There still hangs a romantic flavour around old-world Hythe which places it in sharp contrast to its big, up-to-date, bustling neighbour across the water. From Hythe, too, one may push one’s way up to Redbridge, in gig or dinghy, and thence onward, through green, flower-decked meadows and past rush-grown pools, with a background of swelling, wooded uplands, to historic Romsey, with its abbey (founded in 907 by Edward the Elder), which saw the coming of the Norman conquerors and knew also what terror marked the inroads of the Danes.
Southampton, the “Liverpool of the South,” whose now ruinous and picturesque walls once did such excellent service against the French pirates of long ago, and, indeed, probably saved, not alone the town, but also the county from being sacked and over-run with fire and sword, retains many historic memories in spite of the bustling spirit of modern commerce which now pervades it.
The history of the town dates from the far-off times of the Roman occupation, at a period far anterior to the date of the Christian era. Of this occupation and of the possession of the surrounding country by the Roman legions of Julius Cæsar and his successors there have been many evidences discovered in recent and former times within the confines of the town. The pulling down of ancient buildings, the making of sewers, and excavations for dock extensions have often resulted in the discovery of beautiful ornaments and burnt clay vessels dating from Roman times. And there also exist traces of the Roman road which led from Southampton northward to Winchester, and of the Roman fortified camp of Clausentum hard by at Bitterne on the River Itchen.
The first authentic record of the Saxon occupation of the town, then known as “Hanton,” “Hantune,” or “Old Hampton,” occurs in the ninth century, when the place would appear, from existing chronicles and records, to have been one of considerable importance. Several authorities, indeed, ascribe the protecting walls, and the castle and keep, situated in the north-western corner of the town, to the Saxons. Of these things, unhappily, but few traces now remain. The town, with its sheltered harbour and its rising prosperity, did not escape the attention of the Danes, who, at various times during the ninth and tenth centuries, proved such scourges to the various places on the south coast. The town, in fact, might almost have been considered at those periods as a landing-place or base from which the Danes ravaged the surrounding country and directed their attacks upon Winchester and other inland towns.
During the reigns of Ethelwolf, about 838, and Ethelbert, about 860, so well carried out were the raids of these Danish pirates, and so large was the force taking part in them, that even inland Winchester itself was reached along the ancient Roman road and plundered.
To antiquarians the fact that in the reign of Athelstan, 928, two mints were set up at Southampton will be evidence of its size and importance, and doubtless the existence of these money-making institutions had not a little to do with the fact that a few years later the Danes again made one of their descents upon the town and plundered it without mercy. Edmund Ironside, in consequence of the hold these invaders succeeded in getting upon the country, had on the decease of Ethelred to consent to a division of it with the Danish King.
During the reign of King Canute in the following century, when the Anglo-Danish Government was firmly established, Southampton was made the principal Royal residence, and, at any rate, traditionally there are many spots in the town associated with the name of this ruler. Several places in the neighbourhood of Southampton—Lymington, for one—claim to be the scene of King Canute’s historical rebuke to his courtiers. Tradition, however, places the spot at Canute’s Point, a projecting spit of land at the mouth of the Itchen.
Regarding the incident to which we have referred we cannot do better than quote Camden, who himself derived his information from that old chronicler Huntingdon. By him we are told that the king, “having caused his chair to be placed on the shore as the tide was coming in,” said to the latter, “Thou art my subject, and the ground I sit on is mine, nor can any resist me with impunity. I command thee, therefore, not to come up on my ground nor wet the soles of the feet of thy master.” But the sea, immediately coming up, wetted his feet, and he, springing back, said, “Let all the inhabitants of the earth know how weak and frivolous is the power of princes; none deserves the name of king but He whose will heaven, earth, and sea obey by an eternal decree.” “Nor,” we are told, “would he ever afterwards wear his crown, but placed it on the head of the crucifix.”
This tale, like that of the heroic Sir Bevis of Southampton (who conquered the thirty-foot high giant) and his squire Ascupart, which is inshrined in a ballad and in chap-books, may perhaps be mythical to a high degree; there are however stirring stories connected with the ancient port which may be accepted as being founded upon actual facts.
The Hanton of Danish piratical raids, burned and ravaged by those terrible scourges of our eastern and southern coasts, was, however, destined to be rebuilt again and again, and eventually become one of the great ports of the Western world and the locale of an extensive passenger traffic.