History of England

Preface

The appearance of the first of the series of small histories to be published under my editorship seems to call for a few words from me. The present History of England takes for granted the views and divisions laid down in my Outlines of History so far as they concern the particular history of England. The points in English history which were there touched on as parts of general history, with special regard to their bearings on the history of other countries, are here dealt with more fully, as a consecutive narrative of the history of the particular nation and country of England. It will perhaps be found to be more compressed than some other volumes of the series ; as the history of England naturally appealed to a wider circle than most others, it was thought right to keep the book within as small a compass as might be.

The book is strictly the work of its author. I have throughout given it such a degree of supervision as to secure its general accuracy ; but with regard to the

PREFACE.

details of the narrative, both as to their choice and their treatment, they are the author's own ; on these points I have not thought it right to go beyond suggestion. It may perhaps be hard for me to speak impartially of a book to whose general merit I am pledged by its mere appearance ; but I can honestly say that it is the result of genuine work among the last and best lights on the subject. I believe it to be thoroughly trustworthy, and that it will give clearer and truer views on most of the points on which clear and true views are specially needed than can be found in any other book on the same small scale.

EDWARD A. FREEMAN.

SOMERLEAZE, WELLS,

March %th, 1873.

Contents

CHAP PAGB

I.— BRITAIN I

II.— ENGLAND 4

Chapter I. Britain

The Britons ; Ireland and Scotland (i) — the Roman conquest; invasion of Julius Ccesar ; description of the Britons (2) — Claudius ; Caractacus (3) — destruction of the Druids ; Queen Boadicea (4) — Agricola (5) — Hadrian and Severus (6) — the British Church; St. Alban (7).

1. The British Isles. — Englci7id has its name from the Angles or English, of whom we shall not speak till our next chapter, as they were not the first owners of the land. They found already dwelling in it a Celtic race, the Britons, who are the earliest inhabitants of whom we have any historic knowledge, and who still exist as a people under the name of Welsh. These are supposed < to have conquered, and rooted out from the country, a savage race, remains of whose weapons and tools have been found in their tombs or cromlechs. The Island of I erne, Scotia, or Ireland was inhabited by another Celtic people, the Scots, who afterwards colonized or conquered a district of Caledonia or North Britain, which thus came to be called from them Scotia or Scotland.

2. The Roman Conquest, Julius Caesar. — At the time when our knowledge of the Britons begins, the Romans were the most powerful nation of the world ; and it was their

T B

BRITAIN. [chap.

great general, Cains Julius Ccssar, who first attempted to conquer Britain, hitherto only known to those merchants who traded with the tribes on the sea-coast. Cassar first passed over into Britain in Aug. 55 B.C., landing at Deal. The next year he came again, but neither time did he make any lasting conquest, or leave any troops behind him. He only saw the southern part of the island, and gives to the Kentish people the praise of being the most civilized of the Britons. The population was large, the buildings and cattle numerous. The Britons stained themselves blue with woad, which gave them a terrible appearance in battle. They employed both cavalry and chariots, and were remarkable for their skill in driving, and the activity with which they leapt down to fight on foot and sprang back again to their cars. Their priests were called Druids, and human sacrifices were offered to their gods. After Caesar's two expeditions, Britain became much better known to the rest of the world. At the beginning of the Christian sera, its exports are said to have comprised corn and cattle, gold and' silver, tin, lead, and iron, skins, slaves, and hunting dogs. Pearls were also found, but of a poor kind.

3. Claudius.— In the time of the Emperor Claudius, who himself came over here in a.d. 43, the Romans really began to conquer Britain. One who struggled the hardest against the invaders was Carddoc, called by the Romans Caractacus, King of a tribe dwelling by the Severn ; but he was at last taken and sent prisoner to Rome. "When he saw the stately streets, he expressed his wonder that men who had such wealth at home should covet his poor cottage in Britain ; and the Emperor, struck with his bold bearing, instead of putting him to death, the usual fate of a captive, gave him his freedom.

