t if in this he played a part not natural to his
opinions, Harold could not, even in simulation, administer to evil. The
monasteries he favoured were those distinguished for purity of life, for
benevolence to the poor, for bold denunciation of the excesses of the
great. He had not, like the Norman, the grand design of creating in the
priesthood a college of learning, a school of arts; such notions were
unfamiliar in homely, unlettered England. And Harold, though for his
time and his land no mean scholar, would have recoiled from favouring a
learning always made subservient to Rome; always at once haughty and
scheming, and aspiring to complete domination over both the souls of men
and the thrones of kings. But his aim was, out of the elements he found
in the natural kindliness existing between Saxon priest and Saxon flock,
to rear a modest, virtuous, homely clergy, not above tender sympathy with
an ignorant population. He selected as examples for his monastery at
Waltham, two low-born humble brothers, Osgood and Ailred; the one known
for the courage with which he had gone through the land, preaching to
abbot and thegn the emancipation of the theowes, as the most meritorious
act the safety of the soul could impose; the other, who, originally a
clerk, had, according to the common custom of the Saxon clergy,
contracted the bonds of marriage, and with some eloquence had vindicated
that custom against the canons of Rome, and refused the offer of large
endowments and thegn's rank to put away his wife. But on the death of
that spouse he had adopted the cowl, and while still persisting in the
lawfulness of marriage to the unmonastic clerks, had become famous for
denouncing the open concubinage which desecrated the holy office, and
violated the solemn vows, of many a proud prelate and abbot.

To these two men (both of whom refused the abbacy of Waltham) Harold
committed the charge of selecting the new brotherhood established there.
And the monks of Waltham were honoured as saints throughout the
neighbouring district, and cited as examples to all the Church.

But though in themselves the new politic arts of Harold seemed blameless
enough, arts they were, and as such they corrupted the genuine simplicity
of his earlier nature. He had conceived for the first time an ambition
apart from that of service to his country. It was no longer only to
serve the land, it was to serve it as its ruler, that animated his heart
and coloure