The controversy between the Pagans and the Christians was not entirely cooled in that age; and no pontiff before Gregory, had ever carried to greater excess an intemperate zeal against the former religion. He had waged war with all the precious monuments of the ancients, and even with their writings, which, as appears from the strain of his own wit, as well as from the style of his compositions, he had not taste or genius sufficient to comprehend. Ambitious to distinguish his pontificate by the conversion of the British Saxons, he pitched on Augustine, a Roman monk, and sent him with forty associates to preach the gospel in this island. These missionaries, terrified with the dangers which might attend their proposing a new doctrine to so fierce a people, of whose language they were ignorant, stopped some time in France, and sent back Augustine to lay the hazards and difficulties before the pope, and crave his permission to desist from the undertaking. But Gregory exhorted them to persevere in their purpose, advised them to choose some interpreters from among the Franks, who still spoke the same language with the Saxons [l]; and recommended them to the good offices of Queen Brunehaut, who had at this time usurped the sovereign power in France. This princess, though stained with every vice of treachery and cruelty, either possessed or pretended great zeal for the cause; and Gregory acknowledged that to her friendly assistance was, in a great measure, owing the success of that undertaking [m]. [FN [1] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 23. [m] Greg. Epist. lib. 9. epist. 56. Spell. Conc. p. 82]

Augustine, on his arrival in Kent, in the year 597 [n] found the danger much less than he had apprehended. Ethelbert, already well disposed towards the Christian faith, assigned him a habitation in the Isle of Thanet, and soon after admitted him to a conference. Apprehensive, however, lest spells or enchantments might be employed against him by priests, who brought an unknown worship from a distant country, he had the precaution to receive them in the open air, where he believed the force of their magic would be more easily dissipated [o]. Here Augustine, by means of his interpreters, delivered to him the tenets of the Christian faith, and promised him eternal joys above, and a kingdom in heaven, without end, if he would be persuaded to receive that salutary doctrine [p]. "Your words and promises," replied Ethelbert, "are fair; but because they are new and uncertain, I cannot entirely yield to them, and relinquish the principles which I and my ancestors have so long maintained. You are welcome, however, to remain here in peace; and as you have undertaken so long a journey, solely, as it appears, for what you believe to be for our advantage, I will supply you with all necessaries, and permit you to deliver your doctrine to my subjects [q]" [FN [n] Higden. Polychron. lib. 5. Chron. Sax. p. 23. [o] Bede, lib. I. cap. 2 Hunting. lib. 3. Brompton, p. 729 Parker Antiq. Brit. Eccl. p. 61. [p] Bede, lib. 1. cap 25. Chron. W. Thorn. p. 1759. [q] Bede, lib. 1. cap 25. H. Hunting. lib. 3. Brompton, p. 729]

Augustine, encouraged by this favourable reception, and seeing now a prospect of success, proceeded with redoubled zeal to preach the gospel to the Kentish Saxons. He attracted their attention by the austerity of his manners, by the severe penances to which he subjected himself, by the abstinence and self-denial which he practised: and having excited their wonder by a course of life which appeared so contrary to nature, he procured more easily their belief of miracles, which, it was pretended, he wrought for their conversion [r]. Influenced by these motives, and by the declared favour of the court, numbers of the Kentish men were baptized; and the king himself was persuaded to submit to that rite of Christianity. His example had great influence with his subjects; but he employed no force to bring them over to the new doctrine. Augustine thought proper, in the commencement of his mission, to assume the appearance of the greatest lenity. He told Ethelbert that the service of Christ must be entirely voluntary, and that no violence ought ever to be used in propagating so salutary a doctrine [s]. [FN [r] Bede, lib. 1. cap 26. [s] Ibid. lib. 1. cap 26. H. Hunting. lib. 3.]

The intelligence received of these spiritual conquests afforded great joy to the Romans; who now exulted as much in those peaceful trophies, as their ancestors had ever done in their most sanguinary triumphs, and most splendid victories. Gregory wrote a letter to Ethelbert, in which, after informing him that the end of the world was approaching, he exhorted him to display his zeal in the conversion of his subjects, to exert rigour against the worship of idols, and to build up the good work of holiness by every expedient of exhortation, terror, blandishment, or correction [t]: a doctrine more suitable to that age, and to the usual papal maxims, than the tolerating principles which Augustine had thought it prudent to inculcate. The pontiff also answered some questions which the missionary had put concerning the government of the new church of Kent. Besides other queries which it is not material here to relate, Augustine asked, WHETHER COUSIN- GERMANS MIGHT BE ALLOWED TO MARRY? Gregory answered, that that liberty had indeed been formerly granted by the Roman law; but that experience had shown, that no issue could ever come from such marriages; and he therefore prohibited them. Augustine, WHETHER A WOMAN PREGNANT MIGHT BE BAPTIZED? Gregory answered that he saw no objection. HOW SOON AFTER THE BIRTH THE CHILD MIGHT RECEIVE BAPTISM? It was answered, Immediately, if necessary. HOW SOON A HUSBAND MIGHT HAVE COMMERCE WITH HIS WIFE AFTER HER DELIVERY? Not till she had given suck to her child: a practice to which Gregory exhorts all women. HOW SOON A MAN MIGHT ENTER THE CHURCH, OR RECEIVE THE SACRAMENT, AFTER HAVING HAD COMMERCE WITH HIS WIFE? It was replied, that unless he had approached her without desire, merely for the sake of propagating his species, he was not without sin: but in all cases it was requisite for him, before he entered the church, or communicated, to purge himself by prayer and ablution; and he ought not, even after using these precautions, to participate immediately of the sacred duties [u]. There are some other questions and replies still more indecent and more ridiculous [w]. And on the whole, it appears that Gregory and his missionary, if sympathy of manners have any influence, were better calculated than men of more refined understanding for making a progress with the ignorant and barbarous Saxons. [FN [t] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 32. Brompton, p. 732. Spell. Conc. p. 86. [u] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 27. Spell. Conc. p. 97, 98, 99, &c. [w] Augustine asks, Si mulier menstrua consuetudine tenetur, an ecclesiam intrare ei licet, aut sacrae communionis sacramenta percipere? Gregory answers, Sanctae communionis mysterium in eisdem diebus percipere non debit prohiberi. Si autem ex veneratione magna precipere non praesumitur, laudanda est. Augustine asks, Si post illusionem, quae per somnum solet accidere, vel corpus Domine quilibet accipere valeat; vel, si sacerdos sit, sacra mysteria celebrare. Gregory answers this learned question by many learned distinctions.]

The more to facilitate the reception of Christianity Gregory enjoined Augustine to remove the idols from the heathen altars, but not to destroy the altars themselves; because the people, he said, would be allured to frequent the Christian worship, when they found it celebrated in a place which they were accustomed to revere. And as the Pagans practised sacrifices, and feasted with the priests on their offerings, he also exhorted the missionary to persuade them, on Christian festivals, to kill their cattle in the neighbourhood of the church, and to indulge themselves in those cheerful entertainments, to which they had been habituated [x]. These political compliances show, that notwithstanding his ignorance and prejudices, he was not unacquainted with the arts of governing mankind. Augustine was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, was endowed by Gregory with authority over all the British churches, and received the pall, a badge of ecclesiastical honour, from Rome [y]. Gregory also advised him not to be too much elated with his gift of working miracles [z]; and as Augustine, proud of the success of his mission, seemed to think himself entitled to extend his authority over the bishops of Gaul, the pope informed him, that they lay entirely without the bounds of his jurisdiction [a]. [FN [x] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 30. Spell. Conc. p.89. Greg. Epist. lib. 9. Epist. 71. [y] Chron. Sax. p. 23, 24. [z] H. Hunting. lib. 3. Spell. Conc. p. 83. Bede, lib. 1. Greg. Epist. lib. 9. Epist. 60. [a] Bede, lib. 1. cap. 27.]

The marriage of Ethelbert with Bertha, and much more his embracing Christianity, begat a connexion of his subjects with the French, Italians, and other nations on the continent, and tended to reclaim them from that gross ignorance and barbarity in which all the Saxon tribes had been hitherto involved [b]. Ethelbert also enacted [c], with the consent of the states of his kingdom, a body of laws, the first written laws promulgated by any of the northern conquerors; and his reign was in every respect glorious to himself, and beneficial to his people. He governed the kingdom of Kent fifty years, and dying in 616, left the succession to his son, Eadbald. This prince, seduced by a passion for his mother-in-law, deserted for some time the Christian faith, which permitted not these incestuous marriages: his whole people immediately returned with him to idolatry. Laurentius, the successor of Augustine, found the Christian worship wholly abandoned, and was prepared to return to France, in order to escape the mortification of preaching the gospel without fruit to the infidels. Melitus and Justus, who had been consecrated Bishops of London and Rochester, had already departed the kingdom [d], when, Laurentius, before he should entirely abandon his dignity, made one effort to reclaim the king. He appeared before that prince, and, throwing off his vestments, showed his body all torn with bruises and stripes, which he had received. Eadbald, wondering that any man should have dared to treat in that manner a person of his rank, was told by Laurentius, that he had received this chastisement from St. Peter, the prince of the Apostles, who had appeared to him in a vision, and, severely reproving him for his intention to desert his charge, had inflicted on him these visible marks of his displeasure [e]. Whether Eadbald was struck with the miracle, or influenced by some other motive, he divorced himself from his mother-in-law, and returned to the profession of Christianity [f]: his whole people returned with him. Eadbald reached not the fame or authority of his father, and died in 640, after a reign of twenty-five years, leaving two sons, Erminfred and Ercombert. [FN [b] Will. Malm. p.10. [c] Wilkins Leges Sax. p. 13. [d] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 5. [e] Ibid. lib. 2. cap. 6. Chron. Sax. p. 26. Higden, lib. 5. [f] Brompton, p. 739.]

