this day. To give a character of this prince, would only be to sum up those qualities which constitute perfection. Even virtues seemingly opposite were happily blended in his disposition; persevering, yet flexible; moderate, yet enterprising; just, yet merciful; stern in command, yet gentle in conversation. Nature, also, as if desirous that such admirable qualities of mind should be set off to the greatest advantage, had bestowed on him all bodily accomplishments, vigour, dignity, and an engaging open countenance.

Edward the Elder obtained the crown on the death of his illustrious father Alfred the Great, and his son Athelstan, whose legitimacy has been doubted, next mounted the throne. He died at Gloucester, after a reign of sixteen years, and was succeeded by his brother Edmund, who, like the rest of his predecessors, met with disturbances from the Northumbrians on his accession to the throne; but his activity soon defeated their attempts. The resentment which this monarch bore to men of an abandoned way of living was the cause of his death. He was killed by Leolf, a robber, at a feast, where this villain had the insolence to intrude into the king's presence. His brother, Edred, was appointed to succeed to the prejudice of his own two sons, Edwy and Edgar; and, like his predecessors, this monarch found himself at the head of a rebellious and refractory people. Edred implicitly submitted to the directions of Dunstan the monk, both in church and state; and the kingdom was in a fair way of being turned into a papal province by this zealous ecclesiastic: but 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.

Edred's sons being yet unfit to govern, Edwy, his nephew, a prince of great personal accomplishments and a martial disposition, ascended the throne. 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.

Among other instances of their cruelty, the following is recorded. There was a lady of the royal blood, named Elgiva, whose beauty had made a strong impression upon the young monarch's heart. He had even ventured to marry her, contrary to the advice of his counsellors, as she was within the de

grees of affinity prohibited by the canon law. 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 ecclesiastical 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 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 the kingdom. Edwy drove the Benedictine monks from their monasteries and restored them to their original owners, the se cular canons. The exile of Dunstan only served to increase the reputation of his sanctity with the people : among the rest, Odo, archbishop of Canterbury, a brutal bigot, was so far transported with the spirit of party, that he pronounced a divorce between Edwy and Elgiva. The king was unable to resist the indignation of the church, and 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 once more ventured to return to the king, whom she still regarded as her husband. But misfortune 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 in the most cruel agony. In the mean time, a secret revolt excited by the resentment of the monks, against Edwy be came almost general; and Dunstan 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 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 soon after, freed his enemies from all further inquietude, and gave Edgar peaceable possession of the government.

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.

Little worthy of notice is mentioned of this monarch, except his amour with Elfrida, which is of too singular a nature to be omitted. Edgar had long heard of the beauty of a young lady, whose name was Elfrida, daughter of Olgar, earl of Devonshire; but unwilling to credit common fame in this particular, he sent Ethelwald, his favourite friend, to see, and inform him, if Elfrida was indeed that incomparable woman report had described her. Ethelwald arriving at the earl's, 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 the nuptials were performed in private. Upon his return to court, which was shortly after, he assured the king that her riches alone, and her high quality, had been the cause of her fame, and he appeared amazed how the world could talk so much, and so unjustly, of her charms. The king was satisfied and no longer felt any curiosity; while Ethelwald secretly triumphed in his address. When he had, by this deceit, weaned the king from his purpose, he took an opportunity, after some time, of turning the conversation on Elfrida, representing, that though the fortune of the earl of Devonshire's daughter would be a trifle to a king, yet it would be an immense acquisition to a needy subject. He, therefore, humbly intreated permission to pay his addresses to her, as she was the richest heiress in the kingdom. A request seemingly so reasonable was readily complied with; Ethelwald returned to his wife, and their nuptials were solemnized in public. His greatest care, however, was employed in keeping her from court; and he took every precaution to prevent her from appearing before a king so susceptible of love, while she was so capable of inspiring that passion. But it was impossible to keep his treachery long concealed. Edgar was soon informed of the whole transaction; but dissembling his resentment, he took occasion to visit that part of

