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THE HISTORY 


OF THE 


NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND, 
ITS CAUSES AND ITS RESULTS. 


BY 


EDWARD A. FREEMAN, M.A., Hon. D.C.L. & LL.D. 
4 


7 are PRLLOW oF TRINITY COLLEGE. 


VOLUME III. 


THE REIGN OF HAROLD AND THE INTERREGNOM. 


Quum ingressua facria terram quam Dominus Deus tuus dabit tibi ot possederis 
‘cam, habiteverisque in illd, et dixeria; Constituam super me Regem, sicut 
habent omnes per circuitam nationes; cum constitues quem Dominus Deus 
tua clogerit de numero fratrum tuorum. Non poteris alterius gentis hominem 
Rogem facere, qui non sit frater tuus.—Devr. xvil. 14, 15. 


SECOND EDITION, REVISED. 


Oxford: 
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. 


MDoCC.LXXY. 


[AM rights reserved} 


MACMILLAN AND CO. 





. PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY OF 


Oxford. 


viii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION, 


must be matter of pure conjecture. The one abso- 
Jutely certain point is the position of the English 
Standard and the fact that it was against that point 
that the main attack under William himself was 
made. 

Besides my great obligations to Sir Henry James 
and Captain James, I am no less indebted to His 
Grace the Duke of Cleveland for the free and re- 
peated access which he has allowed me to all parts 
of the battle-field, a large part of which lies within 
his private grounds at Battle Abbey, Without this 
kindness on his Grace's part no satisfuetory account 
of the battle could have been written. I owe deep 
thanks also to my two companions at Stamford~ 
bridge, Archdeacon Jones and Mr. J. R. Green, of 
whom Mr. Green also accompanied me on one of my 
visits to Senlac, as well as to many of the places 
described in Normandy and Maine. I have also to 
thank Mr. Dawkins for much valuable advice with 
regard to the map of the Campaign of Hastings, 
and M. Le Gost-Clerisse of Caen for his kind and 
valuable guidance to the field of Varaville. Neither 
must I forget the good-humoured readiness which 
Mr. H. 0. Coxe has so often shown in verifying 
references in the Bodleian Library, and the benefit 
of unrestrained resort on all questions to Professor 
Stubbs may be taken for granted at every stage of 
every undertaking of mine, And there are others 
whose names cannot well appear in print to whom 
T am also indebted for much ready and zealous help 
in many ways. 


Somnnraze, Wants, 
June 30, 1869. 


CONTENTS. 





CHAPTER XI. 


THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 
January sth—April 6th, 1066. 

A.D, 
1065—1066 Preeminent importance of the year 1066 


§ 1, Sickness and Death of Eadwird. 
December 28, 1065—January 5, 1066. 


‘National anxiety as to the succession ; state of the 


royal line 


Position of Eadgas, Harold, William, and Tostig 
Importance of Eadward’s dying recommendation 


‘December 28 


PeFanuary 5 Progron of Kadward’s illness 


He recovers his speech ; is eu sa pogo 
Question of the mccession ; Kadward names Harold 


as his successor - 
His last directions and wishes. 
January 5 His death; English spirit of his last days 


§ 2. The Election and Coronation of Harold. 


January 5-6, 1066. 


Janvary 5 Vacancy of the throne; the Witan meet and clect 


Harold 
Position of Harold ; he accepts the Crown 


January 6 Double rites of the Epiphany ; necessity for « speedy 


burial and coronation 


Burial of Eadwand; position of Stigand ; “ere 


sorrow at Eadward’s death 
His popular canonization 


1102 His posthumous history; first examination of hia 


body by Gilbert and Gundulf 
VOL. 111. b 


PACE 


20~25 
25—26 


17-29 
30-31 


31-32 


CONTENTS, 


Attempt of Prior Oabert to procure his canonization 
‘Eadward canonized by Alexander the ‘Third 5 


‘Ficst Translation of hin bodys 


Second Translation of hin bolly 5 sebulng of Wont 
minster by Hoary the Think; Henry's Ukencss to 
Eadvrard ; preeenoo of Kalward the Fint 

‘ie rel tombe around Band's snes burl of 

‘Burial of Kadgyth Matilda. 

‘hay emer hy Hey the Right nd rar 
Ly Philip and Mary e E 

Corot of Kars; Earl often SP as 


‘Order of the ceremony ; the election in the chureh 
The Unotion nnd Crowning» = 


5 3. The Firat Days of Harold's Reign. 
January 6—A prit 16, 1966, 


No Baul of the Weat-Sasons appointed ; Harold! keeps 
‘the South in bis own hands and entrust the North 
to Eadwine and Morkere . 

Chassoter of Hare's government; Norman and 
English accounts ; no general expulsion of Normsns 

‘Harold's military preparations nnd coinage 

Wis relations to the Chorcb, to Gira, Wallvn, ond 
other Prelates 

Formal concurrence of Northumberland fu the ele 
teresa erie Belz oepeiet 

ib. 

patel of the Northumbrian to acknowledge 
Harold; probable agency of Kadwine and 

ee a asa eae po Teak a 
‘wins over the Northumbrians 

Probable time of Harold's marsiage with Kaldgyth 

Harold's Easter Feast and Gemdt at Westuiuster 


Tanuaty 51 The Crown challenged by William, 
April 24—30 The Comet ; Its effects on men'y minds 
Summary ae 





1084 


CONTENTS. 


Revolt of William of Arquor; his former condoct ; 
the Duke occapion the carte; description of Arques 


Tngobrwm 

‘Tho King rotlroe; Moulina betrayed to him 

Tho cutle surrenders; Count Willian retires to 
Boulogno 

Hatred of the Fronch towards Normandy ; enmity 
of Geoffrey of Anjou and other princes; great con: 
feelomcy against Normanty 

Double invasion of Normandy unter King Henry and 
hia brother Odo 

Witllam's preparations his plan of defence and divi 
sion of bir forces. 

Ravages of the French ; they reach Mortamer 

‘The French rurprised and cut to pleces at Mortemer ; 
‘imprisonment of Gay af Ponthien a 

Promotion of Willlam of Warren; he marries the 
Duke's atopalaughter Gundrada - 

‘Tho nows brought to William ; hia Ce weil 
momnge to the King =~ 

Panto and retreat of the Frowharmy |. 

‘Tiustrations of the Norman national charactor 

‘William fortifies Brotoull 

Pave with France; Willan nuthorized to make oon: 
quests at the expense of Anjou = _ 

extension of William's frontier to the south ; Dom: 
fromt and Arbritros 

Now firtfeations at Ambeitree; Wiliam and 
Geoffrey before Ambritre; flight of Count 
Geottey and homage of Geoffrey of Mayeano 

‘Further extension of William's frontier towards Anjou 


f05§—1058 Three 


A 
os 


333 


Last Fronch and Angevin Invasions William's de 
fonsive policy; advance and ravages of the French 

‘Tho French nt Varaville; Williams march; the 
French surprited and out to plesor; tho King 
retreats =. . : 


Baldwin of Flanders Regent for Philip; ‘tenth ot 
Goofiryy Martel; hhik detninionn divided between 


hisnophows = se 


—E 


rage 
20-124 


nag—38 


+ 198-133 


134-135 
136-137 


138-139 


141144 
4-19 


149—153 


» 353-154 


135—187 
158 


158160 
160—161 


+ 16r—163 
163—164 





, 7 
177178 


178 


179—186 





xiv CONTENTS. 


AnD rack 
‘Thelr meeting; contradictory nature of uke stories ; 
‘connexion between the bequest of Eadward and 

the cath of Barvld . = 2 = + a7—219 


anandy 
cothor members of his family 21g—222 
Harold sets ail fs nha heb wrecked a Pn 
thicu and imprisoned by Guy : - na a34 
Me fs dlivered by Willian. 214226 
‘Harold at Rouen; he engagos to scr Wii's 
laughter and receives knighthood . 226228 
‘Harold joins William in the war against Britanny , 228-229 
1949-1966 Conon Count of the Bretons . . 33° 
40561062 Relations of Conan, Ode, and Howell ; pair ts 
Britanny favourable to William 330-2931 
Conan's challenge; Dol held for William — 232-233 
March of Willian and Harold to Dol; deen 
of the city ‘ 2297 
Flight of Conan from Dol, : 3 + 337—238 
‘Sfego and surrender of Dinan és 3 + 239—240 
Haroli’s onth ; varlouy statamonte ux to time, place, 
‘woul forma. 343 —248 


Probable nature of fibarcaihy, an  eogegsinsed to 
paeea oak acelin Goines 5 Pea 


homage . aqh— a5 
Question of the Relics 4 251252 
Moral sel of fle case; the a vee ot 
alfoctoil = 252354 
Summary é ‘ : : + 354-355 
OHAPTER XIIL 
THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DURE WILLIAM. 
Tanuary—August, 1966, 
Position of Willian at Eadward's death =. - 356 
Riffect on his schemes of Harold's sudden election 257 


41. Tho Negotiations between William and Harold. 


‘Tho news brought to William; his dialogue with 
William Fite Osbora . 357—2660 

Tangy 15! Winns Ent oHasel {It object; ta pombe 
1 connexion with the Northumbrian dlscontents . 260—265 
Constitutional language atteituted to Harold + 263266 
‘William's point gained in the Embamy : 266 





xvi CONTENTS. 


aD. Pace 
‘The Conquest not a national Norman enterprise, bat 
a Norman character impressed on the whole. 306-307 
‘The foreign troops mainly adventurers; few foreign 
princes served =. 307 
William's embassies to foreign powers; he sends to 
King Henry of Germany . 308 


1056-1066 Condition of the Empire in the early days of Henry 
the Fourth ; compara of his minority with tat 


of William = 308—309 
No mention of the Norman embessy in German 

writers; probable state of the case : = 309-310 
Alleged embassy to Swegen of Denmark =. meetcorted 
Embassy to Philip of France; William offers to hold 

England of him B + 3i—gia 
Negotiations with Baldwin of Flanders . * 313 
Zeal of Eustace of Boulogne; Arnold of Ardres =. 313314 


Great number of Breton auxiliaries ; Alan Fergant . 314—315 
1066 Volunteers from Anjou, &c.; state of Anjou; war 


between Geoffrey and Fulk 4 «315316 
1066 War of Conan of Bitnny agin Aaj; Ingen of 
his desth . + 316-317 
‘William charged with the death of Conan . «317-318 
1061-1073 Negotiations with Rome; Papacy of Alexander the 
Second; influence of Hildebrand . 38 
William's embamy; debate in the Conclave and 
strong opposition . «318320 
Decision in favour of William; bull and gifts of 
Alexander . : + gig 
‘Complete success of William's diplomacy 2 + 322323 
Summary. A . . i. 7 323 


CHAPTER XIV. 


THE NORWEGIAN INVASION AND THB CAMPAIGN OF STAMFORDBBIDGE. 
‘May—September, 1066, 


Course of events before William's invasion . 324 


§1. The First Expedition of Tostig. May, 1066, 


Easter, 1066 Harold in full possession of England. =. ; 335 
Mey —Tostig lands in Wight; his ravages. =. 325326 

‘May—Sept. Great preparations of Harold; he hastens to meet 
Towtig + 326-327 


TToxtig ravages Lindowey ; he is driven away by Ead- 
wine and Morkere, and takes refuge in Sooland . 327—328 





xviii CONTENTS. 


aD. PAGE 
1066 Position of the Norwegian army =. 358 


News of the Norwegian landing brought to Harold 
of England ; he determines to march to the North ; 


legend of his sickness and recovery. 358361 
Harold's march ; gathering of recruita =.=, 361—362 
Septantted a4 He reachos Tadcaster and reviews the fost. «363-364 
Monday, 25 He pansos through York; Battle of Stamfordbridge . 364—365 
The Norwegian Saga ; its mythical character 365-368 

Sudden advance of the English; loyalty of the 
country. ; 369 
‘The battle begins on the right kde of the Derwent. 370 
The bridge defended by a single Northman . amt 

‘The English croes the bridge ; main fight on the left 
side ; complete victory of the English 372-373 

Deaths of Tostig, Harold Hanirada, te; escape of 
Godred ; burial of Tostig . . . + 373-375 
Harold's mild dealing with Olaf. : 376 
October 1! Harold at York ; news of William's landing + 376-377 

CHAPTER Xv. 
THE NORMAN INVASION AND THE CAMPAION OF HASTINGS. 
Auugust—October, 1066. 
§ 1. The Building of the Fleet. 

Success of all William's negotiations . 378 


‘Summer, ‘Formation of the Norman fleet; contributions of 
1066." ships; site of Hemigine of Fécamp and of the 


. Duchess Matilda 379-382 
Number and character of the ships. 382—383 

June 15 Ecclesiastical affairs; Council at Bounevillo; Lan- 
franc Abbot of Saint Stephen's 383—384 

June 18 Gonaeration ofthe Holy Tinity at Caen dedication 
ofCedily . = 384-385 


§ 2, The Embarcatton and Voyage of William. 
August —September, 1066. 


Angast 12° The fleet at the mouth of the Dive 386—387 
Delay at the Dive; wal order maintained in the 

army ; é ‘ + 387-388 

‘Numbers of the army 5 ‘ 389 


Spice sent by Harold; their treatment by William | 389—3gr 





CONTENTS. 


Harold eager for battle; advice of Gyeth; Harold 
roftuses to ravage tho Jand * 

Harold marchos from Lonton number of his army 
Ma plan an ach; he fhe ground of 


4. The Battle, October 14, 1066. 


‘The night befor the battle; curmmontal devotion of 
the Normans; alleged revelry of the Engifuh 
Bottle of Bentao ; Wilinan’s epecch to hin army =. 
‘The Normans march to Teham nad arm; story of 
he reversed hanberk 

‘ia egy nom the Bagi ara Willan vo 
to build @ monastery on Seulac: z 
‘Thrueféld division of William's army ; on the loft the 
Protons, ou the right the French ; the Normans 
inthe omime =, caer 
Armour and wespons ofthe Normans | 

‘The bannor and the group around’ It Wiliam wud 
Iie brothers ; the bauner borne by Toustain the 
White 5 

‘The Norman chivalry; Wiliam Patry, Roger the 
Digod, William Malet 

“The classes of troops tn each Aviston; order of the 
sattnale 

‘The two armice ia aight; Harcll’s specch; story 
of the English apy; Harold diamounts at the 
‘Standard - 
‘Tales of Harold ond Gyeih 
Deaton ew ioe te ey {hele armour 


mle Bagh edu port of tho King oud his 
‘Alusfoll by the Standant 

Points of attack ofthe thre divisions of tho enemy 
‘Beginning of the battle ; axploita of Taillefor h 
Pint atlack; Norman and English warcrios; the 
‘Normans beaten back 

‘Flight of the Brvtons on the left; the lightannod 
ape tine gl parle eel Willian 
‘and Odo rocall the fugitives =. A 


467-468 


+ 468-469 


469-471 


AT—ATB 


+ 44475 


475476 
41477 


ATT 480 


480-483 








CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


‘THE ONTERKRONUM, 
Octobor 1g —Deoeinbar 35, 1066, 


1068 ‘The throne vacant ; EIN OER 
alssion ; no subunlsdon as yet 


Chamoter of the choice; consist of Eadwine and 

Morkere; alleged opposition of cartain Bishops 
November 1 Eadgar not crowned; daath of Abbot Leafrio; the 
choice of his succomer Brand confirmed by Eadyar 

‘Tho Lamdonars snd others eager for battle ; treason 

of Kadwine ant Morkery ; no further general oot 


ination agazat William", 
October William at Haings; hie polley of subdhing the 
15720 country 


picoomeal 
20 Mls ravages; he marches to Romcy ; Is vengeance 
21 He marches to Dover; desoription of the cule; ita 
surrender ; the town accidentally burned 
October 29 ‘The Kentish towne submit; William marches to 
wanls Canterbury snd receives its aubmimdon on 
the road, 
obey Wills enc at th Brake Tower his sicknows 
Decomber t and consejuent delay 


December r London stil holds out; William marchen against tt; 
lcireniah sind Durning of Southwark = 
He amps the ht aft Thane nd rome 
at Wallingford ; sction of Wiggod 2 
‘Willinmn’s objeots 
Amagee tx command ta London; tale of hs com: 
‘munfeations with WHliam ; > sseancaleicta 
‘by Williasn ; 
Subautaio to Williaa agrved on in Londou , 
William st Berkhampstesd ; Eadgar, Kaldrel, and 


William tnvited. to assume the Crown ; probable fee 
ings of Englishmen at the moment ‘ 
Williaun's counell 5 Wa profone enw ow 
copt the Crown. 


rack 
5254 
544 


54ST 


- 57-519 


§29—530 


530—3ae 


532-533 
533344 


+ 534-538 


538 
539 
540541 
S484 


54543 


CONTENTS. xxiii 


AD. PAGE 
1066 Speech of Haimer of Thouars; William accepta the 
‘Crown; the coronation fixed for Christmas + 559-583 
Position of William ; triumph of his policy . 553 
Ho sends to fortify a post in London 553 
His march to London ; opps exon of hi cow 
duct 2 554-555 


‘Alleged refusal of Stigand to consecrate William ; 
‘Stigand’s real position and share in the ceremony ; 





‘Ealdred the actual consecrator 555—557 
December 25 Coronation of William ; the approach to the church 
guarded by Norman horsemen. 0. 557 
‘The procession and ecclesiastical election 558559 
‘The Normans fire the howwes near the church ; Wil: 
iam left alone with the officiating clergy . 560 
William’s oath and consecration =... 561 
Summary . - eee, $61 562 
APPENDIX. + 
Norm A, The Authority of the Bayoux Tapestry. 563 
B, The Details of Eadward's Death-bed é ‘ 575 
©. Eadward’s Bequest of the Crown to Harold : 378 
D. The ElectinofHarld .  .  . 600 
E. TheCoronation of Hald. 5 we 616 
F, The Ancient Coronation Office . . . 626 
G. The Character of Harold’s Government. 630 
H. The Coinage of Harold. 634 
I. The Opposition of Northumberland to Harel 
‘Acooasion * 635 
K. The Date of the Marriage of Harold and Ealdgyth 638 
L. The Political Position of the Lady Eadgyth =. 640 
‘M. The Affairs of the Abbey of Ely at the time of 
Harold's Accomion 5 ww 64n 
N. The Comet of 1066 + im af 645 
©. The Marriage of William and Matilda | 651 
P. The Quarrel and Reconciliation of William and 
Lanfranc y Be ine 665 
Q The Children of William and Matilda =| 666 
R. The Revolt of William Busco =. ws 670 
8, The Revolt of William of Arques . 673, 
T, The Agreement between William and Herbert of 
Maine. 675 


a 


The Boquost of Eadward to William and the Oath 
of Harold 5 é Z > F 677 


xxiv 


INDEX 


CONTENTS. 


‘The Allfgyva of the Bayeux Tapestry. 

The Breton Campaign of William and Harold . 

The Embassios exchanged betwoen William and 
Harold. fe & 

William's Councils and Negotiations | 

‘The Movement of Tostig after his Banishment 

Amnold of Ardrea moh! ce 

‘The Death of Conan. 

‘The Operations of the English Fleet in 1066 

The March of Harold to York 

‘The Details of the Battle ot Statrrgs 

William’s Ravages in Sussex 

‘Names of Englishmen st Senlac 

‘The Dates of the Eventa between the two Great 
Battles . : 

‘The Messages between Harold and Willian 

The English Numbers at Senlac . 

‘The Miraculous Warning given to Harold before 
the Battle 

‘The Details of the Battle of Senlac 

Ralph of Norfolk 

‘The English Convexions of William Malet 

The Burial of Harold 

Eadgyth Swanneshals 

The Atheling Eadger 

‘The Submission nt Berkhampatend 


PAGE 
708 
my 


yiae 
m5 
720 
75 
76 
728 
730 
732 
74 
143 


144 
746 
752 


755 
756 
773 
776 
781 
79° 
793 
794 


797 





THE HISTORY 


or THE 


NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. 


VoL, U1, 3 
fe 





4 


THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


caar. x1. history can never be wiped out. No one year in later Eng- 


lish history can for a moment compare, in lasting import- 
ance, with the year which, with some small exaggeration, 


No Nolwer we may call the year of the Norman Conquest. There have 
Sieh soe indeed been later periods in our history which have been 


year and 


one da 


as memorable in their results as the invasion of William 


pares itself. The events of the thirteenth, of the sixteenth, of 


way. 


"=° the seventeenth century, are all fully entitled to be set side 


by side with the events of the eleventh. But in all these 
cases we have to set the work ofa whole generation against 
the work of a single year. One age is famous for the 
great struggle against domination, and for the final 
establishment of English freedom in ite later form, 
Another age gave us all the results, for good and for evil, 
of the great Reformation of religion. A third age con- 
firmed on a surer and more lasting basis those political 
rights :which the thirteenth century had won back, but 
which the fifteenth and sixteenth had once more brought 
into jeopardy. But, in all these great periods of change, 
the work was gradual ; there is no single moment, no single 
year, on which we can place our finger as the moment or 
the year when the work was actually done. In the 
eleventh century the work was gradual also, A long 
series of events prepared the way for William’s enterprise, 
and, when he began his work, it needed more than a 
single day or a single year to put him in full possession of 
the Empire for which he had yearned so long. Still in the 
eleventh century there is a single year and a single day 
which stand forth in a way in which no single day or year 
stands forth in the ages after them. There is no later 
year to compare to the year in which the Crown of 





worthy of more than usual attention, Though for the most part of very 
little value in themselves, they tell us, what ia most important to learn, the 
way in which different ages looked at the greatest events in English 
Aistory. 





‘THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


omar xt. even if no thought of Tostig or of William crossed men's 


ES 
Hi 


minds, there was enough to make those days of Eadward’s 
Jast sickness days of the deepest anxiety to every patriotic 
Englishman. From the beginning of Badward's sickness, 
there seems to have been no hope of his recovery. ‘The 
qnestion in every man’s mind mnst have been, who should 
fill hie place when he was taken from them. ‘The choice of 
the electors would be perfectly free. Things were not as 
they had been when Swegen and Cnut were in the land, 
claiming the votes of the Witan at the point of the sword, 
Bat things were as they had never been before since the 
line of Cerdic had raled over united England. “The King: 
who lay at the point of death was, eave only the young 
Eadgar and his sisters, tho last of hie race. The names of 
Christina and Margarct were most likely never uttered; 
England had never yet dreamed of giving herself a female 
ruler. A sentimental interest might gather round Eadgar 
as the last male of the kingly house, but a sentimental 
interest was all that he could awaken. He was young, 
and, as events proved, his character, yet more than his age, 
made him wholly unfit for rule, And Eadgar, it should 
be borne in mind, did not possess that constitutional claim 
to a preference which was all that, before the actual 
election, would have belonged even to a son of the dying 
King. Thrice in earlier times had the royal line been 
brought so low ax to number none but members of an age 
too young for government in their own persons. Eadwig, 
Eadward the Martyr, Aithelred, had all been chosen in 
their non-age, But the princes so choson were all of them 
true Athelings, Englishmen born, sons of an Eoglish King 
by an Englich mother. And, in those days, as there was 
‘no better qualified candidate in the royal house, so there 
was no man out of it marked out by the hand of nature ax 
aborn King of Men. In those days the greatest of living 
Englishmen was no Thegn or Ealdorman, but the renowned 


STATE AND PROSPECTS OF THE SUCCESSION. 7 


Primate Dunstan. England had therefore in all those omar. x1, 
remspeetreed nine in ie beyhood os, aven,in his. ohild 20 con | 
hood. Thore was now no such need. a 
Tronside as he was, had no constitutional claim upon the 524% 
votes of the Witmn beyond any. other male pereon in the" 
realm, He was not born in the land; he was not the son Position of 
ef a crowned King and his Lady, And close beside the x 
throne, just beyond the strict limits of the royal house, 
stood the foremost man in England, already a sharer in 
some sort in the honours of royalty, already an Under- 
King who received the oaths and homage of vassal 
princes, as 2 partner in the rule of the Empire of Britain. 
Whether he had been marked out by any formal act or 
not, we cannot doubt that men had long learned to look to 
‘Harold the son of Godwino as their future King. And yet, 
when the day of choice drew near, men might well stop 
and wonder at the step which they were about to take, 
The Law justified the act; the needs of the time called for 
it; but it was a strange and unwonted act none the less, It Novelty of 
was something now, something which might well set the Sac." 
mindsand tongues of men at work, to be called on, freely and soa te 
Retaeh eae EAs Danial axe, to chicos a. King who bad” ay 
‘no royal forefathers, a King who came not of the stock of 
Begberht, Cerdic, and Woden, Men whose office or whose 
wisdom had taught them to scan the chances of the time 
Buight ask how such s choice would be looked on by the Ativute 
exile at the court of Baldwin, and by the prince who DOW, ha Tonge 
in tho hoight of success and glory, had made the Norman 
Jand the wonder of continental Kurope. Rumours might 
already be afloat’ that the English Earl, soon about to 
become the English King, had, in some strange and un- 
known way, alrendy become the man of the Norman Duke, 
And, without going co far aficld, men might ask how the Pomible 
great land north of the Humber would look om the choice Nuut6 of 
eee pease 6. borland, 


8 THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


cuar. xt. which to Wessex and East-Anglia seemed the only choice 
possible, The Thegne and Prelates of Northumberland 
might give thoir votes with the othor Witan, but would the 
fierce people of that proud and distant province submit, 
without a blow or a murmur, to the kingship of a West- 
Saxon, a son of Godwine, a brother of Tostig? The days 
when thoughts like these were working in men’s minds 
Tpperanch test bye “beer days OF are wind | perplasity, There was 
of El: ona source from which light and help might be looked for, 
dying re Jight and help which might in some sort seem to come 
tion, directly from heaven. The words of a dying man have 
been in all times looked on as solomn and almost prophotic 
‘utterances. The words of a dying King were, by the 
traditional feelings of Englishmen, clothed with an authority 
second only to that of the Law itself. Tadward was a 
dying man and a dying King. And he wus yet more. 
‘Strange as it seems to us, he was already beginning to 
‘be looked on with somewhat of the reverence due to a 
Saint, The will of Eadward had perhaps never been held 
4 be of such moment, his voice had perhaps never been 0 
eagerly listened for in the Councils of his Kingdom,’ as 
when he lay, helpless and well-nigh speechless, on his 
bed at Westminster. Men waited for the voice of the 
dying man, the dying King, the dying Saint, to confirm 
‘once more with his last breath the nomination of the 
successor on whom, amidst all doubts and dangers, the 
heart of England still was fixed, In choosing for the first 
time a King not of the blood of Cerdic, it would be no 
‘small strength and comfort if they knew thatthe step was 
taken with the full approval and the full bidding of the 
ast King of Cerdic’s house. ‘The King was sick unto 
death ; the Witan were gathered round his palace. The 
moment the breath was out of his body, it would become 
their duty to choose his successor. It was doubtless with 
no small anxiety, with somewhat cven of religions awo, 


EADWARD'S DEATH-BED, 9 


that they awaited the last utterance of the will of Eadward caar, x1. 

as to who that successor should be, 

‘The West Minster was hallowed on Wednesday; the The King’s 

Samaimnaiireneht to tha King, who,ins his Segenil says; on Wadou 
it Inid his head on hie pillow as if to say, It ies, De. 

finished’ For five days his sickness increased, and the 1065. 

public anxioty heightened at every stage of the disordor.* 

On the sixth day from the consecration, his speech began Iebecomes 

to fail him ; his voice was so feeble that his words could no 

longer be understood ; for two days he tay worn out by 74 

the extremity of his sickness.* Te was no time to trouble” 

the weary sufferer with questions even as to the welfare 

of hie kingdom. At last, on the following Thuraay, the Hew 

eve of the Epiphany, his lagging powers mali, av the ge 

powers of dying men often do rally at the point of death. 

‘He awoke from his sleep in the fall possession of his senses 

and of his speech. On cither sido of bis bed stood the two The groan 

great: chiefs of his realm, Harold the Earl and Stigand the yy" 

Archbishop At the bed’s head, in still more immediate 

personal attendance on hie master, stood the Staller, Robert 

the eon of Wymaro, a man of Norman birth, but whom 

history does not charge with treason towards England. 

On the ground, close by the foot of the bed, sat the Lady 

Eadgyth, the sister of the great Karl, cherishing the feet of 


Tonuary §6 


1 Athol, Riev, X Soriptt. 399. "Peractis itaque omnibus pro tantt 
‘pollennitete, quaal diceret Rex ‘Consumnmatumn est,” fnclinat {n leotulo ewput, 
eb exhine campit gruvi dolore fatiyari.” 

7 Th. “Tune maior of luctus omnium, una vox plangentium.” ‘This we 
‘can well believe ; but the hagiographor ix plainly writing with the belp 
‘of his own fuller knowledge, when he goes on to may; Presentiobant 
‘plures «jus in morte desolationem patrim, plobis extorminium, totiue Anglicn 
‘nobilitatie exeliiam, finem Lbertatis, honoris ruinam.” ‘Tho moment was an 
anxious one, but no one who had not Kadward’s own gift of prophecy vould 
{foresee all this. 

‘Vite Eadw. 430. “Biduo vel ampliue adoo eum languor fatigayerat at 
‘vir quum loquerntur quid dicorvt intelligi posit,” 

_¢ For the authorities for the details of Radward’s last moments and their 

‘value, see Appendix 





:D] 


THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


enar. xt, hor royal husband in her boeom, Her thoughts wandered 


perhaps to the brother beyond the sca, the brother on 
whose behalf she had so deeply sinned, the brother who had 
0 lately held the place nearest to Eadward’s heart, but 
who was now for ever cut off from all hopes of crowns or 
earldoms, The tongue of Eadward was loosened, but his 
first words were words of prayer, In his long slumber 
he bad seen a vision; if that vision were truly from heaven, 
he prayed that he might have strength to declare it; if 
it were but the phantom of a disordered brain, he would 
that his tongue should rather cleave to the roof of his 
mouth. He sat up in his bed, supported in the arms of 
Robert. But the message which he had to declare from 
heaven ealled for a larger audience than the four favoured 
ones who were gathered round him. A few more of his 
chosen friends—their names aro not recorded—wore sam- 


Hodeclares moned to the bedside of the dying King.’ He thon, fluently 
Neviden. and with enongy,? poured forth the avful words of warning, 


“Long ago, when L was a youth in Normandy, I knew 
two monks, most holy men and most dear to me. Many 
Jong years have passed away since they were taken away 
from the cares and sorrows of this world. But now, in my 
‘trance, God hath sent them ogain to me to speak to me 
in His holy name, ‘ Know,’ said they to mo, ‘that they 
who hold the highest place in thy realm of England, the 
Earls, the Bishops, the Abbots, the men in holy orders 
of every rank, are not what they seem to be in the eyes 
of men. In the eye of God they are but ministers of the 


Hefore fiend. Therefore hath God put a curse upon thy land; 


tolls the 
sorrows of 


‘therefore hath he given thy land over into the hand of the 


England. enemy. Within a year and a day from thy death, shall 


* Vite Endw. 431. “Cum panels alls quon fem beatus Rex « sorane 
‘exeltatus advocari juserat.”* 
#1. 430. "Tenth usus eat loquendi copia ut cuivis saniesimo nihil opus 





THE ELRCTION OF HAROLD. 


enar. x1, of the Roman Pontiff, how often the voice of Eadward and 


Eadgyth borself, bad spoken in vain to the guilty nation.’ 
The pious Lady perhaps, deemed that the uncanonical 
appointment of Stigand was more likely to bring down 
the wrath of God than the murder of Gospatric. At the 
Jast Christmas feast, she whose heart was now so deeply 
stirred at the thought of ecclesiastical corruptions, had in 
that very palace stretched forth her hand to shed blood 
which no Inw had bidden to be shed, blood which, as fir 
at least as she was concerned, was innocent, 

Such is the tale, a tale which may well: have grown 
in the hands of its tellers, but a tale which leaves us no 
reason to doubt that Eadward did repeat some dream or 
utter some parable which, to minds highly wrought up, 
ay the minds of those who then stood by his bed must 
have been, might well seem to be a warning voice from 
heaven. But there was other work to be done that day 
besides hearkening to forotellings of evil, besides disputing 
1s to the degree of trust to be placed in the words of him 
who foretold it. The moment was come when the all- 
important question might be pressed on the mind of the 
dying King. His friends stood and wept around him; the 
tears of the Lady as she sat at his feet fell faster and more 
thickly still. He gave orders for his burial. He checked 
the grief of his friends; he bade them rejoice at his coming 
deliverance, and he craved the prayers of his people for his 
oul” He spoke of the constant love and devotion which 
had been ever shown him by the wife whom he had once 
driven away from his hearth and board. She had ever been 
to him as a loving and dutiful danghter ;? God would 
reward her for her good deeds in this world and in the next, 

* Soo Appendix B. 

* Vita Eadw. 430. Funcribus oxequiia attitulat ox commendations 
of precibur suummorum Dei fdelium.” As might be expectod, be reoury 


‘mare than ones to tha subject, Sex yp. 433; 434+ 
# Soe vol. ii, p, $27. 





uw THE ELECTION OF HAROLD, 


our. x1, Let him show to her, as a Lady and a sister, all faithful 
worship and service, and never, while she lived, let her lose 
andthe the honours which he had bestowed upon her.' He com- 
Korman mended also to Harold his Norman favourites, those whom, 
in his simplicity, he spoke of as men who had left their 
native land for love of him. Those who were willing to 
abide in the land as English subjects under Harold’s allegi- 
ance he prayed him to keep and to protect. Those who 
Tefused to become the men of the new King he prayed him 
to dismiss under his safe conduct to their own land, taking 
with them all the goods which they had acquired by his 
own favour.> 
ra ‘The King had now done the last act of his kingly office. 
With this last request to Harold all thought of earthly 
things passed away from the mind of Eadward. But the 
man and the saint had still friends to comfort; he had s 
soul for which to request their prayers; he had a body to 
be committed to the ground with the solemn rites of the 
Church. He craved that his body might be buried in the 
minster which he had reared, in a special spot within the 
hallowed walls which their inmates would point out to 
His death those who stood round him.' One faint thought of earth 
SESES, perhaps came back to his mind, when he bade them not to 
Us payen bide his death from his people. At such a moment it 
oft” might perhaps be well to let men believe that Esdward 
Poorie. till lived, till every arrangement could be made for the 


2 Vite Eadw. 433. “Hane . . . tutandam commendo, ut pro Domind 
ct sorure, ut ext, fideli serves et honores obsequio, ut, quo advizerit, a me 
‘sdepto non privetur bonore debito.” Fideli must agree with obsequto, not 
with sorore. 

* Th.“ Commendo pariter etiam eve qui nativam terram suam relique- 
unt caumh amoris mei, mihique hactenus Sueliter sunt obsequuti.” 

3 Th “Ut, suscepti ab eis, oi ita volunt, fidelitate, ooo toearis ot re- 
tiness, ant tua defimsione condactos, cum ommibas que sab me adquisierunt, 
coum saluted propria transfretari facian” 

ers ome, spulst val tm monetcto pres, in 00 Too que 
vobia assignabitar.” 





16 


oman, xt 
Fadward’s 
Jat act 5 
Die i= 
ince i 


earlior 
days, 


THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


been the worthiest. After all the errors and follies of his 
reign, Eadward died, not only as a saint, but as un 

and a patriot. For the last thirteon yoars of 
his life Harold had been his guide and guardian; for the 
Jast nine years he had been the looked for suecessor of the 
Crown. And now the day had come and the word was 
spoken. Those years of faithful guardianship had not 
been without their fruit; Eadward, with Harold and 
Stigand at his side, had become another man from Eadward 
who had once listened to every lie which rose to the lips of 
Robert of Jumidges.' The old wayward spirit had again 
burst forth when revolt overthrew his last favourite ;* Lut 
his last favourite was at least an Englishman and a son of 
Godwine. And the latest act of all had made up forall that 
had gone before. Eadward showed on his death-bed that 
he had at last learned that the Norman could never bear 
sway in England with the guod-will of the English people. 
The dream of the Norman Duke as the heir of the English 
Crown had passed away. The dream of England portioned 
out among Norman Earls, Prelates, and Knights had 
passed away with it, England was to have an English 
King, the noblest man of the English people. No 
stranger was to tarry in the land, but such as would 
plight their homage to tho King of England's choice. 
For others, however dear to him, all that Eadward now 
craved was that they might depart, unhurt and un- 
plundered, from the land. Visions of danger may have 
flitted across his mind, and in the delirium of sickness, in 
the more excitement of pious fear, they may have shaped 
themselves into vague foreshadowings of the wrath to 
come. But what the Inst dying wishes of Eadward were 
we know beyond a doubt, His last wishes, his last. hopes, 
were the same ax the wishes and the hopes of every faithful 


+ Heo rol. Hp. 70. * See woh. i, py ane 





THE ELECTION OF HAROLD, 


nar. st: which made the name of Eadward truly glorious, Bitter 


INE 


death snatched the noble King from earth; angels bore 
his trathfal soul to heaven. But a truer note of patriotic 
feeling rings forth in the words which tell us how the wise 


| King made fast his realm to Harold the noble Earl, in 


the words which, bursting from the poet's heart, tell us 
how well the noble Karl deserved the greatest of earthly 
gift, He in all time by words and deeds had truly 
obeyed his lord, and had left nought undone which was 
needful for the ruler of his people. 


§ 2. The Hlection ani Coronation of Harold. 
January 5-6, 1066. 


Vacaneyor ‘The throne of England was now vacant, vacant under 
theThrone. circumstances such as England had never seen before. 


‘The late King’s dying orders were obeyed, and, ax soon as 
Eadward’s breath was oub of his body, the Witan of 
England knew that their King was dead. Bat by the ~ 
Law of England in the eleventh century, the announce- 
ment that the King was doad could not be answered by a 
ory for the long life of the King who still was living? The 
Witan, not yet departed from their Christmas gathering, 
heard that the throne was vacant, and they knew that it 
was for them alone to fill it. And, with the news that 
they bad no longer a King, came the news that the last 
wish of the King who was gone had pointed out to them 
whom he wished to fill his kingly seat after him, All 
seruple was taken from every mind when men knew that 


‘The Web, who aro thus coupled with Scots, mud distinguished from the 
Britons, ean mean only the Welsh of Sérsthalyde, 

* eo Appendix Q, oud vol. it p. 536, 

* “Tas Kol est mort; vive le Kol"—the exact opposite to. old "Teutonic 
feelings, 





THE ELECTION OF HAROLD, 


euar. xt, Gemét of London' they found no open spokesman. It 


il 


was not only London, ever foremost in every patriotic cause; 
it was not only Wessex, proud of her illustrious son; it 
earliest rule; it was not only Hereford, rejoicing in her 
recovered being, safo alike against British foes and Norman 
governors ; it was the Witan, not of this or that shire or 
ancient kingdom, but of the whole realm of England, who 
chose Harold the son of Godwine to fill the vacant throne’ 
His reign had long been looked for, and now the dying 
voice of Endward had marked him ont as the worthiest 
object of their choice. The wise ruler, the unconquered 
warrior, the bountiful founder,—the shield of the Kingdom, 
the shelter of the oppressed, the judge of the fatherless and 
the widow *—the Earl of the West-Saxons, the conqueror of 
Gruffydd, the pacificator of Northumberland, the founder 
of Waltham—stood forth before them as the foremost 
man of England. He, and he alone, stood forth above 
other men, sprung from no line of Kings, but the son of a 
father greater than Kings, the man who in long years of 
rule bad shown that there was none like him worthy to fill 
the throne of the heroes of old time, worthy, as none of 
royal race were worthy, to wield the sword of Aithelstan 
and sit upon the judgement-seat of Alfred. The assembled 
people of England, in the exercise of their ancient and 
undoubted right, chose with one voice Harold the son of 
Godwine to be King of the English and Lord of the Isle 
of Britain. On no day in their annals did the English 
people win for themselves a higher or a purer fame, 

‘The choice of the Assembly had now to be announced to 


* Would the course of the election have been in any way different, if the 
Geemét hind been heli in Oxford! 

* FL. Wig. 1066. “A totius Angll primotibus ad regale culmen eleo- 
tan” See Appendix D. 

+ Seo the Witham writer's charsetcr of Harold, vol. fi. p, $98 





THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


cmar.xt. were sent to bear the gift of England to the chief of 


their own house? That day’s vote had placed that house 
above the royalties of Gaul and Denmark ; it had placed 
the line of Godwine on a height lower by one step only 
than the line whose youthful chief now sat on the throne 
of Augustus. It was for Gyrth and Leofwine, rather 
than for any other two men in England, to act on that day 


Position of a8 the spokesmen of their country. Harold stood, axe in 


hand, to receive them. The day for which he had looked 
80 long had at last come. The path from which so many 
obstacles had been eo strangely cleared away had at last 
brought him close to the great object of his life. He had 
now, not in figure, but in very truth, only to stretch forth 
his hand, and to grasp the Crown of England, the free gift 
of the people of England. No surprise could have filled his 
mind ; for years he had been marked out, practically if not 
by a formal vote, as the man to whom that gorgeous gift 
must one day come. And yet that moment of realized 
dreams must have been a moment of anxiety, and even of 
fear. For him, no son of a kingly father, no scion of 
legendary heroes and of Gods of the elder faith, to see with 
his own eyes the diadem of Ecgberht and Cerdic ready for 
his grasp, was of itself a strange and wondrous feeling, 
such as few men but him in the world’s history can have 
felt." He was not like others before and since, who by fraud 
or violence have risen to royalty or more than royalty. 
Harold. was not a Dionysios, a Cwsar, a Cromwell, or a 
Buonaparte, whose throne was reared upon the ruins of the 
freedom of his country. He was not an Eastern Basileus, 
climbing to the seat from which a fortunate battle or a 
successful conspiracy had hurled a murdered or blinded 
predecessor. He was not a Pippin, whose elevation, how- 
ever expedient and rightfal, could be brought about only 
by the displacement of a lawful, though an incompetent, 
King. He was not even a Rudolf, whose election, free and 





THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


omar, xt. light and joyous, as in the days whon his faith was wholly 

ness. And now the full weight of that day’s act must hare 

stared him in the face, Let him accept the Crown now 

offered him by England, and Normandy would at once 
Hart's declare him a perjurer and a traitor. No wonder then if, 
Aj" as the picturo sots bofore ws, he looked at the Crown at 
fate, onoo wistfully and anxiously, and half drew back the hand 
PT ici ‘was’ wtrotstialicth 40) pedi in etdiactie ede 
And yet the risk had to be ran. A path of danger opened 
before him, and yet duty no less than ambition bade him to 
enter upon the thorny road. If he declined the Crown, to 
ila whom should England offer it? Would the risk be less 
the Crown. if Radgar could win the votes of the Witan, and if to the 

other dangers of England were to be aided all the dangers 

which beset the lund whose King can rule only at the 

bidding of others? What if the young Atheling failed, 

as he doubtless would fail, to stand his ground at such a 
Danger of moment? Could the land hope to be united in any single 
tthe choice? Would Mercia and Northumberland submit to the 
Kinglom. yale of some West-Saxon bowsting neither the royal blood 
of Eadgar nor the personal glory of Harold? Would 
‘Wessex and Eust-Anglin, would mighty and growing 
London, submit to Eadwine or Morkere or to the youth- 
fal son of Siward? The dangers of accepting the Crown 
were great, but the dangers of refusing it were greater, 
Whoever reigned, Tostig and William would still try their 
chanee, and, if it were not Harold who reigned, they would 
try their chance with far greater hope of success, The 
accession of Harold would indeed put fresh weapons into 
the hand of William, but it was not likely that the Duke 
would wholly cast aside his claims and his projects, simply 
‘because he would have some other King, and not Harold, 
to etriva againet. The fear indeed was that, if Harold 
shrank from the burthen, Willinm would find no one single 


i 





26 THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


cnav. ax, the walls of that minster which was reared to be specially 
dsnery® the home of Kings alike in life and in death. On that 
eeciias day began that long series of national ceremonies which 
seitag bat gone on unbrokon to our own time, and hich, bee 
coronation nade the Abbey of Saint Peter the hearth and Prytaneion 
Xemalty of the English nation. The octave of its hallowing had 
aa barely passed, and there was already a King to be buried 
coronation, and a King to be crowned. Karl Harold wae King-elect 
by the choice of the Witan of all England; but he was 

not “fall King” till he and his people had exchanged 

their mutual promises, till he had been arrayed with the 
outwand badges of his kingly office, till the blessing of the 
Church and the unction of her highest minister had made 

the chosen of the people also the Anointed of the Lord. 

Those were not days when that crowning rite could be 
delayed for one needles moment. England could not be 
safely left for a single day without a King. The dwofold 

right of the new Sovereign, as King alike by the election 

of the people and by the consecration of the Church, must 

be at once placed beyond all reach of doubt or eavil. The 
Christmas feast was not yet over, but it was the last day 

of the holy season; the Witan wero still assembled; to 

have waited for another feast of the Church, for another 
gathering of the nation, would have been simple madnews.* 

‘The day of the coronation of Harold must therefore follow 

there: at once on the day of his election. And the coronation of 
sieely Harold implied the previous burial of Eadward, England 
could not see two Kings of the English above ground at 

the sme moment. Before then the Crown could be set 
on the brow of the King-clect, the hallowed soil of Saint 
Peter's must clove over the King who was no more, The 
day of the burial of Eadward must therefore follow at 
once on the day of his death. And never, even in the 
Tong history of that venerable Abbey, has there been such 


4 This be well put by Dr. Bruce, 1 79. 


3E 
: 





28 


OBAP. xt 


THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


to officiate at the funeral rites of Eadward. But it may 
well be that the newly-won privileges-of the house of 
Saint Peter gave to the head of that house the ministra- 
tion of all rites within its walls which did not need the 
special powers of a consecrated Bishop to give them ea- 
cramental force. And Eadward doubtless sought, above 
all things, the prayers which the monks of the house 
which he himself had reared would put up to Heaven for 


Stigand did the soul of their founder. At all events, the priest who 


not 
at the 


Funeral of 
Eadward. 


holds the first place in Eadward’s funeral procession is 
not set before us in our pictured record as adorned with any 
badge of pontifical rank.! We may therefore guess that 
the chief ministry in the funeral rites of Eadward was as- 
signed to his friend and bedesman, Abbot Eadwine. Early 
on the winter's morning,’ perhaps while the minister still 
needed torcblight within the deep gloom of its massive 
walls and narrow windows, the King was carried to his 
grave. The body of Eadward, his form shrouded from 


* sight, was borne on the shoulders of eight of his subjects, 


laymen all, and doubtless men of high degree. There was 
no need, as in the case of some later Kings, to assure his 
people, by the sight of his uncovered body, that he had 
not come unfairly by his end. Boys ringing bells walked 
on either side of the bier; behind them followed a crowd 
of clergy surrounding the two chief ministers of the 
funeral ceremony, who walked bearing their office-books 
in their hands. In this guise the procession moved from 
the palace to the western door of the newly-hallowed 
minster. They swept along the nave, between the long 
rows of tall and massive pillars still fresh from the axe 

* Bayeux Tapestry, pl. 7. Bruce, p. 74. 

* In the coronation-offices of different ages, mention is often made of the 
weariness of the King, caused, according to Mr. Maskell, by his obligation 
to receive the Communion fasting. In this case therefore, when the barial 
had to take place before the coronation, it would be specially necemary to 
begin the ceremony early in the day. 





omar. xt, were gathoring in opposite quarters of the heaven, No 


ul 


ni 


wonder then that by the grave of Eadward men wept and 
trembled.t Pealme were sung, maseos were said, alma 
were scattered abroad with a bounteons hand, needless 
offerings, it might seem, for a soul which men decmed that 
angels had already borne to the beatific vision.* Por three 
hundred days, days which stretch beyond the reign of 
Harold, the masses, the hymns, the alms, continued to be 
daily offered. And wonders soon were wrought at the 
tomb of the royal saint, The blind received their sight, 
tho lame walked, the sick wore healed, the sorrowing te- 
coived comfort.t So thought men of his own day, men 
who had seen him in the flesh, and who have not shrank 
from handing down to us even the less worthy actions of 
his life. If we deem such « belief and such a worship, not 
only to be superstitions in itself, but to have been thrown, 
away on an unworthy object, we must remember with how 
fond a memory men must, ere a year had passed, have 
looked back to the happy days of the baleless King. We 
‘tonst remember how easily men would forget that the calm 
of those happy days was due, far lesa to the crowned 
monk upon the throne, than to the man of the stout heart 
and the strong arm who stood beside him. And let us 
remember too that the canonizing voice of England was 
not always raised only to commemorate more monastic 
virtues like those of Eadwand, Voreign Kings and foreign 


' The general sorrow has quite witnem enough in the Life, 434, 435: 
Aihelred (402) neos stronger oxpressfons, but which sill perbaps do not go 
beyond the facts of tho ease ; ‘ Dict non potest quantus max omnes timor 
invaeerit, eocupaverit moeror, quomode totam quoque insulam tenebrosus 
quidamn horror impleverit.” 

* See the Poemn in tho Chronicles, above, p. 17. 

* Vita Badw. 434. ‘Totam quoque a primo die tricesnum eelebratione 
misarum, decantation provequuntur pealmorum, expensis pro redemptions 
Ipstus anitse multin auti libris in sublevatione diverd ordinis pasperum.” 

* Th. 455, “Thi Muminsntur ceel, in greweum volidantur claudi, tnfirmi 
urantur, marrentes consolatione Dol reparantnn* 





‘THE ELECTION OF HAKOLD. 


omar, xt, the rest of the departed. It was already whispered that 


the body of Eadward, the instrament of 2o many miracles, 
was itself the subject of miracle, The holy King, men 
said, had never seen corruption. Abbot Gilbert, one ‘of 
the great Norman line of Crispin, whom Lanfrane had 
put in charge of the house of Westminster,* deemed it 
his duty to see whether the tale that so often met his 
ears were true. In company with Bishop Gundulf of 
Rochester, the Prelate to whose skill we owe the White 
Tower of London and the lowlier keep of Malling, and 
with other noble and pious persons, he opened the grave 
of Eadward. A sweet savour filled the minster; they 
unfolded the garments in which Eadward had been wrapped 
under the eyes of Stigand; the body lay us in sleep; the 
powers of nature bad failed to do their work; the skin 
was still white and rosy; the limbs were still flexible; 
they might doom that he might again arise from his 
trance and again denounce the sins of England. The 
Bishop would fain have carried off one hair of his snowy 
beard to keep as a relic more precious than all the trea- 
surex of the earth But nota hair could be pulled away 
from the fice of the sleeping saint. The Abbot, with 
reverence to which those ages were commonly strangers, 
checked the attempt; he restored the vestments and the 
body to their place, and bade that the remains of the man 
of God should rest in peace. 


Avent ot Thirty-eight years later a vain attempt was made by 


Seiwa 


* Rudward’s renown,’ to obtain formal canonization for him 


Osbert, Prior of Westminster, the special trumpeter of 


4 “Gillebortus cognomento Crigpyn,” eayn A2thelred (408), who calla thie 
ccamination “prima trauslatlo.” Eis appolutment by Lanfranc i mens 
tioned im the ‘Tract on the Crispin Fumnily, Lanfranc, ed. Gilew, §. 343- 

# Aihel. un “Non tamen conatuin hune meus 
se devotion, quusn rliqularua gus vel modicam porionem, sl zlhi copia 
{yronatarntur, Cried opibun 

¥ Seo Hardy's Catalogue of English History, vol. i, part 2 ps 6gas 








Recond 
ees 


tion of 
Eadward, 
October 1; 
1269, 


Years rolled on, and the spot to which Eadward had 
been moved on his first translation was now deemed 
unworthy of a Saint who was already looked upon as the 
patron of England. A King now sat on the throne of 
Eadward, who was in many points a reproduction of Ead- 
ward himself. The same fervent zeal for God, the same 
neglect of duty towards man, the same vehemence in 
speech and weakness in action, the same love for men 
of foreign lands, the same spiritual bondage to a foreign 
yoke, the same deep and lavish devotion to the holy house 
of Saint Peter, appeared in Henry tho Third which bad 
already appeared in the predecessor whom he reverenced 
and rosombled. The King who, like Endward, aroused 
‘the feelings of the nation by his wasteful preference for 

* Bee Dart, Wostinonasterium, p. 53. He quotes from a seemingly an- 
published manmeript. 











36 


omar, x1. 


ig 
i 


‘The Trans- 
lation. 


THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


to rival the boundless height of Amiens and Beauvais. 
There, alone among English minsters of ite own date,t 
did the tall apse and its surrounding chapels crown the 
eastern end of what was now the church of Saint Eadward. 
But that apse was not reared, as at Amiens and at Le 
Mans, at Pershore and at Tewkesbury, to form the most 
glorious of canopies for the altar of the Most High. Not 
in any more lowly chapel, but in the noblest spot of all, 
in the spot which elsewhere was reserved for the highest 
acts of Christian worship, was the new shrine of Eadward 
reared, And the workmanship of that gorgeous shrine 
was of a type fit for him who reared it, and for him in 
whose honour it was reared. Among all the tombe of 
Kings which are gathered together in that solemn spot, 
two alone reveal in their style of art the work of craftsmen 
from beyond the sea and even from beyond the mountains. 
The resting-places of the two Kings in whose heart beat 
no English feeling, the two Kings who loved to be sur- 
rounded by men of any nation rather than their own, the 
two Kings who, more than any other Kings in English 
history, laid England, of their own act, prostrate at the 
feet of Rome,* the shrine of Eadward, the tomb of Henry, 
are fittingly adorned with forms which awake no English 
memories, the work not of English but of Italian hands, 
To that shrine, a hundred and three years after its first 


October 13, translation, the body of the saint was borne by a crowd 


1263. 


of the noblest of the land.’ Among them two Kings 


* I know of no other English church of the thirteenth century which ex- 
hibits the French arrangement of the apse and surrounding chapels. It 
may be seen at an earlier date at Norwich and in the ground-plan of the 
destroyed monastic church st Leominster, and at a later date at Tewkes- 
bury, the example most like Westminster, though on # mach smaller scale. 

* John's submission to Rome was more ignominious in point of form than 
anything done by Edward or Henry, but it was not in the same way the 
act of his own free will. 

2 T. Wikes, p. 88. Henry moved the body “‘non patiens ulteriua vene- 
rabiles relliquiae beatimimi Regis Edwardi Coafessoris, quem pre omteris 





a8 THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


ouar.xt, himuolf, that Harold stood by his side at his first burial, 
and that in the great rite of his translation a ehare was 
borne by him who did in truth live to wield the sceptre 
of the Isle of Albion, and in whom the Scot and the 
Briton once more bowed to an Eadward of England as 
thoir father and their lord.’ 
Kalwints But the posthumous history of Eadward the Confessor 
owes the Gid not ond even with this crowning triumph. His shrine 
Pepa at Westminster bocame the centre of a group of royal 
tubs, tomba such as gathered in earlier times in the more ancient 
seats of royalty at Winchester and Sherborne. Or a closer 
parallel still might be looked for in that renowned sanctuary 
uf the Weet, the reeting-place of Eadward’s nobler brother, 
where Briton and Englishman agreed to revere the name 
of the legendary Arthur, as at Westminster Englishman 
and Norman agreed to revere the name of the now well- 
Wealee nigh legendary Eadward! Eight years after the burial 
TS™ of Badwand, his widow, the loving sister of Tostig, the 
Ioyal subject of William, was laid by his side before the 
akar of Saint Peters The zal of King Heary thought 
ot bee alay and her remains translated to the chapel of 
‘ee husband, were lad as near to his side as the remains 


vf am ondiuacy sinful mortal might lie to those of a wom- 
We Baigoes Geewurking saint, To the other side of his shrime was 
Ihe msveed she duse of anther Badgyth. diqaiael im history 
dy tee Necmaz nase Macias ber im whom the green 
wee dee Degen vw rerara we the wunk am in whee 





sae imminems 6 Ge Agee’ Ny lagen or aigy 
marks Shy grave of chee cuval Laies ban baiire ag 
wae stvest stil of ste cram was ‘avainst om the 





est ee 

AN Ko mkt Sapna cn emameor i 

uy Sen St, on ee ne Pe Wee 
ot 





tombs of Kings and princes which crowded round the citav. xr. 
shrine of their sainted predecessor. ‘To the north King Hoary the 
Heary slecps in his tomb of foreign work, beneath the 
shailow of the patron whom he bad so deeply honoured,' ratwant 
Worthier dust lies east: and wost of him. No graven ft... 
figure marks the resting-place of his immortal son, but 

the loveliest work of all within that mighty charnel-houze 
records the love and grief of the great King fora consort 
worthy of him, Succeeding ages surrounded the sacred 

spot with the sculptured forms of succeeding generations 

of English royalty, There sleeps the victor of Crecy and 

the victor of Azincourt; there sleeps, beside his nobler Richard 
Queen, the King from whom the Parliament of England, ™S*™* 
in the exercise of its ancient right, took away the Crown 1399. 
of which he had shown himsélf unworthy. Thus around 

the shrine of Eadward were gathered the successors who 

in life had swom to keep his fancied Laws, and who 
deemed it their highest honour to wear his Crown and 

to sit upon his royal seat. At last a King arose in whose 

eyes the wealth which carlier Kings had lavished on that 

spot outweighed the reverence with which so many ages 

had surrounded Eadward’s name, One Henry had reared 

alike the shrine and the pile which held it; the word of 
another Henry went forth to cast to the owls and to the 

bats all that; earlier ages had deemed holy. And yet some The boty 
‘remorse seems to bave smitten the soul of the destroyer “Elwin! 
before the shrine of the royal patron and lawgiver of under 
England. Elsewhere the shrines of more ancicnt saints Big! 
were levelled with the ground; elsewhere the dust of 
Kings and heroes was scattered to the winds, The wealth 
of Radward’s shrine was indeed borne away to be sported 
‘roadeast among the minions of Henry's court, but the 

* Charter of Hoory, printed in Stanley's Memorialy p. 504. “Ob rover 


rentiam gloricamim! Regis Eadwardi, cujux corpas in monsaterio Went: 
‘monasterii roquiewoit, nostri corporis vepulturan . . . eligimun in eoder.” 


‘the 


———— : 


40 


THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


ouar. xx. empty casket still stood untouched, and the hallowed re- 


mains found another, if a lowlier, resting-place within the 
minster-walls. And the days yet came when one trans- 
lation more restored the corpse of Eadward to its place 


= of honour. And again it was from fitting hands that he 


received this last act of veneration. The foreign-hearted 
Eadward had been first placed in that shrine by the 
foreign-hearted Henry, the King whose foreign marriage 
proved the curse of England, and whose foreign tastes 
made England the victim and the bondslave of Rome. 
Shorn of his honours by a King who, with all his crimes, 
was at least an Englishman, Eadward was brought back 
to his shrine by a Queen whose work it was to bend the 
neck of England beneath the spiritual yoke of the Roman 
see and the temporal yoke of her Spanish husband. 
‘Translated first by the zeal of Henry and Eleanor, he was 
again restored to his old honours by the seal of Philip 
and Mary. And now, while the dust of Eadmund and 
Harold is scattered to the winds, Eadward still sleeps in 
his shrine, unworshipped indeed but undisturbed; and the 
spot where an Englishman would best love to stand and 
muse in awe and wonder has become ground from which 
the votaries of devotion and art and history are bidden 
to tan away. 


Teor Bat we must come back to the doings of the great 


Jenmery 
1066. 


“ Epiphany. The last King of the House of Cerdic was laid 
6 


+ One woald have inferred from the sccount in Dart, Westmonasterium 
(i 56), thas the body of Eadwanl was never disturbed. But the testimony 
of Henry Machin seems explicit: “The xx day of Marche [1556-7] was 
taken up at Westmynster ayaa with » hondered Iyghtes King Edward the 
confemor . . . it was a gouly shyte w have awn yt how reverently he was 
cared ‘carried? from the plawe that he was taken up wher be was led [laid] 
when that the sbbay was spowlyd and robbed” (p. 130, Camd. Soe. ed.) 
The shrine was wt up on the sth of January 1353. Chroaide of Grey 
Friars, p. 94, Cami. Soc. ed.. where the day is called Sains Edward's day. 
Stanley, Memorials of Westminster, p. 412. 





42 


THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


cmur.x1. temporal chiefs of Christendom. He alone had gone, with 


HY 


teat 


such worship as none had gone before him,? far beyond 
the threshold of the Apostles, to the city where the Infidel 
bore sway over the very spot of man’s redemption. He 
had tarried in the court of Crear, he had knelt at 
the tomb of Christ; but in all his wanderings he had 
never seen such s day or such 8 scene as when the Witan 
of all England came together to choose their Father and 
their Lord, and the disdem of Ecgberht rested on the 
lordly brow of the King chosen from his brethren. Could 
he have deemed that, at the next Christmas Feast, he 
should be called upon again to repeat that solemn rite 
on the same spot, under circumstances yet more new and 
wonderful? In the whole range of history, it is hard 
to point to a stranger fate than that of him to whose lot 
it fell to receive before the same altar, within a single 
year, the coronation-oath of Harold and the coronation- 
oath of William. 

The rite began. Earl Harold, the King-elect, was led 
by two Bishops, with hymns and processions, up to the 
high altar of the minster. The anthem sung by the 
choir in that great procession prayed that the hand of 
Harold might be strengthened and exalted, that justice 
and judgement might be the preparation of his seat, that 
mercy and truth might go before his face.’ Before the 
high altar the Earl of the West-Saxons bowed himself 
to the ground, and while he lay grovelling, the song of 
Ambrose, the song of faith and of victory, was sang 
over one whose sin at Porlock, whose atonement at Walt- 
ham, might well make him seem another Theodosius.* 


* See vol. ii. p. 437- 

* Maskell, 3, §. “Chorus decantet antiphonam ‘Firmetur manus tus ot 
ccahetar dextera tus; justitia et judicium preparatio sedis tes, misericondia 
et veritas precedent faciem tuam.’” 

7 Tb. §. ““Perveniens Rex ad ecclesiam, prosternat so coram altare, et 





44 


THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


ouar.xr. and David and Solomon was implored to shower down 


‘The Uno- 
oe, 


all the gifts and graces of those famous worthies upon 
him who was that day chosen to be King of the Angles 
and Saxons. Ealdred prayed that Harold, faithful as 
Abraham, gentle as Moses, brave as Joshua, humble as 
David, wise as Solomon, might teach and rule and guard 
the Church and realm of the Angles and Saxons’ against 
all visible and invisible foes. With feelings too deep for 
words must that prayer have risen from the hearts of 
those who could already see the gathering storm, which 
was still but like a little cloud out of the sea, The 
Primate prayed that their chosen King might never fail 
the throne and sceptre of the Angles and Saxons, that 
for long years of life he might reign over a faithfal 
people, in peace and concord, and, if need be, in victory. 
Christ Himself was prayed to raise him to the throne of 
His kingdom, and to pour down upon him the unction 
of the Holy One. 

«Tho oaths were said, the prayers were prayed.”* And 
now came the escramental rite itself which changed an 
Earl into a King, and which gave him, s0 men then 
doomed, grace from on high to discharge the duties which 
it laid upon him. ‘The holy oil was poured by the hand 
of Enldred upon the head of Earl Harold.* And while the 
symbolic act was in doing, the choir raised their voices in 
that glorious strain to which the noblest music of later 
times has given a still higher majesty. The walls of the 
‘West Minster echoed to the anthem which told how Zadok 
the Priest and Nathan the Prophet anointed Solomon 


1 “Totius regni Anglo-Saronum ecclesiam cum plebibus sibi annexis.” 
(Selden, 116.) ‘This is one of the rare casos in which this word is used; 
ut it will be easily seen how completely its use agrees with the rule given in 
vol. i. p. §35- “‘AngloSaxonum” is simply an abbreviation of the form 
“ Anglorum vel [et] Saxonum” used before and after. 

+ Marmion, ii. 28. 

2 On the unction, whether on the head only, see Appendix F, 





our. x1. 


THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


. hater of iniquity.” Further prayers, farther blessings, 


followed ; the prayers and merits of all the saints, of the 
Virgin Mother of God, of the Prince of the Apostles, and 
of bis successor the special Apostle of the English nation,’ 
were implored on behalf of the crowned and ancinted King. 
And now King Harold of England sat on his royal throne, 
the crown upon bis brow, in his right band the sceptre, 
in his left the orb of Empire, the proud bedge which 
belonged of right to the Cesar of another workl. ‘Two 
chiefs, perhaps his faithful brothers, bore the sword at 
his side; his people stood and gazed upon him with 
wonder and delight.t The day at last had come for which 
Harold and England bad looked so long. The reward of 
thirteen years of loyal service had been given by the nation 
to ber noblest son. And the die too had been cast; the 
danger was now to be faced in common; King and people 
were pledged to stand by one another in the struggle 
which was to come. And King and people did stand by 
one another, and, if they both fell, they both fell gloriously. 
The rite of that great day gave Harold, instead of the 
long and peaceful reign prayed for by his consecrator, 
a reign of nine months of little stillness.* Then England 
was given over to bondage, and the name of Harold was 
given over to the voice of slander. But in the eye of 
trath, those nine months of little stillness, spent in the 
cause of England, were better than long years of inglorious 
ease and luxury, better than long years of hardly less 
inglorious sloth and superstition. As the momentary 


» Maskell, pp. 33, 34- 

7 Tb. 35. “Sancte Marke ac besti Petri Apostolorum Principia, Sanc- 
oo Anglorum Apostoli atque omnium sanctorum intercedentibus 

» See Taylor, p. 70, and Appendix F, 

* See the Tapestry, pl. 7. 

* Chroan. Ab. Wig. 1065. “And ber warts Harold cori esc to eynge 
sgehalgod, and be lyte stilnesse peron gehad, pa hwile pe he rices weold.” 





THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


§ 8. The first days of Harold's Reign. 
January 6—April 16, 1066. 


Within the bounds of his former Earldom the rale of 
Harold, King of the English, was simply » continuation 


. of the rule of Harold, Earl of the West-Saxons. It is 


plain that no other Earl of the great southern Earldom 
was appointed in his place. In any view of general policy 
this might be looked on as a backward step. It might 
be looked on as again uprearing a throne which should 
be West-Saxon rather than English. It might be looked 
on as changing Mercia and Northumberland back again 
from integral parts of the realm into dependent provinces. 
But, as things stood at the moment, it would seem to have 
been the wiser course. England was threatened by two 
enemies in different quarters, and even the energy of 
Harold could not personally provide for the safety of the 
land against both. It was absolutely necessary, in Harold’s 
position, to treat the Earls of the Northumbrians and the 
Mercians with a degree of confidence which they certainly 
did not deserve. It was something that they had allowed 
his election and coronation to take place without any open 
opposition, It was something that he had received the 
votes of the Northumbrian Witan, and had been crowned 
and anointed by the hands of the Northumbrian Primate. 
Harold could not do otherwise than at least affect to treat 


Division of Eadwine and Morkere as loyal subjects. He was obliged 


between 
‘them and 
the King. 


to trust to them for the defence of Norther England, 
And, if they could be trusted for anything, they might 
surely be trusted to keep their personal enemy Tostig out 
of their own Earldoms. While they guarded the North 
against the English exile, it was Harold’s own work to 
guard the South against the foreign pretender. In the 


» Seo vol. i. p. 422; il. p. 354. 





50 ; THE ELECTION OF HAROLD, 


cur. x1, the King took his own share along with bis brothers. 
A King who had his own portion of the Kingdom in 
his own hands might sccm to be less painfully exalted 
over their heads, he might seem to remain more nearly 
on their own level, than a King who acted simply as 
‘a central power, equally controlling every portion of the 
realm, Harold therefore kept the West-Saxon Earldom 
in his own hands, But it is clear that he kept a watehful 
eye over his whole Kingdom, and that he was ready to 
act at a moment’s notice in any part of his Kingdom 
where his presence might be needed. 
Chamoter On the character of Harold’s government as King there 
tirean'lt* is no noed to enlarge. His government as King was, as T 
mont, have just before said, simply a continuation of his govern- 
ment as Earl, Whatever was the character of the one was 
Norman the character of the other. The Norman writers desoribe 
caluuuies. is government as stained by frightful crimes, As usual, 
stories grow and become more definite as they are further 
removed from the time. The slanderers of Harold’s own 
age veiled their charges in the most general terms; but 
the slanderers of the thirteanth century were ready with 
long stories of rapine and eacrilege and evil doings of every 
kind, and the slanderers of a still later age knew perfectly 
well how cruelly Harold enforced the forest laws, and how 
he purposely remained without a wift, that he might the 
more easily carry off the wives and daughters of the 
Allegea Barons" of the realm.' A charge which better deserves 
semerl == serious examination is that Harold drove out of the land 
Kerman all tha Normans who wero ecttled'in it, donbtlom on 
fiscating their lands? Now the dying charge of Eadward 
* On those changes, se Appendix @. 
* Roman de Rou, 11076; 
“Normans ki el pat mancient Ft granx chastels 4 fioux dunes, 
‘Ki fumes ot enfanz avelent, ‘Fist Horwut del pate chacter, 


Ke Ewart { aveit monéa, ion { volt un soal lower.” 
But he dove not speak of thelr expulsion till after Wiliam tad challenged 
the Crown and defied Harold. 


, 





THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


our, x1, Eadnoth, kept their offices. Ansgar and Bondig play not 


unimportant parts in the great struggles of the year) 


Esdnoth. Eadnoth, who held large possessions in the western shires, 


was probably a man who had risen by the favour of 
Harold during his government of Wessex as Earl. We 


1068, shall hear of him again as acting against the son of his 


benefactor. 


ea In opposition to the slanders of his enemies, Harold 
of 


..ppears in the national writers as the model of a patriot 


geodge = King. In the words of the splendid panegyric which 


became almost a set form among all trae Englishmen, “he 
began to abolish unrighteous laws, to establish righteous 
‘ones, to be the patron of churches and monasteries, to 
reverence Bishops, Abbots, monks, and churchmen of every 
sort, to show himself pious, lowly, and affable to all good 
men, and to be the enemy of all evil-doers.”* We are 
told how he bade his Earls, Sheriff, and magistrates of 
every kind, and generally all his Thegns, to seize all 
thieves, robbers, and disturbers of the public peace, while he 
himself laboured for the defence of the country by sea and 
land? That is to say, his government as King was a con- 
tinuation of his government as Earl. We must not infer 
from the opening words of the description that Harold 
appeared at all as a lawgiver. Those few months of little 
stillness were not likely to be largely devoted either to the 
repeal of old laws or to the enactment of new ones. By 
good and bed law is meant, as usual,‘ good and bed 
government. What we are to understand is that Harold's 
rule continued to be as just and as vigorous as it had ever 
been. It would in trath be more vigorous, now that he 
* See below. Chapp. xiv. xv. 

2 FL Wig. 1066. See Appendix G 
9 Flrence mentivs his orders as yiven ~Ducibas, Satrapis, Viceounal- 
tibax, et suis in comane Miniserin” What were the exact functions 


cof the “ Secrap,” pot thas in s marked way between Karls and Sheriffs! 
* See col i pp. aty. 416: vol i pp. 334. 477: 498 











54 THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


cuar. x1. classes of men, and to make friends of the clergy more 
than of any other class, He must have known that eome- 
thing like a holy war was likely to be preached against 
him. He must have felt that be had, wittingly or un- 
wittingly, done an act which ran counter to the religious 
feelings of the time. If Harold had really done despite to 
the bones of the Norman Saints, it was the more needful 
for him to show to other lands that he enjoyed the eon- 
fidence of the national Church, and to show to the national 
Church that he was a King who did not belie the oil of his 
His ras consecration. It is quite possible, and it may be implied in 
tons to the +1.0 words of the panegyric, that the founder of Waltham, 
the great patron of the eeculars, now found it expedient to 
extend more of his countenance than before to the religious 
foundations of his Kingdom. It is certain that the few 
notices that we have of the reign of Harold show that more 
of his attention was given to ecclesiastical matters than 
might have been looked for in a reign so short and so 
Hisfrtter stormy. He continued his eare and bounty to his own 
Ritiam. foundation at Waltham; what the Earl had loved, the 
His wit to King oould not love less If Bishop Gian had sny fears, 
they were quieted by a writ securing him in all the rights 
and possessions of his see? The construction which we put 
upon this act must depend upon the view which we take 
of the relations between Harold and Gisa at this moment. 
‘We have seen that, according to Gisa’s own account, the 
King promised to restore the disputed lands, and was 
hindered only by his death.? At any rate, Harold showed 
) De Inv. ¢.!20. “Rex . . quod prius dilexerat non potuit odime. 
‘Verumtamen ecclesiam Walthamensem, ampliori quam prius amplexatus 
dilectione, multa donariorum venustate oe-pit eam ampliare, ite ut postes 
nullatenus sine multorum munerum oblatione vellet etiam illam sedem 
visitare.” 
* Cod. Dipl. iv. 305, perhaps the only surviving writ of Harold's reign. 
It is addressed to AEthelnoth, Abbot of Glastonbury (see vol. ii. p. 360), and 
the Sheriff Tovid or Tofig. See vol. i. p. 524. 
® See vol. ii. p. 675. + 





56 


‘THE ELECTION OF RAROLD. 


omar. x1. concurred in the election of Harold. The expressions of our 
ee best authoritics declare that the chief mon of all England 


concurred in the choice ;* the Primate of the Northum- 


clectice. ‘rians had filled the first place in the work of Harold's 


formal admission to his Kingdom, and there is nothing 
to show that the Earl of the Northumbrians openly 
dissented. But a little thought will show that the 
real foclings of Northumberland could not bo #0 easily 
tested in an Assembly held in London a the real feelings 
of Wessex and East-Anglia undoubtedly were. We cannot 
suppose that the North was represented in anything like 
the same proportion as the districts nearer to the place of 


Werking of mecting. This ix always one of the weak points of a 
—_ Wii™ Primary, as distinguished from a Represntative, Assembly. 
pad In a Representative Assembly, if members are fairly ap- 


™Y vortioned to districts, » part of the county far away from 
tho place of mecting may be as well represented as one 
that is clove to it. In a Primary Assembly the different 
parts of the country cannot be put on an equality unless 
the votes are taken, not by heads, but by tribes, cities, 
or cantons? Northumberland might, by this means, have 
had an equal voice with Wessex in the national Councils, 
though the Wost-Saxons present might have been counted 
by bundreds or thousands, and the Northumbrians only by 
tens or units, But this political subtlety does not seem 
to have been thought of in the primitive parliamentary 
system of our forefathers. It follows then that, wherever 
a Gemét was held, some part of the country was placed ab 
adisadvantage, East-Anglin was placed at a disadvantage 
when the Gemét was held at Gloucester; Western Mercia 
was placed at a disadvantage when the Gemét was held in 
London. And as no regular Gemét seems to have beon 


* Hasld was “a totien Anglise Primatibas od rogale culmen elects” 
Br. Wig, 1066. 
* Soe Hist. Fed. Gov., pp. 311, 270. 





58 THE BLECTION OF HAROLD, 


quar. xx, undistinguished, perhape ignoble. This feeling on the part 
of the Northumbrian people was short-sighted and wn- 
generous, bub it was perfectly natural. The question is, 
how far the sons of Ailfgar, who had not dared to oppose 
Harold's election in open Gem6t, now stirred up, or took 
advantage of, the natural fecling of the Northumbrian 
people, Our evidence ix very «light, but the conduct of 
Eadwine and Morkere a few months later makes it almost 
impossible to doubt that they eaw, in the unwillingness 


schemes for the division of the Kingdom. We have no 
distinet details of what actually happened in Northamber- 
land at this moment. The one writer who tells the story 
wraps up the minuter facts in a cloud of rhetoric.’ Ibis 
‘Tho North: Plain however that the Northumbrians did, in some shape 
humbriant o¢ other, refuse to acknowledge Harold as their King. 
ang ‘There is nothing to show that there was any armed re 
Harold. sistance, or that any Northumbrian Gemét took upon 
iteelf to elect another King, The resistance to Harold’s 
authority was probably passive, but resistance of some 
Similar — kind there was, Harold, in short, found himeelf in January 
‘nin very nearly the same position with regard to. the 
jue? northern part of his Kingdom in which William found 
Willian in himself in Decomber. Each alike had been elected and 
crowned ; each had received the allegiance of the North- 
bumbrian Earl, and had been hallowed as King by the 
Northumbrian Primate. But Harold and William alike 
found that the submission of Morkere and the benediction 
of Ealdred did not necessarily carry with them any prac- 
tical authority over the old Northumbrian realm. And we 
cannot doubt that the heart of Morkere went forth as little 
in his oath to Harold as it went forth in his onth to 


+ Will, Molms, Vit. 8, Wht, ap. Ang, Saor. ti. ag5« 


OPPOSITION TO HAROLD IN NORTHUMBERLAND. 59 


William. © Tae Coeeares perce BER Uevrine Seo 
also, took advantage, in the former caso as inthe latter, Pmbsby ‘of 
of the watural disposition of the Northumbrian people, Baten 
TMhasleaobientary hopen whieh ‘were’ toused Uy. the inwillings Siekare, 
ness of the Danish and Anglian North to acknowledge the 
‘West-Saxon King overcame the fear lest Tostig should 

come to recover his Enrldom by force. Weighed against 

such hopes, the tie of allegiance, the tie of gratitude, was 

not likely to be strong, The claims of a King and a 
benefactor would seem small compared with a chance of 
personal exaltation. The duty of keeping England united 

in the face of her foes would seem as nothing compared 

with the chance of gratifying a paltry provincial jealousy. 

‘I may acem to be passing a hareh judgement on the sone 

of Ailfgar in a matter in which their names are not 
directly mentioned, But I am simply supposing that their 
conduct now was of a piece with their conduct a few 
months before and a few months after. And it is hard to 

ee what form could be taken by even a passive resistance 

to Harold's authority, unlees that resistance was fostered 

by the connivance, to say the least, of the reigning Earl. 

‘Harold then found himself in January, ae Wasser Seca Bar's 
Himself in December, King of a realm of which Northurm- raverng 
Derland constitntionally formed a part, but a King to (iit 
eesti elcid seated wrfca8 ui liaak pas 
sive resistance. But Harold’s way of bringing in the 
proud Danes of the North to his obedience was not exactly 
‘the same as William's way. Harold know how to win back 
‘the revolted province without shedding a single drop of 
Blood and without harrying a single acre of ground. Tt 
‘i small blame to William, granting his position in Eng- 

Jand at all, that no euch peucefal means were open to him 
were open to Harold. But, if Harold's way of re- 
covering rebels differed widely from William’s, it differed 
‘no less widely from that of Harthacaut, of Tostig, or of 


ae = 





THE ELECTION OF HAROLD, 


cuar. xt Eadward himeelf. Three months before, the saintly: King 


had been eager to carry fire and sword into a province 
which, though it despised his authority, does not seem 
to have disputed his title. His good genius, in the shape 
of Harold, had then kept him back from a bootless war 
against his own people.' That same province wis now 
in revolt against Harold himself; but it was soon shown 
that the policy of Harold the King was in no way changed 
from the policy of Harold the Earl. The conqueror of 
Gruifydd was not so eager for war and bloodshed as the 
King who bad never grasped axe or sword excepb in a 
peaceful pageant. King Harold showed that the motto 
on his coin was one which he was ready fully to carry 
out in practice. He ot lenst knew that, at such a mo- 
ment, civil war, civil dissension, between Englishmen, 


‘Te dotr- was simple madness. With that noble and generous 
wc ien. daring which is sometimes the highest prudence, Hareld 


bomber- 
Jand in. 
parson, 


determined to trast himself in the hands of the people 
who refused to acknowledge him. Those his enemies 
who would not that he should reign over them, instead 
of being brought and slain before him, were to be won 
over by the magic of his personal presence in their own 
land, We know not whether Harold had ever before set 
foot on Northumbrian ground. His vast possessiona in- 
deed extended beyond the Humber. The lordship of 
Coningaburgh, more famous in romance than in history, 
together with a large surrounding territory, owned Harold 
as its lord? A house of Harold's probably marked the 
height which is now crowned by the renowned castle of 
later times; but we know not whether the great Earl 
ever found Icisure to visit a possession so far’ removed 


Se vol. Hi. p, 490. 

: rs 301. ihn at an carlior time (Cod. Dipl. vl. 147) been 
oft by Wulf Bpot to Aifhela the vietina of Badric (sow vol. bp. 686). 
‘The name there appears ax Crenugeaburh. 


— 





62 ‘THE ELECTION OF HAROLD, 


cuar, x1. and of reason, the example and the influence of the” 
brightest light of the national pricsthood, were the arms 
‘Harold and to which Harold trusted. Our narrative tells us only the 
reels result and not the process, ‘The proud Danes, unoonquer 
te Xen able by steel," bowed their necks to the genile yoke of 
towubmit, Harold and Wulfitan, and the authority of the new King 
was acknowledged throughout Northumberland, One 
could well with to know more of the detaile, The bio- 
grapher of Wulfstan attributes the happy result wholly 
to the reverence with which the Saint inspired the fierce 
spirits of the North. From the merits and the honour 
of Wulfstan, a true Saint and the chosen friend of Harold, 
T should be sorry to take away one jot or one tittle, But 
I cannot but think that the presence, the arguments, the 
eloquenee, of the hero-King himself must have had some 
Farid in sharo in winning over his people to his allegianes, In 
w York. the Gemét at York, which was evidently summoned far 
the purpose,’ he might appeal to every feeling of patriot- 
ism, and conjure them, as Englishmen, not, ab such a 
moment, to separate the cause of one Rarldom from the 
common cause of England. If England were torm by 
civil war, even if England wero peacefully divided, what 
aeaurance was there that Wessex alone could withstand 
the attacks of William, that Northumberland alone could 
withstand the attacks of Tostig? But if England were 
united—and under none but Harold could she be united 
—she might be able to hold ap against both enemies at 
‘once, He might appeal to every feeling of personal 
gratitude; he might remind the Northumbrian. people 
how lately he had sacrificed hie brother to their will, 
how lately he had saved thom from a civil war, when 


+ Vit, Wet. 254. “Ili populi ferro indomabiles, eomper quiddam magg- 
‘uth w proavin ” 

2 The matter could only have been decided in m Goudt, and Hagold's 
prosence at York is implied in the Chronidlos, 





o4 ‘THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


oasr.at. him, We shall see what was the fate of Northumberland 
and of England, when so vast a power had to be left in 
such unworthy hands. 

But for the moment King Harold was indood King 
over the whole realm. He had won the hearts of the 
whole English people from Wight to Lindisfarne, as par 
haps no other King had won thom since England bad 
acknowledged a single King, It may be that the holy 
man whom he had chosen as his guide and partner chose 
that moment of his highest exaltation to set before him 
a picture of the sins of England, and to exhort him to 
devote himself to their reformation.' Or it may be that 
the warnings of Wulfstan to Harold, like the warnings of 
Solon to Crosus, are merely part of a grand dramatic 
picture, showing how the shadow of the wrath to come 
‘was already spreading over the land. But, for 
all was brighter than at any other moment of the year. 
King Harold, fall King over all England, came back in 
pence to his palace at; Westminster. 

Harold ‘It was there that he kept the Easter Festival, and held 
iui. his Easter Gemét, the one recorded Festival and the ene 
wt Went recorded Gemét of his short reign? But the reign of 
April 16. Harold, short as it was, marks an important stage in the 
{ucrasel gradual process by which London became the capital of 
ofiondn England, Eadward and Harold were both, by widely 
Harold, different motives, drawn to Westminster as their chief 

dwelling-place. Eadward loved to dwell under the shadow 

of the church which he was rearing. Harold saw that 


HA 


"Vit, Wat. 254. "Multa et illo itinere ot aliae crebr prenoita et pr 
nuntiats sunt, Denique Haraldo palam textificatus ext, quanto detrimento 
et sihi et Anglim foret, nisi nequiting morum correctum fre eogitaret. Vive 
batur enim fue peno ubiqve in Anglid penditin moribum, « pro pacit 
aifluenti& delicarurn fervebat Luxux" 

* Chroon. Ab, Wig. 1066, On pisum geare com Harold kyng of 
Roforwio to Westmynstre, to pam Eastman, bo wosron after pam middan- 
vwintran Pe ve yng forbferde.” 





J THE “LECTION OF HAROLD, 


eusr.x. caused the creation of Eadward to become, from ita very 
birth, the hearth and home of the English nation. 
‘Di Bae It is possible alsv that Harold may bave had another, a 
[ond Wi secondary, motive, which led him to bold his festival in 
some other place than the capital of his former Earldom, 
the resting-place of his father and of his murdered cousin, 
Harold had faithfully carried out all the dying wishes of 
Eadward. Thoso of Eadward’s Norman friends who were 
willing to dwell peaceably in the land were not disturbed. 
Every day of Harold's reign saw massea and prayers go 
up from the altars of the West Minster on bebalf of the 
soul of its founder. And Eadward’s other request, that 
his widow might keep her royal rank and honours, was 
Yagoth carried ont no Tess faithfully.  Eadgyth, now, in Olde 
thous, English phrase, the Old Lady, withdrew to that royal 
dwolling-place at Winchester which seems, in this age, 
to have been specially reserved for the widows of Kings. 
‘There Emma had spent the last days of her lifc,' and there 
now Eadgyth dwelled amid all the honours of her rank, 
Her sp. but in all probability as no faithful subject of her royal 
' brother. Her sisterly affection wax set, upon Tostig, and 
it would even seem that, after Tostig’s overthrow, her 
sympathies were transferred from the brother who hed 
overthrown him to the invader who might be looked on 
as bis avenger? It is possible that Harold might feel 
inclined to avoid a city whose chief inhabitant was a sister 
in such a frame of mind. But it may simply be that he 
found London the best centre for his councils and opera 
tions, And we may add that the mere fact of Winchester 
being assigned as the place of dowry to the widows of 
Cont and Endward shows of itself that the old Wost~ 
Saxon capital was fast yiolding the firet place among the 
cities of England to the great military and commercial 
post on the Thames. 
1 See vol th p. 6a, * Bee Appendix Ta 


H 





68 THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


cur.xt. The appointment to Ely is of more moment, as it 
Wattic plainly sete forth Harold in the character of an ecclesi- 
oy. astical reformer. The last Abbot Walfric, who is spoken 
aaifaset; of as a kinsman of King Eadward, had lately died. On 
tail imple his death the Abbey was given to Archbishop Stigand, 
Sueze as an addition to his already large stock of preferment. 
Neither Walfrie nor Stigand is spoken of as a good 
husband of his church's worldly wealth. Walfric bad 
secretly conveyed some of the lands of the Abbey to his 
brother Guthmund, and he is described as dying of grief 
and shame for this sin. Stigand now, we are told, sug- 
gested to Harold the appointment of an Abbot. But, with 
Florence's panegsrie before us, we may be inclined to be- 
lieve that Harold, who had now at least become the patron 
of monks and monasteries, was anxious that his reign 
should be an era of ecclesiastical reform. It would be a 
good beginning to pat a stop to the scandal of the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury holding the Abbey of Ely in pla- 
rality. Possibly the exhortations of Saint Walfstan may 
have dwelt upon this evil, as upon so many others. We 
may therefore be inclined to believe that it was Harold 
who suggested to Stigand, rather than Stigand who sag- 
gested to Harold, the appointment of an independent 
Tswana Abbot. At any rate an appointment was made by the 
FRx royal authority, and we cannot doubt that it was duly 
1066-1076. made by King Harold and his Witan at this Easter 
Gemét. The new Prelate, Thurstan, whose name pro- 
claims his Danish descent, bears a good character in the 
local history ; he had been brought up in the house from 
his childhood, and had been well instructed in the learning 
of the times. By the King’s order, he received the ab- 
which the local writer cuuples the advancement of the new Abbot with that 
of Harold—his own local Earl. ~ Tune dao subrogati sumt, Harodue comes 
sclicet in Regem Angiorum; et Ealdredus, hactenas exterioram preposi- 
taram Abbenduniz agens, inibi in abbetem monachorum.” He had (p. 486) 
‘two names (~ binumius erat”), Ealdred and “ Brichwinus.” 





Sy 


70 THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 


cuar.xr) came the message which told him to his face, what he 


claimed the Crown he wore, and claimed it by am earlier 
boquest of Eadward, by an earlior homage of Harold 
himeelf. The great enemy hod at last openly thrown 
down the gauntlet, Duke William of Normandy had 
proclaimed himself to all the world as the trae heir of 
Eadward, as the lawful King of the English. The bene- 
diction of Thurstan of Ely was tho last peaceful event of 
Harold's reign. Wars and rumours of wars, challenger 
and answers between leaders of armies, fill up the six 
months which still divide us from the last act of the 
great tragedy. , 
Avpear | And, if those days were on earth days of distreas of 
Comet,” nations and perplexity, days when men's hearts were 
2mm, failing them for fear, they were days too in which the 


storms, a horror of great darkness at noon-day, are re- 
corded in the chronicles of distant lands among the 
portents of thia momorable year. But there was one 
Sgn above all which struck, the hearts of all) mankind 


tho amertion in Beomton (998) that it was on the tenth clay after the death 
of Eadward, I cannot look on this a» enough. I shall therefore treat of 
the mewage in connexion with thew events to which ft belongs In order of 
mubject, if not of time. 

* Annales Benevent. ap, Perts, iil, 180, “Sexto decimo Kalendae Mail 
‘apparult stelle comotés [the Greek aounris]. ‘Tertio die stante mense Feb: 
Taaril fhete sunt tenobre hark noua +t parmansorunt hore tres; pastes sub: 





ted 


THE ELDCTION GF HABOLD. 


eusr.xu the earth. And m Eagiand, where mm’s minds most 


Comet of 
9755 


of 989. 


already hate twen wrought up te the highest pitch, where 
a new native drnaty had just ariren. where two foreign 
imvaders were already threatening. the wonder and amxiety 
most have been even greater than in other lands The 
valgar gazed im silener. lifting up their hands im wonder. 
The more learvel or the more daring took on them to 
expound the prodigy to their fellows. One such inter- 
preter of the future bore the news of the token to King 
Harold on his throne! Holy men, prophets of evil, spoke 
openly, in the spirit of Kalchas, of Mieaiah, or of Ead- 
ward himself, of the woes which were coming upon the 
land. Far away in his cell at Malmesbury, an aged monk, 
Athelmer by name, a dabbler in arts and sciences beyond 
his age broke forth into a flood of vague and terrible 
prediction. The star bad come to bring tears to many 
mothers; he had beheld the same sign in former days, 
but now it had come to bring a far more fearful overthrow 
upon his native land.* The sign was indeed one of awe 
and warning. Ninety years before, such another sign had 
‘been seen in the heavens, and fast on its appearance had 
followed the troubles of the reign of the martyred Ead- 
ward.‘ Famines, earthquakes, civil commotions, had fol- 
lowed hard upon the track of the blazing beacon. Only 
a few years later, so the reckonings of astronomers tell 
us, the very comet on which men were now gazing must 


} Tapestry, pl. 7. ‘Inti mirant stellam.” See Appendix N. 

> Will. Malms. fi. 225. Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, 1066. ithelmer, 
{t seems, was a man of mechanical skill, who in his youth had attempted to 
make bimself wings like Daidalos, but who had been hardly more suocessfal 
than Ikaros, though from another cause. “‘Ipeo ferebst caussam ruine sue 
quod caudam in posteriori parte oblitus fuerat adaptare.” He remained 
lame for life. 

© Will, Malms. il. 225.“ Venisti, inquit, venisti, multis matribus Iu- 
‘gonde ; dudum ext quod te vidi ; sed nunc multo terribiliorem intueor patrie: 
hujus excidium minitantem.’ F 

* Chronn. Wig. Petrib. Cant. 975. 








THE COMET. 73 


have come to herald in the great renewal of the Scan- cuar. x1 
dinavian invasions, the terrible invasions of Olaf and 991-994.) 
Swegen, the fight of Maldon and the general ravaging 

of England. Still the message of warning was not neces- 

carily 2 message of despair, Another such token had— 

not ushered in but ended—the horrors of the year of strife of 1017. 
between Cout and Esdmund ;? it had come as it were 

to shine over the grave of the English hero, to shine as 

a beacon lighting the path of glory which opened hefore 

the Danish conqueror. So now, some great event was 
doubtless portended; some mighty ruler was soon to meet 

with his overthrow; but who could say whether the fiery 

sword which hung over the world was drawn on bebalf 

of Harold or on behalf of William? But from that day 

forth no man doubted that the sword of the Lord was 
drawn; no man doubted that that sword could not be 

quiet, and that it would not return to its seabbard till 

it bad drunk its fill. 


We must now turn from that great Easter Feast at Summary. 
Westminster, and from the portent which served to light 
the Witan of England to their homes. We leave King 
Harold on his throne, the acknowledged chief of his own 
people, but with his right challenged by the one man 
among living princes who could stand forth and defy the 
chosen of England as an equal and worthy rival. The 
details and the substance of that challenge form the be- 
ginning of another portion of my tale. I keep them 
therefore till we have traced out the later actions, the 
wars and the intrigues, of the great enemy beyond the 
sea, I have now to sketch the events of years neither 


1 See vol. i. pp. 268-288. 

* Alb, Trium Font. 51. ‘Anno 1017. Cometes solito mirabilior in mo- 
dom trabis maxime per quatuor menses apparuit.” He then goos on to 
speak of the reign of Caut. 


7” THE ELECTION OF HAROLD, 


cxar.x1. fow nor unimportant in the history of William, and therein 
to bring to light one page which I would gladly blot 
out in the history of Harold. I have now to take up the 
thread of my Norman history, from the day when William, 
the guest of Eadward, went back to his own land, already 
deeming himself the heir of England, to the day when, 
as the open rival of Harold, he put forth before heaven 
and earth his claim to the Crown which the choice of 
England had given to another. 


CHAPTER XII. 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY.! 


1051-1066, 


‘We left the Duchy of Normandy in the enjoyment of Recapituls- 
a short season of unusual peace, after the energy of its hetey ar 
great Duke had for a moment quelled all enemies at home Normandy. 
and abroad. We saw the Duke himself received as a 1051. 
cherished guest at the Court of England, during those 
gloomy months when England, in the absence of her 
defenders, seemed to have already become a Norman land. 

We saw him go back to his home, clothed, there can be 
little doubt, in his own eyes, with the character of the 
lawfal heir of the English Crown. We have now to trace 
out his history and that of his Duchy from the time of 
his return from his first English sojourn till he again 
tteps upon the field of English history as an avowed 
daimant of the Kingdom of England. Meanwhile there 


* There is nothing special to remark on the authorities for this Chapter, 
which consist mainly of the Norman writers whose names and whove rela- 
tive importance must be by this time familiar to the reader. I will only 
remark that it is somewhat vexatious that we have to trust almost wholly to 
suthorities on one side. While we have full narratives from the Norman 
writers, we have only the most fragmentary statements from any French, 
Angevin, or Breton source to set against them. And, to an English writer, 
this is specially vezatious when we draw near to the end of the period, when 
we have to deal with those personal relations between William and Harold 
oawhich the Norman writers are so full, while the contemporary English 
writers are so completely, no doubt significantly, silent, 


76 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


. is a space of fifteen years, years crowded with stirring and 
memorable events in the history of Normandy. But they 
are events which, till quite the end of the period, have 
no direct bearing on the history of England. It is only 
in the last stage of the present Chapter that the two 
streams of our narrative must again join together, at the 
moment when the two great figures of our drama meet 
face to face in the memorable and fatal visit of Earl 
Harold to the Norman court. The earlier years of the 
period are wholly taken up with the affairs of William 
and his Duchy, his marriage, his ecclesiastical reforms 
and foundations, bis wars against rebellious kinsmen 
within his Duchy and with French and Angevin enemies 
beyond its bounds. But these things all form part of 
our story. No part of the life of the great Conqueror 
is foreign to the history of the Conquest of England. 
Every blow dealt by William against his restless neigh- 
bours or against his jealous over-lord formed part of his 
military schooling for the greatest day of his military life. 
Every exercise of that political craft in which he surpassed 
all men made his hand more skilful for the weaving of 
that masterpiece of subtlety by which, even more than by 
his lance and bow, he knew how to make England his 
own. 

Dividousot The period will fall naturally into four divisions. First 

te Laid comes William’s marriage with Matilda of Flanders, a step 

Minne which was, in itself, of no small moment in William’s career, 

and which, as I have already hinted,’ supplies some most 

His French characteristic illustrations of William's temper. Next come 

TEE rosa, the wars of William with the King of the French and his 

allies, those allies being not only the ceaseless enemy of 

Normandy, the Count of Anjou, but aleo enemies of Wil- 

liam’s within his own Duchy and within his own ducal 

house. Thirdly comes the later etage of the Angevin war, 
4 See vol. ii. pp. 290, 291. 


ent 





7 THE LATER REION OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


cuar. xn, fore kept back the consideration of the whole story for 
‘the present Chapter. It comes in here ax a part of the 
Norman history, which has no direct bearing on the purely 
English ovents which have gone before, but whieh has 
the most direct and important bearing on the combined 
Norman and English events which are to follow. 


$1. The Marriage of William and Matilda. 
1a49=1060. 


Fodion of — William, at the time of his visit to Eadward, bad rewched 
the uge of about twenty-four years. The negotiations for 

1049. his marriage had already begun nt least two years before.* 
A marriage into some princely house was an object of no 
smnll moment for one in William's position. The Bastard, 
tho Tanner's grandson, had now fully made good his 
position within his own Duchy, and ho had shown to 
his neighbours that he was one whose borders could not- 
be insulted with impunity. The victor of Val-és-duncs, 
the avenger of Alengon, the man to whom the impregnable 
steep of Domfront had yielded in sheer dread of his wrath,’ 
already held no small place among the princes of Gaal 
and of Europe. The rulers of the lands nearest to his own 
had hnd full means of jadging of his prowess, His reyal 
overlord at Paris bad econ what William could do ag 
an ally, and his restless rival at Angers had felt yet 
more keenly what he could do as an enemy, Alike in 
warfare and in internal government, he had shown himself 
in overy way tho peor of Kings and of long-deseended 
Dukes and Counts. It remained now to be secon whethor 
the rulers of other European states were ready to receive 
him as their social peer, and to allow their blood to mingle 
with the blood of the son of Herleva. His own panegyrist 

* Beo vol: fi pr a9 * Th p, 286, 


— : 


i 


F 





80 


omar. x1. 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


all the princes of his time of a domestic life of unsullied 
purity. He had marked, it may well be, the shame, the 
sorrow, the anarchy, which had been brought upon himself 
and his country by the youthful error of his own parents, 
or rather—it might be fairer to say—by the neglect of 
his father to redeem that youthful error by » later mar- 
riage. He was determined that no such evils should ever 
arise from any such error on his own part. No mistress, 
no Danish wife, appeared in William’s days in the 
palace of Rouen; and this virtue, so unusual in one 
surrounded by all the temptations of youth and power, 
seems to have become the subject of foolish and 
bratal jests among the profligate scoffers of his Court.’ 
The private life of William is a bright feature among the 
varied traits of his strangely mingled character. In this 
respect the noblest of women would have been no more 
than an help meet for him. And such an one he found 
in the wife whom he sought with such characteristic 
steadiness, and who, in the end, shared his cares and his 
glories for more than thirty years. 

‘The counsels of the wise men of Normandy both pressed 
William to marry, and farther suggested the expediency 
of choosing for his bride the daughter of some neigh- 
bouring prince? The weighty matter was long and 
anxiously discussed, but at last either the counsels of his 
advisers or his own inclination disposed William in favour 
of the daughter of the reigning Count of Flanders, It may 

* Will, Malms. iii. 273. Preter ceteras virtutes, precipue in prima 
adolescentis castitatem suxpexit, in tantum ut publice sereretur nihil illum 
in femind powe. Verumtamen ex procerum sententid matrimonio addictus, 
ite ee egit ut pluribus annis nullius probri suspicione notaretur.” He then 
‘goes on to mention, without believing, an absurd story which I shall have to 
speak of elsewhere, Antiquaries and heralds call the famous William 
Peverel of Domesday @ natural eon of William ; but there is nothing to 
that effect in any ancient writer. See Appendix 0. 

? Will. Pict. go. “ Consiliis itaque de matrimonio discrepatur ... . . 
ac affines hsbere quos confines potissimum placuit.” 








THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


omar, xu, vassal of the Roman Emperor; in truth he was the stay 


and glory of his counsels, Rarely did he condescend to 
visit the Imperial Court ; when he stooped so far, Counts, 
Marquesses, Dukes, the mighty Primates of the German 
Church, even Kings themselves, looked on him with 
wonder and admiration.! Without accepting all this 
rhetoric, it is certain that, next to a marriage into the 
house of an anointed King, no connexion could have been 
found more exalted than that which William sought to 
form with the prince whom his contemporaries spoke of as 
the mighty Marquess? No description could be more apt. 
Tt was to their position as Marquesses in the strict sense 
of the word, as princes holding a border land between 
France and Germany,’ as vassals of both Crowns, but no 
very humble subjects of either, that the Counts of Flanders 
owed their special greatness among European princes. 
Their land, with its sea-board and its rivers, was marked 
out by nature as the land where commerce and civic great- 
ness were to take a firmer hold than in any other land 
north of the Alps And its hardy, sharp-witted, and 


of Vermandois; his son Baldwin married Matilds, daughter of King 
Conrad of Burgundy; Arnulf the Young married Susanna, daughter of 
King Berengar of Italy; but the mother of the reigning Count, though 
of princely, was not of royal birth. William of Poitiers (90) is therefore 
justified when he says that Baldwin “a Regibus Gallie atque Germanin 
natales deducebat ;” but I cannot follow him when he goes on to add, 
“‘nobilitatis otiam Constantinopolitanm lineam attingentes,” 

1 Will, Pict. go. “Stupuerunt mirantes eum Comites, Marchiones, 
Duces, tum Archipresulum alta dignitas, si quando presentiam ejus, rari 
hoepitis, Imperatoria cura promeruit . . . nomine siquidem Romani Imperil 
miles fuit, re decus et gloria summa consiliorum in summA necessitudine, 
Reges quoque magnitudinem ojus et venerati sunt et veriti.” 

7 In the Annales Blandinienses and Formoselenses (Pertz, v. 26, 36), the 
Count of Flanders appears as “Balduinus potentissimus,” “ potentissimus 
Marchisus.” 

* Will. Pict. 90.“ Vigebat eo tempore Teutonibus collimitans 0 
Francis, ominensque potentia, precipuus eorum, Flandrensis Marchio 
Baldwinus.” 

* The Free Citien of Germany obtained » higher degree of independence 





84 


omar. xm, 
meh 
Salon 


‘and recon: 
cdliation. 


1054-1056. 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


seen how far this description departs from the trath of 
history; but in after times, when the might of Rome and 
Germany was represented by a woman and a child, it is 
said that Baldwin gained concessions which he was not 
likely to ‘gain at the hands of Henry the Third? With 
his other over-lord, the Parisian King, he had formed the 
closest tie of affinity; his wife was Adela, the daughter 
of King Robert and sister of the reigning King Henry? 
In after times, on the death of Henry, Count Baldwin was 
called on to act as Regent or Protector over the realm 
of his wife’s young nephew Philip.® His marriage with 
Adela gave him two sons, Baldwin and Robert, both of 
whom afterwards reigned over Flanders.‘ Judith, who 
a few years later became the wife of Tostig the son of 
Godwine, is often spoken of as his daughter, but she was 
in truth his sister, the child of his father’s old age,® and 
probably in years the contemporary of his own children. 
But, if the sister of Baldwin shared the viceregal seat 
of Northumberland, his daughter was fated to yet higher 
honour within our island. Matilda, the child of Baldwin 
and Adela, in after days to be crowned at Westminster 
as Lady of the English, was the princess whom the advice 
of William’s wisest counsellors selected as the fittest bride 
for their young Duke, 

One might be curious to know how far this choice was 
at all prompted in the beginning by personal inclination 


1 He rebelled again in 1054 (Herm. Cont. in anno, Perts, v. 133. 
Bernold, ib. 427). On the war, sce Annales Elnonenses Majores (Perts, 
v.13). ‘The reconciliation by the agency of Pope Victor is amerted in the 
Chronicles of Sigebert (Pertz, vi, 360) and Ekkehanl (vi. 198); on the 
terms see Art de Vérifier les Dates, iil. 4, 

* Bee vol. i. pp. 465, 499. I shall have to speak of this mariage 


again. 
* See Will, Pict. go, and below, § 3. 
* On their history vee Lambert, 1071 (Pertz, v. 181), Will. Malme, 





132, and Appendix O. 





rT 


86 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


owar.x1, minute examination revenls the fact that the marriage was 

1049-1053. first thonght of before the monder of Beorn, but that the 
lovers were not joined together by the Chureh till the year 
of the death of Godwine, 

Legend ot "The scandal of a later age told the tale how Briktri, 
a Thegn of Gloncestershire, was sent as an ambas 
sador from the King of the English to the court of 
Bruges, how the daughter of the Count east an eye 
of Jove on the tall stalwart Englishman, how she offtred 
horself to him in marriage, how he refused her advances, 
and how in lator times Matilda, the Lady of the Engtish, 
found means of ample revenge for the slight which be 
had offered to Matilda, the Flemish princess, William, 
we are told, forgetting, it would seem, that such hatred 
might be deemed to savour of love, easily granted his 
wile's prayer for the imprisonment of Bribtrie and for 
‘the transfer of bis lands to hersolf.' The tale is evidently 
mythical, but it preserves the kernel of truth that William 
was not tho first love, or indeed the first husband, of 

gape. Matilda, She had been already married to Gerbod, a 

husbond of man of distinction in Flanders, whose title was taken 

Matilde. from his hereditary office as Adeocate of the great Abbey 

Euiinn, of Saint Bertin at Saint Omer, To him she had borne 

Gerbod and two children, a son who bore his father's name, and who, 
in after times, when his step-father filled the English 
throne, held and resigned the great Earldom of Chester, 
‘the epesial home of the house of Leofrie* The other child 
of Gerbod and Matilda was a daughter, Gundmda by 
name, who became the wife of William of Warren, and 


Jumléges (vil. 21) eoems to make the marriage fillow immellately on the 
* See the tale in the Continnator of Wace, up. Edin, ii. 55, and vol, ir, 
Appendix, Tho ovly grandwuek for the story aceon to be the Sct that 


‘Matilda hold certain lands whieh had belonged te Frrihtric. 
7 Onl, Vit, g22 A, p98 A. His description ie “ Ghrtodus Flandrenale.” 


= 





omar. x11, 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


if the marriage was first thought of as a matter of 
policy, William’s affections were soon firmly fixed upon 
the woman whose hand he was secking. No otherwise 
can we explain the desperate pertinacity with which be 
followed his object in defiance of difficulties to which « 
merely political suitor would soon have yielded. 


The scheme of the marriage must have been first 
broached soon after the war of Domfront and Alengon. 
For in the year following that war the marriage met 


“with the most formidable of all obstacles. It was for- 


bidden by an express command of the common Father 
of Christendom, speaking at the head of an assembly 
which had a real claim to command no small share 
of the reverence of Western Europe. The good Pope 
Leo had gathered together at Rheims that famous 
Council of some of whose acts I have spoken earlier 
in my history.! For one of those moments which come 
few and far between in the annals of nations and 
Churches, the two lights of the Christian firmament 
shone in friendship side by side; the two swords no 
longer clashed against each other, but were drawn at 
the same bidding to chastise the same offenders, At 
the summons of a Pope and an Emperor each alike 
worthy of his throne, clerks and laymen had assembled 
from distant lands, among which England had not been 
slow to send her representatives.2 The abbatial minster 
of Saint Remigius had been hallowed by the Pope him- 
self; and a number of princes and prelates were next 
called to account by the assembled Fathers for various 
breaches of the law, canonical and moral. There, as we 
have seen, a Norman Bishop, a member of the mightiest 
house in Normandy, had to defend himself on a charge 
of sacrilegious destruction of his own church.’ There 


* See vol. i p. 111. Th. 2 Tb, p. 182, 





90 


map. x11. 


Baldwin 
forbidden 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


forth which touched the two mightier neighbours of 
all these princes. Count Baldwin of Flanders was for- 


se girs bie bidden to give his daughter in marriage to William the 


to 
liam, 


Norman, aod he, William, was forbidden to receive her. 
Such is the only description vouchsafed to the great 
Duke, The other princes receive their usual titles of 
honour, but it would almost seem that any such re 
spectful mention was still looked on as not due of right 
to the grandson of the Tanner. 

At the time then of the Council of Rheims, the marriage 
had not yet been celebrated, though William’s first pro- 
posals must have been already made to Baldwin, and must 
have been favourably listened to by him. The Papal pro- 
hibition seemingly stopped the marriage for four years. 
The ground of objection was, according to all the evidence 
which we have on the subject, the usual ground of near- 
ness of kin. Yet it is by no means easy, either to trace 
up the pedigree of William and Matilda to a common 
ancestor, or to see any reasonable ground for the prohibition 
on any of the usual ecclesiastical theories of affinity. But 
it certainly seems more reasonable to suppose the existence 
of some unrecorded hindrance of this kind than to believe 
that William sought the hand of Matilds, and that her 
father favoured his suit, at a time when she was actually 
the wife of another man At all events, the marriage 
was delayed, and the moment when it was actually cele- 


. brated coincides so remarkably with one of the most me- 


morable exploits of William’s countrymen in another part 


Li of Europe that it is hard to believe that the one event had 


not some influence on the other. The Normans were now 


not know what were the offences of Ingelram (who was not yet Count) 
or of Eustace. Theobald had put away Gorsendis, daughter of Herbert 
Wake-Dog of Maine, of whom we shall hear more anon. In the Art de 
‘Virifier los Dates, ii. 615, Thoobald’s wife Gersendis seems to be confounded 
with his sister the wife of Hugh son of Herbert. 

See Appendix 0. 


CAPTIVITY OF LEO. 91 


pressing their conquests in the South of Italy, and Pope ouar. xu. 
Leo did not deem it inconsistent with his duty to en- 1053-1054. 
deavour to check their progress even by force of arms.' 

His own prowess, tried in earlier warfare, the lofty stature 

and heavy swords of his German auxiliaries, availed him Los wan 
not. The Pontiff became a captive in the hands of ene- y°,tt, 
mies who knew as well how to make the most of an ad- of Apulia. 
vantage as if William himoelf had been their leader. And feat and 
im trath there was one in their ranks with a head well 2e'™ 
nigh as cunning to devise, and an arm well nigh as 
stzong to exeente, as the head and the arm of William 
himeelf. For the Norman host was commanded by the 

sons of Tancred of Hanteville, and among them, ss Policy of 
yet the least renowned among his brethren, stood the man rea 
‘before whom Cesars as well as Pontiffs were to quail.? 


1 The whole story is given in the hexameters of William of Apulia, Mu- 
ratori, v. 259 ot seqq. Cf. Milman, fii. 35 et soqa. 

2 William's lines on the stature of the Germans aro well known as being 
‘qaoted by Gibbon (x. 257 od. Milman). They are a parallel pasmge to the 
words of Jordanes (3) when, after reckoning up the nations of Scandinavia, 
be adds, ‘Hm iteque gontes Romanis [oddly enough there in @ various 
reading ‘Germanis”] corpore et animo grandiores infest amvitia pugnee.” 
The Apulian’s description of the German ewords and manner of fighting is 
lean familiar, and is worth quoting, as showing how Teutonic warfare was 
the mme everywhere (p. 260, C, D); 

“Nam nec equus docte manibus giratur eorum, 
Neo validos ictus dat lances, preminet enxin, 
Sunt otenim long specialiter et peracuti 
Tloram gladii, percussum a vertice corpus 
Scindere sepe solent, et firmo stant pede postquam 
Deponuntur equis, potius certando perire 
Quam dare terge volunt, magis hoc sunt Marte timendi, 
Quam dum sunt equites; tanta est audacia gentis.” 
‘This exactly desoribes an English army before Cnut introduced the axe in- 
stead of the sword (see vol. i. pp. 271, 389, 512), and the implied panegyric 
of William is the parallel of the implied panegyric of Guy of Amiens. See 
val. fi. p, 127. 
* S00 vol. i. p. 153. So Will. App. 261 D; 
+ Robertus et ingenionn 
‘Semper celaa petens, et laudis amans ot houoris 
Si contingebat sibi palma vel arte vel armis, 


92 


cmap. x. 


1860, 


‘The mar 
Fiage at 

cclebrated 5 
igs Bis 


danger 


1053- 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


There stood the founder of the Apulian Duchy, the remote 
founder of the Sicilian Kingdom, the man who did les 
only than William himself to make the Norman name 
famous and terrible throughout the world. The true spirit 
of Robert Wiscard appears in the demeanour of con- 
querors who bowed in the lowliest reverence to their holy 
captive, and who at the same time knew how to win from 
him what might pass as a lawfal investiture of all their 
conquests. Such were the beginnings of that Norman 
Kingdom of the South whose fate forms so striking s 
contrast to that of their northern conquest. Thus srose 
that Sicilian realm whose Crown shone the brightest 
among the Pleiads which decked the brow of the Wonder 
of the World," and which, in its lowest depth of de- 
gradation, we have seen merged in a realm of happier 
omen at the mere appreach of the wonder-worker of our 
own day. 

It was while Leo was thus kept in the power of the 
Normans of the South that William seems to have thought 
that the hour was at last come when he might venture 
to trample under foot the prohibition of the Council of 
Rheims, It may be that the reverential gaolers of the 
Pope had contrived to wring from him some concession 
to the prince whom, if they did not look on as their 
sovereign, they must at least have honoured as the first 
in rank among all who bore the Norman name. Or it 
may be that William and Baldwin deemed that, during 
such a collapee of the Papal authority, any breach of eccle- 
siastical discipline might safely be dared, in the hope that 
an absolution after the fact might be won from some 


Eqne ducebat, quia quod viclentia aepe 
Non explere potest, explet vervutia mentis,” 
Compare the wild account of Robert Wiscant in Benedict of Peter 
Forough ‘ii. 200 Scubbe, where he is transferred tothe reign of Henry the 
Fire, 
Yee val Fp. 183. 


CELEBRATION OF THE MARRIAGE. 


successor lees austere than the saintly Loo. At all events omar. xm 


‘the marriage was celebrated while Leo was still in durance, 
‘Count Baldwin himself led his daughter through Ponthiew 
to the Norman frontier. She was there met by the bride~ 
gtoom who had o long and so patiently waited for her. 
‘The marriage ceremony was performed, by what daring 
‘Priest: or prolate wo know not, in the church of the ducal 
town which stood neareet to the Flemish border. At Eu, 
under the shadow of the fortress of Rolf, in the minster 
which had been lately reared by the bounty of Count 
William and his half-canonized wife,’ Duke William re- 
evived the hand of the bride whose posession had been 
forbidden to him by the judgement of Pope and Council. 
‘From the border castle the new Duchess was led in all 


fitting state to her husbund’s capital. The metropolitan Matilda's 
‘city received the Lady of Normandy with every exproesion Tegption 


‘of joy. Any doubts as to the canonical validity of the . 


marriage were likely to give way before the charm of 
Matilda's presence, before the mere novelty of seeing the 
Court of Rouen, after an interval of perhaps thirty years,’ 
once more adorned by the grace and dignity of a reigning 
Duchess, 


‘But, in an age and country where the religious spirit 


‘was 2o actively at work as it was in Normandy in the days rags 


of William, it was not likely that any breach of canonical ¥' 
Jaw, even on the part of the sovereign, should pass un- 
challenged. Men were found who feared not, perhaps in 
‘the spirit of the Baptist, to rebuke the prince who had 
dared a direct breach of the orders of so revered an as- 
sembly as the Council of Rheims. And the opposition 
pcre Demite et tac aes below, pe aty. 
* Thirty-slx yours if wu oount from the death of William's 
Fudith in 1017; twenty-ewewn 4f we count frum the death of Richart the 


‘Good in 1026, The question turns on the position of Richard's second wife 
Papla, See vol. tt. p. 179. 


ted Duchy. 


a 


o4 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


emar. x. was led by one from whom, according to all the accounte 


Censure 


of his character which have been handed down to us, we 
should not have looked for any special seal either for 
ecclesiastical discipline or for Christian morality. At 


iby. the head of the Norman Church now stood William's 
Archbishop uncle Malger, a man who, as I have already said,’ is de- 


Hie 
rasa 


seribed to us only in the darkest colours. Yet almost 
the only act recorded of him is one which, in the life of 
@ saint, would undoubtedly have been set down as one 
of the most striking proofs of bis sanctity. The Primate 
of Normandy did not shrink from reproving his prince, 
and that prince the Great William, for the breach of ca- 
nonical law which he had committed in marrying his 
kinswoman. He at least threatened, if he did not actually 
publish, a sentence of excommunication against the prineely 
offender’ Was his motive in so doing simply disloyalty? 





motives,- Was be, as one account seems to imply, in league with his 


‘the 
against 
Malger. 


brother the Count of Argues, to overthrow William's 
throne?? Or are we to suppose that Malger was really 
stirred up by a holy zeal to denounce a breach of ecele- 
siastical law, however exalted the offenders? Such is the 
equally distinct statement of another of our authorities, 
less open than those who are hardest upon Malger to the 


Natere of intiuences of flattery or prejudice. After all, if we come 


to distinguish the crimes alleged against Malger from the 
declamation which is used about them, they are not crimes 








+ Ferunt qzhlam eme arcanam depositions 
Wiles sneperst praimam abi mnguine 





96 


omar. x11. 


‘William's 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


of robbery and other unnamed crimes,! we begin to have 
our doubts. We are told also that successive Pontiffs had 
refused him the pallium, as being unworthy of his office,* 
so that Rouen was now in much the same case as Canter- 
bury. He also neglected to attend more than one Council 
at Rome to which he was summoned? All Rouen and 
all Normandy, we are told, were utterly weary of their 
Primate and his doings.* 

‘All this may well have been 90; yet the excommuni- 
cation, or threatened excommunication, of the Duke, more 
especially when we remember that the fact is left out 
by those who draw the worst picture of Malger, suggests 
that there may have been another side to the story. The 
excommunication does not read like the act of one who 
was utterly dead to the duties and decencies of his office. 
It reads more like the act of one who, conscious that he 
had greatly neglected those duties and decencies, was 
anxious to make amends for past offences by an act of 
saintly zeal and boldness. It is the sort of act which 
may well have been meant as the first step in an amended 
career, And there is strong ground for believing that it 


tohim, Was this over zealous discharge of ecclesiastical duty, quite 


as much as any of his ecclesiastical or moral offences, which 
finally brought down on Malger the wrath of his nephew 
and sovereign. It would be altogether of a piece with 
William's conduct in greater matters still, if his personal 


+ Will. Pict. 116.  “Sequuntur multoties largitionem rapine. Praterea 
tmvlestus infamize ejus odor diffunlebatur ob alia crimina, Sed a ratione 
alienum ducimus in vitiis publicandis immorari,” ete. 

+ Ib. ~ Pallio mumquam est insiynitus quod... manus Romani Poa- 
tifcis, mitere ['] slita, ei denegavit ut minus idoneo.” So Will. Malina, 
was 

2 1b. 117. Apostolici mandato sepius ad Romanum concilium accitus, 
renuit ire.” William is just now very zealous for the Holy See, quite um 
like the Gallicaniam of Rudolf Glaber. See vol. ii, 

“To. “Sane pigebat Rotomagum, pigetat cunctam Normanniam, archi- 

















98 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


ouar.xu. the beginning of his own reformation, nothing was more 
likely to throw him back in the work of amendment than 
the consequences which his over diligence had brought 
upon him. One of the charges against him was that of 
dealing with a familiar spirit,! a charge which has been 
ingeniously explained by the supposition that the learning 
of Malger took in mathematics and astronomy, and that, 
as in the case of Gerbert and many others, the reputation 
of practising magic was the penalty of knowledge beyond 
his age? It was his custom to sail about among the 
islands, and sometimes to visit the mainland of the Cd 
tentin. One day, on entering the vessel, his supernatural 
power enabled him to prophesy that one of the company 
would die that day. He knew not however who was the 
doomed person, nor by what means he would perish. His 
prediction was fulfilled in himself; he fell overboard and 
was drowned. His body was afterwards found among the 
rocks, and he was buried at Cherbourg? 

Malger A Prelate of a very different stamp from Malger suc- 

tie! ceeded him on the metropolitan throne of Rouen. William 

ri. had now fully learned that the high places of the Church 


+ Roman de Rou, 9714 et 2eqq. He had “‘un deable privé” called Toret 
or Toreit, who was always at his beck and call. Whats Toret? Ploquet 
makes it » diminutive from Thor. Sir F. Palgrave (iii. 276, 277) speaks of 
French antiquaries “who discover in the name Thoreit the exclamation 
‘Thor-aie, an invocation of Thor the Hammerer.” Pluquet at least does not. 
(On Thor-aie see vol. ii. p. 234.) Sir Francis goes on, “But the vocable 
is pure hich deutech, and however gained or bestowed, simply signifies 
Folly.” Of two improbable explanations Pluquet’s seems to me the leas 
improbable. See Mr. Thorpe's amazing note to Lappenberg, Norman 
Kinz, p. 36, where he mixes up Malger's familiar spirit with Ralph of 
Teson's warcry. See vol. i. p. 234: and Taylor's Wace, p. 20. 

+ Histoire des Archeresyues de Rouen (Rouen, 1667), p. 253. The 
author, a Benedictine father, is disposed to let Malger off more easily than 








ma. ii. 439.‘ Postea verv, quo autem divino judicio ignoratur, 
in mari sabmersus est.” Wace tells the story at length, 9727 et seqq. Bat 
there must. as Prevost says be some mistake in the name Wingant, which 
suggests the Picanl Witsand rather than any haven of the COveatin. 





100 


mar. xi, 


Beno- 
dictine 
monks at 
Fécamp. 
1001. 


‘Mauriliun 
leaves Fé. 
‘camp, and 
becomes a 
hermit in 

Italy. 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


favourite foundation of Richard the Fearless, and one of 
the objects of the misapplied bounty of our own Eadward, 
was now flourishing in all the zeal of youth.’ ‘The 
Benedictines, who under the rule of Richard the Good, 
the patron and father of monks, had displaced the secular 
canons, were now under the rule of their first Abbot, the 
renowned and holy William, a native of Italy, and of i- 
lustrious birth. He it was who received the Chancellor 
of Halberstadt as one of his spiritual housebold,* till, like 
Lanfrane,? the neophyte sought for » still more complete 
isolation from the world, and, with the leave of his Abbot, 
Maurilius left, Fécamp for some undescribed part of Italy, 
where he led a hermit’s life, supporting himself by the 


He {xmade work of bis own hands.‘ His sanctity at last drew on 


‘Abbot of 
Haint 
Mary's at 
Florence 


wy the 
Boaiface. 
[10a7- 
1052.) 


him the notice of the famous Boniface, Marquess of 
Tuscany, the futher of the more famous Countess Matilda. 
Thie prince constrained him, much against his will, to 
undertake the government and the reform of the great 
monastery of Saint Mary in the city of Florence, He 
laboured there for some years, and brought his monks into 
some degree of order and good living. But the elder 
members of the brotherhood, accustomed to the lax govern- 
ment of former Abbots, proved too much for his powers 


Mabillon, Onleric (u. ».) mentions only his second sojourn there. But does 
not a profession at Fécamp under the Italian Abbot William form a kind of 
tramaition between Halbervtadt and the Italian hermitage? 

1 Sue vol. i. p. 2535 if. p. 533. 

* The profession of Maurilius at Fécamp would naturally come within the 
time of Abbot William, 1001-1031. After so varied = career, we can 
hardly fancy him less than fity at the time of his appointment to the Arch- 
bishopric, and we want several years for each of his metamorphoses be- 
tween Halberstadt and Rouen, His first sojourn at Fécamp, his hermit 
life, his abbacy at Florence, his second sojourn at Fécamp, might well take 
up twenty-four years among them. 

* See vol 7 

* Mabillon, ii, 440, “Eremi cultor solitariam vitam ducens opere ma- 











MAURILIUS ARCHBISHOP OF ROUEN, 101 


of reformation.’ He threw up his dignity and went back cuar. xu. 
to Fécamp, where he lived for some years as a private whee 
monk, under the new Abbot John. This Prelate was autor 
another Italian, bigh in favour alike with the Duke of the Job. 
‘Normans and with the King of the English, and, like 50 : 
many others of his order, he had found it to his advantage 

to cross the sea and visit the saintly Eadward face to face.’ 

Under his rule the ex-Abbot of Florence lived in peace, Maurilius 
till he was called by Duke William to the highest place tino of 
in the Norman Church. In that post Maurilius held Rovn. 
more than one Council of his province.’ He also finished 

the rebuilding of the metropolitan church, which had been 

begun by his predecessor Robert, and bad perhaps stood 

still during the unthrifty reign of Malger. The church He com- 
of Maurilius, which has wholly made way for the works of Pletes and 
later architects, was consecrated three years before the in- Rowen 
vasion of England, in the presence of all the Bishops of 1063, 

his province, and of Duke William himself.‘ He survived 

this great ceremony six years, and died in the full odour 

of sanctity, having seen his sovereign and benefactor for 

three years on the throne of England. 


+ Mabillon, fi. 440. So Ord. Vit. 567 C, who adds a characteristic Ttalian 
trait; “In urbe Florentit monachili ceenobio Abbatin jure preefuit, et ox- 
‘caus transgreworibus pro rigore divcipling venenun in potu sibi propinato 
deprehendit.” 

* Ord. Vit. u. s. “Tempore Johannis Abbatis compatriote sui Fiscan- 
num venit.” But the local accounts make John a Lombarl, Orderic might 
have aseumed that an Abbot at Florence must be an Italian, but how could 
this be reconciled with his description of Maurilius as “ Maguntinus”? Cf. 
Neustria Pia, 223. 

3 Beasin, 47-49- Pommeraye, 71. Mabillon, fi. 441. “‘Adstante Wil- 
elmo Normannorum Duce, postes Anglorum Rege, cumn omnibus suffragancis 
suis, cuncilium in Rothomagensi ecclesia de castitate conservandé et creteris 
sanctorum patrum institutionibus, pastorum incuria negligenter postposit 
viriliter restituendis religiose celebravit.” Everything bears witness alike 
tothe ecclesiastical supremacy of the Norman Dukes and of the personal 
zeal of William in all ecclesiastical matters. 

* See vol. ii. p. 179. 





102 


cuAr, X11, 
‘The mar- 


Wiliam 
and Ma- 

‘tilda cen- 
sured by 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


‘The deposition of Malger, the succession of Maurilius, 
and the men to whom the career of the new Primate in- 
troduces us, serve well to illustrate that great religious 
movement which was now going on in Normandy;! 


gored ty and which was beyond doubt greatly fostered by the wise 


appointments which William had now learned to make 
to the great ecclesiastical offices in his gift. But the un- 
lucky Archbishop was not the only churchman who felt 
that it was dangerous to administer rebuke to one of 
William’s temper. A greater than Malger or Maurilius 
took upon him the function of Micaiah, and, strangely 
enough, he found, through a temporary disgrace, a path 


His present to a higher place in the favour of his prince. Lanfranc, 


favour 


With now Prior of Bec, already high in the Duke's favour and 


a sharer in his inmost counsels,’ perhaps took upon him 
personally to rebuke his sovereign for his uncanonical 
marriage; at all events he was known to have spoken 
his mind frecly and openly on the subject. The writer 
whom we have to follow for the share taken by Lanfranc 
in the affair adds that all Normandy was laid under an 
interdict by Papal authority as a punishment for the sin 
of its prinee® The contemporary writers so evidently avoid 
the whole subject that their silence counts for less than it 
otherwise would; but it would certainly be strange if 
so memorable an exercise of Papal authority as the inter 
diction of divine offices throughout the Duchy found no 


1 See vol. ii. pp. 210, 211. 

* Vit. Lanfr. ap. Giles, i, 287. “Ad administranda quoque totius patrise 
negotia summus ab ipso Normannorum Duce Willelmo consiliarius assumi- 
tur.” Allowing for the natural exaggeration of a panegyrist, there seems 
‘enough to imply a very close relation between William and Lanfranc. See 
vol. ii. p. 225. 

88, “inde suctoritate Romani Pape tota Neustria fuerat ab officio 
Christianitatis surpensa et interdicta.” So Chron. Bece, u. 8. Wace (9659) 
makes Malger pronounce the interdict ; 

“ Maugier ki tint I'Arceveakio Sor Willame @ sor sa moillier. 

Mist Normendie tute en uie Andui les fist evcumengier.” 






LANFRANC OPPOSES THE MARRIAGE, 103 


one to record it except the local chronicler of Bec. But, omar. xm 
however this may be, we need not doubt that Lanfranc 

spoke out on the subject in a way which was far from 
agreeable to the Duke and was probably still less agreeable 

to the Duchess. The darker side of William’s character 

now stands forth. He was already stark beyond measure 

to the men who withstood his will.! With all his great William's 
qualities, he could not endure anything which savoured Mepcity 
of personal insult, least of all when that insult touched perma! 
his wife as well as himself. The stern executor of justice, 

the reformer of the Norman Church, is forgotten for a while 

in the man who mutilated his prisoners at Alengon,? and 

who, years after, burned Mantes to punish a silly jest of 

its sovereign. Lanfranc had also enemies at hand, who did 

not fail to stir up the mind of the Duke against him.’ The 
vengeance taken by William was cruel, one might almost 

add, cowardly. For the fault or virtue of one member he 
punished the whole society, and, as commonly happened 

in sach cases, the punishment fell more heavily on the 
dependants of the society than on the society itself. 
William ordered that Lanfranc should at once be dis- He order 
missed from the monastery and banished from Normandy. wears 
But he also ordered the ravaging and burning of part Lanfranc. 
of the possessions of the Abbey. Both commands were the oa 
obeyed. Lanfranc set forth from Bec, to seck his fortune Abtey. 
once more, and he set forth in a guise almost as lowly 

as that in which he had first shown himself in the presence 

of Herlwin. But his journey was not a long one. By Reconcile 
chance or by design, he met William on the way;* the Tentane 
visible change in his fortunes, aided by his own ready $i? 
wit, gained him a hearing with the Duke, and terms 


* See vol. ii. p. 167. 7 See vol. ii. p. 285. 

» Vit, Lanfr. 287. “ Quorumdam etiam necusationibus delatorum Dux in 
co vehementer amaricatus.” 

* Seo vol. if. pp. 215, 233. * See Appendix P. 


104 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN SORMANDY. 


cmar. xn. of reconciliation were readily agreed on. Lanfrane was 


Lanfranc 


the cham- 


i 


again admitted to William's full favour, confirmed by 
the kies of peace! The damage done to the estates 
of the house of Bec was more than made good.* But 
Lanfrane was required in return to withdraw his op- 
position to the Duke’s marriage, and even to make himeelf 
the champion of his canse. A man of scrupulous honour, 
according to modern ideas of honour, would not have 
accepted such an office. But modern ideas of honour 
differ widely from monastic ideas of conscience. There 
was nothing in the terms agreed to by Lanfranc at which 
the most tender and the most formal conscience could be 
offended. Lanfrane had denounced the marriage as sinful, 
and he was not called on to withdraw that denunciation. 
He might still look upon the act as sinful, but he pledged 
himself to do his best to procure that the sin should be 
forgiven. The marriage was at most a breach of a canonical 
restriction, and it was not beyond the power of the Apo- 
stolic See to heal such a breach even after the fact. Lan- 
frane then was to go to Rome, and to use all the power 
of his learning and eloquence to obtain from the Pontiff 
a dispensation which would make good the marriage which 
had been irregularly contracted.* 

If these transactions between William and Lanfranc 
took place soon after the celebration of the marriage, the 
negotiations with the Roman Court must have been pro- 
longed indeed. William’s anxiety to keep his wife seems 
to have proved as fertile a source of canonical disputations 
as the anxiety of Henry the Eighth to get rid of his. It 
is at least certain that the matter was not finally settled 


* Vit. Lanfr. 287.“ Cratissime mox wuccedunt amplexus et oscula.” 
Tb, “Muito etiam cum augmento restituends promittuntur que Dux 
srime devastari juwerat.”” 
thin point dincunned by Dr. Hook, ii. 94. 

Lanfr. 2%), Lanfrancus.. . Romam venerat 
Pro Duco Normannornm et uxore ejux apud Apostolicum.” 











oe Ut ageret 


LANFRANC SUPPORTS THE MARRIAGE AT ROME. 105 


till the Pontificate of Nicolas the Second, the Pontiff who omar. xn. 
yielded so readily to the threats of the English Earl 

Tostig, and who found it equally expedient to yield to the 

milder persuasions of the orator of Pavia, Nicolas did not Saami 
ascend the Papal throne till six years after the marriage” 
ceremony at Eu. It is quite possible that stern and re- [Victor the 
solute Popes like Victor the Second and Stephen the Ninth yerr ogy, 
refused to grant any concession, and it is probable that Steph 
the scraples of Lanfranc, perhaps those of William him- tog7 108. 
self, would forbid any application to the usurper Bene- Benodict 
dict. But, in any case, Nicolas granted the required dis- 1058-1059. 
pensation. Lanfranc visited Rome, both on the Duke's Niclas the 
errand and on his own, The theological dispute with roso- 
Berengar of Tours‘ was still going on, and in the second 1°01) 
Lateran Council, held under the presideney of Nicolae, Lateran 
the heretic publicly retracted his errors.‘ Lanfranc was Qyitts, 
again present as the champion of orthodoxy,’ and his 1°59: 
performances in this way may well have inclined Pope again 
and Council to listen favourably to his petitions on other Spo 
subjects. He pleaded the cause of his sovereign firmly aml peads 
and effectually, and he seems to have used language nearly liam and 
as plain-spoken as Tostig did two years later. William, M*tis. 
he argued, was determined not to give up his wife ;* the 

Pope would therefore do well to yield, for ecclesiastical 
censures—the interdict is clearly intended —would fall quite 

as heavily on the innocent as on the guilty.’ Another 
argument is also put into Lanfrane’s mouth, that the pride 

of Count Baldwin would not endure to have his daughter 


? See vol. if. p. 435- 2 Tb. 431. 2b. 115. 

‘ He however retracted back again. Vit. Lanfr. 289. See Milinan, 
iii, 51. 

* See vol. ii. pp. 115, 225. 

* Vit. Lanfr. 289. “Nam Dux puellam [Gerbod is, as usual, forgotten) 
quam scceperat nullo pacto dimittere vellet.” 

Tb. “Loquutus cum Papa Nicolao ostendit quia ejus sententia illos 
tantum gravabet, qui cos nec conjunxerant nec separare poterant.”” 


106 


cnap. x11. 


returns to 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


thrown back on his hands—he might have added with a 
second brood of children, and those too of doubtfal le- 
gitimacy. War would certainly break out between Nor- 
mandy and Flanders, and it was the duty of the common 
Father of Christendom to hinder, as far as in him lay, the 
shedding of Christian blood. ‘To these various argumenta 
the mind of Pope Nicolas yielded. Lanfranc at last re- 


" turned with the wished-for dispensation which at last 


ratified by the highest ecclesiastical authority the mar- 


Mpres riage which had been, in ecclesiastical eyes, rashly and 


irregularly entered into six years before. 


So great a favour however was not to be granted, except 


, on condition that the sinners should atone for their fault 


by worthy works of penance. The Duke and the Duchess 
were each to rear and endow » monastery for religious 
persons of their respective sexes." Another account adds 


+ Will. Gem. vii. 26, “ Willelmus Dux, dum a quibusdam religiosis [no 
‘mention of Lanfranc personally) sepius redargueretur, e0 quod cognatam 
‘susm sibi in matrimonium copuldaset, missis legatis, Romanum Papam super 
fo re consuluit. At ille sagaciter considerans quod, sf divortium fier! 
juberet, forte inter Flandrenses et Normannos grave bellum exsurgeret, 
maritum et conjugem  reatu absolvit.” Vit. Lanfr. 289. “Hoc audiens 
et veruin eso aivertens summus Pontifex, disponsatione habit, conjugium 
concessit.” 

* Will. Gem, u.s. “Eis poenitentiam injunxit, Mandavit enim, ut ab 
eis duo coenobia conderentur, in quibus pro ipsis ab utroque sexu Deo sedulo 
preces offerentur.” Vit. Lanfr. 289. ‘Eo tamen modo quatenus Dux et 
uxor ejus duo monasteria construerent, in quibus singulas congregationes 
virorum ac mulierum condunarent, qui ibi sub normé sancts relligionis, die 
noctuque Deo devervirent et pro salute eorum supplicarent.” William of 
‘Malmesbury (iii. 267) would almost seem to have looked on the foundations 
as a voluntary expiation, like the pilgrimage of Swegen; ‘Portmodum, 
provectioribus annis, pro expiatione sceleris, illum sancto Stephano Cadomis 
monasterium sedlificisee, illam beate Trinitati in eodem vico idem focisse, 
uutroque pro wexu suo personas habitantium eligente.” 

On the history of Saint Stephen's, I must refer to two excellent local 
works, “L'Abhaye de Saint-Etienne de Caen, par C. Hippeau,” Caen, 1855 
(M. Hippeau ix aleo known as the editor of the first complete edition of 
Garnier’« Life of Saint Thomas), and “Analyre Architecturale de 'Abbsye 





THE MARRIAGE CONFIRMED AT ROME. 107 


that four foundations of still more direct usefulness, cuar. x1. 
hospitals namely for the sick, blind, and aged, were also 

to be established in four of the chief towns of Normandy, 

at Rouen, Bayeux, Caen, and Cherbourg.! The discharge 

of the former part of the Papal command caused the 
creation of two of the noblest architectural monuments of 

the Duchy, The two stately Abbeys of Caen arose as 

at once the monument and the atonement of the irregular 
marriage of William and Matilda. Each of those noble Charster 
piles retains to this day large portions of the original fuldings, 
work of its founder, and each shows a character of its 

own, a kind of personality received from its founder's 

hand. The church of Matilda, the Abbey of the Holy Matilda's 
Trinity, the first to be begun, the last to be brought to te Huy" 
perfection, bears witness, we may say, to the feminine Tnity. 
impatience of the Duchess, to her anxiety not to delay 

the work of atonement for her fault. Her church was Its oon- 
so far completed as to be ready for consecration in the 77s" 
year of the great crisis of her husband’s life, and its !%. 
solemn hallowing forms an incident which will again 

claim our attention even in the midst of William’s pre- 
parations for the invasion of our island. But the church 

de Saint-Etienne de Caen, par G. Bouet,” Caen, 1867, a book distinguished 


by the writer's characteristic caution and minute accuracy. 
* Roman de Rou, 9665 ; 


“Li Dus por satisfacion, As moshaigniez, as non poanz, 
Ke Deus l'en face veir pardon, As langoros, as non véanz, 
E ke l'Apostoile cunsente A Chitresbore et & Roem, 
Ke tenir poisse sa parente, A Baieues et & Cacm; 
Fist cent provendes establir Encore i sunt et encor durent 
A cent povres paistre & vestir, Tesi come establies furent.” 


On the blind hospital at Caen, see Hippeau, p. 4. Were persons ailmis- 
sible whove eyes had been put out by the Duke's own authority ? 

* In William's charter of 1066 (Gallia Christiana, xi. 59-61. T have to 
thank M. Chitel, the Archivist of the Department of Calvados, for the 
reference), he distinctly says that “‘honestissima conjux mea Mathildiv, 
nobilissimi Ducis Flandrensis Ralduini filiam . . . . construxit baailicam,” 
and goes on to record ita consecration on June 18th. The charter in Neu- 
stria Pia, 658-661, is of 1082. He thero mays ‘‘ecclesiam . . . . comdi- 


108 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


cuar.x11. which was then hallowed seems to have been s mere 


fragment, only so much as was necessary for the devotions 
of the sisterhood; the greater portion of the present 
fabric belongs to a somewhat later age. But enough 
remains of Matilda's own work to show that the building 
was carried on in the full spirit of her original design, 
No contrast between two buildings so nearly alike in 
plan and style can be more striking than the contrast 
between the minster of William and the minster of Ma- 
tilda, William bad no more mind to hurry in this under- 
taking than in any other undertaking of his life. His 
wife hastened to consecrate s fragment; but William 
knew how to bide his time as well in a work of archi- 
tecture as in a work of war or politics. Eleven years 
later, William and Lanfrane, now promoted to be the 
Cesar and the Pontif of another world,? were present 
at the consecration of the great Abbey of Saint Stephen, 
perfect from east to west, save only that the addition of 
the western towers was a later work, and seems to have 
been celebrated with a second feast of dedication. And that 


ficavimus.” Either it was still unfinished, or the nave has been rebuilt. It 
is only the eastern part which can be Matilda's work 

' This was the yreat year of consecrations in Normandy. See vol. ii. 
PP. 209, 220. The consecration of Saint Stephen's is distinctly placed in thia 
year by Onleric, 548 D. At Bec Lanfranc himeelf officiated (Will. Gem. 
vi. 9), but at Caen the ceremony was performed by the Metropolitan John. 
I gather from what goes before in OnJeric that William was present at 
Caen, though he was not at Bec. But the Chronicle of Saint Stephen iteelf 
(Duchéene, 1018) places the ceremony in 1073. Other dates given are 1081 
and 1086 (see Neustria Pia, 625, Bouet, 13, 16). One cannot doubt that 
1077 is the right date for the main consecration, and that the other dates, if 
correct, refer to ome smaller ceremony. The western towers (of course not 
the upper portions) must have been added soon after the church was finished, 
‘Their style is that of the church, and the masonry shows that they were 
designed from the tirst, though not built at the same time as the nave. 
‘This would quite agree with the date of 1086. For the consecration of a 
steeple see vol. ii. p. 

















aml the vere of Abbot Rakiwin in Dochtsne, Rer. 
Qui Dux Nermannis, qui Casar prefuit Angtis.” 





FOUNDATION OF THE ABBEY OF CAEN. 109 


mighty pile, perhaps the noblest and most perfect work ouar. xt. 
of ite own date, shows us the spirit of the Conqueror Chamcter 
impressed on every stone. The choir has given way to a Conqueror 
new creation; but the nave of William and Lanfranc is on'hie 
still there, truly such a nave as we should expect to Puldine- 
arise at the bidding of William the Great. Built at the 
moment when the Romanesque of Normandy had cast 
aside the earlier leaven of Bernay and Jumitges, and 
had not yet begun to develope into the more florid style 
of Bayeux and Saint Gabriel, the church of William, vast 
in scale, bold and simple in its design, disdaining orna- 
ment but never sinking into rudeness, is indeed a church 
worthy of its founder. The minster of Matilda, far richer, 
even in its earliest parte, smaller in size, more delicate 
in workmanship, has nothing of that simplicity and 
grandeur of proportion which marks the work of her 
husband. The one is the expression in stone of the im- 
perial will of the conquering Duke; the other breathes 
the true spirit of his loving and faithful Duchess. 

But, though the completion of William’s minster was Beginning 
delayed till a much later date, yet, according to the custom of te 


foundation 
of the founders of monasteries,” the socicty itself, furnished of Set, 
no doubt with a temporary church and other temporary 1064! 
buildings, began its life as soon as might be after the 

receipt of the Papal reseript. The monks of Saint Stephen 

already dwelt in their suburb beyond the walls of Caen, 

and the care of their founder had already given them the 

most famous man in his dominions for their ruler, In 

the same year in which the sister church was dedicated, 

in the same year in which England was invaded, the 

house was fit for at least the temporary abode of its new 

ruler. Lanfrane, the Prior of Bec, was called to the office 


+ Allowing, of course, for the reconstruction of the clerestory and the 
addition of the vault. 
* See vol. fi. p. 44t. 


110 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


cuar. x1. of Abbot of the rising house, I¢ was fitting that the man 
who had wrought the reconciliation between the Duke 
“and the Holy See should receive the dignity which came 
into being as the fruit and seal of that reconciliation, 
Lanfranc long refused the Duke’s offers ;! he had no wish 
to encumber himself with the cares and responsibilities 
of a post which was designed to hold a high place among 
the Norman prelacy, His learned retirement at Bec was 
far more to his taste. But the will of Duke William was 
not to be withstood, either by those to whom he would 
give or by those from whom he would take away. Lan- 
franc became the first Abbot of the great house of Saint 
Asssim, Stephen. In the office which he left behind him at Bos 
Monk of he was succeeded by one no less renowned than himoelf. 
Pee 10603, A few years before the foundation of Saint Stephen's, 
Abbot of “another wanderer from the South had found his way to the 
urh-’ holy shelter of Bec, and had become one of the spiritual 
Ganebbury household of Abbot Herlwin. Anselm of Aosta, the pro- 
1093-1109. foundest of metaphysicians and divines, the father of all 
Christian theology since his time, had heard of the fame 

of Lanfranc, and he had left his home and his heritage 

to sit at his feet as his scholar. He soon, by the counsel 

of Lanfranc himself and of Archbishop Maurilius, became 

not only his scholar, but his brother in the monastic pro- 

fession. He now succeeded him in his office of Prior ;* 

he lived to succeed their common father Herlwin in the 

abbatial chair of Bec, and at last to succeed Lanfranc 
Esceleace himself on the throne of Augustine. We have now reached 
Tam's ce. an era in the history of the Norman Church quite unlike 
Sous the days when Robert and Mulger and Odo were thrust 
ment. into the highest ranks of the priesthood. Maurilius, 
Lanfranc, Anselm, the worthiest men of every land—such 

+ Will, Gem. vi9. Tam domini quam Normannise primatum suppli- 

catione couctus.” I accept Orderic’s date, but the Chronicle of Bec (Giles, 


127. places the appointment in 1062, 
+ Chrea, Bee, tu7 Giles, 





PROMOTION OF LANFRANC AND ANSELM. mi 


were now the chief pastors to whom William, in this at omar. x1. 
least a true nursing-father, entrusted the care of the 
spiritual welfare of his people. 


William had thus, after co many troubles and difficulties, Happinoas 
won, or rather wrested, the highest ecclesiastical sanction {fra 
for the marriage which he had so deatly at heart. That marriage. 
marriage proved happy and fruitful. The abiding affection 
of William and Matilda endured no shock till, in their 
later days, a eubject of difference between them was stirred 
up by the misconduct of their eldest son.’ ‘That eon was 
the first-born of a house as numerous, as flourishing, and 
well nigh as ill-fated, as the House of Godwine himself. 
Four sons were born to William and Matilda. Two of His sons. 
them seem to have been born before the Papal confirmation 
of their parente’ marriage," but we do not read that any 
objection to their legitimacy was raised on that ground. 
Of these two, Robert, the eldest, twice failed of the Crown Robert, 
of England, and ruled Normandy to his shame and sorrow. 9 1950! 
Still the bold Crusader, the generous brother, the chosen 
friend of the last male of the House of Cerdic, the only 
one of his own house who had not the opportunity, per- 
haps had not the will, to be a tyrant over England, may 
perhaps claim some small sympathy at English hands. 
The second brother, Richard, was cut off in hie youth by Richand, 
that mysterious doom which made the woods of Hamp. ' 1988! 
shire fatal to William’s house, The third, William the 1°65 
Red, a man of natural powers perhaps hardly inferior tot. ro¢o? 
those of his father, lived to leave behind him a name more & 110°. 
detested than any other name in the dark catalogue of 

4 Will. Malms. iii. 273. “Tulit ex Matilde liberos multos, que, et ma- 
to morigera et prole fecunds, nobilis viri animum in sui amoris incitabat 
acileum.” He then goes on with the story of the bridle (see Appendix 0) 
bated account of the difference about Robert and of William's grief at her 
? On William's children see Appendix Q. 


112 


cmap, x11, 


aaa, 


di. 1135. 


William's 
daughters. 


of 
of 


Cecily, 
‘Abbess of 
‘Caen, 


Other 
daughters, 
Adeliza, 
&e. 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


royal oppressors. The fourth was the mighty Henry, the 
Lion of Justice, an Englishman so far as birth on English soil 
could make him one, the one son of their Conqueror on 
whom Englishmen looked as a true Aitheling, the child of 
a crowned King and a crowned Lady. In him we see once 
more, if not the personal virtues, yet at least the vigorous 
government, the far-seeing policy, which became a son of 
William the Great. Deeply as he was stained with crimes 
and vices, it is not without a certain reverence that we 
look back to the King in whom the green tree began at last 
to return to its place, to him of whom our own Chronicler 
could say that “‘a good man was he and mickle awe was 
there of him,” and who won for himself a praise like that 
of Godwine, of Harold, and of William, the praise that 
“no man durst hurt other in his days.” ? 

Such were the sons of the Conqueror. The names and 
number of his daughters are given with such strange 
variation that I must examine the different statements 


Adela, wife more minutely elsewhere.’ But among them we see 


clearly the noble Adela, through whom the once hostile 
land of Chartres and Blois became a land friendly to Nor- 
mandy, a land which gave a King to England. Clearly 
too we see Cecily, a virgin consecrated to God from her 
childhood, dedicated at the altar which her mother had 
reared, and where she was herself so long to bear rule 
over her holy sisterhood. More dimly pass before our 
eyes the forms of daughters wedded or betrothed to a Duke 
in neighbouring Britany and to a King in distant Spain. 
‘And one there was to whom a higher honour than all was 
for a moment offered, the betrothed for a day of the one 
man who could bear himself as the born peer of her 
mighty father, the bride whose sad betrothal directly led 
to all the woes which the warfare of those two master 
spirits was to bring upon the land for which they strove. 


* Chron, Petrib. 1138. * See Appendix Q. 





114 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


cuar.xn. a generous and honourable neighbour and suzerain. It 
was only natural that every advance which was made by 

the lord of Rouen, whether in the way of external great- 

ness or of internal prosperity, should be felt by the lord of 

Paris as a blow dealt against himself and his Kingdom. 

Greatness We may perhaps better understand the greatness of Nor 
aly mandy in the days of its independence, if we look at some 
grain of the signs of the greatness which it still kept after two 
centuries and a half of subjection, after having long served 

as the chief battle-ground between England and France. 

In the days of Lewis the Eleventh, Normandy, far from 

being a third part in extent, was in wealth and importance 

a third part of the kingdom into which it had been 
merged, and it furnished a third part of the revenue of the 

Parisian crown, The great object of every enemy of the 

Parisian kingdom was to wrest Normandy from its grasp. 

No blow could be so great as to give even # qualified in- 
dependence to the great province which cut off the city 

which was the cradle and kernel of the kingdom from all 

Je tnpeet communication with the English seas. There was no 
Se agi object on which the enemies of France, English and Bur- 
i" gundian, were more strongly bent, than on the separation 

of Normandy from the French Crown. There was no 
sacrifice which a French King would not make rather 
than surrender the noblest province of his kingdom. 
1421. The last dying command of the great English conqueror 
of France was, at all risks, at all sacrifices, to keep 
Normandy in fall possession.! One main object of the 

1463. great Burgundian rival of France was to give Nor- 
mandy a Duke of her own, even though that Duke 





+ Monstrelet, i. 324 b (ed. Paris 1595). ‘Vous charge,” says Henry the 
Fifth, “‘sur tant que vous pover mesprendro, que tant que vous vivres, ne 
wouffrez & faire traicté avecques nostre adversaire Charles de Valois, ne 
autres pour chove qu'il advienne, que la Duché de Normandie ne luy [to his 
on) demeure franchement.” 

* Phil. Comines, i. 15 (vol. ip. 71, ed. Godefroy 1723). “La chose du 


GREAT AND ABIDING IMPORTANCE OF NORMANDY. 6 


was himeelf » member of the royal house of France. And, cur.xn, 
whatever we say of the wish of the Englishman, the wish Spit of 
of the Burgundian was certainly met by a strong vein of indepen- 
local feeling in Normandy itself, Even in those times, “iy 
Norman patriotism still held that Normandy was too imthe 
great for simple incorporation with France, and that so omtury. 
great s Duchy onght not to be without ite Duke! On 

the other hand, there was no sacrifice from which French 

policy so instinctively shrank. Lewis the Eleventh, who 

‘st least knew his own interests, was willing to surrender 
anything rather than make that one great sacrifice. He 

would give up Champagne, even Aquitaine, far greater 

in extent than Normandy, anything rather than the 
precious dominion itself? And, if the far greater France : 
of the fifteenth century could so little afford to sce SmN™ 
Normandy cut off from its body, even to form an threstening 
apanage of one of its own princes, how far more threaten- 

ing must practically independent, and often hostile, 
‘Normandy have been to the infant France of the eleventh 
century, when Champagne and Anjou were the ficfs of 

princes well nigh as powerful as their over-lord, when 
Aquitaine was, in all save a nominal homage, a foreign 

land? Independent Normandy, flourishing under its 
illustrious Duke, was as sharp an eye-sore to Paris as ever 

Aigina was to Peiraicus.» As he who held Démétrias, 


monde qu'll desiroit le plus, e'estoit de voir un Duc en Normandie; car par 
ce moyen il luy sombloit le Roy estre affoibly de la tierce partié.” See the 
whole history of the grant and reconquest of Normandy, cap. xii-xv, and 
Kirk, Charles the Bold, ii, 338 ot neq. 

* Phil. Comines, i, 13 (vol. i. p. 64). “Eta tousjours bien semblé aux 
Nonnands, et fait encores, que si grand’ Duché, comme la leur, requiert 
bien un Duc; et, & dire la verité, elle ext de grand’ estime, et s'y leve de 
grands deniers.” So, in the same chapter, Lewis says, “que de son con: 
seulement n'eust jamais baillé tel partage & won frtre, mais puis que d’eux 
meames lee Normands on avoient fait cette nouvelleté, il en extoit content.” 

2 Tb. ti. 9, 15 (vol. i. pp. 116, 137). Kirk, i, 272, 334, 525- 

2 Arist. Rhet. fii, 10, Kal MepwAje riy Alyway aged tnidevse, Tiv 








12 


116 


cmap. xm. 


‘Norman 
rebels con- 
stantly 


by 


0 
and Anjou. 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


- Chalkis, and Akrokorinthos was said to hold the fetters of 


Greece,! so he who held Eu, Cherbourg, Honfleur, and 
Rouen, might truly be said to hold the fetters of royal 
France. 

The King of the French then, throughout this period, 
is the arch-disturber, powerfully helped on occasion by his 
now loyal vassal the Count of Anjou. We shall see both 
of them advance, step by step, from giving shelter and 
comfort to Norman rebels to giving them setive help in 
their warfare, and from giving them active help in their 
warfare to formal invasions of the Norman land at the 
head of their own armies, 


‘The first revolt against William after the war of Dom- 
front and Alengon is wrapped up in great obscurity. One 
ancient writer alone records it; among modern writers, 
some pass it by unnoticed, while others recount it with » 
singular amount of confusion.? But there seems reason 
to believe that, at the beginning of this period, at some 
time after the affair of William of Mortain,? the Duke was 
disturbed by a revolt of another kinsman of his own name 


The Couns at the other end of his Duchy. Duke Richard the Good 


Castle of 
Ev. 


is cathe 


had granted to his half-brother William the castle and 
county of Eu, the old border-fortress of Rolf. That 
famous spot, known in modern times as the last home of 
lawful royalty in France, was marked by a castle, every 
trace of which has given way toa palace of the sixteenth 
century, but which was long the chief guard of Normandy 
towards the frontier of Ponthieu. It was no hill-fort, like 
Domfront or, in another way, like Falaise. It was a 


Bier on the fortress of the older Norman type, a stronghold of the days 


coast, 


when the Normans had not yet cast off the feelings of the 
old Wikings, when to command the sea was their main 


1 Seo Hist, Fed. Gov. i, 621. * See Appendix R. 
* Soe vol. ii, p. 287. * Soe vol. i. p. 174. 





118 


mar. x11. 


i 


f 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


and at his bidding the Abbey of Tréport’ arose on thé 
rocks which bound the view from the now forsaken walks 


of Which surround his dwelling-place. His younger brother 


Haugh mounted the episcopal throne of Lisieux. In that 
office he is described as showing himself » model of eoclesi- 
astical perfection of every kind.* Among his other good 
deeds, his panegyrist records that, when the synod was 
held in his own church for the trial of his kinsman and 
metropolitan Malger, he preferred the cause of God to the 
ties of blood, and was foremost to give his voice against 
the son of his uncle? There is no need to doubt the 
purity of Hugh’s motives; yet an historian who judged 
Norman Bishops by a rule as uncharitable as that by 
which his panegyrist judges English Earls might doubt 
whether it must needs have been a disinterested act when 
the Bishop of Lisieux pleaded for the condemnation of the 
Archbishop of Rouen. The eldest and the third son of 
William and Lescelina were thus memorable and honoured 
in their several walks. Their second son, William, called 
Busac, has left behind him a less worthy name. He is 
known in Norman history only for his rebellion, a rebellion 
of which the exact cause and the exact date are alike 
uncertain. But it is plain that he asserted a right to the 
Duchy.‘ This claim must have been made on much more 
frivolous grounds than those which had been put forth 
by some other pretenders; for, to say nothing of his 


1 Will. Gem, vii. 22,‘ Monasterium Sancti Michaelis Ulterioris Portas 
wdificavit.” See the charter in Neustria Pia, 587. 

* Will, Pict, 118. The Archdesoon of Lisieux is longer and louder in 
the praize of his own diocesan than in the praise of any one exoept the Duke 
himself, Bishop Hugh had son named Roger, ‘‘ Rogerius Hugonis Epi- 
scopi fils.” See the Trinity Cartulary at Rouen, pp. 442, 443: 

* Will. Pict. 119. “‘Ipse profecto, quum deponeretur Archipreeul Mal- 
gerius, vox justitie sonora fuit, constanter permanens in parte Dei, propter 
‘Deum damnans filium patrui.” 

« Will. Gem, vii, 20. “Ducatum sibi volens vendicare, cwpit contra 
‘Duce minis et infestationibus cervicem erigere.” 





REVOLT OF WILLIAM BUSAC, 19 


having an elder brother living, the birth of his father was onar.xt, 
us distinetly Mogitimate as tha birth of the reigning 

Duke. William Busac seems to have been at this time, by 
‘what means docs not appear, in posscesion of hie brother's 
fortress of Eu, which he made the contre of his revolt, 
ie ee Duke Duke 

fiam gathered a force, and besieged and took the ism 
of his great forefather,’ He acted with the sume 
politic lenity which, at this time of his life, he always 
showed, except when his passions were specially aroused in 
‘the way in which they had boon aroused at Alengon, a aes 
only bade his rebellious kinsman to go into banishment. banished. 
‘The castle of En was given back to its lawful owe eat 

Count Robert, As for William Busac, he distinctly gained Prats, 
by his exile. A younger son in Normandy, be Lec the ite 
founder of a great honse in a foreign land. He took Sumy of 
shelter in France, where King Henry received him with 48 
all honour, and after a while promoted him to a splendid 
marriage and a great fief. He bestowed on the exile the 
hand of Adelaide, heiress of Reginald Count of Soissons, 
sprang from = younger branch of that house of Verman- 
dois which traced its descent from the direct and legitimate 
male line of Charles the Great? But the direct line of the 
banished rebel did not flourish. Two sons succeeded Count 
William in the possession of Soiseons, and the horitage 
then passed away into the hands of descendants in the 
female line.* 

1 Will: Gem. vil. 20, "Fortin princeps, nolons ef cedors, exereituin 

‘et eastrutn Oucis, donee illud eaperet, obsedit."" 

* TA “At illo Henrioun Reger Francorum expotiit, oui quid ahi con 
ight fobilitor retexit. Rex vorv ipsum, utpote nobilem genore ot forma 
imilitem, benigne suscepit, et infortunlo ojux condolens Comitatum Sue 
soni of usm quidain nobili canjuge tribuit.” "Tho Vormaniois family was 
dovconied from King Bernard of Italy, son of Pippin, son of Charle, Seo 
‘Art de Véeifior los Datos, if. 700, 727, Tho wupponell treason of Bernard 
scorns to ave shut out hik doscendante from the Tinperial and royal suo: 
wat. * Soe Appendix 1, 


120 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


cur.xn. ‘The next revolt against which the Duke had to struggle 
Bewolt of was of a much more formidable kind. Of no man eould 
Count of it be more truly said than of William that his foes were 
105, they of his own household. The rebel was again a- 
kinsman, and the scene of the rebellion was again laid in 
those lands beyond the Seine which had remained loyal 
during the revolt which ended at Val-8s-dunes.' Willian, 
in short, was destined to fight for his crown with every 
branch of his family, and with the men of every part of 
his dominions. The kinsman who now revolted was an 
uncle, another William, a son of Richard the Good by 
Papia, » brother therefore of Archbishop Malger. The 
legitimacy of hie own birth was perhaps not wholly 
beyond doubt ;? yet we are told that he, like Guy of Bur- 
gundy and others,? as the son of a lawfal wife, despised 
the Bastard of Herleva, and asserted his own better right 
Wide. tothe Duchy. In this movement against Duke William 
many conspirators, both in and out of Normandy, had a 
the share. And at their head stood one, the highest of all in 
ure Tank, and now again the foremost in hatred against the 
gk by prince by whose side he once had fought, Henry, King of 
Heary; the French. It is also quite possible that the Primate of 
ae, Normandy himself had a share in his brother’s intrigues. 
Malger. “Acts of distinct treason may thus have been among the 
causes which led to his deposition, as well as either neglect 


1 See vol. ii. pp. 241, 242. * See vol. ii. p. 179. 
240. 

. Vit. 657 B (in the death-bed speech). ‘“Patrui mei Malgerina Ro- 

thomagensis Archiepiscopus, ot Guillelmus frater ejus, cui Archas et comi- 

tatum Calogii gratis dederam, me velut nothum contempserunt.” So Roman 

de Rou, 8565 ; 





“Ki clamout dreit en Iéritage; 
Pur ke il esteit nex de muller.” 
And 8583 ; 
“ Jamet li Dus ne servireit ; 
Normendie & grant tort teneit 
Bastart esteit, n'i aveit dreit.” 








122 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


cuar.x, Lewis of Laon and Count Arnulf of Flanders invaded the 
9 Duchy, the Flemish Count, in marching along the Norman “ 
coast, had been checked by the resistance of the Normsn 

garrison which defended Arques.' The post which they 

then held was most likely the town of Arques, which has 

now sunk toa mere village, but which was in those days 

a place of some importance. As an important position 
according to earlier Norman ideas,? it became an occasional 
dwelling-place of the Dukes, and it was in its neighbour. 

hood that Duke Richard first made the acquaintance of the 

famous Gunnor.’ Arques had also given its name to a 

line of Viscounts, themselves descended from another 
daughter of the lucky forester, and whose names will be 

Duke found enrolled among the conquerors of England.‘ But 
athe the County of Arques or Taloa had been granted, seem- 
fem"7,° ingly by William himself in the early part of his reign,‘ 
Gout to his uncle the son of Papia, Count William took care, 
Wiliam after the manner of that time, to secure himself by 
Castle of building a fortress on a new cite, # fortress which is un- 
doubtedly one of the earliest and most important in the 

history of Norman military architecture. The castle of 

Arques, the work of William’s rebellious uncle and name- 

sake, is one of the few examples still remaining of the 





1 See vol. i, p. 213 et evqq.; Flodoand, 944; Richer, ii. 42. 

* See above, p. 116. 

+ Will. Gem. vill. 36. “‘Haud procul sb oppido Arearum, vill que 
dicitur Schechevilla (Equiqueville).” See vol. i. p. 253. 

* On the Viscounta of Arques, see Deville, pp. 9, 13, 19, 87; Stapleton, f. 
cxxiii.; Will. Gem. viii. 36. See the lands of Willenus de Arcis in Suffolk, 
Domesday, 431 5. An Osbern de Arcis also occurs in Lincolnshire and 





Yorkshire. 
* Ord. Vit. 657 B (see p. 20, note *), So Roman de Rou, 8568; 

“Pur honur de sun parenté, Li ad li Dus en fieu duné 
feelté Arches 8 Taillou li cunté.” 
Nempe eas Istebras, id munimentum finite elationia 
atque dementie ipve primus fundavit, et quan operosissime exstruxit in 
prealti montis Arcarum cacumine.” Will. Gem. vii. 7. “Nobilitate vero 
generis elatus, castrum Archarum in cacumine ipsius montis condidit.” fo 





‘HISTORY OF ARQUES, 123 


castles which were raised by the turbulent Norman barons orar. xe 
“in tho stormy days of William's minority. Tn thestage me ater 

‘of the military art which now opens, the lowor ground is \°7™*™ 

formaken, and the square donjon is Ilmnoxt always’ found ish 

placed on a height, Such @ position at once added to the 

strength of the castle in case of attack, and enabled it to 

command the surrounding country like an eagle's nest 

perched on a rock, Still, in days before the introduction of 

artillery, it was no objection to a site, if it was otherwise 

convenient, that it was commanded by ground higher still. 

It was not till the days of the English wars that William's 

own Fulaise could be attacked from the rock on the 

opposite side of his maternal beck.* An insular or penin~ 

sular site was specially sought ont; and this choice is 

nowhere more strikingly shown than in the site of the 

‘Castle of Arques. At a distance of about throe miles from Position of 

the haven whose name of Dieppe is but a slight corruption “1 

of the old Teutonic deeps, near the point of juyotion of the 

river of the same name with the Eaulne and with tho 

northern Varenne, a narrow tongue of land immediately 

commands the low, and in old times marshy, flats which 

Tie between the high ground and the sea, The range of 

Hills whieh ends in the cliffs of Dioppe rises close to tha 

loft; to the right, at a greater distance, lie the heights 

covered by the Forest of Arquee, These heights are 

separated from the peninsular hill by the town of Arques, 

‘with its rich and picturesque church of the latest mediwval 

work, and by the battle-ground which made Arques farnoun 


the Chronicle of Saint Wandrilla in D*Achory, fi. 288. “ Willelmue vido: 
Moot qui portes Areas castrum in pago Tellau primus ntatuit,” ‘The build: 
fing was cloatly something novel, aod it struck people in Nonnandy almost 
‘as the hullding of Richant's castle (wen vol, Si, pp. 136-148) strock people 
tm England, 1 soe no reawn to doobt that the ruined keop le part of the 
As to the gnte, ond the other parts aasiyned to the mune 
date by M, Deville, E am not quite so certain. 
+ See vol. Hi. p 189. * See val. lh. pp. 274) 275. 


sli ia 


124 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


car. xt. in later days, In fact both Williams, the founder and the 


Conqueror alike, seem to be eclipsed even in local memory 
by the fome of the more modern hero It was on the 
end of this tongue of land that Count William fixed his 
castle, the outer wall fencing in the greater part of the 
peninsula, while the donjon itself was placed on the neck 
of the isthmus. At Arques no artificial mound was 
needed ; the sides of the hill are naturally of no slight 
steepness ; but, even on such a site as this, a Norman 
castle-builder was not satisfied with trusting to natunl 
defences only. Between the wall and the slope of the hill 
Count William dug a fosse of enormous depth, such  foswe 
as may be seen in our own land at Old Sarum. An enemy 
who sealed the sides of the hill thus found himself, not 
under the castle wall, but on narrow ledge of ground, » 
mere pathway in short, with a deep and wide ditch between 
himself and the fortress. ‘This gigantic work still remains; 
s0 does the donjon itself, but, stripped as it is of all ite 
smooth stone and of every fragment of architectural detail, 
it appears to the ordinary eye little more than = shapeless 
mass. The inner gate and part of the outer wall are 
perhaps also of the original work; but the castle received 
large additions and alterations in very late times, some 
of which did not even spare the donjon itself? Still 
the site remains untouched, and the huge stern mass of 
the donjon is still there, at least more fortunate in its 
decay than Falaise in its “restoration.” There is no spot 
in Normandy on which the true Norman spirit is more 
thoroughly impressed. 


* His admirers however neod not have carved him in bas-relief over a 
gate which may belong to the days of William, and which is at any rate 
much older than the days of Henry. 

» Al these points are gone into Ininutely hy BI. Deville. I went over the 
castle minutely in May, 1868, with M. Deville's book in hand, and I can 
Dear witness to the accuracy of his description, though I cannot always 
scoept his inferences, 


THR CASTLE OF ARQUES. 125 


‘Such a fortross as this Duke William could not afford to omar. x1, 
Jeave in the hands of a suspected enemy. He therefore, a8 Duke 
Thave just mid, placed a garrison in the castle of Arques, Nuns 
seemingly thinking that, in so doing, le had done enough (rrison 
to provide for the safety of thut quarter of the Duchy. At cute. 
all events he did not think that his personal presence was 
nooiled ; for we find him once more in the distant Cotentin, Duke 
‘once more, as before the day of Val-Be-dunes, to be eum. \iltiam st 
moned from his hunting-seat at Valognes' by the news of 
a rebellion in the land, ‘This time it was not his personal 
safety that was threatened, but everything was in jeopardy 
for which William could deem it, worth while to reign or 
tolive. The garrison which he had placed on the steep of The Duke's 
Arques had proved faithless, Count William had appeared (7c 
bofore the gate uf the fortross which he had himself raised 5 betrays the 
threats, gifts, promises, solicitations of every kind, had Count 
‘won over the minds of its unsteady defenders? ‘The Lord Villa. 
of Arques once more stood as master within his own castle, 
and now, in reliance on the support of their common Count 
overlord, he openly defied his nephew and immediate Wii™ 
sovervign.? revolts. 

‘The anarchy which had overspread all Normandy in the 
days of Duke William’s childhood, now broke forth again, 

‘no less fearful in kind though greatly narrowed in extent. 

‘Bat it was at least spread over as wide a range as could be Ravage of 
commanded from the Castle of Arques. ‘The hill-fortress 
became a mere nest of robbers, by whom every sort of 
damage was ccasclesely inflicted on the country around. 

As ever happened in these wretched conflicts, the blow fell 


1 Both Willian of Poitiers (93) and Onderfe (657 B) place William in 
Constantino page.” "The special mention af Valognes (soe vol. ti, p. 248) 
‘comes from tho Roman de Rou, 8698 ot 109. 

* Will. Pet. u.. “ Malefidl oustodew non multo port castri potestatens 
conditori reccont, rmunerim pollicitation, et impensins tmminente varii 

> 


sollicitatione fatigatl subactique,’ 
¥ On the order of events iu this revolt, ce Appendix S. 


126 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


cuar. x1. heaviest on those who were least able to bear it. The goods 


Duke 
William's 


of the churches, the erops and cattle of the peasant, the 
wares of the travelling merchant, became the prey of Count 
William and his soldiers. This kind of excess it was ever 
the great Duke’s boast, as it was his highest glory, to pat 
down with all the weight of his hand. We may well be- 
lieve his panegyrist when he tells us that it was in answer 
to the cry of his suffering people, no less than to avenge 
the insult done to his own authority,’ that William set 
forth in all haste from Valognes. He set forth on » march 


march from only less speedy than the headlong ride which had once 


‘Valognes. 


borne him across the estuary of the Vire and by the minster 
and the mount of the faithful Hubert? No longer alone, 
he again made his way across the ford which he had passed 
on that memorable night, but now he had no need to slink 
in by-paths or to fear to present himself before the gates of 
any city in his dominions. He pressed on now by loyal 
Bayeux, safe under the episcopal care of his brother, or 
rather of those who ruled under the name of the youthfal 
Prelate.? He passed by Caen, where the anathema hed 
been spoken against evil-doers such as those whom he was 
hastening to chastise ‘There he made a feint of going on 
towards his capital; but he turned his steps to Pont 
audemer, he crossed the Seine at Caudebee, one of the spots 
where the ancient speech of the Northman still lives in the 


1 Will. Pict. 92. “Nam festinantem ut contrairet injurise suse amplius 
fncitaverunt audita mala province sue. Ecclesiarum bona, agrestlum 
labores, negotiatorum lucra militum predam injuste fiert dolebat. Mise 
ando planctu imbellis vulyi, gui mulfue tempore belli aut seditionum orirt 
solet, sdvocari se cogitabat.” The mention of merchants as s numerous and 
important class marks the growing civilization of Normandy under its great 
ruler. 

* See vol. i. p. 246. 

2 Odo could not have been now above seventeen years old (see val. if. 
p. 208), nor William himself above twenty-six. 

* See vol. fi. p. 238. 


WILLIAM'S MARCH TO ARQUES. 127 


local name ;! he hastened on by Baons-le-Comte, till he omar, xm. 
found himeelf, at the head of six followers only, at the foot 

of the hill of Arques.? All the rest of the company at He reaches 
whooe head he had set forth from Valognes had broken sik. 
down on the way beneath the haste and weariness of that Srntany, 
terrible ride. But » reinforcement was already waiting and moots 
for him. Some of the Duke’s chiefest and most trusty morrhon 
vaseals had deemed that, in such a moment of peril, there Rov". 
was no need to wait for formal orders to do the duty of 

every loyal subject. They had set forth from Rouen at the 

head of a troop numbering three hundred knights, meaning 

to keep the revolters in check and to hinder the carrying 

of any kind of provisions into the rebellious fortress? But 

they found the force gathered in the castle to be so 

large, and they found the loyalty of some of their own 

men to be so doubtful, thst, on the second day of their 
adventure, they made up their minds to turn home again 

before the dawn of the next day. Hard by the castle they 

found the Duke with his mall company. They told him William 
the state of affairs; the disaffection was greater than he to delay. 
thought; nearly the whole neighbourhood—that is, we 

may suppose, the noble portion of its inbabitants—was 
hostile ; it was dangerous to go on further with so small 

a force. But the victor of Val-ts-dunes and Domfront 

had learned something like confidence in his star. “If 

the rebels,” said the Duke, “once see me face to face, they 

will never dare to withstand me.” At once, we are told, He Yestoma 
he spurred on his horse at full speed. His rebel uncle and guccossful 
his followers, a greater company than his own, were to be **irmish 


4 Caudebec=Cold Beck. ‘The arms of the town are appropriately three 
fab. 

+ See Appendix 8. 

2 [here follow the narrative of William of Poitiers (93), trying to make 
it intelligible by borrowing some hints from William of Malmesbury. 

* Will. Pict. 93. “Nihil quidem rebelles in se, quum preventem oon- 
spexerint, ausuros.” 


128 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


cuar.xu, seen on the steep, returning, it would seem, from a 
before the plundering excursion. ‘They were therefore no doubt dis 


William 
blockades 


the castle. 


ordered and encumbered with booty. The Duke determined 
on an instant attack. He followed them up to the only 
accessible point of the hill, by the path leading straight to 
the gate of the castle. A skirmish followed before the 
gateway, on the ground now covered by the later defences 
of the castle. The defenders of the fortress gave way 
before the impetuous charge of the Duke, and it was only, 
we are told, through their suddenly shutting the gates that 
the quarrel failed to be decided on the very day in which 
William had come in sight of the rebel stronghold. 

The castle of Arques might possibly have been taken 
by such a sudden blow as the Duke had done his best to 
deal ; but he knew well that to attempt to carry his uncle's 
fortress by storm while its defenders were on their guard 
was an undertaking which surpassed even his prowess. 
Horse and foot might have pressed up the sides of the hill, 
but it would have been only to fall headlong into the deep 
chasm which yawned between them and the outer walls 
of the castle! Duke William was too wary warrior to 
waste his strength on such attempts as this; moreover, 
at this time of his life at least, he had no mind for wanton 
slaughter, and he wished for the honour of winning back 
the castle and crushing the rebellion without the shedding 
of Norman blood? A blockade was therefore the only 
course open to him; Arques was to be another Brionne.® 
The Duke had now been joined by a large following, 
counting among them some of the best knights of Nor- 


* See the spirited illustration in Deville, p. 282. 
+ Will, Pict. 93. ‘Dein potiri volens munitione, jussu propere con- 
tracto exercitu circumsedit. Fuit difficillimum quos ea natura lool maxime 
defensabat expuguare. Sane more suo illo optimo, rem optans abeque eruare 
‘confectum iri, efferatos et contumaces obice castelli ad montis pedem ex- 
structi clausit.” 
2 See vol ii, p. 262. 






WILLIAM BLOCKADES ARQUES. 129 


mandy.' He could therefore afford to divide his forces, cman xt. 
‘One party was left to carry on the blockade of the castle, 
Its command was entrusted to Walter Giffard, a loyal Waiter 
knight of the neighbourhood. He was a kinsman of Si 
William of Arques, that is, not of the rebel Count, but of tye tek: 
the faithfal Viscount, and he was a more distant kinsman party. * 
of the Duke himself, as both owned a common ancestor in 
‘tho forester of Equiquevillo, the fathor of Gunnor and her 
sisters2 ‘The chief who now commanded below the steep 
of Argues lived to refuse to bear the banner of Nor- 
mandy below the steep of Senlac, He lived to make 
up for a forced inaction against rebels in his own land, 
by dealing blows with all the remaining strength ‘of his 
aged arm against mon who wero fighting for their homes 
against an unprovoked invasion. He lived to have his 
name written in the great record of the Conquest, and 
to found, like so many others among the baronage of 
Normandy, a short-lived Earldom in the land which he 
helped to conqnor. ‘The force under Walter now remained 
to guard the worke which the Duke raised for the blockade 
of the castle, A ditch and palieade at the foot of the hill 
protected a wooden tower, which was raised, as usual, in 
1 Roman de Rou, 8610 ; 

+ LA mies de In chevaleria 

T imist do tuto Normondio.” 
2 The presence of Walter Giffard comes only from a late Chronicle 
(Bouguet, xi, 339), where ho ie prematurely callod Count, But, as bis 
Tordahip of Longueville lay hard ty, nothing {a more likely than that he 
‘should be there, Te was the sou of Osbern of Dolbeo—a little town at tho 
fiw of » hill om the way to the more famnous Lillcbonno—by Avalina, one of 
‘the sistors of Guanor (Will, Gurn. xiii. 37). A brothor of Osbem was 
Guitiey, pater Willelit de Archi," that in, of the Viscount, Gee Deville, 
P19. On Walter Giffard, afterwards Earl of Buckingham, nos Ellis, f. 424, 
‘aud Taylor, Waee, 169, Mr, Planché (The Conqneror and hie Companions, 
4. 165) tlle ua that “wo hear of him In 1035 a8 » companion of Hugh do 
Gowmay in the abortive attempt of Edwar son of King Bthelred to 
veover the crown of Kngland.” In ti. £13 ho givos furthor dotaile ; 
‘but ho dove not tell ws where “we hear” all this, 
* Thi tower, doubtles of wood, Is described ax a “munitio" in the 


‘VOL, im, x 


i 


130 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


omar. xr. order to cut off the besieged from all communication with 


the neighbourhood. With the other party William himeelf 
departed, to keep in check some of the more powerfal allies 
by whom it was likely that supplies or reinforcements 
would be furnished to the besieged.’ 

At the head of these was King Henry. It would seem 
that a scruple of feudal honour mae William shrink from 
meeting his lord face to face in battle, even though his 
lord was in the act of committing a breach of every feudal 
tie towards a vassal who had fully discharged every feudal 
duty. One reason, we are told, for the Duke’s entrusting 
the blockade to others was that the King was known to 
be marching to the relief of the castle. Rather than do 
aught against his oath of homage, William would run all 
the risk involved in carrying his own arms elsewhere, 
while he left others to head the resistance against the 
most dangerous of his focs.2 And so it happened. The 





extract from William of Poitiers given above, So WL Gem. vii, 7; 
“Erectis aggeribus ad radicem montis castrum stabilivit, quod fortum 
virorum robore inexpugnabile reddidit, et sic inde abiens vallatum alimonils 
reliquit.” So Will. Malms. iii. 232; “Obfirmato contra Archas castello,”” 
Wace (Roman de Rou, 8600) says that the Duke 





“ De foesez & do herigun Ne buss ne vache ne viel ; 
E de pel fist un chasteillun, Li Dus tel chastelet i fist, 
El pié del teltre on la vallée, Tant chevaliers & tel i mist, 
Ki gande tute la cuntn'e ; Ki bien le porreient desfendre 


Ne pristrent paiz cols del chastel Ke Reis ne Quens ne porreit prendre.” 

Cf, vol. ii. pp. 262, 605, 

+ Will. Pict. 94. “Presidio imposito, aliis postea negotiis invitantibus, 
pve recessit ; ut, dum ferro parceret, fame vinceret.” So Wace, 8612 ; 

“Le Dus aon ont parti atant, 
Sez busuignes ailleurs quérant.” 

‘This iv by no means clear. William of Malmesbury (u. .) ia rather more 
definite; “Obfirmato contra Archas castello, ad alia que magis urgebant 
hella conversus est.” It was therefore a military operation in another 
direction which called William: off. We shall see directly why he avoided 
conducting the blockade in perwon. 2 

* This foudal scruplo, which rually seems the only intelligible explanation 
of William's conduct in leaving the most important operations to others, 
comes from Willian of Mahnesbury, ii. 23; imul quia acicbat Regem 














132 


quar, x 


Richard's 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IS NORMANDY. 


at least may lock on as the ncblest among the chivalry 
of Normandy.' With Richard too stood his son-in-law 
Geoffrey, the husband of his danghter Ada, and Geoffrey's 
brother Hugh, the sons of Thureytel who held the lordship 
of Neufmarché by the famous forest of Lions. Of these, 
Hugh had already fallen in an earlier skirmish with the 
rebels of Arques.? Geoffrey lived to be father of one who 
made himself a name in a remote corner of our own island. 


Geoffrey 
sed kis ov Bernard of Newmarch, the son of Ada the daughter of 


Bernard 
Kew. 


Richard of Hugleville, became as terrible an enemy to 
the central land of the Cymry as the son of Hamon 
Dentatus showed himself to the Cymry of the southern 
coaste.* His fame still lives, far away from the forest 
of Lions and the hill of Arques, where the minster and 
the castle of Brecknock look forth on the vale of the 
‘Welsh Axe, and on the mountain rampart which, when 
Arques was beleaguered and defended, still guarded the 
realm of Gruffydd the son of Rhydderch.* 

‘The King of the French and his comrades must have 
known little indeed of the state of the country, when 
they chose a spot for their halting-place so near to the 
home of such tried and loyal warriors as these. They 
had brought with them a good stock of provisions of 
corn and of wine, for the relief of the besieged of Arques. 
At Saint Aubin they began to make ready a train of 
sumpter-horses with a military convoy, to carry these good 


1 Boo Onl. Vit. 606 D. It is with a thrill of sympathy alike for the hero 
and for bis chronicler that an Englishman reads the passage, which I shall 
havo to rofer to again. 

* Ord, Vit. 606 C. “Hugonem cum omnibus suis Archacenses spud 
Moriummontem repente circumdederunt, sesoque viriliter defendentem 
intoremerunt.” 

* Hoo vol. il. p. 244. 

* Ord, Vit. us, From the same writer (666 D) it appears that Bernard 
of Newmarch was tho son-inlaw of Osbern of Herefordshire, the son of 
Richard the son of Scrob, Bernard must have married Osbern’s daughter 
aftor ho came to England. I do not find him in Domeaday. 





134 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


ouar, xu. and measure of Hugh’s greatness does not appear; but 


‘Death of 


oant Tae 


his capture is spoken of as one of the most important 
events of the fight. I know of no record of his earlier 
exploits or of his later fate; but the name of Bardalf 
is often found in the later records both of the Norman 
and of the English Exchequer, and one at least of his 
descendants seems to have been as little submissive to law- 
fal authority as his forefather. By the side of the captive 
Bardulf died a sovereign prince, a neighbour of Normandy, 
bound by ties of the closest affinity alike to William the 


‘The Counts Duke and to William the rebel. The house of the Counts 


of Pon 
thiew. 


of Ponthieu is one whose name will meet us more than 
once again in the course of the present volume. Sprung 
of the blood of Herlwin of Montreuil, a name so familiar 
to us in Norman history a hundred years before,? they 
held, as he had done, the border land between Normandy 
and Flanders. But they had held it by various tenures 
and under various titles. Hugh, the great-grandfather 
of the present ruler, a prince, if we may so call him, 
high in the favour of his namesake the Parisian King, 
had borne no title but that of Advocate of Saint Riquier.? 
He was, as the chronicles of the Abbey take care to tell 
us, enriched at the expense of the great monastery of 


_ Which he was bound to be the defender. The house of 


1 Tm the roll of Norman fees in the red book of the Exchequer, we 
find Doon Bardulf returned as one of those ‘qui non venerunt, nec 
miserunt, nec aliquid dixerunt.’” I copy this from Taylor's Wace, p. 44. 
‘The name of Bardulf, including several Doun Bandulfs, occurs constantly in 
the Exchequer Records both of Normandy and of England (see the Indexes 
to Madox and Stapleton), but I have not lighted on the particular story 
referred to by Mr. Taylor. 

# Seo vol. I. p. 200 ot pass. 

® Chron. Centul. iv. 21 (ap. D'Achery, if. 343). ‘“Attamen huic num- 
quam Comitis nomen sccensit, sed erat ili insigme quod Sancti Richarii 
vocabatur Advocatus.” On Saint Riquier see vol. ii. p. 532. 

+ Tb, “‘Ablatis monasterio Centulo tribus oppidis, Abbatis-villé, Sancto 
Medardo, et Incri, et his castellia effectin, in corumque stippendia multis 


THE COUNTS OF PONTHIEU, 


135 


Saint Riquier was the work of the bounty of the great cuar. xn, 


Charles ; it was the house where a saintly Abbot and an 
Emperor's daughter so strangely became the parents of 
that famous Nithard who figures alike as Count and as 
Abbot, and who is yet more renowned as a lay historian 
in whose steps neither Athelweard nor Fulk knew how 


to walk.’ The son of Hugh, Ingelram or Enguerrand the Ingelram 
First, was the first to bear the title of Count of Ponthieu, a @2n™ 
title sometimes exchanged for that of Count of Abbeville.* Ponthlew 


The grange stolen away from the house of Saint Riquier ville. 


grew into the capital of a principality, and the town was 
in after days adorned with that unfinished minster which, 
as it is looked at from the west or from the east, may 
be called either the noblest or the meanest in France. 
This elder Ingelram has already appeared in our history 
as a foe of Count Gilbert of Brionne, as his antagonist 
on the field where Herlwin, not yet of Bec, taught the 
contending chiefs how a Christian soldier had learned to 


return good for evil.’ From him the County passed to a Hugh the 
second Hugh, and from him, only a year before, it had Soo. 
passed to a second Ingelram. This prince now, whether Ingelram 

led by border enmity, by loyalty to his suzerain, or by ‘os *rery. 


preference for one domestic tie over another, had joined 
the call of King Henry to an invasion of the Norman 
Duchy. The Count of Ponthieu went forth to help the 


aliis Sancti Richarii villis et reditibus ab Hugone Rege preerogatis.” 
Cf iv. 12, 

* See Chron. Centul. ii. 7. On Nithard’s birth and hie father’s work at 
Saint Riquicr, seo also Nithard’s own History, iv. 5. Sir Francis Palgrave 
(ii. 226), by one of the slips so natural in» chapter not revised by the 
author, confounds father and son. 

» Hariulf (Chron. Cent. iv. 21) calls the elder Hugh “Hugo Abbatensis,” 
and the Ingelram lain at Saint Aubin is by William of Jumieges (vii. 7) 
called “Abbatis-ville Comes.” Ingelram, according to Hariulf, took the 
tile of Count (‘ Dei gratia Comes”) on slaying Baldwin Count of Boulogne 
and marrying his widow Adelaide. Chron. Cent. iv. 12. 

2 See vol. i. p. 215. 


136 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


onar.xit, husband of hia sister againet the brother of his wife. Count 
His atinity Hugh had given his daughter in marriage to William of 
Williams, Arques,! but his son was also the husband of a fall sister of 
Duke William? As such, he was himself the son-in-law 
of the Tanner's daughter, and he bad therefore no right to 
join the Lord of Arques in his sneers at the Bastard of 
Fualaiso, He now felt the strength of the Norman steel, 
even in the absence of the Prince against wham he came, 
‘He fell in the ambush of Saint Aubin ;? and his County 
passed to his brother Guy, who will soon again appear 
le 1100. invonr story.$ 
‘The Count of Ponthiea was thus slain fighting valiantly.* 
Hy His over-lord King Henry escaped the ambush, and pressed 
‘on towards the hill of Arques, in the hope of relieving the 
besieged. But he found Duke William's wooden castle 
too strong, and the coumge of its defenders too high, 
for his attacke*upon it to provail.’ He accordingly wont 


1 Willinta of Jumlijges (vil, 7) calls the wife of Willian of Arques "sorur 
‘Widonis Comitin Pontivi.” ‘That. is a daughter of Hugh. Why is fagelram 
called ‘Comes Abbatisvillm,” and hin brother “Comes Pontivi,” in the 


{This is Gay who imprisoned Harvld, His uncle, another Guy, sou of 

Jogelram tho Fievt,was Bishop of Asmfena (we Chron, Cent. fv. 36, p. 338)» 
‘and wrote the famous poor “De Bello Hastingensi,” See Will, Gem. 
vil, 443 Onl, Vit, 504 A. 

® William of Poitiers (94) calls iim ‘nobilitate notis a0 fortitudine,” 
SA Vas eet) sO rain oe (660 ree 
seces mel preoccupaverunt Comitem tn castrum Snteare 
fetinantent Ipeumqus fortiter pagnentem, quis mufles erat nsperrionaiy 
-conidecunt, et agmina ejus fugeverunt,” Hariulf, in the Chronicle of Saint 
Biqaler (Iv, 2), calls him “homo fornme witrabilis.” 

* Will. Pict, (04). ““Perventcus tameu quo tre intewlenit, Rex ex- 
acorbatisximis animis summa vi proxidium attontavit: Willolmuutn ab serxn= 
‘nls uti ceiperct, pariter decromentum atl, stragem stiorum vindisarct, Sed 
ut peyotium difficile auimadvertit, quippe inimioo Tupetuy thelle tolora~ 
soho tae menimenta et militom virtus mque yalide , .. . abire 





138 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


onar. xn. the wife of the reigning Emperor, whose name was soon 


to become famous during the minority of her son.’ Guy- 
Geoffrey himself, on his accession to his brother’s dominions 
a few years later, also changed his baptismal name for that 


1058-1087. 80 familiar to his family, and reigned as William the 


Eighth of Aquitaine and Sixth of Poitiers? By this time 


Return 
aske Duke William had returned to the siege; he had no longer 


to fear the commission of any feudal offence by fighting 
personally against his lord. The defenders of Arques were 
now sorely prossed by hunger. They contrived to send 


‘The 
hard 
prewed. messages to King Henry; but all was in vain; no help 


came from their royal ally.’ At last the sure but slow 
means to which the Duke had trusted thoroughly did its 


The castle work; Count William and his garrison surrendered, on 
Smotehed' the sole condition that the horrors of Alengon were not 
state'of the to be repeated. Safety for life and limb was promised ; 


the gates were opened, and a company came forth in whose 
sad condition the Norman panegyrist sees at least as much 
matter for scorn as for pity. Knights of renown through- 
out France and Normandy came forth with marks of hunger 
on their faces, and with their necks bowed down alike by 
hunger and by shame. Some rode on famished horses, 
whose feeble feet could hardly raise the dust or give forth 
the faintest sound as they crept along. Others came forth 
on foot, booted and spurred, bearing saddles on their backs, 
seemingly ready for that last symbolical rite of humiliation 
in which the vanquished offered himself for the victor to 

* Sec vol. ii. p. 372. 

* In the Chronicle of Saint Maxentius he is called Geoffrey in 1044, 1058, 
1060, 1061, 1062, Guy and Geoffrey in 1068, William in 1071, lastly in 
1086, “Guido qui et Goffredus.” This is certainly the way to confuse 
genealogists, 

» Will. Pict. 95. “Rex denuo accitus multo et inisere supplici nuncio 
venire abnuit.” The Archdeacon now gets very eloquent, and gives us all 
the inner workings of the mind of one whom he calls “Papie partus.” It 


takes a minute or two to nce that by thix odd description he means the 
Count of Arques, 


SURRENDER OF ARQUES. 139 


mount upon his back. And, if the proud gentlemen of cuar. x1. 
France and Normandy were brought so low as this, it is 

not wonderful if the aspect of their more lowly followers, 

the light-armed troops of the garrison, was equally sad.* 

The news soon reached the fortress of Moulins, which was Guy of 
still held by the French troops under Guy of Aquitaine. ten 
The Poitevin prince, the brother-in-law of Cesar, had no Moulins. 
mind to tempt the strength of the Norman, He and his 
garrison, and the garrisons of such other posts as had been 

held by the royal forces, fled out of the land without 
waiting to be attacked.> Towards his own subjects the The Duke's 
Duke more than kept the terms of his capitulation. Count lenery 
William was not even called on to leave Normandy. He shal 
was offered licence to remain in the land and to keep a 
considerable estate, of which however it nced hardly be said 

that his own famous hill-fortress was not to form a part.* 

But life in his native country had no longer any charms 

for him, The dispossessed Count and his wife, the sister Count Wil 
of the slain Count of Ponthieu, withdrew to the court of Aves 
Count Eustace of Boulogne.® The fall of one William of rin wise 
Arques led the way to the advancement of the other. the 
Viscount had had no share in the treasons of the Count. 


1 This ceremony was gone through by the Count Bishop Hugh (see vol. i. 
p. 460) to Richard the Good; “Equestrem sellam ferens humeris, pro- 
volutus genibus Richandi,” &, Will. Gem. v. 16. Palgrave, ii 
Will. Malms. iii. 235. So we now read in William of Poiti 
coreis et calcaribus ornati (why), insolito comitatu incedentes, et eorum 
plerique sella equestrem incurvo languidoque dorso, nonnulli solum se 
nutabundi vix eportantes.” 

2 Will. Pict. 95.  Erat item cernere calamitatem levis armature egre- 
dientis feedam se variam,” 

* Tb. 96. “Verum et if, et quiqui alias relicti sunt a Francis, quum 
deditas esse comperissent Archarum latebras, sose nontria fug® furati sunt.” 

“Th. 95. “Noluit extorrem et inopem eatu magis pudendo cruciari ; sed 
cum gratit et possessionibus quibuadam amplis atque multorum redituum, 
patriam ef concessit 

* Will, Gom. vii. 7. See Deville, p. 78 et seqq. I vee no difficulty in 
reconciling the two accounts. 









140 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


“aur. xit, He was not indeed raised to fill a place which the Duke 


had learned to be too dangerons an elevation for any sub- 


is a The County of Talou was abolished; the castle of 


tevin Vine 


 Arques bocamo a ducal possesion; but the care of the 
fortress reared by the William of Arques who figures in 
Norman history was entrusted to that other William of 
Arques whose name is written in Domesday," : 


Duke William was now allowed a few months of peace, 
and, having brought one troublesome matter to a happy 
end, he seems to have thought it o fitting time to bring 
another matter of no less moment in his eyes to an end 
no less happy. It was in this year (1053), therefore pro- 
bably in the ehort interval between the French invasion 
which we have thus far followed and the second invasion 
which followed it in the next year, that William at last 
won his long-wished-for bride. Count Baldwin now 
brought his daughter to the frontier castle of Eu, and 
William led her thence to his palace at Rouen? I have 
already discussed the puzzling circumstances of this mar- 
riage; L have already spoken of tho indignation which it 
called forth among men eo unlike one another as Malger 
and Lanfranc.* Malger, it must not be forgotten, was a 
brother of the fallen Count of Arques; he may have been 
concerned in his treason ; his deposition may have been his 
punishment. But the clemency which William showed 
towards the uncle who had been actnally in arms may 
make us doubt whether he would have taken this kind of 
revenge on a kinsman who was at least not more guilty.* 

King Honry had fniled to give any help to the defenders 
of Arques in their last extremity; but hatred towards 
Normandy was far from being lulled to rest in the breasts 
cither of the Preach King or of the French people. We 


» Bee Deville, p. 89. * Seo sbore, p. 93 
? See above, pp. 94, 102. * Bee above, ps of 





142 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


onar. xn. in the breast of Theobald of Blois, now rejoicing in the 


‘Theobald 
of Blois 


and Cham- 


Pagne; 


‘Normandy. 


cS 


higher dignity of Count of Champagne. He had won that 
county by driving out his nephew Odo,! and the favourable 
reception which the dispossessed prince found at the court 
of William, his marriage with the Duke's sister Adelaide? 
may have been either the cause or the rosult of his uncle's 
enmity. But it is hard to see how the power of Normandy 
could be threatening to a prince so distant as the Count, of 
Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine. Nor had William given 
his southern namesake any offence, unless indeed the Duke 
of Aquitaine thought it his duty to avenge the ignominious 
escape of his brother from the dominions of the Duke of the 
Normans. Yet all these princes, we are told, were eager, in 
an unusual fit of loyalty, to avenge the wrongs of the King 
whom they all so faithfully served, but to whom the upstart 
Bastard at Rouen refused all obedience.? And all, King 
and princes, were specially stirred up by certain members of 
the royal family, whom it is not easy to identify, but who 
are said to have thought that Normandy, or some part of it, 
might form convenient appanages for themselves.‘ A joint, 
expedition against Normandy, on a scale which should sur- 
pass all former expeditions, was agreed upon. 

The panegyrist of William lavishes all his rhetoric and 
all his powers of classical allusion to set forth the greatness 
of the danger by which Normandy was now threatened. 
Cesar himself, the conqueror of the Gauls, or a general 
greater than Cwsar, if Rome herself had produced a 
greater, might have felt fear at the approach of such a 

+ Art de Vérifier les Dates, ii. 614. 1 Tb. See vol. ii. p. 615. 

? Will, Pict. 97. “‘Condolentes in eAdem Theobaldus, Pictavorum Co- 
mee, Gaufredus, item reliqui eummates, quidam insuper indignatione pri 
‘vata intolerandum ducebant sese Regis, quocumque previa vocarent, siynis 
parere; Willelmum Normannorum nequaquam pro Rege, sed confidenter 
atque indesinentcr ad ejus magnitudinem, quam aliquantum attrivit, ulterius 
atterendam, vel si qua via valeant, conterendam, in armis agitare.” 

‘Tb. “Preterva concupiebant Normanniam, aut ejus partem, quidam 
Regis proximi.” 


GREAT CONFEDERACY AGAINST NORMANDY. 143 


host as was now poured from every region of Gaul upon cur. x1. 
the devoted Duchy.! ‘The whole land was stirred even to 

its remotest corners. The movement reached to the Ducal 
Burgundy, the most eastern fief of the Parisian Crown, 

It aroused the Gascon at the foot of the Pyrenees, and the 

men who dwelt among the voleanic peaks of less distant 
Auvergne, All these drew the sword; but France and 
Britany, as the nearest of all to the Norman land, were 

the most eager for its destruction? Through all Nor- 
mandy, the men of peaceful callings, the priest, the peasant, 

the burgher, all trembled for their wives, their children, 

their goods, their very lives. But they thought what a 
champion they had in their mighty Duke, and their hearts 

were comforted. Laying aside flourishes like these, and 
confessing the extreme difficulty of seeing the warriors 

of Gascony and Auvergne, or even those of Burgundy, 

there is no doubt that a great and unusual effort was made, 

both by the King and by those of his great vassals who 

were most immediately open to his influence. An invasion Union of 
of Normandy was decreed, which really was planned on a SY) 
greater scale, and carried out in a more systematic way, sgsinst 
than any that had ever gone before it. xs whole foes Nermdy 
of the royal domaig—of France, in the language of the 
time—together with the forces of Count Theobald and of Guy of 
the new Count Guy of Ponthicu, were assembled for a Ponthien 
combined attack on the Duchy. Guy came, naturally bald. 


1 Will. Pict. 79. “‘Julium Cosarem, vel bellandi ‘peritiorem aliquem, si 
fuerit peritior exercitts Romani ducem (ex mille nationibus coacti olim, 
dum Roma florentissima mille provinciis imperitasset) hujus agminis im- 
manitate terreri potuisse affirmares.” 

