his coadjutors in England; but the attempt was made in other countries, at the close of the ninth century, and the opposition it met with from the Romish Clergy illustrates what our own history leaves in darkness. Short of that attempt, however, Alfred did much to render instruction accessible to his subjects in general, by the translation of works, then held in repute, into their native language. He employed himself upon a Saxon version of the Psalter, of the works of Orosius, of Boetius, and of Bede, and Werfrid, Bishop of Worcester, was employed by him upon those of St. Gregory. The selection proves the depth of ignorance from which the age remained to be extricated.

Among the eminent men whom Alfred assembled, it is worthy of a passing remark that John the Saxon is, apparently erroneously, confounded with Johannes Erigena. Grimbald appears to have been recommended to his notice by Archbishop Ethered; upon whose death, in 889, he rejected the Primacy, recommending, in his turn, Plegmund, who seems to have been the first compiler of the Saxon Chronicle; and who, in the language of the continuator of that record, was chosen by God and all his saints to succeed. The little that the Historians of the Cloister have suffered to come down to us of Plegmund, is hardly worthy of the preceptor of Alfred. He is said to have returned from Rome, where he was invested with his pall, with the costly acquisition of the relics of one of those fabulous worthies, with whose worship the Romish Church strove to overlay the religion of Jesus, which he deposited in his Cathedral; and immediately set to work to repair the omission of his predecessors, and despatched to the Pope the alms of Alfred and all his subjects. The most remarkable occurrence in his Primacy, was, however, the consecration of seven Bishops, at Canterbury, in one day. "Nam Papa Formosus maledictionem suam dederat Regi Edwardo et Anglis propter nimiam carentiam Episcoporum in terra Anglorum, quæ per septem annos Episcopis caruerat." This "maledictio" has been converted by Romish writers into a Bull of excommunication, and pleaded in proof of the Papal authority over the Anglo-Saxon Kings. There is an awkward stumbling-block, however, in the shape of dates, which, if it were worth while to contend for a straw in a whole superstructure of stubble, would vindicate the royal culprit from the charge of crouching at the fulmination, namely, that the aforesaid redoubtable Pope was dead five years before Edward the elder came to the crown. Plegmund died in 923, and was succeeded by Athelm, whom he had previously consecrated Bishop of Wells. He crowned Athelstan in 924, and probably died the following year, when Ulfelm, who had succeeded him at Wells, succeeded him also in the Primacy.

The site of the desecrated nunnery of St. Eanthswithe (Folkestone), which Athelstan is said to have given to Christ Church, in honour of Ulfelm, was not destined to remain to that church. A less transient good, however, is ascribed to him, which must not be forgotten. He went beyond the example of Alfred, his grandfather, in promoting a careful translation of the Scriptures into the Saxon language, which, combined with the declaration that all persons, as well ecclesiastical as

civil, were subject to the laws, was applying the axe to the root of priestcraft and superstition; but, unhappily, the vigour that wielded it was denied to his successors, and succeeding generations of churchmen, with more consistency of purpose, obstructed its operation.

Athelstan died in 940, and the Archbishop in 941. Odo, who succeeded to the latter, had been bred in the Court of the former. Although he determined upon entering the Church, and was early raised to the Bishopric of Wiltshire, it was rather as the path of ambition than of peace. Combining the cultivated cunning of the cloister with the headlong courage of the camp, he conciliated the friendship of Athelstan, potentissima," says Higden, "per elapsum gladii amissi in Regiam vaginam." The special service of Odo on this occasion, derogates, indeed, somewhat from the claims of St. John of Beverley, to whose intercession the recovery of his weapon was also ascribed; but the handy-work of Odo is not the less manifest from the miraculous introduction of the Saints to divide the honour. It occurred, opportunely for a juggler, in a night attack of Anlaf upon the camp at Brunanburgh. No sooner had Odo attained the primacy than he passed over to the Abbey of Fleury, which exhibited, at that time, the most approved model of monastic discipline, and was admitted into what was then called the reformed rule of St. Benedict. Not only had Werfrid's translation of Gregory's legend rendered St. Benedict a great favourite among the Anglo-Saxons; but Odo could not fail to perceive in the scheme of monkery the principle which insured the triumph of the Romish Church. Under pretence of withdrawing the mind from secular pursuits and cares, the ties of blood and country were, indeed, trampled under foot; but earthly ambition found an object, and pursued it only with more concentrated cunning, in the consolidation and aggrandizement of the Church. To this primary object, the partition of the kingdom was no impediment, it is not therefore surprising to find Odo an active promoter of the treaty that restored to Anlaf the provinces which Athelstan had wrested from him. His translation of the relics of Wilfred to his own Cathedral, and his patronage of Dunstan proves that he was not lukewarm in the cause of monkery; and, if his fame was eclipsed by the latter, he was nevertheless no mean proficient in its arts. It is observable, that among the miracles related of him, is one which might have been expected to cut short the controversy then recently awakened on the doctrine of transubstantiation. "Confestim inter manus pontificis fragmenta corporis Christi tenentis, sanguis guttatim defluere cœpit." "Compunctis ad id fortasse digitis," adds one of his remote successors: but it is needless to lift the curtain in every instance, to display the system of fraud which triumphed over the credulity and ignorance of the times, and which was not the least ingenious of the arts cultivated in the cloister.

