Henry Mackenzie

“ The mind of the philosopher, the historian, and the poet, [Pg 25] must alike reflect with pain, that there was one gigantic genius who might lay claim to the laurels of all, and could yet allow his opinions to be so biassed by prejudice as to declare the records of the times to which we have been alluding to be worthless as a history of the contests of kites and crows! ”

“ The object of History is to make the experience of past ages subservient to the use of the present; and the object of Education to enable the existing generation to take advantage of the experience so afforded. But if that portion of History most rich in traits of nature, most prolific in change, most useful in developing the workings of unsophisticated mind, be neglected, it were absurd to imagine that the present age could derive the benefit such [Pg 3] period affords from other sources, which are undeniably less adequate to bestow it. ”

“ Brave, yet pious; elegant, yet modest; exalted in station, yet humble in [Pg 23] soul; the amiable and interesting Ethelbert was publicly welcomed to the court of Offa. The festal hall was decked for his reception, the spousal banquet spread, the goblet graced the board. The hospitable meal in seeming friendly confidence passed over; the prince retired to his sumptuous couch to rest; and the morrow brought the accession of a kingdom’s wealth to Mercia clogged by the weight of treacherous and inhospitable murder! [17]
[16] A. D. 791. Eadburga married Brithric king of Wessex.—M. West. ”

“ After such specimens of prowess on the part of the Mercian king, it is no marvel that the kings of Deira and of Sussex should seek a distant and friendly land as the scene of their operations against the successful Offa. They sought refuge and assistance at the court of Marmodius, king of Wales; and against the Britons accordingly Offa next directed his arms. Aided by their native fastnesses these new opponents afforded protracted resistance on the western boundary of his kingdom, and with them and their Saxon allies he had many and severe engagements. ”

“ Although the clergy and natives of Kent were naturally opposed to an innovation which so materially affected their ecclesiastical importance, the king of Mercia succeeded in obtaining from Pope Adrian the First permission to prosecute his design; and the bishops of Worcester, Leicester, Chester, and Hereford, and of the East-Angles Helmham with Norfolk, and Domuck, or Donwich, with Suffolk, were, some years later, subjected to the Bishop of Lichfield: London, however, Rochester, Winchester, and Sherbourn remained in the diminished province of Canterbury. ”

“ The attention of the student is so universally directed in modern days to the attainment of Classic Literature, and to the knowledge of that period of History which has been stamped at once as the age of the purest taste and of the highest philosophy, that the youth of our country are too generally in entire ignorance of the early history of their own race ”

“ But the laws of Ina are annexed to the statute of Alfred, and perhaps we only possess them in his edition. There was no incorporate union of the Saxon kingdoms, and it is, therefore, probable that there were two promulgations of Alfred’s laws, one statute for the West-Saxons, and to which the laws of Ina were appended, and another for Mercia, since lost, to which the laws of Offa were, in like manner, annexed. ”

“ It has been the effort of several historians to cast the [Pg 24] blame of this foul transaction upon Offa’s queen Cynedritha; but as all concur in stating the welcome given to the youthful monarch, and the subsequent and immediate assumption of dominion over his realms by his intended father-in-law, no inference can be drawn but that Offa was himself a particeps criminis: and when viewed even in the most lenient possible light an accessory after the fact. ”

“ Poetic justice is also dispensed to Cynedritha by this writer: he affirms that Offa had her shut up in punishment and seclusion for ever: that some years afterwards her place of retirement was broken in upon by robbers for the sake of her gold and silver, and that she was precipitated down her own well where her wretched existence was terminated. The archbishop of Lichfield is further stated to have begged the body of Ethelbert and buried it at Hereford, where miracles were performed by it! Matth. West. ”

“ In no condition can the natural propensities of man be learned so readily as in a natural condition; and the more civilization has increased in any country, so much the more difficult will it be to lay down a Code of Laws which shall have the effect of correcting the natural evils and vicious propensities of the natives of the clime. ”

