Page:William of Malmesbury's Chronicle.djvu/99

 after Kenulf, Offa's successor, inferior to no preceding king in power or in faith, transmitted a letter to Leo, the successor of Adrian, and restored Athelard who had succeeded Lambert, to his former dignity. Hence Alcuin, in an epistle to the same Athelard, says "Having heard of the success of your journey, and your return to your country, and how you were received by the pope, I give thanks with every sentiment of my heart to the Lord our God, who, by the precious gift of his mercy, directed your way with a prosperous progress, gave you favour in the sight of the pope, granted you to return home with the perfect accomplishment of your wishes, and hath condescended, through you, to restore the holiest seat of our first teacher to its pristine dignity." I think it proper to subjoin part of the king's epistle and also of the pope's, though I may seem by so doing to anticipate the regular order of time; but I shall do it on this account, that it is a task of greater difficulty to blend together disjointed facts than to despatch those I had begun.

"To the most holy and truly loving lord Leo, pontiff of the sacred and apostolical see, Kenulf, by the grace of God king of the Mercians, with the bishops, princes, and every degree of dignity under our authority, sendeth the salutation of the purest love in Christ.

"We give thanks ever to God Almighty, who is wont, by the means of new guides, the former being taken to the life eternal, to guide the church, purchased by his precious blood, amid the diverse storms of this world, to the haven of salvation, and to shed fresh light upon it, in order that it be led into no error of darkness, but may pursue the path of truth without stumbling; wherefore the universal church justly rejoices, that when the true rewarder of all good men took the most glorious pastor of his flock, Adrian, to be eternally rewarded in heaven, still his kind providence gave a shepherd to his flock, not less skilled, to conduct the sheep of God into the fold of life. We also, who live on the farthest confines of the world, justly boast, beyond all other things, that the church's exaltation is our safety, its prosperity our constant ground of joy; since your apostolical dignity and our true faith originate from the same source. Whentfore I deem it fitting to incline the ear of our obedience, with all due humility, to your holy commands, and