One result of this general outburst of feeling was that all those who
had been, openly or secretly, in alliance with Elfrida now hastened to
dissociate themselves from her. She was told that by her own rash act in
killing the king before the world she had ruined her own cause for ever.
And Dunstan was not defeated after all. He made haste to proclaim the
son, the boy of ten years, king of England, and at the same time to
denounce the mother as a murderess. Nor did she dare to resist him when
he removed the little prince from Corfe Castle and placed him with some
of his own creatures, with monks for schoolmasters and guardians, whose
first lesson to him would be detestation of his mother. This lesson too
had to be impressed on the public mind; and at once, in obedience to
this command, every preaching monk in every chapel in the land raged
against the queen, the enemy of the archbishop and of religion, the
tigress in human shape, and author of the greatest crime known in the
land since Cerdic's landing. No fortitude could stand against such a
storm of execration. It overwhelmed her. It was, she believed, a
preparation for the dreadful doom about to fall on her.
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