CHAPTER XXIX.
EDGAR ATHELING.
"Oh how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours!"
Shakespeare.
Sigurd, after the rebuff he had received at the hands of Oswald, sped him on his way to Scotland, aflame with a wrath which was about equally divided between Oswald and the Normans. He was accompanied by some half-dozen of his followers. And there, at the court of Malcolm of Scotland, he laid before the Prince Atheling his scheme for the recovery of the kingdom.
Now, Prince Edgar was a weak, voluptuous prince, who spent his days in dissipation, and surrounded by foreign parasites; but he was universally acknowledged to be the legitimate heir to the throne of England. Every one who knew him intimately had little hope of his ever winning it by force of arms, or of his worthily filling it, if it should ever be wrested from the grasp of the astute William. The Conqueror well knew the weakness of this princeling, and with consummate policy he kept him well supplied with money, knowing that if he had the means to gratify his vicious and effeminate disposition, he would not be easily moved to undertake any dangerous or arduous enterprise.
But the Atheling, like all weak and vacillating natures, could be false or fickle to his master William at very short notice. He was capable also, in a vain and feeble sort of way, of grasping at the English sceptre, for no better or nobler motive than the desire to gratify his childish vanity, and to further indulge his voluptuous and sensual habits.
There was nothing in common between the fierce and fiery descendant of the Vikings, Sigurd, and this weathercock of princely descent. Sigurd was as valorous and uncompromising as the Atheling was ease-loving and cowardly. Still, it was quite easy for this enthusiast to infuse into the Prince's mind most exaggerated ideas of the rally of the Saxons under Oswald, and to lead him to believe that the prospect of regaining the throne of England was easy of achievement. He also managed to fan into a flame the petty jealousies of which the prince was capable, by representing to him that Oswald was intent on asserting his own claims to the kingdom.
It was a matter of profound surprise to us, and not a little consternation also, when scarcely a month had elapsed from the date of Sigurd's expulsion from the camp, to find that Saxon runners everywhere throughout the kingdom were conveying the Prince's summons to all Saxon leaders, outlaws, and ecclesiastics, together with a certain number of freemen, and churls, who, according to Saxon laws, had the right to attend these parliaments, or witans, of the nation. The witan was summoned to meet in Lakesland, one of the wildest and most inaccessible parts of Northumbria. Oswald and I were summoned, and a number of those who owned Oswald's chieftainship.