om the north AEthelred, Wulfhere's successor,
attacked it on the Mercian border, and the war was only ended by a peace
which left him master of Middle-England and free to attempt the direct
conquest of the south. For the moment this attempt proved a fruitless
one. Mercia was still too weak to grasp the lordship which was slipping
from Northumbria's hands, while Wessex which seemed her destined prey
rose at this moment into fresh power under the greatest of its early
kings. Ine, the West-Saxon king whose reign covered the long period from
688 to 726, carried on during the whole of it the war which Cenwealh and
Centwine had begun. He pushed his way southward round the marshes of the
Parret to a more fertile territory, and guarded the frontier of his new
conquests by a fort on the banks of the Tone which has grown into the
present Taunton. The West-Saxons thus became masters of the whole
district which now bears the name of Somerset. The conquest of Sussex and
of Kent on his eastern border made Ine master of all Britain south of the
Thames, and his repulse of a new Mercian king Ceolred in a bloody
encounter at Wanborough in 715 seemed to establish the threefold division
of the English race between three realms of almost equal power. But able
as Ine was to hold Mercia at bay, he was unable to hush the civil strife
that was the curse of Wessex, and a wild legend tells the story of the
disgust which drove him from the world. He had feasted royally at one of
his country houses, and on the morrow, as he rode from it, his queen bade
him turn back thither. The king returned to find his house stripped of
curtains and vessels, and foul with refuse and the dung of cattle, while
in the royal bed where he had slept with AEthelburh rested a sow with her
farrow of pigs. The scene had no need of the queen's comment: "See, my
lord, how the fashion of this world passeth away!" In 726 he sought peace
in a pilgrimage to Rome. The anarchy which had driven Ine from the throne
broke out in civil strife which left Wessex an easy prey to AEthelbald,
the successor of Ceolred in the Mercian realm. AEthelbald took up with
better fortune the struggle of his people for supremacy over the south.
He penetrated to the very heart of the West-Saxon kingdom, and his siege
and capture of the royal town of Somerton in 733 ended the war. For
twenty years the overlordship of Mercia was recognized by all Britain
south of the Humber. It was at the head of the forces