Athelwold

“ Athelwold was found murdered in a neighbouring wood; Edgar married Elfrida, and her name is another of those foul stains which disfigure the page of history. There is no proof that Edgar stabbed Athelwold with his own hand; on the contrary, there was a natural bravery about the king, more in keeping with the chivalric age than the barbarous times in which he lived. To cite a proof of his valour: it had been reported to him that Kenneth of Scotland, who was then on a visit at the English court, had one day said that it was a wonder to him so many provinces should obey a man so little ”

“ Athelwold went to Devonshire, saw the lady, and proved faithless to his trust. Love made him a traitor, as it has made many before and since his day. So marvellously beautiful he found Elfrida that his heart fell prisoner to the most vehement love, a passion so ardent that it drove all thoughts of honor and fidelity from his soul, and he determined to have this charming lass of Devonshire for his own, despite king or commons. ”

“ Elfrida rose ecstatic, clasping her hands.
“’Tis he himself!” she cried, and advancing, as the curtain parted, almost ran into the arms of her husband Athelwold.
He was tall, sinewy, pale-haired and lashed. His tunic of fine cramasie was torn, his gold garters trailed; he looked like a man in the last extreme of haste and agitation. He took the wondering beauty in his arms, and gazed into her face, searchingly, passionately. ”

“ There are, however, fine passages, as profound, refined, and expressed with the same unstrained force and purity, as those in Philip Van Artevelde.
Athelwold, another of the tragedies at the head of this notice, takes up some of the same characters a few years later. Without poetic depth, or boldness of conception, it yet boasts many beauties from the free talent, and noble feelings of the author. Athelwold is the best sketch in it, and the chief interest consists in his obstinate rejection of Elfrida, whose tardy penitence could no way cancel the wrong, her baseness of nature did his faith. ”

“ Alarmed at the impending danger, Athelwold entreated his wife to adopt some means of disguising her charms; but Elfrida had now an opportunity of gratifying her ambition. She exerted all her powers to increase her natural beauty, and succeeded in attracting the attention of the King. To get rid of Athelwold was in those days the simplest of transactions, and King Edgar, having caused Athelwold to be assassinated in a wood, Elfrida became his Queen. So great was the King’s love for Elfrida that he is said to have granted the whole county of Dorset for her dowry. ”

“ Now this good King Athelwold had no heir to his throne but one young daughter, and Goldborough was her name. Unhappily, when she was just old enough to walk, a heavy sickness fell upon King Athelwold, and he saw that his days were numbered. He grieved greatly that his daughter was not old enough to rule and to become queen of England after him, and called all the lords and barons of England to come to him at Winchester to consult concerning the welfare of his kingdom and of his daughter. ”

“ From every point of view it was a suitable union, seeing that Athelwold would inherit power and great possessions from his father, Earldoman of East Anglia, and before long the marriage took place, and by and by Athelwold took his wife to Wessex, to the castle he had built for himself on his estate of Wherwell, on the Test. There they lived together, and as they had married for love they were happy. ”

“ For several weeks following the king and the king's favourite were constantly together; and during that period Athelwold developed a peculiar sweetness and affection towards Edgar, often recalling to him their happy boyhood's days in East Anglia, when they were like brothers, and cemented the close friendship which was to last them for the whole of their lives. ”

“ He told Athelwold that he had discovered the one woman in England fit to be Ethelfled's successor, and that he had resolved to make her his queen although he had never seen her, since she and her father had never been to court. That, however, would not deter him; there was no other woman in the land whose claims were equal to hers, seeing that she was the only daughter and part heiress of one of the greatest men in the kingdom, Ongar, Earldoman of Devon and Somerset, a man of vast possessions and great power. ”

“ HAVELOK AND GOLDBOROUGH Once upon a time there lived in England a king called Athelwold, who ruled the land so well that everyone was rich and happy: or, if they were not, it was their own fault. His people all loved him dearly, and would do anything for him, and when he went to war there was no sovereign that could count on a larger following of stout brave men. ”