4. Boadicea. — In A.D. 61 Suetonius Pauliuus, the Roman governor, being determined to root out the Druids, attacked

L] THE ROMANS IN BRITAIN. 3

their sacred isle of Mono, (now Anglesey). A strong force of Britons defended the shore ; the Druids stood around, calling down the wrath of heaven upon the invaders ; women with streaming hair and torches in their hands rushed wildly to and fro. For a moment the Romans quailed with superstitious terror ; but, recalling their courage, they advanced, and warriors, Druids, priestesses, were overwhelmed, the altars destroyed, and the sacred groves cut down. Meanwhile the subject Britons broke out into revolt under the leadership of Buddug or Boadicea, widow of a King of the Icoiians, a tribe dwelling in what are now Norfolk and Suffolk. Boadicea, having offended the Roman officer commanding at Camulodunum (Colchester^, had by his orders been publicly scourged, and her two daughters had been subjected to brutal outrage. Breathing vengeance, the highspirited Queen gathered together her own and the neighbouring tribes, stirred them by a fiery speech, and herself led them to battle. They massacred the garrisons and burnt the Roman towns of Londinium (London), Ventlamiiim (St. Albans), and Camitlodunumj but, on the return of Suetonius, they were defeated with great slaughter near Londinium. Boadicea died soon after — a natural death, as some say ; according to others, she poisoned herself in despair.

5. Agricola. — The true conqueror of Britain was Cnccus Julius Agricola, a wise and good man, who was its governor from a.d. 78 to 84. He built a line of forts between the Firths of Forth and Clyde to keep off the wild North-Britons whom he could not subdue, sailed round the north of the island, and found out the Orkneys. He ruled with justice, checked the extortions of the Roman tax-gatherers, and encouraged the natives to build temples, courts of justice, and good dwelling-houses. Towns were raised throughout the land, and excellent roads made, some of which remain at this day. Many Romans settled in Britain, of whose B 2

ENGLAND. [chap.

villas, or country-houses, traces are here and there still to be seen ; while the native chieftains learned to speak Latin, and affected the dress and manners of their conquerors.

6. Hadrian and Severus. — In 120 the Emperor Hadrian visited Britain, and, not being able to keep all the land won by Agricola, raised an earthwork from the Tyne to the Solway Frith. A fresh dyke, however, was built along Agricola's line under the Emperor Antoninus Pius in 139. Still the Caledonians gave trouble, until between 207 and 210 the Emperor Severus came in person to put them down, and built a chain of stone forts along the line of Hadrian's dyke. Severus died in 21 1 at Eboracum, now called York.

7. The British Church. — At what time Britain became Christian is not known. Its first martyr is said to have been St. Aldan, who was put to death in 304 near Verulam ; the spot where he was martyred being afterwards marked by the abbey and town bearing his name.

Chapter II. England

Decline of the Roman power ; the Picts and Scots ; the Teutonic tribes; the Roman Wall ; recall of the Roman troops.; the English conquest ; the Welsh (i) — kingdom of Kent ; legend of Hengest and ITorsa ; kingdom of Wessex ; Arthur ; kingdom of Noi-tJmmberland ; of the Mercians ; of Sussex, Essex, and East Anglia ; the Bretwalda (2) — Religion (3) — Government ; the King; earl, churl, thane, and thrall ; the Witan ; mark, hundred, and shire (4).

I. The English Conquest. — In the fourth century, when the power of Rome was going down, the free Celts of the north, the Picts and Scots, began to pour into the Roman ii.] THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 5

province of Britain, while new enemies attacked the island by sea. These latter were Teutonic tribes, speaking dialects of the Low-Dutch or Low-German tongue, who came from the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser in North-Germany. About the year 400 the Romans joined the forts of Severus by a wall, parts of which are still to be seen ; and ten years later, the Emperor Honoruis withdrew all his troops from Britain, and left the natives to resist their many enemies as they best might. The greater part of the country was now conquered by these Teutons, the founders of the English nation, among whom three tribes stand out above the rest, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. These grew into one people under the name of Anglo-Saxons, or more commonly of Angles or English; and the part of Britain they dwelt in was called England. They were fierce heathen, who slew or enslaved those whom they overcame, and drove the rest into the western part of the island. They spoke of the Britons as Welsh, that is, strangers ; while the Britons called them all Saxons, as the descendants of the Celts in Wales (which has its name from the Welsh), in Ireland, and the Highlands do to this day.

