"All the thanes in Yorkshire and Northumberland gathered themselves together, and outlawed their Earl, Tosty, and slew his household men, all that they might come at, as well English as Danish: and they took all his weapons at York, and gold and silver, and all his treasures which they might anywhere there hear of, and sent after Morkar, the son of Elgar the Earl, and chose him to be their Earl: and he went south with all the shire, and with Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire, and Lincolnshire, until he came to Northampton: and his brother Edwin came to meet him with the men who were in his earldom, and also many Britons came with him. There came Harold, the Earl, to meet them; and they laid an errand upon him to King Edward, and also sent messengers with him, and begged that they might have Morkar for their Earl. And the King granted it, and sent Harold again to them at Northampton, on the eve of St. Simon's and St. Jude's Mass; and he made known the same to them, and delivered a pledge thereof to them: and he there renewed Canute's law. But the northern men did much harm about Northampton whilst he went on their errand, inasmuch as they slew men and burned houses and corn; and took all the cattle which they came at, that was many thousand: and many hundred men they took and led north with them; so that shire, and the other shires which there are nigh, were for many years the worse. And Tosty the earl, and his wife, and all those who would what he would, went south over sea with him to Baldwin, the earl, and he received them all; and they were all the winter there." The indignation of Tosti was extreme, and was not unnaturally directed towards his brother, Harold, who had used his influence with the Confessor to obtain the pardon of the turbulent Northumbrians, and the confirmation of Morkar in the possession of the earldom. That Harold was actuated by personal motives cannot be questioned, for he procured the government of Mercia for Earl Edwin, and espoused the sister of these potent nobles. It was obvious that a crisis must come in his history, and in that of his country, and as a man and a patriot he could not afford to be hampered by the crimes of his brother, and by the disaffection and revolt of a province so remote and difficult of access as Northumbria. Although Harold was at the head of an army when he treated with the Northumbrians at Northampton, it is apparent from the passage already quoted that they were assembled in such numbers and array, that any attempt to reinstate Tosti in the earldom would have resulted in a battle, and probably would have necessitated an armed invasion of Northumbria.