The History of England, Volume I · David Hume
CHAPTER I.
This prince, who mounted the throne in 775 [d], had some great qualities, and was successful in his warlike enterprises against Lothaire, King of Kent, and Kenwulph, King of Wessex. He defeated the former in a bloody battle at Otford upon the Darent, and reduced his kingdom to a state of dependence: he gained a victory over the latter at Bensington in Oxfordshire; and conquering that county, together with that of Gloucester, annexed both to his dominions. But all these successes were stained by his treacherous murder of Ethelbert, King of the East Angles, and his violent seizing of that kingdom. This young prince, who is said to have possessed great merit, had paid his addresses to Elfrida, the daughter of Offa, and was invited with all his retinue to Hereford, in order to solemnize the nuptials. Amidst the joy and festivity of these entertainments, he was seized by Offa, and secretly beheaded; and though Elfrida, who abhorred her father's treachery, had time to give warning to the East Anglian nobility, who escaped into their own country, Offa, having extinguished the royal family, succeeded in his design of subduing that kingdom [e].
The perfidious prince, desirous of re-establishing his character in the world, and perhaps of appeasing the remorses of his own conscience, paid great court to the clergy, and practised all the monkish devotion so much esteemed in that ignorant and superstitious age. He gave the tenth of his goods to the church [f]; bestowed rich donations on the cathedral of Hereford, and even made a pilgrimage to Rome, where his great power and riches could not fail of procuring him the papal absolution. The better to ingratiate himself with the sovereign pontiff, he engaged to pay him a yearly donation for the support of an English college at Rome [g]; and, in order to raise the sum, he imposed the tax of a penny on each house possessed of thirty pence a year. This imposition being afterwards levied on all England, was commonly denominated Peter's Pence [h]: and though conferred at first as a gift, was afterwards claimed as a tribute by the Roman pontiff. Carrying his hypocrisy still farther, Offa, feigning to be directed by a vision from heaven, discovered at Verulam the relics of St. Alban, the martyr, and endowed a magnificent monastery in that place [i]. Moved by all these acts of piety, Malmesbury, one of the best of the old English historians, declares himself at a loss to determine [k] whether the merits or crimes of this prince preponderated. Offa died after a reign of thirty-nine years, in 794 [l]. [FN [d] Chron. Sax. p. 59. [e] Brompton, p. 750, 751, 752. [f] Spell. Conc. p. 308. Brompton, p. 776. [g] Spell. Conc. p. 230, 310, 312. [h] Higden, lib. 5. [i] Ingulph. p. 5. W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 4. [k] Lib. 1. cap. 4.]
This prince was become so considerable in the Heptarchy, that the Emperor Charlemagne entered into an alliance and friendship with him; a circumstance which did honour to Offa, as distant princes at that time had usually little communication with each other. That emperor being a great lover of learning and learned men, in an age very barren of that ornament, Offa, at his desire, sent him over Alcuin, a clergyman, much celebrated for his knowledge, who received great honours from Charlemagne, and even became his preceptor in the sciences. The chief reason why he had at first desired the company of Alcuin, was, that he might oppose his learning to the heresy of Felix, Bishop of Urgel, in Catalonia, who maintained that Jesus Christ, considered in his human nature, could more properly be denominated the adoptive, than the natural son of God [m]. This heresy was condemned in the council of Francfort, held in 794, and consisting of 300 bishops. Such were the questions which were agitated in that age, and which employed the attention not only of cloistered scholars, but of the wisest and greatest princes [n]. [FN [l] Chron. Sax. p. 65 [m] Dupin, cent. 8. chap. 4. [n] Offa, in order to protect his country from Wales; drew a rampart or ditch of a hundred miles in length, from Basinwerke in Flintshire, to the south- sea near Bristol. See SPEED'S DESCRIPTION OF WALES.]
