94 ETHELRED AND ALFRED. [A.D. 866. hollowed skulls." To revenge his death, the sons of Regner Lodbrok came in great power to England. There is a seeming inconsistency in the story, which is attempted to be reconciled by another legend which accounts for their landing in East Anglia, in 866. But as it appears, from our own chronicles, that they only wintered there, and proceeded into Northumbria the next year, we may accept the legend that the sons of the great pirate did carry their avenging arms into the northern parts of England, where, for a century, there had been perpetual anarchy. At this time of peril Ethelbert died. During the eight years which had elapsed since the death of Ethelwulf, two of Alfred's brothers had reigned. Upon the two younger sons now rested the destinies of England. Ethelred succeeded to the crown of the united kingdoms of Wessex and Kent. Alfred appears to have had a responsible position. He is called "Secundarius." Some conjecture that he ruled over a small district; others that he had a joint authority with his brother. Asser says that Alfred, if he had so chosen, might have been king, whilst his brother Ethelred was alive. The strict hereditary succession to the crown was not always regarded; and as the witena-gemot had certainly some power of election, the qualities which Alfred displayed, even at that early age, might have commanded the admiration of the various representatives of public opinion. For the witena-gemot was a representative body, having a consultative voice with the king in great public questions, such as peace or war,-making new laws or confirming old,levying taxes, raising armaments,-and deciding, in many cases, upon ecclesiastical matters. They had, in these and other affairs, a concurrent authority with the king, as a deliberative body. Alfred, then, the young man who was secundarius" to Ethelred,-might have reigned in his stead had he been so minded. He was not so minded. It was not, "because," as Asser writes, "he much excelled all his brothers both in wisdom and all good qualities, and moreover because he was warlike to excess" (nimium bellicosus), that he was to risk any distraction of the country at a time of great danger from without, and great suffering within. The year 868 was a year of famine. A failure of the bounty of heaven in a settled country, where the larger abundance of one district equalises the scantier production of another district, is a great misfortune. But in England, at the time when Ethelred was king, where predatory armies were ravaging the north, and hostile fleets throwing their swarms of new plunderers on the east, a dearth in the south and west would bring even more than common misery. The next year saw the same infliction, and with the famine came starvation's sister, pestilence. Alfred is now married. It was an early age marriage, and a strange time for marrying. His wife was Elswitha, the daughter of a famous ealdorman of Lincolnshire; and through her mother, who afterwards lived in Alfred's home, she was descended from the royal house of Mercia. Alfred's sister had been married fifteen years before, to Burrhed, king of Mercia. There was thus intimate union between the two states in their family alliances. R DR MON TATA Silver Penny of Burrhed, King of Mercia. * See Turner, book iv. chap. iii. for Asser relates a A.D. 868.] DANES INVADE MERCIA. 95 remarkable incident that occurred at the period when the nuptials of Alfred and Elswitha were celebrated in Mercia, "among innumerable multitudes of people of both sexes, and after continual feasts, both by night and by day." He says that Alfred "was immediately seized, in presence of all the people, by sudden and overwhelming pain." The biographer adds, "He had this sort of disease from his childhood," and then relates how it formerly passed away, at Alfred's earnest prayers; and, returning to him at these hours of gladness, continued to his forty-fourth year. The narrative of Asser, as to this sudden infliction, is extremely confused; and does not occur in the proper chronological order. Of these bodily sufferings of Alfred, some of the chroniclers make no mention; but Asser, in another place, says, "when he was more advanced in life, he was harassed by many diseases unknown to all the physicians of the island." Having regard to the early deaths of all his brothers, we may be warranted in believing that the sons of Ethelwulf were constitutionally of weak health. The extraordinary energy in war, in council, in study, of the youngest and most illustrious of this family, is not inconsistent with his long-continued struggles against an hereditary infirmity. It was the unconquerable will that supported, in the discharge of duty, the Saxon Alfred, as it supported the Dutch William, through many years of pain and anxiety. The dangers that surrounded the island, generally, were coming close to Alfred, in those days of early domesticity, when he had brought a wife to share his narrow fortunes, and his doubtful prospects. For Alfred was poor. We learn distinctly from his will, that his brother, the king, had not given him a due share of the paternal estates. There is an emphatic passage in his translation of Boetius, which is not found in the original Latin, in which he speaks of a loving wife: "She has enough of every good in this present life, but she has despised it all for thee