9/107 The people were divided between the two princes, and a bloody civil war, joined to all the other calamities under which the English labored, appeared inevitable, when Ethelwolf had the facility to yield to the greater part of his son's pretensions. He made with him a partition of the kingdom; and, taking to himself the eastern part, which was always, at that time, esteemed the least considerable, as well as the most exposed,[****] he delivered over to Ethelbald the sovereignty of the western. Immediately after, he summoned the states of the whole kingdom, and with the same facility conferred a perpetual and important donation on the church. 76. H.Hunting, lib. |