As the frost began to cover the ground, King Edgar arrived in Buckingham, south of Mercia, where there was a royal estate and the monastery of Buckingham's patron saint, Saint Ramward, nearby. This day coincided with the feast of the saint, and the king entered the church with the court dignitaries who accompanied him and did not leave until the ceremony was over.

Edgar was not interested in the infant saint, who had died just three days after birth, but watched with interest as the sheep in the neighborhood were carefully selected by the shepherds, and the weakest of them were captured and slaughtered, for they could not survive the winter. The king looked at the other party in the distance holding a shepherd's staff with a hook, followed by two gray dogs, that bearing as if the king in charge of life and death, suddenly remembered a saying he had heard in his previous life: the scepter of the ancient monarch actually came from the shepherd's staff, probably from those nomads in the depths of Asia.

The King of England stared at the King of the Sheep in silence, with a sense of self-deprecation and a sense of tranquility in his heart, the war was finally over, the power of the kingdom had been preserved, and now Edgar seemed to have fulfilled the dream of the kings of Wessex in the past—a strong and unified kingdom of England.

At this time, apart from the sporadic revolt in Wales, there was no war in the territory from the Tyne to the Channel, and the kingdoms of the whole North Sea region had recognized the great power of the King of England, and Edgar was only twenty-five years old, and his reign had only just begun.

"Ulf, what do you Danes like best?" The king asked the aging royal guards.

"Nature is an overseas adventure worth singing about." Ulf replied without blinking.

"There is indeed no glory in the life of a shepherd." The king suddenly commented, "How much difference is there between a shepherd and a king?" ”

"Your Majesty, what are you talking about?"

"It's nothing, it's just a lot of thought, and you're right, if there is no adventure worth singing about, every day is the same." There was a kind of loneliness in the king's voice—every day was indeed the same, until one day, something interesting happened again.

The cause of the incident is almost insignificant, and on the other side of the Channel, at the court of Normandy, the Duke's eldest son, Robert, was sleeping, and his brothers, William Leforth and Henry, came up behind him, and the two young men lifted a urinal and dumped it mischievously on the head of the elder brother.

Robert, who was drenched in shame, immediately woke up, and he saw clearly that the two brothers who were teasing him were furious like wounded boars, and Robert was very short in stature, but his strength was not weak at all, and he lifted the fallen urinal with one hand and threw it at Lufus.

By this time the chamberlains of the court had arrived in the room, most of them Robert's men, but the scene before them was troublesome to everyone, because the duke's sons were in a mess. This child's play did not stop until the Duke himself arrived, and the Duke arrived with the Mentor of the Three, Dean Longfrank.

"Stop, what the hell are you doing?" The Duke's voice was a little old, but the majesty of his words was still irresistible, and at the signal of Dean Longfrank, all the attendants left the room, after all, such a thing was really not suitable for circulation.

Robert shook off the hand that belonged to Henry, which had been resting on his shoulder, and got up from the ground, his lips trembling as if trying to suppress his anger, and the unpleasant smell made the Duke himself frown.

The Duke's expression was very gloomy, William Luffs kept peeking at his father's expression, as if he was thinking about something, and Henry flicked the torn sleeves of his robe and turned his head contemptuously, refusing to face Robert.

"I order you to return to your room at once, I don't want to hear a word about it again." The Duke left the room at once, Robert's face was as ugly as a winter glacier, and William Luffs's expression was like that of a toothy and grinning jackal.

After the others had left, one of the attendants suddenly heard a loud noise coming from the room, and saw Robert striding out in a rage, slamming the wooden door behind him.

This incident in Normandy soon turned into a catastrophe, and the Duke's eldest son, Robert, waited two days, and seeing that his two brothers had not been punished, led his attendants from Rouen north, from the Count of Eu, to London, the seat of the English court.

At that time, King Edgar was discussing with the bishops and nobles some new news from overseas, starting with a funeral, Queen Edith, the widow of King Edward the Confessor and daughter of Earl Godwin, who died in Norway, and the envoy sent by the King of England to King Olaf of Norway immediately mourned on behalf of the royal family. Eventually, King Edgar agreed to bring Edith Goldwinsdott's body back to England and bury her next to King Edward.

By the time Abbot Bath entered the Tower of London with Robert, King Edgar had already begun to discuss another major matter.

"Where the hell is the Emperor now?" A familiar voice reached Robert's ear.

"Your Majesty, no one knows at the moment, and there is no reliable news coming out of either the Germanic princes or the Holy See." It was the Bishop of Canterbury who had just returned from Italy.

"Your Majesty, should we give in to the Holy See? After all, the situation of Emperor Henry is not optimistic at the moment, and if the Pope gains the upper hand, we must convince the Holy See that England is always on the side of Rome. ”

Without hesitation, the king replied: "The Emperor will not fail so easily, but for the time being we should not offend Rome, and I have decided to restore the traditional Peterkin, in the same number as in the days of King Alfred." ”

This decision surprised the lords of England, and everyone present realized how much it would be, but in Edgar's opinion, it was already a very easy way to solve the problem of church reform, which was mainly about eliminating the buying and selling of the priesthood, but when it came to the right of appointment and the suzerainty of the papacy, the problem was far from being as simple as removing a few bribes or ordering some clergy not to marry. Fortunately, as events on the German side developed, the hard-line papacy of Hildebrand would also realize what the young Emperor Henry really was, and the Church of England would not be the main issue for Rome.

At this time, everyone in the hall was shocked by the Petergin proposed by the king, and no one noticed Robert beside Abbot Bath, and while the Normandy heir was quite embarrassed, Edgar had already stepped out of the midst of a large group of robed nobles and affectionately embraced Robert, who was not very tall.

"We meet again, my brother." King Edgar's move immediately interrupted the ongoing proceedings, and when the identity of the person in front of him was recognized, many people couldn't help but wonder what had happened in Normandy.

Robert maintained a manner befitting his status, but the trembling sleeves of his robe betrayed his nervousness, a dangerous gamble, but his glory did not allow him to endure the humiliation of his two younger brothers and the disregard of his father. The moment Robert appeared at the Tower of London, a new whirlpool began to brew around the Duchy of Normandy, and the impact on the powers on both sides of the Channel was no less than the rumors of the Roman Emperor disappearing from the Alpine Passes.