Chap. XIII.—Penda is killed by Oswy. Cadwalla dies.
By these and other words to the same effect, Cadwalla was prevailed upon to grant the permission desired. And Penda, having assembled a vast army, went to the Humber, and laying waste that country, began a fierce war upon the king. Oswy was at last reduced to such extremity, that he was forced to promise him innumerable royal ornaments, and other presents more than one would believe, if he would desist from ruining his country, and return home without committing any more hostilities. But when the other could by no entreaties be prevailed upon to do it, the king, in hopes of divine assistance, though he had a less army, however, gave him battle near the River Winwid, and having killed Penda and thirty other commanders, gained the victory. Penda's son Wulfred, by a grant from Cadwalla, succeeded to the kingdom, and joining with Eafa and Eadbert, two leaders of the Mercians, rebelled against Oswy; but at last, by Cadwalla's command, made peace with him. At length, after forty-eight years were expired, that most noble and potent king of the Britons, Cadwalla, being grown infirm with age and sickness, departed this life upon the fifteenth before the kalends of December. The Britons embalmed his body, and placed it with wonderful art in a brazen statue, which was cast according to the measure of his stature. This statue they set up with complete armour, on an admirable and beautiful brazen horse, over the western gate of London, for a monument of the above-mentioned victory, and for a terror to the Saxons. They also built under it a church in honour of St. Martin, in which divine ceremonies are celebrated for him and the others who departed in the faith.
Chap. XIV.—Cadwallader succeeds Cadwalla.
He was succeeded in the kingdom by Cadwallader,[226] his son, whom Bede calls the youth Elidwalda. At first he maintained the government with peace and honour; but after twelve years' enjoyment of the crown, he fell into a fit of sickness, and a civil war broke out among the Britons. His mother was Penda's sister, by the same father but a different mother, descended from the noble race of the Gewisseans. For Cadwalla, after his reconciliation with her brother, made her the partner of his bed, and had Cadwallader by her.
FOOTNOTES:
[226] Probably the same as Cædwalla, king of Wessex, noticed by Bede and the Saxon Chronicle, although the British and Saxon authorities differ in their genealogical statements.