BOOK III. 779. 788. 792. 26 25 Alfwold obtained it; but such was the spirit of the country, that in the following year two chieftains raised an army, seized the king's ealdorman, Beorn, and his justiciary, and burnt them to ashes, because, in the estimation of the rebels, their administration of justice had been too severe. Alfwold, to whom a chronicle applies the epithet, King of the innocent," was treacherously killed by his patrician, Sigan; and Osred, his kinsman, son of Alred, acceded. In the next year he was betrayed and driven out, and Ethelred, the son of Moll, was recalled. But as adversity, though it corrects many dispositions into virtue, yet sometimes only exasperates the stubborn, so it appears to have rather increased than diminished the obduracy of Ethelred. In the year of his restoration, he left Eardulf weltering in his blood at the gate of a monastery; and in the following year he dragged Elf and Elwin, the children of Alfwold, from York, and slew them. Osred, who had been deposed, attempted to recover the crown; his army deserted him, he fell into the hands of Ethelred, and perished. This prince now endeavoured, by a marriage with the daughter of Offa, to secure his authority, and for this purpose he repudiated his previous wife. But his policy and his murders were equally vain. Whoever, by an example of Sax. Chron. 62. He 25 Mailros, 139. Hunt. 343. 26 Mailros, 139. Hunt. 343. Chron. Pet. 10. Rich. Hag. 298. Saxon Chron. 64. Osred took refuge in the Isle of Man, Sim. Dun. 12. Alcuin addressed to Ethelred, or, as he spells the name, Edelred, a letter of strong moral exhortation, which is still in existence. reminds him how many of his predecessors had perished, propter injustitias et rapinas et immunditias vitæ. He intreats his people to be at peace between themselves, and to be faithful to their lord, that, by their concord, the kingdom might be extended, quod sæpe per discordiam minui solebat. Alcuini opera, p. 1537. ed. Paris, 1617. X. 792. cruelty, lessens the public horror at deeds of blood, CHAP. diminishes his own safety, and gives popularity to his own assassination. In the fourth year of Ethelred's restoration, his subjects, whom he had assisted to brutalize, destroyed him, and set up Osbald. After a reign of twenty-seven days, they deposed Osbald, and he obtained security in the cloister." Eardulf, who had been recovered from his assassination by the charity of the monks, who found him apparently lifeless near their cloister, had fled to Charlemagne, and visited Rome. The emperor of the West, in conjunction with the papal legate, assisted him in his efforts to regain his kingdom and he was crowned in 794. Before four years elapsed, they who had murdered Ethelred, revolted from Eardulf; and under their leader, Wada, endeavoured to destroy him. The sword of the king prevailed, and the rebels fled. 28 Here for a while we will quit this region of civil discord. Happy is the country in which the regal office is not elective, nor the right of succession permitted to be questionable! An hereditary monarchy, though, like all human institutions, it has its inconveniences, yet has not been the contrivance of childish thinkers or half-way politicians; it was the benevolent invention of human wisdom, profiting from the most disastrous experience. No contests have been more baneful to human life and happiness, than those which have sprung from the 27 Mailros, 139. 28 Ann. Franc. ap. Du Chesne, vol. ii. p. 45. Mailros, 140. Huntingdon might well say, "Gens Anglorum naturaliter dura est et superba, et ideo bellis intestinis incessanter attrita." Alcuin displays the angry feelings of Charlemagne at this repetition of ferocity at Northumbria; he styled them a nation perfidam et perversam, pejorem paganis. Malmsb. 26. BOOK III. 792. Traditions concerning Offa and uncertain right of accession, and from the practicability of attaining power by violence. It was a noble effort of advancing civilzation, which strove to annihilate the evil, by accustoming mankind to revere as sacred the laws of hereditary succession. OFFA, who had obtained with violence the throne of Mercia, displayed talents, and enjoyed a proshis queen perity, which have made his name illustrious. His youth has been fabulously represented as distinguished by a wonderful transformation, from a miserable child, afflicted with imperfections in his speech, and the most important senses of the intellect, the sight and hearing, into an elegant frame, adorned with every human accomplishment.30 His monastic panegyrist has also bequeathed to his queen Drida, or Cynedrida, a series of adventures scarcely probable, and which have the aspect of having been invented, in order to impute to her, more plausibly, the crime which has stained the memory of Offa for ever.31 When he had enjoyed his throne many years, he began to covet an augmentation of dominion. Some of his attacks were 29 Bede's expression, concerning the accession of Offa, is, that having driven out Bernred, he sought the kingdom with a bloodstained sword, lib. v. c. ult. An epithet so marking, as sanguinolento, from a contemporary, implies that Offa's reign commenced with human slaughter. 