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Advanced history of Great Britain from t
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Cornell University Library
The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library.
There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text.
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027974678
Y
AN ADVAJSTCED HISTOEY OF GEEAT BEITAIN
An Elementary History of England
With 88 Illustrations, Tables, Maps, and Plans. BY
T. P. TOUT, M.A.,
Professor of Medieval and Modern History in the
"University of Manchester,
AND
JAMES SULLIVAN, Eh.D.,
Principal of the Boys' High School, Brooklyn,
New York.
Crown 8vo, JO-YS
An Atlas of English History
EDITED BY
SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER, D.C.L., LL.D.
With 66 Maps and 22 Plans of Battles, etc. Small 4to, $1-50
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO., NEW YORK.
AN ADVANCED HISTOKY OF GREAT BEITAIN
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE DEATH OF QUEEN VICTORIA
WITH 63 MAPS AND PLANS
By T. F. tout, M.A.
PEOPBSSOB OF MEDia!VAL AND MODBBN HISTOEY IN THE UNIVEBSITY OF MANCHESTBB
NEW IMPRESSION
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1909
All rights reserved
CONTENTS
|
Pbbpacb .... |
FA&E < • V |
||
|
List of Bibliogbaphies |
xxxvi |
||
|
List of Maps and Plans |
xxxvii |
||
|
List op Genealomcal Tables |
xxxix |
||
|
Table op Kinhs and Queens . |
xl |
||
|
List op the Chibp Ministeies |
since |
1689 '. |
728 |
|
Index |
731 |
||
|
BOOK 1 |
Up to 1066. BRITAIN BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST ....
Up to 55 B.C.
Chapter I. Britain
Prehistoric and Celtic
1 330 B.C.
The Palseolithio Age
The Neolithic Age .
The Iberians
The Celts .
The Bronze and Iron Ages
The Voyage of Pytheas
55 B.C. -449 A.D. Chapter II. Roman Britain
55-54 B.C. Julius Caesar's Invasions of Britain 43-85 A.D. The Eoman Conquest of Britain . 85-410. Roman Bule in Britain 78-85. Julius Agrioola
The Two Eoman Walls Roman divisions of Britain . The garrison and the roads Roman Civilisation .... The Romano-British Church Decay of the Roman Power The Barbarian Invasions . 410. End of the Roman Power in Britain 410-449. The Plots, Soots, and Saxons
Permanent results of Roman Rule in Britain
i-Si
1-5
I 1 2
2-3 3
4-5
6-iS
6-7
7-9
9-14
9 g-io 10 II II 12 12 14 14 IS IS
VIII
CONTENTS
449-607. Chapter III. The English Conquest of Southern Britain .
The Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles
The beginnings of England
The Jutish Settlements
The Saxon Settlements
The Anglian Settlements
The fate of the Britons
The Welsh .
The beginnings of Scotland
Conversion of the Picts and Soots .
Why England became the strongest
597-821. Chapter IV. The Early Overlordships and the Conversion of the English to Christianity .
The-first steps toward English Unity The Heptarchy The first English Overlords The Celtic Church . Pope Gregory the Great 597. The Landing of Augustine .
The Conversion of Kent and Essex 627, The Conversion of Edwin . 627-685, The Northumbrian Overlordship .
Aidan and the Scottish Mission 626-655. Penda of Meroia
Conversion of the rest of England . Dispute between the Roman and the Celtic Churches .... 664, Synod of Whitby 668-690. The work of Theodore of Tarsus . 716-821. The Overlordship of Meroia
802-899. Chapter V. The West Saxon Overlord^ ship and the Danish Invasions .
802-839. 839-858, 868-899,
878. 886,
The rise of Wessex ....
The Eeign of Egbert
Beginnings of the Danish Invasions
The Eeign of Ethelwulf
The Norse Migrations
The Sons of Ethelwulf
Settlements in England and the continent
Wessex saved by Alfred
Alfred and Guthrum's Peace
The Dane law .....
West Saxon Supremacy under Alfred
Alfred's Reforms ....
COtTTENTS
IX
.899-978.
899-924.
924-940. 937. 940-946. 946-956. 956-976.
975-978.
Chapter VI. The Successors of Alfred and the Beginnings of the English Monarchy .....
Edward the Elder, tlie first King of the English
The sons of Edward the Elder
Athelstan ....
The Battle of Brunanburh .
Edmund the Magnificent .
Reign of Edred .....
The Reigns of Edwy and Edgar
Archbishop Dunstan
The Reign of Edward the Martyr .
50-56
50-51
Si-52
51-52
52
52
52-53
53-54 53-56 55-56
978-1042. Chapter VII. The Decline of the English
Kingdom and the Danish Conquest 57-6i
978-1016. Reign of Bthelred, the Unready 57-59
Renewal of Danish Invasions 57-58
1002. The Massacre of St. Brioe's Day 58
1013. The Invasion of Swegen .... 58
1016. The Struggle of Onut and Edmund Ironside 59
1017-1036. Cnut, King of Denmark, Norway, and England 59-60
The Great Earldoms . 60
1035-1042. Eeigns of the Sons of Gnut . 61
1042-1066. Chapter VIII. The Reigns of Edward the Confessor and Harold
1042. Accession of Edward the Confessor
Normandy and the Normans
The House of Godwin
Harold, Earl of the West Saxons . 1066. The Death of Edward the Confessor
Harold made King ....
Harold defeats Harold Hardrada .
Landing of William of Normandy
Battle of Hastings ' .
62-72
62
63 64-65
65 66 66 68 69 69
449-1066. Chapter IX. English Life before the Norman Conquest .
Agriculture and land tenure
Thegns, Ceorls, and Theows
Towns
Houses
Pood and Drink
Architecture ....
Laws .....
The Shires ....
73-81
73 74 74 75 75' 76 76
77
CONTENTS
|
Hundreds and Townships . Law Courts ... |
77 77 |
|
The King's Officers . Prithborh and Tithing The King ..... |
78 79 79 |
|
The Witenagemot .... The Church ..... |
79 79 |
|
Language and Literature . Books recommended for the further study of the |
86 |
|
Period ...... |
80-81 |
BOOK II
1066-1215. THE NORMAN AND ANGEVIN KINGS 82-158 1066-1087. Chapter I. William I. the Conqueror
1066-1071. The Norman Conquest 1071. Hereward subdued .
The Establishment of Feudalism William and the Norman Barons The Palatine Earldoms The Forests . 1076. The Baronial Eevolt 1079. Eevolt of Robert suppressed William and the English . 1086. The Domesday Book 1086. The Oath at Salisbury
The Normans and the Church William as overlord of Britain Foreign PoUoy of William .
1087-1100. Chapter II. William II. Rufus
1088. 1096.
1093.
1092.
1096. 1100.
The Sons of William the Conqueror
Baronial Revolt
Revolt of Robert Mowbray .
Ranulf Flambard
Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury
William 11. and Anselm
William 11., Scotland and Wales
Conquest of Cumberland
William 11. and Normandy
The First Crusade .
Death of Rufus
82-93
83 84 85 86
87 87 87 88 88-89
89
90
90-92
91-92
93
94-101
94-95 95 95 96
97
97-99
99
99
lOO-lOI ICX3 101
1100-1135. Chapter III. Henry I.
Early Measures of Henry i. Henry i. and the Normans 1101. Robert's revolt
102-110
102-103
103-104
103
CONTENTS
XI
DATE
1102.
1106.
1103-1107.
1120.
1138.
Fall of Robert of BeU^me .
Battle of Tinohebray
Quarrel of Henry and Anselm
Henry i. Scotland and Wales
Henry and Louis vi. . . . .
Roger of Salisbury and the Administrative System
The Loss of the White Ship
Normandy and Anjou
Death of Henry i. .
103 104 104-10S 106 107 107 108 108 109
1135-1154. Chapter IV. Stephen of Blois
1135. Accession of Stephen 1138. Battle of the Standard
Beginnings of Civil War
The Rivalry of Stephen and Matilda
Desolation of England
Geofirey of Mandeville 1141. The Battle of Lincoln 1158. The Treaty of Wallingford . 1154. The Death of Stephen
11I-115
III 112 112-113 "3 "3 114 114 "S I IS
1154-1189. Chapter V. Henry II. of Anjou .
Character of Henry 11. .
The Restoration of Order .
Thomas Beoket .... 1164. The Constitutions of Clarendon and the quarrel of
Henry and Beoket 1170. Murder of Backet ....
Period of Amalgamation between Normans and English ..... 1166. Henry's Reforms. The Assize of Clarendon 1176. The Assize of Northampton
The Grand Assize . 1181. The Assize of Arms .... 1184. The Assize of Woodstock .
Henry 11., Wales and Scotland
The Norman Conquest of Ireland .
The Angevin Empire
Henry 11. and his family . 1159. The War of Toulouse
The Wars of 1173 and 1174
Henry's Foreign Alliances
Rebellions of his Sous 1189. Henry's Death ....
1 16-130
116
116-117 117-118
iig-120 120-121
122
123
123 123 124 124 124-125
I2S 126 127 127 127-129 129 129 130
1189-1199. Chapter VI. Eichard I. Coeur de Lion
Character of Richard i.
1189.
Richard and the Third Crusade Richard's Captivity in Germany
131-136
131
131-133
133
Xll
CONTENTS
DATE
1189-1194. England during Eiohard's Absence 1194-1199. England from 1194-1199 . 1199. Eiohard's last Wars and Death
1199-1216. Chapter VII. John Lackland
Accession and Character of John . Arthur of Brittany .... The Loss of Normandy and Anjou
1214. Battles of La Eoohe au Moine and Bouvines 1205. The Disputed Election at Canterbury
1207. Appointment of Langton . Quarrel of John and Innocent iii. .
1208. The Interdict ....
1209. The Excommunication 1213. John becomes the Pope's Vassal .
1213-1216. Quarrel between John and his Barons
1215. The Great Charter .... Eenewal of the War of King and Barons .
1216. Death of John ....
1066-1216. Chapter VIII. Feudal Britain .
The Importance of the Norman Conquest Britain and the Continent . The King and the Great Council Local Government . Earls, Barons, and Knights The Manorial System Towns and Trade Fashions of Living . Pood and Dress Norman Castles Norman Churches . The Beginnings of Gothic Architecture New Monastic Movements . Twelfth-Century Eenaissance Latin Literature English and French Literature Books recommended for the further study of the Period .....
FAGB
134
I34-I3S
135
1 37-145
137 138 139 139.140 140 141 141 142 142
143 143-144 144 145 145
146-156
146 147 147 148 148 149 ISO 151 >5i 152
153 153 154 155 155 156
158
BOOK III
1216-1399. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE ENG- LISH NATION .
1216-1272. Chapter I. Henry III.
1216. Accession of Henry in. .... 1216-1217. Conflict between William Marshall and Louis of France .....
159-253
159-177
159
159-160
CONTENTS
xm
DATR
1217. 1216-1219. 1219-1232. 1232-1234. 1234-1268.
1248-1262.
1258.
1259. 1259-1263.
1264.
1264. 1264-1265.
1265.
1265.
1265. 1265-1267.
1267. 1267-1272.
The Battle of Linooln and the Treaty of Lambeth
The Eule of William Marshall
The Rule of Hubert de Burgh
The Bule of Peter des Roches
The Personal Rule of Henry
The Allen Invasion — Provencals, Savoyards and
Romans ..... Edmund Rich and Robert Grosseteste Henry's Foreign Failures . The Poitevins in England . Rise of the Principality of North Wales . Simon of Montfort in Gasoony Edmund, King of Sicily; and Richard, King of
the Romans .... Political Retrogression and National Progress The Mad Parliament The Provisions of Oxford The Treaty of Paris . The Beginning of the Barons' War The Mise of Amiens The Battle of Lewes The Rule of Earl Simon The Parliament of 1265 The Revolt of the Marchers The Battle of Evesham The Royalist Restoration . The Treaty of Shrewsbury . The End of the Reign
1272-1307. Chapter II. Edward I.
1272-1274.
1277. 1282-1283.
1284. 1274-1290. 1289-1290.
1286-1290. 1290-1292.
1292. 1259-1293. 1293-1295.
1295.
1296.
1297. 1297. 1297. 1298.
Character and Policy of Edward i. . The Government during Edward's Absence The First Welsh War The Conquest of the Principality . Settlement of the Principality Edward's Legislation
Trials of the Judges and Expulsion of the Jews Scotland under Alexander iii. The Maid of Norway The Scottish Claimants Accession of John Balliol . England and France The French and Scottish Wars The Model Parliament The Conquest of Scotland . Clerical Opposition under Winohelsea Baronial Opposition under Norfolk and Hereford Confirmatio Cartarum Scottish Rising under Wallace Battle of Falkirk .... Edward's Reconciliation with Prance and the Church ......
PAOE
i6o i6o 160-161 161 163
162-164 164 165 165 166 166
167 167 168 168 169 169 171 172 172 173 174 >7S
176 176-177
178-197
17S
179 179 181 182
182-185 18S
185-186 187 188 188
189-191
190-191 191 193 192 193 193
193-194
194 194
CONTENTS
Reconciliation with the Barons 1303-1306. The Second Conquest of Scotland
1306. Rising of Robert Bruce
1307. Death of Edward i. .
195
196
196
196-197
1307-1327. Chapter III. Edward II. of Carnarvon . 198-204
1307-1809. Edward ii. and Gaveston .
1310-1311. The Ordinances and the Lords Ordainers .
1312. The Murder of Gaveston . 1307-1314. Robert Bruce conquers Scotland . 1314. The Battle of Bannookburn
Thomas of Lancaster 1322 The Battle of Boroughbridge and the Parliament of York ..... 1322-1326. The Rule of the Despensers
Isabella and Mortimer 1326-1327. The Pall of Edward ii. .
198-J99
199
199
200
200-201
201-202
202 202 203 203
1327-1377. Chapter IV. Edward III.
1827-1830. 1828. 1328.
1383.
1339-1340. 1340.
1346.
1346.
1346-1347.
1348-1349. 1366-1366.
1360.
1367.
1869. 1869-1377.
1361. 1861-1868.
The Rule of Isabella and Mortimer
Treaty of Northampton
Accession of Philip vi. in Prance .
Character and Policy of Edward iii.
David Bruce and Edward Balliol .
Battle of Halidon Hill
David finally established in Scotland
Causes of the Hundred Years' War
Chief Peatures of the Struggle
The Netherlandish Campaigns
The Battle of Sluys .
War of the Breton Succession
The Invasion of Normandy
The Battle of Cr^cy .
Calais, Auberoche, Neville's Cross, and La Roche
Derien .... The Black Death . The Black Prince in Aquitaine The Battle of Poitiers The Treaties of Brfitigni and Calais The Civil War in Castile . The Battle of NAjera The Revolt of Aquitaine PaU of the English Power in Prance The Statute of Labourers . Anti-Papal Legislation Edward iii. and his Parliaments . Edward's Pamily Settlement The Court and Constitutional Parties
205-227
205-208 205 206 208
208-209 209 209
210-21 1 212 212 212 213 214
214-215
216 216 217 217-218 218-219 219 221
221 222 223 223 224 225 226
CONTENTS
XV
DATE
1876. The Good Parliament
1876-1877. John of Gaunt and John Wyolifle ,
1377. Death of Edward in.
PAOB
226 227 227
1377-1399. Chapter V. Richard II. of Bordeaux . 228-237
1377-1381. 1378.
1381.
1386-1388. 1388. 1396. 1397. 1398. 1399.
The Eule of John of Gaunt
The Papal Schism ....
The Teaching of WyclifEe .
Causes of the Peasants' Eevolt
The Peasants' Revolt and its Suppression
The Baronial Opposition and Thomas of
Gloucester ....
The Attack on and Defeat of the Courtiers The Merciless Parliament and the Lords Appellant The Great Truce and the French Marriage The Boyalist Beaction The Banishment of Norfolk and Hereford The Lancastrian Bevolution The Deposition of Bichard ii.
228 229 229 229-230 231
232 233 234 Z3S 23s 236 236-237 237
1S16-1399. Chapter VI. Britain in the Thirteenth
and Fourteenth Centuries . . 238-253
Mediaeval Civilization
The King ....
The ParUament of the Three Estates
Convocation ....
The House of Lords
The House of Commons
The King's Council and the Lav? Courts
The Church and the Papacy
St. Francis and the Mendicant Friars
The Franciscans and Dominicans in England
The Universities
Gothic Architecture
The Concentric Castle
Arms and Armour .
Chivalry and the Orders of Knighthood
Cosmopolitan and National Ideas .
Latin Literature. Matthew Paris
French Literature. John Froissart
English Literature. Geoffrey Chaucer
William Langland .
John Wyolifie and the Begiiming of Modern
English Prose , . >
Books recommended for the further study of the
Period ....
238 238 239 239 239 240 241 242
242-243 244
244-245
245-247 247 248 249 249 250
251
251-252
252
252-253 253
XVI
CONTENTS
BOOK IV
DATE
1399-1485. LANCASTER AND YORK 1399-1413. Chapter I. Henry IV.
1399. The Constitutional Bsvolution
The Ecclesiastical Reaction
Henry iv.'s Character and Difficulties
Eichard ii.'s Death .
Owen Glendower 1403. Kevolt of the Peroies
Gradual Collapse of the Risings
Henry iv. and France
The Beauforts and the Prince of Wales
PAGE
255-307 255-260
255 256
257 257 257 258
259 259 260
1413-1432. Chapter II. Henry V.
1414.
1416. 1416. 1417-1419. 1420. 1421.
Early Measures of Henry V.
Oldoastle and the Lollard Rising .
Renewal of the Claim to the French Throne
First Expedition — Harfleur, Aginoourt
The Council of Constance .
The Conquest of Normandy
The Treaty of Troyes
Battle of Beaug6 ....
Third Expedition. Death of Henry
262-268
262 262-263 263 264-266 266 267 267 268 268
142S.1461. Chapter III. Henry VI.
1422. 1422-1428. 1422-1429.
1428.
1429. 1431.
1436.
1444-1445.
1447. 1449-1451.
1463.
1450. 1460.
1450-1466.
Regency of Bedford Established .
Bedford's Work in France .
Gloucester as Protector of England
The Siege of Orleans
The Mission of Joan of Arc
Battle of Patay. Coronation of Charles vi.
Martyrdom of Joan of Arc .
Coronation of Henry vi. at Paris ,
Congress of Arras and Death of Bedford .
The Peace and War Parties in England .
The Truce of Tours and the French Marriage
Deaths of Gloucester and Beaufort
The Loss of Normandy and Gascony
The Battle of Castillon and the End of the
Hundred Years' War Murder of Sufiolk .... Revolt of Jack Cade The Position of Eichard Duke of York Beginning of the Wars of the Roses Characteristics of the Wars of the Eoses . The House of Neville
270-2S3
270 270-271 272 272-273 273 273 275 275 276 276 277
277 278
278 278 279 279 280 281 281
CONTENTS
XVll
DATE
1455-1459.
1460.
1460-1461.
1460-1481.
1461.
Reoonoiliation and the Renewal of the Strife York claims the Throne .... The Pall of Henry vi. . . . .
Battles of Wakefield, Second St. Albans, and Mortimer's Gross ..... Edward of York chosen King
PAGK 282
282 283
283 283
1461-1483. Chapter IV. Edward IV.
1461.
1469.
Edward iv. and the Yorkist Party The Battle of Towton Triumph of Edward iv. . The Nevilles and the Woodville Marriage Robert Welles and Robin of Redesdale Alliance of Warwick and Margaret The Restoration of Henry vi. The Battle of Tewkesbury . Edward iv., Burgundy, and Prance Home Policy of Edward iv. 1478 and 1483. Death of Clarence and Edward iv.
1470-1471. 1471.
285-293
285
28s 288 288 288 289 289 291 292 292 293
1483-1485. Chapter V. Edward V. and Richard III. 295-299
1488. Accession of Edward v.
The Deposition of Edward v. Richard ni. and Buckingham 1483-1485. Richard iii.'s Policy
The Beauforts and the Tudors 1486. The Battle of Bosworth and Richard iii.
the Death of
295 296 297 297 298
298-299
1399-1485. Chapter VI. Britain in the Fifteenth
Century ..... 300-307
The Constitution in the Fifteenth Century The Church. The Universities and Learning Prosperity of the Pifteenth Century The Towns and Trade Late Perpendicular Architecture Armours and Weapons Literature — Poetry — Prose The Invention of Printing. William Oaxton Scotland in the Pifteenth Century The End of the Middle Ages Books recommended for the further study of the Period ......
300 300-301
301 302
302-303 303
303-305 305 306
307 307
xvni
CONTENTS
BOOK V
DATE
1485-1603. THE TUDORS 1485-1509. Chapter I. Henry VII. •
Character of Henry vii.
Continuanoe of the old Party Struggles .
Lord Level's Rising . • • '
Lambert Sinmel's Imposture
The , Breton Succession, and the Treaty of
Staples . . . . •
Perkin Warbeck's Imposture
The Cornish Eising, and the Execution of
Warbeok and Warwick
1496 and 1S06. The Magnus Interoursus, and the Malus
Interoursus
The European Political System .
1601. The Spanish Alliance
1503. The Scottish Marriage
Henry's Domestic Policy. His Ministers Eeduction of the Power of the Nobles Welshand Irish Policy 1494. Poynings' Law ....
1486. 1487. 1492.
1492. 1497-1499.
PAGE 308-419
308-316 308
309 309
310 3II-3I2
312
312 313 313 314 314 315 315 316
1509-1529. Chapter II. Henry VIII. and Wolsey
1510.
1512-1513. 1513. 1514.
1520. 1521-1525.
1521.
1S1M529.
Character of Henry viii.
Execution of Bmpson and Dudley
The King's Ministers. Else of Wolsey .
Foreign Politics ....
Henry joins the Holy League
War all over Europe
Battles of the Spurs and Plodden .
Peace with Prance and Scotland .
The Young Princes ....
Eivalry of Charles v. and Francis i.
Wolsey's Foreign Policy. The Balance of Power
The Field of the Cloth of Gold
War with Prance ....
The Triumph of Charles, and the French Alliance
The Fall of Buckingham
The King and the Commons
The Eenascenoe ....
State of the Church ....
The Oxford Reformers
Erasmus and More ....
