long period of struggle did Bernicia and Deira finally unite in the kingdom of Northumbria.1 chic king the witena gemot. al assembly Such being the principle upon which the early kingdoms The heptarcoalesced in the formation of the heptarchic states, the ques- doms and tion naturally arises as to the form and structure of the national assemblies of these aggregated states. The primitive The primiTeutonic conception of an assembly, whether local or na- tive nationtional, rested upon one simple idea, and that was that every purely dem freeman resident within a state or district had the right to ocrati. appear and represent himself in the assembly or court of such state or district. In the composition of the assemblies of the early kingdoms there was no departure from primitive traditions. The townsmen met in tun-moot, the freemen of the shire in shire-moot, while the whole people composed the stateassembly or folk-moot. And even after the early kingdoms had become bound up in larger aggregates they still firmly adhered to the original principle, so far as the composition of their own assemblies was concerned, without extending it to the national assemblies of the aggregated states. That is to say, if the right of all the people to attend in the assemblies of the aggregated or heptarchic states continued to exist in theory, it was not exercised in fact. The national assembly of In the hepan heptarchic state was not a folk-moot, but a witenagemot; states the it was not a great tumultuary assembly composed of the national whole body of the people, but a small assembly composed of shrinks up the great and wise men of the land, who met as councillors purely arisof the king. The only consistent theory upon which this tocratic. changed condition of things can be explained is, that, as the process of aggregation advanced, the limits of the greater kingdoms so widened as to render a general attendance both irksome and difficult, and for this reason the mass of the people simply ceased to attend.2 In this way assemblies purely democratic in theory, without the formal exclusion of any class, shrank up into assemblies purely aristocratic. The representative principle existed, it is true, in the lower ranges bishoprics." Kemble, Saxons in ter vi. 2 This is the theory of Kemble as developed in his chapter (vi.) on the tarchic assembly into a body The repre- of organization,1 but the idea had not yet sufficiently devel sentative principle tended to national assemblies. oped to be employed in national concerns. The time had not yet come for the early kingdoms which afterwards became shires to send representatives to a national parliament; that principle was destined to be the growth of later times. Such was the origin and history of the witenagemot, whether considered as the national assembly of an heptarchic state, or as the national assembly of all the English when finally united under the house of Cerdic. 1 In the representation of the townships in the courts of the hundred and the shire. CHAPTER IV. THE GROWTH OF NATIONAL UNITY. The limits conquest. 1. DURING the century and a half that intervened between the middle of the fifth century and the end of the sixth, the of Teutonic Teutonic invaders possessed themselves of all that part of Britain which had been embraced within the limits of the Roman Empire. The same physical obstacles which had shaped the advance of the Roman invader, shaped the advance of his Teutonic successor, and thus the limits of the one became the limits of the other. The disconnected warbands, each under its own personal leader, unconsciously united in the common design of driving the Celtic nation slowly to the west. Those of the native race who did not withdraw from the conquered soil were either absorbed or exterminated. In this way the eastern portion of Britain became thoroughly heathen and Teutonic, while the western still remained in the possession of the Romanized and Christianized Celts. Britain as a country never ceased to exist, Britain as a however, until the invaders, through the results of two mem- country orable battles, were able to dismember the British nation, and ceased to to dissolve it into distinct groups of isolated peoples. By the after the battle of Deorham (577), the West Saxons under Ceawlin won the Severn valley, and in this way cut off the Britons Deorham in the southwestern peninsula from the main body of their race. By the battle of Chester (613) the Northumbrians, and Ches under Æthelfrith, divided the district of country now known ter. as Wales from the northern provinces of Cumbria and Strathclyde. With the battle of Deorham the first period of con 1 "It was not the island of Britain which Engle and Saxon had mastered; it was the portion of it which lay within the bounds of the Roman Empire.". Green, Making of England, p. 141. - 2 This statement is repeated with the qualifications heretofore put upon it. See above, pp. 11, 85. 8 E. Chron., a. 577; Guest, "Conquest of Severn Valley," Archæol. Jour nal, xix. p. 194; Green, Making of Eng., p. 124. 