THE NORMAN CONQUEST. A.D. 1035--1066.


Cnut left three sons; but one was content to be only King of Denmark,
and the other two died very soon. So a great English nobleman, called
Earl Godwin, set up as king, Edward, one of those sons of Ethelred the
Unready who had been sent away to Normandy. He was a very kind, good,
pious man, who loved to do good. He began the building of our grand
church at Westminster Abbey, and he was so holy that he was called the
Confessor, which is a word for good men not great enough to be called
saints. He was too good-natured, as you will say when you hear that
one day, when he was in bed, he saw a thief come cautiously into his
room, open the chest where his treasure was, and take out the money-
bags. Instead of calling anyone, or seizing the man, the king only
said, sleepily, "Take care, you rogue, or my chancellor will catch
you and give you a good whipping."

You can fancy that nobody much minded such a king as this, and so
there were many disturbances in his time. Some of them rose out of
the king--who had been brought up in Normandy--liking the Normans
better than the English. They really were much cleverer and more
sensible, for they had learnt a great deal in France, while the
English had forgotten much of what Alfred and his sons had taught
them, and all through the long, sad reign of Ethelred had been getting
more dull, and clumsy and rude. Moreover, they had learnt of the Danes
to be sad drunkards; but both they and the Danes thought the Norman
French fine gentlemen, and could not bear the sight of them.

Think, then, how angry they all were when it began to be said that King