19: The Kingdom of England

Transcription

1 19: The Kingdom of England In 899, Alfred was succeeded as King of the Anglo-Saxons by his son, Edward who, together with his sister, Æthelflæd, reconquered the Danelaw and brought it back under Saxon rule. Edward s own son, Æthelstan, completed the unification of the Anglo-Saxon realm and in 927 became the first King of the English. Yet in the first decades of the eleventh century, rule over England would pass out of the House of Wessex and into the hands of Danish rulers, the greatest of which was Canute whose reign of 1016 to 1035 made England the centre of the so-called North Sea Empire. 19.1: The Reconquest of the Danelaw IDuring the last two decades of Alfred s reign, the balance of power in England between the Danes and the Anglo-Saxons shifted in favour of the Anglo-Saxons. The treaties agreed between Alfred and Guthrum after the Battle of Edington brought peace between the Saxons and the Danes and this peace caused the departure from England of significant Viking leaders and a subsequent degree of disunity within the Danelaw. At the same time, the prestige which Alfred won with his victories over the Danes strengthened his control over Wessex while the marriage of his daughter, Æthelflæd, to the Lord of the Mercians, Æthelred, c.887 helped to secure Alfred s overlordship of western Mercia as per the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum agreed in 886. In this manner, Saxon political unity increased while the cohesion of the Danes decreased. In addition to unifying the West Saxons and Mercians, Alfred also introduced a swathe of military reforms to the Kingdom of Wessex which made Alfred s realm practically inviolate to further Viking aggression, whether it came from the Danelaw or from the seaborne Viking armies which had established bases on the north coasts of West and East Frankia. The most notable of these reforms were the creation of a Saxon navy, the founding of a standing army, and the construction of a deep network of fortified settlements or burhs. While Alfred did not engage in further significant conflict with the Danes before his death in 899, his son and successor, Edward, together with Æthelflæd and Æthelred in western Mercia used the political unity and newly acquired formidable military power of the Saxons to begin the reconquest of the Danelaw. Edward s campaigns against the Danes began with an attack on Lindsey in Viking Mercia in 909. The Danelaw kings retaliated against the Saxons the following year by raiding into west Mercia along the River Severn. However, the Danish raiders were subsequently engaged by a Saxon army at 1

2 the Battle of Tettenhall and suffered a decisive defeat. In 911, Æthelred died leaving Æthelflæd as the Lady of Mercia and in 912, the son and daughter of Alfred began the reconquest of the Danelaw. While Edward led the West Saxon army against the Danes in Essex, East Anglia and the east Midlands, Æthelflæd s Mercians attacked the Five Burghs of the Danelaw (Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford). After making considerable territorial gains, the Saxon campaign was temporarily halted in 918 with the death of Æthelflæd. However, after securing his rule over the lands previously governed by his sister, Edward renewed his efforts against the Danes and after capturing Stamford, the Danes in Mercia submitted to him. While Edward had been making inroads into the southern Danelaw, Norwegian Vikings based in Ireland had been carrying out attacks on the northern Danelaw with a view to ousting their Viking rivals and taking the territory in northern England for themselves. In 918, Ragnall a Norse leader expelled from Dublin, based his forces in Northumbria and the following year he proclaimed himself King of Northumbria. In 920, Ragnall offered his submission to Edward yet the Norwegians remained an intermittent but sometimes troublesome presence in Northumbria for the next thirty-five years. 19:2: The Founding of England After Edward died in 924, he was succeeded by his son, Æthelstan. Three years later, Ragnall s successor in Northumbria, Sitric, died and Æthelstan deposed Sitric s son, Guthfrith, to seize control of the kingdom to make himself sole ruler of all the Anglo-Saxon realms and effectively the first King of the English. Æthelstan s seizure of Northumbria made England the most powerful kingdom in the British Isles and in recognition of his power, Æthelstan receiving the submission of the kings of Alba (Scotland), Strathclyde as well the rulers of the Welsh kingdoms. However, in 934, Æthelstan invaded Alba for reasons that are unclear and the invasion caused Constantine to form an alliance with Owen of Strathclyde and Olaf, the Viking ruler of Dublin who, as son of Guthfrith, laid claim to Northumbria. In 937, the alliance met Æthelstan s forces in the Battle of Brunanburh which resulted in a decisive English victory and led to Æthelstan becoming the de facto King of all Britain. Æthelstan s position as the first King of the English earned him the respect of foreign rulers and during his fifteen-year reign, Æthelstan used his status to create important marriage alliances between the House of Wessex and the nobility of West and East Frankia. In 919, Edward had arranged the marriage of Æthelstan s sister, Eadgifu, to Charles the Simple, the Carolingian king of West Frankia. The couple produced a son, Louis, and when Charles was deposed by the Robertians in 922, Eadgifu and Louis fled from West Frankia to 2