2. The English Kingdoms. — According to ancient tradition, the first Teutonic Kingdom in this island was that of Kent, which has always kept its British name. Gwrtheyrn or Vo7'tigem, a. native prince, was ill-advised enough to invite two Jutish chiefs, the brothers Hengest and Horsa, to help him against the Picts. The strangers came over with their followers in three keels or ships, defeated the Picts, and then, thinking they might as well conquer for themselves, sent over for their countrymen in North-Germany, telling them how good the land was, and how weak were its people. The Britons, nevertheless, had a long struggle with them ; but the Jutish adventurers at last got the better, founding in 449 the Kingdoms of East and West Kent. The Kingdo?H

ENGLAND. [chap.

of the West-Saxons, or Wessex, was founded by two Saxon chiefs, Cerdic and his son Cynric, who, landing in 495, made themselves Kings of the part now called Hampshire. A British prince, Arthur by name, who has become more famous by the romances and poems about him than for his real exploits, in 520 defeated the Saxons at Badbury in Dorsetshire, and thus checked their western conquests for a whole generation ; but later on, they pushed their way, and their kingdom grew larger and larger. In 547 Ida the Angle founded the Kingdom of the Northumbrians— the land from the Humber to the Firth of Forth, ruled sometimes by one King, sometimes by two. The Kingdom of the Mercians, which was mainly Anglian, took in the midland country. The Kingdoms of the South-Saxons, or Sussex ; of the East-Saxons, or Essex; and of the East- Angles, which was divided into the North-folk and South-folk {Norfolk and Suffolk), were less powerful. , These seven chief kingdoms are sometimes spoken of by modern authors as the Heptarchy, that is, the Rule of Seven ; but the name is misleading, as there were at no time seven regular and orderly states. They were for ever fighting, not only with the Welsh, but among each other, and their number was sometimes more and sometimes fewer. At times, some one King gained a certain authority over his fellows, in which case he was termed a Bretwalda, or " Wielder of Britain."

3. Religion. — The faith of the English was much the same as that of the other Teutonic tribes — heathenism, though not of a degraded form. Woden, called by the Danes Odin, was their chief god, the giver of valour and victory ; after him came Thunder, better known by his Danish name of Thar, the ruler of the sky ; and many other gods and goddesses. The names of the days of the week, as Wednesday or Woden's day, Thursday or Thunder's day, still preserve the memory of some of these deities.

II. ] GO VERNMENT.

4. Government. — The English royal houses all claimed descent from the God Woden ; but, though the King was taken from the kingly line, he was nevertheless elected ; and a child or a man thought incompetent would be passed over in favour of a kinsman better fitted for the office. Part of the land belonged to the State, and part was allotted to individuals, the King having his private estates like other people. But as he could, with the consent of his council, make grants of the public land, it came in time to be looked on as the property of the Crown. All landholders were under three obligations, — to serve in the fyrd, or militia, and to repair fortresses and bridges. Freemen were divided into Earls and Churls, terms best expressed in modern language by the words " gentle " and " simple ; " and the churl was expected to live under some lord, whom he followed to battle. Every King or other great man had his own thegns (now spelt "thane"), warriors who devoted themselves to his service in peace and war. As it was held an honour to serve a King, the thanes grew into gentlemen and nobles. There were also the thralls or slaves, who were most numerous along the Welsh border, where many Welshmen were taken prisoners and made bondsmen. But men might become slaves in other ways than being captured in war. They might be driven by poverty to sell themselves, or be enslaved by law as punishment for some crime ; or they might be born in slavery.

