History Of The Anglo-Saxons - free ebook by Thomas Miller

HISTORY OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS: FROM THE Earliest Period to the Norman Conquest.

BY THOMAS MILLER, AUTHOR OF "ROYSTON GOWER," "LADY JANE GREY," "PICTURES OF COUNTRY LIFE," ETC. Second Edition. LONDON: DAVID BOGUE, FLEET STREET. MDCCCL....

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CHAPTER I. THE DAWN OF HISTORY.

Almost every historian has set out by regretting how little is known of the early inhabitants of Great Britain—a fact which only the lovers of hoar antiquity deplore, since from all we can with certainty glean from the pages of contemporary history, we should find but little more to interest us than if we possessed written records of the remotest origin of the Red Indians; for both would alike but be the history of an unlettered and uncivilized race. The same dim obscurity, with scarcely an exce

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CHAPTER II. THE ANCIENT BRITONS.

Although the origin of the early inhabitants of Great Britain is still open to many doubts, we have good evidence that at a very remote period the descendants of the ancient Cimmerii, or Cymry, dwelt within our island, and that from the same great family sprang the Celtic tribe; a portion of which at that early period inhabited the opposite coast of France. At what time the Cymry and Celts first peopled England we have not any written record, though there is no lack of proof that they were known

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CHAPTER III. THE DRUIDS.

To Julius Cæsar we are indebted for the clearest description of the religious rites and ceremonies of the Druids; and as he beheld them administered by these Priests to the ancient Britons, so they had no doubt existed for several centuries before the Roman invasion, and are therefore matters of history, prior to that period. There was a wild poetry about their heathenish creed, something gloomy, and grand, and supernatural in the dim, dreamy old forests where their altars were raised: in the de

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CHAPTER IV. LANDING OF JULIUS CÆSAR.

Few generals could put in a better plea for invading a country than that advanced by Julius Cæsar, for long before he landed in this island, he had had to contend with a covert enemy in the Britons, who frequently threw bodies of armed men upon the opposite coasts, and by thus strengthening the enemy's ranks, protracted the war he had so long waged with the Gauls. To chastise the hardy islanders, overawe and take possession of their country, were but common events to the Roman generals, and Cæsa

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CHAPTER V. CARACTACUS, BOADICEA, AND AGRICOLA.

For nearly a century after the departure of Cæsar, we have no records of the events which transpired in England; that the inhabitants made some progress in civilization during that period is all we know; for there can be but little doubt that a few of the Roman soldiers remained behind, and settled in the island after the first invasion, and introduced some degree of refinement amongst the tribes with whom they peaceably dwelt. No attempt, however, was made, during this long interval, to fortify

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CHAPTER VI. DEPARTURE OF THE ROMANS.

The fortified line erected by Agricola was soon broken through by the northern tribes, and the Emperor Adrian erected a much stronger barrier, though considerably within the former; and this extended from the Tyne to the Solway, crossing the whole breadth of that portion of the island. Urbicus, as if determined that the Romans should not lose an inch of territory which they had once possessed, restored the more northern boundary which Adrian had abandoned, and once more stretched the Roman front

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CHAPTER VII. BRITAIN AFTER THE ROMAN PERIOD.

Britain, after the departure of the Romans, was no longer a country covered every way with wild waving woods, dangerous bogs, and vast wastes of reedy and unprofitable marshes. Smooth green pastures, where flocks and herds lowed and bleated, and long slips of corn waved in the summer sunshine, and fruit-trees which in spring were hung with white and crimson blossoms, and whose branches in autumn bowed beneath the weight of heavy fruitage, now swelled above the swampy waste, and gave a cheerful l

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CHAPTER VIII. THE ANCIENT SAXONS.

The Saxons were a German or Gothic race, possessing an entirely different language to that of the Celts or ancient Britons; and although they do not appear to have attracted the same attention as the other tribes, they were, doubtless, settled at a very early period in Europe. At the time when they begin to stand forth so prominently in the pages of history, they occupied the peninsula of Jutland, now a portion of Denmark, with two or three neighbouring islands, known by the names of North Stran

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CHAPTER IX. HENGIST—HORSA—ROWENA AND VORTIGERN.

