Edmund Ironside, A.D. 1016.As there was no good order in the English affairs, though continually alarmed, they were always surprised; they were only roused to arms by the cruelty of the enemy, and they were only formed into a body by being driven from their homes: so that they never made a resistance until they seemed to be entirely conquered. This may serve to account for the frequent sudden reductions of the island, and the frequent renewals of their fortune when it seemed the most desperate. Sweyn, in the midst of his victories, dies, and, though succeeded by his son Canute, who inherited his father's resolution, their affairs were thrown into some disorder by this accident. The English were encouraged by it. Ethelred was recalled, and the Danes retired out of the kingdom; but it was only to return the nest year with a greater and better appointed force. Nothing seemed able to oppose them. The king dies. A great part of the land was surrendered, without resistance, to Canute. Edmund, the eldest son of Ethelred, supported, however, the declining hopes of the English for some time; in three months he fought three victorious battles; he attempted a fourth, but lost it by the base desertion of Edric, the principal author of all these troubles. It is common with the conquered side to attribute all their misfortunes to the treachery of their own party. They choose to be thought subdued by the treachery of their friends rather than the superior bravery of their enemies. All the old historians talk in this strain; and it must be acknowledged that all adherents to a declining party have many temptations to infidelity.
Edmund, defeated, but not discouraged, retreated to the Severn, where he recruited his forces. Canute followed at his heels. And now the two armies were drawn up which were to decide the fate of England, when it was proposed to determine the war by a single combat between the two kings. Neither was unwilling; the Isle of Alney in the Severn was chosen for the lists. Edmund had the advantage by the greatness of his strength, Canute by his address; for when Edmund had so far prevailed as to disarm him, he proposed a parley, in which he persuaded Edmund to a peace, and to a division of the kingdom. Their armies accepted the agreement, and both kings departed in a seeming friendship. But Edmund died soon after, with a probable suspicion of being murdered by the instruments of his associate in the empire.
The Danish race.
Canute.
Harold I., A.D. 1035.
Hardicanute, A.D. 1035
The Saxon line restored.Canute, on this event, assembled the states of the kingdom, by whom he was acknowledged King of all England. He was a prince truly great; for, having acquired the kingdom by his valor, he maintained and improved it by his justice and clemency. Choosing rather to rule by the inclination of his subjects than the right of conquest, he dismissed his Danish army, and committed his safety to the laws. He reëstablished the order and tranquillity which so long a series of bloody wars had banished. He revived the ancient statutes of the Saxon princes, and governed through his whole reign with such steadiness and moderation that the English were much happier under this foreign prince than they had been under their natural kings. Canute, though the beginning of his life was stained with those marks of violence and injustice which attend conquest, was remarkable in his latter end for his piety. According to the mode of that time, he made a pilgrimage to Rome, with a view to expiate the crimes which paved his way to the throne; but he made a good use of this peregrination, and returned full of the observations he had made in the country through which he passed, which he turned to the benefit of his extensive dominions. They comprehended England, Denmark, Norway, and many of the countries which lie upon the Baltic. Those he left, established in peace and security, to his children. The fate of his Northern possessions is not of this place. England fell to his son Harold, though not without much competition in favor of the sons of Edmund Ironside, while some contended for the right of the sons of Ethelred, Alfred and Edward. Harold inherited none of the virtues of Canute; he banished his mother Emma, murdered his half-brother Alfred, and died without issue after a short reign, full of violence, weakness, and cruelty. His brother Hardicanute, who succeeded him, resembled him in his character; he committed new cruelties and injustices in revenging those which his brother had committed, and he died after a yet shorter reign. The Danish power, established with so much blood, expired of itself; and Edward, the only surviving son of Ethelred, then an exile in Normandy, was called to the throne by the unanimous voice of the kingdom.
Edward the Confessor, A.D. 1041.
