Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune

by A. D. Crake

in theology his progressamazed his tutors.

  Up to this time the world had held possession of his heart, and,balancing the advantages of a religious and a secular life, he chose, asmost young people would choose, the attractions of court, to which hisparents' rank entitled him, and leaving Glastonbury he repaired to thecourt of Edmund.

  There his extraordinary talents excited envy, and he was accused ofmagical arts: his harp had been heard to pour forth strains of ravishingbeauty when no human hand was near, and other like prodigies, savouringof the black art, were said to attend him, so that he fled the court,and took refuge with his uncle, Elphege, the Bishop of Winchester.

  A long illness followed, during which the youth, disgusted with theworld, and startled by his narrow escape from death, reversed the choicehe had previously made, and renounced the world and its pleasures.

  Ordained priest at Winchester, he was sent back with a monk's attire toGlastonbury, where he gave himself up to austerities, such as, in agreater or less degree, always accompanied a conversion in those days;here miracles were reported to attend him, and stories of his personalconflicts with the Evil One were handed from mouth to mouth, until hisfame had filled the country round.[xvi]

  The influence he rapidly acquired enabled him to commence the great workof rebuilding Glastonbury, in which he was only interrupted by thefrequent calls which he had to court, to become the adviser of KingEdmund; where indeed he was often in the discharge of the office ofprime minister of the kingdom, and showed as much aptitude in civil asin ecclesiastical affairs.

  Glastonbury being rebuilt, the Benedictine rule [xvii]was introduced, and Dunstan himself became abbot. It was far the noblestand best monastic code of the day, being peculiarly adapted to preventthe cloister from becoming the abode of either idleness or profligacy.

  But this was not done without much opposition; the secular priests--asthe married clergy and those who lived amongst their flocks (as Englishclergy do now) were called--opposed the introduction of theBenedictine rule with all their might, and were always thorns inDunstan's side.

  The unfortunate Edmund, after the sad event at Pucklechurch, on thefeast of St. Augustine, was buried at Glastonbury by the abbot, and histwo sons, Edwy and Edgar, were put under Dunstan's especial care by thenew king Edred. The rest of the story is tolerably well known to ourreaders.

  The first steps of Edwy's reign were all taken with a view to one greatend--to revenge himself and to destroy Dunstan, who, aware of theroyal enmity, and of his inability to restrain the sovereign, withdrewhimself quietly to Glastonbury, and confined himself to the discharge ofhis duties as its abbot.

  But this did not satisfy Edwy, who, panting for the ruin of the monk hehated, sought occasion for a quarrel, and soon found it. Dunstan hadbeen the royal almoner, and had had the disposal of large sums of money,for purposes connected with the Church, on which they had been strictlyexpended. Now Edwy required a strict account of all these disbursements,which Dunstan refused to give, saying it had already been given toEdred, and that no person had any right to investigate the charities ofthe departed king.

  His stout resistance gained the day in the first instance, but Edwynever felt at rest while Dunstan lived at peace in the land, andEthelgiva and her fair daughter were ever inciting him to fresh acts ofhostility, little as he needed such incitement.

  The first measures were of a very dishonourable kind. Evil reports werespread abroad to destroy the character of the great abbot, and preparepeople's minds for his disgrace: then disaffection was stirred upamongst the secular clergy surrounding Glastonbury--a very easy thing;and attempts were made in vain to create a faction against him in hisown abbey; then at last the neighbouring thanes, many of Danishextraction and scarcely Christian, were stirred up to invade theterritory of the abbey, and were promised immunity and secure possessionof their plunder. They liked the pleasant excitement of galloping overDunstan's ecclesiastical patrimony, of plundering the farms and drivingaway the cattle, and there was scarcely a night in which some freshoutrage was not committed. At this point the action of our tale recommences.

  It will be remembered that the father of Ella had found relief from hisgrief, after the death of his unhappy son Oswald, in building andendowing the monastery of St. Wilfred, situate on the river's bank, at ashort distance from the hall.

