553. “On Norðwalum,” say the Chronicles; so in Florence “septemtrionalem Britanniam.” These phrases do not mean North Wales as opposed to South, still less North Britain, in the sense of Scotland, but simply what we now call Wales as opposed to Cornwall. The part ravaged was doubtless the northern coast of the Bristol Channel.
554. Cod. Dipl. iii. 311.
555. That is, if we may trust the doubtful charters in Cod. Dipl. iii. 309, 311.
557. See the Chronicles (followed by Florence) for the years 998 and 999. I have worked the two descriptions together.
558. For the suggestion of the general line of thought in this paragraph I am indebted to Lappenberg, ii, 161.
560. Compare on this head a remarkable passage of William of Malmesbury, ii. 165. “Verumtamen multa mihi cogitanti mirum videtur cur homo, ut a majoribus accepimus, neque multum fatuus, neque nimis ignavus, in tam tristi pallore tot calamitatum vitam consumpserit. Cujus rei caussam si quis me interroget, non facile respondeam; nisi ducum defectionem, ex superbia regis prodeuntem.” This hardly goes to the root of the matter; but William’s perplexity clearly shows that the traditional character of Æthelred did not paint him as a mere idiot, but as a man with the capacity, though only the bare capacity, for better things. See also Palgrave’s Hist. of England and Normandy, iii. 103.
561. Such I understand to be the object of the departure of the Danish fleet. The Chronicles and Florence are quite colourless. “Se unfrið flota wæs ðæs sumeres gewend to Ricardes rice.” “Danorum classis præfata hoc anno Nortmanniam petit.” But Roger of Wendover (i. 434) inserts the qualification “hostiliter,” which is followed by Lappenberg (429. Eng. Tr. ii. 161). On this whole matter see Appendix EE.
562. On this Cumbrian expedition see Appendix FF.
565. See Appendix EE.
566. See Appendix SS.
568. On this marriage and its results see the opening of the sixth book of Henry of Huntingdon. He clearly sees the connexion of events, and he as clearly believes that William’s kindred with Emma gave him some right to the English crown. “Ex hac conjunctione regis Anglorum et filiæ ducis Normannorum, Angliam juste, secundum jus gentium, Normanni et calumniati sunt et adepti sunt.” This is perhaps the strangest theory of international law on record.
569. Herod. v. 97. αὗται δὲ αἱ νέες ἀρχὴ κακῶν ἐγένοντο Ἕλλησί τε καὶ βαρβάροισι.
570. No writer mentions this but Geoffrey Gaimar (4126. M. H. B. 814), who is followed by Sir F. Palgrave (iii. 109). Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 751 E) and Æthelred of Rievaux (X Scriptt. 362) distinctly make him send messengers. The statement of the Chronicles, which of course would be decisive, is less distinct, but it looks the same way; “And ða ón ðam ilcan lenctene com seo hlæfdige, Ricardes dohtor, hider to lande.” “And on ðysan ylcan geare, on lencten, com Ricardes dohtor Ymma hider to lande.”
571. I cannot answer positively for Harold the son of Cnut, but we shall come across evidence which makes it probable that he visited Denmark.
572. Chron. 855, and Florence (after Asser) more at length.
573. Greg. Turon. iv. 26; Bæda, i. 25.
575. Flor. Wig. A. 1002. “Eodem anno Emmam, Saxonice Ælfgivam vocatam, ducis Nortmannorum primi Ricardi filiam, rex Ægelredus duxit uxorem.” On the use of the word “Saxonice” see Appendix A. On the name Ælfgifu see vol. ii. Appendix BB, and vol. iii. Appendix S.
The Lady signs a great number of charters during the reigns of her husbands and sons by the name of Ælfgifu (in various spellings). “Emma” is rare, but we find it in Cod. Dipl. iv. 1; iv. 64; vi. 172, and once “Ælfgyfa Imma,” iv. 101. Of a charter of 997 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 299), where “Ælfgyua Ymma regina” makes a grant to Christ Church, I can make nothing. Mr. Kemble does not mark it as spurious, but the date shows that there is something wrong about it.
