As the powers of the Witan were thus extensive, as the King could do no important act of government without their consent, some may hastily leap to the conclusion that an ancient English King was a mere puppet in the hands of the national council. No inference could be more mistaken. Nothing is clearer in our early history than the personal agency of the King in everything that is done, and the unspeakable difference between a good and |Vast importance of the personal character of the King.| a bad King. The truth is that in an early state of society almost everything depends on the personal character of the King. An able King is practically absolute; under a weak King the government falls into utter anarchy. Change the scene, as we shall presently do in our narrative, from the days of Eadgar to those of Æthelred—change it again from the long, dreary, hopeless, reign of Æthelred to the few months of ceaseless energy which form the reign of the hero Eadmund—compare the nine months of Harold with the two months which followed his fall—and we shall see how the whole fate of the nation turned upon the personal character of its sovereign. With such witnesses before us, we can the better understand how our forefathers would have scouted the thought—if the thought had ever occurred to them—of risking the destiny of the nation on the accidents of strict hereditary succession, and how wisely they determined that the King must be, if not the worthiest of the nation, at any rate the worthiest of the kingly house. The unhappy reign of Æthelred showed the bad side of even that limited application of the hereditary principle which was all that they admitted. Under her great Kings England had risen from her momentary overthrow to an Imperial dominion. At home she had a strong and united government, and her position in the face of other nations was one which made her alliance to be courted by the foremost princes of Europe. The accession of the minor son of Eadgar, a child who, except in his crimes and vices, never got beyond childhood, dragged down the glorious fabric into the dust. So greatly did national welfare and national misfortune depend on the personal character of the King. The King, it is true, could do nothing without his Witan; but as his Witan could do nothing without him, he was not a shadow or a puppet, but a most important personal agent. He was no more a puppet than the Leader of the House of Commons is a puppet. We may be sure that the King and his immediate advisers always had a practical initiative, and that the body of the Witan did little but accept |Overwhelming personal influence of an able King.| or reject their proposals. We may be sure that a King fit for his place, an Ælfred or an Æthelstan, met with nothing that could be called opposition, but wielded the assembly at his will. Princes clothed with far smaller constitutional powers than those of an ancient English King have become the ruling spirits of commonwealths which denied them any kind of independent action. Agêsilaos guided the policy of Sparta, and Francesco Foscari guided the policy of Venice,[155] with a personal influence almost as commanding as that which Periklês exercised in the pure democracy of Athens or Aratos in the mixed constitution of the Achaian League. So when a great King sat on the West-Saxon throne, we may be sure that, while every constitutional form was strictly observed,[156] the votes of the Witan were guided in everything by the will of the King. But when the King had no will, or a will which the Witan could not consent to, then the machine gave way, and nothing was to be seen |Importance of the King as the Executive.| but confusion and every evil work.[157] Again, the King was not only the first mover, he was also the main doer of everything. The Witan decreed, but it was the King who carried out their decrees. Weighty as was the influence of his personal character on the nature of the resolutions to be passed, its influence was weightier still on the way in which those resolutions were to be carried out. Under a good King counsel and execution went hand in hand; under a weak or wicked King there was no place found for either. Sometimes disgraceful resolutions were passed; sometimes wise and good resolutions were never carried into effect. The Witan under Æthelred sometimes voted money to buy off the Danes, sometimes they voted armies to fight against them; but, with Æthelred to carry out their votes, it mattered little what their |Influence of the King as Hlaford of all the chief men.| votes were. Add to all this the boundless influence which attached to the King from his having all the chief men of the land bound to him by the personal tie of thegnship. He was the Cyne-hlaford, at once the King of the nation and the personal lord of each individual. Though his grants of folkland and his nominations to the highest offices needed the assent of the Witan, yet in these matters above all his initiative would be undoubted; the Witan had only to confirm, and they would seldom be tempted to reject, the proposals which the King laid before them. He was not less the fountain of honour and the fountain of wealth, because in the disposal of both he had certain decent ceremonies to go through. |General importance and influence of the King.| Add to all this that in unsettled times there is a special chance, both of acts of actual oppression which the law is not strong enough to redress, and of acts of energy beyond the law which the nation easily forgives in the case of a victorious and beloved prince. Altogether, narrowly limited as were the legal powers of an ancient English King, his will, or lack of will, had the main influence on the destinies of the nation, and his personal character was of as much moment to the welfare of the state as the personal character of an absolute ruler.
