Chapter III: The Constitution of England in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries.82 (3)

These three events are perfectly distinct, and the relations created by them are perfectly distinct; but, as always happens when several relations and tenures co-exist, the three gradually got confounded together, both in idea and in fact. Both in popular conception and in the hands of partizan Scottish writers, the second of these three events is made to obscure the other two. The grant by an English King to a Scottish King of a country described as Cumberland is something too clear to be denied; that the Scottish princes held their Cumbrian dominions as a fief of the English crown, that they did homage for them to the English King, no Scottish writer has ever ventured to call in doubt.[167] In truth there seems never to have been any wish to call this fact in doubt, because the Cumbrian homage, put forth sometimes even in an exaggerated shape, has formed a convenient means of escape from the fact of the homage for Scotland proper and from the fact of the purely English character of Lothian. And the confusion of geographical terms comes conveniently in. In modern language Cumberland means a single shire which for ages has been undoubtedly English. In modern language Lothian means three shires which for ages have been undoubtedly Scottish. People are thus led to believe that Lothian was from all time an integral part of Scotland, and also that the homage done by the Scottish to the English King was done only for the county of Cumberland as an integral part of England. But in the language of the year 945 Lothian was still an integral portion of England; Cumberland meant a country, part of which is now English and part Scottish, but which up to that time was neither English nor Scottish, but the seat of a distinct Welsh principality. By Cumberland in short is meant, not merely the modern English county so called, but all northern Strathclyde; that is, modern Cumberland together [Sidenote: Circumstances of the grant of Cumberland or Strathclyde.] with a considerable portion of modern Scotland. In 945 the reigning King Donald revolted against his over-lord Eadmund; he was overthrown and his kingdom ravaged;[168] it was then granted on tenure of military service to Donald’s kinsman Malcolm King of Scots. Malcolm could hardly have earned this favour except by sharing in the war against Donald, which indeed his actual relation to the English crown bound him to do. For a long time the fief then granted was granted out again by the Scottish Kings as an apanage for their own heirs-apparent. The southern part of this territory was afterwards, as we shall see at a later stage of our history, [Sidenote: The part kept by Scotland becomes merged in the Scottish kingdom.] annexed to England; the northern part was kept by the Scottish Kings, and was gradually, though very gradually, incorporated with their own kingdom. The distinction between the two states seems to have been quite forgotten in the thirteenth century; neither side in the controversies of that time drew any distinction between the tenure of Fife and the tenure of Galloway; the claims of the English crown were asserted, admitted, or denied, [Sidenote: Original distinction between the position of Strathclyde or Cumberland, and the position of Scotland proper.] equally with regard to both. Yet the relations between England and Scotland proper and the relations between England and Strathclyde or Cumberland, though much the same in their nature, were wholly different in their origin. The relation in which Scotland stood to England was one of commendation; the relation in which Cumberland stood to England was one of original grant. This last fact marks a distinct advance in feudal ideas. Cumberland was from the beginning a real territorial fief. Eadward did not grant Scotland to Constantine, because Scotland had never been his; but Constantine and his people, by their own act, put themselves in the same position as if it had been so granted. But Eadmund really did grant Cumberland to Malcolm; he granted him a territory which he had himself conquered, and which he might have kept in his own hands. Cumberland in short—including, as must not be forgotten, the south-western shires of modern Scotland—was held by the Scottish King or his son as a feudal benefice in the strictest sense.

[Sidenote: Grant of Lothian.]

