Æthelwold’s work was still in full progress when King Edgar died in 975. Young as he was--he was only some thirty-two years old when he died--he had reigned for some sixteen years, and his reign had had notable results. It had been a reign of uninterrupted peace; indeed it was the only peaceful reign, save Edward the Confessor’s, of any Saxon king in England, and a reign, moreover, of good government and wise laws. And though the memories of Edgar’s domestic life, his intrigues, and his tragic murder of his false friend, Earl Æthelwold, belong rather to Wherwell and Andover than to Winchester, we have many personal touches reminding us of his close connection with Winchester history. We see him holding his court continually at Wolvesey. Tradition even derives the name of Wolvesey from the wolf’s head tribute which he caused to be paid to him there, and which brought about the practical extermination of wolves in the land; but be that as it may, at Wolvesey Edgar royally kept his state, presiding over many a great meeting of the Witan, and promulgating his laws with the imperious formula, “I and the Archbishop”--an involuntary acknowledgment of what was, after all, the great power behind the throne, the influence of Dunstan. We see him attending the imposing ecclesiastic ceremonies of his reign, such as the enshrinement of the bones of Swithun, and we read of the wise laws and reforms he inaugurated. He standardized the coinage and the weights and measures of the realm. “Let one weight and one measure be used in all England, after the standard of London and of Winchester.” “Let there be one standard of coinage throughout the king’s realm”--regulations which serve to show the development of commerce and prosperity in the kingdom. Another was a curious law passed to check the excessive drinking habits to which in particular his Danish subjects were addicted. Pegs were placed at certain intervals in the drinking cups, and no one was suffered to “drink below his peg.” Yet notable as King Edgar was as a king, his personal claim entitles him to little respect. Allowing fully for the lowly standard of his age, his life was sensual, loose, and so smirched with squalid self-indulgence that even his monkish admirers, who had every reason to laud him highly, were forced to mingle censure with the lavish encomiums they heaped upon him, and it was a bitter legacy which his loose domestic life left behind him for the nation to inherit. The national record, the _English Chronicle_, accords him an appreciative but discriminating epitaph, praising his good rule and reciting his virtues indeed, but concluding in words which we can all at least re-echo:-- May God grant him that his good deeds be more prevailing than his misdeeds for his soul’s protection on the longsome journey.