anglo saxon britain consolidation of the kingdoms

8/8/2019 Anglo Saxon Britain Consolidation of the Kingdoms

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/anglo-saxon-britain-consolidation-of-the-kingdoms 1/7

IJ6 ANGLO-SAXON BRITAIN.

CHAPTER XII.

THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE KINGDOMS.

WITH the final triumph of Christianity, all the forma

tive elements of Anglo-Saxon Britain are complete.

We see it, a rough conglomeration of loosely-aggre·

gated principalities, composed of a fighting aristocracy

and a body of unvalued serfs; while interspersed

through its parts are the bishops, monks, and clergy,

centres of nascent civilisation for the seething mass

of noble barbarism. The country is divided into

agricultural colonies, and its only industry is agricul

ture, its only wealth, land. We want but one more

conspicuous change to make" it into the England of

the Augustan Anglo-Saxon age-the reign of Eadgar

-and that one change is the consolidation of the

discordant kingdoms under a single loose overlord·

ship. To understand this final step, we must glance

briefly at the dull record of the political history.

Under LEthelfrith, Eadwine, and Oswiu, North

umbria had been the chief power in England. Butthe eighth century is taken up with the greatness Of

Mercia. Ecgfrith, the last great king of Northumbria,

whose over-lordship extended over the Picts of

Galloway and the Cumbrians of Strathclyde, en·

deavoured to carry his conquests beyond the Forth



THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE KINGDOMS. I 17

,and annex the free land lying to the north of the old

Roman line. He was defeated and slain, and with

him fell the supremacy of Northumbria. Mercia,which already, under Penda and Wulfhere, had risen

to the second place, now assumed the first position

among the Teutonic kingdoms. Unfortunately we

know little of the period of Mercian supremacy. The

West Saxon chronicle contains few notices of the

rival state, and we are thrown for information chieflyon the second-hand Latin historians of the twelfth

century. 1Ethelbald, the first powerful Mercian king

(716-755), "ravaged the land of the Northumbrians,"

and made Wessex acknowledge his supremacy. By

this time all the minor kingdoms had practically

become subject to the three great powers, though still

retaining their native princes: and Wessex, Mercia,

and Northumbria shared between them, as suzerains,

the whole of Teutonic Britain. The meagre annals

of the Chronicle, upon which alone (with the Charters

and Latin writers of later date) we rest after the death

of Breda, show us a chaotic list of wars and battles

between these three great powers themselves, or

between them and their vassals, or with the Welsh

and Devonians. 1Ethelbald was succeeded, after a

short interval, by Offa, whose reign of nearly forty

years(758-796), is

the first settled period in Englishhistory. Offa ruled over the subject princes with

rigour, and seems to have made his power really felt.

He drove the Prince of Powys from Shrewsbury, and

carried his ravages into the heart of Wales. He con

quered the land between the Severn and the Wye.



lIS ANGLO-SAXON BRITAIN .

and his dyke from the Dee to the Severn, and the Wye,

marked the new limits of the Welsh and English

borders; while his laws codified the customs ofMercia, as those of .iEthelberht and Ine had done with

the customs of Kent and Wessex. He set up fDr

awhile an archbishopric at Lichfield, which seems to

mark his determination to erect Mercia into a sovereign

power. He also founded the great monastery of St.

Alban's, and is said to have established the Englishcollege at Rome, though another account attributes it to

Ine, the West Saxon. East Anglia, Kent, Essex, and

Sussex all acknowledged his supremacy. Karl the

Great was then reviving the Roman Empire in its

Germanic form, and Offa ventured to correspond with

the Frank emperor as an equal. The possession of

Lonl.1on, now a Mercian city, gave Offa an interest in

continental affairs; and the growth of trade is marked

by the fact that when a quarrel arose between them,

they formally closed the ports of their respective

kingdoms against each other's subjects.

Nevertheless, English kingship still remained a

mere military office, and consolidation, in our modern

sense, was clearly impossible. Local jealousies divided

all the little kingdoms and their component princi

palities; and any real subordination was impracticable

amongst a purely agricultural and warlike people,

with no regular army, and governed only by their own

anarchic desires. Like the Afghans of the present

time, the early English were incapable of union,

except in a temporary way under the strong hand of

a single warlike leader against a common foe. As



THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE KINGDOMS. r 19

.soon as that was removed, they fell asunder at once

into their original separateness. Hence the chaotic

nature of our early annals, in which it is impossible todiscover any real order underlying the perpetual flux

of states and princes.

A single story from the Chronicle will sufficiently

illustrate the type of men whose actions make up the

history of these predatory times. In 754, King

Cuthred of the West Saxons died. His kinsman,Sigeberht, succeeded him. One year later, however,

Cynewulf and the witan deprived Sigeberht of his

kingdom, making over to him only the petty principality

of Hampshire, while Cynewulf himself reigned in his

stead. After a time Sigeberht murdered an ealdor-

man of his suite named Cymbra; whereupon Cyne-wulf deprived him of his remaining territory and

drove him forth into the forest of the Weald. There

he lived a wild life till a herdsman met him in the

forest and stabbed him, to avt:nge the death of his

master, Cymbra. Cynewulf, in turn, after spending

his days in fighting the Welsh, lost his life in a quarrelwith Cyneheard, brother of the outlawed Sigeberht.

