Considerations on the military and political events accompanying the conquest and settlement of the Island of Britain ... With an introductory chapter on the occupation of the island by the Romans

Front matter

CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT OF THE ISLAND OF BRITAIN. CONSIDERATIONS ON THE MILITARY AND POLITICAL EVENTS ACCOMPANYING THE CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT OF THE ISLAND OF BRITAIN; BY THE SAXONS, DANES, AND NORMANS. ■WITH AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER ON THE OCCUPATION OF THK ISLAND BY THE ROMANS. BY MAJOR WILLIAM PRIME JONES, 7th Surrey Rifle Volunteers, late 5th Fusiliers. LONDON: BEMROSE & SONS, 21, PATERNOSTER ROW; AND IRONGATE, DERBY. MDCCCLXXII. PRINTED BY BEMROSE AND SONS, LONDON AND DEBBY. TO COLONEL MARCUS BERESFORD, M.P.. WITH A GRATEFUL SENSE OF HIS MANY KINDNESSES, THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED, BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND, THE AUTHOR.

Preface

. The Author of this little work, now with diffidence offered to the public, makes no pretence to write a History of the time, which has been so much more ably and fully done by others. His sole intention has been to give the conclusions at which he has arrived, from the perusal of the writings of the best modern historians. These, he ventures to hope, may be found useful to those, who, desirous of becoming well acquainted with the deeds of their remote ancestors, are prevented by their necessary avocations, from studying more voluminous works. If, as a Soldier, he has laid more stress on the importance of individual military acts than is sometimes done, even that may not be without interest in these warlike and stirring times. CONTENTS. CHAPTEE I. PAGE Eoman Britain ....... i CHAPTEE II. The Saxon Conquest 26 CHAPTEE HI.

The Establishment op Christianity amongst the Saxons in Britain - - - - - 50 CHAPTEE IV. The Danish Invasions - - 67 CHAPTEE V. The Prosperity and Decline of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom ------- 121 CHAPTEE VI. The Danish Conquest ------ 176 CHAPTEE VII. EEStORATION OP THE SAXON LlNE - - - 205 CHAPTEE VHI. The Norman Conquest 233 APPENDIX- - -

Chapter I

Roman Britain. The Aborigines of Britain — First Historic mention of Britain — When Britain first became really known to the Romans — Place of Cæsar's Landing — Cæsar's Second Expedition — State of Civilization of Britain at the time of Cæsar's Invasion — Religion of the Britons — Second Invasion of the Romans — Great Victory of Suetonius Paulinius. Setting aside all fanciful speculations as to the antiquity of man, it seems probable that Britain was originally occupied by tribes of that Turanian race who, in ages long anterior to history, wandered over so large a portion of Europe and Asia; of whom the Samoedi, the Laplanders, and perhaps the Basques, are the presumed descendants. In sundry caves, on the coasts of England and Scotland, B various implements of flint, stone, and bone have been discovered, together with oyster shells and the split and charred bones of animals, some of them extinct, which in all probability formed the weapons and food of these people.

Daniel Wilson, in his Pre-his toric Annals of Scotland, ascribes the formation of certain Megalithic circles, found in that country, to the very earliest inhabitants of the land — a people remarkable for the peculiar formation of their skulls — and mentions a most interesting fact, that, at Callernish, in the Hebrides, the pole star rests on the centre stone of one of these circles when viewed from the south ; and adds that it is impossible for a spectator to regard the position of the star as the result of accident. Should his view be correct, it would give some approximation as to the time when these stones were set up, and consequently, of the residence in the island of these races. Astronomers inform us that the poles of the earth's axis swing round the poles of the ecliptic with a slow but constant motion, performing the whole circle in 25,868 years ; consequently, the conspicuous star, now termed the pole star, as being nearest to the pole, was not always entitled to that designation.

