Church, may not the Churchmen set up some new pretender to the crown--
perchance the child Edgar? And, divided against ourselves, how
ingloriously should we fall! Besides, this land, though never before
have the links between province and province been drawn so close, hath
yet demarcations that make the people selfish. The Northumbrians, I
fear, will not stir to aid London, and Mercia will hold aloof from our
peril. Grant that William once seize London, all England is broken up
and dispirited; each shire, nay, each town, looking only to itself.
Talk of delay as wearing out the strength of the foe! No, it would
wear out our own. Little eno', I fear, is yet left in our treasury.
If William seize London, that treasury is his, with all the wealth of
our burgesses. How should we maintain an army, except by preying on
the people, and thus discontenting them? Where guard that army?
Where are our forts? where our mountains? The war of delay suits only
a land of rock and defile, or of castle and breast-work. Thegns and
warriors, ye have no castles but your breasts of mail. Abandon these,
and you are lost."

A general murmur of applause closed this speech of Haco, which, while
wise in arguments our historians have overlooked, came home to that
noblest reason of brave men, which urges prompt resistance to foul
invasion.

Up, then, rose King Harold.

"I thank you, fellow-Englishmen, for that applause with which ye have
greeted mine own thoughts on the lips of Haco. Shall it be said that
your King rushed to chase his own brother from the soil of outraged
England, yet shrunk from the sword of the Norman stranger? Well
indeed might my brave subjects desert my banner if it floated idly