years earlier than his _ducatus_, that is, that he was _rex_ in 802, but not _dux_ till 812. Now it is especially observable that in 812 he had not yet commenced that career of successful aggression against the other Saxon kingdoms, which justified the Chronicler in numbering him among those whom Camden and Rapin call the Monarchs, and Palgrave the Emperors of Britain. He did not attack Mercia and subdue Kent till 825: in the same year he formed his alliance with Eastanglia: only in 820 did he ruin the power of Mercia, and receive the submission of the Northumbrians. But in the year 812 he did move an army against the Welsh, and remained for several months engaged in military operations within their frontier: there is every reason then to think that the _ducatus_ of Ecgberht is only a record of those conquests over his British neighbours, which enabled him to turn his hand with such complete success against his Anglosaxon rivals; and thus that it has no reference to the expression used by Beda to express the factitious preponderance of one king over another. Let us now inquire to what the passage in the Saxon Chronicle amounts, which has put so many of our historians upon a wrong track, by supplying them with the suspicious name Bretwalda. Speaking of Ecgberht the Chronicler says[19], “And the same year king Ecgberht overran the kingdom of the Mercians, and all that was south of the Humber; and he was the eighth king who was Bretwalda.” And then, after naming the seven mentioned by Beda, and totally omitting all notice of the Mercian kings, he concludes,—“the eighth was Ecgberht, king of the Westsaxons.” ----- Footnote 17: Chron. Sax. an. 591, 597. Footnote 18: Cod. Dipl. Nos. 1038, 1039, 1041. Footnote 19: Chron. Sax. an. 827. -----