Although the sceptre of Lombardy had been snatched from the hand of Desiderius, and though he himself remained in the ecclesiastical seclusion from which he was never destined to be withdrawn, many members of his family still existed at large, spread over various parts of Europe; and the desire of vengeance, naturally fostered by affection for a fallen relation, and humiliated pride, was only restrained by the terror of the conqueror's arms. Adalgisus, the son of the dethroned monarch, continued to reside at Constantinople; and though, at the time, no efficient aid was granted to him by the imperial court, yet a favorable opportunity only seemed wanting to a renewal of the attempt to recover possession of Italy.

One of the daughters of Desiderius had married Arichis, Duke of Beneventum, and viewed, with unabated and unextinguishable hatred, the dominion of the Francs, in a land which had once been the portion of her family. At the same time, the high qualities and warlike character of her husband, rendered revolt probable, and success not unhopeful.

A second daughter of the dethroned King of Lombardy shared the ducal seat of Tassilo of Bavaria, whom I have before had occasion to mention as a relation and vassal of Charlemagne, and upon whose proud spirit the weight of homage lay an uneasy load, which he endeavored to make light by neglect, while he only waited occasion to throw it off for ever.

The mission of Saint Sturmius, in the early part of the French monarch's reign, had effected a reconciliation between the King and his cousin, upon whose head the open violation of his vows to Pepin had brought down the more terrible anger of Charlemagne. After that period, the immense power and the continual activity of his liege lord, had withheld Tassilo from making an attempt, to which triumphant success could alone secure impunity. It would appear, however, that about the present time, instigated by the revengeful spirit of his wife, and by his own proud desire of independent sovereignty, he engaged with Arichis, Duke of Beneventum, and with Adalgisus, their brother-in-law, for the purpose of wresting Italy from the grasp of Charlemagne, and of establishing an armed union sufficient to resist the power of their mighty opponent.

These schemes were carried on in darkness and secrecy, for the conspirators well knew that the watchful eyes of Charlemagne could only be blinded by the most cautious prudence; but, at the same time, long, slow, and careful preparation was necessary, to afford the slightest prospect of success. With hostile purposes laboring at the heart, and great and powerful designs advancing towards consummation, it is very difficult so to guard every action, that some suspicious circumstances will not betray, to an attentive observer, the plans which occupy the breast. Neither Tassilo nor Arichis were capable of such perfect dissimulation, as entirely to cover their schemes from the view of the French monarch. The first continued to absent himself from the court of the sovereign; and the proceedings of the latter, which were more bold and open, were from time to time communicated to Charlemagne by the wakeful attention of Pope Adrian.

At the period of the pestilence referred to in the last book, the Frankish monarch, according to the spirit of the age, had, with sincere faith, vowed a pilgrimage to some of the holy shrines in Italy, the execution of which vow, now concealed the political object he proposed to obtain at the same time. This objet, and the effort which he made to conceal it, were of a very different character from the usual policy of courts. His presence in Italy had become absolutely necessary; but he sought not to march with armies to chastise rebels, while there was a possibility of reclaiming them by milder means; and he determined to use all his own influence, both as a sovereign and relation, and to employ all the growing power of the church of Rome, in order to recall Tassilo of Bavaria to his duty, before he suffered his full knowledge of the incipient rebellion to appear.

This purpose, as well as that of overawing the Duke of Beneventum by his presence, and of guarding the kingdom of Italy from the civil commotions by which it was threatened, acted, beyond doubt, as a strong inducement to lead Charlemagne towards Lombardy. But there were also other motives, which were equally powerful with a monarch, whose native feelings of piety were strong and sincere, and whose devotion, though tempered and elevated by a vast and vigorous understanding, found no course open but through the common superstitions of the day. To offer up his prayers at spots which the church had pronounced holy, and to see his children baptized by the living representative of the Apostle, were probably amongst the motives, rather than the pretences, of Charlemagne's journey into Italy. Nor did the desire of seeing the royal consecration—which, in his own case, had been practised, to give weight to his right of succession—repeated in the persons of his sons, Louis and Carloman, add slightly to the inducements.