Sir John Herschel tells us that at the time of the formation of the earliest catalogue of the stars, the present pole star was 12° from the pole, though now only 1° 24', to be further diminished to half a degree. After about 12,000 years, the 'bright star, Alpha Lyræ, will become the pole star, being then about 5° from the pole. Sir John adds that, about 4,000 years from the present epoch, the star, Alpha Draconis, was the pole star ; and he in fers the date of the erection of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh and others, from the fact that the star at its lower culmination shines into the only openings by which they could be entered, the position of which he cannot believe to have been unintentional. If Daniel Wilson be equally correct in his supposition, these circles in the Hebrides must have been erected at a time when the present pole star had approached near enough to the pole to give to the old inhabitants a conspicuous point round which the heavens appeared to revolve.

Doubtless they would not be very nice in their observations ; a moderate prox imity would suffice ; but still that proximity cannot be carried back further than between 2,500 and 3,000 years ; nor, allowing them a residence of some centuries in the island before the commencement of such gigantic works, can their own appearance here be put much further back than 4,000 years.* Having dwelt in these islands for untold centuries, they were at length succeeded, and most probably extirpated, by the ancestors of those Celts who are found, at the dawn of his tory, in possession of the British Islands and * See Note 1. the Western parts of the Continent of Europe, to which they — a branch of the Aryan race; — had migrated from their original seat in Eastern Persia, during the Pre-historic ages. Britain is first historically mentioned by Herodotus, writing about 450 years before the Christian era; and was then chiefly remarkable as being the countiy from whence tin was pro cured.

In times long anterior to Grecian his tory, the Phœnicians had traded to the coast of Cornwall; and had worked, or caused to be worked, the mines of lead and tin with which the country abounds. The metal they smelted and conveyed to different parts of the world, thereby affording material for the manufacture of those bronze weapons and other implements mentioned in the Bible and in the poems of Homer, and of which so many traces have been discovered in burial mounds and in the remains of ancient habitations. The extent of the traffic carried on by the Phœnicians with this island, can be in a degree estimated from the vast collections of bronze articles made in dif ferent parts of Europe and Western Asia, and now deposited in the museums of modern capital cities. But, although the southern coast of Britain must have been well-known in remote antiquity to the people of the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, that knowledge died away with the cessation of their traffic.

The Greeks knew little or nothing of the country, the Romans as little, or even less ; for it is related that when Scipio Africanus the younger was in Gaul, he could learn nothing whatever concerning it, notwithstanding the diligence of his enquiries. The first Roman who really became ac quainted by direct intercourse with Britain and its inhabitants was Julius Cæsar, who, during his Proconsulate of Gaul, taking ad vantage of the real or pretended assistance given by the Britons to some of the Gallic tribes with whom he was at war, fitted out an expedition against the island in the year 55 B.C. A.U.C. 699. Collecting a strong sea and land force at a port in the north of Gaul, probably Wissand, near Calais, where many Roman ruins remain, he first crossed the Straits, making for the inlet of the sea, which then flowed over the ground on which Dover and its suburb Buck land now stands.

But finding the surrounding heights, which were covered by the enemy, altogether inaccessible, he went up with the flood tide some eight miles to the north, and effected a landing, in spite of the resistance of the natives, who had followed him along the shore, upon the beach between Deal and Sandwich. But, although Cæsar had thus made good his entrance into the country, and defeated his enemy, he found the resistance of the natives so bold, and their aspect so threatening, that he determined to postpone any further advance into the interior until the following season, and accordingly re-embarking his forces, he returned to Gaul. The following summer he returned with a still stronger force, and having once more defeated the enemy, in the vicinity of the coast, he advanced by the high grounds on the south side of the Stour, and passed that river near the present village of Chilham, nine miles to the N.E. of Ashford.

Certain local traditions point to this, Cæsar's second campaign in Britain. For instance, the Britons are said to have retreated, and leaving their fortified village or post of Durwhern (Canterbury) to their left, to have made a stand on the hill on which the above mentioned village of Chilham now stands, and being again defeated, to have taken refuge in an adjoining wood, where vestiges of their rude but extensive works are still visible. On a hill on the S.E. side of the Stour, is a tumulus called Julaber's Grave, said to be the burial place of Quintus Liberius Durus, a Tribune who fell in the conflict. Chilham was subsequently one of the Roman Castra Stativa, or permanent encampments ; many Roman remains have been found there. Cæsar having thus passed the river and repulsed the enemy, now struck inland along the chalk ridge extending through Kent into Surrey, and, skirting the great forest of Anderida, came down upon the Thames, near the present town of Chertsey.

