must undergo mightier torments, and a severer trial awaits the strong." Without saying more, by this striking example, she gained over her husband to those sentiments, which she had in vain attempted for years by persuasion.[1]
For after his triumphal spoils in war; after many successive degrees in virtue, he aspired to the highest perfection, and went to Rome. There, not to make the glory of his conversion public, but that he might be acceptable in the sight of God alone, he was shorn in secret; and, clad in homely garb, grew old in privacy. Nor did his queen, the author of this noble deed, desert him; but as she had before incited him to undertake it, so, afterwards, she made it her constant care to soothe his sorrows by her conversation, to stimulate him, when wavering, by her example; in short, to omit nothing that could be conducive to his salvation. Thus united in mutual affection, in due time they trod the common path of all mankind. This was attended, as we have heard, with singular miracles, such as God often deigns to bestow on the virtues of happy couples.
To the government succeeded Ethelard, the cousin of Ina; though Oswald, a youth of royal extraction, often obscured his opening prospects. Exciting his countrymen to rebellion, he attempted to make war on the king, but soon after perishing by some unhappy doom, Ethelard kept quiet possession of the kingdom for fourteen years, and then left it to his kinsman, Cuthred, who for an equal space of time, and with similar courage, was ever actively employed:—
"In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I, Cuthred, king of the West Saxons, do hereby declare that all the gifts of former kings–Kentwin, Baldred, Kedwall, Ina, Ethelard, and Ethbald king of the Mercians, in country houses, and in villages and lands, and farms, and mansions, according to the confirmations made to the ancient city of Glastonbury, and confirmed by autograph and by the sign of the cross, I do, as was before said, hereby decree that this grant of former kings shall remain firm and inviolate, as long as the revolution of the pole shall carry the lands and seas with regular move-
- ↑ All this passage, from "What splendour, p. 35, to persuasion," is omitted in some MSS., and is given in a note by Hardy and Sharpe ; but it seems almost necessary to the context.
