VII. How Caedwalla, king of the West Saxons,
went to Rome to be baptised; and his successor Ini,
also devoutly journeyed to the same threshold of the holy Apostles. [688 A.D.]
CHAP. VII.
How Caedwalla, king of the West Saxons, went to Rome to be baptised; and his
successor Ini, also devoutly journeyed to the same threshold of the holy
Apostles. [688 A.D.]
In the third year of the reign of Aldfrid, Caedwalla, king of the West Saxons,
having most vigorously governed his nation for two years, quitted his crown for
the sake of the Lord and an everlasting kingdom, and went to Rome, being
desirous to obtain the peculiar honour of being cleansed in the baptismal font
at the threshold of the blessed Apostles, for he had learned that in Baptism
alone the entrance into the heavenly life is opened to mankind; and he hoped at
the same time, that being made clean by Baptism, he should soon be freed from
the bonds of the flesh and pass to the eternal joys of Heaven; both which
things, by the help of the Lord, came to pass according as he had conceived in
his mind. For coming to Rome, at the time that Sergius was pope, he was baptized
on the Holy Saturday before Easter Day, in the year of our Lord 689, and being
still in his white garments, he fell sick, and was set free from the bonds of
the flesh on the 20th of April, and obtained an entrance into the kingdom of the
blessed in Heaven. At his baptism, the aforesaid pope had given him the name of
Peter, to the end, that he might be also united in name to the most blessed
chief of the Apostles, to whose most holy body his pious love had led him from
the utmost bounds of the earth. He was likewise buried in his church, and by the
pope's command an epitaph was written on his tomb, wherein the memory of his
devotion might be preserved for ever, and the readers or hearers thereof might
be stirred up to give themselves to religion by the example of what he had done.
The epitaph was this:-- "High estate, wealth, offspring, a mighty kingdom,
triumphs, spoils, chieftains, strongholds, the camp, a home; whatsoever the
valour of his sires, whatsoever himself had won, Caedwal, mighty in war, left
for the love of God, that, a pilgrim king, he might behold, Peter and Peter's
seat, receive at his font pure waters of life, and in bright draughts drink of
the shining radiance whence a quickening glory streams through all the world.
And even as he gained with eager soul the prize of the new life, he laid aside
barbaric rage, and, changed in heart, he changed his name with joy. Sergius the
Pope bade him be called Peter, himself his father, when he rose born anew from
the font, and the grace of Christ, cleansing him, bore him forthwith clothed in
white raiment to the heights of Heaven. 0 wondrous faith of the king, but
greatest of all the mercy of Christ, into whose counsels none may enter! For he
came in safety from the ends of the earth, even from Britain, through many a
nation, over many a sea, by many a path, and saw the city of Romulus and looked
upon Peter's sanctuary revered, bearing mystic gifts. He shall walk in white
among the sheep of Christ in fellowship with them; for his body is in the tomb,
but his soul on high. Thou mightest deem he did but change an earthly for a
heavenly sceptre, whom thou seest attain to the kingdom of Christ."
"Here was buried Caedwalla, called also Peter, king of the Saxons, on the
twentieth day of April, in the second indiction, aged about thirty years, in the
reign of our most pious lord, the Emperor Justinian, in the fourth year of his
consulship, in the second year of the pontificate of our Apostolic lord, Pope
Sergius."
When Caedwalla went to Rome, Ini succeeded to the kingdom, being of the blood
royal; and having reigned thirty-seven years over that nation, he in like manner
left his kingdom and committed it to younger men, and went away to the threshold
of the blessed Apostles, at the time when Gregory was pope, being desirous to
spend some part of his pilgrimage upon earth in the neighbourhood of the holy
places, that he might obtain to be more readily received into the fellowship of
the saints in heaven. This same thing, about that time, was wont to be done most
zealously by many of the English nation, nobles and commons, laity and clergy,
men and women,
