Athelstane's strong, stern dominion was endured with impatience by his new subjects; and his death (A. D. 940) proved the signal for a rising. The new king, Athelstane's brother Edmund, found himself in a few weeks menaced by a revolt which was headed by the pagan Anlaf, who sought to recover his inheritance, and favoured by the archbishop of York, who preferred the interests of Anglian independence to a Christian but Saxon king. A great battle at Tamworth ended in a decisive triumph for the Dano-Anglian forces: the provinces north and east of Watling Street were ceded to Anlaf, and Edmund was reduced for a time to the dominions which Alfred had enjoyed forty years before. But the death of Anlaf a year later gave Edmund an opportunity of retrieving his losses, which he did the more readily as York was still the metropolis of a separate principality, which divided the strength of the north. The inhabitants of the five Danish towns, Derby, Leicester, Nottingham, Stamford, and Lincoln, were expelled and replaced by Englishmen; the two princes of the north, Anlaf the younger and Reginald, were compelled to do homage and embrace Christianity; and the archbishop of York was confirmed, probably by some concessions, in a more loyal allegiance.' The Cumbrian dynasty was next reduced, and the province made over to Scotland as the price of homage and support. No one was better able than the ruler of Galloway to secure the lakes and hills of Cumberland from becoming the stronghold and issuing point of vikings. But in the midst of his victories, Edmund perished in a brawl at his own table. Liofa, a noted outlaw, had

'Ethelweard, lib. iv., M, B., p. 520.

entered the royal hall,' and seated himself at table; Edmund interfered in person to turn him out, and was stabbed to the heart, (A. D. 946).

By a natural arrangement, Edmund's brother, Edred, was appointed king, as Edwi and Edgar, the sons of Edmund, were minors. The new king inherited the warlike ability, the devout tendencies, and unhappily also the sickly constitution of his race. The nine years of his reign were on the whole prosperous, although the Northumbrians, in default of their natural leaders, rose up again in insurrection under Eric, whom his father, Harald Blaatand of Denmark, had sent over to seek his fortunes. The archbishop of York again joined the insurgents. But the native prince, Anlaf's son Maco, did not submit to be despoiled of his inheritance, and failing to cope with Eric by force of arms, assassinated him in a desert place, by the treachery of one of his gesith. Edred profited by these dissensions, and in two campaigns laid waste the whole of the north; threw Wulfstan of York into prison, carried off the chief nobles as hostages, divided the province into shires and baronies, and entrusted it to the charge of Osulf, the traitor, who had betrayed Eric. From this time forward, Northumbria, parcelled out into earldoms, ceases to have any proper history of its own, and is only a turbulent part of the Saxon dominion.

3

The martial character of the Saxon line since the time of Ethelwulf, had reacted upon the court; and

1 The hall was open to all guests. Liofa's offence lay in appearing while he was under ban. The Chronicle of Abingdon, however, (vol. i. pp. 119, 120), says the king was killed in separating two servants who

were quarrelling, and calls the murderer his cup-bearer Leofwine.

2 Lappenberg, Eng. Gesch., Band i. s. 392.

3 Palgrave's Eng. Com., p. cccxviii.

MILITARY REVIVAL.

193

religion and war had become for a time as closely united in popular estimation as religion and peace had been under the first converts. The necessities of the national struggles, and the peculiar character of the war waged against the Danes, whose treaties were never so sacred as when they were guaranteed by their kings' baptisms, had no doubt contributed to this result. Turketul, chancellor under three kings, who had led the London militia at Brunan-beorh, and who at last resigned his dignities to become abbot of the ruined monastery of Croyland, is a good instance of the way in which secular offices were discharged by men who at another time would have shrunk from performing the duties of citizens.' It was not in the nature of things that this should last if religion was the path to promotion, the Church would either become worldly or it would absorb the State. Both effects were in fact produced; religion was a more active principle than before; and worldly profit came to be connected with its profession. The results were seen more fully in the next reign. Neither thought nor scholarly learning could flourish amid the din of arms. But the European connections of Athelstane seem to have drawn the attention of Englishmen to the splendour and ceremonial of foreign courts; an inflated Byzantine style characterizes the charters of the tenth century; the Saxon kings call themselves basileus and imperator; while a pompous humility is affected in the style of the English clergy." If the laws of Hoel-Dda were really derived from Anglo-Saxon practice, it would seem as if the English court had

194

ROME THE SOURCE OF POWER.

affected the minute etiquette and unmeaning dignities. of the emperors of the east.' We may hope that English good sense a little tempered these extravagances. They are so entirely exotic, that they do not, I think, indicate the attempt of weakness to disguise itself in purple; rather they are an affectation of forms supposed to be diplomatically correct; and their chief interest is that they show in unbroken continuity the conviction, which six centuries of habit impressed upon Europe, that all dominion, to be lawful, must be derived from Rome.

The Venedotian code gives the titles, duties, privileges, and perquisites of forty-two officers, male and

female, attached to the royal household of Wales. Ancient Laws of Wales, vol. i. pp. 4-77.

CHAPTER XIII.

DUNSTAN.

EARLY LIFE OF DUNSTAN. STATE OF THE CHURCH. REASONS FOR CLERICAL CELIBACY. QUARREL WITH EDWI. EDWI'S CONDUCT AND DEPOSITION. CHARACTER OF EDGAR AND HIS REIGN. EDWARD THE MARTYR. REACTION AGAINST THE MONASTIC MOVEMENT. DUNSTAN'S TRIUMPH. MURDER OF EDWARD.

OR nearly forty years after Edred's death the

history of England is no longer that of its kings, but of a religious reformer, who forced a change of the greatest moment upon an unwilling nation; and having been the trusted servant of one king, deprived a second of half his dominions, established a third on the throne, and moulded the character both of that sovereign and of his successor. Unhappily, Dunstan's biography has suffered as much from the praise of his friends as from the censure of his enemies; and the whole history of the struggle which placed him in power must be constructed out of conjectural criticisms. The very records of his early life are disfigured with improbable miracles, which even Catholic biographers are glad quietly to pass by.

Dunstan was born' in the reign of Edward, and is

1 A. D. 925 is given as the date of his birth by Osbern; Anglia Sacra, vol. ii. p. 90; and A. S. Chron., A.

925. This date cannot be reconciled with the early accounts of Dunstan's life, which state that Athelstane em