monks with him, went to
Oxford to the king. And the king gave him the abbacy; and he
proceeded soon afterwards to Peterborough; where he remained with
the abbot, ere he came home. And the king was received with
great worship at Peterborough, in full procession. And so he was
also at Ramsey, and at Thorney, and at.... and at Spalding, and
at....

ENDNOTES:

(1) This introductory part of the "Chronicle" to An. I. first
printed by Gibson from the Laud MS. only, has been corrected
by a collation of two additional MSS. in the British Museum,
"Cotton Tiberius B" lv. and "Domitianus A" viii. Some
defects are also here supplied. The materials of this part
are to be found in Pliny, Solinus, Orosius, Gildas, and
Bede. The admeasurement of the island, however inaccurate,
is from the best authorities of those times, and followed by
much later historians.

(2) Gibson, following the Laud MS. has made six nations of five,
by introducing the British and Welsh as two distinct tribes.

(3) "De tractu Armoricano."--Bede, "Ecclesiastical History" i.
I. The word Armenia occurring a few lines above in Bede, it
was perhaps inadvertently written by the Saxon compiler of
the "Chronicle" instead of Armorica.

(4) In case of a disputed succession, "Ubi res veniret in
dabium," etc.--Bede, "Ecclesiastical History" i. I.

(5) Reada, Aelfr.; Reuda, Bede, Hunt. etc. Perhaps it was
originally Reutha or Reotha.

(6) This is an error, arising from the inaccurately written MSS.
of Orosius and Bede; where "in Hybernia" and "in Hiberniam"
occur for "in hiberna". The error is retained in Wheloc's
Bede.

(7) Labienus = Laberius. Venerable Bede also, and Orosius, whom
he follows verbatim, have "Labienus". It is probably a
mistake of some very ancient scribe, who improperly supplied
the abbreviation "Labius" (for "Laberius") by "Labienus".

(8) Of these early transactions in Britain King Alfred supplies
us with a brief but circumstantial account in his Saxon
paraphrase of "Orosius".

(9) "8 die Aprilis", Flor. M. West.

(10) Gibbon regrets this chronology, i.e. from the creation of
the world, which he thinks preferable to the vulgar mode
from the Christian aera. But how vague and uncertain the
scale which depends on a point so remote and undetermined as
the precise time when the world was cre