Chapter V (3)

The events of the next year form the exact converse of the tale which I have just told. We have seen the spirit of a gallant army foully damped by the malice of a single traitor. We shall now see the efforts of a single hero, boldly struggling against every difficulty, feebly backed by those who should have supported him, and winning, in a succession of defeats, a glory as pure as that of the most triumphant of conquerors. This man was Ulfcytel, who is said to have been a son-in-law of the King, and who was at this time Earl, or at least military commander, of the East-Angles.[618] His name proclaims his Danish origin, but it was in him that England now found her stoutest champion in her hour of need. This next summer Swegen took his course towards a part of England which was largely peopled by men of his own race, to the old kingdom of [Sidenote: Swegen surprises and burns Norwich.] Guthrum. His coming was sudden; he sailed to the mouth of the Yare; he pushed his way up the stream, and stormed and burned the town which had arisen near the point of its junction with the Wensum, and which, at least in later times, has spread itself on both sides of the smaller [Sidenote: History of the city.] river. Norwich was in East-Anglia what Exeter was in the Western shires. But the city itself could not boast of the same antiquity as the Damnonian Isca. The changes of the waters in that region had caused the British and Roman site to be forsaken; the Icenian Venta survived only in the vague description of Caistor, a description common to it with many other Roman towns whose distinctive names have been forgotten. At some distance from the Roman site, where the hills slope down to the right bank of the Wensum, the East-Anglian Kings had reared one of those vast mounds which form so marked a feature in the Old-English system of defence, and had crowned it doubtless with a fortified dwelling. This home of native kingship was to be the forerunner of one of the [Sidenote: Norwich Castle.] stateliest of Norman castles, one which immediately suggests a name than which few in our history are more illustrious. The castle of Norwich became the stronghold of the earls of the house of Bigod, one of whom lived to [Sidenote: 1297.] wrest the final confirmation of the liberties of England from the hands of the great Edward himself. As at Exeter, as at Salisbury, the Norman castle had already a rude forerunner, [Sidenote: Norwich not yet a Bishop’s See.] but the Norman minster had none. The Bishop of the East-Angles still had his seat at Elmham. A twofold translation of the see towards the end of the century, first to Thetford and then to Norwich, points out those two towns as being at this time the most considerable in the district, and we accordingly find them the principal objects [Sidenote: Importance of the town.] of hostile attack. Norwich was now one of the greatest seats of commerce in England; the city had been greatly favoured by several successive Kings, and it [Sidenote: Norwich burned by Swegen.] enjoyed the privilege of a mint. A place thus rich and flourishing was naturally marked as a prey by the invaders, who harried and burned it, seemingly without resistance. The blow was so sudden that even a guardian [Sidenote: Ulfcytel and the Witan of East-Anglia make peace with the Danes.] like Ulfcytel was unprepared. He now gathered together the provincial council, the Witan of East-Anglia,[619] whose mention shows how much of independence the ancient kingdom still retained. Peace was patched up with the invaders, who seemingly returned to their ships. But, [Sidenote: The Danes break the peace and march on Thetford.] three weeks afterwards, the Danes broke the peace, and marched secretly to Thetford, the town in the district next in importance to Norwich. This march seems to have led them to a greater distance from the coast than any Danish army had ventured since the old invasions in Ælfred’s time. Their movement did not escape the watchful eye [Sidenote: Plans of Ulfcytel.] of Ulfcytel,[620] and the plan which he formed, though not wholly successful, seems to vouch for his generalship. He at once gathered his forces together as secretly as he could, and sent a detachment to the coast to destroy the ships of the invaders. In this latter part of his scheme he wholly failed; those whom he sent on that errand proved [Sidenote: Thetford plundered and burned.] either cowardly or unfaithful. And, even with the force under his own command, he was unable to save Thetford. The town was entered by the Danes, who plundered it, stayed there one night, and in the morning set fire to it [Sidenote: Drawn battle between Swegen and Ulfcytel.] and marched away towards their ships. But they were hardly clear of the burning town when Ulfcytel came upon them with his army. That army was comparatively small; had the whole force of East-Anglia been there, so our authors tell us, never would the heathen men have got back to their ships. As it was, the Danes themselves said that they never met in all England with worse handplay than Ulfcytel brought upon them.[621] It seems to have been a drawn battle. The Danes so far succeeded that they were able to accomplish their object of reaching their ships; but the fighting was hard, and the slaughter great on both sides, and we do not hear of either side [Sidenote: Severe loss among the English leaders.] keeping the field. As at Maldon, as at Æthelingadene, the slaughter on the English side fell most heavily on those who were high in rank or command.[622] No doubt, in all these battles, just as in the battles of Homer, the chief stress of the fight fell on the thegns of the King or Earl in command, especially on the high-born youths who were personally attached to him and his service. We have seen that it was so at Maldon, where we know the details; it is equally clear that it was so at Thetford, where we [Sidenote: Illustrations supplied by Ulfcytel’s campaign.] know only the general result. This East-Anglian campaign is also a good illustration of the general conditions of warfare at the time. It shows the difficulty with which the force either of the whole kingdom or of a single earldom could be got together, and how much was lost through mere slowness of operations. Even with a vigorous chief at the head, the two chief towns of the earldom were surprised and burned. But the story shows no less plainly how much a single faithful and valiant leader could do to struggle with these difficulties. A shire under the government of Ulfcytel was in a very different case from a shire under the government of Ælfric. Nay, could Ulfcytel, instead of holding a mere local command, have changed places with the boastful Emperor of all Britain, we can well believe that the whole story of the Danish wars would have had a very different ending.

