§1-4. Bede's forecast-England under Egbert-Mint at Cambridge -Danish invasion-East Anglia their fastness-Great raid of 870-Ely destroyed-Death of St. Edmund-Vikings at Cambridge.

§ 5-11. Peace of Wedmore-Last Cambridgeshire battle-Cambridgeshire in the Danelagh-Reconquest by Edward-Creation of the county-Hundreds and tithings-Fight at Chesterford (?). §12-26. Edgar the Peaceful-Ethelred the Unready-Danish inroads recommence-Battle of Maldon-Brithnoth at Ely-Refounding of the abbey-Shrines.

$27-31. Sweyn's invasion-Ulfcytel the Ready-Battle of Ringmere-Cambridgeshire separate from East Anglia-Ravaged by Danes-Sack of Cambridge-Massacre of Balsham-Barrington Ford-Bracteates.

§ 32-40. Edmund Ironside-Battle of Assandun (Ashdon)-Arguments for its locality-Order of battle-English coloursEdmund's charge-Treason of Edric-Canute's minster.

§ 41-44. Canute first King of England-Earlier royal titles-His favour for Ely-Prosperity of the abbey-Officers-SchoolsRoyal pupils.

§ 45-46. Alfred the Etheling-Rebuilding and expansion of Cambridge-St. Benet's.

§ I.

L

ITTLE did Bede think, when he portrayed the peaceful outlook in the last sentence of his History, what that "next age," which seemed dawning so brightly, would indeed bring forth. Instead of witnessing

that quiet development of Christian civilization to which, at his writing, everything pointed, it brought upon Britain the most shattering tempest of heathen barbarism that she had known for four hundred years. Even before his century closed there fell the first drops of the gathering storm, when, in 787, three ships of the hitherto unknown Norsemen made a descent upon the East Anglian coast, the forerunners of those innumerable pirate fleets whose incursions filled the next three hundred years with misery and ruin. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us how in this year "first came there three ships of the Northmen out of Hæretha-land [Norway]. And then the Reeve [i.e., the Sheriff] rode to the place, and would have driven them to the King's town, because he knew not what men they were. And then and there did they slay him. These were the first ships of Danish men that sought the land of Angle-kin ";1 and thus characteristically did they begin the long series of massacres which reddened each successive wave of their inroads upon English soil.

§ 2. Just before the full tempest burst, England at last became one united kingdom under Egbert of Wessex, the last "Bretwalda," the first "King of the English," who stood forward as the champion of Southern and Eastern England against the Mercian yoke, first freeing his own Wessex, then, in 825, driving the midlanders from Kent. "And the Kentish-men, and the men of Surrey, and the South-Saxons, and the East-Saxons, came in to him, for erstwhile had they been unrightly forced from his kin. And the same year the King of the East Angles and his folk sought of him help and

1 This is the earliest instance of the territories occupied by the English races being designated by a common name. "England" is not found till the tenth century.

2 See Chapter III., § 16. The title is, however, found in charters as late as Athelstane.

3 Egbert calls himself Rex Anglorum in a charter of 828. See also § 41.

wardship for dread of the Mercians," repulsing an invasion by which Beornwulf, King of Mercia, endeavoured to recover their allegiance, with the slaughter of that monarch himself. Mercia was thus so seriously weakened that Egbert was shortly able, with little resistance, to conquer it; when he assumed the title of Bretwalda, and as such claimed and received (without fighting) the allegiance of Northumbria, thus uniting all England under his sceptre.2 This was the last of the long intestinal warfare between the various English kingdoms as such; and the decisive battle, in which Beornwulf was slain, probably took place in Cambridgeshire. The town of Cambridge itself was, in all likelihood, now rebuilt, occupying as it did the obvious route from Mercia to East Anglia. Coins of Egbert, there struck, show that in his reign the place was no longer the "waste chester" which it had been in 679, but of sufficient importance to possess a mint.

Year after year

3. Then the clouds drew down. brought fresh hordes of heathen Danes and Norsemen across the sea to try every point along the British coast, and wherever they landed to harry, burn and massacre, with that special rollicking delight in destruction for its own sake which was their peculiar national characteristic. They were bitter heathens, and made the churches and the clergy special objects of attack. The great estuary of the Wash afforded one of their easiest anchorages, whence the Ouse and the Cam admitted them to the heart of Cambridgeshire; while the semi-insular character of East Anglia made that district the headquarters,3 where they could safely leave "their wives, their ships, and their wealth," while they swarmed out to raid. throughout the length and breadth of England, and 1 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 825.

2 Ibid., A.D. 827.

3 See Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 866, 880, and particularly 894.

whither they retreated with their booty. The example was contagious, and the generation of East Anglians which grew up during this occupation of their land by the " mighty heathen host" which invaded the land in 866 A.D. became as bloodthirsty and faithless as the Danes themselves; so that in 894, though they had given oaths and hostages to King Alfred, "yet, against their plighted troth, as oft as the other [heathen] went forth, then went they forth also," to share in the adventure and the plunder.1 East Anglia was, moreover, the first district where the Danes "were horsed "2. one of the most frequent entries in the chronicles of this period, and one of the most puzzling; for in a land where all fighting was done on foot, and all ploughing by oxen, whence came the large number of horses which the invaders constantly found ready to their hand?

§ 4. Their cruelest harrying of these parts was done in 870, when "they rode back [from York] across Mercia into East Anglia" (a route which would make them cross the river at Cambridge, the only available passage), "and trod down all the land, and brake down all the Minsters that ever they came to "-amongst them Peterborough, Thorney, Ramsey, Crowland, Soham, and, notably, Ely. This was the campaign made memorable by the defeat and martyrdom of St. Edmund, the last King of East Anglia, whom the savage pagans tied to an oak and shot to death with arrows. Five years later three of the Viking leaders chose Cambridge itself as their headquarters, "and sat down there one whole year," doubtless engaged in the congenial occupation of raiding the neighbourhood, which they seem finally to have made too hot to hold them; at least, they found it

1 See also Florence of Worcester, A.D. 887.

2 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 866.

3 Ibid., A.D. 870.

advisable to "steal away" (Florence adds "by night "), and did not stop till they had intrenched themselves in the distant fortress of Wareham in Dorsetshire.

§ 5. By the Peace of Wedmore, concluded between Alfred and the Danes in 878, Cambridgeshire formed part of the immense district ceded to the invaders, which included more than half England, the boundary being the river Lea, along its whole course, and thence the Watling Street. For nearly half a century our county thus remained part of the Danelagh, subject to Danish law, and to some extent under Danish occupation; though the paucity of Scandinavian names shows that the occupation was far less thorough than in such districts as Leicestershire or Lincolnshire, where the Danish termination "by " (equivalent to the English "borough") meets us at every turn. Still, "the Lords Danes" doubtless appropriated much of the best land, dividing it, after their fashion," with a rope," i.e., by chain measure, and generally looting any desirable property, especially Church property. Ely they had already burnt in the great raid of 870.

§ 6. During this period the county was the scene of one notable engagement, which is thus described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

66

905. This year Ethelwald the Etheling [cousin to the reigning King Edward, son of Alfred, and pretender to the throne, who the year before had come over sea into Essex "with such ships as he could get "] enticed the [Danish] host in East Anglia to break the peace, so that they ravaged over all the land of Mercia ... and took all they might lay hands on, and then turned homeward again. Then went after them King Edward, as fast as he might gather his force, and overran all their land between the dykes and the Ouse, all as far north as the Fens." The district thus designated is the southern and 1 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 876.