Chapter 3
III. The Conversion of Britain and the Rise of Wessex After the battles of Deiara-Manchester had broken the strength of the Britons, and all central Britain had fallen into English hands, the victorious invaders did not persevere in completing the conquest of the island, but turned to contend with each other. For the next two hundred years the history of England is the history of the conflict of
the three larger kingdoms, Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex, for the supremacy and primacy in the island. First one, then the other, obtained mastery over its rivals, but the authority of an English king, who claimed to be Bretwalda, or paramount lord of Britain, was as vague and precarious as that of the Celtic chiefs, who in an earlier age had asserted a similar domination over their tribal neighbours. Both Sayallon, the victor of Deiara-Manchester,
and Ethelbrith, the victor of Chester, were great conquerors in their own day, and are said to have claimed an overlordship over their neighbours. But about the year 595, when one was dead and the other had not yet risen, the chief king of Britain was Ethelbert of Kent, a warlike young monarch who subdued his neighbours of Sussex and Essex, and aspired to extend his influence over the island. To the court of this king Ethelbert there came
in the year 597 an embassy from beyond the high seas, which was destined to change the whole course of the history of England. It was led by the monk Augustine, and was composed of a small band of missionaries from Rome who had set out in the hope of converting the English to Christianity. Twenty years before there had been a pious sabbath in Rome named Gregory, who had earnestly desired to go forth to preach the Gospel to the English.
The well-known legend tells how he once saw, exposed in the market for sale, some young boys of a fair countenance. Who are these children? he asked of the slave-dealer. Heathen angles was the reply. Truly they have the faces of angels, said Gregory. And whence have they been brought?
From the kingdom of Deira, he was told. Indeed, they should be brought. Deira Dei, out of the land of the wrath of God, was the abbot's punning rejoinder. From that day Gregory strove to set forth for Britain, but circumstances always stood in his way. At last he became pope, and when he had gained this position of authority, he determined that he would send others, if he could not go himself, to care for the souls
of the pagan English. So in 596 he sent out the zealous monk Augustine, with a company of priests and others, to seek out the land of England. Augustine landed in Kent, both because King Ethelbert was the greatest chief in Britain, and because he had taken as his queen a Christian lady from Gaul, Bertha, the daughter of Charabert, So Augustine and his fellows came to Canterbury, to the court of the king, and when Ethelbert
saw them, he asked his wife what manner of men they might be. When she had pleaded for them, he looked upon them kindly, and gave them the ruined Roman church of St. Martin, outside the gates of Canterbury, and told them that they might preach freely to all his subjects. So Augustine dwelt in Kent, and taught the Kentish men the truths of Christianity, till many of them accepted the gospel and were baptized.
For long King Ethelbert himself was converted, and when he had declared himself a Christian, most of his gesiths and nobles followed him to the font. Then Augustine was made Archbishop of Canterbury, and his companion Meletus, Bishop of Rochester, and the Kingdom of Kent became part of Christendom once more. Ere very long, the kings of the East Saxons and East Angles, who were vassals of Ethelbert,
declared that they also were ready to accept the gospel. They were baptized with many of their subjects, but Christianity was not yet very firmly rooted among them. When King Ethelbert died and was succeeded by his son, who was a heathen and an evil liver, a great portion of the men who so easily accepted Christianity fell back into paganism again. They had conformed to please the king, not because they had appreciated the truths of the gospel. East Anglia and
Essex relapsed almost wholly from the faith and had to be reconverted a generation later. But in Kent, Augustine's work had been more thorough, and after a short struggle the whole kingdom finally became Christian. From Kent, the true faith was conveyed to the English of the North. Edwin, King of Northumbria, married a daughter of Ethelbert and Bertha. She was a Christian and brought with her to York a Roman chaplain named Paulinus, one
