"Edward was hunting in the forest of Wareham one day, when the clever, cankered dwarf of the queen, Wulstan, came up to him, and by some story of strange bird or beast, lured the boy-king to follow him into the wood, and leave his attendants. Then, finding that Corfe Castle, where his brother dwelt, was close at hand, Edward thought he should like to see little Ethelred - then ten or eleven year' old - and rode thus unattended to the door of his stepmother's home. She received him at the doorway, kissed him, and asked him to alight. He declined, but asked to see his brother. Elfrida then called for wine, and whilst the king held the cup to his lips, either the queen or one of her attendants stabbed him in the back. The wounded prince had, however, strength enough to set spurs to his horse, and attempt to rejoin his suite; but fainting from loss of blood, he fell; his foot got entangled in the stirrup, and he was dragged a considerable distance, till the horse stopped of itself Elfrida, alarmed at his apparent escape, sent servants after him, who found the poor young prince dead, and his face much cut by the flints of the road over which he had been dragged. The queen ordered his body to be lodged in a house near; on that spot a church was afterwards built. The next morning she had it conveyed to a marshy place, and retired herself to a mansion of hers called Bere, ten miles off. Little Ethelred had seen the murder, and was overpowered by his mother's wickedness; he reproached her so bitterly, in his childish grief and horror, that she beat him most severely with the great wax tapers, the only weapons she had near her hand. Ethelred was so much hurt that he hated the sight of them ever afterwards. Edward's body was found, and the murder discovered; but Ethelred, who of course was quite innocent of his beloved brother's death, succeeded to the throne. Dunstan was compelled to crown him ; but as he placed the royal diadem on the boy's head, he accompanied the act with an awful prophecy. It ran thus: "Even as, by the death of thy brother, thou didst aspire to the kingdom, hear the decree of Heaven. The sin of thy wicked mother and of her accomplices shall rest upon thy head, and such evils shall fall upon the English as they have never yet suffered, from the days when they first came into the isle of Britain even until the present time."..." [cont.]
Valentine (undated)
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