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Updated: May 14, 2025
Then would I have joined the outlaws again. But in my place they had set up one Tostig, a sturdy rogue and foul, who ruleth by might of arm and liveth but for plunder and worse. Him I would have fought, but upon that night I fell in with thee. Thus, see you, though I am free of the wild, power with these outlaws have I none.
Among the first to hurry to the court of William, as soon as Harold's accession to the throne was known, was Tostig, in whose mind the refusal of Harold to embark in a civil war for his sake, and to force him upon the people of Northumbria in spite of their detestation of him, was an injury not to be forgiven.
Had one of them been chosen to sit on the vacant throne they would doubtless have done their best to maintain that throne, but they had been passed over, and oblivious of the fact that it was to the South they owed the rescue of their earldoms from the sway of the King of Norway and Tostig, they sullenly marched away with their army and left the South to its fate.
Trouble also arose with Tostig, the king's brother, and his Norwegian ally, Hardrada, but the king defeated the allied forces at Stamford Bridge, near York, where both of these misguided leaders bit the dust. Previous to the battle there was a brief parley, and the king told Tostig the best he could do with him. "And what can you give my ally, Hardrada?" queried the astute Tostig.
Meanwhile, the Earl himself wisely and patriotically deemed it right to remain neuter in the approaching decision between Tostig and the young earls. But the final greatness of a fortunate man is rarely made by any violent effort of his own. He has sown the seeds in the time foregone, and the ripe time brings up the harvest.
Add to this, that despite their present reconciliation, Harold could never long count upon amity with Tostig: and Tostig's connection with William, through their marriages into the House of Baldwin, was full of danger to a new throne, to which Tostig would probably be the most turbulent subject: the influence of this connection how desirable to counteract!
For Tostig, smiling no more, stood agape as one that doubts his senses, then laughed he loud and long, and turned as if to reach his sword that leaned against the tree and, in that instant, sprang straight for Beltane's throat, his griping hands outstretched; but swift as he, Beltane, letting fall his axe, slipped aside and smote with mailed fist, and as Tostig reeled from the blow, closed with and caught him in a deadly wrestling hold, for all men might see Beltane had locked one arm 'neath Tostig's bearded chin and that Tostig's shaggy head was bending slowly backwards.
Under the canopy of state were placed but two chairs, for the King and the Queen's father; and the four sons, Harold, Tostig, Leofwine, and Gurth, stood behind.
"Inprinis!" quoth the abbot, puffing out the word with great scorn; "thinkest thou, son of Mammon, that our good King sets his pious heart on gew-gaw, and gems, and such vanities? Thou shouldst take the goods to Count Baldwin of Flanders; or Tostig, the proud Earl's proud son."
Yet what I have told from the time when I was baptized in the mead-pot of Tostig Lodbrog I have been compelled to tell in order that you may understand what manner of man rode in through the Jaffa Gate and drew all eyes upon him. Well might they look. They were small breeds, lighter-boned and lighter- thewed, these Romans and Jews, and a blonde like me they had never gazed upon.
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