died first, Kenwulf would have aspired to the same power. The Mercian king left his son Kinelm, who was only seven years of age, and heir to the throne, to the charge of his sisters. Windreda, the eldest, was not long before she caused her brother to be put to death. His tutor, Askebert, was the instrument chosen by this unnatural sister to accomplish the deed. It is said that she promised to share with him the sovereignty. Under the pretence of hunting, the unsuspicious prince was led into a neighbouring wood, and there murdered. The spot in which the body was interred was, after some time, discovered by a herdsman, who went in search of one of his cows which had gone astray; a miracle in the old monkish legends is appended to the discovery. The sceptre of Mercia was wrested from the hands of Windreda by her uncle, Ceolwulf, who, however, did not retain it long before he was driven from the throne by Beornwulf, which revolution soon shook the kingdom of Mercia to its very centre. Egbert still stood aloof; the time for action had not yet arrived. He foresaw that the last usurper would not long remain inactive; nor was he wrong. Beornwulf rushed headlong into a war with Wessex. The battle took place at Wilton, which, in ancient times, was called Ellan; and although the Mercians mustered together the largest force upon the field, Egbert, after a sharp contest, won the victory. Although the king of Wessex did not carry his victorious arms at once into Mercia, he lost no time in annexing Kent to his dominions, thus weakening at once his rival's power. To accomplish this, he despatched his son Ethelwulf, the father of our Alfred the Great, with a strong force into Kent, who drove the vassal king across the Thames. Egbert next promised to support the East Anglians, if they would rise and declare themselves independent of the Mercian king. He kept his word. Beornwulf fell in the first battle. Ludecan succeeded him, and also perished in the next contest. Wiglaf then took the command of the Mercian forces, but before he had time to strengthen his army, and make up for their previous defeats, Egbert was upon him, and the power of Wessex was at last triumphant. Wiglaf fled into the monastery of Croyland, and appears to have been so closely pursued, that he was compelled to seek shelter in the very cell which the daughter of Offa occupied--the sanctity of which the invaders respected: here he remained four months. What a shock must the feelings of the fair nun have undergone when the last defender of Mercia rushed into her little apartment to save his life--from the very night when she fled from her father's palace, pale and woe-begone, and horror-struck at the murder of her intended husband--from that very night had the fortune of her family begun to decline, and now she was all that remained of the once powerful house of Offa. What changes had that Saxon princess witnessed, what shifting scenes could she recal as she sat in the solitude of her