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LEFT ENGLAND 16 ENGLAND Hereford, Worcester, Warwick, Leicester, Rutland, Northampton Lincoln, Hunting- don. Bedford, Buckingham, Oxford, Staf- ford, Derby, Salop, Nottingham, Chester, Hertford (part) ; founded by Cridda about 584; absorbed by Wessex in 827. Each state was, in its turn, annexed to more powerful neighbors; and at length, in 827, Egbert, by his valor and superior capacity, united in his own person the sovereigTity of what had formerly been seven kingdoms, and the whole came to be called England, that is Angle-land. Meanwhile certain important changes had occurred. The conquest had been the slow expulsion of a Christian race by a purely heathen race, and the country had returned to something of its old iso- lation with regard to the rest of Europe. But before the close of the 6th century Christianity had secured a footing in the S. E. of the island. Ethelbert, King of Kent and suzerain over the kingdoms S. of the Humber, married a Christian wife, Bertha, daughter of Charibert of Sois- sons, and this event led indirectly to the coming of St. Augustine. The conversion of Kent, Essex, and East Anglia was followed by that of Northumberland and then by that of Mercia, of Wessex, of Sussex, and lastly of Wight, the contest between the two religions being at its height in the 7th century. The legal and political changes immediately consequent on the adoption of Christianity were not great, but there resulted a more intimate delation with Europe and the older civili- zations, the introduction of new learning and culture, the formation of a written literature, and the fusion of the tribes and petty kingdoms into a closer and more lasting unity than that which could have been otherwise secured. The kingdom, however, was still kept in a state of disturbance by the attacks of the Danes, who had made repeated incursions during the whole of the Saxon period, and about half a century after the unification of the kingdom became for the moment masters of nearly the whole of England. But Alfred the Great, who had ascended the throne in 871, de- feated the Danes at Ethan dune (887). Guthrum, their king, embraced Chris- tianity, became the vassal of the Saxon king, and retired to a strip of land on the E. coast including Northumbria and called the Danelagh. The two imme- diate successors of Alfred, Edward (901- 925) and Athelstan (925-940), the son and grandson of Alfred, had each to direct his arms against these settlers of the Danelagh. The reigns of the next five kings, Edmund, Edred, Edwy, Edgar, and Edward the Martyr, are chiefly re- markable on account of the conspicuous place occupied in them by Dunstan, who was counsellor to Edmund, minister of Edred, treasurer under Edwy, and su- preme during the reigns of Edgar and his successor. It was possibly due to his policy that from the time of Athelstan till after the death of Edward the Martyr (978 or 979), the country had comparative rest from the Danes. Dur- ing the 10th century many changes had taken place in the Teutonic constitution. Feudalism was already taking root; the king's authority had increased; the folk- land was being taken over as the king's personal property; the nobles by birth, or earldormen, were becoming of less im- portance in administration than the nobility of thegns, the officers of the king's court. Ethelred (978-1016), who succeeded Edward, was a minor, the gov- ernment was feebly conducted, and the incursions of the Danes became more frequent and destructive. A general massacre of them took place in 1002. The following year Sweyn invaded the kingdom with a powerful army and as- sumed the crown of England. Ethelred was compelled to take refuge in Nor- mandy; and though he afterward re- turned, he found in Canute an adversary no less formidable than Sweyn. Ethelred left his kingdom in 1016 to his son Ed- mund, who displayed great valor, but was compelled to divide his kingdom with Canute; when he was assassinated in 1017, the Danes succeeded to the sovereignty of the whole. Canute (Knut), who espoused the vddow of Ethelred, obtained the name of Great, not only on account of his per- sonal qualities but from the extent of his dominions, being master of Denmark and Norway as well as England. In 1035 he died, and in England was followed by the other two Danish kings, Harold and Hardicanute, whose joint reigns lasted till 1042, after which the English line was again restored in the person of Edward the Confessor. Edward was a weak prince, and in the latter years of his reign had far less real power than his brother-in-law Harold, son of the great earl Godwin. On Edward's death in 1066 Harold accordingly obtained the crown. He found a formidable opponent in the second cousin of Edward, William of Normandy, who instigated the Danes to invade the N. countries, while he, with 60,000 men, landed in the S. Harold vanquished the Danes, and hastening southward met the Normans near Has- tings, at Senlac, afterward called Battle. Harold and his two brothers fell (Oct. 14, 1066), and William (1066-1087) im- mediately claimed the government as lawful King of England, being subse- quently known as William I., the Con- queror. For some time he conducted the