dull thud, but was reinstated by the Police.)

[Illustration: "KING HAROLD IS DEAD, SIRE."]

Enraged by the death of Alfred, the king had the remains of Harold
exhumed and thrown into a fen. This a-fensive act showed what a great
big broad nature Hardicanute had,--also the kind of timber used in
making a king in those days.

Godwin, however, seems to have been a good political acrobat, and was on
more sides of more questions than anybody else of those times. Though
connected with the White-Cap affair by which Alfred lost his eyesight
and his life, he proved an alibi, or spasmodic paresis, or something,
and, having stood a compurgation and "ordeal" trial, was released. The
historian very truly but inelegantly says, if memory serves the writer
accurately, that Godwin was such a political straddle-bug that he early
abandoned the use of pantaloons and returned to the toga, which was the
only garment able to stand the strain of his political cuttings-up.

The _Shire Mote_, or county court of those days, was composed of a dozen
thanes, or cheap nobles, who had to swear that they had not read the
papers, and had not formed or expressed an opinion, and that their minds
were in a state of complete vacancy. It was a sort of primary jury, and
each could point with pride to the vast collection he had made of things
he did not know, and had not formed or expressed an opinion about.

[Illustration: "ORDEAL" OF JUSTICE.]

If one did not like the verdict of this court, he could appeal to the
king on a _certiorari_ or some such thing as that. The accused could