JUNE 121 



— "pro auis criminibus eliminato et misera morte damnato 

 —perished in a mysterious way, doubtless by assassination, 

 near Gloucester, where he had gone to meet his beloved 

 wife. It is a singular illustration of the prejudice which 

 besets ecclesiastical historians in dealing with affairs 

 involving the reputation of churchmen, that Dr. Milner, 

 Vicar Apostolic of the Midland District, an able, and, in 

 lay matters, an impartial chronicler, writing in 1798, 

 described Elgiva as 'a wicked woman, of great beauty 

 and high birth ' ; repeated (though he did not dare to trans- 

 late) the abominable gossip about the scene in Elgiva's 

 room, and vehemently vindicated the actions of Odo and 

 St. Dunstan.^ The whole passage is one of lamentable 

 insincerity, suppressing Osberne's statement that the final 

 punishment of the Queen was inflicted by 'men in the 

 service of God,' and throwing the blame on the thanes 

 ' then in arms against Edwy.' 



Dunstan, after holding the sees of Worcester and 

 London simultaneously, became Archbishop of Canterbury 

 in 960, and died in 988, having seen five kings on the 

 throne of England, and assisted in the removal of at least 

 one of them. One of the most formidable and unscrupu- 

 lous characters connected with the history of Winchester, 

 he was, with all his dark faults, a courageous and powerful 

 statesman — powerful because courageous. Had he lived 

 a few years longer, he might have averted or deferred the 

 ruin of the Anglo-Saxon monarchy; for it is certain he 

 never would have allowed ^Ethelred the Unready to enter 

 in 991 on the fatal policy of buying ofi" Danish invasions, 

 which ended in the surrender of sixteen counties in 1010. 



One other picture of Anglo-Saxon Winchester may be 



^ History of Winchester, pp. 115, 116, and notes. 



