[15] It was in this reign that the Danes first made their appearance on the British coast. “The reve (sheriff of the county) then rode thereto, and would drive them to the king’s town; for he knew not what they were; and there was he slain. These were the first ships of the Danish men, that sought the nation of the English.”—Ingr. Sax. Chron.
After Brithric, king of Wessex, and Æthelred of Deira had, with the hands of his daughters Eadburga and Ælfleda, received their kingdoms once again in subjection to themselves, Albert, or Ethelbert, king of the East-Angles, came with a lordly train to sue for the hand of Alfreda, the remaining daughter.[16] Brave, yet pious; elegant, yet modest; exalted in station, yet humble in soul; the amiable and interesting Ethelbert was publicly welcomed to the court of Offa. The festal hall was decked for his reception, the spousal banquet spread, the goblet graced the board. The hospitable meal in seeming friendly confidence passed over; the prince retired to his sumptuous couch to rest; and the morrow brought the accession of a kingdom’s wealth to Mercia clogged by the weight of treacherous and inhospitable murder![17]
[16] A. D. 791. Eadburga married Brithric king of Wessex.—M. West. 282. Chr. Mailros, 139; but 787 is the date assigned to this event in Ingr. Sax. Chron.
792. “This year Offa, king of Mercia, commanded that king Ethelbert should be beheaded; and Osred who had been king of the Northumbrians (Deira), returning home after his exile, was apprehended, and slain on the eighteenth day before the calends of October. His body is deposited at Tinemouth. Ethelred this year, on the third day before the calends of October, took unto himself a new wife, whose name was Elfleda.”—Ingr. Sax. Chron. p. 79. Chron. Mailr.
The following couplet describes the person and character of the unfortunate Ethelbert.
“Albertus juvenis fuerat rex, fortis in armis,
Pace pius, pulcher corpore, mente sagax.”
Vita Offæ Secundi.
For fuller particulars see an interesting chapter in Holinshed’s History, b. 6. ch. 5.
[17] The Monk of St. Albans agrees with Matth. Westr. in recording that Cynedritha proposed to Offa the murder of their guest, but that he indignantly refused; and that subsequently she prepared a device of a sinking platform in Ethelbert’s chamber, so that when he threw himself on his couch it sank with his weight, and he was immediately suffocated by assassins who were on the watch in the chamber below. The difference however in the latter part of their narratives is as follows: M. Westr. states that Offa secluded himself from public and refused to taste food for three days,—but that, notwithstanding, as Ethelbert had died without heirs he despatched a powerful force to East Anglia to take possession of the kingdom. The Monk of St. Alban’s, in the most approved style of legendary lore, proceeds with the history of Ethelbert’s body after his murder. He states that his head was cut off, after suffocation, and the body and head being put into a sack were carried away: being dark, the head rolled out unseen and unobserved, and a blind man chancing to come that way kicked against it—he took it up, and anointed his eyes with the sacred blood, and immediately his sight was restored! Poetic justice is also dispensed to Cynedritha by this writer: he affirms that Offa had her shut up in punishment and seclusion for ever: that some years afterwards her place of retirement was broken in upon by robbers for the sake of her gold and silver, and that she was precipitated down her own well where her wretched existence was terminated. The archbishop of Lichfield is further stated to have begged the body of Ethelbert and buried it at Hereford, where miracles were performed by it! Matth. West. A. D. 792.—Vita Offæ Secundi.