Harold, Book 12. The Last Of The Saxon Kings

thegns. It was evening: the courtyards and the halls were filled with armed men, and almost with every hour came rider and bode from the Sussex shores. In the corridors the Churchmen grouped and whis

asked a young monk, bolder than the rest,

Norman conquer, what become of our abbacies and convent lands?

t th

and guard the last prince of the House of C

he fair young bride of Gurth and the betrothed of the gay Leofwine. Githa sate alone, bowing her face over her hands-desolate; mourning for the fate of her traitor son; and the wounds, that the recent and holier death of Thyra had in

bate waxed warm,-which

battle-field, or to d

nd which he had ordere

om York) could

ching, his forage will fail. He will scarce dare to march upon London: if he does, we shal

The Norman is laying waste all the lands of thy subjects, Lord Harold; living on plunder, as a robber, in the realm of King Alfr

ugh the land. Many will be decoyed by his false pretexts, many awed by a force that the King dare not meet. If he come in sight of the city, think you that merchants and cheapmen will not be daunted by the thought of pillage and sack? They will be the first to capitulate at the first house which is fired. The city is weak to guard against siege; its walls long neglected; and in sieges the Normans are famous. Are we so united (the King's rule thus fresh) but what no cabals, no dissensions will break out amongst ourselves? If the Duke come, as come he will, in the name of the Church, may not the Churchmen set up some new pretender to the crown- perchance the child Edgar? And, divided against ourselves, how ingloriously should we fall! Besides, this land, though never before have the links between province and province been drawn so close

ise in arguments our historians have overlooked, came home to that nobl

rose Kin

es with every messenger, swelling and lessening with the rumours of every hour. Have we not around us now our most stalwart veterans-the flower of our armies-the most eager spirits-the vanquishers of Hardrada? Thou sayest, Gurth, that all should not be perilled on a single battle. True. Harold should be perilled, but wherefore England? Grant that we win the day; the quicker our despatch, the greater our fame, the more lasting that peace at home and abroad which rests ever its best foundation on the sense of the power which wrong cannot provoke unchastised. Grant that we lose; a loss can be made gai

blade, at that signal, leapt from the sheath: and, in that c