AN ESSAY, &c.

The attention of the student is so universally directed in modern days to the attainment of Classic Literature, and to the knowledge of that period of History which has been stamped at once as the age of the purest taste and of the highest philosophy, that the youth of our country are too generally in entire ignorance of the early history of their own race; and with few, with very few, exceptions know no more than the names of those who in the “dark ages,” as they are erroneously termed, exercised an important influence over the well-being of England.

All error is prolific in its offspring—the stigma of darkness which has been passed upon the period that elapsed between the fourth and the tenth centuries has caused them if not actually to be shunned, at least to be lightly esteemed in the course of study; and the useful lessons to be acquired from the conduct of men in all but a state of nature, have been neglected for the sake of those to be deduced from society as it has conventionally existed in a highly civilized state. It is not here intended to be denied but that much may be learned by this method of procedure; yet is it unhesitatingly advanced as a necessary axiom in polity, that the state of nature should be first regarded, and the different improvements upon, or at least alterations from, that state afterwards compared, for the purpose of introducing a still higher degree of amelioration. In no condition can the natural propensities of man be learned so readily as in a natural condition; and the more civilization has increased in any country, so much the more difficult will it be to lay down a Code of Laws which shall have the effect of correcting the natural evils and vicious propensities of the natives of the clime.

It might, perhaps, at first sight, appear that these remarks are not peculiarly applicable to the subject of the present Essay; but this is by no means the case. The object of History is to make the experience of past ages subservient to the use of the present; and the object of Education to enable the existing generation to take advantage of the experience so afforded. But if that portion of History most rich in traits of nature, most prolific in change, most useful in developing the workings of unsophisticated mind, be neglected, it were absurd to imagine that the present age could derive the benefit such period affords from other sources, which are undeniably less adequate to bestow it.

Circumscribed, however, as a brief composition of such a nature as the present must necessarily be, it is not perhaps advisable to enlarge upon a point of opinion that might admit of controversy. It may possibly be deemed sufficient to bear out, at least partially, the position laid down, to direct attention to the state of England at the period of its History preceding the accession of Offa to the crown of Mercia, and then trace briefly his mingled career of glory and of crime.

The question is not perhaps at the present day of easy solution, whether the Jutes[1] under Hengist and Horsa came to Britain by invitation from the natives, or whether their settlement in this country arose from accidental circumstances: considering the numerical insignificance of the expedition the latter is most probable. Certain, however, it is, that their establishment in Kent and the Isle of Wight led to subsequent descents upon the coast both by Saxons and Angles, the former of whom established themselves between A. D. 449 and 527 in the south and south east of the country; while the latter, between A. D. 547 and 586, became located in the northern and midland districts. It was about the last-named date that Mercia was formed into an independent state by Crida, comprising in its full extent what are now the counties of Chester, Derby, Nottingham, and Lincoln (North Mercians), Leicester (Middle Angles), Rutland, Northampton, Huntingdon, Beds, Hertford, Bucks, Oxon, Gloucester, Warwick, Worcester, Hereford, Salop, and Stafford (South Mercians). To these extensive domains,[2]—extensive, that is, compared with the other kingdoms of the Saxon Octarchy,[3]—Offa, the subject of the present Essay, succeeded in A. D. 755, upon the nomination of the last king, Ethelbald, who perished at Seggeswold in support of his throne against the powerful rebel Bernred.[4]

No sooner had Offa been established, not less by the hearts of his subjects than by the acts of his power or the will of his predecessor, upon the throne of Mercia, than he applied himself to the duties of a barbaric sovereign, confirming his dominions and extending the limits of his territory. Brave and ambitious, endowed with personal vigour and mental abilities unequalled by any of his age and country, he gradually directed his powers against the neighbouring sovereigns. Circumstanced as the Saxon kingdoms in Britain were, nothing could be more easy than to find a pretext for offence; and whether we suppose, with the Monk of St. Alban’s, that Offa was instigated in his ambitious views by his wife Cynedritha, or believe that he simply acted on the defensive against the confederate monarchs of Deira, East-Anglia, Kent, Sussex, and Wessex, certain it is that his wars with these opponents terminated to his glory and their disgrace. At Feldhard in East-Anglia, the superiority of Offa’s forces was first made manifest. Within two years after this engagement he won the spolia opima in the decisive conflict at Otteford, near Sevenoaks, with the troops of Kent. And not long subsequently, he routed the combined forces of his enemies under the command of Cynewulf—himself a celebrated warrior—at Bensington, or Benson, (about twelve miles on the London side of Oxford,) the Villa Regia of the West Saxons, and dismantled the fortifications which their monarch had in vain striven to preserve.

