Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/285

Rh TIME OF HEATHEN CONQUEST.] ENGLAND 271 formally acknowledged ; and the chief so recognized by common consent was known as a Bretwalda or ruler of Britain. 1 Our knowledge on this subject hardly goes beyond establishing the fact that such a supremacy was sometimes acknowledged, without telling us anything in detail as to its nature, or as to the way in which it was obtained. It was nut continuous ; there were times when there was no Bretwalda. It fluctuated from kingdom to kingdom, according to the accidents of war, policy, or per sonal ability. The fact that such a supremacy existed from early times is chiefly important on account of what it after wards grew into. The tradition of a supremacy vested hi some one power clearly helped the West-Saxon kings in gathering all the Teutonic kingdoms of Britain into the one realm of England. It further combined with other influences in suggesting the doctrine of an imperial supremacy over the whole isle of Britain. The establishment of these kingdoms at the expense of the Britons forms the period of heathen conquest, which we may reckon at about a hundred and sixty years. In the course of that time, the English, at first established only on the eastern and part of the southern coast, made their way step by step to the western sea. At the end of this period the whole of Britain was very far from being conquered : indeed English conquest was very far from having reached its fullest extent ; but the English had become the dominant race in South Britain. The Britons still kept a largo part of the land; but they held it ouly in de tached pieces. The English were the advancing people. The Britons could not at the utmost hope to do more than defend what they still kept. The work of conquest during this period was mainly the work of Wessex at one end and of the Northumbrian kingdoms at the other. Sussex, Kent, Eiut-Anglia, each gave the English race a BretwalJa ; but these powers, as well as Essex, were geographically cut off from any share in the conquest after the first stage of settle ment. Wessex, on the other hand, whose later growth took another direction, pressed boldly into the heart of Britain. West-Saxon progress was indeed checked for a while by British resistance under the famous Arthur. The legendary renown which has gathered round Arthur s name ought not to wipe out the fact that he met Saxon Cerdh face to face, and by the rings of Badbury dealt him a blow which for a while made the English invader halt. 2 But from the middle of the sixth century West-Saxon advance is swift. In 552 the second stage begins with the taking of Old Sarum. Sixteen years later comes, doubtless not the first, but the first recorded, fight of Englishman against English man. The fight of Wibbandun (Wimbledon) made Surrey West-Saxon, and cut off Kent from all hope of further ad vance. In 571 the West-Saxon border, under the Bretwalda Ceawlin, strstched far beyond the Thames, as far north as the present Buckingham. Still no English conqueror had reached the sea between Britain and Ireland. From Dun- barton to the south coast of Devonshire, the British occupa tion of the western side of the island was still unbroken. Aqute Solis, Corinium, Glevum, Uriconium, and, greater than all, Deva on her promontory, were still British strongholds. They had not yet changed into Bath, Circncester, Gloucester, Wroxeter, and Chester. The next object of the advancing English was to break this line, to reach the sea, and, if not wholly to subdue the British in habitants jf the west coast, at least to break their continu ous power into fragments which might be more easily 1 It may be, ,is Mr Kemble suggests, that the truer form is Bfyten- wealda, and the truer meaning &quot;wide ruler.&quot; But if so, it is true only etyinologicull}. In the two or three places where the name is ued, it is used, rightly or wrongly, to mean &quot; ruler of Britain.&quot; where else but Badbury in Dorset. ^Ethel- overcome. In 577 Ceawlin took Bath, Gloucester, and Con- Cirencester, and carried the West-Saxon border to the estuary of the Severn, the future Bristol Channel. The British dominion was thus split asunder. Wales and S rathclyde, to use the geographical names of a time a little later, still formed a continuous whole. But they were now cut off from all connexion with the Britons in the great south-western peninsula, the peninsula of West- Wales, from the northern Axe to the Land s End. To break through the Hue at another point, to seize Deva and to carry the West- Saxon arms to the north-western sea, was the next object. In this Ceawliu failed ; but his expedition of 583 estab lished a long strip of English territory along the Severn valley. Wessex thus seemed to be growing into the great power of central, as well as of southern, Britain. But the second great blow which was to cleave the British dominion into three, as it had been already cloven into two, was not to be dealt by Saxon hands. A great power had now grown Growth up in the north. At various periods before and after the f English conquest, things looked as if the supreme power ? s01. was to be fixed in the northern lands, in the city by the Ouse and not in the city by the Thames. Eboracum had been in Roman days the capital of Britain. The once im perial city was now the head of a great realm, formed by the union of Bernicia and Deira under their conquering king JEthelfrith. In 603 a victory over the Scottish king ^Egdan at Daegsanstan secured his power to the north. Some years later he broke through the line of unconquered British territory ; he smote the Britons under the walls of Deva, and left those walls, like the walls of Anderida, de- Taking solate without an inhabitant. The English conquest of of Deva Britain, if not yet completed, was now assured. The British power, which five and twenty years before had stretched uninterruptedly along the whole west coast, was now broken, into three parts. Through western and central Britain the boundaries were still very fluctuating. While ^Ethelfrith smote Deva, lands near to his own capital, the land of Elniet and Loidis, the modern Leeds, was still unconquered British ground. The dominion of Wessex north of the Thames and Avon had rather the character of an outlying territory stretching into a hostile laud, than of the compact dominion which the West-Saxon kings held over Hamp shire, Wiltshire, and Berkshire. Moreover the two great powers of the north and the south were now brought into rivalry and collision. yEthelfrith had done what Ceawlin had failed to do; and between Northumberland and Wessex a third great power had arisen, which in a few years was to show itself the equal of either. The West-Saxon had reached the western sea at one point ; the Northumbrian had reached it at another point. But the greater part of the western conquests of both were to go to swell the Mercian power which had just come into being. And besides all this, a revolution had begun which was to work the greatest of all changes. The victory of ^Ethelf rith was the last great blow dealt by the heathen English to the Christian Britons. When it was dealt, Northumberland, Wessex, Mercia, Sussex, and East-Anglia were still heathen. But Kent and Essex had already embraced the gospel. York and Winchester still knew no worship but that of Woden ; but the altars of Christ had already risen once more in Canterbury and London. The time of heathen conquest thus ends with the first years of the seventh century. The introduction of Christianity among the English was so great a change, it gave so different a character to all the events that followed, that this would seem to be the most fitting point in our story t&amp;gt; stop and attempt a picture of the general state 01 things in Teutonic Britain during the first century and a hull after Teutonic conquest began. The introduction of a new religion did
 * Dr Guest has shown that &quot; Mous Badonicus &quot; is not Bath, or any