Contents: Establishment of the German Kingdom - Establishment of the `Holy Roman Empire' - Origin of the Reigning House of England - Splendor of Frederick II - The Great Interregnum: Anarchy - End of the `Holy Roman Empire.'

The Alemanni in the Middle Ages

The Alemanni and their Suevic brethren who followed them in the invasion and division of the Roman Empire took possession of all of the Roman provinces of Rhætia and Vindelicia, and the territory of Agri Decumates. "Thus the Alemanni filled up all that southwestern corner of Germany and Switzerland which is naturally bounded by the Rhine as it flows westward to Bale and then makes a sudden turn to the right angles northward to Strasburg, Worms, and Mainz." [460] They occupied the northern border of what is now Switzerland, as far south as Winterthur. To this territory to the eastward of the northern flow of the Rhine and Moselle, and the head waters of the Seine. Thus in all at the fall of the empire in 476 the Alemanni occupied the country which now comprises Alsace, Lorraine, Baden, Wurtenburg, the greater part of Bavaria, and the southern (areas) of the large divisions of Hessen-Darmstadt.

2. When the Alemanni were defeated by Clovis, their Gallic possessions became the prize of the conqueror, but all the rest they were allowed to occupy, and were permitted by Clovis and his successors "to enjoy their peculiar manners and institutions, under the government of official, and at length of hereditary dukes." [463] These, as well as the other German conquests of Clovis, "soon became virtually free. They continued to acknowledge Frankish supremacy; but the acknowledgment was only formal. At the head of each confederation was its own Herzog or Duke. These rulers were at first appointed by the Frankish kings, or received their sanction; but in course of time the office became hereditary in particular families." [465]

3. Of the Alemanni the two principal dukedoms were Swabia and Bavaria; and it is under these two names that their future history is found. But as Swabia is the original, and as it has exerted a greater influence in the affairs of Germany than has any other confederation, it is the one about which most must be said; for the history of it is, in a measure, the history of Germany, especially after the treaty of Verdun, AD 843.

4. Thassilo, duke of Bavaria, had been on ill terms with Pepin, the father of Charlemagne. When Charlemagne came to the throne, Thassilo rendered very indifferent service. His repeated acts of treachery caused Charlemagne to remove him, and Bavaria was placed under the authority of the margrave (Markgrafen) of Ostreich. The "margraves" were "lords of the marches." The "marches" were formed of the border countries, by Charlemagne, over which he appointed "argraves" "whose duty it was to administer justice in his name, to collect tribute, and extend his conquests." Bavaria was ruled by margraves till about 900, when it again became a dukedom. The margraviate of Ostreich continued till 1156, when it, too, was made a duchy, and thus the march of Ostreich - East domain - formed by Charlemagne, was the origin of what is now (1901) the empire of Austria.

5. In the treaty of Verdun, it will be remembered, Louis the German (843-876) received the whole of Germany east of the Rhine. And as he was the first sovereign who ruled over the Germans, and over no other western people, he is considered in history as the founder of the kingdom of Germany. At his death, his son Charles the Fat (876-887) received from him Swabia - Alemannia; and, as before shown, by the death of his two brothers, Charles inherited all Germany, was made emperor, and by invitation assumed the sovereignty of France, but was deposed, and Arnulf, his nephew, was chosen king of Germany in his place. Arnulf, like Charles the Fat, went to Rome and was crowned emperor. He returned in 890 and inflicted such a defeat upon the Northmen that "they never again returned in such numbers as to be a national peril."

6. Arnulf died in 899 and was succeeded by his son Louis the Child, six years old, who nominally reigned till 911. His reign was one of the darkest periods of German history. For, as soon as the Magyars - the modern Hungarians - heard that Arnulf had been succeeded by a child, "they swept into Germany in vast numbers, and fearful was the havoc they caused in every part of the kingdom." "Where the Northmen had whipped with cords, these barbarians lashed with scorpions." And there as no leader around whom the nation could rally. At this time and for about 300 years, Germany consisted of five duchies, - Swabia, Bavaria, Franconia, Saxony, and Lorraine.

7. Louis the Child died in 911. Even while he lived, the dukes were virtually kings in their duchies; and when he died, they could have been altogether kings, but that the dangers threatened by the Magyars, the Slavs, and the Northmen, obliged them to form a central government for the common defense. Accordingly, the nobles assembled at Forcheim, and upon the advice of Otto, the duke of Saxony, Conrad, duke of Franconia, was made king. But his election displeased the dukes of Bavaria, Swabia, and Lorraine. The duke of Lorraine rebelled outright. The dukes of Bavaria and Swabia yielded; but the bishops, jealous of their power, induced Conrad to force a quarrel with these as also with Henry, duke of Saxony. This fairly created an anarchy all the days of Conrad; but on his deathbed, 918, he recommended that Henry of Saxony be chosen king in his stead.

8. With Henry began the rule of the house of Saxony, which continued 106 years, 918-1024, through Henry I, Otto I, Otto II, Otto III, and Henry II. Henry I delivered Germany from the scourge of the Magyars; and so thoroughly restored peace and order throughout the dominion that when he died, in 936, "every land inhabited by German population formed part of the kingdom, and none of the duchies were at war with each other nor among themselves." Before his death the nobles had, in national assembly, promised Henry that his son Otto should be recognized as his successor, and the promise was kept. Otto I the Great reigned from 936-973. His half-brother, however, raised a rebellion, and was joined by the dukes of Franconia and Bavaria. But by the help of the duke of Swabia the rising was put down. A second rebellion was led by Otto's brother, helped by the dukes of Franconia and Lorraine. This, too, was quelled, to the immense advantage of Otto.

9. Having secured peace in Germany, and made himself master of the kingdom, as none of his immediate predecessors had been, Otto was by far the greatest sovereign in Europe. But not content with this, he decided to take a step that caused Germany ages of trouble - he put himself into the hands of the pope, and became the "protector of the Church." The way in which it was brought about was this: Adelaide, the young widow of Lothair, the son of King Hugh of Provence, - Burgundy, - had refused to marry the son of Berengar, king of Lombardy. For this she was cast into prison and was cruelly treated. She appealed to Otto. Her appeal not only touched his sympathies, but aroused in him a strong ambition; for he saw the way thus opened to imperial authority.

10. At the head of a strong force Otto crossed the Alps in 951. He displaced Berengar, who, "in the extremity of his fortunes, made a formal cession of the Italian kingdom, in his own name and in that of his son Adalbert to the Saxon, as his overlord." Upon this Otto assumed the title of king of Italy. Besides this, he was so fascinated by young Queen Adelaide that in a few weeks he married her. His son Ludolf thought his rights threatened by this marriage; returned sullenly to Germany; and with the archbishop of Mainz formed a conspiracy against his father. Otto, hearing of their plot, hastened home, leaving Duke Conrad of Lorraine to attend to affairs in Italy. But Conrad restored the crown to Berengar, and returned to Germany and joined the conspiracy of Ludolf and the archbishop. War broke out. The majority of the kingdom were indeed opposed to Otto: being displeased with his ambitious designs in Italy. But Conrad and Ludolf basely invited in the territory of Magyars; which so disgusted the Germans that the whole nation, with one consent, rallied to the support of Otto. At the battle of Lechfeld [500], 953, Conrad was slain, and the Magyars received such an overwhelming defeat that the deliverance of Germany was complete. From that time the Magyars began to settle, and "adapt themselves to the conditions of civilized life in the country which they now occupy," and so arose the kingdom of Hungary.

11. Meantime, in Italy, Berengar and his son Adalbert had laid such exorbitant taxes, and had made themselves so tyrannical, that an embassy was sent by the most of the bishops and princes, as well as the pope, imploring Otto to come again and deliver them. The pope at this time was John XII . The legates of the pope "were enjoined to offer the imperial crown to the king of Germany, provided he drove out the tyrants, and delivered the mother of all churches from the miseries she groaned under and could no longer bear." [505] At this Otto went a second time into Italy, in 962, deposed Berengar, and was crowned emperor by the pope.

12. "The emperor, at the request of the pope, promised upon oath to defend the Roman Church against all her enemies; to maintain her in the quiet possession of all the privileges she had enjoyed to that time; to restore to the holy see the lands and possessions that belonged to St. Peter, as soon as he recovered them; to assist the pope to the utmost of his power when assistance was wanted; and lastly to make no alteration of the government of Rome without his knowledge or approbation. At the same time the emperor confirmed all the grants of Pepin and Charlemagne; but obliged in his turn the pope and the Romans to swear obedience to him, and promise upon oath to lend no kind of assistance to Berengar or to his son Adalbert, from whose tyranny he was come to deliver them." [510]

13. Thus in the year 962 was formed the "Holy Roman Empire," that mightiest weapon of the papacy in the Middle Ages. After Otto, the sovereign crowned in Germany always claimed it as his right to be afterward crowned in Milan with the iron crown of Lombardy, and in Rome with the golden crown of the empire. In 964 Otto, returned to Germany, increased the number of the duchies and nobles, and as he was now the protector of the Church, and was set for the promotion of her interests, he immensely increased the importance of the prelates. "They received great gifts of land, were endowed with jurisdiction in criminal as well as civil cases, and obtained several other valuable sovereign rights." In 966 he went once more to Italy, where he remained till his death, May 7, 973.

14. Nothing of particular note occurred in the reigns of the three following emperors of the house of Saxony, except that the last one, Henry II, made a treaty with Rudolf III, king of Burgundy, by which at the death of Rudolf his kingdom was to be united to the empire; and showed himself so dutiful to the papacy that both he and his wife were made saints.

15. At Henry's death, in 1024, the great nobles met at Oppenheim, and elected Conrad II, a count of Franconia, king. With him began the rule of the house of Franconia, which continued 100 years, through Conrad II, Henry III, Henry IV, and Henry V. Through the reigns of all, there were plottings, counter-plottings, and wars, civil as well as foreign, which kept the nation in a constant turmoil. In accordance with the above mentioned treaty, Conrad, in 1032, received into the empire the kingdom of Burgundy; and in 1034 he received in Geneva the homage of its leading nobles. Conrad died in 1039, and was succeeded by his son Henry III, whom, as early as 1026, Conrad had caused to be elected king of Germany, and whom he had made duke of Bavaria in 1027, and duke of Swabia and king of Burgundy in 1038.

16. At this time the vices of the clergy all over Europe had become most scandalous: the popes setting the infamous example. Henry entered Rome with an army in 1046, summoned a council, deposed the pope who held the throne, and raised to the papal see, Clement II, who, in turn, crowned him emperor. In the succeeding ten years of his reign it devolved upon Henry to appoint three more popes in the succession; and as all of them were energetic administrators, and exerted themselves to carry out the policy of Henry, thus he did much to stay the tide of papal wickedness.

17. In 1056 Henry III died, and was succeeded by his son Henry, six years old, but who had already, at the age of four years, been crowned King Henry IV of Germany. He was under guardianship till he was fifteen years old, 1065, when he assumed the duties of government, and from that time till his death, 41 years, between the fierce arrogance of the papacy and the ambitious jealousies of his own subject nobles, he never knew peace. During his reign was the first crusade, 1095; and he made Welf (or Guelf, or Guelph), of Altdorf in Swabia, duke of Bavaria.

18. Henry IV died in 1106, and was succeeded by his son Henry V. War with the papacy was renewed, in which Henry's chief friends were two Swabian princes of the Hohenstaufen family, Frederick and Conrad. Frederick had been made duke of Swabia by Henry IV; and now by Henry V, Conrad was made duke of Franconia, which had been directly attached to the crown since the time of Otto I. Henry V was succeeded in 1125 by Lothair, duke of Saxony, and when he received the imperial crown, Innocent II claimed that he did so as the vassal of the pope. Lothair was succeeded in 1137 by the above Conrad, the Swabian duke of Franconia, who became Conrad III.

19. With Conrad III began the reign of the house of Swabia, or Hohenstaufen, which continued 117 years, and was the most glorious age of the mediæval history of Germany. In 1146 went forth the second crusade, headed by the Emperor Conrad, and Louis VII of France. Conrad died in 1152, when Germany passed under the rule of one of the greatest sovereigns she ever had, - Frederick Barbarossa, duke of Swabia, - who reigned 38 years.

20. Here we must notice the rise of another Swabian family which has had a notable course in history, and which is inseparably connected with the reign of Frederick Barbarossa. Henry IV made Welf, or Guelf, of Swabia, duke of Bavaria. He was succeeded in the duchy of Bavaria by his son, Henry the Proud, who was also invested with the duchy of Saxony. Henry the Proud rebelled against Conrad III, whereupon both his duchies were declared forfeited; Saxony was granted to Albert the Bear, a Saxon noble; and Bavaria fell to Leopold, margrave of Austria. Henry the Proud suddenly died, and his brother, duke Welf, continued the contest for his duchies. Welf, hoping to succeed Leopold in the margraviate, consented to a compromise by which Saxony, with the assent of Albert the Bear, was granted to Henry the Lion, the son of Henry the Proud. Instead, however, of the margraviate of Austria being given to Welf, it passed, in the end, to Henry XI Jasomirgott (1143-1156). [550] Welf for years contended with his rival, but without avail, for Henry the Lion finally, at the head of an arrow, laid claim to Bavaria as his, by right of inheritance from his father, Henry the Proud. Frederick Barbarossa, through his mother, was allied to the Welfs; and he, having a personal regard for Henry the Lion, began his reign by promising to secure for Henry the duchy of Bavaria. The margrave Jasomirgott, however, persistently refused to give it up, till at last in 1156 Frederick detached the march of Austria from Bavaria, made it a duchy with special privileges, and bestowed it on the stubborn margrave. This honor contented Jasomirgott, and left Frederick free to fulfill his promise to Henry the Lion; and so Henry received his paternal duchy of Bavaria, in addition to the duchy of Saxony which he already held. And from this Swabian - Alemannian - house of Welf, or Guelph, is descended in direct line through Henry the Proud and Henry the Lion, the house of Hanover (Hannover), which has ruled England from George I - August 1, 1714 - to the present Edward VII, "Rex Dei gracia."

21. Frederick Barbarossa received the German crown at Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen, Germany), March 9, 1152. In October, 1154, he descended to Italy and assumed the iron crown of Lombardy. Then, "after apprehending Arnold of Brescia, as an earnest of his purpose to support the papal cause," he was crowned emperor by Pope Adrian IV, June 18, 1155. From this time onward till 1186 the reign of Frederick was little else than a long contest with the Lombard cities and with the popes. By his marriage with Beatrice, daughter of the count of Upper Burgundy, he added that province to the kingdom of Burgundy and to the empire. He thus reasserted the imperial authority in Burgundy and received the homage of the Burgundian nobles. Having at last brought these struggles to an honorable close, he started in 1187 for Palestine at the head of the third crusade, but was drowned while crossing a small river in Pisidia (the land near Antioch, Turkey, Acts 13:14), June 10, 1190.

