BOOK III. 655. Saxon mind appears to have then reached that state of activity and judgment which had become dissatisfied with its irrational idolatry, and was thus become fitted to receive the belief of Christianity, as soon as it could be influenced to attend steadily to this interesting and enlightening religion. The exertions of the ecclesiastics were successful. Every day, many Mercians, both nobles and laity, were con verted. The mind of Penda himself had seemed at last to lessen its aversion to the new faith before his fall. He allowed it to be preached in his own dominions to those who chose to hear it; and he took a fair distinction on the subject. He permitted them to believe, if they practised what they were taught. He is stated to have hated and despised those who adopted Christianity, but did not perform its injunctions; exclaiming that those miserable creatures were worthy only of contempt, who would not obey the God in whom they believed. This important revolution of opinions occurred to years before Penda's death. 20 violent and ambitious, but his Mercia about two His character was mind was strong, decided, and of a superior energy. If literature and Christianity had improved it, his talents would have placed him high among the most applauded of the Anglo-Saxon kings. Penda's death led to the complete conversion of Mercia. Oswy, after his victory, reigned three years over it, and gave to his son-in-law Peada the sovereignty of the Southern Mercians, whom the Trent divided from the Northern. To read that Mercia beyond the Trent contained but seven thousand families, and in its other part only five thousand 21, leads us to the opinion, that its successes under 20 Bede, lib. iii. c. 21. 21 Ibid. c. 24. Penda had not arisen from the numbers of its population, but rather from his great military abilities and powerful capacity. From his reign it advanced with a steady and rapid progress. Christianity spread through it with great celerity after Penda's death. Its two first bishops were Irishmen; and the third, though born an Angle, was educated in Ireland. CHAP. VIII. 655. sination. In the spring after his father's death, Peada was His assas assassinated at his Easter festival: the report preserved by the chroniclers is, that it was the result of the treachery of his queen. 22 Another tradition, but of slender authority, ascribes it to the arts of her mother, who was still a pagan.23 It may have arisen from the resentments of those who lamented the fall of the ancient idolatry, which Peada had first subverted in Mercia. He had laid the foundation of the celebrated monastery at Peterborough before he fell, which his brother completed.24 The chieftains of Mercia had submitted to the Northumbrian king with an impatient reluctance. They concealed Wulfhere, another of Penda's children, among themselves, till a fit occasion arose of using his name and rights; and after Peada's death, three of them placed Wulfhere at their head, assembled in arms, disclaimed the authority of Oswy, expelled his officers, and made their young leader their king. 22 So Bede, c. 24.; Sax. Chron. 33.; and Malmsb. p. 27. It is not uninteresting to read how characteristically an ancient monk expresses the incident. "The enemy of the human race instigated against him that nature by which he deprived us of the joys of Paradise; to wit, his wife Alfleda, who betrayed and slew him." Hug. Cand. p. 4. The Norman Rhimed Chronicle also ascribes the crime to the queen Alfled la reine engine taunt doluersment, Ke ele sun barun tuat par graunt traisement. Ed. Sparke, 243. 23 Speed quotes Rob. Swapham to this effect, but I have not met with the passage. The register of Peterborough, Ap. Dugd. i. p. 63., uses the phrase, indigna et immatura morte, without designating the person, whom Ingulf also omits. Huntingdon has merely, ipso occiso, p. 317. 24 Chron. Petrib. p. 1. there named Medes-wel. It was called Medeshamstede, because there was a well BOOK 659. Cen walch They succeeded in establishing the independence of their country.25 Wessex now began to emerge into activity and in Wessex. power. Her king, Cenwalch, defeated the Britons, who had imagined, that, after his defeat by Penda, he would prove an easy conquest.26 Pen in Somersetshire was the place of their conflict: the Britons attacked with an impetuosity that was at first successful, but at length were defeated, and chased, with a slaughter from which they never recovered, to Pedridan on the Parrett.27 This locality would seem to intimate, that it was the Britons of Cornwall and Devonshire who had principally invaded. Animated by this success, Cenwalch sought to revenge on Mercia and Wulfhere the disgrace which he had suffered from his father. A struggle ensued, in which, after some reverses, the Mercians prevailed, and part of Wessex was subjected to the authority of the Mercian king.28 Christianity re stored in Essex. Christianity was restored about this period in Essex, through the instrumentality of Oswy. Sigeberht its king came frequently into Northumbria, and Oswy used to reason with him, that those things could not be gods which the hands of men had made; that wood and stone could not be the materials of which Deity subsisted: these were destroyed by the axe 25 Bede, lib. iii. c. 24. 26 Huntingdon, lib. ii. p. 317., et facta est super progeniem Bruti plaga insanabilis in die illa. Ib. 27 Et persecuti sunt eos usque ad locum qui Pederydan nuncupatur." Ethel werd, p. 836.-So the Saxon Chronicle, hy geflymde oth Pedridan, p. 39. — There is a place on the Parret, in Somersetshire, the entrance of which was called Pedridan muth, perhaps the Aber Peryddon of Golyddan. 28 Matt. West. 216.-The issue of this battle has been differently stated. Ethelwerd, 837., makes Cenwalch take Wulfhere prisoner at Escesdun, or Aston, near Wallingford, in Berks. The Saxon Chronicle, 39., and Flor. Wigorn. 241., as far as they express themselves, imply the contrary.—Malmsb, says, the Mercian was at first graviter afflictus by the loss, but afterwards avenged himself, p. 27. — The expressions of Bede, that Wulfhere gave the Isle of Wight and a province in West Saxony to the king of Sussex in one part of his life, lib. iv. c. 13., and that Cenwalch, during Wulf here's life, was gravissimis regni sui damnis sæpissime ab hostibus adflictus, lib. iii. c. 7., fully countenance the idea, that if Cenwalch at first prevailed, the ultimate triumphs were enjoyed by Wulf here. VIII. 659. and by fire, or were often subjected to the vilest CHAP. 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 he had promised to give endless recompense to those who would study and do the will of their Lord and Maker. 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 The Sussex had 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 Wulfhere persuaded Edilwald to be baptized; and by the exertions of Wilfrid, the bishop most distinguished in his day, the little kingdom, about A. D. 688, exchanged its paganism for Christianity.31 Essex also submitted 30 Matt. West., p. 224., 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 Æthelwald's reign in Sussex, p. 232. 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 Meansborough, Eastmean, Westmean, and Mansbridge, Smith's Bede, p. 155. BOOK III. 659. 670. Oswy's death. 672. Saxburga 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. Oswy is ranked by Bede, the seventh, as Oswald had been the sixth, of the kings who preponderated in the Anglo-Saxon octarchy.33 He died in this year.34 His greatest action was the deliverance of the Anglo-Saxons from the oppressions of Penda; he also subdued the Picts and Scots; but the fate of the amiable Oswin, whom he destroyed, shades his memory with a cloud. 35 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 On the death of Cenwalch, his widow, Saxburga, 32 Bede, lib. iii. c. 30.-Hugo Candidus names Sigher as the king of Sussex subdued by Wulf here. 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 Wulf here, 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. 33 Bede, lib. ii. c. 5. Sax. Chron. p. 7. 31 Sax. Chron. 40. Chron. Abb. Petri de Burgo, p. 2. 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 seniore. 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. |