[443] Not March 31, as Mr. Simcox says.

[444] Chronicle, II. cxxxix. ff.

[445] Asser, 476 A [21]. This is one of Asser’s good additions to the Chronicle.

[446] Chronicle, ii. 87.

[447] 476 C [22].

[448] ‘Aprino more,’ 476 D [23].

[449] See above, p. 16.

[450] Domesday, ff. 57 b, 60 a.

[451] See a letter to the Times of August 30, 1864, by Mr. Henry Moody of Winchester. I was wrong in identifying (Chron. ii. 87) the Compton near which Ashdown is to be sought with the Compton near East Ilsley; it is Compton Beauchamp in Shrivenham Hundred. This correction I also owe to Mr. Taylor.

[452] I cannot find Roughthorn Farm either on the six-inch or twenty-five-inch Ordnance map. There is a spot called Thickthorn about a mile east of Ashdown Park; a hill called Alfred’s Castle just west of the Park, an Alfred’s Hill between Longcot and Uffington; Danesfield Copse south of Lambourne.

[453] Simcox, u. s.

[454] ‘Folc-gefeoht.’

[455] Florence gives the date as April 23, i. 85.

[456] Langtoft makes him killed in battle: ‘fu navrez par un coup d’espeye’; this is certainly wrong. For Langtoft’s confusions on the subject of Æthelred, see above, p. 65.

[457] The Ring and the Book, Pompilia, ad finem.

[458] This title is not older than the sixteenth century, Pauli, u. s. p. 2. In the Hyde Register, p. 13, Edward, Alfred’s son, is called ‘Eadweardus Magnus.’

[459] Weltgeschichte, VI. ii. 46.

[460] ‘quasi inuitus’ 477 C [24]; cf. Boethius, c. 17: ‘þu watst ꝥ me næfre seo gitsung ⁊ seo gemægð þisses eorðlican anwealdes forwel ne licode, ne ic ealles forswiðe ne girnde þisses eorðlican rices,’ ed. Sedgefield, p. 40.

[461] ‘mox Elfredus a ducibus et a praesulibus totius gentis eligitur,’ S. D. ii. 81.

[462] Asser’s statement, u. s., that Alfred succeeded ‘cum summa omnium … regni accolarum uoluntate,’ probably does not refer to formal election.

[463] Cf. Chronicle, ii. 145, 146.

[464] ‘sumor-lida.’

[465] 477 C [24]. The same phrase is used of Burgred of Mercia, who died at Rome, 478 B [26]. Mr. Simcox sees in the phrase (based on Rev. xx. 6) a possible trace of British Pelagianism. Anyhow the special use of the phrase in these two cases is no doubt due to the fact that Asser regarded Æthelred as a martyr, and Burgred as a pilgrim.

[466] p. 514 C.

[467] Chronicle, ii. 88.

[468] Ethelwerd distinctly recognises that there were three engagements in addition to the six which he names: ‘tria certamina exceptis supra memoratis bellis’; only Ethelwerd’s list of six would differ from that in the Chronicle by the omission of Wilton and the substitution of the second battle of Reading. Mr. Simcox does not notice this passage of Ethelwerd; perhaps he too regarded it as a distorted version of the battle of Wilton.

[469] ‘sterilis uictoriae status.’

[470] ‘peraudacitatem persequentium decipientes,’ 477 D [25].

[471] ‘quot millia Paganae expeditionis … perierunt, nisi soli Deo, incognitum,’ 477 E [25]. The reflexion, if we allow for Asser’s usual rhetoric, is not unfounded.

[472] ‘Beorredus Rex Merciorum … cum Britonibus occupatus, qui crebris irruptionibus Occidentalem partem Regni sui Merciae inquietabant,’ p. 25.

[473] This notice is in all MSS. of the Chronicle except A. See notes ad loc.

[474] Birch, Nos. 533, 531; K. C. D. No. 303.

[475] ‘monasterium celeberrimum, omnium regum Merciorum sacratissimum Mausoleum funditus destruxerunt,’ Ingulf, p. 26 (cf. Fl. Wig. i. 72). On a point like this Ingulf may probably be trusted.