Egfrith succeeded to his father Offa, but survived him only five months [o], when he made way for Kenulph, a descendant of the royal family. This prince waged war against Kent, and taking Egbert the king prisoner, he cut off his hands, and put out his eyes, leaving Cuthred, his own brother, in possession of the crown of that kingdom. Kenulph was killed in an insurrection of the East Anglians, whose crown his predecessor, Offa, had usurped. He left his son, Kenelm, a minor, who was murdered the same year by his sister, Quendrade, who had entertained the ambitious views of assuming the government [p]. But she was supplanted by her uncle Ceolulf; who, two years after, was dethroned by Beornulf. The reign of this usurper, who was not of the royal family, was short and unfortunate: he was defeated by the West Saxons, and killed by his own subjects, the East Angles [q]. Ludican, his successor, underwent the same fate [r]; and Wiglaff, who mounted this unstable throne, and found every thing in the utmost confusion, could not withstand the fortune of Egbert, who united all the Saxon kingdoms into one great monarchy. [FN [o] Ingulph. p. 6. [p] Ibid. p. 7. Brompton, p. 776 [q] Ingulph. p. 7. [r] Ann. Beverl. p. 87.]
Cuichelme and Cuthwin, his sons, governed jointly the kingdom, till the expulsion of the latter in 591, and the death of the former in 593, made way for Cealric, to whom succeeded Ceobald in 593, by whose death, which happened in 611, Kynegils inherited the crown. This prince embraced Christianity [z], through the persuasion of Oswald, King of Northumberland, who had married his daughter, and who had attained a great ascendant in the Heptarchy. Kenwalch next succeeded to the monarchy, and dying in 672, left the succession so much disputed, that Sexburga, his widow, a woman of spirit [a], kept possession of the government till her death, which happened two years after. Escwin then peaceably acquired the crown, and after a short reign of two years made way for Kentwin, who governed nine years. Ceodwalla, his successor, mounted not the throne without opposition, but proved a great prince according to the ideas of those times; that is, he was enterprising, warlike, and successful. He entirely subdued the kingdom of Sussex, and annexed it to his own dominions. He made inroads into Kent, but met with resistance from Widred, the king, who proved successful against Mollo, brother to Ceodwalla, and slew him in a skirmish.
Ceodwalla, at last, tired with wars and bloodshed, was seized with a fit of devotion; bestowed several endowments on the church; and made a pilgrimage to Rome, where he received baptism, and died in 689. Ina, his successor, inherited the military virtues of Ceodwalla, and added to them the more valuable ones of justice, policy, and prudence. He made war upon the Britons in Somerset, and having finally subdued that province, he treated the vanquished with a humanity hitherto unknown to the Saxon conquerors. He allowed the proprietors to retain possession of their lands, encouraged marriages and alliances between them and his ancient subjects, and gave them the privilege of being governed by the same laws. These laws he augmented and ascertained, and though he was disturbed by some insurrections at home, his long reign of thirty-seven years may be regarded as one of the most glorious and most prosperous of the Heptarchy. In the decline of his age he made a pilgrimage to Rome, and after his return, shut himself up in a cloister, where he died. [FN [y] Chron. Sax. p. 22. [z] Higden, lib. 5. Chron. Sax. p. 15. Ann. Beverl. p. 93. [a] Bede, lib 4 cap 12. Chron. Sax. p. 41.]
Though the kings of Wessex had always been princes of the blood, descended from Cerdic, the founder of the monarchy, the order of succession had been far from exact, and a more remote prince had often found means to mount the throne in preference to one descended from a nearer branch of the royal family. Ina, therefore, having no children of his own, and lying much under the influence of Ethelburga, his queen, left by will the succession to Adelard, her brother, who was his remote kinsman; but this destination did not take place without some difficulty. Oswald, a prince more nearly allied to the crown, took arms against Adelard; but he being suppressed, and dying soon after, the title of Adelard was not any farther disputed, and, in the year 741, he was succeeded by his cousin, Cudred. The reign of this prince was distinguished by a great victory, which he obtained by means of Edelhun, his general, over Ethelbald, King of Mercia. His death made way for Sigebert, his kinsman, who governed so ill, that his people rose in an insurrection and dethroned him, crowning Cenulph in his stead. The exiled prince found a refuge with Duke Cumbran, governor of Hampshire, who, that he might add new obligations to Sigebert, gave him many salutary counsels for his future conduct, accompanied with some reprehensions for the past. But these were so much resented by the ungrateful prince, that he conspired against the life of his protector, and treacherously murdered him. After this infamous action, he was forsaken by all the world, and skulking about in the wilds and forests, was at last discovered by a servant of Cumbran's, who instantly took revenge upon him for the murder of his master [b]. [FN [b] Higden, lib. 5. W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 2.]