[Sidenote: Year of respite and of famine. 1005.]

The resistance of Ulfcytel, though not wholly successful, seems to have had at least a share in winning for England a momentary respite. We hear of no further ravages after the battle of Thetford, and in the next year King Swegen, instead of attacking any part of England, sailed home again to Denmark. A famine, the most fearful ever remembered in England, was most likely the result of his ravages, but it no doubt also helped to send him away for a while from the wasted land. The Witan met in the course of the year, but we have no record of any proceedings more important than the usual grants to monasteries [Sidenote: Events of the year 1006.] and to the King’s thegns.[623] But the next year is crowded with events of all kinds. We now come to the rise of a man who was to be even more completely the evil genius of the later years of this unhappy reign than Ælfric had [Sidenote: Rise and character of Eadric.] been the evil genius of its earlier years. This was Eadric, the son of Æthelric,[624] surnamed Streona, who is described as a man of low birth, of a shrewd intellect—which he used only to devise selfish and baleful schemes—of an eloquent tongue—which he used only to persuade men to mischief—as proud, cruel, envious, and faithless. From elaborate pictures of this sort we instinctively make some deductions; still the character of Eadric is written plainly enough in his recorded crimes. That such a man should rise to power was the greatest of evils for the nation; still his rise illustrates one good side of English society at the time. [Sidenote: Illustrations supplied by his advancement.] In England the poor and ignoble still could rise; on the continent they had nearly lost all chance. Eadric rose to rank and wealth by his personal talents, talents which no writer denies, though they all paint in strong colours the evil use which he made of them. And he really rose; he did not merely, like many low-born favourites of other princes, exercise a secret influence over a weak master. He was advanced to the highest dignities of the realm; he stood forth in the great council of the nation among the foremost of its chiefs; he commanded the armies of his sovereign; and, what would most of all shock modern prejudices, he was allowed to mingle his blood with that of kings. Now, if a bad man could thus rise by evil arts, it clearly was not impossible that a good man might also rise in a worthier way. Instances of either kind were doubtless unusual; the general feeling of the time was strongly aristocratic; still there was no legal or even social hindrance to keep a man from rising out of utter obscurity to the highest places short of kingship. Eadric, like most favourites, seems to have made his way to power through the ruin of an earlier favourite. A man named Wulfgeat had been for some years the chief adviser of Æthelred. It [Sidenote: Fall of Wulfgeat.] is not clear whether he had ever risen above thegn’s rank. But he clearly exercised some functions which clothed him with a good deal of power, for, among his other offences, unjust judgements are spoken of.[625] Wulfgeat was now, doubtless through the influence of Eadric, deprived of all his offices, and his property was confiscated, a sentence which would seem to imply the authority of a Witenagemót. The sentence may have been a righteous one; but at all events the degradation of Wulfgeat opened the way for the elevation of a worse man than himself. Wulfgeat is at least not described as an open traitor and murderer. [Sidenote: Eadric the chief favourite.] Eadric, who had probably been rising in position for some years, now appears as the reigning favourite and as the [Sidenote: Earl Ælfhelm murdered at Shrewsbury.] director of all the crimes and treasons of the court. A monstrous crime was now committed. Ælfhelm, a nobleman who had been for some years Earl of a part of Northumberland, probably of Deira,[626] was present, seemingly at the court or at some Gemót, at Shrewsbury. There Eadric received him as a familiar friend, entertained him for some days, and on the third or fourth day took him out to a hunting-party. While others were intent on the sport, the executioner of the town, one Godwine, surnamed Porthund,[627] whom Eadric had won over by large gifts and promises, started forth from an ambush at a favourable moment and put the Earl to death.[628] The sons of Ælfhelm, Wulfheah and Ufegeat, were soon after blinded by the King’s order at Cookham, a royal seat in Buckinghamshire. [Sidenote: Ælfheah Archbishop of Canterbury. 1006.] Amidst all these crimes, Archbishop Ælfric died, and Ælfheah of Winchester, who was before long to take his place beside Dunstan as a canonized saint, succeeded to the metropolitan throne.

[Sidenote: Scottish inroad. 1006.]

