245

XIX.— On the Anglo-Saxon Kings denominated . By HENRY HALLAM, Esq. V. P. in a Letter to Sir HENRY ELLIS, K.H. Secretary.

Read, June 3rd & 10th, 1847.

MY DEAR SlR HENRY, Wilton Crescent, May 8, 1847. IN turning my attention lately to some parts of our Anglo-Saxon history, I was struck by the obscurity attending the nature and extent of the authority pertaining to those shadowy sovereigns, called by the Saxon chronicler Bretwaldas; a name which writers of the 19th century have usually adopted to distinguish them. "Whether," says Turner, "this was a mere title assumed by Hengist, and afterwards by Ella, and continued by the most successful Anglo-Saxon prince of his day, or conceded in any national council of all the Anglo-, or ambitiously assumed by the Saxon King that most felt and pressed his temporary power; whether it was in imitation of the British unbenneath, or a continuation of the Saxon custom of electing a war cyning, cannot now be ascertained."—Vol. i. p. 331 (1828.) He afterwards inclines to the last hypothesis. " Perhaps the conjecture on this dignity which would come nearest the truth would be, that it was the walda or ruler of the Saxon kingdoms against the Britons while the latter maintained the struggle for the possession of the country; a species of Agamemnon against the common enemy, not a title of dignity or power amongst each other. If so, it would be but the war-king of the Saxons in Britain against its native chiefs."—P. 38 J. This supposition, though Lappenberg adopts it, vol. i. p. 115, is neither a natural interpretation of the word—for we want an Agamemnon on the British side for a ,—nor is compatible with the language of . This venerable father of our history is the only original witness for the seven monarchs who enjoyed a preponderance over the Anglo-Saxons south of the : "Q,ui cunctis Australibus gentis Anglorum provinciis, quse Humbrse fluvioe t contiguis ei terminis sequestrantur a Borealibus, imperarunt."—L. 2, c. 5. The text of the Saxon Chronicle is copied from Bede, with a little abridgment, and with the addition VOL. XXXII. 2 K 246 On the Anglo-Saxon Kings of this remarkable appellation Bretwalda, which occurs no where else. Bretwalda, from the Saxon verb waldan, to rule, can only mean the king or ruler of the Britons, or perhaps of Britain. Yet Bede limits their dominion, or that, to state it more accurately, of the first four, to the Anglo-Saxon states on the right bank of the Humber. An Anglo-Saxon scholar of the first eminence, who has favoured me with some remarks on this subject, observes, that the title Bretwalda seems insufficient to express prerogative or precedence over other Anglo-Saxon kings, unless it could be shewn that the Germanic population ever assumed the title of British, which was certainly not the case. This difficulty has led him to a new conjecture as to the proper meaning of the word. It is written as we find it printed, Bretwalda, in only one MS. of the Saxon Chronicle, which Mr. Petrie as well as Bishop Gibson have followed; but in other MSS. according to the various readings of both editions, we do not find the first part of the compound bret, but bryten. And the word bryten, in composition, occurs several times, as my correspondent informs me, in the Codex Exoniensis, and in Beowulf, in the sense of wide-spread, extensive, spacious, as bryten cyninges beorn, or beam, the noble or son of a powerful king.—Codex Exon. p. 331. Brytenrices weard, vvAer of the spacious realm.—Ib. p. 192. But Bryten- cyning is exactly synonymous with Brytenwealda; so that if we adopt the latter reading in the Saxon Chronicle with the majority of MSS. we shall give a reasonable interpretation of the word without any reference to either the Saxons or Welch, under the denomination of Britons ; the former having never borne it, and the latter not being here to the purpose. I shall presently show some reason to believe that, notwithstanding this ingenious hypothesis, we are not without grounds for keeping the old reading in the Chronicle, and giving the natural sense to the word Bretwalda, though with more limitation as to persons than the compiler of that history has done. And indeed if we were to adopt the suggestion of my correspondent, though we might get rid of some gram- matical difficulties, we should still labour with others of an historical nature. For we have in Bede a plain assertion, that seven Anglo-Saxon kings enjoyed a dominion over all their countrymen south of the Humber. He then proceeds to enumerate them. Primus imperium ejusmodi iElli rex Australium Saxonum obtinuit. Here we are struck back at the first sentence. For when iElli or Ella reigned in , from 477 to 514, the Saxons had only possession of some maritime counties ; and when he is said to have ruled the English up to the Humber, we must remember that the great kingdom of was not formed, nor have we more than a slight evidence for any German settlement in what became afterwards East-Anglia. The denominated Bretwaldas. 