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Stigand. Truth! no; a lie; a trick, a Norman trick!

They turn on the pursuer, horse against foot,

They murder all that follow.
Edith.
Have mercy on us!
Stigand. Hot-headed fools to burst
the wall of shields !

They have broken the commandment of the king!

Edith. His oath was broken-O holy
Norman Saints,

Ye that are now of heaven, and see beyond

Your Norman shrines, pardon it, pardon it,

That he forsware himself for all he loved,

Me, me and all! Look out upon the battle!

Stigand. They press again upon the barricades.

My sight is eagle, but the strife so

thick

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Stigand. Ha! Gurth hath leapt upon | They are so much holier than their har

him

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lot's son

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and yet

He must be here.

Enter two Canons, OSGOD and ATHELRIC,
with torches. They turn over the dead
bodies and examine them as they pass.
Osgod. I think that this is Thurkill.
Athelric. More likely Godric.
Osgod.
I am sure this body
Is Alfwig, the king's uncle.

Athelric.
So it is!
No, no-brave Gurth, one gash from
brow to knee !

Osgod. And here is Leofwin.
Edith.
And here is He!
Aldwyth. Harold? Oh no - nay, if
- my God,

it were

They have so maim'd and martyr'd all

his face

There is no man can swear to him.
But one woman!

Edith.

Look you, we never mean to part again.
I have found him, I am happy.
Was there not some one ask'd me for
forgiveness?

I yield it freely, being the true wife
Of this dead King, who never bore re-
venge.

Enter COUNT WILLIAM and WILLIAM MALET.

William. Who be these women

And what body is this?
Edith. Harold, thy better!
William. Ay, and what art thou?
Edith. His wife !

Malet. Not true, my girl, here is the

Queen! [Pointing out ALDWYTH. William (to ALDWYTH). Wast thou his Queen?

Aldwyth. I was the Queen of Wales.
William. Why then of England.
Madam, fear us not.
(To MALET.)

Knowest thou this other?

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be!

Malet. When I visited England, Bury him and his paramour together.

Some held she was his wife in secret

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He that was false in oath to me, it seems Was false to his own wife. We will A Christian burial: yet he was a warnot give him rior,

And wise, yea truthful, till that blighted vow

Which God avenged to-day.
Wrap them together in a purple cloak
And lay them both upon the waste sea-

shore

At Hastings, there to guard the land for

which

He did forswear himself

ay,

a warrior

with me

And but that Holy Peter fought for us, | My Normans may but move as true And that the false Northumbrian held aloof,

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To the door of death. Of one self-stock at first,

Make them again one people-Norman, English;

And English, Norman ;--we should have a hand

To grasp the world with, and a foot to stamp it...

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