第11章 ENGLAND UNDER ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINGS(2)

Dunstan,Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey,was one of the most sagacious of these monks.He was an ingenious smith,and worked at a forge in a little cell.This cell was made too short to admit of his lying at full length when he went to sleep-as if THAT did any good to anybody!-and he used to tell the most extraordinary lies about demons and spirits,who,he said,came there to persecute him.For instance,he related that one day when he was at work,the devil looked in at the little window,and tried to tempt him to lead a life of idle pleasure;whereupon,having his pincers in the fire,red hot,he seized the devil by the nose,and put him to such pain,that his bellowings were heard for miles and miles.Some people are inclined to think this nonsense a part of Dunstan's madness (for his head never quite recovered the fever),but I think not.I observe that it induced the ignorant people to consider him a holy man,and that it made him very powerful.Which was exactly what he always wanted.

On the day of the coronation of the handsome boy-king Edwy,it was remarked by ODO,Archbishop of Canterbury (who was a Dane by birth),that the King quietly left the coronation feast,while all the company were there.Odo,much displeased,sent his friend Dunstan to seek him.Dunstan finding him in the company of his beautiful young wife ELGIVA,and her mother ETHELGIVA,a good and virtuous lady,not only grossly abused them,but dragged the young King back into the feasting-hall by force.Some,again,think Dunstan did this because the young King's fair wife was his own cousin,and the monks objected to people marrying their own cousins;but I believe he did it,because he was an imperious,audacious,ill-conditioned priest,who,having loved a young lady himself before he became a sour monk,hated all love now,and everything belonging to it.

The young King was quite old enough to feel this insult.Dunstan had been Treasurer in the last reign,and he soon charged Dunstan with having taken some of the last king's money.The Glastonbury Abbot fled to Belgium (very narrowly escaping some pursuers who were sent to put out his eyes,as you will wish they had,when you read what follows),and his abbey was given to priests who were married;whom he always,both before and afterwards,opposed.But he quickly conspired with his friend,Odo the Dane,to set up the King's young brother,EDGAR,as his rival for the throne;and,not content with this revenge,he caused the beautiful queen Elgiva,though a lovely girl of only seventeen or eighteen,to be stolen from one of the Royal Palaces,branded in the cheek with a red-hot iron,and sold into slavery in Ireland.But the Irish people pitied and befriended her;and they said,'Let us restore the girl-queen to the boy-king,and make the young lovers happy!'and they cured her of her cruel wound,and sent her home as beautiful as before.But the villain Dunstan,and that other villain,Odo,caused her to be waylaid at Gloucester as she was joyfully hurrying to join her husband,and to be hacked and hewn with swords,and to be barbarously maimed and lamed,and left to die.When Edwy the Fair (his people called him so,because he was so young and handsome)heard of her dreadful fate,he died of a broken heart;and so the pitiful story of the poor young wife and husband ends!

Ah!Better to be two cottagers in these better times,than king and queen of England in those bad days,though never so fair!

Then came the boy-king,EDGAR,called the Peaceful,fifteen years old.Dunstan,being still the real king,drove all married priests out of the monasteries and abbeys,and replaced them by solitary monks like himself,of the rigid order called the Benedictines.He made himself Archbishop of Canterbury,for his greater glory;and exercised such power over the neighbouring British princes,and so collected them about the King,that once,when the King held his court at Chester,and went on the river Dee to visit the monastery of St.John,the eight oars of his boat were pulled (as the people used to delight in relating in stories and songs)by eight crowned kings,and steered by the King of England.As Edgar was very obedient to Dunstan and the monks,they took great pains to represent him as the best of kings.But he was really profligate,debauched,and vicious.He once forcibly carried off a young lady from the convent at Wilton;and Dunstan,pretending to be very much shocked,condemned him not to wear his crown upon his head for seven years-no great punishment,I dare say,as it can hardly have been a more comfortable ornament to wear,than a stewpan without a handle.His marriage with his second wife,ELFRIDA,is one of the worst events of his reign.Hearing of the beauty of this lady,he despatched his favourite courtier,ATHELWOLD,to her father's castle in Devonshire,to see if she were really as charming as fame reported.Now,she was so exceedingly beautiful that Athelwold fell in love with her himself,and married her;but he told the King that she was only rich-not handsome.The King,suspecting the truth when they came home,resolved to pay the newly-married couple a visit;and,suddenly,told Athelwold to prepare for his immediate coming.Athelwold,terrified,confessed to his young wife what he had said and done,and implored her to disguise her beauty by some ugly dress or silly manner,that he might be safe from the King's anger.She promised that she would;

but she was a proud woman,who would far rather have been a queen than the wife of a courtier.She dressed herself in her best dress,and adorned herself with her richest jewels;and when the King came,presently,he discovered the cheat.So,he caused his false friend,Athelwold,to be murdered in a wood,and married his widow,this bad Elfrida.Six or seven years afterwards,he died;and was buried,as if he had been all that the monks said he was,in the abbey of Glastonbury,which he-or Dunstan for him-had much enriched.