BOOK VI.


AMBITION.




CHAPTER I.


There was great rejoicing in England. King Edward had been induced to
send Alred the prelate [139] to the court of the German Emperor, for
his kinsman and namesake, Edward Atheling, the son of the great
Ironsides. In his childhood, this Prince, with his brother Edmund,
had been committed by Canute to the charge of his vassal, the King of
Sweden; and it has been said (though without sufficient authority),
that Canute's design was, that they should be secretly made away with.
The King of Sweden, however, forwarded the children to the court of
Hungary; they were there honourably reared and received. Edmund died
young, without issue. Edward married a daughter of the German
Emperor, and during the commotions in England, and the successive
reigns of Harold Harefoot, Hardicanute, and the Confessor, had
remained forgotten in his exile, until now suddenly recalled to
England as the heir presumptive of his childless namesake. He arrived
with Agatha his wife, one infant son, Edgar, and two daughters,
Margaret and Christina.

Great were the rejoicings. The vast crowd that had followed the royal
visitors in their procession to the old London palace (not far from