old name and their old boundaries, as counties; the third, Wessex, took in all the rest of the island (save Kent and Cornwall) south of the Thames. Three more were Anglian : Northumberland, from the Forth to the Humber, and from the Pennine Hills to the North Sea; Mercia, from the Humber to the Thames, and to the Welsh border; and East Anglia, containing Norfolk and Suffolk. And one, Kent, belonged to the earliest of all the English settlers, the Jutes.1

But

§ 4. In the incessant strife always bickering amongst these kingdoms, Wessex early absorbed Sussex and Kent. Essex, in like manner, was annexed by East Anglia, and both East Anglia and Wessex became for awhile subject to Mercia. the wonderful year 800, which saw the coronation of Charlemagne as Emperor at Rome, witnessed at Kingston-on-Thames a humbler ceremony, which was destined to bring about yet more momentous results. On the ancient coronation stone of the West Saxon monarchs, still to be seen in Kingston Marketplace, did Egbert, 'the uniter of the Heptarchy,' the grandfather of Alfred, take his seat (after three years' exile, at Mercian instance, in France) as King of the West Saxons.

§ 5. Little did those who took part in the acclamations which greeted him imagine that this tributary monarch of a few counties, occupying his position only by the sufferance of his Mercian overlord, was to be the founder of an empire destined to outlast that of the great Charles, and to extend its bounds incomparably further than his! Yet so it was. This petty under-King of the West Saxons worked his own way to be 'King of the English.' Three generations more, and his descendants were Emperors of Britain, nor have the imperial claims of the British Crown ever been wholly lost sight of since. The imperial style, constantly adopted by our monarchs, is not, as is often thought, a mere turgid form of self

1 See Appendix A.

2

2 This dignity was first attained by Edward, the heroic son of Alfred, in 924, and culminated in the coronation of Edward's great grandson, Edgar the Peaceful, as 'Basileus' of Britain, 973.

glorification, but expresses a historical and political claim of no small importance-the repudiation of the pretensions of Rome to political dominion in our island. Nor is it by any mere figure of speech that we now speak of the British Empire.' For a dominion uniting under its suzerainty regions in every part of the earth, connected with it by ties of every degree of closeness, from the Isle of Man to Cyprus and Egypt corresponds more nearly to the original idea connoted by the word 'empire' than anything the world has seen since classical days. § 6. Such are the mighty consequences springing from the coronation of Egbert. Their first manifestation was, however, long in showing itself. Egbert, a statesman of no mean order, gave at first that highest proof of statesmanship—he knew how to wait. For twenty-three years he bided his time, and then suddenly shook off the Mercian yoke. One great victory (at Ellandune) over the midland forces sufficed. Not only was Wessex freed, but the whole Saxon Name. The South Saxons, and the East Saxons, and the men of Kent and they of Surrey, came in unto him, for erst had they been wrongly forced from his kin. And the same year did the King of the East Angles and his folk seek wardship from King Egbert for dread of the Mercians.'3

2

§ 7. An attempt by the Mercians to regain their conquests led to the defeat and death of their King, Beornwulf, leaving the kingdom so weakened that, in 827, Egbert was able to subdue it, thus uniting under his sceptre all England south of the Humber. He was now acclaimed Bretwalda, the first Bretwalda since Oswy of Northumberland in 642.

§ 8. This assumption of an almost obsolete title is a striking proof of Egbert's statecraft. The name had been unheard for nearly two centuries, and the last three monarchs who bore it had all been Kings of Northumbria. To the dominion of

1 So the statutes of 1534: This realm of England is an Empire governed by one Supreme Head . . . having the dignity and royal estate of the Imperial Crown.

2 Probably Ellingham, in South-west Hampshire.

3 A.S. Chronicle, 823.

a King of Wessex the Northumbrians would never have submitted without a desperate struggle, which might well have tried Egbert's newly-built edifice of power beyond its strength. But when, as Bretwalda, he claimed their allegiance, and backed his claim by appearing with his full force on their border, they dared not resist.

