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Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain
The Conquest Of The Interior
by Allen, Grant (B.A.)
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From the little strip of eastern and southern coast on which they first
settled, the English advanced slowly into the interior by the valleys of
the great rivers, and finally swarmed across the central dividing ridge
into the basins of the Severn and the Irish Sea. Up the open river
mouths they could make their way in their shallow-bottomed boats, as the
Scandinavian pirates did three centuries later; and when they reached
the head of navigation in each stream for the small draught of their
light vessels, they probably took to the land and settled down at once,
leaving further inland expeditions to their sons and successors. For
this second step in the Teutonic colonisation of Britain we have some
few traditional accounts, which seem somewhat more trustworthy than
those of the first settlement. Unfortunately, however, they apply for
the most part only to the kingdom of Wessex, and not to the North and
the Midlands, where such details would be of far greater value.
The valley of the Humber gives access to the great central basin of the
Trent. Up this fruitful basin, at a somewhat later date, apparently,
than the settlement of Deira and Lincolnshire, scattered bodies of
English colonists, under petty leaders whose names have been forgotten,
seem to have pushed their way forward through the broad lowlands towards
Derby, Nottingham, and Leicester. They bore the name of Middle English.
Westward, again, other settlers raised their capital at Lichfield. These
formed the advanced guard of the English against the Welsh, and hence
their country was generally known as the Mark, or March, a name which
was afterwards latinized into the familiar form of Mercia. The absence
of all tradition as to the colonisation of this important tract, the
heart of England, and afterwards one of the three dominant Anglo-Saxon
states, leads one to suppose that the process was probably very gradual,
and the change came about so slowly as to have left but little trace on
the popular memory. At any rate, it is certain that the central ridge
long formed the division between the two races; and that the Welsh at
this period still occupied the whole western watershed, except in the
lower portion of the Severn valley.
The Welland, the Nene, and the Great Ouse, flowing through the centre of
the Fen Country, then a vast morass, studded with low and marshy
islands, gave access to the districts about Peterborough, Stamford, and
Cambridge. Here, too, a body of unknown settlers, the Gyrwas, seem about
the same time to have planted their colonies. At a later date they
coalesced with the Mercians. However, the comparative scarcity of
villages bearing the English clan names throughout all these regions
suggests the probability that Mercia, Middle England, and the Fen
Country were not by any means so densely colonised as the coast
districts; and independent Welsh communities long held out among the
isolated dry tracts of the fens as robbers and outlaws.
In the south, the advance of the West Saxons had been checked in 520,
according to the legend, by the prowess of Arthur, king of the
Devonshire Welsh. As Mr. Guest acutely notes, some special cause must
have been at work to make the Britons resist here so desperately as to
maintain for half a century a weak frontier within little more than
twenty miles of Winchester, the West Saxon capital. He suggests that the
great choir of Ambrosius at Amesbury was probably the chief Christian
monastery of Britain, and that the Welshman may here have been fighting
for all that was most sacred to him on earth. Moreover, just behind
stood the mysterious national monument of Stonehenge, the honoured tomb
of some Celtic or still earlier aboriginal chief. But in 552, the
English Chronicle tells us, Cynric, the West Saxon king, crossed the
downs behind Winchester, and descended upon the dale at Salisbury. The
Roman town occupied the square hill-fort of Old Sarum, and there Cynric
put the Welsh to flight and took the stronghold by storm.
The road was thus opened in the rear to the upper waters of the Thames
(impassable before because of the Roman population of London), as well
as towards the valley of the Bath Avon. Four years later Cynric and his
son Ceawlin once more advanced as far as Barbury hill-fort, probably on
a mere plundering raid. But in 571 Cuthwulf, brother of Ceawlin, again
marched northward, and "fought against the Welsh at Bedford, and took
four towns, Lenbury (or Leighton Buzzard), Aylesbury, Bensington (near
Dorchester in Oxfordshire), and Ensham." Thus the West Saxons overran
the whole upper valley of the Thames from Berkshire to above Oxford, and
formed a junction with the Middle Saxons to the north of London; while
eastward they spread as far as the northern boundaries of Essex. In 577
the same intruders made a still more important move. Crossing the
central watershed of England, near Chippenham, they descended upon the
broken valley of the Bath Avon, and found themselves the first
Englishmen who reached any of the basins which point westward towards
the Atlantic seaboard. At a doubtful place named Deorham (probably
Dyrham near Bath), "Cuthwine and Ceawlin fought against the Welsh, and
slew three kings, Conmail, and Condidan, and Farinmail, and took three
towns from them, Gloucester, and Cirencester, and Bath." Thus the three
great Roman cities of the lower Severn valley fell into the hands of the
West Saxons, and the English for the first time stood face to face with
the western sea. Though the story of these conquests is of course
recorded from mere tradition at a much later date, it still has a ring
of truth, or at least of probability, about it, which is wholly wanting
to the earlier legends. If we are not certain as to the facts, we can at
least accept them as symbolical of the manner in which the West Saxon
power wormed its way over the upper basin of the Thames, and crept
gradually along the southern valley of the Severn.
