At least, if (as seems) Sweyn's fleet made the coast of Flanders its
rendezvous and base of operations against King William, Baldwin offered no
resistance.
So the messengers came, and the plots went on. Great was the delight of
Hereward and the ladies when they heard of the taking of Durham and York;
but bitter their surprise and rage when they heard that Gospatrick and the
Confederates had proclaimed Edgar Atheling king.
"Fools! they will ruin all!" cried Gyda. "Do they expect Swend Ulfsson,
who never moved a finger yet, unless he saw that it would pay him within
the hour, to spend blood and treasure in putting that puppet boy upon the
throne instead of himself?"
"Calm yourself, great Countess," said Hereward, with a smile. "The man who
puts him on the throne will find it very easy to take him off again when
he needs."
"Pish!" said Gyda. "He must put him on the throne first. And how will he
do that? Will the men of the Danelagh, much less the Northumbrians, ever
rally round an Atheling of Cerdic's house? They are raising a Wessex army
in Northumbria; a southern army in the north. There is no real loyalty
there toward the Atheling, not even the tie of kin, as there would be to
Swend. The boy is a mere stalking-horse, behind which each of these greedy
chiefs expects to get back his own lands; and if they can get them back by
any other means, well and good.
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