22. Frederick was succeeded by his son, Henry IV, who was crowned emperor by Celestine III, March 31, 1191. Richard I of England, - Coeur de Lion, - as he was on his way home from the third crusade, had been arrested by the duke of Austria, Dec. 21, 1192, and in the following March was surrendered to the emperor Henry, who imprisoned him. With the money that was paid for Richard's ransom, the emperor was enabled to fit out a fine army, with which he succeeded in conquering the Saracen kingdom of Sicily. So great was the authority which he acquired that it is supposed to be almost certain that had he lived a little longer he would have achieved his great ambition of having the crown declared hereditary in his family. But this aspiration was quenched by his death in 1197. In his reign, about 1195, began the fourth crusade.

23. Upon Henry's death there was a double election. Philip, Henry's son, was favored by a large majority of the princes; while his opponents urged the claims of Otto, son of Henry the Lion. There was no hope for Otto, however, had not Innocent III cast into the scale in his favor all the influence of the papacy, which at this time was absolute. Even with the help of the pope, Otto's success was exceedingly doubtful until Philip was murdered, in 1208. This, of course, put a stop to the war, and Otto IV was crowned emperor.

24. As soon as Otto had been made emperor, he violated all the pledges he had made to the pope for the pontiff's favor, and began to act as an independent sovereign. This was what no sovereign could be suffered to do while Innocent III was pope. He accordingly played off against Otto, Frederick, the son of Henry VI. Otto, thinking to injure Frederick's chances by striking at the pope, went to the support of John, of England, against Philip Augustus, of France, but at the battle of Bouvines, July 27, 1214, he met a crushing defeat, and fled, a ruined emperor. He retired to his hereditary possession, the principality of Brunswick, and apart from that has no more place in history.[570]

25. In the place of Otto IV, Frederick II "ascended the marble throne of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, and received the silver crown" of Germany, July, 1215; and Nov. 22, 1220. received at Rome, from the hands of Pope Honorius IV, the golden crown of the empire. In the estimation of his contemporaries, Frederick II was "the wonder of the world." Though perhaps not the strongest in all respects, he was the most brilliant of the German kings. In the beginning of his public career, in 1208, at the age of fifteen, he possessed but the crown of Siciliy; and at his death, Dec. 13, 1250, the splendor of his position was such that it has never been surpassed in human history. For then he possessed in addition to his original and inherited crown of Sicily, the crown of Sardinia; the crown of Burgundy; the iron crown of Lombardy; the silver crown of Germany; the golden crown of the empire; and last, but in that age the most glorious of all, the crown of Jerusalem, with which he with his own hands had crowned himself, May 18, 1229, at the time of his recovery of the holy city from the Saracens and its restoration to the Church.

26. In AD 1245, July 17, Frederick was excommunicated by Pope Innocent IV. When he heard of it he laughed and said: "`Has the pope deposed me? Bring me my crowns that I may see of what I am deprived.' Then seven crowns were brought to him - the royal crown of Germany, the imperial diadem of Rome, the iron circlet of Lombardy, the crowns of Sicily, Burgundy, Sardinia, and Jerusalem. He put them on his head one after another, and said: `I have them still, and none shall rob me of them without hard battle.'" [580] But though Frederick feared not the excommunication of the pope, the effect of such a thing was always to turn loose the elements of violence among men, and especially in Germany. Of that time an old historian says: "After the emperor Frederick was put under the ban, the robbers rejoiced over their spoils. Then were the plowshares beaten into swords, and the reaping hooks into lances. No one went anywhere without steel and stone, to set in blaze whatever he could fire."

27. During the reign of Frederick II the conquest of Prussia was begun, AD 1230, under the leadership of the Knights of the Teutonic Order, who "after a century of hard fighting, found themselves masters of the entire country." Also, in the beginning of his reign the fifth crusade was proclaimed by Innocent III, 1198; and it went forth in 1201.

28. Frederick II died Feb. 13, 1250, and was succeeded by his son, Conrad IV, who reigned only four years: and such was the condition of the empire through the contending factions of Germany and the intrigues of the pope that he was never actually crowned emperor. He died in 1254 and with him ended the line of Hohenstaufen emperors, whose rule formed the age "most interesting in the mediæval history of Germany." "Women never held a higher place, nor, on the whole, did they ever respond more nobly to the honors freely lavished upon them." "The problems of government were seen in new lights, partly from the study of Roman law which passed from Italy to Germany, partly from the summaries of native custom in the `Sachsenspiegel' (Saxon law) and `Schwabenspiegel' (Schwäbisches/Swabian - Allemannia - law). Altogether, Germany has seen no more fascinating epoch, none more full of life, movement, and color." [585]

29. This age of glory was followed by one of misery, called the Great Interregnum, which lasted twenty years. "This was the saddest time that ever was in Germany. Every one did what he liked. The fist and the sword decided between right and wrong. The princes and the cities were in constant feud. The knights made themselves strong castles and lived in them on plunder and murder. From their fortresses they swooped down on the merchants traveling from town to town and robbed them, or levied on them heavy tolls. They went plundering over the level land; they robbed the farmers of their cattle, devastated their fields, and burned their houses. Moreover, the neighboring nobles and knights quarreled with each other and fought, so that the country was one battlefield." [587]

30. This period of anarchy was turned to account by the papacy through Pope Urban IV. Up to this time the election of the emperor had always been, virtually, by the leading princes, although each election needed the sanction of the whole class of immediate nobles. Now, however, mainly by the influence of the pope, the electorate was definitely settled upon only the archbishop of Mainz, the archbishop of Cologne, the archbishop of Treves, the margrave of Brandenburg, the king of Bohemia, and the princes of the house of Wittelsbach (Bavaria), and of the house of Saxony.

31. At the beginning of the Great Interregnum, William of Holland received a nominal allegiance for two years, when he died; then, about 1257, there was a double election, of Alphonso of Castile in Spain; and Richard, earl of Cornwall, brother of Henry III, of England. Richard was crowned, but he visited Germany only three times in the 17 years; while Alphonso never visited it at all, although claiming all the time to be its sovereign. The influence of none of these tended in the degree to check the disorder of the time. When Richard died, the princes showed no disposition to choose an emperor; for a condition of affairs that allowed every one to do as he pleased was exactly to their liking. But the northern revenues of the pope were seriously falling off, and this with troubles at home caused a papal longing for an emperor again who would be "the protector of the Church." The pope, therefore, informed the electors that if they did not choose an emperor he himself would appoint one.

32. Accordingly the electors met in 1273 and raised to the throne Rudolf, count of Hapsburg, of Swabia. During the interregnum Ottocar, king of Bohemia, had acquired by marriage and conquest, a great territory beyond his native possessions, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola. This made Ottocar the most powerful prince in Germany, and he expected to receive the German crown at the election. Therefore, when the crown was bestowed upon Rudolf, Ottocar refused to acknowledge him as sovereign. War followed, and in the battle of Marchfield, near Vienna, AD 1278, Ottocar was defeated and slain. Austria, Styria, and Carniola were then granted in fief to Rudolf's son Albert. Thus Rudolf made himself memorable as the founder of the house of Hapsburg, which has ruled Austria from that time to this; which from his time has formed one of the most influential forces in the national life of Germany, and which gave sovereigns to Spain in the days of her greatest glory.

33. Rudolf of Swabia died in 1291, and was succeeded by Adolf of Nassau, who ruled till 1298, when he was succeeded by Duke Albert of Austria, Rudolf's son. Albert reigned till 1308, and was succeeded by Count Henry of Luxembourg, who reigned, as Henry VII, till 1313. Upon the death of Henry VII the electors could not agree, and the result was a double election - Frederick the Fair, duke of Austria, son of Albert; and Louis, duke of Bavaria. War broke out and continued for nine years, when, at the battle of Muhlberg, AD 1322, Frederick's army was entirely routed, and in 1325 the two rivals agreed to rule in common. Frederick died in 1330, and Louis reigned till 1347.

34. At the death of Louis, Gunther, count of Schwarzburg, was elected; but Charles, king of Bohemia, by liberal bribes, bought off his supporters, and Gunther resigned his claim, and Charles IV reigned. The working of the imperial electorate had proved to be unsatisfactory; and it was reformed by Charles IV in 1356 by what is known as the Golden Bull. By this new arrangement the electorate was allowed to include, as formerly, the three archbishops, the king of Bohemia, and the margrave of Brandenburg; but only the duke of Saxony, and the palsgrave, or count palatine, of the Rhine of the house of Wittelsbach (something seems to be missing in this sentence, `had a/no vote' or s.th. like that). Thus by Charles in the Golden Bull the electorate was confined to seven personages - three archbishops, three lay princes, and one king - and ever afterward the emperor was chosen by these officials, who are the ones so often referred to in the history of the Reformation, by the term "electors." Luther's protector, Frederick, was the "elector of Saxony" in his day.

35. Charles IV added to the original possessions of his house of Luxemburg, Silesia, Lower Lusitania, and the margraviate of Brandenburg; and in his last days "he wore the crowns of Bohemia, of Germany, of Burgundy, of Lombardy, and of the empire." He died at Prague in 1378, and was succeeded by his son, Wenceslaus. Wenceslaus was deposed and the crown was given to Rupert, elector of the palatinate, AD 1400, who reigned till 1410, when he died and Sigismund, brother of Wenceslaus, and king of Hungary, reigned. This was the emperor Sigismund who gave up John Huss and Jerome of Prague, to be burned by the Council of Constance; which brought on the Hussite wars. Sigismund was a spendthrift and never had enough money for his wants; and for 400,000 gulden he granted to Frederick, count of Hohenzollern, of Swabia, first as a pledge but afterward as a permanent fief, the march of Brandenburg. With the death of Sigismund ended the Luxemburg dynasty, and the House of Hapsburg was restored.

36. Sigismund was succeeded by Albert II, duke of Austria, in 1438. Albert II was succeeded in 1440 by Frederick IV, and he, in 1493, by Maximilian I, and he, in 1519, by Charles V, before whom Luther stood for the faith of Christ; and before whom the German princes read the famous "Protest".[600]

37. Although the German crown remained elective from the time of Albert II forward, it was "always conferred on a member of the house of Hapsburg until the extinction of the male line;" and then it was taken up by the female in Maria Theresa, whose husband was elected emperor in 1745. He was emperor only in name, however; Maria Theresa's was the rule in fact. Maria Theresa's husband was succeeded in 1765 by her son, Joseph II. And in her line of the house of Hapsburg the imperial office remained till both the "Holy Roman Empire" and the German kingdom came to an end in 1806; and in her line the imperial office of the empire of Austria-Hungary remains to the present day.

38. Reference was made above to the march of Brandenburg, and its sale by the emperor Sigismund, to Frederick of Hohenzollern, of Swabia. Frederick thus became one of the electors of the empire. It will be remembered, too, that it was the Knights of the Teutonic Order who made the conquest of Prussia. At the time of the Reformation, Albert of Brandenburg happened to be Grand Master of the Teutonic Order. He became a Protestant, dissolved the Order, and received in fief, 1525, from the king of Poland, the duchy of Prussia. Albert left two granddaughters. Joachim Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg, married Eleanor, the younger; his son, John Sigismund, married Anna, the elder; and thus the duchy of Prussia was secured to the family of the Elector of Brandenburg. Frederick William, called the Great Elector, was the grandson of John Sigismund and Anna. By the treaty of Wehlau (ca. 60 km east of Koenigsberg; lo. 21.2, lt. 54.6), in 1657, the duchy of Prussia was declared independent of Poland. The Great Elector added largely to his territories, and in 1701 his son Frederick, who had succeeded him in 1699, having obtained the consent of the emperor, crowned himself king of Prussia. And thus, under the Alemannian house of Hohenzollern, arose the kingdom of Prussia, which, through Frederick I 1701-1713, Frederick William I 1713-1740, Frederick II the Great 1740-1786, Frederick William II 1786-1797, Frederick William III 1797-1840, Frederick William IV 1840-1861, and German emperor from Jan. 18, 1871, till March 9, 1888; Frederick, till June 15, 1888; and William (Wilhelm) II, German emperor of the present day (1901), king of the time of WWI, born 1859, died 1941.

Chapter 6

Contents: The Marathon of Switzerland - Switzerland Free.

The Burgundians in the Middle Ages

It will be remembered - Chapter IV, par. 7-9 - that the conquest of the kingdom of the Burgundians was begun by Clovis, and was completed by his sons in 532; and that in the quadruple division of the Frankish dominion in 561 Burgundy with some additional counties in the north fell to Gontran, who fixed his capital there. When the Frankish dominions, having been united under Charles Martel, were again subdivided between Pepin the Short and Carloman, Burgundy fell to the share of Pepin. And when Carloman became a monk, and Pepin became king by the grace of Pope Zachary (ca. 741-752), of course Burgundy was but a province of his kingdom, as it was also of the empire of Charlemagne, the son of Pepi. In the division of the empire of Charlemagne, by the treaty of Verdun, 843, Burgundy was included in the portion of the emperor Lothair, which, it will be remembered, reached from the Mediterranean to the North Sea, and included the Italian territory.

2. In the time of Charles the Fat, 877, Burgundy became again independent, under Boso, or Boson, husband of Ermangarde, the daughter of Emperor Louis II. This kingdom was called Provence as well as Burgundy, and sometimes Cis-Jurane Burgundy, or, as the real title ran, regnum Provincia seu Burgundiæ. It "included Provence, Dauphine,, the southern part of Savoy, and the country between the Saone and the Jura" Mountains. There was formed another kingdom of Burgundy on either side of the Jura Mountains. This was called the kingdom of trans-Jurane Burgundy, or by title, regnum Iurense, Burgundia Transiurensis, and was founded by Count Rudolph in AD 888, and was recognized by the emperor Arnulf the same year. It included the northern part of Savoy and all Switzerland between the Jura Mountains and the River Reuss.

3. In 937 Rudolph's son, Rudolph, traded for the Cis-Jurane Burgundy his rights to the Italian crown; and thus the two Burgundies - the Trans-Jurane and the Cis-Jurane - were united in the one kingdom of Burgundy or Arles, by title, regnum Burgundæ, regnum Arelatense. The kingdom continued independent till AD 1032, when, in accordance with a treaty which had been made between the emperor Henry II and Rudolph II, its last king, the kingdom of Burgundy was received into the empire by Emperor Conrad II; Rudolph III confirming it by will, as his niece Gisela was Conrad's wife. The emperor thus assumed the Burgundian crown, and this "beautiful kingdom," "full of prosperous cities," became a part of the empire.

