beautifull setting foorth of the house, and in place thereof to bring
ordure, straw, & such like filth, as well into the chambers and hall,
as into all the houses of office, and that doone, to laie a sow with
pigs in the place where before the kings bed had stood. Héerevpon
when she had knowledge that euerie thing was ordered according to hir
appointment, she persuaded the king to returne thither againe, feining
occasions great and necessarie.

Now when he was returned to that house, which before séemed to the eie
a palace of most pleasure, and now finding it in such a filthie state
as might loath the stomach of anie man to behold the same, she tooke
occasion therevpon to persuade him to the consideration of the vaine
pleasures of this world, which in a moment turne to naught, togither
with the corruption of the flesh, being a filthie lumpe of claie,
after it should once be disolued by death: and in fine, where before
she had spent much labour to mooue him to renounce the world, though
all in vaine, yet now the beholding of that change in his pleasant
palace, wherein so late he had taken great delight, wrought such an
alteration in his mind, that hir woords lastlie tooke effect: so that
he resigned the kingdome to his coosen Ethelard, and went himselfe to
Rome (as aboue is mentioned) and his wife became a nun in the abbeie
of Barking, where she was made abbesse, and finallie there ended hir
[Sidenote: Peter pence.]
life. This Inas was the first that caused the monie called Peter
pence, to be paid vnto the bishop of Rome, which was for euerie
houshold within his dominion a penie.

[Sidenote: King Ethelred becommeth a moonk.]
In this meane time Edilred or Ethelred, hauing gouerned the
kingdome of Mercia by the tearme of 29 yéeres, became a moonke in the