alone. She has shunned it all, because only she has not thee also." This sounds like a personal retrospect of the support which he had received in the affection of his queen, during his wanderings and turmoils. They were about to begin. In 868 the Danes, who had established themselves at York, crossed the Humber, for the invasion of Mercia. They possessed themselves of Nottingham, where they wintered. The Mercian king immediately sent for succour to his brothers-in-law of Wessex; and Ethelred and Alfred marched to his assistance. They besieged "the house of caves," as Nottingham was called, and compelled the enemy to quit its occupation, and return to Northumbria. Henry of Huntingdon says, that “ Hinguar,” (Ivar, or Ingvar, who, with his brother Ubba, are now first mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon annals,) "seeing that the whole force of the English was assembled, and that his army was besieged and of inferior strength, had recourse to smooth words, and with dangerous cunning obtained terms of peace from the English." But there was no safety for southern England while the invader was secure in the north. There was rest for a year; and then the devastating power of the Dane rolled onward like a vast engulphing sea that no barrier could shut out. In 870, the Danes again crossed the Humber. "The army," says the Turner, Anglo-Saxons, book v., chap. ii. Mr. Turner has given a great interest to Alfred's Boetius (of which we shall have to speak), by pointing out the passages which are the translator's expansion of the original idea. .96 RAVAGES IN THE FEN COUNTRIES. [A.D. 870. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "rode across Mercia into East-Anglia, and took up their winter-quarters at Thetford." By the term "the army -"the heathen army"—the Anglo-Saxon records now begin to distinguish the invaders. They were no longer mere predatory "crews; "-they were "the army "wintering in one place; garrisoning another; coming, again and again, in larger numbers from the icy capes of the Baltic; occupying the small islands that cluster round Britain; and planting at length a firm foot upon a territory far more valuable than the Orkneys and the Hebrides. They "rode across Mercia." It was a terrible ride for the scattered cultivators and the solitary monasteries of the fen countries. The history attributed to Ingulphus, the Abbot of Croyland, details, from the traditionary relations of an eye-witness, the course of this devastating march through Lincolnshire to Norfolk. But we are warned by a very competent critic against putting too much credence in this authority. Dr. Henry had thus written: "Ingulphus published an excellent history of the abbey of Croyland, from its foundation, A.D. 664 to A.D. 1091, with which he had introduced much of the general history of the kingdom, with a variety of curious anecdotes that are no where else to be found." Sir Francis Palgrave says, "It is exactly these curious anecdotes which must be unsparingly rejected." May not this historical scepticism. be carried too far? There are many anachronisms in the book of Ingulphus ; it may have been written at a later period than the beginning of the twelfth century, when Ingulphus died. But there is little of extravagance in the narrative; and it has the great charm of local colouring. The Danes cross the Witham, and enter the district of Kesteven. Out of the district called Holland come forth the marshmen, under the leading of Earl Algar. The moist soil shakes beneath the tramplings of gathering bands, pouring out from Deeping, Langtoft, and Boston. The lord of Brunne comes with his followers. Tolius, the monk of Croyland, throws off the cowl, and, at the head of a body of fugitives who had rallied round him, joins the united forces. They attack the Northmen in their advance, and drive them back to their earth-works. The alarm goes forth; and the ravagers from other parts hasten to the rescue. Many of the Mercians fly from the terror of their increasing enemies. But Algar, the earl of Holland, and Morcard, the lord of Brunne, and Osgot, the sheriff of Lincolnshire, and Tolius, the soldier-monk, and Harding of Rehale, stand firm, through an autumn day of attack and repulse. In the evening the Northmen make a feint of withdrawing from the field. The English rush forward to the pursuit. The Danes rally; and a noon of sagacious resistance is ended in a night of carnage, in which all the patriotic chieftains perish. A few of their followers escape to Croyland. The abbot and his monks are performing matins, when the terror-stricken fugitives tell of the approaching destruction. Some of the timid prayer-men take boat, and leave their fertile gardens, and their sunny orchards, where the vines and the apple-trees luxuriated amidst a waste of waters,-to hide themselves in the marshes. The bold and the aged who remain at their altars fall in one general slaughter. A little boy only is spared to be led away by Sidroc, one of the Danish chiefs, when they marched forward, and left Croyland in flames. Onward they march, by the ancient roads which cross this land of fens, to Peterborough. The abbot of this great monastery, famous for its architec "Quarterly Review," vol. xxxiv., p. 296. A.D. 870.] EDMUND OF EAST ANGLIA. 