4. "The kingdom of Burgundy, or Arles, comprehended the whole mountainous region which we now call Switzerland. It was accordingly reunited to the Germanic empire by the bequest of Rudolph along with the rest of his dominions. A numerous and ancient nobility, vassals one to another, or to the empire, divided the possession with ecclesiastical lords hardly less powerful than themselves. Of the former we find the counts of Zahringen, Kyburg, Hapsburg, and Tokenburg, most conspicuous ; of the latter the Bishop of Coire, the Abbot of St. Gall, and Abbess of Seckingen. Every variety of feudal rights was early found and long preserved in Helvetia (??); nor is there any country whose history better illustrates that ambiguous relation - half property and half dominion - in which the territorial aristocracy under the feudal system stood with their respect to their dependents. In the 12th century the Swiss towns rise into some degree of importance. Zurich was eminent for commercial activity, and seems to have had no lord but the emperor; Basel, though subject to its bishop, possessed the usual privileges of municipal government. Berne and Freiburg, founded only in that century, made a rapid progress, and the latter was raised, along with Zurich, by Frederick II, in 1218, to the rank of a free imperial city. [640]

5. In the northern part of what is now Switzerland, between Lake Constance and Lake Luzern, and along the left bank of the Rhine, the Alemanni had settled when they first took the country from the Romans. The castle of Hapsburg was possessed by Rudolf, the Alemannian nobleman who was made emperor in 1273. His ambitious descendants, the dukes of Austria, endeavored to enlarge their authority and possessions at the expense of the cantons.

6. "Several changes in the principal Helvetian families took place in the 13th century before the end of which the home of Hapsburg, under the polite and enterprising Rudolph and his son Albert, became possessed, through various titles, of a great ascendency in Switzerland. Of these titles none was more tempting to an ambitious chief than that of advocate to a convent. That specious name conveyed with it a kind of indefinite guardianship, and right of interference, which frequently ended in reversing the conditions of the ecclesiastical sovereign and its vassal. . . . Among other advocacies, Albert obtained that of some convents which had estates in the valleys of the Schweiz and Underwald. . . . The people of the Schweiz had made Rudolph their advocate. They distrusted Albert, whose succession to his father's inheritance spread alarm through Helvetia. It soon appeared that their suspicions were well founded. Besides the local rights which his ecclesiastical advocacy's gave him over part of the forest cantons, he pretended, after his election to the empire, to send imperial bailiffs into their valleys as administrators of criminal justice." [650]

7. Some authorities make Frederick III the one who sent these bailiffs, but whether it was Frederick or Albert the facts are the same. One of these bailiffs was Gesler, whom William Tell resisted. "Their oppression of a people unused to control, (to) whom it was plainly the design of Albert to reduce (them) into servitude, excited those generous emotions of resentment which a brave and simple race have seldom the discretion to repress. Three men, the Schweizer Stauffacher, Fuerst of Uri, Melchthal of Underwald, each with ten chosen associates, met by night in a sequestered field, and swore to assert the common cause of their liberties, without bloodshed or injury to the rights of others. Their success was answerable to the justice of their undertaking; the three cantons unanimously took up arms, and expelled their oppressors without a contest. Albert's assassination by his nephew which followed soon afterwards, fortunately gave them leisure to consolidate their union (AD 1308). . . . But Leopold, duke of Austria, resolved to humble the peasants who had rebelled against his father, led a considerable force into their country. The Swiss, commending themselves to Heaven, and determined rather to perish than undergo that yoke a second time, though ignorant of regular discipline, and unprovided with defensive armor, utterly discomfited the assailants at the small mountain of Morgarten (Lo. 8.34, Lt. 47.2; AD1315), located just east of the Vierwaldstætter See and easterly adjacent to the small Aegeri See. (They did it by rolling rocks from the mountain into the army of the Austrians, a people who were living under despots.)

8. "This great victory, the Marathon of Switzerland, confirmed the independence of the three original cantons. After some years, Lucerne, contiguous in situation and alike in interests, was incorporated into their confederacy. It was far more materially enlarged about the middle of the 14th century by the accession of Zurich, Glaris, Zug, and Berne, all of which took place within two years. The first and last of these cities had already been engaged in frequent wars with the Helvetian nobility, and their internal polity was altogether republican. They acquired, not independence, which they already enjoyed, but additional security, by this union with the Swiss, properly so-called, who in deference to their power and reputation ceded to them the first rank in the league. . . . The eight already enumerated are called the ancient cantons, and continued, till the late reformation of the Helvetic system, to possess several distinctive privileges and even rights of sovereignty over subject territories, in which the five cantons of Freiburg, Soleure, Basel, Schaffhausen, and Appenzell did not participate. From this time the united cantons, but especially those of Berne and Zurich, began to extend their territories at the expense of the rural nobility. . . . The Helvetic cities acted with policy and moderation towards the nobles whom they overcame, admitting them to the franchise of their community as coburghers (a privilege which virtually implied a defensive alliance against any assailant), and uniformly respecting the legal rights of property. Many feudal superiorities they obtained from the owners in a more peacable manner, through purchase or mortgage.

9. "Thus the house of Austria, to which the extensive domains of the counts of Kyburg had devolved, abandoning, after repeated defeats, its hopes of subduing the forest cantons, alienated a great part of its possessions to Zurich and Bern. And the last remnant of their ancient Helvetic territories in Argovia was wrested, in 1417, from Frederick, count of Tyrol, who, imprudently supporting Pope John XXIII against the Council of Constance, had been put to the ban of the empire. These conquests Bern could not be induced to restore, and thus completed the independence of the confederate republics. The other free cities, though not yet incorporated, and the few remaining nobles, whether lay or spiritual, of whom the abbot of St. Gall was the principal, entered into separate leagues with different cantons. Switzerland became, therefore, in the first part of the 15th century, a free country, acknowledged as such by neighboring states, and subject to no external control, though still comprehended within the nominal sovereignty of the empire. . . .

10. "The affairs of Switzerland occupy a very small space in the great chart of European history. But in some respects they are more interesting than the revolutions of mighty kingdoms. . . . Other nations displayed an insuperable resolution in the defense of walled towns; but the steadiness of the Swiss in the field of battle was without a parallel, unless we recall the memory of Lacedæmon (Herodotus). It was even established as a law that whoever returned from battle after a defeat, should forfeit his life by the hands of the executioner. 1,600 men, who had been sent to oppose a predatory invasion of the French in 1444, though they might have retreated without loss, determined rather to perish on the spot, and fell amid a far greater heap of the hostile slain. At the famous battle of Sempach in 1385, the last which Austria proceeded to try against the forest cantons, the enemy's knights, dismounted from their horses, presented an impregnable barrier of lances which disconcerted the Swiss; till Winkelried, a gentleman of Underwald, commending his wife and children to his countrymen, threw himself upon the opposing ranks, and, collecting as many lances as he could grasp, forced a passage for his followers by burying them in his bossom.

11. "Though the house of Austria had ceased to menace the liberties of Helvetia, and had even been for many years its ally, the emperor Maximilian . . . endeavored to revive the unextinguished supremacy of the empire. That supremacy had just been restored in Germany by the establishment of the Imperial Chamber, and of a regular pecuniary contribution for its support, as well as for other purposes, in the Diet of Worms (1495). The Helvetic cantons were summoned to yield obedience to these imperial laws. . . . Their refusal to comply brought a war, wherein the Tyrolese subjects of Maximilian, and the Suabian league, a confederacy of cities in that province lately formed under the emperor's auspices, were principally engaged against devastation of the frontiers of Germany, peace was concluded (1499) upon terms very honorable for Switzerland. The cantons were declared free from the jurisdiction of the Imperial Chamber, and from all contributions imposed by the Diet. . . . Though, perhaps, in the strictest letter of public law, the Swiss cantons were not absolutely released from their subjection to the empire until the treaty of Westphalia, their real sovereignty must be dated by a historian from the year when every prerogative which a government can exercise was finally abandoned." [660]

12. And thus the kingdom of the Burgundians of AD 407 is represented in the independent confederacy of the Switzerland of today.

Chapter VII

Contents: Britain Becomes England - Kings, Aldermen, Earls, Churls, Thralls - Northumbrian Supremacy - The Danish Invasions - Danish Domination - Imperial England - Danish Kings of England - Reign of King Canute - William the Conqueror - The Making of Doomsday Book - English Conquest of Normandy - English Empire, House of Plantagenet - Captivity of Coeur de Lion - John Gives England to the Papacy - The Great Charter - John Desolates the Kingdom - `The Rule of Law and Not of Will' - The Hundred Years' War.

The Angles and the Saxons in the Middle Ages

1. From the time of the first permanent hold of the Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles, on British soil until they really possessed the land, was about a hundred and fifty years.

2. The Jutes possessed Kent. These were the fewest of the three peoples; and therefore occupied the smallest portion of the land. "Their dominions took in only Kent, with perhaps for a while Surrey, and (the Isle of) Wight, with a small part of the neighboring mainland of Hampshire;" and the kingdom of the Jutes "never permanently outgrew the bounds of their earliest conquests."

3. On all sides of the Jutes landward, dwelt the Saxons; South and West were the South Saxons, from whom the land held by them derived the abbreviated name Sou'-Sax', and from that Sussex, which it has ever since borne; west of these, but more inland, dwelt the West Saxons, whose kingdom was called Wessex; north of Kent dwelt the East Saxons, their kingdom and land called forever, Essex; and between the East Saxons and the West Saxons - between Essex and Wessex - dwelt the Middle Saxons, their kingdom and land called forever Middlesex.

4. The Angles held all the land north of Essex, Middlesex, and Wessex, to the Firth of Forth. In the peninsula immediately north of Essex, dwelt the East Angles, their kingdom and country called East Anglia: those in the northern part of the peninsula were called Northfolk, and those in the southern part, South-folk; from which in descent through Nor'-Folk and Sou'-Folk, come the names that still remain - Norfolk and Suffolk. West of these dwelt the South Angles; immediately north of these the Mid Angles, reaching to the River Humber. From the Humber to the Firth of Forth the land was divided by the Angles into to almost equal portions, the southern of which was the kingdom of Deirs; and the northern, the kingdom of Bernicia. The territory between Wales and Mid and South Anglia, being the border, was at first a mark, or march; from which it became Marcia and Mercia. Its Anglican inhabitants were called Mercians, and their kingdom Mercia, which also included the Mid and South Angles.[705]

5. The kingdom of the Jutes was established in Kent in AD 475; that of the South Saxons in 491; that of the West Saxons in 519; that of the East Saxons about 525; and by 552 the Angles had made the conquest of their part of Middle Britain to the march or border. This pressure of the Angles in Mid-Britain enabled the South Saxons to push their conquests farther inland. "In 552 their capture of the hill-fort of Old Sarum threw open the reaches of the Wiltshire downs, and a march of King Cuthwulf on the Thames made them masters in 571 of the districts which now form Oxfordshire and Berkshire.[710] Pushing along the upper valley of Avon to a new battle of Barburry Hill, they swooped at last from their uplands on the rich prey that lay along the Severn. Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath, cities which had leagued under their British kings to resist this onset, became in 577 the spoil of an English victory at Deorham, and the line of the great western river lay open to the arms of the conquerors. . . .

6. "With the victory of Deorum the conquest of the bulk of Britain was complete. Eastward of a line which may be roughly drawn along the moorlands of Northumberland and Yorkshire, through Derbyshire and the Forest of Arden to the lower Severn, and thence by Mendip to the sea, the island had passed into English hands. Britain had in the main become England. And within this new England a Teutonic society was settled on the wreck of Rome. So far as the conquest had yet gone it had been complete. Not a Briton remained as subject or slave on English ground. Sullenly, inch by inch, the beaten men drew back from the land which their conquerors had won; and eastward of a border-line which the English sword had drawn, all was now purely English.

7. "It is this which distinguishes the conquest of Britain from that of the other provinces of Rome. The conquest of Gaul by the Franks, or of Italy by the Lombards, proved little more than a forcible settlement of the one or the other among tributary subjects who were destined in the long course of ages to absorb their conquerors. French is the tongue, not of the Frank, but of the Gaul whom he overcame: and the fair hair of the Lombard is all but unknown in Lombardy. But the English conquest of Britain up to the point which we have reached, was a sheer dispossession of the people whom the English conquered. It was not that Englishmen, fierce and cruel as at times they seem to have been, were more fierce or more cruel than other Germans who attacked the empire: . . . what really made the difference between the fate of Britain and that of the rest of the Roman world, was the stubborn courage of the British themselves.[736] In all the world-wide struggles between Rome and the German people, no land was so stubbornly fought for or so hardly won. In Gaul no native resistance met Frank or Visigoth save from the brave peasants of Brittany and Auvergne. No popular revolt broke out against the rule of Odoacer or Theodoric in Italy. But in Britain the invader was met by a courage almost equal to his own. Instead of quartering themselves quietly, like their fellows abroad, on subjects who were glad to buy peace by obedience and tribute, the English had to make every inch of Britain their own by hard fighting. . . .

8. "What strikes us at once in the new England is this: that it was the one purely German nation that rose upon the wreck of Rome. In other lands, in Spain or Gaul or Italy, though they were equally conquered by German peoples, religion, social life, administrative order, still remained Roman. Britain was almost the only province of the empire where Rome died into a vague tradition of the past. The whole organization of government and society disappeared with the people who used it. . . . The settlement of the English in the conquered land was nothing less than an absolute transfer of English society in its completest form to the soil of Britain. The slowness of their advance, the small numbers of each separate band in its descent upon the coast, made it possible for the settlers to bring with them, or to call to them when their work was done, the wives and children, the læt and slave, even the cattle they had left behind them. The first wave of conquest was but the prelude to the gradual migration of a whole people. It was England which settled down on British soil, England with its own language, its own laws, its complete social fabric, its system of village life and village culture, its township and its hundred, its principle of kinship, its principle of representation. It was not as mere pirates or stray war bans, but as peoples already made, and fitted by a common temper and common customs to draw together into our English nation in the days to come, that our fathers left their home-land." [760]

9. Of the three people - the Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles - the Angles "occupied a much larger portion of the land." than did both the others; and so their name gave a new name to the land to which they had come - Angle-land, Engel-land, England: while as to the kingdom itself, it was Wessex that "grew into England," and her "house of Cerdic" that "became the royal house over the whole land. [762] However, this matter of one royal house over the whole land is another long story in addition to that of these three peoples taking possession of the land. For "though all spoke the same language and used the same laws, and though all were bent on winning the same land, each band each leader preferred their own separate course of action to any collective enterprise." [765] This spirit caused them, though only three distinct peoples, to form themselves, in the occupancy of the land, into no less than eight distinct kingdoms. And no sooner were ended their wars with the Britons, that they might in quietness inhabit the land, than they began as desperate a struggle among themselves for the supremacy and the sole kingship of all England.