“ She promised that she would; but she was a proud woman, who would far rather have been a queen than the wife of a courtier. She dressed herself in her best dress, and adorned herself with her richest jewels; and when the king came, presently, he discovered the cheat. So, he caused his false friend, Athelwold, to be murdered in a wood, and married his widow, this bad Elfrida. Six or seven years afterwards, he died; and was buried, as if he had been all that the monks said he was, in the abbey of Glastonbury, which he—or Dunstan for him—had much enriched. ”

“ The chronicler Rudborne makes mention only of the dedication of a minster in honour of the Apostles Peter and Paul, in the presence of King Aethelred, Archbishop Dunstan and eight other bishops, on October 20, 980 A.D. John of Exeter ascribes to Athelwold the entire rebuilding of the cathedral, but the Winchester annalist does not mention Athelwold's great works.
From Athelwold's death to the succession of Walkelin the history of the cathedral is little more than a record of its bishops; but with Walkelin we reach a very important epoch in its existence. ”

“ Devonshire was far away, roads few and poor in Saxon England, travel slow and wearisome, and the king had no taste for the journey to the castle of [Pg 36] Olgar of Devon. Nor did he deem it wise to declare his intention till he made sure that the maiden was to his liking. He, therefore, spoke of his purpose to Earl Athelwold, his favorite, whom he bade to pay a visit, on some pretence, to Earl Olgar of Devonshire, to see his renowned daughter, and to bring to the court a certain account concerning her beauty. ”

“ Cenwulf or Kenulf (1005-1006) is allowed three years by Rudborne, but apparently wrongly; another Athelwold or Ethelwold (1006-1015) , and Aelfsige (1015-1032) are not of great importance.
Aelfwine or Alwyn (1032-1037) , called by Anglo-Saxon chroniclers "the king's priest," seems to have been a monk of S. Swithun's monastery and also chaplain to Cnut before he was elevated to Winchester. The legend which makes him the lover of Emma, widow of Aethelred and Cnut, and mother of Edward the Confessor, has been declared unhistorical ”

“ Athelwold, made Bishop of Winchester in 963, was a great restorer of churches which had been devastated by the Danes. Among those restored by him may be especially named those of Ely and Peterborough. He{34} renovated and partly rebuilt his own cathedral at Winchester, which was rededicated in 980. It is described by Wolstan, in a poem addressed to the succeeding Bishop, St. Elphege. He speaks of the “lofty walls and solid aisles, and various arches; the many chapels which so distract the attention, that a stranger is at a loss which way to turn, seeing doors open to him on all sides.” ”

“ For after the extinction of the Danish kingdom in Northumberland, and the death of Ethelfleda, countess of Mercia, there remained no petty sovereign in his dominions, which had always been the case from Egbert to his time. Athelstan also subdued the Welch and the Scots, and according to our historians made not only the former, but likewise the latter tributary, though this the Scottish writers deny with regard to their country. King Athelstan was a great lover of peace, piety, and religion: he was devout, affable to all, learned himself, and a patron of learned men ”

“ Ethelwulph, although placed, in his father's life-time, upon the throne of Kent, had assumed the monastic habit, and a dispensation from the pope had to be obtained before he could be crowned king of Wessex. He appears to have been a man of a mild and indolent disposition, one who would have made a better monk than a monarch, and have been much happier in the dreamy quietude of the cloister, than in the stir and tumult of the camp. Alstan, the bishop of Sherbourne, who had shared the council and favour of Egbert, was the first to arouse Ethelwulph from his natural lethargy ”

“ The earl, becoming himself enamored, represents the lady as anything but beautiful and agreeable, and the king is satisfied. Athelwood soon afterwards woos and weds Elfrida, giving her wealth as his reason to Edgar. The true state of the case, however, is betrayed by an enemy, and the monarch resolves to visit the earl at his castle and so judge for himself. Hearing of this resolve, Athelwood, in despair, confesses his duplicity to his wife, and entreats her to render null as far as possible the effect of her charms by dressing with unusual plainness. ”

