n thegn of Berkshire or Dorset, proud of his five hydes
of land; there, half an ealderman, the Danish thegn of Norfolk or Ely,
discontented with his forty; some were there in right of smaller offices
under the crown; some traders, and sons of traders, for having crossed
the high seas three times at their own risk; some could boast the blood
of Offa and Egbert; and some traced but three generations back to
neatherd and ploughman; and some were Saxons and some were Danes: and
some from the western shires were by origin Britons, though little
cognisant of their race. Farther down still, at the extreme end of the
hall, crowding by the open doors, filling up the space without, were the
ceorls themselves, a vast and not powerless body; in these high courts
(distinct from the shire gemots, or local senates)--never called upon to
vote or to speak or to act, or even to sign names to the doom, but only
to shout "Yea, yea," when the proceres pronounced their sentence. Yet not
powerless were they, but rather to the Witan what public opinion is to
the Witan's successor, our modern parliament: they were opinion! And
according to their numbers and their sentiments, easily known and boldly
murmured, often and often must that august court of basileus and prelate,
vassal-king and mighty earl, have shaped the council and adjudged the
doom.

And the forms of the meeting had been duly said and done; and the King
had spoken words no doubt wary and peaceful, gracious and exhortatory;
but those words--for his voice that day was weak--travelled not beyond
the small circle of his clerks and his officers; and a murmur buzzed
through the hall, when Earl Godwin stood on the floor with his six sons
at his back; and you might have heard the hum of the gnat that vexed the
smooth cheek of Earl Rolf, or the click of the spider from the web on the
vaulted roof, the moment before Earl Godwin spoke.

"If," said he, with the modest look and downcast eye of practised
eloquence, "If I rejoice once more to breathe the air of England, in
whose service, often perhaps with faulty deeds, but at all times with
honest thoughts, I have, both in war and council, devoted so much of my
life that little now remains--but (should you, my king, and you,
prelates, proceres, and ministers so vouchsafe) to look round and select
that spot of my native soil which shall receive my bones;--if I rejoice
to stand once more in that assembly which has often listened to my voice
whe