2. 902-954. Attempts made at settlement.
3. 980-1016. During this period the history of England was one record of struggle with the power of Denmark till Cnut became undisputed King of England.[6]
We still have much to learn as to the movements of the Danes in this country, and when the old charters are more thoroughly investigated we shall gain a great accession of light. Thus we learn from an Anglo-Saxon charter, printed in De Gray Birch’s Cartularium Saxonicum (Nos. 533, 534), that in the year 872 a great tribute was paid to the Danes which is not mentioned in the Chronicle. London was specially at the mercy of the fierce sailors of the North, and the times when the city was in their hands are almost too numerous for record here.
Even when Alfred concluded with Guthrun in 878 the Treaty of Wedmore, as it is still commonly called,[7] and by which the country was divided between the English and the Danes, London suffered much.
With the reign of Alfred we come to the consideration of a very difficult question in the history of London. It has been claimed for this King that he rebuilt London. Mr Loftie expresses this view in the very strongest terms. He writes:—
‘So important, however, is this settlement, so completely must it be regarded as the ultimate fact in any continuous narrative relating to the history of London, that it would be hardly wrong to commence with some such sentence as this; “London was founded exactly a thousand years ago by King Alfred, who chose for the site of his city a place formerly fortified by the Romans, but desolated successively by the Saxons and the Danes.” ’
There is certainly no evidence for so sweeping a statement. Nothing in the Chronicle can be construed to contain so wide a meaning. The passage upon which this mighty superstructure has been formed is merely this:—
‘886. In the same year King Alfred restored (gesette) London, and all the Angle race turned to him that were not in the bondage of the Danish men, and he then committed the burgh to the keeping of the Alderman Æthered.’
The great difficulty in this passage is the word gesette, which probably means occupied, but may mean much more, as founded or settled. Some authorities have therefore changed the word to besaet, besieged.
Professor Earle proposed the following solution of the problem, which seems highly probable. London was a flourishing, populous and opulent city, the chief emporium of commerce in the island, and the residence of foreign merchants. Properly it had become an Angle city, the chief city of the Anglian nation of Mercia, but the Danes had settled there in great numbers, and they had many captives whom they had taken in the late wars. Thus the Danes preponderated over the free Angles, and the latter were glad to see Alfred come and restore the balance in their favour. It was of the greatest importance for Alfred to secure this city, not only the capital of Mercia, but able to do what Mercia had not done, to bar the passage of pirate ships to the Upper Thames. Accordingly, Alfred in 886 planted the garrison of London, i.e., introduced a military colony of men, and gave them land for their maintenance, in return for which they lived in and about a fortified position under a commanding officer. Professor Earle would not have Lundenburh taken as merely an equivalent to London. Alfred therefore founded not London itself but the burh of London.[8]