ion of
Eadward in 1042, although the actual subjugation of England by force of
arms was still twenty-four years distant. The thought of another Danish
king was now hateful. "All folk chose Eadward to King." As the son of
AEthelred and Emma, the brother of the murdered and half-canonised
Alfred, he had long been-familiar to English imaginations. Eadward, and
Eadward alone, stood forth as the heir of English royalty, the
representative of English nationality. In his behalf the popular voice
spoke out at once, and unmistakably. His popular election took place in
June, immediately on the death of Harthacnut, and even before his
burial. Eadward, then, was king, and he reigned as every English king
before him had reigned, by that union of popular election and royal
descent which formed the essence of all ancient Teutonic kingship. He
was crowned at Winchester, April 3, 1043. But by virtue of his peculiar
character, his natural place was not on the throne of England, but at
the head of a Norman abbey, for all his best qualities were those of a
monk. Like him father, he was constantly under the dominion of
favourites.

It was to the evil choice of his favourites during the early part of his
reign that most of the misfortunes of his time were owing, and that a
still more direct path was opened for the ambition of his Norman
kinsman. In the latter part of his reign, either by happy accident or
returning good sense, led him to a better choice. Without a guide he
could not reign, but the good fortune of his later years gave him the
wisest and noblest of all guides.

We have now reached the first appearance of the illustrious man round
whom the main interest of this history will henceforth centre. The
second son of Godwine lived to be the last of our kings, the hero and
martyr of our native freedom. The few recorded actions of Harold, Earl
of the East Angles, could hardly have enabled me to look forward to the
glorious career of Harold, Earl of the West Saxons, King of the English.

Tall in stature, beautiful in countenance, of a bodily strength whose
memory still lives in the rude pictorial art of his time, he was
foremost alike in the active courage and in the passive endurance of the
warrior. It is plain that in him, no less than in his more successful,
and, therefore, more famous, rival, we have to admire not only the mere
animal courage, but that true skill of the leader of armies which would
have placed both Harold and Will