III. BOOK royal attainments. "On the number seven; collections from the flowers of the Bible, and the tenets of philosophers; on the nature of insensible things; and on the prosody and metre of poetry." 684. 998 9 YET, though attached to the studies of the clergy, he was not their undiscriminating instrument. He had made his early instructor, Wilfrid, a bishop; but when, in his opinion, that prelate was unduly pressing points, however conscientiously, which he disapproved of, he remained immovable in what he thought was right, and Wilfrid quitted his dominions. We cannot now fairly judge of the subjects of their difference. They were on ecclesiastical privileges; but as Wilfrid, though an able man, was of an ambitious character, inclining to turbulence, and fond of domination, it is probable that Alfred was not unduly maintaining the fair liberty of his own judgment. The value of perseverance in any opinion depends upon its wisdom; but the principle, in men of his character, is always that of well-meaning rectitude. THE pope, John VII., afterwards interfered, by a letter to Alfred, rather dictatorial.10 And Wilfrid, from the Mercian court, to which he had retired, sent an abbot and another with the pope's letters and his own further expostulations. Alfred at first received them austerely. His manner was afterwards softened, but his purpose continued firm. His final answer was courteous, but decisive. "My venerable brothers:-Ask of me whatever things are necessary to your own comfort, and 8 Malmsb. Pontif. p. 342. 9 See Eddius, Vit. Wilf. c. 44 — 46. 10 Eddius, c. 81. It was addressed also to Ethelred of Mercia. IX. 684. I will grant them, as proofs of my great respect CHAP. for you; but from this day make no solicitations in behalf of Wilfrid your lord. What my royal predecessors, and the archbishop sent formerly from Rome, with almost all the prelates of Britain, thought fit to order, I will never change, while I live; whatever writings you may bring me from the apostolic seat, as you choose to call it." "1 ALFRED adhered with temperate firmness to his determination. The urgencies of the pope and Wilfrid could not shake it. He reigned over the province, which his knowlege enlightened, and his virtues cherished, for nineteen years. Sickness then fell upon him. In his last hours he was disturbed by the apprehension that he might have acted wrong in resisting the applications of the pope and prelate; but his speech failed him for several days before his death. When he expired, one Eadwulf assumed the sceptre, to whom Wilfrid began a journey with hopes of a friendly reception; but Eadwulf sent him this message:-"I swear, by my salvation, that unless he depart in six days from my kingdom, both he and all that I find with him shall perish." Wilfrid stopped in his progress; but he had with him the effective means of retorting the menace. Osred, the son of Alfred, had joined him, and in two months was established in Northumbria, and Eadwulf expelled.12 THE effect of Alfred's reign and habits in this province became visible in Ceolwulf, who soon succeeded to his throne. This prince, who acceded in 731, was the patron to whom Bede addressed his ecclesiastical history of the English nation. In the dedication, the venerable father of 12 Eddius, c. 57. 11 Eddius, c. 61. III. 684. BOOK the Anglo-Saxon learning says, that it was this king's delight not only to hear the Scriptures read, but to be well acquainted with the deeds and sayings of his illustrious predecessors. From this feeling he had desired Bede to compose his history. But the love of letters, which Alfred had kindled in his dominions, was soon afterwards quenched there by the sanguinary civil contests that succeeded. It spread, however, with a cheering influence to the other provinces of the octarchy. Bede and Alcuin may be considered as two of the valuable minds which it had excited. Ceadwalla. In the year of Ecgfrid's destruction, Ceadwalla began to contend for the throne of Wessex: he was descended from Cerdic, through Ceawlin and his son Cutha, 13 His youth was of great promise, and he suffered no opportunity of exerting his warlike talents to occur unimproved. Banished from his country by the factious chiefs who governed it, he was assiduous to assemble from it a military force, and he succeeded in drawing the youth of Wessex to his standard. 