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On the fall of Mercia this overlordship passed to the West-Saxon kings, and the Laws of Howel Dda own the payment of a yearly tribute by "the prince of Aberffraw" to "the King of London."
He remained there through the memorable year during which Charles the Great restored the Empire of the West, and returned in 802 to be quietly welcomed as King by the West-Saxon people.
It is the time when his luck was lowest and when his spirit was highest. The army under Guthorm or Guthrum, the Danish King of East-Anglia, came suddenly to Wareham in Dorsetshire. The Chronicle says that they "bestole" that is, came secretly or escaped from the West-Saxon army, which seems to have been waiting for them.
Mercia was still too weak to grasp the lordship which was slipping from Northumbria's hands, while Wessex which seemed her destined prey rose at this moment into fresh power under the greatest of its early kings. Ine, the West-Saxon king whose reign covered the long period from 688 to 726, carried on during the whole of it the war which Cenwealh and Centwine had begun.
The priest being English, was hardly more easily understood than his flock; and her lady spoke little but langue d'oui, the Northern French, which was as little serviceable in dealing with her Spanish and Provencal as with the rude West-Saxon- English.
In conclusion, we may, for the sake of clearness, recapitulate, first: that although there can no longer be any reasonable doubt that the runes on the Ruthwell obelisk are by the Northumbrian poet, Cynewulf, it has by no means been satisfactorily proved that these runes are of a subsequent date to the West-Saxon version of the poem in the Vercelli Codex, but that probability seems rather to point to an earlier date than the second half of the tenth century; and secondly, that so close a resemblance between the two Crosses does not necessarily imply that they date from absolutely the same period.
But though the form of this entry shows the town to have been already considerable, we hear nothing more of it till the last terrible wrestle of England with the Dane, when its position on the borders of the Mercian and West-Saxon realms seems for the moment to have given it a political importance under Æthelred and Cnut strikingly analogous to that which it acquired in the Great Rebellion.
The Guildhall, with its oldtime memories, and Rougemont Castle, once the abode of the West-Saxon kings, are dear to the hearts of local antiquarians. The elm-walk, near the Sessions House, is an avenue of such timber as can be seen nowhere out of England, and is a favourite resort for the inhabitants on pleasant afternoons.
We know him on Senlac; we know him in Cornwall; we know him through all the western lands; we know him most of all on that Montacute of his founding which once was Leodgaresburh, scene of the Invention of the Holy Cross of Waltham. The West-Saxon knew Count Robert only as a spoiler, the Norman of Mortain knew him as a great ecclesiastical founder.
But the Saxons were heathens, till Pope Gregory the Great sent over hither Austin the monk, by whom Ethelbert king of the South-Saxons, and his subjects, were converted to Christianity; and the whole island soon followed the example. Egbert. After many various revolutions in this island among the kingdoms of the Saxons, Egbert, descended from the West-Saxon kings, became sole monarch of England.
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