IV. 894. BOOK he did not overtake them till they had surrounded themselves with fortifications, which the military knowledge of that day respected as impregnable. Alfred, for two days, besieged them, drove away all the cattle in the vicinity, slew every enemy who ventured beyond the encampment, and burnt and consumed all the corn of the district. 52 895. FROM Chester, Hastings led his bands for subsistence into North Wales: he plundered, and then quitted it, with his booty; but not daring to molest West Saxony, or Mercia, where the troops of Alfred were watching his progress, he made a circuit through Northumbria, and East Anglia, and proceeded till he reached Mersey, in Essex. He seems to have always made this a favourite point of retreat or rallying. It was favourable for the junction of other adventurers, and it seems to have been his wish to have founded a little kingdom here. Before the winter, he drew his ships from the Thames up the Lea, 58 To protect their fleet, they built a fortress on the Lea, twenty miles above London. This distance suits either Ware or Hartford. 54 To have maintained this position would have been to have secured the establishment they wished in Essex. In the summer, a great number of the citizens of London, and many from its neighbourhood, attacked the Danish strong hold; but the Northmen repulsed them with the loss of four king's thanes. 52 Sax. Chron. 95. 53 Flor. Wig. 333. The Lea (Ligan) is the little river which divides Essex from Middlesex, as the Stour separates it from Suffolk, and the Stort from Hartfordshire. 54 Camden mentions Ware; Spelman, Hartford. XI. 895. This disaster required the presence and ability of CHA P. Alfred to repair. In autumn he encamped near the discomfited city, at the time when the harvest ripened, that the invaders might not deprive the Londoners of their subsistence. One day, the king musing on some decisive blow against his pertinacious enemy, rode to the river, and conceived the practicability of a plan of so affecting the stream, that the ships might be prevented from coming out. He executed his skilful project. By digging three new channels below, he drew off so much water as to leave the ships aground 55; and to protect his new works, he built a castle on each side of the river, and encamped in the vicinity. FINDING that they could not get out their ships, the Northmen abandoned them, and, desirous to escape from the nets of destruction with which the active mind of Alfred was encompassing them, they had again recourse to that celerity of movement which had so often rescued them from impending ruin. Sending their wives to their countrymen in East Anglia", they suddenly broke up from their entrenchments at night, and, outflying Alfred, they again traversed Mercia, from the Lea to the Severn, and settling themselves at Bridgnorth", they 55 I insert this account on the authority of Huntingdon, because his statement is adopted by Camden and Spelman. The Saxon Chronicle and Florence imply, that Alfred made the Danish ships useless by obstructions, by building two works (ge-weorc S. C. obstructuram F.) below the part where the vessels lay. 56 Flor. Wig. 334. Sax. Chron. 97. 57 The Saxon Ch. says, Cpacbnicze bæ Sefeɲn, 97. The ancient name of Bridgnorth in the Saxon annals is Bpicze, and in ancient records it is called Bridge. Two towns near it are called Quatford and Quat, which is a fact, implying that Cwat 896. BOOK defended their encampments, as usual, by an immediate fortification. IV. 896. THE idea of always protecting their positions by military defences, and the facility with which they raised such as Alfred dared not assault, augur favourably of the warlike knowledge of the invaders, or of their veteran chieftain. THE army of Alfred followed Hastings to the Severn, but respected his entrenchments so highly as to permit him to pass the winter unmolested. In the meantime, the citizens of London seized the ships on the Lea; such as they could bring away were carried to London, with their contents; the others were destroyed. For three years had Hastings, undismayed, contended against Alfred 56; and, notwithstanding the power, skill, and victories of the West Saxon king, had always recruited his losses, and maintained his invasion; but his spirit now began to bend under the genius of his master. All that energy, and valour, and labour, could effect, he had used in vain. He had, as the Saxon Chronicle intimates, made great devastations, and weakened the English nation, by the destruction of much of its population, but he had not "broken it up." Hastings therefore at last yielded indignantly to his evil bridge should not be far off. Gibson's add. to Camden, 552. Spelman placed it in this part, p. 88. Camden and Somner sought for it at Cambridge, and in Gloucestershire, which is less probable. M. West. spells it Quantebrige, p. 349. 