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blished his authority west of the Tamar and the Severn, to have been recognised as "king of the Cymry." He is described as the best legislator that ever appeared, and the best in securing privilege and protection both to native and alien, lest any one should act wrongly and unlawfully." The laws ascribed to him are avowedly the basis of the legislation of Howel Dda; they minutely define the rights and duties of each class of the community, and exhibit the plan of an enlightened and orderly government such as it is little likely at any time prevailed, either in Armorica or Britain. Their origin is indicated by the fact that the supreme dignity and privileges of the bardic order are dwelt on at length, and it seems probable that what we now possess is a mere poetic paraphrase, in which some traces of laws that had existed prior to the time of Howel Dda are preserved among a mass of fanciful rules, of which neither the age nor the authority can be satisfactorily determined.

A.D. 642. Oswald of Northumberland killed by Penda, at Maserfield, Aug. 5. Oswy, his brother, succeeds in Bernicia.

A.D. 643. Cenwalch, son of Cynegils, succeeds in Wessex, and commences the minster at Winchester; it is finished in 648.

Perhaps near Winwick, in Lancashire, but more probably near Oswestry, in Shropshire. Oswald, who had been baptized in his youth, while an exile in Scotland, was esteemed a saint and martyr, and commemorated in the early English Church on the 5th of August. "His sanctity and his miracles were afterwards manifested in vari

A.D. 644. Death of Paulinus, Oct. 10. Oswine succeeds in Deira.

A.D. 645. Penda drives Cenwalch from the kingdom of Wessex.

A.D. 646. Cenwalch of Wessex is baptized.

A.D. 651. Oswine of Deira is slain by Oswy of Bernicia, August 20; Adelwald succeeds.

Death of Aidan, bishop of Lindisfarne, Aug. 31. Finan, his successor, builds a church "in the Scottish mode," of wood.

A.D. 653. Conversion of the Mid-Saxons, or Mercians, commenced.

A.D. 654. King Anna, of East Anglia, slain. Death of Honorius, archbishop of Canterbury, Sept. 30.

A.D. 655. Penda is defeated and killed at Winwidfield, near Leeds, by Oswy of Northumberland (Bretwalda.) "And thirty men of royal race fell with him, and some of them were kings."

Peada, son of Penda, succeeds in Mercia.

The Mercians become Christians.

ous ways beyond his island, and his hands are at Bamborough uncorrupted." His head being taken from the stake on which it had been fixed, was kept as a relic for a while, and then placed in the arms of St. Cuthbert, the bishop of Lindisfarne, which is commemorated by a sculpture in Durham cathedral. Nearly sixty churches are to be found in England dedicated to St. Oswald, but some probably belong to the bishop of Worcester of that name in the tenth century.

F

Oswy and Peada in concert begin to build the abbey of Medeshamstede (afterwards Peterborough) "to the glory of God and the honour of St. Peteri."

Oswy unites Deira to Bernicia, on the death of Adelwald

A.D. 657. Peada of Mercia is killed at Easter. Wulfhere, his brother, succeeds.

A.D. 658. Cenwalch defeats the Britons at Petherton.

A.D. 661. Wulfhere of Mercia ravages Wessex and the isle of Wight. "And Eoppa, the mass-priest (chaplain), by the command of Wilferth and King Wulfhere, first of men brought baptism to the people of Wight." A.D. 664. Egbert succeeds in Kent.

A great pestilence in Britain.

A synod held at Streoneshealh (now Whitby), at which Wilfred advocates the Roman supremacy; Colman, the Scottish bishop, retires.

Wilfred is appointed to the see of York.

A.D. 667. Wigheard, a priest, sent to Rome by Kings Oswy and Egbert, to be consecrated archbishop of Canterbury; he died soon after his arrival, and Theodore of Tarsus was ordained in his stead, March 26, 668.

A.D. 668. Theodore arrives in Britain. He is enthroned at Canterbury, May 27, 669.

A.D. 669. A bishop's see established at Lichfield.

