Hic depofitus eft Ceadwalla, qui & Petrus, Rex Saxonum, fub die duodecimo Kalendarum Maidrum, indictione fecunda, qui vixit annos plus minus triginta, imperante Domino Juftiniano piiffimo Augufto, anno ejus confulatus quarto, pontificante Apoftolico viro Domino Sergio Papa, anno fecundo.

High State & Place, Kindred, a wealthy Crown,
Triumphs, and Spoils in glorious Battles won,
Nobles, and Cities wall'd, to guard his State,
High Palaces, and his familiar Seat,

Whatever Honours his own Virtue won,
Or those his great Forefathers handed down,
Cadwal armipotent, from Heaven infpir'd,
With Love divine hath left, to be retir'd:
Peter to fee, and Peter's facred Chair,
A Royal Pilgrim vifited afar, (Stream,
There to imbibe pure Draughts from his clear
And share the influence of his heavenly Beam,
There for the Glories of a future Claim,
Converted, chang'd his firft and barbarous Name.
And following Peter's Rule, he from his Lord,
Aflum'd the Name by Father Sergius Word,
(made clean,
At the pure Font, which by CHRIST'S Grace
Sends far away the former taints of Sin.
Great was his Faith, but greater God's Decree,
Kind, tho' conceal'd, which Mortal cannot fee.
Safe came he, even from Britain's Ifle,o'er Scas,
And Lands and Countries, and thro' dangerous
(Ways.
Rome to behold, her glorious Temple fee,
And myftick Prefents offer'd on his Knee.

(ftrays, Now clean among CHRIST'S Flock he chearful His Soul aloft enjoys the heavenly Ways.

Sure

Sure it was best to lay his Scepter down,
When now you fee him gain a heavenly Throne.

66

"Here was depofited Ceadwal, call'd alfo "Peter, King of the Saxons, on the twelfth Day of the Kalends of May, the fecond In"diction, who liv'd about thirty Years, in the "Reign of the most pious Emperor Juftinian, "in the fourth Year of his Confulfhip; the "Apoftolical Man our Lord Pope Sergius being " in his fecond Year.

When Ceadwal went away to Rome, Ine fuc ceeded him in the Throne, being of the Blood Royal, who having reign'd thirty seven Years over that Nation, quitting the Kingdom in like manner to younger Perfons, went away to Rome, to vifit the bleffed Apostles, Gregory being then Pope; being defirous to fpend fome time of his Pilgrimage upon Earth in the neighbourhood of the Holy Places, that he might be the more easily receiv'd by the Saints in Heaven. The fame about thefe Times was zealously done by many of the English Nation, Noble and Ignoble, Laity and Clergy, Men and Women.

CHAP. VIII.

Of the Death of Archbishop Theodore,

TH

HE next Year after Ceadwal dy'd at Rome, that is, 690 after the Incarnation of our Lord, Archbishop Theodore of blefled Memory, dy'd, being old and full of Days, that is, Eighty Eight Years of Age; the which number of Years he had been wont long before to foretel to his Friends that he fhould live; the same having been reveal'd to him in a Dream. He held the Bishoprick 22 Years, and was bury'd in St. Peter's Church, where all the Bodies of the Bifhops of Canterbury are bury'd. Of whom, and of his Companions of the fame Degree it may rightly and truly be faid, that their Bodies are interr'd in Peace, and their Name fhall live from Generation to Generation. For to fay all in a few Words only, the English Churches receiv'd more Advantage during the Time of his Pontificate, than ever they had done before. His Perfon, Life, Age art Death are plainly defcrib'd to all that refort thither, by his Epitaph on his Tomb, confifting of thirty four Heroick Verfes. The firft whereof are thefe :

Hic facer in tumba paufat cum corpore praful,

Quem nunc Theodorum lingua Pelafga vocat. Princeps Pontificum, felix, fummufque facerdos, Limpida difcipulis dogmata differuit.

The

-The four laft thus:

Namque diem nonam decimam September habebat,
Cum carnis clauftra fpiritus egreditur.
Alma nova fcandens felix confortia vita,
Civibus Angelicis junctus in arce poli.

In English thus:

Here refts fam'd Theodore, a Grecian Name,
Who had o're England an Archbishop's Claim:
Happy, and bleft, industriously he wrought,
And wholfome Precepts to his Scholars taught.
The last thus:

September's nineteenth Day beheld him fly,"
To meet a Choir of Angels in the Sky.

H

CHAP. IX.

How, after the Death of Theodore, Berthwald was made Archbishop, and among many others be Ordain'd, made Tobias, a most learned Man, Bishop of the Church of Rochester.

B

ERTHWALD fucceeded Theodore in the Archbishoprick,being Abbat of the Monaftery of a Raculph, feated on the North side of the Mouth of the River b Genlade. He was a Man

learned in the Scriptures, and well instructed in Ecclefiaftical and Monaftical Difcipline; yet not to be compar'd to his Predeceflor. He was chofen, Bishop in the Year of our Lord's Incarnation 692, on the firft Day of July, Withred and Suelhard reigning in Kent; but was Confecrated the next Year, on Sunday the third of the Kalends of July, by Godwin Metropolitan Bishop of France, and was Inthron'd on Sunday the Day, before the Kalends of September. Among the many Bishops he ordain'd was Tobias, a Man learned in the Latin, Greek, and Saxon Tongues, and much Erudition, whom he confecrated in the ftead of Gebmund, Bishop of that See, deceas'd.

How the Holy Man Ecgberht would have gone into Germany to preach, but could not; how Witbercht went, but meeting with no Success, return'd into Ireland, from whence he came.

A

T that Time the venerable, and not to be nam'd without all Honour, Servant of CHRIST, and Prieft Ecgberht, who, we faid before, liv'd a Stranger in Ireland for ob taining of a Refidence in Heaven, propos'd to himfelf to do good to many, that is, taking upon him the Apoftolical Work, to preach the Word of God to fome of thofe Nations that

had