disdaining to confess his crimes when in health, saw, manifestly, when at the point of death, those very demons coming to punish him to whose vicious allurements he had surrendered his soul.
After him reigned Ceolred, the son of Ethelred his uncle, as conspicuous for his valour against Ina, as pitiable for an early death; for not filling the throne more than eight years, he was buried at Lichfield, leaving Ethelbald, the grandnephew of Penda by his brother Alwy, his heir. This king, enjoying the sovereignty in profound and long-continued peace, that is, for the space of forty-one years, was ultimately killed by his subjects, and thus met with a reverse of fortune. Bernred, the author of his death, left nothing worthy of record, except that afterwards, being himself put to death by Offa, he received the just reward of his treachery. To this Ethelbald, Boniface,[1] archbishop of Mentz, an Angle by nation, who was subsequently crowned with martyrdom, sent an epistle, part of which I shall transcribe, that it may appear how freely he asserts those very vices to have already gained ground among the Angles of which Alcuin in after times was apprehensive. It will also be a strong proof, by the remarkable deaths of certain kings, how severely God punishes those guilty persons for whom his long-suspended anger mercifully waits.
[2] "To Ethelbald, my dearest lord, and to be preferred to all other kings of the Angles, in the love of Christ, Boniface the archbishop, legate to Germany from the church of Rome,
- ↑ Boniface, whose original name was Winfred, after unwearied labour in the conversion of various nations in Germany, by which he acquired the honourable appellation of Apostle of the Germans, at length suffered martyrdom in Friesland. A collected edition of his works forms volumes XV. and xvi. of Patres Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ by the editor of this work. One of the original churches, built by him in Saxony, still exists in the Duchy of Gotha, at a little village called Gierstedt.
- ↑ See this epistle at length in Spelmanni Concilia, vol. i. page 232, and reprinted by Wilkins, Concilia, i. 87, also in Bonifacii Opera, &.c.
seized with sickness, he appears to have imagined that he saw two angels approach with a very small volume, in which were written the few good actions he had ever performed; when immediately a large company of demons advancing, display another book of enormous bulk and weight, containing all his evil deeds, which are read to him; after which, asserting their claim to the sinner against the angels, they strike him on the head and feet, as symptoms of his approaching end. Bede, b. v. c. 13.