Ercombert, though the younger son, by Emma, a French princess, found means to mount the throne. He is celebrated by Bede for two exploits; for establishing the fast of Lent in his kingdom, and for utterly extirpating idolatry, which, notwithstanding the prevalence of Christianity, had hitherto been tolerated by the two preceding monarchs. He reigned twenty-four years, and left the crown to Egbert, his son, who reigned nine years. This prince is renowned for his encouragement of learning, but infamous for putting to death his two cousin germans, sons of Erminfred, his uncle. The ecclesiastical writers praise him for bestowing on his sister, Domnona, some lands in the Isle of Thanet, where she founded a monastery.

The bloody precaution of Egbert could not fix the crown on the head of his son, Edric. Lothaire, brother of the deceased prince, took possession of the kingdom, and, in order to secure the power in his family, he associated with him Richard, his son, in the administration of the government. Edric, the dispossessed prince, had recourse to Edilwach, King of Sussex, for assistance, and being supported by that prince, fought a battle with his uncle, who was defeated and slain. Richard fled into Germany, and afterwards died in Lucca, a city of Tuscany. William of Malmesbury ascribes Lothaire's bad fortune to two crimes; his concurrence in the murder of his cousins, and his contempt for relics [g]. [FN [g] Will. Malm. p. 11.]

Lothaire reigned eleven years; Edric, his successor, only two. Upon the death of the latter, which happened in 686, Widred, his brother, obtained possession of the crown. But as the succession had been of late so much disjointed by revolutions and usurpations, faction began to prevail among the nobility, which invited Ceodwalla, King of Wessex, with his brother, Mollo, to attack the kingdom. These invaders committed great devastations in Kent; but the death of Mollo, who was slain in a skirmish [h], gave a short breathing-time to that kingdom. Widred restored the affairs of Kent, and, after a reign of thirty-two years [i], left the crown to his posterity. Eadbert, Ethelbert, and Alric, his descendants, successively mounted the throne. After the death of the last, which happened in 794, the royal family of Kent was extinguished, and every factious leader who could entertain hopes of ascending the throne, threw the state into confusion [k]. Egbert, who first succeeded, reigned but two years; Cuthred, brother to the King of Mercia, six years; Baldred, an illegitimate branch of the royal family, eighteen; and, after a troublesome and precarious reign, he was, in the year 827, expelled by Egbert, King of Wessex, who dissolved the Saxon Heptarchy, and united the several kingdoms under his dominion. [FN [h] Higden, lib. 5. [i] Chron. Sax. p. 52 [k] Will. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 1. p. 11.]

[MN The kingdom of Northumberland.] Adelfrid, King of Bernicia, having married Acca, the daughter of Aella, King of Deiri, and expelled her infant brother, Edwin, had united all the countries north of Humber into one monarchy, and acquired a great ascendant in the Heptarchy. He also spread the terror of the Saxon arms to the neighbouring people, and by his victories over the Scots and Picts, as well as Welsh, extended on all sides the bounds of his dominions. Having laid siege to Chester, the Britons marched out with all their forces to engage him, and they were attended by a body of 1250 monks from the monastery of Bangor, who stood at a small distance from the field of battle, in order to encourage the combatants by their presence and exhortations. Adelfrid, inquiring the purpose of this unusual appearance, was told, that these priests had come to pray against him: THEN ARE THEY AS MUCH OUR ENEMIES, said he, AS THOSE WHO INTEND TO FIGHT AGAINST US [l]: and he immediately sent a detachment, who fell upon them, and did such execution, that only fifty escaped with their lives [m]. The Britons, astonished at this event, received a total defeat; Chester was obliged to surrender; and Adelfrid, pursuing his victory, made himself master of Bangor, and entirely demolished the monastery, a building so extensive that there was a mile's distance from one gate of it to another, and it contained two thousand one hundred monks, who are said to have been there maintained by their own labour [n]. [FN [l] Brompton, p. 779. [m] Trivet, apud Spell. Conc. p. 111. [n] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 2. W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 3.]

Notwithstanding Adelfrid's success in war, he lived in inquietude on account of young Edwin, whom he had unjustly dispossessed of the crown of Deiri. This prince, now grown to man's estate, wandered from place to place in continual danger from the attempts of Adelfrid, and received at last protection in the court of Redwald, King of the East Angles, where his engaging and gallant deportment procured him general esteem and affection. Redwald, however, was strongly solicited by the King of Northumberland to kill or deliver up his guest; rich presents were promised him if he would comply, and war denounced against him in case of his refusal. After rejecting several messages of this kind, his generosity began to yield to the motives of interest; and he retained the last ambassador till he should come to a resolution in a case of such importance. Edwin, informed of his friend's perplexity, was yet determined at all hazards to remain in East Anglia, and thought that if the protection of that court failed him, it were better to die, than prolong a life so much exposed to the persecutions of his powerful rival. This confidence in Redwald's honour and friendship, with his other accomplishments, engaged the queen on his side, and she effectually represented to her husband the infamy of delivering up to certain destruction their royal guest, who had fled to them for protection against his cruel and jealous enemies [o]. Redwald, embracing more generous resolutions, thought it safest to prevent Adelfrid, before that prince was aware of his intention, and to attack him while he was yet unprepared for defence. He marched suddenly with an army into the kingdom of Northumberland, and fought a battle with Adelfrid, in which that monarch was defeated and killed, after avenging himself by the death of Regner, son of Redwald [p]: his own sons, Eanfrid, Oswald, and Oswy, yet infants, were carried into Scotland, and Edwin obtained possession of the crown of Northumberland. [FN [o] W.. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 3. H. Hunting. lib. 3 Bede [p] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 12. Brompton, p. 781.]

Edwin was the greatest prince of the Heptarchy in that age, and distinguished himself, both by his influence over the other kingdoms [q], and by the strict execution of justice in his own dominions. He reclaimed his subjects from the licentious life to which they had been accustomed; and it was a common saying, that during his reign a woman or child might openly carry every where a purse of gold, without any danger of violence or robbery. There is a remarkable instance, transmitted to us, of the affection borne him by his servants. Cuichelme, King of Wessex, was his enemy, but finding himself unable to maintain open war against so gallant and powerful a prince, he determined to use treachery against him, and he employed one Eumer for that criminal purpose. The assassin, having obtained admittance by pretending to deliver a message from Cuichelme, drew his dagger and rushed upon the king. Lilla, an officer of his army, seeing his master's danger, and having no other means of defence, interposed with his own body between the king and Eumer's dagger, which was pushed with such violence, that after piercing Lilla, it even wounded Edwin; but before the assassin could renew his blow, he was despatched by the king's attendants. [FN [q] Chron. Sax. p. 27.]

The East Angles conspired against Redwald, their king, and having put him to death, they offered their crown to Edwin, of whose valour and capacity they had had experience, while he resided among them. But Edwin, from a sense of gratitude towards his benefactor, obliged them to submit to Earpwold, the son of Redwald; and that prince preserved his authority, though on a precarious footing, under the protection of the Northumbrian monarch [r]. [FN [r] Gul. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 3.]

Edwin, after his accession to the crown, married Ethelburga, the daughter of Ethelbert, King of Kent. This princess, emulating the glory of her mother, Bertha, who had been the instrument for converting her husband and his people to Christianity, carried Paullinus, a learned bishop, along with her [s]; and besides stipulating a toleration for the exercise of her own religion, which was readily granted her, she used every reason to persuade the king to embrace it. Edwin, like a prudent prince, hesitated on the proposal, but promised to examine the foundations of that doctrine, and declared that, if he found them satisfactory, he was willing to be converted [t]. Accordingly, he held several conferences with Paullinus; canvassed the arguments propounded with the wisest of his counsellors; retired frequently from company, in order to revolve alone that important question; and after a serious and long inquiry, declared in favour of the Christian religion [u]: the people soon after imitated his example. Besides the authority and influence of the king, they were moved by another striking example. Coifi, the high priest, being converted after a public conference with Paullinus, led the way in destroying the images which he had so long worshipped, and was forward in making this atonement for his past idolatry [w]. [FN [s] H. Hunting. lib. 3. [t] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 9. [u] Ibid. W. Malmes. lib 1. cap. 3. [w] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 13. Brompton, Higden, lib. 5.]

