The victory was gained. The king, proceeding with caution, summoned his council, after he had long pondered the instructions of Paulinus. Then Paulinus discoursed of God and the true worship with Edwin and Coifi (the chief priest of heathendom), and the king and the priest were converted. The idols were to be smitten and the sacred places profaned; but who, said the king, will accomplish that work? Coifi answered, “I. For who is fitter to destroy, through the wisdom given unto me from God, those things that I have worshipped in my ignorance?" Then Coifi mounted a horse, and took a lance, in defiance of the ordinance that forbade a sacrificing priest to ride, except upon a mare, or to bear arms; and he hurled his lance against the idol, and the temple was set on fire.

The century which saw the establishment of Christianity amongst the Anglo-Saxons, and the succeeding century, formed a period of incessant wars. The Pagan princes were sometimes in the ascendant; sometimes the converted. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under the year 800, has this record: "Ecgbryht succeeded to the kingdom of the West Saxons." Egbert, the son of Alckmund, king of Kent, had claimed the crown of the West Saxons in 786; but Beortric had been preferred, and for fourteen years Egbert had been an exile at the court of Charlemagne. On the death of Beortric by poison, prepared by his wife, Edburga, for his friend, Egbert was at once chosen as his successor. The Chronicle continues: "And the same day, Ethelmund, ealdorman, rode out from the Huiccii at Cyneinæresford (Kempsford). Then Weottan the ealdorman, with the men of Wiltshire, met him. There was a great fight, and both the ealdormen were slain, and the men of Wiltshire got the victory." The Huiccii, or Wiccii, were men of Worcestershire and Warwickshire.

After a few years of repose the people of Cornwall and Wales were in commotion; as their brethren of Armorica were also revolting against Charlemagne. There was always this sympathy between the Britons on either side of the Channel. They were put down; and Cornwall was nominally united with Wessex, but remained free from Anglo-Saxon occupation for centuries, during which the people preserved their own language. In Mercia there was usurpation and anarchy. Egbert seized the opportunity, and asserted that supremacy which Wessex never lost. The battle of Ellundune (Wilton)-the great struggle between Egbert and Beornwulf-was fought in 823. In 827, Northumbria had submitted to the king who had conquered the whole country south of the Humber.

Egbert died in 837, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Ethelwulf, who deputed the governments of Kent, Essex, Surrey, and Sussex to his son Æthelstan. This divided sovereignty was probably a fatal obstacle to unity of action in the defence of the country against the terrible Northmen, who, in the time of Egbert, had begun to ravage the country. The Northmen were designated as Danes by the Anglo-Saxons, but they were not exclusively natives of Denmark. Their home was the sea. The ancient Scandinavia could never have been very fully peopled; and a thousand years ago the coasts only were populous. "The eldest son of an aristocratic house inherited the family property. The younger ones were not indeed quartered on their own country, but were sent forth in ships for the purpose of plundering the happier lands of the south. From these expedi

A.D. 845.

RAVAGES OF THE NORTHMEN.

19

1

tions the idea first sprang of making permanent conquests, which ended in the establishment of Scandinavian dynasties in England."* The son of a king or chief, who had a maritime command, was termed a Viking; and thus we term generally those fierce captains, whose ravages afflicted our country, so exposed to their incursions. They came in numerous small vessels, in which they penetrated narrow rivers, and poured down upon defenceless villages and unprotected houses of religion. They distracted and terrified the peaceful inhabitants by their combined attacks upon different points. In the middle of the ninth century they ranged over the English Channel,-n -now landing in Devonshire to be defeated; now worsted in a sea-fight at Sandwich; now wintering in the Isle of Thanet, or, according to some chroniclers, in Sheppey. Then they arrived with a mighty fleet at the mouth of the Thames-plundered Canterbury; sailed up to London; and, penetrating into Surrey, were defeated and driven back by Ethelwulf and his son Ethelbald. The warriors fell on both sides, like corn in harvest. In 845, after a winter of terrible severity, the marauders entered Paris on a chilling Easter-eve, having everywhere left the traces of their ravages along the banks of the Seine. The inhabitants fled from Paris, resigning the city to the plunderers. Charles the Bald, by an enormous subsidy, bought off their retreat. King Ethelwulf had four sons and a daughter. His wife was Osburga, the daughter of Oslac, his cupbearer. She was of the race of Cerdic, from whom Ethelwulf himself derived his lineage. The Saxon kings of this period claimed no absolute lordship. They held their own by inheritance or purchase. They disposed of their acquired property by will, although certain estates always went with the crown. That property was scattered about the country. In the royal houses there was no great pomp, and very little of what we call comfort.

