HOPELESS STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 381 mind. In times of any local pestilence or other mis- CHAP. V. fortune, 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, even a civil war among Englishmen, 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 recent 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, which, had not Ulfeytel and Wulfric been betrayed by Thurcytel, would probably have been successful resistance. 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 them. But before the year was out, we hear of a third Danish expedition, to which it does not appear that 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 than they had ever been before. They marched to Northamp Northampton, burned the town, and ravaged the neigh- November, bourhood. They then struck southwards, ravaged Wilt- 1010. shire, and by Midwinter came back to their ships, burning ton burned, time. CHAP. V. everywhere as they went. Sixteen shires-our authoritie Extent of stop to reckon them up1-had now been ravaged with the ravages up to this fire and sword. Northumberland and the western an 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 enemy since Swend': [1003.] march from Exeter to Salisbury. But the shires of EastAnglia (seemingly reckoned as one only), Essex, Middlesex, Hertford, Buckingham, Oxford, Bedford, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Northampton, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, 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. Peace chased. 1011. 3 The Witan met early in the next year. All notion of again pur- resistance seems to have been given up, but another attempt was made to buy off the enemy. An embassy! was sent to the Danes, and another peace was patched up. The price was, of course, again raised, and it now reached forty-eight thousand pounds. But such a sum 1 The Chronicles and Florence give the names. William of Malmes bury, though professing to be at least half an Englishman, is too dainty to copy the uncouth names of English shires. "Cum numerentur in Anglia triginta duo pagi, illi jam sedecim invaserant, quorum nomina propter barbariem linguæ scribere refugio." (ii. 165.) 2 The Chronicles reckon Hastings, Sussex. Hæstingas," as distinct from Chron. and Flor. Wig. in anno. Thietmar, who, for a time, becomes an authority of some value, is amusing in the way in which he brings in English affairs (vii. 26, ap. Pertz, iii. 847). "Audivi sæpius numero, Anglos, ab angelicâ facie, id est pulcrâ, sive quod in angulo istius terræ siti sunt, dictos, ineffabilem miseriam à Sueino, Haraldi filio, immiti Danorum Rege, perpessos esse, et ad id coactos, ut qui prius tributarii erant principis apostolorum Petri ac sancti patris eorum Gregorii spirituales filii, immundis canibus impositum sibi censum quotannis solverent, et maximam regni suimet partem, capto ac interemto habitatore, tunc hosti fiducialiter in habitandam inviti relinquerent." This last clause reads more like a description of the settlement of Guthrum than of anything that happened in Swend's time. EADRIC INVADES WALES. 383 invades Wales, and was not at once forthcoming, and it was not actually CHAP. v. paid for a full year. This negociation seems not to have gained for the country even that temporary repose which had been gained by earlier payments; the delay of payment may even have provoked the enemy to fresh ravages. At all events, we read that they went on with their devastations just the same. And the Chronicles may well say that all these evils came upon the land through lack of counsel,1 when we find how Æthelred and Eadric employed any momentary respite that the nominal peace may have given them. It is the old story of eleven years before, [1000.] when Ethelred wasted such time and strength as he had left in a needless, and probably unjust, attack upon his Cumbrian vassal. So now Eadric and his master picked out Eadric this time, of all others, for an expedition into Wales. We are not told what special offence the Welsh princes had ravages given just at this moment. Border skirmishes were no David's. doubt always going on along the Mercian frontier; but the present expedition was clearly something much more serious, and it must have had a special cause. highly probable conjecture 2 that, just as in the case of Malcolm, the wrath of the English over-lord was aroused by a refusal on the part of the Welsh princes to contribute to the Danegeld. The expedition, at all events, evidently made a deep impression on the Welsh, as it is the only warfare with England which their national chroniclers think worthy of record for many years before and afterwards.3 An English army entered South Wales, under the command of Eadric, who, as Ealdorman of the Mercians, would be the natural commander. With him was It is a 1 "Ealle pas ungesealda us gelumpon þurh unrades." Is there an allusion to the name of Ethelred, and is this the origin of his nickname of Unready? 2 It is suggested by Lappenberg, ii. 175. 3 The last entry is in 991 (see above, p. 313). The next is in 1033. Yet these Chronicles are rather lavish than otherwise of notices of English affairs. Saint 1011, joined in command another Englishman, whose name is too hopelessly disfigured in the Welsh accounts to be recovered.1 They marched through the whole of South Wales, as far as that remote Bishoprick whither Saint David had fled from the face of man. There they plundered whatever rude forerunners already existed of the most striking group of buildings in Britain. A force which was capable of accomplishing such a march must have been equally capable of doing some real service against the Danes; but against them not a blow seems to have been struck. But, later in the year, in September, a fearful blow indeed was struck on the other side. Perhaps it was not more fearful, there is some reason to believe that it was in itself less so, than some other events of this dreadful war; but it is clothed with special importance on account Siege and of the rank and character of a single sufferer. The Danes now again besieged Canterbury, and on the twentieth capture of Canter 1 Brut y Tywysogion, 1011. "One year and one thousand and ten was the year of Christ, when Menevia was devastated by the Saxons, to wit, by Entris and Ubis." Annales Camb. 1012. "Menevia a Saxonibus vastata est, scilicet Edris et Ubis." Ann. Menevenses, 1011 (Angl. Sacr. ii. 648) "Menevia vastatur à Saxonibus, scilicet Edrich et Umbrich." Here at last we get Eadric's right name; who Ubis or Umbrich may have been it is vain to guess. 2 of the siege of Canterbury and the martyrdom of Ælfheah—the Alphege of hagiology—we have four distinct accounts. The Chronicles of course claim the first place. Then, for this occasion, I may fairly place second the con- [ temporary account of Thietmar (vii. 29. ap. Pertz, iii. 849), taken from the lips of an Englishman named Sewald. There is also the life of Elf heah by Osbern (Anglia Sacra, ii. 122), and the narrative of Florence. Simeon simply copies Florence, Henry of Huntingdon follows the Chronicles with one or two touches from Florence. The other four narratives may be looked on as independent of each other, except that Florence, when he departs from the Chronicles, either copies from Osbern, or, what is more probable, he and Osbern copy from some common source. The narrative in the Chronicles (written before 1023) I of course accept unhesitatingly. And I accept the account in Thietmar, which, without contradicting, explains one or two things in the Chronicles. It is however odd that a contemporary, though a foreigner, should call Ælf heah by the name of Dunstan, a proof how great was the fame of Dunstan, and how small the fame of Elfheah, in SIEGE OF CANTERBURY. 385 day the city was betrayed to them by a traitorous eccle- CHAP. V. siastic, one Ælfmær, whose life had been saved by Arch- bury, Sept. 8-29, bishop Elfheah on some unrecorded occasion.1 The Danes 1011. Christendom generally. The life by Osbern, besides being a pure piece of hagiology in the common style of such lives, contains a number of historical statements which are historically untrue or impossible, and which are valuable only as affording practice in the art of unravelling the component elements of a romantic story. The good sense and knowledge of Florence kept him from repeating any of Osbern's grosser absurdities, but he has introduced several details which cannot be reconciled with the Chronicles, and which are so much the worse for his narrative. Osbern (ii. 132) makes one of the brothers of Eadric, "lubricus et superbus” like Brihtric, possibly Brihtric himself, offend the nobles of Kent by false accusations and by seizing their property on different pretences. For these misdeeds they kill him. Eadric requires the King to chastise them. Æthelred refuses, affirming the oppressor to have been rightly slain. Eadric then collects ten thousand men, and takes the law into his own hands by invading Kent at their head. Not succeeding in his attempt, he leagues himself with the Danes, describing the nakedness of the land, how the Kingat the age of forty-two-was worn out with years, how the princes and people were all sunk in sloth and luxury. King Swend is now dead, and Thurkill commands in his place. So Eadric and Thurkill agree to divide the Kingdom, Eadric to take the East-Angles (seemingly in addition to his Mercian government) and Thurkill the north. Eadric joins in the siege of Canterbury, but presently vanishes from the stage. to resolve this fable into its component fables. on the metropolitan city of England is really borrowed from his capture of the metropolitan city of Wales ! It would not be difficult 1 The narrative seems to imply two Ælfmærs, yet the point is not perfectly clear. See Hook, Lives of Archbishops, i. 466. The Chronicles seem to distinguish Ælfmær the traitor from Elfmær the Abbot, and Florence calls the one Abbot and the other Archdeacon. Yet, if Ælfmær the Abbot was a different person from Ælfmær the traitor, why should the Danes let Abbot Ælfmær go free when the Archbishop and the rest were seized? I can only suggest that it is the reverse story to that of Cinna the conspirator and Cinna the poet, and that the Danes mistook one Ælfmær for the other. Abbot Ælfmær undoubtedly kept his Abbey, and was afterwards raised to the Bishoprick of Sherborne. (Thorn, X Scriptt. 1782. Hist. St. Aug. 23, 24.) Thorn gives two dates to his consecration, 1017 and 1022, and makes him resign his See and return to his Abbey. He appears as Abbot in Charters of 1016-1020 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 9, 10), and in another doubtful Charter of 1023 (iv. 23, 25). He must not be confounded with the contemporary Ælfmær, Bishop of Selsey, who also signs the same Charter. The annals of his own Abbey speak of him with great reverence, and, though ordinary C C |