A.D. 614. Cynegils defeats the Britons at Beandune (Bampton, in Devonshire).

A.D. 616. Death of Ethelbert of Kent, February 24a.

EADBALD succeeds him, and after some lapse of time is baptized.

A.D. 617. Ethelfrith of Northumbria killed by Redwald of East Anglia. EDWIN, son of Ella (Bretwalda), succeeds, "and subdues all Britain, the Kentish-men excepted e."

A.D. 619. Death of Laurentius, archbishop of Canterbury, Feb. 2.

A.D. 621. Death of Mellitus, archbishop of Canterbury, April 24.

A.D. 625. Edwin marries Ethelburga, the daughter of Ethelbert of Kent. She is accompanied by Paulinus, who is ordained bishop of the Northumbrians, July 21. A.D. 626. Eanfleda, daughter of Edwin, is baptized by Paulinus, at Pentecost, June 8.

Edwin wars successfully against the West Saxons. A.D. 627. "King Edwin and his people are baptized by Paulinus on Easter-Day,” April 12. "This was done at York, where he first ordered a church to be built of wood, which was consecrated in the name of St. Peter. There the king gave Paulinus a bishop's see, and there he afterwards commanded a larger church to be built of stone."

PENDA succeeds in Mercia.

A.D. 628. Battle between the West Saxons and Mercians, at Cirencester.

d Ethelbert was commemorated in the old English Church on the 24th of February. Ethelbert of East Anglia, killed by Offa (see A.D. 792), was also sainted, and commemorated on the 20th May. Several churches exist dedicated to the memory of one or the other of these kings.

e The conquest of the Picts and of the Mevanian isles (Man and Anglesey) is also ascribed to him; but if subdued, the Picts recovered their independence soon after.

f She was his second wife; his first was Quenburga of Mercia.

A bishop's see had existed in the time of the Romans at York, but the names of only three of the holders have been preserved, and those are of very little authority.

A.D. 632. Eorpwald, king of East Anglia, is baptized.

A.D. 633. Edwin is killed in battle by Penda of Mercia, and his ally Cadwallader, a British chief, at Hatfield Chase, in Yorkshire, October 14 h.

Paulinus retires to Kent, with Edwin's queen and daughter'.

A.D. 634. Osric, a cousin of Edwin, succeeds in Deira, and Eanfrith, the son of Ethelfrith, in Bernicia, but both are soon expelled by OSWALD (Bretwalda), another son of Ethelfrith, who reigns over the whole of Northumbria.

Aidan, a Scot, establishes a bishop's see at Lindisfarne, under his protection.

Birinus 1 commences the conversion of the West

Saxons.

A.D. 635. Cynegils of Wessex is baptized by Birinus; as is Cwichelm, his son, in the following year.

A.D. 636. Felix preaches to the East Angles.

A.D. 639. Cuthred of Wessex, son of Cwichelm, baptized by Birinus.

A.D. 640. Death of Eadbald of Kent. "He overthrew all idolatry in his kingdom, and was the first of the English kings who established the Easter fast."

ERCOMBERT succeeds in Kent.

WALES.

ABOUT this timem Dynwal Moelmud, a descendant of the British settlers in Armorica", is said, in the Welsh

h Edwin was canonized, and was commemorated on the 4th October in the ancient English Church. A church exists at Coniscliffe, in the county of Durham, dedicated to him.

Eadbald gave his park of Lyminge near Folkestone to his sister, who there founded a nunnery, in which she died, and where her grave is still pointed out. Paulinus was made bishop of Rochester, and died A.D. 644. k Since called Holy Island. It is on the coast of Northumberland, not far from Bamborough Castle.

He was a Benedictine monk, and became the first bishop of the West Saxons; his episcopal seat was at Dorchester, in Oxfordshire.

m This is the era assigned by Mr. Aneurin Owen; earlier writers place him far before the Christian era. See A.D. 383.

triads, to have come from that country, and having established 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, which are avowedly the basis of the legislation of Howel Dda, some three centuries later, 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 historically certain never 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 ; and afterwards marries Eanfleda, the daughter of Edwin.

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

A.D. 644, Death of Paulinus, Oct. 10.

OSWINE Succeeds in Deira.

• 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 various 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. Nearly sixty churches are to be found in England dedicated to St. Oswald, but some probably belong to the bishop of Worcester of the same name in the tenth century.

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 Middle Angles or Mercians, commmenced.

A.D. 654. King Anna, of East Anglia, slain.

Death of Honorius, archbishop of Canterbury, September 30.

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

PEADA, son of Penda, succeeds in Mercia, under the auspices of Oswy. By their joint exertions, the Mercians become Christians P.

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

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 Penn. A.D. 661. Wulfhere of Mercia ravages Wessex and the isle of Wight. "And Eoppa, the mass-priest (chaplain),

P The conversion of the people made little progress whilst Penda reigned, but in 656 Diuma was consecrated bishop of Mercia; he was a Scottish priest brought in by Oswy, and died in 658.

4 A very long and questionable account of this transaction is to be found in a copy of the Saxon Chronicle, which appears to have belonged to the abbey of Peterborough; in the same manuscript there are several other notices of Medeshamstede, or Burh, and charters are cited, some of which are of doubtful authority.

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 Wilfrid advocates the Roman Easter; Colman, the Scottish bishop, retires.

Wilfrid 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. 670. Death of Oswy of Northumbria, Feb. 15. EGFRID, his son, succeeds.

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, at which canons are made for the English Church. Winfrid, bishop of Mercia, is deposed, probably for resisting the division of his vast diocese $.

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.

Or Wilfrid, then abbot of Ripon, afterwards the well-known archbishop of York. See A.D. 678.

The project, however, was only gradually carried out. Seaxwulf, abbot of Peterborough, who succeeded Winfrid, agreed to the partition, contenting himself with Lichfield, the capital of Mercia, and sees were founded at Hereford in 676, at Lindisse in 678, and at Worcester and Leicester in 680. The see of Leicester was removed to Dorchester (near Oxford) about 200 years after, and Lindisse was absorbed by the united sees about 956. The first Norman bishop, Remigius, removed the see to Lincoln (probably in 1078), where it still continues. Lindisse is believed to be represented by Stow in Lindsey, Lincolnshire, where a church with traces of Saxon archítecture remains.