Asser records the public events of the kingdom up to the year 866, when Ethelwulf's fourth son, Alfred, was in his eighteenth year, and then proceeds thus :-"I think right in this place briefly to relate as much as has come to my knowledge about the character of my revered lord Alfred, king of the Anglo-Saxons, during the years that he was an infant and a boy. He was loved by his father and mother, and even by all the people, above all his brothers, and was educated altogether at the court of the king. His noble nature implanted in him from his cradle a love of wisdom above all things; but, with shame be it spoken, by the unworthy neglect of his parents and nurses, he remained illiterate even till he was twelve years old, or more." He listened, it is added, to the Saxon poems which he often heard recited, and easily retained them in his memory. He was a zealous practiser of hunting in all its varieties. Asser's charming story of the mode in which Alfred was encouraged by his mother to learn to read, evidently belongs to a much earlier period of Alfred's life than that of his twelfth year. In his fourth or fifth year he

* Thorpe, note in Lappenberg, vol. ii., p. 17.

+ Henry of Huntingdon.

The words of Asser are, "illiteratus permansit." This certainly does not warrant Hume's interpretation, "totally ignorant of the lowest elements of literature," even if we accept Asser's "twelve years old" as correct.

was sent by his father to Rome. In 853, says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "King Ethelwulf sent his son Alfred to Rome." In 855, we find in the same record, “King Ethelwulf went to Rome in great state, and dwelt there twelve months, and then returned homewards." His marriage to Judith, daughter of the French king, Charles the Bald, and his death, about two years afterwards, are subsequently recorded; but the chroniclers make no mention of the death or of the divorce of Alfred's mother, Osburga. Judith subsequently became the wife of Ethelbald; but this marriage with her stepson was against the canons of the church, and Judith was sent back to her father. We find in one of the MSS. of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the following entry: "Alfred his third [fourth] son, he had sent to Rome; and when Pope Leo heard say that Ethelwulf was dead, he consecrated Alfred king, and held him as his spiritual son at confirmation, even as his father Ethelwulf had requested on sending him thither." The second journey to Rome of Alfred, with his father, is distinctly recorded by Asser, although the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle only mentions the first. But in neither authority is it recorded that Alfred returned with his father. When Ethelwulf died, Alfred was nine years old.

Ethelbald, the eldest brother of Alfred, had met Ethelwulf with unfilial hostility when he returned from France with his young wife; and before Ethelwulf's death this son had, by a compulsory partition, attained the dominion of Wessex. The father bequeathed Kent and his other dominions to his second son Ethelbert. After the death of Ethelbald, if he were childless, the succession of Wessex was left to Ethelred, the third

son, and to Alfred. In little more than two years after the decease of his father, King Ethelbald died. Alfred was now twelve years old. The two younger brothers asserted no claim to the separate sovereignty, and Ethelbert of Kent was king also of the other dominions.

The Danes were again in fierce activity. They landed at Southampton, and plundered Winchester. They landed in Thanet, and kept Kelt in terror by their predatory excursions. Regner Lodbrok, the chief who sailed up the Seine in 845, and carried desolation into Paris, was, some years after, wrecked on the coast of Northumbria. Advancing into the. country, he was surrounded and overpowered, and was cast into a dungeon amidst venomous snakes. To revenge his death his sons came in great power to England. At this time of peril Ethelbert died. During the eight years which had elapsed since the death of Ethelwulf, two of Alfred's brothers had reigned. Upon the two younger sons now rested the destinies of England. Ethelred succeeded to the crown of the united kingdoms of Wessex and Kent. Alfred appears to have had a responsible position. He is called "Secundarius." Some conjecture that he ruled over a small district; others that he had a joint authority with his brother. The year 868 was a year of famine, and with the infliction came starvation's sister, pestilence. Alfred was now married. His wife was Elswitha, the daughter of a famous ealdorman of Lincolnshire; and through her mother, who afterwards lived in Alfred's home, she was descended from the royal house of Mercia. Alfred's sister had been married, fifteen years before, to Burrhed, king of Mercia.

A.D. 868.

THE DANES IN EAST ANGLIA.

