it in any particle whatsoever under pain of an Anathema Maranatha which Decree the Archbishop wirh 12 other Bishops subscribed and ratified with the sign of the Cross as they formerly did in the Council of Bechanceld An. 798. And in this Council divers controversies concerning the Lands Limits and Jurisdictions of other Bishops Bishopricks were likewise decided and setled as you may therein â—ead at large Eadburga Daughter to King Offa married Briâ—hric King of the West-Saxons proud of her parentage and match she grew so ambitions â—…solent and Tyrannical that she became odâ—ous not only to all the Prelates Nobles and Courtiers but to the people lâ—kewise For being incited with malice and tyranny she usually accused and execrated to the King all the Nobles of the Realm Ordinaries Bishops and Religious persons and so overcame him by her flatteries that those whom she began to accuse ant vitâ aâ—t Regno privaret she would either deprive of Life or banish them the Realm and if she could not obtain this from the King against them she accustomed to destroy them privily with poison At last An. 802. She preparing poison to destroy a rich and noble Favourite of the Kings whom he extraordinarily lov'd so as she could not banish or destroy him by her false accusations the King casually drinking of the Poison contrary to her intention as well as his Favourite they were both therewith suddenly poisoned and destroyed Wherewith this wicked woman being terrified sled with all her invaluable Treasures beyond the Seas to Charles the Great who for her Lasciviousness in making choice of his Son for her Husband before himself though much inamoured with her transcendent beauty thrust her into a Monastery where soon after she abusing her body by uncleaness in lying with a lewd man was expelled thence forced to beg her bread and ended her days in extreme misery A just judgement of God both upon a Tyrannical Queen and unrighteous King seduced to banish and condemn his Nobles and Subjects unjustly by her solicitations For this her most hainous crime the West-Saxons ordained a Law to the Grand prejudice of all their succeeding Queens That none of them should have either Title Majesty or place of Royalty or Queen Non enim West-Saxones Reginam vel juxta Regem sedere vel Reginae appellatione insigniti pariuntur propter malitiram Badburga quae virâ—m suum Brithicum veneno perdidit juxta Regem sedens omnes Regni Nobiles accusare solebat quos accusare non potuit potu eos venenifero necare consuevit Itaque pro Reginae maleficio omnes conjuraverunt quod nunquam se regnare permitterent qui in praedictis culpabilis inveniretur as William of Malmesbury Asserius Menevensis Matthew Westminster Florentius Wigorniensis and others out of them relate There was a Parliamentary Synod or Council held at Celichuh in the year 816. at which not only Wulfred Archbishop of Canterbury with all his Suffragan Bishops but likewise Kenulf king of Mercians with his Princes Dukes and Nobles and sundry Abbots Priests Deacons and other sacred Orders were present wherein they enacted 11 Constitutions the 6th whereof was this in substance That the Judgements and Decrees of Bishops made in Synods should not be infringed but remain firm and irrefragable being ratified with the sign of the holy Cross by the Kings and Nobles Subscriptions unless perchance the King or Princes deemed the subscriptions of their Antecessors of no force and feared not to reform or cease from this error which shall rest and bring a Curse on them and their heirs The 7th That no Bishops Abbots or Abbesses shall alienate or part with the Lands writings and evidences of their Churches and Monasteries which they are intrusted to keep nisi rationabilis cansa poposcit adjuvari contra invasionem samis Depraedationem Exercitus ad Libertatem obtinendam which causes they reputed reasonable In the year of our Lord 822. there was a Parliamentary Council assembled at Clovesho wherein Beornulph King of Mercians sate President at which Wulfred Arch-bishop of Canterbury with the rest of the Bishops Abbots omniumque dignitatum Optimatibus Ecclesiasticarum scilicet saecularium personarum were present debating things both concerning the benefit and regulation of the Church and defence and safety of the Realm the proper subjects of our present English Parliaments as these words import Utilitatem necessitatem Ecclesiarum Monasterialisque vitae Regulam et observantiam stabilitatem quoque Regni pertractanteâ— In this Parliamentary Council the Proceedings in 3 precedent Councils touching the Complaints of the Archbishops of Canterbury of the Injuries done unto them in taking away the Lands of the Church by their Kings and Officers with the proceedings thereupon are at large recited which I shall here transcribe because generally unknown to most and best discovering the proceedings of our antient Parliamentary Councils in Cases of this nature of any Council I have met with in that Age and those which next proceeded or succeeded it All the said persons in the said Council sitting down quietly together it was inquired by them quomodo quis cum Justitia sit tractatus seu quis injustè sit spoliatus In what manner any one had been handled with justice or if any one had been unjustly spoiled Whereupon amids other things there acted and spoken it was shewed That Archbishop Wulfred by the mis-information and enmity and violence and avarice of king Kenulph had suffered many injuries and was most unjustly deprived of his just dominations as well by those things which were done unto him amongst us here in England as by those things which were brought against him to the See Apostolick by the procurement of the foresaid King Kenulph by which accusations and discords not only the fore-named Archbishop but also the whole English Nation for almost six years space was deprived of its primordial authority and of the Ministry of sacred Baptism Above all these things the said king Kenulph at a certain time with his Council coming to the City of London appointed a day with great indignation wherein the Archbishop should come unto him whither when he came the King commanded that relinquishing all his goods he should speedily depart out of England without hopes of returning any more neither by the command of our Lord the Pope neither by the intreaties of the Emperour nor of any other person unless he would consent to his will in demising to him a farm of 300 Hides of Land called Leogeneâ—ham and moreover would give to the said King one hundred and twenty pounds in money This reconciliation the said Wulfred refusing long contradicted and when the friends of the man of God and Nobles of the King who loved him very much perceived the rapacity and violence of the King they importuned the Arch-bishop that he would consent to the Kings will upon this condition that the King should relinquish the
transfert regna mutat imperia propter peccata populi regnare facit hypocritam Peccatum peccaâ—it populus tuus Domino tradidit eos in manus Gentium dominati sunt etiam qui oderunt eos Sed non obliviscitur misereri Deus nec continebit in ira sua milericordias suas Erit enim cum dormis cum patribus tuis sepultus in senectute bona visitabit Dominus populuÌ„ suuÌ„ faciet redemtionem plebis suae Eliget enim sibi viruÌ„ secundum cor suum qui faciet omnes voluntates suâ—s qui me opitulante regnuÌ„ adeptus Anglorum Danico furori finem imponet Erit enim acceptus Deo gratus hominibus amabilis civibus terribilis hostibus utilis ecclesiae Qui cum praescriptum terminuÌ„ regnandi in justitia pace compleverit laudabilem vitam sancto fine concludet Quae omnia in beato Edwardo completa râ—i exitus comprobavit Expergefactus Pontifex rursus ad preces lacrimasque convertitur licet faelicitatem suae gentis non esset ipse visurus de malorum tamen fine câ—rtus effectus gratiâ—s agens Deo plurimum graâ—nlabatur Factus igitur animaequior populis poenitentiam praedicabat quibus Dâ—us misericordiam non defuturam constantissime pollâ—… From these passages whether reaâ—â— as man as fictitiâ—us as some repute them I shall onely observe these reall Truths 1. That in King Ethelreds reign great Parliamentary Councils were usually assembled to consult of the weighty affairs state if not succession of the Realm of England 2. That godly men in all ages have been deeply affected with the misery exile disinheriting and extirpation of the Royal Issue and Posterity by invading forreign usurpers and with the oppressions of their native countrey under their usâ— ped power and have poured forth frequent and fervent prayers unto God in secret for their restitution and relief 3. That the Nobility Clergy and people of England have ever had a propense naturall inclination and affection to the true royall Blood and Posterity of the Nation though forcibly constrained to abjure and renounce them for a season by prevailing Intruders electing them for their Kings and preferring them before all others upon the very next opportunity to vindicate their rights and liberties and rejecting the usurpers and their race 4 That though the Kings of England were usually reputed hereditary yet in truth they were for the most part actually elected by the Prelates and Nobles in parliamentary Councils and appointed by the generality of the Clergy and people and had oaths of allegiance given to them by their subjects 5. That God doth many times beyond all probability and expectation restore disinherited Princes to their Crowns of which they have been forcibly deprived after many years dispossession and without any wars or effusion of blood even by the Nobles and peoples own voluntary choice and act without their seeking as he did here restore Prince Edward after 25 years interruption and Aurelius Ambrosius long before to the British Crown to omit all others 6. That Crowns invaded ravished by force of armes and bloodshed are seldome long or peaceably enjoyed by the usurpers themselves or their posterity that of Curtius being an experimentall truth Non est diuturna possessio in quam gladio inducimur All which we find experimentally verified in this History of King Edward his election and restitution to the Crown of England worthy our special observation King Edw. coming to the Crown was not onely very charitable to the poor humble mercifull and just towards all men but also PLURES LEGES BONAS IN ANGLIA STATUIT quae pro majore parte adhuc in regno tenerentur Whereupon about the year 1043 as the Chronecle of Brompton William Caxton in his Chronicle and Mr. Selden inform us Earl Godwin a sugitive in Denmark for the murther of prince Alfred hearing of his piety and mercy resolved to return into England humbly to implore his mercy and grace that he might have his lands again that were confiscated having provided all things for his voyage he put to sea and arrived in England and then posted to London UBI REX ET OMNES MAGNATES AD PARLIAMENTUM TUM FUERUNT Where the King and all the Nobles were then at a parliament here he beseeched intreated his friends kindred who were the greatest Lords of the land after the King that they would study to procure to him the Kings Grace and friendship who having thereupon taken deliberate counsel among themselves led him with them before the King to seek his Grace But so soon as the King saw him he presently appealed him of TREASON of the death of Alfred his brother and using these words unto him said THOU TRAITOUR GODVVIN I THEE APPEAL FOR THE DEATH OF ALFRED MY BROTHER WHOM THOU HAST TRAITEROUSLY SLAIN To whom Godwin excusing himself answered My Lord and King saving your Reverenoâ— and Grace Peace Lordship I never betrayed nor yet slew your Brother unde super hoc pono me IN CONSIDERATIONE CURIAE VESTRAE whence I put my self upon the consideration and judgement of your Court concerning this matter Then said the King KARISSIMI DOMINI COMITES ET BARONES TERRAE c. Most dear Lords Earls and Barons of the land who are my Liege men now here assembled you have heard both my appeale and Godwins answer Volo quod inter Nos in ista appellatione RECTUM JUDICIUM DECERNATIS ET DEBITAM JUSTITIAM FACIATIS I will that between us in this appeale you award right Judgement and do due Justice COMITIBUS VERO ET BARONIBUS SUPER HOC AD INVICEM TRACTANTIBUS Hereupon the Earls and Barons debating upon this businesse among themselves some among them were different in their opinions from others in doing just judgement herein For some said that Godwin was never obliged to the King so Bromton to Alfred writes Caxton by homage service or fealty and therefore HE WAS NOT HIS TRAITOUR and that he had not slain Alfred with his own hands But others said Quod Comes nec Baro nec aliquis Regi subditus BELLUM CONTRA REGEM IN APPELLATIONE SUA DE LEGE POTEST VADIARE That neither the Earl nor any Baron nor any Subject to the King could by the Law wage Battel against the King in his Appeal but ought wholy to but himself in his mercy and to offer him competent amends Then Leofric Earl of Chester or Coventry as Caxton a good man towards God and the world spake and said The Earl Godwin after the King is a man of the best parentage of all England and he cannot deny but that BY HIS COUNCEL Alfred the Kings Brother was slain wherefore I award as touching my part that himself and his son and every of us DUODECIM COMITES the twelve Earls who are his friends and kinsmen should go humbly before the King laden with as much gold and silver as every of us can
the Church of Worcester This Bishop with 50 Mass Priests and 160 other Priests Deacons Monks and Abbots whose names are recorded in the Manuscript swore that this Lana and Monastery were impropriated to his possession and Church which Oath with all these fellow swearers hewas ordered to take at Westminster and did it accordingly after 30 nights respite Whereupon It was ordained and decreed by the Archbishop all the Council consenting with him that the Bishop should enjoy the Monastery Lands and Books to him and his Church and so that sute was ended and this Decree pronounced thereupon Quapropter si quis hunc agrum ab illâ Ecclesiâ in Ceastre nititur eveâ—lere contra Decreta sanctorum Canonum sciat se facere quia sancti Canones decernunt Quicquid Sancta Synodus universalis cum Catholico Archiepiscopo suo adjudicaverit nullo modo fractum vel irritum esse faciendum Haec autem gesta sunt Hi sunt Testes Connrmatores hujus rei quorum nomina hic infra notantur à die tertio Calend Novembrium Ego Beornulf Rex Merciorum hanc chartulam Synodalis decreti signo sanctae Christi Crucis consirmavi Then follows the Archbishops Subscription and confirmation in like words with the subscriptions of sundry Bishops Abbots Dakes and Nobles being 32 in number all ratifying this Decree An. 833. Egbert King of West-Saxons Athelwulfe his Son Witlasius king of Mercians both the Arcbbishops Abbots cum Proceribus majoribus totius Angliae with the greatest Nobles of all England were all assembled together at London in a National Parliamentaty Council pro consilio capiendo contra Danicos Piratas Littora Angliae assidne infestantes to take Counsel what to do against the Danish Pirates dayly infesting the Sea-Coasts of England In this Council the Charter of Witlasius king of Mercians to the Abbey of Croyland where he was hid and secured from his enemies was made and ratified wherein he granted them many rich gifts of Plate Gold Silver Land and the Privilege of a Sanctuary for all offenders flying to it for shelter which grant could not be valid without a Parliamentary confirmation for he being elected King omnium consensu after the slaughters of Bernulf and Ludican two invading Tyrants cut off in a short time qui contra fas purpuram in duerent regno vehementâ—t oppresâ—o totam militiam ejus quae quondam plurima extiterat victorio sissima sua imprudentia perdiderant as Ingulphus writes was enforced to hold his kingdom from Egbert king of West-Saxons under a Tribute And thereupon conferring divers Lands by his Charter to this Abbey for ever to be held of him his heirs and Successors Kings of Mercia in perpetual and pure Frankalmoigne quietae solutae ab omnibus oneribus secularibus exactionibus vectigalibus universis quocunque nomine censeantur That his grant might be sound and valid he was necessitated to have it consirmed in this Parliamentary Council by the consent of King Egbert and his Son and of all the Bishops Abbots et Proceribus Majoribus Angliae and the greater Nobles of England there present most of them subscribing and ratifying this Charter with the sign of the Cross and their names About the year of Grace 838. there was a Parliamentary Council held at Kingston in which Egbert king of the West-Saâ—ons and his Son Aethelwulfe Ceolâ—eth Archbishop of Canterbury with the rest of the Bishops and Nobles of England were present Amongst many things there acted and spoken Archbishop Ceolnoth shewed before the whole Council That the foresaid Kings Egbert and Aeâ—hel wulfe had given to Christchurch the Mannor called Malinges in Sudex free from all secular service and Regal Tributes excepting only these three Expedition building of Bridge and Castle which foresaid Mannor and Lands King Baldred gave to Christchurch Sed quia ille Rex cuneâ—is Principibus non placuit noluerunt donum ejus permanere râ—…m But because this King pleased not all his Nobles they would not that this his gift should continue firm To which Sir Henry Spelman adds this Marginal Note Rex non potuit distrahere patrimonium Regni sine assensu Procerum Wherefore the foresaid Kings in this Parliamentary Council with their Nobles assent at the request of the said Archbishop regranted and confirmed it to Christchurch with this Anathema annexed against the infringers of this grant If any shall presume to violate it on the behalf of God and of us Kings Bishops Abbots and all Christians let him be separated from God and bet his portion be with the Devil and his Angols Polydor Virgil records that King Athelwulfe in the year 847. going in pilgrimage to Rome repaired the English School there lately burned down and in imitation of King Ina made that part of his Kingdom which Egbert his Father had added Tributary towards it Legeque sancivit and enacted by a Law made in a Parliamentary Council that those who received 30 pence rent every year out of their possessions or had more houses should pay for those houses they inhabited every of them a penny a peece to the Pope for the maintenance of this School at the Feast of Peter and Paul or at least of St. Peters bonds which Law some writes he though falsely ascribr to his Son Alfred which act others refer to the years 855 or 857 and that more truly Abbot Ingulphus in his Hist of the Abby of Croyland records that Bertulf usurping the Crown by the treacherous murder of his Cosen St. Westan tantà ferebatur ad regnandum ambitione passing by the Abbey of â—royland most wickedly and violently took away all the Jewels Pâ—ate and ornaments of the Church which his Brother Withlasins and other Kings had given to it together with all the mony he could find in the Monastery and hiring Souldiers therewith against the Danes then wasting the Country about London he was vanquished and put to slight by the Paâ—ans Whereupon this King soon after holding a great Council at Benningdon An. 850. with the Prelates and Nobles of his whole Realm of Mercia there assembled about the Danes invasions how to raiâ—e â—orces and monies to resist them as is most probable by 〈◊〉 Historians Abbot Siward and the Monks of Croy land therein complained before them all by Askillus then fellow Monk of certain injuries malitiously doâ—e unto them by their Adversaries who lying in wat in the uttermost banks of their Rivers did seise upon their servants being such as fled thither for Sanctuary in case at any time they went out of their precincts never so little way either to fish or bring back their stragling Sheep Oxen or other Cattle as infringers of their Sanctuary and subjected them to the publick Laws to their condemnation and destruction to the great dammage of the Abbey by the loss of their service Of which complaint the King and all the Council being very sensible and
periculum ducitâ—â— in itinere obvium habuerit potestatem habeat eripiendi eum ab imminen i periculo in toto Regno meo The old Charter begins thus In nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi Quamvis Decreta Pontificum verba Sacerdotum inconvulsis ligaminibus velut fundamenta montium fixa sunt tamen plerumque tempestatibus turbinibus saecularium rerum Religio sanctae Ecclesiae maculis reproborum dissipatur ac â—…itur Iccirco profuâ—… succedentibus posteris esse decrevimus ut ea quae salubri Consilio et communi assensu definiuntur nostris literis roborata firmentur c. Hoc itaque Dunstano Doroberniensi at que Oswaldo Eboracensi Episcopo adhortantibus consentiente etiamer annuente Brithelmo Fontanensi Episcopo caeterisque Episcopis Abbatibus et Primatibus Ego Edgar divina dâ—â—poâ—…one Rex Anglorum c. And it concludes thus Acta est haec Privilegii â—aginâ— confirmata apud Londonium Communi Concilio omnium Primatum meorum Then follow the subscriptions of King Egar Alfgina his Mother Prince Edward Kinred King of Scots Mascusius the chief Admiral both the Archbishops 6 Bishops 8 Abbots 3 Dukes and other Officers Which Charter and Privileges at the Kings request were ratified by Pope John the 13 in a general Council at Rome Anno Dom. 971. by a special Bull that they might remain inviolable yet both the Abbey it self Lands Privileges are long since demolished dissipated annihilated such is the mutabiliunity of all sublunary things The self same year Anno 970. King Edgar by his Charter granted and confirmed sundry Lands and Privileges to the Monastery of Medeshamsted formerly demolished by the Danes which Bishop Aethelwold had repaired and named Burgh perpetually exempting it from all Episcopal jurisdiction yoak and exaction Quatenus nec Rex nec Comes nec Episcopus praeter Christianâ—â—atem attinentium Parochiarum nec vicecomes nec ulla alia major minorve persona ulla dominatione occupari praesumat excepta moderata expeditione Pontis Arcisve constructione VVhich Charter was ratified by the kings own subscription both the Archbishops sundry Bishops Abbots Dukes and other chief Officers and the sign of the Cross after each of their Names In the year 973. King Edgar after his seven years penance expired on the Feast of Pentecost in the 30th year of his age was solemnly Crowned and consecrated King and wore his Crown with great glory at Akemancester alias Bath both the Archbishops Dunstan and Oswald with all the rest of the Bishops of England ac Magnatibus universis and all the Nobles being there preâ—ent at his Coronation and received the accustomed Gifts usually given to the Nobles being at such inaugurations Soon after the same year this King with a very great Fleet and Army sayling round about the Northern parts of England came to Westchester where his eight tributary Kings or Vice-royes namely Kyneth king of Scots Malcome King of Cumberland Marcus king of Man and many other Ilands and the other 5 kings of Wales Dufnall Siferth Howel Iames and Iuchill met him as he had commanded them and swore alleâ—i nce to him in these words That they would be faithfull and assisting to him both by Land and Sea Which done he on a certain day entred with them into a Barge and placing them at the Oares himself took the Helm and steered the Barge very skilfully whiles they rowed it down the River of Dee from his Palace to the Monastery of St. John Bapist on the other side all his Dukes and Nobles following and accompanying him in other Barges where having made his Prayers they all rowed him thence back again in like pompe to his Royal Palace which when he had entred he said to his Nobles That any of his Successors might then say he was King of England when with so many Kings following and subject to him he should enjoy the Prerogative of the like pompe and power But Mr. Fox subjoyns In my mind this king had said much better God forbid that I should glory in any thing but in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ The year following An. 974. Certain Merchants comming from York arived in the Islle of Thanet in Kent where they were presently taken by the Ilanders and spoyled of all their goods which king Edgar being informed of was so far incensed against these Plunderers that he spoyled them of all their Goods and deprived some of them of their lives Which Huntingdon and Bromton thus record Rex Edgarus undecimo Anno Regni sui jussit praedari Insulam Tenet Quia jure Regalia spreverant non ut host is insaniens sed ut Rex malo mala puniens The same year as Malmesbury Ingulphus and others write king Edgar by his regal Charter caused the secular Priests to be removed out of the Monastery of Malmesbury and introducing Monks in their places restored to them the Lands and Possessions of the monastery which the secular Priests formerly enjoyed and had leased 〈◊〉 that upon a full hearing before the Wise-men Bishops others in his presence most likely in a Parliamentary Council as this clause in his Charter intimates Haec a praedictis accommodata Clericis a contensioso possessa est Edebnoto sed superstitiosa subtilique ejus disceptatione aSapientibns meis audita et conflictatione illius mendosa ab eisdem me praesente convicta Monasteriali a me reaâ— â—a est usui If the Council of Winchester hereafter cited Anno 975. was held in King Edgars life time as some affirm most probably this debate here mentioned touching these Lands was held in and before that Council and this Charter therein made and ratified with the subscriptions of the Kings Arch-bishops Bishops Abbots and Dukes thereto annexed according to the custome of that age Although King Edgar in his younger daies was subject to many Vices and committed some injurious Tyrannical Acts recorded by Malmesbury Fox Speed and others yet repenting of these his youthfull lustfull Vices he proved such a just and prudent King that our Historians of elder and later ages give these large Encomiums of his Justice Prudence Piety Vertues and politique Government worâ—hy perpetual memory and immitation So excellent was he in Justice So sharp was he in correction of Vices as well in his Magistrates Officers and other Subjects that never before his days was less felony by Robbers nor less extortion or Bribery by false Officers such as were wicked he kept under them that were Rebels he repulsed the godly he maintained and the just and modest he loved the learned and virtuous he encouraged He would suffer no man of what degree or quality soever he were to elude or violate his Laws without condigne punishment In his time there was neither any private Pilferer nor publike Theef but he that in stealing other mens Goods would venture and suffer as he was sure the loss of his own Goods and
Huntindon Wigorniensis and others record made an Edict Ut quicunque Anglorum sanus esset secum in bello procederet That every Englishman who was in health should go with him in battel against the Danes An innumerable multitude of people upon this assembled together to assist him But when his and his son Edmonds forces were conjoyned in one body the King was informed that some of his auxiliaries were ready to betray and deliver him up to the enemies unless he took care to prevent it and save himself and as some write the Mercians refused to fight with the VVest-Saxons and Danes whereupon the expedition was given over and every man returned to his own home After this Edmund Ironside raised a greater Army than before against Cnute and sent Messengers to King Ethelred to London to raise as many men as possible he could and speedily to come and joyn with him against the Danes but he for fear of being betrayed to the Enemy presently dismissed the Army without fighting and returned to London Hereupon Ed. Ironside went into Northumberland where some imagined he would raise a greater Army against Cnute the Dane but he and Vhtred Earl of Northumberland instead of incountring Cnute wasted the Counties of Stafford Shrewsbury and Leicester because they would not go forth to fight against the Danes Army in defence of their Country and King Cnute on the other side wasting with fire and sword the Counties of Buckingham Bedford Huntindon Northampton Lincoln Nottingham and after that Northumberland Which Edmond being informed of returned to London to his Father and Earl Uhtred returning home being compelled by necessity repaired to Cnute and submitted himself to him with all the Northumbrians making a Peace with him and giving him hostages for performance thereof and for his and their fidelity Not long after Uhtred and Turketel Earls of Northumberland were both treacherously slain by Turebrand a Dane by Cnutes command or Commission Which done Cnute made one Hirc some stile him Egric Earl of Northumberland in his place and then returned with all his army to his Ships in triumph a little before the feast of Easter with a very great booty Not long after King Ethelred born to troubles and mischief after manifold labours vexations treacheries and incessant tribulations ended his wretched life in London where he died May 9th Anno 1016. being there buried in St Pauls Church finding rest in his Grave by death which he could never find in his Throne all his life having attained it by Treachery and his Brothers Soveraigns murder whose Ghost as Malmesbury and others write did perpetually vex and haunt him all his reign and made him so subject to and fearfull of plots and treacheries that he knew not whom to trust nor ever deemed himself secure even in the midst of his oft raised Armies Nobles People though ready to adventure their Lives for his defence I have related these Passages of the Danish wars and invasions during Ethelreds reign more largely than I intended 1. Because on the Englishmâ—ns parts they were meerly defensive of their Native Country King Laws Liberties Properties Estates Lives against forein Invaders and â—…rpers 2ly Because they more or less relate to my forementioned Propositions touch-the fundamental Rights Liberties Properties of the English Nation 3ly Because they shew forth unto us the true original grounds causes motives necessities and manner of granting the very first Civil Tax and Tribute mentioned in our Histories by the King and his Nobles in their General Councils to the Danish invaders to purchase peace and the true nature use of our antient Danegelt and rectifie some mistakes in our common late English Historians Immediately after King Ethelreds decease Episcopi Abbates Duces et quique Nobiliores Angliae in unum congregati as Wigornienâ—…s Hoveden â—…n Duneâ—…s Râ—…us de Diceâ—o Bromton Or Maxima pars Regni tam Clericorum quam Laicorum in unum congregati 〈◊〉 Matthew VVestminster Or Proceres Regni cum Clero as Knyghton expresses it Pari consensu in Dominum et Regem Canntum eligere All the Bishops Abbots Dukes and Nobles of England and the greatest part of the chief Clergy and Laity assembled together in a kind of Parliamentary Council by unanimous conient elected Cnute for their Lord and King notwithstanding their solemn Vow and Engagement but the year before never to suffer a Danish King to reign over them Whereupon they all repaired â—o Cnute to Southampton omnemque Progeniem Regis Ethelredi coram illo abhorrentes et abnegando repudiantes as Wigorâ—iâ—â— sis Huntindon Knyghton and others record and there in his presence abhorring and utterly renouncing and abjuring all the Progeny of King Ethelred they submitted themselves and swore â—eâ—lty to him as to their only King and Soveraign he reciprocally then swearing unto them That he would be a faithfull Lord unto them both in things appertaining to God and the World which our Historians thus express Quibus ille juravâ—t quoa secundum Deum secundum seculum fidelis illis foret Dominus Only the City of London and part of the Nobles then in it unanimously chose and cryed up Ed. â—ronside King Ethelreds 3. son by Elgina his first Wife Daughter to Duke Thored as Speed and others relate though Matthew Westminster and others register his birth Non ex Emma Regma sed ex quadam ignobili foemina generatus qui utique matris suae ignobilitatem generis mentis ingenuitate corporis strâ—…it te redintegrando redemit After Edmonds election he was crowned King by Liuing Archbishop of Canterbury at Kingston upon Thames where our Kings in that age were usually crowned No sooner was he thus advanced to the Regal dignity but he presently marched undauntedly into VVest-Sex and being there received by all the People with great gratulation and joy he most speedily subjected it to his Dominion Which being divulg'd in other parts many Counties of England deserting Cnute voluntarily submitted themselves unto him such is the sickleness of the People unconstancy of worldly power and affairs Cnute in the mean time to be revenged of the Londoners for making Edmond King marched to London with his whole Army and Fleet besieged and blocked up the City with his Ships drawn up the Thames on the West-side of the Bridge and then drew a large and deep trench round about the City from the Southside of the River whereby he intercepted all ingress and egress to the Citizens and others whom he shut up so close that none could go in or out of the City and endeavoured by many strong assaults to force it but being still repulsed by the Citizens who valiantly defended the walls he left off the siege with great confusion and loss as well as dishonor Thence he marched with his Army into Dorsetshire to subdue it Where King Edmond meeting him with such forces as he could suddenly raise gave him battel at Penham near Gillingham where
