LECTURE IV ALFRED’S CAMPAIGNS AGAINST THE DANES; CIVIL ADMINISTRATION

Alfred’s greatness.

§ 66. ‘Alfred is one of the greatest figures in the history of the world.’ These are not the words of any insular patriot, but of the great German historian, Leopold von Ranke[459], who, if I may venture to criticise so great a man, is almost too diplomatic and cosmopolitan in his view of history, too little sensitive to purely national movements and aspirations.

State of England at his accession. Fresh invaders. Second battle of Reading. Battle of Wilton.

But, when Alfred ascended the throne in 871, the prospect was dark enough; and we can well believe what Asser tells us, confirmed as it seems to be by expressions of Alfred himself in the Boethius, that it was only reluctantly that Alfred undertook the burden laid upon him[460]. The earlier writer embodied in Simeon of Durham says distinctly that Alfred was elected by the chief men of the whole people[461]. Our primary authorities tell us nothing of this[462]; and though their silence is not conclusive[463], a formal election would probably be rendered unnecessary by the arrangement already come to with reference to the succession; while it certainly was no time for coronation festivities or anything of that kind. Even before Æthelred’s death a new force of wikings, ‘a summer army[464]’ as opposed to those who had wintered in the land, invaded the country. Æthelred was interred at Wimborne, where, in Asser’s words, ‘he awaits the coming of the Lord, and the first resurrection with the just[465].’ Even while Alfred was busied with his brother’s exequies, an engagement was being fought in his absence. Ethelwerd alone tells us of this engagement[466]; and at one time I supposed[467] that his account was merely a mistaken version of the battle of Wilton, but I am now convinced that his account is distinct, and that it is not improbable in itself. If I understand him rightly, and he is never very easy to understand, the new force of wikings came to Reading, where they were joined by the Danes who had wintered in the country; and together they defeated an English force, which was in no great numbers, owing to the absence of the king. If this is correct, we have here one of the unnamed ‘folc-gefeoht’ of the Chronicle[468]. But though Ethelwerd calls it a barren victory[469] for the Danes, it seems to have opened to them the heart of Wessex, for the next engagement was fought at Wilton, a month after Æthelred’s death, that is towards the end of May, where another of those enigmatic contests took place, in which the Danes are put to flight, and yet encamp upon the field of battle. Possibly the Danes, whether in real or pretended flight, turned upon their disorderly pursuers and defeated them. This seems to be distinctly suggested by Asser’s narrative[470]. After this, peace was made, probably by purchase, and a respite was well worth paying for. The Danes had suffered scarcely less than the West Saxons[471], and for four whole years they avoided Wessex. The question has been asked: Why did not Burgred of Mercia come to the help of his brothers-in-law in their hour of need, as they had come to help him three years before? Mr. Simcox points out that here too the despised Ingulf[472] supplies the right answer. Burgred was detained by an incursion of the Welsh, acting, no doubt, in concert with the Danes.

The Danes at London. Their exactions. They overrun Mercia.

§ 67. After this peace, the Danes moved from Reading, which had remained their head-quarters, to London, where they spent the winter of 871-2, and forced the Mercians once more to purchase peace. Alfred seems to have kept at any rate an army of observation in the neighbourhood. For a later annal, speaking of the alms sent by Alfred to Rome and India in 883[473], says that this was in fulfilment of a vow made ‘when they encamped against the host at London. And through God’s mercy,’ adds the pious Chronicler, ‘they fully obtained their prayer after that vow.’ Whether these last words refer to an actual defeat inflicted on the Danes by Alfred, or only to his success in keeping them out of Wessex, we cannot tell. In either case the notice illustrates very strikingly the fragmentary nature of even our best authorities. The weight of the exactions which Burgred had to impose to raise the ransom for the Danes, is illustrated by a lease executed this very year (872) of lands belonging to the see of Worcester, which was necessitated ‘owing to the enormous tribute in the year when the heathen sat in London[474].’ The next year the Danes moved northwards and wintered at Torksey, 872-3. The next winter, 873-4, was spent at Repton, and in 874, after destroying that mausoleum of the Mercian kings[475], they overran the whole of Mercia, drove out Burgred, who withdrew to Rome to die; and set up in his place for the present a puppet king in the person of ‘an unwise king’s thane,’ as the Chronicle quaintly calls him, named Ceolwulf, ‘an Englishman by race, but a barbarian in cruelty[476].’ In 875 the Danes divided their forces, and part went to the Tyne and part went to Cambridge. The only event recorded in connexion with the history of Wessex in this year is the defeat, by Alfred in person[477], as it would seem, of a small fleet of seven wiking ships.

The Danes in Wareham. They make a dash for Exeter. Destruction of a Danish fleet. Mercia partitioned.