247 appellation, Ruler of Great Britain, relatively to such a prince, would have been extravagant. Struck by this difficulty, Sir Francis Palgrave attempts to solve it by the suggestion that the Britons themselves may have conferred the name of Bretwalda on Ella.—Rise and Progress of English Commonwealth, i. 398, ii. 274. But can it be credited that a bold and unconquered people would have submitted in this manner to a fierce invader, known by his extermination of their countrymen in the flourishing city of Anderida, and possessed only of one remote corner of the island ? Is it not much better to say that the national sovereignty of Ella must be understood relatively to the neighbouring kingdom of , or to the incipient states of and ? This indeed is confirmed, at least as to the former of the two, by Henry of Huntingdon, who, whatever his vouchers may have been, goes much more into detail than the Saxon Chronicler. Cerdic, he tells us, before the battle of Cerdicsford against the British King Nazaleod in 508, had sought aid from Esc, king of the Kentishmen, and from Ella, the great king of the South Saxons. The price of his assistance may have been an acknowledgment by Cerdic of the supremacy of the latter. Thus Ella would have been, as Bede designed to call him, the chief of the Saxons, as far as they were already established; though it would be so strange to call him king of Britain, that we cannot believe him to have borne that appellation. And here it may be observed by the way, that, though Henry of Huntingdon is not an historian of the greatest value, we must believe that he derived his knowledge from some testimony now perished. His immediate authority was no doubt some written Chronicle ; but it is a curious question, by what means events antecedent by full a century to the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, have been recorded. A few occur in the Saxon Chronicle, and in this place Henry of Huntingdon has added a few more. There seem to be three methods by which the heathen Anglo-Saxons could have preserved any portion of their history ; by tradition, by popular poetry, or by the use of their own peculiar alphabet in their Runes, a subject so well treated by Mr. Kemble in our 28th volume. In this case of Ella's victories and reign, as well as in the very early part of the Saxon Chronicle, the circumstance that dates have been preserved, and the absence of all tone of legendary poetry, point to the last and most authentic source. This particular passage, however, in Henry of Huntingdon bears some marks of having been derived from British annals. But there is another testimony in this historian to the power of Ella, as strongly expressed, to say the least, as that in Bede. "Circa hoc tempus, (A.D. 814,) obiit Mlla rex Australium Saxonum, qui omnia jura regni Anglorum, reges scilicet et proceres et tribunos, in ditione sua tenebat. Regnavitque post eum Cissi filius 248 On the Anglo-Saxon Kings

ejus, progeniesque eorum post eos ; et in processu temporum valde minorati sunt donee in aliorum jura regum transierunt." Though I cannot think that the language of a writer after the Conquest, plainly ambitious of Latin phrases, as we see by " proceres et tribunos," to decorate the simplicity of the old Runic records, ought to be construed very literally, yet we have enough to make us believe that Ella was not only the most potent of the small Anglo-Saxon chieftains at the beginning of the sixth century, but was looked up to by the rest. Ceaulin of WessexjtS the second of Bede's chiefs over the Saxon race, after the interval of almost a century; and he appears by the Chronicle to have been a successful prince both against the Britons and his countrymen. The third name is that of Ethelbert of Kent, the first Christian King. His reign was long and pros- perous ; but of the two charters wherein he denominates himself Rex Anglorum, one is considered by Mr. Kemble an unquestionable forgery, and the other is marked as doubtful.—Codex Diplom. vol. i. p. 2, 3 ; and Introduction, p. xcvi. It is never- theless highly probable that he was recognised as in some measure superior by the kingdoms of the south. We have a remarkable presumption of his influence in a part of rather distant from Kent. Augustine is said by Bede to have had a conference with the British Bishops at a place called Augustine's Oak, which Carte with probability conjectures to be near the Aust passage over the Severn at the boundary of the small kingdom of the Huiceii and that of Wessex (See Stevenson's Bede, 1. 