The Last Two Saxon Kings of England.
A notable personage, Earl Godwin, was the chief influence in this reversion to the old race. Who was Earl Godwin? In 1020, Canute, having come to trust his English subjects, and wishing to mix the two nations in the administration of affairs, created Godwin Earl of the West Saxons. He was an able administrator, an eloquent speaker, of high courage, and these qualities generally exerted for the freedom and independence of his country; and he came to have the greatest personal influence of any man in England. Little is known with certainty of his birth, but he married Gytha, the sister of Ulf, a Danish Earl, who had married a sister of Canute, and whose son, Sweyne, became after the death of Hardicanute, King of Denmark. Godwin had several children, all of whom occupy conspicuous places in the history of this eleventh century; the second son, Harold, being the last of the Saxon Kings of England.
Earl Godwin became the King’s chief minister, and the King married his daughter Edith. The King lived an ascetical, monkish life, and they had no children. Edward had been born in England, but on the deposition of his father Ethelred, his mother Emma took him to the court of her brother Robert, Duke of Normandy; and he had lived there through the reigns of Canute and Harold, coming back to England with Hardicanute. He was thus thoroughly Norman-French in his speech and his manners,—very fond of his young cousin, Duke William, and he now gathered French people about him, and promoted them to office and estate. The French language and fashions prevailed at Edward’s court; and in this language lawyers began to write deeds, and the clergy to preach sermons. These foreign modes, so different from the English, gave great displeasure to the old nobles; and Earl Godwin—although three of his sons had been advanced to earldoms—rebelled against the King’s authority. After some fighting, the Earl’s army deserted him at Dover, and he had to seek refuge in Flanders. His daughter, the queen, was deprived of her lands, and sent to a nunnery of which the King’s sister was abbess.
At the outbreak of the revolt, Edward asked aid from William; the aid was not required, but William, then twenty-three years of age, came, with a retinue of knights to his cousin’s court. They were hospitably entertained, and it is said that the King promised to bequeath his crown to William.
Things did not go on well during Godwin’s absence, so when, in 1052, he and his sons appeared with a fleet in the Channel, there was an under-current of mutiny in the King’s ships under their French commanders. “Should Englishmen fight with and slay Englishmen, that outlandish folks might profit thereby?” So the King had to take Godwin back into his honours and estates: but he died next year, leaving to Harold his titles, and his place as foremost man in England.
And now the dangers of a disputed succession loomed over England. The Witan advised Edward to send for Edward, the son of Edmund Ironside, then an exile in Hungary. Edward came with his family—a son Edgar, and three daughters: but he died shortly after his arrival. About this time Harold was shipwrecked on the Norman coast; William kept him prisoner for some time, and under circumstances of fraud and chicanery, an oath was extorted from him to favour William’s pretensions to the English throne. Edward died on 5th January, 1046, at the age of 65. He was buried next day in Westminster Abbey, which he had built. There, in the centre of the magnificent pile, is his shrine, for, about a century after his death, he was canonised, and awarded the title of Confessor.
And now, who was to be chosen King of England? For a choice had to be made. Edgar the Atheling was quite young, and was hardly English—having been born and brought up in a foreign land; so, in these unsettled times, he was not thought of. The Witan were obliged to do what had never previously been done in English history, and has never been done since (except partially, in the case of calling William of Orange to reign jointly with his wife Mary),—to choose a King not of the blood royal.
But it was not a difficult choice. Amongst the nobles of England, one man, Harold, stood foremost, both in strength of position and in personal qualifications. He had now for years been the chief administrator—a born ruler of men—energetic yet prudent—valiant without ferocity; and he had been the later recommendation of Edward as his successor. So, on the very day of Edward’s burial, Harold was crowned in the same Abbey, King of England.
Harold’s troubles began almost from the day of his coronation. William sent demands for the crown; Edward had promised it to him, the King’s nearest of kin, and Harold had sworn over concealed relics, to help him to it. It was replied that the crown was not disposable by Edward; all he could do was to recommend a successor to the Witan; and this he had done in favour of Harold: Edward’s kinship to William was on the maternal side, not on that of the blood-royal of England: and as to Harold’s oath, it was extorted by force and fraud, and was entirely nil in that it pledged Harold to do what he had no right to do,—the diversion of the crown from the will of the English people. William stormed and threatened, and, in building ships and organising troops, made active preparations for the invasion of England.
