o little was really known, or cared to be accurately
known, of that great house which so nearly founded a new dynasty of
English kings.

[83] Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A. D. 1043. "Stigand was deposed from his
bishopric, and all that he possessed was seized into the King's hands,
because he was received to his mother's counsel, and she went just as he
advised her, as people thought." The saintly Confessor dealt with his
bishops as summarily as Henry VIII. could have done, after his quarrel
with the Pope.

[84] The title of Basileus was retained by our kings so late as the time
of John, who styled himself "Totius Insulae Britannicae
Basileus."--AGARD: On the Antiquity of Shires in England, op. Hearne,
Cur. Disc.

[85] Sharon Turner.

[86] See the Introduction to PALGRAVE's History of the Anglo-Saxons,
from which this description of the Witan is borrowed so largely, that I
am left without other apology for the plagiarism, than the frank
confession, that if I could have found in others, or conceived from my
own resources, a description half as graphic and half as accurate, I
would only have plagiarised to half the extent I have done.

[87] Girald. Gambrensis.

[88] Palgrave omits, I presume accidentally, these members of the Witan,
but it is clear from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that the London "lithsmen"
were represented in the great National Witans, and helped to decide the
election even of kings.

[89] By Athelstan's law, every man was to have peace going to and from
the Witan, unless he was a thief.--WILKINS, p. 187.

[90] Goda, Edward's sister, married first Rolf's father, Count of
Nantes; secondly, the Count of Boulogne.

[91] More correctly of Oxford, Somerset, Berkshire, Gloucester, and
Hereford.

[92] Yet how little safe it is for the great to despise the low-born.
This very Richard, son of Scrob, more euphoniously styled by the Normans
Richard Fitz-Scrob, settled in Herefordshire (he was probably among the
retainers of Earl Rolf), and on William's landing, became the chief and
most active supporter of the invader in those districts. The sentence of
banishment seems to have been mainly confined to the foreigners about the
Court--for it is clear that many Norman landowners and priests were still
left scattered throughout the country.

[93] SENECA, Thyest. Act ii.--"He is a king who fears nothing; that
kingdom every man gives to himself."

[94] Scin-laeca, literally a shining corpse; a spec