Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/380

 representative. The two knights fought on foot, and, after a long and desperate conflict, Godwine brought the accuser to the ground. Ordgar tried to stab him with a knife, which, contrary to his oath and to the laws of the duel, he had hidden in his boot. It was snatched from him, and then, seeing that all hope was gone, he confessed that he had charged the ætheling falsely, and died of the many wounds he had received (ib.) The story is probably true, at least in its main outline (William Rufus, ii. 114 sq., 615 sq., where this Godwine is identified with the father of Robert, who accompanied Eadgar on his crusade: see Gesta Regum, iii. 251, and below). In 1097 Eadgar obtained the king's leave to make an expedition into Scotland for the purpose of setting his nephew and namesake on the throne. He set out at Michaelmas, defeated Donald in a hard-fought battle, in which Robert, the son of the ætheling's champion Godwine, is said to have performed extraordinary feats, and secured the kingdom for Eadgar (A.-S. Chron.) He then returned to England, and in 1099 went to the Crusade. With him served Robert, the son of ‘a most valiant knight’ named Godwine, evidently none other than Godwine the champion. In the course of the war Robert was shot to death by the Turks for refusing to deny Christ. His death seems to have brought Eadgar's crusading to a close. On his homeward way he is said to have received many gifts from the Greek and German emperors, who would willingly have kept him with them, but he loved his own land too well to live away from it (Gesta Regum, iii. 251). He returned to England in the reign of Henry I, and during the last war between Henry and his brother Robert left the king and went over to help the duke. He was taken prisoner at the battle of Tinchebrai on 28 Sept. 1106. The king freely released him, and he spent the remainder of his days in obscurity in the country, perhaps on his Hertfordshire property. It is not known when he died, but he was evidently alive when William of Malmesbury wrote the third book of his ‘Gesta Regum,’ probably not long before 1120. An ‘Edgar Adeling,’ mentioned in the Pipe Roll (Northumberland) in 1158 and 1167, must of course have been a different person, as the ætheling who was the son of Eadward the Exile would have been at least 110 if he had lived until 1167 (Norman Conquest, iii. 794). Eadgar is not known to have had wife or child.

[Anglo-Saxon Chron. (Rolls Ser.); Florence of Worcester (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Will. of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Symeon of Durham (Rolls Ser.); William of Poitiers, Giles; Orderic, Duchesne; Fordun's Scotichronicon, Hearne; Freeman's Norman Conquest, iii, iv, v. passim, and Reign of William Rufus contain all that is to be known about Eadgar.] 

EDGAR, JOHN, D.D. (1798–1866), theologian and philanthropist, was born 13 June 1798, at Ballykine, near Ballynahinch, where his father, Samuel Edgar, D.D., was minister in connection with the secession branch of the presbyterian church. Dr. Samuel Edgar afterwards held the chair of divinity of his church. Young Edgar was educated partly at the university of Glasgow and partly at Belfast, and after passing through the usual course of theological study he was in 1820 ordained minister of a small congregation in Belfast that was counted hardly large enough to have a minister of its own. Under Edgar's vigorous ministry the congregation rapidly increased, and soon a new church had to be built four times the size of the first. In 1826 he was called to succeed his father as professor of theology, retaining his congregation till 1848, when an act of assembly against pluralities obliged him to resign it. In 1836 he got the degree of D.D. from Hamilton College, U.S.A., and in 1860 that of LL.D. from the university of New York.

From the beginning of his ministry Edgar threw his energies into the charitable work of the town, and was the means of either founding, or greatly helping, many of its most useful philanthropic institutions. The Destitute Sick Society, the Bible Society, the Town Mission, the Seamen's Mission, the Societies for the Blind and for the Deaf and Dumb, all awakened his interest and received from him very valuable help. But with other societies and movements he was still more closely identified. 1. In 1829 he began to take an active interest in the work of temperance, and for twelve years he was among the most powerful and conspicuous of the public advocates of that cause in Ireland. He began the campaign by opening his dining-room window and pouring into the gutter the remains of a gallon of whisky which he had got for the use of his family. Many men of influence, including the Roman catholic bishop Doyle and Dr. Morgan of Belfast, cordially supported this movement, which spread widely through Ireland. It is to be observed, however, that it pledged the members to abstain only from distilled spirits; and when the teetotal movement began, Edgar, not deeming it to be in harmony with scripture, expressed strong opposition to it. From this time he ceased to take so prominent a part in the advocacy of the temperance cause. 2. He was one of the founders of the Religious Book and Tract Society, by which much was done in his time,