omp and parade as if it had been an actual wedding. The name of the
girl was Adela.

In respect to hostages, William determined to detain one of those whom
Harold, as will be recollected, had come into Normandy to recover. He
told him, therefore, that he might take with him his nephew Hacune, but
that Ulnoth, his brother, should remain, and William would bring him
over himself when he came to take possession of the kingdom. Harold was
extremely unwilling to leave his brother thus in William's power; but as
he knew very well that his being allowed to return to England himself
would depend upon his not evincing any reluctance to giving William
security, or manifesting any other indication that he was not intending
to keep his plighted faith, he readily consented, and it was thus
settled that Ulnoth should remain.

Finally, in order to hold Harold to the fulfillment of his promises by
every possible form of obligation, William proposed that he should take
a public and solemn oath, in the presence of a large assembly of all the
great potentates and chieftains of the realm, by which he should bind
himself, under the most awful sanctions, to keep his word. Harold made
no objection to this either. He considered himself as, in fact, in
duress, and his actions as not free. He was in William's power, and was
influenced in all he did by a desire to escape from Normandy, and once
more recover his liberty. He accordingly decided, in his own mind, that
whatever oaths he might take he should afterward consider as forced upon
him, and consequently as null and void, and was ready, therefore, to
take any that William might propose.

The great assembly was accordingly convened. In the middle of the
council hall there was placed a great chair of state, which was covered
with a cloth of gold. Upon this cloth, and raised considerably above the
seat, was the _missal_, that is, the book of service of the Catholic
Church, written on parchment and splendidly illuminated. The book was
open at a passage from one of the Evangelists--the Evangelists being a
portion of the Holy Scriptures which was, in those days, supposed to
invest an oath with the most solemn sanctions.

Harold felt some slight misgivings as he advanced in the midst of such
an imposing scene as the great assembly of knights and ladies presented
in the council hall, to repeat his promises in the very presence of God,
and to imprecate the retributive curses of the Almighty on the