Harold : the Last of the Saxon Kings — Complete

CHAPTER VII

Fair, broad, and calm set the sun over the western woodlands. Hilda stood on the mound, and looked with undazzled eyes on the sinking orb. Beside her, Edith reclined on the sward, and seemed with idle hand tracing characters in the air. The girl had grown paler still, since Harold last parted from her on the same spot, and the same listless and despondent apathy stamped her smileless lips and her bended head.

“See, child of my heart,” said Hilda, addressing Edith, while she still gazed on the western luminary, “see, the sun goes down to the far deeps, where Rana and Aegir 136 watch over the worlds of the sea; but with morning he comes from the halls of the Asas—the golden gates of the East—and joy comes in his train. And yet then thinkest, sad child, whose years have scarce passed into woman, that the sun, once set, never comes back to life. But even while we speak, thy morning draws near, and the dunness of cloud takes the hues of the rose!”

Edith’s hand paused from its vague employment, and fell droopingly on her knee;—she turned with an unquiet and anxious eye to Hilda, and after looking some moments wistfully at the Vala, the colour rose to her cheek, and she said in a voice that had an accent half of anger:

“Hilda, thou art cruel!”

“So is Fate!” answered the Vala. “But men call not Fate cruel when it smiles on their desires. Why callest thou Hilda cruel, when she reads in the setting sun the runes of thy coming joy!”

“There is no joy for me,” returned Edith, plaintively; “and I have that on my heart,” she added, with a sudden and almost fierce change of tone, “which at last I will dare to speak. I reproach thee, Hilda, that thou hast marred all my life, that thou hast duped me with dreams, and left me alone in despair.”

“Speak on,” said Hilda, calmly, as a nurse to a froward child.

“Hast thou not told me, from the first dawn of my wondering reason, that my life and lot were inwoven with—with (the word, mad and daring, must out)—with those of Harold the peerless? But for that, which my infancy took from thy lips as a law, I had never been so vain and so frantic! I had never watched each play of his face, and treasured each word from his lips; I had never made my life but part of his life—all my soul but the shadow of his sun. But for that, I had hailed the calm of the cloister—but for that, I had glided in peace to my grave. And now—now, O Hilda—” Edith paused, and that break had more eloquence than any words she could command. “And,” she resumed quickly, “thou knowest that these hopes were but dreams—that the law ever stood between him and me—and that it was guilt to love him.”

“I knew the law,” answered Hilda, “but the law of fools is to the wise as the cobweb swung over the brake to the wing of the bird. Ye are sibbe to each other, some five times removed; and therefore an old man at Rome saith that ye ought not to wed. When the shavelings obey the old man at home, and put aside their own wives and frillas 137, and abstain from the wine cup, and the chase, and the brawl, I will stoop to hear of their laws,—with disrelish it may be, but without scorn. 138 It is no sin to love Harold; and no monk and no law shall prevent your union on the day appointed to bring ye together, form and heart.”

“Hilda! Hilda! madden me not with joy,” cried Edith, starting up in rapturous emotion, her young face dyed with blushes, and all her renovated beauty so celestial that Hilda herself was almost awed, as if by the vision of Freya, the northern Venus, charmed by a spell from the halls of Asgard.

“But that day is distant,” renewed the Vala.

“What matters! what matters!” cried the pure child of Nature; “I ask but hope. Enough,—oh! enough, if we were but wedded on the borders of the grave!”

“Lo, then,” said Hilda, “behold, the sun of thy life dawns again!”

As she spoke, the Vala stretched her arm, and through the intersticed columns of the fane, Edith saw the large shadow of a man cast over the still sward. Presently into the space of the circle came Harold, her beloved. His face was pale with grief yet recent; but, perhaps, more than ever, dignity was in his step and command on his brow, for he felt that now alone with him rested the might of Saxon England. And what royal robe so invests with imperial majesty the form of a man as the grave sense of power responsible, in an earnest soul?

“Thou comest,” said Hilda, “in the hour I predicted; at the setting of the sun and the rising of the star.”

