[pg 189]

There is yet another great event in that crowded fifth century B. C. Buddhism was founded in India by the Prince Gautama Buddha; if you look into the King Edward VII. Gallery you will see there the fine pottery statue of a Lohan or Buddhist disciple--one of the famous treasures of the gallery.

And now, since there is not time for everything, let us leave the East and come back to our own country, which we have forgotten since we noted that Britain ceased to be a Roman province at the beginning of the fifth century A. D. Imagine yourself on the thick old ruined walls of Richborough Castle, near Sandwich. It was once a great fort of the Romans, but it was left like the rest of the camps, and the castles, and the walls, when the last of the legions had crossed the Channel.

You look out in these days towards the shining blue sea in the distance, over green meadows fringed with willows and dykes, full of grazing cattle. But when those grey ivy-covered walls were built, they could almost have seen their reflection in the water below, for the Stour, now choked and altered, in those [pg 190] days was deep and important, so that ships bound for the Port of London, instead of weathering the rough foreland, passed close under the castle, then on by the river's quiet course to Reculvers, and so to the Thames. Thanet was then a real island. It is strange to think that those fields have been formed since the walls were built; little by little the mud and stones were washed up, till the coast-line and the mouth of the river became quite changed. Then the birds helped a bit, dropping seeds where no foot had trod, and then man began to drain, plough, and plant, and so this little piece of dry land appeared.

Some years ago men were digging a sluice out there towards Sandwich. A few feet below the earth and mud they came upon a sandy beach scattered with shells and seaweed, and, amongst them, on the yellow sands, lay the bones of a little child, with a small Roman shoe, and a fibula brooch, like those you saw in the cases. That tells you of the Roman occupation when the walls were new.

The Britons left behind were soon to see from Richborough walls the coming of long swift galleys, their prows like swans or dragons, filled with fair-haired, hardy warriors, rowing, or sailing if the wind blew from the east, till they could safely beach their "cyulas" (and you can hear the sound of that word remaining in "keel"--"Weel may the keel row!" on the muddy sand. What a sight for the "guardian of the shore," with his peasant band drawn up hastily to resist them! [pg 191]

Soon the warriors were landing between Richborough and the shining white cliffs of Pegwell Bay. There was the clatter of shields and arms, as they shipped their oars and rushed on shore, charging with their brown, glittering swords, and long rough-handled spears.

Mingled with the loud battle-cries were the words of command from the tall chiefs; their language was neither Latin nor British, but was the true old mother-tongue of our English speech of today, which has given us more than half the words that we use.

These men, who landed in force on this shore, and hundreds and hundreds more like them, who for many summers had been landing and settling on the coast from the Humber to the Isle of Wight, these Angles, Saxons, Jutes, all tribes of one family, are our true, old forefathers. When you think of the "Coming of the English," do not only think of a coming such as this at Richborough, which met with fierce resistance and bitter fighting. But think, too, of the gradual coming, a boat or two at a time (there was often a baby sheltered under his mother's cloak), and the settlement, in chosen spots, of the family, the Billings, the Paddings, at Billinham, Paddington; or of the followers of a great chief, of Alfred or Clapa, at Alfreton or Clapham. Both sorts of comings went on till the end of the sixth century, when the conquest of Britain by the Anglo-Saxons was completed. From the first these Angles and Saxons meant to stay. They were so determined to stay that they did [pg 192] not even trouble to look after and keep the "cyulas" that brought them over the sea.

It is easy to fill in the names of the conquerors in the various parts of the land that they gained. The South Saxons in Sussex; the East Saxons in Essex; the West Saxons in Wessex, which lay between the Welsh boundary on the west, and Essex, Kent, and Sussex on the east, having on the north, Mercia, which by the eighth century stretched away to the Humber. The North-folk and the South-folk settled in East Anglia, and later on the beautiful northern land of hills, moors, and rivers became Northumbria.