576. Geoffrey Gaimar (4138. M. H. B. 815), who is followed by Sir F. Palgrave (iii. 110), gives her as “drurie” or “dowaire,” Rockingham, Rutland, and the city of Winchester itself. In the course of our story we shall find both Emma and her successor Eadgyth specially connected with Winchester, and we shall also find that Emma unhappily possessed the city of Exeter or some rights over it.
577. Eadgar the Ætheling was elected in 1066, but never crowned.
578. Will. Malms. ii. 165. “Etiam in uxorem adeo protervus erat ut vix eam cubili dignaretur, sed cum pellicibus volutatus regiam majestatem infamaret. Illa quoque conscientiam alti sanguinis spirans in maritum tumebat.”
I cannot light on Sir Francis Palgrave’s authority for making Emma fly back to Normandy within a year or two after her marriage (iii. III).
579. Will. Malms. ii. 177.
580. I have here tried to put together the account in the Winchester Chronicle (C.C.C.C. clxxiii.), which alone mentions Pallig and the Hampshire campaign, with the account of the operations in Devonshire given in the other versions. Æthelingadene has been taken for Alton in Hampshire, but the name Æthelingadene would hardly become Alton, and the place is in Sussex. See Cod. Dipl. iii. 324.
581. The men of higher rank are commonly foremost. See above, p. 274. Compare the battle of Strassburg in Ammianus (xvi. 12). “Exsiluit subito ardens optimatium globus, inter quos decernebant et reges, et sequente vulgo inter alios agmina nostrorum irrupit.”
582. Their descriptions, as given in the Winchester Chronicle, are worth noticing. There is Wulfhere the Bishop’s Thegn, and two other thegns who are called from their dwelling-places, Leofric æt Hwitciricean (Whitchurch) and Godwine æt Worðige (Worthy Martyr), Bishop Ælfsige’s son. This is Ælfsige, Bishop of Winchester, who was translated to Canterbury in 950, but died of the cold on the Alps on his way to Rome to get his pallium. (Flor. Wig. 959.)
584. I get this from the words of the Winchester Chronicle, which mentions one part of the story only, combined with those of Florence, who mentions only the other part. The Winchester writer mentions the campaign in Hampshire, the treason of Pallig, the burning of Teignton, the peace, and adds, “and hy foran þa þanon tó Exanmuðan.” Florence has, “Memoratus paganorum exercitus, de Normannia Angliam revectus, ostium fluminis Eaxæ ingreditur.” This seems to be a satisfactory way of explaining it. The other Chronicles have simply, “Her com se here to Exanmuðan.”
585. The language of the Chronicles is remarkable. The fleet comes to Exmouth, “and eodon þa up to þære byrig.” There was no need to mention what borough. But Florence adds “urbem Exanceastram.”
586. See W. Malms. ii. 134; Palgrave, English Commonwealth, i. 463.
587. Mr. Kerslake very ingeniously traced out the boundary between the English and Welsh parts of Exeter in a paper read at the Exeter meeting of the Archæological Institute in 1873. The Welsh quarter, which lies to the north, is marked by the dedication of the churches within it to Welsh saints.
588. Thorpe, i. 220, 228; Schmid, 152, 156.
589. W. Malms. u. s. “Urbem igitur illam, quam contaminatæ gentis repurgio defæcaverat, turribus munivit, muro ex quadratis lapidibus cinxit.” Eadward the Elder had before fortified Towcester with a stone wall (“lapideo muro,” Fl. Wig. 918), but the wall of Exeter is distinctly said to have been of squared stone. The difference between a hedge and a wall was known ages before, when Ida fortified Bamburgh. “Sy wæs ærost mid hegge betined, and þær æfter mid wealle” (Chron. 547); but this “wall” need not have been of stone.
In short our accounts help us to four stages in the history of fortification. First, the hedge or palisade; secondly, the wall of earth, or of earth and rough stones combined; thirdly, the wall of masonry, as at Towcester; fourthly, the wall of squared stones, as at Exeter. The fifth stage, the Norman Castle, does not appear till the reign of Eadward the Confessor.
