The history of the city of Exeter Author:George Oliver Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ness, patience, and charity ; they crowded to their spiritual instructions, and when the king was publicly baptized at Pentecost 597, his example was voluntarily... more » followed by many of his subjects; for he faithfully adhered to the lessons he had received from his teachers and guides, observes Venerable Bede, that he must never force any one to embrace Christianity ; for the service of Christ must be free and spontaneous, and never compulsory. Happy would it have been for mankind, if so just an estimate of the Deity's forbearance and clemency—so sweet to all, and whose mercies are above all His works (Ps. cxlv. 9), had been taught and practised by all succeeding rulers; that legislators had equally respected the weaknesses and prejudices of their fellow creatures, and had never resorted to penal laws or coercive restrictions on the sacred and inalienable rights of conscience. CHAPTER III. Exeter besieged by Penda, King of Mercia, in 633, but effectually relieved by the British King, Cadwalinus. Submits to the sovereigns of Wessex. If, in the silence of the Saxon Chronicle, we may believe Matthew of Westminster in his ' Flores His- toriarum,' we must state that about this time Exeter was besieged by Penda, the powerful and ferocious King of Mercia. He invested the city with a large army, but was suddenly attacked, and made prisoner by Cadwalinus King of the Britons; and, as the sequel shows, redeemed his liberty, by entering into an offensive and defensive treaty with his conqueror.1 Yet beforethe end of the 7th century the city succumbed to the dominion of the kings of Wessex ; and under the mild, benevolent and firm government of Ina, the early legislator—who, after conquering the Welsh and Britons, placed them under the protection of equal laws, and of Egbert the friend of...« less