§ 68. But in 876 the Cambridge division of the Danes managed to slip past the Saxon ‘fyrd,’ and get into Wareham, the ancient importance of which is still attested by the large quadrangular earthworks[478]. We do not know what time of year this was; but apparently the Danes stayed there till the following winter[479]; when Alfred found it expedient to make peace with them, by purchase, according to Ethelwerd; the Danes giving hostages, and swearing their most binding oaths on the sacred temple-ring, ‘on which they would never swear before to any people.’ Yet in spite of this, the negotiations were only a blind on the part of the Danes, and under cover of them they took to their horses, and slipped away by night to Exeter. This seems to have been early in 877. Alfred failed to overtake them before they reached Exeter, and he did not venture to attack them behind their fortifications[480]. But he sat down and blockaded them by land, and, if a later account may be trusted[481], his ships watched the mouth of the Exe. Meanwhile a wiking fleet of 120 sail was making its way west about from East Anglia, no doubt with the view of throwing supplies and reinforcements into Exeter. But off the coast of Swanage they were caught in a violent storm, and in Gaimar’s uncomplimentary language, who rather exaggerates the number of the fleet, ‘140 ships went to the devils[482].’ But for the wreck of these 120 ships the issue of the campaign, perhaps even of the whole war, might have been very different[483]. The motto on a Dutch medal struck to commemorate the ruin of the Armada in 1588 would apply here also: ‘Flauit et dissipati sunt[484].’ ‘Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters[485].’ And so the Danes in Exeter were fain to submit, and swore mighty oaths, which for once they kept, and withdrew to Mercia, which they now partitioned, dividing part of it among themselves, and restoring the remainder to their puppet Ceolwulf. This partition is of some prospective importance as being probably the origin of the distinction between English and Danish Mercia[486].

The campaign of 878. Battle of Ethandun. Submission of the Danes. Defeat of the Danes in North Devon. The Danes retire to East Anglia.

§ 69. Of the sudden swoop of the Danes on Chippenham in January, 878, and Alfred’s retirement to Athelney I have said enough above[487]. It was at Easter, March 23, 878, that Alfred and his little band reared the fort on Athelney. Some seven weeks later, that is to say, about the middle of May, he moved out of it to Brixton Deverill near Warminster. The date of this movement must have been carefully fixed, and widely made known by Alfred’s messengers beforehand. For here he was joined at once by the levies of Somerset, Wilts., and part of Hampshire, ‘and they were fain of him,’ says the Chronicler, in words the more expressive for their extreme simplicity. How effectually the preliminary arrangements had been made, is shown by the fact that the very next day Alfred was able to continue his forward movement to Leigh near Westbury, and the next day to Edington[488]. Here a general engagement was fought with the whole Danish army under Guthrum, which had moved out of Chippenham. The result was a complete victory for Alfred: ‘he put them to flight, and rode after them to their fort, and sat down before it for a fortnight, and then the host (here) gave him leading hostages and swore mighty oaths that they would quit his realm. And they further promised that their king should receive baptism. And so it was performed, and three weeks later [that is, about the end of the first week in June] the king Guthrum, with twenty-nine of those that were worthiest in the host, came to him at Aller near Athelney; and the king received him at baptism, and his chrism-loosing was at Wedmore; and he was twelve nights with the king, and he honoured him much, and feed his followers.’ The ‘fort’ to which Alfred pursued his flying foes was, I think, the Danish lines at Chippenham; and though high authorities, including Professor Earle, take a different view[489], I am glad to see that I am supported by our military historian, Professor Oman[490]. The submission of the Danes would be furthered by a great disaster which befell another body of them earlier in the year. A wiking fleet, which had wintered in South Wales[491], crossed to the opposite coast of Devon; probably intending, after ravaging the southern coast of the Bristol Channel, as they had already ravaged the northern coast, to effect a junction with the Danes at Chippenham. The men of Devon, under their ealdorman Odda, took refuge in a rude fort[492], probably Kenny Castle near Appledore. The Danes, under Ubba, the brother of Halfdene and Ingwar[493], expected an easy victory, but the English, sallying out unexpectedly at early dawn, put their foes to rout, slaying over 800 of them, and driving the rest to their ships[494]. The mystic Raven Banner fell into the hands of the victors. After the ceremony at Wedmore the Danes retired, in accordance with their promise, to Cirencester[495], and the next year, 879, they withdrew altogether to East Anglia; while a body of wikings, which had gathered at Fulham, crossed to the Continent. It would seem that, whether by formal compact or no[496], not only Wessex and its dependencies but English Mercia west of Watling Street was cleared of the invader.

Results of the battle of Ethandun.

§ 70. I have said elsewhere that Alfred holds in real history the place which romance assigns to Arthur[497]; and certainly, after this mid-May victory of Alfred at Edington, his followers might well have sung the song which our late Laureate places in the mouths of Arthur’s men[498]:—

Loss and gain. The gain outweighs the loss.