Wolsey and the Church
The Beginnings of the Eeformation ,
Luther, Zwingle, and Calvin
Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn
317-336
317 318
318-319
319.320 320 320
321-322 323
323-325 325 326 326 3^7 327 328 328 329 329 330 330 331 332
332-333 335
CONTENTS
XIX
1629.
The Origin of the Divorce Question The Decretal Commission . The FaU of Wolsey ,
PAGE
335 335 336
1529-1547. Chapter III. Henry VIII. and the Be ginning^ of the Reformation
Progress of the Divorce Question . Henry viii. and his Subjects 1629-1636. The Reformation Parliament
Henry Supreme Head of the Church 1632-1634, The Separation from Home Oranmer and the Divorce . Henry viii. and Protestantism The Resistance to the Supremacy . The Charterhouse Monks and Reginald Pole 1536. More and Fisher Executed . Cromwell Vicar-General State of the Monasteries 1636. The Suppression of the Smaller Monasteries 1636. The Pilgrimage of Grace . 1636-1639. The Suppression ot the Greater Monasteries
The English Bible and the Growth of Reforming
Opinions ....
The King and his Wives 1638-1547. Conspiracies
1639. The Six Articles .... 1840. Anne of Cleves and the Fall of Cromwell . 1540-1647. The Reactionary Period 1642-1646. War with Scotland .
1644. War with Prance .... 1546-1647. The New Wave of Reformation
Catharine Howard and Catharine Parr The Pall of the Howards . Henry vm. and Ireland 1636. Union of England and Wales
337-351
337 338 338 338 339 339 340 340 341 341 341 342-343 343 343 344
345
345
346
346
347
348
348
349
349
349
349.
350
350
1547-1553. Chapter IV. Edward VI.
1547. 1647.
1548. 1549. 1649. 1649. 1649. 1649-1663.
1662. 1663.
Somerset becomes Protector
Invasion of Scotland. Battle of Pinkie .
Postponement of the Scottish Reformation
Loss of Boulogne ....
Progress of the Reformation. First Prayer-Book
The Devonshire Rebellion .
Ket's Rebellion
Pall of Somerset ....
The Ascendancy of Warwick
Influence of the Foreigner Reformers
The Second Prayer-Book of Edward vi. .
The Forty-two Articles
352-360
352 353 354 354 355 356 356 357 357 357 358 358
XX
CONTENTS
DATE
1553.
Failure of the King's Health Edward's Device for the Succession Queen Jane and Queen Mary
PAGE
358 360 360
1553-1558. Chapter V. Mary
1563.
1564.
1554.
1665-1558.
1652-1569.
1657-1659.
1668.
Accession of Mary .
The Work of Edward's Eeign Undone
The Spanish Marriage
Eestoration of the Papal Supremacy
The Marian Persecution
Martyrdom of Eidley, Latimer and Oranmer
Want of Toleration in the Sixteenth Century
Isolation of Mary ....
War between France and the Empire
England at War with France
Death of Mary . . . •
361-367
361
361 362
363
363
364-365 365 366 366 367 367
1558-1587.
Chapter VI. of Scots
Elizabeth and Mary Queen
1559.
1663.
1669-1676.
1565.
Character and Policy of Elizabeth The Queen's Ministers Leicester and the Courtiers The Elizabethan Settlement of the Church The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity The Thirty-nine Articles Archbishop Parker . Elizabeth and the Eoman Catholics Geneva and the Calvinists . The Puritans and the Elizabethan Settlement Parker's Advertisements The Separatists 1676 and 1583. Archbishops Grindal and Whitgift 1593. Hooker's " Ecclesiastical Polity " .
John Knox on the Scottish Eeformation
Mary Queen of Scots
The Counter Eeformation .
The Treaty of Le Cateau-Cambr^sis
Philip II. and the Counter Eeformation
Francis 11. and his Queen .
Eivaby of Mary and Elizabeth
The Loss of Le Havre
Mary Queen of Scots in Scotland
The Darnley Marriage
Murder of Eicoio
Murder of Darnley .
Deposition of the Queen of Soots .
Mary's Flight to England .
Mary's Imprisonment
The Eevolt of the Northern Earls .
The Bull of Excommunication
1559.
1663. 1561. 1665. 1566. 1667. 1667. 1568.
1569. 1670.
368-389
368 369-370 370 370 371 371 371 372 372 373 373 374 374 374 375-376 376-377 377 378 378 379 379 379 380 380 381 381 383 383 384 384 38s
CONTENTS
XXI
DATE
1571.
1580.
1586. 1687.
The Bidolfi Plot ....
Philip II. and the Revolt of the Netherlands
The Seminary Priests
The Jesuit Invasion
The Bond of Association
The Babington Conspiracy ,
Execution of Mary Queen of Soots
386 386 386 388 388 388-389 389
1681. 1686.
1653.
1587-1603. Chapter VII. The Latter Years of the Reign of Elizabeth
The Relations between England and Spain
Anglo-Prenoh Interference in the Netherlands
The Anjou Marriage Scheme
Leicester in the Netherlands
Spain and the Indies
The Beginnings of English Maritime Enterprise
Chancellor's Voyage
Protestantism and Maritime Adventure
Hawkins and the Slave Trade
Drake's Voyage round the World .
The Breach between England and Spain .
Philip's Plans for Invading England
The Spanish Armada
The Battle ofE Gravelines .
Results of the Protestant Victory .
Henry rv., king of France .
The War with Spain
The Capture of Cadiz
The First Attempts at English Colonies .
Ireland under Mary Tudor
Shane O'Neill and Elizabeth
Ireland and the Counter-Reformation
The Desmond Rebellion and the Plantation of
Munster ..... The Irish Revolt under Hugh O'Neill Essex in Ireland .... Mountjoy suppresses the Rebellion Steps towards British Unity The Cecils, Essex, and Raleigh Continued Persecution of Puritans and Catholics Elizabeth and her Parliaments 1697 and 1601. The Monopolies Contest 1603. Death of Elizabeth
1662-1667.
1677-1688.
1584.
1688.
1689.
1689-1603.
1696.
1579.
1598.
1699.
1600-1603.
390-407
390 391 391 392 392 393 393 394 394 396 396 397 397-399 399 399 399 400 400 401 401 402 402
402 404 404 404 404
405 406 406 406-407 407
1485-1603. Chapter VIII. England under the Tudors 408-418
The Beginnings of Modem Times . The Tudor Monarchy Parliament under the Tudors Harmony between Crown and Parliament The King and his Ministers
408 408 408-409 409 409
xxu
CONTENTS
The Oounoil
The Star Chamber and its Victims Local Government . Military Weakness of the Crown . Social and Economic Changes The Poor Laws
Increase of Refinement and Luxury Education and Travel Benascenoe Architecture . Other Arts . . . •
Early Tudor Literature The Beginnings of Elizabethan Literature Spenser and the Poets The First Public Theatres . Marlowe and the Early Dramatists Shakespeare and his School Elizabethan Prose . Books recommended for the further study of the Period ...-••
410 410 411 411 411 412 413 413 414 414 41S 41S 416 416-417 417 417 418
418
BOOK VI
1603-1714. THE STEWARTS . 1603-1635. Chapter I. James I.
The Union of the English and Scottish Crowns Failure of James' Projects for more complete
Union ..... Completion of the Conquest of Ireland 1610. The Plantation of Ulster . 1607 and 1632. Beginnings of English Colonies — Virginia and
Maryland 1620-1629. The Plantation o£ New England '.
1600. The Beginnings of the East India Company 1623. The Amboyna Massacre
The Stewarts and Parliament
Character of James i. . . .
Eobert Cecil and his Enemies
1604. The Hampton Comt Conference . Archbishops Bancroft and Abbot .
1605. The Gunpowder Plot James and his Parliaments .
1610. The New Impositions and the Great Contract 1614. The Addled Parliament
James's Family and Favourites Kobert Ker. George Villiers James's Foreign Policy 1617-1618. Ealeigh's Last Voyage and Execution
1618. The Beginning of the Thirty Years' War . 1622-1623. James's efforts to restore the Elector Palatine
420-S33
420-434
420
421 422 422
423 423 424 424 42s 42s 426 426 427 427 428 428 429 429 429-430 430 431 431 432
CONTENTS
xxin
DATE
1623.
16S1.
1631.
1634-1635.
Failure of the Spanish Marriage .
James's Third Parliament .
The Pall of Baoon .
James's Fourth Parliament and Death
1625-1649. Chapter II. Charles I.
1635.
1626-1627. 1638.
1628.
1629.
1639-1640.
1637.
1637. 1638. 1639. 1640. 1640.
1640. 1641. 1640-1641. 1641. 1641. 1641. 1641.
1642.
1643. 1643.
1644.
1645. 1645. 1645.
Character of Charles i. . . .
The War with Spain and Charles's First
Parliament ....
Home and Foreign Policy . The French War and Charles's Second Parliament The Forced Loan and Darnell's Case Charles's Third Parliament and the Petition of
Bight .....
Murder of Buckingham Dissolution of Charles's Third Parliament Charles's Arbitrary Enle Charles's Expedients for raising Money . Ship Money. Hampden's Case Charles's Ejcclesiastical Policy Archbishop Laud and the Puritans The Victims of Charles's Policy . Thomas Wentworth The Scottish Prayer-book . The National Covenant The First Bishops' War . The Short Parliament The Second Bishops' War . The Great Council at York Meeting of the Long Parliament . Attainder of Strafford Bemedial Measures of the Long Parliament The Boot and Branch Bill . The Incident
The Irish Eebellion .... The Grand Remonstrance . The Division of ParUament into Two Parties The Attack on the Five Members . The Bupture between King and Parliament The Eoyalist and Parliamentarian Parties The Campaign of Edgehill and Brentford . Boyalist Successes .... First Battle of Newbury . Cromwell and the Eastern Association The Cessation, and the Solemn League and
Covenant ..... Benewed Fighting. Battle of Marstou Moor The Destruction of Essex's Army and the Bising
of Montrose ....
The New Model and the Self-Denying Ordinance The Battle of Naseby The Battle ^f Philiphaugh .
432 433
433 434
435-461
435
436 436 436 437
438 438 439 439 440
440-441 441 441 442
442-443 443 444 444 445 445 445 446 446 446 447 447 447 448 448
448-449 449 449
450-451
450
451-452
452
452' 453-4S6
457 457 458 459
XXIV
DATE
1646.
1648. 1648-1649.
CONTENTS
Charles surrenders to the Soots Presbyterians and Independents . Parliament and the Army . • , V, u
Charles intrigues with the Army and the Presby- terians . . • • • The Second Oiyil War . •,,',-, The Triumph of the Independents and the Execu- tion of Charles i. .
PAGffi
459 439 460
460-461 461
461
1649-1660. Chapter III. The Commonwealth and
the Protectorate . . . 462-472
1649. Establishment of the Commonwealth . . 462
Difficulties of the New Government . . 463
1649-1650. Cromwell's Conquest of Ireland . . 463
1649-1651. Charles 11., King of Soots .... 464
1650-1651. Battles of Dunbar and Worcester . . . 464
1652-1653. The Dutch War ..... 465
1653. The Expulsion of the Rump . , . 465
The Little Parliament .... 466
The Instrument of Government . . . 466
1663-1658. Cromwell as Protector .... 467
1655. The Major-Generals .... 467
Cromwell's Puritan State Church . . . 468
Cromwell's Foreign Policy .... 469
1655. The French Alliance . . . . , 469
1655, 1658. Jamaica, and the Battle of the Dunes . . 469
1657. The Humble Petition and Advice . . . 470
1658-1659. The Protectorate of Biohard Cromwell . . 470
The Hump Restored . . . . 471
1669. A Presbyterian Revolt Suppressed . . . 47 1
1660. Monk declares for a Free Parliament . . 471
1660. The Declaration of Breda and the Restoration of
Charles 11. . ■ . . . . 422
1660-1685. Chapter IV. Charles II.
1660-1661.
1661.
1661-1665.
1665-1667.
1663. 1667. 1681. 1667. 1667-1673.
Work of the Convention
The Restoration Settlement of the Church
The Clarendon Code
The Reaction against Puritanism .
The Restoration in Scotland
The Restoration in Ireland .
The Restoration and Foreign Policy
The Rivalry of England and Holland
The Dutch War
Growth of the American Colonies
Carolina
New York and New Jersey .
Pennsylvania
The Pall of Clarendon
The Cabal .
473-488
473 474 47-5 476 476 477 477 478 478 479 479 479 479 481 481-482
CONTENTS
XXV
DATE
1668. The Triple Alliance ....
1670. The Treaty o£ Dover
1672-1673. The Dutch War ....
1678. The Declaration of Indulgence, the Test Act, and the ]?all of the Cabal
1673-1678. The Ministry of Danby
1678. The Treaty of Nijmegen
1678-1679. The Popish Plot ....
1679. The Habeas Corpus Act, and the Exclusion BUI 1679. Whigs and Tories. High Church and Low Church
1679. Battle of Bothwell Bridge .
1680. The Lords reject the Exclusion Bill
1681. The Oxford Parliament 1688. The Rye House Plot
1682-1685. The Tory Eeaction, and the Death of Charles ii,
482 482 483
484 484 48s 485 486 486-487 487 487 487 488 488
1685-1688. Chapter V. James II.
1685. 1685. 1685.
1685.
1688.
1683-1689. 1688.
Character of James 11. .
The First Parliament of James 11.
Argyll's Rebellion ....
Monmouth's Rebellion
Breach between James and the Tories
The Dispensing and the Suspending Powers
The Court of High Commission
The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes
Tyrconnell in Ireland
The Declaration of Indulgence
The Invitation to William of Orange
The Pall of James 11. . . .
The Convention and the Declaration of Right
489-495
489 489 490 490 492 492 493 493 493 494 494 495 495
1689-1702. Chapter VI. William III. and Mary . 496-510
1689.
1689. 1689.
1689. 1690. 1691.
1689.
1692. 1689-1697. 1690-1692.
1697.
1694.
The Accession of William and Mary and the Bill of Rights . . . . . .
The Mutiny Act and the Revenue .
The Toleration Act .....
The Low Church Triumph and the Schism of the Non-Jurors .....
James's Power upheld in Ireland .
Siege of Derry and the Battle of Newtown Butler
Battle of the Boyne ....
The Protestant Conq[uest of Ireland
The Revolution in Scotland
Battle of KUliecrankie
The Massacre of Glencoe .
The War against France
Battles of Beaohy Head and La Hougue
Peace of Byswiok
Financial Policy
Death of Queen Mary
496 497 497
498 498 499 499 500 SCO SOI
501 502
503 503 503 5°4
XXVI
CONTENTS
DATE
1696. 1696.
1695-1699. 1698-1699.
1700. 1698-1700.
1701.
1702.
The Bond of Association .
The First United Whig Ministry .
Beginnings of Cabinet Government
The Darien Scheme
The Spanish Partition Treaties
The Failure of the Partition Treaties
The Tory Reaction .
The Act of Settlement
The Constitutional Limitations in the Act of
Settlement The Grand Alliance and the Death of William iii,
PAGE
505 505 505 506 507 508 509 509
509 510
1702-1714. Chapter VII. Queen Anne
1702-1708. 1702-1713. 1702-1703.
1703.
1704. 1704-1706.
1707. 1708-1709.
1710. 1702-1708. 1708-1710.
1709. 1710-1713.
1713.
1714. 1699-1702. 1703-1704. 1704-1707.
1707.
Character of Queen Anne .
The Rule of Marlborough and Godolphin
The War of the Spanish Succession
The Early Campaigns of the War .
The Methuen Treaty
The Battle of Blenheim
Victories of the Allies
The Battle of Almanza
Battles of Oudenarde and Malplaquet
Battle of Brihuega .
Party Contests
Marlborough's Whig Ministry
The Impeachment of Dr. Sacheverell
The Tory Ministry .
The Treaty of Utrecht
End of the Age of Louis siv.
The Tory Ministry and the Protestant Succession
The Pall of Oxford and the Death of Queen Anne
Strained Relation between England and Scotland
The Act of Security .....
The Flying Squadron and the Negotiations for
the Union ......
The Parliamentary Union of England and
Scotland .....
1603-1714.
Chapter VIII. Stewarts
Great Britain under the
Colonial and Commercial Development .
Results of the Growth of Trade on England
Manufactures
The Poor and the Poor Law
London and the Towns
Amusements
Communications
Dress
Education
Natural Science . .
5"-S23
5" 512 512 512 513 513 515 515 515 S16 516 517 S17 S18 S18 520 520
521 521
522 522 523
524-533
524 524
525 525
526 526
527 527 528 528
CONTENTS
xxvii
Architecture . . . .
Painting, Sculpture, and Music The Drama . . . , . ,
Milton and the Poets < . . , .
Dryden and the Poetry o£ the Bestoration ' Establishment of Modern Prose Style Books recommended for the further study of the. Period . ...
529 529 53° 531 S3Z 533
533
BOOK VII
1714-1820. THE HOUSE OF HANOVER AND THE RULE OF THE ARISTOC- RACY .... 536-641
1714-1727. Chapter I. George I.
1714. 1714-1761.
1715. 1715.
1716.
1715.
1716. 1714-1717.
1717.
1719. 1717-1720.
1718.
1720.
1721. 1727.
The Accession of George i. .
The Long Whig Bule
The Law and Custom of the Constitution
The Cabinet System
The Supremacy of the Cornmons . .
The Whig Aristocracy
The Jacobites
The Riot Act ...
The Highlands of Scotland .
The Jacobite Eising .
Battle of Sheriffmuir and Collapse of the Rebellion
The Septennial Act .
The Whig JMinistry .
The Whig Schism .
The Peerage Bill
Foreign Policy and Alberoni
Battle of Cape Passaro
The South Sea Bubble
The Bursting of the Bubble
Walpole Prime Minister
Death of George i. .
1727-1760. Chapter II. George II.
1721-1742.
1733. 1737.
George 11. and Caroline of Anspach Character and Policy of Walpole . Parliamentary Management Walpole the First Prime Minister . The Opposition to Walpole . The " Patriot Whigs " The " Boys " and William Pitt Bolingbroke and the New Tories . The Failure of Walpole's Excise Scheme The Porteous Riots in Edinburgh .
536-545
536 537 537 537 537 538 539 539 539 540 541 541 542 542 542 543 543 544 545 545
546-569
546 547 547 548 548
549 549 549 550 551
. CONTENTS
DATE
172S and 1731. The Two Treaties of Vienna . 1738. The Third Treaty of Vienna
Outbreak of War with Spain
The War of the Austrian Succession
The Pall of Walpole
The Carteret Ministry
The Pelham Ministry
Battle of Dettingen ....
Battle of Pontenoy ....
Jacobite Revolt and the Young Pretender
The March to Derby
Battles of Falkirk and Culloden
The Subjugation of the Highlands
The Treaty of Aachen
Pelham's Domestic Reforms
The Newcastle Ministry and the Whig Schism
William Pitt and the Whig Opposition
The Duke of Devonshire's Ministry
The Pitt-Newcastle Ministry
Origin of the Seven Years' War
Commercial and Colonial Rivalry of France and England ....
European Traders in India under the Mogul Empire . . . . .
Dupleix's Plans ....
England and France in India
Olive and the Siege of Arcot 17S7 and 1760. The Battles of Plassey and Wandewaish
France and England in North America .
Fort Duquesne ....
The European Coalition against Prussia and England .
British Disasters
Pitt as the Inspirer of Victory
The Conquest of Canada
Death of George ii.
1739. 1740-1748.
1742. 1742-1744. 1744-1754.
1743.
1745.
1745.
1745.
1746.
1748. 1748-1754. 1754-1756.
1756-1757. 1757-1761.
1740-1755. 1751.
1756.
1756-1757.
1757-1760.
1758-1760.
1760.
SSI
SS2
SS3-SS4 5S3 SS3 SS3 SS4
SSS 556 558 558 559 559 560 560 561 561 561
562
562 563 563 563 564 564
565
565 566 566 56S 569
1760-1789. Chapter III. George III. and the War of American Independence
1761. 1761-1763. 1763-1770.
1763. 1763-1765.
1765. 1765-1766. 1766-1768.
Character and Policy of George iii.
George ni. and Pitt
Pitt driven from Office
The Bute Ministry and the Peace of Paris
George in. and Foreign Politics .
The Resignation of Bute
The Grenville Ministry
Wilies and the " North Briton " .
The Stamp Act and the Fall of Grenville
The Rockingham Ministry .
The Chatham Ministry
The Renewal of the Wilkes Troubles
570-592
570 571 572 572 573 573 574 574 575 575 576 576
CONTENTS
XXIX
Burke and Junius . 1768-1770. The Grafton Ministry 1770-1782. The North Ministry
Origin of the American Bevolution 1768-1770, Townshend's Customs Duties and the American Resistance ....
1773. Lord North and the Tea Duty Failure of Conciliation
1775. Beginning of the War. Lexington and Bunter'i
Hill . • . . .
1776. The Declaration of Independence . . . Characteristics of the American. War
1777. The Capitulation of Saratoga 1778-1780. The European Attack on Britain .
Chatham and American Independence
1778. Death of Chatham ....
1781. Yorktown and the End of the American War
1782. Bodney restores British Naval Supremacy Warren Hastings restores British Supremacy in
India ....
1780. The Gordon Blots .
Ireland imitates America . 1782. The Legislative Independence of Ireland
1782. The Second Bockingham Ministry . Burke and Economical Eeform
1782-1783. The Shelbume Ministry
1783. The Treaty of Versailles 1783. The Coalition of Pox and North .
1783. The Coalition Ministry Pox's India Bill
1783-1801. William Pitt's Ministry
Character and Policy of the Younger Pitt
1784. Pitt's India Bill and Warren Hastings Pitt's Foreign Policy
1788. The Eegency Question
1789-1802.
1789. 1789-1792. 1793-1795.
1792.
1793-1797.
1798. 1798.
Chapter IV. George III. The French Revolution and the Irish Union
France before the Bevolution
Voltaire and Rousseau
The Meeting of the States General
The New Constitution and its PaUure
The Reign of Terror
Europe at War with the Revolution
England and the French Revolution
The Reaction and Pitt
England joins the War against the Revolution
The Suspension of Cash Payments .
