Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune<br />A Tale of the Days of Saint Dunstan by A. D. Crake (best e reader for epub TXT) 📕
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- Author: A. D. Crake
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“Surely,” thought they, “such is the expression the blessed will wear in heaven.”
And then, in their presence, Dunstan administered the Blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ to the happy penitent; it was the first Communion which he had willingly made since he first left home, a bright happy boy of fifteen; and words would fail to describe the deep faith and loving penitence with which he gathered his dying strength to receive the Holy Mysteries.
And then Dunstan administered the last of all earthly rites—the holy anointing;xxxiii while amidst their tears the mourners yet thought of Him Who vouchsafed to be anointed before He sanctified the grave to be a bed of hope to His people.
“Art thou happy now, my son?” said Dunstan, when all was over.
“Happy indeed! happy! yes, so happy!”
They were almost the last words he said, until an hour had passed and the sun had set, leaving the bright clouds suffused in rich purple, when he sat up in the bed.
“Mother! Alfred!” he said, “do you hear that music? Many are singing; surely that was father’s voice. Oh! how bright!”
He fell back, and Dunstan began the solemn commendatory prayer, for he saw the last moment was come.
“Go forth, O Christian soul, from this world, in the name of God the Father Who hath created thee, of God the Son Who hath redeemed thee, of God the Holy Ghost Who hath been poured out upon thee; and may thy abode be this day in peace, in the heavenly Sion, through Jesus Christ thy Lord.”
It was over! Over that brief but eventful life! Over all the bright hopes which had centred on him in this world; but the battle was won, and the eternal victory gained.
We have little more to add to our tale; the remainder is matter of history. The real fate of the unhappy Elgiva is not known, for the legend which represents her as suffering a violent death at the hands of the partisans of Edgar or Odo rests upon no solid foundation, but is repugnant to actual facts of history. Let us hope that she found the only real consolation in that religion she had hitherto, unhappily, despised, but which may perhaps have come to her aid in adversity.
The unhappy Edwy sank from bad to worse. When Elgiva was gone he seemed to have nothing to live for; he yielded himself up to riotous living to drown care, while his government became worse and worse. Alas, he never repented, so far as we can learn, and the following year he died at Gloucester—some said of a broken heart, others of a broken constitution—in the twentieth year only of his age.
Poor unhappy Edwy the Fair! Yet he had been his own worst enemy. Well has it been written:
“Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.”
Edgar succeeded to the throne, and all England acknowledged him as lord; while under Dunstan’s wise administration the land enjoyed peace and plenty unexampled in Anglo-Saxon annals. Such was Edgar’s power, that more than three thousand vessels kept the coast in safety, and eight tributary kings did him homage.
Alfred became in due course Thane of Æscendune, and his widowed mother lived to rejoice in his filial care many a long year, while the dependants and serfs blessed his name as they had once blessed that of his father.
“The boy is the father of the man” it has been well said, and it was not less true than usual in this case. A bright pure boyhood ushered in a manhood of healthful vigour and bright intellect.
Children grew up around him after his happy marriage with Alftrude, the daughter of the thane of Rollrich. The eldest boy was named Elfric, and was bright and brave as the Elfric of old. Need we say he never went to court, although Edgar would willingly have numbered him in the royal household. Truly, indeed, were fulfilled the words which the Elfric of old had spoken on that Easter eve. To his namesake, and to all that younger generation, the memory of the uncle they had never seen was surrounded by a mysterious halo of light and love; and when they said their prayers around his tomb, it seemed as if he were still one of themselves—sharing their earthly joys and sorrows.
And here we must leave them—time passing sweetly on, the current of their lives flowing softly and gently to the mighty ocean of eternity:
“Where the faded flower shall freshen,
Freshen never more to fade;
Where the shaded sky shall brighten,
Brighten never more to shade.”
Bonar.
THE END.
i For authorities for his various statements the Author must beg to refer his readers to the notes at the end of the volume.
ii Homilies in the Anglo-Saxon Church
“The mass priest, on Sundays and mass days, shall speak the sense of the Gospel to the people in English, and of the Paternoster, and of the Creed, as often as he can, for the inciting of the people to know their belief, and to retain their Christianity. Let the teacher take heed of what the prophet says, ‘They are dumb dogs, and cannot bark.’ We ought to bark and preach to laymen, lest they should be lost through ignorance. Christ in His gospel says of unlearned teachers, ‘If the blind lead the blind, they both fall into the ditch.’ The teacher is blind that hath no book learning, and he misleads the laity through his ignorance. Thus are you to be aware of this, as your duty requires.”—23d Canon of Elfric, about A.D. 957.
Elfric was then only a private monk in the abbey of Ahingdon, and perhaps composed these canons for the use of Wulfstan, Bishop of Dorchester, with the assistance of the abbot, Ethelwold. They commence “Ælfricus, humilis frater, venerabili Episcopo Wulfsino, salutem in Domino.” Others think this “Wulfsinus” was the Bishop of Sherborne of that name. Elfric became eventually Archbishop of Canterbury, A.D. 995-1005, dying at an advanced age. No other English name before the Conquest is so famous in literature.
iii Services of the Church.
“It concerns mass priests, and all God’s servants, to keep their churches employed with God’s service. Let them sing therein the seven-tide songs that are appointed them, as the Synod earnestly requires—that is, the uht song (matins); the prime song (seven A.M.); the undern song (terce, nine A.M.); the midday song (sext); the noon song (nones, three P.M.); the even song (six P.M.); the seventh or night song (compline, nine P.M.)”—19th Canon of Elfric.
