X. A DISCORD of some moment interrupted this CHAP. amity. All intercourse between the two countries was reciprocally interdicted; but the quarrel is not stated to have lasted long. Offa had also a quarrel with the pope. 777. Offa's wars with the THE wars of Offa with the Britons were at first to his disadvantage. Some branches of the Cymry Britons. penetrated in an incursion into Mercia. Their united attack drove the English from the Severn; they frequently repeated their devastations. Offa collected in greater number the forces of the Anglo-Saxons, and marched into Wales. The Britons, unable to withstand him, quitted the open country between the Severn and the Wye, and withdrew to their mountains. Impregnable among these natural fortresses, they awaited the return of the invaders, and then sallied out in new aggressions. To terminate these wasteful incursions, Offa annexed the eastern regions of Wales, as far as the Wye, to Mercia, planted them with Anglo-Saxons, and separated them from the Britons by a large trench and rampart, extending from the æstuary His Dyke. us, but was always ready to purge himself from all infidelity. We kept him with us not from enmity, but with the hope of producing a reconciliation. As to these his followers, if you can obtain their peace, let them remain in the country. But," adds this humane king, "if my brother answers harshly about them, send them to us uninjured. It is better to travel than to perish; it is better to serve in another country than to die at home. But I trust to the goodness of my brother, if you strongly intercede for them, that he may receive them kindly for love of us, or rather for the love of Christ." The delicacy of this application is peculiar. He does not write to Offa, because he will not compromise his own dignity by subjecting it to a refusal, nor appear to dictate to another prince; he employs an honoured minister of peace; he applies to Offa the tender epithet of my brother; and he makes a denial almost impossible, by the disinterested humanity which he intends to show them, if Offa should be inexorable. 2 Du Chesne, p. 678. 39 Alcuin ap. Malmsb. 32. BOOK 777. Offa's murder of Ethelbert. 41 40 of the Dee to the mouth of the Wye. It was carried through marshes, and over mountains and rivers, for an hundred miles, and was long celebrated under the name of Claudh Offa, or Offa's Dyke. Its remains and direction are yet visible.42 It was used for ages afterwards, as the boundary which determined the confines of England and Wales; a boundary jealously guarded with the most rigorous penalties.43 OFFA's desire of reading is mentioned by Alcuin.44 THE basest action of Offa was the murder of Ethelbert, king of East Anglia. AT the close of Offa's reign, Ethelbert possessed the crown of East Anglia, a peaceful and intelligent prince, in the bloom of youth and beauty, interesting in his manners, and virtuous in his disposition. Invited or welcomed by Offa, he went to Mercia, for the purpose of receiving the hand of Etheldritha, the daughter of the Mercian king. He travelled with a splendid retinue. Offa received him with that distinction which was due to the allotted husband of his daughter. But be 40 Brut y Tywys. p. 473. Brut y Saeson, p. 474. Asser, de Gestis Elfredi, 10. Sim. Dunelm. p. 118. After these events the princes of Powys moved their royal seat from Pengwern, or Shrewsbury, to Mathraval in Montgomeryshire. Where the royal castle of Mathraval stood, a small farm house is the only building visible now. 41 Lhwyd Comment. Brit. Descript. 42.—Almost all the cities and towns on its eastern side "in ton vel ham finientia habent." Ibid. 42 See Gibson's Camden, p. 587. 43 Jo. Sarisb. Polycrat. in his De nugis curialium, lib. vi. p. 184. 44 Alcuin in a letter to him says, "It greatly pleases me that you have such an intention to read; that the light of wisdom may shine in your kingdom which is now extinguished in many places." He adds some good moral advice. Alc. Op. p. 1554. 45 The welcome is affirmed by all. The invitation by Malmsbury, 29., and the author of the life of Offa, p. 23., and Hen. Silgrave, MSS. Cott. Cleop. A. 12. fore the marriage was completed, Ethelbert was assassinated, and the father of his beloved commanded the murder. Though Offa had pledged his protection, had received the King of East Anglia as his guest, had introduced him to his daughter as her approved husband, and the nuptial feast had began, Offa is represented as having procured his assassination.46 The favourable moment of annexing East Anglia to Mercia was a temptation which overpowered the feelings of the father and the man. The friends of Ethelbert fled in consternation. Offa invaded his dominions, and East Anglia was added to his conquests. CHAP. X. 777. of Offa's DID such a complication of crimes benefit the perpetrator? Before two years elapsed, he sunk from his empire to his grave. Remorse embittered Calamities all the interval. His widowed daughter abandoned family. his court, fled into the marshes of Croyland, and pined away her life in mourning solitude"; his queen, the evil counsellor of his ambition, perished miserably 4; the husband of another of his daughters was cut off in the same year with himself"; the other, who married Brihtric, died a marytr to vice and penury the most extreme, scorned and abhorred 50; his son Ecgfrid, who succeeded him, 46 That Offa commanded the murder is expressly asserted by Ethelwerd, 840.; Hoveden, 410.; Huntingdon, 344.; Sax. Chron. 