The Revolutionary War at Sea ■
Buonaparte in Egypt
The Battle of the Nile
593-606
593 594 594 S9S 59S 59S 596 597 597-598 598 599 599 600
XXX
CONTENTS
DATE
1799. The Mysore War ... 1799-1801. The War of the Second Coalition .
1800-1801. The Battle of Marengo, and the Treaty of LunSville ......
The Arrtied Neutrality and the Battle of Copenhagen ....
1801-1802. The Addington Ministry and the Treaty of Amiens
The Pilot that weathered the Storm 1782-1800. Ireland under Grattan's. Parliament
The United Irishmen and the French Bevolution
1793-1794. The Belief Act, and the Government of Lord.
Fitzwilliair. .....
1798. Irish Behelljon .....
Pitt's Irish Policy .
1800. The Union .
1801. Failure of. Catholic
Resignation of Pitt
Emancipation and the.
PAGE
6oo 6oo
6ot
6oi 6oi 6o2 6o2 603
603
604
604-605
605
605-606
1802-1820. Chapter V. George III. and Napoleon . 607-625
1803. 1803-1814.
1803. 1798-1805. 1804-1806.
1804-1805.
1805. 1805-1806.
1806. 1806-1807.
1806.
1807. 1807-1830.
1807.
1808.
1808. 1808-1809.
1809.
1809
1809.
1810.
1811. 1812-1813.
1814.
1812-1814.
1815.
1816.
The Eupture of the Treaty of Amiens
The Napoleonic War
Emmet's Bebellion
Wellesley establishes -British Supremacy in India
Pitt's Second Ministry
The Volunteer Movement .
The Army of England, and the Supremacy of the
Seas .....
Battle of Trafalgar .... The Third Coalition and its Failure Death of Pitt ....
Ministry of All the Talents Death of Fox . .
The Resignation of GrenviUe The Long Tory Rule The Conduct of the War . The Treaty of Tilsit . . . .
The Continental System The Spanish Rising against Napoleon Arthur Wellesley' s Conquest of Portugal The Failure of Sir John Moore The War between France and Austria Walcheren and Wagram The Battle of Talavera . . '
Torres Vedras and Busaco . . [
Fuentes de Ofioro and Albuera The Bussian, German, and Spanish National
Revolts .... The Fall of Napoleon . . '.
The War with the United States . The Hundred Days . Battle of Waterloo ..."
607 608 609 609 610 610
610 611 612 612 612
613 613
613
614
614
614-615
61S 616 617 617 618 618 620 620
620 621 621 622 622-623
CONTENTS
XXXI
DATE
1815. The Congress of Vienna
1815-1820. England after tlie Peace
1820. Death of George in.
623 625 625
1714-1820. Chapter VI. Great Britain during the Eighteenth Century: The Industrial
Revolution ..... 626-639
Commercial Ascendency of Great Britain . . 626
The Age of Inventions .... 626-627
Roads, Turnpikes, and Tramways . . 627-628
Navigable Bivers and Canals . . . 628
The Factory System and the Industrial Revolution 628-630
The Agrarian Revolution .... 630-631
Pauperism and the. Corn LavfS . . , 631
The " Age of Reason " .... 632
The Methodist Movement .... $32-633
The Evangelical Movement . . (533-634
Religion in Scotland . . . , 634
Humanitarianism and Philanthropy . . 634-635
Social Life ...... 635
Art . ... . . . .636
Poetry and the Drama . . . . . . 637
Prose ...... 637-638
The Romantic Revival .... 638-639
Books recommended for the further study of the
Period ... . . 639
BOOK VIII 1820-1901. NATIONALITY AND DEMOCRACY . 642-727
1820-1830. Chapter I. George IV.
1820. 1820. 1820.
1822.
1827.
1827. 1827-1828. 1828-1830.
Accession of George iv. .
The Trial of Queen Caroline
The Oato Street Conspiracy
The Old and the Nevir Tories
The Canningites admitted to Office
Canning's Foreign Policy .
The Holy Alliance ....
The Revolt of the Spanish Colonies and the
Monroe Doctrine .... Canning and the Greek Insurrection Battle of Nav^rino .... Peel's Reforms as Home Secretary Huskisson'S Commercial and Financial Reforms Canning's Ministry and Death The Goderioh Ministry The Wellington Ministry . . .
The Catholic Association and the Clare Bleotipn
642-649
642 643 643 643 644 644 644
64s 64s 646 646
647 647 647
^& 64b
XXXll
CONTENTS
DATE
1B29. Catholic Emancipation
Wellington's Foreign Policy 1830. Death of George iv. .
18304837. Chapter II. William IV. .
Democracy and Nationality 1830. Bevolutions on the Continent
The Agitation for Parliamentary Keform 1830. William iv. and the Grey Ministry
The Need for Parliamentary Keform
The Reform Movement under George iv. 1831-1832. The Struggle for Reform . 1832. The First Reform Act passed
Irish Repeal and the Tithe War 1832-1835. Other Reforms
Palmerston's Foreign Policy 1834. The Melbourne Ministry
Peel and the Conservative Party 1837. Death of William iv.
648-649 649 649
650-656
650 650 651 651 652 652 653 653 654
654 65s 6S5 65s 656
1837-1865.
Chapter III. stou .
Victoria — Peel and Palmer-
Separation of England and Hanover
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert .
The Changed Conception of the Work of the
Monarchy and House of Lords . Socialism and Chartism Melbourne's Ministry Conservative Reaction Foreign Policy of the Peel Ministry Young Ireland. Peel's Irish Policy The Corn Laws and Popular Unrest The Anti-Oorn Law League Peel and Free Trade The Failure of the Irish Potato Crop The Repeal of the Corn Laws Fall of Peel .... Peelites, Protectionists, Liberals, and Radicals The Russell Ministry The Irish Famine and its Conseq[uenoes The Year of Revolutions Chartism and Young Ireland Palmerston's Foreign Policy 1851 and 1852. Dismissal of Palmerston and RUssell 1852. The First Derby-Disraeli Ministry . The Aberdeen Coalition Ministry . Nicholas i. and the Eastern Question Origin of the Crimean War The Crimean War . Palmerston's First Ministry
1835-1841.
1841.
1841-1846.
1839.
1845. 1846. 1846.
1846-1862. 1846-1847.
1848.
1848.
1852-1855.
1894-1856. 1855-18S8.
657-673
657 657
658 659
659 660 660 661 662 662 663 663 663 664 664 665 665 666 666 666 667 667 668 668 669 669 671
CONTENTS
XXXIU
DATE
1858-18S9. 18S9-1865.
1861-1865.
1865.
The Second Derby-Disraeli Ministry
The Second Palmerston Ministry .
Italian and German Unity
The American Civil War
Palmerston's Foreign Policy
The Death of Palmerston and its Eesults
671 672 672 672 673 673
1865-1886.
Chapter IV. Disraeli
Victoria — Gladstone and
1865. 1865-1866. 1866-1868.
1867.
1868-1874. 1869.
1870.
1870.
1870-1871.
1874. 1874-1830.
1877-1878.
1878.
1879.
1880. 1880-1885.
1885. 1884-1885. 1886-1888.
1886.
1886.
Beginning of the Transition to Democracy
The Kussell Ministry and the Eeform Bill
The Third Derby-Disraeli Ministry
The Second Eeform Act
The Fenians ...
The First Gladstone Ministry
Disestablishment of the Irish Church
Irish Land System .
The First Irish Land Act .
The Education Act and Other Eeforms
The Pranoo-German War and its Eesults
Gladstone's Foreign Policy
Fall of Gladstone .
The Disraeli Ministry
The Home Eule Movement
The Eusso-Turkish War .
The Treaties of San Stefano and Berlin
The Dual Contest in Egypt
FaU of Beaconsfield
The Second Gladstone Ministry
Its Irish Policy
Egypt and the Sudan
The Death of Gordon
The Third Eeform Act
The First Salisbury Ministry
The Third Gladstone Ministry
Home Eule and the Break-up of the Old Parties
674-683
674 674 675
67s 676 676 676 676-677 677 677 678 678 679 679 679 680 681 681 682 682 682 683 683 684 684 684 685
1886-1901. Chapter V. Victoria- the Empire .
-Home Rule and
. 686-694
1886-1892. The Salisbury tTniomst Ministry ... 686
The Plan of Campaign .... 686
1888-1889. The Parnell Commission .... 687
1890-1891. Pamellites and Anti-Parnellites . . . 687 1886-1892. Foreign Policy. The Triple and the Dual
Alliances . . . . . . 688
1887. The Queen's Jubilee .... 688
1892-1894. The Fourth Gladstone Ministry ... 689
1893. The Lords Eejeot the Home Eule Bill . .689
Filling up the Cup .... 689
XXXIV
CONTENTS
iJAl'E
1891-1895. The Eosebery Ministry 1895-1901. The Third Salisbury Ministry
Armenia and Crete. Other Foreign Troubles 1896-1899. The Conquest of the Sudan
1898. Fashoda . . . • •
Troubles in the Par East . . •
1897 and 1901. The Diamond Jubilee and the Death of Queen
Victoria ....-•
690 690 691 692 693 693
18204901. Chapter VI. The United Kingdom in
the Nineteenth Century . . . 695-708
Increase of the Functions of the State
Central Government
Local Government ....
The Army and the, Navy .
The Church .....
The Traotarian Movement and its Eesults
The Protestant Nonconformists
The Roman Catholics
The Established Church and the Free Church in
Scotland ..... Material Wealth .... Steamboats ..... Steam Railways and other Inventions Social and Industrial Progress Architecture ..... Painting, Music, and Sculpture Natural Science .... Poetry and Prose .... Education .....
695 69s 69b
697-698 698
698-699 699 700
700
701
701
702-703
703 704 70s 705 706-707 707-708
1820-1901. Chapter VII. British India in the Nine teenth Century
1820.
1820. 1828-1835. 1834-1842.
1848 and 1846.
1849 and 1852.
1857.
1868.
1878-18S0.
The Indian and Colonial Empires .
The Condition of British India
The Condition of the Indian Vassal States
The Governorship of Lord WiUiam Bentinck
The Afghan War ....
The Conquest of Sind and the First Sikh War Annexations of the Punjab and of Lower Burma ....
Dalhousie's Doctrine of Lapse Lord Canning and the Indian Mutiny End of the East India Company . Second AfghAn War .... India at the End of Victoria's Reign
709-718
709 710 710 711 712 712
713 713 714 7'5 716 716
CONTENTS XXXV
DATE
1783-1901. Chapter VIII. The British Colonies in
the Nineteenth Century . . 719.727
British Colonies in the Latter Part of the
Eighteenth Century . . . . 71Q Oplonial Expansion during the EeTolutionary
and Napoleonic Wars .... 720
Oeoay of the West Indies .... 720-721
The Enaigration Movement . . ', 721
Phases of Colonial Policy . . . ! 721
W40-1856. Growth of Colonial Independence . . 722
Colonial Federation .... 733
The North American Colonies . . 727
1867. The Dominion of Canada . . . .' 723
1901. The Commonwealth of Australia . , . 723-724
South Africa . ... 724
The Boer B«publios .... 724
The Band Mines and the Struggle of Boer and
Outlander . . »2i;
1899. The Boer War ...'.'. 726-727
The Establishment of English Supremacy . 727
Books recommended for the further study of the
Period . . . . . . 727.728
LIST OF BIBLIOGRAPHIES
|
Books reoommended for the further study of the Period, up |
TAGE |
|
to 1066 |
80-81 |
|
Books reoommended for the further study of the Period, |
|
|
1066-1215 ...... |
158 |
|
Books recommended for the further study of the Period |
|
|
1215-1399 ...... |
253 |
|
Books reoommended for the further study of the Period |
|
|
1399-1485 |
307 |
|
Books reoommended for the further study of the Period |
|
|
1485-1603 ...... |
418 |
|
Books reoommended for the further study of the Period |
|
|
1603-1714 ...... |
533 |
|
Books reoommended for the further study of the Period |
|
|
1714-1820 ...... |
639 |
|
Books reoommended for the further study of the Period |
|
|
1820-1901 |
727-728 |
LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS
Roman Britain ......
South Britain after tlie English Conquest (about 607)
Map showing position of Nectansmere
The Welsh and English Lands in OfEa's Time
The Voyages and States of the Norsemen up to the Tenth Century
England after Alfred and Guthrum's Peace, 886
England at the Death of Edward the Confessor
The Battle of Hastings .....
The New Forest ......
England and Wales during the Norman Period
Plan of Christ Church, Canterbury ....
France in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, showing the
Continental Dominions of the Norman and Angevin Kings The Crusade of Richard i. . Plan of Ch§,teau Gaillard . .
The Battle of Lewes . ...
The Battle of Evesham .....
Wales and: the March, showing the growth of the power of
Llewelyn (1246-1267)
Wales and the March between the Conquest under Edward i. and
the Union under Henry viii. " . ...
English King's Dominion in Prance in the Thirteenth Century The Battle of Bannookbum ..... Northern England and Southern Scotland in the Fourteenth
Century .......
The Cr6cy Campaign, 1346 .....
The Battle of Crfey ......
The Battle of Poitiers ......
The English Dominions in France after the Treaties of Br^tigni
and Calais (1860) ......
Some forms of Mediaeval Architecture
The Agincourt Campaign .....
The Battle of Agincourt ....
France in 1429 .......
xxxvii
XXXviii LIST OP MAPS AND PLANS
PAGE
The Battle of Towton . . . . . . .286
England, 1377-1509, illustrating the Wars of the Eoses . . ago
The French and Netherlandish Borders in the Sixteenth Century 321 The Battle of Ploddeu . . . . . .322
Europe at the Time of Charles v. . . . . . 324
English Bishoprics under Henry viii. . . 342
The Battle of Pinkie . . . . . . -353
Scotland in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries . 382
The Netherlands in the Beginning of the Seventeenth Century 387
Voyages and Settlements of the Sixteenth Century . . 395
The Course of the Spanish Armada ..... 398
Ireland under the Tudors . . . 403
Ireland in the Seventeenth Century .... 422
England and Wales during the Great Civil War —
1. May, 1643 . . . . 454
2. November, 1644 . . . . ^cc
The Battle of Marston Moor ...... 456
The Battle of Naseby .... . . ^rg
The English Colonies in North America under Charles 11. . . 480
The South of England, 1685-1689 . . .491
The Battle of Blenheim . . . . ?I4
Europe in 1718 ... . . cjn
Scotland and the North of England, illustrating the Jacobite
Risings of 1689, 1715, and 1745-1746 . . . 557
New England and New France, 1755-1783 The Thirteen Colonies in 1765 The Battle of Trafalgar Europe in 1810 The Battle of Waterloo Europe after the Congress of Vienna (1815) , Map to illustrate the Industrial Revolution . The Neighbourhood of Sebastopol Egypt and the Sudan . India in 1906 .... South Africa in 1899 . The British Empire in the Early Twentieth Century
S67 579 606 619 623 624 629 670 692 717 726 730
LIST OF GENEALOGICAL TABLES
The Chief Northumbrian Kings
The Danish Kings ....
The House of Godwin .
The House of Leofrie ....
The Old English Kings of the House of Oerdio
The Norman and Early Angevin Kings
The Proven9als and Savoyards
The House of Lusignan
The Earls of Gloucester
The Last Welsh Princes
The Scottish Kings, showing the Chief Claimants in 1290
The French Kings of the Direct Oapetian Line, showing Edward
nil's claim The English Kings from John to Richard ii. The House of Lancaster, including the Beauforts The Valois Kings of !E'rance, and the Valois Dukes of Burgundy The House of York, including the Mortimers and Staffords The Nevilles . The Greys and WoodvUles Charles v. and the Hapshurg Kings of Spain The Howards and Boleyns The Dudleys .... The House of Tudor .... The Cromwell Family The Spanish Succession, 1700 The Stewart Kings in Scotland and England The Bourbon Kings of France The Buonaparte Family The Pitts and Grenvilles The House of Brunswick-Hanover .
PA UK
35 6i
65 65
72
157 163 170 171 180 187
207
254 261 269 284
294 299
325 334 358 419 472 507 534 535 616
639 640
TABLE OF KINGS AND QUEENS
CHIEF KINGS OF NOSTHTJMBEIA
^thelfrith, 393-617 Edwin, 627-6S3 . Oswald, 635-642 . Oswiu, 655-671 Eogfrith, 671-685 .
rAGR
27 3031 31-32 32-33
35
CHIEF EIN-QS OF MEBCIA
Peuda, 626-655 Bthelbald, 716-757 Ofia, 757-796 Cenulf, 796-821 .
31-34 36
36-37 38
CHIEF KINGS OF WESSEX
Egbert, 802-839 ..... Ethelwulf, 839-858 ....
Ethelbald, Ethelbert, and Ethelred, 858-871 . Alfred, 871-899 .....
39-40 41 43
44-49
THE OLD ENGLISH KINGS
Edward the Elder, 899-924 Athelstan, 924-940 Edmund, 940-946 . Bdred, 946-955 . Edwy, 955-959 . . Edgar the Peaceful, 959-975 Edward the Martyr, 975-978 Ethelred the Unready, 978-1016 Edmund Ironside, 1016 . Cnut, 1017-1035 . Harold Harefoot, 1035-1040 Harthaonut, 1040-1042 . Edward the Confessor, 1042-1066 Harold, son of Godwin, 1066 xl
S0-51
51-52
52
52-53
S3
54-55
55-56
57-59
59
S9-6I
61
6i
62-66
66-69
TABLE OF KINGS AND QUEENS THE NOBHAIT EmG3
William i., the Conqueror, 1066-1087 William ii., Kufus, 1087-1100 . Henry i., 1100-1135 Stephen, 1135-1154
xli
PAGE
82-93
94-101
I02-II0
III-II5
THE HOUSE OF ANJOTJ
Henry 11., of Anjou, 1154-1189 Biohard i., 1189-1199 John, 1199-1216 . Henry in., 1216-1272 Edward i., 1272-1307 Edward 11., 1307-1327 Edward in., 1327-1377 Eiohard 11., 1377-1399
116-130 131-136
137-13S 159-177 178-197 198-204 205-227 228-237
THE HOTfSE OF LANCASTER
Henry iv., 1399-1413 Henry v., 1413-1422 Henry vi., 1422-1461
and 1470-1471
255-260 262-268 270-283 289-291
THE
Edward iv., 1461-1470 . and 1471-1483 Edward v., 1488 . Eiohard m., 1483-1485 .
HOUSE OF YORK
285-289 291-293 295-296 296-299
THE HOUSE OF TUDOR
Henry vii., 1485-1509 Henry vm., 1509-1547 Edward VI., 1547-1553 Mary, 1553-1558 . Elizabeth, 1558-1603
.308-316
317-351 352-360 361-367 368-407
THE HOUSE OF STEWART
James i., 1603-1625 Charles i., 1625-1649 The Commonwealth, 1649-1653 . and 1659-1660 . Oliver Cromwell, Protector, 1653-1658 Eiohard Cromwell, Proteotor, 1658-1659 Charles 11., 1660-1685 James n., 1685-1688 William m., and Mary 11., 1689-1694 1 William m., 1689-1702 . . ]
Anne, 1702-1714 .
420-434 435-461 462-467 470-472 467-470 470 473-488 489-495 496-504 504-510 5 1 1-523
xlii TABLE OF KINGS AND QUEENS
THE HOUSE or HANOVEE
George I., 17U-1727 George ii., 1727-1760 George III., 1760-1820 George iv., 1820-1830 William iv., 1830-1837 Victoria, 1837-1901 Edward vii-, 1901 .
536-S4S 546-569 570-625 642-649 650-656 657-694
BOOK I
BRITAIN BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST {UP TO 1066)
CHAPTER I PREHISTORIC AND CELTIC BRITAIN
Chief Dates:
? 330 B.C. The voyage of Pytheas.
1. There are few sxirviving written records of the doings of man in the British Islands which are mnch earlier than the Christian era. Yet the modern sciences of geology, arohseology, and philology prove that these islands had been the dwelling-place of human beings for many centuries previous to that period. The earliest certain evidence of the existence of man in Britain is derived from the discovery of large numbers of rudely shaped flint uthle Abb " implements. Some of these have been found in the gravels of river drifts, and others in the caves where early man made his dwelling. A few skulls, discovered along with such primi- tive tools, show that the dwellers in this remote age were of a low intellectual type. Yet the survival of a rude but spirited drawing of a horse on a flat piece of bone indicates that these savages had the rudiments of an artistic sense. The age in which they lived is called the palxoUthic, or old stone age. There is little proof that the men of this age had any connection with the later races which successively inhabited Britain.
2. Many ages passed away, and more abundant evidence is found of the existence of man in Britain. We pass from the palseolithic to the neolithic, or new stone age, where the roughly fashioned tools of the primitive race were replaced by jj^^j^ ^' more carefully constructed implements of smooth polished stone. Such neolithic tools include arrow-heads, sharp enough to transfix an enemy, axe-heads called celts, scrapers, knives,
B
2 PREHISTORIC AND CELTIC BRITAIN
dress-fasteners, and saws. The oare of the men of this period for their dead is indicated by the solidly bnilt harrowt of long oval shape, wherein huge stones, piled np to form a sepulchral chamber for a whole clan, were then covered in with great mounds of earth. Numerous remains of the dead found in these resting- places suggest that the men of the new stone age were short in stature, swarthy in complexion, and had long narrow skulls of the type called doliehocephalie. To these people has been
S*® , sometimes given the name of Iberians, because they have
Iberians. ^ ^ jt • • i • -l -l*
been thought akin to the Basques, the original inhabi- tants of Iberia or Spain, and some philologists have believed that a few words of their tongue stUl lurk in some of our most ancient place-names. However these things may be, there is good reason to believe that the blood of this ancient race still flows in the veins of many of those now dwelling in our land.