Cumberland then was truly a fief of the crown of England, but it was not a fief held within the kingdom of England. This last position, popularly thought to be the position of Cumberland, was really the position of Lothian. The date of the grant of Lothian is not perfectly clear.[169] But whatever was the date of the grant, there can [Sidenote: Lothian an integral part of England.] be no doubt at all as to its nature. Lothian, an integral part of England, could be granted only as any other part of England could be granted, namely to be held as part of England, its ruler being in the position of an English Earl. If the grant was really made by Eadgar, this is still more likely to be the case, on account of the unusual friendliness of the relations between Eadgar and Kenneth. Eadgar might well grant, and Kenneth might well accept, a purely English government, held by a tenure which would bind him still more closely to his English over-lord than either his commendatory relation for Scotland [Sidenote: Lothian gradually separated from England and merged in Scotland.] or his feudal relation for Strathclyde. But in such a grant the seeds of separation were sown. A part of the kingdom which was governed by a foreign sovereign, on whatever terms of dependence, could not long remain in the position of a province governed by an ordinary Earl. The King of Scots, though holding all his dominions by various kinds of dependent tenure, could not be dealt with in any portion of them like a simple Earl of the Northumbrians. That the possession of Lothian would under all ordinary circumstances remain hereditary, must have been looked for from the beginning. This alone would distinguish Lothian from all other earldoms. Though it was very common to appoint the son of a deceased Ealdorman to his father’s dignity, still he had not so much as a preferential claim; the office was held altogether at the pleasure of the King and his Witan. But when a province was once granted to a foreign prince, even though that prince remained a feudatory of the English crown, this kind of control was parted with for ever, or could be won back only at the cost of war. [Sidenote: Distinction between Scotland, Strathclyde, and Lothian gradually forgotten.] Lothian could not fail to become an hereditary dominion of the Scottish Kings; it could not fail gradually to lose its distinct character and the remembrance of its distinct tenure, and to be gradually merged in the mass of the other dominions of its rulers. By the time of the great controversy of the thirteenth century the distinction seems to have been forgotten on both sides, exactly as it was in the case of Strathclyde. The claims of the English King were the same over the whole country, over Scotland, Strathclyde, and Lothian; they were put forward as a whole, and they were accepted or rejected as a whole. Yet, when we weigh the claims of Edward the First by the letter of the compacts of the tenth century, if we pronounce them to go a little beyond the mark in the case of Scotland proper, we must equally pronounce them to fall a little under the mark in the case of Lothian. The fact is that the progress of feudal ideas had wiped out the distinction, and had brought all tenures to the same level. The alternative by that time had come to be whether Scotland, as a whole, that is, Scotland proper, Scottish Strathclyde, and Lothian, should be a fief of England or an independent kingdom. That Scotland, Strathclyde, and Lothian were originally all dependencies of England, but held in three different degrees of dependence, had passed out of mind on both sides.

[Sidenote: Later history of Lothian.]

It was then to be expected that Lothian, when once granted to the King of Scots, should gradually be merged in the kingdom of Scotland. But the peculiar and singular destiny of this country could hardly have been looked for. [Sidenote: Lothian becomes the historical Scotland.] Neither Eadgar nor Kenneth could dream that this purely English province would become the historical Scotland. The different tenures of Scotland and Lothian got confounded; the Kings of Scots, from the end of the eleventh century, became English in manners and language; they were not without some claims to the crown of England, and not without some hopes of winning it. They thus learned to attach more and more value to the English part of their dominions, and they laboured to spread its language and manners over their original Celtic territory. They kept their ancient title of Kings of Scots, but they became in truth Kings of English Lothian and of Anglicized Fife. A state was thus formed, politically distinct from England and which political circumstances gradually made bitterly hostile to England—a state which indeed kept on a dark and mysterious Celtic background, but which, as it appears in history, is English in laws, language, and manners, more truly English indeed, in many respects, than England itself remained after the Norman Conquest. As in so many other cases, the people took the name of their sovereign; the English subjects of the King of Scots learned to call themselves Scots and their country Scotland. Meanwhile the true Scots to the north of them, the original subjects of the Scottish dynasty, forsaken as it were by their natural princes, became the standing difficulty of their government. The true Scots are known in history only as a mass of turbulent tribes, alien in customs, language, and feeling from those who had taken their name—tribes which the Kings of Dunfermline and Edinburgh had much ado to keep in even nominal subjection—tribes which, by a strange turning about of relations, were ready to fight for their English over-lord against the Kings of Dunfermline and Edinburgh. [Sidenote: Analogy between the history of Scotland and of Switzerland.] The history of Scotland is in many respects strikingly analogous to the history of Switzerland. I pass by the singular likeness in the national character of the two peoples, a likeness to be traced alike in the virtues and in the defects of each. I speak only of the outward facts of their history. In the case of Switzerland, parts of the German, Burgundian, and Italian nations were, through a variety of political causes, detached from the main body of their respective countrymen, and became united by a close political tie to one another. They thus formed an artificial nation,[170] a political and historical [Sidenote: Their position as artificial nations.] nation, but not a nation of common blood and speech. In the case of Scotland, portions of the English, Welsh, and Irish[171] nations were in like manner detached from the main body of their own people; they became in like manner politically connected with one another, and grew in like manner into an artificial nation. In both cases it is often amusing to hear men claim as their forefathers those who were the bitterest enemies of their real forefathers. But in both cases it is more important to mark, what the history both of Switzerland and of Scotland abundantly proves, that an artificial nation of this kind is capable of as true and honourable national feeling as any nation of the most unmixed blood and language. The history both of Switzerland and of Scotland presents so many materials for honest pride that it is a pity that exaggerations and perversions of history should have ever been allowed to step in in either case. And, to cite one point more of likeness, each people has drawn its national name from a very small portion of its territory and population. Switzerland, German, Burgundian, and Italian, has taken its common name from the single small canton of Schwyz. Scotland, English, Welsh, and Gaelic, has taken its common name from the original small colony of Irish Scots who settled on the coast of Argyllshire.

