bravery, and after a long contest the English were repulsed, and the Danes remained masters of the field. Edmund, bishop of Salisbury, was slain in this battle', and was afterwards buried at Keynsham in Wiltshire. At this time the army of the Danes was augmented by a large reinforcement from the Baltic, and thus became a match for any force that the English could bring into the field against them. Another event, also, now happened, which gave the Danes a still greater advantage over the English. King Ethelred, having bravely, honourably, and with good repute, governed his kingdom five years, through much tribulation," died on the 23d of April, A.D. 871, and was buried in Wimbourne Minster".

[Parochial Antiq. p. 36.] who lay great stress upon a Danish spur found here, which is now to be seen in the Physic-school at Oxford; but, since this is but a very indifferent argument, (there having been several of these spurs found in other places of England,) and since most of our historians place it in Wilts, I cannot very readily yield to either, especially the latter of these opinions." p. 43.

9 Sax. Ch. Etheld. Flor. Hunt.

Sax. Ethel. Hunt.

Ethel.

* Asser omits to notice the battle of Merton, so that the reinforcement falls, according to him, immediately after the battle of Basing. This has led Lappenberg to place the reinforcement before the battle of Merton, which is an error.

u

Florence alone gives the date of his death: the other Chroniclers say, after Easter, which in 871 fell on April 15. Hearne in a note to Spelman, p. 43, says, that Ethelred died at Wittingham, and that before the civil wars there was at Wimbourne, the place of his burial, a plate bearing this inscription: "In hoc loco quiescit corpus Sancti Etheldredi regis West-Saxonum, Martyris, qui anno Domini DCCCLXXII, xxiii die Aprilis, per manus Danorum paganorum occubuit."

Modern writers state, that Ethelred died of the wounds which he had received in the battle of Merton: if there is authority for this in the original writers, it has escaped all my endeavours to find it.

CHAP. XI.

VIEW OF THE STATE OF ENGLAND AT THE TIME OF ALFRED'S ACCESSION IN 871-BATTLE OF WILTON-NINE BATTLES IN THE YEAR 871-IN 872 THE DANES LEAVE WESSEX AND OCCUPY LONDON-IN 873 THEY ENTER LINCOLNSHIRE-IN 874 THEY ENTER MERCIA, EXPEL BURRHED, AND MAKE CEOLWULF KING-IN 875 THEY FLUNDER THE NORTHUMBRIANS, THE PICTS, AND THE STRATHCLYDE BRITONS.

IF I had taken in hand to write the life and reign of any of our kings who have lived since the full growth and consistency of the Crown, or since the general spread of European civilization has supplied ample materials for the pen of the biographer and the historian, it would have been only necessary to record the death of the preceding sovereign, and to proceed at once to recount the actions of his successor. The reader's general knowledge of the history of those times would have enabled him at once to follow the author into the very middle of the events which he had undertaken to relate, without tracing back the slender thread of a narrative which owes its consistency principally to its length. But as it is my object to illustrate the life and times of a King who lived a thousand years ago, long before the present tree of European civilization had blossomed, when the storm occasioned by the disruption of the Roman empire was still heaving and swelling over all the civilized world, and the

⚫ These observations are mostly taken from Spelman's Introduction to his Life of Alfred.

powerful empire to which we belong was not advanced beyond its embryo state, it was absolutely necessary to cast our eyes over the condition of the country, as it existed before the birth of Alfred; and to pass in review the events, as they are feebly told us by the Chroniclers, until the time when he succeeded to the throne, and saved it probably, at a great crisis, from sinking back into the barbarism, from which it was slowly emerging. When the course lies over a range of country so wild and cheerless, and so far out of the beaten track, the writer as well as the reader must find advantage in taking notice of the slightest landmark, to rectify the errors into which they continually will fall. We may regard the history of those early times in the same light as we view the huge and disjointed bones of gigantic monsters, which are occasionally found buried beneath the surface of the earth. Taken individually, they tell us no story, and are no more than misshapen lumps of earth; but when they are brought together and subjected to the examination which comparative anatomy supplies, they come out in a new light, and overwhelm the imagination by the gigantic pictures of antiquity which they bring before us.

We must also remember, that in a political point of view the history of times so remote cannot be fairly considered, unless we remove from our minds all that bias which modern manners are calculated to produce. On this subject, the observations of Sir John Spelman seem so judicious, that I shall make no apology for introducing them to the reader's attention.

"We must not expect such a solemn and steady management of affairs then, as now in a full-grown state, furnished with the ministry of all her necessary members: neither must we attribute so little to the

b

person of Alfred, (the prince whose life we here endeavour to collect,) as to judge the actions no otherwise his, than as the actions of states are ordinarily ascribed to the prince their head. Besides, we must know, that the war itself (which at this time was the whole affair) moved not on either side with that design, nor yet with so deliberate advice, as at this day, we know, it is necessary that it must do. The policies and cunning of the former ages were, through the barbarism that generally overran all Europe, long before this time buried. And, though by the benefit of letters they have been again revived to us, yet were they but little known, until the discovery of printing (long time after this) divulged them. So as the world (at the time we speak of) was from her own actions to get again experience, whence for after ages she might draw conclusions to hold as rules and principles of her proceedings; but unfurnished of them for the present, their business went an open and a simple way in which as necessity (for the most part) did advise them, so fortune generally did determine of the event.

"There was then but little correspondence with foreign parts, indeed no great intelligence of either them or their affairs; whereby it often happened that an unexpected enemy was encountered by an unprepared people, infinite numbers were to be resisted by

b

Though, through barbarism, the policies of former ages were unknown at this time; yet the Saxons used a great deal of art in their wars, as appears from the relations given by Witichind, [Annal. Saxon. p. 1. ed. Franc. 1621. fol.] and several other authors: which seem the rather to be credited, because the German nation (of which the Saxons were a part) was never wholly conquered by the Romans, as were Gallia, Spain, &c."

K

a few and them taken on a sudden, continual new supplies of assailants, sustained by the indefatigable valour and industry of the same defendants, not otherwise provided than necessity and the present advice of the commander taught them. To say the truth, it cannot properly be termed a war, but rather a continual and universal rage of misery that the times brought forth, through the spoil and rapine of a barbarous and cruel people, who, being as destitute of faith and honour as of humanity and religion, followed no other rule of their proceeding, than as their licentious appetite did lead; naturally false and fierce, bred in hardness, and put upon necessities, unsatiably greedy of the booty that was before them, and accordingly their assaults every where, and the continuance of them, (at least in expectation,) perpetual. No truce, no peace, (the common respites or periods of an honourable war,) but only when an overthrow had rendered them too weak without new supplies to assail, or when a prosperous depredation had awhile delayed the appetite of.. their insatiable covetousness. And then, although (as to the form) they often came unto the conclusion of a peace, yet were they but peaces in name and not in deed, the barbarous enemy never suffering himself in any thing to be restrained, but by the want of present will or power."

During the life of Ethelred, the two brothers maintained the independence of Wessex, and, though several times defeated, still presented a formidable opposition to the Danes, when all the subordinate monarchies of England had been reduced to subjection. By the death of Ethelred, the sovereignty