2, c. 2), and to have used the assistance of Ethelbert to invite these prelates: Adjutorio usus Ethelberti regis, convocavit ad suum colloquium episcopos proximse Britonum provincise. I do not indeed think that this obliges us to believe that the British prelates were under Ethelbert's command, nor does their subsequent beha- viour denote much submissiveness ; but, combined with the authority of Bede's list, it warrants us in attributing to him an ascendant over the kingdom of Wessex, which enabled Augustine to pass through that part of England in safety. The fourth enumerated by Bede is Redwald, King of East-Anglia. Bede says of him : " Qui etiam vivente iEdilberto, eidem suse genti ducatum prsebebat." These words, it appears by Mr. Stevenson's note, are omitted in the Anglo-Saxon translation of Bede, and I must own my incapacity to assign them any sense. Bede may have meant, though he does not say, that Redwald was independent chief of his own kingdom during the life of iEdilbert; but, as he generally writes intelligible Latin, the probability is that the text is corrupt. We might conjecture, perhaps, with the mere transposition of a word, that the passage should be read thus: " Redwald, rex orientalium Anglorum, etiam vivente Adilberto, qui eidem suae genti ducatum prae- bebat;" that is, Ethelbert bestowed on Redwald the power of duke or king (which denominated Bretwaldas. 249 «ver we understand by ducatus) over his own nation. But this is not quite satis- factory ; for, though the emendation is easy enough, it does not render the Latin very clear. It would indeed, if admissible, strongly confirm the superiority of Ethelbert, since it represents him as conferring on another a subordinate dominion over the East-Anglian nation. Thus far we have found sufficient reason to believe that, before the middle of the seventh century, four kings from four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had at intervals of time become superior to*the rest, excepting, however, the Northumbrians, whom Bede distinguishes, and whose subjection to a southern prince is not by any means probable. None, therefore, of these four could properly have been called Bretwalda, or ruler of the Britons ; since not even his own countrymen were wholly under his sway. The supremacy indeed of Redwald the East-Anglian over Kent and Wessex, more considerable states than his own, appears somewhat precarious; and we may perhaps suspect that his great victory over Edelfrid the Northumbrian, which placed Edwin on that throne, gave him more claim to figure in Bede's list than any substan- tial dominion over the south. We now come to three Northumbrian kings, Edwin, Oswald, and Oswin, who ruled, according to Bede, with greater power than the preceding, over all the inhabitants of Britain, both English and British, with the sole exception of the men of Kent. This he repeats in another place with respect to Edwin, the first North- umbrian convert to Christianity, whose worldly power, he says, increased so much, that, what no English sovereign had done before, he extended his dominion to the furthest bounds of Britain, whether inhabited by English or by Britons, (c. 9.) There is a very remarkable confirmation of their superiority, and the only passage which gives a contemporary sanction to the title of Bretwalda at all, in the life of Columba, by Adamnan, ninth abbot of Iona, and nearly of the age of Bede. To this I was led by Dr. Lingard (I am not aware whether any earlier historian has quoted it), who observes, that Oswald King of is called by Cuminius, a contemporary writer, in his life of St. Columba, totius Britannise imperator. This anonymous life indeed, as I find on reference, is not attributed to Cuminius by the Bollandists, who give several reasons for doubting it to be his. The words of the writer are as follows : "Oswaldum regem, in procinctu belli castra metatum, et in papilione supra pulvillum dormientem allocutus est, et ad helium procedere jussit. Processit et secuta est victoria; reversusque postea totius Britanniss imperator ordi- natus a Deo, et tota incredula gens baptizata est."