The bright light thrown by Roman civilization vanished, as the newcomers established their own customs, laws, and religion, in their lots, and hams or homes, and holdings, villages, and townships. These old customs and laws have influenced English life and thought all through the centuries, and whenever we mention one of the days of the week, or even our Christian festival of Easter, we recall the gods of our heathen forefathers, such as Woden and Thor, terrible gods of war and thunder, or the gentler Eostre, goddess of spring.

If you would know more of these strong men of old--how passionately they loved the sea, how daring they were, how they gave presents and feasted, how noble warriors died and were buried, and much more besides--you must read the poems about Beowulf.

One of the great treasures in the Manuscript Room (through the Grenville Library on the right of the Entrance Hall) is "the unique manuscript of the oldest [pg 193] epic in the English language," as the catalogue describes it. You will see, too, by the label that the manuscript dates from about A.D. 1000, that is, about six centuries after the English tribes had crossed the North Sea to settle here.

The stories in this book had been sung or told round the winter fireside, handed down from father to son, for many generations, before they were written and read. You will notice at once, from the open page, reproduced in the catalogue, how different the writing looks from the present-day English; still, most of the letters are the same, and the roots of our words are there, so that with an Anglo-Saxon dictionary and grammar the fine old stories can now be translated.

There are stories of the little child who came over the sea alone in a boat, and "became a good king"; and of the king, long after him, who built a fine hall, in which he entertained his guests right royally. But there was a monster who came by night and devoured the guests, and both he and his dreadful mother were slain by the greatest of the guests, Beowulf himself. Then there is the account of Beowulf's long wise reign, and his last fight with a fiery dragon.

Truth and fable, heathenism and Christianity are mixed up in these wonderful old stories, and the scribes have made many mistakes, but the breath of the salt sea is there, with the spirit of daring courage and energy of the race, as well as its faults. There is a picture of the Queen and her daughter graciously waiting on the guests, and giving them their presents, [pg 194] weapons and rings and collars of gold. Beowulf's last directions to his "hearth-fellows" run thus:


Remember that the writing down of the "Poems of Beowulf" was done at the beginning of the eleventh century, but that the original songs of which they are made up were most likely composed before the Angles came to their new home, and were brought with them, also that in the centuries which followed, the songs gradually developed, till at last one poet took them up to commit to writing.

Now turn to the octagonal case in the middle of the room to find Bede's History. There is a translation given of the page that is open--you will notice that it is in Latin. It is the old familiar story of Gregory the Deacon, seeing the fair-haired slaves in Rome, and of his saying that they must be angels, not Angles--they were so beautiful! And the story goes on to say that later on, when Gregory became Pope, he sent a missionary band headed by St. Augustine, to preach to the boys' heathen countrymen. [pg 195]

We must go back in imagination to Richborough and Ebbsfleet to see them land, a very different invasion from that of the fierce hosts a century and a half before, on this same sweep of sands. Cross and banners of Saints, Latin prayers and hymns, took the place of the war flag and the battle-cry and din of fighting.

You will remember the story of the reception of the missionaries by King Ethelbert of Kent, who had married the Frankish Christian, Princess Bertha? How cautious he was at first, hearing the new words; then how the baptism of thousands followed, and later the spreading of the Faith to the north, by the marriage of Ethelburgh, the daughter of Ethelbert and Bertha, to Edwin the King of Northumbria, and the preaching of Paulinus who went with her.

Penda, the fierce old warrior of Mercia, for years fought successfully against the new faith, and was the terror of the country. Still, he fell at last, and by the end of this seventh century, monasteries for monks and nuns who wished to lead a holy, quiet life, had sprung up everywhere; great schools for learning had been founded, and many bishoprics and parishes had been organized and arranged. Bede, himself, who relates all this in the History of the Church before us, lived in the first half of the next century. He describes his life in few words: "I spent my whole life in the same monastery (Jarrow, in Northumbria), and while attentive to the rule of my Order, and the service of the Church, my constant pleasure lay in learning or teaching or writing."