  The completion of the work had, however, been reserved for his son, and,everything being now done, it became the earnest desire of Ella, withthe consent of the brethren who had been gathered into the incompletebuilding, to place it under the Benedictine rule.

  For this end he determined to send a messenger to negotiate with Dunstanat Glastonbury, and, yielding to Alfred's most earnest request, heconsented to send him, in company with Father Cuthbert, who was to bethe future prior, upon the mission.

  Since the desertion of Elfric, his brother Alfred had been as aministering angel to his father, so tender had been his affection, yetso manly and pure. He was by nature gifted with great talents, and hisprogress in ecclesiastical lore, almost the only lore of the day, wouldhave well fitted him for the Church; but if this idea had ever been inthe mind of the thane, he put it aside after the departure of Elfric.

  But it must not be supposed that the only literature of the period wasin Latin. Alfred, the great King Alfred, skillful in learning as in war,had translated into English (as we have mentioned earlier in our tale)the _History of the World_, by Orosius, and other works, which formed apart of the royal library in the palace of Edred. All these works wereknown to his young namesake, Alfred, far better than they had beeneither to Edwy or Elfric, in their idleness, and he was well informedbeyond the average scope of his time. But his imagination had long beenfired by the accounts he had received of Glastonbury and its sanctuary,so that he eagerly besought his father to allow him to go thither.

  But the poor old thane felt much like Jacob when he was begged to sendBenjamin into Egypt. Elfric was not, so far as home ties were concerned,they had never heard of him since the coronation day, and now they wouldtake Alfred from him.

  It may seem strange to our readers that Ella should regard a journeyfrom the Midlands to Glastonbury in so serious a light; but Wessex andMercia had long been independent states, communication infrequent, andit would certainly be many weeks before Alfred could return; whileinexperience magnified the actual dangers of the way.

  Coaches and carriages were not in use, neither would the state of theroads have rendered such use practicable. All travellers were forced tojourney on horseback, and, like Elfric when he departed from home, tocarry all their baggage in a similar manner.

  The navigation of the Avon, which would have opened the readiest road tothe southwest, was impeded by sandbanks and rapids; there were as yet nolocks, no canals.

  Once the Romans had made matchless roads, as in other parts of theirempire, but not a stone had been laid thereon since the days of Hengistand Horsa, and many a stone had been taken away for building purposes,or to pave the courtyards of Saxon homes.[xviii]

  Still the ancient Foss Way, which once extended from Lincolnshire toDevonshire, formed the best route, and it was decided to travel by it,making a brief detour, so as to enable the party to pass the first nightat the residence of an old friend of the family who dwelt on the highborderland which separates the counties of Oxford and Warwick, in oldtimes the frontier between the two Celtic tribes, the Dobuni and theCarnabii.

  So Father Cuthbert and Alfred, with three attendant serfs, leftAescendune early on a fine summer morning, and followed a byroad throughthe forest, until, after a few difficulties, arising from entanglementin copse or swamp, they reached the Foss Way. Wide and spacious, thisgrand old road ran through the dense forest in an almost unbroken line;huge trees overshadowed it on either side, and the growth of underwoodwas so dense that no one could penetrate it without difficulty.Sometimes the scene changed, and a dense swamp, amidst which the timberof former generations rotted away, succeeded, but the grand old roadstill offered, even in its decay, a firm
and sure footing. Built withconsummate skill, the lower strata of which it was composed remained sofirm and unyielding, that, could the Romans but have returned for a fewyears, they might have restored it to its ancient perfection, when thetraveller might post rapidly upon it from Lincoln even to Totness inDevonshire.

  Little, however, did our travellers think of the grand men of old whohad built this mighty causeway six or seven centuries earlier. Theirchief feeling, when they reached it, was one of relief; the change wasso acceptable from the tangled and miry bypath through the forest.

  "Holy St. Wilfred," exclaimed Father Cuthbert, "but my steed hathwallowed like a hog. I have sunk in the deep mire where was no footing."

  "A little grooming will soon make him clean again, father."

  "But verily we have passed through a slough and a wilderness, and myinner man needeth refreshment; let us even partake of the savoury pieswherewith the provident care of thy father hath provided us."

