CHAP. VI. the Danelaw. 937 955. and guile that mingled with the nobler temper of the northmen. He was but a boy of twelve when his Wessex and father gave him five long-ships, and his next four years were spent in Wiking cruises in the Baltic and the northern seas. "Then he sailed out into the West Sea, and plundered in Scotland, Bretland, Ireland, and Walland," our France, for four years more. A raid on the Finns ended these early cruises, and won him Gunhild; and, still on the brink of manhood, he came home to be welcomed by Harald Fair-hair as his successor on the throne of Norway. With his brothers who stood in his way he dealt roughly. Rognwald, who was charged with witchcraft, “he burned in a house along with eighty other warlocks, which work was much praised." Biorn, the merchant-king, he slew drinking at his board. But a younger brother, Hakon, still remained, and when Hakon at his father's death promised the bonders their old udal rights back again Norway broke out in revolt. "The news" that their rights were once more their own "flew like fire in dry grass through the whole land:" all men streamed to Hakon; and Eric, left alone, had to give up the strife, and "sail out into the western seas with such as would follow him." Eric set over It was in the days after Brunanburh that Eric's plunder-raid brought him to the shores of North- Northumbria. umbria; and Æthelstan seized the chance of balancing the Danish element in Northumbria by the Norwegian element that was mingled with it. A bargain was 1 Hakon the Good's Saga; Laing, "Sea Kings," i. 315. CHAP. VI. soon struck by which Eric submitted to baptism with Wessex and all his house, and received the kingdom of Northum the Danelaw. 937955. bria at Æthelstan's hand on pledge to guard it against Danes or other Wikings.1 Little as we know of the Danelaw, we see that the life he found there was a life as northern as that of his own northern lands, for "Northumbria," runs the Saga, "was mainly inhabited by northmen. Since Lodbrog's sons had taken the country, Danes and northmen often plundered there, when the power of the land was out of their hands. . . King Eric, too, had many people about him, for he kept many northmen who had come with him from the east, and also many of his friends joined him from Norway." In taking the land he had pledged himself to hold it "against Danes or other Wikings," and had received baptism, "together with his wife and children and all his people who had followed him." But pledge and Christianity sate as lightly on Eric as they sate on his fellow northmen in the Danelaw. If the Danes had settled down in farm and homestead, they were long before they ceased to vary their toil with the Wiking's plunder-raid; and Eric, throned as he was at York, was like his subjects a Wiking at heart. "As he had little lands, he went on a cruise every summer, and plundered in Shetland, the Hebrides, Iceland, and Bretland, by which he gathered goods." 2 Eadward are separately named, "either English, or Danes, or northmen." Eng. Chron. a. 924. 1 For Eric, see Sagas of Harald Fair-hair and of Hakon the Good; Laing, "Sea Kings," i. 301-306, 311-316. See also Saga of Egil Skallagrimson. 2 Saga of Hakon the Good; Laing, "Sea Kings," i. 316-317. Though Ethelstan's rule over the north had shrunk from a real sovereignty into a vague overlordship, it is notable that his efforts from this moment were aimed at other lands than the Danelaw. He still remained bent on the ruin of the power which was able to call the Danelaw to arms. Even in the midst of his struggle for life with the great confederacy of the north the king had been busy planning a more formidable attack than ever on the Normans. During his father's last misfortunes, Lewis, the child of Charles the Simple and of the king's sister Eadgifu, had found with his mother a refuge in England, and had grown up at his uncle's court. When Rudolf died, and Hugh of Paris, with a cautious policy which time was to reward, refused to grasp the crown, the hearts of the West-Franks turned to the young Karoling "over-sea," and at Hugh's instigation Lewis was chosen for their king. The envoys who were sent in 936 with the offer of the crown found Æthelstan in his camp at York, holding down the earlier disaffection of the Danelaw, but the king at once rode to the south; and an English embassy crossed the Channel to prepare for the return of Lewis to his father's throne. From the court of Duke Hugh they passed to the court of William Longsword on a visit memorable as the first instance of direct political communication between England and Normandy. We know little of the negotiations which ended in the duke's assent to the accession of the Karoling. William, no doubt, saw through the aim of Æthelstan in his nephew's elevation; but to refuse Lewis was to set a stronger and more formidable neighbour, Hugh CHAP. VI. Wessex and the Danelaw. 937955. Lewis from over-sea. CHAP. VI. the Danelaw. 937955. the Great, on the throne. Through the life too of Wessex and Charles the Simple, the Normans had been the great support of the Karolingian house; and the duke may have believed that when once the crown was on his brow the old rivalry of the House of Paris would again throw the son of Charles, whatever were his uncle's plans, into the arms of the Normans. William at any rate wrung from Ethelstan a heavy price for his assent to his nephew's crowning. Brittany had been one of the king's readiest weapons against the Normans; and Alan with a train of Breton refugees was still at the English court. But peace was now arranged between Breton and Norman, and Alan, returning to his native land, pledged himself to keep peace with William Longsword. Lewis and With what aims Æthelstan had set his nephew on the French throne, the action of Lewis was to show. The boy had sworn to follow the counsels of his nobles, and in the first days of his reign he submitted to the guidance of Duke Hugh. But the victory of Brunanburh soon followed his return, and Æthelstan was now free to give his whole support to his nephew's cause. The certainty of English aid at once gave a new energy to the young king's action. He broke utterly from his father's policy. Instead of relying on the Normans against the pressure of the House of Paris, he stood aloof from both these powers. He declared himself independent of Hugh, and summoned from England his English mother to give into her charge his royal city of Laon. The hand of the English king was seen in the political combinations that followed this step. CHAP. VI. the Danelaw. 937 955. Between the lands of Ethelstan's cousin Arnulf of Flanders and the Norman duchy lay the county of Wessex and Ponthieu, then probably, as at a later time, an outpost of the Norman power. In 939 Count Herlwin of Ponthieu was attacked by Arnulf, his city of Montreuil taken, and his wife and children who were found in it sent as prisoners to Ethelstan "to be kept in hold over sea.' The attack was possibly made with the aid of an English fleet which we shall soon see busy in the Channel; and that it was really aimed at the Normans we gather from the action of, their duke, for William Longsword at once marched on Montreuil, recovered the town, and ravaged Arnulf's borders. The war with Arnulf, however, threatened to widen into the larger contest which Æthelstan had no doubt designed. Lewis drew towards the foes of the Normans; his bishops excommunicated William Longsword; and their sentence seemed the prelude for a joint attack of the two kings and the count on the northmen in France. But at the moment of their execution the combinations of the English king were again frustrated by a turn in Frankish politics. The old loyalty of Lorraine to the House of Charles the Great revived at the sight of a Karolingian sovereign at Laon. On the coronation of Otto as king of the East-Franks at Aachen, Lorraine threw off the German rule; and though Lewis rejected the first offer of its allegiance, he yielded to a second. The war with Otto which naturally followed drew all the efforts of the Frankish king from Normandy to his eastern borderland, where Failure of their league. |