into slavery. As to the wretched Prince
Alfred, he was stripped naked, tied to a horse,
and sent away into the Isle of Ely, where his
eyes were torn out of his head, and where,
in a few days, he miserably died. I am not
certain that the Earl had wilfully entrapped
him, but I suspect it very strongly.

Harold was now King all over England,
though it is doubtful whether the Archbishop
of Canterbury (the greater part of the priests
were Saxons, and not friendly to the Danes)
ever consented to crown him. Crowned or
uncrowned, with the Archbishop's leave or
without it, he was King for four years: after
which short reign he died, and was buried;
having never done much in life but go a
hunting. He was such a fast runner at this,
his favorite sport, that the people called him
Harold Harefoot.

Hardicanute was then at Bruges, in
Flanders, plotting, with his step-mother
Emma, (who had gone over there after the
cruel murder of Prince Alfred), for the invasion
of England. The Danes and Saxons
finding themselves without a King, and
dreading new disputes, made common cause,
and joined in inviting him to occupy the
Throne. He consented, and soon troubled
them enough, for he brought over numbers of
Danes, and taxed the people so insupportably,
to enrich those greedy favorites, that there
were many insurrections, especially one at
Worcester, where the citizens rose and killed
his tax-collectors; in revenge for which he
burned their city. He was a brutal King,
whose first public act was to order the dead
body of poor Harold Harefoot to be dug up,
beheaded, and thrown into the river. His
end was worthy of such a beginning. He
fell down drunk, with a goblet of wine in his
hand, at a wedding-feast at Lambeth, given
in honor of the marriage of his standard-
bearer, a Dane named TOWED THE PROUD.
And he never spoke again.

EDWARD, afterwards called by the, monks
THE CONFESSOR, succeeded; and his first act
was to oblige his mother Emma, who had favored
him so little, to retire into the country, where
she died some ten years afterwards. He was
the exiled prince whose brother Alfred had
been so foully killed. He had been invited
over from Normandy by Hardicanute, in the
course of his short reign of two years, and
had been handsomely treated at court. His
cause was now favored by the powerful Earl
Godwin, and he was soon made King. This
Earl had been suspected by the people, ever
since Prince Alfred's cruel death; he had
even been tried in the last reign for the
Prince's murder, but had been pronounced
not guilty—chiefly, as it was supposed, because
of a present he had made to the swinish
King, of a gilded ship with a figure-head of
solid gold, and a crew of eighty splendidly
armed men. It was his interest to help the
new King with his power, if the new King
would help him against the popular distrust
and hatred. So they made a bargain. Edward
the Confessor got the Throne. The Earl got
more power and more land, and his daughter
Editha was made queen; for it was a part of
their compact that the King should take her
for his wife.

But, although she was a gentle lady, in all
things worthy to be beloved—good, beautiful,
sensible, and kind—the King from the first
neglected her. Her father and her six
proud brothers, resenting this cold treatment,
harassed the King greatly, by exerting all their
power to make him unpopular. Having
lived so long in Normandy, he preferred the
Normans to the English. He made a Norman
Archbishop, and Norman Bishops; his great
officers and favorites were all Normans; he
introduced the Norman fashions and the
Norman language; in imitation of the state
custom of Normandy, he attached a great
seal to his state documents, instead of merely
marking them, as the Saxon Kings had done,
with the sign of the cross—just as poor
people who have never been taught to write,
now make the same mark for their names.
All this, the powerful Earl Godwin and his
six proud sons represented to the people, as
disfavor shown towards the English; and
thus they daily increased their own power,
and diminished the power of the King.

They were greatly helped by an event that
occurred when he had reigned eight years.
Eustace, Earl of Boulogne, who had married
the King's sister, came to England on a visit.
After staying at the court some time, he set
forth, with his numerous train of attendants,
to return home. They were to embark at
Dover. Entering that peaceful town in
armour, they took possession of the best
houses, and noisily demanded to be lodged
and entertained without payment. One of
the bold men of Dover, who would not endure
to have these domineering strangers jingling
their heavy swords and iron corslets up and
down his house, eating his meat, and drinking
his strong liquor, stood in his doorway and
refused admission to the first armed man who
came there. The armed man drew, and
wounded him. The man of Dover struck the
armed man dead. Intelligence of what he
had done, spreading through the streets to
where the Count Eustace and his men were
standing by their horses, bridle in hand, they
passionately mounted, galloped to the house,
surrounded it, forced their way in (the doors
and windows being closed when they came up),
and killed the man of Dover at his own fire-side.
They then clattered through the streets,
cutting down and riding over men, women,
and children. This did not last long, you
may believe. The men of Dover rose with great
fury, killed nineteen of the foreigners, wounded
many more, and blockading the road to the
port, so that they should not embark, beat
them out of the town by the way they had
come. Hereupon, Count Eustace rides as
hard as man can ride to Gloucester, where