‘The long night has rolled away.’—‘Yea, even like as a dream when one awaketh, so shalt Thou make their image to vanish.’—Every historian is agreed that this is the turning-point in the history, not only of England, but of Western Europe. ‘Wessex was saved; and in saving Wessex, Alfred saved England; and in saving England, he saved Western Europe from becoming a heathen Scandinavian power[499].’ In recognising the Danish occupation of East Anglia, Eastern Mercia, and Northumbria, Alfred was hardly making a cession, for they had never been his to cede; he was at most giving up a shadowy overlordship which neither he, nor his brothers, nor, probably, even his father had ever exercised. The only district which was in strictness ceded was Essex; and it was a heavy loss that London remained for some years longer a Danish city. But the gains far outweighed the losses; and we can but ask in wonder what were the causes of so great a change. Some light is gained when we have realised that Alfred at Athelney was not burning cakes, but organising victory. Then, too, he had good helpers. We have seen what Odda did in Devonshire; and Ethelwerd lays stress on the co-operation of Æthelnoth, the ealdorman of Somerset, in the dark days of Athelney[500]. There is nothing like work in common for a great cause, in face of great difficulties, for cementing friendship[501], and perhaps it is to these days that Werferth of Worcester looks back when in one of his charters he speaks of Æthelnoth as ‘the friend of us all[502].’

Mobility of the Danes.

§ 71. Another and very important point is this. The chief difficulties of our forefathers under Alfred, as of us, their descendants, in South Africa at the present day, arose from the extreme mobility of the enemy[503], and the way in which they used the horses which they brought with them or captured[504], not indeed for fighting (that was never either the Danish or the Saxon mode of warfare), but for dashing from point to point, and eluding[505] and surprising the enemy. They were, in modern phrase, mounted infantry. It would seem as if the English were learning to copy them in this. You may have noticed that in the extract from the Chronicle which I read just now, describing the sequel of the battle of Edington, it is said that Alfred ‘rode after the enemy to their fort.’ The only other occasion up to this campaign[506], where any such phrase is used of an English force, is in the preceding year, where the Chronicler describes the brave but ineffectual dash which Alfred made to try and intercept the treacherous Danes before they got into Exeter[507].

Alfred’s personal influence.

But after all, the greatest of all human causes of success (though it is not merely human) is contained in those words of the Chronicler already quoted, ‘they were fain of him.’ The personality of Alfred was beginning to tell, and to rally to itself all that was worthiest in the nation. It has been compared, not unaptly, to the resurrection of France under Joan of Arc[508].

Comparative peace. Revolt of the East Anglian Danes.

§ 72. For the next few years Alfred had comparative peace, the Danes being mostly occupied on the Continent. There was a small, but successful, naval engagement in 881 or 882[509], and in 884[510] a body of the enemy landed in Kent and laid siege to Rochester, throwing up their usual fortifications round their own positions. But the besieged defended themselves successfully till Alfred came with the fyrd, and the besiegers were in their turn besieged, and withdrew, possibly by agreement, to the Continent once more, leaving their prisoners, and the horses which they had brought with them from over seas, in Alfred’s hands[511]. The appearance of their kinsmen in Kent seems to have been too much for the loyalty of the Danes in East Anglia. ‘They broke the peace with King Alfred[512].’ Alfred at once sent his fleet from Kent[513], where it had no doubt been supporting his operations at Rochester, across the broad estuary of the Thames, and at the mouth of the Stour, between Essex and Suffolk, the English defeated and captured a fleet of sixteen sail; but on their way back were met by a superior fleet of East Anglian Danes, and defeated in their turn. It will be remembered that it is in reference to this defeat that the earlier writer in Simeon of Durham gives us the wonderful story based on the corrupt reading in Asser of ‘dormiret’ for ‘domum iret[514].’

Alfred wins London.

§ 73. The next stage in the liberation of England was a very important one, being nothing less than the acquisition of London by Alfred. This is placed by the Chronicle in 886. But we have seen that the Chronicle is here in advance by a year of the true chronology; the true date is therefore probably 885. It is clear that Alfred did not gain this great success without the use of force[515]; and I am inclined to see in this the culmination of the measures which he took to chastise the East Anglian Danes for their breach of the peace in the preceding year[516]. It is with this that we must associate the document known as Alfred and Guthrum’s peace[517], often wrongly confused with the settlement of 878. By this treaty the boundaries of 878 were materially modified in Alfred’s favour. They now ran up the Thames to the mouth of the Lea, up the Lea to its source, thence to Bedford, and so up the Ouse to Watling Street. By this, not only London, but a considerable district east of Watling Street was made over to Alfred. The Danes had paid heavily for their momentary treachery. But again it illustrates the fragmentary nature of our sources, that we hear nothing of the military operations which must have led up to this success.

Effect of this on Alfred’s position. Alfred, the second founder of London.

It had an immense effect upon Alfred’s position, and made him more clearly than ever the head of the nation. ‘There submitted to him the whole Angle-kin that was not in subjection to the Danes.’ The city was restored and fortified, and committed to the care of Alfred’s son-in-law, Æthelred, whom soon after 878[518] he had made ealdorman of the part of Mercia which fell to him by the settlement of that year. Once, in 851, under Berhtwulf, the Danes had captured London; they had occupied it in 872 under Burgred; it had fallen to their share at the division of Mercia in 877. But never again, after Alfred’s restoration of it, was it ever forcibly captured by them or by any other foreign host. Alfred is rightly called the second founder of London[519].

Peace.

