And to performe this promise, he
receiued a corporall oth, whether willinglie to win the more credit,
or forced thereto by duke William, writers report it diuerslie. At the
same time, duke William promised vnto him his daughter in marriage,
whom Harold couenanted in like maner to take to wife.
* * * * *
_Harold at his returne into England reporteth to K. Edward what he
had doone beyond the seas, and what the king said vnto him in that
behalfe, who foresaw the comming of the Normans into this land to
conquer it; when and why king Edward promised to make duke William
his heire, (wherein note his subtiltie) dissention betwixt Harold and
Tostie two brethren the sonnes of earle Goodwine, their vnnaturall and
cruell dealing one with another, speciallie of the abhominable and
merciles murthers committed by Tostie, against whome the Northumbers
rebell vpon diuerse occasions, and reward him with answerable
reuengement; Harold is sent against them, but preuaileth not; they
offer to returne home if they might haue a new gouernor; they renounce
Tostie and require Marchar in his roome, Tostie displeased getteth
him into Flanders; king Edward dieth, his manners and disposition
note-woorthie, his charitie and deuotion, the vertue of curing the
maladie called the kings euill deriued from him to the succeeding
kings of this land, he was warned of his death by a ring, he is
canonized for a saint, the last woords that he spake on his death-bed,
wherein he vttered to the standers by a vision, prophesieng that
England should be inhabited with strangers, a description of the kings
person, of a blasing starre fore-telling his death, the progenie of
the Westsaxon kings, how long they continued, the names of their
predecessors and successors; whence the first kings of seuen kingdoms
of Germanie had their pedegree, &c.
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