3 England where Louis was raised in the English royal court. In 926, Æthelstan sought to renew his alliance with West Frankia and protect the status of his nephew, Louis, by offering his half-sister, Eadhild, as a bride to Hugh, Count of Paris, and the son of Robert I, the Robertian noble who had deposed Charles the Simple. In 936, Hugh, Duke of the Franks, recalled Louis from the court of Æthelstan and installed the fifteen-year-old as King of West Frankia. In 929, Æthelstan sent his third sister, Eadgyth, to the Continent to be married to Otto of Saxony who in 936 became the King of East Frankia and in 962 became the Holy Roman Emperor. The death of Æthelstan in 939 prompted Olaf to return to York from Dublin where he again laid claim to Northumbria. Æthelstan s younger brother and successor, Edmund, initially conceded to Olaf s rule over Northumbria but Olaf then reneged on the agreement made with Edmund by attacking and capturing the Five Burghs of Mercia. Between 942 and 944, Edmund recaptured first the Five Burghs and then Northumbria but c.949, during the reign of Edmund s successor Eadred, control of Northumbria was once again seized by the Norsemen. In 954, Eadred overcame Erik Bloodaxe, the last Viking ruler of Northumbria, and the former kingdom was permanently incorporated into England. 19:3: The Anglo-Danish State Between 1016 and 1042, the House of Wessex lost possession of the throne of England due in part to the shortcomings of Æthelred II, known in his own time as Æthelred the Unready, a reference to the poor quality of the counsel he received from his advisors. Æthelred became King of the English in 978 at the age of twelve after his older half-brother, Edward the Martyr, was assassinated with the complicity of Æthelred s stepmother. Æthelred s accession to the throne coincided with the recommencement of Viking raids on England which over the next twenty years increased in intensity. In 1001, a large Danish force made a base on the Isle of Wight and carried out extensive attacks on the south coast of Wessex, forcing Æthelred to pay a massive tribute in order to give Wessex respite from the attacks. Æthelred s willingness to pay off the Danish invaders rather than devise an effective defensive strategy as Alfred had done 120 years earlier ultimately only served to encourage further Danish aggression and between 1003 and 1012, further large scale Danish attacks led by the formidable Sweyn Forkbeard, king of both Norway and Denmark, were carried out against England. On each occasion, Æthelred proved himself incapable of effectively defending his people and instead continued to pay off the Norsemen with ever-larger sums of tribute, much of which was raised through the gafol, later known as the Danegeld, a land tax imposed on Anglo-Saxons of all social rank. In the late summer of 1013, sensing the fragility of Æthelred s royal authority, 3

4 Sweyn launched a full-scale invasion of England with a view to deposing Æthelred. Weary of the Viking raids and having lost confidence in Æthelred s kingship, the Anglo-Saxon nobility submitted to Sweyn. In 1001, in an attempt to break an alliance between the Danes and Richard the Fearless, then Duke of Normandy, Æthelred had married Richard s daughter, Emma of Normandy. On his deposition, Æthelred, Emma and their youngest sons, Edward and Alfred, fled to Normandy to seek asylum from Richard. In the meantime, Sweyn was declared King of England on Christmas Day :4: The North Sea Empire Sweyn Forkbeard died on 3rd February 1014, prompting the Anglo-Saxon nobility to invite Æthelred to return from Normandy and reclaim the throne of England. After being reinstalled as king, Æthelred expelled Sweyn s son, Canute, from his kingdom, fearing that the Dane would attempt to usurp him. The following year, Canute returned to England with a Danish army and Æthelred and Canute were engaged in a war when Æthelred died in April Canute immediately claimed the throne of England for himself but his claim was contested by Edmund Ironside, Æthelred s oldest surviving son. The two rival claimants fought each other to a stalemate until in October 1016, they agreed a partition of England in which Edmund was to rule over Wessex and Canute the north of the realm. Canute s rule over England was made complete a month later with the death of Edmund. On becoming sole King of the English, Canute consolidated his position by ruthlessly eliminating the English nobility opposed to his rule while at the same he established ties with the House of Wessex by marrying Emma, Æthelred s widow, in 1017 thus making himself step-father to Æthelred s surviving sons. A year after his marriage to Emma, Canute travelled to Denmark to lay claim to the Danish throne and was accompanied by Godwin, an English nobleman who eventually became Canute s lieutenant in England and was subsequently appointed by Canute as Earl of Wessex. A decade after becoming King of Denmark, Canute seized the crown of Norway and in so doing made himself the ruler of a North Sea Empire comprised of England, Denmark, Norway as well as parts of Sweden. Canute s nineteen-year long reign over England was a strong and effective one. His pre-eminence in Scandinavia brought England security from Viking invasion as well as opportunities for enhanced trade and the country prospered under his rule. However, the North Sea Empire was a relatively short-lived entity and collapsed almost immediately after Canute s death in Hardecanute, Canute s son by his marriage to Emma of Normandy, was the legitimate heir to the thrones of both England and Denmark while Canute had intended another of his sons, Sweyn, to become King of Norway. However, while Hardecanute took the throne of Denmark unopposed, Sweyn 4

5 was usurped by a rival claimant in Norway, a development which caused a war between the two Scandinavian kingdoms. Hardecanute s involvement in the conflict against his half-brother s usurper prevented him from succeeding Canute in England and so Harold Harefoot, a third son of Canute, became King of the English. Harold died in 1040 and was succeeded by Hardecanute who by that time had extricated himself from his Scandinavian conflict at the expense of ceding Norway to his enemies. Between 1040 and 1042, England and Denmark once again had a single ruler but when Hardecanute died childless in June 1042, the English nobility, led by Godwin of Wessex, looked to restore the House of Wessex to the throne of England and Edward, the son of Æthelred, who had returned to England in 1041 after a twenty-eight-year long exile in Normandy, took the English throne. Indicative Reading Timothy Bolton, Cnut the Great, Chapters 2-3, 5-7 D.J.V. Fisher, The Anglo-Saxon Age c , Chapters 11, Barbara Yorke, Alfred the Great, Chapters 2, 5-7 5