collected, the Danes sacked Canterbury and barbarously slew the archbishop Alphege. The tribute was paid soon afterwards; and about the same time the Danish leader Thurkill entered the English service. From 1013 an important change is discernible in the character of the Danish attacks, which now became definitely political in their aim. In this year Sweyn sailed up the Trent and received the submission of northern England, and then marching south, he attacked London. Failing to take it, he hastened west and at Bath received the submission of Wessex. Then he returned northwards, and after that “all the nation considered him as full king.” London soon acknowledged him, and Æthelred, after taking refuge for a while with Thurkill’s fleet, escaped to Normandy. Sweyn died in February 1014, and Æthelred was recalled by the witan, on giving a promise to reign better in future. At once he hastened north against Canute, Sweyn’s son, who claimed to succeed his father, but Canute sailed away, only to return next year, when the traitor Edric joined him and Wessex submitted. Together Canute and Edric harried Mercia, and were preparing to reduce London, when Æthelred died there on the 23rd of April 1016. Weak, self-indulgent, improvident, he had pursued a policy of opportunism to a fatal conclusion.
Æthelred’s wife was Emma, or Ælfgifu, daughter of Richard I. the Fearless, duke of the Normans, whom he married in 1002. After the king’s death Emma became the wife of Canute the Great, and after his death in 1035 she struggled hard to secure England for her son, Hardicanute. In 1037, however, when Harold Harefoot became sole king, she was banished; she went to Flanders, returning to England with Hardicanute in 1040. In 1043, after Edward the Confessor had become king he seized the greater part of Emma’s great wealth, and the queen lived in retirement at Winchester until her death on the 6th of March 1052. By Æthelred Emma had two sons, Edward the Confessor and the ætheling Ælfred (d. 1036), and by Canute she was the mother of Hardicanute. Emma’s marriage with Æthelred was an important step in the history of the relations between England and Normandy, and J. R. Green says “it suddenly opened for its rulers a distinct policy, a distinct course of action, which led to the Norman conquest of England. From the moment of Emma’s marriage Normandy became a chief factor in English politics.”
Authorities.—The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (edition by C. Plummer, 2 vols. Oxford, 1892–1899); Florence of Worcester (ed. B. Thorpe, London, 1848–1849); Encomium Emmae (ed. by G. H. Pertz in the Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, Band xix., Hanover, 1866) for the latter part of the reign. See also J. M. Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus aevi Saxonici (London, 1839–1848); and B. Thorpe, Ancient Laws (London, 1840). (C. S. P.*)
ÆTHELSTAN (c. 894–940), Saxon king, was the son (probably illegitimate) of Edward the elder. He had been the favourite of his grandfather Alfred, and was brought up in the household of his aunt Æthelflaed, the “Lady of the Mercians.” On the death of his father in 924, at some date after the 12th of November, Æthelstan succeeded him and was crowned at Kingston shortly after. The succession did not, however, take place without opposition. One Ælfred, probably a descendant of Æthelred I., formed a plot to seize the king at Winchester; the plot was discovered and Ælfred was sent to Rome to defend himself, but died shortly after. The king’s own legitimate brother Edwin made no attempt on the throne, but in 933 he was drowned at sea under somewhat mysterious circumstances; the later chroniclers ascribe his death to foul play on the part of the king, but this seems more than doubtful.
One of Æthelstan’s first public acts was to hold a conference at Tamworth with Sihtric, the Scandinavian king of Northumbria, and as a result Sihtric received Æthelstan’s sister in marriage. In the next year Sihtric died and Æthelstan took over the Northumbrian kingdom. He now received, at Dacre in Cumberland, the submission of all the kings of the island, viz. Howel Dda, king of West Wales, Owen, king of Cumbria, Constantine, king of the Scots, and Ealdred of Bamburgh, and henceforth he calls himself “rex totius Britanniae.” About this time (the exact chronology is uncertain) Æthelstan expelled Sihtric’s brother Guthfrith, destroyed the Danish fortress at York, received the submission of the Welsh at Hereford, fixing their boundary along the line of the Wye, and drove the Cornishmen west of the Tamar, fortifying Exeter as an English city.
