CHAP. V. Elfred. 901 937. the pirates' foe, and in 926 a marriage was arranged The House of through the intervention of the Count of Boulogne, the son of Baldwin of Flanders and the English Elfthryth, between Æthelstan's sister Eadhild and Hugh the Great. The splendid embassy with which the Duke of Paris sought Eadhild's hand shows the political importance of the match; and its weight may have told on the renewal of the struggle between Rudolf and Charles which followed it. But it told more directly on the strength of England by absorbing the forces of William Longsword in the years during which Æthelstan was annexing the Danelaw over the Humber, and turning into a practical sovereignty his supremacy over the Welsh. Ethelstan and William Longsword. Abroad therefore Ethelstan's schemes seemed as successful as at home. His French confederates not only held their own against the Karolingian king, but gave full occupation to the Norman duke. In 929 indeed the death of Charles the Simple left William Longsword alone in the face of his foes. Rudolf was now the unquestioned master of France; and in the following year his victory over the northmen of the Loire was a signal for a combined attack on the Normans of the Seine. While Hugh the Great pressed them from the south, the Bretons, over whom Hrolf and his son had asserted vague claims of supremacy, and from whom they had wrested the Bessin, put the Norman colonies in the newly won land to the sword and attacked Bayeux. But the hopes of Ethelstan were foiled by the vigour of William Longsword. Not only were the 1 Will. Malm. "Gest. Reg." (Hardy), i. 216, 217. Bretons swept back from the Bessin, but their land 1 CHAP. V. Elfred. 901937. of the Cotentin, the great peninsula that juts into the The House of British Channel, became Norman ground, while their leader, Alan, fled over sea to the English court. The choice of his refuge points to the quarter from whence this attack on Normandy had probably come. If direct attack however had broken down, Ethelstan was more fortunate in the skill with which he wove a web of alliances round the Norman land. Flanders was already knit to the new England through Count Arnulf, a grandson of Alfred like Ethelstan himself. The Count of Vermandois was on close terms with the English king. The friendship of the Parisian duchy came with the marriage of Duke Hugh; while Brittany was still at the king's service, and Æthelstan could despatch Alan again to carry fresh forays over the Norman border. Already troubled with strife within his own country, William Longsword saw a ring of foes close round him and threaten a renewal of the struggle for life. But the quickness and versatility of the duke were seen in the change of front with which he met this danger. The claims of the Karolingian house on his fidelity had ceased with the death of Charles the Simple; no Karoling claimant for the throne appeared, and William was able without breach of faith to sell his adhesion to Rudolf of Burgundy. By doing homage to Rudolf in 933 he not only won peace with the Parisian dukes, but a formal cession of his new conquests in the Cotentin ; 1 Alan was Eadward's ward, and had come in 931 from the English court. See Lappenberg, ii. 138 with the note, and p. 107 with note. CHAP. V. and the dissolution of the league left him free to deal The House of with Æthelstan. Ælfred. 901937. 3 A descent of the Ostmen from Ireland on the shores of Northumbria warned the English king of The revolt of William's power to vex the land, and while it woke Northumbria. fresh dreams of revolt in the Danelaw encouraged the Scot king, Constantine, to weave anew the threads of the older confederacy against the English king.1 In 934,2 though the presence of the northern primate and some of the Danish Jarls at his court show that Northumbria still remained true to him," the growing disturbance forced Athelstan to march with an army into the north, and to send a fleet to harry the Scottish coast. But its ravages, if they forced Constantine to a fresh submission, failed to check his intrigues, or to hinder him from leaguing with Ealdred of Bernicia and the Irish Ostmen to stir up a fresh rising of the Danelaw. With the Ostmen Constantine was closely connected through their leader, Anlaf or Olaf, a son of the Northumbrian king, Sihtric, who had found refuge at the Scottish 1 Skene, "Celtic Scotland," i. 352. 