caussa Olaph, cui bellum necessarium magis fuit quam voluntarium.” He goes on with an elaborate panegyric on Olaf. Adam’s judgement is clearly right on the whole, though Cnut had perhaps as much to say for himself as warlike kings commonly have.

On the name _Nortmanni_, see Appendix T.

Footnote 979:

Snorro’s account (c. 139; Laing, ii. 192) is here very distinct.

Footnote 980:

See above, p. 379.

Footnote 981:

See above, p. 370, and Appendix VV.

Footnote 982:

See Adam of Bremen, ii. 55, and cf. Florence, 1027.

Footnote 983:

Adam, u. s.

Footnote 984:

Snorro, c. 74 (Laing, ii. 84).

Footnote 985:

Snorro, c. 140 (Laing, ii. 194).

Footnote 986:

On this battle see Appendix MMM.

Footnote 987:

Flor. Wig. 1027; Saxo, 196. “Olavum vero per Norvagiensium quosdam pecunia a se corruptos domestico bello opprimendum curavit.” Snorro, capp. 165, 171, 175. In an earlier part of his story (c. 34) Snorro remarks that the Norwegians preferred a foreign and absentee King, who simply took tribute, and let the ancient laws and usages alone, while a native and resident King commonly interfered with them.

Footnote 988:

Snorro, c. 180. The entry in the Durham Annals is “Cnut Rex Anglorum fit et rex Danorum.” Here is one of the common confusions between Danes and Norwegians; but it shows a remembrance of the fact (see above, p. 422) that Cnut had not become King of England and Denmark at the same time.

Footnote 989:

See Snorro, c. 235 et seqq.; Flor. Wig. 1030; Adam, ii. 55, 59. The battle is a well attested fact, yet Adam says; “Alii dicunt eum in bello peremptum, quidam vero in medio populi circo ad ludibrium magis expositum.” [The title of “martyr” seemingly suggested the amphitheatre.] “Sunt alii qui asserunt illum in gratia regis Chnut latenter occisum, quod et magis verum esse non diffidimus, eo quod regnum ejus invasit.”]

Footnote 990:

See Appendix NNN.

Footnote 991:

See Appendix NNN.

Footnote 992:

William the Third of Poitiers and Fifth of Aquitaine reigned from 990 to 1029. His connexion with Cnut is described by Ademar (iii. 41; ap. Pertz, iv. 134); “Necnon et regem Danamarcorum et Anglorum, nomine Canotum, ita sibi summo favore devinxerat, ut singulis annis legationes eorum exciperet pretiosis cum muneribus, ipseque pretiosiora eis remitteret munera.” The book is described as “Codex literis aureis scriptus, in quo nomina sanctorum distincta cum imaginibus continebatur.” Conc. Lemov. 1031; ap. Labbé, Conc. ix. 882, quoted by Pertz. Cnut and Emma, as we shall see again, had rather a fancy for making presents of books.

Footnote 993:

See above, p. 221.

Footnote 994:

See above, pp. 164, 254.

Footnote 995:

In Rudolf Glaber (ii. 2) Richard appears as “Rotomagorum dux.” Duke or Earl of Rouen (Rudu Jarl) is also the title which the Norman princes bear in the Northern Sagas. See Vita Olai Trygg. p. 263, and Laing, ii. 16. Richard is “dux” here; he is “Rotomagorum comes” in cap. 8, and “Princeps” in iii. 1. In Ademar (iii. 55) he is “Comes Rotomensis” and “Rotomagi.” Richard calls himself (D’Achery, iii. 386) “Marchio Nortmanniæ.” See Appendix T.

Footnote 996:

See above, p. 185.

Footnote 997:

King Robert in 1006 confirmed the foundation of Fécamp, “pia petitione dilectissimi fidelis nostri Ricardi comitis.” Gallia Christiana, xi. Inst. 8. One can hardly fancy this formula being used fifty years earlier or fifty years later.

Footnote 998:

This is a very common act of formal submission, even when submission was merely formal; but, after being very common under Richard, it dies out under William.

Footnote 999:

King Robert’s domestic troubles, his uncanonical marriage with his first wife, and the bondage in which he lived to his second, are well known. Constance, according to Rudolf Glaber (iii. 9), was “avarissima, maritique magistra.” The flocking of her southern countrymen to the court of Paris is described by Rudolf in language which reminds one of England under Henry the Third.

Footnote 1000:

This Burgundian war is described by R. Glaber, ii. 8; Will. Gem. v. 15. The Norman contingent is said to have amounted to 30,000 men.

Footnote 1001:

See Sigebert’s Chron. 1006 (Pertz, vi. 354), and the Gesta Episc. Cameracensium, i. 33 (Pertz, vii. 414, 435). Both writers allow Robert the title of “Francorum rex;” Richard is in Sigebert “Comes Nortmannorum,” in the Gesta “Rotomagensium dux.” (In the Chronicon Scotorum, p. 266, he is “Ricard rí Frainge.”) I need hardly say that the Emperor Henry the Second was a canonized saint, and King Robert certainly deserved that honour as much as many who received it.

Footnote 1002:

The marriage contract of Judith is given in Martène and Durand’s Thesaurus Novus, i. 123. She founded the abbey of Bernay in 1013. W. Gem. vii. 22. See Neustria Pia, 398. Her church is standing, though desecrated, a noble example of early Norman Romanesque.

Footnote 1003:

W. Gem. v. 13. Count Geoffrey going on a pilgrimage to Rome, left his dominions and his sons “sub ducis advocatu.” He died on his way home.

Footnote 1004:

On the war with Odo, see W. Gem. v. 10–12; Roman de Rou, 6588–6974. Cf. R. Glaber, iii. 2, 9.

Footnote 1005:

“Castrum Tegulense,” W. Gem. v. 10. “Tuillieres,” Roman de Rou, 6627.

Footnote 1006:

See above, p. 255.

Footnote 1007:

See above, pp. 285, 302.

Footnote 1008:

See above, pp. 216, et seqq., 234.

Footnote 1009:

“Adscitis Britonibus cum Normannorum legionibus,” says William of Jumièges, v. 10.