After such specimens of prowess on the part of the Mercian king, it is no marvel that the kings of Deira and of Sussex should seek a distant and friendly land as the scene of their operations against the successful Offa. They sought refuge and assistance at the court of Marmodius, king of Wales; and against the Britons accordingly Offa next directed his arms. Aided by their native fastnesses these new opponents afforded protracted resistance on the western boundary of his kingdom, and with them and their Saxon allies he had many and severe engagements. Owing to the craft of Marmodius he met with some reverses in his first campaign, and on one occasion narrowly escaped with his life. Eventually, however, his good genius prevailed. He annexed to Mercia the east of Wales as far as the Wye, planted the subject territory with Anglo-Saxons, and built the wall known by the name of Offa’s Dyke,[5] about one hundred miles in extent, from the æstuary of the Dee to the mouth of the first-mentioned river.

In policy as in arms Offa proved himself equally successful. When he had been about ten years on the throne he made an attempt to deprive Iambertus, or Lambert, Archbishop of Canterbury, of his province, and, “contrary to the customs of antiquity,” to erect Lichfield into an Archiepiscopate. Although the clergy and natives of Kent were naturally opposed to an innovation which so materially affected their ecclesiastical importance, the king of Mercia succeeded in obtaining from Pope Adrian the First permission to prosecute his design; and the bishops of Worcester, Leicester, Chester, and Hereford, and of the East-Angles Helmham with Norfolk, and Domuck, or Donwich, with Suffolk, were, some years later, subjected to the Bishop of Lichfield: London, however, Rochester, Winchester, and Sherbourn remained in the diminished province of Canterbury.[6]

A correspondence, still extant, which took place between Offa and the emperor[7] Charlemagne, serves to throw some light on the complexion of the times; and the fact of its existence may be deemed a valuable compliment to the talents, the power, and the reputation of the Anglo-Saxon. How their acquaintance commenced is uncertain: but the fact of Alcuin, an English clergyman, having been preceptor to the emperor is sufficient to account for his being favorably inclined to the nation that gave his tutor birth.[8]

The friendship of monarchs, however, from its intimate connexion with political expediency, is necessarily unstable: nor was that of Offa and Charlemagne without interruption. The Frank desired the hand of a daughter of Offa for his natural son Charles; but this the Mercian sovereign refused unless Bertha, the daughter of the emperor of the west, were bestowed upon Egfrid his own son and heir. The demand excited the anger of Charlemagne; and, in consequence, disregarding the wise remonstrances of his council, he closed the ports of Gaul against the merchants of Anglo-Saxon Britain.[9] In consequence of this hasty and decisive step, Offa was apprehensive of invasion from his indignant foe, and this anticipation of evil was increased, by the knowledge that he afforded his powerful protection to some Anglo-Saxon malcontents. Lambert, the Saxon Primate, was suspected of being privy to the emperor’s designs, and this afforded a pretext (if indeed it were not really the reason) for removing the Archiepiscopate from Canterbury to Lichfield. After some lapse of time, however, concord was restored between the regal friends, through the mediation of Alcuin and the abbot Gervald[10]. The former of these (one of the most interesting and learned characters of that age) had not escaped the imputation of treasonable designs—an imputation which he repels with great simplicity and apparent honesty in the words addressed to a friend, “Vere Offæ regi nec genti Anglorum unquam infidelis fui!” His embassy from the court of his adopted to that of his natural sovereign was accompanied by gifts which were thus symbolically interpreted;

A brief review of the Anglo-Saxon system of government may, perhaps, be here not inapplicably inserted, in order to convey some definite idea of Offa’s position as the sovereign of Mercia, and enable the reader to trace more satisfactorily the improvements which he was the means of introducing into Britain.

