A circumstance which, as it greatly enriched my coffers, so it no less pampered my ambition, and satisfied my vanity with a numerous attendance; and I had the pleasure of seeing those who only bowed to the king prostrating themselves before me.
"Edward the Confessor, or St.Edward, as some have called him, in derision I suppose, being a very silly fellow, had all the faults incident, and almost inseparable, to fools.

He married my daughter Editha from his fear of disobliging me; and afterwards, out of hatred to me, refused even to consummate his marriage, though she was one of the most beautiful women of her age.

He was likewise guilty of the basest ingratitude to his mother (a vice to which fools are chiefly, if not only, liable); and, in return for her endeavors to procure him a throne in his youth, confined her in a loathsome prison in her old age.
This, it is true, he did by my advice; but as to her walking over nine plowshares red-hot, and giving nine manors, when she had not one in her possession, there is not a syllable of veracity in it.
"The first great perplexity I fell into was on the account of my son Swane, who had deflowered the abbess of Leon, since called Leominster, in Herefordshire.

After this fact he retired into Denmark, whence he sent to me to obtain his pardon.

The king at first refused it, being moved thereto, as I afterwards found, by some churchmen, particularly by one of his chaplains, whom I had prevented from obtaining a bishopric.
Upon this my son Swane invaded the coasts with several ships, and committed many outrageous cruelties; which, indeed, did his business, as they served me to apply to the fear of this king, which I had long since discovered to be his predominant passion.