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 being dissolved, the archbishop went to Rome with splendid presents, appeased the pope with much humility, and related the king's ordinance, which gave the pontiff great satisfaction. Returning home, in one day he ordained in the city of Canterbury seven bishops to seven churches:—Frithstan to the church of Winchester; Athelstan to Cornwall; Werstan to Sherborne; Athelelm to Wells; Aidulf to Crediton in Devonshire: also to other provinces he appointed two bishops; to the South-Saxons, Bernegus, a very proper person; and to the Mercians, Cenulph, whose see was at Dorchester, in Oxfordshire. All this the pope established, in such wise, that he who should invalidate this decree should be damned everlastingly."

Edward, going the way of all flesh, rested in the same monastery with his father, which he had augmented with considerable revenues, and in which he had buried his brother Ethelward four years before. CHAP. VI.

Of Athelstan, the son of Edward. [ 924—940.]

In the year of our Lord's incarnation 924, Athelstan, the son of Edward, began to reign, and held the sovereignty sixteen years. His brother, Ethelward, dying a few days after his father, had been buried with him at Winchester. At this place, therefore, Athelstan, being elected king by the unanimous consent of the nobility, he was crowned at a royal town, which is called Kingston; though one Elfred, whose death we shall hereafter relate in the words of the king, with his factious party, as sedition never wants adherents, attempted to prevent it. The ground of his opposition, as they affirm, was, that Athelstan was born of a concubine. But having nothing ignoble in him, except this stain, if after all it be true, he cast all his predecessors into the shade by his piety, as well as the glory of all their triumphs, by the splendour of his own. So much more excellent is it to have that for which we are renowned inherent, than derived from our ancestors; because the former is exclusively our own, the latter is imputable to others. I forbear relating how many new and magnificent monasteries he founded; but I will not conceal that there was scarcely an old one in Eng-