sal, and tributary under him; thus at once satisfying his ambition, and flattering the people with an appearance of the former govern ment. The king of Northumberland was the last that submitted to his authority. This state had been long harassed by civil wars and usurpations: all order had been destroyed among the people, and the kingdom was weakened to such a degree, that it was in no condition to withstand such an invader as Egbert. The inhabitants, therefore, unable to resist his power, and desirous of possessing some established form of government, very cheerfully sent deputies, who submitted to his authority, and expressed their allegiance to him as their sovereign. By this submisison, all the kingdoms of the heptarchy were united under his command; but, to give splendour to his authority, a general council of the clergy and laity was summoned at Winchester, where he was solemnly crowned king of England, by which name the united kingdom was thenceforward called. son. A. D. Thus, about four hundred years after the first arrival of the Saxons in Britain, all their petty settlements were united into one great state; and nothing offered but prospects of peace, security, and increasing refinement. About this period, the 827. arts and sciences, which had been before only known to the Greeks and Romans, were disseminated over Europe, where they were sufficient to raise the people above mere barbarians, but yet lost all their native splendour in the transplantation. The English, at this time, might be considered as polite, if compared to the naked Britons at the invasion of Cæsar. The houses, furniture, clothes, and all the real luxuries of sense, were almost as great then as they have been since. But the people were incapable of sentimental pleasure. All the learning of the time was confined among the clergy; and little improvement could be expected from their reasonings, since it was one of their tenets to discard the light of reaAn eclipse was even by their historians talked of as an omen of threatened calamities; and magic was not only believed, but some actually believed themselves magicians. Even the clergy were not averse to these opinions, as such in some measure served to increase their authority. Indeed, the reverence for the clergy was carried so high, that if a person appeared in a sacerdotal habit on the highway, the people flocked round him, and, with all the marks of profound respect, received every word he uttered as an oracle. From this blind attachment, the social, and even the military virtues began to decline among them. The reverence towards saints and relics served to supplant the adoration of the Supreme Being. Monastic observances were esteemed more meritorious than active virtues; and bounty to the church atoned for all the violences done to society. The nobility, whose duty it was to preserve the military spirit from declining, began to prefer the sloth and security of a cloister to the tumult and glory of war; and those rewards which should have gone to encourage the soldier, were lav ished in maintaining the credulous indolence of monastic superstition. 26 CHAPTER IV. FROM THE ACCESSION OF EGBERT TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST. A. D. 827-1066. Ir might have been reasonably expected, that a wise and fortunate prince, at the head of so great a kingdom, and so united and numerous a people as the English then were, should not only have enjoyed the fruits of peace and quiet, but left felicity to succeeding generations. The inhabitants of the several provinces, tired out with mutual dissensions, seemed to have lost all desire of revolting: the race of their ancient kings was extinct, and none now remained but a prince who deserved their allegiance, both by the merit of his services and the splendour of his birth. Yet, such is the instability of human affairs, and the weakness of man's best conjecture, that Egbert was hardly settled on his united throne, when both he and his subjects began to be alarmed at the approach of new and unknown enemies, and the island exposed to fresh invasions. About this time a mighty swarm of those nations who had possessed the countries bordering on the Baltic, began, under the names of Danes and Normans, to infest the western coasts of Europe, and to fill all places, wherever they came, with slaughter and devastation. These were, in fact, no other than the ancestors of the very people whom they came to despoil, and might be considered as the original stock from which the numerous colonies that infested Britain had migrated some centuries before. The Normans fell upon the northern coasts of France; the Danes chiefly leveled their fury against England, their first appearance being in 787, when Brithric was king of Wessex. It was then that a small body of them landed on the coasts of that kingdom, with a view of learning the state of the country; and having committed some small depredations, fled to their ships for safety. About seven years after the first attempt they made a descent upon the