[CHAPTER XXVII.]
EDWIN AND ELGIVA.
"He was a man
Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking
Himself with princes;——
His own opinion was his law,
He would say untruths; and be ever double,
Both in his words and meaning. He was never
But where he meant to ruin, pitiful.
He was a scholar, and a ripe, and good one;
Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading;
Lofty and sour, to them that loved him not,
But to those men that sought him sweet as summer."
Shakspere.
Edwin was not more than sixteen years of age when he ascended the throne. Although so young, he had married a beautiful and noble lady of his own age, who appears to have been somewhat too closely related to him to please the stern dignitaries who were then placed at the head of the church, for it was at this period when the rigid discipline of the Benedictine monks was first introduced into England. Odo, a Dane, and a descendant from those savage sea-kings who destroyed the abbeys of Croyland and Peterborough, was, at this time, archbishop of Canterbury, for it was not then uncommon to place the pastoral crook in warlike hands, as there are many instances on record which show that those who could best wield the battle-axe were entrusted with the crosier; and Odo had served both under Edward and Athelstan, and had fought and prayed at the battle of Brunanburg. But before describing the most important events of the reign of Edwin, we must give a brief sketch of the life of Dunstan, and endeavour to throw a little light upon the dark shadows which have so long settled down upon his character.
Dunstan, who plays so prominent a part at this period, appears to have lived near Glastonbury, and while yet a boy, seems to have been fond of visiting an ancient British church which had probably been erected by the Christians soon after the departure of the Romans. At a very early period of his life, he was a believer in dreams and visions, and while yet unknown, imagined that a venerable figure appeared to him and pointed out the spot on which he was one day to erect a monastery. His studies were encouraged, and his abilities are said to have been so great that he was soon enabled to outstrip all his companions in learning. We next find him suffering from a severe fever, probably the result of excessive application, and which at last produced a state of dreadful delirium. In the height of his madness, he seized a stick and rushed out of his chamber, running with the speed of a maniac over hills and plains; and fancying in his frantic flight that a pack of wild hounds were pursuing him. Night found him in the neighbourhood of a church, on which workmen had been employed during the day; the invalid ascended the scaffold, and without injuring himself, got safely into the church, where he sank into a heavy slumber, from which he awoke not until morning, when he found his intellects restored, though, to draw a charitable conclusion from any of his future actions, we should be justified in believing that there were intervals when the disease returned. He had sufficient patronage to obtain an introduction to the church or monastery at Glastonbury, where he again renewed his studies, and besides obtaining a thorough knowledge of the literature of that age, he appears to have excelled in mathematics, music, writing, engraving, and painting, and also to have been a skilful worker in metals. Such talents as these, when so few excelled in any branch of the polite or finer mechanical arts, could not fail of bringing him speedily into notice, and he seems to have had an introduction to the royal palace early in the reign of Edmund. No greater proof of his intellectual attainments can be adduced, than his being accused while at court of dealing in the arts of magic; for so far had he shot beyond the ignorance and error of the age, that what could now be readily comprehended by an ordinary understanding, was in that benighted period attributed to supernatural agency; and so strongly did the current of prejudice set in against him, that Dunstan was driven from the court.
We can imagine with what shouts of derision he was pursued, and with what loathing and heartburning he must have quitted the palace as he fled before his insulting enemies, who, not content with having hurled him from his high estate, pursued him, and threw him into a miry ditch, beside a marsh, where they left him to escape or perish. We can picture him reaching his friend's house, at about a mile distant, the sorrow that wrapped his heart as he looked upon his blighted prospects, the anger that lighted his eye, and the burning scorn which he poured in withering words upon the unlettered herd, as he breathed his sorrow, and suffering, and disgrace, into the bosom of his friend, and, with a sigh, looked upon all his hopes thus undeservedly overthrown. For a short period, we here lose sight of Dunstan; when we next meet with him, he is on the point of marriage with a maiden to whom he appears to have been greatly attached. He is dissuaded from marriage by his relation, the bishop of Ælfheag, who tells him that such inclinations only emanate from the Evil one, and persuades him to become a monk. Love for a time made Dunstan eloquent, and our only marvel is, that a man who was so susceptible of the tender passion should, on a future day, become the unfeeling opponent of marriage, and wield the power he possessed with an unrelenting and iron arm over every priest who had entered into this honourable bond of union. For a long time the bishop argued in vain. Dunstan had then many reasons to urge in favour of love and marriage; and probably, at that period, never dreamed that he should have to use both force and argument against them; but he seems to have been doomed to suffer disappointment: and, although he endured it, it soured his better nature, for, like Jonah's gourd, all that promised him hope and delight seemed as if it only grew up to perish a withering mockery. Sickness again attacked him, a disease that brought him well nigh to death's door; he gave up all hopes of recovery, he renounced all earthly happiness, and when he began to turn his inward eye to that spiritual existence beyond the grave, earth heaved up slowly, and to him sadly, and shut out the coveted land of which he had obtained a dim glimpse, but that earth was no longer to him the garden of hope and love. He rose from his sick bed a melancholy and altered man; became a monk, and in his cold, grey, stony cell, which shut him up as in a grave, from the warm womanly heart he had once so fondly doted upon, he vowed to lead a life of celibacy.
Up to this period of his life, Dunstan wins our sympathy: we have seen him driven out, amid hooting and derision, from the court; we have seen the golden link of love, which still bound him to mankind, snapped heartlessly asunder; and now we behold him buried, with all his genius and learning, in the lonely cell of a silent monastery. No marvel that, like the weary lion who has been hard pressed by the cruel hunters, he at last got up and shook himself—looked round with disgust upon the narrow cave he had been driven into, and glared with scorn and rage as he thought upon the puny power he had fled from; then shook his majestic mane and rushed out, and filled the whole neighbourhood with his roar.