+ Tb. “Burgundiam, Arverniam, atque Wasconiam properare videres 
horribiles ferro: imo vires tanti regni, quantum in climate mundi quatuor 
patent, cunctas, Franciam tamen et Britanniam, quanto nobis vicinores, 
tanto ardentius infestas.” As he speaks of the “regnum,” he clearly means 
by Burgundy only the Duchy which held of the French Crown. Hin use of 
“Francia” along with the rest, as the name of one part of Gaul, should bo 
noticed. Compare the use of the word by Flodoard ; sce vol. i. p. 602. 


it THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY, 


ouar, x1t, enough, to avenge the death of his brother ;* what is most 
Seamiug — to bo remarked is the seeming absonce of the prince whom 
Geoffrey we should have expected to find firet at the muster, the 
of Anjou. rostleas Count of Anjou. Some of his subjects seem indeed 
to have shared in the expedition, but there is no certain 
account of Geoflrey himself till the campaign was over.* 
His absence is not easily to be accounted for. The chroni- 
cles of his own country do not supply us with any records 
of other undertakings which might explain his failure to 
share in an enterprise which one would have thought would 
. have had every charm for him, But, even in his absence, 
Double, the muster was 8 great one, ‘The forces of the King and 
‘Normandy, his vassals were divided into two armies for the invasion of 
1954 ‘Normandy at two distinct points. Our Latin authorities, 
glad as ever to fall back on the geography of a past age, 
tell us how the forces both of Celtic and of Belgie Gaul 
were gathered together in two divisions, The Celtic host 
was to march under the command of the King in person, 
the forces of the Belgian lands under that of his brother 
Odo, With Odo was joined in command the King’s epecial 
favourite, Reginald of Clermont, not the more famous 
Clermont in the distant land of Auvergne, but the lowlier 
Clermont in the nearer land of Begnvais. With” them 
marched two other leaders of the rank of Count, Ralph of 
Montdidier, of whom we shall hear again, and one of 
* Will, Pict, 98. “Guido, Pontivi Comes, ad vindioandum frntrem In- 
Relraunum nimis evidvs.” Will Malma, iff. 233. “Guide Pontivd Comox 
studiosius ultiouls frauis iutendit.” 
* 1 find no mention of Geoffrey as present, excopt in William of Junilages 
(lk. 24), who makes him aocompany the King. ‘This aooount is fullowed by 
Benoit of Hainte More, 352455 
Ld quens d'Anjou Gotrel, Martel, 
Qui de ovrigno oatwit mult bel, 
I vint od riche 
E od ees anchors do valle.” 
‘But it is strango that William of Poitiors and the other writers should have 


Toft cut wo important m porwon, had he really been there, and is absence, 
hard as it is to acovunt fur it, ayroce better with what follows, 





M6 


THE LATER REIGN ©F WILLIAM IN NORMANDY, 


nse, xn, tation of the Parisian Kingdom.' ‘There marched. the 


forces of Vermandois, whose Carolingian Lord appeared 
as the loyal homager of the upstart dynasty.’ The pro- 
mise of Norman spoil drew the men of Amiens, soon to 
become the flock of the Prelate whose verse was to hand 
down to us the minatest contemporary recon of Norman 
victory.’ Not yot a father of the Church, he may well him- 
eolf baye followed, among the men of bis native Ponthiou, 
to avenge a slaughtered nephew and a self-banished nises! 
‘Thithcr men came from Meulen on the Scine and from 
Beaumont on the Oise," from the corn-fields of Brie and 
from the rose-gardens of Provins.* By twenties, by hun 
dreds, by thonsands, the force of all the Jands right of the 
Seine gathered under the banners of Gay and Odo, to 
earry slaughter and dovastation through those parts of 
‘Normandy which lay on their own side of the great 
Norman river. 

‘Tho other muster gathered round the standard of the 
King himeelf. Thither came the men of those ancient 
cities of central Gaul, which, now no les: than then, which 
then no less than in the days of Casar and in the old time 
Lefore him, still sit, each one as a lady for ever,’ by the 


* Hugh Capet wns crowned at Noyes. Richer, fv. 12. somber 

* Roman de Row, 9923. “Ces do Melant ¢ de Vermendeis." Bee shor 
P19, The relying Comet was Herbert the Fourth. 

+ Guy, Bishop of Ariens, the wethor of the poeta “ De Bailo Hastingensi” 
(ovo WO Gem. vil. 44), wat a om of Engolrnes the First ard uncie of Guy 
and of Ingeleam the Seow! He succeeded to the ser abowt 1038. 

* See abore, pp. 136, 135. 

© Ware, 9925, mays “Cele de Flienitres 2 do Belson,” amd Benstt (35255) 
"La furent Flamece Pober." But the presence of subjects of Baldwin is 


Wysly midlet, as others hare bees won, by the gram! talk slwat the Rhine. 
® That in, If Provine roses, beoaght from the East by prime oe ere 
saikers, hal reached Bumvye 0 s00a. 
* Beak ivtl_ 7. 





148 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


oitar, xu. plain,’ the men of the vast cornland which eurrounds the 


hill of Chartros, the hill where Druids had once held their 
orgies, but where the rites of the heathen had now given 
way to the learning and holiness of Prelates like Fulbert 
and like Ivo. Full no doubt of faith in that revered relie 
before which Rolf and his pirate-host had guailed,? the 
land of the old enemy of Richard the Fearless* sent forth 
ita forces to wreak a tardy vengeance on the successor 
alike of Rolf and of Richard. 


Fa tag The host of Coltic Gaul hold ite trysting-place at a spot 


ieee, 


ti fe 


asseuibles doomed to be memorable and fatal above all other spots 
in the history of the Conqueror. King Henry's standard 
was pitched in the border town of Mantes, the town ruled 
Ly a grandson of Aithelmd, a nephew of Endward,' a 
prince whose death was to bring undeserved reproach upon 
the Conqneror's name and whose city was to behold the 
last and least worthy of his exploits, Mantes, the frontier 
post of Franco against Normandy, was a spot whose posi- 
tion had made it a favourite haunt of William’s Wiking 
fathers in the days when Rouen was still a post to be 
won, and when Paris was still a post to be threatened, 
No other spot lay as a more convenient centre between 
the two great cities of the Seine. On the left bank, the 
higher ground on which tho town iteelf stands slopes 
gently to the river. A range of loftier hills, as all along 
this part of the course of the Seine, bounds the valley on 
the other side, But at this point the stream divides, and 
two large islands, resorte such as the pirates of the North 
so dearly loved, by their bridges, old and new, at once 


+ Roman de Rea, 9941; 
“Cds de Percko % del Chartraln, 
‘Cals Gel Boncage & els det plain.” 
* Soe wok. 1, p. 165. 
1 See val. i pe 230. 
* Soe Ord. Vit. 655 ©, He gives Bulk Dishop of Asmfems, the peedecesece 
of Gay, aa a thind soa of Drogo snd Godgitt besides Walter and Ralph. 





150 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


onav.zat. threatened by the King in person, Had he cast away the 
Quentin of feudal scruple which we have seen acting upon his mind 
eruple, during the siege of Arques? Did he now deem that so 


many wrongs had at last absolved him from every daty 
of a vassal, and that he might now, without a stain on his 
honour or hie conscience, go forth, and, if need be, meet 
hie lord in battle face to face? Or did he foresee that, 
‘as the event proved, no such meeting would be necdful ? 
Did he know that the surest way to avoid meeting his 
Tord face to face was to go forth in person to meet him? 
However this may be, William now took on himself the 
immediate duty of protecting the lands against whieh 

King Henry was marching, the lands between the Seine 


William's and the Dive.' For their defence he gathered the forces 


muster 
from 


of the neighbouring districte, The warriors of the hilly 


Nom, Iand of Auge, where the mouth of the Dive was then a 


tor haven, came to meet the King who had specially 
marked out their district as one object of his attack. The 
men of Falaise and of the whole county of Hiesmes 
Prossed, as ever, to the standard of the sovereign who was 
more specially their own, Ralph of Tesson, no longer 
doubtful, no longer halting botwoen his loyalty and his 
plighted oath, came once more to yield that help whieh 
had been found so effectual on an earlier day of battle? 
All thoge were men who had fought on William's side 
when the French monarch had passed as a deliverer 
through the lands which he now entered as an enemy. 
But others came on that day to William's muster who, 
at Henry's former coming, had fought against King and 


* Ont. Vit. 657 D. "Ego © coutra non vegnis procter, contra Rega 
mapalia per litus Soquan eam meie mo seraper oppomi.” Ro Roroan do 
Rou, 99655 

© Lialere out Hi Dux od wel, 
XS remaindrant cuntro Ki Rei.” 
Mo thom gooe on with the catalogue, 
* See vol. Hp. as. 





152 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


our, 4m more distant still’ than the men of Mortain, came the men 
ant Avzani-of the march against the Breton, the men of Avranches, 


A 


HF 


viscounty and city, where the proudest steep in all the 
Norman land, crowned, alas, no longer by its vanished 
minstor, takes in the Archungel’s Mount as but one point 
in a landscape where half Normandy and Britanny seem 
to lie at the beholder’s feet, From the Cocanon to the 
Dive, from Seez to Cherbourg, all were there, stout of 
heart and ready of hand, to guard their country and 
their sovereign against the attacks of their faithless 
over-lord. 

The plan of the Duke was to stand wholly on the 
defensive. All provisions of every kind were to be moved 
out of the King’s line of march; the cattle were to be 
driyen to the woode, and the peasants to be sent to take 
care of them there.* Ho would himself with his division 
follow the King’s steps; he would encamp near him, and 
would be sure to cut off every man who strayed from the royal 
camp for forage or plunder.’ The like policy was enjoined 
‘on the defenders of the lands beyond the Seine. The men 
of Caux and of the other districts in that quarter were 
placed under four of the chief men of their own district, 
Old Hugh of Gournay, at tho head of the men of Braye, 
came from his frontier town by the minster of Saint 
Hildebert, the town whose name he was to transfer to 


+ Roman de Rou, 9968; 
"Reals del val do Moretoing 
B d'Avrenchee Id eet plus Jotng.” 


* Tb. 99755 

"Mult pren servi, go alist, del Rel, La visnde fist tresturner 
Pros del Ret se heebergerelt, De Ish It Reds dus passer: 
E des forsiers yarde prendreit: ‘Li estes fist as bois mener 


Wireient mie luing en forage, Et ns vilains Fos fiat gurder.”” 


* Will, Malius. iif. 233. “Justa Regia caste senstin obambulans, . 
ut nec cceninus pugnssdl coplamn ficaret, ee provincia conch me vantari 
sdinerot,.” 





154 


‘THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


owar. xu. to death at once.’ In this way they marched on till they 


a4 


‘Mortemer, 


if 


A 


reached Mortemer, nob Mortemer by the forest of Lions, 
but a more northern Mortemer, which draws its whole 
claim to remembrance from the events of this campaign. 
‘The country through which they passed may be called 
hilly; but the hills have no specially marked or picturesque 
character. The town of Aumale stands on a comparative 
height, which slopes away by a gradual descent to the 
weet, A bottom, in no way specially marked by nature, 
divides this hill from another of the same kind, the road 
over which leads the traveller to the town of Drincourt 
on the Dieppe, now known as Neufehitel-in-Braye. From 
the neighbourhood of this point the river Eaulne flows 
down to meet the Dieppe and the Varenne by the castle 
of Arquos. In the space between the two hills, a little 
way from the road, and almost hidden by trees, lio the 
shell of a round tower on its mound, a church of but small 
attractions, and a few scattered houses and gardens, #0 
far from forming a town that they are hardly worthy 
to be called a village. That spot is Mortemer; and the 
absence of anything remarkable in the Mortemer of the 
present day is the best witness of the event which made 
Mortemer famous in the days of William. In those days 
Mortemer was evidently a town of eome size, according 
to tho standard of the oleventh contury. ‘Thoro is no sign 
that the town was fortified; the tower which still remains 
has doubtless supplanted a donjon of the earlier type; but 
it was the mere private fortress of the lord and not the 
defence of the town itself. The change in the condition 
of the place must have been great. Mortemer ean now 
hardly supply entertainment to a passing traveller; but 
we are told that the French army took up their head- 
* Bonott, 5341 5 


“Nt ospaimnent & tions vivans, 
‘N'as vielles gone ne as cnfans.” 





166 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY, 


emar.x1 burning town, but they found the head of each street 
guarded by Norman soldiers’ Yet, according to every 
account, the French, though taken at such a disadvantage, 
resisted manfally, and kept up the struggle for several 
hours, from the dawn of a winter's day till throo hours 
Utter die after noon The great mass of the French were cut to 
ofthe pieces; a few escaped to skulk in the woods, but the 
French. preater number were cut down cither in the town itself 
or in the attempt to escape. The burned and charred 
ruins, the dunghills, the fields and paths around the town, 
were covered with dead and wounded men. Only those 
were spared who were worth sparing for the sake of their 
ransom. Many a Norman soldier, down to the meanest 
serving-man in the ranks, carried off his French prisoner ; 
many an one carried off his two or three goodly steeds 
with their rich harness. In all Normandy there was not 
Fate of thea prison that was not full of Frenchmen." As for the 
Escape of leaders of the expedition, Odo the King’s brother was 
Oo and among the first to eseape; Reginald of Clermont was 
* oqually lucky.’ But tho princes of Ponthieu were less 
+ Roman de Row, 10055; 
+ Normans gardouent les fesmues, 
E Hi trepan nn chiofa don ruce,” 
So Benolty ss4o4e pt 
morte! bratt wunt wl grant 
Queen viet Den xen? 
Comparo Giovanni Villani’s (xi. 66. Murat. xiif, 948) description of the 
bombards at Groey ; “Che ficieno sf grande tremuoto e romore, che pars 
‘obo Kidjo. tomaume.” 
) Will, Gem. vii. 24. “Mane commis bellum fx contioud ome 
occunbentium ad wsjve nouam ab wixiayae ert protractia.” So Roman de 
Rou, 10039; 
* Dex M matin soleil lovant 
‘Trosk’s nono dat jur passant, 
Soe we lok plank Mets ano Quosatean® (Ord, Vit. 658 A), 
* Roman de Rou, roost ; 
“NL out galres st vil gurgom Od tut altre mont hernoin, 
Ki n'enmenast Prancei prison,  N'out chartre en tute Normendia, 
E bels destricr n'out dour u teets, Ki de Francels ne fust emplic.” 
‘© Equorum yelocitate saluti consulunt,” says Willises of Poitiers (98), 





158 
‘emar. 1%, 
and 


on 
of 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM 1N NORMANDY. 


granted to a brave and rising knight, William of Warren,* 
who took his name from a fortress by the northern Varenne 
which has since exchanged its name for that of Bellen- 
combre He, like his predecessor Roger, and so many 
others, was the Duke's kinsman throngh the forester of 
Cunx;* he lived to become the husband of the Duke's 
stopdaughter,' to win for himself an Karldom in England, 
and to be the forefather of one who, two hundred years 
later, could appeal, like the Bastard himsolf, to bis own 
sword as the surest tenure by which he held it.* 

‘The joyful news, we are told, was carried the same night" 
to the Duke in his quarters on the other side of the Seine. 
His first, fooling: was thankfulness to God, who had given 
him so great a suceess without any loss, at any rate with- 
ont any considerable loss, of his own men’ His next, 
thought was how to improve the occasion so as to get 
nid of the other division of the invading army with even 
less trouble, He would himuelf send the news to his royal 
over-lord. We are not told exactly where the two armies 
were encamped, bat it was doubtless somewhere between 
the Seine and the Dive, and one description places the 


* Oni. Vit. 658A. “Castrum tamen Mortufmaris, in quo tnimloam 
mourn salvnrit, Ut fare, ut reor (it te ouriou to seo the Conqueror on bik 
defonce}, abstall, ved Guillekmo de Guareand, consanguiaco ejay, tlrunl 
Jegitimo, dedi.” All about William of Warren and his Gunily will be found 


* William of Warren atl Roger of Mortemer wore bot dowoended from 
Herfaat, & brother of tho Duchess Gunnor. Will. Gom, wiih. 37. 

* See abors, p. 86, 

* For the famous answor of Jolin Earl of Warren (a dewoeudant of Williaa 
fn the faraale tine) to the Cammissicmers Quo Waeranto” in Edward the 
Fine's time, seo Walter of Haringbargh, i. 6. 

* Boman de Rou, 10063; 

Cele nuit miiame ases teat 
‘Vint la novelo a) Doe en ost.” 

* Bewott ete eloquent on thin bead, and gives ws (j5469 et seqq.) 
picture of Williaa nt his devotions; “see nisius jointes.” ‘a lermnex de 
pilots" 


mM. 


WREPTDES OF WILLIAM OF WARREN. we 


Poemch army boy the sb of a river with wverbanging ii! cae 4 
‘The comp of the Duke was mot far olf, | A weet We 

st ence sent off, to aamanee in a startling way the hee 
which bed fallen om the reral army on the other vile 

of the Seime. Some make the mewenger chen Bat Nia Wath ot 
task a man of lofty and famous lineaye. He waa, we are 

told, Ralph of Toemny or of Conchee, the grandwa of the 
famous Roger, the proad desvendant of Malahule, the man 

who had sought for a kingdom in Spain, and who had been 

one of the scourges of Normandy in the days of William's 
childhood.’ Of Ralph we shall hear ayain at Nonlae, how 

he refused, like Walter Giffard, to undortaka any duty, 
however honourable, which kept him back from donlliyg 

his blows against the English? Thus high of birth and of 

spirit, he and his were connected by marringn with alhor 
houses of equal fame. His own wife was of the line uf 
Montfort ;* his cister was the wife of the fami William 
Fitz-Osbern,’ and his son, in after yours, whon bin hen 

‘wae transferred from Normandy to Hngland, bomen the 
Irusband of one of the daughters of our marty rid Wallhaf* 

Ralph of Tocsoy then, or it may be wane Lovliar tm: tntrory 
senger, ride to the French camp; be climbed, wann muy a, 
aime, some may a lofty rock, which overloond Uae tens, Heide 


dena i057 
“Lage fs om wr sumniere 
Pur wn Sine Sine rvinre 
Ee owe ft roma in fone” 

2 te va Min Ly yl Them tin mrmngees wie Kesiph AD ney 
we aftermet ve Wiliam of Sumungne eh 26. Cniawte “GR Hams ts ht 
eo wear vr me Willan wet avn. at Kee “ofa y, Wille 
@ Peers es my) wu ST mere yummie” wet Wane ye, 
= <oreee, 





+ Fae ue une sue, een 
Bees rates | enn * 


wort ENR oe Li tam Bleterle wo intend aie Yaigytonrs 


Wh wm, week 


160 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


onap, xi, of the King? ‘The stillness of the night was broken, the 


slumbers of the King were disturbed, by a voice, which 
might seem to come from another world, shouting aloud, 
“Frenchmen, awake, ye are sleeping too long; go forth 
and bury your friends who lic dead at Mortemor.” The 
King and his friends talked together and wondered. But 
the tidings thus strangely brought to them were soon 
spread abroad. Some make the Norman baron reveal 
himself, and tell in his own person how Odo had fled, 
how Guy was in bonds, how Waleran was slain.’ Others 
seem to make the news come from some other source, from 
some fugitive escaped from Mortemer, or from that mere 
mysterious power of rumour which scems to travel faster 
than any post.” At all events we are told that a panic 


4 William of Poitiers (99) and Wave (12077), who do not call the 

Ralph of Toemy, make him climb a tree. (Cf, Herod. vi. 79.) 

ers doesnot mention his ponton and Wiliam of Sumtégenel 4) a 

Benott (3£405) mako him elimb the high rockin quodam promo 

monte," seconding to Willian—alrealy spoken of, To climb a treo was 
seemingly below the dignity of a descendant of Malahule, 

* William of Jumfages, followed by Bonolt, mskew Ralph say who he is, 
and dasribe the event of the battle at rome length—at greater Iongth of 
courme ia Benott than in William, ‘This, C think, quite takes away from. 
the Mardling and spectral effect of the mene in Wace, 10077 ; 

“Bin an arbee le fist munter, Alor vou amis enterrer, 

B tuto nuit en haut erier; Ki sunt ooola A Morverner." 


William of Poitiers mys only, “Dux Willchuus nocte intermpestA caute 
Instructam quemdam direxit, qui tristem Regi victoriam propius caxtra: 
Spsiue ob alto arborix por singula inolumavit." Ondorie (658 B) ix mtill 
shorter; “Per Radolfum de Totnls que trans Sequanam contigerant Reg 
‘Praneoram mandavi.” 


+ So T understand Wace (16089) ; 
" Hndomenteee K’al Bei parloont, par tute torre eapandus, 


BE de noveles demnandoent, Ke tut W melx de lor aunts 

Eis vus la novele venue Kstett h Morterer ovcit.” 
Whe had Just before said (10067) ; 

“Ceat une chore, ke novele, E ki bone novele porte 

Ri mult eat errant ot ianelo, ‘Sturement bute a la porte.” 


‘So Will, Pict. 100, “*Fami reforente, que tam fali quam veri nnntia 





WHE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


cuae, xtt. spurred neross the plain of Val-es-danes to smite the rebel 
‘His paliey. of Bayeux with his own hand.! He may have learned— 


Vein of 


perhaps from the teaching of King Henry bimself*—that 
it is not always the duty of a general to thrust himeelf 
forward wherever danger happens to be keenest, Bat it 
is certain that, twelve years later, William was as ready 
as he had ever been for docds of the highest personal 
prowess, whenever personal prowess was the surest way 
to success, Tho difference between William and moat men 
of his age was that he had now learned that it was no 
mark of wisdom or of courage to run rieks which might 
be avoided, or to jeopard his own life und the lives of his 
followers, when the same object might be gained by easier 
means. He had, by this time at lenst, learned to rise 
above the follies of moro chivalry, above the mere sense- 
less love of giving and taking blows without an object. 
Nor had he » spark of that impetuous patriotiem which 
Jed the nobler soul af Harold to deem no shame so great 
‘as the shame of leaving « rood of English ground to be 
harried by the stranger. We may acquit William of all 
wanton oppression ; we may fully believe that the suffer- 
‘ings of his people rousod his indignation’ But he could 
stifle that indignation; he could stand ealmly by and 
behold their eufferings, if he thought that he could gain 
his object better by biding his time and letting the enemy 
for a while work his wicked will. And, mingled with all 


SY tha thera’ da |) certain | element’ of igriin’ rnbctlipenkyia 
5s dallight fs eke ip ok un or snbed wPtch rie Prot Ee 


whole career of the Conqueror. It needed a ready wit to 

send Roger of Toesny, or any other man, to the top 

of a tree or of a rock to announce in tho dead of the night 

that the Fronch had been cut to pieces at Mortemer, 

Here again William is only a representative of his people, 

A touch of pleasantry, however rough, runs through most 
9 S00 woh. il. ps 238, 2 Th pay * Bee above, p. 136, 





164 
CHAR, XE, 
Teinen- 
trusted 
William 
Fite. 
Osbern, 
‘Peace con: 
cluded. 


1048-1063. 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


own name, in the diocese of Evreux, not far from Ralph of 
Toesny's castle and abbey of Conches. The castle was 
built, and was put under the trusty care of William 
Fitz-Osbern? 

At last the King sought for poaco, fis main object 
was to bring about the redemption of the many French 
captives who were still lingering in Norman prison-houses, 
The knights were at last set free on paying their ransoms, 
but their harness remained as the prey of the victora’ A 
more remarkable article of the peace was that by which 
the King engaged not to interfere with any canquests 
which William had made, or might make, nt the expense 
of the Count of Anjou. Henry indeed seems to have done 
more, and to have promised William the regular feudal 
investiture of any such possible conquests.’ This agree- 
ment seems to amount almost to proof positive that 
Geoffrey had not had any share in the late invasion of 
Normandy. It was scomingly as a punishment for his 
defection that hie possessions were now openly offered to 
the Norman, Before long we shall again find Henry and 
Geoffrey allied against William, but just at this moment 
jwe must look upon King and Duke as once more allies 
against the Angevin Count. 


Tt was in William's earlier days of good service to his 
evor-lord that he had first carried his arms, and extended 
his dominion, beyond the range of hills which seeme to 
form tho natural southern frontier of Western Normandy. 


} Will. Gem, vil. 2g. So Bonolt, 35553, who takes the opportunity to 
{give the life of William Fits-Osbern at length. 

* Roman de Rou, 10133 ; 

“Mais li hernets unt vut londé 
A cola ki Toront gasingnié.”” 

* Will, Pict, 99, “Ejux [Regis] vero amenms ob quad dono quodam 
‘Dux jure perpetuo rotinoret quod Gaufrido Andegavorni Comitl abwtdlerat, 
‘quelque wnloret ouforro.” Wi, Malme, iit, 233, “Conventum ut... 5 
‘Comes cropta vel exiplonda Martello jure yondoaret logitiuo,”" 


166 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


cuar. x11. outpost, his own creation of Ambriéres, another donjon 
Ambriire. on 9 height, hard by the point whore the Varenne joins 


the greater stream of the Mayenne. The shattered walls 
of that donjon still bear the impress of William’s age, 
though the district in which it stands is no longer 
entitled to the honours of the Norman name, 
Domfront then had passed irrevocably into William's 
hands, but Ambridres was still, in some way or other, a 


Its former subject of contention. There seems no doubt that William 


fnty 


[1049] 5 


had occupied and fortified the poet in the earlier cam- 
paign’ Possibly it had been since that time taken and 
dismantled by Geoffrey ; possibly the post was to be made 
stronger and more extensive, with a view to further con- 
quests in the same direction. At all events, works of 


ite present some kind at Ambriéres, whether works of mere strength- 


ening. 


Trasupah. ening or of building up from tho ground, wore just now 


an object on which William’s mind was eagerly sot. His 
first act after the conclusion of the peace with France, 
ab the very meeting—was it a meeting with the King 
in person ?—at which the peace was signed, was to sum- 
mon all the chief military tenants of Normandy to appear 
within forty days to help in carrying on the needful works 
at Ambrigres.* A message to the same effect was sent 


William's to Count Geoffrey. The Duke of the Normans would, on 


to 
Martel, 


the fortieth day, appear at Ambriéres with his force and 
take possession of his fortress.’ ‘The prospect of so terrible 
a neighbour struck dread into the heart of the nearest 


1 Soo vol, i. p, 287. ‘The fortification of Armbritres in 1049 ts distinctly 
amerted in tha pawaye of William of Jumiigee there rvferred to: but 
Willian of Poitio certainly mpeaks now a if the onatle had to be built 
rather than merely to be strengthened. 

* Will, Pict. 99. In fpso convwmtn principos milftie war jnsu com 
monuft Dux intra terminoe Martelli Andegavensie wl Auibroras construendas 
‘mature adesse Y 

* Th, “Et quinn hujus inowpti diem eds pee, eumdem Martello per legaton 
‘prnfinivit." The Archclenoon hero bursts into a torrent of admiration, 
Compare William's earlior challenge to Geoffrey. See vol, ii, p, 282, 


Lk 





168, THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


cuar. x11, Cause within the walls of a border fortress. Bat, if the 
arr Norman historian is to be believed, the Norman Duke’s 
Hessom back was no sooner fumed! than the Angevin Count 
(i™ and his allies came hastening to the siege of the strong 
wintam of hold of Ambrires. With Count Geoffrey came his lord, 
Ansliaine- a5 he is callod’—at all events his step-son—Peter, now 
‘William, Count of Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine? He 
came perhaps to avenge the shameful flight of his brother 
from Moulins ;* but with him came another chief in whose 
heart many an old enmity must haye been choked, many 
a bitter remembrance must have been handed over to 
forgetfulness, before he could bring himself to take service 
Odoof in the same host as Geoffrey. Yet so it was; a Broton 
Brtanny. Prince, Odo, tho unclo of tho reigning Count Conan, eame 
to fight under the Angevin banner against the eommon 
Far de enemy at Rouen, The three princes attacked the castle 
‘Ambeltres, Of Ambriéres with all the resources known to the military 
art of the time. An attempt at a storm was beaten back 
hy the defenders. The archers shot their arrows, the 
petraria hurled its stones, the ram was dashed against 
the wall, but all was in vain.’ Meanwhile the news of 
the siege, and of the gallant resistance of the garrison, 
Return of Was borne to Duke William. He gathered his troops 
Willists, with all speed, and hastened, with such haste as he Imew 
how to use when haste was needed,’ to the relief of 
Ambritres. At his mere approach, we are told, the three 


* Will Pict. 109, + Keorcitiia nostri mar divulgato disoeau.” 

2 Th,“ Willelmo, Pictarorum Comite, Domino #uo." Boe vol. i. p. 622. 

* Soo above, p, 138. * Bee above, pe 139 

* Will, Piet. 100, Rndono, Eritannoram Comite.” He was more 
strictly Regent for his nophew. Seo Art do Vérifior les Dates, fh, 895, 

* Ib, “Mindlia, mua, Uibriles sudes, {tem lancew desuper ferlunt, lis 
plorique interomti cadant, alil repelluntur. ic, audsel molimtine eamato, 
allud ineiplunt, Tentant muruin ariote, qui poreumus in ving caatella. 
snuruia frangtiur.” 

Dh. inte, sce i Satin ero inten, warentin 
ire quam maximo properat.” 





170 


omar, xi. 
‘Three 


= 
1055-1058, 


THE LATEE REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


‘The strength of William’s enemies seems to have been 
nearly worn ont by their late eflurts, or else their courage 
was chilled by the ill suecess of their arms. For three 
years Normandy saw neither rebellion nor foreign war, 
William thus had time to devote himself either to the 
prosecution of his vengeance, or to the vindication of 
ecclesiastical discipline, in the deposition of his uncle the 
Primate Malger.' This took place in the same year as 
the campaign of Ambriéres. After that date, besides the 
Duke's quarrel and reconciliation with Lanfrane,* there is 
nothing to toll till three years later, when we come to 
another, and the last, invasion of Normandy by the 
combined forces of France and Anjou. Count Geoffrey, the 
old enemy, was, we are told, ever ready to strike a blow at 
Normandy,” and no doubt the memory of his late losses 
tankled in his mind. Another great expedition was 
planned and carried out, In August, when the corn was 
on the ground.‘ the King and the Count entered Nor- 
mandy in the quarter most convenient for a junction of 
French and Angevin forces, in William's own county of 
Hiesmes,? Their design was a systematic plundering 
expedition through all Normandy west of the Seine, 
‘They were to pass through the district of Hiesmes into 
the land of Bayeux and Caen; then they were to cross 
the Dive, and, after harrying Auge and the district of 


4 See above, p. 97- 

* Bee above, pp. 103. 14 

* WIL. Pict. 10%. ~ Martollus Andegaronsis, nonduns tot siniatrie casfbinx 
fraotus, rainino dofuit, quantum ullatenus virium colligere potuit alducens, 
‘Vix coi hajus fnimici edfum et rabiem Normannise tellus penttts contass 
vel axel satfaret.” So Boman de Rou, 10278; “ Par if cunseil Gittret 
Martel.” So Benolt, 35835. 

* Roman do Rou, 103735 

“ Bnountro oost, ol B16 novel.” 

* Will, Pict. 101, “Per Oximonsom comitatum ad faviem Divan per. 

yenere.” So Will. Gom, vii, 28; Roman de Rou, 10278; Benott, 33866, 





172 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY, 


cnur.an. distriet, seems to have remained untouched. The sea- 
const, especially, the land of William's faithful Hubert, 
was harried as far as the mouth of the Seule. The 
enemy then marched in a south-easterly direction to 

Caen as yet Caon. ‘That town was growing in importance, but as 
yet it neither contained anything which could withstand 
‘the attacks of an enemy nor anything which was likely 
te remain to later days as a memorial of his visit. Caen 
was as yet undefended by walls or castle;* the founda- 
tions of the two great abbeys which are its chief glory 
had not as yet been laid. Whatever Caen then consisted of, 
at was certainly sacked, most likely burned. King Henry 
and Count Geoffrey had now successfully carried out one 
half of their echeme of ravage. They had now to cross 
the Dive, to carry fire and sword into the other half of 
the doomed region. 

The moment for which William had so long been 
waiting had at last come. His policy had been in some 
sort a cruel policy for his Duchy; but it now enabled 
him to strike a vigorous and decisive blow at the retreating 
enemy. French warfare in Normandy waa destined to be 
successful only when the banners of King and Duke floated 
side by side. King Henry had shared in the triumph of 
Val-tedanes; his men bad been smitten by William's men 
in the ambush of Saint Aubin and in the surprise of 
Mortemer; he had now himself to feel the might of 
‘William’s own hand in the sooond surprise of Varaville. 

Bay rach In their march eastward the French bad reached the 
Yamville. Village of that name, the point which had been chosen 
for their passage across the Dive into the land of Auge, 
Varaville, now, and probably then, only a small village, 
lies north-east of Caen, a little way from the left bank 
* Boman de Rou, 10333: 


“Encore ert Caor rans chaxtel, 
3G arrcit fet mur ne quesnel,” 





174 


‘omar. xIT, 


HH 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM 1X NORMANDY, 


settlement of Rolf, the country is of quite a different 
kind. The right bank of the Dive is backed at a short 
distance by a range of hills high enough to form a very 
marked object in any country not strictly mountainous, 
‘They form in fact a bold and picturesque range, stretching 
right away to the seashore. Over these hills the army 
had to make its way into the rich land of Lisieux. The 
vanguard, under the command of the King, had already 
Legun to climb the heights, when unlooked-for sounds 
from the rearward smote on their ears. From the high 
ground of Bastebourg,’ commanding a view of the whole 
valley, King Henry turned round only to behold the utter 
discomfiture of his host. The Duke of the Normans had 
laid his plan with all the subtlety of his wily brain, and 
he was now carrying it out with all the might of his 
irresistible arm. He had watched the spot, he bad watehed 
the hour, which the enemy seem not to have watched, 
and ho came upon them at the very moment when he was 
able to strike a deadly blow with most effect, and at the 
sume time once more to avoid the necessity of meeting 
his lord face to face in battle. William knew every move- 
ment of the enemy; when the right time was come, he 
marched forth from Falaiso with such troops as he had 
kept around him, and summoned all the peasantry of the 
district to jom them, They came, armed as they were 
able to arm themselves, with clubs, darts, anything ; no 
kind of warrior, no kind of weapon, was unfit to bear 
a part in the enterprise which William now designed. 
He marched in stewlth up the valley by Bavent, and 


9 Roman de Rou, 16405 ; 
““Munté fu de sux Basteboro, ‘Vit les mares, vit les valies 
‘Vit Varavile @ vit Cxbaro, De phusars pats lunges @ Ween" 
Wace alone mentions the names Vorsville and Bastebourg. I visited the 
battlefield in May 1868 fn company with the late M. Le Gost of Cwon, 
od T can, a@ at Vale-Dunes and everywhere elie, bear witness to the 
nccitracy of Waco's local description, 





176 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY, 


war. xm. causeway, resistance was almost impossible. A desperate 


effort carried the foremost among them to the banks of 


naruand the river; but, except to skilful swimmers, the ford was 


ot 


impassable because of the tide. Miultitudes fell into the 
water and were drowned; the surface of the Dive was 
soon covered with floating bodies and barness.' Others 
strove to escape how they might among the ditches and 
paths of the marshy shore. They cast away their weapons, 
and blundered on hopelesily through the unknown and 
treacherous country. The Normans, knowing the ground, 
followed, and cut them down without merey. Of the 
whole rear-guard of the Fronch army not a man is said 
to have escaped. All were slain, or taken captive, or 
swept away by the waters. 

Tt must not be forgotten that all this went on under 


ve of the —and doul lis 
=" the eye of the King of the French—and doubtless of hi 
ter fom Angevin ally also—who was looking down from the high 


ground which the vanguard had already reached, Beneath 
him in full view lay the plain, the causeway, the stream, 
the marshes, where the worl of death was going on, Like 
Xerxes, Henry beheld his subjects cat in pieces before 
his eyes; but unlike Xerxes, he was at least eager to go 
to their help. The Norman poet tells us how the King 
saw his men speared and shot down, some struggling in 
the waters, some bound and borne off as captives.’ His 


* Roman de Rou, 10377; 
“ Mult véiouice herneis Hote, 
Homes plungler ot affondrer.” 
Ch. Ving, Ain, 1 1005 
"Whi tot Simocis correpta ub undis 
‘Scuts virdm goleaaque et fortis corporn volvit.” 
‘Waco, it must’ bo remembered, ecnostving the bridge to have been thar, 
attributes to ite breaking what was really owing to the coming in of the tide, 
* Roman de Rou, 104105 
Vit'wa grant gent kia duil vat,  Ciax ki nolent ne pot seenrre, 
Prondre vit how uns  loier, Ne low prizone ne puet recorry” 
Li olives vit om mor ndior5 





173 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


ouar x. of the new King had been brought from a distant land, 
Hh Row Henry saw that it would be hard to find any wift among 
— the princely houses of Western Europe who did not stand 
to him within the forbidden dogrees, and he was specially 
warned by the troubles which his father had undergone 
through his first uncanonical marriage.’ He therefore 
sought for a bride in o land among whose princes there 
was little fear of any kindred or alfinity with a King of 
the French, He married Anne, the daughter of the 
Russian Duke Yaroslaf.? The princes of Russia boasted 
of a connexion with the Emperors of the East; and the 
happy ambiguity of the Macedonian name* had led the 
great dynasty which was founded by a Slavonian groom 
to boast of a descent from the ancient Kings of Polla 
and Edessa. The Russian princess brought with hor into 
France the ancient Macedonian name of Philip, and her 
son became the first of a long line of kings, princes, and 
nobles, through whom a name hitherto unknown to 
Western Europe became one of the most renowned in 
Cercaation French history. In the last year of his father’s lifetime, 
won of the young Philip was, according to several precedents, 
FRM he crowned at Rheims, and the ceremony was attended by 
1039-60, most of the great vassals of his kingdom." We do not 
however hear whether the Duke of the Normans so far 


9 Bee vole i. p45: 
* Wi, Grin, vii. 38,“ Mathildem, Salinsclodi( Regis Rugorum fillam, 
in matrimonio habuit.” So the fragmont in Duchdme, ty. 150. But her 
‘name wos Anno, and Willlam of Juutzyes has confounded ber with » former 


(hile marriage ves nore at leagth Karsnurin, Histoire do Rouse, fl. 38, #046 

* Anne, dughier of Rénoanoe ancl Theophaad and alsar of Baal the 
Second, marriod Viadimir of Russia, Seo Dusange, Hist, By. 144. 

* Conat. Porph. do Cerem, & 96 aud the commentary of Ieteke, vol. tt 
p. af ed. Bonn, Finlay, Byz, Emp. &. 238, 272. 

® He was crownol at Prntansat 1089, Chron. Rem. ap, Lad, i, 360, 
and the fragment ia Duchime, fr. 140, 





180° THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


cour. xn, Geoffrey's Inst days som to have been clonded over by 
ae ill-suecess in other quarters. He indeed recovered the city 
octiey of Nantes Grom Howsl of Britanny* ‘But we aleo read of 
Era his being besieged by his step-son, Poter or William 
of Poitiers, in the castle of Saumur, on tho steep which 

looks down, not on the Varenne or on the Mayenne, but 

on the mighty Loire itself? ‘The siege was raised through 

the sudden death of the Aquitanian prince,* und we hear 

of no further exploit on the part of Geoffrey of the 


Saintogne, while Futk Rechin, already known to us as 
one of our authorities for Angevin history, received the 
city and county of Tours.’ Normandy was thus delivered 
from both her enemies, In her next warfare we shall 
find her sooking, not merely to defend her borders, but to 
extend them, 


Tt may be worth notice that the great’ invasion of 
Normandy which ended, so disustrously for the French, 


* Chron. 5. Maxeut. 1057. “Kodem anno civitas Natnetion Gautredo 
Comfti ab Hoel Cotnite reddita eat, qui non bon news fide waferre eam Il 
tentavit.” 

+ Th, 1098“ Willermus, qal et Potirus, oognomento Acer, adunate ex: 
ercita vallarit cxetrum Salnurum ema! ot Gaufredam Martella inchusit 
ine” 

7 Tb. “Ubi inbiando dum nptaret ad bellum exetoltum, dolore dywen- 

mortwus 


regno Gostredus.”” So Gat “regnum” fin the former entry fe not a mene 
igure of speech, strange as is the application of tho word to the dominions 
of e Duke of Aquitaine. 

‘Th. 1060,“ Monachali habita pris suscopto aly Airaudo abbate Sancti 
Nioolol.” 8 Chron, And. ap. Labbé, i. 287, Pulk. ap, D'Achery, ii. 253. 
* Ord. Vit, 532 B, Chiron, 8, Maxent, 1060, Cort. Cons, 258) 


HAROLD'S FIRST FRENCH JOURNEY. 181 


in the rout of Varaville, happened in the very year in cuar. xn. 
which there is every reason to believe that Earl Harold of Vere, 
made his remarkable journey to examine into the political Haris 
state of Gaul.! His inquiries might perhaps lead him to/os5°% 
different conclusions, according as his visit happened before 

or after the utter discomfiture of Henry and Geoffrey. 

Yet the campaign of Varaville could do little more than 

add one more to the many proofs that William was a 

foe whom no enemy could afford to neglect. I have Harckd's 
already hinted that the mysterious words of Eadward’s Portis.” 
Biographer? may perhaps be taken as implying that 

Harold sought the friendship, if not the actual alliance, 

of the King or of some of his great vassals, as a support in 

case of any hostile movements on the part of Normandy. 

If this be so, we may see in the “almost contemporary 

deaths of 60 many French princes a reason why such 
negotiations Lore no fruit. King Henry, Geoffrey Martel, Changes in 
William of Aquitaine, all died within two years after ofGen by 
Harold’s journey. By their deaths the political state the desths 
of Gaul was altogether changed, and changed in a direc- Marta and 
tion altogether favourable to William of Normandy. Honty. 
William of Aquitaine was the only one of the three who 

had a successor at all likely to act as a check upon any 

designs of his Norman namesake. Guy, Geoffrey, or 
William, whichever we are to call the prince who made 

so hasty a flight from Moulins? was not likely to 
cherish much love for William, but he scems to have 

been mainly occupied by wars with Anjou, and by 

an expedition into Spain, in which last, by some means 

or other, he was followed by Norman warriors. In any 





+ See vol. ii. pp. 40, 430, 665. * See vol. i. p. 666. 

* See above, p. 139. 

* Chron. 8. Maxent. 1061-1062 (Labbé, ii. 210). ‘The war with Anjou 
rose out of the old question about Saintogne. The Spanish expedition is 
thus described ; ‘Inde [from Saintes after its surrender by the Angevins] 


ers 


continental 
allies, 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM LN NORMANDY. 


case his solitary help could be of little serviee. If Harold 
hoped to mect any attack on England on the part of 
William by a diversion in his rear in the form of a joint 
attack of his continental neighbours, the chance of organ- 
izing such a confederacy died with King Henry and 
Geoffrey Mariel. Under the regency of Baldwin the 
court of Paris became the closest ally of Normandy, and 
the new Count of Anjou seems to have been fully occupied 
at home. We hear of him chiefly as engaged in asserting 
certain novel claims over the Abbey of Marmoutiers,' and 
as having, at the very crisis of the fate of England, to 
defend his dominions against his brother Fulk.” He was 
therefore by no means likely to bear a part in any schemes 
of policy which reached as far as Britain. The death 
of the Emperor Henry a few years earlier had deprived 
England of anothor friend. She had in short no con- 
tinental ally left except Swegen of Denmark. 1 merely 
throw out these remarks as vague hints on a very obscure 
subject ; but it is certainly striking that the intentionally 
mystified language of the Biographer should admit of 
an interpretation which falls in so well with the state 
of things at the particular moment of Harold’s journey. 


§ 3. Me War of Maine. 
1060-1064. 


‘The main interest of this period of William's reign 
gathers round his great conquest of the Cenomannian 


bien in Hirpaninm eum multis Normannis, Parbastam ofvitatem nomint 
Ohrietinno, cunctls qui in of ernnt priux perditiy, adquiadvit,” 

* Gest, Cons, ©. 10 (ap. DY Achory, fii. 258). ‘The abbey had hitherto 
remained in the patronage of the King, » position quite difforent from that 
of the Norman sad Aquitanian Prelates. See vol. &. pp. 206, 207. This 
Mlustrates the inferior pritfon of the Counta of Anjou, aa orfginally holders 
under the Duchy of France. 

* Gent, Conn. 6. 18, p- 259, and Full’s own story in p. 258. 

* William of Poitiers (102) says of him, ax compared with his uncie ; 





“184 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


enar, xt, his share in the Conquest of England. We may say the 
same of Hugh of Grantmesnil, ono of the joint founders 


Myrteriows Robert defended hia castle against the Duke, and he 
Robert died by a strange and suspicions denth in the year which 
pepinl carried off King Henry and Count Geoffrey. He sat 


apples in her hand; he snatched two from her in jest; 
‘Adven- he ate of them and died.* His nephew Armold succeeded 
a him, and for throe years he carried on a devastating war~ 
Aroid of faro in the neighbourhood of Lisicux He then made 
to60-" pence with the Duke, on condition of going to the wars 
in Apulia After a while he came back, bat only to die 
by poison given him through the plots of the ruthless 
daughter of William Talvas* 
Panish- Another person who now fell under the Duke's dis- 
Abbe. Pleasure was Robert of Grantmesnil, brother of Hugh, and 
Eebst of co-founder, and now himself Abbot, of Saint Evroul. Ho 
Kemal. was now deposed and banished by William. I forbear 
to enter on the endless details of the negotiations for his 


* Seo voll fi, ps 230 

* Ontario tolls this story twice with slight differences. The fit tino 
454 D) be makes Robert's desth happen while be is besleged hy the Duke ; 
*Pomo venenato, quod conjugl swe vi rapuceat, comesto post quinque dies 
‘Tmortaus ext." ‘The second time (478 C) bo tells the story aa K have given 
ie fn the text, Dut without any mention of the sigge, and with the im- 
Portant addition “uxory comtradiomte comedit.” Tho important point of 
‘course is how far Adolaide, and bow far through her her kinsman the Duke, 
contemplated the death of Roburt or of any ane else. 

* Ont. Vit, 481 D. + Th 48g Ae 

* Onderic tells the tale at length, 488, 489, 





186 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM ([N NORMANDY. 


onar.xar. origin of the famous and misrepresented curfew, What- 
ever was ites object, it was at loast not ordained aa any 
special hardship on William’s English subjects. 


Thecox. We now come to that great acquisition of William's 
Siac’ arms and policy which ranks in the annals of bis reign 
1063. next to the Conquest of England iteclf. The various 
fortunes, the takinge and the rotakings, of ‘the city of 
Le Mans ond its County, form o constantly recurring 
snkject thronghoct. the remaining story of Willam and 
of bis sons. And the object struggled for was worthy 
OM Nor- of the struggle. The land and city over which William. 
umn chit wag now about to extend his long dormant claime was 
Maine, 4 prize which bocame one of the proudest jewels in his 
continental ecoronet. ‘The Dake of the Normans, even 
the King of tho English, thought it no scorn to add to 
those loftier titles a third which dated from this earlier 
Bepsaing conqaests As Prince or Count of the Cenomannians, 
ize, Wiliam began tho first of those stages of continental 
othe Con. *8Standizement, which, before another century had passod, 
Hint, extended the sway of the sovereign of England and Nor- 
mandy from the Orkneys to the Pyrenees, and made him 
master of the mouths of the Loire and the Garonne no 
less than of those of the Seine and the Thames. The 
work had been begun by the conquest of Demfront and 
Ambriéres; it was now to be extended over the whole 
of the land which lies betwoen Normandy and Anjou. 
ee A long history, princely, municipal, and episcopal, forms 
the annals of the Cenomannian state and city. The Ceno- 
mannian tribe! was illustrious in the carliest legendary 


bate history of Gaul; it shares with the Senones the credit 


Ul 


+ As cutal, tho Gaulich mame of the tribe appears in slightly different 
forms in the present names of the city and of the county. The original 
uaine of the city, which doo uot apprar in Casax, was Sobiliunwa, Soe 
Dict, Georg, art, Conomani. 





188 ‘THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY, 


i ore ita ri! Fee ighuy eres NT 
ee a he Morwings and the carly Karlings, In those times 


under the the name of Cenomannia, city and district, appears over 
Kame) and over again, as a post of importance, an outpost 
amarch against Broton enemies and afterwards against Scandi- 


Heat, navian invaders? Tt was not uncommonly placed in the 
ant Neth: hands of members of the royal house.’ But these inter= 


Mainoin ‘The history of Maine and Le Mans with which we are 
Haast Smeediately concerned begins in the tenth century. We 
have seen* that the Norman Dukes put forward some 


fs (From Valentinian and Valens in 465 to Theelodiun and Valeatiaian 
in 44.) Bot a more remarkable mention af tho Defmsor occurs in the 
‘Voteros Formuke Andegavoneen in Matillon, Vet, An. iv. 234 1 leave 
the pasage in tho Latin of King Childebers ; “Cum juxta consustadinem 


‘simul ot ommie Curia puplicn dixerunt: Patent tibi coteeis puplicd, pro: 
requore que optaa!" What was Inw at Angers wae not unlikely to be law 
at Le Mans. 
4 We shall oome in my next volume to the “Conspimatio quar oom, 
sounfonen yoeabauit” in the days of Bebop Arnold, Wet, Ann, iti *3r5. 
7 Seo tho “Diwertation sur les Inoursions Normandes dans Le Maine," 
Lahn meee ts stent He: 
tradition placer no leas a person than the farnous Roland ationg 

thea oes ‘See Voinin, 4. 271, ‘This filly in with ix description fn 

1, Vita Car. 0, ix. ns Hiroediasiti Betttaantel eal pretty 
* Bee vol A pps 175, #76. 





THE LATER REIGN OP WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


saarau. surnamed after the Hebrew King or not, was reigning 


PEE 


i 


vi 


Inte in the tenth and early in the eleventh century, and 
that ho was the futher of the better known Count Herbert, 
‘He had groat disputes with Bishop Sainfred of the house 
of Belesme, a Prolate of whom the chronicler of the Ceno- 
mannian Bishops draws no favourable picture? He is 
charged with wasting the revenues of his see in grants 
to Falk of Anjou and to Burchard Count of Vendéme, 
in order to gain their help against the nearer enemy? 
‘It was perhaps through the instigation of the Prelate 
that Falk invaded Maine, and brought the land and ite 
ruler into yassalage, if not into actual subjection? Hugh 
appear also as an ¢nemy of Normandy, as an ally of Odo 
of Chartres in an attempt on Tilli¢res, and as escaping 


"only by a mean disguise from the pursuit of its valiant 


defenders.* This must have been towards the end of his 
days, ag the foundation of Tillitres comes within the 
reign of Richard the Good. The enmity between the 


Dog. The Art de Vériiier les Dates (Il. 830) wems to know only ome 
‘Hough, ho begins to relgn 9§§ “ou environ.” Hugh tho father of Herbert 
fs perfectly well adecttained ; the only quostion is whather ho ts tho aaine aa 
tho Hugh and the Hugh-David whose charters are printed by M. Volda 
(. g41), A Count David appears in Robert do Monte (Perts, vi. g15) as 
a rebel ngainat King Robert, in puuiahment for which rebullfon, “deiit Rex 
Goufrido Grimgonella homayium illiuy ot ipam civitetem, eb quidquid. 
Ihnbebat in eplscopatu Genotannend.” This ts of course the satne story 
thot we havo just had before, Ax the Counts of the tenth eontury do not 
itmodiately concer my nubject I do not feel called om to device between 
the dimgrosing doctors ancient or modern. 

4 Ho was probably married; nt least thore was s person én hls house 
Sige iha ogee ot Se kop (YD Best nae 


* Vek. An. iii. 297,“ Venit ad Bungantom Vindocinensem Comitom," 
then follows the list of tho property alienated to the Count, but T lo net find 
‘any account of thie mattor in the life of Burchard in Duckies, iv. 116. 

* Ord, Vit. $52 B, Herbert is introduced “post mortem Hugonis patrie 
‘sul quem Fuleo senior sibi vlolenter subjugirat.” 

* See the story fn Wil. Gem, ¥. 10. 





192 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


oae.xu, brought about a temporary peace.’ But Herbert was 
not afraid to measure himself against a much more 
dangerous enemy, It was in warfare against Fulk of 
Anjou, whose authority he cast aside, that he won his 
Bie eo Coun rat So constant were the nightly 


ie Sh upleeagdenerpatearat aan 078 
steep by the Mayenne, men and dogs were ever on the 
alert, and did not dare to slomber.’ These exploits must 
belong to the later years of his reign; for, at ite be- 

Hivrhare ginning, we find him acting as an ally or vassal of Anjou 

Taito at the battle of Pontlevois against Odo of Chartrest 

Pontlevol. Indeod the Angevin writers allow that tho victory on 
‘their side wae in great measure owing to the courage 
and conduct of Herbert and his followers. Ton years 

* Palbert, wo ary told (Vet, An, u, 15 soe vole i. p. 438), ‘tune temporin 
eoplentia ot sanctitete Inter Golliarum Eplsoupes, welut Lucifor inter cetera: 
‘astra cosll, reqplendebst.” Bulhort x to ecaommunionte him “ suetoritate 
livin, nts rocipincoret." Fullyert's divine authority sours to have reachot 
‘beyond his own diocese, He wrote @ letter “sale satin oomditam,” amt 


as Archhishop, not, au one would havo expected, of Tours, but of Rhelms. 


Eeiyilans-Cunen 
fre ingenti probitaty promeruit."  Geofuy’s title of Martel sean to be tho 


i 


* Soo vol. ft p, 272. 
Seo Count Fulk in D'Achory, i. 233, and Goat. Cons. ib. 353. Herbart 
fa “miles ncorriann,” snd his Cenorannian poldiers deal “fervctmsimas ibaa” 





194 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY, 


omar. xt. see.' He took one step however than which none could be 
Ho come more fatal, and one which illustrates the peculiar position 
Biot of the bishopric, After all the grants that had been made 
Anjo? of the temporal sovereignty of Maine, the royal rights 
over the charch of Le Mana were still in the hands of 
the King. Whother he held them strictly as King, or 
as Duke of the French, was now no longer a practical 
question.” In either case the Bishop still held, not of 
the local Count, but of his over-lord at Paris, In short, 
throughout the territories which had formed part of the 
Duchy of France, the surrender of the royal rights, es 
pecially in ecclesiastical matters, was by no means so 
complete ag it was in the great duchies north and south 
of the royal dominions.* The Count of Anjou or of Maine 
did not, after all, possese the same undivided and un- 
interrupted sovereignty within his own states which be- 
Jonged to the Duke of the Normans. Bishop Gervase, 
a vassal of the King, unable to defend himself against 
his neighbour the Count or the Count's guardian, receiving 
no help from his own lord, petitioned the King to grant 
the royal rights ovor the see, the rights of advocacy or 
patronage, to the Count of Anjou for life.* The grant was 
made; greater strife than before arose between the Bishop 


* Herbert Bacoo kept him out of the bishoprick for two years, Vote dn. 
Ail. #304. 

* Compare the rvlations of Normandy to the Capetian Kings, yoh 
Pe 245. 

+? Soo vol. fl. p, 206, 

* Vet. in. iif, 30g, “ Videos voro Prowl aaa 
egw poh fe lps Dorsees pon, Scots ytti sstdonk as 
Heuries, quod utéram non potitmet, sciicet ut darot episoopatam Gauftde 
Andegayorum Comiti, solummodo dum viverot, ut liberius » Comite Ceno- 
mmannico illum defindoret, {lo ctonim mortuo in reglam mann rediret.” 
‘The sccuewhat startling phrase of the grant of the blahoprisk to the Couns 
‘of Anjou (even thongh the Count of Anjou was an hereditery canon of 
Saint Martin's at Tours) ean only mean tho graut of the lay eights and 
duttes of Advocatio, 





196 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


cuar. xt. was dead, that Geoffrey had taken possession of Le Mans, 
Gemer that the citizens had received him joyfully, and had 
driven out the widow and the children of Hugh, his young 
Tosravbr, suecessor Herbert and his three sisters Gervase now 
thought it was time to yield; he gave up his enstle, but 


mandy. the court of the Duke of the Normans.* It does not 
WS som that Williata actively interfered on his behalf, but 
he gave bim an honourable reception, and kept him 
as his guest till a prospect was opened to the homeless 
Bishop of obtaining at once a higher and a more peaceful 
Gervce position among the prelates of Ganl. While Gervase 
Tiihep of tetied in Normandy, the primatial eee of Rheims became 
Rhwim- -yneant by the death of its Archbishop Guy, Gervase was 
now raised to the first place among the prelates and princes 
of the Parisian Kingdom, and it fell to his lob to pour 
the cil of Remigius and Hlodwig on the head of the 
youthful Philip.* 
Death of ‘The affairs of Normandy and Maine have now become 
om directly connected, and the connexion between the two 
Herbert's countries becomes closer at every moment, The death 
of Geoffrey seemed to open to Herbert a chance of re- 


4 Vet. An. iil, 307%,“ Civos vero Conomannici uxorem Hugonis cum 
infratibus ploranverm per unam portam projecerunt, ot Genfridum Comite 

intrare fecerunt."” 

* 1b. “Qoum autem audfiet proud Gervasius tn vineulie que 
feciment Keroo Cenomannict (thie can hardly be walle] vite diffidens, 
non habult aliquam spem ultra vivendi; venit Annolit castellum Lit 
reddidit, Dom hme agerentur, Comes Ganfridux Gervadum de earvere exire 
permidt, tall videlloct mcramento, ut quamdiu ipso Gaufridus adviveret, 
tutes elvitatem Cenomannicam Gervastus non intranet,” 

2 1b. Quum ver videret resol quod neque in urbem necque En 
castellum suum poset intraro, abéit ad Willelmum Normaaniss Comitem, 
ac quidquid ef Gauftidus feclt vel quomode eum tradidit, ii momens 
‘rettalit.” 


* Chron, Ret, 1059, Labbs, i. 360. See above, p. 178. 





198 


‘TALE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY, 


nar. x1. Toutonio name of Gilbert ; the two others were honoured 


with the patriarchal appellations of Enoch and Elijah, and 
the bearer of the last name, under the modified form of 
Helias or Helie, we shall meet with as one of the noblest 
characters among the men of the next generation.’ Mar- 
garet, the other daughter, who must have been many 
years younger than Gersendis, and of whose beauty and 
virtues we read rapturous descriptions, was still un 
tmarriod* Herbert now addreseed himself to the Duke 
of the Normans. William’s own days of trial and perse- 
eution were now over; he had come forth honourably ont 
of all his difficulties; he had smitten all his enemics at 
home and abroad ; he was now well fitted to appear either 
as a protector or as a conqueror. Moreover he was 
aotually in poswssion of part of the Cenomannian county ; 
all his conquests up to this time, Domfront, Ambridres, 
and the Rock of Mabel,’ had been made at what might 
be called the expense of Herbert himself. ‘Thoro was no 
great chance of recovering them from the prince who had 
£0 vigorously clutched the straw at the moment of his 
birth,‘ and who in his later days as firmly refused to take 
off his clothes befare he went to bed. But, at any rate, 
more might be guined by way of submission than by way 
of aggression. Herbert therefore commended* himself to 


+ Oni. Vit. §32.B, “Tertis voro Jobannt Domino onatel quod Flecohia 
dicitar nupsit, que marito suo tree Uberos, Gulsbertuum, Hellam et Enoch 
peperit.” John was, according to Onderic (684 C), the son of a danghtar of 
‘Herbert Wake-Dog. 

William of Poitiers (105) hns much to my about the virtuos and early 
death of Margaret; * Hae yenorom virgo, nomine Margarita, tnsiyni 
specie, decentior fuit omni margarita.” On the name Margaret see vol. 7 


P T49+ 

* Boe above, p. 169. 

* See vol, il. p. 178. 

* Will. Pict. 103. “Hugo... Goufeodi tyrimnide motuens ommino 
deleri, Normannim Ducem Willelmum, sub quo tutus foret, supple slit, 
smanibus ef seve dodit, cuncta sua ab oo, ut miles a domino, recepit." Ord, 











THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


nar. xn. marriage.’ By the terms of the treaty, Maine now passed 


to William, According to Norman accounts, Herbert’s 
Jast breath was spent in setting forth the rights of the 
Norman Duke, and in calling on his friends and subjects 
to seek for no other as their lord. Almost forestalling 
the words of the English Chronicler, he warned them that 
the yoke of William would be light to those who accepted 
it willingly, but heavy indeed to those who dared to with- 


Paviling- etand him.’ But the mass of the people of city and 
ote county were of another mind. They doubted the lightness 
wut of the Norman yoke in any case.’ And the treaty between 


R 


iu 


" 


fg 


Biota, 


Herbert and William bad sacrificed the rights of several 
members of Herbert's family. Herbert had, as he hoped, 
secured the suecession to the descendants of one of his 
sisters. But no such descendants were in being; Robert 
and Margaret wore not married, if they were eo much as 
betrothed, at the time of his death. There was therefore 
no kind of sccurity that, if William were once let in, the 
county would ever go back to the descendants of its 
ancient lords, Then again, though Herbert had left no 
mule heir, he had kinsfolk in the female line whose rights 
were as good as these of the unborn children of Margaret. 
We read of no movements at this time on behalf eithor 
of the Marquess of Liguria or of the Lord of La Fléche, 
‘the claims of both of whom were pressed in after times. 
But a strong party, the patriotic party, as it would seem, 
throughout the province, asserted the rights of Herbert's 


* aunt Biota and of her husband Walter of Mantes, the 
‘alter 


‘aud nephew of Endward of England, ‘The city was held for 


# Will, Piet. 163. “Que priuxquam nubiles porreniaet sd annoe, 
morbo ipse interiit." 

* Tb. * No quererent alfum, pretar quem pe dominim oly, hmredem, 
siti, rolinquervt, Cuil ed yolontes jareant, love sorvitium tolersturos foro, 
i vi mubocti, forsitan grave." Seo vol, i, p. 167. 

* Ord Vit 487 D. “Quin Normannioum jugum his quibas imminet. 
gravissimum est, subtro nimie formidabant.” 


4 Le 





202 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


cxar,xi. nobles and citizens were united for Count Walter and 
against the Norman. 
Willna's A struggle therefore could not be avoided. “William 
Yim for was the least likely of all mon tamely to giv up cither 
— a real or a fancied right, or even to pass by a decent 
pretext for extending his powor. Maine was to be con- 
quered. But William had no more mind to hurry in the 
business of conquest than in any other business, He 
His moa began by healing a few wounds at home. It was now that 
hore. he called back from banishment Hugh of Grantmesnil 
and Ralph of Toesny,' men whose offences were very 
doubtful, and whose services in the war were likely to 
* bo useful. It was now also that ho made that agreement 
with Arnold of Eecalfoy by which that turbulent spirit 
wae sont off to the wars in Apulia? The plan of the 
campaign was thoroughly characteristic. William saw 
that the prize must be his in the long run. Maine alone 
could not: withstand Normandy, and Walter's chance of 
finding allies was just now not great, William's pane- 
gyrist tells us—and we have no reason to doubt the fact 
—that he was anxious to win his conquest with the least 
possible amount of bloodshed. It was a policy still more 
obvious to farbear to destroy or damage a noble city which 
he designed to be one of the chief jewels of his coronct, 
And it was only reasonable military foresight to avoid 
the risk of a rash attack on a strong fortress which might 
Hedeter Ye won in another way.' ‘The city was the main object 
hsrry tho we see throughout that: the capital was in a special manner 
Sodtsteep the head of the province, that Le Mans was Maine in 


1 Bee above, p. 183. * Seo above, p. 184. 
* Will. Pict. 104. “Unceniium confertim fnjicere, ut urbem totam 
‘eucindery, auscs iniqua trucidare, quantom ingenio sbundavit et virfbus, 


‘temporantia,’ 
Th. ¢Malult . , validisehmam urbem rolinquere incolomern, oxpet 
of que munimentum terre quam tn manu habebat.* 


204 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM [N NORMANDY. 


ouar. xx, possession which could hardly be overvalued as u strong 
military post, as the centre of a rich and flourishing pro- 
vince, a8 a city itself rich and flourishing, according to 
the standard of those times. To us it is mainly attractive 
as a spot on which the history of a long series of ages, 
bofore and after the days of William, is still plainly 
written. Le Mans is one of a type of cities which is 
spread over a great part of Gaul, but to which England, 
and even Normandy, can present but feeble approaches. 
‘A steep hill rises abruptly above the river Sarthe to the 
west, and somewhat less abruptly above the lower ground. 
to the east, The ground also falls away in the like sort 
to the south, while the hill is continued in the higher 
ground to the north, of which it forms the natural 
ending. Tho height therefore, though washed by the 
river on one side only, does in effect assume a sort of 
peninsular shape. Like most lofty sites of towns, the 
rise of the ground is such as would not be remarkable in 
a hill whose sides were covered with grass or wood; but 
it is quite enough to make the post strongly defensible, 
and to make the strects of the still existing city steep 
Growth of and hard to climb, This point, like so many points of the 
finfecl* some kind, had, in unrecorded days, become the site of 
a Gaulish hill-fort, and the Gaulizh hill-fort had, as usual, 
medieval, grown into a Roman city. The name of the universal 
| conquerors still dwells there, and the most ancient quarter 
iy. of the city is still traditionally known as Za vieil/e Rome, 
Tho original Gaulih rampart was, in tho later days of 
the Empire, exchanged, at the bidding of the great 
Constantine, for a wall of Roman masonry, large portions 
of which nre still left. ‘They show how small a part of the 
site of the present town was covered by the famous city 
of old. The Roman wall still fences in only the higher 
ground; the fortifications wero not brought down to the 
river till Cenomannia had, in the thirteenth centary, been 


ivan 
Snare 
‘Le Maus, 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


forms its main approach, may well have been the one 
‘* through which the procession swept, which went forth 
singing hymns and swinging censers, to welcome the 
prince who had won the city without shedding the blood 
of friend or foe! With equal joy, real or pretended, men 
of all ranks in the city went forth to greet the conqueror; 
shouts of applause met the eur of William as he entered; 
men knelt as ho drow near, and hailed the Dake of the 
Normans as the lawful lord of Le Mans. Walter, putting 
the best face upon the matter, agrecd to the surrender 
with seeming willingness. William had neither motive 
nor temptation to further harshness. He took peaceful 
possession of his conquest, but he took care to guard it 
after the usnal fashion of a Norman conqueror, In the 
north-western angle of the city, near the point where 
William, advancing from his own Duchy, had doubtless 
made his triumphal entry, a Nerman donjon now rose 
in dangerous neighbourhood to the minster and to the 
dwelling of its Bishop, So near were the two buildings 
that, in later days, the towers which, as at Exeter and 
Geneva, formed the finish of the transepts were deemed 
to be a standing menace to the royal fortress. Of these 


inclined to dink that the shell of tho prosent nave fa older than Vulgria— 
tho western ortal has specially ancient Look—and that the work buth 
of Valgein aad Tis suocemor Arald (sce vol, fy. ¢, 20) was confined to the 
choir and transept, Vulgrin's work waa badly built and fell down, #o that 
Arnold had to begin sgxin. 

1 William of Potters (104) beoumes uloquent on the joyeure enérée. OF 


quemadmodum. precowienes, 
sonanl sacra cantica” So Onleric (488 A), with curious confision 
between Biahop Vulgrin and his succosnr; “Comomannicam urbe, evibus 
ultro sexe dedentibux, cam ingenti tripudio reopit, aique Domnux Ernaldus, 
ojuedem urbin Preul cum cloricia et monachis revestitin textus cracom|u0 


Lailares yultur, lasts vooes, plauman conratulanten." 





Biota. 
Williara 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


In the mouths of William’s enemies, ramour further added 
‘that the poison was given by William’s order, when thoy 
were his goesta in his own castle at Falaise. This is one 
of those occasions on which the remark must be again 
repeated that the charge of secret poisoning is one which 
it is easy to bring and hard to disprove. In this case 
the charge is certainly not brought home to William by 
any direct: evidence. It seems indeed to rest on nothing 
better than the wild outeries of William's enemies at 
a drunken revel.’ To stoop to a crime of this kind, which 
admitted of no defence and which could be cloked by no 
self-delusion, seems to me to be quite inconsistent with 
a character like William’s, in which, among all its darker 
features, a certain regard to the first principles of morality, 
a distinct clement of the fear of God, was never wholly 
wanting, I venture therefore to cast the tale aside as 
simply part of that stock of uncertified scandal of which 
William’s age was so fruitful. 


protgens, hareditaris amitveret. Clades o Normannis tlata victnftatt 
‘Medanti ot Calvimontis inetum of faefobst de major.” 

+ Tho direct charge against William fs found only, as far as T tnow, in 
the haranyue which Orderfe puts into the mouths of the conspirators at the 
Dride-ale of 1076 (534 B); “ Gualterium Pontodii Comite, Kduantt Regie 
nopotam, cum Bioth uxoro mut, Falosi hovpitavit, et nofaeii potfone imal 
ambos uni nocte peremit." ‘Thix one would suppow to be after the war 
render of 2 Mans, Tat in the necount which Ondorio olawhare gives in 
‘his own person William is not distinctly accused, and tho death of Walter 
and Biota is aude to happen while the war is going on (487 1D); “Dum 
‘Comoe Waltorius et Biota conjux ojus por inimicoruzs machinamenta shinul, 
ut ferunt, lotall veueno fraudulenter fufecté obierunt, Quibus defunctis, vo: 
eurlor Dux . . . rebellos expetiit." But ft is plain from the narrative of 
‘William of Poitiers that Waltor «urrived tho surrendor of La Mana, and ft 
fin not likely thot he would be at Falaiso while the war was going on. This 
contradiction throws » good deal of doubt on the whole story. See vol, il. 
PP-43,414- No ono, as fir ax 1 know, ovor charged Willism with the 
death of Herbert, who died evon more epportunely fur hima than Walter, 


210 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


ona, xt, strength of onslaught,' was not to be bafiled by works 
which wore at least not stronger than those of so many 
Desseipsion fanoun fortresses. ‘The position of the castle of Mayenne 
is one which bears more likeness to that of Alengon’ than 
to that of Falaise or Dowfront. It is no Gaulish hill- 
fortress which has grown by degrees into a Roman and 
into a modern city. The town of Mayenne stands on 
both sides of the river from which it takes its name, a 
river of far greater width than the maternal beck at 
Falaise or even than the Varenne at Domfront. It may 
well be that the light craft of the Northmen, who so 
long harassed the shores and islands of the Loire and its 
tributaries, may have made their way even to this inland 
post. At alll events, the main point in the fortification 
of Mayenne was to secure the river. The town covers 
the steep slopes on cither side, and the right” bank of the 
stream still washes the walls of the castle, No buildings 
now remain which can have witnessed the wars of William 
and Geoffrey, but the later castle evidently occupies the 
aneient site. A noble range of bastions rising above the 
stream, a miniature as it were of the mighty pile of dark 
and frowning Angors, contrasts well with the steop and 
narrow streets of the town iteclf, with the varied and 
eccentric outline of the great church of Our Lady, and 
with the thick woods which still overshadow the river 
close up to the buildings of the town. The greater part: 
of the modern town lies on the right bank, and in 
William's time, when Mayenne was less a town than a 
military post, it was doubtless this part alone, as in the 
elder Angers, that was encompassed by a wall. But 
* Boe vol. Hi. p. 204. * Soe vol. i, p. 284. 
* Will, Pict, 106, “Hujuscastet latus alteram . . , alluitur seoptiloso 
rapideque flumning, num kupra Meauanm ripam in prarupth montie rope 
sigum ext.” 


* At Angers the cathedral crvwns the hill, the castle commands the river; 
the groat monastory of the Holy Trinity es on the other side, fn what ns 





212 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


owar, xt. ag well as the sword,’ The defenders of the town walls 
and town gates left their posts to rescue, as far as might 
he, their own houses and goods, The Normans rushed in 
with a lond and joyful shout. The spoils were abundant; 
horses, arms, household stuff of every kind, were found 
in plenty, And all was, by the bounty of the Duke, 
‘Theeartle given up to hie soldiers” The town was thus taken, and 
Protatle the next day the castle surrendered.? This speedy sur- 
Gua of render, as well as some other exprossions of our historian, 
might lead us to think that Geoffrey himself was not 
present in person. Of his immediate fate we hear no- 
His tater thing; but ten years later he again appears, first as the 
wong iege, champion and then as the betrayer of Cenomannian free 
dom, and twenty years later again he once more played 
an important part in Cenomannian history.’ The town 
was restored by William; a garrison was left in the 


‘Will. Pict, co7. “Citindme diffaniuntur (ignes) more sue, sevios 
‘omni ferro quieque obvia vaxtantes” 

* 1b. “Que, sicut alibi capt plerumgue granny milivam potiuw quam 
sua ewe volult continontieimnus me Uberalleedsus 

# William of Jnimidgos, nx T have alrencly axid (wom above, p. 169), puta 
the taking of Mayenne, os n sequel to that of Le Mans, out of place. He 
alto makes the fire accidental (vii. 27); “Meduanum vero, castellum oujus 
dam opulent! millitis nomine Goiffredi, adhuc restitarat, quod Dux exer 
citibos wpplicitie aliquamdin oppugnane Sool ene ignoque Injecto par duos 
Says Pap ey intrayerant, coun 
‘bussit." Wace (10350) mys, “TA boros expeit ot aluua.” Onl, Vit, 488 
A, * Medunaam post diutinam obsidionem combussit.” 

* 1 infor this, not only from the absonoe of any mention of his name during 
‘the aloye, and from the unlikelihiood that such a man would bave yielded to 
what seems to have been a mere panic, but from the expressions of Wiliam 
of Poitiory o little before (106); “Fuga, astutia, valideque munittones nom 
modicum fidvcte mnfuistraverunt. Statuit ergo prudentia repudiat! domini 
Uatibolum carisstmom abalionare oi exstrum Medaanas, wetimnans multe 
watiue oc digniue hic pani ferirs, quam fugitantem perrequi, et victoriam 

* Jever ex ¢0 capto insignibus tivulia addere.” 

© Seo Vot. An. tif. *325; Ord. Vit. 706 ©, oz A. 777 DL 

© Will, Pict, 107.“ Rostourntis quo flamane corruparat, prosidioque 
providenter disposito,” So Will, Gom, vil, 27. “Quod iterum restaurarit 

‘et custolibus suls manclpavit.” $0 Banolt, 35770. But Wace (10253) mya, 





214 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


comar.xtt. time for the marriage came, the bride was no more. 
Mor death. The tale is told of her, as it is told of one of William's 


via 


eae 


with the 


Analogies 


own daughters, that she shrank from the thought of an 
earthly bridegroom, and prayed to be released from #0 
hard a nocessity.* After her death, as in tho case of so 
many saints, a hair-shirt was found on her, with which, 
young as she was, she had already learned to bring the 
flesh into subjection” ‘The body thus ently inured to 
austerity found its last home in the minster of Fécamp, 
which, along with other churches of her adopted country, 
she had already learned to love and honour. 


‘The conquest of Maine ie one of the most important 
vents in the life of William, It stands second only to 
the Conquest of England. It was in truth William's 
first great appearance in the character of the Conqueror, 
it was a sort of prelude to the still greater work which 
he had to do beyond the sea. The two events indeed 
have a direct connexion, William's rival for the possession 
of Maine was, if not an English Atheling, yet the grand- 
son of an English King, a possible, though not a likely, 
competitor for the English Crown.’ But the conquest 
of Maine connects itself with the conquest of England 
in a more instructive way than through the fact that 
Walter of Mantes was the son of a daughter of Aithelred. 
Tho circumstances of the two conquests aro strangely 
alike, and tho earlier and lesser success may well have 
served both as a happy omen and as an actual school 
for the Inter and greater enterprise. In each case, William 
took possession of a land, at once against the will of its 
inhabitants and to the prejudice of members of the 

4 Od. Vit, 483.4. © Prtuxquam nubiles anno attingsret weculf Tudibntts 
erupt felicitar obit,” 

¥ Will, Pict, 195. Ho enlangon on thir at length, 


* WH, Plot. o * Will, Plot. and Ord. Vit. ti, #. 
* See wal. Ui. pp. 415, 420. 


216 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM LX NORMANDY. 


cnar,xir. fore not only the mere probable chronological sequence, 
bub a close connexion in the subjects themselves, whieh 
Teads us directly from William's Cenomannian conquest 
to the subject of the last section of this Chapter, to the 
visit of Earl Harold to the Nerman court, and to the 
memorable oath, whatever was its exact nature, which he 
is alleged to havo plighted to the Norman Duke. 


§ 4. The Tisit of Harold and the Breton War. 
1064? 
Position ‘The time was now come for the two born leaders of 
cof Wil- : 
Mam and men sround whose career our whole history gathers to 
Harold. rect face to face, As yet, for a little while, their meeting 
was to be friendly; but in that friendly meeting the seeds 
were sown of their last meeting on the battle-field. The 
Duke of the Normans and the Earl of the West-Saxons 
were now each of them at the height of his glory. The 
most famous exploits of each had happened within a single 
year. About the time that William had been receiving 
the submission of Le Mans and Mayenne, Harold had 
been waging his great campaign against the Welsh, and, 
if he had not been winning crowns for himself, he had 
been disposing of crowns to others and recoiving the 
Williaa homage of their wearers.’ It is not too much to say that, 
ani Hanld ot that moment, William and Harold wero the two fore 
rite most men of Western Europe. The great Emperor was 
fralisen gone 5 the great Pope had-not yet risen on the world, 
Europe, though Willebrand the Archdeacon had already begun 
to guide the poliey of the court of which he was befbre 
long to be the avowed as well as the virtual rnler, Among 
Western crowns, those of France and Germany were worn 
by children; on what brow the Crown of England rosted 
I need not again set forth. Kings of greater renown 


1, 8¢0 vol. i ps 473» 664 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


aur.an. in no case had that earlier meeting any such direct results 


Probable 


1091. 


on the events of our history as those which sprang ont 
of the strange accident which now for a whilo made Karl 
Harold the guest, tho friend, the companion in arme, of 
the Norman Duke, 

I have said a strange accident, because, among all the 
various statements which are handed down to us as to the 
occasion of Harold’s visit to Normandy and his alleged 
oath to William, I am inelined to prefer that version 
which makes his presence in Normandy to have been 
wholly the reeult of chance. I need hardly eay that 
there is no portion of our history, perhaps no portion of 
any history, which is more entangled in the mazes of con- 
tradictory, and often impossible, statements than that on 
which we are now entering. T have already touched inci- 
dentally on the subject in an earlier Chapter.’ I there said 
that, with regard both to the alleged bequest of Eadward 
to William and to the alloged oath of Harold to William, 
I could not but hold that there is some groundwork of 
trath in both stories. I held that the absolute silence 
of the contemporary English writers told, under the cir- 
cumstances, in favour of a bequest of some kind and an 
oath of some kind, But tho details, as T there snid, are 
told with such an amount of contradiction, many of the 
statemente are eo manifestly impossible, it is so hard to fx 
the date of the event or to piece if on in any way to the 
undoubted facts of the history, that we can hardly admit 
anything as certain beyond these bare facts of a bequest of 
some kind and an oath of some kind. As for the be- 
qnest, I trust that T have shown® that the groundwork of 
‘William's claim as testamentary suecessor to Endward was, 
in all probability, a promise of the succession, or at least 
‘& promise of a royal recommendation to the Witan, made 
by Eadward to William at the time of the Duke's visit 

# Seo yal. ih p. 296 et sey * Seo vol Hh pp. 998, 42% 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


ciar.an, the safe keeping of the Duke of the Normans. Now that 


years had rolled by, now that Godwine was dead, now that 
Kadward was, as this version of the story implies, on per 
fuctly good and confidential terms with Godwino's successor 
Harold, there no longer seemed any reason why a brother 
and a nephew of the first man in England should linger 
any longer in forcign banishment. Harold therefore asks 
the King’s leave to go to the court of William and ask 
for their release. The King warns his brother-in-law 
against so perilous an adventure; he knew William well, 
and some harm was sure to happen to Harold, if he trasted 
himself in his power. The impetuous spirit of the Earl 
refuses to hearken to the warnings of the Saint. Howrings 
an unwilling permission from the King, and goes on his 
errand. He ig entrapped into an oath which binds him in 
the fullest way to support William’s claims. He returns 
to England to receive much more of sorrowful reproof and 
warning from the King who had foreseen the future so 
much more clearly than himself.* 

‘This tale I do not believe any more than the other, but 
it apparontly differs from it as not being pure invention, 


wecond PUt AaB being grounded on a certain basis of fact, Both 


storics, it will be observed, assume the loyalty of Harold 
and the confidence placed in him by Eadward, and they 
thereby at once contradict these other Norman statements 
which describe Harold as acting with insolence to Eadward, 
and Endward as being afraid of Harold’s power? The 
former story indeed, by representing Harold as sent to an~ 
nounce and confirm Eadward’s choice, implies that Harold 
had himself no designs on the Crown, or, at all events, 
that Endward had no suspicion that he had any. But the 
second story distinctly implies that, at the time of the 
journey, Eadward had no intentions in favour of William, 
perhaps that he had intentions in favour of Harold. ‘This 


* Bee Appendix Us * Seo vols HL ype B35) 54% 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


cuar.xtt. held.! I therefore altogether disbelieve in the story of the 


or, 


hostages, But I think that it may not: be difficult to trace 
ite origin, which I shall accordingly attempt to do clso- 
where” I accept then the third version, according to 
Harola’s Which Harold's presence in Normandy was purely acci- 


Rrowence In dental. According to this account, he was not going to 
Seg Wil’ or ter oo the King’s emand or on hin 


owa. Ie was sailing elsewhere, to Wales or to Flanders, 
or simply taking his pleasure in the Channel. I am in- 
clined to think that this last was really the caso, and I 


oe 

Pouitlo farther suspect that he was accompanied on hie pleasure~ 
omer ttip by some of the younger members of his family, by his 
members brother Wulfnoth, his nephew Hakon, and possibly his 


sister Alfgifu* At all events, the Earl set forth at the 
lead of a considerable company, enough to fill three of the 
vessels of the time,‘ and he went accompanied by dogs and 
hawks, ready to enjoy the sports of the field at any pointe 


‘They set at which they might land,’ The place of embarcation was 


F 


close by the favourite South-Saxon abode of Godwine and 
Harold, the land-locked haven of Bosham.' The contem- 
porary record sets them before our eyes as first paying 
their devotions in that venerable church which still re- 
mains as one of the living witnesses of their age,” and then 
ag feasting in the Earl's hall, before their temporary fare- 


aoe, well to their native land." As for their voyage, nearly 
‘ai eae to all accounts agree that, whatever was their original desti- 
fee cpast of nation, Harold’s ships were driven by streas of weather to 


1 Soe vol. Hl. p. 335+ * Seo Appendix U. 

9 See Appendices UT and W. 4 Bayoux Topentay, pl. a, 

* So Kadmor (4) makes hin go “eum ditioribus et honestioribus horaink- 
bus mais [hin own Thogus or personal Comifarus), aurv ot argento vexteque 
protlosi, nobiliter instructis,” 

of Bee vol. Hp. 149. 

* Tapestry, ple t. Ib de singular however that, though a large part of 
Boskam church is as old a4 Harold's time, or older, the picture in the 
‘Tapestry i fn no way lke ft—or tndeed like any other human building, 

# Tapestry, pl, 





224 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY, 


cuarxn, show him a captive who would gladly pay a hundred 
pounds for his ransom.’ ‘The Count rode in person to the 
coast, and the English Earl was seized in his presence. 
eee ‘Harold was now kept in prison, perhaps actually in fetters,* 
Gites’ not; as has been eometimes thought, on the sca-chore at 
Saint Valery, but in the inland fortress of Beaurain near 
Headin* Some however of the party found means to 
Hewnds escape; an Englishman, charged with a message from 
{. Willian, Earl Harold, made his way to the palace of Rouen and 
to the presence of William. The messenger knelt before 
the Duke, and told him the tale of wrong, how the great 
English Earl, without any fanlt on his part, had been 
seized by a vaseal of Normandy, and was at that moment 
held in bonds at Beaurain.” We can well understand the 


* Roman de Rou, 10765 ot 40g. The sums ot money are thus given 


(30775) 5 
‘Doint Ii int Livres salement, Kar tel peiiow U liverra, 
TH Ten fora gnaignee cent, Xf cent livres w plus donra.”* 


* Bayoar Tapotry, plate 2, “Hic apprehondit Wido Haroldum.” Box 
rnolt de Ste. Moro (36440) adds the odd coment, that thone bo were 
vetoed in this fhahlon might have whhed themselves ta Sicily; “ Mow 
vousteunt estre om Sezile." Yet, when Benoit wrote, Sicfly was w mrttled 
Norman 

* So nb least says William of Malmesbury (li. 238); “Maus manfcia, 


Peles compedtibus, prebuare.’ 
* This is quite plain from the Tapestry, plate 2. ‘Dux out ad Beleem 
et fbi cum tenult.” Wace (16784) mys, “A Abevile Tont mend,” and 
maker Guy take hit to Beaurain only after the news has reuched Wilkin 
(st. 10798) 5 
+ Teclrem Io fist envdler, 
or fore det Doo eslulngnier.” 
‘This I conceive to arise from » misunception of the words of Willian of 
Tundigen vil. 31; ‘Ln manus Whlowin Abbativrille Comitis incidit. Quem 
{dem Comes eaptum cum wuis confestim in cutedih trust.” But this dom 
not imply Mat Abbeville was the place of impriomment. Willian of Poi- 
tiers, William of Malmesbury, and Benoit do not mention any particular 
Pico. Anyhow It was not Saint Valery. See below, Chapter xv. § 2. 
* Renan de Koo, 10785 ; 
© E Hewat a par un privé 
Ex Normendie el Due mandé.” 
Fader (5) says, "Constrictus fgitur Haralilus quemlibet «x vukgo, prov 





THE LATER REION OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


226 
cuar. xn. the captive of William, had no mind to bri himeelf 
ene captive no bring om 


‘Harold w 


iy 


‘Guy, 


2 a ae ma esl Nea Nae He put the 


braye and loyal Count Robert’ Instead of being the 
prisoner of Guy, Harold was now the guest of William. 
The prompt obedience of the Count: of Ponthien to. the 


with money—no doubt to the amount of Harold's ransom 
—and moreover with a large and goodly grant of lands by 
the banks of the Eaulue." Tbe price was a heavy one, but 
it was a price which William could well afford to pay for 
the great advantage which o freak of fortune had thus 
unexpectedly thrown into his hands, 

Harold was now the honoured guest of William. The 
Duke of the English, as he appeared in Norman eyes,* 
legatia violenter illum extorsit."" Bot the other narratives do not bear 
‘this out. 

Hadmer (g) makes two messages, tho Inter wtromger than the former; 
“(Mle [Willelzous) feotinoto por nuveloe mandat domino Pontivi, Haraldura 
own suis ob omni calumais Uiberum siti quantoclie misti, xi pristiod amj- 
cht suo amodo vellet ex more potiri, Sed quum file hominem dimitterw 
nollot, iterum fn mandato aocepit so necomurio Huraldum missurum, alioquin 
cortisime solret Willelmum Nonnannis ducer armatum pro eo Pouthrum 
sturwsn." 

* Kaudmer howover makes his till plunder his captives; “ MiLut fgitur 
‘rirum cain aceite, primo tamen eis qui moliora detulernnt simul ablatis.” 

* Bev above, p 116, That Eu was the place appears from Will, Pict. 108. 
“Tpso (Guido] sdducens mpud Anoense oastrum gibi prmeontavit," So Be- 
olf, 36572, "TL amena & Ou tat quite.” 

* Will. Pict 108. "Guldoni bene meriie, qui, nee pretio neo violentla 
compulaus, virum quem torquery, necary, rendere potulmwt pro libitu Spse 
«« tibi presontavit, grates rettulit condignas, terres tradidit amplas ao 
multum opimas, sddidit ineuper fa pecuniis maxima dons.” The poslsion 
cof the lands comes from the Roman de Kou, 10806 ; 

“EU Due iio fet avele 
‘Lee Tewe d'Atee un bel manebr.” 

* “Harold Dux Anglorum ~ in the Tapestry, pl. tHe bears the same 

ttle fn the Saxon Annalist, Perts, vi 764. See volt p. 62a. 





THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


euar, xt. while Harold was older than their father ;1 yet we are told 


that the renown and lofty bearing of the English Earl 
made so decp an impression on the heart of one of them, 
‘that, when she found herself forsaken by Harold, she shrank 
from the thought of another, even a royal, bridegroom” 
‘Whatever we may think of this talo, it can hardly be 
doubted that Harold allowed himself to be entangled into 
some engagement of the kind, Such engagements were 
often lightly entered into, without much serious thought 
of their accomplishment. And, in the cage of an ongage- 
ment between Harold and a daughter of William, mere 
difference of age would make the chances rather against its 
fulfilment. At the same time, we are told, it was arranged: 
that Harold's sister—that is doubtless ABMgifu, who was 
perhaps then present at Rouen—should be given in mar- 
riage toa Norman noble.” Harold, in short, seems to have 
been for a while altogether bewitched by the splendid ro- 
ception which he had met with at the Norman court. He 
even agreed, like Jehoshaphat on his visit to Ahab, to 
accompany William in an expedition which he was making 
ready against the Bretons, and, either before setting forth 
or after his return, he allowed himself to receive knight~ 
hood after the Norman fashion from the Duke’s hand. It 


Harold (see vol. p. §$4) coull hardly have been born befire 1021, 
That, as ho becano Karl in 1045 (noe vol. i. pp. 36, 48). he fs not. Wkely to 
have been born many ywars lator, William (s09 vol. Hi, p. 6x3) was bom. 


* Seo v. 

* Willian of Puitiors (1¢9), who pate tho knighthoed before the Bretou 
‘expedition, seetns to extend it to Harold's followers; “Qui venerant cum 
ipo" —posibly Walfnoth and Hakon—“armis milataribus ot equix deloce 
timisnis instmictor sgcum in bellum Britannfoum dusit,” “Militaribua” Sn 
doubtless to be taker: in the technical sme. So Onderlo (42 B); “Artin 


war; “ile Willetm dedit Hareldo arn.” Wace fillows William of Bot- 
thers (ro812). Mr. Planché (Arch. Asoo. Juno 1867, p. 145) sya that 


i? 


if 


1056. 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 
Harold walked warily on such dangerous ground, he might, 
like the guesta of Gooflrey of Anjou, exchange the hall of 
the ducal palace for its prison-house. 


irvian Of the Breton war in which Harold was thus lod to take 


a share, it is very hard to make ont: anything at all clearly, 
Tean find nothing to throw any light upon it in the Breton 
or Angevin chronicles, and the Norman accounts are any- 
thing but satisfactory or coherent.? The reigning Count 
Conan, son of that Alan who had acted so faithfully as 
066, William's guanian,? was a kinsman of the Duke's, each of 
a owning a common ancestor in Richard the Fearless.* 
Tt will be remembered that, in the days of William's child- 
hood, Alan had been looked upon as a possible competitor 
for the succession of Duke Robert ;* but we have hardly 


1 ween his uncle and guardian Odo acting against William in 


the campaign which followed the rout of Mortemer.’ But 
Odo had been, since that time, seized and imprisoned by his 
nephew Conan,” and a war had since gone on between the 


4 ‘Tho fullest secounte are ti William of Pottiers (109) and the Tapestry 
(pil. 4-6), Dut it fe not easy to rooyucile the two. The other accounts are 
‘very sheet, Wace (10814) makes Harold accompany William in three or 
four expeditions ; 

“No wad de weir trois feix a quatre, 
Quant as Bretans eo dut combate,” 
‘This, a we shall wee, is quite pomible, See Appendix X. 

+ See vol. i. p. rot. 

* Conan was the grandson of Hadwina, daaghter of Richard the Fearlem. 
See vol. Lp. 454. 

* Boo vol. fi. p. £793 cf. & pp. 464, 470. Willism of Poitiers (109) is 
Inctined to dwell on these earlier wars, rather than on the Inter guantiate 
thip of Alan, His son Conan ia  paterna robsltionte renovator.” 


Will, Pet. 10g. “Is (Couanus) tn virum ferocietinum eduliun « 
‘tetelé din toleratd Uber, espto Kudone patruo sno, atque vinculls empasta- 
laribus mancipato, provinche, quam dono peteeno asvepit, magn’ eum incu 
NentiA dowtsari crpit." William of Malmesbury (iii. 236) look on him 
‘with more Gvour; “ Viridis javenta ot precellens robary, Eudanem patra 
vinxorat, malta ogregia fecorat." 


232 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


cwar.xnt, That such an arrangement must haye doomed nine men 
or more to celibacy, and could therefore be hardly looked 
‘on a8 on the whole conducive to population, does not seem 
to have occurred to the Norman Archdeacon. The land, 
we are told, was fertile in pasture; it produced vast herds 
of cattle of all kinds; but tillage was hardly known. Milk 
—and, one may presume, flesh also—was the chief diet of 
the people; bread was a rarity.! Delighting in warfare, 
the Bretons were no mean adversaries, even for Normans; 
terrible in the attack, they were used to conquer, and with 
difficalty brought themselves to retreat. Their intervals 
‘of peace were spent in plunder and slaughter of one an 
other. The whole picture is one deeply coloured by national 
hatred. Bat the Broton princo must at least have had 
the spirit—not to say the follies—of chivalry in bim in 
Conmn's full measure, Like William himself, in his warfare with 
glulleng®Anjou,' Conan, we are told, sent word to William on what 
day he purposed to cross the Norman frontier.’ To meet 
this threatened invasion, the Duke of the Normans set 


aamplius uxores; quod dle Mauris vetetibus refertar, legis divine atque 
podiet ritta ignarfe Ad hoe populcedtas fpma arms et oquis maxime, are 
vorum cultun aat morum minine «tedent.” ‘The sume argument is used 
in the legend of Valentinian and Justina, Hist, Miscell. xii, (Muratori, &. 83), 
One hanlly sex why the anclent Moors whould have been picked out aa the 
horid example, rathor than the modem Sarsems oF any other polygamote 


people, 

‘Tho Chronicle of St, Michnel’s Mount (Labbé, f. 350), under the year 
1056, says of Conan’s uncle, ** Mio Endo mnltos habutt fifo.” Was he the 
“miles” whom William of Poitiors had pecially in his eye? 

“WEL Pict, 110. “Uberimo lacte, parcimio pane, seve traneiguit. 
Pingain padula gignunt poccribus loca vaata ot forme nascis wegetarn.” 

* Ib. “Prollia cum anlenti alscritate inount ; dum proiiantur, furibundt 
sxvriut, Pellery politi, difficile codunt,” 


“WH Plet. 109. “Conant in tantum jam temeritas revit, ut quo dio 
tenuinos Normannive agureieretar denuntines nom formidaret,” ‘This air 
of brarado was chivalrous herolan in Willian ; ft ie meee riahness and 
irovlence io Conan, 





lan 


folimger” 


March of 


E 


Harold, 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY, 


and the Norman Duke, accompanied by his English ally, 
drew near with the purpose of rising the siege. 

Tt would be an interesting quostion to settle how far the 
Celtic language bas gone back, and how far the Romance 
language has advanced, along the frontier which now be- 
came the seat of war, The country throngh which William 
and Harold passed is now wholly French in speech, and 
in outward appearance it shows hardly any strictly Broton 
peculiarities. Into what is still the true Britanny further 
to the west the line of their campaign did not reach. 
Their march led them only through those border-lands of 
Normandy and Britany, where the trees, the hedges, the 
rich pastures, the orchards loaded with their autumnal 
wealth,’ might have made the English Earl still deem 
himeelf within the fairest regions of his own Wessex. 


Avranches Their course must have passed by Avranchos, the city so 


Tately enlightened by the learning, and made illustrious 
by the fame, of Lanfrane, From the height where the 
now vanished minster once crowned the city, the eye of 
Harold would rest for the first time on that other and 
far more wondrous minster which crowns the island 
rock in the distance, the minster which AEthelred in his 
wrth and pride had feared to injure,* the guardian Mount 
of the Archangel, Saint Michael in Peril of the Sea, That 
princely abbey is marked as one of the halting-places of tho 
host, and the rude art of the times still preserves the 


* Will Piet. 116. Conan is engaged in “casted tore swe Doll oppug: 
natione.” 

* Unless positily « larger proportion of beggar and of way-alde cromex 
than i nwa fn Noreandy, 

+ ‘The time of the invadion was autumn, “Stabent fn aristin frugon ém- 
mature” ‘They missed therefore the snowy bloom of Breton, Norman, or 
Wost-Saxon iend én the time of ypring. Snorro alan (sow bore, p. 22) pute 
‘Harold's visi in the autumn, but he makes him stay all the winter, 

* See vol. I. p. 300. 





THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


omar. xu, century, and it owes its origin to 4 calamity which fell 


upon the city in the wars of John Lackland. And now 
Dol has wholly sunk from its old ccclesiastical rank; the 
church which once aspired to metropolitan honours! has 
lost even its diocesan Bishop; the minster has sunk to 
a parish church; the parish church, the only building: 
which can date from the days of William and Harold, 
ig put to profane uses. The city itself hardly ranks 
above a village, though in the varied and eurious archi- 
tecture of ita long street, its houses ranging from the 
twelfth century onwards, we see abundant traces of the 
greatness which has passed away. Still Dol has features 
wrought by the hand of nature, and by the hand of man 
in earlier days, which remain now as they were when 
Harold and William rode forth to the war against Conan. 


Primeval At no great distance to the south of the city stands one 


of the hugest of those huge stones which were as mys- 
terious in the days of Harold a they are in our own, 
There it still abides, reared, it may well be, by the hands 
of men by whose side the Briton himself might stand 
abashed as a modern intrnder, On that rude pillar the 
zeal of later days has reared the triumphant cross, to 
crown the vast work of heathon times, the monument, it 
may well be, of heathen worship. And to tho north of 
the city lies the great natural feature of the district, the 
Mount of Dol. The elevation of the city itself is small; 
its walls indeed crown what passes for a height in that 
vast plain, a height great enough to give the minster yet 
farther stateliness in the view from the lower ground. But 
Dol is no hill-fortress, like Le Mans, Angers, and Dom- 
front. The spot where one would have almost looked to 
find the city is the mount itself, which still rises, a huge 

+ On the claim of Dol to metropelitan rank, the parallel to the Iles lata 


on the part of Saint David’ in the greater Britain, ree Haddan, Councils 
and Ecclesiastical Dooumenta, ti, 6o wt noq9, 





238 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY, 


cnar.xn, unwisely challenged. At the approach of William the 

Breton Count fled, laying himself open to the jeers and 

mockeries of his rebellious subjects within the besieged 

city. Nothing could check his flight, which seems not 

to have stopped till he found himeelf safe in his own 

cope oe ee Dol was saved; but its commander 

win’ found his deliverera almosb as destructive as his enemies. 

GPE The Normen be, eacamye sound th ci, wav fa 

omen. eating up the fraits of the ground. Rhiwallon told 

his Norman ally that it mattered little to him and to 

his neighbours whether it was by Norman or by Breton 

destroyers that their goods were Jost to them.* The flight 

of Conan, however glorious to William, had as yet done 

praia no good to the mon of Dol." In the narrative of the 

expedition, a narrative by no means casy to follow, we 

are told that these motives of prudence or humanity 

were enough to lead William to withdraw his troops at 

the end of a month's enmpaign.’ This retreat however 

has a strange sound, when we go on to hear that an 

Angevin host was sid to have suddenly appeared in 
support of Conan.® 

On the whole it seems most probable that Harold ac- 


‘Will, Pict, 110, ‘“Skstere tontet Conanum caste! prieses Runilus re: 
‘vocas {Hludens, morari bidaam procatur, saificiens hnie mow stippendiurn sty 
peo sumpturum.” 

"th “Homo mirore exterritus, pavorum potius audios, cursa institut 
Jongiua ” So the Tapestry, pl. §; ~ Venerunt ad Dol et Conan fue 
vertit,” On the muntion of Rennos, geo Appendix X. 

* WIL Pict. 121. “New penes agricolas interome, Normaunice an Bri- 
‘tannloo exereivu consumptl and tsborem amtserint.* 

* 1b, “Sibi modo a fisnam valuinio, non ad consurvatione rerum, Conand 
dlgpulsioneso," 

* Tb, 110, 288, *Mimstrud penurlé fhtlyainm exercitum reduosbat,” 
‘The Archiesoon's minute setting forth of the workings of the Duke's mind 
4s tov long to copy. 

“Th. 411, “Exeeleat jam Britannbe Umitem repente indteatar Gau: 
fredum Andegarensan oun ingentibus eopiis Conano fulese eonjunctum, «€ 
aunbos postero dio proeliatum affuturve.” 





240 THE LATRR REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


euar.xit. below sought for a spot where wood and water would never 
fail them.’ And the town itself, still almost wholly con~ 
tainod within ite ancient walls, crowns the main hill 
exactly ae it must have done in the days of William. 
Unmarked as it is by the soaring spires of Angers, by 
the spreading apse of Le Mans, or by the twin towers of 
Exeter and Geneva, no town better eets before us that dis- 
tinctive feature of carly times, the city set on a hill which 
cannot be hid. The ancient bridge remains, now guarded 
only by 2 more village suburb; it is only the modern 
viaduct, a work worthy of old Roman days, which speaks 
at all forcibly of the changes which have passed over the 
world since William and Harold encamped beneath the 
height. They crossed the stream, they compassed the 
town, and doubtless made their attack on the western 
side, where the fall is gentler, where the later fortifications 
are stronger, and where the comparatively modern castle 
no doubt occupies the site of the donjon of Conan. 