3. The Iberian inhabitants of Britain were ultimately attacked by a stronger and more ingenious ra«e called the Celts. This people belonged to the great Arycm family, whose language was the origin of nearly all the civilized tongues of Europe, and of those of a considerable part of western Asia. Their physical characteristics were very different from those of their short and swarthy predecessors. They were tall, fair- skinned, with red or yellow hair, and their skulls were broader, shorter, and more highly developed, belonging to the type called hrachycephalic. They came to Britain in two great waves of migra- tion. The earlier Celtic wave deposited in our islands the races called Goidelic, or Oaelic, which are now represented Gofdels ^y ^^^ Irish, the Scottish Highlanders, and the Manx-
men. The second migration was that of the Bryihonic peoples, who were the ancestors of the Britons, afterwards called the Welsh, as well as of the Bretons of Brittany and Bpythons. *^® Comishmen. In each case the incoming race took possession of the richer and more fertile southern and eastern parts of our island, and drove the previous inhabitants into the mountains of the west and north. The Goidels forced the Iberians back into these regions, and were then in their turn pushed westwards and northwards by the incoming Britons. By the time that our real knowledge begins, the Britons had occupied the whole of the south and east, and the mass of the Goidels had been driven over sea to Ireland, and to the barren mountains of the north be- yond the Forth and the Clyde. There was stUl, however, a strong Goidelic element along the western coasts of southern Britain,
PREHISTORIC AND CELTIC BRITAIN 3
especially in the south-west peninsula, which now makes Cornwall and Devonshire, in south Wales, and in the lands round the Solway.
4 It is to these western and northern lands that we must look if we would study the older populations of the British islands. The Goidels, when driven into the west, seem to have become amalgamated with the Iberians whom they had earlier pushed into those regions. The result of this was the development there of two physical types which have survived to our gamaUon" of own days. The incoming Celt is still represented Iberians in Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish Highlands by ^^^'^^^s- occasional tall, fair men ; but the most usual type in those districts is that of a short, dark-haired, dark-complexioned race, which is probably largely derived from the blood of the pre-Celtic inhabi- tants of our land. But for both types alike, the Celtic language and the Celtic institutions became universal. There was, and is, however, a great difference between the GroideTic speech of the earlier Celtic migration, still spoken by some of the Irish, Manx, and Scottish Highlanders, and the Brythonic tongue of the later immigrants, stQl surviving in Welsh and Breton, and, till the nine- teenth century, in Cornish.
5. Civilization now steadily progressed, though it is almost im- possible to say for certain whether the next great steps forward were the work of the earlier or of the later race. The people's increasing care for the dead led them to erect huge circles of great stones, each resembling the stone chamber of the barrow, stripped of its mound of earth, and piled up in magnificent order in mighty mejfaZi^ic monuments. Of these, Avebury in northern JJo^uments. Wiltshire, and Stonehenge on Salisbury plain, are the most famouB examples. After the coming of the Celts the fashion of burial changed. Instead of the long barrow, destined to receive the remains of many warriors, short round harrows, each the grave of a particular chieftain or of his kin, became so usual as to be ex- tremely numerous. In these were deposited the bodies, or some- times the burnt ashes, of the dead, and along with them were put implements of stone and bronze, ornaments of gold, jet, amber, and glass, and pottery, made by hand, and unglazed, but rudely ornamented, and polished by hard rubbing.
6. When this stage had been attained, the stone The Bronze age was over, and the period was reached when the andiron use of metals was known. This marked an enor- ^®*" mous advance of civilization. First came the bronze age, which
4 PREHISTORIC AND CELTIC BRITAIN
was vdtunately succeeded by the iron age, which lias been going on ever since. The Goidel came to Britain in the age of bronze, and at the beginning of the iron age the Britons of the newer Celtic migration had become the masters of the southern part of our island, to which they had given the name of Britain.
7. The Celts were the first inhabitants of our island to attain a respectable level of civilization. They wore clothes, used metal
weapons, and delighted in gold and glass ornaments, ^.^r'^ Celtic They tilled the ground, opened up tin and lead mines,
and began to trade with their neighbours. They were brave, high-spirited, and enterprising ; had a real love of beautiful things, and delighted in war and battle. They were split up into different tribes, each of which had its own king, though occasionally several tribes would join together under a common king, especially in times of danger. The Celts were fickle and quarrelsome, and seldom remained permanently under any other ruler than the chief of their own tribe or clan. The gentry went to battle in war- chariots, drawn by horses, which they managed with extraordinary skill. They protected themselves by bronze helmets and body armour, often beantifully enriched by ornament. Their weapons were the sword, the buckler, the dart, and the axe. The Celts wor- shipped many gods, and sought to propitiate them by human sacri- fices. They held in great honour their priests, who were called Druids, and who also were the poets, prophets, and judges of the people. The chief wealth of the nation lay in their flocks and herds, and the population lived for the most part in scattered home- steads. They erected, however, as refuges in times of war, great earthworks called dtms. Favourite sites for these fortresses were the summits of high hills, from which they could overlook the countryside. The majority of the Britons lived upon the uplands, as the river valleys were swampy, unhealthy, and hard to cultivate ; but some of them were fishermen or watermen, like the dwellers in the lake villages discovered near Glastonbury. There was enough intercourse between tribe and tribe for rough trackways to be marked out over the downs and hills from one settlement to another.
8. Though the Druids composed verses, wherein they com- memorated the deeds of great men, and set forth the laws and The voyage ''''isdom of their ancestors, the Britons had no books, of Pytheas, so that no account of them from their own noint
of view has been handed down to us. The earliest information that we have of the Britons comes from the travellers'
PREHISTORIC AND CELTIC BRITAIN 5
tales of Greek explorers from the Mediterranean. Somewhere about 330 b.c, some merchants of the G-reek colony of Massilia (now called Marseilles), in the south of Graul, sent a mathematician named Pytheas to explore the lands on the Atlantic coast of Europe in the hope of opening up a trading connection with them. Among other countries Pytheas visited Britain, sailing through the Channel and all up the eastern coast, and setting down his observa- tions of the country and its people in writings of which, unluckily, only fragments have come down to us. From the voyage of Pytheas a trading connection between Britain and the commercial cities of the Mediterranean was opened up, which soon became important. There were also close dealings between the Britons and their Celtic kinsmen the Gauls, their nearest continental neigh- bours; Many Gauls settled in southern Britain, and stUl further raised its standard of refinement. The tin, lead, amber, and pearls of the Britons found a ready market in cities like Massilia, and by this means some vague knowledge of the existence of Britain became spread among civilized people. So active did commerce become that the Britons struck coins of gold and tin, which were rudely fashioned after the models of the Greek monies of the period. So intercourse increased and civilization grew until, nearly three hundred years after the voyage of Pytheas, the advance of the Koman Empire brought Britain into the ftiller light of history.
CHAPTER II ROMAN BRITAIN (55 B.C.-449 A.D.)
Chief Dates :
SS-S4 B.C. Julius Caesar's expeditions to Britain.
43 A.D. Claudius begins the Roman conquest of Britain.
78-85. Government of Agricola.
122. Hadrian's Wall built.
297. Diocletian reorganizes the British provinces.
410. Withdrawal of the Roman legions.
1. Ix the generations preceding' the Christian era the Romans established their dominion over the whole of the lands surrounding
the Mediterranean, the centre of the civilization of Cffisar's First ^^® ancient world. The last step of this conquest Expedition was the subjugation of Gaul by Graius Julius Caesar, t°^''Jta'n. between 58 and 50 B.C. Brought by his triumphant
progress to the shores of the Channel, Csesar learnt that the Britons had afforded refuge to the fugitives from his arms in G-aul, and believed that their sympathy with their continental brethren would make it harder for the Romans to keep Gaul quiet. Accordingly he resolved to teach the Britons the might of the Roman power, and in 55 B.C. he led a smaU expedition over the straits of Dover, and successfully landed it in Kent, despite the vigorous resistance which the Britons offered to his disembarkation. Csesar found, however, that the Britons were stronger than he thought, and that he had not brought enough troops to accomplish anything great against them. For the few weeks that he remained in Britain, he did not venture far from the coast. Before long he returned to Gaul, convinced that he must wipe out his failure by conducting a stronger army to England as soon as he could.
2. Next year, 54 B.C., Csesar landed in Britain for the second time. He then took with him more than twice as many soldiers as on the previous occasion. Having established a camp on the coast, 6
55 B-C] ROMAN BRITAIN 7
he marched boldly into the interior. He was opposed by Cassivel- launus, Idng of the tribes dwelling on the north bank of the Thames. The light-armed Britons shrunk from a pitched battle with the Romans, and failed to prevent J">'"s^ them from forcing their passage over the Thames, second Ex- But their swift war-chariots hung upon the Roman pedltionto line of march, threatened to destroy Csesar's camp on fl g {?' the coast, and prevented him from winning any very striking triumphs. However, some of the British tribes were jealous of Cassivellaunus. Conspicuous among these were the Trinovantes, his eastern neighbours, dwelling in what is now Essex. This tribe sent envoys to Caesar, and submitted to him. Alarmed at this defection, Cassivellaunus also made his peace with the Roman general, and agreed not to disturb the Trinovantes. Some of the tribes promised to yield up hostages and to pay tribute to the Romans. Thereupon Csesar went back to the continent. He had not even attempted to conq^uer Britain, but he had taug-ht the Britons a lesson, and had prevented them from harming the Roman power in Graul. The most enduring result of Csesar's visits is to be found in the description of Britain and the Britons which he wrote in his famous Commentaries. This is the first full written account of our island that has come down to us. With it the continuous history of our land beg-ins.
3. For ninety years after Csesar's landing no Roman troops were seen in Britain. Increased commerce followed upon the greater knowledge which Romans and Britons now had of each other. The Trinovantes, who remained true to Britain, the Roman connection, profited by it to make them- 54 B.C.— selves masters of most of south-eastern Britain. Their ' '
power came to a head under their king Cunobelinus, the Cymbeline of Shakespeare and romance. He struck coius which closely imitated those of the contemporary Romans, made Camulodunum (Colchester) his capital, and felt himself strong enough to throw off Roman control. One of his brothers, disgusted at being supplanted, appealed to the Romans for help, but his valiant son Caraotacus continued his policy after his death. Thus strained relations en- sued between the Romans and the Trinovantes. The promised tribute was not paid ; Gaulish rebels were encouraged, and Gaulish fugitives from Roman rule received once more a welcome.
4 The renewed hostUity of the Britons to Rome convinced the Emperor Claudius that the only way of making Gaul secure was by oonq^uering Britain. Accordingly, in 43 A.D., Claudius sent
8 ROMAN BRITAIN. [43-
a strong army to the island, under Aulus Plautius. With his
-,u n landinff the systematic Roman cono[uest of Britain
Tn© Roman ° ^ _ - at. j. /~n j •
conquest of began. Plautius soon made suoh progress that Olaucaus
Britain. himself visited the countiy, and witnessed his soldiers
taking by storm Caraotaous' sti-onghold of Camulodunum, which soon became a Eoman colony — ^the first in Britain. Plautius, When Plautius returned to Rome in 47, he had made 43-47 A.D. himself master of the south and midlands as far as the Humber and the Severn. The next governor, Ostorius Scapula Otis (47-62), strove to subdue the Silures and Ordovices, Scapula, the fierce tribes that dwelt in the hills of southern and 47-52. central Wales, among whom Caraotaous found a refuge
after the conquest of his own district. The Eoman general defeated Caractacus in a pitched battle, and forced him to flee northwards to the Brigantes of the modern Yorkshire. Surrendered by these to the Romans, the British king was led in triumph through Rome. His brave and frank bearing won the favour of Claudius, who per- mitted him to end his days in honourable retirement. But the conquest of the Welsh hills was not lasting, and all the Romans could do was to establish a ring of border garrisons at Deva (Chester), Virooonium (Wroxeter), and Isoa Silurum (Caerleon-on- Usk), whereby the wild mountaineers were restrained.
5. The Roman conquest of Britain was further advanced by the governor, Suetonius Paullinus (59-62), who in 61 completed Suetonius *^® subjugation of the hiU-tribes of the west by the Paullinus, reduction of Mona or Anglesey, the last refuge of 59-62. ^jjg Druids. A sang-uinary insurrection of the Iceni,
the clan inhabiting what is now Norfolk and Suffolk, recalled Paullinus. The Icenian King, Prasutagos, who had ruled under Roman over-lordship, made the Emperor his co-heir, jointly with his two daug'hters. On his death the Romans took possession of his lands, brutally ill-ti'eated his daughters, and cruelly scourged his widow, Boudicca (Boadioea), who strove to maintain their rights. The indignant tribesmen took advantage of the governor's absence to rise in revolt. Camulodunum was stormed, and all the Romans witliin it put to the sword. A like fate befell Yerulamium (St. Albans), the seat of Roman government, andLondinium (London), the chief commercial centre of Britain. The legion that held the northern frontier hurried southwards, but was out to pieces by the Iceni in the open field. At last Paullinus, fresh from his triumph at Mona, marched eastward at the head of the strong force which had held down the disturbed western frontier. Defeated in a
-122.] ROMAN BRITAIN g
pitched battle, Boudicoa avoided captivity and shame by drinking off a bowl of poison. The suppression of the rebellion completed the reduction of aU Britain south of the Humber and east of the Dee and Usk. But the mountaineers of what is now called Wales took advantage of Paullinus' withdrawal to renew their freedom, and for many years the Roman advance northwards and westwards was stayed.
6. The next forward movement was under Julius Agricola, a famous statesman and general, who was governor of Britain from 78 to 85. Agrioola's son-in-law, the famous historian, j-a&a% Tacitus, wrote a life of his father-in-law in such detail Agpieola, that we learn more of his doings in Britain than of '^^'^^• those of any commander since Julius Cassar. Agrioola's first military exploit was to complete the subjugation of the hill-tribes of the west. Thereupon he turned his arms northwards and sub- dued the fierce Brigantes, establishing a new camp at Eburaoum (York), which soon became the chief centre of the Roman power. Within the next few years he seems to have advanced stiU further northwards, until he found a natural barrier in the narrow isthmus which separates the Firth of Forth and Clyde, where he erected a line of forts. Not contented with this, Agricola advanced beyond this Hue into the mountains of northern Scotland, whose wild in- habitants, called then the Caledonians, opposed him vigorously under their chieftain Galgacus. At last, in 84, Agricola won a victory over Galgacus at an unknown place called Mons Ch'aT^ius. After this he circumnavigated the north coast of Scotland with a fleet, and even talked of cono[uering Ireland. Next year, however, he was recalled, and liis successors took up a less enterprising policy. Even more important than Agrioola's victories were the efEorts he made to civilize the Britons and spread Roman fashions among them. The sons of the chieftains learned to speak Latin, adopted the Roman dress, and followed their conquerors' habits of life.
7. South Britain remained hard to hold. A revolt annihilated the legion stationed at York, and about 122 the wise Emperor Hadrian, abandoning the northern regions, which jy^^ ^^^ Ag-ricola had claimed as part of the province, erected Roman
a solid wall of stone, fortified by frequent forts, to walls, form a scientific frontier for the region solidly held by the Romans. The line chosen for this purpose ran from the mouth of the Solway to the mouth of the Tyne — roughly speaking, from Carlisle to Newcastle — a distance of more than seventy mUes. If
lO ROMAN BRITAIN [i43-
the still narrower frontier-line from Clyde to Forth were too remote to be held with safety, the limits thus chosen were the best that could be found. After nearly seventeen centuries the sub- stantial remains of this great work, stretching across the high hills that separate the valleys of the Tyne and the Solway, still con- stitute by far the most majestic memorial of the Eoman power in Britain. In 143, LoUius Urbicus, the governor of Britain under the Emperor Antoninus Pius, went back to the limits once conquered by Agrioola, and erected a new boundary waU between the Forth and the Clyde. Built of sods laid on a basement of stone, the northern wall of Antoninus was a much less solid structure than the wall of Hadrian. It soon became unimportant, as the Eomans made few attempts to occupy the barren moorlands that take up most of the region between the two walls. Occasionally the old aggressive spirit revived, and notably between 208 and 211, when the able Emperor Septimius Severus spent four years in Britain, and, like Agricola, waged fresh campaigns against the Caledonians. On his death, at Eburacum, the Roman energies relapsed, and thus the wall of Hadrian became the permanent frontier of Roman Britain.
8. Roman rule, thus established by Agricola and Hadrian, lasted in Britain for more than three hundred years. At first Roman Roman Britain consisted of a single province, ruled,
divisions of like all the frontier districts, by a legate of the Britam, Emperor. Severus divided the country into two
provinces, called Upper and Lower Britain {Britannia Superior and Britannia Inferior), whose boundaries are not at all clear. At last, the famous emperor, Diocletian, the second founder of the Roman Empire, included Britain, about 297, in his general scheme for the reorganization of the provinces. The number of British provinces was increased to four, Britannia Prima, Britannia Se- cunda, Flavia Csesariensis, and Maxima Csesariensis. To these a fifth, Valentia, was afterwards added. We are almost entirely in the dark as to the situation of these provinces. A special novelty of Diocletian's reforms was the bringing together of neighbouring provinces into larger administrative divisions, called Dioceses and PrsetorianPrsifectures. All British provinces were joined together in the diocese of Britain, ruled by a vicar, while the diocese of Britain was but a part of the great praetorian prsef ecture of the G-auls which extended over the whole of the west. This system lasted as long as the Roman power.
9. The Roman occupation of Britain was mainly military. The
-297-] ROMAN BRITAIN
II
land was strongly held by a garrison of three legions, each con- sisting of about 6000 regular troops, aU Boman citizens. One legion, the Sixth, had its headquarters at "^^l^^ Eburacum, -while the Second was quartered at Isoa Silurum, and the Twentieth at Deva, in positions which they had held from the first century .onwards. Besides these regular troops, a large number of irregular auxiliaries garrisoned the wall oi Hadrian and the detached forts of the north. Both legions and auxiliaries were largely recruited on the continent, and most Britons who wished to serve the emperor were drafted to fight upon the Rhine or the Danube. Well-constructed roads, paved with stone, ran straight from garrison to garrison, and also served as avenues of commerce. The most famous of the Roman roads of Britain was the Wailing Street, which ^oads" ran from the coast at Dubr» (Dover) to Londinium, and thence by Yeralamium to Viroconium, from which point a branch went south to Isoa, while the main road proceeded to Deva, where it sent a branch to Segontium (Carnarvon). From Deva, Watling Street was continued eastwards to York, and thence to the frontier. The Urmine Street, the central part of the road that connected Eburacum with Lindum (Lincoln), Camulodtmum, and Londinium, was only less famous ; while the Watling Street was crossed diagonally by a third great artery, called the Fosse Way, which went from Lindum to Isca Dumnoriorum (Exeter). A fourth road, named Akeman Street, connected Camuloduniun and Verulamium with the watering-place of Aquae Sulis (Bath).
10. Along the chief routes grew up walled towns, which, at least in the south and east, were not wholly military in character. Under the strong Roman peace, marshes were drained, jfnman forests cleared, and commerce furthered. Britain be- civilization came one of the chief granaries of Europe, and its '° Britain, iron, tin, and lead mines were extensively developed. Salt-works were opened, and pottery and fine glass were made. Many Roman oflScials, soldiers, and traders spread the use of the Latin tongue, and, at least in the southern and eastern parts of the province, the upper classes among the Britons themselves learnt to talk Latin, and were proud to be considered as Romans. But the Romans never romanized Britain as they had romanized Gaul. The best proof of this is the fact that the Celtic tongue continued to be spoken by the mass of the people, as is shown by its contiuuance in Wales to this day. In Gaul, on the other hand, the use of Latin became universal, and quite displaced the ancient Gaulish language.
12 ROMAN BRITAIN [287-
11. During the fourth century Christianity became the religion of the Romans, and Constantino, the first Christiaa emperor The Romano- (306-337), first took uplthe government of the Empire Brftish™*""' at Eburacmn, where his father had died. Even before Church. this there had been Christians in Britain, and during the last persecution of the Christian Church by the Emperor Diocletian (284-305), several British martyrs gave up their lives for the faith. The most famous of these was Alban, slain at Verulamium, where in after years a church was erected in his honour that gave the Roman city its modern name of St. Albans. During the fourth century we know that there were bishops at Londinium, Isca, and Eburacum, many churches and monasteries, and an active and vigorous ecclesiastical life. The British Church became strong enough to send out missionaries to other lands, of whom the next famous were St. Patrick, who completed the con- version of the Irish to the faith, and St. Ninian, who first taught the Caledonians, or Piots, the Christian religion. Britain even had a heretic of its own in Pelagius, who denied the doctrine of original sin, and made himself very famous all over the Roman world as the foe of St. Augustine, the great African father. From the British Church is directly descended the "Welsh Church, and less directly the Churches of Ireland and Scotland. By its means civilization was extended into regions which, though inaccessible to the Roman arms, were brought by Roman missionaries into the Christian fold.
12. Gradually the Roman Empire decayed, and Britain suffered much from its growing weakness. Towards the end of the third
century the legions garrisoning distant provinces grew the Roman "^^ of hand, and, without regard for the central power power in in Italy, made and unmade emperors of their own.
Thus in 287, Carausius, a Roman admiral, allied him- self with bands of pirates, received the support of the soldiers, seized the government of Britain, and strove to make himself
master of the whole Roman world. He conquered
CSiFSiUSiOS
287-293 ' P^'^t of northern Gaul, but in 293 was slain by his and own chief minister, Alleotus, who ruled over Britain
293-29I' until he was slain in 296. It was to put down such disorders that Diocletian carried out his reforms in the administration, and Constantino, succeeding after a time to Diocletian's power, continued his general policy, though he took up a different line as regards religion. The reforms of Diocletian and the recognition of Christianity by Constantine kept the Roman Empire together for a century longer.
ROMAN BRITAIN
n
CALEDONIANS .e^^
ROMAN BRITAIN
Principal Roads sliouyn by
stouter lines thus:' ^■—
Forests tt^^ Marshes...
14 ROMAN BRITAIN [284-
13. Fresh troubles soon arose, which fell with special force on a remote province like Britain. Despite the frontier wall, bands of
fierce Caledonidus, by this time more often called Picis, Barbarian raided at their will the northern parts of the province, and the ' Swarms of Irishmen, then generally called Scots, efforts to similarly plundered the western coasts and efEect«d ttiem off. 1^'^S'® settlements in regions so wide apai-t as Cornwall,
Wales, and Galloway. An even worse danger came from the east, where swarms of pirates and adventurers from North Germany, called Saxons by Romans and Britons, devastated the coasts of the North Sea and Channel. To ward off these invaders the Romans set up a new military organization. A new military officer was appointed, called Count of the Saxon Shore (Gomes Uteris Saxonici), whose special duty it was to protect the region specially liable to these invasions. A series of forts, stretching from the Wash to Sussex, formed the centres of the Roman defence against the pirates; and the majestic ruins of Rutupiae (Richborough) in Kent, Anderida (Pevensey) in Sussex, and Gariannonum (Burgh Castle) in Sufiolk, show the solid strength of these last efforts to uphold the Roman power. At the same time the northern defence was reorganized, and the troops garrisoning the wall of Hadrian were put under another high military officer, called the Duke of the Britains (Dux Britanniarum), whOe the legionary army in its camps was commanded by the Count of the Britains {Comes Britanniai-um). AH these military changes date from the reign of Diocletian, and were parts of his great scheme for reinvigorating the empire.
