pronounced with his right hand laid upon the relics of the Saxon saints he most esteemed, to be henceforward and alway true liegeman to King William and to his lawful successors. When a Saxon monk, known for his good English heart, and for the pious life he had led in Waltham Abbey,[258] got into the fen country, and into the presence of the Lord of Brunn with this scroll, the gentle Ladie Alftrude, who had borne many toils and troubles without a murmur, was lying sick of a marsh fever, which she had caught in Hoiland. This afflicting event was calculated to have some influence over her lord’s decision; but many other events and circumstances, too numerous to name, all led to the same conclusion. No hope of the return of King Harold could be maintained any longer; the good old Saxon monk from Waltham vowed that his body was really buried in Waltham Abbey, that the river Lea, flowing fast by that Abbey gate, ever murmured his requiem, by night as by day, and that he himself, for years past, had said a daily mass for the peace of his soul. All the great Saxon chiefs had submitted long ago; Earl Waltheof, the last that had made a stir in arms, had been captured and beheaded outside Winchester town, and was now lying (though not without a strong odour of sanctity) in a deep grave at Crowland Abbey; Edgar Etheling, the last representative of the line of King Alfred, was living contentedly, and growing fat in a Norman palace at Rouen, with a pound of silver a day for his maintenance; for he had long since given himself up, and sworn himself liege-man to William. Every rising had been put down in England, and all conditions of men seemed determined to rise no more, but to live in peace and good fellowship with the Normans; there was nothing but marrying and giving in marriage between the two races, and Saxon lords and other men of note were taking unto themselves Norman or French wives; and the great father of the whole Christian church, the Pope at Rome, Gregory, the seventh of that name, had given plenary powers to Archbishop Lanfranc to reorganize the Saxon church, and to excommunicate all such Saxons as submitted not to his primacy and to the government established. William, on the other hand, promised to take vengeance on none of Lord Hereward’s followers, and to injure no fen-man for that which was past. “Elfric,” said the Lord of Brunn, “I think we must accept these terms, and cease this roving life among woods and meres. We have done what brave men can do: we have shown the Normans that England was not conquered in one fatal battle. We might yet hold out here, but for the rest of England we can do nothing; and our being here costs some Englishmen in the vicinage very dearly! What sayest thou, my ever-trusty sword-bearer? Wilt follow thy old master to London city, and make peace with Duke William and his Normans, who have never been able to overcome us?”