—Acta Sanctorum, Jan. 23. This passage, on account of the uncertainty of the author's age, might not appear sufficient. But this anonymous life of Columba is chiefly taken from that by 250 On the Anglo-Saxon Kings Adamnan, about 700; and in that life we find the important expression about Oswald : "Totius Britannise imperator ordinatus a Deo." We have' therefore here probably a distinct recognition of the Saxon word Bretwalda,—for what else could answer to emperor of Britain ? And, as far as I know, it is the only one that exists. It seems more likely that Adamnan refers to a distinct title bestowed on Oswald by his subjects, than that he means to assert as a fact that he truly ruled over all Britain. This is not very credible, notwithstanding the language of Bede, who loves to amplify the power of favourite monarchs; for, though it may be admitted that these Northumbrian kings enjoyed at times a preponderance over the other Anglo- Saxon principalities, we know that both Edwin and Oswald lost their lives in great defeats by Penda of Mercia. Nor were the Strath-clwyd Britons in any permanent subjection. The name of Bretwalda, as applied to these three kings, though not so absurd as to make it incredible that they assumed it, asserts an untruth. It is, however, at all events plain from history that they obtained their superiority by force; and we may reasonably believe the same of the four earlier kings enume- rated by Bede. An elective dignity, such as is now sometimes supposed, cannot be presumed in the absence of every semblance of evidence, and against manifest probability. What appearance do we find of a federal union among the kites and crows, as Milton calls them, of the ? What but the law of the strongest could have kept these rapacious and restless warriors from tearing the vitals of their common country ? The influence of Christianity in effecting a comparative civiliza- tion, and producing a sense of political as well as religious unity, had not yet been felt. The kingdom of Northumbria rapidly declined after the death of Oswy. In its place rose that of Mercia. Even before Bede finished his History, in 731, Ethelbald King of Mercia had become paramount over the states south of the Humber, certainly more so than any of the first four whom we dignify with the pompous fiction of Bretwalda. " Et hsec omnes provincise ceterseque australes ad confinium usque Hymbrse fluminis cum suis quaeque regibus Merciorum regi Ethelbaldo subjectse sunt."—Bed. 1. v. c. 23. In some charters of Ethelbald he styles himself " Non solum Mercensium sed et universarum provinciarum quse communi vocabulo dicuntur Suthangli divina largiente gratia rex."—Codex Diplom. i. 96, 100, 101. In the synod of Clovesho, 742, presided over by this king, we find the Archbishop of and other English bishops. What could be more like dominion than this ? Ethelbald lost this ascendancy before his death ; but Offa recovered it, at least in great part, and in his charters calls himself sometimes Rex Anglorum, sometimes denominated Bretwaldas. 251

Rex Merciorum simulque aliarum circumquaque nationum.—Codex Diplom. 162,, 166, 167, et alibi. It is impossible to define the subordination of the southern kingdoms to that of Mercia, but we can hardly imagine it to have been less than they paid in the sixth century to Ceaulin and Ethelbert. We may therefore be surprised to find that the Saxon Chronicle, under the year 827, after mentioning that Egbert conquered the kingdom of the Mercians and all on the south of the Humber, goes on to add : " And he was the eighth king that was Bretwalda. iElla king of the South Saxons was the first that had so much dominion; the second was Ceawlin king of the West Saxons; the third was Ethelbryht king of the Kentishmen; the fourth was Raedwald king of the East- Anglians; the fifth was Edwin king of the Northumbrians; the sixth was Oswald, who reigned after him ; the seventh was Oswin, Oswald's brother,; the eighth was Ecbryht king of the West Saxons." This is evidently copied from Bede, and in so servile a manner that no later prince is mentioned. The word Bretwalda never occurs, as I have observed, except in this passage. It has been assumed that the chronicler meant to point out a peculiar title or dignity; and our contemporaries speak of a Bretwalda as familiarly as of an archbishop. This however, is not explicitly affirmed by the text; and it is observable that iEthelwerd, himself writing before the Conquest, translates the Saxon Chronicle thus : " Ipse et octavus rex qui in Britannia fuerat pollens potestate ;" plainly understanding the word as expressive of a fact, not a title. I am however inclined to believe, combining the passage in Adamnan with this, less explicitly worded, of the Saxon Chronicle, that the three Northumbrian kings, having been victorious in war, and paramount over the minor kingdoms, were really designated, at least among their own subjects, by the name Bretwalda, or ruler of Britain. The assumption of so pompous a