In 934 he invaded Scotland by land and sea, perhaps owing to an alliance between Constantine and Anlaf Sihtricsson. The army advanced as far north as Dunottar, in Kincardineshire, while the navy sailed to Caithness. Simeon of Durham speaks of a submission of Scotland as a result; if it ever took place it was a mere form, for three years later we find a great confederacy formed in Scotland against Æthelstan. This confederacy of 937 was joined by Constantine, king of Scotland, the Welsh of Strathclyde, and the Norwegian chieftains Anlaf Sihtricsson and Anlaf Godfredsson, who, though they came from Ireland, had powerful English connexions. A great battle was fought at Brunanburh (perhaps Brunswark or Birrenswark hill in S.E. Dumfriesshire), in which Æthelstan and his brother Edmund were completely victorious. England had been freed from its greatest danger since the days of the struggle of Alfred against Guthrum.
Æthelstan was the first Saxon king who could claim in any real sense to be lord paramount of Britain. In his charters he is continually called “rex totius Britanniae,” and he adopts for the first time the Greek title basileus. This was not merely an idle flourish, for some of his charters are signed by Welsh and Scottish kings as subreguli. Further, Æthelstan was the first king to bring England into close touch with continental Europe. By the marriage of his half-sisters he was brought into connexion with the chief royal and princely houses of France and Germany. His sister Eadgifu married Charles the Simple, Eadhild became the wife of Hugh the Great, duke of France, Eadgyth was married to the emperor Otto the Great, and her sister Ælfgifu to a petty German prince. Embassies passed between Æthelstan and Harold Fairhair, first king of Norway, with the result that Harold’s son Haakon was brought up in England and is known in Scandinavian history as Haakon Adalsteinsfóstri.
Æthelstan died at Gloucester in 940, and was buried at Malmesbury, an abbey which he had munificently endowed during his lifetime. Apparently he was never married, and he certainly had no issue.
A considerable body of law has come down to us in Æthelstan’s name. The chief collections are those issued at Grately in Hampshire, at Exeter, at Thunresfeld, and the Judicia civitatis Lundonie. In the last-named one personal touch is found when the king tells the archbishop how grievous it is to put to death persons of twelve winters for stealing. The king secured the raising of the age limit to fifteen.
Authorities.—Primary: The Saxon Chronicle, sub ann.; William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, i. 141-157, Rolls Series, containing valuable original information (v. Stubbs' Introduction, II. lx-lxvii.); Birch, Cartul. Saxon. vol. ii. Nos. 641-747; A.S. Laws. (ed. Liebermann), i. 146-183; Æthelweard, Florence of Worcester. Secondary: Saxon Chronicle (ed. Plummer), vol. ii. pp. 132-142; D.N.B., s.v. (A. Mw.)
ÆTHELWEARD (Ethelward.) Anglo-Saxon historian, was the great-grandson of Æthelred, the brother of Alfred and ealdorman or earl of the western provinces (i.e. probably of the whole of Wessex). He first signs as dux or ealdorman in 973, and continues to sign until 998, about which time his death must have taken place. In the year 991 he was associated with archbishop Sigeric in the conclusion of a peace with the victorious Danes from Maldon, and in 994 he was sent with Bishop Ælfheah (Alphege) of Winchester to make peace with Olaf at Andover. Æthelweard was the author of a Latin Chronicle extending to the year 975. Up to the year 892 he is largely dependent on the Saxon Chronicle, with a few details of his own; later he is largely independent of it. Æthelweard gave himself the bombastic title “Patricius Consul Quaestor Ethelwerdus,” and unfortunately this title is only too characteristic of the man. His narrative is highly rhetorical, and as he at the same time attempts more than Tacitean brevity his narrative is often very obscure. Æthelweard was the friend and patron of Ælfric the grammarian.
Authorities.—Primary: The Saxon Chronicle, 994 E; Birch,
