Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/41

Rh, of the rigid order called the Benedictines. He made himself Archbishop of Canterbury, for his greater glory; and exercised such power over the neighboring British princes, and so collected them about the king, that once, when the king held his court at Chester, and went on the river Dee to visit the monastery of Saint John, the eight oars of his boat were pulled (as the people used to delight in relating in stories and songs) by eight crowned kings, and steered by the King of England. As Edgar was very obedient to Dunstan and the monks they took great pains to represent him as the best of kings. But he was really profligate, debauched, and vicious. He once forcibly carried off a young lady from the convent at Wilton; and Dunstan, pretending to be very much shocked, condemned him not to wear his crown upon his head for seven years—no great punishment, I dare say, as it can hardly have been a more comfortable ornament to wear than a stewpan without a handle. His marriage with his second wife,, is one of the worst events of his reign. Hearing of the beauty of this lady, he dispatched his favorite courtier,, to her father's castle in Devonshire, to see if she were really as charming as fame reported. Now she was so exceedingly beautiful that Athelwold fell in love with her himself, and married her; but he told the king that she was only rich—not handsome. The king, suspecting the truth when they came home, resolved to pay the newly mariied couple a visit; and, suddenly, told Athelwold to prepare for his immediate coming. Athelwold, terrified, confessed to his young wife what he had said and done, and implored her to disguise her beauty by some ugly dress or silly manner, that he might be safe from the king's anger. She promised that she would; but she was a proud woman, who would far rather have been a queen than the wife of a courtier. She dressed herself in her best dress, and adorned herself with her richest jewels; and when the king came, presently, he discovered the cheat. So, he caused his false friend, Athelwold, to be murdered in a wood, and married his widow, this bad Elfrida. Six or seven years afterwards, he died; and was buried, as if he had been all that the monks said he was, in the abbey of Glastonbury, which he—or Dunstan for him—had much enriched.