A letter which Karl wrote to Athelhard of Canterbury begging him to intercede for some exiles, sets forth his style and title very differently[129], evidently at a later date.
It bears very directly upon one of the complaints which, as we have seen, Offa had made in letters to Karl; namely, the shelter afforded at Karl’s court to fugitives from Mercia.
“Karl, by the grace of God king of the Franks and Lombards and Patrician of the Romans, to Athilhard the archbishop and Ceolwulf his brother bishop, eternal beatitude.
“In reliance on that friendship which we formed in speech when we met, we have sent to your piety these unhappy exiles from their fatherland; praying that you would deign to intercede for them with my dearest brother king Offa, that they may be allowed to live in their own land in peace, without any unjust oppression. For their lord Umhrinsgstan[130] is dead. It appeared to us that he would have been faithful to his own lord if he had been allowed to remain in his own land; but, as he used to say, he fled to us to escape the danger of death, always ready to purge himself of any unfaithfulness. That reconciliation might ensue we kept him with us for a while, not from any unfriendliness.
“If you are able to obtain peace for these his fellow tribesmen, let them remain in their fatherland. But if my brother gives a hard reply about them, send them back to me uninjured. It is better to live abroad than to perish, to serve in a foreign land than to die at home. I have confidence in the goodness of my brother, if you plead strenuously with him for them, that he will receive them benignantly for the love that is between us, or rather for the love of Christ, who said, Forgive and it shall be forgiven you.
“May the divine piety keep thy holiness, interceding for us, safe for ever.”
It was a skilful stroke of business on Karl’s part to send the men over to the charge of the archbishop, which amounted to putting them in sanctuary. If he had kept them in France and written to beg that they might be allowed to return, it would have been much easier for Offa to say no. And if he had sent them direct to Offa in the first instance, they would probably never have got out of his clutches at all.
CHAPTER VII
List of the ten kings of Northumbria of Alcuin’s time.—Destruction of Lindisfarne, Wearmouth, and Jarrow, by the Danes.—Letters of Alcuin on the subject to King Ethelred, the Bishop and monks of Lindisfarne, and the monks of Wearmouth and Jarrow.—His letter to the Bishop and monks of Hexham.