lead a life of idle pleasure; whereupon, having his pincers in the
fire, red hot, he seized the devil by the nose, and put him to such
pain, that his bellowings were heard for miles and miles. Some
people are inclined to think this nonsense a part of Dunstan’s
madness (for his head never quite recovered the fever), but I think
not. I observe that it induced the ignorant people to consider him
a holy man, and that it made him very powerful. Which was exactly
what he always wanted.
On the day of the coronation of the handsome boy-king Edwy, it was
remarked by ODO, Archbishop of Canterbury (who was a Dane by
birth), that the King quietly left the coronation feast, while all
the company were there. Odo, much displeased, sent his friend
Dunstan to seek him. Dunstan finding him in the company of his
beautiful young wife ELGIVA, and her mother ETHELGIVA, a good and
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Dickens, Charles – A Child’s History of England
virtuous lady, not only grossly abused them, but dragged the young
King back into the feasting-hall by force. Some, again, think
Dunstan did this because the young King’s fair wife was his own
cousin, and the monks objected to people marrying their own
cousins; but I believe he did it, because he was an imperious,
audacious, ill-conditioned priest, who, having loved a young lady
himself before he became a sour monk, hated all love now, and
everything belonging to it.
The young King was quite old enough to feel this insult. Dunstan
had been Treasurer in the last reign, and he soon charged Dunstan
with having taken some of the last king’s money. The Glastonbury
Abbot fled to Belgium (very narrowly escaping some pursuers who
were sent to put out his eyes, as you will wish they had, when you
read what follows), and his abbey was given to priests who were
married; whom he always, both before and afterwards, opposed. But
he quickly conspired with his friend, Odo the Dane, to set up the
King’s young brother, EDGAR, as his rival for the throne; and, not
content with this revenge, he caused the beautiful queen Elgiva,
though a lovely girl of only seventeen or eighteen, to be stolen
from one of the Royal Palaces, branded in the cheek with a red-hot
iron, and sold into slavery in Ireland. But the Irish people
pitied and befriended her; and they said, ‘Let us restore the girlqueen
to the boy-king, and make the young lovers happy!’ and they
cured her of her cruel wound, and sent her home as beautiful as
before. But the villain Dunstan, and that other villain, Odo,
caused her to be waylaid at Gloucester as she was joyfully hurrying
to join her husband, and to be hacked and hewn with swords, and to
be barbarously maimed and lamed, and left to die. When Edwy the
Fair (his people called him so, because he was so young and
handsome) heard of her dreadful fate, he died of a broken heart;
and so the pitiful story of the poor young wife and husband ends!
Ah! Better to be two cottagers in these better times, than king
and queen of England in those bad days, though never so fair!
Then came the boy-king, EDGAR, called the Peaceful, fifteen years
old. Dunstan, being still the real king, drove all married priests
out of the monasteries and abbeys, and replaced them by solitary
monks like himself, of the rigid order called the Benedictines. He
made himself Archbishop of Canterbury, for his greater glory; and
exercised such power over the neighbouring 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 St. 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