The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol. I., Part A. · David Hume
EDGAR
He carried his superiority to a great height, and might have excited a universal combination against him, had not his power been so well established, as to deprive his enemies of hopes of shaking it It is said, that residing once at Chester, and having purposed to go by water to the abbey of St. John the Baptist, he obliged eight of his tributary princes to row him in a barge upon the Dee.[****] The English historians are fond of mentioning the name of Kenneth III., king of Scots, among the number: the Scottish historians either deny the fact, or assert that their king, if ever he acknowledged himself a vassal to Edgar, did him homage, not for his crown, but for the dominions which he held in England. But the chief means by which Edgar maintained his authority, and preserved public peace, was the paying of court to Dunstan and the monks, who had at first placed him on the throne, and who, by their pretensions to superior sanctity and purity of manners, had acquired an ascendant over the people. He favored their scheme for dispossessing the secular canons of all the monasteries;[*****] he bestowed preferment on none but their partisans; he allowed Dunstan to resign the see of Worcester into the hands of Oswald, one of his creatures; [******] and to place Ethelwold, another of them, in that of Winchester;[*******] he consulted these prelates in the administration of all ecclesiastical and even in that of many civil affairs; and though the vigor of his own genius prevented him from being implicitly guided by them, the king and the bishops found such advantages in their mutual agreement, that they always acted in concert, and united their influence in preserving the peace and tranquillity of the kingdom.
These merits of Edgar have procured him the highest panegyrics from the monks; and he is transmitted to us, not only under the character of a consummate statesman and an active prince,--praises to which beseems to have been justly entitled,--but under that of a great saint and a man of virtue. But nothing could more betray both his hypocrisy in inveighing against the licentiousness of the secular clergy, and the interested spirit of his partisans in bestowing such eulogies on his piety, than the usual tenor of his conduct, which was licentious to the highest degree, and violated every law, human and divine. Yet those very monks, who, as we are told by Ingulf, a very ancient historian, had no idea of any moral or religious merit, except chastity and obedience, not only connived at his enormities, but loaded him with the greatest praises. History, however, has preserved some instances of his amours, from which, as from a specimen, we may form a conjecture of the rest. Edgar broke into a convent, carried off Editha, a nun, by force, and even committed violence on her person.[**] [* Chron. Sax. p. 118. W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 8. Seldom Spicileg, ad Eadm. p. 149, 157.] [** W. Malms, lib. ii cap. 8. Osberne, p. 3. Diceto, p. 457. Higden, p. 265, 267, 268. Spel. Concil. p. 481.]
For this act of sacrilege he was reprimanded by Dunstan; and that he might reconcile himself to the church, he was obliged, not to separate from his mistress, but to abstain from wearing his crown during seven years, and to deprive himself so long of that vain ornament;[*] a punishment very unequal to that which had been inflicted on the unfortunate Edwy, who, for a marriage, which in the strictest sense could only deserve the name of irregular, was expelled his kingdom, saw his queen treated with singular barbarity, was loaded with calumnies, and has been represented to us under the most odious colors. Such is the ascendant which may be attained, by hypocrisy and cabal, over mankind. [* Osberne, p. 111.]
He returned to Edgar, and told him, that the riches alone, and high quality of Elfrida, had been the ground of the admiration paid her, and that her charms, far from being any wise extraordinary would have been overlooked in a woman of inferior station. When he had, by this deceit, diverted the king from his purpose he took an opportunity, after some interval, of turning again the conversation on Elfrida; he remarked, that though the parentage and fortune of the lady had not produced on him, as on others, any illusion with regard to her beauty, he could not forbear reflecting, that she would, on the whole, be an advantageous match for him, and might, by her birth and riches, make him sufficient compensation for the homeliness of her person. If the king, therefore, gave his approbation he was determined to make proposals in his own behalf to the earl of Devonshire, and doubted not to obtain his, as well as the young lady’s, consent to the marriage. Edgar, pleased with an expedient for establishing his favorite’s fortune, not only exhorted him to execute his purpose but forwarded his success by his recommendations to the parents of Elfrida; and Athelwold was soon made happy in the possession of his mistress. Dreading, however, the detection of the artifice, he employed every pretence for detaining Elfrida in the country, and for keeping her at a distance from Edgar.
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