Footnote 1010:

W. Gem. v. 11; Roman de Rou, 6885–6928. On Dol, see vol. iii. ch. xii. § 4.

Footnote 1011:

The names in William of Jumièges are Olavus and Lacman. The printed text of the Roman de Rou has Golan and Coman, but the manuscripts seem to have various forms, Solan, Laman, and Olef. Mr. Thorpe (Lappenberg, Norman Kings, p. 35) points out the error of Depping (ii. 177) and Prevost (Roman de Rou, i. 346), who suppose this Olaf to be Olaf Tryggvesson. Nothing can be plainer than that both William and Wace meant their Olaf for Olaf Haraldsson, as they speak of his subsequent martyrdom. Mr. Thorpe adds, “Lagman is the name of an office. Angl. _lawman_.” So it is, and names of offices, from Pharaoh onwards, have often been mistaken for proper names; but would a King, specially a King of the sea, be called a Lawman? Lagman too is a real Scandinavian name. Lagman, Harold, and Olaf appear as brothers in the history of Man (Chron. Man. 4. ed. Munch, A. 1075.) Mr. Thorpe also supposes that the two Kings were “two petty Scandinavian potentates from Ireland.” Depping (ii. 175) identifies this expedition with one in which certain Northmen from Denmark and Ireland invaded Aquitaine (Ademar, iii. 53, ap. Pertz, iv. 139); but this is placed by Pertz in 1020, and the whole story is quite different. Wherever a wiking shows himself, he brings a mythical atmosphere with him.

Footnote 1012:

Will. Gem. v. 12. “Robertus ... verens ne ab eis Francia demoliretur.”

Footnote 1013:

Ib. “Satrapas regiminis sui convocavit, ambosque discordes ad se apud Coldras convenire mandavit.” This is a somewhat lordly style for a French King to use towards a Norman Duke, but it is a Norman writer who records it. On the rarity of such assemblies in France, see above, p. 248.

Footnote 1014:

Will. Gem. v. 12; Roman de Rou, 6975. This of course proves that Olaf Haraldsson is meant, but it proves nothing as to the historic value of the story.

Footnote 1015:

See above, pp. 287–291.

Footnote 1016:

The Norman Conquest of Sicily was actually later than that of England; but then the conquest of Apulia and the conquest of Sicily were merely two acts of the same drama.

Footnote 1017:

Challon, or Cabillo, in ducal Burgundy, which must be distinguished from Châlons, or Catalauni, in Champagne.

Footnote 1018:

Will. Gem. v. 16; Roman de Rou, 7292–7370.

Footnote 1019:

See above, p. 234.

Footnote 1020:

Will. Gem. vii. 3.

Footnote 1021:

See above, pp. 252, 253.

Footnote 1022:

According to Ademar, who records several of his exploits, he daily slew and boiled a Saracen prisoner, and compelled the comrades of the slain man to eat of his flesh. He himself only pretended to partake. Ademar, iii. 55 (Pertz, iv. 140). Some of the first crusaders (Ord. Vit. 749 A) were driven by hunger to eat the flesh of Turks, but their superiors were grieved and ashamed. Richard Cœur de Lion, according to some legends, went a step further; he ate freely, and pronounced that no other meat was so strengthening for an Englishman.

Footnote 1023:

R. Glaber, iii. 1. “Normannorum audacissimus, nomine Rodulphus, qui etiam comiti Richardo displicuerat, cujus iram metuem,” &c. Cf. Ademar, iii. 55.

Footnote 1024:

The respectful way in which Rudolf (u. s.) speaks of the Eastern Empire is worth notice. We read of “Imperator Basilius sancti Imperii Constantinopolitani,” “tributa, quæ Romano debentur Imperio,” namely by the Italian cities, &c.

Footnote 1025:

I speak of course only of such civilization as is implied in progress in science, art, and learning. Political civilization came neither from the East nor from the West nor yet from the South.

Footnote 1026:

See p. 301.

Footnote 1027:

See p. 342.

Footnote 1028:

See p. 361.

Footnote 1029:

W. Gem. v. 17. “Cunctos Normannorum principes apud Fiscannum convocat.” “Richardum filium suum _consultu sapientum_ [mid his Witena geþeaht] præfecit suo ducatui, et Robertum fratrem ejus comitatui Oximensi, ut inde illi persolveret debitum obsequii.” See above, p. 173. Was Richard associated with his father in the duchy before his father’s death? The idea is suggested by a signature of “Richardus Tertius” in De Lisle, Saint Sauveur le Vicomte, Preuves, pp. 7, 9. The former charter is given in full in Neustria Pia, 215–218, The latter seems very distinct. It has the signatures, “Signum Richardi secundi ducis. Signum Richardi tertii ducis.” So the son of Henry the Second was known after his coronation as Henry the Third.

Footnote 1030:

Will. Gem. vi. 2. “Cum suorum nonnullis, ut plurimi rettulerunt, veneno mortem obiit.” So Roman de Rou, 7434 et seqq. William of Malmesbury (ii. 178) more distinctly mentions the suspicion against Robert; “Opinio certe incerta vagatur, quod conniventia fratris Roberti ... vim juveni venefica consciverit.” So Chron. Turon. (Duchesne, iii. 360); “Hic dicitur veneno necasse Richardum fratrem suum.”

Footnote 1031:

Richard left a young son, Nicolas, seemingly illegitimate (see Palgrave, iii. 137–142), who became a monk, and died Abbot of Saint Ouen’s in 1092. Will. Gem. vi. 2; Ord. Vit. 710 A, who records how he began, but did not finish, the abbey church. Of his work only a small part at the east end remains.

Footnote 1032:

There is no authority whatever for his common name of Robert the Devil which seems to have arisen from confounding him with the hero of some popular romance. The Norman historians give him a singularly good character, and certainly, unless he had a hand in his brother’s death, no great crime is recorded of him. We hear absolutely nothing of any such cruelties on his part as are recorded of many princes of that age. (See Will. Gem. vi. 3; Roman de Rou, 7453.) Altogether his

## actions might make us think that he was of the same generous and

impulsive disposition as his forefather William Longsword (see above, p. 193). His conduct in the external relations of his duchy was far more honourable than that of William; but then he had no Hugh of Paris or Herbert of Vermandois to lead him astray. For another character of Robert, see below, p. 478.

Footnote 1033:

Bishop Guy of Amiens goes a step further, and makes Robert actually conquer England; Carmen de Bello, 331;

“Normannos proavus [Willelmi sc.] superavit, avusque Britannos; Anglorum genitor sub juga colla dedit.”

Footnote 1034:

Archbishop Robert his uncle, William of Belesme (of whose family more anon), and Hugh Bishop of Bayeux, who was son of Rudolf of Ivry (see above, p. 258), and therefore first cousin to Robert’s father. See Will. Gem. vi. 3–5; Roman de Rou, 7591 et seqq.

Footnote 1035:

Will. Gem. vi. 8; Roman de Rou, 7755–7896.

Footnote 1036:

See Appendix OOO.

Footnote 1037:

Will. Gem. vi. 6. The younger Baldwin had married Adela, daughter of King Robert and the nominal widow of Duke Richard the Third.

Footnote 1038:

Rud. Glaber, iii. 9 (Duchesne, iv. 36). Cf. above, p. 241.