then to mary his daughter Godith to Edward the younger Brother and to make him King as being of a more milde and simple disposition apt to be ruled by him Hereupon Godwin went to Southampton to meet with the two Brothers at their landing It fell out that the Messengers sent into Normandy found only Alfred there Edward being then gone into Hungarie to speak with his Cosen Edward the Outlaw Ironsides son When Alfred heard these Messengers tydings he thanked God and in all hast sped him to England ariving at Southampton with some of his Mothers kinred and many of his fellow-Souldiers of like age who were Normans Whereupon Godwin intimated to the Nobles of England That Alfred had brought over too great a company of Normans with him and had likewise promised the lands of the Englishmen to them and therefore it would not be safe to instirpate such a valiant and crafty Nation amongst them That these ought to undergoe exemplary punishment lest others by reason of their alliance to the King should presume to intrude themselves amongst the English And then posting to Southampton welcomed and received Alfred with much joy pretending to conduct him safe to London where the Barons waited for to make him King and expected his comming and so they passed forth together towards London But when they came to Guild-down Godwin said to Alfred Look round about thee on thy right hand and left and behold what a kingdom shall be subjugated to thy Dominion Upon which Alfred giving thanks to God presently promised that if it happened hâ— should be crowned King He would constitute such Laws as should be pleasing and acceptable both to God and Man Which words were no sooner uttered but the Traytor Godwin commanded all his men to apprehend Alfred and to slay all the Normans that came with him in his company and after that to carry Alfred into the Isle of Ely and there to put out both his eys and to pull out his bowels which they accordingly executed as aforesaid And so died this innocent Alfred right heir to the Crown through the Treason of wicked Godwin When the Lords of England heard thereof and how Alfred that should have been their King was put to death through the false Treason of Godwin against their wills tâ—…ey were wonderfull â—orrow â—ll and wroth and swore before God and Man that he should die a worser Death than did Edric which destroyed his Lord Edmond Ironside and would immediately have put him to death but that the Traytor fled and escaped into Denmark and there continued 4. yeares and more and lost all his Lands Rents Goods and Chattels in England confiscated in the mean time for this his Treason These Historians though they somewhat vary in the time and occasion of Prince Alfreds death yet they all agree in the substance of his and of his Norman Souldiers and Campanions treacherous barbarous murders by the joynt or separate treacherie of Earl Godwin and his son Harold Which how fatal it proved to them both by Gods avenging Justice you shall hear in its due place and what divine vengeance it drew at last on the whole English Nation religious and judicious Mr. John Fox informes us in these words This cruel fact of Godwin and his men against the innocent Normans whether it came of himself or of the Kings setting on seemeth to me to be the cause why the justice of God did shortly after avenge the quarrel of these Normans in conquering and subduing the English Nationâ—… by William the Conquerour and the Normans which came with him For so just and right it was that as the Normans coming with a natural English Prince were murdered of English men so afterwards the Englishmen should be slain and conquered by the Normans coming with a forein King being none of their natural Country After the banishment of Queen Emma out of and murder of Prince Alfred in England Harde-Cnute delaying the time in Denmark and deferring his coming into England thereupon Harold formerly King only of the Mercians and Northumbrians that he might reign over all England in the year 1037. A Principibns et omni Populo Rex eligitnr was elected King by all the Nobles and People Harde Cnutus verò quia in Denmarchia mansâ—rat et ad Anglian ut rogabatur venire distulit penitus abjicitur as Florentius Wigorniensis Simeon Dunelmensis Hoveden Bromton Radulphus de Diceto and others inform us After which King Harold degenerating from Cnute his Father in all things took no care at all either of military or civil affairs nor of his own Courtly honour doing only his own will and contrary to his royal estate going more willingly on foot of which he was so swift that he was named Harefoot than riding on Horseback In his dayes there were rendred and paid to 16 Ships from every Port not In-land Towns 8. marks of Silver as in the time of his Father as Henry Huntindon records to which John Speed subjoynes This Dane seeing his hazards prevented sought to secure himself and with 16 Ships of the Danish Fleet kept the Seas which continued ever in a readiness and wafted from port to port to the maintenance whereof he charged the English with great payments to their no little grudge and reviling whereby he lost the love of his Subjects before it had taken root in their hearts Neither held he long those disloyal courses for that his speedy death did cut off the infamy of a longer life he dying at Oxford where he was elected King without wife or children to survive his person or revive his name when he had reigned only 4. years and as many moneths Anno 1040. Upon the death of Harold Proceres tam Anglorum quam Danorum in unum concordantes sententiam the Nobles both of the English and Danes aâ—â—embling together in a Parliamentary Council and concording in one opinion sent Embassadours to Harde-Cnute then at Bruges in Flanders visiting Queen Emma his Mother where he had made great preparation of ships and land forces to recover the Crown of England which belonged to him both by birth and compact from his brother Harold beseeching him to make hast into England and to take possession of the Crown thereof Whereupon he immediately consenting to the Counsel of the Nobles came speedily into England with 60 as some or 40 ships as others write furnished with Danish Souldiers and Mariners where he was received with great joy elected King both by the English and Danes and solemnty crowned at London by â—lnothus Archbishop of Canterbury Soon after he commanded Alfric Arch-bishop of Yorke Earl Godwin and others to digg up the interred corps of his brother King Harold out of his grave in London and his head to be cut off by the hangman and then both head and corps to be thrown into the Common sink and after that into the Thames And that partly in revenge of the injuries
night he lodged in England in his Pavillion there came a voice unto him saying William William â—be thou a good man because thou shalt obtain the Crown of the Realm and shalt be King of England and when thou shalt vanquish the enemy cause a Church to be built in the same place in my name so many hundred foot in length as in number of years the seed of thy bloud shall possess the Government of the Realm of England and reign in England an 150. years But q Matthew Westminster writes this voice was after the battel with Harold not before it and the subsequent words in Knyghton touching his march to London import as much Harold residing in the North after his great victory there when he deemed all his Enemies totally broken in pieces received certain intelligence that Duke William was safely arived at Pevensey with his Fleet and an innnwerable company of valiant Horsemen Slingers Archers and Footmen whom he had hired out of all France Whereupon he presently marched with his army in great haste towards London and although he well knew that most of the valiant men in all England were slain in the two late Battels against Tosti and the Danes that many of the Nobility and Common Souldiers had quite deserted him refusing to march with him in that necssity because he permitted them not to share with him in the great booties they had won with their bloud and that half his Army were not come together yet he resolved forthwith to march into Sussex against the Enemy and fight them with those small forces tired he then had being most of them Mercenaries and Stipendiaries except those English Noblemen Gentlemen and Freemen who enflamed with the love and liberty of their Native Country voluntarily engaged themselves with him in the defence thereof against the common dangerous invading Enemy rather than to support his usurped Diadem and Royalty over them of which number there were very few Immo vero paâ—â—i et manu pomptissimi fuere qui charitati corporum renunciantes Pro patria animas posuerunt Nam praeter Stipendiarios et Mercinarios milites paucos admodum ex comprovincialibus habuit Praecipitabant eum nimium fata ut nec auxilia convocari vellet nec si vellet multos parituros invenerat lta omnes ei erant infeâ—si quod solus manubiis Borealibus incubuerat Unde cum suis quos ductabat astutia Gulieâ—mi circumventus fusus est levi videlicet belli negotio sed occulto et stupendo Dei consilio quod nunquam posteà Angli Communi praelio in libertatem spiraverint quasi cum Haraldo omne robur deciderit Angliae quae certe Potuit et debuit etiam per inerâ—issimos solvere paenas perfidiae Yet Thomas of Walsingham and some others write that Harold had gathered together an innumerable company of Englishmen against Duke William and the multitudes of the Nobility Gentry and Commons of England slain in the Battel besides those who fled from it and could not come to fight manifest his Army not to be so small as these Authors would make it only to augment the Englishmens valour and ecclipse the Normans as overcomming them more by stratagem and multitude than true fortitude Whiles Harold was in his march towards William within 9 miles of his Fort in Sussex he sent out Scouts before him to discover the forces and numbers of the Enemy who being intercepted and brought to William he caused them to be led about his tents that they might well view his Army and then being bountisully feasted he commanded them to be sent back to their Master without any harm Who returning to Harold commending the Dukes magnificence martial prowess and clemency seriously affirmed that all his Souldiers seemed to be Priests because their faces and both their lips were shaven which kind of shaving none of the English then used but their Priests only Upon which Harold smiling at the Scouts simplicity replied They were not effeminate Priests but Souldiers of great and valourous minds invincible in arms Whereupon Girth Harolds younger Brother a man of great knowledge and valour beyond his years taking the Speech out of his mouth said Seeing you commend the valour of the Normans to be so great I hold it unadvised rashnesse for you to fight with them to whom you may be reputed inferiour both in merit and valour Neither are you able to gainsay but that you took an Oath to William to reserve the Crown to his use voluntarily or unvoluntarily Wherefore you shall doe more advisedly to withdraw your self out of the field in this instant necessity ne si perjurus decertans vel fugam vel mortem incurras lest fighting perjured you incurre either flight or death and the whole Army perish for your sin of Perjury seeing there is no fighting against God Therefore expect the issue of the battel without danger For we are altogether free from any Oath justum suscipimus bellum pro Patria pugnaturi and have undertaken a just warr to fight for our Country If we fight alone without thee thy cause shall prosper better and thou shalt be more safe whatever befalls us For if we fly thou maist be able to succour and restore us and if we be slain thou maist revenge us But such was Harolds unbridled rashness that he would not give a pleasing ear to this admonition esteeming it inglorious and a great dishonour to his former life and valour to turn his back to any Enemy or danger Whiles these discourses passed between them in comes a Monk sent by Duke William claiming the kingdom as his Because King Edward had granted it to him by advice of Archbishop Stigand and of the Earls Godwin and Siward and had sent the Son and Nephew of Godwin hostages thereof into Normandy But to avoid effusion of Christian bloud the Monk brought him these three profers Either to depart with the Realm to William according to his Oath and agreement Or to hold the Kingdom from and reign under him Or finally to determine the controversie between them two by a single Duel in the view of both their Armies But Harold out of a strange imprudence impudence pride of heart as one whom the heavens would depresse accepting neither domestick counsel nor the Normans offer would neither vouchsafe to look upon the Messenger with a good countenance nor discourse with him in milde terms but sending him away with indignation prayed only thus That God would judge between him and his Master William To whom the Monk boldly replying required that if he would deny the right of William he should either referr it to the Judgement of the See Apostolick or else to battel if he had rather by which he asserted that William was ready to trie his Title But Harold answering nothing to those his Proposals but what he had done before went within little of laying violent hands upon the Embassador commanding William
and thee to Gods tuition and benediction Lincolns Inne December 6. 1655. WILLIAM PRYNNE A Seasonable Legal and Historical Vindication of the good old Fundamental Liberties Rights and Laws of England Chapter 3. Section 4. Comprehending a brief Collection of all the most observable Parliamentary Councils Synods Conventions Publique Contests Debates Wars Historical Proceedings Passages Records relating to the fundamental Liberties Franchises Rights Customs and Government of the People under our English Saxon Kings from the year of our Lord 600 till the death of King Edmund Ironside and reign of Cnute the Danish King Anno Dom. 1017. with some brief Observations on and from the same IN the former Section I have presented you with a general brief Account of our first English Saxon Christian Kings limited Power and Prerogative being obliged to govern their English-Saxon Subjects not arbitrarily but justly according to their known Laws and totally disabled to alter repeal any old or enact any nâ—w Laws to impose any publique Taxes Tallages Imposts Customs whatsoever on their people upon any real or pretended necessity to make any War Peace or to alienate the Lands or ancient Revenues of their Crowns to any pious publique or private uses whatsoever without the common consent of their Nobles and Wisemen in general Parliamentary Councils together with a Summary of the Laws of Ethelbert the first Christian Saxon King wholly pretermitting the Names Acts Kingdoms of our first Pagan Saxon Usurpers rather than lawfull Kings who though many and great in their generations were very speedily brought to nothing their Kingdoms begun erected by blood conquest and meer power of the Sword standing not long unshaken by civil wars among themselves each King envying his equals greatness and seeking to inlarge his own Dominions upon the next In which Combustions few or none of them came to the Grave in due time but were either slain in war or treacherously murdered in Peace or expelled their Realms by or forced to resign their Crowns to others after all their former prosperous successes and reigns wholly spent in Wars Troubles Seditions Rebellions Rapines affording nothing worthy memory for their peoples good the Kingdoms settlement or imitation of Posterity Whence Henry Huntindon in the close of the 2 Book of his Histories p. 320 hath this Observation concerning them very seasonable for our present times Vide igitur Lector perpende quanta Nomina quam cito ad nihilum devenerint Attende quaeso stude cum nihil hic duret ut adjuiras tibi regnum substantiamillam quae non deficiet Nomen illud honorem qui non pertransibit monimentum illud claritatem quae nullis saeculis veterascet Hoc praemeditare summae prudentiae est acquirere summae caliditatis adipisci summae faelicitaâ—is I shall now in this Section proceed in my intended Chonological Method to their next succeeding Christian Saxon Kings reigns in England till the reign of King Cnute the Dane Anno Domini 1017. It is recorded of Aethelbert the first Christian Saxon King of Kent that keeping the Feast of our Saviours Nativity at Canterbury with his Queen Ead bald his Son Arch-Bishop Augustine and the Nobles of the Land he there held a Parliamentary Council with them on the 5. of January in the year of our Lord 605. Which Thomas Sprot thus expresseth in the Language of his age rather than of that Convocato ibidem communi Concilio tam Cleri quam Populi die quinto Januarii he did then and there Omnium singulorum approbatione consensu as he relates or cum consensu Venerabilis Archiepiscopi Augustini Ac Principum meorum cum Aedbaldi filii mei aliorumque Nobilium optimatum meorum Consilio as his Charters recite give grant and confirm to the Church of St. Peter and Paul in Canterbury for ever sundry Lands pretious Utensils Privileges and Immunities by his Charters made and ratified in this Council In which it is most probable he likewise made those Judicial Decrees and Laws with the advice of his Wise men for the benefit of his people in his own Country Saxon Language Which our venerable Beda William of Malmesbury Huntindon Bromton and others mention only in the general and Bishop Enulph hath registred to posterity in his famous manuscript intituled Textus Roffensis of which I have given you some account before Section 3. p. 50 51 52. on which you may reflect In the year of Christ 627 Paulinus perswading Edwin King of Northumberland to become a Christian to avod eternal torments and to be made a partaker of the Kongdom of Heaven The King answered That he was both willing and ought to receive the faith which he taught but he ought first to confer with his Friends Princes and Counsellors concerning it that so if they concurred in judgement with him they might all be baptized together Assembling therefore his Wisemen and advising with them he demanded severally of them all What that Doctrine which they never heard of till then and that new worship of God which was preached by Paulinus seemed to them To whom Coyfi the chief of the Priests presently answered Do thou consider O King what that Religion is which is now preached to us I profess unto thee that which I have most certainly learned that the Religion we have hitherto imbraced hath no virtue at all in it whereupon it remains that if those new things which are now preached unto us shall appear to thee upon examination to be better and stronger than our Religion let us hasten to embrace them without any delay To whose wise perswasions and words Another of the Kings Nobles giving his Assent spake something concerning the brevity and incertainty of this life and of their ignorance and incertainty of that life which is to come concluding That if this new Doctrine brought any thing to them more certain than that they formerly imbraced it ought to be deservedly followed The rest of the Elders and Kings Counsellors prosecuting the like things by Divine admoniâ—ion Coyfi added that he desired to hear Paulinus preaching concerning God more diligently than before which when he had done by the Kings command he cryed out having heard his preaching I heretofore understood that what we worshipped was nothing because by how much the more diligently I sought the truth in that worship the less I found it But now I openly professe that in this preaching the truth shines forth which is able to give unto us the gifts of eternal life salvation and happiness Whereupon O King I advise thee that the Temples and Altars we have consecrated without any fruit or benefit we should now presently execrate and burn Upon this without more debate the King openly gave his assent to the preaching of Paulinus renouncing Idolatry confessed that he did imbrace the faith of Christ. And when the King demanded of Coysi his Priest who ought first to prophane and
destroy the Altars Temples of the Idols with the rails and bounds wherewith they were inclosed He answered I who have worshipped them through foolishness And presently renouncing his Superstition he demanded Arms and an Horse of the King which by their old Law Priests might not use which being granted him he mounted the Horse with a Sword and Lance in his Hand and riding to the Idols thus armed the people deeming him to be mad prophaned the Temple and commanded his Companions to destroy and burn it with the Idols and all the Hedges about it which they did Whereupon the King with his Nobles and very many of the people embraced the Christian Religion and were baptized by Paulinus in the Church of St. Peter at York which the King there speedily commanded to be built of Wood and afterwards enlarged ordaining Paulinus Bishop of that place who converted baptized him and his people as Beda and others more largely record the History From which memorable president we may observe these particulars 1. That the King himself could not then alter the established Laws or received Religion of this Realm though false nor introduce new Laws or set up the true Religion without the concurrent Assent of his Nobles and Wisemen in a general Parliamentary Council 2. That the Princes Chief Priests Nobles and Aeldermen of the Realm were the Parliament Members in that Age. 3. That every one of them in these Councils had freedom of Vote and Debate and gave their voices severally for the bringing in of Christianity and destruction of Idolatry William of Malmesbury gives this Character of this Kings Government after he became a Christan and of the vicissitude of humane affairs worthy our present observation he being suddenly slain in battle together with his Son after all his former conquests and felicity Nullus tunc Praedo Publicus nullus latro domesticus insidiator conjugalis pudoris procul Expilator alienae Haereditatis exul Magnum id in ejus laudibus nostrâ aetate splendidum Itaque Imperii sui ad eos limites incrementa perducta sunt ut Justitia Pax libentèr in mutuos amplexus concurrerent osculorum gratiam grata vicissitudine libantes faeliciter tunc Anglorum Respublica procedere potuisset nisi mors immatura temporalis beatitudinis Noverca turpi fortunae ludo virum abstulisâ—et Patriae Aetatis enim 48. Regni 17. Rebellantibus Regulis quos sub jugum miferat Ceadwalla Britonum Penda Merciorum cum Filio interemptus miserabile varietatis humanae fuit exemplum nulli prudentiâ inferior qui nè Christianam fidem nisi diligentissimè inspectat â ratione voluit suscipere susceptaeque nihil existimare comparabile Anno 673 Theodor Archbishop of Canterbury held a great Council at Hertford presentibus Episcopis Angliae ac Regibus Magnatibus universis the Bishops of England and Kings to wit King Lotharius and Easwine and all the Nobles being present at it In this Council they made ten Canons or Laws which they all subscribed and ratified with their hands the 7th whereof was That a Synod or Parliamentary Assembly should be assembled twice or because divers causes hindred Placuit omnibus in commune they all agreed in common that in the Calends of August in a place called Cloveshoon a Synod should be congregated at least once every year The rest of them you may peruse in the marginal Authors at leisure being meerly Ecclesiastical and not so pertinent to my Discourse Ceadwalla King of the West-Saxons In the year of our Lord 680. granted to Bishop Wilfrid certain Lands with their appurtenances called Pagaliam cum consensu devotâ confirmatione omnium Optimatum meorum with the consent and devout confirmation of all his Nobles assembled in a Parliamentary Council the grant of his Crown Lands to him being not valid to bind his Successours without his Nobles concurrent confirmation William of Malmesbury writes of him That though before his conversion unto Christianity he addicted himself to wars and to plunder and spoil his neighbouring Kings yet he conscientiously dedicated the tenth of all his spoils to God Inter haec arduum memoratâ— est quantum etiam ante Baptismum inservierit pietati ut omnes manubias quas jure praedatorio in suos usus transcripserat Deo Decimaret In quo etsi approbamus affectum improbamus exemplum juxta illud Qui offert sacrificium de substantia Pauperis quasi qui immolat silium in conspectu patris If all the Plundering warring Saints of this Age would imitate his example in giving the Tenths of all their spoils and plunders to God his Ministers instead of spoiling them of their Tithes and antient Church-Revenues men would deem them as good Saints as this plundering conquering Saxon King of whom it is likewise storied that before he turned Christian intending to invade the Isle of Wight and unite it to his Kingdom he vowed to give the 4th part of the Iland and Prey to Christ if he should vanquish it Whereupon he conquering the Isle slew the Natives in it being Pagans with a Tragical slaughter and in performance of his vow gave to Bishop Wilfrid and his Clerks for their maintenance and encouragement the possession of 300 I-Hides of Land being the fourth part thereof When our new Conquerours shall be so bountifull in bestowing the fourth or but the tenth part of all the pretended conquered Lands they have gotten on Christs Church and Ministers instead of invading and purchasing the Churches antient Lands Glebes Tithes and Inheritance they may demerit the Name and praise of Saints as well as Ceadwalla who before he came to the Crown as he was unjustly banished from his Country through the envy of others only for his vertues and worthiness which first caused him to take up armes and invade the South-Saxons two of whose Kings he slew successively in the field after which he twice invaded and afflicted Kent with grievous wars taking advantage of their civil discords wherein he shed abundance of Christian blood So when he had reigned but two years space after all his victories out of meer devotion he voluntarily left his Crown Kingdom Conquests and went in Pilgrimage to Rome where he was baptized to bewail and expiate the guilt of all his former wars bloodshed plunders rapines perplexing his Conscience and there died The first Charter and grant I find extant of any Lands given to the Church after those of Ethelbert King of Kent forecited is that of King Eadbaldus his Son and successour Anno Dom. 616 who being by Gods mercy through the admonition of Archbishop Lawrence converted from the pravity of his life for the Salvation of his soul and hope of a future reward gave to Christ-Church in Canterbury and to the family serving God in that Church his Lands called Edesham with the Fields Woods Pastures and all things thereunto of right appertaining free from all secular
