It was in the year 978 that this second or third council was held at Calne. It was, as before, a Saxon parliament, or witena-gemot, consisting of the nobles and principal clergy of the nation. The opponents of Dunstan appear to have grown hot in argument, and, according to one of our ancient historians, William of Malmesbury, "the matter was agitated with great warmth of controversy, and the darts of many reproaches were thrown on Dunstan, but could not shake him." The following reply of the primate to the attack made upon him is given from Osberne, who was the friend and councillor of the archbishop Langfranc, a man who held Dunstan in the highest estimation. Osberne was alive about a century after the event took place which he records. After having defended himself for some time, Dunstan concluded with these remarkable words: 'Since you did not, in such a lapse of time, bring forward your accusation, but, now that I am old and cultivating taciturnity, seek to disturb me by these antiquated complaints, I confess that I am unwilling that you should conquer me. I commit the cause of his church to Christ as the Judge.' He spoke, and the wrath of the angry Deity corroborated what he said; for the house was immediately shaken; the chamber was loosened under their feet; his enemies were precipitated to the ground, and oppressed by the weight of the crushing timbers. But where the saint was reclining with his friends, there no ruin occurred."
Eadmar, who was contemporary with Osberne, expresses himself still more clearly, though he appears not for a moment to have suspected that the villanous affair was arranged by Dunstan and his confidential friends. "He spoke, and, lo! the floor under the feet of those who had come together against him fell from beneath them, and all were alike precipitated; but where Dunstan stood with his friends, no ruin of the house, no accident happened." The Saxon chronicle, an authentic record of that period, also notices the falling in of the floor, and the escape of Dunstan. As this is the greatest blot on his character, we have been careful in producing such undisputed authorities. To attribute the catastrophe to an accident, would be reasonable, had only Dunstan himself escaped; but when we look at the conclusion of the speech which is attributed to him by those who admired his character—"I confess that I am unwilling you should conquer"—and see it recorded that all his friends were uninjured, we are surely justified in concluding that the floor had been previously undermined, and that all was so arranged that, at a given signal, the only remaining prop was removed, and Dunstan and his friends were left secure to glut their gaze on their slain and wounded enemies; for many of the nobles on whom the beams and rafters fell were killed upon the spot. That the crime rested with Dunstan alone, we cannot believe—many must have been cognisant of it; the strength of the council was against the primate, and but for this accident, miracle, or, as we believe, carefully-planned scheme of villany, Dunstan's power would at once have ended; as it was, to quote the words of the old chronicler, "this miracle gave peace to the archbishop." When his friend Athelwold died, and the see of Winchester was vacant, Dunstan wished to appoint his friend Elphegus to the bishopric; but meeting with some opposition amongst the nobles, he boldly asserted that St. Andrew had appeared to him, and commanded him to appoint his friend to the vacant see. Here we have another proof of the use which Dunstan made of the sanctity that was attributed to his character. The miracles which are ascribed to him—his combats with the devil, who was constantly appearing to him in every imaginable shape, such as that of a bear, a dog, a viper, and a wolf, may be found fully recorded in the ancient life, written by Bridfirth, who was personally acquainted with Dunstan.[8] We have dwelt thus lengthily on the life of this singular and ambitious man, as in it we see fully illustrated the evil consequence of persecuting and retarding the progress of superior talent. It is probable that no one ever set out in the world with a firmer determination of acting honestly and uprightly than Dunstan; it is also clear, that in intellectual attainments he ranked amongst the highest which that age produced; nor do we think that we should be much in error in assuming that when, in his old age, he looked back, through the dim vista of years, to the bright and promising morning of his life, he often sighed for that retirement which he might have enjoyed in the society of her whom his heart first clung to; nor can we marvel if the crimes which are attributed to him are true, which is strongly supported by the evidence we have produced, that in his old age his slumber was often broken by such fearful apparitions—the creation of a guilty conscience, as his friend and biographer Bridfirth has stated were ever present before his diseased imagination.
Dunstan still stood high in the favour of his youthful sovereign, and the primate shielded him, for a time, from the vengeance of Elfrida, who aimed at placing the crown upon the head of her son Ethelred; to accomplish this, a conspiracy had been formed to assassinate Edward, in which the governor of Mercia, who had driven out the clergy, is said to have leagued himself with the queen-dowager; for party-feeling still raged as strongly on the sides of the monks and the secular clergy as ever; and aged as Dunstan was, there yet remained many enemies, who anxiously sought his overthrow; but the nobles continued to remain true to their king, and, while they surrounded him, he was safe from the meditated blow.
The long looked for hour came at last. Edward was out, one day, hunting near Wareham, in Dorsetshire, when, either having outridden his attendants, or purposely resolved to visit his mother-in-law, he rode up to Corfe Castle, where she resided with her son Ethelred, and without alighting from his horse, had a brief interview with Elfrida, at the gate. She received him with an assumed kindness, and urgently pressed him to dismount. This he declined doing, and having requested to see his brother Ethelred, he called for a cup of wine, which was brought, when, just as he had raised it to his lips, one of Elfrida's attendants stepped behind him, and stabbed him in the back. Dropping the cup from his hand, he struck the spurs into his horse, and fled; for we can readily imagine that one glance at the countenance of Elfrida satisfied the wounded monarch that she was the instigator of the murderous deed. With no one near to follow or support him, he soon fainted through loss of blood, and fell from his saddle; the affrighted steed still plunged onward, with headlong speed, dragging the body of the king along, over the rugged road, as he still hung with his foot suspended in the stirrup. When discovered by his attendants, he was dead—his course was traced by the beaten ground over which his mangled body had passed, and the blood that had stained the bladed grass, and left its crimson trail upon the knotted stems against which it had struck. His remains were burnt, and there is some doubt whether even his ashes were preserved for interment. "No worse deed," says the Saxon chronicle, "had been committed among the people of the Anglo-Saxons since they first came to the land of Britain." Edward was not more than eighteen years of age when he was murdered.
His death, however, was not the first that Elfrida had caused. In the records of Ely, mention is made of an abbot named Brythonod, who attracted her attention as he came to the palace on matters connected with his abbey. As he was about to take his departure, Elfrida requested to speak with him apart, under the plea of unburthening her conscience. What passed at this private interview would probably never have been known, but through her own confession, when she became a penitent, and acknowledged her guilt. She made such proposals to the abbot as he was unwilling to concede to. Her fondness soon changed to revenge, and shortly after the virtuous abbot was assassinated. Such was the woman who comes heaving up, like a blood-stained shadow, into the next reign, and whose evil influence brought such woe upon England. It is said that Ethelred wept bitterly at the death of his brother Edward, whom he dearly loved, and that his mother seized either a torch or a thick wax candle, and beat the young prince with it until he was senseless. So unpopular were Elfrida and her son, that an attempt was made to raise an illegitimate daughter of Edgar to the throne. The young lady was the daughter of Wulfreda, whom he had violently carried from the nunnery of Wilton. The plot failed, and Ethelred succeeded to the crown, in 978, and in the tenth year of his age.
[CHAPTER XXX.]
ETHELRED THE UNREADY.
"And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,
And whisper one another in the ear;
And he that speaks, doth gripe the hearer's wrist;
While he that hears, makes fearful action,
With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes."
Shakspere.