Reflect--each moment of delay swells the rebel hosts, strengthens their cause; of each moment they avail themselves to allure to their side the misguided citizens.

Delay but proves our own weakness; a king's name is a tower of strength, but only when fortified by a king's authority.

Give the signal for--war I call it not--no--for chastisement and justice." "As speaks my brother of Canterbury, speak I," said William, Bishop of London, another Norman.
But then there rose up a form at whose rising all murmurs were hushed.
Grey and vast, as some image of a gone and mightier age towered over all, Siward, the son of Beorn, the great Earl of Northumbria.
"We have naught to do with the Normans.

Were they on the river, and our countrymen, Dane or Saxon, alone in this hall, small doubt of the King's choice, and niddering were the man who spoke of peace; but when Norman advises the dwellers of England to go forth and slay each other, no sword of mine shall be drawn at his hest.

Who shall say that Siward of the Strong Arm, the grandson of the Berserker, ever turned from a foe?
The foe, son of Ethelred, sits in these halls; I fight thy battles when I say Nay to the Norman! Brothers-in-arms of the kindred race and common tongue, Dane and Saxon long intermingled, proud alike of Canute the glorious and Alfred the wise, ye will hear the man whom Godwin, our countryman, sends to us; he at least will speak our tongue, and he knows our laws.