  The suggestion was by no means a bad one, and the party sat down on agreen and sloping bank, overshadowed by a mighty oak which grew by thewayside. It was noontide, and the shelter from the heat was not at allunpleasant. Their wallets were overhauled, and choice provision foundagainst famine by the road. There were few, very few inns wheretravellers could obtain decent accommodation, and every preparation hadbeen made for a camp out when necessary.

  So they ate their midday meal with thankfulness of heart, and reclinedawhile ere courting more fatigue. The day was lovely, and the silence ofthe woods almost oppressive; nought save the hum of insects broke itstranquillity.

  Fatigued by the exertions of the morning, the whole party fell asleep;the gentle breeze, the quiet rustling of the leaves, all combined tolull the senses. While they thus slept, the day wore on, and the sun wasdeclining when they awoke and wondered that they had wasted their timefor so long a period.

  Starting again with renewed energy, they travelled onward through themighty forest till sunset, when they approached the high ground whichnow runs along the northern boundary of Oxfordshire and of whichEdgehill forms a portion. Though progress had been slow, for the road,although secure, was yet in so neglected a state as to form an obstacleto rapid travelling, and they had met no fellow travellers. Leaving theFoss Way, which followed the valley, and slowly ascending the hill by awell-marked track, they looked back from its summit upon a gloriousview. Far as the eye could reach stretched the forest to the northward,one huge unbroken expanse save where the thin wreaths of smoke showedsome village or homestead, where English farmers already wrestled withthe obstacles nature had formed. But westward the view was morehome-like; the setting sun was sinking behind the huge heights now knownas the Malvern Hills, which reared their forms proudly in the distanthorizon.

  The western sky was rich in the hues of the departing sun, which castits declining beams upon village and homestead, thinly scattered in thefertile vale through which the Foss Way pursued its course.

  But our travellers did not stay long to contemplate the beauty of thescene; they were yet ten miles from the hospitable roof where they hadpurposed spending the night, and they had overslept themselves so longat their noontide halt, that they found darkness growing apace, whiletheir weary animals could scarcely advance farther.

  "Is there no inn, no Christian dwelling near, where we may repose?Verily my limbs bend beneath me with fatigue," said Father Cuthbert.

  "There is no dwelling of Christian men nearer than the halls of theThane of Rollrich, and we shall scarcely reach them for a couple ofhours," said Oswy, the serf.

  "Thou art a Job's comforter. What sayest thou, Anlac?"

  "There are the remains of an old temple of heathen times not far fromhere, a little on the right hand of the road, but they say the place ishaunted."

  "Has it a roof to shelter us?"

  "Part of the ruins are well covered."

  "Then thither we will go. Peradventure it will prove a safe abidingplace against wolves or evil men, and if there be demons we must evenexorcise them."

  When they had emerged from the forest, they had, as we have seen,ascended the high tableland which formed the northern frontier of theterritory of the Dobuni--passing over the very ground where, sevenhundred years later, the troops of the King and the Parliament werearrayed against each other in deadly combat for the first time.

  But at this remote period the country where the Celts had once lived,and whence their civilised descendants had been driven by the English,had become a barren moorland. Scarce a tree grew on the heights, but awild common, with valley and hill alternating, much as on Dartmoor atthe present day, stretched before the travellers, and was traversed bythe old Roman trackway. Dreary indeed it looked in the darkeningtwilight; here and there some huge crag overtopped the road, and thenthe track lay along a flat surface. It was after passing some hugemisshapen atones, which spoke of early Celtic worship, that suddenly, inthe distance on the right, the ruined temple lay before them.

  Pillars of beautiful workmanship, evidently reared by Roman skill,surrounded a paved quadrangle raised upon a terrace approached on allsides by steps. These steps and the pavement were alike of stone, butwhere weeds could grow they had grown, and the footing was damp andslippery with rank vegetation and fungus growth.