The victory of Deorham has a deeper importance of its own, however, than
the mere capture of the three great Roman cities in the south-west of
Britain. By the conquest of Bath and Gloucester, the West Saxons cut off
the Welsh of Devon, Cornwall, and Somerset from their brethren in the
Midlands and in Wales. This isolation of the West Welsh, as the English
thenceforth called them, largely broke the power of the native
resistance. Step by step in the succeeding age the West Saxons advanced
by hard fighting, but with no serious difficulty, to the Axe, to the
Parret, to the Tone, to the Exe, to the Tamar, till at last the West
Welsh, confined to the peninsula of Cornwall, became known merely as the
Cornish men, and in the reign of Ęthelstan were finally subjugated by
the English, though still retaining their own language and national
existence. But in all the western regions the Celtic population was
certainly spared to a far greater extent than in the east; and the
position of the English might rather be described as an occupation than
as a settlement in the strict sense of the word.
The westward progress of the Northumbrians is later and much more
historical. Theodoric, son of Ida, as we may perhaps infer from the old
Welsh ballads, fought long and not always successfully with Urien of
Strathclyde. But in 592, says Będa, who lived himself but three-quarters
of a century later than the event he describes, "there reigned over the
kingdom of the Northumbrians a most brave and ambitious king,
Ęthelfrith, who, more than all other nobles of the English, wasted the
race of the Britons; for no one of our kings, no one of our chieftains,
has rendered more of their lands either tributary to or an integral part
of the English territories, whether by subjugating or expatriating the
natives." In 606 Ęthelfrith rounded the Peakland, now known as
Derbyshire, and marched from the upper Trent upon the Roman city of
Chester. There "he made a terrible slaughter of the perfidious race."
Over two thousand Welsh monks from the monastery of Bangor Iscoed were
slain by the heathen invader; but Będa explains that Ęthelfrith put them
to death because they prayed against him; a sentence which strongly
suggests the idea that the English did not usually kill non-combatant
Welshmen.
The victory of Chester divided the Welsh power in the north as that of
Deorham had divided it in the south. Henceforward, the Northumbrians
bore rule from sea to sea, from the mouth of the Humber to the mouths of
the Mersey and the Dee. Ęthelfrith even kept up a rude navy in the Irish
Sea. Thus the Welsh nationality was broken up into three separate and
weak divisions—Strathclyde in the north, Wales in the centre, and
Damnonia, or Cornwall, in the south. Against these three fragments the
English presented an unbroken and aggressive front, Northumbria standing
over against Strathclyde, Mercia steadily pushing its way along the
upper valley of the Severn against North Wales, and Wessex advancing in
the south against South Wales and the West Welsh of Somerset, Devon, and
Cornwall. Thus the conquest of the interior was practically complete.
There still remained, it is true, the subjugation of the west; but the
west was brought under the English over-lordship by slow degrees, and in
a very different manner from the east and the south coast, or even the
central belt. Cornwall finally yielded under Ęthelstan; Strathclyde was
gradually absorbed by the English in the south and the Scottish kingdom
on the north; and the last remnant of Wales only succumbed to the
intruders under the rule of the Angevin Edward I.
There were, in fact, three epochs of English extension in Britain. The
first epoch was one of colonisation on the coasts and along the valleys
of the eastward rivers. The second epoch was one of conquest and partial
settlement in the central plateau and the westward basins. The third
epoch was one of merely political subjugation in the western mountain
regions. The proofs of these assertions we must examine at length in the
succeeding chapter.
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