A Child's History of England.19

The King was at first as blind and stubborn as kings usually have been whensoever [每当] they have been in the hands of monks. But the people rallied so thickly round the old Earl and his son, and the old Earl was so steady in demanding without bloodshed the restoration of himself and his family to their rights, that at last the court took the alarm. The Norman Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Norman Bishop of London, surrounded by their retainers [servant], fought their way out of London, and escaped from Essex to France in a fishing-boat. The other Norman favourites dispersed in all directions. The old Earl and his sons (except Sweyn, who had committed crimes against the law) were restored to their possessions and dignities. Editha, the virtuous and lovely Queen of the insensible King, was triumphantly released from her prison, the convent, and once more sat in her chair of state, arrayed [wear] in the jewels of which, when she had no champion [斗士] to support her rights, her cold-blooded husband had deprived her.

六级/考研单词: stubborn, rally, bishop, disperse, commit, gorgeous, triumph, jail, deprive

The old Earl Godwin did not long enjoy his restored fortune. He fell down in a fit [laugh/cough] at the King's table, and died upon the third day afterwards. Harold succeeded to his power, and to a far higher place in the attachment [liking, loving, loyalty] of the people than his father had ever held. By his valour he subdued the King's enemies in many bloody fights. He was vigorous against rebels in Scotland - this was the time when Macbeth slew Duncan, upon which event our English Shakespeare [莎士比亚], hundreds of years afterwards, wrote his great tragedy; and he killed the restless Welsh King Griffith, and brought his head to England.

六级/考研单词: tertiary, vigor, rebel, tragedy, restless

What Harold was doing at sea, when he was driven on the French coast by a tempest [风暴], is not at all certain; nor does it at all matter. That his ship was forced by a storm on that shore, and that he was taken prisoner, there is no doubt. In those barbarous days, all shipwrecked strangers were taken prisoners, and obliged to pay ransom. So, a certain [有那么一位] Count [法意等国的伯爵=英国的earl] Guy [人名，盖伊], who was the Lord of Ponthieu where Harold's disaster happened, seized him, instead of relieving him like a hospitable and Christian lord as he ought to have done, and expected to make a very good thing of it.

六级/考研单词: shore, oblige, relieve, hospitable

A tempest in a teapot is an unimportant matter that someone has become upset about. temp-temper-tempest:-)

But Harold sent off [send sth somewhere (by post)] immediately to Duke William of Normandy, complaining of this treatment; and the Duke no sooner heard of it than he ordered Harold to be escorted to the ancient town of Rouen, where he then was, and where he received [招待, reception] him as an honoured guest. Now, some writers tell us that Edward the Confessor, who was by this time old and had no children, had made a will, appointing Duke William of Normandy his successor, and had informed the Duke of his having done so. There is no doubt that he was anxious about his successor; because he had even invited over, from abroad, Edward the Outlaw, a son of Ironside, who had come to England with his wife and three children, but whom the King had strangely refused to see when he did [表示强调] come, and who had died in London suddenly (princes were terribly liable to sudden death in those days), and had been buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. The King might possibly have made such a will; or, having always been fond of the Normans, he might have encouraged Norman William to aspire to the English crown, by something that he said to him when he was staying at the English court. But, certainly William did now aspire to it; and knowing that Harold would be a powerful rival, he called together a great assembly of his nobles, offered Harold his daughter Adele in marriage, informed him that he meant [intend] on King Edward's death to claim the English crown as his own inheritance, and required Harold then and there to swear to aid him. Harold, being in the Duke's power, took this oath upon the Missal, or Prayer-book. It is a good example of the superstitions of the monks, that this Missal, instead of being placed upon a table, was placed upon a tub; which, when Harold had sworn, was uncovered, and shown to be full of dead men's bones - bones, as the monks pretended, of saints. This was supposed to make Harold's oath a great deal more impressive and binding. As if the great name of the Creator of Heaven and earth could be made more solemn by a knuckle-bone, or a double-tooth, or a finger-nail, of Dunstan!

六级/考研单词: escort, successor, notify, outlaw, gradual, princess, liable, cathedral, fond, aspire, potent, rival, assemble, noble, superstition, tub, uncover, saint, bind, solemn

Some children develop double teeth [两颗牙并排长在一起] that are joined by the dentin or pulp [牙本质与牙髓]. There are two causes of this condition: germination and fusion.

韩愈（768年－824年12月25日），字退之，河南河阳（今河南省孟州市）人。直言谏迎佛骨，贬为潮州刺史。宦海沉浮，累迁吏部侍郎，人称“韩吏部”。长庆四年（824年），韩愈病逝，年五十七，追赠礼部尚书，谥号为“文”，故称“韩文公”。韩愈作为唐代古文运动的倡导者，名列“唐宋八大家”之首，与柳宗元并称“韩柳”，与柳宗元、欧阳修和苏轼并称“千古文章四大家”。

应该先学英语，再学编程。数组(array), 汇编(assembly)看得好别扭。

Within a week or two after Harold's return to England, the dreary old Confessor was found to be dying. After wandering in his mind like a very weak old man, he died. As he had put himself entirely in the hands of the monks when he was alive, they praised him lustily when he was dead. They had gone so far, already, as to persuade him that he could work miracles; and had brought people afflicted with a bad disorder of the skin, to him, to be touched and cured. This was called 'touching for the King's Evil,' [我看不懂这个语法] which afterwards became a royal custom. You know, however, Who really touched the sick, and healed them; and you know His sacred name is not among the dusty line of human kings.

六级/考研单词: praise, miracle, cure, wicked, heal, sacred

evil -  [病理学] [古] an illness or disease, esp scrofula [淋巴结核] (the king's evil)