14. Early in the fifth century the Roman Empire upon the con- tinent was overrun by fierce German tribes, anxious to find new
homes for themselves. The settlement of the Franks drawal of ^'^ northern Gaul cut off Britain from the heart of the the Roman empire, and Rome and Italy itseK were threatened, ifu)""^' With the Germans at the gates of Rome, it became
impossible for the emperors to find the men and money necessary for keeping up their authority in a distant land like Britain. After 410, the year which saw the sack of Rome by Alaric the Goth, the Romans ceased to send officials and troops to Britain. Henceforth the Britons were left to look after them- selves, and their entreaties to the emperors to help them in their distress were necessarily disregarded.
15. Roman rule had, however, lasted so long in Britain that the upper classes at least considered themselves Romans, and strove to carry on the government after the Roman fashion. To
-449-] SOMAN BRITAIN 1 5
them it did not seem that Britain had ceased to be Roman : but rather that they as Romans had to carry on Roman rule them- selves, without the help of the emperor or the other districts of the empire. It was soon found, however, j^eft fo''th°"^ that the Britons were not romanized enough to be own re- able to maintain the Roman system. The leaders did sourees,
, " 4il 0—41419
not work together, and gradually the old Celtic tribal
spirit revived in a fashion that made united action and organized
government very difficult.
16. Before long southern Britain began to split up iuto little tribal states, and this break up of unity made it possible for the barbarians, who had been withstood with difficulty aU ~j^ „, ^ through the previous century, to carry everything Sects, and before them. The Piots crossed the Roman wall, and Saxons, plundered and raided as they would. The Scots from Ireland estabKshed themselves along the west coast, and besides other settlements, effected so large a conquest of the western Highlands and islands outside the northern limits of the old provinces that a new Scotland grew up on British soil. Even more dangerous were the incursions of the Saxon invaders in the east. These were no longer simply plunderers, but, like the Pranks and Goths on the continent, wished to establish new homes for themselves in Britain. Before their constant incursions the Britons were gradually forced to give way. Within forty years of the with- drawal of the last Roman governors, the process of German conquest had begun.
17. The barbarian conquest went on gradually for about a century and a half, and by the end of it nearly every trace of Roman influence was removed. The ruius of Roman pg_~,__ent towns, villas, churches, and public buildings ; the stiU results of abiding lines of the network of Roman roads ; the con- Koman rule tinuance of the Christian faith among the free Britons ;
a few Roman words stUl surviving in the language of the Celtic- speaking Britons, and a few place-names (such as street from strata) among their Teutonic supplanters, were almost all that there was to prove the abiding traces of the great conquering people which had first brought our island into relation with the main stream of ancient civilization.
CHAPTER III
THE ENGLISH CONQUEST OF SOUTHERN
BRITAIN (449-607)
Chief Dates :
449. Jutes establislied in Kent. S16. Battle of Mount Badon. 577. Battle of Deorham. 607. Battle of Cheater.
1. The Teutonic invaders, who began to set up new homes for themselves in Britain after the middle of the fifth century, came
from northern Germany. Their original homes were conquest°of ° along the coasts of the North Sea, the lower courses Southern of the Elbe and Weser, and the isthmus that connects Britain. ^j^^ Danish peninsula with Germany. Though all
were very similiar in their language and manners, they were divided into three difflerent tribes — ^the Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles.
Of these the Jutes were the least important, though The Jutes. ^j^^^ ^^^^ ^-^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^-^^ ^ ^^^ island. They are
generally said to have come from Jutland, the Danish peninsula, which used to be explained as meaning the land of the Jutes. But there are difficulties in the way of accepting this view, and some people now believe that the Jutes came from the lower Weser, to the west of the other colonizers of Britain. The Saxons came from the lower Elbe, and were so numerous a group of tribes that before long nearly all the peoples of North Germany were called Saxons. The Angles A »le lived to the north of the Saxons, in the region now
called Holstein. So many of them crossed over to Britain that their name soon disappeared from Germany altogether. 2. Each of the invading tribes included many small states, ruled by petty kings or by elected magistrates, called aldermen. The new- comers had no common name and no common interests. Each little group lived in a vUlage apart from their neighbours, and aU of them were very warlike, fierce, and energetic. They had dwelt farther 16
449 ] ENGLISH CONQ VEST OF SO UTHERN BRITAIN 1 7
away from the Bomans than the other barbarian invaders of the empire, and were therefore much less influenced by Roman civi- lization than nations like the Franks and the Groths. .jj^g jnstjtu. For that reason they remained heathens, worshipping tions of the Woden, Thor, and the other battle-loving gods of the Invaders, old Germans. They had little of the respect for the Roman Empire which made the Teutonic conquerors of Gaul and Italy eager to be recognized by the emperors, and quick to learn many of the Roman ways. It resulted from this that they made a much cleaner sweep of Roman institutions than did their brethren on the conti- nent, and that the more since the Britons fought against them more vigorously and for a longer time than the Romans of Gaul or Italy against their invaders. Yet their conquest of Britain is but a part of that general movement called the Invasion of the Barbarians, or the Wandering of the Nations, which everywhere broke down the Roman power in western Europe. In fact, this was done more completely in Britain than anywhere else.
3. The invaders of Britain had no common name for themselves. Since the fourth century the Romans and Britons had called them all Saxons, and to this day the Celtic peoples of the j^^ begin- land, the Welsh, the Irish, and the Highland Scots, nlngs of stUl continue the Roman custom in their own tongues. England. But when the invaders had settled in Britain, and had begun to find the need of a common word to describe them all, they used the word Angle as a general name. Angle is only another form of English, and as this has remained ever since the name of all the new settlers and their descendants, it is perhaps better for us to call them English from the first. They are, however, sometimes styled the Anglo-Saxons — that is, the people formed by the union of the Angles and Saxons. For convenience' sake we shall use the word " English " in this broader sense, and keep the term " Angle " for the tribes who shared with the Jutes and Saxons in the conquest of Britain. The parts of Britain in which the new- comers, whether Angle Jute, or Saxon, settled, were henceforth England— thsA is, land of the English— and they were the fore- fathers of most modern Englishmen. As time went on, however, many people of British descent began to speak the English tongue and regard themselves as English ; and nowadays a great many Englishmen are in no wise descended from the old English.
5. We know very little of the fashion in which the English tribes came to Britain. There are famous legends of some aspects of the conquest, but it is impossible to say whether they are true
c
1 8 ENGLISH CONQ UEST OF SO UTHERN BRITAIN [449 "
or not, as they are first told many hundred years after the event. There is a well-known story of the first settlement of the new- comers in Britain. Yortigern, one of the British kings, we are told, foUowed the fashion of the Komans of the continent, who caUed in German warriors to help them to fight against their enemies. Attracted by the high pay that he offered, a tribe of Jutes, headed by their dukes, the brothers Hengist lnKentr449, and Horsa, came to the aid of Vortigern against and the Isle picts and Scots. But when they had done their work, of Wight. ijigtead of going home, they resolved to settle in the land of the Britons. In 449 they chased away the Britons, and established themselves in Kent, which thus became the first English settlement in Britain. Before long Kent became a kingdom, and Hengist and Horsa were its first kings. Some years later another Jutish settlement was effected in the Isle of Wight and on the south coast of what is now called Hampshire. These were the only Jutish conquests, and the very name of Jute was soon forgotten. Though Kent long remained a separate kingdom, the Jutes of Wight became absorbed in the larger population of Saxon settlers who established themselves all around them.
5. The Saxons conquered and settled southern and south-eastern Britain. The first Saxon settlement was made in 477, when a chief- tain named .ffiUe set up the kingdom of SMSsea; — that seUle^ents. i^' South Saxony— in the district that is represented by the later county of the name. A very famous incident of iEUe's conq[uest was the storming of the old Koman fortress of Anderida (Pevensey), one of the strongholds set up in the fourth century to protect the south coast from the Saxon pirates. At last it was to succTimb to the fierce ' ■ assaults of their descendants. Before long, M\^% and his men had set up new homes for themselves in the land of their choice. The great and pathless oak forest of the Weald cut them off from the Jutes, who settled to the east and west, and from other Saxon tribes that later sailed up the Thames and established the little kingdom of Bwrvey to their north. A more important conq[uest began in 495, when the Saxon chiefs, Cerdio and his son Cynric, landed at the head of Southampton water and began the kingdom of Wessex, or West Saxony. This was originally confitned to part of what is now Hamp- wessex, shire, but it gradually extended its limits, absorbing the Jutish kingdom of Wight and the Saxon kingdom of Surrey, and gaining still greater advantages at the expense of
-547] ENGLISH CONQUEST OF SOUTHERN BRITAIN I9
the Britons of the upper Thames and lower Severn valleys and of the regions of downs and hills that stretches from Hampshire west- wards. Thus, unlike Kent and Sussex, which remained in their original limits, the history of Wessex is from the beginning a history of constant expansion.
6. Other Saxon kingdoms were established on the eastern coast of England. The East Saxons set up the kingdom of Essex, and the Middle Saxons that of Middlesex, a petty state
that owed its sole importance to containing within Middlesex its limits the great trading city of London, whose commercial prosperity was checked rather than destroyed by the wave of barbarian conc[uest. Ultimately, however, Middlesex became absorbed in Essex, just as its southern neighbour, Surrey, was swallowed up in Wessex. Here the Saxon invasion was stayed.
7. The conquest of the east, the midlands, and the north was the work of the Angles. To the north of Essex, Anglian swarms peopled the lands between the great fens of the Ouse
vaUey and the coast of the North Sea. This region seUltmen^s. became the kingdom of Bast Anglia, or East England, and was divided geographically into a northern and southern portion, whose names are preserved in the modern counties of Norfolk — ^that is, land of the North folk— and Suffolk, the land of the South folk. Other Anglian bands made f ngjin. their way up the Trent valley, and gradually set up a series of small states in Middle England, extending southwards from the Humber to the northern boundaries of the Saxon settle- ments in the Thames valley. The history of these districts is very obscure, and is not preserved, as in the Saxon lands further south, by the names and limits of the modern shires. Of the many Anglian kingdoms of the midlands one only survived, and ulti- mately absorbed aU the others. This was the little uerciaand kingdom of Mercia — that is, the March or boundary the midland land — set up in the upper Trent valley, and stretching kingdoms, over the rough hill-land of Cannock chase towards the middle Severn valley, where the Britons long held their own. North of the Humber two weU-defined Anglian kingdoms grew up. These were Deira, or the southern kingdom, which jj^j^ j^y roughly corresponds to the modern Yorkshire, and the more northerly state of Bernicia, which stretched along the east coast from the Tees to the Firth of Forth, which was founded, it is said, by Ida in 547. Both these kingdoms had as their western boun- dary the wild uplands of the Pennine chain and its northern
20 ENGLISH CONQUEST OF SOUTHERN BRITAIN [516--
continuation, the Ettriok Forest. THs tangle of hiUs and moors was difficult for the invaders to traverse, and long protected the freedom of the Britons of the west coast between the Clyde and the Dee.
8. It took nearly a hundred and fifty years before the English settlements were completely established. The Britons, who fonght
very stubbornly to protect their liberties, remembered istte^of tti'e so much of the Roman discipline and organization that English they remained formidable foes to a series of disorderly
conquest. tribes, each consisting of a small number of warriors fighting for their own hands. The English brought over with them their wives and families, and aimed not simply at conquering their enemies, but sought to establish new homes for themselves. They brought with them their Teutonic speech, the parent of our English tongue. They preserved the manners, institutions, and religion which they had followed in their original homes in northern Germany.
9. The best and bravest of the Britons withdrew before the English and joined their brethren, who still remained masters
in the hills of the west. Such as remained in theBrUons ^^ ®^* ^^^ south, as slaves and dependants of the
conc[uerors, gradually lost their ancient tongue and institutions, and became one with the invaders. It shows how thorough the conquest was that the Christian religion, professed by all the Britons, was entirely rooted out in all the districts where the English established themselves. Luckily for the English, the Britons seldom acted together for any long time. The wiser Britons held fast to the Roman tradition of unity, and set up war- leaders who might take the place of the sometime Roman governors. The most famous of these was the great Celtic hero, King Arthur, Arthur and whose mighty victories stayed for a time the advance Mount of the English, and perhaps saved the Britons of the
Badon, 516. ^^^^ ^^^^ 1^^ f^^g pf ^j^gjj. brethren of the east. The
best known of Arthur's battles was fought at a place called Mcrtis Badonicus or Mount Badon, in about 516. Its situation is quite uncertain, but it is most probably to bo found somewhere in the south-west, possibly at Badbviry in Dorsetshire. It seems that Arthur's triumph was over the West Saxons, whose advance was stayed for nearly sixty years. But the Britons only united when compelled to do so to meet the English attacks. They split up into little tribal states, and, if the English had not themselves also been disunited, the invaders could have probably driven their foes into the sea. As it was, many of the more strenuous Britons scorned to live any longer in the land which
-6o7.] ENGLISH CONQUEST OF SOUTHERN BRITAIN 2 1
they shared with their Saxon enemies. There was so large an emigration of Britons to the Gaulish peninsula of Armorica, that that land obtained the new name of Brittamy or Tj,e eml- Britain, and to this day a large part of the inhabitants gration to of this little Britain beyond the sea continue to ^'''*tany. speak a Celtic tongue, very similar to the Welsh or Cornish, which their forefathers took with them to G-auI when they fled from the Saxon conquerors. Their withdrawal made easier the work of the English, and it speaks well for the toughness of the British resistance that so much of the island remained in their hands.
10. For about a century fresh swarms of English came to Britain from beyond sea. After that the migration ceased, but the stronger of the English kingdoms continued to j],g Bpjtons advance westwards at the expense of the Britons. The become the EngHsh did not call the Britons by that name, but de- W^^'^h. scribed them as the Welsh — ^that is, as the foreigners, or the speakers of a strange tongue. Gradually the Britons, who in the sixth century were still proud to call themselves Romans, took the name of the Cymi-y, or the Comrades, by which the Welsh are still known in their own language. A Welsh monk named Gildas, who lived in the sixth century, has written a gloomy picture of the state of Britain during the period of the English conquest. The heathen English were cruel and bloodthirsty ; but the Welsh were quarrel- some and divided, and Gildas regarded their defeat as the just punishment of their sins.
11. The warfare between Welsh and English still went on, and at last the Welsh received a rude shock from two English victories, which cut the British territories into three parts, and ^^ ^^^^ ^^ destroyed any hopes of future Celtic unity. The the period West Saxons gradually made their way westward from ''^j?,"^"^'l their original settlement in Hampshire, and in 577
Ceawlin, the West Saxon king, won a great battle over the Welsh at Deorham (Dyrham), in Gloucestershire, which led to their conquest of the lower Severn valley. Thirty years after this (607) the Bernician king, ^thelfrith, won a corresponding victory at Chester, which ptished forward the northern Anglian settlements to the Irish Channel, and transferred the lands between Eibble and Mersey from British to English hands. Up to these days the Welsh had ruled over the whole west from the Clyde to the English Channel. Henceforth they were out up into three groups. Of thege the northernmost was called Cv/mbria or Cumberland — that is, land of the Cymry or Welsh. This stretched from the
22 ENGLISH CONQUEST OF SOUTHERN BRITAIN [607
Clyde, the northern limit of the Britons, to the Rihhle, and was separated from Bernioia and Deira by the Pennine chain. The modern county of Cumherland still preserves for a Cumbpia. ^^^^ ^^ ^y^ ^^^^ j^g ancient name. Enclosed within this region was a colony of GoideUc Picts, in the extreme south- west of the modern Scotland, which derived from its Groidelic inhabitants its name of Galloway.
12. The central and chief British group of peoples is repre- sented by the modern Wales, and by a large stretch of land to the eastward, including the valley of the middle Severn, which has
since become English by a slow process of conquest North Wales. ^^^ absorption. Split up among several rival kings, this district lost, through its want of unity, some of the im- portance which it gained by its size and by the inaccessibility of its mountains. In early days the whole region was described as
North Wales — ^that is, Wales north of the Bristol And West Channel. This was to distinguish it from West Wales,
the country still held by the Britons in the south- west peninsula. Separated from North Wales by the West Saxon victory of Deorham, West Wales still included the whole of Corn- wall and Devonshire, and a good deal of Somerset. Both in North and West Wales there were occasional colonies of Groidelic- speaking Scots or Irish, who have left memorials of this tongue in the Irish inscriptions, written in a character called Oyham, found in many parts of Wales and Cornwall.
13. Thus was the old Roman diocese of Britain ujie(^ually divided
between the English and the Welsh. The great part of the district
north of the Forth and Clyde was in the hands of the Picts — a race
doubtless identical with the ancient Caledonians, and apparently
„, „, ^ made up of Goidelio tribes with a large Iberian inter-
The Picts.
mixture. But in the north-western parts of the
modern Scotland the Picts had been driven out by immigrant
Scots from Ireland, who had set up an independent kingdom of
the Scots in the western Highlands and islands,
running inland as far as the chain of liills called Drum- alban, which forms the watei'shed of the eastern and western seas. From these the north-west of Britain first got the name of Scotland, or land of the Scots ; but at first this term was
only given to a very small fragment of the modern to^um a, Scotland. Soon, however, the Scots began to influence
the Plots. Up to the sixth century the Picts, alone of the Celts, still remained heathen ; but Columba, the greatest of
ENGLISH CONQ VEST OF SO tJTH£.kN BRITAIN 2 3
SOUTH BRITAIN
after the English Conqaest (about 607.)
24 nmUSH CO^TQUEST OF SOUTHERM BRITAIN [597-
the Irish saints, settled down in a monastery in the little island of lona, among the British Scots, and devoted the rest of his life, until his death in 597, to the conversion of the Picts. Two and a half centuries after the Picts had learnt their faith from the Soots, they obtained a Scot for their king. In 844 Kenneth Mac Alpine (that is, son of Alpine), King of the Scots, succeeded through his Union of the mother to the Pictish kingdom beyond Drumalban. Picts and His successor continued to rule Pictland as well as Scots. Scotland, and as they were Scots by race, and the
difference between the two peoples was not very great, Picts and Scots were gradually fused into one people. The result was that the whole of the population north of Forth and Clyde acquired the name of Scots, and their country was called Scotland. For many centuries, however, the Irish continued to be called Scots, until at last confusion was avoided by the term becoming gradually restricted to their brethren in northern Britain.
14. By the end of the sixth century the British islands were settling down into something like their modern divisions.
There was an England, much smaller than modern of England, England, though extending further northwards to the Wales, Scot- Firth of Forth, and gradually making its way west- IrelanX"* ward at the expense of the Welsh. There was a Wales,
much bigger than the modern Wales, but cut into three portions by the fights at Chester and Deorham, with the result that the largest of the three, represented by the modern Wales, became in a special sense the representative of the ancient Britons. There was a new Scotland, comprising the lands beyond Forth and Clyde, and Ireland, though still a land of Scots, became quite separated from it.
15. In aU these districts, Anglian and Saxon, British and Goidelic, the land was split up into many small states, constantly Why Eng- ^^ ^^^' ^*^ ^^"^ other, and filling the country with land be- ceaseless confusion. While the Celtic states, owing to strongest ^^^ strength of the tribal system, seldom showed any
tendency to be drawn together, the English tribes, on the contrary, began almost from the beginning to unite with each other, and so bring about the beginnings of greater unity. The Celts were Christians, and infinitely more civilized and culti- vated than their enemies ; but they lacked the political capacity and persistent energy which made the English stronger in building up a state. The result was that supremacy fell more and more into English hands. Wliile the struggles of Celtic chieftains resulted
-844.] ENGLISH CONQUEST OF SOUTHERN BRITAIN 2?
in notliing at all save bloodshed and confusion, the e(jually cruel fighting between the English tribes led to the absorption of the weaker into the stronger kingdoms, and so prepared the way for the growth of English unity. This tendency became the more active when the conversion of the English to Christianity gave them a common faith and a common Church organization. In the next chapter we shall see how the early steps towards English unity were made, and how the English became Christians.
CHAPTER IV
THE EARLY OVERLORDSHIPS AND THE CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH TO CHRISTIANITY (597-821).
Chief Dates :
S97. Death of St. Columba and landing of St. Augustine.
627. Conversion of Edwin.
664. Synod of Whitby.
668. Theodore, Archbishop of Canterburj'.
685. Death of Ecgfrith.
757- Death of Ethelbald of Meicia.
796. Death of OfEa.
821. Death of Cenulf.
1. We have seen kow numerous were tlie kingdoms set up by the English, who conc[uered southern Britain. The settlement was,
however, hardly completed when a strong tendency steps to- towards amalgamation set in among them. In aU wards Eng- oases the union of kingdoms was due to conquest hy a lish Unity. stronger and more vigorous king. It was rarely, how- ever, that such a monarch was able to eflect a complete suhjection of his weaker neighbours. In most instances he was content with forcing his defeated enemy to acknowledge his superiority, and perhaps to pay him tribute. Thus more frec[uent than downright
conquests of one kingdom by another *as the establish- Q„t^^^. ment of such overlordships on the part of a more ships of one vigorous state over feebler kingdoms. Of brief duration state over ^^^ indefinite meaning, these overlordships were of
importance in preparing the way to more complete con- c^uest. By these processes the original kingdoms of the settlers were by the early part of the seventh century reduced to seven in
number. These were the states long known as the He^t^arehv Septarchy, a word intended to mean a land divided
into seven kingdoms. In reality, however, the " Hep-
tarchic " states represent not the first but the second stage of the 26
655-] THE EARLY OVERLORDSHIPS 27
history of the English, in. Britain. They were Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, and Snssex, and among them the first three were very much stronger than the last four.
