History of the English People, Volume I: Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216Green, John Richard
History
History of the English People, Volume I: Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216
Green, John Richard
Great Britain -- History
The first sign of these troubles was seen when the death of Eadred in 955
handed over the realm to a child king, his nephew Eadwig. Eadwig was
swayed by a woman of high lineage, AEthelgifu; and the quarrel between her
and the older counsellors of Eadred broke into open strife at the
coronation feast. On the young king's insolent withdrawal to her chamber
Dunstan, at the bidding of the Witan, drew him roughly back to his seat.
But the feast was no sooner ended than a sentence of outlawry drove the
abbot over sea, while the triumph of AEthelgifu was crowned in 957 by the
marriage of her daughter to the king and the spoliation of the
monasteries which Dunstan had befriended. As the new queen was Eadwig's
kinswoman the religious opinion of the day regarded his marriage as
incestuous, and it was followed by a revolution. At the opening of 958
Archbishop Odo parted the King from his wife by solemn sentence; while
the Mercians and Northumbrians rose in revolt, proclaimed Eadwig's
brother Eadgar their king, and recalled Dunstan. The death of Eadwig a
few months later restored the unity of the realm; but his successor
Eadgar was only a boy of sixteen and at the outset of his reign the
direction of affairs must have lain in the hands of Dunstan, whose
elevation to the see of Canterbury set him at the head of the Church as
of the State. The noblest tribute to his rule lies in the silence of our
chroniclers. His work indeed was a work of settlement, and such a work
was best done by the simple enforcement of peace. During the years of
rest in which King and Primate enforced justice and order northman and
Englishman drew together into a single people. Their union was the result
of no direct policy of fusion; on the contrary Dunstan's policy preserved
to the conquered Danelaw its local rights and local usages. But he
recognized the men of the Danelaw as Englishmen, he employed northmen in
the royal service, and promoted them to high posts in Church and State.
For the rest he trusted to time, and time justified his trust. The fusion
was marked by a memorable change in the name of the land. Slowly as the
conquering tribes had learned to know themselves, by the one national
name of Englishmen, they learned yet more slowly to stamp their name on
the land they had won. It was not till Eadgar's day that the name of
Britain passed into the name of Engla-land, the land of Englishmen,
England. The same vigorous rule which secured rest for the country during
these years of national union told on the growth of material prosperity.
Commerce sprang into a wider life. Its extension is seen in the complaint
that men learned fierceness from the Saxon of Germany, effeminacy from
the Fleming, and drunkenness from the Dane. The laws of AEthelred which
provide for the protection and regulation of foreign trade only recognize
a state of things which grew up under Eadgar. "Men of the Empire,"
traders of Lower Lorraine and the Rhine-land, "Men of Rouen," traders
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