those whom he surpassed in power. This, indeed, is spotless nobility; this, exalted virtue; to excel in worth those whom you exceed in rank. Besides, extending his care to posterity, he enacted laws, in his native tongue, in which he appointed rewards for the meritorious, and opposed severer restraints to the abandoned, leaving nothing doubtful for the future.[1]
Ethelbert died in the twenty-first year after he had embraced the Christian faith, leaving the diadem to his son Edbald. As soon as he was freed from the restraints of paternal awe, he rejected Christianity, and overcame the virtue of his stepmother.[2] But the severity of the divine mercy opposed a barrier to his utter destruction: for the princes, whom his father had subjugated, immediately rebelled, he lost a part of his dominions, and was perpetually haunted by an evil spirit, whereby he paid the penalty of his unbelief. Laurentius, the successor of Augustine, was offended at these transactions, and after having sent away his companions, was meditating his own departure from the country, but having received chastisement from God, he was induced to change his resolution.[3] The king conversing with him on the subject, and finding his assertions confirmed by his stripes, became easily converted, accepted the grace of Christianity, and broke off his incestuous intercourse. But, that posterity might be impressed with the singular punishment due to apostacy, it was with difficulty he could maintain his hereditary dominions, much less rival the eminence of his father. For the remainder of his life, his faith was sound, and he did nothing to sully his reputation. The monastery also, which his father had founded without the walls of Canterbury,[4] he ennobled with large estates, and sumptuous presents. The praises and merits of both these men ought ever to be proclaimed, and had in honour by the English; because they allowed the Christian faith to acquire
- ↑ See Wilkins's "Leges Anglo-Saxonicæ," and the Textus Roffensis.
- ↑ The name of the second queen of Ethelbert is not mentioned, probably on account of this incest.
- ↑ St. Peter, it is said, appeared to Laurentius at night, and reproaching him for his cowardice, severely chastised him with a scourge; the marks of which had the effect here mentioned the next day. Bede ii. 6. According to Sprott, St. Laurentius became archbishop of Canterbury, a.d. 610.
- ↑ St. Augustine's, Canterbury, completed, according to Sprott, a.d. 663.
