kings. During his reign the Bible was translated into the Saxon language; and some alliances also were formed by him A. D. with the princes of the continent. He died at Gloucester, after a reign of sixteen years; and was succeeded by his brother Edmund.

941.

Edmund, like the rest of his predecessors, met with disturbance from the Northumbrians on his accession to the throne; but his activity soon defeated their attempts. The great end, therefore, which he aimed at, during his reign, was to curb the licentiousness of this people, who offered to embrace Christianity as an atonement for their offences. Among other schemes for the benefit of the people, he was the first monarch who, by law, instituted capital punishments in England. Remarking that fines and pecuniary mulcts were too gentle methods of treating robbers, who were, in general, men who had nothing to lose, he enacted, that in gangs of robbers, when taken, the oldest of them should be condemned to the gallows. This was reckoned a very severe law at the time it was enacted; for, among our early ancestors, all the penal laws were mild and merciful. The resentment this monarch bore to men of that desperate way of living was the cause of his death. His virtues, abilities, wealth, and temperance, promised him a long and happy reign; when, on a certain day, as he was solemnizing a festival in Gloucestershire, he remarked that Leolf, a notorious robber, whom he had sentenced to banishment, had yet the boldness to enter the hall where he was dining, and to sit at the table among the royal attendants. Enraged at this insolence, he commanded him to leave the room; but, on his refusing to obey, the king, whose temper was naturally choleric, flew against him, and caught him by the hair. The ruffian, giving way to rage also on his side, drew a dagger, and lifting up his arm, with a furious blow stabbed the monarch to the heart, who fell down on the bosom of his murderer. The death of the assassin, who was instantly cut in pieces, was but a small compensation for the loss of a king, loved by his subjects, and deserving their esteem.

The late king's sons were too young to succeed him in the direction of so difficult a government as that of England: his brother Edred was therefore appointed to succeed; and, like his predecessors, this monarch found himself at the head of a rebellious and refractory people. The Northumbrian Danes, as usual, made several attempts to shake off the English yoke; so that the king was at last obliged to place garrisons in their most considerable towns, and to appoint an English governor over them, who might suppress their insurrections on the first appearance. About this time the monks, from being contented to govern in ecclesiastical matters, began to assume the direction in civil affairs; and, by artfully managing the superstitions and the fears of the people, erected an authority that was not shaken off by several succeeding centuries. Edred had blindly delivered over his conscience to the guidance of Dunstan, abbot of Glastonbury, who was afterwards canonized;

and this man, under the appearance of sanctity, concealed the most boundless ambition. The monks had hitherto been a kind of secular priests, who, though they lived in communities, were neither separated from the rest of the world nor useless to it. They were often married; they were assiduously employed in the education of youth, and subject to the commands of temporal superiors. The celibacy of the clergy, as being a measure that would contribute to their independence, and to the establishment of the papal power in Europe, was warmly recommended by the see of Rome to ecclesiastics in general, but to the monks in particular. An opportunity of carrying this measure in England arose from the superstitious character of Edred, and the furious zeal of Dunstan. Both lent it all the assistance in their power; and the order of Benedictine monks was established under the direction of Dunstan. Edred implicitly submitted to his directions, both in church and state; and the kingdom was in a fair way of being turned into a papal province by this zealous ecclesiastic, when he was checked in the midst of his career by the death of the king, who died of a quinsy, in the tenth year of his reign.

Edwy, his nephew, who ascended the throne, his own sons A. D. being yet unfit to govern, was a prince of great personal 955. accomplishments and martial disposition. But he was now come to the government of a kingdom in which he had an enemy to contend with, against whom all military virtues could be of little service. Dunstan, who had governed during the former reign, was resolved to remit nothing of his authority in this; and Edwy, immediately upon his accession, found himself involved in a quarrel with the monks, whose rage neither his accomplishments nor his virtues could mitigate. He seems to have been elected by the secular priests in opposition to the monks; so that their whole body, and Dunstan at their head, pursued him with implacable animosity while living, and even endeavoured to brand his character to posterity.

