t

EDGAR. 161

pretended grant of former kings, they assumed cmany privileges and immunities M7 .

1 'Htst merits of Edgar have procured him thehighest panegyrics from the monks ; and he istransmitted to us not only under the character ofa consummate statesman and an active prince,praises to which he seems to have been justlyentitled, but under that of a great faint and aman of virtue. But nothing could more betrayboth his hvporrisy in inveighing against thelicentiousness of the secular clergy, and the in-terested spirit of his partizans, in bestowing sucheulogies on his piety , than the usual tenor of hisconduct , which was licentious to the highestdegree , and violated every law, human and divine.Yet those very monks, who, as we are told byIngulf, a very ancient historian , had no idea ofany moral or religious merit, except chastity andobedience, not only connived at his enormities,but loaded him with the greatest praises. History,however , has preservid some instances of hisamours, from which, as from a specimen, wemay form a conjecture of the rest.

Edgar broke into a convent carried offFditha,a nun, by f.rce, and even committed violenceon her person 1,8 Eor this act of sacrilege hewas reprimanded by Dunstan; and that he might

1+7 Chron. Sax. p. 118- "W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8.Seldeni Spicileg. ad Eadin p. 149; 157.

1,8 W. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 8- Osberne, p. ?. Diceto,x- 457 - Higden, p. 265. 267, 268* Spell. Cone, p. 481.Vol. I. IYI

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