pitied and befriended her; and they said, 'Let us restore the girl-
queen to the boy-king, and make the young lovers happy!' and they 
cured her of her cruel wound, and sent her home as beautiful as 
before.  But the villain Dunstan, and that other villain, Odo, 
caused her to be waylaid at Gloucester as she was joyfully hurrying 
to join her husband, and to be hacked and hewn with swords, and to 
be barbarously maimed and lamed, and left to die.  When Edwy the 
Fair (his people called him so, because he was so young and 
handsome) heard of her dreadful fate, he died of a broken heart; 
and so the pitiful story of the poor young wife and husband ends!  
Ah!  Better to be two cottagers in these better times, than king 
and queen of England in those bad days, though never so fair!

Then came the boy-king, EDGAR, called the Peaceful, fifteen years 
old.  Dunstan, being still the real king, drove all married priests 
out of the monasteries and abbeys, and replaced them by solitary 
monks like himself, of the rigid order called the Benedictines.  He 
made himself Archbishop of Canterbury, for his greater glory; and 
exercised such power over the neighbouring British princes, and so 
collected them about the King, that once, when the King held his 
court at Chester, and went on the river Dee to visit the monastery 
of St. John, the eight oars of his boat were pulled (as the people 
used to delight in relating in stories and songs) by eight crowned 
kings, and steered by the King of England.  As Edgar was very 
obedient to Dunstan and the monks, they took great pains to 
represent him as the best of kings.  But he was really profligate, 
debauched, and vicious.  He once forcibly carried off a young lady 
from the convent at Wilton; and Dunstan, pretending to be very much 
shocked, condemned him not to wear his crown upon his head for 
seven years - no great punishment, I dare say, as it can hardly 
have been a more comfortable ornament to wear, than a stewpan 
without a handle.  His marriage with his second wife, ELFRIDA, is 
one of the worst events of his reign.  Hearing of the beauty of 
this lady, he despatched his favourite courtier, ATHELWOLD, to her 
father's castle in Devonshire, to see if she were really as 
charming as fame reported.  Now, she was so exceedingly beautiful 
that Athelwold fell in love with her himself, and married her; but 
he told the King that she was only rich - not handsome.  The King, 
suspecting the truth when they came home, resolved to pay the 
newly-married couple a visit; and, suddenly, told Athelwold to 
prepare for his immediate coming.  Athelwold, terrified, confessed 
to his young wife what he had said and done, and implored her to 
disguise her beauty by some ugly dress or silly manner, that he 
might be safe from the King's anger.  She promised that she would; 
but she was a proud woman, who would far rather have been a queen 
than the wife of a courtier.  She dressed herself in her best 
dress, and adorned herself with her richest jewels; and when the 
King came, presently, he discovered the cheat.  So, he caused his 
false friend, Athelwold, to be murdered in a wood, and married his 
widow, this bad Elfrida.  Six or seven years afterwards, he died; 
and was buried, as if he had been all that the monks said he was, 
in the abbey of Glastonbury, which he - or Dunstan for him - had 
much enriched.

England, in one part of this reign, was so troubled by wolves, 
which, driven out of the open country, hid themselves in the 
mountains of Wales when they were not attacking travellers and 
animals, that the tribute payable by the Welsh people was forgiven 
them, on condition of their producing, every year, three hundred 
wolves' heads.  And the Welshmen were so sharp upon the wolves, to 
save their money, that in four years there was not a wolf left.

Then came the boy-king, EDWARD, called the Martyr, from the manner 
of his death.  Elfrida had a son, named ETHELRED, for whom she 
claimed the throne; but Dunstan did not choose to favour him, and 
he made Edward king.  The boy was hunting, one day, down in 
Dorsetshire, when he rode near to Corfe Castle, where Elfrida and 
Ethelred lived.  Wishing to see them kindly, he rode away from his 
attendants and galloped to the castle gate, where he arrived at 
twilight, and blew his hunting-horn.  'You are welcome, dear King,' 
said Elfrida, coming out, with her brightest smiles.  'Pray you 
dismount and enter.'  'Not so, dear madam,' said the King.  'My 
company will miss me, and fear that I have met with some harm.  
Please you to give me a cup of wine, that I may drink here, in the 
saddle, to you and to my little brother, and so ride away with the 
good speed I have made in riding here.'  Elfrida, going in to bring 
the wine, whispered an armed servant, one of her attendants, who 
stole out of the darkening gateway, and crept round behind the 
King's horse.  As the King raised the cup to his lips, saying, 
'Health!' to the wicked woman who was smiling on him, and to his 
innocent brother whose hand she held in hers, and who was only ten 
years old, this armed man made a spring and stabbed him in the 
back.  He dropped the cup and spurred his horse away; but, soon 
fainting with loss of blood, dropped from the saddle, and, in his 
fall, entangled one of his feet in the stirrup.  The frightened 
horse dashed on; trailing his rider's curls upon the ground; 
dragging his smooth young face through ruts, and stones, and 
briers, and fallen leaves, and mud; until the hunters, tracking the 
animal's course by the King's blood, caught his bridle, and 
released the disfigured body.

Then came the sixth and last of the boy-kings, ETHELRED, whom 
Elfrida, when he cried out at the sight of his murdered brother 
riding away from the castle gate, unmercifully beat with a torch 
which she snatched from one of the attendants.  The people so 
disliked this boy, on account of his cruel mother and the murder 
she had done to promote him, that Dunstan would not have had him 
for king, but would have made EDGITHA, the daughter of the dead 
King Edgar, and of the lady whom he stole out of the convent at 
Wilton, Queen of England, if she would have consented.  But she