104 LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS. [A.D. 878. were not only hiding from their oppressors, but were compelled to plunder for subsistence. Utterly destitute of the necessaries of life, they sallied forth from their coverts, to compel the pagans, or those who were under the dominion of the pagans, to give them food. The stories which relieve the dry historical narrative of its uniformity, and which the dramatist and the painter alike rejoice in, belong to this period. Alfred sits by the fire in a cowherd's cottage, in which he had found refuge, mending his bow, instead of minding the loaves which are baking on the hearth. Who knows not how the impatient housewife vented her anger upon the stranger, reproaching him that he suffered the bread to burn which he was ready enough to eat? The wrathful speech of the good dame appears in the original in the form of two Latin verses. We have no complaint against the parade of knowledge which thus puts the mark of the cloister upon the traditionary songs of the people. Again, the legendary tales show how the Saxon hero, in his adversity, was visited by Saint Cuthbert, who, in the shape of a poor man, asked for alms of the fugitive. In a miserable hut sits Alfred with his wife. He has one loaf of bread, which he divides with the beggar. The saint vanishes; but in a vision announces that the days of the king's adversity are passed, and that glory and honour are before him. Again: Alfred is a minstrel. He finds admission to the Danish camp. He wanders from tent to tent with his harp. His skill reaches the knowledge of the Danish king. He is feasted and welcomed. But he has noted the numbers and position of his enemies, and returns to Athelney, to lead forth his followers to victory. Who would be fastidious about the authenticity of such narratives? They affect no principle. They lead to no erroneous conclusions. We must take them for what they are, and be glad of them: Battle of Ethandune-Alfred's and Guthrum's Peace-Laws of Alfred-Alfred as an Administrator -Alfred as an Instructor-Improvement of Alfred's kingdom-Renewed attacks of the Danes-The land freed from invaders-Alfred's Character-Judicial subdivisions of the kingdom-Frank-pledge-Courts of Justice-Tenure of Lands. The enamelled ornament of gold which was dug up at Athelney, the marshy spot which Alfred fortified at the confluence of the Thone and the Parret-bears the inscription, " Alfred commanded me to be wrought." It is regarded as a genuine relic. It is treasured in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, as a most valuable evidence of the historical truth of the description of the locality from which Alfred burst forth upon the invaders of his country. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells of this event in a few simple words: "Then, in the seventh week after Easter, he rode to Ecgbryht's-stone, on the east of Selwood; and there came to meet him all the men of Somerset, and the men of Wiltshire, and that portion of the men of Hampshire which was on this side of the sea; and they were joyful at his presence." With these plain but most impressive words we may associate the "old legends of the monkish page" in our memories; and believe that they long kept up, amongst the people, the reverence for their national hero which has lived through a thousand years. * The battle of Ethandune, which quickly followed the joyful greeting of the men of Wessex to their recovered king, was one of those decisive conflicts which entirely change the position of two contending powers. At the beginning of * Conjectured to be Edington, near Westbury. VOL. L. 106 BATTLE OF ETHANDUNE. [A.D. 878. the year 878, the Danes were at Chippenham, a royal town of the West Saxons. The king had fled no one knew whither. The invaders sat down as if their possession were never to be disturbed. In Devonshire, as we have mentioned, the Danes had sustained a signal defeat at this period. But in Wiltshire they overran the country at their pleasure. In that year Easter fell on the 23rd of March. Alfred was in Athelney. On this small space of rising ground, defended in the spring time by the waters of the Thone and the Parret, and by the impassable marshes, was the king's camp of refuge. To cross from that little island of alder-wood to the more inland country, the fugitive Saxons would be compelled to traverse many a mile in boats. As the spring advanced, the floods would abate, and the swampy ground would afford a firmer footing. Seven weeks after that Easter—that is, in the middle of May,-Alfred and his few followers had marched to Egbertstone.* He showed himself to the assembled people; and there soon gathered round him a formidable band. It was the secresy and the suddenness of this movement which saved the kingdom of the West Saxons. No doubt many a trusty messenger had gone forth from the island of the Somersetshire marshes to stir up the spirit of the people. Even Alfred himself might have undertaken this perilous errand. There must have been some organisation to precede such an individual enterprise as that which the Saxon king had undertaken, after five months of danger and humiliation. But in all such cases it is the presence of the man, hoping everything, daring everything, which commands success. Once more the Saxon population was in arms. They had a leader. They gathered round their lost king with a rapture that cast away fear and doubt. He encamped for one night. At the earliest dawn he was again on his march, and again encamped at night-fall. On the third day came the shock of battle at Ethandune. The Danes had come out from their camp to meet the host that had so suddenly sprung up. They appeared in overpowering numbers; but the Saxons met them in dense array. After an obstinate fight the Danes fled to their fortress. To the edge of their camp the king pursued, carrying terror with him in unsparing slaughter. Shutting themselves up in their fastnesses, they ventured no other fight in the open field. But the whole country was roused. On every side the Dane was beleaguered. No supplies could reach his starving soldiers; and after fourteen days of terrible privation, Guthrum, the conqueror of East Anglia, offered to give hostages, and quit the kingdom of Wessex. Alfred had conquered peace. But he had higher objects than the humiliation of his enemy. The Danes had too secure possession of East Anglia to be easily driven out. There, they had become settlers and cultivators. They had entered into the nationality of England. They desired to enter into the community of Christian states, and to renounce the heathendom which they had brought from the great seats of northern superstition. Guthrum, the king, seven weeks after his submission, was baptised with thirty of his officers; Alfred being his sponsor, and he receiving the name of Athelstan. There can be no doubt of the wisdom of this reconciliation. East Anglia had been long peopled with Danish tribes, who had become Christians; and the new settlers were as strangers amongst them, in their heathendom. The con * Brixton Deverill, in Wiltshire. A.D. 878.] ALFRED'S AND GUTHRUM'S PEACE. 