Page:William of Malmesbury's Chronicle.djvu/142

the king was astonishing, in suffering such a sum to be extorted from him; but he did not choose to offer a sacrifice to God from the robbery of the poor. These two churches were so contiguous, that, when singing, they heard each others' voices; on this and other accounts an unhappy jealousy was daily stirring up causes of dissension, which produced frequent injuries on either side. For this reason that monastery was lately removed out of the city, and became a more healthy, as well as a more conspicuous, residence. They report that Alfred was first buried in the cathedral, because his monastery was unfinished, but that afterwards, on account of the folly of the canons, who asserted that the royal spirit, resuming its carcass, wandered nightly through the buildings, Edward, his son and successor, removed the remains of his father, and gave them a quiet resting-place in the new minster.^[1] These and similar superstitions, such as that the dead body of a wicked man runs about, after death, by the agency of the devil, the English hold with almost inbred credulity,^[2] borrowing them from the heathens, according to the expression of Virgil,

"Forms such as flit, they say, when life is gone."^[3]

 

CHAP. V.

Of Edward the son of Alfred. [a.d. 901—924.]

In the year of our Lord's incarnation, 901, Edward, the son of Alfred, succeeded to the government, and held it twenty-three years: he was much inferior to his father in literature, but greatly excelled in extent of power. For Alfred, indeed, united the two kingdoms of the Mercian and West Saxons, holding that of the Mercians only nominally, as he had assigned it to prince Ethelred: but at his death Edward first brought the Mercians altogether under his power, next, the West^[4] and East Angles, and Northumbrians, who had

1. On its removal called Hyde Abbey.
2. The popular notion was, that the devil re-animated the corpse, and played a variety of pranks by its agency; and that the only remedy was to dig up and consume the body with fire. See Will. Neubrig v. 22.
3. Virg. Æneid, x. 641.
4. By West-Angles he probably intends the people of Essex or East-Saxons. See Florence of Worcester.