count must have known something of the minister of his cousin Eadred. He received Dunstan kindly, and sent him to dwell at St. Peter's at Ghent, which he had restored twelve years before (Adelard, 60). This place of refuge must have been pleasing to the abbot, for English churchmen were now looking to the great monasteries of the continent for the means of reviving the high standard of monastic life and learning that had perished during the Danish wars. Archbishop Oda had received the monastic dress from the brotherhood of Fleury, and his nephew Oswald (afterwards archbishop of York) was residing there in order to have the benefit of the strict observance of the Benedictine rule (Vita S. Odonis, Anglia Sacra, ii. 81; Vita S. Oswaldi, Historians of York, i. 412–19). At Ghent then Dunstan must for the first time have seen the Benedictine discipline in all its fulness. His banishment probably involved the defeat of the effort for monastic revival, which, though begun by Ælfheah at Winchester, ‘had been received with most favour in Mercia’ (Stubbs).
Before he had passed two full years in exile Dunstan was recalled to England. During his stay at Ghent the Mercians and Northumbrians, probably supported by the monastic party, had revolted from Eadwig. Ælfgifu, who had been married to the king, had been separated from him by Archbishop Oda, and either she or her mother had, it is said, been slain by the insurgents at Gloucester. The northern people had made Eadgar king over the country north of the Thames, and Eadwig only retained the obedience of the people to the south of that river. As soon as Eadgar [see Edgar] became king, probably before the end of 957 (Flor. Wig. sub ann.), he went to invite Dunstan to return, and received him with great honour. As Glastonbury lay in Eadwig's kingdom he could not return thither, and at a meeting of the ‘witan’ of the northern kingdom it was determined that he should be raised to the episcopate. He was perhaps consecrated by Oda, though at the time no see appears to have been vacant. Before the end of the year, however, the bishop of Worcester died, and he was appointed to succeed him. In 959 he received the bishopric of London, and held it, together with Worcester, until 961. On Eadwig's death in 959 the kingdom was reunited under Eadgar. The see of Canterbury was then held by Brithelm, who had probably been appointed by Eadwig, but had not as yet had time to go to Rome for the papal confirmation. As one of the late king's party Brithelm was of course looked on with disfavour by Eadgar; his appointment was annulled on the ground that he had shown himself incompetent to enforce discipline, and Dunstan was elected to Canterbury in his stead. The next year the new archbishop went to Rome for his pall. On his journey thither he gave so freely to all that one day his steward angrily told him that he had left nothing for that evening's meal. In answer he declared his belief that Christ would not let those who trusted in Him lack anything, and before he had finished singing vespers he received an invitation from an abbot to tarry at his monastery (Vita B. 39). On his return he resumed his place of chief adviser of the king, and though his political work has been obscured by hagiology, and by all that has been recorded, and in some cases falsely recorded, of his ecclesiastical administration, there can be no doubt that the glories of Eadgar's reign were largely due to his abilities and industry (Stubbs, Introduction to Memorials, civ; Freeman, Norman Conquest, i. 65; Robertson, Essays, 195–9; Green, Conquest of England, 318–22). His influence with the king was unbounded (Adelard, 61), and accordingly we may safely trace his hand in the civil order and external peace that marked the reign, and in the wise policy which conciliated the Danes and secured their acknowledgment of Eadgar's supremacy. In common with the king Dunstan owed much to the northern settlers, and must have approved and forwarded the promotion of Danes to civil and ecclesiastical offices and the other means by which Eadgar sought to make them take their place as a portion of the people of England. The Danes did not overlook or forget what he did for them. When Cnut [see Canute] in 1017 ‘set the laws civil and ecclesiastical upon the ancient and national footing, he ordered the solemn and universal observance of St. Dunstan's mass-day’ (Stubbs). Union between the different peoples of England under one king was the object of both Eadgar and his great minister, and they did not labour for it in vain. On Whitsunday 973 Dunstan and Oswald, archbishop of York, with all the bishops of England assisting, crowned Eadgar at Bath, an act which was evidently held to be of peculiar significance, for it forms the subject of one of our early national ballads and is noticed by all the chroniclers. It was the formal declaration of the unity of the kingdom; the days in which the Danes chose kings for themselves were over, and the archbishop of York, whose predecessors had so often appeared almost as leaders of a separate people, joined with the primate in proclaiming the sovereignty, it may almost be said