The King and his Witan then, in their joint action, formed the supreme legislature and the supreme tribunal |England strictly one kingdom, but much local independence retained by the incorporated kingdoms.| of the English kingdom. That kingdom, from the days of Æthelstan onwards, took in the whole Teutonic portion of Britain, together with those Celtic lands to the south-west which had been incorporated and to a great extent Teutonized. This whole region, at least from the overthrow of the last Northumbrian King under Eadred, formed in the strictest sense one kingdom; the revolt of the Mercians against Eadwig was only a momentary interruption of its unity. The ancient divisions were indeed by no means forgotten; above all, the great Danish land beyond the Humber still retained a lively memory of its former independence. Both Northumberland and the other incorporated kingdoms kept much of the form of distinct states; each state had its local Witenagemót, presided over by its local Ealdorman or Earl, who exercised, by commission from the King and his Witan, full royal authority within his own province. But I have already explained that, vast as were the powers of an ancient Ealdorman, he was still only a great magistrate, not a prince, even a dependent prince. The whole land formed one kingdom under one King, and the King and his Witan held direct authority in every corner of it. But this kingdom of the English was not the only title and dignity to which the house of |Superiority or Empire of the West-Saxon Kings over all Britain.| Cerdic had attained. The King of the English was also Emperor of the whole isle of Britain. I must now explain somewhat more at length the nature of this British Empire, as distinguished from the English kingdom which was |Statement of the question. First, the fact of the superiority. Secondly, the force of the assumption of strictly Imperial titles.| only part of it. In this inquiry two special points call for notice. There is, first, the fact that the English Kings did exercise a superiority of some kind over the whole of Britain, a fact which has sometimes been called in question by local prejudice. There is, secondly, the question as to the exact nature of that superiority, and as to the motives which led the Kings of the tenth and eleventh centuries to assume distinctively Imperial titles. It must not be forgotten that in those days such titles were not assumed at random; the idea of the Roman Empire was still thoroughly understood, and indeed the Roman Empire itself, both in the East and in the West, was in one of its most flourishing periods.
The fact that the West-Saxon or English Kings, from Eadward the Elder onwards, did exercise an external supremacy over the Celtic princes of the island is a fact too clear to be misunderstood by any one who looks the evidence on |Superiority over Scotland dates from Eadward the Elder. 924.| the matter fairly in the face. I date their supremacy over Scotland from the reign of Eadward the Elder, because there is no certain earlier instance of submission on the part of the Scots to any West-Saxon King. I pass by the |No earlier supremacy in Wessex.| instances of Scottish submission to the earlier Northumbrian Kings, as well as the seeming submission of both Scots and Northumbrians to the Roman Empire itself in the person of Charles the Great.[158] These instances do not prove the existence of any permanent superiority; they are rather analogous to the temporary and fluctuating superiority of this or that Bretwalda over the other English kingdoms. But from the time of Eadward the Elder onwards the case is |Submission of Wales to Ecgberht, 830; to Eadward, 922.| perfectly clear. The submission of Wales dates from the time of Ecgberht; but it evidently received a more distinct and formal acknowledgement in the reign of Eadward. Two years after followed the Commendation of Scotland and |The Welsh and Scottish people concur with their princes in the Commendation.| Strathclyde.[159] Now it seems to be implied in the case of Wales, and it is still more plainly stated in the case of Scotland and Strathclyde, that the people of both those countries had a share in those acts of their princes by which Eadward was chosen to Father and to Lord. I conceive this to mean that the Scottish and Welsh princes acted in this matter by the consent and authority of whatever body in their own states answered to the Witan in England. In both cases the commendation was a |Nature of Commendation;| solemn national act. I use the feudal word commendation, because that word seems to me better than any other to express the real state of the case. The transaction between Eadward and the Celtic princes was simply an application, on an international scale, of the general principle of the |the relation unaffected by greatness or smallness of scale.| Comitatus. That relation, like all the feudal relations which it helped to form, may be entered into either on the greatest or on the smallest scale. The land which is originally granted out on a feudal tenure, or which its allodial owner finds it expedient to convert into a fief held on feudal tenure, may be a kingdom or it may be a rood of land maintaining its man. So the lord whom a man chooses, and the man who chooses the lord, may be of any possible rank, from the Emperor and the Pope with their vassal Kings down to the smallest Thegn and his neighbouring ceorl. It would even seem that the ceorl himself might be the lord of a poorer ceorl.[160] The relation is exactly the same, whatever may be the rank and power of the parties between whom it is contracted. In every case alike, great or small, faithful service is owing on the one side and faithful protection on the other. In every case alike, great or small, the relation may imply a strictly feudal tenure of land or it may not. Now the Chroniclers, in recording these cases of Welsh and Scottish submission, make use, as if of set purpose, of the familiar legal phrases which express the relation of commendation on the smaller |Process of Commendation on a small scale.| scale. A man “chose his lord;” he sought some one more powerful than himself, with whom he entered into the relation of Comitatus; as feudal ideas strengthened, he commonly surrendered his allodial land to the lord so chosen, and received it back again from him on a feudal tenure. This was the process of commendation, a process of every day occurrence in the case of private men choosing their lords, whether those lords were simple gentlemen or |Instances of Commendation among sovereign princes.| Kings. And the process was equally familiar among sovereign princes themselves.[161] Almost all the northern and eastern vassals of the Western Empire, some of them of kingly rank,[162] became vassals by commendation. The commendation was doubtless in many cases far from voluntary, but the legal form was always the same. The lands of these princes were not original grants from the Emperors; but their holders found it expedient to come to terms with their Imperial neighbour, and to place themselves and their lands in the same position as if their lands had really been Imperial grants. We might go on to say that the |Commendation of the Normans to Leo the Ninth. 