Eadwig and Edgar were young children, their uncle Eadred became king. Like Edmund, Eadred inherited the kingship of the whole of England and soon lost it when Northumbria accepted a Viking king, but he had recovered it by the end of his reign. Eadred was very close to Edmund and inherited his leading counsellors, which resulted in a high degree of continuity of government when he became king. These counsellors included their mother, Eadgifu; Oda, Archbishop of Canterbury; Ælfsige, Bishop of Winchester; and Æthelstan, ealdorman of East Anglia; who was known as the Half-King because it was believed that kings depended on his advice. Another key adviser was Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury and future Archbishop of Canterbury. Eadred suffered from ill health, which became much worse towards the end of his reign. Most surviving charters of the last two years of his reign were produced by an agency associated with Glastonbury Abbey, and almost all of these were not attested by the king, suggesting that Dunstan was authorised to issue charters in Eadred's name when he was too ill to carry out his duties. Eadred was in his early thirties when he died on 23 November 955, and Eadwig succeeded at the age of around fifteen. He was the first king since the early ninth century not to face the threat of imminent foreign invasion, and England remained free from Viking attacks until 980, after Edgar's death. Early life Edgar was the younger son of Edmund and his first wife, Ælfgifu, and he was born in 943 or 944, so he was an infant when his mother died in 944. She was a benefactor of Shaftesbury Abbey, an establishment for nuns, and was buried and venerated as a saint there. Her mother Wynflæd, who died around 950, was a vowess (religious woman), who was also a benefactor of the nunnery. Edgar was brought up by Ælfwynn, the wife of Æthelstan Half-King, and in about 958 Edgar gave her a ten-hide estate at Old Weston in Huntingdonshire as thanks. Æthelstan was a strong supporter of the Benedictine reform movement, which became dominant during Edgar's reign, and the historian Robin Fleming comments that the ætheling (prince eligible for the throne) was profoundly influenced by his upbringing: Thus, the was reared in the household of one of his father's closest allies and raised among Half-King's own brothers and sons, five of whom at