In this famous battle, the English, under their warlike king, defeated a most threatening combination of foes; Anlaf, the Danish prince, having united his forces to those of Constantine, King of the Scots, and the Britons, or Welsh of Strathclyde and Cambria. So proud were the English of the victory, that their writers break into poetry when they come to that portion of their annals. Such is the case with the writer of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, from whom the following verses are abridged. They have been already partially quoted in the text.
Here Athelstane king,
Of earls the lord,
To warriors the ring-giver,
Glory world-long
Had won in the strife,
By edge of the sword,
At Brunanburgh.
The offspring of Edward,
The departed king,
Cleaving the shields.
Struck down the brave.
Such was their valour,
Worthy of their sires,
That oft in the strife
They shielded the land
‘Gainst every foe.
The Scottish chieftains,
The warriors of the Danes,
Pierced through their mail,
Lay dead on the field.
The field was red
With warriors’ blood,
What time the sun,
Uprising at morn,
The candle of God,
Ran her course through the heavens;
Till red in the west
She sank to her rest.
Through the live-long day
Fought the people of Wessex,
Unshrinking from toil,
While Mercian men,
Hurled darts by their side.
Fated to die
Their ships brought the Danes,
Five kings and seven earls,
All men of renown,
And Scots without number
Lay dead on the field.
Constantine, hoary warrior,
Had small cause to boast.
Young in the fight,
Mangled and torn,
Lay his son on the plain.
Nor Anlaf the Dane
With wreck of his troops,
Could vaunt of the war
Of the clashing of spears.
Or the crossing of swords,
with the offspring of Edward.
The Northmen departed
In their mailed barks,
Sorrowing much;
while the two brothers,
The King and the Etheling,
To Wessex returned,
Leaving behind
The corpses of foes
To the beak of the raven,
The eagle and kite,
And the wolf of the wood.
The Chronicle simply adds, “A.D. 937.—This year King Athelstan, and the Etheling Edmund, his brother, led a force to Brimanburgh, end there fought against Anlaf, and, Christ helping them, they slew five kings and seven earls.”
[v] Murder of Edmund.
A certain robber named Leofa, whom Edmund had banished for his crimes, returning after six years’ absence, totally unexpected, was sitting, on the feast of St. Augustine, the apostle of the English, and first Archbishop of Canterbury, among the royal guests at Pucklechurch, for on this day the English were wont to regale, in commemoration of their first preacher; by chance, too, he was placed near a nobleman, whom the king had condescended to make his guest. This, while the others were eagerly carousing, was perceived by the king alone; when, hurried with indignation, and impelled by fate, he leaped from the table, caught the robber by the hair, and dragged him to the floor; but he, secretly drawing a dagger from its sheath, plunged it with all his force into the breast of the king as he lay upon him. Dying of the wound, he gave rise over the whole kingdom to many fictions concerning his decease. The robber was shortly torn limb from limb by the attendants who rushed in, though he wounded some of them ere they could accomplish their purpose. St. Dunstan, at that time Abbot of Glastonbury, had foreseen his ignoble end, being fully persuaded of it from the gesticulations and insolent mockery of a devil dancing before him. Wherefore, hastening to court at full speed, he received intelligence of the transaction on the road. By common consent, then, it was determined that his body should be brought to Glastonbury, and there magnificently buried in the northern part of the tower. That such had been his intention, through his singular regard for the abbot, was evident from particular circumstances. The village, also, where he was murdered, was made a offering for the dead, that the spot, which had witnessed his fall, might ever after minister aid to his soul,—William of Malmesbury, B, ii. e. 7, Bohn’s Edition.
[vi] A. D. 556—Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
[vii] Wulfstan, and the See of Dorchester.
When Athelstane was dead, the Danes, both in Northumberland and Mercia, revolted against the English rule, and made Anlaf their king. Archbishop Wulfstan, then of York, sided with them, perhaps being himself of Danish blood. The kingdom was eventually divided between Edmund and Aulaf, until the death of the latter. When Edred ascended the throne—after the murder of Edmund, who had, before his death, repossessed himself of the whole sovereignty—the wise men of Northumberland, with Wulfstan at their head, swore submission to him, but in 948 rebelled and chose for their king Eric of Denmark. Edred marched at once against them, and subdued the rebellion with great vigour, not to say riqour. He threw the archbishop into prison at Jedburgh in Bernicia. After a time he was released, but only upon the condition of banishment from Northumbria, and he was made Bishop of Dorchester, a place familiar to the tourist on the Thames, famed for the noble abbey church which still exists, and has been grandly restored.
Although Dorchester is now only a village, it derives its origin from a period so remote that it is lost in the mist of ages. It was probably a British village under the name Cair Dauri, the camp on the waters; and coins of Cunobelin, or Cassivellaunus, have been found in good preservation. Bede mentions it as a Roman station, and Richard of Cirencester marks it as such in the xviii. Iter, under the name Durocina.
Its bishopric was founded by Birinus, the apostle of the West Saxons; and the present bishoprics of Winchester, Salisbury, Exeter, Bath and Wells, Worcester and Hereford, were successively taken from it, after which it still extended from the Thames to the Humber.