108

DEFEAT OF ST. EADMUND.

kings one had provoked rebellion, the other was an usurper; it is scarcely wonderful, if the people passed easily to the sway of a new lord. Having thus obtained the dominion of the north, the Danes advanced against Mercia, but were forced, when the army of Wessex came up, to make terms. The invaders next turned their arms against East Anglia; they first attacked Lincolnshire, where, supported by new adventurers under Guthrum, they at last overwhelmed the local forces which the valiant ealdorman Algar led, and sacked the monastery of Peterborough. They then demanded submission from the king; Eadmund had sufficient sense of honour to decline to hold his crown as a vassal of the pagans; but his subjects did not muster in sufficient force to give any hope of success; Eadmund fell into the hands of the Danes, and suffered the fate of St. Sebastian, A.D. 871.1 The pagans

were now masters of the Anglian parts of England; it was only a question of time, how soon Mercia should become tributary to them. But the south and part of the west of England were inhabited by a different race, with no Scandinavian sympathies, with a civilization too deeply rooted to be easily effaced, with an utter horror of paganism; above all, with a man among them who could lead in battle, guide in council, and inspire confidence in defeat. The people was the Saxons of Wessex; the man was Alfred.

1 The accounts of Eadmund's defeat are difficult to understand. He is represented as successful in an obstinate battle at Thetford; but refusing, from scruples of conscience, to shed any more blood, he is surrounded and taken by the Danes. Objecting to fight was a common and praiseworthy form of conscientiousness, but fighting first and objecting afterwards would be conduct too foolish to be credible. A second victory would have cleared the country of the pirates. We probably owe this gloss on the meagre account in the Saxon Chronicle, to the monks of later and more warlike times, who wished their patron to be brave as well as pious.-Wendover, p. 308-311.

ALFRED.

ALFRED'S YOUTH.-WARS WITH THE DANES UNDER ÆTHELRED.-CHARACTER OF ALFRED'S GOVERNMENT. THE DANES OCCUPY MERCIA, AND ENTER WESSEX FROM THE SOUTH.-ALFRED'S EXILE.-DEFEAT OF THE DANES AT EDINGTON, AND TREATY OF WEDMOR.-LATER INVASIONS AND REPULSES OF THE DANES. -ALFRED'S PUBLIC WORKS.-ALFRED AS LAWGIVER.-OLD AND NEW INSTITUTIONS.-FORMATION OF A FLEET.-REVIVAL OF LEARNING. THE KING'S PRIVATE LIFE.-RELIGIOUS AND ARISTOCRATIC TENDENCIES OF ALFRED'S MIND.

ALFRED was the youngest son of Ethelwulf, by Osburh, daughter of a Jutish noble, the king's cupbearer; and was born at Wantage about the beginning of the year 849 A.D. So long as his mother lived, he appears to have been well cared for and when at most only six years old, was induced to learn by heart some of the Saxon ballads, by a promise of the illuminated book which contained them.1 In 855 A.D. Alfred accompanied his father on a pilgrimage to Rome, where he remained a year. The early influences of his life had no doubt some share in impressing him with a vivid sense of religion. After his father's death, Alfred was probably left to grow up pretty much as he chose. He became a keen sportsman; and a strong animal nature, tempered but not subdued by his piety, seems to have led him into irregularities, which affected his health through life. In his twentieth year he married Ealhswitha, the daughter of Æthelred the Big, earl of

'Pauli's Life of Alfred, pp. 85-90. Dr. Pauli's view, that Alfred only learned the poems by heart, appears to me certain from the context, in which Asser says distinctly that the prince did not learn to read in his youth. The only difficulty is in the word "legit," which probably means, went over," perhaps "spelt over."-Asser, M. B., 474.

110

BATTLES WITH THE DANES.

the Gainishmen.1 On the death of his two eldest brothers, and the accession of Ethelred in 866 A.D., Alfred ought, by his father's will, to have been invested with the kingdoms of Kent and Sussex. The urgent need of united action forced king and witan to disregard the foolish bequest; and Alfred, to his high honour, acquiesced in the arrangement, perhaps with an understanding that he should succeed his brother on the throne.

