452.] The monks knew how to avail themselves of all these popular topics, and to set off their own character to the best advantage.

They affected the greatest austerity of life and manners; they indulged themselves in the highest strains of devotion; they inveighed bitterly against the vices and pretended luxury of the age; they were particularly vehement against the dissolute lives of the secular clergy, their rivals; every instance of libertinism in any individual of that order was represented as a general corruption; and where other topics of defamation were wanting, their marriage became a sure subject of invective, and their wives received the name of concubine, or other more opprobrious appellation.
The secular clergy, on the other hand, who were numerous and rich, and possessed of the ecclesiastical dignities, defended themselves with vigor and endeavored to retaliate upon their adversaries.

The people were thrown into agitation; and few instances occur of more violent dissensions, excited by the most material differences in religion; or rather by the most frivolous; since it is a just remark, that the more affinity there is between theological parties, the greater commonly is their animosity.
The progress of the monks, which was become considerable, was somewhat retarded by the death of Edred, their partisan, who expired after a reign of nine years.

He left children; but as they were infants, his nephew Edwy, son of Edmund, was placed on the throne.
EDWY {955.} Edwy, at the time of his accession, was not above sixteen or seventeen years of age, was possessed of the most amiable figure, and was even endowed, according to authentic accounts, with the most promising virtues.[*] He would have been the favorite of his people, had he not unhappily, at the commencement of his reign, been engaged in a controversy with the monks, whose rage neither the graces of the body nor virtues of the mind could mitigate, and who have pursued his memory with the same unrelenting vengeance, which they exercised against his person and dignity during his short and unfortunate reign.

There was a beautiful princess of the royal blood, called Elgiva, who had made impression on the tender heart of Edwy; and as he was of an age when the force of the passions first begins to be felt, he had ventured, contrary to the advice of his gravest counsellors, and the remonstrances of the more dignified ecclesiastics,[**] to espouse her; though she was within the degrees of affinity prohibited by the canon law.[***] [* Chron.Sax.p, 115.] [** H.Hunting, lib.v.p.