chapter 10._

Mr. Skene is of opinion that the battle of Brunnaburgh was fought at Aldborough, near York.

_W. F. Skene, Celtic Scotland, volume 1, page 357._

ENGLAND: A. D. 940. Accession of the West Saxon king Edmund.

ENGLAND: A. D. 946. Accession of the West Saxon king Edred.

ENGLAND: A. D. 955. Accession of the West Saxon king Edwig.

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ENGLAND: A. D. 958. Accession of the West Saxon king Edgar.

ENGLAND: A. D. 958. Completed union of the realm. Increase of kingly authority. Approach towards feudalism. Rise of the Witenagemot. Decline of the Freemen.

"Before Alfred's son Edward died, the whole of Mercia was incorporated with his immediate dominions. The way in which the thing was done was more remarkable than the thing itself. Like the Romans, he made the fortified towns the means of upholding his power. But unlike the Romans, he did not garrison them with colonists from amongst his own immediate dependents. He filled them, as Henry the Fowler did afterwards in Saxony, with free townsmen, whose hearts were at one with their fellow countrymen around. Before he died in 924, the Danish chiefs in the land beyond the Humber had acknowledged his overlordship, and even the Celts of Wales and Scotland had given in their submission in some form which they were not likely to interpret too strictly. His son and his two grandsons, Athelstan, Edmund, and Edred completed the work, and when after the short and troubled interval of Edwy's rule in Wessex, Edgar united the undivided realm under his sway in 958, he had no internal enemies to suppress. He allowed the Celtic Scottish King who had succeeded to the inheritance of the Pictish race to possess the old Northumbrian land north of the Tweed, where they and their descendants learned the habits and speech of Englishmen. But he treated him and the other Celtic kings distinctly as his inferiors, though it was perhaps well for him that he did not attempt to impose upon them any very tangible tokens of his supremacy. The story of his being rowed by eight kings on the Dee is doubtless only a legend by which the peaceful king was glorified in the troubled times which followed. Such a struggle, so successfully conducted, could not fail to be accompanied by a vast increase of that kingly authority which had been on the growth from the time of its first establishment. The hereditary ealdormen, the representatives of the old kingly houses, had passed away. The old tribes, or--where their limitations had been obliterated by the tide of Danish conquest, as was the case in central and northern England--the new artificial divisions which had taken their place, were now known as shires, and the very name testified that they were regarded only as parts of a greater whole. The shire mote still continued the tradition of the old popular assemblies. At its head as presidents of its deliberations were the ealdorman and the bishop, each of them owing their appointment to the king, and it was summoned by the shire-reeve or sheriff, himself even more directly an officer of the king, whose business it was to see that all the royal dues were paid within the shire. In the more general concerns of the kingdom, the king consulted with his Witan, whose meetings were called the Witenagemot, a body, which, at least for all ordinary purposes, was composed not of any representatives of the shire-motes, but of his own dependents, the ealdormen, the bishops, and a certain number of thegns whose name, meaning 'servants', implied at least at first, that they either were or had at one time been in some way in the employment of the king. ... The necessities of war ... combined with the sluggishness of the mass of the population to favour the growth of a military force, which would leave the tillers of the soil to their own peaceful occupations. As the conditions which make a standing army possible on a large scale did not yet exist, such a force must be afforded by a special class, and that class must be composed of those who either had too much land to till themselves, or, having no land at all, were released from the bonds which tied the cultivator to the soil, in other words, it must be composed of a landed aristocracy and its dependents. In working out this change, England was only aiming at the results which similar conditions were producing on the Continent. But just as the homogeneousness of the population drew even the foreign element of the church into harmony with the established institutions, so it was with the military aristocracy. It grouped itself round the king, and it supplemented, instead of overthrowing, the old popular assemblies. Two classes of men, the eorls and the gesiths, had been marked out from their fellows at the time of the conquest. The thegn of Edgar's day differed from both, but he had some of the distinguishing marks of either. He was not like the gesith, a mere personal follower of the king. He did not, like the eorl, owe his position to his birth. Yet his relation to the king was a close one, and he had a hold upon the land as firm as that of the older eorl. He may, perhaps, best be described as a gesith, who had acquired the position of an eorl without entirely throwing off his own characteristics. ... There can be little doubt that the change began in the practice of granting special estates in the folkland, or common undivided land, to special persons. At first this land was doubtless held to be the property of the tribe. [This is now questioned by Vinogradoff and others. See FOLCLAND.] ... When the king rose above the tribes, he granted it himself with the consent of his Witan. A large portion was granted to churches and monasteries. But a large portion went in privates estates, or book land, as it was called, from the book or charter which conveyed them to the king's own gesiths, or to members of his own family. The gesith thus ceased to be a mere member of the king's military household. He became a landowner as well, with special duties. to perform to the king. ... He had special jurisdiction given him over his tenants and serfs, exempting him and them from the authority of the hundred mote, though they still remained, except in very exceptional cases, under the authority of the shire mote. ... Even up to the Norman conquest this change was still going on. To the end, indeed, the old constitutional forms were not broken down. The hundred mote was not abandoned, where freemen enough remained to fill it. Even where all the land of a hundred had passed under the protection of a lord there was little outward change. ... There was thus no actual breach of continuity in the nation. The thegnhood pushed its roots down, as it were, amongst the free classes. Nevertheless there was a danger of such a breach of continuity coming about. The freemen entered more and more largely into a condition of' dependence, and there was a great risk lest such a condition of dependence should become a condition of servitude. Here and there, by some extraordinary stroke of luck, a freeman might rise to be a thegn. But the condition of the class to which he belonged was deteriorating every day. {789} The downward progress to serfdom was too easy to take, and by large masses of the population it was already taken. Below the increasing numbers of the serfs was to be found the lower class of slaves, who were actually the property of their masters. The Witenagemot was in reality a select body of thegns, if the bishops, who held their lands in much the same way, be regarded as thegns. In was rather an inchoate House of Lords, than an inchoate Parliament, after our modern ideas. It was natural that a body of men which united a great part of the wealth with almost all the influence in the kingdom should be possessed of high constitutional powers. The Witenagemot elected the king, though as yet they always chose him out of the royal family, which was held to have sprung from the god Woden. There were even cases in which they deposed unworthy kings."

