Harold, the compromise candidate, reigned from 1037 to 1040.  He gained Godwin to his side, and together they lured the sons of Emma by Ethelred—­viz., Alfred and Edward—­to town, and, as a sort of royal practical joke, put out Alfred’s eyes, causing his death.

Harold was a swift sprinter, and was called “Harefoot” by those who were intimate enough to exchange calls and coarse anecdotes with him.

He died in 1040 A.D., and nobody ever had a more general approval for doing so than Harold.

Hardicanute now came forth from his apartments, and was received as king with every demonstration of joy, and for some weeks he and dyspepsia had it all their own way on Piccadilly. (Report says that he drank!  Several times while under the influence of liquor he abdicated the throne with a dull thud, but was reinstated by the Police.)

[Illustration:  “King Harold is dead, sire.”]

Enraged by the death of Alfred, the king had the remains of Harold exhumed and thrown into a fen.  This a-fensive act showed what a great big broad nature Hardicanute had,—­also the kind of timber used in making a king in those days.

Godwin, however, seems to have been a good political acrobat, and was on more sides of more questions than anybody else of those times.  Though connected with the White-Cap affair by which Alfred lost his eyesight and his life, he proved an alibi, or spasmodic paresis, or something, and, having stood a compurgation and “ordeal” trial, was released.  The historian very truly but inelegantly says, if memory serves the writer accurately, that Godwin was such a political straddle-bug that he early abandoned the use of pantaloons and returned to the toga, which was the only garment able to stand the strain of his political cuttings-up.

The Shire Mote, or county court of those days, was composed of a dozen thanes, or cheap nobles, who had to swear that they had not read the papers, and had not formed or expressed an opinion, and that their minds were in a state of complete vacancy.  It was a sort of primary jury, and each could point with pride to the vast collection he had made of things he did not know, and had not formed or expressed an opinion about.

[Illustration:  “Ordeal” Of justice.]

If one did not like the verdict of this court, he could appeal to the king on a certiorari or some such thing as that.  The accused could clear himself by his own oath and that of others, but without these he had to stand what was called the “ordeal,” which consisted in walking on hot ploughshares without expressing a derogatory opinion regarding the ploughshares or showing contempt of court.  Sometimes the accused had to run his arm into boiling water.  If after three days the injury had disappeared, the defendant was discharged and costs taxed against the king.

[Illustration:  Dying between courses.]