A.D. 1053
A.D. 1066.This prince was educated in a monastery, where he learned piety, continence, and humility, but nothing of the art of government. He was innocent and artless, but his views were narrow, and his genius contemptible. The character of such a prince is not, therefore, what influences the government, any further than as it puts it in the hands of others. When he came to the throne, Godwin, Earl of Kent, was the most popular man in England; he possessed a very great estate, an enterprising disposition, and an eloquence beyond the age he lived in; he was arrogant, imperious, assuming, and of a conscience which never put itself in the way of his interest. He had a considerable share in restoring Edward to the throne of his ancestors; and by this merit, joined to his popularity, he for some time directed everything according to his pleasure. He intended to fortify his interest by giving in marriage to the king his daughter, a lady of great beauty, great virtue, and an education beyond her sex. Godwin had, however, powerful rivals in the king's favor. This monarch, who possessed many of the private virtues, had a grateful remembrance of his favorable reception in Normandy; he caressed the people of that country, and promoted several to the first places, ecclesiastical and civil, in his kingdom. This begot an uneasiness in all the English; but Earl Godwin was particularly offended. The Normans, on the other hand, accused Godwin of a design on the crown, the justice of which imputation the whole tenor of his conduct evinced sufficiently. But as his cabals began to break into action before they were in perfect ripeness for it, the Norman party prevailed, and Godwin was banished. This man was not only very popular at home by his generosity and address, but he found means to engage even, foreigners in his interests. Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, gave him a very kind reception. By his assistance Godwin fitted out a fleet, hired a competent force, sailed to England, and having near Sandwich deceived the king's navy, he presented himself at London before he was expected. The king made ready as great a force as the time would admit to oppose him. The galleys of Edward and Godwin met on the Thames; but such was the general favor to Godwin, such the popularity of his cause, that the king's men threw down their arms, and refused to fight against their countrymen in favor of strangers. Edward was obliged to treat with his own subjects, and in consequence of this treaty to dismiss the Normans, whom he believed to be the best attached to his interests. Godwin used the power to which he was restored to gratify his personal revenge, showing no mercy to his enemies. Some of his sons behaved in the most tyrannical manner. The great lords of the kingdom envied and hated a greatness which annihilated the royal authority, eclipsed them, and oppressed the people; but Godwin's death soon after quieted for a while their murmurs. The king, who had the least share in the transactions of his own reign, and who was of a temper not to perceive his own insignificance, begun in his old age to think of a successor. He had no children: for some weak reasons of religion or personal dislike, he had never cohabited with his wife. He sent for his nephew Edward, the son of Edmund Ironside, out of Hungary, where he had taken refuge; but he died soon after he came to England, leaving a son called Edgar Atheling. The king himself irresolute in so momentous an affair, died without making any settlement. His reign was properly that of his great men, or rather of their factions. All of it that was his own was good. He was careful of the privileges of his subjects, and took care to have a body of the Saxon laws, very favorable to them, digested and enforced. He remitted the heavy imposition called Danegelt, amounting to 40,000l. a year, which had been constantly collected after the occasion had ceased; he even repaid to his subjects what he found in the treasury at his accession. In short, there is little in his life that can call his title to sanctity in question, though he can never be reckoned among the great kings.
CHAPTER VI.
HAROLD II.—INVASION OF THE NORMANS.—ACCOUNT OF THAT PEOPLE, AND OF THE STATE OF ENGLAND AT THE TIME OF THE INVASION.
Harold II., A.D. 1066.Though Edgar Atheling had the best title to the succession, yet Harold, the son of Earl Godwin, on account of the credit of his father, and his own great qualities, which supported and extended the interest of his family, was by the general voice set upon the throne. The right of Edgar, young, and discovering no great capacity, gave him little disturbance in comparison of the violence of his own brother Tosti, whom for his infamous oppression he had found himself obliged to banish. This man, who was a tyrant at home and a traitor abroad, insulted the maritime parts with a piratical fleet, whilst he incited all the neighboring princes to fall upon his country. Harold Harfager, King of Norway, after the conquest of the Orkneys, with a powerful navy hung over the coasts of England. But nothing troubled Harold so much as the pretensions and the formidable preparation of William, Duke of Normandy, one of the most able, ambitious, and enterprising men of that age. We have mentioned the partiality of King Edward to the Normans, and the hatred he bore to Godwin, and his family. The Duke of Normandy, to whom Edward had personal obligations, had taken a tour into England, and neglected no means to improve these dispositions to his own advantage. It is said that he then received the fullest assurances of being appointed to the succession, and that Harold himself had been sent soon after into Normandy to settle whatever related to it. This is an obscure transaction, and would, if it could be cleared up, convey but little instruction. So that whether we believe or not that William had engaged Harold by a solemn oath to secure him the kingdom, we know that he afterwards set up a will of King Edward in his favor, which, however, he never produced, and probably never had to produce. In these delicate circumstances Harold was not wanting to himself. By the most equitable laws and the most popular behavior he sought to secure the affections of his subjects; and he succeeded so well, that, when he marched against the King of Norway, who had invaded his kingdom and taken York, without difficulty he raised a numerous army of gallant men, zealous for his cause and their country. He obtained a signal and decisive victory over the Norwegians. The King Harfager, and the traitor Tosti, who had joined him, were slain in the battle, and the Norwegians were forced to evacuate the country. Harold had, however, but little time to enjoy the fruits of his victory.