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MATTHEW OF WESTMINSTER
The flowers of history, especially such as relate to the affairs of Britain. Vol. I. B.C. 4004 to A.D. 1066.
page 489
now I baye what I long desired against your will, and I owe you anything rather than thanks for it." Thus he spoke; but the next night, when this frantic man had yielded to sleep, he saw the image of the blessed Odo standing by him, and addressing rapid reproaches to him, and threatening him with speedy destruction. But Ealffin, thinking what he had seen was only an empty dream, was not deterred from hastening to Rome to obtain the pallium. In which journey, while he was proceeding over the Alps, he was frost-bitten -by the snow in the winter season, and could find no relief, except by plunging into the still warm entrails of disembowelled horses those feet with which he had kicked the tomb of the holy Odo, But as the cold was not relieved, but rather made worse by these means, he terminated a wicked life by a miserable death.
A.D. 959. King Edwy, after he had lasciviously and tyrannically oppressed the kingdom of England for four years, died by the just judgment of God, and was buried in the new monastery at Winchester ; and his brother Edgar, being unanimously elected, succeeded to his kingdom, and so re-united the kingdoms which had been divided. The same year, Brithelm, bishop of Wells, was elected to the supreme pontificate of the church of Canterbury. He was a man of exceeding modesty, humility, and kindness ; to such a degree, that he did not restrain as he ought, by the scourge of correction, the arrogant and rebellious. But when this was ascertained by the king, he ordered him to return to the dignity which he had left, and, with the approbation of all men, the blessed Dunstan was appointed archbishop in his stead. And king Edgar himself was instructed in his duty by him, and the other princes of the land, and led to check rashness of wicked men wherever it was seen, and to repress the rebellious by the severity of correction, and to show favour to the just and modest, and to restore and enrich the churches of God that had become desolate ; expelling from the monastery all the profligate men of the secular clergy, to the praise and glory of the Supreme Creator. And, moreover, he collected bands of monks and nuns, and caused more than forty monasteries to be built. All these men he honoured as his brothers, and loved as his dearest sons, admonishing the pastors whom he set over them to exhort them to Uve with regularity, so as to please Christ and all his saints. For Dunstan, that man of God, was wonderfully discreet in all things, and, by the assistance of
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