This imposition being afterwards levied on all England, was commonly denominated Peter's Pence [h]: and though conferred at first as a gift, was afterwards claimed as a tribute by the Roman pontiff.
Carrying his hypocrisy still farther, Offa, feigning to be directed by a vision from heaven, discovered at Verulam the relics of St.Alban, the martyr, and endowed a magnificent monastery in that place [i].
Moved by all these acts of piety, Malmesbury, one of the best of the old English historians, declares himself at a loss to determine [k] whether the merits or crimes of this prince preponderated.

Offa died after a reign of thirty-nine years, in 794 [l].
[FN [d] Chron.Sax.p.59.

[e] Brompton, p.

750, 751, 752.

[f] Spell.
Conc.p.308.