[Sidenote: Case of Wales analogous to that of Scotland.]

I have dwelt on the Scottish question at length, both because of its intrinsic importance, and because the relations between the crowns of England and Scotland will call for constant notice in the course of our history. The case with regard to Wales is the case of Scotland over again. The homage of the Welsh Kings was always due, and was constantly exacted, from the days of Ecgberht and Eadward onwards. The only difference was in the [Sidenote: 1283.] final result. Wales was incorporated with the English [Sidenote: 1328.] kingdom at the close of the thirteenth century; Scotland obtained perfect independence in the fourteenth. The life of one man made all the difference. The great Edward lived thoroughly to secure his Welsh conquest; before he had thoroughly secured his Scottish conquest, his mission had passed to a son who could not keep his crown on his head at home.

Before we leave this subject, it may be well to remember what the relations between a dependent kingdom and its superior lord really were. The King of the English did not, by virtue of the commendation, claim any jurisdiction within the dominions of his vassals. The individual inhabitant of Scotland stood in no relation to [Sidenote: The relation between Scotland and England international only.] the English King.[172] The relation was a purely international one. The King and people of the Scots chose the King of the English as their Father and Lord; it became his duty to protect them against their enemies, and it became their duty to serve him against his enemies. But with the internal management of the Scottish kingdom he had no concern, nor did this or that individual [Sidenote: The relation often broken on both sides.] Scot become his man or his subject. Such was the The relation often broken on both sides. relation; as we go on, we shall see its engagements broken on both sides. We shall find the Scottish vassal more than once breaking through his duty of fidelity, and [Sidenote: 1000.] we shall once at least find the English over-lord of Strathclyde breaking through his duty of protection, setting up an unjust claim to a tribute which was not imposed by the original grant, and cruelly harrying the land in revenge for a perfectly justifiable refusal of his demands.[173] But such breaches of duty on both sides are in no way peculiar to England and Scotland; they form a very large portion of the history of any two [Sidenote: Delicate nature of the relation.] countries between which such relations existed. The truth is that the feudal or commendatory relation is a very delicate relation, one which offers constant temptations to a breach of its duties on both sides, temptations which, [Sidenote: Analogy with colonial relations.] in a rude age, must often have been irresistible. The relation is not identical with the modern relation between the mother country and its colonies and dependencies, but there are many points of analogy between the two. And we all know well how very delicate the relation always is between the metropolis and its colony. But the point to be borne in mind is that the English over-lord of Scotland, Strathclyde, and Wales claimed no sovereignty within those countries, but only a superiority over them. He claimed such a superiority as the King of the French exercised, or claimed to exercise, over the Duke of the Normans. The relation was less close than the relation between the Emperor and the German princes, as no common Diet looked after the common interests of [Sidenote: Attendance of the Welsh and Scottish princes in the Witenagemót.] all. That the Scottish and Welsh princes had the right, which they most likely deemed a burthen, of attending the meetings of the English Witan is certain; it is equally certain that the attendance of the Scottish and Cumbrian princes was exceedingly rare.[174] And at any rate they must have come only in their personal capacity, to transact any business which they might have with their over-lord and his counsellors. We cannot suppose that the English Gemót was ever attended by any Scottish or Welsh Witan beyond the immediate suite of the Scottish and Welsh Kings. The Kings came, because they were the men of the English over-lord; but the private Scot or Briton was not the man of the English over-lord, and had no need to attend the assembly which he summoned. As little can we deem that the English Gemót took on itself to make laws for Wales or Scotland. Neither can we deem that the Welsh and Scottish princes, though they sign the acts of the Gemóts at which they were present, took any active share or interest in purely English affairs.