We have no account of the preliminary arrangements between the British king, and the Saxon chiefs, when the latter arrived with three ships, and landed at Ebbs-fleet, a spot which now lies far inland, though at that period the Wanstum was navigable for large vessels, and formed a broad barrier between the Island of Thanet and the mainland of Kent. Vortigern and his chieftains were assembled in council when the Saxons appeared, and Hengist and Horsa were summoned before them. The Saxon ships, whi

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CHAPTER X. ELLA, CERDRIC, AND KING ARTHUR.

The next Saxon chieftain of any note, who effected a landing in Britain, and established himself in the country, was Ella; he came, accompanied by his three sons and the same number of ships, the latter being anchored beside the Isle of Thanet, where Hengist and Horsa, twenty-eight years before, became auxiliaries under Vortigern. From the south of Kent, a vast forest extended into Sussex and Hampshire, a huge uncultivated wilderness, called Andreade, or Andredswold, measuring above a hundred mi

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CHAPTER XI. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SAXON OCTARCHY.

During the period in which the events occurred that are narrated in the opening pages of our last chapter, another body of Saxons had arrived in Britain, and settled down in Essex, where under Erkenwin they laid the foundation of that kingdom or state, which eventually extended into Middlesex, and included London—then a town of considerable note, though bearing no marks of its high destiny, as its few houses heaved up and overlooked the Thames. Little did the fisherman dream, as he turned back t

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CHAPTER XII. CONVERSION OF ETHELBERT.

It will be readily supposed that many of the early Saxon chieftains, or kings, for it matters not by which title we call them, had by this time died, and been succeeded by their sons and kinsmen. That many had also perished in the wars with the Britons we have already shown, and now when the Octarchy was established, and the ancient inhabitants of the country were either conquered or driven into one corner of the island, when it might be expected that Peace had at last alighted and taken up her

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CHAPTER XIII. EDWIN, KING OF THE DEIRI AND BERNICIA.

Bernicia and the Deiri formed, at this period, two Saxon kingdoms, which lay bordering on each other. Ethelfrith governed the portion that stretched from Northumberland to between the Tweed and the Frith of Forth; and Ella, dying, left his son Edwin, then an infant, to succeed him as king of the Deiri—a part of England now divided into the counties of Lancaster, York, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Durham. The Northumbrian king, Ethelfrith, appears at this time to have been the most powerful of a

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CHAPTER XIV. PENDA, THE PAGAN MONARCH OF MERCIA.

Hitherto the kingdom of Mercia has scarcely arrested our attention, but the time at last came when it was destined to rise with a startling distinctiveness above the rest of the Saxon states, under the sovereignty of Penda. As the midland counties bordered upon the Deiri, it is not improbable that Mercia had been subject to the sway of the more northern monarchs, until the grandson of Crida appeared, and, struck by its fallen state, resolved at once to raise it to its true dignity. We have seen

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CHAPTER XV. DECLINE OF THE SAXON OCTARCHY.

The remainder of our journey through the kingdoms which anciently formed the Saxon Octarchy now lies in a more direct road, where there are fewer of those perplexing paths and winding ways, such as we have hitherto been compelled to thread, in our difficult course through this dimly-discovered country of the Past. We are now on the sun-bright borders of those dark old forest fastnesses, amid which we could scarcely see what flowers were at our feet, or catch a clear glimpse of the outstretched s

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CHAPTER XVI. OFFA, SURNAMED THE TERRIBLE.

To the kingdom of Mercia must we again turn the reader's attention for a few moments, and take up the thread of our history from the death of Ethelbald, who, it will be remembered, fell, while endeavouring to put down the rebellion which was headed by Bernred. Of the latter we know nothing, excepting that he reigned for a few months, when he was either banished by the nobles, or driven from the throne by Offa, surnamed The Terrible, who descended from a brother of the king-slaying Penda. Though

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CHAPTER XVII. EGBERT, KING OF ALL THE SAXONS.

Egbert was no sooner apprised of the death of Brihtric, than he hastened out of France, to take possession of the throne of Wessex, and never had a Saxon sovereign that had hitherto swayed the perilous sceptre come armed with the experience of the new king. He had studied in the stern school of Charlemagne, had narrowly scanned the policy pursued by that great monarch, both in the council and in the camp, and was well prepared to collect and reduce to order the stormy elements which had so long

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CHAPTER XVIII. THE ANCIENT SEA-KINGS.