58 The Saxon Chronicle says, "This was about the third year since they came hither, over the sea to Limene-mouth," p.97.; thus expressing that the invaders at Cwatbridge were the same who had come from Boulogne. XI. 896. fortune. The Northmen now disbanded; some CHA P. withdrew to East Anglia, some to Northumbria. They who had no resources to expect from these regions, made ships; and, stimulated by want, crossed the ocean, and attempted plunder on the Seine, 59 ONE feeble attempt terminated this invasion, which must have been prodigal of human life. The depredators, who had retired beyond the Humber and the Ouse, embarked in long, well-constructed ships, to revenge themselves by piracy on the coast of Wessex. But even through the ocean the genius of Alfred pursued them. He was skilled in domestic architecture; and he applied his talents to the improvement of his ships; he caused vessels to be built against the Northmen, full-nigh twice as long as theirs, swifter, higher, and less unsteady. In some he put sixty rowers, in others more. They were neither like Frisian nor Danish ships, which 59 Sax. Chron. 97. Flor. Wig. 334. Hastings is not mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle by name as having accompanied these, because the Chronicles rarely mention the king or chiefs of the Northmen. Hence it was with some trouble that I have been enabled to trace a connected history of his warfare against Alfred. But the fact in our chroniclers of part of the army he had acted with going afterwards to the Seine, suits the intimation in the French Chronicles, that he obtained at last a settlement there. See further, note 63. Since the above remarks were written, I perceive a passage in the Annals of Asser, which justifies our ascribing the incidents of this long-contested invasion to Hastings, and which distinctly states him to have begun it, and to have retired with the army to the Seine, 895 Hastængus cum exercitibus sibi adhærentibus, tertio anno postquam venerunt in ostium Tamensis, et in ostium fluminis, mare transivit, sine lucro et sine honore, sed multis perditis ex sociis suis applicuit in ostium Sequanæ fluminis, p. 172. 897. IV. 897. 61 BOOK then excelled all others in Europe. They were made on that plan which the judgment of Alfred, enlightened by his knowledge and experience, discerned to be more useful than either. 60 Six Danish vessels ravaged the Isle of Wight and Devonshire, and the intervening coast. The king ordered nine ships of his new naval architecture, manned with Frisians and English, to pursue them; with the orders to take all alive they could. The king's fleet found the Northmen's six near the shore; three of these were aground, the other three went out and endured the combat: two were taken the third escaped with only five men. The conquering English sailed to the bay, where the others were detained; but the inconstant waters betrayed them into peril. The unexpected retreat of the waves separated the English fleet into two portions; one, consisting of three ships, remained fixed close by the enemy, the rest were kept asunder on another part, and could not move to the support of their friends. The wary Danes embraced the opportunity, and attacked the three ships which the waters had placed near them. Lucumon, the king's gerefa, perished, with Æthelferth, his geneat or herdsman, three Frisian chiefs, and sixty-two of the crew. Of the Danes, 120 fell. The battle seems to have been indecisive; but the tide first releasing 60 This important passage deserves to be transcribed, in its original language: " Tha het Alfred cyning timbrian lange scipu onzen tha ærcar. Tha paron ful neah tpa Ƒpa lange spa tha othpu. Sume hærson 60 apa, rume ma. Tha pæɲon ægtheɲ ze spiftran, ze unpealtpan, ze eac hypan thonne tha othpu. Næpon hie napthep ne on Fɲerire zercæpene ne on Dænisc bute spa him selfum thuhte, that hie nýtpýnthoste beon meahton." Sax. Chron. 98. 61 Fl. Wig. 335. |