CHAPTER III.
No subject of England, since the race of Cerdic sate on the throne, ever entered the courtyard of Windshore with such train and such state as Earl Godwin.—Proud of that first occasion, since his return, to do homage to him with whose cause that of England against the stranger was bound, all truly English at heart amongst the thegns of the land swelled his retinue. Whether Saxon or Dane, those who alike loved the laws and the soil, came from north and from south to the peaceful banner of the old Earl. But most of these were of the past generation, for the rising race were still dazzled by the pomp of the Norman; and the fashion of English manners, and the pride in English deeds, had gone out of date with long locks and bearded chins. Nor there were the bishops and abbots and the lords of the Church,—for dear to them already the fame of the Norman piety, and they shared the distaste of their holy King to the strong sense and homely religion of Godwin, who founded no convents, and rode to war with no relics round his neck. But they with Godwin were the stout and the frank and the free, in whom rested the pith and marrow of English manhood; and they who were against him were the blind and willing and fated fathers of slaves unborn.
Not then the stately castle we now behold, which is of the masonry of a prouder race, nor on the same site, but two miles distant on the winding of the river shore (whence it took its name), a rude building partly of timber and partly of Roman brick, adjoining a large monastery and surrounded by a small hamlet, constituted the palace of the saint-king.
So rode the Earl and his four fair sons, all abreast, into the courtyard of Windshore [127]. Now when King Edward heard the tramp of the steeds and the hum of the multitudes, as he sate in his closet with his abbots and priests, all in still contemplation of the thumb of St. Jude, the King asked:
“What army, in the day of peace, and the time of Easter, enters the gates of our palace?”
Then an abbot rose and looked out of the narrow window, and said with a groan:
“Army thou mayst well call it, O King!—and foes to us and to thee head the legions——”
“Inprinis,” quoth our abbot the scholar; “thou speakest, I trow, of the wicked Earl and his sons.”
The King’s face changed. “Come they,” said he, “with so large a train? This smells more of vaunt than of loyalty; naught—very naught.”