His quiet life was long and busy. His teaching [pg 196] must have been hard work, for his school was large; there were six hundred monks, besides the strangers that flocked to him. He, too, was always learning; Greek, Music, Arithmetic, Medicine, and much more besides, he studied in order to make text-books for his students. Then his writings: he collected facts from various districts, also letters and traditions of old men, for his chief work--this history. There is an earlier copy than the one we are looking at, in the large upright case of Latin manuscripts. He wrote most of his many books in Latin (the strangers must have been glad of this), but also translated parts of the Scriptures into Anglo-Saxon.

One of his pupils gives a touching description of the finishing of the last chapters of the translation of St. John's Gospel. The old man was determined to finish it before he died, and dictated the closing words to the weeping scribes about him, ever getting weaker and more breathless. But when the evening fell, the task was done, and the old scholar, teacher, writer, had gone home to say, "Adsum" to the Master he served so well. Next to the copy of Bede's History of the Church, in the octagonal case, is one of the copies of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; the other copy is next to the Poem of Beowulf, in the case containing English manuscripts. Here lies before us the earliest history of this country in English; and the first part of it, from Caesar to Alfred, is believed to have been drawn up by order of that great king himself. [pg 197]

From the same creeks and sandbanks across the North Sea, whence had come the Saxon "Cyulas," poured once again, in the ninth century, heathen chiefs and their followers--the wiccings of Vikings--in long swift boats, with determined faces and long hair (you will see some of their swords and combs and pottery in the Iron Age Gallery upstairs). They belonged to the same northern family as those who came before, pursued the same terrible methods of fighting, burning, and killing, as they settled year after year along the coast of East Anglia.

Sometimes they were bought off, only to return in stronger nimbers, always hating and despising the gentleness and peace of the Faith of Christ, burning the monasteries and churches, and ruining the civilization that was then growing in the land.

By the time Alfred came to be King of Wessex, the Danish Vikings has spread over the country, and won many fierce fights: it is good though to remember that their banner with the raven on it fell into the hands of the English after a victory in Devonshire. Alfred's unquenchable spirit led to a victory in Wilshire, followed by the peace of Wedmore. He made the Danes accept Christianity, in name, at any rate, and be content with a share of the land.

He was then free to set about reforms. Briefly, these were to restore the education so cruelly stopped by the Danes, to establish the laws and teach his people to govern themselves. He also gathered round him scholars, writers, and artists, and here before us is, according to usual belief, his greatest work--the [pg 198] beginning of the earliest English History in English. His share was to compile the part up to his times from all the sources he could get at, from old manuscripts and traditions; then to give a full account of his own times. After his death, scribes in monasteries carried on, year by year, the account of events as they happened. These annals stopped in the middle of the thirteenth century.

The passage shown in the open page (there is a translation fortunately) gives an account of the great victory over the Danes by Alfred and his brother, in Berkshire, near the valley of the White Horse.

We can pore over the two copies of the Chronicle and realize the long, long years they tell about. You can fill in from your memory the names you know; Egbert, called the King of the English, in the first quarter of the ninth century; Ethelwulf, Ethelred, in the middle of that century; Alfred you already have. The great Dunstan, and Edgar, in the middle of the tenth century; the Chronicle says, that "Edgar the folks' peace bettered, the most of the kings who were before him."

You see the great point of the history being in English, instead of the more commonly used Latin. No living language stands still. Compare our speech of today with the language of the translation of the Bible about three centuries back. Compare that again, with the English of Chaucer, three or four more centuries back. So, as the writing of the Chronicle continued from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries, we are given an opportunity of tracing [pg 199] through these years the development of our mother tongue. Turning to the tall case in which are Latin manuscripts we find not far from the other copy of Bede's History the Roman version of St. Jerome's Psalter, with a translation written between the lines in Anglo-Saxon. This belongs to the eighth and ninth centuries, and is the earliest known rendering of the Psalms in English.

