same potion, unknown to the queen. The rumour of this getting abroad, drove the poisoner from the kingdom. Proceeding to Charles the Great, she happened to find him standing with one of his sons, and after offering him presents, the emperor, in a playful, jocose manner, conomanded her to choose which she liked best, himself, or his son. Eadburga choosing the young man for his blooming beauty, Charles replied with some emotion, "Had you chosen me, you should have had my son, but since you have chosen him, you shall have neither." He then placed her in a monastery where she might pass her life in splendour; but, soon after, finding her guilty of incontinence he expelled her.[1] Struck with this instance of depravity, the Saxons framed the regulation I have alluded to, though Ethelwulf invalidated it by his affectionate kindness. He made his will a few months before he died, in which, after the division of the kingdom between his sons Ethelbald and Ethelbert, he set out the dowry of his daughter, and ordered, that, till the end of time, one poor person should be clothed and fed from every tenth hide of his inheritance, and that every year, three hundred mancas of gold[2] should be sent to Rome, of which one-third should be given to St. Peter, another to St. Paul for lamps, and the other to the pope for distribution. He died two years after he came from Rome, and was buried at Winchester in the cathedral. But that I may return from my digression to my proposed series, I shall here subjoin the charter of ecclesiastical immunities which he granted to all England.
"Our Lord Jesus Christ reigning for evermore. Since we perceive that perilous times are pressing on us, that there are in our days hostile burnings, and plunderings of our wealth, and most cruel depredations by devastating enemies, and many tribulations of barbarous and pagan nations, threatening even our destruction: therefore I Ethelwulf king of the West Saxons, with the advice of my bishops and nobility, have established a wholesome counsel
