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V.

Now as the Nestorians abounded over Persia, Chaldæa, Mesopotamia, Syria, Arabia, and Egypt 34, and as Alfred's mission was to one of their Indian colonies, and to do honour to the apostle whom they so much reverenced, and whose remains they professed to have preserved, his ambassadors would of course experience all the friendship and protection which their leaders could display or obtain. If, from Jerusalem, the Saxon bishop took his journey to the Euphrates, to sail to India from the Persian gulph; or if, from Alexandria, he went to Suez, and thence navigated from the Red Sea to the coast of Malabar; yet both tracts abounded with Nestorians, and of course with persons willing and able to instruct, to guide, and to protect him.

WE may therefore infer, from all these facts, that there is nothing improbable, nor even romantic, in Alfred's embassy to India. The authorities which affirm it are respectable, and from the credibility which they derive from the other circumstances alluded to they may be trusted.

S4 See Assemanni, 81.

BOOK VI.

CHAP. I.

The Reign of EDWARD the Elder.

1.

ALFRED had been called to the crown in pre- CHAP. ference to the children of his elder brother. Their Edward pretensions were equally neglected at his death; the Elder. and Edward, his son, who had distinguished himself against Hastings, was chosen by the nobles as their king.

ETHELWOLD, one of the disregarded princes, in opposition to the decision of the Anglo-Saxon witena, aspired to the crown, and seized Wimburn, declaring that he would keep it or perish.2 But when the king advanced with an army against him, he fled, at night, to the Northumbrian Danes; and exciting their sympathy, was appointed their sovereign at York, over all their other kings and chiefs. 3

By this incident he became formidable both to Edward and his people. The Northmen colonists by occupying all Northumbria and East Anglia, independently of Edward, possessed one-third part of England; and if Ethelwold's abilities had equalled his ambition, or if Edward had been a weaker character, the Northmen might have gained the sovereignty of the island. But Ethelwold

A primatis electus. Ethelwerd, 847. He was crowned at the Whitsuntide after his father's death. Ibid.

Sax. Ch. 100.

Ibid.
Flor. 337.

2 Sax. Ch. 100. Hen. Hunt.352. Matt. West. 351. At Wimburn, he possessed himself of a nun by force, and married her. 3 Hen. Hunt. 352. Matt. West. 351. The king replaced the nun in her retreat.

901.

905.

BOOK

VI. Edward

905.

5

seems not to have long pleased his new subjects; for he was afterwards on the seas a pirate', and the Elder. sailed to France in quest of partisans to distress the king. He returned with a great fleet, and subdued Essex'; persuading the East Anglian Danes to join him, he entered Mercia, and ravaged as far as Cricklade. He even passed the Thames into Wessex, and plundered in Wiltshire; but the Anglo-Saxons not supporting him, he returned. The army of Edward followed him, and ravaged, in retaliation, to the fens of Lincolnshire. When the king withdrew, he directed his forces not to separate. The Kentish troops neglected his orders, and remained after the others had retired. wold eagerly attacked them with superior numbers. The Kentish men were overpowered, but their defence was desperate. Their chiefs fell; and the author of the quarrel also perished in his victory.7 His fate released the island from the destructive competition; and a peace, two years afterwards, restored amity between the Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Danes.

8

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Ethel

7. Sax. Ch. 101. Hunt. 352. Eohric, the Anglo-Danish king, fell in the struggle. Ethelwerd places this battle at Holme, 848. Holme in Saxon means a river island. In Lincolnshire there is one called Axelholme. Camd. 474. The printed Saxon Chronicle makes a battle at Holme in 902, besides the battle wherein Ethelwold fell; but the MS. Chron. Tib. b. iv. omits the battle in 902. So the MS. Tib. b. i. With these Florence agrees; and therefore the passage of 902., in the printed Chronicle, may be deemed a mistake.

8 Sax. Chron. Matt. West. adds, that the king immediately afterwards reduced those who had rebelled against him: Et maxime cives Londonienses et Oxionienses, p. 352. In 905, Ealhswythe, the widow of Alfred, died; and her brother, Athulf, an ealdorman, in 903. Sax. Ch. 101. She had founded a monastery of nuns at Winchester. Mailros, 146.

A

I.

910.

BUT war was soon renewed between the rival CHAP. With his Mercians and West-Saxons, Edward powers. Edward, in a five weeks' depredation of Northum- the Elder. bria, destroyed and plundered extensively. In the next year, the Northerns devastated Mercia. misconception of the Danes brought them within the reach of the king's sword. While he was tarrying in Kent, he collected one hundred ships, which he sent to guard the south-eastern coast 10, probably to prevent new invasions. The Danes, fancying the great body of his forces to be on the seas, advanced into the country to the Avon, and plundered without apprehension, and passed onwards to the Severn. Edward immediately sent a powerful army to attack them; his orders were obeyed. The Northerns were surprised into a fixed battle at Wodensfield, and were defeated, with the slaughter of many thousands. Two of their kings fell, brothers of the celebrated Ingwar, and therefore children of Ragnar Lodbrog, and many earls and officers." The Anglo-Saxons sung hymns on their great victory. 12

12

He

THE event of this battle established the superiority of Edward over his dangerous neighbours, and checked the progress of their power. pursued the plans which Alfred had devised for the protection of his throne. As the Danes possessed the north of England, from the Humber to

9 Sax. Ch. 102. Hunt. 352. The MS. Saxon Chronicles mention, that the English defeated at this time the Danes at Totanheale. Florence and Hoveden place this conflict and place in Staffordshire. 10 Sax. Ch. 102.

11 Flo. 340. Ethelw. 848. Sax. Ch. 103.

12 Hunt. 353.

Ethelwerd's account of Edward's battles have several poetical phrases, as if he had translated some fragments of these songs.

VI.

Edward the Elder.

910.

BOOK the Tweed, and the eastern districts, from the Ouse to the sea, he protected his own frontiers by a line of fortresses. In the places where irruptions into Mercia and Wessex were most practicable, and therefore where a prepared defence was more needed, he built burghs or fortifications. He filled these with appointed soldiers, who, when invaders approached, marched out in junction with the provincials to chastise them. No time was lost in waiting for the presence of the king, or of the earls of the county: they were empowered to act of themselves on every emergency; and by this plan of vigilance, energy, and co-operation, the invaders were so easily defeated, that they became a derision to the English soldiery. 13 Ethelfleda cooperated in thus fortifying the country. She became a widow in 912; but she continued in the sovereignty of Mercia1, and displayed great warlike activity.

THE position of these fortresses, which soon became inhabited towns, demonstrates their utility. Wigmore, in Herefordshire; Bridgnorth and Cherbury, in Shropshire; Edesbury, in Cheshire; and Stafford and Wedesborough, in Staffordshire; were well chosen to coerce the Welsh upon the western limits. Runcorne and Thelwall, in Cheshire, and Bakewell, in Derbyshire, answered the double purpose of awing Wales, and of protecting that part of the north frontier of Mercia, from the incursions of the Northumbrian Danes. Manchester, Tamworth in Staffordshire, Leicester, Nottingham, and Warwick, assisted to strengthen Mercia on

13 Malmsb. 46.
14 Sax. Ch. 103.
before his death.

Ethelred, her husband, had been long infirm Hunt. 353.

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