590. Chron. in anno. “Þær fæstlice feohtende wæron, ac him man swyðe fæstlice wiðstod and heardlice.”
591. Fl. Wig. in anno. “Dum murum illius destruere moliretur, a civibus urbem viriliter defendentibus repellitur [paganorum exercitus].”
592. Ib. “Unde nimis exasperatos more solito,” &c.
593. “Æt Peonnho” in the Chronicles; there seems no reason to doubt that this is the place.
594. Fl. Wig. in anno. “Angli pro militum paucitate Danorum multitudinem non ferentes.”
595. Cod. Dipl. iii. 318. “Talibus mandatorum Christi sententiis a meis frequentius præmonitus consiliariis, et ab ipso summo omnium largitore bonorum dirissimis hostium graviter nos depopulantium creberrime angustiatus flagellis, ego Æðelredus rex Anglorum [an unusually lowly style], ut supradictæ merear particeps fore promissionis, quoddam Christo et sancto suo, germano scilicet meo, Eadwardo, quem proprio cruore perfusum per multiplicia virtutum signa, ipse Dominus nostris mirificare dignatus est temporibus,” &c. &c. So afterwards, “quatenus adversus barbarorum insidias ipsa religiosa congregatio cum beati martyris cæterorumque sanctorum reliquiis,” &c., and “adepto postmodum, si Dei misericordia ita providerit, pacis tempore.” The observance of Eadward’s mass-day was ordered in 1008.
596. Cod. Dipl. vi. 140.
597. Ib. iii. 322. Ælfthryth could not have been dead very long, as she signs the charter of 999, in Cod. Dipl. iii. 312.
598. So William of Malmesbury, ii. 165; “Exagitabant illum umbræ fraternæ, diras exigentes inferias.” Yet Æthelred had no share in the murder; he only reaped, quite unconsciously, the advantage of his mother’s crime.
599. The joint action of the King and the Witan is well marked in the Chronicles; “Þa sende se cyning to þam flotan Leofsige ealdorman; and he þa, þæs cyninges worde and his witena, grið wið hi gesette.” Leofsige signs a charter of 997 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 304) as “Orientalium Saxonum dux.” He probably succeeded Brihtnoth. See above, p. 270. We find another mention of him in Cod. Dipl. vi. 129.
600. Chron. and Fl. in anno. See also Cod. Dipl. iii. 356, where the story is told. Æfic was “dish-thegn” to the young Æthelings. See Cod. Dipl. iii. 293. He had a brother Eadwine or Eadwig, mentioned in the same will, of whom we shall hear again. In Cod. Dipl. iii. 356 Æthelred calls him “præfectus meus, quem primatem inter primates meos taxavi.”
601. Cod. Dipl. iii. 356. “Inii consilium cum sapientibus regni mei petens, ut quid fieri placuisset de illo decernerent, placuitque in communes nobis eum exsulare et extorrem a nobis fieri cum complicibus suis.” Leofsige’s lands, after some difficulties on the part of his widowed sister Æthelflæd, who was herself banished, were granted in 1012 to Godwine, Bishop of Rochester, as personal property. There must be a mistake when “Leofsige ealdorman” signs a doubtful charter as late as 1006. Cod. Dipl. iii. 351.
602. “On þam ilcan lenctene.” I do not know why Mr. Thorpe translates it “autumn.”
603. To this meeting belongs the grant to the Thegn Godwine (Cod. Dipl. vi. 143), as it is signed by “Ælfgifu conlaterana regis.” But the following document (No. 1297) belongs to an earlier meeting, I suspect to an intermediate one. This year Eadwulf Archbishop of York died and was succeeded by Wulfstan Bishop of London, not Abbot Wulfstan, as Florence has it. Now the Charter quoted above (Cod. Dipl. iii. 322) is signed by Eadwulf and by Wulfstan as Bishop. This of course belongs to the first meeting. The Charter to Godwine, which the Lady signs, is also signed by Wulfstan as Archbishop. But No. 1297 (Cod. Dipl. vi. 145) is signed by Wulfstan as Bishop, and not by Eadwulf. This seems to point to an intermediate Gemót, held while the see of York was vacant, and at which Wulfstan was probably nominated to it.