This able prince perished with his son, Osfrid, in a great battle which he fought against Penda, King of Mercia, and Caedwalla, King of the Britons [x]. That event, which happened in the forty-eighth year of Edwin's age, and seventeenth of his reign [y], divided the monarchy of Northumberland, which that prince had united in his person. Eanfrid, the son of Adelfrid, returned with his brothers, Oswald and Oswy, from Scotland, and took possession of Bernicia, his paternal kingdom: Osric, Edwin's cousin-german, established himself at Deiri, the inheritance of his family, but to which the sons of Edwin had a preferable title. Eanfrid, the elder surviving son, fled to Penda, by whom he was treacherously slain. The younger son, Vuscfraea, with Yffi, the grandson of Edwin, by Osfrid, sought protection in Kent, and not finding themselves in safety there, retired into France to King Dagobert, where they died [z]. [FN [x] Matth. West. p. 114 Chron. Sax. p. 29. [y] W. Malmes. lib 1. cap. 3. [z] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 20.]

Osric, King of Deiri, and Eanfrid, of Bernicia, returned to paganism, and the whole people seem to have returned with them; since Paullinus, who was the first Archbishop of York, and who had converted them, thought proper to retire with Ethelburga, the queen dowager, into Kent. Both these Northumbrian kings perished soon after, the first in battle against Caedwalla, the Briton; the second by the treachery of that prince. Oswald, the brother of Eanfrid, of the race of Bernicia, united again the kingdom of Northumberland in the year 634, and restored the Christian religion in his dominions. He gained a bloody and well-disputed battle against Caedwalla; the last vigorous effort which the Britons made against the Saxons. Oswald is much celebrated for his sanctity and charity by the monkish historians, and they pretend that his relics wrought miracles, particularly the curing of a sick horse, which had approached the place of his interment [a]. [FN [a] Ibid. lib. 3. cap. 9.]

He died in battle against Penda, King of Mercia, and was succeeded by his brother Oswy, who established himself in the government of the whole Northumbrian kingdom, by putting to death Oswin, the son of Osric, the last king of the race of Deiri. His son Egfrid succeeded him; who perishing in battle against the Picts, without leaving any children, because Adelthrid, his wife, refused to violate her vow of chastity, Alfred, his natural brother, acquired possession of the kingdom, which he governed for nineteen years, and he left it to Osred, his son, a boy of eight years of age. This prince, after a reign of eleven years, was murdered by Kenred, his kinsman, who, after enjoying the crown only a year, perished by a like fate. Osric, and after him Celwulph, the son of Kenred, next mounted the throne, which the latter relinquished in the year 735, in favour of Eadbert, his cousin-german, who, imitating his predecessor, abdicated the crown, and retired into a monastery. Oswolf, son of Eadbert, was slain in a sedition, a year after his accession to the crown; and Mollo, who was not of the royal family, seized the crown. He perished by the treachery of Ailred, a prince of the blood; and Ailred, having succeeded in his design upon the throne, was soon after expelled by his subjects. Ethelred, his successor, the son of Mollo, underwent a like fate. Celwold, the next king, the brother of Ailred, was deposed and slain by the people, and his place was filled by Osred, his nephew, who, after a short reign of a year, made way for Ethelbert, another son of Mollo, whose death was equally tragical with that of almost all his predecessors. After Ethelbert's death an universal anarchy prevailed in Northumberland, and the people having, by so many fatal revolutions, lost all attachment to their government and princes, were well prepared for subjection to a foreign yoke, which Egbert, King of Wessex, finally imposed upon them.

[MN The kingdom of East Anglia.] The history of this kingdom contains nothing memorable except the conversion of Earpwold, the fourth king, and great-grandson of Uffa, the founder of the monarchy. The authority of Edwin, King of Northumberland, on whom that prince entirely depended, engaged him to take this step; but soon after, his wife, who was an idolatress, brought him back to her religion, and he was found unable to resist those allurements which had seduced the wisest of mankind. After his death, which was violent, like that of most of the Saxon princes that did not early retire into monasteries, Sigebert, his successor and half brother, who had been educated in France, restored Christianity, and introduced learning among the East Angles. Some pretend that he founded the university of Cambridge, or rather some schools in that place. It is almost impossible, and quite needless, to be more particular in relating the transactions of the East Angles. What instruction or entertainment can it give the reader, to hear a long bead-roll of barbarous names, Egric, Annas, Ethelbert, Ethelwald, Aldulf; Elfwald, Beorne, Ethelred, Ethelbert, who successively murdered, expelled, or inherited from each other, and obscurely filled the throne of that kingdom? Ethelbert, the last of these princes, was treacherously murdered by Offa, King of Mercia, in the year 792, and his state was thenceforth united with that of Offa, as we shall relate presently.

[MN The kingdom of Mercia.] Mercia, the largest if not the most powerful kingdom of the Heptarchy, comprehended all the middle counties of England, and as its frontiers extended to those of all the other six kingdoms, as well as to Wales, it received its name from that circumstance. Wibba, the son of Crida, founder of the monarchy, being placed on the throne, by Ethelbert, King of Kent, governed his paternal dominions by a precarious authority, and after his death, Ceorl, his kinsman, was, by the influence of the Kentish monarch, preferred to his son Penda, whose turbulent character appeared dangerous to that prince. Penda was thus fifty years of age before he mounted the throne, and his temerity and restless disposition were found nowise abated by time, experience, or reflection. He engaged in continual hostilities against all the neighbouring states, and by his injustice and violence rendered himself equally odious to his own subjects and to strangers. Sigebert, Egric, and Annas, three kings of East Anglia, perished successively in battle against him, as did also Edwin and Oswald, the two greatest princes that had reigned over Northumberland. At last Oswy, brother to Oswald, having defeated and slain him in a decisive battle, freed the world from this sanguinary tyrant. Peada, his son, mounted the throne of Mercia in 655, and lived under the protection of Oswy, whose daughter he had espoused. This princess was educated in the Christian faith, and she employed her influence with success, in converting her husband and his subjects to that religion. Thus the fair sex have had the merit of introducing the Christian doctrine into all the most considerable kingdoms of the Saxon Heptarchy. Peada died a violent death [b]. His son, Wolfhere, succeeded to the government, and, after having reduced to dependence the kingdoms of Essex and East Anglia, he, left the crown to his brother Ethelred, who, though a lover of peace, showed himself not unfit for military enterprises. Besides making a successful expedition into Kent, he repulsed Egfrid, King of Northumberland, who had invaded his dominions; and he slew in battle Elfwin, the brother of that prince. Desirous, however, of composing all animosities with Egfrid, he paid him a sum of money as a compensation for the loss of his brother. After a prosperous reign of thirty years, he resigned the crown to Kendred, son of Wolfhere, and retired into the monastery of Bardney [c]. Kendred returned the present of the crown to Ceolred, the son of Ethelred, and making a pilgrimage to Rome, passed his life there in penance and devotion. The place of Ceolred was supplied by Ethelbald, great-grand-nephew to Penda, by Alwy, his brother; and this prince, being slain in a mutiny, was succeeded by Offa, who was a degree more remote from Penda, by Eawa, another brother. [FN [b] Hugo Candidus, p. 4, says, that he was treacherously murdered by his queen, by whose persuasion he had embraced Christianity; but this account of the matter is found in that historian alone. [c] Bede, lib. 5.]

This prince, who mounted the throne in 775 [d], had some great qualities, and was successful in his warlike enterprises against Lothaire, King of Kent, and Kenwulph, King of Wessex. He defeated the former in a bloody battle at Otford upon the Darent, and reduced his kingdom to a state of dependence: he gained a victory over the latter at Bensington in Oxfordshire; and conquering that county, together with that of Gloucester, annexed both to his dominions. But all these successes were stained by his treacherous murder of Ethelbert, King of the East Angles, and his violent seizing of that kingdom. This young prince, who is said to have possessed great merit, had paid his addresses to Elfrida, the daughter of Offa, and was invited with all his retinue to Hereford, in order to solemnize the nuptials. Amidst the joy and festivity of these entertainments, he was seized by Offa, and secretly beheaded; and though Elfrida, who abhorred her father's treachery, had time to give warning to the East Anglian nobility, who escaped into their own country, Offa, having extinguished the royal family, succeeded in his design of subduing that kingdom [e]. The perfidious prince, desirous of re-establishing his character in the world, and perhaps of appeasing the remorses of his own conscience, paid great court to the clergy, and practised all the monkish devotion so much esteemed in that ignorant and superstitious age. He gave the tenth of his goods to the church [f]; bestowed rich donations on the cathedral of Hereford, and even made a pilgrimage to Rome, where his great power and riches could not fail of procuring him the papal absolution. The better to ingratiate himself with the sovereign pontiff, he engaged to pay him a yearly donation for the support of an English college at Rome [g]; and, in order to raise the sum, he imposed the tax of a penny on each house possessed of thirty pence a year. This imposition being afterwards levied on all England, was commonly denominated Peter's Pence [h]: and though conferred at first as a gift, was afterwards claimed as a tribute by the Roman pontiff. Carrying his hypocrisy still farther, Offa, feigning to be directed by a vision from heaven, discovered at Verulam the relics of St. Alban, the martyr, and endowed a magnificent monastery in that place [i]. Moved by all these acts of piety, Malmesbury, one of the best of the old English historians, declares himself at a loss to determine [k] whether the merits or crimes of this prince preponderated. Offa died after a reign of thirty-nine years, in 794 [l]. [FN [d] Chron. Sax. p. 59. [e] Brompton, p. 750, 751, 752. [f] Spell. Conc. p. 308. Brompton, p. 776. [g] Spell. Conc. p. 230, 310, 312. [h] Higden, lib. 5. [i] Ingulph. p. 5. W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 4. [k] Lib. 1. cap. 4.]

