the assembled nobles by leaving the feast to "caress these whores". Oda urged that he should be brought back to the feast, but almost all the nobles feared to offend the king, and only Dunstan and his relative Cynesige, Bishop of Lichfield, had the courage to face his ire. B went on: B names one of the women as Æthelgifu, the mother of Eadwig's future wife, Ælfgifu, but he does not name the daughter in his account. B aimed both to show Dunstan in a favourable light and to present Eadwig as acting unregally at the coronation feast, thus demonstrating his unfitness to be king. Dunstan was exiled from England, and B said that he was driven out as a result of the machinations of Æthelgifu, and that Dunstan's own pupils sided against him. Dunstan's opponents probably included Æthelwold, Abbot of Abingdon and future Bishop of Winchester. Æthelwold supported the marriage, describing Ælfgifu in an Abingdon charter as "the king's wife", and she left him an estate in her will. B's version is accepted by Michael Wood, who describes Eadwig as "deeply unpleasant", but most historians are sceptical. Ælfgifu was a member of the highest West Saxon aristocracy and she appears to have been on good terms with Edgar after his accession. He described her as his relative in charters granting her property. The historian Rory Naismith sees the story of Dunstan's intervention at the coronation dinner as "essentially a piece of propaganda designed to blacken the reputation of Eadwig, Ælfgifu and her mother". Frank Stenton comments on the story: The marriage was politically important as part of Eadwig's efforts to strengthen his position as king, and it may have been seen as a threat by the circle around Edgar as it could have cut him out from the prospect of inheriting the crown. According to version D of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ASC D), in 958 "Archbishop Oda separated King Eadwig and Ælfgifu, because they were too closely related". It is not certain what their relationship was, but Eadwig's wife has been identified as the Ælfgifu who made a will naming Æthelweard as her brother, and he has been identified as the chronicler Æthelweard, who was descended from King Æthelred I, which would have made her Eadwig's third cousin once removed. Simon Keynes also questions B's account of the coronation feast, suggesting that Oda may have objected to the marriage