1053.| Norman conquerors of southern Italy commended themselves to the Pope whom they took prisoner, and that the Sicilian kingdoms, on the strength of that commendation, remained for seven hundred years in the position of fiefs |Commendation of England to the Pope by John [1213]; to the Emperor by Richard. 1193.| of the Holy See. The kingdom of England itself was twice commended to a foreign potentate. John, as all the world knows, commended his kingdom to the Pope; and his brother Richard had before that commended it to the Emperor. There was nothing unusual or degrading in the relation; if Scotland, Wales, Strathclyde, commended themselves to the West-Saxon King, they only put themselves in the same relation to their powerful neighbour in which every continental prince stood in theory, and most of them in actual fact, to the Emperor, Lord of the World. |Homage of Odo the West-Frank to Arnulf. 888.| Not to speak of a crowd of smaller instances, Odo, King of the West-Franks, commended himself to Arnulf of Germany, just as Howel and Constantine commended themselves to Eadward of Wessex. And this commendation was made before Arnulf became Emperor and Lord of the World, while he was still the simple King of the Eastern Franks.[163] The commendation of Scotland and Strathclyde was, in form at least, a perfectly voluntary act, done with the full consent of the nations interested. The kingdom of Strathclyde soon came to an end, and with the Welsh of Wales proper no lasting relations of any kind |Relations between England and Scotland as friendly as was usual in such cases.| could be kept up. But between the English over-lord and his Scottish vassal the mutual compact was not worse kept than it commonly was in such cases. It was often broken and often renewed; but this was no more than happened always and everywhere in those turbulent times. The relations between the English Basileus and the King of Scots were at least as friendly as the relations which existed in the tenth century between the King of the West-Franks |The claims of Edward the First in 1291 rest on the Commendation to Eadward the Elder in 924.| and his dangerous vassals at Paris and Rouen. The original commendation to the Eadward of the tenth century, confirmed by a series of acts of submission spread over the whole of the intermediate time, is the true justification for the acts of his glorious namesake in the thirteenth century.[164] The only difference was that, during that time, feudal notions had greatly developed on both sides; the original commendation of the Scottish King and people to a lord, had changed, in the ideas of both sides, into a |Change of ideas in the meanwhile.| feudal tenure of the land of the Scottish kingdom. But this change was simply the universal change which had come over all such relations everywhere. That this point, the only point which could with any justice have been brought forward against Edward on the Scottish side, never was brought forward shows how completely the ancient notion of commendation had gone out of mind.[165] But the principal point at issue, the right of the over-lord to decide between two claimants of the vassal kingdom, rested on excellent precedents in the reigns of Eadward the Confessor and of William Rufus. Altogether the vassalage—to use the most convenient word—of Scotland from the |924–1328.| commendation to Eadward to the treaty of Northampton |Threefold relation of the King of Scots to the English Crown.| is one of the best authenticated facts in history. But it is here needful to point out two other distinct events which have often been confounded with the commendation of Scotland, a confusion through which the real state of the case has often been misunderstood. In the eleventh century at least, if not in the tenth, the King of Scots stood to his English over-lord in a threefold relation, grounded on three distinct acts which are popularly confounded. In this matter, as in so many others, prevalent ignorance is strengthened by inattention to historical geography. As it is hard to make people understand that there has not always been a kingdom of France including Marseilles and Strassburg, perhaps even including Nizza and Chambery, so it is hard to make people understand that there were not always kingdoms of England and Scotland, with the Tweed and the Cheviot Hills as the boundaries between them. It must be borne in mind that in the tenth century no such boundaries were known, and that the very names of England and Scotland were only just beginning to be |Geography of Scotland, Strathclyde, and Lothian in the tenth century.| heard. At the time of the commendation the country which is now called Scotland was divided among three quite distinct sovereignties. North of the Forth and Clyde reigned the King of Scots, an independent Celtic prince reigning over a Celtic people, the Picts and Scots, the exact relation between which two tribes is a matter of perfect indifference to my present purpose. South of the two great firths the Scottish name and the Scottish dominion were unknown. The south-western part of modern Scotland formed part of the kingdom of the Strathclyde Welsh, which up to 924 was, like the kingdom of the |Relations of the three to one another and to the English Crown.| Scots, an independent Celtic principality. The south-eastern part of modern Scotland, Lothian in the wide sense of the word, was purely English, as in language it remains to this day. It was part of the kingdom of Northumberland, and it had its share in all the revolutions of that kingdom. In the year 924 Lothian, like the rest of Northumberland, was subject only to that precarious superiority on the part of Wessex which had been handed on from Ecgberht and Ælfred, In the year 924, when the three kingdoms, Scotland, Strathclyde, and Northumberland, all commended themselves to Eadward, the relation was something new on the part of Scotland and Strathclyde; but on the part of Lothian, as an integral part of Northumberland, it was only a renewal of the relation which had been formerly entered into with Ecgberht and Ælfred. It is not uncommon to hear the vassalage of Scotland proper, that is, the land north of the Forth and Clyde, mixed up with questions about Cumberland and Lothian. But, at the time of the Commendation of 924, Lothian stood in no relation at all towards Scotland, except that of simple, most likely not very friendly, neighbourhood. Strathclyde |Since 908.| was already ruled by princes of the Scottish royal house,[166] but it was still a kingdom quite independent of Scotland. The transactions which brought Scotland, Strathclyde, and Lothian into their relations to one another and to the English crown were quite distinct from each other. They were as follows:—
First, The Commendation of the King and people of the Scots to Eadward in 924.
Secondly, The Grant of Cumberland by Eadmund to Malcolm in 945.