[476] ‘Anglicus genere, sed barbarus impietate,’ Ingulf, p. 27.

[477] ‘fór Ælfred cyning út on sǽ.’

[478] Cf. Murray’s Guide Book for Wilts., Dorset, and Somerset. Wareham is the only English place to which Asser gives the title of ‘castellum,’ 478 D [27]. He uses the term once of a Danish fort, 483 B [37].

[479] The evasion of the Danes from Wareham to Exeter is mentioned in the Chron. both under 876 and 877. The earlier mention is probably merely proleptic, giving by anticipation what was the issue of the affair.

[480] ‘þær him mon to ne meahte.’

[481] This is the interpolated passage in Asser, which cannot, as I have shown above (§ 20), be traced further back than Roger of Wendover. It sounds however perfectly genuine.

[482] v. 3105.

[483] I owe this suggestion to Professor Earle.

[484] Ranke, Engl. Gesch., B. III. c. 6.

[485] Exodus xv. 10.

[486] For the whole of this and the following sections I may refer to the Chronicle, with my notes.

[487] § 46, above.

[488] I give what seems to me the most probable line of march. But every one of these three places, (1) Ecgbryhtesstan, (2) Iglea, (3) Ethandun, has been variously identified. The following series have been proposed—A. (1) Brixton, (2) Clay Hill near Warminster, (3) Edington; B. (as in the text); C. (1) Bratton near Westbury, (2) Highley Common near Melksham, (3) Heddington on the Roman road from Bath to Marlborough. Bratton seems to me impossible on philological grounds. Yatton has also been proposed for Ethandun. Philologically it is possible; (cf. Yarnton near Oxford = Eardingtun) but its position north-west of Chippenham is against it.

[489] viz. that it is Bratton Camp, between Edington and Westbury.

[490] Essays, p. 138.

[491] Asser, 481 B [32], v. s. pp. 44, 51.

[492] ‘arcem imparatam atque immunitam, nisi quod moenia nostro more erecta … haberet … locus tutissimus … sicut nos ipsi uidimus,’ ib. Is any type of earthworks known which is specifically Welsh? Asser’s episcopal charge of Exeter, if a fact, would account for his knowledge of the district. The name of Odda comes from Ethelwerd, p. 515 D.

[493] Mediaeval and modern writers, overlooking the word ‘brother,’ write as if it were Ingwar and Halfdene themselves who fell; so S. D. ii. 111, 114. Professor Oman writes Ingwar and Hubba, on I know not what authority, Essays, p. 137. The name Ubba comes only from Gaimar.

[494] The details are mostly from Asser, u. s. He gives the number of slain as 1200; i.e. CↃCC for IↃCCC. Ethelwerd, p. 515 E, says that the Danes were finally victorious; but it is hard to reconcile this with the Chronicle, and still more with Asser.

[495] The Chronicle puts this under 879; but, seeing that the battle of Ethandun was fought in May, it almost certainly belongs to the same year 878. It is this mistake which throws the chronology of the Chronicle a year wrong from this point up to 897 (= 896).

[496] No document exists embodying the terms of the agreement of 878. ‘Alfred and Guthrum’s peace,’ often confused with the treaty of Wedmore, belongs to 886.

[497] Chron. ii. 114.

[498] Idylls of the King, The Coming of Arthur.

[499] Chron. u. s. chiefly from Green, Conq. Engl. pp. 111 ff.

[500] p. 515 D.

[501] Cf. what is said in the Soliloquies, p. 182: ‘gyf þonne æfre gebyreð þ þu … hæfst ealle þine freond myd þe … on þam ilcan weorce, ⁊ on þam ilcan willan ðe ðe best lyst don’; cf. Boeth. xxix. § 1 (p. 66): ‘cyningas ne magon nænne weorðscipe forðbrengan buton hiora þegna fultume.’

[502] ‘urne ealra freond,’ Birch, No. 582; K. C. D. No. 327. I do not mean to assert that Werferth was at Athelney or Edington, though he may have been. But he and Æthelnoth were working for a common end, and his district benefited largely by Alfred’s victory.