Anno Dom. 700. this king Withred unâ cum consensu Principum meorum together with the consent of his Nobles and Bishops who subscribed their names to his Charter granted to the Churches of God in Kenâ—… that they should be perpetually freed ab omni exactione publica tributi atque dispendio vel laestone à praesenti aie tempore c. From all publick exaction of Tribute and from all dammage and harm rendring to him his posterity such honour and obedience as they had yeelded to the Kings his antecessors under whom Justice and Liberty was kept towards them About the year of our Lord 678. Wilfrid Arch-bishop of York being in a Council unjustly deprived of his Bishoprick by Theodor Archbishop of Canterbury who envied the greatness of his Wealth Power and Diocess which he would and did against Wilfrids will in that Council divide into 〈…〉 more Bishopricks was after that time exiled the Realm through the malice of Egfrid king of Nortbumberland and Emburga his Queen whom he would have perswaded to become a Nun and desert her Husband as some Authors write and others deny in his favour without any just and lawfull cause and after that about the year 692. being again deprived of his Bishoprick and right by the Judgement and sentence of another Council held under Aldrid kingâ— of Northumberland and Bertuald Archbishop of Canterbury he thereupon made two successive appeals to Rome against their two unjust sentences as he conceived them The first to Pope Agatho and a Council of 150 Bishops held under him who decreed he should be restored to his Bishoprick and make such Bishops under him by advice of a Council to be heldâ— by him as he should deem meet with which decree against his first sentence he returning from Rome to king Egfrid to whom he delivered it sealed with the Popes Seal the king upon sight and reading thereof in the presence of some of his Bishops tantùm à reverentiâ Romanae sedis absuit was so far from obeying this Decree of the Roman See that he spoiled Wilfrid of all his Goods and possessions and committed him prisoner to a barbarous and cruel Governour who thrust him into a dark dungeon for many days and after that committed him to another more cruel Gaoler than he called Tumber who endeavoured to put him into Fetters by the Kings command which he could no ways fasten upon his Legs but they presently fell off again through a Miracle Whereupon wickedness giving â—…lace to Religion he was loosed from his Bonds detainâ—ed in free custody and afterwards released but not restored After which about the year 693 he appealed again to Pope John against the proceedings of the second Council which refused to re-admit him to his Archbishoprick unless he would submit to the decrees of Archbishop Theodore and Brithwald his successor which he refused to do unless they were such as were consonant to the decrees of the holy Canons which he conceived theirs not to be because they would order him to condemn himself without any Crime objected to him Upon which appeal this Pope with his Bishops pronounced Wilfrid free from all Crime and ordered him to return to his Aâ—chbishoprick writing Letters to Ethelred King of Mercians and Alfrid King of Northumberland to restore him thereunto Alfrid receiving the Popes Letters by Wilfrids Messengers altogether refused to obey the Popes commands in this Case saying Quod esset contra rationem homini jam bis à toto Anglorum Concilio damnato propter quaelibet Apostolica scripta communicare That it was against reason to communicate with a man already twice condemned by the whole Council of the English Nation for any writings of the Pope so little were the Popes authoritie and decrees then regarded in England contradicting the kings and English Councils proceedings neither would he restore him all his life After his death Edulfe usurping the Crown by Tyranny Wilfrid repaired to him to restore him to his Archbishoprick upon this account of the Popes Letters Whereupon he was so inraged with him for it though formerly his great friend that he presently commanded him to depart the Realm forthwith unless he would be spâ—led of all his goods and cast out of it with disgrace But this Usuper being deprived both of his Realm Crown and Life in little more than 3 Months space and Osred son of king Alfrid being restored to the Crown by the Nobles as right heir thereunto at last Wilfrid was re-invested in his Bishoprick by the decree of a Council held under him in Northumberland at a place called Nidden Anno 705. not so much in obedience to the Popes command as king Alfrids attested by Elfleda his Sister then Abbess of Streneshash witness these words of Berfride Ego jussionibus Papae obediendum censeo praeserâ—im cum eorum robori accedat Regis nostri Jussio nostrae necessitatis sponsio c. Puer in Regem levatus host is abactus Tyrannus extinctus est igitur Regiae voluntatis ut Episcopus Wilfridus revestiatur Upon which he was accordingly restored whereupon all the Bishops embraced him and reconciled themselves to him This Bishop Wilfrid procured to the Church of Hagustald which he founded and was Bishop thereof many privileges and that for one miles circuit round about none should be arrested going or coming but injoy inviolable peace Quod institutum authoritate privilegiis Romanae sedis Apostolicorum Archiepiscoporum Episcoporum Regum Principum tam Scotiae quam Angliae confirmatum est Quod si aliquis temerarius infringere audebit magnae pecuniae damno obnoxius erit perpetuo Anathematis gladio ab ecclesiâ seperabitur as Richard Prior of Hagustald records Anno Domini 708 Egwin Bishop of Worcester procured king Kenred and Offa by their Charters to grant and confirm many Lands and Privileges to the Abbey of Evesham which Pope Constantine likewise ratified by his subscription at Rome as well as these kings in the presence of many Archbishops Bishops Princes and Nobles of divers Provinces who commended and approved their Charters and Liberality In pursuance whereof Pope Constantine writ a Letter to Brithwald Archbishop of Canterbury to summon Concilium totius Angliae a Council of all England to wit of the Kings Bishops Religious persons of Holy Orders Optimatesque Regni cum proceribus suis with the Nobles and great men of the Realm who being all assembled together in the name of the Lord The Archbishop should in their presence read the Charters of these Kings and the Popes confirmation of them that they might be confirmed by the favour and assent of the Clergy and the people and consecrated with their Benediction Whereupon king Kenred and Offa after their return from Rome assembled a General Council in a place called Alne where both the Archbishops Brithwald and Wilfrid with the rest of the Bishops Nobles and these two Kings were
Where upon being a Noble and very potent man of great Parentage he called all his kinsmen and the chief Nobles of his Familie to him with all speed and acquainted them with this dishonour done to him by the king saying he would by all means be avenged thereof and by their Counsel and Consent they went all together to York to the king who when he saw Bruern called him courteously to him But he guarded with his kinred and friends presently defying the King resigned up to him his Homage Fealty Lands and what ever he held of him saying that he would never hold any thing of him hereafter as of his Lord And so without more words or greater stay instantly departed and taking leave of his friends went speedily into Denmark and complained to Codrinus king thereof of the Indignity done by King Osbrith to him and his Lady imploring his aid and assistance speedily to revenge it he being extracted out of his Royal blood The king and Danes hereupon being exceeding glad that they had this inducing cause to invade England presently gathered together a great Atmy to revenge this Injury done to Bruern being of his Blood appointing his two Brothers Inguar and Hubba most valiant Souldiers to be their Generals who providing Ships and other Necessaries transported an innumerable Army into England and landed them in the Nothern parts This being the true Cause why the Danes at this time invaded England in this manner In the mean time the Parents Kindred and Friends of Bruern expelled and rejected King Osbrith for this Injury done to him and his Lady refusing to hold their Lands of or to obey him any longer as their Soveraign and advanced one Ella to be King though none of the Royal bloud Our other Historians who mention not this fact of Osbrith and occasion of these Danes arival to revenge it write that the Danes upon their Landing marched to the City of York wasting all the Country before them with fire and Sword unto Tinmouth At that time they write by the Devilsinstinct there was a very great discord raised between the Northumberlanders Sicut semper populo qui odium incurrerit evenire solet For the Northumberlanders at that time had expelled their lawfull King Osbrith out of the Realm and advanced one Ella a Tyrant not of the Royal bloud to the Regal Soveraignty of the Kingdom By reason of which division the Danes taking York ran up and down the Country filling all places with bloud and Grief wasting and burning all the Churches and Monasteries far and near leaving nothing standing but the Walls and ruines of them pillaging depopulating and laying waste the whole Country In which great necessity and distress the Northumberlanders reconciling their two Kings Osbrith and Ella one to another gathered a great Army together against the Danes which their two Kings and eight Earls marched with to York where after a long fight with various success both the said Kings with most of the Northumberlanders were all stain April 11. Anno 867. The City of York consumea with fire and the whole Kingdom made tributarie to the Danes Simeon Dunelmensis relates that both these kings had violently sacrilegiously taken away certain Lands from S. Cuthberts Church in Durham for Osbrit had by a sacrilegious attempt taken away Wircewood and Tillemouth and Ella Billingham Heclif and Wigeclif Creca from S. Cuthbert tandem cum maximâ parte suorum ambo praefati Reges occubuerunt Injurias quas Ecclesiae sancti Cuthberti aliquando irrogaverant vitâ privati regno persolverunt Which the Author of the History of St. Cuthbert observes and records more largely as a punishment of their sacrilegious Rapine The Danes hereupon made Egbert king of Northumberland as a Tributary and Viceroy under them Sic Northumbria bellieo jure obtenta barbaro rum dominium multo post tempore pro conscientiâ libertatis Ingemuit writes Malmesbury de Gestis Regum Angliae l. 2. c. 3. p. 42. These rebellious Northumberlanders about 7 years after uno conspirantes consilio expelled Egbert the Realm by unanimous consent together with Archbishop Wilfer making one Richius King in his Place the Danes both then and long after possessing and wasting their Country and slaughtering them with fire and sword as the Marginal Historians record more than any other parts of the Iland by a just divine punishment for their manifold Treasons Seditions Factions Rebellions against and Murders of their Soveraigns In the year 868. a great Army of these victorious plundering Danes marched out of the Kingdome of Northumberland to Nottingham which they took and there wintered Whereupon Beorred or Brithred King of Mercians omnesque esusdem gentis Optimates and all the Nobles of that Nation assembled together Where the King Consilium habuit cum suis Comitibus comilitonibus omni populo nbi subjecto Qualitèr inimicos bellicâ virtute exuperaret sive de Regno expelleret held a Council with his Earls and fellow Souldiers and all the people subject to him how he might vanquish these Enemies with military power or drive them out of the Realm By whose advice he sent Messengers to Ethelred King of the West-Saxons and to his Brother Elfrid humbly requesting them that they would assist and joyn with him against the Danish Army which they easily condescening to gathered a very great Army together out of all parts and joyning all together with Beorred and his forces marched to Nottingham unanimously with a a resolution to give the Danes battel who sheltering themselves under the works of the Castle and Town refused to fight with them whereupon they besieged them in the Town but being unable to break the Walls they concluded a Peace at last with the Danes upon condition that they should relinquish the Town and march back again into Northumberland which they did where their Army continued the whole year following in about York debacchans insaniens occidens perdens perplurimos viros mulieres Abbot Ingulphus records that during the siege of Nottingham King Beorred as he stiles him at the request of Earl Algar the younger who was very gracious with him and the other Kings causâ suae nobilis militiae granted a Charter of Confirmation not only of all the Lands Advowsons Possessions which this Earl with other particular persons and Kings had given to the Abby of Croyland but likewise of all their former Privileges confirming all their Ilands Marishes Churohes Chapels Mannors Mansions Cottages Woods Lands Meadows therein specified to God and Saint Guthla◠for ever Libera Soluta emancipata ab omni onere terreno servitio seculari in Eleemofynam aeternam perpetuo possidendam Which Charter hath this memorable exordium expressing the motives inducing this King to grant it Beorredus largiente Dei gratiâ Rex Merciorum omnibus provinciis populis earum universam Merciam inhabitantibus fidem Catholicam
procured the English School to be fréed from all Taxes and Tributes by the Popes special Bull. And we never read he imposed the least publick Tax upon his Subjects during all his wars and Exigences by his own Regal Power upon any pretext pell the Enemies whereby the Common people were so incouraged and became such good Souldiers that if they heard of the Enemies approach they would fight and rout them Rege etiam Ducibus inconsultis in certamen ruerent eisque semper numero scientia praeliandi praesâ—arent ita hostes contemptui militibus Regi risâ—i erant as Malmesbury writes The Country people themselves fighting with the Danes at Ligetune put them to â—light recovered all the prey they had taken and likewise the Danes Horses as they likewise did in some other parts Amongst other places this King reâ—aired the walls of Colchester put warlike men in it certum eis stipendium assignavit and assigned them a certain stipend as Mat Westm records neither he noâ— other our Historians making mention of assigned wages to any other Garrisons or Souldiers in that age At last the Danes in most places throughout England perceiving King Edwards power and wisdom submitted themselves unto him elected him for their King and Patron and swore homage and fealty to him as likewise did the Kings of Scotland Northumberland and Wales In the year of Grace 905. This King Edward assembled a Synod of the Senators of the English Nation as Malmesbury or a great Council of Bishops Abbots and faithfull people as Matthew Westminster and others stile it in the Province of the Gewisii which by reason of the Enemies incursions had been destitute of a Bishop for 7 years space Whereupon the King and Bishops in this Council taking good advice made this a holsom constitution That instead of 2 Bishops whereof one had his Sea at Winchester the other at Schireburn 5 Bishops should be created ne Grex Domini absque cura Pastorali luporum incursionibus quateretur Whereupon they in this Council elected 5 Bishops to wit Frithstan for Winchester Athelin for Schireburn Aedulfe for Wells Werstan for Crideton and Herstan for Cornwal assigning them their several Sees and Diocess and two other Bishops for Dorchester and Cirencester all consecrated by Archbishop Plegmond at Canterbury in one day Wil. of Malmesb. and some others write that this Council was summoned upon the Letter of Pope â—ormosus who excommunicated king Edward with all his Subjects for suffering the Bishopricks of Winton and Scireburn to be void for 7 years space together But this must needs be a great mistake since Pope â—ormosus was dead ten years before this Council and before these Bishopricks became void and his pretended Epistle to the Bishops of England makes no mention at all of the king as Sir Henry Spelman well observes In the year 906. king Edward made a Peace and firm agreement with the Danes of Northumberland and East-England at Intingford when as some think he and Guthurn the Dane reconfirmed the Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws formerly made and ratified by his Father King Alfred and Guthurn But Guthurn dying in the year 890 full eleven years before this Edward was king could not possibly ratifie these Laws at the time of this Accord being 16 years after his decease as the Title and Prologue to those Laws in Mr. Lambard and Spelman erroneously affirm wherefore I conceive that this confirmation of these Laws was rather made in the year 921. when all our Historians record that after king Edward Anno 910. had sent an army into Northumberland against the perfidious and rebellious Danes slain and taken many of them Prisoners and miserably wasted their Country for 4 days space for breaking their former Agreement with him after his Sister Aegelâ—led An. 919. had forced the Danes at York to agree and swear that they would submit to her and her Brothers pleasure in all things and after Edward had vanquished the other Danes Scotch and Welsh in many Battles thereupon in the yeat 921. the king of Scots with all his Nation Stredded king of Wales with all his people et Regnaldus or Reginaldus Reginald King of the Danes with all the English and Danes inhabiting Northumberland of which Reginald then was King comming to King Edward An. 921. submitted themselves unto him elected him for their Father and Lord and made a firm Covenant with him And therefore I conjecture that Gnthurnus in the Title and Preface of these Laws is either mistaken or else mis-written for Reginaldus then King of these Northern Danes who had no King in the year 906 that I can read of in our Historians Abbot Ethelred gives this Encomium of this Kings transcendent modesty and justice Rex Edwardus vir mansuetus et pius omnibus amabilis et affabilis adeò omnium in se provocabat affectum ut Scotti Cumbri Walenses Northumbri et qui remanserant Daci eum non tà m in Dominum ac Regem quam in Patrem eum omni devotione eligerent Tanta dehinc Modestia regebat Subditos tanta Justitia inter proximum et proximum judicabat ut contra veritatem non dico nihil velle sed nec posse videretur unde fertur quibusdam iratus dixisse dico vobis si possem vicem vobis redidissem Quid non posset Rex in Subditos Dominus in Servos Potens in infirmos Dux in milites Sed quicquid non dictabat aequitas quicquid veritati repugnabat quicquid non permittebat Justitia quicquid Regiam mansuetudinem non decebat Sibi credebat impossibile I wish all our modern domineering Grandees would imitate his presidential Royal Example Yet I read of one injurious Act done by him After the decease of his renowned Sister Elfleda Queen of Mercia Anno 920. he dis-inherited her only Daughter Alfwen or Elwyn his own Neece of the Dominion of all Mercia who held that Kingdom after her Mother seising and Garrisoning Tamesworth and Nottingham first and then disseising her of all Mercia uniting it to his own Realms and removing her thence into West-Sex Magis eurans an utilitèr vel inutilitèr Quan an justè vel injustè Writes Henry Huntingdon which innrious action Si violanda sit fides regni causâ violandae will not excuse The Chronicle of Bromton records that King Edward as he inlarged the bounds of his Kingdom more than his Father So Leges condidit he likewise made Laws to govetn it which are there registred to Posterity in two parcels as made at several times but in what year of his Reign this was it informs us not The first of these Laws declaring his zeal to publick Justice according to the Laws then in Force is this Edwardus Rex mandat et praecipit omnibus Praefectis et Amicis suis ut Justa judicia judicent quam rectiora possint Et in judiciaâ—t Libro stant nec parcant nec dissimulent pro anqua
be committed to Christian Burial The King consenting to their Request acquainted the Pope therewith who granted him Christian Burial though unworthy Hereupon the Nobles adjudged all his Lands and Possessions great and small to the King who by their consent granted and confirmed them all to the Abby of Malmesbury by his Charter wherin he recites Sciant Sapientes regionis Nostrae non has praefatas terras me injustè Rapuisse Rapinamque Deo Dedicasse sed sic eas accepi Quemadmodum judicaverunt omnes Optimates Regni Anglorum Insuper et Apostolicus Papa Romanae Ecclesiae Johannes After which reciting the Treachery perjury and death of Elfred with his Condescention to his Nobles and friends request aforesaid he concludes thus Et sic Adjudicata est mihi tota possessio ejus in magnis et modicis Sed et haec Apicibus praenotamus literarum ne quamdin Christianitas regnat aboleatur unde mihi praefata possessio quam Deo et Sancto Petro dedi donatur nec Justius novi quam Deo et sancto Petro hanc possessionem dare qâ—i aemulum meum in conspecta omnium cadere fecerunt et mihi prosperitatem Regni largiti sunt To which Malmesbury subjoyns In his Verbis Regis sapientiam et piotatem ejus in Dei rebus suspicere par est Sapientiam eo quod animadverterat juvenis presertim non esse Dei Gratiosum de Rapinâ Holocaustum Pietatem eo quod Munus ultione divinâ collatum Deo potissimum non ingratus rependeret From whence I shall only observe that Elfrid being a Peer of the Realm dying perjured as asoresaid was adjudged to forfeir all his Lands for Treason after his death only by his Peers in a Parliamentary Council and that if the king had seized on them without their judgement it had been an unjust Rapine by his own Confession but being legally confiscaâ—ed to him by their Judgement it was no Rapine but Justice for him to seize and Piety to dispose of them at his pleasure to this Church What Churches and Monasteries he built and repaired throughout the Realm What Lands he restored to St. Augustines Church at Canterbury on the day of his Coronation by the Assent of his Bishops and Nobles though long detained from it and how he gave the Lands of Folcastan in Kent eâ—cheated by the Danes destruction of the Nunnery there to Christ-church in Canterbury you may read in the Marginal Authors William of Malmesbury informs us that Baldwin Earl of Flanders sent Embasâ—adour by Hugh King of France to King Ethelstan to demand his Sister for his Wife brought over with him divers rich presents and Reliques Amongst others the Sword of Constantine the Great the Lance of Charls the Great and one of the 4 Nails that pierced our Saviours body set in plates of Gold A piece of our Saviours Cross inclosed in a Christal Case c. all which he presented to the King and Lady cum in Conventu Procerum apud Abindonium proci postulata exhibuisset Which intimates that this King consulted with an assembly of his Nobles about his Sisters Marriage to the King of France as a mater of Parliamentary consideration Ingulphus Hist p. 876 877 878. records that Turketulus was his Chancellor and chief Counsellour who affected not Honors and Riches refused many Bishopricks offered him by the King Tanquam tendiculas Satanae ad animas everâ—endas and would never accept of any Bishishoprick all his life being Content only with his own Lands and Wages That all his Decrees were so just and legal that they remained irrevocable when once made That he was a great Souldier and fought most valiantly against the Danes and often gloried and said He was most happy in this that he had never murdered nor maimed any one Cum â—ugâ—… pro patria maximè contra Paganos licite quisque possit He esteeming the slaughter of such â—agan Enemies in defence ef his Country lawfull and no murther nor maim King Aeckelstan deceasing without iâ—ue his Brother Edmund succeeded him An. 940. who upon the false suggestions of some of his Souldiers and Courtiers dedeprived Dunstan whom he had made his Chancellour and one of his privy Conâ—cil yea ranked amongst the Royal Palaâ—ines and Princes of his Realm of all his dignities and Offices The very next day after being like to break his Neck as he rod a hunting over a sâ—eep Rock had not his horse miraculously stopped at the Rocks brink in his full carier he immediatly sent for Dunstan and to repair the injury done him rod presently to Glastonbury and made him Abbot thereof Presently after Anlaffe King of Norwey whom Aethelstan had driven out of the Kingdom of Northumberland came with a great Navy and Army to York being called in by the perfidious and rebellious Northumberlanders who instantly revolted to him and elected him for their King Whereupon he marching Southward with a puissant Army purposing to subjugate the Realm of England to himself King Edmund gathering his forces together encountred him and after a bloody battel fought a whole day between them at Leicester with great loss on both sides Odo Archbishop of Canterbury and Welstan Archbishop of York perceiving the danger on both parts and the Destruction of the Realm made this Agreement between them that Anlaffe should quietly enjoy the whole Northeast part of England lying North of Waâ—lingstreet and Edmund all the Southern part thereof during their joynt Lives and the Survivor of them enjoy the whole Realm after the others decease But Anlaffe soon after wasting the Church of St. Balter and burning Tivinagham with fire was presently seised on by Gods avenging Judgement and miserably ended his life About the year 940. Hoel Dha Prince of all Wales sent for six Laymen eminent for authority and knowledge out of every Kemut or hundred of his Realm and all the Archbishops Bishops Abbots Priors of his Realm dignified with a Pastoral staff who continuing all together in prayer fasting and consultation all the Lent did in this Welsh Paâ—liament make and enact many Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws which they divided into 3 parts and books for the better Government of the Realm and Church which you may read in Spelman In the 22 Law whereof they thus determine Tres autem sunt homines quorum â—ullus potest per Legem impignorare contra aliquod Iudicium Primus est Rex ubi non poterit secundum Legem in Liâ—e stare coram judice â—uo agendo vel respondendo per dignitatem naturalem vel per dignitatem terrae ut Optimas vel alius So that by the Laws of those times not only the Kings of England but even the petty Kings of Wales were by their very Natural and Royal Dignities exempted from all personall Tryals and Judgements against them in any Courts of Justice seeing they had no Peers to be tryed by In the year 940 Reingwald or Reginald the Dane comming
destroying the Nobles and Wisemen of the Realm who disgusted his lascivious Courses and in favouring ignorant unjust vicious persons and following their most wicked Counsels 2. In banishing Abbot Dunstan and seising upon all his Goods only for Justice sake because he reprehended him for his exorbitant vicious Courses being then the chief swaying Grandee and head of the Monkish faction 3. In forcibly thrusting out by Armed Souldiers all the Regular Monks throughout England and casting them forth of the Monasteries there being then no Regular Monks in any Monaste but only in Glastonbury and Malmesbury as the Chronicles of Winchester and others record then seizing upon all their wealth and bestowing their Lands and Monasteries on secular and maried Priests and afflicting these Monks in sundry other kinds But Henry Arch-Deacon of Huntington an antient judicious impartial old Historian slourishing in the year 1148 mentions none of these particulars in his life but gives this honorable Testimony of his Government that it was both prosperous slourishing and laudable Rex Edwi non illaudabiliter Regni infulam tenuit Anno Regni sui Quiuto cum in principio Regnum ejus decentissmè sloreret prospera et laetabunda exordia mors immatur a perrupit And therefore Archbibishop Parker Bishop Godwin Speed and others conceive that the true cause why the Mercians and Northumbrians those only not the rest of his subjects and king om rejected him and set up his Brother Edgar whose lasciviousness was more excessive and vices more extorbitant in some degrees than Edwins which yet our former Monkish Historians blanch or excuse was the Malice of Dunstan and Odo the Pillars and Oracles of the Monkish Clergy who stirred up the Merciaus and seditious rebellious Northumbrians against him to set up Edgar in his stead who was totally devoted to them and Dunstan by whose Counâ—els he was afterwards wholy guided and built no less than 47 new Monasteries for the Monks besides all those he repaired incending to build three more had he lived to make them 50 compleat and likewise cast out the secular and maried Priests out of all Monasteries and Churches unless they would become Monks reâ—lenishing all Monasteries Churches with Monks alone They likewise inform us that the true causes of kings Edwins banishing Dunstan ejecting the Monks and seising their Lands and Treasures was That Dunstan had so bewitched Edmund Edward Athelstan and Aedred his Predecessors with the love of Monkery as that they not only took violently from maried Priests their livings to erect monasteries but also lavishly wasted much of their own Royal Treasures Lands and Revenues upon them which they should have rather employed in resisting the common Enemies of God and their Country the Danes whereupon Edwin perceiving that all the wealth of the Land was crept into Monasteries not only refrained to beslow more on them but recalled divers of those prodigal Gifts his Predecessors had granted them which the Monks refusing to render upon demand he seized upon them by armed Officers as having indeed cheated his Predecessors and defrauded the Kingdom of them They adde hereunto that King Edrid had committed all his chief Houshold-stuff Plate Records and the Treasures of all the Realm with all the Magazines he had gotten to Dâ—nstans custody and laid them up in the Monastery at Glastonbnry yea he committed his Kingdom body and Soul unto him So as all was wholly in Dunstans power who alone managed all the publick affairs of the Realm and exercised Regal Authority And when King Edred in his sicknesse demanded all his Housholdstuff Jewels Monies and Treasures from him Dunstan pretending to fetch them before he returned with them Dustan heard a voice as our Monkish Writers fable that Edred was dead in the Lord and thereupon detained them in his and his Monks custody being unwilling to part with them to young King Edwin his Successor whereupon he seised on them by force as of right belonging to him and expelled Dunstan with his Monks And so much the rather because Dunstan presumed most impudently and violently to rush into his Bed-chamber and pull him out sorcibly thence on the very day of his Coronation contrary to all Christian and Princely Modesty from the embraces of his beautifull and beloved Alfgina which some Monks and these Historians report to be his lawfull wife not his Concubine and not coment therewith he excited Odo Archbishop of Canterbury publickly to divorce her from him some say for consanguinity only and others for other Reasons Whereupon the king betaking himself to his Concubines Odo suspended him from the Church excommunicated all his Concubines caused one of them whom the king best affected to be violently fetched out of the Court with armed Men branded her in the forehead with an hot Iron and then banished her into Ireland After which she returning into England Odo apprehended her the second time and cut off her Sinews at the Hock-bone All which intollerable Affronts so incensed Edwin that he banished and spoyled Dunstan with his Monks as aforesaid and threatned Odo with severe punishments none others in the Realm but these daring then to oppose him hereupon they formerly and then bearing the greatest sway by way of revenge and to prevent Edwins further fury against them stirred up the Mercians and Northumbrians to reject him and that in a tumultuous manner by force of Arme in which Uproar Edgar gained possession of half his Kingdom Matthew Parker and Sir Henry Spelman out of him subjoyns that by these civil dissentions raised between King Edwin and his Brother Edgar they much weakned the forces of the Realm in many set Battels fought between them till at last Edgar getting the better Convocato ad Branfordiam Regni concilio Fratris Edwini acta et decreta rescendit Assemblong a Council at Brandford he repealed all the Acts and Decrees of his Brother King Edwin restored to the Churches and Monasteries the Treasures he had taken from them recalled Dunstan from his former banishment and made him first Bishop of Worcester then of London and last of all of Canterbury Henry de Knyghton a Canon of the Abbey of Leicester relates out of the History of Leicester Abbey That Edwin being expulsed and shamefully thrust out of his kingdom for his evil life and exorbitant actions done against the Church the Monarchy of England continued void above a year Whereupon many murders and wickednesses were committed and infinite mischiefs happened amonst the people for want of Government until holy men both of the Clergy and People deeply affected therewith humbled themselves and uncessantly repented of their sins and prayed day and night to God that he would hear them and mercifully relieve them in so great necessity giving them such a King who might govern the Realm of England in such sort as might redound to the honour of God and profit of the Realm That God beholding their prayers from on high in the