Once more, for a few years, Alfred had peace. In 889 or 890 his old enemy and god-son, Guthrum-Athelstan of East Anglia, died. How far he had really become a Christian we cannot tell. In spite of his baptism Ethelwerd uncharitably dismisses him below: ‘he breathed out his soul to Orcus[520].’ But for the present the Danes of East Anglia made no movement.

The final storm.

§ 74. In 892 the final storm burst on England; but the result was only to show the strength of the system which Alfred had built up during the years of peace[521]. The splendid annals 893-7 (892-6 according to the true chronology), in which, as has been said, we seem to hear the very voice of Alfred himself[522], and beside which, as the same authority declares[523], ‘every other piece of prose not in these Chronicles merely, but throughout the whole range of extant Saxon literature, must assume a secondary rank,’ give us some insight into the reforms which Alfred had effected.

Military reforms; (1) the fyrd divided.

(1) To counteract the standing weakness of citizen-armies, which made them liable to melt away at the critical moment, when their short term of service was expired, he divided the fyrd into two divisions, which were to relieve one another at fixed intervals, ‘so that always half were at home, and half on service.’ This measure is particularly interesting, as it may have been suggested to Alfred by his studies in Orosius, where a similar institution is attributed to the Amazons, and in Alfred’s translation is described in language very similar to that of the Chronicle[524].

(2) Fortifications.

(2) Besides the two alternating divisions of the fyrd, the Chronicle enumerates ‘the men who were bound to keep the burgs[525].’ If the Danes had taught the Saxons the importance of mobility when in movement, they had no less surely taught them the importance of fortifications when stationary. In the first place the towns were encouraged to fortify themselves—we have a very interesting document, unfortunately without date, which tells how Æthelred of Mercia, and his wife, Æthelflæd, lady of the Mercians, ‘bade work the burg at Worcester for the protection of all the people[526]’; while in 898 there was a formal conference at Chelsea between Alfred, Æthelred, Æthelflæd, and Archbishop Plegmund on the fortifications of London[527]. But besides this, fortified camps were erected at strategic points. The important document known as the burghal hidage[528], which is only a very little later than Alfred’s reign, seems to show that certain districts were appurtenant to these burgs, while ‘the men who were bound to keep the burgs’ would possibly hold their lands by a tenure analogous to that known under the feudal system as ‘castle-guard.’ Asser also insists strongly on the importance which Alfred attached to the construction of ‘castella’ or ‘arces’ (= burgs); though he also shows that Alfred had considerable difficulty in getting his subjects to adopt this novel mode of defence[529]. It would seem then that, in creating the famous lines of forts by which Edward and Æthelflæd secured the country which they won from the Danes, they were but carrying out the policy of their father[530].

(3) Number of thanes increased.

(3) It seems to have been part of Alfred’s military policy to increase considerably the number of thanes, by conferring the privileges, and enforcing the obligations of thanehood on all owners of five hides of land, an estate analogous to the later knight’s fee. This would give the king a nucleus of highly equipped troops, whom he could moreover call out on his own authority, without going through the form of consulting the Witan[531]. It can hardly be a mere accident that, whereas in the records of Alfred’s reign, the only mention of king’s thanes hitherto has been in connexion with the minor military operations of the great ‘year of battles,’ 871, in the annals 894-7 they are mentioned no less than six times.

(4) Greater mobility.

(4) These annals also furnish abundant evidence of that increased mobility of the English forces which we have already noticed. They also show

(5) Fortified positions carried.

(5) That the English had learned not only to make fortifications, but to storm them[532]. After this preamble we return to the history of Alfred’s last contest.

Battle of the Dyle. Renewed invasion of England by the Danes. A concerted attempt to conquer England. Danish plan of campaign. Battle of Farnham.

§ 75. On November 1, 891[533], Arnulf, king of the Eastern Franks, had defeated the Northmen in a brilliant engagement on the Dyle, which freed the interior of Germany for ever from these foes. This, and the famine which prevailed on the Continent in 892 in consequence of an exceptionally severe winter, disgusted them with their continental quarters; and in the autumn of 892[534] a fleet of 250 sail put forth from Boulogne, and entered the mouth of the then navigable river Lymne, drew their ships four miles up the river, and, after capturing an unfinished[535] fort, entrenched themselves at Appledore. Shortly after, a smaller detachment of eighty ships under Hæsten sailed into the estuary of the Thames, entered the Swale, and fortified itself at Milton. In view of these new encampments on English soil, Alfred, early in 893 (894), exacted oaths from the Northumbrian and East Anglian Danes, with hostages in addition from the latter, that they would take no part with the invaders. This is the first time that we have had mention of any dealings of Alfred with the Northumbrian Danes, and it shows what new possibilities were opening before him; while, on the other side, the important part which, in spite of their oaths, the Northumbrian and East Anglian Danes took in the following struggle, and the fact that the new invaders brought their wives and children with them, prove that this was no mere predatory raid, but a deliberate and concerted attempt to conquer England. Alfred with his fyrd took up a position between the two Danish camps, so as to watch them both. Numerous small skirmishes took place, but no general engagement. Meanwhile Alfred was negotiating with the smaller body of Danes at Milton; whom he may have thought to detach by making a separate agreement with them. Hæsten entered into negotiations, and even allowed his two sons to be baptised, Alfred himself and Æthelred of Mercia acting as sponsors. But on the part of Hæsten the negotiations were only a blind; if indeed they had not been originally proposed by him with this object. While they were in progress, he ordered the Danes at Appledore to send their ships round to Benfleet in Essex, and themselves to break out in force, and marching through Surrey, Hampshire, and Berkshire, cross the upper Thames, and then, turning eastwards, regain their ships at Benfleet, to which he himself now crossed, threw up a fortification, and occupied himself with harrying the districts, which had been ceded to Alfred by the settlement of 885 (886). This plan was put into execution. But though the Danes at Appledore succeeded in breaking out, they were pursued by the fyrd under Alfred’s eldest son Edward[536], which overtook them (or, in the Chronicler’s words, ‘rode before them’), compelled them to fight a general engagement at Farnham, in which the Danes were defeated, and driven in confusion across the Thames, and up the Hertfordshire Colne, where they took refuge in an island called Thorney[537], which the fyrd proceeded to blockade. Unfortunately at this crisis the term of service of Edward’s division of the fyrd expired, and their provisions being exhausted they were forced to raise the blockade.

