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Updated: May 4, 2025
"You forget that when the last invasion of our pagan foes was over, it was agreed in the Witan that a set of beacons should be prepared, in readiness to fire, on the tops of the hills, and that if the Danes appeared again, they should be fired everywhere, in which case Mercia was to hold herself in readiness to come to the aid of Wessex or East Anglia, whichever the foe might be harrying."
So the time went quickly for me, but to Olaf the waiting seemed long before Eadmund rode back from Rouen. And with him came those thanes and his half-brother Eadward, but Ethelred himself was not with them. He would not go to England, fearing treachery as it seemed; but Eadward was to go over and meet the witan and speak with them. Yet the thanes said that without the king no force would move.
But in this case more than in others, the advice of the Witan could not fail to become formal; the folkland, ever growing through confiscations, ever lessening through grants, gradually came to be looked on as the land of the King, to be dealt with as he thought good.
"Speak on, father," said Harold, turning somewhat pale at the solemnity of the address; "I am ready, if the council so desire, to remain a subject, and aid in the choice of a worthier king." "Thou divinest me ill," answered Alred; "I do not call on thee to lay aside the crown, but to crucify the heart. The decree of the Witan assigns Mercia and Northumbria to the sons of Algar.
They were numerous in London: in the precincts of which they had their own burial-place, to the chief municipal court of which they gave their own appellation the Hustings . Their power in the national assembly of the Witan had decided the choice of kings.
On his deathbed Edward did all that he legally could do on behalf of Harold by recommending him to the Witan for election as the next king. That he then either made a new or renewed an old nomination in favour of William is a fable which is set aside by the witness of the contemporary English writers.
Thus their cries anticipated the decision of the Witan, and without all was noise and clamour; while within the sacred fane the ashes of him who had so lately ruled England rested in peace by the side of his royal father Edward, the son of Alfred, three of whose sons Athelstane, Edmund, Edred had now reigned in succession. It must not be supposed that Edwy was as yet king by the law of the land.
"Why, thou knowest at least that Algar and Harold were ever opposed in the Witan, and hot words thou hast heard pass between them!" "Marry, yes! But Algar was as little match for Earl Harold in speech as in sword play."
Alred and Stigand, the two great prelates of the realm, had conducted Harold to the church , and up the aisle to the altar, followed by the chiefs of the Witan in their long robes; and the clergy with their abbots and bishops sung the anthems "Fermetur manus tua," and "Gloria Patri."
Yet not powerless were they, but rather to the Witan what public opinion is to the Witan's successor, our modern parliament: they were opinion! And according to their numbers and their sentiments, easily known and boldly murmured, often and often must that august court of basileus and prelate, vassal-king and mighty earl, have shaped the council and adjudged the doom.
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