The King of the English was thus over-lord or external superior of all the princes of the isle of Britain. [Sidenote: Statement of the case as to the Imperial titles.] In that character, our Kings, from the days of Æthelstan onwards, bore titles beyond those of ordinary royalty, titles which in strictness belonged only to the successors of Charles and of Constantine. They appear in their public acts as _Basileus_, _Cæsar_, _Imperator_, _Imperator Augustus_.[175] [Sidenote: 1st. Are they to be taken as seriously implying Imperial claims?] Several questions at once arise. Are these titles mere outpourings of vanity, mere pieces of inflated rhetoric, mere specimens of the turgid style of the tenth century? Or do they imply a serious claim on the part of the English Kings to be looked on as something more than mere Kings, to be deemed the peers of the lords of Imperial [Sidenote: 2nd. If so, are they to be traced uninterruptedly to the old provincial Emperors?] Rome, Old and New? And if they do imply such a claim, from what was that claim understood to be derived? Did the Emperors of Britain in the tenth century inherit, or claim to inherit, their Imperial rank from the provincial Emperors who reigned in Britain in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries? Are we to trace an uninterrupted succession of Imperial sovereignty from Carausius onwards, through Maximus, Constantine,[176] Aurelius Ambrosius, and the eight Bretwaldas, down to the _Imperatores_ and _Basileis_ of the days succeeding the commendations of Scotland, Wales, and Strathclyde? Or are we to see in these titles [Sidenote: 3rd. Or are they borrowed from the style of the contemporary Emperors, through a feeling that the position of the English King was an Imperial one?] merely an imitation of the style of the contemporary Roman Emperors, Eastern and Western—an imitation not grounded solely on a love of sounding titles, but on a feeling that the English sovereignty was in some sort greater than that of ordinary Kings, that it had something in common with that of the Emperors, that in truth the King of the English held in his own island a position answering to that which the Emperor of the Romans held in the rest of the world? These questions have given rise [Sidenote: The third alternative the true one.] to a large amount of controversy. My own belief, briefly to sum it up, is that vanity and the love of sounding titles may well have had some secondary share in the matter, but yet that these titles were seriously meant as a distinct assertion of the Imperial position of the English crown. But I do not believe that there was the least thought of any succession from the ancient provincial Emperors, or from any phantom of Imperial sovereignty which may have lingered on among the Welsh at the time of the English Conquest or afterwards. I believe that these titles were taken in order to claim for the English crown an absolute independence of the Roman Empire, and at the same time to assert its right to a superiority over all the princes of Britain of the same kind as that which the Emperor exercised, or claimed to exercise, over all the princes of the mainland. I believe in short that, as the Metropolitan of England was sometimes spoken of as Pope of another world,[177] so the King of the English claimed to be Emperor of the same island world, a world over which the Lord of the greater world at Rome or at Constantinople had no authority. I will now go on to give the reasons for the conclusions to which I have come.

[Sidenote: Turgid style of the Latin]

It is undoubtedly true that the Latin charters of our Kings during the latter half of the tenth century are [Sidenote: Charters of the tenth century.] the most turgid and absurd of all human compositions. Nothing is said straightforwardly; no idea is expressed by the word which would most naturally occur to express it. The Latin language is ransacked for strange and out of the way terms; and when Latin fails, the writers draw on whatever store of Greek they enjoyed. They turn the whole into a piebald or mongrel language, something like the jargon of English lawyers in the seventeenth century.[178] When such a taste prevailed, it was no wonder that the names of King, Ealdorman, and Bishop were thought not [Sidenote: Prevalent use of Greek and other strange titles.] grand enough, and that the dignitaries of Church and State were described by strange, foreign, and often quite unintelligible titles, Roman, Greek, Persian, anything that came uppermost. Again, it is no less true that [Sidenote: This affectation hardly known in the English Charters.] this sort of affectation is almost wholly confined to the Latin charters. Those which are drawn up in English are for the most part simple and business-like, and in them the use of Imperial titles is much rarer.[179] Still I [Sidenote: The Imperial titles then conveyed a distinct meaning, and were not likely to be taken up at random.] cannot look on such titles as _Basileus_, _Imperator_, _Imperator Augustus_, as mere outbursts of swelling rhetoric. We must remember that they were all formal titles, titles to which a very distinct meaning was attached, titles which expressed a special position and which carried with them a special reverence, titles which were not then, as they are now, taken up at random by every upstart who, half in shame, half in self-conceit, shrinks from calling himself by the straightforward title of King. Any one who knows what the mediæval theory of the Empire was will understand that for a man to call himself _Imperator Augustus_ was in those days no light matter. It was a thing which the vainest potentate would hardly do without some kind of reason for it. For an ordinary King to call himself Emperor was very nearly as strong a measure as it would have been for an ordinary Archbishop [Sidenote: Force of the word _Basileus_.] to call himself Pope. _Basileus_ again, the favourite title of all, was one specially Imperial; by a caprice of language it had become the Greek equivalent of _Imperator_; it was the special title of the Eastern Emperors, the assumption of which by any other prince was held by them to be an infringement of their sole claim to represent the old Roman sovereignty. It is hard to believe that our Kings would have assumed a title surrounded by such associations, one which had been made the subject of many disputes, merely to make a sentence in a charter sound more swelling. It is hard to believe that they would have assumed it without a direct intention to claim thereby a distinctly Imperial sovereignty. Still, considering the fondness for Greek titles and Greek words of all kinds which the charters so constantly display, if the title of _Basileus_ stood alone, it might not be safe to lay [Sidenote: Still more distinct import of the other titles.] too much stress upon it. But when we also meet with _Cæsar_, _Imperator_, and _Augustus_, it is impossible to believe that any title of the class was assumed without a meaning. Whatever we say of the Greek title of _Basileus_, these Latin titles at least were not vague descriptions borrowed from a strange and half unintelligible language. They were titles in familiar use, titles which every one understood, titles which the diplomacy of the age studiously applied to one potentate and to one potentate only. They were titles whose force and use must have been perfectly well known to every man who understood the Latin language. It is utterly inconceivable that such titles should have been [Sidenote: The titles meant to assert an Imperial position.] taken up at random. They could have had no object but to claim for the prince who assumed them a sovereignty of the same kind as that which belonged to the prince for whom they were commonly reserved.

