Part 8 (2/2)

West Saxons onwards throughout the day, in bands, pursued the footsteps of the loathed nations.

They hewed the fugitives behind, amain, with swords mill-sharp.

Mercians refused not the hard hand-play to any heroes who, with Anlaf, over the ocean, in the s.h.i.+p's bosom, this land sought fated to the fight.

Five lay on the battle-stead, youthful kings, by swords in slumber laid: so seven, eke, of Anlaf's earls; of the army countless, s.h.i.+pmen and Scots.

There was made flee the North-men's chieftain, by need constrained, to the s.h.i.+p's prow with a little band.

The bark drove afloat; the king departed, on the fallow flood his life preserved.

So there, eke, the sage came by flight to his country north, Constantine, h.o.a.ry warrior.

He had no cause to exult in the communion of swords.

Here was his kindred band of friends o'erthrown on the folk-stead, in battle slain; and his son he left on the slaughter-place mangled with wounds, young in the fight.

He had no cause to boast, hero grizzly haired, of the bill-clas.h.i.+ng, the old deceiver; nor Anlaf the moor, with the remnant of their armies; they had no cause to laugh that they in war's works the better men were in the battle-stead, at the conflict of banners, meeting of spears, concourse of men, traffic of weapons, that they on the slaughter-field with Edward's offspring played.

The North-men departed in their nailed barks-- b.l.o.o.d.y relic of darts-- on roaring ocean, o'er the deep water, Dublin to seek; again Ireland shamed in mind.

So, too, the brothers, both together, king and etheling, their country sought, West-Saxons' land, in the war exulting.

They left behind them, the corse to devour, the sallowy kite and the swarthy raven with horned nib, and the dusky 'pada,'

erne white-tailed, the corse to enjoy,-- greedy war-hawk, and the grey beast, wolf of the wood.

Carnage greater has not been in this island ever yet of people slain, before this, by edges of swords, as the books say-- old writers-- since from the east hither Angles and Saxons came to land,-- o'er the broad seas Britain sought,-- mighty war-smiths the Welsh o'ercame; earls most bold this earth obtained.

Some of the MSS. of the Chronicle have the following additional reference to the battle:--

”A. 937. This year King Athelstan and Edmund his brother led a force to Brunanburh, and there fought against Anlaf; and Christ helping, had the victory; and they there slew five kings and seven earls.”

Simeon, of Durham, says one of these five monarchs was ”Eligenius, an under-king of Deira,” or the eastern portion of the then kingdom of Northumbria.

Athelstan died in 940, and, in the following year, the Chronicle says his successor ”Edmund received king Anlaf at baptism.” In 942, it says--”This year King Anlaf died.” There were, however, two other chieftains of the same name, who flourished somewhat later.

Historians are scarcely, even at the present day, unanimous in their views as to what monarch ought to be regarded as the first ”king of England.” Some say Egbert; but his authority rarely if ever extended over the whole of the country now so named, and a very large proportion of it was merely a kind of nominal ”over lords.h.i.+p,” which carried with it very little governing influence, and, such as it was, it was held on a very precarious tenure. Others contend that the distinction belongs to Alfred the Great. Yet Alfred, though beloved by all the English-speaking people in the land, was compelled to share the territory with his Danish rival, Gothrun. Sharon-Turner says--”The truth seems to be that Alfred was the first monarch of the _Anglo-Saxons_, but Athelstan was the first monarch of _England_.” He adds--”After the battle of Brunanburh, Athelstan had no compet.i.tor; he was the _immediate Sovereign of all England_. He was even _nominal_ lord of Wales and Scotland.” This seems to be the true solution of the query.

It is a most remarkable circ.u.mstance that the site of this great victory, notwithstanding the magnitude of the contending armies and the importance of its political and social results, was, until recently, at least, absolutely unknown, and it cannot yet be said that the true locality has been demonstrated with sufficient clearness to entirely remove all doubt. Many places have been suggested on the most frivolous grounds. The question where is, or was, Brunanburh is still sounding in the ear of the historical student, and echo merely answers ”Where?” Yet I think I have made the nearest approach to the solution of this problem, in the ”History of Preston and its Environs,” that has yet been attempted, and further investigation enables me to add considerably to the evidence there adduced.

It is, perhaps, necessary that some attempt should be made to determine the cause or causes why the site of so important a victory, celebrated in the finest extant short poem in the Anglo-Saxon tongue, and so important in its political results, should have become lost both to the history and tradition of the English victors. At first sight there appears something singularly exceptionable in the fact. But a closer inspection of the details of what may be termed the Anglo-Saxon period of conflict with their Scandinavian enemies, Danish, Norwegian, or Norman-French, soon removes this impression, the sites of many other, almost equally important struggles, and notoriously some of those in which the Great Alfred was engaged, having been subjected to similar doubt, if not oblivion.

In the first place it must not be forgotten that after the death of Athelstan, the Danish invasions were renewed, and, after various successes and defeats, the Scandinavian monarchs, Sweyn and Canute, before the end of the tenth century, ruled despotically over all England. Even the temporary restoration of the Anglo-Saxon dynastic element, in the person of Edward the Confessor, in consequence of his Norman-French connection and early education, did little to remove the pressure of the foreign yoke, in the provinces at least; and what influence it may have exerted was speedily eradicated by the decisive victory of William the Norman, near Hastings, in the middle of the following century. Conquest, in those days, meant subjugation to the extent of a deprivation of all rights--at least all political rights--and many social privileges, and absolute serfdom for the great ma.s.s of the population. Consequently it was the policy of the conquerors to ignore, and, as far as possible, enforce the ignorement of all past glorious achievements of the ancestors of the subjugated peoples.

