dominions of her brother, the king of Kent, under whose protection she passed the rest of her days in a monastery.

Penda, however, did not long retain the supremacy which he had thus acquired. In the course of a few months, an unexpected opponent arose to dispute his claims, and to deliver Northumbria from his oppressive domination, in the person of Oswald, son of Adelfrid, who, on the death of his father, had fled with his two brothers, Anfrid and Oswy, to Scotland, and had been since hospitably entertained at the court of the northern monarch. As soon as Oswald raised his standard, the ancient subjects of his father crowded around him, and he was ere long in condition to attack the combined forces of Penda and Cadwallader. In a battle which was fought at Haledon, or as other authorities say, at Dilston, Oswald obtained a complete victory over his enemies, and Cadwallader himself was left dead on the field. The imperial sceptre of Britain was now transferred to the possessor of the two thrones of Bernicia and Deira, to both of which he was also entitled of right, as the heir of his father and of his uncle. For about eight years after this he reigned in great glory, being distinguished as much for his piety as for his power, and calling himself, according to Bede, sovereign lord not only of the English, but also of the Welsh, the Picts, and the Scots. So popular did he render himself by his liberality, that the Britons themselves are said to have bestowed upon him the appellation of Oswald of the Bounteous Hand. However, in 642, he was again suddenly attacked by his old enemy Penda; and in a great battle which was fought, as is generally supposed, at Oswestry, in Shropshire, he not only sustained a complete defeat, but lost his life. Penda, nevertheless, was not able to follow up his victory in such a manner as to wrest either the kingdom of Northumbria, or the dignity of Bretwalda, from the family of his rival. After a short time, Oswy, the brother of Oswald, was raised by the people to the vacant throne, and although he was not for some time acknowledged by his brother sovereigns as Bretwalda, he eventually obtained also that dignity on defeating Penda, in a battle fought at Leeds, in which that restless disturber, in the eightieth year of his age, at last lost both his crown and his life. Oswy had married Anfleda, the daughter and only surviving child of his predecessor Edwin; and on his death, in 670, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Egfrid, born of his lady. According to some accounts, Egfrid also enjoyed his father's place of Bretwalda; but if he ever was in possession of this title, it appears that he did not retain it long. The kingdom of Mercia was soon wrested from his hands by Wulfer, the son of Penda; and he was himself at last slain in battle, while carrying on a war against the Picts, in the fortieth year of his age and the fifteenth of his reign. After his death his subjects raised to the throne, Alfred, the natural son of his father Oswy; and from this time the kingdom of Northumbria never recovered its ancient lustre and influence. The throne, on almost every vacancy, became a prey to the leader of some one of the numerous factions that distracted the state; and, although the country maintained a nominal independence for considerably more than a century, under about fifteen successive monarchs, until it was finally extinguished by Egbert the Great, the remainder of its history present little or nothing that is worth recording,

Wulfer of Mercia seems now to have assumed the supreme power, at least over that part of the island which lay to the south of the Humber. For a long time after this the contest for the authority of Bretwalda would appear to have been waged principally between the two kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex, fortune inclining sometimes to the one and sometimes to the other. Among the sovereigns of the latter kingdom, one of the most valorous was Ina, who is said to have obtained such decided advantages over Ceolred, king of Mercia, that he was unanimously acknowledged as Bretwalda by his brother-princes. Ina, however, at last, about the year 727, thought proper to relinquish his diadem for the cowl of a monk; and upon this event, Ethelbald, the successor of Ceolred, was declared supreme monarach. But in 757, Ethelbald was defeated by Cuthred, king of Wessex, and was soon after murdered. His throne was at first usurped by Beornred the tyrant, as he was denominated; but in the course of a few months the people raised to the throne one of the noblemen, named Offa, a descendant of their ancient king Wibba, the son of Cridda, the founder of the monarchy. Offa, named by his enemies Offa the terrible, turned out a great warrior, and soon made himself one of the most powerful monarchs that had ever reigned in England. He attacked the Welsh with so much skill and valour as ere long to reduce them to complete subjection. He may be almost said to have effected the entire conquest of the kingdom of Kent-which indeed had never again risen to any importance since the days of Ethelbert-by a victory which he gained over its king Aldric. The kingdom of Essex, also, of which by the bye the history has been more imperfectly preserved than that of any of the other states, and which seems never to have played any other than a very subordinate part-appears to have submitted itself to his authority. London is expressly stated to have become part of his dominions. Of East Anglia, which had made no figure since the death of Redwald, he made himself master by an act of the foulest treachery, having at the instigation of his queen, Cynedrida, ordered Ethelbert, the young king of that state, to be murdered, after having received him at his court with every show of hospitality, when he came as a suitor for the hand of his daughter, Etheldrida. Immediately after the perpetration of this atrocious deed, he marched an army into East Anglia, and easily effected its subjugation. Wessex, also, which had so long been the rival of Mercia, Offa succeeded in effectually keeping in check; and the better to maintain his ascendancy, he gave his daughter Eadburga, a woman animated with all his own unscrupulous ambition, in marriage to Brithric, the sovereign of that kingdom. Having thus widely extended his influence in his dominions, he summoned a great council of his prelates and nobles, and with their concurrence assumed his son Egfrith as the associate of his throne. Offa, who held his court at Tamworth, was a friend and correspondent of the famous Charlemagne ; and several letters which passed between the two emperors are still preserved, from which it appears that the latter regarded the former as holding the same supremacy in the west of Christendom which he claimed for himself in the east.