Thirdly, The grant of Lothian to the Scottish Kings, either under Eadgar or under Cnut.
These three events are perfectly distinct, and the relations created by them are perfectly distinct; but, as always happens when several relations and tenures co-exist, the three gradually got confounded together, both in idea and in fact. Both in popular conception and in the hands of partizan Scottish writers, the second of these three events is made to obscure the other two. The grant by an English King to a Scottish King of a country described as Cumberland is something too clear to be denied; that the Scottish princes held their Cumbrian dominions as a fief of the English crown, that they did homage for them to the English King, no Scottish writer has ever ventured to call in doubt.[167] In truth there seems never to have been any wish to call this fact in doubt, because the Cumbrian homage, put forth sometimes even in an exaggerated shape, has formed a convenient means of escape from the fact of the homage for Scotland proper and from the fact of the purely English character of Lothian. And the confusion of geographical terms comes conveniently in. In modern language Cumberland means a single shire which for ages has been undoubtedly English. In modern language Lothian means three shires which for ages have been undoubtedly Scottish. People are thus led to believe that Lothian was from all time an integral part of Scotland, and also that the homage done by the Scottish to the English King was done only for the county of Cumberland as an integral part of England. But in the language of the year 945 Lothian was still an integral portion of England; Cumberland meant a country, part of which is now English and part Scottish, but which up to that time was neither English nor Scottish, but the seat of a distinct Welsh principality. By Cumberland in short is meant, not merely the modern English county so called, but all northern Strathclyde; that is, modern Cumberland together |Circumstances of the grant of Cumberland or Strathclyde.| with a considerable portion of modern Scotland. In 945 the reigning King Donald revolted against his over-lord Eadmund; he was overthrown and his kingdom ravaged;[168] it was then granted on tenure of military service to Donald’s kinsman Malcolm King of Scots. Malcolm could hardly have earned this favour except by sharing in the war against Donald, which indeed his actual relation to the English crown bound him to do. For a long time the fief then granted was granted out again by the Scottish Kings as an apanage for their own heirs-apparent. The southern part of this territory was afterwards, as we shall see at a later stage of our history, |The part kept by Scotland becomes merged in the Scottish kingdom.| annexed to England; the northern part was kept by the Scottish Kings, and was gradually, though very gradually, incorporated with their own kingdom. The distinction between the two states seems to have been quite forgotten in the thirteenth century; neither side in the controversies of that time drew any distinction between the tenure of Fife and the tenure of Galloway; the claims of the English crown were asserted, admitted, or denied, |Original distinction between the position of Strathclyde or Cumberland, and the position of Scotland proper.| equally with regard to both. Yet the relations between England and Scotland proper and the relations between England and Strathclyde or Cumberland, though much the same in their nature, were wholly different in their origin. The relation in which Scotland stood to England was one of commendation; the relation in which Cumberland stood to England was one of original grant. This last fact marks a distinct advance in feudal ideas. Cumberland was from the beginning a real territorial fief. Eadward did not grant Scotland to Constantine, because Scotland had never been his; but Constantine and his people, by their own act, put themselves in the same position as if it had been so granted. But Eadmund really did grant Cumberland to Malcolm; he granted him a territory which he had himself conquered, and which he might have kept in his own hands. Cumberland in short—including, as must not be forgotten, the south-western shires of modern Scotland—was held by the Scottish King or his son as a feudal benefice in the strictest sense.
Cumberland then was truly a fief of the crown of England, but it was not a fief held within the kingdom of England. This last position, popularly thought to be the position of Cumberland, was really the position of Lothian. The date of the grant of Lothian is not perfectly clear.[169] But whatever was the date of the grant, there can |Lothian an integral part of England.| be no doubt at all as to its nature. Lothian, an integral part of England, could be granted only as any other part of England could be granted, namely to be held as part of England, its ruler being in the position of an English Earl. If the grant was really made by Eadgar, this is still more likely to be the case, on account of the unusual friendliness of the relations between Eadgar and Kenneth. Eadgar might well grant, and Kenneth might well accept, a purely English government, held by a tenure which would bind him still more closely to his English over-lord than either his commendatory relation for Scotland |Lothian gradually separated from England and merged in Scotland.| or his feudal relation for Strathclyde. But in such a grant the seeds of separation were sown. A part of the kingdom which was governed by a foreign sovereign, on whatever terms of dependence, could not long remain in the position of a province governed by an ordinary Earl. The King of Scots, though holding all his dominions by various kinds of dependent tenure, could not be dealt with in any portion of them like a simple Earl of the Northumbrians. That the possession of Lothian would under all ordinary circumstances remain hereditary, must have been looked for from the beginning. This alone would distinguish Lothian from all other earldoms. Though it was very common to appoint the son of a deceased Ealdorman to his father’s dignity, still he had not so much as a preferential claim; the office was held altogether at the pleasure of the King and his Witan. But when a province was once granted to a foreign prince, even though that prince remained a feudatory of the English crown, this kind of control was parted with for ever, or could be won back only at the cost of war. |Distinction between Scotland, Strathclyde, and Lothian gradually forgotten.| Lothian could not fail to become an hereditary dominion of the Scottish Kings; it could not fail gradually to lose its distinct character and the remembrance of its distinct tenure, and to be gradually merged in the mass of the other dominions of its rulers. By the time of the great controversy of the thirteenth century the distinction seems to have been forgotten on both sides, exactly as it was in the case of Strathclyde. The claims of the English King were the same over the whole country, over Scotland, Strathclyde, and Lothian; they were put forward as a whole, and they were accepted or rejected as a whole. Yet, when we weigh the claims of Edward the First by the letter of the compacts of the tenth century, if we pronounce them to go a little beyond the mark in the case of Scotland proper, we must equally pronounce them to fall a little under the mark in the case of Lothian. The fact is that the progress of feudal ideas had wiped out the distinction, and had brought all tenures to the same level. The alternative by that time had come to be whether Scotland, as a whole, that is, Scotland proper, Scottish Strathclyde, and Lothian, should be a fief of England or an independent kingdom. That Scotland, Strathclyde, and Lothian were originally all dependencies of England, but held in three different degrees of dependence, had passed out of mind on both sides.