2 Eng. Chron. (Worc.), a. 934; (Winch.), a. 933. 3 The grant to Worcester just before his march against "Anolafa rege Norrannorum qui me vitâ et regno privare disponit" (Cod. Dip. 349) is attested by "Rodewoldus archiepiscopus" (a blunder for Wulfstan), and "Healden dux." Wulfstan is again present in a witenagemot at Frome at the close of the year, on the king's return from the north, December 934, but no northern names appear among the duces. Cod. Dip. 1110. 4 Sim. Durh. "Hist. Dunelm. Ecc." lib. ii. c. 18 (Twysden, p. 25). "Fugato deinde Oswino rege Cumbrorum et Constantino rege Scottorum terrestri et navali exercitu Scotiam sibi subjugando perdomuit." CHAP. V. Elfred. 901937. court on his father's death, and on Æthelstan's annexation of his realm. Constantine had first The House of shown the change which had taken place in his political sympathies by giving Olaf his daughter to wife ;1 and after the earlier failure of their plans Olaf had sailed to Ireland, and, placing himself at the head of the Ostmen, again lent himself to the plots of the Scottish king. The influence of Olaf was seen in the withdrawal of the northern Jarls from the English court within a year or two after the campaign of 934,2 and when in 937 he appeared with a fleet off the Northumbrian coast the whole league at once rose in arms. The men of the northern Danelaw found themselves backed not only by their brethren from Ireland but by the mass of states around them, by the English of Bernicia, by the Scots under Constan tine, by the Welshmen of Cumbria or Strath-Clyde. It is the steady recurrence of these confederacies which makes the struggle so significant. The old distinctions and antipathies of race must have already in great part passed away before peoples so diverse could have been gathered into one host by a common dread of subjection, and the motley character of the army pointed forward to that fusion of both northman and Briton in the general body of the English race which was to be the work of the coming years. At the news of this rising Æthelstan again marched Brunanburh. into the north. He met his enemies on the unknown 1 Skene, "Celtic Scotland," i. 352. 2 We find no Danish names among the attesting duces throughout the rest of Ethelstan's reign. CHAP. V. field of Brunanburh,' and one of the noblest of The House of English war-songs has preserved the memory of the Elfred. 901937. were fight that went on from sunrise to sunset. The stubbornness of the combat proves that brave men fought on either side. The shield-wall of the northmen stood long against the swords of Ethelstan and his brother Eadmund; the Scots fought on till they weary with war.' But the West-Saxons "in bands of chosen ones" hewed their way steadily through the masses of their foe, their Mercian fellowwarriors "refused not the hard hand-play," and at sunset the motley host broke in wild flight. "The Danes," shouts the exulting singer, "had no ground for laughter when they played on the field of slaughter with Eadward's children." Five of their kings and seven of their jarls lay amongst the countless dead. Olaf only saved his life by hastily shoving out his boat to sea and steering for Dublin with the remnant of his men, while Constantine left 2 1 The Winchester and other Chronicles insert under 937 the first of the four poems which treat of the annals of this period, the Song of Brunanburh. The only other detailed account of the strife is in the Egils Saga (in Johnstone, "Antiq. Celto-Scandicæ," p. 42, &c.); but the Saga is of too late a date and too romantic a character to be used as an historical authority. The site of Brunanburh is still undetermined. Mr. Skene ("Celtic Scotland," i. 357) would fix it at Aldborough; but Mr. Freeman and Professor Stubbs abandon the effort to localize it in despair. The "Brunanburh" of the song becomes in the saga "Vinheidi," and in Simeon of Durham ("Gest. Reg." and "Hist. Dunelm.") "Wendune ,, and "Weondune." Flor. of Worcester places it by the mouth of the Humber. 2 Skene distinguishes this Olaf of Dublin from Olaf, Sihtric's son, who seems to have returned to Scotland with Constantine ("Celtic Scotland," i. 357). |