But we are not compelled to draw upon the stores of poetry and imaginative tradition alone: the sober records of our earlier annalists supply ample evidence in corroboration of the philosophical historian. When Cwichelm of Wessex sent an assassin to cut off Eáduuini of Northumberland, that prince was saved by the devotion of his thane Lilia, who threw himself between, and received the blow that was destined for his master; in the words of Beda[307]: “Quod cum videret Lilla minister regis amicissimus, non habens scutum ad manum quo regem a nece defenderet, mox interposuit corpus suum ante ictum pungentis; sed tanta vi hostis ferrum infixit, ut per corpus militis occisi etiam regem vulneraret.” Again we learn that in the year 786, Cyneheard, an ætheling of Wessex, who had pretensions to the crown, surprised the king Cynewulf at the house of a paramour at Merton, and there slew him. He proffered wealth and honours to the comites of the king, which they refused, and with small numbers manfully held out till every one had fallen. On the following morning a superior force of the king’s thanes came up: to them again the ætheling offered land and gold, but in vain: he was slain on the spot with all his own comites, who refused to desert him in his extremity. This is the account given of these facts in the words of the Saxon Chronicle itself[308]: And ðá gebeád he him heora ágenne And then he offered them their own dóm feos and londes, gif hie him desire of money and land, if they ðæs ríces úðon, and him cýðde, ðæt would grant him the kingdom, and he heora mǽgas him mid wǽron, ða ðe told them that their own relatives him from noldon. And ðá cwǽdon hie, were with him, who would not desert ðæt him nǽnig mǽg leófra nǽre ðonne him. Then said they, that no heora hláford, and hie næfre his relative was dearer to them than banan folgian noldon. And ðá budon their lord, and that they never hie heora mǽgum ðæt hie him gesunde would follow his murderer. And then from eódon. And hie cwǽdon, ðæt ðæt they offered their relatives that ilce heora geferum geboden wǽre ðe they should leave him, with safety ǽr mid ðám cyninge wǽron; ðæt hie for themselves: but they said, that hie ðæs ne onmunden, ðon má ðe the same offer had been made to eówre geferan ðe mid ðám cyninge their own comrades who at first ofslægene wǽron. were with the king: that they paid no more attention to it, than your comrades who were slaughtered with the king.