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On the Anglo-Saxon Kings Denominated Bretwaldas

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On the Anglo-Saxon Kings Denominated Bretwaldas 245 XIX.— On the Anglo-Saxon Kings denominated Bretwaldas. 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-Saxons, 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 Bretwalda,—nor is compatible with the language of Bede. 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 Humber: "Q,ui cunctis Australibus gentis Anglorum provinciis, quse Humbrse fluvio et 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 Sussex, 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 Mercia 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 Kent, or to the incipient states of Wessex and East Anglia? 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.
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