  At the extremity of the quadrangle the roof still partly covered theadytum or shrine from the sky, the platform reared itself upon itsflight of massive steps where early British Christianity had demolishedthe idol, and beneath were chambers once appropriated to the use of thepriests, which, by the aid of fire, could shortly be made habitable.

  There was plenty of brushwood and underwood near, and our travellersspeedily made a large fire, which expelled the damp from the place,albeit, as the smoke could only escape by an aperture in the roof,which, it is needless to say, was not embraced in the original design ofthe architect, it was not till the blaze had subsided and the glowingembers alone warmed the chamber, that mortal lungs could bear thestifling atmosphere, so charged had it been with smoke.

  Still it was very acceptable shelter to the travellers, who mustotherwise have camped out on the exposed moorland, and they made ahearty and comfortable meal, which being concluded, Father Cuthbert madea very brief address.

  "My brethren," he said, "we have travelled, like Abraham from Ur of theChaldees, not '_sine numine_,' that is not without God's protection; andas we are about to sleep in a place where devils once deluded Christianpeople, it will not be amiss to say the night song, and commendourselves '_in manus Altissimi_,' that is to say, to God's care."

  The compline service was familiar to each one present, and FatherCuthbert intoned it in a stentorian voice, particularly those portionsof the 91st Psalm which seemed to defy the Evil One, and he recited justas if he were sure Satan was listening:

  "Thou shalt go upon the lion and the adder; the young lion and thedragon shalt thou tread under thy feet."

  All the company seemed to feel comfort in the words, and, first postinga sentinel, to be relieved every three hours, they commended themselvesto sleep.

  Alfred found his couch very pleasant at first, but before he had beenlong asleep his rest became disturbed by singular dreams. He thought hewas standing within a grassy glade in a deep forest; it was darkeningtwilight, and he felt anxious to find his way from the spot, when hisguardian angel appeared to him, and pointed out a narrow track betweentwo huge rocks. He followed until he heard many voices, and saw astrange light reflected on the tree tops, as if from beneath, whenamidst the din of voices he recognised Elfric's tones.

  "Wouldst thou save thy brother, then proceed," his guardian angel seemedto whisper.

  He strove, in his dream, to proceed, when he awoke so vividly impressedthat he felt convinced coming events were casting their shadows before.He could not drive the thought of Elfric from his mind; he slept, butagain in wild dreams his brother seemed to appear; once he seemed tooppose Elfric's passage over a plank which crossed a roaring torrent;then he seemed as if he were falling, falling, ami
dst rushing waters,when he awoke.

  "I can sleep no longer. I will look out at the night," he said.

  A faint moon had arisen, and lent an uncertain light to the outlines ofhill, crag, and moorland, while it gilded the cornice above, where thewind seemed to linger and moan over departed greatness. The Druidicalworship of olden days, the deluded worshippers now turned into dust, andthe cruel rites of their bloodstained worship, older even than those ofthe ruined temple, rose before his imagination, until fancy seemed topeople the silent wastes before him with those who had once crowdedround that circle of misshapen stones which stood out vividly on theverge of the plain.

  He felt that nameless fear which such thoughts excite so strongly, thathe sought the company of the sentinel whom they had posted to guardtheir slumbers, and found not one but two at the post.

  "Oswy and Anlac! both watching?"

  "It was too lonesome for one," said Oswy.

  "Have you seen or heard aught amiss?"

  "Yes. About an hour ago, there were cries such as men make when they diein torture, smothered by other sounds like the beating of drums, blowingof horns, and I know not what."

  "You were surely dreaming?"

  "No; it came from yonder circle of stones, and a light like that of agreat fire seemed to shine around."

  Alfred made no reply; but he remembered that they had talked of theDruidical rites the night before, and thought that the idea had takensuch hold upon the minds of his followers as to suggest the sounds totheir fancy. Still he watched with them till the first red streak of dayappeared in the east.

  CHAPTER X. ELFRIC AND ALFRED.

  Early in the morning our travellers arose and took their way through anopen country which abounded with British and Roman remains; no fewerthan three entrenched camps, once fortifying the frontier of the Dobuni,lying within sight