the materials so dry, uninteresting, and filled with such improbable adventures, that a repetition of them can gratify neither the reader's judgment nor curiosity. Instead, therefore, of entering into a detail of tumultuous battles, petty treacheries, and obscure successions, it will be more conformable to the present plan, to give some account of the introduction of Christianity among the Saxons, which happened during this dreary period. The Christian religion never suffered more persecution, than it underwent in Britain from the barbarity of the Saxon pagans, who burned all the churches, stained the altars with the blood of the clergy, and massacred all those whom they found professing Christianity. This deplorable state of religion in Britain, was first taken into consideration by St. Gregory, who was then pope; and he undertook to send missionaries thither. It is said, that before his elevation to the papal chair, he chanced one day to pass through the slave-market at Rome, and perceiving some children of great beauty, who were set up for sale, he inquired about their country; and finding they were English pagans, he is said to have cried out, in the Latin language, Non Angli, sed Angeli, forent, si essent Christiani.—“ They would not be English, but Angels, had they been Christians." From that time he was struck with an ardent desire to convert that unenlightened nation, and actually embarked in a ship for Britain; when his pious intentions were frustrated by his being detained at Rome by the populace, who loved him. He did not, however, lay aside his holy resolution; for, having succeeded to the papal chair, he ordered a monk, named Augustine, and others of the same fraternity, to undertake the mission into Britain. It was not without some reluctance that these reverend men undertook so dangerous a task; but some favourable circumstances in Britain seemed providentially to prepare the way for their arrival. Ethelbert, king of Kent, in his father's lifetime, had married Bertha, the only daughter of Caribert, king of Paris, one of the descendants of Clovis, king of Gaul. But before he was admitted to this alliance, he was obliged to stipulate that this princess should enjoy the free exercise of her religion, which was that of Christianity. She was, therefore, attended to Canterbury, the place of her residence, by Luidhard, a Gaulish prelate, who officiated in a church dedicated to St. Martin, which had been built by the Romans, near the walls of Canterbury. The exemplary conduct, and powerful preaching, of this primitive bishop, added to the queen's learning and zeal, made very strong impressions upon the king, as well as the rest of his subjects, in favour of Christianity. The general reception of this holy religion all over the continent, might also contribute to dispose the minds of these idolaters for its admission, and make the attempt less dangerous than Augustine and his associates at first supposed. This pious monk, upon his first landing in the Isle of Thanet, sent one of his interpreters to the Kentish king, declaring he was come from Rome with offers of eternal salvation. In the mean time, he and his followers lay in the open air, that they might not, according to the belief of the times, by entering a Saxon house, subject themselves to the power of heathen necromancy. The king immediately ordered them to be furnished with all necessaries, and even visited them, though without declaring himself as yet in their favour. Augustine, however, encouraged by this favourable reception, and now seeing a prospect of success, proceeded with redoubled zeal to preach the gospel, and even endeavoured to call in the aid of miracles to enforce his exhortations. So much assiduity, together with the earnestness of his address, the austerity of his life, and the example of his followers, at last powerfully operated. The king openly espoused the Christian religion, while his example wrought so successfully on his subjects, that numbers of them came voluntarily to be baptized, their missionary loudly declaring against any coercive means towards their conversion. The heathen temples, being purified, were changed to Christian places of worship; and such churches as had been suffered to decay, were repaired. To facilitate the reception of Christianity, the pope enjoined his missionary to remove the pagan idols, but not to throw down the altars, observing, that the people would be allured to frequent those places which they had been taught to revere. He also permitted him to indulge the people in those feats and cheerful entertainments, which they had been formerly accustomed to celebrate near the places of their idolatrous worship. The people thus exchanged their ancient opinions with readiness, since they found themselves indulged in those innocent relaxations, which are only immoral when carried to an excess. Augustine was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, endowed with authority over all the British churches; and his associates, having spread themselves over all the country, completed that conversion which was so happily begun. The kingdom of the heptarchy which next embraced the Christian faith, was that of Northumberland, at that time more powerful than the rest. Edwin, a wise, brave, and active prince, then king of the country, was married to Ethelburga, the daughter of Ethelbert, who had been so lately converted. This princess, emulating