_S. R. Gardiner and J. B. Mullinger, Introduction to the Study of English History, part 1, chapter 2, section 16-21._

ENGLAND: A. D. 975. Accession of the West Saxon king Edward, called The Martyr.

ENGLAND: A. D. 979. Accession of the West Saxon king Ethelred, called The Unready.

ENGLAND: A. D. 979-1016. The Danish conquest.

"Then [A. D. 979] commenced one of the longest and most disastrous reigns of the Saxon kings, with the accession of Ethelred II., justly styled Ethelred the Unready. The Northmen now renewed their plundering and conquering expeditions against England; while England had a worthless waverer for her ruler, and many of her chief men turned traitors to their king and country. Always a laggart in open war, Ethelred tried in 1001 the cowardly and foolish policy of buying off the enemies whom he dared not encounter. The tax called Dane-gelt was then levied to provide 'a tribute for the Danish men on account of the great terror which they caused.' To pay money thus was in effect to hire the enemy to renew the war. In 1002 Ethelred tried the still more weak and wicked measure of ridding himself of his enemies by treacherous massacre. Great numbers of Danes were now living in England, intermixed with the Anglo-Saxon population. Ethelred resolved to relieve himself from all real or supposed danger of these Scandinavian settlers taking part with their invading kinsmen, by sending secret orders throughout his dominions for the putting to death of every Dane, man, woman, and child, on St. Brice's Day, Nov. 13. This atrocious order was executed only in Southern England, that is, in the West-Saxon territories; but large numbers of the Danish race were murdered there while dwelling in full security among their Saxon neighbours. ... Among the victims was a royal Danish lady, named Gunhilde, who was sister of Sweyn, king of Denmark, and who had married and settled in England. ... The news of the massacre of St. Brice soon spread over the Continent, exciting the deepest indignation against the English and their king. Sweyn collected in Denmark a larger fleet and army than the north had ever before sent forth, and solemnly vowed to conquer England or perish in the attempt. He landed on the south coast of Devon, obtained possession of Exeter by the treachery of its governor, and then marched through western and southern England, marking every shire with fire, famine and slaughter; but he was unable to take London, which was defended against the repeated attacks of the Danes with strong courage and patriotism, such as seemed to have died out in the rest of Saxon England. In 1013, the wretched king Ethelred fled the realm and sought shelter in Normandy. Sweyn was acknowledged king in all the northern and western shires, but he died in 1014, while his vow of conquest was only partly accomplished. The English now sent for Ethelred back from Normandy, promising loyalty to him as their lawful king, 'provided he would rule over them more justly than he had done before.' Ethelred willingly promised amendment, and returned to reign amidst strife and misery for two years more. His implacable enemy, Sweyn, was indeed dead; but the Danish host which Sweyn had led thither was still in England, under the command of Sweyn's son, Canute [or Cnut], a prince equal in military prowess to his father, and far superior to him and to all other princes of the time in statesmanship and general ability. Ethelred died in 1016, while the war with Canute was yet raging. Ethelred's son, Edmund, surnamed Ironside, was chosen king by the great council then assembled in London, but great numbers of the Saxons made their submission to Canute. The remarkable personal valour of Edmund, strongly aided by the bravery of his faithful Londoners, maintained the war for nearly a year, when Canute agreed to a compromise, by which he and Edmund divided the land between them. But within a few months after this, the royal Ironside died by the hand of an assassin, and Canute obtained the whole realm of the English race. A Danish dynasty was now [A. D. 1016] established in England for three reigns."