Cenulph, who had obtained the crown on the expulsion of Sigebert, was fortunate in many expeditions against the Britons of Cornwall, but afterwards lost some reputation by his ill success against Offa, King of Mercia [c]. Kynehard also, brother to the deposed Sigebert, gave him disturbance, and though expelled the kingdom, he hovered on the frontiers, and watched an opportunity for attacking his rival. The king had an intrigue with a young woman who lived at Merton in Surrey, whither having secretly retired, he was on a sudden environed, in the night time, by Kynehard and his followers, and, after making a vigorous resistance, was murdered with all his attendants. The nobility and people of the neighbourhood, rising next day in arms, took revenge on Kynehard for the slaughter of their king, and put every one to the sword who had been engaged in that criminal enterprise. This event happened in 784. [FN [c] W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap 3.]
Brithric next obtained possession of the government, though remotely descended from the royal family, but he enjoyed not that dignity without inquietude. Eoppa, nephew to King Ina, by his brother Ingild, who died before that prince, had begot Eta, father to Alchmond, from whom sprung Egbert [d], a young man of the most promising hopes, who gave great jealousy to Brithric, the reigning prince, both because he seemed by his birth better entitled to the crown, and because he had acquired, to an eminent degree, the affections of the people. Egbert, sensible of his danger from the suspicions of Brithric, secretly withdrew into France [e], where he was well received by Charlemagne. By living in the court, and serving in the armies of that prince, the most able and most generous that had appeared in Europe during several ages, he acquired those accomplishments which afterwards enabled him to make such a shining figure on the throne; and familiarizing himself to the manners of the French, who, as Malmesbury observes [f], were eminent both for valour and civility above all the western nations, he learned to polish the rudeness and barbarity of the Saxon character: his early misfortunes thus proved of singular advantage to him. [FN [d] Chron. Sax. p. 16. [e] H. Hunting. lib. 4. [f] Lib. 2 cap. 11.]
It was not long ere Egbert had opportunities of displaying his natural and acquired talents. Brithric, King of Wessex, had married Eadburga, natural daughter of Offa, King of Mercia, a profligate woman, equally infamous for cruelty and for incontinence. Having great influence over her husband, she often instigated him to destroy such of the nobility as were obnoxious to her; and where this expedient failed, she scrupled not being herself active in traitorous attempts against them. She had mixed a cup of poison for a young nobleman who had acquired her husband's friendship, and had on that account become the object of her jealousy; but, unfortunately, the king drank of the fatal cup along with his favourite, and soon after expired [g]. This tragical incident, joined to her other crimes, rendered Eadburga so odious, that she was obliged to fly into France, whence Egbert was at the same time recalled by the nobility, in order to ascent the throne of his ancestors [h]. He attained that dignity in the last year of the eighth century. [FN [g] Higden, lib. 5. M. West. p. 152. Asser. in vita Alfredi, p. 3. ex edit. Camdeni. [h] Chron. Sax. A. D. 800. Brompton, p. 801.]
In the kingdoms of the Heptarchy, an exact rule of succession was either unknown or not strictly observed, and thence the reigning prince was continually agitated with jealousy against all the princes of the blood, whom he still considered as rivals, and whose death alone could give him entire security in his possession of the throne. From this fatal cause, together with the admiration of the monastic life, and the opinion of merit attending the preservation of chastity even in a married state, the royal families had been entirely extinguished in all the kingdoms except that of Wessex, and the emulations, suspicions, and conspiracies, which had formerly been confined to the princes of the blood alone, were now diffused among all the nobility in the several Saxon states. Egbert was the sole descendant of those first conquerors who subdued Britain, and who enhanced their authority by claiming a pedigree from Woden, the supreme divinity of their ancestors. But that prince, though invited by this favourable circumstance to make attempts on the neighbouring Saxons, gave them for some time no disturbance, and rather chose to turn his arms against the Britons in Cornwall, whom he defeated in several [i] battles. He was recalled from the conquest of that country by an invasion made upon his dominions by Bernulf, King of Mercia. [FN [i] Chron. Sax. p. 69.]
