BOOK 654. Oswin killed. 655. Penda's fate. man betrayed him to Oswy, and suffered him to be murdered.16 Oswin had given to his betrayer the possessions he enjoyed. The soldiers of Oswy, whom he guided, entered the house in the night. Tondhere offered himself to their fury, to save his lord and friend; but had only the consolation to perish with him.17 Oswy was, however, destined to free the AngloSaxon octarchy from Penda. When this aged tyrant was preparing to invade his dominions, he sued long and earnestly for peace in vain. At the age of eighty, the pagan chief, encouraged by his preceding successes, still courted the chances and the tumult of battle. Rejecting the negotiations repeatedly offered, he hastened with the veterans whom he had long trained, to add Oswy to the five monarchs whose funeral honours recorded him as their destroyer. With trembling anxiety Oswy met him, with his son Alfred, and a much inferior force; but the battle is not always given to the strong, nor the race to the swift. Penda had filled up the measure of his iniquities, and Providence released the country from a ruler, whose appetite for destruction age could not diminish. He rushed into the battle with Oswy confident of victory, but the issue was unexpectedly disastrous to him. Penda, with thirty commanders, perished before the enemy, whose greatest strength they had subdued, and whose present feebleness they despised. The plains of Yorkshire witnessed the emancipation of England.18 Oidilwald, the son of Oswald, was with the forces of Penda, but not desirous to assist him. When the battle began, he withdrew from the conflict, and waited calmly for the event in a distant position. This secession may have produced a panic 16 Bede, lib. iii. c. 14. 17 Dugd. Mon. i. 333. 18 Sax. Chron. 33. Bede, lib. iii. c. 24. Winwidfield, near Leeds, was the theatre of the conflict. Camden, Gib. 711.-Bede does not explicitly assert that Penda had three times the number of forces, but that it was so reported. among the troops of Penda, or by occupying the jealous attention of part of them, diminished the number which acted against Oswy. The principal leaders of the Mercians fell in defending Penda, and the country happening to be overflowed, more perished by the waters than by the sword. By the death of Oswin the hexarchy returned; by the death of Penda, a pentarchy appeared; for the kingdom of Mercia was so weakened by the result of this battle, that it fell immediately into the power of Oswy, who conquered also part of Scotland. VIII. 655. troduces Christianity Mercia. Penda, during his life, had appointed one of his sons, Peada, a youth of royal demeanour and great merit, to be king of that part of his dominions and conquests which were called Middle Angles; Peada Peada inhad visited Oswy in Northumbria, and solicited his daughter, Alchfleda, in marriage. To renounce his into idols and embrace Christianity, was made the condition of her hand. As his father was such a determined supporter of the ancient Saxon superstition, and was of a character so stern, the princess must have inspired her suitor with an ardent affection to have made him balance on the subject. Peada submitted to hear the Christian preachers; and their three great topics, the resurrection, the hope of future immortality, and the promise of a heavenly kingdom, inclined him to adopt the religion which revealed them. The persuasions of Alfred, the eldest and intelligent brother of the princess, who had married his sister Cyneburga, completed the impression. He decided to embrace Christianity, even though Alchfleda should be refused to him. He was baptized with all his earls and knights, who had attended him, and with their families, and took four priests home with him to instruct his people.19 The 19 Bede, lib. iii. c. 21. The names of the four priests were, Cidd, Adda, Betti, and Diuma. The three first were Angles, the last an Irishman, ibid. 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 Mercia about two years before Penda's death.2 His character was violent and ambitious, but his 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. 20 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 popu lation, 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 assasassassinated 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. It was called Medeshamstede, because there was a well there named Medes-wel. Sax. Chron. 33. BOOK III. 659. Cenwalch 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. 29 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 Wulfhere'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. |