The undoubted veracity of the historian precludes the possibility of supposing this matter to be false; as does also the blessed bishop Acca,[264] who was the friend of the author. Egbert, king of Kent, the son of Erconbert, whom I have mentioned before, had some very near relations, descended from the royal line; their names were Ethelred[265] and Ethelbert, the sons of Ermenred his uncle. Apprehensive that they might grow up with notions of succeeding to the kingdom, and fearful for his safety, he kept them about him for some time, with very homely entertainment: and, at last, grudging them his regards, he removed them from his court. Soon after, when they had been secretly despatched by one of his servants named Thunre, which signifies Thunder, he buried them under heaps of rubbish, thinking that a murder perpetrated in privacy would escape detection. The eye of God however, which no secrets of the heart can deceive, brought the innocents to light, vouchsafing many cures upon the spot; until the neighbours, being roused, dug up the unsightly heaps of turf and rubbish cast upon their bodies, and forming a trench after the manner of a sepulchre, they erected a small church over it. There they remained till the time of king Edgar, when they were taken up by St. Oswald, archbishop[266] of Worcester, and conveyed to the monastery of Ramsey; from which period, granting the petitions of the suppliant, they have manifested themselves by many miracles. Offa king of the Mercians murdered many persons of consequence for the security, as he supposed, of his kingdom, without any distinction of friend or foe; among these was king Ethelbert;[267] thereby being guilty of an atrocious outrage against the suitor of his daughter. His unmerited death, however, is thought to have been amply avenged by the short reign of Offa’s son. Indeed God signalised his sanctity by such evident tokens, that at this very day the episcopal church of Hereford is consecrated to his name. Nor should any thing appear idle or irrelevant, which our pious and religious ancestors have either tolerated by their silence, or confirmed by their authority.