The reign of Harold is only important to us for these reasons—First, the part played by London in the election of the king. Next, the illustration of the savagery which still remained among the Danes, and was shown in their horrible treatment of the Etheling Alfred and his men. Alfred, the son of Ethelred, thought that the death of Cnut would give him a chance of succession. He therefore came over, accompanied by a small following. But “Godwin, the earl, would not allow him.” His fate is recorded in the _A.S. Chronicle_:—
“But Godwin him then let, and him in bonds set; and his companions he dispersed; and some divers ways slew; some they for money sold, some cruelly slaughtered, some they did bind, some they did blind, some they did mutilate, some did they scalp; nor was a bloodier deed done in this land since the Danes came, and here accepted peace. Now is our trust in the beloved God, that they are in bliss, blithely with Christ. The etheling still lived, who were without guilt so miserably slain. Every ill they him vowed, until it was decreed that he should be led to Ely-bury, thus bound. Soon as he came to land, in the ship he was blinded; and him thus blind they brought to the monks; and he there abode the while that he lived. After that him they buried, as well was his due full worthily, as he worthy was, at the west end, the steeple well-nigh, in the south aisle. His soul is with Christ.”
And lastly, the fact that Harold was buried at Westminster, the first of our kings buried there. His half-brother, Hardacnut, had the body exhumed and thrown into the mud of the marsh round Thorney—“into a fen,” says the _Chronicle_. Thorney stood in a fen, and it is not likely that the new king would desire his savage deed—yet, was it more savage than the acts of Charles II. at the Restoration?—to be concealed. One knows not how many tides ebbed and flowed over the body of the dead king as it lay among the reeds; but presently some—perhaps the monks—taking pity on the poor remains put them into a boat, carried them down the river, and buried them in the little church of St. Clement’s, which, like Thorney, stood on the rising ground of the Strand. And there his dust lies still.