STATE OF ITALY

Leaving Pepin, his natural son, and Charles, the heir of the French throne, at Worms, Charlemagne set off for Pavia, late in the year 780, accompanied by his Queen and the rest of his children. On his arrival in Italy, the monarch found that country in a state of turbulence and agitation, which offed little prospect of any permanent tranquility. The disorganisation which had taken place after the fall of the Roman empire still operated in its consequences. The instability of all institutions, which a countless succession of invasions and subjections had induced, was now followed by a frantic thirst for change, and an impatience of all regularity. The jarring elements of a mixed population, consisting of thousand different tribes and nations, assimilated ill together; and, in society, a chronological gradation of conquerors and vanquished gave a gradual increase of hatred from the Roman to the Frank. The nobles were each waiting in gloomy expectation for some new revolution, which might call them into activity, and give them independence. The people, suffering under all, were careless of whose yoke they bore. The inhabitants of the Tyrol had resisted, and both blinded and cast out the bishop, whom the pope had sent to claim the feoffs which Charlemagne had granted to the see of Rome; Terracin, Naples, and Calabria were more or less attached to the Eastern empire; the Duke of Beneventum was secretly leagued with the enemies of the Franks, the Greeks infested the outskirts of the land; and the Saracens commanded the seas.

Such was the state of the country when Charlemagne arrived in Italy. The loss of their separate existence as a people, was undoubtedly one cause of discontent amongst its mixed population; but the monarch of the Francs had already determined to divide Italy from his hereditary dominions, and to raise it into a distinct kingdom, as the portion of one of his sons. In this determination, it is probable that he was influenced nearly as much by the habits of his nation, and by the prejudices of education, as by the desire of soothing the pride of the Italians, in rendering their country once more a separate state.

When the territory they possessed had been much smaller, the kings of France had been invariably in the custom of allotting it, with capricious irregularity, amongst their children. This had been always practised at the death, and sometimes during the life of the monarch, though, in the latter case, we do not easily discern under what limitations the power so intrusted by the father was exercised by the son. Now that countries and kingdoms had been added, in the short space of twelve years, to the vast dominions he had received from his progenitor, the idea naturally presented itself to the mind of Charlemagne, of apportioning to his children different districts of that immense and increasing empire, which already required energies almost superhuman to rule and consolidate as a whole. The division that he proposed on the present occasion was destined to convey the sovereignty of Italy to his second son, Carloman, while Aquitaine became the portion of Louis, at that time the youngest of his family; and the rest of the monarch's hereditary dominions was reserved to form a kingdom for the eldest of his legitimate children, Charles. Saxony, at the same time, remained unappropriated, and might be left to provide for those future claims which the sovereign's age, and the fecundity of his wife, rendered likely to arise.

All the children of Charlemagne were still in their youth, and, therefore, the motives of their consecration could only be, in the first place, the solemn ratification of his design, in order to guard against contention at a future period; and, in the next place, the desire of satisfying both the Italians and the people of Aquitaine by the certain prospect of regaining, in a great degree, their territorial independence.

While thus busily employed in endeavoring to render his dominion as easy as possible, even to the prejudices of the people who had fallen under his sway, Charlemagne took every means to guard against external enemies. One of his principal cares in Italy was to secure that kingdom from the attempts of the Greeks; and so formidable was the aspect which his power assumed, that the policy of the court of Constantinople began to change towards him. Various circumstances, however, had occurred in the East to alter entirely the views of the imperial government.

