n, I answer thee thus," said Hugues
Maigrot. "First, again he offers thee all Northumbria, up to the realm
of the Scottish sub-king, if thou wilt fulfil thy vow, and cede him the
crown."

"Already have I answered,--the crown is not mine to give; and my people
stand round me in arms to defend the king of their choice. What next?"

"Next, offers William to withdraw his troops from the land, if thou and
thy council and chiefs will submit to the arbitrement of our most holy
Pontiff, Alexander the Second, and, abide by his decision whether thou or
my liege have the best right to the throne."

"This, as Churchman," said the Abbot of the great Convent of Peterboro',
(who, with the Abbot of Hide, had joined the march of Harold, deeming as
one the cause of altar and throne), "this as Churchman, may I take leave
to answer. Never yet hath it been heard in England, that the spiritual
suzerain of Rome should give us our kings."

"And," said Harold, with a bitter smile, "the Pope hath already summoned
me to this trial, as if the laws of England were kept in the rolls of the
Vatican! Already, if rightly informed, the Pope hath been pleased to
decide that our Saxon land is the Norman's. I reject a judge without a
right to decide; and I mock at a sentence that profanes heaven in its
insult to men. Is this all?"

"One last offer yet remains," replied the monk sternly. "This knight
shall deliver its import. But ere I depart, and thou and thine are
rendered up to Vengeance Divine, I speak the words of a mightier chief
than William of Rouen. Thus saith his Holiness, with whom rests the
power to bind and to loose, to bless and to curse: 'Harold, the Perjurer,
thou art accursed! On thee and on all who lift hand in thy cause, rests
the interdict of the Church. Thou art excommunicated from the family of
Christ. On thy land, with its peers and its people, yea, to the beast in
the field and the bird in the air, to the seed as the sower, the harvest
as the reaper, rests God's anathema! The bull of the Vatican is in the
tent of the Norman; the gonfanon of St. Peter hallows yon armies to the
service of Heaven. March on, then: ye march as the Assyrian; and the
angel of the Lord awaits ye on the way!'"

At these words, which for the first time apprised the English leaders
that their king and kingdom were under the awful ban of excommunication,
the thegns and abbots gazed on each other aghast. A visible shudder
passed over the whole w