night silence this voice was heard from God That they should crown Edgar King though but then a youth who rejoyced with this Divine Oracle most likely by the Monks and Dunstans Legerdemain the Divine Oracle that uttered it spcedily advanced Edgar to be King being but 16 years old and so he was elected and crowned King by a divine Oracle which never hapned to any King of England in former times Upon Edgars Coronation and Dunstans reâ—…tion An. 959. K. Edwin reigning in a decayed Estate living in little Esteem and without being desired for very grieâ— thereof as some write he died after he had for 4 years space Libidinosè simul Tyrannicè â—ustfully and also Tyrannically depressed the Realm of England Others affirm that he was deprived both of his Life and Kingdom by the Rebellion of his Subjects But his Monkish O posites record that he was taken away by an untimely Death by Gods Just Judgement in the year of our Lord 959. Whereupon his Brother Edgar ab omni populo electus being elected king by all the people united the kingdom into one and obtained the intire Monarchy of the Realm the kings of Cumberland Scotland and Wales voluntarily submitting and doing homage to him without any effusion of blood or war King Edgar About the year of our Lord 963. contrived the death of Earl Ethelwald who as some Authors aver against his trust had cheated him of Elfrida only Daughter of Ordgarus Duke of Devonshire the Paragon of her Sex by disparaging her beanty to the king and marrying her to himself After which the king being extraordinarily ravished with the true report and sight of her transcendent beauty thereupon as Bromtons Chronicle relates statim post octo dies Rex Parliamentum suum apud Sarisberiam convocaviâ— Ubi cunctis suis Proceribus congregatis de custodia terrae Northumbriae qualiter contra ingressum Danorum melius posset custodiri tractaverunt inter quos Ethelwolfus ad Custodiam Eboraci parriae adjacentis in illo erat Concilio deputatus A clear Evidence That Matters of defence against Common Enemies and Guardians of the Sea-coasts against the Danes Invasions were then debated and setled by the King and his Nobles in Parl. then usually summoned by our Kings for that end Hereupon Earl Ethel wolfe travelling through the Forrest of Werewell towards his new VVardship was there cruely assaulted and murdered by some unknown armed perâ—ons there placed in ambuscado by the king as was commonly reported and as some relate by king Edgar himself who shot him through with an Arrow as they were there hunting together The slain Earls Bastard-Son being there present beholding hiâ— dead Corps the king demanded of him how such a hunting pleased him who answered very well my Lord and King for that which pleaseth you ought not to displease me which answer so pacified this king sâ—veâ—…ing mind that he loved no person more entirely all his life than this Young man Tyrannici facti offensam in Patrem sedulitate Regiâ in filium allevans writes Malmesbury This being done the king with great joy bringing Alfrida to London there espoused her and the same day both of them wore a golden Crown adorned with precious pearls on their heads Hereupon Arch-bishop Dunstan the next morning boldly rushing into the kings Bedchamber whiles they were both in Bed together demanded of the king what Woman he had lying in bed with him who answered that it was his Queen Dunstan by way of rebuke replyed That he could not marry or retain her as his wife without offending God and the Laws of the Church because he had been Godfather to her Son often admonishing the king that he would put her away and be divorced from her VVhich he by reason of his ardent love towards her and unsatiable lust with her would by no means hearken to Anno 964. King Edgar heating of a Nun of incomparable beauty in the Monastery of Wilton named Wilfrida a Dukes Daughter took her out of the Nunnery and frequently admitted her to his Bed VVich being commonly blazed abroad Arch bishop Dunstan understanding of it with great passion and indignation of mind came to the king who seeing the Archbishop arose from the Royal Throne to take him by the hand and give him place But Dunstan refused to take him by the hand and with a stern countenance bending his Browes spake thus unto him Thou that hast not feared to corrupt a Virgin espoused to Christ presumest thou to touch the consecrated hands of a Bishop Thou hast defiled the Spouse of thy Maker and thinkest thou by flattering service to pacifie the Friend of the Bridegroom No Sir his Friend will not I be who hath Christ for his Enemy c. The king terrified with these and other thundering words of Dunstan and compuncted with inward repentance for his perpetrated sin fell down at Dunstans feet weeping who raising him up again from the ground began to relate unto him the hainousness of the fact And finding the king ready to undergoe what ever satisfaction he should lay upon him injoyned him this following Penance for 7 years space That during these seven years he should wear no Crown That he should fast twice every VVeek That he should liberally distribute the Treasures left him by his Ancestors to the poor That he should build a Monastery of Nuns at Shastesbury That as he had robbed God of one Virgin through his transgression so should he again restore many to him in time to come Moreover That he should expel Clerks of evil lives meaning secular Priests who had VVives and Children out of Churches and place Covents of Monks in their room That he shoulo enact just Laws such as were acceptable to God and command the people to observe them through all parts of the Realm VVhich the king promising effectually to perform was there upon absolved and vigorously set himself to execute what he had promised Hereupon in the year 966. King Edgar founded the Monastery of Hyde near Winchester filled it with Monks endowed them with large privileges and possessions exempting them from all secular services whatsoever but these rata expeditione Pontis Arcisve constructione praescribed several Laws and Canons for the Monks thereof to observe made by advice and consent of his Bishops and Nobles and ratified by his Royal Charter subscribed by himself his two sons Prince Edmund and Edward his Queen Grandmother both the Archbishops 9 Bishops 5 Abbots 3 Dukes and sundry others with the sign of the Cross annexed to their names In which Charter there is this solemn curse donounced against all the infringers and perverters thereof Si quis autem hanc nostram Donationem in aliud quam constituimus transferre voluerit privatus consorâ—io sanctae Dei Ecclesiae aeternis Barathri incendiis lugubris jugiter cum Juda Christi proditore ejusque complicibus puniatur si non satisfactione emendaverit congrua
the London ships meeting with the other Danish Pirates as they were flying fought with them slew many thousands of the Danes and took Duke Alfric his Ship with the Souldiers and Armes himself hardly escaping as Wigorniensis and Matthew Westminster relate But Huntind Bromton write that the Danes recruiting their Navy met and fought with the kings Navy flew many of the Londoners triumphantly took whole armed Ships and Duke Alfric who was in them whom the king should not have trusted according to the antient saying Quem femel gravitèr laeseris non facile tiâ—i fidelem credideris For this Treason of Alfric the king caused the Eyes of his Son Algar to be put out Unae odium infamia eâ—us crudelitatis adaucta est as Huntindon and others observe The next year 993. the Danish Fleet entring Humber wasted the Country of Northumberland and Lindesey burning the Villages slaying the people and pillaging their goods Whereupon great mulâ—itudes of the people of that Country assembling together resolved and hastned to fight with them but when they were ready to give them battel Frena Frithgist and Godwin their Captains being of Danish Progeny proving treacherous to their followers perswaded them to fly and fled first themselves Notwithstanding the Country as Malmesbury Speed and others write being unable to digest their intollerable insolence and plunders fell upon the Danes slew many of them and chased away the rest to defend their Lives Liberties and Estates Anno 994. Swane king of Denmark and Anlafe king of Norwey with 94 Ships sailed up to London besieged and fiercely assaulted the City thinking to take it but the Citizens so manfully defended it that they repulsed the Danes thence with great loss Who thereupon turning their fury upon the Counties of Essex Kent Sussex and Southampton so greivously wasted them with fire and sword burning the Villages and slaying the Inhabitants that King Ethelred Conâ—llio Procerum suorum by the Council of his Nobles assembled together for that end as Wigorniensis Matthew Westminster Hoveden Simeon Dunelmensis and others write sent Embassadours to them promising to give them Tribute and Wages and Money upon this condition that they should desist from their cruelty Who thereupon condescending to the kings request returned to their Ships and drawing all their Army together unto Southampton wintered there To whom a Tribute of fixteen thousand pounds was given and paid out of all England that they should cease from their rapines and slaughters of innocent persons After this agreement King Anlaf tepaired to Andover to King Ethelred where he received baptism Ethelred being his Godfather and bestowing great gifts upon him Heteupon Anlaf entred into a League with him promising to return into his own Countrey and never after to return into England with an Army Which promise he faithfully observed The Articles of the Agreement between King Ethelred and him are at large recorded in the Chronicle of Bromton Col. 899 900. being made by advice of all his Wisemen asâ—embled in a Parliamentary Council as this Title to them intimates Haec sunt verba Pacis et Prolocutionis quas Ethelredus Rex et omnes Sapientes ejus cum exercitu firmaverunt qui cum Anaâ—anâ— et Justino et Gudermundo Stegiarâ— filio venit The Articles of the Peace between them are X in the Saxon but XI in the Latin Copy The perfidious Danes violating their former agreement Anno 997. came with a great Fleet and Army into the mouth of Severn wasted and laid waste and desolate Northwales and most of the West and South parts of England no man resisting them gaining an extraordinary great booty and Wintring about Tavestock The next year 998. They entring the river oâ— Frome wasted and spoiled Dorsetshire the Isle of Wight and Sussex over and over living upon their spoils whereupon the English many times assembled an Army to resist and expell them but so often as they were about to give them battel Angli aut insidiis aut aliquo infortunio impediti terga verterunt et hostibus victoriam dederunt most of the Nobles of England secretly favouring the Danes and not loving Ethelred quia Alfrida mater sua pro ipso liberius in regno substituendo sanctum Edwardum fratrem suum dolosè extinxerat as Bromton and others atteâ— Anno 999. The Danish fleet entring the river of Medway besieged Rochester and wasted Kent The Kentish men uniting their forces fought a sharp battel with them wherein many were slain on both sides but the Danes winning the field horsed their foot on the horses they gained and miserably wasted all the West part of Kent Which King Ethelred being informeâ— of suorum Primatum Consilio et classem et pedestrem congregavit exercitum by the advice of his Nobles he asâ—embled a Navy and foot Army to encounter them But whiles the ships were preparing the Captains of the Army delaying from day to day their begun leâ—yes and undertakings Grievously vexed the People In conclusion neither the Navy nor Army did any thing at all for the peoples benefit or defence praeâ—er populi laborem pecuniae peâ—ditionem hostium incitationem as Florentius Wigorniensis Roger Hoveden and others observe Hereupon King Ethelred Anno 1000. for the better defence of his Realm resolved to take to wiâ—e Emma daughter of Richard Earl of Normandy who was then most valiant and formidable to the whole Realm of France For he saw himself and his Subjects very much weakned and did not a little fear their future overthrow Hoc autem Dei nuâ—u factum esse constat ut veniret contra improbos malum Genti enim Anglorum quam sceleribus suis exigentibus disterminare proposuerat sicut et ipsi Brittones peccatis accusantibus humiliaverant Dominus omnipotens duplicem contritionem proposuit et quasi militares insidias adhibuit Scilicet ut hinc Dacorum persecutione saeviente illinc Normannorum conjunctione accrescente si ab Dacorum manifesta fulminatione evaderent Normannorum improvisam cum fortitudine cautelam non evaderent Quod in sequentibus apparuit cum ex hac conjunctione Regis Anglorum et filiae Ducis Normannorum Angliam JUSTE secundum jus Gentium Normanni et calumniati sunt et adepti sunt Praedixit etiam eis quidam vir Dei quod ex scelerum suorum immanitate non solum quia semper caediet proditioni studuebant verum etiam quia semper ebrietaâ—â— et negligentiae domus Domini dediti erant eis insperatum à Francia adventurum Dominium quod et eorum excellentiam in aeternum deprimeret et honorem sine termino restitutionis eventilaret Praedixit etiam quod non ea gens solum verum et Scottorum quos vilissimos habebant eâ—s ad emeritam confusionem dominaretur Praedixit nihilominus varium adeò seculum creandum ut varietas quae in mentibus hominum latebat et in actibus patebat multimoda variatione vestium et
that so the whole Nation of the English might all jointly and at one time be freed from the Danish Oppression And so the Danes who by a firm covenant sworn unto by both sides a little before ought to have dwelt peaceably with the English were too opprobriously slain and the women with their children being dashed against the posts of the houses miserably powred out their souls When therefore the sentence of this decree was executed at the City of London without mercy many of the Danes fled to a certain Church in the City where all of them were slain without pity standing by the very Altars themselves Moreover that which aggravated the rage of this persecution was the death of Guimild Sister of King Swain slain in this manner in England she was lawfully maried to Count Palingers a Noble man of great power who going into England with her husband they both there received the faith of Christ and Sacrament of baptism this most prudent Virago being the mediatrix of the peace between the English and Danes gave her self with her husband and only son as Hostages to King Ethelred for the security of the peace she being delivered by the King to that most wicked Duke Edric to keep that Traytor within few days after commanded her husband with her son to be slain before her face with four spears and last of all commanded her to be beheaded She underwent death with a magnanimous minde without fear or change of countenance but yet confidently pronounced as she was dying That the shedding of her bloud would bring great detriment to England Henry Huntindon thus relates the story of this Massacre In the year 1002. Emma the Jewel of the Normans came into England and received both the Diadem and name of a Queen with which match King Ethelred being puffed up with pride bringing forth perfidiousness caused all the Danes who were with peace in England to be slain by clandestine Treason on one and the same day to wit on the feast of St. Brice concerning which wickedness we have heard in our infancy some honest old men say that the said King sent secret Letters into every City according to which the English on the same day and hour destroyed all the Danes either cutting off their heads without giving them warning with swords or taking and burning them suddenly together with fire Vbi fuit videre miseriam dum quisque charissimos hospites quos etiam arctissima necessitudo dulcâ—ores effecerat cogeretur prodere et amplexus gladio deturbare writes Malmsbury The News of this bloudy Massacre of the Danes being brought into Denmark to King Swain by some Youths of the Danish Nation who escaped and fled out of England in a ship moved him to tears Vocatisque cunctis Regni Principibus Who calling all the Princes of his Realm together and relating the whole series of what was acted to them he diligently enquired of them what they would advise him to do Who all crying out together as with one mouth DECREED That the bloud of their Neighbours and Friends was to be revenged Whereupon Swain a cruel man prone to shed bloud animated to revenge by his Messengers and Letters commanded all the Warriers of his Kingdom and charged all the souldiers in forein Regions greedy of gain to assist him in this expedition against the English which they cheerfully did he having now a fairer shew to do foully than ever wrong having now made him a right of invasion who had none before Anno 1003. King Swain ariving with a great Navy and Army in England by the negligence and treachery of one Hugh a Norman whom Queen Emma had made Earl of Devonshire took and spoyled the City of Exeter rased the wall thereof to the ground and burnt the City to ashes returning with a great prey to his ships leaving nothing behind them but the ashes After which wasting the Province of Wiltshire a strong Army congregated out of Hamshire and Wiltshire went with a resolution manfully and constantly to fight with the Enemy but when both Armies were in view of each other ready to joyn battel Earl Edric their General a constant Traytor to his Country and secret friend to the Danes feigned himself to be very sick and began to vomit so that he could not possibly fight Where upon the Army seeing his slothfulness and fearfullness departed most sorrowfull from their Enemies without fighting being disheartned by the Cowardise of their Captain Which Swane perceiving he marched to Wilton and Sarisbery which he took pillaged and burnt to the ground returning with the spoil to his Ships in triumph The next year Swane to whom God had designed the kingdom of England as some old Historians write sailing with his Fleet to Norwich pillaged and burnt it to the ground Whereupon Ulfketel Duke of East-England 〈◊〉 man of great valour seeing himself surprized and wanting time to raise an Army to resist the Danes cum Majoribus East-Angliae habito Consilio taking Counsel with the Great men of East England made peace with Swane which he treacherously breaking within three weeks after suddenly issuing out of his ships surprized pillaged and burnt Thetford to the ground and covering the Country like Locusts spoyled all things and slaughtered the Country-men without resistance Which Duke Ulfketel being informed of commanded some of his Country-men to break his ships in pieces in his absence from them which they not dared or neglected to do and he in the mean time raising an Army with as much speed as he could boldly marched against the Enemy returning with great booties to their Ships where after a long and sharp incounter on both sides the English being over-powered by the multitude of the Danes were totally ronted and all the Nobles of east-East-England there slain in their Countries defence who fought so valiantly that the Danes confessed they had never an harder or sharper battel in England than this The great loss the Danes sustained in it though they got the field and an extraordinary famine in England the year following greater than any in the memory of man caused Swane to return into Denmark to refresh and recruit his Army King Ethelred quit of these Enemies Anno 1006 deprived Wulfgate the Son of Leonne whom he had loved more than all men of his possessions and all his homours propter injusta judicia for his unjust judgements and proud works and likewise commanded the eyes of the two Sons of that Arch-Traitor Edric Strcona to be put out at Cocham where he kept his Court because Edric had treacherously inticed a bloody Butcher Godwin Porthound whom he corrupted with great gifts to murder the Noble Duke Althelin at Scoborbyrig as he was hunting whom Edric purposely invited to a Feast that he might thus treacherously murder him While these things were acting in the month of July the Danes returning with an innumerable Navy into England landing at
Sandwich consumed all things with fire and sword taking great booties sometimes in Sussex sometimes in Kent Whereupon King Ethelred gathered a great Army out of Mercia and the West-parts of England resolving valiantly to fight with the Danes who declining any open fight and returning to their Ships landed sometimes in one place sometimes in another and so pillaging the Country returned with the booty to the Ships before the English Army could encounter them which they vexed all the Autumn in marching after them from place to place to no purpose The English Army returning home when Winteâ— began to approach the Danes with an extraordinary booty sayled to the Isle of Wight where they continued till the Feast of Christs Nativity which Feast they turned into sorrow For then they marching into Hampshire and Berkeshire pillaged and burnt down Reading Wallingford Colesey Essington and very many Villages Quocunque enim per agebant quae parata erant hilariter comedentes cum discederent in retributionem procurationis reddebant hospiti caedem hospitio flammam as Huntindon Bromton and others story As they were returning another way to their ships with their booty they found the Inhabitants ready to give them battel at Kenet whom the Danes presently fighting with and routing returned with triumph to their ships enriched with the new spoils of the routed English King Ethelred lying all this time in Shropshire unable to resist the Danes Anno 1007. cum Consilio Primatum suorum as Florentius Wigorniensis Simeon Dunelmensis Polychronicon and others express it by the Counsel of his Nobles sent Messengers to the Danes commanding them to tell them quod sumptus et Tributum illis dare vellent that they would give them Costs and Tribute upon this Condition That they should desist from rapines and hold a firm peace with them to which request they consented and from that time Costs were given them and a Tribute paid them of thirty six thousand pounds out of all England Henry Huntindon Bromton thus relate the business Rexet Senatus Anglorum dubii quid agerent quid omitterent communi deliberatione gravem conventioneÌ„ cum exercitu fecerunt ad pacis observationeÌ„ 36000 mil. librar ei dederunt A clear evidence that this Agreement and Peace was made and money granted and raised in England by common advice consent in Parliament or Council Infrenduit Anglia tota velut arundinem Zephiro vibrante collisum Unde Rex Ethelredus confusione magna consternatus pecunia pacem ad tempus quam armis non potuit adquisivit writes Matthew Westminster Rex Anglorum Ethelredus pro bono pacis Tributum 36 mil. librarum perselvit Dacis as Radulphus de Diceto words it After which the King this year made Edric aforementioned Duke of Mercia and that by the Providence of God to the destruction of the English a man of base parentage but extraordinary crafty eloquent witty and unconstant surpassing all of that age in envy persidiousness pride cruelty and Treason who soon after maried the Kings daughter Edith whereby he had the better opportunity to betray the King and kingdom with less suspition King Ethelred though often vexed with the wars and invasions of these forein Enemies yet he had a care to make good Laws for the benefit peace and safety of his people whereupon having thus made Peace with the Danes An. 1007. he summoned and held a Great Parliamentary Council at Aenham on the Feast of Easter at the exhortation of Aelfeag Archbishop of Canterbury and Wulstan Archbishop of Yorke who together with the rest of the Bishops and all the Nobles of England were present at it Regis Aethelredi Edicto concrepante acciti sunt convenire Where they all assembling together de catholicae cultu Religionis reparando deque etiam rei statu publicae reparando vel consulendo plura et non pauca utpote divinâ—â—us inspirati ratiocinando sermocinabantur In this Council they debated resolved on divers things and enacted many wholesom Laws and Edicts for the reformation and setling of Religion and Churchmen the advancement of Gods worship the Government of the Church and State the advancement of civil Justice and honesty and defence of the Realm by Land and Sea beginning with the things of God and the Church in the first place which you may read at large in Sir Henry Spelman Some Laws where of I shall here transcribe being very pertinent to my subject Cap. 5. Sapientes decernunt Ut Leges quique coram Deo et hominibus aequas statuant et tueantur iniquas autem omnino deleant justitiam pauperi atque diviti pari exhibentes lance et pacem insuper et concordiam piè in hoc seculo coram Deo et hominibus retinentes Cap. 6. Sapientes etiam decernunt Ut nemo Christianum et inâ—ontem pretio tradat extra patriam praesertim in Pagani alicujus servitium Cap 7. Sapientes etiam decernunt Ut pro delicto modico nemo Christianum morti adjudicet sed in misericordia potius Leges administret ad utilitatem populi et non pro modico eum perdat qui est opus manuum Dei et mercimonium ejus magno comparatum pretio De quolibet autem Crimine acuratius decernito sententiam praebens juxta factum mercedem juxta meritum ita scilicet ut secundum divinam clementiam levis sit poena et secundum humanam fragilitatem tolerabilis Cap. 9. Nemo dehinc in posterum Ecclesiae servitium imponat nec clientelam Ecclesiae injuriis afficiat nec Ministrum Ecclesiae ejiciat inconsulto Episcopo Cap. 21. Verba et opera rectè quisque disâ—onat et Jusjurandum pactamque fidem cautè teneat Omnem etiam Injustitiam è patriae finibus quâ poterit industriâ quisque ejiciat et perjuria formidanda Cap. 22. Urbium Oppidorum Arcium atque Pontium instauratio sedulo fiat prout opus fuerit restaurentur renoventur vallis et fossis muniantur et circumvallentur Militaris etiam et Navalis Profectio uti imperatum est ob universalem utique necessitatem Cap. 23. De Navali Expeditione sub Paschate Cavendum etiam est ut celerius post Paschatis festum Navalis expeditio Annuo sit parata Si quis Navem in Reipublicae expeditionem deâ—ignatum vitiaverit damnum integrè restituito et pacem Regis violatam compensato Si verò eam ita prorsus corruperit ut deinceps nihili habeatur plenam luito injuriam et laesam praeterea Majestatem So one translation out of the Saxon Copy reads it but another thus Naves per singulos annos ob patriae defensionem et munitionem praeparentur poâ—â—que sacrosanctum Paâ—cha cum cunctis ut enâ—libus competentibus simul congregentur Qua etiam poena digni sunt qui Navium detrimentum in aliquibus perficiunt notum cunctis esse cupimus Quicunque aliquam ex Navibus per quampiam inertiam
Necfuit tantus numerus Navium tempore alicujus in Britannia writes Henry Huntindon But yet God frustrated and blasted all their designs beyond expectation For about or a little before this time Brithtricus a slippery ambitious proud man brother to perfidious Duke Edric injuriously accused Wulnoth a Noble young man of Southsex to the King whose servant he was who thereupon banished him Wulnoth upon this fled away lest he should be apprehended and having gotten 20 Ships exercised frequent Piracies upon the Sea Coasts The Kings Navy being thereof informed and that any man who would might easily take him Brithtric hereupon to get praise to himself took 80 of the Kings Ships with him and promised to bring Wulnoth alive or dead to the King VVhen he had prosperously sailed a long time in pursute of him a most violent tempest suddenly arising shattered and bruised all the ships driving them one against another and forced them to run ashore upon the dry land with great loss where Wulnoth presently coming upon them fired and burnt them all The rest of the Navy discontented with this sad news returned to London The Army likewise then raised was dispersed Et sic omnis labor Anglorum cassatus est writes Huntindon or as Wigorniensis and others express it Sicque totius populi maximus labor periit to their great grief and disappointment Upon this disaster in the time of Harvest Earl Turkel a Dane arived with a great new Fleet of Danes and an innumerable Army at Sandwich whom another great Navy of Danes under the command of Hemmingus Erglafe Tenetland followed in the Moneth of August These all joyning together marched to Canterbury aslaulted made a breach therein and were likely to take it Whereupon the Citizens and Inhabitants of East-Kent were inforced to purchase a firm peace with them ar the sum of 3000 pounds which being paid they returning to their ships pillaged the Isle of Wight with the Counties of Sussex and Southampton near the Sea-Coasts burning the Villages and carrying away great booties thence King Ethelred upon this raised and collected a great Army out of all England placing forces in all Counties near the Sea to hinder the Danes landing and plundring Notwithstanding they desisted not but exercised rapines in all places where they could conveniently land At last when they had straggled further off from their Ships than they accustomed and thought to have returned laden with spoils the King with many thousands of Souldiers intercepting their passage resolved to die or to conquer them But perfidious Duke Edric by his treacherous and perplexed orations endeavored to perswade the King and Souldiers not then to give the Enemies battel but to suffer them to escape at that time Suasit persuasit And thus like a Traitor to his Country as he ever had been he then delivered the Danes out of the Englishmens hands and suffered them to depart with their booty without resistance The Danes after this taking up their VVinter quarters in the River of Thames maintained themselves with the spoils they took out of Essex Kent and other places on both sides of the River and oft times assaulting the City of London attempted to take it by assault but were still valiantly repulsed by the Citizens with great loss In Jan. 1010. the Danes sallying out of their Ships marched through Chiltern Forest to Oxford which they pillaged and burnt wasting the Country on both sides the Thames in their return Being then informed that there was a great Army raised and assembled against them in London ready to give them battel thereupon that part of the Danish Army on the North-side of the Thames passed the River at Stanes and there joyning with those on the South side marched in one body to their Ships through Surrey laden with spoils refreshing themselves in Kent all the Lent After Easter they went into the East parts of England marching to Ringmere near Ipswich where Duke Ulfketel resided On the first of May they fought a set battel with him where in the heat of the battel the East-English turned their backs on Turketel a Dane beginning the fight but the Cambridgeshire men fighting manfully for their Country and Liberty resisted the Danes a long time but at last being overpowred with multitudes they likewise sled Many Nobles and Officers of the King and an innumerable multitude of people were slain in the fight The Danes gaining the victory and thereby East-England turned all Horsemen and running through the Country for three Months space burnt Cambridge Thetford with all the Towns and Villages in those parts slew all the people they met with as well Women and Children as Men tossing their very Infants on the â—ops of their Pikes wasted pillaged all places killing the Cattel they could not eat and with an infinite rich booty their Footmen returned to their ships But their Horsemen marching to the River of Thames went first into Oxfordshireâ— and from thence into Buckingham Hertford and Bedford Shires burning Villages and killing both Men and beasts and wholly depopulated the Country then they retired laden with very great booties to their ships After this about the Feast of St. Andrew they rambled through Northamptonshire burning and wasting all the Country together with Northampton it self then marching Westward into Wiltshire they burnt pillaged depopulated the Country leaving all those Counties like a desolate Wilderness there being none to resist or encounter them after their great victory at Ringmere The Danes having thus wasted and depopulated east-East-England Essex Middlesex Hertford Buckhingham Oxford Cambridge Shires half Huntindonshire most of Northamptonshire Kent Surrey Sussex Southampton Wiltshire and Barkshire with Fire and Sword King Ethelred et Regni sui Magnates and the Nobles of his Realm thereupon sent Ambassadors to the Danes desiring peace from them and promising them Wages and Tribute so as they would desist from depopulating the Realm Which they upon hearing the Embassadors consented to yet not without fraud and dissimulation as the Event proved For although provisions and expences were plentifully provided for them and Tribute paid them by the English according to their desires yer they desisted not from their rapines but marched in Troops through the Provinces wasting the Villages every where spoiling most of the miserable people of their goods and some of their lives At last not satisfied with rapine and bloodshed between the Feasts of St. Mary and St. Michael they besieged Canterbury contrary to their dear bought peace and by the treachery of Archdeacon Almear took the City which they pillaged and burnt to the ground together with the Churches therein burning some of the Citizens in the fire slaying others of them casting many of them headlong over the Walls dragging the VVomen by the hair about the streets and ravishing and murdering them After which they decimated the Men VVomen Monks and little Children that remained leaving only the tenth of them alive and murdering the rest slaying no