of the disciples of Augustine. By the exhortations of this Paulinus, King Edwin was led toward Christianity. He was a great warrior, and while he was doubting as to the faith, it chanced that he had to set forth on an expedition against his enemy, the King of Essex. Then he vowed that if the God of the Christians gave him victory and he should return in peace, he would be baptized. The campaign was successful, and Edwin went joyfully to the baptismal
font. It was long remembered how he held counsel with his Witten, urging them to leave darkness for light and doubt for certainty. Then, because they had found little help in their ancient gods, and because the heathen faith gave them no good guidance for this life and no good hope of a better life to come, the great men of Northumbria swore that they would follow their King. Coythe, the high priest, was the first to cast down his
own idols and destroy the great temple of York, and with him the nobles and gesiths of Edwin went down to the water, and all were baptized. For some time King Edwin prospered greatly. He became the chief king of Britain and made the East Angles and East Saxons his vassals. He destroyed the Welsh kingdom of Leeds and added the west riding of Yorkshire to the Northumbrian kingdom. He also smote the Picts
beyond the Forth and built a fleet on the Irish Sea, with which he reduced the Isles of Man and Anglesey. Edwin's conquests roused all his neighbours against him, and in their common fear of the Northumbrian sword, English and Welsh princes were for the first time found joining an alliance. Penda, King of Mercia, an obstinate heathen and a great foe of the gospel, leagueed himself with Cadwallin, King of Gwynedd, the greatest of the Christian
chiefs of Wales. Together they beset the realm of Edwin, and the great King of Northumbria fell in battle with all his host at Heathfield near Doncaster, 632. The Welsh and Mercians overran Northumbria after slaying its king, and Cadwallin took York and burnt it. The Northumbrians thought that Edwin's god had been found wanting in the day of battle, and most of them relapsed into paganism in their despair. Paulinus,
who had become the first bishop of York, had to flee away into Kent, the only kingdom where Christians were safe for the moment. But ere very long, the Northumbrians were saved from their despair. Edwin and the ancient stock of the kings of Daira were swept away, but there were two princes alive of the royal house of Bernicia. Their names were Oswald and Oswiu, and during Edwin's reign they had been living in exile. Their abode had
been among those of the Scots who had crossed over from Ireland and settled on the coast of North Britain in the land that now bears their name. There the two brethren had fallen in with the disciples of the good abbot Columba, the founder of the great monastery of Iona, and from them they had learnt the Christian faith. Columba, whose successors were to convert all the north of England, had been a man of great mark. He was an Irish monk who had left
his own land in self-imposed exile, because he had been the cause of a tribal war among his countrymen. Crossing to the Argyllshire coast, he built a monastery on the lonely island of Iona, and from thence laboured for the conversion of the Picts and Scots. When Oswald heard of the desperate condition of Northumbria after Edwin's death, he resolved to go to the aid of his countrymen against the Welsh and the Merseians. So he went southward
with a few companions and raised the Bernicians against their oppressors, setting up as his standard the cross he had learnt to reference in Iona. His effort was crowned with success, and at the heaven-field, near the Roman wall, he completely defeated the Welsh and slew their king Catwallen. Penda, the Merseian, was driven out of Northumbria also, and for eight years, 634 to 642, Oswald maintained himself as king of all the land between Forth
and Trent. He used his power most zealously for the propagation of Christianity. He sent to Iona for two pious monks, Aidan and Finan, who were successively bishops of York and under him. And by their aid, he so drew his people toward the faith of Christ that they never swerved from it again as they had done after the death of Edwin. Oswald also encouraged missionaries to go into the other English kingdoms. It was by his advice that Burinus