The Danes, Norwegians, or Norsemen, for it matters not by which title we distinguish them, descended from the same primitive race as the Anglo-Saxons—the old Teutonic or Gothic tribes. But to enter fully into the mixed population, all of whom sprung from this ancient stock, and at different periods invaded England, we should have to go deeply into the early history of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Their religion was the same as that which we have described at the commencement of the Saxon invasio

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CHAPTER XIX. FIRST SETTLEMENT OF THE DANES IN NORTHUMBRIA.

Ethelwulph, although placed, in his father's life-time, upon the throne of Kent, had assumed the monastic habit, and a dispensation from the pope had to be obtained before he could be crowned king of Wessex. He appears to have been a man of a mild and indolent disposition, one who would have made a better monk than a monarch, and have been much happier in the dreamy quietude of the cloister, than in the stir and tumult of the camp. Alstan, the bishop of Sherbourne, who had shared the council and

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CHAPTER XX. RAVAGES OF THE DANES—DEATH OF ETHELRED.

Spring, that gives such life and beauty to the landscape, but aroused the Danes to new aggressions, and they this time marched into the opposite division of Mercia, crossing the Humber and the Trent, and landing in that part of Lincolnshire which is still called Lindsey, where they spread death and desolation wherever they passed. From north to south they swept onward like a destroying tempest; the busy hamlet, the happy home, and the growing harvest, all vanished beneath their footsteps. Where

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CHAPTER XXI. ACCESSION AND ABDICATION OF ALFRED.

Alfred was scarcely twenty-two years of age when he ascended the throne of Wessex—it was on the eve of a defeat when the sceptre fell into his hands—when the Danes were flushed with victory, and nearly all England lay prostrate at their feet. With such a gloomy prospect before him, we can easily account for the reluctance he showed in accepting the crown, although it was offered to him by all the chiefs and earls who formed the witenagemot, when there were children of his elder brother Ethelbald

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CHAPTER XXII. ALFRED THE GREAT.

Near Westbury, in Wiltshire, may still be seen a hill, which, as it overlooks the neighbouring plain, appears rugged, lofty, abrupt, and difficult of ascent; its summit is marked with the trenches and ditches which the Danes threw up when they were encamped upon and around it during the reign of Alfred. This spot the Saxon king resolved to visit in disguise before he risked the battle on which the fate of his kingdom depended. To accomplish this, he assumed the character of a harper, or gleeman,

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CHAPTER XXIII. CHARACTER OF ALFRED THE GREAT.

We have seen the shadow of this great king pass, through the clouds of sorrow and suffering, into the glory and immortality which still shed their lustre around his memory, after the darkness of nearly a thousand winters has gathered and passed over his grave. Even the gloomy gates of death could not extinguish, in the volumed blackness they enclose, the trailing splendour which accompanied his setting, without leaving behind a summer twilight, over a land where before there was nothing but dark

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CHAPTER XXIV. EDWARD THE ELDER.

Edward the Elder, in the year 901, was, by the unanimous consent of the Saxon nobles, elected king of Wessex. He had already distinguished himself for his valour, as he fought by the side of his father Alfred against Hastings. Although he was the son of Alfred, and elected by the consent of the whole witena-gemot, his cousin Ethelwold laid claim to the crown, and took possession of Wimburn, which he vowed death alone should compel him to give up. No sooner, however, did Edward appear before the

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ANGLO-SAXON SONG ON THE VICTORY AT BRUNANBURG.

Athelstan, king of earls, the lord, the giver of golden bracelets to the heroes, and his brother, the noble Edmund the Elder, won a lasting glory in battle by slaughter with the edges of their swords at Brunanburg. They, with the rest of the family of the children of Edward, clove asunder the wall of shields, and hewed down the waving banners, for it was but natural to them from their warlike ancestry to defend their treasures, their home, and their land, against all enemies in the battle-field.

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CHAPTER XXVI. THE REIGNS OF EDMUND AND EDRED.

Edmund, surnamed the Elder, had scarcely attained his eighteenth year, when he ascended the Saxon throne. Many of Athelstan's former enemies were still alive, and Anlaf, who had played so prominent a part at the battle of Brunanburg, again came over from Ireland, and placed himself at the head of the Northumbrian Danes, with whom he marched into Mercia, attacked Tamworth, and, in his first battle, defeated the Saxons. England was not yet destined to be subject to the sway of one king, for, after

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CHAPTER XXVII. EDWIN AND ELGIVA.