postea slammis tradita sunt Abbas cum majore parte conventus sui assumptis secum sacris reliquiis sanctarum Virginum Kineburgae Kineswithae ac Tibbae Thorniam adiit Prior autem cum nonnullis fratribus assumpto secum brachio sancti Oswaldi regis ad insulam de Hely aufugit Subprior vero cum 10. fratribus ad Croylandiam venit faelicitèr Illo anno ex frequentibus fluviis inundationes excreverunt et vicinas paludes circumque jacentes mariscos immeabiles reddebant Ideo totus mundus advenit populus infinitus affluxit Chorus et claustrum replebantur Monachis caetera Ecclesia sacerdotibus et clericis Abbatia tota laicis caemeteriumque nocte ac die sub tentoriis mulieribus et pueris fortiores quicunque inter eos ac juvenes in ulnis et alnetis ora fluminum observabant erantque tunc quotidie ut caetera onera taceantur 100 Monachi in mensa Super haec omnia per nuncium Rex Swanus Monasterio Croylandiae mille Marcas imposuit et â—ub poena combustionis totius Monasterii solutionem dictae pecuniae certo die apud Lincoln assignavit infraque tertium mensem post solutionem hujus pecuniae iterum pro victualibus suo exercitui providendis exactores nequissimi mille Marcas minis maximis extorquebant Ventilatum est tunc et ubique vulgatum crudele martyrium S. Elphegi Archiepiscopi Doroberniae qui quia summam pecuniâ— excessivam sibi impositam pro sua redemptione solvere detrectavit belluina Dacorum ferocitas eum acerbissimo tormento crudeliter interemit Omnes fera tempora flebant foelices qui quocunque modo in fata processerant Abbas Godricus maximè cui cura tanti populi incumbebat et quem Rex Ethelredus cumulos argenti habere existimabat Daniens vero Swanus sunsque totus exercitus ei tanquam Domino de manibus eorum refugientium juges insidias et minas semper maximas ingerebat Demum expensis internis et exactionibus externis totus thesaurus Domini Turketuli Abbatis distractus est horrea â—mborum Egelrâ—corum â—â—m lita sunt cum adhuc Regii exactores pro pecuniis quotidie irruerent Et eum tanquam patriae proditorem et Danorum provisorem regi in proximo cum dignis compedibus deducendum et suppliciis tradendum pro suis demeritis affirmarent Perculsus ergo venerabilis Pater Abbas Godricus dolore cordis intrinsecus pro tot minis terribilibus convocat totum suum conventum et nuncians nummos Monasterio deficere orat et exorat quatenus doceant et decernant in medio quid contra nequam seculum magis expediat faciendum Tandem longo tractatu placet haec sententia cunctis aliquem Ministrorum seu satellitum Edrici Ducis Merciorum conducere et cum pecuniae deficerenâ— terris et tenementis ad terminum vitae concedendis in suum defensorem contra imminentia pericula obligare Erat enim ille Edricus potentissimus post regem in terra et cum rege Ethelredo et cum Swano rege Danorum familiarissimus et postea cum Cnuto filio suo Conductus est ergo quidam maximus satellitum dicti Ducis Edrici nomine Normannus sanguine summe clarus filius videlicet Comitis Lefwini et Frater Leofrici nobilis Comitis Leicestriae dato sibi prout postulabat manerio de Badby ad terminum 100. annorum Ille dictum manerium acceptans tenere de Sancto Guthlaco per firmam in grano piperis per annum in festo S. Bartholomaei singulis annis persolvendo fideliter promittebat et se futurum procuratorem ac protectorem Monasterii contra omnes adversarios confecto inde chirographo obligabat Valuit illud Monasterio aliquanto tempore scilicet omnibus diebus vitae suae By which passages it is apparent what Taxes exactions predures the Monasteries and others suffered both from King Ethelred his Captains and Officers on the one side and from the Danes on the other side and how they were enforced to hire and bribe great Souldiers and Courtiers by leases and monies to protect them from utter ruine John Speed affirms That the Clergy as backward as any denied to King Ethelred their assistance pleading their exemptions from warr and privileges of the Church when the land lay bleeding and deploring for help and scandalized all his other proceedings for demanding their aydes But this passage of Abbot Ingulphus so near that age out of the Register Books of Croyland whereof he was Abbot not long after proves they paid great annual contributions to the King and his Officers which consumed all their money plate Jewels Chalices and the very shrines of their Saints notwithstanding all Charters and exemptions And as for the Laity William of Malmsbury Radulphus Cistrensis Mr. Fox and others write That King Ethelred had such a condition that he would lightly dis-inherit Englishmen of their lands and possessions and caused them to redeem the same with great sums of money and that he gave himself to polling of his Subjects and framed Trespasses for to gain their money and goods for that he paid great Tribute to the Danes yearly Whereby he lost the affections of the people who at last deserted him and submitted themselves to the Danish Invaders who usurped the Soveraign power and forced him out of England with his Queen and Children These Unrighteous Oppressions Dis-inherisons and Exactions of his were specially provided against by his Nobles Prelates and VVisemen in the Councils of Aenham and Habam forecited by special Laws and special excellent Prayers and Humiliations prescribed to be made to God to protect them from his judgements and the invading oppressing bloody Danes worthy perusal yet pretended necessities and VVar laid all those Laws asleep In the year of Christ 1013. the very next after the Englishmens dearest purchased Peace which the perfidious gold-thirsty Danes never really intended to observe King Swain by the secret instigation of Turkel the Dane whom King Ethelred unadvisedly hired to guard him with his Danish shiâ—s from forein Invasions who sent him this Message Angliam praeclaram esse patriam opimam sed Regem stertere illum Venere Vino que studentem nihil minus quà m bellum cogitare Quapropter odiosum suis ridiculum alienis Duces invidos Provinciales infirmos primo stridore Lituorum proelio cessuros arrived at Sandwich with a great Fleet and Army of Danes in the Moneth of July where resting themselves a few days he failed round the East part of England to the mouth of Humber and from thence into the River of Trent to Gainsborough where he quitted his ships intending to wasâ—e the Country Hereupon first of all Earl Uhtred the Northumbriaâ—s with those of Lindesey presently without delay and after them the Freelingers with all the people in the Northern parts of Watling street having no man to defend them yeelded themselves up to Swain without striking one stroke
the name of the English Nation brought almost to the last period for we are overcome not by weapons and hostile warr but by Treason and domestick falshood our Navy betrayed into the Danes hands our battel weakned by the revolt of our Captains our designs betrayed to them by our own Counsellers and they also inforcing composition of dishonourable Peace I my self disesteemed and in scorn termed Ethelred the unready Your valour and loyalty betrayed by your own Leaders and all our poverty yearly augmented by the payment of their Danegelt which how to redress God only knoweth and we are to seek For if we pay money for peace and that confirmed by Oath these Enemies soon break it as a people that neither regard God nor man contrary to equity and the Laws of War and of Nations and so fâ—r off is all hope of better success as we have cause to fear the losse of our kingdom you the extinction of the English Nations revenue Therefore seeing our enemies are at hand and their hands at our throats let us by fore-sight and counsel save our own lives or else by courage sheath our swords in their bowels either of which I am willing to enter into to secure our Estate and Nation from an irrecoverable Ruine After which Speech he and his Army retreated and gave way to the prevailing Enemy Swain herepon setling all things according to his own will when as he knew that no man durst resist him commanded himself to be called King of England Dum non fuit alius qui pro sure regni decertare vel se regem confiteri ausus fuisset as Matt. Westminster and others write Such a strange fear and stupidity was then fallen upon Ethelred and the whole English Nation After this Ethelred privily departed from London to Hampton and from thence to the Isle of Weight as afore said where advising with the Abbots and Bishops there assembled in Council what course was best to steer he spake thus unto them the History whereof I shall fully relate in William of Malmesbury his words Ibi Abbates et Episcopos Qui nec in tali necessitate Dominum suum deserendum putarent in hanc convenit sententiam Viderent quam in angusto res essent suae et suorum se perfidia Ducum avito extorrem solâ—o et opis egentem alienae in cujus manu aliorum â—olebat salus pendere quondam Monarcham et Potentem modo miserum et exulem dolendum sibi hanc commutationem quia facilius toleres oâ—es non habuisse quam habitas amisisse Pudendam Anglis eo magis quod deserti Ducis exemplum processurum sit in orbem terrarum Iâ—os amore sui sine sumptibus voluntariam subeuntes sugam domos et facultates suas praedonibus exposuisse in arcto esse victum omnibus vestitum deesse pluribus probare se fidem illorum sed non reperire salutem adeo jam subjugata terra observari littora ut nusquam sine periculo sit exitus Quapropter considerent in medium quid censerent faciendum Si maneant plus a Civibus cavendum quam ab Hostibus forsitan enim crucibus suis novi domini gratiam mercarentur et cer◠è occidi ab hoste titulatur fortunae prodi a Cive addicetur Ignaviae Si ad exteras gentes fugiâ—ne gloriae fore dispendium si ad notas metuendum ne cum fortuna colerent animum Plaerosque enim probos et illustres viros hac occasione caesos experiendum tamen sortem et tentandum pectus Richardi Ducis Normannorum qui si Sororem et Nepotes non ingrato animo susceperit se quoque non aspernanter protecturum Vadabitur enim mihi meam salutem conjugi et liberis impensus favor Quod si ille adversum pedem contulerit non deerit mihi animus planè non deerit hic gloriosè occumbere quà m illic ignominiosè vivere Hereupon he sends Emma his Queen and her children in the moneth of August into Normandy accompanied with the Bishop of Durham and Abbot of Burgh where they are joyfully received by Duke Richard who invites Ethelred himself to honour his Court with his presence who thereupon in January following passeth over into Normandy and there solaceth his miseries with the curteous entertainment he there found King Swane in the mean time provokes invaded England with ruines and slaughters playes the absolute Tyrant commands Provisions to be abundantly provided for his Army and Navy et Tributum fere importabile solvi praecepit and likewise commanded an insupportable Tribute to be paid And the like in all things Earl Turkell the Dane commanded to be paid to his Navy lying at Greenwich hired by King Ethelred to defend the English from Foreiners yet both of them as often as they pleased preyed upon and pillaged the Country besides first polling the inhabitants of their goods and then banishing them Provincialium substantiae prius abreptae mox proscriptiones factae In this sad oppressed condition under their New Soveraign to whom they had submitted themselves both Nobles and people knew not what to doâ—… Haesitabatur totis urbibus quid fieret si pararetur rebellio assertorem non haberent si eligeretur subjectio placido rectore carerent Ita privatae et publicae opes ad naves cum obsidibus deportabantur Quo evidenter apparet Swanum naturalem et legitimum non esse Dominum sed atrocissimum Tyrannum as Malmesbury Matthew Westminster and others record But God who is propitious to people in their greatest extremities suffered not England to lye long fluctuating in so many calamities For this barbarous Tyrant Swâ—ne after innumerable evils and cruelties perpetrated in England and elsewhere added this to the heap of his further damnation that he Exacted a great Tribute out of the Town of St. Edmondsbury Anno 1014. which none ever before presumed to doe since it was given to the Church wherein the body of the precious Martyr St. Edmond lieth intombed all the lands thereof being exempted from Tributes Beginning to vex the possessions of the Church and threatning to burn the Town and destroy all the Monks unless they speedily paid him the Tribute he exacted and using reproachfull speeches against St. Edmond as having no holiness in him he was suddenly struck dead and ended his life on the Feast of the Purification of the blessed Virgin Anno 1014. Our Monkish Historians record That on the Evening of the day whereon he held a general Court at Geâ—gnosburgh â—eiterating his menaces against the Town and ready to put them in execution for not paying the Tribute demanded he saw St. Edmond comming alone armed against him whiles he was invironed in the midst of his Danish Troops whereupon he presently cried out with great affright and a lowd voice Help O fellow Souldiers help behold St. Edmond comes to slay me and whiles he was thus speaking being grievously wounded with a spear by the
Saint he fell off from his horse and continued in great torment till night and so ended his life with a miserable death Swane being deâ—d the whole Navy and Nation of the Danes Elected and made â—…te his son their King and Lord 〈…〉 Majores Natu totius Angliae The Nobles and Senators of all England liking nothing â—eâ—s than bondages especially under such new tyrannizing forein Intrâ—… thinking it now or never the time to shake ofâ— their new yoak pronounced their Natural Lord to be dearer to them than any Foreiner Si regalius se quam consuâ—verat ageret Whereupon with unanimous consent and great joy and speed they sent messengers â—…o Normandy to Ethelred to inform him Nullum eo libentius se in Regem recepturos si ipse vel rectius gubernare vel mitius eos tractare vellet quam prius tractaverat and to hasten his return unto them Who thereupon presently sent over his son Edward qui fidem Principum favoremque vulgi praesens specularetur who together with his Embassadors assured both the Nobles and Commons of the English Nation That he would for time to come be their mild and devout Lord consent to their wills in all things acquiesce in their Counsels and if he had offended in any kinde he would reform it according as they should think fit and with a ready mind pardon whatsoever had been contemptuously or disgracefully spoken or acted by them against him or his if they would all unanimously receive him again as their King into the Kingdom To which they all gave a favourable and satisfactory answer Whereupon a plenary reconciliation was ratified between them on both sides both by words and compact Moreover The Nobles unanimously and fréely agreed and voted That they would never more admit a Danish King into England to reign over them These things concluded King Ethelred speedily returns into England where he was honourably and joyfully received by the English And that he might seem to cast off his former sloathfulness he hastned to raise an Army against Cnute who remaining with his Navy in Lindesey made an agreement with the inhabitants exacting men and horses from them that he might surprise Ethelred at unawares and threatning grievously to punish all such as revolted from him But Cnute being taken in his own craft Ethelred marching thither with a strong army before he was provided to receive him fled from thence with his Hostages Army and Navy to Sandwich whereupon Ethelred depopulated all Lindesey wasting the Country with fire and sword slaying all the Inhabitants as Traitors to him and their Native Country Cnute by way of revenge humano et divino Jure contempto in insontes grassatus cuts off the hands and ears and â—â—its the Noses of all the most Noble and beautiful Hostages throughout England given to his father and so dismissing them sailed into Denmark to settle his affairs and augment his sorces resolving to return the year following After his departure King Ethelred this very year Super haec omnia mala Classi quae apud Greenwic â—acuiâ— Tributum quod erat 30. millia librarum pendi mandavit to wit to the Fleet under Turkell the Dane who instead of defending did but help to pillage and oppress the English Huntindon writes it was but 21 thousand pounds and Bromton avers that it was Cnute not Ethelred who commanded it to be paid to his Navy Soon after which the Sea rising higher than it was accustomed drowned an innumerable Company of Villages people and cartel After Cnutes departure King Ethelred summoned a Parliamentary Council at Oxford Anno 1015 both of the Danes and English Malmsbury expressly stiles it MAGNUM CONCILIUM Wigorniensis Hoveden Sim. Dunelmensis MAGNUM PLACITUM Matthew Westminster and others MAGNUM COLLOQUIUM our later English Historians a Great Council and Parliament The King by the ill advise of that Arch Traytor Duke Edric at this Great Council commanded some Nobles of the Danes to be sodenly and secretly slain quasi de Regia proditione notatos ac persidiae apud se insimulatos the chiefest of them were Sygeforth and Morcar whom Edric treacherously invited to his chamber and there making them drunk caused his armed guards there placed secretly to murder them which they did Hereupon their Servants endeavouring to revenge their Lords deaths being digniores et potentiores ex Seovengensibus they were repulsed with arms and forced to slye into the Tower of St. Frideswides Church for safety whence when they could not be forcibly expelled they were all there burnt together The King presently seised upon their lands and goods the chief cause of their murder as some conceived and sent the relict of Sygeforth a very Noble beautifull and vertuous Lady prisoner to Malmsbury whither Edmond the Kings base Son as some affirm posted without his fathers privity and being enamored with her beauty first carnally abused then afterward maried her and by her advice forcibly invaded and seised upon the Lands of her husband and Morcar which were very great and the Earldom of Northumberland which his father denied him upon his request Whereupon all the Inhabitants of that County readily submitted to him Whiles these things were acting d Cnute having setled his affairs in Denmark and made a League with his neighbour Kings recruired his Army and Navy and returned into England with a resolution either to win it or to lose his life in the attempt Ariving first at Sandwich and sailing thence to the West he pillaged Dorsetshire Somersetshire and Wiltshire filling all places with slaughters and plunders King Ethelred lying then sick at Cosham his son Edmond Ironside and Duke Edric raised an Army against Cnute but when both their forces were united to fight him the old persidious Traytor Edric endeavoured by all means to betray Edmond to the Danes or treacherously to slay him which being discovered to Edmond thereupon they severed their forces from each other and gave place to the Enemies without giving them battel Not long after Edric inticing to him 40 of the Kings ships furnished with Danish Mariners and Souldiers openly revolted and went with them to Cnute subjecting himself to his dominion as his Soveraign by whose example all West-Sex submitted to him as their Kiâ—g delivering him hostages for their fidelity resigning up all their arms to him and providing both horse and arms for his Danish Army The Mercians offred themselves alone to resist the Danes but through the Kings sloathfulness the business of war received delay and the enemies proceeded in their rapines without opposition In the year 1016. King Cnute and treacherous Duke Edric came with 200 sail of ships into the river of Thames whence they marched by land with a great Army of horse and foot and invaded Mercia in an hostile manner burning all the Towns and Villages and slaying all the men they met with in Warwickshire and other places whereupon King Ethelred as
after a bloudy and cruel encounter he put Cnute and his Army to slight and slew many of them Not long after they recruiting their forces both Armies meeting at Steorstan King Edmond resolving there to give Cnute battel placed the most expert and valiantest of his Souldiers in the front and the rest of the English who came flocking in to him he kept for a reserve in the rear Then calling upon every of them by name he exhorted and informed them That they now fought for their Country for their Children for their Wives for their Houses and Liberties inflaming the minds of his Souldiers with his excellent Speeches in this battel with the Enemy he exercised the Offices of a valiant Soldier and good General charging very couragiously But because that most persidious Duke Edric Almar and Algar and others of the great men who ought to have assisted him with the Inhabitants of Southampton VViltshire and innumetable other English joyned with the Danes the battel continued all day from morning to night with equal fortune till both sides being tired out and many of each party slain the night constrained them to march one from another But their bloud not being cold the next day they buckled together again with no less courage than before till at last in the very heat of the battel the most perfidious Duke Edric perceiving the Danes like to be totally routed and the English in great forwardness of victory cut off the head of a Souldier named Osmeranus very like to King Edmund both in hair and countenance and shaking his bloody sword with the half gasping head in his hand which he lifted up on high cryed out to the English Army O ye Dorsetshire men Devonshire men and other English flee and get away for your head is lost behold here is the head of your King Edmund which I hold in my hand therefore hasten hence with all speed and save your lives Which when the English heard and saw they were more affrighted with the atrocity of the thing than with the belief of the Speaker whereupon all the more unconstant of the Army were ready to fly away But Edmond having present notice of this treacherous stratagem and seeing his men ready to give over the fighr hasted where he might be best seen and posting from rank to rank encouraged them to fight like Englishmen who thereupon resuming their courage charged the Danes more fiercely than before and bending their force against the Traytor had shot him to death but that he retreated presently to the Enemy the English reviving and manfully continuing the battel again till the darkness of the night caused both Armies voluntarily to retreat from each other into their Tents When much of the night was spent Cnute commanded his men in great silence to break up their Camp and marched to his Ships and soon after whiles King Edmond was recruiting his Army in West-Sex besieged London again whereupon Edmond marching to London with a select company of Souldiers chased Cnute and his Army to their ships removed the siege and entred the City in manner of Triumph Cnute and Edric perceiving the valour and good success of Edmond conspired together to overcome him by Treason whom they could not vanquish by Armes for which end Edric before King Edmonds march to London as some or soon after as others relate feignedly revolted from Cnute and submitted himself again to Edmond as his natural Lord and renewing his peace with him fraudently swore that he would continue faithfull to him only that he might betray him Edmond two days after he had chased the Danes from the siege of London pursuing his victory passed over the Thames at Brentford where though many of the English were drowned in passing over the River through their carelesness yet he there fought with the Danes the fourth or tather fifth time routed them and won the field After which Edmond by the advice of Edric marched again into West-Sex to raise a more numerous Army to supply those who were drowned and slain in this last battel Upon which advantage the Danes again returned to the siege at London invironing and fiercely assaulting it on every side but being valiantly repulsed by the Citizens they retired from thence to their ships and sailed into the River of Arewe where leaping out of their ships they went about pillaging in Mercia killing all they met and burning the Villages returning to their ships with a great booty Another company of their foot sailing up the River of Meadway pillaged Kent their Horse marching thither by Land to meet them doing the like wasting all places with fire and sword King Edmond having in the mean time raised a strong Army out of all England passed over with them again at Brentford to fight the Danes and giving them battel near Oteford routed the whole Danish Army not able to endure his fierce charge and pursued them as far as Ilesford slaying many thousands of them in the pursute and had he followed the pursute futther it was conceived that day had put an end to the war and Danes for ever But perfidious Duke Edric by his most wicked Counsel the worst ever given in England caused him to give over the chace Whereupon the flying Danes escaped into the Isle of Shepy Edmond returning into VVest-Sex to observe Cnutes motion he thereupon transported his forces into Kent who began to plunder and wast Mercia far worse than ever they had done before VVhereupon King Edmond marching with his Army against them gave them battel the sixt time at Esesdune or Assendune now Ashdune in Essex where after a long and bloody fight with equall valour and great loss on both sides King Edmond seeing the Danes to fight more valiantly than ever before leaving his place which usually was between the Dragon and Standard ran into the very front of the battel and breaking in like thunder upon the Enemy brake their ranks pierced into the very midst of them and made way for others to follow him forcing the Danes to give back VVhich the ever traiterous Edric perceiving fled with the whole Squadron of Souldiers which he commanded unto Cnute as was formerly agreed between them whereupon the Danes becoming the stronger made an extraordinary slaughter of the English as Matthew VVestminster and his followers story Henry Huntindon relates That Edric seeing the Danes going to ruine cryed out to the English Army Fly O Englishmen fly Englishmen for Edmond is dead being not seen in his wonted place and crying out thus he and his Brigade first began the flight whereupon the whole Army of the English following them fled likewise VVigorniensis informs us that King Edmond before this battel riding about to every Company admonished and commanded them that being mindfull of their pristine valour and victory they should defend themselves and the Realm from the avarice of the Danes being now to fight with those they had formerly conquered That perfidious Duke Edric seeing the
before the Realm of England but the whole world it self Denmark hath yielded to me Norwey hath subjected it self to me the King of Swedes hath given me his hand and thy admirable Valour hath more than once fructrated the force of my assaults which I believed no mortal man could have been able to sustain Wherefore although fortune hath promised that I should be every where a Conquerer yet thy admirable valour hath so allured me to favour that I above measure desire thee both for a friend and consort of my kingdome would to God that thou also maist be as desirous of me that I may reign with thee in England and thou maist reign with me in Denmark Truly if thy valour shall be united to my fortune Norway will fear and Sweden will quake France it self accustomed to warrs will tremble In brief Edmond and Cnute both consent to divide the Kingdom Edmond yielding to words who had not yielded to swords being overcome with this Oration who could not be overcome with arms whereupon laying aside their arms they run and mutually imbrace and kiss each other both Armies rejoycing and the Clergy singing Te Deum laudamus with a lowd voice Afterwards in testimony of Agreement they change clothes and Arms with each other and returning to their Armies prescribed the manner of the Agreement and Peace Wigorniensis Simeon Dunelmensis and Roger Hoveden add that they ratified the agreement with Oaths TRIBUTOQUE QUOD CLASSICAE MANVI PENDERETUR STATUTO and appointed a Tribute which should be paid to the Sea forces and then departed from each other The Daâ—es returned with the great booty they had gotten to their ships with whom the Citizens of London having made a peace DATO PRECIO which they paid a prâ—ce for they permitted them there to winter The Realm was divided between them both but the Crown remained to Edmond with the City of London Essex East-England and all the Land on the Southside the River of Thames and Cnute enjoyed the North parts of England by mutual consent and agreement of all the Nobles and so this bloudy warr between them after 7. or 8. battels within so many moneths space ceased Soon after this fatal Agreement and partition of the Realm which made Edmond but half a King and England half Denmark that ever trayterous Duke Edric to ingratiate himself the more with Cnute treacherously murdered King Edmond at Oxford of which there are 3. different relations in our Historians Some say that he corrupted the Kings Chamberlains with gifts to murder him in his bed and that King Cnute in the first year of his Coronation caused all of them who had conspired his death by Edric's exhortation to come before him where they declared to the King the Treason they had committed against King Edmond expecting a large reward for it Whereupon the King sent for the Great Men and Nobles of the Realm and made the Traitors to acknowledge their Treason before them and a great assembly of people fearing lest otherwise it should be believed that he had foreplotted the Treason aforesaid and suborned them to execute it After their publick confession thereof he caused them all to be first drawn and then hanged for it l Others write that Edric himself or his Son by his command murdered him at Oxford on St. Andrews night as he was easing nature in an house of Office stabbing him into the bowels with a two-edged knife through the hole of the privy in which one of them lay in wait to murder him leaving the knife sticking in his bowels and him dead in the place And some write that he placed an Image in his Chamber with a bow and arrow ready bent which Edmond admiring at touching the spring which held the bow thus bent the arrow thereupon pierced slew him in the place That before his death was known Edric went to Edmonds wife and taking away her two young Sons from her brought and delivered them to Cnute and then saluted him saying GOD SAVE THEE SOLE KING OF ENGLAND Whereupon Cnute demanding Why he saluted him in this manner He then informed him of King Edmonds death and how he had murdered him of purpose to make him sole King of England Speed adds That he cut off his Soveraigns head presenting it to Cnute with these fawning salutations All hail thou sole Monarch of England for here behold the head of thy Copartner which for thy sake I have adventured to cut off which no antient Historian mentions Upon this Cnute though ambitious enough in Soveraignty yet out of a Princely disposition sore grieved at such a disloyal treacherous act presently replyed to him I for reward of so great and meritorious a service done for me will â—this day advance thee above all the Nobles of the Realm After which he caused his head to be cut off then fixed on an high poll and placed on the highest Tower of London for the birds to prey upon Others more agreeable to the truth relate That Cnute in the first year of his reign depriving this Arch-Traitor Edric of the Dukedom of Mercia which he had many years enjoyed thereupon Edric in the feast of Christs Nativity repaired to Cnute at his Palace in London to expostulate with him about it where checking the King over-harshly he upbraided him with the many benefits he had received from him amongst which he mentioned two wherewith he specially provoked him to anger saying Most dear King you ought not to speak harshly to me nor suffer any evil to be done unto me for you had never enjoyed the Realm of England but by my means For out of love to thee I have first betrayed King Ethelred after that I deserted Edmond my proper and natural Lord and afterwards I foreplotted his death and murdered my just and true liege Lord out of my fidelity towards thee to bring the whole kingdom unto thee and dost thou so lightly vilify so great love conferred on thee for which I never received any benefit or profit from thee At which speeches Cnute changing his countenance expressing his fury by its redness presently pronounced this sentence against him saying And thou shalt deservedly die thou most perfidious Traitor seeing by thy own confession thou art guilty of Treason both against God and me who hast slain thine own Soveraign and natural King and my dear confederate Brother His bloud be upon thy head because thou hast stretched out thy hand against the Lords anointed And lest a tumult should be raised among the people he commanded him to be there presently strangled in his palace and his body to be cast through a window into the river of Thames to be devoured of the fishes as some or hanged upon London walls unburied to be devoured by birds as others story At which time Duke Norman son of Duke Leofwin Captain of Edrics guard Aethelward son of Duke Agelmar and Brihtricus son of Alphege Earl of Devonshire
