THE

LIFE AND TIMES

OF

ALFRED THE GREAT.

CHAP. I.

INTRODUCTION-SLOW PROGRESS OF MIGRATIONS BY SEA-SAXON INVASION OF BRITAIN-SEVEN SAXON KINGDOMS-THEIR SEPARATE EXISTENCE FROM ABOUT A.D. 500 To 800-THEIR DISCORDS.

THE Ocean, placed by Nature as a barrier between the nations of the earth, presented, in ancient times, a formidable impediment to the migratory tendencies of mankind. The newly-discovered country, which is divided by the sea from the old-established habitations of the human race, has many a chance of defending its liberties, in the difficulty with which a large fleet, capable of conveying a sufficient number of invaders, can be constructed, or the stores be procured with which they are to be maintained. This may account for the disproportion, which we observe between those migrations which have been conducted by land, and others which have necessarily taken place by sea. Whilst Gaul, Italy, Spain, and Greece, have been at different times overrun, and their destruction threatened, by millions of Goths, Gauls, Huns, and other northern

B

barbarians, the island of Britain, protected by the friendly Ocean, has never at any time been subjected to the invasion of a mighty army, capable at one stroke of crushing its liberties, and extirpating its ancient inhabitants. It has, rather, been harassed for centuries by small bodies of pirates, and other plunderers, coming in such a number of vessels as their means could provide them with; and in this manner its population has, two or three times within. the period of authentic history, gradually been displaced by new-comers.

When Julius Cæsar, the earliest civilized invader of Britain, first reached our shores, he found all the south of the island occupied by Belgic tribes, akin to those which lined the opposite coasts of the continent, from the Seine, nearly, to the Elbe. As Cæsar has no where made mention of a diversity of language or of manners, as coming within the range of his own observation, it is probable-and the tone of his narrative makes it almost certain-that the Belgic tribes occupied a very large part of Britain, certainly much more of it than that to which Cæsar's own operations were confined. History does not inform us when the Belgæ first began to encroach on the land of Britain; and it is useless to conjecture, where we have not a single fact to form the basis of the enquiry. But we shall be safe in referring the first arrival of Belgians to an early date, because we find, that the more recent changes which Britain has experienced, and of which history furnishes the details, were only effected after a long and painful series of wars and rebellions between the natives and their invaders. Thus, when the Romans had left Britain, and its inhabitants resumed the exercise of their ancient liberty, the Saxon tribes,

which, even under the Roman dominion, had apparently marked out this island as their future conquest, began to press with greater energy to effect its subjugation. Yet a hundred and fifty years still intervened before they gained secure possession of that part of the island which is now called England, and two large provinces of it, namely, Cumberland and Cornwall, remained many years longer in the occupation of the Britons.

At what period the Saxon adventurers first began to commit depredations on the south coasts of Britain, and what time elapsed before they established their dominion in the island, it is not the province of this work to relate. But it is of great importance to our present purpose to shew, that the Saxon commonwealth in Britain never enjoyed, for more than a few years at a time, repose from intestine war or foreign invasion.

In fact, the Saxon monarchs, who were most distinguished for their bravery and patriotism, can be regarded in no other point of view than as serving, by a continued struggle against wars and difficulties, to uphold and maintain a state not yet settled on a firm and lasting basis.

A hundred and fifty years after the first landing of Hengist and Horsa, we find seven Saxon kingdoms established in South Britain. And it is worthy of remark, that the kings of these petty states often regarded one another with more jealousy than the British chiefs, who still maintained independence in Wales, Cumberland, and Cornwall. This fact seems to go far to confirm the theory, that there was less dissimilarity both of language and manners between the Saxons and Britons, than prevails at the present day between their

descendants. However this may be, the same fact leads us, at all events, to the melancholy inference, which all history too sadly confirms, that the ties of kindred are snapt asunder without difficulty, by nations as well as by individuals, when they interfere with those views of cupidity or aggrandisement, which are but too familiar to the human breast.

The Saxon Heptarchy-as the seven kingdoms at this time existing in England are commonly denominated-never shewed signs of durability: nor were their chiefs ever possessed of an equal share of power. It is probable, that jealousy of each other contributed much to prolong their separate existence, until the time of Egbert, a period of nearly three hundred years. Another cause which served to produce the same effect may be found in the scanty population which was at that time spread over the country, and probably also in the natural barriers, inlets of the sea, ridges of chalk downs, woods, heaths, and morasses, which separated the different states. Thus the western frontier of Kent was protected by the dense wood of Anderida-coeval with the Roman dominion-from the South Saxons, who, occupying the cultivated parts of Sussex close upon the south coast, were in their turn separated by the Southampton water, and other inlets of the sea near Portsmouth, from being easily invaded by the inhabitants of Wessex. In a similar manner the East Anglians, occupying the modern counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, and protected on their right by the Wash with its mighty inundations, and on the left by the estuary of the Thames, were secure from most of the discords which arose between the other states, and seemed almost to form another island by themselves. Again, the powerful northern kingdom

of Northumbria, safe from an enemy in its rear, because there was at that time no people beyond it whose power the Northumbrian monarchs could fear, was exposed to hostility on the south and south-west by the proximity of the native Britons, and the powerful Saxon kingdom of Mercia, which occupying the centre of the island, in the very middle of the other kindred states, was at all times liable to come into contact with each of them, and seldom, in fact, enjoyed a long interval of tranquillity.

The duration of the Saxon Heptarchy is a subject of much interest to the historian, because the records which we possess concerning it, though much more meagre than we could desire, are nevertheless by far more ample and explicit than those which any other country can produce of equal antiquity. The History of the Heptarchy, in fact, presents us with a picture of that intermediate state of national existence, which occupies the interval between a patriarchal tribe, and a state consolidated under a regular government. We see in it the elements out of which a powerful society was one day to be formed, and, if those elements had not all been in such rapid motion-if they had exhibited more of inertness or sooner settled into a passive state, like some of the Asiatic communities, which for thousands of years have suffered no variation of character-the Saxon people of the seven kingdoms might have been spared many sufferings, which were caused them by the restlessness and ambition of their rulers, but would scarcely have been the ancestors of that mighty people, their present descendants, who have covered the whole earth with their arts, arms, and civilization.