i.D. 854. ALFRED OBOWITED EXNG BY THE POPE. 403 servante of God, namely, the religious men and women, on whom the above benefits have been conferred, to adopt a rule that all the brethren and sisters shall, every week, on the day of Mercury, that is to say, on Wednesday, sing, in every church, fifty psalms ; and that each priest shall celebrate two masses, one for the king and another for his dukes who con-Bent to this measure, for the salvation and refreshing of their «raie. And after we are dead, they shall discharge the same duty for the king separately, and for all his dukes together. And let this deed be firmly established for all the days of Christianity, as firmly as liberty is established, and let it last as long as the faith flourishes among the nation of the English." And the charter of this donation was written A.D . 855, on the fourth indiction, on the third of November, in the city of Winchester, before the greater altar of the blessed Apostle Peter. ^ Î After these events, Ethelwolf, the noble king of the West Saxons, having gone to Rome with great honour, took with him Alfred, his younger son, whom he loved more than all the rest, in order that he might there be instructed by pope Leo in morals and religion. And when the king had stayed there with his son more than a year, he caused his son to be there crowned king by the pope, and a few days afterwards he returned to his own country, taking with him into England Judith, the daughter of Charles,1 king of France, whom he had ^married. But in the meantime, while the king was delaying* m the parts beyond the sea, there rose up a conspiracy of some of his nobles against the aforesaid king, the object of Ethelbald, the first-born son of the king, and of Alstan, bishop of Sherburne, and of Eandulf, count of the county of Somerset, to prevent the king, when he returned home from Rome, being received again into his kingdom. And there were two pretexts for this ; one, because he had, while at Rome, procured his younger son Alfred to be crowned as king, as if his other sons •ere excluded from the kingdom ; the other, because he had despised all the women of England, and taken to himself in wedlock a foreigner, the daughter of the king of France. Besides this, the before-mentioned conspirators heard that, contrary to the customs and laws of the kings of the West Saxons, he was wont to address Judith, the daughter of the king of France, whom he had lately espoused, as his queen, and caused 1 This was Charles the Bald. D D 2