Yet the company was very different from that which had
assembled round the same hospitable board in the days of King Edred.
First, the Churchmen were conspicuous by their absence; and secondly,
all the old grey-headed counsellors, who had been the pride and ornament
of the reigns of Edmund and Edred, were not seen; for, after the rumour
of their marriage had reached Odo, he had pronounced the sentence of the
lesser excommunication upon them, severing them from the sacraments; and
this was felt by the old counsellors of Edred to be a most serious
stigma, yet one which they could not call undeserved: hence they
deserted the court.
In their place were the young and giddy, the headstrong sons of wiser
fathers, the spendthrifts, the young fops of the period, those who went
in for a fast life, to use a modern phrase--who spent the night, if
not the day, over the wine cup, and consumed their substance in riotous
living--such were they who gathered around Edwy the Fair and the yet
fairer Elgiva.
And truly king and queen more beautiful in person had never sat upon a
throne; and it was difficult to look upon them and feel aught but
admiration, save when one knew all their history, and then pity and
sorrow might supply the place of admiration, at least with the sober minded.
Fish, flesh, and fowl; nought was wanting. The earth the air, and the
water, all yielded their tribute; for was it not the anniversary of the
marriage--the uncanonical marriage, alas!--of the royal pair, if
marriage it had truly been?
Eels of enormous size, fine as the Roman lamprey, pike roasted with
puddings in their bellies, tench and carp stewed; while the sea yielded
its skate, its sturgeon, and its porpoise, which the skill of the cook
had so curiously dressed with fragrant spices that it won him great
renown.
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