The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume VII Part 11

[26] Neque conjugiis suscipiendis neque alendis liberis sueti, orbas sine posteris domos relinquebant. Non enim, ut olim, universae legiones deducebantur c.u.m tribunis et centurionibus et suis cujusque ordinis militibus, ut consensu et caritate rempublicam efficerent, sed ignoti inter se, diversis manipulis, sine rectore, sine affectibus mutuis, quasi ex alio genere mortalium repente in unum collecti, numerus magis quam colonia--Tacit. Annal. XIV. 27.

BOOK II

CHAPTER I.

THE ENTRY AND SETTLEMENT OF THE SAXONS, AND THEIR CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY.

[Sidenote: A.D. 447.]

After having been so long subject to a foreign dominion, there was among the Britons no royal family, no respected order in the state, none of those t.i.tles to government, confirmed by opinion and long use, more efficacious than the wisest schemes for the settlement of the nation.

Mere personal merit was then the only pretence to power. But this circ.u.mstance only added to the misfortunes of a people who had no orderly method of election, and little experience of merit in any of the candidates. During this anarchy, whilst they suffered the most dreadful calamities from the fury of barbarous nations which invaded them, they fell into that disregard of religion, and those loose, disorderly manners, which are sometimes the consequence of desperate and hardened wretchedness, as well as the common distempers of ease and prosperity.

At length, after frequent elections and deposings, rather wearied out by their own inconstancy than, fixed by the merit of their choice, they suffered Vortigern to reign over them. This leader had made some figure in the conduct of their wars and factious. But he was no sooner settled on the throne than he showed himself rather like a prince born of an exhausted stock of royalty in the decline of empire than one of those bold and active spirits whose manly talents obtain them the first place in their country, and stamp upon it that character of vigor essential to the prosperity of a new commonwealth. However, the mere settlement, in spite of the ill administration of government, procured the Britons some internal repose, and some temporary advantages over their enemies, the Picts. But having been long habituated to defeats, neither relying on their king nor on themselves, and fatigued with the obstinate attacks of an enemy whom they sometimes checked, but could never remove, in one of their national a.s.semblies it was resolved to call in the mercenary aid of the Saxons, a powerful nation of Germany, which had been long by their piratical incursions terrible not only to them, but to all the adjacent countries. This resolution has been generally condemned. It has been said, that they seem to have through mere cowardice distrusted a strength not yet worn down, and a fortune sufficiently prosperous. But as it was taken by general counsel and consent, we must believe that the necessity of such a step was felt, though the event was dubious. The event, indeed, might be dubious: in a state radically weak, every measure vigorous enough for its protection must endanger its existence.

There is an unquestioned tradition among the Northern nations of Europe, importing that all that part of the world had suffered a great and general revolution by a migration from Asiatic Tartary of a people whom they call Asers. These everywhere expelled or subdued the ancient inhabitants of the Celtic and Cimbric original. The leader of this Asiatic army was called Odin or Wodin: first their general, afterwards their tutelar deity. The time of this great change is lost in the imperfection of traditionary history, and the attempts to supply it by fable. It is, however, certain, that the Saxon nation believed themselves the descendants of those conquerors: and they had as good a t.i.tle to that descent as any other of the Northern tribes; for they used the same language which then was and is still spoken, with small variation of the dialects, in all the countries which extend from the polar circle to the Danube. This people most probably derived their name, as well as their origin, from, the Sacae, a nation of the Asiatic Scythia. At the time of which we write they had seated themselves in the Cimbric Chersonesus, or Jutland, in the countries of Holstein and Sleswick, and thence extended along the Elbe and Weser to the coast of the German Ocean, as far as the mouths of the Rhine. In that tract they lived in a sort of loose military commonwealth of the ordinary German model, under several leaders, the most eminent of whom was Hengist, descended from Odin, the great conductor of the Asiatic colonies. It was to this chief that the Britons applied themselves. They invited him by a promise of ample pay for his troops, a large share of their common plunder, and the Isle of Thanet for a settlement.

The army which came over under Hengist did not exceed fifteen hundred men. The opinion which the Britons had entertained of the Saxon prowess was well founded; for they had the princ.i.p.al share in a decisive victory which was obtained over the Picts soon after their arrival, a victory which forever freed the Britons from all terror of the Picts and Scots, but in the same moment exposed them to an enemy no less dangerous.

Hengist and his Saxons, who had obtained by the free vote of the Britons that introduction into this island they had so long in vain attempted by arms, saw that by being necessary they were superior to their allies.