This prince was become so considerable in the Heptarchy, that the Emperor Charlemagne entered into an alliance and friendship with him; a circumstance which did honour to Offa, as distant princes at that time had usually little communication with each other. That emperor being a great lover of learning and learned men, in an age very barren of that ornament, Offa, at his desire, sent him over Alcuin, a clergyman, much celebrated for his knowledge, who received great honours from Charlemagne, and even became his preceptor in the sciences. The chief reason why he had at first desired the company of Alcuin, was, that he might oppose his learning to the heresy of Felix, Bishop of Urgel, in Catalonia, who maintained that Jesus Christ, considered in his human nature, could more properly be denominated the adoptive, than the natural son of God [m]. This heresy was condemned in the council of Francfort, held in 794, and consisting of 300 bishops. Such were the questions which were agitated in that age, and which employed the attention not only of cloistered scholars, but of the wisest and greatest princes [n]. [FN [l] Chron. Sax. p. 65 [m] Dupin, cent. 8. chap. 4. [n] Offa, in order to protect his country from Wales; drew a rampart or ditch of a hundred miles in length, from Basinwerke in Flintshire, to the south- sea near Bristol. See SPEED'S DESCRIPTION OF WALES.]

Egfrith succeeded to his father Offa, but survived him only five months [o], when he made way for Kenulph, a descendant of the royal family. This prince waged war against Kent, and taking Egbert the king prisoner, he cut off his hands, and put out his eyes, leaving Cuthred, his own brother, in possession of the crown of that kingdom. Kenulph was killed in an insurrection of the East Anglians, whose crown his predecessor, Offa, had usurped. He left his son, Kenelm, a minor, who was murdered the same year by his sister, Quendrade, who had entertained the ambitious views of assuming the government [p]. But she was supplanted by her uncle Ceolulf; who, two years after, was dethroned by Beornulf. The reign of this usurper, who was not of the royal family, was short and unfortunate: he was defeated by the West Saxons, and killed by his own subjects, the East Angles [q]. Ludican, his successor, underwent the same fate [r]; and Wiglaff, who mounted this unstable throne, and found every thing in the utmost confusion, could not withstand the fortune of Egbert, who united all the Saxon kingdoms into one great monarchy. [FN [o] Ingulph. p. 6. [p] Ibid. p. 7. Brompton, p. 776 [q] Ingulph. p. 7. [r] Ann. Beverl. p. 87.]

[MN The kingdom of Essex.] This kingdom made no great figure in the Heptarchy, and the history of it is very imperfect. Sleda succeeded to his father, Erkinwin, the founder of' the monarchy, and made way for his son, Sebert, who, being nephew to Ethelbert, King of Kent, was persuaded by that prince to embrace the Christian faith [s]. His sons and conjunct successors, Sexted and Seward, relapsed into idolatry, and were soon after slain in a battle against the West Saxons. To show the rude manner of living in that age, Bede tells us [t], that these two kings expressed great desire to eat the white bread, distributed by Mellitus, the bishop, at the [u] communion. But on his refusing them, unless they would submit to be baptized, they expelled him their dominions. The names of the other princes who reigned successively in Essex, are Sigebert the Little, Sigebert the Good who restored Christianity, Swithelm, Sigheri, Offa. This last prince, having made a vow of chastity, notwithstanding his marriage with Keneswitha, a Mercian princess, daughter to Penda, went in pilgrimage to Rome, and shut himself up during the rest of his life in a cloister. Selred, his successor, reigned thirty-eight years, and was the last of the royal line; the failure of which threw the kingdom into great confusion, and reduced it to dependence under Mercia [w]. Switherd first acquired the crown, by the concession of the Mercian princes, and his death made way for Sigeric, who ended his life in a pilgrimage to Rome. His successor, Sigered, unable to defend his kingdom, submitted to the victorious arms of Egbert. [FN [s] Chron. Sax. p. 24. [t] Lib. 2. cap. 5. [u] H. Hunting. lib. 3. Brompton, p. 738, 743. Bede. [w] Malmes lib. 1. cap. 6.]

[MN The kingdom of Sussex.] The history of this kingdom, the smallest in the Heptarchy, is still more imperfect than that of Essex. Aella, the founder of the monarchy, left the crown to his son Cissa, who is chiefly remarkable for his long reign of seventy-six years. During his time, the South Saxons fell almost into a total dependence on the kingdom of Wessex, and we scarcely know the names of the princes who were possessed of this titular sovereignty. Adelwalch, the last of them, was subdued in battle by Ceodwalla, King of Wessex, and was slain in the action, leaving two infant sons, who, falling into the hand of the conqueror, were murdered by him. The Abbot of Retford opposed the order for this execution, but could only prevail on Ceodwalla to suspend it till they should be baptized. Bercthun and Audhun, two noblemen of character, resisted some time the violence of the West Saxons, but their opposition served only to prolong the miseries of their country, and the subduing of this kingdom was the first step which the West Saxons made towards acquiring the sole monarchy of England [x]. [FN [x] Brompton, p. 800.]

[MN The Kingdom of Wessex.] The kingdom of Wessex, which finally swallowed up all the other Saxon states, met with great resistance on its first establishment: and the Britons, who were now inured to arms, yielded not tamely their possessions to those invaders. Cerdic, the founder of the monarchy, and his son, Kenric, fought many successful, and some unsuccessful, battles against the natives; and the martial spirit, common to all the Saxons, was, by means of these hostilities, carried to the greatest height, among this tribe. Ceaulin, who was the son and successor of Kenric, and who began his reign in 560, was still more ambitious and enterprising than his predecessors, and by waging continual war against the Britons, he added a great part of the counties of Devon and Somerset to his other dominions. Carried along by the tide of success, he invaded the other Saxon states in his neighbourhood, and becoming terrible to all, he provoked a general confederacy against him. This alliance proved successful under the conduct of Ethelbert, King of Kent; and Ceaulin, who had lost the affections of his own subjects by his violent disposition, and had now fallen into contempt from his misfortunes, was expelled the throne [y], and died in exile and misery. Cuichelme and Cuthwin, his sons, governed jointly the kingdom, till the expulsion of the latter in 591, and the death of the former in 593, made way for Cealric, to whom succeeded Ceobald in 593, by whose death, which happened in 611, Kynegils inherited the crown. This prince embraced Christianity [z], through the persuasion of Oswald, King of Northumberland, who had married his daughter, and who had attained a great ascendant in the Heptarchy. Kenwalch next succeeded to the monarchy, and dying in 672, left the succession so much disputed, that Sexburga, his widow, a woman of spirit [a], kept possession of the government till her death, which happened two years after. Escwin then peaceably acquired the crown, and after a short reign of two years made way for Kentwin, who governed nine years. Ceodwalla, his successor, mounted not the throne without opposition, but proved a great prince according to the ideas of those times; that is, he was enterprising, warlike, and successful. He entirely subdued the kingdom of Sussex, and annexed it to his own dominions. He made inroads into Kent, but met with resistance from Widred, the king, who proved successful against Mollo, brother to Ceodwalla, and slew him in a skirmish. Ceodwalla, at last, tired with wars and bloodshed, was seized with a fit of devotion; bestowed several endowments on the church; and made a pilgrimage to Rome, where he received baptism, and died in 689. Ina, his successor, inherited the military virtues of Ceodwalla, and added to them the more valuable ones of justice, policy, and prudence. He made war upon the Britons in Somerset, and having finally subdued that province, he treated the vanquished with a humanity hitherto unknown to the Saxon conquerors. He allowed the proprietors to retain possession of their lands, encouraged marriages and alliances between them and his ancient subjects, and gave them the privilege of being governed by the same laws. These laws he augmented and ascertained, and though he was disturbed by some insurrections at home, his long reign of thirty-seven years may be regarded as one of the most glorious and most prosperous of the Heptarchy. In the decline of his age he made a pilgrimage to Rome, and after his return, shut himself up in a cloister, where he died. [FN [y] Chron. Sax. p. 22. [z] Higden, lib. 5. Chron. Sax. p. 15. Ann. Beverl. p. 93. [a] Bede, lib 4 cap 12. Chron. Sax. p. 41.]

