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.. *A. D. Edwy, his nephew, who ascended the throne, 955. his own sons being yet unfit to govern, was a prince of great personal 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. Einfluß dies. 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 coro- x nation, 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 ene-, mies; 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 Nin you in dreadful agony. In the mean time 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, Die Königin wind in rissen! 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 govern ment. Edgar, being placed on the throne by the A.D. influence of the monks, affected to be entirely 959. guided by their directions in 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 Edgar sich mit 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 mean time, 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 to the earl of Devonshire: but, unwilling to credit commom fame in this frida particular, he sent Athelwold, his favourite friend, to see, and inform him, if Elfrida was indeed that incomparable 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 |