Having forded the river and again defeated the Britons ; the chieftains of the petty states or tribes began to tire of the contest, and sued to him for peace. Cæsar, whom more important affairs required in Gaul, demanded hostages and imposed a tribute, then once more embarking his forces he returned to his province ; and neither he nor any other Roman general revisited the island for upwards of ninety years. We are not to suppose that the Romans, in this their first visit to Britain, found the inhabitants perfectly barbarous. Their war chariots armed with scythes; their bronze weapons and golden ornaments; their ex tensive earthen fortifications, sometimes formed with great military skill, attest that they had arrived at a certain degree of civilization, perhaps nearly equal to that of the Continental Gauls.

Indeed the long intercourse with the Phœne cians, though that had ceased even on the part of the Carthaginians for nearly 200 years, and the subsequent traffic with the states of Southern Gaul, and through them with (Marseilles) the Greek city of Massilia, must have sown the seeds of progress in the south part of the island with which the Romans had as yet come principally in contact. It is probable, indeed, that their habitations were still rude enough, but not more so than those of the Scotch Highlanders 200 years ago, or than those of some of the Irish peasantry even so late as the year 1830. The religion of the Britons, like that of their relatives the Gauls, appears to have been a species of nature worship, common to many of the nations in the old times of the Avorld's history. The peculiarity in the case of these latter tribes being, that it was taught by a caste or class of Priests, called " Druids."

Britain was the especial country of Druidism , indeed, in the system, some peculiar sanctity appears to have attached to the West ; for as Britain was more sacred than Gaul, so Mona or Anglesea was more sacred than Britain, and. perhaps, Ireland more so than either. It is a very curious fact, that in remote and out of the way corners of the island Druidism long partially survived. The annals of the seventh and eighth centuries contain numerous edicts and canons of Councils against the worship of the sun, moon, mountains, rivers, trees, &c. ; and there is, even, a law of Canute's to the same effect, as late as the eleventh century. The Romans, as we have said, did not in terfere with Britain after the departure of Cæsar, for nearly a century. But at length, in the reign of Claudius, the old aggressive spirit began to stir once more, and Aldus Plautius was dispatched with a consular army to attempt the reduction of the island.

Landing on the coast of Kent, he fortified the heights of Dover, as the basis of operations, where an interesting work the Pharos (Light house, or Watch Tower) erected by him, or his successor, Osfcorius Scapula, still exists, and is the oldest relic of Roman architecture, and almost the earliest masonry work existing in Great Britain. The Roman General then ad vanced into the interior, and defeating some tribes, and receiving the submission of others, in some measure effected the subjugation of the southern parts of the island. In the career of conquest he was followed by Ostorius Scapula, and by succeeding com manders. Many tribes of the Britons never theless made a gallant stand; the Silures, a tribe inhabiting South Wales, under their brave chief, Caractacus, were conspicuous in their efforts; but superior skill and discipline pre vailed.

Caractacus was betrayed to the enemy, and sent prisoner to Rome, and the central regions were gradually subdued. During this first period of the Roman dominion the case of the Britons was sufficiently miserable ; harassed by the Governor in war, and plundered by the Imperial Procurator in peace. At length ex asperated beyond all bearing, the Iceni, the inhabitants of the present counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, under their Queen, Boadicea, rose in furious rebellion, and falling upon Camelodunum (Colchester), a colony of veterans established by Claudius, they destroyed the place and massacred the inhabitants. Suetonius, Paulinus, who had the year before been appointed Prefect by Nero, was absent on an expedition against the Isle of Mona, the head quarters of Druidism, when the news of the rebellion reached him; returning with rapid strides, he found the Britons, who had, after the destruction of the Claudian colony, burnt Londinium and Verulamium (near St. Albans) now approaching the lower fords of the Thames, with purpose of crossing into the Roman province beyond.

