Page:Comic History of England.djvu/77

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OTHER DISAGREEABLE CLAIMANTS.
73

usual to see each noble with a roast pig tête-à-tête,—each confronting the other, the living and the dead.

At this time, it is said by the old settlers that hog cholera thinned out the nobility a good deal, whether directly or indirectly they do not say.

The English had now wearied of the Danish yoke. "Why wear the Danish yoke," they asked, "and be ruled with a rod of iron?"

Edward, half brother of Edmund Ironside, was therefore nominated and chosen king. Godwin, who seemed to be specially gifted as a versatile connoisseur of "crow,"[1] turned up as his political adviser.

Edward, afterwards called "the Confessor," at once stripped Queen Emma of all her means, for he had no love left for her, as she had failed repeatedly to assist him when he was an outcast, and afterwards the new king placed her in jail (or gaol, rather) at Winchester. This should teach mothers to be more obedient, or they will surely come to some bad end.

Edward was educated in Normandy, and so was quite partial to the Normans. He appointed many of them to important positions in both church and state. Even the See of Canterbury

  1. "Eating crow" is an expression common in modern American politics to signify a reluctant acknowledgment of humiliating defeat.—Historian.