The King was not absolute (that is, he did not govern by himself), but was guided by a kind of Parliament, called the Witena-gemot, or Meeting of the Wise, and often simply the Witan or Wise Men. All freemen might take part in the Meeting ; but as the Kingdoms grew larger the mass of the people soon found it impracticable to do so ; — for example, a common man at York was not likely to attend a Meeting at Winchester or London. So the Meeting shrank

CONVERSION OF ENGLAND. [chap.

on ordinary occasions into something more like our House of Lords, attended only by the great men — the Ealdormen, who were much like Lords-Lieutenant of counties ; the King's thanes; and, after the country became Christian, by the Bishops and Abbots.' We often hear, however, of the Londoners taking part in Meetings held in that city. The powers of the Witan were large : they elected the King ; and they and he together made laws and treaties, and appointed tor removed the officers of the State. The people, however, in small matters governed themselves. The mark or township had its own little court and meeting, still continued in part under the name of " parish vestry," for judging and settling its affairs : and so had the hundred, a division of the shire or county. So too the shire had its court and meeting, presided over by the Ealdorman and the Sheriff, with whom, in Christian times, was joined the Bishop.

Chapter III. The Conversion Of England

K*me ; the conversion of Kent (i) — the conversion of the Northumbrians ; the Scots missionaries (2).

I. Conversion of Kent. — The heathen English had learned nothing from the Christian Welsh, and their conversion was owing in the first instance to Rome, which was still considered the greatest city of the Western world, and whose Bishop, commonly called Pope, that is, Father, was held to be chief of all Bishops in the West. Gregory the Great, who was made Pope in 590, is said to have become interested in the English from seeing some beautiful long-haired boys from Deira (Yorkshire), standing for sale in.] CONVERSION OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 9

in the slave-market at Rome. Well were they called Angles, he said, for they had the faces of angels j and sorrowing that forms so fair should have no light within, he at once conceived a wish for the conversion of England. So after he had become Pope, he, in 597, sent into Britain a band of monks having at their head Augustine, afterwards styled Saint. sEthelbert King of Kent, who was the most powerful prince in Southern England, had married Bertha, daughter of Charibert, one of the Frankish kings in Gaul. Though himself a heathen, he had agreed to allow his wife, as being a Christian, free exercise of her religion, and he now consented to listen to Augustine and his companions. The meeting took place in the Isle of Thanet, and, by y^Ethelbert's wish, in the open air, because spells and charms, which he feared the strangers might use, were supposed to have less power out of doors. After hearing what they had to say, he gave them a house in the royal city of Canterbury. Ere long they converted y£thelbert, whose example was freely followed by many. Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury, and his cathedral, although it has been many times rebuilt, still remains the metropolitan or mother church of England. He consecrated a Bishop of London, for whom King .rEthelber-t built the church of St. Paul. The Church services, introduced untranslated by the missionaries, were in Latin, which, though an unknown tongue in England, was still understood in other parts of Western Christendom.

2. The Conversion of the Northumbrians. — Eadwine, or as we now write his name, Edwin, of Deira, mounted the Northumbrian throne in 617, and became the greatest King in Britain. His wife yEthelburh, daughter of /Ethelbert of Kent, was a Christian ; and to the Bishop Paulinus, whom she brought with her, the conversion of her husband was due. York Minster, at first a simple wooden church, was io W ESSEX. [chap.

founded by Edwin, who was there baptized. But after he had fallen fighting against the heathen Penda King of the Mercians, many of his people returned to the old gods. The work of conversion began again under Oswald, who became King in 634. Having been baptized by the Scots of Caledonia, he applied to them for teachers for his people. Aidan, a monk from the monastery of Iona, was sent on this request, and fixed his episcopal see in Lindisfame, since called Holy Island. Through his own and his countrymen's labours, most of the Northumbrians soon became Christians ; but the faith of the common people in out-of-the-way districts was often mixed with heathenism. Cuthbert, a Northumbrian monk of Melrose, who was made Bishop of Lindisfarne in 685. and was afterwards reverenced as the great saint of the North, devoted himself to teaching them, and preaching throughout the villages, choosing particularly those which were so difficult to get at that other missionaries avoided them.

The other kingdoms of England were gradually converted during the seventh century.