§ 9. Had Charlemagne been still alive it might well have been otherwise. For his claims, as Roman Emperor, to the old Roman dominion over Britain had been acknowledged by the Northumbrian Princes1 in their dread of subjection to the nearer power of Mercia. And even the great Offa, the most powerful of all the Mercian Kings, had not dared to violate the frontiers of the new Cæsar, though himself refusing to bow to him. An appeal for protection to their Augustus would almost certainly have brought a Roman army to the defence of the Northumbrians so long as Charlemagne was Roman Emperor. But Charlemagne was gone; the new Western Empire was divided amongst his worthless grandsons, and such outlying fragments as Northumbria had no chance of aid from any of them. The very fact that Egbert had ventured to call himself by a title which implied a claim to dominion over all Britain was in itself a defiance of the imperial counter-claim—a defiance which it was sufficiently plain that the imperial authorities were in no case to take up.

2

§ 10. Thus, without a battle, Egbert added Northumbria to his dominions, and now at last, in 828, took the new and loftier title, 'King of the English." No contemporary knew him as King of England,' for that name for our land did not come into use till the eleventh century, and the title was

་

1 This is found in Eginhard, the biographer of Charlemagne, A.D. 808. See Palgrave, English Commonwealth,' i. 484, and Freeman, 'Norman Conquest,' i. 599.

2 In a charter of this year he first appears as ' Ecgberhtus gratia Dei Anglorum Rex' (Kemble, 'Cod Dip.,' i. 287).

3 The earlier name (see p. 6) was Anglekin. From the first invasion of Britain, if not earlier, our Teutonic forefathers (whether Angles, Saxons or Jutes) knew their race as a whole by the Anglian name. To the Britons, on the other hand, they were all alike Saxons,' as we still find in the Welsh and Gaelic' Sassenach.'

first assumed by Canute. Our earlier monarchs derived their only territorial designations from their imperial sway over the whole island. Their charters describe them as 'Monarchus totius Britanniæ,'' totius Albionis Archon,' 'Britanniarum Rex,' but in speaking of their kingship over their own kinsfolk it is always Anglo-Saxonum Rex,' 'Gentis Angligenæ Rex,' and such-like racial designations.

§ II. Nevertheless, Egbert was, to all intents and purposes, King of England, and England was at last a single realm, able to confront, as a united whole, the coming tempest of the Scandinavian invasions. It was but just in time. Only four years later, in 832, the Danes came back. and from thence onward their attacks became unremitting.

CHAPTER III.

Danish invasions renewed-Sack of London-Battle of Ockley-First Danish settlements-Raid of 870-St. Edmund-Invasion of Wessex-Alfred succeeds to the throne.

§ 1. THE Viking attacks at first were mere plundering raids. Summer after summer saw a Danish fleet

THE

-a 'summer-lead,' as it was called-cross the North Sea, to ravage one district or another, never far inland, sometimes to be defeated, sometimes not, but in either event to make off, after an inroad of a few weeks, with their booty. The incomparably superior mobility of sea-borne troops as compared with land forces enabled them to choose their own point of attack, and, ere the hastily - summoned English levies could reach them, to pounce upon some undefended spot, or more than one, in quite another direction. Henry of Huntingdon1 graphically describes the demoralizing effect of these tactics upon the English armies:

§ 2. Wonder was it, how, when the English Kings were hasting to meet them in the East, ere they could come up with their bands, a breathless scout would run in, saying, "Sir King, whither marchest thou? The heathen have landed in the South, a countless fleet. Towns and hamlets are in flames, fire and slaughter on every side." Yea, and that very day another would come running: "Sir King, why withdrawest thou? A fearsome host has come to shore in the West. If ye face them not speedily, they will hold that ye flee, and will be on your rear with fire and sword." Again on the morrow would dash up yet another, saying, “What place make ye for, noble chieftains? In the North have the Danes made a raid. Already have they burnt your dwellings. Even now are they sweeping off your goods, tossing your babes on their spear-points, dishonouring your wives, and haling

1 See § 3.