they should receive great rewards from him for the same After their answers to those Interrogatories to ingratiate themselves further with Cnute though they were sworn before to Edmond and his Heirs and were Native Englishmen yet they there all took a solemn Oath of Allegiance to Cnute swearing to him That they would and did chuse him for their King humbly obey him et Exercitui Vectigalia dare and would give Tributes to his Army And having received a pledge from Cnutes naked hands with Oathes from the Princes and Nobles of the Danes Cnute reciprocal Oaths from them and all the people they ratified a mutual Covenant and League of Peace with reciprocal Oaths between both Nations reconciling and abandoning all publick enmities between them They likewise swore that they would cast off banish and wholly reject King Edmonds Brothers Sons and Family In pursuance whereof they there presently Fratres et filios Edmondi Regis omnino despexerunt eosque Reges esse negaverunt unum autem ex ipsis praedictis Clitonibus Edwinum egregium et rever endissimum Edmundi Regis germanum Ividem cum consilio pessimo exulem esse debere coustituerunt as Roger de Hoveden Abbot Ethelred Wigorniensis and others at large record the Story The discord treacherous falshood disloyal proceedings of the English Nation then towards one another the English royal line is thus elegantly set forth by Abbot Ailred a lively Character of our age Externisque malis accessit civilis discordia adeò ut quis cui crederet quis cui mentis suae secreta committeret nesciretur Plena erat proditoribus Insula nusquam tuta fides nusquam sine suspitione amor Sermo sine simulatione Tandem eousque Proditio Civilis et astutia Processit hostilis ut defuncto Rege Magna pars Insnlae legitimis abdicatis haeredibus Cnutoni qui Regnum invaserat manus darent peremptoque invictissimo Rege Edmundo paterni honoris simul et laboris haerede etiam Filios ejus adhuc in cunis agences barbaris mitterent occidendos King Cnute hearing this their palpable flattery and contemptuous rejection of Edwin and the Saxon regal Line went joyfully into his Chamber and calling perfidious Duke Edric to him demanded of him how he might deceive Prince Edwin so as to have him murthered Who thereupon informed him how and by whom his murder might be accomplished by promised rewards of money and preferments which was accordingly effected soon after by Cnutes procurement and command This Edric likewise perswaded Cnute to slay Prince Edward and Edmond King Edmonds sons Whereupon Statuit Cnuto mirabiliter in animo suo omne genus Gentis Regni Anglorum perdere vel exilio perenni eliminare ut regnum Angliae filiis suis jure haereditario reservare curaret writes Matthew Westminster p. 402. But because it might seem a great disgrace to him to murder these infant Princes in England he afterwards sent them over Sea to King Swane to slay them in Denmark who abhorring the fact instead thereof sent them to Solomon King of Hungary to be preserved and educated Cnute having thus through the flattery perjury and treachery of the English Prelates and Nobles gained the intire Monarchy of England slew or banished all those perfidious English Sycophants temporizers who had the chiefest hand in this false testimony abjuration treacherous bloudy advice against the Saxon Royal Family â—…hose Counsel he slew or banishea all the blood-royal of the Realm of England that so he might Iure Haereditario reserve and perpetuate the kingdom to his own Posterity by an hereditary right Duke Edric the principal of them for this and his other Treasons forementioned was deprived of his Dukedom of Mercia and exemplarily executed as a most perfidious Traytor by Cnutes command the first year of his reign and many of his Captains and followers were slain with him of which at large before Mortem Proditoris pro demeritis accepit laqueo suspensus et in Tamesin fluvium projectus Cum quo plurimis sattellitum suorum similiter occisis etiam inter eos praecipuus et primus Normannus occisus est writes Abbot Ingulphus Turkell Duke of East-England and Hire Duke of Northumberland were both banished the Realm Duke Norman and Bridric slain an a heavy Tax of 82 Thousand pounds besides 10000 pounds imposed on London alone imposed and levied on the whole Nation Quoniam igiâ—… proprii sanguinis proditores adulantes Regimentiâ—◠〈…〉 in capâ—… in cor 〈…〉 et à Câ—â—the quem naturalibus Dominis praetulerunt confracture 〈…〉 Omnes qui primi in illo fuere consilio exterminavit et 〈…〉 vel regno repulit vel occidit as Abbot Eâ—â—elred recoâ—â—s to poâ—…ty so which Henry Huntindon and Henry de Knyghton subjovn Posteà vero Rex justo Dei judicio dignam retributionem nequitiae Anglis reddidit Ipse namque â—â—x Cnute Edâ—…m occidit quia timebat ab insidiâ—s ab co aliquando circumveniri sicut Domini sui priores Ethelredus Edmondus frequenter sunt circumventi quorum diutina proditione alterum vexavit alterum interfecit add Florentius Wigornionsis Simeon Dunelmensis Roger de Hoveden and Radulphus de Diceto Turkellum exulavit Hirc fugere compulit Praeterea summos Procerum aggressus Normannum Ducem interfecit Edwi Adeling exterminavit Adelwoldum detruncavit Edwi Churleging exulavit Birdric ferro vita privavit Aethelwardus filius Agelmari Ducis et Brihtricus filius Alphegi Domnaniensis Satrapae sine culpa interfecti sunt Fecit quoque per Angliam mirabilem Censum reddi scilicet 82. some write 72. mille librarum praeter undecies mille libri quas Londinensis reddiderunt Dignum igitur exactorem Dominus Iustus Anglis imposuit for rejecting their own Hereditary Soveraign Line Radulphus Cestrensis englished by Trevisa Fabian and Grafton thus second them Also they swore that they would in all wise put off Edmonds kinn They trowed thereby to be great with the King afterward but it fared farr otherwise For many or the more part of them specially such as Canutus perceived were sworn before to Edmond and his heirs he mistrusted and disdained ever after Therefore some of them were slain by Gods rightfull dome and some banished and exiled and put out of the Land and some by Gods punishment died suddenly and came to a miserable end which other of our Historians likewise register I shall desire all such who are guilty of the like Treachery Flattery Practice or Advice against their lawfull Sovereigns royal Posterity advisedly to ponder this sad domestick President in their most retired Meditations for fear they incur the like divine retaliation by Gods rightful doom when and by whom they least suspect or fear it King Cnute thus quit of all King Edmonds Sons Brethren kinred and likewise of the greatest English Dukes and Nobles who might endanger his Life Crown and new-acquired Monarchy in the next place
contrived how to secure his Empire against Prince Alfred and Edward Edmonds Brothers then in Normandy with Queen Emma their Mother and their Uncle Richard Duke of Normandy a person of great valour power and interest the only person likely to attempt their restitution to the kingdom and Crown of England For which end he by gifts Ambassies and fair promises procures Earl Richards consent to bestow his Sister Queen Emma upon him for his wife who ariving in England in July 1018. was presently maried to this Invader of her former Husbands kingdom his sons royal throne and murderer banisher dishinheriter of his and her royal Posterity whereby her Brother Duke Richards thoughts were wholly diverted from ayding his Nephews to recover their right in England Ex hinc cum Câ—utoni omnia pro voto cessissent timens Ne Haeres legitimus Regnum quod sibi de Iure debebatur aliquando Normanica fretus virâ—ut Reposceret 〈◊〉 Ducâ—s sibi arctius colligaret affectum Emmam defuncti Regis relictam duxit uxorem Whereupon De illorum Elfredi Edwardi restitutione RicharduÌ„ avunculum nihil egisse comperimus quia et sororem suam Emmam hosti et invasori nuptam collocavit Ignores majori illius dedecore qui dederit an foeminae quae consenserat ut thalamo illius caleret qui virum infestaverit filios effugaverit is Malmesbury his observation and censure thereupon Only their Uncle Robert attempted their teâ—itution Congregatis navibus et impositis militibus profectionem paravit subinde jactitans se pronepotes suos coronaturum et proculdudio fidem dict is explesset nisi quia ut à majoribus accepimus semper â—i ventus adversabatur eontrarius per occultum scilicet Dei judicium in cujus voluntate sunt potestates omnium regnorum Reliquiae navium multo tempore dissolutarum Rothomagi adhuc nostra aetate visebantur writes Malmsbury By this match with Queen Emma as Cnute took off Duke Richard from yielding any assistance to his Nephews in hopes his sister might have issue by him to inherit the Crown of England it being agreed between them on the marriage that the issue of Cnute begotten on her should inherit the Crown so it much obliged the English to him and made them more willing to submit to his Government ut dum consuetae Dominae deferrent obsequium minus Danorum suspirarent Imperium the rather because they much honoured and affected her for her manifold vertues of which they had long former experience and likewise because they hoped it might be a meanes to restore Ethelreds issue by her to the Crown again in case she had no issue by Cnute to inherit it which in truth it effected by Gods providence contrary to Cnutes design After this mariage this politick Forein Intruder to establish his Monarchy over England endeavoured to reconcile the English to him by all other publick means he could devise and that by Emmaes advice 1. By advancing some of the English Nobility to places of Honour and trust as Leoffric whom he made Duke in the place of his Brother Norman whom he had slain with some others and loving them very dearly 2. By granting to the English equal Rights and Privileges with his Danes in Consessu in Consilio in Praelio and favouring and advancing them both alike 3. By favouring and enriching the English Clergy and Church-men and manifesting extraordinaty piety devotion bounty in repairing building endowing Monasteries and Churches throughout the Realm which had been partly decayed partly demolished and prophaned by his and his Fathers former wars and excursions And by erecting new Churches in all places where he had fought any battel especially at Asehendune and placing Priests in them perpetually to pray for the souls of those that were there slain Ita omnia quae ipse et Antecessores sui deliquerunt corrigere satagens prioris Injustitiae naevum apud Deum fortassis apud Homines certè abstulit as Malmsbury relates 4. By easing them of his Danish Forces and constant heavy Taxes for their maintenance For by the advice of Emma he sent back all his Danish stipendiary Souldiers to their Native Country and all his Ships but 40 which he retained to transport him into Denmarke the next year To return pay off and disband which forein Forces the English paid him a Tribute of 82. as some or 72 thousand pounds as other Historians record collected out of all England and the Londoners 11 thousand or 10500 marks more Which Tribute I conceive was granted him in the Council of London the year before wherein all the Prelates and Nobles took an Oath Suo exercitui vectigal dare according to their former agreement at Glocester upon the partition of the Kingdom between Edmond and Cnute wherein King Edmond and all the English Nobles and Army ordained that a Tribute should be paid to the Danish Fleet TRIBUTO QUOD CLASSICAE MANUI PENDERETUR STATUTO So that I conjecture it was not imposed on the people by Cnutes absolute power but by common Grant and Consent of a Great Parliamentary Council 5. By ratifying all their former good old fundamental Laws Rights Liberties Privileges which they used enjoyed under their Saxon Kings by enacting other good wholesom Laws repealing all unjust Laws and redressing all exactions and grievances By which means he so obliged the English to him that they cordially assisted him in his Danish wars chearfully obeyed him and never raised any Insurrection or Rebellion against him though frequently absent out of the Realm all his reign albeit he had no Army nor Garrisons to over-aw them In the second year of his reign Anno 1018. King Cnute assembled a Parliamentary Council both of the English and Danes at Oxford wherein they both accorded That King Edgars Lawes should be observed Angli et Daci apud Oxonefordiam de lege Regis Edgari concordes sunt effecti as Florentius Wigorniensis Sim. Dunelmensis and others express it but the Chronicle of Bromton thus Posthaec apud Oxoniam PARLIAMENTUM tenuit ubi Angli simul Dani de Legibus Edgari Regis observandis concordes facti sunt Which Fabian Grafton Speed and others thus express in English He called A PARLIAMENT at Oxford where among other things it was enacted That Englishmen and Danes should hold and firmly keep the Laws of Edgar late King Which Parliament they misplace some in the 3. others in the 15. year of his reign when it was in the second King Cnute sailing into Daenmark in the third year of his reign having there setled his affairs returned into England Anno 1020. about the feast of Easter Apud Orencestriam CONCILIO CONGREGATO as Matthew Westminster or Apud Cirenceastram MAGNUM CONCILIUM HABUIT as Florentius Wigorniensis Hoveden and Simeon Dunelmensis record it And then held a great Parliamentary Council at Orencester or Cirencester wherein he banished Duke Ethelward And this
but he was there slain by the Dukes of the Country by divine vengeance he being a chief inciter of the death of St. Alphege The English Danes An. 1022. in Colloquio apud Oxoniam celebrato de Legibus Regi Edwardi prâ—…i tenendis coucordes facti sunt Unde eisdem Legibus jubente Rege Cnutone ab Anglica lingua in Latinam translatis tà m in Dania quà m in Anglia propter earum aequitatem à Rege praefato observari jubentur as Mat. Westminster relates Anno 1022. So as he imposed no New Laws on them nor revived old but only by common consent in a Parliamentary Council both of English and Danes King Cnute in the year 1023. did so carefully endeavour to reform all things wherein himself or his Ancestors had offended as he seemed to wipe away Prioris Injustitiae Naevum the Blot of his former Injustice as well with God as with men And by the exhortation of Queen Emma studying to reconcile all the English to himself he bestowed many Gifts upon them et insuper bonas Leges omnibus et placentes promisit and moreover promised good and pleasing Lawes to all The best means to win and knit the peoples hearts Anno 1024. Cnute leading an Army of English and Danes against the Swedes whereof he lost many in the first battel the next day when he appointed again to fight with them Earl Godwin General of the Enlish Militia without King Cnutes privity resolved with his English forces alone to invade the Swedish Enemies in the night Whereupon using this Speech to his Souldiers ut pristinae gloriae memores robur suum oculis novi Domini asserent c. they all valiantly assaulted the Enemies at unawares put them all to flight slew an innumerable multitude of them and compelled the Kings of that Nation Ulf and Eglaf to yield to terms of Peace Cnute preparing to fight very early the next morning thought the English had been either fled away or revolted to the Enemies but marching to the Enemies tents and finding nothing but the bloud and carcasses of those the English had slain he thereupon ever after had the English in great esteem who by this their Victory Comitatum Duci sibi laudem paraverunt writes Malmsbury Cnute returning joyfull of this Victory into England and bestowing an Earldom on Godwin for this Service In the year 1027. Cnute hearing that the Norwegians disesteemed Olaus their King by reason of his simplicity bribed his Nobles with great sums of gold and silver to reject Olaus and elect him for their King which they promising to do the next year he sailed into Norwey with 50 ships thrust Olaus out of his kingdom by consent of his Nobles and subdued his Realm to himself whence returning into England An. 1029. Hâ—conem Danicum Comitem quasi Legationis causa in Exilium misit because he had maried Gunilda a Noble matron daughter of the King of Vandals unde metuebat ab illo vel à vitâ privari vel à rregno expelli who was after drowned in the Sea or slain in the Orcades Anno 1030. In which year Robert Duke of Normandy going to Hierusalem Apud Fischamium PROCERES AD COLLOQUIUM VOCAVIT ibique Gulielmum filium suum haeredem sibi constituens fecit omnes ei fidelitatem jurare And the same year the Norwegians cruelly murdered Olaus their King Doctor Preacher and Apostle with an ax Indignabatur enim Gens illa pagana et cruentissima QUOD PRIMAS LEGES et superstitiosas idem sanctus Rex Olaus praedicando docendo evangelizando statuendo evacuaret But Cnutes gold was the prime cause thereof to get his Crown as he had done his Realm and Edmond Ironsides for whose soul he prayed and offered a rich embroydered Pale on his Tomb at Glastonbury Anno 1026. Hoc autem fecisse creditur ne in mortem ejus cui in certamine singulari confoederatus fuerat consenssisse videretur writes Mat. Westminster King Cnute Anno 1031 to palliate his Usurpations of other mens Crowns with the shew of Devotion travelled to Rome in very great pomp where he offered very great gifts in gold silver rich vestments and pretious stones and obtained from Pope John That the English School should be frée from Tribute In his going and returning he not only gave large alms to the poor but likewise removed and deleted many nnjust Tolls and Taxes exacted from such who travelled to Rome giving a Great price to abolish them He solemnly vowed to God before the Sepulcher of the Apostle Peter a reformation both of his life and manners In pursuance whereof he writ a Letter from Rome to the Archbishops of Canterbury and Yorke all the Bishops Nobles and Rulers and to the whole English Nation as well Nobles as Plebeans wherein he certified them That he had procured from the Emp. of Germany King Rodolphus the Pope and other Princes a release of all unjust Tolls and Taxes exacted of his people as they travelled out of devotion towards Rome and of the vast sums of money which the Archbishops paid to the Pope for their Palls After which he in forms them That he had vowed to justify his life to God himself in all things To govern the Kingdoms and Nations under his subjection justly and piously To observe just judgement in all things and if through the Intemperance or negligence of his youth he had hitherto done any things besides that which was JUST that he promised by Gods assistance to reform it all Therefore I obtest and command all my Counsellors to whom I have committed the Counsels and Justice of my Realm that by no means either for fear of me or through favour to any potent person they should from henceforth doe any Injustice or cause it to sprout up in all my kingdom Likewise I command all the Sheriffs and Officers throughout my Realm as they desire to enjoy my favour or their own safety that they do No unjust violence to any Man neither to rich nor poor but it shall be lawfull for all as well Noble as Ignoble to enjoy justice and right from which they might not deviate in any manner neither for Regal favour nor for the person of any potent man nec propter mihi congerendam pecuniam quia nulla mihi necessitas est ut iniqua exactione pecunia mihi congeratur nor yet for raising oâ—â—eâ—ping up money to me Because there is uo necessity for me and let those who now plead Necessity both for their own illegal imposing levying of unjust uncessant heavy Taxes Imposts Excises on our Nations without grant and common consent in Parliamâ—nâ—â— consider it that money should be raised and collected for my use by an injust exaction After this he enjoyns them by this Leâ—…r To pay all Debts and Duties due by the antient Law as Tithes of their corn and cattel Peter pence and First fruits at the
Soveraign and the like who had under his subjection Dominion not only the People and Land but the Sea likewise also by reason of his Great Dominions was so much elevated with pride of heart that he once commanded the royal Throne of his Empire to be placed on the Sea shore near the water as the Sea was flowing in upon it and then stepping up into his Throne sitting in it he spake thus to the Sea in an imperious manner as if he were absolute Sovereign of it Tu meae ditionis es c. Thou art under my Dominion and part of my Empire and the land on which I fit is mine neither is there any one in it who dares resist my command without punishment Therefore I now command thee that thou ascend and come not up upon my land nor yet presume to wet my royal robes nor the feet or Members of thy Soveraign But the Sea notwithstanding this Inhibition ascending after its accustomed manner and nature and no wayes obeying his commands wet both his feet legs and royal Robes without any revernce Whereupon the King leaping hastily out of his Throne almost over-late and retiring from the waves used these words Lâ—t all the Inhabitants of the world know that the power of Kings is but. vain and frivolous and that no man is worthy the name of a King but he alone to whose beck both Heaven Earth and the Sea obey by everlasting Laws Henry de Knyghton superaddes thereto as part of his Speech which most others omit I am a Wretch and a Captive able to do nothing possessing nothing without his gift I commend I recommend my self to him and let him be the Gardian of debility Amen After which King Cnute never wore his Crown upon his head but put it upon the head of the Crucifix at Winchester as most accord to the praise of the great King thereby giving a great example of humility to Kings and Conquerors who in the height of all their power can not command the Sea or least wave not to flow or wash them Henry de Knyghton conceives this to be before his pilgrimage to Rome others expresly record it was after his return from thence whose computation I here follow and therefore place it in this year In the year of our Lord 1035. King Cnute a little before his death made this partition of his kingdoms amongst his Sons Swane his son by Q. Algiva or as some affirm of a Priests wife suborned by Algiva as her own he made King of Norwey his Son Harde-Cnute by Queen Emma he caused to be crowned King of Denmark as Wigorniensis Hoveden and others write yet some gainsay it that he made his Son Harold King of England and soon after died at Shaftesbury November 12. 1035. and was buried at Winchester Immediatly after his decease the Nobles met at Oxford about the election of a new King which our Historians thus express Convenerunt apud Oxoniam ad Colloquium as Mat. Westm or Placitum magnum as Huntindon and others stile it Proceres Regni Vt de novo Rege creando tractarent ibidem All the Nobles of the Realm assembled in a great Parliamentary Council or Court at Oxford that they might consult about the electiction of a New King which they would not have done had Harold been made King of England before by Cnute in his life time Leofric Earl of Chester and the rest of the Nobles on the Northside of the Thames with all the Danish Princes and Londoners who by conversing with the Danes amongst them were corrupted with their vices and addicted to their party elected Harold Son of Cnute by his Concubine Algiva whom some aver to be the son of a Tayler for their King But Godwin Earl of Kent with the Princes of the Western part of England contradicting them would rather have elected Harde-Cnute son of Cnute by Queen Emma or one of the Sons of King Ethelred and Emma then in Normandy After great strife and debate between the Nobles about the Election because Harold was there personally present but Harde-Cnute then in Denmark and Alfred and Edward in Normandy Harolds party prevailed against Earl Godwins qui tandem vi numero minor cessit violentiae Whereupon Harold was presently crowned King at Oxford by Elnothus Archbishop of Canterbury though at first he was very unwilling to perform that service For it is reported of him that he having the regal Scepter and Crown in his custody refused with an Oath to consecrate any other for King so long as Queen Emma her children were living for said she Cnute committed them to my trust and assurance and to them will I give my faith and allegiance This Scepter and Crown therefore I here lay down upon the Altar neither do I deny nor deliver them to you but I require by the Apostolick Authority all Bishops that none of them presume to take the same away neither that they consecrate him King therewith as for your self if you dare you may usurp that which I have committed to God on this Table Notwithstanding this great thunderclap being allayed with the showers of Golden promises of his just good and religious government intended though present experience manifested the contrary he was crowned by him Anno Anno. 1035. Henry Huntindon and others write That they elected him King only to keep the kingdom for his Brother Harde-Cnute then in Denmark Harold and the Nobles of West-Sex who opposed his election upon advice taken resolved that Qneen Emma wife of the deceased King should keep West-Sex and Winchester for the use of her Son Harde Cnute and that Earl Godwin should be their Captain in military affairs Roger Hoveden and others record That Harold being elected King by the consent of the major part of the Nobles of England obtained the royal dignity and began to reign quia justus haeres because he was a lawfull heir yet he reigned noâ— so powerfully as Cnute quia justior haeres expectabatur Harde Cnutus because a juster heir Harde Cnute was expected By reason of this disagreement amongst the Nobles to please both parties the kingdom of England was therupon divided by Lot Harold enjoying the Northern part thereof and Harde-Cnutes friends retaining the Southern part of it for his use No sooner was Harold crowned King but to secure himself the better in his Throne he presently posted to Winchester with his forces where tyrannically and forcibly taking away all the Treasures and goods which Cnute had left to Queen Emma his Mother-in-law he banished her out of England into Flanders some write she was thus banished by the secret Counsel and treachery of Earl Godwin whom she had made General of her forces for her preservation who proved unconstant and a Traytor to her and her children where in this her distresse she was honourably entertained by Earl Baldwin In the year 1036. Alfred eldest Son of King Ethelred comming over to claim his