[503] ‘They were the first European warriors who realised the value of quick movement in war,’ Green, C. E. p. 89.

[504] ‘þæer gehorsude wurdon,’ 866; ‘se gehorsoda here,’ 876, 877; ‘þa wearþ se here gehorsod æfter þæm gefeohte,’ 881. Conversely after a defeat: ‘his wurdon þær behorsude,’ 885. Asser, describing this last incident, says: ‘equis, quos de Francia secum adduxerant, derelictis,’ 483 C [37]; ‘hie asettan him … ofer [sc. to England] mid horsum,’ 893; cf. Flor. Wig. i. 111.

[505] Note the use of ‘bestelan’ for the movements of the invaders, 865, 876 (bis), 878.

[506] Earlier in the annal Alfred ‘rides’ to Brixton.

[507] ‘Ælfred æfter þam gehorsudan here mid fierde rad.’

[508] Sir Walter Besant, Essays, p. 17.

[509] For purely English events we have not, as a rule, the help of the foreign Chronicles, and cannot therefore be sure whether they also are dated a year in advance; but probably in most cases they are.

[510] That this and not 885 is the true date is proved by the Annales Vedastini, and the Chronicon Reginonis, Pertz, i. 521, 594.

[511] Asser, 483 B, C [37].

[512] This comes at the end of the annal in the Chronicle, but almost certainly refers to an earlier period of the year.

[513] ‘de Cantio,’ Asser, u. s.

[514] See above, § 50.

[515] Chron. ii. 99 f.

[516] Whatever the date, the Chronicle places the occupation of London in close connexion with the breach of the peace by the Danes in the preceding year. It may even be that a desire to bring out that connexion has led to the mention of the breach being postponed to the end of the annal.

[517] Schmid, Gesetze, pp. 106 ff. Cf. ib. xxxviii f.; and see the very interesting remarks of Green, C. E. pp. 151-3.

[518] Certainly as early as 880; see the charter Birch, No. 547; K. C. D. No. 311.

[519] Essays, pp. 19, 57, 245 ff.; Ranke, u. s. VI. ii. 43: ‘Die merkantile Hauptstadt der Welt verdankt dem König Alfred gleichsam ihre zweite Gründung.’

[520] ‘Orco tradit spiramen,’ p. 517 C.

[521] Malmesbury has some interesting remarks on this, G. R. i. 128, 129; cf. S. C. H. i. 191.

[522] See above, § 10.

[523] Earle, Chronicles, p. xvi.

[524] Chron. II. cvii, 109.

[525] Chron. 894 ad init.

[526] Birch, No. 579; K. C. D. No. 1075.

[527] ‘de instauratione urbis Londoniae,’ Birch, No. 577.

[528] Birch, No. 1335; see Maitland, Domesday and Beyond, pp. 187, 188, 502 ff.

[529] 493 A, B [59, 60].

[530] There is a good passage on this point in Ingulf, p. 27: ‘Alfredus … ciuitates suas et castella sua renouauit, turres et munitiones in locis magis necessariis construxit, ac totam terrae faciem in formam multo meliorem immutatam, per oppida murata, et alia loca munitissima contra barbaros insuperabilem fore fecit’; cf. Essays, pp. 141 ff.

[531] Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 191; Essays, pp. 143 ff.; Green, C. E. pp. 135 ff.

[532] Chron. 894, i. 86-7.

[533] For this event the date in the Chronicle is apparently correct.

[534] See Dümmler, u. s. ii. 349 ff. The foreign Chronicles show clearly that the date is 892, not 893 as in the Saxon Chron.

[535] ‘samworht,’ ‘half-wrought.’ Mr. Macfadyen ingeniously connects this with the passage cited above from Asser, as to the difficulty which Alfred had in getting the fortifications constructed which he had ordered. For the justification of the sketch which follows I must refer to my notes to the Chronicle. The only point on which I have modified my view, is as to the position of Buttington.

