over Edred, and was promoted a great deal by the king, who died in the
year 955.

He was succeeded by Edwy the Fair, who was opposed by another Ethel.
Between the Ethels and the Welsh and Danes, there was little time left
in England for golf or high tea, and Edwy's reign was short and full of
trouble.

He had trouble with St. Dunstan, charging him with the embezzlement of
church funds, and compelled him to leave the country. This was in
retaliation for St. Dunstan's overbearing order to the king. One
evening, when a banquet was given him in honor of his coronation, the
king excused himself when the speeches got rather corky, and went into
the sitting-room to have a chat with his wife, Elgiva, of whom he was
very fond, and her mother. St. Dunstan, who had still to make a speech
on Foreign Missions with a yard or so of statistics, insisted on Edwy's
return. An open outbreak was the result. The Church fell upon the King
with a loud, annual report, and when the débris was cleared away, a
little round-shouldered grave in the churchyard held all that was
mortal of the king. His wife was cruelly and fatally assassinated, and
Edgar, his brother, began to reign. This was in the year 959, and in
what is now called the Middle Ages.

Edgar was called the Pacific. He paid off the church debt, made Dunstan
Archbishop of Canterbury, helped reform the church, and, though but
sixteen years of age when he removed all explosives from the throne and
seated himself there, he showed that he had a massive scope, and his
subjects looked forward to much anticipation.

He sailed around the island every year to show the Danes how prosperous