This Dunstan, who makes a greater figure in these times than even kings themselves, was born of noble parents in the West; but, being defamed as a man of licentious manners in his youth, he betook himself to the austerities of a monastic life, either to atone for his faults or vindicate his reputation. He secluded himself entirely from the world, in a cell so small that he could neither stand erect nor lie along in it. It was in this retreat of constant mortification that his zeal grew furious, and his fancy teemed with visions of the most extravagant nature. His supposed illuminations were frequent; his temptations strong, but he always resisted with bravery. The devil, it was said, one day paid him a visit in the shape of a fine young woman; but Dunstan, knowing the deceit, and provoked at his importunity, seized him by the nose with a pair of redhot pincers, as he put his head into the cell; and he held him there till the malignant spirit made the whole neighbourhood resound with his bellowings. Nothing was too absurd for the monks to

propagate in favour of their sect. Crucifixes, altars, and even horses, were heard to harangue in their defence against the secular clergy. These miracles, backed by their stronger assertions, prevailed with the people. Dunstan was considered as the peculiar favourite of the Almighty, and appeared at court with an authority greater than that of kings; since theirs was conferred by men, but his allowed by Heaven itself. Being possessed of so much power, it may be easily supposed that Edwy could make but a feeble resistance; and that his first fault was likely to be attended with the most dangerous consequences. The monk found or made one on the very day of his coronation. There was a lady of the royal blood, named Elgiva, whose beauty had made a strong impression on this young monarch's heart. He had even ventured to marry her, contrary to the advice of his counsellors, as she was within the degrees of affinity prohibited by the canon law. On the day of his coronation, while his nobility were giving a loose to the more noisy pleasures of wine and festivity in the great hall, Edwy retired to his wife's apartment, where, in company with her mother, he enjoyed the more pleasing satisfaction of her conversation. Dunstan no sooner perceived his absence, than, conjecturing the reason, he rushed fiercely into the apartment, and upbraiding him with all the bitterness of ecclesiastical rancour, dragged him forth in the most outrageous manner. Dunstan, it seems, was not without his enemies; for the king was advised to punish this insult, by ordering him to account for the money with which he had been intrusted during the last reign. This account the haughty monk refused to give in; wherefore he was deprived of all the ecclesiastical and civil emoluments of which he had been in possession, and banished from the kingdom. His exile only served to increase the reputation of his sanctity among the people; and Odo, archbishop of Canterbury, was so far transported with the spirit of the party, that he pronounced a divorce between Edwy and Elgiva. Ecclesiastical censures were then attended with the most formidable effects. The king could no longer resist the indignation of the church, but consented to surrender his beautiful wife to its fury. Accordingly, Odo sent into the palace a party of soldiers, who seized the queen, and, by his orders, branded her on the face with a hot iron. Not contented with this cruel vengeance, they carried her by force into Ireland, and there commanded her to remain in perpetual exile. This injunction, however, was too distressing for that faithful woman to comply with; for, being cured of her wound, and having obliterated the marks which had been made to deface her beauty, she ventured to return to the king, whom she still regarded as her husband. But misfortune still continued to pursue her. She was taken prisoner by a party whom the archbishop had appointed to observe her conduct, and was put to death in the most cruel manner. The sinews of her legs being cut, and her body mangled, she was thus left to expire in dreadful agony. In the meantime a secret revolt against Edwy became almost general; and, that it

might not be doubted at whose instigation this revolt was undertaken, Dunstan returned to England, and put himself at the head of the party. The malcontents at last proceeded to open rebellion: and having placed Edgar, the king's younger brother, a boy of thirteen years of age, at their head, they soon put him in possession of all the northern parts of the kingdom. Edwy's power, and the number of his adherents, every day declining, he was at last obliged to consent to a partition of the kingdom; but his death, which happened two years after, freed his enemies from all further inquietude, and gave Edgar peaceable possession of the government.