14 In Selsey he obtained money and horses from Wilfrid, the bishop, and directed his first onset on the king of Sussex, whom he surprised and destroyed, and whose kingdom he desolated. The royal generals, who had been warring in Kent, returned, and expelled the invader, who profited by his expulsion to secure to himself the crown of Wessex. This accession of 14 13 Saxon Chron. 45. Malmsbury, in his Life of Aldhelm, p. 11. Wharton's Ang. Sac. 2., and 3 Gale, 346., says that Kentwin, morbo et senio gravis, appointed Cadwalla his successor; but as Kentwin only reigned nine years, the addition of senio gravis can hardly be correct. 14 Malmsbury, p. 14. 15 Malmsb. De Gest. Pontif. lib. iii. p. 265. IX. strength he wielded triumphantly against Sussex, CHAP. which lost its defenders, and yielded to the fortune of his arms.17 Ceadwalla also captured the Isle of Wight; but stained his prosperity with cruelty. 684. 616. FOR two years, Ceadwalla and his brother Mollo plundered Kent, which had been harassed by Sussex, and weakened by incapable rulers." The natives viewed the spoilers for some time with fruitless indignation. Town after town was ravaged. Rousing themselves at last, the men of Kent collected into a competent body, and attacked them with auspicious valour. Mollo, with twelve Mollo's casoldiers, was surprised in a cottage. The invaded tastrophe. people brutally surrounded them with flames, and they were reduced to ashes." 20 IN obeying the impulse of a headlong wrath, the Kentish men forgot that cruelty makes even the injured odious, and justifies punishment; it much oftener stimulates revenge than deters it. The brother of Mollo was on the throne of Wessex, and in the following year spread a torrent of vindictive calamities through Kent, which it mourned in all its districts.2 21 THE Roman missionaries, and the ecclesiastics whom they educated had not only succeeded in establishing Christianity in England, but they 17 Bede, ib. Flor. Wig.255. Langhorn Chron. 241, 242. Sussex is said by Bede to have contained the land of 7000 families, lib.iv. c. 13. 18 During this conquest he formed the inhuman project of destroying its inhabitants, and of repeopling it from his own province. Bede, lib. iv. c. 15. 19 Hunting. lib.iv. p. 335. Malmsbury mentions the civil wars, which also afflicted Kent, lib. i. p. 11. In the preceding year, pestilentiâ depopulata est Britannia. Chron. Petri de Burgo, p. 4. 20 Malmsbury, p. 11. Sax. Chron. p. 46. Huntingdon, p.336. W. Thorn, in his Chronica, places the catastrophe at Canterbury, p. 1770. x. Script. 21 Sax. Chron. 46. Hunting. 336. BOOK III. 686. la's death. raised so strong a feeling of piety, in some of its Anglo-Saxon sovereigns, as to lead them to renounce the world. It was not only the widowed queen of Edwin, who gave the first precedent of an Anglo-Saxon lady of that rank taking the veil 22; nor Oswy devoting his daughter Elfleda to a convent 23, who exhibited this religious zeal; but several of the sovereigns themselves, from its impulse, abandoned their thrones. Thus, in 688, Ceadwalla travelled to Rome as on a pilgrimage of piety, where he was baptised by the pope, and Ceadwal- died, before he was thirty, in the following week.24 Thus also some years afterwards, in 709, two other Anglo-Saxon kings, Cenred of Mercia, and Offa of Essex, probably affected by the example of Ceadwalla, quitted that dignity which so many myriads covet, went to Rome, and became monks there. 25 And thus, also, at no long interval, a greater sovereign than either, Ina of Wessex, obeyed the same impression, took the same journey, and found his grave in the same venerated city. Offa is described as a most amiable youth, who was induced to abdicate his power from the purest motives of devotion. It is remarked by an old chronicler, that the examples of these two kings produced a thousand imitations. 26 INA Succeeded Ceadwalla in Wessex. He was the son of Cenred, who was the nephew of Cynegils. 27 His father was living at the period of his accession. 688. Ina's accession. 22 Smith's Bede, p. ioi. note. 23 Bede, lib. iii. c. 29. 24 Sax. Chron. 46. Bede, lib. v. c. 7. Sergius gave him the name of Peter. An epitaph in Latin verse was inscribed on his tomb which Bede quotes. 25 Bede, lib. v. c. 19. 27 Sax. Chron. 47. Bede, lib. v. c. 7. |