CHAP. VI. for a time Lorraine passed into the hands of Lewis. Wessex and But his winning of it caused a sudden change in the the Danelaw. 937955. Eadmund. position of the young king in Frankland itself. He had for three years stood aloof from the control of The recall of the fleet may have been due to the failing health of Ethelstan; for on the twentyseventh of October, 940,' in the midst of these wide 1 So the later Chronicles, probably from a lost annal in the Worcester copy. The Winchester Chronicle dates it 941. CHAP. VI. the Danelaw 937 955. projects, the king died at Gloucester; and the troubles which followed the succession of his brother Wessex and Eadmund left little room for a display of energy across the sea. Though he had fought by Ethelstan's side at Brunanburh, Eadmund, a child of Eadward's third marriage with Eadgifu,' was a youth of eighteen when he mounted the throne. But he had already a policy of his own, and that a policy distinct from the system of Ethelstan. "He was no friend to the northmen," " or to the system of balances by which his brother had used the Norwegians of the Danelaw to hold down the Danes. Eric too was in no favour with him. As southern England became day by day a realm more peaceful and highly organized, the instincts of its statesmen must have revolted more and more from 3 1 Æthelstan was the only son of Eadward's first marriage; both his sons by a second were dead; there remained two young sons by his third, Eadmund and Eadred. 2 In Ethelstan's later years, after some more experiments, such as in 935, "basileus Anglorum et æque totius Britanniæ orbis curagulus" (Cod. Dip. 1111), or in 937, "rex Anglorum et æque totius Albionis gubernator" (Cod. Dip. 1114; it is notable that he never recurs to his "Imperator" and "Brytenwealda "), the royal style had at last settled down into a single form. From 938 at any rate it is almost uniformly "Basileus Anglorum cunctarumque gentium in circuitu persistentium," and the signature, rex totius Britanniæ." (Cod. Dip., a series of charters from 1116 to 1123, &c.) Eadmund adopts and generally uses the same description, though breaking out here and there, as in 940, into "rex Anglorum et curagulus multarum gentium (Cod. Dip. 384), or in 941, "regni Anglorum basileus" (he signs here, "totius Britanniæ rex;" Cod. Dip. 1139), or in 946, rex Anglorum necnon et Merciorum" (Cod. Dip. 409), but signs almost uniformly "rex Anglorum." 66 3 Hakon's Saga; Laing, "Sea Kings," i. 317. CHAP. VI. the wild barbarism of the north, where Eric, with his Wessex and false and cruel Gunhild beside him, remained in spite the Danelaw. 937955. The rising of the Danelaw. of his baptism the mere pirate he had landed. So "the word went about that King Eadmund would set another chief over Northumbria." The threat was enough for Eric, who set off on new cruises of piracy, only now adding the English coast to his former field of prey; and at his departure the Danelaw rose once more against the English king. The revolt was even more formidable than that which Æthelstan had faced at Brunanburh, for the rapidity with which the English army met Olaf and Constantine on that bloody field seems to have prevented the general rising of the English Danelaw on which the Ostmen had reckoned. But with a boyking on the throne the spell of terror which the great defeat had thrown over the north was broken; the Danes again called for aid from their kinsmen in Ireland; and on the reappearance of Olaf in the Humber in 941 the Danelaw took fire.1 The rising was not merely a rising of the Danes north of Humber, for after twenty years of quiet submission to the English rule, even the men of the Five Boroughs now threw off their allegiance and joined their kinsmen in Northumbria in taking Olaf for king; and the danger was heightened by an unlooked-for defection from the royal cause. In his appointment of Wulf 1 The Winchester Chron. a. 942, gives here a fragment of a second poem on the deeds of Eadmund. As to Olaf, or Anlaf, Mr. Skene thinks this Olaf to be the King of Dublin, and that on his death soon after (Eng. Chron. Winch., a. 942) he was succeeded by the second Olaf, Sihtric's son, from Scotland. ("Celtic Scotland," i. 361.) CHAP. VI. the Danelaw, 937 955. stan to the primacy at York in 934 Æthelstan had trusted to secure a firm support for his rule in the Wessex and north. We have already noted the new and independent position which had been given to the see of York by its isolation from the rest of the English Church. Its occupant became in fact even more the religious centre of northern Britain than the primate of Canterbury was as yet of southern Britain; and as the pagan settlers yielded to Christian influences, he rose to still greater importance as the natural centre of union between Englishman and Dane. The quick revolutions in the northern kingship, as well as its occasional parting between two rulers, must have still further heightened the position of a spiritual head who remained unaffected by these changes; and in Archbishop Wulfstan the power of the primate rivalled the temporal authority of the northern kings. Till now Wulfstan's influence had been steadily exerted in support of the English sovereignty; though the names of the Danish Jarls are absent from Æthelstan's later witenagemots, Archbishop Wulfstan was still present at the English court; and in the opening of Eadmund's reign his attitude seems to have remained the same. He joined with his fellow primate to avert a conflict between the king and the Danes at Lincoln; and even in 942 we find him at Eadmund's court.1 But whether he was swept away by the strength of local feeling or alienated by the king's West-Saxon policy, at this moment his course suddenly changed. Not only did he adopt the northern 1 "Wulfstan archiepiscopus urbis Eborace metropolitanus " attests a royal grant in 942. (Cod. Dip. 392.) CHAP. VI. cause as his own, but in the after struggle he stood Wessex and side by side with Olaf as commander of the northern the Danelaw. 937955. Eadmund's defeat. host. The Not content with freeing Northumbria, the Ostmen and primate burst in 943 into Mid-Britain, and their storm of Tamworth and of Leicester gave them the valley of the Trent. Eadmund was strong enough to regain the last city, and Wulfstan and Olaf had some difficulty in escaping from his grasp, but the work of even Eadward was undone, and after two years of hard fighting, the primates of York and Canterbury negotiated a peace in which Olaf bowed to baptism and owned himself Eadmund's under-king, but which practically left Eadmund master only of the realm that Ælfred had ruled.' The revival of the English Danelaw was the more formidable that with it went a revival of the Norman power across the sea. death of Athelstan had been as disastrous to his nephew as to his son. It left Lewis friendless at a moment when the war on his eastern border turned suddenly against him, and he was driven by Otto from Lorraine. Pressed hard even in his own Frankland by Hugh the Great and Herbert of Vermandois, deserted by Arnulf of Flanders, the young king was thrown back on the policy of his father. He looked for aid to the Normans; and William Longsword was as ready to return to the policy of Hrolf as Lewis to that of Charles the Simple. Lewis was saved from ruin by Norman help; his fortunes were restored by the Norman sword; Norman diplomacy brought about a peace with Otto and a reconciliation with 1 Eng. Chron. (Worc.), a. 943. |