Footnote 1039:

Ib. “Hujusmodi enim fama ubique provinciarum percitus peroptabatur a multis, præcipue ab Italicis, ut sibi imperaret, in Imperium sublimari.” If there is any truth in this rumour, the date maybe fixed to the year 1022, when the Empire was vacant by the death of Henry the First or Second.

Footnote 1040:

R. Glaber, iii. 9 (Duchesne, iv. p. 37).

Footnote 1041:

Rudolf (iii. 9) seems to know nothing of the Norman intervention, but attributes the reconciliation to the mediation of Fulk of Anjou. The Norman story is given in Will. Gem. vi. 7; Roman de Rou, 7685–7752. See also the Tours Chronicle, ap. Duchesne, iii. 361, and Will. Malms. ii. 187. But both these writers confound Henry’s brothers in a strange way. They say that the eldest brother Odo did not succeed because of his incapacity; “quia stultus erat;” “Odo major natu hebes.” Now Robert had a son Odo, but he was the fourth in order of birth (“Odo vero frater eorum privatus permansit.” Chron. ap. Duchesne, iii. 86), and he was able (see vol. iii. p. 145) to be put in at least nominal command of an army. The Tours writer also makes Constance favour Henry, but both distinctly recognize the action of Duke Robert; “Henricus regnavit auxilio matris et Roberti ducis Normanniæ.” So William of Malmesbury; “Henricus, maxime annitente Roberto Normanno, coronatus est priusquam plane pater exspirasset.” Even here there is a confusion between Henry’s coronation and his restoration by Robert.

Footnote 1042:

On these events and on those which follow, see Appendix PPP.

Footnote 1043:

See Appendix NNN.

Footnote 1044:

Will. Gem. vi. 10. “Ille salubribus monitis ejus non adquievit, sed legatos infectis rebus nihil lætum portantes remisit.”

Footnote 1045:

“Nimia tempestate acti ad insulam quæ _Gersus_ vocatur,” says William of Jumièges. “Gersus” is a singular form for an island which is also called Cæsarea, but whose last syllable, like that of its neighbours, has a very Teutonic sound. Sir F. Palgrave (iii. 176) remarks that this is the first time that Jersey is spoken of in mediæval history. Wace (7937) seems to have thought that a special description of the position of his native island was needed;

“Gersui est prez de Costentin, Là ù Normendie prent fin; En mer est devers occident, Al fiè de Normendie appent.”

Footnote 1046:

Will. Gem. vi. 10. “Quod puto ita factura esse, Deo auctore, pro Edwardo rege, quem disponebat in futuro regnare sine sanguinis effusione.” William of Malmesbury is vaguer and more discreet; “per occultum scilicet Dei judicium, in cujus voluntate sunt potestates regnorum omnium.”

Footnote 1047:

Ib. vi. 11.

Footnote 1048:

Ib.

Footnote 1049:

William of Malmesbury winds up his story with the singular statement; “Relliquiæ ratium, multo tempore dissolutarum, Rotomagi adhuc nostra ætate visebantur.”

Footnote 1050:

Will. Gem. vi. 12. “Quibus ad liquidum sopitis, en, adsunt legati Roberto duci a Chunuto rege directi.”

Footnote 1051:

Will. Gem. vi. 12. “Pace rata in diebus suis eo quod valida gravaretur incommoditate corporali.” So John of Wallingford (550); “Quadam molestia tactus Cnuto, et sibi et caussæ suæ timuit, et sub quotidiana formidine discidium et periculum, quod ex parte illa imminere sensit, studuit terminare.” No doubt these writers fancied Cnut, who died at the age of forty, to have been quite an old man. Cf. above, p. 254.

Footnote 1052:

It will be seen that I do not look on a single expression of William of Malmesbury (ii. 188) as evidence enough to prove the existence of a party in England in favour of the Æthelings.

Footnote 1053:

Robert died in 1035. Will. Gem. vi. 13. So Florence in anno. The Peterborough and Canterbury Chronicles place his death in 1031.

Footnote 1054:

See William of Jumièges, vi. 12, who however does not distinctly connect the pilgrimage with the death of his brother. But William of Malmesbury says distinctly, “cujus rei gemens conscientiam.” So the Tours Chronicle quoted above (p. 468); “Quare ... nudipes Hierusalem abiit.”

Footnote 1055:

Will. Malms. ii. 178. “Apud Nicæam urbem Bithyniæ dies implevit, veneno, ut fertur, interceptus; auctore ministro Radulfo, cognomento Mowino, qui scelus illud spe ducatus animo suo extorserit; sed Normanniam regressus, re cognita, ab omnibus quasi monstrum exsufflatus, in exsilium perpetuum discessit.” So Roman de Rou, 8372.

Footnote 1056:

Will. Gem. vii. 22. “At Robertus ... antequam Hierusalem pergeret, monasterium Sancti Vigoris Ceratii ædificare cœpit.” So Roman de Rou, 7465 et seqq., 8390. On Cerisy, see Neustria Pia, 429.

Footnote 1057:

Roman de Rou, 8391.

Footnote 1058:

Will. Gem. vii. 1. “Roberti magni ducis.”

Footnote 1059:

Ib. vi. 13. “Sepultus est etiam in basilica sanctæ Mariæ a suis, intra mœnia Nicenæ civitatis.” According to the Chronicle of Saint Wandrille (D’Achery, ii. 288) Robert’s burial in this church was a favour the like of which had never before been granted to any man. This writer altogether casts aside the tale of Robert being poisoned. “Divino, ut credi fas est, judicio decessit, qui jam unus eorum effectus erat, quibus, ut apostolus conqueritur, dignus non erat mundus.” Evil counsellors had led him astray in youth; but he repented of his misdeeds—why did he neither marry Herleva nor take back Estrith?—and gradually reached this high degree of perfection.

Footnote 1060:

The death of Cnut at Shaftesbury is asserted by all the Chronicles and Florence in anno, and by William of Malmesbury, ii. 187. On Saxo’s wild fable about his death, see Appendix PPP.

Footnote 1061:

On the division of Cnut’s dominions at his death, see Appendix QQQ.

Footnote 1062:

See above, p. 109.

Footnote 1063:

On the disputed election between Harold and Harthacnut, see Appendix RRR.

Footnote 1064:

See above, p. 477, and Appendix RRR.

Footnote 1065:

The accounts in the Abingdon and Worcester Chronicles, the only copies which mention the seizure, would seem to imply that it took place while Harold was still only a candidate for the Crown. Florence (in anno) indeed says, “Is tamen, _adepta regia dignitate_, misit Wintoniam suos constipatores celerrime, et gazarum opumque quas rex Canutus Algivæ reliquerat reginæ majorem melioremque partem ademit illi tyrannice.” So Roger of Wendover, i. 473. But Harold could hardly have ventured on this after the peaceful division of the kingdom, and this business is quite different from Harold’s expulsion of Emma in 1037, though it is confounded with it by Roger.

