arated. Some few,
not quite ignorant of the Saxon tongue, doffed their mail, and crept
through forest and fell towards the sea-shore; others retained steed and
arms, but shunned equally the high roads. The two prelates were among
the last; they gained, in safety, Ness, in Essex, threw themselves into
an open, crazy, fishing-boat, committed themselves to the waves, and,
half drowned and half famished, drifted over the Channel to the French
shores. Of the rest of the courtly foreigners, some took refuge in the
forts yet held by their countrymen; some lay concealed in creeks and
caves till they could find or steal boats for their passage. And thus,
in the year of our Lord 1052, occurred the notable dispersion and
ignominious flight of the counts and vavasours of great William the Duke!

CHAPTER III.

The Witana-gemot was assembled in the great hall of Westminster in all
its imperial pomp.

It was on his throne that the King sate now--and it was the sword that
was in his right hand. Some seated below, and some standing beside, the
throne, were the officers of the Basileus [84] of Britain. There were to
be seen camararius and pincerna, chamberlain and cupbearer; disc thegn
and hors thegn [85]; the thegn of the dishes, and the thegn of the stud;
with many more, whose state offices may not impossibly have been borrowed
from the ceremonial pomp of the Byzantine court; for Edgar, King of
England, had in the old time styled himself the Heir of Constantine.
Next to these sat the clerks of the chapel, with the King's confessor at
their head. Officers were they of higher note than their name bespeaks,
and wielders, in the trust of the Great Seal, of a power unknown of old,
and now obnoxious to the Saxon. For tedious is the suit which lingers
for the king's writ and the king's seal; and from those clerks shall
arise hereafter a thing of torture and of might, which shall grind out
the hearts of men, and be called CHANCERY! [86]

Below the scribes, a space was left on the floor, and farther down sat
the chiefs of the Witan. Of these, first in order, both from their
spiritual rank and their vast temporal possessions, sat the lords of the
Church; the chairs of the prelates of London and Canterbury were void.
But still goodly was the array of Saxon mitres, with the harsh, hungry,
but intelligent face of Stigand,--Stigand the stout and the covetous; and
the benign but firm features of Alred, true priest and true patriot,