Certainly, it must be admitted that the exception of the Men of Kent, in the case of Eádwini, is a serious blow to the Bretwalda theory. I have used the word _predominance_, to express the _ducatus_ or _leadership_, of Beda, and it is clear that such a leadership is what he means to convey. But in all the cases which he has cited, it is equally clear from every part of his book, that the fact was a merely accidental one, fully explained by the peculiar circumstances in every instance: it is invariably connected with conquest, and preponderant military power: a successful battle either against Kelt or Saxon, by removing a dangerous neighbour or dissolving a threatening confederacy, placed greater means at the disposal of any one prince than could be turned against him by any other or combination of others; and he naturally assumed a right to dictate to them, _iure belli_, in all transactions where he chose to consider his own interests concerned. But all the facts in every case show that there was no concert, no regular dignity, and no regular means of obtaining it; that it was a mere fluctuating superiority, such as we may find in Owhyhee, Tahiti, or New Zealand, due to success in war, and lost in turn by defeat. On the rout of Ceawlin, the second Bretwalda, by the Welsh, we learn that he was expelled from the throne, and succeeded by Ceólwulf, who spent many years in struggles against Angles, Welsh, Scots and Picts[17]: according to Turner’s and Lappenberg’s theory, he was the very man to have been made Bretwalda; but we do not find this to have been the case, or that the dignity returned to the intervening Sussex; but Æðelberht of Kent, whose ambition had years before led him to measure his force against Ceawlin’s, stepped into the vacant monarchy. The truth is that Æðelberht, who had husbanded his resources, and was of all the Saxon kings the least exposed to danger from the Keltic populations, was enabled to impose his authority upon his brother kings, and to make his own terms: and in a similar way, at a later period, it is clear that Rædwald of Eastanglia was enabled to deprive him of it. I therefore again conclude that this so-called Bretwaldadom was a mere accidental predominance; there is no peculiar function, duty or privilege anywhere mentioned as appertaining to it; and when Beda describes Eádwini of Northumberland proceeding with the Roman _tufa_ or banner before him, as an ensign of dignity, he does so in terms which show that it was not, as Palgrave seems to imagine, an ensign of imperial authority used by all Bretwaldas, but a peculiar and remarkable affectation of that particular prince. Before I leave this word _ducatus_, I may call attention to the fact that Ecgberht, whom the Saxon Chronicle adds to the list given by Beda, has left some charters in which he also uses it[18], and that they are the only charters in which it does occur. From these it appears that he dated his reign ten