Harold set about preparations for the defence of his kingdom. He spent the summer in the south, getting ready a fleet and army. He had to wait too long for William; provisions falling short in the beginning of September, he had to disband the most of his troops. And meantime another foe, and this one of his own house, was intriguing against him—his brother Tostig. Harold had given Tostig the earldom of Northumberland; but he reigned so badly that the people rose and expelled him,—Harold sanctioning the expulsion. Tostig now went to Harold Hardrada, the King of Norway, and induced him to invade England. A fleet was sent up the Humber; York was captured, and there Harold Hardrada was proclaimed King. But English Harold—hastily getting an army together, met the invaders at Stamford Bridge; and there, on September 25th, a fierce battle was fought,—ending in victory for England; the Norwegian King and the traitorous Tostig both being slain.
But in meeting the Norwegian invasion, the Anglo-Saxons lost England. Four days later, William, with a banner consecrated by the Pope, landed near Pevensey in Sussex. Harold was seated at a banquet in York when the evil news reached him. And now, the last in a life of turmoil, Harold began his march through England; collecting on his way what troops he could, he reached the hill Senlac, nine miles from Hastings, on the 13th of October. Here he marshalled his army—nearly all on foot—and next day the Normans attacked him. It was a well-contested fight; but discipline and knighthood prevailed. The setting sun witnessed a routed English army, its leader slain, and the Norman William, conqueror of England.
The eleventh century, so momentous in English history, was also an important one in the history of Scotland. The Norse energy and ability to rule shewed itself in the Earls of Orkney, who dominated the Hebrides, and Ross, Moray, Sutherland, and Caithness. About 1010, Earl Sigurd married the daughter of King Malcolm II. In 1014, Sigurd went over to Ireland, to aid the Danish kings there against Brian Boru. In a battle at Clontarf, the Danes were defeated—Sigurd being slain—and the Celtic dynasty was restored. Sigurd’s territories were divided amongst two sons by a former marriage, and an infant son, Thurfinn, by Malcolm’s daughter; to the last was assigned the earldom of Caithness. In 1018—taking advantage of the distracted state of England in this, the first year of Canute’s reign—Malcolm invaded upper Northumbria; by a victory at Carham, near Coldstream on the Tweed, the Lothians were brought more under his rule. But after Canute’s return from his pilgrimage to Rome, he invaded Scotland, and received the submission of Malcolm and two under-kings, Mælbæthe and Jehmarc.
Malcolm II. was succeeded by his grandson Duncan,—a daughter’s son by a secular abbot of Dunkeld. Duncan’s right was disputed by his cousin Thurfirm, who was now Earl of Orkney. Duncan went north to check the advance of his kinsman, and was defeated near the Pentland Firth. But an invasion of Danes under King Sweyn on the coast of Fife, and which was probably made in aid of Thurfirm, was defeated by Macbeth, an able general of Duncan’s, and who, it is said, was also a grandson of Malcolm’s, by another daughter. Duncan was probably—as in Shakespeare’s great drama—killed by Macbeth. Certainly, to the exclusion of Duncan’s two sons, Malcolm and Donaldbane, Macbeth seized the crown. He reigned seventeen years—1040 to 1057—being contemporary with the Confessor,—a glowing description of whom, posing as a saint with miraculous powers of healing, occurs in Shakespeare’s play. When, on the return of Earl Godwin from exile, there was a general exodus of the Normans, whom Edward had placed in high positions, many of them went to Scotland, and were well received by Macbeth. He appears historically, in spite of our great poet’s portraiture of him, to have been an able monarch; and he might be said to represent Celtic supremacy in Scotland, as against the tendency to subvert it by Anglo-Saxon alliances. Duncan had married the daughter of Siward, Earl of Northumbria, and Macbeth had to resist the attacks of Siward on behalf of his grandson Malcolm. Malcolm spent his boyhood in Cumbria, and his youth at the court of the Confessor. He appealed to Edward for help to gain his father’s throne, and by an English army under Siward, and Macduff, the powerful Thane of Fife, and Tostig, the son of Earl Godwin, Macbeth was overthrown and slain.
Malcolm III., named Canmore—“big-head”—reigned thirty-five years, 1058 to 1093. The Norman victory at Hastings brought to the Scottish court, then at Dunfermline, a number of English refugees—these were a leaven of higher culture and refinement amongst the rude thanes and chieftains, and tended to further the advance of civilization, of letters and the arts of life, throughout the northern kingdom. And numbers of Normans also came and took service under Malcolm—and thus it came about that not only in England, but in Scotland also, most of the noble families have in them a strain of Norman blood.
Amongst the refugees were Edgar Atheling and his sisters, grand-children of Edmund Ironside. Malcolm married Margaret, the eldest sister; she was a noble woman, learned, pious, and charitable, doted upon by her husband, and ever influencing his fierce nature for good. Thus connected by birth with the heir of the old race of English Kings, Malcolm invaded Northumberland on behalf of Edgar; but William was too strong for him, and in turn invaded Scotland. William marched as far north as Abernethy, where he forced Malcolm to do him homage. William never really subjugated Northumbria north of the Tyne, but built Newcastle as a border fortress. After the death of William in 1087, Malcolm made other invasions of Northumbria, and to consolidate the possession of Lothian, he removed the seat of government to Edinburgh. In 1093, he made a desperate attempt to gain the counties of Northumberland and Cumberland; but, whilst besieging the border fortress of Alnwick, he was attacked, defeated, and killed by a Norman army.
