it was in the power of the Witan to pass him
over, and to choose for the public good some other member of the royal
house. The same Witan conferred upon Edgar the title of sub-king of
Mercia under his brother.

Solemn and imposing was the meeting of the Witenagemot, or "assembly of
the wise." It was divided into three estates. The first consisted of the
only class who, as a rule, had any learning in those days--the clergy,
represented by the bishop, abbot, and their principal officials: the
second consisted of the vassal kings of Scotland, Cumbria, Wales, Mona,
the Hebrides, and other dependent states, the great earls, as of Mercia
or East Anglia, and other mighty magnates: the third, of the lesser
thanes, who were the especial vassals of the king, or the great
landholders, for the possession of land was an essential part of a title
to nobility.

Amongst these sat Ella of Aescendune, who, in spite of his age, had come
to the metropolis to testify his loyalty and fealty to the son of the
murdered Edmund, his old friend and companion in arms, and to behold his
own eldest son once more.

It was the morning of a beautiful day in early spring, one of those days
of which the poet has written--

"Sweet day, so calm, so pure, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky"

--when winter seems to have loosed its stern hold upon the frozen
earth, and the songs of countless birds welcome the bright sunlight, the
harbinger of approaching summer.

The roads leading to Kingston-on-Thames were thronged with travellers of
every degree--the ealdorman or earl with his numerous attendants, the
bishop with rude ecclesiastical pomp, the peasant in his rough jerkin--
all hastening to the approaching ceremony, which, as it had been
definitely fixed, was to take place at that royal city.

There Athelstane had been crowned with great pomp and splendour, for it
was peculiarly "_Cynges tun_" or the King's Town, and after the
coronation it was customary for the newly-crowned monarch to take formal
possession of his kingdom by standing on a great stone in the churchyard.

The previous night, Archbishop Odo had arrived from Canterbury, and his
bosom friend and brother, Dunstan, from Glastonbury, as also Cynesige,
Bishop of Lichfield, a man in every way like-minded with them; while
nearly all the other prelates, abbots, and nobles, arrived in the early
morn of the eventful day.

The solemn service of the coronation mass was about to commence