In 933 Athelstan lost his brother Edwin, who was apparently drowned at sea. William of Malmesbury, however, relates the following story concerning his death:-- One of those fawning flatterers who are the curse of courts persuaded the king that his brother Edwin had connived at the conspiracy of Alfred. This accusation Athelstan unhappily gave ear to, and affected to believe the charge, whether he did or not. The prince was arrested by his unnatural brother, who, fearing to put him to death publicly, had him conveyed on board a vessel without sails or rudder, which he ordered to be let drift away to sea. Edwin, to avoid perishing by hunger, cast himself into the waves, and was drowned. No sooner was the object of his terror removed for ever, than remorse seized upon the murderer, who, to quiet his conscience, founded the Abbey of Middleton, in Dorsetshire, where masses were daily offered for the repose of the victim's soul, and Athelstan did penance for seven years. Edwin's accuser had not reason long to rejoice at the success of his malicious calumnies; for one day, as he waited at table with the king's cup, one of his feet slipping, he would have fallen, had he not, by the nimbleness of the other leg, recovered himself. Whereupon he jokingly said, "See how one brother helps another!" which silly jest cost him his life; as Athelstan, who overheard it, and considered it as a covert reproach addressed to himself, ordered him to be immediately executed; and thus, says the old chronicler, revenged his brother's death by that of his false accuser. The whole story, however, is a mass of contradictions, and is demolished by Professor Freeman, who points out that tales about people being exposed in boats are very numerous; that the story about brother helping brother is related again in the history of Earl Godwin; and, further, that the story evidently belongs to the first years of the reign, whereas we know from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that Edwin died in 933, and that it is improbable that Athelstan would have been doing penance at the time when he was winning his greatest victories.