Edward, in which both the
king and his rebellious subject marshaled their forces, and for a time
waged against each other an open and sanguinary war. In this contest the
power of Godwin had proved so formidable, and the military forces which
he succeeded in marshaling under his banners were so great, that
Edward's government was unable effectually to put him down. At length,
after a long and terrible struggle, which involved a large part of the
country in the horrors of a civil war, the belligerents made a treaty
with each other, which settled their quarrel by a sort of compromise.
Godwin was to retain his high position and rank as a subject, and to
continue in the government of certain portions of the island which had
long been under his jurisdiction; he, on his part, promising to dismiss
his armies, and to make war upon the king no more. He bound himself to
the faithful performance of these covenants by giving the king
_hostages_.

The hostages given up on such occasions were always near and dear
relatives and friends, and the understanding was, that if the party
giving them failed in fulfilling his obligations, the innocent and
helpless hostages were to be entirely at the mercy of the other party
into whose custody they had been given. The latter would, in such cases,
imprison them, torture them, or put them to death, with a greater or
less degree of severity in respect to the infliction of pain, according
to the degree of exasperation which the real or fancied injury which he
had received awakened in his mind.

This cruel method of binding fierce and unprincipled men to the
performance of their promises has been universally abandoned in modern
times, though in the rude and early stages of civilization it has been
practiced among all nations, ancient and modern. The hostages chosen
were often of young and tender years, and were always such as to render
the separation which took place when they were torn from their friends
most painful, as it was the very object of the selection to obtain those
who were most beloved. They were delivered into the hands of those whom
they had always regarded as their bitterest enemies, and who, of course,
were objects of aversion and terror. They were sent away into places of
confinement and seclusion, and kept in the custody of strangers, where
they lived in perpetual fear that some new outbreak between the
contending parties would occur, and consign them to torture or death.
The cr