I am very sorry for the next king, whose name was Edwy. He was young and good-natured, and so was his beautiful wife, whom he loved very much; but they could not agree with a bishop called Dunstan, who was a very clever and a very bold man, and wanted everybody in England, even the king, to follow his advice in everything. Now the king and queen did not like this, and would not do everything Dunstan wished, and banished him from the country. But the friends whom he had left behind him rose up against the poor king, and, in order to punish him for not obeying Dunstan, one of them, the Archbishop Odo, was so very wicked as to take the beautiful young queen, and beat her, and burned her face all over with hot irons, to make her look ugly, and then sent her away to Ireland. When she came back, she was so cruelly treated that she died in great agony. The men who did this even took away a part of his kingdom from Edwy, and gave it to his brother, Edgar. Soon afterwards Edwy died, and Edgar became king of the whole of England. When Edgar grew up, he was a good king; but he was obliged to make friends with Dunstan, who was very clever, and used to please and amuse the people when he wanted them to do anything for him. He could play on the harp very well; and he used to make a great many things of iron and brass, which the people wanted very much, and gave them to them; and as there were no bells to the churches before this time, Dunstan had a great many made, and hung up in the church-steeples. And the people began to forget how cruel he had been to King Edwy, when he did so many things to please them. I must tell you a little about King Edgar now. He went to every part of the country to see if the people were taken care of. He saw that all the ships that King Alfred and King Athelstane had built were properly repaired, and built a great many new ones. There was so little fighting in his time that he was called “The Peaceful”; yet he made the kings of Scotland and the kings of Wales obey him; but instead of taking money from them, as other kings used to do at that time, he ordered them to send hunters into the woods, to catch and kill the wolves and other wild beasts, which, as I told you before, used to do a great deal of mischief in England. I have heard that he made these kings send him three hundred wolves’ heads every year; so at last all the wolves in England were killed, and the farmers could sleep comfortably in the country, without being afraid that wild beasts would come and kill them or their children in the night. This was a very good thing; and Edgar did many other useful things for England, but I am sorry to say, he did not always do what was right, as you will know when you are old enough to read the large History of England. [Illustration: King Edward stabbed by order of Elfrida.]