It was not only because the people respected and even loved the king that
they were grieved to hear that his days were numbered, but because they saw
that his death would bring trouble on the land. With him the line of the
Oethelings would become extinct, save for the boy Edgar and his sisters.
The boy had been born beyond the sea, and was as much a foreigner as Edward
himself had been, and Edward's partiality for the Normans in the early
years of his reign had so angered the English that Edgar's claims would on
this account alone have been dismissed. Moreover, boys' hands were unfit to
hold the sceptre of England in such troubled times. It was to Harold that
all eyes turned. He had for years exercised at least joint authority with
Edward; he was the foremost and most noble of Englishmen. He was skilled in
war, and wise in counsel, and the charm of his manner, the strength and
stateliness of his figure, and the singular beauty of his face rendered him
the popular idol. And yet men felt that it was a new departure in English
life and customs for one who had in his veins no drop of royal blood to be
chosen as king. His sister was Edward's wife, he was Edward's friend and
counsellor, but although the men of the South felt that he was in all ways
fitted to be king, they saw too that Northumbria would assuredly stand
aloof, and that the Mercian earls, brothers-in-law as they were to be to
Harold, would yet feel jealous that one of their own rank was to be their
sovereign.
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