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Now I have to tell of a strange thing that happened in the night that was just past, the first that the Lady Goldberga had spent here in Lincoln for many a year, for on that happening hangs a great deal, and it will make clear what I myself saw presently at the breaking-up feast of the Witan.
After the death of Canute, the Saxon's predilections in favour of the Saxon line became apparent; but it was either his policy or his principles always to defer to the popular will as expressed in the national council; and on the preference given by the Witan to Harold the son of Canute over the heirs of Ethelred, he yielded his own inclinations.
"Ahoi! Martin the silent! Where learnt you so suddenly the trade of preaching? I thought you kept your wind for your running this two years past. You would make as good a talker among the Witan as Godwin himself. You give it us all, word for word, and voice and gesture withal, as if you were King Edward's French Chancellor." Martin smiled.
The Northern earls had hurried to London as soon as they heard of the defeat at Senlac and the death of the king and his brothers, and a Witan was instantly summoned to choose his successor to the throne. Edwin and Morcar thought that the choice of the nation would surely fall upon one or other of them, as in rank and position they were now the first men in the realm.
Every hour of delay damps the ardour. Are we sure that it will swell the numbers? What I dread most is not the sword of the Norman Duke, it is his craft. Rely upon it, that if we meet him not soon, he will march straight to London. He will proclaim by the way that he comes not to seize the throne, but to punish Harold, and abide by the Witan, or, perchance, by the word of the Roman pontiff.
"Sacrilege! is a churchman's blood redder than that of layman, and is he not doomed as a traitor by a judgment as righteous as ever English law pronounced! did he not keep Edwy from his throne during the lifetime of the usurper Edred!" "That was the sentence of the Witan, and you served Edred."
They have broken the peace, and even now are marching on us. Your leader, Osmund himself, has seen them." "It is true," Osmund said. "We are in the king's hands." Then Alfred turned to the Witan, who were in disorder, and in haste, as one might see, to be gone to their houses and fly. "You heard the Danish oath taken at Exeter; what is your word on this?" They answered in one voice: "Slay them.
That evening he left the town and hurried to tell to Edward the tale that had so miscarried with the chiefs. The next day, the Northumbrian delegates were heard; and they made the customary proposition in those cases of civil differences, to refer all matters to the King and the Witan; each party remaining under arms meanwhile. This was finally acceded to. The Witan was summoned in haste.
The members of the Witan were still there, for the assembly had not separated, but knowing that the king was dying had waited for the event. The earls and great thanes of the South and West, of East Anglia and Wessex, were all there together, probably with many from Mercia. There was no time lost. In the afternoon they assembled.
The shorter one, that made at the capitulation, runs as follows: "ALFRED AND GUTHRUM'S PEACE. This is the peace that King Alfred and King Guthrum, and the witan of all the English nation, and all the people that are in East Anglia have all ordained, and with oaths confirmed, for themselves and their descendants, as well for born as unborn, who reck of God's mercy or of ours.
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