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Updated: May 17, 2025
"O Athelwold. my father, the only one of my father's counsellors who has been faithful to his firstborn, what can I do? She is dearer to me than life." "But not than honour. You have both erred, both disobeyed the law of the Church, both forgotten the example due from those in high places." "Tell Odo to enter," exclaimed Edwy.
Of all this Athelwold knew nothing, since she made no complaint, and when he returned to her the light and life and brilliance would be hers again, and there was no cloud or shadow on his delight. But the cloud would come back over her when he again went away.
His marriage with his second wife, ELFRIDA, is one of the worst events of his reign. Hearing of the beauty of this lady, he despatched his favourite courtier, ATHELWOLD, to her father's castle in Devonshire, to see if she were really as charming as fame reported.
Athelwold let them have their way a little while, and then he said: 'I am dying, as you see, and I have sent for you hither, to ask you all to tell me which of you will best guard my daughter when I am dead, till she has come to years when she can guard herself. And they answered as one man: 'Earl Godrich of Cornwall.
But he would not move in the matter without Edgar's consent. Edgar, ever ready to do anything to please his friend, freely gave it, and only asked him to give an assurance that the secret object of his former visit to Devon would remain inviolate. Accordingly Athelwold took a solemn oath that it would never be revealed, and Edgar then slapped him on the back and wished him Godspeed in his wooing.
"My liege," exclaimed Athelwold, the old grey-headed counsellor we have mentioned, "permit one who loves you, as he loved your revered father, to entreat you to cease from this hopeless resistance. If you refuse to see him you are no longer a king." "Then I will gladly abdicate."
Then King Athelwold summoned his earls and barons, from Roxborough to Dover, to come and take counsel with him as he lay a-dying on his bed at Winchester. And when they all wept sore at seeing the King so near his end, he said, "Weep not, good friends, for since I am brought to death's door your tears can in nowise deliver me; but rather give me your counsel.
But Edwy had given way he was young and burst into a passionate fit of weeping, his royal dignity all forgotten. "Give him time! give him time, father!" said they all. "One day; he must then submit, or I must do my duty; I have no choice none," replied the archbishop. And the council sadly broke up; but Athelwold sought a private interview with Elgiva.
The main thing here is the effect the Freeman anecdote had on me, which was that when I went back to continue my insect-watching and rested at noon at Dead Man's Plack, the old legend would keep intruding itself on my mind, until, wishing to have done with it, I said and I swore that it was true that the tradition preserved in the neighbourhood, that on this very spot Athelwold was slain by the king, was better than any document or history.
A day or two of this play of kingly clemency passed, then Athelwold and his guests went to hunt in the neighboring forest, and in the heat of the chase Edgar gained the opportunity he desired. He stabbed his unsuspecting host in the back, left him dead on the field, and rode back to the castle to declare his love to the suddenly-widowed wife.
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