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He had no power to leave the throne to whom he wished, and yet his words could not but have great weight; but he lay almost unconscious, and for two days remained speechless. But on the 5th of January, the year being 1066, he suddenly awoke from sleep, in the full possession of his senses. Harold was standing on one side of his bed, Archbishop Stigand at the other.
But still goodly was the array of Saxon mitres, with the harsh, hungry, but intelligent face of Stigand, Stigand the stout and the covetous; and the benign but firm features of Alred, true priest and true patriot, distinguished amidst all. Around each prelate, as stars round a sun, were his own special priestly retainers, selected from his diocese.
He was one of the five last Saxon Bishops; Stigand, who held both at once the primacy and the see of Winchester; his brother, Eghelmar, Bishop of Elmham; Eghelsie, of Selsey; and the Bishop of Durham, Eghelwin, who was in the Camp of Refuge.
Hither came the true Englishman Stigand, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, and after the conquest of the north, Egelwin, Bishop of Durham, who found both substantial entertainment at the board of Abbot Thurstan, abbot of the great monastery of Ely, and one of the stoutest patriots of the day.
They spent the whole of Lent in Wulstan's monastery; and when, at Easter, they returned to the court of Edward the Confessor, they recommended him for the Bishop to succeed Aldred; and Aldred himself, Archbishop Stigand, and Harold, all concurred in the same advice.
Of this truce King Eadward and his foreign advisers took advantage to collect an army, at the head of which they appeared in London. Godwine and his son Harold were summoned to the gemot, but refused to appear without a security for a safe conduct. The hostages and safe-conduct were refused. The refusal was announced by Bishop Stigand to the earl as he sat at his evening meal.
"By your leave, brother Alred," said Stigand, who, though from motives of policy he had aided those who besought the King not to peril his crown by resisting the return of Godwin, benefited too largely by the abuses of the Church to be sincerely espoused to the cause of the strong-minded Earl; "By your leave, brother Alred, to every leal heart is a ravenous mouth; and the treasures of the King are well-nigh drained in feeding these hungry and welcomeless visitors.
'Ugh! said the Lory, with a shiver. 'I beg your pardon! said the Mouse, frowning, but very politely: 'Did you speak? 'Not I! said the Lory hastily. 'I thought you did, said the Mouse. I proceed. "Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him: and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable " 'Found WHAT? said the Duck.
Norwich, a town dangerous from its easy communication with Denmark, was specially under his care. The nominal earls of the rest of the land, Edwin, Morkere, and Waltheof, with Edgar, King of a moment, Archbishop Stigand, and a number of other chief men, William took with him to Normandy.
His conspicuous abilities raised him to the position of prior of the monastery. He was subsequently abbot of the new monastery which William of Normandy founded at Caen, and on the deposition of Stigand was called over by that king to complete the subjection and reform of the Anglo-Saxon Church, which task he undertook with much zeal and not a little high-handed procedure.
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