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 appointed as first bishop. The insurrection of the æthelings and the South-Saxon war seem to have disgusted Ine with the world, and in 725 or 726, after he had reigned thirty-seven years, he abdicated, and, in company with his wife, Æthelburh, made a pilgrimage to Rome, where he died apparently soon after his arrival (Gesta Pontificum, p. 385). According to a legend he was persuaded to resign the crown by Æthelburh, who, after he had held a feast with kingly state in one of his houses, and had gone on towards another, ordered his steward to fill the house with refuse and filth, and cause a sow and her litter to lie in the bed on which he had slept. Then she caused him to return, and, pointing out the change, discoursed to him on the vanity of earthly pomp. Her device was successful. On arriving at Rome, where he was received by Gregory II, he forbore to make a public show of his religion by adopting the tonsure as others did, dressed in the garments of a man of plebeian rank, and lived quietly with his wife. Their deaths are said to have been followed by miracles. Ine's sisters were Cwenburh and [q. v.], who founded Wimborne nunnery. He was succeeded in Wessex by his brother-in-law Æthelheard.



INETT, JOHN (1647–1717), church historian, was descended from a Huguenot family, Inette of Picardy, which settled in England. His father, Richard Inett, married a lady of the family of Hungerford of Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, and lived on a small income at Rock, near Bewdley. For the sake of the education of his children he removed to Bewdley, where John, his second son, was brought up at the grammar school. At the age of fourteen John was given an exhibition on the foundation of the Earl of Leicester, and went up to University College, Oxford, in 1661. He was not, however, matriculated till 17 July 1663 (University College Admission Book); he graduated B.A. in 1666 and M.A. in 1669. He received a special privilege, for he was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Gloucester on 22 Sept. 1667, when he had not completed his twenty-first year. This is the more remarkable as it does not seem to have been done with any immediate view to clerical work. Inett apparently pursued his studies at Oxford, where after a time he was presented to the rectory of St. Ebbe's. There he made the acquaintance of Thomas Barlow, afterwards bishop of Lincoln, who recommended him to Sir Richard Newdigate, on whose recommendation he was presented by the crown to the vicarage of Nuneaton, Warwickshire, in 1678, and acted as Newdigate's chaplain at Arbury. There, in 1680, he married Mary, daughter of the Rev. Richard Harrison, chancellor of the cathedral church of Lichfield. On 1 Aug. he preached an assize sermon at Warwick, which was published. It shows that Inett had caught the proper spirit of his age, combined loyalty to the king with detestation of popery, and was dexterous in recommending this combination as the panacea for political and religious discontent. In February Bishop Barlow appointed him precentor of Lincoln Cathedral, and in 1685 he was presented by the dean and chapter to the living of Tansor in Northamptonshire. In 1688 he published a little book of devotions, 'Guide to the Devout Christian,' to which he added a second part in 1692, 'Guide to Repentance.' These books enjoyed considerable popularity in their day; in 1764 were issued the sixteenth edition of the first and the tenth edition of the second. In 1700 he was appointed chaplain in ordinary to William III. Perhaps because Cambridge was nearer Lincoln than Oxford, and he wished to use its library, he was incorporated member of St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1701, and took the degree of D.D. in that university, to which he sent two of his sons. In 1706 he resigned the living of Tansor in favour of his son Richard, and took instead that of Clayworth, Nottinghamshire. In 1714 he was presented by the crown to the more valuable living of Wirksworth, Derbyshire (, Derbyshire Churches, iv. 521). He died in 1717, and a simple tablet was erected by his widow to his memory in Lincoln Cathedral (, Cathedrals, p.542).

Inett's claim to remembrance rests on his book 'Origines Anglicanæ,' of which the first volume was published in London in 1704. His object in writing was to fill the gap between two great books of his own time, Stillingfleet's 'Origines Britannicæ' and Burnet's 'History of the Reformation.' In