the glory of her mother, who had been the instrument of converting her husband and his subjects to Christianity, carried Paulinus, a learned bishop, with her into Northumberland, having previously stipulated for the free exercise of her religion. Edwin, whom his queen unceasingly solicited to embrace Christianity, for a long time hesitated on the proposal, willing to examine its doctrines before he declared in their favour. Accordingly, he held several conferences with Paulinus, disputed with his counsellors, meditated alone, and, after a serious discussion, declared himself a Christian. The high-priest also of the pagan superstition, soon after declaring himself a convert to the arguments of Paulinus, the whole body of the people unanimously followed their example. The authority of Edwin, who was thus converted, soon after prevailed upon Earpwold, king of the East Angles, to embrace Christianity. This monarch, however, after the death of Edwin, relapsed into his former idolatry, at the persuasion of his wife. But upon his decease, Sigebert, his half brother, who had been educated in France, restored Christianity, and introduced learning among the Angles. Mercia, the most powerful kingdom of all the Saxon_heptarchy, owed its conversion, like the former, to a woman. The wife of Peada, who was the daughter of Oswy, king of Northumberland, having been bred in the Christian faith, employed her influence with success in converting her husband and his subjects. But it seems the new religion was attended with small influence on the manners of that fierce people, as we find Offa, one of their newconverted kings, in a few reigns after, treacherously destroying Ethelbert, king of the East Angles, at an entertainment to which he had been invited. However, to make atonement for this transgression, we find him paying great court to the clergy, giving the tenth of his goods to the church, and making a pilgrimage to Rome, where his riches procured him the papal absolution. It was upon this occasion, the better to ingratiate himself with the pope, that he engaged to pay him a yearly donation, for the support of an English college at Rome; and, in order to raise the sum, be imposed a tax of a penny on each house possessed of thirty-pence a year. This imposition being afterwards generally levied throughout the kingdom, went by the name of Peter-pence, and in succeeding times gave rise to many ecclesiastical abuses. In the kingdom of Essex, Sebert, who was nephew to Ethelbert, king of Kent, of whose conversion we have already made mention, was also prevailed upon by his uncle to embrace the Christian religion. His sons, however, relapsed into idolatry, and banished Melitus, the Christian bishop, from their territories, because he refused to let them eat the white bread which was distributed at the communion. But Christianity was restored two or three reigns after, by Sigebert the Good; and such was the influence of its doctrines upon Offa, the fourth in succession from him, that he went upon a pilgrimage to Rome, and shut himself up during the rest of his life in a cloister. We know little of the propagation of Christianity in the kingdom of Sussex; but this being the smallest of all the Saxon heptarchy, it is probable that it was governed in its opinions by some of its more powerful neighbours. It is said, that during the reign of Cissa, one of its kings, which continued seventy-six years, the kingdom fell into a total dependence upon that of Wessex, and to this it is probable that it owed its conversion. The kingdom of Wessex, which in the end swallowed up all the rest, deserves our more particular attention. This principality, which, as has been already related, was founded by Cerdic, was, of all the Saxon establishments in Britain, the most active and warlike. The great opposition the invaders of this province originally met from the natives, whom they expelled, not without much bloodshed, served to carry their martial spirit to the highest pitch. Cerdic was succeeded by his son Kenric, and he by Ceaulin, a prince more ambitious and enterprising than either of the former. He had, by waging continual war against the Britons, added a great part of the counties of Devon and Somerset to his dominions; and, not satisfied with conquests over his natural enemies, he attacked the Saxons themselves, till, becoming terrible to all, he provoked a general confederacy against him. This combination took place; so that he was at last expelled from the throne, and died in exile and misery. His two sons succeeded; and, after a succession of two more, Kynegils inherited the crown. This prince embraced Christianity through the persuasion of Oswald, king of Northumberland, his son-in-law. After some succeeding obscure reigns, Ceadwalla mounted the throne, an enterprising, warlike, and successful prince. He subdued entirely the kingdom of Sussex, and annexed it to his own dominions. He made also some attempts upon Kent, but was repulsed with vigour. Ina, his successor, was the most renowned and illustrious of all the kings who reigned in England during the heptarchy. This monarch inherited the military virtues of Ceadwalla, but improved by policy, justice, and prudence. He made war upon the Britons, who yet remained in Somersetshire; and having totally subdued that province, he treated the vanquished with a humanity hitherto unknown to the Saxon conquerors. In less than a year after he