own favourite chiefs waving in the van of armed men,
that sallied forth from the towers of Dover (the key of the coast) he
turned to the Lombard, still by his side, and said:

"Is not England part of Normandy already?"

And the Lombard answered:

"The fruit is well nigh ripe, and the first breeze will shake it to thy
feet. Put not out thy hand too soon. Let the wind do its work."

And the Duke made reply:

"As thou thinkest, so think I. And there is but one wind in the halls of
heaven that can waft the fruit to the feet of another."

"And that?" asked the Lombard.

"Is the wind that blows from the shores of Ireland, when it fills the
sails of Harold, son of Godwin."

"Thou fearest that man, and why?" asked the Lombard with interest.

And the Duke answered:

"Because in the breast of Harold beats the heart of England."

BOOK III.
THE HOUSE OF GODWIN.

CHAPTER I.

And all went to the desire of Duke William the Norman. With one hand he
curbed his proud vassals, and drove back his fierce foes. With the
other, he led to the altar Matilda, the maid of Flanders; and all
happened as Lanfranc had foretold. William's most formidable enemy, the
King of France, ceased to conspire against his new kinsman; and the
neighbouring princes said, "The Bastard hath become one of us since he
placed by his side the descendant of Charlemagne." And Mauger,
Archbishop of Rouen, excommunicated the Duke and his bride, and the ban
fell idle; for Lanfranc sent from Rome the Pope's dispensation and
blessing [69], conditionally only that bride and bridegroom founded each
a church. And Mauger was summoned before the synod, and accused of
unclerical crimes; and they deposed him from his state, and took from him
abbacies and sees. And England every day waxed more and more Norman; and
Edward grew more feeble and infirm, and there seemed not a barrier
between the Norman Duke and the English throne, when suddenly the wind
blew in the halls of heaven, and filled the sails of Harold the Earl.

And his ships came to the mouth of the Severn. And the people of
Somerset and Devon, a mixed and mainly a Celtic race, who bore small love
to the Saxons, drew together against him, and he put them to flight. [70]

Meanwhile, Godwin and his sons Sweyn, Tostig, and Gurth, who had taken
refuge in that very Flanders from which William the Duke had won his
bride,--(for Tostig had wed, previously, the sister of Matilda, the rose
of Fl