The Danes in the west.

Alfred was on his way to relieve them with the other division of the fyrd, when he heard[538] that two fleets of Northumbrian and East Anglian Danes were operating in the west, the larger one of 100 ships besieging Exeter, the smaller one of forty ships besieging an unnamed fort on the coast of North Devon. Alfred at once hurried westward, detaching however a small force under Edward to watch the Danes at Thorney. Alfred was ultimately[539] successful in raising the siege of Exeter; the fate of the North Devon fort is not recorded.

Edward reduces the Danes in Thorney. Capture of Benfleet.

Meanwhile Edward, reinforced by Æthelred from London, renewed the blockade of Thorney, the Danes having been unable to avail themselves of his temporary absence, owing to the fact that their chief had been wounded in the battle of Farnham. They had accordingly to submit and give hostages, and were then allowed to march off. Edward and Æthelred returned to London, and collecting reinforcements there and from the west, marched to Benfleet, which they found garrisoned by their former antagonists from Thorney; Hæsten himself with his division being away plundering. The fort was carried, the garrison put to flight, all the women, and children, and plunder captured; Hæsten’s own wife and sons were among the captives, though either now or later Alfred chivalrously restored them, because of the relationship which baptism had created between them. The ships were burned or broken up, or carried off to London and Rochester. It was as complete a victory as could well be imagined.

The Danes make a dash across England. They are driven northwards, defeated at Buttington, and retire to Shoebury. They winter at Chester, and retire to Essex.

§ 76. The defeated Danes fell back on Shoebury, where they were joined by Hæsten, and threw up another fortification. They then set out to march up the Thames, being joined by large reinforcements from Northumbria and East Anglia. The object of this move was probably to co-operate with their friends in Devonshire against Alfred’s force. If so, it was frustrated. The three great ealdormen, Æthelred of Mercia, Æthelnoth of Somerset, and Æthelhelm of Wilts., ‘with the thanes who were at home at the forts,’ raised a levy, the extent of which, as Professor Earle has remarked[540], seems to astonish the Chronicler himself, ‘from every burg east of Parret, west and east of Selwood, north of Thames, west of Severn, with some of the North Welsh’; the co-operation of these last being especially noteworthy. In view of these gathering forces the Danes were obliged to head off northwards up the Severn valley, being finally overtaken at Buttington, and blockaded on both sides of the river. The locality of this place has been much disputed; some authorities placing it at Buttington Tump, at the junction of the Wye with the Severn, others identifying it with Buttington on the borders of Shropshire and Montgomeryshire. Contrary to my former opinion, I am now inclined to take the latter view; not because of Sir James Ramsay’s objection that the Severn is too wide to be blockaded at Buttington Tump, for on that theory the river on which the Danes were blockaded would be the Wye; but because the phrase of the Chronicler that the Danes marched ‘up along Severn,’ just as they had marched ‘up along Thames,’ seems to imply that they followed the Severn valley northwards; whereas to reach Buttington Tump they would have had to cross the Severn and turn south; and moreover, in that case, their fleets in Devonshire would probably have made some attempt to relieve them. However this may be, the English blockaded them for ‘many weeks,’ until they were starved out, their horses having all died of hunger or been eaten. They then made a desperate attempt to break through the English lines on the eastern side of the river, but were defeated with loss; those who escaped returning to Shoebury; then, leaving their ships, their women, and their booty in East Anglia, and drawing in large reinforcements from East Anglia and Northumbria, they made a sudden dash across England, marching ‘without stopping[541] day or night,’ till they reached the ruined Roman walls of Chester, where they fortified themselves for the winter. The fyrd failed to cut them off before they reached Chester, and the approach of winter and the heavy work already done probably prevented them from attempting another blockade; they therefore contented themselves with destroying everything in the neighbourhood from which the Danes could gather sustenance, and retired. Not since the great year of battles in 871 had there been such a bustling year in England, and what a different result!

