(M10)

"A.D. 457 (456). This year Hengist and AEsc [Eric or Ash] his son fought against the Britons at a place called Creegan-Ford [Crayford] and there slew four thousand men, and the Britons then forsook Kent, and in great terror fled to London."(13) So runs the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, and this is the sole piece of information concerning London it vouchsafes us for one hundred and fifty years following the departure of the Romans. The information, scant as it is, serves to show that London had not quite become a deserted city, nor had yet been devastated as others had been by the enemy. Its walls still served to afford shelter to the terrified refugees.

(M11)

When next we read of her, she is in the possession of the East Saxons. How they came there is a matter for conjecture. It is possible that with the whole of the surrounding counties in the hands of the enemy, the Londoners were driven from their city to seek means of subsistence elsewhere, and that when the East Saxons took possession of it, they found houses and streets deserted. Little relishing a life within a town, they probably did not make a long stay, and, on their departure, the former inhabitants returned and the city slowly recovered its wonted appearance, as the country around became more settled.

(M12)

Christianity in the country had revived, and London was now to receive its first bishop. It is the year 604. "This year," writes the chronicler, "Augustine hallowed two bishops, Mellitus and Justus; Mellitus he sent to preach baptism to the East Saxons, whose king was called Seberht, son of Ricula, the sister of Ethelbert whom Ethelbert had there set as king. And Ethelbert gave to Mellitus a bishop's see at London." This passage is remarkable for two reasons:--(1) as shewing us that London was at this time situate in Essex, the kingdom of the East Saxons, and (2) that Seberht was but a roi faineant, enjoying no real independence in spite of his dignity as ruler of the East Saxons and nominal master of London, his uncle Ethelbert, king of the Cantii, exercising a hegemony over "all the nations of the English as far as the Humber." (14)

Hence it is that London is spoken of by some as being the metropolis of the East Saxons,(15) and by others as being the principal city of the Cantii;(16) the fact being that, though locally situate in Essex, it was deemed the political capital of that kingdom which for the time being happened to be paramount.

(M13)

After the death of Seberht, the Londoners became dissatisfied with their bishop and drove him out. Mellitus became in course of time Archbishop of Canterbury, whilst the Londoners again relapsed into paganism.(17) Not only was the erection of a cathedral in the city due to Ethelbert, but it was also at his instigation, if not with his treasure, that Seberht, the "wealthy sub-king of London," was, as is believed, induced to found the Abbey of Westminster.(18)

(M14)

When the Saxon kingdoms became united under Egbert and he became rex totius Britanniae (A.D. 827), London began to take a more prominent place among the cities of the kingdom, notwithstanding its having been three times destroyed by fire between 674 and 801.(19) It became more often the seat of the royal residence, and the scene of witena-gemots; nevertheless it was not the seat of government, much less the capital. Then and for a long time to come it had a formidable rival in Winchester, the chief town of Egbert's own kingdom of Wessex. To Winchester that king proceeded in triumph after completing the union of the Saxon kingdoms, and thither he summoned his vassals to hear himself proclaimed their overlord. From Winchester, Alfred, too, promulgated his new code of Wessex law--a part of the famous Domboc, a copy of which is said to have been at one time preserved among the archives of the City of London(20)--and the Easter gemot, no matter where the other gemots of the year were held, was nearly always held at Winchester. When it came to a question of trade regulation, then London took precedence of Winchester. "Let one measure and one weight pass, such as is observed at London and at Winchester,"(21) enacted King Edgar, whose system of legislation was marked with so much success that "Edgar's Law" was referred to by posterity as to the old constitution of the realm.