went from Rome to Wessex, where he converted King Kinnigals, and founded the bishopric of Dorchester-on-Thames. But Oswald was not strong enough to put down his heathen neighbour Penda, the king of Mercia, a mighty warrior who united all the English of central Britain under his scepter, slaying the kings of the East Angles and tearing away Gloucester and all the land of the Huiccas from the kings of Wessex. Penda and Oswald were constantly
at war, and at last the Mercians slew the Northumbrian at the Battle of Maserfield in Shropshire near Oswestry, 642. But the good King Oswald left a worthy successor in his brother Oswiu as zealous a Christian and as vigorous a ruler as himself. Oswiu defeated Penda at the Battle of the Windweed, and by slaying the slayer became the over-king of all England. He conquered the Picts between Forth and Tay, made the Welsh and the Cumbrians
pay him tribute, and annexed northern Mercia, giving the rest of the kingdom over to Peada, Penda's son, only when he became a Christian. It was all over with the cause of heathenism when Penda fell, and the Mercians and their king bowed to the conquering faith and listened to the preaching of Seada, one of the Northumbrian monks, who had been taught by the Irish missionaries Aidan and Finan. Mercia and Northumbria therefore owed their conversion to the disciples of
Columba, and looked to the monastery of Iona as the source of their Christianity, while Kent and Wessex looked to Rome. From whence had come Augustine and Burinus. Unhappily there arose dissension between the clergy of the two churches, for the converts of the Irish monks thought that the South English paid too much deference to Rome, and differed from them on many small points of practice, such as the proper day for keeping Easter,
and the way in which priests should cut their hair. King Osriu was grievously vexed at these quarrels, and held a council at Whitby, or Strayon Shalt, as it was then called, and to hear both sides state their case before him. He made his decision in favour of the Roman observance, and many of the Irish clergy withdrew in consequence from his kingdom, rather than conform to the ways of their Roman brethren. This submission of the English to
the papal sea was destined to lead to many evils in later generations, but at the time it was far the better alternative. If they had decided to adhere to the Irish connection, they would have stood aside from the rest of Western Christendom, and sundered themselves from the fellowship of Christian nations, and the civilising influences of which Rome was then the centre. 664. The English Church, being thus united in communion with Rome,
received as Archbishop of Canterbury a Greek monk named Theodore of Tarsus, whom Pope Vitalian recommended to them. It was this Theodore who first organised the Church of England into a united whole. Down to his day, the missionaries who worked in the different kingdoms had nothing to do with each other. But now all England was divided into bishoprics, which all paid obedience to the metropolitan sea of Canterbury, and in each bishopric the countryside
was furnished with clergy to work under the bishop. Some have said that Theodore cut up England into parishes, each served by a resident priest, but things had not advanced quite so far by his day. Under Theodore and his successors, the bishops and clergy of all the kingdoms frequently met in councils and synods, so that England was united into a spiritual whole long before she gained political unity. It was first in these churches that
church meetings that Mercian, West Saxon, and North Umbrian learnt to meet as friends and equals to work for the common good of them all. The English Church was vigorous from the very first. Ere it had been a hundred years in existence, it had begun to produce men of such wisdom and piety that England was considered the most saintly land of Western Christendom. It sent out the missionaries who rescued Germany from heathenism. Willebrord,
the apostle of Phrygia, Suidbert, who converted Hesse, above all the great Winfrith, or Boniface, the first archbishop of Mainz. This great man, the friend and advisor of the Frankish ruler Charles Martel, spread the gospel all over central Germany and organized a national church in the lands on the Mainz and Saal, where previously Woden and his fellows alone had been worshipped. He died a martyr amongst the heathen of the Phrygian marshes in 733.
