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The twenty eighth King of the West Sax∣ons, and twenty ninth Monarch of the En∣glish men.
He was but thirteen years old when he began to raign.
He was Nephew to Edred.
He favoured not the Monkes, which made them write so scandalously of him. He thrust them out of Malmesbury and Glassenbury, placing married Priests in their
room; and banished Dunstan their great Champion into Flanders.
The true causes of his banishing him, ejecting the Monkes, and seizing their lands and treasures, was, that Dunstan had so bewitched Edmund, Edward, Aethelstan, and Aedred his predecessours, with the love of Monkery, as they not only took violently from married Priests their livings, to erect Monasteries, but also lavishly wasted much of their own royall treasures, lands, and revenues upon them, which they should rather have imployed in resist∣ing the common enemies of God and their Countrey, the Danes.
Ioscelin the Author of Antiq. Brit. Bi∣shop Godwin, Speed, and others conceive, that the true cause why the Mercians and Northumbrians, (and those only, not the rest of his Subjects and Kingdome) rejected him, and set up his Brother Edgar, (whose vices were more exorbitant in some de∣grees than Edwins) was the malice of Dun∣stan and Odo (the pillars and Oracles of the Monkish Clergy) who stirred up the Merci∣ans, and seditious rebellious Northumbri∣ans against him, to set up Edgar in his stead, who was totally devoted to them and Dun∣stan, by whose counsels he was afterwards wholly guided, and built no less than forty seven new Monasteries for the Monks; be∣sides all those he repaired, intending to
Anno Domini∣c••e incar••ationis 955. Ed••inus regno potitus tenuit annis quatuor, petulans adoles••ens, & qui speciositate corporis i•• libi∣dinibus abutere∣tur. Malmesb. de gestis Reg. Ang. l 2. c. 7. Ea tempestate facies Mona∣chorum saeda & miserabi••is ••rat. Caeterum longè horret nostra memoria, quam immanis fu••rit in reliqua caenobia. & propter aetatis lubricum, & propter pellicis consilium, qua•• tenerum jugiter obside••at animum Malmesb. de gestis Reg. Ang. l. 2. Vide plura ibid. & Polyd. Virg. Ang. hist. l. 6.