The Story of London. Henry B. Wheatley
kept the country free from foreign freebooters, but when Ethelred II., called the Unready (or rather the Redeless), came to the throne, the Danes saw their opportunity. In 991 he tried to bribe his enemies to stay away, and was the first English King to institute the Danegelt, which was for so many years a severe tax upon the resources of the country. The bribe was useless, and the enemy had to be bought off again. A Danish fleet threatened London in 992, and in 994 Olaf (or Anlaf) Trygwason (who appears first as harrier of English soil in 988), with Sweyn, the Danish King, laid siege to London, but failed to take it. They then harried, burned and slew all along the sea coasts of Essex, Kent, Sussex and Hampshire. The English paid £10,000 to the Danes in 991, and in 994 they had to produce the still larger sum of £16,000 in order to purchase peace. Olaf then promised never again to visit England, except in peace. Subsequently Ethelred brought disaster upon himself and his country by his treachery. In 1002 he issued secret orders for a massacre of all the Danes found in England, and in this massacre Gunhild, sister of Sweyn, was among the victims. In consequence of Ethelred’s conduct the Danes returned in force to these shores and had to be bought off with a sum of £36,000. They came again and made many unsuccessful assaults upon London, upon which the Chronicler remarks: ‘They often fought against the town of London, but to God be praise that it yet stands sound, and they have ever fared ill.’
In 1010 Ethelred took shelter in London, and in 1013 Sweyn again attacked the city without success, but having conquered a great part of England the Londoners submitted to him, and Ethelred fled to Normandy. After Sweyn’s death, in 1014, Ethelred was invited to return to England, as the country was not willing to receive Sweyn’s son Cnut as its King. When Ethelred returned to England he was accompanied by another Olaf (Anlaf Haroldson) who succeeded by a clever manœuvre in destroying the wooden London Bridge, and taking the city out of the hands of the Danes. The story is told in Snorro Sturleson’s Heimskringla (The Story of Olaf the Holy, the son of Harold): ‘Olaf covered the decks of his ship with a roof of wood and wicker work to protect them from the stones and shot which were ready to be cast at them by the Danes. King Olaf and the host of the North-men rowed right up under the bridge, and lashed cables round the poles that upheld the bridge, and then they fell to their oars and rowed all the ships down stream as hard as they might. The poles dragged along the ground, even until they were loosened under the bridge. But inasmuch as an host under weapons stood thickly arrayed on the bridge, there were on it both many stones and many war-weapons, and the poles having broken from it, the bridge broke down by reason thereof, and many of the folk fell into the river, but all the rest thereof fled from the bridge, some into the city, some into Southwark. And after this they made an onset on Southwark and won it. And when the towns-folk saw that the River Thames was won, so that they might not hinder the ships from faring up into the land, they were afeard, and gave up the town and took King Ethelred in.’[10]
The later life of Olaf was one of adventure. He was driven by Cnut from his kingdom of Norway, and took shelter in Sweden. Here he obtained help, and in the end regained his throne. At the Battle of Sticklestead he was defeated and slain (1030). His body was hastily buried, but was afterwards taken up, and, being found incorrupt, was buried in great state in a shrine at Drontheim. He was canonized, and several English churches are dedicated to him. There are four parishes bearing the name of St. Olave in London, one of the churches is in Tooley Street which also preserves the name of St. Olave in a curiously corrupted form.
After this Ethelred succeeded in driving Cnut out of England back to Denmark. Of this success Freeman enthusiastically wrote: ‘That true-hearted city was once more the bulwark of England, the centre of every patriotic hope, the special object of every hostile attack.’[11]
There was, however, little breathing space, for Cnut returned to England in 1015, and Ethelred’s brilliant son, Edmund Ironside, prepared to meet him. Edmund’s army refused to fight unless Ethelred came with them, and unless they had ‘the support of the citizens of London.’ Before, however, Cnut arrived Ethelred died, England was in the hand of the Dane, and London only remained free. Edmund was elected King by the Witan, united with the inhabitants of the city, and thus the Londoners first asserted the position which they held to for many centuries—of their right to a voice in the election of the King.