Edwin was not more than sixteen years of age when he ascended the throne. Although so young, he had married a beautiful and noble lady of his own age, who appears to have been somewhat too closely related to him to please the stern dignitaries who were then placed at the head of the church, for it was at this period when the rigid discipline of the Benedictine monks was first introduced into England. Odo, a Dane, and a descendant from those savage sea-kings who destroyed the abbeys of Croyland a

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CHAPTER XXVIII. THE REIGN OF EDGAR.

Over the reign of Edgar, who ascended the throne in his sixteenth year, the shadow of Dunstan again falls, and those who had rent the kingdom asunder, and placed him, when a mere boy, upon the throne of Mercia, kept a more tenacious hold of the crown as its circle widened, and gathered closer round Edgar as they saw his power increased. Dunstan had by this time risen to the dignity of bishop of London. The infamous Odo had died about the close of the reign of Edwin, and, weakened as the power of

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CHAPTER XXIX. EDWARD THE MARTYR.

Edward, called the Martyr, was a mere boy of fifteen when he ascended the throne, which was vacated by the death of his father, Edgar. As he had been schooled under Dunstan, and his mind moulded to suit the purposes of the ambitious primate, he was chosen, in opposition to the wishes of Elfrida, who boldly came forward and claimed the crown for her son Ethelred, then a child only six years old. This aspiring queen was not without her adherents; and as the rigorous measures to which Dunstan had r

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CHAPTER XXX. ETHELRED THE UNREADY.

The ambitious hopes of Elfrida were justly doomed to meet with disappointment: the power she sought to obtain by the assassination of Edward eluded her grasp, and Dunstan, though aged and infirm, still stood at the head of his party, triumphant. The Saxons looked with disgust upon a woman who had caused her son-in-law to be stabbed at her own castle-gate; and there is but little doubt that the primate, for a time, so successfully raised the popular indignation against her, that she was compelled

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CHAPTER XXXI. EDMUND, SURNAMED IRONSIDE.

Edmund, who, for his valour and hardy constitution, was surnamed Ironside, had already distinguished himself against the Danes, and shown signs of promise, which foretold that, whenever the sceptre fell into his hand, it would be ably wielded. Like those meteoric brilliancies which startle us by their sudden splendour, then instantly depart, so was his career—bright, beautiful, and brief. We perceive a trailing glory along the sky over which he passed, but no steady burning of the star that left

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CHAPTER XXXII. CANUTE THE DANE.

By the death of Edmund, Canute became king of all England in the twentieth year of his age. Before his coronation took place, he assembled the Saxon nobles and bishops, and Danish chiefs in London, who had been witnesses to the treaty entered into between himself and Edmund, when the kingdom was divided; and either by intimidation, persuasion, or presents, succeeded in obtaining their unanimous assent to his succession to the crown. In return for this acknowledgment, he promised to act justly an

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CHAPTER XXXIII. REIGNS OF HAROLD HAREFOOT AND HARDICANUTE.

While even the succession to the Saxon throne was sometimes disputed when not a doubt remained about the right of a claimant to the crown, it will not be wondered at, as at his death Canute left three sons, two of whom were beyond doubt illegitimate, that there should be some difference of opinion among the chiefs and earls respecting the election of a new sovereign. Hardicanute was the undoubted offspring of Emma and Canute; she, it will be remembered, being the widow of Ethelred at the time of

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CHAPTER XXXIV. ACCESSION OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR.

Edward, surnamed the Confessor, had resided in England for some time, when the throne became vacant by the death of Hardicanute; and the Danes, left without a leader by the sudden and unexpected demise of their king, had no means of resisting the Saxon force, which all at once wheeled up on the side of Edward, and, led on by Godwin, placed the crown of England upon the head of the son of Ethelred. To strengthen the power which he already possessed, the earl Godwin proposed that the king should m

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CHAPTER XXXV. EDWARD THE CONFESSOR.

After the banishment of earl Godwin, the English court must have resembled the joyous uproar which often breaks out in a school during the absence of the master, for the days which followed are described as "days of rejoicing and big in fortune for the foreigners." The dreaded earl in exile—his warlike sons far away from England—and the beautiful queen Editha weeping among the cold cloisters—left nothing more to do but revel in the triumph of the victory thus attained. There was now a Norman arc

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CHAPTER XXXVI. EARL HAROLD'S VISIT TO NORMANDY.

