Some of Those who stand out, and Made England!

A Biographical History of Those Who made their mark on England.

BIOGRAPHICAL GALLERY

PENDA – Last of the great pagan Kings Died. 654 AD

In 654 Oswy of Northumbria dedicated his infant daughter to God "In  perpetual virginity", in thanksgiving for his victory over the heathen  King Penda of Mercia. Such a sacrifice was a measure of the fear Penda  had inspired, and of the widespread relief at his death. For twenty  years Penda had sought to destroy the Northumbrian Kingdom, building up  his military power until he was overlord of central England. Confident  in his, the old warrior marched at the head of "thirty legions" to smash  Northumbria for ever – but instead, in Churchill's words, "Penda fell  by the sword he had drawn too often."

In 628 AD while still only an ambitious young noble of the Mercian royal  house, Penda had conquered Cirencester and land along the River Severn  from the King of Wessex – the beginning of an aggressive and rapacious  career. Four years later, in 632 AD, he defeated and killed King Edwin  of Northumbria, aided by the Welsh ruler Cadwallon. At one blow Penda  had shattered the unity of Northumbria, secured his own status as a  successful warlord, and had established the supremacy of Mercia in  central England. And in the same year he became King of the Mercians,  bent on spreading his power still further afield.

The feud with Northumbria continued when Oswald returned from exile in  the north to replace the power lost by Edwin – but in 641 AD he too, was  defeated and killed by Penda. For the next few years, part of  Northumbria was a Mercian dependency, and until his last battle Penda  ruled as Bretwalda – Overlord of England. His power was a setback for  the newly-established Church, for few men remained true to the faith  when their King was a heathen. This was why the Christian Kings rejoiced  at Penda's downfall. Their great rival had gone; the pagan reaction was  over.

AUGUSTINE – First Archbishop of Canterbury  Died.c.604 AD

"Gregory was inspired by God to send his servant Augustine with several  other God-fearing monks to preach the word of God to the English  Nation."

So Bede described the selection of St Augustine to convert to "heathen  Angles" in 596 AD. The mission ran into trouble from the start: its  members were faint-hearted, and scarcely had they begun their journey  than they considered returning home, "for they were all appalled at the  idea of going to a barbarous, fierce, and pagan nation of whose very  language they were ignorant". Gregory had to rally their failing  courage, but in 597 AD Augustine landed on the Isle of Thanet to launch  the mission to the English. Augustine, a prior from a monastery in Rome,  is not an attractive character. On examination his character, like his  achievement, fails to impress. True, he converted the people of Kent and  founded the bishoprics of Canterbury, Rochester, and London.

But despite the early fears of the missionaries Augustine's party had  been assured of a welcome in Kent, for Ethelbert's Queen Bertha was  already a Christian – with a Frankish bishop as her chaplain – and would  provide a sympathetic audience.

Augustine's achievements seem far smaller when set against the catalogue  of his failures. He had a narrow unimaginative mind, incapable of  adapting the codes and practices of Rome to suit the circumstances of an  infant Church. He only understood the letter of the law, and, unable to  act on his own initiative, made constant appeals to his Pope. Gregory  was long suffering, but some of his answers show a barely-disguised  irritation with his bishop. To one of Augustine's queries, Gregory  replied "I think I have already answered you, but doubtless you require  my support for your statements and rulings." To another query, as to  whether a bishop could be consecrated without the presence of another,  Gregory was forced to point out somewhat wryly that as Augustine was at  present the only bishop in England he could do nothing else but accept  the situation.

Arrogance and pride were Augustine's besetting sins. On another occasion  Gregory had to rebuke Augustine for boasting about the miracles he  claimed to have performed: "beware lest the frail mind becomes proud of  these wonderful events, for when it receives public recognition it is  liable to fall into senseless conceit."

Such arrogance caused another failure: the rapid breach with the native  British Church. It had not only developed different customs from those  of Rome but was proud of its independence. If the two Churches were to  co-operate, tact and humility were needed, not self-righteousness and  superiority. For once, Gregory's moderation and wisdom failed him. To  Augustine's inevitable question "What are to be our relations with the  bishops of Gaul and Britain?" Gregory replied, "We commit them all into  your charge, that the unlearned may be taught, the weak strengthened by  persuasion, and the perverse corrected by authority."

Interpreting these words quite literally, Augustine only succeeded in  alienating his fellow Christians; yet despite his death soon after 604  AD his great achievement – the foundation of the see of Canterbury –  proved secure.

ALCUIN – Mentor of Charlemagne Died. 804 AD

Scholar, teacher, churchman, and a diplomat of international repute,  Alcuin represents all the highest virtues of the seventh century golden  age of Northumbrian culture.

In 767 AD an illustrious pupil became a revered master when Alcuin  became Abbot of York, where he had once studied. Northumbrian  scholarship, made famous by Bede, was preserved and enhanced by men like  Alcuin, whose lament at its defilement by the Norsemen comes down to us  in heartfelt anguish: "Lo, it is nearly three hundred and fifty years  that we and our forefathers have inhabited this lovely land, and never  before has such terror appeared in England as we have suffered from a  pagan race, nor was it thought that such an inroad from the sea could be  made."