604. On the details of the massacre, see Appendix GG.
605. See Appendix GG.
607. Florence mentions him at Exeter, the Chronicles not till later in the year, but they seem to take him for granted.
608. The Chronicles have, “her was Exanceaster abrocen þunruh þone Franciscan ceorl Hugan, ðe seo hlæfdige hire hæfde geset to gerefan.” But Florence has, “per insilium, incuriam, et traditionem Nortmannici comitis Hugonis, quem regina Emma Domnaniæ præfecit.” Henry of Huntingdon (752 B) says, “Hugonem Normannum, quem ibi regina Emma vicecomitem [gerefan?] statuerat, in perniciem compegerunt.” Florence seems to have read eorl where our copies of the Chronicles have ceorl; also he seems to make Hugh Ealdorman of Devonshire, while in the Chronicles he is only reeve of Exeter. The “Frenchmen” of the Chronicles may always be Normans or not; most likely Hugh was a Norman.
The “insilium” of Florence is an attempt to express in Latin the negative form “unræd.” See above, p. 261.
609. Flor. Wig. “Civitatem Exanceastram infregit, spoliavit, murum ab orientali usque ad occidentalem portam destruxit.” This does not imply the complete destruction of the city. But Henry of Huntingdon says, “urbem totam funditus destruxerunt,” which is doubtless an exaggeration.
610. “Alfricus dux supra memoratus” says Florence; it is clear that this is Ælfric, the traitor of 992.
612. Chron. 1003. “Þa gebræd he hine seocne, and ongan he hine brecan to spiwenne, and cwæð þæt he gesicled wære.”
613. Like Lydiadas at Ladokeia and Philopoimên at Sellasia. See Hist. Fed. Gov. i. 450, 497.
614. Flor. Wig. “A suis inimicis sine pugna divertit mœstissimus.” The Chronicles, and after them Florence and Henry, quote a proverb, “Þonne se heretoga wacað, þonne bið eall se here swiðe gehindred.”
615. See many passages in Grote’s History of Greece, especially the remarks on the death of Epameinôndas; x. 477.
616. Il. xx. 216;
Πολυπίδακος however would be the most inappropriate of epithets for Old Sarum, which, in the days of its greatness, was “well provided otherwise of all commodities, but wanted water so unreasonably as (a strange kind of merchandise) it was there to be sold.” (Godwin, translating William of Malmesbury, Gest. Pont. p. 183.)
617. The Chronicler here, though writing in prose, gets poetical, and calls the ships “horses of the wave”—“þær he wiste his yð hengestas.”
618. On Ulfcytel, see Appendix HH.
619. Chron. in anno. “Þa gerædde Ulfcytel wið þa witan on East-Englum.” Flor. Wig. “Cum majoribus East-Angliæ habito concilio.” See Kemble, ii. 257.
620. So I understand the narrative in the Chronicles, which seems to imply that the measures of Ulfcytel were taken as soon as the Danes began their march, but before they reached Thetford, while Florence does not mention Ulfcytel as doing anything till after he hears of the burning of the town.
621. I modernize the words of the Chronicles. “Swa hi sylfe sædon, þæt hi næfre wyrsan handplegan on Angelcynne ne gemetton, þonne Ulfcytel him to brohte.” So Florence, “ut enim ipsi testati sunt, durius et asperius bellum in Anglia numquam experti sunt quam illis dux Ulfketel intulerat.” Cf. Will. Malms. ii. 165.
622. Chron. in anno. “Þær wearð East-Engla folces seo yld [yldesta] ofslægan.” See on the sense of this word and its cognates, p. 75.]
