upbraided the king with his effeminacy; and, on his refusing to quit his seat, he tore him from the arms of his wife, forced the diadem on his head, and hurried him in the most indecent manner back to the disorderly hall. To the humblest individual this insolence must have been inexcusable; to a king it was unpardonable. Edwy, though young and surrounded by such formidable adversaries, found an opportunity of taking revenge for this public breach of duty and deco

rum.

He displayed a spirit of firmness and independence on which his enemies had not calculated. Dunstan was questioned concerning his administration of the treasury during the reign of Edred, and on his declining to give any account of the money expended, as he alleged, by order of the late king, he was accused of malversation in office, deprived of his honours and emoluments, and condemned to banishment A voluntary flight saved the exiled monk from a severer exercise of the royal indignation, for he was scarcely three miles from shore on his way to Flanders, when a messenger arrived with orders to put out his eyes, had he been found in the kingdom. It was unfortunate for Edwy that he listened to the suggestion of his angry passions. The victim of his rage was not a mere insulated individual, or an obscure abbot of a distant monastery, who could be chastised with safety or impunity. He was the idol of a superstitious people, whom his bold artifices had deluded and attached to him. He possessed the friendship of the venerable chancellor Turketul, and was supported by Odo, the primate of England, over whom he had gained an absolute ascendant. It was also probable that most of the clergy and nobility who had feasted at the coronation, conceived themselves bound to protect him, as his punishment arose from his executing, however offensively, their commission. During his absence, therefore, the partisans of Dunstan were not inactive. They lauded his sanctity; exclaimed against the impiety of the king and queen; and, having poisoned the minds of the people by these declamations, they proceeded to still more outrageous acts of violence against the royal authority. In this conspiracy the fierce Odo distinguished himself as the most prominent in avenging his absent friend. He dissolved the king's marriage on the plea of kinship; and, having sent a party of soldiers to the palace to seize the queen, he barbarously caused her face to be branded by a red-hot iron, in order to destroy that fatal beauty which had seduced Edwy.3 She was then forcibly conveyed to Ireland, there to remain in perpetual exile. The king, too feeble to resist, was obliged to consent to his divorce; but a catastrophe still more dismal awaited the hopeless Elgiva. Nature having healed her wounds, and even obliterated the scars by which her persecutors had hoped for ever to deface her charms, she returned to England, and appeared at Gloucester in all her beauty, flying to the embraces of a prince whom she still regarded as her husband. Again she was pursued, and fell into the hands of the party whom the barbarous prelate had sent to intercept her. Nothing but death could give security to her enemies, or satiate their vengeance; and, horrible to relate, in a spirit of the most revolting cruelty, they cut the nerves and muscles of her legs, that she might wander from their vengeance no more! In a state of extreme torture she lingered

Osberne, p. 84.-Gervase, 1644.

4

at Gloucester for a few days, until death released her at once from her sufferings and the brutal rage of her murderers. The heart shudders with horror and indignation at a recital of these facts; and perhaps human nature never presents a darker picture of its own depravity, than when connecting such barbarities with piety, and committing them in the name of a religion which breathes nothing but love, and peace, and charity.

Instead of being shocked at these atrocities,-instead of resenting the indignity offered to their sovereign,-the English people, such is the baneful influence of superstition, exclaimed that the misfortunes of Edwy and his consort were a just judgment for their dissolute contempt of the ecclesiastical statutes. From clamour they proceeded to rebellion. The Mercians and Northumbrians threw off their allegiance, drove him into the southern counties beyond the Thames, and appointed Edgar his brother, a boy of thirteen, to govern them in his stead. The prime instigator of this revolt was no doubtful personage; for the exile, Dunstan, was immediately recalled with honour, and took upon him the superintendence of Edgar and his party. The Benedictine reformation was popular, and Dunstan had the credit of being at once its champion and its martyr. His hostility to the king seemed thus enlisted on the side of virtue and morality; and this apparent sanctity gained him abundance of supporters, and paved the way to his clerical advancement. He was first installed in the see of Westminster, then in that of London, and, after the death of Odo, and the expulsion of his successor Brithelm, in that of Canterbury. Meantime the anathemas of the church were launched against Edwy, who was excommunicated and denounced as a loose voluptuary. But in three years after the revolt of his subjects, death put a period to his ignominious treatment, and completed the triumph of his enemies. One author, but he is a solitary evidence, states that he was assassinated; and if his words do not imply violent death, we must at least believe the affecting account, that his spirit was so crushed and wounded by his persecutions, that, unable to bear unmerited odium, deposition from power, a brother's usurpation, and the murder of a beloved wife, he sunk into a premature grave, heart-broken, and before he had reached the full age of manhood. Edwy is admitted to have had capacity, and given promise of an honourable reign; but his virtues had no weight with the nation when thrown into the balance against a popular superstition, which was gathering strength every day. Perhaps, instead of braving the storm, had he complied a little with the imperious law of necessity, and waited till by manly prudence he had acquired character, enforced habits of respect, and created friends capable of defend ing him, his malicious and remorseless calumniators might have been irretrievably humbled. His fall was a triumph to ecclesiastical tyranny, and an unfortunate example to Europe. It exhibited to the ambitious clergy the spectacle of a king insulted, injured, persecuted, and dethroned by priestly interference; and as his successor became the submissive and flattering slave of his monastic leaders, it must have given a consequence to their influence, which operated powerfully to subject the royal authority in every court to their control.