“Vala,” said Harold, gloomily, “I will not oppose my sense to thy prophecies; for who shall judge of that power of which he knows not the elements? or despise the marvel of which he cannot detect the imposture? But leave me, I pray thee, to walk in the broad light of the common day. These hands are made to grapple with things palpable, and these eyes to measure the forms that front my way. In my youth, I turned in despair or disgust from the subtleties of the schoolmen, which split upon hairs the brains of Lombard and Frank; in my busy and stirring manhood entangle me not in the meshes which confuse all my reason, and sicken my waking thoughts into dreams of awe. Mine be the straight path and the plain goal!”

The Vala gazed on him with an earnest look, that partook of admiration, and yet more of gloom; but she spoke not, and Harold resumed:

“Let the dead rest, Hilda,—proud names with glory on earth and shadows escaped from our ken, submissive to mercy in heaven. A vast chasm have my steps overleapt since we met, O Hilda—sweet Edith; a vast chasm, but a narrow grave.” His voice faltered a moment, and again he renewed,—” Thou weepest, Edith; ah, how thy tears console me! Hilda, hear me! I love thy grandchild—loved her by irresistible instinct since her blue eyes first smiled on mine. I loved her in her childhood, as in her youth—in the blossom as in the flower. And thy grandchild loves me. The laws of the Church proscribe our marriage, and therefore we parted; but I feel, and thine Edith feels, that the love remains as strong in absence: no other will be her wedded lord, no other my wedded wife. Therefore, with heart made soft by sorrow, and, in my father’s death, sole lord of my fate, I return, and say to thee in her presence, ‘Suffer us to hope still!’ The day may come when under some king less enthralled than Edward by formal Church laws, we may obtain from the Pope absolution for our nuptials—a day, perhaps, far off; but we are both young, and love is strong and patient: we can wait.”

“O Harold,” exclaimed Edith, “we can wait!”

“Have I not told thee, son of Godwin,” said the Vala, solemnly, “that Edith’s skein of life was inwoven with thine? Dost thou deem that my charms have not explored the destiny of the last of my race? Know that it is in the decrees of the fates that ye are to be united, never more to be divided. Know that there shall come a day, though I can see not its morrow, and it lies dim and afar, which shall be the most glorious of thy life, and on which Edith and fame shall be thine,—the day of thy nativity, on which hitherto all things have prospered with thee. In vain against the stars preach the mone and the priest: what shall be, shall be. Wherefore, take hope and joy, O Children of Time! And now, as I join your hands, I betroth your souls.”

Rapture unalloyed and unprophetic, born of love deep and pure, shone in the eyes of Harold, as he clasped the hand of his promised bride. But an involuntary and mysterious shudder passed over Edith’s frame, and she leant close, close, for support upon Harold’s breast. And, as if by a vision, there rose distinct in her memory a stern brow, a form of power and terror—the brow and the form of him who but once again in her waking life the Prophetess had told her she should behold. The vision passed away in the warm clasp of those protecting arms; and looking up into Harold’s face, she there beheld the mighty and deep delight that transfused itself at once into her own soul.

Then Hilda, placing one hand over their heads, and raising the other towards heaven, all radiant with bursting stars, said in her deep and thrilling tones:

“Attest the betrothal of these young hearts, O ye Powers that draw nature to nature by spells which no galdra can trace, and have wrought in the secrets of creation no mystery so perfect as love,—Attest it, thou temple, thou altar!—attest it, O sun and O air! While the forms are divided, may the souls cling together—sorrow with sorrow, and joy with joy. And when, at length, bride and bridegroom are one,—O stars, may the trouble with which ye are charged have exhausted its burthen; may no danger molest, and no malice disturb, but, over the marriage-bed, shine in peace, O ye stars!”

Up rose the moon. May’s nightingale called its mate from the breathless boughs; and so Edith and Harold were betrothed by the grave of the son of Cerdic. And from the line of Cerdic had come, since Ethelbert, all the Saxon kings who with sword and with sceptre had reigned over Saxon England.

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 St. Paul’s) in which they were lodged, yet swarmed through the streets, when two thegns who had personally accompanied the Atheling from Dover, and had just taken leave of him, now emerged from the palace, and with some difficulty made their way through the crowded streets.

