tions on the first appearance. About this time, the monks, not being contented to govern in ecclesiastical matters, began to assume the direc tion in civil affairs; and, by artfully managing the superstitions, and the fears of the people, erected an authority that was not shaken off for 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, and the independency of the clergy, as being a measure that would contribute to the establishment of the papal power in Europe, was warmly recommended: by the see of Rome to all ecclesiastics in general, but to the monks in particular. The present favourable opportunity offered of carrying this measure in England, arising 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 the quinsey, in the tenth year of his reign.

EDWY, his nephew, who ascended the A. D. throne, his own sons being yet unfit to 954. govern, was a prince of great personal

accomplishments, and a 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 illumina- tions 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 red hot 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 so absurd, but what the monks were ready to propagate in favour of their sect. Cruci

fixes, 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 man, 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 degress of affinity prohibited by the canon laaw. 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 furiously into the apartment, and upbraiding him with all the bitterness of ecclestastical 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 bringing him to account for the money with which he had been entrusted 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 be had been in possession, and banished the kingdom; his exile served only to encrease 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 an 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 once more ventured to return to the king, whom she still regarded as her husband. But misfortunes 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 cut, and her body mangled, she was thus left to expire in the most cruel 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 malecontents at last proceeded to open rebellion; and, having placed Edgar, the king's younger brother, a boy of about thirteen years of age, at their head, they soon puthim 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 soon after, freed his enemies from all further

inquietude, and gave Edgar peaceable possession of the government.

A. D. 959.

EDGAR being placed on the throne by the influence of the monks, affected to be entirely 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 this 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 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

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