Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/235

 bidding the archbishop absolve him. This, however, Dunstan flatly refused to do, declaring that he would rather be slain than be unfaithful to his Lord (, 67; it is curious to mark the development of this incident in, 200–1).

In 975 Eadgar died, and was buried at Glastonbury. His death was followed by a movement against the monks. The dispute between the regulars and seculars was taken up by the rival houses of Mercia and East Anglia. Ælfhere, the ealdorman of Mercia, turned the monks out of all the churches in his province, and re-established the married clerks in their old quarters. He threatened to carry the work still further. On the other hand, the cause of the monks was upheld by Æthelwine of East Anglia, who was supported by Brithnoth, the ealdorman of the East-Saxons. The ecclesiastical quarrel was made the occasion of a struggle for power. Civil war, if it did not actually break out, was evidently near at hand ( 144; Historia Ramesiensis, 71; Vita S. Oswaldi, 443). The danger was increased by the vacancy of the throne and a dispute as to the succession. The right of Eadward [see ], the elder son of Eadgar, seems to have been upheld by Ælfhere, while Ælfthryth, the queen-mother, intrigued for her son Æthelred [see ], and was supported by her brother Ordulf, the ealdorman of the western shires. If Dunstan's policy had been directed merely by a desire to further the monastic cause, he would certainly have thrown all his weight against the party of Ælfhere. The late king had, however, pointed out Eadward as his successor, and a designation of this kind then constituted a good claim to election. Besides, the succession of Eadward avoided the evils of a long minority, during which probably the West-Saxon party, always opposed to the progressive policy of the reign of Eadgar, would have had the chief power in the kingdom. Accordingly, in conjunction with the archbishop of York, Dunstan declared for Eadward at a meeting of the witan held probably at Winchester; the two archbishops carried the election, and crowned him king (Historia Rames. 73). It was perhaps at this meeting that the ecclesiastical quarrel was hotly debated. The monastic party was outnumbered, and their opponents loudly demanded that Dunstan should decree the expulsion of the monks and the restoration of the clerks. While the archbishop hesitated as to the answer he should give them, a voice was heard, which was believed to come from the figure of the crucified Lord hanging in the upper part of the hall, saying, ‘Let it not be so; let it not be so.’ When the opponents of the monks heard this voice, they were confounded, and the monastic party was for the time victorious (, 113; Gesta Regum, c. 161). The strife still went on, and in April 977 the matter was again debated at a gemot held at Kyrtlington in Oxfordshire, and the next year at Calne in Wiltshire, where the floor of the hall (‘solarium’) in which the council was held gave way, and all the nobles fell down into the undercroft below, some losing their lives, and others sustaining serious hurts. Dunstan alone escaped from falling, for his seat rested on a beam. There is not the slightest historical ground for asserting either that the voice heard at Winchester or the fall of the floor at Calne was a trick devised by the archbishop to defeat the opponents of the monks. Although his sympathy was of course with the monastic party, he appears throughout this period rather as a moderator than as a partisan. There were many present at Winchester who were far more immediately concerned in the struggle than he was; and at Calne, according to the earliest and most trustworthy accounts, both parties alike appear to have suffered from what was simply an accident, while Dunstan was preserved by a purely fortuitous circumstance; it is not till we come to Osbern's life, written far on in the next century, that we find this event represented as a declaration of God's wrath against the enemies of the monks (A.-S. Chron. sub ann. 978; sub ann. 977;, 114). Another meeting was held the same year at Amesbury, also in Wiltshire.

When Eadward was slain in March 978, Dunstan and Oswald crowned Æthelred king at Kingston on 14 April. At the coronation Dunstan caused the young king to read a solemn pledge to govern well, using the same form as at the coronation of Eadgar [for Eadgar's coronation rite see under ], and with this pledge delivered him a short exhortation on the duties of a christian king (Memorials, 355, 356). He is said to have foretold to the king the calamities that would fall on his house and nation as a punishment for the murder of Eadward ( sub ann. 1016). In 980 the archbishop joined with Ælfhere of Mercia in removing the body of the late king from Wareham, where it had been dishonourably buried in unhallowed ground, and translating it with great honour to Shaftesbury. With this act ends all that we know of Dunstan's public life. He probably had little influence over the young king. When in 986 Æthelred laid siege to Rochester to enforce a claim he made