*3. Kingship.*--The origins of Anglo-Saxon kingship are shrouded in obscurity, but it is certain that the king of later days was originally nothing more than the chieftain of a victorious war-band. During the course of the occupation of the conquered island many chieftains attained the dignity of kingship, but with the progress of political consolidation one after another of the royal lines was blotted out, old tribal kingdoms became mere administrative districts of larger kingdoms, and, eventually, in the ninth century, the whole of the occupied portions of the country were brought under the control of a single sovereign. Saxon kingship was elective, patriarchal, and, in respect to power, limited. Kings were elected by the important men sitting in council, and while the dignity was hereditary in a family supposedly descended from the gods, an immediate heir was not unlikely to be passed over in favor of a relative who was remoter but abler.[3] In both pagan and Christian times the royal office was invested with a pronouncedly sacred character. As early as 690 Ine was king "by God's grace." But the actual authority of the king was such as arose principally from the dignity of his office and from the personal influence of the individual monarch.[4] The king was primarily a war-leader. He was a law-giver, but his "dooms" were likely to be framed only in consultation with the wise men, and they pertained to little else than the preservation of the peace. He was supreme (p. 004) judge, and all crimes and breaches of the peace came to be looked upon as offenses against him; but he held no court and he had in practice little to do with the administration of justice. Over local affairs he had no direct control whatever. [Footnote 3: Thus, in 871, the minor children of Ethelred I. were passed over in favor of Alfred, younger brother of the late king.] [Footnote 4: The Anglo-Saxon king was "not the supreme law-giver of Roman ideas, nor the fountain of justice, nor the irresponsible leader, nor the sole and supreme politician, nor the one primary landowner; but the head of the race, the chosen representative of its identity, the successful leader of its enterprises, the guardian of its peace, the president of its assemblies; created by it, and, although empowered with a higher sanction in crowning and anointing, answerable to his people." W. Stubbs, Select Charters Illustrative of English Constitutional History (8th ed., Oxford, 1895), 12.]