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Updated: May 11, 2025
"My son," said the prelate kindly, "these are the things of childhood childhood ends sooner with princes than with common men. Leave thy lure and thy toys, and welcome these noble thegns, and address them, so please you, in our own Saxon tongue." "Saxon tongue! language of villeins! not I. Little do I know of it, save to scold a ceorl or a nurse.
They first hurled their javelins, and then took to the weapons of close combat. Among these the Danish axe, brought in by Cnut, had nearly displaced the older English broadsword. Such was the array of the housecarls and of the thegns who had followed Harold from York or joined him on his march.
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.
With your ears will I hear, with your eyes will I see; as ye judge, will judge I," said Harold, drawing the prelate towards the thegns, so that they might hear his answer. The chiefs, who belonged to a party that had often opposed Godwin's House, had exchanged looks of fear and trouble when Harold entered; but at his words their frank faces showed equal surprise and pleasure.
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.
I wish, therefore, to send to their outposts a nuncius, with these terms: 'Life and pardon to all who lay down arms and surrender." "What, after such havoc and gore?" cried one of the thegns. "They defend their own soil," replied the Earl simply: "had not we done the same?" "But the rebel Gryffyth?" asked the old thegn, "thou canst not accept him again as crowned sub-king of Edward?"
Gurth had ridden forth to meet his brother, and Leofwine and Tostig had gone over to Southwark, to try their band-dogs on the great bear, which had been brought from the north a few days before, and was said to have hugged many good hounds to death, and a large train of thegns and house-carles had gone with them to see the sport; so that the old Earl and his lady the Dane sate alone.
Peter hallows yon armies to the service of Heaven. March on, then: ye march as the Assyrian; and the angel of the Lord awaits ye on the way!" At these words, which for the first time apprised the English leaders that their king and kingdom were under the awful ban of excommunication, the thegns and abbots gazed on each other aghast.
All within the palace of Westminster showed the confusion and dismay of the awful time; all, at least, save the council-chamber, in which Harold, who had arrived the night before, conferred with his 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.
The rude and homely manner in which the greater part of the Saxon thegns lived dependent solely for their subsistence on their herds and agricultural produce, and therefore on the labour of their peasants not only made the distinctions of rank less harsh and visible, but rendered it the interest of the lords to feed and clothe well their dependents.
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