king him an
ecclesiastic, his mother set herself to inspire him with a noble ideal
of knighthood, but his wildness and recklessness increased with his
years, and often his mother had to stand between the riotous lad and
his father's deserved anger.

His Strength and Leadership

When he reached the age of sixteen or seventeen he became the terror
of the Fen Country, for at his father's Hall of Bourne he gathered a
band of youths as wild and reckless as himself, who accepted him for
their leader, and obeyed him implicitly, however outrageous were his
commands. The wise Earl Leofric, who was much at court with the
saintly king, understood little of the nature of his second son, and
looked upon his wild deeds as evidence of a cruel and lawless mind, a
menace to the peace of England, while they were in reality but the
tokens of a restless energy for which the comparatively peaceable life
of England at that time was all too dull and tame.

Leofric and Hereward

Frequent were the disputes between father and son, and sadly did Lady
Godiva forebode an evil ending to the clash of warring natures
whenever Hereward and his father met; yet she could do nothing to
avert disaster, for though her entreaties would soften the lad into
penitence for some mad prank or reckless outrage, one hint of cold
blame from his father would suffice to make him hardened and
impenitent; and so things drifted from bad to worse. In all Hereward's
lawless deeds, however, there was no meanness or crafty malice. He
hated monks and played many a rough trick upon them, but took his
punishment, when it came, with equable cheerfulness; he robbed
merchants with a high hand, but made reparation liberally, counting
himself well satisfied with the fun of a fight or the skill of a
clever trick; his band of youths met and fought other bands, but they
bore no malice when the strife was over. In one point only was
Hereward less than true to his own nobility of character--he was
jealous of admitting that any man was his superior in strength or
comeliness, and his vanity was well supported by his extraordinary
might and beauty.

Hereward at Court

The deeds which brought Earl Leofric's wrath upon his son in a
terrible fashion were not matters of wanton wickedness, but of lawless
personal violence. Called to attend his father to the Confessor's
court, the youth, who had little respect for one so unwarlike as "the
miracle-monger," uttered his contempt for sa