“ Eadsige of Winchcomb, one of the clerks that Ethelwold had turned out of Winchester, pointed out the bishop's grave to Ethelwold. Meanwhile a ceorl declared that Swithun had removed a hump from his back. Other miracles followed, and at last King Edgar or Eadgar (944–975) [q. v.] ordered Ethelwold to translate the body. This was done on 15 July 971, the bishop, with the assistance of many abbots, carrying it into ‘St. Peter's house,’ as the minster was then called, and depositing it in a shrine at the east end. Miracles followed in great number ”

“ A letter from John XIII to Eadgar, if genuine, as it probably is, proves that the pope sanctioned the policy of Æthelwold. He now obtained the king's leave to set about a general restoration of the minsters that had been ruined by the Danes, and extended his work to middle England. Having obtained Ely from the king he expelled the clerks, founded a community of monks, and ordered that the church should be rebuilt and monastic buildings erected (Kemble, Codex Dipl. 563) . The body of St. Ætheldryth (Etheldreda) was translated into his new church, which was dedicated by Dunstan 2 Feb. ”

“ He held the government one year and a half less than thirty winters; and then Edward his son took to the government. Then Prince Ethelwald, the son of his paternal uncle, rode against the towns of Winburn and of Twineham, without leave of the king and his council. Then rode the king with his army; so that he encamped the same night at Badbury near Winburn; and Ethelwald remained within the town with the men that were under him, and had all the gates shut upon him, saying, that he would either there live or there die. ”

“ Egbert formed an alliance with his old enemies, the Welsh, and gained a great victory over the Northmen; but when he died and left Ethelwolf, his son, in charge of the throne, he made a great mistake. Ethelwolf was a poor king, "being given more to religious exercises than reigning," says the historian. He would often exhibit his piety in order to draw attention away from His Royal Incompetency. ”

“ Aethelwold accordingly plans that they shall leave Devon immediately, and go to Ghent in Flanders where Aelfrida would henceforth go “in sighing silk and gossamer and hooded in beaver-fell.” As they sing farewell to Devon the orchestra commences a theme which is heard at different times throughout the act, a melody of great beauty and pathos:
[Listen to MP3] [Download MXL]
But it is too late, for the King is at that moment at the gates, come on a friendly visit. Aethelwold confesses his deception to his wife:
“Yea, my child, ’tis true enough. ”

“ The married life of the beautiful Ethelfled, however terminated, whether by her death or divorce, must have been a short one, for in 964 Edgar married another woman celebrated for her beauty, Elfthryth or Elfrida, daughter of the Earl Ordgar, who became ealdorman of Devon and possibly of the two adjoining counties of Somerset and Dorset.184 Elfrida, however, had been previously married, her first husband being Ethelwold, ealdorman of East Anglia and son of “the half-king” Athelstan. ”

“ Men call the place Athelney now, since the king and his nobles lay there. It had no name until he came, but I think that it will bear ever hereafter that which it earned thus.
Two shaggy grey sheepdogs came out to meet us, changing their angry bark for welcome when they saw Ethelnoth; and a man came to the door to see what roused them, and he had a hunting spear in his hand. I took him for some thane, as he spoke to us in courtly wise; but he was only Denewulf the herdsman himself.
"How fares the king?" asked Ethelnoth. ”

“ Ethelwolf was a younger son, and, consequently, did not expect to reign. He went to the monastery at Winchester, and took the vows. His father had no objection to this plan, satisfied with having his oldest son expect and prepare for the throne. As, however, he advanced toward manhood, the thought of the probability that he might be called to the throne in the event of his brother's death led all parties to desire that he might be released from his monastic vows. They applied, accordingly, to the pope for a dispensation. The dispensation was granted, and Ethelwolf became a general in the army. ”