2. Northumbria, or Northumberland — that is, the land north of the Humber — ^was formed by JEtheHrith, king of Bernicia (593-617), conquering his southern neighbours in
Deira, and driving their king into exile. It was the The stpongep great power gained by ^thelfrith after this victory Nopthumbria which enabled him to defeat the Welsh at Chester, and imdep add the lands between Ribble and Dee to his kingdom. 593-617 But he had so much to do fighting the Welsh and Soots that he had little leisure to concern himself with the affairs of his southern neighbours.
3. In the south, Ceawlin, king of the West Saxons (560-693), played rather earlier a similar part to that of JEthelfrith in the north. Wessex had long been extending itself
beyond its original scanty limits. It absorbed the under Jutish kingdom of Wight and the Saxon kingdom of Ceawlin, Surrey ; but its main advance was at the expense of 6O-593. the Welsh. By this time the districts now comprised in Wiltshire, Berkshire, and Dorsetshire had been added to Cerdic's original kingdom. Moreover, for a time, Wessex crossed the middle and upper Thames, and extended into midland districts that finally became Mercian. The victory of Deorham made Gloucestershire and part of Somerset included within Wessex, so that Ceawlin is as much the creator of the later Wessex as ^thelfrith is of Northumbria.
4. More than a generation after this, a similar process in the midlands created a third great English state iu Mercia. Up to the days of its king, Penda (626-655), Mercia was only uepeia undep a little AngHan kingdom in the upper Trent valley. Penda,
By a series of successful wars, Penda destroyed the " power of nearly all the other Anglian monarchs in middle England. Moreover, he wrested from the West Saxons some of their conquests from the Welsh in the lower Severn valley, and took from the Nor- thumbrians a good deal of what ^thelfrith had won at Chester. The result of his work was to create a greater Mercia that included the whole of middle England. So completely was this conquest effected that the very names and boundaries of the kingdoms conquered by Penda became almost forgotten.
5. Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex became the three great English states ; but the little kingdoms of the south-east. Bast
28 TBE EARLY OVERLORDS HIPS [597"
Anglia, Essex, Kent, and Sussex, were so well established and so clearly marked out by natural boundaries tiat tiiey long The king- continued to maiutain their individuality. Downright doms of the conquest was here extremely difficult, but the abler south-east, jjjjjgg succeeded in turn in setting up an overlord- ship over their neighbours. Sussex and Essex were too weak to accomplish anything, but one vigorous king gave to Kent, and another procured for East Anglia, a brief period of supremacy. Profiting by the confusion that fell over Wessex after Ceawlin's Ethelbert death, Ethelbert, king of the Kentishmen, defeated and Red- his West Saxon neighbours and ruled as overlord wald, 616. p^gj. ^jj^g kingdoms of the south-east. His power is shown by the fact that he was the first English king who had any dealings with the continent, choosing as his wife, Bertha, the daughter of one of the Frankish kings ruling over G-aul. On Ethelbert's death in 616, his power passed to Redwald, the king of the East Anglians. To Ceawlin, Ethelbert, and Kedwald the name of Bretwalda, or ruler of the Britons, has sometimes been given by later writers. It has, of course, no appropriateness except in the case of the conqueror of the Britons at Deorham, but it shows the impression left by their power.
6. Though planted for a century and a half in a land once Christian, the English still remained heathens at the end of the
sixth century. They scorned to accept the religion Church °^ ^^® conquered Britons, and the Welsh had no wish
to share with their hated supplanters the benefits of their faith. Yet the Welsh were ardent Christians, and the Welsh Church attained the highest of its power and influence by this period. It was the g-reat age of the Welsh saints, such as David, the founder of the bishopric of St. David's; Daniel, first bishop of Bangor ; Dyvrig, bishop of LlandafE, and Kentigern, first bishop of G-lasgow, then a British town, and afterwards the founder of the see called from his disciple and successor, St. Asaph. Even more flourishing was the state of the Church in Ireland, where Columba, the missionary of the Picts and the founder of the abbey of lona, was the greatest of a long catalogue of Irish saiuts. Celtic Britain was, however, so far cut off from the continent that it developed during these years a type of Christianity of its own, differing in some respects from the Church of the western world, which was attaining increased unity and vigour under the supre- macy of the popes or bishops of Rome. The Celtic Church took little heed of what the Roman Church was doing. It celebrated
-6i6.] THE CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH 29
the Easter feast according to a difEerent calculation from that which was accepted on the continent. It was so much influenced by the monastic movement that the bishops of the Church, especially in Ireland, became in practice subordinate to the abbots, who, though simple priests, ruled over the great houses of religion that Celtic piety had established. Thus Columba, priest and abbot only, governed all the churches of the Scots of the Highlands and also over his converts the Picts. His death in 597 is doubly memorable because in that same year the first effort was made to preach Christianity to the English.
7. Bertha, the wife of Ethelbert of Kent, was, like all the Franks, a Christian, and a Christian bishop went over with her to Kent as her chaplain. For his wife's use Ethelbert
set apart a church, deserted since the English con- Ethelbe^f ^ quest, which still remained erect in the old Roman city of Durovernum, from which Ethelbert ruled over the Kentish- men, and which the English now called Canterbury — that is, the borough of the Kentishmen. But though tolerant to his wife's faith, he showed no disposition to embrace it.
8. The power of Home stiU counted for much, and the Roman Empire, after it had ceased to rule the West, still went on in the East, though the emperors had abandoned Italy, and Gregory the now lived at Constantinople. Their withdrawal made Great and the pope the greatest man in Rome, and by this time Augustine, the influence of Rome in the West meant that of the Roman bishop even more than that of the emperor. It happened that one of the greatest of all the popes was ruling the Church while Ethelbert was king of Kent. This was Gregory i., or the Great, whose high character, strong will, and profound earnestness did much to extend permanently the iufluence of the Roman see over Christendom. Gregory still looked upon Britain as part of the Roman Empire, and was pained that a once Christian province had fallen largely into the hands of heathen barbarians. Accordingly he set Augustiue, abbot of a Roman monastery which Gregory himself had founded, at the head of a band, of monks, and in- structed them to make their way to Britain and preach the gospel to the English heathens. In 597 Augustine and his companions landed in Kent, at Ebbsfleet in Thanet, where it was believed that Hengist and Horsa had landed a century and a half earlier. Ethelbert welcomed the missionaries, and allowed them to preach freely to all who chose to listen to them. Meanwhile the monks lived at Canterbury, hard by the king's court, and before long the
30 THE EARLY OVERLORDSHIPS [397"
example of their pious and unselfish lives induced Ethelbert and The conver- '^°®* °^ ^* subjects to receive baptism. After the siou of king's conversion Augustine crossed over to G-aul,
Kent, 597, whence he soon came back to England as archbishop ssex. ^^ ^^ English Church. He built his cathedral at Canterbury, which, as the capital of the iirst Christian king among the English, remained ever after the chief bishopric of the English Church. Before long another bishopric was set up at Rochester, which, as its name shows, was also an old Roman city, and before long the new faith spread beyond Kent to the dependent kingdom of Essex, over which Ethelbert's influence was strong. The East Saxon bishopric was set up at London, the commercial capital of the land since Roman times.
9. Before long the East Angles began to turn Christians also, but their king, Redwald, though professing the Christian faith, The convep- ^° continued to worship idols. Redwald was a strong sion of ruler, and after Ethelbert's death the overlordship of ^'^rt'th' ^^^' south-eastern Britain passed over to him. He gave supremacy shelter to Edwin, son of the king of Deira, whom of Nopthum- ^theKrith of Bernicia drove out of his home when
he united the northern kingdoms with Northumbria. .Slthelfrith went to war against Redwald when he refused to yield up the fugitive, but at a battle on the Idle, near Retford, JEthel- frith was slain. Thereupon, with Redwald's help, Edwin made himself king over aU Northumbria. He married the daughter of Ethelbert of Kent, whose name was Ethelburga. Being a Christian this lady took with her to her husband's court at York a Christian monk, called Paulinus, as her chaplain. Before long the influence of his wife and Paulinus prevailed over Edwin, and in 627 the Northumbrian king received baptism from Paulinus, who was soon consecrated archbishop of York. In a short time most of Beginnings ^^^^^ '^^ '^'^^ o^^^ '^ '^'^ ^6w faith. This triumph of the Nor- was the more important since the newly converted ruler thumbpian soon proved a mighty warrior. When Redwald died, p. j]^^jj^ became the strongest of the kings of the Eng- lish. Under him a more real overlordship over the lesser kingdoms was set up than that which had prevailed under any earlier monarchs. To him and his two successors the title of Bretwalda was also sometimes given. '
10. Augustine was already dead, but Paulinus was one of his followers, and his conversion of the Deirans was the greatest result of the mission which his master had led from Rome to England.
-635.] THE CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH 3 1
To have done so much in so short a time might well seem to be
a great success ; but Pope Gregory had formed even more ambi'
tious schemes for Augustine than the good monk was
able to carry out. Gregory expected Augustine to suece^ss°of ^
convert aU the English, to make friends with the the Augus-
British Christians, and to set up two archbishops and *'"'*"
mission twenty-four bishops, under whom the whole Church of
Britain was to be governed. But Augustine had only taught Chris- tianity to the little kingdoms of the south-east, and, though he met some of the Welsh bishops at a conference, he had been unable to establish friendly relations with them. They rejected his claims to be their superior, and Augustine, denouncing them as schismatics who stood outside the true Church, prophesied terrible disasters if they would not join with him in converting the English. The victory of the heathen .ffithelfrith over the Welsh a few years later at Chester seemed to the Christians of Kent only a fulfilment of Augustine's prophecy. Under these circumstances there was no chance of carrying out Gregory's scheme for bringing aU the Churches of Britain into one fold.
11. Even in Kent and Essex many fell away from the faith after Augustine's death. The English converts found that the Christian missionaries wished them to give up many penda and of their old customs, and held up to their admiration the heathen humble and weak saints whom they despised as ''s^'^tion. useless for fighting. A great heathen reaction arose, and the old king of the Mercians, Penda, whose victories had made him master of central England, made himself the champion of the grim gods of pagan Germany. The power of the Christian king, Edwin, had grown so great that aU his neighbours were afraid of him, and Penda hated Edwin both as a Christian and as the enemy of Mercia. Edwin had also won victories over the Welsh, and harried the Welsh king, Cadwallon, so much that he forgot his Christian faith, and made a league with the heathen Penda against the Northum- brians. It was the first time that Englishmen and Battle of Welshmen had fought on the same side, after nearly Heathfleld, two centuries of bitter hostility. The combination
was irresistible. In 633 Penda and Cadwallon defeated and slew Edwin at the battle of Heathfield, in southern Yorkshire.
12. For a year Welsh and Mercians cruelly devas- Oswald of tated Northumbria. Christianity was almost blotted Northum- out, and Paulinus fled to Kent, where he died bishop *"■'*•
of the little see of Rochester. In 635, however, a saviour arose
32 THE EARLY OVERLORDSHIPS [635-
for the north in Oswald, the son of the mighty JEthelfrith, who, on Edwin's accession, had been driven into exile among the Scots of Britain. In a battle at Heavenfield, near the Roman wall, Oswald overthrew the British king, and henceforth reigned as king over the Northumbrians. Cadwallon was the last British king who was able to seriously check the course of the English conquest. After his death the "Welsh of Cumbria were forced to accept Oswald as their lord. Thus, though Penda was still xmsubdued, the son of JEthelfrith succeeded to most of the power of his rival Edwin.
13. Oswald was as good a Christian as Edwin, and, after his accession, the new faith was once more preached in Northumbria. Aldan and ^"^* Oswald had learnt his religion after a different the Scottish fashion from that in which his predecessor had been mission. taught. He had been instructed in the faith at lona, the great Scottish island monastery where the successor of Columba still ruled over the Churches of the north ; and when he became king, Scottish monks from lona came at his bidding into Northumbria, and took up the work laid down by the Roman mis- sionaries. Their chief, Aidan, became bishop of the Northumbrias, and set up his cathedral in the little island of Lindisfarne, ofE the coast of Bernicia. Before long his zeal and piety had won most of Bernioia to the Christian faith.
14. The work of Oswald and Aidan was soon out short. In 642 there was a fresh war with the Mercians, and Penda slew Oswald
at the battle of Maserfleld, near Oswestry. Again there Oswiu^" was a period of terrible confusion in Northumbria,
but again a strong king was found in Oswald's brother Oswiu, who in 655 defeated and killed Penda at Winwood. On the Mercian's death the Northumbrian overlordship, which had gone on fitfully despite the victories of the heathen king, was established on a more solid basis than ever. It lasted for the rest of Oswiu's reig-n, and also for that of his son and successor, Ecgfrith. During this period the conversion of the English was completed, and the Church established on a firm and solid footing.
15. Even during Penda's lifetime the Christian missionaries had no need to despair. Though no saint like Oswald, Oswiu was The final ^ good friend of the Christians, and even in Mercia oonvepsion the new religion had made such progress that in his of Nopthum- old age Penda had been compelled to tolerate it.
Penda's son and successor was a Christian, and wel- comed the Scottish and Northumbrian missionaries that Oswiu sent to his people. The most famous of these was Ceadda, or
-664.] THE CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH 33
Chad, who became famous as the apostle of Mercia and the patron saint of the Mercian bishopric at Lichfield. Though an English- man, Chad had been brought up by Scottish monks, and thus was friendly to the customs of the Celtic Church.
16. By this time the other English kingdoms had become Christian also. Some of them were converted by Scottish mis- sionaries ; others by Roman teachers from Kent or the _, continent. Thus East Anglia was won over by Felix, eonversion a Burgundian ; "Wessex by Birinus, a E.oman ; while °^ '•'^ ^^^^ Gedd, a brother of Chad, had revived the waning °^ ^"Sf'^'"'*- faith of the East Saxons ; and Wilfrid of Eipon, a Northumbrian monk who was an eager friend of the Roman usages, converted the South Saxons, the last Englishmen to give up their ancient gods. But there was no order or method in this piecemeal process of conversion. Each state had its own bishop, whether it was a great state like Mercia, or a little state like Sussex. The successor of Augrustiae at Canterbury, though still called arch- bishop, had small power outside Kent, and was in practice little more than bishop of the Kentishmen. AU over the north and midlands there were eager champions both of the Roman and of the Scottish Easter, and it seemed as if the war between Christian and heathen was only to be succeeded by war between the two rival forms of Christianity.
17. Oswiu was only a rough warrior, but he saw the need of stopping the conflict of Scot and Roman, and in 664 summoned a synod, or Church council, of both parties in the
Church to Streoneshalch, on the coast of Deira, better ^y°|jy 664. known by its later Danish name of Whitby. His object in doing this was that he might hear what was to be said in favour of their teaching, and so make up his mind as to which form of the faith he should adopt. The chief point of dispute was the right time of celebrating Easter. WiKrid of Ripon upheld the Roman usage ; the Scottish bishop Colman, Aidan'a successor at Lindisfarne, pleaded for the traditions of Columba, and Chad of Lichfield sought to mediate between the two. At last Oswiu declared in favour of the Roman Easter, whereupon Colman and the Scots withdrew to lona. Oswiu was strong enough to make aU England accept his decision, and this secured that English Christianity should follow Rome and not lona. This was a good thing, for though the Scottish monks were the saintUest of men and the best of missionaries, their Church had more faith and enthusiasm than order or method. In declaring for the Roman Easter, Oswiu
D
34 ■ THE CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH [664-
prevented the English Church being cut off from the Church of the world at large. He secured for England the priceless blessings of order and ciTilization, which were in those days represented by Rome. Before long the Roman Easter was accepted even by the Scots and Britons. Thus all the Churches of the British Islands were brought into the same system.
18. Four years after the synod of Whitby, a Grreek, Theodore of Tarsus, a native of the city where St. Paul had been bom, Th k f ^^^ ^^^ from Rome as archbishop of Canterbury. Theodore Theodore was a much wiser and stronger man than of Tarsus, any of the other early bishops of the English. He
made friends with Oswiu, and after that king's death in 671, became equally intimate with his son Bcgfrith. Archbishop for more than twenty years, Theodore was able, before his death in 690, to organize the English Church in a very satisfactory fashion. He divided all England into bishoprics, and set up several different bishops in each of the three great kingdoms. He forced every bishop in England to pay obedience to the archbishop of Canter- bury, who in those days was the only archbishop in the land. He set up schools for the training of the clergy, and took care that each bishop should have a number of priests and monks to work xmder him. It has sometimes been said that Theodore divided England into parishes, each under its priest ; but this was done very gradually, and not until long after Theodore's day. Theodore also provided that the clergy of the English Church should meet from time to time in national councUs. This was very important, since it brought Englishmen, subject to different kings, into close contact with each other. Thus Theodore united England under a single Church long before she had become united into a single kingdom. He could not have done his work so effectively but for the power of the Northumbrian kings, whose overlordship was a real step towards political unity.
19. From Theodore's time onward, the English Church pros- pered greatly. It soon became unnecessary for England to get its The glories ^i^^iops from abroad, and Theodore's successors were of the Old nearly aU EngHshmen. During the eighth century ^"sHsh the Church of England became a pattern to all the
West. It sent out missionaries who made Germany a Christian land, the chief of these being Boniface, the first archbishop of Mainz, who did for the German Church what Theodore did for the Church of England. Famous monasteries and schools arose in Eng- land, and especially in Northumbria, which were flUed with learned
-685.] THE EARLY OVERLORDSHIPS 35
and pious men. In one monastery at "WMtby, ruled by a royal abbess named Hilda, dwelt Caedmon, a poor lay brother, whose rare gift for song made him the greatest of the old English poets. In another, Jarrow-on-the-Tyne, lived the monk Bede, the first English historian, whose Ecclesiastical History of the English People tells us nearly aU that we know of our history up to his own life- time. Auother distinguished EngKshman of those days was Egbert, bishop of York, who won back for his Church the position of an archbishopric, which it had held under Paulinus, though for many centuries the archbishops of York were bound to profess obedience to the archbishops of Canterbury. Under Egbert the schools of York became very famous, and one of their disciples, Alcuin, was so well known for his learning that he was called from York to Graul to be the head of the school which Charles the Great, the famous king of the Franks, set up in his palace. Thus England, which previously had been barbarous and ignorant, became, after its conversion, a centre of light and learning to all western Europe.
20. The eighth century was the great age of the Northiunbrian Church, but the Northumbrian political supremacy had utterly passed away. Oswiu was the last Northumbrian king to be caUed Bretwalda, though his son Ecgfrith (671- g^f -685* 686) was not much less powerful than his father. In and the fall 685, however, Ecgfrith tried to conquer the Plots, but of Northum- was defeated, and met his death at the battle of supremacy. Nectansmere. None of his successors were strong enough even to rule his own kingdom.
GENEALOGY OF CHIEF NOETHUMBKIAN KINGS jEthelfeith.
!
I
Oswald. Oswiu.
I
ECGFKITH.
21. Mercia soon stepped into the place of supremacy left vacant by the fall of Northumbrian greatness. Ever since the victories of Penda she had been a great state, 'though over- The Mercian shadowed by the superior power of the Northumbrians, overlord- For the greater part of the eighth century Mercia ^'"P' was by far the strongest of all the English kingdoms. During most
36 THE EARLY OVERLORDSHIPS [716-
of tliis period she was ruled by two great kings, each of whom Under reigned for an exceptionally long period. The first of
Ethelbald, these, Ethelbald (716-757), became so powerful that 716-757. j^g ^^ j^p^ content to be called king of the Mercians, but styled himself "king of all the South EngKsh." Under his
Sketch Map showing position of Nectansmere.
successor, OfEa the Mighty (757-796), the Mercian supremacy attained its culminating point. Offa drove the 75'?-796*' Northumbrians out of the lands that now form southern Lancashire, and incorporated them with his kingdom. He conquered from the West Saxons all their territories north of the Thames, which henceforward remained the boundary of the two states. He made Shrewsbury an English town, driving the Welsh from the middle Severn valley, and digging, it is said, a deep ditch and mound, called Offds Dyke, between the mouth of the Dee and the mouth of the Wye, to separate Mercia and Wales. He slew the king of the East Angles, and annexed Kent. He appointed two sons-in-law as dependent kings over Wessex and If orthumbria. In every way he exercised more authority over the rest of England than any king before his days. He was one of the few Old English kings powerful enough to have much
-796.]
TtIM EARLY OVERLORDSHIPS
17
influence beyond sea. The great Frankish king, Charles the Great, was his friend, and often corresponded with him. Though a fierce warrior, like all the great Mercians, OfEa was a good friend of the Church, and built the abbey of St. Alban's in honour of
Emery ^ydltte^ &>:..
the first British martyr. OfBa thought it unworthy of the great- ness of Mercia that it should be subject to an archbishop who lived outside Mercia. He therefore persuaded the pope to make Lichfield, the chief Mercian see, an archbishopric. If this plan had succeeded, each of the three chief states of England would have
38 THE EARLY OVERLORDSHIPS fSzi.
had an archbishop of its own, for Northmnbria had its primate at York, and Canterbury, cut off from ruling the Midlands, would soon have become the archbishopric of the West Saxons only. The result of this would have been to destroy the unity of the English Church as established by Theodore. Luckily Offa's plan did not last long, for only one archbishop ever sat at Lichfield.
22. Offa's successor, Cenulf (796-821), was less powerful than he, and was so much afraid of the persistent hostility of Canterbury that he gave up the plan of making Lichfield an arch- 793-821 bishopric. When Cenulf died, Meroia fell into anarchy,
and the fall just as Northumbria had done after the death of orMercia. Ecgfrith. Supremacy depended mainly on the character of the king, and no kingdom had the good luck to have an uninterrupted succession of kings strong enough to rule their naighbours. But each fresh overlordship was a fresh step towards the unity of England, and Offa had done much towards it by breaking down the power of the lesser kingdoms. The smaller " heptarchic " states had by this time ceased to have amy real independence. Only the three great states counted any longer. Of these Northumbria and Mercia had exhausted themselves, so that soon after CenuK's death supremacy once moi'e passed south- wards, when the supremacy of Wessex succeeded upon that of the midland and the northern kingdoms.