We have already given what we believe to be the real motive of Harold's visit to Normandy. That he went at the request of Edward to announce the king's intention of appointing William as his successor, the incidents which we shall record, on Harold's arrival, clearly disprove; for if such were the case, what occasion would there have been for the duke to entrap the son of Godwin into taking the oath on the relics as he did? The Saxon earl had not been long out at sea before a contrary wind arose

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CHAPTER XXXVII. ACCESSION OF HAROLD, THE SON OF GODWIN.

Harold, the last Saxon who sat upon the throne of England, was elected king by a large assembly of chiefs and nobles in London, on the evening of the very day which saw the body of Edward the Confessor consigned to the tomb. He was crowned by the archbishop Stigand, who, although labouring under the ban of the court of Rome, boldly officiated at this important ceremony. The archbishop is represented in the Bayeux tapestry as standing on the left hand of Harold, who is seated upon the throne, on

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CHAPTER XXXVIII. ENGLAND INVADED BY THE NORMANS.

We must now carry our readers to Normandy, to the life and stir, and busy preparation which nearly eight hundred years ago took place in that country. We must waft their imagination across the ocean to those masses of living and moving men who then existed, and endeavour to look at them, as if they still lived, and were actuated then as now. At the busy workmen who were employed in building ships, labouring all the more eagerly in hopes that amid the scramble of the war they might become the com

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CHAPTER XXXIX. BATTLE OF HASTINGS.

Elated by the victory which a hasty march and a sudden surprise had enabled him to obtain more easily over the Norwegians, the brave Harold again, without a day's delay, proceeded to advance rapidly in the direction of the Norman encampment, wearied and thinned as his forces were by the late encounter; hoping by the same unexpected manœuvre and headlong attack, to overthrow at once this new enemy. So sanguine was the Saxon king of obtaining the victory, that he commanded a fleet of seven hundred

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THEIR RELIGION.

We have already described the paganism of the Saxons, both as it existed on the Continent, and after their arrival in England; and we must now glance briefly at their change to Christianity, and the early modes of worship which they adopted. When they landed in England, they found the Britons generally worshippers of the True Divinity. Christianity had become grafted and grown, and overpowered and bore down the remains of druidism, on which it was first planted. The idolatry that existed had ass

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GOVERNMENT AND LAWS.

When the Saxons first landed in England they could have had no previous knowledge of the Roman laws, which were then in existence in our island; for the government of the conquerors had long overthrown the primitive customs which were in use among the ancient Britons before the landing of Julius Cæsar. We have already shown that the earliest of our Saxon invaders were led on by some military chief, who claimed his descent from Odin, and was acknowledged as leader by the consent of his followers,

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LITERATURE.

We have no proof that the early pagan Saxons possessed an alphabet, or had any acquaintance with a written language, until the introduction of Christianity; for, unlike the Britons, they had not the enlightened Romans to instruct them. Even as late as Alfred's time, we have shown that but few of the English chiefs could either read or write; and we find Wihtred, king of Kent, as long after the Saxon invasion as the year 700, unable to affix his signature to a charter, but causing some scribe, wh

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ARCHITECTURE, ART, AND SCIENCE.

That the Saxons possessed considerable skill in architecture before they took possession of England, we have already shown in our description of the Pagan temple, which was erected in their own country. 25 It is also on record, that the Christian missionaries sent over by Pope Gregory, converted the heathen temples, which they found already erected in our island, into churches, destroying only the idols they found therein; but whether these edifices were erected by the Britons or Romans, or by t

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COSTUME, MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND EVERYDAY LIFE.

Of the every-day life and domestic manners of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, we possess considerable information, partly from written records, such as charters, wills, grants, and leases, but more especially from the drawings which we find in the ancient manuscripts which are still preserved. Amongst the higher classes we discover that the walls were hung with tapestry, ornamented with gold and rich colours, for the needles of the Saxon ladies seem ever to have been employed in forming birds, anim

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Transcribers' Note

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unpaired quotation marks were retained. Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. Two occurrences of "strown" retained; text mostly uses "strewn". Two occurrences of "Welch" retained; text mostly uses "Welsh". Text uses both "before-time" and "beforetime"; both retained. Text uses various forms of "

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