rtuous Leofric, of the famous
Siward; it had a numerous party even in East Anglia (in which earldom
Algar had succeeded Harold); it comprised nearly all the thegns in Mercia
(the heart of the country) and the population of Northumbria; and it
involved in its wide range the terrible Welch on the one hand, and the
Scottish domain of the sub-king Malcolm, himself a Cumbrian, on the
other, despite Malcolm's personal predilections for Tostig, to whom he
was strongly attached. But then the chiefs of this party, while at
present they stood aloof, were all, with the exception perhaps of the
young earls themselves, disposed, on the slightest encouragement, to
blend their suffrage with the friends of Harold; and his praise was as
loud on their lips as on those of the Saxons from Kent, or the burghers
from London. All factions, in short, were willing, in this momentous
crisis, to lay aside old dissensions; it depended upon the conciliation
of the Northumbrians, upon a fusion between the friends of Harold and the
supporters of the young sons of Algar, to form such a concurrence of
interests as must inevitably bear Harold to the throne of the empire.

Meanwhile, the Earl himself wisely and patriotically deemed it right to
remain neuter in the approaching decision between Tostig and the young
earls. He could not be so unjust and so mad as to urge to the utmost
(and risk in the urging) his party influence on the side of oppression
and injustice, solely for the sake of his brother; nor, on the other, was
it decorous or natural to take part himself against Tostig; nor could he,
as a statesman, contemplate without anxiety and alarm the transfer of so
large a portion of the realm to the vice-kingship of the sons of his old
foe--rivals to his power, at the very time when, even for the sake of
England alone, that power should be the most solid and compact.

But the final greatness of a fortunate man is rarely made by any violent
effort of his own. He has sown the seeds in the time foregone, and the
ripe time brings up the harvest. His fate seems taken out of his own
control: greatness seems thrust upon him. He has made himself, as it
were, a want to the nation, a thing necessary to it; he has identified
himself with his age, and in the wreath or the crown on his brow, the age
itself seems to put forth its flower.

Tostig, lodging apart from Harold in a fort near the gate of Oxford, took
slight pains to conciliate foes or make friends