The one in the dress and short hair imitated from the Norman,—was our old friend Godrith, whom the reader may remember as the rebuker of Taillefer, and the friend of Mallet de Graville; the other, in a plain linen Saxon tunic, and the gonna worn on state occasions, to which he seemed unfamiliar, but with heavy gold bracelets on his arms, long haired and bearded, was Vebba, the Kentish thegn, who had served as nuncius from Godwin to Edward.

“Troth and faith!” said Vebba, wiping his brow, “this crowd is enow to make plain roan stark wode. I would not live in London for all the gauds in the goldsmith’s shops, or all the treasures in King Edward’s vaults. My tongue is as parched as a hay-field in the weyd-month. 140 Holy Mother be blessed! I see a Cumen-hus 141 open; let us in and refresh ourselves with a horn of ale.”

“Nay, friend,” quoth Godrith, with a slight disdain, “such are not the resorts of men of our rank. Tarry yet awhile, till we arrive near the bridge by the river-side; there, indeed, you will find worthy company and dainty cheer.”

“Well, well, I am at your hest, Godrith,” said the Kent man, sighing; “my wife and my sons will be sure to ask me what sights I have seen, and I may as well know from thee the last tricks and ways of this burly-burly town.”

Godrith, who was master of all the fashions in the reign of our lord King Edward, smiled graciously, and the two proceeded in silence, only broken by the sturdy Kent man’s exclamations; now of anger when rudely jostled, now of wonder and delight when, amidst the throng, he caught sight of a gleeman, with his bear or monkey, who took advantage of some space near convent garden, or Roman ruin, to exhibit his craft; till they gained a long low row of booths, most pleasantly situated to the left of this side London bridge, and which was appropriated to the celebrated cookshops, that even to the time of Fitzstephen retained their fame and their fashion.

Between the shops and the river was a space of grass worn brown and bare by the feet of the customers, with a few clipped trees with vines trained from one to the other in arcades, under cover of which were set tables and settles. The place was thickly crowded, and but for Godrith’s popularity amongst the attendants, they might have found it difficult to obtain accommodation. However, a new table was soon brought forth, placed close by the cool margin of the water, and covered in a trice with tankards of hippocras, pigment, ale, and some Gascon, as well as British wines: varieties of the delicious cake-bread for which England was then renowned; while viands, strange to the honest eye and taste of the wealthy Kent man, were served on spits.

“What bird is this?” said he, grumbling.

“O enviable man, it is a Phrygian attagen 142 that thou art about to taste for the first time; and when thou hast recovered that delight, I commend to thee a Moorish compound, made of eggs and roes of carp from the old Southweorc stewponds, which the cooks here dress notably.”

“Moorish!—Holy Virgin!” cried Vebba, with his mouth full of the Phrygian attagen, “how came anything Moorish in our Christian island?”

Godrith laughed outright.

“Why, our cook here is Moorish; the best singers in London are Moors. Look yonder! see those grave comely Saracens!”

“Comely, quotha, burnt and black as a charred pine-pole!” grunted Vebba; “well, who are they?”

“Wealthy traders; thanks to whom, our pretty maids have risen high in the market.” 143

“More the shame,” said the Kent man; “that selling of English youth to foreign masters, whether male or female, is a blot on the Saxon name.”

“So saith Harold our Earl, and so preach the monks,” returned Godrith. “But thou, my good friend, who art fond of all things that our ancestors did, and hast sneered more than once at my Norman robe and cropped hair, thou shouldst not be the one to find fault with what our fathers have done since the days of Cerdic.”

“Hem,” said the Kent man, a little perplexed, “certainly old manners are the best, and I suppose there is some good reason for this practice, which I, who never trouble myself about matters that concern me not, do not see.”

“Well, Vebba, and how likest thou the Atheling? he is of the old line,” said Godrith.

Again the Kent man looked perplexed, and had recourse to the ale, which he preferred to all more delicate liquor, before he replied:

“Why, he speaks English worse than King Edward! and as for his boy Edgar, the child can scarce speak English at all. And then their German carles and cnehts!—An I had known what manner of folk they were, I had not spent my mancuses in running from my homestead to give them the welcome. But they told me that Harold the good Earl had made the King send for them: and whatever the Earl counselled must, I thought, be wise, and to the weal of sweet England.”