Above this is a very early copy of the Gospels in Latin, from the monastery of St. Augustine in Canterbury, and close by it, in the sloping section, lies the deeply interesting Liber Vitae, or lists of the benefactors of the Church of St. Cuthbert at Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, the breezy little island, across the sands from Northumbria. A goodly company of scholars and saints have crossed those sands with the deep pools, but their footsteps have left no mark, for Lindisfarne is a real island at high tide.

This "Book of Life" contains, too, the names of those entitled to the prayers of the monks. They were scattered, also their books and their treasures, when troubles came. Even the body of their sainted Cuthbert had to be carried across the sands to a place safe from the murdering and burning Danes.

But there are still many more manuscripts to examine in this case, the quiet work of the monasteries in those eighth and ninth centuries, when the English kingdoms were fighting and struggling for the over-lordship, and the Danes were harrowing the country. [pg 200]

Glance at them--lessons, prayers, hymns, litanies, commentaries, Bede's Book of Martyrs.

The manuscripts in this case are so arranged as to show the changes in handwriting as the centuries passed by. Of the books to be found on the other side of the case perhaps the Book of the Gospels, from St. Petroc's Priory in Cornwall, is the most interesting. You see those small notes on the margin? And there are more on the blank pages at the end. These are the records of the setting free, from time to time, at the altar of St. Petroc's, of serfs--slaves. There was the slave who belonged to the soil like the cattle; the prisoner of war, however noble; the man who could not pay his debts, or his fines for wrong-doings; as well as those, who, starving in times of war and famine, were driven to "bend their heads in the evil days for meat."

Men like these were freed at St. Petroc's altar, by the generosity of some fellow-man, each slave passing, as the collar was struck off, the prayer said, the weapon of the free put into his hand, from the outer darkness of dependence and injustice, to the joyous sunlight of the rights of citizenship, and the blessings of hope.

We will now leave the manuscripts for a while to seek, in the Iron Age Gallery above, the personal belongings of those far-away fathers of ours whom we learn to know in the poems of Beowulf, in Bede's History, in Alfred's Chronicle.

As we mount the stairs we cannot help noticing on the walls the wonderful Indian carvings from a Buddhist Tope (a holy spot); then as we walk through several [pg 201] rooms we can take a refreshing glance at the prehistoric treasures and those of Roman-Britain as we pass them.

You will not have time to notice more of the Oriental Saloon than the two Chinese marble figures between which you pass. Then the small room with its bold massive sculpture from Maya leads us to the Iron Age Gallery with its story of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers.

In one of the wall-cases near the middle of the right-hand side of this Iron Age Gallery you will see the remains from some great Saxon chieftain's grave at Taplow; there are the drinking horns, cups, and glasses, which having neither foot nor stand, must be drained before being set down. These carry us straight to the Palace of Heorot, where Beowulf and his "board-fellows" were so heartily welcomed by the king Hrothgar, "old and hairless," and where "the thane observed his duty, who, in his hand, bare the ornamental ale cup; he poured the bright sweet liquor."

Those little round bone pieces were the "men" for the game of draughts, and in the next case--of relics from Faversham--the draughtsmen are made of horse-teeth.

The gold thread and garnets close by are from a rich embroidery, and may remind you of the gold thread worked "in the blue and in the purple and in the scarlet and in the fine linen" for Aaron's ephod, described in Exodus xxxix. 3. These things may bring up visions of those who used or wore it; these must have been, "the [pg 202] gold adorned ones," "the dispensers of rings," "the bracelet-distributors."

And here, to hand, are beautiful buckles and clasps, ear and finger rings, brooches following in shape the Roman ones, and made of gold, silver, bronze, inlaid with gems and enamel. See, too, the fine necklaces of amber, gold, and amethyst.