The profession of a stricter rule of life had, not unreasonably, led the princes who were contemporary with Odo to favour the regular, clergy, and it was not till the body, which they had thus strengthened,

was competent from its perfect organization to defy their power, that the unfortunate Edwy began to distrust their practices, or attempted to shake off their control. Dunstan had failed to break the boy's spirit in his pupilage, and had not improbably roused it in the attempt; for no sooner had the crown devolved upon Edwy, at the premature age of fifteen, than he demanded an account of the administration of the treasury which had been entrusted to Dunstan by the feeble-minded Edred. A suspicion that he had little scruple in diverting the stream of the royal bounty into the channel of the Church is induced by a circumstance that occurred in the reign of Edgar, when the Churches of Canterbury and Rochester obtained a confirmation of the nuncupative will of a wealthy Saxon, by a trial at Erith. It was in vain that Leofsune, who disputed the distribution, declared that he would not believe Dunstan upon his oath, the Schireman was a priest and pronounced his single testimony to be legal evidence; and it was equally futile for the young king to expostulate against the drainage of the royal exchequer, when such a voucher was to be considered sufficient. Dunstan, however, no sooner found that he could not exert over Edwy the influence which he had possessed with Edred than he became his implacable enemy.

To ascribe the carriage of Dunstan to a generous zeal in the cause of decency, is a perversion of all evidence. Charges indeed, are heaped upon the head of Edwy by the generality of our ancient chroniclers, which John Stow crowns with the murder of the husband whom he had wronged, a coping-stone, from some obscure quarry, which even Romish historians have since thought well to reject. Without opposing them to each other however, the filthy tale of Wallingford, which, with a dogmatism worthy of the Vatican, has been recently pronounced "the fact," invalidates itself; and the Abbot of Glastonbury and the Bishop of Lichfield would be hooted from a court of justice if they described the scene, which they are there stated to have witnessed, not lurking leisurely behind the hangings of the royal closet, but when they burst upon its privacy.

Granting the full measure of Edwy's vices, we know, from the countenance and support afforded to his successor by the same cabal, that they were actuated by no virtuous indignation. The constitutions of Odo, as they were called, furnished however, the means of bringing the refractory king under the rod that he had despised, and Odo, who had set the crown upon his head, was persuaded to pronounce his separation from Elgiva," because they were too nearly related." (Sax. Chron.) Edwy immediately recognized the audacity of Dunstan in this measure, and banished him the kingdom; and the popular feeling seems to have been so little in his favour, that he was derided by the crowd as he withdrew... "Magis dolebis," he replied, not indeed to a woman who laughed at him, but to the devil himself who assumed her voice. "Magis dolebis, Deo volente, in reditu, quam gaudeas in proscriptu." If he had concerted his measures with Odo alone, he had not rushed headlong into an enterprize in which he

VOL. II. NO, III.

Q

apprehended any want of support, and his exile was cheered with visions of his triumphant restoration. The monks who regarded him as their champion, and were indebted to his influence with Edred for their establishment in the richest Abbeys throughout England, encouraged the Archbishop to persevere, and the power of the throne and the cloister was brought to the test by the excommunication of Edwy, and the violent seizure of his unfortunate queen, whom they branded and conveyed to Ireland. The young king, in his exasperation, commanded the expulsion of the monks from the religious houses. At Glastonbury, at Abingdon, at Malmsbury, and generally throughout the South of England, the command was carried into execution, and the monks record the sojourn of the secular clergy as if it were the desecration of their walls. They gathered strength, however, in Northumberland and Mercia, where they were joined by Odo, and proclaiming the child Edgar in the place of his excommunicated brother, recalled Dunstan to his councils, and to compensate his exclusion from Glastonbury, heaped upon him the Bishoprics of Worcester and of London.