These events seem to have taken up the earlier part of the year. In the summer a new Danish invasion began, and there seems reason to believe that it took place at the same time as a Scottish inroad, which was perhaps planned in concert.[629] It is now a long time since we have heard [Sidenote: Death of Kenneth. 994.] of any disturbances on the part of Scotland proper. King Kenneth, the faithful vassal of Eadgar, had died in [Sidenote: Accession of Malcolm. 1004.] the year of the great invasion of Olaf and Swegen. But his son Malcolm did not obtain quiet possession of the Scottish crown till ten years later. He was now, it would seem, determined to revenge the wrong which he had [Sidenote: [1000.]] suffered at the hands of Æthelred in the devastation of [Sidenote: Malcolm besieges Durham.] Cumberland. He is said to have invaded Northumberland and to have laid siege to Durham. The new seat of the Bernician bishopric[630] was growing into an important city, and it had already become an important military post. But the government of the country was in feeble hands. [Sidenote: Cowardice of Earl Waltheof.] Waltheof,[631] the reigning Earl, was old and dispirited, and, instead of meeting the invaders, he shut himself up in [Sidenote: Victory of his son Uhtred.] King Ida’s castle at Bamburgh. But he had a son, Uhtred, whose name we shall often meet in the history of the time, and whose career is a strangely chequered one. When his father failed in his duty, he supplied his place, he gathered an army, rescued Durham, and gained a signal victory over the Scots.[632] Towards the city which he thus saved Uhtred stood in a relation which we should have looked for rather in the eighteenth than in the tenth century. He was married to a daughter of Ealdhun, the Bishop who had just removed his see to Durham, and in the character of episcopal son-in-law he held large grants of episcopal [Sidenote: He unites both the Northumbrian Earldoms.] lands. Uhtred’s behaviour gained him the special favour of Æthelred, who—doubtless by the authority of one of the Gemóts of this year—deposed Waltheof from his earldom, bestowed it on his son, and also added the earldom of Deira, now vacant by the murder of Ælfhelm.[633] [Sidenote: His marriages.] Uhtred, thus exalted, seems to have had no further need of episcopal leases; for he sent the Bishop’s daughter back to her father, honestly returning the estates which he had received with her. He then married the daughter of a rich citizen, whom he held by quite another tenure, that of killing her father’s bitter enemy Thurbrand. This he, unluckily for himself, failed to do, and this failure would seem to have set aside the second marriage also, as we presently find him receiving the hand of King Æthelred’s daughter Ælfgifu.[634] If all this is true—and the genealogical and local detail with which it is given seems to stamp it as true—the ties of marriage must have sat quite as lightly on a Northumbrian Earl as ever they did on a Norman Duke. The tale indeed suggests that even the daughters of Bishops, a class whom we should hardly have expected to find so familiarly spoken of after Dunstan’s reforms, may have been sometimes married Danish fashion. But the fact that an Earl did not disdain the daughter of a rich citizen at once shows the importance which some even of the northern English cities—for either York or Durham must be meant—had already reached, and it also shows that no very broad line as yet separated the different classes of society in such matters. The story again marks the ferocious habits of the Danish parts of England. It seems the most natural thing in the world for a man on his marriage to undertake to kill his father-in-law’s enemy. We shall find that this engagement of Uhtred to kill Thurbrand was the beginning of a long series of crimes, of an hereditary deadly feud, which went on till after the Norman Conquest.

Such was the Scottish inroad and its results. It is wrongly placed, and some of the details may be suspected, but the outline of the story may, I think, be admitted. [Sidenote: Danish invasion of the year 1006.] But of the Danish invasion there is no doubt at all. In the month of July a vast fleet appeared off Sandwich, and Kent and Sussex were ravaged without mercy. Æthelred for once seems to have seriously thought of personal action against the enemy.[635] He gathered together an army from [Sidenote: An English army raised, but in vain.] Mercia and Wessex, which was kept throughout the whole autumn in readiness for an engagement. But nothing came of this unusual piece of energy. The old causes were still at work, and the enemy, perhaps remembering the reception which they had met with at the hands of Ulfcytel, seem now to have avoided a battle.[636] They plundered here and there, and went backwards and forwards to their ships, till, as winter approached, the English army dispersed, and the King returned to his old quarters at Shrewsbury. There is a vein of bitter sarcasm in the way in which the tale is told in the Chronicles. The writers keenly felt the incapacity of their rulers, and the degradation of their [Sidenote: The Danes go back to Wight. November, 1006.] country. The Danes went back to their “frith-stool”[637]—their safe asylum, their inviolable sanctuary—in the Isle of Wight. Presently, at Christmas, when no resistance was likely, they went forth to their “ready farm,” to the quarters which stood awaiting them, as it were to gather in their crops and to enjoy the fat of their own land.[638] [Sidenote: Great plundering expedition in the winter of 1006–7.] That is to say, they went on a plundering expedition which carried them further from their own element than they had ever yet ventured. They marched across Hampshire to Reading, and thence up the valley of the Thames, “doing according to their wont and kindling their beacons”—that is, no doubt, wasting and burning the whole country. They thus dealt with Reading, with Wallingford, with Cholsey. They were now in the midst of a land where almost every step is ennobled by memories of Ælfred. Out of mere bravado, it would seem, they climbed the neighbouring height, the long ridge of Æscesdún, which looks down on the spot where, [Sidenote: 871.] in the great King’s first campaign, victory had for a moment shone on the West-Saxon banners. They marched along the ridge till they reached the vast barrow which, under the corrupted form of Cuckamsley,[639] still preserves the name of Cwichelm, one of the two West-Saxon [Sidenote: 636.] Kings who first submitted to baptism. This was a spot where, in times of peace, the people of that inland shire had held their local assemblies, and some unknown seer had risked the prediction that, if the Danes ever got so far from the sea, they would never see their ships again. The falsehood of the prophecy was now shown. The Danes crossed the range of hills; they marched down on the other side, and went on to the south. At Kennet, now Marlborough, an English force at last met them, but it was speedily put to flight. The Danes then turned homewards. They passed close by the gates of the royal city of Winchester, displaying in triumph to its inhabitants the spoils of the inland shires of Wessex, now become the defenceless prey of the sea-rovers.[640]

