Volume VII Part 12 (2/2)
[39] Id. c. cod.
[40] Dugdale's History of St. Paul's.
[41] Bed. Hist. Eccl. Lib. IV. c. 13.
[42] Bed. Hist. Eccl. Lib IV. c. 13.
[43] Spelm. Concil. p. 329.
[44] Instauret etiam Dei ecclesiam; ... et instauret vias publicas pontibus super aquas profundas et super caenosas vias; ... manumittat servos suos proprios, et redimat ab aliis hominibus servos suos ad libertatem.--L Eccl. Edgari, 14.
[45] Aida.n.u.s, Finan, Colmannus mirae sanct.i.tatis fuerunt et parsimoniae.... Adeo autem sacerdotes erant illius temporis ab avaritia immunes, ut nec territoria nisi coacti acciperent.--Hen. Huntingd. Lib.
III. p. 333. Bed. Hist. Eccl. Lib. III c. 26.
[46] Icolmkill, or Iona.
CHAPTER III.
SERIES OF ANGLO-SAXON KINGS FROM ETHELBERT TO ALFRED: WITH THE INVASION OF THE DANES.
[Sidenote: A.D. 799]
The Christian religion, having once taken root in Kent, spread itself with great rapidity throughout all the other Saxon kingdoms in England.
The manners of the Saxons underwent a notable alteration by this change in their religion: their ferocity was much abated; they became more mild and sociable; and their laws began to partake of the softness of their manners, everywhere recommending mercy and a tenderness for Christian blood. There never was any people who embraced religion with a more fervent zeal than the Anglo-Saxons, nor with more simplicity of spirit.
Their history for a long time shows us a remarkable conflict between their dispositions and their principles. This conflict produced no medium, because they were absolutely contrary, and both operated with almost equal violence. Great crimes and extravagant penances, rapine and an entire resignation of worldly goods, rapes and vows of perpetual chast.i.ty, succeeded each other in the same persons. There was nothing which the violence of their pa.s.sions could not induce them to commit; nothing to which they did not submit to atone for their offences, when reflection gave an opportunity to repent. But by degrees the sanctions of religion began to preponderate; and as the monks at this time attracted all the religious veneration, religion everywhere began to relish of the cloister: an inactive spirit, and a spirit of scruples prevailed; they dreaded to put the greatest criminal to death; they scrupled to engage in any worldly functions. A king of the Saxons dreaded that G.o.d would call him to an account for the time which he spent in his temporal affairs and had stolen from prayer. It was frequent for kings to go on pilgrimages to Rome or to Jerusalem, on foot, and under circ.u.mstances of great hards.h.i.+p. Several kings resigned their crowns to devote themselves to religious contemplation in monasteries,--more at that time and in this nation than in all other nations and in all times. This, as it introduced great mildness into the tempers of the people, made them less warlike, and consequently prepared the way to their forming one body under Egbert, and for the other changes which followed.
The kingdom of Wess.e.x, by the wisdom and courage of King Ina, the greatest legislator and politician of those times, had swallowed up Cornwall, for a while a refuge for some of the old Britons, together with the little kingdom of the South Saxons. By this augmentation it stretched from the Land's End to the borders of Kent, the Thames flowing on the north, the ocean was.h.i.+ng it on the south. By their situation the people of Wess.e.x naturally came to engross the little trade which then fed the revenues of England; and their minds were somewhat opened by a foreign communication, by which they became more civilized and better acquainted with the arts of war and of government. Such was the condition of the kingdom of Wess.e.x, when Egbert was called to the throne of his ancestors. The civil commotions which for some time prevailed had driven this prince early in life into an useful banishment. He was honorably received at the court of Charlemagne, where he had an opportunity of studying government in the best school, and of forming himself after the most perfect model. Whilst Charlemagne was reducing the continent of Europe into one empire, Egbert reduced England into one kingdom. The state of his own dominions, perfectly united under him, with the other advantages which we have just mentioned, and the state of the neighboring Saxon governments, made this reduction less difficult.
Besides Wess.e.x, there were but two kingdoms of consideration in England,--Mercia and Northumberland. They were powerful enough in the advantages of Nature, but reduced to great weakness by their divisions.