Though the kings of Wessex had always been princes of the blood, descended from Cerdic, the founder of the monarchy, the order of succession had been far from exact, and a more remote prince had often found means to mount the throne in preference to one descended from a nearer branch of the royal family. Ina, therefore, having no children of his own, and lying much under the influence of Ethelburga, his queen, left by will the succession to Adelard, her brother, who was his remote kinsman; but this destination did not take place without some difficulty. Oswald, a prince more nearly allied to the crown, took arms against Adelard; but he being suppressed, and dying soon after, the title of Adelard was not any farther disputed, and, in the year 741, he was succeeded by his cousin, Cudred. The reign of this prince was distinguished by a great victory, which he obtained by means of Edelhun, his general, over Ethelbald, King of Mercia. His death made way for Sigebert, his kinsman, who governed so ill, that his people rose in an insurrection and dethroned him, crowning Cenulph in his stead. The exiled prince found a refuge with Duke Cumbran, governor of Hampshire, who, that he might add new obligations to Sigebert, gave him many salutary counsels for his future conduct, accompanied with some reprehensions for the past. But these were so much resented by the ungrateful prince, that he conspired against the life of his protector, and treacherously murdered him. After this infamous action, he was forsaken by all the world, and skulking about in the wilds and forests, was at last discovered by a servant of Cumbran's, who instantly took revenge upon him for the murder of his master [b]. [FN [b] Higden, lib. 5. W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap. 2.]

Cenulph, who had obtained the crown on the expulsion of Sigebert, was fortunate in many expeditions against the Britons of Cornwall, but afterwards lost some reputation by his ill success against Offa, King of Mercia [c]. Kynehard also, brother to the deposed Sigebert, gave him disturbance, and though expelled the kingdom, he hovered on the frontiers, and watched an opportunity for attacking his rival. The king had an intrigue with a young woman who lived at Merton in Surrey, whither having secretly retired, he was on a sudden environed, in the night time, by Kynehard and his followers, and, after making a vigorous resistance, was murdered with all his attendants. The nobility and people of the neighbourhood, rising next day in arms, took revenge on Kynehard for the slaughter of their king, and put every one to the sword who had been engaged in that criminal enterprise. This event happened in 784. [FN [c] W. Malmes. lib. 1. cap 3.]

Brithric next obtained possession of the government, though remotely descended from the royal family, but he enjoyed not that dignity without inquietude. Eoppa, nephew to King Ina, by his brother Ingild, who died before that prince, had begot Eta, father to Alchmond, from whom sprung Egbert [d], a young man of the most promising hopes, who gave great jealousy to Brithric, the reigning prince, both because he seemed by his birth better entitled to the crown, and because he had acquired, to an eminent degree, the affections of the people. Egbert, sensible of his danger from the suspicions of Brithric, secretly withdrew into France [e], where he was well received by Charlemagne. By living in the court, and serving in the armies of that prince, the most able and most generous that had appeared in Europe during several ages, he acquired those accomplishments which afterwards enabled him to make such a shining figure on the throne; and familiarizing himself to the manners of the French, who, as Malmesbury observes [f], were eminent both for valour and civility above all the western nations, he learned to polish the rudeness and barbarity of the Saxon character: his early misfortunes thus proved of singular advantage to him. [FN [d] Chron. Sax. p. 16. [e] H. Hunting. lib. 4. [f] Lib. 2 cap. 11.]

It was not long ere Egbert had opportunities of displaying his natural and acquired talents. Brithric, King of Wessex, had married Eadburga, natural daughter of Offa, King of Mercia, a profligate woman, equally infamous for cruelty and for incontinence. Having great influence over her husband, she often instigated him to destroy such of the nobility as were obnoxious to her; and where this expedient failed, she scrupled not being herself active in traitorous attempts against them. She had mixed a cup of poison for a young nobleman who had acquired her husband's friendship, and had on that account become the object of her jealousy; but, unfortunately, the king drank of the fatal cup along with his favourite, and soon after expired [g]. This tragical incident, joined to her other crimes, rendered Eadburga so odious, that she was obliged to fly into France, whence Egbert was at the same time recalled by the nobility, in order to ascent the throne of his ancestors [h]. He attained that dignity in the last year of the eighth century. [FN [g] Higden, lib. 5. M. West. p. 152. Asser. in vita Alfredi, p. 3. ex edit. Camdeni. [h] Chron. Sax. A. D. 800. Brompton, p. 801.]

In the kingdoms of the Heptarchy, an exact rule of succession was either unknown or not strictly observed, and thence the reigning prince was continually agitated with jealousy against all the princes of the blood, whom he still considered as rivals, and whose death alone could give him entire security in his possession of the throne. From this fatal cause, together with the admiration of the monastic life, and the opinion of merit attending the preservation of chastity even in a married state, the royal families had been entirely extinguished in all the kingdoms except that of Wessex, and the emulations, suspicions, and conspiracies, which had formerly been confined to the princes of the blood alone, were now diffused among all the nobility in the several Saxon states. Egbert was the sole descendant of those first conquerors who subdued Britain, and who enhanced their authority by claiming a pedigree from Woden, the supreme divinity of their ancestors. But that prince, though invited by this favourable circumstance to make attempts on the neighbouring Saxons, gave them for some time no disturbance, and rather chose to turn his arms against the Britons in Cornwall, whom he defeated in several [i] battles. He was recalled from the conquest of that country by an invasion made upon his dominions by Bernulf, King of Mercia. [FN [i] Chron. Sax. p. 69.]

The Mercians, before the accession of Egbert, had very nearly attained the absolute sovereignty in the Heptarchy; they had reduced the East Angles under subjection, and established tributary princes in the kingdoms of Kent and Essex. Northumberland was involved in anarchy; and no state of any consequence remained but that of Wessex, which, much inferior in extent to Mercia, was supported solely by the great qualities of its sovereign. Egbert led his army against the invaders, and encountering them at Ellandun, in Wiltshire, obtained a complete victory, and by the great slaughter which he made of them in their flight, gave a mortal blow to the power of the Mercians. Whilst he himself, in prosecution of his victory, entered their country on the side of Oxfordshire, and threatened the heart of their dominions, he sent an army into Kent, commanded by Ethelwolf, his eldest son [k], and expelling Baldred, the tributary king, soon made himself master of that country. The kingdom of Essex was conquered with equal facility, and the East Angles, from their hatred to the Mercian government, which had been established over them by treachery and violence, and probably exercised with tyranny, immediately rose in arms, and craved the protection of Egbert [l]. Bernulf, the Mercian king, who marched against them, was defeated and slain; and two years after, Ludican, his successor, met with the same fate. These insurrections and calamities facilitated the enterprises of Egbert, who advanced into the centre of the Mercian territories, and made easy conquests over a dispirited and divided people. In order to engage them more easily to submission, he allowed Wiglef, their countryman, to retain the title of king, while he himself exercised the real powers of sovereignty [m]. The anarchy which prevailed in Northumberland, tempted him to carry still farther his victorious arms; and the inhabitants, unable to resist his power, and desirous of possessing some established form of government, were forward, on his first appearance, to send deputies, who submitted to his authority, and swore allegiance to him as their sovereign. Egbert, however, still allowed to Northumberland, as he had done to Mercia and East Anglia, the power of electing a king, who paid him tribute, and was dependent on him. [FN [k] Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 2. [1] Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 3. [m] Ingulph. p. 7, 8, 10]

Thus were united all the kingdoms of the Heptarchy in one great state, near four hundred years after the first arrival of the Saxons in Britain, and the fortunate arms and prudent policy of Egbert at last effected what had been so often attempted in vain by so many princes [n]. Kent, Northumberland, and Mercia, which had successively aspired to general dominion, were now incorporated in his empire, and the other subordinate kingdoms seemed willingly to share the same fate. His territories were nearly of the same extent with what is now properly called England; and a favourable prospect was afforded to the Anglo-Saxons, of establishing a civilized monarchy, possessed of tranquillity within itself, and secure against foreign invasion. This great event happened in the year 827 [o]. [FN [n] Chron. Sax. p. 71. [o] Ibid.]

