III. 709. BOOK Berthfrid, the protecting præfect of Northumbria, defeated the Picts between Hæfe and Cære, in the field of Manan. Finguin Mc Delaroith perished in the battle. 36 It is not stated who commanded the Picts, but Nectan, or Naiton, was king of this people at this period. 37 710. Ina defeats 715. and Ceol red. 716. INA continued to reign prosperously. He waged war with Geraint, the British king of Cornwall. Amid the first charges, Higbald, a Saxon leader, fell; but at last the Britons 38 fled. Ina also prose cuted a war with Ceolred, who had succeeded his cousin Cenred in Mercia. At Wodnesbury they met; the slaughter of the battle was great; the event was no advantage to either. 39 CEOLRED, king of Mercia, was succeeded by 36 Sax. Chron. 50. Flor. Wig. 264. Bede, lib. v. c. 2k, dates it 711. Gibson, in his Appendix to the Chronicle, conjectures that Hæfe and Cære were Carehouse and Heefeld, a little beyond the wall, p. 18. "710. Slaughter of the Picts in the field of Manan, among the Saxons, where Finguin McDelaroith perished." Annals of Ulster, p. 60. 37 Nectan, in the Annals of Ulster, p. 60. In 716 he drove the family of Iona beyond Drum-albin, ibid. p. 60. In 725 he was put in chains by king Drust, ibid. p. 61. Bede, lib. v. c. 21., calls him Naiton, and mentions his changing the time of Easter to the Roman period, which the Annals of Ulster place in 715, p. 60. 39 Sax. Chron. 50. Hunting. 337. Flor. Wig. 264. This Geraint was the third of that name in Cornwall. Owen's Llywarch, p. 3. Aldhelm addressed to him a letter on the British celebration of Easter, which is among the epistles of Boniface. Biblioth. Magna Pat. v. 16. p. 65. ep. 44. In this he styles Geraint, domino gloriosissimo occidentalis regni sceptra gubernanti, Geruntio regi. 39 Sax. Chron. 50. Hunt. 338. 40 Unless we interpret the account, given by Boniface, of Ceolred's dying conversation with the devil, who came for him in the middle of a feast, (Malmsb. 28.) as a sudden incidence of IX. 716. Ethelbald, who possessed the crown for forty-one CHA P. years. In this year Osred of Northumbria, the eldest son of Alfred, was destroyed at the lake of Windamere by his revolting kinsmen", one of whom, Coenred, the son of Cuthwin, succeeded 42; but he fell from the agitated throne two years afterwards, and Osric, another son of the learned Alfred, took his place. 43 Inigils, the ancestor of Egbert. IN 718, Inigils, the brother of Ina, died. Though no achievement of greatness is attached to his name in history, yet the events of the future time have given it importance. He was the ancestor from whom Egbert and Alfred, and the following Saxon monarchs of England, deduced their 718. descent. 44 Glaston INA rebuilt the abbey of Glastonbury at the re- Ina builds quest of Aldhelm. It had been utterly destroyed, bury abbut he erected it with magnificence, and it lasted bey. until the Danish ravages. 45 The insurrection of pretenders disturbed the close of Ina's reign: but insanity, the missionary of Germany is at variance with Huntingdon, who says of Ceolred, that patriæ et avitæ virtutis. hæres clarissime rexit, p. 337. Sax. 41 Malmsb. 21. Huntingd. 338. Bede, lib. v. c. 24. Chron. 51. Osred has received the lash of Boniface. Malmsb. Malmsbury complains of him, p. 21. 28. Flor. Wig. 266. 42 Bede, lib. v. c. 22. 43 Bede, lib. v. c. 23. Simeon Dunel. p. 7. The expressions of Malmsbury imply that Osric assisted to procure his brother Osred's death: he says of Kenred and Osric, domini sui occisi sanguinem luentes fœdo exitu auras polluere, p. 21. 44 Sax. Chron. 51: Asser. p. 3. Abb. Rieval, 350. 45 Bromton, p. 758. He founded the great church of Glastonbury pro anima propinqui ejus Mollonis. See his charters to it. 1 Dugdale, Monast. 12, 13. Malmbs. de Ant. Glast. 3 Gale, 309. 311. His other gifts to it were magnificent. III. 721. BOOK he attacked and destroyed Cynewulf Ætheling; and in the next year his queen besieged another, Ealdbryht, in Taunton, a castle which the king had built to defend that part of his dominions, and in which the rebel had taken his post of enmity. She levelled it to the ground, and Ealdbryht withdrew into Sussex. Ina directed his forces against this province, and three years afterwards slew his competitor. 