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Updated: May 4, 2025
Are these things nought, or are they indeed those by which you guide yourselves, as Neot says?" He was silent, gazing fixedly on me; and all the Witan were speechless, listening. "These men are enemies maybe, but they at least have done nought. Shall you avenge yourself on them for the wrongdoing of others?"
No national Witan there assembled, but a council of war, composed at least one third part of Normans counts, knights, prelates, and abbots of high degree. And King Edward looked a king! The habitual lethargic meekness had vanished from his face, and the large crown threw a shadow, like a frown, over his brow.
Now after the host was gone we went back to Taunton, and there Alfred called together his Witan, that he might set all things in order with their help; and at that time, before the levies were dismissed, he bade me seek out such men as would take to the ships as his paid seamen.
Very rich garments had the nurse, but Goldberga was dressed in some plain robe of white that shone when the light caught it. Mostly I do not see these things, but now I wished that she always wore that same. As for Alsi, he had on his finest gear, even as at the great feast of the Witan crimson cloak, fur-lined, and dark-green hose, gold-gartered across, and white and gold tunic.
"Harold," he said, "thou succeedest to thy father's power: let thy father's foes be thy friends. Wake from thy grief, for thy country now demands thee, the honour of thy House, and the memory of the dead. Many even now plot against thee and thine. Seek the King, demand as thy right thy father's earldom, and Leofric will back thy claim in the Witan."
"What thou offerest," said the Earl, fortifying himself with the resolution of the previous night, and compressing his lips, livid with rage, "is beyond my deserts, and all that the greatest chief under royalty could desire. But England is not Edward's to leave, nor mine to give: its throne rests with the Witan." "And the Witan rests with thee," exclaimed William sharply.
Edred had already ascended, while Edwy, the son of his elder brother, was an infant, not as regent, but as king; and in any case of unfitness on the part of the heir apparent, it was in the power of the Witan to pass him over, and to choose for the public good some other member of the royal house. The same Witan conferred upon Edgar the title of sub-king of Mercia under his brother.
"And the great earls and thanes are likewise of that opinion?" "Assuredly in Anglia and Wessex they are so. I know not the minds of Earls Morcar and Edwin, but they were at the Witan and stood by his side at the coronation, and doubtless felt that they could not rely upon their own people if they attempted any open opposition to Harold." "And you will support this usurper against me, Wulf?"
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.
"Enough," cried Vebba, the blunt thegn from Saxon Kent; "it is plain that neither King nor Witan can replace thee in thine earldom. Tell us not farther of these atrocities; or by're Lady, if the Northumbrians had chased thee not, we would."
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