As there is nothing of more moment to any country than to settle the succession of its government on clear and invariable principles, the Saxon monarchies, which were supported by no such principles, were continually tottering. The right of government sometimes was considered as in the eldest son, sometimes in all; sometimes the will of the deceased prince disposed of the crown, sometimes a popular election bestowed it. The consequence of this was the frequent division and frequent reunion of the same territory, which were productive of infinite mischief; many various principles of succession gave t.i.tles to some, pretensions to more; and plots, cabals, and crimes could not be wanting to all the pretenders. Thus was Mercia torn to pieces; and the kingdom of Northumberland, a.s.saulted on one side by the Scots, and ravaged on the other by the Danish incursions, could not recover from a long anarchy into which its intestine divisions had plunged it. Egbert knew how to make advantage of these divisions: fomenting them by his policy at first, and quelling them afterwards by his sword, he reduced these two kingdoms under his government. The same power which conquered Mercia and Northumberland made the reduction of Kent and Ess.e.x easy,--the people on all hands the more readily submitting, because there was no change made in their laws, manners, or the form of their government.
[Sidenote: Egbert A.D. 827.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 832]
Egbert, when he had brought all England under his dominion, made the Welsh tributary, and carried his arms with success into Scotland, a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of Monarch of all Britain.[47] The southern part of the island was now for the first time authentically known by the name of England, and by every appearance promised to have arrived at the fortunate moment for forming a permanent and splendid monarchy. But Egbert had not reigned seven years in peace, when the Danes, who had before showed themselves in some scattered parties, and made some inconsiderable descents, entered the kingdom in a formidable body. This people came from the same place whence the English themselves were derived, and they differed from them in little else than that they still retained their original barbarity and heathenism. These, a.s.sisted by the Norwegians, and other people of Scandinavia, were the last torrent of the Northern ravagers which overflowed Europe. What is remarkable, they attacked England and France when these two kingdoms were in the height of their grandeur,--France under Charlemagne, England united by Egbert.
The good fortune of Egbert met its first check from these people, who defeated his forces with great slaughter near Charmouth in Dorsets.h.i.+re.
It generally happens that a new nation, with a new method of making war, succeeds against a people only exercised in arms by their own civil dissensions. Besides, England, newly united, was not without those jealousies and that disaffection which give such great advantage to an invader. But the vigilance and courage of Egbert repaired this defeat; he repulsed the Danes; and died soon after at Winchester, full of years and glory.
[Sidenote: Ethelwolf A.D. 838]
He left a great, but an endangered succession, to his son Ethelwolf, who was a mild and virtuous prince, full of a timid piety, which utterly disqualifies for government; and he began to govern at a time when the greatest capacity was wanted. The Danes pour in upon every side; the king rouses from his lethargy; battles are fought with various success, which it were useless and tedious to recount. The event seems to have been, that in some corners of the kingdom the Danes gained a few inconsiderable settlements; the rest of the kingdom, after being terribly ravaged, was left a little time to recover, in order to be plundered anew. But the weak prince took no advantage of this time to concert a regular plan of defence, or to rouse a proper spirit in his people. Yielding himself wholly to speculative devotion, he entirely neglected his affairs, and, to complete the ruin of his kingdom, abandoned it, in such critical circ.u.mstances, to make a pilgrimage to Rome. At Rome he behaved in the manner that suited his little genius, in making charitable foundations, and in extending the Rome-scot or Peter-pence, which the folly of some princes of the Heptarchy had granted for their particular dominions, over the whole Kingdom. His shameful desertion of his country raised so general a discontent, that in his absence his own son, with the princ.i.p.al of his n.o.bility and bishops, conspired against him. At his return, he found, however, that several still adhered to him; but here, too, incapable of acting with rigor, he agreed to an accommodation, which placed the crown on the head of his rebellious son, and only left to himself a sphere of government as narrow as his genius,--the district of Kent, whither he retired to enjoy an inglorious privacy with a wife whom he had married in France.
[Sidenote: Ethelred, A.D. 866]
On his death, his son Ethelred still held the crown, which he had preoccupied by his rebellion, and which he polluted with a new stain. He married his father's widow. The confused history of these times furnishes no clear account either of the successions of the kings or of their actions. During the reign of this prince and his successors Ethelbert and Ethelred, the people in several parts of England seem to have withdrawn from the kingdom of Wess.e.x, and to have revived their former independency. This, added to the weakness of the government, made way for new swarms of Danes, who burst in upon this ill-governed and divided people, ravaging the whole country in a terrible manner, but princ.i.p.ally directing their fury against every monument of civility or piety. They had now formed a regular establishment in Northumberland, and gained a very considerable footing in Mercia and East Anglia; they hovered over every part of the kingdom with their fleets; and being established in many places in the heart of the country, nothing seemed able to resist them.
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