was released. The
historian very truly but inelegantly says, if memory serves the writer
accurately, that Godwin was such a political straddle-bug that he early
abandoned the use of pantaloons and returned to the toga, which was the
only garment able to stand the strain of his political cuttings-up.

The _Shire Mote_, or county court of those days, was composed of a dozen
thanes, or cheap nobles, who had to swear that they had not read the
papers, and had not formed or expressed an opinion, and that their minds
were in a state of complete vacancy. It was a sort of primary jury, and
each could point with pride to the vast collection he had made of things
he did not know, and had not formed or expressed an opinion about.

[Illustration: "ORDEAL" OF JUSTICE.]

If one did not like the verdict of this court, he could appeal to the
king on a _certiorari_ or some such thing as that. The accused could
clear himself by his own oath and that of others, but without these he
had to stand what was called the "ordeal," which consisted in walking on
hot ploughshares without expressing a derogatory opinion regarding the
ploughshares or showing contempt of court. Sometimes the accused had to
run his arm into boiling water. If after three days the injury had
disappeared, the defendant was discharged and costs taxed against the
king.

[Illustration: DYING BETWEEN COURSES.]

Hardicanute only reigned two years, and in 1042 A.D. died at a nuptial
banquet, and cast a gloom over the whole thing. In those times it was a
common thing for the king or some of the nobility to die between the
roast pig and the pork pie. It was not unusual to see each noble with a
roast pig _tete-a-tete_,--each confronting the other, the living and the
dead.

At this time, it is said by the old settlers that hog cholera thinned
out the nobility a good deal, whether directly or indirectly they do not
say.

The English had now wearied of the Danish yoke. "Why wear the Danish
yoke," they asked, "and be ruled with a rod of iron?"

Edward, half brother of Edmund Ironside, was therefore nominated and
chosen king. Godwin, who seemed to be specially gifted as a versatile
connoisseur of "crow,"[A] turned up as his political adviser.

[Footnote A: "Eating crow" is an expression common in modern American
politics to signify a reluctant acknowledgement of humiliating
defeat--HISTORIAN.]

Edward, afterwards called "the Confessor," at once stripped Queen Emma
of all