The prescriptive constitution of the Anglo-Saxons was decidedly of a liberal form, and to it may be traced the majority of our own liberal institutions; but one most important difference exists between the ancient and modern constitution of Britain, in the fact of the sovereignty of the Saxon kingdoms not being positively hereditary. “A son who inherited his father’s virtues and talents,” observes the author of a popular History of Modern Europe, “was sure to succeed his sway; but if he happened to be weak or profligate, or was a minor, the next in blood, or the person of the greatest eminence in the state, generally procured an elevation to the throne.”[11]

The Anglo-Saxon annals afford an excellent commentary upon this system of a partially elective monarchy. Scenes of strife and bloodshed, family dissensions, party feuds, assassination, and even fratricide were not unfrequent occurrences amid this optional “setting up and pulling down of kings;” and the liberality and seeming justice of the system, that appear so seductive on a first view of the THEORY, fade before the exercise of tyranny, the right of might, and the injustice of usurpation, that evidence themselves as its prolific offspring when reduced to practice.

To aid the king and sanction measures of public administration, as well as give consent to the enactment of laws, there existed among the Saxons an Assembly or Parliament, termed a Wittena-Gemot, consisting of the nobles or thanes, the dignified clergy, and freemen possessing a given portion of land.[12] There was also a county court, termed Shire-Gemot, where all the freeholders assembled twice in each year to receive appeals from the inferior courts (probably the petty courts held by each landholder for conducting the affairs of his own estate); and over this assembly the eaorlderman (earl) and the bishop presided, although they do not appear to have had farther authority allotted to them than was sufficient to keep order among the freeholders, and to offer their advice in causes of difficulty.

To obtain nobility among the Saxons required one of three qualifications, birth, valour, or wisdom. The parents who had distinguished themselves by either of the latter means transmitted their honors to their children. They who were born of obscure or moderate parentage (provided they were free) had, however, the path of distinction open to them to pursue at will. They who gained their nobility by valour were termed adelingi; they who gained it by wisdom in peace (because generally the fruit of experience) were termed aldermanni (senators or elder men); and they who gained it by a mixed valour and wisdom in war, being illustrious for success rather than simple courage, were termed heretochii.

Beneath the nobles there were two distinct classes, each capable of a subdivision; viz., the freemen, and the slaves or villains. The freeborn (frilingi) were either custodes pagani, country gentlemen, or simply pagani, ceorles or yeomen; while the villains were distinguished as lazzi, bondmen, or free lazzi, freedmen or manumitted slaves.

Of these all except the two last had a share in the representation of their respective states, and free access to, if not the right of voting at, the Micklemote or Wittena-Gemot when assembled.

Whether the priests formed originally a part of the Witan is difficult to determine, but unquestionably they did so after Christianity was received among the Saxons; for within six years after Augustin’s arrival (A. D. 597) Ethelbert, king of Kent, having summoned a council “tam Cleri, quam Populi,” distinguished himself as the promulgator of the earliest written laws of the Anglo-Saxons which are now extant. Of the lawgivers next following him, Hlothære and Eadric, as well as Whitræd, little beyond their names is known; but about a century after Ethelbert’s time, Ina promulgated a fresh and more extensive Code of Laws, “suasu et instituto Episcoporum, omnium Senatorum et natu majorum sapientium populi; in magnâ servorum Dei frequentiâ.” After him Offa promulgated laws throughout his dominions, but these are not now separately extant: and about a century later Alfred the Great, “consultu sapientium,” retained and confirmed all the righteous laws of Ethelbert, Ina, and Offa, while he reformed or rescinded those enactments which circumstances had rendered less efficient or less advisable to be retained.

“The laws of Offa,” remarks Sir Francis Palgrave,[13] “have not been retained in their original form, and we cannot distinguish them in the capitulary of the king of Wessex. But the laws of Ina are annexed to the statute of Alfred, and perhaps we only possess them in his edition. There was no incorporate union of the Saxon kingdoms, and it is, therefore, probable that there were two promulgations of Alfred’s laws, one statute for the West-Saxons, and to which the laws of Ina were appended, and another for Mercia, since lost, to which the laws of Offa were, in like manner, annexed.”

It is of course with diffidence that any opinion is set forth which seems to run counter to so eminent an authority as Palgrave; but there does appear a plausible reason (if not a sufficient one) for the laws of Offa not being found under a separate title; viz., that the laws termed those of Alfred, independent of Ina and Ethelbert, were those of Offa! This idea is corroborated by the circumstance, that Alfred did not assume to himself so much credit as a Lawmaker as a collector and improver of laws; for in the preamble to his Code, he says that he had selected some of its laws, with the approbation and advice of his council, from those of Offa and others!

