The Copybook

Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.

553

© Herbythyme, Wikimedia Commons. Licenc e: CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Martyrdom of King Edward Roger of Wendover

After the death of King Edgar, powerful court factions struggled for power by hiding behind his two sons, twelve-year-old Edward and his younger step-brother Ethelred.

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554

© Tom Parnell, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 generic.

Dunstan’s Deliverance Roger of Wendover

In 978, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dunstan, was being battered in a stormy meeting when he — along with England’s rich monastic heritage — had a miraculous escape.

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555

© Martin Cigler, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.

Cuthbert’s Christmas Clay Lane

One Christmas Eve back in the twelfth century, a monk keeping midnight vigil in Lindisfarne priory watched spellbound as two great doors opened all by themselves.

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556

By James William Edmund Doyle (1822–1892), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

Edgar and the Ship of Kings Florence of Worcester

Following a very grand coronation at Bath in 973, King Edgar travelled to Chester and showed his people that he had become a mighty lord indeed.

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557

From the British Library, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

Short Shrift William of Malmesbury

Kenneth II, tenth-century King of Scots, once cracked a joke about Edgar, King of England, being on the short side. He very soon wished he hadn’t.

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558

Westminster Charter of 966, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

Edgar’s Peace James William Edmund Doyle

Edgar, King of England from 959 to 975, was surnamed ‘The Peaceful’ by a grateful public because of the care he took to defend person and property.

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