CHANGES IN THE STATE AND POLICY OF GREECE

Leo IV, a monarch feeble in body and in mind, had befriended Adalgisus, the son of the dethroned Lombard, and had loaded him with promises, which he found easy to utter, but laborious to execute. Still, he had undoubtedly designed to serve him; and, at all events, the recent memory of dominion in Italy, did not suffer the Emperor to see the increasing power of Charlemagne in that country, without jealous, though impotent, hatred. Such feelings had influenced the policy of the empire during the whole reign of Leo, but his death, which occurred in September, AD 780, immediately changed the aspect of the eastern world. By the choice, or with the consent, of his father Constantine, Leo had espoused a beautiful Athenian girl, of the name of Irene,—a name equally famous for talents and for crimes. Charms of person and art of manner, together with much original and much acquired talent, completely ruled a feeble and dying monarch; and Leo, at the gates of the tomb, left to his young and beautiful wife the sole care of his child, Constantine VI, and the government of that vast, but decayed empire, which was all that remained of the world of the Caesars.

Before ambition had time to nourish crime, or opposition could call it into energy, Irene displayed nothing but genius for empire, and powers fitted for command. There were, however, various weaknesses in her character, which sometimes strangely opposed, and sometimes as strangely blended with, her policy. Amongst these weaknesses was superstition; and this principle acted with others in rendering her views, both in regard to Italy and to France, very different from those either of her husband or of his predecessor. The Athenians, her countrymen, had always been amongst the most strenuous supporters of that worship of images, the proscription of which by Leo III and Constantine V had been the cause of the revolt of Italy from the dominion of the East. Irene herself was one of the most devoted adorers of the saintly statues; and, consequently, beheld in the conduct of the Popes who had anathematized their contemners, nothing but a generous indignation and >a holy zeal. During the life of her husband, forced to conceal her full sentiments, she had contrived at least to moderate the iconoclastic spirit which Leo IV had derived from his ancestors; and immediately that the reins of government had fallen into her own hands, she showed the most evident intention of restoring the worship of images, and of retaliating their persecutions upon the heads of the iconoclasts. Thus the great cause of separation between the East and the West was removed; and, both powerful and politic, Irene no longer treated the people of Italy as rebellious subjects. She regarded the monarch of the Francs, also, in a very different light from her predecessors; and sought his friendship rather than his enmity, especially while her reign was continually threatened by the factions of her husband's brothers.

Italy, it must be remarked, was not so wholly separated yet from the empire of the East, as to preclude the possibility of a reunion. No new emperor of the West had been chosen: the monarch of the Francs was but Patrician of Rome, an office which had existed under the Emperors; and whether Irene contemplated or not the chance of winning back, by the restoration of image worship, and an alliance with Charlemagne, the territories which the iconoclasts had lost, and which Pepin had maintained in their independence, her conduct was that which alone could do away the violence and folly of an hundred years.

Such was the aspect which the East assumed, shortly after the journey of Charlemagne to Italy; and one of the first acts of Irene's administration, after the death of her husband, was to court the friendship of the French monarch. Early in the spring, Charlemagne quitted Pavia, where he had passed the winter; and proceeded to Rome, in order to confer with the pontiff, on the measures necessary for the purpose of recalling the Duke of Bavaria to his duty. Peace and persuasion were the counsel of the Pope; and peace and persuasion were equally the means desired by Charlemagne. It was, therefore, determined that legates from the Holy See should he sent, together with ambassadors from the monarch, representing mildly, yet forcibly, the folly of rebellion, and the necessity of tranquility and submission; and endeavoring to induce the Bavarian prince to renew, by some voluntary act, the homage which his conduct had rendered doubtful. The persons trusted with this important mission executed it well. Tassilo found his designs discovered, but being unprepared for resistance, and assured of the clemency of the monarch, he yielded at once to the remonstrances of the envoys, and promised to present himself speedily at the court of his cousin; which promise he accomplished before the end of the year; and, on the same occasion, repeated his vows of homage, and gave hostages for his future conduct.