The entire improvements which Offa introduced into the legislation of his kingdom and subjected territories are, at the present day, too difficult of discovery to be clearly elucidated, unless the foregoing hypothesis be adopted: but there may be excepted from this difficulty the laws passed at the legatine council in his reign, held at Calchythe, A. D. 785, when Egfrid his son was associated with him in the government.[14]

Among these were the important enactments that no persons of illegitimate birth should ascend the throne, or inherit private property, and that kings should be “a sacerdotibus et senioribus populi eligantur;” that the Nicene Creed should be adopted; that bishops should visit their dioceses once a year; that tithes were to be paid, but that no tributes to the church were to be larger than was provided by the Roman law; that the rich and powerful should judge righteous judgment; with other provisions of minor importance.

Brief as is this notice of the Anglo-Saxon government, it is sufficient to show, that it was indebted to Offa for alterations and improvements, which, from the security and length of his reign, and their subsequent adoption by the great Alfred, may be fairly conceived to have been dictated by judgment, and enforced by a prudent exercise of power.

The first irruption of the Danes into Britain is said to have taken place during Offa’s reign, and to have been by him, for a time at least, successfully repressed.[15] But there is one event to which no allusion has yet been made, which has had greater effect in inducing posterity to form a judgment on his character than even the repulse of the early attacks of the Vikingr. An event that, if unrecorded, would have left him an almost stainless glory, but which, when fairly stated, leaves the painful impression that the blot of homicide darkens his otherwise fair escutcheon.

After Brithric, king of Wessex, and Æthelred of Deira had, with the hands of his daughters Eadburga and Ælfleda, received their kingdoms once again in subjection to themselves, Albert, or Ethelbert, king of the East-Angles, came with a lordly train to sue for the hand of Alfreda, the remaining daughter.[16] Brave, yet pious; elegant, yet modest; exalted in station, yet humble in soul; the amiable and interesting Ethelbert was publicly welcomed to the court of Offa. The festal hall was decked for his reception, the spousal banquet spread, the goblet graced the board. The hospitable meal in seeming friendly confidence passed over; the prince retired to his sumptuous couch to rest; and the morrow brought the accession of a kingdom’s wealth to Mercia clogged by the weight of treacherous and inhospitable murder![17]

It has been the effort of several historians to cast the blame of this foul transaction upon Offa’s queen Cynedritha; but as all concur in stating the welcome given to the youthful monarch, and the subsequent and immediate assumption of dominion over his realms by his intended father-in-law, no inference can be drawn but that Offa was himself a particeps criminis: and when viewed even in the most lenient possible light an accessory after the fact.

Brief was the monarch’s career posterior to this inhuman deed. Ere two years had passed he sank overwhelmed with remorse and sorrow into the cold embraces of the tomb. Within five months his promising successor, Egfrid, followed him to the grave—his abandoned queen soon closed her vicious career—the betrothed bride of the murdered Ethelbert wasted her widowed beauty in the monasterial walls of Croyland—Eadburga, the profligate and homicidal widow of Brithric perished miserably—and the race of Offa no more existed in the land![18]

The mind of the philosopher, the historian, and the poet, must alike reflect with pain, that there was one gigantic genius who might lay claim to the laurels of all, and could yet allow his opinions to be so biassed by prejudice as to declare the records of the times to which we have been alluding to be worthless as a history of the contests of kites and crows![19] The intellect that controlled the infancy of a mighty nation was spurned, because it did not chance to be in existence when that nation had advanced to maturity—but it surely needs no new observation to pronounce that the germs of originality will develop themselves at all times and under all circumstances. Events may doubtless occur to evolve them with a peculiar force, and education and early habit may deck them with characteristic colouring; but where the spirit of originality—the essence of causation—exists, it will find a vent for its exhibition, whether it rise in the breast of an Offa amid an age of comparative barbarism, or burst from the mind of a Napoléon, to stalk with the grandeur of a son of Anak superior to a host of petty minds, narrowed by the extreme polish of that very civilization upon which they chiefly pride themselves.