Footnote 1066:

I believe there were people who, on the accession of the present Queen, regretted the separation between England and Hannover.

Footnote 1067:

See Appendix RRR.

Footnote 1068:

Will. Malms, ii. 188. “Elegerunt eum [Haroldum] Dani et Londoniæ cives, qui jam pene in barbarorum mores propter frequentem convictum transierant.”

Footnote 1069:

Grote’s Hist. of Greece, iv. 205.

Footnote 1070:

See p. 265.

Footnote 1071:

See p. 418 and Appendix CCC.

Footnote 1072:

See Appendix RRR.

Footnote 1073:

See p. 396 and Appendix WW.

Footnote 1074:

See Appendix RRR.

Footnote 1075:

Ib.

Footnote 1076:

On the whole story and the various shapes which it takes, see Appendix SSS.

Footnote 1077:

Will. Pict. 37. “Heraldum Angli deserere nolebant, vel (quod est credibilius) non audebant, metuentes affore Danos ad protectionem sive citatam ultionem ejus.” So Roman de Rou, 9783;

“Mais li Engleiz, ki bien saveient Ke li frere venir debveient, Nes’ voudrent mie recoillir Ne en la terre retenir. Herout li fils Kenut dotoent, U poet cel estre k’il l’amoent.”

Footnote 1078:

“Portus Icius,” Will. Pict. “Wincant,” Wace. “Portus Wissanti,” Will. Gem. Since Dr. Guest’s exposition of the matter, it is hardly necessary to say that “Portius Itius” or “Icius” is not Boulogne, still less Walcheren.

Footnote 1079:

Will. Pict. 38. “Officium suum benigne promisit, oscula dans ad fidem ac dextram.”

Footnote 1080:

“Evisceratos.” Bromton (X Scriptt. 935) describes the process; “Quidam namque dicunt quod, primordiis viscerum ejus umbilico aperto extractis et ad stipitem ligatis, ipsum tantis vicibus stimulis ferreis circumduxerunt, donec novissima viscerum extrahebantur; et sic proditione Godwini apud Ely mortuus est Alfredus.”

Footnote 1081:

“Cui dum oculi effoderentur, cultro cerebrum violavit mucro.” Will. Pict. So the Ely History, edited by Stewart, p. 209, where the narrative is made up from Florence and William of Poitiers. The Ely History in Gale (ii. 32. p. 508) follows Florence only.

Footnote 1082:

Eadward, as we have seen, had forty ships; Ælfred came “accuratius quam frater antea adversus vim præparatus.” So the Roman de Rou (9806) speaks of his “grant navie.”

Footnote 1083:

See Appendix SSS.

Footnote 1084:

Some were _scalped_; “nonnullos cute capitis abstracta cruciavit.”

Footnote 1085:

“Ne wearð dreorlicre dǽd Gedon on þison earde; Syþþan Dene comon, And her frið namon.”

The Chronicler’s way of reckoning is changed since the days of Brunanburh, when the fight was the greatest ever fought

“Siþþan eastan hider Engle and Seaxe Up becoman Ofer bradbrimu,” &c.

Footnote 1086:

“At the west end, near the steeple, in the south _portice_.” This makes one think that the present arrangements of the west front of Ely reproduce something far earlier.

Footnote 1087:

See Appendix BBB.

Footnote 1088:

The letter is given at length in the Encomium Emmæ, iii. 3. The letter is confessedly a forgery of Harold; it may very likely be a pure invention of the Encomiast; still anything professing to be a private letter, as distinguished from a legal document, is a curiosity at this stage of English history.

Footnote 1089:

“Bononiensium paucos.” I need hardly say that Wissant is in the county of Boulogne, and that the county of Boulogne comes within the limits of Flanders in the wider sense of the word.

Footnote 1090:

Enc. Emm. iii. 4. “Illi comes Godwinus est obvius factus, et eum in sua suscepit fide, ejusque fit mox miles cum sacramenti affirmatione.”

Footnote 1091:

“Devians eum a Londonia.” This writer seems not to know that Emma was at Winchester.

Footnote 1092:

“Mane rediturus,” says the Encomiast, “ut domino suo serviret cum debita honorificentia.”

Footnote 1093:

Enc. Emm. iii. 6. “A milite primum irrisus est iniquissimo; deinde contemptibiliores eliguntur, ut horum ab insania flendus juvenis dijudicetur. Qui, judices constituti, decreverunt,” &c. We are here on the dangerous ground of martyrology, and we must be on our guard against the evident wish, shown in all such cases, to make the sufferings of Ælfred follow the pattern of the sufferings of Christ. Possibly too, in the language about these judges, whoever they were, we may discern an allusion to Saint Paul’s precept, 1 Cor. vi. 4.

Footnote 1094:

Our history gives us several examples of murders, and of murders left unpunished. But of legal executions for political offences we never hear, except during the proscription in the early days of Cnut.

Footnote 1095:

Cf. Baron Maseres’ note on the Encomium, p. 31.

Footnote 1096:

See Appendix SSS.

Footnote 1097:

Vita Eadw. 401. See Appendix SSS.

Footnote 1098:

See below, p. 514.

Footnote 1099:

Chronn. “Forðan hit hleoðrode þa swiðe toward Haraldes, þeh hit unriht wære.”

Footnote 1100:

It will be seen that my view is built mainly on the account in the Encomium Emmæ.

Footnote 1101:

The year of Ælfred’s death was the year of the marriage of his half-sister Gunhild. See above, p. 455, and Appendix NNN.

Footnote 1102:

See Snorro, Saga viii. capp. 6, 7 (Laing, ii. 364); Adam Brem. ii. 74.

Footnote 1103:

So the Abingdon and Worcester Chronicles, those which do not distinctly mention the division; “Her man geceas Harold ofer eall to kyninge; and forsoc Harðacnut, forþam he wæs to lange on Denmarcon.” So Florence; “Haroldus Rex Merciorum et Northhymbrorum, ut per totam regnaret Angliam, a principibus _et omni populo_ rex eligitur. Heardecanutus vero, quia in Denemarcia moras innexuit, et ad Angliam, _ut rogabatur_, venire distulit, penitus abjicitur.”

Footnote 1104:

See above, p. 106, and Appendix R.

Footnote 1105:

See above, p. 405.