Chapter IV. Wessex

Northumberland ; Offa of Mercia ; Ine of Wessex ; the Bretwalda Egbert (i) — the Danes (2)— St. Patrick ; the Danes in Ireland (3) — sEthehvulfand his sous ; Ragnar Lodh-og ; St. Edmund (4) — Alfred; story of the cakes ; taking of the Raven; story of Alfred in the Danish camp ; treaty of Wedmore ; Danish settlements (5) — Alfred 's government ; death of Alfred (6) — Edward the Elder ; Lordship of Britain (7)-— Rolf the Northman (8).

I. Rise of Wessex. — For some time Northumberland took the lead in England ; then Mercia rose to power under iv.] THE DANES OR NORTHMEN. H

Offa, who reigned from 757 to 796. He raised a dyke, called by his name, from the Wye to the Dee, to guard the land he had taken from the Welsh. Gradually Wessex, which was ruled by the descendants of Cerdic, got the mastery. Ine, who became its King in 688, is famous as a lawgiver. He, too, waged war with the Welsh, and also built the town of Taunton, probably as a frontier fortress. In 802, Ecgberht or Egbert succeeded to the throne of Wessex, and brought all the English kingdoms under his power. He became King by conquest of all the Saxons and Jutes, and Lord of the East-Angles, Mercians, and Northumbrians, whose Kings consented to be his men or vassals. The Welsh of Cornwall and Wales also submitted to him ; but his later years were marred by the increasing ravages of the Northern pirates.

2. The Danes or Northmen. — The Scandinavians, or Northmen, were a Teutonic people, who gradually formed the Kingdoms of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. As those of them who entered England were chiefly Danes, the English writers often speak of the Scandinavians in general by that name. Among these people, piracy was an honourable profession, and men of the highest rank took to the roving life of a " Sea-King ; " that is, a leader of wikings or pirates. Their practice was to sail up the river in their cescs or as/wood galleys, and, obtaining horses in the country, make rapid forays over the mainland, plundering, burning, and slaying. They spoke a kindred tongue to English, and, worshipping the same gods as the heathen English had done, singled out with especial delight churches, monasteries, and priests for destruction. Nevertheless they for the most part made little difficulty about forsaking their own religion whenever there was anything to be gained by conversion. Never to flinch in fight, or shed a tear, even for their dearest kinsfolk, and to be as reckless in meeting as in inflicting death, summed up their ideas of honour and duty.

WESSEX. [chap.

3. The Da-nes in Ireland. — The Scots of Ireland had been converted to Christianity in the fifth century, chiefly, it is said, through the exertions of Si. Patrick, a famous missionary whose origin and country are matters of doubt. His disciples carried on his work : churches and monasteries were founded ; learning was cultivated at a time when it had almost died out elsewhere, and the Irish schools were sought by strangers from England, Gaul, and Germany. Nevertheless the people made but slow progress towards civilization, and this was checked altogether by invasions of the Danes. At last the pirates settled upon the sea-coast, and the native Irish, driven into the bogs and the forests, fell back into little better than savages.

4. The Danish Wars. /Ethelwulf and his Sons. — Egbert was succeeded in 838 by his son ALthelwulf, and he by his four sons, jElhelbald, ALthelbcrt, ALthelred I., and sElfred (or, as we now write it, Alfred), who all reigned one after the other, none of the first three living long. Under ^Ethelred began the great Danish war, as to the cause of which there are many Northern legends. One tale is that Ragnar Eodbrogj. a mighty Sea-King, was shipwrecked on the Northumbrian coast. There the King of the country, sElla, threw him into a dungeon full of poisonous snakes, under whose bites he expired, chanting to the last a wild song recounting his exploits, and boasting that "he died laughing." The facts are that in 866 " a great heathen army," under the command of Ingvar and Ubba, said to be sons of Ragnar, landed in East-Anglia, and in the two next years overran Northumberland and Mercia. In S70 they again invaded East-Anglia, and put its young King Edmuud to death. Edmund, according to legend, was offered his life and kingdom if he would forsake Christianity and reign under them. On his refusal they bound him to a tree, scourged him, made him, in savage sport, a mark for their arrows, and at last struck off his head.

