John Edgar - Danes, Saxons and Normans; or, Stories of our ancestors

At the time when William the Norman was making good his claim to the Dukedom won by Rolfganger, the Saxons had been settled in England for nearly six centuries. During that long period, however, the country had frequently been exposed to the horrors of civil war and to the inroads of those ruthless Northmen, who "replunged into barbarism the nations over which they swept."

It was about the year 451 that the Saxons, with huge axes on their shoulders, set foot on the shores of Britain. At that period – when the ancient Britons, left by the Roman conquerors at the mercy of the Picts and Scots, were complaining that the barbarians drove them to the sea, and that the sea drove them back to the barbarians – there anchored off the coast of Kent three bulky ships, commanded by Hengist and Horsa, two Saxon chiefs, who claimed descent from Woden, their god of war, and boasted of some military skill acquired when fighting in the ranks of Rome. From Hengist and Horsa, still worshippers of Thor and Woden, the Britons implored aid against the Picts and Scots; and the Saxon chiefs, calling over a band of their countrymen, speedily drove the painted Caledonians to their mountains and fastnesses.

After having rescued the Britons from their northern neighbours, the Saxons did not exhibit any haste to leave the country which they had delivered. Indeed, these mighty sons of Woden rather seemed ambitious of making Britain their own; and Hengist, having settled in Lincolnshire, gave a great feast. Among other guests who on this occasion came to the Saxon's stronghold was Vortigern, a King among the Britons, and, his eye being arrested and his heart inflamed by the grace and beauty of Rowena, the daughter of Hengist, while she presented the wassail-cup on bended knee, he became so desperately enamoured that he never rested till the fair and fascinating Saxon was his wife. After the marriage of Vortigern and Rowena, the Saxons plainly intimated their intention of being masters of Britain, and, the sword having been drawn, the two races – the Saxons and the Celts – commenced that struggle which lasted for more than a hundred and fifty years, during which King Arthur and the Knights of his Round Table are said to have wrought those marvellous exploits which have been celebrated by chroniclers and bards.

At length, however, the Saxons, in spite of prolonged resistance, established their supremacy, and, during the existence of the Saxon Heptarchy, which included the whole country, subject to seven Princes, the conquerors of Britain became converts to Christianity, and members of the Catholic Church; and, abandoning the worship of Thor and Woden, they endeavoured to show their zeal by erecting churches and monasteries.

As time passed on, Egbert, King of Wessex, in 827 prevailed over all rivals, formed the separate provinces into a single state, and reigned as King of England. But while the Saxons were still engaged in putting down the Celts and cutting each other to pieces, a band of grim adventurers one morning sailed into the port of Teignmouth. In the discharge of his duty, a Saxon magistrate proceeded to the shore to learn whence they came and what they wanted. Without deigning an answer, the strangers slew the magistrate and his attendants, plundered the town, carried the booty to their ships, and then, hoisting their sails, took their departure. This was the first appearance in England of those Danes who were, ere long, to rend the Anglo-Saxon empire in pieces, and place their King on the English throne.

In fact, from the time of this their first visit to the English coast, the Danes were constantly finding their way to England, and signalising their inroads by every kind of barbarity. They were the most reckless of pirates and pagans, calling the ocean their home and the tempest their servant, and delighting to shed the blood of Christian priests, to desecrate churches, and to stable their steeds in chapels. In their cruel inroads, they tossed infants on the points of their spears, and mocked the idea of tears and mourning. For them, indeed, death had no terrors, for they believed themselves secure, especially if they fell in battle, of being conveyed to Valhalla; and gloried in the prospect of feasting in the halls of Odin, waited on by lovely damsels, and quaffing beer out of huge cups of horn. Settling gradually in Northumberland, East Anglia, and Mercia, the Danes occupied the whole country north of the Thames. Only one province remained to the Saxons, that of Wessex, which then extended from the mouth of the Thames to the Bristol Channel.

Such was the state of affairs when, in 871, a Saxon King, named Ethelred, was slain in a conflict with the Danes, and was succeeded by his son, Alfred, afterwards Alfred the Great, but then a youth of twenty-two. At first, the courage and ability of the young King inspired the Saxons with high hopes. But Alfred, puffed up with conceit of his superior knowledge, despised those whom he governed, and his contemptuous indifference to their opinions and wishes rendered him ere long so very unpopular that when, after having reigned seven years, he was under the necessity of preparing against an inroad of the Danes, he found himself, to his mortification, almost unsupported. In vain the King, after the fashion of his ancestors, sent messengers of war to town and hamlet, bearing the arrow and naked sword, and proclaiming, "Let each man that is not a nothing leave his house and come!" So few obeyed the summons that Alfred, deeply mortified, abandoned his throne, and sought refuge in Cornwall.

It was at this dismal period that Alfred found shelter in the hut of a swineherd, and, while examining his arrows, allowed the cakes to burn. "Stupid man!" cried the swineherd's wife, unaware of his quality, "you will not take the trouble to prevent my bread from burning, though you're always so glad to eat it."

But, ere long, Alfred emerged from his obscure lurking-place, visited the Danish camp disguised as a harper, and, while entertaining the rude Northmen with music and song, became so well acquainted with the situation of affairs that he took immediate steps to restore the old Saxon nationality. Summoning fighting men of the Saxon race from every quarter, Alfred met the Danes in the field, vanquished them in eight battles, and finally reduced them to submission and obedience.

After the death of Alfred the Great, who had, after his restoration, reigned with lustre and glory, Ethelstane, pursuing Alfred's conquests, recovered York, crossed the Tweed, defeated the Danes and Cambrians at Bamborough, and brought the whole island under his dominion. For some time after Ethelstane's triumphs, the Saxons were allowed unmolestedly to sow and reap, to buy and sell, to marry and give in marriage.

In 994, however, Sweyn, King of Denmark, turned his eyes covetously towards England, where Ethelred the Unready then reigned; and forthwith, in company with Olaf, King of Norway, undertook an expedition. Despairing of opposing the invaders with success, Ethelred bribed them with a large sum of money to retire, and both of them withdrew, after having sworn not again to trouble England. Nevertheless, in 1001, Sweyn, in whom the spirit of the pirate was strong, reappeared; and the Saxon King, seeing no way of getting rid of such a foe except by bribery, agreed to pay an annual tribute, to be levied throughout England under the name of "Dane-gold."

Sweyn, to whom an arrangement that was every year to replenish his treasury seemed satisfactory, returned to Denmark. Many Danes, however, remained in England, and conducted themselves with such intolerable insolence that the Saxons projected a general massacre of their unwelcome guests, and fixed on St. Brice's Day, 1002, for the execution of their hoarded vengeance. Ethelred, who, having lost his first wife, Elgira, the mother of Edmund Ironsides, had espoused Emma, sister of the Duke of Normandy, and who deemed himself secure in the alliance of the heir of Rolfganger, unhappily consented to the massacre, and, on the appointed day, the Saxons applied themselves to the work of extermination, little dreaming what would be the consequences.