Footnote 1106:

All the Chronicles mention the banishment or “driving out” of Ælfgifu-Emma. The expression is the same as that which is used in the years 963 and 964 for the expulsion of secular priests from several churches, and in 1045 for the banishment of Gunhild. One would like to know in what this driving out differed from regular outlawry. Possibly the driving out involved an actual personal removal, while the banishment involved in a sentence of outlawry was only constructive, like the Roman _aquæ et ignis interdictio_. Godwine, on his outlawry, was allowed five days to leave the country (Peterborough Chronicle, 1051). The tone of the Worcester and Abingdon Chronicles certainly seems to imply that the measure was a harsher one than that of ordinary outlawry; “And man draf ut his [Harðacnutes] modor Ælfgyfe þa _cwene_ [a rare use of that word instead of _hlæfdige_], butan ælcere mildheortnesse, ongean þone wallendan winter.” Florence translates, describing her as “Alfgiva, _quondam_ Anglorum regina.” Does this imply any formal deposition from royal rank?

Footnote 1107:

Enc. Emm. iii. 7; Will. Malms. ii. 188. On Adela, see above, p. 469.

Footnote 1108:

The Encomiast (iii. 1), after mentioning Æthelnoth’s refusal to crown Harold, continues; “Tandem desperatus abscessit, et episcopalem benedictionem adeo sprevit, ut non solum ipsam odiret benedictionem, verum etiam universam fugeret Christianitatis religionem. Namque, dum alii ecclesiam Christiano more missam audire subintrarent, ipse aut saltus canibus ad venandum cinxit, aut quibuslibet aliis vilissimis rebus occupavit, ut tantum declinare posset quod odivit.” There is also what seems to be an allusion to the alleged irreligion of Harold in a foreign Chronicle, the Annals of Hildesheim, Pertz, iii. 100; “Hiemali tempore Chnuht, rex Danorum et Anglorum, immatura morte præventus obivit, et Christiana religio ab ipso fideliter exculta periclitari cœpit.” Yet Harold is not mentioned, and the entry goes on with only partial accuracy; “Filius ejus junior, Haerdechunt nomine, regnum ipsius post eum consensu provincialium obtinuit.”

Footnote 1109:

There is a very remarkable document of this reign, in which Harold appears, if not as a benefactor, at least not as an enemy, of churchmen. See Ellis, Introduction to Domesday, ii. 142; Cod. Dipl. iv. 56; Thorpe, Dipl. 338. Certain revenues at Sandwich belonging to Christ Church at Canterbury had been seized by the King’s officers, and partly alienated to the rival monastery of Saint Augustine’s. It appears however that this was done without the order or knowledge of Harold, who was then sick at Oxford, and who, on learning the fact, expressed great indignation and ordered restitution. Mr. Kemble dates the document in 1038, but it is clear that it must, as Sir Henry Ellis says, belong to 1039, or perhaps to the beginning of 1040.

Footnote 1110:

See Hook, Archbishops, i. 487; Stubbs, Reg. Sacr. Angl. p. 19. He appears as at once royal chaplain and monk in a charter of Cnut in Cod. Dipl. vi. 190, and he is addressed as Bishop in two charters of the same King addressed to the thegns of Kent. Cod. Dipl. vi. 187, 189. Dean Hook and Professor Stubbs place his suffragan see at the ancient church of Saint Martin near Canterbury.

Footnote 1111:

See Florence, 1038; Hook, i. 505 (where the appointment is attributed to Harthacnut). But none of the Chronicles mention the story.

Footnote 1112:

See Florence, 1038, compared with 1046.

Footnote 1113:

“Forðam he wæs nehst his [Eadwardes] modor rǽde,” says the Abingdon Chronicle of Stigand under the year 1043.

Footnote 1114:

He was in attendance on Harold in his last sickness, whether as a political or as a spiritual adviser. Cod. Dipl. iv. 56.

Footnote 1115:

The Chroniclers, even while condemning the driving out of Emma, speak of it in the same breath with the election of Harold, as if they were both alike popular acts; “Man geceas Harold ... and forsoc Harðacnut ... and man draf út his modor.”

Footnote 1116:

Chron. Ab. and Fl. Wig. in anno. Thurkill—there were many of the name—Ælfgeat, and “many other good men” were also killed. See also Annales Cambriæ and Brut y Tywysogion in anno.

Footnote 1117:

Sim. Dun. Hist. Dun. iii. 9 (X Scriptt. 33). “Defuncto Cnut, quum filius ejus Haroldus jam quintum annum in regno ... gereret.”

Footnote 1118:

See above, p. 328.

Footnote 1119:

See above, p. 448.

Footnote 1120:

The story is told by Simeon of Durham, Hist. Dun. iii. 6, and more briefly by Florence, 1020. The canons of Durham are met to choose a Bishop after the three years’ widowhood of the see which followed the death of Ealdhun (see above, p. 448); Eadmund asks in joke why they do not choose him; they forthwith choose him in earnest, but agree to consult Saint Cuthberht; a voice issuing from his tomb thrice names Eadmund as Bishop. Eadmund now objects, on the ground of his not being a monk like his predecessors—an odd reason to give to a chapter of seculars—but the election is approved by King Cnut, Eadmund makes his profession as a monk, and he is consecrated by Archbishop Wulfstan. This story seems to imply a degree of freedom of election in capitular bodies of which we find a few, but only a few traces at this time. Bishoprics are in most cases filled directly by the King, with the assent of his Witan, without any mention of the monks or canons. But see the history of Saint Wulfstan, vol. ii. chap. ix.

Footnote 1121:

Sim. Hist. Dun. iii. 5.

Footnote 1122:

So I understand the words of Simeon, Hist. Dun. iii. 9; “Magna parte equitum suorum _ab his qui obsidebantur_ interfecta, confusus aufugit, fugiens pedites interfectos amisit.” The mention of “equites” need not imply that the Scottish army contained cavalry strictly so called, that is, men who used their horses in actual battle. It is enough to justify the expression if, among the Scots, as among the English, the chief men rode to the field (see above, p. 271); the chief men, as usual, would suffer most severely in the actual combat, while those among them who survived would have the advantage in flight. There is another entry in the Durham Annals which places both this siege and the death of Harold in 1039. “Hoc anno Dunechanus rex Scotorum cum exercitu magno Dunelmum obsidens, fugatus ab obsessis, magnam suorum multitudinem amisit.”

Footnote 1123:

Sim. Hist. Dun. iii. 9. “Quorum capita in forum collata in stipitibus sunt suspensa.” See above, p. 329.

Footnote 1124:

Snorro, Saga viii. 7 (Laing, ii. 364); Chron. Rosk. ap. Lang. i. 377. Cf. above, p. 397.

Footnote 1125:

Enc. Emm. iii. 8.

Footnote 1126:

Ib.

Footnote 1127:

Chron. Ab. 1039. “And her com éc Hardacnut to Bricge, þar his modor wæs.” Enc. Emm. u. s., where we have a story about a tempest and a vision.

