sent an embassy to the Pope (Adrian I.), arguing that the Mercian bishops should be subject to a Mercian head, and proposing an arrangement by which Rochester, London, Selsey (Chichester), Winchester, and Sherburne (Salisbury), should be left suffragans of Canterbury, while all the sees between. the Thames and the Humber should be subjected to the new Archbishopric of Lichfield. The Pope gave his consent to the plan, and sent the pall, the symbol of archiepiscopal authority, to Adulph, Bishop of Lichfield. The concession was acknowledged by the promise of a yearly gift of three hundred and sixty-five mancuses to the Holy See. The arrangement lasted but a short time, and Canterbury regained, and has ever since retained, its old honours. Family alliances were another way in which Offa sought to extend his power, but they had unhappy results. Elfleda, who married the king of Northumbria, shortly became a widow. Eadburga, the wife of Brehtric, king of the West Saxons, poisoned her husband by a draught which she intended for his favourite. The story of the third daughter, Edelfrida, is not less tragical. Ethelbert, the young king of East Anglia, came to the Mercian Court to sue for 1 A mancus was equal to thirty pennies. 2 Eadburga is said to have fled to the Court of Charles the Great. Charles is said to have asked her whether she would have his son or himself for a husband. She answered that she preferred the son. "If you had chosen me," answered the king, "you should have had my son." Afterwards he made her abbess of a nunnery. From this she was expelled for misconduct, and finally she died a beggar in the city of Pavia. THE FATE of Edelfrida. 149 her hand. His mother had vainly warned him of his danger; but the friendly letters of Offa and the safe conduct which he sent had made him neglect her advice. He was hospitably received. But at night, when he had retired to his chamber, a messenger came summoning him to an interview with the king, who desired, he said, to confer with him on some matter of importance. The young man followed the messenger without suspicion. On his way he was assassinated. The princess whom he had sought in marriage retired from her father's Court, and spent the remainder of her days in the nunnery at Croyland. Offa protested his innocence of this atrocious crime, and honoured the murdered man by erecting a splendid tomb over his remains in the church of Hereford. But the common voice fixed the guilt of the deed upon him, and attributed to the vengeance which followed it the utter destruction of his house. Two years afterwards he died. His son Egferth, who had been associated in the kingdom nine years before, succeeded him, but died within half a year of his accession. Thus the race of Offa became extinct. Even the bones of the king, it was commonly believed, were not permitted to remain in peace. A flood swept them away from the chapel, near Bedford on the Ouse, in which they had been buried. Of Offa's successor, Cenwulf, little need be said. He retained his supremacy over Kent, reducing that kingdom to subjection when it rebelled against him. But the scheme of the Lichfield primacy was given up, and Canterbury regained its old honours. The Chronicler tells us that he treated the rebel king of Kent with great severity. But generally he was a wise and prudent sovereign. But the days of Mercian superiority were over. Not many years after his death, which took place in 719, the pre-eminence passed, as we shall see, to Wessex. It is only fair to say that all the words which describe his acts of cruelty are not found in all MSS. CAEDMON, BEDE, AND CUTHBERT. IT will be a relief to turn for a while from the record of battle, which makes up so large a portion of the story of these times, to say a few words about three men who may be said to represent the poetry, the general literature and science, and the religion of the old English people. For a For a more detailed account of these matters the reader must of course go elsewhere; but it will not be departing from the purpose of my "story" if I give a few pages to them here. The story of Caedmon the Poet will be best introduced by giving some account of the place where he exercised his calling, and this account easily connects itself with the narrative which has already been given. Before the great battle which was to end in the defeat and death of Penda, the Bretwalda Oswy had vowed that he would dedicate to the service of God his infant daughter Elfleda. The victory won, he gave over the child to the care of Hilda, Abbess of the convent of Hereten (Hartlepool), herself a lady of the royal house, and daughter of one of those who had See p. 137. |