I told you that when the Danes got so much the better of the English as to make one of their own princes king, they drove away the princes of Alfred’s family; and I told you, at the same time, that some of these princes went to Normandy, which was governed by a duke instead of a king. The duke at that time was brave and generous, and was kind to the princes, and protected them from their enemies, and allowed them to live at his court. One of the English princes was called Edward; and, after the three Danish kings were dead, this Edward was made king of England.

The people were all delighted to have a prince of Alfred’s family once more to reign over them, for although Canute had been good to them, they could not forget that he was one of the cruel Danes who had so long oppressed the English; and, as to his sons, they never did anything good, as I told you before; and the people suspected them of having murdered a favorite young prince, called Alfred.

King Edward was very much liked at first; but he was idle, and allowed sometimes one great man, and sometimes another, to govern him and the kingdom, while he was saying his prayers, or looking over the workmen while they were building new churches.

Now it is very right in everybody to say prayers; but when God appoints us other duties to do, we should do them carefully. A king’s duty is to govern his people well; he must not only see that good laws are made, but he must also take care that everybody obeys them.

A bishop’s duty is to pray and preach, and see that all the clergymen who are under him do their duty, and instruct the people properly.

A soldier’s duty is to fight the enemies of his country in war, and to obey the king, and to live quietly in peace. A judge’s duty is to tell what the law is, to order the punishment of bad people, and to prevent wickedness. A physician’s duty is to cure sick people; and it is everybody’s duty to take care of their own families, and teach them what is right and set them good examples.

It has pleased God to make all these things duties, and He requires us to do them; and He has given us all quite time enough to pray rightly, if we really and truly love God enough to do our duties to please Him. So King Edward, if he had loved God the right way, would have attended to his kingdom himself, instead of letting other people rule it.

However, in King Edward’s time, people thought that everybody who prayed so much must be very holy, and therefore after his death he received the name of Edward the Confessor, or Saint.

One of the great men who ruled England in Edward’s time was Godwin Earl of Wessex. He was very clever, and very powerful. After his death, his son Harold became Earl of Wessex, and did all the king ought to have done himself, and tried to keep strangers out of the country.

But King Edward, who had been kindly treated in Normandy, when the Danes drove him out of England, had brought a great many Normans home with him; and when they saw how pleasant England was, and what plenty of corn, and cattle, and deer there was in it, and how healthy and strong the people grew, they determined to try and get the kingdom for their duke as soon as Edward was dead. And they told the duke what they thought of, and he came from Normandy to see King Edward, and to get him to promise that he should be king of England, as King Edward had no son.

Now I think this was not right, because Edward had a relation who ought to have been king, and his name was Edgar, and he was called the Atheling, which means the Prince.

Perhaps if Edward the Confessor had taken pains to get the great men in England to promise to take care of Edgar Atheling, and make him king, they would have done so; but as they found he wanted to give England to the Duke of Normandy, a great many of them thought it would be better to have an English earl for a king, because the English earl would be glad to protect his own countrymen, but that a Duke of Normandy would most likely take their houses and lands and give them to the Normans. So they were willing that Harold, the son of Earl Godwin, who already acted as if he were under-king, should be the real king after Edward’s death.

In the meantime King Edward was busy in building Westminster Abbey, and encouraging Norman bishops and soldiers to come to England, where he gave them some of the best places to live in.

I must tell you, however, of one very useful thing that was done in the reign of Edward. He found that some part of England was ruled by laws made by King Alfred or other English kings, before his time, and some parts by laws made by the Danes, and that the people could not agree about these laws; so he ordered some wise men to collect all these laws together, and to read them over, and to take the best English laws, and the best Danish laws, and put them into one book, that all the people might be governed by the same law.

King Edward died after he had reigned twenty-two years in England, and the English gave the kingdom to Harold the under-king. But he had a very short reign. As soon as it was known in the North of England that Edward was dead, Harold’s brother, Tostig, who had been driven out of his earldom over that part of the country, came back with the King of Norway to fight against Harold. But the other English people joined Harold, and went to battle against Tostig, who was soon killed, and Harold might have been king of all England.

But while Harold was in the North the Duke of Normandy came over to England with a great number of ships full of soldiers, and landed in Sussex. As soon as Harold heard of this, he went with his army to drive the Normans away; but he was too late; they had got into the country, and in a great battle fought near Hastings, Harold, the English king, was killed, and the Duke of Normandy made himself king of England.

I do not think the English would have allowed Duke William to be king so easily, if he had not told them that Edward the Confessor had promised that he should be king, and persuaded them that the prince Edgar Atheling, who, as I told you, ought to have been king after Edward, was too silly ever to govern the kingdom well.

But after the English Harold was killed, and Edgar Atheling, with his sister, had gone to Scotland, to escape from the Normans, the English thought it better to submit to William, who had ruled his own country so wisely, that they hoped he would be a good king in England.