This was the most fearful inroad which England had yet seen, one which showed that the parts furthest from the sea were now no more safe from Danish ravages than the exposed coasts of Kent and Sussex. The King kept [Sidenote: Witenagemót of Shrewsbury. 1006–7.] his Christmas at Shrewsbury, and there the Witan met. All heart and hope seemed to be gone; no one could devise any means of withstanding the force which had now harried every shire in Wessex. Nothing could be thought of but the old device; the broken reed was again to be leaned upon; ambassadors were sent, once more offering [Sidenote: Tribute again paid to the Danes. 1007.] money as the price of the cessation of the ravages. The offer was accepted; but the price was of course again raised; thirty-six thousand pounds was to be paid, and the Danish army was to receive provisions. They were fed during the whole winter at the general cost of England, and early in the next year the sum of money demanded was paid.

[Sidenote: Two years’ respite. 1007–8.]

We can never speak or think of these wretched attempts to buy peace without a feeling of shame, and yet, in this case at least, the payment may not have been such utter madness as it appears at first sight. Of course nothing more than a respite was ever gained; when the Danes had spent the money, they came again for more. And it would seem, from the example of Ulfcytel, that a respite could be as easily won by a manful, even if not perfectly successful, resistance. Still this payment did gain for the country a breathing-space at a time when a breathing-space was absolutely needed. We hear nothing of any more invasions for two years, and there was at least an attempt made to spend the interval in useful legislation and in putting the country into a more efficient state of defence. Æthelred and his favourites, as usual, spoiled everything; but we need not attribute their cowardice and incapacity to all the Witan of England. As far as we can see, the schemes of the legislature were well considered; a respite was needed in order to devise any scheme at all, and humiliating as it was to buy that respite, such a course may have been absolutely necessary. But in this reign everything was thwarted by executive misconduct. Æthelred first laid on his Witan the necessity of consenting to all this degradation, and he then frustrated their endeavours to make such degradation needless for the future.

[Sidenote: Eadric made Ealdorman of the Mercians. 1007.]

Meanwhile the reigning favourite attained the height of his greatness. He was made Ealdorman of the Mercians,[641] dishonouring the post once held by the glorious daughter of Ælfred. It was most likely at this time that he received the King’s daughter Eadgyth in marriage. We have now to repeat the same comments which we made in the case of Ælfric. That old enemy, after his last treason [Sidenote: 1003.] four years before, now vanishes from history, and his place [Sidenote: Inexplicable treasons of Eadric.] as chief traitor is taken by Eadric. The history of Eadric from this moment is simply a catalogue of treasons as unintelligible as those of his predecessor. Why a man who had just risen to the highest pitch of greatness, son-in-law of his sovereign and viceroy of an ancient kingdom, should immediately ally himself with the enemies of his King and country, is one of those facts which are utterly incomprehensible. But that it is a fact there is no good reason to doubt. Our best authorities for this period, the writers nearest to the time, those least given to exaggeration or romantic embellishment, distinctly assert that it was so, and we have nothing but ingenious guesses on the other side.

[Sidenote: Legislation of the years 1008–1009.]

The next year is one memorable in the annals of our early legislation, and the year which followed it is still more so. The civil functions of the King and his Witan were in full activity during the two years of respite. The laws of Æthelred form several distinct statutes or collections of clauses, most of which are without date; but, of the few dated ordinances, one belongs to the former of these two years, while another may, on internal evidence, [Sidenote: Laws of 1008.] be safely set down as belonging to the same period. The former statute[642] deals mainly with ecclesiastical matters, but it also contains provisions both of a moral and of a political kind. On these points however we get much more of general exhortations than of really specific enactments. The whole reads like an act of penitence on the part of a repentant nation awakened by misfortune to a sense of national sins. Heathenism is to be cast out, an ordinance which shows what had been the effect of the Danish invasions. Such a precept would have been needless in the days of Ine or Offa. But now, not only were many heathen strangers settled in the land, but we may even believe that some native Englishmen may have fallen off to the worship of the gods who seemed to be the stronger. Some of the clauses are vague enough. All laws are to be just; every man is to have his rights; all men are to live in peace and friendship—excellent advice, no doubt, but hard to carry out in any time and place, and hardest of all when Æthelred and Eadric were to be the chief administrators of the law. Punishments are to be mild; death especially is to be sparingly inflicted; Christian and innocent men are not to be sold out of the land, least [Sidenote: Laws against the slave-trade.] of all to heathen purchasers.[643] This last prohibition is one which is constantly repeated in the legislation of this age, showing at once how deeply the evil was felt, and how little legislation could do to get rid of it. We must never forget that slavery was fully established throughout England, though the proportion of slaves varied greatly in different parts of the country. The slave class was recruited from two sources. Englishmen were reduced to slavery for various crimes by sentence of law, and the children of such slaves followed the condition of their fathers.[644] Welsh captives taken in war formed another class, and the proportion of slaves to freemen was unusually large in the shires on the Welsh border. Slaves of both classes were freely sold to the Danes in Ireland, and the words of the statute seem to imply that the kidnapping of persons of free condition was not unknown.[645] Both these practices our present statute endeavours to hinder. The same prohibition was re-enacted under Cnut,[646] but the practice survived all the laws aimed against it, and we shall see, as we go on, it was in full force a few years after the Norman Conquest. The intention in this enactment is as good as it could be; but the enactment is vague, no definite penalty is attached to breaches of the law, and we are not surprised to hear that it had little practical effect. Some of the other precepts are even vaguer. We may sum up the whole by saying that all virtues are to be practised and all vices avoided; all church-dues are to be regularly paid, and all festivals are to be regularly kept, especially the festival of the newest English saint, the martyred King Eadward.[647] The whole is wound up with a pious and patriotic resolve of real and impressive solemnity. The nation pledges itself to fidelity to God and the King. It will worship one God and be true to one royal lord; it will manfully and with one accord defend life and land, and will pray earnestly to God Almighty for his help.[648]