They discovered the character of the king; they were eye-witnesses of the internal weakness and distraction of the kingdom. This state of Britain was represented with so much effect to the Saxons in Germany, that another and much greater embarkation followed the first; new bodies daily crowded in. As soon as the Saxons began to be sensible of their strength, they found it their interest to be discontented; they complained of breaches of a contract, which they construed according to their own designs; and then fell rudely upon their unprepared and feeble allies, who, as they had not been able to resist the Picts and Scots, were still less in a condition to oppose that force by which they had been protected against those enemies, when turned unexpectedly upon themselves. Hengist, with very little opposition, subdued the province of Kent, and there laid the foundation of the first Saxon kingdom. Every battle the Britons fought only prepared them for a new defeat, by weakening their strength and displaying the inferiority of their courage. Vortigern, instead of a steady and regular resistance, opposed a mixture of timid war and unable negotiation. In one of their meetings, wherein the business, according to the German mode, was carried on amidst feasting and riot, Vortigern was struck with the beauty of a Saxon virgin, a kinswoman of Hengist, and entirely under his influence.

Having married her, he delivered himself over to her counsels.

[Sidenote: A.D. 452]

His people, hara.s.sed by their enemies, betrayed by their prince, and indignant at the feeble tyranny that oppressed them, deposed him, and set his son Vortimer in his place. But the change of the king proved no remedy for the exhausted state of the nation and the const.i.tutional infirmity of the government. For even if the Britons could have supported themselves against the superior abilities and efforts of Hengist, it might have added to their honor, but would have contributed little to their safety. The news of his success had roused all Saxony.

Five great bodies of that adventurous people, under different and independent commanders, very nearly at the same time broke in upon as many different parts of the island. They came no longer as pirates, but as invaders. Whilst the Britons contended with one body of their fierce enemies, another gained ground, and filled with slaughter and desolation the whole country from sea to sea. A devouring war, a dreadful famine, a plague, the most wasteful of any recorded in our history, united to consummate the ruin of Britain. The ecclesiastical writers of that age, confounded at the view of those complicated calamities, saw nothing but the arm of G.o.d stretched out for the punishment of a sinful and disobedient nation. And truly, when we set before us in one point of view the condition of almost all the parts which had lately composed the Western Empire,--of Britain, of Gaul, of Italy, of Spain, of Africa,--at once overwhelmed by a resistless inundation of most cruel barbarians, whose inhuman method of war made but a small part of the miseries with which these nations were afflicted, we are almost driven out of the circle of political inquiry: we are in a manner compelled to acknowledge the hand of G.o.d in those immense revolutions by which at certain periods He so signally a.s.serts His supreme dominion, and brings about that great system of change which is perhaps as necessary to the moral as it is found to be in the natural world.

But whatever was the condition of the other parts of Europe, it is generally agreed that the state of Britain was the worst of all. Some writers have a.s.serted, that, except those who took refuge in the mountains of Wales and in Cornwall, or fled into Armorica, the British race was in a manner destroyed. What is extraordinary, we find England in a very tolerable state of population in less than two centuries after the first invasion of the Saxons; and it is hard to imagine either the transplantation or the increase of that single people to have been in so short a time sufficient for the settlement of so great an extent of country. Others speak of the Britons, not as extirpated, but as reduced to a state of slavery; and here these writers fix the origin of personal and predial servitude in England.

I shall lay fairly before the reader all I have been able to discover concerning the existence or condition of this unhappy people. That they were much more broken and reduced than any other nation which had fallen under the German power I think may be inferred from two considerations.

First, that in all other parts of Europe the ancient language subsisted after the conquest, and at length incorporated with that of the conquerors; whereas in England the Saxon language received little or no tincture from the Welsh; and it seems, even among the lowest people, to have continued a dialect of pure Teutonic to the time in which it was itself blended with the Norman. Secondly, that on the continent the Christian religion, after the Northern irruptions, not only remained, but flourished. It was very early and universally adopted by the ruling people. In England it was so entirely extinguished, that, when Augustin undertook his mission, it does not appear that among all the Saxons there was a single person professing Christianity.

[Sidenote: A.D. 500]

The sudden extinction of the ancient religion, and language appears sufficient to show that Britain must have suffered more than any of the neighboring nations on the continent. But it must not be concealed that there are likewise proofs that the British race, though much diminished, was not wholly extirpated, and that those who remained were not, merely as Britons, reduced to servitude. For they are mentioned as existing in some of the earlier Saxon laws. In these laws they are allowed a compensation on the footing of the meaner kind of English; and they are even permitted, as well as the English, to emerge out of that low rank into a more liberal condition. This is degradation, but not slavery.[27]

The affairs of that whole period are, however, covered with an obscurity not to be dissipated. The Britons had little leisure or ability to write a just account of a war by which they were ruined; and the Anglo-Saxons who succeeded them, attentive only to arms, were, until their conversion, ignorant of the use of letters.

