III. 653. BOOK vilest occasions. As Sigeberht admitted these obvious truths, Oswy described the real object of human worship to be, that Eternal and Almighty Being, to us invisible, and in majesty incomprehensible; yet who had deigned to create the heavens, and the earth, and the human race; who governs what he framed, and will judge the world with parental equity. His everlasting seat was not in perishing metals, but in the heavens; in those regions where had promised to give endless recompense to those who would study and do the will of their Lord and Maker. The frequent discussion of these topics at length conquered the resisting minds of Sigeberht and his friends. After consulting together, they abandoned their idolatry; and the king adopted the Christian faith as the religion of Essex. 29 SUSSEX embraced the opportunity of Cenwalch's exile to terminate its subordination to Wessex. In 645 Penda had expelled Cenwalch from Wessex; and in 648 we find Edilwalch commencing his reign as king of Sussex. 30 He submitted to the predominance and courted the friendship of Wulfhere; and in 661 received the Isle of Wight, and the Meanwara district in Hampshire, part of the spoils of Wessex, from the bounty of his conqueror. Sussex at this period contained seven thousand families, but remained attached to its idol worship. But Wulf here persuaded Edilwald to be baptised; 29 Bede, lib. iii. c. 22. This was in 653. mentions the expulsion of Cenwalch. So Floren. Wig. p. 237.— In 648 the exiled monarch returned. Flor. Wig. 238. — In 661, Matt. West. places the 13th year of Aethelwald's reign in Sussex, p. 232. 31 VIII. 659. and by the exertions of Wilfrid, the bishop most CHA P. distinguished in his day, the little kingdom, about A. D. 688, exchanged its paganism for Christianity. Essex also submitted afterwards to Wulfhere 32, who became now the most important of the Anglo-Saxon sovereigns, though he is not mentioned with the title of Bretwalda, which seems to have been discontinued after this period. Perhaps the conjecture on this dignity which would come nearest the truth, would be, that it was the walda or ruler of the Saxon kingdoms against the Britons, while the latter maintained the struggle for the possession of the country: a species of Agamemnon against the general enemy, not a title of dignity or power against each other. If so, it would be but the war-king of the Saxons in Britain, against its native chiefs. 670. Oswy's Oswy is ranked by Bede, the seventh, as Oswald had been the sixth, of the kings who preponderated death." in the Anglo-Saxon octarchy. 33 He died in this year. His greatest action was the deliverance of the Anglo-Saxons from the oppressions of Penda; 34 31 Bede, lib. iv. c. 13. Sax. Chron. p. 39. The annotator on Bede remarks, that the memorial of this province remains still in the names of the hundreds of Meansbrough, Eastmean, Westmean, and Mansbridge, Smith's Bede, p. 155. 32 Bede, lib. iii. c. 30.- Hugo Candidus names Sigher as the king of Sussex subdued by Wulfhere. Cœnob. Burg. Hist. p. 7. and 8.- This is a misnomer. Sigher reigned with Sebbi in Essex at this period. That Surrey was also in subjection to Wulfhere, appears from a charter in the register of Chertsey Abbey, in which Frithwald, the founder, styles himself" Provinciæ Surrianorum subregulus regis Wlfarii Mercianorum." This was in 666. MSS. Cotton. Lib. Vitel. A. 13. This Frithwald is called King. 34 Sax. Chron. 40. Chron. Abb. Petri de Burgo, p. 2. 670. BOOK he also subdued the Picts and Scots; but the fate III. of the amiable Oswin, whom he destroyed, shades his memory with a cloud. Alfred, his eldest son, who had assisted to gain the laurels of his fame in the field of Winwid, was rejected from the succession, for his illegitimacy, and the younger Ecgfrid was placed over the united kingdoms of Northumbria, 36 672. On the death of Cenwalch, his widow, Saxburga, Saxburga. assumed the sceptre of Wessex. She wielded it with courage and intelligence; she augmented her army with new levies, and encouraged her veterans. The submissive were rewarded by her clemency; to the enemy a firm countenance was displayed"; but the proud barbarians of Wessex disdained even a government of wisdom in the form of a woman 38 and for ten years the nobles shared the government. In the first part of this interval, Escuin, son of Cenfusus, a prevailing noble, descended from Cerdic, is mentioned to have ruled.39 He led 674. Escuin. ; 35 If Oswin's character has not been too favourably drawn, his death was a great loss to his contemporaries. His tall and handsome person was adorned by a disposition unfrequent in his age; affatu jucundus, moribus civilis, omnibus manu largus, regum humilimus, amabilis omnibus. Flor. Wig. 237. To the same purport Bede, lib. iii. c. 14., and Matt. West. 224. 