In the meanwhile Carloman, the second son of the French king, was rebaptized by the hands of Pope Adrian; and, in memory of the first great protector of the Holy See, his name was changed from Carloman to Pepin. He was then solemnly consecrated with his brother Louis, the last as King of Aquitaine, the first as King of Italy. Although Charlemagne, in thus creating his son King of Italy, evidently looked upon the whole Peninsula as submitted to his sway, yet the title of the kingdom of Lombardy was not totally abandoned by those whose interest led them to shrink from a recognition of this extended power. We find, indeed, that though in general the historians of Charlemagne henceforth speak alone of the kingdom of Italy, yet the Popes, in their letters to that monarch, address him as King of Lombardy; in which difference of style, perhaps, may be seen a part of that same system of gradual encroachment by which the pontiffs accumulated titles, to be supported by the manufacture of deeds. Charlemagne himself still maintained his sovereignty over the whole of Italy, with the exception of the small part which adhered to the Greeks. He transferred that sovereignty to his son, who ruled it also for many years; but the Popes, determined step by step to establish the independence of their dominion, still called the monarch King of Lombardy; and though in actions they yielded implicitly to his sway, in words, which were to descend to after times,they did not acknowledge him as monarch of the whole Italian peninsula. An after pontiff, it is true, invested him with the imperial title in gratitude for personal favors; but the sway of an emperor left the vassal a king, while the yoke of a king pressed the vassal into a very inferior grade so that the position of the Popes, as vassals of the Frankish monarch, was was elevated rather Uian depressed by his advancement to empire.

The creation of a separate Italian kingdom by Charlemagne in favor of his second son placed, of course, a great barrier against the designs of Irene, if the empress did indeed contemplate the reunion of Italy to the crown of the East. But her plans in regard to an alliance with the King of the Franks could not now be changed on that account, for, previous to the partition of Charlemagne's dominions, her ambassadors were already on the way to demand Rotruda, the eldest daughter of that monarch, in marriage for her son Gonstantine VI.

Constantino and Mamulus, two officers of her household, were charged with a mission, which, as Rotrada had not yet anrived at a marriageable 9gef might produce beneficial effects at the time, aiid could bring about no conseouences that mig^t not be ayerted in the course or the years iutenrening between the treaty and the narriage^if a change of circumstances should require a cmange of policy. The Greek ambassadors reached Rome* early in the spring, and found Charlemagne in that city. The proposal of an union between his daughter and the young Emperor of the East, was then formally made to the French monarch, who willingly concluded an alliance which promised peace upon his eastern frontier during the time required for confirming his sway over his new dominions in the north.

Rotruda was in consequence solemnly pledged to the bed of Constantine; and after the interchange of those mutual oaths of amity, which, by their constant infraction, have rendered treaties contemptible, the eunuch Elisaus was left with the young bride, to instruct her in the language and the customs of her future court; and the ambassadors returned to Constantinople to bear the consent of Charlemagne to the Empress Irene.

The visit of the Frankish monarch to Italy had been successful in restoring tranquility to that part of his dominions. The discovery of the schemes of the conspirators, and the return of the Duke of Bavaria to his duty, had effectually disconcerted the plans of Arichis of Beneventum; while the death of the Emperor Leo, and the alliance between the court of Constantinople and the monarch of the Francs, crushed the hopes of Adalgisus, and tore another limb from the conspiracy which had been formed against the power of Charlemagne. At the same time that the treaties now existing with the Isaurian dynasty of the East removed a fertile source of irritation from Italy, the inhabitants of that country were gratified and tranquilized with the idea of becoming a separate kingdom, instead of being joined as a conquered province to a superior country; and a great number of the nobles, won by the confidence and clemency of Charlemagne, forgot the bitterness of subjugation, and attached themselves sincerely to their conqueror.

With these prospects, the monarch of the Francs prepared to return to his native country. On his homeward journey, an event of apparently less importance than those in which he had lately mingled, awaited him at Parma, which event, however, tended, more than any other, by its consequences, to the development of some of the brighter and nobler points of his character. This was the visit of a single private individual from a distant, and then unimportant island, whose previous history, and state at the time, must be considered, in order to comprehend how Charlemagne could derive great benefit, and his best schemes receive accomplishment, from his connection with an English priest.