The Saxons, though they had been so long settled in the island, seem not as yet to have been much improved beyond their German ancestors, either in arts, civility, knowledge, humanity, justice, or obedience to the laws. Even Christianity, though it opened the way to connexions between them and the more polished states of Europe, had not hitherto been very effectual in banishing their ignorance, or softening their barbarous manners. As they received that doctrine through the corrupted channels of Rome, it carried along with it a great mixture of credulity and superstition, equally destructive to the understanding and to morals. The reverence towards saints and relics seems to have almost supplanted the adoration of the Supreme Being. Monastic observances were esteemed more meritorious than the active virtues; the knowledge of natural causes were neglected from the universal belief of miraculous interpositions and judgments; bounty to the church atoned for every violence against society; and the remorses for cruelty, murder, treachery, assassination, and the more robust vices, were appeased, not by amendment of life, but by penances, servility to the monks, and an abject and illiberal devotion [p]. The reverence for the clergy had been carried to such a height, that, wherever a person appeared in a sacerdotal habit, though on the high way, the people flocked around him, and, showing him all marks of profound respect, received every word he uttered as the most sacred oracle [q]. Even the military virtues, so inherent in all the Saxon tribes, began to be neglected; and the nobility, preferring the security and sloth of the cloister to the tumults and glory of war, valued themselves chiefly on endowing monasteries, of which they assumed the government [r]. The several kings, too, being extremely impoverished by continual benefactions to the church to which the states of their kingdoms had weakly assented, could bestow no rewards on valour or military services, and retained not even sufficient influence to support their government [s]. [FN [p] These abuses were common to all the European churches, but the priests in Italy, Spain, and Gaul made some atonement for them, by other advantages which they rendered society. For several ages, they were almost all Romans, or, in other words, the ancient natives, and they preserved the Roman language and laws, with some remains of the former civility. But the priests in the Heptarchy, after the first missionaries, were wholly Saxons, and almost as ignorant and barbarous as the laity. They contributed, therefore, little to the improvement of society in knowledge or the arts. [q] Bede, lib 3. cap. 26. [r] Ibid. lib. 5. cap. 23. Epistola Bedae ad Egbert. [s] Bedae Epist. ad Egbert.]

Another inconvenience which attended this corrupt species of Christianity, was the superstitious attachment to Rome, and the gradual subjection of the kingdom to a foreign jurisdiction. The Britons, having never acknowledged any subordination to the Roman pontiff, had conducted all ecclesiastical government by their domestic synods and councils [t]; but the Saxons, receiving their religion from Roman monks, were taught at the same time a profound reverence for that see, and were naturally led to regard it as the capital of their religion. Pilgrimages to Rome were represented as the most meritorious acts of devotion. Not only noblemen and ladies of rank undertook this tedious journey [u], but kings themselves, abdicating their crowns, sought for a secure passport to heaven at the feet of the Roman pontiff; new relics, perpetually sent from that endless mint of superstition, and magnified by lying miracles, invented in convents, operated on the astonished minds of the multitude; and every prince has attained the eulogies of the monks, the only historians of those ages, not in proportion to his civil and military virtues, but to his devoted attachment towards their order, and his superstitious reverence for Rome. [FN [t] Append. to Bede, numb. 10. ex edit, 1722. Spellm. Conc. p. 108, 109. [u] Bede, lib. 5. c. 7.]

The sovereign pontiff, encouraged by this blindness and submissive disposition of the people, advanced every day in his encroachments on the independence of the English churches. Wilfrid, Bishop of Lindisferne, the sole prelate of the Northumbrian kingdom, increased this subjection in the eighth century, by his making an appeal to Rome against the decisions of an English synod, which had abridged his diocese by the erection of some new bishoprics [w]. Agatho, the pope, readily embraced this precedent of an appeal to his court; and Wilfrid, though the haughtiest and most luxurious prelate of his age [x], having obtained with the people the character of sanctity, was thus able to lay the foundation of this papal pretension. [FN [w] See Appendix to Bede, numb. 19. Higden, lib. 5. [x] Eddius, vita Vilfr. sec. 24, 60]

The great topic by which Wilfrid confounded the imaginations of men was, that St. Peter, to whose custody the keys of heaven were intrusted, would certainly refuse admittance to every one who should be wanting in respect to his successor. This conceit, well suited to vulgar conceptions, made great impression on the people during several ages, and has not even at present lost all influence in the catholic countries.

Had this abject superstition produced general peace and tranquillity, it had made some atonement for the ill attending it; but besides the usual avidity of men for power and riches, frivolous controversies in theology were engendered by it, which were so much the more fatal, as they admitted not, like the others, of any final determination from established possession. The disputes excited in Britain were of the most ridiculous kind, and entirely worthy of those ignorant and barbarous ages. There were some intricacies, observed by all the Christian churches, in adjusting the day of keeping Easter, which depended on a complicated consideration of the course of the sun and moon: and it happened that the missionaries, who had converted the Scots and Britons, had followed a different calendar from that which was observed at Rome in the age when Augustine converted the Saxons. The priests also of all the Christian churches were accustomed to shave part of their head; but the form given to this tonsure was different in the former from what was practised in the latter. The Scots and Britons pleaded the antiquity of THEIR usages; the Romans, and their disciples, the Saxons, insisted on the universality of THEIRS. That Easter must necessarily be kept by a rule, which comprehended both the day of the year and age of the moon, was agreed by all; that the tonsure of a priest could not be omitted without the utmost impiety, was a point undisputed; but the Romans and Saxons called their antagonists schismatics, because they celebrated Easter on the very day of the full moon in March, if that day fell on a Sunday, instead of waiting till the Sunday following; and because they shaved the forepart of their head from ear to ear, instead of making that tonsure on the crown of the head, and in a circular form. In order to render their antagonists odious, they affirmed, that once in seven years, they concurred with the Jews in the time of celebrating that festival [y]; and that they might recommend their own form of tonsure, they maintained that it imitated symbolically the crown of thorns worn by Christ in his passion, whereas the other form was invented by Simon Magus, without any regard to that representation [z]. These controversies had, from the beginning, excited such animosity between the British and Romish priests, that, instead of concurring in their endeavours to convert the idolatrous Saxons, they refused all communion together, and each regarded his opponent as no better than a pagan [a]. The dispute lasted more than a century, and was at last finished, not by men's discovering the folly of it, which would have been too great an effort for human reason to accomplish, but by the entire prevalence of the Romish ritual over the Scotch and British [b]. Wilfrid, Bishop of Lindisferne, acquired great merit, both with the court of Rome and with all the Southern Saxons, by expelling the quartodeciman schism, as it was called, from the Northumbrian kingdom, into which the neighbourhood of the Scots had formerly introduced it [c]. [FN [y] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 19. [z] Ibid. lib. 5. cap. 21. Eddius, Sec. 24. [a] Bede, lib. 2. cap. 2. 4. 20. Eddius, Sec. 12. [b] Bede, lib. 5. cap. 16, 22. [c] Bede, lib. 3. cap. 25. Eddius, Sec. 12]

Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, called, in the year 680, a synod at Hatfield, consisting of all the bishops in Britain [d], where was accepted and ratified the decree of the Lateran council, summoned by Martin, against the heresy of the Monothelites. The council and synod maintained, in opposition to these heretics, that though the divine and human nature in Christ made but one person, yet they had different inclinations, wills, acts, and sentiments, and that the unity of the person implied not unity in the consciousness [e]. This opinion it seems somewhat difficult to comprehend; and no one, unacquainted with the ecclesiastical history of those ages, could imagine the height of zeal and violence with which it was then inculcated. The decree of the Lateran council calls the Monothelites impious, execrable, wicked, abominable, and even diabolical; and curses and anathematizes them to all eternity [f]. [FN [d] Spell. Conc. vol. 1. p. 168. [e] Spell. Conc. vol. 1. p. 171. [f] Ibid. p. 172, 173, 174.]

The Saxons, from the first introduction of Christianity among them, had admitted the use of images; and perhaps, that religion, without some of those exterior ornaments, had not made so quick a progress with these idolaters: but they had not paid any species of worship or address to images; and this abuse never prevailed among Christians, till it received the sanction of the second council of Nice.



CHAPTER II.

EGBERT.—ETHELWOLF.—ETHELBALD AND ETHELBERT.—ETHERED.—ALFRED THE GREAT.—EDWARD THE ELDER.—ATHELSTAN.—EDMUND.—-EDRED—EDWY.—EDGAR.— EDWARD THE MARTYR.



[MN Egbert 827.] The kingdoms of the Heptarchy, though united by so recent a conquest, seemed to be firmly cemented into one state under Egbert; and the inhabitants of the several provinces had lost all desire of revolting from that monarch, or of restoring their former independent governments. Their language was every where nearly the same, their customs, laws, institutions, civil and religious; and as the race of the ancient kings was totally extinct in all the subjected states, the people readily transferred their allegiance to a prince who seemed to merit it by the splendour of his victories, the vigour of his administration, and the superior nobility of his birth. A union also in government opened to them the agreeable prospect of future tranquillity; and it appeared more probable that they would henceforth become formidable to their neighbours, than be exposed to their inroads and devastations. But these flattering views were soon overcast by the appearance of the Danes, who, during some centuries, kept the Anglo-Saxons in perpetual inquietude, committed the most barbarous ravages upon them, and at last reduced them to grievous servitude.