46 His queen abdica tion. AFTER a fortunate reign of thirty-seven years, advises his the king imitated the custom which had become so remarkable among the Anglo-Saxon kings, and laid down his dignity. His queen had long exhorted him, as his age advanced, to retire from the concerns of the world; but the charms of habitual power for some time defeated her eloquence. One day, as she travelled with the king to one of his rural mansions, where a splendid feast was prepared with all the pomp and bustle of royal luxury, she seized the occasion of converting it to a moral lecture on her favourite theme. They left the place after the repast, and a rustic by her orders, in their absence, scattered the festive hall with filth and rubbish, and placed a swinish litter on the couch where he had reposed. Before they had advanced two miles on their road, she desired to return, and Ina courteously complied with her request; but when he entered the hall of his festivity, and saw the disgusting change, he contemplated it with silent astonishment and displeasure, till informed that the queen had directed it: he demanded from her an explanation of the strange mystery. She smiled and answered: “ My lord and 46 Sax. Chron. 52. Hunt. 338. Flor. Wig. 268. IX 721. husband! this is not indeed the noisy hilarity of yes- CHAP. terday: here are no brilliant hangings, no flattery, and no parasites: here are no tables weighed down with silver vessels: no exquisite delicacies to delight the palate all these are gone like the smoke and wind. Have they not already passed away into nothingness? And should we not feel alarmed who covet them so much? for we shall be as transient. Are not all such things? are not we ourselves like a river, hurrying, heedless and headlong, to the dark ocean of illimitable time? Unhappy must we be if we let them absorb our minds. Think, I entreat you, how disgusting those things become of which we have been so enamoured. See to what filthy objects we are attached. In these loathsome relics we may see what our pampered bodies will at last be. Ah! let us reflect, that the greater we have been, and the more powerful we are now, the more alarmed ought to be our solicitude; for the greater will be the punishment of our misconduct." 47 to Rome. THE singularity of the incident had its full im- Ina goes pression on the mind of Ina: he resigned his crown to his kinsman, and, imitating what all ranks were then emulous to do, he travelled to Rome.48 He founded there a Saxon school, for the instruction of his countrymen who chose to be educated at Rome, and he added a church for their service, and the convenience of their burial. To support this, and to provide a subsistence for the English 47 Malmsbury, p. 15. 48 Bede, lib. v. c. 7. Sax. Chron. 52. Flor. Wig. 269. M. West. 265. Bede says of Ina's journey, that it was what in these times plures de gente Anglorum, nobiles, ignobiles, laici, clerici, viri ac feminæ, certatim facere consuerunt. с с 3 III. 721. 49 BOOK who should dwell there, he imposed the payment of a penny on every family, which was denominated Romescot. It was sent to the papal see. Ina studiously avoided all pomp in his voluntary humiliation. He cut off his hair, put on a plebeian dress, and lived with his queen a private and retired life, even seeking support by the labour of his hands, till he died there. 50 This conduct was evidence that his religious feelings were genuine impulses of sincerity. 731. The An glo-Saxon kings at this period. 716-756. THE mutations of the octarchy for the last century had been generally from an heptarchy to an hexarchy; at the period of Ina's death it was an hexarchy, because Wessex had absorbed Sussex, and Deira and Bernicia were amalgamated into Northumbria. This restless province was then governed by Osric, who left the kingdom to Ceolwulf, the brother of Cenred, whom he had destroyeds, and the friend and patron of Bede. Mercia, Ethelbald, a descendant of Wybba, reigned. 52 In Essex, which was becoming fast the satellite of Mercia, Suebricht had governed alone 49 Matt. West, 265. In 50 Dug. Monast. i. p. 14. 32. Malm. Pont. 313. Alcuin mentions him by the name of In: "Quem clamant IN, incerto cognomine, gentes." Oper. p. 1676. 51 Flor. Wig. 269. Malmsb. 21. Ceolwulf submitted to the tonsure in 737, and Eadbert succeeded. Smith's Bede, p. 224. Ceolwulf was descended from Ocga, one of the sons of Ida. Sim. Dun. p. 7. Bede in one line expresses the vicissitudes of Ceolwulf, and the state of the country, captus et adtonsus et remissus in regnum, lib. v. c. ult. 52 Sax. Chron. 51. 59. of Alwion. Ing. 33. Bede, lib. v. c. 24. He was the son |