A.D. 900. Charles succeeded to the kingdom of France, and reigned twenty-seven years. The same year, that most merciful king, Alfred, king of England, after he had reigned twenty-nine years and six months, on the twenty-eighth of November, on the fourth day of the week, in the fifth indiction, exchanged his temporal for an eternal kingdom. He was buried at Winchester, in a new monastery which he had founded himself, and was clothed in the robe of a blessed immortality, in which he awaits the general resurrection, where he shall then be crowned a second time. CH. XVII.—FROM A.D. 901 το A.D. 941. Edward the Elder succeeds Alfred—A great council of the English Church is held—Edward wars against the Danes —Rollo becomes a Christian—The Danes continue their ravages—Many towns are built throughout the kingdom— Edward dies—Athelstan succeeds him—Saint Dunstan flourishes—Treaty of peace between Athelstan and Robert of Normandy—Athelstan puts his brother Edwin to death— His wars with Constantine, king of Scotland, and Anlaf king of Ireland—Otho becomes emperor of the Romans— Athelstan dies, anoj is succeeded by Edmund—England is divided between Edmund and Anlaf. A.D. 901. Edward, the eldest son of Alfred, a prince inferior to his father in learning and literature, but at the same time even more glorious for power and dignity, was invested with the crown of the kingdom of England. But after he had been thus raised to the supreme power, Ethelwald Clito, the son of his cousin, considering himself inferior, neither in point o f family nor of power, to the king, aspired to the kingdom, and exerted all his efforts to obtain it ; and, attacking the royal towns called Oxley and Wimborne, the gates of which he found open, he easily introduced himself and his troops into them. In this place, as has been already mentioned, the holy Cuthburga, the sister of king Ina, had built a monastery o f virgins devoted to God, but this same Ethelwald injuriously carried one of them off, and joined her to himself in wedlock. Then king Edward, when he had heard the truth of this act, and of the rashness of Ethelwald, collected a large army, and came to Bath, and, marching onwards, pitched his camp not