10. Thus in AD 597 there were in England the eight distinct kingdoms of Wessex, Sussex, Kent, Essex, Mercia, East Anglia, Deira, and Bernicia. Each kingdom was the result of the union of smaller divisions called shires, their chiefs "bearing the title of Ealdorman or Alderman, in peace, of Heretoga or Herzog, in time of war." The union of shires "formed a rice or kingdom; the chief of the group thus formed was a cyning or king, What, it may be asked, was the difference between king and ealdorman? . . . The ealdorman was a ruler in peace and a captain in war. The king was more. Among the English, at least, the kingly house all claimed descent from the blood of the gods. [770] Every king was a son of Woden. A vague religious reverence thus gathered round the king, in which the ealdorman had no share. He was also the head of the highest political aggregate which the ideas of those days had reached. He was, as the name implies, the head of the kin, the nation. The rule of the ealdorman was tribal, and merely earthly; the rule of the king was national, and in some sort divine." [773] Of the community there were three classes: earls, churls, and thralls. The earls were a class who by distinction of birth were held to be entitled to special respect and honor; and who, because of this, possessed certain political privileges. The churls were freemen, but had no honors or privileges above those of the general community. The thralls were slaves held in bondage or thraldom. "The Earl, the churl and the thrall are found everywhere. They are taken for granted; and legend represented the three classes as called into being by separate acts of the creative power of the gods." [775]

11. In AD 605 Ethelfrith, king of Bernicia, seized the kingdom of Deira; and as this gave them to all East Britain north of the River Humber, the enlarged kingdom thus formed was called Northumbria. Ethelfrith also made the complete conquest of the greater part of the land that was yet held by the Britons westward to the Irish Sea between the Firth of Clyde and the mouths of the Mersey and the Dee. This reduced the number of English kingdoms to seven; and it is this that is the ground upon which writers treat the history of that time under the title of "The Saxon Heptarchy." When Ethelfrith seized Deira, Edwin, its rightful king, being but a child, fled to East Anglia, where he was protected by King Rædwald. This served Ethelfrith as a pretext for an attempt to subdue that kingdom. He was vigorously resisted; and at the "River Idle, by Retfords," he was defeated and slain.

12. Upon the death of Etehlfrith, the people of Deira were glad to have Eadwine return to his kingdom. By the conquest of Bernicia, Eadwine re-established and made permanent the union of Bernicia and Deira that Ethelfrith had formed. "The greatness of Northumbria now reached its height. Within his own dominions, Eadwine displayed a genius for civil government, which shows how utterly the mere age of conquest had passed away. With him began the English proverb so often applied to after kings: `A woman with her babe might walk scathless from sea to sea in Eadwine's day.' Peaceful communication revived, along the deserted highways; the springs by the roadside were marked with stakes, and a cup of brass was set beside each for the traveler's refreshment. . . . The Northumbrian king became, in fact, supreme over Britain as no king of English blood had been before. Northward his kingdom reached to the Firth of Forth; and here, if we may trust tradition, Eadwine formed a city which bore his name, Edinburgh - Eadwine's burg. To the west, his arms crushed the long resistance of Elmet, the district about Leeds: he was master of Chester, and the fleet he equipped there subdued the isles of Anglesea and Man. South of the Humbria, he was owned as overlord by the five English States of Mid-Britain. The West Saxons remained for a while independent; "but they, too, were at last obliged to acknowledge "the overlordship of Northumbria." And "Kent had bound itself to him by giving him its king's daughter as a wife, a step which probably marked political subordination." [790]

13. At this time Penda was king of Mercia; and the other kingdoms of Mid Britain recognized his overlordship, as he in turn recognized the overlordship of Eadwine. In 633 Penda formed an alliance with a Welsh king, Cadwallon, to break the power of Eadwine. "The armies met in 633 at a place called Heathfeld, and in the fight, Eadwine was defeated and slain." Bernicia at once "seized on the fall of Eadwine to recall the line of Ethelfrith to its throne; and after a year of anarchy, his second son, Oswald, became its king. The Welsh had remained encamped in the heart of the north, and Owald's first fight was with Cadwallon." The forces met in 635 "near the Roman Wall, Cadwallon fell fighting on the `Heaven's Field,' as after times called the field of battle' the submission of the kingdom of Deira to the conqueror, restored the kingdom of Northumbria; and for nine years the power of Oswald equaled that of Eadwine."

14. "Oswald's overlordship stretched as widely over Britain as that of his predecessor Eadwine. In him, even more than in Eadwine, men saw some faint likeness of the older emperors: once, indeed, a writer from the land of the Picts calls Oswald `emperor of the whole of Britain.'" In 642 Oswald led his army into East Anglia to deliver that kingdom from the terrible rule of Penda, king of Mercia. The battle was fought at Maserfeld; Oswald was defeated and slain; and for 13 years Penda stood supreme in Britain. Oswin, younger brother of Oswald, succeeded to the kingship of Northumbria. In 655 the Northumbrians again met Penda "in the field of Winward by Leeds," Penda was slain, and because of a great rain which swelled the river over which the Mercians must flee, only a remnant of them escaped; and Northumbria under Oswon stood in England as it had been under Eadwin and Oswald. It so continued under Ecgfrith who succeeded Oswin in 670; and whose "reign marks the highest pitch of Northumbrian power." [798]

15. Ecfrith in 685 carried an expedition against the Picts, but was slain, and his army was annihilated in a battle at Fife.[800] This delivered the central and southern kingdoms from the domination of Northumbria. Mercia immediately regained her full power over all of Mid Britain, while Wessex, under Ine from 688-714, gained full power over "all Britain south of the Thames;" and Ine's "repulse of a new Mercian king, in a bloody encounter at Wodnesburgh in 714, seemed to establish the threefold division of the English race between three realms of almost equal power." - Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex. However, Ine, in 726, made a pilgrimage to Rome. In his absence anarchy reigned in Wessex. In this Ethelbald, the Mercian king, saw his opportunity: he penetrated to the very heart of the West Saxon kingdom, and his siege and capture of the royal town of Somerton in 733 ended the war. For 20 years the overlordship of "Mercia was recognized by all Britain south of the Humber." And since at this time anarchy reigned in Northumbria, the kingdom of Mercia became fairly the kingdom of England. This, however, was for only a short time; for in a desperate battle at Burford in 753, "a decided victory freed Wessex from the Mercian yoke. Four years later, in 757, its freedom was maintained by a new victory at Secundum."

16. Wessex had regained independence; but that was all. For Ethelbald, who was slain in the battle of Secundum, was immediately succeeded by Offa under whose long reign, 757-796, Mercia "rose again to all but its old dominion." Offa's "is the greatest name in Mercian history;" and his position "was as great as that of any English king before the final union of the kingdoms. In one way it was higher than that of any of them. Offa held not only a British, but a European position." This because the mighty Charlemagne corresponded with him as with an equal. This was before Charlemagne was made emperor by the pope: and when he manifested a disposition to treat the king of Mercia as less than an equal, war was threatened between them. And after Charlemagne became emperor of Rome, Cenwulf, Offa's successor, 797-819, "put it clearly on record that neither the bishop of Rome nor the emperor of Rome had any jurisdiction in his realm of Mercia." [805]

17. By this time Wessex had so well employed her independence as not only to have regained, but enlarged and firmly established her power over "all Britain south of the Thames." This, Mercia was compelled to recognize; and Cenwulf could only preserve the immediate realm of Mercia as he received it. Thus, "at the close of the 8th century the drift of the English peoples toward a national unity was in fact utterly arrested. The work of Northumbria had been foiled by the resistance of Mercia; the effort of Mercia had broken down before the resistance of Wessex. A threefold division seemed to have stamped itself upon the land; and so complete was the balance of power between the three realms which parted it, that no subjection of one to the other seemed likely to fuse the English tribes into an Englisg people." [808]

18. Yet at this very time there were taking shape in Wessex the elements which presently developed a mighty impulse toward a national unity; and which in the former part of the 10th century, with but slight checks meanwhile, culminated in the actual union of all England under only one king. Among the rival claimants of the kingship of Wessex, after the regaining of her independence in 757, was a certain Ecgberht, or Egbert. The king who was elected in 786 sought to kill him, and he was compelled to flee the kingdom entirely. He first took refuge with Offa. The king of Wessex demanded that he be surrendered. Offa refused; but as he could no longer harbor Ecgberht without bringing into his own affairs continual trouble, he declined to assure him further protection. The Ecgberht escaped to the Continent, and in 787 found refuge at the court of Charlemagne. There he went to Charlemagne's school in more senses of the word than one. In the year 800 Edburga, the wife of the king of Wessex, prepared a poisoned drink for a young friend of her husband's; but both she and her husband drank of it, and both died. Then Edburga, being obliged to flee, likewise took refuge at the court of Charlemagne. Her coming there brought to Ecgberht the information that the throne of Wessex was vacant. He immediately returned to Wessex, and was promptly chosen to the kingship. "The day of Northumberland and the day of Mercia had passed: the day of Wessex had come. The single reign of Ecgberht (802-837) placed her forever at the head of the powers of Britain." [815]

19. Ecgberht's first exploit as king was the conquest of Cornwall, "the last Fragment of the British kingdom in the southwest." In 824 the king of Mercia invaded Ecgberht's territory, but at the battle which was fought at Ellandum the West Saxons were victorious. This victory confirmed to Ecgberht all of England south of the Thames; and also encouraged the East Anglians to revolt against the king of Mercia. The East Anglians were victorious in two great battles; and this, in turn, so weakened the king of Mercia as to encourage Ecgberht to venture even across the Thames in an invasion of Mercia. This he did "in 827, and the realm of Penda and Offa bowed without a struggle to its conqueror." But Ecgberht did not stop with the conquest of Mercia: he marched on toward the north. Northumbria had but lately been terrorized by an invasion of Danes, and unable to resist them alone," its thegns [??] met Ecgberht in Derbyshire and owned the supremacy of Wessex;" and, "with the submission of Northumbria, the work which Oswin and Aethelread had failed to do was done, and the whole English race was for the first time knit together under a single rule." [820]

20. This Danish invasion of Northumbria was but a part of that great movement of the Danes in this country, which reached even to France, and created Normandy; and it continued in Britain until it had covered practically the whole of the land occupied by the English. Ecgberht defeated one host of them which invaded the land from Ireland, which gave them a check until after his death in 839. He was succeeded immediately by his son, Aethelwulf. The Danes came again and were "beaten off only by years of hard fighting." But, a final victory at Aclea in 851 "won peace for the land through the short and uneventful reigns of his sons, Aethelbald and Aethelberht. But the northern storm burst in full force upon England when a third son, Aethelred, followed his brothers on the throne. "Northmen were now settled on the coast of Ireland and the coast of Gaul; they were masters of the sea; and from west and east alike they closed upon Britain. While one host from Ireland fell on the Scot kingdom north of the Firth of Forth, another from Scandinavia landed in 866 on the coast of East Anglia under Hubba, and marched the next year upon York. A victory over two armies united at Nottingham in 868 for an attack on the Mercian realm. Mercia was saved by a march of King Aethelred to Nottingham; but the peace which he had made there with the Northmen left them leisure to prepare for an invasion of East Anglia, whose underking Eadmund, brought prisoner before their leaders, was bound to a tree and shot to death with arrows. . . . With him ended the line of East Anglian underkings; for the kingdom was not only conquered, but divided among the soldiers of the pirate hoste, and their leader, Guthrum, assumed its crown." [825]

21. By these victories of the Danes the power of Wessex north of the Thames was again absolutely destroyed. And "the loss of the subject kingdoms left Wessex face to face with the invaders. The time had now come for it to fight, not for supremacy, but for life. As yet the land seemed paralyzed by terror. With the exception of his one march on Nottingham, King Aethelred had done nothing to save his underkingdom from the wreck. But the pirates no sooner pushed up the Thames to Reading in 871 than the West Saxons, attacked on their own soil, turned fiercely at bay. A desperate attack drove the Northmen from Ashdown on the heights that overlooked the vale of White Horse, but their camp in the tongue of land between the Kennet and Thames proved impregnable. Aethelred died in the midst of the struggle, and his brother Aelfred (Alfred the Great)(871-899), who now became king, bought the withdrawal of the pirates and a few years' breathing-space for his realm. It was easy for the quick eye of Aelfred to see that the Northmen had withdrawn simply with the view of gaining firmer footing for a new attack: three years indeed had hardly passed before Mercia was invaded and its underking driven over-sea to make place for a tributary of the invaders. From Repton half their host marched northward to the Tyne, while Guthrum led the rest into his kingdom of East Anglia to prepare for the next year's attack on Wessex." [828]

22. From 874 and onward Northumbria and Mercia had been brought wholly under the power of the Dane. In 877 Aelfred defeated one main portion of their host in his region and forced the surrender of another, In their surrender they bound themselves by an oath to leave Wessex, which they did. But, the arrival of a new horde of their kinsmen caused them to forget their oath; and, at the beginning of 878, the whole double host again "marched ravaging over the land. The surprise of Wessex was complete, and for a month or two the general panic left no hope of resistance. Aelfred, with his small band of followers, could only throw himself into a fort raised hastily in the isle of Athelney among the marshes of Parret, a position from which he could watch closely the position of his foes. But with the first burst of spring he called the thegns of Somerset to his standard; and, still gathering troops as he moved, marched through Wiltshire on the Northmen. He found their host at Edington [831], defeated it in a great battle, and after a siege of 14 days forced them to surrender and to bind themselves by a solemn peace or `frith' at Wedmore in Somerset.

23. "In form the peace of Wedmore seemed a surrender of the bulk of Britain to its invaders. All Northumbria, all East Anglia, all central England east of a line which stretched from the Thames's mouth along the Lea to Beford, thence along the Ouse to Watling Street, and by Watling Street to Chester, was left subject to the Northmen. Throughout this `Danelagh' - as it was called - the conquerors settled down among the conquered population as lords of the soil, thickly in northern Britain, more thinly in its central districts; but everywhere guarding jealously their old isolation, and gathering in separate `heres' or armies round towns which were only linked in close confederacies. The peace had, in fact, saved little more than Wessex itself. But in saving Wessex, it saved England. The spell of terror was broken. The tide of invasion turned. From an attitude of attack the Northmen were thrown back on an attitude of defense. The whole reign of Aelfred was a preparation for a fresh struggle that was to wrest back from the pirates the land they had won." [835]

24. This peace continued till 893, during which time Aelfred continually strengthened the defenses of his kingdom. He built a strong fleet; and gathered all the freemen of his realm into an organized force. He had a son and a daughter, Eadward and Aetheflæd and Aethelred, her husband, were made lord and lady of Aelfred's portion of Mercia. When in 893 there was a new invasion of the land by the Danes, both by land and by sea, Aelfred met their fleet and held it at bay, while "Eadward and Aethered caught their army near the Severn and overthrew it with a vast slaughter at Buttington." And Aelfred was able so well to hold his own that in 897 the latest invaders withdrew, and the Danes, who had dwelt in the land, renewed the peace, which continued for 13 years.

25. Aelfred died in 901, and was succeeded by his son Eadward. In 910 there was a new outbreak of the Danes inhabiting England. Aethelred, the lord of Mercia, was also now dead, which left Aethelflæd the ruler of Mercia. She took the field and was so successful everywhere that she won back all that had composed the full kingdom of Mercia. Eadward, on his part, repulsed an inroad of another new band of Danes, and brought East Anglia under his power. Aethelflæd died in 918. Eadward immediately annexed Mercia to his dominion and carried his arms triumphantly to the Humber; and "in 924 the whole of the north suddenly laid itself at his feet. Not merely Northumbria, but the Scots and the Britons of Strathelyde `chose him to father and lord.'"

