proved by the result of that which follows.

Simeon

Egbirht, reigned 20 years and five months: he was mild by nature, and command many provinces: in short, he was content with his paternal kingdom of the West-Saxons, and gave over as appanages to his son Ethelstan the others which his father

3 For as he was returning from Rome, his son aforesaid, with all his counsellors, or, as I ought to say, his conspirators, more inclined to live in peace than to attempted to perpetrate the crime of repulsing the king from his own kingdom; but neither did God permit the deed, nor would the nobles of all Saxony consent to it. For to pervent this irremediable evil to Saxony, of a son warring against his father, or rather of the whole nation carrying on civil war, either on the side of the one or the other, the extraordinary mildness of the father, seconded by the consent of all the nobles, divided between the two the kingdom which had hitherto been undivided; the eastern parts were given to the father, and the western to the son; for where the father ought by just right to reign, there his unjust and obstinate son did reign; for the western part of Saxony is always preferable to the eastern.

had subdued. He assisted Burhred
king of the Mercians with an
auxiliary army against the Britons,
and exalted him wonderfully by
giving him his daughter in marriage.
The Danish pirates, who wandered
over the whole island, and infested
all its coasts with unexpected
landings, were crushed more than
once by him and his generals;
though, according to the lot of war,
he received frequent and
losses at the hands of the same,
whereby London and almost all
Kent were' laid waste. But a stop
was always put to these losses by the
energy of the king's counsellors, who

severe

to offend with impunity, but took vengeance upon them with their united forces. For he had, in his

blessed Swithin of Winchester, and Alstan of Sherborne; who, seeing that the king was of a dull and heavy mind, impelled him by their admo

4 When Ætheluulf, therefore, was coming from Rome, that nation, as was fitting, so delighted in the arrival of the old man, that if he permitted them, they would have expelled who would never allow the enemy his rebellious son Æthelbald, with all his counsellors, out of the kingdom. But he, as we have said, acting with great clemency and prudent counsel, so wished things to be done, time, two excellent prelates, the that the kingdom might not come into danger; and he placed Judith, daughter of king Charles, whom he had received from her father, by his own side on the regal throne, without any controversy or enmity from his nobles, even to the end of his life, contrary to the perverse custom of that nation. For the nation of the West Saxons do not allow a queen to sit beside the king, nor to be called a queen, but only the king's wife; which stigma our elders say arose from a certain obstinate and malevolent queen of the same nation.

6 For the malice of this queen, all the inhabitants of that land swore together, that they would never allow any king to reign over them, who should command his queen to sit beside him on the royal throne.

5 There was in Mercia, in recent times, a certain valiant king, Offa, whose daughter,

*The remarks which William of Malmesbury has made on the reign and character of Ethelwolf are worthy of notice: "In the year of our Lord's incarnation 537, Ethelwulf, (whom some call Athulf) son of

[GO TO THE TOP OF THE NEXT
COLUMN.]

named Eadburh, was married, as we have said before, to Brihtric, king of the West-Saxons; who immediately began to live tyrannically

and to do all

things hateful to God and man, and to accuse all she could before the king, and so to deprive them insidiously of their life or power; and if she could not obtain the king's consent she used to take them off by poison: as is ascertained to have been the case with a certain young man beloved by the king, whom she poisoned, finding that the king would not listen to any accusation against him. It is said, moreover,

nitions to the science of ruling. Swithun, sickened with earthly things, taught his lord to look to above; Alstan, thinking that public matters also were not to be neglected, encouraged him against the Danes, himself supplying money to the treasury, himself marshalling the army. He who reads the annals, [PROBABLY THE SAXON CHRONICLE IS MEANT] will find many of his achievenents both bravely begun and happily ended. He lived 50 years in his bishopric, happy in having lived to do good for so long a time. I would willingly praise him, except that, led astray by human covetousness he acted unlawfully when he deprived the monastery of Malmesbury of its possessions. We feel to this day the effects of his shameless conduct, though the place immediately after his death, struggled its way out of the violence that had been done it, even down to our own times, when it has fallen again into the same danger [SEIZED BY ROGER BP OF SALISBURY IN 1118] Ethelwulf relying on these two supporters, and providing for that which was without, whilst he did not slight what was within, after he had triumphed over his enemies, turned to the worship of God, and granted to Christ's servants the tenth of every hide of land within his kingdom, freed from all duties and from all annoyances. But how little glory was that? When he had settled his kingdom, he went to Rome, and there, he gave to St Peter the tribute, which Englaud still pays, in presence of pope Leo the Fourth, who also, before that, had honorably received and anointed for king his son Alfred when he had been sent unto him. Ethelwolf remained there a whole year, and beautifully repaired the school of the English, which, they say, was first founded by Offa king of the Mercians, and had been burnt the year before.

....

*

that king Beorhtric unwittingly tasted of the poison, though the queen intended to give it to the young man only, but the king took it too quickly, and so both perished. Beorhtric therefore being dead, the queen could remain no longer among the Saxons, but sailed beyond the sea with immense treasures, and went to the court of the great and famous Charles, king of the Franks. As she stood before the throne, and offered him money, Charles said to her, "Choose, Eadburgh, between me and my son, who stands here with me." She replied, foolishly, and without deliberation, "If I am to have my choice, I choose your son, because he is younger than you." At which Charles smiled and answered, "If you had chosen me, you would have had my son; but as you have chosen him, you shall not have either of us."

However, he gave her a large convent of nuns, in which, having laid aside the secular habit and taken the religious dress, she discharged the office of abbess during a few years: for, as she is said to have lived irrationally in her own country, so she appears to have acted still more so in that foreign country; for being convicted of having had unlawful intercourse with a man of her own nation, she was expelled from the monastery by king Charles's order, and lived a vicious life of reproach in poverty and misery until her death; so that at last, accompanied by one slave only, as we have

heard from many who saw
her, she begged her bread
daily at Pavia, and so misera-
bly died.

Now king Ethelwulf lived
two years after his return from
Rome; during which, among
many other good deeds of this
present life, reflecting on his
departure according to the
way of all flesh, that his sons
might not quarrel unreason-
ably after his death, he order-
ed a letter of inheritance, or
instructions to be written, in
which he ordered that his
kingdom should be divided
between his two eldest sons,
his private inheritance be-
tween his sons, his daughter,
and his relations, and the
money which he left behind
him, between his sons and
nobles, and for the good of
his soul.

Of this prudent
policy we have thought fit to
record a few instances out of
many for posterity to imi-
tate; namely, such as are
understood to belong princi-
pally to the needs of the soul;
for the others, which relate
only to human dispensation,
it is not necessary to insert in
this work, lest prolixity should
create disgust in those who

Ethelwerd 856