In all this we see a spirit of real reform and real earnestness thoroughly suited to the time. And if some of the ordinances of the Witan are somewhat vague and dreamy, we find one at least of a more definite and practical kind. [Sidenote: The formation of a fleet decreed.] The happy days of Eadgar are to be restored, when yearly after Easter the royal fleet of England sailed forth, and when no enemy dared approach the land which it guarded.[649] Under the wretched advisers of his son this regular order had doubtless been neglected. Ships had sometimes been assembled, but certainly not as a matter of regular yearly course. It is singular how seldom, in dealing with an enemy so essentially sea-faring, we hear of any attempt at [Sidenote: 992.] action by sea. The gallant sea-fight of sixteen years earlier[650] stands almost alone. But now the good old practice was to be renewed, and the royal fleet was to assemble yearly [Sidenote: Ordinances against desertion from the land-force.] after Easter.[651] Nor was the efficiency of the land-force forgotten. It was secured by heavy penalties against deserters. A fine of one hundred and twenty shillings was incurred in ordinary cases; but when the King was present in person, desertion placed the life and estate of the culprit at the royal mercy.[652] The contributions for the repair of forts and bridges were to be strictly discharged,[653] and generally everything to do with the defence of the land was to be put on the best footing that might be.

[Sidenote: Decrees of Enham,]

The decrees of the undated Council of Enham[654] are marked as belonging to the same period, by the repetition of nearly the same enactments, often in nearly the same words. They contain much the same moral and religious exhortations, and much the same ordinances for the mustering of the land and sea-force, for the repair of the forts and bridges, for the punishment of deserters and of those [Sidenote: drawn up in the name of the Witan only.] who damage a ship of war. But the most remarkable thing about this statute is that it is drawn up in the name of the Witan only, without any mention of the King.[655] But there is no need to infer that there was in this case any departure from the usual legislative process. The Witan only are mentioned; but the action of the Witan implies the action of the King, just as in many places in the Chronicles, where the King only is mentioned, the action of the King implies the action of the Witan. We may indeed fairly suppose that both these statutes were more distinctly the work of the Witan, and less distinctly the work of the King, than in most other cases. The laws of Ælfred were the work of the King, which he submitted to the Witan for their approval.[656] So, we may be sure, was the case with the laws of the other great Kings who came after him. But we may well believe that the laws of Æthelred were the work of Æthelred only in the sense in which the Great Charter was the work of John. Both statutes breathe the same spirit, a spirit widely different from anything likely to come forth from Æthelred or his immediate counsellors. They clearly sprang from the best elements of wisdom that the Great Council of the nation could still supply. They show a real desire to mend the ways of the nation, to make satisfaction to God and man for the past, and for the future to work manfully alike for national reformation and for the national defence. The whole tone is at once pious and patriotic; and the piety is of a kind which, while it strictly enforces every ecclesiastical observance, by no means forgets the weightier matters of the law, judgement, mercy, and truth. In all this we can hardly fail to trace the hand of good Archbishop Ælfheah.

[Sidenote: The fleet raised by contributions of districts.]

