This eBook was produced by Tapio Riikonen
and David Widger
It was the eve of the 5th of January—the eve of the day announced toKing Edward as that of his deliverance from earth; and whether or notthe prediction had wrought its own fulfilment on the fragile frame andsusceptible nerves of the King, the last of the line of Cerdic wasfast passing into the solemn shades of eternity.
Without the walls of the palace, through the whole city of London, theexcitement was indescribable. All the river before the palace wascrowded with boats; all the broad space on the Isle of Thorney itself,thronged with anxious groups. But a few days before the new-builtAbbey had been solemnly consecrated; with the completion of that holyedifice, Edward's life itself seemed done. Like the kings of Egypt,he had built his tomb.
Within the palace, if possible, still greater was the agitation; moredread the suspense. Lobbies, halls, corridors, stairs, ante-rooms,were filled with churchmen and thegns. Nor was it alone for news ofthe King's state that their brows were so knit, that their breath cameand went so short. It is not when a great chief is dying, that mencompose their minds to deplore a loss. That comes long after, whenthe worm is at its work, and comparison between the dead and theliving often rights the one to wrong the other. But while the breathis struggling, and the eye glazing, life, busy in the bystanders,murmurs, "Who shall be the heir?" And, in this instance, never hadsuspense been so keenly wrought up into hope and terror. For the newsof Duke William's designs had now spread far and near; and awful wasthe doubt, whether the abhorred Norman should receive his solesanction to so arrogant a claim from the parting assent of Edward.Although, as we have seen, the crown was not absolutely within thebequests of a dying king, but at the will of the Witan, still, incircumstances so unparalleled, the utter failure of all natural heirs,save a boy feeble in mind as body, and half foreign by birth andrearing; the love borne by Edward to the Church; and the sentiments,half of pity half of reverence, with which he was regarded throughoutthe land;—his dying word would go far to influence the council andselect the successor. Some whispering to each other, with pale lips,all the dire predictions then current in men's mouths and breasts;some in moody silence; all lifted eager eyes, as, from time to time, agloomy Benedictine passed in the direction to or fro the King'schamber.
In that chamber, traversing the past of eight centuries, enter we withhushed and noiseless feet—a room known to us in many a later sceneand legend of England's troubled history, as "THE PAINTED CHAMBER,"long called "THE CONFESSOR'S." At the farthest end of that long andlofty space, raised upon a regal platform, and roofed with regalcanopy, was the bed of death.
At the foot stood Harold; on one side knelt Edith, the King's lady; atthe other Alred; while Stigand stood near—the holy rood in his hand—and the abbot of the new monastery of Westminster by Stigand's side;and all the greatest thegns, including Morcar and Edwin, Gurth andLeofwine, all the more illustrious prelates and abbots, stood also onthe dais.
In the lower end of the hall, the King's physician was warming acordial over the brazier, and some of the subordinate officers of thehousehold were standing in the niches of the deep-set windows; andthey—not great eno' for other emotions than those o