The Mercians, before the accession of Egbert, had very nearly attained the absolute sovereignty in the Heptarchy; they had reduced the East Angles under subjection, and established tributary princes in the kingdoms of Kent and Essex. Northumberland was involved in anarchy; and no state of any consequence remained but that of Wessex, which, much inferior in extent to Mercia, was supported solely by the great qualities of its sovereign. Egbert led his army against the invaders, and encountering them at Ellandun, in Wiltshire, obtained a complete victory, and by the great slaughter which he made of them in their flight, gave a mortal blow to the power of the Mercians. Whilst he himself, in prosecution of his victory, entered their country on the side of Oxfordshire, and threatened the heart of their dominions, he sent an army into Kent, commanded by Ethelwolf, his eldest son [k], and expelling Baldred, the tributary king, soon made himself master of that country. The kingdom of Essex was conquered with equal facility, and the East Angles, from their hatred to the Mercian government, which had been established over them by treachery and violence, and probably exercised with tyranny, immediately rose in arms, and craved the protection of Egbert [l].
Thus were united all the kingdoms of the Heptarchy in one great state, near four hundred years after the first arrival of the Saxons in Britain, and the fortunate arms and prudent policy of Egbert at last effected what had been so often attempted in vain by so many princes [n]. Kent, Northumberland, and Mercia, which had successively aspired to general dominion, were now incorporated in his empire, and the other subordinate kingdoms seemed willingly to share the same fate. His territories were nearly of the same extent with what is now properly called England; and a favourable prospect was afforded to the Anglo-Saxons, of establishing a civilized monarchy, possessed of tranquillity within itself, and secure against foreign invasion. This great event happened in the year 827 [o]. [FN [n] Chron. Sax. p. 71. [o] Ibid.]
The Saxons, though they had been so long settled in the island, seem not as yet to have been much improved beyond their German ancestors, either in arts, civility, knowledge, humanity, justice, or obedience to the laws. Even Christianity, though it opened the way to connexions between them and the more polished states of Europe, had not hitherto been very effectual in banishing their ignorance, or softening their barbarous manners. As they received that doctrine through the corrupted channels of Rome, it carried along with it a great mixture of credulity and superstition, equally destructive to the understanding and to morals. The reverence towards saints and relics seems to have almost supplanted the adoration of the Supreme Being. Monastic observances were esteemed more meritorious than the active virtues; the knowledge of natural causes were neglected from the universal belief of miraculous interpositions and judgments; bounty to the church atoned for every violence against society; and the remorses for cruelty, murder, treachery, assassination, and the more robust vices, were appeased, not by amendment of life, but by penances, servility to the monks, and an abject and illiberal devotion [p].
The reverence for the clergy had been carried to such a height, that, wherever a person appeared in a sacerdotal habit, though on the high way, the people flocked around him, and, showing him all marks of profound respect, received every word he uttered as the most sacred oracle [q]. Even the military virtues, so inherent in all the Saxon tribes, began to be neglected; and the nobility, preferring the security and sloth of the cloister to the tumults and glory of war, valued themselves chiefly on endowing monasteries, of which they assumed the government [r]. The several kings, too, being extremely impoverished by continual benefactions to the church to which the states of their kingdoms had weakly assented, could bestow no rewards on valour or military services, and retained not even sufficient influence to support their government [s]. [FN [p] These abuses were common to all the European churches, but the priests in Italy, Spain, and Gaul made some atonement for them, by other advantages which they rendered society. For several ages, they were almost all Romans, or, in other words, the ancient natives, and they preserved the Roman language and laws, with some remains of the former civility. But the priests in the Heptarchy, after the first missionaries, were wholly Saxons, and almost as ignorant and barbarous as the laity. They contributed, therefore, little to the improvement of society in knowledge or the arts. [q] Bede, lib 3. cap. 26. [r] Ibid. lib. 5. cap. 23. Epistola Bedae ad Egbert. [s] Bedae Epist. ad Egbert.]
