CHAPTER IV.

THE RISE OF WESSEX.

The nucleus of England-Battle of Burford-First descent of NorsemenReign of Egbert-His successors-Ravages of Danes.

I

T soon became clear that eight kingdoms could not live within the limits of the British shore. The eight were welded into three-Anglian Northumbria, Anglian Mercia, and Saxon Wessex. Each of these in turn, and in the order named, obtained the supremacy-Northumbria under Oswald, Mercia under Offa, and lastly, Wessex under Egbert. The supremacy of Wessex was permanent and real. We do not find the name of that state on our modern maps, though Essex and Sussex still remain to mark the site of ancient Saxon kingdoms. The omission is full of meaning. Wessex, reserved for a loftier destiny than the mere naming of a shire, swelled its frontiers until it had reached the northern hills and the eastern sea, and thus became the nucleus and origin of the kingdom of England.

During the thirty-seven years of Ina's reign (688-725), Wessex rose rapidly in power and in fame. In imitation of

the Kentish kings, this monarch enacted a code of laws 752 for the regulation of his subjects. But the ascendency of the West Saxons may be chiefly dated from a battle fought near Burford in Oxfordshire, in which the beautiful and dissolute Ethelbald of Mercia was forced to flee before the

standard of the Golden Dragon. Mercia never recovered the blow; and Wessex pursued her victorious career with new strength, until her power was acknowledged from Wight to the Cheviots, from Yarmouth to the hills of Wales.

It was indeed time that the scattered energies of England should be centred in a solid heart, for a fierce and terrible foe was about to swoop on her shore. The Norsemen (or Danes,

as they are commonly called) were abroad on the eastern sea, eager to smite the renegades who had forsaken the faith of Thor and Odin for the worship of a peaceful God.

787

The first descent of these pirates, who came to inflict upon the Angles and Saxons what their forefathers had inflicted on the defenceless Britons, took place in 787 at Charmouth in Dorsetshire, where the crews of three ships landed to plunder, and, after killing the sheriff, were driven on deck again. They chose a safer place for their second descent. Seven years later, they pounced on the island of Lindisfarne, where pious Oswald had founded a monastery, and there they slew and burned and robbed without stint or stay. What has been well called "the fatal beauty of England" possessed irresistible attractions for these red-haired sailors of the North. Gladly did the cadets of princely houses grasp the war-axe, and steer away for a land of green and gold, where no icy winter ever chained up the sea. The ravaging of a Christian shore gratified all their fiercest and strongest passions; for to lust of blood and lust of booty there was added in their stern hearts a quenchless hatred of the Cross. Such were the men whose dread war-hammers were now to forge our England into shape.

Brihtric, whose usurpation of the Wessex crown had driven the true heir, Egbert, into exile at the court of Charles the Great, or Charlemagne, had been but a short time king when

the Danish keels touched at Dorsetshire. His death 800 brought back the wanderer to a hereditary throne in the last year of the eighth century. Some fifteen years' residence among the polished Franks had prepared the Brighteyed Prince for the lofty station of a king. His keen glance saw the weakness of the neighbouring states, and all that art and valour could command was summoned to accomplish their subjugation. Mercia fell smitten on the field of Ellandun (823), and with it fell its feeble limbs, Kent and Essex.

The

827

prince of Northumbria, making a virtue of necessity, arrested the uplifted sword by an abject submission. Thus the Angles bent under the Saxon sceptre, and a united nation had its birth. All the lowlands acknowledged Egbert's rule, the Cymri of the mountains alone holding fast their ancient freedom. The last years of the West Saxon king were spent in beating back, as well as he could, the crafty incursions of the Danes. Joining the Cymri of Cornwall, they faced the army of Egbert at Hengsdown Hill above the Tamar, but were defeated with severe loss. In the following year (836) the brave King of Wessex died. Adversity had given him both the temper and the polish of a good steel blade. It was no bad omen for English greatness that such a man should stand first on her glorious roll of royal names.*

Ethelwulf, the next King of Wessex, was succeeded by four sons, who reigned in turn-Ethelbald, Ethelbert, Ethelred, and Alfred. The Danish sea-kings now gave no peace to the land. Fiercer and more frequent grew their dashes on the shore. Nor did the shore content them. Penetrating the land, they seized York, and pushed southward to Reading on the Thames. A brave but vain resistance was made to their destroying march by the Mercian earl Alfgar, who with a chosen band laid down his life among the oak trees of Kesteven.† A fruitless victory won at Ashtree Hill near Reading by the West Saxons, and memorable as one of Alfred's earlier fights, was followed by the defeat of Basing and the drawn battle of Merton, in the latter of which King Ethelred received a mortal wound. The greatest of the Saxons then ascended the throne of Wessex.

* We must not forget that the title "King of England' was not adopted by Egbert. Even Alfred was styled only "King of the West Saxons.'

+ Lincolnshire has long been divided into three parts--Lindsey, Kesteven, and Holland. Kesteren forms the south-west district of the shire.

There is a Merton on the Wandle in Surrey, nine miles from London, noted for the ruins of its abbey; but Sharon Turner thinks that this battle was fought at Moreton, near Wallingford, in Berkshire. Others identify it with Marden in Wiltshire.

CHAPTER V.

ALFRED THE GREAT.

Alfred's youth-His disease-Unpopular at first -Athelney-Battle of Ethandune-Treaty of Wedmore-Policy of Alfred -His daily lifeHasting the Dane-The stranded ships-Alfred's death.

BORN

ORN at Wantage in Berkshire* early in the year 849, Alfred, son of Ethelwulf and Osberga, ascended the throne of Wessex at the age of twenty-two. His early years had displayed a budding greatness, of which the bright blossoms adorned his manhood. In his seventh year he had gone with his father to Rome, where he resided for a year. While a boy he had won an illuminated copy of Saxon ballads, by learning them quickly as he heard them read. At seventeen his maiden sword had been reddened with Norse blood; and the nobles of Wessex had followed the banner of the gallant boy on many a hard-fought field. When the crown of Wessex devolved on Ethelred, the crown of Kent and Sussex should, by old Ethelwulf's will, have been given to Alfred; but it passed by consent of the Witan to the elder brother, in order that no disunion should weaken the kingdoms of the south in that day of peril and fear. It was well that those five years of apprenticeship fell to his lot. What was really the English crown descended, after the fatal field of Merton had laid Ethelred in a bloody grave, on a head already well skilled to rule in council or in fight.

* Wantage, in the north of Berkshire, is a market town, ten miles from Abingdon. Formerly noted for woollens and sacking, it now trades chiefly in farm produce.