there were the bishops and abbots and the lords of the Church,--for
dear to them already the fame of the Norman piety, and they shared the
distaste of their holy King to the strong sense and homely religion of
Godwin, who founded no convents, and rode to war with no relics round
his neck. But they with Godwin were the stout and the frank and the
free, in whom rested the pith and marrow of English manhood; and they
who were against him were the blind and willing and fated fathers of
slaves unborn.

Not then the stately castle we now behold, which is of the masonry of
a prouder race, nor on the same site, but two miles distant on the
winding of the river shore (whence it took its name), a rude building
partly of timber and partly of Roman brick, adjoining a large
monastery and surrounded by a small hamlet, constituted the palace of
the saint-king.

So rode the Earl and his four fair sons, all abreast, into the
courtyard of Windshore [127]. Now when King Edward heard the tramp of
the steeds and the hum of the multitudes, as he sate in his closet
with his abbots and priests, all in still contemplation of the thumb
of St. Jude, the King asked:

"What army, in the day of peace, and the time of Easter, enters the
gates of our palace?"

Then an abbot rose and looked out of the narrow window, and said with
a groan:

"Army thou mayst well call it, O King!--and foes to us and to thee
head the legions----"