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 ment round the starry heavens. But if any one, confiding in tyrannical pride shall endeavour on any occasion to disturb and nullify this my testamentary grant, may he be separated by the fan of the last judgment from the congregation of the righteous, and joined to the assembly of the wicked for ever, paying the penalty of his violence. But whoever with benevolent intention shall strive to approve, confirm, and defend this my grant, may he be allowed to enjoy unfailing immortality before the glory of Him that sitteth on the throne, together with the happy companies of angels and of all the saints. A copy of this grant was set forth in presence of king Cuthred, in the aforesaid monastery, and dedicated to the holy altar by the munificence of his own hand, in the wooden church, where the brethren placed the coffin of abbat Hemgils, the 30th of April, in the year of our Lord 745."

The same Cuthred, after much toil, made a successful campaign against Ethelbald, king of Mercia, and the Britons, and gave up the sovereignty after he had held it fourteen years.

Sigebert then seized on the kingdom; a man of inhuman cruelty among his own subjects, and noted for cowardice abroad; but the common detestation of all conspiring against him, he was within a year driven from the throne, and gave place to one more worthy. Yet, as commonly happens in similar cases, the severity of his misfortunes brought back some persons to his cause, and the province which is called Hampshire, was, by their exertions, retained in subjection to him. Still, however, unable to quit his former habits, and exciting the enmity of all against him by the murder of one Cumbran, who had adhered to him with unshaken fidelity, he fled to the recesses of wild beasts. Misfortune still attending him thither also, he was stabbed by a swineherd. Thus the cruelty of a king, which had almost desolated the higher ranks, was put an end to by a man of the lowest condition.

Cynewolf next undertook the guidance of the state; illustrious for the regulation of his conduct and hi deeds in arms: but suffering extremely from the loss of a single battle, in the the twenty-fourth year of his reign, against Offa, king of the Mercians, near Bensington, he was also finally doomed to a disgraceful death. For after he had reigned thirty-one