It was then to be expected that Lothian, when once granted to the King of Scots, should gradually be merged in the kingdom of Scotland. But the peculiar and singular destiny of this country could hardly have been looked for. |Lothian becomes the historical Scotland.| Neither Eadgar nor Kenneth could dream that this purely English province would become the historical Scotland. The different tenures of Scotland and Lothian got confounded; the Kings of Scots, from the end of the eleventh century, became English in manners and language; they were not without some claims to the crown of England, and not without some hopes of winning it. They thus learned to attach more and more value to the English part of their dominions, and they laboured to spread its language and manners over their original Celtic territory. They kept their ancient title of Kings of Scots, but they became in truth Kings of English Lothian and of Anglicized Fife. A state was thus formed, politically distinct from England and which political circumstances gradually made bitterly hostile to England—a state which indeed kept on a dark and mysterious Celtic background, but which, as it appears in history, is English in laws, language, and manners, more truly English indeed, in many respects, than England itself remained after the Norman Conquest. As in so many other cases, the people took the name of their sovereign; the English subjects of the King of Scots learned to call themselves Scots and their country Scotland. Meanwhile the true Scots to the north of them, the original subjects of the Scottish dynasty, forsaken as it were by their natural princes, became the standing difficulty of their government. The true Scots are known in history only as a mass of turbulent tribes, alien in customs, language, and feeling from those who had taken their name—tribes which the Kings of Dunfermline and Edinburgh had much ado to keep in even nominal subjection—tribes which, by a strange turning about of relations, were ready to fight for their English over-lord against the Kings of Dunfermline and Edinburgh. |Analogy between the history of Scotland and of Switzerland.| The history of Scotland is in many respects strikingly analogous to the history of Switzerland. I pass by the singular likeness in the national character of the two peoples, a likeness to be traced alike in the virtues and in the defects of each. I speak only of the outward facts of their history. In the case of Switzerland, parts of the German, Burgundian, and Italian nations were, through a variety of political causes, detached from the main body of their respective countrymen, and became united by a close political tie to one another. They thus formed an artificial nation,[170] a political and historical |Their position as artificial nations.| nation, but not a nation of common blood and speech. In the case of Scotland, portions of the English, Welsh, and Irish[171] nations were in like manner detached from the main body of their own people; they became in like manner politically connected with one another, and grew in like manner into an artificial nation. In both cases it is often amusing to hear men claim as their forefathers those who were the bitterest enemies of their real forefathers. But in both cases it is more important to mark, what the history both of Switzerland and of Scotland abundantly proves, that an artificial nation of this kind is capable of as true and honourable national feeling as any nation of the most unmixed blood and language. The history both of Switzerland and of Scotland presents so many materials for honest pride that it is a pity that exaggerations and perversions of history should have ever been allowed to step in in either case. And, to cite one point more of likeness, each people has drawn its national name from a very small portion of its territory and population. Switzerland, German, Burgundian, and Italian, has taken its common name from the single small canton of Schwyz. Scotland, English, Welsh, and Gaelic, has taken its common name from the original small colony of Irish Scots who settled on the coast of Argyllshire.
I have dwelt on the Scottish question at length, both because of its intrinsic importance, and because the relations between the crowns of England and Scotland will call for constant notice in the course of our history. The case with regard to Wales is the case of Scotland over again. The homage of the Welsh Kings was always due, and was constantly exacted, from the days of Ecgberht and Eadward onwards. The only difference was in the |1283.| final result. Wales was incorporated with the English |1328.| kingdom at the close of the thirteenth century; Scotland obtained perfect independence in the fourteenth. The life of one man made all the difference. The great Edward lived thoroughly to secure his Welsh conquest; before he had thoroughly secured his Scottish conquest, his mission had passed to a son who could not keep his crown on his head at home.
