almsgiving, on account of our apostolical lord Adrian, earnestly begging that you would order him to be prayed for, not as doubting that his blessed soul is at rest, but to show our esteem and regard to our dearest friend. Moreover we have sent somewhat out of the treasure of those earthly riches, which the Lord Jesus hath granted to us of his unmerited bounty, for the metropolitan cities, and for yourself a belt, an Hungarian sword, and two silk cloaks."

I have inserted these brief extracts from the epistle that posterity may be clearly acquainted with the friendship of Offa and Charles; confiding in which friendly intercourse, although assailed by the hatred of numbers, he passed the rest of his life in uninterrupted quiet, and saw Egfert his son anointed to succeed him. This Egfert studiously avoided the cruel path trod by his father, and devoutly restored the privileges of all the churches which Offa had in his time abridged. The possessions also which his father had taken from Malmesbury he restored into the hands of Cuthbert, then abbat of that place, at the admonition of the aforesaid Athelard archbishop of Canterbury, a man of energy and a worthy servant of God, and who is uniformly asserted to have been its abbat before Cuthbert, from the circumstance of his choosing there to be buried. But while the hopes of Egfert's noble qualities were ripening, in the first moments of his reign, untimely death cropped the flower of his youthful prime; on which account Alcuin writing to the patrician Osbert, says, "I do not think that the most noble youth Egfert died for his own sins, but because his father, in the establishment of his kingdom, shed a deluge of blood." Dying after a reign of four months, he appointed Kenulf, nephew of Penda in the fifth degree by his brother Kenwalk, to succeed him.

Kenulf was a truly great man, and surpassed his fame by his virtues, doing nothing that malice could justly find fault with. Religious at home, victorious abroad, his praises will be deservedly extolled so long as an impartial judge can be found in England. Equally to be admired for the extent of his power and for the lowliness of his mind; of which he gave an eminent proof in restoring, as we have related, its faltering dignity to Canterbury, he little regarded earthly grandeur in his own kingdom at the expense of deviating from

anciently-enjoined canons. Taking up Offa's hatred against the Kentish people, he sorely afflicted that province, and led away captive their king Eadbert, surnamed Pren; but not long after, moved with sentiments of pity, he released him. For at Winchelcombe, where he had built a church to God, which yet remains, on the day of its dedication he freed the captive king at the altar, and consoled him with liberty; thereby giving a memorable instance of his clemency. Cuthred,* whom he had made king over the Kentish people, was present to applaud this act of royal munificence. The church resounded with acclamations, the street shook with crowds of people, for in an assembly of thirteen bishops and ten dukes, no one was refused a largess, all departed with full purses. Moreover, in addition to those presents of inestimable price and number in utensils, clothes, and select horses, which the chief nobility received, he gave to all who did not possess landed property† a pound of silver, to each presbyter a marca of gold, to every monk a shilling, and lastly he made many presents to the people at large. After he had endowed the monastery with such ample revenues as would seem incredible in the present time, he honoured it by his sepulture, in the twenty-fourth year of his reign. His son Kenelm, of tender age, and undeservedly murdered by his sister Quendrida, gained the title and distinction of martyrdom, and rests in the same place.

After him the kingdom of the Mercians sank from its prosperity, and becoming nearly lifeless, produced nothing worthy to be mentioned in history. However, that no one may accuse me of leaving the history imperfect, I shall glance over the names of the kings in succession. Ceolwulf, the brother of Kenulf, reigning one year was expelled in the second by Bernulf; who in the third year of his reign being overcome and put to flight by Egbert, king of the West Saxons, was afterwards slain by the East Angles, because he had attempted to seize on East Anglia, as a kingdom subject to the Mercians from the time of Offa. Ludecan, after

Kenulf made Cuthred king of Kent, A.D. 798. Eadbert had been dreadfully mutilated by having his eyes put out and his hands cut off. See chap. i.

+"Qui agros non habebant." These words refer to an inferior class of gentry, as he mentions the people at large, "populus," afterwards.

a reign of two years, was despatched by these Angles, as he was preparing to avenge his predecessor: Withlaf, subjugated in the commencement of his reign by the before-mentioned Egbert, governed thirteen years, paying tribute to him and to his son, both for his person and his property: Berthwulf reigning thirteen years on the same conditions, was at last driven by the Danish pirates beyond the sea: Burhred marrying Ethelswith, the daughter of king Ethelwulf, the son of Egbert, exonerated himself, by this affinity, from the payment of tribute and the depredations of the enemy, but after twenty-two years, driven by them from his country, he fled to Rome, and was there buried at the school of the Angles, in the church of St. Mary; his wife, at that time continuing in this country, but afterwards following her husband, died at Pavia. The kingdom was next given by the Danes to one Celwulf, an attendant of Burhred's, who bound himself by oath that he would retain it only at their pleasure after a few years it fell under the dominion of Alfred, the grandson of Egbert. Thus the sovereignty of the Mercians, which prematurely bloomed by the overweening ambition of an heathen, altogether withered away through the inactivity of a driveller king, in the year of our Lord's incarnation eight hundred and seventy-five.