mounted the throne of Wessex, he was declared monarch of the Anglo Saxons: a remarkable proof of the great character he had acquired. He compiled a body of laws, which served as the ground-work of those which were afterwards published by Alfred. He also assembled a general council of the clergy, in which it was determined that all churches, monasteries, and places of religious worship, which had gone to ruin or decay, should be rebuilt or repaired. At length, after a distinguished reign of thirty-eight years, in the decline of life, he made a pilgrimage to Rome; and, on his return home, shut himself up in a cloister, where he died. To him succeeded Ethelard, Cudred, Sigebert, Cenulph, and Brithric; all these claiming the crown, not entirely by hereditary right, nor vet totally rejecting their family pretensions. It was in the reign of the last-named monarch, that Egbert, great-grandson to a nephew of king Ina, began to grow very popular among the West Saxons, both on account of his family and private merit. But sensible, however, of the danger of popularity, under such a jealous monarch as Brithric, he withdrew secretly into France, to the court of Charlemagne, at that time the most polished prince of Europe. This was a school in which young Egbert failed not to make a rapid proficiency; and he soon acquired such accomplishments, both in arts and arms, as raised him greatly superior to any of his countrymen at home. Nor was it long before this prince had an opportunity of displaying his natural and acquired talents to advantage; for, Brithric being poisoned by his wife Eadburga, the nobility recalled him from France, in order to ascend the throne of his ancestors. About that time also, [^. D. 800.] a fortunate concurrence of events seemed to prepare the way for his being sole monarch of the country. In all the kingdoms of the heptarchy, an exact rule of succession was little regarded; while, at the same time, family pretensions were not laid totally aside. Every person of the collateral line had as good a right to assert his claim as those who urged direct descent; so that the reigning monarch was under continual apprehensions from the princes of the blood, whom he was taught to consider as rivals, and whose death alone could ensure him tranquillity. From this fatal cause, together with the passion princes then had of retiring to inonasteries, and the opinion of merit attending the preservation of chastity, even in a married state; from these causes. I say, the royal families had been entirely extinguished in all the kingdoms, except that of Wessex. Thus Egbert was the only surviving descendant of those conquerors who boasted their descent from Woden; and consequently, beside his personal merit, he had hereditary pretensions to the throne of the united kingdoms. It is indeed probable that he had already planned the union of the heptarchy; but, in order to avert the suspicions of the neighbouring states, he attacked the Britons in Cornwall, and continued to act as mediator among the Saxon princes, whose differences were become almost irreconcileable. His moderation in these good offices, the prudence he manifested in his own government, and his known capacity in the affairs of war and peace, procured him such a degree of reputation, that he was soon considered as chief of the Saxon heptarchy. But his ambition was not to be satisfied with a mere nominal superiority; he still aimed at breaking down all distinctions, and uniting these petty states into one great and flourishing kingdom. The king of Mercia was the first who furnished him with a pretext for recovering the part of his dominions which had formerly been dismembered by that state. Beornulf, the monarch of that country, who had already almost obtained the sovereignty over the heptarchy, taking advantage of Egbert's absence, who was employed in quelling the Britons, invaded his dominions with a numerous army, composed of the flower of his country. Egbert was not remiss in marching to oppose him with a body of troops less numerous than those of Beornulf, but more brave and resolute. Both armies met at Wilton, and a battle ensuing, the Mercians were defeated with terrible slaughter. In the mean time, while the victor pursued his conquest into the enemies' country, he despatched bis eldest son, Ethelwolf, with an army, into the kingdom of Kent, who soon made himself master of the whole nation, and expelled Baldred, their monarch, to whom his subjects had paid a very unwilling obedience. The East Saxons also, and part of Surrey, dissatisfied with their subjection to the Mercians, readily submitted to Egbert; nor were the East Angles backward in sending ambassadors to crave his protection and assistance against that nation, whose yoke they had for some time endured, and were resolved no longer to bear. The Mercian king, attempting to repress their defection, was defeated and slain: and, two years after, Ludecan, his successor, met with the same fate. Withlaf, one of their eoldermen, soon after put himself at their head; but, being driven from province to province by the victorious arms of Egbert, he was, at last, obliged to take shelter in the abbey of Croyland, while Egbert made himself master of the whole kingdom of Mercia. However, in order to accustom that people to his dominion, he permitted Withlaf to govern the kingdom as a vassal and tributary under him; thus at once satisfying his ambition, and