Cnut was determined now to succeed, and he at once sailed up the Thames. He was, however, unable to pass the bridge, which had been rebuilt. He therefore dug a trench on the south side of the river, by which means he was enabled to draw some of his ships above the bridge. He also cut another trench entirely round the wall of the city. In spite of his clever scheme, the determined resistance of our stubborn forefathers caused it to fail.[12]
Edmund Ironside was successful in his battles with Cnut till his brother-in-law, Eadric, Alderman of Mercia, turned traitor, and helped the Danish King to vanquish the English army at Assandun (now Assenton in Kent). Edmund was now forced to agree to Cnut’s terms, and it was therefore settled that Edmund should retain his crown, and take all England south of the Thames, together with East Anglia, Essex and London, Cnut taking the rest of the kingdom. On the 30th November 1016 Edmund died, and Cnut became King of the whole of England. His reign was prosperous, and he succeeded in gaining the esteem of his subjects, who appreciated the long-continued peace which he brought them. Dr. Stubbs describes him as one of the ‘conscious creators of England’s greatness.’ He died in November 1035 at the early age of forty.
We may now pass over some troubled times, caused by the worthless successors of Cnut, and come to the period when the West Saxon line was restored in the person of Edward the Confessor, who, being educated at the Norman Court, became more a Norman than an Englishman, and prepared the way for the Conqueror’s success. The Confessor was but an indifferent King, although he holds a more distinguished place in history than many a more heroic figure as the practical founder of Westminster Abbey, where his shrine is still one of its most sacred treasures. When Edward died, the Witan which had attended his funeral elected to succeed him, Harold, the foremost man in England, and the leader who had attempted to check the spread of the far too wide Norman influence.
After conquering his outlawed brother, Tostig, and Harold Hardrada, King of Norway, at Stamford Bridge, he had to hurry back to meet William Duke of Normandy, which he did on a hill on the Sussex Downs, afterwards called Senlac. He closed his life on the field of battle, after a reign of forty weeks and one day. Then the Conqueror had the country at his mercy, but he recognised the importance of London’s position, and moved forward with the greatest caution and tact.
The citizens of London were possibly a divided body, and William, knowing that he had many friends in the city, felt that a waiting game was the best for his cause in the end. His enemies, led by Ansgar the Staller, under whom as sheriff the citizens of London had marched to fight for Harold at Senlac, managed to get their way at first. They elected Edgar Atheling, the grandson of Edmund Ironside, as King, but this action was of little avail.
When William arrived at Southwark the citizens sallied forth to meet him, but they were beaten back, and had to save themselves within the city walls. William retired to Berkhamsted,[13] and is said to have sent a private message to Ansgar asking for his support.[14] In the end the citizens, probably led by William the Bishop, who was a Norman, came over to the Conqueror’s side, and the best men repaired to Berkhamsted. Here they accepted the sovereignty of William, who received their oath of fealty.
Thus ends the Saxon period of our history, and the Norman period in London commences with the Conqueror’s charter to William the Bishop and Gosfrith the Portreeve, supposed to be the elder Geoffrey de Mandeville.
In the foregoing pages the main incidents of the history of Saxon London are recited. These are, I fear, rather disconnected and uninteresting, but it is necessary to set down the facts in chronological order, because from them we can draw certain conclusions as to the condition of London before the Norman Conquest. Unfortunately our authorities for the Saxon period do not tell us much that we want to know, and, in consequence, many of the suggestions made by one authority are disputed by another. Still we can draw certain very definite conclusions, which cannot well be the subjects of contention.
The first fact is the constant onward march of London towards the fulfilment of its great destiny. Trouble surrounded it on all sides, but, in spite of them all, the citizens gained strength in adversity,