Suetonius instantly interposed between them and the river, and so great was his confidence in his soldiers that he did not hesitate with his 10,000 men to fight a pitched battle with the army of 80,000 strong, and that too with his back to the river, and, as it is conjectured, at a place were there was only one ford, and that as deep as a man's shoulders. Nevertheless, the conduct of the Roman General was skilful and prudent as well as bold, for had he placed the river between himself and the Britons, he would have appeared to surrender the whole northern part us the province, and had it been necessary to attack he must have re-passed the deep and dangerous ford in front of the enemy. The great victory he gained, which reminds one of the exploits of Lucullus or Cæsar, proves that, however corrupt and decaying the social condition of the empire may have been, the soldiery still retained much of the ancient spirit and discipline of the Republic, and were the "good and honest soldiers" whom Tacitus eulogises some few years later.

We, alas ! in the present day have seen, in one of the neighbouring countries, the military force as undisciplined as the society around it was corrupt. The terrible overthrow above narrated, entirely crushed all hope of future resistance amongst the central tribes of the island, for Britain was a country but of moderate extent ; there was no "Hercynia Silva sexaginta dierum Itinere procurrens," as in Germany, into which to retire from the presence of the enemy. And as Britain was then, so it is now, and it be hoves us to see to it, that we do not suffer a decisive defeat from a foreign invader in our own land. We are a more obstinate race than the Celtic tribes of old, but the area of the country is still the same. The tide of conquest now flowed northward, and after sundry successful campaigns under Petilius Cerialis and Julius Frontinus, the greater part of the island was reduced to the form of a Roman province by the celebrated Julius Agricola.

Agricola, a man equally able in war and peace, had been appointed Prefect, in a.d. 78, by the Emperor Vespasian, and his term of command had been extended by Titus and Domitian to a period of seven years. Ample time being thus afforded him, this great commander, by a judicious combination of force and clemency, not only brought the whole country, as far as the foot of the Gram pians, to complete, if not entirely contented submission, but sowed deep the seeds of the civi lization then attained to by the rest of the em pire, and which, to the honour of the Britons be it recorded, they alone, of all the provinces, knew how to combine with a certain vigour and manliness of character, the fruit whereof we shall perceive as we advance in the story. Having completed his conquest of the north as far as he saw necessary, or as time allowed, Agricola proceeded to draw the frontier line of the province from the Frith of Forth to the Clyde ; fortifying it after the Roman manner with a ditch and rampart.

This frontier was afterwards withdrawn by the Emperor Adrian c to the wall called by his name, stretching across the country from Solway Firth to the German Ocean; and from thenceforth it con tinued to advance or recede between these bounds, according to the convenience or caprice of the Roman government. But Adrian's Wall was the usually recog nized line — though with a fringe of outlying settlers beyond — nor was the extreme north ever subdued, the governors, probably, not considering the conquest of barren mountains and wandering barbarians worth the trouble and expense of the effort. With the termination of Agricola's campaigns, Britain, as it were, recedes from our view, and perhaps a dozen pages more would contain all that is said concerning it during the whole long period of the Roman dominion : extending, if we reckon from the landing of Aulus Plautius in a.d. 43, over 377 years ; or from the entire pacification of the island by Agricola in a.d. 84, to 336 years.

Still, there are means by which we may form an estimate of the state of the country under its new rulers; such as the remains of towns, villas, and castles ; inscriptions on altars and monuments; coins and domestic imple ments. From these sources we may gather that Britain, separated by the sea from the rest of the Empire, and exposed to little danger from without (for the attacks of the barbarous Caledonians can never have been a real source of uneasiness), appears to have enjoyed com parative peace and prosperity during its con nexion with the Roman Empire. The remains of magnificent villas scattered through various parts of the country, some of them of gigantic proportions (frontages of three hundred feet by a depth of five hundred, and containing halls of ninety feet square), testify to the wealth and luxury of their owners, and raise our wonder as to the class who could possibly require such habitations.