flattering the people with an appearance of the former government. The king of Northumberland was the last that submitted to his authority. This state had been long harassed by civil wars and usurpations: all order had been destroyed among the people, and the kingdom was weakened to such a degree, that it was in no condition to withstand such an invader as Egbert. The inhabitants, therefore, unable to resist his power, and desirous of possessing some established form of government, very cheerfully sent deputies, who submitted to his authority, and expressed their allegiance to him as their sovereign. By this submission, all the kingdoms of the heptarchy were united under his command; but, to give splendour to his authority, a general council of the clergy and laity was summoned at Winchester, where he was solemnly crowned king of England, by which name the united kingdom was thenceforward called. Thus, about four hundred years after the first arrival of the Saxons in Britain, all their petty settlements were united into one great state; [A. D. 827.] and nothing offered but prospects of peace, security, and increasing refinement. About this period, the arts and sciences, which had been before only known to the Greeks and Romans, were disseminated over Europe, where they were sufficient to raise the people above mere barbarians, but yet lost D all their native splendour in the transplantation. The English, at this time, might be considered as polite, if compared to the naked Britons at the invasion of Cæsar. The houses, furniture, clothes, and all the real luxuries of sense, were almost as great then as they have been since. But the people were incapable of sentimental pleasure. All the learning of the time was confined among the clergy; and little improvement could be expected from their reasonings, since it was one of their tenets to discard the light of reason. An eclipse was even, by their historians, talked of as an omen of threatened calamities; and magic was not only believed, but some actually believed themselves magicians. Even the clergy were not averse to these opinions, as such, in some measure, served to increase their authority. Indeed, the reverence for the clergy was carried so high, that if a person appeared in a sacerdotal habit on the highway, the people flocked round him, and, with all the marks of profound respect, received every word he uttered as an oracle. From this blind attachment, the social, and even the military virtues, began to decline among them. The reverence towards saints and relics served to supplant the adoration of the Supreme Being. Monastic observances were esteemed more meritorious than active virtues; and bounty to the church atoned for all the violences done to society. The nobility, whose duty it was to preserve the military spirit from declining, began to prefer the sloth and security of a cloister, to the tumult and glory of war; and those rewards which should have gone to encourage the soldier, were lavished in maintaining the credulous indolence of monastic superstition. CHAP. IV. From the ACCESSION of EGBERT to the NORMAN CONQUEST. Ir might have been reasonably expected, that a wise and fortunate prince, at the head of so great a kingdom, and so united and numerous a people as the English then were, should not only have enjoyed the fruits of peace and quiet, but left felicity to succeeding generations. The inhabitants of the several provinces, tired out with mutual dissensions, seemed to have lost all desire of revolting the race of their ancient kings was extinct, and none now remained but a prince who deserved their allegiance, both by the merit of his services, and the splendour of his birth. Yet such is the instability of human affairs, and the weakness of man's best conjecture, that Egbert was hardly settled on his united throne, when both he and his subjects began to be alarmed at the approach of new and unknown enemies, and the island exposed to fresh invasions. About this time, a mighty swarm of those nations who had possessed the countries bordering on the Baltic, began, under the names of Danes and Normans, to infest the western coasts of Europe, and to fill all places whereever they came, with slaughter and devastation. These were, in fact, no other than the ancestors of the very people whom they came to despoil, and might be considered as the original stock from which the numerous colonies that infested Britain, had migrated some centuries before. The Normans fell upon the northern coasts of France; the Danes chiefly levelled their fury against England, their first appearance being in 787, when Brithric was king of Wessex. It was then that a small body of them landed on the coasts of that kingdom, with a view of learning the state of the country; and having committed some small depredations, fled to their ships for safety. About seven years after the first attempt, they made a descent upon the kingdom of Northumberland, where they pillaged a monastery; but their fleet being shattered by a storm, they were defeated by the inhabitants, and put to the sword. It was not till about five years after the elevation of Egbert to the sovereignty of England, that their invasions became truly formidable. From that time they continued with unceasing ferocity, until the whole kingdom was reduced to a state of the most distressful bondage. As the Saxons had utterly neglected their naval power since their first |