107 version of Guthrum made them one people. Alfred, in entering into treaty with these settlers, was making an advance towards a complete nationality which was to be perfected in the fulness of time by common religion and common laws. The treaty of peace between the Saxons and the Danes-" Alfred's and Guthrum's Peace"-contains much fewer provisions than the treaties of modern times. The land boundaries between the territories are first defined. There is nothing said of the evacuation of territory into which the Danes had obtruded; nor of the adoption of the Christian faith. The setting out of boundaries assumes the one; and the oaths upon which the peace was sworn were made in the name of those who "seek of God's mercy." There was to be equal justice for English and Danish: "If a man be slain, we estimate all equally dear." The same principles of Teutonic law applied to both people. "If a king's thane be accused of man-slaying, if he dare to clear himself, let him do that with twelve king's thanes. If any one accuse that man who is of less degree than the king's thane, let him clear himself with eleven of his equals, and with one king's thane." This number of twelve to clear a man from a capital charge may have given rise to the notion of trial by jury amongst the Saxons. On the contrary, the twelve persons were to be witnesses of the innocence of the accused.* There is a clause in this treaty which clearly indicates that the Saxon and the Danish people were at feud, and that it was dangerous to rely upon peaceful and neighbourly intercourse between them. It was ordained that, "neither bond nor free might go to the host without leave, no more than any of them to us." If there was to be traffic amongst them, with cattle and with goods, hostages were to be given in pledge of peace, and as evidence that those who went to the strangers' camp or frontier went for lawful purposes.† Such regulations exhibit a remarkable picture of society, in which man-slaying and plunder were especially to be provided against. They tell us of some of the difficulties which the Saxon king and his ealdormen and sheriffs had to contend with, in reducing the land to civil obedience after a condition. approaching to anarchy; and how absolutely necessary was a wise and *See page 109. +"As evidence whereby it may be known that the party has a clean back." 108 LAWS OF ALFRED. [A.D. 878-894. vigorous ruler to prevent the few remaining sparks of civilisation being trodden out. The repose which Alfred had won by his courage and policy, and which was, for some years, in a great degree uninterrupted, was dedicated by him to two great objects,-the establishment of order, and the removal of ignorance. The Saxon king now presents himself to our view as invested with a more exclusive power than appertained to the old Teutonic rulers. Although chosen from a peculiar royal race, the sovereign was anciently little elevated above his ealdormen. A higher value was set upon his life; and a higher bōt, or compensation, was to be paid to him by offenders. But in Alfred's laws, in which the principle of compensation was ascribed to the influence of Christianity, instead of to the old institutions of the Saxon people, the bōt was expressly set aside in the case of treason. The king has therefore been accused of "anti-national and despotic tendencies." This accusation appears to be somewhat unmerited. The peculiar character of Alfred's code, differing in that respect from the "dooms" which had preceded it, is the incorporation of the commandments delivered to Moses, and the precepts of Christ, with the enactments that belonged to the social condition of the Anglo-Saxon people. Many of the minor laws of the Hebrew legislator are also copied with slight variation.† But the great Christian law of mercy and justice is also enacted : "That which ye will that other men do not unto you, do ye not that to other men;" and it is added, “From this one doom a man may remember that he judge every one righteously; he need heed no other doom-book." In the religious sanctions and obligations of Alfred's laws we trace the distinct incorporation of the Church with the State. In the increased sanctity attached to the person of the king, we see how a dominant monarchical power had grown out of the mere chieftainship of the earlier rulers. That Alfred was a cautious legislator is manifest from his own declaration in promulgating this code: "I, Alfred, king, gathered these together, and commanded many of them to be written which our forefathers held, those which to me seemed good; and many of those which seemed to me not good, I rejected them, by the counsel of my witan, and in other wise commanded them to be holden. For I durst not venture to set down in writing much of my own, for it was unknown to me what of it would please those who should come after us." If some of the laws of Alfred appear very strange to us, from our want of knowledge of the minuter particulars of the Saxon social state, we can have no doubt that they were thoroughly practical. The king implies that he had conceived much of his own-a system, probably, less Teutonic than the code he adopted. But in the true spirit of legislation he was unwilling to make any violent innovations. If the Teutonic laws of Alfred are, for the most part, inapplicable to the modern condition of society, the spirit in which they were promulgated has been faithfully preserved amongst us. Whatever we hold most valuable in our constitution has been secured to us by the same care, which existed ten centuries ago, to preserve what seemed good, to reject what seemed not good, to repair with watchfulness, and to add with caution. It is as a vigilant administrator, rather than as an original legislator, that * Kemble's Saxons, vol. ii. p. 208. to xxiii. The first forty-eight clauses of Alfred's Dooms are from the Book of Exodus, chapters xx. |