Those Roman coins in a table-case, pierced to hang as pendants, and the iron weaving implements for striking home the weft threads on a loom, were all found in Anglo-Saxon graves. The toilet articles, spindle whorls, needles, bodkins, beautiful glass in blue, yellow, and green (look in the Faversham collection and other wall-cases for these), the piece of woollen stuff, and many other home treasures help us to realize that in spite of much fierce fighting and hard work in settling the New Country, these English women of old had some quiet time in which to  care for their appearance, their dwellings, and families. You will see some of their work-boxes too--tiny little things with the lids attached by a chain. They hung down from the girdle, and you can see the sort of girdle hanger the women wore if you look in the wall-case of the Broomfield collection. There is a rare bit of fabric there too.

Throughout the old poems and annals we get glimpses of fine women, such as Ealhhild, "noble queen of chieftains" who gained the beautiful title of "faithful peace-weaver"' also Wealhtheow, "of mind exalted, who walked under a golden diadem," and gave noble counsels to her husband, Hrothgar, [pg 203] and his guests. Then there was the Lady of Mercia, worthy daughter of her great father, Alfred, and many more.

Here in this Iron Age Gallery are beakers, buckets, and beautiful  hanging bowls as well as the weapons, such as are constantly mentioned in Beowulf--swords, spears, knives, some very rusty and decayed--remember they are more than a thousand years old.

Some of the swords are most particularly interesting, because they are inscribed with the oldest Anglo-Saxon writing (used before intercourse with Rome brought Roman letters) called "runes." One sword-knife (or Scramasax) from the Thames is like a literary document and is of great value, for it is inlaid with the Runic alphabet, which does not begin, A, B, but F, U. Another has these words on it: "Here Jonas asks to be cast into the deep"' and the names of the maker and owner in Runic letters are on one of the knives.

You may know the one rune which lasted on till a century ago. It is the one called "thorn" and came to be written like y, though its sound is "th," so if you see y (e) or y (at) that is only an old way of writing "the" or "that." You will also find more Runes round the wonderful carved box, called the Franks Casket, which stands on a pedestal near the centre of the gallery. These Runes explain the curious carvings on the sides and top of the box, such as those of the famous smith, Weland, who made Beowulf's war net; Romulus and Remus with their shaggy  foster-mother; also Scripture subjects such as the worship of the Wise [pg 204] Men of the East. The runes tell, too, how the material for the box was obtained:


You will find Runic letters as well as beautiful interlaced patterns on many things in this room. There is some other writing, to, called Ogham, which was made up of a number of straight lines because they were easy to cut on the edges of stones. You passed five of these Ogham stones when you went through the Roman Gallery on the ground floor--they were opposite the busts of the Caesars.

In this Iron Age Gallery there is the Ogham Stone standing by the first table-case that you passed when you came into the room. It is a grave slab from Ireland.

Then there is the Llywel Stone at the other end of the room, and as it has the same inscriptions in Latin and Ogham, you can make out the Ogham alphabet.

The other big stone, right at the east end--called the Sheffield  Stone--has not long been here. It is part of a fine Anglo-Saxon Cross of the eighth or ninth century. When it was found it was being used as a horse trough, which tells you why it is hollowed out at the back, and its beautiful carving lost.

There is a beautiful cross in Northumbria, at Ruthwell, of which there is a cast--not here, but in the South Kensington Museum--which, besides many [pg 205] carvings of saints, described in Roman letters, and a most interesting border of birds and animals, has cut on it, in Runes, a poem about the Holy Rood, by Caedmon.

Bede tells us about Caedmon in his history; how, like David of old, when alone in the fields, or with the animals he tended, the power came to him to make verses about the ways of God to men. Here is a translation of a few lines:


Bede tells of the help Caedmon had, being a poor unlearned peasant, from the fine strong north-country woman, the Abbess Hilda, who was able to rule over a large household of monks and nuns, and to guide scholars and priests, as well as to counsel bishops and kings.

She heard of Caedmon's gift and sent for him. Then she bade him leave his fields and herds, and come to study and write in the peace of her house on the cliff above Whitby. That was about the middle of the seventh century.

