Editha the queen was now left alone in the midst of her father's enemies; nor was she long before she felt the weight of their hatred and vengeance. "It was not right," the Norman favourites said, "that while her family was in exile, she herself should sleep upon down." She was also deprived of all the possessions which on her marriage had been bequeathed to her by her father, and then shut up in a nunnery. Calm and passionless as an historian ought ever to be, he would scarcely feel any regret if the Norman invasion had taken place in the life-time of such a weak-minded monarch as this Edward the Confessor, were it only for his conduct to the beautiful and highly-gifted Editha, whose character Ingulphus has so delicately drawn. Still less do we admire the forbearance by which he obtained his much-lauded sanctity, which was but a species of "refined cruelty" towards a lady whose very soul must have been a shrine fit for the purest affection to dwell in. But, after all, we feel a pity for Edward. His life was uncheered either by the affection of father or mother, excepting in the very early years of childhood. As he grew up, he became a prey to false friends and unprincipled priests, who, while they pretended to draw his attention to the treasures "which neither rust nor moth doth corrupt," were themselves revelling in the very heart of vile and selfish corruption. Ambitious as Godwin might be, there was much more of the nobleness of human nature in his character than existed in the soul of Edward; and, although we feel sorry for the king's weakness, we can never pardon him for leaving that lovely lady alone in the cold grey cloisters of a nunnery, where, to use the words of one of our old chroniclers, she "in tears and prayers expected the day of her release," doubtless looking beyond the grave for that happiness which it was never her lot to know on earth. But we have now arrived at the fall and banishment of earl Godwin, and must leave him for awhile in exile, to glance at the merry doings in the English court during his absence. CHAPTER XXXV. EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. "As I was banished, I was banished, But as I come, I come.-- Will you permit that I shall stand condemned A wandering vagabond; my rights and royalties Plucked from my arms perforce, and given away To upstart spendthrifts? What would you have me do? I am a subject, And challenge law; attornies are denied me; And therefore, personally, I lay my claim To my inheritance."--SHAKSPERE.