no idea of
any moral or religious merit, except chastity and obedience, not only
connived at his enormities, but loaded him with the greatest praises.
History, however, has preserved some instances of his amours, from
which, as from a specimen, we may form a conjecture of the rest.

Edgar broke into a convent, carried off Editha, a nun, by force, and
even committed violence on her person.[**]

[* Chron. Sax. p. 118. W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 8.
Seldom Spicileg, ad Eadm. p. 149, 157.]

[** W. Malms, lib. ii cap. 8. Osberne, p. 3.
Diceto, p. 457. Higden, p. 265, 267, 268. Spel. Concil. p.
481.]

For this act of sacrilege he was reprimanded by Dunstan; and that he
might reconcile himself to the church, he was obliged, not to separate
from his mistress, but to abstain from wearing his crown during seven
years, and to deprive himself so long of that vain ornament;[*]
a punishment very unequal to that which had been inflicted on the
unfortunate Edwy, who, for a marriage, which in the strictest sense
could only deserve the name of irregular, was expelled his kingdom, saw
his queen treated with singular barbarity, was loaded with calumnies,
and has been represented to us under the most odious colors. Such is the
ascendant which may be attained, by hypocrisy and cabal, over mankind.

[* Osberne, p. 111.]

There was another mistress of Edgar's, with whom he first formed a
connection by a kind of accident. Passing one day by Andover, he lodged
in the house of a nobleman, whose daughter, being endowed with all the
graces of person and behavior, inflamed him at first sight with the
highest desire; and he resolved by any expedient to gratify it. As
he had not leisure to employ courtship or address for attaining his
purpose, he went directly to her mother, declared the violence of his
passion, and desired that the young lady might be allowed to pass that
very night with him. The mother was a woman of virtue, and determined
not to dishonor her daughter and her family by compliance; but being
well acquainted with the impetuosity of the king's temper, she thought
it would be easier, as well as safer, to deceive than refuse him. She
feigned therefore a submission to his will; but secretly ordered a
waiting maid, of no disagreeable figure, to steal into the king's bed,
after all the company should be retired to rest. In the morning, before
daybreak, the damsel, agreeably to the injunctions of her mistres