title is characteristic of the vaunting tone which continued to increase down to the Conquest; and I must confess that, till I met with the life of Saint Columba, I entertained a suspicion that the word Bretwalda was a mere translation of Britanniae Imperator or Basileus, affected by Athelstan and his successors in the tenth century. The Saxon Chronicle, as we read it, is referred by no one, I believe, to an earlier date. It is strange that the word only once occurs, if it denoted a positive constitutional sovereignty. It is strange that neither in Saxon nor in a Latin equivalent we trace it in any royal charter. It is strange that these seven early kings, several of whom could not with- out absurdity be called rulers of Britain, and whom Bede never so styles, should be more conspicuous by bearing this haughty title than their successors Ethelbald and Offa. This led me to conjecture that the chronicler, in an age when the vain 252 On the Anglo-Saxon Kings pretence of swaying all Britain was common at the court of Winchester, gave thi& rank retrospectively to Egbert, and then copied the passage in Bede, for he has done no more, with the view of carrying farther back the national sovereignty of a single monarch. But I must yield this suspicion, at least partially, on the authority of Adamnan, and admit that , in the seventh century, probably also his father Edwin and his son Oswy, took the appellation of Bretwalda, to indi- cate the supremacy they had obtained, not only over Mercia and the other kingdoms of their countrymen, but, by dint of successful invasions, over the Strath-clwyd Britons and the Scots beyond the Forth. That they did what Rome could not effect, actually subjugate Caledonia, we must greatly hesitate to believe. I still entertain considerable doubts whether this title was ever applied to any but these Northumbrian kings. It would have been manifestly ridiculous, too ridiculous, one would think, even for Anglo-Saxon grandiloquence, to confer it on the first four in Bede's list; and, if it expressed an acknowledged supremacy over the whole nation, why was it never assumed in the eighth century ? The later historians of this period do not add anything to our knowledge. Florence of Worcester almost always copies the Saxon Chronicle, but in this passage so far only differs as to transcribe the text of Bede more accurately. He neither repeats nor translates the word Bretwalda, which, though so great a favourite of late years, seems to have been treated with much less respect in earlier times. The passage in Bede, giving it a reasonable construction, may well stand as containing an historical truth. It may be admitted that certain kings during the period called that of the Heptarchy, predominated in a greater or less degree over others who still retained the royal title. To those enumerated by Bede, we may add the names of Ethelbald and OfFa. Egbert himself might have been classed with them had he not secured for the kingdom of Wessex a permanent supremacy, which shortly changed the many-headed domination of the Anglo-Saxon kings into a regular monarchy. We have hardly any genuine charters of Bede's seven kings, but several of Egbert, the eighth Bretwalda, as the Chronicle calls him, are extant; in most of these he designates himself Rex occidentalium Saxonum ; but in one we certainly find Rex Anglorum.—Codex Diplom. i. 287- I cannot, however, consider this equivalent to monarch of Britain. Henry of Huntingdon in one place (sub A. D. 560,) copies the words of Bede as to the seven kings, and adds Egbert, whom he calls Rex et Monarcha Britannia?, doubtless as a translation of Bretwalda, from the Saxon Chronicle, subjoining Alfred and Edgar as ninth and tenth, from his own notions of history. Egbert, he says, was eighth in number of ten kings remarkable for their bravery and power denominated Bretwaldas. 253 (fortissimorum) who reigned in England. Strange that , Athelstan, or Edred, should find no place in such a list. Who would take any fact as a clear truth on the credit of so loose a writer ? Rapin, as far as I know, is the first historian who broached the notion of a federal union among the kingdoms of the Heptarchy. " The three nations who conquered the greater part of Britain, viz. Saxons, Jutts, and Angles, looking upon themselves, as they did in Germany, to be one and the same people, settled a form of government in this island resembling as near as possible that under which they lived in their own country. They instituted an assembly for regulating the common affairs of the seven kingdoms, and entrusted the command of the armies to a general in chief, to whom, doubtless for this reason, some