Granting then that the assumption of the Imperial titles had a meaning, and that it was not a mere piece of rhetorical vanity, the second question follows;—Was there any real continuous Imperial tradition handed on from the days of the provincial Emperors, or were the Imperial titles simply assumed in imitation or rivalry or whatever it is to be called, of the contemporary German, Italian, and Byzantine Emperors? My own conviction is [Sidenote: No continuous tradition from the provincial Emperors.] very decidedly on the latter side.[180] I do not see how any continuous Imperial tradition could have been handed on from a Roman ruler in Britain to a West-Saxon King. Every circumstance of the English Conquest shuts out such a belief. It is likely enough that in Wales and Cornwall memories might still linger on from the days when Cæsars and Augusti reigned in Britain. It is likely enough that Aurelius or Arthur or any other Welsh leader may have put forward some kind of Imperial pretensions. But that these princes should have handed on such rights or claims to their English conquerors and destroyers seems to me utterly inconceivable. We have seen in the last Chapter how completely the English Conquest of Britain differed from all other Teutonic conquests. Elsewhere the conquerors became more or less Romanized; they rejoiced to receive from the reigning Emperor the investiture of some Roman dignity, some empty title of Consul or Patrician. From the assumption of the Imperial dignity itself our whole race shrank with a kind of superstitious awe till the spell was broken by the coronation of the great Charles. This last motive indeed was one which could have no effect upon the mind of Ælle or Ceawlin; but its place would be fully supplied by utter ignorance, carelessness, and contempt for the titles and institutions of the vanquished. Consul, Patrician, Augustus, all would be [Sidenote: Real position of the “Tyrants” or provincial Emperors.] alike unintelligible and despicable in their eyes. And, before we rule that an English Bretwalda or an Emperor of Britain was in any sense a successor of the so-called Tyrants[181] or provincial Emperors, let us remember what the position of these Tyrants or Emperors really was. Carausius, Maximus, Constantine, and the rest, never called themselves Emperors of Britain. According to the strict Imperial theory, an Emperor of Britain is an absurd impossibility; the titles assumed by Eadgar are in themselves as ridiculous as the titles assumed by those who in later times have called themselves “Emperor of Austria,” “Emperor of Hayti,” “Emperor of Mexico,” “Emperor of the French.” The Emperor is essentially Lord of Rome and of the World; and it was only by setting itself up as being in some sort another world that Britain could lay any claim to either a Pope or an Emperor of its own. [Sidenote: Not Emperors of Britain, but pretenders to the whole Roman Empire while possessing only a part.] But the very last thought of the old Tyrants or provincial Emperors would have been to claim any independent existence for Britain, Gaul, or any other part of the Empire of which they might have gained possession. Nothing could be further from their wishes than to set up anything like a separate national kingdom. They were pretenders to the whole Empire, if they could get it, and they not uncommonly did get it in the end. A man who began as tyrant often became a lawful Emperor, either by deposing the reigning Emperor or by [Sidenote: Carausius. 286–294.] being accepted by him as his colleague. Carausius, the first British Emperor according to this theory, held not only Britain but part of Gaul. It must not be thought that part of Gaul had been annexed to the dominions of a national sovereign of Britain, as Calais was by Edward the Third and Boulogne by Henry the Eighth. Britain and part of Gaul were simply those parts of the Roman Empire of which Carausius, a candidate for the whole Empire, had been able actually to possess himself. At last Carausius was accepted as a colleague by Diocletian and Maximian, and so became a lawful Cæsar and Augustus. [Sidenote: Allectus. 294–297.] Allectus was less fortunate; he never got beyond Britain, and instead of being acknowledged as a colleague, he was defeated and slain by Constantius. Constantius himself reigned in Britain; but no one would call Constantius a British Emperor, and Carausius was a British Emperor [Sidenote: Magnentius. 350.] just as little. Magnentius, Maximus, Constantine, were simply Emperors whose career began in Britain and not in [Sidenote: Maximus. 383–388.] Syria or Africa; they were not content to reign as British [Sidenote: Constantine. 407.] Emperors or Emperors of Britain; they speedily asserted their claim to as large a share of the Roman world as they had strength to win and to keep. Now it is perfectly possible, especially if any of the Welsh princes were descendants of Maximus, that a remembrance of these Emperors may have survived in Britain, and it is not unlikely that the conquest of Gaul by an Emperor who set forth from Britain may be the kernel of truth round which much of the mythical history of Arthur has [Sidenote: No analogy between these Emperors and the English Bretwaldas.] gathered. But it is certainly hard to understand the analogy between a Roman general, trying to obtain the whole Roman Empire, but who is unable to obtain more than Britain or Britain and Gaul, and a Teutonic chief, winning by his own sword some sort of superiority over the other princes, Celtic and Teutonic, within the isle of Britain. The essence of the position of Carausius and his successors is that they aspired to an universal dominion, and with such dominion any independent or national existence on the part of Britain would have been utterly inconsistent. The essence of the position of an English Bretwalda or Basileus is that he is the very embodiment of an independent national existence, that he aspires to a dominion purely insular, that he claims supremacy over everything within the island, but aspires to no conquests beyond it. He is a “Wielder of Britain,” Emperor so far as he is independent of either continental Empire, Emperor so far as he exercises Imperial power over vassal princes within his own island. I can see no likeness between him and a Roman general, who aspires to reign on the seven hills, but who is unluckily shut up against his will within the four seas of Britain.[182]