the country where this miracle of beauty was detained, accompanied by Ethelwald, who reluctantly attended him thither. Upon coming near the lady's habitation, he told him he had a curiosity to see his wife, of whom he had formerly heard so much, and desired to be introduced as his acquaintance. Ethelwald, thunderstruck at the proposal, did all in his power, but in vain, to dissuade him. All he could obtain, was permission to go before, on pretence of preparing for the king's reception. On his arrival, he fell at his wife's feet, confessing what he had done to be possessed of her charms, and conjuring her to conceal, as much as possible, her beauty from the king, who was but too susceptible of its power. Elfrida, little obliged to him for a passion that had deprived her of a crown, promised compliance; but, prompted either by vanity or revenge, adorned her person with the most exquisite art, and called up all her beauty on the occasion. The event answered her expectations; the king no sooner saw than he loved her, and was instantly resolved to obtain her. The better to effect his intentions, he concealed his passion from the husband, and took leave with a seeming indifference; but his revenge was not the less certain and fatal. Ethelwald was some time after sent into Northumberland, upon pretence of urgent affairs, and was found murdered in a wood by the way. Some say he was stabbed by the king's own hand; some, that Edgar only commanded the assassination: however this be, Elfrida was invited soon after to court, by the king's own order, and their nuptials were performed with the usual solemnity.

This monarch died, after a reign of sixteen years, in the thirty-third year of his age, being succeeded by his son, Edward, whom he had by his first marriage, with the daughter of the earl of Ordmer, in the year 975.

Edward, surnamed the Martyr, from the innocence of his life, and the numerous miracles alleged to have been performed at his grave, was made king by the interest of the monks, and lived but four years after his accession. In his reign there is nothing remarkable, if we except his tragical and memorable end. Hunting one day near Corfe Castle, where Elfrida, his father's widow, resided, he thought it his duty to pay her a visit, although he was not attended by any of his retinue. There desiring some liquor to be brought him, as he was thirsty, while he was yet holding the cup to his head, onc of Elfrida's domestics, instructed for that purpose, stabbed him in the back. The king, finding himself wounded, put spurs to his horse; but, fainting with the loss of blood, he fell from the

saddle, and his foot sticking in the stirrup, he was dragged along by his horse till he died.

To Edward, the Martyr, succeeded Ethelred the Second, surnamed the Unready, the son of Edgar and Elfrida, a weak and irresolute monarch, incapable of governing the kingdom, or providing for its safety. During his reign the old and terrible enemies, the Danes, who seemed not to be loaded with the same accumulation of vice and folly as the English, were daily gaining ground. The weakness and inexperience of Ethelred appeared to give a favourable opportunity for renewing their depredations; and, accordingly, they landed on several parts of the coast, spreading their usual terror and devastation.

As they lived indiscriminately among the English, a resolution was taken for a general massacre; and Ethelred, by a policy incident to weak princes, embraced the cruel resolution of putting them all to the sword. This plot was carried on with such secresy, that it was executed in one day, and all the Danes in England were destroyed without mercy. But this massacre, so perfidious in the contrivance, and so cruel in the execution, instead of ending the long miseries of the people, only prepared the way for greater calamities.

While the English were yet congratulating each other upon their late deliverance from an inveterate enemy, Sweyn, king of Denmark, who had been informed of their treacherous cruelties, appeared off the western coasts with a large fleet, meditating slaughter, and furious with revenge. Ethelred was obliged to fly into Normandy, and the whole country thus came under the power of Sweyn, his victorious rival.

Canute, afterwards surnamed the Great, succeeded Sweyn as king of Denmark, and also as general of the Danish forces in England. The contest between him and Edmund, surnamed, from his hardiness in war, Ironside, successor to Ethelred, was managed with great obstinacy and perseverance: the first battle which was fought, appeared undecisive; a second followed, in which the Danes were victorious; but Edmund still having interest enough to bring a third army into the field, the Danish and English nobility, equally harassed by these convulsions, obliged their kings to come to a compromise, and to divide the kingdom between them by treaty. Canute reserved to himself the northern parts of the kingdom: the southern parts were left to Edmund. But this prince being murdered at Oxford about a month after the treaty, according to some, by the treachery of the detested Ædric Streon, Canute was left in peaceable possession of the whole kingdom in the year 1017.