Edgar, being placed on the throne by the influence of the A. D. monks, affected to be entirely guided by their directions in 959. all his succeeding transactions. There has ever been some popular cry, some darling prejudice amongst the English; and he who has taken the advantage of it, has always found it of excellent assistance to his government. The sanctity of the monks was the cry at that time; and Edgar, chiming in with the people, at once. promoted their happiness and his own glory. Few English monarchs have reigned with more fortune or more splendour than he. He not only quieted all domestic insurrections, but repressed all foreign invasions; and his power was so well established, and so widely extended, that he is said to have been rowed in his barge by eight tributary kings upon the river Dee. The monks whom he promoted are loud in his praise; and yet the example of his continence was in no way corresponding with that chastity and forbearance on which they chiefly founded their superior pretensions to sanctity. It is, indeed, somewhat extraordinary, that one should have been extolled for his virtues by the monks, whose irregularities were so peculiarly opposite to the tenets they enforced. His first transgression of this kind was the breaking into a convent, carrying off Editha, a nun, by force, and even committing violence on her person. For this act of sacrilege and barbarity, no other penance was enjoined than that he should abstain from wearing his crown for seven years. As for the lady herself, he was permitted to continue his intercourse with her without scandal. There was another mistress of Edgar's named Elfleda the Fair, with whom he formed a connexion by a kind of accident; for, being at the house of one of his nobles, and fixing his affections on the nobleman's daughter, he privately requested that the young lady should pass that very night with him. The lady's mother, knowing his power, and the impetuosity of his temper, prevailed upon her daughter seemingly to comply with his request; but, in the meantime, substituted a beautiful domestic in the young lady's place. In the morning, when the king perceived the deceit, instead of being displeased at the stratagem, he expressed pleasure in the adventure; and transferring his love to Elfleda, as the damsel was called, she became his favourite mistress, and maintained an ascendency over him till his marriage with Elfrida. The story of this lady is too remarkable to be passed over in silence.

Edgar had long heard of the beauty of a young lady, whose name was Elfrida, daughter of the earl of Devonshire: but, unwilling to credit common fame in this particular, he sent Athelwold, his favourite friend, to see, and inform him, if Elfrida was indeed that imcomparable woman report had described her. Athelwold, arriving at the earl's castle, had no sooner cast his eyes upon that nobleman's daughter than he became desperately enamoured of her himself. Such was the violence of his passion, that, forgetting his master's intentions, he solicited only his own interests, and demanded for himself the beautiful Elfrida from her father in marriage. The favourite of a king was not likely to find a refusal; the earl gave his consent, and their nuptials were performed in private. Upon his return to court, which was shortly after, he assured the king that her riches alone and her high quality had been the causes of her admiration; and he appeared amazed how the world could talk so much, and so unjustly, of her charms. The king was satisfied, and no longer felt any curiosity, while Athelwold secretly triumphed in his address. When he had, by this deceit, weaned the king from his purpose, he took an opportunity, after some time, of turning the conversation on Elfrida, representing that though the fortune of a daughter of the earl of Devonshire would be a trifle to a king, yet it would be an immense acquisition to a needy subject. He, therefore, humbly entreated permission to pay his addresses to her, as she was the richest heiress in the kingdom. A request so seemingly reasonable was readily complied with: Athelwold returned to his wife, and their nuptials were solemnized in public. His greatest care, however, was employed in keeping her from court; and he took every precaution to prevent her appearing before a king so susceptible of love, whilst he was so capable of inspiring that passion. But it was impossible to keep his treachery long concealed. Favourites are never without private enemies, who watch every opportunity of rising upon their ruin. Edgar was soon informed of the whole transaction; but, dissembling his resentment, he took occasion to visit that part of the country where this miracle of beauty was detained, accompanied by Athelwold, who reluctantly attended him thither. Upon coming near the lady's habitation, he told him that he had a curiosity to see his wife, of whom he had formerly heard so much, and desired to be introduced as his acquaintance. Athelwold, thunder-struck at the proposal, did all in his power, but in vain, to dissuade him. All he could obtain, was permission to go before on pretence of preparing for the king's reception. On his arrival he fell at his wife's feet, confessing what he had done to be possessed of her charms, and conjuring her to conceal, as much as possible, her beauty from the king, who was but too susceptible of its power. Elfrida, little obliged to him for a passion that had deprived her of a crown, promised compliance; but, prompted either by vanity or revenge, adorned her person with the most exquisite art, and called up all her beauty on the occasion. The event answered her expectations: