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Wessex. He set up for awhile an archbishopric at Lichfield, which seems
to mark his determination to erect Mercia into a sovereign power. He
also founded the great monastery of St. Alban's, and is said to have
established the English college at Rome, though another account
attributes it to Ine, the West Saxon. East Anglia, Kent, Essex, and
Sussex all acknowledged his supremacy. Karl the Great was then reviving
the Roman Empire in its Germanic form, and Offa ventured to correspond
with the Frank emperor as an equal. The possession of London, now a
Mercian city, gave Offa an interest in continental affairs; and the
growth of trade is marked by the fact that when a quarrel arose between
them, they formally closed the ports of their respective kingdoms
against each other's subjects.
Nevertheless, English kingship still remained a mere military office,
and consolidation, in our modern sense, was clearly impossible. Local
jealousies divided all the little kingdoms and their component
principalities; and any real subordination was impracticable amongst a
purely agricultural and warlike people, with no regular army, and
governed only by their own anarchic desires. Like the Afghans of the
present time, the early English were incapable of union, except in a
temporary way under the strong hand of a single warlike leader against a
common foe. As soon as that was removed, they fell asunder at once into
their original separateness. Hence the chaotic nature of our early
annals, in which it is impossible to discover any real order underlying
the perpetual flux of states and princes.
A single story from the Chronicle will sufficiently illustrate the type
of men whose actions make up the history of these predatory times. In
754, King Cuthred of the West Saxons died. His kinsman, Sigeberht,
succeeded him. One year later, however, Cynewulf and the witan deprived
Sigeberht of his kingdom, making over to him only the petty principality
of Hampshire, while Cynewulf himself reigned in his stead. After a time
Sigeberht murdered an ealdorman of his suite named Cymbra; whereupon
Cynewulf deprived him of his remaining territory and drove him forth
into the forest of the Weald. There he lived a wild life till a herdsman
met him in the forest and stabbed him, to avenge the death of his
master, Cymbra. Cynewulf, in turn, after spending his days in fighting
the Welsh, lost his life in a quarrel with Cyneheard, brother of the
outlawed Sigeberht. He had endeavoured to drive out the ætheling; but
Cyneheard surprised him at Merton, and slew him with all his thegns,
except one Welsh hostage. Next day, the king's friends, headed by the
ealdorman Osric, fell upon the ætheling, and killed him with all his
followers. In the very same year, Æthelbald of Mercia was killed
fighting at Seckington; and Offa drove out his successor, Beornred. Of
such murders, wars, surprises, and dynastic quarrels, the history of
the eighth century is full. But no modern reader need know more of them
than the fact that they existed, and that they prove the wholly
ungoverned and ungovernable nature of the early English temper.
Until the Danish invasions of the ninth century, the tribal kingdoms
still remained practically separate, and such cohesion as existed was
only secured for the purpose of temporary defence or aggression. Essex
kept its own kings under Æthelberht of Kent; Huiccia retained its royal
house under Æthelred of Mercia; and later on, Mercia itself had its
ealdormen, after the conquest by Ecgberht of Wessex. Each royal line
reigned under the supreme power until it died out naturally, like our
own great feudatories in India at the present day. "When Wessex and
Mercia have worked their way to the rival hegemonies," says Canon
Stubbs, "Sussex and Essex do not cease to be numbered among the
kingdoms, until their royal houses are extinct. When Wessex has
conquered Mercia and brought Northumbria on its knees, there are still
kings in both Northumbria and Mercia. The royal house of Kent dies out,
but the title of King of Kent is bestowed on an ætheling, first of the
Mercian, then of the West Saxon house. Until the Danish conquest, the
dependant royalties seem to have been spared; and even afterwards
organic union can scarcely be said to exist."
The final supremacy of the West Saxons was mainly brought about by the
Danish invasion. But the man who laid the foundation of the West Saxon
power was Ecgberht, the so-called first king of all England. Banished
from Wessex during his youth by one of the constant dynastic quarrels,
through the enmity of Offa, the young ætheling had taken refuge with
Karl the Great, at the court of Aachen, and there had learnt to
understand the rising statesmanship of the Frankish race and of the
restored Roman empire. The death of his enemy Beorhtric, in 802, left
the kingdom open to him: but the very day of his accession showed him
the character of the people whom he had come to rule. The men of
Worcester celebrated his arrival by a raid on the men of Wilts. "On that
ilk day," says the Chronicle, "rode Æthelhund, ealdorman of the Huiccias
[who were Mercians], over at Cynemæres ford; and there Weohstan the
ealdorman met him with the Wilts men [who were West Saxons:] and there
was a muckle fight, and both ealdormen were slain, and the Wilts men won
the day." For twenty years, Ecgberht was engaged in consolidating his
ancestral dominions: but at the end of that time, he found himself able
to attack the Mercians, who had lost Offa six years before Ecgberht's
return. In 825, the West Saxons met the Mercian host at Ellandun, "and
Ecgberht gained the day, and there was muckle slaughter." Therefore all
the Saxon name, held tributary by the Mercians, gathered about the Saxon
champion. "The Kentish folk, and they of Surrey, and the South Saxons,
and the East Saxons turned to him." In the same year, the East Anglians, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]