CHAPTER V
THE WEST SAXON OVERLORDSHIP AND THE DANISH INVASIONS (802-899)
Chief Dates :
802. Accession of Egbert.
825. Battle of EllaDdune.
858. Death of Ethelwulf.
871. Alfred's year of battles.
878. Treaty of Chippenham.
886. Alfred and Guthrnm's Peace.
899. Death of Alfred.
911. Normandj'' established.
1. DiTBixG the Northumbrian overlordship Wessex was steadily making its way westwards at the expense of the "West Welsh, and eastwards at the cost of the little Saxon and Jutish kingdoms of the south-east. Its progress was stayed ^^ '''^^ °*^ for a, time when its neighbour, Mercia, replaced Northumbria as the supreme state among the English. During this period Wessex was forced to surrender to Mercia the West Saxon lands north of the Thames and its supremacy over Kent and the little kingdoms of the south-east. On the west, however, Wessex did not cease its gradual conquests over the West Welsh. It was during the eighth century that Wessex added to its posses- sions all that is now Somersetshire and the south-east pai'ts of Devonshire, including Exeter and Crediton.
2! The worst blow to West Saxon, power was when Offa set up his son-in-law as its king, and drove beyond the seas the .Sithel- ing (prince) Egbert, who was forced to live many xhe reign years as an exile at the court of Charles the Great, of Egbert, the king of the Franks. When Egbert was still with 802-839. Charles, the great Erankish king was crowned Roman emperor at Home on Christmas Day, 800, by the pope. Two years later, after his rival's death, Egbert was called home to be made king of the West Saxons (802). A skUful statesman and a bold warrior, he employed the first years of his reign in waging war against the
39
40 THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES [825-
West Welsh, whose power he broke for ever, conquering' all Devonshire up to the Tamar, and forcing the still unsubdued Comishmen to pay him tribute. After Cenulf's death in 821, Mercia fell into such confusion that Egbert was tempted to attack
it. In 825 he defeated the Mercians at a great battle of the'wfs\ ^^ Ellandune (Ellingdon near Swindon), in Wiltshire. Saxon supre- The Mercian supremacy collapsed in that single day, maey, 825. ^^^ henceforth Egbert was overlord, or Bretwalda, over all the English and most of the Welsh. Kent, Sussex, Essex were reconquered by Wessex; East Anglia, in its hatred of Mercia, wiUingly yielded to West Saxon supremacy ; the Nor- thumbrians submitted as soon* as a West Saxon army approached their southern frontier; and the Welsh of North Wales were forced to make humble submission. Thus began that West Saxon overlordship out of which ultimately grew the tmited English monarchy.
3. Despite all his triumphs, Egbert did not die in peace. Though no foes ventured to stand up against him in Britain, new „ . , enemies came from beyond the sea, whose ravages
of the soon threatened to undermine the West Saxon power.
Danish in- After some centuries of rest, fresh swarms of Teutonic
barbarians began to seek for spoil in the lands which had once acknowledged Rome as their master. These were the fierce pirates known in England as Danes, in Germany as East- men, and Gaul as the Northmen. They came from Scandinavia, both from Norway and from Denmark. These regions were at this period much in the same condition as North Germany had been four centuries before, when it sent the Angles and Saxons to the shores of Britain. The country was too poor and remote to satisfy the wants of its inhabitants, who gradually got into the habit of seeking plunder and adventure at the expense of more fertile and sunny districts. The road by land southwards to the continent was blocked by the armies of Charles the Great, so the Norsemen took to the sea, and sought out the coasts of Britain and Ireland as places where booty might be won at no great risk to themselves. Greedy, ferocious, but terribly efficient, they could generally break down the resistance offered to them. They were still heathens, and took special delight in plundering Christian churches and monasteries. Before Offa's death they had begun to devastate Northumbria. In the latter years of Egbert they ventured to attack Wessex itself. The Cornish Welsh were so afraid of Egbert that they gladly made common cause with the new-comers.
-872.] THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES 4 1
Egbert's last victory was gained at Hengston Down, in East Corn- wall, over a joint force of Danes and Cornislinien.
4. Two years afterwards, in 839, the great king died, leaving to Ids pious and gentle son, Ethelwulf (839-858), the task of dealing with these terrible foes. Ethelwulf was a weU-mean- yjjg reign of ing king, but he was not strong enough to uphold Ethelwulf, West Saxon supremacy against such formidable rivals. ^^^'^S^- He gained some victories over them, but the pirates soon found that they had only to persevere in their incursions to obtain what they sought. At first they had come in summer-time as plunderers, and were content to sail home in aulTimn, with their ships laden with booty, that they might revel in their own homes all through the dark and long northern winter. Before long they began to winter in England, and thereby found that the land was a pleasanter place to live in than their own country. Thus, like the English before them, they ceased to be mere plunderers, and began to wish to make settlements.
5. Great chang-es in Scandinavia soon increased the desire of the Danes to win new homes outside their mother-oouutry. Up to this time Danes and Norsemen had been split up into a ^j^g Norse large number of little states, ruled by petty chieftains, migpations called mrfe. But now some of the chieftains proved °'^ ^^ ninth themselves stronger than their rivals, fought against
them, and conquered them after the same fashion in which some of the English kingdoms were constantly bringing their weaker neighbours into subjection. Before long there was a single king governing all Norway, another all Denmark, and another aU Sweden. The most famous of these was Harold Fairhair (860-872), the first king of all Norway. So sternly did Harold rule over the cpnquered tribes that the freedom-loving Norse- men bitterly resented his supremacy. As they were unable to overthrow him in his own land, many of them abandoned their native valleys, and sought out new abodes for themselves in the lands which they had already got to know during their plundering expeditions. Thus the latter part of the ninth century saw a great Norse inigration, which profoundly affected the whole of western Europe. The first places chosen for these new settlements were the islands that were nearest to the coasts of Norway. After this fashion Iceland, hitherto almost uninhabited, became a Norse island, and ultimately the special home of the bravest, strongest, and most typical of the Scandinavian race. Some of the Norsemen made their way beyond Iceland, settled in Greenland, and sent
42
THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES
[858-
out explorers, who discovered, six centuries before Columljus, tlie
continent of North America. The dis- tricts at which they touched, which were afterwards called New England, they called VMand, the land of the vine.
6. More important for us than the move- ment westward was the migi-ation south- ward, which now made the 'Faroe Islands, OrTcney and Shetland the homes of Norse settlers. Be- fore long the hardy seamen made their way to the coasts of Britain. They estab- lished themselves on the mainland of the extreme north, driv- ing out the Celts from the northern parts of the modern Scotland, and estabKshing the Norse tongue and the Norse people in. Caith- ness and Sutherland. This latter district, the south land, marked the southern limit of their settlements on the mainland. But along' the western sea- board of Scotland the Norsemen penetrated very much further. They settled in the
-871 ] THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES 43
Hebrides, and pushed their way from island to ishind until they had conquered the Isle of Man. Ireland, which had learnt nothing- from the Romans save the Christian faith, and had „^ „
, »~— - ^Jjg NOFS6
stood outside the rang-e of the English conquest, was settlements now at last brought into the general current of great '" Celtic European movements by the establishment of Norse ^° ^' settlements upon its coasts. However, in Ireland, as in the Hebrides and southern islands, the invaders did not utterly dis- place the former inhabitants as the English had done in south- eastern Britain, and the Norse in Orkney, Shetland, and Caithness. Side by side with the new Danish states, the old Celtic tribal states still lived on ; and perpetual wars were waged for many centuries between the new-comers and the older inhabitants.
7. At last South Britain itself was exposed to the Norse migration. The dependent kingdoms of the north-east of England were not strong enough to resist it, and before long
East Anglia, southern Northumbria, and the northern settlements
parts of Mercia were conquered by the Danes. Nor in England
were the British islands alone exposed to Danish settle- and the
continent, ment. Other swarms of Norsemen sought out new
abodes on the Continent. A Swedish chief, named Rurik, conquered the Slavs on the east of the Baltic, and laid the foundations of the modern Russia. In the next generation they set up a Scandi- navian state upon the north coast of Gaul, which took the name of Normandy, or land of the Northmen.
8. Wessex was the last English state to feel the impact of the victorious Scandinavians. Yet even in Ethelwulf 's lifetime Danish armies had taken up their winter quarters within his dominions, as, for example, in 855, when the Northmen o„^;i^essex. settled for the cold season in Sheppey, an island ofi
the coast of Kent, which had now virtually become a part of the West Saxon realm. During the short reigns of Ethelwulf's sons the full force of the Norse migration threatened Wessex with the fate of East Anglia and Mercia.
9. Ethelwulf died in 858, and was succeeded by Ms four sons in succession. After the Frankish fashion, he divided his dominions, making his eldest son, Ethelbald, king of the West j^e sons of Saxons, while Ethelbert, the second, became under- Ethelwulf, king of Kent. But after a short reign of two years ^°°'^^^- Ethelbald died, whereupon Ethelbert became king of Wessex from 860 to 866. He was in turn succeeded by Ethelred, king of Wessex from 866 to 871. On Ethelred's death, Alfred obtained possession
44 THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES [871-
of tte throne, and ruled until 899. During the first three of these reigns the Danes perpetually troubled Wessex ; but it was not untU the last year of Ethelred's reign that they began the systematic conquest of that kingdom. Ethebed, a, strenuous and mighty warrior, withstood the invaders with rare spirit and with partial success, and was ably supported by his younger brother, Alfred's t^^e ^theling Alfred. In one memorable year, 871, the
year of West Saxons fought nine pitched battles against the
battles, 871. jjangs. The most famous of these was the battle of Ashdown on the Berkshire downs, where the invaders were so rudely repulsed that they withdrew for a time to their camp at Reading. Within a fortnight, however, they resumed the attack, and, after another fierce fight, Ethelred died, worn out with the strain and exposure involved in the resistance to them. Alfred, his feUow-worker, then a young man of twenty-three, at once assumed the monarchy of the West Saxons. He assailed the Danes so fiercely that they were glad to make peace and withdraw over the Thames. Eor the next few years they left Wessex to itself. During tliis period they completed the conquest of Mercia by dividing its lands amongst their leaders. When this process was once accomplished, Wessex was once more to feel the weight of their power.
10. In January, 878, the Danes again invaded Wessex. They were led by a famous chieftain, Guthrum, and fought under a Alfred saves hanner bearing the sign of a raven. It was unusual Wessex, in those days to fight in winter, and Alfred was un- *^^" prepared for their sudden onslaught. He was driven
from Chippenham, where he was residing, and forced to withdraw, while the enemy overran his kingdom. But even in this crisis he kept up his courage. With a little band he made his way by wood and swamp to Athelney, an island amidst the marches of Mid Somerset, at the confluence of the Tone and Parret. There he btiilt a fort, from which he kept fighting against the foe. Before long he was able to abandon his refuge and gather an army roimd him. In May he defeated Guthrum in a pitched battle at Edington in Wiltshire. The Danes fied in confusion to Chippenham, where they had entrenched a camp, and were pursued and besieged by Alfred. After a fortnight's siege, Guthrum was willing to make peace with his enemy. The Danes " swore mighty oaths that they would quit Alfred's realm, and that their king should receive baptism." Alfred stood godfather to Guthrum, and entertained him at Wedmore, in Somerset, for twelve days. For this reason
-886.] THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES 45
the treaty between Alfred and the Banes is often called the treaty of Wedmore. By it the Danes not only agreed to withdraw from Wessex; they left southern and western Meroia in the hands of AKred, and contented themselves with the northern and eastern districts of Meroia, where they had already made an efEeotive settlement. But they kept their hold over Essex and London, and besides this, were rulers over eastern Meroia, East AngUa, and Northiunbria. Thus Alfred saved Wessex from the Danes, and in saving his own kingdom, he preserved all England from becoming a merely Danish land.
11. For a season there was peace between Alfred and the Danes. Seven years later more fighting broke out, and Alfred once more proved victorious. In 886 Gruthrum was once Alfred and more forced to make a disadvantageous peace, by Guthpum's which he yielded up London and its neighbourhood to ^^ace, 886. the "West Saxons. By the second treaty, called Alfred, and Guthrum's Peace, the boundary between Alfred's kingdom and the lands of the Danes was fixed as follows : It went up the Thames as far as the river Lea, then up the Lea to its source, and thence to Bedford, from which town it continued up the Ouse to WatUng Street. Beyond that it is not known for certain where the dividing- line ran, but it is often thought that it followed the old Soman road as far as Chester, which thus became the northern outpost of Alfred's kingdom. Thus West Saxon Mercia formed a great triangle, whose base was the Thames, whose other sides were the Watling Street and the Welsh frontier, and whose apex was the old Koman city of Chester. Within these limits Alfred ruled as he pleased. But the tradition of independence was still strong in Mercia, and Alfred thought it wise to set up a separate government for that part of the midland kingdom which now belonged to him. He made Ethelred, a Mercian nobleman, alderman of the Mercians, and ensured his fidelity by marrying him to his own daughter, Ethelflaed. Before long the many princes of Wales submitted to his overlordship, and promised to be as obedient to him as were Ethelred and his Mercians. Alfred thus ensured West Saxon supremacy over all southern Britain that was not governed by the Danes.
12. North of the boundary line the Danes still remained masters. They ruled the country after the Danish fashion, divided the lands among themselves, and forced the English The Dane- to work for them. The Danish districts were called law.
the Danelmo, because they were governed according to the law of
46
THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES
[886-
the Danes. But tlie Banelaw did not long keep itself distinct from tke rest of England. The Danish conquerors were few in nmnher,
ENGLAND
after Alfred & Guthrum's Peace 886.
Danish and Norse ^^
Celtic ^M
irvMii-M^i^^X^cA The Fiue Danish Boroughs...*
NORTH
SEA
Emery WaiSer ec,
and not very different, either in language or in manners, from the
-892.] THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES 47
English, among' whom they lived. They soon followed Guthrum's example, and became Christians. When they had renounced their old heathen gods, the chief thing that separated them from the English disappeared. G-raduaUy they abandoned their own tongue and used the language of the English, which was not very unlike their own speech. The result was that English and Danes in the Danelaw were joined together in a single people, difiering only from their West Saxon neighbours in the south because they still retained something of the fierceness and energy of the Danish pirates from whom some of them were descended. Eor many generations the mixed Danes and English of the north and mid- lands remained more warlike and vigorous than the sluggish West Saxons of purer English descent. Finally, however, it only became possible to distinguish the Danelaw from the rest of the country by the oeourrenoe of certain Scandinavian forms in place- names such as "by," "ness," "force," "thwaite," and the like. Wherever such forms cluster thickly, as in Yorkshire and the northern midlands, there we know that the Danes had at one time settled most numerously.
13. Though the men of the Danelaw were better fighters, the greater civilization of the West Saxons still enabled them to exercise influence over the ruder north country. More- over, while Wessex remained under Alfred and his restoration successors a single state ruled by a strong king, the of West Danelaw was broken up into many petty states, each supremacy, governed by its own jarl, or alderman. This division of the Danish power made it easy for AMred to restore his overlord- ship over northern and eastern England, so that before he died he held q^uite as strong a position as ever Egbert had done. Thus the West Saxon supremacy, threatened with destruction by the Danish invasion, was restored on a broader basis after a very few years. The Danes had destroyed the old local lines of kings, whom Mercians and East Anglians had so long obeyed. This made it easier for the West Saxon kings to exercise authority over the north and east than had been the case in earlier times. Alfred had, in. fact, done more than revive the overlordship of Egbert. He laid the founda- tions of that single monarchy of all England which was soon to become a reality under his son and grandson. " He was," says the English Chronicle, " king over the whole kin of the English, except that part which was under the sway of the Danes." But he stiU generally called himself " king of the West Saxons," like his predecessors. His self-restraint was wise, for the old English
48 THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES [892-
local feeling still remained very strong, and tlie new blood in the Danelaw did something to strengthen it.
14. Alfred took care to prevent the renewal of Danish invasions by devising improved ways of marshalling the "fyrd," or local Alfred's militia, in which every free man was bound in those military days to serve. This force he divided into two parts, reforms. « g^ ^^^^ always half were at home and half were on service." He also increased the number of fortresses in England. Moreover, he saw that the best way of keeping the Norsemen out of his kingdom was by building ships and trying to defeat the enemy at sea, so as to prevent them landing at all. He caused a new type of ships to be made, which were bigger and stronger than the fraU craft of the Danes. Yet aU his pains could not prevent his kingdom being assailed once more by a chieftain named Haesten,
who, being driven from the continent in 892, tried to His wars ' o ^
■with efEect a regular conc[uest of Wessex. After a good
Haesten, fleal of bloodshed, Haesten withdrew baffled. After
his failure little is heard of fresh Danish invasions for the best part of a century. There was plenty of fighting, between English and Danes, but the Danes against whom Englishmen had to contend were the Danes settled in England. The great period of Danish settlement was at last over, not only in Britain, but also Beginnings '^^ ^^ continent. There, in 911, the Norsemen, of Nor- under the leadership of a sea-king named Eolf , made
mandy, 911. ^jjeji- last and most famous conquest in the lower part of western France, on both sides of the lower Seine. From them the land took its name of " Normandy," or " land of the Northmen,'' and its people were called Normans, a softened form of Northmen. But just as the Norsemen in England quickly become English, so did their kinsfolk in France quickly become French. We shall see later how important these Normans became in English history.
15. In resisting the Danes, Alfred won great fame as a warrior.- But there were many soldiers in that age of hard fighting who Alfred's approached Alfred in military reputation. It is his peaceful peculiar glory that he was as strenuous and successful reforms. :^ ^j^g ^^^ ^^ peace as in the arts of war. He stands far above the mere soldier-king by his zeal to promote good laws, sound administration, and the prosperity and civilization of his people. He found England in a terrible state of desolation after the Danish invasions. He laboured with great zeal and no small measure of success to bring back to the land the blessings of peace an^ prosperity. He collected the old laws by which the West
-899-] THE WEST SAXONS AND THE DANES 49
Saxons had long been ruled, and put them together in a convenient form, long famous as the laws of Alfred. He encouraged trade, repeopled London, which the Danes had left desolate, and was a, special friend to merchants and seafarers. He encouraged sailors to explore distant seas and teU him the results of their inq^uiries. He corresponded with the pope and many foreign kings, and sent gifts to foreign Churches, including the distant Christian Church of India. Yet his own country was always foremost in his mind. In England he restored the churches and monasteries that had been destroyed by the Danes, and strove to fill them with well- educated priests and monks. In his early years he had been appalled at the ignorance of his clergy. " There was not one priest south of the Thames," said he, " who could understand the Latin of the mass-book, and very few in. the rest of England." To spread knowledge among those who did not understand Latin, he caused Several books of importance to be translated, among them being Bede's Ecclesiastical Sistory and a treatise by Pope Gregory the Grreat on Pastoral Care. Moreover, he ordered the compilation of an English Chronicle, in which was set down aU that was then known of the history of the English people, and which, continued in various monasteries up to the twelfth century, became from that time onward the chief source of our knowledge of Old English history, and the most remarkable of the early histories which any European people possesses written iu its own language. He set up schools in the royal court, after the example of Charles the Great. As he found few West Saxons able to co-operate with him in these learned labours, he welcomed to his coast scholars from foreign lands, from Meroia, from Wales, and from the continent. The most famous of these was a Welshman named Asser, who became bishop of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, and afterwards wrote Alfred's life. Alfred's work was the more remarkable since he was constantly troubled by a painful Ulness, and never succeeded in winning many eifioient fellow- workers among his sluggish fellow- countrymen. Even more wonderful than what he did was the spirit in which he worked. His character is among the noblest and purest in aU history. He was truth-telling, temperate, virtuous, high-minded, pious, liberal, and discreet, the friend of the poor, and so eager to uphold justice that Arfped,°899. he often administered the law himself, and always kept a watchful eye on the decisions of his judges. He died in 899, amidst the lamentations of his subjects, and has ever since been known as King Alfred the Great.
E
CHAPTER VI
THE SUCCESSORS OF ALFRED AND THE BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH MON- ARCHY (899-978)
Chief Dates :
899-924. Reign of Edward the Elder.
924-940. ReigQ of Athelstan.
940-946. ReigQ of Edmund the Magnificent,
946-955. Reign of Edred.
955-959- Reign of Edwy.
QS9-97S- Reign of Edgar.
975-978. Reign of Edward the Martyr.
1. AxrRED was suooeeded by liis eldest son, Edward, called Edward the Elder, who had already been associated in the govern- Edwapd the ™ent during his father's lifetime. Though carefuUy Eldep, educated, Edward showed no trace of his father's love
899-924. £qj, ^Jj^q ^j^g q£ peace. He was, however, as strenuous a warrior as ever Alfred had been. He worthily carried on the great king's work of bringing together England into a sing-le state. In this he was much helped by his brother-in-law, Ethelred of Mercia, and, after his death, by his sister Ethelflaed, whom he continued in the government of Mercia with the title of the Lady of the Mercians. Edward and his sister waged constant war against the Danes. They strengthened their frontier both against the Danes and the Welsh by building or restoring " boroughs," or fortified towns, from which they mig-ht attack the enemy in his own lands. A further step soon followed when the West Saxons and Mercians overstepped the line drawn by Alfred, and gTaduaUy conq[uered the Danelaw after much hard fighting. The most famous of these contests centred round the district dependent on the Five Banish Boroughs of Derby, Stamford, Nottingham, Leicester, and Lincoln. At the moment of their final contest Ethelflaed died. She had shown as much warlike skill as her brother, and had loyally worked with him. Edward felt so much stronger than Alfred that he appointed no successor to his sister, 50
924 ] BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH MONARCHY 5 1
but took over the government both of Danish and of English Mercia into his own hands. He next assailed East Anglia, and easily- subdued it. Then came the turn of Northumbria, in which Deira, or Yorkshire, was ruled by a Danish jarl, while Bernioia, which had escaped Norse oonq^uest, was governed by an independent English alderman. Edward prepared for his northern advance by building a fresh line of fortresses from Chester eastwards along the line of the Mersey. In 923 he made his first conquest of Northumbrian territory by taking possession ' of "Manchester in Northionbria."
2. By this time the rulers of Britain perceived that there was no use in fighting against the great "West Saxon king. Immediately on the conquest of Mercia the kings of the "Welsh and all ^^ ^ their people sought Edward as their lord. At their firJt Mn'g ^ head was Howel the Good, the famous law-giver, and of the
the most distinguished of the "Welsh princes for many '^"^"^''' ^^4. generations. " And in 924," says the Chronicle, " then chose him for father and lord the king of the Scots and the whole nation of the Scots, and all those who dwell in Northumbria, whether English or Danes, and also the king of the Strathclyde "Welsh and all the Strathclyde "Welsh." This was the culminating act of Edward's reign. He died before the end of 924, when still a young man. Conscious of his increasing power, he was not content to call himself king of the "West Saxons as AKred had done. He preferred to describe himself as king of the English, or king of the Anglo-Saxons — that is, of the two races of Angles and Saxons which we collectively call the English. From his day onward the monarchy of England, though often threatened, became a perma- nent thing. Thus the "West Saxon overlordship grew into the kingdom over aU the English.
