passed on the other to a nameless German princeling. After the murder of Charles the Simple, his widow and her son Louis (d'Outremer) took refuge with Æthelstan, at whose court Louis was brought up. Later on his uncle Hugh sent for Louis to return, and he acquired his familiar surname (Ultramarinus) from this sojourn beyond the sea with his English relations. Æthelstan was buried in Malmesbury Abbey, to which (as to other Celtic shrines) he had been a great benefactor, and where a later mediæval tomb (perhaps remade) is still shown as his. He was succeeded by his brother Eadmund, the hero of Brunanburh. Another brother, the ætheling Eadwine, is said by Simeon of Durham (a late authority) to have been drowned at sea by Æthelstan's orders. William of Malmesbury expands this story, by obviously legendary additions, into an ugly romance; but the ‘Chronicle’ merely mentions briefly that Eadwine was drowned in 933, an entry which Henry of Huntingdon amplifies by adding (after his usual groundless fashion) that it was much to Æthelstan's sorrow. We may probably acquit the king's memory of the doubtful fratricide.
[The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (here contemporary, but slight); Florence of Worcester (translating a contemporary, but almost equally meagre); William of Malmesbury (full but untrustworthy); Simeon of Durham; Henry of Huntingdon—all under dates 924–940; Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus Ævi Saxonici has many of Æthelstan's charters; Thorpe's Ancient Laws and Institutes of the Anglo-Saxons contains Æthelstan's Laws; Freeman's Old-English History (the chief modern critical authority), p. 145; Freeman's Norman Conquest, vol. i.; Palgrave's History of the Anglo-Saxons, p. 165; Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, ii. 177; Lappenberg; Thomas Kerslake, The Welsh in Dorset, and other pamphlets (Bristol, 1870 and onward).]
ATHERSTONE, EDWIN (1788–1872), a voluminous writer in verse and prose, was born on 17 April 1788. His first work was a poem entitled 'The Last Days of Herculaneum,' 1821. This was followed, in 1824, by 'A Midsummer Day's Dream.' In 1828 appeared the first six books of his chief work, 'The Fall of Niniveh.' Seven more books were published in 1847; and finally, in 1868, the whole work appeared complete in thirty books. Atherstone was a friend of John Martin, the painter; and the poet and painter worked in friendly rivalry. In 1830 he published an historical romance, 'The Sea Kings in England,' dealing with the times of Ælfred. His other romance is 'The Handwriting on the Wall,' 1858. Afterwards he returned to the writing of epics, and in 1861 was delivered of 'Israel in Egypt,' a poem not far short of twenty thousand lines. The grandiose scale on which his poems were planned attracted some ephemeral notice and applause. Atherstone died at Bath on 29 Jan. 1872. At the time of his death he was in receipt of a pension of 100l. a year.
[Athenæum, 10 Feb. 1872; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
ATHERTON, JOHN (1598–1640), bishop of Waterford and Lismore, is believed to have been born at Bawdripp, in Somersetshire, in 1598, where his father. Rev. John Atherton (a canon of St. Paul's), was rector of the parish. At sixteen he went to Gloucester Hall (subsequently Worcester College) but after taking his bachelor's degree he removed to Lincoln College, of which he was a member when he took his master's degree. He entered holy orders, and became rector of Huish Comb Flower in his native county. He acquired a great reputation as a skilful canonist and one learned in ecclesiastical law, and on this account is said to have attracted the notice of Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford, then lord lieutenant of Ireland, and to have been appointed prebendary of St. John's, Dublin, 22 April 1630. This he held by dispensation with his previous preferment. In 1635 he became chancellor of Christ Church, and held also the rectories of Killaban and Ballintubride, in the diocese of Leighlin. He was chancellor of Killaloe in 1634. His highest promotion was reached in 1636, when (4 May) he became bishop of Waterford and Lismore. In this situation he is said to have 'behaved himself for some time with great prudence, though forward enough, if not too much, against the Roman catholicks in that country' (Wood's Athen. Oxon.). He was in 1640 accused of unnatural crime, and being found guilty was first degraded and afterwards hanged at Dublin, 5 Dec. 1640. His body, by his own desire, was buried in the obscurest part of St. John's churchyard, Dublin.
A theory has been set forth that he was in reality innocent of the crime imputed to him, and a victim to the vindictive feelings of powerful enemies. Wentworth, in his position as lord deputy, had recovered from the Earl of Cork some of the great tithes which he had appropriated, and had compelled the earl to compound for some church lands in his possession. Bishop Atherton sued for the remainder of those lands belonging to the see of Waterford which were still retained by the Earl of Cork; and Carte wishes us to believe that the bishop 'fell a sacrifice to that litigation rather than to justice, when he