[536] It is only in Ethelwerd that Edward’s share in the campaign is mentioned. He would now be a little over twenty, if, as Asser says, Alfred was married in 868, and Edward was his second child, 475 A [19], 485 C [42].

[537] This name also comes from Ethelwerd. Ramsay, Foundations of England, i. 261, sees in this the ancient name of Westminster; and a writer in the Athenaeum for June 15, 1901, takes the same view still more positively, saying that we shall search the Colne in vain for an island called Thorney. I imagine we should search the neighbourhood of Westminster with equally little success; and if the name has become extinct in one locality, why not in the other? possibly because the thorns have become extinct which gave the name. Ethelwerd may be mistaken as to the name, but it is absolutely certain that the island on which the Danes were blockaded was in the Colne: ‘hie flugon ofer Temese, … þa up be Colne on anne iggað. Þa besæt sio fierd hie.’

[538] To this year perhaps better than to any other would apply the very rhetorical description of Hen. Hunt., how messengers poured in upon the king, saying that the Danes were in this, that, and the other quarter, pp. 138, 139.

[539] The Chronicle seems to synchronise the relief of Exeter approximately with the capture of the fort at Benfleet; but Alfred was busied in the west some time longer, while the English forces were blockading Buttington, Chron. i. 87.

[540] The Alfred Jewel, p. 104.

[541] ‘ánstreces,’ literally ‘at a stretch.’

[542] Can it be that the fyrd after all did reach them? Ethelwerd seems to say that Æthelnoth attacked the Danes at York, p. 518 E. Or is this a punitive expedition against the Northumbrian Danes?

[543] Hen. Hunt. says ‘fecit aquam Luye findi in tria brachia,’ p. 150; i.e. he conceives the two obstacles as erected in the river, so dividing it into three channels, which is perfectly possible. Perhaps the worthy archdeacon may even have seen the remains of Alfred’s works. But I cannot now take Steenstrup’s view that this device may have been suggested to Alfred by Orosius’ account of the capture of Babylon by Cyrus, Lib. ii. c. 6. That was effected by diverting the course of the river, which there is no reason to suppose that Alfred attempted.

[544] Bell. Gall. v. 1.

[545] The connexion of the Frisian language with that of the Angles and Saxons was very close, and they have certain marked characteristics in common, pointing to close neighbourhood of their original abodes. Of English dialects the Frisian is nearest to Kentish, except in the northern Frisian islands, where it seems more akin to West-Saxon. I take this from Siebs, Zur Gesch. der engl.-fries. Sprache, in Paul’s Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, 2nd ed. i. 1153 ff., for a reference to which I am indebted to Professor Napier, who tells me that in his judgement Englishmen and Frisians would be quite intelligible to one another in the ninth century. There is a sentence of Frisian in Pertz, xxii. 576, which might just as well be Anglo-Saxon.

[546] In 882 Charles the Fat had granted West Friesland to a wiking Chief Guðfrið, Dümmler, u. s. ii. 204, 205; cf. ibid. 224 ff., 241; Weber, u. s. v. 684, 685. For earlier ravages in Frisia, cf. ibid. 495; Pertz, i. 445.

[547] 486 B [44]. Charles the Great also employed Frisians in his fleet for his wars against the Danes, Weber, u. s. p. 421; cf. Einhard, Vita Caroli, c. 17.

[548] Mr. Conybeare says: ‘one MS. of the A.-S. Chronicle makes St. Neot [!!] (Athelstan of Kent) fight “on shipboard” in 851, but the entry, if correct, stands absolutely alone.’ The fact is that the entry is found in five MSS. out of six. A is the only one which omits the words ‘on scipum.’

[549] See notes to Chron., ad loc. It has, however, been pointed out to me by Mr. A. J. Wyatt, of Christ’s College, Cambridge, that the phrase ‘ahton wælstowe gewald’ looks as if these battles were fought on land; and I admit that I cannot produce any certain instance of this phrase being applied to a naval victory. The provision that a merchant who fared thrice over sea on his own account should rank as a thane is unfortunately of uncertain date, Schmid, pp. lxiv, 390.

