However, what I have clearly ascertained concerning the four kingdoms, I have inserted in my first book, in which I hope truth will find no cause to blush, though perhaps a degree of doubt may sometimes arise. I shall now trace the monarchy of the West Saxon kingdom, through the line of successive princes, down to the coming of the Normans: which if any person will condescend to regard with complacency, let him in brotherly love observe the following rule: “If before, he knew only these things, let him not be disgusted because I have inserted them; if he shall know more, let him not be angry that I have not spoken of them;” but rather let him communicate his knowledge to me, while I yet live, that at least, those events may appear in the margin of my history, which do not occur in the text. CHAP. I. _The history of king Egbert._ [A.D. 800-839.] [Sidenote: [A.D. 800-828.] OF KING EGBERT.] My former volume terminated where the four kingdoms of Britain were consolidated into one. Egbert, the founder of this sovereignty, grand-nephew of king Ina, by his brother Ingild, of high rank in his own nation, and liberally educated, had been conspicuous among the West Saxons from his childhood. His uninterrupted course of valour begat envy, and as it is almost naturally ordained that kings should regard with suspicion whomsoever they see growing up in expectation of the kingdom, Bertric, as before related, jealous of his rising character, was meditating how to destroy him. Egbert, apprised of this, escaped to Offa, king of the Mercians. While Offa concealed him with anxious care, the messengers of Bertric arrived, demanding the fugitive for punishment, and offering money for his surrender. In addition to this they solicited his daughter in marriage for their king, in order that the nuptial tie might bind them in perpetual amity. In consequence Offa, who would not give way to hostile threats, yielded to flattering allurements, and Egbert, passing the sea, went into France; a circumstance which I attribute to the counsels of God, that a man destined to rule so great a kingdom might learn the art of government from the Franks; for this people has no competitor among all the Western nations in military skill or polished manners. This ill-treatment Egbert used as an incentive to “rub off the rust of indolence,” to quicken the energy of his mind, and to adopt foreign customs, far differing from his native barbarism. On the death, therefore, of Bertric, being invited into Britain by frequent messages from his friends, he ascended the throne, and realized the fondest expectations of his country. He was crowned in the year of our Lord’s incarnation 800, and in the thirty-fourth year of the reign of Charles the Great, of France, who survived this event twelve years. In the meantime Egbert, when he had acquired the regard of his subjects by his affability and kindness, first manifested his power against