The Emperor Charlemagne, though naturally generous and humane, had been induced by bigotry to exercise great severities upon the pagan Saxons in Germany, whom he subdued; and besides often ravaging their country with fire and sword, he had in cool blood decimated all the inhabitants for their revolts, and had obliged them, by the most rigorous edicts, to make a seeming compliance with the Christian doctrine. That religion, which had easily made its way among the British Saxons by insinuation and address, appeared shocking to their German brethren, when imposed on them by the violence of Charlemagne, and the more generous and warlike of these pagans had fled northward into Jutland, in order to escape the fury of his persecutions. Meeting there with a people of similar manners, they were readily received among them; and they soon stimulated the natives to concur in enterprises, which both promised revenge on the haughty conqueror, and afforded subsistence to those numerous inhabitants with which the northern countries were now overburdened [g]. They invaded the provinces of France, which were exposed by the degeneracy and dissensions of Charlemagne's posterity; and being there known under the general name of Normans, which they received from their northern situation, they became the terror of all the maritime and even of the inland countries. They were also tempted to visit England in their frequent excursions; and being able, by sudden inroads, to make great progress over a people who were not defended by any naval force, who had relaxed their military institutions, and who were sunk into a superstition which had become odious to the Danes and ancient Saxons, they made no distinction in their hostilities between the French and English kingdoms. Their first appearance in this island was in the year 787 [h], when Brithric reigned in Wessex. A small body of them landed in that kingdom, with a view of learning the state of the country; and when the magistrate of the place questioned them concerning their enterprise, and summoned them to appear before the king, and account for their intentions, they killed him, and, flying to their ships, escaped into their own country. The next alarm was given to Northumberland in the year 794 [i], when a body of these pirates pillaged a monastery: but their ships being much damaged by a storm, and their leader slain in a skirmish, they were at last defeated by the inhabitants, and the remainder of them put to the sword. Five years after Egbert had established his monarchy over England, the Danes landed in the Isle of Shepey, and having pillaged it, escaped with impunity [k]. They were not so fortunate in their next year's enterprise, when they disembarked from thirty-five ships, and were encountered by Egbert, at Charmouth, in Dorsetshire. The battle was bloody; but though the Danes lost great numbers, they maintained the post they had taken, and thence made good their retreat to their ships [l]. Having learned by experience, that they must expect a vigorous resistance from this warlike prince, they entered into an alliance with the Britons of Cornwall, and landing two years after in that country, made an inroad with their confederates into the county of Devon, but were met at Hengesdown by Egbert, and totally defeated [m]. While England remained in this state of anxiety, and defended itself more by temporary expedients than by any regular plan of administration, Egbert, who alone was able to provide effectually against this new evil, unfortunately died [MN 838.], and left the government to his son Ethelwolf. [FN [g] Ypod. Neustria, p. 414. [h] Chron. Sax. p. 64. [i] Chron. Sax. p 64. Alur. Beverl. p. 108. [k] Chron. Sax. p. 72. [l] Chron. Sax. p. 72. Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 2. [m] Chron. Sax. p. 72.]

[MN Ethelwolf.] This prince had neither the abilities nor the vigour of his father; and was better qualified for governing a convent than a kingdom [n]. He began his reign with making a partition of his dominions, and delivering over to his eldest son, Athelstan, the new-conquered provinces of Essex, Kent, and Sussex. But no inconveniences seem to have risen from this partition, as the continual terror of the Danish invasions prevented all domestic dissension. A fleet of these ravagers, consisting of thirty-three sail, appeared at Southampton, but were repulsed with loss by Wolfhere, governor of the neighbouring county [o]. The same year, Aethelhelm, governor of Dorsetshire, routed another band which had disembarked at Portsmouth, but he obtained the victory after a furious engagement, and he bought it with the loss of his life [p]. Next year the Danes made several inroads into England, and fought battles, or rather skirmishes, in East Anglia and Lindesey and Kent, where, though they were sometimes repulsed and defeated, they always obtained their end of committing spoil upon the country, and carrying off their booty. They avoided coming to a general engagement, which was not suited to their plan of operations. Their vessels were small, and ran easily up the creeks and rivers, where they drew them ashore, and having formed an entrenchment round them, which they guarded with part of their number, the remainder scattered themselves every where, and carrying off the inhabitants and cattle and goods, they hastened to their ships and quickly disappeared. If the military force of the county were assembled, (for there was no time for troops to march from a distance,) the Danes either were able to repulse them, and to continue their ravages with impunity, or they betook themselves to their vessels, and setting sail, suddenly invaded some distant quarter, which was not prepared for their reception. Every part of England was held in continual alarm, and the inhabitants of one county durst not give assistance to those of another, lest their own families and property should in the mean time be exposed by their absence to the fury of these barbarous ravagers [q]. All orders of men were involved in this calamity, and the priests and monks, who had been commonly spared in the domestic quarrels of the Heptarchy, were the chief objects on which the Danish idolators exercised their rage and animosity. Every season of the year was dangerous, and the absence of the enemy was no reason why any man could esteem himself a moment in safety. [FN [n] Wm. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 2. [o] Chron. Sax. p. 73. Ethelward, lib. 3. [p] Chron. Sax. p. 73. H. Hunting. lib. 5. [q] Alured. Beverl. p. 108.]

[MN 851.] These incursions had now become almost annual, when the Danes, encouraged by their successes against France as well as England, (for both kingdoms were alike exposed to this dreadful calamity,) invaded the last in so numerous a body, as seemed to threaten it with universal subjection. But the English, more military than the Britons, whom a few centuries before they had treated with like violence, roused themselves with a vigour proportioned to the exigency. Ceorle, governor of Devonshire, fought a battle with one body of the Danes at Wiganburgh [r], and put them to rout with great slaughter. King Athelstan attacked another at sea near Sandwich, sunk nine of their ships, and put the rest to flight [s]. A body of them, however, ventured, for the first time, to take up winter quarters in England; and receiving in the spring a strong reinforcement of their countrymen in 350 vessels, they advanced from the Isle of Thanet, where they had stationed themselves, burnt the cities of London and Canterbury, and having put to flight Brichtric, who now governed Mercia under the title of king, they marched into the heart of Surrey, and laid every place waste around them. Ethelwolf, impelled by the urgency of the danger, marched against them at the head of the West Saxons, and carrying with him his second son, Ethelbald, gave them battle at Okely, and gained a bloody victory over them. This advantage procured but a short respite to the English. The Danes still maintained their settlement in the Isle of Thanet, and being attacked by Ealher and Huda, governors of Kent and Surrey, though defeated in the beginning of the action, they finally repulsed the assailants [MN 853.], and killed both the governors. They removed thence to the Isle of Shepey; where they took up their winter quarters, that they might farther extend their devastation and ravages. [FN [r] H. Hunt. lib. 5 Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 3. Simeon Dunelm. p. 120. [s] Chron. Sax. p. 74. Asserius, p. 2.]

This unsettled state of England hindered not Ethelwolf from making a pilgrimage to Rome, whither he carried his fourth and favourite son, Alfred, then only six years of age [t]. He passed there a twelvemonth in exercises of devotion, and failed not in that most essential part of devotion, liberality to the church of Rome. Besides giving presents to the more distinguished ecclesiastics, he made a perpetual grant of three hundred mancuses [u] a year to that see; one-third to support the lamps of St. Peter's, another those of St. Paul's, a third to the pope himself [w]. In his return home he married Judith, daughter of the emperor, Charles the Bald, but on his landing in England, he met with an opposition which he little looked for. [FN [t] Asserius, p. 2. Chron. Sax. 76. Hunt. lib. 5. [u] A mancus was about the weight of our present half-crown: see Spellman's Glossary, IN VERBO Mancus. [w] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap 2.]

His eldest son, Athelstan, being dead, Ethelbald, his second, who had assumed the government, formed, in concert with many of the nobles, the project of excluding his father from a throne, which his weakness and superstition seemed to have rendered him so ill-qualified to fill. The people were divided between the two princes, and a bloody civil war, joined to all the other calamities under which the English laboured, appeared inevitable, when Ethelwolf had the facility to yield to the greater part of his son's pretensions. He made with him a partition of the kingdom, and taking to himself the eastern part, which was always at that time esteemed the least considerable, as well as the most exposed [x], he delivered over to Ethelbald the sovereignty of the western. Immediately after, he summoned the states of the whole kingdom, and with the same facility conferred a perpetual and important donation on the church. [FN [x] Asserius, p. 3. W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 2. Matth. West. p. 1, 8.]