26. Eadward the Unconquered died in 925, and was succeeded by his son Aethelstan till 940, when he died and was succeeded by his son Eadmund till 946, when he was killed by a robber, and was succeeded by his brother Eadred. "Under Eathelstan Northumberland was incorporated, and the immediate realm of the one king of England reached to the Forth. Still both he and his two successors had to fight against endless revolts and rival kings in Northumberland. The Danish land was won and lost, and won back, over and over again, till at last under Eadred Northumberland was finally incorporated, and ruled, sometimes by a single ear;, sometimes by two, of the king's appointment." With its submission in 954 the work of conquest was done. Dogged as his fight had been, the Northmen at last owned himself beaten. From the moment of Eadred's final triumph all resistance came to an end.

27. "The kingdom of England was now formed. The first half of the 10th century thus gave the West Saxon kings a position in Britain such as no English kings of any kingdom had ever held before them. Dominant in their own island, claiming and, whenever they could, exercising, a supremacy over the other princes of the island, their position in the island-world of Britain was analogous to the position of the western emperors in continental Europe. It was, in fact, an imperial position. As such, it was marked by the assumption of the imperial title, monarcha, imperator, basileus, Augustus, and even Caesar. These titles were meant at once to assert the imperial supremacy of the English kings within their own world, and to deny any supremacy over Britain on the part of either of the lords of the continental world.[845] . . . But one and strong and glorious as England stood in the central years of the 10th century, her unity and strength and glory were brought in no small degree by the loss of the ancient freedom of her people." [847]

28. In 955 Eadred died, and was succeeded by the two sons of his brother and predecessor, Eadmund. The older son, Eadwig, received Wessex as king of England by right, while the younger, Eadgar, received Northumberland and Mercia as underking to Eadwig. But in 957 the kingdom was actually divided into these two parts by the Mercians and Northumbians declaring Eadgar full king in his own right. However, in 959 Eadwig died and Eadgar succeeded to the whole dominion in his own right; and "under Eadgar's rule the land enjoyed 16 years of unparalleled peace and of unparalleled prosperity. During his reign no word of foreign invasion was breathed, and the two or three disturbances within the island were of slight consequences. . . . At no time in our early history did England hold to a higher position in the world in general. And when Old-Saxon Otto wore the crown of Rome, and West Saxon Eadgar, in some sort his nephew, reigned over the island-empire of Britain, the Saxon name had reached the highest point of its glory." [850]

29. Eadgar was succeeded by his son Edward in 975, but he was allowed to reign only four years, for at the instigation of his step-mother Aelfthryth, he was murdered in 979, and Aelfthryth's son Aethelred II was put on the throne, and thus "entered on the saddest and most shameful reign" in English annals, which continued for 37 years. In the 2nd year of his reign, 980, another invasion of the Danes flooded the land, and the flood never really ceased until all England was held by the Danes, and a Dane sat upon the throne of all England. "The unready king - that is, the king without rede or counsel - seems to have been incapable of any settled or vigorous plan of action. He showed energy now and then in needless and fruitless enterprises; but under him the kingdom never showed a united front toward the common enemy. His only policy, the only policy of his cowardly or traitorous advisers, was the self-destroying policy of buying off the invaders with money.

30. "The invaders are met at London, at Maldon, at Exeter, with the highest valor and conduct on the part of the leaders and people of particular cities and districts; but it is always isolated cities and districts which resist. Such local efforts were naturally fruitless; the local force is either defeated by superior numbers, or, if victorious, it has, through want of conquest with other parts of the kingdom, no means of following up its victory. Through a warfare like this, carried on year after year, the nation at last lost heart as well as its king. Local jealousies, hushed under the vigorous rule of earlier kings, now rose again. It is emphatically said that `one shire would not help others.' Under such a reign the efforts of the best men in the land were thwarted, and the places of highest power fell to the worst men. The successive advisers of Aethelred appear as a succession of traitors, who sold him and his kingdom to the enemy." "It was for the Witan to pass decrees, but it was for the king to put them in force: and under Aethelred nothing good was ever put in force." [860]

31. In 991 a new wave of the Danish flood swept upon the land. However, by this time, they were more than Danes who came. Even the Norwegian King, Olaf Tryggvesson, was amongst them. In 994 another wave swept upon the devoted land. In this the Northmen hosts were led by King Olaf of Norway and King Swegen of Denmark. The forces of London defeated those that invaded that part of the land; but Aethelred obtained peace from them by purchase with money. Yet the peace was not kept, except by a portion of them; and for 8 years the war went on by new invasions on the part of the Danes, and new payments on the part of the king, until 1002 when an attempt was made to rid England of the Danes, by a general massacre on St. Brice's day, the 13th of November.

32. Aethelred had also quarreled with Duke Richard of Normandy; but in this same year, 1002, he sealed a peace with Richard, and also hoped to strengthen his kingdom by receiving in marriage Emma, the daughter of Duke Richard of Normandy. "Wedding and murder, however, proved feeble defenses against Swegen. His fleet reached the coast in 1003, and for 4 years he marched through the length and breadth of southern and eastern England, `lighting his war-beacons as he went' in blazing homestead and town. Then for a heavy bribe he withdrew, to prepare for a later and more terrible onset. But there was no rest for the realm. The fiercest of the Norwegian jarls (??) took his place, and from Wessex the war extended over Mercia and East Anglia. . . . Swegen returned in 1013. The war was terrible but short. Everywhere the country was pitilessly harried (??), churches plundered, men slaughtered. With the one exception of London, there was no attempt at resistance. Oxford and Winchester flung open their gates. The thegns (??) of Wessex submitted to the Northmen at Bath. Even London was forced at last to give way, and Aethelred fled over-sea to a refuge in Normandy." [878] "The Danish king was acknowledged as king - though native writers choose rather to call him tyrant - ever all Enlgand." [880]

33. Swegen died in 1014, and was succeeded by his son Cnut, or Knut, - Canute, - a young man 19 years of age. The English Council, or Witan, however, called for the restoration of Aethelred. Aethelred returned, which caused a war between the two kings. In 1016 Aethelred died, and was succeeded by his son Eadmund, surnamed "Ironside," an able general, was successful against Cnut until Ealdorman Eadric of Mercia deserted him in the midst of a great battle at Assandun which caused his complete overthrow. The kingdom was then divided between Eadmund and Cnut, Eadmund taking the south, and Cnut the north. But Eadmund died shortly afterward, and Cnut, both by his power and by formal election, became king of all England, was regularly crowned as such, and ruled even "as a native king." "England was neither oppressed nor degraded under his rule. His government, his laws, were framed by the pattern of those of the ancient kings. He set home his Danish army, keeping only a body of chosen guards, the famous house-carls. These were the first standing army known in England, a body of picked men, Danes, Englishmen, or brave men from any quarter. Cnut gradually displaced the Danes whom he had at first placed in high offices, and gave them English successors. He raised an Englishman, the renowned Godwine, to a pace second only to kingship, with the new title of Earl of the West Saxons.

34. "In her foreign relations, England, under the Danish king, was in no sense a dependency of Denmark. England was the center, Winchester was the imperial city, of a northern empire, which rivaled those of the East and the West. Canute, it must be remembered, was chosen to the crown of England first of all, while still very young. To that crown he added the crown of Denmark, on the death or deposition of his brother Harold. He won Norway, which had revolted against his father, from its king Olaf; and he seems to have established his power over part of Sweden and other parts of the Baltic lands. But all these were acquisitions made by one who was already `king of all England;' they were largely won by the English valor, and the complaint in Denmark and elsewhere was that Canute made his northern kingdom subordinate to England, and preferred Englishmen rather than natives to high offices in them.

35. "At home, after the first years of his reign, his rule was one of perfect peace." [885] In 1028 he wrote: "I have vowed to God to lead a right life in all things, to rule justly and piously my realms and subjects, and to administer just judgment to all. If heretofore I have done ought beyond what was just, through headiness or negligence of youth, I am ready, with God's help, to amend it utterly. No royal officer, either for fear of the king or for favor of any, is to consent to injustice, none is to do wrong to rich or poor as they would value my friendship and their won well-being. I have no need that money will be heaped together for me by unjust demands. I have sent this letter before me that all the people of my realm may rejoice in my well-doing; for as you yourselves know, never have I spared, nor will I spare, to spend myself and my toil in what is needful and good for my people." In 1031 Canute's reign over all the north was made complete by the Scotch king's doing "full homage to the king of all England."

36. Canuet died in 1035. He had named as his successor in England Harthacnut, or Hardicanute, his son by Emma, the widow of Aethelred, whom, early in his reign, he had married, though she must have been nearly twice as old as he. But there was another son named Harold, who was supported in his claims to the kingdom by Mercia and Northumberland. The West Saxons, with Godwine and Emma, in accordance with the national council, dividing the kingdom between the two. Harthacnut remained in Denmark, and the West Saxons deposed him and acknowledged Harold. There came also over from Normandy Aelfred, the elder son of Aethelred, who, in 1016 had been obliged to flee the kingdom from the jealous hate of Canute. But his attempt was a complete failure. He and his companions fell into the hands of Harold. His companions were all put to death, he himself was blinded; and soon afterward he died.

37. In 1040 Harold himself died; and Harthacnut, by right and by national choice, became again king, this time, king of the whole realm. But his reign was now short, for he died in 1042. The English nation then chose Eadward, the second son of Aethelred, who had fled to Normandy. "His monastic virtues won him the reputation of a saint and the title of `the Confessor,' but no man could have been less fitted to wear the crown of England in such an age." It was chiefly by the influence of Godwine that Eadward had been chosen to the kingship, and Eadward now married Godwine's daughter, and did him further honor by appointing his son to earldoms.

38. Eadward greatly offended the English people by bringing with him from Normandy, and putting into every place that he could, a great number of Norman favorites. His chief favorite was a Norman monk whom he made, first, bishop of London, and, presently archbishop of Canterbury. These Norman favorites soon made themselves so insolent and unbearable that Godwine and his sons, in behalf of the nation, took up arms against them. But Godwine was induced to submit his cause to the National Council, which decided against him, and he and his sons were banished. But within a year, 1050, they returned, with an army. The English were now so utterly wearied with the arrogance of the king's Norman favorites that they gladly welcomed Godwine. The king mustered an army to meet him, but the army refused to fight. The national assembly again considered Godwine's cause, and banished the Norman archbishop of Canterbury, with a great company of other Normans.

39. In 1053 the great earl Godwine died, and was succeeded in his high place in the kingdom by his son Harold. In the beginning of 1066 King Eadward died while the national assembly was in session. Eadward had no children, and on his deathbed he had recommended Harold as his successor. The national assembly accepted the recommendation, and Harold was regularly chosen and crowned king of England, and reigned as Harold II.

The Norman Invasion

40. In 1035 the death of Duke Robert of Normandy had left his son William, his successor, a child of but seven or eight years old. He was the sixth duke of Normandy, and by relationship was the fifth in direct descent from Rolf, or Rollo, the Danish chief who received from Charles the Simple the duchy of Normandy. By the time that he attained to the age of twenty, he had firmly fixed his authority in Normandy; and by the time he was thirty-six he had obtained possession of the counties of Maine and Brittany, and "stood first among the princes of France." In 1051 he had made a visit to King Eadward of England, and ever afterward claimed that at that time Eadward had promised to him the crown of England at Eadward's death. He further claimed that while Eadward was a child in banishment in Normandy, he had said to William that if ever he became king of England, William should be his successor. Further, about 1065, when Harold was the foremost subject in England, he had made a journey to Normandy, but by a storm was driven out of his direct course, and was shipwrecked near the mouth of the Somme, in the territory of the count of Ponthieu, who would not let him go without a ransom, and William paid the ransom; and so Harold came safely to Williams' court. William told him of the promise that Eadward had made, and asked Harold whether he would support him in his claims under the promise. Harold assented; but William asked for an oath. This, too, Harold gave.

41. And now, in 1066, when William learned that Harold himself had received the crown of England, without any recognition or even mention of any of his claims, he determined that he would have the kingdom anyhow. He first sent an envoy to Rome, to obtain the sanction of the pope. When William had taken the oath of Harold to support him in his claims to the kingship of England under the promises of Eadward, by a trick he had secured Harold's oath upon the relics of the saints. And now, when he desired the pope's sanction of his enterprise, he urged the perjury and the awful blasphemy of Harold's course in disregarding an oath given upon the holy relics. He asked the pope even to put all England under an interdict because of her having chosen such a man as this for king, and also because the nation had expelled the archbishop of Canterbury, who had borne the consecration of Rome. Hildebrand was at that time archdeacon at the papal court. He approved William's claims, and, by his influence, the pope also was brought to William's support. William "was thus able to cloak his schemes under the guise of a crusade and to attack England alike with temporal and spiritual weapons." Feeling thus sure of his ground in the support of the papacy, William issued "a proclamation that, supported by the holy father of Christendom, who had sent to him a consecrated banner, William, duke of Normandy, was about to demand, by force of arms, his rightful inheritance of England; and that all who would serve him with spear, sword, or cross-bow, should be amply rewarded. At this call, gathered together all the adventurers of Western Europe. They came in crowds from Maine and Anjou, from Poitou and Brittany, from Aquitaine and Burgundy, from France and Flanders. They should have land; they should have money; the would wed Saxon heiresses; the humblest foot soldier should be a gentleman. The summer of 1066 was almost past before the preparations were complete. A large fleet had been assembled at the beginning of September at the mouth of the Dive River." [900]

42. At this same time there was hanging over England another invasion from Norway. The king of Norway in this same month of September landed with a host in what is now Yorkshire, defeated the local forces, and September 24 received the submission of the territory immediately north of the Humber River. Harold, marching to meet the invaders, found them September 25, and routed them at Stamford Bridge, near the city of York. In the afternoon of September 27, William, at the head of his fleet, started across the Channel, and, early in the day, September 28, landed at Pevensey on the coast of Sussex. Harold, learning of this, brought his army so rapidly as possible again to the south; and, October 14, with his forces of Wessex, East Anglia, and Mercia, "met William and his host on the hill of Senlac," near the city of Hastings, and not a great distance from his landing. "At nine o'clock the Normans moved across the little valley, with the papal banner carried in advance of the Duke." The camp of the English was fortified by a trench and a stockade, and at first the English were successful. They repulsed both the Norman horsemen and footmen, and at one time there was such danger of a panic amongst the Normans that William was obliged to tear off his helmet, so that he could be readily recognized, and by voice rally his troops. "After a fight of six hours, William commanded his men to turn their backs. The English raised a cry of triumph, and breaking their ranks, rushed from their commanding position into the plain. Then the Norman cavalry wheeled around and a terrible slaughter took place. Harold fell a little before sunset," pierced by an arrow, in his right eye. Under cover of the night the remnant of the English army fled, and William's victory was complete.