623. Cod. Dipl. iii. 339; vi. 152.
624. On the rise of Eadric, see Appendix II.
625. On Wulfgeat, see Appendix II.
626. See Appendix KK.
627. “Id est Oppidi Canis,” says Florence. Perhaps Godwine was only a butcher, as Lappenberg makes him. This is the more usual mediæval sense of Carnifex, but the surname sounds as if he were an official person.
628. I give this story a place in the text with fear and trembling. Did it not rest on the authority of Florence, I should at once cast it aside as legendary. The hunting-party has a very mythical sound, being in fact part of the legend of Eadgar and Ælfthryth. (Cf. Dio, lxix. 2; ὡς ἐν θήρᾳ δῆθεν ἐπιβεβουλευκότες αὐτῷ.) And one might be a little suspicious as to Eadric’s position at Shrewsbury. Why should Eadric be more at home there than Ælfhelm? The teller of the tale might almost seem to have looked on Eadric as already Ealdorman of the Mercians, and as therefore naturally called on to receive his Northumbrian brother in one of the chief towns of his government. But for Florence to insert, like William of Malmesbury, a mere piece of a ballad without even the attraction of a miracle, is most unlikely. Florence, as I shall presently show, is not infallible, but few writers are less given to romance. I therefore accept the story, though I do not feel perfect confidence in it.
629. This story comes from a separate tract by Simeon of Durham on the Earls of the Northumbrians (X Scriptt. 79). By some strange confusion, it is there put under the year 979, the first year of Æthelred. If it happened at all, it must have happened in this year, the only one which suits the position of the King, Bishop, and Earl spoken of. Ealdhun became Bishop in 990, and removed the see to Durham in 995. Malcolm began to reign in 1004; a Northumbrian earldom became vacant in 1006. This fixes the date. The authority of Simeon is, I think, guaranty enough for the general truth of the story, and the silence of the Chronicles and Florence is not conclusive as to a Northumbrian matter. The story also derives some sort of confirmation from a passage of Fordun (Scot. Hist. iv. 39, p. 683, Gale), which is very vague and confused, but which at least implies warfare of some kind between Malcolm and Uhtred. “Othredum itaque comitem Anglicum, sed Danis subditum, cujus inter eos simultatis exortæ caussam nescio, Cumbriam prædari conantem, receptis prædis, juxta Burgum bello difficili superavit.”
631. See Appendix KK.
632. The heads of the handsomest of the slain Scots, with their long twisted hair, were exposed on the walls of Durham. They were previously washed by four women, each of whom received a cow for her pains. So at least says Simeon, p. 80.
633. See Appendix II.
635. Florence says, “Cum iis fortiter dimicare statuit;” but there are no words exactly answering to them in the Chronicles.
636. So Florence, again without direct support from the Chronicles; “illi cum eo palam confligere nullatenus voluerunt.”
638. Chron. “And se here com þa ofer þa Martines mæssan to his fryðstole Wihtlande, ... and þa to þam middan wintran eodon him to heora gearwan feorme, út þurh Hamtunscire into Bearrucscire to Readingon.” So H. Hunt. M. H. B. 752 D. “Quæ parata erant hilariter comedentes.”
639. Chronn. “And wendon him ða andlang Æscesdune to Cwichelmes hlæwe.” It has been distinctly shown by Mr. James Parker that Æscesdún means the whole ridge which the Danes marched along from the east to the barrow at Cwichelmes hlæw. On the Scirgemót—was it not something more than a mere Scirgemót?—at Cwichelmeshlæw, see Cod. Dipl. iii. 292. The prophecy comes from the Chronicles; it is left out by Florence.
640. The Chronicler here becomes very emphatic and eloquent, setting down no doubt what he had seen with his own eyes. Florence, harmonizing eighty or ninety years after, is much briefer.
641. See Appendix II.
642. Thorpe, i. 304; Schmid, 220.
643. Cap. 2. “And úres hláfordes gerǽdnes and his witena is, þæt man cristene menn and unforworhte of earde ne sylle, ne huru on hǽðene leóde, ac beorge man geórne, þæt man þá sáwla ne forfare, þa Crist mid his ágenum lífe gebohte.” The same practice is forbidden in the Capitularies of Charles the Bald. See Waitz, iv. 288. So Smaragdus de Via Regia, c. 30 (D’Achery, i. 253); “Prohibe ergo, clementissime rex, ne in regno tuo captivitas fiat.”
