CHAP. IX.

ACCESSION OF Ethelred IN 866-THE DANISH CHIEFTAINS, HINGUAR AND HUBBA, INVADE EAST-ANGLIA AND NORTHUMBERLAND-THEY TAKE YORK ON MARCH 1, 867-OSBERT AND ELLA ARE SLAIN IN APRIL, 867-DEATH OF ALSTAN, BISHOP OF SALISBURY—THE DANES INVADE MERCIA, AND TAKE NOTTINGHAM IN 868-BURRHED, KING OF MERCIA, SENDS TO ETHelred for ASSISTANCE-ALFRED'S MARRIAGE WITH ELSWITHA-THE DANES RETURN TO YORK-THEIR RAVAGES IN THE ADJACENT COUNTRY, PARTICULARLY AT THE MONASTERIES OF BARDNEY, CROYLAND, PETERBOROUGH, AND ELY.

WHEN the third of Ethelwolf's children succeeded to the inheritance of his family, the assaults of the Danish invaders became more alarming, both for their number and their magnitude. Of the causes which have been adduced by the Chroniclers for this fact, we have taken notice in a preceding chapter: all of them, it must be admitted, are of a romantic character, and would hardly be received as rational causes for such important events, if they were to occur in an age so practical as that in which we now live; but, as in visual objects,

"Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,

And clothes the mountain in its azure hue,

so must we take the legends of antiquity as resting on a groundwork of truth, though not wholly to be received in all the colouring and imagery which time has thrown around them. It is also worthy of remark, that, as the smallest ripple in the water produces an effect that is felt to a great distance, so kindred events,

proceeding probably from some chain of causation still unknown to us, will often arise, and, floating together down the tide of human things, cause sensible changes in the fate of nations or on the surface of the material world. The same causes which dispersed the sea-kings with their crews of desperate followers over the seas of the north, produced, no doubt, many romantic adventures, worthy to be commemorated in the popular ballads and songs of the time. It would be too daring to question the existence of Regner Lodbroc, or to deny that he carried the enterprises, for which his countrymen had long been famous, to a greater extent than had ever been done before.

It has been truly remarked, that some private motives, such as the legends before mentioned will furnish, probably at this time influenced the Danish leaders to renew their aggressions against the English coasts on a much more extended scale. And this motive could hardly have been furnished by their entertaining a low estimate of the courage or abilities of the new king. Ethelred was, certainly, in little or nothing inferior to his two brothers who had gone before him; his reign of five years, from A. D. 866 to 871, was a succession of battles, in which he was sometimes defeated, sometimes victorious, against armies more numerous and ferocious than any which had before appeared in England. In all these encounters, however, he displayed great personal valour ; and was ably seconded by his younger brother Alfred, who now first bore arms against the invaders of his country, and began now to shew, in the school of adversity, that combined spirit of valour and patient endurance, which enabled him at last to raise his country from the ruin and desolation in which all the

rest of northern Europe was plunged. The series of battles which are almost the only memorials of Ethelred's reign, cannot be thought unworthy of minute attention, if they place before us in a stronger light the calamitous state to which our country was reduced, when Alfred was left alone, at his brother's death, to vindicate, not the liberty of his countrymen, but the very existence of the Anglo-Saxon name.

The new king was hardly seated on the throne, when a large fleet of the Northmen approached the eastern coasts of England, and entering the Wash, landed a large army of warriors, commanded by Hinguar and Hubba, sons of Regner Lodbroc, who had been put to death. The large force, which their chieftains now led to avenge their father's death, has been described by modern writers' as collected out of every country of the North, and burning to avenge the death of their kinsmen but it is not equally clear in what part of the island they first landed. Whilst the six earlier Chronicles describe their descent in East-Anglia-where king Edmund was now in the twelfth year of his reign— the truce which they observed with the natives for a year, on condition of being supplied with horses, and

• Saxon Ch. Ass. Ethel. &c. &c. Some of these writers mention Hinguar only as commanding the Danish fleet, others of them, especially the Saxon Chronicle, do not mention the names of the leaders.

"Jutes, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Russians, and others; all the fury and all the valour of the North assembled for the expedition, while none of the Anglo-Saxon kings even suspected the preparations." TURNER, Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. 506.

p.

"The use that the Germans made of their horse was much like that the Britons did of their little chariots the Essedæ, by their speed to get advantages, and to give sudden and unexpected assaults, of which when once they found the opportunity, then quitting their

their subsequent march, in 867, to York, Brompton, the historian of Jorvaulx, tells us, that the army first landed on the south-eastern promontory of Northumberland, and, marching through the district of Holderness, seized on the city of York, from which Hinguar, one of the brothers, was dispatched with a separate detachment to invade East-Anglia, and take vengeance on Edmund its king.

When we consider the proximity of the Northumbrian kingdom to Norfolk, which was the northern part of East-Anglia, we can hardly fail to observe, that so large a fleet would in all probability fill the narrow seas into which they were crowded, and that descents would take place on many points of the coast, as the

horse and casting themselves into the order of a foot-army, (which they ever preferred to try their fortune, in committing their safety rather to their own mauhood, than the casualty of their horse,) they so (as Cæsar speaketh) attained a great difficulty, to have at once both the speed of horsemen and the stability of a foot-army. And this kind of mixed practice aptly served the turn of these rovers: for their war being mostly inroads, foraging, and spoil, subject to skirmishes and unexpected præliations, this changeable service was agreeable to their uncertain occasions. But, for service on horseback, it had been impossible for the champion and coasterly parts of the kingdom (where they landed) to furnish such numbers of them with horses, for strength and manage, fitting for the occasions of the field: neither had these kind of people that manner of service in practice. So that, whereas it often occurs in the stories of these rovers, that they got horse and became horse-men, we must understand it only for their speedy transport, and that their service was, like their ancestors, for the most part ever on foot. The manner is somewhat to this day to be observed in the German wars in the service of the horse-men called Dragoons." SPELMAN, Life of Alfred, p. 32.

The county of Lincoln was sometimes part of Northumberland, and sometimes part of Mercia, to which, I suppose, it at this time. belonged.

fancy or the avarice of the different chieftains might suggest. Neither is it unlikely that the hostile leaders, having two injuries to avenge, might be induced, by confidence in the multitude of their men, to take hostile occupation, from the first, of both the banks of the rivers up which they had sailed. It appears, however, certain, that no further operations were taken for a year against the East-Anglians, in consequence of the truce which has been alluded to; and it is probable, that if any portion of the Danes, according to the statement of Brompton, landed in the kingdom of Northumberland, they also suspended operations for some months. How far this inactivity may have been occasioned by a wish to deceive the English into security, or that they might receive further reinforcements from abroad, we are not informed: when, however, they at length moved from their camp, the whole force of the invasion was directed against the Northumbrians, who prepared manfully to defend themselves. The first measure which was taken, in the general danger, was to effect a reconciliation between Ella, king de facto, and Osbert, who had been invited by a portion of the people to resume the crown which he had lost. Neither of the rivals was unmindful, in this emergency, of the duties which they owed to their country. They ceased to make war upon each other, and turned their arms in the same direction for the common good. The city of York, which was not at that time fortified so strongly as afterwards in the reign of Alfred, had yielded, on the first of March, 867, to the first attack

Namely, the insult done to the wife of Bruern Brocard, (see page 73.) and the death of Regner Lodbroc, (p. 78.)

All the Chroniclers agree that the Danes remained inactive twelve months in East-Anglia.