Vain as a woman, while fierce as a tiger, Tostig assented, and in that assembly he rose, his gonna all blazing with crimson and gold, his hair all curled and perfumed as for a banquet; and such, in a half-barbarous day, the effect of person, especially when backed by warlike renown, that the Proceres were half disposed to forget, in admiration of the earl’s surpassing beauty of form, the dark tales of his hideous guilt. But his passions hurrying him away ere he had gained the middle of his discourse, so did his own relation condemn himself, so clear became his own tyrannous misdeeds, that the Englishmen murmured aloud their disgust, and their impatience would not suffer him to close.
“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.”
“Take treasure and ship, and go to Baldwin in Flanders,” said Thorold, a great Anglo-Dane from Lincolnshire, “for even Harold’s name can scarce save thee from outlawry.”
Tostig glared round on the assembly, and met but one common expression in the face of all.
“These are thy henchmen, Harold!” he said through his gnashing teeth, without vouchsafing farther word, strode from the council-hall.
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. Harold repaired to Oxford, where the King (persuaded to the journey by Alred, foreseeing what would come to pass) had just arrived.
CHAPTER VI.
The Witan was summoned in haste. Thither came the young earls Morcar and Edwin, but Caradoc, chafing at the thought of peace, retired into Wales with his wild band.