It is not to be supposed that the laity either were expected to attend, or could attend, all these services, which were strictly kept in monastic bodies; but it would appear that mass, and sometimes matins and evensong, or else compline, were generally frequented. And these latter would be, as represented in the text, the ordinary services in private chapels.
iv Battle of Brunanburgh.
In this famous battle, the English, under their warlike king, defeated a most threatening combination of foes; Anlaf, the Danish prince, having united his forces to those of Constantine, King of the Scots, and the Britons, or Welsh of Strathclyde and Cambria. So proud were the English of the victory, that their writers break into poetry when they come to that portion of their annals. Such is the case with the writer of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, from whom the following verses are abridged. They have been already partially quoted in the text.
Here Athelstane king,
Of earls the lord,
To warriors the ring-giver,
Glory world-long
Had won in the strife,
By edge of the sword,
At Brunanburgh.
The offspring of Edward,
The departed king,
Cleaving the shields.
Struck down the brave.
Such was their valour,
Worthy of their sires,
That oft in the strife
They shielded the land
‘Gainst every foe.
The Scottish chieftains,
The warriors of the Danes,
Pierced through their mail,
Lay dead on the field.
The field was red
With warriors’ blood,
What time the sun,
Uprising at morn,
The candle of God,
Ran her course through the heavens;
Till red in the west
She sank to her rest.
Through the live-long day
Fought the people of Wessex,
Unshrinking from toil,
While Mercian men,
Hurled darts by their side.
Fated to die
Their ships brought the Danes,
Five kings and seven earls,
All men of renown,
And Scots without number
Lay dead on the field.
Constantine, hoary warrior,
Had small cause to boast.
Young in the fight,
Mangled and torn,
Lay his son on the plain.
Nor Anlaf the Dane
With wreck of his troops,
Could vaunt of the war
Of the clashing of spears.
Or the crossing of swords,
with the offspring of Edward.
The Northmen departed
In their mailed barks,
Sorrowing much;
while the two brothers,
The King and the Etheling,
To Wessex returned,
Leaving behind
The corpses of foes
To the beak of the raven,
The eagle and kite,
And the wolf of the wood.
The Chronicle simply adds, “A.D. 937.—This year King Athelstan, and the Etheling Edmund, his brother, led a force to Brimanburgh, end there fought against Anlaf, and, Christ helping them, they slew five kings and seven earls.”
v Murder of Edmund.
A certain robber named Leofa, whom Edmund had banished for his crimes, returning after six years’ absence, totally unexpected, was sitting, on the feast of St. Augustine, the apostle of the English, and first Archbishop of Canterbury, among the royal guests at Pucklechurch, for on this day the English were wont to regale, in commemoration of their first preacher; by chance, too, he was placed near a nobleman, whom the king had condescended to make his guest. This, while the others were eagerly carousing, was perceived by the king alone; when, hurried with indignation, and impelled by fate, he leaped from the table, caught the robber by the hair, and dragged him to the floor; but he, secretly drawing a dagger from its sheath, plunged it with all his force into the breast of the king as he lay upon him. Dying of the wound, he gave rise over the whole kingdom to many fictions concerning his decease. The robber was shortly torn limb from limb by the attendants who rushed in, though he wounded some of them ere they could accomplish their purpose. St. Dunstan, at that time Abbot of Glastonbury, had foreseen his ignoble end, being fully persuaded of it from the gesticulations and insolent mockery of a devil dancing before him. Wherefore, hastening to court at full speed, he received intelligence of the transaction on the road. By common consent, then, it was determined that his body should be brought to Glastonbury, and there magnificently buried in the northern part of the tower. That such had been his intention, through his singular regard for the abbot, was evident from particular circumstances. The village, also, where he was murdered, was made a offering for the dead, that the spot, which had witnessed his fall, might ever after minister aid to his soul,—William of Malmesbury, B, ii. e. 7, Bohn’s Edition.
vi A. D. 556—Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
vii Wulfstan, and the See of Dorchester.
When Athelstane was dead, the Danes, both in Northumberland and Mercia, revolted against the English rule, and made Anlaf their king. Archbishop Wulfstan, then of York, sided with them, perhaps being himself of Danish blood. The kingdom was eventually divided between Edmund and Aulaf, until the death of the latter. When Edred ascended the throne—after the murder of Edmund, who had, before his death, repossessed himself of the whole sovereignty—the wise men of Northumberland, with Wulfstan at their head, swore submission to him, but in 948 rebelled and chose for their king Eric of Denmark. Edred marched at once against them, and subdued the rebellion with great vigour, not to say riqour. He threw the archbishop into prison at Jedburgh in Bernicia. After a time he was released, but only upon the condition of banishment from Northumbria, and he was made Bishop of Dorchester, a place familiar to the tourist on the Thames, famed for the noble abbey church which still exists, and has been grandly restored.
Although Dorchester is now only a village, it derives its origin from a period so remote that it is lost in the mist of ages. It was probably a British village under the name Cair Dauri, the camp on the waters; and coins of Cunobelin, or Cassivellaunus, have been found in good preservation. Bede mentions it as a Roman station, and Richard of Cirencester marks it as such in the xviii. Iter, under the name Durocina.
Its bishopric was founded by Birinus, the apostle of the West Saxons; and the present bishoprics of Winchester, Salisbury, Exeter, Bath and Wells, Worcester and Hereford, were successively taken from it, after which it still extended from the Thames to the Humber.
Suffering grievously from the ravages of the Danes, it became a small town, and it suffered
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