n our common country was in peril, who here will blame that joy? Who
among my foes, if foes now I have, will not respect the old man's
gladness? Who amongst you, earls and thegns, would not grieve, if his
duty bade him say to the grey-haired exile, 'In this English air you
shall not breathe your last sigh--on this English soil you shall not find
a grave!' Who amongst you would not grieve to say it?" (Suddenly he
drew up his head and faced his audience.) "Who amongst you hath the
courage and the heart to say it? Yes, I rejoice that I am at last in an
assembly fit to judge my cause, and pronounce my innocence. For what
offence was I outlawed? For what offence were I, and the six sons I have
given to my land, to bear the wolf's penalty, and be chased and slain as
the wild beasts? Hear me, and answer!"

"Eustace, Count of Boulogne, returning to his domains from a visit to our
lord the King, entered the town of Dover in mail and on his war steed;
his train did the same. Unknowing our laws and customs (for I desire to
press light upon all old grievances, and will impute ill designs to none)
these foreigners invade by force the private dwellings of citizens, and
there select their quarters. Ye all know that this was the strongest
violation of Saxon right; ye know that the meanest ceorl hath the proverb
on his lip, 'Every man's house is his castle.' One of the townsmen
acting on this belief,--which I have yet to learn was a false
one,--expelled from his threshold a retainer of the French Earl's. The
stranger drew his sword and wounded him; blows followed--the stranger
fell by the arm he had provoked. The news arrives to Earl Eustace; he
and his kinsmen spur to the spot; they murder the Englishman on his
hearth-stone.--"

Here a groan, half-stifled and wrathful, broke from the ceorls at the end
of the hall. Godwin held up his hand in rebuke of the interruption, and
resumed.

"This deed done, the outlanders rode through the streets with their drawn
swords; they butchered those who came in their way; they trampled even
children under their horses' feet. The burghers armed. I thank the
Divine Father, who gave me for my countrymen those gallant burghers!
They fought, as we English know how to fight; they slew some nineteen or
score of these mailed intruders; they chased them from the town. Earl
Eustace fled fast. Earl Eustace, we know, is a wise man: small rest took
he, little bread broke he, till he pulled rein