Edwy, at the time of his accession, was not above sixteen or seventeen
years of age, was possessed of the most amiable figure, and was even
endowed, according to authentic accounts, with the most promising
virtues [o].  He would have been the favourite of his people, had he
not unhappily, at the commencement of his reign, been engaged in a
controversy with the monks, whose rage, neither the graces of the body
nor virtues of the mind could mitigate, and who have pursued his
memory with the same unrelenting vengeance which they exercised
against his person and dignity during his short and unfortunate reign.
There was a beautiful princess of the royal blood, called Elgiva, who
had made impression on the tender heart of Edwy; and as he was of an
age when the force of the passions first begins to be felt, he had
ventured, contrary to the advice of his gravest counsellors, and the
remonstrances of the more dignified ecclesiastics [p], to espouse her;
though she was within the degrees of affinity prohibited by the canon
law [q].  As the austerity affected by the monks made them
particularly violent on this occasion, Edwy entertained a strong
prepossession against them; and seemed, on that account, determined
not to second their project of expelling the seculars from all the
convents, and of possessing themselves of those rich establishments.
War was therefore declared between the king and the monks; and the
former soon found reason to repent his provoking such dangerous
enemies.  On the day of his coronation, his nobility were assembled in
a great hall, and were indulging themselves in that riot and disorder,
which, from the example of their German ancestors, had become habitual
to the English [r]; when Edwy, attracted by softer pleasures, retired
into the queen’s apartment, and in that privacy gave reins to his
fondness towards his wife, which was only moderately checked by the
presence of her mother.  Dunstan conjectured the reason of the king’s
retreat; and carrying along with him Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury,
over whom he had gained an absolute ascendant, he burst into the
apartment, upbraided Edwy with his lasciviousness, probably bestowed
on the queen the most opprobrious epithet that can be applied to her
sex, and tearing him from her arms, pushed him back, in a disgraceful
manner, into the banquet of the nobles [s].  Edwy, though young, and
opposed by the prejudices of the people, found an opportunity of
taking revenge for this public insult.  He questioned Dunstan
concerning the administration of the treasury during the reign of his
predecessor [t]; and when that minister refused to give any account of
money expended, as he affirmed, by orders of the late king, he accused
him of malversation in his office and banished him the kingdom.  But
Dunstan’s cabal was not inactive during his absence; they filled the
public with high panegyrics on his sanctity; they exclaimed against
the impiety of the king and queen; and having poisoned the minds of
the people by these declamations, they proceeded to still more
outrageous acts of violence against the royal authority.  Archbishop
Odo sent into the palace a party of soldiers, who seized the queen,
and, having burned her face with a red-hot iron, in order to destroy
that fatal beauty which had seduced Edwy, they carried her by force
into Ireland, there to remain in perpetual exile [u].  Edwy, finding
it in vain to resist, was obliged to consent to his divorce, which was
pronounced by Odo [w]; and catastrophe, still more dismal, awaited the
unhappy Elgiva.  That amiable princess, being cured of her wounds, and
having even obliterated the scars with which Odo had hoped to deface
her beauty, returned into England, and was flying to the embraces of
the king, whom she still regarded as her husband; when she fell into
the hands of a party, whom the primate had sent to intercept her.
Nothing but her death could now give security to Odo and the monks;
and the most cruel death was requisite to satiate their vengeance.
She was hamstringed; and expired a few days after at Gloucester, in
the most acute torments [x].
[ [o] H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 356.  [p] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 7.
[q] Ibid.  [r] Wallingford, p. 542.  [s] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 7.
Osberne, p. 83, 105.  M. West. p. 195, 196.  [t] Wallingford, p. 542.
Alur. Beverl. p. 112.  [u] Osberne, p. 84.  Gervase, p. 1644.  [w]
Hoveden, p. 425.  [x] Osberne, p. 84.  Gervase, p. 1645, 1646.]

The English, blinded with superstition, instead of being shocked with
this inhumanity, exclaimed that the misfortunes of Edwy and his
consort were a just judgment for their dissolute contempt of the
ecclesiastical statutes.  They even proceeded to rebellion against
their sovereign; and having placed Edgar at their head, the younger
brother of Edwy, a boy of thirteen years of age, they soon put him in
possession of Mercia, Northumberland, East Anglia; and chased Edwy
into the southern counties.  That it might not be doubtful at whose
instigation this revolt was undertaken, Dunstan returned into England,
and took upon him the government of Edgar and his party.  He was first
installed in the see of Worcester, then in that of London [y], and on
Odo’s death, and the violent expulsion of Brithelm, his successor, in
that of Canterbury [z]; of all which he long kept possession.  Odo is
transmitted to us by the monks under the character of a man of piety;
Dunstan was even canonized: and is one of those numerous saints of the
same stamp who disgrace the Romish calendar.  Meanwhile the unhappy
Edwy was excommunicated [a], and pursued with unrelenting vengeance;
but his death, which happened soon after, freed his enemies from all
further inquietude, and gave Edgar peaceable possession of the
government [b].
[ [y] Chron. Sax. p. 117.  Flor Wigorn. p. 605.  Wallingford, p. 544
[z] Hoveden p. 425.  Osberne, p. 109.  [a] Brompton, p. 863.  [b] See
note [B] at the end of the volume.]