Willian We have no detaila of the siege. It must be in a great 

ticks he degree a fancy picture which represents the Norman horse- 

Baymont men as charging with lifted lances against the defenders 
of the fortress.* But the same representation implies a 
vigorous defence on the part of the besieged, and it shows 
that the post was at last won by the familiar Norman 
means, the application of fire.* This seems, as at Mayenne, 
to have broken tho spirits of the defenders, and, in our one 

Guan mar picturo of the siege, Conan is’ shown, according to the 

ss custom of the time, surrendering the keys of bis fortress 
by offering them on the point of a spear to his conqueror. 
It is in the like fashion that the conqueror receives its 
submission. This is all that we hear of the expedition in 
which Harold took a part. Whatever may have been its 


4 Seo vob Hh pps ox8, 23%. * Dayoun Tapestry ph gs" The 
* Mayeux ‘Tapestry, pl. 6. Cf. the legend of the death of Mfaleohn at 
Alnwick. Seo Robertson, f, 147. 





THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


omar. xox, and ita breach the whole ground of quarrl between the 


two princes, Others add that Harold farther engaged to 
give his sister in marriage to an unnamed Norman noble. 


‘Statements Most accounts add also far more important political 


on to ite 
‘torms, 


pie hea 


stipulations. Harold is to become the man of William; 
he is to receive him, on Exdward’s death, as his successor 
on the throne of England; meanwhile he is to be the 
guardian of William’s interests in England, and to act 
in some sort as his Heutenant. He is at once to give up 
the castle of Dover, with its well, to the Duke, and to 
receive a Norman garrison in it; he is to build other 
castles at other points of English ground where the Duke 
may think good, and there also he is to receive and main= 
tain Norman garrisons. The highest place in William’s 
favour, when he shall have attained the English Crown, 
honours, grants, even to the half of the Kingdom, are of 
course promised to Harold as the reward of faithfully 
carrying out all these promisos. 

To all this, or to somo part of all this, we are told that 
Harcld swore. He swore, it is said, after some form of 
more than usual solemnity, something beyond the ordinary 
oath of homage. He swore upon the relies of the saints. 
And one famous version of the tale represents this more 
solemn form of oath as something into which Harold was 
unwittingly entrapped by a base trick on the part of 
William. It is not an English apologist of Harold, but 
a Norman admirer of William,* who tells us how the Duke 
filled a chost with all the holiest relics of the saints of 
Normandy—how Harold swore on the chest, not knowing 
on what he swore—how William then drew away the 
covering with which the holy things had been hidden, and 
bade Harold see how fearful was the oath which he had 


* Oni, Vit. 497 A. “Oumila quae ab illo requisite fucrant super mance 
‘Heda reliquias juravernt.” 
* Wace, 10824, See Appindix U. 





24e 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


cusr xi defence. Had there been a single distinct English con 


the place, 


tradiction of the story, direct or implied, I should haye 
cast away the whole tale as pure invention, But, while 
we have such contradictions on almost every other point, 
‘on this point we have none, It is clearly a weak point 
in Harold’s caso; it was a subject on which his friends 
shrank from entering. This to my mind proves a great 
deal; but we must beware of dealing with it as if it proved. 
more than it really docs. It proves that there was some~ 
thing wrong, something about which Harold's friends 
could not speak freely. It proves that there was some 
groundwork for the Norman story; it proves that Harold 
took some engagement the breach of which could easily 
‘be spoken of as perjury. But it proves no more, The 
different forms of the Norman story remain as contradictory 
to one another, ae Jacking in all corroborative evidence, 
as they were before. Harold swore, But when? All 
kinds of dates are given; our only means of choosing one 
date rather than another is by choosing the year in which 
least is recorded in the English annals, Again, we eanld. 
fix the date, if we had any independent accounts of the 
campaigns of Dol and Dinan, But no Breton writer men- 
tions those campaigns at all; no Norman writer mentions 
them except in connexion with the visit and oath of 
Harold. I have myself placed the event at the point of 
time which on the whole seems least unlikely; but I 
confess to have had all slong a lurking feeling that the 
whole story may have arisen out of something which hap- 
pened in that: earlior French journey of Harold's of whioh 
we have no details. Harold then, I admit, ewore, but 
when he swore must remain matter of conjecture. 

And, if we are thus left to conjecture as to the time 
when Harold swore, we are equally left to conjecture as 
tothe place. We might have thought that the scene of 

* See wol. if pp. 431, 434, 


. UNCERTAINTY OF THE sTORY. 245 


such an event would have teen well known. We are told exur. xt 
‘that the oath was taken in the presence of a full assembly 

of the Norman nobles ;' but even contemporary authorities 

do not agree as to the spot where this great council was 
gathered together. We have to choose at our pleasure 
contradictions do not indeed affect the belief that there 

is some groundwork of fact for the story, but they are 
quite enough to hinder us from putting implicit faith in 

a single uncorroborated detail. 

_ Far more important than the questions when and where or tho 
Harold swore, is the question what ho swore. Even here (Hn, 
the witness of his accusers does not agree together. The 
engagement to marry William's daughter, so prominent 

‘im most of the accounts, is not directly mentioned in that 
one which ought to be the most trustworthy of any.* 
‘There ix an utter uncertainty as to which of William's 
‘many daughters it was that Harold engaged to marry. 
According to one version, thie part of the onth, if not kept, 

was at Ieast not broken; one statement, and that put into 
Harold's own mouth,* affirms, with whatever truth, that 

the daughter of William to whom he had plighted himself 
died before his clection to the Crown. Even the most im~ 
portant engagement of all, the promise to secure William's 
‘succession, or at least to do all that one man could do to 
seoure it, appears in different shapes in tho different ac- 
counts, In movt of them it is accompanied ae pee 
i which carry their own confutation with thom, MAY of 
ri iis made to promise to do various things on William's lege 
‘behalf forthwith, ‘The engagements to receive a Norman“ 
garrison in Dover Castle, to build other castles elsewhere, 

4 So may mint of the accounts, See Appendix U. 

‘of Poitices' direet account of the oath in 101 (ce Appendte 


reece ete ewes 145 (see Appendix P), 
$8, 258. Liberatum se sacramonto aaworens, quod fia 
| dexpandornt cits nubiles annos obicrat,"” 








THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM 1N NORMANDY. 


ouar.xu. and to receive and maintain Norman garrisons in them— 


these were engagements the fulfilment of which was not 
to wait till the death of Eadward, They wore engagements 
to bo fulfilled at once, as pledges of Harold’s faith, and ae 
‘moans of paving the way for William’s succession when 
the day should come. But it is certain that those lesser 
engagements never were fulfilled; it is nowhere stated 
that any complaint was made during Eadward's life as to 
their non-fulfilment. We hear nothing of any complaint, 
of nny message, on tho part of William, until after Harold's 
election and coronation. They were in truth stipulations 
the fulfilment of which was simply impossible, and a prince 
0 clear-sighted as William must have sccn that it was 
impossible. Harold might indeed do all that was in one 
man’s power to secure the election of William whenever 
the throne should become vacant; but it would have been 
beyond the power of any man, even of an Earl of the 
West-Saxons, to surrender English fortresses to William 
while Eadward still lived, When Endward was dead, the 
Witan might doubtless, if they would, choose William 
as his successor, But, while William was not yeb King, 
it would have been simple treason in an English Earl 
to surrender to him a fortress which the King and people 
of England had entrusted to his keeping. Tb is highly 
probable that William himself knew the English Con- 
stitution much better than the historians who write as 
his advocates and flatterors. But it called for no special 
knowledge of the Englich Constitution, it was little more 
than a matter of common sense, to see that no subject, 
however exalted, either could give up or ought to give up 
English fortresses to a foreign prince, even though that 
foreign prince was the destined successor to the English 
Crown. 

Harold then, as I hold, swore, but what he swore is ax 
uncertain as it is when and where he swore it. We are 





248 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM LY NORMANDY. 


uar.x1t. in some sort already acknowledged as Kadward’s destined 


successor. William could not be #0 blind as to think 
that an extorted oath on the part of Harold would really 
hinder the English people from electing Harold King, or 
even hinder Harold from aecepting the election of the 
English people, A formal onth to receive William as King 
could have been required with no other object than that 
of gaining, on some future day, the advantage of holding 
Harold up to the world as a perjured man. Harold, in short, 
was called on to take an oath, simply in the hope that be 
might break it, Great as William’s character was in 
many ways, I feur that this sort of trick to entrap a rival 
-wonld have seemed to him simply a praiseworthy stratagem. 
We may be sure that William’s religious feelings, to speak 
of no other motive, would have kept him back from a 
wilfully falco oath in hie own person. But the formal 
religion of thoee times would perhaps not have kept him 
back from throwing an occasion of sin in the way of an- 
other, provided his own hands were kept formally clean 
from all share in it. A more enlightened morality will 
pronounce that, if William really did thas purposely entrap 
Harold into the crime of perjury, the guilt of William was: 
far blacker than the guilt of Harold. 


Prbatle | But it is in no way necessary to euppose that Harold 
ru really did awear to William's succession in ‘the full and 


formal way which the Norman writers assert, It is re~ 
markable how prominent a place is filled in nearly every 
account by Harold’s promise to marry William's daughter. 
And it is further remarkable that thix promise is the only 
part of the story which seems to have reached some writers 


Anengage-in other lands.1 I am inclined to suspect that we have 


ment te 


Will's 


daughter, 


here before us the germ of the whole matter. Harold 

may have promised, promisod, as wo are told his manner 

was, too hastily, to marry one of William’s daughters. He 
* Soe Appendix U 





omar. xi. 


Harold's 
part. 
Comnplicar 


tions of 
the feudal, 


F 


Rifeet of 


THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


Harold consented to become William's man, We must 
again bear in mind how lightly engagements of this kind 
also were entered into, and how perplexing and clashing 
were the endless complications of feudalism, Men did 
homage on all kinds of grounds, on the receipt: of almost: 
any kind of benefit, and they were often bound by the tie 
of homage to several lords at the same time. William 
himeolf was the man of King Henry; but ho sooms also to 
have looked on bimeelf as the man of King Eadward ;! it 
is far from unlikely that he did homage to Eadward as his 
chosen successor at the time of his visit to England. Hor- 
bert of Maine might have been claimed as the man of the 
King of the French, of the Dake of the Normans, and of 
the Count of Anjou, all at once. Roger of Mortemer was 
undoubtedly the man of Duke William; but he was also 
‘the man of so emall a lord as Ralph of Montdidier; and 
wo have seen the difficulties into which he was brought 
through this divided allegiance? King Maloolm was tho 
man of Eadward and the sworn brother of Tostig; yet 
neither of these obligations kept him back from ravaging 
Northumberland.” Tn short the instances are endless.+ 
Most public men of the eleventh century must have been 
Tike the English statesman of the seventeenth, who had 
taken a great many oaths, and was afraid that he had not 
kept them all.’ In such a state of things it would be no~ 
thing amazing if Harold became the man of his benofactor, 
his future father-in-law, his military commander in the 
Breton war. Such an act of homage would undoubtedly not 
hind him, either in its terms or in its spirit, to receive 
William as Eadward's successor on the throne of England. 

* See Appendix U. * eo above, p. 157> 

* See vol, ff. pp. 383. 384 487- 

* One of tho strangest ie tho homage done in 1194 by several German 
piinces to Blchard of England, See Reger of Howden, li, 234. 


* Seo the speseh of Philip Lord Wharton on the Abjuration Fill of 1690. 
Macaulay, iii. 574. 





252 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY, 


euar.xu, broken was not merely the commen oath of a man to his 
Jord, but an oath of unusual sanctity, an oath taken upon 
the relies of the saints. We must look at the matter with 
General the feelings of those times. In any enlightened view of 
Reo morality, one promise ix as binding as another; the word 
of an honest man is as sacred as a thousand oaths. But 
the fact that oathe are required arnong all nations and under 
all religions shows that this is a morality so high that the 
mase of mankind do not practically act upon it, Every 
oath is in trath a curse, a religious threat, a calling down 
of the vengeance of an unseen power on the man who shall 
break it. A man, under different forms of religion, swears 
by such a god or by such a saint, If he breaks his oath, 
he offers a personal insult to the god or the aint by whom he 
Perwnal swears, The power whom he thus offends becomes his per~ 
the td sonal enemy, and may be expected to mark him out as an 
incurrw! ly object for personal vengeance. If therefore the story of the 
relies be trae, William’s object was to work on Harold's 
mind by dint of the extreme of superstitions dread, by point 
ing to all the saints of Normandy as about to become his 
personal enemies in ease he should break his oath. The 
strange thing to our mindé is that it does not seem to have 
struck any ono that the real sinner against the enints was 
‘True moral not Harold but William. If the saints in glory are con- 
eee ceived as being still capable of personal human passions, 
Wiis one would have expected that they would look on no 
Se insult as ¢0 great, go direct, 4o unpardonable, as that of pro~ 
faning their holy relies to a purpose of deliberate fraud. 
Harold is made to swear; then, after he has sworn, he is 
told that he has sworn on these awful and wonder-working 
relies, whose vengeance, in ease of breach of faith, will track 
him like that of the Erinnyes, Strange to say, uthor of 
80 hase a deception is looked on as a pious worshipper, de- 
serving the highest favour from every holy person a bone of 
whom or a scrap of whose clothing lay within the chest. 


8 
E 





— 


‘MORAL ASPECT OF THE CASE. 253 


tis the unwitting victim of fraud whom the saints mark cnar-x1r, 
‘out for what, im the dealings of mortals upon earth, would 

be looked on as a somewhat unjust vengeance. The reader 
‘must judge for himself as to the likelihood of the tale, The 
strongest: argument in its favour is that Harold’s alleged 
perjury eeeme to have aroused greater general indignation 

than could have been aroused by a mere breach of the com- Lt 
mon oath of homage. At any rate, the question whether 
such a tale be true or falee is certainly one which comes 
much more nearly home to the apologist of William than 

to the apologist of Harold, 

Asto the bearing of the transaction on Harold's chamnoter, Haro’ 

the morality of the question is easily summed up, What ea 
ever was the engagement which Poca tcaehees 
it was a promize to betmy England to Gan sicengecresixegil 
simply to contract a marriage of absurd unfitness in point 

of years, his sin lay wholly in taking the oath, not in 
breaking it. He yiclded to threats or to blandishments, 

toa vague sense of danger, to a vague impulse of gratitude 

or to a momentary inclination, when in strict morality 

‘he onght to haye stood firm against every temptation and 
every threat. Through one or other of these motives he 
allowed himself to be cajoled into making a promise which 

he had no serious intention of fulfilling, He incurred 
whatever amount of guilt is incurred by thus trifling with 
what ought to be solemn engagements. No one, I sup- 
pose, will argue that he would at all have mended matters, 

had he fulfilled his promise by any act of treason towards 

hie country. This of course goes on the supposition that 

his promise really involved any such acts of treason, But 

it is just as likely that Harold really broke no promise of 
“greater moment than that of marrying, at some unfixed 
time, a child whoee father was younger than himself. 

I found the question wrapped in darkness, and T must Utter 
Jeave it in the darknoss in which Tfonnd it, T have thrown ne” 


~~ - 


254 THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY. 


ouar.xu. out some conjectures, but it is simply as conjectures that I 
whole have thrown them out. The tale ix so beset with con- 
fe" tadiotions that it is impossible to reach to anything like 
‘The oath certainty on any single point of detail, One thing at lonst 
saat is certain, However deoply Harold may have sinned 
the English geqinst William, England sinned not at all, No promiso 
or outh of Harold could bind the people of England, or 
could give William any right over them which he did not 
possess before. If Harold sinned, his guilt was on his own 
head. ‘The people of England were guiltless, and William's 
invasion of England was none the less an unprovoked 
attack on a people who had never wronged him. And, if 
we accept the most famous and most striking part of tho 
story, it is cloar that the guilt of the deceiver was far 
heavier than the guilt of the deceived. The question is 
therefore a Norman rather than an English question, and 
asa Norman question I have dealt with it in one of the 
‘Norman chapters of my history. 


Summary, I may seom, in the course of this long chapter, to have 
wandered far away from Harold and from England, But 
the whole career of the Conqueror is an essential part of 
my subject. Every step in that career is a step towards 
the great enterprise of his life. Every event which throws 
light on his character belongs alike to the history of both 
the lands over which he ruled. We have now seen him 
firmly establish himself within his own Duchy; we have 
seen him successful alike against domestic and against 
foreign enemies; we have seen him extend his dominions 
by o continental conquest which seemed almost designed 
as a forestalling of his coming conquest beyond the sea. 
‘We again cntered on the direct stream of English history, 
when we reached that obscure and mysterious event, which, 
in some way or another, placed the hero of England in his 
power. We return to the point where we left the affairs 


i L 


ENGLAND NOT CONCERNED IN THE OATH. 


255 


of England. Harold, in Norman eyes the faithless vassal ouar. x0, 


of William, is chosen and consecrated to the Crown which 
William claimed as his own. We have now to see what 
steps William took, when the news reached him of what 
he deemed, or professed to deem, so great a wrong. A 
few bootless attempts at negotiation alone separate us from 
actual wars and rumours of wars. A few more pages, and 
we shall have fairly entered on the central scene of the 
great tragedy. We shall soon have to look on the last 
warfare of Teutonic England under the King of her own 
choice. We shall soon have to behold the twofold inva- 
sion, the twofold struggle, the last and greatest victory 
of Harold, his first and his last defeat. 


CHAPTER XIIT. 


‘THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM." 
Fanuary—Avgust, 1065, 


Pesition of ‘Tie people of England had made their choice. They 
View‘ bad placed the Crown of England upon the head of the 
Eadwarl. foremost man of their own blood. Harold, the son of 
Godwine, the son of Wulfaoth, rat in the kingly seat which’ 
had never before received an occupant of other than kingly 
birth. The news was not slow in reaching the ears of 
that mighty rival beyond the een, who had long marked 
that kingly seat as his own heritage, and who could now 
complain to the world that his heritage had been torn from 
him by his own sworn vassal. We cannot doubt that 
William had long been watching every breeze which could 
bring tidings from England. ‘Tho failing health of Ead- 
ward was known at Rouen as well as at Westminster,* and 
William was doubtless ready to put in his claim at the 
first moment that the throne should be actually vacant, 
Eyon after the homage done by Harold, even if we enlarge 
that homage to the full extent which it nasumes in the 
statements of William's own laureate, the Duke could hardly 
have locked forward with any hope to a peaceful suc» 
cession to the English Crown, He might well doubt how 
far he bad really bound Harold, and, if he had bound 
Harold, he had at least not bound England. But William 
* The anthoritles for this Chapter are essentially the same ss those for 
‘the Laat, 


* Will. Pict, top, “Non cnt fin longus sperabatur Ealwardi wegrotantis 
via? 








THE NEGOTIAMONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


quar.xn. mandy ; whether it was sent speciully by any of William's 


i 


a! 
5 


friends in England, or whether it went simply in the 
ordinary course of communication between two friendly 
countries, wo aro not distinctly told. But, aa a special 
messenger brought the news to the Duke, we may conceive 
‘that some of the strangers whom Harold’s clemency had 
allowed to remain in the land! tock the earliest opportunity 
of sending the news to their native sovereign? A gmiphie 
description is given of the reception of the news by the 
Duke.* He was in his park of Quevilly near Rouen,‘ with 
many knights and esquires® around him, going forth to 
the chase, He had in his hand his bow—the bow which, 
Tike that of Odysseus, no other man could bend"—strung 
and bent and ready for the arrow, Ife was in the act of 
giving it toa page to bear after him, when there exme to 
the gate a messenger, a man-at-arms from England. The 
new comer went straight to the Duke; he greeted him, 
he took him aside, and told him the news privily and 
+-Verus rumor inaporato vonit Anglieam werram Rego Edwarlo orbatam, 
eo ot ojus corona Heraldum ornatutn.” 

* Beo above, ps $1, and vol, His pp 334s 344» 387" 

* In the Tapestry (pl. 8) we sce the ship; “Ello navis Angiice veait In 
torram Willelmi Docks” See Hieaoe, p. 87. ‘The language of Wane (10991) 
scone to imply o special messenger j 

+ "Un werjant 
Ki d'Englotera vint errant, 
AL Duo yint droit," 
* Roman de Rou, 10983. * See Provost's note, tl, 120, 
* Roman do Rou, 10989 ; 
“Malt avelt od Mi chovalicrs 
E damelsels et esquicrs.” 
On“ dametsels," “domicelli,” a diminutive of *deminu,” which now aursiven 
‘Doth in French and English in the furninine only, yee, Ducange in woo, Bonolt 


(6649) applice the name, ia the form “‘danael," to Walfnoch. In the 
‘Laws of Eadtwand, it translates * J8teling,” with the comment, 


“Will, Malns. al 279. "ult. . . . roboria ingwntis #o Iaoertis, ut 
magno. mepe spectactilo foerit quod nomo ejue aroum tendaret, quer Spee 
‘admlae» equo polibus nerve extento rinuaret.” 





[Sy 


260 THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


cuar, xot. He passed straight by the Duke, and many asked him 
what the news was which so asiled their sovereign. ‘The 
Duke, hearing what passed between the Seneschal and the 
others, looked up. William Fitz-Osbern then told him 
that it was in vain for him to try to hide the news which 
he had heard, for that it was already blazed abroad through 
all the streets of Rouen. Every man in the city knew 
‘that Eadward was dead, and that Harold held the Kingdom 
of England. The Duke answered that that news was in- 
deed the thing which grieved him. No news could grieve 
him more; he sorrowed alike for the death of Eadward 
and for the wrong done to him by Harold, Was he simply 
proving his friend? or were even his stont heart and wily 
brain cowed and perplexed for a moment by the suddenness 
of the tidings? At all events it is in the mouth of William 
Fitz-Osbern—the bold of heart'—that the first eall to 
action is placed in our story, He bids the Duke not 
mourn, but arise and be doing. Let him begin, let him 
carry through what he begins; let him, in a word, cross 
the sea and wrest the kingdom from the usurper, 

‘The result of William's deliberations with this trusty 
counsellor was the sending of an embassy to the King of 
the English, The nature of the message is as diversely 
fr’ told as the rest of the story of which it forms the sequel. 
Again the contemporary English writers are silent; they 
make no mention of Norman affairs till later in the year, 
till the very eve of the Norman invasion, And of the 
other writers, each naturally throws the message into such 
a shape as suits his awn version of that onth of which 
the message must have been the counterpart. Whatever 
Harold had sworn, whatever it suited William to give out 
that Harold had sworn, that of course William now called 
on Harold to perform. But the demand ranges in dif- 
ferent versions from a summons to Harold to resign his 

* Roman de Hou, rrost, LA file Osher ef cuee hari.” 


2 
: 


i 


WILMIAM'S EMBASSY TO HAROLD. 261 


kingdom to a simple summons to marry William's daughter. onan. xt, 
‘We hear of more messages than one, and in one account 

‘the tone of the second message is wonderfully lowered 

from the tone of the first, If Harold will not resign the 
kingdom, nor give up tho castle of Dover, nor do any of 

the other things which he has promised, let him at least 
marry the Duke’s danghter. If he declines to do even 

that, the Duke will certainly come agninst him in arms 

‘to support his rights. The date of tho embassy, and the 
place of its reception by Harold, are as uncertain as the 

exact nature of the message or of the oath. It was a 
watter on which William was not likely to delay, and the 
number of events and negotiations which were crowded 

into a few months show that he did not delay, Bat our Date ot 
aly etstament soto time is the naserton ofo very untrut- Sayan 
worthy writer that the message was either sent or received in. 

on the tenth day after Eadward’s death.* Cus atald he well acer 
pleased on many grounds to know whethor it was received '* “ 
before or after Harold had sct forth on his mission to 

win the hearts of the malecontents of Northumberland. 

One would like to know whether Harold received the 
message of William when surrounded by his own West- 
Saxons, or whether it reached him, as an earlier embassy 

from Gaul had reached Glorious Athelstan,* while he waa 
engaged in arranging the affairs of the most distant and 

most troublesome portion of hie kingdom. The point ig Posie 
interesting, as it is just possible that the Northumbrian then" 
opposition to Harold may haye been in some degree con- sage om the 
‘neoled with the challenge brought to him from Normandy, North: 
‘The succession of William was indeed not likely to be land, 
Jooked on with a whit more of favour in Northumberland 

than it was looked on in Wessex. But crafty spirits were 

‘at work, who might casily turn the claims of the Norman 


* Bee Appendix Y. * Boo above, p. 72 
sz * Boo wolf. ps 197. 


THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM, 


cuay.xut. to their own ends. Such, it might be argued, were the 





results of the hasty election of Harold; such were the 
results of binding the free sons of the North by the voices 
of Weesex and East-Anglin, It would be better for the 
North again to choose ite own King, a King who bad 
never become the man of the stranger, a King whose 
right could not be challenged by any rival beyond the sea, 
Such arguments as these seem quite in charneter with the 
position of parties at the time, but we can neither affirm 
nor deny that they were actually used. The exact time 
of Harold's northern journey, the exact time, place, and 
mbatance of the meseage which Harold received from 
the Norman Duke, are among those details of our story 
which must remain unknown to us. 

Whatever was the exact purport of the embassy, there 


can be no doubt ns to ite object. Tt was sent ximply in 


order that William might add another count to his indict~ 
ment against the English King. It was sent in order that 
William might he able to eay, not only that Harold had 
neglected to perform his engagements, whatever they were, 
but that he had formally refused to perform them when 
formally called upon. Whatever William demanded, we 
may be sure that he demanded it only in the belief 
and even in the hope, that Harold would refuse it. He 
could not seriously expect that Harold would, at his bid- 
ding, either come down from his throne or ¢onsent to 
hold his Crown in vassalage. William know the temper 
both of England and of her King 2 great deal too well for 
this. Even the summons to marry William's daughter 
eould hardly have been seriously meant; if Harold were 
already married, it could only have been sent in mockery." 

* Tleave it to canom lawyers to detormnine whother Harold's precontract 
to the daughter of William would in any way invalidate bis marriage with 
the widow of Gruffydd, From some eigns in Domorday and olpewhern, 


which T shall méntion in a later volume, I suepect that this wax the Normap 
view. 


== 


OBJECT OF THE NEGOTIATION. 263 


At all events, the one object of the embassy was to put omar.xmr 
Harold, according to William's view of the caso, still fur 

ther in the wrong, Its object was to supply William with 

fresh topics for argument and for rhetori¢ in the appeal 

which be was about to make to Normandy, to Gaul, and 

to Christendom, 

‘The answer of Harold to the message is of course dif- Ditferent 
ferently conceived, necording as the message ie differently to Harold's ain 
conceived, The answer depends on tho message, just as*™"" 
‘the message depends on the oath. But all accounts agree 
in describing the answer as a complete refusul, Whatever Hts answer 
William summoned Harold to do, Harold refused to do it. cuinince 
And, according to some versions, if mockery was intended ™™! 
by the Norman, it was answered with mockery in retum. 

The Englizh King is called upon to fulfil hie promise of 
giving his sister in morrings ton Norman noble. Harold 
answers that his sister is dead, and he asks whether the 
Duke wishes her corpse to be sent to him for the pur- 
yee.’ When called on himself to marry the Duke's 
danghter, he answers, according to one version, that the 
daughter whom he promised to marry is already dead* 
According, to: another socount, he takes. high constita- Constitar 
tional ground, A King of the English cannot marry a fan! ax 
foreign wife without the consent of the Witan of England. ‘ra 
Sch an at could not be done without doing great dana enh 
to his kingdom. This answer, whether ever really made joragy. 
‘or not, is not likely to point to any formal enactment on Wife with: 
the subject of royal marriages. But it expremes the uni- sms of the 
vermil fecling of the nation that none but Englishwomon English 
‘wore fit to be wives and mothers of English Kings, Eng-y,"h. 
Jand had seen one Norman Lady, and one King who was 

* So Ender and thoso who copy from him, See Appenillx ¥ 

# Will, Malme. iii, 238. See Appendix Y. 

* Eadmer, §- “Si de fllA oud, quam debui in usorem, ut aasorit, ducers, 


raity super regnum Anglic mulicrem cxtrancata, inconnultix principibus, me 
nee deberw nee xine grandi injurki paws adddacere novertt.” 


= CO 


264 THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


enap. xm, Norman on his mother’s side. There was no wish among 
the English people to see such another Lady or euch 
another King, The marriage of Emma, and the Norman 
connexion which followed it, bad well nigh been the un- 
doing of England. That they had not been wholly her 
undoing was due to the reigning King and his father, 
‘Their dynasty at least, the Kings of the House of 
Godwine, should be for ever kept free from all foreign 
elements, Harold’s own Danish mother, so near to the 
great Cnut in kindred or affinity, could hardly bo looked 
on asa stranger, Tostig and his foreign wife were in 
banishment, and England had no wish for their return. 
‘The whole nation was no doubt fully purposed that, the 
next brood of Aithelings whom England saw should be 
no half-caste offspring of Norman or even of German or 
Flomieh mothers, but Englishmen of purely English blood, 
Against such a feeling as this Harold, even if he had wished, 
‘could not have dared to straggle. The answer put into 
his mouth, whether historically genuine or not, well ex- 
presses uncorrupted English feeling on this important point, 
It well expresses too the necessity under which a King 
of the English Iny, not only to obey the written law, but 
to consult in all things tho wishos and feelings of the 
English people. 
Anrurnent Another form of the answer put into Harold’s mouth 
{o Harold breathes an equally sound and constitutional spirit. William 
enor demands the Kingdom of England, which Harold, he 
MMs alleges, had sworn to make over to him. The English 
Theol King answer that such an oath was in itsolf void; to 
out the — break it wore a less evil than to keep it. The oath was 
Wiad, one by which Harold bound himeclf to transfor to Dake 
William an heritage which was neither Harold's nor Wil- 
liam’'s, but which only the voice of the English people 
could bestow on any man The onth or vow which a 


* Will, Male, iil, 23% “Preeumptuooum fulsse quod, abeque generali 


= 


‘CONSTITUTIONAL ANSWER OF HAROLD. 265 


maiden in her father’s house made without her parents’ mr xi, 
Knowledge was void by the laws of God and maa.t Much 
“more then was the oath void which he, when still a sub- 
ject, without the knowledge of King or people, had sworn 
under the pressure of a momentary constraint, on a matter 
touching the whole realm? It was not reasonable to ack 
him to give up a Crown which bad been placed on his 
head by the common voice of bis countrymen, and of which 
‘their voice alone could lawfully deprive him.* Such is the 
deetrine which ix put into Harold’s mouth by a writer 
‘whos divided sympathies lean decidedly to the Norman 
wide. It is a doctrine most wholesome and necessary for Contitn: 
‘4 constitutional King, a doctrine which the historian him- Son” 
self allows to bo truo or at least highly plausible. Valu- ofthe 
able, if it be a genuine record of what Harold said, this 
mpeech becomes almost more valuable if we look on it as 
the speech which a writer a generation later deemed most 
in keeping with Harold's character and position. The 
‘argument, for its own purpose, as an answer to William, 
‘ia perfect. The acceesion of Harold was not the act of 
Harold only; it was equally the act of the English people. 
‘However guilty Harold might be towards William, the 
smalits et popall conventn ot edicto, alionam Wi Iuereditatem juraverit ; 
qroinde stultum mecramentum frangendum,” This fx lees forvitly put by 

{9} "Begum god neste font mem que fre pot daze vol 
‘Numbers xxx. 3-5. 
* Will, Malme. ii. 238. “Quanto single quod io, aub Regia ving oon 


tiituing nesciente omni Anglid, do toto regno, necessitate temporis oo 
‘actus, Impegerit, yidestur non ese ritum,” 

* Tb. “ Protoma iniquum postulas ut impario decedat, quod tanto favore 
‘civium regendum susceperit ; hoe neo provinelalibus gratusn, wee militibua 
eet siete tic ot oom, ‘Would Harvld’s Thegnn 
‘and ‘have boon «pecially exposed to danger in enae of William’ 
|Fesvefil ncoemiont Or doon the historian write by tho light of hin own time 
seal sf Dowenlag,, sererabering: how much more heavily William's conte. 
‘cations fil on the: miites” than on the * 

"Th, “Ita revertebantur inance nuntii, vel verlo vol verisimilibue me 
gtapentis prcsteicti.”” 









THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


caar.xnt. English people were free from all guilt towards William 
and towards all mankind, And, whatever might he the 
guilt of Harold, it was « guilt which, as his own argument 
assumes, Jay wholly in taking the oath, not at all in 
breaking it, 
‘Tho Em- ‘The errand then of the Norman ambassadors was a boot- 
Tarts" less one. No doubt it was the intention of him who vent 
Witla’, them that it should be bootless. Whatever were their de- 
veal point mands, whether they came ance only or oftener, whether 
sinc thoy raised their demands or lowered them, whether they 
dealt in persuasion only or in threats as well as persuasion,* 
._ Harold, evidently speaking tho voice of the English people, 
Ser * refused all that was demanded of him, No other couree 
Se indeed was possible. The point hardly needs to be argued, 
“+ Harold could not, without the consent of the Witan, cither 
resign the Crown to William or hold it of him in wassalage. 
And the consent of the Witan would certainly not have 
‘been given for “any such purpose. ‘The whole question 
in ehort was frivolous. The dispute had reached a stage 
which was past negotiation, and Harold and William alike 
Imew that all negotiation was vain. What William gained 
by his embassy was again to entangle Harold in the 
meshes of his subtle craft. Harold could only refuse every 
demand of William; but Harold's refusal of William's de- 
mands made another point on William's side, of which he 
was not slow to take advantage. 








§ 2. Claims and Arguments of William, 


‘Willan’s William had now no chance—in trath there had never 

rateeol been a time when he really had a chance—of winning the 

+ WL, Malms, i, 238. “Alter [Willelmas] interes illum [Efarclduan] 

per nuntios leniuer omvenire, de rupto firsere expostnlare, precibox mina 

inmuere ; aciret we ante snnum emeraum ferro debitum vindioaturum, ile 

terion quo Haroldue taliores se peetes habere yutarch."” Ts this as not very 
{intelligible clause o sent? at the Knglish tactics of fighting on foot? 


= 


WAR INEVITABLE, 267 


‘Bnglich Crown except by the sword. But, before he made onan. xm. 
that last appeal, he had many minds to work upon and 

to win over to his cause. An enterprise such as he de- 
signed was one such as no Norman Duke had ever before 
attempted. It was one which might ecem altogether bo- 

Yond the power of Normandy to achieve. William’s own 
father had indeed contemplated an English war, and 192%-1035- 
he had actually gathered together a fleet for the invasion 

of England.’ Bnt the enterprise of Robert was under- 

taken to restore the banished heir of England, driven from 

his native realm by a foreign invader. Such at lenet wae 

the colour which Robert would put upon his schemes, and 

in carrying out such schemes he doubtless reckoned on a 
certain measure of English support. It was not really 

likely that Englishmen would have joined a Norman army 

to drive ont Cout in favour of the sons of Athelred. But 
dreams of this kind are evor the food of exiles,* and of 
princes who take up the enuse of exiles, But in William's 

‘ease thore was no room for any delusions of this kind, 
William had no rights but his own to assert, and those No English 
rights, he must have known very well, were not acknow: vor or 
ledged by a single native partizan® He might gain ¥Mism 
somewhat by sowing dissensions within the island, by 
abetting any schemes on the part of Endgar or Tostig or 

the cons of Hilfgar. Bot his only gain in this way would 

be the gain of dividing and weakening England, Any 
English party which wos dissatisfied with the clection 

of Harold would assert the claims, not of William but 

of some English competitor. For direct help in England Diperbibes 
William could look only to the Norman settlers whom (erprie. 
‘Harold had allowed to remain in the country. He had, 

in short, to win tho English Crown, if he won it at all, 

* Heo wil. fp. 469 at seq. 


# Hach, Ag. 1653. oF¥ yb pacyurras drBpas lridas serovpirovt, 
» Enoeyt perhaps Maly of Norfolk. Seo Appendix PP, 





Ai : i 


il 
268 THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


ouay. xt. by no means but that of open war, And he had to wage 
his warfare at a time when England was roled by a King 
who was his own peer in the art of war, when the land was 
defended by an army in the highest state of efficiency, an 
army which had never known defeat, and which was 
flushed with the remembrance of hard-won victories. 
William had in short to make good hia rights in the ab= 
sence of the least hope of native help, and withal in the 
teeth of King Harold and his Housecarla, 
Cw, _ Such an enterprise as this might well seem to be beyond 
Normm the powers of a Duke of the Normans and of his Duchy, 
=" ‘The successes of the Normans in Apulia might indeed make 
it seem as if no enterprise could be impossible to Norman 
valour. If private adventurers could thus carve out prinei- 
palities for themselves, what conquests might not bo made 
by the Duke himeelf at the head of the wholo foree of the 
Duchy? And no doubt the example of the conquests made 
by his countrymen in the South of Earope was ever pre- 
sent to the mind of William in planning his great under~ 
—— taking in the North. But the mere fact that the warfare 
the two Wis in. the one case waged in the South and in the other 
“ws in the North was an important element of difference be= 
ftwoon tho Apulian and tho English enterprieo,. The actors 
indeed in the one case were private adventurers, while in 
the other it would be a sovereign at the head of his sub- 
jects and vassals. Duke William could no doubt command 
a far greater force than the sons of Tancred of Hauteville, 
but then he was also obliged to wage a wholly different 
kind of warfare. The Duke of the Normans could not 
afford to sit down in some corner of England, and to win 
his way stop by step, ever and anon gaining this or that 
ekirmish or taking this or that castle. And again, without 
joining in any ignorant depreciation of Byzantine military 
prowess, we may doubt whether the sons of Tanered had 
ever joined battle with enemies who could be at all com- 


jst 


- COMPARISON OP ITALY AND SICILY. 269 


have to join battle in England. If Robert Wiscard and 
his brothers had ever met with really equal foes, it was 
when they encountered Pope Leo's German anxilinries," 1033, 
and, by that time, they had risen somewhat above the 
tank of private adventurers. They had waged a desultory 
owarfare agaiust a town here and a castle there, towns and 
castles defended for the most part by the mercenaries of a 
distant Emperor. They had never faced, what William 
would have to face in England, a native King at the head 
at once of an armed nation and of a native standing army. 
eaiiiertianey igroioe woul natsrelly ‘shrink Seon anch Wituaty 
arick, It is only minds like that of William which can fete 
ize above all ordinary pradence, which know their own Plone. 
‘power os none but themsclyes can know it, which focl 
instinctively that undertakings which would be madness in 
others are in their hands certain of success. oes 
himself could not hope for success, unless he could win over %, 
ietetgiertancsur con eponucnan Sas 
find ule "ho e5ald inspire ‘them with thet oonbdense in peta 
themselves and in their leader without which such an 
undertaking would be simply hopeless. He had first to Pirst in his 
dcal with the chiefs and people of his own Duchy. Without Ducny, 
their consent, without their thorough good will, he could 
do nothing. To cross the sea to conquer England was 
quite another matter from putting down Norman rebels, 
from driving out French and Angevin invaders, or oven 
from annexing neighbouring towns and provinces, like 
Domfront and Le Mans. William’s men were bound by 
their feudal tenure to follow his standard on the field of 

- -Wal-@s-danes and beneath the walls of Alengon. But it 
might well be doubted whether their feudal tenure bound 
them to follow his standard beyond the sea in an enterprise 
in which Normandy had no interest. At all events they 

4 Soe shore, p. gt. 


270 THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


‘cuHsP. xt, were not likely to muster with the same zeal for the more 
hazardous undertaking, The Cenomannian war had been 
a war of aggression no less than the English war would be, 
and the spoils of conquered Englund would doubtless be far 
richer than the spoils of conquered Maine. Bat men would 
not be so ready to trust themselves in hope of spoil in the 
unknown land beyond the sea as they wore to go on a 
foray in an adjoining province, from which it was an easy 
‘The Nor- matter to make their way back to their own homes, ‘To 
famaioh, attempt, by any mere stretch of the ducal authority, to 
‘not com- carry men across the seas to win crowns for William's own 
the unders personal behoof would have been simply hopeless. William 
knew better than to risk his popularity and his authority 
by any attempt of the kind. His object was to carry the 
feelings of hie people with him, and to conquor England 
by the swords of Norman volunteers, 
Various But the feeling to which William was about to appeal 
oe was something more than the mere desire of spoil, or even 
Myuici, than the highor sentiment of feudal loyalty. Nor did he 
design to make his appeal to his own Normandy only, It 
suited William's purpose and disposition to give his enter- 
Religions priso a far higher character and a far wider range. ‘Tho 
ofthe ago; #8 Wns a religious age; Normandy was an eminently 
spectally religious country; William professed, and in many respects 
slurscter honestly practised, a devotion to religion beyond that of 
“other men. It is not without real propriety that the pane~ 
gyrixt of William stops at this stage of his narrative to tell 
us of the flourishing state of Normandy and the Norman 
Church under a prince equally valiant, jnst, and devout. 
William laboured to preserve the penee of his Duchy by 
keeping down all ite disturbers with the strong hand; the 
Truce of God was nowhere eo strictly kept as in the 
Norman land.’ William in his own person heard and 
judged the cause of the poor, the fathorless, and the widow; 
+ See vol. di, p. 239, 


Hi 





272 


THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


ouar, xm. his government churches rose, monasteries were restored to 


the purity of their rale, Abbots, Bishops, all ranks of the 
clergy, became models of the due discharge of their several 


Tafoences duties. Nor is it without reason that, immediately on this 


oe 
Wins 


Par 


panegyric, our author adds his first mention of the great 
man whom William had now chosen as his special coun- 
sellor in all matters touching the Church and religion. 
‘The Prior of Bee, the renowned Lanfranc, was now, not 
indecd in rank but in influence, the first man in the 
Norman Church.’ And it is impossible not to trace the 
hand of Lanfrane in the course which William now 
followed, The minds of the Duke and the Prior, exer~ 
cised as they had been in such different pursuits, had 
still much in common, In both we see the same wide 


“grasp, the same subtlety, the samo daring. In many 


things Lanfrano would be the teacher, but he would ever 
find in William a pupil worthy of his teaching. The cos 
mopolitan traveller, who had migrated from Pavia to Bee 
—the scholar who had turned from the study of the laws 
of Cesar? to the study of the laws of God—the theologian 
who had refuted the heretic face to fice—the diplomatist 
who had won the consont of the Roman Court to his 
sovervign’s marriage—he it was, we cannot doubt, who 
put into William’s hands the surest weapon for his con 
quest. He it was who taught him to lay his claim, not 
only before Normandy, but before all Christendom, and to 
cloke a wrongful aggression under the guise of a Holy 
War, He it was who tanght him to gather round his 
‘bseure wonts “justo domentive™ mean, Tconcelve, not that the ceelesfastical 
judgon wore too etrict, but that they let off offenders for money. On the 
doings of Archioscons wo vol. il. p. 228, and the passage of Jobn of Salix 
bury there ruferred to. 

Y Will, Pict. 11g, “Lanfranoum . . . intimi fhmfliaritate oolobat 5 ut 
potrom Tenerans, Ferens us preoceptoror, diligens ut germanum aut prolem, 
Tit consulta anime sux, (lt speculam quamdan, unde ordinibus ecole 
ssastiots por omnem Normanniam prespiceretar, comrminit." 

# Soe vol fhe py ana. 


— 


‘INFLUENCE OF LANFEANC. 273 


standard crusaders from well nigh every Western land, car. xin 
and in the end to set foot on English ground, not as 

an adventurer avenging his private quarrel, but as the 
champion of the Church, marching forth with the ap- 
proval and the blessing of the temporal and the spiritual 
chiefs of Christendom. 

- 

‘Let us then see what was the case against Harold and Neture of 
sginst England which William thus broogbt to be judged, Sam" 
as we may say, by the public conscience of Europe. ‘The jhe Engttah 
pleadingsof Williams and his'advocates; not only in kis own 
Norman Parliament, but at the bar of the Pope, the 
‘Emperor, and the whole world, is one of the most memo- 
table instances of human subtlety. It was a wonderful 
example of the way in which wily men, men like William 
and Lanfranc, can persuade others, and most likely per- 
suade themselves also, that the worse cause is the better. 

I have more than once already shown that William No valid 

had no valid claim of any kind to the English Crown. stay 

‘He had no claim by hereditary right; for the Crown of Met ight, 

England was not hereditary, and, if tad been hereditary, byes 

Ss cil scetinian that! ver‘oraslisnnl'of could/mmka Sorbo, 

William the heir. He had no claim by bequest; for a 

King of the English could not bequeath his kingdom like 

‘a private estate, and such power of recommendation as the 

King did possess bad been exercised in favour of another. 

‘He had no claim by election; for the people of England, 

‘im fall Gemét assembled, had chosen another as their King. 

‘He bial indeod suffered a wrong, whatever was its nature Hake, 

and degree, at the hands of the King whom England had j2u4!"™ 

chosen, Harold had sworn to do something, and he had Sl 2%" 
§ There wos of coune no actually crowned Exmperor at this moment, but 


‘Hoary or bin counsellors was doubtless made to him rather in his charscter 
—— ile lowliee character of » local Germs 


ta a T 


| 


274 THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM, 


nav. xux. nob done what he had sworn to do. That was literally all, 
and, as a claim on the Crown of England, it was nothing. 
If Harold were to resign the Crown, if Harold were killed. 
in battle or in single combat, William would not thereby 
gain any right to the Crown greater than he had before. 
Harold had no power, any more than Eadvward had, to 
make over the Crown to another ; his resignation or death 
would simply create a vacancy, which the people of Eng- 
land might fill as they would, ‘The utmost that could 
be said on William's side wae that Harold’s wrong doing 
gave William a casus Jel/i, and that a victory over Harold 
would give William, by right of conquest, all the goods of 
Harold, the English Crown among them. But so odious 
a straining of the Law of Nations was too clearly unjust for 
‘The right William to venture publicly upon it. The right of conquest 
‘not put» Wale a right which he took care never to put prominently 
forward. forward. He always claimed as a lawful heir defrauded 
William's of a lawful possession. And it marks a stage in the growth 
Rion of European civilization, when William saw that his canse 
‘qinion’® would be strengthened by making his claim, formally and 
adveuciog solemnly, in the eyes of all men. ‘The age of mere brute 
tion, force was clearly past, when a prince claiming a foreign 
crown took such pains to win the public opinion of 
Europe, and employed so many pens and so many voices 
on his side, Unjust and delusive as wore his claims, 
it marks a great step in human progress that any man’s 
claims should be put forward in so solemn a way. Tt 
was a distinct tribute to the power of Jaw and right-and 
andofthe opinion. But it was a tribute no less distinct to the 
veer ar rowing power of the Papacy, The Bishop of Rome was 
—— called on, if not to dispose of the Crown of England, at 
least to dotermine who was its lawful possessor, Herein, 
if Lanfranc the churchman triumphed, William the states- 
man undoubtedly erred. We did not indeed err as regarded 
his own personal interests, No crown that William held 


a 


NATURE OF WILLIAM'S CLALM, 275 


or won could ever be at the disposal of any other mortal, omar, xu, 
‘But be erred as regarded the common interest of Kings 
and of all independent governments. He invited the alli~ Bite of 
ance and interference of a power which he himself knew spon 
how to manage, but which proved too strong for smaller 
men, The blast of the Roman trampet which declared 
Harold a perjured usurper, and William the lawful heir 
of England, was but the forerunner of a still mightior 
Disst whieh pealed forth ten years later, The power which 
William now called on to bless and hallow the schemes 
of his ambition learned, from the precedent set by William 
himeelf, to venture on that crowning act of daring which 
declared how King Henry, the son of Henry the Emperor, 1076. 
stood deprived of the Crowns of Italy and of the Teutonic 

1 
See rams wah eben ESL ators area Pee 
before Rome, and before all Western Christendom, was pay 
in itself, a pretence utterly weak and fallacious, He Wiliam 
dlaimed crown which the solemn act of thoae who alone fmt » 
eauld dispose of it had, freely and lnwfally, given to™ 
another. But the eraft of William—we must doubtless 
add, the craft of his monastic ally—knew well how to 
pat = fair colouring on their cause. The law of England 
new nothing of William's claim; but the law of Eng 
land was likely to be known to few beyond the bounds 
of the island realm. Worthless as were William's claime, 
they had a side which to many minds would be more 
attractive than that great principle of English Jaw that 
no man could reign in England save by the will of the 

| people, Pian aney Boch We eae p ciate take ies of 
a taking and rhetorical shape ; it was easy to mix them [My 
¥ Seo the great anathema in Puul of Rornriod’s Life of Gregory, exp, 
taxvi, (op. Murabs tli, 336); "Hensioo Regt, filio Menrict Empeentoris, . 
Aotius Begni Teutonicorum et Italie yuberaculs contradic.” ‘Mark bow, 
‘ae constantly in Lambert, while Tualy hae a mame, Gerrnemy has none. Sie 
‘vol. &. pp 692, 6oy. 

72 


276 THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM, 


«war. xm1, up with a whole crowd of arguments, which had no real 
{irate bearing on the ease, but which were admirably fitted to 
enlist the sympathies of different classes of men. Tt was 
easy, by skilful management, to insist now on one point, 
now on another, with little care as to their logical con~ 
sistency, if only one point gained one class of 
and another point gained another.’ In a lange part of 
Europe, wherever the ideas of feudalism and chivalry had 
taken firm hold, the doctrine that the people alone had 
a right to choose their prince was fast passing out of 
‘The here- memory. The doctrine of hereditary right was daily 
See soreading. It was daily taking firmer and firmer root, 
with regard both to the Crown of France and to the 
cate great fiefs which were held of that Crown. The doctrine 
Conilnen that tho King nover dies had indeed not yet arisen, but 
the Parisian Kings had learned how to avoid the dangers 
of the interregnum and ¢lection by having their sons 
crowned in their own life-time. That the Empire was 
other than elective no man had dared to affirm; no man 
then, or seven hundred years later, would have taken on 
him to deny that the highest place on earth was in theory 
open to every baptized man. But the moment with which 
we are dealing was the very moment when the Empire 
was showing the strongest tendency to become practically 
hereditary. In the Teutonic Kingdom, no leas than in 
Latin France, the reigning King was ab this moment » 
boy crowned as his father’s successor while his father still 
lived.* The great fiefs of both crowns were fast changing, 
* Compare Lord Macaulay's remarks (ii, 624) on the different clauses of 
the resolution by which the Crown was declared vacant after the fight of 
Jranes the Second 
¥ See above, p. 178, and vol. f. pp. 240, 465. 
* See val. . p. 602. In the pamage of Bruno there referred to, Philip 
gots no higher title than “* Latine Francie Rector.” Yet he te hetier off 
than Charles the Bald, who, in the Annales Fuldensoa under £75 (Peete, 5. 


389), fs ouly © Gallise Tyran.” 
* Soe ved. pe a72. 





THE SEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


ouar, xt. had freely passed from one kingdom to another, as they 


z 
i 


could win them by conquest or by inheritance. Hugh 
of Provence had reigned in Ttaly;? Odo of Chartres had 
sought, not without a fair chance of success, for a kingdom 
in Burgundy ;? and, the greatest instance of all, the erowns 
of Burgundy and Italy, the Imperial Crown of Rome iteclf, 
wore now, by the public law of Europe, held to pase of 
right to the King of the Teutonic Kingdom. For the 
Duke of the Normans to grow into the King of the 
‘English would therefore seem a change far less strange 
in continental than it seemed in insular eyes. And again, 
it was for William's advantage that, though the doctrine 
of hereditary right was fast growing, the laws of heredi- 
tary succession had not yot been strictly fixed in any 
country. No one doubted that a son onght to succeed to 
his father, bat it was by no means clear who ought to 
sucooed to a prince who left no son. In fact this point 
has not to this day been settled by the common consent 
of Europe; it has in each kingdom followed the local law 
of that kingdom, and, I need not say, it is 2 point on which 
the law of France and the law of England have differed for 
ages, In teath it was only in an age when the law of 
the Bastard could have succeeded to anything, whether in 
Normanily or in England. With regard to England, his 
claims would be at once set aside by a modern lawyer. 
He ard Eadward had indeed a common forefather in 
Richant the Fearless, but Richard the Fearless never was 
sovereign of England, nor was he in any line of exceession 
which could have made him, under any circumstances, 
sovereign of England. Such a common ancestry could 


of kin is really more easily understood, and comes more 
‘eeva ip oe a 


EE 


‘MIXED NATURE OF WILLIAM'S CLAIM. 279 


readily home to men’s minds, than the technical doctrine cur. xr, 
of representation. William could therefore easily work Mixed 
on men’s minds by enlarging on his nearness of kin to (rife Ot 
Endward, eepecially whon that claim was mixed up with ein. 
‘the claim founded on the alleged bequest of Eadwand. 
‘He could talk of the kindred by blood between himself and 
the English King; he coald talk of their mutual friend- 
ship and mutual good offices; he could tell of the promise 

of the succession made to him by his childless cousin. 
All this could easily be wrought up into a claim which, 

in the eyes of men ignorant of the law of England and 
knowing no very strict law of succeseion of their own, 
might easily seem stronger than the claims of Harold, 
which rested solely on the choice of the English people. 

As for Endgar, nearer of kin to Eadward than William 
was, and born withal of the trae kingly stock of England, 

it best suited Willinm’s purpose to say nothing about him. 
‘Out of England his name was most likely hardly known, 
‘Nay, in the unsettled state of men’s minds, William might, 

Af the objection was ever started, argue that Eadward 
‘might rightly pass by an incompetent minor, and bequeath 
his Crown to a kineman almost a near in blood and so 
much better fitted to rule.* 

We thus see that William's claim to the Crown, a claim winism's 
artfully made up of bequest and hereditary right, was one St 
‘yy n0 meaas ill mite lo commend ite to many minds at na 
the time, Bat it was not merely his claim as heir ar at the timo, 


* Heury of Huntingdon, os we have seen (seo vol. £ p, sot), seriously 


Regen 
| Seoundl soror, fia Primt, Km, gonitrix fuit Edwanll.” 


280 THE NEGOTIATIONS OP DUKE WILLIAM. 


cuar.xurr. logatee of Eadward that William now put forth to the 
world. ‘There never was a more memorable example of the 

way in which ene utterly worthless argument can some- 

times be made to bolster up another argument equally 

‘Bis nome worthless. With William's supposed original right by 
‘iat kindred or bequest the wrong done to him by Harold was 
oh | cunningly mixed up. I have already argued that that 
‘vor wrong, whatever was its nature, could not really give 
William any right which he did not possess already. Nei« 
rat ther Harold's oath nor Harold's breaking of his oath could, 
‘of in law or morals, make William's claim to the Crown one 

ieee jot better or worse, But no tale could be better fitted 
further to inflame the minds of those who were already 
disposed to look on the Norman Duke as an injured man, 

It would indeed be a spirit-stirring tale in which William, 

and those who pleaded in William’s name, would set forth 

Aspect of the wrong-doings of the faithless Englishman, Harold, 
an the sworn man of William, had turned sgainst his lord ; 
William. ye had trodden under foot every duty of a vassal; reseued 
from the dungeon of Begurain by William's bounty, honoured 

with William’ personal friendship, admitted to the ranks 

of Norman chivalry by William's hand, bound to William 

and his house by the promise of a daughter of Nor- 
mandy—he had despised so many and so great favours ; 

he had lifted up his heel against his lord and benefactor ; 

the kingdom which he had sworn to make over to William: 

he had traitorously seized as his own; he had added, it 

might bo, to his crime the further guilt of abusing the 
confidence of his own dying sovereign, and of wringing 

from him in his last moments an unwilling assent to the 
usurpation which he plotted. This was the light in which 

the tale of the election of Harold, a tale which seems so 
glorious in English eyes, would look in the eyes of those 

before whom William pleaded, of those on whom he called 

on to help him to assert his right and to chastise the 


WILLIAM'S APPEAL TO RELIGION. 28L 


-wrong-iocr. Nor was this all; William bad that to add enap. xt. 
‘which would speak at once to the deep religious foclings to 
of his age and people. This was no common case of 4 
‘vassal forgetting his duty to his lord. Who in that age Mavis 
could boast that he had always faithfully discharged al Situs” 
the duties arising out of the intricate, and often contra- feudal otii- 
-dictory, relations of feadatism ? On such mere backslidings So". 
as thoso William had never been unduly harsh. He had over omit w 
and over again forgiven the mon who had rebelled against manSainte. 
him, and in the moment of victory he had ever kept his hands 

‘lean from bloodshed. But here was a wrong which ho 

never could forgive, because @ higher duty called on him to 
avenge it. He might pass by wrongs done against him- 

self; but he would be himself a partaker in the guilt, 

if he passed by the wrongs done against a mightier power. 
Normandy had this time been wronged, not only in the 
person of her mortal sovercign but in tho persons of her 
immortal guardians, Harold had done despite to all the 
saints of the Norman land; he had armyed against him 

the wrath of every patron of every holy place from the 
‘stream of Ea to the Mount of the Archangel. The powers 

of Heaven were ready to fight against their blusphemer, 

and to bless the urms of him who stood forth as their 
earthly avenger. Forostalling the enthusiagm with which, Tho Cra 
thirty years later, men pressod to wipe out their sins by Stieais 
8 crumde against the infidel, William now called on all Wiens 
who would te win the favour of Heaven by going forth 

with him to avenge the insult offered to the saints of 
‘Normandy. William, in self-delusion, let us hope, rather 
‘than in conscious hypocrisy, called on all who would to 

help him in the attack on an independent nation which he 
-eloked ander the name of a holy war, 

‘Sueh was in truth the claim by virtue of which William Gencral 

throw down his challenge to England and to the King °Mra"* 
whom England had chosen, In the cye either of logic tan's ca. 


THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


quar.xum. or of dound morals, his fabric wae but as a house of cards; 


Various 
incentives: 


‘The 


each fallacy rested on another fallacy as weak aa iteelf, and 
whon one frail support gave way, the fall of the whole must 
follow, But men are in general but little under the rule 
either of logic or of morals; they are apt to be guided 
by impulse rather than by judgement; they find it much 
easier to echo some easily repeated formula than to 
go into the facts or the reason of anything. A case 
then like William’s, artfully put together, and in which 
each fallacy fitted ingoniously into another, really told with 
more effect than the few plain facts which formed the 
defence of Harold and of England. Instead of being a 
house of cards, William’s fabric of fallacies, each resting on 
the other, did, as a matter of practical policy, win for itself 
‘the strength of the firmest arch. And artfully mixed up 
with his formal claims were appeals of all kinds, fitted to the 
character and passions of the various kinds of men with 
whom he had to deal. To all, of whatever nation, who 
would flock to his standard he offered a share in the spoila 
of England, Howould lead them toa Jand abounding in all 
manner of good things, a land fruitful in meat and drink and. 
rich in gold and silver.! The wealth of that goodly land 
should be the guerdon of all who had a share in its con- 
quest. In that spirit of confident boasting which, in men 
like him, is often the highest wisdom, he promised before 
hand all that was Harold’s, while Harold, he said, had 
‘not strength of mind to promise a single thing that was 
his William here lighted on the true difference between 
* Liber de Hydk, 291. “Dei stent nuts multores §t conceres 


* WGL Piet. 124. “Non oo animi viget (Heralds) robors, quo rel 
minimum quid meurumm pollicer! andast. At arbitrhs eco paciter que mom 
sunk, qeeque dicuntur Mies, prociitenter sigue dabestur.” To azy man 
det Wittiam cme mlyht have quoted the fable about the bear atl Bis skin. 


APPEAL TO NORMAN PATRIOTISM, 283 


‘his own position and that of his rival. Harold, content euar. xu 
with his own, planning no aggression against William or 


is own people, William could appeal to feelings which 

‘wore at least higher than the mere love of plunder. It Appeal to 
‘was possible to appeal to a certain yein of Norman pecriotian. 
patriotism, and to represent, not only the English King, 

but tho English nation, as laden with a heavy weight of Norman 
offences against the Norman Duchy, The English inva- S26 
sion in Aithelred’s time! was perhaps fongotten—eome Hea 
‘erities may perhaps say that it never happened—at any 

mite it does not seom to have beon prominently put for- 
ward. But William took care to give himeelf out as the 

‘true successor of his father in the expedition which his 
father undertook againat England to support the rights 

of his cousins, the banished thelinga* He, the chosen Tho mar- 
heir of Eadward, went forth, among other high and right~ “eye, 
‘eons ends, to avenge the blood of Ailfred, shed by the 
father of tho reigning King, who was himself—so it was 
given out—art and part in his father's deed.® Tho blood 

of a prince, partly Norman by birth, and endeared to 
Normandy by long residence in childhood and youth, 
might well call for vengeance at the hands of loyal Nor- 
mans. ‘Then there was the wrong done, fourteon years Expulson 
‘ack, to.so many Normans, friends and guests of the late Nieroyay 
venerated King. Norman knights and prelates hnd had i 153 
‘to flee for their Lives before a lawless crowd of English 

Bee vol. f. pp. 300, 630. 

* 1b, p. 469, and above, p. 267. 

2 This oomos among the thrve canses for William's invasion given by 

Honry of Huntingdon (761 D); “Primo, quia Alfredum eogostum swum 
Godwinun ef lit rut debonestavorant et peremerunt; Secundo, quia Ro 
Derum eplecopum et Odonom constilem [vee vol. ii. p. g65) ot omnes 
Frances Gedwlaus et filit aul arte sub ab Anglih comlaverant: Tertlo, quod 
“Haraldus, i perjurtum prolapsus, regnur, quod jure cognatioals [see abure, 

p- 27g] enum ome dobueral, sino alsquo jare ivenserat.” 


a. 


THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


Harold and his traitor father. Chief among the victims 
was one whose wrongs, wrongs done against the Church 
and all godliness, were but the fit forerunners of the fouler 
wrong which bad since been done directly against the 
saints in glory, The blasphemer of the Norman saints 
had been the despoiler of the Norman Primate. Robert of 
Jumiéges, driven from the throne of Augustine, had come 
back to spend the remnant of his days in his own land, 
and to lay his bones beneath the slender towers and mas- 
sive arches of the mighty minster which he himself had 
reared.’ That the murder of Ailfred was a crime in which 
Harold could have had no share, that the flight of Robert 
was Robert's own act, that his deprivation was a righteous 
process of English law, that, even had Harold beon the 
murderer of Alfred and the unrighteous despoiler of Robert, 
neither count could in any way strengthen William's claim 
to the English Crown—all these were points on which few 
minds in Normandy were likely to dwell. All these irre- 
levant matters could easily be made use of to stir up the 
mind of Normandy against Harold and againet England. 
And, if thie was done, no matter how logically weak were 
the arguments by which it was done, the aim of William 
was gained. 

But Williara, in the course of this great argument, showed 
himself emphatically all things to all men. There were 
other minds than those of his own Normans to be persuaded, 
there were ears in which another line of argument would 


‘Tho inva sound moro convincing. No diplomacy short of that of 
eum, William and Lanfranc could have known how to represent 


eutorprion. 


the invasion of England as an undertaking designed for the 

spiritual welfare of England. Noe brains less subtle than 

theirs could have turned William and his host. into armed 

missionaries, eager to reform at the sword’s point the evil 
* Seo vol, ih p. 69. 


THE ORUSADE AGAINST ENGLAND. - 286 


Hives and the ecclesiastical abuses of the ungodly islanders.’ omar. xtir. 
Saas aap) Let Tha babes cba of Sis Td eee 
of Saints—a land which had oo lately boasted of King yi 
like Eadward and an Earl like Leofrio—a land which was the English 
still adorned by the virtues of the holy Wulfstan—a land 

where 20 many minstera were rising in fresh statolinoss, 

and where the wealth of the Church was daily added to—a 

land whose Earls and Bishops and sons of every degree 
pressed, year after year, to worship and to offer at the 

tombs of the Apostlee—ua land like this was branded as a 
Jand which nooded to be again gathered in to the true fold, 
and the crusade which had not yet been preached against ‘The 
‘Turks or Prussians or Albigensee was preached before its ached 
time against the people of England. Tt was indeed easy to jie, | 
guther together, in England or in any other land, tales which 
showed that the Church had fallen from hor first love, It 

was easy to tell of breaches of discipline and breaches of 
morals, to tell of the vast pluralities of Stigand and of the 

deeds of sacrilege wrought at Berkeley and Leominster. 

‘The orators of William may well have eet forth tales like 

those before the Roman Court, alongside of the tale of the 
perjury of Harold and of the wrong done to their own 
master. But these were not the real erimes of England. 

Her crime in the eyes of Rome, the crime to punish which Real orime 
the crusade of William was approved and blessed, was the tate 
independence still retained by the island Church and nation. (mee! 

A land where the Church and the nation were but different 

names for the same body, land where priests and 
prelates wore subject to the law like other men, a land 

where the King and hie Witan gave and took away the 
staff of the Bishop, was a land which in the eyes of Rome 

Was more dangerous than a land of Jews or Saracens. 

) William of Poitiers (124) tx emphatio on chix hesd; Wiliam “nom 


‘tantom ditfonem suatn ot gloriatn suger, quantum ritus Chrtetianos partibns 
fn Illis corrigere intondit,”” 


THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAN. 


omar. xa, Rome, ever watchful, ever mindful, had not forgotten the 


rf 


ae 


note of insular deflance when the heart of England spoke 
by the mouth of Tostig, and threatened the Pontiff on his 
‘throne.! Even under Eadward, England had been no un- 
resisting bond-slave, and her independence, eo boldly ae- 
serted by one son of Godwine, was likely to be as boldly 
maintained by another. The opening which Rome had 
doubtless long looked for now offered itself. A sword was 
put into her hand by which the rebellions islanders might, 
be brought undor her full obedience. It was a policy 
worthy of William to send to the threshold of the Apostles 
to crave their blessing on his intended work of bringing the 
rebollious land within their fold. And it was a policy 
worthy of one greater than William himself to make even 
William, for once in his life, the tool of purposes yet more 
daring, yet more far-sighted, than his own. On the steps of 
the papal chair, and there alone, had William and Lanfranc 
to cope with a mind Joftier and more subtle than even theirs. 
‘The counsellor of eo many Pontiffs, 20 soon to be himeelf 
the most renowned of Pontiffs, knew with whom he had 
to deal, and knew how to bide his time as well as William 
himself. William was sent on an errand which none bat 
William could carry out, bat of which William bimself knew 
not the full bearing. Under his rule no man could doabt that 
England would be sabject to none bat him. With William 
for her King, she was us little likely to be the unresisting 
slave of Rome as if Harold himself should continue to 
goard ber, Buta seed waz sown which was to bear fruit 
in other times and under weaker rulers, When Rome once 
took wpon her to adjudge the Crown of England, the path 
was opened for that day of shame and sorrow when » 
descendant of William stooped to receive the Crown of 
England as 1 fief of Rome. 


© See wel Mp 45. 





THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


euat.xuit.’ himself, Richard of Evreux, the son of Robert the Arch- 


bishop, the grandson of Richard the Fvarless.| There was 
the trae kinsman and vassal who guarded the frontier 
fortress of Eu,* the brother of the traitor Busac and of the 
holy Bishop of Lisieux.® There was Roger of Beaumont, 
who rid the world of Roger of Toosny,* and Ralph, the 
worthicr grandson of that old foe of Normandy and man- 
kind.* There was Ralph’s companion in banishment, 
Hugh of Grantmesnil,® and Roger of Montgomery, the 
loyal son-in-law of him who cursed the Bastard in his 
eradle? There too were the other worthies of the day of 
Mortemer, Walter Giffard’ and Hugh of Montfort,’ and 
William of Warren, the valiant youth who had received the 
chiefest guerdon of that memorable ambush? Theee men, 
chiefs of the great houses of Normandy, founders, some of 
them, of greater houses in England, were gathered together 
at their sovereign’s bidding. They were to be the first to 
share his counsels in the enterprise which he was planning, 
an enterprise planned against the land which, with so many 
in that assembly, was to become a second home, a home 
perhaps all the more cherished that it was won by the 
might of their own right hands, 

To this select Council the Duke made hisfiretappeal. He 
told them, what some of them at least knew well already, of 
the wrongs which he had suffered from Harold of England." 
Tt. was his purpose to cross the sea, in onder to assert, his 
rights and to chastise the wrong-doer. With the help of 
God and with the loyal service of his faithful Normans, 


* Soe vol. i, ps 267. * See above, p. 116. 
* See above, p. 117. * Seo vol. il. pe 197- 

* See above, p. 159. * Seonbovv, pp. 184) 203; vol. fh 230. 
* Sco vol. il. pp. 184, 185, 194." Scenbove, pp. 129, 153: 

* See above, ps 185. Boe above, pu 198. 


"\ J get thedetails of this meeting and of the larger meeting at Lillobonne 
from the Roman da Rou (F118 ot soqq.), the only account which carefully 
Aixtinguishos the two. Seo Appendix Z. 





290 THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


our, meeting of all the barons of his Duchy, and lay his 
designs before them, 

‘The The Dake hearkened to this advice, and he at once sont 

Paria forth a summons for the gathering of a larger Assembly, 

‘This is the only time when we come aeroes any details of 

Difference the proceedings of a Norman Parliament, And we at 

Norman once see how widely the political condition of Normandy 

it Ce differed from that of England. We see how such further 

somblics, England had advanced, or, more troly, how much farther 

Normandy had gone back, in the path of political freedom. 

‘The Norman Assembly which nasembled to discuss the war 

against England was a widely different body from the 

great Gemét which had voted for the restoration of 

Godwine. Godwine had made his speech before the King 

and all the people of the lund.t That people had met 

under the canopy of heaven, beneath the walls of the 

No Clergy greatest city of the realm. But in William's Assembly 

wr com ye We hear of none but Barons. The old Teutonic constitu. 

Korman tion had wholly died away from the memories of the 

of the men who fellowed Rolf and Harold 

Blaatand, The immemorial democracy had passed away, 

and the later constitution of the medieval States had not 

yet arisen. There was no Third Estate, because the per- 

sonal right of every freeman to attend had altogether 

vanished, while the idea of the reprosentation of particular 

privileged towns had not yet been heard of. And, if the 

Third Order was wanting, the First Order was at least 

leas prominent than it was in other lands. The wealth of 

the Church had been already pointed out as an important 

clement in the Duke's ways and means, and both the 

wealth and the personal prowess of the Norman clergy 

were, when the day came, freely placed at William's dis- 

posnl, The peculiar tradition of Norman Assomblies,* 

which shut out the clergy from all sbare in the national 

+ Bow vol. Hi, ps 330: * See-vol. fp. 17% 





THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM, 


onar.xmt. art of the builder which has made their works outlive 


eae 


Present 
inte 


those of so many Inter ages, So it has been at Lillebonne; 
the works of the Roman Cweara have proved more Jasting 
than the works of the Norman Dukes. Juliobona seems 
to have sunk into insignificance during the later days of 
Roman sway. Tt seers that, before the Imperial dominion 
had fully ceased, while the land was wasted alike by the 
Teutonic invasions and by the disputes of rival Emperors 
or Tyrants, the ancient buildings of the city had been 
largely destroyed of set purpose, in order to employ their 
materials in the construction of defences to shelter what 
was allowed to remain. Juliobona dwindled away, and the 
town makes no figure in history, until William called it 
again into being, as if expressly to become the scene of 
this memomble meeting.» On a slight elevation alike 
above the modern town and above the old Roman relic, 
William had reared a fortress which has now given way, 
partly to the military reconstructions of later ages, partly 
to the sheer barbarism of times which are almost our own. 
‘The site was a noble one. The theatre below, if it was 
not already hidden, might have seemed to have been foebly 
copied by the hand of man from the glorious amphitheatre 
in which Lillebonne hax been placed by the haod of nature. 
From the top of a lofty tower of later days the eye looks 


‘Lillebonne, down on the theatre on one side, on the other side on the 


modern town, with the graceful spire of its church, a work 
of the latest days of medieval art, But the eye may 
almost pass by both to gaze on the wooded hills which, 
save at one point alone, shut in the view on every. side. 
At that point, immediately above the Roman ruin, the 
hills, like the walls of the theatre, leave a gap which opens 


1 Those pointe in the history of Lillebonne are said 10 hare been made 
cout by the resarches of M. Deville, But Tai sorry to say that 1 know 
those rewarche only thragh M. Joanne’ excellent Guide to Normandy, 
P: 243+ Lillebonne however is a place which #poake for itealf, 





294 THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


nar. xu, or of parliamentary boldness, In a society #o aristocrati- 

tts. cally constituted as that of Normandy was, the nobles are 

in trath, in a political sense, the people, and we must 

expect to find in any gathering of nobles both the virtues 

‘and tho vices of a real popular assembly." William had 

already consulted his Sonato; he had now to bring his 

resolution, strengthened by their approval, before the body 

which came as near as any body in Normandy could como 

to the character of an Assembly of the Norman people. 

‘The valiant gentlemen of Normandy, as wary as they were 

valiant, proved good keepers of the public purse, trusty 

guardians of what one knows not whether to call the rights 

William's of the nation or the privileges of their order. The Duke 

laid his case before them. He told once more the tale of 

tiewilng his own rights and of the wrong whiok Harold had done 

now of the him. He said that his own mind was to assert his rights 

antaake” by force of arms. He would fain enter England before 

only whst the end of the year which hed begun But without their 

they vill help he could do nothing. Of his own he had neither 

ships enough nor ren enough for such an enterprise. He 

would not ask whether they would help him in such a 

cause. He took their zeal and loyalty for granted; he 

asked only how many ships, how many mon, éach of his 
hearers would bring as a free-will offering,” 

A Norman assembly was not a body to be surprised 


* Compare the Dicts of Poland, at once the ext aristocratic and the mont 
democratic of all assemblies. Compare ala tha whole Iistory of the States 
‘of Britanny, so well traced ont by the Count of Carnd, in hin Btate de Bre- 
fagne, ‘Tho second order, the Noblewe, was always snore independent than 
either tho Clergy or the Bangham, and its internal constitution was that of 


8 Landoxgemneinde, 
* This is implied in the words of William of Poltiors (124), “Quis enim 
Juxto prestitutum nares perfcl, aut perfoctin remiges inventri, annuo spatio 
sporarat t" 


pose 
* Roman de Bou, 12182 ; 
Ne pot mie sans lor aie ‘Die cheecun ke f i fora, 
Aveir grant gent 8 grant navie Kels gens ® quantek néx morra,” 








ASSEMBLY OF LILLEBONNE, 295 


into a hasty assent, even when the erafl and the eloquence omar. xm 
of William was brought to bear upon it, The burons Te A* 
asked for time to think of their answer. ‘They would niks 
debate among themselves, and they would let him know ygimed 
the conelusion to which they came,* William was obliged fedngs of 
to consont to this delay, and the Assombly broke up into emily, 
knots, greater or smaller, cach cngerly discussing the 
great question. Parties of fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty, 
sixty, a hundred, gathered round this or that energetic 
speaker® Some professed their readiness to follow the 
Duke; others were in debt, and were too poor to venture 

on wach hazards,* ips canada te ate 
and difficulties of the enterprise. Normandy could not to 
oaqote Boglood their fair and flourishing lead would @=T~ 
‘be ruined by the attempt The conquest of England 

was an undertaking beyond the power of a Roman 
Emperor§ Harold and his land were rich; be had 
wealth to take foreign Kings and Dukes into his 
pay; his own forces were in mere numbers such as 
Normandy could not hope to strive against.’ He bad 
abundance of tried soldiers, and, above all, he had a 

* Roman de Rou, 11186; 


Eli Dus lor » graanté.” 
© Th 11396; taal 


“Mult ee yout entrels dementant, Ci vint, ef quinae, of quarante, 
‘Var tropeax se vant cunseiliant. Cf trente, of cont, cf sofaante."* 
2b, 112035 
© 1 altos dient ke pie n'frunt, 
‘Kar mult deibvent 6 paves emt.” 

“Will Pict, #24. “Quis novi hac expotitione pulcberrimum wtatam 
trie in omnem redigi miverfam non timeret ?" 

* Th "Quis Romani Imporntoris opex e& vinel dfoultate nom affirma: 
rot!" ‘The {dens of Cetus Jullue Csae and of King Henry tho Fourth 
‘wero perhaps a Kittle intermingled in the mind ofthe Archdeaccm of Lixioux, 

* Yb. 123. "Thesaurie illum abundare, quihus paetia sue Dnces ot 

‘Prupotenter conducantur.”” 

* Ord. Vit, 495.“ Normannorum pancitatem non posse vinoore Anglo: 

‘rum muleitadinom maserebant.” 


296 THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM, 


ouar.xu1, mighty fleet, with crews skilled beyond other men in 
all that belonged to the warfare of the sea.! How could 
a fleet be raised, how could the sailors be gathered to- 
gether, how could they be tanght, within a year's space, 
to cope with such an enemy?! ‘The fecling of the As- 
sembly was distinctly against eo hopeless an enterprise as 
‘the invasion of England. It seemed as if the hopes and 
schemes of William were about to be shattered in their 
beginning through the opposition of his own subjects, 
Atwmptof A daring, though cunning, attempt was now made by 
Fl — William Fitz-Osbern, the Duke’s nearest personal friend, 
Qiem to cajole the Assembly into an assent to his master's will, 
Hake’ He appoaled to thelr sense of foudal honour; they owed 
mms the Duke service for their fiefs; let them come forward 
and do with a good heart all, and more than all, that 
their tenure of their fiefs bound them to. Let not their 
sovereign be driven to implore the services of his subjects, 
‘Let them rather forestall his will; let them win his favour 
He pointe by ready offerings even beyond their power to fulfil? He 
‘aint of enlarged on the character of the lord with whom they bad 
eopmivion, to deal. William's jealous temper would not brook dis« 
appointment at their hands, It would be the worse for 
them in the end, if the Duke should ever have to say that 
he had failed in his undertaking because they had failed 
in readiness to support him.' _ 


* Wil. Plot. £24. “Clase [Heraldum] habere plurfmam, homines tn 
ministeriis nauticie peritieimor, qui ampiue paricula ot peuilia maritiron 
sint experti; tered illiug uti divitiiy ite mallitis copii, hano multipliciter 
uporari.”" 

* See the pasnge quoted inp, 294 

* Roman de Rov, 112145 

“N'atendes mie k'll vos prict, Alex avant, al Ui offre 
None demandes nul respict, Mult plus ke fixiro ne pocs.” 


* Tb, £1220) 
“Se la bunufgne remanelt, Ke tut awit pend par aos ; 
Par adventure tont iret, Folin i tant ke fl ne die 


A 0 Wil ext achoitonos, Ke wexro auit par roe failic,” 





THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILAJAM. 


quran dred.’ He himself, of his love and zeal, would furnieh 


= 


sixty ships, well equipped, and filled with fighting men#* 
‘The barons now felt themselves taken in a snare. ‘They 
were in nearly the sume case as the King against whom 
they were called on to march. They bad indeed promised ; 
they bad commissioned William Fitz-Osbern to speale in 
‘their names, But their commission had been stretehed 
beyond all reasonable construction; their spokesman had 
pledged them to engagements which had never entered 
into their minds.* Lond shouts of dissent rove through 
the hall, ‘The mention of serving with double the regular 
contingent awakened special indignation. With a true 
parliamentary instinet, the Norman barons feared Jest a 


* consent to this demand should be drawn into a precedent, 


and lest their flefs should be for ever burthened with this 
double sorvice,t The shouts grow louder; the whole hall 
was in confusion; no speaker could be heard; no man 
would hearken to reason or give a reason for himeelf.® 

* Roman de Rou, 11354 ; 

"Se bion Vent fet, miale le feromt; ki de trente sorvir delt, 


Enscanble o ves mor pamoront, ‘Do scmanto wcrvir vou velt, 
Ventre servine doblervat, Hadl ki polt narvir de eeu 


Ki solt menor vint chevalier, Dos cent en marra bonement.” 
Quarante en merra wlentions, 

* Tb, 112605 

\¢E jo merral em boen amor Seuante née aparelifen 


En lo busoigne mon Seignor ‘Do homes cumbatans chargios.” 
* Tb, 112645 
“Lj Barunz tult se merveiilieront, 1 des pramemes k'll fhwnlt, 
Malt formirent } grondillicrent Dune il no avelt nul garant.” 
Dea paroles ke cil diseis, 
“th raya; 
1Li porvinn Ki ext doblee ‘Et on costume sat Lent, 
Croiment k'll seit on fou tornes, ‘Et par contumne weit rend, 
See Taylor's note, p. 108, 
* Roman de Rou, 112785 
w'Nus how no posit altre entondro 
Parole ote ne raise rene.” 
Henry of Huntingdon (Mf. H. B. 76r E), in ix abridged narrative, outa 
tho matter fur too short. I do not romomber any other writer who men- 
tions tho trick of William Fits-Osbern, 


WILLIAM WINS OVER THE BARONS. 299 


“The rsh speech of William Fitz-Ovbern had thus de- omar. xm 
strayed all hope of » regular parliamontary consent ori Nocom: 


any such vote on a formal division, But the confusion 
which followed the speech of the Seneschal hindered any 
formal division from being taken. The Assembly, in 
short, as an assembly, was broken up. The fagot: was 
unlocsed, and the sticks could now be broken one by one. 
‘The baronage of Normandy had lost all the strength of 
union; they wore brought, one by one, within the reach 
of the personal fascinations of their sovereign. William 
spoke to each man apart ;* he employed all his arts on 
ininds which, when no longer strengthened by the sym- 
pathy of a crowd, could not refuse anything that he asked. 
He pledged himself that the doubling of their services 
should not become a precedent; no man’s fief should be 
burthoned with any charge beyond what it had borne from 
time immemorial.’ Men thus peraonally appealed to, brought 
in this way within the magic sphere of princely influence, 
were no longer slack to promise, and having once pro- 
mised, they were not slack to fulfil, William bad more 
than gained his point. Tf he had not gained the formal 


So William of Malmesbury, i, 258. “Saper nogotio singuloram sen: 
tentine scicitatng.” But he perhaye gow too far when he apoaks of “ornnor 


“No ko james d'ore en avant, Fors tol ke aolt evtre nl pais, 
Qo lor a mis en convonsnt, BE tal come lor ancowor 
Nilerunt de servive requis, Roleient fore a lor Seignor.” 


300 


THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


suar.xm. sanction of the Norman baronuge to his expodition, he 


had won over cach Norman baron by himself to serve 
him ae a volunteer, And, wary as ever, William took 
heed that no man who had promised should draw back 
from his promise. His scribes and clerks were at hand, 
and the number of ships and soldiers promised by each 
baron was at once set down in a book.? A Domesday of 
the conquerors was in short drawn up in the ducal hall 
at Lillebonne, a forerunner of the great Domesday of the 
conquered, which, twenty years later, was brought to King 
William of England in his royal palace at Winchester. 


$4, William's Alliance with Tostig, 


William had thus, by a characteristic effort of his craft, 
won over his own Duchy to support him in his enter- 
prise. He had now to seck for allies beyond his own 
borders. And, first and foremost, it concerned him to 
know whether he could look for any support in the land to 
whose dominion he aspired, There is not a shadow of 
evidenco to chow that William had a single native partizan 
within the four eeas of Britain? He may have carried on 
intrigues with the Normans whom Harold had allowed to 
remain in England, But even on this head we have no 
distinct evidence. A single notice some months later seems 
to show that, even at the time of William's landing, the 
Normans in England, however eagerly they may have 
wished for his success, looked on his enterprise as hopeless. 

* Roman de Rou, 11298; J 

EN Dum fst tot enbrever, 
‘Néa fist 3 chevallers notubrer.” 

* [have read, in some pecrage or book of genealogy, the pedigree of some 
one who profemen to be descended from one of the English knights who 
wont over to mak William to come and deliver them from the tyranny of 


Harvld. ‘Truly pelligres-makers will say anything. 
+ See the aceoustol Baber hewn of Wymare in Wiliam of Pelrn 128, 


= 


J 
WILLAM AND TOSTIG. 301 


Bat it is certain that one, perhaps two, native Englishmen omar, xm. 
were zealous on William's behalf. ‘AS whab plage: of his ‘Wittens 
‘negotiations we know not, but seomingly early in the year, traced by 
-ono Englishman at least came to William's court, to stir (hr tam 
Him inp to war ogainat England and to offer bls own Tot. 
services for the cause. But that Englishman was no dis- 
contented noble at Harold's court, no leader of a powerful 
faction within his realm, He was an exile, buoyed up by 

an exile’s proverbially desperate hopes. The first foreign 
volunteer who answered to William's summons was Testig 

‘the son of Godwine.* 

Tn the banished brother of the English King William Postion 
found an ally willing to help him in all his schemes, an Sane 
cally far more impetuous than himself, far more cagor to ° Tolik: 
strike @ blow at once and nt all hazards, The fallen Earl 
‘of the Northombrians had sunk from bad to worse. He 
had now thrown off every feeling of an Englishman and a 
Drother of the English King. He had once perhaps 
‘dreamed of the kingitom for himself; he now found him- 

‘self shut ont from all hopes of hie Earldom, or indeed of 
estoration in any shape, Harold, as Earl, at the North- 
hampton conference, had done all that he could do for his 
brother; but he had agreed to the sentence of outlawry 
which the national voice had called for, and he bad not as 
King done anything to recall Tostig to his country. In 
fact the restoration of Tostig was in every way impossible, 

He had shown his thorough unfitness to rule, and it i His hope, 
absurd to think that he would have been eatisfiod to me 
‘git down and live peaceably in England as a private man, “oa. 
Harold could have had neither the will nor the power 

to break the Oxford compact, to dispossess Morkere 

of the Earldom which had been so solemnly confirmed to 
ise pe ss alot only of whens tle T isd Ppa 


shewhere, Seo 
Ditettarcc sense of Tig wv Ayres AA. 


= 


302 THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


cuar. sit. him, and to set his brother to rale onee more over the 
unwilling people of Northumberland. Nor could he be 
asked to depose in favour of a pardoned outlaw cither of 
his two loyal brothers who ruled in Kent and in East- 
Anglia. Nor could Tostig reasonably hope that Harold 
would put him in a still closer relation to himaelf by 
restoring the West-Saxon Earldom in bis favour, In 
short, no banished man ever seemed doomed to a more 
hopeless banishment. Tt is not wonderful then that 
the heart of Tostig was turned to an exceeding bitter- 
ness against the country which had cast bim out, and 
against tho brothor who had refused to encrifice the 
public weal to his interests, If he still kept the con- 
sciousness of originally right intentions, euch a conacious+ 
ness would only add fuel to the fire. It is quite possibile 
that the murderer of Game] and Ulf may have looked on 
himself ae a martyr to the eause of good order among 
the barbarous Northombrians. At all events, he looked 
on himeelf aa ect free from all ties either to his brother 
‘He deter» or to his country. An attempt at an armed return on the 
mineson® part of Tostig was no more than was to be looked for. 
by force. Tt was what aay banished man of that age was sure to 
attempt, if he could only gather the needful force in any 
quarter. Osgod Clapa, Godwine, Ailfgar, Harold himself, 
had all set him the example. The practice wns s0 common 
that it could hardly be locked upon as specially blameworthy. 
If we blame Harold severely for the slaughter at Porlock, 
it is really because he pays the penalty of his greatness, 
because we cannot help judging him by a severer standard 
Pifecouce than that by which we judge smuller men.! But there 
tee oe are very marked degrees in a course which, however usual 
Tatgand at the time, must be eet down as being in every case 
on contrary to ideal loyalty and patriotism. The ease of 
ele.  Godwine needs no defence; it is covered by the general 
4 See vol. Hp. at7, 


SCHEMES OF TOSTIG, 303 


‘ight of insurrection against miz-goverament, Lf God- cuar. xi, 
wine came to restore himself, he came also to deliver 
England. Harold, like Osgod Clapa, tried to effect his 
return by the help of mercenaries hired in a foreign land, 
But be did not ally himself with any enemies of the King 
or Kingdom. Ailfgar, on his first banishment, went a 
step further by leaguing himself with a rebellious vassal, 
if not within the Kingdom of England, at least within 
the Empire of Britain! On the occasion of bis second 
banishment, he did not scruple to employ the help of a 
fleet of Wiking, who must have been cruising on the 
shores of England with no friendly intent? All these 
are steps in a downward scale. But neither Osgod nor 
Harold nor Ailfgar sank tothe wickedness of roaming over 
the world in search of any foreign prince who would 
restore him by force, oven at the expense of the utter 
subjagation of England. ‘Tostig alone did not stick at 
this depth of treason, He stands before us as acting more 
distinctly as the enemy of his country than any English~ 
man whom we have come across since the days of Alfric 
and Eadric. 

‘Toatig, we have soon, on his banishment from Englund, Towiy 
took refuge with his brother-in-law Count Baldwin, and to 
spent the winter at his Court? But, early in the next Nemanty- 
year, perhaps not very long after the election of Harold, 
most likely as soon as the news of the messages which 
passed between William and Hurold had found its way to 
Brmiges, Tostig was at the Court of William, urging him 
tothe invasion of England. He eagerly asked the Duke 
how be could suffer the perjurer to reign,* and promised 


* Bee wol. ii p. 386. 2? Seo vol. i p. 434. 
* Boo vol. fi. p. 496, and Appendie AA. 
“Onl, Vit, 492 D. ‘Tonticur, . . . fortinus Normanninm naiit, ot 


Wldtinum Duoom our perjuram sum regnare sineret fortiter redarguit."” 
‘The “porjurue suis fe Uke tho cummon phrase of “the King’s 
rebele” and uch like. 


304 
OMAR, XItt, 
‘Relations: 
‘between 
Willian 
tnd Tostlg. 


THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


his own vigorous help in promoting all his plans! It 
would seem that he reached Normandy before the As~ 
sembly at Lillebonne, and it is even implied that the 
exhortations of Tostig were among the inducements which 
led William to summon that Assembly.2 But Tostig’s 
exhortations could have been only a very secondary in~ 
ducement, serving at most to strengthen and hasten a 
resolation which William had already formed. It would 
be an insult to William to suppose that he really needed 
‘Tostig as a counsellor. The relations between the two 
men are perfectly easy to understand; the small man was 
likely to be nseful as a momentary tool in the hands of 
the great man. Though Tostig left his wife at the court 
of her brother, the fumily connexion between Judith and 
Matilda would secure him a brotherly reception at the 
court of Rouen; indeed we are told that, on the strength 
of that connexion, Tostig and William bad long beea 
intimate friends. And now each of the two friends was 
in a position to be nsefal to the other. Tostig, driven 
from England, was in goarch of foreign help, and the court 
of Normandy was the natural place for him to seek for it 
in the first instance. As soon as he knew of William's 
designs on the English Crown, he would hail in him the 
very man for his purpose, And the prince who already 
planned the invasion of England would rejoice at an alliance 
with the banished and hostile brother of the English King. 
‘Tostig had doubtless, after the manner of exiles, persuaded 
himself that all England was ready to weleome, not only 
himeelf, but any stranger who might appear under the 
pretext of restoring him, Williamt was too wise to believe 
tales of this kind, but he might well look on Tostig as 

* Onl. Vit. 492 D, “Soque fidoliter, oi ipwo cam Normannteis viribms fra 


Anglian transfretaret, regni docus obtentaram {lH spopondit.” 
* Tb. 493 A. “jus exhortationtbus animatus Normanake peuceres com> 
woowrit,” 


* Th. 492 D, See Appenilix 0, 


‘TOSTIG'S RAVAGES IN ENGLAND. 


likely to prove an useful tool, as one whose incursions 
might serve to harass the King of the English, and to 
‘draw off his attention from the main danger. Tostig’s 
impetuous temper would naturally call for earlier and 
more effective support than the pradence of William would 
be inclined to give, or indeed than, at that early stage of 
his preparations, he was able to give. It was undesirable 
niterly to thwart Tostig, or to make an encmy of him; 
it was perhaps becoming desirable to get rid of him, He 
was therefore allowed to make an incursion on the English 
coasts. At bis own risk, but with the Duke's sanction, 
he set sail from the Cotentin in May at the head of such 
anaval force as he could get together, This force would 
doubtless consist of Flemish and Norman mercenaries 
and volunteers. The Norman account tolls us that King 
Harold's flect was 90 vigorously on the alert that Toatig 
was unable to land in England, while contrary winds 


and the story of Tostig’s later doings will join itself to 
another thread of my narrative, ostig most likely chafod 
under the restraints of William's prudence; perhaps he 
thought himself forsaken, or even betrayed, by an ally 


opht 
Kntrpiret fn reguam quod fraudulenter lovasceat, Tusticus Haque ungaia 


ate 
tacks 
Jand 
William's: 
eanotion. 


May, 1966, 


THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLTAM. 


cwar.xm. whose support was so slowly and grudgingly given. It 


Hf 


‘The Con- 


is curtain that he soon threw up his alliance with the 
Norman Dake, and sought for more ready help elsewhere. » 


§5. William's Negotiations with Foreign Powers, 


‘The alliance with Tostig was a mere episode, The 
banished Earl could be useful only so far as he was likely 
to make a diversion of which William might take ad~ 
vantage. ‘The Duke’s serious business lay on the continent. 
He invited soldiers from every quarter; the spoils of 
England were promised az their reward, and that promis: 
brought abundance of voluntoore from all parte of Gaul, 
from the royal domains, from Britanny, from Poitou and 
Aquitaine, and from the more distant land of Burgundy.! 
Some accounts even bring men to William’s muster from 
the Norman colonics in Southern Ttaly.” ‘The presence of 
large bodies of these mercenaries or volunteers from all 
parts of Romance-speuking Europe is an undoubted fiet, 
‘and it ig one which it is most important to bear in mind. 
Thero ean be uo greater mistake than to look on William's 


duet'ut ® invasion as purely a national Norman undertaking, or on 


Ses 


his army as consisting wholly of native Normans. We 
* have just seen that-it was only as volunteers that William's 
‘own subjects followed him, and as volunteers men of any 


* Ord. Vit. 494 A. Galli namque ot Hritones, Pictavint ot Horgan: 
Aionoy alliquo popoll Ciealpini al bellum tranmarinun convolirunt, et 
Anglicas prmlae inhlantes varlis eventibus et periculis term mutique sxe 
oltalerst." Lappenberg (543). and Mr. Thorpe (fi. 286) morw distinctly, 
Vint that it was from malstaking the meaning of the word Civalpini” that 
‘Thierry (J. 232) got his Picdmontevr troops in Willism's army. We have 
already seen something of the en of the word ax woll ne of * tranmarinus.”” 
Bee vol. £ pp. 699, 604, 548: 
* Guy of Amions (v. agg, M. HL. B, 861 ©, Giles 3) maken Willian 
coum op French, Bretons, Conomannians, and ad, 
+ Appius ot Calaber, Siculus quibus jacule foryet ; 
‘Normnanul taciles actus egregtin.® 


EE 


GATHERING OF FOREIGN VOLUNTEERS. ‘307 


‘nation who chese to join him followed bim equally, But euar, xi. 
it ia a speaking witness, alike to Williom’s orsonal Norms 
cayseity for rule and to the inherent superiority of the fprese 
Norman national character, that all this mixed multitude “%° 
received a thoroughly Norman impress, The spoils of 
England were offered to all who would come, and from 
a large part of Europe men flocked eagerly to share 
them. But the head and the heart of the whole enterprise 
was Norman, he leaders of the enterprise, the Duke him- 
eelf and most of the chief commanders, were Norman. A Fow 
few princes or men of princely houses, like Basta of page 
Boalogne and Alan of Britanny, commanded their conting Si. 
gente in person. But tho mass of the foreigners were mare the Sega 
adventurers, and we shall find that, when the day of battle alves 
came, they served under Norman commanders. Wo are‘ 
indeed told that men came from all lande, not only for the 
sake of plunder, but to maintain the righteous caurc of 
William. It is likely enough that, when the Papal 
approval was once given to the enterprise, men pressed, 
us they did in after years to the Crusade, to atone for past 
acts of robbery and slaughter hy renewing them with the 
Chureh’e blessing. But all that redeemed William's enter- 
prise from being au enterprise of mere brigandage came 
from the presence of his own subjects, The instinct of 
mankind is right, after all, in looking on the Conquest 
‘as a Norman Conquest. It was the native Normans who 
were really foremost in the strife, and it was the native 
Normans who took the firmost root in the conquered 
Jand, Williams true strength Jay, after all, in the gallant 
‘men who could at least boast of the comparatively en- 
nobling motive that they were supporting their native 
sovereign in the pursuit of his fancied rights. 
* Will. Pict. 122. ““Convenit otlam externus miles tn auxitlum eoptosus, 
ques parte notisatna Ducts Uberalitas, eer omer just canine flncio 


x2 


308 


THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DURE WILLIAM. 


cuar. xn ‘The share then, in point of numbersa very important share, 


‘Wiltlamn’s 
cemmbasaion 
to foreign 
powers. 


id 
wo 
aie 
of Ly 
a 


taken in the expedition by foreign adventurers is beyond 
all doubt, But the negotiations between William and the 
neighbouring potentates are involved in no small obscurity 
and contradiction! It was William's manifest interost to 
obtain, if not the active alliance, at any rate the neutrality, 
of all his neighbours, It was needful for his ends to 
feel as secure as he could make himself that no French 
or Angevin or Breton invasion of Normandy would take 
place during his absence It was also an important 
secondary object to obtain from the neighbouring princes 
full leave for their subjects to take a share in the enter- 
prise. For these objects he sont embassies as far as 
Germany and Denmark. The great Emperor Henry the 
Third had been, as I need hardly repeat, the constant ally 
of England. But he had now been dead ten years, and 
tho childhood and youth of his son, the young King 


rey Henry, was a time of distress and confusion for the Teu- 


non be 


tonic Kingdom, The minority of Henry had been, in 
many points, a repetition of the minority of William. 
But there was one marked difference between the German 
and the Norman period of chaos. William had been con- 
stantly exposed to the attacks of traitors, and of foreign 
enemies who sought to deprive him of his coronet and 
his life. Henry had not as yet had to foar either foreign 
invaders or home-bred rebels; he was simply passed from 
hand to hand by several ambitious men who sought to 
reign in his name, And it is an instrnctive mark of the 
difference between the political systems of Germany and 
Normandy that the men who sought to rule in Henry's 
name were almost wholly the great spiritual princes of the 
Empire. While still a child, he had been, by a mixture 
of craft and violence, carried off from the care of his 


* See Appendix Z, 





mother to that of Hanno Archbishop of Koln? and from omar. xu. 
the bands of Hanno he had passed into those of another — 1053. 
princely churchman, the famous Adalbert of Bremen* 

‘The young King was now perhaps just beginning in some 
degree to exercise a will of his own, He had, in the 
course of tho last year, been girded with the sword of 1965. 
knighthood ;? and this very year had witnessed the fall 1066, 
of Adalbert and the partial restoration of the power of 
Hanno. But, fall as the German writers are as to the Nomen: 
reign of Henry the Third and the minority of Henry the W™ort 
Fourth, they tell ns nothing whatever as to any relations embsesy in 
between the Empire and Normandy,? William is not writen 
spoken of by them till after he had won the Crown of 
England. From Norman sourcea we seem to hear both 

of an alliance with the great Emperor himself and of a 

later alliance entered into during his son's minority? 

Bee the story in Lambert and Berthold (wp. Pores, v. 272) under tho 

year 1062. Milman, Latin Christianity, ti. 74. 

* Lambert, 1063,“ Adalbertux Premensia = mpi 
callaqeents, cteeqend etiam stjon adentando, Ha abl Ragen brevi 
dovinecerat, ut, owtoris episcopis porthabitis, totar in cum inclinaretur, ot 
le ener 


Lambert, 1065, “ Per concesionem ejasdem Archiepiscopi [Adal- 
[AAS BS Ameer 
* Eb, 1066 Milman, ili. 81. 


3 ‘Stamfordibridie, 

Lambert, Soe Appendix N. 
* Henry, tn his own troubles, went an embessy to William (Bruno dn 
‘Baits Saxonieo, 0. 6, ap. Peete, v. 342). See also the amnaing account of 
“*Willehelioos Betas” in Lambert 1074+ Soe volt. p. 608. 