A very long account of this transaction is to be found in tne Saxon Chronicle; there are also several other notices of Medehamstede, or Burh, and charters are cited, some of which are of very doubtful authority.

Or Wilfred, then abbot of Ripon, afterwards the well-known archbishop of York.

A.D. 670. Death of Oswy of Northumbria, Feb. 15; Egfrid, his son, succeeds.

A.D. 671. Egfrid defeats the Picts; he also takes Lincoln from the Mercians.

A.D. 672. Death of Cenwalch of Wessex; Sexburga, his queen, reigns for a year after him.

A.D. 673. Egbert of Kent dies, in July.

The synod of Hertford held, Sept. 24; a body of canon law then first introduced into England; Winfrid, bishop of Mercia, deposed, and his vast diocese divided. Bishops' sees established at Domnoc (Dunwich) and Elmham, in East Anglia.

A.D. 674. Escwin, a kinsman of Cenwalch, succeeds in Wessex.

A.D. 675. Death of Wulfhere of Mercia; Ethelred succeeds.

A.D. 676. Escwin of Wessex dies; Centwine, son of Cynegils, succeeds.

Ethelred of Mercia ravages Kent.

A bishop's see established at Hereford.

A.D. 678. Wilfred driven from his bishopric1.

Wilfred, the introducer of the practice of carrying appeals to Rome, born 634, was a page at the court of Northumbria, who, adopting the priestly profession, went to Rome in 654, and on his return became tutor to the son of Oswy; he received from his royal patron the monastery of Ripon, and having at the synod of Whitby powerfully supported the Roman views, he was appointed to the archbishopric of York, which had remained unoccupied since the withdrawal of Paulinus. Considering the communion which the archbishop of Canterbury held with the Scottish teachers as schismatical, he declined to receive consecration at his hands, and, instead, passed over into Gaul, to Egilbert, bishop of Paris (formerly bishop of the West Saxons); but during his absence Chad was appointed to York, and Wilfred, on his return, after assuming the power to appoint priests and deacons in Kent, in the vacancy of the see of Canterbury before the arrival of Theodore, found himself obliged to retire to Ri

A.D. 679. Battle near the Trent between the Mercians and Northumbrians; Elfwine, brother of Egfrid, is killed. Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, mediates a peace.

A.D. 680. The synod at Heathfield, Sept. 17, against the Monothelites. Bishops' sees established at Lindissem and at Worcester.

A.D. 680 (circa). A code regulating legal proceedings, issued by Lothaire and Edric in Kent".

A.D. 681. The Picts subject to the Northumbrians, and Trumwine appointed their bishop.

Wilfred converts the South Saxons.

A.D. 682. Centwine of Wessex has much success against the Britons.

A.D. 684. The Northumbrians ravage the eastern part of Ireland; "and miserably they plundered and burned the churches of God."

pon. In 667, however, Chad resigned York to him, and Wilfred held it till 678, but having given offence by his pompous style of living, he was then driven out, and his vast diocese, which included the whole Northumbrian kingdom, was divided into the four sees of York, Lindisfarne, Hexham, and Ripon. Wilfred now appealed to Rome, (passing the winter among the pagans of Friesland on his journey), and obtained a papal decree in his favour, but it was disregarded; he then visited the heathen South Saxons, and converted them. At length, in 687, a portion of his diocese was restored, and he was established at Hexham, but was again driven out in 691, and spent several years in missionary labour among the Germans. In 705 he again repaired to Rome, obtained another decree in his favour, and passed the few remaining years of his life as bishop of Hexham ; dying at Oundle, Oct. 12, 709, he was buried in the monastery of Ripon. Being afterwards canonized, he became a popular saint in the north of England, where about thirty churches are still found dedicated to his memory. Probably Stow in Lindsey, Lincolnshire, where a church of Saxon architecture remains.

m

n See p. 154.

The Scots, whether settled in Scotland or Ireland, refused to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome, and were therefore now looked on as schismatics, although it was to Scottish teachers that the conversion of Northumbria was mainly due. See p. 55.