4 Bæda, Hist. Eccl., ii. 2; Making of Eng., p. 235. never exist until battles of assumed a more hu the early settle ments. quest came to a close; with that event the period of pitiless war and extermination gave way to a period of settlement. Conquest The conquest was far from complete, it is true, but from that time forth it assumed a new and more humane form; the mane form. conquered Welsh were suffered to remain upon the soil, not as equals, but as men and citizens whose rights, to a limited. extent, were recognized by law. The weakness of the Teutonic attack upon Britain, the absence of a common design among the invaders beyond that of winning the same land, the stubbornness with which the invasion was resisted, the Nature of difficult nature of the country itself, sufficiently explain the slowness with which the land was won. As each separate warband or folk expelled or exterminated the native race within a given area, the kindred warriors settled down upon the soil with their wives, children, cattle, and slaves.2 In this way the very slowness and thoroughness of the conquest made possible the character of the settlements that followed in its train. The three invading tribes of Engles, Saxons, and Jutes tion of the divided the conquered area among themselves in very unequal proportions. The Jutes, who were the first to establish a permanent Teutonic settlement in Britain, founded only the the Jutes, kingdom of Kent, and a small principality embracing the Isle of Wight and a part of Hampshire. All the remaining English territory south of the Thames, together with some districts to the north of that river, was occupied by the three kingdoms of the South, East, and West Saxons. North of the Thames lay the three great kingdoms of the Engles. In the eastern peninsula, between the fens and the German Ocean, the Engles settled down thickly upon the soil; there the Northfolk and the Southfolk united in founding the kingdom of East Anglia. Between the Humber and the Forth lay the realm of the Northumbrians, which arose out of the union of Bernicia and Deira.6 In Central Britain the West Distribu conquered territory. Settle ments of of the Saxons, of the Engles. 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. i. p. 64. 8 E. Chron., a. 449; Bæda, Hist. Eccl., lib. i. c. 15; Guest, E. E. Settlements in South Britain, p. 43; Making of Eng land, pp. 26, 149. 4 Freeman, Norm. Conq., vol. i. pp. 16. 17. 6 Kemble, Saxons in Eng., vol. ii. p. 3. 6 Finally united by Oswiu, 651. Engle, whose limits became a march or border-land against the Welsh, established the kingdoms of the Mercians, or men of the March.1 of the hep The disunited Teutonic settlers in Britain, who are spoken Formation of in the very earliest records as belonging to "the English tarchic kin," must have been conscious, from an early period, of kingdoms. the possession of common blood, common speech, common faith, and common social and political institutions. The only differences which can be discovered among the various peoples who joined in the conquest "are differences of dialect, or distinctions in the form of a buckle or the shape of a grave mound. And yet it is quite certain, in the light of the later evidence, that there was a perfect absence of anything like cohesion or national unity in the mass of separate war-bands or folks that encamped upon the conquered soil. As the conquest advanced, as definite districts of country were permanently secured, and as the groups of warriors within. such districts felt the need of drawing together under a permanent instead of a temporary leadership, the heretoga or The warwar-leader was advanced to the dignity of a king. From the military organization of the host were derived the first forms of civil organization. In this way were formed the numberless early kingdoms or petty states into which the settlers were originally subdivided. For centuries one of the greatest obstacles to a union of the incoherent mass arose out of the tenacity with which the German instinct preserved the identity of these early settlements, and out of the faithfulness of each group to its ancient boundaries and to its tribal king. But before the historic period begins, these Early kingearly settlements or petty states have ceased to exist as inde- bound topendent communities, they have taken one step in the gether in direction of union, they have become bound up in the seven eight larger or eight larger aggregates generally known as the heptarchic aggregates. kingdoms. These kingdoms are distinctly developed by the time of the conversion, when, for the first time, we are able 1 Green, Making of Eng., p. 82 and note. 2 Green, Making of Eng., p. 154, citing Wright (The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, pp. 481, 482), who "considers the round buckles as peculiar to the Jutes, the cross-shaped to the Engle." 8 See above, p. 89. 4 16 Whilst the kin of the kings subsisted, and the original landmarks were preserved, neither religion, nor common law, nor even common subjection, sufficed to weld the incoherent mass.' Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. i. p. 170. leader be comes king. doms seven or |