Footnote 1128:

Adam Brem. ii. 72. “Contra quem frater a Dania veniens in Flandria classem adunavit. Sed rex Anglorum, morte præventus, bellum diremit.”

Footnote 1129:

In the charter mentioned above (p. 504) we find some details of Harold’s sickness; “And wæs se king þa binnan Oxnaforde swyðe geseocled, swa þæt he læg orwene his lífes.” When he hears of the wrong done to Christ Church, “Ða læg se king and sweartode eall mid þare sage.”

Footnote 1130:

That Harold died at Oxford is plain from the above passage, and from the Peterborough Chronicle. Florence says “obiit Lundoniæ.” He probably had the Worcester Chronicle before him, and inferred the place of his death from the place of his burial. William of Malmesbury agrees with the Chronicler.

Footnote 1131:

Chronn. Petrib. and Cant.; Fl. Wig. in anno; Will. Malms. ii. 188.

Footnote 1132:

Will. Malms, ii. 188. “Anglis et Danis in unam sententiam convenientibus.” So Hen. Hunt. M. H. B. 758 C, speaking of his landing at Sandwich; “Hardecnut ... susceptus est [underfangen] et electus in regem simul ab Anglis et Dacis.” This comes, with improvements, from the Peterborough Chronicle; “On þis ilcan geare com Hardacnut cyng to Sandwic ... and he was sona underfangen ge fram Anglum ge fram Denum.” Taken alone this might imply that Harthacnut came over, like Ælfred, to seek his fortune, only with a luckier result; but the other Chronicles distinctly assert the previous embassy and therefore imply the previous election.

Footnote 1133:

Chronn. Ab. and Wig. “And man sende æfter Harðacnute to Brygce; wende þæt man wel dyde.” So Florence, “bene se facere putantes.”

Footnote 1134:

See Hist. Rams. c. 94, 95, for the embassy and for an accompanying miracle. Ælfweard was a somewhat remarkable person. He was first a monk of Ramsey and then Abbot of Evesham, which office he held in plurality with his bishopric. The church of Evesham had fluctuated more than once between monks and secular canons, the canons being last introduced by Ælfhere of Mercia in the disputes which followed the death of Eadgar. See above, p. 263. Many of the estates fell into the hands of laymen, especially into those of Godwine of Lindesey, who died at Assandun. They were recovered from Godwine by a legal process, seemingly before the Witan of Mercia (“coram multis principibus hujus patriæ”), by the Abbot Brihtmær. But Godwine seized them again during the absence of Æthelred in Normandy in 1013. One almost fancies that this must have been by a grant from Swegen, to whom Lindesey was one of the first parts of England to submit. See above, p. 358. Æthelred on his return in 1014 appointed Ælfweard Abbot, who again expelled Godwine, seemingly by force (“fretus auxilio Dei atque regis ... cum magna fortitudine hinc expulit”). The local chronicler looks on Godwine’s death at Assandun as the punishment of this sacrilege; “Godwinus vero qui eas injuste habuit eodem anno(?) Dei nutu in bello contra regem Danorum, Cnutonem Sweinonis filium, facto occisus est.” These stories of occupations of monastic lands by powerful men, or in their names, meet us at every turn. See above, p. 505. Ælfweard received the bishopric of London from Cnut, who is called his kinsman, about 1035. We shall hear of him again. See Chron. Abb. Evesham, pp. 78–83.

Footnote 1135:

Rog. Wend. i. 477. So Fl. Wig. “Regnique solio mox sublimatur.” The place comes from Rishanger, 427.

Footnote 1136:

Will. Pict. ap. Maseres, 39. “Hardechunutus ... generi materno similior, non qua _pater_ aut frater crudelitate regnabat neque interitum Edwardi sed provectum volebat. Ob morbos etiam quos frequenter patiebatur, plus Deum in oculis habebat, et vitæ humanæ brevitatem.”

Footnote 1137:

See his charters for a grant to Saint Eadmund’s (Cod. Dipl. iv. 60), to Abingdon (iv. 65), to Ramsey (vi. 192. Hist. Rams. c. 97 et seqq.), to Bishop Ælfwine of Winchester and his successors (iv. 68). The Ramsey charter runs in the joint names of Harthacnut and his mother.

Footnote 1138:

Hen. Hunt. M. H. B. 758 D. “Claræ indolis et benignæ juventutis fuerat suis. Tantæ namque largitatis fertur fuisse ut prandia regalia quattuor in die vicibus omni curiæ suæ faceret apponi, malens a vocatis posita fercula dimitti quam a non vocatis apponenda fercula reposci.” Henry then goes on to lament the niggardly practice of the Kings of his own time who provided only one meal daily. The Ramsey historian (c. 102) calls him “vir prædicandæ indolis et eximiæ in miseros pietatis.” King John also was a great almsman.

Footnote 1139:

Chron. Petrib. 1040. “On his [Haroldes] dagum man geald xvi scipan æt ælcere hamulan [hamelan in Chron. Ab.] viii marcan.” On the word _hamulan_ Mr. Earle (p. 343) remarks, “This being a dative feminine, the nom. must be _hamule_, _hamele_; at first perhaps signifying a _rowlock-strap_, and so symbolizing some subdivision of the crew. There is not money enough to give eight marcs to every rower.” The “hamule” then would be analogous to the “lance” in mediæval armies. But Florence clearly took it to mean a single rower; “Octo marcas unicuique suæ classis remigi.”

Footnote 1140:

Chronn. Ab. Wig. “And him wæs þa unhold eall þæt his ær gyrnde; and he ne gefræmde eac naht cynelices þa hwile þe he rixode.” Florence divides this description, putting the latter clause now, and the former after what I take to be the _second_ Danegeld.

Footnote 1141:

See Appendix TTT.

Footnote 1142:

“Stir majorem domus,” says Florence.

Footnote 1143:

Florence seems to put the two Danegelds together, but the Peterborough Chronicle (1039, 1040) clearly distinguishes them. There is a reference to this Danegeld in Heming’s Worcester Cartulary, 348 (Mon. Angl. i. 593), in which it is compared with the earlier Danegelds of Æthelred and Cnut, see above, pp. 371, 418, and declared to have been heavier than any of them; “Sicuti factum est temporibus Athelredi, regis Anglorum, vastante et depopulante hanc patriam pagano rege Danorum Swein nomine, quum maximum et prope importabile tributum tota Anglia reddere cogeretur. Ob hujus itaque tam gravis tributi exactionem omnia fere ornamenta hujus ecclesiæ distracta sunt, tabulæ altaris, argento et auro paratæ, spoliatæ sunt, textus exornati, calices confracti, cruces conflatæ, ad ultimum etiam terræ et villulæ pecuniis distractæ sunt. Simili modo etiam actum est regnante Cnut filio suo, et adhuc graviora vectigalia superaddita sunt temporibus regni filii Cnut, cujus nomen erat Hardecnut.”