A fleet then was to be raised, a fleet such as guarded the land in the days of Ælfred and Eadgar. But how was the fleet to be raised? This question leads us to a most remarkable statement in our authorities, the details of which are puzzling in the highest degree, but as to the general bearing of which there can be no doubt.[657] The cost of the fleet was to be borne by the nation at large, individuals or districts being made to contribute according to their means and extent. In those days land was of course taken as the only standard of property on which the assessment could be made. It does not appear that either individuals or districts were called on to make any contributions in money to the royal treasury. They were to contribute in kind, according to a scale laid down by the Witan, in the shape of ships, or of things needful for the ships or their crews. There can be no doubt that, in the reign of Æthelred, this was a much wiser arrangement; money which had to pass through the hands either of the King or of his favourite would most [Sidenote: The system not a new one.] likely not have appeared again in the form of ships. The practice was not one which was invented for the nonce. There is evidence to show that a contribution of ships in [Sidenote: 995–1005.] kind was the ancient custom. In the will of Archbishop Ælfric, which must of course have been drawn up a few years before this time, that prelate bequeaths a ship to his flock in Kent and another to his former flock in Wiltshire.[658] This gift must have been intended to relieve the people of those shires from some part of their share in this doubtless heavy impost. It is hardly possible that the bequest can have any other object; one can think of no other motive which could lead an Archbishop or any one else to leave [Sidenote: The contribution made by shires.] a ship to a shire, especially to an inland shire. This evidence seems to show that the contribution was made by shires, that each shire had to furnish a certain number of ships according to its extent, the assessment on individuals or on smaller districts being doubtless settled in the Scirgemót. This was most likely the old and regular way of raising a fleet, the way in which the great fleets of Ælfred [Sidenote: This assessment the origin of ship-money.] and Eadgar had been raised. But this vote of King Æthelred’s Witenagemót does not only look backward; it looks forward. There can be no doubt that, in this ancient way of gathering together a fleet, we have the germ of the famous ship-money of the seventeenth century.[659] The writs discovered by Noy calling on maritime, and sometimes on inland, counties and places to furnish ships, and [Sidenote: 1634–5.] the writs issued by Charles the First in pursuance of the precedents thus discovered, undoubtedly take their root in the statute of the thirtieth year of King Æthelred. They are the degenerate successors of that great vote of the Witenagemót of 1008, just as that vote was the more lawful successor of earlier votes in the days of England’s greatest Kings. There is of course one all important difference between the two cases. The contributions levied by Charles were levied by an usurping stretch of the royal prerogative; the contributions levied by Ælfred, Eadgar, and Æthelred were granted, in due form of law, by the Great Council of the nation. But the impost was the same, though the authority by which it was raised was lawful in the one case and unlawful in the other. The earlier writs of ship-money under Charles demanded actual ships, just as in the case before us. And there was a call for special heed to the fleet in the days of Charles, just as much as there was in the days of Æthelred. To say nothing of the general complications of Europe, the Algerine corsairs, though not quite so formidable as Swegen’s Danes, did serious damage to English commerce, and they sometimes actually landed and plundered on the English and Irish coasts. The objection was to the illegal shape in which the demand came. And the later writs, which, under pretence of a composition for the actual ships, levied a tax by royal authority over the whole country, were a further abuse. Money came into the King’s clutches, not only without any lawful right, but without any kind of guaranty that it would be applied to the purposes for which it professed to be raised. This was the very evil against which the ancient mode of contributions in kind effectually guarded.

[Sidenote: Embassy to Normandy. 1009?]

Besides these vigorous preparations at home, there seems some reason to believe that an attempt was made at this time to strengthen England by foreign help. It was plainly felt that the peace bought from the Danes had secured only a breathing-space, that their attacks would soon begin again, and that it was necessary to employ the blessed interval in obtaining support from every possible quarter. It was not unnatural to hope that the marriage of Emma had gained for England a continental ally, and we are told, on secondary but not contemptible authority, that Æthelred now sent to his brother-in-law Duke Richard, asking for both help and counsel.[660] There is nothing unlikely in the statement; but, whatever may have been given by Richard in the way of counsel, it does not appear [Sidenote: No Norman help given.] that a single Norman ship or Norman soldier was sent to the help of England. Hugh, the betrayer of Exeter, is the only recorded contribution which either Norman chivalry or Norman churlhood made to the defence of our shores against the Dane. Nor indeed was there any strong reason why Richard should help his brother-in-law, unless he had taken up the cause as a kind of crusade, and had stepped in as a Christian champion against the heathen invaders. But Richard and his subjects were Normans before they were Christians, and all the traditions of Norman policy tended to fraternization with their Danish kinsmen. Such fraternization with the Danes had already caused, certainly a dispute, perhaps an open war, with England. Richard the Good in no way departed from this traditional policy. [Sidenote: Richard’s treaty with Swegen.] According to a Norman account, told with great confusion as to time, Richard was, either now or a few years later, actually bound by a treaty with Swegen, not only to receive sick and wounded Danes in his dominions, but to allow the spoils of England to be sold in the Norman ports.[661] This was the old ground of quarrel, but Æthelred was just now not likely to retaliate by another invasion of the Côtentin. And, according to another story, told with equal confusion as to dates, Richard, like his father, did not scruple to accept the help of two heathen Kings of the North in his warfare with his Christian neighbours.[662] At a later time indeed he could not well refuse shelter in his dominions to his sister with her husband and children; [Sidenote: Richard keeps aloof from English affairs.] but anything like even an attempt at active interference in English affairs on the part of Normandy was delayed till the reign of his son Robert.

[Sidenote: The fleet assembles at Sandwich. 1009.]