CHAP. V.

Of the kings of the East Angles. [A.D. 520-905.]

As my narrative has hitherto treated of the history of the four more powerful kingdoms in as copious a manner, I trust, as the perusal of ancient writers has enabled me, I shall now, as last in point of order, run through the governments of the East Angles and East Saxons, as suggested in my preface. The kingdom of the East Angles arose anterior to the West Saxons, though posterior to the kingdom of Kent. The first and also the greatest king of the East Angles was Redwald, tenth in descent from Woden as they affirm; for all the southern provinces of the Angles and Saxons on this side of

* Redwald was not the first king of East Anglia, but the first who became distinguished. In the year 571, Uffa assumed the title of king: he was succeeded by his son, Titil, in 578 who was followed by Redwald, his son. See Bede, b. ii. c. 15.

the river Humber, with their kings, were subject to his authority. This is the person whom I have formerly mentioned as having, out of regard for Edwin, killed Ethelfrid, king of the Northumbrians. Through the persuasion of Edwin too he was baptized; and after, at the instigation of his wife, abjured the faith. His son, Eorpwald, embraced pure Christianity, and poured out his immaculate spirit to God, being barbarously murdered by the heathen Richbert. To him succeeded Sigebert, his brother by the mother's side, a worthy servant of the Lord, polished from all barbarism by his education among the Franks. For, being driven into banishment by Redwald, and for a long time associating with them, he had received the rites of Christianity, which, on his coming into power he graciously communicated to the whole of his kingdom, and also instituted schools of learning in different places. This ought highly to be extolled as men heretofore uncivilized and irreligious, were enabled, by his means, to taste the sweets of literature. The promoter of his studies and the stimulator of his religion was Felix the bishop, a Burgundian by birth, who now lies buried at Ramsey. Sigebert moreover renouncing the world and taking the monastic vow, left the throne to his relation, Ecgric, with whom, being attacked in intestine war by Penda, king of the Mercians, he met his death, at the moment when, superior to his misfortunes, and mindful of his religious profession, he held only a wand in his hand. The successor of

Ecgric was Anna, the son of Eni, the brother of Redwald, involved in similar destruction by the same furious Penda; he was blessed with a numerous and noble offspring, as the second book will declare in its proper place. To Anna succeeded his brother Ethelhere, who was justly slain by Oswy king of the Northumbrians, together with Penda, because he was an auxiliary to him, and was actually supporting the very army which had destroyed his brother and his kinsman. His brother Ethelwald, in due succession, left the kingdom to Adulf and Elwold, the sons of Ethelhere. Next came Bernred. After him Ethelred. His son was St. Ethelbert, whom Offa king of the Mercians killed through treachery, as has already been said, and will be repeated hereafter. After him, through the violence of the Mercians, few kings reigned in Eastern Anglia till the time of St. Edmund, and he was

despatched in the sixteenth year of his reign, by Hingwar, a heathen; from which time the Angles ceased to command in their own country for fifty years. For the province was nine years without a king, owing to the continued devastations of the pagans; afterwards both in it and in East Saxony, Gothrun, a Danish king, reigned for twelve years, in the time of king Alfred. Gothrun had for successor a Dane also, by name Eohric, who, after he had reigned fourteen years, was taken off by the Angles, because he conducted himself with cruelty towards them. Still, however, liberty beamed not on this people, for the Danish earls continued to oppress them, or else to excite them against the kings of the West Saxons, till Edward, the son of Alfred, added both provinces to his own West Saxon empire, expelling the Danes and freeing the Angles. This event took place in the fiftieth year after the murder of St. Edmund, king and martyr, and in the fifteenth of his own reign.

CHAP. VI.

Of the kings of the East Saxons. [A. D. 520-823.

NEARLY CO-eval with the kingdom of the East Angles, was that of the East Saxons; which had many kings in succession, though subject to others, and principally to those of the Mercians. First, then, Sleda, † the tenth from Woden, reigned over them; whose son, Sabert, nephew of St. Ethelbert, king of Kent, by his sister Ricula, embraced the faith of Christ at the preaching of St. Mellitus, first bishop of London; for that city belongs to the East Saxons. On the death of Sabert, his sons, Sexred and Seward, drove Mellitus into banishment, and soon after, being killed by the West Saxons, they paid the penalty of their persecution against Christ. Sigbert, surnamed the Small, the son of Seward, succeeding, left the kingdom to Sigebert, the son of Sigebald,

According to the Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 921, that is, the 21st of Edward the Elder, and the fiftieth from the murder of king Edmund. Now following this statement, as Edward succeeded his father, Alfred A.D. 901, the expulsion of the Danes would be the twentieth of his reign. In Florence of Worcester the union of the kingdoms under Edward the Elder is assigned to the year 918.-Hardy.

+Sleda was not the first, but their times are uncertain. See Florence of Worcester, who calls him the son of Escwine, whom Henry of Huntingdon considers to have been the first king of Essex.