43. All of Harold's brothers had fallen with him in the battle; and of the regular royal line there as remaining but one male, a boy named Eadgar, about ten years old, the grandson of Eadmund Ironside. This boy the national council chose to the kingship. But the boy had sufficient sense to keep him from offering resistance to the greatest warrior of the age, and he himself was at the head of the deputation sent by the national assembly to offer the crown to William. The widow of the late king Eadward yielded to William and surrendered Winchester. By the national assembly "he was now chosen king and crowned at Westminster on Christmas day. He was thus king by the submission of the chief men, by the rights of coronation, and by the absence of any other claiment." Yet he had practically the whole of the territory of his kingdom still to conquer. This, however, he accomplished with ease, never, after Senlac, being required to fight a single pitched battle.

44. Yet, though so much of the realm was still unconquered, William felt secure in his kingdom that in the month of March, the next year, 1067, he went back to Normandy to attend to the affairs of his dominions on the Continent. His lieutenants whom he left in charge of England, made themselves so obnoxious that before the end of the year, revolts recalled William to England; and within two years he secured the recognition of his power throughout the whole kingdom. "Early in 1070 William reviewed and dismissed his army at Salisbury. At the Easter feast of the same year, being now full king over England, he was again solemnly crowned by legates from Rome." In 1072 he "entered Scotland and received homage of Malcolm at Abernethy. He had thus succeeded to the empire, as well as to the immediate kingdom, of his West Saxon predecessors. In the next year he employed English troops on the Continent in winning back the revolted county of Maine. In 1074 he could afford to admit Eadgar, the rival king of a moment, to his favor." [920]

45. As before stated, William laid the basis of his claim to the kingdom of England in his asserted promise of Eadward that William should be his successor. And now that he had actually obtained possession of the kingdom, he held that the kingdom had been his, by full right, ever since the death of Eadward. By this assertion he made it to follow that all that had been done in the kingdom since the death of Eadward, had been illegal; that all who had fought against him were guilty of treason; that all who had sustained Harold, had fought against him; and that as the general assembly of the kingdom had sustained Harold, and had even crowned a new king after the death of Harold, the whole nation was thus involved in the crime of treason. Whoever was guilty of treason, all his lands and good were forfeit to the crown. And, since the whole kingdom was guilty of treason, all the lands and goods of all the people in the whole realm were forfeit to him, and he actually claimed all as his own. He did not remove the original owners from their land indiscriminately and everywhere. Much of the land he turned over to new owners, some he left in the possession of the original owners. But, whether given to new owners or left in the possession of the original owners, every one was obliged to receive it as the direct gift of the king, and to hold it continually subject to the king's pleasure, and as the king's "man." "The only proof of lawful ownership was either the king's written grant, or else evidence that the owner had been put in possession by the king's order."

46. In order to make this system thorough, William had a survey made of all the lands of the whole realm, and a census of all property and of the owners thereof. All this was recorded in a book - the value of the lands at the time the survey was made, the value of it in the time of Eadward, and the value of it at the date when it was bestowed upon its latest owner by a grant of the king. In the book were recorded the numbers dwelling upon the land, whether as tenants, or dependents; the amount of life stock, etc., etc. And, because the record in this book was the standard of deicision upon every question or dispute as to property, and because its testimony was final in every case, that book was called Domesdeie Book - Domesday Book - Doomsday Book, from dom, doom, decree, law, judgment, or decision. This records was finished in 1086; and then "William gathered all the land-owners of his kingdom of his kingdom, great and small, whether his tenants in chief or the tenants of an intermediate lord, and made them all become his men." And thus the Norman king was not only the head of the State, but "also the personal lord of every man in his kingdom." This thoroughness with respect to persons and property caused the king's authority to be respected everywhere throughout the realm; and "the good peace that he made in the land" was such "that a man might fare over his realm with a bosom full of gold."

47. In January, 1087, William went again to Normandy, especially for the purpose of settling a dispute concerning some Norman territory which the king of France had seized. In the month of August his forces had taken the town of Mantes; and, as William rode amongst the smoldering ruins, his horse stumbled and fell, by which William received an injury from which he died September 9. He left three sons. The eldest, Robert, was at the court of France; the other two, William and Henry, were with him at the time of his death. To the eldest he left the inheritance of Normandy; to William he gave his ring, and advised him to go at once to England and assume the crown; to Henry, the youngest, he bequeathed five thousand pounds of silver. William arrived safely in England and was crowned at Westminster, Sept. 26, 1087. He is known in history as William Rufus - "the Red." The Norman element of England was so opposed to him that they actually revolted; but it was in vain, for his English subjects stood so loyally by him as to render him successful against all opposition. In 1096 his brother of Normandy, desiring to go on the first crusade, and not having sufficient funds, borrowed the needed sum from William of England, and gave Normandy as the mortgage for the repayment of the money. A part of the duchy rebelled. William went over and put down the rebellion. In 1098-99 he also conquered Maine. Shortly afterward he returned to England, and Aug. 2, 1100, he was found dead in the New Forest, with an arrow in his breast; whether shot by an assassin, or in accident by a hunter, was never discovered.

48. The kingdom was instantly seized by his brother Henry, surnamed Beauclere. The Norman element of the kingdom opposed him, as they had opposed William Rufus; but the national assembly unanimously elected him, and promptly crowned him. Further, to hold the affections of his English subjects, he married a lady of English blood - Edith, the daughter of the king of Scotland, whose mother was the sister of the last king Eadgar, and granddaughter of King Eadmund Ironside. She changed her name to Maud, or Matilda; "and the shout about the English multitude when he set the crown on Matilda's brow drowned the murmur of churchman and of baron. The mockery of the Norman nobles, who nicknamed the king and his spouse Godric and Godgifu, was lost in the joy of the people at large. For the first time since the conquest an English sovereign sat on the English throne. The blood of Cerdic and Aelfred was to blend itself with that of Rolf and the Conqueror. Henceforth it was impossible that the two peoples remain parted from each other; so quick, indeed, was their union that the very name of Norman had passed away in half a century, and at the accession of Henry's grandson it was impossible to distinguish between the descendants of the conquerors and those of the conquered at Senlac." [940]

49. Shortly after this, Robert returned from the Crusades, and the Norman nobles in England conspired to bring him over to contend in England for that kingdom. He did come with an army, landing at Portsmouth; but Henry was able to make with him such terms that without fighting, a peace was settled, by which Robert recognized Henry as king of England, and returned to his proper dominions on the Continent. There, however, he so misgoverned his territories that they called on Henry to come over and be their king. In 1106 he went to Normandy with an army. The dispute culminated in the battle of Tenchebrai, in which Robert was defeated and captured, and was held in captivity until his death in 1134. Thus Normandy was conquered and possessed by the king of England, as, forty years before, England had been conquered and possessed by William of Normandy. "During the rest of Henry's reign there was perfect peace in England; but nearly the whole time was filled with continental wars. The warfare between France and England, of which there had been only glimpses in the days of Rufus, now began in earnest." And, from the entanglements, intrigues, and war in France, which was now begun by Henry, England never found herself free for three hundred and forty-seven years.[944]

50. In 1120, as Henry was returning with his forces from Normandy to England, his only son, William, "full of merriment and wine," and "with rowers and steeresman mad with drink," had barely left harbor when his ship struck a rock, and instantly sank. "One terrible cry, ringing through the silence of the night, was heard by the royal fleet, but it was not till the morning that the fatal news reached the king. Stern as he was, Henry fell senseless to the ground, and arose never to smile again." [947] This left the son of his captive brother Robert as the true heir to Henry's dominions, alike of England and Normandy. But Henry determined not to allow him to be his successor. Henry had a daughter, Maud, or Matilda, who had been married to the emperor Henry V, but who, on his death, had returned to England and her father's house. And although, so far, in English history the reign of a woman had been unknown, yet Henry decided that Maud should succeed him upon the throne of England. Accordingly, while he lived, he "forced priests and nobles to swear allegiance to Maud as their future mistress;" and chose for her husband Geoffry, the son of the count of Anjou in France.

51. In 1135 Henry died. But the arrangement which he had made for the succession of Maud to the throne was disregarded by the national assembly, and Stephen was chosen king of England. Stephen was the grandson of William the Conqueror, and, with the rest of the chief men of England, had done homage, and sworn allegiance, to Maud as the successor of Henry. All this, however, and without opposition Stephen became king of England. One great reason why the agreement with Maud was not carried into effect, was that for her to be queen would cause that Geoffry of Anjou would practically be ruler - and he an utter foreigner: and this neither English nor Normans would have. At the time all this occurred, Maud was not in England, but was with her husband in Anjou; and, when they heard of these proceedings in England, Geoffry seized Normandy. With this added prestige, and with an army, Maud invaded England in 1139. Stephen was defeated and captured, at Lincoln, in 1141, and Maud "was received throughout the land as its lady" - they would not use the word queen. However, she was not crowned. She offended the city of London, which rose in arms against her. In an exchange of prisoners, Stephen had been released. For eleven years there was civil war, "a time of utter anarchy and havoc," a "chaos of pillage and bloodshed." Then, in 1153 as agreement was made between King Stephen and Maud's son Henry, who was now duke of Normandy. By this agreement Stephen was to reign as long as he lived, and then Henry should have the kingdom. Stephen died the next year, and the agreement was fully carried out, as to Henry; and so he came to his kingdom without any opposition or any further confusion.

52. Henry II was now, by right from his grandfather, Henry I, king of England, and duke of Normandy; in France, as the heir of his father, Geoffry, he was lord of the counties of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, and, through his brother, also of Brittany; and now, by marriage to Eleanor, the duchess of Poitou, Aquitaine, and Gascony, he received with her, these three counties, the principal portion of southern Gaul. Besides all this, one of the first events of his reign was the granting of a bull by the pope, giving to him Ireland. Thus, in the reign of Henry II, the British empire embraced Ireland, all of England and Wales south of the Forth, and all of western and central France, from the English Channel to the border of Spain. "In ruling over a vast number of distinct states, widely differing in blood, language, and everything else, ruling over all without exclusively belonging to any, Henry II, king, duke, and count of all the lands from the Pyrenees to the Scottish border, was the forerunner of the emperor Charles V." His father, Geoffry, count of Anjou, habitually wore in his helmet a spring of broom-corn, called in the native tongue planta genista, from which he received the nickname of Plantagenet, which clung to his house. And so Henry - II of England - became the first of the Plantagenets, who ruled England for three 331 years - 1154-1485.

53. Henry II died in 1189, and was succeeded by his son Richard, surnamed Coeur de Lion - heart of a lion. At his accession, Richard was absent from England, in his mother's possession in southern Gaul, and during his whole reign of ten years he was in England but twice, both times merely for the purpose of being crowned: first, immediately on his accession, in the autumn of 1189; second, in 1194, on his return from the Crusades. In 1190 Richard went on his crusade; and to obtain the money for his expenses he sold everything that he could sell, short of the very kingdom itself. "He put up the crown demesnes; he sold the public offices; he sold earldoms; he sold the claim which [his father] Henry has asserted to the right of homage for the crown of Scotland. `I would sell London, if I could find a chapman,' he exclaimed. `Richard's presence chamber was a market overt, in which all that the king could bestow - all that could be derived from the bounty of the crown, or imparted by the royal prerogative - was disposed of to the best chapman.'" [960]

54. Though on his crusade Richard was four years absent from his dominions, he was in Palestine only about 16 months - June 8, 1191 to October 9, 1192. While there he had dealt a kick to the duke of Austria, for his refusing to work on the walls of Ascalon. And now on his return, as he was trying to make his way in disguise through Austria, he was detected when near Vienna, and was made prisoner by the duke of Austria, Dec. 21, 1192, who sold him to the emperor, who was also ready to sell him, but there was no buyer. In hope of release Richard agreed to pay an annual tribute to the emperor, resigned his crown to the emperor, and received it back as vassal to the "overlord of Christendom." Yet, he was kept prisoner till March 8, 1194, when he was released on a ransom of what would be now about a million dollars. He went at once to England, landing March 12: and notwithstanding the heavy drain upon the people to pay his ransom, without recompense whatever he "forcibly resumed the lands which he had sold, and turned out the officers who had purchased their places," to enable him to make his crusade. His stay in England was brief. He sailed away May 11, 1194, and never saw England again. He was mortally wounded by an arrow while besieging Chaluz [966], in a war with King Philip II of France, and died 12 days afterward, April 6, 1199. He was immediately succeeded by his brother John.

55. John, surnamed Lackland because his father, with all his vast possessions, left him no land, was crowned king of England on Ascencion Day, May 27, 1199. There was a nearer heir in the person of Arthur, the grandson of Henry II, through his third son Geoffry, while John was so far removed as to be the fifth son of Henry. But Arthur, being a boy of only twelve years, while John was a man of thirty-two years, John was chosen as the one better able to discharge the responsibilities of kingship at that time. All the continental possessions of England likewise recognized John, except the three counties of Maine, Touraine, and Anjou. These openly espoused the claims of Arthur. King Philip of France stood with these in supporting Arthur: this, however, to promote his own designs in excluding, if possible, England from any possessions within the limits of what should be France. This brought on a war. John went at once to Normandy to defend his interests on the Continent: Philip invaded Normandy, besides putting garrisons in the three counties of Maine, Touraine, and Anjou.

56. When the war had continued eight months, a truce was arranged, about the first of March, 1200. John spent the months of March and April in England; and the first of May he returned to Normandy. The war was taken up again; but on May 23 a peace was concluded. Philip abandoned the interests of Arthur with respect to Maine, Touraine, and Anjou; but in the peace it was arranged that Arthur should receive Brittany as a fief from John; and that Philip's son Louis should marry John's niece, Blanche of Castile. While passing through his province of Aquitaine, John saw a beautiful woman, already betrothed to a noble, and he secured a divorce from his own wife, and persuaded this lady to marry him. This stirred up to vengeance against John, the noble - Hugh, count of La Marche. He incited an insurrection in John's possessions on the Continent: he was secretly supported by Philip, and in 2 1/2 years, Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine were lost to England. Arthur had joined in the resurrection, had been captured, and was assassinated at the direction of John, if not by the very hand of John himself.

57. In 1203 the estates of Brittany sent a deputation to Philip to demand justice against John. John, as duke of Normandy, was summoned to appear before a court of his peers in France, and as a vassal of the king of France. John's envoy asked for a safe conduct. Philip answered that he should come unmolested. The John's envoy wanted to know whether he could be assured of a safe return. Philip replied that he should have safe return "if the judgment of his peers acquitted him." John's envoy then remarked that, since John was king of England as well as duke of Normandy, the duke of Normandy could not come without the king of England's coming, and declared that "the barons of England would not permit their king to run the risk of death or imprisonment." Philip, however, insisted that the duke of Normandy should come, because, as such, he was truly the vassal of the king of France.