Nor was the English Church less noted for its men of learning. Not only were they well-versed in Latin, which was the common language of the clergy all over Europe, but some of them were skilled in Greek also, for the good archbishop Theodore of Tarsus had instructed many in his native tongue. Among the Old English scholars, two deserve special mention. One is the North Umbrian Beda, the Venerable Bede, a monk of Jarrow, who translated the testament from
Greek into English, and also wrote an ecclesiastical History of England, which is our chief source for the knowledge of his times, died 735. The second was another North Umbrian, Alcuin of York, whose knowledge was so celebrated all over Europe, that the Emperor Charles the Great sent for him to Aachen, the Frankish capital, and made him his friend and tutor. For Charles ardently loved all manner of learning, and could find no one like Alcuin among his
own people. As long as Oswyu and his son Egfrith lived, North Umbria held the foremost place among the English kingdoms, and its rulers were accounted the chief kings of Britain. Egfrith conquered Carlisle and Cumbria from the Welsh, and even invaded Ireland, but in an attempt to add the Highlands beyond the fourth to his realm, he was slain in battle by the Picts at Nectonsmere, 685. With his death, the greatness of North Umbria passed
away, for his successors were weak men, and after a while grew so powerless that the kingdom was vexed by constant civil wars, and became the prey of its neighbours, the Mercians on the south and the Picts and Scots on the north. The supremacy that had once been in the hands of the North Umbrians now passed away to the kings of Mercia, the largest and most central of the English kingdoms. Three great kings of that realm, Æthelred, Æthelbald, and
Ophir, whose reigns occupied almost the whole of the period from 675 to 796, were all in their day reckoned as supreme lords of England. The rulers of East Anglia, Essex, and Kent were counted as their vassals, and they deprived Wessex of its dominions north of the Thames and North Umbria of all that it had held south of the Trent and the Ribble. Ophir pushed his boundary far to the west into the lands of the Welsh, and after conquering the valleys
of the Wye and the Upper Severn, drew a great dike from sea to sea, reaching from near Chester on the north to Chepstow on the south. It marked the boundary between the English and the Cymru for three hundred years. Ophir was the greatest king whom England had yet seen, and corresponded on equal terms with Charles the Great, the famous King of the Franks, who was his firm friend and ally, 757 to 796. Nevertheless, after Ophir's day, the scepter
passed away from Mercia, and his successors saw their vassal kings rebel and disown the mercy and allegiance. To maintain subject states in obedience was always a very hard task for the Old English kings, because they had no standing armies and no system of fortification. When a neighbouring realm was overrun by the tumultuary army of a victorious king, he had to be satisfied with the homage of its people, because he could not build fortresses in it
or leave a standing force to hold it down. The only way of keeping a conquest was to colonise it, as was done with the lands taken from the Welsh. But the English kings shrank from evicting their own kinsfolk, and seldom or never employed this device against them. Hence, it always happened that when a great king died, his vassals at once rebelled, and unless his successor was a man of ability, he was unable to reconquer them.
From Mercia, the primacy among the English states passed to Wessex, a state which had hitherto kept much to itself, and had busied itself in conquering land from the Welsh of Dhamnonia, rather than in striving with its English neighbours for the supremacy in mid-Britain. Wessex indeed had lost to the Mercians all its territory north of the Thames, and was now a purely South country state. Its borders reached to the Tamar and the Cornish Moors
since the days when Taunton in 710 and Exeter in 705 had fallen into the hands of its kings. The West Saxon king who succeeded to the power of Offa was Egbert, the ancestor of all the subsequent monarchs of Britain down to our own day. He was a prince who had seen many troubles in his youth, having been driven over sea by his kinsmen and forced to take refuge with Charles the Great. He spent some years in the court and army of the Frankish
monarch, but was called to the throne of Wessex in 800 on the death of his unfriendly cousin. In a long reign that lasted for thirty-six years, Egbert not only subdued the small kingdoms of Kent and Sussex and made the Welsh princes of Cornwall do him homage, but he even dared at last to attack his powerful neighbours, the Mercians. At the Battle of Ellendoon in Wiltshire, 823, he defeated and slew King Beornwolf, the unworthy heir of Offa's greatness.
Shortly after, Mercia did him homage and the Northumbrians, sorely vexed by civil wars, soon followed the example of their southern neighbours. Thus Egbert became overlord of Britain in the same sense that Edwin and Offa had previously held the title. But the dominion of the kings of Wessex was destined to be of a more enduring nature than that of their predecessors. This was not so much due to their own abilities as to the changed condition
of the state of England. Not only were their strong tendencies arising towards unity within the English realms, due most especially to the influence of their common church, but pressure from without was now about to be applied in a way that forced the English to combine. Before Egbert had come to the throne, and even before Offa was dead, the first signs had been seen of the coming storm that was to sweep over England in the second half of
the ninth century. The Danes had already begun to appear off the coasts of the island.