Before we leave this subject, it may be well to remember what the relations between a dependent kingdom and its superior lord really were. The King of the English did not, by virtue of the commendation, claim any jurisdiction within the dominions of his vassals. The individual inhabitant of Scotland stood in no relation to |The relation between Scotland and England international only.| the English King.[172] The relation was a purely international one. The King and people of the Scots chose the King of the English as their Father and Lord; it became his duty to protect them against their enemies, and it became their duty to serve him against his enemies. But with the internal management of the Scottish kingdom he had no concern, nor did this or that individual |The relation often broken on both sides.| Scot become his man or his subject. Such was the The relation often broken on both sides. relation; as we go on, we shall see its engagements broken on both sides. We shall find the Scottish vassal more than once breaking through his duty of fidelity, and |1000.| we shall once at least find the English over-lord of Strathclyde breaking through his duty of protection, setting up an unjust claim to a tribute which was not imposed by the original grant, and cruelly harrying the land in revenge for a perfectly justifiable refusal of his demands.[173] But such breaches of duty on both sides are in no way peculiar to England and Scotland; they form a very large portion of the history of any two |Delicate nature of the relation.| countries between which such relations existed. The truth is that the feudal or commendatory relation is a very delicate relation, one which offers constant temptations to a breach of its duties on both sides, temptations which, |Analogy with colonial relations.| in a rude age, must often have been irresistible. The relation is not identical with the modern relation between the mother country and its colonies and dependencies, but there are many points of analogy between the two. And we all know well how very delicate the relation always is between the metropolis and its colony. But the point to be borne in mind is that the English over-lord of Scotland, Strathclyde, and Wales claimed no sovereignty within those countries, but only a superiority over them. He claimed such a superiority as the King of the French exercised, or claimed to exercise, over the Duke of the Normans. The relation was less close than the relation between the Emperor and the German princes, as no common Diet looked after the common interests of |Attendance of the Welsh and Scottish princes in the Witenagemót.| all. That the Scottish and Welsh princes had the right, which they most likely deemed a burthen, of attending the meetings of the English Witan is certain; it is equally certain that the attendance of the Scottish and Cumbrian princes was exceedingly rare.[174] And at any rate they must have come only in their personal capacity, to transact any business which they might have with their over-lord and his counsellors. We cannot suppose that the English Gemót was ever attended by any Scottish or Welsh Witan beyond the immediate suite of the Scottish and Welsh Kings. The Kings came, because they were the men of the English over-lord; but the private Scot or Briton was not the man of the English over-lord, and had no need to attend the assembly which he summoned. As little can we deem that the English Gemót took on itself to make laws for Wales or Scotland. Neither can we deem that the Welsh and Scottish princes, though they sign the acts of the Gemóts at which they were present, took any active share or interest in purely English affairs.
The King of the English was thus over-lord or external superior of all the princes of the isle of Britain. |Statement of the case as to the Imperial titles.| In that character, our Kings, from the days of Æthelstan onwards, bore titles beyond those of ordinary royalty, titles which in strictness belonged only to the successors of Charles and of Constantine. They appear in their public acts as Basileus, Cæsar, Imperator, Imperator Augustus.[175] |1st. Are they to be taken as seriously implying Imperial claims?| Several questions at once arise. Are these titles mere outpourings of vanity, mere pieces of inflated rhetoric, mere specimens of the turgid style of the tenth century? Or do they imply a serious claim on the part of the English Kings to be looked on as something more than mere Kings, to be deemed the peers of the lords of Imperial |2nd. If so, are they to be traced uninterruptedly to the old provincial Emperors?| Rome, Old and New? And if they do imply such a claim, from what was that claim understood to be derived? Did the Emperors of Britain in the tenth century inherit, or claim to inherit, their Imperial rank from the provincial Emperors who reigned in Britain in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries? Are we to trace an uninterrupted succession of Imperial sovereignty from Carausius onwards, through Maximus, Constantine,[176] Aurelius Ambrosius, and the eight Bretwaldas, down to the Imperatores and Basileis of the days succeeding the commendations of Scotland, Wales, and Strathclyde? Or are we to see in these titles |3rd. Or are they borrowed from the style of the contemporary Emperors, through a feeling that the position of the English King was an Imperial one?| merely an imitation of the style of the contemporary Roman Emperors, Eastern and Western—an imitation not grounded solely on a love of sounding titles, but on a feeling that the English sovereignty was in some sort greater than that of ordinary Kings, that it had something in common with that of the Emperors, that in truth the King of the English held in his own island a position answering to that which the Emperor of the Romans held in the rest of the world? These questions have given rise |The third alternative the true one.| to a large amount of controversy. My own belief, briefly to sum it up, is that vanity and the love of sounding titles may well have had some secondary share in the matter, but yet that these titles were seriously meant as a distinct assertion of the Imperial position of the English crown. But I do not believe that there was the least thought of any succession from the ancient provincial Emperors, or from any phantom of Imperial sovereignty which may have lingered on among the Welsh at the time of the English Conquest or afterwards. I believe that these titles were taken in order to claim for the English crown an absolute independence of the Roman Empire, and at the same time to assert its right to a superiority over all the princes of Britain of the same kind as that which the Emperor exercised, or claimed to exercise, over all the princes of the mainland. I believe in short that, as the Metropolitan of England was sometimes spoken of as Pope of another world,[177] so the King of the English claimed to be Emperor of the same island world, a world over which the Lord of the greater world at Rome or at Constantinople had no authority. I will now go on to give the reasons for the conclusions to which I have come.