They fortify themselves on the Lea, but are out-manœuvred.

§ 77. The measures taken by the English proved effective, for early in the next year, 894 (895), want of provisions forced the Danes to evacuate Chester, and withdraw into Wales, whence they retired to Mersea in Essex; ‘marching through Northumbria and East Anglia, so as the fyrd might not reach them[542]’; words which give eloquent testimony to the changed state of things. At Mersea they were joined by the fleet from Exeter, which had been beaten off with heavy loss in an attempt which they had made on Chichester. At the end of this year and the beginning of the next, 895 (896), the Danes drew their ships up the Thames and Lea to a spot twenty miles above London, and there fortified themselves. An attempt by the garrison of London with other forces to storm the Danish lines failed; and so during harvest Alfred encamped in the neighbourhood to protect the inhabitants of the district, while they were reaping their corn. One day as he was riding up the river, he noticed a spot where it seemed to him possible, by constructing obstacles on either side of the stream, to prevent the Danish ships from getting out[543]. He at once proceeded to put his plan into execution, but he had hardly begun when the Danes realised that they were out-manœuvred, and abandoning their ships once more struck off for the upper waters of the Severn. The fyrd pursued, but here again no attempt was made to blockade them, and the Danes wintered at Bridgenorth.

Break-up of the Danish host.

The next summer, 896 (897), the Danish host broke up, ‘some to East Anglia, some to Northumbria. Those who had no property [in England] got them ships and fared south over sea to the Seine.’ The long campaign was over. ‘And through God’s mercy,’ says the Chronicler once more, ‘the [Danish] host had not wholly ruined the Angle-kin, but they were much more ruined in those three years with murrain of men and cattle, and with the loss of many of the most excellent king’s thanes who passed away in those three years.’

Alfred’s new ships. Not a great success. Alfred’s claim to be the founder of the English navy doubtful. Earlier naval engagement.

§ 78. The only thing that remained to be done was to suppress the predatory raids of Northumbrian and East Anglian ships on the south coasts of Wessex. With this object Alfred turned the constructive ability which he undoubtedly possessed to the building of a new type of ship, just as Caesar did when he invaded Britain[544]. They were much larger in all their measurements than the wiking vessels, built neither on Frisian nor Danish lines, but according to the king’s own ideas. To tell the honest truth, they do not seem to have been a great success. In an engagement between nine of the new ships and six wiking vessels in the neighbourhood of the Isle of Wight all the English ships got aground, ‘very uncomfortably,’ as the Chronicler quaintly says, six on one side of the strait and three on the other. Moreover at the end of the same annal it is recorded: ‘and the same summer perished no less than twenty ships on the South Coast, crews and all’; so that the new ships do not seem to have been very capable of weathering a storm. We have noticed earlier naval operations of Alfred in the years 875, 877, 881 (882), 884 (885). I am, however, inclined to think that both Alfred’s claims to be called the founder of the English navy, and also the previous disuse of the sea by the Saxons have been somewhat exaggerated. The mention of Frisians as fighting on the English side[545] in the naval engagement just referred to, shows indeed that Alfred was glad to avail himself of these skilled mariners, who had probably come over to England in consequence of the wiking settlements in Frisia[546], just as the Danish descent on Wessex, in 878, drove many West Saxons to take refuge on the Continent. And Asser expressly mentions Frisians among those who settled under Alfred’s rule[547]. There was certainly a naval engagement in 851, under Æthelwulf[548], in which the English were victorious, if not yet earlier in 833 and 840[549]. Still it is no doubt true that there was no fleet capable of safeguarding the English coasts. The silence of the Chronicle as to any later attacks may indicate that this was effected in Alfred’s later years. Unhappily, for the last four years of Alfred’s reign the Chronicle is silent as to almost everything. So the argument is at best precarious. The stress laid on the description of Alfred’s new ships shows that he saw in this the necessary completion of his work for the defence of England; but did it really require such an immense amount of genius to discern that, as the invaders came by sea, it was desirable to stop them, if possible, before they got to land?

The problems of peace.

§ 79. We are constantly being told that ‘Peace hath her victories not less renowned than war.’ But the victories of peace are worthy of double renown when they have to be won, as in Alfred’s case, from the ashes left by an exhausting war. For, as Alfred says himself, ‘throughout all England everything was harried and burnt[550].’

The most needful of the works of peace is, as men have often learnt by bitter experience, to be prepared for war. Not only the works of peace, but peace itself, are impossible except under the guarantee of an adequate military and naval force. We have said enough already of Alfred’s efforts to reorganise his kingdom on this side.

Civil reorganisation. The shire system. Legislation not very important in early times.

