XI.

THE FIRST FOUR BRETWALDAS ELLE, CEAWLIN,

ETHELBERT, REDWALD).

BEDE tells us in his "Ecclesiastical History" that seven princes at various times and in different places held the sovereignty or chieftainship of the English kingdoms. The seven of his list are Elle of Sussex, Ceawlin of Wessex, Ethelbert of Kent, Redwald of East Anglia, Edwin, Oswald, and Oswin of Northumbria.

The title requires some explanation, an explanation which it is not easy to give without entering into a very difficult controversy. What the word itself means is not by any means certain. Even its derivation is a matter of dispute. About the latter half of it, indeed, all are agreed. Walda or wealda (for the word has the two forms) is clearly connected with our "wield." The "walda" was the "wielder " or "ruler." But "wielder" of what? "Bret" naturally suggests "Britain" or "Briton," words often spelt with an "e" instead of an "i." The Bretwalda, then,

The two words used are imperium and ducatus, the latter obviously meaning much less than the former. Empire" and "dukedom" are, etymologically, their English equivalents.

BRETWALDA, BRITANNIA, AND BRYTEN. 113

would be the ruler of Britain. But, on the other hand, it is maintained that "bret" is not the right form, which should rather be "bryt," connected with. the word "bryten" "broad." According to this view, therefore, the Bretwalda would be the "wide ruler." Professor Freeman is disposed to think that this derivation is correct, but that nevertheless the word did mean, if not to those who first used it, at least in Bede's time, the "ruler of Britain." Such incorrect. uses of words are not uncommon in times when men knew little or nothing about the origin of the terms which they employ in common speech. Of course, it may be asked, Did the English speak of the island. of which they possessed themselves as "Britain "? The answer is certainly not. But as soon as their history began to be written, being written in Latin, the word Britannia would come into common use again; a Latin writer such as Bede (672-735) might easily translate the word Bretwalda by "Britanniae imperator" or "dux" without thinking of the true derivation from "bryten."

It has been suggested that the English kings who used this title were thinking of the old title of Emperor, and were, in fact, claiming it for themselves,

He mentions another form as being sometimes used "Bretæenwealda," in Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which would be almost conclusive on this point.

2 The Latin adverb equidem is a case in point. Cicero, the highest in authority in all matters of Latin style, never uses it except with the first person singular, thinking, there can be very little doubt, that it was formed from the pronoun ego (I) and the adverb quidem (indeed). But, as a matter of fact, the word was not formed in this way, but from the interjection e and quidem. Cicero's usage, therefore, was guided by a mistaken etymology.

as Carausius and other pretenders had claimed it in the latter days of the Roman dominion. And the fact that Ethelbert of Kent had a coin struck with the Roman device of the wolf suckling two children I has been brought forward as a proof of some such pretensions. It is possible that Ethelbert, an ambitious prince, may have had some such notion suggested to him by the Gallic bishop who acted as his wife's chaplain, but it is more probable that the coin was only copied by unskilful artizans, who could not make a device of their own. Doubtless when in the ninth century Egbert, after making his supremacy to be acknowledged by all the English states, revived the title of Bretwalda, he was thinking of an Imperial dignity. But then Egbert had seen the great Charles crowned at Rome, and would have a special satisfaction in claiming for himself something like the Imperial dignity which he had seen revived in so splendid a way.

It is impossible to give any precise definition of the Bretwalda's power, either of its degree or of its extent. Both, we may be sure, varied with the princes who held it. Some of these could not have had anything like the power of some of the kings who were never honoured with this title.

What claims the first Bretwalda in Bede's list, Ella of Sussex, had to the dignity we have no means of knowing. Any supremacy he may have had outside his own dominions could not have extended beyond

A picturing of the old legend which told how a she-wolf nourished Romulus and Remus, twin sons of Rhea Sylvia, and founders of Rome, when exposed in the marshes of Tiber.

CEAWLIN OF WESSEX.

115

the kingdom of Kent. But what his relations were with this kingdom, whether he did it any service. which was thus acknowledged, is a matter upon which we can scarcely even form a guess. But we may be sure that whatever his power was it did not extend beyond the south-eastern corner of the island.

Of Ceawlin of Wessex, the second Bretwalda, we have already heard something. In 568, nine years before his great victory at Dereham, he had defeated Ethelbert of Kent, who could then have been little more than a lad,2 at Wimbledon, in Surrey. This defeat was probably followed by some acknowledgment of the supremacy of the West Saxon king, on the part of Ethelbert and his subjects. Ceawlin's career after the battle of Dereham is obscure. We hear of another victory at Frethern, darkened by the death of the conqueror's brother and probably his son; and then under the year 592 we have this entry in the Chronicle: "In this year there was a great slaughter in Britain, at Woddesbeorg,3 and Ceawlin was driven out." His successes—so much we may conjecture by the somewhat dubious help of later writers-had corrupted his character, and his own kindred rose against him. A league was formed with the British tribes against whom he had been fighting for so many years. It was joined, or encouraged, by Ethelbert of Kent, who had been strengthening himself in the cast, while his

Dr. Lappenberg (i. 127, Thorpe's translation) writes: "Sussex is said to have first enjoyed that supremacy when it had to defend Kent." But he gives no authority, a thing which he very seldom neglects.

2 One text of the Saxon Chronicle gives the date of his birth at 552. 3 Possibly Wanborough, in Wiltshire, about four miles from Swindon.

former overlord had been busy in the west, and who had now brought under his supremacy Sussex and Essex. Ceawlin died two years afterwards in exile. The words in which William of Malmesbury sums up the story of his reign are these: "In his last days banished from his kingdom he presented a pitiable spectacle to his enemies. So much hated was he that the signal, so to speak, sounded against him on both sides. The English and the Britons joined against him, and his army was put to flight at Wodnesdic. Thus in the thirty-first year of his reign he was stripped of his kingdom and forthwith died." Britons and English joining to get rid of an obnoxious ruler is another fact in the history and marks an advance. We may not admire the motives which brought these allies together, but it is clear that the dreadful exterminating wars of the earlier time are at an end.

We have now come to the third Bretwalda, Ethelbert of Kent. His early reign had been marked, we have seen, by a disastrous defeat. From this circumstances had given him the opportunity to recover, and he seems to have used it well. Of the facts of his reign we know little except that somewhere in the latter part of the sixth century he married the Princess Bertha, a daughter of Charibert, who became King of the Franks in 561, and that, owing to this alliance, he was, as the Chronicler tells us more than once, "the first of English kings to be baptized." But, thanks to Bede, who was naturally interested in the first Christian monarch, we have a clear idea of his power. That he exercised any control over the West Saxons we cannot suppose. We hear indeed