265, 267, 268.Spel.Concil.

p.
481.] For this act of sacrilege he was reprimanded by Dunstan; and that he might reconcile himself to the church, he was obliged, not to separate from his mistress, but to abstain from wearing his crown during seven years, and to deprive himself so long of that vain ornament;[*] a punishment very unequal to that which had been inflicted on the unfortunate Edwy, who, for a marriage, which in the strictest sense could only deserve the name of irregular, was expelled his kingdom, saw his queen treated with singular barbarity, was loaded with calumnies, and has been represented to us under the most odious colors.

Such is the ascendant which may be attained, by hypocrisy and cabal, over mankind.
[* Osberne, p.

111.] There was another mistress of Edgar's, with whom he first formed a connection by a kind of accident.

Passing one day by Andover, he lodged in the house of a nobleman, whose daughter, being endowed with all the graces of person and behavior, inflamed him at first sight with the highest desire; and he resolved by any expedient to gratify it.