It is on this darkened theatre that some old writers have introduced those characters and actions which have afforded such ample matter to poets and so much perplexity to historians. This is the fabulous and heroic age of our nation. After the natural and just representations of the Roman scene, the stage is again crowded with enchanters, giants, and all the extravagant images of the wildest and most remote antiquity. No personage makes so conspicuous a figure in these stories as King Arthur: a prince whether of British or Roman origin, whether born on this island or in Amorica, is uncertain; but it appears that he opposed the Saxons with remarkable virtue and no small degree of success, which has rendered him and his exploits so large an argument of romance that both are almost disclaimed by history. Light scarce begins to dawn until the introduction of Christianity, which, bringing with it the use of letters and the arts of civil life, affords at once a juster account of things and facts that are more worthy of relation: nor is there, indeed, any revolution so remarkable in the English story.

The bishops of Rome had for some time meditated the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. Pope Gregory, who is surnamed the Great, affected that pious design with an uncommon zeal; and he at length found a circ.u.mstance highly favorable to it in the marriage of a daughter of Charibert, a king of the Franks, to the reigning monarch of Kent. This opportunity induced Pope Gregory to commission Augustin, a monk of Rheims, and a man of distinguished piety, to undertake this arduous enterprise.

[Sidenote: A.D. 600]

It was in the year of Christ 600, and 150 years after the coming of the first Saxon colonies into England, that Ethelbert, king of Kent, received intelligence of the arrival in his dominions of a number of men in a foreign garb, practising several strange and unusual ceremonies, who desired to be conducted to the king's presence, declaring that they had things to communicate to him and to his people of the utmost importance to their eternal welfare. This was Augustin, with forty of the a.s.sociates of his mission, who now landed in the Isle of Thanet, the same place by which the Saxons had before entered, when they extirpated Christianity.

The king heard them in the open air, in order to defeat,[28] upon a principle of Druidical superst.i.tion, the effects of their enchantments.

Augustin spoke by a Frankish interpreter. The Franks and Saxons were of the same origin, and used at that time the same language. He was favorably received; and a place in the city of Canterbury, the capital of Kent, was allotted for the residence of him and his companions. They entered Canterbury in procession, preceded by two persons who bore a silver cross and the figure of Christ painted on a board, singing, as they went, litanies to avert the wrath of G.o.d from that city and people.

The king was among their first converts. Tho princ.i.p.al of his n.o.bility, as usual, followed that example, moved, as it is related, by many signal miracles, but undoubtedly by the extraordinary zeal of the missionaries, and the pious austerity of their lives. The new religion, by the protection of so respected a prince, who held under his dominion or influence all the countries to the southward of the Humber, spread itself with great rapidity. Paganism, after a faint resistance, everywhere gave way. And, indeed, the chief difficulties which Christianity had to encounter did not arise so much from the struggles of opposite religious prejudices as from the gross and licentious manners of a barbarous people. One of the Saxon princes expelled the Christians from his territory because the priest refused to give him some of that white bread which he saw distributed to his congregation.

It is probable that the order of Druids either did not at all subsist amongst the Anglo-Saxons, or that at this time it had declined not a little from its ancient authority and reputation; else it is not easy to conceive how they admitted so readily a new system, which at one stroke cut off from their character its whole importance. We even find some chiefs of the Pagan priesthood amongst the foremost in submitting to the new doctrine. On the first preaching of the Gospel in Northumberland, the heathen pontiff of that territory immediately mounted a horse, which to those of his order was unlawful, and, breaking into the sacred inclosure, hewed to pieces the idol he had so long served.[29]

If the order of the Druids did not subsist amongst the Saxons, yet the chief objects of their religion appear to have been derived from that fountain. They, indeed, worshipped several idols under various forms of men and beasts; and those G.o.ds to whom they dedicated the days of the week bore in their attributes, and in the particular days that were consecrated to them, though not in their names, a near resemblance to the divinities of ancient Rome. But still the great and capital objects of their worship were taken from Druidism,--trees, stones, the elements, and the heavenly bodies.[30] These were their princ.i.p.al devotions, laid the strongest hold upon their minds, and resisted the progress of the Christian religion with the greatest obstinacy: for we find these superst.i.tions forbidden amongst the latest Saxon laws. A worship which stands in need of the memorial of images or books to support it may perish when these are destroyed; but when a superst.i.tion is established upon those great objects of Nature which continually solicit the senses, it is extremely difficult to turn the mind from things that in themselves are striking, and that are always present. Amongst the objects of this cla.s.s must be reckoned the G.o.ddess Eostre, who, from the etymology of the name, as well as from the season sacred to her, was probably that beautiful planet which the Greeks and Romans worshipped under the names of Lucifer and Venus. It is from this G.o.ddess that in England the paschal festival has been called Easter.[31] To these they joined the reverence of various subordinate genii, or demons, fairies, and goblins,--fantastical ideas, which, in a state of uninstructed Nature, grow spontaneously out of the wild fancies or fears of men.

