This princess, who had been reduced to extremity in
childbed, refused afterwards all commerce with her husband; not from any
weak superstition, as was common in that age, but because she deemed all
domestic occupations unworthy of her masculine and ambitious spirit.[**]
She died before her brother; and Edward, during the remainder of his
reign, took upon himself the immediate government of Mercia, which
before had been intrusted to the authority of a governor.[***] The Saxon
Chronicle fixes the death of this prince in 925 his kingdom devolved to
Athelstan, his natural son.
[* Chron. Sax. p. 110. Hoveden, p. 421.]
[** W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 5. M. West. p. 182.
Ingulph. p. 28. Higgen p. 261.]
[*** Chron. Sax. p. 110. Brompton, p. 831.]
ATHELSTAN.
{925.} The stain in this prince's birth was not, in those times, deemed
so considerable as to exclude him from the throne; and Athelstan, being
of an age, as well as of a capacity, fitted for government, obtained the
preference to Edward's younger children, who, though legitimate, were
of too tender years to rule a nation so much exposed both to foreign
invasion and to domestic convulsions.
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