We will next look carefully at a few more relics of these early  Christian times. In a table-case near the Franks Casket and the Llywel Stone you will find brooches, rings, and necklaces, and actually a silver spoon and fork make and used in the ninth century. Do you see the little writing tablet made of whale--[pg 206] bone? A scholar would carry two filled with wax inside, and he wrote on the wax with a stylus.

And look at those enormous chessmen, with a white elephant used for a Bishop.

Not far away, too, is a copy of the wonderful Alfred Jewel, which is one of the treasures in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. It was found near Athelney, in Somerset, and you can see on this model the words, "Alfred ordered me to be made."

In this same table-case are two very interesting seals. One belonged to Ethilwald, Bishop of Dunwich, in the middle of the ninth century. You may ask why there is no Bishop of Dunwich now? If you have been to Aldeburgh or Southwold you perhaps may have seen what is left of Dunwich, the crumbling cliffs, and the ruins in the field. The hungry waves settled in the fate of the old See and town of Dunwich. The other seal belonged to Godwin, a minister of the King, but not the Earl Godwin you know.

His seal was afterwards cut on the other side for "Godgytha the nun, given to God." She may have been abbess of a monastery founded by Godwin, and you see her on the seal sitting on a cushion holding a book.

She will have livedin one of the religious houses, like St. Hilda's, where education was carried on, manuscripts were written, and there was quiet for prayers and work.

Look now at those six small slabs in the wall-cases at the east end of the room. They are from the cemetery of a monastery near Hartlepool, and used to be [pg 207] called "pillow stones," because people thought that they were put under the heads of the dead. But they were really small upright stones standing above the ground. The monastery was for both monks and nuns, and St. Hilda was abbess there before she went to Whitby. Notice the  cross and prayer on them.

The bronze bucket to the right of the Taplow case, containing coins of the kinds of Northumbria, should be looked at. There were 8000 of these coins (300 of them are in the Coins and Medals Gallery, near the top of the main staircase), and they were buried at Hexham to hide them from the Danes who were then invading the land. They were the coins used in the north before the penny was started by Offa of Mercia. The Danes themselves once dropped their treasure-chest near a ford of the Ribble up in Lancashire when they were defeated on their way back to Northumbria. It was full of silver coins and ornaments, armlets and necklets, rings and strap ends. Look in one of the table-cases of the Cuverdale Collection for these.

In another table-case you can see an "offering penny" of King Alfred and a coin of his son Edward. They were in another treasure find, and you will see amongst it a large "thistle" brooch like many more in the cases.

And now for the Viking's sword and the fine Danish combs, one of which has on it, in Runes, "Thorfast made a good comb."

But these Danish relics bring to our minds the burning of Hilda's Abbey standing out against the blue sky, and of Cuthbert's at Lindisfarne, of the church [pg 208] at Dunwich. Even old Richborough Castle did not escape the torches of the invaders.

The fine Irish brooches (like the famous Tara brooch in Dublin) and ornaments in the table-case must not be missed, nor the bells and their shrines in the wall-case, belonging to the sixth and seventh centuries. You will notice the names of bishops and saints on them, and on the shrines in which they are enclosed. In early times the Irish saints and monks called their people to prayer by ringing the ordinary cow-bells. Later on these bells were looked upon as holy, and put in beautiful shrines. Look specially at the shrine of St. Cuilleann's Bell. All these  things--there is a bishop's crozier too--remind us of the history of the Celtic Church.

Let us look now at the belongings of the cousins of our forefathers, of those who stayed behind in the old mother countries, in Germany and Scandinavia; they are of great interest to us. The weapons and personal adornments from the Teutonic graves, and from the shores of the Baltic are just like those we have been studying. A chief was buried in his boat, as the Gaulish warrior was buried in his chariot, but unfortunately there is no boat here; we must go to Christiana to see that. There are also some combs and beads as well as the accoutrements of a Frankish soldier from Rhineland. The splendid case of Merovingian  possessions makes us think of the share taken by later Frankish kinds, such as Pepin and Charlemagne, in the quarrels and struggles of the English kinds for the over-lordship. [pg 209]

Look round once more on the Saxon cases and note the many different brooches of all sorts of shapes, and some absolutely enormous--more than a foot across. These things come from a number of different places, often widely apart.