58. John did not go; and, for his "contumacy," the court decreed that "whereas, John, duke of Normandy, in violation of his oath to Philip, his lord, has murdered the son of his elder brother, a homager of the crown of France, and near kinsman to the king, and has perpetrated the crime within the seigniory of France, he is found guilty of felony and treason, and is therefore adjudged to forfeit all the lands he has held by homage." The allowed Philip to assert legal claim to all the English possessions in France; and he at once entered Normandy and occupied the strongholds with his troops. But this the Normans did not life, and they appealed to John to come to their rescue. But, against this England protested, because she "thought the time was come when her wealth should no longer be dissipated in Normandy; when her language should be spoken by those who ruled over her; when her laws should be administered by those who abided among her people; and when her Church should be upheld by those who had no foreign bishoprics and abbeys." As a consequence, all the continental possessions of England, except Aquitaine, were now lost, "and from the lordship of a vast empire that stretched from the Tyne to the Pyrenees John saw himself reduced at a blow to the realm of England."

59. Next, in 1207 John fell into a quarrel with Rome. March 24, 1208, England was placed under an interdict, which John resisted for five years, when in 1213 to the interdict, the excommunication of John was added; and England was given by the pope to Philip of France. Philip gathered a fleet and an army with which to go and take possession of England. John surrendered to the pope, and took an oath of fealty as the vassal of Rome. Then the pope forbade Philip any further designs upon England. Philip determined to take England anyhow; but his vassal, the count of Flanders, refused to support him. This caused war; John supported Flanders, and Philip's fleet was destroyed. Next, supported by the people and the emperor, the count of Flanders and the Earl of Boulogne, John went with an army to punish Philip further. A great battle was fought at Bouvines (Bouviers?, SW adjacent to Paris). John and his allies were completely overthrown, and "concluded an ignominious truce with Philip." and returned to England, October, 1214.

60. The people of England had long borne with the numberless wickedness of John; but, when he made the realm of England a fief, and the king of England a vassal, of the pope, they could bear with him no longer. John himself wrote to the pope that "whereas, before we were disposed to subject ourselves and our realm to your dominion, the earls and barons of England never failed in their devotion to us; since then, however, and as they publicly avowed for that reason, they have been in continual and violent rebellion against us." Because of this attitude of his nobles, when John returned now from France, he came with an army of mercenaries, with the avowed intent that by this power he would be "for the first time king and lord of England."

61. But "there were now two eminent persons among many other bold and earnest churchmen and laity who saw that the time was come when no man should be `king and lord in England' with a total disregard of the rights of other men; a time when a king should rule in England by law instead of by force, or rule not at all. Stephen Langton (1151-1228), the archbishop [996], and William, earl of Pembroke, were the leaders and at the same time moderators, in the greatest enterprise that the nation had yet undertaken. It was an enterprise of enormous difficulty. The pope was now in friendship with the king, and this might influence the great body of ecclesiastics. The royal castles were in possession of the mercenary soldiers. The craft of John was as much to be dreaded as his violence. But there was no shrinking from the duty that was before these patriots. They moved on steadily in the formation of a league that would be strong enough to enforce their just demands, even if the issue were war between the crown and the people. The bishops and barons were the great council of the nation. Parliament, including the Commons, was not, as yet, though not far distant. The doctrine of divine right was the invention of an age that sought to overthrow the ancient principle of an elective monarchy, in which hereditary claims had indeed a preference, but in which the sovereign `is appointed to protect his subjects in their lives, properties, and laws, and for this very end and purpose has the delegation of power from the people.'" [1000]

62. The nobles met at Saint Edmundsbury; and after duly considering the situation, Thursday, Nov. 20, 1214, they "solemnly swore to withdraw their allegiance from John, if he should resist their claims to just government. They had not only public wrongs to redress, but the private outrages of the king's licentiousness were not to be endured by the class of high-born knights whom he insulted through their wives and daughters. From Saint Edmundsbury they marched to London, where the king had shut himself up in the temple. When their deputies came into his presence, he first despised their claims and then asked for delay. The archbishop of Canterbury, the earl of Pembroke, and the bishop of Ely guaranteed that a satisfactory answer should be given before Easter. The king employed the time in the endeavor to propitiate the church by promising a free election of bishops. He took the cross, and engaged to wage war with the infidels. He sent to Rome, to implore the aid of the pope in his quarrel. And the pope came to his aid; and commanded Langton to exercise his authority to bring back the king's vassals to their allegiance.

63. "At Easter, the barons, with a large force, assembled at Stamford. John was at Oxford, and Langton as Pembroke were with him. They were sent by the king to ascertain the demands of their peers; and these messengers, or mediators, brought back" Magna Charta. This "was a code of laws, expressed in simple language, embodying two principles - the first, such limitation of the feudal claims of the king as would prevent their abuse [1018]; the second, such specifications of the general rights of all freemen as were derived from the ancient laws of the realm, however these rights had been neglected or perverted. . . . It demanded no limitation of the regal power which had not been acknowledged, in theory, by every king who had taken a coronation oath. It made that oath, which had been regarded as a mere form of words, a binding reality. It defined, in broad terms of practical application, the essential difference between a limited and a despotic monarchy. It preserved all the proper attributes of the kingly power, while it guarded against the king being a tyrant." In it the king was required to declare the great principle of the supremacy of the law of the realm in words: "No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or seized, or outlawed, or banished, or any otherwise destroyed; nor will we pass upon him, nor send upon him, unless by the legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. To no man will we sell, to no man will we deny or delay, right or justice." [1025]

64. The Charter was a long document. The archbishop read it to the king slowly and solemnly, item by item. "John went into a furious passion," exclaiming, "Why do they not ask for my kingdom? I will never grant such liberties as will make me a slave." Langton and Pembroke took back to the nobles this the king's answer. The barons proclaimed themselves "the army of God and holy Church," and marched upon London, which they entered Friday, May 22, 1215, the citizens of London having already agreed to make common cause with them. There were further negotiations: the barons were immovable, and John yielded and agreed to a meeting. The meeting was appointed to be held Monday, June 15 "on an island in the Thames, between Windsor and Staines, near a marshy meadow by the riverside, the meadow of Runnymede" - Runemede, the mead or meadow of council. "The king encamped on one bank of the river, the barons covered the flat of Runnymede on the other. Their delegates met on the island between them, but the negotiations were a mere cloak to cover John's purpose of unconditional submission. The Great Charter was discussed and agreed to in a single day." [1030]

65. However, this was not all. The barons had not yet finished with John. They next required that he should agree to articles by which there should be assured the means of carrying into effect the provisions of the charter. "Twenty-five barons were to be chosen by the barons assembled, to maintain the observance of the peace and liberties granted and confirmed; so that if the king or his officers violated any of the conditions, four out of the twenty-five barons so chosen might petition for redress of the grievance; and if not redressed within forty days, the cause being laid before the rest of the twenty-five, they, `together with the community of the whole kingdom shall distrain and distress us all the ways possible; namely, by seizing castles, lands, possessions, and in any other manner they can, till the grievance is redressed according to their pleasure, saving harmless our own person, and those of our queen and children; and when it is redressed, they shall obey us as before.'" It was further required "that the Charter should not only be published throughout the whole country, but sworn to at every hundred-mote and town-mote by order of the king."

66. When these new demands were made, John was more angry than ever. He cried out: "They have given me four-and-twenty overkings:" and flung himself on the floor "gnawing sticks and straw in his impotent rage." But it was all in vain; the nobles were inflexible, and John was obliged to sign all that they required. No sooner was it all over, however, and the respective parties had separated and the forces dispersed, than John let himself loose to take vengeance on the whole kingdom, in all of which he was still zealously supported by the people, who issued a bull excommunicating the barons and annulling the Charter. England rejected the excommunication and maintained the Charter. But, by the bull, John counted himself free from his oaths to the nobles, with full right to punish the whole people. "Wherever he marches, his force is to be tracked by fire and blood. The country was overrun by his fierce mercenaries. He marched to the north with the determination to recover his authority by the terrors of a widespread desolation, without one passing thought of justice or mercy. As he entered Scotland, in revenge for the alliance which its king, Alexander II, had formed with the barons, he burned the abbeys without distinction, and having rested at a village, set fire with his own hand, when he departed in the morning, to the house in which he had slept the previous night. In the South, the same work of terror went forward, under the command of John's illegitimate brother, the earl of Salisbury. The barons despaired of their cause, for the people fled before these hell-hounds, abandoning home and property rather than perish under the hands of relentless torturers. Their leaders came at last to a desperate resolution. They offered the crown to Louis, the eldest son of the king of France." [1040]

67. This desperate step, of course, was fraught with more war; yet it was certain that no war could be worse than were the miseries which John was inflicting upon the kingdom without war. Louis of France landed in England, Monday, May 30, 1216. Many of John's mercenaries were Frenchmen, and when their own prince came into England, they not only refused to fight against him, but actually went over to him in such numbers that John dared not meet him. Louis soon reached London, where he was welcomed: the barons and citizens paid him homage, "he swearing to govern justly, to defend them against their enemies, and to restore them to their rights and possessions." Everything was in his favor; but he destroyed all his good prospects by bestowing upon Frenchmen, English honors and possessions. Bu the whole situation was presently relieved by the death of John. He was attacked with a fever, in addition to which he gorged himself with a "surfeit of peaches and new cider," and as a consequence died Tuesday, October 18,1216.

68. Though the nobles had invited Louis of France to be king of England, he had so offended that they now rejected him, and chose, to be king, John's son Henry, a boy of ten years, who was crowned King Henry III, at Gloucester, Sabbath, October 28, 1216. Louis, however, defended his claims to the crown. There was war for two years, in which he was defeated, on both land and sea. He then willingly agreed to resign his claims and withdraw to France, upon the payment to him of "five thousand pounds to meet his necessities." While Henry III was so young, the kingdom was governed by a regency till 1227, when he declared himself of age, and began immediately to imitate his father John. He rejected the Charter and its appendices, which John had signed, and, instead of all that, declared: "Whensoever, and wheresoever, and as often as it may be our pleasure, we may declare, interpret, enlarge, or diminish, the aforesaid statutes, and their several parts, by our own free will, and as to us shall seem expedient for the security of us and our land." But he, as John, was firmly met by the kingdom's insistence upon the right of the people and the supremacy of the law.

69. In answer to Henry's pronunciamento, and English judge, Bracton, set the voice of English law, in words worthy of everlasting remembrance: "The king must not be subject to any man, but to God and the law, for the law makes him king. Let the king, therefore, give to the law what the law gives to him, dominion and power; for there is no king where will, and not law, bears rule." Again: "The king can do nothing on earth, being the minister of God, but what he can do by law." And yet again, he "reckons as superior to the king, `not only God and the law by which he is made king, but his court of earls and barons; for the former (comites) are so styled as associates of the king, and whoever has an associate has a master: so that, if the king were without a bridle - that is, the law - they ought to put a bridle upon him.'" [1050] Upon this it has been well observed: "Let no Englishman, who lives under the rule of law, and not of will, forget that this privilege has been derived from a long line of forefathers; and that, although the eternal principles of justice depend not upon the precedence of ages, but may be asserted some day by any community with whom a continued despotism has made them `native, and to the manner born,' we have the security that the old tree of liberty stands in the old earth, and that a short-lived trunk has not been thrust into a new soil, to bear a green leaf or two and then to die." [1055]

70. Henry III reigned for fifty-three years, and the whole reign is remarkable for the constitutional contest between the king and the people. upon the great question as to whether just government is by law, or by arbitrary and despotic will. His reign is also remarkable for the fact that "history presents him in scarcely any other light than that of an extortioner and a beggar. There were no contrivances for obtaining money so mean or unjust that he disdained to practice them;" and the pope sustained him in it all, and "had more than an equal share of the spoil." Thus, both he and the pope incurred not only the antagonism of the nobles, but the disrespect of the common people everywhere. Says a writer of the time, in 1252: "During all this time angry feelings were aroused, and hatred increased against the pope and the king, who favored and abetted each other in their mutual tyranny; and all, being in ill humor, called them the disturbances of mankind." Matters reached such a pass in 1257 that the nobles took another step in constitutional government. The parliament met at Westminster, May 2, the barons clad "each in their complete armor. As the king entered, there was a clatter of swords; and Henry, looking around in alarm, said, "`Am I a prisoner?' `No, sir,' said Roger Bigod, `but your foreign favorites and your prodigality have brought misery upon the realm; wherefore we demand that the powers of government be delegated to a committee of bishops and barons, who may correct abuses, and enact good laws."

71. To this demand the king was obliged to submit; and, on Monday, June 11, 1257, Parliament met at Oxford, to formulate what had been demanded. "Its was enacted that four knights should be chose by the votes of the freeholders in each country, who should submit all breaches of law and justice to a parliament, to be called together regularly thrice in each year; that the sheriffs of the counties should be chosen by the freeholders; and that the great officers of State should be reappointed." This was but carrying into effect the provisions of Magna Charta, and its securities, which John had signed at Runnymede. And Henry, like John, after having sworn it all, obtained a dispensation from the pope to violate it, and "told the committee of council, in 1261, that he should rule without them." However, in 1262, after making a blustering show of war, he yielded, and again agreed to observe the law. In 1264, however, he broke loose again, and the difference this time did bring on a war. Henry was defeated; a parliament was assembled "on a more democratic basis than any which had been ever summoned since the foundation of the monarchy," to whose laws Henry was again required to submit.

72. Henry III died on Wednesday, Nov. 16, 1272, and was succeeded by his son Edward, who, at the time, was absent in the Crusades. And it was not till 1274 that he arrived in England, on Friday, Aug. 3, 1274; and on August 19 he and his queen were crowned at Westminster. In 1282 Wales revolted, and his Edward was obliged to make war there for two years before it was subdued. There, April 25, 1284, his first son was born, who was named Edward, and was given the title Prince of Wales, which is the origin of the title in the royal family of England. Edward I also resisted constitutional government, especially in the matter of raising taxes. But under the leadership of the two great earls, Roger Bigod of Norfolk and Humphrey Bohun of Hereford and Essex, the nobles of the kingdom "called upon the sheriffs to levy no more taxes till the charters were confirmed without any insidious reservation of the rights of the crown." Edward yielded and the statute of the confirmation of the charter was accepted by the king. "From that day, the tenth of October, 1297, the sole right of raising supplies has been invested in the people - this most salutary power, which is the greatest of the many distinctions between a limited and a despotic monarchy."

73. Next Edward set up a claim to be "sovereign lord of the land of Scotland." This brought on a war in 1296, which continued for 23 years - far beyond his death which occurred on Friday, July 7, 1307 after a reign of 35 years. He was immediately succeeded by his son Edward, who was twenty-three years old. Edward II carried on the war with Scotland until 1323, when on May 1 a truce of thirteen years was concluded. In the first year of his reign Edward had married Isabella, the daughter of the king of France. In 1323 Isabella entered into an intrigue with Lord Roger Mortimer, which ended only in their murdering of the king. The murder, however, was preceded by his imprisonment, the declaring of his son Edward king at the age of fifteen on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 1327; the deposition of Edward II (20 year reign), January 13; the proclamation of the accession of Edward III, January 24; and his crowning, January 29.

