the victory of Aurelius Ambrosius; and what is delivered in so bright a treatise, needs not to be repeated here in a meaner style.[1]
BOOK V.
Chap. I.—Lucius dies without issue, and is a benefactor to the churches.
In the meantime, the glorious king Lucius highly rejoiced at the great progress which the true faith and worship had made in his kingdom, and permitted the possessions and territories which formerly belonged to the temples of the gods, to be converted to a better use, and appropriated to Christian churches. And because a greater honour was due to them than to the others, he made large additions of lands and manor-houses, and all kinds of privileges to them. Amidst these and other acts of his great piety, he departed this life in the city of Gloucester, and was honourably buried in the cathedral church, in the hundred and fifty-sixth year after our Lord's incarnation. He had no issue to succeed him, so that after his decease there arose a dissension among the Britons, and the Roman power was much weakened.
Chap. II.—Severus, a senator, subdues part of Britain; his war with Fulgenius.
When this news was brought to Rome, the senate despatched Severus, a senator, with two legions, to reduce the country to subjection. As soon as he was arrived, he came to a battle with the Britons, part of whom he obliged to surrender to him, and the other part which he could not subdue he endeavoured to distress in several cruel engagements, and forced them to fly beyond Deira to Albania. Notwithstanding which they opposed him with all their might under the
- ↑ This treatise has not been preserved, and most probably never was written. The only information which has come down to us about king Lucius, at all likely to be of an authentic character, is a brief notice of him in Bede's Ecclesiastical History, p. 10.