‘Williams of Poitiers says fret, mt an easlior timo (120), “Admntralmtur, 
lnndabat, so venerabatur oum supra nomina Regam Imperii Romani ma- 
Jevtam, cajue oti gloriosielinue moderstor Tenrious, Conradi Imperntoris 
Augesti Glius, cum ipso etiam tum puero, veluti cum nomlnatiodmo Rege, 
amifcitiam junxit ae sociotatom.” He now (123) mys, Et Romanorom 
Amperstori [he was not yet Emperor) Heurico, Henrici Linperntorin filo, 
‘nepotl Tmperatoris Chounradl, noviter junctus fuit in amicitiA.” After the 
former pawage the Archdearon adds, what, in yot moro amazing, that the 
Basten Emperor wisbod for Willato se « neighbour to belp him to with 
‘rand the adynace uf the Mabometans, “* Oplabat hune vieinua ot aralewm 


4 


310 THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


omar.xit. Such an alliance in the Emperor's life-time, ten years back 
or more, need not have been in any way directed against 
Powitlc England, And an alliance with Normandy during the 
influence corlicet years of King Henry, while he was still under his 
reas mother’s guardianship, might secm no unlikely object of 
Beene of his mother’s policy. ‘The Empress Agnes, it must be r- 
* membered, was a member of that house of Poitiers whieh 
had suffered so deeply at the hand of Geoffrey of Anjou," 
and she might very naturally seek to maintain or to renew 
@ connexion with a power which was the strongest enemy 
of the enemy of her own family. But, at the time which 
we haye now reached, the power of Agnes had wholly 
passed away; alliance with Normandy morcover now 
meant hostility to England; and it is atterly impossible 
to see what interest either the young King or his sue~ 
cessive archiepiscopal advisers could have in supporting 
German the claims of William against the claims of Harold. Our 
ee Norman informant however doscribes Henry as, in high- 
Wim? sounding but somewhat vague terms, committing his 
kingdom to an active sapport to the Norman side* This 
again, strange as it sounds, can hardly be sheer invention, 
though we instinctively suspect exaggeration in no small 
Probable degree. Tt may be enough if we suppose that Henry or 
tteotihe hig counsellors agreed to put no hindrance in the way of 
such subjecte of the Empire as might choose to join the 

Norman standard ag volunteers. 
Sarl ‘The negotiations with Swegen of Denmark aguin rest 
oe wholly on Norman authority. We are told that the 
Penmark; Danish King promised help to William, which promise 


acho ot wnt, milla Bagless Cental 406 79 
puynatore apormeevt gravem potentiam Babylonix” The wise 
Spayeir gidor bxpe, yelrova obe Sxps (Eqinh. Vita K, 16) dod pe 
1 Boo val. i pp. 273, 37% 


S Will, Plot, 123.“ Oujus [Henriel) elicto ia querilibet bowen Gor 
mania ef, pootularet, veniret aulfutrix.” 


~ 





312 


THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


affinity with William did not absolutely eeoure tho 
help both of France and Flanders, it would at any 
rate, it might be thought, secure Normandy against all 
fear of attack from either quarter while her sovereign was 
engaged in his great enterprise. But, in the only account 
that we bave, Baldwin does not appear as acting at, all in 
his character of guardian. William goes as his own am- 
bassador to King Philip, The two princes meet at the 
great Abbey of Saint Germer in the district of Beauvais, 
a spot within the royal dominions, but only a few miles 
from the border Norman town of Gournay.' William aske 
for his over-lord’s help in his enterprise, and offers, in 
return for such help, to hold England, no less than Nor- 
mandy, as a fief of the French Crown* Philip consults 
his nobles, who argue, naturally enough, that nothing 
can be more dangerous to the French Kingdom than any 
increase of the etrength of the Norman Duchy. The offer 
to hold England in fief docs not blind them; William’s 
vassalage for England will be still more nominal than his 


hoe Vassalage for Normandy.? The answer given ix therefore 


unfavourable ; and William leaves the presence of his over- 
lord with very high words on his lips. Whether this 
story be literally true or not, it shows how familiar to 
men's minds the notion of Commendation, even on the 


* Roman ds Rou, 11326; 
“Hin Belveisin, & Saint-Girmor 
‘Ala Ii Dus ol Rei parler.” 

T fancy that the splendid church of this monastery ts Yeas known than ft 
should be to travellars and architectural students, It contains nothing +0 
old ws the days of Willism and Philip, but, among other magnificent por: 
‘tons, it has « Lady Chapel which reminds one at once of the Chapel of 
Monry the Seventh at Westminster and of that of Saint Lewis at Paria, 

7 Roman de Rou, 113365 


“Ke ee tant aidier li yoleit, Engletorre de Ui prendreit, 
Ko par wate diast aon Arlt, ¥. volentiere I'on serviredt.” 
9 Th, 11363; 


“Quant Engletorre ara cunquise, Petit sert, mals metus parva, 
Pois. ji n'arotz dle If acrvise ; Quant plus ara, meine vor fora.” 





a 


greatest scale, still was, It shows how little off indignity omar. xt. 
‘attached to the vassal’s position, and of how little practical 
value was the oath of homage. We are presently told that 
Philip in no way promoted William’s object, but that be 
rather did all that he could to hinder it.t Instead of any Negeals, 
‘distinct account of William’s nogotiations with his father- flivin se 
in-law, we get only an unintelligible romance? But the Mamlor 
issue of both the French and the Flemish nego- 
tiations seems plain. Neither Philip nor Baldwin, in 
their character as sovereigns, gave William any help. It 
‘is oven likely that Philip, so far as he either had a will 
of hia own or was guided by French counsellors, dis- 
cournged William's enterprise rather than promoted it, 
‘Bat abundance of volunteers from both France and French snd 
Flanders took service in William's army. The Flemings, Sy 
above all, the countrymen of Matilda, pressed eagerly to in Wir 
_ his standard, and they formed an important element Siisenm 
the Conquest and in the settlement which followed it, 
Matilda's son Gerbod,* Gilbert of Ghent,‘ and Walter of 
Flandere,* are all names which are found among the con- 
querors of England, and those of Gerbod and Gilbert will 
again appear in our history. 

Tn the region intermediate between Normandy and Burtace of 
Flanders, the cause of William wus eagerly taken up by Sos 





4 Reman de Rou, 11368; 
“TA Reds el Duo aldicr ne vout, 
‘Ain le destorba quant i pout.” 
+ Geo Raman de Rov, 11390-11433, and Appendix Z, 
1 Seeaborn n.86 aad Appendix 0. 
Bes. Dugdale, Baronage, 400; Mon. Angl v. 490; Elli, b 422 
‘The charter there quoted (later than 1374), by an amading pice of geno- 
‘slogy, makes Gilbert » wn of Count Baldwin and a nephew of William, 
“Giselbertus do Gant, filus Baldwinl Comitis de Mundria, vents cum 
eee emueerces Sruneals ene tn: Anas” 
* Dugiale, f. 425; Mou. Angl. vi. 959; Ellin, i, 420, 04. Wallerus 
Boo... . venit cum Conquestors et habuit hereditatern wuam in Flan: 
Arif.” Mo appears in Demnentay ax “ Walterus Flaniirensie.” 





| 


Sid THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM, 


euar. xi, Count Kustace of Boulogne, the brother-in-law of King 
Whigs, Eadward. He had, of all men, wrongs, as he would 
deem them, to avenge on Harold and on England. The 
chastisement: which Godwine had refused to work on the 
insolent burghers of Dover! might now at last be wrought 
on them and on their whole race, with the usurping son 
of the old traitor at their head, Eustace probably mecded 
no invitation to take his share in the enterprise. He 
came himself, and he led others to follow the sme 
course. An incidental notice of one of his followers throws 
wome light on the class of men who flocked to William's 
banners, and on the rewards which they received. One 
fwey<f Geoffrey, an officer of the Abbey of Saint Bertin at Saint 
Aris Omor, who had the charge of its potecesions in the County 
of Guisnes, sent his sons Arnold and Geoflrey to the war. 
A daily pay and many gifts from the Duke were their 
immediate reward, and in the end they received a 
grant of lands both in Essex and in the border shires 
af Mercia and East-Anglia, under the superiority of their 

patron Count Bustace* 
a But the country from which, noxt to his own Duchy, 
suxitinrics William drew most support in his enterprise, was un- 
hg doubtedly the neighbouring, the nominally vasal, land 
Sure ofthe Of Britany, When we remember the internal dissensions 
Saraki Of that country, and the way in which a party among 
the Bretons had supported William against their own 
a sovereign,® this is in mo way wonderful. And, though 
* Joyalty to a Norman over-lord is not likely to have counted 
for much, another motive may well have worked to fill 
the Norman host with Breton recruits. The Celtic race 
has a long memory, and the prospect of waging war in 
the insular Britain aguinst the Saxon intruder may not 
have been without charms for the descendants of the 

* Seo vol it p34. 2 Seo Appendix BB 
© See shows, pp 234,233. 





a6 


THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM, 


couse, xtit- and our historian Folk Rechin, were now engaged in a war 


= 
and ale 
‘Reehin, 

Geoffrey 


ig 


of brother against brother.’ It was in this very year that 
the city of Angors was betrayed? to Fulk, and that Count 
Geoffrey was led away a8 a captive to Chinon,’ the fortress 
overhanging the Vienne, the fortress so famous in the days 
when Counts of Anjou were also Kings of England, and so 
famous again when Capetian royalty, banished from its 
own Paris, found shelter in the lands which hud once been 
Angevin. In this sme year too Conan of Britanny met 
with his death, and met it, as some said, by the wiles © 
of William.’ Strange to say, this suspicion reaches us 
only from the Norman side, Other authorities, Breton 
and Angevin, speak only of a war which Conan waged 
against Anjou, and in which, by whatever means, he lost 
his life. It is a Norman writer’ who tells us how, when 
William was preparing for the invasion of England, Conan 
sent to wish him good Inck in his enterprise, but at the 
same time to demand the cession of Normandy to himself. 
He, Conan, was the lawful heir of the Duchy; the Bastard 
could have no right; the Bastard too, with his accomplices, 
had poisoned Conan’s father Alan, and had, up to that day, 
‘usurped the possession of a land which should have been 
his. If Normandy was not at once given ap to its lawful 
prince, Conan would at once assert his rights with his whole 
force. William, we are told, was somewhat frightened, 

\ See the account of this war In the Gesta Consulam, D'Achery, til. 239, 
whero Fulke's conduct to his brother f called a“ persequutio,” while Pulie 
hhinnealf (1. 253) speaks of his own “‘tribulatio” and the “invmio” of his 
“TG Genk 5p whine we bar a otto ad pale ee 
Pulk (u. s) speaks only ofa *“campestre prativm in quo eam [Geollrey) 
Del gratis superavi,” aml adda delicately, “peutade accep elvitelers Amdo: 
gave” Seo ako the two Angerin Chmvaicles in Labbe 4. 276, and, merw 
ally, 288. ‘These troubles were among the eects of the coms. 

° Geet. Com. 260, “Fuko Richin Barbatum Gatram suum capbem tenlt 
‘et In vinculis Chainonl castro port.” 


* See Appendix OC. 
* Will, Gees, vii. 33. He in Gothoweld by Bewnit, 36865-yby63. 


DEATH OF CONAN. 317 


but God delivered him ont of his danger, There was csar xn 
a Breton noble, a chamberlain of Conan, who had sworn 
fealty to William and to Conan alike, and who had borne 
‘the message to William as Conan’s ambassador, He under- 
took—at whooe bidding or from what motive we are not 
told—to rid the world of his Breton master. He smeared 
the gloves, the bridle, and the hunting-horn of Conan with 
poison. The Count was engaged in his Angevin campaign, 
and was besieging the fortress of Chiteau-Gontier, not far 
from the Cenomannian border. The defenders had capitn- 
Jated, and Conan seems to have been in the very act of 
making his triumphal entry into the town. The Count 
put on his gloves, he grasped the bridle, and unwittingly 
raised his hand to his mouth, The poison took effect, and 
before long Conan was a corpse. The Duke was now at 
leisure to give his whole mind to the expedition against 


Tf such a tale as this was current, it is not wonderful William 
that ramour went on to charge William with having 2a, 
plotted a crime by which he so greatly gained. As to {mil of 
‘the likelihood of the case, 1 might almost repeat what probabil 
T have already sid when the same charge was brought the case. 
against William in the matter of Walter and Biota.” The 
whole tale, from the threat of Conan onwards, reads like 
aromance. Did we find it in a hostile Breton or Angevin 
writer, we should at once set it down as an invention of 
hostile epite. And does the romance really gain any fur- 
ther authority, because it hus found its way into a Norman 
chronicle? ‘The silence of the hostile writera surely tella 
more on the other side, Conan, it seems plain, died sud- 
denly during his Angevin expedition ; it was easy to attri- 
bute the deed to William ; it was no less easy to deck out 
the story with romantic details. That William was 0 secret 
poieoner I, for one, do not believe; but an English writer 

) Bee aber, p, 208, 


318 


THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


war. xmt. can hardly avoid the remembrance that, while the deaths 


of Walter and Conan were laid to the charge of William, 
pethaps in the eleventh, certainly in the twelfth century, it 
was reserved for the nineteenth century to lay the death 
of the Atheling Eadward to the charge of Harold! 


‘The exact order of all these events it ie hopeless to try 
to fix, and it is equally hopeless to try to fix their relations 
to the groat embassy at all, Negotiations with Counts 
and Kings were, in the age which was just opening, of less 
moment than negotiations with the Apostolic throne. And 
indeed it marks a distinet epoch in the history of European 
polities, when, for the first time, the occupant of the Apo- 
stolic throne was called on to adjudge a disputed diadem.* 


Aleander The reigning Pontiff was Anselm of Lucea, who, under the 
seenierh title of Alexander the Seeond, had euceceded Nicolas y and, 


after a violent struggle with the Anti-pope Cadalous of 
Parma, he was now in full possession of the Holy See 
But the ruling genius of the Papacy was already the Arch- 
deacon Hildebrand, He it was who saw how much the 
Roman Church might gain by lending its name to the 
cause of William. The ambassador of William, Gilbert, 
Archdeacon of Lisicux,* came and pleaded his master’s 


* Seo vol. ik p 412. 

2 The famous appiication of Pippin as to the lawfalnew of deporing 
Ciicbort was rather a case of cuancienoe. 

* See the very retmatiatie acnount of thess strogetes fa Lambert, 1064. 
‘Mileuse, Hi. 83, With the high mninded comunents of the impartial Lambert 
{in is well to compare the pauegyrte of the partisan Wiliam of Puitices (122). 
Me at beast had goo! reason to say thst Aleramter “rexpones ecobat feta 
valutariaque.” Se Benoit, 967587; 

“A Rome ext done yape Allxanire, 
Jose hoem, sniutianes e verals, 
‘Qed mult tint sadnte Igtive en pede” 
He gue ce, pecemaiurely eacayh, to say, 
“A hd Gamiat Wi Bris Gelaame 
Por moxtrer Torre dea reasime.” 
“WHE Maden, [i 238, Ne junta cnmrmaun teweritas deesiuearet, mi 


o— 


NEGOTIATIONS WITH KOME, 319 


enuge. He told the tale which had been so often told be= car. xu 
fore, the rights of William, the usurpation and perjury of 
Harold, the despite done by him to the holy rvlice, ‘Wi asa 
"seaman pdr op 
cause; he offered, we are told, but in vague and ambignous ¢, teria 
Iangunge, to hold of God and of the Apostle the kingdom 
which he hoped to win. ‘The cause was debated in the Detaie 
Conclave, but it was debated after the hearing of one side (ytineo, 
only, No advocate of England appeared at the bar of Nemtve 
Alexander to defend the right of Harold to the Crown by Harold, 
which England had given him. It is nocdlees to seek for 

the English King’s roasone for not appearing to answer tho 
accusation of William.* It was enough that, however ready A defenoo 
Harold, as o loyal son of the Church, might be to seck Siu sould’ 
spiritual benefits at the threshold of the Apostles, he could bare. com 
not, as a King of the English, allow that nny power to th rights 
give or take away tho English Crown was vested anywhere Grown. 
save in the national Assembly of the English people. To 

plead before Alexander would have been to recognize his 
jurisdiction ; it would have been to acknowledge that the 
Emperor of Britain had a superior upon earth. Buch okie Ho pam 
we ask why Harold did not appear, we might pechaps ask tuniy way at 
whether he was ever summoned to appear, and whether the “ 
Roman judgement was not pronounced without so much as 

an opportunity for defence being allowed to the accused, 

No writer speaks of any summons as being sent to the 


Apeitean « + misit, justitiam wuooeptl belli quantis potuit facumliee 
algun The wane of tin cet mubamedor comey from 


Seen 
“Eveso ert ke Deus volsint De Saint Pierre Ia reoevrelt, 
K'll Engleteere conquéniat, Altre fore Dex n'en servireit."* 


vel quod nuntios os a Willelmo et cjus complicibus, qui omnes porta 
obsidebant, mpediri timorot.” ‘There was clearly no reecnd or received 
tnition about the matter. 


320 


THE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


ear. xut, English King; one writer alone hints at the possibility 


Lily 


pony 


atike 
Cardinals, 


of any hearing of the defence.’ But the cause of right did 
not Jack advocates even in the Roman Conclave. When 
Hildebrand dwelt on the benefits whieh the Church would. 
gain by necepting the jurisdiction thus laid at ite feet, many 
of the Cardinals cast aside his arguments with horror. Tt 
was not for the Church to become a partaker in deeda of 
blood, and to sanction claims which could be enforced only 
by the slanghter of so many men.* But in the end the 
worse reason prevailed, Even in ordinary times, it would 
have been no more than sound policy to welcome, as far as 
might be, the advances of a prince like William, who, pious 
as he might be, had not always shown himself the obedient 
servant of Rome. His uncanonical marriage,? and one or 
two other exercises of independence on William's part,* 
would not be forgotten, But, far above all these leseer 


+ 16nd no suggestion of the possbllity of any hearing of the Englisis side 
anywhore but in the pasaye of Willian of Malmosbury Just quoted. 

* Willian of Malmesbury (u. ) says that the Pope gave judgement, 
‘peryensis apa se uteiique partibua,” Bat it ix from a letter written 
Jong after to William by Hildebrand, then Gregory the Sevimth, that we 
Joarn how strong an opposition was made to William's claims, ‘The letter ia 
dazed April 24th, 1080, and has chielly to do with the affairs of the eee of 
Le Mans. Gregory mys to William ; “ Notum emo tibl credo, excellentiasiine 
‘Ai, prlusquam ad pontificale culmen asconderom, quanto vemper te since 
Ailectiont affoctu anavi, qualem otiain me tuis negotiie et quam efficwcein 
exhibul, tniuper ut ad regale fastiginm creeeore quanto studio Inborayi, 
Qué pro ve a quibusdam frotribux magnam pene infamian pertuli, sub> 
murmerantious qwed ail tanta homividia perpetranda, tanto Javore mean 
operam émpendissen. Deus vero in mei consclentia testis emt, quam recto 
\d animo fecerat, spemne per gratia Det ot noo inaniter confidens de 
virtatibus bonis que in to erant, quia quanto ad aublimiors proficeres, tanto 
We apud Deum ot mmctam ecclesiam (sicut et nunc, Doo grating rex ext) 
ex bono meliorven exhiburs.” Kp. Gry. VII. exexvi,, ap. Bouquet, xiv. 


648, 
* See above, p. 89 et reqa: 
* Onderic (482 B) tells a story hove, ns .one stago of the encom negor 
tiations about Abbot Robert of Saint Evroul (sce above, p. 184), Robert 


camo with certain Papal Legates wo claim his abbey; “Audieus vero Dux 
+ ~. wohunenter iratus dixit we quidem Legatos Pape do fide et relligione 
Christiana, vt communis patris, libenter sucopiuram | sed si que mena 





322 TRE NEGOTIATIONS OF DUKE WILLIAM. 


ouar, xut, Apostles.! And with the ring came a consecrated banner, 
‘The con: to hallow the cause of fraud and usurpation? Every help 
beoner. that the religious arts of the age could give was bestowed 
Ferwverdon on the man who craved a blessing on the removal of his 
naline neighbour's landmark. Every terror that those religious 
ed arts kept in store for the blasphemer and the heretic was 
' hurled against the King whose axe was lifted only to defend 
his own rights and the rights of hie people. The name had 
ACrumde not yet been heard; but in truth it was now that the first 
prechel Crosade was preached, and it was preached by the voice of 
. Rome aguinst the liberties of England. 


‘The diplomacy of William and Lanfranc had thus com- 

x pletely triumphed. ‘The great fabrio of deeaption by which 
“iplomacy: their subtle wits had cheated both themselves and others 
was now bronght to perfection. The cause of William 
was accepted by the voice of his own Duchy; it was 
accepted by the public voice of Europe; it was hallowed 
by the judgement of the common father of Christendom, 
At whatever stage in William’s negotiations the final 
answer from Alexander camo, there can be no doubt 
that, from that moment, his own preparations were more 
vigorously pressed on, and that recruits pressed more 
eagerly to his standard, THis own hopes and the hopes 
of his followers now rose higher. It was now not only 
booty und lands and lordships, English earldoms for Nor= 


¥ Roman de Rov, #1463; 
“Un gonfauon ® un auch Sf come fl dit, de sox la pierre 
“Mult precios & riche @ bel ; Aveit un des chevouls Saint Pierre,” 
Por a hair another reading has a tooth, 


* The banner is mentioned by mont writers, Will. Pict 123. Vex- 
Mun acoeplt [Willeunus) wjox (Alexandr) beniguitate, veut suirmglum 
Senoti Putri; quo primo confidentiue no tutive invaderet adyersarium.” 
Ond. Vit, 495 C. ““ Vexillam Hanoti Petri Apostoll, cujus meritis ab onmt 
perioulo defonderetur, tranuniait.” Wil, Malms. tl 238. " Papa vexilliam 
jn omen regal Willelmo contradidit.” So Waco, u. a, ant Benoit, 36807. 
Wace calls it  gomfanon," Benoit “ cnscigne."” 


THE CRUSADE AGAINST ENGLAND. 


323 


man knights and English bishopricke for Norman priests, omar. xm. 


that William could offer to those who followed him. 
To every man, from whatever quarter of the earth, who 
came to serve under the consecrated banner he could 
now offer the blessing of the Roman Pontiff and every 
spiritual gift that the Pontiff’s hand could bestow. Never 
surely did the world see a more perfect triumph of un- 
righteous craft than when the invasion of England was 
undertaken in the name of religion. 


The first part then of William’s work was done. We Summary. 


must now return to our own island, threatened as she was 
by the Norman Duke from the South, threatened, as we 
shall presently see her, by an enemy hardly less terrible 
from the quarter whence her older enemies had come. It 
was the fate of England in this memorable year to be 
exposed to two invasions at the same moment, and against 
two invasions at the eame moment the heart and arm of 
Harold himeelf could not prevail. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


THE NORWEGIAN INVASION AND THE CAMPAIGN OF 
STAMEORDBRIDGE.” 


Comme of ‘Tux clouds were thus gathering in the direction of Nor- 
Sate sho mandy, but it was not from Normandy that the first storm 
eaunl to was to break upon England, Or rather it was Normandy 
which sent forth those first few drops which were the fore- 
runners of the tempest to come. The first drop of English 
blood that was shed, the first rood of English ground that 
was harried, during this memorable year, was the work 
of men, not indeed fighting under William's banner, bat 
acting at least with William's connivance, perhaps under 
his direct commission, But that first scene of the drama 
was the mere prelude to two acts as stirring and wonderful 
as any to be found im the whole range of history. Of the 
two enemies of England, the first was last and the last 
was first, and the more haste was emphatically not the 
better spood. The fortune of William changed a mighty 
rival into an ueeful pioneer, and changed an invasion which 
might have destroyed him into a mere diversion in his 


ae 


+ In this Chapter we of course return to English autheeities, to the Chro- 
icles and Florence, of whot the latter now distinetly puts on the charsctor 
of am independent axtherity, These wo have to compare threaghowt with 
the great Norwegian account, the Sage of Harold Harcdmds in Geoere, snany 
‘of the details of which are manifestly mythios). A few aattered hints may 
abe be picked up from German, Norman, and other sourcor, 





THE NORWEGIAN INVASION. 


av, aloug the South-Saxon and Kentish const, the coast along 
ees i which, fourtoon years bofore, he had sailed with hie father 
Sem ead in his glorious ‘return. He thus paseed on as far os 
Sandwich, marking his course, wherever he went, by cease- 

less and wanton ravage; he did harm everywhere that 

Great pre he might.! But King Harold was now making ready 
Fried, for the great struggle, No view of bis position can be 
Sutlamper, More falee than that which desaribes him as making light 


tion for defence except with a view to the expected invasion 
from Norway ‘The trath is exactly opposite. The King 
was busily engaged in preparations for the defence of his 
Kingdom against the Norman before there was any reason 
to look forward to any sort of danger from the Northman. 
To Harold at least his great rival's purpose was known 


from the beginning. He was already, as his 

tells us, Iabouring by Jand and by sea for the defence 
of his country.? He was gathering such a land-force and 
such a sea-force ns no King had ever before gathered in 
this land. He was still in London*\—that is doubtless 


Norman account, it will bo remembored (see above, p. 305), maker hit not 
aod fn England at all til be coues with Harold Handrada. 

* Chron. Ab. 1066. “And {Gr jw Junon, and hearmas dyde mgwar be 
Jom mo riman ja ho t5 mibto, o¥ he becom to Sandwic."” Flor. Wig. “Cires 
‘Hipse maria, donec ad Sandicum portua veuiret, predas exerenit.” 

* Wal, Maka fi. 233, “Proteres, qui (Haroldm) putaree mins 
Willotmi namquam ad footum oruptares, qued ile conterminorm Duowmn 
belli implicaretur, totum animum otio cum sabjeckls induleerst ; nam pro- 
foeto, nisi quod! Norfooram Regem adventare didfcft, nec mitten ennvocsre 
‘nee aciem dirigore diguatus fuissot.”” 

© Flor. Wig. 1066. “Mox, ut regni gubcrnacula musceperat, . . . ecepiit 
«+ = pro patrti defemione {promot tert marique dendare.” 

* Chronn, Wig, Ab, “And Hareld eyng his [Tostiges) broSor gogu 
drade wa micelne eelphore and eno lanlhere, swa nan oyng ber on lando ar 
no dyer forpumn be him was gecy®t fuet Wylleln Bastant (Willen eel) 
fram Normandige, Eadwardes cingoos mag,” Chron. Ab. and FL. Wig.) weilde 
ice [*cutnan,"" Ab.] and Sis land gewinnen, callewa hit #ytan sedde.” 

* Chron, Ab, and Fl. Wig. “Da eydle man Harold kynge be 0 Luss 
dene wea” 


RAVAGES OF TUSTIC, 37 


at Westzinster—when he heard the news of his brother's cuar. xv. 
appearance ut Sandwich, He therefore hastened his He hastens 
preparations, and leaving London, most likely under don to 
the command of Leofwine, as Earl of the neighbouring S™wich. 
shires, he himself hastened to Sandwich. But before the Tog 
King reached Sandwich, Tostig had sailed from thenee, suf) an, 
taking with him a body of the sailors of that haven, some 

by their own consent and some by force." It is only among 
professional sailors, who might be tempted by promises 

of pay and plunder, that the rebel Earl seems to have 
found any English followera. The cruise of Tostig along 

these shores must have struck him as a sad contrast to 

thoso days of hopo when the whole folk of the sea-faring 
shires came flocking to the const ready to live and die 

with Earl Godwine.* With his force thus mised to sixty 

ships, Tostig sniled northwarda; he then entered the and 
Humber and ravaged the coast of Lindesey in the Earl- Tindeny. 
dom of his enemy Eadwine.? Here he acted like Swegen 
himself, or like the earlier destroyers in the days of Ailfred. 

He bnrned towns and slew many good men. The two Ho is 
Northern Earls were this time not wanting to their". 
duty. Indeod thoir interest and their duty were too tomy ty 
nearly the eame to allow of any slacknoss, They had ond 
no chance of finding their own profit in treagon, like the “™**™* 
traitors of an carlicr time. Eadwine and Morkere hastened 

to the sullering districts with the levies of the country, 


§ Chron. Ab, 1066. "Po Tosti faxt geaxodo put Harold cing wme toward 
Sanlwic, fe for be of Sandwic, and nam of Jam buteckarlon sume mid him, 
mine bances sume unbuaces." Bo Florence; “De tutecarlis quondau 
volentes, quosdam nolentes, secur @autnens,” 

* Boe vol Hi, po gan. 

* Chron. Ad. * And gewende Jo nor® tato [Humbmn] and ber hergode 
10m Lindaseye.” So Flaronce ; **Recesait, et oursum st Lindesegiam dix 
exit” Chronn, Wig, Potrib. “And i hwile com Toatig eotl into Hum. 
‘bran mid aistigum eojpum.” S80 Wiliam of Malmesbury, if, 228 ; “ Kodex 
anno Tortinns, » Flandei® in Hombram navigiosexagints navine delatus, 
‘2 quer circa orain flaminis erant piraticls cxeurdonibus infowtabet.” 


THE NORWEGIAN INVASION, 


onar. 1Y. and drove away Tostig and his plunderers.' The sailors 


t 
? 


ff 


who had followed him, willingly and unwillingly, from 
Sandwich, now forsook him The one clase gaw no 
further chance of pay or plunder ; the othors were doubtless 
glad of the means of escape from a service which 
they disliked. Tostig, with twelve small vessels,” now 
sailed for Scotland and sought shelter with his sworn 
brother King Malcolm. The tie of brotherhood had not 
saved Northumberland from ravage while Tostig was still 
doing his duty oe an English Earl;* but his new cha- 
acter of an enemy to his country now earned him a 
hearty welcome at the Scottish court, Malcolm received 
his brother, and supplied his force with provisions; and 
Tostig stayed under his protection through the whole 
summer. 


$2. Tbatig's applications to Swegen ani Harold Hardrade, 


We have now reached a most fascinating, and at the 
same time a most difficult, part of our story. We are 
landed in the famous and magnificent Saga of Harold 
Hardrada.’ The tale, as it appears in Norwegian legendary 
history, is 60 complote, and it is told with such thoroughly 
pootic spirit, that it goes deeply against the grain to have 
even to hint that nearly every detail must be mythical, 
It is painfal to have to tum from the glowing strains 
of the Norwegian prose epic to the meagre entries of our 


* Chronn Wig. Retrib. 1066, “And Kadwine orl com mid tanedfarde, 
and adrof bine Wt,” ‘The Abingdon Clavaleler and Flonmce fd Morkere 5 
s© Willian of Malmesbury (ii. 228); “ * Ab Edwino of Morchanto, concordés 


* Tb. “And he for to Seutlande aid xii, maceunms.” 

* Sen vol HL pp. 384-457 

* Tho English writers all transfer to him the wurname Jfacfagra, which 
Delonge to the famous Herold of thy ninth century. 





THE NORWEGIAN INVASION. 


undor the most valiant and adventorous of her Kings, 
a force practised rather than weakened by the long war 
with Denmark, stood ready for some new undertaking, 
and such an undertaking was before long set before the 
Norwegian King by the banished English Earl. 

‘That Harold Hardrada invaded England in partnership 
with Tostig is certain; but the circumstances of their 
agreement are involved in much difficulty and contri 
diction. The authentic English narrative eaye nothing of 
any personal application to Harold on the part of Tostig 
before they met on the Scottish coast, And it is by no 
means easy to make the alleged voyages of Tostig to 
Denmark and Norway fit in with the English ebronology. 
Indeod the English account might rather suggest that 
Harold Hardrada had planned his invasion of England 
quite independently of Tostig, and that the meeting of 
their forces happened quite incidentally, after the Nor- 
wegian King had already set sail, On the other hand, 
the voyage of Tostig to Norway is asserted in the Norman 
version, and it is the very soul of the Norwegian Saga. 
T shall discuss the details of these different versions else= 
where.’ Ib is perhaps not absolutely impossible to recon- 
cile Tostig’s voyage with the English narrative, but it 
can be dono only by wholly giving up the chronology, 
and perhaps some other details, of the Saga. The English 
account at least shows that, if Tostig made any application 
to Harold at all, it must have been made after he had 
taken shelter im Scotland, and it would suggest that it 
was made by messengers rather than personally, With 
these cautions, I tell the tale as I find it in the Saga, 
warning the reader that, I do not pledge myself to a single 
detail, 


Norwegian ‘The Norwegian story makes Tostig, on his banishment, 


* See Appendix AA. 


TOSTIG APPLIES IX VAIN TO SWEGEN, 331 


which, it must be remembered, is placed after his brother's omar. xxv. 
Se eatin tak thes eseeeriee tinct to eB 
banished Englishmen a few years carlier® Ho goes first of reget 

to Manders, and thence to Denmark, by way of Friesland? ar 
His object was to got help from his cousin King Swegen "chy 
to enable him to recover his earldom. Tho prudent King 
offered him an earldom in Denmark instead. For this 
‘Tostig had no mind; he wished to recover Northumber- 

land at all hazards. If Swegen would not give him forces 

for that purpose, he was ready to go a step farther. He 
proposed to Swogen to revive his old claim to the Crown 

of England, and to undertake the conquest of the country. 

He, Tostig, would help him in such an enterprice with all 

‘the force that he could command, Swegen could not fail 

‘to succeed in an attempt which had been 2o successfully 
accomplished by his uncle Cont. But the Danish King 

had learned to distrust his own power for such an achieve. 
ment, and he had seen enough of the world to put little 
faith in an exile’s estimate of his own influence in the 
country from which he has been driven. Cnut was a 
great man and a lucky man; he, Swegen, laid no claim 

to either the greatnow or the good lack of his uncle. 
Cout had inherited Denmark ;* he had won Norway with- 

out striking a blow; but in order to win England he 

had to strike many blows and to put his life in great 
jeopardy. Swegen, on the other hand, found it a hard 
matter to keep Denmark safe from the attacke of the 
‘Norwegian King. He would therefore stay at home and 
would not run any deeporate risks, Toetig left him 


* Sen vol ih ps 656. $a. pp. 9208 4, 


‘co orresto England” (Fobnatone, 694). But Englnnil wax Cout's first king- 
deem ; he did not encceed to Denmark till the death or deposition of his 
bevther Harold. (Seo vol. §. yp. 364 419.) ‘Thin te another proof how 
sotierly the short reign of Hisruld wan forgotten, 


| 
' 


332 THE NORWEGIAN INVASION, 


omar. xy. with an expression of contempt for his lack of enterprise 
ond his neglect of the interests of a kinsman. Swegen 
might bave answered that Harold of England was a 
Kinsman no less than his brother, and that the gratitude 
which he himself undoubtedly owed to the memory of 
Godwine passed much more naturally to the bead of 
the family than to one engaged in treason against his 

house and country, 
Tontig yoo From Denmark Tostig, so the story says, went on to 
rae Norway to seek help ftom its King Harold Hardrada. 
He found him in Viken, the south-eastern corner of the 
Handrada, Norwegian Kingdom, He opened his errand to Harold 
in the same order in which he had opened it to Swegen. 
Hisfirt That is to sy, he at first simply asked for help to recover 
ae his Earldom, ‘This proposal found as little favour from 
reever bin Harold as it had found from Swegen. The Northmen, 
fate’ wo said their King, would have no mind for a war in 
refusal, England under an English leader; common report said 
that the English were not men in whom it was safe to 
put much trust. The massaere of Saint Brice, the de- 
position of Harthacnut, the refusal to hearken to the 
claims which Magnus had founded on his agreomont with 
Harthacnut, may all have passed across the mind of 
Harold Hardrada. He had little mind for an undertaking 
which promised so much danger, and so little profit in 
case of success, Tostig had therefore to tempt him by the 
same bait which he had before offered to Swegen. Let 
the King of the Northmen enter England, not morely 
to restoro an English Earl, but to place the Imperial 
Crown of Britain upon his own head. Let Harold be 
King over the whole land; Toatig would ask only to be 
» Under-king of half England, no doubt of ite northern 
balf. He would become King Harold's man, and would 
* Johnsiane, p. 195. Mila menn fat, seyit hann, at per intr Ensko 

se cig alltriie.” 


Harel 


= 


TOSTIG APPLIES TO HAROLD HARDRADA, 333 


serve him faithfully wll the days of his life.’ He then set car. xev! 

himself to answer the objections to the enterprise which 

had been raised by the Norwegian King. Tostig seeme 

really to have believed that, after all that had happened, 

‘ho still roigned in the hearts of his faithful Thegns in 

Northumberland. The expedition, he argued, iron iene Le 

See ccddnta savas chm: canny 
against England or the expeditions of Harold himself 

against Denmark, The main hindrance to success in those 

undertakings would not be present in that which Tostig 

now counselled. Why was the agreement between Hartha~ 

enut and Magnus set aside? Why did not Magnus ven- 

ture to make good his claims on England against Ead- 

ward? Why had Magnus overcome Denmark with ease, 

while Harold himself had failed in the same attempt? 

Success or failure in such attempts depended wholly on 

the disposition of the chiefs and the poople of the invaded 

Jand. Magnus had snoceeded in Denmark, because the 

chief men of Denmark were on his side; Harold had failed, 

because the whole Danish nation had been against him* 

* Onderie (493 1D) makoon Tosti make this proposal to Flarnid ; * Mesii- 
tater Angli vobis rotinets, aliamque mihi, qni wtiis indo Bddliter wer- 
‘viam, retinete.” ‘The proporal Is quite In the spirit of say ane who repre: 
sented, or claimed to reprosent, Northumberlani, Compare William's 
Ailaged offer to Mateld of Hngland in the next Chapter, 

Snore, ap. Joluslone, 195.“ Pvi eiynadiz Mayuis Konungr Dan 
Tey a fo tanta BoMLagar eit inom ona Jr focks i ath wt als 
Janda-folk wid i rmiti bor, Pi bardixs Magniie Konungr vigi til Englands, 
‘at ellr lande-lydr villdi bale Jétvard et Konungl.” It would almor een 
asi toth in Englund and in Denmark, » distinotion was drawn between 
the chief and! the mass of tho people. ‘The people soom to be conosived ax 
being, always aud everywhere, patriotic; but it was possible that some of 
‘the chief men in both countries might be won over to the csum of the in- 
wader. This ik eminently true of England in the mwign of Aitholred. The 
peuple, the land-felk, of Demonrk, says Tostig, reeloted Harold ; the people 
of England wore unanimous for Ewiward. None but the Danish chiefs aro 
spoken of as supporting Magnus, ant it is only fram the chief in England 
shat Tostig looks for tho racane of fulilling hin promise to Haroli. 


| 


334 THE NORWEGIAN INVASION. 


ouar. xv. Endward, because Eadward was the King whom the 
people of England had chosen to reign over them. But 
now the state of things was changed. He, Tostig, deemed: 
himself the equal of his brother in all bat his kingly title. 
He would support the cause of Harold of Norway, and 
his support—so the exile said, and perhaps thought— 
would bring with it the allegiance of all the chief men 
of the land. Harold Hardrada, so all men allowed, was 
the first warrior of northern Innds; be had spent fifteen 
years in an attempt to seize on Denmark; would he refuse 
to seize on England, now that England lay ready for him, 
only waiting for him to take possession ? 
‘Harold ‘The arguments of Tostig, we ave told, gradually carried 
teeruit conviotion to the mind of Harold. ‘The proposed expe 
Englanl. dition was novel and distant; it bade fair to be successful, 
and, if sneceseful, it would bring with it unbounded glory. 
As such, it had every charm for @ prince, who now, 
at the age of fifty, had lost nothing of the spirit of his 
Wiking youth. The expedition was determined on, and 
‘it was ordered to take place in the course of the summer. 
Kone It may be merely the omission of our saga-maker, but 
Coif tbe it is worth noting that we hear nothing of any Thing or 
Thing ty? other assembly being consulted by Harold Hardrada. 
Hana” ‘In England it came within the constitutions) fianctions of 
the Witan to approve or to forbid any interference in the 
concerns of another country. Twice had it been proposed 
in an English Gemét to take a part in the wars of Swegen 
and Magnus, and twice had the majority of the assembly 
rejocted the proporal.!’ Even in Normandy, whether ox 
‘9 matter of constitutional right or of personal prudence, 
William had thought it needful to consult an Assembly 
of his Duchy before he determined on the invasion of 
England? But in Norway we find no mention of any. 
power which had to decide upon such questions, except 
* Boe woh. i, pp. 90-98. * See nbove, p. 290 


HAROLD HARDRADA DETERMINES ON INVASION, 335 


the arbitrary will of King Harold himself, There can be no car. xv. 
doubt that Harold reigned in Norway as tho despot: which 

his surname implies, and the utmost that his panegyrists 

can say for him is that his heavy hand pressed equally upon 

allt But the proposed schemo was at least freely discussed 

by the public opinion of Norway. Somo deemed that the Ditfrent 
valour and good luck of Harold tho son of Sigurd must tirwyy 
be suoceasful in cvery land and over every enemy, Others tituste 
shrank from an encounter with Harold the son of God- Baglih 
wine and with the resources of the land over which he Sew” 
reigned, England was a land perilous to attack; it was 

a land fertile in warriors; there, above all, were the Thing 
men, the Honsecarls, men ever strong in battle, men ever 
ready of heart and band, mon any one of whom was a 
match for two of the choicest warriors of Norway This 

is indeed a speaking witness to the efficiency of the force 
which had been called into being by the wisdom of Caut, 

and whieh had lost nothing in strength or in reputation 
under the government of Harold. The fame of the con- 
queror of Gruffydd bad no doubt been sounded throughout 

the North, and men shrink from the prospect of meeting 

a chief and an army so ready to adapt themselves to every 

‘need which the accidente of war might bring with them, 
Whether the details of the story are true or false, this 
traditional estimate of the English Housecarls must at 
least be genuine. Nothing however is deseribed as taking 
pluce to hinder the expedition, or to cause any slackening 


* Saorm, ap, Lalng, tii, 101 5 
“Severo wax Harold, bat we call 
‘That just which was aliko to all.” 
Compare the discriminatiug comparison between Lim and his brother Sain’ 
ert Johnstone, 225 ; Laing, il, 102. 

* Snorr, ap. Johnetone, 197; Laing, til, So. * Eun our stigdo, at Eag- 
fend mundi verla torsott, mannfilk ofmikit a, ov pat lid er alla ce 
pings-tnannalid, beir voro menn sa freknir, at betrn varlid eins pelrra enn 
TE Harallde mazne hinna bweto,” Harold's Staller Ulf ix pounilalized at the 
‘outmpariont, 


ss 


336 THE NORWEGIAN INVASION, sd 


cuar. sty, in the levies and preparations of Harold Hardrada. Tostigy 
it is added, sailed in the spring to Flanders, to gather 
forces both from that country and from England. We 
here easily see the confusion of the Norwegian chrono~ 
logy. If wo can suppose these visits of Tostig to Swegen 
and Harold to be true in their main outlines, they are at 
Jeaut altogether moved from their right place. 


$8, The Invasion of Harold Hardrada. - 
September, 1056, 


Great pre Tt ie not clear how far the danger which threatened him 
‘of from the North was known to King Harold of England. 
NaS It is certain that the appearance of the Norwegian fleet was 
 unlooked for at the actual moment of its coming.’ But 
this need not imply that no hint whatever of the great pre 
parations of Harold of Norway had reached England. Tt 

ig cortain that the attention of the King of the English 

was at that moment altogether fixed on his preparations 

to withstand a nearer and really more formidable enemy. 

‘The floct, the news of whose approach had driven away 

Tostig from Sandwich, was part of a vast system of pre- 
paration for the defemce of southern England. It is most 

likely that, when England was thus threatened by two 
enemies at once, the King, together with his brothers, 
undertook tho immediate defence of Wessex and East- 

‘The North Anglia, and he entrusted the defence’ of the North to 
ERO, ite own Earle Harold himself could not be everywhere at 
own Earle once ; if he had to choese betwoon one part of his Kingdom 
and another, his first duty clearly was to that part which 

was more specially his own, more immediately under bis 
personal government. It might surely seem safe to kave 


* Chron. Ab, 1066, “pa com Harold epning of Norwegas nord into 
‘Tinae oo enwarnn,” 


cy 


Ee 


PREPARATIONS OF HAROLD’ OF ENOLAND. 337 


y 
Northumberland and Mercia to the defence of their own cnar. xv. 
Barls, the men who, of all men in the island, wore the mast 
concerned to keep Tostig out of it. Eadwine might pase 
in Mercia almost for an hereditary prince; Morkere was 
‘the special choice of the Northumbrian people. To trust 
them to fight for their own was surely no mark of neglect 
on the King’s part, but rather a sign of the confidence 
which be placed in his loyal and loving brothers-in-law. 
At all events, King Harold was doing all that mortal man The King's 
‘could do for the defence of southern England. For he frie 
knew well that William Bastard, King Eadward's kins- deface of 
man, sought to come and win this land.' And he knew England, 
better than any other man in England with what a foe he 
had to deal in him, and how the strongest efforts of every 
man in the land were needed to keep the land from being 
won by the Norman. No:atory: makes|us ‘boiler: under~ Diteaky 
‘stand the difficulties which in those days waited on the {iye, 
feneral who had not merely to fight a battle, but to plan a psi 
campaign, and a defensive campaign above all. Haro had tie of 
no atanding army except the Houeecarls; etill, as having 7" 
the Housecarls, he was so far better off than Avthelved, 
who had no standing army ut all. But the efficiency of 
the Housecarls was almost wholly confined to the day of 
battle. Pace to face with an enemy, each of them might 
be equal to two other men, bat neither the numbers nor 
the nature of the force made thom at all fit to guard the 
whole coast of Weesex and East-Anglia. For that purpose 
Harold had of course to trust to the dandfyrd, the militia 
‘of the shires. What the nature of this force was we have 
often seen before. Harold, or Eadmund, or any other chief 
in whom men put trust, could easily mise an army of 
this kind, an army patriotic and brave after its own fashion, 
an army perfectly ready to fight a battle, but which, after 
either winning or losing a battle, was always eager to go 
"Bee the quutation frum the Worcester Chronicle in p, 326. 
‘VOL, 11, z 


— 


THE NORWEGIAN INVASION. 


cua, xiv. home again. We have seen that, after all the battles of 


if 


Eadmund, save one only, his army disbanded, and he had 
to gather a fresh army to fight the next battle, Harold 
hod a still hardor task before him. He had to gather his 
militia, and to keep them under arms for an indefinite 
time, without fighting any battle, and when the main 
end of their being in arms was to hinder any battle 
from being fought. We do not read of any earlier King 
even attempting such a scheme of genoral defence. Harold 
got together such a fleet and army? as no King had ever 
got together before, and he kept them together during four 
months of inaction, The fleet cruised in the Channel; the 
land-force was placed at various fitting posts along the 
coast, The King first sailed to the Isle af Wight, and 
then spent the summer in simply waiting for the coming 
of William. No kind of service could have been #0 irksome 
for un unprofessional, and seemingly unpaid, force. There 
was absolutely nothing to do butto watch ; the excitement 
of battle, the attractions of plunder, all the usual motives 
for which men left their homes and familics and private 
affairs, were denied to men who had simply to guard the 
shores of their own island. Then they were to be fed, not, 
as in a hostile country, at the expense of the neighbour- 
hood in which each division was quartered, but by some 
means which to the imperfect finance and imperfect com- 
missriat of that age must have boon hard indeed, It is 

+ Seo vol. p. 385. 

+ Soe above, p. 326, note . The Abingdon Chruniicle speaks of "eorip: 
fyrde and wae lanfyrae,” that of Worcester of * aciphere and exe landhere.” 
‘No doubt both kinds of foree werv called out, ‘The preparations of Harold 
are alo etrmgly set forth by Ondaric, goo Aj “ Hastingas et Peoovescllum 
aliceque portus matis Neustriay opposites . . . - toto sano illo cum snuliis 
nasvibus et militibus callide servaverst.” Compare also his account of Toatig's 
axpedition, seo above, p. 305. And, after all, no one does more juxtion 
to Harold in ¢his respect than the moxt hostile of all writers, Wiliam of 
Poltiers (123); “ Heraldus interea prompuus ad decernendum prolio, sive 
terrestti sive navali, plorumque cum immani exereitu sd littas marina 
pperiens.” 


all 
THE ARMY DISBANDED, 339 


no small proof of Harold’s skill and forethought, and of aur, av. 
the hold which he must bave had upon the nation gene- 

rally, that he was able to keep and feed a greater army 

for a greater time than any King had ever done before him. 

‘There is certainly no other record of such a host being kept 

0 long under arms without either fighting or plundering. 

At last, at tho ond of four months, the strain wna too great The amy 
to be any longer borne. Food for so great a multitude Simanny 
was no longer forthcoming. If the crop was early, it may * 
have already suffered from the absence of so many of those 

who were wont to gather it in, If the crop was late, 

men were no doubt eagerly clamouring to go home and 

reap each man his own field. At all events, carly in Sep- 
tombor, it was found impossible to keep them together any 
longer. The authority and influence of Harold broke 

down before the stronger force of necessity. ‘Tho army. was Harcld re. 
disbanded ; the King rode back to London, for which baven Tendon 
the fleet also was ordered to make, Many of the ships yt! 
were unluckily lost, or damaged on the voyage.? The Eng- 

lish acconnt would seem to imply that they came buck 
without having seen any actnal service at all. But some Quetion 
expressions of the Chronicles, and some remarkable entries oy crations 

in the Norman Survey, may bo taken to imply that some sgumete 
nayal engagement between English and Norman ships did 

take place at some stage or other of this wonderful year. 

If so, it is hard to find any later stage of the war with 


+ Chron. Ab, "Po hit wus to Nativitas Sanctw Mazin, fa woe manna 
re eee ee an een as =e Leg pbenlion wo nlite? ‘Thie 


PB 
defence of the southern coast in 1537, and tho writ of Edwank the Think 
BN alt eae th 
‘onera importabilia wustinoro non valentes.” Rymor, vol. i. part i. 
Faeiegee ieee cise 
* Chom, AV. “And man drof be soypu to Lundeno, and manega for 
swantom ar hi pyder cbmon.” 
“a 


THE NORWEGIAN INVASION. 


enar, xi. which such an event will so well fit in as with the days 


when Harold’s fleet was cruising in the Channel.’ 

No vexation can be conceived greater than Harold’s muat 
have been at seeing his whole labour thus thrown away. 
He must have turned away from the coast with a heavy 
heart, with a feeling that the land now lay open to the 
stranger. The King had most assuredly not failed his 
people, and we cannot fairly say that the people had failed 
their King. The force of cireumstances had been too 
strong for King and poople alike. A few weeks more of 
endurance, and the Norman fleet might have never reached 
the English shore. But thoee few weeks more of enduranco 
were seemingly too much to ask of human nature. The 
south coast of England was left ondefended. It does nob 
indeed follow that every fort and every wateh-tower was 
left absolutely without guardians. We shall find that such 
was not the case, But thero was no longer any force by 
land or by sea which could offer any effectual resistance to 
the landing of the Norman invader, 


Harold had ridden to London, a fact which again marks 
the growing importance of the city. I have already” 
pointed out how marked was the influence of the events 
of Harold’s reign on the process which gradually made 
London, what we may now almost begin to call it, the 
capital of the Kingdom, So far as Harold, during his 
reign of little stillness, could be said to have any special 
Awelling-place, that special dwelling-place seems to have 
been Westminster. But it was hardly in search of repose 
that he now came thither. Threatened as he was by two 
enemies, London was a central point from which he could 
march northwards or southwards, as his presence might 
be called for in either quarter. Tho wealth and loyalty 
of its citizens made the city an excellent point for the 

* Soe Appendix DD. * Bee above, p. 64. 


HAROLD HAKDRADA SETS SAILS. Bat 


gathering and provisioning of armies. And, asa haven lying cnar, xv. 
far inland, it was a point no less suited to be the centre 
of operations which were to take in land and sea alike. 
‘Bot Harold's sojourn in London now was not « long one. 
Before he had left the southern coast, his namesake of Harcid 
Norway wna afloat. Whether his voyage was mado at “artaia 
‘the inetance of Tosti or not, there is no doubt either as 
to the fact of the voyage or as to the grentness of the 
lions which had been made for it. Harold Hard- 
tada is sid to have called out a levy of half the fighting 
men of his kingdom’ His fleet is variously reckoned 
at two hundred, three hundred, five hundred, and even a 
‘thousand ships? and the numbers of the host were in- 
ereased at almost every point whore the flect touched. 
He eet sail from the Solen Teles at the mouth of Sogne 
Fiord, near Bergen on tho west const of Norway. Te would He dnigns 
seem that he had resolved to transfer the seat of his jauignt 
government to the land which he looked forward to con- 
quer? Hix expedition bore the character, if not of w 
national, at least of a domestic migration. Harold Hard- 
vada, like the Merwings in Ganl,* allowed himself a kind 
of cpen polygamy, which ho may possibly have learnod in 
‘the Muesulman lands which ho had visited as a warrior and 
asa pilgrim. Besides his Queen, the Russian princess 
) Snore, Johnstone, £96; Laing, iti. So. "Seni Haralldr Konungr ond 
um allan Noreg. co baud dt leldaayr, hilfina alueuntag.” 
® Snorro gives him about two hundred ships of war, besides transports 
‘and athor smaller craft ("*Haralldr konongr hefii nee ce. alps, oo umfeum 
co mnd-skdtor.” Johnstone, 198; Laing, ili, 81); the 
three Chropictes, William of Malmesbury, and tho Scholint of Adam of 
‘Beenen (iti. $1) give him three hundred, Florence Sve hundred, while in 
“Marianas Seotus (ap, Perts, 7, $99) the number rises to “minus mille,” 
® Marlanuy, u. s, “Arnlduy qui et Arback vecabatur, Rex Nordman: 
norum, minus mille navibus venit menso Septembri, Angliewm torram 
.” Arbach” fs an odd corruption of Hardrsda, A Memish 
‘chronicler (Chron. &. Bayo. Corp. Chron, Fland, 4. 459), who copies Mari- 
anus, turn him into“ Harienuth, Rex Nomlanhymbeorum.” 
* Bee vol i p. 614. 


a 


342 THE NORWEGIAN INVASION, 


quar, x1, Elizabeth, who was neither dead nor divorced, one Thora, 
‘Bi wires the daughter of Thorberg, is also spoken of as his wifes! 


Ingigerd ; Thora was the mother of his sons Magnus and 

Olaf. Thora was left in Norway with her son Magnus, 

Compart- who received the title of King* In this Harold might 
a seem to follow the precedent sct by Cout with regard to 
Allfgifa of Northampton and her son Swegen.* Norway 
was sgain to be ruled by an Under-king subordinate to 
a Northern Emperor reigning in England. The rest of his 
family, Queen Elizabeth and her daughters, and Olaf the 
son of' Thora, accompanied Harold in the fleet, no doubt to 
receive establishments in the realm which was to be won, 
Among other treasures, he is said to have brought with 
him a vast mass of solid gold, part of the plunder or the 
reward of his campaigns in the Imperial service. This 
huge ingot, which twelve strong youths could handly 
carry, passed from one conqueror to another till it formed 
part of the boundless wealth of William the Bastard. —~ 
Such a fleet had not for years gone forth from any Sean- 
dinavian haven. Cnut had kept the Northern world in com- 
parative peace beneath his Imperial sceptre. Since his death, 
the etrongth of the Scandinavian powers had been frittered 
away in the endless bickerings between Denmark and Nor- 
way. But now, as in the days of Swegen and Olaf, a royal 
fleet, manned with the whole strength of a kingdom, sniled 
forth once more to bring the Isle of Britain into subjection 


E 


Hi 


* Suorry, op. Laing, lil, 30, 37. 

* Snorro, ap, Johnstone, 209; Laing, tl. 82, “Harnlldr konungr, dlr 
tunn far af Prndboin, hots jar litit taka ell Konungs Magus son sinn, 
oc ectti hun til eflkie i Noregt, or konungl fér 4 besut,” ‘Thors is simply 
called “ pora purbergs dévtir,” while Elaabeth is “Hilisif drottalng.” 

* See vol. f. pp. 408, 476, 781. 

* Schol. nd Ad. Brom, iti. se.‘ Invupor masa ourl, quam Harvidus 
a Grech duxft ad Bastardum tall fortank pervenit, Et auvem pondus 
‘uri quod vix biment jovenes cervice levaront.” 


GREATNESS OF THE EXPEDITION. a3 


to a Northern master. The fleet wns commanded by a omar. ary. 
warrior whose fame was spread from Africa to Iceland. 

Tt sailed forth to attack realm which was no longer 

under the rule of an Althelred, but under that of a King 
whose renown in arma, within his own narrower sphere, 
sounded az high as that of Hardrada himself. And in the Chancw | 
far distance, beyond the defender of the land, lay ite other invader. 
assailant. We can hardly believe either that the prepara- 

tions of the King of the Northmen were utterly unknown 

at Rouen,’ or that the preparations of the Duke of the 
Normans wore uttorly unknown at Trondhjem. William 

must have set sail, hardly knowing which of the two 
Harolds he would meet on the South-Saxon hills, and 

Harold Hardrada must have svt «ail, burdly knowing 
whether he would find the shores of Northumberland 
guarded by the axes of England or by the lances of Nor- 
mandy. It was the last and greatest, of those great The oxpe- 
enterprises of the Scandinavian powers under which Eng. quo 
land had suffered for so many ages. The Raven of Den- the last 
mark was yet to float more than once over the stream nian attack 
of Humber, and the Land-waster itself was to float OEE F69- 1071. 
the shores of Anglesey.* But the ensign once so terrible 1098. 
to Englishmen had then become an ensign of promised 
deliverance; under the yoke of utter strangers the old 

foe was felt to be a brother. But now the Land-waster 

of Norway came, for the last time, purely and avowedly on 

its old errand of devastation and conquest, 


* This howover Orduric seems to wish us to believe. Willian maken his 


* See Mor, Wig. rog8; Will, Malms. iv. 329; Ord. Vit, 768. ‘The 
‘sxpadition of Harold, Cut, and Osblora tn 1069 (eee Florence fn anno) was 
undertaken directly fir the deliversuce of England. Magnus in 1098 sald 
soprosly that he came not against England, bat agafnat Ireland and the 
Talos, 


— 


if 


THE NORWEGIAN INVASION, 


Kiel at Neeway sth els eee 
there, but he came to reign without the good-will) 
single native partizan, ats one esihse hice cain 
east forth for his evil deeds. The last of his class, the 
last royal Wiking, who know no homo so dear as the wave, 
no enjoyment eo keen as the delights of battle by sca 
and land, he came to stake his crown and life on the most 
terrible of chances. The legends of his nation set him 
and his followers before us as setting forth on their great 
venture in no joyous or hopeful mood. The shadow of ite 
doom scomed already to spread itself over the mightiest 
fleet that a Northern King had ever gathered in a 
Northern haven, Dreams and omens of no cheering kind 
weighed upon the mind both of the King and of his 
followers. The sway of Saint Olaf and of Cont had not 
wiped out all traces of old heathendom, and wild beliefs 
in strange and superhuman powers still lingered, then and 
Jong aftor, among the Scandinavian people. Men told in 
after days of the dream that came to Gyrd,! the King's 
comrade, ag he lay in the King’s ship; how ho stood in 
the ship ond saw on an island a woman of dwmon birth,* 
vast and fearful; how ravens and ernes sat on the stern 
of every ship, and how the woman sang gloomy songs 
of the King who was lured to the west, to leave many 
bones behind him to glut the ravenous fowls. They told 
how Thord saw the host of England marching to the 
shore; how another dwmon-woman rede before them on 
a wolf, how she fod her strange steed with the bleeding 
carcases of men, and how, aa fast as his dripping jaws 
swallowed one body, she had ever another ready to throw 
into his open mouth, And, clearer warning than all, King 





+ Snorro, np: Tohnstone, 198 ; Laling, ii. 81. ‘Tho narme should be naticed. 
Hail every Marolil his Gyrth 

* The "witchwife” of Laing’s trandation ie a “trill-kena” fn the 
oviginal. 





OMENS ON THE VOYAGE. BAS 


Harold himself saw ina dream his martyred brother, who onar, x. 
told him that his doom was near, and that he too would 
become the food of the steed that bore tho fearful witch- 

wife. Talos like these are no doubt, in their details at 

Teast, the croation of after times; but thoy show well tho 
spirit, at once bold and gloomy, enterprising and thought~ 

fal, of the race with which England was now for the last 

time to struggle for her being. 

‘The first part of the British Islands where the Nor- Harcld 
wegian fleet landed was the Tsles of Shetland and Orkney. aim 
‘These, it must be remembered, together with the northern Shetland 
districts of the mainland, now formed a powerful Sean. ney. 
dinavian state. Ite Earl Thorfinn had, in a reign of fifty jrqtm™ 
years, greatly extended the power of his Earldom.’ ‘Suo- Orkney, 
eceding, like William, in his childhood, he and his state 1014-1064. 
had grown up as it were together. He had withstood 
various attacks from the Scottish Kings; he had, some 
say served, some say warred, in England ;? he had won the 
friendship, perhaps submitted to the superiority, of Magnus 
and Harold of Norway; he had made the pilgrimage to 
Rome, and bad founded the great chureh of Orkney, 
which in after times received the name of the martyred 
Earl Magnus, This prince had died about two years 
before this time, leaving two young sons, Paul* and 
Erling, in possession of the Earldom. Their mother, 
Tagebiorg, had remarried with Maleolm of Scotland. ‘The 
Celtic and the Scandinavian portions of Northern Britain 


© On the career of Thorfinn, soe Orkneyingn Sagn, ap. Johnstone, Ant. 

Cat, Sead, 176 ot neqq. ; Torfiol Oroades, i. 16 (p. 63 ot #eqq.) 5 also Robert 
Sr Rel ee Paty Kio anr129, 

Saya (Tohimtone, p. 181) attributes to hin an expe- 

= epee ar hepa ale of which T find no trace in 


‘English history. 

® Mark the prevalence among the Northern nations of scriptural names, 
while they were all but unkwown in Kngland, We bave already hal Janes, 
‘King of the Swedor (woe vol. |. p. 420)} now we have Mary and Poul 
besides the Russian Elizabeth, 


a 


346 ‘THE NORWEGIAN INVASION. 


aur. av. were thus just now on unnsually good terms, and Scotland 
and Orkney alike combined to swell the fleet of Harold 
Hardrada, Paul and Erling accompanied the prince who, 
both as King of the Northmen and as future Emperor of 
Britain, doubtless looked on himself as doubly their over- 
lord.! Harold left his wife and daughters in Orkney, 
and sailed southward to the mouth of the Tyne, There, 
it would seem, was made the second great muster of his 
" fleet, ‘There he was joined by his one partizan among 
the natives of the realm which he hoped to conquer. 
Thither came the traitor Tostig, whether Harold had 
* indeed sct forth at his bidding, or whether Tostig now 
for tho first time in his Scottish shelter heard of his 
approach, and hastened to join himeelf to any enemy of 
England, With him came whatever force he had either 
before brought from Flanders or had since got together in 
Scotland. There he did homage to the invader whom he 
was leading against his brother and his country, and he 
sailed on with the Norwegian King as his man.* Whether 
 Maleolm of Scotland joined the force of Harold in person 
does not appear for certain, but of the presence of a 
Scottish contingent in the fleet, whether distinct from 
the followers of Tostig or not, there scems to be no 
donbt.* The sworn brotherhood of Malcolm and Tostig 

* Snorro, ap, Johiatone, 200; Laing, lil. 83. 80 the Seholfant om Adam 
‘of Tiremon, iv, 31; “Haraldas, frater Claph nequiatinux Orchadas eo 
adduxit Imperio, regnumque auum dilatavit uxque ad Riphmos monten et 
Inland.” Is the Kingdom of Norway, with Tcoland for a part of it, 
Aistinguished from the Emptro of Britain} Adam is here discuwing the 


geography of the Riphesn moantains, but they are m fumnitiar tousiah, 
Bee the extracts in vol. f. p. 183, where they are placed somewhere in 


ie 


ES 
if 


a 
fir 


[E 


Britain, 

* Chron. Wig. 1066, "Tosti him to beah and his man wear.” Will, 

Malu, fi, 228, “Ii Regi Noricorum ... . obvio manne dodit” See 
% 

* Adam im. iti, gr, “Tosti... . Regom Nondmannorum auxitio 


ducit Haroldum, Regemque Scotorum, st occisus ext ipso Tosti et Rex 
Mibernim o¢ Haroldue cum toto cxereitu corm a Rege Anglorum." ‘The 


nay, XIV. 
one 


Beton 


THE NORWEGIAN INVASION. 


‘The fleet now again sailed southward, Tts course was 
swift,! but not so ewift as to forbid the work of plunder 
‘ork, on the way. ‘The coast was utterly dofenceless. A land 
“andor tho guardianahip of Eadwine and Morkero was in 
a very different case from a land under the guardianship 
of Harold of England. The flect bad entered the Tyne 
unawares, and the shores of Yorkshire were not lined with 
warriors, us the shores of Wessex hud been but a month 
before. ‘The irivaders landed and harried where they listed, 
‘The coast of Cleveland was ravaged, and the district sub- 
‘mitted without resistance* At Scarborough a better spirit 
swas shown ; some valiant man was doubtless in local com= 
mand? When the Nortlmen landed, the men of the 
town, neglected by their Earl, dared, in the spirit of 
Brihtnoth or Ulfeytel, to meet the invaders in arms. But. 
Harold, according to the legend, easily found means of 
bringing them to submission and to destruction. ‘The 
elder town of Scarborough lies on the slope of heights 
which lead gradually up to a bold peninsular cliff, dashed 
on three sides by the waves of the German Ocean. 
Above the town rises the mutilated minster. Above the 
minster again, the peningula itself is crowned by the 
defences of an ancient castle, whose shattered Norman 
keep remains as a relic of the age next following that 
with which we nre now dealing, On these heights the 
Northmen raised a vast pile of wood, and set fire to it. 
They then hurled the burning timbers down upon the 
town; house after house caught firo; the town now sur- 
rendered, but it was none the less given up to slaughter 
and plunder. The whole coast now submitted; the men 


* Flor, Wig, 1066, “Citato curvy oxtium Hombre flaminis intraverunt,”” 

+ For these scoounts of the harrying of Klifiind,” “Skardaborg,” and 
Hellornes,” see Suorro, Johnstone, 201 ; Laling, ii, 83. 

* Scarborough unluckily fs not montionod in Domesday, otherwise we 
might have learned the name of a man who must have been worth ro 
membering. 


\9NTM@Va 40 WOGT 


Rasadanitd 











THE FLEET ON THE YORKSHIRE COAST. 349 


of Holderness, like the men of Scarborough, ventured, omar. xrv. 
bmyely but unsuccessfully, on local resistance, Of naval Hessance 
operations on the English side we hear nothing. Some- ses. 
what later in our narrative we shall find that northern 
England was not wholly unprovided with ships; but when Tho North- 
we hear of them, it is, strange as it appears, in the inland floct ro- 
waters of the Wharf! ‘The naval foree of Northumber- itt 
land was doubtless quite unequal to a struggle with so 

fearful an enomy; the fleet had moet likely withdrawn 

before the invaders as they doubled Ravenspur and entered 

the great estuary of the Humber. Unopposed, it would The Nor- 
seem, either by land or by water, Harold and bis host s°¥ist., 
dinoted their course straight upon the capital of Northum- ¢p te 
herland. They yassed by the desolate flat where the 
genius of the great Edward was one day to eall into being 

the great haven of Kingston-upon-Hull. They passed by 

‘tho pathloza forest whore the bounty of the next invader of 
England was to lay the foundations of the great minster 

of Selby, At Inst they cast anchor at a spot on the left Thy die. 
bank of the Ouse, not far from the village of Riccall. Yyooalt 
‘They were now at a distance by land of about nine miles 

from York, but the windings of the river make the distance 

by water a good deal greater. This may have been among 

‘the motives which led them to choose their halting-place 

at this particular point. Another obvious motive was 

to watch the entrance to the Wharf, the stream in which 

the English fleot had sought shelter, and which empties 

itself into the Ouse a little way above Riccall. It is 

not easy to judge of the exact siate of the landing-place 

at the time, There can be no doubt that the bed of the 

river, anid ite whole aspect, has been greatly changed since 

it has boon affected by locks, dykes, and the drainage of the 

# We reed somo way further on in the Abingdon Chronicle how Harold 


of Baglaad founil the flect at ‘Tadcaster. 
* Flor. Wig. 1066, In loco qul Wichale dieltur appliouerunt." 


THE NORWEGIAN INVASION, 


cuar, xv. land on its banks. But it is clear that Riecall was a good 


ah 


contral point. A fleet moored there could at once bar 
the wscent of the Ouse and the descent of its tributary; 
and it was at the same time near enough to give help, 
if help were needed, in the main operations against the 
capital. At Riccall thon the vast fleat of the Northmen. 
was left, Filling up the river, as it must haye done, for 
a long distance, it formed an unwonted and terrible object 
in waters where no invading fleet had been seen for fifty 
years, A detachment, under the command of Olaf the son 
of the Norwegian King, of the two Earls of Orkney, and 
of the Bishop of those islands, was left to guard the ships, 
while the main body, under Harold and Tostig, made 


~— ready for their decisive march on York. 


The two Barle were at Int roused from their lisHeemnene 
when the great city of Northern England wae thus directly 
placed in jeopardy.? Even Aithelred had thought it need 
ful to do something when a Danish host came too near to 


Eadwine his Imperial resting-place at Winchester.* So Eadwine 
iad Mor aud Morkere, who had left Cleveland and Searborough and 


to moet 
thom, 


Holderness to their fate, deemed themselves ut last. culled 
upon to strike a blow in defence of York. They had by 
this time got together a large army, made up, it would 
seem, mainly of the general leyy or militia of the district. 
Among these a large body of priests had not scrupled to 
obey the summons to arms.’ It may be doubted whether 


+ The carolowmens of Radwine and Morkere is wtrongly saat forth by Wilk 
eee i, 228; “(Ambo ergo [Harald Hardmada and ae 
coneortis umbonibus tormim Transhumbransn populabantar ; 

Fovotl votaca Reto pl hil causa quam tla letocain aoe 
vietos Inter Eboracum includwnt.” 

# Seo wol. fp. 287. 

* Marianas (Pert, v. $89), deworibing the Daste of Fulford, anentions 
the slaughter of a hundred priests; “Kburaol in auotumno plus quam mille 
laicorum eentosquo [sic] prosbytororum bello ooaliit de Anglis." ‘The 
Chronicle of Salut Bavon (see above, p. 541) cute down the number of 
priests Killed to ten. Tho Hyde writer (292) mistakes the battle for a 


BATTLE OF FULFORD. ‘351 


this is simply a sign of the warlike habits of the Northum- car, xiv. 
brian people in general, or whether it pointe to a special 
feeling of the special exigency of the ease. At the head of 

this force, the two English Earls set forth from York, while 

the Norwegian army advanced to meet them from the 
point where they had left their ships at Riccall, The 
course of both armies led them along the slight ridge 
which forms the line of communication between York and 
Selby, a narrow path between the river and ite marshy 
banks on one side, and the flat, and still to some extent 
marshy, ground on the other, On the spot known as Gate Barmr of 
Falford,’ about two miles from the city, the armies met. que 
Harold Hardrada, pressingg on no doubt with all the vehe~ ‘ay,Say._ 
mence of his natare, had reached the place fram Riccall 

York. He was therefore able to make ready his line of 
battle before they drew near to attack? The present 
village stands on o low height, sloping gently to the 

river on the left band and to the marshy flat to the 

right. This doubtless was the site held by the invading 
army. The royal post was by the river; there the line af Arrenge 
the shield-wall was thickest ; there was pitched the Land- teen 
waster, the speaking name of Harold's royal standard, "win 


storm aul mawacre at York, with « grievous slaughter of priests;  Ebo: 

acam... tandem . . - eaplenter tant in eh ede debacchati wunt, 

‘ut ex numero presbyterorum qui in of intorfoeti munt, quantus fuit ewtororain 

morientinm numerus, ulrumque conjici potest undecies enim xx. [2201] 
foruntir Sit cocci." 

1 Dho oxrlior writers do not give the name of tho place ; it was enough for 
‘them that it wae near York. The Worcester and Peterborough Chronicles 
say that the Nortimnen "comon to Eoforwic and heom ber wit} fubtou 
‘Eadwine Kori," eto. So Florence mays juxte Eboroum,” ond Marisnue 
“bared.” Henry of Huntingdon (ML H. B. 762A), after saying that 
tho fight was “jaxta urbem," adda, *cujas locux pugni fn australl parte 
‘urbis ndhoo ortenditur.” Hut to the local knowledge of Simeon a still 
move exact acoount seamed nowdful, Ele copies Floreyoe a usual, but aftr 
the words “juxta Eborsoum ™ he Inserts the wonds " apud Fulford," 

# Bee Snorro, ap. Johnstone, 207; Laing, lil, Ry. 


352, THE NORWEGIAN INVASION, 


omar. xxv. And there stood the King himself, his giant form towering 
alike over friends and enemies. The right wing stretched 
across the rising ground as far us a ditch, beyond which 

lay the marsh, which is decribed as broad and deop,* Here 

the line was weakest, and here, whether by chance or by 

design, the English made their first attack. ‘The fight was 

ahard one; the Angles and Danes of Northumberland were 

no contemptible enemies for any man, and reckless, and 

even traitorous, as was the whole conduct of the brother 

Earls, they showed no lack of the cournge of the mere 

Vigorous soldier. The charge of the Northumbrians on the Norwe~ 
the of | gian right was vigorous and, for a while, successful. ‘The 
oa the Nor- enemy gave way, and the banner of Earl Morkere pressed 
on valiantly.? But it was only where the line was least 

strong that the English could make any impression; and 

recistve the chances of war presently changed. For now King 
thane of “Harold of Norway caused the charge to be sounded, and he 
pier hist let on the left wing, with the Land-waster borne 
|. beside him. Ho charged at once on the troops which were 
already beginning to boast of their victory ; before his two- 

handed sword all went down; the Northmen pressed on 
Defeatand around their King; the English gave way before their 
fie. onslaught. ‘They still for a while resisted, but presently 
tab. they turned and fled. The slaughter was feurful, but the 
Norwegian sword was not the only enemy. In that wild 

flight and wild pursuit, men were hurled into the river, 

the ditch, and the march; here corpses were borne down 

the stream; there the ditch was so filled with the slain 

+ Boor, ap. Johnutone, 202; Laing, ii, Sq. “pat var fon didipt oF 

Drelit oe full af vata.” 

21>, “For par fram merle Mauro-kar Jarl.” Snorro doe nat xpeak 

‘of any exploite of Radwine, nor indeed does he mention hin name, Tam not 

wore that he does not confound him with Woltheof, whom he desorlbes ma 

Prewmt in the battle, calling him, as elerwhora, a brother of Morkere. (See 

‘vol, il, p. 653.) He howovor gives Walthoof hie propor title aa Earl of 
Huntingdon. (See vol. li. p. $89.) The presence of Waltheof is not meutioned, 

by any other writer. Tt wax perhaps suggest by his later exploits at York. 


SURRENDER OP YORK. 353 


that the pursuers, so their poets say, could march as on cnar. x1¥. 
ssolid ground over their carcases’ The Norwegians had 
‘possession of the place of slaughter, and the remnant of 

the English were driven to find shelter within the walls 

of York.* 

‘The battle of Fulford was fought on Wednesday. Its Semealer 
immediate result was the surrender of York. On Sunday, Suniap 
it would seem, the city capitulated.? A local Gemét_ or September 
‘Thing was held, in which it was agreed to make peace with Harta 
Harold of Norway, and to receive him ae King of the Henne, 
English, or at least as King of the Northumbrians, His King and 
new subjects even agreed to join him, as their fathers had humbrians 
agreed to join Swegen, in bis farther warfare against thei im 
‘south of England. Provisions were supplied to the army; Slut 
hostages were given to the Norwegian King, and, what we Boglaod. 
showld hardly have looked for, wo rend, on trustworthy Mose 
authority, that Harold in return gave an equal nomber of 
hostages to the men of York.’ What follows will show that 
this treasonable engagoment byno means represented the real 


* Snorro, ap. Jobnatone, 203; Laing, ii, 4. “TA par wen pyckt valrinn, 
at Nomlmern mitt ginga purthotis yfir fonit,” Ho goes on to kill Morkero 
‘both im proso and yorse, but bo lived at least till ro87. Cf Chron. Ab. 
“And Jor vane Joos Engliscan foloes mycel ofslagen and adrenct and on 
fheam bodtifen.” So Florence; “Multo pluros ox illis in fluyio demerit 
facto quam fn acie cecidere." 

* Savery, Johnstone, 203; Laing, iif, 85,“ Valpibtr Jarl (ineaning most 
‘Bkoly Eadwino] o® at lid er undan ome, fifi upp til borgarinnar i Jorvik, 
vard par it moxta mannfall,”” 

* ‘The details come from Snorro (Johnstone, 20 ; Tang, iil, 6s), but the 
‘capitnintion is clear from the English writers, Chron. Ab. "And pa wftor 
pan gefeohte, fur Harcld oyninge of Norwegan ond ‘Tostig cor! into Bofer- 
wie” So Simeon, wha, aftor tho landing at Riccall, inmerta the words “4 
‘Kborseumn gral pugni obtinuerunt.” Snorro, who tmdurstood the geography 
eee ee eee i iba rc: Ho fancios that both 
‘Biccal! and ‘wore clove to York. 

* Chiron. Ab. “And to fullan fri8e gosprison, Jeot hig ealle mid him «ai 
furna woldon and pis Tand gognn.” OF vol. &. p 336. 

* Chrea. Ab, and Florence, Snorre docs not mention the hewtages given 
‘by Farol, 

VOL, EE. aa 


i 


THE NORWEGIAN INVASION, 


wishes of the Northumbrian people ; there is still less reason 
to think that it reprewnted the real wishes of Exdwine and 
Morkere. But it surely implies a lack of zeal and courage 
for a great city to surrender on the fourth day, especially 
az we hear nothing of any actual assault on the walls. 
‘Such was at least not the conduct of the citizens of Londow 
and Exeter sixty years before, nor of the citizens of Exeter 
two years later. No doubt both the city and the sur- 
rounding country were greatly weakened by the slaughter 
at Fulford; still, with stout hearts and strong walls, 
resistance might surely have been kept up beyond the 
space of four days, On the other hand, the conduct 
of Harold Hardrada seems milder and more politic than 
might have beon looked for from the ebaracter either of 
himself or of his English companion, But we may be 
sure that, in this mild treatment of York, we seo the 
counsel of Harold and not of Tostig. The banished Earl 
was seeking revenge; the invading King was secking 
Crown; and he must have known the poliey of winning: 
subjects by fair means rather than by force whenever fair 
meang would ayail for the purpose. 


§ 4. The Marek of Harold and the Battle of 
Stamfordbridge. 

The hostages, one hundred and fifty in number, which 
were now given to the Norwegian King were to secure the 
fidelity of the city of York only. Hostages from the whole 
shire were to be given at some future day, and the place 
for their delivery was appointed to be at Stamfordbridge.* 





» The spot which bears this name, a name which the events 


of thore few days were to make illustrious, lies about eight 


* Chron. Ab. “And Harold eyningo of Norwegan wal Tostly cor! and: 
heara yofylee wwron afaren of ecipe begeondan Koferwic to Stanfordbryege 
forpaumn pe him waron behaten to gowiean out bite man pwr of earlo 
rare woire ongoun hy gialaw Iingan wolde." 


THE NORTHMEN AT STAMFORDBRIDGE. 355 


miles north-east of the city. As its name implies, the owar. xiv: 
main feature of the place is the bridge over the Derwent, otter of 
@ tributary of the Ouse, which joins the main stream af eo 
a considerable distance below Riccall. The site hus been 
conjectured to be the Roman Derventio, but it is perhaps 
amore lucky guess which places that site, a site so hallowed 

in the early religious history of Northumberland, within 

the modern park of Aldby. There stood a royal house of 

the Northombrian Kings, the site of which, or of some 

of its outposts, a mound surrounded by a fosse, still 

looks down on a picturesque point’ of the course of the 

river. There it was that the faithful Lilla gave his life for 

the Northumbrian Bretwalda, and there Eanfled, the Bret- 
walda’s daughter, was the first of Northumbrian race to be 
received into the fold of Chrict.: This epot lies at a die- 
tance of less than three miles above Stamfordbridge, on 

the right bank of the river, at a point where another bridge 

now at least spans the stream. If Aldby, the ancient Cvum of 
dwelling-place of the Northumbrian Kings, was still, ag hem 

is most likely, a dwelling-place of the Northumbeiant Yer. 
Earls, some light is perhaps thrown on what otherwise 

seems the incomprehensible movement of the Northmen 

from York to Stamfordbridge.* We instinctively ask why 

auch a comparatively distant spot, one especially which 
removed the army still farther from their naval station at 


+ Bands, #9, 
¥ The confusion made by Snorro must be gonstantly borne in mind, The 
wmy was ot Stacnfordbridge ; the ships wore left at Ricoall; these points 
sare several miles distant from York and from one another. Snorro fancies 
Usst all three placer wore clowe together; he makes Harold Hardrada go to 
ae a convenient port for atlacking the city, and he maker 
him also go back to his ships on the Sunday evening. He no doubt thought 
that Stamfontbeidge was on the Oum. So the Hyde writer (292) tums the 
fight of Stamnfordbridge into a singe of York; ‘‘Haroldus . . . els ovourrit 
apud Etorseumn ot totis viribue civitatem oppuynat.” CE the pasmge from 
Domesday, delow, p. 362, Stamfordtridgw wax the tattle of York, me 
Sonlae was the Rattle of Hastingr. 
aaa 


OWAR. 3%. 


ton othe 
site, 


of 
ees 


—— 


THE NORWEGIAN INVASION, 


Riccall, should have been chosen for the delivery of the 
hostages. Why should Harold leave York so far out of his 
immediate grasp, when one would have thought that the 
hostages might just as easily have been given to him in 
York iteelf? Tho most likely cause is to be found in 
the need of finding new quarters and a new place of aub- 
sistence for the army. The Northmen had doubtless by 
this time eaten up all that was to be found by the banks 
of the Ouse; they were not to be indulged with the sack 
of York; the provisions furnished hy the city could hardly. 
maintain them till thé coming of the hostages, whose col- 
lection from all parts of the shire would necessarily be 
work of time, But if there was a royal house in the neigh- 
bourhood of Stamfordbridge, we at once sce a motive to 
direct the choice of the invaders to that neighbourhood, 
Such a position would afford manifest advantages in the 
way of quarters and provisions. Its occupation would also 
present a sentimental attraction, The first-fruits of victory 
would nlrendy seom to be enjoyed by Tostig as he sat again 
as master in the halls of his brother, And Harold Hard- 
rada might feel himself already Lord of the Isle of Britain, 
as he placed himself in the seat of the King who scemed to 
have left his kingdom open to his arms. 

The spot which, by reason of this almost accidental 
movement, became the scene of one of the great events 
of our history, though not one of thoee spote which nature 
seems to have marked out as the almost necessary place 
of some memorable deed, is one which is far from being 
void of interest. The great tale of which it became the 
theatre is legibly written on its natural features, The 
name of the place is a history in itself.’ The stones are 


4 Athelrel (405) mys, “Tn loco qui tune Steinfordebrigge, mune autem 
‘x rei eventu etiam Pons Belli dicitur.” So the De Inventione, exp. 205 
“ Relicns # Ponte Belli, quod a bello cognomen.” The older name is now 
thy only ono known, but the battle is by no means forgotton on the spot, 


DESCRIPTION OF STAMPORDBRIDGE. 357 


still to be seen from which the spot drew its first, name onar. x19, 
of Stamford. That name is shared with it by not a few 
other places, a name which reminds us of days when the 
primitive stepping-stones, supplied either by art or by 
nature, were the carliest means of crossing a deep or rapid 
river. Those stones, ab a later day, became the supports 
of the wooden bridge which one deed of that memorable 
week was to make immortal. The wooden bridge has, in 
modern times, given way to a successor of stone, and other 
changes have greatly altered the state of the stream and 
the general aspect of the place. But the main fentures are 
still there, as when the Norwegian host pitched their camp 
upon its banks. The modern bridge stands on a different 
rite from the early structure of wood, but the position of 
the true Stamfordbridge is still to be seen, Its memory is 


way, The Derwent itself, a reedy and somewhat sluggish 
stream, winds between the higher levels on cach 
side, ite immediate banks forming those alluvial flate 
which are locally known as ings. Bub at Stamford- 
bridge itself the higher ground slopes gently to the 
river on both sides, This higher ground, on the left 
bank of the stream, bears the historical name of the « 
Battle Fiate. On the other side, the road from York, is 


THR NORWEGIAN INVASION. 


ouar. xiv. An army eneamped on the lower ground immediately on 


‘Tho news 
of the 


each side of the Derwent might easily, if somewhat careless 
guard were kept, remain unconscious of the enemy"s ap~ 
proach till they had began the descent from Helmsley.! 


The events which followed lead us to believe that: the 
Northmen, in the full consciousness and pride of victory, 
were encamped on both sides of the stream, most likely in 
no very certain order or discipline. If a neighbouring royal 
dwelling-place at Aldby formed one of the motives for the 
choice of the position, it is possible that the head-quarters 
of the Norwegian King were placed at that paint. At any 
nate, the bridge itself and the ground immediately right of 
the river were kept by an advanced detachment, It wonld 
seem that the whole of the army which had received the 
submission of York, and which was expecting the sab- 
mission of all Northumberland, withdrew from the banks 
of the Ouse to the banks of the Derwent. The ships still 
stayed in the larger river, seemingly at their original 
Tanding-pluce at Riceall, still guarded by Olaf and. the 
Earls of Orkney, Meanwhile Harold himself, with ‘Tostig 
and the main strength of the army, awaited the coming 
of the hostages at Stamfordbridge. 


They waited for what they were never to receive, One 


Norwegian day more of endurance, and: York might have been saved 


Janeth 
trong 


Harel of 
Rngland, 


from the humiliation of her ignominious treaty with the 
invader. ‘The news of the approach of the Northern fleet 


had been carried with all speed to King Harold of Eng- 


land? Placed between two enemies, tho King’s position 

‘was indeed a difficult one. His preparations for the defence 

of the South had been brought to nothing by events over 

which he had no control, ‘To march to the defence of the 

North was to leave the South unguarded. But it was 
* On the details, sew Appondix FP. » Bee Appendic BE. 


‘THE NEWS BROUGHT TO HAROLD, ‘359 


impossible for him to leave the North to a guardianship cnar, xxv, 
which was plainly inadequate. Eadwine and Morkere had 

failed to save Cleveland; they had failed to support the 
gallant local resistance of Searborough and Holderness. 

‘The huge host of Hardrada, gathered from so many lands, 

was one with which the force of Northumberland alone 

could never grapple. It was a need that called for the 
presence of the King and for the whole foree of the 
Kingdom, ‘Tho more immediate danger dictated the more Mo dete 
immediate duty. Duke William had not yet landed; payee 
had not even sailed; a thousand accidents might hinder Tee 
him from ever landing or ever sailing. But King Harold 

of Norway was already in the land; he wae ravaging 

amd burning at pleasure; whole districts of Northum- 
berland, forsaken by their immediate ralera, were sub- 
‘mitting to him. The call northwards was at the moment 

the stronger; a swift march, a speedy victory, and Harold 

of England might again be in London or in Sussex before 

the southern invader could have crossed the sea, The King: 

chose his plan, and the plan that he chose he carried out 

with all the mighty energy of his character. He gave 

orders for an immediate march to the North. According Legend of 
to a legend which probably contains some groundwork Hews 
of truth, the King was at this moment suffering from 24 
severe bodily sickness! But his strong heart rose above 

the weaknesses of the flesh, and be hid his suiferings ia” 
from all men, By day be iano wey slackened inthe" 
labours imposed by the duty of gathering together and 





"Tho story fe told fn the Ramsey History, c. 120, by Athelred of Rie: 
‘vausx, 404, In the Vite Harvldl, p, 88, ‘The Raney writer doo not men: 
tion Harold's wicknoa ; the vision comes *quum Haraldus, proptar impari- 
tater forsitan oople militaria, obrinre (‘Tostino]} dlisalmelaret.” ‘The vision 
ef too te out much shorter, Althelred tella us of Havold's slcknens, but 
dees not deseribe ite nature. Krom his own biographer's account it would 
weom tw have been gout; “Tybies abito unius (“tibia aubito crue” or 
“Uibin cruris unnius” ?] vehomentinine copit dolore conateingt.” 


360 


THE NORWEGIAN INVASION. 


omar, xiv. marshalling his army,’ ‘Tho sleepless night was spent in 


prayers and sighs, a8 Harold implored the help of the relic 
whore sworn votary he was, the Holy Rood of his own 
Waltham His endurance in the cause of his country 
was rewarded, so the story runs, by supernatural help and 
comfort. The deceased King, the holy Eadward, did not, 
in his now happier etate, forget the kingdom which had 
been his in his mortal days, nor yet the King to whom 
he had made fast his Kingdom, In the visions of the 
night he appeared to the Abbot Althelsige,? and bade him 
bear his message to King Harold. Let Harold, he said, 
be strong and of a good courage, and go forth to battle 
with the enemies of England. He himself by his prayers 
would lead and defend his people, and would guide their 
righteous warfare to certain victory. If the King should 
doubt of his mission, let him know that he, Eadward, knew 
well by how great an effort he had that day gathered ap. 
his strength for the duties of his calling. The holy man 
delayed not to discharge the errand of his departed master. 
He sought the King; he told him the message of his pre- 
decessor; and Harold, recovered from his sickness,* and. 
made more hopeful by the cheering words of Eadward, 
betook himself with redoubled energy to the work that was 
before him, 

4 Aithalrod, 404. “Noobs quidem pretoriti, quam dolore tarquerstur, 
lioet oum non parum urzeret moleutia imminens, slult tamen, rvputane 
apud se, si publicaret languarem, quod et suis futurus eset contemptal et 
hhostibue {reise 

? Vita Haroldi, p. 188, Qui ex sup tali compede plos wubditoruam dix 
crimini quan suo oongemiacens dolori, notes pene totam suxpiriie eb yro- 
celts agentes (gens?) insomnem, famitiaran Sancti Crucik expetior 
subvantionom.” "The soene can hardly be meant to be Inid at Waltham. 
‘Tho Holy Crom, ft will be remembered, had wrought one oure on Harold 
already. See vol Hl. p. 385. 

2 © Ailaioy,” “ Eleinus,” “Alsi,” tho pluralist Abbot of Ramsey and Saint 
Augustine's, who had not refused tho ministrations of Stiguail, Seo vol, Hi, 
PP 481. 48%. We shall hear of him yot again. 

* Vita Harold, p. 188, “Rex flaque , . divinis curator temofictis, 
@hilaratar oraoulis.” 


LEGEND OF HAROLD'S SICKNESS. 361 


| ‘Phis tale, logendary as it is, is worth telling; for it is cnay. xv. 
plainly of genuine English growth, and it shows that Value of 
the English people knew how to unite reverence for sa illu 
‘the deceased saint with admiration for the living hero 

‘The men who believed that « saint, and above all that Spa 
Fadward, interfered on behalf of Harold clearly did vend snd 
not hold Harold for an usurper or a perjnrer, or for 

a man who had failed in his daty to Eadward when 
living. Harold was under the ban of Rome, but English 

men did nob therefore hold him to be unworthy of the 
divine favour, just asin after times the same ban availed 

not to hinder Simon of Montfort from receiving wor- 

ship or from working miracles, As for the historical 

‘value of the tale, Harold may perhaps have been delayed 

by sickness at this critical moment, but he hardly needed 
visions and prodigies to urge him to the discharge of his 
kingly duties. With all the speed that haman onergy Marld 
could supply, he set forth upon that great northern march bosine Mie 
which must rank among the greatest deeds of its kind 

that history records. Not a moment war to be lost, if 
Northumberland and England were to be saved. Those 
whose memories could go back for fifty yoars might deem 

that the spirit of Ironside himeolf was once more leading 

the hosts of England to battle, At the head of his House- 

carls, those terrible Thingmen whose name carried awe 
beyond the sea, the King of the English set forth from 

his southern capital. A command was held under him 

by Bondig the Staller, and we cannot doubt: that Gyrth 

and Leofwine were found now, as a few weeks later, side 

by side with their royal brother.! On their march they 


+ The premnes of Gyrth and Leofwine might bo taken far granted. ‘That 
fordhridge, and *Tostinus, Gerth, et Rondinus” are mentioned. 


among 
these who had been there, For *Tostinum” we should doubtlos road 
“Leofwinum,” aml die whole bistury ie greatly iniseoncoiver, hut the 


Ha ie | 


‘THE NORWEGIAN INVASION. 


pressod into their service the forces of the districts through 
which they passed,’ Volunteers, even ftom distant shires, 
hastened to join the muster, But, save its chiefs, two men 
only in the host are known to us in their personal being, 
and even of them we cannot record the names A Thegn 
of Essox, a benefactor of King Eadward's church at West- 
minster, ie recorded in the Norman Survey a having gone 
to the battle at York with Harold? Another aged Thegn 
of Worcestershire, a tenant of the church of Evesham and 
uncle of its Abbot thelwig, is also handed down to us, 
in the dry formule of the Survey, as having followed his 
King on the great march and as having given his life for 
Harold and for England.* Such men doubtless did not 
stand alone; the whole etrength of southern and central 
England took part in that great campaign, and we may be 
sure that Harold entered Northumberland at the head of 
a force equal or superior to that of the Northern invader. 
‘The English army, ranged in seven divisions,* marched on 
along the great Roman road from London to York. The 
still abiding traces of the ancient conquerors of the land 
made, it would scem, intercourse between distant parte 


yamagy seems wridence enough to prove the prmence of Foumtig. See abowe, 
®t 

* Chron, Ab, Px for be sortiweant daeges and alltes, sw hraSe ww be 
Ila fyrde gegmderian mite.” 

* Domesiay, ii, 1§. Pacheaham was s possession of the charch of Weet- 
maluster. The Survey adda, “hape terrate dodit unus teigwes coclesdar quam 
feit ad bellum bx Kurewte cam Hsroiéo.” 

* Im Demendny (177 8) we rend of certain lands which ono Welfipest had 
given to the church of Eveskain in the fib year of King Eadward, ou the 
comalon of his sun iGgvat becouiing 2 mck of the home. ‘The account 
‘thea goes ot" Posten preatitit wbdas $leeinss hans terram goo avencul 
qqeamdin iyee hemo viveret. Qui portoa mectear fait im hello Herabld 
owalzs Norrensen” It is worth mutioe thet the chanch of Breshint feand 
soeane be tae prmennion of tbe Last! ia the sheet squce of time betwee the 
two great bates : fhe the Survey oontinoes, "sevinda reerpil terra am 
autoquain Bex W. im Anglia venient.” 

# Marlawes Scutes, ap. Perts, ¢. 459. “Andes vero Rex Amglorom eum 
swptem acleduus bellf statis: pervenit > 


4 & 


HAROLD'S MARCH. 863 


of the island easier and speedier then than they became in cnar. x1, 
somewhat later times.' News of the rout of Fulford and of 

the danger of York would doubtless still further quicken 

the speed of the march, In the proverbial, but marked 

and emphatic, language of the Chroniclers, King Harold 

and bis army rested not day or night? They passed 

the Northumbrian frontier; the King had no time to turn 

aside and to tarry at his own lordship of Coningsburgh, 
where the famous castle of a later age has usurped the site 

once occupied by the house of Harold.’ They marched on 
through the great province which was now the seat of war; 

and on the Sanday evening, on the very day of the capitu- 
lation of York, the English army reached the last stage of 

‘the usual route between the two great cities of southern 

and northern England. ‘This was at Tadeaster, the Roman The Hag. 
Calcaria, a town on the Whatf, best known from ite neigh- a eoe 
bourhood to the later battle-ficld of Towton. It was in the Sunday; 
Wharf, it will be remembered, that the English ships had 24, 
sought shelter when the Northern armada sailed up the 

‘Ouse. It is a broad and rapid stream, still navigable as 

high as Tadcaster for the small eraft of the river, whose 

local name of 4eels suggests the memory of the first vessels 

which landed our fathers in the Isle of Britain.t We can 
hardly doubt that it could easily be reached by such light 
war-ships as an Earl of the Northumbrians would be likely 

to keep in his service. At Tadeaster then King Harold 


# Soe vol. fi. p. 496. 

* Soe the Abingdon Chronicle quoted in the last page. 

* See above, p. 60. 

* Tneed hardly quote the well-known passage of Gildas (4 23) telling how 
ous foretnthers “grex estilorum de cubili leamm barbarin” ax he calls 0m, 
came “tribus, ut lingua ejus exprimitur, cyulis, nostri Hingud Jougis navi 
won," Of Deeda, i. 15. ‘The Englishman however does not use the English 
‘word presarved to us by the Briton. We moet the three keels again, though 
‘not by that name, in Jordance’ (17) account of the firit voyage of the Goths 
from Scania, how they set forth “‘tribue tantum navibur vecti ad eiterioris 
corani rips,” 


364 


‘OUAP. xI¥, 


pnt 


THE NORWEGIAN INVASION, 


found and reviewed the English flect,* doubtless with an 
eye to possible future operations against the ships ab Riceall, 
which the events of the morrow rendered needless. The 
army then marched on by the last stage of the Roman 
way, locally known ns the High Stree, At last, on Monday 
morning, King Harold of England entered bis northern 
capital, the city which, only the day before, had bowed in 
ignominious homage to Harold of Norway. He was received 
with joy; provincial jealousies were lulled for a moment in 
the actual presence of the enemy, and the Danes and Angles 
of York pressed eagerly to welcome the West-Saxon de- 
liveror.* But tho King had other work before him than 
either to repose after that terrible march or to enjoy the 
congratulations of a rescued people, He had to make sure 
that they were rescued; while an enemy was in the land, 
Harold knew but one duty, to press on to the place where 
the enemy might be found. He had to save the land 
from farther havoc; he had to strike before the expected 
hostages could be gathered together; he had to smite, once 
and for ever, the enemy who lay before him, that he might’ 
turn and meot the yet more fearfal enemy to whom his 
southern shores lay open. He pressed on through® the re- 
joicing city; he pressed on to the Norwegian camp; and 
he reaped the reward of his energy and his labours in the 
glorious fight of Stamfordbridge. 


Of the details of that awful day we have no authentic 


+ Chron. Ab. 1066, “pe mang fieman com Harald Engle eywings mid 
calro his fyrle on Sane Sunnandeg to Taio and Jusr his UB fykade.” See 
shows, p 349- 

¥ Boers, ap. Jehnitono, 205; Laing, tii. 86. pat same kyelld, éptie 
stlartall Kota sorman at tengiuni Haralldr konungt Gudenasen eet évgam 
hee refd hann | toryina at villd oe pocka allra boryarmanna” He is wrong 
however in waking Harold reach York on the Sunday evening azd pas the 
sight in the city. 

7 hewn. AB, 1066." Harold Engin eynings . . . for jo on Monat 
Jerk wt Eoferwie.” 


BATTLE OF STAMFORDBRIDGE, 365 


record. We have indeed a glorious description, conceived onar srw. 
in the highest: spirit of the warlike poetry of the North, BATTLE: 
bot it is a description which, when critically examined, FORD- 
proves to be hardly more worthy of belief than a battle- Nomar 
picce in the Iliad.’ The tale is ono of the most familiar in Pegs 
‘our early history, We have all heard how the Northmen, The Nor- 
rejoicing in their supposed victory, were going forth, light- 298" 
iwarted and careless, unprotected by defensive harness, to 

take full possession of their conquest. 'Thut very morning 

King Harold of Norway was to hold his court, and to 
assemble his now subjects, within the walls of York. He 

‘was there formally to take the government on himeelf, to 
Sispose: af offices, and to proclaim, laws:for:his new realn, Apron 
On his march a cloud of dust is seen afar off; before long anita 
shields and arms glistening like ice? are to be seen beneath 

it. It is the host of King Harold of England. The heart 

of Tostig fails him ; let them hasten back to their ships, let 

them gather their comrades, and pat on their conte of mail, 

Not so the horo of Norway. Messengers on swift horses 

are sent to summon the party who are left by the ships, 

and meanwhile Harold Hardrada marshals his army for 

‘the fight. The shield-wall is formed in the shape of a com- 

plete circle, with the Land-waster waving in its centre, A 

dense wood of spears bristles in front of the circle, to 

receive the charge of the English horsemen. King Harold 

of Norway rides round his host; his black horse stumbles, 

and he falls; but his ready wit wards off the evil omen; 

a fall is lucky for a traveller. But the eye of bis rival is 

upon him; King Harold of England sees his fall. “ Who,” 

asks the English King, “is the tall man who fell from 

his horse, the man with the blue kirtle and the goodly 


* See Appendix FF. 
# Snorro, Johnstons, 206; Laing, iii. 87.“ Poir gérdo «ra, ov var lidit 
Joi mains, oF niligarr fir, oc allt wt até, gem 4 Ginn ini] sei, ex yepuin, 


THE NORWEGIAN INVASION. 
. 


helm?” “It is King Harold of Norway.” “A tall man 
and a goodly is he, bat methinks his luck has left him.” 


Mowing of Then follows the yet more striking scene where the two 


the two 
‘Marolds. 


