[A.D. 858–872.]
In the year of our Lord 857,138 the two sons of Ethelwulf
divided their paternal kingdom; Ethelbald reigned in West
Saxony, and Ethelbert in Kent. Ethelbald, base and perfidious,
defiled the bed of his father by marrying, after his
decease, Judith his step-mother. Dying, however, at the
end of five years, and being interred at Sherborne, the whole
government devolved upon his brother. In his time a band
of pirates landing at Southampton, proceeded to plunder the
populous city of Winchester, but soon after being spiritedly
repulsed by the king’s generals, and suffering considerable
loss, they put to sea, and coasting round, chose the Isle of
Thanet, in Kent, for their winter quarters. The people of
Kent, giving hostages, and promising a sum of money, would
have remained quiet, had not these pirates, breaking the
treaty, laid waste the whole district by nightly predatory
excursions, but roused by this conduct they mustered a force
and drove out the truce-breakers. Moreover Ethelbert,
having ruled the kingdom with vigour and with mildness,
paid the debt of nature after five years, and was buried at
Sherborne.
In the year of our Lord 867, Ethelred, the son of Ethelwulf,
obtained his paternal kingdom, and ruled it for the
same number of years as his brothers. Surely it would be a
pitiable and grievous destiny, that all of them should perish
by an early death, unless it is, that in such a tempest of
evils, these royal youths should prefer an honourable end to
a painful government. Indeed, so bravely and so vigorously
did they contend for their country, that it was not to be imputed
to them that their valour did not succeed in its design.
Finally, it is related, that this king was personally engaged
in hostile conflict against the enemy nine times in one year,
with various success indeed, but for the most part victor,
besides sudden attacks, in which, from his skill in warfare,
he frequently worsted those straggling depredators. In these
several actions the Danes lost nine earls and one king, besides
common people innumerable.
One battle memorable beyond all the rest was that which
took place at Eschendun.139 The Danes, having collected an
army at this place, divided it into two bodies; their two
kings commanded the one, all their earls the other. Ethelred
drew near with his brother Alfred. It fell to the lot of
Ethelred to oppose the kings, while Alfred was to attack the
earls. Both armies eagerly prepared for battle, but night
approaching deferred the conflict till the ensuing day.
Scarcely had the morning dawned ere Alfred was ready at
his post, but his brother, intent on his devotions, had remained
in his tent; and when urged on by a message, that
the pagans were rushing forward with unbounded fury, he
declared that he should not move a step till his religious services
were ended. This piety of the king was of infinite
advantage to his brother, who was too impetuous from the
thoughtlessness of youth, and had already far advanced.
The battalions of the Angles were now giving way, and
even bordering on flight, in consequence of their adversaries
pressing upon them from the higher ground, for the Christians
were fighting in an unfavourable situation, when the
king himself, signed with the cross of God, unexpectedly
hastened forward, dispersing the enemy, and rallying his
subjects. The Danes, terrified equally by his courage and
the divine manifestation, consulted their safety by flight.
Here fell Oseg their king, five earls, and an innumerable
multitude of common people.
The reader will be careful to observe that during this
time, the kings of the Mercians and of the Northumbrians,
eagerly seizing the opportunity of the arrival of the Danes,
with whom Ethelred was fully occupied in fighting, and
somewhat relieved from their bondage to the West Saxons,
had nearly regained their original power. All the provinces,
therefore, were laid waste by cruel depredations, because
each king chose rather to resist the enemy within his own
territories, than to assist his neighbours in their difficulties;
and thus preferring to avenge injury rather than to prevent
it, they ruined their country by their senseless conduct. The
Danes acquired strength without impediment, whilst the
apprehensions of the inhabitants increased, and each successive
victory, from the addition of captives, became the
means of obtaining another. The country of the East
Angles, together with their cities and villages, was possessed
by these plunderers; its king, St. Edmund, slain by them in
the year of our Lord’s incarnation 870, on the tenth of
November, purchased an eternal kingdom by putting off this
mortal life. The Mercians, often harassed, alleviated their
afflictions by giving hostages. The Northumbrians, long
embroiled in civil dissensions, made up their differences on
the approach of the enemy. Replacing Osbert their king,
whom they had expelled, upon the throne, and collecting a
powerful force, they went out to meet the foe; but being
easily repelled, they shut themselves up in the city of York,
which was presently after set on fire by the victors; and
when the flames were raging to the utmost and consuming
the very walls, they perished for their country in the
conflagration. In this manner Northumbria, the prize of
war, for a considerable time after, felt the more bitterly,
through a sense of former liberty, the galling yoke of the
barbarians. And now Ethelred, worn down with numberless
labours, died and was buried at Wimborne.
