for Edgar, King of England, had in the old time styled himself the
Heir of Constantine. Next to these sat the clerks of the chapel, with
the King's confessor at their head. Officers were they of higher note
than their name bespeaks, and wielders, in the trust of the Great
Seal, of a power unknown of old, and now obnoxious to the Saxon. For
tedious is the suit which lingers for the king's writ and the king's
seal; and from those clerks shall arise hereafter a thing of torture
and of might, which shall grind out the hearts of men, and be called
CHANCERY! [86]

Below the scribes, a space was left on the floor, and farther down sat
the chiefs of the Witan. Of these, first in order, both from their
spiritual rank and their vast temporal possessions, sat the lords of
the Church; the chairs of the prelates of London and Canterbury were
void. But still goodly was the array of Saxon mitres, with the harsh,
hungry, but intelligent face of Stigand,--Stigand the stout and the
covetous; and the benign but firm features of Alred, true priest and
true patriot, distinguished amidst all. Around each prelate, as stars
round a sun, were his own special priestly retainers, selected from
his diocese. Farther still down the hall are the great civil lords
and viceking vassals of the "Lord-Paramount." Vacant the chair of the
King of the Scots, for Siward hath not yet had his wish; Macbeth is in
his fastnesses, or listening to the weird sisters in the wold; and
Malcolm is a fugitive in the halls of the Northumbrian earl. Vacant
the chair of the hero Gryffyth, son of Llewelyn, the dread of the
marches, Prince of Gwyned, whose arms had subjugated all Cymry. But
there are the lesser sub-kings of Wales, true to the immemorial
schisms amongst themselves, which destroyed the realm of Ambrosius,
and rendered vain the arm of Arthur. With their torques of gold, and
wild eyes, and hair cut round ears and brow [87], they stare on the