Although the Danish kings of Northumbria were by this time sated with conquest, or chiefly desired to extend their limits toward the north, the allies, under Guthrum, who had just assisted them to conquer East Anglia, and to whom it had been assigned as recompense, were resolved to push their successes south of the Thames. Accordingly, in the winter of 871 A.D., they suddenly sailed up the Thames, not pausing before the strong walls of London or in the Surrey fields, but announcing their arrival by the storm of Reading. They were still so weak that their first sally into the country was repelled by the ealdorman of the district near Englefield. But when Æthelred and Alfred arrived, and attempted to storm the town, the Danes regained their superiority; and the royal brothers were forced to fly across the Thames. The next battle took place on the unknown common of Ashdown, probably in Hampshire. Alfred commenced the fight by a vigorous charge up the slope which the Danes crowned; for a time the issue was doubtful, as Æthelred was hearing mass in his tent, and left his brother unsupported; but at last reinforcements came up; the Danes were routed, and most of their captains slain. The pursuit lasted through the night and the next day to the very walls of Reading, where the fugitives found shelter. But before another fortnight the Danes were sufficiently reinforced to fight again at Basing, where they kept the battle-field. It was their great advantage throughout these wars that they were able to concentrate their whole strength on any given point, while the Saxons trusted too

1 Of Gainsborough in Lincolnshire.-Pauli's Life of Alfred, p. 121.

much to the local militia, which did not even include the citizens of the towns. Hence in a fresh battle at Merton, although the Saxons claim to have conquered during the day, they were forced at nightfall to leave the field to the enemy. Five battles in about as many weeks, and the loss of their best soldiers and nobles, dispirited the Saxons; and Æthelred, who had shown himself a brave and honourable king, died about this time. The whole burden of monarchy devolved upon Alfred when he was only twenty-two. His succession had long been regarded as matter of course; it does not seem that any fresh meeting of the witan was held to sanction it.

Like most men of strong organizing capacity, Alfred was inclined to carry out with a high hand what he saw to be right and necessary. The times were thoroughly out of joint. Castles had to be built everywhere, fleets constructed, the terms of military service lengthened and drawn closer; and in order to do all this, it was necessary to strengthen the authority of the king and of the nobles, while the judicial powers of the great lords were yet the great curse of the country. It is scarcely wonderful, if the most contradictory complaints were brought against Alfred's government. The oppressive demands for service of every kind wearied his followers. The poor complained that they could get no justice, while the reeves saw with horror that forty-four of their number had been hanged on slight charges in a single year: one for punishing contempt of court with excessive severity, another for acquitting a sheriff who had seized goods to the king's use unjustly. Alfred became unpopular, and nobles and people fell away from him for a time. But necessity

'This is not certain, but is highly probable; the citizens could scarcely have left their walls undefended, and the analogies of the Anglo-Norman period favour the supposition. See A. S. Chron., A., 994, for the contempt with which the Danes regarded the civic militias.

2 In toto illo regno præter illum solum, pauperes aut nullos aut etiam paucissimos habebant adjutores.-Asser, 497, M. B.

3 Miroir des Justices, p. 296, quoted by Lingard, vol. i., p. 178. Ethelweard, M. B., lib. iv., p. 517. Asser, M. B., p. 481, cum adhuc juvenis erat homines sui regni ✶ ✶ suum auxilium ac patrocinium implorabant;

112

ROLLO'S ATTEMPT ON ENGLAND.

brought them round his standard again, and he was able in later life to extend the powers of English royalty while he learned to administer them with greater gentleness.

During the next seven years the contest continued without any decisive results. In Northumbria, Halfdene rewarded his followers with grants of land. The settlement was something like that of the Norman conquest two hundred years later; and its extent may be gathered from the fact that in the four counties of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, there are nearly a thousand places which have Dano-Norwegian names, against less than four hundred in all the rest of England. This endowing of the first adventurers would no doubt stop the supply of recruits to Guthrum's army. Guthrum himself seems to have felt the need of a larger basis of operations, and already in 874 A.D. had expelled the king of Mercia, and handed the province over to a creature of his own, "the unwise thane," Ceolwulf. To add to Alfred's perplexities a new sea-rover, Rollo, attacked the southern coast, 876 A.D. Fortunately he had only six ships; and the success of his first attempts was not such as to encourage a longer stay. The sea-rover looked longingly across the waters to the fruitful coasts of France; a dream interpreted by a captive promised success; and Alfred was induced to purchase peace by supplying him with fresh ships, which were nominally to be employed in trade. Rollo departed to found a dynasty in Normandy. But

ille vero noluit eos audire, &c. The passage is probably not by Asser, but the writer of St. Neot's life lived near enough to Alfred's times to know his character by report.

1 Worsaae's Danes in England, p. 71. Mr. H. Coleridge has given a list of more than a hundred words of distinctly Danish origin in Anglo-Saxon.Philolog. Trans., 1859, pp. 18-31. Dr. Lottner has followed this up by a paper arguing that "are," the plural present of "to be," is Scandinavian.-Philolog. Trans., 1860, p. 63.

2 So, at least, say the vague and uncertain accounts of this transaction. The pretext was not an unlikely one, as the same vessels might then serve for commerce or for war. (See p. 106.) Depping, however, assumes that commerce was the diplomatic phrase for piracy; comments on Alfred's wickedness, and accounts for it by the difficulties of his position and by English jealousy