On the death of Offa in 796, he was succeeded by his son Egfrid, both in the possession of the united kingdoms of Mercia and East Anglia, and in the sovereignty of England. Egfrid, however, reigned

only a few months, and was succeeded the same year by his nearest relation, Cenulph, a descendant from a younger son of Wibba. Cenulph proved himself a warlike and able monarch, and in the course of a reign of twenty four years, added to the dominions of his ancestors the kingdom of Kent, the conquest of which, however, may be said to have been already effected in every thing but in name and form by Offa. But on the death of Cenulph in 819, the imperial sceptre was destined to pass from the occupant of the throne of Mercia, into the hands of one better fitted, if not by nature, at least by education and by circumstances, than any of his predecessors, to turn to account the advantageous position in which he was thus placed. This was the young Egbert, king of Wessex, whose reign forms so memorable an epoch in the history of his country. The five immediate successors of Ina in the throne of Essex, all belonged to a younger branch of the posterity of Cenric. Of these, the last was Brithric, who married Eadburga the daughter of Offa. The line, however, of Keaulin, the eldest son of Cenric, was still unextinguished; and, as its representative, Egbert was the true heir to the throne. Even during the lifetime of Brithric, this prince, who it appears had been permitted to remain in the kingdom, had so much ingratiated himself with the people of Wessex as to have occasioned considerable jealousy in the breast of the reigning sovereign. Fearing the consequences, Egbert fled in the first instance to the court of the king of Mercia; but Brithric having immediately requested Offa to deliver him up, he made his escape to France. Here the royal fugitive was very graciously received by the emperor Charlemagne; and at his court he remained till the death of Brithric, who, about the year 800, was poisoned by his profligate queen. The history of this woman, we may remark by the bye, is one of the romances of real life. The daughter of one of the most powerful monarchs of that time, she was brought up in the bosom of luxury and indulgence; she then for a considerable number of years occupied a throne herself; from this high estate she precipitated herself by the crime we have mentioned; on her guilt being detected she fled from the indignation of the people to the court of her father's friend, the emperor of France; Charlemagne, from regard to Offa, not only sheltered her, but placed her in a rich abbey as its abbess; but even in this quiet retreat her conduct was so depraved that after a short time it was found neccesary to dismiss her; and she spent her last days a beggar in the streets of Pavia! To return, however, to Egbert: immediately on the death of Brithric, the West Saxons resolved to offer the crown to the legitimate heir of their ancient princes, and Egbert, accordingly, being recalled, mounted the throne. It would seem that from the very commencement of his reign this politic prince, whose natural abilities had no doubt received a better education at the French court than they could have had at home, devoted himself to making preparations for the great design which he eventually executed. He was, it is said, especially assiduous in training his subjects to the use of arms, initiating them probably in various new evolutions and lessons of military skill which he had learned abroad. The first warlike measures, however, in which he actually engaged were directed not against any of his Saxon neighbours, but against the Britons of Cornwall. These he very soon subdued, and added the district which they

inhabited to his hereditary dominions. It was probably this important conquest which on the death of Cenulph of Mercia, who left only an infant son, was conceived to point out Egbert as the natural inheritor of the dignity of Bretwalda. He accordingly assumed that high office; none of his brother-potentates presuming to oppose his pretensions. But he was far from intending to hold the supreme power merely as an empty honour. He had resolved to be king of England in reality as

well as in name.