I infer then that the Imperial style which was affected by our Kings from Æthelstan onwards was not derived by any continuous tradition from any earlier British or Roman [Sidenote: Explanation to be found in the circumstances of the time.] Empire. It is in the circumstances of their own kingdom, and in the general circumstances of Europe during the ninth and tenth centuries, that we must look for the causes which led them to challenge Imperial rank. Ecgberht, [Sidenote: Charles and Ecgberht.] it should not be forgotten, was the friend, the guest, and no doubt the pupil, of Charles the Great.[183] Ecgberht [Sidenote: 802.] was chosen to the West-Saxon throne two years after the Old Rome re-asserted, in the person of Charles, her right to choose her own Emperor. We cannot doubt that, through his whole career, he had Charles before him as his model, and that his object was to win for himself the same kind of dominion in his own island which Charles had won on the continent. But Ecgberht never assumed any higher style than that of King of the English, and even that, as far as we know, but once only.[184] In his days the unity of the Western Empire still remained unbroken under his benefactor and his benefactor’s son. It was enough for the West-Saxon King to feel himself well nigh the only independent prince in Western Christendom, [Sidenote: The plans of Ecgberht, checked yet in the end helped by the Danish invasions, were fully carried out by Eadward and Æthelstan.] without setting himself up as a rival Emperor. The schemes of Ecgberht, checked under his immediate successors by the Danish invasions, were in the end really promoted by those invasions, through the weakening and destruction of the other English kingdoms. At last his whole plan was carried out in the latest days of Eadward, and it was established in a more thoroughly organized form by Æthelstan. The whole isle of Britain was now, in different degrees of subjection and dependency, under the supreme dominion of the West-Saxon Kings. Now, and not before, begins the use of the Imperial titles. [Sidenote: Greatness of the position of Æthelstan.] Æthelstan, in whose reign the connexion between England and the continent was unusually busy, Æthelstan, Lord of all Britain, connected by marriage and friendship with all the greatest princes of Europe, could hardly fail to take in the greatness of his own position. He might well feel [Sidenote: His assumption of the Imperial style.] himself to be the peer of Emperors. He was the one prince whose dominions had never, since his own nation entered them, acknowledged any superiority in the lord of either Rome. Of our island at least might be said, whether in honour or in reproach,

“De tributo Cæsaris nemo cogitabat;
Omnes erant Cæsares; nemo censum dabat.”[185]

