In Leland’s Collectanea, vol. 1. p. 210, the following marvellous record is also to be found: “Ethelbertus (after death) cuidam Brithfrid prædiviti viso apparuit, jubens, ut ejus corpus efferret ad locum nomine stratus waye, et juxta monaster: eodem loco situm sepeliret. Brithfrid adjuncto socio Egmundo quod jussit fecerunt, et corpus una cum capite in loco qui Fernlega, id est saltus filicis, dicebatur, nunc vero Hereford, sepeliverunt.”
It has been the effort of several historians to cast the blame of this foul transaction upon Offa’s queen Cynedritha; but as all concur in stating the welcome given to the youthful monarch, and the subsequent and immediate assumption of dominion over his realms by his intended father-in-law, no inference can be drawn but that Offa was himself a particeps criminis: and when viewed even in the most lenient possible light an accessory after the fact.
Brief was the monarch’s career posterior to this inhuman deed. Ere two years had passed he sank overwhelmed with remorse and sorrow into the cold embraces of the tomb. Within five months his promising successor, Egfrid, followed him to the grave—his abandoned queen soon closed her vicious career—the betrothed bride of the murdered Ethelbert wasted her widowed beauty in the monasterial walls of Croyland—Eadburga, the profligate and homicidal widow of Brithric perished miserably—and the race of Offa no more existed in the land![18]
[18] A. D. 794. “This year died pope Adrian; and also Offa, king of Mercia, on the fourth day before the ides of August, after he had reigned forty winters. Everth (Egfrid) took to the government and died the same year.”—Ingr. Sax. Chr., p. 65. 80. V. also Speed’s Chron., p. 345, A. D. 794. Chron. Mailros, A. D. 796. M. West., 797. Ethelward’s Chron., 840. Bromton, 748–52. Leland’s Collectanea, vol. 1. p. 210. Ingulphus by Gale, p. 7. Hoveden, 410. Huntingdon, 344. Flor. Wig., 281. Higden, 251. Radulf. de Dicet., 446. Asseri Annal., 154. Malmsbury by Savile, 88. Spelman’s Concilia, 308. Holinshed, book 6. ch. 4.
The following is the dreadful character of Eadburga as given by Asser “de Ælfredi rebus gestis.”—p. 3.
“Cujus (viz. Offæ) filiam nomine Eadburgh Beorhtric occidentalium Saxonum rex sibi in conjugium accepit: quæ confestim accepta regis amicitia, et totius pene regni potestate, more paterno tyrannice vivere incœpit, et omnem hominem execrari, quem Beorhtric diligeret, et omnia odibilia Deo et hominibus facere: et omnes quos posset, ad regem accusare, et ita aut vita aut potestate per insidias privare: et si a rege impetrare non posset, veneno eos necabat: sicut de adolescente quodam regi dilectissimo hoc factum compertum habetur: quem cum ad regem accusare non posset, veneno eum necavit. De quo veneno etiam præfatus ille Beorhtric rex inscienter gustasse aliquid refertur. Neque enim illa venenum dare regi proposuerat, sed puero, sed rex præoccupavit: inde ambo periere.”
According to the same authority (p. 4) this wretched woman died a beggar in Pavia.
I have not succeeded in ascertaining what became of Ælfleda, but her husband “Ethelred, king of the Northumbrians, was slain by his own people on the thirteenth day before the calends of May,” in the same year that Offa died.—V. Ingr. Sax. Chr. p. 80.
The mind of the philosopher, the historian, and the poet, must alike reflect with pain, that there was one gigantic genius who might lay claim to the laurels of all, and could yet allow his opinions to be so biassed by prejudice as to declare the records of the times to which we have been alluding to be worthless as a history of the contests of kites and crows![19] The intellect that controlled the infancy of a mighty nation was spurned, because it did not chance to be in existence when that nation had advanced to maturity—but it surely needs no new observation to pronounce that the germs of originality will develop themselves at all times and under all circumstances. Events may doubtless occur to evolve them with a peculiar force, and education and early habit may deck them with characteristic colouring; but where the spirit of originality—the essence of causation—exists, it will find a vent for its exhibition, whether it rise in the breast of an Offa amid an age of comparative barbarism, or burst from the mind of a Napoléon, to stalk with the grandeur of a son of Anak superior to a host of petty minds, narrowed by the extreme polish of that very civilization upon which they chiefly pride themselves.
[19] Milton.