Odo was now at a great age: but, if he was incapable of directing the storm, he was by no means a passive spectator of its course, and directed his last efforts to confirm the predominance of his party and secure the primacy to Dunstan after his decease. When that masterspirit was to be consecrated to Worcester, Odo used the form of consecration to the Archiepiscopal See, and on being reminded of the error, blasphemously declared that he had spoken by the immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Neither, if the last act of cruelty towards the unfortunate Elgiva was perpetrated without his privity, have his own eulogists cared to vindicate his memory from the odium. She fell into the hands of his party, in an attempt to return to Edwy, and they have recorded the torture which was perpetrated by fiends, as done "ab hominibus servis Dei." Of such servants would to God Odo had been the last! The year of his death is uncertain. He outlived the accession of Edgar, which, as his own adherents were the annalists, is generally dated from the partition of the kingdom (959); but he certainly died during the life of Edwy, and whilst the country south of Thames was under his government.

The injured king permitted his body to be deposited in his own Cathedral; a proof, at least, that he was animated by a far different spirit from that which is ascribed to Elsin, the succeeding primate, who is charged with trampling on his grave. Perhaps, in the furious rivalry that then subsisted between the secular and regular Clergy, this burst of petty triumph is not of itself incredible; but, as the character of Elsin has been coloured in the same spirit of inveterate enmity, it is hardly reasonable to adopt it with implicit credence. He is said to have obtained his election by bribery and corruption; but, as he had been Bishop of Winchester and is admitted to have been a man of extraordinary learning, there could have been no necessity for sinister means to recommend him to the secular Clergy, who then

constituted the chapter of Canterbury. This intruder into the seat of Dunstan met, however, with a melancholy end, being frozen to death in the passage of the Alps, as he was travelling towards Rome for his Pall; and Brithelm, Bishop of Wells, was elected to the primacy.

The intrusion of the second Anti-primate was, however, of short duration. The premature death of Edwy left the southern provinces of England again open to the administration of Dunstan. The unhappy Prince, whose memory Romanists, even to this day, delight to blacken, found refuge in the grave from sorrows that weighed with severity upon an affectionate heart. The bitterness of his enemies was not, however, so universally prevalent, but that his real character has reached posterity. He reigned, for four years, beloved and commended; and his country flourished under his government. In addition to other evidence of his marriage, Mr. Sharon Turner adduces a charter granted to the monastery of Abingdon, and witnessed by " Ælfgiva regis uxor et Æthelgifa mater ejus," with a reservation, however, which a Romanist will be little likely to plead, namely, the possibility of its being a forgery; a possibility, withal, which those very signatures seem to preclude. We may be assured, too, that, if the degree of affinity had rendered that marriage an offence against public morals, the Monks would not have relinquished so substantial a charge for vague imputations, or such as, affecting to be more precise, become only more manifestly false. The head and front of his offence, indeed, was comprehended in his resistance to the domination of Dunstan, who, having blighted the youth and reputation of his victim, assumed the praise of meekness, and blasphemously proclaimed that he had redeemed the parting soul of Edwy from eternal perdition by his prayers.

Brighthelm, who had been chosen by the seculars, and whom Edwy had delighted to honour, was a man, says Wallingford, "mitis et benevolus, suavis, clemens et modestus, et in his totus fuit. Nec aliquo artificio vel austeritate suppositivà virtutes temperavit. Sed ne sub ejus nimia remissione fluctuaret ecclesia, temperavit Deus." He was not indeed calculated to compete with Dunstan, armed with the sceptre of Edgar, and consecrated by the lying spirit of Odo, and seems to have vacated the see of Canterbury, and resumed his episcopacy at Wells, without a struggle. The removal of Brithelm was, however, only the first step towards a more serious undertaking.

Dunstan returned from Rome, after his investiture with the Papal authority to expel the married clergy from the religious houses throughout England; an Augean task ("stabulum clericorum" is the language of Malmsbury) which constituted the leading feature of his Primacy. Ethelwold, Abbot of Abingdon, who had been a fellowsufferer from the resentment of Edwy, and Oswald, the nephew of Odo, who had imported the last refinements of the Benedictine rule from Fleury, were his great coadjutors; and Edgar, over whom Dunstan had early acquired that ascendancy against which the spirit of Edwy had rebelled, and who had been seated by his means in his brother's throne, afforded them all the support that was to be derived