“ The intellect that controlled the infancy of a mighty nation was spurned, because it did not chance to be in existence when that nation had [Pg 26] advanced to maturity—but it surely needs no new observation to pronounce that the germs of originality will develop themselves at all times and under all circumstances. ”

“ All error is prolific in its offspring—the stigma of darkness which has been passed upon the period that elapsed between the fourth and the tenth centuries has caused them if not actually to be shunned, at least to be lightly esteemed in the course of study ”

“ The entire improvements which Offa introduced into the legislation of his kingdom and subjected territories are, at the present day, too difficult of discovery to be clearly elucidated, unless the foregoing hypothesis be adopted: but there may be excepted from this difficulty the laws passed at the legatine council in his reign, held at Calchythe, A. D. 785, when Egfrid his son was associated with him in the government. ”

“ The friendship of monarchs, however, from its intimate [Pg 12] connexion with political expediency, is necessarily unstable: nor was that of Offa and Charlemagne without interruption. The Frank desired the hand of a daughter of Offa for his natural son Charles; but this the Mercian sovereign refused unless Bertha, the daughter of the emperor of the west, were bestowed upon Egfrid his own son and heir. The demand excited the anger of Charlemagne; and, in consequence, disregarding the wise remonstrances of his council, he closed the ports of Gaul against the merchants of Anglo-Saxon Britain. ”

“ A brief review of the Anglo-Saxon system of government may, perhaps, be here not inapplicably inserted, in order to convey some definite idea of Offa’s position as the sovereign of Mercia, and enable the reader to trace more satisfactorily the improvements which he was the means of introducing into Britain.
The prescriptive constitution of the Anglo-Saxons was decidedly of a liberal form, and to it may be traced the [Pg 14] majority of our own liberal institutions ”

“ It is of course with diffidence that any opinion is set forth which seems to run counter to so eminent an authority as Palgrave; but there does appear a plausible reason (if not a sufficient one) for the laws of Offa not being found under a separate title; viz., that the laws termed those of Alfred, independent of Ina and Ethelbert, [Pg 18] were those of Offa! This idea is corroborated by the circumstance, that Alfred did not assume to himself so much credit as a Lawmaker as a collector and improver of laws ”

“ He made large gifts of land near Sandwich “monachis ecclesiæ Christi Doroberniæ” at the request of archbishop Iambertus, A. D. 773, Canterbury (Cant-wara-burh) having been burned a few years before.—Dugd. Mon. Angl.
He freed the abbey of Woking A. D. 775. “In the days of this same Offa was an alderman of the name of Brorda who requested the king for his sake to free his own monastery, called Woking, because he would give it to Medhamsted and St. Peter, and the abbot that then was, whose name was Pusa. Pusa succeeded Beonna; and the king loved him much. ”

“ The sovereign of Mercia, however, spurned his threats, and proceeded to effect his conquests. Carloman in the meanwhile dying, left his kingdom to Charlemagne, to whom the five kings repeated their supplications for aid, which was again promised, and Charlemagne wrote enjoining Offa to desist from attacking them. ”

“ About A. D. 240, they united with the Francs (the Free people) to oppose the progress of the Romans towards the north. By this league and other means the Saxon influence was increased till they possessed the vast extent of country embraced by the Elbe, the Sala, and the Rhine, in addition to their ancient territory from the Elbe to the Eyder. After many of the Saxons had migrated to Britain, the parent stock on the Continent had the name of Old Saxons.—Preface to Bosworth’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary.
[2] “Dominabatur Rex Offa Magnus in viginti tribus provinciis quas Angli Shiras appellant.” ”

“ After, Offa granted it out of every dwelling house that had ground thereto, occupied to the yearly value of thirty pence, excepting the lands which he had purposed for the monastery of St. Albans. This Offa had a much larger dominion than Ina, and was king over three and twenty shires. After whom Æthelwolf passed a new grant thereof out of his whole kingdom, which was well nigh all that part which was called Saxony, with this proviso, nevertheless, that where a man had divers dwelling houses he was only to pay for that house wherein he dwelt at the time of payment. ”

