Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune<br />A Tale of the Days of Saint Dunstan by A. D. Crake (ebook reader with highlight function txt) 📖

Rich in historical associations and reputed sanctity, the abbey of Glastonbury was the ecclesiastical centre of western England. Here grew the holy thorn which Joseph of Arimathea had planted when, fatigued with travel, he had struck his staff into the ground, and lo! a goodly tree; here was the holy well of which he had drunk, and where he baptized his converts, so that its waters became possessed of miraculous power to heal diseases.

Here again were memorials, dear to the vanquished Welsh; for did not Arthur, the great King Arthur, the hero of a thousand fights, the subject of gleeman’s melody and of the minstrel’s praise, lie buried here? if indeed he were dead, and not spirited away by magic power.

A Welsh population still existed around the abbey, for it was near the borders of West Wales, as a large portion of Devon and Cornwall was then called, and Exeter had not long become an English town.xiv The legends of Glastonbury were nearly all of that distant day when the Saxons and Angles had not yet discovered Britain, and she reposed safe under the protection of mighty Rome; hence, it was the object of pilgrimage and of deep veneration to all those of Celtic blood, while the English were unwilling to be behind in their veneration.

Here, in the first year of the great English king Athelstane, Dunstan was born, the son of Herstan and Kynedred, both persons of rank—a man destined to influence the Anglo-Saxon race first in person and then in spirit for generations—the greatest man of his time, whether, as his contemporaries thought, mighty for good, or, as men of narrower minds have thought, mighty for evil.

In his early youth, Glastonbury lay, as it lies now, in ruin and decay; the Danes had ravaged it, and its holy walls were no longer eloquent with prayer and praise. Yet the old inhabitants still talked with regret of the departed glories of the fane; the pilgrim and the stranger still visited the consecrated well, hoping to gain strength from its healing wave, for the soil had been hallowed by the blood of martyrs and the holy lives of saints; here kings and nobles, laying aside their greatness, had retired to prepare for the long and endless home, and in the calm seclusion of the cloister had found peace.

Here the mind of the young Dunstan was moulded for his future work; here, weak in body, but precocious in intellect, he drew in, as if with his vital breath, legend and tradition; here, from a body of Scottish missionaries, or, as we should now call them, Irish,xv he learned with rapidity all that a boy could acquire of civil or ecclesiastical lore, and both in Latin and in theology his progress amazed 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, as most young people would choose, the attractions of court, to which his parents’ rank entitled him, and leaving Glastonbury he repaired to the court of Edmund.

There his extraordinary talents excited envy, and he was accused of magical arts: his harp had been heard to pour forth strains of ravishing beauty when no human hand was near, and other like prodigies, savouring of 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 the world, and startled by his narrow escape from death, reversed the choice he had previously made, and renounced the world and its pleasures.

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

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

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

But this was not done without much opposition; the secular priests—as the married clergy and those who lived amongst their flocks (as English clergy do now) were called—opposed the introduction of the Benedictine rule with all their might, and were always thorns in Dunstan’s side.

The unfortunate Edmund, after the sad event at Pucklechurch, on the feast of St. Augustine, was buried at Glastonbury by the abbot, and his two sons, Edwy and Edgar, were put under Dunstan’s especial care by the new king Edred. The rest of the story is tolerably well known to our readers.

The first steps of Edwy’s reign were all taken with a view to one great end—to revenge himself and to destroy Dunstan, who, aware of the royal enmity, and of his inability to restrain the sovereign, withdrew himself quietly to Glastonbury, and confined himself to the discharge of his duties as its abbot.

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

His stout resistance gained the day in the first instance, but Edwy never felt at rest while Dunstan lived at peace in the land, and Ethelgiva and her fair daughter were ever inciting him to fresh acts of hostility, little as he needed such incitement.

The first measures were of a very dishonourable kind. Evil reports were spread abroad to destroy the character of the great abbot, and prepare people’s minds for his disgrace: then disaffection was stirred up amongst the secular clergy surrounding Glastonbury—a very easy thing; and attempts were made in vain to create a faction against him in his own abbey; then at last the neighbouring thanes, many of Danish extraction and scarcely Christian, were stirred up to invade the territory of the abbey, and were promised immunity and secure possession of their plunder. They liked the pleasant excitement of galloping over Dunstan’s ecclesiastical patrimony, of plundering the farms and driving away the cattle, and there was scarcely a night in which some fresh outrage 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 his grief, after the death of his unhappy son Oswald, in building and endowing the monastery of St. Wilfred, situate on the river’s bank, at a short 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, with the consent of the brethren who had been gathered into the incomplete building, to place it under the Benedictine rule.

For this end he determined to send a messenger to negotiate with Dunstan at Glastonbury, and, yielding to Alfred’s most earnest request, he consented to send him, in company with Father Cuthbert, who was to be the future prior, upon the mission.

Since the desertion of Elfric, his brother Alfred had been as a ministering angel to his father, so tender had been his affection, yet so manly and pure. He was by nature gifted with great talents, and his progress in ecclesiastical lore, almost the only lore of the day, would have well fitted him for the Church; but if this idea had ever been in the 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 was in 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 a part of the royal library in the palace of Edred. All these works were known to his young namesake, Alfred, far better than they had been either to Edwy or Elfric, in their idleness, and he was well informed beyond the average scope of his time. But his imagination had long been fired 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 send Benjamin 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 would take Alfred from him.

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

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

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

Once the Romans had made matchless roads, as in other parts of their empire, but not a stone had been laid thereon since the days of Hengist and 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 to Devonshire, 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 night at the residence of an old friend of the family who dwelt on the high borderland which separates the counties of Oxford and Warwick, in old times the frontier between the two Celtic tribes, the Dobuni and the Carnabii.

So Father Cuthbert and Alfred, with three attendant serfs, left Æscendune early on a fine summer morning, and followed a byroad through the forest, until, after a few difficulties, arising from entanglement in copse