“That is true,” said Godrith with earnest emphasis, for, with all his affectation of Norman manners, he was thoroughly English at heart, and now among the staunchest supporters of Harold, who had become no less the pattern and pride of the young nobles than the darling of the humbler population,—“that is true—and Harold showed us his noble English heart when he so urged the King to his own loss.”

As Godrith thus spoke, nay, from the first mention of Harold’s name, two men richly clad, but with their bonnets drawn far over their brows, and their long gonnas so worn as to hide their forms, who were seated at a table behind Godrith and had thus escaped his attention, had paused from their wine-cups, and they now listened with much earnestness to the conversation that followed.

“How to the Earl’s loss?” asked Vebba.

“Why, simple thegn,” answered Godrith, “why, suppose that Edward had refused to acknowledge the Atheling as his heir, suppose the Atheling had remained in the German court, and our good King died suddenly,—who, thinkest thou, could succeed to the English throne?”

“Marry, I have never thought of that at all,” said the Kent man, scratching his head.

“No, nor have the English generally; yet whom could we choose but Harold?”

A sudden start from one of the listeners was checked by the warning finger of the other; and the Kent man exclaimed:

“Body o’ me! But we have never chosen king (save the Danes) out of the line of Cerdic. These be new cranks, with a vengeance; we shall be choosing German, or Saracen, or Norman next!”

“Out of the line of Cerdic! but that line is gone, root and branch, save the Atheling, and he thou seest is more German than English. Again I say, failing the Atheling, whom could we choose but Harold, brother-in-law to the King: descended through Githa from the royalties of the Norse, the head of all armies under the Herr-ban, the chief who has never fought without victory, yet who has always preferred conciliation to conquest—the first counsellor in the Witan—the first man in the realm—who but Harold? answer me, staring Vebba?”

“I take in thy words slowly,” said the Kent man, shaking his head, “and after all, it matters little who is king, so he be a good one. Yes, I see now that the Earl was a just and generous man when he made the King send for the Atheling. Drink-hael! long life to them both!”

“Was-hael,” answered Godrith, draining his hippocras to Vebba’s more potent ale. “Long life to them both! may Edward the Atheling reign, but Harold the Earl rule! Ah, then, indeed, we may sleep without fear of fierce Algar and still fiercer Gryffyth the Walloon—who now, it is true, are stilled for the moment, thanks to Harold—but not more still than the smooth waters in Gwyned, that lie just above the rush of a torrent.”

“So little news hear I,” said Vebba, “and in Kent so little are we plagued with the troubles elsewhere, (for there Harold governs us, and the hawks come not where the eagles hold eyrie!)—that I will thank thee to tell me something about our old Earl for a year 144, Algar the restless, and this Gryffyth the Welch King, so that I may seem a wise man when I go back to my homestead.”

“Why, thou knowest at least that Algar and Harold were ever opposed in the Witan, and hot words thou hast heard pass between them!”

“Marry, yes! But Algar was as little match for Earl Harold in speech as in sword play.”

Now again one of the listeners started, (but it was not the same as the one before,) and muttered an angry exclamation.

“Yet is he a troublesome foe,” said Godrith, who did not hear the sound Vebba had provoked, “and a thorn in the side both of the Earl and of England; and sorrowful for both England and Earl was it, that Harold refused to marry Aldyth, as it is said his father, wise Godwin, counselled and wished.”

“Ah! but I have heard scops and harpers sing pretty songs that Harold loves Edith the Fair, a wondrous proper maiden, they say!”

“It is true; and for the sake of his love, he played ill for his ambition.”

“I like him the better for that,” said the honest Kent man: “why does he not marry the girl at once? she hath broad lands, I know, for they run from the Sussex shore into Kent.”

“But they are cousins five times removed, and the Church forbids the marriage; nevertheless Harold lives only for Edith; they have exchanged the true-lofa 145, and it is whispered that Harold hopes the Atheling, when he comes to be King, will get him the Pope’s dispensation. But to return to Algar; in a day most unlucky he gave his daughter to Gryffyth, the most turbulent sub-king the land ever knew, who, it is said, will not be content till he has won all Wales for himself without homage or service, and the Marches to boot. Some letters between him and Earl Algar, to whom Harold had secured the earldom of the East Angles, were discovered, and in a Witan at Winchester thou wilt doubtless have heard, (for thou didst not, I know, leave thy lands to attend it,) that Algar 146 was outlawed.”