Much too would be needed in the way of civil reorganisation, especially in the non-West-Saxon districts which had been won from the Danes. And this fact is probably the basis of the legend which makes Alfred the inventor of shires, hundreds, and tithings[551]. Indeed, in the districts which previously had formed part of Mercia, it is probable that the shire system was introduced for the first time, either now or a little later. For, as Mr. Taylor has pointed out[552], whereas every existing shire division south of the Thames is mentioned in the oldest MS. of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle before the first change of hand at the year 892, there is no mention of any Mercian shire in any MS. of the Chronicle prior to 1000. Legislation too would be required, though we must always remember that legislation, as we understand it, played a very small part in Anglo-Saxon times. The idea of a code or body of statutes covering all departments of civil life was quite foreign to their notions, and every attempt to explain the existing Anglo-Saxon laws on any such hypothesis must be a failure. Into the details of Alfred’s laws I do not propose to enter. To do so with any profit would require more space than I can afford, and a minuter knowledge of the earlier and later laws than I can pretend to. Indeed, I must confess that the study of the Anglo-Saxon laws often reduces me to a state of mental chaos. I may know, as a rule, the meaning of individual words; I can construe, though not invariably, the separate sentences. But what it all comes to is often a total mystery. The reason (apart from my own shortcomings) is to be sought in the fact alluded to above, that a very small part of Anglo-Saxon life and institutions is to be found in the laws, which imply a whole body of unwritten custom, of which only the most salient changes are registered in the laws. And as this body of unwritten custom is, to a large extent, beyond our reach, it is not surprising that the written law, to which it was the key, should often be obscure.

Alfred’s laws probably passed late in his reign.

§ 80. The date of Alfred’s laws is unfortunately nowhere given. But it must be comparatively late in his reign. The introduction consists, as is well known, largely of passages taken from the Old and New Testaments, translated from the Vulgate with a degree of skill and freedom, which seems to imply some practice in the work of translation and adaptation, which, as we shall see, Alfred probably did not begin at any rate before the year 887[553]. We may therefore conjecture that the enactment of these laws should be placed either just before, or just after the last great struggle with the Danes, 892-6; for William of Malmesbury’s statement that while, as a rule, ‘inter arma silent leges,’ Alfred carried on his legislation amid the din of war[554], need not be taken for more than the rhetorical flourish which it evidently is.

Points of interest connected with them.

One or two points in the preface and in the laws may just be briefly noted. In the former there is an interesting mistranslation of the fifth commandment, the feminine relative in the last clause: ‘which the Lord thy God giveth thee,’ being taken to refer not to land (terra) but to mother (matrem); ‘honour thy father and thy mother whom the Lord gave thee[555].’ Was it the thankful thought of his own noble mother Osburh which prompted this mistake?

The insertion among the causes which excuse the non-return of a deposit, of the case of its having been captured by the enemy[556], throws light on the circumstances of the time, as does the provision of one of the laws that, for certain offences, the punishment is doubled when the ‘fyrd’ is out[557]. Characteristic too of the times is the fact that treason against the lord is ‘boot-less[558],’ i.e. incapable of being atoned for by money-payment, and the provision against harbouring the king’s fugitives[559]. Nor is it surprising that Alfred the truth-teller should be specially severe against falsehood; if any man commits folk-leasing, i.e. public slander, he is to suffer no lighter punishment than the loss of the offending member[560].

At the end of the Apostolic letter, which Alfred translates from Acts xv, is found a version of the golden rule in its negative form, ‘that which ye would not that other men should do to you, do not ye to other men[561].’ This is not, as is often alleged[562], an insertion made by Alfred from the Sermon on the Mount[563], but is an addition to the text of Acts, found in some Greek and Old Latin MSS., from the latter of which it passed into some MSS. of the Vulgate[564]. Most characteristic of Alfred’s thought is the comment: ‘by this one law any one may know how he ought to judge another; he needs no other law book.’

Alfred’s administration of justice.

§ 81. Asser gives a striking picture[565], which there is no reason to distrust, of the pains which Alfred took to secure a good administration of justice, and especially to ‘see that such as are in need and necessity have right.’ From this point of view we can understand Alfred’s recasting the precept of Exodus xxiii. 3: ‘pauperis quoque non misereberis in iudicio,’ ‘neither shalt thou favour a poor man in his cause’ (R.V.). The warning that justice is no more to be wrested in favour of the poor, than of the rich, is one not unneeded now. But undue favouring of the poor was a remote danger in Alfred’s day, when, as Asser says, the poor had few helpers, or none, besides the king[566]. And so Alfred puts the precept in a general form: ‘Judge thou very equally, judge not one judgement for the rich, and another for the poor[567].’ And it would seem from Asser’s account that he kept a control on the local administration of justice, not only by constantly hearing appeals himself, but also by a system of special envoys analogous to the Carolingian ‘missi dominici,’ and to the later ‘justices in eyre[568].’

Alfred’s accessibility to suitors.

