Note 899 — Chapter VIII · THE BISHOP.

Hist. Eccl. ii. 5. The words of St. Paul, here referred to, are in 1 Cor. v. 1. Asser, Vit. Ælf. 858. The very words of Beda himself seem to prove that Eádbald’s marriage was closely connected with heathendom,—perhaps was intended to be a public profession of it. He says that the king, being terrified by Laurentius’s account of a miraculous vision he had had, “anathematizato omni idolatriae cultu, abdicato connubio non legitimo, suscepit fidem Christi, et baptizatus aecclesiae rebus quantum valuit, in omnibus consulere et favere curavit.” Hist. Eccl. ii. 6. In fact the politics of that day seem generally to have consisted in the apostasy of a converted king’s successor. The heathen priests could hardly be expected to yield quite without a struggle. The cases are curious enough to merit a detailed record. What the age of Æðelberht’s second wife may have been is unknown to us; but there is some probability that Æðelwulf’s marriage was never really consummated, that it was never a marriage at all. Judith can hardly have been more than twelve when Æðelwulf married her, and within two years he died.