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Æthelbald's own throne seems to have been shaken; for three years later, in 757, the Mercian king was surprised and slain in a night attack by his ealdormen, and a year of confusion passed ere his kinsman Offa could avenge him on his murderers and succeed to the realm.
The thanes were therefore bidden to prepare for another struggle, to gather sufficient arms in readiness for all the able-bodied men in their district, and to call out their contingents from time to time to practise in the use of arms. The ealdormen whose seats of government bordered on the sea were ordered to construct ships of war, so that any Danish armament might be met at sea.
Connected with the king was a sort of Parliament, called the Witenagemot, or Meeting of the Wise, composed originally of all freemen, and then of the great men, the Ealdormen, the king's thanes. After the Saxons were converted, the bishops and abbots belonged to it. In minor affairs, the "mark," or township, governed itself. He was called the king of England.
We have been among the first sufferers, seeing that our lands lie round Thetford, and hitherto I have hoped that there would be a general rising against these invaders; but the king is indolent and unwarlike, and I see that he will not arouse himself and call his ealdormen and thanes together for a united effort until it is too late.
Distance and the hardships of travel made the presence of the lesser thegns as rare as that of the freemen; and the national council practically shrank into a gathering of the ealdormen, the bishops, and the officers of the crown. The old English democracy had thus all but passed into an oligarchy of the narrowest kind.
The large plunder which the Dragon had brought home had enriched all who had sailed in her, and greatly added to the prosperity which prevailed in Edmund's district. He found that in his absence Alfred had introduced many changes. The administration of justice was no longer in the hands of the ealdormen, judges having been appointed who journeyed through the land and administered justice.
The same tendencies drew the lesser thegns around the greater nobles, and these around the provincial ealdormen.
So soon as the news of the death of Ethelred travelled abroad, the bishops, abbots, ealdormen, and thanes of southern England, despairing of the cause of the house of Cerdic, met together at Southampton, and renouncing Ethelred and his descendants, elected Canute to be their king, while he swore that both in things spiritual and temporal he would maintain their liberties.
Æthelrod took quick advantage of his success at home and abroad; the place of the great ealdormen in the royal councils was taken by court-thegns, in whom we see the rudiments of a ministry, while the king's fleet attacked the pirates' haunts in Cumberland and the Cotentin. But in spite of all this activity the news of a fresh invasion found England more weak and broken than ever.
The bishops, ealdormen, and sheriffs of English birth were replaced by Normans; not unreasonably, perhaps, considering the necessity of preserving the balance of the state.
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