kingdom of Northumberland, where they pillaged a monastery; but, their fleet being shattered by a storm, they were defeated by the inhabitants, and put to the sword. It was not till about five years after the elevation of Egbert to the sovereignty of England, that their invasions became truly formidable. From that time they continued with unceasing ferocity, until the whole kingdom was reduced to a state of the most distressful bondage. As the Saxons had utterly neglected their naval power since their first settlement in Britain, the Danes, who succeeded them in the empire of the sea, found no difficulty in landing upon the isle of Sheppey, in Kent, which they ravaged, returning to their ships laden with the spoil. Their next attempt, the year ensuing, was at Charmouth, in Dorsetshire, where they landed a body of fifteen thousand men, that made good their ground against the efforts of Egbert; who, after a battle, was obliged to draw off his forces by night. Within two years after, they landed in Cornwall; and, being joined by the Britons there, they advanced towards the borders of Devonshire, where they were totally routed by Egbert, in a pitched battle, at Hengsdown-hill, near Kellington. By this victory he secured the kingdom from invasion for some time; but his death seemed to put a period to the success of his countrymen, and to invite the enemy to renew their devastations with impunity. He was succeeded by Ethelwolf, his son, who had neither the vigour nor the abilities of his father. This prince had been educated in a cloister, and had actually taken orders during the life of his elder brother; but upon his death he received a dispensation to quit the monkish habit, and to marry. He was scarcely settled on his throne, when a fleet of Danish ravagers, consisting of thirtythree sail, landed at Southampton; but they were repulsed, though not without great slaughter on both sides. However, no defeat could repress the obstinacy, nor could any difficulties daunt the courage of these fierce invaders, who still persevered in their descents, and, year after year, made inroads into the country, marking their way with pillage, slaughter, and desolation. Though often repulsed, they always obtained their end,-of spoiling the country and carrying off the plunder. It was their method to avoid coming, if possible, to a general engagement; but scattering themselves over the face of the country, they carried away, indiscriminately, as well the inhabitants themselves as all their moveable possessions. If the military force of the country was drawn out against them, the invaders either stood their ground, if strong enough to oppose; or retreated to their ships, if incapable of resistance. Thus, by ma king continual and repeated descents, every part of England was kept in constant alarm, every county fearful of giving assistance to the next, as its own safety was in danger.. From this general calamity the priests and monks were no way exempted; they were rather the chief objects on whom these Danish idolaters wreaked their resentment. A. D. In this state of fluctuating success affairs continued for some time, the English often repelling, and as often being repulsed by, their fierce invaders; till at length the Danes resolved upon making a settlement in the country, and, landing on the isle of Thanet, stationed themselves there. In this place they kept their ground, notwithstanding a bloody victory gained over them by Ethelwolf. Thence they soon after removed to the isle of Sheppey, which they considered as more convenient for their tumultuary depredations. 852. In the mean time Ethelwolf, the wretched monarch of the country, instead of exerting his strength to repel these invaders, was more solicitous to obey the dictates of monkish superstition. In order to manifest his devotion to the pope, he sent his son Alfred to Rome, to receive confirmation from his holiness; and, not satisfied with this testimony of his zeal, undertook a pilgrimage thither in person. He passed a twelvemonth in that city, and gained no small applause for his devotion, which he testified by his great liberality to the church. In his return home he married Judith, daughter to the emperor Charles the Bald; but, on his landing in his own dominions, he was surprised to find his title to the crown disputed. His second son, Ethelbald, upon the death of his elder brother, perceiving the miserable state to which the kingdom was reduced by the king's ill-timed superstitions, formed a conspiracy to expel him from the throne. The people seemed equally divided between the claims of the father and son; so that a bloody civil war seemed likely to complete the picture of the calamities of the times. A division of the kingdom at length terminated the dispute; the king was content with the eastern part of the monarchy, while his son was appointed to govern the western, which was the most powerful, and the least exposed to danger. When the two princes had come to this agreement, a council was summoned of the states of the