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* 1.1XIV. CHAP.
1.2.3. Lawes of King Withred.
4. Ostritha Queen of the Mercians mur∣dred.
1. THE same year in Brittany there was as∣sembled a Synod also by Withred King of Kent and Brithwald Arch-bishop of Canter∣bury at Berghansted, where many wholesome Laws and Constitutions, called The Iudgments of King Withred, were enacted for the regu∣lating both the Church and Civill state of that Kingdom.
2. Of which Laws the first was, That pu∣blick Prayers should be made for the King.* 1.2 And the following regard severall Heads, as the preserving the Peace of the State and Church: The punishment of Adultery in severall condi∣tions of men: Against irregular Tonsure: For∣bidding working or travelling on our Lords day and the even before it: Against offring any thing to the Devill: and giving flesh to ones ser∣vant on a Fast-day: Concerning the severall ways by which severall conditions of men were to purge themselves, the King and Bishops by a simple af∣firmation without Oathes:
Preists and Abbots in this Form, I speak the truth in Christ, I lye not;So likewise Deacons; Inferiour Clerks with four compurgators, laying one hand on the Altar, and the other extended to the Oath; a stranger without compurgators, laying his hand on the Altar; So likewise a Thane (or Noble man) of the King; a simple countrey-man with four compurgators, and bowing down his head towards the Altar: That if any one depending on the Bi∣shop be accused, the hearing of the cause belongs to Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction, &c. That no com∣pensation shall be made by one who kills a Theife, &c. And that if a stranger shall privily wander through the countrey, and neither crye aloud, nor sound with his horn, he is to be taken for a theif, and either to be killed or banished.
3. These Iudgments of King Withred are extant among the Collection of Brittish Councills compiled by Sir Henry Spelman▪ and translated by him into Latin out of Ancient Saxon Manuscript, called The Text of Rochester (Textus Roffensis:) to whom the Reader is referred.
* 1.34. About this time a barbarous Act was committed by the Mercians against their Queen Ostritha (or Ostgida.* 1.4) Sixteen years be∣fore this she had been given by her Brother Egfrid King of the Northumbers a wife to Ethelred King of the Mercians, as it were in compensation for the death of his Brother Elwin, and to establish a peace between the two Kingdoms. And this year saith Hunting∣don, the Mercians, called South-humbers, com∣mitted a base Villany: for they inhumanly mur∣dred Ostrida their Queen,* 1.5 Wife to King Edelred and Sister to King Egfrid. S. Beda particularly charges the Nobility of those Mercians with that foul crime, namely the inhabitants of Lincoln, or of Nottingham shire. What was the Motive or provocation to this inhuman act, does not appear in History.