Footnote 1144:

Florence here inserts the remark, from the Worcester and Abingdon Chronicles, “Quapropter omnibus qui prius adventum ejus desiderabant magnopere factus est exosus summopere.”

Footnote 1145:

Flor. Wig. in anno. “Accusantibus illos Ælfrico Eboracensi archiepiscopo et quibusdam aliis.”

Footnote 1146:

Ib. “Episcopatum Wigornensem Livingo abstulit et Ælfrico dedit, sed sequenti anno ablatum Ælfrico, Livingo secum pacificato benigne reddidit.”

Footnote 1147:

Will. Malms. ii. 188. “Illum episcopatu expulit, sed post annum pecunia serenatus restituit.”

Footnote 1148:

Ib. “Godwinum quoque obliquis oculis intuitus, ad sacramentum purgationis compulit.”

Footnote 1149:

Flor. Wig. in anno. “Cum totius fere Angliæ principibus et ministris dignioribus regi juravit.”

Footnote 1150:

See Appendix VVV.

Footnote 1151:

See above, pp. 354, 357.

Footnote 1152:

See above, p. 340.

Footnote 1153:

See above, p. 357.

Footnote 1154:

Except in one Danish Chronicle (Chron. Erici, ap. Lang. i. 159), who ludicrously attributes to Harthacnut, not only his father’s military legislation, but his mythical exploits in various parts of the world. “Unde tempore suo super omnes reges mundi terribilis et laudabilis exstitit. Transivit etiam cum Imperatore in Italiam ad domandum nationes exteras. Obiit autem in Anglia.”

Footnote 1155:

The ship and its crew are described by Florence, 1040; William of Malmesbury, ii. 188.

Footnote 1156:

Will. Malms. “Ne singula enumerem armis omnibus instructos in quibus fulgor cum terrore certans sub auro ferrum occuleret.”

Footnote 1157:

“Securis Danica” in both accounts.

Footnote 1158:

Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 728 E) arms both West-Saxons and Mercians at Burford “gladiis et securibus _Amazonicis_.” The Amazons are of course a flourish of Henry’s own out of Horace; but the axes may very likely come from a ballad. The axe, as antiquarian researches show, was in use almost everywhere from the earliest times, but the earlier axes are something quite different from the vast two-handed weapons wielded at Stamfordbridge and Senlac. This last clearly supplanted the sword as the characteristic English weapon from about this time. See above, pp. 273, 391.

Footnote 1159:

Villehardouin, c. 95. “Et li Griffon orent mis d’Englois et de Danois à totes les haches.” Nikêtas, Alex. iii. (351 B. ed. Paris, 1647). εἰ καὶ πρὸς τῶν ἐπικούρων Ῥωμαίοις Πισσαίων καὶ τῶν πελεκυφόρων βαρβάρων γενναιότερον ἀπεκρούσθησαν, καὶ τραυματίαι οἱ πλείους ἀνέζευξαν.

Footnote 1160:

Bromton (so to call him) must have had some authority before him when he made the significant remark (X Scriptt. 934), “Iste rex Hardeknoutus per totum tempus quo regnavit regnum Scotiæ subjectum pacifice habebat.”

Footnote 1161:

See above, pp. 350, 353.

Footnote 1162:

Flor. Wig. 1041. “Rex Anglorum Heardecanutus suos huscarlas misit per omnes regni sui provincias ad exigendum quod indixerat tributum.”

Footnote 1163:

See Appendix KKK.

Footnote 1164:

“Ut _piratis_ suis necessaria ministrarent,” says Roger of Wendover, i. 479.

Footnote 1165:

See above, p. 316.

Footnote 1166:

Flor. Wig. in anno. “In cujusdam turris Wigornensis monasterii solario.” This can hardly mean the principal tower of the church.

Footnote 1167:

Besides the ravaging of districts as chastisement for treason or defection in war (see above, pp. 371, 378), we find a similar case even in the peaceful reign of Eadgar. See above, p. 65.

Footnote 1168:

See above, p. 514.

Footnote 1169:

So I understand William of Malmesbury, De Gest. Pont. iii. p. 154 “Quin et Wigorniensibus _pro repulsa episcopatus_ infensus auctor Hardecnuto fuit ut, quod illi pertinacius exactoribus regiorum vectigalium obstiterant, urbem incenderet, fortunas civium abraderet.” If the “repulsa episcopatus” meant the restoration of the see to Lyfing by the King’s act, this could be no offence on the part of the citizens of Worcester.

Footnote 1170:

On the dates of Siward’s promotions, see Appendix WWW.

Footnote 1171:

Florence calls him “Comes Mediterraneorum.” His earldom included Huntingdonshire. See a charter of Harthacnut and Emma addressed “Turri comiti” (Cod. Dipl. vi. 192). I do not find any of his signatures as Earl, but he is doubtless the same as Ðord, Ðored, &c., in various spellings, who signs several charters of Cnut as “minister” and “miles.”

Footnote 1172:

See above, p. 404. “Hrani dux” signs as early as 1023. Cod. Dipl. iv. 27. We find him holding a Scirgemót with Bishop Æthelstan and others in Cod. Dipl. iv. 54. He there bears the title of Ealdorman, and we find that his son, like some other English-born sons of Danish settlers, bore the English name of Eadwine.

Footnote 1173:

Fl. Wig. “Paucos vel e civibus vel provincialibus ceperunt aut occiderunt, quia præcognito adventu eorum, provinciales quoque locorum fugerant.”

Footnote 1174:

Ib. “Munitione facta, tamdiu se viriliter adversus suos inimicos defenderant.”

Footnote 1175:

The existence of the beaver in Britain within historical memory seems proved by such names as Beverege, Beverley, perhaps, but less likely, Beverstone (Byferesstan, Chron. Petrib. 1048) in Gloucestershire. Giraldus Cambrensis (Topog. Hibern. i. 21. p. 709 Camden) speaks of beavers in his time in the Teifi, but in the Teifi only.

Footnote 1176:

The Worcester writer Heming seems inclined to make the most of the mischief. To his description of the Danegeld, quoted already (see above, p. 513), he adds that Harthacnut “etiam totam istam provinciam hostili exercitu ferro et igne depopulavit.”

Footnote 1177:

“Ælfrico adhuc Wigornensem pontificatum tenente,” says Florence, a significant expression, which seems silently to confirm the charge brought against Ælfric of being the author of the whole business.

Footnote 1178:

Robert of Gloucester, p. 558;

“þe bissop Walter of Wurcetre asoiled hom alle þere, and prechede hom, þat hii adde of deþ þe lasse fere.”