Had not the genius of Offa led the way by subjecting so large a portion of England to his control, it is scarcely probable that Egbert would have succeeded so early as within a few years from his decease in uniting the divided kingdoms under his government. Nor should it be forgotten that the future monarch of all England took his early lessons in the rude chivalry of the times at the court of Offa, by whom he was protected from the persecution of Brithric:[20] thence passing in safety by the connivance of his friend to the dominions of Charlemagne, he was entertained by that illustrious emperor till the death of Brithric left the kingdom of Wessex open to his claims. And on his return to his native land, he showed plainly that the ambitious designs of his early protector yet lived in his bosom, and but a transient period intervened ere the divided House of the Octarchy owned him as their common Lord.

To Offa then, as the preserver, and to a certain extent the instructor, of the first sole monarch of England, the present age must look back with gratitude as the founder of the limited monarchy of the land; but as he is said by one of his historians[21] to have been a man in whom virtue and vice were so mingled, as to render it difficult to say whether of the twain were predominant—so in the legacy of spiritual slavery which he bequeathed to his kingdom, it is a question whether the advantages arising from unity in political government were not more than counterbalanced.

Not only did Offa, by his application to the Pope for permission to transfer the province of Canterbury to Lichfield, recognize the principle of interference in the ecclesiastical government of this country on the part of the bishop of Rome, but he is expressly stated to have made his whole realm tributary to that See. And it is certain that in paying Romescot[22] he followed the example of Ina, who in the year 697 “was the first that caused the monie called Peter Pence to be paid unto the bishop of Rome, which was for everie houshold within his dominion a penie.”

It is scarcely less disgusting than instructive to trace throughout the middle ages the growing foliage of superstition, that cast its dim and lengthening shadow over the lovely temple of religion. And when it was the received creed of the time, that donations to the church, of which the bishop of Rome was falsely regarded as the head, were sufficient to compensate for the most heinous crimes, it cannot be surprising that the regal homicide should pay his court to the prevailing idol, or that the wide domains of the wealthy and noble sensualist should in his dying hour (no longer, then, of service to pander to his appetites,) be transferred to the service of that all-powerful agency which professed itself alike enabled to quench the fires of purgatory and unbar the portals of the mansions of eternal bliss! Offa, the proud and conquering king, stripped of its vested rights the ancient province of Canterbury to aggrandize with spiritual supremacy his own domains[23]—Offa, the daring and ambitious prince, yielded to the evil suggestions of tempting opportunity, and with a bold and bloody hand seized the broad lands of the sainted martyr Ethelbert. But Offa the pilgrim, the penitent, the failing and remorseful monarch, over whom the feeble halo of an earthly fame had passed and left no bright and pleasing memory behind—Offa, who felt his time at hand and looked through the hazy superstition of a corrupted church upon a vision of purchasable happiness in heaven “in testimony of repentance for the blood that he had spilled, bestowed a tenth of all his goods on the churchmen and on the poor,”[24] built churches, founded abbeys, and endowed monasteries,[25] to bribe the God whose laws he had infringed, and bargain at a price for the salvation which had been freely offered!

But with all his faults and failings, Offa was a great, an illustrious character! The stain, the indelible stain of the pure and high-minded Ethelbert’s blood must remain to deface his memory; yet cannot it annihilate the brilliant talents that the Mercian king displayed in war—the nobleness and independence of spirit that could not, for an instant, brook an alien interference—the humanity he showed in bestowing burial on the bodies of his enemies slain in battle[26]—his personal humility when in the height of prosperity[27]—his judgment and affection in associating with himself in the government of the kingdom his noble and pious son—his admirable policy in restoring to the conquered kings of Wessex and of Deira their respective realms, and of binding them to his interests by giving them his daughters in marriage—his systematic enforcement of the majesty of the law[28]—his knowledge of human nature in ordaining regular insignia of royalty[29]—or his early patriotism and unflinching valour that wrested from the tyrant rebel the empurpled crown, and wreathed for the diadem a garland of victory to grace his own commanding brow![30]

In bold relief he stands amid a crowd of inferior souls—and if cruelty did occasionally embrue his sword in needless blood—if a weak yielding to an artful woman’s wiles does stain his memory—if a blind and superstitious following of blind and superstitious as well as artful guides lead posterity to doubt the healthy vigour of his intellect—let it be remembered, that for his faults he was mainly indebted to the unlettered days in which he lived—his virtues and his talents were such as could not fail to render him illustrious, had he lived in a far more advanced and highly civilized age than that which he adorned.

END.

Printed by E. Couchman, 10, Throgmorton Street, London.