After the throne of Mercia had been filled first by Cenelm, the young son of Cenulph, who was assassinated by his elder sister Quendrida, and then by Ceolulph, the brother of Cenulph, who reigned only about a year, it was mounted by Bernulph, one of the nobility, the head of the faction by whom his predecessor had been deposed. The distractions occasioned by this usurpation, and the unfortunate events which had led to it, so much weakened that lately powerful state, that the watchful observation of the king of Wessex soon determined him to strike his first blow for the empire of his country by an attack on Mercia. He had, however, the art, even while carrying this resolution into effect, to escape the odium of seeming to be the assailant. The mere preparations which he made, and the rumours of his intentions which he caused to be spread abroad, awakened to such a degree the apprehensions and the rage of Bernulph, that that prince deemed it best, instead of waiting the threatened attack, to advance at once against his enemy. The two armies met near Salisbury, and the Mercians were defeated with immense slaughter. This victory paved the way to the rapid conquest of the various possessions of Bernulph, which indeed, consisting as they did in great part of dissatisfied dependencies, formed together but an ill-cemented and precarious dominion. The whole of Kent was wrested from the Mercian sovereignty and annexed to Wessex by the result of a single battle. About this time also Egbert seems to have taken possession of the kingdom of Essex, which probably was in no condition to offer him even the feeblest resistance. The only states therefore that now retained their independence were those of Northumberland and Mercia, the former comprising the united kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia, the latter having under it the conquered realm of East Anglia. But both were torn by divisions, originating in the same cause,—the failure or displacement of the ancient royal line, and the consequent struggles, repeated on the death of almost every sovereign, among the various competitors for the vacant throne. Mercia was still farther weakened by the nature of its connection with East Anglia, which rather endured its yoke than formed an incorporated part of its territory. Egbert took advantage of this state of things first by secretly encouraging the East Angles to revolt, and then by openly joining them in the war of liberty which he had thus persuaded them to wage. The power of Bernulph was quite unable to stand against this combination. In an engagement with his revolted tributaries his forces were defeated, and he himself left dead on the field. The war, however, was not at once terminated by this event. The Mercians chose another king; and, after losing him also, a second, who for some time attempted to make head against the victorious ruler of Wessex. But the force with which they had to contend was too over

whelming to be either subdued or beaten back by all their efforts. After some farther fighting Egbert made himself completely master of the kingdom, which, together with that of East Anglia, he immediately annexed to his own, merely permitting Witglaph, the reigning king, on the solicitation of Siward, abbot of Croyland, to retain his nominal sovereignty during his life, on condition of doing homage and paying tribute to his conqueror.10 After all this the conquest of Northumberiand happened almost as a matter of course. Indeed the king Andred, on Egbert advancing into his country, did not even attempt to make any resistance, but at once submitted to his fate, and consented, like his neighbour the king of Mercia, to swear allegiance to Egbert as his sovereign lord." The conquests of Egbert were completed about the year 827 from which period, accordingly, his reign as king of England is commonly dated.

We have entered with the more minuteness into the detail of the great events which wind up the history of what is usually called the Saxon Heptarchy, because this is really the most interesting passage of our ancient annals at which we have yet arrived. With the Britons, or original inhabitants of the island, we feel that we have little more to do than with any other savages in a similar state of barbarism. Their blood is in the veins of comparatively few of us. The Romans during the whole period of their residence in the country remained essentially foreigners, and left little behind them to prove that they had ever trod upon our soil. But the Saxons were the fathers both of our lineage and our language, as well as of all the more deep-rooted among the national institutions and social customs that still subsist among us. The present population, both of England, exclusive of Wales, and of Scotland, exclusive of the Highlands, is mainly Anglo-Saxon, the produce of that offshoot of the great Gothic family, which, although somewhat rudely transplanted hither, has eventually taken far deeper root and spread far wider than any of the older natives of the clime. It was the Saxons who first built up and sustained among us the blessing of a regular domestic government-who, in other words, first made England a nation. We may well therefore dwell with some interest on the events and circumstances which brought about the final consolidation, under the single sway of Egbert the Great, of that fabric of polity which, during some previous centuries, had been rising as it were in so many separate parts in the different states which he eventually united. In taking leave of the Heptarchy we may merely make two farther observations; first, that in some of the states, and especially in Mercia and East Anglia, the succession of tributary kings or viceroys seems to have continued at least to the close of the ninth century; and secondly that traces of the original division of England under the Saxons may even now be detected both in our local customs and in some of our laws as for instance, in the usage of Gavel-kind, or the equal division of landed property among all the sons, which prevails in Kent, having been the ancient British law, which, in that first acquired province, the Saxon law of primogeniture never supplanted. To the same circumstance, namely, its having been made over to the Saxons rather than taken by them from the Britons by force of arms, Kent owes in all probability the other distinction of being the only district of the kingdom 10 Ingulf. 7, 8.

Chron. Sax. 71.