help doing if they were to be fed, but they burned houses and corn and slew some men and carried off some hundreds as captives to the North. You see the kind of people whom Tostig had to deal with. The King was very anxious to send an army against the rebels and to restore his favourite Tostig by force. But Harold and others shrank from a civil war, and moreover winter was drawing on, so that it was not a good time for warfare. So they persuaded the King to give up the thought of war. Then Harold went and held another meeting at Oxford, for the Northumbrians had now marched so far southward. He and others tried to persuade the Northumbrians to take Tostig back again, but they would not hearken. So Morkere the son of Ælfgar was confirmed in the Earldom of the Northumbrians, and Tostig the son of Godwine was outlawed and banished. And whatever we say of the conduct of the Northumbrians, and however good Tostig's intentions may have been in his general government, still, if he really had put men to death by guile, we cannot but say that he was rightly outlawed and banished. In this same meeting they renewed Cnut's Law. You know now what that means, and you will remember how in Cnut's time they renewed Edgar's Law. So Tostig went away with his wife and children to the Marquess Baldwin at Bruges. We have seen that everybody who was banished from England used to go to Baldwin; but of course Tostig had a special reason for going to him, as Baldwin was his wife's brother. King Edward was very angry at having to part with his favourite, and at not being allowed to punish his enemies. But Earl Harold knew that it must be so, and the King had nothing left to do but to pray that God might punish them. The Northumbrians certainly suffered evil enough in the next year and for many years to come. But I do not think we have any right to say that it was because they had driven out Earl Tostig.

King Edward now fell sick, and saw that his end was nigh. So his great object was to finish his great church at Westminster and to have it hallowed before he died. He lived just long enough to have this done. He kept Christmas and had the Christmas meeting of the Wise Men in London instead of

at Gloucester as usual. And on Innocents' day the new minster was hallowed, but the King was too sick to be there; so the Lady Edith stood in his stead. And on January 5th, 1066, King Edward the son of Æthelred died. He counselled the Wise Men to choose Earl Harold as King in his stead, and he commended to his care his sister Edith, and those who had left their own country for his sake, that is to say, the Frenchmen whom he had brought over to England. The next day, being the feast of the Epiphany, Edward was buried in his own new church at Westminster. Miracles were soon said to be wrought at his grave, and about a hundred years after his death he was canonized as a saint. He was the last male descendant of Cerdic who reigned over England.

CHAPTER XII.

THE REIGN OF KING HAROLD THE SON OF GODWINE JANUARY 6—OCTOBER 14, 1066.

In the

We have now come to the great and terrible year 1066. course of that year England had three Kings, I might almost say four; and in the course of that year it was that the line of our native Kings came to an end, and that England had to receive a foreign King. And the foreign King, before long, divided all the great honours and offices, and the greater part of the lands of England, among his foreign followers. No year, before or after, since the English came into Britain, was so full of great events as this. The year 597, when Christianity was first preached to our forefathers, was doubtless still more important in its results, but it could not have struck men's minds at the time in the same way.

King Edward then was dead, and the Wise Men had to choose a King to reign in his stead. It was Christmas-tide, when, as you know, a meeting was commonly held, and this time King Edward had gathered together all the great men of the land for the hallowing of his new minster of Saint Peter. So no doubt there was a great meeting from all parts. Now you know very well by this time the old law about choosing Kings. If Edward had left a son or a brother who was a grown man and in the least fit to reign, he would have been chosen before anybody else. But there was no such person. There was no one left in the royal family but young Edgar and his sisters. Now Margaret afterwards showed herself so wise and good a woman that, if it had been the custom of our forefathers to set women to reign over them, perhaps they could

not have done better than to choose her. But it was not usual to choose Queens, and most likely no one thought of such a thing at all. And moreover she must then have been quite young. As for Edgar, he too was quite young, he was hardly an Englishman, having been born in a foreign country, and he was not, which was then so much thought of, the son of a crowned King. He therefore hardly seemed to have that sort of right which an Ætheling commonly had. It was clear too that his election would have been most unwise, as he was in no way fit to reign. The Wise Men therefore were obliged to choose a King who was not of the royal family. This was the first time they had done so, unless you reckon the elections of Swegen and Čnut, who, after all, were a King and a King's son, though not of the line of English Kings. This was the first and only time that they ever chose an Englishman who was not of royal blood. They could not help looking beyond the royal family; but when they had once looked beyond it, they had not to look very far. There was one man ready, and only one. As there was no Ætheling fit to reign, whom could they choose but the great Earl Harold? He had been the chief ruler of the realm for many years; he had shown himself wise and valiant in war and in peace, and he had been recommended to their choice by the late King. So the Wise Men of all England met and chose Harold the son of Godwine to be King. And on the same day on which King Edward was buried, most likely as soon as the funeral service was over, Earl Harold was hallowed as King in the West Minster by Archbishop Ealdred. Stigand had always been a firm friend of him and his house; but, as Stigand was said not to be lawful Archbishop, the new King thought it safer to be crowned by Ealdred, against whom there was nothing to be said.

I cannot fancy there being, in any land which is ruled by Kings at all, a greater or more glorious day than this, the feast of the Epiphany, 1066. Then our forefathers chose to themselves a man to reign over them, not because he was the son or grandson of this or that man who had been King before him, not because he was a foreigner who had conquered them and whom they could not help choosing, but simply because he was the bravest and wisest and best man in the land.

If

there ever was a lawful King in this world, King Harold was one; for he reigned by the best of all titles, the choice of the people.

So Harold the son of Godwine was King of the English and Lord of the Isle of Britain. But there were some people in Northumberland who did not at once acknowledge him. But King Harold behaved in the wise and mild way in which he always did. He did not fight against them or use any harshness, but he went to York, and took with him his friend Wulfstan, the holy Bishop of Worcester. Wulfstan, besides his holiness, was a great speaker, as to be sure Harold was himself. So Wulfstan and Harold talked to the Northumbrians, most likely in a meeting of their own Wise Men, and they came round and acknowledged the new King. So Harold was King over all the land without any shedding of blood. And it was, I think, most likely at this time that King Harold married Ealdgyth the daughter of Earl Elfgar and widow of King Gruffydd of North Wales. It is certain that he did marry her some time, and I think that this is altogether the most likely time. For the King to marry the sister of Edwin and Morkere was a good way to seal, as it were, his new friendship with the men of Northumberland.

King Harold then came from York to Westminster to keep Easter. The Chronicles say that he had little stillness while he reigned, and so it was. Soon after Easter a comet was seen which shone with great brightness for seven days. In those days men thought that signs of that kind in the heaven foretold something wonderful which was going to happen, especially that some great King or kingdom was about to be overthrown. And indeed they might well think so just then. For King Harold had two enemies to strive against at once. Though he had been chosen King by the whole people of England, there were two men in the world who fancied they knew better who ought to be King in England than the English did themselves. These were the King's brother Tostig and William Duke of the Normans. Tostig before his banishment had most likely hoped to be chosen King himself on Edward's death, and of course the Wise Men might, if they pleased, have chosen him instead of Harold; but by his doings in Northumberland