[Sidenote: Points of analogy between his position and that of the Emperors.] Whatever vague and transitory homage Cæsar may have received from Scots or Northumbrians, it is certain that no King of the West-Saxons ever knew a superior beyond the limits of his own island. But, from the days of Ecgberht onwards, every King of the West-Saxons had claimed or aspired to a superiority of his own through the whole extent of his own island; and now Æthelstan had converted those lofty dreams into a living reality. Gaul, Spain, Italy, Denmark, the Slavonic and other less known lands beyond the Elbe, all had bowed to the dominion of the first Teutonic Cæsar. To England alone he had been a model and a counsellor, but not a master. As the one perfectly independent prince in Western Christendom, Æthelstan was the equal of Emperors, and within his own island he held the same position which the Emperors held in the rest of the world. Like an Emperor, he not only had his own kingdom, governed under him by his own Dukes or Ealdormen, but his kingdom was surrounded by a circle of vassal princes who paid to him the homage which he himself paid to no superior upon earth. As no other prince in Western Christendom could claim for his own kingdom the same perfect independence of all Imperial superiority, so no other prince in Western Christendom could show, in a crowd of dependent princes, so perfect a reproduction of the Imperial majesty. And [Sidenote: No universally acknowledged Emperor at this time.] it must not be forgotten that during the first half of the tenth century there was not, as there was before and after, any one Emperor universally acknowledged by all the Christian states of the West. The days of the Carolingian Cæsars were past; the days of the Saxon Cæsars were not yet come. Guy, Lambert, Berengar, [Sidenote: 888–896.] were Augusti not less fleeting, and far more feeble, than any of the tyrants of whom Britain had once been so fertile. The King of the English and Lord of all Britain might well feel himself to be a truer representative of Imperial greatness than Emperors whose rule was at most confined to a corner of Italy. He was, beyond all doubt, the second among Western Kings. The Kings of the Eastern Franks, not yet Emperors in formal rank, but marked out in the eyes of all men as the predestined heirs of Charles, were the only rulers who could be held to surpass him in power and glory. Without waiting for any formal coronation, the soldiers of Henry and Otto had saluted their victorious Kings as _Imperatores_ and _Patres Patriæ_, and, with the same feeling, Æthelstan assumed, or received from his counsellors, the titles which placed [Sidenote: Revival of the Empire under Otto [962], not likely to make the English Kings withdraw their Imperial claims.] him on a level with them. The new birth of the Empire during the reign of Eadgar, the coronation of Otto the Great, which at once restored to the Imperial crown no small share of its ancient power and dignity, would by no means tend to make our princes lay aside any Imperial claims which they had already asserted. Eadgar was on the best terms with his Imperial uncle; still it might be thought needful to assert that England owed him no kind of homage, and that the other princes of Britain owed homage to Eadgar and not to Otto.

Here then, as it seems to me, and not in any traditions of Ambrosius or Carausius, is to be found the true explanation of the otherwise startling title of Emperor of [Sidenote: Full import of the Imperial titles.] Britain. That title was meant at once to assert the independence of the English crown upon any foreign superior, and to assert the dependence of all the other powers of Britain upon the English crown. It was meant to assert that the King of the English was, not the homager but the peer, alike of the Imperator of the West and of the Basileus of the East, and it was meant to assert that Scots, Welsh, and Cumbrians owed no duty to Rome or to Byzantium, but only to their Father and Lord at [Sidenote: They go out of use after the Norman Conquest, because insular dominion is no longer the chief object.] Winchester. The Imperial titles last in common use down to the Norman Conquest; after that their employment is rare, and they gradually die out altogether. And why? Because the Norman and Angevin Kings, though they were by no means disposed willingly to abate a tittle of the rights of their predecessors within the four seas of Britain, were far from looking on insular dominion as the main object of their policy. They were Kings of England, and they knew the strength and value of England; some of them had wisdom enough to value England for her own sake; still in the eyes of all of them, one main value of England was to serve as a nursery of men and a storehouse of money to serve their plans of continental ambition. They were Kings of England, but they were also Counts of Anjou, Dukes of Normandy and Aquitaine, striving after an equality with their liege lord at Paris, sometimes perhaps after a superiority over him. The British Empire in which Æthelstan gloried, and in which Cnut in the midst of his Northern triumphs gloried no less, was assuredly not despised by the wisdom of Henry of Anjou. But if it was one object of his policy, it was not the only one. In the eyes of the Poitevin knight-errant who came after him, it seemed hardly worth keeping; and it was something which could not be kept in the grasp of John and Henry the [Sidenote: The old claims take a more strictly feudal shape under Edward the First.] Third. At last in the great Edward there again arose a true Bretwalda, one who saw that the dominion of Æthelstan and Eadgar was a worthier prize than shadowy dreams of aggrandizement beyond the sea. But by this time the notion of a British Empire had given way to more purely feudal ideas, and his claims to supremacy took their shape [Sidenote: Later traces of the ideas.] accordingly. But traces of the old ideas still lingered on. Through the fourteenth, the fifteenth, the sixteenth centuries, a chain of instances may be put together which show that the idea of an Empire of Britain was not wholly forgotten.[186] Even when no Imperial claims were put forward on behalf of England, it was thought needful carefully to shut out all claims on the part of any other power to Imperial supremacy over England. And in the sixteenth century, along with the revived study of our early history, the Imperial titles themselves revive in a more definite form. The Imperial character of the English sovereignty was strongly asserted both by Henry the Eighth and by Elizabeth. In the days of Charles the Fifth a denial of all dependence on the Roman Cæsar may have been no less needful than a denial of all dependence on the Roman Pontiff. Henry may well have deemed it prudent to take the same precautions against his Imperial nephew which Eadgar had taken against his Imperial uncle. Protests of the like sort were again made in the reign of Elizabeth. We find her more than once formally described as Empress, an Empress whose Empire reached from “the Orcade isles to the mountains Pyrenee.” In this last description we find the key to the style. An Empire implied subordinate kingdoms. Elizabeth claimed to be Empress as being independent of the continental Emperor; she also claimed to be Empress as having a royal vassal within her own island. The same phrases which assert the independence of England upon the Austrian Emperor also assert the dependence of Scotland upon the English Empress.[187]

