How it opens
You were Harold, son of Godwin, and England was governed in these years from your father's chair and your own boots.
The king was Edward the Confessor, a saint in everything but statecraft, who prayed five hours a day and left the fifth hour to the Normans.
Edward the ConfessorPeace, Harold, peace. The land is quiet, the harvest is good, and I am old. What more would you ask of a king?
Quiet is not peace, sir. It is peace asleep, and the Normans are building fences around it while it sleeps.
Edward the ConfessorYou sound like your father. Godwin said that exact sentence to me in this exact room, and I gave him the same answer, and he was right, and so are you.
Choose
Say it plainly, at the council, in the English tongue, before the Norman clerks.
Say it privately, in the chapel porch, where a saint may hear it as a friend.
Say nothing at all, and let the fences speak for themselves.