Page 34 of 155
[* Wallingford, p. 542.]
[** W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 7. Osberne, p. 83, 105. M. West.
p. 195, 196.]
[*** Wallingford, p. 542. Alured. Beverl. p. 112.]
[**** Osberne, p. 84. Gervase, p. 1644.]
[****** Osberne, p. 84. Gervase, p. 1645, 1646]
The English, blinded with superstition, instead of being shocked with this inhumanity, exclaimed that the misfortunes of Edwy and his consort were a just judgment for their dissolute contempt of the ecclesiastical statutes. They even proceeded to rebellion against their sovereign; and having placed Edgar at their head, the younger brother of Edwy, a boy of thirteen years of age, they soon put him in possession of Mercia, Northumberland, East Anglia, and chased Edwy into the southern counties. That it might not be doubtful at whose instigation this revolt was undertaken, Dunstan returned into England, and took upon him the government of Edgar and his party. He was first installed in the see of Worcester, then in that of London,[**] and, on Odo’s death, and the violent expulsion of Brithelm, his successor, in that of Canterbury;[***] of all which he long kept possession. Odo is transmitted to us by the monks under the character of a man of piety: Dunstan was even canonized; and is one of those numerous saints of the same stamp, who disgrace the Romish calendar. Meanwhile the unhappy Edwy was excommunicated,[****] and pursued with unrelenting vengeance; but his death, which happened soon after, freed his enemies from all further inquietude, and gave Edgar peaceable possession of the government.[*****] 2
[** Chron. Sax. p. 117. Flor. Wigorn. p. 605.
Wallingford, p. 544]
[*** Hoveden, p. 425. Osberne, p. 109.]
[**** Brompton, p. 863.]
959.
This prince, who mounted the throne in such early youth, soon discovered an excellent capacity in the administration of affairs, and his reign is one of the most fortunate that we meet with in the ancient English history. He showed no aversion to war; he made the wisest preparations against invaders; and, by this vigor and foresight, he was enabled without any danger of suffering insults, to indulge his inclination towards peace, and to employ himself in supporting and improving the internal government of his kingdom. He maintained a body of disciplined troops; which he quartered in the north, in order to keep the mutinous Northumbrians in subjection, and to repel the inroads of the Scots. He built an supported a powerful navy;[*] 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.[**] 3 The foreign Danes dared not to approach a country which appeared in such a posture of defence: the domestic Danes saw inevitable destruction to be the consequence of their tumults and insurrections: the neighboring sovereigns, the king of Scotland, the princes of Wales, of the Isle of Man, of the Orkneys, and even of Ireland,[***] were reduced to pay submission to so formidable a monarch. He carried his superiority to a great height, and might have excited a universal combination against him, had not his power been so well established, as to deprive his enemies of hopes of shaking it It is said, that residing once at Chester, and having purposed to go by water to the abbey of St. John the Baptist, he obliged eight of his tributary princes to row him in a barge upon the Dee.[****] The English historians are fond of mentioning the name of Kenneth III., king of Scots, among the number: the Scottish historians either deny the fact, or assert that their king, if ever he acknowledged himself a vassal to Edgar, did him homage, not for his crown, but for the dominions which he held in England.
But the chief means by which Edgar maintained his authority, and preserved public peace, was the paying of court to Dunstan and the monks, who had at first placed him on the throne, and who, by their pretensions to superior sanctity and purity of manners, had acquired an ascendant over the people. He favored their scheme for dispossessing the secular canons of all the monasteries;[*****] he bestowed preferment on none but their partisans; he allowed Dunstan to resign the see of Worcester into the hands of Oswald, one of his creatures; [******] and to place Ethelwold, another of them, in that of Winchester;[*******] he consulted these prelates in the administration of all ecclesiastical and even in that of many civil affairs; and though the vigor of his own genius prevented him from being implicitly guided by them, the king and the bishops found such advantages in their mutual agreement, that they always acted in concert, and united their influence in preserving the peace and tranquillity of the kingdom.
[* Higden, p. 265.]
[** See note C, at the end of the volume]
[*** Spel. Concil. p. 432.]
[**** W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 8. Hoveden, p. 406.
H. Hunting, lib. v.p. 356].
cap. 8. Hoveden, p. 425, 426. Osberne, p. 112.]
[****** W. Malms. lib. ii. cap. 8. Hoveden, p.
425.]
[******* Gervase, p. 1646. Brompton, p. 864, Flor.
Wigorn. p. 606. Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 27, 28.]
In order to complete the great work of placing the new order of monks in all the convents, Edgar summoned a general council of the prelates, and the heads of the religious orders. He here inveighed against the dissolute lives of the secular clergy; the smallness of their tonsure, which, it is probable, maintained no longer any resemblance to the crown of thorns; their negligence in attending the exercise of their function; their mixing with the laity in the pleasures of gaming, hunting, dancing, and singing; and their openly living with concubines, by which it is commonly supposed he meant their wives. He then turned himself to Dunstan, the primate; and in the name of King Edred, whom he supposed to look down from heaven with indignation against all those enormities, he thus addressed him: “It is you, Dunstan, by whose advice I founded monasteries, built churches, and expended my treasure in the support of religion and religious houses. You were my counsellor and assistant in all my schemes: you were the director of my conscience: to you I was obedient in all things. When did you call for supplies, which I refused you? Was my assistance ever wanting to the poor? Did I deny support and establishments to the clergy and the convents? Did I not hearken to your instructions, who told me that these charities were, of all others, the most grateful to my Maker, and fixed a perpetual fund for the support of religion? And are all our pious endeavors now frustrated by the dissolute lives of the priests? Not that I throw any blame on you: you have reasoned, besought, inculcated, inveighed; but it now behoves you to use sharper and more vigorous remedies; and conjoining your spiritual authority with the civil power, to purge effectually the temple of God from thieves and intruders.”[*]