This then I believe to be the true account of the Imperial titles and Imperial pretensions of the English Kings in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Our Kings meant to assert at once their own perfect independence and the dependence of the other princes of Britain upon them. [Sidenote: Growth of the English system of dependencies. 827–1869.] It is perhaps worth notice that in all this we may see the beginnings of a system which has gone on to our own day. From the days of Ecgberht onwards the House of Cerdic has never been without its dependencies. Their sphere has gradually been enlarged; as nearer dependencies have been incorporated with the central state, another more distant circle of dependencies has arisen beyond them. Wessex held the supremacy over England; England held it over Great Britain; Great Britain held it over Ireland and a crowd of smaller islands and colonies; the United Kingdom holds it over colonies and dependencies of every kind, from Man to New Zealand. Since the days of the Roman Commonwealth, no other land has had so large an experience of the relations between a central power and half-incorporated states of various kinds. [Sidenote: Imperial character still retained by England.] In this sense, England is now a more truly Imperial power than any other in the world. Putting aside the local associations of Rome and Constantinople, no modern state comes so near to the notion of an Empire as understood either by Æthelstan or by Otto. There is therefore an historical meaning in the familiar phrases of “the British Empire” and “the Imperial Parliament,” whether any remembrance of ancient Bretwaldas and Basileis was or was not present to the minds of those who devised them.

[Sidenote: Summary.]

I thus bring to an end my survey of the political condition of England and its dependent states in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The dominion won by Eadward and Æthelstan was handed over unimpaired to William the Bastard. We have seen what that dominion was. There was a home monarchy in which the power of the King was strictly limited by law, but in which his personal influence was almost unbounded. There was also an external lordship over a body of vassal princes who had the right and the duty, though perhaps but seldom the will, to appear in the Great Council of their Over-lord along with the Bishops and Ealdormen of his own realm. [Sidenote: The old Kingdom and Empire transferred to William.] This dominion was, by the forced election of the English Witan, transferred to the hands of the Norman Conqueror. Under his successors the character of the monarchy [Sidenote: Gradual changes] gradually altered, but it altered far more through a change in the spirit of the administration than through actual [Sidenote: after the Conquest.] changes in the laws. The power of the crown was vastly increased in the hands of William and his sons, and in other respects the kingdom gradually changed from the old Teutonic to the later mediæval form. But it was always the constitutional doctrine that William, a legal claimant of the crown, received the crown as it had been held by his predecessors. It follows that a thorough knowledge of the position of those predecessors, of the nature of their authority and of the limits on their power, is absolutely necessary, if only to understand the position of the Norman Kings, what changes they made and what changes they did not make. What was the real nature and amount of those changes, political and social, will be shown in my last volume. And, along with them, I shall deal more specially with some points, like language and art, the earlier forms of which are most fittingly treated of by way of comparison with their later forms. For the present we turn for a while from the history and state of England as they stood under Ælfred and his immediate successors, to trace out the early history of the land which became closely connected with England in the course of the tenth century, and which sent forth the conquerors of England in the eleventh.