A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 



Ramsey Abbey in 968." Essex was from about 959 under the authority of 

 his uncle Brihtnoth, the hero of the battle of Maldon, and the two seem to 

 have acted in unison as their predecessors had done in the generation 

 before.'" In 991 a fresh force of Danes invaded Essex, and won a victory in the 

 fierce fight of Maldon," where Brihtnoth was killed. Whether any Bedford- 

 shire man fell as did Offa, and ' lay thane-like beside his lord,' we cannot 

 tell ; but if Bedfordshire sent no contingent to Maldon it must assuredly have 

 armed in the following year when iEscwige, Bishop of Dorchester, was among 

 the leaders of the royal force.*"' 



^thelwine died in 992, and was succeeded by Ulfkytel, who appears to 

 have been only a thegn, and never signs as ' dux ' ; nor was he, like the ealdor- 

 men before him, of royal kin or connected by marriage with the royal house.'^ 

 During the next eight years fighting continued on the south and south- 

 east coasts, but Bedfordshire and the neighbourhood escaped. At last the 

 cruel treachery of St. Brice's Day, 1002, brought signal punishment. Two 

 years later Sweyn landed in Norfolk. Ulfkytel, himself doubtless a Dane by 

 birth or descent, engaged the invaders, and they confessed that ' they never 

 met with worse hand-play in England than Ulfkytel brought them.'** In 

 1 010 Ulfkytel was again attacked, when his Cambridgemen stood firm, 

 but the East Anglians fled. No force from west of Cambridge is men- 

 tioned, but Bedfordshire must have sent its contingent of at least 150 men, if 

 the order of 1008 was obeyed, that every eight hides should furnish a helm 

 and corslet." And now the Danes held sway over East Anglia and harried and 

 burned for three months, even into the Fens ; they burned Cambridge, 

 made their way through Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, ' and so along 

 the Ouse till they came to Bedford and so forth as far as Tempsford and ever 

 burned as they went, and so went again to their ships with their booty.' '* 

 Cnut, in his campaign of 1016, passed through Buckinghamshire into Bed- 

 fordshire on his way north to punish Uhtred, Earl of Northumbria, for join- 

 ing Edmund the Atheling against him. At the final battle of Assandun, 

 where Cnut ' won him all England,' and ' the flower of the English race was 

 destroyed,' Ulfkytel and Bishop Eadnoth of Dorchester were among the 

 slain, and doubtless many men from Bedfordshire fell with them. The 

 kingdom was then divided, Edmund retaining Wessex, Essex, and East 

 Anglia, while Cnut took the rest of England ; but Edmund's death, 30 Nov. 

 1 016, left him king of the whole land." 



Next year Cnut divided his kingdom into four great earldoms, Wessex, 

 Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria, and this system lasted, with consider- 

 able modifications, especially affecting East AngUa, until the Conquest. God- 

 win became Earl of Wessex in 1020, and his sons Swegen, Harold, Tostig, 

 Gyrth, and Leofwine all at one time or another held earldoms of greater or 

 less extent. The history of Bedfordshire during these fifty years is very 



" Ramsey Chrott. (Rolls Ser.), 57. 



" Green, op. cit. 352. They both appear to have exercised authority in Cambs. and Hunts, and jEthel- 

 wine's authority appears to have extended also to Northants (Chadwick, op. cit. 169, 177, citing Hist. EliensU 

 and Ramsey Chron.). 



=" jingl.'Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), sub anno 991 (993) ; and W. J. Sedgefield, Battle of Maldon. 



" Jngl.-Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser. MS. E.), sub anno 992. 



" Green, op. cit. 393-4 ; Freeman, Norman Cff»f. i, 350n. 



"* Angl.-Sox. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), sub anno 1004. 



" Ibid. 1008. '"Ibid. loio. " Ibid. 1016 



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