kingdom; and, besides the ratification of this grant, a tithe of all the produce of the land was settled upon the clergy. Ethelwolf lived only two years after this agreement; leavA. D. ing, by will, the kingdom shared between his two eldest 857. sons, Ethelbald and Ethelbert: the west being consigned to the former, the east to the latter. The reign of Ethelbald was of no long continuance: however, in so short a space, he crowded a number of vices sufficient to render his name odious to posterity. He married Judith, his step-mother, and was not without great difficulty prevailed upon to divorce her. The reign of his brother was of longer duration; and, as we are told, was in every respect more meritorious. Nevertheless, the kingdom was still infested by the Danes, who committed great outrages. This prince was succeeded by his brother Ethelred, a A. D. brave king, but whose valour was insufficient to repress the 866. Danish incursions. In these exploits he was always assisted by his younger brother Alfred, afterwards surnamed the Great, who sacrificed all private resentment to the public good, having been deprived by the king of a large patrimony. It was during this prince's reign that the Danes, penetrating into Mercia, took up their winter-quarters at Nottingham; whence they were not dislodged without difficulty. Their next station was at Reading, whence they infested the country with their excursions. The king, attended by his brother, marched at the head of the West Saxons against them there, after many reciprocations of success, the king died of a wound which he received in battle, and left to Alfred the inheritance of a kingdom that was now reduced to the brink of ruin. Nothing could be more deplorable than the state of the when Alfred came to the throne. The Danes had 871. country already subdued Northumberland and East Anglia, and had penetrated into the very heart of Wessex. The Mercians were A. D. united against him; the dependence upon the other provinces of the empire was but precarious; the lands lay uncultivated, through fear of continual incursions; and all the churches and monasteries were burned to the ground. In this situation of affairs nothing appeared but objects of terror, and every hope was lost in despair. The wisdom and virtues of one man were found sufficient to bring back happiness, security, and order; and all the calamities of the times found redress from Alfred. This prince seemed born not only to defend his bleeding country, but even to adorn humanity. He had given very early instances of those great virtues which afterwards signalized his reign; and was anointed by pope Leo as future king, when he was sent by his father for his education to Rome. On his return he became every day more the object of his father's fond affections; and that, perhaps, was the reason why his education was at first neglected. He had attained the age of twelve before he was made acquainted with the lowest elements of literature; but, hearing some Saxon poems read which recounted the praise of heroes, his whole mind was roused, not only to obtain a similitude of glory, but also to be able to transmit that glory to posterity. Encouraged by the queen his mother, and assisted by a penetrating genius, he soon learned to read these compositions, and proceeded from them to a knowledge of Latin authors, who directed his taste, and rectified his ambition. He was scarcely come to the crown when he was obliged to oppose the Danes, who had seized Wilton, and were exercising their usual ravages on the countries around. He marched against them with the few troops he could assemble on a sudden, and a desperate battle was fought, to the disadvantage of the English. But it was not in the power of misfortune to abate the king's diligence, though it repressed his power to do good. He was in a little time enabled to hazard another engagement; so that the enemy, dreading his courage and activity, proposed terms of peace, which he did not think proper to refuse. They, by this treaty, agreed to relinquish the kingdom; but, instead of complying with their engagements, they only removed from one place to another, burning and destroying wherever they came. Alfred, thus opposed to an enemy whom no stationary force could resist, no treaty could bind, found himself unable to repel the efforts of those ravagers, who from all quarters invaded him. New swarms of the enemy arrived every year upon the coast, and fresh invasions were still projected. It was in vain that Alfred pursued them, straitened their quarters, and compelled them to treaties: they broke every league; and, continuing their attacks with unabated perseverance, at length totally dispirited his army, and induced his superstitious soldiers to believe themselves abandoned by Heaven, since it thus permitted the outrages of the fierce idolaters with impunity. Some of them therefore left their country, and retired into Wales, or fled to the continent. Others submitted to the conquerors, and purchased their lives by their freedom. In |