Edmund.
We read, however, that after this the Danes, under King Sweno,
over-running this part of the country, destroyed this monastery and
burnt it to the ground, with the church and town. But see the turn
religion gives to things in the world; his son, King Canutus, at
first a Pagan and a tyrant, and the most cruel ravager of all that
crew, coming to turn Christian, and being touched in conscience for
the soul of his father, in having robbed God and his holy martyr
St. Edmund, sacrilegiously destroying the church, and plundering
the monastery; I say, touched with remorse, and, as the monks
pretend, terrified with a vision of St. Edmund appearing to him, he
rebuilt the house, the church, and the town also, and very much
added to the wealth of the abbot and his fraternity, offering his
crown at the feet of St. Edmund, giving the house to the monks,
town and all; so that they were absolute lords of the town, and
governed it by their steward for many ages. He also gave them a
great many good lordships, which they enjoyed till the general
suppression of abbeys, in the time of Henry VIII.
But I am neither writing the history or searching the antiquity of
the abbey, or town; my business is the present state of the place.
The abbey is demolished; its ruins are all that is to be seen of
its glory: out of the old building, two very beautiful churches
are built, and serve the two parishes, into which the town is
divided, and they stand both in one churchyard.
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