21

In 868 the Danes, who had established themselves at York, crossed the Humber, for the invasion of Mercia. They possessed themselves of Nottingham, where they wintered. The Mercian king immediately sent for succour to his brothers-in-law of Wessex; and Ethelred and Alfred marched to his assistance. They besieged "the house of caves," as Nottingham was called, and compelled the enemy to quit its occupation, and return to Northumbria. But there was no safety for Southern England while the invader was secure in the north. There was rest for a year; and then the devastating power of the Dane rolled onward like a vast engulphing sea that no barrier could shut out. In 870 the Danes again crossed the Humber. "The army," says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "rode across Mercia into East Anglia, and took up their winter quarters at Thetford." Ingulphus, the abbot of Croyland, details, from the traditionary relations of an eye-witness, the course of this devastating march through Lincolnshire to Norfolk. The Danes crossed the Witham, and entered the district of Kesteven. Out of the district called Holland came forth the marshmen, under the leading of earl Algar. The moist soil shook beneath the tramplings of gathering bands, pouring out from Deeping, Langtoft, and Boston. The lord of Brunne came with his followers. Tolius, the monk of Croyland, threw off the cowl, and, at the head of a body of fugitives, who had rallied round him, joined the united forces. They attacked the Northmen in their advance, and drove them back to their earthworks. The alarm went forth; and the ravagers from other parts hastened to the rescue. Many of the Mercians fled from the terror of their increasing enemies. But Algar, the earl of Holland, and Morcard, the lord of Brunne, and Osgot, the sheriff of Lincolnshire, and Tolius, the soldier monk, and Harding of Rehale, stood firm, through an autumn day of attack and repulse. In the evening the Northmen made a feint of withdrawing from the field. The English rushed forward to the pursuit. The Danes rallied; and a noon of sagacious resistance was ended in a night of carnage, in which all the patriotic chieftains perished. A few of their followers escaped to Croyland. The abbot and his monks were performing matins, when the terror-stricken fugitives told of the approaching destruction. Some of the timid prayer-men took boat and left their fertile gardens and their sunny orchards, where the vines and apple-trees luxuriated amidst a waste of waters, to hide themselves in the marshes. The bold and the aged who remained at their altars fell in one general slaughter. A little boy only was spared to be led away by Sidroc, one of the Danish chiefs, when they marched forward and left Croyland in flames. Onward they marched, by the ancient roads which cross this land of fens, to Peterborough. The abbot of this great monastery resisted the assailants. His courage was unavailing. All perished; and a pile of smouldering ruins alone remained, where the piety of many generations had heaped up precious relics and costly shrines. The boy of Croyland escaped from his captivity, and from him the narrative attributed to Ingulphus was stated to be derived. Onward went the Northmen. The abbey of Ely was ravaged, as Peterborough and Croyland had been, and all its inmates were murdered.

The Danes were now in East Anglia. Edmund, the king, obtained the

He had held his rule in peace

crown of that separate province in 855. till this fatal invasion, which was destined to end the dominion of the Anglo-Saxon race in that part of the island. In a battle with Ingvar, the most cruel of the Danish chiefs, Edmund was taken prisoner and slain. The great danger of England was drawing closer and closer round the rulers and the people of Wessex. Northumbria was in the power of the invaders. Guthrum, the Dane, ruled over East Anglia: Mercia was weak and irresolute. "This year," 871, says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "the army came to Reading, in Wessex; and three days after this, two of their earls rode forth. Then Ethelwulf, the ealdorman, met them at Englefield, and there fought against them, and got the victory; and there one of them, whose name was Sidroc, was slain. About three days after this, King Ethelred and Alfred his brother led a large force to Reading, and fought against the army, and there was great slaughter made on either hand." The Northmen, with superior strategy, had thrown up an entrenchment between the Thames and the Kennet, and their superiority of position compelled the Saxons to retreat. "Ethelwulf, the ealdorman, was slain, and the Danish men had possession of the place of carnage." But the retreat was not a flight. "And about four days after this, King Ethelred and Alfred his brother fought against the whole army at Escesdun." Asser says, "The field of battle was not equally advantageous to both parties. The Pagans occupied the higher ground, and the Christians came up from below." The Danish army was divided into two bodies the one commanded by two kings, whose names are recorded as Bagseg and Healfdene, the other by many earls. The Pagans came on rapidly to fight. Asser says, "Alfred, as we have been told by those who were present, and would not tell an untruth, marched up promptly with his men to give them battle; for King Ethelred remained a long time in his tent in prayer, hearing the mass, and said he would not leave it till the priest had done, or abandon the divine protection for that of men." The younger brother rushed on alone, -he rushed on, like a boar of the woods (aprino more); and the banner of the White Horse floated triumphantly over the Danish raven. But though signally defeated in the greatest battle that the Northmen had fought on the English soil, they would shrink from no contest as long as the fertile lands of the west and the south were to be won. They came, with great reinforcements, from their native seas. They fought with Ethelred and Alfred at Basing, and were not driven back. In two months after, they fought at Merton; and the Saxon brothers were victorious during a great part of the day, and there was much slaughter on either hand; but, adds the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "the Danes had possession of the place of carnage." At Easter, after this battle, King Ethelred died, "worn down with numberless labours," as Malmesbury records. Others say that he received a fatal wound in the battle of Merton. When Alfred was anointed at They had each worn the crown

Rome, a mere boy, he had four brothers. of Wessex in due succession. Ethelred left two infant sons; but this was not a time when the ordinary laws of lineal succession could be regarded, even if the Saxon principle of election had ceased to be in force. Asser writes, "In the same year (871), the aforesaid Alfred, who, hitherto,