IV.] ALFRED. 13

He was honoured as a martyr, and the Abbey of St. Edmu?idsbnry was afterwards erected over his grave.

5. Alfred, 871-901. — Alfred, when a child of four years old, had been sent by his father to Rome, where Pope Leo IV. adopted him as his godson. At nineteen he married, and it is said that during his wedding feast he was seized with fearful pain, which baffling all the medical skill of the time, for the next twenty years of his life kept frequently attacking him ; if so, it is the more wonderful how brave and vigorous he was. At the age of twenty-two he became King, and a hard fight he had of it. For seven years he maintained himself, until early in 878 the army under Guthrum, a Danish chief who had possessed himself of East-Anglia, made a sudden raid upon Wessex, and overran the country. Many of the people fled beyond sea ; the rest submitted, while Alfred, with a few followers, disappeared among the swamps and woods of Somersetshire. At one time — so runs a tale which appears to have come to us from a ballad — he stayed in disguise with a neat-herd, who kept his secret even from his wife. One day the woman having set some cakes to bake at the fire by which Alfred was sitting mending his bow and arrows, returned to find her cakes burning in the sight of the unconscious King, whose mind was full of more serious matters. Flying to save them, she roundly scolded him for his neglect to turn the cakes, which she said he was only too glad to eat when hot. That same winter the Devonshire West-Saxons slew the Danish King Ubba in battle, and took the magic Raven banner, said to have been woven in one noontide by the three daughters of Ragnar. Things now began to mend, Alfred and his little band throwing up a small fort in Athelney, and thence making frequent sallies. It is said that in order to ascertain the strength of the enemy he entered their camp in the disguise of a minstrel or juggler, and there stayed i 4 WESSEX. [chap.

seven days, amusing them and their King Guthrum with his music, until he had learnt all he wanted to know. However this may be, he reappeared on a sudden at the head of the West-Saxon forces, and gave the Danes such a defeat at Edingtoti, near Westbury, that they soon yielded to him. Guthrum submitted to be baptized ; and the Witan meeting at We dm ore, a treaty was made, by which the Danes received, as vassals of the West-Saxon King, East-Anglia, and part of Essex and Mercia. The Danes of Northumberland, who were not Guthrum's men, submitted to Alfred some years later. So after all Alfred's labour, the greater part of England was left in Danish hands, and consequently the English race became largely infused with Scandinavian blood. In this way it comes to pass that so many places have Danish names, marked by the ending by, which answers to the English ton or town. Thus Strconeshalh got the Danish name of Whitby, and North weortkig that of Derby.

6. Alfred's Government. — Alfred worked as hard in peace as in war. He made a collection of dooms, that is, laws ; some taken from the Mosaic law, others from the old codes of uEthelbert, Inc., and Offa, adding but few of his OAvn, because he said he did not know how those who came after him might like them. He kept up a fleet, and did all he could to revive the old seafaring spirit, which seemed to have died out. He gave largely to the poor and to churches, founded monasteries, and encouraged learned men, English and foreign, to instruct his people. Knowing Latin well, he translated many books from that language. He sent out seamen to the North on voyages of exploration ; also embassies to the Pope, to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and what is still more remarkable, to India, with alms for the Christian churches there, which had been founded, it is said, by the Apostles St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew. This was the

IV.] ROLF THE NORTHMAN. 15

first intercourse between England and the far-off Eastern land which now forms part of the British Empire. Alfred had other wars with the Danes, but his courage and determination carried him through all, and his last years were spent in quiet. In 901 he died, and was buried at Winchester, in the new Minster, afterwards called Hyde Abbey, which he had begun, and which his son Edward finished.

7. Eadward or Edward the Elder, 901-925. The Lordship of Britain. — Alfred was succeeded by his eldest son Edward, who was as good a soldier, though not so good a scholar, as his father. He became more powerful than anyone before him, for at his death he was King of the English as far as the H umber, and Loi-d of all Britain j the Northumbrians, whether English, Danes, or Norwegians, the Scots, and the Welsh of Strathclyde or Cumberland, all doing him homage.