At last the great fleet was gathered together at Sandwich. So great a fleet had never been seen in the reign of any King. No man living had seen such an one, nor was such an one spoken of in any book. There the ships were, enough and ready to guard the land against any foe.[663] And, under Ælfred or Æthelstan, we may be sure that those ships would have kept the seas clear from every foe, or else they would have met the invaders face to face on their own element. But in the reign of Æthelred domestic treason ruined everything. The fleet raised by such unparalleled efforts was doomed to do no more for England than any other preparations which had been made during this miserable reign. The fleet was ready, but there was discord among the commanders. Eadric, in his own rise, had raised along with himself several of his brothers,[664] of one of whom, Brihtric, we read a character quite as bad [Sidenote: Affair of Wulfnoth and Brihtric.] as of Eadric himself. This man, at this time or a little earlier, brought unjust charges to the King, of what kind we are not told, against a leader named Wulfnoth, described as “Child Wulfnoth the South-Saxon.”[665] Orders were given to seize Wulfnoth; he fled, and persuaded the crews of twenty ships, most likely the contingent of his own shire, to flee with him. They presently began to plunder the whole south coast. Brihtric then followed him with eighty ships, thinking to win great fame,[666] and to bring back Wulfnoth alive or dead. But a violent storm, such as had never before been known, beat his ships to pieces, and dashed them against the shore, where presently Wulfnoth [Sidenote: Brihtric’s ships burned by Wulfnoth.] came and burned them. A hundred ships were thus lost in one way or another; but these must have been only a small portion of so great an armament. Yet an unaccountable [Sidenote: Utter dispersion of the fleet.] panic seized on all men. In the emphatic words of the Chronicles, “When this was known to the other ships where the King was, how the others had fared, it was as if all were redeless; and the King gat him home, and the Ealdormen and the High-Witan, and forsook the ships thus lightly; and the folk then that were in the ships took the ships eft to London, and let all the nation’s toil thus lightly perish, and there was no victory the better that all Angle-kin had hoped for.”[667]

The fleet was lost just when it was most needed. Æthelred, Wulfnoth, and Brihtric had, among them, [Sidenote: Renewed Danish invasion. 1009.] wrought the utter ruin of their country. As might have been looked for, and as evidently was looked for, the Danes, when they had spent their money, came again. First [Sidenote: Thurkill’s fleet.] came a fleet commanded by an Earl Thurcytel or Thurkill, who plays a great part in the history for about twelve years to come.[668] In the month of August this detachment was followed by a still larger one, under the command of Heming and Eglaf.[669] The treason of Wulfnoth had left neither fleet nor army to withstand them. The two fleets met at Sandwich, whither their crews marched to Canterbury [Sidenote: Canterbury and East-Kent buy peace.] and assaulted the city. But the citizens, in partnership with the men of East-Kent, bought them off with a payment of three thousand pounds. We may here, as before in East-Anglia,[670] see the action of the local Witan, and in the distinct mention of the East-Kentish men[671] we may see traces of the time when Kent had two Kings, as it even now has two Bishops.[672] The Danes then went back to their ships; they sailed to their old quarters in Wight, and thence ravaged Sussex, Hampshire, and even Berkshire. Æthelred seems now to have plucked up a little heart; the spirit which had been kindled by the vigorous preparations of the last two years had not quite died away. He gathered an army from all England, and placed detachments [Sidenote: Efforts of Æthelred frustrated by Eadric.] at various points along the coast. At one time, when the Danes were returning, laden with booty, from one of their plundering expeditions, the King stopped their way with a large force, both Æthelred and his people having, so we are told, made up their minds to conquer or die.[673] But, by one of those inexplicable treasons of which we have so many in this reign, Eadric dissuaded the King from the intended battle,[674] and the Danes were allowed to [Sidenote: November 11, 1009.] go back to their ships unmolested. After Martinmas they took up their winter quarters in the Thames; they ravaged Essex and other parts on both sides of the river, and again [Sidenote: Vain attempts of the Danes on London.] made several assaults on London. But the old spirit of the city was as strong as ever; every attempt of the Danes was beaten off, to the great loss of the assailants, by the citizens themselves, seemingly without any further help. [Sidenote: January, 1010.] After Christmas they set out again, and plunged yet further into the heart of the country than they had ever [Sidenote: Oxford burned.] ventured before. They crossed the Chiltern hills, reached Oxford, and burned the town. They then turned back, as if intending another attack on London. They went on in two divisions, plundering on both sides of the Thames. But hearing that a force was gathered against them in London, the northern division crossed the river at Staines. They then marched through Surrey back to their ships, and passed Lent in repairing them.[675]

[Sidenote: Progress of the Danish ravages.]

