Page:The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Giles).djvu/155

A.D. 1005, 1066. in exile dwelt wide o'er the earth, since Canute o'ercame the race of Ethelred, and Danes wielded the dear realm of Angle-land, eight-and-twenty of winters numbered, wealth dispensed. After forth-came, in vestments lordly, king with the chosen good, chaste and mild, Edward the noble: the realm he guarded, land and people, until suddenly came death the bitter, and so dear a one seized This noble, from earth angels carried, stedfast soul, into heaven's light. And the sage ne'ertheless, the realm committed to a highly-born man, Harold's self, the noble earl! He in all time obeyed faithfully his rightful lord by words and deeds, nor aught neglected which needful was to his sovereign-king.

And this year also was Harold consecrated king; and he with little quiet abode therein, the while that he wielded the realm.

A. 1065. And the man-slaying was on St. Bartholomew's mass-day. And then, after Michael's-mass, all the thanes in Yorkshire went to York, and there slew all earl Tosty's household servants whom they might hear of, and took his treasures: and Tosty was then at Britford with the king. And then, very soon thereafter, was a great council at Northampton; and then at Oxford on the day of Simon and Jude. And there was Harold the earl, and would work their reconciliation if he might, but he could not: but all his earldom him unanimously forsook and outlawed, and all who with him lawlessness upheld, because he robbed God first, and all those bereaved over whom he had power of life and of land. And they then took to themselves Morkar for earl; and Tosty went then over sea, and his wife with him, to Baldwin's land, and they took up their winter residence at St. Omer's.

A. 1066. In this year king Harold came from York to Westminster, at that Easter which was after the mid-winte in which the king died; and Easter was then on the day 16th before the Kalends of May. Then was, over all England, such a token seen in the heavens, as no man ever before saw. Some men said that it was cometa the star, which some men call the haired star; and it appeared first on the eve Litania Major, the 8th before the Kalends of May,