In 956, he issued more than sixty charters transferring land, a yearly total unmatched by any other European king before the twelfth century, and this is seen by some historians as either an attempt to buy support or rewarding his favourites at the expense of the powerful old guard of the previous reign.

The Benedictine reform movement became dominant in Edgar's reign with his strong support, and monastic writers praised him and condemned Eadwig as irresponsible and incompetent.

By 878, the army had overrun the kingdoms of Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia, and nearly conquered Wessex, but in that year the West Saxons achieved a decisive victory at the Battle of Edington under King Alfred the Great.

By 944, York was ruled by two Viking kings, Anlaf Sihtricson and Ragnall Guthfrithson, and in that year Edmund expelled them and recovered full control of England.

On 26 May 946, he was stabbed to death trying to protect his seneschal from attack by a convicted outlaw at Pucklechurch in Gloucestershire, and as his sons Eadwig and Edgar were young children, their uncle Eadred became king.

In his will Eadred left 1600 pounds[a] to be used for protection of his people from famine or to buy peace from a heathen army, showing that he did not regard England as safe from attack.

[11] Ælfhere, the ealdorman of Mercia, was acknowledged as a relative of the royal family, and his sister married the magnate Ælfric Cild, who is described in a charter of 956 as Eadwig's adoptivus parens.

The principal controversies concern his marriage and its dissolution in 958, and the division of the kingdom in 957 between Eadwig, who kept England south of the Thames, and Edgar, who became king of the land north of it.

Oda urged that he should be brought back to the feast, but almost all the nobles feared to offend the king, and only Dunstan and his relative Cynesige, Bishop of Lichfield, had the courage to face his ire.

[15] B went on: As the nobles had requested, they went in and found the royal crown, brilliant with the wonderful gold and silver and variously sparkling jewels that made it up, tossed carelessly on the ground some distance from the king's head, while he was disporting himself disgracefully between the two women as though they were wallowing in some revolting pigsty.

[17] "B" aimed both to show Dunstan in a favourable light and to present Eadwig as acting unregally at the coronation feast, thus demonstrating his unfitness to be king.

[22] The historian Rory Naismith sees the story of Dunstan's intervention at the coronation dinner as "essentially a piece of propaganda designed to blacken the reputation of Eadwig, Ælfgifu and her mother".

In the Liber Vitae of New Minster, Ælfgifu, wife of King Eadwig, appears in a list of "illustrious women, choosing this holy place for the love of God, who have commended themselves to the prayers of the community by the gift of alms".

[24]The marriage was politically important as part of Eadwig's efforts to strengthen his position as king,[25] and it may have been seen as a threat by the circle around Edgar as it could have cut him out from the prospect of inheriting the crown.

[34] On the other hand, Sean Miller argues that objections to the marriage were political rather than religious,[35] and Pauline Stafford sees the annulment as a result of the successful revolt of Edgar, which weakened Eadwig so much that his enemies felt able to act against him.

[1] Historians almost all accept that the marriage between Eadwig and Ælfgifu was dissolved, but Stenton was an exception, pointing out that ASC D, which is a northern document dating to the second half of the eleventh century or the early twelfth, is the only source for the annulment.

[39] Eadwig's predecessor Eadred suffered from ill health which became much worse in his last years, and he relied on key advisers, including his mother Eadgifu, Archbishop Oda, Abbot Dunstan of Glastonbury, Ælfsige, whom he appointed Bishop of Winchester, and Æthelstan, Ealdorman of East Anglia, who was so powerful that he was known as the Half-King.

[41] He appears to have been determined to show his independence from the previous regime from the start:[1] the historian Ben Snook comments that "Eadwig, unlike his brother Edgar, was clearly his own man.

"[42] However, in the view of Keynes, "whether Eadwig and Edgar were able to assert their own independence of action, or remained at the mercy of established interests at court, is unclear".

[d] He probably wished to be buried at a reformed Benedictine monastery such as Glastonbury, but Eadwig may have wanted to ensure that his tomb would not become a focus for opponents such as Dunstan.

[64] In the twenty first century, Christopher Lewis sees the division as the solution to "a dangerously unstable government and a court in deep crisis",[26] while Miller and Naismith attribute it to an unsuccessful attempt to promote a powerful new faction at the expense of the old guard.

Soon after becoming king of Mercia Edgar recalled Dunstan from his exile, and he showed his disapproval of Eadwig's treatment of their grandmother by restoring her property when he acceded to the throne of England in 959.

[89] During Edgar's reign, the Benedictine reform movement with monasteries following strict rules of celibacy and prohibition of personal property, became dominant in religion and politics.

Kings before Edgar were sympathetic to its ideals, but they did not take the view of Bishop Æthelwold and his circle that it was the only worthwhile religious life, and that the secular clergy (clerks), who owned property and many of whom were married, were corrupt and immoral.

But you, O Lord Jesus, our creator and re-creator, a skilled artificer well able to reform our deformities, used these unruly and wandering persons to bring to light and public knowledge your treasure that for so many years lay hidden – I mean the body of St Aldhelm, which they themselves raised from the ground and established in a shrine.

All the same, even at this distance, it is horrible to remember how cruelly the king behaved to the other monasteries, being himself young and foolish, and moved too by the advice of his mistress, who constantly laid siege to his childish mind.

[95] Eadwig's gifts to monasteries are numerous enough to show that he was not hostile to them, and his reputation as an opponent seems to be due to the fact that he regarded Dunstan as a personal enemy.

[96] Some early sources, such as Dunstan's biographer B and Byrhtferth, criticised Eadwig but do not list spoliation of the church among his crimes, and he was selected by some monastic forgers as the grantor of estates to their establishments, showing that he was considered a plausible benefactor.

[118] In Keynes's view: Eadwig has acquired a reputation as a debaucher, an opponent of monasticism, a despoiler of the church, and an incompetent ruler, which derives from the account of him in the earliest life of St Dunstan [by B], written c. 1000, and from later sources which elaborate the same themes.

[110]Snook gives the most favourable modern verdict: Eadwig was an unusually generous king who appears to have managed the emerging factional rivalries amongst the English nobility with remarkable dexterity and political acumen, arguably preserving peace, if not unity, in the kingdom and avoiding the devastating infighting that would tear England apart during the reign of Æthelred the Unready [...] What seems clear is that, at this time, the kingdom's leading ecclesiastics, emboldened by the ideology of the monastic reform movement, were keen to enhance their personal and political influence at the expense of the king's authority.