“ Speed further states, that Offa built a church in Warwickshire after his return from Rome, “where the adjoining town from it and him beareth the name of Off-Church:” and that at Bath he built “another monastery.” Perhaps it is to this last, and not to St. Peter’s church which was rebuilt by him (see ante) , to which Dugdale refers in his Mon. Angl. when he says, “Monasterium Batoniense rex Offa construxit, quod post rex Edgarus, sicut alia monasteria reparavit.”
To the above Holinshed adds the church of Hereford, which he states that he “indowed with great revenues.” Hist. Engl. b. 6. ch. 4. ”

“ Holinshed thus writes: “Eadulphus, bishop of Lichfield, was adorned with the pall and taken for archbishop, having all those bishops within the limits of king Offa his dominion suffragans unto him; namelie, Denebertus, bishop of Worcester, Werebertus, bishop of Chester, Eadulphus, bishop of Dorchester, Wilnardus, bishop of Hereford, Halard, bishop of Eltham and Cedferth, Tedfrid, bishop of Donwich.” “But (as saith another writer, Will. of Malmsbury,) this iniquity did not long deform canonical institutions.” ”

“ Alban’s, that Offa was instigated in his ambitious views by his wife Cynedritha, or believe that he simply acted on the defensive against the confederate monarchs of Deira, East-Anglia, Kent, Sussex, and Wessex, certain it is that his wars with these opponents terminated to his glory and their disgrace. ”

“ South Saxons, or Sussex. Kent. East Saxons, or Essex. East-Anglia. Mercia. Deira. And Bernicia.
[4] It is not rendered clear from the confused statements of the early historians, whether the latter, who attempted to seize the crown, succeeded in holding it for any length of time; but it is certain, from the language of the venerable Bede (Eccl. Hist. l. 5. c. ult.) as well as from other authorities, that Offa had to contend for the diadem before he wore it, and not without effusion of blood possessed the regal dignity. ”

“ Cumq. inclytus rex Offa eleganter perorasset, Romanus Pontifex humiliter ac favorabiliter inclinato capite, sic respondit. “O regum christianissimè, fili Offa, devotionem tuam circa regni tui protomartyrem, non mediocriter commendamus.” Nec nos quamvis, remotos, latet vestra strenuitas vel sincera sanctitas. Verè Cælibem vitam agentibus, meritò mittendus fuit angelus, cum castitati cognita sit puritas angelica, et cum favorabilis sit persona tua, favorabilior est causa quam proponis in medio, et labor tuæ peregrinationis acceptus est altissimo. ”

“ And the king freed the monastery of Woking against king, against bishop, against earl, and against all men: so that no man should have any claim there except St. Peter and the abbot. This was done at the king’s town called Free-Richburn.”—Ingr. Sax. Chron. p. 75.
After Bath had been devastated by the Danes Offa rebuilt the church of St. Peter about A. D. 775.—Tanner’s Notitia Monastica. V. Somersetshire I.
At Bredon or Breordun he founded or endowed a monastery A. D. 780.—Tanner’s Not. Mon. III. Worcestershire 5.—Dugd. Mon. Angl. ”

“ Inde peragrantes pervenimus ad aulam Offæ regis Merciorum. At ille cum ingenti gaudio ob reverentiam beati Petri, et vestri apostolatus honorem suscepit tam nos, quam sacros apices a summa sede delatos.
Tunc convenerunt in unum concilium Offa, rex Merciorum, et Chuniulphus, [Pg 19] rex West Saxonum; cui etiam tradidimus vestra syngrammata sancta; ac illi continuo promiserunt se de his vitiis corrigendos. Tunc inito concilio cum prædictis regibus, pontificibus, et senioribus terræ, perpendentes quod angulus ille longè latèq. protenditur ”