Baring-Gould’s sources: Anglican Martyrologies, but by some on May 5th. By Mayhew on June 30th. Authorities: — William of Malmesbury, Florence of Worcester, and Roger of Hoveden.] S. Elfgyva was queen of Edmund the Magnificent, who came to the throne of England in 940, succeeding his brother Athelstan. Edmund did not reign long. In the year 945 he was keeping the feast of S. Augustine of Canterbury at Pucklechurch, in Gloucestershire, and there came into the hall one Liofa, a robber, whom he had banished six years before. This man went and sat down by one of the chiefs, near the king himself. Edmund bade his cup-bearer remove him; but instead of going, Liofa tried to kill the cup-bearer. Then the king got up and went to help his servant, and seized Liofa by the hair and threw him on the ground, but the robber had a dagger, and stabbed the king from below. Liofa was cut to pieces at.once by the king's men, but Edmund died of the wound. Elfgyva and Edmund had two sons, Edwy and Edgar, but as they were very young, Edred, the brother of Edmund, was chosen to succeed him. He must have been a young man himself, for his elder brother Edmund gt * May i8.] S. Elfgyva, 255 was only twenty-four when he was killed. Edgar was born in 943.

The poor young queen had lost her husband early, but this was the least of her sorrows. In her widowhood she laboured to heal the wounds of the sufferers. “She was the adviser and ennobler of the whole kingdom, the consoler of the Church, the support of the needy and the oppressed.” 1 But her heart was wrung by the vicious conduct of Edwy, her eldest son, whose wantonness became a general scandal. Edwy became king in 955, and was succeeded by his brother Edgar, whose morals were in no way superior. William of Malmesbury says of the queenmother, “ She was a woman intent on good works, and gifted with such affection and kindness, that she would even secretly discharge the penalties of those culprits whom the sad sentences of the judges had publicly condemned. That costly clothing, which, to many women, is the occasion of evil, was to her a means of liberality; as she would give a garment of the most beautiful workmanship to the first poor person she saw. Even malice itself, as there was nothing to carp at, might praise the beauty of her person, and the work of her hands.” 3 She retired at length into the convent of Shaftesbury, which had been founded by King Alfred, and there died. 1 Osbem in Vit. S. Dunstani.

2 William of Malmesbury. English Chron., lib. ii., u. 8.