Imperat.
Constant. VII. 6.
Lichefeldensis episcopatus in archiepiscopatum designatur ab Offa rege. Ex codice S. Alban. de vita Offæ regis. MS. p. 153. citante clar. Spelm.
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In illo quoq. concilio Offa, rex Merciorum potentissimus, in regem fecit solemniter coronari filium suum primogenitum Egfredum, juvenem strenuum et elegantem, moribusq. decenter redimitum; qui deinceps cum patre idem militans, et in omnibus obsecundans, usq. ad finem vitæ ejus conregnavit.—Wilkins, p. 152.
See also Rapin’s England, vol. 1. b. 3. A. D. 785 or 787: but Matth. West. assigns 789 for the date of this council.
Calchythe, the Chelsea of the present day, was the residence of Offa in the latter part of his reign. It appears to have been chosen from its proximity to London (caput regni Merciorum. V. Will. Malmsb. de Gest. Regum, l. 2. c. 4.), many of the municipal laws and privileges of which may fairly be traced to this era. The Lord Mayor, the representative of the Mercian king, is the only individual named in the acknowledgment of a new sovereign; and his official permission must be obtained before the proclamation can take place in the city. These, with many other civic privileges, appear to be the shadows of ancient royalty, standing forth amid the record of past days, the ghostlike remnant of a once more substantial glory!
Among these were the important enactments that no persons of illegitimate birth should ascend the throne, or inherit private property, and that kings should be “a sacerdotibus et senioribus populi eligantur;” that the Nicene Creed should be adopted; that bishops should visit their dioceses once a year; that tithes were to be paid, but that no tributes to the church were to be larger than was provided by the Roman law; that the rich and powerful should judge righteous judgment; with other provisions of minor importance.
Brief as is this notice of the Anglo-Saxon government, it is sufficient to show, that it was indebted to Offa for alterations and improvements, which, from the security and length of his reign, and their subsequent adoption by the great Alfred, may be fairly conceived to have been dictated by judgment, and enforced by a prudent exercise of power.
The first irruption of the Danes into Britain is said to have taken place during Offa’s reign, and to have been by him, for a time at least, successfully repressed.[15] But there is one event to which no allusion has yet been made, which has had greater effect in inducing posterity to form a judgment on his character than even the repulse of the early attacks of the Vikingr. An event that, if unrecorded, would have left him an almost stainless glory, but which, when fairly stated, leaves the painful impression that the blot of homicide darkens his otherwise fair escutcheon.