“Oh, yes, these are stale tidings; I heard thus much from a palmer—and then Algar got ships from the Irish, sailed to North Wales, and beat Rolf, the Norman Earl, at Hereford. Oh, yes, I heard that, and,” added the Kent man, laughing, “I was not sorry to hear that my old Earl Algar, since he is a good and true Saxon, beat the cowardly Norman,—more shame to the King for giving a Norman the ward of the Marches!”

“It was a sore defeat to the King and to England,” said Godrith, gravely. “The great Minster of Hereford built by King Athelstan was burned and sacked by the Welch; and the crown itself was in danger, when Harold came up at the head of the Fyrd. Hard is it to tell the distress and the marching and the camping, and the travail, and destruction of men, and also of horses, which the English endured 147 till Harold came; and then luckily came also the good old Leofric, and Bishop Alred the peacemaker, and so strife was patched up—Gryffyth swore oaths of faith to King Edward, and Algar was inlawed; and there for the nonce rests the matter now. But well I ween that Gryffyth will never keep troth with the English, and that no hand less strong than Harold’s can keep in check a spirit as fiery as Algar’s: therefore did I wish that Harold might be King.”

“Well,” quoth the honest Kent man, “I hope, nevertheless, that Algar, will sow his wild oats, and leave the Walloons to grow the hemp for their own halters; for, though he is not of the height of our Harold, he is a true Saxon, and we liked him well enow when he ruled us. And how is our Earl’s brother Tostig esteemed by the Northmen? It must be hard to please those who had Siward of the strong arm for their Earl before.”

“Why, at first, when (at Siward’s death in the wars for young Malcolm) Harold secured to Tostig the Northumbrian earldom, Tostig went by his brother’s counsel, and ruled well and won favour. Of late I hear that the Northmen murmur. Tostig is a man indeed dour and haughty.”

After a few more questions and answers on the news of the day, Vebba rose and said:

“Thanks for thy good fellowship; it is time for me now to be jogging homeward. I left my ceorls and horses on the other side the river, and must go after them. And now forgive me my bluntness, fellow-thegn, but ye young courtiers have plenty of need for your mancuses, and when a plain countryman like me comes sight-seeing, he ought to stand payment; wherefore,” here he took from his belt a great leathern purse, “wherefore, as these outlandish birds and heathenish puddings must be dear fare—”

“How!” said Godrith, reddening, “thinkest thou so meanly of us thegns of Middlesex as to deem we cannot entertain thus humbly a friend from a distance? Ye Kent men I know are rich. But keep your pennies to buy stuffs for your wife, my friend.”

The Kent man, seeing he had displeased his companion, did not press his liberal offer,—put up his purse, and suffered Godrith to pay the reckoning. Then, as the two thegns shook hands, he said:

“But I should like to have said a kind word or so to Earl Harold—for he was too busy and too great for me to come across him in the old palace yonder. I have a mind to go back and look for him at his own house.”

“You will not find him there,” said Godrith, “for I know that as soon as he hath finished his conference with the Atheling, he will leave the city; and I shall be at his own favourite manse over the water at sunset, to take orders for repairing the forts and dykes on the Marches. You can tarry awhile and meet us; you know his old lodge in the forest land?”

“Nay, I must be back and at home ere night, for all things go wrong when the master is away. Yet, indeed, my good wife will scold me for not having shaken hands with the handsome Earl.”

“Thou shalt not come under that sad infliction,” said the good-natured Godrith, who was pleased with the thegn’s devotion to Harold, and who, knowing the great weight which Vebba (homely as he seemed) carried in his important county, was politically anxious that the Earl should humour so sturdy a friend,—“Thou shalt not sour thy wife’s kiss, man. For look you, as you ride back you will pass by a large old house, with broken columns at the back.”

