Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/300

Rh 28G story from the beginning in our own tongue in which we were born. Bub it must be borne in mind that, as we go on, we shall find that the English Chronicle h not one chronicle but many. The record which began at the begin ning of vElfred was in the eleventh century continued in various monasteries, and the later parts of the several copies must be looked on, not as copies of a single work with some places where they differ, but as separate works which have same matter in common. The tale is told in different ways, with much difference of local feeling and even of political creed. The different chronicles stop at different periods. That of Peterborough, as we have hinted, stops suddenly in 11 54, England under Alfred was a land where foreign merit was welcome, as under Charles the Great English merit had been welcome in other lands. The Briton Asser, the Old- Saxon John, the Frankish Grimbald, received at the West- Saxon court the same reception which Ealhwine had met with at the hands of the mighty Frank. Learning now prospered ; the monasteries were schools ; but the native tongue flourished also. Of the wars of Eadward and ^Ethelflied the Chronicle gives us a full military narrative ; in the following reigns the prose entries are meagre, but we get in their stead the glorious lay of Brunanburh and the shorter song of the deliverance of the Five Boroughs. Dunstan. Towards the end of our present period, Dunstan, the great statesman, began to appear as an ecclesiastical reformer. His name is connected with the movement of the last half of the tenth century for enforcing a stricter discipline on the monasteries and for substituting monks for secular priests in many cathedral and other churches. The English clergy, even those who formed collegiate bodies, were fond of the separate, and not uncommonly married, life of the secular priest. This supposed laxity now gave way in several episcopal churches to the strict Benedictine rule. Hence came the usage, almost but not quite peculiar to England, by which the bishop had, as his diocesan council and the ministers of his own special church, a body of men who had professedly renounced all the affairs of this world. That Dunstan shared in this movement there is no doubt. But it would be hard to show from real history that he was foremost in the movement ; and it is far more certain that no merely ecclesiastical reform was the fore most object in Dunstan s policy. The unity and the greatness of England were the first objects of the statesman whom Glastonbury gave to England. Under Eadred the unity of England was formed. On his death the newly-built fabric seemed to break in pieces. The days of the grandsons of yElfred, like the days of his brothers, were days when brothers succeeded one another after short reigns, and died for the most part childless. When Eadred died, there was no other son of Eadward the Uuconquered to succeed him ; nor does there seem to have been in the more distant branches of the royal family any one likely to command the unanimous voice of the nation. For a man who, though of kingly descent, was not the son of a king to come forward as a candidate for the crown would hardly have been endured, except in the case of one who held a commanding personal position, such us was held by no man in the realm save the mighty churchman. England had therefore more than once during this age to risk the woes which are denounced against the land whose king is a child. And the realm so newly united risked the dangers not only of minority but of division. The young sons of Eadmund, passed by according to ordinary rule on the death of their father, succeeded, for want of better candidates, on the death of their uncle Eadred. The elder, Eadwig, received Wessox as his immediate kingdom ; tho younger, Eadgar, reigned over Northumberland arid [HISTORY. Mercia as under-king. The division was followed by a period, short, confused, and obscure, but of the highest im portance both on its constitutional and on its ecclesiastical side. The facts which stand out without doubt are that Eadwig was the enemy of Dunstan and that Eadgar was his friend; that in 957 the kingdom of England was altogether divided by the Mercians and Northumbrians declaring their under-king Eadgar full king in his own right ; that in 959 the kingdom was again united by tlie death of Eadwig and the succession of Eadgar to the whole realm. But the causes which immediately led to these events are told with every kind of contradiction; the characters of the actors are painted in the most opposite colours. It is clear however that with the accession of Eadgar the party of the monks triumphed. It is clear also that under Eadgar s rule the land enjoyed sixteen years of unparalleled peace and of unparalleled prosperity. During his reign no word of foreign invasion was breathed, and the two or three disturbances within the island were of slight consequence. The well-known picture of the lasileus of Britain rowed by eight vassal kings on the Dee, even if some of its details may be legendary, at least sets before us the popular conception of the dominion of Eadgar the Peaceful. On the other hand, when we turn to the personal character of the two brothers, it is dangerous to accept, without the closest examination, either the crimes which the monks lay to the charge of Eadwig or the crimes which the gleemen lay to the charge of Eadgar. At no time in our early history did England hold a higher position in the world in general. And when Okl- Saxon Otto wore the crown of Rome, and West-Saxon Eadgar, in some sort his nephew, reigned over the island empire of Britain, the Saxon name had reached the highest point of its glory. The reign of Eadgar, there can be no doubt, did much for the unity of England. By birth a king of the south, he owed his crown to the men of the north. He strictly preserved the distinct laws and customs to which the great divisions of the kingdom, now beginning to be distinguished as West-Saxon, Mercian, and Danish, were severally attached. Commerce and intercourse with foreign countries is encouraged. The ecclesiastical reform led to increased splendour in ecclesiastical buildings, and the land was covered with minsters built on a scale before unknown. The kingdom thus.built up and strengthened had presently to undergo the shock of a disputed election for the crown. Again the immediate royal family contained none but minors, tho two sons of Eadgar, Eadward and ./Ethelred. As far as we can see, ^Ethelred was supported by the party of the monks and Eadward by their enemies. Dunstan therefore distinctly sacrificed his party to his country when he brought about the election of Eadward, the elder of the boys, whose minority would therefore be the shorter. His short reign (975-979) was ended by his murder, done, there can be little doubt, at the bidding of his step-mother ./Elfthrytb., the Elfrida of romance. Her young son yEthel- red then entered on the saddest and most shameful reign in our annals. His time of thirty-seveu years (979-1016) forms the most marked contrast to the short and vigorous reigns of the heroes who opened the century. For the first nine years of this unhappy time, Dunstan still lived ; he was taken away before the fulness of evil came. . The main feature of this time is the renewal of the Danish invasions, which, after some years of mere plundering incursions, take their third form, that of a distinct political conquest, the establishment of a Danish king on the throne of all England. The constitutional lesson of this time is that, limited as the powers of an English king were by law, incapable as he was of doing any important act without the consent of his Witan, the difference between a good and a bad king waa something which words cannot set forth. It was for the Reign Eadga Reign ward.