65.; Flor. Wig. 281.; Malmsb. de Pont. 287.; Bromton, 749.; Higden, 251.; Rad. Dicet. 446.; and Asseri Annal. 154. Their uniting evidence does away the attempt of Matt. West. p. 283., and the fabulous monk of St. Alban's in Vita Offæ, p. 23., who want to fix it solely on the queen. - Both these apologists admit that Offa immediately seized East Anglia; and such an action, after such a catastrophe, is among the most forcible evidences of its guilt and its motive. 47 Ingulf. 7. Bromton, 752. Vit. Offæ, p. 24. 48 Vit. Offæ, p. 25. 49 Ethelred, the son of Moll. 50 See further, note 58. BOOK III. 784 of Wessex assassinated. was permitted to exist only 141 days"; and thus the race of Offa disappeared for ever. DURING the reign of Offa, the sceptre of Wessex Cynewulf had been swayed, since 755, by Cynewulf. He warred with the Britons successfully 52, and met Offa in the disastrous conflict at Bensington. After a reign of many years, he fell a victim to revenge and desperation. He endeavoured to expel Cyneheard, the brother of the deposed Sigebyrht; a suspicion that he was meditating retaliation, occasioned the attempt.53 Cyneheard determined to prevent the blow; he watched the unguarded moment when the king with a few attendants visited a lady at Merton in Surrey; he collected about eighty desperadoes, hastened to the place, and surrounded the chamber to which the king had retired, before his friends were aware of his danger. The king quitted the apartment, and vigorously defended himself; he beheld Cyneheard, and, rushing forward, severely wounded him; but no courage could prevail against such numbers. Cynewulf was slain. Roused by the clamour of the struggle, his thanes hurried to the conflict. Safety and wealth were offered to them by the assassins; but no bribes could repress their loyal indignation; and they fell nobly by their master's side; one 51 Bromton, 754. Hunt. 344. Ingulf. 6. Offa went to Rome before his death, and extended to his own dominions the liberality of Ina, called Romescot. It was with strict truth that the friend of the great Alfred mentions Offa with the epithet "universis circa se regibus et regionibus finitimis formidolosus rex." Asser de Reb. Gest. Elfredi, p. 10. 52 Flor. Wig. 274. Sax. Chron. 57. Of Cornwall, I presume; for in his charter to the monastery at Wells, dated 766, he adduces among his motives to the donation pro aliqua vexatione inimicorum nostrorum Cornubiorum gentis. See it ap. Dugd. i. 186. 53 Matt. West. 280. This author states, that Cyneheard had been banished. 54 The CHAP. X. 784. The murderers pu nished. British hostage only escaped, desperately wounded. In the morning, the dismal tidings had circulated; and the great officers of the royal household, Osric, the friend, and Weverth, the faithful minister of Cynewulf, with their attendants, rode to the town. Cyneheard lavished both promises and presents, if they would assist him to obtain the crown. disinterested thanes disdained the favours of a murderer, forced an entrance with their battle-axes, and a deadly contest ensued, in which the guilty perished. "+ THIS melancholy catastrophe produced the dig- Brihtric nity of Brihtric. He was of the race of Cerdic 5, and married Eadburga, the daughter of Offa. The year of his accession was distinguished as that in which the Danes are recorded by the Anglo-Saxon writers to have first landed on the English shore. The gerefa of the place went out to see the strangers, who had arrived with three vessels, and was instantly killed."6 Their incursion was repeated on other parts of the island, 55 THE wife of Brihtric, or Beorhtric, is expressed by Asser to have imitated the tyranny of her father, Offa; to have hated all to whom her husband was attached, and to have done whatever was odious to mankind. She became familiar with crimes which the gentleness of female nature never perpetrates till its moral sentiments have been erased. She accused to the king whomsoever her caprice disliked, and thus deprived them of life or power. When he refused the gratification to her malice, she used the secret poison. 54 Sax. Chron. 59. 63. Flor. Wig. 278. Hunt. 343. 55 Sax. Chron. 63. 56 Sax. Chron. 64.; Flor. Wig. 280.; and see Ethelwerd. succeeds. 787. Danes first land in Vices of the Queen Eadburga. |