97 tural beauty, and whose library was rich with the collected manuscripts of two centuries, resisted the assailants. His courage was unavailing. All perished; and a pile of smouldering ruins alone remained, where the piety of many generations had heaped up precious relics and costly shrines, and where the transcriber and illuminator had been working at illuminated chronicles which have now perished. The boy of Croyland escaped from his captivity. Wandering amidst pathless marshes, hiding amidst reeds and bulrushes, he went on his perilous way to Croyland, and told his dismal experience to the few fugitives who had returned to behold the devastation of their pleasant seats and from this boy, whose name was Thurgar, the narrative of Ingulphus was stated to be derived. Onward went the Northmen. The abbey of Ely was ravaged, as Peterborough and Croyland had been, and all its inmates were murdered. These Danes had left fearful traces of their course, as they rode across Mercia," before they "took up their winterquarters at Thetford." They are now in East Anglia. Edmund, the king, obtained the crown of that separate province, in 855. He has held his rule in peace till this fatal invasion, which is destined to end the dominion of the Anglo-Saxon race in that part of the island. In a battle with Ingvar, the most cruel of the Danish chiefs, Edmund is taken prisoner. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says, "The same winter, King Edmund fought against them, and the Danes got the victory, and slew the king, and subdued all the land, and destroyed all the minsters which they came to. The names of their chiefs who slew the king were Ingwair and Ubba." In the next century Dunstan is affirmed to have related the piteous story of Edmund's death, as he heard it, in his youth, from an ancient warrior, who had been the sword-bearer of the king. The Danes sent their messengers to Edmund, who was dwelling at Hagilsdun (now Hoxne, near Diss), upon the river Waveney, to demand that he should abjure his religion, divide his treasures, and reign under their supremacy. The proposal was rejected; and the king disdained to fly. Resistance was now vain. He was bound to a tree; scourged with whips; pierced with arrows, and finally beheaded. The constancy and sufferings of the East Anglian king raised him to a place in the martyrology. Saint Edmundsbury became one of the richest endowed monasteries in the kingdom. The monastic legends connected with Saint Edmund furnish a proof of the veneration in which his memory was held by the Anglo-Saxon people, when East Anglia had become a Danish province. For nearly a century and a half the remains of the murdered prince were carefully preserved at Beodrechesworth (St. Edmund's Bury); were then removed for a short time to London; and were finally brought back to the great abbey to receive a veneration which was maintained for centuries in credulity, though commenced in patriotism. The little wooden church at Greensted, in Essex, in which tradition says that the body of the royal martyr rested in its way from London to Suffolk, is still an object of national interest. The purity of his life, and the heroism of his death, commanded the sympathy of a long suffering people, and justify the reverence for the man which we yield not to the saint, when we read the story of the last of the East Anglians. The great danger of England is drawing closer and closer round the rulers 98 DANES IN WESSEX. [A.D. 871. and the people of Wessex. Northumbria is in the power of the invaders. Guthrum, the Dane, rules over East Anglia: Mercia is weak and irresolute. "This year," 871, says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "the army came to Reading, in Wessex; and three days after this, two of their earls rode forth. Then Ethelwulf, the ealdorman, met them at Englefield, and there fought against them, and got the victory; and there one of them, whose name was Sidroc, was slain. About three days after this, King Ethelred and Alfred his brother led a large force to Reading, and fought against the army, and there was great slaughter made on either hand." The Northmen, with superior strategy, had thrown up an entrenchment between the Thames and the Kennet, and their superiority of position compelled the Saxons to retreat. "Ethelwulf, the ealdorman, was slain, and the Danish men had possession of the place of carnage." But the retreat was not a flight. "And about four days after this, King Ethelred and Alfred his brother fought against the whole army at Escesdun." It is now, for the first time, that we distinctly see the man Alfred, in his character of a great military leader. He is twentytwo years of age. The story of this battle is told with some minuteness by William of Malmesbury, and with more detail by Asser. It was the turningpoint of Alfred's life. The locality of Escesdun-the ash-tree hill-has not been satisfactorily determined. Aston, a village near Wallingford, and Ashhampstead, also in Berkshire, at a mid distance between Wallingford, Newbury, and Reading, have each been contended for. The chalk-hills about Wantage have been associated with this memorable battle; and the White Horse of the Saxon race has been held to be a monument of the Saxon victory. Asser says, "The field of battle was not equally advantageous to both parties. The Pagans occupied the higher ground, and the Christians came up from below. There was also a single thorn-tree, of stunted growth, which we |