Thus, they worshipped a sort of G.o.ddess, whom they called Mara, formed from those frightful appearances that oppress men in their sleep; and the name is still retained among us.[32]

As to the manners of the Anglo-Saxons, they were such as might be expected in a rude people,--fierce, and of a gross simplicity. Their clothes were short. As all barbarians are much taken with exterior form, and the advantages and distinctions which are conferred by Nature, the Saxons set an high value on comeliness of person, and studied much to improve it. It is remarkable that a law of King Ina orders the care and education of foundlings to be regulated by their beauty.[33] They cherished their hair to a great length, and were extremely proud and jealous of this natural ornament. Some of their great men were distinguished by an appellative taken from the length of their hair.[34]

To pull the hair was punishable;[35] and forcibly to cut or injure it was considered in the same criminal light with cutting off the nose or thrusting out the eyes. In the same design of barbarous ornament, their faces were generally painted and scarred. They were so fond of chains and bracelets that they have given a surname to some of their kings from their generosity in bestowing such marks of favor.[36]

Few things discover the state of the arts amongst people more certainly than the presents that are made to them by foreigners. The Pope, on his first mission into Northumberland, sent to the queen of that country some stuffs with ornaments of gold, an ivory comb inlaid with the same metal, and a silver mirror. A queen's want of such female ornaments and utensils shows that the arts were at this time little cultivated amongst the Saxons. These are the sort of presents commonly sent to a barbarous people.

Thus ignorant in sciences and arts, and unpractised in trade or manufacture, military exercises, war, and the preparation for war, was their employment, hunting their pleasure. They dwelt in cottages of wicker-work plastered with clay and thatched with rushes, where they sat with their families, their officers and domestics, round a fire made in the middle of the house. In this manner their greatest princes lived amidst the ruins of Roman magnificence. But the introduction of Christianity, which, under whatever form, always confers such inestimable benefits on mankind, soon made a sensible change in these rude and fierce manners.

It is by no means impossible, that, for an end so worthy, Providence on some occasions might directly have interposed. The books which contain the history of this time and change are little else than a narrative of miracles,--frequently, however, with such apparent marks of weakness or design that they afford little encouragement to insist on them. They were then received with a blind credulity: they have been since rejected with as undistinguishing a disregard. But as it is not in my design nor inclination, nor indeed in my power, either to establish or refute these stories, it is sufficient to observe, that the reality or opinion of such miracles was the princ.i.p.al cause of the early acceptance and rapid progress of Christianity in this island. Other causes undoubtedly concurred; and it will be more to our purpose to consider some of the human and politic ways by which religion was advanced in this nation, and those more particularly by which the monastic inst.i.tution, then interwoven with Christianity, and making an equal progress with it, attained to so high a pitch, of property and power, so as, in a time extremely short, to form a kind of order, and that not the least considerable, in the state.

FOOTNOTES:

[27] Leges Inae, 32, De Cambrico Homine Agrum possidente.--Id. 54

[28] "Veteri usus augurio," says Henry of Huntingdon, p. 321.

[29] Bede, Hist. Eccl. Lib. II. c 13.

[30] Deos gentiles, et solem vel lunam, ignem vel fluvium, torrentem vel saxa, vel alicujus generis arborum ligna.--L. c.n.u.t. 5.--Superst.i.tiosus ille conventus, qui Frithgear dicitur, circa lapidem, arborem, fontem.--Leg. Presb. Northumb.

[31] Spelman's Glossary, t.i.t. eod.

[32] The night-mare.

[33] L. Inae, 26.

[34] Oslacus ... promissa caesarie heros.--Chron. Saxon. 123.

[35] L. aelfred. 31. L. c.n.u.t. apud Brompt. 27.

[36] Eadgarus n.o.bilibus torquium largitor.--Chron. Sax. 123 Bed. Hist.

Eccl. Lib. IV. c. 29.

CHAPTER II.

ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY--OF MONASTIC INSt.i.tUTIONS--AND OF THEIR EFFECTS.