In several of these campaigns the Frankish king was effectually seconded by his son Charles, now a young man of between twenty and thirty, to whom it was the father’s custom to entrust a portion of his army that a combined attack might be made from different points of the compass. The plan of operations seems to have been generally well laid, for we never hear of these concerted invasions failing to meet at the point agreed upon.

One of the fiercest campaigns was that of 798 against the Nordalbingi, who had grievously enraged Charles by the murder of his missi or plenipotentiaries, one of whom was clothed with the sacred character of an ambassador to the King of Denmark. In his vengeance for this murder Charles was powerfully seconded by Thrasco, Duke of the Abodrites.

During the next four eventful years (800–803) Charles had abundant occupation south of the Alps. In 804 he led his army into Saxon-land, “transferred all the Saxons who dwelt beyond the Elbe and in Wigmodia with their wives and children into Frank-land, and gave the shires beyond the Elbe to the Abodrites.” As these Sclavonian allies of Charles were heathens, this handing over to them of the duchy of Holstein was so far a confession of failure in the attempt to win the whole of the Saxon territory for Christianity. The number of the Saxons on both banks of the Elbe thus transported is given by Einhard at 10,000. When the inhabitants of whole districts were thus forcibly removed, much injustice, even from the point of view of Frankish “law and order,” must often have been committed. In the next generation complaints reached the ears of Charles’s successor from the sons of loyal and peaceable dwellers by the Weser who had been swept off into exile together with the rebel Wigmodians, and had never recovered the property of which they were then despoiled.

The resistance of the Saxons was powerfully aided by their Danish neighbor on the north. “Godofrid, King of Denmark,” says the chronicler, “with his fleet and all the cavalry of his kingdom came to a place which is called Sliesthorp, on the borders of his kingdom and Saxon-land, for a conference with Charles, but would not venture further. Charles remained close to the river Elbe in a place which is called Holdunsteti, from whence he sent an embassy to Godofrid to treat about the surrender of deserters.” As “the place called Sliesthorp” is Schleswig, and “the place called Holdunsteti” is Holstein, the student of contemporary history will recognize in this passage the germs of that controversy on “the Schleswig-Holstein question” which was settled in our day by the Dano-German war and led eventually to the supremacy of Prussia in the Germanic Confederation.[42]

At last the Saxon war was ended. The wholesale transportation of inhabitants to which Charles had at length resorted, and which was balanced by the invitation to Franks to settle in the evacuated lands—acts which remind us of the proceedings of Shalmaneser and Nebuchadnezzar towards the people of Israel—had the desired effect.

“Freedom’s battle once begun
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son”

in this instance was not “ever won.” Christianity, or a religion which believed itself to be Christianity, was triumphant from the Rhine to the Elbe, and three fat bishoprics, Bremen, Münster, and Paderborn, divided between themselves the conquered land. “Saxonia” was henceforth an inseparable part of the newly-founded Frankish Empire.

CHAPTER VII.
REVOLTS AND CONSPIRACIES.

In tracing the history of Charles’s long struggle with the Saxons we have come down to a very late point in the story of his reign. We must now retrace our steps and notice some of the more important events that happened during that struggle of thirty years. And first it will be well to deal with some of the unsuccessful attempts that were made in various parts of his dominions, other than Saxon-land, to throw off the yoke of this strong and masterful ruler.