But the weak prince took no advantage of this time to concert a regular plan of defence, or to rouse a proper spirit in his people.

Yielding himself wholly to speculative devotion, he entirely neglected his affairs, and, to complete the ruin of his kingdom, abandoned it, in such critical circumstances, to make a pilgrimage to Rome.

At Rome he behaved in the manner that suited his little genius, in making charitable foundations, and in extending the Rome-scot or Peter-pence, which the folly of some princes of the Heptarchy had granted for their particular dominions, over the whole Kingdom.

His shameful desertion of his country raised so general a discontent, that in his absence his own son, with the principal of his nobility and bishops, conspired against him.

At his return, he found, however, that several still adhered to him; but here, too, incapable of acting with rigor, he agreed to an accommodation, which placed the crown on the head of his rebellious son, and only left to himself a sphere of government as narrow as his genius,--the district of Kent, whither he retired to enjoy an inglorious privacy with a wife whom he had married in France.
[Sidenote: Ethelred, A.D.