ular barbarity, was loaded with calumnies, and has been
represented to us under the most odious colours. Such is the
ascendant which may be attained, by hypocrisy and cabal, over mankind.
[FN [m] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8. Osberne, p. 3. Diceto p. 457.
Higden, p. 265, 267, 266. Spell. Conc. p. 481. [n] Osberne, p. 111.]

There was another mistress of Edgar, with whom he first formed a
connexion by a kind of accident. Passing one day by Andover, he
lodged in the house of a nobleman, whose daughter, being endowed with
all the graces of person and behaviour, inflamed him at first sight
with the highest desire; and he resolved by any expedient to gratify
it. As he had not leisure to employ courtship or address for
attaining his purpose, he went directly to her mother, declared the
violence of his passion, and desired that the young lady might be
allowed to pass that very night with him. The mother was a woman of
virtue, and determined not to dishonour her daughter and her family by
compliance; but being well acquainted with the impetuosity of the
king's temper, she thought it would be easier, as well as safer, to
deceive than refuse him. She feigned therefore a submission to his
will; but secretly ordered a waiting maid, of no disagreeable figure,
to steal into the king's bed, after all the company should be retired
to rest. In the morning before daybreak, the damsel, agreeably to the
injunctions of her mistress, offered to retire; but Edgar, who had no
reserve in his pleasures, and whose love to his bedfellow was rather
inflamed by enjoyment, refused his consent, and employed force and
entreaties to detain her. Elfleda, (for that was the name of the
maid,) trusting to her own charms, and to the love with which, she
hoped, she had now inspired the king, made probably but a faint
resistance; and the return of light discovered the deceit to Edgar.
He had passed a night so much to his satisfaction, that he expressed
no displeasure with the old lady on account of her fraud; his love was
transferred to Elfleda; she became his favourite mistress; and
maintained her ascendant over him till his marriage with Elfrida [o].
[FN [o] W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8. Higden, p. 268.]

The circumstances of his marriage with this lady were more singular
and more criminal. Elfrida was daughter and heir of Olgar, Earl of
Devonshire; and though she had been educated in the country, and had
never appeared at court, she had filled all E