The marriage of Henry, the youngest son of the Conqueror, with Matilda, daughter of Malcolm, and niece of Edgar Atheling, united the Norman and the older English royal lines. Henry’s son William was, in 1120, drowned in “The White Ship,” and his only other child, Maud, was thus the rightful heir to the throne. But the proud Norman barons had not been used to female rule; so, after Henry’s death, in 1135, Stephen, a son of the Conqueror’s daughter Adela, was made King.
David I., youngest son of Malcolm Canmore, succeeding his two elder brothers, was at this time King of Scotland, and he took up the cause of his niece Maud. In 1138 he invaded Northumberland, penetrating into Yorkshire. At Northallerton he was met and defeated in a battle called “Of the Standard.” It is said that he was gaining the day, when an English soldier cut off the head of one of the slain, placed it on a spear, and called out that it was the head of the King of Scots, thus causing a panic in the Scottish army which the King, riding amongst it without his helmet, vainly tried to overcome. After peace, David was allowed to retain Northumberland and Durham, excepting the fortresses of Newcastle and Bamborough. He was so good a king that after his death, in 1153, he was canonised.
David was succeeded by his twelve years old grandson, Malcolm. He was, from his gentle disposition, called The Maiden. He was greatly attached to the English King, Henry II., accompanying him to France as a volunteer in his army. Malcolm’s Scottish subjects were afraid of the influence of the older sovereign. Homage rendered by the Scottish kings for their possessions in England, was always liable to be construed into national homage; and it was notified that Malcolm had gone beyond mere homage, and had absolutely resigned these possessions. So Malcolm had a strong message from Scotland, asking him to return; this he did, was again in favour with his people, but died in 1165, being then only twenty-four years old.
He was succeeded by his brother William. He was called The Lion because he used as his armorial bearing a red lion—rampant—that is in heraldry, standing upon its hind legs; and this has ever since been the heraldric cognizance of Scottish royalty. In 1174, for the recovery of his ancestral possessions in Northumberland, William invaded England. One day riding in a mist with a slender retinue, he came upon a body of four hundred English horse. At first he thought that this was a portion of his own army; seeing his mistake he fought boldly, but was overpowered and made prisoner. He was taken to Northampton and conducted into King Henry’s presence, with his feet tied together under his horse’s belly. Now Henry had just been to Canterbury doing penance at the tomb of the murdered Thomas à Becket; he had walked barefoot through the city, prostrated himself on the pavement before the shrine, passed the whole night in the church, and in the morning had himself scourged by the priests with knotted cords. And now, as a token that his penance had reconciled him to heaven, and obtained the saint’s forgiveness, here was his enemy, the King of Scots, delivered into his hands.
Henry shewed no generosity towards his captive. He demanded to have homage paid him as Lord Paramount of Scotland. In his prison, first at Richmond, and then at Falaise in Normandy, William’s spirit was so far broken that he acceded to Henry’s demands, and the Scottish parliament, to obtain the release of their king, ratified a dishonourable treaty. At York the required homage was publicly paid; and for fifteen years it continued in full force. But in 1189, Henry’s son, Richard, the Lion-hearted, on the eve of his crusade to the Holy Land,—desirous to place his home affairs in safety during his absence, renounced the claim of general homage extorted from William,—reserving only such homage as was anciently rendered by Malcolm Canmore.
And in almost unbroken peace between the two countries for upwards of a century, the generous conduct of Richard bore good fruit. Then a course of accidents, which nearly extinguished the Scottish royal family, gave an English monarch the opportunity for reviving old pretensions to supremacy, and was thus the cause of renewed wars and national animosities.
William died in 1214, and was succeeded by his son, Alexander III. He reigned thirty-five years, and being of good parts, and with considerable force of character, did much for the progress of Scotland in the arts of civilization. He was succeeded in 1249 by his son, Alexander III., then only eight years of age. He married the daughter of Henry III., but the children of the marriage died young. The chief trouble of his reign was from Norwegian invasions, but in 1263 Alexander defeated Haco, King of Norway, at Largs, at the mouth of the Firth of Clyde. By this victory Scotland obtained possession of the Hebrides and the Isle of Man. Alexander was accidentally killed in 1263; riding too near the edge of a cliff on the Fifeshire coast, near Kinghorn, in the dusk of the evening, his horse stumbled and threw him over the cliff.