EDWARD THE MARTYR.
"For saints may do the same things by
The Spirit, in sincerity,
Which other men are tempted to,
And at the devil's instance do."--BUTLER'S _Hudibras_.
"The tyrannous and bloody act is done;
The most arch deed of piteous massacre
That ever yet this land was guilty of."--SHAKSPERE.
Edward, called the Martyr, was a mere boy of fifteen when he ascended
the throne, which was vacated by the death of his father, Edgar. As
he had been schooled under Dunstan, and his mind moulded to suit the
purposes of the ambitious primate, he was chosen, in opposition to the
wishes of Elfrida, who boldly came forward and claimed the crown for
her son Ethelred, then a child only six years old. This aspiring queen
was not without her adherents; and as the rigorous measures to which
Dunstan had resorted, to coerce the married clergy and exclude them
from officiating in the churches, had rendered him unpopular in many
quarters, numbers were found ready to rally round Elfrida and her son
Ethelred. But Edward had been appointed king by the will of his father,
and the charge against his legitimacy appears to have been altogether
unfounded; for he was the undoubted son of Edgar, and the fruit of his
first marriage with Elfleda, who was called "the Fair;" and Dunstan
adopted the readiest method of settling the dispute by assembling the
bishops, and such of the nobles as were favourable to his cause, then
placing the crown at once upon his head.
Meantime, the contest continued to be waged more keenly between the
monks and the secular clergy. Dunstan had opposed the coronation of
Ethelred; and Elfrida, who was as bold as she was cruel, rose up, and
took the part of the married priests. Elfere, the governor of Mercia,
also set the primate at defiance, emptied all the monasteries in his
province of the Benedictine monks, and levelled many of their buildings
to the ground--a strong proof that the power of the archbishop was on
the wane. Alwin, the governor of East Anglia, took the side of Dunstan;
gave shelter to the monks who had been driven out of Mercia; and chased
the married priests from the province over which he ruled. Beside
Mercia, the secular clergy had obtained possession of many monasteries;
and to end these disputes, Dunstan convened a synod at Winchester. Here
a voice is said to have issued from the crucifix which was fixed in
the wall, which forbade all change; and instead of arguing the matter
fairly, Dunstan at once exclaimed--"A divine voice has determined the
affair; what wish ye more?" This artifice, however, did not succeed;
for there were then, as now, men who had great misgivings about
Dunstan's miracles, and who believed that he would not hesitate to
avail himself of any means he could impress, to carry out his object.
Dunstan, seeing the mistrust and doubt with which his pretended miracle
was received, resolved that, if they did not accede to his wishes, his
next attempt at the marvellous should be accompanied with proof of his
vengeance.
It was in the year 978 that this second or third council was held
at Calne. It was, as before, a Saxon parliament, or witena-gemot,
consisting of the nobles and principal clergy of the nation. The
opponents of Dunstan appear to have grown hot in argument, and,
according to one of our ancient historians, William of Malmesbury, "the
matter was agitated with great warmth of controversy, and the darts of
many reproaches were thrown on Dunstan, but could not shake him." The
following reply of the primate to the attack made upon him is given
from Osberne, who was the friend and councillor of the archbishop
Langfranc, a man who held Dunstan in the highest estimation. Osberne
was alive about a century after the event took place which he records.
After having defended himself for some time, Dunstan concluded with
these remarkable words: 'Since you did not, in such a lapse of time,
bring forward your accusation, but, now that I am old and cultivating
taciturnity, seek to disturb me by these antiquated complaints, _I
confess that I am unwilling that you should conquer me_. I commit
the cause of his church to Christ as the Judge.' He spoke, and the
wrath of the angry Deity corroborated what he said; for the house was
immediately shaken; the chamber was loosened under their feet; his
enemies were precipitated to the ground, and oppressed by the weight
of the crushing timbers. BUT WHERE THE SAINT WAS RECLINING WITH HIS
FRIENDS, THERE NO RUIN OCCURRED."