The chief places represented by treasure found in this room were named by the Saxons--Sudbury, Edinburgh, Chepstowe, Church Stretton, Hythe, Lyndhurst, Mersey, Tamworth. A good etymological dictionary will give you the meaning of these names, as well as the Danish ones. You will find Lincolnshire a sort of headquarters for names ending in "by," Danish for town, and "thorp," a village. You will be interested in tracing the fierce northern folk across the country by the names of their settlements. Look out for "caster" instead of "chester," "kirk"  instead of "church," as well as "garth," "fell," and "toft."

While you make or study maps of Saxon and Danish England, picture to yourself our country as it was--over a thousand years ago--when the Saxon and Dane set up their "stead" and "ton," their "by" and "toft" along the seashore, and settled by degrees among the quiet hills and dales, moors and fens.

There are still a few more treasures to see belonging to Saxon times. Especially interesting is the ring which belonged to Alfred's sister, Ethelswith, and another that belonged to Alfred's father, Ethelwulf. Both have inscriptions and ornaments on them, and near by is a piece of bone on which an engraver has been practising his patterns. On another ring is inscribed the words "Aethred [pg 210] owns me; Eanred wrought me." The man who made it, you see, was quite proud of his work. Close by are two rings--one agate, one gold--found in different parts of the country, but both bear the same Runic inscription--a sort of charm against leprosy and fever. Besides these, in the cases against the walls, are twisted gold Viking torcs and armlets, also Celtic gold collars and adornments for man and his friend, the horse.

As we turn away from these cases, the words towards the end of Beowulf come to us:


And now we will go down the stairs again, and turn into the Grenville Library; in the first case to our left we shall find the earliest English illuminated manuscripts. Notice the good drawing of the Figure on the Cross, the fine initial B; the beautiful initials and borders in the copy of the gospels, with the inserted copy of the charter of King Cnut.

The outline drawings in the Register of New Minster (where Alfred was buried) show Cnut and his queen placing a great gold cross on the altar.

That was near the beginning of the eleventh century. Then there is the richly ornamental charter of King Edgar, who name you remember about the middle of the tenth century, recalling as you do the  story [pg 211] of the British princes of the west, rowing him on the river Dee. That half-century between Edgar and Cnut saw a bitter struggle and much suffering. Ethelred--the "Unready"--because he would take no man's "rede" or counsel, bought off the Danes, who came again and again plundering, burning, killing. Then the English massacred the Danes, when they got a chance, and brought down vengeance from King Swegen, who ravaged and fought and conquered. Ehtelred and his wife, sister of the reigning  Duke of Normandy, fled across the Channel to him for protection, and so England passed to Danish kings for a time.

There is a charter of Cnut (Swegen's son) near the case of English Manuscripts in the Manuscript Room, and also one of Offa (end of the eighth century) confirming a grant of land to his thane and a sister. Look, too, at the charter of Edward the Confessor close by. His time was towards the middle of the royal race. We all know his tomb in Westminster Abbey--not the Abbey that he spent his strength and substance in building: that one passed away as the present one rose slowly in its place, to which his body was removed, and where he now lies surrounded by the kings and queens of later time.

Every reigning sovereign from his day to ours (one can scarcely count the poor little Edward V of the Tower) has been crowned a few feet from the shrine that contains the dust of one of the most reverenced and beloved of our kings. [pg 212]

He died in January. On Christmas Day in that same momentous year, 1066, William the Conqueror, the first in the long line, was crowned in the Abbey, amidst shouts of "yea," "yea" from the subjects who "bowed to him for need." His Normans outside, alarmed at the shouting, feared for the safety of their Duke, and battered at the doors in a tumult. Truly a living picture of the old order giving place to the new.