Kings, alike in name and in might, meet face to free before 
the battle, Twenty of the Thingmen, clothed horse and 
man in armour, ride forth to the host of the Northmen. 
One of them bears to Earl Tostig the greeting and message 
of his brother King Harold, Let him return to bis alle- 
giance, and he shall again have the Earldom of Northum- 
Derland; nay he shall have a thind of the Kingdom to rule 
together with the King. “What then,” asks Tostig, “shall 
be given to King Harold of Norway?” “Seven foct of 
ground,” is the famona answer, “or as much more as he is 
taller than other men,” “Go then,” says Tostig, “and tell 
King Harold of England to make him ready for the battle. 
Neyer shall men say in Norway that Earl Tostig brought 
King Harold Sigurdsson hither to England, and then 
went over to his foes.” The horsemen ride back to the 
host. of England, and Harold Hardrada asks who is the 
man who spoke so well, Tostig anawers that it was King 
Harold of England. “ Why then,” asks Hardrada, “ was 
it not told me? he should never have gone back to tell of 
our men’s slaughter.” Tostig, with some traces still left 


+ This faxnous saying is proverbial. We Gnd it applied to Williaa ia the 
‘Peterborough Chronicle, 1087 ; “Se jo wie srur rico cyng and maniges 
Iandos Klaford, bo mmf fa eallon Landes buton socfon fot ml,” Tt waa ulm 
Jong afterwards applied to Charies the Bold by the Bernese historian Valerius 
Anshelm (1. 143); "Der Heraog . .... wand von veruchter Macht mit 
webon Schuh Frdrychs su Raw gosotet und wernigt.” It ts the samo 
general idea as the Adschylean lines, 

xtra vaieer hawtiAas, 

tmiaay wal p8,pdvoun Karixer, 

iv weysraw wedluv dyoipovs, 

Sept. , Theb, 713. 

‘The same notion also comes ont in the story in Eunapdos, 73% Or OiArwor 
8 Manetiv, +2 pérpor WBdv roi operlpov ekparoe (Ww wadalerpp “yap ere 
wrdea), laraards dnd rod rdparve oisppora dipiier Aeyor, de OXlynY euTae 
axtiaun opiv ara TnBvyoin re dxdons 


NORWEGIAN LEGEND OF THE BATTLE, 367 


in his soul of the days when he went forth with an honest cuar. x1v. 
heart to curb the freebooters of Northumberland, answers 

that he could never be the murderer of the brother who 

came to offer him friendship and dominion. “If one of us 

must die, let him slay me rather than that I should slay 

him." To this sentiment the Norwegian King vouchsafes 

ne answer, but he turns to his comrades with the remark 

that “the King of the English was but-a sinall man, but 

that he stood well in his stirraps.”” 

If this famous dialogue is plainly mythical, the glowing Mythical 
narrative of the fight itself is so-still more plainly, ‘The main of'ne“" 
strength of the English is eonovived to lie in their horse- Yo 
men, horsemen whose steeds are covered with armour, a¢- ton of the 
cording to an use which bad not yet found its way even into details ot 
Normandy. The Boglish horse charges in vain against the 
Norwegian circle, the dense shield-wall and the bristling 
spears, One assault after another is beaten off; at Inst the 
Northmen, proud of their resistance, become eager for more 
active success, They break the line to pursue the English ; 
ag soon as the shield-wall is broken, the Eoglish horsemen 
tarn and overwhelm them with javelins and arrows, King 
Harold of Norway stands at first by his standard; the 
inspiration of the seald comes upon him; he sings of the 
fight to be won by the hand and the sword of the warrior, 
though his breast be unguarded by the corselet. When 
the shicld-wall is broken, the Berserker rage seizes him, 

‘and he leaves, like Eadmund, his post by the standard ; 
with his hage two-handed sword he bursts upon the ranks 
of the English; helmet and coat of mail give way before 
that terrible weapon ; the English are well nigh driven to 
flight by his single arm; but an arrow pierces his throat ; 
the mighty form falls to the ground, and his chosen com- 
rades die around him. The battle pauses awhile; ench 
side alike resta, as it were, to do honour to the fall of one 
so mighty, Tostig takes the royal post by the Land~ 


omar. XIV, 


Meagre- 
news of the 


scoounts, 


‘THE NORWEGIAN INVASION, 


waster; Harold of England again employs the momentary 
lull once more to offer peace to his brother and quarter to 
the surviving Northmen, <A fierce cry from the Norwegian 
ranks is the answer; as one man they will dic rather than 
receive quarter from the English. The war-shout is raised, 
the fight begins again, and the second act ends with the 
fall of Tostig.’ The reinforeement now arrives from the 
ships. They come in full harness; their chief is Eystein 
Orre, the personal favourite of the King and the promised 
husband of his daughter Mary. He ie the hero of the thinl 
act of the fight, the Storm of Orre, as it was called in 
Northern song, He and his men come up wearied with 
the swift march from the ships; still they begin the third 
struggle, the most terrible of all, Rystein takes the post 
by the Land-waster which had been held by Harold and 
Tostig; the fight is waged more flercely than ever; the 
English ave well nigh driven to flight. At last the Bor- 
serker rage seizes on the Northmen; they throw away 
their conts of mail; some are slain Ly the English, some 
fall of sheer weariness and die without a wound. Still the 
fight is kept up till nightfall; by that time the chief 
men of Norway have fallen, and the remnant of the host 
eseapes under the cover of the darkness, 


Such is the magnificent legend which has been com- 
monly accepted ae the history of this famous battle. I shall 
elsewhere examine the whole story in detail; it is enough 
to say here that the geography of the campaign is, in the 
Saga, wholly misconceived, and that a story which repre- 
sents horsemen and archers as the chief strength of an 
English army in the eleventh century is at once shown to 


* The moment of Tostig’s death ix, oddly enough, not mentioned tn the 
‘Saya, But tho construction of the story clearly requires it to be placed 
hero. Toatig takes Harold's placo by the standard, Afterwarde Kystoin 
takes it, Tostig is clearly killed botween thew two pofnts, 


MYTHICAL CHARACTER OF THE SAGA. 369 


boa tale of Inter date, And it is disappointing that, for 90 oma. xxv. 
detailed and glowing a tale, we have so little of authentic 
history to substitute, Still, from such accounts as we 

have, combined with our knowledge of what an English 

army of that age really was, we can form a fair general 

idea of the day which beheld the last victory of Harold 

the son of Godwine, the last victory of pure and unmixed 
Teutonic England. ‘ 


King Harold: then marched through York, and found Sudden 
a part at least of the Norwegian host on the right bank 2,2" 
of the Derwent, wholly unprepared for his attack, It is Bnsth- 
quite possible that they may have been, as the story 
represents them, going to a peaceful meeting at Yorle. 
Anyhow, tho invaders, rejoicing in the viotory of Fulford, 
in the capitulation of York, in the promiged eubmission 
of all Northumberland, had no thought of the suddennces 
of the blow which was coming upon them. Tho speed and Loyalty 
seoreey with which Harold was able to accomplish this arty, 
memorable march not only bears witness to his own skill 
and energy, but also speaks well for the discipline of his 
army and for the general loyalty of the country, Fast as 
Harold may have pressed on, individual epics or deserters, 
had there been any such, could always have outstripped 
him, and could have borne the news of his coming to 
the enemy. But no such treason marred his well-con- 
ceived und well-executed scheme. He came on the North- 
men unawares ;! the men who deemed that all Northum- 
berland, perhaps that all England, was their own, suddenly 
found themselves in the thick of a new Brunanburh, a 
happier Assnndun, A leader, the peer of Altheletan and 
Eadmund, commanded a band of tried and chosen warriors 


¥ Charon. Ab. "Da com Harold Engla cyning heom ongean on unwaran 
hegwondan juore bryoge.” Chron. Wig. “Da com Harold ure cyng on 
‘unwer on jx Normenn.” 

you. 1. ab 


a 


vay, such as Aithelstan and Eedmund never knew. Eadwine 
and Morkere, with their hurried levies, had doubtless done 

their beat; but the invaders had now to deal with quite 
another enemy. King Harold of England was upon them 5 

they were face to face with hie personal following, with 

those torrible Thingman, each one of whom, men said, was 

a match for any other two, But Harold Hardrada and 

his mingled host showed no lack of gallantry; the vietory 

was won only by the hard fighting of a whole day.’ The 

‘The battle English, unseen, it would seem, till they reached the low 
bcos ‘brow of Holmsloy, came at once upon that part of the 
iisotthe Norwegian army, utterly unprepared and seemingly not 
fully armed,! which found iteclf on the tight, the York 

side, of the Derwent. They were of course unable to bear 

up succesfully against so sudden and terrible an attack. 

But the resistance which they made no doubt gave time 

for their comrades on the other bank, with their King at 

their head, to form in the full array of the shield.wall. 

‘This divizion, on account of the slight slope down to the 

river, would even have a certain advantage of ground over 

the English. ‘The fight then began by the sudden attack 

of the English on the detachment to the right of the river, 
Yielding, but not flying,® the unprepared and balf-nrmed 
Northmen were driven across the stream. English min- 

strels, fragments of whose songs crop ont in the narrative 

* Chron. Ab. “Swytie heunilice lange on dieg feohtentle waren.” Chron. 

Wig. ee tema iether rertip int 

Wig, “Ror Anglorum Harukins . . . plenam victor, Moet aoeriane pag 


snatumm fuisset, abut." 
ee aims (ale she Ah rhebeeme eo 


* Hen Heat, M. 1. B, 762 B. “Maximus someros Anglorum Nee 
‘wagemees onlere sed peu fegere compalit.” 


BEGINNING OF THE BATTLE, 371 


of colder annalists, again told how the living crossed the omar. xrv. 
river over the bodies of their slain comrades which choked 
its stream.’ And now an act of daring devotion placed The beige 
Sipsiooles Nerthonan, whiows decd i: resonded not by bis wrasingie 
eountrymen but by his enemies, on a level with Horatius Sotmm 
on the bridge of Rome and with Walfstan on the bridge 
‘of Maldon? Alone for a while he kept the pass against 
the whole English army; forty men fell beneath his axe ;* 
an arrow was ehot at him in vain ; at Inst an Englishman 
found means to ereep under the bridge and picreod him 
throngh beneath his corselet.? The hindrance offered by 


* Hen, Hunt, M, 1D. 762 B, “Ultra fumen igitur repulsi, vivinsuper 
‘snortuos transeuntibas, magnanimiter restiterunt,” See the usw of the ame 
Provorbial exprumion sboww, p. 353- 

* Bee vol. i, p. 27% This story is found in the Abingdon Chronicle, belny 
the last eutry, vided In another hand, and tn the Northumbrian dialect, 
‘Mr. Eatlo (Psmilol Chronioles, p, sovxvilt.) ingeniously concciven that the 
seoount of the battle in this Chronicle, so much fuller than in any of the 
‘thers, fx due to some Northunbeian visitor, who at Inst took up the pen and 
roto 4 little himself. Tho story ix not told by Florenos, but it i found in 
‘William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, with eome variations, 

* Will. Malu. ii, 238, Uno vt altero et plurfbus nostra partis (Wil- 
Mian tor onoo rites ux an Finglishman] interemtis.” Henry of Huntingdon 

H. B 762 B) is more prosloo or more romantic; Plus xl. viria 
recutf oxstens elects.” 

© Chron. Ab. "Pa asite an Englitco uid anne flan, ao hit mactor no 
sitieted.” ‘Tho shooting of me arrow seems looked on as wn oxploit on the 
ae ‘Wiliam of Malnesbury has confounded this shot with the 

w; “Unus ox collateraiiins Regis jacutum ferroum in eur eménns 

‘vibrat, que fle, dum glorlabundus proladit ips securitate incautior, tore- 
bratus, victoriam Anglis conceenit," 

Chrm. AD. ‘And pa eon an oper under pero briggn, and hina 

yar sm Gndor foro truniv.” Hen. Hunt. a,» “Quidam navim 








‘plex"—at the feast hold on (I think) the Monday afer the day of tho 


aba 


es 


372 THE NORWEGIAN INVASION. 


euar, x1, this valiant enemy being removed, the English host, their 
Pie Ese King at their head, passed tho bridge, and now the fiercest 
thetsios, fighting of the day began. Details are lacking, but it 
ae ‘needs no special fight of the imagination to sec the slight 

slope above the present village, where a newly-built church 

has lately risen, covered by the bristling ring of the 

Northmen, the fortress of shields, so often sung of alike 

in English and in Scandinavian minstrelay. We may 

picture to ourselves how the axes of England rang on that 

firm array of bucklers; how step by step, inch by inch, up 

the slopes, on to the Battle-Hlats, the Housecarls of King 
Ortiny Harold clave their way, We may see how, step by step 

inch by inch, dealing blow for blow even in falling back, 
fic Northman and Scot and Fleming’ gave way before the 
invesistible change of the renowned Thingmen. We may 
see the golden Dragon, the ensign of Cuthred and Alfred, 
glitter on high over this its latest field of triumph. We 
may hear the shouts of “Holy Rood" and “God Al- 
mighty” sound for the last time as an English host pressed 
on to victory. We may see two kingly forms towering 
high over either host; we may, if we will, bring the two 
Harolds fice to face, and hear the two-handed axe of 
England clashing against: the two-handed sword of Nor- 
way. We may see the banished Englishman defiant to 
tho last, striking the last blow against the land which had 
reared him and the brother who had striven to eave him 
from his doom. We may call up before our eyes the final 
moment of triumph, when for the last time Englishmen 
on their own suil had possession of the place of slaughter? 
and when the Land-waster af Norway was lowered before 
the victorious Standard of the Fighting Man. At Teast 


ptf 


1 The prance of Flamings, followers no doubt, of ‘Tontig, fe nttested im 
the addition to the Abingdon Chronicle; “And pere michel wel pedlogon, 
ge Norweis go Fleming.” 

* Chron. Wig. “And Engle ahton walstowe goweald ;” the old formals, 


COMPLETE VICTORY OF THE ENGLISH. a73 


we know that the long struggle of that day was crowned omar. xxv. 
by complete victory on the side of England. he loaders 

of the invading host Iay cach man ready for all that 
England had to give him, his seven feet of English 
ground. There Harold of Norway, the Inst of the ancient Denth of 
Sea-Kings, yielded up that fiery soul which had braved (an, 
death in so many forms and in go many lands. The 
warrior of Africa, the pilgrim of Jorusalom, had at last 

met his fate in an obecure corner of Britain, whore 

name but for him might have been unknown to history. 

‘There Tostig the son of Godwine, an exile and a traitor, of Tong, 
ended in crime and sorrow a life which had begun with 
promixes not less bright than thut of his royal brother. 

‘There died the nameless prince whom the love of warfare of the 
or the hope of plunder had led from the land which had “8! 
‘onep sheltered the English King in his days of exile. Tho 

whole strength of the Northern army was broken; a few 

only escaped by flight, and found means to reach the ships 

at Riccall.!. Among these was the Wiking who had come Euape of 
from the furthest North to win his share in the plunder 
of conquered England. Godred survived when Harold 

and Tostig fell; but he went not back to his Toeland home; 

he found a nearer shelter with his namesake the gon of 
Sihtric, He fled to the isl where ho was himself to 

reign as a conqueror, and to make his Kingdom of Man 

the centre of victorious warfare against Dublin and all 
Leinster? But the great mass of the huge host of Hardrada Uster 
lay dead on the banks of the Derwent.? Beside those who Seyuyo™ 


* Chron. Wig. *'00 Jaet hig sume to seype eoman.” 

2 Boo above, p. 347+ 

* The Worcester Chronicle says cimphatically, “Bax ware Iyt to Infe," 
So the Abingdom writer; “Par wax Harold cyning of Norwegan and Toatig 
sor] ofilagen and ungorim folows mid heow, ag/Ser go Normans ge Knglisea,”” 
Cf. Onderio (sco A); “Nimiue esoguis ex utrique parte effueus cot et 
Jomumeratiils [ungerim) hominum bestiali rable furentium iuleitudo 
trucidaia oat.” 


river: others died, we know not how, by fire.’ Only a few 
‘of that great host could have found even that emall allow- 
ance of English earth which was to be granted to their 
leader. We need not believe the tale which told how the 
heads of Tostig and Harold of Norway were bronght, as 
savage trophies of victory, into the presence of the English 
King? We know on batter authority that the body of his 
fallen brother was sought for and found among the élain by 
a distinctive mark of his body The wounds dealt by the 
Danish axe were deep and ghastly; a head cloven to the 
chin with the fall strength of the two arms of an English 
Honsecarl would show but few features by which Gytha 
or Jadith could have recognized the slain The giant 
form of Hardrada doubtless necded no mark to distinguish 
‘him from lesser men, We know not where be found his 
promised allotment ;* but the tie of kindred pleaded for 
‘Tostig, and the body of the banished Earl of the Northum- 


* Cheea, Wig. “Samo sdrencen and sume cao fosbeermle, amd 

ifalice Siefarese.* ‘Seay of Hentingioa (M4. HE. R762 B)y "Angi 

totais Norwagensitrs aciecs vel armis straverent vel igae 

combamarsak.” Cosgere the etary in the Sage (Laing, Si 9a)iot Waldical 
burning the Normans after Sealac, Stories of the same kind are taht of 
Kicumenis at Argos (Hered. vi. 79) mad of Conbalo in Armenia 
Amn. afr, 23). There ls also the story of the fate of Valens in Zontinan, ty. 
24 apd Amusianes col 13, who refers to tbe lke tate of Cosmas Seipha. 
See Livy, xxxr. 36. 

* Liber do Hyd, p 292, “Harcldes . .. . ot Totes... . viethow 
cubwerans, sectaque coram capita Regi Hareldo sont deportam.” So Gay 
(of Amiens, 37: 

© Tnvétes Ge Cals frateis caput acipetat eae, 
3 caput of corpus ade sepelivit Ramo,” 

WH, Males iii, 2g2 “Cadaver ejas, Seticio verrucw inter dues 
wwopalas agitem.” Can thie account be reconciled with the other? 

“OC Ammbess mci 7. “Querumiss: cplte per medium freatis 
(@ verticls mocrane distinets t@ etrumqae hemerum magne cum tersore 
pamdebant.” 


© The Hyile writer (4) semils hie to be butiod is Norway; “Oerpus 
defeeti Royis bis ei remanent depertacdcm & pram syne Ret 
Marvites conoemét ~ 





L083 OF THE ENGLISH. 375 


Drians found « grave within the walls, no doubt within the emap, xr. 
primatial minster, of the city where he had ruled so sternly.* 

But no funeral rites foll to the lot of the meaner doad of 

the invading army. The bones of the slain remained on the 
ground for many years,’ bearing witness, in the days of 
England's bondage, how hard fought had been the last 
Victorious fight of ler last native King. For in truth Hewplan 
the vanquished invaders had sold their lives dearly. ‘The fais, 
English host was far from coming forth seatheless from 

that awful straggle, Many a faithful Housccarl, many 

a noble Thegn,’ had given his life for England and for 

her chosen King. But the victory was a victory as de- 

cisive as any to be found in the whole history of human 
warfare, Harold had swept from the earth an enemy 
compared with whom Ailfgar and Groffydd might seem 

‘but as the puppets of a momont. He stood victorious 

after a day of slaughter, compared with which the hardest 
struggles of his Welsh campaigns might secm but as the 
mimic warfare which men wage against the stag and the 

wild boar.* 


* Will, Malus, fii, 252, “Cadaver . . . sepnlturam bornci meruit." 

* Onl. Vit. §00A. “Teous etiam blll pertranmuntibus evidentar patet, 
‘Whi magus congeries cexium mortaorum neque Hoxie jrcet, et indicium ruime 
multiplies utrtusque gentle exbibet.” 

* Vlor, Wig. ‘“Licet de tot Anglia fortiores quosque In praiiie duobus 
bene sciret jain cocidinse.”” 

“The death of Harald Hardmia was followed by a time of unumual quiet 
Inthe North, He war succeolet by his sous Olaf and Magnus, of whom 
‘Magnus dled in 1069, after which Olaf reigned alone el 1093, Hin wae 
ucsseded by his em Magnus Barofoot, who figures in English history os 
setae ee een 2058 Ge oben: 9- aed Snore (Johnstone, 
231; Laing, iff. 98) mys that Harold Hantracta's dsughter Mary (seo stove, 
Soa lonplaroy de ey diner is a 

lover Byrtein died at Stamfuntbridge. 

BORAGE tet ne by oth tasks al a. ‘They returned to 
Norway with Olaf (Snorm, ap. Juknetone, 222; Laing, iif. 97-99), from 
who they beth reosived grants of land in Norway, where they became 
foundors of famnilics—represmtatives of the male Ino of Encl Godwine, 
Sikule eopocially was in high honour with Olef. ‘Thebr mother Judith ne: 


il 


376 THE NORWEGIAN INVASION, 


comar.xtv. But the conqueror of Stamfordbridge, during the faw 
Bai. days of life and kingship which still wero his, was to show 
pote himeelf in a nobler light than that of a conquoror. 
the 
nant: 


now, as ever, extended to enemies who could no longer 
resist. He had shown forbearance to domestic traitors; 
he had shown it to rebellious vassals; he had now to show 
it to men who had borne their share in an unprovoked 
invasion, The Norwegian ships still lay im the Ouse, 
After the utter defeat of the land army, naval operations 
were hardly needed against thems the flect which had 
been arrayed at Tadcaster was not called into action, but 
the King of the English sent to Olaf and the Orkney 
Rarls, and offered them peace. “They came up to our 
King,”* seemingly to his court at York; they guve hostages 
and swore oaths that thoy would for over keep peace and 
friendship with this land. In four and twenty shipa, the 
remnant of the host of Hardrada sailed away from the 
shores of Northumberland. Since the day of Stamford- 
bridge the kindred nations of Scandinavia, bound to us by 
so many ties, have nover appeared on English ground in 
any guise but that of friends and deliverers.® 

Harold ‘This negotiation may have taken up the two or three 

sXeck days immediately following tho battle. Ungently as 
married with Welf, Duke of Havatia, soa of the Marqoss Azo (we abore, 
F197) and wns thas an ancortrem of the House of Fresswick. Some of 
the German historians mistake her for the widow of Harcid instead of the 
widow of Todig. Seo Appontix 0, where I have nao spoken of her degroe 
of kindred to Baldwin the FUth (seo vol. I. p. 132). 

* Chron, Wig. “So ky=g po geaf gryO Olafe Joes Neena cynges acme, 
aa beors Bimope ani jaa eoele of Orcanége, and eallos Jus pe ot pam sey- 
puss to lafe waerun.” Florence giver the Orkecy Earl Bis samme Paul, and 
he adilition to the Abingon Chrvakcle strangely calls Olaf“ Hetmandan.™ 

* Choa. Wig. “Hi form pe app to uran kyninge.” 

* Coxmpare the auxiliaries sent by Sweges, of whos more in the mext 
‘volume, and the Dance and Swedes «ho came with Wiliam the Third, 
Macaalay, H. 489; ii. 625. 


HAROLD'S TREATMENT OF THE VANQUISHED, ar7 


Harold’s presence was needed in the southern part of om. xv. 
his Kingdom, he could not refuse a few days for the need- 

fol rest of himself and his host. His presence too was 
needed for the settlement of the troubled affairs of North- 
humberland, and even for the mere celebration of his 
triumph, His victory was saddened by the fate of his 
brother; it was purchased by the blood of many of his 
valiant comrades; his mind must have been weighed 

down by the thoughts of the toils and dangers which were 

yet in store for him elsewhere. Still the victor could not The Feast 
shrink from the wonted celebration of so great a victory. 5" 
ree ae ete eles meet SP Sete 
peared, who had sped, with a pace fleeter even than that of William, 

of his own march, from tha distant coast of Sussex One et: 
blow had been warded off, but another blow still more #5. 
terrible had fallen, Three days after the fight of Stam- October r! 
fordbridge, William Dake of the Normans, once the peace- 

fal guest of Eadward, had again, but in quite another guise, 

‘made good his landing on the shores of England. 


+ Taccopt this incident, aa one likely to be remembarnd, from Honry of 
‘Homtingdon (M. H. B, 762 C) and the Ramoy History (cap, oxx.), though 
they absunily represent tho feost as bold, and the measage as brought, on 
the doy of the battle, when Willism haa not yet landed. 80 Waco rays of 
‘sie Thegn who brought tho news from Sussax 5 

" Ultre le Humbre Ia trové 

Ex uno ville avelt disms* 
‘The writer of tho De Inventione (¢. xx.) mowt wtrangely maken Harold go, 
‘after the battle, to Waltham, and hear the news there; “ Waltham redift, 
utd de applicatine Normannoran nimis verldicd narmasone auncium 


* See the next Chapter, § 2. 


CHAPTER XV. 
THR NORMAN INVASION AND TH CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS.” 


§ 1. The Building of the Fleet, 


We left the Duke of the Normans successful in every 
negotiation which concerned his enterprise, both with his 
own subjects and with strangers. We saw his cause, after 


+ Whroughout this Chapter, the Norman snd Knglish accounts have are: 
fully to be compared, but it is from the Norman authorities that we have to 
drew mont of our details, ‘The Englisch writers sexo to have alrunk from 
walling at length on the “great memory of sarrow," 40 that all their 
account are comparatively meagre. At this point also we Jose the Abingdon 
Chronicle altogether, which ends with the Battle of Stamfordbridye, Among 
‘the Norman sccomnta, the first places belong to the Tapestry and to William 
of Poitiers, ‘Tho Topestey, which guve ux no help during the period of 
negutistion, beyine to be most minute ax soon as we get 10 the beginning of 
actoal military preparations, and it continues to be of primary fimportanes 
down to the end of the Battle of Senlac, Tho high authority of William of 
Poitlors, as a contemporary and sewmingly an eyewltaces, ls somewhat 
‘balanced by his constant strain of panogyric on William and by bis no leek 
‘constant scrifico of chronological order to the demands of his rhetoria 
‘Waco, the bonwwt and pafustaking inquirer of tho next century, hae been 
Yalnable before, and be becomes «till more yaluahle now, Hix contempor 
‘arice and follow poets, Benoit in French and the writer of the Draco Norman- 
eirinp i rare rhifeerertass We are now also reinforced 

another important narrative on the Norman slide, the “Carmen de Bello 
Bastageat" by Oop Bishop of Amiens (so above, p. 136), printed in 
Giles? Seriptores Rerum Gostaruzm Willelmi Conquostoria, in the Chroniques 
Anglo-Normmndes, and {n the Mouumenta Historica Britannica. This poom 
fa roferred to, and coupled with Wiliam of Poitiers, by William of Jumidgen, 
or rather by his continuator (sii, 44); "Si quis vero pleniun a ndeee do-~ 
siderat, librum Willelad Pictayensia, Luxovicrum Archidiacunt, eadem gosta, 
siout copions, ita eloquenti sermone affati eontinentem, legat. Elldit 


a a el 


BUILDING OF THE FLEET. 


some hesitation, ecalously taken up by his own people, cuar. xv. 


while volunteers flocked eagerly to his muster from the 
territories of all the neighbouring princes. We have seen 
his undertaking receive the highest of religious sanctions 
in the blessing of the Roman Pontiff. Had the enterprise 
‘been one against Anjou or France, warfare would have 
begun long before the zeason of the year which wo have 
now reached. But William's present warfare wan aimed 
at a realm whose insular position shiclded it at least for 
a while, England could be reached only by sea, and the 
Normandy of those days had ceased to be a naval power, 
The army destined to undertake the conquest of England 
had to be carried across the channel. A vast fleet was 
thorefore needed, and a fleet had to be created for the 


parpose, The creation of that flect was the work of the Formation 


suramer of the great year, while King Harold of England Xormon pe 
was so carefully guarding his southern coasts.’ As soon fev. 
as the undertaking was finally determined on, the woods 1066, 


of Normandy began to be felled? and the havens of 


(phwteres eidem materi opus non contempendum Guido Episcopus Ambia« 
néntis, horoico metro exaratum.” $9 Onterte, 503 D; “De cajus [Gulllelmt 
Regis) puobitale, et exizis moribux nc proeporis eventibus et wtrenuis ade 
mirundinyie setibor Gnilldnus Pictavinus, Larenrionsie Archidiacontn, 
sfhuenter trictavit, ot Bhrum polito rermono et magni consis profanditato 
preclarum edidit, Ipeo siquidem predict! Negls capellanus longo tempore 
‘oatitit, et em que osulls suis viderit et quibus interfuertt longo rolata vol 

fndubitanter eoucleare staduit, quamvis librum usque ad finom 
‘Rois adversis casibun impeditus perduoore nequiverit. Guido etian: pronqul 


Teast aa true of the Archdeacon as it fs of the Bishop, Guy's work bowever 
‘We uwefil for the details of the voyage and the battle, and for some of the 
‘orenta after the battle. With thew Norman accounla we have of cours 
‘to compary tho rhort narratives in our own Chronicles and in Florence; 
‘some particular farts of importance may also be gleaned from Willam of 
‘Malmesbury, from the Waltham writer De Znventione, and from others 
ler 

1 Boo above, p. 326, 

“©The cutting down of the trees ix graphically shown in the Tapestry, 


a 
380 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


cuar. xv, Normandy resounded with the axes and hammers of car- 
Gasiie> penters and ship-builders.* A large proportion of the 
aa ships were the offerings of the great barons and prelates 
of the land.* William Fitz-Osbern, who had been the 
first man in Normandy to pledge himeelf to the enterprise, 
now redeemed his pledge by the gift of sixty ships. ‘The 
same large number was contributed by Roger of Mont 
gomery and by Roger of Beaumont, and also by Hugh of 
Avranches, the future Earl of Chester, Fifty ships, with 
sixty knights, formed the contingent of Hugh of Mont- 
fort. Two lees famons men, Fulk the Lame and Gerald 
the Seneschal,* contributed forty each. The gift of Walter 


ph 8. This beginning at the beginning reminds one of Odyeous when 
about to leave Kalypsd's island ; airdp 3 ripyvero Boipa «7%. (Od. ¥, 243), 
and seemingly we inay add, oie 8¢ ol §rvro fpyor. 

* They may be seou at work in the Tapestry. Wace too (11473) gives 
a vivid sconunt ; 


‘Mairrion atraire 2 fust porter, A grant entonte wt A grant cowl.” 
Cf. the great mpeech of Dikaiopolie in the Acharnians, 471 et seq”, ompe- 
cially 426 et secu: 179 vedipiov 9° ad warrlsw wharousdrar, 7. Ae 

* Ord, Vit.49q. A. "In Noustrit muito naves our utensilibos diligenter 
porta sunt, qalbos fabricandis clertol ¢t latch studils ot sumptibus adhibitie 
parker Invenderunt.” Wace (11304) names some of the contributors, and 
4 fallor list fe printed in Lord Lyttelton’s Appendix, f, 463, and in Giles, 
Seriptt. Will. Cong. a1. 

* T cannot identify Fulk the Lame, who seams not to ocour in Domesday, 
‘A Fulk of Parmos xigus a charter in tho Cartulary of the Holy Trinity at 
Rowen (p, 466), and a Fulk of Caldri was o benofactor of the same house 
in 1084 (p. 466), An his charter Is confirmed by King Philip aad not by 
‘Wiltiam, he waa doubtlem a Frenchman, Gerald the Seneschal (‘ Dapifer,” 
‘Seneseallus") algna a chartor of Koger of Montgomery (p, 442) om behalf 
of tho ‘Trinity monastery at Rouen in this very year (“anno dominiow 
tnearnationix MLxv, tune seilicet quando Normannorum Dux Gouillelmus 
nm clawico spparaty ultra mary emt profecturua"), He ix perhaps the 
‘amo as Gerald tho Marshal (Marescalows) who sppears in the Suffolle 
Domesday (4386) ax holding a former posession of Earl far. tn the 
samo Cartalary (p, 481) we find the donation of » companion of William, 
bo seuma to have been mortally wounded or worn out tn the compalgn ; 
“RA tempestate qué Guilleliaus, Dux Normaunorum egrogius, cum elaeaion 


CONTRIBUTIONS OF SHIPS. 881 


‘Giffard was thirty ships with a handred knights. The same cmar, xv, 
number of ships, with their crews, were supplied by Vul- 
grin, the pious and peaceful Bishop of Le Mans. He, we 
are told, was specially zealous in the Duke's cauee,' looking 
on him doubtless as the champion of Rome and of Christen- 
dom. But greater even than these great contingents were 
the gifis of the Duke’s own kinsfulk, of the members of 
the ducal house no less than af those sons of his mother 
whom his bounty had so lavishly enriched. A hundred and 
twenty ships, the largest offering in the whole list, were 
the contribution of the Count of Mortain, A gift second 
only to that of his brother, a gift of a hundred ships, 
was the contribution of the Bishop of Bayeux. William of 
Evreux gave eighty, Robert of Eu sixty. The monk 
Nicolas, the son of Duke Richard the Third, now Abbot: 
of the great house of Saint Ouen, gave twenty ships with 
a hundred knights. Others of lese degree gave ono ship 
or more, according to their means.’ And among these was 
another monk, of less lofty birth, but of higher personal 
renown, than the princely Abbot of Saint Ouen’s, A 
ingle ship with twenty knights was the offering of Re- Remigiu 
migius, then almoner of the house of Féeamp,¢ but who in a 
was in aftertimes to be the last Bishop of the ancient sve {ogstyns, 
of Dorchester, the first who placed his throne on tho lordly 
steep of more famous Lincoln. But one gift, though the 
gift of a single ship only, had @ yalue beyond all others in 
the eyes of the Duke. The ship which was destined for 
apparatu ingentique exertity. Anglorum teeram expetilt, quidem miles, 
‘Romine Oemundus de Boos, curn allie itlue profestas, et languore correptin 
aique ad extrams perductus, pro aniiom sue remodio, dedit Sanctoe ‘Trin'- 
‘atl omnem docimam terre xu in alodio,” &e. 
* Roman de Rew, 11399,“ Mult voleit i Dus avancier.”” 
* Go the list in Lyttelton; Wace (#1305) cuts down Odo's gift to forty. 
ee en ee ae es Sakioay 
‘secundum posdbilitater tive nevis oujusque, multas alias aves.” 


*©A Homo yel Rumi clesmorynario Fewanui, porter Eplscopo Line 
colnfensi, nnam naver eum sx. militias.” 


882 THE CAMPAIGN OP HASTINGS, 


cuar. xv. his awn uso, the ship which was to bear 


fortune,’ was the offering of the conjugal love 
‘Wiliam's Duchess Matilda, This chosen veesel bore the namo 
“a the Mora, « name not very easy to explain. Either at ite 
ooh ead prow or at its stern it bore the likeness of a boy wrought 
in gold blowing an ivory horn painting towards England.? 
Numberof ‘The whole number of the fleet thus guthered tagether 
— is variously stated. The lowest reckoning gives the exact 
waied. number as six hundred and ninety-six; the largest of those 
accounts which aro at all crodible raises it to an indofinite 
number above three thousand.’ Exaggeration is always to 





Regina, ejudam 
honorem Ducia fecit officl nave que vocabatur Mora, in qué ipee Dux 
‘rootus est. In prora ejusdem naris fecit flerl eaden Matildis infantulum de 
‘nuro, dextro {ndloo monstrantem Angliam, et sinistra manu iroprimenter 
cornu cburncum ori." Waco's account (11594) be somewhat different s 

“Sor If chief de to nef devant, ‘Vers Engleterrs out won viairo, 


Tn tho Twpestry, pl. 9, the child with his born fx plsin enough, and be looks 
towards England; but he is at the stam of tho ship, and not at the prow, 


‘sul in his loft aund he bears a peunom, 
* The moat exact account fx that af Wane (1564), who heard the number 
‘from hile father 5 
+ Malz jo ol dire b mou pare, A porter armes ® hernein. 


‘Bien m'en sovint, maiz varlet orm, E fo wn ewcrpt al trod, 

‘Ko ot cenz nis, quatre tains, furvnt, No eal dire west verité, 

Quaut de Saint-Valeri wonourent, Ke il § out trois milo mle 

Ke nés, ke bates, ko exquels Ki porteront vuilen 6 tri.” 
‘This exactness rominds one of ichylos! reckoning in the Persiank, 333~ 
438. Tish enol ogros he oocomt of ugh of Feary (Purse Spo} 
“ Willelinas copiosusa adunavit exereitwan et oumseptingentia naxityus 60 nav 
gavit." Willisin of Poitiers (123) naturally hns his head full of Agamemnon 5 
“ Momorat antiqua Gnecis Atridexn Agasemaos fentemos thalamon tas 
Ivisee mille navibus > protextaraar nos Willdsnun diadema regium eeyustave 

* Willlam of Sumihges (vil. 34) maken the number ‘ad tis 





NUMBER OF THE SHIPS. 383 


‘bo locked for in such accounts; but 80 great a difference emar. xv, 
ean hardly be accounted for wholly by exaggeration. It is 
evident that our different: accounts follow different ways of 
reckoning; some, for instance, seem to count only the 

ships strictly 90 called, while others rockon also the small 

craft of every kind, The hips, after all, wera anly Iarge Creer 
open boats with a single mast and sail, and with a smaller Sine 
boat attached. It is plain that they were designed almost 
wholly for transport, and they do not seem to have in any 

way equalled those mighty horses of the seat which had 
borne Swegen and Cut to the conquest of England. 


we el ingen asec dl nec Plena Nie 

preparations, he was, no less charncteristically, largely ‘tention 
occupied with ecclesiastical affairs. Indeed the chosen sntical 
SGiamnpatatof theasinte’ and \éf) theltHencan/the'anmed 
missionary who was setting forth to convert the stiffnecked 
islanders from the error of their ways, was bound, more 

than ever, to show himself a faithful nursing-father to the 
Church at home. In a court or council which the Duke Council at 
held at Bonneville in the month of June two important Jona‘. 
‘coclesiastical appointments were made, Two great abbeys 
needed chiefs. The chair of Saint Evroul was void by the 

death of Abbot Osbern, and the new monnatery of Saint 
‘Stephen was now far enough advanced toward perfection 

for the brotherhood to be regularly organized under an 
Abbot. ‘The monks of Saint’ Byroul petitioned the Duke Apmiat 
~ for the appointment of a now head of their body. William, Mase at 
after consulting with the diocesan Hugh of Lisieux, placed punt 
the pastoral staff’ in the hand of the Prior Mainer, who 

So in Drago Normannious (j, 1329) William ia mado to wy; 

“Non tamen est nobis regionum copia preva, 
‘Quum ter riille rites fmpleat Sxta 

‘Gaimar (g245) goo hoyond all of them. ‘The French, wx he calls them, bare 
“dion anaes mil nofs.” Another reading rakes {t only nino thousand. 

* Bee vol. Lp. 319 for the “‘y®-heagesias.* Cf, the Chronicles, 1003. 


384 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


ouar. xv, presently received the abbatial benediction from the Bishop.* 
But # greater than Mainer was on this same day advanced 
from the second to the highest rank in monastie dignity, 
Tt was at this court at Bonnoville that the renowned Prior 
of Bee, the future Primate of Canterbury, the man whore 
acute and busy spirit made him well nigh the soul of his 
master's onterprise, became the first chief of his master's 
great foundation. The scruples of the great scholar and 
diplomatist had at last been overcome, and in the same 
hour in which Mainer received the staff of Saint Evroul, 
Tanfrane also received the staff of the still more famous 
Motives to house of Saint Stephen? The policy of pushing on 
Reta the two great expiatory foundations at thi particular 
eS moment is obvious. The champions of the Church must, 
as far as might be, wipe out all memory of their former 
sin, William must set out on his holy enterprise with 
perfectly clean hands, and Matilda must be able to lift up 
hands no less clean as she prayed for his safety and victory 
before the altars which she had reared. Indeed, even with 
out this overwhelming motive, the eve of so great and 
hazardous an undertaking was a moment which specially 
called for works of devotion of every kind, and we have seen 
that it was so felt by others in Normandy besides the Duke 
and Duchess. At this time therefore, besides the organi- 
zation of William's foundation under its first and greatest 
Gunlty st Abbot, the material fubrie of Matilda's foundation was so 
Juno 13, 


HE 


tion of the 


2 Onl, Vit, 494 B. ‘Denique hortata Hugonta Epixcopf allorumque 
‘Mainorlum Priorom elogit, cique por pastorslom baculum ex- 
prin reelected ce dese si: 
our compotobant aupploret precepit.” Hero again wo gut a good Mlur- 
tration of the relations botweon Chureh and State in Normandy, and no bed 

‘comment on our own thirty:weventh Article, 

"Tb, ‘Kode die Dux Domnum Lanfrancum Becoensium Priore 
cotan a» adome imaperavit, eique abbatian quam ipso Dux inh onore Sancti 
Stepbanl protomartyris apud Cadomum honorabiliter fundavurst commen: 
davit.” 

2 Soo the charter of Roger of Montgomery quoted above, p. 350. 


























Maing Gis Gi Ly ois ear Fee 
head stood the famous Roger of Beaumont. 
Roger made him fitter for counsel than for ac 
tarried at home, while his son went to the war. 
himself hastened to the spot which had been 
embareation. ‘This spot lay close to the seene of 
most memorable of William's exploits. ‘The 
Dive, where the fleet of Normandy was now 
the unprovoked invasion of England, lies only 
below that ford of Varaville where the Norman 
once, in a more righteous cause, dealt so hea 
Deep, against the French invaders of his Duchy. 
ples, there pours itself into the sea, under the shelter of hei 
which are u close continuation of the bills from 
King Henry had looked down to see the slau 
rear-guard.? The course of the stream has 10 
changed; the harbour, largely blocked up by sand, 


) As they were delayed a month at the Dive, and » further time 
‘Valery, the time of the first assembling of the fleet ix carried tack 











THE FLEET AT THE DIVE. 


auch of its importance as a harbour, though it is now omar xv. 


awaking toa kind of renewed life in the form of a modern 
watering-place. A large and singular church, still keeping 
‘its massive central arches of Norman work, is the only piece 
of antiquity which remains in the original small town of 
Dive, A modern column and inscription on the height 
above shows that the historical interest of the spob is not 
forgotten, and the name of the great Duke is still attached 
to the lowly hostelry, In this harbour then the ships were 
gathered; the host lay encamped on the hills, waiting for 
the south wind which was to bear them across to the land 
of promise. ‘The view from those hills isa noble one. ‘To 
the west the eye ranges over the whole low country and 
over the gentler heights which bound it in the extreme 
distance. At the foot of the heights the Dive rolls along 
ite winding course, then no doubt pouring itself into the 
sea with a wider and more open flood than it can now boast 
of. Beyond it glistens the Orne, the stream which flowed 
by the rising minsters of Cacn, the stream whose flood, 
like Kishon of old,’ had wrought auch help for William’s 
cause on the day when he won his spurs at Val-te-dunes.* 
‘To the north-cast stand forth the rocks which guard the 
entrance to a yet greater stream, the rocks by which Wil- 
liam’s Wiking forefathers had so often sailed to threaten 
the great cities on the Seine, and which now, under Nor- 
man guardianship, served ag it were to keep the lord of 
Parig imprisoned within the narrow limits of his inland 
realm. 

The south wind for which William so eagerly waited was 
as slow in coming as the east wind which was so eagerly 
Tooked for, when a later Willinm was waiting to set forth 
for the shores of England on a widely different errand.” 


‘The fleet was kept for a whole month at the mouth of the Delay at 


* Tuilges v. at * See vol. Mp. 26a. 
© Soe Macaulay, it. 455, 
ce2z 


i | 


388 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, 


cenar. xv. Dive,!and tho panegyrist of William grows eloquent on the 
Good onder wonderful good order and peaceable demeanour of the 
fo Wi host which had, no doubt most unwillingly, to bear this 
= untoward delay. The excellence of the Duke's commis- 
sariat is set forth in such glowing colours that we cannob 
help longing to know the details of his arrangements. 
The whole army, we are told, received regular pay and 
regular provisions during the month which was thus 
doomed to inactivity.? All plander was forbidden, and we 
are told that William's orders to this effect were carried out 
with a degroe of success which seoms incredible, The in- 
habitants of the surrounding country learned to pase without 
fear among the motley host, a host made up not only of their 
own countrymen but of adventurers from every province of 
Gaul? The flocks and herds fed undisturbed in their 
pastures; the ripening corn remained alike uncut and un- 
trampled by the dangerous visitors.’ In all this there is 
doubtless much of the exaggeration of a profoased panegy- 
rist. But we can well believe that the strong will of the 
great: William was really able to keep a greater degree of 
good order among the mixed multitude which he com- 
manded than » lesser man might have found the means 
of keeping even among an army of his own subjects. 
The numbers of the host whieh William had now assem- 
* Will, Pict, 12a, “ Veutorum incommodites ad Porturm Dive detinebat 


mort monstrat,” Oni, Vit goo A, “Claas Normsnnoram 
waius monsis {n otto Dive vicinioque portubus Nothum [Notum, se] 


prtestolate est," 

* Will, Pict. us. “Rapin omni interdict’, stlypendio ipsiun militia 
mifiitum quinqueginte olebantar . . . . 0a illus temperantia fult ne pr. 
dents.” 


2 Th. “Homo imbecillis aut inerds equo eantans que Ubult reetabatur, 
‘ura millitum oxrmens, non exharrescens.” 

Tb, © Militibus ot hoepitibue sbundo eumptus ministrabatur, nemini 
mapere quipplam concedebatur. Provinelalium tuto armenta vel. greges 
pascobantur seu per campestria, aon por toaqna, Sagater faloem oultoris 
fntaotie expectabant, quas neo attrivit soporba oquitum effuslo, neo demesne 
pabulator,” 


DELAY OF THE FLEET. 389 


bled are as varionsly stated as tho numbor of the ships cur. xv. 
which were to carry them. ‘The sum total is commonly Suis 
given at sixty thousand, or even more; but there are lam's 
anthorities which bring it as low as fourteen thousand.’ 
Here, a8 in the case of the ships, while we must allow for 
error and exaggeration, we must also allow for different 
systems of reckoning. The higher amount may be meant 

to take in all the armed men of every class, while the 
lower may give only the number of knights—what in tho 
military language of a later age would have been called 
the number of dances, In the history of all ages nothing 

is so little trustworthy as the figures which profess to 

set before us the numbers of armies. And I fear that 

the exact number, or even any near approach to the exch 
number, either of the Norman invaders or of the English 
dofenders, is one of the things which the historian must, 
however unwillingly, leave uneertain. 

‘Tt was while the Norman fleet was still at the mouth of Spies sent 
the Dive, while the whole southern const of England was so "” 
strongly guarded by the watchful care of Harold? that an 
ineident is said to have happened, which, though it. bas 
‘been mixed up with events not belonging to it in date, is 
most likely not without some foundation in fact. The 
King of tho Englieh, among his procautions for the defenoo 
of the country,? did not forget to seck for such knowledge 


2 The Chronicle of Saint Maxentius (Lobbé, ti, 215) sayy “Fertur 
Dabuiee in exercita yuo quatuerdecim willis howinun." But Williain of 
Poitiers, in the pasage juxt quoted, speaks of ‘milfs militum quingua- 


mills sold.” Onderlo (g00 B) gives him “quinquagints milin. militia 
‘eum oopitt peditum.” A goo! deal tnrns on the ambiguous wont miles” 
But Hegh of Flowy (Periz, ix. 390) says, “In pralio habuit presatus 
‘Willetinus fn agmine auo centum quinquagints railie houtnus.” 

2 Sse above, p. 316. 

4 Tete now that Williat of Poiticrs (123) gives that notice of Harold's 
preparations which T ruferred to above, p. 5285 “Heralds. . . callide 


— 


THE CAMPAIGN OP HASTINGS, 


ona, xv. as he could get as to the condition and numbers of the 
Onef enemy. He sent spies acro: ta the mouth of the Dive. 
Wguslva. One of them was seized and led before the Duke. Weare 
not told whether William followed the magnanimous or 
) ostentatious example of Xerxes! in showing tho English- 
man the whole strongth and numbers of the Norman host; 
but he at least sent him home unhurt, though charged with 
a threatening message to his sovereign. When the spy 
strove to hide his errand under some of the usnal sabter- 
fages,? William showed him at ance that no disguises could 
avail with him. Harold might forbear to waste his gold 
and silver in paying spies to search out William's resources ; 
sooner than Harold looked for, he would himself come as 
his own messenger, and would teach him on his own soil 
‘William's what the power of Normandy was." And it was now, we 
fumparivon ae told, that the Duke made that most singular compari= 
himaclfand gon between himself and his rival of which T have already 
spoken. He had promised away all the goods of Harold 
beforehand, while Harold had not the strength of mind 
sabornates traxmnisit exploratores."” This sort of expreavion, and some of 
the words prevently put into William's mouth ("Non iailiyet Horaliduy mari 
seoi vol anpentt jacturd tuam allaramaue fidem atque sillertiam ema"), 
might load ono to fancy that thoso mpies wore Norman anbjeote won over by 
English gold, But the word “tramaminit" seems to forbid this notion. The 
truth fs that William's panegyrist cannot undonstand the position of an 
faithfully verving the Kinglish King. 

* Herod. vii, 146, 
* Will, Pict. 123. “Quorum deprehenso uni, eawmamque mut adventox 
qui yrmcuptum eat spocio ebtegere conate, Dax animé vat magnitudinem 


i 


Rt 
st 


* Tb. “Quid ommulstur, quid sppseviur apad nos, ceetlor eum quam 
‘velit, ot opiniono jus citior, index, quippe man preventin, dooebit.” Thi 
index" fn oxsetly the abrde dryyehou of Herodotun. 

Tt ts hore that William of Poltiors brings in thowe foars and hesltations 
xmang the Normang, which, as I havo sald elaswhere (ace stove, p. 295, 
and Appondie 2), oloarly belong to another part of tho story. William Ss 
made to tell the spy that he will be in England within w year, abl the Nar- 
‘mana say that It fw impoadble that a fleet should be got ready within the 
year, This language coulid not have been used at a moment when the Boot 
Sean ready to mail, and wa simply waiting for a fair wind, 


THE ENGLISH SFIES. 391 


to promise anything of his.» He goes on to eay that cur. xr. 
Harold would fight only to keop what he had wrongfully 
scizod, while ho would fight to win porossion of the gift 

of his departed friend which he had earned by his services 
towards him," Success was certain; the flect was of such 
anumber as to be fully enough for any purpose that was 
needed, while he was not cumbered with any mseless multi+ 
tude of ships. And, as for the army, the fate of campaigns 

was decided, not by the number of armies, but by their 
valour.® 


A month was thus lost at the Dive, and yet the south Witliam ro. 
wind came not. ‘The Duke nt last resolved to change hi tr ie 
position and bis place of ombarcation. He had many good 
reasons for doing so. Had he stayed much longer in his 
first quarters, his supplies would most likely have failed 
him, and he would no longer have been able to keep back 
his troops, especially the foreign mercenaries, from plunder, 
Meanwhile the same failure of provisions which William 
merely dreaded had actually defeated all the schomes of the 
English King. While William lay at the mouth of the Cnfluence 
Dive, Harold's great floot and army, which had so long pict tie, 
guarded the English coast, was finally disbanded, and the Harkts 
mass of the ships went back to London.* Tt had in fact army. 
been a sort of involuntary straggle between the two rivals, s, 
which could keep an army fora longer time on foot without 
fighting or plundering, In this straggle William had sue- 
ceeded, The host with which Harold had lined the whole 
‘West-Saxon coast was doubtless far larger than the host 
which William had gathered at a single haven of Nor- 
mandy, But William's host, gathered from all parte of 
* Bee above, p. 282. 

* Will Pict. 124. “(Prtaren, ne rapinam amitat ile paynabit; noe 
qui done ncoepisins, benefictie 
* Tb, “Virwute meline quam numero militum bella geruntur,” 

* Ord. Vit. goo,“ Spatlo unfus menssts,”” * Soe nbove, p. 339. 


892 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, 


ouar. xv. Gaul, was far more largely made up of professional soldiers 
than Harold’. It contained far smaller proportion of the 
general levies of the country, eager to return to their homes 
and harvests. It is no wonder that the endurance of Wil- 
Jinm’s army outlasted the endurance of the army of Harold. 
But William had doubtless by this time exhausted the aup- 
plics afforded by the lands near the Divo, and he found it 
expedient to remove to quarters whose resources were still 
mntouched. And the disbanding of Harold's fleet and army 
supplied another motive equally strong. Now that the 
shores of England were left comparatively defenceless, now 
that the English fleet no longer rodo triamphantly in the 
Channel, it became a matter of importance with William 
to be nearer to the English shores, ready to sweep down on 
any unguarded spot at any favourable moment. William 
therofore took advantage of'a west wind! to hasten from the 
Dive toa pointwhich far more closely threatened the southern 
shoros of England. He passed by the mouth of the Seine 
and by the whole coast of Upper Normandy, and took up 
EGiomber is position at a spot beyond the limits of his own immo- 
ie diate dominion, within the territories of hie now faithful 
aided vassal Guy of Ponthieu.# Nenr the mouth of the broad 
te PP estuary of the Somme, on a low height overhanging the 
yaa water," stood a minster, commemorating the good deeds of 

Walaric, a snint of Merowingian times who had done much 

to evangelize the still heathen lands of Northern Gault 


Willlam 
wile to 
aint Va- 


+ Will, Pict, 124. ‘'Jom tota clamnie providontizime exomata ab ovtio 
Dives vietnisque portubua, abl Notum quo transmitterent divtlus exspes- 
tavere, Zephyr fiatu fn stationem Sonctd Waleriol delata ent.” Bo Ord. Vit. 
500.4. 

* On the homage of Guy to William for Ponthieu see above, ps: 157, He 
now alto held lands in Normandy {tect See p. 226, 

2 ‘The position in well marked by Guy of Amiens, 62 

“Desuper ent oasteum quodiam eanoti Walaricl” 

* Something about the early history of Saint Valery may be gleaned from, 
the work of M. Lafilx, Histoire Cietle, Politique, et Religieuse de Saint-Valery 
et di Comté du Vimen (Abboville, 18g), but tho book ie vastly: inferior 


HISTORY OF SAINT VALERY, 


393, 


‘Like so many other foundations originally secalar, it had omar, xv. 


seen its canons give way to monks, and the monastery now 
ranked high among foundations of its own class. Near its 
gate a small town had arisen, bearing, like the abbey itself, 
‘the name of ite ancient patron, but in a form which Freneh 

‘iation had moulded into a likeness to the great 
Valerian house of Rome, The Abbey of Saint Valery, like 
many other monasteries, had suffered through its own re- 
‘nown ; the relics of its founder had been carried off by the 
pious theft of a Count of Flanders, and had been restored by 
the pious intercession of a Duke of the French.! Liko many 
other monasteries too, the duty of ite defence had given 


& title to a line of tomporal nobles. The Advocates of Saint Tho Advo- 
Valery were powerful lords ; ono of them, as we have seen, St" 
had married a daughter of Normandy, and a younger V8": 


branch of his race filled a high and honourable place among 


the great houses of the Norman Jand2 Of this famous Desip, 


abbey the vast encircling wall still remaing, but the remains Wi." 
of the church are small, polish wctomatawiautiay Gah on 
the days with which wo are concerned. But the ancient 
town, rising, with its parish church, above the modern 
port which bas arisen rather higher up the river, still ro- 
tains its walls and gateways and general mediwval look in 
singular perfection. Below, immediately on the coast, 
stands @ ruined tower of rude work, to which an inaccurate 
‘or misunderstood legend has attached the name of Harold 


to ie excellent Local works which have holped me so much in Norman 
matters, On Saint Walaric or Valory himself, soo p. 21. 

* Aw the story appears in the Lifoof Burchanl of VeudOme (Duchiane, Ror, 
‘Frine iv, 121), tho Count of Flanders concerned is the youngor Arnulf, 
‘ad the restoration in brought about by the influence of King Rebort and 
the personal agency of Count Burchard. But this scoount is very confused. 
‘The body was really cxrrist off by the elder Arnnif, nnd the restoration was 
effected in g81 by Hugh Capet, who alm changed the secular canons of 
Saint Valery into monks, Soe the Relatio in Mabillon, Act, Ord. Ben. 
wil. p46, 

* Soe abore, p. 131. 


the 


FI 


THE CAMPAIGN OP HASTINGS. 


cnar. xv. of England.’ The spot, even apart from ite historical as 





sociations, is in every way striking, The broad estuary, 
the wooded heights above it, the ancient and the modern 
town, unite to form a singularly varied Inndseape. Tt wae 
here, on the wide expanse of water into which the mouth 
of the great Picard river spreads itself, that the fleet of 
William rode, still waiting for the long-looked-for south 
wind which should at onco bear him and his host to the 
shores of Sussex. Its numbers seem to have been eome- 
what lessened from the numbers, whatever those numbers 
were, of the fleet which bad been gathered at the mouth of 
the Dive. We hear of losses from shipwreck, and of losses 
from desertion ;* and, as we have seen, it is not impossible 
that we ought to add losses from at least partial actions~ 
with English ships.’ At any rate, from what cause soever, 
@ good many men were missing from Willinm’s muster; 
and we are told that he imitated the well-known stratagem 
of Xerxes,‘ by eansing the recovered bodies of the drowned 
men to be buried as secretly as might be, lest the knaw- 
lodge of their losses might serve to dishearten his followers.* 
Still the wind was not favourable; the west wind had 
brought the floot to Saint Valery, but the south wind war 
not yot willing to bring it to any English haven. All the 


1 Seo Lefils, p. 64. [will not onter into any controversy as to the date 
of the so-called Tower of Harold, or as to the origin of its name, Tt may be 
‘ealied. after some other Harold, or the namo may bo, as M. Lafile suggeste, 
‘a corruption of sumething quito difforent. Dut in any case It waa nob, what 
the logad makes it, the place of the imprimament of Harold the son of 
Godwine, which waa nndonbtadly at Baaurain, See nbove, p. 224. 

2 Will. Pict. 226, ‘Pringopa, quom noque morn sive contrarictas venti, 
neque terribilla noufmgls, neque pavida fugo multorum qui fidem spopon- 
dernut, trangere provalent.” 

2 See above, p. 339, Lom by no means cloar that some trace of these 
angngements, probably of no great importance, may not lurk in the “pevidla 
fuga” of Willintn of Poitiers. Soe Appendix DD. 

* Herod. viii, 24. 

* Will, Pict, tas. “Quo et consilio adversitatibus obvius, submeroram 
interitus quantum poterat oceultavit, latentlus tumnlande.” 


i 


DELAY AT SAINT VALERY. 395 


time then that Harold was engaged in his great Northern omar. xv. 
march and in his victory at Stamfordbridge, William was 

still lying inactive in his second naval quarters at the 
mouth of the Somme, 

But with William time was never putligainieriers. 
at his command the! resources of both world to fill up iat 
any time of constrained inaction, He was even more tations snd 
bound'to: respect the property of his allies and vassals cerwno- 
than to respoct that of his own subjects, Ho oocupied 
himeelf as diligently in care for his commisearint at Saint 
Valery as he had done at the Dive,' By constant ex- 
hortations he kept up the spirits of those of his men who 
were already beginning to shrink from the enterprise? 

And the champion of the Church, the pious leader of the 
great expedition for the second conversion of the erring 
English, was not likely to be sparing at such a moment 
in those means of spiritual excitement of which he eo well 
knew the value. Prayers and sacred rites of every kind 
were employed, in order to move Heaven to send the 
looked-for wind which should waft its servants to do its 
bidding beyond the sea. ‘The Duke himself was unwearied 
in his devotions within the minster of Saint Valery, nor 
did he pay less regard to the outside of the temple than 
to the inside. His eyes were evor watehing the weathor- 
cock on the minster tower; when he eaw it pointing to 
the south, his heart was downcast and his eyes were filled 
with tears, but the least turn in the opposite direction 
again kindled his hopes. Still the wind came not; the 
sky was cloudy; the weather was cold and miny; for 
fifteen days all the powers of the air seemod steadily bent 
against the enterprise.’ At last recourse was had to a 

* Will, Plot, 12g, “Commentim indies sugendo inoplam lentvit.” 

7 Th, Ad hoo hortamine divorvo rotrmxit extorritos, animavil paventen" 

* Wid. Amb. 545 


“Nam ter quingue dies complésti finitux ils, 
‘Exspectans vurumi Judichs nuxilium, 


ets 
Valery 


| 


THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, 


ceremony of special solemnity, one which, it was thought, 
Procession could not fail to wring the long-wished-for boon from the 
saints and from their Creator, At the request of the 
Duko and his army, the Abbot and monks of Saint Valery 
came forth from their church in sclemn procession, bearing 
the shrine which held the wonder-working body of their 
glorified patron. A carpet was spread on the ground, and 
the shrine was exposed to the gaze of the army, awaiting 
their devotions and their offerings. The Duke and all his 
host knelt in prayer for the withdrawal of the adverse 
breeze and the sending of one more favourable. Nor was 
their bounty lees than their faith; the shrine of Saint 
Valery was hidden by the pieces of money showered down 
ag offerings by his worshippers! 

‘The devotion and the pious liberality of the Norman. 
host did not pass unrewarded. The prayers and the gifts 
of William and his followers did their work, The costly 
offerings at Caen, the erowning act of devotion at Saint 


Feclosiam sancti davoth mente froquentans, 
Tiii pura datan ingominando proces, 
Tnspicis et templi gallus qué yertitur aura ; 
Auster ai splrat, litus ablnde reds : 
Si wubito Boroos Austrum clivertit et aroet, 
Elsie lncrlmnts flotibus ora rigas, 
Dowolatua ems; frigus faciobas et imbor, 
Et polus cbtectis mubibus ot pluvils,” 
‘The edition in the Monumonta Historica Britannica has “ter quingve dion,” 
while those of Giles and Michel have ‘*tam quinque.” ‘The former reading 
{obviously right, ne explaining the expromion in ¥, £3 of “longs diffi- 
cilisque mora." With William's Jooking at tho weatheroook, osmpare the 
pamage of Macaulay referred to tn p. 387. 
* ‘Thove Int detatls come from Waco, 115795 
“Pols unt tant i covent priié Cl ki debvefent mor pamer 5 
Ke la chase Ssiat-Vateri Tant i ont tait deniers offert, 
‘Mistrent as chams sorun tapi, Tot Hf core maint en ont covert,” 
Alls cors maint vinrent tuit orer 
‘Tho bringing out of the bedy of tho saint, which evidently made » deep 
impression, inabvo recorted by William of Poitiers (125), Onderlo (500 B), 
and William of Malmesbury (iii. 238). Guy of Amiens, whom we should 
have oxpected to bo eloquent om the mubjest, holds ix peace, 


THE SOUTH WIND, 


397 


Valery, at last availed to release the new AgamemnOn from citar, x¥, 


his unwilling sojourn at another Anlis* In the milder 
belief of William's age the virginity of Cecily was an 
offtring more acceptable to Heaven than the bloody sacri~ 
fice of Iphigeneia. And at last eo many prayirs were 
heard. On Wednesday the twenty-seventh of September, 
two days after Harold’s victory at Stamfordbridge, the 
south wind blew.* 


‘The camp was in a tumult of joy and thankfulness, ‘The The om- 


wished-for hour was at last come. England and its spoile 
seemed to lic before thom, ready to be grasped by the 
hands of the champions of the Church and of the Norman 
saints. Men were seen everywhere lifting up their hands 
to heaven, exhorting one another and rejoicing that the 
hours of weariness were over, that the moment of action 
at last had come.’ In the midst of the general joy came 
the Duke's orders for immediate embarcation. William, 
ng eager by temper as he was cautious by reflexion, was 
foremost in urging his followers to hasten on board their 
vessels, and to lose no time in making for the promised 


* William of Poitiers has his head full of Agamemndn and of Xersis, 
but this obvious analogy does not soem to have ccourred to him. Yet who 
cnn help thinking of the northern blasts, tho wreat di) Srptporoe podotoa 
(Abooh. Ag. 185 ot weqg.), which delayed the fleot of the Achafams, and of 
‘the sacrifice by which slone help could be gained | 

* All our accounts dircotly connect the favournble wind with the religious 
coramony which had just been performed, William of Poitiers (125) de 
scribes the rite, and immediately ads, ““Spirante dein aurk exepectatit” 
‘So Onderia (500 I}; “ Dexdque dum prosper ventus multorum votis 
‘Dev volente, subite spiravit." Willian of Malmesbury (iif. 239) is, if pow 
sdblo, still more umphatic; “Noe mora intarcoait, qain prosper flatus car. 
‘base impleret.” Guy of Amicns (70), not mentioning the apocial ceremony, 
attributes the change of woather to Williaa’ prayers generally; 

“Valle toum tandem pias at Deus eet mikoratus, 
‘Pro votoque tibl suppeditavit opus.” 

* Will, Plot, 125. Vooes cum snanibus io omlum gintificantes, ao simul 
turonitas tnvicem ineitans tollftur."” Both this writer and Guy of Arlens 
give vory full and vivid accounts of the voyage. 


308 


7 


can xv. Jnnd.! But his troops needed little urging; the dread of 


THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


the unknown sea and of tite unknown land, the dread of the 
wealth of England and of the might of her defendens* had 
all passed away. The Norman warriors were so clearly 
the favourites of Heaven, the sign which they had just 
received so cloarly showod that their cause was the cause 
of righteousness, that doubt and fear no longer lingered in 
the mind of any man. Men rushed to the shore ;* one man 
exhorted his followers, another his comrades; each was 
eager to be first on board, to be foremost in the holy work. 
The captain outstripped his soldiers ; the soldier outstripped 
his companions; men loft behind them their goods and 
thoir necossary stores, having ono fear only before their 
‘eyes, leet by any mishap they should themselves be left 
behind.' Some bore on their shoulders the swords, the 
spears, the coats of mail, which would be needed on the 
other side of the water. Some yoked themselves to wag- 
gons loaded with spears, and Jonded also with casks of 
wine. This last was the only kind of provision of which 
any great quantity seems to have been thought needful; 
conquered England was to find the rest, Some were busy 


| WiIL Pict. 125. ““Incropat atque urget in pappos andens vehomontia, 
Ducis, ai quos ullatenus moram nectere notat.” 
* Sen above, p. 298, 
* Wil, Piet, uv. “Term quam properantiaime devritur, dubium 
iter quam cuplentiasime initur." 80 Guy of Amfens, 78 5 
+ Protinus uns fait mens omnibus, aque volutes, 
Jaan bene pacato eevdere se pelagy. 
Quamquam diversd tamen adsunt lntifiont ; 
Nee mora, quiaque uum currit sd officium,” 


* Will. Piet, 135. "Bo coleritatin motu: impellustor, ut quam wemib 
gerum hic, sodium inclamet ille, plerique Immemores cllentum, aut sche 
umm, aut rerum nocewarlarum, id slum, ne retinquantur, cogitant ot 
fostinant.” 

* Tapestry, ph 9, “Inti poriast armas ad naves, et hic trabunt carmen 
cum viuo et smmis." We shall hear prwently of the mature of the drink, we 
Toast on board the ducal ship. William eithor despised or knew not of the 
wine of Gloucestershire. Bee vol. il. py t¢2 








‘THE FLERT SETS SAUL. 399 


in setting up the masta, some in unfurling the sails ;' the ear. xv. 
special work of the horsemen was the harder task of 
bringing their horses on board the vessels? The ships 
resounded with musie; the pipe, the zittern, the drum, 
the cymbals, all were heard, and the voice of the trumpet 
sounded proudly over all” Meanwhile the Dake once more 
made his way to the minster of Saint Valery, and offered 
his last prayers and gifts on Gaulish ground before he 
went forth to the conquest of the island realm.* Before 
he reached his ship, evening had set in, The moon was 
hidden and the heavens were clouded over. The Duke 
therefore ordered every ship to bear a light,’ while on the 
top of the mast of his own Mora a huge lantern blazed 
to be the guiding star of the whole navy. William now Willian 
went on board; the trampet sounded, and the voice of the ™* 
herald announced the Duke’s last orders before setting: sail. 
‘The ships were to keep as near together as might be, and 
to follow closely after the beacon-light of his own ship. 
When they were well out to sea, they were to rest a while 
in the dead hour of the night, till the signals speaking 
alike to the eye and car had again issued the ducal com- 
+ Wid, Amb. 82; 

“Soblimant alif malo, alfique laboramt 

Krootis malia adder vela super,” 
“Plurima oogit equos equitum pare seandore taves.!* 


“Fling resonando tube varion dant enille bontus, 
Fistula cum calamils, et fidibas eithars 
‘Tymmpana teurinte fmplent mugitibs ares ; 
Alternant meduloe eywbale elara soo8.” 
wed tts temple potia sancti aupra memnorati, 

Muncribueyoo datie ourris adire ratera,"” 
* 3b, 106; 


“Nox ubi ceca poluin teachrosls occupa: umbris, 
Et negat obaequium Cynthia tecta tibl, 

Emplee non aliter facibus rutilantibas undas, 
Bidera quam oxlum, sole ruente, replent. 

Quot faerant uaves, totidem tu lamina «paris. 


21h. 845 
"Th, 995 


8 


400 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, 


cuar. xe, mands from the ducal vessel! The fleet set sail; the 
vessels halted and rested as the Duke had ordered, But 

before day-break the trumpet again sounded from the 

Details of Mora, and the lantern again blazed at her mast. The ships 
Me worse. seain sot sail; but the ship which carried William and 
his fortunes, guided by the skilful hand of her pilot 
Stophen,? far outstripped all hor followers, We are told. 

that the speed of the vessel, like that of the divine barks 

of Scheria, adapted itself to the eagerness of her master ;* 





1 Will, Pict, 125, “Dat proconia voce elfctam, nt, quum im altuan simi 
deduct, paullulum nootls conquieecant non louge a rul rates cunclee fa an- 
‘coria flaitantes, danec, in ejux mali wummo lampade commpeeti, 

Yareinw cangorem cunts seelplant sigue.” pees 

“Une lanterns fist 1 Dus 

‘Meteo on om met ot mast: de ms.” 
‘Tho Lantern on the Duke's mast te shown plain enough to the Tapestry, 
pl 9} Dut there fx no mention of ft in Guy; unlos ft lurks in the more 
general word (112), 

“ Tmmpositae malis permutd Luce Interne 
‘Tramite dirvoto per mare vola regunt.”” 

We then goes on to mention the onder for the mid-ses halt, much ow in 
‘William of Poitiers. 

‘Compare the description of the voyage of Selplo in Livy, axle. 25; “ILu- 
nina in navibus singula rostrate, bina omerarie haberent ; ia pretorih nave 
Snxigne nocturnnm trum Itminum fore.” See also the description of the 
‘voyage of the other Willian’, Macaulay, ii: 477. 

® We got tho namo of “Stephanus filius Airadsi" from Orderio, 868 A, 
‘where hie son ix made to my to Homry the First, ““Tpso in omnl vite stim 
patri tuo in mari worvivit, Nom illum in sui puppe vectum in Angliam 
conduit, quando contre Hamldum pugnaturvs in Angllam perrexit, Hujus- 
‘modi autem officlo usque nd mortem fhmulando et placuit, et ab oo multi 
onoratua exentis, Inter contribales moe magnifico floruit.” But if we 
accept the atory of Matilda's gift, the words “sua puppia” must be taken 
ns meaning merely that Williaa went in the ship that Stophen steered, not 


that the Mora wae Stophen"s property. 
* Will, Pict. 126. “Solutie nocta post quiotem navibus, vehens Duoem 
otro cetera 


agillime reliquit." 
* Tb, “(Navis] ardentius ad viotoriam proporantis tmperfo sum veloaf 
‘tatia parilitate quack obtemperans.” So Od. vill. 577; 
0b ip Sautywears euBeprartipes Taow, 
O08 wyBins’ Lert, wh + Qian vee Exovow, 
AK abrad Town voriwara ead ypivas dept. 


THE VOYAGE, 


401 


but it ia plain that one reason for the special fleetness of omar.zv. 


William's ship was that she was ono of the few voesels in 
the fleet which were unencumbered by horses The day 
‘wns now dawning, and the ducal ship was alone, At the 
Duke's bidding a sailor climbed the mast to see whether 
any of the other vessels were in sight. But the morning 
light as yet showed him nothing on all sides but the sea 
and the sky.* The Duke ordered a halt; the anchor was 
cast, and William, as if in his own house, ordered a 
plentiful breakfnst to be ecrved up. ‘Tho rich contents of 
one of the casks of wine were not forgotten ; and William in 
cheerful mood bade his men be of good heart and assured 
them that their comrades would soon overtake them ; God, 
in whose cause they were setting forth, would watch over 
the safety of all the host.? The sailor was again sent to 
the mast-head, and he could now say that four ships were 
in sight. Beforo long he saw euch a multitude that their 
masta looked like a forest upon the waves. The heart of 
William was lifted up in thankfulness.’ ‘The south wind 
still blew; in the morning light the lantern was no longer 
needed; the chequered colours of the sails of the Mora 
were now the beacon on which every eye in the whole 
flect was fixed. England was soon in sight, and by nine 
‘In the Tapestry, pil. 9, 10, harnos are seen In nll the whips except in the 


Duke's own and fn ono othor nour to ft. 
Will, Pict. 126. “‘Juswus ninno remex mali eb alto num que vontant 


conse specuilarl, protor palagua ot aira prompectal avo alfud nihil come 
prore indicat.” 
Tb. “Confeetim ancorh jncta, ne metus atque marror comitem turbam 
abundans 


tanta exclamat ut arborum voliferarsm uberrima densitaa nomoria prastet 
hnilitudinem.” 

“Th, 126, “Quam ex intime conde divinam glorificaverit pietatem cun+ 
ficiendum onivis retinquimas.” The beholder: of William's devotions ware 
dunltted into the Palace of Truth, 

* Will, Malms. iii, 238, “Onnlbus itaqae ad pnetorke puppis vormi- 

You, 1, pd 


: 


402 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


énup.xy, in the morning of Thursday the twenty-elghth of Sep- 
sii tember, the Norman claimant of her Crown had already 


September ; 
a * He landed at a spot so memorable in the earliest English 
history that, to one who muses there, the landing even of 
William himself seems but of secondary interest. William 
‘came, as it might seem, to pour a new Latin and Celtic ine 
fusion into Teutonic England. He brought his Romanized 
Northmen and the Welsh of the Lesser Britain to bear 
rule over Saxons, Angles, and Danos who had never fallen 
Decrip- away from their Teutonic heritage. He camo to begin 
Pictorial iis work on a spot where the Saxon of old had dealt one 
oe of the heaviest of all his blows against the Roman and 
tho place, the Briton. He came to subdue England on one of the 
spots which had seen most done to turn Britain inte 
England. A north-west course from Saint Valery had 
brought the invading fleet to a point in that eastern part 
of the South-Saxon coast which, tronding to the north-east, 
is cut off ina marked way by the promontory of Becohy 
Head from that long and nearly straight line of coast 
which reaches westward to Selsey Bill, At Beechy Head 
to the west, and again near Hastings to the east, the 
high ground comes down to the sea. Between these 
points lies a long flat shore, where the waves now break 
culasum velain oonvolantibus.” ‘The epithet would apply to the salle of all 
the ships as shown in the Tapestry; bat the saile of the Duke's abip, ata 
of thove of two ethory near im—porhaps thos of his two hrothent— 
have the colours arranged in a differont way from any of the others, 
+ Wid. Amb, 1395 
‘Dertia tellurt euperuminet horn diet, 
Quum mare postpanens littorn tits tenes.” 
On the date, see Appondix IT, 
+ ©Venit: ad Pevenem,” nays the Tapestry, pl. 9. So Willlam of Polthors 
(126) and Willian of Fusutéges (vii. 34). William of Malmesbury (iii, 298) 
sayw carvlenly, “Placido curm Hastingas appulerunt.” So Waco (81618), 
who sltogethur reverses the goography, making the army tand ot Hastings 
and go to Povanney afterwants. 


WILLIAM LANDS AT PRVENSRY. 403 


on a vast mass of shingle, which, at some pointe, stretches omar, xv. 
a Jong way inland, forming a wilderness of pebbles, elightly 
rolieved by small patches of gorse and thin herbage. Be- 
tween the coast and the hills—the hills which form a 
part of the great Andredes-weald—there lies a wide level, 
but here and there slight and low projections, feeble off 
shoote from the high ground, straggle down towards the 
coast. ‘One'such post, ‘conmansting; ‘slike the ven and the Peraisy 
inland country, had been chosen as the site of a Roman (eeu 
city, and Anderida, the dndredes-coaster of our forefathers, 
became, in the later days of Roman rule in Britain, one of 
the chief of the fortresses which guarded the Saxon Shore’ 
Tn those days, and in the days of William also, Anderida 
was a haven of the sea. The great stretch of shingle ix 
owing to the later siltings which have choked up so many 
harbours along this coast; in the fifth century and in the 
oleventh the sea still washed the foot of the slight eminence 
occupied by the city, and ships could ride at anchor beneath 
the Roman walls? Of those walls and of their massive Remains of 
towers large portions still remain ; but not a single human Se *o 
dwelling-place survives within their cireait. Tn the sonth~ 
eastern corner of the Roman city, the medieval eastle of 
Pevensey, a foundation of William's brother Robert,’ has 
risen and bas fallen into decay, And just without the 
ancient walls, the villages of Pevensey and West Ham, 
each with its Old-English name and its medisval church, 
seem to show by their position that the first Teutonic 


+ On the true meaning of thie formals seo vol. §. p. ex. 
2 The questiua as to the site of Anderida may be looked om ae decided by 


pene 
’ Bama 72nd We 
pda 


a 


404 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


omar. xv. settlers in Britain shrank, from whatever reason, from 
fixing their own dwellings on the Roman sites. Fow 

groups are more etriking in themselves than this as 
semblage of antiquities of various dates and kinds, Roman 

and medimval, ecclesiastical and military. But the trae 

charm of the spot comes from the memory that there was 

dealt one of the most awful of those awful blows which 

Taading ot mace our race dominant in this our island. ‘Second among 
Chichester the Toutonic settlements, first among the strictly Saxon 
= settlements, tho followors of Allo ond Ciesa had for four- 
teen years been fighting their way onwards from their 

first landing-place on British soil, ‘The foundations of the 
South-Saxon Kingdom had been laid at Cymenes-dra,* 

in the haven which in after days eame to be called after 

the city to which the younger conqueror gave his name* 

Since that day, the Saxons had been gradually spreading 
eastward towards the frontiers of their Jutish kinsfolk in 

Taking ot Kent, At last, as we read in our Chronicles, “Aiile and 
49%. Cisea beset Andredes-ceaster, and slow all that wore therein, 
nor was there a Briton left there any more.”? So it was 

that our fathers did their work; but so it was that Eng- 

land became England. The full of Anderida put the last. 
stroke to the ‘Teutonic conquest of south-eastern Britain. 

The long range of coast, once part of the Saxon Shore 

in the elder sense, now became far more trily a Saxon 

shore under the rule of our first Bretwalda.' The walle 

which were stormed by Alle and Cisea have, from that 


* Chron. 477. 

* Ciwanceastor or Chichester, the English name of the Roman Regnum, 
On the whole setiloment, soe Guest, Salisbury Proceedings, p. £4. 

* Chroun. 4pt. “Her Hille and Cima ymbenton Andredon ceauter, and 
ofslogon ealle Pa Purr fane eartedon ; us wear’ pwr forpon wn Trek to Lafe,"* 
‘This Is the paswgo which Gibbon (cap. excviti mote 142, vol. vi. p. 37a 
‘Milman), quoting it in the Latin vernion, calla “an exprotton more 
in ite simplicity, than all tho vague and tedious lamentations of the Brlifh 
Torerninh (Gildaa]” 

* Seo vol. bo pps 23) 437. 


EARLY HISTORY OF ANDERIDA, 405 


day to this, remained as the mighty monument of a fallen omar. xe. 
power, the sepulchre of the races which our fathers swept 
away. In the days of William, as now, those walls 
had already long ceased to surround the dwelling-places 
of men.’ The foreaken city could at most have served as 
an occasional place of shelter for the poople of tho two 
English scttlements which had arisen at cither end of it. 
Beneath those awful ruins, among the memorials of ancient 
English victory, the Norman Duke now landed. He came, 
as it might seem to a careless eye, to undo the work of 
Zille and Cissa, to subject the sons of the destroyers of 
the Briton and the Roman to men speaking the tongue 
of Rome, and in the veins of many of whom still flowed 
‘the blood of the British exiles of Armorica, In trath 
the errand on which he came was the exact opposite, Hoe 
came, a chief of Danes and Saxons who had fallen from 
their first love, who had cast away the laws and the speech 
of their forefathers, but who now came to the Teutonic 
island to be won back into the Teutonic fold, to be washed 
clean from the traces of their sojourn in Roman lands, 
and to win for themselves, among the brethren whom they 
were to mect as momentary enemies, a right to an equal 
share in the name, the laws, and the glories of Teutonic 
England. 


Pevensey then, the English name which had supplanted bee 

the ancient Anderida, was tho place of William’s landing. thr oust 
"The town ix mentioned among those ports on the southern at the time 
coast which Harold had taken special care a sepely was eee 
garritons.* But at the moment of William's landing the ~ 
2 Honry of Huntingdon, who gives (M. H. B. 7ro ©, D) a fuller account 
of the slogs, evidently takon from ballads, winds up his account thus; 
“Quin tot Ibi damna tolersverant oxtranel, ita urbetn destruxerunt quod 
numqnam posten romdificate ext; loows tantum, quasi nobilindme urbix; 
‘transountibue ostenditur deselatus.” 

* Onl, Vit, 500 A. “Horaldus , . . Hastingns et Penevesellam, aliow- 


| 


406 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


X¥. post was cither wholly undefended, or defended by a foree 
which found it hopeless to offer resistance, It will be 
remembered that the Housecarls had gone northward with 
the King, and that the irregular leview which kad guarded 
the coast only three weeks before were now 
man to his own home? Any force then which still held 
Pevensey, or any other point of the South-Saxom const, 
is likely to have been intended as a mere outpost to watch 
and to give the alarm, rather than to have been placed 
there with any hope of seriously withstanding the im- 
vaders, Harold had doubtless hoped that the winds which 
had delayed William so long would still work in the cause 
of England. He trusted that the enemy's passage would 
be delayed till he could himself retura to the southern 
Tacky |, coast at the head of the victors of Stamfordbridge. But 
William's the fortune of William bore him to the English shore 
"7s" at the very moment which suited his purpose. A little 
earlier or a little later, he would have met with a vigorous 
and, in all likelihood, a successful resistance, On that 
Saint Michael’s Eve he met with no resistance whatever. 
‘There were neither ships to hinder him from drawing near 
to the shore? nor soldiers to withstand him in the act 
etn of landing. ‘The crews of the whole Norman fleet dis 
Taluunce, embarked without a blow being struck against them But 
the array in which they disembarked seems plainly to 


quo portus tuaris Noustrin oppositor, .. « toto anno illo cum muiltis navibas 
«ot militias callide pervavernt.”” 

1 Bee above, p. 339» 

* Tlook with great suspicion on the statement of William of Poltors and 
Gay of Amiens about Harold sending a vast naval force te hinder William's 
Taniing. See Appmdix DD, At all eventa no English ships wero near ak 
‘the time, 

* Will, Plot, 126, (Libero naves egreditur, pugni nullh obstante!* 
Ord. Vit. geo B, “ Nemino rorletente littus marie gaudons arripuit," 30 
‘Guy of Auniens, 127; 

‘ Debita terra tif, pavids mdata colonts, 
Lata sina placido teque tuome eapit.” 





DETAILS OF THE LANDING, 407 


show that they had at least reckoned on meeting with omay. xv, 
armed resistance, The fleet was not allowed to be scat~ Details of 
tered; the ships all steered for the sume point an cast ge 
anchor as near together as might be in the one havem iia, 
of Pevensey.' The wide streteh of shore at this point 
would render such a conrse expecially easy, As soon as 


“ By the splendour of God,” be cried, “ I have taken seizin 
of my kingdom, the earth of England is in my two 
hands.”? It is added that a soldier, of kindred spirit with 
his leader, man forward, and plucking a handful of thatch 


# tds plain that tho whipe were brought to shore ne near togethor ax 
milght be. Wace (11619) distinetly asserts this; “Lune nof & Maltre 
nooterenit.” ‘There is a0 ground for the notion of Mr. Hayley, quoted by 
‘Sir Henry Filia (§. 316), “That William did not land Ma army at any ane 
particular epot, at Bulverhithe or Hastings, aa le supposed; but at all tho 
several proper places for lauding along the const fruin'Bexelel to Winchelaon,” 

* ‘This process is graphically shown in the Tapestry, pl, 10; “Eo axeunt 
caballi de navibus.” 

* Roma de Roa, ra71t 5 

“Quant It Dus primes fors Iss, Selgnors, par la resplendor Dé 

‘Sor sex dous patmues fors chat; La terre si nw dous maine seixio 
Bempres { oot lovg grant cei Sona chalonge alert maix guerpie ; 
Edivtrent tuit: mal sigue ext cd; Tote ext nowtire quant qu'll fa; 
‘Etil lor » om haut exié ; ‘Or vorral Ki bard! serra.” 
‘William of Malmesbury (ii, 238) eoome to mix up this saying of the Duly 
with the saying of the soldier quoted direotly afterwards ; “In egremu navi 
pede Iapous, eventar fn melius commntavit, acclamante siti precio milite, 
“‘Tenos," inquit, ‘Angliam, Comes, Rex fuvurus!" Sir ‘T, D, Hardy, in hin 
note, suspects, perhaps with reason, the whole story, om acoount of its Mke- 
tinss to the atary of Caner (Suet. Tuline, 59); * in egromu navis, 
‘verso ad meliae oming, “Teneo ts," inquit, ‘Afrios.’” 





a | 
408 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


ouar.xv. from a cottage, placed it in the Duke's band as seizin, not 
only of England, but of all that England held within it, 
“T accept it,” answered the Duke; “and may God be 
with us."* 

The whele army now landed in order. First came the 
archers, ready for fight, with bended Lows and quivers 
lung at their sides. They scoured the whole of the 
neighbouring shore, but they nowhere found an armed 
enemy to resist them.’ Next came the knights, all in 
their helmets and harness. They at once mounted their 
horses, and formed in the plain as if to call forth the 
hidden defenders of England to battle.’ Bat not a blow 
was struck; Pevensey was occupied as tho first-fruits of 
the invasion; a garrison was left to seeure William's first 
possession on English ground, and the words of one of our 
informants might almost imply that some part of the 
Roman ruins was once more turned, in the rough and 
hurried way which was all that the time allowed, to pur- 
poses of defence. One object of this fortification and 
garrison was to guard the ships, which had been drawn 
‘on shore and which were now to be left behind* For the 


ae 
if 


* Roman de Rou, 11735 ; 


“Slee, distil, avant vones, ‘Vostro est aains dote i pate, 
Ceaste aainine recever ; EU Dus reapont | Jo lotrel, 
‘De conte terre vow sain, E Dex { seit ensemle of mel," 

* Ib, 11636; 


“+14 rivage unt tail poreaci, 
‘Nal hoot armé n’i ont trové,"” 

* Tb, 11642; 

“'Bnscmble vindrent al gravier, 'Tult orent celnton Jos eapéen, 
‘Choseun armé sor son destrier, Et plain vindrout lances levies.” 

+ William of Poltlers (127) mys of the forts both ab Pevenmy and at 
‘Hastings, that they wero “que sib receptaculo, navibus propugnacule, 
fogont,” So Guy (141) 

« Littors custnlis, metuens atnittere naves, 
‘Momibus ot munis, castraque pons fbi.” 
This shows the falsehood of the story of William barning his ships, of which: 
the finet traces appoar in Waoe, £1733; 


THER ARMY MARCHES TO IHASTINGS. 


409 


stay of the Norman host at Povonsoy was not a long one, omar. xv. 


No great amount of provisions had beon brought with 
‘them, nor could the town of Pevenacy and its noighbour- 
hood supply food for so great a multitude.’ It was needful 
to move to some wealthier and more conveniont post, 
which would afford better head-quarters for the army, 
and which might serve as a central point for a systematic 


harrying of the country, Only one day therefore was Tho army 
spent at Pevensey ; on the next day, tho feast of the Avch- flaw. 


angel so deeply reverenced by Norman devotion, the army 
marched on eastward, probably along the line of a Roman 
road, and came to the town which William chose as his 
‘base of operations for this memorable campaign. That 
campaign ean be called by no name so fitting as the 
Campaign of Hastings; for Hastings was the head- 
quarters of William, the centre of the whole operations 
of the campnign, But in speaking of the great battle 
itself, the name of Hastings simply leads to geographical 
éonfusions. 1 speak therefore of the Campaign of Hastings, 


 Duuno fint & tos diro 3 crise, A terre traites & percios, 

Es 9 moriniers comander ‘Ke Ii coars ne revertineent 

Kol nds fusnnt despécien, Ne par Mi nés no s'enfotment.” 
‘William of Jusnfdgon (vil. 34) certainly makes tho most of the fort ab 
‘Poronsey; “Statin firmisdmo vallo castrum coniidit, probleque siflitibux 
‘cumulstt." ‘The notion that sume part of the Roman walla was made use 
of In mggeatod by the words of Guy (143); 

* Diruta qu fuerant dudwm eastella rofurmins 5 
‘Ponts custodes ut tucantur wn.” 

Tho preemt castle of Pevensey stands within the walls, and ix far mare 
shattered than they. It doubtloos reprosnts the esatle of Robert of 
‘Mortala spoken uf fa the Chronicle and Murence, 1088, and that doubtless 
grow out of the firet fort of William, 

+ Soe tho Tapestry, pl to, 'Pestinaverunt Hestingn ut ofbum rape: 
rentur.” ‘They are gulng as fhst as the mewengers went to Guy of Pouthiew 
(ro above, p. 225), but they are not bare-headed. 

Tt ix impossible to guess where ‘Thierry (i, 275) found that “A Pevenmoy, 
Meu de débarquemnent de Tarside, lor voldats Normands partagtrent entre 
eux lea malgons des vaincox” He rofire to Domesday, 26, whore there is 
not, and eould not well bo, anything of the kind. 


Ra. 


a 


410 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


cular. xv, es te etea eee 
Senlae.t 
Danie: The town apart of Hastings? is one whih hs ma 
more than once mentioned in the earlier stages of our 
iyo history.’ Its nome has been made memorable by the zeal 
and energy which its seamen showed in their pursuit of 
1049. the pirate-ships of Swegen after the murder of Beorn.t 
Liko Pevensey, it had been garrisoned by Harold And 
yet the town seems to have surrendered to William with- 
out striking a blow. Hastings, like most other English 
towns, had most likely no fortifications which could resist 
Norman arts of attack, and the prowess of the seamen, 
whose force would at any time have been weak 
the vast fleat of William, was utterly useless now that the 
invaders had nctually Innded. The town is placed on a 
part of the const where the hills come close down upon the 
sea, forming a striking contrast to the wide open flate 
which the Normans had just loft behind them at Pevensey. 
‘Two gorges between hills open immediately upon the 
water; the eastern opening is filled up by the elder, the 
western by the more modern, town of Hastings. ‘The 
hill which divides the two is crowned by the ruins of the 
castle which doubtless marks the sight of William's head~ 
ee The position was an important one; it com~ 
manded the great roads east and west, and also the north 
road Tending directly between London and the cast. 
William therefore choso Hastings as a permanent camp. 
* Seo Appendix NN. 
* The French Biograjher of Badward (4233) gives an amusing orfgtn foe: 
“Uno tur forme exenuvele, Hastivement kee fa forrbo, 
‘Ko i Duce Hastinges apelo, E por oo fu ad appelion”™ 
So M, Pari, Abbroviado Chromloomum, iil, 16 ; *Caatrum quod fortl« 
naaiter construxerst Hastingam sppalinvit.” 
* Boo vol. fp. 347+ * Beo vol, fi. p. 165. 
Mendes ec 
* Chron, Wig. “Hi... wworhton cantel ont Hevstingnport.” 


WILLIAM'S CAMP AT HASTINGS, 4 


After consultation with ies eas Bio Oana 
Count Robert, he gave orders for the building of one of Wilism 

those wooden fortress which sere ap oonstantly run up said 
for suddoa emergencies in Norman warfare, and whiob the hill 
often proved the forerunners of more lasting fortresses of 

stone. The time at William’s command allowed only of 

the digging of a trench, the casting up of a mound, and 

the fortification of its summit with a castle of wood." But 

ip was doubtless thia temporary work which formed the 

germ of the stately castle which in after days crowned 

the height of Hastings, and within whose walls arose a 
church and college, whose chief stall, less than a hundred 

years after this time, formed one of the countless pro- 
ferments of the worldly Archdeacon who was #0 s00n 

to be transformed into the champion and martyr of the 
Church? 


It is not clear whether it was at Pevensey or at Hastings Si fal 
that the Duke reviewed his troops, and found, so we are on the 
told in one account; that two only of his ships had been *** 


* William of Pultiers mentions the foritientions a+ Pwrensey and ot 
Hastings in the sano breath. See above, p. 408. William of Jumfdges, 
aving mentioned that of Pewousey, goer on (vii. 34) to any, 'Festinus 
Hastingas venit, ibique cite opere aliud firmavit.” (14 inusb be this passage, 
or some other to the mine fect, that suggestsd the yrotewjue bit of «ty: 
mology which I have just quoted,) In tha Tapestry (pl. 11) wo abo the 
‘Dake tu consultation with his brothers; then follows, «Tnte jussit ut fore 
yetur costellum at Hustingnceustra." ‘The pickaxo and epule aro being 
Jargely uae, the "aggor” Pinot ma ionang merarttect net 
‘Be Wace (11656); 

“Par cunsell fren! exgardor Li chevilos tutes dildos 

Boen liow & fort chantel garter. -—-Orent on grams bars portées; 
‘Done ant des nie malrrien got, Aina ke fl fust bien avon, 
Ala terry Vont trains, Heo ont wt chastelet forraé.”” 
‘Trostul porcié i tut dolé ; 
Wace's ecafusion of geographical ontor must not be forgotten, but no doubt 
the description of one fort would do equally well for the other, 
* Will, Fil. Sueph. 193. 


a 


412 THE CAMPAIGN OP HASTINGS, 


oar. xv. lost on the passage But one rather romarkable life had 
Fate of che been lost with them. A clerk, who pretended to the 
power of soothsaying, had assured the Duke, not only 
that his voyage would be prosperous, but that he should 
win England without a blow. Harold would of his own 
accord again bow to him and become his man. Half 
the prophecy was already fulfilled; it remained to see what 
would be the fate of the other half. But the prophet 
himself came not to the muster, He bad ombarkod in 
one of the missing ships and was returned as drowned= 
“A poor diviner must he haye been,” said William, “who 
could not divine the way and time of his own death, 
Foolish would he be who should put faith in the words 
Ramee of such a soothsayer as this.”* One hardly knows whether 
tbeineet these dark allusions to lost ships and lost men are to be 
Romney? faiceri in) eociexion| wisi the| fact ‘chai \ablbcnta ea 
the campaign before the great battle, cortain stragglers 
from the Norman flect or army had made their way 
eastward as far as Romney, and bad there fallen in a 
skirmish with the townsmen.' The words of our accounts 
leave it uncertain whether a portion of the fleet lost its 
way on the paskage, or whether a detachment of the army 
wandered thither from Hastings. In any case, this and 


+ Roman de Rou, 116025 
“De la flote ki fa sf grant Nout ke dai nis perfllion, 
¥ do la gent dont i out tant Ne aai wel furent trop changiea.” 
9 Th. 11697; 
Bin mar artoit, go diet, nlidx 
‘Et en un nef porillids.” 
* Wace, 11697. William doos not—as an invader, ho could: not—rian to 
the full greatnoss of the mylng of Hektor, 
“Will, Plot. 139. “‘Illuc errore appulsos fora gens adorta previio, eum 
utriugue partis maximo detrimento, fuderat."” Benolt, 376825 


“Qu'aried § out dom gent, ‘Male Ii Englols pesmo « felon 
‘Te no wal par quel schalson ; ‘Lo Ii octatrent par poochié,” 
All we can soo ix that the encounter, however caused, happened before the 
great battle. 


THE COUNTRY SYSTEMATICALLY RAVAGED. 413, 


some other signs which we have already seen? all tend omar.xv. 
to show that the fight on Senlac was not absolutely the 

first time that Normans and Englishmen met with arms in 

their hands during this memorable year, 


William, it will be remembered, while encamped in his witiam 
own territory and in that of his vaseal of Ponthiea, had Zi,’ 
carefully maintained his troops at his own cost, and had athe 
least done his best to hinder all plunder of the surrounding country. 
country. But England, though a realm which William 
claimed as his own by inheritance, was not to be dealt with 
0 tenderly.* A poet in the Norman interest tells us that 
whatever damage the English suffered was only the fitting 
punishment for their stubbornness in not at once admitting 
the manifest rights of their lawful King.? jas torages et 
may be, there can be little doubt that William's ravages °. (cc. 
were not only done systematically, but were done with a fixed aap 
and politie purpose, It was William's object to fight a tw fight. 
battle az soon as might be. But it was not his object to 
advance for this purpose far into the country, to seck for 
Harold wherever he might be found. So to do would have 
been to cut himself off from his own powerful base of 
operations and from his only hope of retreat in case of 
defeat. Tt was William's object to bring Harold dewn to 
tho sen-const, to tempt him to an attack on the Norman 
camp, or to a battle on the level ground. In either of 
thexe cases the Norman tactics would have o distinct 
advantage over the English. It is impossible to doubt 


* See Appendix DD. 

* On theeo kystematio ravages, nee Appendic GG. 

+ Wid, Amb, 1475 

“Neo ubrum, Regem quia te plebs stulta negubat, 
Ergo perit juste, vadit ot sd nibilmn." 

Wo find the mame sentiment in William of Poitiers’ account of the battle 
(144); “Stravit advunan: gente, que siht, Regi xuo, rvbellann cormmeruit 
mortem,” 


FI 


ald THE CAMPAIGN OF BASTINGS, 


cuar.xv, that the systematic harrying of the whole country round 
Hastings was done with the deliberate purpose of pro- 
voking the English King, and of bringing him in all 
haste to defend his subjects. The work was done with a 
completeness which shows that it was something more 
than the mere passing damage wrought by an army in 
need of food. The traces of the ravages done at this timo 
are recorded in the great Survey twenty years later, The 
Tapestry not only vividly sets before us the way in which 
provisions of all sorte were brought in for the use of the 
camp ;' it also represents an incident which at once goes 
to the heart. A house is set on fire; the inmates, a 
woman and a child, are coming forth from their burning 
dwelling.* This is doubtless onc instance among thousands: 
of the eruel destruction which was fast spread over the 
country, as far as William's plunderers could reach. Men 
fled everywhere with such of their goods and cattle as they 
could save, and sought for shelter in the churches and 
eburehyards,” It would doubtless be the policy of the 
pious Duke to keep his followers back, as fir as might be, 
from all damage towards those who thus put thomsclyes 
under the direct protection of religion. Elsewhere all was 
havock, It was to save his people from the horrors of 
war in their most barbarous form that; King Harold 
jeoparded his life and Kingdom. 
Result At the moment of William’s landing, and even at the 
Northen moment of his occupation of Hastings, he must have been 
SMEAM quite uncertain as to the fortunes of his rival in the North. 
1 Seo tho graphic piotare in pl. 10, whero wo find our friend Wadand, 
Soe Appendix A. 
Tapestry, pl. 11, “Hie domus inoendivur,” 0 Guy of Amlens, 1525 
+ -Vulosno flazzimis depopnlante damon.” 
* Roman de Row, 1¢7$¢) 
Done vélmdex Englelz fotx, Ax comotiores tot atraient, 
Bestos chaofer, mesons guerpir; — Ket enove li forment:«'wamalant.” 
* Will Pict. 131. “Acgolerabat enim co magis Rex furibundus, quod. 
propingwa castris Normannorusn vewtari wadieral.” 


fy: 





MESSAGE OF ROBEAT THE STALLER. 415 


‘Tt was perfectly possible that he might never have to con= car, xv. 
tend with Harold of England at all. ‘The result; of the ot the | 
Northumbrian campaign could hardly have boen known in Wiaten's 
‘Suaeox two days after the fight of Stamfordbridgo, and it ding. 
was one of the possible chances of war that William 
might have to fight for the Crown of England against the 
victorious host of Tostig and Harold Hardrada. But the 
‘two groat rivals were not long kept in ignorance of each 
other's movements and purposes. The news was brought kobert 
to William by a mosmge from an English landowner of Wyn" of 
Norman bieth, in whom itis eaey to rooggige tho Staller tase 
Robert the son of Wymare, him who had etood at the Hit pox 
bods head of tho dying Eadward2 We know not whether Std 
ho had kept his stallership, or any other office, under 10" 
Harold. But it is plain that he had become the man of 
the new King, for be was living in England under tho 
King’s peace and in full possession of his ands.’ There 
is nothing in his present conduct which sets him before us 
a8 a traitor to hia new allegiance, It is scarcely ground 
so apeal ea ngs atthe ae poe crt 
been with Harold at Stamfordbridge.’ His conduct in fact 
seers to have been that which was really right and honour 
+ See abore, p. 9. 
. ae of Poitiers oon! introducer him nx Diver quidam finiam 

uatiouc Normannus, Rotbertus filbus Wimanwe wobilie 
lard ‘Without this description one would not have taken Wymaro 
for 4 fomald named, but wo find 2" Wymare rolicta Johannis Francecho: 
vvallee” én the Glowocuter History, L 364. Waoo (11849) dos not know 
‘Robert's name ; 


“Bn Ia terre aveit un tarun, ‘Xi mult avelt H Dus amé, 
Mais jo ne sai dire wa non, E ve fave do U privé.” 
80 Benolt, 370505 


"Un produem riche ¢ nmame Mais en exle terre manelt, 
Qui de Normendie estolt nex, Oa richernont se cuntenit." 
‘There is nothing in the caslier narrative to imply that Robort had held any 
with William. 
1 cannot find that Robert held any lands in Sumo. Soe Ellis, if, 206, 
* Yet, if wo place tho menage somewhat late ia William's etay at Fine 
tings, the presence of Robert at Stamfordbridge in just pomible. 





