A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

Battle of Brunanburh. 943.

The greatness Eadward had thus secured descended to his son Æthelstan, with whom the grandeur of the Saxon monarchy reached its highest point. He married one of his sisters to a Northumbrian prince, Cytric, receiving his allegiance for Benicia from the Tees to Edinburgh, and, on the death of Cytric, incorporated the country with his own dominions. Cytric’s two sons fled, the one to Ireland, where the Danes received him willingly, the other (Guthrith) to Constantine, King of Scotland. The consequence of the escape of these princes became evident in after years. In 934, Constantine and his heir Eorca, Owen or Eugenius, King of Cumberland, made war upon England, but were defeated and compelled to acknowledge the supremacy of Æthelstan. The attention of the English King was subsequently drawn abroad, where he upheld the cause of his nephew, Louis de Outre-Mer, son of Charles the Simple, against the attacks of his brothers-in-law, the German Otto and Hugh of Paris. It was while thus employed that the Scotch kingdoms again rose in insurrection. A great conspiracy against Æthelstan appears to have been formed, at the head of which were Anlath, son of that Guthrith who had fled to Scotland, Constantine, Owen, and several princes of the Danes from Ireland. Their object was the re-establishment of the Danish power in Northumbria. The attempt was completely thwarted by the great battle of Brunanburh, near Beverley, in Yorkshire. Not long after this decisive victory Æthelstan died. His splendid reign is further marked by legislation of a more original description than that of his predecessors. He ordered, among other things, that every man should have a lord who should be answerable for him to justice, and rendered more systematic the arrangement of mutual responsibility, which appears to have been one of the principles of Saxon police.

Eadmund. 940-946.

Eadred. 946-955.

His younger brothers, Eadmund and Eadred, followed in his footsteps, defeating the Northumbrian rebels, who from time to time elected kings of their own, but were completely conquered by Eadred. He so thoroughly incorporated the country with his own, that its ruler could no longer claim the title of king. Both Bernicia and Deira were bestowed as an earldom on Osulf, who had assisted in the conquest of the rebels, and remained in the hands of his family till the Norman Conquest. Eadmund also maintained his supremacy over Scotland, with which country his relations were of a very friendly nature, as he granted a part of the kingdom of Strathclyde, consisting of Cumberland and Galloway, to King Malcolm, to be held by military service.

Rise of Dunstan.

The policy of Eadred and of his successors seems so closely connected with the rise of Dunstan, that it may be justly attributed to him. The monkish historians, to whom we owe our knowledge of this great man, have overlaid his history with mythical stories, and have given him a character and policy to suit their own purposes. In their eagerness to secure the name of the greatest statesman of the age in support of their pretensions against the secular clergy, they have drawn him as a youth of miraculous gifts, of severe monkish asceticism, whose claim to greatness consisted in the establishment of the Benedictine rule. In the same way they have painted his opponent King Edwy [Eadwig] in the blackest colours. The common story tells us that, after a childhood passed in learning, so deep as to excite a suspicion of magic, illness drove Dunstan to the cloister at Glastonbury; that he there established the Benedictine rule, entering with such vehemence into its spirit that his asceticism almost turned his brain. On the accession of Edwy, the young king, it is said, deserted the assembly of the nobles, to pass his time in the company of the beautiful Ælfgyfu [Elgiva], his mistress. Dunstan is represented as violently dragging the unworthy king back to his proper place, as securing the banishment of Ælfgyfu, and with his partisans cruelly putting her to death upon her return. Edwy is then described as raging fiercely against all the monks in his kingdom. In truth, it is in politics rather than in ecclesiastical discipline that Dunstan’s greatness must be sought, and he must take his place in history rather as a conciliatory and patriotic governor than as an ascetic and violent churchman.

Born at the beginning of King Æthelstan’s reign, and trained partly at Glastonbury, where he found and studied books left by wandering Irish scholars, and partly at the King’s Court like other young nobles of the time, an illness induced him to devote himself to the Church. His interest secured him the Abbey of Glastonbury at the early age of seventeen. He shortly returned to the Court, became the King’s treasurer, and as an influential minister joined himself to the party which he found pre-eminent during the reign of Eadred. That king was a constant invalid, the influence of the Queen Mother was paramount, and she was supported by the chiefs of East Anglia and those whose views were national rather than provincial. The kingdom of Northumbria was in a state of ceaseless confusion. Again and again the Danes and Ostmen raised insurrections there. Wulstan, the Archbishop of York, with constantly shifting policy, at one time supported the insurgents, at another persuaded the Northern Witan to submit to Eadred. At length, in a final insurrection, he was overcome and imprisoned. The affairs in Northumbria had to be settled. It is here that the national policy of the dominant party made itself felt. Contrary to the views of the Wessex nobles, who would have wished for active interference of the government, the kingdom was reduced to the condition of an earldom under Osulf. But English supremacy being thus established, Wulstan was released, and self-government both in Church and State permitted. This conciliatory policy was interrupted by the death of Eadred.

Edwy. 955-957.

Eadgar. 957-975.