island, thus at once to guard against foes from abroad, and to inure himself and his subjects for the keeping of watch and ward. Each winter and spring would he make a progress throughout every district of England, and diligently look into the work of justice and the law-keeping of the nobles, that the poor might suffer no wrong at the hands of the wealthier." § 14. Such a prince deserved to be called "His Pacific Majesty," and whilst he lived peace and prosperity did actually reign within the four seas. But in the rivalry for the throne which followed his death, his precautions were neglected, and when in 979 his child-son, Ethelred, was "hallowed to King at Kingston-on-Thames," the ancient coronation place of West Saxon Royalty, "on the Sunday fourteen nights after Easter," the great Aurora, whose appearance is thought worthy of mention in the A.-S. Chronicle, was felt to be ominous of coming trouble. § 15. And not without reason. The very next year the Danish ravages began again; "the seven ships" which raided Southampton being referred to by the chronicler with a sad exactitude, which marks his sense that they were the beginning of sorrows. Kent, Cheshire, Cornwall, Devon, Wales, Dorset, successively furnished the pirates with occupation for the rest of the decade, and then came the turn of East Anglia. § 16. That district, though now an integral part of the United Kingdom of England, still retained a certain measure of its old independent national life. The long line of East Anglian royalty had indeed come to an end when the martyrdom of its last representative, Edmund, by the Danes, had gained for him canonization as the patron saint of his kingdom. But though without a separate King, the region still had its own separate Witan, or legislative assembly (in which every free man had a voice), and was treated by the Central Government 2 See Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 1004. 2 1 See § 4. as one organic whole, under a local "Alderman "1 of its own, who at this juncture was a man conspicuous alike for piety and for valour, Brithnoth. There are strong reasons for connecting his name specially with our county, and without doubt a Cambridgeshire contingent took its part in that Battle of Maldon sung with such Homeric vigour and detail by the contemporary minstrel. 17. His lay tells us how Brithnoth came upon the Danish invaders about to pass over the tidal stream of the Panta (now the Blackwater), at whose mouth they had landed with a view to harrying Essex. He had raised the local levies on his march, and hastily gave them such tactical instruction as time permitted. But the backbone of his force was his own "hearth-ward," the band of personal retainers who had marched with him from Cambridgeshire, and who were attached to him by that tie of individual loyalty then regarded as the closest of all bonds between man and man. The AngloSaxon Chronicle gives a striking instance of the entire devotion of this loyalty in recording a disputed succession to the West Saxon throne in 755. Cynewulf, the King, having been surprised and slain at night by the pretender, Cyneard, "when the king's thanes who were with him heard the fray, then did each, as he was ready, run with all speed to the place. And to each did Cyneard proffer money and life, and not one would take it, but there did they fight on till every man fell. Then, on the morrow, heard the King's thanes whom he had left behind how that the King was slain; then rode they thither.. Then did Cyneard proffer them gold and lands, all they would, so they would yield him the kingdom, and showed them their own kinsmen that held with him, men that ... 1 This title originally signified the civil head of an Anglo-Saxon clan not yet sufficiently organized to possess a King. At this date it denoted the Governor set by the Crown over a given district. would never leave him. Then said they that no kinsman was so dear as their lord, and that they would never follow his slayer. And their kinsfolk they bade that they should depart in peace and forsake Cyneard. But they made answer that the same bode had been laid upon 'your mates that were with the King, neither are we more minded to take it than they, who were slain with him.' So stood they fighting until Cyneard and all with him save one were slain." Nor were Brithnoth and his men less mutually devoted. We read how, on his road to the battle, he refused hospitality unless extended to them also, saying, "I cannot fight without my men, neither will I feed without them "; and how, in the fight itself, they fought and fell by his side, till the last desperate rally of the survivors rescued his headless corpse from the victorious heathen. It is interesting to note amongst these retainers one bearing the distinctively Celtic name of Maccus,3 doubtless a Girvian of the Fens. § 18. It was amongst this chosen "comitatus," "His own hearth-ward, His liefest and dearest, that Brithnoth, after arraying his forces, lighted down. from the "mare" which had carried him on the march, and took his stand for the battle. In Anglo-Saxon warfare horses were never used during the actual combat, a national trait which comes out strikingly in the Battle of Hastings, where the Norman force was mainly cavalry, while of the English William of Malmesbury tells us : 1 Ramsey Chronicle. 2 They are called "the heathen host" in the lay. The conversion of Norway was shortly afterwards effected by King Olaf, who seems to have fought as a heathen in this very battle (Freeman, "Norman Conquest," vol. i., p. 268). 3 One of the Welsh princes who rowed Edgar on the Dee is named Maccus. 4 "Hist.," iii., § 241. "Rex ipse pedes juxta Vexillum stabat cum fratribus." As he did so, a herald from the Vikings, "the Seamen bold," as these pirate rovers called themselves, appeared with a suggestion that they should be bought off: "Thy realm mayst thou ransom By sending the Seamen, To their own full doom, Then back with our booty To ship will we get us, Fare forth on the flood And pass you in peace." In this proposition we see the foreshadowing of that fatal system of Danegeld to which this very year, 991, the English Government first stooped. Well would it have been for the country if the King and his Witan had had the courage to repudiate the demand for ransom as promptly and indignantly as did Brithnoth : "Hear thou, sailor, What saith this people. "This bode in return Bear back to thy shipmates, 1 A.-S.: "Ettrene ord Rhyme has no recognised place in Anglo-Saxon poetry, but in this song is very occasionally found. At this period the idea was just dawning. It was already in use in Latin hymns and in French chansons, and speedily became universal in English ballads. But the rough rhythm and alliteration, which I have endeavoured to reproduce, were the essential features of our earliest minstrelsy. A chief with his chosen : For our King, folk, and country." § 19. The same chivalrous courage which prompted this reply led Brithnoth, all too boldly,1 to forgo the advantage of defending the passage of the river, and to suffer the Danes, "those loathly guests," to cross unmolested, so soon as the tide fell. "Then waded the water Those wolves of the slaughter, O'er the wan water-way Weapons they waved, "Then drave from each hand Showered the sharp arrows, Busy were bows, Shield met shaft, Bitter the battle." The deeds of various heroes are commemorated. Brithnoth himself slays the pirate leader with the cast of a "franca," the missile axe used with such terrible effect by the Frankish warriors of the fifth century.3 1 A.-S. "for his ofermōde." The minstrel clearly feels it a grievously "overbold" act of chivalry. An interesting historical parallel is to be found in the like inaction of King James at Flodden. Despite all remonstrance, he insisted on letting the English pass the difficult ford of the Till unscathed, ere he would join battle with them. 2 A.-S. wæl-wulfas. 3 Procopius describes the Franks as "having neither bow nor spear, but each a sword, a shield, and one axe. The iron of this axe is stout, sharp, and two-edged; the handle, made of wood, is exceedingly short. At a given signal they all throw these axes, and thus, at the first onset, are wont to break the shields of the enemy and slay his men." |