Note 17 — AN ESSAY, &c.

The Monk of St. Albans agrees with Matth. Westr. in recording that Cynedritha proposed to Offa the murder of their guest, but that he indignantly refused; and that subsequently she prepared a device of a sinking platform in Ethelbert’s chamber, so that when he threw himself on his couch it sank with his weight, and he was immediately suffocated by assassins who were on the watch in the chamber below. The difference however in the latter part of their narratives is as follows: M. Westr. states that Offa secluded himself from public and refused to taste food for three days,—but that, notwithstanding, as Ethelbert had died without heirs he despatched a powerful force to East Anglia to take possession of the kingdom. The Monk of St. Alban’s, in the most approved style of legendary lore, proceeds with the history of Ethelbert’s body after his murder. He states that his head was cut off, after suffocation, and the body and head being put into a sack were carried away: being dark, the head rolled out unseen and unobserved, and a blind man chancing to come that way kicked against it—he took it up, and anointed his eyes with the sacred blood, and immediately his sight was restored! 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. A. D. 792.—Vita Offæ Secundi.

In Leland’s Collectanea, vol. 1. p. 210, the following marvellous record is also to be found: “Ethelbertus (after death) cuidam Brithfrid prædiviti viso apparuit, jubens, ut ejus corpus efferret ad locum nomine stratus waye, et juxta monaster: eodem loco situm sepeliret. Brithfrid adjuncto socio Egmundo quod jussit fecerunt, et corpus una cum capite in loco qui Fernlega, id est saltus filicis, dicebatur, nunc vero Hereford, sepeliverunt.”