Osberne p. 84.-Gervase, 1044.

Edgar.

BORN A. D. 942.-died a. d. 975.

EDGAR mounted, in 959, the throne which his conduct had contributed to make vacant; yet his boyish years may transfer the crime of his seditious attainment of power, to the self-intrusted agents who prompted it. Though young, he discovered an excellent capacity in the administration of affairs; and his reign is one of the most prosperous to be met with in ancient English history. Part of his greatness, no doubt, was owing to the talents of those who had preceded him; for, except the last, their swords had annihilated opposition, or left him no formidable power to encounter. He showed no aversion to war, but the fortunate condition of the kingdom did not render it necessary. He boasted indeed in one of his charters, that he had subdued all the islands of the ocean with their ferocious kings, as far as Norway, and the greater part of Ireland, with its most noble city Dublin: these victories, however, must have been the invention of the panegyrical monks, as no wars of his have been recorded, except an invasion of Wales. But he made wise preparations against invaders; and by this vigorous precaution he was enabled, without any danger of suffering insults, to indulge his inclinations towards peace, and to employ himself in supporting and improving the internal government of his kingdom. To complete the subjugation of Northumberland, he convoked the barous, and divided the county into two provinces, making the river Tees the line of separation; and to check their mutinous spirit as well as to repel the inroads of the Scots, he maintained a body of disciplined troops, which he quartered in the north. He built and kept a powerful navy afloat; and that he might retain the seamen in the practice of their duty, and always present a formidable armament to his enemies, he stationed three squadrons off the coast, and ordered them to make from time to time the circuit of his dominions. The amount of ships has been estimated at twelve hundred, and by some at three thousand,'- -a number incredible in itself, and inconsistent with the state of the navy in the days of Alfred, besides being superfluous to guard so small a territory, and in a season of profound peace. A more commendable and efficient practice was that of riding every spring and winter through the different provinces, to investigate the conduct of the great, to protect the weak, and to punish every violation of the laws. The advantages of this vigilant policy were obvious. The foreign Danes dared not to approach a country which appeared in such a posture of defence. The AngloDanes saw inevitable destruction to be the consequence of their revolt; while the neighbouring sovereigns, the king of Scotland, the petty princes of Wales, the Isle of Man, the Orkneys, and even of Ireland, were proud to pay submission to so formidable a monarch. Edgar made an ostentatious display of his power, and carried his superiority to a height which might have excited a universal combination against him, had not his authority been so well-established. It is told of him that, while residing at Chester, and having purposed to go by water to the

'Hoved. 426.-Flor. Wigorn. 607.-Mailros Chron.

abbey of St John the Baptist, he obliged eight of his tributary princes who had come to do him homage—amongst whom are mentioned Kenneth of Scotland, Malcolm of Cumbria, Maccus of Anglesey, &c.— to act as watermen, and row him, with his nobles and officers, in a barge down the Dee. This degradation of their king, the Scottish historians strenuously deny; and assert that if ever he did acknowledge vassalage to Edgar, it was not for his crown, but for the dominions which he held in England.