done by him to his Mother Queen Emma in banishing and spoiling her of her money and jewels against all right and justice and partly for his unjust invasion of the Crown of England but in truth as a just retaliation of his barbarous cruelty to Prince Alfred and his Normans For whose treacherous inhumane slaughter King Harde-Cnute deprived Alfred Bishop of Worcester of his Bishoprick whose hands were said to have been in Alfreds bloud And for which murder he likewise looked with an evil eye upon Earl Godwin compelling him to an Oath of Purgation touching the same Whereupon Godwin by his own Oath and the Oaths of most of the Nobles of the Realm his compurgators swore though most falsly That Prince Alfreds eyes were not put out nor he murdered as aforesaid by his Counsel or consent but what was done therein was only by the command of King Harold which he durst not resist Notwithstanding which Oath to purchase his peace with Harde-Cnute he presented him with a most rich and royal present to wit with a Ship whose stern was of gold with 80 Souldiers placed therein all uniformly and richly suited having on their heads gilt Burgonets on their armes bracelets of Gold on their bodies Habergeons Swords Battel-axes Targets and other arms after the Danish fashion all richly gilt with gilt bosses and darts in their hands Which Present though it pacified the Kings indignation yet it prevented not Gods avenging justice on him afterwards for Alfreds bloud thus partly avenged on Harolds carcasse which was cast into the Thames and mangled according to Hard-Cnutes command and lay floting on the water sundry dayes till a Fisherman in compassion took up his corps and buried it privately in St. Clements Danes CHAP. V. Containing a Brief Historicall Collection of all the Parliamentary Councils State-Assemblies Historicall Passages and Proceedings that concern the Fundamentall Liberties Priviledges Rights Properties Laws and Government of the Nation under the reign of King Edward the Confessor from the year of our Lord 1042. to 1066. wherein he died KING Harde-Cnute being sodainly taken out of this world without issue by divine Justice on the 6 day of June Anno 1042. thereupon the Earls and Barons of England immediately after his death assembled together in a Great Council about the election of a New King Wherein OMNES ANGLORUM MAGNATES ad invicum tractantes DE COMMVNI CONCILIO ET JURAMENTO STATUERUNT QUOD NUNQUAM TEMPORIBUS FUTURIS ALIQUIS DACUS SUPER EOS IN ANGLIA REGNARET hoc maxime pro contemptibus quos Angli à Danis saepiâ—… acceperunt c. as the Chronicle of Bromton others informe us All the Nobles of the English treating together decreed by common advice which they ratified with an oath THAT IN TIMES TO COME NEVER ANY DANE or person of the Danish blood SHOULD REIGN OR BE KING OVER THEM IN ENGLAND ANY MORE disclaiming all Danish subjection that especially for the contempts which the English had very often received from the Danes For if a Dane had met an Englishmen upon any bridge the Englishman must not be so hardy to move a foot but stand stâ—ll till the Dane was passed quite over it And moreover if the Englishmen had not bâ—wed down their heads to doe reverence to the Danes they should presently have undergone great punishments and stripes Whereupon King Harde-Cnute being dead the English rising up against them drove all the Danes being then without a King and Captaine out of the Realm of England who speedily quâ—tting the land never returned into it afterwards And here we may justly stand still a while and contemplate the admirable retaliating justice of God upon our Danish usurping Kings and their Posterity King Cnute as you heard before caused the temporizing English Bishops Nobles and Barons assembled in a Parliamentary Council against their oaths of allegiance to King Ethelred Edmund Ironside and their heirs no less then twice one after another to renounce cast off and abjure their regall Posterity to make them incapable of the Crowne of England and settle the inheritance of it upon him and his Danish blood Anno 1016. and 1017. And now in little more then twenty years after all the English Prelates and Nobles assembled in Council of their own accords by a solemn Decree and Oath abjure renounce and eternally disinherit all the Danish blood-royall of the Crown of England and restore the Saxon English royall line to that soveraignty which they had formerly disclaimed such are the vicissitudes of divine Justice and providence worthy our observation in these wheeling times wherein we live when no man knoweth what changes of like nature one day or year may bring forth The English putting their Decree for cashiering all the Danes in execution turned the mâ—â—t of all the Castles Forts Garrisons Cities Villages throughout England as well those of the Royall and Noble blood as the vulgar sort and forced them to depart the Realm as they had formerly banished the English Princes and Nobles Procâ—reâ— igitur Anglorum jam DACORUM DOMINIO LIBERATI The Nobles therefore of Engl. being thus freed from the Danes dominion for so much of God of his mercy and providence who is the maker of heirs thought good after the woâ—ull captivity of the English Nation to grant them some respite of deliverance in taking away the Danish Kings without any issue left behinde them who reigning here in England kept the English people in miserable subjection about the space of 28 years and from their first landing in the time of King Brictâ—icus wasted and vexed this land for the space of 255 years their Tyranny now coming to an end by the death of Harde Cnute they thereupon assembling together in a great Council with a generall consent elected Prince Edward surnamed the Confessor the youngest and onely surviving son of King Ethelred for their King who ANNUENTE CLERO ET POPULO LONDONIIS IN REGEM ELIGITUR as Mat. Westminster relates whereupon Edward being then in Normandy where he had long lived in exile being a man of a gentle and soft spirit more appliable to other mens counsels then able to trust his own naturally so averse from all war bloodshed that he wished rather to continue all his life long in a private exiled estate then by war or blood to aspire to the Crown the Lords sent messengers to him to come over and take peaceable possession of the Kingdome of England they having chosen him for their King advising him to bring with him as few Normans as he could and they would most faithfully establish him in the throne Edward though at first he much doubted what course to stear somewhat mistrusting the treachery and inconstancy of the fickle headed English yet at last upon the importunity of the messengers who informed him melius esse ut vivat gloriosus in Imperio quà m ignominiosus moriâ—ur in exilio JURE EI COMPETERE REGNUM aevo
maturo laboribus defaecato sciâ—…ti administrare principatum per aetatem severè miserias Provinci ilium pro pristina aequitate temperare c. and upon putting in sufficient pledges and an oath given for his security he came into England with a small train of Normans where he was joyfully received by the Nobles and people Nec mora Gilingeam or rather Londoniam CONGREGATO CONCILIO rationibus suis explicitis regem effecit Dominio palam ab omnibus dato as Malmsbury or electus â—st in Regem ab omni populo as Huntindon and others expresse it After which on Easter day Apr 2. 1043. he was solemnly crowned King at Winchester with great pomp by Eadsi Arch-bishop of Canterbury by the unanimous consent of the Archbishops Bishops Nobles Clergie and people of England to their great joy and content without the least opposition war or blood-shed after 25 yeares seclusion from the Crown by the Danish usurpers Our Historians generally record that Bryghtwold a Monk of Glastenbury afterwards first Bishop of Wilton when King Cnute had banished and almost extinguished the whole royal issue of the English race almost past any possibility or probability of their restitution to the Crown which he had forcibly invaded by the sword on a certian night fell into a sad deep contemplation of the forlorn condition of the royall Progeny of the English nation then almost quite deleted by the Danes and of the miserable condition of England under these forraign usurpers After which falling into a deep sleep he saw in a vision the Apostle S. Peter himself holding Prince Edward then an exile in Normandy by the hand and anointing him King in his sight who declared to him at large how holy this Edward should be that his reign should be peaceable and that it should continue for 23 years After which Bryghtwold being yet unsatisfied who should succed him and doubting of Edwards off-spring demanded of S. Peter who should succeed him whereunto S. Peter returned him this answer REGNUM ANGLIAE EST REGNUM DEI ET IPSE SIBI REGES or REGEM as some render it PROVIDEBIT The Realm of England is Gods Kingdome and he himself shall provide Kings or a King for himself according to his good pleasure Yea the golden legend of King Edwards life informs us THAT HE WAS CHOSEN KING OF ENGLAND BY CONSENT OF PARLIAMENT WHILES HE WAS YET IN HIS MOTHERS WOMB as well as after Harde-Cnute's death Take the relation of it in Abbot Ailreds words and of Brightwolds vision likewise Cum igitur gloriosus Rex Ethelredus ex filia praeclarissimi comitis Thoreti filium suscepisset Eadmundum cognomento Ferreumlatus ex Regina autem Emma Aluredum beatus Edvardus inter Viscera materna conclusus utrique praefertur agente â—o qui omnia operatur secundum concilium voluntatis suae qui dominatur in regno hominum cui voluerit dat illud FIT MAGNUS CORAM REGE EPISCOPORUM PROCERUMQUE CONVENTUS magnus plebis vulgique concursus quia jam futurae cladis indicia saeva praecesserant AGITUR INTER EOS DE REGNI STATU TRACTATUS Deinde Rex successorem sibi designare desiderans QUID SINGULIS QUIDVE OMNIBUS VIDERETUR EXPLORAT Pro diversorum diversa senentia res pendebat in dubio Alii enim Eâ—dmundum ob invictissimum robur corporis caeâ—eris aestimant praeferendum alii ob virtutem Normanâ—…ci generis Aluredum promovendum tutiùs arbitrantur Sed futurorum omnium praescius prioris brevissimam vitam alterius mortem immaturam prespiciens in pueâ—uÌ„ nec dum natuÌ„ UNIVERSORUM VOTA CONVERTIT Vtero adhuc claudetur in Regem eligitur non natus natis praefertur quem nec dum terra susceperat terrae dominus designatur Praebet electioni REX CONSENSUM laeti PRAEâ—ENT PROCâ—RES SACRAMENTUM inusitato miraculâ— IN Ejus FIDELITATE JURARUNT qui utrum nasceretur ignorarunt Tua haec sunt opera Christe Jesu qui omnia operaris in omnibus qui electum dilectum tibi an e mundi constitutionem plebis tui rectorem hiis indiciis declarasti quem liâ—èt per illos non tamen illi sedâ—… potius ele gisti Quis enim non videat rec aptum usui nec conveniens tempori nec censonum rationi nec humano ferendum fuisse sensui ut omissis filiâ—… legitimâ—s adultis hostili gladio imminente parvulus necdum natus ELIGERETUR IN REGEM quem in tali n cessitate n c hostes m tuerent nec cives revererentur Sed omnipotens Deus Spiritum prophesiae veci simul affectui plebis infudit praesentia malâ—spe futurae consolation is temperans ut sciant omnes in totius regni consolationem regem futurum quem ab ipso Deo plebe nesciente quid fecerit nullus dubitaret clectum Saevibat interim gladius hostilis in Anglia caedibus rapinis omnia replebantur ubique luctus ubique clamor ubique desolatio Incenduntur ecclesiae monasteria devastantur ut verbis propheticis utar effuderunt sanguinem sanctorum in circuitu Jerusalem non erat qui sepeliret Sacerdotes suis fugatisedibus sicubi pax quies aliqua in monasteriis vel locis desertis inveniebatur communem miseriam deplorantes delitescebant Inter quos vene abilis Bryghtwaldus Wintoniensis Episcopus caenobâ—um Glastoniense maerens tristis ingressus orationibus vacabat psalmis Qui cum aliquando pro Regis plebisque liberatione preces lacrymasque profunderet quasi in haec verba prorumpens Et tu inquit Domine usque quo usque quo avertis faciem tuam obliviscens inopiae nostrae tribulationis nostrae Sanctos tuos occiderunt altaria tua suffoderunt non est qui redimat neque qui salvum faciat Scio Domine scio quia omnia quae fecisti nobis in vero judicio fecisti sed nunquid in aeternum projiciet Deus non opponet complacitus sit adhuc erit ne Domine Deus meus erit ne finis horum mirabilium aut in aeternum tuus in nos mucro desaeviet percutias usque ad internecionem Inter preces tandem lachrim as fatigatum soper suavis excepit viditque per somnium caelâ—stem chorum cum lumine beatissimumque Petrum in eminâ—nti loâ—o constitutum dignum tantae majestati habitum praeserentem Videbatur ante eum virâ—pyaeâ—lâ—ri vultus in forma decenti regalâ—bus amictus insigniis quem cum p opriis manibus Apostolus censecrasset â—uxisset in regem monita salutis adjacit praecipuâ—que caelibem vitam commendans quot esset annos regnaturus aperuit Obstupefactus Praesul tanti novitate miraculi petit sibi a sanâ—to visionis hujus mysterium revelari de statu insuper regni instantis fine periculi apostolicum exegit oraculum Tunc factus vultus placido in tuâ—ns inâ—uentem Domini inquâ—t o Praesul Domini est regnum ipse dominatur in fâ—…s hominum Ipse
the Court charged him with his Host to avenge the wrong done to Eustace and to punish the insolency of the men of Dover which the King exceedingly aggravated But Godwin a man of sharp wit and wel understanding that sentence ought not to be pronounced upon the hearing of the allegations of one part only without hearing the other refused to march with his Army against the Burgesses of Dover although the King commanded him both because he envied that all Aliens should find such extraordinary favour with the King and because he would shew friendship to his own Countreymen Whereupon he answered It were reasonable and just that before any execution done the the Wardeins of Dover Castle should be summoned into that Kings Court in a fair manner to answer this tumult and if they could excuse themselves that then they should be dismissed without harms or if not that then they should satisfy the King whose peace they had broken and the Earl whom they had offended with money or the forfeiture of their bodies and goods Iniquum videri ut quos tutari debeas eos ipse potissimum inauditos adjudices And so Godwin departed at that time little regarding the Kings fury as being but momentany Quocirca Totius regni Proceres jussi Glocestriam convenire ut iâ—i magno conventu res ventilaretur Therefore all the Lords of the land were commanded to assemble together at Glocester that this matter might be there debated in a great Parliamentary assembly Thither came the most famous Earle Syward of Northumberland and Leofric Earle of Mercia Omnibus Anglorum Nobiles and all the English Nobility at that time only Godwin and his Sonnes who knew themselves suspected thought it not safe for them to come thither without an armed Guard whereupon they encamped at Breverstone with a great host and there stayed giving out a report among the people that they had therefore gathered an Army together out of Kent Surry Yorkshire Oxfordshire Glocestershire Somersetshire Herfordshire Essex Notinghamshire and other parts that they might curbe the Welshmen who meditating Tyranny and Rebellion against the King had fortified a Town in Herefordshire where Swane one of the Earl Godwins Sonnes then pretended to keep watch and ward against them The King hearing that Godwin and his Sonnes had raised a great Army of men out of all these Counties upon this false pretext presently sent Messengers to Syward Earle of Northumberland and Leofric Earle of Mercia to hasten to him being in great danger with all the forces they could raise Who repairing to him at the first with small forces so soon as they knew how the matter went sending their Officers through their Countries together with Earle Ralph in his Countrey speedily assembled a great Army to assist the King ready to encounter these enemies if there were a necessity In the mean time Godwin marching with his Army into Glocestershire sent messengers to the King as Matthew VVestminster and some others story commanding him to deliver up Earle Eustace with his companions the Normans Bonomans who then held the Castls of Dover to him else he should denounce war against him To whom the King being sufficiently furnished with military forces sent this answer That he would not deliver up Earl Eustace to him commanding moreover Vt qui erercitum contra ipsum collegerat sine ejus licentia pacem regni perturbaverat veniret ad eum die statuta super hac injuria sibi responsurus juri pariturus Godwin and his Sonnes being accused of A CONSPIRACY against the King and made odious to the whole Court by the VVelshmen and Normans so that a rumor was spread abroad that the Kings Army would assault them in the same place where they quartered and were unanimously resolved and ready to fight with Godwins Army being much incensed against him if the King would have permitted them Quo accepto Godwinus ad Conjuratos classicum cecinit Vt ultro Domino regi â—on resisterent sed si conuenti fuissent quin se ulciscerentur loco non cederent profecto facinus miserabile plus quam civile bellum fuisset nisi maturiora consilia interessent writes Malmsbury But because the best and greatest men of all England were engaged on the one side and other it seemed a great unadvisednesse to Earl Leofric and others that they should fight a battle and wage war with their own Countrymen and thereupon they advised That hostages being given on both sides the King and Godwin should meet at London on a certain day to plead together which Counsel being approved of and meslengers running to and fro between them hostages being given and received and some small agreement made between them at the present thereupon the Earle returned into VVest-Sax and the King increasing his Army both out of Mercia and Northumberland returned with them to London by agreement between both parties Iterumque praeceptum ut Londini Concilium coageretur and it was again commanded by the King that A COVNCEL or PARLIAMENT as Trevisa Speed and others render it should be assembled at London Swane the Son of Godwin was commánded to mitigate the Kings anger by his flight Godwin and Harold were ordered to come to this Councel with twelve men only in their company and that they should resigne up to the King the services of all the Knights and Souldiers which they had thoroughout England But Godwin and his Sonnes as they durst not wage war against the King so ad Curiam ejus venire Juri parituri negabant They would not come to his Court to put themselves upon a legal tryall alleadging That they would not goe to a Conventicle offactious persons without pledges and host ages that they would obey their Lord in the surrender of all their Knights services and in all things else without the perill of their honour and safety That if they came thither unarmed they might fear the losse of life if with a few followers it would be a reproach to their honour But the King being so resolute in his minde that he would not recede from what he had resolved by their intreaties upon their refusal to come unto his Court to justify themselves Rex in suo Concilio communi Curiae suae judicio by the common judgement of his Court in this Parliamentary Councel Et omnis exercitus unanimi consensu and by the unanimous consent of his whole Army as Flo-rence of VVorcester and his followers subjoyne banished Godwin himself and his five Sons out of England whereupon prolatum Edictum est A Decree Proclamation was then published that within five dayes they should depart out of England Godwin perceving that his souldiers deserted him some some for fear of the Kings Army and displeasure thereupon he and his wife Giva and his three sonnes Swane Gurth and Tosti with his wife Iudith daughter to the Earle of Flanders departed presently out of England by the Isle
without expecting any actual violence to banish and expell them From all these memorable Historical passages as we may observe the great unconstancy vicissitude and changes of earthly Princes favours worldly honours preferments and popular favour with the great inconveniencies of admitting or advancing forreigners to any places of trust or power under the King or Court so we may likewise conclude that by the Law of that Age. 1. That no Englâ—sh man ought to be condemned executed imprisoned or put to death upon any great mans bare suggestion no not by the Kings own speciall command which if given ought to be disobeyed in such cases but only by and after a Legall hearing tryall and conviction of the offence 2. That the Kings of England were then sworn and obliged to govern their people by good just and wholesome Laws and Customes not by their arbitrary pleasures powers or commands 3. That the Parliamentary Councels and Nobles in that age were very carefull to defend and maintain the Liberties Rights good Laws and Customs of the people and to prevent and abolish all unjust Laws and Encroachments repugnant to them 4. That Parliamentary Councels were then frequently summoned by the King upon all publique emergent occasions and differences and to make war and peace either at home or in forreign parts 5. That the Parliamentary Councels of that time consisted of the Earles Barons Nobles and Praelates of the Realme duly summoned to them without any mention of Knights or Burgesses elected and sent to them by the people of which there are no presidents in this Kings reign Enough to prove Modus Tenendi Parliamentum supposed to be made and observed in this age a meere cheating imposture of later daies as in truth it is 6. That all delinquents of what quality soever justly or unjustly accused ought to appear and justify themselves before the King and his Nobles in their Parliamentary Councels without armed Guards forces Tergiversation or resistance upon due suÌ„mons to appear before them by the Laws of that time 7. That Kings and great mens coming to Parliamentary Councels with Armies strong armed Guards and holding them with power or under Armies is inconsistent with their Liberty Priviledges and are an occasion of civill wars disturbances much mischief to the Nation as then they proved 8. That English Peers then were and ought to be tried banished judged by their Peers both in Parliamentary Councels and other Courts 9. That no English Peer or Freeman could then be lawfully and judically banished the Realme but in and by sentence and judgement of a Parliamentary Councel for some contempt or offence demeriting such a punishment 10. That Peers and great men obstinately refusing to submit themselves to the triall and judgement of Parliamentary Councels or to appear in them or the Kings Courts to justify themselves without hostages fist given for their securiy may justly be sentenced and banished by our Parliaments for such contempts and affronts to justice 11. That the subjects were bound to ayd and assist their Kings as wel against Traitors Rebels Pyrates as against forreign enemies under our Saxon Kings 12. That forreigners are usually the greatest occasioners and fomenters of civil wars That such Incendiaries deserve justly to be banished the Nation And that civill wars between King and subjects English and English and their shedding of one anothers blood in such wars was then deemed most unnatural odious execrable by all prudent means and councels to be timely and carefully prevented and not to be begun or undertaken but by good advice and common consent in great Parliamentary Councels upon weighty urgent inevitable necessities 13. That the abolishing of ill and enacting of good Laws the removing of ill Counsellors and Instruments about Kings ordering matters of war and defence by Land and Sea and setling of peace were the antient proper works businesses imployments of our Saxon Parliaments 14. That the English Freemen have been always apt forwards cordially to joyn with such Nobles and Great men who are most cordial and active to defend their just Liberties Laws Rights against foreiners and others who invade them Soon after the forementioned agreement between the King and Godwin King Edward according to his forementioned promises to make good Laws for all his people out of all the former British and Saxon Laws by Order of his Wisemen compiled an universal common Law for all the people throughout the whole Realm which were called King Edwards Laws being so just and equal and so securing the profit and wealth of all estates that the people long after as Mr Fox and others record did rebel against their Lords and Rulers to have the same Laws again when suspended or taken from them or dis-used and prescribed this Oath to William the Conquerour himself and every of our Kings since to be solemnly taken at the time of his Coronation for the further ratification and better inviolable observation of these Laws and perpetuating them to all posterity SIR will you grant and keep and by your Dath confirm to the people of England the Laws and Customs granted to them by antient Kings of England rightfull men and devout towards God namely the Laws and Customs and Franchises granted to the Clergy and to the Peopie by the glorious King Edward to your power To which the King must answer I will doe it before he be anointed or crowned King Now because these Laws of King Edward made by his Wisemens Counsel and advice as this Clause Sapientes caeperunt super hos habere consilium et constituerunt in the Chapter De illis qui has Leges despexerent implyes are so famous and fundamental most of our Common old Laws being founded on or resulting from them I shall give you this brief account of them out of our Historians as most pertinent to my subject matter and usefull for those of my profession to be informed of being generally not so well versed in Antiquity History and Records as were to be wished for the honour and lustre of their honourable publike calling pretermiting the grosse Forgery and Imposture of Modus tenendi Parliamentum so much cryed up by Sir Edward Cooke for its Antiquity and Authority as made and observed in Edward the Confessors reign when as it is a meer counterfeit Treatise and Spurious Antiquity scarce antienter than King Richard the 2. as I have proved in my Levellers levelled and Mr. Selden manifests in his Titles of honour pars 2. p. 713 738 to 745 yea it s own mentioning the Bishop of Carlisle which Bishoprick was not erected til the year 1132 or 1134. the Mayors of London which had no Mayor til the year 1208 and of other Cities with Knights and Burgesses usual wages all instituted long after the Conquerours reign the not mentioning of this Modus in any of our Records Histories or judicious Antiquaries and its difference from all the Modes and Forms of Parliaments and
Great Councils of that or later ages held in England or Ireland with the many falshoods and absurdities in it will sufficiently evidence it to every intelligent Peruser to be a late Bastard Treatise and no such Antient Record as Sir Edward Cooke most confidently averrs it upon groundless Reasons and bold false averments void of Truth Which Modus if really made and observed in his reign and after ages no doubt our Historians would have mentioned it as well as his Laws of which they give us this following account Henry de Knyghton records That King Edward after his Coronation Consilto Baronum et caeterorum Regni received established and confirmed the good Laws which for 68 years lay as it were asleep among the sleepers and buried in Oblivion These Laws are called the Laws of St. Edward not because he had first invented them but because they being as it were put under a Bushel and laid in oblivion from the time of his Grandfather King Edgar he put to his hand first to find them out and then to establish them Wil. of Malmesbury thus writes of these Laws Omnes Leges ab antiquis Regibus maxime ab antecessore suo Ethelredâ— latas sub interminatione Regiae mulctae perpetuis temporibus observari praecepit in quarum custodia etiam nunc tempore bonorum sub nomine Regis Edwardi Iuratur non quod ille statuerit sed observaverit The Author of the antient Manuscript Chronicle of Litchfield and Mr. Selden out of him together with Roger Hoveden and Bishop Usher inform us concerning these Laws Ex illo die magna autoritate veneratae et per universum regnum corroboratae consecratae sunt prae caeteris regni legibus Leges Regis Edwardi quae quidem prius inventae constitutae fuerunt tempore Regis Edgari avi sui Veruntatem post mortem ipsius Regis Edgari usque ad Coronationem S. Regis Edw. quodcontinet annos 67 predictae leges sopitae sunt eâ— penitus praetermissae Sed postquam Rex Edwardus in regno fuit sublimatus Consilio Baronum Angliae Legem 67 annis sopitam excitavit excitatam reparavit reparatam decoravit decoratam confirmavit confirmata vocata est Lex sancti Regis Edwardi non quod prius ipse invenisset eam sed cum praetermissa fuisset oblivioni penitus dedita a morte avi sui Regis Edgari qui prius Inventor ejus fuisse dicitur usque ad sua tempora videlicet 67 annis The Chronicle of Bromton col 956 957. gives us this large account of these and our other ancient Laws This holy King Edward the Confessor Leges communes Anglorem genti tempore suo ordinavit ordained common Laws in his time for the English Nation because the Laws promulged in former times were over-partial For Dunwallo Molmucius first of all set forth Laws in Britain whose Laws were called Molmucine sufficiently famous until the times of King Edward amongst which he ordained That the Cities and Temples of the Gods and the ways leading to them and the Ploughs of Husbandmen should enjoy the privilege of Sanctuary After which Marcia Queen of the Britons Wife of Guithelin from whom the Provinces of the Mercians is thought to be denonated publish da Law full of discretion and justice which is called Mercian Law These two Laws the Historian Gildas translated out of the British into the Latine tongue and so it was afterwards commonly called Merchenelaga that is The Law of the Mercians by which Law 8 Counties were formerly judged namely Gloucestershire Worcestershire Herefordshire Shropshire Cheshire Staffordshire Warwickshire and Oxfordshire After these there was superadded a Law written in the Saxon or English tongue by Ina King of West-Saxons to which Alfred King of the West-Saxons afterwards superadded the Law which was stiled West-Saxenelega that is the Law of the West-Saxons By which Law in antient times the 9 Southern Counties divided by the River of Thames from the rest of England were judged namely Kent Sussex Surrey Berkeshire Wiltshire Southampton Somersetshire Dorset and Devonshire At length the Danes dominering in the Land a third Law sprang up which was called Danelega that is the Law of the Danes by which Law heretofore the 15 Eastern and Northern Counties were judged to wit Middle sex Suthfolk Northfolk Herthfordshire Cambridgeshire Huntingdonshire Lincoln-shire Nottinghamshire Derbyshire Northamptonshire Leicestershire Buckinghamshire Beddefordshire and Yorkshire which County of York heretofore contained all Northumberland from the water of Humber to the River of Twede which is the beginning of Scotland and is now divided into six Shires Now out of the foresaid three Laws Merchenelega West-Saxenelega and Danelega this King Edward set forth one common Law which even to this day is called the Law of Edward The like is recorded by Hygden in his Polychronicon l. 1. c. 50. Mr. John Fox in his Acts and Monuments vol. 1. p. 213 214. Samuel Daniel his Collection of the History of England p. 22. John Speed his History of Great Britain p. 410. Fabian Holinshed Caxton Grafton and others almost in the self-same words These Laws are no where extant in any Manuscripts or printed Authors as they were originally compiled and digested into one body by him and his Barons but as they were presented upon Oath to and confirmed by King William the Conqueror in the 4th year of his reign of which Ingulphus Abbot of Croyland in the close of his History to which they are annexed in some Manuscripts gives us this account flourishing in that age Attuli eadem vice mecum de Londonâ—is in meum Monasterium Leges aequissimi Regis Edwardi quas Dominus meus inclytus Rex Willielmus autenticas esse et perpetuas per totum Regnum Angliae inviolabiliter tenendas sub paenis gravissimis proclamarat et suis Insticiariis commendarat eodem idiomate quo editae â—unt ne per ignorantiam contingat nos vel nostros aliquando in nostrum grave periculum contraire offendere ausu temerario regiam majestatem ne in ejus censuras rigidissimas improvidum pedem ferre contentas saepius in eisdem hoc modo These Laws are partly Ecclesiastical partly Civil recorded by Roger de Hoveden Annalium pars posterior p. 611. to 631 by Mr. Lambaerd in his Archaion Henry de Knyghton de Eventibus Angliae l. 2. c. 4. Spelmanni Concili p. 613. Mr. Iohn Selden ad Eadmerum Notae Spicelegium p. 172. to 195. Mr. Iohn Fox his Acts and Monuments vol. 1. p. 214. wherein those who please may peruse them In these Laws it is observable 1. That all capital corporal pecuniary punishments fines for criminal offences and all reliefs services and duties to the King are reduced to a certainty not left arbitrary to the King his Iustices or other Officers for the Subjects greater liberty ease and security 2. That they protect preserve the Possessions Privileges Persons of the