Footnote 1179:

Will. Malms. ii. 188. “Contumeliam famæ, et amori suo detrimentum ingessit.”

Footnote 1180:

The coming of Eadward and his friendly reception by Harthacnut is asserted by all the Chronicles and by Florence; they do not distinctly affirm that Harthacnut sent for him, but it is surely a natural inference. The invitation is distinctly asserted by the Encomiast, p. 39. William of Malmesbury however (ii. 188) seems to imply that Eadward came uninvited; “Germanum Edwardum, annosæ peregrinationis tædio, et spe fraternæ necessitudinis, natale solum revisentem, obviis, ut aiunt, manibus excipiens indulgentissime retinuit.”

Footnote 1181:

Cnut married Emma in 1017. Harthacnut was therefore born between 1018 and 1023, when he visited Canterbury as a child. Chron. Wig. 1023.

Footnote 1182:

See the extract from William of Poitiers in p. 511.

Footnote 1183:

Enc. Emm. 39. “Fraterno correptus amore, nuncios mittit ad Edvardum, rogans ut veniens secum obtineret regnum.” Saxo (202) assigns quite another motive; “Edvardum fratrem, quem ejusdem nominis[!] pater ex Immæ matrimonio sustulit, in regni societatem adsciscit; non quod fraterno illum adfectu coleret, sed ut ejus ambitionem munificentia ac liberalitate præcurreret, regnique parte potitum totum cupere prohiberet.”]

Footnote 1184:

Chronn. Abb. et Wig. “He wunode þa swa on his broðor hirede, þa hwile þe he leofode.” Fl. Wig. “A fratre suo Heardecanuto rege susceptus honorifice in curia sua mansit.”

Footnote 1185:

See above, p. 317.

Footnote 1186:

Ord. Vit. 655 C; Hist. Rams. c. 116.

Footnote 1187:

“Timidus dux Radulfus,” says Florence, 1055.

Footnote 1188:

See above, pp. 330, 379.

Footnote 1189:

See Appendix KK.

Footnote 1190:

See above, p. 379.

Footnote 1191:

See Appendix KK.

Footnote 1192:

A Carl, apparently the same, signs several charters of Cnut.

Footnote 1193:

Sim. Dun. X Scriptt. 81; De Gestis, 204.

Footnote 1194:

Sim. Dun. 81. “Diutina maris tempestate impediti, cœptum iter relinquentes, domum sunt reversi.”

Footnote 1195:

See above, p. 327. This story has a mythical sound; still a hunting-party would give unusual opportunities both to commit such a murder and afterwards to represent it as an accident. The fate of William Rufus is a familiar example. Simeon (p. 81) says that, in his time, the place of the murder was marked by a small stone cross.

Footnote 1196:

See above, p. 520.

Footnote 1197:

Will. Malms. iii. 253. On the origin of Siward, see Appendix WWW.

Footnote 1198:

Ealdred (Sim. Dun. 82) had five daughters, three of whom were named “Elfleda,” that is, I suppose, Æthelflæd. Of these Siward married one, who was the mother of the famous Waltheof. Did the two other Æthelflæds die in infancy?

Footnote 1199:

Sim. Dun. De Gestis, 204. “Qui, quum superbia extolleretur, Brittones satis atrociter devastavit.”

Footnote 1200:

Ib. “Sed tertio post anno, quum ad Hardecanutum reconciliandus in pace venisset, interfectus est a Siwardo.” So the Abingdon and Worcester Chronicles, 1041; “And on þison geare eac swác Harðacnut Eadulfe under gryðe, and he was þa wedloga.” This independent statement gives the strongest possible confirmation to Simeon’s whole story. Florence does not mention the murder of Eadwulf.

Footnote 1201:

Sim. Dun. u. s. “Siwardus, qui post illum totius provinciæ Northanhymbrorum, id est ab Humbra usque Twedam, comitatum habuit.” Ann. Dun. 1043. “Comes Siward vastavit Northanhymbrorum provinciam.” This seems to be put during the ten months of the imperfect episcopate of Eadred.

Footnote 1202:

Sim. Hist. Dun. iii. 9. p. 33. “Defunctus est in Glocestre, quum apud regem ibidem moraretur.” Gloucester was, at least under Eadward and William, the usual place for the Midwinter festival. Chron. Petrib. 1087. Eadward also is found at Gloucester somewhat earlier in the year. Flor. Wig. 1043.

Footnote 1203:

Simeon (Hist. Dun. iii. 9) says, “Præsulatum illius ecclesiæ primus ex ordine clericali festinavit obtinere.” See above, p. 507.

Footnote 1204:

So I understand the words (Sim. Dun. u. s.), “Intraturus quippe ecclesiam, subita infirmitate corripitur, decidensque in lectum, decimo mense moritur.”

Footnote 1205:

So at least it would appear from Adam of Bremen, ii. 74. “Magnus statim invadens Daniam, possedit duo regna, Hardechnut rege Danorum cum exercitu morante in Anglia.” But it is hard to make this agree with the Saga of Magnus, which speaks of no occupation of Denmark by Magnus till after Harthacnut’s death.

Footnote 1206:

Adam, ii. 73.

Footnote 1207:

Ib. 74.

Footnote 1208:

Chronn. Ab. et Wig. “Her forðferde Harðacnut swa þæt he æt his drince stod.”

Footnote 1209:

See Appendix XXX.

Footnote 1210:

“Osgodus Clapa, magnæ vir potentiæ,” says Florence. The Waltham writer De Inventione (c. 13) corrupts Clapa into Scalp, and his daughter’s name into Glitha.

Footnote 1211:

De Inv. 1–10. The first inhabitants were sixty-six persons who were cured by the relic, and who devoted themselves to its honour. “De quibus ... in primis instituta est villa Walthamensis, nam antea nihil erat in loco nisi vile domicilium ad succurrendum quum caussa venandi accederet illuc heros ille.” This happened “regnante Cnuto et Anglis _imperante_.”

Footnote 1212:

Ib. 7. “Ei præ gaudio a senectute et senio [a subtle distinction], sicut aquilæ, juventus renovatur.”

Footnote 1213:

Fl. Wig. “Dum ... lætus, sospes, et hilaris, cum sponsa prædicta et quibusdam viris bibens staret.” Cf. Chron. Petrib.

Footnote 1214:

Chronn. Ab. et Wig. “Mid egeslicum anginne.”

Footnote 1215:

Chronn. Petr. et Cant. The latter adds, “His moder for his sawle gief into niwan mynstre S. Valentines heafod ðas martires.”

Footnote 1216:

See the next Chapter and Appendix YYY.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last chapter. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. ● Enclosed bold or blackletter font in =equals=.