174 ROGER OF AVENDO VER. [A.D. 821. he was but seven years old. Led astray by base ambition, she committed her nephew to a certain officer, who had been his foster-father, with instructions to put him out of the way. Under pretext of taking him out to hunt, he cut off the innocent child's head and hid the body among the bushes ; but, wonderful to tell, the deed which was so privily perpetrated in England, was made known by divine revelation at Rome ; for a white pigeon let drop a letter on the altar of the blessed Peter, the chief of the apostles, by which a discovery was made of the murder of the king and martyr St. Kenelm, and of the place of his burial. This writing, which was in letters of gold in the English language was, at the pope's bidding, in vain attempted to be read by the Romans and other ecclesiastics who were present; but fortunately there was among them an Englishman, who turned the writing into the Latin tongue, and brought it to pass that a letter from the Roman pontiff made known to the English kings where the martyr of their country lay. The following, among other things, was in the letter, " In Clento cou bathe Kenelm kynebearn lith under thorne hasvedes bereaved," which is, being interpreted, " In Clent the cow pasture, Kenelm, king's child, lieth under a thorn, bereaved of his head." Accordingly, the body of the blessed martyr, thus wonderfully discovered to the kings of England, as has been related, was taken up from its hiding place and conveyed to Winchelcombe, attended by an immense multitude of clergy and nobles. Moved by the chanting of the clergy and the hearty plaudits of the people, the murderous woman put forth her head from the window of the chamber where she was standing, and began to repeat in a loud tone the psalm, "B e not silent, Ο God, at my praise," which with a sort of jugglery she uttered backwards, as though she would thereby diminish the joy of the singers; and when she had gone backwards as far as the verse, " This is the work of those who malign me with the Lord," straightway both her eyes burst from their sockets and fell on the page she was reading. To this day, that psalter, wrought with silver and stained with the gore of her eyes which fell upon it, bears testimony to this judgment. Also, touching this saint's martyrdom, some one has written as follows : " In Clent, sub spina, jacet in convalle bovina, Venice privatus, Keiielmus rege creatus."