It remains only to add that, in imitation of the king, the great nobles surrounded themselves with a body-guard of Húscarlas[301], who probably stood in the same relation to their lord, as he did to the king: in short the institution is only a revival of the Comitatus, described in the First Book, and must have gone through a similar course of development. Nay, the details which have reached us of the later establishment may possibly throw light upon the earlier, and serve to explain some of the peculiarities which strike us in the account of Tacitus. This difference indeed there is, that in the later form the king and the comites unite in a definite bond, with respective, stipulated rights; in the earlier form, the comites attach themselves to the king, without stipulation or reserve, although no doubt under the protection of a customary and recognized, although unwritten, law. ----- Footnote 301: Florence of Worcester, speaking of the revolt of the Northumbrians against their duke Tostig, in 1065, says: “Eodem die primitus illius Danicos húscarlas Amundum et Ravensueartum, de fuga retractos, extra civitatis muros, ac die sequente plus quam cc. viros ex curialibus illius in boreali parte Humbrae fluminis peremerunt.” an. 1065. One manuscript of the Saxon Chronicle thus relates these events: “And sona æfter ðison gegaderedon ða þegenas hi ealle on Eoforwícscyre ⁊ on Norðhymbralande togædere, ⁊ geútlagedan heora eorl Tosti, ⁊ ofslógon his hírédmenn ealle ðe hig mihten tócumen.” But another says: “Tostiges eorles húskarlas ðar ofslógon, ealle ða ðe hig geáxian mihton.” Hírédmen are _familiares_, those who live in the house, or form part of the house or family; and this seems the original and strict definition of the húscarl. ----- CHAPTER IV. THE EALDORMAN OR DUKE. It is of much less importance to a people, what its constitution is, than what is its administration; nothing can be easier than to make what are called charters, and it is a rhetorical commonplace to talk of resting under a constitution, the growth of ages: but no nation rests, or ever did rest, under the one or the other. The source of a nation’s comfort,—of its success in realizing the great principle of the mutual guarantee of peace, lies in the administration of what is called its constitution, in the skill with which it has devised its machinery of government, in the balance of power which it represents in the election of its instruments. We shall therefore pass now to the members of the Anglosaxon administration. The dignity next in importance to the royal, is that of the Ealdorman or Duke.