LITMIR.BIZ

At this time of day I suppose it is hardly necessary to prove the elective character of Old-English kingship. I have said what I have to say about it in Norman Conquest, i. 106, 596. But I may quote one most remarkable passage from the report made in 787 to Pope Hadrian the First by George and Theophylact, his Legates in England (Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, iii. 453). “Sanximus ut in ordinatione Regum nullus permittat pravorum prævalere assensum: sed legitime Reges a sacerdotibus et senioribus populi eligantur.” One would like to know who the “pravi” here denounced were. The passage sounds very like a narrowing of the franchise or some other interference with freedom of election, but in any case it bears witness to the elective character of our ancient kingship, and to the general popular character of the constitution.

I have described the powers of the Witan, as I understand them and as they were understood by Mr. Kemble, at vol. i. p. 108 of the History of the Norman Conquest and in some of the Appendices to that volume. With regard to the powers of the Witan, I find no difference between my own views and those of Professor Stubbs in the Introductory Sketch to his Select Charters (p. 11), where the relations between the King and the Witan, and the general character of our ancient constitution, are set forth with wonderful power and clearness. But I find Mr. Stubbs and myself differing altogether as to the constitution of the Witenagemót. I look upon it as an Assembly of the whole kingdom, after the type of the smaller assemblies of the shire and other lesser divisions. Mr. Stubbs fully admits the popular character of the smaller assemblies, but denies any such character to the national gathering. It is dangerous to set oneself up against the greatest master of English constitutional history, but I must ask the reader to weigh what I say in note Q in the Appendix to my first volume.

I have collected some of the instances of deposition in Northumberland in the note following that on the constitution of the Witenagemót. (Norman Conquest, i. 593.) It is not at all unlikely that the report of George and Theophylact quoted above may have a special reference to the frequent changes among the Northumbrian Kings.

I have mentioned all the instances at vol. i. p. 105 of the Norman Conquest: Sigeberht, Æthelred, Harthacnut, Edward the Second, Richard the Second, James the Second. It is remarkable that nearly all are the second of their respective names; for, besides Æthelred, Edward, Richard, and James, Harthacnut might fairly be called Cnut the Second.

Tacitus, De Moribus Germaniæ, 13, 14: – “Nec rubor inter comites adspici. Gradus quinetiam et ipse comitatus habet, judicio ejus quem sectantur; magnaque et comitum æmulatio quibus primus apud Principem suum locus; et Principum cui plurimi et acerrimi comites… Quum ventum in aciem, turpe Principi virtute vinci, turpe comitatui virtutem Principis non adæquare. Jam vero infame in omnem vitam ac probrosum, superstitem Principi suo ex acie recessisse. Illum defendere, tueri, sua quoque fortia facta gloriæ ejus adsignare, præcipuum sacramentum est. Principes pro victoria pugnant; comites pro Principe.” See Allen, Royal Prerogative, 142.

The original text of the Song of Maldon will be found in Thorpe’s Analecta Anglo-Saxonica. My extracts are made from the modern English version which I attempted in my Old-English History, p. 192. I went on the principle of altering the Old-English text no more than was actually necessary to make it intelligible. When a word has altogether dropped out of our modern language, I have of course changed it; when a word is still in use, in however different a sense, I have kept it. Many words which were anciently used in a physical sense are now used only metaphorically; thus “cringe” is used in one of the extracts in its primary meaning of bowing or falling down, and therefore of dying.