Wulf the Saxon | Page 6

been somewhat weaned from his Norman predilections, and had
placed himself unreservedly in Harold's hands, giving to the latter all
real power while he confined himself to the discharge of religious
exercises, and to the supervision of the building of his abbey, varied
occasionally by hunting expeditions, for he still retained a passionate
love of the chase; but men knew that the warlike Duke of Normandy
would not be likely to forget the promise, and that trouble might come
to England from over the sea.
Harold, then, they not only regarded as their present ruler, but as their
future king, and as the national leader and champion. Edward had no
children. The royal house was extinct save for Edward the Atheling,
who, like the present king, had lived all his life abroad, and could have
no sympathy with Englishmen. There being, then, no one of the royal
house available, who but Harold, the head of the great house of Godwin,
the earl of the West Saxons, the virtual ruler of England, could be

chosen? The English kings, although generally selected from the royal
house, ruled rather by the election of the people as declared by their
representatives in the Witan than by their hereditary right. The prince
next in succession by blood might, at the death of the sovereign, be
called king, but he was not really a monarch until elected by the Witan
and formally consecrated.
It had been nine months after he had been acclaimed to the throne by
the people of London that King Edward had been elected king by the
Witan, and formally enthroned. Thus, then, the fact that Harold did not
belong to the royal family mattered but little in the eyes of Englishmen.
To them belonged the right of choosing their own monarch, and if they
chose him, who was to say them nay?
Wulf felt uncomfortable as he followed the stately figure into the inner
room, but he faced the Earl as the door closed behind him with as
fearless a look as that with which he had stood before the haughty
prelate of London. A slight smile played upon Harold's face as he
looked down upon the boy.
"You are a troublesome varlet, Wulf, and the Lord Bishop has been
making serious complaint of you to the king. He says that you brawled
with his page, Walter Fitz-Urse; that you used insolent words against
his countrymen; and that you even withstood himself. What have you
to say to this?"
"The brawling was on the part of the bishop's page and not of mine, my
lord. I was running out to carry the message with which you charged
me to Ernulf of Dover when I ran against Fitz-Urse. That was not my
fault, but a pure mischance, nevertheless I expressed my regret in
fitting terms. Instead of accepting them, he spoke insolently, talked of
chastising me, and put his hand on the hilt of his dagger. Then, my lord,
I grew angry too. Why should I, the page of Earl Harold, submit to be
thus contemptuously spoken to by this young Norman, who is but the
page of an upstart bishop, and whom, if your lordship will give
permission, I would right willingly fight, with swords or any other
weapons. Doubtless, in my anger, I did not speak respectfully of
Walter's countrymen, and for this I am sorry, since it has been the

ground of complaint and of trouble to you."
"In fact, Wulf, you spoke as a quarrelsome boy and not as the page of
one who has the cares of this kingdom on his shoulders, and whose
great desire is to keep peace between all parties," the earl put in
gravely.
For the first time Wulf hung his head:
"I was wrong, my lord."
"You were wrong, Wulf; it is not good always to say what we think;
and you, as my page, should bear in mind that here at court it behoves
you to behave and to speak not as a headstrong boy, but as one whose
words may, rightly or wrongly, be considered as an echo of those you
may have heard from me. And now to the third charge, that you
withstood the prelate; a matter that, in the king's eyes, is a very serious
one."
"The bishop would give ear to nought I had to say. He listened to his
own page's account and not to mine, and when I said in my defence that
though I did use the words about the Normans, I did so merely as one
boy quarrelling with the other, he said I ought to have my ears slit.
Surely, my lord, a free-born thane is not to be spoken to even by a
Norman bishop as if he were a Norman serf. I