Harold : the Last of the Saxon Kings — Volume 03 eBook

All the boatmen, all the mariners, far and near, thronged to him, with sail and with shield, with sword and with oar.  All Kent (the foster-mother of the Saxons) sent forth the cry, “Life or death with Earl Godwin.” [72] Fast over the length and breadth of the land, went the bodes [73] and riders of the Earl; and hosts, with one voice, answered the cry of the children of Horsa, “Life or death with Earl Godwin.”  And the ships of King Edward, in dismay, turned flag and prow to London, and the fleet of Harold sailed on.  So the old Earl met his young son on the deck of a war-ship, that had once borne the Raven of the Dane.

Swelled and gathering sailed the armament of the English men.  Slow up the Thames it sailed, and on either shore marched tumultuous the swarming multitudes.  And King Edward sent after more help, but it came up very late.  So the fleet of the Earl nearly faced the Julliet Keape of London, and abode at Southwark till the flood-tide came up.  When he had mustered his host, then came the flood tide. [74]

CHAPTER II.

King Edward sate, not on his throne, but on a chair of state, in the presence-chamber of his palace of Westminster.  His diadem, with the three zimmes shaped into a triple trefoil [75] on his brow, his sceptre in his right hand.  His royal robe, tight to the throat, with a broad band of gold, flowed to his feet; and at the fold gathered round the left knee, where now the kings of England wear the badge of St. George, was embroidered a simple cross [76].  In that chamber met the thegns and proceres of his realm; but not they alone.  No national Witan there assembled, but a council of war, composed at least one third part of Normans—­counts, knights, prelates, and abbots of high degree.

And King Edward looked a king!  The habitual lethargic meekness had vanished from his face, and the large crown threw a shadow, like a frown, over his brow.  His spirit seemed to have risen from the weight it took from the sluggish blood of his father, Ethelred the Unready, and to have remounted to the brighter and earlier sources of ancestral heroes.  Worthy in that hour he seemed to boast the blood and wield the sceptre of Athelstan and Alfred. [77]

Thus spoke the King: 

“Right worthy and beloved, my ealdermen, earls, and thegns of England; noble and familiar, my friends and guests, counts and chevaliers of Normandy, my mother’s land; and you, our spiritual chiefs, above all ties of birth and country, Christendom your common appanage, and from Heaven your seignories and fiefs,—­hear the words of Edward, the King of England under grace of the Most High.  The rebels are in our river; open yonder lattice, and you will see the piled shields glittering from their barks, and hear the hum of their hosts.  Not a bow has yet been drawn, not a sword left its sheath; yet on the opposite side of the river are our fleets of forty sail—­along the strand, between our palace and the gates of London, are arrayed our armies.  And this pause because Godwin the traitor hath demanded truce and his nuncius waits without.  Are ye willing that we should hear the message? or would ye rather that we dismiss the messenger unheard, and pass at once, to rank and to sail, the war-cry of a Christian king, ’Holy Crosse and our Lady!’”