Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II | Page 3

the Danube and Baltic to the
Atlantic Ocean--the whole country that had once been held by Rome,
and then had been wrested from her by the various German or Teutonic

races. The island of Great Britain was a sort of exception to the general
rule. Like Gaul, it had once been wholly Keltic, but it had not been as
entirely subdued by the Romans, and the overflow of Teutons came
very early thither, and while they were yet so thoroughly Pagan that the
old Keltic Church failed to convert them, and the mission of St.
Augustine was necessary from Rome.
A little later, when Charles the Great formed his empire of Franks,
Germans, Saxons, and Gauls, Egbert gathered, in like manner, the
various petty kingdoms of the Angles and Saxons under the one
dominant realm of Wessex, and thus became a sort of island Emperor.
It seems, however, to be a rule, that nations and families recently
emerged from barbarism soon fade and decay under the influence of
high civilization; and just as the first race of Frankish kings had
withered away on the throne, so the line of Charles the Great, though
not inactive, became less powerful and judicious, grew feeble in the
very next generation, and were little able to hold together the multitude
of nations that had formed the empire.
Soon the kingdom of France split away from the Empire; and while a
fresh and more able Emperor became the head of the West, the
descendants of the great Charles still struggled on, at their royal cities
of Laon and Soissons, with the terrible difficulties brought upon them
by restless subjects, and by the last and most vigorous swarm of all the
Teutonic invaders.
The wild rugged hills and coasts of Scandinavia, with their keen
climate, long nights, and many gulfs and bays, had contributed to nurse
the Teuton race in a vigor and perfection scarcely found elsewhere--or
not at least since the more southern races had yielded to the enervating
influences of their settled life. Some of these had indeed been tamed,
but more had been degraded. The English were degenerating into
clownishness, the Franks into effeminacy; and though Christianity
continually raised up most brilliant lights--now on the throne, now in
the cathedral, now in the cloister--yet the mass of the people lay
sluggish, dull, inert, selfish, and half savage.

They were in this state when the Norseman and the Dane fitted out their
long ships, and burst upon their coasts. By a peculiar law, common
once to all the Teuton nations, though by that time altered in the
southern ones, the land of a family was not divided among its members,
but all possessed an equal right in it; and thus, as it was seldom
adequate to maintain them all, the more enterprising used their right in
it only to fell trees enough to build a ship, and to demand corn enough
to victual their crew, which was formed of other young men whose
family inheritance could not furnish more than a sword or spear.
Kings and princes--of whom there were many--were exactly in the
same position as their subjects, and they too were wont to seek their
fortunes upon the high seas. Fleets coalesced under the command of
some chieftain of birth or note, and the Vikings, or pirates, sailed
fearlessly forth, to plunder the tempting regions to the south of them.
Fierce worshippers were they of the old gods, Odin, Frey, Thor; of the
third above all others, and their lengthy nights had led to their working
up those myths that had always been common to the whole race into a
beauty, poetry, and force, probably not found elsewhere; and that
nerved them both to fight vehemently for an entrance to Valhalla, the
hall of heroes, and to revenge the defection of the Christians who had
fallen from Odin. They plundered, they burnt, they slew; they specially
devastated churches and monasteries, and no coast was safe from them
from the Adriatic to the furthest north--even Rome saw their long ships,
and, "From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord deliver us," was the
prayer in every Litany of the West.
England had been well-nigh undone by them, when the spirit of her
greatest king awoke, and by Alfred they were overcome: some were
permitted to settle down and were taught Christianity and civilization,
and the fresh invaders were driven from the coast. Alfred's gallant son
and grandson held the same course, guarded their coasts, and made
their faith and themselves respected throughout the North. But in
France, the much-harassed house of Charles the Great, and the
ill-compacted bond of different nations, were little able to oppose their
fierce assaults, and ravage and devastation reigned from one end of the

country to another.
However, the Vikings, on