Harold, Book 10. The Last Of The Saxon Kings

a convent, with her young daughter by the Welch King; she prayed him to visit her. The Earl, whose active mind, abstaining from the intrigues around him, was de

uth was restored to her cheek. At her feet was that daughter who afterwards married the Fleance so familiar to us in Shakespeare, and became the ancestral mother of tho

an's sweeter emotions at the sight of the Earl, and she wa

e of public calamity than of domestic grief, and that in the natural awe and horror which the murder of her lord had caused, she felt rather for the ill-starred king than the beloved

me their relative positions; reserved, not distant-respectful, not servile. With the delicacy of high natures, they a

ayer: "Let there be peace between thine and mine!" and looking at their fair and stately youth, and noble carriage, he could not but feel that the men of Northumbria and of Mercia had chosen well. The discourse, however, was natu

thegns, give your

e, felt a poet's enthusiasm for the gallant deeds even of a rival,-"surely, if the Earl will a

and that cordial and immemorial pledge of

eet, Harold sai

young Earls, that appeal of

ged in their favour. And thou must ally thyself with

m; but he remembered that Haco was the son of Sweyn, Godwin's first-born, and that, but for Sweyn's crimes

; one from Hilda, that contained but these words: "Again peril menaces thee, but in

long for the letters of that age, and ev

t might at last effect their union, and reward her long devotion-rose before him, to the exclusion

e witnesses too numerous, to leave any option to the judges. Edward, on whom alone Tostig had relied, had already, with his ordinary vacillation, been swayed towards a right decision, partly by the cou

gestion of outlawry, or punishment, beyond the simple deprivation of the earldom he had abused. And in return for this moderation on the one side, the other agreed to support and ratify th

, rallying round him his house-carles, left the town. He went first to Githa, with whom his wife had sought refuge, and, aft