	Copyright

Home
The Golden Age of the Saxons

The Golden Age of the Saxons

Alfred died in 901; Ethelred II, whose reign marks the downfall of all that Alfred had done, came to the throne in 979. This chapter passes in review the seventy-eight years that elapse between the two kings each justly named, the one "the Great", the other "the Unready", or "Redeless".

It is not altogether easy to find any one distinguishing mark of the period; yet if we take it down to 975 we may fairly call it " Three Generations of Strong Kings ", for, reckoning the one son, three grandsons and two great-grandsons sprung from Alfred, only one (Edwy) shows no good qualities as a ruler. We may remark further that these three generations all carry on Alfred's work. They do not attempt to extirpate the Danes, but they gradually bring them under their sway, so that the two races begin to join into one, and the house of Wessex again becomes supreme over all England. Finally, in the latter part of the period we shall notice a great increase in the political power of the Church; we shall see, too, the first of that long line of ecclesiastical statesmen who appear and reappear for many centuries in English history.

With these somewhat slender threads to join a series of events which are naturally rather disconnected we may bind together the story of Alfred's descendants.

Edward the Elder shone chiefly as a warrior. The title which he took - "King of the English" instead of "King of the West Saxons" - indicates his life's work. He set himself to recover the Danelaw, that district which his father had been forced to give up. The task was easier than it might seem, since the Danes of the Danelaw were not united under one ruler. None the less Edward had to proceed with caution. Aided by his warlike sister, Ethelfleda, who ruled the Midlands for him under the title of the "Lady of the Mercians", he first completed the series of fortified posts which Alfred had begun. Then moving over the border he attacked the group of Danish towns on the Upper Ouse. One by one, Bedford, Huntingdon, Northampton, Cambridge, yielded to him. Ethelfleda led an army against the Five Danish Boroughs in the valley of the Trent, and captured Derby and Leicester. She died in 918, but Edward carried on the work. At length, in 925, when he was setting out on a final invasion of the north, he was met by envoys from all the northern powers, from the Danes of Northumbria, the Welsh of Strathclyde, the Angles of Bernicia, and even Constantine, King of the Scots, who offered submission and swore to take him to "father and lord". Edward accepted their submission, though it must have been as evident to him as it is to modern eyes that the supremacy over so distant a person as the King of Scots could not have been very secure. Scanty foundation as it was, however, we shall see much built on it, by another Edward, even greater than his namesake Edward the Elder.

Chronology

wpf application development