Teutonians, obtained the sovereignty. His son Henry, who succeeded him, sent to Athelstan king of the Angles, for his two sisters, Aldgitha and Edgitha, the latter of whom he married to his son Otho, the former to a certain duke near the Alps. Thus the empire of the Romans and the kingdom of the Franks being severed from their ancient union, the one is governed by emperors and the other by kings. But as I have wandered wide from my purpose, whilst indulging in tracing the descent of the illustrious kings of the Franks, I will now return to the course I had begun, and to Ethelwulf.
On his return after his year's peregrination and marriage with the daughter of Charles the Bald, as I have said, he found the dispositions of some persons contrary to his expectations. For Ethelbald his son, and Ealstan bishop of Sherborne, and Enulph earl of Somerset conspiring against him, endeavoured to eject him from the sovereignty; but through the intervention of maturer counsel, the kingdom was divided between the father and his son. This partition was extremely unequal; for malignity was so far successful that the western portion, which was the better, was allotted to the son, the eastern, which was the worse, fell to the father. He, however, with incredible forbearance, dreading "a worse than civil war," calmly gave way to his son, restraining, by a conciliatory harangue, the people who had assembled for the purpose of asserting his dignity. And though all this quarrel arose on account of his foreign wife, yet he held her in the highest estimation, and used to place her on the throne near himself, contrary to the West Saxon custom. For that people never suffered the king's consort either to be seated by the king or to be honoured with the appellation of queen, on account of the depravity of Eadburga, daughter of Offa, king of the Mercians; who, as we have before mentioned, being married to Bertric, king of the West Saxons, used to persuade him, a tender-hearted man, as they report, to the destruction of the innocent, and would herself take off by poison those against whom her accusations failed. This was exemplified in the case of a youth much beloved by the king, whom she made away with in this manner: and immediately afterwards Bertric fell sick, wasted away and died, from having previously drunk of the