Another inconvenience which attended this corrupt species of Christianity, was the superstitious attachment to Rome, and the gradual subjection of the kingdom to a foreign jurisdiction. The Britons, having never acknowledged any subordination to the Roman pontiff, had conducted all ecclesiastical government by their domestic synods and councils [t]; but the Saxons, receiving their religion from Roman monks, were taught at the same time a profound reverence for that see, and were naturally led to regard it as the capital of their religion. Pilgrimages to Rome were represented as the most meritorious acts of devotion. Not only noblemen and ladies of rank undertook this tedious journey [u], but kings themselves, abdicating their crowns, sought for a secure passport to heaven at the feet of the Roman pontiff; new relics, perpetually sent from that endless mint of superstition, and magnified by lying miracles, invented in convents, operated on the astonished minds of the multitude; and every prince has attained the eulogies of the monks, the only historians of those ages, not in proportion to his civil and military virtues, but to his devoted attachment towards their order, and his superstitious reverence for Rome. [FN [t] Append. to Bede, numb. 10. ex edit, 1722. Spellm. Conc. p. 108, 109. [u] Bede, lib. 5. c. 7.]
The sovereign pontiff, encouraged by this blindness and submissive disposition of the people, advanced every day in his encroachments on the independence of the English churches. Wilfrid, Bishop of Lindisferne, the sole prelate of the Northumbrian kingdom, increased this subjection in the eighth century, by his making an appeal to Rome against the decisions of an English synod, which had abridged his diocese by the erection of some new bishoprics [w]. Agatho, the pope, readily embraced this precedent of an appeal to his court; and Wilfrid, though the haughtiest and most luxurious prelate of his age [x], having obtained with the people the character of sanctity, was thus able to lay the foundation of this papal pretension. [FN [w] See Appendix to Bede, numb. 19. Higden, lib. 5. [x] Eddius, vita Vilfr. § 24, 60] The great topic by which Wilfrid confounded the imaginations of men was, that St. Peter, to whose custody the keys of heaven were intrusted, would certainly refuse admittance to every one who should be wanting in respect to his successor. This conceit, well suited to vulgar conceptions, made great impression on the people during several ages, and has not even at present lost all influence in the catholic countries.
Had this abject superstition produced general peace and tranquillity, it had made some atonement for the ill attending it; but besides the usual avidity of men for power and riches, frivolous controversies in theology were engendered by it, which were so much the more fatal, as they admitted not, like the others, of any final determination from established possession. The disputes excited in Britain were of the most ridiculous kind, and entirely worthy of those ignorant and barbarous ages. There were some intricacies, observed by all the Christian churches, in adjusting the day of keeping Easter, which depended on a complicated consideration of the course of the sun and moon: and it happened that the missionaries, who had converted the Scots and Britons, had followed a different calendar from that which was observed at Rome in the age when Augustine converted the Saxons. The priests also of all the Christian churches were accustomed to shave part of their head; but the form given to this tonsure was different in the former from what was practised in the latter. The Scots and Britons pleaded the antiquity of THEIR usages; the Romans, and their disciples, the Saxons, insisted on the universality of THEIRS.
That Easter must necessarily be kept by a rule, which comprehended both the day of the year and age of the moon, was agreed by all; that the tonsure of a priest could not be omitted without the utmost impiety, was a point undisputed; but the Romans and Saxons called their antagonists schismatics, because they celebrated Easter on the very day of the full moon in March, if that day fell on a Sunday, instead of waiting till the Sunday following; and because they shaved the forepart of their head from ear to ear, instead of making that tonsure on the crown of the head, and in a circular form. In order to render their antagonists odious, they affirmed, that once in seven years, they concurred with the Jews in the time of celebrating that festival [y]; and that they might recommend their own form of tonsure, they maintained that it imitated symbolically the crown of thorns worn by Christ in his passion, whereas the other form was invented by Simon Magus, without any regard to that representation [z].
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.