STATE OF GREAT BRITAIN

In the decline of the Roman empire, the necessities of the state had demanded imperatively the concentration of all her small remains of power; and the legions which had gone forth to acquire or maintain sovereignty on the distant borders of her immense dominion, were one by one recalled, to defend the hearths of Rome itself. Amongst the provinces conquered and abandoned, was Britain; and whether, after Constantine had usurped the purple, and withdrawn his troops from the British shores to support his usurpation, the Britons themselves at once threw off the Roman yoke for ever—or whether Victorinus again ruled the country for the Emperor,—it is evident, that early in the fifth century, these islands were left to the government of the inhabitants themselves, a wild, unskilful race, who added to the rudeness of a barbarous, the vices of a conquered, people. A period of darkness and bloodshed succeeded; and a thousand savage kings employed the arms which the Romans had left them, in murdering each other.

Scarcely forty years after the departure of the Romans had elapsed, when the Saxon savages of the north, who had begun already to infest the shores of France, first landed in England. Too few to effect a conquest, the soldiers of Hengist and Horsa, who commanded the three vessels which brought them thither, readily engaged with their chiefs in the service of some of the British kings, and were employed in repelling the invasions of the Irish and the Picts. Fresh reinforcements were demanded and obtained from Saxony; and tired of being the defenders of the Britons, the Saxons soon found a pretext for becoming their enemies. Partly by alliance, and partly by aggression, Hengist established himself as an independent sovereign in Kent; and the Saxon dominion began to extend itself in England.

The successful expedition of a small body of their countrymen, soon brought fresh swarms of Saxons to the British shore. Ella and Cerdic followed with more extensive armies than their predecessors; and, after deluging the land with blood, obtained possession of a great part of the country. A number of British kings struggled bravely against the invasion; and Arthur, a chief of sufficient importance and success to have his actions immortalized in fable and doubted by history, beyond all question greatly retarded the progress of the Saxons by his valor, though he facilitated it by his barbarous contentions with his own countrymen.

A multitude of obscure battles, uncertain in their event, and the long and severe struggle of a divided and decreasing nation, against a continual influx of invaders, ended in the establishment of eight distinct kingdoms, of which Mercia, extending in a broad band from the Humber to the Severn, was the last in date, but one of the first in importance. The Britons, confined to Wales and a part of Cornwall, retained their language and their customs; while the Saxons, acquiring the taste for territorial possession, abandoned their predatory excursions, and only exercised their barbarous cupidity, in aggrieving and pillaging each other.

This state of things continued for some years. The natural rudeness of the inhabitants of Britain augmenting by a constant existence of strife, till about the year 596, Pope Gregory the Great was instigated, by the sight of some English slaves at Rome, to conceive and attempt the conversion of the Pagan islanders. The celebrated Augustin was sent with a band of missionaries, to effect this noble purpose. The marriage of Ethelbert, King of Kent, to a Christian princess, of the Merovingian race, favored the object of the messengers of Christianity. They were received, were suffered to teach, obtained converts; and the first principles of civilization were given to the barbarous conquerors of England.

At the same time that Christianity was introduced into Britain, a slight tincture of literature was also afforded; and the first Saxon compositions on record, are attributed to the period of the conversion of Kent. The kingdom of Northumbria was brought over to the faith with more difficulty; but the very cause of that difficulty,—the investigating and intellectual character of the King, Edwin, and perhaps of the whole people,—was also the cause of the rapid progress of religious impressions, and of their permanence, when once adopted. Such literature as the church of Rome possessed, now spread fast in Northumberland; and, at length, in the person of Alfred, called the Wise, a great protector of the milder arts appeared. He had been educated by Wilfrid, one of the most learned priests of the day; and, with a clear and philosophical intellect, appreciated and applied the knowledge he obtained. The love of letters extended amongst his subjects; and the cloisters of Northumberland became the repositories of ancient learning. Security and leisure, the two great foster parents of science, were to be obtained alone in monastic life; and several of the Saxon kings of Northumbria, abandoning the scenes of bloodshed and turbulence which surrounded the throne, found peace and happiness in the studious seclusion of the monastery.