[550] Preface to Pastoral Care. Cf. the description of the Lombard ravages in the translation of the Dialogues, p. 258: ‘nu syndon þa burga forhergode … ⁊ þa ceastra toworpene, cyrcan forbærnde ⁊ mynstra toworpene, ⁊ eac gehwylce tunas ge wera ge wifa fram hæðenum mannum geweste, ⁊ eac fram ælce bigonge þis land ligeð tolysed ⁊ idlað in westenne. ne eardað nænig agend frea, ac wild-deor abysgiað þa stowe, þa ær hæfde ⁊ eardode manna mænigo.’

[551] So Freeman, in Dict. Nat. Biog. i. 156; cf. S. C. H. i. 99, 100; ‘occasione barbarorum etiam indigenae in rapinas anhelauerant,’ W. M. i. 129.

[552] Rev. C. S. Taylor, Origin of the Mercian Shires, p. 3.

[553] Below, § 90. Cf. M. H. Turk, The Legal Code of Alfred the Great, pp. 50, 51 (a very useful monograph); Schmid, Gesetze, pp. xxxvii ff.

[554] ‘licet enim, ut quidam ait, leges inter arma sileant, ille inter fremitus armorum leges tulit,’ Gesta Regum, i. 129; cf. Robert of Gloucester, i. 392: ‘Vor þey me segge þat lawes beþ in worre tyme uorlore, Nas it noȝt so bi is daye, vor þei he in worre were, Lawes he made riȝtuolore and strengore þen er were.’ Cf. Chron. Rames., p. 13: ‘Alfredus rex Anglicarum legum conditor.’

[555] Turk, u. s. p. 35.

[556] ‘þæt it here name,’ Turk, p. 74; Schmid, p. 62; ‘here’ is the regular name for the Danish, as ‘fyrd’ is for the native host.

[557] Turk, p. 100; Schmid, p. 94.

[558] Turk, p. 82; Schmid, p. 66; Alfred’s idea that it was Christianity which first allowed money-compensation for offences is interesting, though unhistorical. The same idea occurs Oros. 48, 32.

[559] Turk, p. 84; Schmid, p. 72.

[560] Turk, p. 96; Schmid, p. 88.

[561] Turk, p. 80; Schmid, p. 66.

[562] e.g. by Schmid, p. xxxix.

[563] Matt. vii. 12, which gives the rule in its positive, and not in its negative form.

[564] Turk, pp. 37, 38.

[565] 497 A-D [69-71].

[566] 497 A [69].

[567] Turk, p. 78; Schmid, p. 64.

[568] ‘omnia … iudicia, quae in sua absentia fiebant … inuestigabat; … iudices aut per se ipsum, aut per … suos fideles … interrogabat,’ 497 C [70]; cf. Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 183, 205, 208, 391; Pauli, König Ælfred, p. 179.

[569] Birch, No. 591; K. C. D. No. 328.

[570] Josephus, Ant. xviii. 4, 6; cf. Schürer, Gesch. des jüdischen Volkes, i. 356.

[571] Einhard, Vita Caroli, c. 24.

[572] Cf. the very striking parallel of Charles the Great: ‘cum aduerteret multa legibus populi sui deesse, nam Franci duas habent leges [i.e. the Salic and Ripuarian] in plurimis locis ualde diuersas, cogitauit quae deerant addere, et discrepantia unire, praua quoque … corrigere; sed de his nihil aliud ab eo factum est, nisi quod pauca capitula … legibus addidit,’ ibid. c. 29.

[573] Above, § 11.

[574] Probably Long Dean, three miles from Swanborough Tump, which is between Pewsey and Woodborough, Wilts. [I give this statement as I find it, but I have searched the six-inch Ordnance map in vain.]

[575] Birch, No. 553; K. C. D. No. 314; and elsewhere.

[576] This is specially noticeable in the matter of grants of land, Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 193.

[577] Stubbs, u. s. i. 129, 130, 240.

[578] Preface to Pastoral Care.

[579] Col. 1777.