3. Three sons of Edward the Elder now ruled successively over the English. Of these, Athelstan, the eldest, was as vigorous a warrior as his father. He put an end to the dynasty of
Danish princes that had hitherto reigned in Deira, and 924^949 "' added that district to the dominions directly governed by him. He ruled, we are told, over all the kings that were in Britain. So firmly did his power seem established that foreign princes sought his alliance, and the greatest rulers of the age were glad to marry themselves or their kinsfolk to Athelstan's sisters. The empire of Charles the G-reat had now broken up, and separate kingdoms had arisen for the East and the "West Franks, out of which the later kingdoms of Germany and France were soon to
52 BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH MONARCHY [924-
arise. Henry the Fowler, king of the Bast Pranks, or Germans, married his son Otto to Athelstan's sister Edith. This was the Otto who afterwards became the Emperor Otto the Great, the reviyer of the Roman Empire and the founder of the great German monarchy, which annexed, so to say, the title of Roman emperors for itself. Other sistei-s of Athelstan were married to Charles the Simple, king of the West Pranks, or French, and to Hugh, duke of the French, whose son, called Hugh Capet, finally put an end to the rule of the Carolings, or descendants of Charles the Great, and begun the Capetian dynasty which ruled over France as long as France retained the govemm.ent of kings. The result of all these alliances was that no Old English king was so well known on the continent as Athelstan.
4. In 937 jealousy of their West Saxon overlord drew the dependent rulers of Britain into a strong coalition against him. The battle '^^® leaders of this were Constantine, king of Scots, of Brunan- the Danish kings of Dublin, and some of the Welsh Duph. princes. But Athelstan met the confederate army and crushed it at Brunanburh, a place probably situated in the north-west of England, though its exact site is unknown. This fight is com- memorated in a magnificent war-song given in the English Chronicle. It ensured peace for the rest of Athelstan's lifetime. Three years later he died, in 940. Men called him Glorious Athelstan. He made many good laws, and was a great friend of the Church.
5. Athelstan's younger bi'other, Edmund, who had shared in the glory of Brunanburh, then became king. He was soon con- Edmund the fronted by revolts of the Danes of northern Mercia Magnificent, and Deira. But he easily reconquered both the Five
Danish Boroughs and Danish Yorkshire. He then took Cumberland from its Welsh princes and gave it to Malcolm, king of Scots, "on the condition that he should be his feUow- worker as weU by sea as by land." For these exploits he was called the Magnificent, or the Deed-Doer. His career was cut short in 946 through his murder by an outlaw.
6. Edmund left two sons, named Edwy and Edgar, but they were young cliildi-en, and no one thought of making either of them
king. The nobles turned rather to their uncle Edred, 946^955. *^^ youngest of Edward the Elder's sons, who was at
once chosen king. Unlike his two brothers, Edred was weak in health and unable to play the warrior's part. But he was prudent enough to put the management of his affairs into the hands of the wisest man in all England. This was Dunstan, abbot
-959] BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH MONARCHY 53
of Grlastonbnry, who was already famous for having' reformed the lax state of the monks under his charge, and who now showed that he was a shrewd statesman as well as a zealous ecclesiastic. Under his guidance the West Saxon monarchy continued in its career of victory under its sickly king, though, as a rule, in those days a weak ruler meant an xmlucky reign. Once more Northumbria was oonc[uered from the Danes in 954, and with this event the unity of England seemed accomplished. Proud of Ms great power Edred was no longer content to call himself king of the English. He sometimes styled himself emperor, hing, and Csesar of Britain, as if to the English monarchy he had added the dominion over all the island. These titles must not be taken too seriously, yet they show that the aim now before the West Saxon house was nothing less than supremacy over all the Bi-itish isles. Thus under Edred the work began by Alfred was completed. It was rendered the easier by the fact that Danes and English of the Danelaw had by this time become blended into a single people. Dunstan was wise enough to allow the men of the north country to retain their own laws and be ruled by their own earls. It was the best way to make them obedient to their West Saxon king. But the gi-eat difierence of temper between north and south still remained, and there soon arose an opportunity for it to assert itself.
7. Edred died in 955, and his nephew Edwy, though hardly yet a man, was chosen king as the oldest member of the royal house available. Under him troubles soon began. The young
king quarrelled with Dunstan, and drove him iato 95^959 banishment. The abbot was popular among the Northumbrians and Mercians, though he had many enemies among the West Saxon nobles who swayed the mind of the young king. It is very likely that after Dunstan's exile the rule of Edwy over the Northumbrians and Mercians became more severe than the mild government of Edred. Anyhow, Mercia and Northumbria rose in revolt, and declared that they would no longer have Edwy to reign over them. They then chose as their king the .^theHng Edgar, Bdwy's younger brother. England was now so far united that even those who wished to divide it could only iind a king in the sacred royal house of Wessex:
8. Edgar easily became king of the north and midlands. He at once recalled Dunstan from exUe, and made him Edgar the bishop, first of Worcester, and afterwards of London Peaceful, as weU. For the rest of his life Edwy reigned 859-975. over Wessex alone. His early death in 959 resulted, however, in
54 BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH MONARCHY [959"
tke reunion of England. Thereupon the West Saxons cliose Edgar as tlieir king. From that day till his death Edgar ruled over aU England, and, alone of the great West Saxon kings, ruled without the need of fighting for his throne. For that reason men called him Edgar the Peaceful. Again, as under Edred, Dunstan became the king's chief adviser. He was made archbishop of Canterbury, and the crown became powerful and the country prosperous under his strong but conciliatory government. A great proof of Dunstan's willingness to make sacrifices to keep the peace was to be seen in the dealings between England and Scotland. In the weak days of division the Scots had taken possession of the border fortress of Edinburgh, hitherto the northernmost Northumbrian town. To avoid war and obtain the goodwill of the Scots, Edgar yielded up to their king the Northumbrian district called Lothian. Up to now the Scots had been Highland Celts, but since Edmund's cession of Cumbria the Scottish kings had had Welsh subjects. Now they had English subjects also. And before long the English element grew, until the modern Scottish Lowlands became EngHsh- speaking and very like England, and only the Highlands retained the Celtic tongue and manners of the old Scots.
9. The kings and chieftains of Britain gladly acknowledged the overlordship of a monarch so just and strong as Edgar. It is said Edgar as ^^^* "'^ °^^ occasion he went to Chester, where he met emperor of six under-kings, who all took oaths to be faithful to
n. j^jj^ . ^^^ ^^^ ^jj^g gj^ kings rowed their overlord in a
boat up the Dee to the Church of St. John's, outside the walls. The six were the king of Scots, liis vassal the king of Cumberland, the Danish king of Man, and three Welsh kings. Even the Danish kings who ruled over the coast towns of Ireland submitted them- selves to his dominion. It was no wonder that Edgar, like Edwy, took upon himself high-sounding titles. He called himself emperor, Augustus, and Basileus of Britain. Under him the process that begins with Alfred attains its culminating point. Edgar was the most mighty of English kings before the Norman conquest.
10. At home Edgar ruled sternly, but so justly, that the only fault that his subjects could find with him was that he loved Dunstan foreigners too much.- The chief event of this time was and the a religious revival, which Dunstan did much to foster. revival"""^ Despite AKred's strenuous efforts at reform, the Church
remained corrupt and sluggish. In particular, the monasteries were in a very lax state. Dunstan was first famous as the reformer of his own abbey of Glastonbury. He became
-975- J BEGINNINGS OF TIlE ENGLISH MONARCHV 5$
more eager for reform after ]iis exile. When abroad lie had seen the good results whioh had happened from a monastic revival that had already been brought about on the continent. Brought back to power, he strove with all his mig-ht to revive in England the spirit of the austere Benedictine rule which derived its name from St. Benedict of Nursia, the father of all later monasticism, who lived in the sixth century, and whose sygtem St. Augustine had first introduced into this country. Dunstan was anxious to make the easy-going monks of England live the same strict life of poverty, chastity, and obedience which St. Benedict had enjoined, and wliioh he had seen in operation during his banishment. More- over, he felt sure that the career of the monk was higher and nobler than that of the secular clerk, who held property, married, and generally lived a self-indulgent and easy-going life. By this time many of the monasteries of earlier days had been changed into what were called churches of secular canons — ^that is to say, they were served by clergymen who did not take the monastic vows, but lived in the world side by side with laymen. Dunstan was disgusted at the lax ways of the secular canons, and did his best to drive them out of their churches, and put Benedictine monks in their place. But the canons were often men of high birth, and had powerfvil friends among the nobles, who disliked Dunstan's poUcy even in matters of state. Hence the attempt to supersede canons by monks met with much opposition, and Dunstan, who was a very prudent man, took care not to go too far in upholding the monks. Yet he managed to establish monks in his own cathedral of Christ Church, Canterbury, which henceforth remained a Benedictine monastery until the E,eformation. Some of his fellow-workers were less cautious than Dunstan, and the struggle of monk and canon led to almost as much fighting as the contest between the West Saxons and the Mercians. As long as Edgar lived, however, Dunstan managed to keep the two parties from open hostilities.
11. Edgar died in 975, and with him ended the greatness of the West Saxon house. He left two sons by difEerent mothers. Their names were Edward and EtheLtred. North and south, Edward the friends of monks and friends of canons, (juarreUed as to Martyp, which of the two boys should become king. For the 975-978. moment the influence of Dunstan secured the throne for Edward, the elder son. For four years the great archbishop went on ruling the kingdom as in the days of Edgar. But his task was much harder now that he was virtually single-handed. In 978 the young
S6 BkGlNNtNGS OF THE ENGLISH MONARCHY t978.
king- was stabbed in the back, it was believed, at the instigation of his step-mother, who wished her own son, Ethelred, to mount the throne. This cruel death gave Edward the name of Edward the Martyr. His half-brother, Ethelred ii., succeeded to the throne prepared for him by his mother's crime.
12. Dunstan's last important public act was to crown the new monarch. Soon afterwards the great archbishop withdrew from political affairs, and devoted what life was stiU. left to DUnstam °^ ^^^ *° '^'^ government of the Church and the carrying on of tlie monastic revival. He lived long enough to see the peace, which Edgar and he had upheld, utterly banished from the land, and to witness the ruin of the religious reforma- tion amidst the tumults of a dreary period of civil strife and renewed invasion. He was the first great English statesman who was not a king and a warrior. In after days monks, who wrote his life, gloriflied him as the friend of monks with such exces- sive zeal that the wise statesman, who did so much to bring about the unity of England, was hidden underneath the monastic zealot and the strenuous saint. Yet, both as a prelate and as a politician, Dunstan did a great work for his country. In him the impulse to union and civilization, whichbeg-an with Alfred, attained its highest point. He closes the great century which begins with the treaty of Cliippenham, and ends with the murder of Edward the Martyr.
CHAPTER VII
THE DECLINE OF THE ENGLISH KINGDOM AND THE DANISH CONQUEST (978-1042)
Chief Dates:
978-1016. Eeign of Ethelred the Unready.
1002. Massacre of St. Brice's Day.
1013. Swegen's conquest of England.
1016. Eivalry of Edmund Ironside and Cnut.
1017-1035. Eeign of Cnut.
103S-1037. Eegency of Harold Harefoot.
I037-1040. Eeign of Harold Harefout.
1040-1042. Eeign of Harthacnut.
1. The long reign of Etkelred 11. (978-1016) was a period of ever-deepening confusion. At first the king was a boy, and the nobles managed things as they wished. But after Ethelred the Ethelred became a man things grew steadily worse. Unready, The son of Edgar had none of the great qualities of 978-1016. his race. Quarrelsome, jealous, and suspicious, he was always irritating his nobles by trying to win greater power for himself. Yet he was too weak and foolish to know what to do with the authority which he inherited. In scorn men called him Ethelred the Unready — ^that is, the Redeless, the man without rede, or good counsel. Under his nerveless sway the unity of the kingdom began to break up. Local jealousies and pei'sonal feuds set the great men by the ears, and the guiding hand of a wise monarch was no longer to be expected.
2. To make matters worse the Danish invasions soon began again. Wow that the Danes in England had become Englishmen, their kinsfolk beyond sea, learning the helplessness of Renewal of the land, again began to send plundering expeditions the Danish to its shores. Ethelred was too cowardly and lazy to iivasions. meet the pirate hordes with an adequate force of armed men. He persuaded his nobles to impose a tax on land, whereby a large sum of money was collected to buy them off. The Danes took the bribe and departed, but naturally they came again and wanted more.
57
5 8 THE DANISH CONQUEST [978-
Before long Danegeld, so this tax was called, was regularly levied, but every year the horrors of Danish invasion became worse and worse. As another means of conciliating the
Danes, Etlielred married Emma of Normandy, the daughter of the
duke of the Normaoas, who was himself a Norseman by descent,
and the ally of the Danish kings.
3. In the same year as his marriage, Etlielred, with equal folly and treachery, ordered all the Danes that happened to be living in England to be put to death. The day chosen for this evil deed Massacre of '^^^ ®*- Brice's Day, November 13, 1002. Tidings of St. Brice's the massacre only served to infuriate the Danes in Day, 1002. Denmark ; and Swegen, their king, resolved to revenge his slaughtered countrymen by undertaking a regular conquest of Ethelred's kingdom. The state of the Scandinavian north was different from what it had been in the days of Alfred. There was now a strong king ruling aU Denmark, and another ruling all Norway. In earlier days the Danes came in comparatively small and detached bands, whose greatest hope was to conquer and colonize some one district of England. It was now possible for the king of all Denmark to invade England with an army big enough to tax all the resoui-ces of the ooxmtry. In 1003 Swegen carried out his threat. He came to England with a large fleet and army, and set to work to conquer it. Ethelred made few
attempts to organize resistance to him, and, though Invaffons some districts fought bravely and checked the Danish
advance, there was no central force drawn from the whole country capable of withstanding the foe. For the next ten years England suffered unspeakable misery. One famous incident of the struggle was the cruel death of the archbishop of Canter- bury, .ffilfheah, or Alphege, whom the Danes, after a drunken revel, pelted to death with bones because he would not con- sent to impoverish the poor husbandmen who farmed his lands by raising from them the heavy ransom demanded by the in- vaders. Alphege was declared a saint, and Ms memory long held in honour.
4. At last Englishmen began to see it was no use resisting Swegen, or in upholding so wretched a king as Ethelred. In 1013 The rule of ^^^^ Danish king again appeared in England, and easily Swegen, conquered the greater part of the country. There- 1013-1014. ^ppj^ Ethelred fled to Normandy, the country of his wife. His withdrawal left Swegen the real ruler of England. Had he been a Christian, the English might well have chosen him as
-1017.] THE DANISH CONQUEST 59
their king. As it was, some districts still resisted when Swegen
died in 1014
6. The Danish soldiers chose Swegen's son Cnut as their king.
Cnut was as good a soldier as his father. Moreover, he was a
Christian and a wise and prudent man. But the ^^, , .. Tn T 1 _L'n i J n .1 . 1 -. 1 . 1 ,. Etnelreas
English still regretted their old king, and some of return,
them fooUshly asked Ethelred to come back from Nor- l"!*- »•"<*
mandy and take up his kingship again. Ethelred re- '
turned, and war went on between him and Cnut until 1016, when
Ethelred died.
6. Ethelred's successor was a man of very different stamp. Edmund, his son before his marriage with Emma, was a strenuous warrior, so valiant and persistent that men called him -,. _iyj,]_„ Edmund Ironside. In him Cnut found a worthy foe, of Edmund and a mighty struggle ensued between the two rivals, Ironside and which made the year 1016 as memorable in military ' history as the " year of battles " in the midst of which Alfred mounted the throne. Six pitched battles were fought, the most famous of which was one at Assandun (now Ashington), in Essex, in which Cnut won the day. In the long run neither side obtained a complete triumph over the other, and before the end of the year the two kings met at Olney, an island in the Severn, near G-loucester, where they agreed to divide England between them. By the treaty of Obiey, Cnut took Northumbria and Mercia, and Edmund, Wessex. A little later Edmund diedj and in 1017 the nobles of Wessex, weary of fighting, chose Cnut as their ruler.
7. Cnut thus became king, first of part and then of the whole of England, very much as Edgar had done. Though his real claim to the throne was not the choice of the people,
but his right as a conquerer, he soon proved himself < 017-1035 an excellent king. Under him the prosperity of Edgar's days was renewed. He sent home most of his Danish troops, chose English advisers, and married Emma, Ethelred's widow, so as to connect himself as closely as possible with the West Saxon royal house. He promised Danes and English in England to rule according to King Edgar's law. But Cnut was king of Denmark as well as of England, and a few years later became king of Norway also. Visions of a great northern empire rivalling the realm of the German emperors, who stUL called them- selves emperors of Eome, may well have floated before his mind. But he was wise enough to make England, not Denmark, the centre of his power. Kough as England then was, Scandinavia was still
6o THE DANISH CONQUEST [1017-
ruder. It was still largely heathen ; and the only way in which the power of Cnut could be kept together there was for him to use English bishops and monks to help him in civilizing and teaching the faith to his born subjects in the north. But though English- men thus foimd new careers in the service of their conqueror, the cares of his great empire compelled Cnut to absent himself from England for long periods. Besides necessary journeys to his northern kingdoms, he made a pilgrimage to Rome, whence he wrote a touching letter to his subjects, declaring that he had " vowed to live a right life in aU things, to rule justly and piously, and to administer just judgment to all." He steadily lived up to the high ideal thus set out before him, and in every way proved himself to be one of the best of our kings. He was enabled to rule his realm strongly, as he kept up a sort of standing army in a force of two or three thousand House carles, or palace guards, whom he paid well and kept under discipline. It was dangerous to rebel against a monarch with such a force always ready at his disposal.
8. Early in his reign Cnut divided England into four parts. One of these, Wessex, he kept for himself, but the other
three, Mercia, Northumberland, and East Anglia, he earldoms handed over to be governed by great earls, or, as they
had been called in earlier days, aldermen. Before his death he seem.s also to have assigned Wessex to an earl. For this important post he chose a wealthy, eloquent, and shrewd English- man named Godwin, whom he married to a lady of the Danish royal stock, and to whom he showed many other signs of favour. As long as Cnut lived these great earls remained faithful to him, but their establishment was a dangerous experiment. They wei-e necessarily entrusted with a great deal of power. When they had be- come well established in their jurisdictions they made themselves the centres of the old local traditions that still remained strong, despite a century and a half of centralization. Things grew worse when son succeeded father in the earldoms as in the ancient sub-king- doms that had preceded them. Finally, the great earldoms revived in fact, if not in name, the separatist feelings of Mercia, North- umbria, and Wessex. The next half -century showed the realm of Edgar gradually splitting up into its ancient threefold division.
9. Cnut died in 1035. He left two sons, Harold, the firstborn, and Hartliaenut, liis son by Emma of Normandy. A meeting of the wise men took place at Oxford to decide how the succession was to be settled. Party feeling ran high, and Leofric, earl of Mercia, stood in fierce antagonism to Godwin, earl of Wessex.
-I042.1 THE DANISH CONQUEST 6l
Grodwin and the "West Saxons wished to make Harthacnut king, but he was away in Denmark, and this fact played into the hands of Leofric, who was supported by north and midlands „ , ^ „ in his efforts to uphold the cause of Harold. Finally, foot and as a compromise, it was agreed to make Harold regent of Harthacnut, all England, on behalf of himself and his absent brother. This suggests that a division of the kingdom was contemplated, but for more than a year England had no king at all. However, Harthacnut abode obstinately in Denmark, and neither Godwin nor Emma could long maintain the rights of an absentee claimant. In 1037 Harold was definitely chosen king. He drove Emma out of the country, and reigned untU his death in 1040. Harthacnut was then at Bruges, in Flanders, where his mother lived, and was waiting with an army in the hope of invading England. He was at once sent for, and elected king of aU England. He showed great sternness to his enemies, casting his dead brother's body into a sewer, and levying heavy taxes on those who had resisted his authority. He was much under Emma his mother's influence, and to please her called home from Normandy her son by King Ethelred, whose name was Edward. However, Harthacnut proved a bad ruler, and, says the Chronicle, "' did nothing like a king during his whole reign." In 1042 he died suddenly at the wedding-feast of one of his nobles. With him expired ignominiously the Danish line of kings which had begun so weU with his father. The influence of Emma and G-odwin secured the succession for his half-brother Edward, and Englishmen rejoiced that the son of Ethelred had obtained his true natural right to the throne of his ancestors.
GENEALOGY OF THE DANISH KINGS Swegen.
Cnut, m. (2) Emma of Normandy.
I (2)
Haroi-d Hakefoot. Harth.^cnut.
CHAPTER VIII
THE REIGNS OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR AND HAROLD (1042-1066)
Chief Dates :
1042. Accession of Edward the Confessor.
1052. Godwin's return from exile, and death.
1064. Harold's Welsh war.
1066. Jan. 5, Death of Edward the Confessor. Jan. 6,, Accession of
Harold, son of Godwin. Sept. 25, Battle of Stamford Bridge.
Oct. 14, Battle of Hastings. Dec. 25, Coronation of William
the Conqueror.
1. Edwakd, the new king, was nearly forty years old when he was called to the throne of his ancestors. Driven from England as a rh raeter mere child, he had been brought up ia his mother's and pule of land of Normandy, and was Norman rather than Edward the English in speech, manners, and tastes. A pious, affectionate, gentle, weU-eduoated man, his outlook on life was that of the cultivated Norman cleric rather than that of the hard-flghting English warrior-king. His austerity and religious zeal gave him such a reputation for sanctity that he was canonized after his death, and became famous among royal saints as Edward the Confessor. But he was of weak health, feeble character, and somewhat ohUdish disposition. He was too old and sluggish to learn anything fresh, and too wanting in self-confidence to be able to live without favourites and dependants. Under such a weakling the government of the country passed largely into the hands of the great earls, such as