It is in the fight for the security of the throne that Somerset comes chiefly into history. It was here that a boy named Ina was taken from a farm to win supremacy over all England south of London.
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Ina, our Somerset king, appears to have been chosen much as they choose the Dalai Lama today; he was looking after his father's oxen when he was taken from the farm at Somerton and made king, becoming supreme in the South a hundred years before Alfred. His was a remarkable reign, for he issued a series of laws (drawn up by his bishops and aldermen with the witan and a great assembly of people) which are among the earliest expressions of humanity in English legislation. They show great change brought about by Christianity in the treatment of the conquered. Ina was a benefactor of Glastonbury, and the first king to give rights to Welshmen.
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