At Chester, Edric, "the wild Thane," who, according to Domesday-book, had
lost vast lands in Shropshire; Algitha, Harold's widow, and Blethwallon
and all his Welsh,--"the white mantles," swarming along Chester streets,
not as usually, to tear and ravage like the wild-cats of their own rocks,
but fast friends by blood of Algitha, once their queen on Penmaenmawr.
[Footnote: See the admirable description of the tragedy of Penmaenmawr, in
Bulwer's 'Harold.'] Edwin, the young Earl, Algitha's brother, Hereward's
nephew,--he must be with them too, if he were a man.
Eastward, round Stafford, and the centre of Mercia, another blaze of
furious English valor. Morcar, Edwin's brother, must be there, as their
Earl, if he too was a man.
Then in the fens and Kesteven. What meant this news, that Hereward of St.
Omer was come again, and an army with him? That he was levying war on all
Frenchmen, in the name of Sweyn, King of Denmark and of England? He is an
outlaw, a desperado, a boastful swash-buckler, thought William, it may be,
to himself. He found out, in after years, that he had mistaken his man.
And north, at York, in the rear of those three insurrections lay
Gospatrick, Waltheof, and Marlesweyn, with the Northumbrian host. Durham
was lost, and Comyn burnt therein. But York, so boasted William Malet,
could hold out for a year.
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