The ecclesiastics, in those days of ignorance, made rapid advances in the acquisition of power and grandeur; and inculcating the most absurd and most interested doctrines, though they sometimes met, from the contrary interests of the laity, with an opposition which it required time and address to overcome, they found no obstacle in their reason or understanding. Not content with the donations of land made them by the Saxon princes and nobles, and with temporary oblations, from the devotion of the people, they had cast a wishful eye on a vast revenue, which they claimed as belonging to them by a sacred and indefeasible title. However little versed in the Scriptures, they had been able to discover that, under the Jewish law, a tenth of all the produce of land was conferred on the priesthood; and forgetting, what they themselves taught, that the moral part only of that law was obligatory on Christians, they insisted that this donation conveyed a perpetual property, inherent by divine right in those who officiated at the altar. During some centuries, the whole scope of sermons and homilies was directed to this purpose, and one would have imagined, from the general tenor of these discourses, that all the practical parts of Christianity were comprised in the exact and faithful payment of tithes to the clergy [y]. Encouraged by their success in inculcating these doctrines, they ventured farther than they were warranted even by the Levitical law, and pretended to draw the tenth of all industry, merchandise, wages of labourers, and pay of soldiers [z]; nay, some canonists went so far as to affirm, that the clergy were entitled to the tithe of the profits made by courtesans in the exercise of their profession [a]. Though parishes had been instituted in England by Honorius, Archbishop of Canterbury, near two centuries before [b], the ecclesiastics had never yet been able to get possession of the tithes; they therefore seized the present favourable opportunity of making that acquisition, when a weak, superstitious prince filled the throne, and when the people, discouraged by their losses from the Danes, and terrified with the fear of future invasions, were susceptible of any impression which bore the appearance of religion [c]. So meritorious was this concession deemed by the English, that trusting entirely to supernatural assistance, they neglected the ordinary means of safety, and agreed, even in the present desperate extremity, that the revenues of the church should be exempted from all burthens, though imposed for national defence and security [d]. [FN [y] Padre Paolo, sopra beneficii ecclesiastici, p. 51, 52. edit. Colon. 1675 [z] Spell. Conc. vol. i. p. 268. [a] Padre Paolo, p. 132. [b] Parker, p. 77. [c] lngulph. p. 862. Selden's Hist. of Tithes, c. 8. [d] Asserius, p. 2. Chron. Sax. p. 76. W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 2. Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 3. M. West. p. 158. Ingulph. p. 17. Alur. Beverl. p. 95]

[MN Ethelbald and Ethelbert. 857.] Ethelwolf lived only two years after making this grant, and by his will he shared England between his two eldest sons, Ethelbald and Ethelbert; the west being assigned to the former, the east to the latter. Ethelbald was a profligate prince, and marrying Judith, his mother-in-law, gave great offence to the people; but, moved by the remonstrances of Swithin, Bishop of Winchester, he was at last prevailed on to divorce her. His reign was short; and Ethelbert, his brother, succeeding to the government [MN 860.], behaved himself, during a reign of five years, in a manner more worthy of his birth and station. The kingdom, however, was still infested by the Danes, who made an inroad and sacked Winchester, but were there defeated. A body also of these pirates, who were quartered in the Isle of Thanet, having deceived the English by a treaty, unexpectedly broke into Kent, and committed great outrages.

[MN Ethered 866.] Ethelbert was succeeded by his brother Ethered, who, though he defended himself with bravery, enjoyed, during his whole reign, no tranquillity from those Danish irruptions. His younger brother, Alfred, seconded him in all his enterprises, and generously sacrificed to the public good all resentment which he might entertain on account of his being excluded by Ethered from a large patrimony which had been left him by his father.

The first landing of the Danes in the reign of Ethered was among the East Angles, who, more anxious for their present safety than for the common interest, entered into a separate treaty with the enemy, and furnished them with horses, which enabled them to make an irruption by land into the kingdom of Northumberland. They there seized the city of York, and defended it against Osbricht and Aella, two Northumbrian princes, who perished in the assault [f]. Encouraged by these successes, and by the superiority which they had acquired in arms, they now ventured, under the command of Hinguar and Hubba, to leave the sea-coast, and penetrating into Mercia, they took up their winter quarters at Nottingham, where they threatened the kingdom with a final subjection. The Mercians, in this extremity, applied to Ethered for succour, and that prince, with his brother Alfred, conducting a great army to Nottingham, obliged the enemy to dislodge [MN 870.], and to retreat into Northumberland. Their restless disposition, and their avidity for plunder, allowed them not to remain long in those quarters; they broke into East Anglia, defeated and took prisoner Edmund, the king of that country, whom they afterwards murdered in cool blood, and committing the most barbarous ravages on the people, particularly on the monasteries, they gave the East Angles cause to regret the temporary relief which they had obtained by assisting the common enemy. [FN [f] Asser. p. 6. Chron Sax. p. 79.]

[MN 871.] The next station of the Danes was at Reading, whence they infested the neighbouring country by their incursions. The Mercians, desirous of shaking off their dependence on Ethered, refused to join him with their forces; and that prince, attended by Alfred, was obliged to march against the enemy with the West Saxons alone, his hereditary subjects. The Danes, being defeated in an action, shut themselves up in their garrison; but quickly making thence an irruption, they routed the West Saxons, and obliged them to raise the siege. An action soon after ensued at Aston, in Berkshire, where the English, in the beginning of the day, were in danger of a total defeat. Alfred, advancing with one division of the army, was surrounded by the enemy in disadvantageous ground; and Ethered, who was at that time hearing mass, refused to march to his assistance till prayers should be finished [g]: but as he afterwards obtained the victory, this success, not the danger of Alfred, was ascribed by the monks to the piety of that monarch. This battle of Aston did not terminate the war: another battle was a little after fought at Basing, where the Danes were more successful; and being reinforced by a new army from their own country, they became every day more terrible to the English. Amidst these confusions, Ethered died of a wound which he had received in an action with the Danes; and left the inheritance of his cares and misfortunes, rather than of his grandeur, to his brother, Alfred, who was now twenty-two years of age. [FN [g] Asser. p. 7. W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 3. Simeon Dunelm. p. 125. Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 205.]

[MN Alfred 871.] This prince gave very early marks of those great virtues and shining talents, by which, during the most difficult times, he saved his country from utter ruin and subversion. Ethelwolf, his father, the year after his return with Alfred from Rome, had again sent the young prince thither with a numerous retinue; and a report being spread of the king's death, the pope, Leo III., gave Alfred the royal unction [h]; whether prognosticating his future greatness from the appearances of his pregnant genius, or willing to pretend, even in that age, to the right of conferring kingdoms. Alfred, on his return home, became every day more the object of his father's affections; but being indulged in all youthful pleasures, he was much neglected in his education; and he had already reached his twelfth year, when he was yet totally ignorant of the lowest elements of literature. His genius was first roused by the recital of Saxon poems, in which the queen took delight; and this species of erudition, which is sometimes able to make a considerable progress even among barbarians, expanded those noble and elevated sentiments which he had received from nature [i]. Encouraged by the queen, and stimulated by his own ardent inclination, he soon learned to read those compositions; and proceeded thence to acquire the knowledge of the Latin tongue, in which he met with authors that better prompted his heroic spirit, and directed his generous views. Absorbed in these elegant pursuits, he regarded his accession to royalty rather as an object of regret than of triumph [k]; but being called to the throne, in preference to his brother's children, as well by the will of his father, a circumstance which had great authority with the Anglo-Saxons [l], as by the vows of the whole nation, and the urgency of public affairs, he shook off his literary indolence, and exerted himself in the defence of his people. He had scarcely buried his brother, when he was obliged to take the field in order to oppose the Danes, who had seized Wilton, and were exercising their usual ravages on the countries around. He marched against them with the few troops which he could assemble on a sudden; and giving them battle, gained at first an advantage, but by his pursuing the victory too far, the superiority of the enemy's numbers prevailed, and recovered them the day. Their loss, however, in the action, was so considerable, that, fearing Alfred would receive daily reinforcement from his subjects, they were content to stipulate for a safe retreat, and promised to depart the kingdom. For that purpose they were conducted to London, and allowed to take up winter quarters there; but, careless of their engagements, they immediately set themselves to the committing of spoil on the neighbouring country. Burrhed, King of Mercia, in whose territories London was situated, made a new stipulation with them, and engaged them, by presents of money, to remove to Lindesey, in Lincolnshire, a country which they had already reduced to ruin and desolation. Finding therefore no object in that place, either for their rapine or violence, they suddenly turned back upon Mercia, in a quarter where they expected to find it without defence; and fixing their station at Repton in Derbyshire, they laid the whole country desolate with fire and sword. Burrhed, despairing of success against an enemy whom no force could resist, and no treaties bind, abandoned his kingdom, and flying to Rome, took shelter in a cloister [m]. He was brother-in-law to Alfred, and the last who bore the title of king in Mercia. [FN [h] Asser. p. 2. W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 2. Ingulph. p. 869. Simeon Dunelm. p. 120, 139. [i] Asser. p. 5. M. West. p. 167. [k] Asser. p. 7. [1] Ibid. p. 22. Simeon Dunelm. p. 121. [m] Asser. p. 8. Chron. Sax. p. 82. Ethelward, lib. 4. cap. 4.]