efore
have the links between province and province been drawn so close, hath
yet demarcations that make the people selfish. The Northumbrians, I
fear, will not stir to aid London, and Mercia will hold aloof from our
peril. Grant that William once seize London, all England is broken up
and dispirited; each shire, nay, each town, looking only to itself. Talk
of delay as wearing out the strength of the foe! No, it would wear out
our own. Little eno', I fear, is yet left in our treasury. If William
seize London, that treasury is his, with all the wealth of our burgesses.
How should we maintain an army, except by preying on the people, and thus
discontenting them? Where guard that army? Where are our forts? where
our mountains? The war of delay suits only a land of rock and defile, or
of castle and breast-work. Thegns and warriors, ye have no castles but
your breasts of mail. Abandon these, and you are lost."

A general murmur of applause closed this speech of Haco, which, while
wise in arguments our historians have overlooked, came home to that
noblest reason of brave men, which urges prompt resistance to foul
invasion.

Up, then, rose King Harold.

"I thank you, fellow-Englishmen, for that applause with which ye have
greeted mine own thoughts on the lips of Haco. Shall it be said that
your King rushed to chase his own brother from the soil of outraged
England, yet shrunk from the sword of the Norman stranger? Well indeed
might my brave subjects desert my banner if it floated idly over these
palace walls while the armed invader pitched his camp in the heart of
England. By delay, William's force, whatever it might be, cannot grow
less; his cause grows more strong in our craven fears. What his armament
may be we rightly know not; the report varies with every messenger,
swelling and lessening with the rumours of every hour. Have we not
around us now our most stalwart veterans--the flower of our armies--the
most eager spirits--the vanquishers of Hardrada? Thou sayest, Gurth,
that all should not be perilled on a single battle. True. Harold should
be perilled, but wherefore England? Grant that we win the day; the
quicker our despatch, the greater our fame, the more lasting that peace
at home and abroad which rests ever its best foundation on the sense of
the power which wrong cannot provoke unchastised. Grant that we lose; a
loss can be made gain by a king's brave death. Why should not our
example rouse and u