have given the title of monarch, under pretence of his having precedency of, and some superiority over, the other kings ; but it seems to me this dignity had a nearer relation to that of Stadtholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands: there was however some difference between the government of the Saxons in Germany, and that of the Anglo-Saxons settled in Britain; for example, in Germany each governor of a province absolutely depended on the general assembly of the Saxons, in which resided the sovereign power ; but in Britain each king was sovereign in his own kingdom; this was however no obstacle, in some respects, to all the kingdoms being considered as one state; or to each prince submitting to the resolutions taken in the general assembly of the seven kingdoms, to which he gave his consent, either in person or by proxy. This government may well be compared to the seven United Provinces in the Low Countries, each of which has sovereign authority, though submitting to the decrees of the States-General. Sometimes a free election, and sometimes force, named the chief of the Heptarchy, who had more or less authority in proportion to his own particular strength; for though this dignity did not give an unlimited power to the General, yet hardly was there any of these monarchs, as we shall find in the sequel, but aimed at being absolute."—Rapin, vol. i. sub an. 587. This theory seems very little founded on any thing we have learned, either as to the state of Germany before the Saxon invasion, or that of England afterwards. No authority is quoted by Rapin, but he must have had before him the primary text of Bede, and the echoes of it in the Latin historians after the Conquest. It has been seen how little they bear out his scheme of government. Hume slightly alludes to the supremacy of some kings during the Heptarchy, and Henry is silent about it. The word Bretwalda was first perhaps dragged to light by Mr. Sharon Turner, from whom an extract has been given. It has been seen that this diligent writer, whom no one will charge with a tendency to demand too much VOL. xxxn. 2 L 254 On the Anglo-Saxon Kings denominated Bretwaldas. historical evidence, passes rather slightly over the title, and plainly acknowledges his ignorance of its proper meaning. Dr. Lingard, however, gives it a greater prominence, and announces the seven kings of Bede in capital letters as Bretwalda the First, Bretwalda the Second, Bretwalda the Third ; as if this (brag Xeyo/xevov had all possible testimony of coins and charters. My most ingenious and learned friend Sir Francis Palgrave has gone still farther; and inferring, on what seems to me very slight and ambiguous evidence, that the Britons as well as English were subject, or frequently subject, to a common sovereign, has built a fair and spacious structure, pleasing to the eye, but defective, I fear, in the solidity of its foundation. Lastly, Dr. Lappenberg, though not concurring in all Sir Francis Palgrave's speculations, is equally convinced that England had its seven or eight Bretwaldas, ruling, by the consent and choice of their fellow countrymen, the various inhabitants of our large island. I do not think myself liable to the imputation of scepticism, if I am content with what we find in Bede, confirmed in one instance by the Life of Columba ; considering always that the Anglo-Saxon chronicler, and the Latin historians, even supposing that they had added more than they do to his testimony, had very little knowledge of the seventh century, except what they got from him. Bede I do not reject, because substantially he must be right; though I may believe some of his phrases, as to the first four called Bretwaldas, to be more loose than an historian careful of precision would have employed. What I do reject, as unwarranted by any evidence, and improbable in itself, is the hypothesis of a voluntary subjection of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to a chosen head, like that of German electors to an emperor. Intestine war and perpetual aggression mark the annals of this barbarous period; and, even if the Anglo-Saxons had been more strictly of one race than they were, it is to be remembered that the resistance of the Mercians to the introduction of Christianity, and the fierce Pagan spirit of such kings as Penda, drew for a time a broad line of demarcation between them and the newly converted principalities of Kent and Northumbria. A voluntary submission to Edwin or Oswald, still more an union in a common confederacy, could not have existed, so long as they did not worship at the same altar.

I remain, My dear Sir, Yours very faithfully, HENRY HALLAM.