t of invective, and their wives
received the name of concubine, or other more opprobrious appellation.
The secular clergy, on the other hand, who were numerous and rich, and
possessed of the ecclesiastical dignities, defended themselves with
vigor and endeavored to retaliate upon their adversaries. The people
were thrown into agitation; and few instances occur of more violent
dissensions, excited by the most material differences in religion; or
rather by the most frivolous; since it is a just remark, that the more
affinity there is between theological parties, the greater commonly is
their animosity.

The progress of the monks, which was become considerable, was somewhat
retarded by the death of Edred, their partisan, who expired after a
reign of nine years. He left children; but as they were infants, his
nephew Edwy, son of Edmund, was placed on the throne.

EDWY

{955.} Edwy, at the time of his accession, was not above sixteen or
seventeen years of age, was possessed of the most amiable figure,
and was even endowed, according to authentic accounts, with the most
promising virtues.[*] He would have been the favorite of his people, had
he not unhappily, at the commencement of his reign, been engaged in a
controversy with the monks, whose rage neither the graces of the body
nor virtues of the mind could mitigate, and who have pursued his memory
with the same unrelenting vengeance, which they exercised against his
person and dignity during his short and unfortunate reign. There was
a beautiful princess of the royal blood, called Elgiva, who had made
impression on the tender heart of Edwy; and as he was of an age when the
force of the passions first begins to be felt, he had ventured, contrary
to the advice of his gravest counsellors, and the remonstrances of the
more dignified ecclesiastics,[**] to espouse her; though she was within
the degrees of affinity prohibited by the canon law.[***]

[* Chron. Sax. p, 115.]

[** H. Hunting, lib. v. p. 356.]

[*** W. Malms. lib. ii. cap. 7.]

As the austerity affected by the monks made them particularly violent on
this occasion, Edwy entertained a strong prepossession against them;
and seemed, on that account, determined not to second their project
of expelling the seculars from all the convents, and of possessing
themselves of those rich establishments. War was therefore declared
between the king and the monks; and the former soon found reason
to repen