Again, inscriptions show that the inhabitants, generally, led a quiet country life, amusing themselves by forming hunting associations or clubs, very much after the manner of modern times. Living thus in comparative ease and comfort, the inhabitants of the island must necessarily have increased and multiplied. We have no exact means of estimating the numbers of the population, for although the towns were numerous, and of considerable size, as the remains of some of them testify; and the country around them must have been well cultivated, for mention is made in one or two writers of the export of corn from Britain to Gaul; still, a very large portion of the country was covered with woods. Not to mention those in the northern and midland regions, the great forest of Ande rida, stretching across the whole weald of Kent and Sussex, far into Surrey and Hampshire, is said by old writers to have been 120 miles long, and 30 broad.

These extensive districts, tenanted only by wild animals, or by scattered herdsmen tending swine, must have precluded the possibility of a very dense population in the country taken as a whole. Of this population, all who in habited the towns or cultivated districts, or were brought into connection with the Govern ment, would speak the Latin language, and style themselves Romans; while in the more woody and remote parts, Celtic would still be the vernacular tongue, and the lands would be for the most part in the hands of British proprietors and their followers. The government of the province was, of course, a military despotism, tempered by the laws and usages of the Empire. All political power was in the hands of the prefect or governor, controlled by the edicts of the Emperors, when they had the power to enforce them, and supported by four Roman legions, a force amply sufficient both for external defence and internal police.

The local admin istration of the laws would, in the towns, be confided to the municipalities and to magis trates chosen by them ; and in the country would be exercised by officers deputed by the governor for that purpose, or, probably in some cases, by the great Roman landholders, or by the British chieftains, according to the position and population of the district. Thus Roman Britain saw the passing of many generations in peace and tranquility ; when towards the close of the last century but one of their dominion in the island, a new enemy appeared on the eastern coasts, in the persons of the Saxon pirates, who, issuing from the rivers and creeks of the German Ocean, plundered the coasts of Britain and Gaul wherever an opening was left for their in roads. The Romans took measures to resist these aggressions, by naming a special officer to command on that coast, called in the official language of the later Empire Comes littoris Saxonici : and by building forts and castles at accessible points, such as Garianonum (Yar mouth), Regulbium (Reculver), Rutupiæ (Richborough near Sandwich), the Portus Limanus (Lympne near Hythe), Anderida (Pevensey, Sussex), and others.

A peculiarity is observable in many of these fortresses, viz. : that they are mere quad rangles, with little or no flanking defences ; and are a striking proof, either of the contempt felt by the Romans for the expected assailants, or, which is more probable, of the decline of the military art in the Empire. Nearly at the time the future Conquerors of Britain first show ed themselves on her South Eastern shores, the nation fated to be their most strenuous oppo nents, appear on the East coast of Caledonia. The Picts, undoubtedly a part of the Cymric (Cymraeg) branch of the Celtic family, migra ted to the North Eastern coasts of Britain, at some period unknown ; perhaps expelled from the Chersonesus Cimbrica by the advancing Teutons ; they next spread themselves into the South Western parts of the present kingdom of Scotland, where, after the departure of the Romans, they founded the Regnum Cam brense, or kingdom of Strath Clwyd.

There is little doubt that the language of the Picts, was Welsh ; and it forms one of the most curious puzzles of the times of which we treat, that, after the withdrawal of the Romans, the most prominent characters in the island have Welsh names, and that the Welsh language is so largely intermixed with Latin words, al though we have no reliable evidence of the ex istence of Cymraeg tribes in South Britain, during the period of the Roman dominion. That dominion was now approaching its close. After the death of Theodosius the Great, the Empire, assailed along its whole frontier by the barbarians, could hardly spare troops for the defence of its outlying provinces; and at last, when Italy and Rome itself were attacked by the Visigoths, under Alaric, Honorius, having by letter called upon the provincials to elect deputies, to form a Government for their own defence and protection, finally, in 420 a.d. withdrew the legions from Britain.

Thus left to themselves, the inhabitants of the island appear to have formed themselves into two political parties. The Romanized citizens of the towns electing — probably as Emperor — a leader who is called Aurelius Am brosius, in the legends of the times ; the more particularly British jnopulation choosing a chief who is named Vortigern, in the same legends ; but whatever his real appellation, he was in all likelihood a powerful chieftain, and proprietor in Kent and the adjoining counties. At least so we may surmise, from his dealings with the Saxons; but this part of the subject we will treat of in the next chapter.