‘oHAY. x¥. 


SELF 
ial 


ea 


THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


able under the circumstances in which he stood. He had 
to reconcile his good will and his duty towards his adopted 
country with his earlier good will and earlier duty towards: 
his natural sovereign. Hoe sent a mossenger to Hastings? 
with a message meant to persuade the Dake, in the 
interest of all parties, to give up his enterprise, and to go 
quietly back to his own land, He, Robert, counselled 
him os o friend and kinsman;® he would be deeply sorry 
if any harm befell him or his army, and, if he stayed in 
England, he and his army would meet with certain destruc- 
tion, Tt was hopeless for William to think of steiving 
against the forces of England. King Harold had just 
defented the Norwegian invader with a slaughter of twenty 
thousand men ;* Tostig and Harold Hardrada were slain; 
the King of the English was coming southwards with a 
countless host, a host, men said, of a hundred thousand 
Against the English King und the English army, flushed 
with their victory over the greatest warrior in the whole 
world,’ it would be madness to risk a battle. Neither in 
number nor in strength were the Normans fit to do battle 
against King Harold and the English. Against them, in 
ehort, William's army would count for no more than so 


1 T suppose he is represented in the Tapestry, pl. 1; “ Hie nuntiatum 
‘est Willelino do Harold," 

* Will, Pict, x28, Hastingas Duel, domino suo et ° 
nontiom destinarit.” The kinsfolk both of William and of Eadwant are 
ndless. 


* Benolt, 37064 5 

“Coment Heraut sort combatus EB eeun quill aunena ol aed, 

Qoi cons de Norwege out vencux Oi plus aveit de vint million.” 

Et ocie yon frore o le rel, 
‘William of Poitiors (u. 1.) only mys “{ngentes corum exercitus dlevit." 

* Benolt, 37070; 

0d plus a de omt mile armor.” 

‘Willian again says only,  Aninatus eo socom fotinus redit in te, mame 
rossstinam popula ducens ac tobustinedroum,” 

* Will, Pict. us,“ Proilintux oum fratro proprio Rex Horaldus et eum 
Roge Norfooram, quo fortiorem sub omlo nullum vivere opluto fill.” 





ROBERT'S ADVICE TO WILAAM. 


417 


many barking curs! ‘The Duke was a prudent man, and omar xv. 


had hitherto always acted prodently.* Leb him act pra- 
dently now; Jet him go home; let him at all events keep 
within his entrenchments and not risk a battle’ If he 
did go forth to fight, his rashness would certainly bring 
about his utter overthrow. 

Such counsel as this, addressed to William the Con- 
queror, speaks much more highly for the good intentions 
of Robert than for his knowledge of mankind, above all 
for his knowledge of the man with whom he was dealing.+ 
William bad not crossed the sea for nothing; he was not 
like the King in the Gospel, wha had to stop on his march 
to think whether he were able with his ten thousand 
‘to moot him who came against him with twenty thousand.? 


‘Tt was perhaps not without a reference to that parable that William's 
William answered that, had he only ten thousand men, Hewitt 
such as those of whom he had sixty thousand, he would (re 


not draw back; he would not cross the sea again without 
avenging himself of his enemy. He would not even keep 
himsolf within his entrenchments; whatever were the 
numbers on either side, he would go forth and meet 
Harold face to face.* He deigned to thank Robert for 


1 Will, Piot. 128.“ Adyersus quer non amplins toos quam totidem 
ospectabllos canes wstimo valere." See above, p. 335, fur the reputation 
‘ofthe English Housscaria in Norway. 

Th Prudons vie compbiatis, domi militinque cuncla hwctonas pru- 
denter egisti." The toue seem patronizing, bub it porkaps expremer the 
general opinion of William up to Ohis time. Ho had cartalnly been mainly 
Femarkable for amazing prudence und amuxing good luck, rather than for 
the winning of great battles 

* Th. “Suadeo, inter munitlones mano, thant ad presens confligers nol.” 

* ‘There arw fow casos in which we can better apply the familiar words of 
Fas 105), manopiowrres duiw rb dneiplnunoy eb Cydoiuer rd 


4 St Luke xy. ar. 

* WAL Pict. 128 Non mc tutarer valli aut meentum latebris, sed 
coniligeren quamprimun cum Herulde." He the goes on Wo make Qe 
‘statement about his nutnibers which T hare quoted in p. 339. 

You. 1. Be 


a 


418 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, 


omar. xv, the kindly interest which he took in his welfare, bab 
he hinted that the words in which he had contrasted 


favourite, He had come into England to win his Crown, 
and his Crown he would win at all hazards, 


$3. Me Southern Marck of Harotit. 
October 1-13, 1066. 


Thenows —T have already told how the nows of William’s landing 
was brought to King Harold at the feast of victory at 
Roky) York? ‘That feast must have been saddened by the 
thought of the many brave men who bad fallen at a 
moment when England needed the help of all her sons, 
by the thought that England had been saved only by 
the death of a brother of her King, by the thought that, 
while King and people were rejoicing at the victory which 
had just been gained over one enemy, another enemy, 
certainly not Joes terrible, waa daily threatening the 
defencelees southern const. And in the very moment of 
triumph the news came that the blow had actually fallen, 
Men now heard that, while Harold was letting the rem- 
nants of the Norwegian army depart in peace, the Duke 
of the Normans had actually landed, that he was ravaging: 
English ground far and wide, that a portion of English 
ground was already entrenched and palisaded, and ehanged 
into a Norman fortross,* The Norman poet gives us a 


* Will, Plot 428, (Pro mandatoy inquit, ‘quo mihi domains tou valk 
coo cvutum, quam quam sine comtumnel’d eusdere deouerit, gratios Ips et hues 
refer,”" 


* Seo above, p. 377: 
* Roman de Row, 118315 
“Un chnatel 4 amt ferme 
Da bretewchos b dle ford,” 


THE NEWS BROUGHT TO YORK, 419° 


graphic description of the way in which the news was car. xv. 
broaght to the English King. A Thegn of the country the news 
hoard the cries of grief and dismay with which the Mwsht'y 
South-Saxon churls beheld the appronch of the Norman te 1, 
floct.t He went forth; he hid himself in a convenient saw the 
lurking-place, and beheld in safety the landing of the “*"* 
whole Norman army.* He sw fimt the archers and 
then the knights disembark. He saw the shields and 
armour brought out of the ships; he saw the carpenters 
come out with their axes; he saw the fbsse dug, and 
‘the palisade thrown up.2 The sight was enough; the He hastens 
heart of the English Thegn was troubled; he took his” Y" 


* Roman do Row, 11755 5 

™ Un chevalice de la cuntese Ke paleant } vilain firent, 

‘Of ls noise & la criée Ki la grant flote arriver virent." 
+ 11761; 


“(En dreit un tertro warostut, ‘Thee sfertul, ni exyanta, 

‘Ke alquanz d'dls no Tapargat;  Coment la grant flote ariva." 
Wacels nccount ix of cours confused by hiv primary blunder of rovoring 
he eographical order, by waking William land at Hastings, and thence gu 
to Porenmy (4 above, 402). His Theyn ix thorefire made to not out form 
‘Hastings, and the scone seers to bo laid at Hastings, For Wace makes 
the Thogn hido himedf behind @ Lill (" teriro"), which it would be «ney 
todo at Hastings, but hand at Pevensey, ax thu mound of the later castle, 
‘then close to the landing-place, would hardly saree tho parposo, ‘The 
expression {a clearly borrowed from Guy of Amlous’ decsription of ls 
mewenger from Hastings (149): 

“Es Anglia unus, lasitana sub rupe marind." 
‘But a maa who saw the actual Landing, and at once startod for York, must 
have startod from Pevensey, and the fart which he saw thrown up must 
hare been the fort at Pevensey, not the fort at Hastings, No doubt » 


wonld soon follow the mosongur from Ferensoy, and Wace, im his goo- 
graphical confusion, rolled the two into one, 

‘The words of Florence alwo would imply that news was brought straight 
from Pevenmy ; Nuntiatum et of Willslnwn Comitem gentis Nor 


manniaw .,.. advaniaw ... . ot in looo qui Pofmows dicitur swam 
colaeum aclpullnee,” 
# Roman de Kou, 11770 ; 

“Vit If chastel fore ® former ; 


‘Vit Ii fous envirun faire.” 
re 


ar 


420 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, 


‘caar.x¥. weapons, his sword and his javelin ;' he mounted his horse, 
and rode straight to bear the news to his lord King 
Harold. He hastened on with all speed night and day; 
he rested late and rose early,* till he found the victor of 
Stamfordbridge in the banquetting-ball at York, Here 
he at once told his errand. ‘The countless host from all 
Gaul, the host of horsemen and archers and slingers who 
bad gathered under the banner of Duke William,* bad 
landed at Pevensey, ‘They had already built a fort and. 
had fenced it with a palisade* Presently another mes= 
senger, a chorl, came from Hastings iteelf.* He had 
yet more news to tell of the cruel harrying of the 
South-Saxon land. The host of Normans, Frenchmen, 
and Bretons, a host that no man could namber, a host 
like the stars of heaven or the fishes of the sea, was 
ravaging far and wide." Men were slain; their widows, 
+ Roman de Rou, 1774; “Serple ceint & prist sa Lamon” Wace 
porhape arms his English Thoyn a Wtde too much tn continental 
fashion. Kor Wace’ “lance,” I have therofore subatituted the English 
javelin, But for such a ride the #word would be a more convenient weapon 
than the axe, Sword and Javelin were the equipment of Harold when 
riding round his eamp. See the Tspestry, pl 13. 


* Eb. 0777; 
“ Astant se mist cll el chemin, Tant w erré ke noit ke jor 
‘Tart se colchs, love matin; Por Harwut quarre son Seignar.”” 


* Flor. Wig. 1066, “Cun innumork multitudine equitwin, fundibaliorur, 
+ utpote qui de tot Galli wibi fortes 





* Soe above, p. 408, 

"I got my second mesenger from Gay of Amiens (149-167). He is 
““rustious;" the other “chevalier.” As the Then saw and describes 
‘the setual landing, the churl saw and doserthes the lator ravaging. Wid. 
Amib, 150 ; 


© Comit ut offums innumorns actos, 
Ex quod agri fulgons pleut radiantibus armais, 
‘Valeano flammis dupopulante domos, 
Perfidim gentam forro bacchante pork», 
Quasque dabent lacrinas ewde patrum pues." 
“Wid. Amb. 159 5 
+ Dox Normannorum cum Gallis atque Britannie 
Tnyaait torram, vartat ot igue cromat, 


THE SECOND MESSAGE. 421 


their sons, their daughters, their flocks and their herds, cmp, xv. 
were becoming the prey of the stranger Each mes+ 

sage enforced the same trath; the King most march 

at once to the defence of his southern coasts, or the 
whole land would be wrested from him, Harold is re- Answer of 
ported by tho Norman poct to havo said that it would 2" 
have been Letter to have given Tostig all that he asked,* 

#0 that he might have been himself in the south to hinder 

the landing of the French invaders. Such a speech cannot 

have been uttered by Harold, as it misconceives all the 
relations between him and his brother. The situation is 
better conceived when the King is made to say that, bad 

he been on the South-Saxon shore, the strangers would 
never have made good their landing. Lither they would 

have been driven back into the sea, or they would have 
eseaped its dangers only to perish on English ground. 
“But,” he added, “the mischance was the will of the 

King of Heaven, and T could not be everywhere at the 

same moment." 

And so of a truth it was. The event of this great 


‘Milita ot quoerfs, tibi dicere nemo valebit : 
‘Quod mare fort pisces, tot afbl aunt equites ; 
‘Et velutt stellas coli numnerare nequires, 
‘Bjus alo actos nec numerare valea,” 
“French,” “Franci" in the Tapestry, in the only nama which takes in the 
whole of William's army an thun described, 
7? Wid. Amb, 165 5 
Captives dnoit pueros captasyae puellax, 
Tnwuper ot viduae ot simul ome pow,” 
* Roman de Rou, 11836 
“ Mielx mo vontst avetr pordu 
‘Qannt ko Tosti out demandé." 
2 Th. 11838; 
+ Re jo n'uase 0 port exté, Te nient del novtre ne préliment 5 
‘Qunnt Willame vint ol rivage; — Jh de morir gurant n'éument, 
Bion defimsisse I passage. Se la mer tote ne béusment ; 
‘Tant en félsee en mer plunyler, Maz inal plout el Ref celeste, 
E tant en fiisso néier, Jo ne poiz mio par tut entre,” 
Jia le torre ne voniment, 


422 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


omar.xy, campaign, the overthrow of Harold and of England, 
Taek ot turned wholly, setting aside the more accidents of battle, 
‘tween tho on the inability of Harold himself to contend against two 
frit invasions, or to be at the two ends of his kingdom at the 
same time. Of the two invasions, the Norwegian and the 
‘Norman, each rendered the other possible. Or even had 
the south wind blown sooner at the mouth of the Dive, 
the southern coast of England would have been found 
guarded against any attack, and Harold would most likely 
have gone to meet his namesake of Norway flushed with 
victory over William and his host. As it was, the fate of 
England, as ever in that age, rested on one man, and that 
one man could not be at once in Sussex and in North 
humberland. Harold, too late to hinder the landing of 
the Normans, had now before him the fur harder task of 
dislodging thom whon they wore already in the land. It 
wae a bard lot to have to hasten at once on euch an 
errand, after scarcely a moment's rest from the toils and 
the glories of Stamfordbridge. One terrible campaign was 
hardly over, when another yet more terrible had to be 
begun, But the heart of Harold failed him not, and the 
heart of England beat in unison with the heart of her 
King. Ax soon as the news came, King Harold held a 
Council of the leaders of Stamfordbridge,* or perhaps an 
armed Gem6t, such as we have already heard of more than 
once.* He told them of the landing of the enemy; he set 
before them the horrors which would come upon the land 
if the invader succeeded in his enterprise." A lond shout 
of assent rose from the whole Assembly, Every man 


it 


| Wid. Amb. 169. ‘Adyocal ipso duces, cumitoy, tormeque potonten’” 
* See rol. Hi. pp. 103. 139° 
* Wii, Amb. 185. 
* Quantus arit Inotus, quantue dolor ot pudar ingens, 
Regni quanta lure, quam tmebrosa dies, 
‘81 quod querit habet, wi rogul voxptra tenshit ? 
Hoo omnes fiiginnt vivere qui cupinnt.’" 


HAROLD'S SOUTHERN MARCH. 


423 


pledged his faith rather to die in arms than to acknowledge omsr. xv. 


any King but Harold’ The King thanked hie loyal 
followers, and at once ordered an immediate march to the 
south, an immediate muster of the forces of his kingdom. 
London again was the trysting-place.* With speed and 
‘energy equal to that which had carried him to his northern 
eapital, he now set out on the return march. He himself 
pressed on at once, at the head of such of his Honsccarle 
and others of hie immediate following as had survived the 
fight of Stamfordbridge. Eadwine and Morkere wore 
bidden to follow with the whole force of their Earldoms, 


Meanwhile the command of the North was entrusted to the Morleawe- 


Sheriff Metleswogen.® We shall hear of him again among 5%? 


‘ooin- 
of 


the patriots of a time a fow years later, and we cannot doubt‘ Neth. 


that this great command was pot into his hands because 
he was known to be one more worthy of the trast than 


the King’s own brothers-in-law, And go it proved. Even Eailwine 
the great salvation of Stamfordbridge, the deliverance of Meher 
Northumberland from the very jaws of her enemy, could keep hack 


not bind the rons of Zar to thankfulness or to good war. 
faith towards the West-Saxon King. In their eyes, no 
doubt, the landing of William only offered another chance 
of bringing about their darling scheme of a divided 


“Wid, Amb. 1915 
+ Naacitur extomplo clamor qui perouilit avtrn, 
Re vox communis ommibun rma fit ; 
“Dell mogis cupimns quam rub juga colle reponi 
Alterine regis, vel magis fnde mor.””* 
# Roman de Ron, 11879 ; 
“‘Elersat vint § Lundres pulgnant, E mult spareiliicment, 
De totes parz Engleis mandant, El terme i'll lor out mami, 
Ko tuit viengent delivrement Sainz ésoigne forz denferté."” 
? Gaimar, 5255 (M. H. B. $27); 
“Moarierwain done i bows 5 
‘Pur omt mander en euth lad,” 
‘See Elli, i. 18g, Merleewegen held lands in various parts feom Comvall 
to Yorkshire ; it was of Lincolushire that he was Sheriff. See Duumesdoy, 
376. 


HI 


Charge of 


— 


THE CAMPAIGN OP HASTINGS, 


xy. Kingdom. William had a quarrel with Harold; he had 
none with Eadwine or Morkere. They had not forsworn 
‘themselves to their lord or done despite to any holy relies, 
‘The invader might woll be content with the immediate 
territories of his enemy and his house, William might 
rule over Wessex and East-Anglia, and might leave Mercia 
and Northumberland to the house of Leolric. It was 
most likely with some such designs as those that the 
Northern Earls held themselves and their forces back 
from the struggle. But, whatever were their motives, the 
fot that they did hold themsolves back is cartain.' ‘The 
amain forces of Northumberland and north-western Mercia 
came not to King Harold’s muster.* 

But eleewhere another spirit reigned.’ Measerliegeae 
what was at stake, They went forth, as loyal subjects, 
as true men to their lord, to fight for the King whom 
they had chosen. But they went forth also on a higher 
errand still, to rave the land of their birth from the 
grasp of the invader, an invader of wholly alien speech 
and feeling, an invader who could never be as Cant or 
even as Harold of Norway. The presence of the French- 
men in the land awoke a spirit in every English heart 
which has never died out to this day. We hear indeed 
vague stories how Harold lost favour with the, victors of 
Stamfordbridge by refusing to share among them the rich 
plunder of the Norwegian host,* We hear how he left 
the plunder untouched under the care of Archbishop 

‘FL Wig. 1066, ““Couites Ealwiaus ot Morkarus, gui se cum wie oer 
towing subtrawere.” Thesn aro wards which no ingenuity can gee over, 

+ We shall prosently como to the lint of abire whence mom did oor, 

* The general seal of Englishmen ty allowed even by thelr enomles. Will, 
Pick 132; “Stadium pars Heraldo, cunotd putrime prestabant, quam eantns 
extrancos, fametn non juste, defensare wolebant.” 

* Will, Molms, ti, 228, “Horoldus, tehumphall eventu superbus nullis: 
Peri pense cxenltSone digas oat 3 compete 
poterat dilaps, Kegom ad bellum Mastingenso pruficiecentern dextituers.” 
Soagain, ti. 239. 


<2 =| 


THE NORTHERN EARLS HOLD BACK, 


Ealdred,? instead of seattering it with a bounteous hand cuae, xv. 


among the men whose toils and whose blood had won it. 
‘These stories rest on but poor authority; still they may 
‘have some groundwork of truth. The time was not a 
time for waste of treasure ; the armamonte of the year must 
have been costly beyond measure; Harold needed wealth 
to oppose to the wealth of William, and, considering 
the doubtful faith of the Northern Earls, he could not 
afford to throw away the sinews of civil war, A pradent 
economy on the part of Harold may have ealled forth a 
certain measnre of discontent; but it is cortain that such 
discontent had no serious effect on the campaign. The 
discontented in such a case must have been mainly the 
King’s own Housecarls, and those who bring this charge 
against Harold tell us also that it was the King’s own 
Honsecarls who formed the strength of the host that 
fonght at Senlae.* Tt is far more certain that, as King 
Harold set forth on his southern march, fresh from the 
triumph of Stamfordbridge and with the fate of England 
resting once more upon him, the men of the greater part 
of England flocked eagerly to the standard of their 


glorious King, They gathered round him from all tho ‘The shires 
shires through which the Dragon and the Fighting Man "ism 
passed once more on their southern journey. They gathered /em™ 
round him from all the shires under his own immediate Ang 
role, and under the rule of his fuithful brothers.’ North- Mem 


* Galnnr, 5251 (M. Hf. 1. 827); 
“Li reis Harald, quant it of, Del grant aveir © del hemeis 
Téreeque Aldret » dono natal Kil out conquts sur luo Norreis.” 


* Will, Malina U. 238, «Prater xtippendiation ot maroonatios milites, 
paucos admodurn ex provincialibus habuit.” Seo Appendix LL. 

* The list of shines in Wace (12848) might com at fimt eight to be 
simply names eet down st random; but, on m careful exwmination, tt 
has dep significance, ‘The lint runs thus; Lowlom, Kent, Hertford, 
Ewes, Surrey, Sussex, Salut Eadinund’s and Suffolk, Norwich and Nor- 
folk, Canterbury and Stamford, Bedfunt (mentioned twies), Huntingdon, 
Northampton, York, Buckingham, Nottinghsan, Lindesey and Linooln, 


a 


426 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, 


cuar.x¥, western Mercia stood aloof under Eadwine. Northumber= 
Br Nenh land, under the rule of Morkere, sent none but such as 
west kept joined the King’s own standard on his march. Not so 
HE Ra the ands whic wer ell under the: Howe of Shean 
dy ‘of Whether the young Waltheof came himself we know not; 
dom of bat there is no doubt that the men of Northampton and 
Waltheot Huntingdon came loyally to King Harold's mustor, And 
from all the cast and south, from the lands which had 

passed from the rule of Godwine to the rule of Harold, 

from the lands where Gyrth still kept up the memory of 
Harold's earlier government, from all the lands between 

the Tamar and the German Ocean, men came to fight 

‘Themen of for Harold and for England. And, foremost and honoured 
Exist" among all, ranking, it would evem, every man among the 
King's personal following, came the men of Kent, whose 

right it was to deal the first blow in the battle, and the 

men of the great city itself, whose high privilege it was 

to guard the King himself and his standard? Ab the 


Salibury, Dorset, Bath and Somersot, Gloucester, Worcester, Winchester 


marched. ‘This accounts for what at firat meme a contradiction, namely 
haber find Yoh on he Ud aad yt od cherpante G90z7) OVEN 
MW Mumtire n't vins gaires.” Nodoubt rome volunteers followet the King from 
‘York, but the main forse of Northumberland was kept hack by Marken, , 
Tt hoo been suggested thot for Canterbury abould be road Cambridge, 
‘The two names are sometimes confounded, an Cambrkige goes more 
naterally with Staroford, Cambridge was atilt Grentebeldge tn the days 
of William of Malmesbury (Gost. Pont. 325), but we get the form 
‘Cambridge in Roger of Elowden, fi. 47, Stubbs, 
* Homan de Ron, 12957; 
“Kar go dient ke ell do Kent Ci. do Tuncros, par dreite fel, 
Doivent férir primicrement; __Detvent garder Il pore Ii Rel, 
TT ko Ii Reis augo en extor, ‘Tut entar i delvent ester, 
Li primer colp doit etre lor. Leatandart deivent gurdor."* 
Im tho next centnry wo find in a Senitish army the English of Lothian, 
dakining the like privilege with the men of Kont, Hen, Hunt, 222 B, 


‘THE ENGLISH MUSTER. 427 


‘bead of the men of London stood the Sheriff of the Middle- emar. xv. 

Saxons, the Staller Ansgar,' the son of Aitholstan, the son ADS” 4. 

of Tofig, none the less loyal to his King because the the ton- 

minster of the Holy Rood had risen on soil which had 

onee been the dwelling-place of his fathers? Of his 

follow-Staller Eadnoth we hear nothing; Bondig would 

almost seem to have tarried in the North, or, from what- 

ever cause or accident, not to have appeared at the muster.* 

We see thon that England, as a whole, failed not of her Pow numer 

duty ; but few indeed, compared with the long roll-call of tonnes” 

the invaders, are the men whom we know by name as"! 

baving joined in the great march and fought in the great 

battle. Still there aro a fow names which havo come 

down to us, names to be cherished wherever the tongue 

of England is epcken, names which should sound like the 

call of the trumpet in the ears of every man of English 

birth. In the dry entries of the Norman Survey a few Enisles in 

records still live of the men who fought and died for >™* 
Two nameless freemen of Hampshire, owners 

of a small allodial holding, come first on the patriotic 

bead-roll. In a shape one degree clearer stands forth Attirio of 

Eilfric of Gelling, a Thogn of Huntingdonshire and tenant {hurtin 

of the churclr of Rameey, who came from Waltheof’s 

Earldom, whether in the following of his Earl or at the 

bidding of his own loyalty to his King. From East~ Brome of 

Anglia we find recorded a nameless tenant of the House Atlin, 

of Saint Eadmund, and Breme a freeman of King End- 

ward's, who came no donbt in the following of Earl Gyrth. 


©The Amsgardus of Guy. His nao in written many ways.“ Anagar™ 
‘would seem to be the best furm. For all those nanos vee Appendix HHT. 

* See vol. Hl. pp- 63, 440 

* Bondig (ese above, p. $1) fs mantioned in a very comfaued pamago 
S& the De Toventions, % 20; “Ab omnibus conwultum eat ef Tookiaum 
(Leofwinum 1}, Gerth, ot Buodinum, et reliques qui secemerant, exxpectaro.” 
‘Fido not understand the “secomtion of Gyrth; vo Hondig may have been 
at Benlac alao. ‘ 





=r 


428 THE CAMPAION OP HASTINGS. 


onar.xv. With a clearer knowledge of their personal be 
honour the names of two noble tenants of the Chureh of 
Abingdon, men high in rank in the old West-Saxon 
piceebipiyrenpormneadnc 
Their names eet them before us as representatives of the 
two great Teutonic races of the land, each alike armed 
to defend their common blood and speech 
Glotve en Southern invader, Thither ame Goltie the Sheriff, 
Peete ford of Fifhide, whose nume witnesses to his English 
blood, and thither too came the Danish Tharkill, lord 
of the neighbouring lordship of Kingston. He had, 
at Earl Harold’s counsel, commended himself and his 
lands to Saint Mary of Abingdon, and he came no 
doubt with as sure a trust in the Black Cros of 
that ancient house as the King himself could put in the 
more famous relic of bis own newly hallowed minster. And 
it was not only the tenants of religious houses who went 
forth to battle for the excommunicated King against the 
invader who boasted himself as the special champion of the 
Church and of religion, Two Englich prelates at least, and 
several churchmen of lower rank, personally braved the 
Aiwig curso of Rome in the cause of England, The New Minster 
Abbot of of Winchester, King Ailfied’s great bequest to his royal 
Minster. city, was still ruled by Ailfwig, the brother of the 
Earl Godwine, the uncle of King Harold himself Like 
Ealhstan and Eadnoth in earlier times, he and twelve 
of his monks marched to the field, not only to pray for 
England, but to wield their weapons among the foremost 
of her champions, With their coats of mail over their 
monastic garb, they took their place in the ranks, and 
fought and died alongside of Thurkill and Godric and the 
other valiant men whose names no chronicler bas recorded,* 
Milfwig came to the fight at the bidding of kindeod 
no less than at the bidding of loyalty. Another prolate, 
# See rel, Hi pp, 454, 681. # Soe Appendix 1H. 


HAROLD REACHES LONDON, 429 


‘of equal ecclesiastical rank and of greator personal fame, cuay. xv. 

Leofkie, the renowned Abbot of Peterborough,} preferred Leuttic | 

the cause of his country to the cause of his own house. peter 

Eadwine and Morkere kept aloof from the great straggle ; preweh 

their worthier cousin, the Abbot of five monasteries, Nov. 3 

followed Harold to the fight, and, unlike his brother 

‘of Winchester, went back to his home sick and wounded.* 

And one lowlier churchman must not be passed by. 

The Norman record iteelf seems to assume a kind of Barc the 
as we read how Eadrio the Deacon, a freeman of 

Harold’s, followed his lord from the East-Anglian land of 

his earlier government, and died with him in the battle? 

Volunteers like these doubtless took their places among the 

King’s personal following, But wo cannot doubt that the 

main strength of the army consisted of Harold’s own picked 

troops, his veteran Honsccarls, the conquerors of Gruffydd, 

the victors of Stamfordbridge. Still itis clear that the levies 

of all southern and eastern England answered readily to 

Harold's summons. ‘They flocked to his muster in London 

in as great numbers, and with as great, speed, as the swift 

march of events at this fearful erisis allowed them. 


The march of Harold from York to London was as Harcla 
memorable an instance of the indomitable energy of his Tah. 
character as his march, so short a time before, from London October 5! 
to York. He seems to have reached London about ten 
days after the fight ut Stamfordbridge, about a week after 
William's landing at Pevensey. He came at the head of 
his own following, and of such of the general levies of the 
midland shires ag had joined him on tho road, In the great 


* S00 vol. ih. p. 348 

* Chron, Pettib. 1066, “And ja wee Laoftic Abbot of Burl at bet flow 
feord, anil vaclode jer, anc com ham, and veae deed sonp foeefter, on airy 
Ihalgan tueeo niht ; Goal are hie eaule,” 

* Seo Appendix HH. 

* On the chronology of those events, wow Appendix I. 


430 


MAY. XY. 


Ho goes to 


Waldian, 


fll the 
minster. 


a 


THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS a ‘ 


city which had been appointed as the general trysting~ 
place he waited, impatiently as it would soem, while men 
flocked in from his own Wessex and from the lands 
of the three faithful Earls, He waited aleo for the further 
succours which were never to arrive, for the forees which 
the Earls of the North were keeping back from the muster. 
At such a moment of suspense the heart of Harold, no less 
than the heart of William, looked for help and guidance 
from on high. His home was now in the royal hall of 
‘Westminster, beneath the shadow of the minster of the 
Apostle, the minster where prayers and masses were daily 
going up for the soul of his revered predecessor.’ Tt was 
the minster too where he himself had gone through the 
most; solemn act of his life, whero he had received his royal 
unetion and his Tmperial Crown. But it was not before 
the tomb of Endward, or before the altar of Saint Peter, 
that Harold sought for heavonly strength and counecl in 
the great erisis of his life, His heart went back to the 
home of his carlicr days, to the lowlier church of his own 
rearing, to the relic which had ever been the special abject 
of his devotion, the Holy Crows which gave Bngland her 
way-cry. Ono at least of the few days of the King’s short 
stay in London was devoted to a last pilgrimage to his own 
Waltham? Early in the morning of one of those October 
days King Harold made his way to the minster of the 
Holy Crose, bearing with him the last gifte that he was to 
offer there. Those gifts were a further supply of relies, 
the treasures of his own chapel,® gathered together no doubt 

1 Bee abory, p, JO. 

2 "The Waltham writer (De Inv. 26), a T have almady wid (we above, 
P. 377), fancies that tho King hoard the news of William's landing ot 
‘Walthai, ‘Thin we know to be wrong; but wo may surely nooept » journey 
from Landon 10 Waltham, ‘ 

Ax for the sairsowlons nazrative, ovo Professor Stubby, De Iny. sexvlil. 
For other more legoulary versions, see Appendix MM. 

* De Inv. 20.“ Mano fheto ecclesia Sanctw Crucis ingrodtions, et nelli- 
quias quax apud sy habobat in eapelld cud repovitus altari superponons.”* 


i= 


. 








HAROLD AT WALTHAM. 


by the lavish piety of Eadward, but which now formod omar, xy, 


Harvld’s last oblation upon the high altar of his own 
minster. Before that altar the King and Founder knelt 


in prayer, He vowed that, if God gave him victory in the Harolt's 


strife to which he was then marching forth, he would yet “”” 
further endow the church of the Holy Rood with gifts and 
lands, and would yet farther increase the number of those 
who served God within its walls, Nay moro, he would 
look upon himself as God's ransomed servant, and would 
devote himself to his special service for ever? We need 
not take these striking words to mean that Harold dreamed, 
like Ceadwalla or Ine, of laying aside his Crown and of be- 
coming God's special servant as monk or priest. We hear 
in them simply the voice of deep penitence for the few sins 
and crrors which stained that noble life, the voice of carnest 
prayer for deliverance from the meshes in which the craft 
of his adversary bad entangled him. We hear in them 
the voice of high and humble resolution to live from henee- 
forth, as man and as King, a life such as became a faithful 
servant of God, such as became a King who sat on the 
throne of the righteous Ailfred, and whose first days of 
government had been passod in the old realm of the 
martyred Eadmund. When his offerings had been made 
and his prayers had been uttered, the King turned him to 
depart. ‘The canons and all the members of the church of 
Waltham formed in procession before their sovereign and 
founder. They swept westward along that stately nave, 
botween the two rows of ite massive columns, till they 
reachéd the great western portal. There, before the King 
left the minster, he once more turned towards the wonder- 
working relic, the Holy Rood of Montacute and Waltham.” 
+ De Tay. 30,“ Votam vovit, quod sf muceesus provporos aub cventu 
Wlli prevtaret el Dominus, copia prodiorum et multisulinem dlerioorum 
Deo ibidem sorviturorum eoolosim contoeret, et ¥¢ Deo seresturwon amode 


quad sorcum enptitium sponderet.” 
* TL “Clem cum cotnitante ot proceedone precalente, reniunt ad 


431 








432 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, 


xv, Before the great object: of his life’s 
‘bowed himself low, and lay for a while flat on hi 

oy of the consecrated pavement. Then, as men said a 

is in after days, the holy image, whose head had hitherto 

stood erect, bowed itself towards the | who lay 
prostrate beneath it. One eye alone, that of the snorist 
‘Thurkill, was priviloged to behold the actual working of the 
divine wonder. But many there were who had seen the 
image in former days, and who bare witness how its head 
if to say “It is finished,” as if to say that all was over 
with the hopes and the career of him who had so devoutly 
honoured it." 


a 


It was perhaps on his return from Waltham, it was 
certainly during his short sojourn in London, that Harold 
received another message from his rival. Here again we 
come to one of those stages of our narrative where all is 
confusion and contradiction. The English writers, in their 
short accounts of events which they loved not to dwell 
upon, are silent as to any attempta at peaceful negotia- 
tions taking place, at the last moment, between the two 
armed princes, The witness of the Norman writers is 
full indocd, but their witness does not agree together? 
The different versions agree in no circumstance of time, 
place, or order of events, Yet we cannot doubt that some 
mossages passed between Harold and William, and we ean 
almost as little doubt that it was William who sent the 
firet messonger to Harold, and not Harold who sont the 


Pall 


‘valyax tompli, uld convermus ad Crucifixum Rex ille Ssnote Crnol devotus, aad 
terran in snodam oruels provtarnens ee pronus oravit.” 

"De Inv. 90. “Imago Crnclfixi, quae prius erecta ad superiors respi: 
ciebot, quum wo Rex humiliaret in terram, domisit yultum quask tlt, 
Uguum quidem prescium fuluroram.” ‘The writer then goes on to mention 
‘Thurktil, trou whom be himself heart the story. 

* Seo Appendix MM. 


ee ill 


WILLIAM'S RMBASSY TO TAROLD. 433 


first messonger to William. It was perfootly in character euar. xv. 
that an invader who agsumed the character of a legal 
claimant, nay more, an invader who professed to come as 

an armed missionary of the Roman See, should play out 

his part by offering the perjurer and usurper one more 
chance of repentance. Harold, on the other hand, a national 

King, simply defending his own Crown and the freedom of 

his people, had no need thua ostentationsly to put himself 

in the right. We may then believe that the firet message Mision of 
which passed between the Norman Duke and the English Mat 
King, after William landed on English ground, was when Hard; 
Hugh Margot, a monk of Pécamp, came to King Harold 

in London, He found the King seated, as we may imagine 

him, on his throne in his palace of Westminster, and he 

called on him, in the name of the Duke of the Normans, ho alls on 
to come down from his throne, and to lay aside his crown jute 
und sceptre, The messenger once more set forth the Orewm 
rights of William, his claim on the Crown by the bequest 

of Eadward, his personal claim on Harold as his sworn 

man. The Duke was ready to have his claims fairly dis- 

eussed, acconling to the Jaw either of England or of 
Normandy. If either Norman or Englich judges held that 
Harold's right was good, William would let him enjoy 

that right in peace, Otherwise lot him quietly yield up 

what be had usurped, and spare the bloodshed and misery 

on either side of which he would be guilty if he died to 

keep it. 

A message like this might have provoked the meckest Of Tasenes 
men. It ie not wonderful that we read in one account! Harold 
that Harold's wrath was highly kindled, nay that he was Goh 
with some difficulty kept back from a breach of the 
rights of ambassadors in the person of the insolent monk. 

The influence which thus restrained the King from 
violence is said to have been that of Earl Gyrth, who, in 
* Roman de Row, 11935. See Appendix KK, 

YOu. 1, rf 





434 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINOS, 


qvar-xx. the Norman accounts, appears throughout as the good 
Harold's genius of his royal brother. shen. omndetba gj Rea 
tounge to elsewhere find! a meseage sont by Harold to William, 
trang which is evidently on answer to the monk of Fécamp, 
wtaiment and which contains a calm and clear statement of Harold's 
Miu. tight. He does not deny the fact of his oath to William, 
but he maintains that it was an extorted oth and there 
fore of no force, He does not deny the fact of Radward's 
earlier promise to William, but he maintains that that 
promise has beon cancelled by a later bequest. Ever since 
the blessed Augustine first preached the Gospel to English® 
men, it had always been the law of England that a teeta- 
ment was of no strength at all while the testator lived. 
Up to the moment of his death, a man might revoke any 
earlier disposition of his goods, which conld not take effect 
till the breath was out of his body. Endward had indeod 
‘once made a promige of the succession in favour of William, 
but that promise had become void and of none effect by 
his later and dying nomination of the reigning King. 
How fur the words of any message of Harold's have been 
traly reported to us by our Norman informants it is im= 
possible to say, but it is clear that the answer thus put 
into Hurold’s mouth, though fur from oxhwustive, is 
thoroughly to the purpose as far as it goes. Harold’s 
hest claim to his Crown, his eleetion by the Engtish 
people, is not insisted on. But the answer to the two 
points put forth by William seems handly to admit of w 
Harld — rejoinder. We are told in other accounts that Harold 
Glogs offered William his friendship and rich gifts if he would 
sethiny, lepart quietly out of the land, but added that if he were 
bent on warfare he would meet him in battle on the 
coming Saturday. The Duke, we are tolil, accepted the 
challenge ; be dismissed the messenger with the honourable 
gifts of a horse and arms; and Harold, it is added, when 
* Will Piet. ray. * Roman de Rou, 11975. 


’ & lll 


ANSWER OF HAROLD, 430 


he saw bim thus return, repented him that he had done cuar. xv. 
despite to the messenger whom Duke William had sent to 
him, 

The challenge had now passed. There can be no doubt Harold 
that tho irritating meseago of William, and tho reports Winans 
which mast have reached London of the cruel harrying of gage 
the South-Saxon lands, had wrought the effect which they 
were doubtless meant to work on the mind of Harold. It was, 
as we have seen, the policy of William to draw Harold down 
to o battle, in which William should have the vantage- 
ground of his intrenched camp at Hastings. And Harold 
‘was now as enger for battle as William himself could be. 

He was eager to avenge his own wrongs and the wrongs 
of his people. He was eager to strike the decisive blow 
Lefore the French host could be strengthened by rein- 
forcements from beyond sea* Hix personal wrath was 
kindled against the man who had insulted and mocked 
him by a challenge the most stinging that had ever been 
spoken to a crowned King upon his throne, And a 
higher feeling of duty would bid him to go forth and 
put a stop as soon as might be to the pitiless ravages 
which were laying waste his land and bringing his people 
to beggary.! The purpose of the King was to go forth at 
once and to meet the invader face to face, according to the 
challenge which he had himself given for the coming 
Saturday. But the tale goes on to tell bow Gyrtb, the Proposal 
special hero of the Norman writers, again strove to turn his 92" 
Lrother from bis purpose." His counsel was that the King: 

4 Do Taveutions, 20," Nimis proseps, ot do yirtute wut prmamnons, 
credebat se Invalides ot Impremunitos Normanoos espognary, autequim 
® Normannis gens subsecutiva in presidium eorum succresooret,” ‘Tis 
‘aut reason is borne out by the testimony of the Worosstor Chroniale, which 
T stall quote horeafier, that reiafircemeute did come to Willian either 
befirw the battle or vory axon after. 

* Soa p. 414, note 4, 

* The interposition of Gyrth ie mentioned, not only by hie special admiver 

rfa 





_ aa 


THE CAMPAION OF HASTINGS. 7 


cttar.xv. should stay behind, seemingly as the defender of Tandon, 
while ho himself should go forth to battlo with the Nore 
man, The King was wearied with his labours in the 
Northumbriun campaign; the troops which had as yot 
come together in London were not numerous enough to 
justify the King in attempting to strike a decisive blow 
Gyrth's at their head. Moreover, whether the oath was binding: 
Saws... or not, Harold could not deny that he had sworn an oath 
eth. to William as his lord, and it was not well that a man 
should go forth to fight face to face against the lord to 
whom be had done homage.' Bat he, Gyrth, was ender no 
such restraint; he need feel no such scruples. He had 
never sworn ought to Duke William; he could go forth 
with a clear conscience and fight against him fnee to fue 
Gyrth pro for hig native Iand.* Let the King too think on the risk 
Westend to himself and to his Kingdom if he jeoparded his own life, 
nnd all that depended on his own life, the noble heritage 
vie’ of English freedom,* on the chances of a single battle, 
Hapidre: Tot Gyrth fight. against William. If Gyrth overeame 
war the the invader, the gain to England would be as great en 


3 








‘Wace (1204f ot veqq.), but by William of Jumidges bigs Pee 
(400 ©, who nearly coples William of Jumihges), William of Malmexbury 
Gil, 239), and Renott (37129). ‘The speech ix muh to the eame effect in 
ll, Here it fe that William of Malmesbury makes the odd mistake about 
Gyrth’s age which I mentioned in vol. i. p. $38. 

+ Will, Gem. vii. 35. “‘Quiesec, quarso, prudlenter tractare teeum volis,, 
‘quid cam ascramentis Consuli Normanniw promiseris. Cave ne porjurium 
Incurras, ot pro tanto reelere tu cuin viribus nostrw gontis osrruan mesten= 
que progeniel permanvumin didecns exinde fiak” "The wxpewnsion “eave ray 

inourras,"" wo Into in the day, is remarkable. William of Malmos- 
bury (ill, 239) eoflens masters » Utiles “Neo enim ible in inflolas quia Mit 
sworamentam vel invitus vel voluntarins feceris; proinde consiitian ages si, 
Instantl necowdtatl te subtraheus, nostro perlouto colludium pugnm tenta- 
yori” 

* Will. Gem, u, 4, “Ran, liber ab omnl ascramonto, Willelmo Comilts 
nihil debeo. Audacter igitur contm illun pro natali eolo portare paratue 
vm," So William of Malmesbury (a. «.); ‘Nos, omnl juramente ex- 
pediti, jnste ferrum pro patrif stringermus.” 

* WDD, Gom. us. “Ne etuna fitertas Anglorum pereat a tah parnicie.” 


om il 








ADVICE OF GYRTH. 437 


Harold himself overcame him, Bat if William overcame onary, 
Gyrth, the loss to England would be far lees than if Wil- 
liam overcame Harold. If Gyrth were slain or in bonds, 
Harold could still gather another army, and could strike 
another blow to rescue or to avenge his brother.* Let then 
the Earl of the East-Angles go forth, with the troops which 
were already assembled in London, and let the King bim- 
self wait till a greater force had answered to his summons, 
Let him meanwhile harry the whole land between London 
and the coast, even as the Normans themsclyes were 
harrying it, Let him burn houses, cut dowm trees, lay 
waste corn-fields. Leb him in short put a wilderness be- 
‘tween himself and his enemy, William then, whether 
successful or unsuccessful in the battle with Gyrth, would 
presently be starved into favourable terms, He would soon 
find it impoesible to maintain his host in the wasted land, 
and he would be driven to withdraw peacefully to his own 
dominions.* 

A hero was speaking to a hero; we may add, a goneral Estimate 
was speaking toa general. Onur hearts are moved at the Siz 
generous self-devotion of the brave Earl, who recked so 


4 Will, Malka Ulf. 239." Nobts solis prusiiantibus, ewusss tua utrobique 
in portu mavigabit : quia et fugfentes restituere et mortuos ulcisal poteris.” 
“Wao (12057) nilds the altematives of his own captivity and of an agree 
ment between Harebl and Willian ; 


+ Mais se jo nuis veinew a pain, B cumbatre vor { parres, 
‘Voom, ma Dex pinist, Ki war vin UT tal parole ot Dine renders, 
‘Vo mnaimien maerableres, Ke voutre reguo en pal tendres.” 
* This advice comes from Wace (12065) 
Alex par cest pat, andant Fetes In vitaille catuingnter, 
Malzons ® viles desteuiant; Ke i me trufsseut he meusier, 
Pernes Ia robe ® ta vitaillo, Si Jee porree mult eunaier 
‘Fors, et oeilles ot aumaille, FB. fair artore evpalrior ; 


‘Ne nulo rien done vivro puireent, Quant Ia vitaille Hi taldra,”” 
Compare the nvice given to Otho (Tucltus, Hist, tl. 33)5 Paulino et Celery 
Jaro non adversantibus, no prineipem objectare perionti« viderentur, tiden MM 
deterioris convilii auctores perpalere ut Beixellum coneederet ot dublie pave 
Hieron exeenpius, suite rerum et inperti se ipsum reservaret,” 





_ 


438 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTENOS, 


oar. xv. little of himself Ly the side of the safety of his brother 
and his country. And in the wise, though ‘ernel, policy” 
which he enforced upon his brother, we can discern = 
subtlety of intellect fitted to grapple with that of William 
himself, Gyrth, as painted by hostile historians, stands 
forth as one who, had be outlived that one fatal day, 
would never have allowed England to fall without striking: 
another blow. But how were the counsels of that lofty. 
apitit received by the no less lofty spitit to whom they 
Norman were spoken? We may east aside the mere inventions 
catumnie® oF Norman calugny. ‘They represent Harold us thrasting: 
away his brother with insult, as even spurning his aged 
mother from his feet, when, still sad at the fate of Tostig,* 
she implored him not to jeopard the lives of all the sons 
who were left to her? Such tales as these come from 
the same mint of fulsehood as the tales which tell of 
William as striking his wife with his spur or as beating: 
Answer of her to death with his bridlo.® Another Norman writer, 
ite who at least better understood the characters of the two 
©, Hoble brothers, puts into the mouth of Harold words 
iin which, after eight hundred years, still send a thrill to 
the hearts of Englishmen. All who heard the counsel of 
Gyrth criod out that it was good, and prayed the King 
to follow it.* But Harold answered that he would never 





+ Ord, Vit. goo C, “Quam interite Tosticl fli ni valde erat Ingabrie” 
* Wilk Gem. vil. 35. Conalllumn istad, quod amicis ojus salubre vide- 
batur aprevit, et germanum suum, qui fideliter el consilinbatur, conviclis 
irritavit, matromque mam, que nimis ipsum retinere scum satagebat, pede: 
procaciter perousalt,” 80 Ord, Vit. g00 D. Wace, whowe good taste andl 
‘dramatic feeling places him high above all the other Norman writurs, pales 
Ly thisabsurd tale, but it reappaane in Bonolt (37195) 5 


Vers oa mere fit mult cach, I tant I'en fist longo prekere © 
Qui chbrement fust h plaisir Qu'cnvere la bots aritre 5 
‘Deu remaindre, deo retenir, ‘Ted il dona clel pié el vontre.”” 

* Bee Appendix 0, 


* Roman de Rov, 12086; 
+ A cont cunvell tuit se tencient, 
Et iadi fore le voloient,” 


HAROLD REFUSES TO RAVAGE THE LAND, 439 


play the coward’s part, that he would never let his friends cuar.ax 
go forth to fice danger on his behalf, while he himself, 
from whatever cause, drow back from facing it. And he 
added words whieh show how the wieo and experienced 
ruler, the chosen and anointed King, had cast aside what- 
ever needed to be cast aside in the fiery exile who had once 
harried the coast at Porlock.? “Never,” said Harold, “will 
1 burn an English village or an English house; never will 
Tharm the lands or the goods of any Englishman, How 
can I do hurt to the folk who are put under me to govern? 
How can I plunder ond harasa those whom I would fain 
see thrive under my rule?”* Traly, when we read words 
like these, we feel that it is something to be of the blood ~ 
and of the speech of the men who chose Harold for their 
King and who died around his Standard. 


Six days had now been passed in the trysting-place Hamid 
of London.4 During the whole of Uh time men had been fn” 
flocking in, but the forces of tho North under the sons of temisy, 
Eifgar had not yet shown themselves. Harold now deter- Ostober 17. 
mined to delay no longer. He set out from London, 


* Roman de Row, 12099 5 

“Ko fA on champ sanz If n'iront, HE ilusarn 1 roprowereiont, 
Neo sanz li no pe cambatrent. Ke sis boone amis enydiout, 
Por comrt, go dint, le teindroient En liow b aler i n’osout,” 

* See vol. fl, p, 316, 

* Roman de Roa, 120805 

“ Malsons @ viles o'ea arin, ‘La gent ke jo dei governert 
Ne ais homes ne robera, Deatrnire we grover ne det 


‘Coment,’ dist, ‘del-jo grever La gunt ki det garir sox mei." 


abriiv peBbnerour ob lp pared bv ri xdpp “ANCartpor dmopig réiv bee 
rydelaw. “Apotray Bt Adyeras stwciv dy TG OVAAIHy 10H Klepodr, Ort ix ty 
nepiltion pipr’ otwiav iow kpmpyatdony view iwd of reraryylran drdpdrwaw- 
Contrast the conduct of William in ravaging the English coast when am 
invasion from Doninark was looked for; Chron. Petrib, 1085. 

* See Appendix 11, 


a 


THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, 


euar. xv. scemingly on Thursday, exactly one week after bis arrival 


in the great city, in order to redeem his challenge of 
giving battle to the invaders on Saturday. He marched 
forth at the head of his own following and of such troops 
az had come in to the London muster. ‘These would no 
doubt be largely swelled as tho levies of Kent and Sussex 
pressed to his standard on the march. At the numbers 
of the army which he thus bronght together it is hopeless 
to do more than guess. The Norman and the English 
writers both indulge in manifest exaggerations in opposite 
ways. The Normans employ every rhotorieal art to set 
before us the prodigious numbers of the English. They 
were a heet that no man could number, a host like the 


‘host of Xerxes, which drank np the rivers as it passed. 


Nothing but the special favour of God could have given 
his servants a victory over their enemies which was truly 
miraculous. On the other hand, the English writes 
yielded from tho very beginning to the obviows tempta~ 
tion of laying the blame of the national overthrow on 
the rashness of the King, Harold refused to wait till a 
large enough force had come together ; he ventured a battle 
with numbers altogether inadequate, and he paid the 
penalty of his own over-daring. Such are the comments 
even of the writers who are warmest in their admiration 
of Harold, and who pour forth the most bitter regrets 
over his fall! Yot wo must remember that nothing is 
casicr than to blame a defeated commander, nothing easior 
than to throw on his shoulders cither the faults of others 
or the mere caprices of fortune. And we should remember 
too that, decply as we reverence our national writers, im- 
plicitly as we accept their statements of facts, warmly as 
we sympathize with their patriotic feelings, their criticisms 
on such a point as this are simply the criticisms of monks 
on the conduct of a consummate general, We may fairly 
* See Appemlix LL, 


aii 


HAROLD'S MARCH INTO SUSSEX. An 


‘uxsume that whatever captains like William and Harold ouar xe. 
did was the right thing to do in the cireamstances under 

which cach found bimself. ‘The consummate one en 

of Harold is nowhere more plainly shown than in 

this memorable campaign, He formed his plan, and he 
carried it out, He determined to give battle, va es 
determined to give battle on his own ground and afer 7 
his own fashion. All likelihood goes against the belief cn the 
that Harold designed anything so foolhardy as an atta, cmp 
by night or by day, on the Norman camp. No doubt: tho mi" 
expectation of such an attack was prevalent in the Norman 
camp.! But our eviderce proves only the existence of such 

an expectation among the Normaus; it in mo way proves 

‘the existence of any such design on the part of the English 

King. The nature of the post which be chose distinctly 
shows the contrary ; it distinctly shows what Harold's real 

Plan was, It was to occupy a post where the Normans 
would have to attack him at a great disadvantoge, and 


| WIL Pict, tyr.“ Accelorabat .  . » Tex foribundus . . . noctume 
etiam fneurvu aut repentino minus csutos opprimere ovgitabat.” He then 
{goo on totall of the seven hundred ships. Soe Appendix DD, So Will, 
Gem. vii. 35, 36; *Ducem incautum secelorans preeeeupate, tot nocte 
eqquitans [Heraldus] In campo belli apparuit mane, Dux vero nocturnon 
‘erounm hows, inchcantibas tenobrts ad gratiesimatn waqyue Luce 
‘exercitum jursit emo in armis,” William of Poitiers makes the fight begin 
directly on the approoch of the Baglleb array, and Wiliaun of Tusftyes sruts 
St the ame day. ‘Tho last memages between William nd Warold nro thus 
‘out out, and William of Poitiers leaves no room for the two difforent ways 
of spending tho night. But William of Pofticrs ix always carcless of chro: 
p, and William of Tumniiyen in hore iymorant of it (ae Appendix KK). 
‘ace tuakes the English reach Seolao on Thureday night, and a day ia 
‘sperit tn thie messages. He says (12110) of Thursday night, 


‘Tote nuit farent en expels, Ke Nortuans la anit les guerrelenty 

‘Kar dit lor fa ke  Englets ‘Tad unt tote mult vellié, 

| Celo nuit trowk’d ole vencdrolent Li wna por Haltros guithic” 
All this proves the existence of w very natural expectation on both siden, 
‘but it proves nothing as to Harold's rent fntentions. An examinstion of the 
ground in enough to show what Harold's plan really was. 


~~ 


42, THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, 
‘cuar.av. where he could defend himself at a great advantage, This 
he effectually did, and it was no small effort of trac 
Harelt — generalship to do go. And for the post which he chose, 
pnd and for the mode of warfare which he designed, over= 
hy aw wholming numbers were in no way desirable, A moderate 
ber. force, if thoroughly compact and thoroughly trustworthy, 
would really do the work better. If then Harold marched 
against the invader at the head of a force which, to critics 
of his own day, seemed too small for his purpose, the 
chances are that Harold knew well what he was doing 
and thnt his critics did not understand his plans. Harold 
was defeated; he has therefore paid the usual penalty of 
dofeat in ignorant censure of his actions, But it is quite 
certain that his defeat was not owing to mere lack of 
numbers, and we may fairly conclide that the force with 
whieh he set out was one which he judged to be large 
enough for carrying out the plan which he had formed. 
Military ‘The great campaign of Hastings was thas in truth a 
‘onertane’ trial of skill between the two greatest of living captains. 
reli, Bach of them, it may fairly be eaid, to some extent com= 
paseed his purpose against the other. William constrained 
gem Harold to Aight; but Harold, in his tum, constrained 
William to fight on ground of Harold’s own choosing. 
He constrained him to fight on ground than which none 
could be better suited for the purposes of the English 
defence, none worse suited for the purposes of the Norman 
attack, This march of Harold from London into Sussex 
was a march as speedy and as well executed as his march 
from London to York so short a time before. But it was 
a march conceived with somewhat different: objects. Both 
marches were made to meet an invader, to deliver the land 
from the desolation caused by the presonce of an invader, 
Bat the march into Northumberland was etrictly a march 
to surprize an invader, while the march into Sussex was a 
march to meet an invader against whom altogether dif- 


“HE ENOAMPS ON SENLAC, 443 


ferent tactics bad to be employed. Tt was Harold's poliey cast. xr. 
to make the enemy the assnilant in the actual battle as Txclts 
well as in the general campaign. One cannot doubt that fonsive. 
the whole march was designed with roferonce to this special 
object. From the moment when Harold fixed a day for 
the battle, he no doubt also fixed a place, He must have 
known Sussex well, and he had clearly, from the very 
beginning, chosen in his own mind the spot on which he 
would give battle. His march was strictly a mareh to the 
actaal spot on which the battle was to he fought. His course Homarchos 
lay along the lino of the great road from London to the wmush 
south const, He halted on a spot which commanded that Swe. 
road, and which also commanded the great road eastward 
from William’s present position. He hastened on through 
those Kentish and South-Saxon lands which had been the 
eradle of his house, and which held so large a share 
of his own vast estates, He halted at a point distant and en- 
about oven miles from the head-quarters of the invaders, seNtAG, 
and pitched his camp upon the ever-memorable heights oF Sater nae 
Senlac,t 

The spot on which the destinies of England were fixed Natur of 
was indeed one chosen with the eye of a great general, %°*e 
Harold bas, in this respect, had somewhat scanty justice 
done to him by those of his own countrymen who seem 
inclined to throw on him the blame of the national defeat, 
But it is in the Norman accounts, which alone supply 
details, that the history of the gveat battle must be 
studied; and it cannot be denied that, in every military 
respect, they do full justicw both to the English King and 
to the English army, Their rhetoric of conventional abuse 
never fails them ; but what Harold and his followers really 
wore we see from the facta as stated by the Normans them- 
selves, and from the expressions of unwilling, of balf- 
unconscious, admiration which those facts wring from 

+ Soe Appendix NN 


aaa THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. . 
enar-xv. them.! Harold might be a pexjurer and an 
the language of his cnemics at least 
Pap mpipmmpervenre 
Thepot battle, And nowhere is Harold's military greatness 60 
Set distinctly felt as when, with the Norman narratives in 
meee our hand, we tread the battle-field of his orn choice, and 
see how thoroughly the post was suited for the purposes 
of him who chogo it. It was the policy of Harold not to 
attack. ‘The mode of fighting of on English army in that 
age made it absolutely invincible as long as it could held 
Hien its ground. But neither the close array of the battle-axe 
fers do men, nor the swarms of darters and other halftarmed 
ve irregular levies, were suited to take the offensive 
the horsemen who formed the strength of the Norman 
army. It needed only a developement of the usual tactics 
of the shicld-wall to turn the battle as far as might be into 
the likeness of a siege, This was what Harold now did. 
He occupied, and fortified as thoroughly as the time and 
the means at his command would allow, a post of great 
natural strength, which he made into what is distinctly 
spoken of ag a castle? It was a post which it was quite 
impossible that William could pase by without attacking. 
But it was also a post which it in no way suited William's 
purposes to occupy with his own forces, By so doing he 
might have forced Harold to decline fighting; he could 
not have compelled him to fight on other ground. Harold 
was therefore enabled to occupy the post of his own choice, 
the natural bulwark of London and of the inland parte 
Dexrip- of England generally. The hill of Senlac,* now occupied 
tion oc by the abbey ond town of Battle, commemorates in its 
a later name the great event of which it was the scene. Tk is 
1 Soe Appendix NN. 


* Hon, Hunt, M. HB, 763 B. “Quum ergo Haraldus totam gente 
saom in und acte strictiontine lockses, «¢ quant casteflum incle construstisel, 


imponetrabiles ersat Normansis.” 


* On the ame Sexilne, see Appendix NN, 





SE 


HAROLD'S TACTICS. 445 


the Inst spar of the downs covered by the great Andredes- omar. xv. 
weald, ond it completely commande the broken ground, 
alternating with hill and marsh, which lies between iteelf a 
and the sea, It stands in fact right in the teeth of an 
enemy marching northwards from Hastings, The hill 
itself is of a peninsular shape, stretching from the east. 
to the south-west, and it ix joined on by a narrow isthmus 
to the great mass of the high ground to the north. The 
height is low, compared with the mountains and lofty 
lulls of the western parts of our island, but its slopes, 
greatly varying in their degrees of steepness, would, even 
where the assent is most gentle, afford no slight 
obstacle to an enemy who trusted mainly to his cavalry. 
‘The spot was thon quite unoccupied and untilled ; nothing 
in any of the narratives implies that there was any village 
or acttlement; our own Chronicles describe the site only 
as by “the hoar apple-tree,”* some relic, we tay well 
Delieve, of the days when streams and trees were still 
under the guardianship of their protecting, perhaps in- 
welling deities. At present the eastorn part of tho bill 
in covered by the buildings of the abbey, and by part of 
the town which has gathered round it, including the 
parish church. ‘The town also stretches to the north-west, 
away from the main battle-ground, along what I bave 
spoken of as the isthmus. But the hill goes on a long 
way to the south-west of the isthmus, westward from the 
buildings of the abbey, and this part of the ground, we 
shall eee, really played the most decisive part in the great 
event of the place. A sort of mvine, watered by two 
small streams which join together at the base of the hill, 

* The paadtion fa woll dewcribos by Guy of Axons (365) ; 

“Mone silvm vicinus erat, vicinaque vallin, 
Et non caltus ager axperitate auf.” 
* Chron. Wig. 1066, “Ho [Harold] com bim t6genos mt pure hire 


apuldran,” ‘The namo ix not ancommon in the description of boundaries fn 
‘the Chartors. 





_— . 


446 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, 


omar. xv. ents off tho south-western end of the hattle-grond from, 
the isthmus and the ground connected with it. 
nese of the ground here is considerable. At the extreme 
south-east end, the present approach to the town from 
Hastings, the ascent is gentler. Turning the eastern end 
of the bill, which here takes a slightly forked shape, the 
ground on the north side, near the present parish chureh, is 
exceodingly steep, almost precipitous, Along the south front: 
of the hill, that most direetly in the teeth of the invaders, 
the degroe of height and steepnose varies a gooi denl, 
‘The highest and steepest is the central point occupied 
by the buildings of the abbey. Some way westward from 
the abbey is the point where the slope is gentlest of all, 
where the access to the natural citadel is least difficult. 
‘The de- But here a low, detached, broken hill, « sort of small island 
‘ached hill is advance of the larger peninsula, stands out as an outpost 
in front of the main mass of high ground, and, as we shall 
see, it played # most important part in the battle, . 
Advantage Such a post os this, strong by nature and standing 
oFtho site. direotly in the fuce of the enemy, exactly suited Harold’s 
objects, And the approach to it was equally unsaited to 
the objects of William, Seven miles of hill and dale form 
the present road from Hastings to Battle. Bot the 
Norman army, in its advance from Hastings, would have 
to spread itself over the whole country, a country where 
marsh and wood doubtless alternated, except so far as 
their own ravages had done something to clear their path. 
‘The ground immediately around Senlue ix specially broken 
and rolling, and the lewer land close at the foot of the 
hill, which must in many parts have been utterly track- 
less, was doubtlees, in an October of thoee daye, a mere 
quagmire, It is only where the present road enters the 
town of Battle that another and: lower isthmus of somewhat 
higher and firmer ground forms a slight union between 
Senlac and the opposite hills to the south, Through all 


Ly a 


HAROLD PORTIPIES THE HILL. a7 


this difficult country the Normans had to make their way caar. xv. 
to the foot of the English position, And there they would 
find, not only a post of great natural strength, but some- 
thing which was not without reason called a fortress. 
Harold entrenched himself behind defences, not indent Heid 
equal to those of Argues’ or Old Sarum, but perhaps {a 
nearly equal to those of William's own camp at Hastings. 
He oceupied the hill; he surrounded it on all its accessible Defences of 
sides Ly a palisade, with a triple gate of entrance, and jy ok, 
defended it to the south by an artificial ditch.” The name 
of the Watch-Oak is still borne by a tree on the isthmus. 
In that quarter no attack was to be feared, and the defonces 
on that side were most likely of less strength than clse~ 
where. The royal Standard was planted just where the 
ground begins to slope to the south-east, the point most 
directly in the teeth of the advancing enemy. Within the 
fortress thus formed, the King of the English and his 
army awaited the approach of the invaders. 

Of the numbers of the host gathered within this narrow 
compass we haye, as we lave seen, no certain account. 
While the English writers naturally diminish, the Norman. 
writers as naturally magnify their numbers.’ ‘The English Stories of 
writers farther toll ua that, on account of the straitness their pro- | 
of the post, many of the English deserted. It may bo Pv 
#0; but it should be again remembered that, with the 
tactics which Harold had chosen, overwhelming numbers 


+ Soo above, p. 124. 

* Romun de Rou, 12196; 

© Hornut a Hi Tou exgardé, Do tris pars lois tecie entries 
ae tae EA ardor unt commandben” 

* See above, p. 

+ Flor. Wig. Mobs, “Quin arto in looo constituti fuerant Angll, de acto 
eo multi subtraxere, et cum of (Earvide) perpaucl constantes conto reman- 
sero." Something of the mme kind may be thonght to be implied in the 
wronls of the Worcoster Chronicler ; "Ac ae kyng jeab him ewitte hosriion 
wi foaht, mid fam mannan je him golawan woldon,” Bee Appendix 
Ma. 


448 


~ 


THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


ousr.xe, wore not needed. Enough of good troops to hold the bill 


‘Stories of 


pies, &o. 


‘against the enemy were better than a vast host of undie- 
ciplined levies. We can well believe that the people of 
the neighbouring country flocked to the Standard in for 
greater numbers than at all suited the King’s purpose. 
‘The services of some volunteers may have been rejected ; 
some may haye turned away when they saw the peculiar 
nature of the eorvice required of them, a kind of service 
which we can well conceive to have been neither attractive: 
nor intelligible to raw levies. But it is certain that, what- 
ever was the number of the troops who remained or who 
were retained, little could be said against their quality. 
We shall see that the Honsecarls, the main core of the 
army, kept up their old character to the last, and the 
fault even of tho irregular levies was certainly not that 
of a lack of mere courage,! - 


It does not appear that any long time passed between 
Harold’s occupation of his hill fortress and the battle 
itself. The spot was not one in which a large body of 
men could remain for any length of time; on the other hand 
‘the invaders could not keep themselves altogether inactive, 
neither could they pass by the English position without 
attacking it. And that position, after all, was not a 
regular castle to be won by a regular siege, Tmmediate 
Dattle was absolutely inevitable on both sides. Everything: 
in our narratives leads us to believe that the battle followed 
almost immodiately on tho arrival of Harold at Senlac, 
The hill seems to have been occupied on the Friday, and 
the fight we know began tho next morning. Spies were 
sent oub on both sides? and there is nothing impossible 

4 This, to any nothing of the best evidenco af all, the cirormstancos of the 
battle itaclf, 1s implied in the language of those who speak of the 
pebian ae by: es tig saat Sito Ula W creasoe COT 

* Tapestry, plates 12, 13. We shall hear of them again, 


. - 


WILIAAM'S LAST MESSAGE, 449 


in the well-known tale that the English spy, struck by cuar.xv, 
the unwonted aspect of the elosely-shaven Normans, reported rit of 
to his sovereign that there were in the Freneh host more lish oy, | 
priests than soldiors, Harold, wo are told, answered with de shaven 
8 Jongh that the French priests would be found to be Somme 
valiant warriors indeed. But much less faith is due to Two of a 
the legend that Harold and Gyrth themselves rode forth Ure, 
to spy out the invading army, that Harold proposed to Have 
fall Lack on London, that Gyrth dissuaded him from 
such a course, that the two brothers quarrelled and nearly 
fought, but that they came buck to the eamp without 
letting any eign of their dispute be seen by any one clae* 
Nothing can be less trustworthy than these Norman 
reports of things which are said to have taken place 
within the English camp. No power short of divination 
could have revealed to smy Norman witness a private 
conversation and a private quarrel between the English 
King and his brother, Somowhat more heed is due to William's 
tho story that William, even at the last moment, after the aga 
English camp was actually pitched on Senlac, still made 
one last attempt at negotiation.® If such an attempt was 
made, it was of courss made with no hope and no thought 
on William's part of ita leading to any peaceful arrange- 
ment between himvelf and his rival. William’s object must, 
have been to keep up to the last the character of one 
making a legal and righteous claim, a claim which nothing 

2 Will Malus {iL agg, Haruld's spies, as In the former case (eee abovo, 
P 300), aro well received uni shown everything. They then make thole 
‘report, and “sorio addiderant, pone omnes in oxereitu illo preabytoroa videri, 
quod totem fholom cum utroque Isbio raw haberent. .. . Bubrisit Rex 
fatudtatem reforentium, lepido insequutus cachinne, quia now ement pro 
tyler, ved milton armas validl, anlinls invicti,” So Roman de Rou, 12398- 
42253. William of Malmesbury here comments on the English custom of 
wearing the moustache (see wol. if p. 27), which he oddly counects with 
‘Cxsoe’s necount of the Welah of his day. 

4 Soo Appondix NN,, 

9 Roman de Rou, 12354 #t seq4- See Appendix KK, 

YOU. Ut, og 


Fy 


THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, 


cuar.xv. butanecessity beyond his control had driven him into assert- 
ing by force. And, by the peculiar form of message which is 

said to have been sent, he might well have hoped to spread 

fear and disunion through the English army, He is said 

to have first invited Harold to a personal interview at 

some point between Hastings ond Senlnc, with a few 
followers only on cither side, Gyrth is said to baye 
answered for his brother, refusing any personal conference, 

and bidding William send to the camp whatever message 

The he thonght good. The message came. It aflered a choiee 
chloro of three things, Let Harold resign the Kingdom accord- 
Harold. ing to his oath. Let Harold and his house hold the 
Kingdom under William, Harold as Under-king of the 

Challenge Northumbrians, Gyrth as Karl of the West-Saxons.’ Fail~ 
toringle ing either of these offers, let Harold come forth and meet 
William in single combat, The Crown of England should 

be the prize of the victor, and the followers of both com- 

batants should depart unbart. The policy of all these pro~ 

‘William's posale is manifest. ‘Their object was to make the strife look 
treet ike @ mere pereonal quarrel between Harold and William, 
ag instead of an attack mado by the Duke of the Normans on 
the land and people of England. And the proposal that 

the two princes should spare the blood of their armies, and 

decide their difference in their own persons, had a specious 

Haroid look of humanity. But Harold and Gyrth had seen far 
rites She too much of the world to be taken in in this way. Harold 
As groans could not separate himself from his poople, His eanse was 
* theirs and their cause was his, When the Duke of the 
Normans attacked the King whom the English nation had 

chosen, he attacked the nation itself, The Crown was 
Harold’s by their gift; but it was not Harold’s in any 

such sense that he could stake it on the chance of a single 
combat, any more than he could stake it on a throw of 


* Cf Romande Rou, x22g0, with Willian of Maluesbury, fi, 2405 and 
see Appendix KK. 


: il 


HAROLD REPUSES THE CHALLENGE, 


‘the dice, A single combat between Harold and William emar.xm 


would of course involve the death of one or other of the 
‘combatants. Neither King nor Duke wns a man likely to 
ery craven, What then if William slew Harold? His 
right te the English Crown would be no better than it 
wns before. Englishmen, with arms in their hands, were 
not likely to submit to the judgement of such an ordeal. 
William would still have to fight ;—he would no doubt bo 
able to fight at a great advantage, but he would still have 
to fight—against Gyrth, Kadgar, Eadwine, Waltheof, any 
one whom the English people chose to put at their head. 
Tf, on the other hand, Harold slew William, it was, if 
possible, even less likely that the mingled host which 
came from all the lands beyond the sea for spiritual and 
temporal gains would at once quietly go back to the 
various homes from which they bad come. The challenge 
was simply a blind, and Harold did only his duty in re- 
fsing to be bound by such a falee issue, and in saying that 
God alone must judge between him and his foe. 


Our accounts of these messages are 60 confused and con Further 
tmdictory that it is impossible to feel any thorough confi- (ub, 
dence whether any messages were really sent ab this stage (heme 


of the story or not. We are told that, either now or at somo 
earlier timo, William offered Harold the option of a legal 
judgement on the points at izsue betwoon them. Let their 
quarrel be decided either by the laws of Normandy or by 
the laws of England, or by the Pope and his clorgy at 
Rome.’ Here again we see the sume sort of fallacy at 
work as in the challenge to single combat. The Crown 
of England could not be adjudged according to any rulos 
of Norman law or by the award of any Norman tribunal, 


* Rowan de Rou, 122625 
© no mist al boen juyenent 
De VApontedle do ¥a gent.” 
And seo Appendix KK, 


og2 


a 


THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


eus.zy. As for English Law, the Assembly which | 


- 


to deal with the question bad dealt with it nine months 
before. Those who had then given their yotes for Harold 
‘were now there prosent to enforce those votes axe in hand. 
‘The appeal to the Roman Sce was a still more transparent 
fallacy. William and his host knew well, and Harold and 
his host no doubt also knew well, that the sentence of Rome 
had already gone forth against England, and that the con- 
secrated banner of the Apostle was at that moment in the 
Norman camp. In another version we hear, not of a pro- 
posed appeal to the apostolic throne, but of a solemn warning 
‘that Harold and all his followors were already excommuni- 
cated by the Apostolic sentence. Dismay, we are told, was 
spread through the English host, and men began to shrink 
the good genius of his brother and of his country. His 
voice and his arguments again bring back the courage and 
the hopes of the English army.’ We may give to these 
tales such amount of belief as we may think good. But 
we may be sure that the day before the battle was spent 
on both sides in diligent preparation for the work that was 
to come on the morrow. 


§ 4 The Baltle. October 14, 1066. 


And now the night came on, the night of Friday the 
thirteenth of Ovtober, the night which was to usher in the 
ever-memorable morn of Saint Calixtus. Very different, 


* qoording to oar Norman informants, was the wayin which 


that night was spent by the two armics, The 

spent the night in drinking and singing,? the Normans in 
prayer and confession of their sins. Among the crowds 
of clergy in William's host were two prelates of all bub the 


* See Roman de Rou, 2437+ * Soe Appendic WN. 


k | 


‘THE NIGHT BEPORE THE BATTLE. 453 


highest rank in the Norman Church.! One was Geoflrey, cuar. xv. 
Bishop of Coutances, who in his temporal character was 

soon to have so largo a share of the spoils of England. 

‘The other was the Duke's own half-brother, tho famous 

Odo, who, to his Bishop’s seat at Bayeux, was soon to add 

‘the temporal cares of the Kentish Earldom. And with 

them was one not yet their equal in ecclesiastical rank, but 

who was, unlike them, to leaye an abiding name in English 
eoclesinstical history. Remigius tho Almoner of Fécamp, in 
after days the firet Bishop of Lincoln, was the leader of the 
knights whom his Abbot had sont under his orders.* 
Under the pious care of the two Bishops and of the other 
clergy, the Norman host seems to have been wrought up 

to a kind of paroxysm of devotion. Odo received from 
every man a special vow, that those who outlived the 
strnggle of the coming Saturday would never again eat 

flech on any Saturday that was to come. Tules like these 

are the standing accusations which the victors always bring 
against the vanquished. The) reproach whicki ‘in cast cat The aisha 
the English host on the night before the eh of Bea 
also cast on the French host on the night before the fight ten 
of Agincourt. And yeb there may well be some iro 


‘Will, Pict, 134, “Aderant comitali » Normannift duo pontifices, 
Ode Baicconsis ct Goistrodus Constantinue ; una multun elerue ot monachi 
ponnolll, Id colleglum precthua pugnare dispouttur.” So Ord, Vite sor As 
Of Odo ot least tho Tapestry tolls another story, Compare the English 
Prolates ot Amandun, vol. i. pp. 399, 391+ 

* On Geollrey of Mowbray (Bishop 1048-1093) and Lis vast powurmions 
in England, son EMix, ¢. 400, Onloric, 703 B, gives thik character of him; 
“ Prefatua prwrul nobilitate clvekat maginque poritia militari quam clori- 
sari vigebat, ideccue Toricetos millites wil. bellandumn quam rovestitos clerioos 
‘ad prallendurn magis erudire noverat’ 

ee ee a ete Oe Comene ea og ee ed 

{ Seaicie xl ous Wise Rag te Angi wlt of bale uterfult.” 

‘nho Giraldus Cambrensis, Vis. Bp. Line., Amg. Sao. tl 413; “Qui eum 
Sibi eset eestioatioe oaiinns vers Gieiseten ae 
quium abbas jue miscrat quasi docurio nobilis in necemariorum minin- 
Amalione prefectus,” Ho of cour tndertcok the charge unwillingly, ete. 


— | 


$54 THE CAMPAIGN OF MASTINGS. ~ 


euar. xy. work of truth in these stories. The English were moty 
Uke the Normans, fighting under tho influence of that 


the eamp of William than in the eamp of Harold. 
And yet even a Norman legend gives 


by the campfires was enlivened by the spiritestirring strains 

of old Teutonic minstrelay. Never again were those an= 
cient songs to be uttered by the mouth of English warriors 

in the air of a free and pure Teutonic England. They 
eang, we well may deem, the song of Brananburh and the 
song of Maldon ; they sang how dithelstan conquered and 

how Bribtnoth fell; and they sang, it well may be, in atill —. 
louder notes, the new song which the last English gleeman 

had put into their mouths, 


“How the vito King 
Made fhat his realn 


‘Too bigh-born man, ? 
Harold himself, 
‘Tho notte Earl.”* 
And thoughts and words like these may have been as good 
* Seo the legend fn Appendix MM. * See above, ps 18: 


t L ail 


WILLIAM'S SPEECH. 455 


@ proparation for the day of battle a8 all the pious oratory citar. xv. 
with which the warlike prelate of Bayeux could hound on 
the spoilers on their prey. 

‘The morning of the decisive day at last had come, The BATTLE 
Duke of the Normans heard mnss, and received the com-‘'e" 
munion in both kinds," and drew forth his troops for their Siurlay, 
mareh against the English post. As usual, an exhortation Witiam's 
from the general went before any military action, The firme. 
topics for a speech made by William to his army were 
obyious.* He came to maintain his jast right to the Eng~ 
lish Crown; he camo to punish the perjury of Harold and 
the older crime of Godwine against his kinsman Eifred. 

‘The safety of his soldiers and the honour of their country 
were in their own hands; defeated, they hnd no hope and 
no retreat; conquerors, the glory of vielory and the spoils 
of England lay before them, But of vietory there could 
be no doubt; God would fight for those who fought for 
the righteous cause, and what people conld ever withstand 
the Normans in war? They were the descendants of the 
men who bad won Neustria from the Prank, and who had 
brought Frankish Kings to submit to the most humi- 
liating of trewties*® He, their Duke, and they his subjects, 
had themselves conquered at Mortemer and at Varaville. 
Ware they to yield to the felon‘ English, never renowned 


2 Will Phot, 131, Thee mysterio misen quam maxind eum devotions 
susistons, Corporis no Sanguinis Dominici communtoatione suum ot corpus 
et aolman munivit.” 

* Seo Appenilix NN. 

* Hon, Hunt 762 D. “None patros veetei Mego Prancoram in 
Rotoxagy crperunt, et fenuerunt dones Ricardo puer, Duci yeatro, Nor: 
manniam reddidit eo pacto, quod in omni colloontione Regis Francia ot 
Docls Normannie gladio Dux acctageretur, Rogom vero nec gladiom mee 
etiam coltetlum ferre Heeret." See vol. i. pp. 221, 610, and cxpectally 
Palgrave, i 495. T do not pledge myself to the terms of tho peace. 

“Wace is rather Invinh of thin word ; Willian comos (12545) 

Por vengler I Milundor Bi ii homes de coxt pats 
1A training, li fie mention, Tint 6 W noteo gont toe dis.” 


“456 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, 


onar.xv. in war, whose country had been over and over aguin hier= 
ried and aubdued by the invading Dane? Lat thom lift, 
up their banners and march on; let them spars no man 
in the hostile, ranks; they were marching on to certain 
vietory, and the fame of their exploits would resound from. 

one end of heaven to the other.* 
‘The faithful William Fitz-Oshern now rode op to the 
mound on which his sovereign stood,* and. warned hina that 
amy there was no time to tarry. Kindled by the exhortations 
‘Teham, of their leader, the host marched on, They maie their 
way, pethapa in no vory certain order, till, from the hill 
of Telham or Heathland, they first came in sight of the 
English encamped on the opposite height of Senlac. 
Tho ‘The knights, who had ridden from Hastings in a lighter 
Kakhte garb, and most Tikely on lighter horses, now put on their 
fall armour, and mounted their war-steeds, The Dake 
Incident now called for his harness. His coat of mail was brought: 
forth; but in putting it on, by some accident, the fore 
Rauber. hart was turned hindmost, Many a man would have 
been embarrassed at the evil omen, avd in trath the 
hearts of many of William’s followers sank,” But his own 


And again, 128785 

“Telos felunien 2 plunors Fe A now amis onserent, 

‘Kil unt ftw S nos anoowers Ki wo contindrent nobloment.”” 

idl il laments 2 a. Big, Dy 
“ Rrigite vorilla, iri, noo sit rw promeritao modus vel medextin, 
Oriente ad Occidentem videntur tides dita rates, andoier ballet 
Impetus vestri, vindloesque generosisdm! sanguinis.” Tn Draco Norman- 
nnious, 4. €281, Williann's speech ix very long, and goes through a large range 
of both ancient and modern history; but two Lince are charactariatic 5 

“(Caute pugnanile mortin discrimina xitot, 
‘Dur ritare cupis turpis amma fugax.” 

* Roman de Row, 12527. Seo Appendix NN. 

* Will, Pict ag. ““Torreret aliium loriaw dun yeutinetur, stmlatea con 
voriio. Hane converdionem rst ille ut oxeum, non ut sali prodigtuns 
expavit.” Roman do Row, +2647 5 

“Cll en furent eqpoonté, 
KUM haubert unt eagardé." 


THE NORMANS ON TELHAM. 457 


ready wit never failed him; he was as able to turn the omar.xy. 
accident to his advantage as when he first took seizin of 

the soil of Sussex. The omen, he mid, was in truth a 

good one; as the hanberk had been turned about, so he 

who bore it would be turned from a Duke into # King 

Now fully armed, he called for his war-horse, His/noble wasie, 
Spanish steed, the gift of his ally King Alfonso,’ was harmo, 
bronght forth. ‘The horse was led by the aged Walter 
Giffard, the lord of Longueville, the hero of Arques and 
of Mortemer. He had made the pilgrimage to the shrine 
of Saint James of Compostella, and he had brought the 
gallant beast as a worthy offoring for a prince who was 
the mirror of knighthood.* William now sprang on his 
horee’s back, and, now ready for battle, he paused for a 
moment at the head of his host. His gallant equipment 
and bearing called forth the admiration of all around him, 
and a spokesman for their thoughts was found in Haimer, 
the Viscount of the distant Thouars. He spoke no doubt: 
the words of all, when he said that) never had such a 


+ Boo above, p. 407 
7 Will, Malas. li, 242,“ Minietroram tumult Toricam Inverman in- 
dubus, casect tka correnit, *Vertetar,’ inquiens, ‘fortitude comitatils mel in. 
regnum,’” So Roman de Rou, 12665 5 
“Li nom ki ert de Duché Tels sorat ki Due af extd, 
Venelx de Due a Ket torné ; Nien alex mia altro pens.” 
crew eames ETT Oe MBN Ny 


‘The Battle Chronicler attributes the witty saying to William FiteOsbern, 

* Roman de Bou, 126735 

"Sun boon cheval fiat demanior, De ¥'Fepaingno it out envsié, 

‘Ne pocit Von meillor trover; Unt Reis par mult grant aumistié." 

‘On Alfonse reo above, ps 12, and Appendix Q. 

* Roman de Rou, 12679; 

" Galtior Gitfart Tout amend, 
KiA Saint Jamo aveit ewié,” 
© See above, ps 315. 


| 


THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


cuar.x¥e knight been seen under heaven, and that the noble Count 
‘would become a nobler King ——~ 
And now the Duke, fully armed, looked forth upon the 
Vital | English encampment. At that moment Vital, « follower 
Meine of hin brother the Bishop, one whose name is written im 
aoe Domesday, rode up to his sovercign.® He had been one of 
those who were sent forth to spy out the English host; 
and William now asked him what he had seen and where 
the Englieh usurper was to be found. Vital told him that 
Harold stood among the thick ranks which crowned the 
summit of the hill, for there, so he decmed, he bad seen’ 


nig if God would give him vietory over his perjured foe, he 
note? Would, on the spot where that Standard stood, mine a 
xine mighty minster to his honour.° Among those who heard 
il him was a monk, William by name, who had come from 
Faber — the house of Marmoutiers, nestled far away beneath its 
[Eve clitis by the banke of the rushing Loire, Men called 
inhonvar him Faber, the wright or smith, because in other days, 
Martin. before he had put the cowl upon him, he bud shown 
his skill in forging arrows for the service of the eraft 
of the woods. He now stepped forward, and craved 
that the holy house which the Duke would ore long 
raiso on yonder height should be raised in honour of 
the renowned Saint Martin, the great Apostle of the 


1 Roman de Rou, 12685 5 

“Ld viequens de ‘oars guarda * yee OEE 
‘Coment i Dus armos porta ; ‘Son ofel tol chevalier nen ® 
Ama gent n enter sci dit: ‘Beat: quens & beau Ret sera” 
‘Hom mee ai bel armé ne vit, 

2 Bos Appendix NN, * Bee Appendiie NN 


* Hoe wae (Chhrom, Bell. 4) stimamed Faber; “quod ous vodalibue vena 
tum aliquando profectus, sagitsls forte deticientibus, quim quemaan fibro: 
hhujusoemodi operia ignarum adigsett, jpe mallein arruptie mew sugittaxn 
artificiiwo ingeuio campeyit." Hix reamm for being where he wax ix cha- 
ractertstle ; “Divulgato ipxius Duels fn Angliam advent, yratid comment 
cclerie ewer, curn reliquis exervitui emo immimouernt.” 


i E al 


The vow was spoken, and William and his host mow Thresfold 
marched on in full battle array. ‘The army was ranged in {yuma 


driven their own forefathers to the shores of the lesser, 
Yet Alan might have paused to remember how bis own 
forefather and namesake had found in an English King 
his truest champion against the Norman enemy,* and he 


* Chron, Bell, 4, “Idem monasterium fn venerstionem beatl pontificle 
‘Martini nominatim fundarvtur suggwedt,” 
* Wid. Amb, 4155, 
“Sed bevnn Gallf, dextram potfore Britannt, 
‘Dux cum Normannis dimicat in medio.” 
‘That fs, the French weew on the eight, the Brotons on the loft, of tho Normans, 
* Will. Pict. 133. “Bieitaunl et quotquot auxiliares orant in adnistro 
cornu.” Roman de Rou, 12798 ; 
“De Valtre part Alain Forgant Poitevinz moront # Brotons 
Et Aimerd li cumbatant, ‘E del Maine tox fi Barons," 
(Of Wid, Amb, 355; 
“Gonsquo Britannorwm quorum deous exstat in armis, 
 Pellus nf fugit ext fuga nulla quibun ; 
‘Vinibus (llustres Cenomannl, gloria qnoruin 
‘Bello monetratur per probitatic oper,” 
Of, Draco Normannious, i, 1385. 
* Soe vol. 1. pe 1830 


4 


. 
460 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


caar.xv, might have stopped before utriking a blow to bring both 
Britains into one common bondage, And with Alan rode 

aman of mingled birth, whose name will again meet us in 

our history, but as one branded with the twofold infamy 

of a man false alike to his native country and to its foreiga 

Babb ot King. There, the only English traitor in that motley host, 
* rode Ralph of Norfolk, Ralph of Wader, son of an English 
father and a Breton mother, who now came among the 
forces of his mother’s country to win back the lands which 
some unrecorded treason had lost him.’ Far to the right 
rode a more honourable foe. ‘There was the post of Roger 
of Montgomery, whose name has already so often met as 
in our Normin story, who now came to be the founder of 
a mighty house in the conquered island, to be honoured 
with English Earldoms, and to leave the name of his 
Lexovian hill and manor as the name of a borough and a 
shire among the twice conquered Cymry.? Under him 
marched the mercenary French, the men of Boulogne 
and Poix, and all who, from that region, followed Duke 
William for hire or for hope of plunder." With Roger was 
joined in command one who bore a name soon to be as 
venowned in England and in Flanders as it already was 
in Normandy, but 2 name which, after all its bearer’s 
exploite, has utterly passed away, while that of his col- 
league has boon 80 marvellously abiding. For with Roger 


Fy 
ee 


i 


iH 


* Roman de Rou, 13623; 


“Jeato ln eurpalgue Néel Dirot cstait & Protons monout, 
Chevalehn Tao! de Gael ; Por terre eervelt ke fl out.” 
S00 Appendix 00. 
3 See ol ft p. 195. 
* Roman do Rou, 13784; 
“Vente a fot avant Rogier ‘Enemmble ofl vow chovalebers 


Ke Yen dist de Montgomeri; Kt ove vor lee wuld, 
Forment, dist-U, n vos me fi; Li Boilogneiz 6 li Pobiern 
B Guillame un weneeohad, Aurelz b tos mes eolddlers,” 
Lf fil Osher un boen easel, 

“ Soliéters,” eoldaei,” are of course mercenaries, 


‘THE THREB DIVISIONS. 401 


rode William Fitz-Osbern, the Duke's earliest and dearest omar. xv. 
friend, the son of the man who had saved bis life in William 
childhood,! tho man who bad himself boon the first to Orberm, 
cheor on his master to his great enterprise, and to exhort 

the nobles of Normandy to follow their lord beyond the 

sea? And there too, among the mingled bands on the Bustace of 
right’ wing, rode one whom England might well curse 

more bitterly than any other man in the invading host. 
There rode one who had been honoured with the hand 

of a daughter of England, who bad been enriched with 

the wealth of England in the days of his royal kinsman, 

and who now came to seck for a richer and more Jasting 
share of her plunder in the wake of her open enemy. 
Bustace of Boulogne, the man whose crime had led to the 
banishment of England’s noblest sons, the man who had 
murdered unarmed Englishmen on their own hearthstones,* 

now came to feel what was the might of Englishmen 
harnesed for the battle, and to show himself the on¢ man 

in either host whose heart was accessible to craven fear. 

And in the centre, between Breton and Picard, just as The Nor- 
Normandy: lies between ‘Britanny and. Picardy, marched =™ 9. 
the flower of the host, the native Normans. Furthest to The mon 
the loft, next in order to their Broton neighbours, marched tact” 
the only band who had an ancestral grudge against 
England, the only men in William’s host who came to 
revenge the harrying of their own land by English hands. 

‘The valiant men of the Constantine peninsula, the de- 
scendants of the Dance of Harold Blaatand, were there 
uniler the command of Neal of Saint Saviour.’ The rebel 


1 Soe vole fl. p. 195. 

* Bee above, pp. 260, 296, 

* See vol. Hp. rat. Bustace wtande frit on the list in William of 
Poitiors, 135+ 

* Will. Piok 132. “The fait fx melio eum firmtsiimo rvbore, wile fn 
omnem partem conmlaret manu et vooo.” 

2 See wl fi. pp. 242, 264. So Roman de Rou, 13486; 


tn] 


462 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


tuar.ay. of Val-ds-Dunes now followed his lord in his great enter 
rise; the namesake and descendant of him who had beaten 
off the host of JEthelred now came to wreak a tardy 
vengeance on Englishmen in their own land. Next to 
the forces of the Cétentin came a band whom the men 
of Wessex and East-Anglin might well nigh claim as 
countrymen, the Saxons and Danes of the land of Bayeux, 
among whom, even then, some relics of Teutonic speech 
and even of heathen worship may perchance have lingered. 
‘They came ready and eager to deal handstrokes with the 
Tho bravest of the English, while the men of Louviers and 
Evreux came with their unerring bows, and their arrows 
Armour destined to pieree many an English eye! The archers 
espana were all but universally on foot; the Parthian borse- 
Sree ag, bowman was not absolutely unknown to Norman tacties, 
but such an union of characters did not extend to any 
large portion of the army? For the most part the 
archers were without defensive harness; they were clad in 
‘mere jerking, with caps on their heads, but a few wore 
the defences common to the horse and foot of both armies. 
'Theso were the close-fitting coat of mail reaching to the 
knees and elbows, and the conical helmet without erest or 
other ornament, and with no protection for the face except 
the nose-piece. The horses had, unlike the practice of 


“Bion firent cel de Béessin, Mult #entremet Caveir Tamer 
EX haronz de Costentin, Eli bom grt do wom acignee."” 
B Néal de Saint Salvéer, 
But Neal's presence is called in question by Prevont (Wee, Uk 232), Taylor 
(207), snd Delle (Saint Sauywor, 21). Ido uot see that they at all mpwet 
Wace, 
* Roman de Rea, 136365 
“ Li archior du Val de Roil, 
Enmmanle od els osla do Beet, 
A maint Engleiz creverent I'oil.” 
* A slagle teverotinns appears in the Tapestry st the very etd. of the 
bastle, pl 16. I get my detalie of costume from the Tapestry, pl. 23 anil 
onwards 


er L al 


WEAPONS OF THE NORMANS. 463 


after times, no. artificial defence of any kind.t Their omar, xv, 
riders, in helmets and coats of mail, bore the kite-shaped 
shield, and wore armed with long lances, which, when the 
moment for the charge eame, were not laid in the rest as in 

‘the equipment of the later chivalry, but lifted high in air 

over the bearer’s shoulder. For close combat they had 

the heavy straight sword; the battle-axe is not shown on 

the Norman side, and two men only in the host are shown 

to us ae wielding the terrible mace. Those two men 
formed the innermost contro of the advancing host. ‘There, The Papal 
in the midet of all, the guiding star of the whole army, (oon 
floated the consecrated banner, the gift of Rome and of rosnd it. 
Hildebrand, the ensign by whose presence wrong was to be 
hallowed into right. And close beneath its folds rode the 

two master-spirits of the whole enterprise, kindred alike in 
blood, in valour, and in crime. There rode the chief of me Duke 
all, the immodiate leador of that choicest and central M™*" 
division, the mighty: Duke himself. And wo may bo sure 

that it was not only by the voice of flattery, but in the 

words of truth and soberness, that there, amid the choicest 
chivalry of Europe, the Bastard of Fuluiee was hailed as 
bearing the stontest heart and the strongest arm among 

them all. Mounted on his stately horse, the gift of the 
Spanish King, he rode beneath the banner of the Apostle, 

the leader and the moving spirit of the whole host. No 

man could bend his bow," but on that day he bore a 
weapon filted only for the closest and most deadly conflict; His mace, 

otved Ap ob régour jaxkorern Soupl re pasps, 
DAA ovinpely coping piryrvoee qideryyas,* 

‘The most authentic record of that day's fight arms him 
neither with sword nor spear, but sets before us the iron 

mace of the Bastard as the one weapon fit to meet, man 

to man, and prince to prince, with the’ two-handed axe 

* Seo Appendix NN. * See above, p. 25% * TH, vil, 140, 





| 


464 THR CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, 


ouar.xv. of Harold.! Round his neck, we are told, were bung, as 
4 hallowed talisman, the choicest of the relies on which — 
the King of the English was said to have sworn his fatal 
Bishop oath. Close at his side, and armed with the same fearful 
~~ weapon, rode one whose name was soon to be joined with 
his own in the mouths of Englishmon, and who was to win 
a far deeper share of English hatred than the mighty Con- 
queror himself. Odo, the warrior-prelate of Bayeux, rode 
in full armour by the side of his brother and sovereign, a» 
eager and ready as William himself to plunge wherever in 
the fight danger should press most nearly. To shed blood 
by sword or spear was a sin against the Church's canons, 
but to crush hend-piece and head with the war-club wag, in 
Odo's eyes, no breach of the duties of a minister of peace. 
The two mighty brethren, Duke and Bishop, formed the 
Robat of central figures of the group. And hard by them* rode 
Mocait. 4 third brother of less renown, a third son of the Tanner's” 
daughter, Robert. of Martain, the lord of the ‘castle by 
‘the watorfalls,* he who was soon to have a larger share 
than any other man of the epoils of England,’ and to add 
to his carldom by the Breton march the more famous earl 
‘The ban. dom of the kindred land of Cornwall. Fast by the three 
Iyifo” brethren the consecrated banner was borne by ‘Toustain the 
ae White, the son of Rou, a knight of the less famous Bee in 
the land of Caux." Two men of higher rink and of grenter 


* Seo Appendix NN. 

2 Will, Plot. 131.“ Appendit otfam humili callo suo relliquiag, quaram 
fayorem Hormldux abalicnavernt aibi, viola tide quam super eat jarando 
wancerat.” 

* Roman de Rou, 13765; 

“14 Quons Robert de Moreteing Frere ert i Dum de par sx mere, 

Nowe tint mic dol Duc loing; Grant alo fist son free” 

* Soe above, po 16%. 

* Boe Ellis, 1, 465, Ho held tho very firetfruite of the Cunquenl, ax 
‘possessor of the town of Pevensey, See ubore, ps 400. 

© Ond. Vit. sor B. “Turetinun filiae Rollonis vexillun Normansoruin 
portavit.” Romon de Rov, 197735 


4 & | 


THE CONSECRATED BANNER. 465 


age had already declined that honourable office. Ralph of cnar, xv. 
Conehos or of Tocsny, the heir of the proud line of Mala- Repel et 
hhulo,! the man who had perhaps borne to King Henry the Tosmy 
news of the night of Mortemer,* held, among his other Gifturd to 
dignities, the hereditary right to bear the banner of his" 
lord in the day of battle? But on that day that honour 

was a task from which men shrank as keeping them 

back from the mora active duties of the fight. Ralph of 
Doesny would not encumber his hands with anything, not 

even with the banner of the Apostle, if it were to stay his 

sword from smiting the foe without merey,* So too spake 

the famous Walter Gitlard of Longueville.’ Even in the 

days of Arques and Mortemer he was an aged man, and 

now he was old indeed; his hair was white, his arm was 
fuiling.® He would deal blaws on that day with such 
etrength as his years had left him, but the long labour 


*Tortetns filx Bou le Blane out nom, 
Al Beo on Cau ayott melsoa.” 
‘Wiliam of Poitiers (132) saya only, ” Vexillo previo quod Apostetleus trans 
‘mierat,” without mentioning the bearmr. Teannot see the banner In the 


‘Tapestry. 
* Bee vol. fe py 464 
® See nbore, p. 159. 
* Roman de Rou, 19719; 
“Portes, distil, mon gonfanon, Deivent etre de Normendic 


Ne vor vil fore me dreit non; Voutew parent yonfanonter, 
Par dreit # par ancvimorie ‘Mult farent tuit boen chevaliar.” 
“Tb, 12731; 
“Dialtro chose vos werviral ; ‘Tant ke fo vis estre porral ; 
En Ia bataillo od vos trai, Saclor ko ma main plu valelrs 
Et on Englofe me combatral ‘Ke tels vint homos | ure,” 
* See abore, p. 129. 


* Roman de Bou, 12743: 
“'Wéiea mon chiof blane @ chanu, Ki Lane travail poime sotlhtr, 
Bunpeirié vad de ara verta, E jo serai on Ia bataille; 
‘Ma vertu most afabllée, ‘Niavelz hore ki mifolx 1 vallle, 

E w'slelne mult empetrile. ‘Tivnt {ull Fort of m'oep, 
‘Lensaigne estuct & tel tonir, Kee tot en fort emanglantée.” 
‘The dinlogue which follows between the Duke and the old warrior ts very 

curious, Yet Walter Giffard lived till 1102. Ond, Vit. 4o9 C. 


VOL. Ut, uh 


a 


466 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


+ vhar.xv, of carrying the banner could be borne only by a younger 
‘Tho man. Thick around Tonstain and the chiefs beside whom 
Jimi, he rode, were gathered the chivalry of Normandy, the 

fature nobility of England, the men who made their way 

into our land by wrong and robbery, but whose children our 

Jand won to her own heart, and changed the deeoondante 

of the foemen of Pevensey and Senlac into the men who 

won the Great Charter and dictated the Provisions of 

Oxford. Time would fhil to tell of all; but a few names 

must not be passed by. There was William Patry of La 

Lande, who in old time had received Earl Harold as a 

guest, and who now rode by William's side, ewearing that 

he would meet his lord's rival face to face, and would deal 
to him the reward of his perjury. And there too rode 

Roger the men of nobler and of more lasting name. There rode Roger 

the Bigod, son of the poor serring-knight of William of 

Mortain, whose presence in the hostile ranks we can well 

forgive, ns we hail in him the forefather of that great house 

whose noblest son dofied the greatest of England’s later 

William Kings in the cause of the liberties of England.* And one 

Moles there was in that host, well nigh the only Norman on 

whom Englishmen ean look with personal sympathy and 
honour, William Malet,* a man perchance born of an Eng- 
lish mother, a man bound at all ovents by some tie of 
spiritual or temporal kindred to England and to Harold, 


Of the long Hist given by Wave (13462 eb seqq.) T only choose a few off 
the more remarkable. ‘Wave's account, with Mr. Taylor's notes, fx a perftet 
nobiliaire of the Conquest. 

