Nevertheless, what was my offer? That I and my six sons would attend,
provided the usual sureties, agreeable to our laws, from which only
thieves [89] are excluded, were given that we should come and go life-
free and safe. Twice this offer was made, twice refused; and so I and
my sons were banished. We went;--we have returned!"

"And in arms," murmured Earl Rolf, son-in-law to that Count Eustace of
Boulogne, whose violence had been temperately and truly narrated. [90]

"And in arms," repeated Godwin: "true; in arms against the foreigners
who had thus poisoned the ear of our gracious King; in arms, Earl
Rolf; and at the first clash of those arms, Franks and foreigners have
fled. We have no need of arms now. We are amongst our countrymen,
and no Frenchman interposes between us and the ever gentle; ever
generous nature of our born King."

"Peers and proceres, chiefs of this Witan, perhaps the largest ever
yet assembled in man's memory, it is for you to decide whether I and
mine, or the foreign fugitives, caused the dissensions in these
realms; whether our banishment was just or not; whether in our return
we have abused the power we possessed. Ministers, on those swords by
your sides there is not one drop of blood! At all events, in
submitting to you our fate, we submit to our own laws and our own
race. I am here to clear myself, on my oath, of deed and thought of
treason. There are amongst my peers as king's thegns, those who will
attest the same on my behalf, and prove the facts I have stated, if
they are not sufficiently notorious. As for my sons, no crime can be
alleged against them, unless it be a crime to have in their veins that
blood which flows in mine--blood which they have learned from me to
shed in defence of that beloved land to which they now ask to be