BOOK" mother bow before thee: He who ble

IV. "fhall be filled with bleffings, and God

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thy helper: May the Almighty blefs t "the bleffings of the heaven above, and "mountains and the vallies; with the bl

deep below; with the blefling of the fuck "the womb; with the bleflings of gra

apples; and may the blefling of the an "thers, Abraham, Ifaac, and Jacob, be hea "on thee!

"BLESS, Lord, the courage of this pri "profper the works of his hands; and

bleffing may his land be filled with appl "the fruits, and the dew of heaven, and of "below; with the fruit of the fun and moo "the top of the ancient mountains, from th "of the eternal hills, and from the fruits "earth and its fulness!

"MAY the bleffing of Him who appeare "bufh come upon his head, and may the fu "ing of the Lord be upon his fons, and ❝fteep his feet in oil.

"WITH his horn, as the horn of the rhi may he blow the nations to the extrem "the earth; and may He who has afcende "fkies be his auxiliary for ever."

"HERE the coronation ends."

THE

CHAP. II.

His Family and Officers.

II.

HE Anglo-Saxon queen was crowned, as well C HAP. as the king, until the reign of Egbert, when this honour was taken from her. The crimes of the preceding queen Eadburga occafioned the An. glo-Saxons to depart awhile, in this refpect, from the cuftom of all the German nations'. But it was foon restored, for Ethelwulph, on his fecond marriage, fuffered his queen Judith to be crowned. An account of the ceremony of his coronation has been preserved by the old Frankish writers 2.

THE Custom was not immediately re-affumed in England, because the expreffions of Affer imply, that in Alfred's time the difufe of the coronation continued. But, by the time of the fecond Ethelred, it was restored; for after the account of his coronation the ceremonial of her coronation follows. She was anointed, and after a prayer a ring was given to her, and then fhe was crowned 3.

THE queen's name is joined with the cyning's in fome charters, and it is not unusual to find them figned by her. She had her feparate property; for, in a gift of land by Ethelfwitha, the queen of Alfred, the gives fifteen manentes, calling them a part.

Affer. Vit. Alfr p. 10, 11.

2 It may be feen in Du Chefne's Collection of the Frankifh Hiftorians, t. 2. p 423.1

Cott. MS. Claud. A 3.

IV.

ROOK of the land of her own power. She had alfo officers of her own household; for the perfons with whose consent and teftimony she made the grant are called her nobles.

THE king's fons had lands appropriated for them, even though under age; for Ethelred fays, that on his brother being elected king, "the nobles "delivered to me, for my ufe, the lands belonging "to the king's fons;" thefe, on the death of the princes, on their acceffion to the fovereignty, became the property of the king; for he adds, "my "brother dying, I affumed the dominion, both of "the royal lands, and of thofe belonging to the king's fons "."

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5

AMONG the royal houfehold we find the difc thegn, or the thegn of his difhes; the hregel thegn, or the thegn of his wardrobe; his hors thegn, or the thegn of his ftud; his camerarius, or chamberlain; his propincenarius and pincerna, or cup-bearer; his fecretaries; his chancellor; and, in an humbler rank, his mægden, his grindende theowa, his fedefl, his ambiht-fmith, his horfwealh, his geneat, and his laadrinc. The executive officers of his government will be mentioned hereafter,

The Dignity and Prerogatives of the Anglo-Saxon

THE

Cyning.

III.

HE authorities already adduced on the nature C H A P. of the Government of the Saxons on the continent, lead us to infer that when Hengift Ella Cerdic and Ida invaded Britain, they and the other chiefs who fucceeded in establishing themselves in the island came with the rank of war-kings, whose power was to continue while hoftilities existed.

BUT to rule a territory extorted by violence from angry natives, who were perpetually struggling to regain it, could fcarcely admit of any depofition of the kingly office. The fame power and dignity which were requifite to obtain victory, were equally wanted, while the hoftility lafted, to preferve its conquefts. It is, therefore, probable, that the firft Anglo-Saxon chieftains and their fucceffors were, from neceffity and utility, continued on the throne till the kingly dignity became an established, a legal, and a venerated inftitution.

THE circumftance, that these war-kings and their affociates invaded and conquered the dominions of petty British kings, was alfo favourable to the establishment of continued royalty. When the British king fell, or retreated before the Saxon war-king, all his advantages became the spoil of his conquerors. The Saxon chief naturally fucceeded to the British, the Saxon nobles to the British nobles,

S 3

IV.

BOOK and the other invading warriors to the poffeffion of the free part of the native community.

Ir is certain that in the earlieft periods of the Anglo-Saxon hiftory, we find the cyning or king, and all the four orders of noble, free, freed, and fervile. Their converfion to Chriftianity introduced another class, of monks and clergy.

THE power and prerogatives of the Anglo-Saxon cyning were progreffively acquired. As the nation had no written conftitution, their government was that of ancient custom, gradually altered from its original features by the new circumstances which occurred. In the courfe of time the augmentation of the power of the cyning became indispensable to the happiness of the nation. What could arrange the contentions of right, property, and power, between equal nobles, or between them and the free, and afterwards between them and the church;-what could protect the infant state from British hoftility, ever jealous, ever bickering, and ever to be miflrufted, but fuch an inftitution as continued royalty as a cyning, raised in dignity and power above all the other chieftains; who could fee the laws of the fociety executed and their various rights adjufted; to whom every rank could effectually appeal, and who was the protector of every order of the state from violence and wrong?

WE have feen that the land fwarmed with independent land-proprietors of various denominations, whose privileges were not uniform; but whose jurifdictions were generally peculiar and independent. What but a king could, in their age, and with their customs, have rescued the nation from a New