Eadmar, who was contemporary with Osberne, expresses himself still
more clearly, though he appears not for a moment to have suspected
that the villanous affair was arranged by Dunstan and his confidential
friends. "He spoke, and, lo! the floor under the feet of _those who
had come together against him fell from beneath them_, and all were
alike precipitated; but where _Dunstan stood with his friends_, no
ruin of the house, no accident happened." The Saxon chronicle, an
authentic record of that period, also notices the falling in of the
floor, and the escape of Dunstan. As this is the greatest blot on
his character, we have been careful in producing such undisputed
authorities. To attribute the catastrophe to an accident, would be
reasonable, had only Dunstan himself escaped; but when we look at
the conclusion of the speech which is attributed to him by those who
admired his character--"I confess that I am unwilling you should
conquer"--and see it recorded that all his friends were uninjured, we
are surely justified in concluding that the floor had been previously
undermined, and that all was so arranged that, at a given signal, the
only remaining prop was removed, and Dunstan and his friends were left
secure to glut their gaze on their slain and wounded enemies; for many
of the nobles on whom the beams and rafters fell were killed upon the
spot. That the crime rested with Dunstan alone, we cannot believe--many
must have been cognisant of it; the strength of the council was against
the primate, and but for this accident, miracle, or, as we believe,
carefully-planned scheme of villany, Dunstan's power would at once
have ended; as it was, to quote the words of the old chronicler, "this
miracle gave peace to the archbishop." When his friend Athelwold died,
and the see of Winchester was vacant, Dunstan wished to appoint his
friend Elphegus to the bishopric; but meeting with some opposition
amongst the nobles, he boldly asserted that St. Andrew had appeared to
him, and commanded him to appoint his friend to the vacant see. Here
we have another proof of the use which Dunstan made of the sanctity
that was attributed to his character. The miracles which are ascribed
to him--his combats with the devil, who was constantly appearing to
him in every imaginable shape, such as that of a bear, a dog, a viper,
and a wolf, may be found fully recorded in the ancient life, written
by Bridfirth, who was personally acquainted with Dunstan.[8] We have
dwelt thus lengthily on the life of this singular and ambitious man,
as in it we see fully illustrated the evil consequence of persecuting
and retarding the progress of superior talent. It is probable that
no one ever set out in the world with a firmer determination of
acting honestly and uprightly than Dunstan; it is also clear, that in
intellectual attainments he ranked amongst the highest which that age
produced; nor do we think that we should be much in error in assuming
that when, in his old age, he looked back, through the dim vista of
years, to the bright and promising morning of his life, he often
sighed for that retirement which he might have enjoyed in the society
of her whom his heart first clung to; nor can we marvel if the crimes
which are attributed to him are true, which is strongly supported by
the evidence we have produced, that in his old age his slumber was
often broken by such fearful apparitions--the creation of a guilty
conscience, as his friend and biographer Bridfirth has stated were ever
present before his diseased imagination.
Dunstan still stood high in the favour of his youthful sovereign, and
the primate shielded him, for a time, from the vengeance of Elfrida,
who aimed at placing the crown upon the head of her son Ethelred; to
accomplish this, a conspiracy had been formed to assassinate Edward, in
which the governor of Mercia, who had driven out the clergy, is said to
have leagued himself with the queen-dowager; for party-feeling still
raged as strongly on the sides of the monks and the secular clergy as
ever; and aged as Dunstan was, there yet remained many enemies, who
anxiously sought his overthrow; but the nobles continued to remain true
to their king, and, while they surrounded him, he was safe from the
meditated blow.
The long looked for hour came at last. Edward was out, one day,
hunting near Wareham, in Dorsetshire, when, either having outridden
his attendants, or purposely resolved to visit his mother-in-law, he
rode up to Corfe Castle, where she resided with her son Ethelred, and
without alighting from his horse, had a brief interview with Elfrida,
at the gate. She received him with an assumed kindness, and urgently
pressed him to dismount. This he declined doing, and having requested
to see his brother Ethelred, he called for a cup of wine, which was
brought, when, just as he had raised it to his lips, one of Elfrida's
attendants stepped behind him, and stabbed him in the back. Dropping
the cup from his hand, he struck the spurs into his horse, and fled;
for we can readily imagine that one glance at the countenance of
Elfrida satisfied the wounded monarch that she was the instigator of
the murderous deed. With no one near to follow or support him, he soon
fainted through loss of blood, and fell from his saddle; the affrighted
steed still plunged onward, with headlong speed, dragging the body of
the king along, over the rugged road, as he still hung with his foot
suspended in the stirrup. When discovered by his attendants, he was
dead--his course was traced by the beaten ground over which his mangled
body had passed, and the blood that had stained the bladed grass, and
left its crimson trail upon the knotted stems against which it had
struck. His remains were burnt, and there is some doubt whether even
his ashes were preserved for interment. "No worse deed," says the Saxon
chronicle, "had been committed among the people of the Anglo-Saxons
since they first came to the land of Britain." Edward was not more than
eighteen years of age when he was murdered.
His death, however, was not the first that Elfrida had caused. In
the records of Ely, mention is made of an abbot named Brythonod, who
attracted her attention as he came to the palace on matters connected
with his abbey. As he was about to take his departure, Elfrida
requested to speak with him apart, under the plea of unburthening her
conscience. What passed at this private interview would probably never
have been known, but through her own confession, when she became a
penitent, and acknowledged her guilt. She made such proposals to the
abbot as he was unwilling to concede to. Her fondness soon changed to
revenge, and shortly after the virtuous abbot was assassinated. Such
was the woman who comes heaving up, like a blood-stained shadow, into
the next reign, and whose evil influence brought such woe upon England.
It is said that Ethelred wept bitterly at the death of his brother
Edward, whom he dearly loved, and that his mother seized either a torch
or a thick wax candle, and beat the young prince with it until he was
senseless. So unpopular were Elfrida and her son, that an attempt was
made to raise an illegitimate daughter of Edgar to the throne. The
young lady was the daughter of Wulfreda, whom he had violently carried
from the nunnery of Wilton. The plot failed, and Ethelred succeeded to
the crown, in 978, and in the tenth year of his age.