BOOK

III.

832.

835.

836.

Egbert's death.

dations; and probably under the command of that celebrated sea-king, Ragnar Lodbrog, whose actions will be more distinctly considered. They ravaged the Isle of Sheppey, and in the next year defeated Egbert at Charmouth, in Dorsetshire.27 This disaster, perhaps, occasioned that council which Wiglaf, in his charter to Croyland, mentions to have met this year at London, for the purpose of deliberating on the Danish depredations.23 The efficacy of the measures adopted by the council appeared at Hengston Hill, in Cornwall. The Danes landed in this part of the island, and the Cornish Britons, from fear or voluntary policy, entered into offensive alliance with them against Egbert. The king of Wessex defeated their combined forces with great slaughter.29

30

AFTER a reign of prosperity seldom rivalled, Egbert died full of glory. He had made all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms subordinate to his own ; but the tale, that he assembled the Anglo-Saxon states, and abolishing the distinction of Saxons and Angles, and all provincial appellations, commanded the island to be called England, and procured himself to be crowned and denominated

27 Sax. Chron. 72.

26 See the next book, ch. 3. 28 Ingulf. 10. (Ubi omnes congregati fuimus pro concilio capiendo contra Danicos piratas littora Angliæ assidue infestantes.)

29 Sax. Chron. 72.

30 Sax. Chron. 73. Flor. Wig. 291. Higden, 253. Chron. Petri de Burgo, 13. The Chronicle of Mailros says in 838, p. 142. The Asserii Annales, 839, p. 155. Wallingford, 837, p. 531. On the 26th January, in the year 839, an unusual inundation of the sea devastated ali Frisia, so that it was almost on a level with the copious masses of sands, called there Dunos (Downs). Animals, men, and houses, were destroyed by the waters. The number of the inhabitants known to have perished in the deluge, was 2437. Annal. Bertiniani. 6 Bouquet's Recueil

king of England, seems not to be entitled to our belief.31

As the new enemies from the Baltic, who had begun to appear in England, for the first time, at the end of the eighth and in the ninth centuries, were not duly noticed by our historians before the

31 I was induced, as early as I began this work, to doubt this popular tale, by observing these circumstances:-1. That although if such an act had taken place, the legal title of Egbert and his successors would have been rex Anglorum; yet that neither he nor his successors, till after Alfred, generally used it. In his charters, Ethelwulf always signs king of the West Saxons; so do his three sons; so Alfred; and in his will he says, I, Alfred, of the West Saxons, king. Asser, the friend of this king, styles Ethelwulf and his three sons always kings of the West Saxons, p. 6-21. It is with Alfred that he begins to use a different title; he names him Angul Saxonum rex.-2. Egbert did not establish the monarchy of England: he asserted the predominance of Wessex over the others, whom he defeated or made tributary, but he did not incorporate East Anglia, Mercia, or Northumbria. It was the Danish sword which destroyed these kingdoms, and thereby made Alfred the monarch of the Saxons: accordingly, Alfred is called primus monarcha by some; but, in strict truth, the monarchy of England must not even be attributed to him, because Danish sovereigns divided the island with him, and occupied all the parts which the Angles had peopled, except Mercia. It was Athelstan, who destroyed the Danish sovereignty, that may, with the greatest propriety, be entitled primus monarcha Anglorum ; and accordingly Alured of Beverly so intimates him, p. 93. Totius Angliæ monarchiam primus Anglo-Saxonum obtinuit Edelstanus. — 3. The important incidents of the coronation, and change of name, are not mentioned by the best writers. The Saxon Chronicle, Florence of Worcester, Asser, Ethelwerd, Ingulf, Huntingdon, Hoveden, Bromton, Malmsbury, the Chronicle of Mailros, of Peterborough, and Matthew of Westminster, say nothing about it. — 4. Why should Egbert, a Saxon, have given the Angles a preference in the royal title? The fact seems to be, that the people of the provinces colonised by the Angles had been long called Angli. Bede and Boniface, in the century before Egbert, so call them. There is, however, one charter that makes an exception. In one of those at Rochester, Egbert is called rex Anglorum. Thorpe, p. 22. Yet his son Ethelwulf does not continue the title, but uses that of occidentalium Saxonum, p. 23.; which proves, that if the other charter with the Anglorum be a genuine one, yet that this word could not have arisen from any legal change of title, or his son would have continued it. So far as such a phrase was applied to Egbert from his victories, it was a just compliment; but it is no evidence of his assumption of it as his legal title.

CHAP.

XI.

836.

III.

BOOK publication of this work, it will be necessary, for the more perfect understanding of the events which they caused, to take a review of the political state of Scandinavia, and of its customs at this period.

836.

SAXON OCTARCHY.

It may gratify the wishes of some readers to have the successions of the kings of the Anglo-Saxon octarchy enumerated in their chronological order. I take the chronology from the Saxon chronicle, when it occurs there. My other authorities are, Alured of Beverley, and Henry of Huntingdon, for the successions, and the latter, sometimes, for the duration of the reigns. Every notice in our old writers cannot be minutely reconciled on the length of each reign. I have selected what I thought to be, on the whole, the most probable.