Page:William of Malmesbury's Chronicle.djvu/98

 West Saxons, lie easily gained the victory, though the other was a celebrated warrior. When he thought artifice would better suit his purpose, this same man beheaded king Ethelbert, who had come to him through the allurement of great promises, and was at that very time within the walls of his palace, soothed into security by his perfidious attentions, and then unjustly seized upon the kingdom of the East Angles which Ethelbert had held.

The relics of St. Alban, at that time obscurely buried, he ordered to be reverently taken up and placed in a shrine, decorated to the fullest extent of royal munificence, with gold and jewels; a church of most beautiful workmanship was there erected, and a society of monks assembled. Yet rebellious against God, he endeavoured to remove the archiepiscopal see formerly settled at Canterbury, to Lichfield, envying forsooth, the men of Kent the dignity of the archbishopric: on which account he at last deprived Lambert, the archbishop, worn out with continual exertion, and who produced many edicts of the apostolical see, both ancient and modern, of all possessions within his territories, as well as of the jurisdiction over the bishoprics. From pope Adrian, therefore, whom he had wearied with plausible assertions for a long time, as many things not to be granted may be gradually drawn and artfully wrested from minds intent on other occupations, he obtained that there should be an archbishopric of the Mercians at Lichfield, and that all the prelates of the Mercians should be subject to that province. Their names were as follow: Denebert, bishop of Worcester, Werenbert, of Leicester, Edulph, of Sidnacester, Wulpheard, of Hereford; and the bishops of the East Angles, Alpheard, of Elmham, Tidfrid, of Dunwich; the bishop of Lichfield was named Aldulph. Four bishops however remained suffragan to Lambert, archbishop of Canterbury, London, Winchester, Rochester, and Selsey. Some of these bishoprics are now in being, some are removed to other places, others consolidated by venal interest, for Leicester, Sidnacester, and Dunwich, from some unknown cause, are no longer in existence. Nor did Offa's rapacity stop here, for he showed himself a downright public pilferer, by converting to his own use the lands of many churches, of which Malmesbury was one. But this iniquity did not long deform canonical institutions, for soon