It is undoubtedly true that the Latin charters of our Kings during the latter half of the tenth century are |Charters of the tenth century.| the most turgid and absurd of all human compositions. Nothing is said straightforwardly; no idea is expressed by the word which would most naturally occur to express it. The Latin language is ransacked for strange and out of the way terms; and when Latin fails, the writers draw on whatever store of Greek they enjoyed. They turn the whole into a piebald or mongrel language, something like the jargon of English lawyers in the seventeenth century.[178] When such a taste prevailed, it was no wonder that the names of King, Ealdorman, and Bishop were thought not |Prevalent use of Greek and other strange titles.| grand enough, and that the dignitaries of Church and State were described by strange, foreign, and often quite unintelligible titles, Roman, Greek, Persian, anything that came uppermost. Again, it is no less true that |This affectation hardly known in the English Charters.| this sort of affectation is almost wholly confined to the Latin charters. Those which are drawn up in English are for the most part simple and business-like, and in them the use of Imperial titles is much rarer.[179] Still I |The Imperial titles then conveyed a distinct meaning, and were not likely to be taken up at random.| cannot look on such titles as Basileus, Imperator, Imperator Augustus, as mere outbursts of swelling rhetoric. We must remember that they were all formal titles, titles to which a very distinct meaning was attached, titles which expressed a special position and which carried with them a special reverence, titles which were not then, as they are now, taken up at random by every upstart who, half in shame, half in self-conceit, shrinks from calling himself by the straightforward title of King. Any one who knows what the mediæval theory of the Empire was will understand that for a man to call himself Imperator Augustus was in those days no light matter. It was a thing which the vainest potentate would hardly do without some kind of reason for it. For an ordinary King to call himself Emperor was very nearly as strong a measure as it would have been for an ordinary Archbishop |Force of the word Basileus.| to call himself Pope. Basileus again, the favourite title of all, was one specially Imperial; by a caprice of language it had become the Greek equivalent of Imperator; it was the special title of the Eastern Emperors, the assumption of which by any other prince was held by them to be an infringement of their sole claim to represent the old Roman sovereignty. It is hard to believe that our Kings would have assumed a title surrounded by such associations, one which had been made the subject of many disputes, merely to make a sentence in a charter sound more swelling. It is hard to believe that they would have assumed it without a direct intention to claim thereby a distinctly Imperial sovereignty. Still, considering the fondness for Greek titles and Greek words of all kinds which the charters so constantly display, if the title of Basileus stood alone, it might not be safe to lay |Still more distinct import of the other titles.| too much stress upon it. But when we also meet with Cæsar, Imperator, and Augustus, it is impossible to believe that any title of the class was assumed without a meaning. Whatever we say of the Greek title of Basileus, these Latin titles at least were not vague descriptions borrowed from a strange and half unintelligible language. They were titles in familiar use, titles which every one understood, titles which the diplomacy of the age studiously applied to one potentate and to one potentate only. They were titles whose force and use must have been perfectly well known to every man who understood the Latin language. It is utterly inconceivable that such titles should have been |The titles meant to assert an Imperial position.| taken up at random. They could have had no object but to claim for the prince who assumed them a sovereignty of the same kind as that which belonged to the prince for whom they were commonly reserved.
Granting then that the assumption of the Imperial titles had a meaning, and that it was not a mere piece of rhetorical vanity, the second question follows;—Was there any real continuous Imperial tradition handed on from the days of the provincial Emperors, or were the Imperial titles simply assumed in imitation or rivalry or whatever it is to be called, of the contemporary German, Italian, and Byzantine Emperors? My own conviction is |No continuous tradition from the provincial Emperors.| very decidedly on the latter side.[180] I do not see how any continuous Imperial tradition could have been handed on from a Roman ruler in Britain to a West-Saxon King. Every circumstance of the English Conquest shuts out such a belief. It is likely enough that in Wales and Cornwall memories might still linger on from the days when Cæsars and Augusti reigned in Britain. It is likely enough that Aurelius or Arthur or any other Welsh leader may have put forward some kind of Imperial pretensions. But that these princes should have handed on such rights or claims to their English conquerors and destroyers seems to me utterly inconceivable. We have seen in the last Chapter how completely the English Conquest of Britain differed from all other Teutonic conquests. Elsewhere the conquerors became more or less Romanized; they rejoiced to receive from the reigning Emperor the investiture of some Roman dignity, some empty title of Consul or Patrician. From the assumption of the Imperial dignity itself our whole race shrank with a kind of superstitious awe till the spell was broken by the coronation of the great Charles. This last motive indeed was one which could have no effect upon the mind of Ælle or Ceawlin; but its place would be fully supplied by utter ignorance, carelessness, and contempt for the titles and institutions of the vanquished. Consul, Patrician, Augustus, all would be |Real position of the “Tyrants” or provincial Emperors.| alike unintelligible and despicable in their eyes. And, before we rule that an English Bretwalda or an Emperor of Britain was in any sense a successor of the so-called Tyrants[181] or provincial Emperors, let us remember what the position of these Tyrants or Emperors really was. Carausius, Maximus, Constantine, and the rest, never called themselves Emperors of Britain. According to the strict Imperial theory, an Emperor of Britain is an absurd impossibility; the titles assumed by Eadgar are in themselves as ridiculous as the titles assumed by those who in later times have called themselves “Emperor of Austria,” “Emperor of Hayti,” “Emperor of Mexico,” “Emperor of the French.” The Emperor is essentially Lord of Rome and of the World; and it was only by setting itself up as being in some sort another world that Britain could lay any claim to either a Pope or an Emperor of its own. |Not Emperors of Britain, but pretenders to the whole Roman Empire while possessing only a part.