He fixed English garrisons in
their most considerable towns, and placed over them an English governor,
who might watch all their motions, and suppress any insurrection on its
first appearance. He obliged also Malcolm, king of Scotland, to renew
his homage for the lands which he held in England.
Edred, though not unwarlike, nor unfit for active life, lay under the
influence of the lowest superstition, and had blindly delivered over
his conscience to the guidance of Dunstan commonly called _St.
Dunstan_, abbot of Glastonbury, whom he advanced to the highest
offices, and who covered, under the appearance of sanctity, the most
violent and most insolent ambition. Taking advantage of the implicit
confidence reposed in him by the king, this churchman imported
into England a new order of monks, who much changed the state of
ecclesiastical affairs, and excited, on their first establishment, the
most violent commotions.
From the introduction of Christianity among the Saxons, there had
been monasteries in England; and these establishments had extremely
multiplied by the donations of the princes and nobles, whose
superstition, derived from their ignorance and precarious life, and
increased by remorses for the crimes into which they were so frequently
betrayed, knew no other expedient for appeasing the Deity, than a
profuse liberality towards the ecclesiastics.
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