30 Vita Offæ secundi, added to Watts's edition of Matthew Paris, p. 10. The author of it was some monk of St. Alban's; he makes Offa's real name Pineredus. The name Offa was derived from a king, whom he calls Offa primus, the son of Warmund, who had similar defects, and a cure as miraculous. His editor believes that this Offa primus never existed but in his page. I have however discovered him in Saxo-Grammaticus. Saxo says, Warmund, the 17th king of Denmark, had in his age a son named Uffo, who excelled his coëvals in his person, but who was thought weak in mind, and never spoke till the king of Saxony endangered his father, &c. 59–65. 31 The account is, that the lady was allied to the French king, but for some crime was adjudged to die. Respect for majesty saved her 34 33 X. 792. Offa's wars. 774. against the Northumbrians, and the Hestingi. CHAP. He invaded Kent, and a great slaughter ensued at Otford, in which Offa triumphed, and Kent submitted to the power of Mercia. Afterwards he measured his strength with the king of Wessex, at Bensington, and established his great power by defeating Cynewulf, and subjecting part of his dominions. 35 THE Conquests of Offa have not been transmitted to us in accurate detail; but the celebrity which he attained, and the blood which his contemporary, Alcuin, attests him to have shed, imply many warlike and not rightful exertions. The prerogatives which he exercised confirm the traditions of his power. He founded the abbey at St. Alban's, and the abbey of Bath; and made gifts of land to Can from the ordeals of iron and fire. She was committed to the chances of the sea in an open boat, with little food; the stormy ocean threw her on the coast of Wales, and she was conducted to Offa. A plaintive story interested his compassion, and he recommended her to the protection of his mother. Her charms or her wiles animated his pity into love, and she became his wife. Vita Offæ, p. 12. 32 Bromton, x Script. p. 776., puts the Northumbri first; but Huntingdon, 343., places them after his other conquests. So Matt. West. 275., and Hoveden, 409. 33 Mailros, p. 138. Hoveden, 403. Sim. Dun. 107.-The situation of these people is contested. Mr. Watts thinks them of Hastings, one of the Cinque Ports. Langhorn, p. 29., believes the word to have meant east men, and to have alluded to the east part of Northumbria.- Alford, in his annals, settles the question. A charter, in Dublet fixes them in Sussex. Offa by this confirms a grant of land, in the neighbourhood of Hastings, to the abbey of St. Denis; and styles Bertwald, the proprietor of Hastings and Pevensey, his fidelis. 24 Mailros, 138. Sax. Chron. 61. Vit. Offæ, p. 15. 35 Sax. Chron. 61. Matt. West. 279. 26 Alcuin, the preceptor of Charlemagne, speaking of the immature fate of Offa's son, mentions, that pater suus pro confirmatione regni ejus multum sanguinem effudit. Ap. Malmsb. de Gest. p. 33. BOOK terbury, and other places, far beyond the limits of his inherited domains. 37 III. 777. Corresponds with Charlemagne. OFFA is distinguished above the other AngloSaxon kings who had preceded him in the octarchy, by commencing an intercourse with the continent. He had a correspondence with Charlemagne, which does credit to the Frankish sovereign and to himself. In one letter, Charlemagne communicates to him with perceptible exultation his success in procuring the continental Saxons to adopt Christianity. In another the Frankish emperor promises security to all pilgrims, and his especial protection and legal interference to all commercial adventurers, on their paying the requisite duties. He greets Offa with expressions of friendship, and sends him a belt, an Hungarian sword, and two silken cloaks, 39 37 Matt. West. 284. Dugdale Monasticon, i. p. 19. 62. 177. 184. Matt. West. p. 288., enumerates twenty-three counties which Offa governed. Amongst these, the districts of East Anglia, Essex, and part of Wessex and Northumbria, are recited. 38 Du Chesne Scrip. Fr. vol. ii. p. 620. Malmsb. 32. In the second volume of Du Chesne's Hist. Franc. Scriptores, p. 686., is another letter from Charlemagne to Offa. The king states the guilty conduct of a Presbyter et Scottus, who had eaten meat in Lent. The king mentions that the clergy in France, for want of full evidence, had declined to pass sentence upon him; and adds, that, as he could not remain where he was, from the infamy of the thing; and lest the sacerdotal honour should be thought by the ignorant vulgar to be tarnished, and lest others should be induced to violate the sacred fast, Charlemagne thought it fittest to send him to abide the judgment of his bishop. Another monument of their intercourse exists in a letter from Charlemagne to the Archbishop Athilhard, whom Alcuin styles the primate of Canterbury. In this letter the humanity of Charlemagne is nobly distinguished. It is in behalf of some exiles, for whom he entreats the prelate to intercede with Offa, that they may have leave to return to their country in peace, and secured from the oppression of injustice. He says, their lord, Vinhrinsgstan, was dead, who he thinks would have proved faithful to his lord, if he might have remained in his country. "To escape the peril of death, he fled to |