644. The witeðeow seems to be forbidden by a capitulary of Charles the Great. Aquis, 813 (Pertz, iii. 189); “Ut vicarii eos qui pro furto se in servitio tradere cupiunt non consentiant.”
645. This seems to be implied in the word unforworhte—in the Latin text (Schmid, 237) insontem.
646. It occurs in nearly the same words in the Statute of Enham, c. 9, and in the Laws of Cnut, Thorpe, i. 376.
647. Cap. 16 (Thorpe, i. 308). “And Sce Eâdwardes mæsse-dæg witan habbað gecoren, þæt man freólsian sceal ofer eal Engla-land on xv. Kal. Aprilis.” Mark the way in which the Witan, as a matter of course, pass an ordinance on this matter, which a century or two later would have been held to be a matter of purely ecclesiastical concern.
648. Cap. 34, 35. “Ealle we scylan ǽnne God lúfian and weorðian, and ǽnne cristendóm georne healdan, and ælcne hǽðendóm mid ealle áweorpan.”
“And utan ǽnne cyne-hláford holdlíce healdan; and líf and land samod ealle werian, swá wel swá we betst magan, and God ealmihtigne inwerdre heortan fultumes biddan.”
649. Will. Malms. ii. 156.
651. Cap. 27.
652. Cap. 28.
653. Cap. 26.
654. Thorpe, i. 314; Schmid, 226.
655. It is headed, “Be Witena gerǽdnessan.” The statute begins, “Ðis sindon þá gerǽdnessa, þe Engla rǽd-gifan gecuran and gecwǽdan, and geornlice lǽrdan, þæt man scolde healdan.” And many clauses begin, “And witena gerǽdnes is.” Mr. Kemble (ii. 212) remarks, “If it were not for one or two enactments referring to the safety of the royal person and the dignity of the crown, we might be almost tempted to imagine that the great councillors of state had met, during Æðelred’s flight from England, and passed these laws upon their own authority, without the King.”
This is possible, and even tempting, but on the whole I think they must belong to the years 1007–9. The great importance given to naval preparations seems distinctly to refer them to this time. After the return of Æthelred from Normandy in 1014 we read of no attempt at naval warfare.
657. See Appendix LL.
658. Cod. Dipl. iii. 352.
659. On the ship-money see Mr. Bruce’s Prefaces to the Calendars of State Papers for 1634–5, pp. xxv. et seqq., and for 1635, pp. x. et seqq.
660. Hen. Hunt. M. H. B. 753 A.
661. Will. Gem. v. 7. But this writer makes Swegen sail to Northumberland immediately after the massacre in 1002, whereas he did not go thither till 1013. So it is impossible to fix the time to which the treaty should be referred. William may have confounded York and Exeter, or the treaty may belong to a time later than Swegen’s invasion of Northumberland.
662. Will. Gem. v. 8; Roman de Rou, 6868.
663. I here follow the words of the Chronicles almost literally.
664. See Appendix HH.
665. See Appendix MM.
666. Chron. “And þohte þæt he him micles wordes wyrcan sæolde.”
667. “Þa ðis þus cuð wǽs tó þam oðerum scipum þær se cyng wǽs, hu ða oþre geferdon, hit wæs þa swilc hit eall rædleas wǽre; and ferde sé cyning him hám, and þá ealdormen and ða heahwitan, and forleton þa scipu ðús leohtlice; and þæt folc þa þæt on ðam scipon wæron fercodon [þa scypo] eft to Lundene, and leton ealles þeodscypes geswinc ðus leohtlice fórwurðan, and næs sé sige na betere þe eall Angelcyn tó hopode.”
668. On the career and character of Thurkill, see Appendix NN.
669. See Chron. and Florence in anno, and cf. Appendix NN.