At Length, Being Guilty Of The
Murder Of His Kinsman Bruno, And, As Some Report, Of His Own Brother, He
Made A Pilgrimage To Jerusalem; And On His Return Towards England, He Was
Intercepted By The Saracens, By Whom He Was Slain.
SECTION IX.
A Voyage of three Ambassadors from England to Constantinople and the
East, about the year 1056[2].
Upon the holy festival of Easter, King Edward the Confessor, wearing his
royal crown, sat at dinner in his palace of Westminster, surrounded by many
of his nobles. While others, after the long abstinence of the lent season,
refreshed themselves with dainty viands, on which they fed with much
earnestness, he, raising his mind above earthly enjoyments, and meditating
on divine things, broke out into excessive laughter, to the great
astonishment of his guests. But no one presuming to inquire into the cause
of his mirth, all kept silence till dinner was ended. After dinner, when
the king had retired to his bed-chamber, to divest himself of his robes,
three of his nobles, Earl Harold, an abbot, and a bishop, who were more
familiar with him than any of the other courtiers, followed him into the
chamber, and boldly asked the reason of his mirth, as it had appeared
strange to the whole court that his majesty should break out into unseemly
laughter on so solemn a day, while all others were silent. "I saw," said
he, "most wonderful things, and therefore did I not laugh without cause."
And they, as is customary with all men, became therefore the more anxious
to learn the occasion of his mirth, and humbly beseeched him to impart the
reason to them.
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