_Sir E. S. Creasy, History of England, volume 1, chapter 5._

ALSO IN: _J. M. Lappenberg, England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings, volume 2, pages 151-233._

See, also, MALDEN, and ASSANDUN, BATTLES OF.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1016. Accession and death of King Edmund Ironside.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1016-1042. The Reign of the Danish kings.

"Cnut's rule was not as terrible as might have been feared. He was perfectly unscrupulous in striking down the treacherous and mischievous chieftains who had made a trade of Ethelred's weakness and the country's divisions. But he was wise and strong enough to rule, not by increasing but by allaying those divisions. Resting his power upon his Scandinavian kingdoms beyond the sea, upon his Danish countrymen in England, and his Danish huscarles, or specially trained soldiers in his service, he was able, without even the appearance of weakness, to do what in him lay to bind Dane and Englishman together as common instruments of his power. Fidelity counted more with him than birth. To bring England itself into unity was beyond his power. The device which he hit upon was operative only in hands as strong as his own. There were to be four great earls, deriving their name from the Danish word jarl, centralizing the forces of government in Wessex, in Mercia, in East Anglia, and in Northumberland. With Cnut the four were officials of the highest class. They were there because he placed them there. They would cease to be there if he so willed it. But it could hardly be that it would always be so. Some day or another, unless a great catastrophe swept away Cnut and his creation, the earldoms would pass into territorial sovereignties and the divisions of England would be made evident openly."

_S. R. Gardiner and J. B. Mullinger, Introduction to the Study of English History, chapter 2, section 25._

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"He [Canute] ruled nominally at least, a larger European dominion than any English sovereign has ever done; and perhaps also a more homogeneous one. No potentate of the time came near him except the king of Germany, the emperor, with whom he was allied as an equal. The king of the Norwegians, the Danes, and a great part of the Swedes, was in a position to found a Scandinavian empire with Britain annexed. Canute's division of his dominions on his death-bed, showed that he saw this to be impossible; Norway, for a century and a half after his strong hand was removed, was broken up amongst an anarchical crew of piratic and blood-thirsty princes, nor could Denmark be regarded as likely to continue united with England. The English nation was too much divided and demoralised to retain hold on Scandinavia, even if the condition of the latter had allowed it. Hence Canute determined that during his life, as after his death, the nations should be governed on their own principles. ... The four nations of the English, Northumbrians, East Angles, Mercians and West Saxons, might, each under their own national leader, obey a sovereign who was strong enough to enforce peace amongst them. The great earldoms of Canute's reign were perhaps a nearer approach to a feudal division of England than anything which followed the Norman Conquest. ... And the extent to which this creation of the four earldoms affected the history of the next half-century cannot be exaggerated. The certain tendency of such an arrangement to become hereditary, and the certain tendency of the hereditary occupation of great fiefs ultimately to overwhelm the royal power, are well exemplified. ... The Norman Conquest restored national unity at a tremendous temporary sacrifice, just as the Danish Conquest in other ways, and by a reverse process, had helped to create it."

_W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 7, section 77._

Canute died in 1035. He was succeeded by his two sons, Harold Harefoot (1035-1040) and Harthacnute or Hardicanute (1040-1042), after which the Saxon line of kings was momentarily restored.

_E. A. Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest of England,