The merits and glory of Edgar have been depicted in very favourable colours by the monks, of whom he was the liberal and obsequious patron. By them he is transmitted to us, not only under the character of a consummate statesman and an active prince-praises to which he seems to have been justly entitled-but under that of a great saint and a man of virtue, though the licentiousness of his manners contrasts strangely with the compliments of his flatterers. It was by paying court to Dunstan and his partisans who at first placed him on the throne, that he wore his crown in peace, and maintained the tranquillity of his dominions. His policy was bent to convert the clergy into monks, and to fill the country with Benedictine institutions. He seconded their scheme for dispossessing the secular canons of all the monasteries; he bestowed preferment on none but their adherents; he consulted their leaders in the administration of all church-matters, and even in most affairs of state; and though the vigour of his own genius hindered him from being implicitly guided by them, yet he always found it his interest to accord with their advice, and act in concert with their views. In order to complete the great work of placing the new order of monks in all the convents, Edgar summoned a general council or synod of the prelates, and other heads of the religious orders. After an artful prologue on the many blessings he enjoyed, and an inference that it was his duty in return to make his subjects religious, he proceeds to declare his anxiety for the ecclesiastical body. The speech draws a very unfavourable portrait of the secular clergy, and being rather curious, it may serve as a specimen not of the talents of the royal orator, but of the dissolute manners of the age.

"With your peace I speak, reverend fathers, that if you had watched these things (the morals of the clergy) with diligent scrutiny, such horrid and abominable proceedings of the clergy would not have reached our ears. I speak not of the neglecting the open crown, the suitable tonsure; but their loose garments, their insolent gestures, their turpitude of conversation; these display the madness of the inner man. So negligent in their offices, that they scarce deign to be present at the sacred vigils when they approach the holy mass, it is to sport, not to worship. I affirm it—I affirm it, that the good will grieve, the bad laugh! I say it with sorrow, if indeed it can be spoken, that they give themselves up to such eating, and drunkenness, and impurities, that their houses seem the receptacles of prostitutes, the stages of buffoons. There are dice, dancing, singing, and riot, prolonged into midnight. Thus thus are wasted the patrimony of kings, the alms of the poor, and what is more, the price of his precious blood, that their strumpets may be decorated, and feastings, dogs, and hawks, provided. The war

Malm. 56.--Hoved. 406.

riors exclaim at these things, and the people murmur, but the profligate rejoice; and you-you neglect-you spare them-you dissemble! It is time to act against those who have counteracted the divine law. I have the sword of Constantine, you of Peter. Let us join sword to sword, that these lepers may be cast out, that the sanctuary may be purged, and that men may minister in the temple who can say to their parents, 'I know you not-to their brethren, Ye are strangers to me.' Act, I pray you, earnestly, that we may not repent of doing what we have done, nor of giving what we have bestowed! Let the relics of the saints which they insult, the altars before which they riot, move you. Let the wonderful devotion of our ancestors, whose alms these madmen abuse, affect you. Ethelwolf decimated his land for the church and monasteries. Alfred and Edward were liberal; so were my father and his brothers. O Dunstan! father of fathers! behold, I pray you, the eyes of my father looking down on you from yonder lucid sky; hear his lamenting voice sounding in your ears, grieved at such enormities. Thou, father Dunstan, hast given me wholesome counsel in raising monasteries and building churches; thou hast assisted, hast co-operated with me in all. I have chosen thee the bishop and shepherd of my soul, and the keeper of my morals. When have I not obeyed you? What treasures, what possessions have I withheld, when you requested? If you thought the poor should be assisted, I gave. If you complained that monks and churches were in need, I never denied. You told me that alms were an everlasting treasure; that nothing would be more profitable to me than my gifts to monasteries and churches. O illustrious charity! O worthy reward of the soul! O wholesome remedy for omissions! But is this the fruit of my benevolence? Are these the consequences of my desire, and your promises? How will you answer these complaints? I know-I know! When you saw a thief, you went not with him; nor did you place your portion among adulterers. You have argued, entreated, and reproached. Words have been despised; let us now come to blows. To you, then, I commit this business, that by the episcopal censures and the royal authority united, they who lead dissolute lives may be thrown out of the churches, and the regulars be introduced."s

It is easy to imagine that this harangue had the desired effect; and that when the king and his prelates thus concurred with the popular prejudices, the monks soon prevailed and established their new discipline in the convents. A general persecution was commenced against the seculars; and such pride did Edgar take in promoting this Benedictine revolution, that, in 964, he boasted of having erected forty-seven monasteries, and declared his intention of increasing them to fifty. That the lives of the clergy were unsuitable to their profession may be believed; but the declamations of the monks are a suspicious evidence. It was their business and their interest to misrepresent-to court popularity, by contrasting their own austerities with the indulgences of others, and stigmatise even their innocent enjoyments as great and unpardonable enormities, in order to prepare the way for the increase of their own power and influence. Like a true politician, Edgar sided with the prevailing party; and he even humoured them in pretensions which, Ethelred, 360, 361.-Collier, iii. 190.-Spelm. Concil. 479.

8

Dugd. Mon. vol. i. p. 140.