A.D. 1051.] ASTRAY AT DOVER. home laden with presents. In this year a number of the nobles of Northumberland assembled at a certain church near the city of Lindisfarne, to hear causes, and requested the priest to be so good as to perform mass for them ; but having that night slept with a concubine, he feared to undertake so high an office ; but yielding to their urgent entreaties, he with much trembling celebrated the divine mysteries. But when he was about to take the sacred mystery, he beheld the portion, which according to custom he had placed in the chalice, changed to so black a colour, as to be more like pitch than bread and wine. Conscious of his guilt, the priest knew not what to do ; and fearing that, whatever he did, he could not escape the judgment of almighty God, he with loathing and exceeding trepidation took the terrible substance, which he found so bitter, that he thought he had never before tasted the like. The service being ended, he immediately communicated the matter to the bishop, who appointed him a penance, and exhorted him thenceforth to study to offer unto God a chaste life ; which he faithfully promised to do, and kept his vow as long as he lived. Exile of earl Godwin. In those days, Eustace earl of Boulogne, who had married Goda, king Eadward's sister, landed at Dover, where his rough soldiers slew a man of the town as they were in quest of lodgings. Another townsman enraged at this sight, slew the soldier who had done it ,· whereat the earl and his comrades in great wrath slew a number of men and women, and trod their children under their horses' feet. But a multitude of people coming together to attack them, the enemy took to flight, and after a loss of eighty men, the rest escaped to king Eadward, who was then at Gloucester. Indignant at the slaughter of his people, Godwin earl of Kent, out of his country, which comprised Kent, Sussex, and Wessex, and his eldest son Sweyn, from the whole of his country, which comprised the counties of Oxford, Gloucester, Hereford, Somerset, and Berks, and his son Harold, out of his honour of Essex, East-Anglia, Cambridge, and Huntingdon, collected a great army. With these forces earl Godwin marched into Gloucestershire, and sending messages to the king, demanded, under the threat of making war, the