hat
kingdom. Widred restored the affairs of Kent, and, after a reign of
thirty-two years [i], left the crown to his posterity. Eadbert,
Ethelbert, and Alric, his descendants, successively mounted the
throne. After the death of the last, which happened in 794, the royal
family of Kent was extinguished, and every factious leader who could
entertain hopes of ascending the throne, threw the state into
confusion [k]. Egbert, who first succeeded, reigned but two years;
Cuthred, brother to the King of Mercia, six years; Baldred, an
illegitimate branch of the royal family, eighteen; and, after a
troublesome and precarious reign, he was, in the year 827, expelled by
Egbert, King of Wessex, who dissolved the Saxon Heptarchy, and united
the several kingdoms under his dominion.
[FN [h] Higden, lib. 5. [i] Chron. Sax. p. 52 [k] Will. Malmes. lib.
1. cap. 1. p. 11.]

[MN The kingdom of Northumberland.]
Adelfrid, King of Bernicia, having married Acca, the daughter of
Aella, King of Deiri, and expelled her infant brother, Edwin, had
united all the countries north of Humber into one monarchy, and
acquired a great ascendant in the Heptarchy. He also spread the
terror of the Saxon arms to the neighbouring people, and by his
victories over the Scots and Picts, as well as Welsh, extended on all
sides the bounds of his dominions. Having laid siege to Chester, the
Britons marched out with all their forces to engage him, and they were
attended by a body of 1250 monks from the monastery of Bangor, who
stood at a small distance from the field of battle, in order to
encourage the combatants by their presence and exhortations.
Adelfrid, inquiring the purpose of this unusual appearance, was told,
that these priests had come to pray against him: THEN ARE THEY AS MUCH
OUR ENEMIES, said he, AS THOSE WHO INTEND TO FIGHT AGAINST US [l]: and
he immediately sent a detachment, who fell upon them, and did such
execution, that only fifty escaped with their lives [m]. The Britons,
astonished at this event, received a total defeat; Chester was obliged
to surrender; and Adelfrid, pursuing his victory, made himself master
of Bangor, and entirely demolished the monastery, a building so
extensive that there was a mile's distance from one gate of it to
another, and it contained two thousand one hundred monks, who are said
to have been there maintained by their own labour [n].
[FN [l] Brompton, p. 779. [m] Trivet, apud Spell. Conc. p. 111. [n]
Bede, li