| But the very last thought of the old Tyrants or provincial Emperors would have been to claim any independent existence for Britain, Gaul, or any other part of the Empire of which they might have gained possession. Nothing could be further from their wishes than to set up anything like a separate national kingdom. They were pretenders to the whole Empire, if they could get it, and they not uncommonly did get it in the end. A man who began as tyrant often became a lawful Emperor, either by deposing the reigning Emperor or by |Carausius. 286–294.| being accepted by him as his colleague. Carausius, the first British Emperor according to this theory, held not only Britain but part of Gaul. It must not be thought that part of Gaul had been annexed to the dominions of a national sovereign of Britain, as Calais was by Edward the Third and Boulogne by Henry the Eighth. Britain and part of Gaul were simply those parts of the Roman Empire of which Carausius, a candidate for the whole Empire, had been able actually to possess himself. At last Carausius was accepted as a colleague by Diocletian and Maximian, and so became a lawful Cæsar and Augustus. |Allectus. 294–297.| Allectus was less fortunate; he never got beyond Britain, and instead of being acknowledged as a colleague, he was defeated and slain by Constantius. Constantius himself reigned in Britain; but no one would call Constantius a British Emperor, and Carausius was a British Emperor |Magnentius. 350.| just as little. Magnentius, Maximus, Constantine, were simply Emperors whose career began in Britain and not in |Maximus. 383–388.| Syria or Africa; they were not content to reign as British |Constantine. 407.| Emperors or Emperors of Britain; they speedily asserted their claim to as large a share of the Roman world as they had strength to win and to keep. Now it is perfectly possible, especially if any of the Welsh princes were descendants of Maximus, that a remembrance of these Emperors may have survived in Britain, and it is not unlikely that the conquest of Gaul by an Emperor who set forth from Britain may be the kernel of truth round which much of the mythical history of Arthur has |No analogy between these Emperors and the English Bretwaldas.| gathered. But it is certainly hard to understand the analogy between a Roman general, trying to obtain the whole Roman Empire, but who is unable to obtain more than Britain or Britain and Gaul, and a Teutonic chief, winning by his own sword some sort of superiority over the other princes, Celtic and Teutonic, within the isle of Britain. The essence of the position of Carausius and his successors is that they aspired to an universal dominion, and with such dominion any independent or national existence on the part of Britain would have been utterly inconsistent. The essence of the position of an English Bretwalda or Basileus is that he is the very embodiment of an independent national existence, that he aspires to a dominion purely insular, that he claims supremacy over everything within the island, but aspires to no conquests beyond it. He is a “Wielder of Britain,” Emperor so far as he is independent of either continental Empire, Emperor so far as he exercises Imperial power over vassal princes within his own island. I can see no likeness between him and a Roman general, who aspires to reign on the seven hills, but who is unluckily shut up against his will within the four seas of Britain.[182]
I infer then that the Imperial style which was affected by our Kings from Æthelstan onwards was not derived by any continuous tradition from any earlier British or Roman |Explanation to be found in the circumstances of the time.| Empire. It is in the circumstances of their own kingdom, and in the general circumstances of Europe during the ninth and tenth centuries, that we must look for the causes which led them to challenge Imperial rank. Ecgberht, |Charles and Ecgberht.| it should not be forgotten, was the friend, the guest, and no doubt the pupil, of Charles the Great.[183] Ecgberht |802.| was chosen to the West-Saxon throne two years after the Old Rome re-asserted, in the person of Charles, her right to choose her own Emperor. We cannot doubt that, through his whole career, he had Charles before him as his model, and that his object was to win for himself the same kind of dominion in his own island which Charles had won on the continent. But Ecgberht never assumed any higher style than that of King of the English, and even that, as far as we know, but once only.[184] In his days the unity of the Western Empire still remained unbroken under his benefactor and his benefactor’s son. It was enough for the West-Saxon King to feel himself well nigh the only independent prince in Western Christendom, |The plans of Ecgberht, checked yet in the end helped by the Danish invasions, were fully carried out by Eadward and Æthelstan.| without setting himself up as a rival Emperor. The schemes of Ecgberht, checked under his immediate successors by the Danish invasions, were in the end really promoted by those invasions, through the weakening and destruction of the other English kingdoms. At last his whole plan was carried out in the latest days of Eadward, and it was established in a more thoroughly organized form by Æthelstan. The whole isle of Britain was now, in different degrees of subjection and dependency, under the supreme dominion of the West-Saxon Kings. Now, and not before, begins the use of the Imperial titles. |Greatness of the position of Æthelstan.| Æthelstan, in whose reign the connexion between England and the continent was unusually busy, Æthelstan, Lord of all Britain, connected by marriage and friendship with all the greatest princes of Europe, could hardly fail to take in the greatness of his own position. He might well feel |His assumption of the Imperial style.| himself to be the peer of Emperors. He was the one prince whose dominions had never, since his own nation entered them, acknowledged any superiority in the lord of either Rome. Of our island at least might be said, whether in honour or in reproach,