y, son of Edmund, was placed on the throne.
[FN [n] Chron. Sax. p. 115.]

[MN 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 [o]. He would have been the favourite 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 [p], to espouse her;
though she was within the degrees of affinity prohibited by the canon
law [q]. 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 repent his provoking such dangerous
enemies. On the day of his coronation, his nobility were assembled in
a great hall, and were indulging themselves in that riot and disorder,
which, from the example of their German ancestors, had become habitual
to the English [r]; when Edwy, attracted by softer pleasures, retired
into the queen's apartment, and in that privacy gave reins to his
fondness towards his wife, which was only moderately checked by the
presence of her mother. Dunstan conjectured the reason of the king's
retreat; and carrying along with him Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury,
over whom he had gained an absolute ascendant, he burst into the
apartment, upbraided Edwy with his lasciviousness, probably bestowed
on the queen the most opprobrious epithet that can be applied to her
sex, and tearing him from her arms, pushed him back, in a disgraceful
manner, into the banquet of the nobles [s]. Edwy, thoug