The English chronicles have accurately fixed for us the date of the first raid of the Northmen. In 787, three strange ships were seen off the Dorsetshire coast. From them landed a small band of marauders, who sacked the port of Wareham, and then hastily put to sea and vanished from sight. This insignificant descent was only the first of a series of dreadful ravages. A few years later, in 793, a greater band descended on Lindisfarne, the holy island of St. Cuthbert off the Bernician coast, the greatest and richest monastery of northern England. Thenceforth raids came thick and fast, till at last the sword of the invaders had turned half England into a desert.
The Vikings.
The people of Scandinavia were at this moment in much the same state of development in which the English had been three centuries before, ere yet they left the shores of Saxony and Schleswig. The Danes and Norwegians were a hardy seafaring race, divided into many small kingdoms, always at war with each other. They were still wild heathens, and practised piracy as the noblest occupation for warriors and freemen. Just as Hengist and Aella had sailed out with their war-bands in search of plunder and land in the fifth century, so the chiefs of the Northmen were now preparing to lead out their followers into the western seas. For two centuries the onslaughts of the Vikings—as these piratical hordes were called—were fated to be the curse of Christendom. The Vikings in their early days were led, not by the greater kings of Denmark and Norway, but by leaders chosen by the pirate bands for their military abilities. Such chiefs were obeyed on the battle-field alone; off it they were treated with small respect by their comrades. There were dozens of these sea-kings on the water, each competing with the others for the largest following that he could get together.
Their raids grow more permanent.
The Northmen were at first seeking for nothing more than plunder. Western Christendom offered them a great field, because the Franks, English, and Irish of the ninth century almost all dwelt in open towns, had very few forts and castles, and had built enormous numbers of rich defenceless monasteries and churches. The Dane landed near a wealthy port or abbey, sacked it, and hastily took to sea again, before the countryside had time to muster in arms against him.
But after a time the continued successes of their first raids encouraged the Northmen to take the field in much greater numbers, so that fleets of a hundred ships, with eight or ten thousand men aboard them, were found sailing under some noted sea-king. When they grew so strong they took to making raids deeper into the land, boldly facing the force of an English shire or a Frankish county if they were brought to bay. When numbers were equal they generally had the advantage in the fray, for they were all trained warriors, and were fighting for their lives. Against them came only a rustic militia fresh from the plough. If beset by the overwhelming strength of a whole kingdom, they fortified themselves on a headland, an island, or a marsh-girt palisade, and held out till the enemy melted homeward for lack of provisions.
Sufferings of Northumbria and Mercia.—Reign of Aethelwulf.
As long as Ecgbert lived he kept the Danes away from his kingdom of Wessex, dealing them heavy blows whenever they dared to march inland. The greatest of these victories was one gained at Hengistesdun (Hingston Down), near Plymouth, over the combined forces of the Danes and the revolted Welsh of Cornwall (835). But though he was able to protect his own realm, Ecgbert was unable to care for his Mercian and Northumbrian vassals; they were too far off, and his authority over them was too weak. So northern England was already suffering fearfully from the Viking raids even before Ecgbert died. His son Aethelwulf, who succeeded him as king of Wessex, was a pious easy-going man, destitute of his father's strength and ability. If the Mercians and Northumbrians had not been so desperately afflicted at the moment by the ravages of the Vikings, they would have undoubtedly taken the opportunity to throw off the yoke of the Wessex kings. But their troubles made them cautious of adding civil war to foreign invasion, and so Aethelwulf was allowed to keep his father's nominal suzerainty over the whole of England. More than once he led a West-Saxon army up to aid the Mercians, but he could not be everywhere at the same time, and while he was protecting one point, the Danes would slip round by sea and attack another. Wessex itself was no longer secure from their incursions, and the chronicles record several disastrous raids carried out on its coast.
All through King Aethelwulf's reign (836-858) the state of England was growing progressively worse. Commerce was at a standstill, many of the larger towns had been burnt by the Danes, the greatest of the monasteries had been destroyed, and their monks slain or scattered; with them perished the wealth and the learning which had made the English Church the pride of Western Christendom. The land was beginning to sink back into poverty and barbarism, and there seemed to be no hope left to the English, for the Viking armies grew larger and bolder every year.
The Danes threaten permanent occupation.