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It was not long ere Egbert had opportunities of displaying his natural and acquired talents. Brithric, King of Wessex, had married Eadburga, natural daughter of Offa, King of Mercia, a profligate woman, equally infamous for cruelty and for incontinence.
Two fair daughters had Offa, the mighty King of Mercia, and Quendritha his queen. The elder of those two, Eadburga, was wedded to our Wessex king, Bertric, in the year when my story begins, and all men in our land south of the Thames thought that the wedding was a matter of full rejoicing.
I have composed the little verses written below, according to the rules of prosody, not from pride, but from a desire to cultivate the beginnings of a slender genius, and because I wanted your help. I learnt the art from Eadburga, my mistress, who devotes herself unceasingly to searching Divine Law."
If she is like her mother, or indeed like her sister Eadburga, who wedded your king, there is an end for peace to Ethelbert, and maybe to East Anglia." Now I had heard little or nothing of how that last match turned out; I only knew that when I was taken from home we were full of rejoicing over it.
Writing to the Abbess Eadburga for a Missal, he asked that the parchment might be gay with colours, 'even as a glittering lamp and an illumination for the hearts of the Gentiles. 'I entreat you, he writes again, 'to send me St. Peters Epistle in letters of gold. He begged all his friends to send him books as a refreshment in the wilderness.
For, after Quendritha's way, Eadburga would poison some thane of the court who had offended her; and Bertric drank the cup she had made ready for his servant, and so perished. Eadburga fled to Carl the emperor, as men had then hailed him; and he received her kindly for Offa's sake, and at least England knew her ways no more.
This tragical incident, joined to her other crimes, rendered Eadburga so odious that she was obliged to fly into France; whence Egbert was at the same time recalled by the nobility, in order to ascend the throne of his ancestors. He attained that dignity in the last year of the eighth century.
Brithric, King of Wessex, had married Eadburga, natural daughter of Offa, King of Mercia, a profligate woman, equally infamous for cruelty and for incontinence. Having great influence over her husband, she often instigated him to destroy such of the nobility as were obnoxious to her; and where this expedient failed, she scrupled not being herself active in traitorous attempts against them.
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