74. Only four years of the truce between England and Scotland had passed when the king of Scotland - Robert Bruce - broke the truce, and invaded England. But, in 1328 a peace was concluded, in which England recognized the independence of Scotland under Bruce, and the peace was sealed by the marriage of the sister of Edward to the son of Bruce. In 1328 Charles IV, king of France, had died, leaving o direct heir. The throne was taken by a cousin - Philip of Artois. Edward's mother was the sister of Charles; and therefore as Charles's nephew and nearer of kin than was Philip, Edward of England claimed the throne of France. The French law was that a woman could not inherit the throne; but Edward asserted the claim that though women were excluded, the law did not exclude the son of a woman who, if she had been a man, would have inherited. When Charles IV had died, Edward had presented his claim.

75. In 1332 Robert Bruce died, and John Balliol, who had done homage to Edward II for the kingdom, now attempted to take it from Bruce's young heir. Edward III favored Balliol, and the king of France aided young David, the son of Bruce. And this aiding of Scotland by the rival king of France against the king of England and his ally was by Edward III made the ground "for commencing a great war for the purpose of asserting his pretensions to the crown of France." The king of France was just then at war with the people of Flanders. Edward III helped the Flemings, and they proclaimed him king of France. In 1337 "Edward boldly assumed the title of king of France, and prepared to enforce his claim at the sword's point." [1080] And thus began the Hundred Years' War between England and France, which continued about a hundred and twenty years, through the rest of the reign of Edward III, to 1337; through the reign of Richard II, to 1399; that of Henry IV, to 1413; that of Henry V, to 1422; and into the reign of Henry VI, till 1458.

76. The Hundred Years' War was barely ended when a civil war - the Wars of the Roses - began between the house of York and the house of Lancaster, which continued for 35 years, through the reigns of Edward IV [1082], Edward V, Richard III, till the death of Richard III, the last of the Plantagenets, and the crowning of Henry VII, the first of the Tudors, on Bosworth Field, Monday, August 22, 1485. Though the Wars of the Roses were thus ended, peace did not come to the kingdom; for there were insurrections and pretenders to the throne which kept the kingdom in a constant turmoil for 15 years. In the last eight years of the reign of Henry VII, 1501 to April 21, 1509, there was "neither revolts nor wars" in the kingdom. Henry VII had two sons, Arthur, born 1486, and Henry in 1491. When Arthur was four years old, a marriage was arranged for him with a girl of five years, Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. In the year 1499, when the children were aged twelve and thirteen, respectively, the marriage ceremony was performed; first by proxy while Catherine was in Spain, and again in their own proper persons, Nov. 6, 1501, when Catherine arrived in England.

77. In January, 1502, a treaty of perpetual peace was made between England and Scotland. This treaty was sealed by the marriage of Margaret, the daughter of Henry VII, of England, to James IV, the king of Scotland. In April of the same year occurred the death of Arthur (age 16), the husband of Catherine, and heir apparent to the throne. The two kings, however, Henry and Ferdinand, immediately arranged that Henry's remaining son - Henry - should be married to Arthur's young widow, Catherine. It took a year satisfactorily to settle the terms and to get a dispensation from the pope making the marriage legal; so that it was not till 1503 that the contract was actually completed by a ceremonial, "in which a person was appointed to object that the marriage was unlawful, and another to defend it as `good and effectual in the law of Christ's Church.'" To this contract young Henry was opposed; and, before he reached the age of fifteen, :he protested, in legal form, against the contract which had been made during his nonage." Henry VII died April 21, 1509, and the next day began the reign of his young son Henry, eighth of the name. June 7, following, Henry and Catherine were publicly married by the archbishop of Canterbury, and were crowned at Westminster the 24th of the same month. - End of Chapter VII.

The Reigns of the English Kings of Chapter VII

House of Anjou-Plantagenet

---

Richard I, ........ 1189-1199
John ................ 1199-1261
Henry III ......... 1216-1272
Edward I ......... 1272-1307
Edward II ........ 1307-1327
Edward III ....... 1327-1377
Richard II ........ 1377-1399

House of Lancaster and York
Henry IV ......... 1399-1413
Henry V .......... 1413-1422
Henry VI ......... 1422-1461, 1470-1471
Edward IV ...... 1461-1470, 1471-1483
Edward V ....... 1483
Richard III ...... 1483-1485

House of Tudor
Henry VII ....... 1485-1509
Henry VIII ...... 1509-1547

[1] Webster's Dictionary:
"harried"= to make a raid upon with destruction or seizure of property; to ravage; despoil; pillage; to persecute as by constant ill-treatment or annoyance; to harrass;"
Helvetia: Another name for Switzerland;
jarls = "Danish or Norse chieftains or headmen below the king.; "
thegns"= Variation of `thane' = Among the Anglo-Saxons and Danes, one of a class of free attendants on a lord. There were two classes, the king's thanes, succeeded by the greater barons of later days, and the middle or lesser thanes, succeeded by the minor barons.

Numbering continued from previous volumes.

[460] Hodkin, "Italy and Her Invaders," book 1, chap. iii, par. 4. Henceforth HII.

[463] GDF, chap. xxxvi, par. 5; xxxxviii, par. 5.

[465] Encyclopedia Britannica, art. Germany, p. 477.

[500] A portion of land between the Wertach and the Lech Rivers at lo. 10.8, lt. 48.15.

[505] Bower, "Lives of the Popes," John XII. Hence BLP.

[510] Ibid.

[550] Probably derived from the German, "Ja so mir Gott helfen wird."

[570] Brunswick or Brunonis vicus, Bruno's village, is called today Braunschweig, northern Germany.

[580] Author to be determined, "The Story of the Nations," Germany, chap. xxi, pars. 8,9. Hence ASN.

[585] Encyclopedia Britannica, art, Germany.

[587] ASN, Ibid.

[600] The `Protest' of the Christian Princes of Germany at the Diet of Spires (Speyer), 1529, was a noble testimony for the Reformation. (Merle D'Aubigne, The History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, London: Blackie & Son, 1885, bk. 13, chap. 6.) - Speyer is located near the Rhine River south of Mannheim.

[640] Hallam, "Middle Ages," chap. v, sec. 20. Hence HMA.

[650] Ibid.

[660] Ibid.

[705] It may be of interest to reference some new discoveries made in 2010/2011 in Staffordshire, just north of Birmingham. The article by Andrew Selkirk, can be read in Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 2011, entitled, `Sharing the Wealth'. A metal detector enthusiast discovered there in a field numerous golden objects, some ornate, having to do with swords and things.

[710] In the Berkshire area was found what appeared to be the oldest (400/500 AD?) wooden window with a round arch from the Viking, Anglo-Saxon era in a covered up wall of the chancel at the St. Andrews church in Boxford. The typical `long and short' field stone masonry was present. The deteriorating wood frame had on the right side two holes for the window shutter. See the image in `British Archaeology, Nov/Dec, 2010, p. 7.
An amateur metal detector enthusiast discovered in September, 2011 (after some 1000 years later), in a field around Northumbria, NE England, 3 feet underground a lead pot with silver coins and other items. Among them the arm rings of a Viking king; a coin reads, "Airedeconut" thought to mean the Norske `Harthacnut'. A silver coin was of the time of Alfred the Great (871-899), but the hoard may be of the 9th or 10th century it is thought. - In other words, Harthacnut had a silver coin of Alfred the Great.

[736] The era of Roman lordship in England, the Romanization. was not merely benign imperial rule and cultural peaceful purpose of the empire. . . . "There is evidence to suggest that these distinct social groupings did not simply operate in emulation of one anothr, but rather that they often used material and behavioral differences to emphasize their distinctiveness from each other. Soldiers, for instance, deliberately constructed their identity in a way that placed them above and outside the social norms of the province." [`Archaeology', Nov/Dec 2006, p. 55.]

[760] Green, "Larger History of the English People," chap. 1, par. 30; chap. 11, pars. 1-7. Hence GLH.

[762] Encyclopedia Britannica, art. "England," history. "Final Predominance of Wessex."

[765] GLH, chap. ii, par. 4.

[770] Compare "Empires of the Bible," chap. vi, pars. 3-5; chap. vii, pars. 6,9,10; chap. viii, pars. 38-44.

[773] Encyclopedia Britannica, art. "England," history, "The Kingdom."

[775] Ibid., "Earls and Churls".

[790] GLH, chap. 11, pars. 15, 17.

[798] The City of Leeds is located just east of Bradford in the very center of England.

[805] EB, art. "England," history. "Offa and Charles."

[808] GLH, chap. 11, last par.]

[815] EBR, art. "England," history. "Offa and Charles.

[820] GLH, chap. iii, pars. 2,3.

[825] GLH, par. 2. Apparently Aethelred, or someone else?, was the one who died that way.

[828] GLH, par. 4.

[831] Located near Glastonbury, at 51 16'41"N, 2 6'13"W.

[835] GLH, Ibid.

[845] EB, Id., "The Imperial Claims."

[847] The Eastern or Greek Empire, and the Holy Roman Empir.

[850] EB, Id., "Reign of Eadgar."

[860] EB, Id., "Reign of Aethelred."

[878] GLH, chap. iv, par. 10.

[880] EB, Id., "Swegen Acknowledged as King."

[885] EB, "Cnut's Divisions."

[900] Knight, "History of England," chap. xiii, par. 15. Hence KHE.

[920] EB, "Progress of the Conquest."

[940] GLH, book ii, chap. ii, par. 4.

[944] Located at ca., N ca. 48.45; W 0.45. The battle lasted only about an hour.

[966] Either Chalons-s. Marne ca. 4.3 east, 48.95 north; or Chalons-s. Saone, 4.85 east, 46.8 north.

[996] It was archbishop Stephen Langton (1151-1228) who began to divide the entire Hebrew and Greek Bible into chapters, but not verses, in an attempt to make it easier for future generations to use the Bible for research and applications. Much later, R. Nathan took up the task of assigning verse numbers to the OT in 1448, while Robert Stephanus did the same in the NT in 1551. When the Bible could be typeset the Bible Editorial Committee named the part written before Christ the OT and after the NT, instead of using Old Covenant and New Covenant. (Later still were added content remarks for each book and punctuation marks as well as footnotes and cross references.) In other words we ought not to equate the OT with the OC, and the NT with the NC, thereby causing confusion and misunderstanding.
Whereas the OT is just as valid as the New, people have replaced it with the NT, thinking that we now live in the NC era of grace. Thus the NT has erroneously superseded the OT. We may just as well call this OT/NT division of the Bible Volume One and Volume Two instead. While there was a long gap between Malachi and Matthew, there were also long gaps from the books written/edited by Moses to those of the judges, poets, kings and prophets. While, today, we call Matthew a NT book, Jesus lived his entire life in Old Covenant times and the NC did not come about until His crucifixion, when He said, "It is finished." That means if some would accept only the parts of the Bible for doctrine which are part of the NC, they would have to ignore all sayings of Jesus before His crucifixion and John 5:45-47. That should educate us to realize that Jesus did not abandon the OT scriptures or would have His followers do so, but merely the sacrifices and oblations and their rituals, Dan. 9:27.

[1000] KHE, chap. xxiii, par. 12.

[1018] Defintion of "feudal system": "The system of politywhich prevailed in Europe in the Middle Ages, based upon the relation of lord to vassal, with the holding of land in feud. The principal incidents of the feudal system were homage, service of the tenants, wardship, marriage, reliefs, aids, escheat, and forfeiture." (Webster Dictionary, 1934 ed.)

[1025] KHE, Ibid.

[1030] GLH, John, par. 6.

[1040] KHE, chap. xxiv, par. 2.

[1050] HMA, chap. viii, par. 81; students' edition, chap. viii, parts ii, sec. xii, par. 1.

[1055] KHE, chap. xxiv, par. 7.

[1080] Desmond Seward, `The Hundred Years War', Penguin Books, 1978. Book includes the following images:

1. Line of succession from Philip III (1270-1285) to Edward III (1327-1377), p. 22.
   
2. Bow and arrow tip, Crossbow, 54, 56.
   
3. A panel painting of the Wilton Diptych, c. 1390. Richard II kneels before three saints. It is possible that Edward the Confessor (centr) is an idealized portrait of Edward III, and that Edmund of East Anglia (right) is a similar portrait of Edwards II. John the Baptist may be the Black Prince.
   
4. Head of the black prince in death. Battle map of Crecy, 1346.
   
5. Battle map of Poitiers, Sept. 18, 1356.
   
6. Tha Palace of Savoy. `Henry, Duke of Lancaster, repaired or rather new built it, with the charges of 52,000 marks, which money he had gathered together at the town of Bergerac.
   
7. The Black Prince alive effigy.
   
8. Representation of probably Sir Edward Dallingridge, captain of Brest in 1388 and his wife, c. 1390. He built Bodiam.
   
9. Seal of the Black Prince after the Treaty of Bretigny, 1360, when the English ruled 1/3 of France. The inscription reads, "Seal of Edward, the King of England's eldest son, Prince of Aquitaine and Wales, Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Chester."
   
10. Beverstone Castle, Gloucestershire. `A castle built by the one of the Berkeleys of spoil that he won in France ... a pile at that time very pretty.' p. 129.
    
11. Line of succession of John II.
    
12. Sir Nicholas Dagworth, from a brass of 1402 in the parish church at Blickling, Norfolk.
    
13. Sir John de la Pole, from a brass of 1380 in the parish church at Christhall, Essex.
    
14. Line of succession of the House of Lancaster and Beaufort.
    
15. Henry V (1387-1422) and John, Duke of Bedfort.
    
16. Henry VI (1421-1471).
    
17. Sir Hugh Halsham, from a brass of 1441 at West Grinstead, Sussex.
    
18. Battle map ofAgincourt, Oct. 25, 1415.
    
19. Caister Castle, Norfolk built by soldier Sir John Fastolf, died 1459.
    
20. Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick and Count of Aumale (1382-1438), he burnt Joan of Arc.
    
21. Battle map of Verneuil, Aug. 17, 1424.
    
22. The Beauchamp chapel at Warwick, built by earl Richard.
    
23. Battle map of Formigny, April 15, 1450.
    
24. Battle map of Castilion, July 17, 1453.
    
25. Map of France in 1337, p. 265.

[1082] World Archaeology magazine contains a good image of the battle field which is now known as Townton (p. 29). Here the most bloody battle, on a snowy day, between the House of Lancaster, in the person of King Henry VI, and the House of York, in the person of King Edward IV, took place March 29, 1461. On this day the House of York won. See Jarrett A. Lobell, `Pieces of History,' pp. 29-31.