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Updated: June 24, 2025
But still goodly was the array of Saxon mitres, with the harsh, hungry, but intelligent face of Stigand, Stigand the stout and the covetous; and the benign but firm features of Alred, true priest and true patriot, distinguished amidst all. Around each prelate, as stars round a sun, were his own special priestly retainers, selected from his diocese.
At the foot stood Harold; on one side knelt Edith, the King's lady; at the other Alred; while Stigand stood near the holy rood in his hand and the abbot of the new monastery of Westminster by Stigand's side; and all the greatest thegns, including Morcar and Edwin, Gurth and Leofwine, all the more illustrious prelates and abbots, stood also on the dais.
Scarcely had Alred resumed his seat, before Robert the Norman prelate of Canterbury started up, a man, it was said, of worldly learning and exclaimed: "To admit the messenger is to approve the treason. I do beseech the King to consult only his own royal heart and royal honour.
You, as Tostig's brother, have done well to abstain from active interference; you do well to leave it to us to negotiate the necessary alliance between all brave and good men." "And to that end, as imperative for the public weal, you consent," said Alred, thoughtfully, "to abide by our advice, whatever it be?" "Whatever it be, so that it serve England," answered the Earl.
For Harold, mild and conciliating, was, like Alred, a great peacemaker, and Edward had never cause to complain of him, as he believed he had of the rest of that haughty house.
Alred sighed; and said, "For the Earl and his sons, this is honour; but the other earls, and the thegns, will miss at the banquet him whom they design but to honour, and " "I have said," interrupted Edward, drily, and with a look of fatigue.
When Alred approached the Atheling, with a blending of reverent obeisance and paternal cordiality, the boy carelessly cried, in a barbarous jargon, half German, half Norman-French: "There, come not too near, you scare my hawk. What are you doing? You trample my toys, which the good Norman bishop William sent me as a gift from the Duke. Art thou blind, man?"
"Fear not for me, my fathers; humble as I am, I am strong in the faith of heaven and its angels." The Churchmen looked at each other, sly yet abashed; it was not precisely for the King that they feared. Then spoke Alred, the good prelate and constant peacemaker fair column and lone one of the fast-crumbling Saxon Church.
"Aid me, Gurth," cried Alred, "thou, sinless and spotless; thou, in whose voice a brother's love can blend with a Christian's zeal; aid me, Gurth, to melt the stubborn, but to comfort the human, heart." Then Gurth, with a strong effort over himself, knelt by Harold's side, and in strong simple language, backed the representations of the priest.
The eyes of the priests then turned to Alred, and to them the prelate spoke as he had done before to Harold; he distinguished between the oath and its fulfilment between the lesser sin and the greater the one which the Church could absolve the one which no Church had the right to exact, and which, if fulfilled, no penance could expiate.
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