Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/378

 year Cwichelm [q. v.], the son of Cynegils, was associated with his father in the kingship. The two kings met the Britons at Bampton, and defeated them with great slaughter. The rapid growth of the power of Eadwine, the Northumbrian king, endangered the independence of the West-Saxon monarchy. Already master of the Trent valley, Eadwine, by his marriage with the sister of Eadbald, king of Kent, while threatening the dominion of Cynegils from the north, cut him off from the chance of an alliance in the south. How fully conscious the West-Saxon kings were of their danger is proved by the attempt of Cwichelm to procure the assassination of Eadwine. The attempt failed, and in 626 Eadwine made war on Cynegils, defeated him, and compelled him to acknowledge his supremacy (, H. E. ii. 9). About this time Cynegils overthrew the two kings of the East Saxons who had succeeded their father Sæberht; the two kings were slain in the battle, and it is said that almost their whole army, which was far inferior in strength to the enemy, was destroyed ( p. 716). A fresh danger threatened the West-Saxon kingdom when Penda of Mercia had established his power in the central portion of the island. In 628 the Mercian king invaded the dominions of Cynegils, and a fierce battle was fought at Cirencester. After a day's fighting, in which neither side gained any decisive advantage, the kings the next morning made a treaty. The terms of this treaty are not known. The site of the battle shows that the immediate purpose of Penda's invasion was to gain the land of the Hwiccan, and it is probable that this treaty handed it over to Mercia, for it certainly formed part of the dominions of Penda's son Wulfhere. During the reign of Cynegils, Birinus preached the gospel to the West Saxons, and in 635 the king became his convert. Cynegils was baptised at Dorchester in Oxfordshire, Oswald, the Northumbrian king, who was about to marry his daughter, standing his sponsor. After his baptism he founded the West-Saxon see at Dorchester, acknowledging Birinus as the bishop. Oswald took part in the grant of Dorchester to the bishop, and this fact illustrates the continuance of the Northumbrian supremacy. The work of Birinus prospered during the rest of the reign of Cynegils, several churches were built, and many converts were made. Cynegils died in 643, and was succeeded by his son Cenwalh [q. v.]

[Bæda's Hist. Eccl. ii. 9, iii. 7; Anglo-Saxon Chron. sub ann.; Florence of Worcester, i. 12, 16, 17 (Eng. Hist. Soc.); Henry of Huntingdon, pp. 715, 716, 719 (Mon. Hist. Brit.); Green's Conquest of England, pp. 238, 239, 259, 267.] 

CYNEWULF (d. 785), king of the West Saxons, of the royal race, took the leading part in the expulsion of his kinsman Sigeberht from the throne by the Witan in 755, and was chosen to succeed him, Sigeberht being allowed to reign for a while as under-king in Hampshire. He fought many battles with the Welsh. During his reign the Mercian power, which had been greatly lessened by the consequences of Æthelbald's defeat at Burford [see ], began to revive under Offa, who in 777 attacked the portion of the West-Saxon territory that lay to the north of the Thames. Cynewulf was defeated at Bensington (Benson in Oxfordshire), and the battle gave the conqueror not only the district north of the river, but, according to one account, the land that lay between it and the Berkshire hills (Chron. Abingdon, i. 14; ). After he had reigned about thirty-one years Cynewulf ordered the ætheling Cyneheard, the brother of Sigeberht, to go into banishment. Cyneheard, however, gathered a band of men, and hearing that the king had gone to Merton in Surrey to visit his mistress, and had taken only a few men with him, he went thither, beset the house by night, and surrounded the room where the king was before his men were aware of it. The king came to the door, defended himself desperately, and when he saw the ætheling rushed forth, fell upon him, and wounded him sorely, but was himself slain by Cyneheard's men. Then Cyneheard seized Merton and made the gates fast. In the morning Osric the ealdorman and Wiferth the late king's thegn and others of his men came against the ætheling. He tried to persuade them to make him king, promising them gold and lands, and pointing out that many of their kinsfolk had sworn to stand by him. They answered him that ‘no kinsman was dearer to them than their lord, and that they would never follow his murderer,’ and so they fought with him and slew him and all his company save one who was the ealdorman's godson. and he was wounded. Then Cynewulf was buried at Winchester, and Beorhtric [q. v.] was chosen to reign in his stead. Cyneheard the ætheling was buries at Axminster.

[Anglo-Saxon Chron. sub an. 755, where the story of the death of Cynewulf is told at unusual length; Æthelweard's Chronicle, cap. xviii. (Mon. Hist. Brit.); Flor. Wig. i. 60 (Eng. Hist. Soc.); Chron. Mon. Abingdon, i. 14 (Rolls Series); Parker's Early History of Oxford, p. 109 (Oxford Hist. Soc.); Freeman's Old English History, p. 89; Green's History of England, p. 419.] 