especially beautifull maides in England and to send them into Denmark that she might heap up riches by their deformed sale After her death he maried another wife on whom he begot Harold Swane Wulnoth Tosti Girth and Leofwin Harold after Edward was King for some Moneths and being conquered by William at Hastings lost both his life and kingdom with his two younger Brothers there slain in battel Wulnoth sent into Normandy by King Edward because his father had given him for an hostage was there detained a Prisoner without any release during all King Edwards life and being sent back into England in Williams reign continued in bonds at Sarisbury till his old age Swane of a perverse wit treacherous against his King revolted oftentimes both from his Father and his Brother Harold and becomming a Pyrate polluted the vertues of his ancestors with his maritime Robberies and murder At last going barefoot to Jerusalem in pilgrimage out of conscience to expiate the wilfull murder of his Cosen Breuno and as some say his Brother in his return thence he was circumvented and slain by the Saracens Tosti being advanced by King Edward to the Earldom of Northumberland after the death of Earl Syward ruled the County near two years which being expired he stirred up the Northumbrians to a Rebellion with the asperity of his manners for finding him solitary they chased him out of the Country not thinking fit to slay him by reason of his Dukedom but they beheaded all his men both English and Danes and spoiled him of all his horses arms and houshold-stuff whereupon being deprived of his Earldom he went with his wife and children into Flanders and at last invading Northumberland and joyning with the Danes against his own brother King Harold was there slain by him in battel with all his forces His daughter Queen Egitha besides her forementioned repudiation by King Edward and the imprisonment and disgraces put upon her by him for her Fathers sake was never carnally known by him as his wife out of a detestation to her Father Godwin because he would not ingender heirs to succeed him in the royal Throne out of the Race and séed of such a Traytor as many Historians assert Even so let all other such like perfidious Traytors their Posterities perish who imitate him and them in their Treasons Perjuries Rebellions and will not be warned nor reclaimed by his or their sad examples The same year Earl Godwin thus perished Rbeese brother of Griffin King of Southwales was slain by King Edwards command and his head brought to Glocester to the King on the Vigil of Epiphany for his manifold Treasons rebellions and frequent depredations upon his English Subjects King Edward Anno 1054. commanded Sywarà the valiant Duke of Northumberland to invade Scotland with an Army of horse and a strong Navy to remove Mackbeoth K. of Scots to whom he had formerly given the Realm of Scotland to hold it of him and make Malcolm the King of Cumberlands Son King in his place Who thereupon entring Scotland with a puissant Army fought a set battle with Mackbeoth slew many thousands of the Scots and all the Normans who went to him out of England chased him out of Scotland then totally wasted and subdued by Syward and deprived him both of his Life and Realm Which being effected King Edward gave the Realm of Scotland to Malcolm to be held from and under himself Not long after Duke Syward being likely to die of a flux when he saw death approaching said What a shame is it that I who could not die in so many battels and warrs should be reserved to die with disgrace like a Cow Wherefore put upon me my impenetrable coat of male gird me with my sword set my helmet upon my head put my buckler in my left hand and my gilt battel-ax in my right hand that being the strongest of all Souldiers I may die like a Souldier Whereupon being thus armed as he commanded he said Thus it becomes a Souldier to die and not lying down in his bed like an Ox and so he most honourably gave up the Ghost But because Walteof his Son was then but an insant his Earldom was given by the King to Tosti son of Earl Godwin whose Earldom after Godwins sudden death was bestowed on Harold and Harolds Earldom given to Algarus Earl of Chester Earldoms in that age being only for life not hereditary In the year 1055. King Edward Habito Londoniae Concilio holding a Parliamentary Councill at London banished Algarus Son of Earl Leofric quia de Proditione Regis in Concilio convictus fuerat because he had been convicted in the Council of Treason against the King as Henry Huntindon Bromtons Chronicle and Hygden record Yet Florentius Wigorniensis Simeon Dunelmensis Hoveden Henry de Knyghton and others write He was banished sine culpa without any crime Whereupon passing over into Ireland he soon after repaired with 18. piratical Ships to Griffin King of Wales requesting him to give him aid against King Edward Who thereupon forthwith assembling a very great Army out of all his Realm commanded Algarus to meet him and his Army with all his forces at a certain place where uniting their forces together they entred into Herefordshire to spoil and depopulate it Against whom timorous Earl Ralph King Edwards Sisters Son raising an Army and meeting them two miles from the City of Hereford commanded the English to fight on horseback contrary to their custom But when they were about to joyn battel the Earl with his French and Normans fled away first of all which the English perceiving followed their Captain in flying whom the Enemies pursuing slew four or five hundred of them and wounded many more and having gained the Victory took the City of Herford slew some of the Citizens carried away many of them captives annd having burnt and pillaged the City returned enriched with great booties The King being informed of it commanded an Army to be presently assembled out of all England which meeting together at Gloucester he made valiant Earl Harold their General who devoutly obeying his commands diligently pursued Griffin and Algarus and boldly entring into the coasts of Wales encamped at Straddle But they knowing him to be a valiant man not daring to fight with him fled into South-wales Upon which Harold leaving the greatest part of his Army there commanded them manfully to resist the Enemies if there were cause and returning with the rest of the multitude to Hereford he enviroued it with a broad and deep trench and fortified it with gates and barrs At last Messengers passing between them and Harold they made a firm Peace between them Whereupon Earl Algarus his Navy returning to Chester there exacted the wages he had promised them but he repairing to the King received his Earldom from him again This same year Herman Bishop of Salisbury requested of the King and almost obtained leave to remove
occidendum non rati slew and cut off the heads of all his Servants and Courtiers as well English as Danes being above 200. on the North part of the river of Humber then breaking up his Treasury they took away-all his Treasures Horses Armes houshold-stuff and all things that were his The rumor whereof being brought to the King and the Country in an uproar almost all the Northumberlanders met together and elected constituted Morchar Earl Algarus son for their Earl in the place of Tosti who marched with them into Lincolnshire Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire wasted and pillaged those Counties slew many of the Inhabitants and carryed many thousands of them away captive leaving those Counties much impoverished many years after Hereupon Harold was sent against them to revenge those injuries to prevent further mischiefs and to mediate a reconciliation between them and Tosti Upon this the Northumberlanders met Harold first at Northampton and afterwards at Oxford and although they were more in number than he yet being desirous of quietness and peace they excused the fact unto him saying Se homines liberè natos liberè educatos nullius Ducis ferociam pati posse A majoribus didicisse aut Libertatem aut Mortem c. That they being men freely born freely educated could not suffer the cruelty of any Duke That they had learned of their ancestors either to enjoy Liberty or death Therefore if the King would have them his Subjects he must set another Earl over them even Morchar who had had experience how sweetly they knew to obey if they were sweetly handled But all of them unanimously refused any reconciliation at all with Tosti whom they Outlawed together with all those who had incited him to make an unjust Law and impose an illegal Tribute upon them Harold hearing these things and minding more the Peace of the Country than his brothers profit recalled his Army and the King having heard their answer confirmed Morchar for their Duke Tosti hateful to all men by the assistance of Earl Edwin was expelled out of England by the Northumberlanders and driven with his wife and children into Flanders whence returning about two years after and joyning with the Danes he entred with the Danes into Northumberland miserably harrowed the whole Country slaughtered the inhabitants and at last was there slain with most of his Souldiers by his own brother King Harold Anno 1066. King Edward as Abbot Ingulphus living in that age records Anno 1065. being burdened with old age perceiving Prince Edgar Atheling his Cosen Edwards son lately dead to be uâ—fit for the royal throne tam corde quam corpore as well in respect of minde as body and that Earl Godwins many and wicked progeny did daily increase upon the earth set his mind upon his Cosen William Duke of Normandy et eum sibi succedere in Regnum Angliae voce stabili sancivit and decreed by a stable vote that he should succeed him in the Realm os England For Duke William was then superiour in every battel and a triumpher against the King of France and his fame was publickly blazed abroad amongst all the Earls of Normandy who were next him being invincible in the exercise of Arms Iudex justissiuâ—us in causarum judicio a most just Judge in the judging of causes and most religious and most devout in the service of God Hereupon King Edward sent Robert Archbishop of Canterbury to him as his Legate a Latere or special Embassador illumque designatum sui regni Successorem tam debito cognationis quam merito virtutis suae Archipraesulis relatu insinuavit and intimated unto him by the relation of his Archbishop that he had designed him to be the Successor of his Realm as well by the debt of kinred as by the merit of Virtue Moreover Harold the Major of the Kings Court comming into Normandy not only swore that he would conserve the Kingdom of England for Duke William after the Kings death but likewise promised upon Oath that he would take the daughter of Duke William for his wife and upon these promises returned home magnificently rewarded After which he subjoins Edwardi piissimi Regis cujus cognatione et consanguinitate inclytus Rex noster Willelmus fundat conscientiam suam regnum Angliae invadendi caeteris Regibus de Danorum sanguine quasi nullius authoritatis ad allegandum interim intermissis William of Malmsbury who flourished in or near that very age thus seconds him After the death of Edward his son Edgar was Neque promptus menu neque probus ingenio Rex itaque defuncto cognato quia spes prioris erat soluta suffragii Willielmo comiti Normanniae successionem Angliae dedit Erat ille hoc munere dignus praestans animi juvenis qui in supremum fastigium alacri labore excreverat Praeterea proxime consanguineus filius Roberti filius Richardi seoundi quem fratrem fuisse Emmae matris Edwardi non semel est quod diximus Forunt quidam ipsum Haroldum a Rege in hoc Normanniam missum alii secretioris consilii conscii invitum venti violentia illuc actum quo se tueretur invenisse commentum quod quia propius vero videtur exponam Harold comming to his farm at Boseam going for his recreation into a fisher-boat and putting forth into the Sea in sport was by a sudden contrary storm arising driven with his companions into the Village of Ponthieu in France where he was stripped and bound hand and foot by the rude Country people and carried Prisoner to Guido their Earl who detained him in Prison to gain a ransom from him Whereupon Harold being of a subtil wit studying how to relieve himself by large promises procured a Messenger to inform Duke William that he was sent by the King into Normandy that what lesser Messengers had but muttered touching his Succession to the Crown of England he might perform by his presence especially that he was detained in bonds by Earl Guido wherby he was hindered to deliver his message notwithstanding his appeal to him which was a great diminution to his honor and if his captivity were to be redeemed with monie he would willingly give it to him and not to Guido Upon which he was by Duke Williams command released brought by Guido into Normandy and there nobly feasted by the Duke where by his valour and policy he gained great reputation with Duke William and that he might more indear himself in his favour he there voluntarily of his own accord confirmed to him the Castle of Dover which belonged to him of right and the Kingdom of England after King Edwards decease whereupon the Duke espoused him to his daughter Adeliza then a child and bestowed her whole ample portion upon Harold and then honourably dismissed him Matthew Westminster Anno 1057. relating this Story of Harolds driving into Ponthieu by storm against his will as hapning in that year and that to ingratiate himself with Duke William
de regno post eum obtinendo minime potuit adimplere unde Willhelmo cognato suo Normannorum Duci Regnum post eum optinendum per solennes nuncios assignavit And Col. 957. he adds Some say that King Edward before his death had appointed William to succeed him according to the promise which the said King had made him when he was a young man living in Normandy that he should succeed him in the Kingdom concerning which as some write be had sent solemn Messengers to him into Normandy The like is affirmed almost in the same words by Henry de Knyghton de Eventibus Angliae l. 1. c 15. col 2238. and by Fabian Caxton Cambden Holinshed Grafton Speed Daniel Stow Vestegan and other modern Historians Matthew Paris in the beginning of his History of England p. 1. relates Harolds driving into Pountoise by storm as he was taking his pleasure at Sea his presenting to Duke William his espousals to his daughter under age which he ratified by Oath taken upon the reliques of Saints adding Juravit insuper se post mortem Regis Edwardi qui jam senuit sine liberis Regnum Angliae Duci qui in Regnum jus habuit fideliter conservaturum Consummatis igitur aliquot diebus cum summa laetitia amplis muneribus ditatus in Angliam reversus est Haroldus Sed cum in tuto constitueretur jactabat se laqueos evasisse Hostiles Perjurii crimen eligendo And Anno 1257. Writing of the Lay Peers of France whereof the Duke of Normandy is first he hath this passage Rex Angliae Dux est de jure Normanniae sanguinis derivatione geneali Rex ex conquestu dicitur tamen quod beatus Edwardus eo quod haerede caruit Regnum legavit Willielmo Bastardo Duci Normannorum Sed hoc robore asseruitur caruisse quia hoc fecit in lecto Lethali et sine Baronagii sui commnni consensu By all which Testimonies as likewise by the express relations of Mr. Cambden in his Britannia p. 144 145. Richard Verstegan his Restitution of decayed Antiquities Matthew Parker his Antiquitates Ecclesiae Britanniae p. 88. Mr. Seldens Review of his History of Tithes p. 482 483. it is apparent that King Edward whiles he was in Normandy before he was King upon Duke Williams repairing into England to him after he was King by several Messengers and Hostages sent to him in his old age and in his very death-bed appointed Duke William to be both his successor and heir to the Crown of England and that Harold either voluntarily as purposely sent by King Edward or craftily upon pretence he was sent by him to work his own enlargement and his Nephews or upon Williams motion to him voluntarily swore that he would faithfully preserve the Crown and Realm of England for him after King Edwards death who had appointed him to succeed him as his heir next kinsman by the mothers side and that he intended to dishinherit his Cosen Edgar Atheling of it though next heir to it by reason of his minority unfitness and indisposition both of body and minde to sway the Scepter of the Realm King Edward having finished his Abby of Westminster and endowed it with ample lands and privileges by three several Charters by the advice and assent of all his Bishops and Nobles as aforesaid Anno 1066 caused it to be solemnly consecrated on Innecents day with great solemnity but falling sick in the midst of these festival Solemnities of its dedication he betook himself to his bed where continuing speechlesse for two days space together on the third day giving a great groan and arising as it were from the dead he related to those then about him a Vision he had seen touching the State of England Namely that two religious Monks he had formerly known in Normandy dead many years before were sent unto him with this message declaring the Corruptions and Vices both of the Clergy Nobility Gentry and People of England and the judgements ready to fall upon them for the same Which Matthew Westminster thus relates Quoniam Primores Angliae Duces Episcopi Abbates non sunt Ministri Dei sed Diaboli tradidit Deus hoc regnum uno anno et die uno in manu inimici Daemonesque terram hanc totam pervagabunt Abbot Ailred thus records it Impletum dicunt Anglorum nequitiam iniquitas consummata iram provocat accelerat vindâ—ctam Sacerdotes praevaricati sunt pactum Domini polluto pectore manibus iniquitatis sancta contrectant non Pastores sed Mercenarii exponunt lupis oves non protegunt lac lanam quaerunt non oves ut detrusos ad inferos mors pastores depascat et oves Sed et Principes terrae infideles Sociae surum PRAEDONES PATRIAE quibus nec Deus timori est NEC LEX HONORI quibus veritas oneri JUS CONTEMPTUI CRUDELITAS DELECTATIONI Itaque NEC SERVANT PRAELATI JUSTITIAM nec subditi disciplinam Et ecce Dominus gladium suum vibravit arcum suum tetendit et paravit illum ostendet deinceps populo hinc iram indignationeÌ„ immissiones insuper per Angelos malos quibus traditi sunt anno uno die uno igne simul et gladio puniendi The King groaning and sighing for this calamity that was ready to fall upon his people demanded of the Monks Whether if they repented of their sins upon his admonition to them God would not pardon them and remove his judgements as he did from the Ninivites They replied That God would by no means receive them into his favour because the heart of this people was hardned and their eyes blinded and their ears deafned that they would not hear reproof nor understand admonition nor be terrified with threatnings nor provoked with his late benefits The King thereupon demanded Whether God would be angry for ever Whether he would be any more intreated and when they might hope for a release of so great calamities To which they replyed That if a green tree cut in the midst and carried a great space from the stock could without any help reunite it self to the root and grow again and bring sorth fruit then might the remission of such evils be hoped for The veritie of which Prophecy add our Historians the Englishmen experimentally felt namely That England should be an habitation of strangers and a Domination of Foreiners because a little space after scarce any Englishman was either a King a Duke Bishop or Abbot neither was there any hope also of the end of this misety King Edward after his relation of this Vision to the Nobles and Prelates then about him yielded up the Ghost and died without issue on Epiphany Eve An. 1066. and was solemnly interred the next day in Westminster Abbey the royal line of the Saxon Kings ending in him which had continued from Cerdic the first King of the West-Saxons for 571. years without interruption except by some
though he gains the possession by force This is evident by the forecited words of Mathew Paris and this passage of Henry de Knyghton not extant in Hygden out of whom he seems to tanscribe it Et sic quia Normannus Iure haereditatis tenuit Normanniae Ducatum ideo Dux Regnum vero Angliae mero Conquestu in respect of actual possession et clameo subscripto in respect of Title by claim by gift from King Edward Ideo Rex which claim and Title being backed by the unanimous election of the Prelates Clergy Nobility People and right heir to the Crown himself who all submitted and sware homage fealty and allegiance to him as their lawfull King infallibly demonstrate him to be no Conquerour in respect of Title in a strict legal military sense even in the judgement of those antient and modern Historians who give him that Title but only in regard of Harold and his party and the actual possession which he got by conquest And in this sense alone is that Distick in the Chronicle of Bromton to be understood Dux Normannorum Willielmus vi validorum Rex est Anglorum Bello Conquestor eorum 6ly Our Great Antiquary Richard Vestegan in his Restitutions of decayed Antiquities learned Mr. John Selden in his Review of the Hist of Tithes p. 482 483. Sir John Hayward in the life of King VVilliam the first Mr. Nathaniel Bacon in his first part of his Historical Discourse of the uniformity of the Government of England chap. 44 45 46 55 56. to omit others most fully prove and assert That the entry of William the first into the royal Government of England neither was nor properly could be by Conquest but by Title and by the free election of the Nobles Clergy and People That although the several Titles he Pretended were perhaps if curiously examined not sufficient to give him a true legal Title and Right to the Crown of England à parte ante because not agreed unto and confirmed by the general consent of the Nobles Kingdom and Nation in a Parliamentary Great Council but only by the King and some particular Prelates and Nobles out of Parliament as Harold in his answers alleged yet being ratified exparte post both by the subsequent consent agreement submission election Oath homage and fealty of all the people Nobles Clergy by their legal free crowning of him at first by Edgar Atheling his own submission sealty and resignation of his royal right and Title thereby unto him and ratified by succeeding Parliamentary Councils it became an indubitable Right and Title both in Law and Justice to him and his Posterity against all others who could lay no legaller Title thereunto he continuing confirming all the antient fundamental Laws Liberties Customs and Government of the English Nation without any alteration both by Oaths and Edicts I shal therefore conclude this point with the words of Shard a learned Lawyer in King Edward the third his reign who when the Kings Counsel in a Quo Warranto against the Abbot of Peterborough would have made a Charter of king Edgar void because they alleged all Franchises were devolved to the Crown by the Conquest replyed thereto The Conquerour came not at all to put any who had lawfull possession out of their rights but to dispossess those who by their wrong had seised upon any land in dis-inherison of the King and his Crown And with the words of our judicious Historian Sa. Daniel concerning this king VVilliam Neither did he ever claim any power by conquest but as a regular Prince submitted himself to the orders of the Kingdom desiring to have his Testamentary Title howsoever weak to make good his succession rather than his sword And though the stile of Conqueror by the slattery of the time was after given him he shewed by all the course of his Government he assumed it not introducing none of those Alâ—erations which followed by violence but by a mild gathering upon the disposition of the State and the occasions offered and that by way of reformation And although Sir Hen. VVotton gives this verdict of them VVe do commonly and justly stile him the Conquerour For he made a general conquest of 〈…〉 Kingdom and People either by Composition or Armes c. Yet he addes He was Crowned on Christmas day 1066. at which time he would fain have compounded a Civil Title of I know not what Alliance or Adoption or rather Donation from Edward the Confessor As if hereditarie kingdoms did pass like Newyears gifts The truth is he was the heir of his Sword Yet from these pretences howsoever there sprang this good That he was thereby in a sorting aged to cast his Government into a middle or mixed nature as it were between a lawfull successor and an Invader though generally as all new Empires do savour much of their beginning it had more of the Violent than of the Legal If any domineering Souldiers or others upon this false surmise of Duke VVilliams right to the Crown and Realm of England by meer conquest shall henceforth presume to claim and exercise a meer arbitrary absolute tyrannical and despotical power over our English Nation Laws Liberties Parliaments Estates Persons as over a meer conquered Nation against all Commissions Trusts Oaths Engagements Declarations and the rules both of Law and War it self being raised waged commissioned only to defend and preserve us from conquest by the opposite party Let them know that they are far greater worser Enemies to their own Native Country than this Norman Duke or any of our former British Saxon Danish Norman or English Kings who never claimed the Crown by meer conquest in any age but only by some real or pretended Title of Inheritance or at least by a free and general election both of the Nobility Clergy and people as this King William did From the former Historical Passages concerning Harold Tosti Duke William and the Kentishmen I shall deduce these legal Observations 1. That no Tax Subsidie or Imposition whatsoever could in that age be imposed on the English or Norman Subjects by their Kings or Dukes but by their common consent in their Parliamentary Councils where they were denied when inconvenient to the publike as well as granted when convenient 2. That no English or Norman Subjects were then obliged to aid and assist their Soveraigns with their persons arms estates or subsidies granted in any foreign invasive war but only left free to contribute what private assistance they thought fit in such cases 3. That no publike wars in that age were ever undertaken but by common advice and consent in great Parliamentary Councils 4. That the Kings of England in that age however they came to the Crown by right or wrong held it both their bounden duty interest safety to defend and preserve the Laws Rights Liberties of the Church and people to enact and maintain good Laws and abolish all evill Laws Rapines Exactions Tributes
example of Abbot Frederick Stigand Egelsine and the Kentish men 27. That true heroâ—ck English Freemen preferr their old Native Liberties Laws Customs before their Lives and would rather die fighting for them in the field than depart with them upon any Terms to a victorious Soveraign or subject themselves to the least publike Servitude the name whereof hath been ever odious to them much more the thing it self 28. That the best means to preserve our publike Laws Liberties Customs against all Invaders of them is manfully resolutely and unanimously to stand up in their defence both by words and deeds when they are most indangered That such persons Counties places who have appeared most stout and resolute in their defence when others have generally deserted surrendered or betrayed them have thereby preserved secured perpetuated them to themselves and their posterities when all else have lost and been deprived of them yea gained immortal honour and precedency of all others to boot Witnesse the Kentishmen 29. That the Stoutest Maintainers of their Countries Laws and Liberties are commonly most odious to most injured oppressed by tyrannical Soveraigns though upon other pretences witnesse Archbishop Stigand Abbot Frederick and Egelsine Yet this must not deterr them from their duties 30. That no age or person ever yet reputed Conquest a just safe prudent Title or Pretext to the Crown of England but ever disclaimed it as most absurd and dangerous to their interests 31. That the murdering or disinheriting of the right heir to the Crown hath been the Principal occasion and ground-work of all the great sad revolutions of Government in this Island and of the translations of the Crown and Kingdom from the Britons to the Saxons from the Saxons to the Danes and since from both of them to the Normans by the murther of Prince Alfred and rejection of Prince Edgars 32. That when Treachery Perjury Oppression Murder Violence and other sins forementioned have generally overspread the Kingdom and infected all sorts and degrees of men then National Judgments Forein invasions publike Revolutions of Governours and Government yea all sorts of Calamities Warrs Troubles may be justly feared expected inflicted as the fruits punishments of these epidemical crying Transgressions 33. That Crowns and Kingdoms have their Periods and Revolutions as well as private possessions Families and that by the secret Justice and wise disposing Providence of God who disposeth translateth dissipateth dissolveth Kingdoms at his pleasure and giveth them to whomsoever he pleaseth 34. From the whole we may observe with the Chronicle of Bromton and Mr. Fox That as the English-Saxons had most unjustly against their Oathes and Trusts formerly subdued and expelled the Britons by the just judgement of God upon them for their sins out of the possession of the Throne and Kingdom of Britain by the power of the sword so God himself by divine retaliation for the like Sinnes of the English Saxons after many years bloudy intestine warrs between themselves wherein many of their Kings multitudes of their Nobles and Millions of the Common Souldiers and people were slain and lost their lives first plagued infested them for many years and at last totally subdued and dispossessed them of the Crown and Kingdom for some years space by the bloudy Danes after that subjected them to the Normans yoke who possessed themselves of the Crown and Realm of England instrumentally by the Sword and put by both the Saxon Invader Harold and his Posterity with Edgar the Saxon heir in such sort as here you have read The Lord sanctifie all these Collections and Observations to the greatest publike good and settlement of our unsetled distracted English Nation and the private benefit of all who shall peruse them that they may aim only at that kingdom which cannot be shaken and that Crown of glory which fadeth not away not at temporal Crowns and kingdoms which are so fading transitory full of Thorns Crosses Cares Fears Vexations Tortures Perils Deaths FINIS Omissions and Errataes Kinde Reader I present thee with some Historical Passages casually omitted in their due places and such Errors as have hapned at the Press which I desire thee to correct PAge 10. line 8. One Thunder maliciously accused Aethelbert and Aethelred two kinsmen of Egbert King of Kent educated and brought up in his Court that they intended some time or other to take away his kingdom from him and thereupon advised the King either to banish them both into some farr Country or to deliver them unto him to destroy and murder without any legal Trial or conviction of their guilt Which Thunder often instigating the King to doe and he but coldly prohibiting or disliking thereupon Thunder in the Kings absence rashly presumed ignominiously to murder them in the Kings Palace and then buried them under his Royal Chair in a Village called Estria The King returning to his Court in the dead of the night there appeared a bright pillar sent from heaven which filled his whole royal Palace with an unspeakable brightnesse which the Kings servants beholding were so terrified that they fell down to the ground and became almost distracted The King being awaked with the tumult of his Guard and being ignorant of the cause thereof arose that he might go and hear Mattens as he was accustomed And going out of his house he saw the City shining with the beams of the new splendor Upon which missing his Kinsmen he sent for Thunder and demanded of him where they were who answered him like Cain Am I thy Kinsmens keeper To which the King replied Thou hast always sinisterly accused them unto me and therefore most wicked wretch thou oughtest to shew me where they are Whereupon he informed him of their murder and burial whereat the King was very angry with him But returning at last to himself he refunded the Crime whole wickednesse on himself and being confounded beyond measure spent the residue of the night in tears When the day appeared he sent for the Archbishop Adeo-datus et Magnates quos habere potuit convocarâ— praecepit and causing the Nobles to be called together related the whole businesse to them The Archbishop gave counsel that the bodies of these Innocents should be removed to the Cathedral Church and there interred in a royal manner Thereupon putting their bodies with Saints reliques into Coffins and Carts they intended to carry them to Christs Church in Canterbury but in vain because they could not stirre their corps nor remove them out of the place although they attempted it with much endeavour and force Vpon this changing their counsel they intended to remove them to St. Augustines Church neither yet could they effect it At last they resolved they should be removed to the most famous Monastery of Waermen upon which the Carts presently removed with ease as if they had no burden and they were buried by the High Altar in this Monastery Kinewalchus King of the West Saxons