e furnished a standing check on the independence of the
great nobles. But if feudalism proved too weak to conquer the monarchy,
it was strong enough to paralyze its action. Neither of the two forces
could master the other, but each could weaken the other, and throughout
the whole period of their conflict England lay a prey to disorder within
and to insult from without.

The first sign of these troubles was seen when the death of Eadred in 955
handed over the realm to a child king, his nephew Eadwig. Eadwig was
swayed by a woman of high lineage, AEthelgifu; and the quarrel between her
and the older counsellors of Eadred broke into open strife at the
coronation feast. On the young king's insolent withdrawal to her chamber
Dunstan, at the bidding of the Witan, drew him roughly back to his seat.
But the feast was no sooner ended than a sentence of outlawry drove the
abbot over sea, while the triumph of AEthelgifu was crowned in 957 by the
marriage of her daughter to the king and the spoliation of the
monasteries which Dunstan had befriended. As the new queen was Eadwig's
kinswoman the religious opinion of the day regarded his marriage as
incestuous, and it was followed by a revolution. At the opening of 958
Archbishop Odo parted the King from his wife by solemn sentence; while
the Mercians and Northumbrians rose in revolt, proclaimed Eadwig's
brother Eadgar their king, and recalled Dunstan. The death of Eadwig a
few months later restored the unity of the realm; but his successor
Eadgar was only a boy of sixteen and at the outset of his reign the
direction of affairs must have lain in the hands of Dunstan, whose
elevation to the see of Canterbury set him at the head of the Church as
of the State. The noblest tribute to his rule lies in the silence of our
chroniclers. His work indeed was a work of settlement, and such a work
was best done by the simple enforcement of peace. During the years of
rest in which King and Primate enforced justice and order northman and
Englishman drew together into a single people. Their union was the result
of no direct policy of fusion; on the contrary Dunstan's policy preserved
to the conquered Danelaw its local rights and local usages. But he
recognized the men of the Danelaw as Englishmen, he employed northmen in
the royal service, and promoted them to high posts in Church and State.
For the rest he trusted to time, and time justified his trust. The fusion
was marked by a memorable change in th