36 Reprobato notho-factione optimatum quamquam senior. Malms. 20, 21. — Ecgfrid had resided as a hostage with the Mercian queen at the time of Penda's fall. Bede, lib. iii. c. 24. 37 Malms. 14. She reigned for one year. Sax. Chron. 41. 38 Indignantibus regni magnatibus expulsa est a regno, nolentibus sub sexu fœmineo militare." Matt. West. 236. 39 There is a seeming contradiction on this point between Bede and the Saxon Chronicle. Bede, lib. iii. c. 12., says, that after Cenwalch's death, acceperunt subreguli regnum gentis, VIII. 674. a powerful force against Wulfhere, the king of CHAP. Mercia; a battle, in which the mutual destruction was more conspicuous than the decision, ensued at Bedwin in Wilts. It is worth our while, says the moralizing historian, to observe how contemptible are the glorious wars and noble achievements of the great. Both these contending kings, whose vanity and pomp hurled thousands of their fellow-creatures to their graves, scarcely survived the battle a year, 40 Within a few months Wulfhere died of a natural disease; and in 676 Æscuin followed. Kentwin is denominated his 41 successor; and Ethel- Kentwin. red, the surviving son of Penda, acceded to the crown of Mercia, and ravaged Kent. 42 Northum bria. ECGFRID, who was governing in Northumbria, Ecgfrid of had repulsed, with great slaughter, an invasion of the Picts. Their general, Bernhaeth, fell, and the corses of his followers stopped the current of the river which flowed near the. scene of 43 ruin. In et divisum inter se tenuerunt annis circiter decem. - Flor. Wig., 246., mentions this passage, but mentions also the opposite account of the Anglica Chronica. The Saxon Chronicle, after Saxburga's year, places Æscuin in 674, and Kentwin in 676, both within the ten years of Bede, p. 41. 44. I cannot reject the evidence of Bede, who was born at this time. Perhaps Æscuin and Kentwin were the most powerful of the nobles, and being of the race of Cerdic, enjoyed the supremacy. Ina's charter authenticates Kentwin's reign. See it in Malmsb. de Ant. Glast. 3 Gale, 311. Alfred, in his Chronological Fragment, inserted in his Bede, mentions both Escuin and Kentwin. Walker's Elfred. Mag. App. p. 199. 42 Sax. Chron. 44. The Chronicon of Peterborough dates the invasion of Kent in 677, p. 3. 43 Malmsb. Gest. Pontif. lib. iii. p. 261. Eddius fills two rivers with the bodies, over which the victors passed "siccis pedibus." Vit. Wilf. c. 19. p. 61. ed. Gale. BOOK 679 Ecgfrid invaded Mercia, though Ethelred had III. married his sister. The Mercians met him on the 674. 664. lence. Trent, and, in the first battle, his brother Ælfuin fell. More calamitous warfare impended from the exasperation of the combatants, when the aged Theodore interposed. His function of archbishop derived new weight from his character, and he established a pacification between the related combatants. A pecuniary mulct compensated for the fate of Ælfuin, and the retaliation in human blood was prevented. 44 A DESTRUCTIVE pestilence began to spread A pesti through Britain, from its southern provinces to the northern regions, and equally afflicted Ireland, in 664. The calamity extended to Wales, and many of the natives emigrated to Bretagne. Cadwaladyr, the son of Cadwallon, accompanied them. He was kindly received by one of the Breton kings, and partook of his hospitality, till devotion or an aversion to the military vicissitudes of the day, induced him to abandon his royal dignity in Wales, and to visit Rome. He was the last of the Cymry who pretended to the sovereignty of the island. 46 44 Bede, lib. iv. c. 21. Malmsb. 20. 28. Sax. Chron. 44. Ecgfrid had conquered Lincolnshire from Wulfhere before Ethelred's accession, Bede, lib. ii. c. 12. 45 Bede, lib. iii. c. 27. 46 Jeffry, Brit. Hist. lib. xii. c. 17, 18. This work and the Brut. Tysilio and Brut. G. ab Arthur end here. The death of Cadwaladyr is the termination of those British Chronicles, which contain the fabled history of Arthur and his predecessors; and they close analogously to their general character; for the voice of an angel is made use of to deter Cadwaladyr from returning to Britain. The reason added for the celestial interference is, because the Deity did not choose that the Britons should reign in the island before the time predicted by |