Alcuin was convinced that the sack of Lindisfarne in 793 AD was a  judgement on Northumbria for the violence, lawlessness, and evil ways of  its rulers. His letters from abroad harp on the degeneracy of his  former flock. Exhorting them to "Stand manfully, fight bravely, defend  the camp of God", he warns them not to "Glory in vain raiment", nor in  "Drunkenness blot out the word of prayer", nor to "Go after luxuries of  the flesh and worldly avarice".

It is difficult to equate this severe judge with the gentle man of  learning and letters. His fame at York reached south to the court of  Charlemagne, and in 782 AD he left Northumbria for Charlemagne's palace  to create a "New Athens" in France, "Only much more excellent." He  supervised the palace school, and in 796 AD was given the abbey of St  Martin at Tours. Here Alcuin hoped "To bring into France the flowers of  England; that not only in York there may be a 'garden enclosed' but in  Tours the 'plants of Paradise with the fruit of the orchard". He loved  knowledge for its own sake – "You know very well how sweet arithmetic is  in its reasoning ", he once wrote. He could inspire his pupils with  this love, and it was as a teacher rather than as an original thinker  that he was revered.

This scholarly cleric who in his spare time wrote lyrics on spring and  the cuckoo could also embroil him-self in the politics of the day.  Behind the scenes he played a major role in the negotiations between  Charlemagne and Offa of Mercia, when Charlemagne closed his ports to  English shipping in or around the year 789 AD.

In 797 AD, still lamenting the horror of the Norse raids, Alcuin wrote  "It partly seems that the happiness of the English is nearly at an end".  For a time, under the ordeal of the Norse invasions, it seemed that his  gloomy prophecy would come true. But if England survived the ordeal,  Northumbria's culture did not; and Alcuin's death in 804 AD marks the  end of the great flowering of scholarship in northern England.

EGBERT WARRIOR – KING OF WESSEX Died. 839 AD

The year 829 AD was a momentous one for Wessex. The Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle states that, "In this year, King Egbert conquered the kingdom  of Mercian's and everything south of the Humber; and he was the eighth  King who was Bretwalda. The first who had so great authority was Aelle,  King of the South Saxons, the second was Ceawlin, King of the West  Saxons, the third was Ethelbert, King of the people of Kent, the fourth  was Redwald, King of the East Angles, the fifth was Edwin, King of the  Northumbrians, the sixth was Oswald who reigned after him, the seventh  was Oswiu, Oswald's brother, the eighth was Egbert, King of the West  Saxons. And Egbert led an army to Dore, against the Northumbrians, and  they offered him submission and peace there, and on that they  separated."

Thus King Egbert of Wessex, was King of a country which only thirty  years before had been reduced to subjection under Offa of Mercia,  enforced the power of Wessex throughout every corner of the island. In  825 AD, fighting in alliance with the King of Mercia, he had finally  crushed the Briton's of western Cornwall, and had immediately turned  east to conquer Kent as well, hitherto a Mercian dependency. He was thus  a mighty warlord, who could race an army from one end of his Kingdom to  another, and a ruthless politician, with no scruples about using an  ally one minute and taking the field against him the next.

Egbert had had a hard schooling. "Earlier, before he became King", the  Chronicle tells us, "Offa, King of the Mercian's, and Brihtric, King of  the West Saxons, had driven him from England to France for three years".  But Offa died in 796 AD, and when Brihtric followed him in 802 AD  Egbert returned to make a successful bid for the Kingdom

Egbert's reign was dedicated to recovering the status Wessex had held  before being eclipsed by the great Mercian Kings of the eighth century,  and his reign was a brilliant success. He won battles against the  Briton's and against every English Kingdom in the Island, defeating all  comers. He even had to deal with the Vikings; in 835 AD his army  suffered a severe mauling by a Danish band at Carhampton, "and the Danes  had possession of the Battle Field"; but in 838 the old warrior got his  revenge, smashing a Danish/Briton coalition in the Battle of Hingston  Down.

When Egbert died in 839 AD after his glorious reign of thirty-seven  years and seven months, the shadow of the Viking menace had already  fallen on his Kingdom, but he had raised Wessex to the highest point in  her history. Even without this achievement, he deserves being remembered  for another reason.

He was the grandfather of a man who would set England and her people on  the hard but steady road to becoming one country, and one Nation State,  and the first Nation State in the world, his Grandson was Alfred the  Great.

ST CUTHBERT PATRON SAINT OF THE NORTH died 687 AD

How many Englishmen have had a County named after them? Only St  Cuthbert. At the Domes-day Survey in 1086 – four hundred years after his  death – there was an area in the north of England called St Cuthbert's  land (the modern Cumberland). How did this quiet monastic bishop become  so enduringly famous?