ter: an inactive spirit, and a spirit of scruples
prevailed; they dreaded to put the greatest criminal to death; they
scrupled to engage in any worldly functions. A king of the Saxons
dreaded that God would call him to an account for the time which he
spent in his temporal affairs and had stolen from prayer. It was
frequent for kings to go on pilgrimages to Rome or to Jerusalem, on
foot, and under circumstances of great hardship. Several kings resigned
their crowns to devote themselves to religious contemplation in
monasteries,--more at that time and in this nation than in all other
nations and in all times. This, as it introduced great mildness into the
tempers of the people, made them less warlike, and consequently prepared
the way to their forming one body under Egbert, and for the other
changes which followed.

The kingdom of Wessex, by the wisdom and courage of King Ina, the
greatest legislator and politician of those times, had swallowed up
Cornwall, for a while a refuge for some of the old Britons, together
with the little kingdom of the South Saxons. By this augmentation it
stretched from the Land's End to the borders of Kent, the Thames flowing
on the north, the ocean washing it on the south. By their situation the
people of Wessex naturally came to engross the little trade which then
fed the revenues of England; and their minds were somewhat opened by a
foreign communication, by which they became more civilized and better
acquainted with the arts of war and of government. Such was the
condition of the kingdom of Wessex, when Egbert was called to the throne
of his ancestors. The civil commotions which for some time prevailed had
driven this prince early in life into an useful banishment. He was
honorably received at the court of Charlemagne, where he had an
opportunity of studying government in the best school, and of forming
himself after the most perfect model. Whilst Charlemagne was reducing
the continent of Europe into one empire, Egbert reduced England into one
kingdom. The state of his own dominions, perfectly united under him,
with the other advantages which we have just mentioned, and the state of
the neighboring Saxon governments, made this reduction less difficult.
Besides Wessex, there were but two kingdoms of consideration in
England,--Mercia and Northumberland. They were powerful enough in the
advantages of Nature, but reduced to great weakness by their divisions.
As there is nothing of more moment