(M15)

In the meantime, the country had been invaded by a fresh enemy, and the same atrocities which the Briton had suffered at the hands of the Saxon, the Saxon was made to suffer at the hands of the Dane. London suffered with the rest of the kingdom. In 839 we read of a "great slaughter" there;(22) in 851 the city was in the hands of the enemy, and continued to remain at the mercy of the Danes, so much so, in fact, that in 872 we find the Danish army taking up winter quarters within its walls, as in a city that was their own.(23)

(M16)

It was now, when the clouds were darkest, that Alfred, brother of King Ethelred, appeared on the scene, and after more than one signal success by land and sea, concluded the treaty of Wedmore (A.D. 878)(24) by which a vast tract of land bounded by an imaginary line drawn from the Thames along the river Lea to Bedford, and thence along the Roman Watling Street to the Welsh border, was ceded to the enemy under the name of Danelagh. The treaty, although it curtailed the Kingdom of Wessex, and left London itself at the mercy of the Danes, was followed by a period of comparative tranquillity, which allowed Alfred time to make preparations for a fresh struggle that was to wrest from the enemy the land they had won.

(M17)

The Danes, like the Angles and the Jutes before them, set little store by fortifications and walled towns, preferring always to defend themselves by combat in open field, and the Roman wall of the City was allowed to fall still further into decay. In the eyes of Alfred on the other hand, London, with its surrounding wall, was a place of the first importance, and one to be acquired and kept at all hazards. At length he achieved the object of his ambition and succeeded in driving out the Danes, (A.D. 883 or 884).(25)

(M18)

Whilst the enemy directed their attention to further conquests in France and Belgium, Alfred bent his energies towards repairing the City walls and building a citadel for his defence--"the germ of that tower which was to be first the dwelling place of Kings, and then the scene of the martyrdom of their victims."(26) To his foresight in this respect was it due that the city of London was never again taken by open assault, but successfully repelled all attacks whilst the surrounding country was often devastated.

Nor did Alfred confine his attention solely to strengthening the city against attacks of enemies without or to making it more habitable. He also laid the foundation of an internal Government analagous to that established in the Shires. Under the year A.D. 886, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle(27) records that "King AElfred restored London; and all the Anglo race turned to him that were not in bondage of the Danish men; and he then committed the burgh to "the keeping of the aldorman AEthelred." In course of time the analogy between shire and city organization became more close. Where the former had its Shiremote, the latter had its Folkmote, meeting in St. Paul's Churchyard by summons of the great bell. The County Court found its co-relative in the Husting Court of the City; the Hundred Court in the City Wardmote.(28)

(M19)

For the next ten years Alfred busied himself founding a navy and establishing order in different parts of the country, but in 896 he was compelled to hasten to London from the west of England to assist in the repulse of another attack of the Danes. Two years before (894) the Danes had threatened London, having established a fortification at Beamfleate or South Benfleet, in Essex, whence they harried the surrounding country. The Londoners on that occasion joined that part of the army which Alfred had left behind in an attack upon the fort, which they not only succeeded in taking, but they "took all that there was within, as well money as women and children, and brought all to London; and all the ships they either broke in pieces or burned, or brought to London or to Rochester."(29) Nor was this all: Hasting's wife and his two sons had been made prisoners, but were chivalrously restored by Alfred.

(M20)

The Danes, however, were not to be daunted by defeat nor moved from their purpose by the generous conduct of Alfred. In 896 they again appeared. This time they erected a work on the sea, twenty miles above London. Alfred made a reconnaissance and closed up the river so that they found it impossible to bring out their ships.(30) They therefore abandoned their vessels and escaped across country, and "the men of London" writes the chronicler, "brought away the ships, and all those which they could not bring off they broke up, and those that were stalworth they brought into London."(31)

(M21)

The principle of each man becoming responsible to the Government for the good behaviour of the neighbour, involved in the system of frankpledge which Alfred established throughout the whole of his kingdom, subject to his rule, was carried a step further by the citizens of London at a later date. Under Athelstan (A.D. 925-940) we find them banding together and forming an association for mutual defence of life and property, and thus assisting the executive in the maintenance of law and order. A complete code of ordinances, regulating this "frith" or peace gild, as it was called, drawn up by the bishops and reeves of the burgh, and confirmed by the members on oath, is still preserved to us.(32)