In each of these campaigns, if plundering expeditions in which no resistance is met with can be called campaigns, the ravages of the Danes become wider and more fearful, spreading every year over some portion of the land which had hitherto remained untouched. And, in the same proportion, the spirit of the English and their power of resistance [Sidenote: Last year of resistance.] seem to die away. We have now reached a year even more frightful than any that went before it, a year which seems to have finally crushed England. It is in this year that we meet with the last resistance that was offered to the invaders during this stage of the war. It was not till four years later, when it was too late, that the national spirit again awoke after the flight and return of [Sidenote: April, 1010.] Æthelred. After Easter the Danish fleet sailed forth, and this time it attacked East-Anglia. They landed near [Sidenote: Ulfeytel’s second battle, at Ringmere, May 18.] Ipswich, at a place called Ringmere. But there a hero was waiting for them. In this reign however a hero was commonly accompanied by a traitor to thwart his efforts. This time Ulfeytel was not taken by surprise; he stood [Sidenote: The battle lost by the treachery of Thurcytel.] ready for them with the whole force of East-Anglia. The battle began, and was for a while doubtful; but before long a Thegn of Danish descent, Thurcytel, surnamed Marehead, set the example of flight, which was followed by the whole army, save only the men of Cambridgeshire, who stood their ground and fought valiantly to the last.[676] The slaughter was great, and, as usual, it fell heavily on the chief men, that is doubtless mainly on the _comitatus_ of Ulfcytel. There died Æthelstan, a son-in-law of the King,[677] the noble Thegn Oswig and his son, and Eadwig or Eadwine [Sidenote: [1002.]] the brother of Eafic, whose murder was recorded eight years before.[678] There too died Wulfric the son of Leofwine a man of the stamp of Brihtnoth, at once bountiful to ecclesiastical foundations and true to his country in the [Sidenote: [1004.]] day of battle.[679] Through his bounty the great monastery of Burton had been called into being six years earlier. But it is more to our purpose to note that, on the field of Ringmere, Wulfric, in noble contrast to the spirit which was so rife throughout the land, must have come as a volunteer, defending a part of the country which was not his immediate home. According to some accounts, he held the rank of Ealdorman in one of the shires of north-western Mercia, and among his vast possessions, scattered over a large part of Mercia and southern Northumberland, we find none that could have given him any special personal interest in East-Anglian warfare. The Danes kept possession of the battle-field; they harried all East-Anglia for three weeks; they burned Thetford and Cambridge, and then, partly on horseback and partly in their ships, returned to the Thames. This second burning of [Sidenote: [1004.]] Thetford, a town which had already been once burned six years before, shows, like so many other cases in these wars, the ease with which, when houses were almost wholly built of wood, a town was destroyed and again rebuilt. [Sidenote: Further ravages.] After a few days they set out again, ravaged Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, where they had been before, and the districts, hitherto seemingly untouched, of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. The state of things which now followed cannot be so well described as in the words of [Sidenote: State of the country as described by the Chroniclers.] the Chronicles. “And when they were gone to their ships, then should the force go out eft against them if they should land; then went the force home, and when they were east, then man[680] held the force west, and when they were at the south, then was our force at the north. Then bade man all the Witan to the King, and man then should rede how man should guard this land. And though man somewhat red, that stood not so much as one month. And next was there no headman[681] that force would gather, and ilk fled as he most might, and next _would no shire so much as help other_.”[682] A state of things like this, where the utter corruption of the general government paralyses all national action, gives every encouragement to local and personal selfishness. Such selfishness is at all times rife enough in the ordinary mind. In times of any local pestilence or other misfortune, the districts which are exempt are often inclined to hug themselves in their supposed safety, to be unwilling to take any active exertion for the relief of others, or even to take the needful precautions for their own defence. And, in the times of which we speak, war of all kinds, a Danish invasion, a border war with the Welsh or the Scots, was a scourge at least not more out of the common way than a visitation of cholera or cattle-plague is now. That the Danes should be somewhere in the land had begun to be taken for granted. Each district had thus learned to think only of its own momentary safety, and to be careless about everything else. And this would be especially the case in a country, like England at that time, where the different parts of the kingdom were still very imperfectly welded together, where the habit of common action was still new and needed the strong arm of an able King thoroughly to enforce it. Even in this wretched year we may mark three stages of degradation. The first expedition met with real resistance, resistance which, had not Ulfcytel and Wulfric been betrayed by Thurcytel, would probably have been successful. In the second stage, though it does not appear that a blow was struck after the battle of Ringmere, yet there was at least the show of calling out troops against the enemy. But before the year was out we hear of a third Danish expedition, to which it would seem that not the least shadow of resistance was offered. At the end of November the enemy set forth again. They now struck deep into the heart of the country, going much further from their own element [Sidenote: Northampton burned. November, 1010.] than they had ever been before. They marched to Northampton, burned the town, and ravaged the neighbourhood. They then struck southwards, ravaged Wiltshire, and by midwinter they came back to their [Sidenote: Extent of the ravages up to this time.] ships, burning everywhere as they went. Sixteen shires—our authorities stop to reckon them up[683]—had now been ravaged with fire and sword. Northumberland and the western and northern shires of Mercia were still untouched; and the western part of Wessex, which had suffered severely in former years, seems to have seen no [Sidenote: [1003.]] enemy since Swegen’s march from Exeter to Salisbury. But the shires of East-Anglia (seemingly reckoned as one only), Essex, Middlesex, Hertford, Buckingham, Oxford, Bedford, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Northampton, Kent, Surrey, Sussex,[684] Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Berkshire, had all been more or less harried by the terrible Thurkill. The spirit of the nation was now crushed, and its means of defence were utterly exhausted.

[Sidenote: Peace again purchased. 1011.]