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 king then held a synod over which Plegmund presided, that the two West-Saxon dioceses were divided into five, and that Plegmund consecrated seven new bishops in one day. As it stands this story must be rejected, for Formosus died in 896. Still it is true that in 909 the sees of Winchester, Sherborne, and South-Saxon Selsey were all vacant, and that Eadward and Plegmund separated Wiltshire and Berkshire from the see of Winchester and formed them into the diocese of was Ramsbury, and made Somerset and Devonshire, which lay in the bishopric of Sherborne, two separate dioceses, with their sees at Wells and Crediton. Five West-Saxon bishops and two bishops for Selsey and Dorchester were therefore consecrated by Plegmund, possibly at the same time (Anglia Sacra, i. 554; Reg. Sac. Anglic, 13).

The 'Unconquered King,' as Florence of Worcester calls him, died at Farndon in Northamptonshire in 924, in the twenty-fourth year of his reign (A.-S. Chron., Worcester; ; 925 A.-S.Chron,Winton). As Æthelstan calls 929 the sixth year of his reign (, Codex Dipl. 347, 348), it is obvious that Eadward must have died in 924, and there are some reasons for believing that he died in the August of that year (Memorials of Dunstan, introd; lxxiv n.) He was buried in the 'New Minster' of Winchester. By Eegwyn, a lady of high rank (.), or, according to later and untrustworthy tradition, a shepherd's daughter(Gesta Regum, ii. 131, 139; Liber de Hyda, 111), who seems to have been his concubine he had his eldest son Æthelstan, who succeeded him, possibly a son named Ælfred, not the rebel ætheling of the next reign, and a daughter Eadgyth, who in the year of her father's death was given in marriage by her brother to Sihtric, the Danish king of Northumbria. By 901 he was married to Ælflæd, daughter of Æthelhelm, one of his thegns, and Ealhswith (, Codex Dipl. 333). She bore him Ælfweard, who is said to have been learned, and who died sixteen days after his father, and probably Eadwine, drowned at sea in 933 (A.-S. Chron. sub an.), possibly by order of his brother (, Mon. Hist. Brit. p. 686; Gesta Regum, § 139), though the story, especially in its later fuller form, is open to doubt (, Hist, Essays, i. 10-15), and six daughters: Æthelflæd, a nun perhaps at Wilton (Gesta Regum, iii. 126) or at Rumsey (Liber de Hyda, 112); Eadgifu, married in 919 by her father to Charles the Simple, and after his death to Herbert, count of Troyes, in 951 (Acta SS. Bolland. Mar. xii. 750); Æthelhild, a nun at Wilton; Eadhild, married by her brother to Hugh the Great, count of Paris; Ælgifu, called in France Adela, married about 936 to Eblus, son of the count of Aquitane (ix. 21); Eadgyth or Edith married in 930 to Otto afterwards emperor, and died on 26 Jan. 947, after her husband became king, but before he became emperor, deeply regretted by all the Saxon people (i. 37, ii. 41). Eadward's second wife (or third, if Eegwyn is reckoned) was Eadgifu, by whom he had Eadmund and Eadred, who both came to the throne, and two daughters, Eadburh or Edburga, a nun at Winchester, of whose precocious piety William of Malmesbury tells a story (Gesta Regum, ii. 217), and Eadgifu, married to Lewis, king of Arles or Provence. Besides these, he is said to have had a son called Gregory, who went to Rome and became a monk, and afterwards abbot of Einsiedlen.



EDWARD or EADWARD (963?–978), king of the English, the eldest son of Eadgar, was the child of Æthelflæd, and was born probably in 963 [see under ]. He was brought up as his father's heir, his education was entrusted to Sideman, bishop of Crediton, who instructed him in the scriptures, and he grew a stout and hardy lad (Vita S. Oswaldi, p. 449). He was about twelve years old when his father died in 975. The circumstances of his election to the throne will be found in the article on. It should be added that the author of the 'Life of St. Oswald,' writing before 1005, says that the nobles who opposted his election were moved to do so by his hot temper, for the boy used not only to abuse but to beat his attendants. While it is likely enough that he was imperious and quick