The overwhelming realisation of these facts, the determination to set up
the dominion of truth and justice which they held to be identical with
that of the Church, as that was identical with the kingdom of God,
supplies the key to the lives and characters of such men as Ambrose,
Cyril, Dunstan, and Becket. They each came in collision with the civil
power; but Ambrose against Justina or even Theodosius, Cyril against
Orestes, Dunstan against Edwy, Becket against Henry Plantagenet--each
represented, in a greater or less degree, the cause of religion, nay of
humanity, against its worst foes, tyranny or moral corruption.

Yet not one of these great men was without his faults; this is only to
say he was human; but more may be admitted--personal motives would mix
themselves with nobler emotions. Self would assert her fatal claims, and
great mistakes were sometimes made by those who would have forfeited
their lives rather than have committed them, had they known what they
were doing. Yet, on the whole, their cause was that of God and man, and
they fought nobly. Shall we asperse their memories because they "had
this treasure in earthen vessels"?

The tale itself is intended to depict what the writer believes to be the
true relative positions of Edwy and the great ecclesiastic; therefore he
will not attempt to deal with the subject here. It will be noticed
however, that he has shorn the narrative of the dread catastrophe with
which it terminated in all the histories of our childhood. Scarcely any
writer has made such wise research into the history of this period as
Mr. E. A. Freeman, and the author has adopted his conclusions upon this
point. With him he has therefore admitted the marriage of Edwy with
Elgiva, although it was an uncanonical marriage beyond all doubt, and
has given her the title of queen, which she bore in a document preserved
by Lappenburg. But, in agreement with the same authority, the writer