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 Glocester in the most
acute torments.[******]

[* Wallingford, p. 542.]

[** W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 7. Osberne, p. 83, 105. M. West.
p. 195, 196.]

[*** Wallingford, p. 542. Alured. Beverl. p. 112.]

[**** Osberne, p. 84. Gervase, p. 1644.]

[***** Hoveden, p. 425.]

[****** 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,[**] and, on Odo's death, and
the violent expulsion of Brithelm, his successor, in that of
Canterbury;[***] 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,[****] 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.[*****] [2]

[** Chron. Sax. p. 117. Flor. Wigorn. p. 605.
Wallingford, p. 544]

[*** Hoveden, p. 425. Osberne, p. 109.]

[**** Brompton, p. 863.]

[***** See note B, at the end of the volume.]

EDGAR

{959.} This prince, who mounted the throne in such early youth, soon
discovered an excellent capacity in the administration of affairs, and
his reign is one of the most fortunate that we meet with in the ancient
English history. He showed no aversion to war; he made the wisest
preparations against invaders; and, by this vigor and foresight, he
was enabled without any danger of suffering ins