“I have marked it well,” said the thegn, “when I have gone that way, with a heap of queer stones, on a little hillock, which they say the witches or the Britons heaped together.”

“The same. When Harold leaves London, I trow well towards that house will his road wend; for there lives Edith the swan’s-neck, with her awful grandam the Wicca. If thou art there a little after noon, depend on it thou wilt see Harold riding that way.”

“Thank thee heartily, friend Godrith,” said Vebba, taking his leave, “and forgive my bluntness if I laughed at thy cropped head, for I see thou art as good a Saxon as e’er a franklin of Kent—and so the saints keep thee.”

Vebba then strode briskly over the bridge; and Godrith, animated by the wine he had drunk, turned gaily on his heel to look amongst the crowded tables for some chance friend with whom to while away an hour or so at the games of hazard then in vogue.

Scarce had he turned, when the two listeners, who, having paid their reckoning, had moved under shade of one of the arcades, dropped into a boat which they had summoned to the margin by a noiseless signal, and were rowed over the water. They preserved a silence which seemed thoughtful and gloomy until they reached the opposite shore; then one of them, pushing back his bonnet, showed the sharp and haughty features of Algar.

“Well, friend of Gryffyth,” said he, with a bitter accent, “thou hearest that Earl Harold counts so little on the oaths of thy King, that he intends to fortify the Marches against him; and thou hearest also, that nought save a life, as fragile as the reed which thy feet are trampling, stands between the throne of England and the only Englishman who could ever have humbled my son-in-law to swear oath of service to Edward.”

“Shame upon that hour,” said the other, whose speech, as well as the gold collar round his neck, and the peculiar fashion of his hair, betokened him to be Welch. “Little did I think that the great son of Llewellyn, whom our bards had set above Roderic Mawr, would ever have acknowledged the sovereignty of the Saxon over the hills of Cymry.”

“Tut, Meredydd,” answered Algar, “thou knowest well that no Cymrian ever deems himself dishonoured by breaking faith with the Saxon; and we shall yet see the lions of Gryffyth scaring the sheepfolds of Hereford.”

“So be it,” said Meredydd, fiercely. “And Harold shall give to his Atheling the Saxon land, shorn at least of the Cymrian kingdom.”

“Meredydd,” said Algar, with a seriousness that seemed almost solemn, no Atheling will live to rule these realms! Thou knowest that I was one of the first to hail the news of his coming—I hastened to Dover to meet him. Methought I saw death writ on his countenance, and I bribed the German leach who attends him to answer my questions; the Atheling knows it not, but he bears within him the seeds of a mortal complaint. Thou wottest well what cause I have to hate Earl Harold; and were I the only man to oppose his way to the throne, he should not ascend it but over my corpse. But when Godrith, his creature, spoke, I felt that he spoke the truth; and, the Atheling dead, on no head but Harold’s can fall the crown of Edward.”

“Ha!” said the Cymrian chief, gloomily; “thinkest thou so indeed?”

“I think it not; I know it. And for that reason, Meredydd, we must wait not till he wields against us all the royalty of England. As yet, while Edward lives, there is hope. For the King loves to spend wealth on relics and priests, and is slow when the mancuses are wanted for fighting men. The King too, poor man! is not so ill-pleased at my outbursts as he would fain have it thought; he thinks, by pitting earl against earl, that he himself is the stronger 148. While Edward lives, therefore, Harold’s arm is half crippled; wherefore, Meredydd, ride thou, with good speed, back to King Gryffyth, and tell him all I have told thee. Tell him that our time to strike the blow and renew the war will be amidst the dismay and confusion that the Atheling’s death will occasion. Tell him, that if we can entangle Harold himself in the Welch defiles, it will go hard but what we shall find some arrow or dagger to pierce the heart of the invader. And were Harold but slain—who then would be king in England? The line of Cerdic gone—the House of Godwin lost in Earl Harold, (for Tostig is hated in his own domain, Leofwine is too light, and Gurth is too saintly for such ambition)—who then, I say, can be king in England but Algar, the heir of the great Leofric? And I, as King of England, will set all Cymry free, and restore to the realm of Gryffyth the shires of Hereford and Worcester. Ride fast, O Meredydd, and heed well all I have said.”