Amongst the people at large, civil wars and disturbances of all kinds greatly retarded the spirit of literature in Northumbria, after the reign of Alfred the Wise; but the same spirit remained concentrating all its powers in the cloister; and while France, under the declining race of her Merovingian kings, was every day losing the remains of Roman learning, the priests of England retained the elements of knowledge, and the love of science.

CHARLEMAGNE VISITED BY ALCUIN

Three greatt epochs of darkness are distinctly marked in the history of France. The first immediately succeeded the conquest of Gaul by the barbarians, when the arts of the Romans received their most severe blow. The second preceded the fall of the Merovingian and the rise of the Carolingiandynasty, when wars and civil contentions had worn away all that barbaric conquest had left. The third followed considerably after the period of which I now write, and took place just before the accession of the Capetian line, when the folly of Charlemagne's descendants, the invasions of the Normans, and the complete anarchy of the times, destroyed all which the great monarch had succeeded in restoring.

The second of these epochs still existed in full force at the accession of Charlemagne himself; and in his grand and general views for the consolidation of his power, his magnificent intellect, and his benevolent heart, immediately led him to conceive the project of raising his empire above the surrounding world, by superior civilization, and of binding all its component parts together by a community of taste, of knowledge, and of cultivation. To obtain his object, however, was difficult, even in the outset; for, where could he seek for people qualified to instruct the ignorant nations over which he was extending his sway? The Italians were now almost as uncivilized as the Francs; and Greece, where literature still lingered, was infectious with vices, and jealous of communicating her better stores. Barbarism spread around the monarch on every side; and, at the first view, it appeared as if it would be necessary, not so much to revive, as to create, a literature for France.

On his return towards his native country, however, after having calmed and regulated his Italian dominions, Charlemagne was visited at Parma by an English priest, named Alcuin, who had come to Rome, charged by the Archbishop of York to receive for him the pall which was occasionally sent from the Apostolic See to various bishoprics, as a symbol of the archiepiscopal dignity. The renown of the monarch had drawn the priest to Parma; but the eloquence and learning of the Saxon had as powerful an effect on the mind of Charlemagne. He now found that the cloisters of England contained men able and willing to co-operate in his great design of civilizing and instructing the nations under his dominion; and Alcuin was accordingly invited at once, to visit France, and to combine with the monarch in framing a plan for reviving the light of past ages, and dispelling the darkness of the present.

Such an occupation was, of all others, that which best suited the talents and inclination of the Saxon priest. Passionately fond of knowledge, though the learning which he himself possessed was tinctured with the sophistical rhetoric of the lower empire, and in a degree obscured by the gloomy superstitions of the Roman church, Alcuin was zealous in his desire to extend his information to others, and ardent in his aspirations for a more polished and humane state of society. Nevertheless, charged as he was at the time with a mission of a totally different character, and subjected by the rule of the church to the will of a superior, he could not at once meet the wishes of the French sovereign, and all that he could promise was, to visit France if he could obtain permission. The desire of so great a monarch, however, was not likely to be rejected by the Archbishop of York; and, after having distinguished the object of his favor by every mark of honor and regard, Charlemagne returned to France, satisfied with having taken the first step towards improving the state of society, and mitigating the rudeness of the age.

After his arrival in his native country, he held a general diet at Worms, at which Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria, having received assurance of personal safety, appeared as a vassal of the French crown. His oaths of fidelity and homage were renewed; and, having been entertained for some time with splendor and hospitality by his sovereign, he gave twelve hostages for his very doubtful faith, and returned to his own territories.

The whole empire now slept in peace; and Charlemagne closed the year without any warlike movement,—an event which occurred but seldom during his long protracted reign.