Doubtless, tradition would still, with its tenacious grasp, retain some recollection of the great exploits of their forefathers, and, in secret, the people would cherish their memory with a more intense love, on account of the persecution to which its open expression would be subjected. But in those days there were no printing presses, nor journalism, local or metropolitan. The people could not read, and even the n.o.bles, in the main, like old King Cole, in the song, because he could afford to salary a secretary, ”scorned the fetters of the four and twenty letters, and it saved them a vast deal of trouble.” Now, these secretaries were almost, if not entirely, ecclesiastics; and they were likewise the only literary, or learned men, existing during the period to which I refer. These ecclesiastics, in different monasteries, kept records of the general events of the period in which they lived, of a very meagre character, and devoted more time and s.p.a.ce to matters ecclesiastical, as might reasonably be antic.i.p.ated. Again, when the Danish and Norman warriors obtained the supreme power, it is easy to understand that the ecclesiastical domination was speedily transferred to their clerical _confreres_; and, of course, whatever obscurity rested on the details of previous victories or glories of the subject race, would be intensified rather than lessened, by any action of theirs, even supposing (which is anything but probable), that they themselves possessed much authentic information respecting such events. Subsequent writers, of course, dealt largely in mere conjecture, on the flimsiest of evidence; and, as they sometimes differ so widely from each other, or as they are so obscure in their topographical definitions and nomenclature, little is derivable from their labours of value to the modern historian and antiquary. Consequently, although there are many references to the great battle itself, both in the several chronicles, the poem to which I have referred, and in some Scandinavian sagas, written in honour of two of their warriors of the free-lance, or Dugal Dalgetty cla.s.s, who fought on the side of the English monarch, the site of the great conflict has remained doubtful to the present time.

Henry of Huntingdon, who wrote in the earlier portion of the twelfth century, referring to the twelve presumed victories of Arthur, accounts for the then loss of their sites in the following characteristic fas.h.i.+on--”These battles and battle-fields are described by Gildas,”

[Nennius,] ”the historian, but in our times the places are unknown, the Providence of G.o.d, we consider, having so ordered it that popular applause and flattery, and transitory glory, might be of no account.”

The clerical historian seems to have thoroughly understood the motives of his predecessors in the destruction of the records of a heretical or pagan race.

Mr. Daniel H. Haigh, in his ”Conquest of Britain by the Saxons,”

referring to the absence of Runic inscriptions in the south of England, and their partial preservation in the Northumbrian kingdom, has the following pertinent observations:--

”The first missionaries, St. Augustine and his brethren, used all their endeavours to destroy every monument of Runic antiquity, because runes had been the means of pagan augury, and of preserving the memory of pagan hymns and incantations; for, knowing how p.r.o.ne the common people were to their ancient superst.i.tions (of which even after the lapse of twelve centuries many vestiges still remain), and how difficult it would be to teach them to distinguish the use of a thing from its abuse, they feared that their labours would be in vain so long as the monuments of ancient superst.i.tion remained. So every Runic writing disappeared; and we may well believe, that records which to us would be invaluable, perished in the general destruction. In the first instance S. Gregory had commanded that everything connected with paganism should be destroyed; but afterwards, in a letter to S. Milletus, he recommended that the symbols only of paganism should be done away with, but that the sanctuaries should be consecrated and used as churches. These instructions were in force when S. Paulinus evangelized Northumbria; and we cannot doubt that the work of destruction would be effectively done under the auspices of a prince whose police was so vigorous as we are informed that Eadwine's was. But after his death, and the flight of S.

Paulinus, the restoration of Christianity in Northumbria was effected by missionaries of the Irish school, whose fathers in Ireland had pursued from the first a different policy, by allowing the memorials of antiquity to remain, and contenting themselves with consecrating the monuments of paganism, and marking them with the symbols of Christianity. Under their auspices Runic writing was permitted, for we can trace its use in Northumbria to the very times of S. Oswald, whilst every vestige has disappeared of the Runic records of an earlier period.

Mercia received its Christianity from the Irish school of Lindisfarne, and we have runes on the coins of the first Christian kings, Peada and thelraed.”

But for the zealous labour of Archbishop Parker, in the sixteenth century, even few of the remaining Anglo-Saxon MSS. would have been preserved to the present day. John Bale, writing in 1549, says--”A great number of them that purchased the monasteries reserved the books of those libraries; some to scour their candlesticks, some to rub their boots, some they sold to grocers and soapsellers, some they sent over sea to the book-binders, not in small numbers, but at times whole s.h.i.+ps full, to the wondering of foreign nations.” Religious and political rancour has too often consigned to destruction the archives and monuments of hated rivals. Cardinal Ximines, somewhat earlier, committed to the flames an immense ma.s.s of valuable Arabic MSS. and, not long afterwards, Archbishop Zumarraga committed a similar act of insensate vandalism on the picture-written national archives of Mexico. Our mediaeval historians, indeed, have themselves much to answer for in this direction. Strype says that Polydore Vergil, having, by licence from Henry VIII., when writing his history, procured many valuable books from various libraries in England, on its conclusion, piled ”those same books together, and set them all on a light fire.”

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