He had endeavoured to drive out the a!theling; but

Cyneheard surprised him at Merton, and slew him

with all his thegns, except one Welsh hostage. Next

day, the king's friends, headed by the ealdorman

Osric, fell upon the a!theling, and killed him with allhis followers. In the very same year, ~ t h e l b a l d of

Mercia was killed fighting at Seckington; and Offa

drove out his successor, Beornred. Of such murders,

..yars, surprises, and dynastic quarrels, the history of



120 ANGLO-SAXON BRITAIN.

the eighth century is full. But no modern reader

need know more of them than the fact that they

existed, and that they prove the wholly ungovernedand ungovernable nature of the early English temper.

Until the Danish invasions of the ninth century,

the tribal kingdoms still remained practically separate,

and such cohesion as existed was only secured for the

purpose of temporary defence or aggression. Essex

kept its own kings under lEthelberht of Kent; Huicciaretained its royal house under lEthelred of Mercia;

and later on, Mercia itself had its ealdormen, after

the conquest by Ecgberht of Wessex. Each royal

line reigned under the supreme power until it died

out naturally, like our own great feudatories in Imlia

at the present day. "When Wessex and Mercia haveworked their way to the rival hegemonies," says Canon

Stubbs, "Sussex and Essex do not cease to be

numbered among the kingdoms, until their royal

houses are extinct. When Wessex has conquered

Mercia and brought Northumbria on its knees, there

are still kings in both Northumbria and Mercia. The

royal house of Kent dies out, but the title of King

of Kent is bestowed on an retheling, first of the

Mercian, then of the West Saxon house. Until the

Danish conquest, the dependant royalties seem to

have been spared; and even afterwards organic union

can scarcely be said to exist."

The final supremacy of the West Saxons was

mainly brought about by the Danish invasion. But

the man who laid the foundation of the West Saxon

power was Ecgberht, the so-called first king of all



THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE. KIXGDOMS. 121

England. Banished from Wessex during his youth

by one of the constant dynastic quarrels, through the

enmity of Offa, the young retheling had taken refugewith Karl the Great, at the court ofAachen, and there

had learnt to understand the rising statesmanship of

the Frankish race and of the restored Roman empire.

The death of his enemy Beorhtric, in 802, left the

kingdom open to him: but the very day of his acces-

sion showed him the character of the people whom hehad come to rule. The men of Worcester celebrated

his arrival by a raid on the men ofWilts. "On that

ilk day," says the Chronicle, "rode .tEthelpund,

ealdorman of the Huiccias [who were Merci:ms], over

at Cynemreres ford j and there Weohst..'U1 the ealdor-

man met him with the Wilts men [who were WestSaxons:] and there was a muckle fight, and both

ealdormen were slain, and the 'Wilts men won the

day." For twenty years, Ecgberht was engaged in

consolidating his ancestral dominions: but at the end

of that time, he found himself able to attack the

Mercians, who had lost Offa six years beforeEcgberht's return. In 825, the West Saxons met the

Mercian host at Ellandun, "and Ecgberht gained the

day, and there was muckle slaughter." Therefore all

the Saxon name, held tributary by the Mercians,

gathered about the Saxon champion. "The Kentish

folk, and they of Surrey, and the South Saxons, and

the East Saxons turned to him." In the same year,

the East Anglians, anxious to avoid the power of

Mercia, "sought Ecgberht for peace and for aid."

Beornwulf, the Mercian king, marched against his



122 ANGLO-SAXON BRITAIN.

revolted tributaries: but the East Anglians fought him

stoutly, and slew him and his successor in two battles.

Ecgberht followed up this step by annexing Mercia in829 : after which he marched northward against the

N orthumbrians, who at once" offered him obedience

and peace; and they thereupon parted." One year

later, Ecgberht led an army against the northern

'Welsh, and" reduced them to humble obedience."

Thus the West Saxon kingdom absorbed all theothers, at least so far as a loose over-lordship was con

cerned. Ecgberht had rivalled his master Karl by

founding, after a fashion, the empire of the English.

But all the local jealousies smouldered on as fiercely

as ever, the under-kings retained their several do-

minions, and Ecgberht's supremacy was merely oneof superior force, unconnected with any real organic

unity of the kingdom as a whole. Ecgberht himself

generally bore the title of King of Jhe West Saxons,

like his ancestors: and though in dealing with his

Anglian subjects he styled himself Rex Anglorum,

that title perhaps means little more than the humblerone of Rex Gewissorum, which he used in addressing

his people of the lesser principality. The real king

dom of the English never existed before the days of

Eadward the Elder, and scarcely before the days of

William the Norman and Henry the Angevin. As to

the kingdom of England, that was a far later inventionnf the feudal lawyers

anglo saxon britain consolidation of the kingdoms

Documents