and new oaths, that they should depart from his CHAP. kingdom. 23 THE Conduct of Alfred, in the first years of his reign, seems to have been imprudent. While acting with his brother, he was energetic and indefatigable; but after he became possessed of the crown himself, instead of a system of vigilance and vigour against his enemies, we find nothing but inert quietude, temporising pacifications, and transient armaments. The only plan discernible in the first seven years of his reign, was to gain momentary repose. An interval of tranquillity was certainly obtained; but it was a delusive slumber on the precipice of fate. 23 Asser, 28. VII. 877. BOOK 878. Northmen enter Wilts. Alfred's flight. CHAP. VIII. ALFRED becomes a Fugitive. - Misconduct imputed to him. WE now approach the period of Alfred's great est degradation. The locusts of the Baltic, to use the expressive metaphor of the chronicles, having spread themselves over part of Mercia in the preceding August, and being joined by new swarms, advanced again into Wessex; and in January took possession of Chippenham in Wiltshire, where they passed the winter, and from which they made excursive ravages over the adjacent country. On this decisive invasion, the country found itself so unprotected, from whatever cause, that many of the inhabitants emigrated in penury and terror to other regions. Some fled over sea, and to France; the rest, overawed by the cavalry of the invaders, submitted to their dominion, and Alfred himself was compelled to become a fugitive.' THESE circumstances, which every chronicle states or implies, are so extraordinary, that it is difficult to comprehend them. The Danes invade Wessex, the country falls undefended into their hands, and Alfred preserves his life by such a concealment, that his friends were as ignorant as his enemies both of his residence and fate. Such 1 Asser, 30. Sax. Chron. 84. Ethelw. 845. Matt. West. 329. Hunt. 350. Asserii Annales, 166. Alur. Bev. 105. Walling. 537. and others. 2 Quare ergo idem sæpedictus Ælfredus in tantam miseriam sæpius incidit ut nemo subjectorum suorum sciret, ubi esset vel quo devenisset. Asser, 32. So Asserii Annales, 166. So Flor. Wig. VIII. 878. became his distress, that he knew not where to CHA P. turn'; such was his poverty, that he had even no subsistence but that which by furtive or open plunder he could extort, not merely from the Danes, but even from those of his subjects who submitted to their government; or by fishing and hunting obtain. He wandered about in woods and marshes in the greatest penury, with a few companions; sometimes, for greater secresy, alone." He had neither territory, nor, for a time, the hope of regaining any." To find Alfred and the country in this distress, and at the same time to remark, that no battles are mentioned to have occurred between the arrival of the Northmen at Chippenham, and the flight of the king, or the subjection of the country, are circumstances peculiarly perplexing. It is not stated on this invasion, as it is on every other, that Alfred collected an army, and resisted the Northmen; that he retired at the head of his forces, though defeated; that he posted himself in any fortress, or that he took any measures to defend the country against its enemies. They invade in 3 At rex Ælfredus tactus dolore cordis intrinsecus, quid ageret, quo se verteret ignorabat. Matt. West. 329. 4 Nihil enim habebat quo uteretur, nisi quod a paganis et etiam a Christianis qui se paganorum subdiderant dominio, frequentibus irruptionibus aut clam, aut etiam palam subtraheret. Asser, 30. Flor. Wig. 5 Asser, 30. Hunt. 350. Mailros, 144. Chron. Sax. 84. Matt. West. 329. Sim. Dun. 18. 71. 6 Alur. Bev. 105. 7 This was remarkable, because Odun's defence in Kynwith, and Alfred's subsequent fortification in Ethelingey, show how such a retreat would have protected the country. Hoveden says, that his ministers retired to Kynwith, p. 417. IV. BOOK January; between that month and the following Easter, a very short period, all this disaster occurred. 878. THE power of the Danes may have been formidable, but it had never been found by Alfred to be irresistible; and the events of a few months proved that it was easily assailable. When they attacked his brother, they met a resistance which has been recorded. When they attacked himself in the preceding years, his means of opposition, though not vigorous, are yet noticed. But on this invasion, a most remarkable silence occurs as to any measures of defence. As far as we can penetrate into such an obscured incident, we can discern none; nothing appears but panic and disaffection in the people; inactivity and distress in the king. To suppose that the Northmen surprised him by a rapid movement into Wessex is no diminution of the difficulty, because they had been eight years in the island, moving about as they pleased; and often with celerity, for the purpose of easier victory. Rapidity of motion was, indeed, a part of their usual tactics, both in England and in France; and not to have prepared against an event that was always possible, and always impending over him, impeaches both the judgment and patriotism of the king at this period of peril. BEFORE Alfred, from a respected sovereign, would have become a miserable fugitive, we should expect to read of many previous battles; of much patriotic exertion corresponding with his character and dignity, and the duties of his station; and worthy of his intellect. If defeated in one county, we should look for him in another; always with an army, or in a fortress; always withstanding CHAP. the fierce enemies who assaulted him. VIII. investi WHAT Overwhelmed Alfred with such distress? 878. What drove him so easily from his throne? It could Its cause not be, as Sir John Spelman intimates, that the gated. Saxons "were before quite spent and done," because it is not true, that in 876 they fought "seven desperate battles." These battles have been placed in this year hitherto erroneously. On comparing every reputable chronicler with Asser, the friend of the king, we find them to have occurred in the last year of Ethelred's reign, and the first of Alfred's. Since that period, though the king sometimes headed armies, no sanguinary conflict is mentioned to have ensued in Wessex. Seven years had now elapsed without one important struggle; the strength of West Saxony was therefore unimpaired, because one-third of the juvenile population, at Alfred's accession, would, in 878, have attained the age of courageous manhood. THAT the arrival of new supplies from the Baltic, could not have "broken the spirits of the Saxons" so suddenly, and have "reduced them to despair," is probable, because the West Saxons had not, for the last seven years, "undergone a miserable havock in their persons and property," and had exerted no "vigorous actions in their own defence." So far from being reduced to the necessity of despair, we shall find that a single summons from their king, when he had recovered his self-possession, and resolved to be the heroic patriot, was sufficient to bring them eagerly into the field, though the undisputed occupation of the country for some See his plain but learned and useful life of Alfred, p. 53 and 50. Hume has copied his misconception. |