8.
Seldom Spicileg, ad Eadm. p. 149, 157.]
[** W. Malms, lib. ii cap. 8. Osberne, p. 3.
Diceto, p. 457. Higden, p. 265, 267, 268. Spel. Concil. p.
481.]
For this act of sacrilege he was reprimanded by Dunstan; and that he
might reconcile himself to the church, he was obliged, not to separate
from his mistress, but to abstain from wearing his crown during seven
years, and to deprive himself so long of that vain ornament;[*]
a punishment very unequal to that which had been inflicted on the
unfortunate Edwy, who, for a marriage, which in the strictest sense
could only deserve the name of irregular, was expelled his kingdom, saw
his queen treated with singular barbarity, was loaded with calumnies,
and has been represented to us under the most odious colors. Such is the
ascendant which may be attained, by hypocrisy and cabal, over mankind.
[* Osberne, p. 111.]
There was another mistress of Edgar's, with whom he first formed a
connection by a kind of accident. Passing one day by Andover, he lodged
in the house of a nobleman, whose daughter, being endowed with all the
graces of person and behavior, inflamed him at first sight with the
highest desire; and he resolved by any expedient to gratify it.
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