Chapter II

The Saxon Conquest. Intestine Quarrels of the Britons — The Saxons Invited over by Vorti gern — Their Origin and Settlement on the Shores of the German Ocean — Their Character and Religion — Settlement of the Jutes in Kent — Of the Saxons in Sussex — Desperate Resistance of the Britons, as com pared with that of the other Provinces of the Empire — The Probable Reasons — Their Military System — Landing of the West Saxons — The Legendary Hero, Arthur — Kingdom of the East Saxons — Invasion of the Angles — Conquest of Northumbria — Settlement of the North and South Folk — The Britons Driven into Cumberland and Westmoreland — Consequences of the Establishment of the Saxons in the Island. In the last chapter, we stated that the Britons, on the departure of the Imperial Legions from the Island, had separated into two opposing political parties or factions.

The results were, of course, first dissension, then downright hostility. For it is certain that application for military assistance was made to Ætius when governor of Gaul. The legend tells us that it was for help against the Picts and Scots, but the greater probability is, that it was made by the Roman party, for aid against their British rivals. In like manner Vortigern, to call him by his legendary name, engaged the services of certain Saxon, or rather Jutish Rovers. Here again the story says that it was against the Scots, but why, in that case, he should have located them in the Isle of Thanet, it were hard to imagine. The Saxons, who with their allied and kin dred tribes, the Jutes and Angles, now ap pear upon the scene as the invaders and con querors of Roman Britain, were one of the divisions of the Teutonic branch of the great Aryan family, and are first mentioned by the Geographer Ptolemy, writing in the reign of Marcus Aurelius.

He places them just to the south of the Peninsula of Jutland. THE ,SAX0N CONQUEST. They do not appear to have been considerable enough to have attracted the notice of the historian Tacitus, in his work on Ger many; but in after y^ears they greatly in creased, and extended themselves along the shores of the German Ocean from Sleswick to the mouth of the Rhine. In the latter part of the third century, they, in imitation of the Franks, formed a Saxon league of various sea board tribes, and took up the trade of piracy on the ocean. Like their relatives, the Scandinavian races, they were warlike and enterprising to a degree exceeding even the other Teutonic Nations ; and the religious faith they pro fessed, in common with the Danes and Nor wegians, was admirably adapted in one part to the fierce and stern character; and in an other to the strong common sense and exalted imagination of those, who were, pre-eminently, the Men of the Modern World.

This system, on which we will now say a few words, was one of the most extraordinary ever framed or devised by man. We see in it two separate religions united, but in no way mixed up together. The one sensual, extravagant, and absurd ; the other simple, reasonable, and sublime ; the two creeds not fused or joined, but merely following one another. Two authors, Soemund Sigfussen, writing about 1057, and Snorro Sturlessen, about 1180, collected in two books, called " The two books of the Edda," all the sacred poems of the old Northern Skalds, that survived in peoples' memories or in manuscripts, &c. From them the following may be deduced. The framers of this religion made Odin or Woden, chief of the Gods ; his wife was Freya, (a sort of Northern Venus); Thor, was the God of storms; Balder, the God of light; Kiord, Tyr, and others, sons and daughters of Odin and Freya, Gods and Goddesses.

There were also the Fates, who predestined man's career ; the Valkeries, who determined the victory, and who should die in the fight ; the Genii, &c. Lok was the evil principle, most powerful and malignant, who, with the Goddess Hela, the Wolf Feris, the Dragon, the Giants, &c, formed the dark side of the Pantheon. Their ideas as to a future state were curious, but for a people in their condition — always fighting — quite natural. The brave or good — those who died in battle or by shipwreck — enjoyed happiness in Val halla. Their notion of perfect happiness being : fighting all day and feasting all night on the Boar Scrimner, and drinking mead out of the sculls of their enemies. The wicked, that is cowards, suffered the miseries of Niffel heim. There ruled the goddess Hela ; her Palace, Anguish, her Table, Famine.