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: petrated the crime. Having invited the pious prince to meet him at a place called, from that time to this day, says Capgrave, Wistanostowe, whilst the saint saluted him with a kiss of peace, he took out a sword which he carried se- cretlyunder his cloak, and with a violent blow cut off the upper part of his head. One of the assassin's attendants dispatched the martyr by stabbing him through the body. This happened on the first of June, S49. Before the end of that year Ethelwolph, alleging that Bertulph was not sufficiently accomplished in the art of war to defend the country against the infidels, deposed him, and bestowed the crown on Burr- hed, the last king of Mercia. The body of St. Wistan was buried by the care of his mother Enfleda, daughter of Cel- wulph, at Repton, and honoured with many miracles. It was some years after translated to the monastery of Evesham. See Ingulph, Malmesbury the monk of Westminster, and Brompton, by whose histories several circumstances of the legend of St. Wistan in Capgrave are to be corrected. JUNE II. SAINTS POTHINUS, BISHOP, SANCTUS, ATTALUS, BLANDINA, AND THE OTHER MARTYRS OF LYONS. From the letter of the churches of Vienne and Lyons to their brethren in Asia and Phrygia, extant, though imperfect, in Eusebius's Hist. b. 5. cb. 1, 2, 3, one of the most precious and most moving monuments of the primitive ages, as Jot. Scaliger observes, in his notes on the Chronicle of Eusebius. A.D, 177 After the miraculous victory obtained by the prayers of the Christians under Marcus Aurelius, in 174, the church enjoyed a kind of peace, though it was often disturbed inparticular places by popular commotions, or by the superstitious fury of certain governors. This appears from the violent persecution which was raised three years after the af...