Of Alfred’s accessibility as the fountain of justice a very pleasant picture is given in a document addressed to Edward the Elder detailing the progress of a suit which had come before his father Alfred: ‘we went in to the king and told him how we proposed to settle the matter, and the king stood and washed his hands at Wardour within the bower, and when he had finished, he asked us[569],’ and so forth. It reminds us of the sketch which Josephus gives of Philip, tetrarch of Ituraea, almost the only amiable member of the odious Herod family; how he would stroll through his little state, with a chariot following him on which was his curule chair, and if any of his subjects approached him with their causes, he would at once have the chair brought forward, and sit and give his judgement there and then[570]. It reminds us still more of the great Charles, of whom Einhard relates: ‘When he was putting on his shoes or dressing, he would not only admit his friends, but also, if the Count of the Palace reported that there was some suit which could not be settled without his command, he would have the parties brought in at once, and, as if sitting in his tribunal, would hear the matter, and give his decision[571].’ The satisfaction given by Alfred’s decisions appears not only from Asser’s panegyric, but also from the document already cited, where the writer continues: ‘And, sire, if every judgement which King Alfred gave is to be upset, when shall we come to any conclusion?’

Alfred’s laws drawn mainly from earlier sources. Action of the Witenagemót under Alfred.

§ 82. The last section of the Preface to the Laws which tells how Alfred gathered these laws from older sources, and rejected others, with the advice of his Witan, not daring to add to them many of his own, which might not be suitable to after ages[572], has been often quoted as an illustration of Alfred’s wise conservatism. It is also the best illustration that we have of the action of the Witenagemót in his reign. Others may be found in the charters, but charters, as we have seen[573], are not numerous. The most interesting illustration is to be found in Alfred’s will, which shows how anxious Alfred was not to bring any undue influence to bear upon his councillors. The will tells us how in a Witenagemót at Long Dean[574] the provisions of Æthelwulf’s will and the agreements made between Alfred and his brothers were recited, in order that the Witan might judge whether Alfred’s proposed disposition of his property was in harmony with these: ‘Then prayed I them all for my love, and gave them my pledge, that I would never bear any grudge against any for what they might conscientiously decide, and that none for love or fear of me should hesitate to declare the law of the case[575].’ The Chronicle does not mention a single meeting of the Witan; and though it would be wrong to argue from this silence, for the same is true of many other reigns, yet it is probable that the circumstances of the time, combined with Alfred’s character and ability, would tend to throw more power into the hands of the king, and to reduce proportionally the importance of the Witenagemót[576].

Obscurity of ecclesiastical history under Alfred. Alfred’s relation to the Church.

§ 83. Of synods or special ecclesiastical legislation I can find no trace under Alfred. More than one bishop’s see became temporarily or permanently extinct owing to the ravages of the Danes[577]. The monasteries ‘once filled,’ as Alfred says, ‘with treasures and books[578]’ were favourite objects of attack. In the Preface to the Cura Pastoralis Alfred thanks God for ‘the learned bishops which we now have’; but, with the exception of the two archbishops of Canterbury, Æthelred and Plegmund, Werferth of Worcester, and Asser, it is hard to say anything about any of them. It is the same with the abbots. Thorne, the historian of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, gives a list of abbots about this time, but he can say nothing as to any of them[579]. Beyond the broad fact of the ruin caused by the ravages of the Danes, the whole history of the Church under Alfred is most obscure[580]. This does not mean that there is any truth in Ailred of Rievaulx’ myth[581] that Alfred regained it as a king’s chief dignity to have no power in the Churches of Christ. What little evidence there is points distinctly the other way[582]. There is a curious letter of Pope John VIII to Archbishop Æthelred[583] in which he says: ‘We admonish you to set yourself as a wall for the house of God not only against the king, but also against all who are minded to act perversely.’ There seems some ground for Sir John Spelman’s remark: ‘The life and ways of Alfred were not perfectly pleasing to the Fathers of Rome[584].’ A letter, from Archbishop Fulk of Rheims to Æthelred’s successor, Plegmund[585], shows that clerical and episcopal marriages were common in England at that time; and there are traces of something like hereditary succession to ecclesiastical lands[586]. There is no evidence that Alfred attempted to alter this state of things; there is some evidence that he disapproved it. In the Soliloquies of St. Augustine, the Anglo-Saxon translation of which[587] is almost certainly by Alfred[588], there is a passage in which Augustine declares that he has no desire to marry. This, which in the original is purely personal to Augustine, is by the translator extended to all clergy: ‘I say however that it is better for priests not to marry than to marry[589].’

Decline of monasticism.

Alfred made some attempt to revive the monastic life in England. He built a monastery for men at Athelney[590], no doubt as a thank-offering for the deliverance there begun, and a convent for women at Shaftesbury[591]; he also made arrangements, though he did not live to carry them out, for founding the New Minster at Winchester[592]. But he had but small success. The taste for the monastic life had almost been extinguished among men in England; and of the two contradictory causes which Asser suggests[593] for this fact, viz. the Danish ravages, and the too great riches of the English, which caused them to despise the monastic life, there can be no doubt that the former is nearer the truth. Alfred had accordingly to fill his monasteries with foreign monks. The result was not always satisfactory, if there is any truth in Asser’s story[594] how two of these foreign monks at Athelney tried to murder their abbot, John the Old Saxon. Besides his own foundations, Alfred was a liberal contributor to other monasteries, not only in England, but also in Ireland and on the Continent[595]. Yet there is no monastic halo round the head of Alfred, like that which adorns his great-grandson Edgar.