Even while treacherously
endeavoring (after being once disarmed) to stab the brave Godwine
with a knife which he had concealed in his boot, the false Sir
Ordgar was overcome, confessed the falsehood of his charge
against Edgar the Atheling and Edith his niece, and, as the
quaint old record has it, "The strength of his grief and the
multitude of his wounds drove out his impious soul."
So young Edith was saved; and, as is usually the case with men of
his character, the Red King's humor changed completely. The
victorious Godwine received the arms and lands of the dead
Ordgar; Edgar the Atheling was raised high in trust and honor;
the throne of Scotland, wrested from the Red Donald, was placed
once more in the family of King Malcolm, and King William Rufus
himself became the guardian and protector of the Princess Edith.
And when, one fatal August day, the Red King was found pierced by
an arrow under the trees of the New Forest, his younger brother,
Duke Henry, whom men called Beauclerc, "the good scholar," for
his love of learning and of books, ascended the throne of England
as King Henry I. And the very year of his accession, on the 11th
of November, 1100, he married, in the Abbey of Westminster, the
Princess Edith of Scotland, then a fair young lady of scarce
twenty-one.
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