* Roman do Rog, 137155 

“-Willame Patric do ln Lande Co aiant, ws 11 ne wilt, 

Li Rels Herant forment demande; Do perjure W'apollerit.” 
On Harold's visit to Willlam Patry, see Provost's uote, if, a61 5 Taylor, 238, 

? Soe vol. fi p. 288. Roger fs described by Wace (13677) only as "Tian 
oostre Hue Ii Bigot." Soe Provost's note, if. 256; Taylor, 234, 

« Roman de Row, 154723 

“Gulllame ke en alt Mallet 
Hardiement entrets so met.” 


i 


ADVANCE OF THE NORMANS, 


467 


and who on that day knew how to reconcile his duty ng euar, xy. 


a Norman subject with respect and honour towards the 
Prince and towards the land to which that duty made him 
a foe The names and the rewards of these men and of 
countless others are written in the great record of Domes- 
day. ‘The heroes who fought against them for hearth and 
home are nameless, 


The invading army was thus arranged in a threefold Thre» 
in 


division according to the place of origin of each con- troops 


order according to the nature of the troops of which each 


contingent was made up. First in each division marched archers; 
the archers, slingers, and cross-bow men, then the more PT fogs 
heavily armed infantry, lastly the horsemen? ‘The reason of bovemen- 
this arrangement is clear, The light-armed were to do what The order 
they could with their missiles to annoy the English, and, 


if possible, to disorder their close array. On them followed 
the heavy infantry; they were to strive to break down the 
palimdes of the English camp, and so to make ready the 
way for the charge of the horse. For William’s knights to 
charge up the slope of Senlac was in any case a hard task, 
but to charge up the slope, right in the teeth of Harold’s 
axes, with the shield-wall and the triple palisade still 
unbroken, would have been eheer madness, The infantry 
were therefore exposed to the first and most terrible danger, 
bat we are not therefore justified in charging William with 
that bratal carelessness as to soldiers beneath the degree of 
knighthood or gentry which was so often displayed by 
French commanders of later times. The two great captains 
who were that day matched together both knew their 


* See Appendix PP 
* Will, Pict, 132, “ Pedites in fronte locavit, magittie armatos ot ta- 
iste, fern pediter tn online secundo firmiures et Yorlestos; ultimo turmas 
equitum.” 
aha 


3 


FE 


i 


a 


THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


trade, ‘The foresight of Harold had made William's 
choicest troops altogether useless, until ater « struggle 
which could not fail to be attended with a frightful 
slaughter of his warriors of lower degree. 


The English host now looked down from the height 
of Senlae upon the advancing enemy. Like the Normans, 
they had rison early; they wore now fully armed, and 
they stood ready and eager for battle.’ The King rode 
round his lines, and made the specch to his men which was 
always looked for from a general before battle” The topics 
of Harold's exhortation were as obvious as those of William's. 
‘The English had simply to stand firm, and they were invin~ 
cible; if they broke their ranks, they were lost. They 
fought for their country, their warfare was purely defensive, 
while Duke William had come from 2 foreign land to seck 
to conquer them. It was therefore for William to attack, 
for Harold simply to defend; he bad therefore chosen a 
post where the whole work to be done was to defend it. 
‘The Normans were good and valiant horsemen; let them 
once pierce the English barrier, and it would be hard to 
drive them out again. But if the English kept their ranks, 
the Normans never could pierce the barrier, Their long 
lances would help thom but little in a combat on such ground 
as he had chosen for the fight. The English javelins would 
disorder their ranks as they came on, and the axes would 
cleave them fo the earth if they ventured on a hand to 
hand fight at the barricndes* And now, as Vital hud 

* Roman de Ron, 13885 ; 

© Bsr matin Loe fit tox armor 
E& Ia bataille conréer." 

* Harold's apeoch comes from Wace, 12889 et sqq. 

* Roman da Ron, 12965 ; 

“‘Lamguen Iaaces unt ot emptor, _-F. granz gisarmes comoluen. 

Ke de lor torres mnt aporides, —- Cuntrw vor artim ki bien taillent 

Fo aver. lanone agtion ‘Re uid Jos lor gairex na xalllent.” 
Tho rerpootive weapons of the two notions could hardly be better describesk._ 


4 k = | 


SPEECH OF HAROLI. 409 


brought his news to William, so also an English spy omar. xv, 
brought to Harold the latest tidings of the array and the the Rae 
approach of the enemy. he King was still on his horse, trian’ 
his javelin in his band, when the news was brought to him” 
beneath the shadow of a tree—perhaps the hoar apple-tree 
which marked the place of battlet When he had heard #0 aie 
the tidings of his mossonger, when he had surveyed and oes 
exhorted his whole army, the King rode to the royal post; Po 
he there dismounted, he took his place on foot, aud prayed 
to God for holp.* 

‘Thue far we have a natural and credible picture of the 
preparations of Harold and his host for the work of that 

awfal day. But such w day was not likely to pass with 
ont: its fall accompaniment of legend and romance.* Nor Tuloe of 
man writers, strangely in the confidence of the English Gayitant 
King, now tell us of dialogues between Harold and Gyrth ; 
how, when the first division appeared on the crest of the 


* ‘Tapestry, plate 13. “ Inte nuntint Haroldam Regem de exeretin Wir 
Jeli Ducis.” ‘Tho vory oteildng gure of Harold on his horse fx clossly 
shown under Ue tree, wuil the meseenyer and the bust which he hae besa 
spying out soa to be whown croming the broken grond betwen Tetham 
nnd Seatac, 


* Roman de Rov, 129675 
Quant Hersut out tot apresté, Emm! los Englels ent venu, 
E go Kil volt out comands, ‘Lea Festondart ext deveondw.” 


‘This i almeat o translation of the lines in the song of Maldon, quoted in 
vol. fp. 269, note a. So ngnin, 131035 
“Miz so sunt justo Vestandart ; 
‘Chewcun prie ke Des lo gar.” 

* Tho Hyde writer (295) prewrves a strangu legend indeed, He puis at 
this point the advice which Gyrth gave hefore the army loft London, Bot 
armfos are marshalled; Harold hae made bis speech (“(Hlaroldus quoque 
exercitus: suum une vultu, nune voce, nunc patrid omtione, hortatur”), 
‘Thon Gyrth counsols his brother to withdraw, while he himeolf loads on ther 
army. Then ccimen this marvellous tale; ““Denigue quum omninodo Hae 
roldus obsisteret, eb numquam se Normannorum timore fugam inire respon- 
dervt, principes Anglorm eqaum ent elas infidebar [Insidebat?) ener 
raverunt, dicontes debere oum participem ese pernsrum qai tantom malum 
Anglioe eolue intulerit.” ‘Thie ix one way indeed to account for the national 
Atnctics. 


470 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


guar. xv, hill, the King’s heart was lifted up as he looked at his own 
vast numbers, and how he despised tho xeemingly small 
band that came against him. But Gyrth, over wise, bids 
him think of the valour and good array, the horses and the 
harness of the enemy, and to remember how large a part 
of his own army are but unarmed churls, Presently, ae 
division after division appears on Telham and passes down 
into the lower ground, the King’s heart begins to quake. 
‘The Earl, an easy prophet after the fact, reproaches him 
with not having followed his counsel, with having refused 
to remain in London, and with having msbly staked evory~ 
thing on a single battle, Harold answors that it is Satur~ 
day, his lucky day, the day on which he was born, and tbe 
day which he had therefore chosen for his challenge,* The 
calm intellect of Gyrth, like that of William, mocks at 
luck, and he reminds his brother that, if Saturday waa the 
day of his birth, Saturday may also prove to be the day of 
his death. At last the whole ground between the heights 
is filled with tho invading host ; the banner of Saint Peter 
is scen floating over the central division. Then the King’s 
heart utterly fails him; he can hardly speak for fear and 
wonder; he can only mutter charges against Baldwin of 
Flanders for deceiving him by fulae tales, of which no 
mention is found elsewhere, as to the foree which William 
would be likely to muster.? 


* Roman do Roa, 12985-13999. Harold ia here (ave Appendix LL) 
made to aay that he haa four bundred thoursad men of all kinds, 


* Th. 140845 

‘“Guert, dist Hersnt, por bien le fis; Ma more dire mo xolelt 

Tor Wi amis & wasn, Ko A ool jor blen m'aretndrelty” 
Por go ke ssmmedf nnskt ; 


‘Compare the memorable Tuesdays in the life of Thomas of London. Herbert, 
vil. 164 (Giles) ; Robertuon’s Becket,” 339. 
* Roman de Row, £40985 
"TA quene de Flandre mate; Rt par mnewaige amdani 
‘Mult fiw lee fale jel! on, Ke Willamo ne porroit mio 
Kar par son brief m'avelt mandé — Aveir of grant chewalerie,” 
Tean throw no more Ught on theva deallnge of Baldwin with Harold than 


4 ke al 


THE ENGLISH DEFENCES, 


47h 


The credibility of a story of this kind is of the very cuar.xv, 


lowest, Harold and Gyrth both died in the battle; they 
would at any rate keep their fears to thomaclves, and it is 
hard to sce how their private talk could haye come to the 
knowledge of the Norman poct, Besides this, Harold 
soust, by this time at least, have known perfectly well the 
nature and number of the force that was coming against 
him, The very account in which we find all these stories 
tells us how well both sides had been served by spies and 
mossengers.' Each prince must have been thoroughly 
aware with what kind of an enemy he had to deal. There 
was enough indeed to mako the stoutcat heart in either, 
army anxious; but of any feeling unworthy of a King or 
asoldier Harold und William were alike incapable. The 
proud horeemen and archers of Normandy might indeed, 
like the Medes of old, wonder at the tacties which met 


them without the help of bow oryataed sf beak, they coal the Mage 
hardly, like their forerunners, impute madness to the im- 8°" 


moveable wedge of men which, as if fixed to the ground 
by nature, covered every inch of the hill that faced them. 


The whole height was alive with warriors; the sloped ‘Taste do 
strong in themselves, were still further strengthened by the fences cakae ras 


firm barricades of ash and other timber, wattled in so close 
together that not a crevice could be seen. Up the slopes, 
through the barricades, the enemy had to make their way 
in the teeth of ranks of men, ranged so closely together in 
the thick array of the shield-wall, that while they only 
kept their ground, the success of an assailant was hopeless." 


Every man, from the King downwards, was on foot. Those The whole 


who rode to the field put their horses aside when tho fy. 


Lean upon his other no less mysterious dealings with William. See above, 
Pe 313; and Appendix Z, 

¥ Seo above, p. 483, 

® Herod, i 112, Maviqu ve ries ‘Atyvaiover dmiepov nal why xv OAs0piyy, 
Spdawrrea abraie INiyovs, aa} roUrovs bp Ueeryouivour, obre Fenou imapyoene 
op obre rofeusdrar. Hore however It was no case of Spd del toda. 

* See Appondis NN. 


ed 


472 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


caar. xv, moment for actual fighting came.’ An English King was 
bound to expose his subjects to no danger from which he 
himself shrank, and, where the King fought, no man might 
dream of flight? This ancient national custom, adopted 
in earlier fights from choice and habit, was, in the pest 
which Harold had chosen, a matter of absolute necessity. _ 
‘The work of that day was to defend a fortress, to stand 
firm, and to strike down at once any man who strove to 
The light make his way within its wooden walls. "To the south-west 
the lon, of the hill, beyond the isthmus, seem to ave been placed 
the less trustworthy portions of the army, the sudden levies 
of the southern shires." These, like the Norman archers, 
Engh had, for the most part, no defensive armour. Their weapons 
eyes" wore of various kinds; the bow was tho rarest of all;* a 
fow only were armed with swords or axes. Most of them 
had javelins or clubs, some had only such rustic weapons 
as forks and sharp stakes. Others seom to have still wielded 
some of the rudest arms of primitive days, and to have gone 
to battle with the stone hatchets or stone hammers which 
we commonly look on as belonging only to earlier and 


Be kp abs Will. Pict, 133, {Troe eqasren Yow ty 
cunot! peiites constitere denslux conglotmti.” 80 Guy, 3695 
 Nesola gens belli solamina spernit equoruz, 
‘Viribos et fidens teeret humo pedibus, 
JE deous case maork summum aiudteat armty, 
Sub juga ne tellue transeat altertus.” — ~ 
(The Peterborough Chronicle bimeclf could not have asked for « mobler 
panegyric on hie countrymen than thee two lines.) He presently add 


GIs 
“Ommos descendant ot equos post tenga rolinquunt, 
Affixique ello bulla cere tubis," 

* Ree the quotation from William of Malmesbury at vol. i, p. 270. 

* On placing the inferior troops fn the rear, soo the tectios of Eadmnund ot 
Sherstona, vol. 1. p. 383. 

* Only one English axvher is represented in the Tapestry, pl t4, THe fem 
mall man without semour, crouching under the shield of a tall Houseeart, 
ke Teskros under that of Alas; 11. vil. 267. Compare the remarks on 
‘tho ea of the bow at Stamfontbridge, p. 371. 


a = = | 





‘THE ENGLISH ARRAY, 


473 


Tower races than our own.! But even such rude weapons omar. xv, 


as these would be of use in thrusting back the less efficient 
portion of the invadors, as they strove to climb the height 
or to break down the barricade. But it was not in troops 
or arms like these that Harold placed his main trust. ‘The 
flower of the English army was made up of the King’s 
personal following, his picked men, who had been bis eom- 
vades in all his wars, together with the chosen warriors of 
Kent, Essex, and London. These wore helmets and coats 
of mail hardly differing from those of the enemy. Their 
shields too were mostly of the eamo kite-shaped form, but 
a fow of them vary from this type; some cepecially are 
round, with a boldly projecting boss, more like the shiclds 
of classical warfare. They carried, like the Romans, jave- 
lins to hurl at the beginning of the action, and heavier 
wenpons for close combat. Some still kept the anciont 
‘road-sword, the weapon of Bronanburh, of Maldon, and of 
Assandun, but most of them bore a weapon more terrible 


still, the long-handled axe wielded with Loth hands, He 


use of this arm was an innovation of the Inst fifty years, 
ts introduction was doubtless due to Cont, bat the axe 
was probably brought into more general use, and made 
more distinctly the national weapon, by Harold himself. 
‘The Norman writers seem almost to shudder at the remem~ 
brance of this fearful weapon, which, wielded by the arm 
of Harold, struck down horse and man at asinglo blow.* 
Tt was in truth the perfection of a weapon of mere strength; 
no blow could be eo crushing if the blow reached its aim ; 
but swang in the air, as it was, with both hands, it left its 


+ On tho arms of tho English, seg Appendic NN. 

* Will. Malms, ffi, 243. ““Haroldus . . . apo hoster cominus veni- 
enter forirs, ut nullos tmpune nccederet quin statim une feta eyaus ot 
‘ques prociderant.” The clashing of axe an lance at Senlee ean hanily fail 
to remind one of the saying of Speribias und Boulix (Herod, vii. 438)3 af 
‘vip aiirie (treudepint) ephoain, ob dv Bipam orpHoudeious Quiv wept aris 
whgeedan, AAA al wedinesi. 


a 


474 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


cmar. xy. wielder specially exposed to missile weapons while in the 
Thetwo act. of striking the blow.’ On the very crown of the hill, 
emsigts; on the point where the ground begins to slope to the south- 
cast, the point directly in the teoth of the advancing army, 
on the spot marked to after ages by the high altar of the 
abbey church of Battle, were planted the two-fold ensigns 
the of England ‘There, high above the host, flashed the 
Pee; Dragon of Wessex, th sign which hed led Englishmen to 
victory at Ethandan and at Bronanburh, at Penselwood and 
at Brentford, and which had sunk without dishonour in 
the last fight beneath the heights of Assandun. And now 
it came all glorious from tho overthrow of the mightiest 
warrior of the North, to try the fortune of England against 
tbe Sten: | the subtler arts of Gaul and Rome, There too was pitehed 
the Standard, the personal ensign of the King, a glorious: 
gonfanon, blazing with gems, and displaying, wrought in 
the purest gold, the old device of Eteoklos,* the armed 
onl ped warrior advancing to the battle. Around this apecial post 
Standard. of honour and of danger were ranged the choicest warriors 
of England, the personal following of Harold and his house, 
their Thegns and their Housecarls, the men who had 
stormed the mountain-holds of Gruflydd and whose axes 
‘The King had cloven the ebicld-wall of Hardrada.’ And there, be~ 
i ti..tweon tho Dragon and tho Standard, stood the rising hopes 
of England’s newly-chosen dynasty. Thoro, as the inner 
circle of the host, were ranged the fated warriors of the 
house of Godwine. Three generations of that great line 
were gathered beneath the Standard of its chief. There 
+ See Appendix NN. * Bee Appendix NX 
# Bach. Sept. e. Theb. 447; 
deypirara 8 bows ob opuepdv tpSK0r 
rip U dedirgs, ard. 
* Seo Appendix NN, 
* Wid. Amb, 374+ “Nobilibusque viria munft utrumque Jaton” So 
‘Roman de Rou, 12973; 
 Asor out entar Hi Rarons 
‘Herwat fu lex ol goafsnons,” 


THE GROUP BY THE STANDARD, 


475 


stood the aged ZElfwig, with his monk's cowl beneath his ouar,xv. 


helmet. There stood young Hakon the son of Swegen, 
atoning for his father's crimes, And, closer still than all, 
the innormost centre of that glorious ring, stood the kingly 
three, brothers in life and death. There, in their stainless 
truth, stood Gyrth the counsellor and Leofwine the fellow- 
exile And there, with his foot firm on his native earth, 
sharing the toils and dangers of his meanest soldier, with 
the kingly helm upon his brow and the two-handed axe 
upon his shoulder, stood Harold, King of the English. 


The French army was now crossing the lower, but not 
level, ground which lies between Telham and Senlac. Tt is 
not strictly a plain, but rather a rolling country, with the 
ground rising and falling, Swampy as it still is in many 
places, to croga it, and that in the fall harness of battle, 
must have added somewhat to the toils and difficulties of 
ne march which had already led them from Hastings to 
‘Telham. Still all three divisions pressed vigorously on to 


the foot of the heights. Alan and his Bretons on the left, Points of 
the division of William’s army which was most likely the ite thse 
Teast estoemod, had to make their attack on the least: trust~ visions. 


worthy portion of the English army. They had to make 
their way up the ground lying to the west of the present 
buildings of the abbey. There the ascent is easiest in iteelf, 
but it is defended by the small detached hill already spoken 


¥ Will, Mala. iii. 241. “Rex Ippo pedles justs vextllam stsbat cum 
frotribus” So William of Poitiers by implication (138); *Proplus Regem 
‘fnstres ajus duo reperti sunt.” “Wace anya (12978); 
“Lowine > Guert foront of Iai, 
‘Frere Herwut furent andul,” 
And afterwards (13108), “Eneiron els for parens forent.” On the atrength 
of this T beve ventured to introduce Haken, as well as Ailfwig, The Abbot 
undoubtedly was there (see vol. if, p. 682); and, if Harold had brought 
‘Fakon book from Normandy (see abave, p. 243), he would hardly be away. 
A may perhaps have been soiewhat influenced by the part which Hakon 
plays in Lord Lytton's romance, where however he somowhal warps the 
troditional functions of Gyrth, 


a 


476 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


amr. xv. of, which was doubtless bold as an English outpost. On 
the other hand, further to the right, Roger of Montgomery 
with his Frenchmen had to attack at the eastern comer of 
‘the hill, where the present road from Hastings enters the 
town of Battle. William himself and his native Normans 

Wratlam took on them the heaviest task of all. They were the 

meet ue centre, and their dnty was to cut their way up the ‘ill 
right to the Standard, in the teeth of King Harold himself 
and the picked men of the English host. 


~ And now the fight began. It was one of the sacred 
hours of the Church, it was at the hour of prime, threo 

9 oan hours before noon-day,? that the first blows were 
between the invaders and the defenders of England. 'The 
Normans had crossed the English fosse,* and were now at 
the foot of the hill, with the palisades and the axes right 
— before thom. The trumpet sounded, and a flight of arrows 
from the archers in all the three divisions * of William's 
army was the prelude to the onslaught of the heavy-armed 
Rapin o foot. But, before the two armies met hand to hand, a 
"juggler or minstrel, known as Tail/ofer, the Cleaver of 
Tron,’ rode forth from the Norman ranks as if to defy 


* Boe above, p. £46. 
* Flor, Wig, 1066. * Ab hora diel tertii.” 80 Roman de Rou, +3265 5 
* Des ke tierce dl jor eutra, unt al do wh, Fast wi de 
Ke Ja Yotallle soxatece, Ke nas ne sout loquel nelacrelt, 
‘De sf ke none trespamea Ne ki la terre cunquerrelt.” 
Bat 1 eannot help notising the tendency to make the hours of battles and of 
other great events coincide with the bours of the Church. 


* Roman do Row, 13215; 
© Bn la chatmpaigzue ont un ford ; xn belliant Vorent paws, 
‘Normans Tavsient sddoved ; Ne lavoiont mio eogardé.! 
* Od. ix, 1565 


Adrien sayerthn réga Kal alyavias SoAryadAous 
atari Bud 82 eplys mooppddvres 


vee (ate 2 ot seqq,) fatreduces him se “Taller Wi mvt bem 
rantont.” Guy of Amiens fret calle hitn (391) 


EXPLOITS OF TAILLEFER. a7 


the whole force of England in bis single person. Ho char. xv. 
craved and obtainel the Dake's leave to strike the first 
blow; he rode forth, singing songs of Roland and of Charle~ 
magne *—so soon had the name and exploits of the great 
German become the spoil of the enemy. He threw his 
sword into the air and caught it again;* but he presently 
showed that he could use warlike weapons for other pur- 
poses than for jagglers’ tricks of this kind; he piereed one ~ 
Englishman with his lance, he struck down another with 

his swond, and then himself fell beneath the blows of their 
comrades, A bravado of this kind might serve as an 
omen, it might stir up the spirits of men on either side; 

bat it could in no other way affect the fate of the battle. 
William was too wary a general to trust much to such 
knight-errantry as this. ‘After the first discharge of arrows, Fina, — 
the heavier foot followed to the attack, and the real struggle ““*“* 

now began. ‘The French infantry had to toil up the bill, 

and to break down the palisude, while a shower of stones 

and javelina disordered their approach,* and while club, 
sword, and axe greeted all who came within the reach of 


+ iistrio, oar andax nimiam quem nobilitabat ;* 


* Tocloor-ferr maimus coguomnlne dictus'* 
* Roman de Row, 13151 5 
*"Dovant i Das slout eantant Ed! Otiver 8 doe vasals 
‘De Karlotaine 3 de Rollant, Ki morurent on Renohovals.” 
Will, Malion. ti 242. “Tune cantileoA Rolland) inshosts, wt tnrtiam 


After the profanation of the aamo of the groat Emperor, it tu refresking to 
turn to a wor or two of his own spocch, 

howd banily have ventured to accupt this juggling trlok on tho wale 
authority of Henry of Huntingdon (Mf. HB. 763 T2), but wo find 4 lao in 
Guy, 3935 


‘Alto projiciens 
# Will, Pict. 153. “Tin (tho English mines, ooo above, p- 472), veluti 
mole Tetiferd, statin nostros olral. pntares.”" 


a | 


478 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, 


eur, 3¥. hand-strokes, The native Normans had to do this in the 
face of the fiercest resistance, in the teeth of the heaviest 
axes, wielded by the hands of men with whom to fight had 
ever been to vanquish, the kinsmen and Thegns and House+ 
earls of King Harold. Their own missiles, hurled from 
below, could do comparatively little hurt. Both sides 
fought with unyielding valour; the war-cries rove loud on 
Tee war either side;! the Normans shouted “God help us;° the 
English, from behind their barricndes, mocked with eries 
of “Ont, ont,” every foe who entered or strove to enter* 
But our fathers also mingled piety with valour; they too 
called on holy names to help them in that day's etruggle.* 
‘They raised their national war-cry of “God Almighty,”* 


* Will, Pict, 233. “Altimdmus elamor, hino Normannieus, filing bar 
baricus, armorom sonitn et gemuito morientium superstur,” Cf. Amrndamm, 
vox 7, “Barbaro majorun lauds clamoribun stdebant noun intorque 
‘varios sermons dimon! stropitas leviora pru:tia tentaluntur."” 

* Roman de Rou, 13193; 

“Normana evoriont ; Dex alo; 
La gout engleeche, Ut sesarle,” 
Compare the dying words of Lewis the Pious in the Astronomer's Lite 
(64, Poets AL 6(8)5 "Bla eld, Hass, boty quod dgaifeat fords ‘Unde 
patet quia malignum spiritum vidit," de. ‘The English hail to dtiye out Lows 
paheds 

» As wo have two entignn, a national and a poronal one, so we evidently 
havea national and » personal war-cry. As, besides the Standard, Harold's 
own Standard, we have the naxtonal Dragon, 10 we have the ery of "Holy 
Crow," which eannot fail fo bo att invocation of Hareld's own Holy Crom of 
‘Waltham, and we have alw another cry of “God Almighty," which we 
must infer to be more strictly national ory, Wo may fnoy that the 
Lene tenes ahotel Gok Alea? while the King’s Thegns and 

‘Howsecarls shouted "Holy Cross." 
* Compare the description of « widely different warfire ; 
“Ani ene enormous about of (Allah !" rose 
Tn tho eave inoment, loud a» oven the roar 
Of war's most mortal engines, to their fos 
‘Hurling defiance: city, stream, and shore 
Reeoundet “Allah! and the clouds which close 
‘With thickening canopy the conflict o'er, 
Vibrate 10 the Rternal name. Hark through 
All sounds it piereeth, ‘Allah! Allsh| Hut?” 
Doo Juan, vill, 8: 


L | 


FIRST NORMAN ATTACK, 479 


and in remembrance of the relic which their King so well crar. xv. 
loved to honour, they called on the “Holy Crees,” the The «Maly 
Holy Cross of Waltham, little knowing perhaps ‘of the Walthase. 
awful warning which that venerated rood had given to 

their King and to his people.’ The Norman infantry had — 
now done its best, but that best had been in vain, ‘The Attack 
cheicest chivalry of Europe now pressed on to the attack.? Noman 
‘Tho knights of Normandy, and of all tho lands from which bemamen. 
men had flocked to William's standard, now premed on, 
striving to make what impression they could with the 
whole strength of themselves and their horses on the im- 
penetrable fortress of timber, shields, and living warriors. 

But the advantage of ground enjoyed by the English, their 
greater physical strength and stature,? the terrible weapons 
which they wielded, all joined to baffle every effort of 
Breton, Picard, Norman, and of the mighty Duke himself, 
Javelin and arrow bad beon tried in vain; every Norman 
missile had found an English missile to answer it. The 
lifted lances had been found wanting; the broad-sword 

bad clashed in vain agninsh the two-handed axe;’ the 


* We hore gut some moro of Wane's English. Roman de Row, #31495 
“ Olicroste wrvent cricent, Ke Sadnte Croke est on trancetz, 


E Godemite reclamoont; Et. Goddemite nltretant 
Olicrowe ost en onslois ‘Com en frencets Des tot potenant.” 
B.WIL Tits 14s *Gubrekaat wylien o eet Fotaien fons int 


taller than the Normans, Compare uke same remark om our continental 
kinafalls, ps 93~ 
“Will, Plt. 133. “Vulnerant ot cos qui eminus in 9¢ jaculs oonjieiunt.” 
So Wid. Amb, 415; 

 Angloram atat fixa solo donsissima tarba, 

Tela dat ot telin et gladion gladile.” 

* Will, Pict, u.s, “Bortisime ttaque mntinent vel propellant ausos fo 
s0 districtim onsibs impotum facere.” Cf. Tl x¥. 7685 


480 THE CAMPAIGN OP HASTINGS, 

war. x7. maces of the Duke and of the Bishop had done their best. 
But few who came within the anerring sweep of an English: 

Sacces of axe ever lived to strike another blow. Rank after rank of 

sans the best chivalry of Frances and Normandy pressed om to 

hewn the unavailing task, All was in vain; the old ‘Toatonie 

‘ack. tactics, carried on that day to perfection by the master- 
skill of Harold, proved too strong for the arts and the 
valour of Gaul and Roman. Not a man had swerved; nob 
an inch of ground was lost; the shield-wall was still un~ 
broken, and the Dragon of Wessex still eoared unconquered 
over the hill of Senlac.* 


‘The English had thas far stood their ground well and 
wisely. ‘Tho tactics of Harold had thus far completely: 
answered, Not only had every attack failed, but the great 

Might mast of the French army altogether lost heart. ‘The 
Bretoms  Bretons and the other auxiliaries on the left wore the first 
Try. to give way. Horse and foot alike, they tumed and fled. 
Yeht A body of English troops wax now rash enough, in direct 
Engiih defiance of the King’s orders, to leave its post and pursue, 
Porme. ‘These were of course some of the defenders of the English 
right. They may have boon, as is perhaps suggested by a 
later turn of the battle, the detachment which guarded the 
small outlying hill, Or they may have been the men 
posted at the point just behind the outlying hill, where 
the slope is easiest, and where the main Breton attack 


rl Eaperer peyidever eat dqxeow dyperioron, 
So Deseo Neemannicas, f. £490; 
“Comat teloress jactes pharetris racuatie - 
‘Hlastas feet clypeus, coats ab exe sues." 
* Adam of Bowmen (iil $1) marks the snscem of the English in the early. 
Part of the battle; “In qu> Angli primem rictores, deinde viel = Monde 
matais, aque od fiom contriti went.” —_ 


" i 





FLIGHT OF THE NORMANS, 


would most likely be made, They had succceded in beat- cuar. xv, 


‘ing back their assailants, and the temptation to chase the 
flying enemy must have been hard indeed to withstand. 
Anil it may even be that old quarrels of race added keon~ 
ness to the strife, and that Englishmen felt a special 
delight in cutting down Bret-Wealas even from beyond 


wea, At any rate, the whole Of William's loft wring: was Pant of al 


thrown into utter confusion. The central division could ay" 


hardly have seen the cause of that confusion; the press 
of the fagitives disordered their ranks, and soon the whole 
of the assailing host was falling back; even the Normans 
themselves, as their historian is driven unwillingly to con- 
foes, were at last carried away by the contagion.’ For the 
moment the day seemed lost; men might well deem that 
the Bastard had no hope of being changed into the Con- 
queror, the Dake of the Normans into the King of the 


English. But tha. strong: heart of William failed bicn nob; Wites 
and by his single prowess and presence of mind he recalled 24,08, 
his flying troops. Like Brihtnoth at Maldon,? like Ead- fgitives 


mund at Sherstone,' he was himself deemed to have fallen 
or to have fled.‘ He tore his helmet from his head,’ and 


* Will. Pict. 153. Koso igitur his moviti porterriti avurtuntur pedites 
pariter alque equites Britaani ot qaotquot auxillares erant In sinintro cornu j 
cedlt few euncta Ducis acies; quod cam paoe dictum xit Normannorasn 
Snictinimas nationis.” 80 Guy, 4445 

“ Normoun fugiunt, dorss tegunit elipel.” 
(On the difference In the order of events between William nnd Guy see Ap- 
pendix MM.) Cf. Kadmer (5, 6, copied by Koger of Howden, Dromton, 
and others); “De quo pralio textantur adhue Franc qui interfuersnt, quo: 
niam, licet varius casus hic inde exstiterit, tamcn tanta strages ac fuge 
‘Normanaorum full, pt victoria qua potiti want vere et absque dublo solo 
sniaculo Del adgeribenda sit.” 

> Bee vol. bp. 27% 2 Th py a8 

* Wil, Pict, us, “Credidore Normanni Ducem ac dominum waa 
conidlaea.” 

© Th. 134.“ Nudato ineuper eapite dotmolaque guleé.” Bo Guy, 4487 
“<Tratus galeh nudat et fps caput.” In the Tapestry, pl. 15, he simply 
‘raises his nowe-pieoo. ‘This was porhapa tho real action, which ft wa hard 
to describe in an heroic fashion, 

‘YOu, 11. ai 


7 


482 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


‘one. x¥. with his look and his voice" he called back his men to the 
attack. “Madmen,” he cried, “behold mo, Why flee ye? 
Death is behind you, victory is bofore you. L live, and by 
God's grace I will conquer,”* With a spear, matchod, it 
may be, from some comrade, he met or pursued the fugi- 
tives, driving them back by main force to the work.’ Yet 
one version tells us that at this very moment a counsellor 
of flight was at his side, One Norman post has sung how 
Eustace of Boulogne bade William turn his rein, and not 
rush on upon certain death.* If such counsels were ever 
given, they woro cast asido with scorn; the bold words 
and gestures of the Duke brought back the spirits of his 
men, and his knights once more pressed on, sword in 
hand," round him. His brother the Bishop meanwhile 
rode, mace in hand, to another quarter, und called back 
to their duty another party of fugitives.‘ Eneouraged 


4 Wid, Amb. 449.“ Vullum Normannis dat, verbs precantia Gallia” 
* Will, Pict, 134. “Me, inquit, cireumspicite, Vivo, et vineam, opt- 
‘tulanto Deo, Quwv vobix dementia fugam guadet?” &o, ‘The exact words 
aro of couree given differently in different accounts, A 
* Tb, “Fugtontibos ooourrtt et obstitit, verberans aut minans hinsté."” So 
Guy, 4455 
«Dux ubl peespextt quod gens mus victa recedit, 
‘Occurrens illt signa ferendo manu, 
‘et endit, retinet, constringit ot hasta.” 
‘Yotit te at thiv moment that tho Tapestey (pl. 1§, ‘Hic eet Willolm Dux") 
shown hit in the mont marked way with his mace, 
* On tho part takin bry Enstsce in the battle, ane Appendix NN. 
* In tho Tapestry, pl. 15, all Willian’ immediate commdes at thin pout 
except Funtace, are shown with drawn swords, 
* Roman de Bou, 132435 


“Quant Odes If bown eorunes, Losi furont asséaré, 
Ki do Bafoues ert morex, Ne no munt mio remus, 
Pofnat, al lor dint, Exton, owtex ; Odes revint pulguant ariire 
‘Séiex en pais, ne vox mores 5 U la bataille extait pile fire, 
N'aiex poor de nulo rien, Formont jo Hi jor valu.” 
Ker m Dox plalst nos velnoron bien, 


‘Ho i very plainly shown in tho ‘Tapestry, pl. 1g; "lo Odo. Rpisnopas, 
baculum tenens, confortat puoros.” Odo is nowt prominent in the two 
authorities belonging to bis owa church, 


i k = | 


SECOND NORMAN ATTACK, 483 


by this turn in the fight, the Breton infantry themselves, cuar. xv. 
chased as they were nctoss the field by the over-daring 7 
English, now tomed and nt their parsers in pion? en, 
Order was soon again established throughout the whole sp" 
lino of the assailants, and William and Odo, with all their 
host, preszed on to a second and more terrible attack. 
ag tha ede ete me a het Laser 
begun. ‘The Duke himself, at the head of his own Nor- Sty, 
sans, again pressed towards the Standard. ‘Now came Ferenal 
whut was. perhape the flercost exchange of handstrokes Wilan. 
in tho whole battle, As in tho old Roman legend,’ the 
main stress of the fight fell on three valiant brethren 

on cither side, William, Odo, and Robert pressed on to 

the attack, while Harold, Gyrth, and Leofwine stood 
ready to dofend. The Duke himself, his relics round his Wiliam, 
nock, spurred on right in the tocth of the English King. (ia%it"* 
A few moments more, and the mighty rivals might have 

met face to face, and the war-club of the Bastard might 

havo clashed against the lifted axe of the Emperor of 
Britain. That Harold chrank from euch an encounter we 

may not deem for a moment. But « heart, if it might but is um 
Ve, even lofticr than his own beat high to save him from thems? 
such a risk. Tn the same hervie spirit in which be had 67". 
already offered to lead the host on what seemed a desperate 
enterprise,” the Earl of the East-Angles pressed forward 

to give, if need be, his own lif for his King and brother. 


+ Will, Pict, 134, ““THxardentos Normanni, ot ciroumvenientes millia 
aliquot insequuta #6 momento delevorunt =, ut ne quidem unun ruper: 
‘emot.” But Guy (463) seems to include other parte of the army also; 


* Teel hanily refi to the story of the Horatit and Curlatii in Livy 
(4.24); * Forte in duobos tam ecaretibus oranttrigeruinkfatro, noe tate 
1u0o viribus diopares.’” 

* Bee above, ps 4350 

ri2 


a 


4d THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


onar. xv. Before William could come to handstrokes with Harold, 
porhape before he could even reach the barricade, a spear, 
horled by the hand of Gyrth, checked his progress. ‘The 
weapon so far mised its aim that the Duke was him— 

self unhurt. But his noble Spanish horse, the first of 

three that died under him that day, fell to the ground.” 

But Dake William could fight on foot ax well ax on 
horseback.* Indeed on foot he hada certain advantage. 

He could press closer to the barricade, and could deal 
anearor and surer blow. And a near and sure blow he 
Hao did deal. William rove to his fect; he pressed straight 
‘at the bar- to seek the man who had so nearly slain him. Duke and 
fewest Earl met face to fice, and the English hero fell crushed 
THis beneath the atrke of the Dakels mace’ ‘The day might 
Tentand: seem to be turning against Rngland, when 2» son of 
SS ee ee 

had fallen by a fate worthy of such a spirit, a fate than 

which none could be more glorious; he had died in the 
noblest of causes and by tho hand of tho mightiest of 
enemies. Nor did be fall alone; close at his side, and 

of almost at the same moment, Leofwine, fighting sword 
in hand, was smitten to the earth by an unnamed as~ 
sailant, perhaps by the mace of the Bishop of Bayeux or 


i 


‘So Will. Plot, 136. “Equi tros cociderunt sub eo confomd. ‘Ter fle de 
sdluit Intrepidus, neo diu mors yeotoris Inulta remamit.” So Will. Malins. 
Mii, 244. Dam uibique serit, ublquo infrendot, trex oquoe Jectininom subs 
» confomon of die aminit,” I Bnd no account of the thind unhoring, 
# Od. tx. 495 
“Atreypor volorres, Jeierdueros ply dp! fear 
drdpio pipwacdas, wal 60 xph wey Udvra. 
‘On the different accounts of the death of Gyrth, soe Appendix NIN 


4 =| 


DEATH OF GYRTH AND LEOFWINE, 


485 


‘by the lance of the Count of Mortain.’ A dark cloud cuar, sy. 


indeed seemed to have gathered over the destinies of the 
great West-Saxon house. Of the valiant band of sons 
who had stood round Godwine on the great day of his 
return, Harold now stood alone. By a fate of special 
bitterness, he had seen with his own eyes the fall of 
‘those nearest and dearest to him. The deed of Metaurus 
had been, a8 it were, wrought beneath the eyes of Han- 
nibal;* Achilleus had looked on and scen the doom of his 
Patroklos and his Antilochos. The fate of England now 
rested on the single heart and the single arm of her King. 
But the fortune of the day was still far from being 
etermined. The two Earls had fallen, but the fight at. 
the barricades went on as fiercely as before. The men 
of the Earldoms of the two fallen chiefs shrank not because 
of the love of their captains. The warriors of Kent and 


Essex fought manfully to avenge their leader.’ As for Willan 


the Duke, we lef him on foot, an enemy os dangerous (hs 


on foot as when mounted on his destrier. But Norman Sah 


and horse could not long be severed. William. called to" 
a knight of Maine to give up his charger to his sovereign. 
‘Was it cowardice, was it disloyalty to the usurper of 
the rights of tho old Cenomannian house, which mado 
the knight of Maine refuse to dismount at William's 
bidding? But a blow from the Duke's hand brought 


* The death of Leatwine ns woll s# of Gyrth is plaoed ab thie point in 
the Tapestry, pl. t4. On the swont, soe Appondix NN, 

* Liv. xevil. 49. (Thi, ub patre Elamilearo ot Hannibolo fratre dignam 
eral, pugnans cecidit.” Compare the reception of the mews by Hannibal 
ine, §1. 

* Roman do Row, 138745 

LA‘ a prewe ort plus espewe, Efi Normans rusee faiveienty 

La cll de Kent 8 ofl d'Komemo En rut les faincient rotralre, 
A morveiilo 02 combotelent, Ne lor posient grant mal faire.” 

Wid. Amb. 4895 

‘Tile timens cxedem nogat {ht forre aalutem ; 
‘Nam pavitat mortem, oon lepus ante eanem,” 


i 


dl 


486 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


-omsr.xv, tho disobedient rider to the ground,! and William, again 
‘mounted, was goon again dealing wounds and death a1 
the defenders of England.’ But the deed and the fate 
of Gyrth were soon repeated. The spear of another Bag- 
Tishman brought William's second horse to the ground, 
and he too, like the East-Anglian Eatl, paid the penalty 
of his exploit by death at tho Duke's own band? Count 
Eustace had by this time better learned how to win the 
favour of his great ally, His horse was frocly offered to 
the Dake; a knight of his own following did him the 
same good service, and Duke and Count pressed fiercely 
against the English lines.! The straggle was hard; but 

Partial me- the advantage still remained with the English, ‘The 

Freetwte, second attack had indeed to somo extent prevailed, "Not 

suite only had the English suffered a personal lose than which 
‘one loas only conld have been greater, but the barricade 
was now in some places broken down.* The French on 
the right had been specially active and succossful in this 
work. And specially distinguished among them was a 
party under the command of a youthful Norman warrior 


Bat the other motive f just as likely fn one ‘ex Censmannoram progestin 


¥ Wid. Amb. 4915 
“Dux menior, ut miles aublto re vertit ad Mum, 
Per nasum galew omedtus accipions, 
‘Voltum telluri, plantas ad sidors volwit 5 
‘Sic dbl concessum scandere currit oquum,” 
“Mark the mention of the nose-picer, 40 conspicuous in the Tapestry. 
* Tb, gor; 
“ Pontqunan fctus ques Dux ext, mos wcrias howtos 


I with I know where to find him, 
* Th. 5955 
 Talibus aunpietis Comes ot Dux auociati, 
‘Quo magis acm uaicant, bells witaul repetumt.” 
* Will, Pict, 134. "Patmerunt tamen in eos vin incier per diveras 
partes fortinémorum militem ferro.” 


DOUBTFUL SUCCESS OF THE SECOND ATTACK. 487 


who was afterwards to fill a great place in both English cuar-xy., 
and Norman history, Robert the son of the old Roger of 
Beaumont! They had perhaps met with a leas vigorous 
resistance, while the main hopes and fears of every English- 

man must have gathered round the great personal struggle 
which was going on beneath the Standard. Still those 

who were most, successful had as yet triumphed only over 
timber, and not over men. The shield-wall still stood 
behind the palisade, and every Frenchman who bad pressed 
within tho English enclosure had paid for his daring with 

his life? The English lines were as unyiclding as ever ; but the 
and though the sccond attack had not been so utterly Sma 
unsuccessful as the first, it was still plain that to scale "1 
the hill by any direct attack of the Norman horsemen was 

a hopeless undertaking. 

Bat the generalship of William, his ready eye, his quick Witlam’s 
thonght, his dauntless courage, never failed him. In the of the 
Norman character the fox and tho lion were mingled in 
nearly equal shares ;? strongth and daring had failed, 
but the prize might perhaps still be gained by craft 
William had marked with pleasure that the late flight of 
his troops had beguiled a portion of the English to forsake 


» Will, Piet. 134. “Tiro quidam Normannus Robertus, Rogerii de Bello- 
Monte fiius..... prclfum illo die primum expertons, qgit quod eternandum 
ewet laude, cum legfone quan fn dextro comma dusit frrnens ac atarnens 
magnd cum audacid.” Wace (13462) seemingly confounds Robert with hie 
father Roger, who was not there, See Provost's note, ii. 229, and abore, 
(p. 686, Dark how the allies and mercenaries are put ander Norman officers. 

* Roman da Rou, 12941; 

“Ja Normant ne 9 embaatiet, ‘Fust par hache, funt par glsarmo, 

KoTnlne &bunte ne perlist,  U par machue u par altre arme.” 

* See abore, p. 161. 


(The metaphor of the nomus” o "siya" runs throughout Guy's descrip: 
fea.) Ho Wiliam of Malmesbury (i. 228) spanks of Hard as being 
“astutia Willelad circumventus,”* 


| 
488 ‘THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


marked with equal pleasure that some impression had at 
Jast boon made on tho English defences. If by any means 
any large part of the English army could be drawn down 
from the heights, an entrance might be made at the points 
where the barricade was already weakened. He therefore 
ventured on a daring stratagem. If his army, ora por 
tion of it, pretended flight, the English would be tempted 
to pursue; the pretended fugitives would tar 

summit through the gap which would thus be left open. 
He gave his orders accordingly, and they were faithfully 
and skilfully obeyed, A portion of the army, most likely 
the left wing* which had so lately fled in earnest, now 
again turned in seeming flight? Undismayed by the fate 
of their comrades who had before broken their lines, the 
English on the right wing, mainly, ae we have seen, the 
irregular levies, rushed down and pursued them with shouts 
of dolight.* Bat the men of Britanny, Poitou, and Maine 
had now better learned their lesson, They turned on the 


=3 
Wy 


+ Will. Pict. 13g. “ Memineront quam optate rel pantie ante figga 
datorit cocadonetn.” 

* The Birevin Relatio howover (3) calls them “‘cuneus Normannorum fere 
‘time ad raille equites.* But he adds that they wore ‘ex alters parte” 
from tho Duke's own post. 

* Will. Plot. ws “Animadveetentes Normanni, secimjue turbe, nom 
abeque nimio suf Incommodo hostem tantuin simul reslsteutem supeeri 
posse, tery dodorunt, fogam ex industria simulantes.” 

* Guy of Amiens (425) maze clearly what troops they werw who. brake 
their ontor ; 

“*Rastiea ltatur gens ot superiase palate, 

Pout tersum srudis insoquitar glad.” 
‘Williatn of Poitiors (138) is bere very graphic; ““Barbaris cum spe victorke 
lngus ithe ext wt Been cohortantes cxxultante clamarw meatrwt malo 
Giotis increpabsnt, et minabanter eunctor {llico ruitaron ew." Cemnpazo the 
frigmed flight of the Cromdom under Baldwin (Will, Malms. iv. 378}, and 
of the Cummans in Livy, H. r4, Tt is epokou of as a Breton praction fm 
‘the Chronicon Fontanalles, #1 (Parts, i. 303), amd by Raging, 60 

(Rorts, i. 570). See Kaloketain, Robert dur Tapfere, p14. 


am _al 


THE FEIGNED FLIGHT. 459 


poreuing English ; the parts ofthe combatants wore at once enas-2%. 
reversed, and the parsucrs now thomselves fled in earnest. 7 

ely undisciplined and foolhardy. as ‘their conduct’ had tom 
been, they must have had some wary leaders among them, 

for they found the means to take a special revenge for 

the fraud which had been played off upon them. ‘The im- siant of 
portance of the small outlying hill now came into fall play. .r'i0 
Either ite defenders had never left it, or a party of the ‘shed hill 
fugitives contrived to rally and occupy it, At all events 

it was held and gallantly defended by a body of light- 

armed English.* With a shower of darts and stones they 
overwhelmed a body of French who attacked them; not 

aman of the party was left. Another party of English, Groat 
men without doubt from the levies of the neighbourhood, 2g" 
had the skill to uso their knowledge of the country to frowh in 
‘the best advantage. They made their way to the difficult ravine. 
ground to the west of the hill, to the steep and thickly- 
wooded banks of the small ravine. Here the light-armed 
English turned and made a stand; the French horsemen, 
rwoklessly following, came tumbling head over heels into 

the chasm, where they were slaughtered in such numbers 


F 


2 WI, Pict, 135.“ Normannl repente regiratl equis Interceptow it ine 
clues undique mactarerunt, nollum relinquontes.” Brevis Relatio, 8. 
“Norman, qui erent coutiores bello quam Angll, mor rodierunt, ntive 
tutor Milos et gwen » quo se dinjunxerant, so tumlsrunt.” Wid, 
Amb. 4335 

Quique fagum simvulant instantibus ora retorquent, 


* Will. Malms, fl. 22. ‘"ta ingenfo efroumventi, puileram mortens ro 
artim ultione meruore: nec tamen ultion’ sam defuere, quia crebro can- 
‘sulentos, do insequontibus invignos cladiv acsrvos facorent ; nam, cecopato 
tumulo, Normannos, calore succensos acriter ad superiora nitenter, in vallem 


pl. 1g, and the defeniters of the Hitle hill are all lightarned, 


a 


490 ‘THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 
omar. x¥. that the ground is said to have been made level by their 


corpses," ~ 
ila tek ‘The men who had committed the great error of pursuing 
suit,” the seeming fugitives had thus, as far as they themselves: 
fully. But the error was none the less fatal to England. 
The Duke's great object was now gained; the main end 
of Harold's skilfol tactics had been lost by the hoodless 
anlour of the least valuable part of his troope. Through 
the rash descent of the light-armed on the right, the 
whole English army lost its vantage-ground. ‘Tho pur- 
suing English had left the most easily accessible portion 
of the hill open to the upproach of the enemy* While 
French and English were scattered over the lower ground, 
fighting in no certain order and with varied enccess, the 
The Nor main body of the Normans made their way on to the 
Tmenetin height, no doubt by the gentle slope at the point west of 
me yet the present beildings.* ‘The great advantage of the ground 
was now lost; the Normans wore at last on the hill 
Instead of having to cut their way up the slope and 
throngh the palisdes, they could now charge to the east, 
right against the defenders of the Standard. Still the 
battle was far from being over, The site had still some 


7 WAL Malms. iil. aga, “Item foomtum quoddam preraptam, oom- 
pendlario et note sibi tranaitu evadentes, tot fbi inimfooram 
‘ut cumulo cadaverum planitiem campi equarent.” On this last proverbéal 
saying, seo above, pp. 352, 370, and Appendix FF. ‘This scene ie moot 
‘vividly shown in the Tapestry, pl. 16; “Hic ceciderwnt dmal Angi ot 
Franci in proli” Tt must not be confounded with the similar event later 
in the day on the other side of the hill. See Appendix NIN. 
* Wid, Amb. 427; 
” Aunotis munis banter dilaceratt, 
‘Rilvaque pdm pris rariar efficitur.” 
2 Thie was evidontly tho ase, and this ts, T ruppose, what Guy of Arulees 
meann in bis eomewhat ditculs tines (429) ; 
© Conspicit ut eampam corun tenuare sinisteuts, 
Tntrnndi dextrutn qued vis lange patet.” 
* Dextrum " would thus mean the Englisk right. 


= 


THR NORMANS ON THE HILL. 491 


advantages for the English. Aho ily taneny ied pam Se 
places with steep sides, was by no meana suited for the Th battle, 
movements of cavalry, and, though the English palisade bill. 
was gone, the English shield-wall was still a formidable 
hindrance in the way of the assailant. In short the posi- 
tion which the keen eye of Harold had chasen stood him 
in good stead to tho last. Our Norman informants still 
speak with admiration of the firm stand made by the 
English, It was still the hardest of tasks to picrce through Close com: 
their bristling lines, Te was a strange warlare, where the Noman 
one side dealt in assaults and movements, while the other, 
as if fixed in the ground, withstood them, The array of shield wall, 
‘the English was so close that they moved only when they 
were dead, they stirred not at all while they were alive, 
‘Tho slightly wounded could not eveape, but ware crushed 
to death by the thick ranks of their commdes.! That is 
to say, the array of the shield-wall was still kept, though 
now without the help of the barricades or the full ad- 
vantage of the ground. The day had now turned decidedly 
in favour of the invaders; but the fight was still far from 
4 Will, Pict. 135. olemmedeiad creek aeacelen od . 
Incursivus et diverede motibus agit, altera, velut humo adfixa, tolerat, ». . 
‘Morin! plus dum ondunt, quem vivi movert videntur, Leviver 
‘non ponittit oyadore, sed comprimendo meet, socivrum densitax” Ho had 
before said (134), “Ob nimiam densituters curum labi vix potuerunt huter- 
euptl.” So Gay, 4175 

“ Spiritibus noqueunt frustenta oadavers steral, 

‘Noo cedunt vivls corporn mititibus : 
Omue cadaver eulm, viti licet evacuatum, 


Stat velut lasum, possidet atque loown."” 
Ch the account of the army of Crass in Dion, xl, a3) védor de everde 


drerpizorro, (Tho 
‘Romans wore driven to the tactics of the shield-wall by illiuck.) So Am: 
tmianux, xviii, “ Tmmobilos ototimur, Ita confortl, ut cxserum cadavers 
tmultitudine fulta reperire rueudi spatium ousquan powent: utgue tifles 
‘ute me quidam diseriminato ecapiie, quod in equa partes fetus gladii fiderax 
validiscimns, fn stipitis modum undique ooactatus horerot.” 


i 


492 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. ° 
enar, xv. being over. It was by no means clear that some new 
chance of warfare might not meena 
favour of England? 

Ty band eos tallce coast pot ot Semel pete 
bom ted Normans gained this great advantage. But it was pro- 
bably about three in the afternoon, the hour of vespens? 
Tf so, the fight had already beon raging for six hours, and 
se yot ite result wae far from certain. Bat tho last stage 
of the battle was now drawing near. The English, though 
‘no longer entrenched, bad still the fortress of shields to 
trust to, but gradually the line became less firmly kept, 
and the battle seems almost to have changed into a series 
of single combats. It is probably at this stage that we 
should place most of the many personal exploits which are 
told of various warriors on both sides.? The names of 
‘the Normans are preserved, while the English, though 
‘Yelour and fall justice is: dono to their valour, romain namelom OF 
al Harold himself, strange to say, we hear nothing personally 

Leyond the highest general praises of his courage and 
conduct, His axe was the weightiest; his blows were the 
* most terrible of all. The horse and his rider gave way 
before him, cloven to the ground by a single stroke. He 
played the part alike of a general and of a private soldier. 
‘This is a praise which must have been common to every 
commander of those times; still it is given in a marked 
way both to William and to Harold.’ But the two rivals 
2 Will, Pict, 135. “Reliquow majort cui alacritate aggressl sunt, aciem 
adhoe horrndam et quam difficliimnn orat cireuavenint.” 
¥ Seo above, p. 476+ Wace makes three o'clock the time when William 
‘gave the onder to shoot up into the air, I cannot help thinking that it aust 
have been much nearer sunset when that order was giren, and that the hour 
rather marks the time when the Normans first got om the hill, 
* OF the long list of stories of this kind given by Wace (13387) ot meqq- 
J pick out a few of the more remarkable, 
* Seo above, ps 473, note 2. 
® Will, Moke, ili, 242-244. ‘“Emicuit ibi virtos amborun ducum, 


‘Haroldus, non contentus munere Imperntario ut hortarwiur ation, ailitis 
offichun sedulo exequebatur. ... Itera Willelmus noe clemore «€ pramentia 


Ey 
F 


Hl 


4 bk =| 


THE FIGHT ON THE HILL. 493 


never came together in the strife. William, we are told, cnar. xv. 
Etacaoly oe pnt eit Aaa ants” 
never succeeded! He found however adversaries hardly lees 
worthy of him, Like Gyrth earlier in the fight, another 
Englishman, whose axe had boen dealing death around: 
him, now met the Duke in single combat, William 
spurred on his horse, and aimed a blow at him with his 
mace ; the Englishman swerved, he avoided the stroke, and 
lifted his own axe against William. The Duke bent him- 
self; the axe fell, it beat in his helmet and nearly struck 
him from his horse. But William kept his seat; he aimed 
another blow at the Englishman, who now took shelter 
among his comrades. A party of the Normans pressed on, 
with their lances? Another Englishman smote at the 
Duke with his spear, but William was beforehand with 
him ; before the blow could be dealt, a stroke of the war= 
lob had smitten him to the ground.* Personal encounters 
of this sort were going on all over the hill. One gigantic 
Englishman, captain, we are told, of a bundred men,* 
did special execution among the enemy, Beneath his 
blows, as beneath those of the King, horse and rider fell 
hortari, fpaa primus procurrere, confertor boxtes invaders," CE vol. 4, 
P- $84. Sco alo Livy, ii, 19, tho ncoount of the first Thoodoric in Ammi- 
‘ance, xxviii, §, and the account of William's own granden of tho sme 
maine in Onleric, 685 D; ‘Ipee ducls ot militix officlo pleramque fim: 
gebatur, unde a caris tutoribus pro illo formidantibus orvbro redangucbatur 


[ree vol i. p. 277] supe ccutariae adlvocabat, ut acer Dux ianperstat, 
veil crubrius ut thro fervidus pugnabat,” 

1 Will, Pict, 136, “Cam Horaldo, talf qualem podmata diount Hector 
‘vel Turaum, non amlnus auderet Witlehmus congred! aingulart cortanine 
‘quam Achilles onm Hectore vel Aneas eum Turno.” 

+ Boman de Row, 13845-13872. 

4 Th, 13910-13915. 

* Th, 13388; 

“Quant un Englois vint soorant; ‘De phasors armes atornes, 

‘Enea cumpaigne out chent armes, Hache noresche out mult bele."* 
Tr bas been mgyested that this centarfon may have boon u liundred aman 
‘or eentenarins, = 


Pree 


al 


THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, 


494 

euar.x¥. to the ground; the Normans stood aghast before him, till 
of Roger 
of Mont- 
‘gamery, 


a thrust from the lance of Roger of Montgomery left bien 
stretched on the earth. Two other Englishmen, sworn 
brothers in arme, fought side by side, and many horses 
and men had fallon beneath their axea, A French knight 
met them face to face; for n moment his heart failed him 
and he thought of flight; but his courage came back; he 
raised his shield to save his head from the axes; he pierced: 
one Englishman through with his lance; as the English~ 
man fell, the lance broke in his body; the Frenchmun 
then seized a mace which hung at his enddle-bow, and 
emote down the comrade of the slain man, crushing head~ 
piece and head with a single blow. One gallant Norman, 
Robert Fitz-Emeis, a near kinsman of Ralph of Teezon, died 
in a more daring exploit than all, He galloped, sword in 
hand, right towards the Standard itself. He sought for 
the honour of beating down the proud ensign beneath 
which the King of the English still kept his post. More 
than one Englishman died beneath his sword, but he was 
goon surrounded, and he fell beneath the axea of their 
comrades, On tho morrow his body was found stretched 
in death at the foot of the Standard.” 

Other tales of the same sort, characteristic at least, 





+ Roman do Rou, 13428-13461. The swam brotherhood Is thus deseribed 3 
“Ki vesteiont acumpalgnié —_—-“Eavomible debveient alr, 
Por go ke bien erent preisié. TA une dbyolt I'altre ganter."* 
Of their axes we read, an of that of Harold ; 
“ Bu lors cols aveient lovées As Normans feeoient yranz mala, 
‘Dul glsarmes lunges > 1éos; Homes tuoent  chevals.” 
Tt is hard to identify any of these stories with the particular groups in the 
‘Tnpeatey, but in platen 15 and 16 several single combate of thi Kind may by 
soon, which woll illustrate the deadly effect of the English axes. 
* Roman de Row, 13751-13764. This story ia told with gront spirit. The 
four Inet lines ran ; 
“Maia i Englels Vavirouerwnt, La fu trové quant il fu quay 
Od lor gisarmes lo tuorent> Lax Textandart mart et ocela.” 
‘On his kindred to Ralph of Tosiom (soo vol. ii, p. 23) se Prevout's note, 
ii, 265, 


" 


SINGLE COMBATS, 495 


whether verbally true or not, abound in the pages of the cnar. xv, 
Norman poet. All bear witness to the enduring valour 
displayod on both sides, and to the fearful execution which 

was wrought by the national English weapon, aint oe Eg: 
Inst the effects of this sort of warfare began to tell on the Mitre, 
English ranks, There could have been no greater trial “vkons. 
than thus to bear up, hour after hour, in a struggle which 

was purely defensive, The strain, and the consequent 
weariness, must have been incomparably greater on their 

side than on that of their assailants. It may well have 

been in sheer relief from physical weariness that wo read, 

now that there was no artificial defence between them and 
their enemies, of Englishmen rushing forward from their 
tanks, bounding like a stag, and thus finding opportunity 

for the personal encounters which I have been describing.’ 
Gradually, after so many brave warriors had fallen, re- 
sistance grew fainter ;* bat still even now the fate of the 
battle seemed doubtful. Many of the best and bravest of 
England had died, but not a man had fled; the Standard 

still waved aa proudly as ever; the King still fought be- 


+ Toman de Rou, 13398; 
“En lo batallle ol primer front, 
‘Lo t Normans plus espe sout, 

En vint salllant plas tovt ke cor” 


‘This encounter (deseribed by Waco, 13387-13423) ts worth notice on 
several grounds. £ have quoted some Ines in p. 493. ‘The English: 
man fn at ‘killed. of yy Who exclaims, “ Feres, 


calling hin men “French.” The name of “Franci” (see sbove, p. 421) 


* Wil. Pict, 135. ‘Languont Angli, #t quasi restum kpso defeotu xa- 
fiientes vindictam pationtur,” So Guy, 527 5 
 Awiborum gladlis causpus nareselt ab Anglis, 
‘Deflait et numerus, nutat ot atterivur, 
Corruit apposité cou silva minute secur, 
Sic nomus Angligentim ducitur ad nikilun,” 


| 


496 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, 
ouar.xy. neath it. While Harold still lived, while the horse and 


ee away. ‘Arrmnd sta rset celeste 
fiercely raging, and to that point every eye and every 
am in the Norman host was directed, The battle had 
raged ever since nine in the morning, and evening was: 
now drawing in." New cflorts, new devices, were needed 
to overcome the resistance of the English, diminished as 
were their numbers, and wearied as they were with the 
‘Thoarchers livelong toil of that awful day. ‘The Duke bade his archers 
a shoot up in the air, that their arrows might, as it were, 
fall straight from heaven.” The effect was immediate and 
fearful. No other device of the wily Duke that day did 
such frightful execution, Helmets wore pierced ; eyes were 
put out; men strove to guard their heads with their shields,* 
and, in so doing, they were of course less able to wield their 
axes. And now the supreme moment drew near. There 
was one point of the hill at which the Norman bowmen 


oo 533} 
+ Dus prspeait Regen super ars montis 
"Aecritar instanton dilaoarare mon, 
Wil, Malus, ii. 242, “'Valoit luc vitasltodo, modo itis modo fat vin- 
contibus, quantum Haroldi vite moran fictt.” 

* Flor, Wig. 1066, “Ab hori diel tartid wayne noctis eropurculam wuts 
nilvormariix restitit fortimimo, et exlpaum pugnando tam fortiter defimdit ot 
tam strenue ut vix ab hontill interim pomet agmine.” Od. x. 563 

Gppa av din fv wad ddgero tepdy Fuap, 
riigpa B AXegipevos ivoper wrdovie eep tdvrar 
noe B brut perortecere BeerurbyBe, 
seal rére 04 Klewves wXivar tadourres “Axwous, 

* See the full account in the Roman de Rou, 13275-13296. belees sf" 
Huntingdon (ME, H, B. 763); “Deonit igitur Dux Willielmus virow imgit- 
tarion ut nou in heatem directe, sod in atira sureum magiitas emitterent, 
cuneum houilem myittia cosarent, quod Anglis magno fult detelimenta.” 
Honry in copied by Ralph of Disa, X Seriptt. 480, snd Bromton, 960. 

* Roman de Rov, 43287 5 

“Quant i eactes revencient, Bt h lusors lew olla crevoeut ; 
De cor les testes lor chasiont, Ne n'aswnt lew oils oveir, 
Chiée > viniros lor poryvent, Ne lor viaires deseorrit.” sy 


HAROLD WOUNDED. 


497 


were bidden specially to aim with their truest skill. As omar.xv. 


twilight was coming on, a mighty shower of arrows! was 
Jaunched on its deadly errand against the defenders of the 
Standard, There Harold still fought ;* his shield bristled 
with Norman shafts; bat he was still unwounded and 
unwearied. At last another arrow, more charged with 
destiny than its follows, wont still more truly to its mark. 


Falling like a bolt from heaven, it pierced the King’s Harld 
right eye; he clutched convulsively at the weapon, he in the eye 
broke off the shaft, bis axe dropped from his hand, a t* 


and he sank in agony at the foot of the Standard,* 6 rx. 
round the 


Meanwhile twenty knights who had bound themselves to 


lower or to bear off the English ensigns strove to cut Standard. 


+ Roman de Rou, 13293; 
© Basten plus oxpemernent 
‘Voloent ke pluto par vent.” 
LE Tala clig lataleg erapralaberne erred 
ton; “Interes totus inber sagittarioruim cecldit ciroe Regem Haraktum, 
‘ot Ipae in culo peretismus corrult.” 
* Wid. Amb. 9435 
“ Per niin coder aam bellica jura tenentes 
“Haraldas coggit pergere curnis iter.” 
* Roman dy Rou, 132975 
“Toal avin’ k’une eocto E; Teraut I's par alr teaite, 
Ki de vors It cfol ert chnote, ——_Gretée a les mains, al I's fratte, 
‘Fér Hornat de vos Yell dreit, Por li ehfef ki a dolu 
Ki Pun dee oilx Hs toledt ; Slest apuié sor wn execu." 
‘This some, the turning-point of ll English history, is vividly shown in 
the Tapestry, pl. 16, Wace plnow it too warly in the battle. William 
of Poitiers ond the English writers do not mention the manner of the 
King’s death. AU that Florence can utter Is, “heu, {psemet cocldit. cre: 
puscolt tempore.” William of Malmesbury (lil. 242) aay, “Jactu sagittw 
‘violate cerebro procubuit,” and fa the mext chapter, after describing 
‘Harolil's explaite (se above, p. 473), how every Norman who came near 
him was cut down, adds the remarkable expression, “guapropter, wt dix, 


‘the Romans, at the siege of Berwick in 1296 (Walt. Hem. ii. 98); “Ibi 
corruit rater Comite Comuble, milee stroouladimus (Harold's own epithet), 
qui quum ad hostes caput in altum crierct, in ipsum ooulari aperturi 
galve, percnenn tela, confestima cecidit ot expiravit."” Between 1066 and 
1296 the nose-pivee had been exchanged for the vizor, 

vor, nt. rk 





DEATH OF HAROLD, 


496 


the boasted chivalry of Normandy meted out to a prince euar. xv. 


who had never dealt harshly or craclly by either a 
domestic or a foreign foe. But we must add, in justice 
to the Conqueror, that he pronounced the last brutal 
insult to be a base and cowardly act, and he expelled 
the doer of it from bis army. 


‘The blow had gone truly to its mark, Harold had fallen, 
aus his valiant. brothers had fallen before him. And with 


the King the ensigns of his kingdom had fallen also. In Pate of 
the struggle in which ho fell, his own Standard of the fat 


Fighting Man was beaten to the ground; the golden 
Dragon, the ensign of Cuthred and Elfred, was carried 
off in triumph? Still all was not over. The sons of 
Godwine had fallen, and England had fallen with them, 
As over in this age, everything turned on the life of one 
man, and the one man who could haye guarded and saved 
England was taken from her. The mon who fought upon 
the hill of Senlac may have been too deeply busied with 
the daty of the moment to look forward to the future 
chances of their country. But they knew at least that 


with their King’s death that day's tuttle was lost.° Yet, The 


even when Harold had fallen, resistance did not at once 2 
cease, As long as there was a ray of light in the heaven, cals sil 


as long as an English arm bad strength to lift axe or 


dyxlaoddy fa ol FACE card orixas, obra Di Dovpt 
valarov ie xeveiva- ii xpd 8 xadxiv Draoae. 

+ See Appendis NN. 

* Hon, Hunt. M. H. B. 763 ©, * Vigtnti autem equites strenuleiml 
fidem gam dederunt invicem quod Anglorum entervam perrumpentes 
aignum regiom quod vooatur Standard arriperent. Quod dum focerent, 
plures oorum occlst sunt ; pare autem corum, vik gladite thet, Standard 
asportavit." But it would seu from Wace that it wat rather the Dragon 
which was carried off (13986) 5 

“Liestendart unt & terre mis, E Ui molllor de res amin; 

Et i Rels Heraut unt oocts ‘L gonfanon & or unt pris.” 
‘So direotly after (13955); " Vewtendart out abatu.” And wo again, 14013. 

* Draco Norumaniouy i.1425; “Nam belli Goret finks jam rage perempto,” 

xkz 





slaughtered to a man* Quarter was neither 
asked ;* not a man of the comitatesr fled} not a man waa 
taken captive. There, around the fallen Standard, we 
may call up before our eyes the valiant deaths of those 
few warriors of Senluc whose names we know, ‘There 
fell Thurkill and Godric beside their friend and former 
Earl. ‘There Aifwig died by his royal nephew, leaving 
am inheritance of sorrow to the house over which he 
rolod, And there the Enst-Anglian deacon lay in death 
by the side of the lord whom, from his carly days, be had 
Leatcle served #0 faithfully.* Those alone escaped, who, smitten 
SaA°""" down by wounds, were on the morrow thrown aside as dead, 
woonsl ut who still breathed, and who in time gained strength 
a enongh to seek their homes and still to serve their country. 
November Abbot Leofric, sick and weary, made hie way home to die 
: in his own Golden Borough ;° and Ansgar, the valiant 

1 "The restutance of the heavy armed Knglish after tha death of Harald tx 
shown most distinctly in tho Tapestry, pl. 16; but it is confined to the 
heavy anned. 

* Will, Pict. 137. “ Viderunt Normannos non multum decreview per- 
emptorum cesu, et quasl virlum {norementa pugnando eumerent, series 
‘quam in prinetpio imminers."* 

* Flor, Wig. 1066. = Cie aie Orn, @ Lees 
ccooldere, et fere nobilitas totus Anglin." a ail ee Senin 
Worvester Chronicle Der wear ofslegen Harold yng. tad 
‘eon! his hrotior anil Gyr eor} nin brwtior and fle gorlrm mmacuna."* 

* Guy indeed mays (553), “ Bella negant Angi ) npc mm 
but nothing of the sort is tmpliot either in William of Poltlons 
‘Tapentry. lim (197) spe of Doct oan serra, gus el 
‘stant parcervt,” anil the Tapestry (pl. 16) shows all the heavyarmed 
tying deed, 

© Bee above, p. 429. 

* Chron, Petrib. 1066, “And pa wae Leuttie abbot of Durh 
feont, and weclode jar, and com ham, and ware died sone perofter « 
algan meson.” 


k | 





LAST SUENE OF THE BATTLE. sor 


Staller, was borne back to London, his body disabled cuar.xv. 
by honourable wounds, but his heart still stout and his 

wit still keen to keep up resistance to the last.? 

Few however could those have been who escaped by 
nceidents like these. As a role, no man of Harold’s fol- 
lowing who marched to Senlac found his way back from 

that fatal hill, The nobility, the warlike lower, of southern 

and eastern England was utterly cut off. But we cannot 
Dame men of meaner birth and fame for not showing the 
same ‘desperate valour. Night was now coming on, and, 
under cover of the darkness,* the light-armed took to Mk of. 
flight.® Some fled on foot, some, like the two traitors at 
Maldon,* on the horses which had carried the fallen 


leaders to the battle.* ‘The Normans pursued, and, as in Punsit of 


an earlier stage of the day, the flying English found mans; 
means to take their revenge upon their conquerors.” On. 
the north side of the hill the descent is steep, almost of the par: 


precipitous, the ground is irregular and marshy. No place Maifome. 
could be leas suited for horsemen, unaccustomed to the 


* Wid. Amb. 6815 
+Intue erat quidam contractua debilitate 
Renum, sicque pedum regnis ab officio 5 
‘Viilnera pro patrit. queniam numeroen receplt ; 
Leotio’ vehitur mobilitate carens,”” 
"TK 337i 


“Vesper erat, jam canto diem volvebat ad umbras, 
‘Victorom feeit quam Deus emo Ducetn, 
‘Solum dovictis nox ot fuga profuit Anglis, 
‘Denal per latebras ot tegimen nemoris” 
‘Draco Normannious, 1. 14275 
“ Labitar » centro Phosbus, Neptania regna 
‘Dum petit, mmatis jam wna verge dasbai.” 
* Topestry, pl. 16. “Fog vertunt Angli.” ‘The fliers are all fight- 
armed. 
* Boe vol. i p. 37a 
* Will, Pict, 137. “In fugam itaque convers! quantociis abjerunt, allt 
raptia equis, nomoulll podites.”” 
* Plat. Can. 24, sopdrardr tore dyuoptvous ri odXcoar wal rips guys 
Apaapeiv 70 aiaypir. 


a 4 


THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, 


4! more hopelom than ia the Hike case exilx Sn th' days 
In the ardonr of pursuit horse and man fell headforemost: 
over the steep, whero they were crushed by the fall, 


English force had come to the reseue, turned + 

knights, and counselled William to sound a retreat. He 
whispered in the ear of the Duke that, if he preesed on, it 
would be to certain death. ‘The words were 

of his mouth, when a blow, dealt in the darkness, steuck 
the Count between the shoulder-blades, and he was borne 
off with blood flowing from his mouth and nostrils.* ‘But 
William pressed on; his good fortune saved him from 
the bad Inek of his less fortunate soldiers, and he did not 


Poche eau hag ch ater eA atta oad an ‘This was 


the last scene of the battle, and no scene stamped itself 
more deeply on the minde of the descendants of the victors. 
The name of Majforse, borne for some ages by the pot 
where the flying English turned and took their last 
revenge, showed how heavy was the loss whieh the vietors 
there mot with in tho vory hour of their triumph.” 


* This adventure of Bustace ts devoribed at longth by William of 3 
(137). William seems now to be armed with a broken lances 
eum parte haste quam grandis opiculs vibrantes." He calle back Bartaoe 
from his flight; “Bustschium Comitem cum militibus 
scra et reouptal gna canere volentem ne abiret virill vooe onmpellavit.’ 
bicleeh uteteircpmmoampenen tn 
cumas Rustachius inter secapulas Seta sonoto, cajus gravitater | 
demonstrabat naribus et ore.” 

* This Inst scene of the hattle is lof out by Wace and Guy of 
it comes oat very strongly in William of Poitiers, 157; tage 
fuglentibus confidentia, nactis ad rmovandam certamen: me 





EFFECTS OF HAROLD'S DEATH. +503 


I have thus described, as well as I could reconcile emar. xv. 
various and conflicting narratives, the chief vicissitudes Se of 
58 fuchdbate. of this amemaarablo ‘and imird-fough} baltie. of Brad. 
‘On its historic importance I need not dwell; it is the 
very subject of my history. England was not yet con- 
quered, ‘The invader, as it was, had hard struggles to go 
through before he gained full possession of the length and 
breadth of the land, Had Harold lived, had another like 
Harold been ready to take his place, we may well doubt 
whether, even after the overthrow of Senlac, England 
would have been conquered at all, As it was, though 
‘England was not yet conquered, yet, from this moment, 
her complete conquest was only a matter of time. The 
Norman had to face much local resistance against the 
establishment of his power; he had to quell many local 
revolts after the establizhment of his power; but he never 
‘again met Englishmen in a pitched battle; he never again 
had to fight for his Crown against a rival King at the 
head of a national army, Such being the case, it is from 
the memorable day of Saint Calixtus that we may fairly 
date the overthrow, what we know to have been only the 
imperfoct and temporary overthrow, of our ancient and 
tonitatern, prerupti wallie [vallif] et frequentiuim fowmrum.” Orderic 
Gor D), who partly follows William of Jumftgos (vil. 46), ix fullor: “Nam 
eresootes bert antiquom aggerom tegebant, bi summopere currentes 
Normansl cum equis c¢ armls rucbent; se sees, dum unos muper alterum 
ee er Tet niminum fagsentibus Angie 

confidentia. Cementes enim opportunitatem prorupti realli ot fre 
athea Sneha, rao coterel ta sien cate esa es 


anulfus Aquileusis oppldanus,” of whoee desoondants we sball hear, and often 
‘honournbly, hereafter. ee cee 
‘Ballo, §. Seo 

Tock a a ler du he reing of he wud a Tin, There 
ina" prorupta vallis,” bat the paliasde cold harily be called a * vallum,” 
and T grostly doubt bout Ordoric's “entiquus agger.” The gunder of 
‘gull! however in Willian of Poitiers is edd, 


= 


. THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. | 


av. froe Teutonic England, In the eyes of men of the next 


generation that day was the fatal day of England, the day 
of the sad overthrow of our dear country, the day of her 
handing over to foreign lords! From that day forward 
the Normans began to work the will of God upon the folk 
of England, till there were left in England no chiefs of 
tho land of English blood, till all were brought down to. 
bondage and to sorrow, till it was a shame to be called — 
an Englishman,! and the men of England ve 
@ people.* 

F - 


Looking also at the fight of Senlac simply as a i 
is one of the most memorable in all military history, T 
utterly opposite systems of warfare came into confliet under 
two commanders, each worthily matched against the other 
both in conduct and in personal prowess. We read 
equal admiration of the consummate skill with 
Harold chose his position and his general scheme of action, 
and of the wonderful readiness with which William formed 
and varied his plane as occasion eerved, how he seized on 
every opportunity, and made even discomfiture serve bis 
final purpose. And cach chief was thoroughly and worthily 
served by at least a part of his army. As a mere ques 
tion of soldierly qualities, one hardly knows which side to 
admire most. Each nation displayed, in this the first 
important battle in which they met as enemies, qualities 
which to this day remain eminently characteristic of the 
two nations respectively. The French—for the praiss must 
ge A UE Tie x tet al se 
* Hen. Hunt. lb, vie; Soriptt, p, Beil. ara, perenne 
bargin Se minhensteryeher 
aliquis princeps de progenie Anglorum ousat in Angi, sed soa 
vitulom ot ad moworem redacti essent ; ita etiam ut Anglioum 
*Tb, Mb, vil Serfppt, p. Bed, 243, “"Deelumtiam const 


‘Dominuk mlutem ot honorem genti Angloram pro meritie ey 
populum non ose jumerit.” 7 


hk . | 





CHARACTER OF THE BATTLE, — 


OS 


not be confined to the native Normans only—displayed a cnar. xv. 


gallantry at once impetuous and steady, and a quickness 
and intelligence in obeying difficult orders which is above 
all praise. They came again and again to the charge, un- 
dismayed by repeated reverses, and they knew how to carry 
out successfully the claborate stratagem of the feigned 
flight. This last task must have been all the harder, 
because it seems not to have been a deliberate scheme 
planned from the beginning, bat to have been suggested 
to William’s ready wit by the needs of the mement. 
‘Yet almost more admirable, and far more touching, is the 
long, stubborn, endurance of the English, keeping their 
post through nine hours of constant defence, never yielding: 
till death or utter weariness relieved them from their toil. 
Had the whole English host been like Harold's own follow~ 
ing, the defeat of Senlac would undoubtedly have been 
changed into a victory. Even writers in the Norman 
interest allow that eo great was the slaughter, eo general 
at one time was the flight of the Norman host, that 
nothing but the visible interference of God on behalf of 
the righteous cause could have given William the victory," 


‘The battle was lost through the error of those light-armed ‘The battle 
troops, who, in disobedience to the King’s orders, broke through 


their line to pursue. Their error was a grievous and a 


‘the rnah- 
‘noone of 


fatal one, but it was the natural error of high-spirited and the lght- 


untried men, eager for combat and for distinction, and 
chafing no doubt at the somewhat irksome restraints in- 
volved in Harold's plan of defence. And some credit is due 
to them and to their immediate leaders for the skill and 
presence of mind with which they did their best to retrieve 
their error. Indeed, as far as they themselves were con- 
corned, they did retrieve it amply. Never was a battle 
more stoutly contested between abler generals supported by 
more valiant soldiers. Like the whole English history of 
* See the quotation from Eadmer in p. 481. 





WILLIAM COMES BACK TO THE HILL, 


indeed it was, where, from morn till twilight, the axe and enar. xv. 


javelin of England, the lance and bow of Normandy, had 
done their deadly worl at the bidding of the two mightiest 
captains upon earth. Dead and dying mon were heaped 
around, and nowhere were they heaped eo thickly as 
around the fallen Standard of England, ‘There, where the 
flower of England’s nobility and soldiery lay stretched in 
death? there, where the banner of the Fighting Man now 
lay beaten to the ground, the Conqueror knelt, he gave his 
thanks to God, and bade his own banner be planted as the 
ign of the vietory which he had won. He bade the dead be 
‘ewopt aside; the ducal tent was pitched in this, as it wore, 


the innermost sanctuary of the Conquest, and meat and fis mid 


drink were brought for bis repast in the midst of the 
ghastly trophies of his prowess, In vain did Walter Giffard 
warn him of the rashness of such on nct. Many of the 
English who lay around were not dead; many were only 
slightly wounded ; they would riso and oseape in the night, 
or they would geek to have their revenge, well pleased to 
eell their lives at the price of the life of a Norman” But 
the strong heart of William feared not; God had guarded 
him thus far, and he trusted in God to guard him still. 
Then he took off his armour; his shicld and helmet were 
seen to be dinted with many heavy blows, but the person of 
‘the Conqueror was unhurt.’ He was hailed by the loud 


* Will. Piet. 138, “Tate salu operuit sartidatne in crunné Aloe Anglin 
nokilitatie atquo juvontutin.” 


* Roman de Rou, 14026; 
* Ki por nolt kuident relover, Ne chaut cheseun de me vie, 
Et par noft keuldent excaper Ne ll chaut paiz ki Toeta, 


‘Maix malt so koident sire vengicr, Mais ko il ait an Normant mort” 
‘Re mult #¢ kuident vendre chier, 


‘This remarkable pamage throws light on the ewsape of Anagar and Leotri, 
aeeeae 
Aen Dh clea vine grace ok Teen 
FEU Beluie out quasss veo,” 
Will, Mame. tif. 244. “Re procaldubio diving ifnm manu pratexit, at 


ight feast 








THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD. 509 


towns and minsters.' ‘The boiies of Alfwig and hie monke omar. xv. 
were among the first to be recognized by the monastic Mfg 
garb beneath their harness, We hear nothing of the snonka 
disposal of their bodies, but we know that their presence in 

the fight was not forgotten by the Conqueror." We hear 
nothing of the place of burial of Godrie or Thurkill, or even 

of thut of Gyrth and Leofwine. We may suppose that the 
bodies of the two Earls were borne away to some church on 

one of the many estates held by their house within the South- 
Saxon land.’ Bat there was still one corpse which was Harld's 
not forthcoming, one corpse for which, when it was found, 2" 
the stern policy of the vietor deereed a harsher fate. °™ne- 
Wives and sisters had borae away the bodies of Thegns 

and churle,* bat there was neither wife nor sister to claim 

the mangled corpee of the Emperor of Britain. One 
widowed Lady sat in her palace at Winchester, weeping 

for the fate of Tostig, perhaps waiting for the coming of 
William.’ And where was the other, the daughter of 
ZE\fgar, the wife of Harold, the bride who, as William 


2 Wl Pit. 135; "Bar faust Angloram, gut owe pr tnjfan axiom 


tate.” So more at length, Roman de Row, 14683-14092. Guy however 
G78) ays, 
Vornibus atque lupia, avibus canibumque voranda, 
‘Deserit Anglorum corpora wtrata solo," 

‘Tho easiest way to rreoncile the statements ix that William did not order 
tho burial of the English ; he allowed tho bodios which ware olaimed to be 
carried away, but those which were unclatined remained unburied. 

* OF Willinm’s dealings with the New Minster shall have to speak in 
amy next volume. 

* William of Poitiers (138) simply sayy“ Propius Regem frotres ojus 
duo repertl sunt.” 


* Roman de Rou, 14083 5 
Li oobles dames de la terre tor copos u file w feeren s 
Sunt alées lor marie querre; A or villos lex emportarent, 


‘Li anos vant quirant lor peres, Eas mowtiors los enterreront.” 
* See Appendix L, 


510 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


cuar.xv, deemed, had usurped the place which was designed for bis 
own child? Are we to deem that she bad chosen to cast 
in her lot rather with her recreant brothers than with her 
dauntless husband? Or was it rather that she bore withia— 
her a future hope of England, one to whom men might 
fondly look ae an Attheling born of a crowned King and 
his Lady, a eon of Harold and Ealdgyth, a grandson 
alike of Aulfgar and of Godwine?* All that we know is 
that, at that moment, the wife of Harold was far away, 
perhaps already on her journey, under the care of Badwine 
and Morkere, to seek shelter within the distant walls of 
Chester? But there were still those who loved the fallen 
hero; there were those who clave to him in life, and who 
in death would not forsake him, ‘There waz the widowed 
mother, bereaved of so many valiant cona; there wore the 
bedesmen who had tasted of his bounty, and the woman 
who bad loved him with a true, if an unlawful love, Tt 
was from the holy house of Waltham that men eame to 
aged and do the last duty to the dend of Senlac. ‘Two of the canons 
come from Of Harold's minster, Oegod and Aithelric the Childmaster, 
Waltham. had followed the march of the Englich host. ‘They came, 
either through the mere instinct of affection or, as was told 
in the legends of their house, made fearful of coming evil 
through the mysterious warning which the Holy Rood 
had given to the King! ‘They followed their founder 40 
+ See vol. i. p. 658. 
* On the children of Hasold and Kaldgyth ao» vol. fv; Appendix. 
* Flor. Wig. 1066, “‘Cujus (Haroldi] morte audité, Couites Edwiaus 
et Morkarus .. Lundonian veners, et sororem suam Aldgithem Regtnam 


Few confusions were ever better than that of Petor of Langtofl, i, 408; 
*Kéwyn ot Markarn, de Ia parent 
‘Herald fi Godwyn, en Louncres la eyté, 
Pry count Ia rayno, Egithe fu nomé, 
Femme al ray Eduvard, ai Yount envays, 
* A Karleoun en Walos od elo ost sane.” 
‘The wrong Lady is sent to the wrong “ Civitas Legionmn.” 
* De Tay. 6. 20. " Vise bor Infwosto aurplco, mo dolore comept an 1 


4 z al 





GYTHA ASKS FOR HAROLD'S BODT. 


Orr 


the hill of slaughter; but they themselves joined not in omar xv. 


the fight; they stood afar off that they might ece the end.’ 
With them, it may be, had come the now aged Danish 
princess, Gytha, the widow of Godwine, the mother of 
the three heroes who had died beneath the fallen Standard. 
She came to the Duke and craved the body of her royal 


son. ‘Three sone of hers had fallon by bis hand or the Maui's 


hand of his followerg; let the Conqueror grant one at by 


least of the three to be honoared with solemn and royal 
rites, Harold's weight in gold should be the price of his 
burial within the walls of his own minster* But in the 
ease of his great rival the Conqueror was inexorable. His 
soul was indood too lofty to be moved by petty spite 


towards an enemy who could no longer harm him. But William 
his policy bade him to brand the perjurer, the usurper, the gram 
excommunicate of the Church, the despiser of the holy {ibe 
relics, with the solemn jadgemant of w minister of righteous the we- 


vengeance, The proffered bribe had as little weight with 


fentzos de eccleeid prciptos ot majoree natu, Ovegodum Cnoppe et Allrioum 


" between Adelant and his vont Sec vol. i, p. 442. 
* De Tay. c. at.“ Fatales hoo Regis eventus requutl fuerant = Tonge 
ut viderent finem.” 
* Wid. Amb, 677; 
™ Horaldi mater, nimio consteicta dolore, 
Misit adueque Ducetn, postulat ot precibus 
Orbaun misora natis tribux et vidnatm, 
Pro tribas unius reddat ut owe alli, 
‘Si placet, aut corpus puro prepoaderet aur.” 
Will, Malms, iii, 247, “Corpus Haroldi matri repetent! sine pretio wlsit, 
Hoot Ma multum per legates obtuliseet.” (Ou the difference between these 
Lwo accounts, so Appendix QQ.) Both these vorvfons make Gytha simply 
wend ; bat the words of William of Poitiers (138) seem rather to imply 
that »be came herself; “Tumulandum eum Willelmo agnomine Maletso 
concemit, non matri pro carpore dileetae protis amt par pandus offirvnti.” 
So Onderle (502 C); ' Moreta igitur mater Guilleno Duct pro corpore 
‘Hloralill par sai pomdus obtulit" 





a 
512 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


cnar.xv. him as it had with the Homeric Achillens.' He whose 
insatiable ambition had caused the slaughter of so many 
men should not himsclf receive the honours of eclemn 
burial. He was not indeed to be left to dogs and vultures ; 
but he who had guarded the shore while living should 
guard it still in death.' A cairn on the Sonth-Saxon 
shore, raised high upon the rocks of Hastings, should be 
tho only memorial of the usurper.’ But the royal corpse 
was still unrecognized; it had been thrown aside among 
the other bodies which lay around the Standard, when the 
ground was cleared for William's midnight meal, Who 
could undertake to find one single body in an Aceldama? 
Who could undertake to recognize a form mangled and 
mutilated by the base malignity of unworthy foes? 
Ealdgyth was far away; Gytha could not be asked to 
take upon her such an office. The two faithful priests did 
their best, and failed in the attempt ‘There wns one alono 


ie 


dOepirg Aexdeaes yohoeras, ty rdxer abr), 

AAG cives 16 nol olewel xara wdvra Dégorra, 
‘Ho afterwards (Il. xxiv. $78) rvouives the gift of Primm ; that i, he done 
‘not refine them ; but they seem to have no share in tringing about his 


change of purpose. 
* Will, Plot, 138. “'Selvit non devore tall commersio suram aoeipt. 
Aatimavit indignutn fore ad watets Libitum sepelirs, cujasob ufmfam cupid 
tatem Insepultl remanerent Innumerabfles. Dictuin eat {ndende, oportare 
sium eno custodem Iittoris ot pelagi, quae cuin armis ante vetanue fvedit,”” 
Bo directly after “in littoreo tumulo jacen.” 
* Wid. Amb. 582; 
"Sed Dux tratue promus atrumgno negat 5 
Jurans quod potius presentia Iittora portis 
THY commnitier agyere wab lapidun. 
‘Ergo velut faernt tewtatns, rupia in alto 
it clandi umd," 
Of IL vil. 86; csi Perinat! 
ofp 4 of xedawour tuk whare BWApendery nor Ae 
* De Inv. at.“ Fratres . .. currunt ad cadavera, ot vertentes ea hoe ot 
‘luc, Domini Regis corpus agnoscore nen alentes.” It will bo onvily seem 
that T atn blending tho two stories, Boe Appendix QQ. 


4 & al 


FINDING OF HAROLD'S BODY. 


‘513 


who could be trusted for the mournful duty; one who car. xv. 


knew him, alas, too well; one who had loved the man and 
not the King, and whose love, it may be, had been saeri- 
ficed to the duty or the policy of the raler. ‘The prond 
daughter of Ealdormen, the widow of two Kings, had left 
him to his fate; it was one of humbler rank, whose love 
had brought him not crowns or earldoms, but who had 
been the well-beloved of his less exalted days, who was 
called on to do the last bidding of affection upon earth, 
His former mistress, Eadgyth of the Swan's Neck, was 
bronght to the spot by Osgod and JBSthelric, and was 
hidden to search for Harold amid the slain. Her eye at 
last rocognizod the disfigured corpse, not by its mangled 
features, but by marke which his faithful priests, perhaps 
even his mother, knew not,’ ‘The body thus found awaited 


the bidding of the Conqueror, William had no mind fx Bares 
simple insalt beyond what the stern bidding of his poliey {72° 


dictated, Christian burial was refused ; yet William could 
show to the corpse of Harold honours not less marked than 


Kleomenés had shown to the corpse of Lydiadas* The Te tatnied 
mangled limbs wore srappod in a purple robe, and_the dw by 
body wae borne to William's camp by the eea-shore.* Tho {villian 


charge of this unhallowed yct honourable burial was 
entrusted by the Duke to the willing bands of one of 
his own chiefs, who was at least not the personal foe of 


* Soe Appendix RR. 

+ De Iny. e 21. “Scoretiors in co sigun novernt ceteris amplina, ad 
‘ulloriora intima sccretorum admis, quatinus ipelus notiuiA certificarentur 
seoretis Indicils qui uxtericribus non poterant,” So Will, Pict, 138, “Ips, 
carens omni decore, quibuscam signin, nequaquamn facio, recognitan ext.” 
‘Compare the finding of Tostig, p: 374- A utory of tho same sort ia told by 
euntolf Glober (lub. lil. «. 9} Duahtsne, ty. 38) of Odo of Champagne. 

? See Hist, Kod. Gov. vol. i, p. 451. 

* Wid, Amb. $735 


Tr 


ou THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


xv. Harold or of England. By the care of William Malet, « 
‘name again to appear in our history, the body of Harold 
‘the so, Godtwine. was Tejera: Baan aia 
upon the rocks of Sussex.* 

‘Thus far we have the certain guidance of contemporary 
writers. Harold died on Senlac and was baried on the 
heights of Hastings. But there are two other tales the 
evidence for which I shall discuss elsewhere? but whose 
‘substance I cannot here pass by. One indeed, with some 
doubt as to the details, I do not hesitate to accept, a 
resting on ovidence which, though not strictly contem- 
porary, seems fully trustworthy. The other is a meré 
romance, food for the comparative mythologist rather than 
for the historian, and valuable only as illustrating » 
Legent of certain ever-recurring tendency of the human mind. This 
cape, i. the well-known tale, which told that Harold did not 

die in tho great battle. He escaped, it was said, and 
lived for a longer or a shorter time, according to different 
accounts, devoting his latter days, according to the most 
celebrated version, to a life of penance. ‘The King, so the 
story runs, was found half dead by some of the women 
who came to tend the wounded. He was then carried to 
‘Winchester by two men of middling rank, Thegns of the 
lowest class or churls of the highest.4 There he was 
+ Wid. Amb. 987; 
“ Bxtemplo quidam partim Normannus et Anglus, 
‘Compater Huraldi, jue libentor agit s 
‘Corpus enim Rogia cito suxtnlit et nopelivit, 
Tinponena lapklem, ecripsit et in titulo: 
“Ver manilate Ducts, Rex, blo, Eleralde, quibescts, 
‘Tt custos maneas littoris et pelagt.’" 
Seo the quotation from William of Poiticrs, p. 512. So Onl. Vit, goa Th 
* Bee Appendix QQ. 
* This tale fs the main subject of the Vita Harclii in the Chroniquas 
Anglo-Normandos, vol. tk See especially pp. 173-184, 194-223. 
* Vit, Har. 173. ‘4 duobuw ut fertur, medioorlivus viciy, quos frame 
ccalanos sive agricular west, sgnitus et callide oecullatus.” 


i 


a _ ills 


LEGEND OP HAROLD'S ESCAPE, 515 


nursed for two years, not by his royal sister, but by a cuar. xv, 
Saracen woman skilled in surgery. He then went into tis tater 
the kindred Tands of Saxony and Denmark,! to ask help ™°e* 
for England from her brethren on the mainland. No seh 

help however was forthcoming, and, after a long series of 
Seypnkares; Harold focsock the world ond Wecame'w teclnso 2k peer 
in a cell attached to Saint John’s minster at Chester, the Sr0 
tminster which had once witnessed the homage done to “beter. 
EBadgar the Peaceful by all the Under-kings of Britain.® 

‘There he died at a great age, having only in his last 
moments revealed to those around him that the lowly 
anchorite wae no other than the native King of conquered 


‘That this tale is a mere legend I have not the slightest The tale 
doubt. But that euch a tale should nrise is by no means (igen; 
wonderful. It was indeed almost a matter of course. oi iog, 
Whatever might be the feeling among Earls and Prelates 
who had other objects, popular English feeling would be 
for a while unwilling to believe in the death of the true 
national hero. Harold was expected to return, just ae 
Baldwin of Constantinople, as Sebastian of Portugal, 
as many other princes in the like case, were expected 
to return. The really strange thing is that we do not 
hear of any false Harolds, as we hear of false Baldwins 
and false Sebastians.? The cause may be that the later 
hopes of England gradually drifted away into other 
directions, towards a restoration of Eadgar or a de- 
liverance by the arms of Swegen. Still, as long as 
resistance to the Norman lasted, rumours that Harold 


* Vit, Har, 174, ““Tramaftetarit igitur in Germaniam, genoris sui gent: 
tricom sditarae Saxoniam . .. . cognatos ad feronda proprio wtirpl wuftiagia 
instanter eollicitat.” He gves to Denmark in p. #75. 

© Bee vol. ip. G5. 

* A Galse—Matthow Paris thinks s troe—Paldwin was hanged in Finders 
fnt214. Soo Mot. Par. 322 Wate, On the falso Scbnutians, sce the work 
of M. d’Antas, “Les Faux Don Sébastien,” Paris, 1866. 


Lulz 


ay 


516 THR CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


xv. lived, that he would again appear to lead his countrymen, 
would be rife within the walls of Exeter and within the 
camp at Ely, But Harold came not, Where then, if 
living, did he hide himself? Why did he not join the 
patriot bands of Hereward and Waltheof? Why did not 
the Standard of the Fighting Man once more float over 
an English host, and the Holy Rood of Waltham again 
resound as the war-cry of a happier field than Senlac? 
That Harold lived and yet was not in arma against the 
invader, could be explaincd in one way only, He had 
hetaken himself to a life of penitence; by prayer and 
scourge and fasting he was wiping out the great sin of his 

‘The tale life, his fatal oath to the Norman, In our eyes such a 
Wi ilines self-conscerntion on Harold's part would seem a weak 
ofthe *s% forsaling of a higher duty. It would not soom so in the 
eyes of an age which mw its highest type of holiness in 
Eadward, The character of a patriot King was indeed 
honourable, but the character of an ascetic penitent was 
andevento more honourable still, The tale would appeal to a certain 
faiiggar, Yein of feeling in Englishmen generally. It would even 
Waltham, gppeal to a certain vein of local piety among Harold's 
own bedesmen at Waltham. On the one hand it 
every loeal tradition, and robbed Waltham of ite moat 
cherished treasure. Bnt on the other hand, it magnified 
in a certain way both the founder and the foundation, and 
it went far to raise the church of Harold toa level with the 
church of Endward. Tt was something to be founded by 
the last native King; it was something to be the last 
resting-place of his body; but it was something higher 
still to be founded by one who was no mere King or law- 
giver or conqueror, but whose deeds of penance had won 
him a place in the roll of eremites and saints, 
Hard ‘But of ll this history knows nothing, In her pages 
Scolse. Harold died, without a shadow of a doubt, on the hill of 
Sonlac, on the day of Saint Calistus, Florence tells the 


4 & _l 





PALSEHOOD OF THE TALE a7 


true tale, in words speaking straight from the depths of euar,sv. 
‘England's grief— Heu, ipsemet cecidit erepusculi tem- 
pore.” In that Twilight of the Gods, when right and 
wrong went forth to battle, and when wrong for a momont 
had the victory, the brightest light of Teutonic England 
sank, and eank for ever. The son of Godwine died, a» 
such King and hero should die, helm on head and battle- 
axe in hand, striking the last blow for his Crown and 
people, with the Holy Rood of Waltham the last ery 
rising from his lips and ringing in his care, Dimbled by 
the Norman arrow, cut down by the Norman sword, he 
died beneath the Standard of England, side by side with 
his brothers in blood and valour, His lifeless and mangled 
relics were all that wus left either for the scoffs of enemies 
or for the reverence of friends, What the first resting~ 
place of those relies was we have already seen, bnt need we 
hold that the first resting-place of those relics was algo the 
last ? 

This brings us to the other story to which I havo tt alleged 
already alluded, and which, in ite main outline, I arn Wish at 
prepared to accept. This is that the body of Harold, first 
buried under the cairn by Hastings, was afterwards trans- 
lated to his own minster at Waltham, That Waltham 
always professed to be the burying-place of Harold—that, 
a tomb bearing his name was shown there down to the 
dissolation of the abbey—that fragments of it remained in 
the middle of the seventeenth century '—are facts beyond 
dispute. But these local traditions would not, under the 
circumstances, be of themaelyes cnough to lead ua to 
accept a local claim which at first sight seems to be 
opposed to the witness of contemporary writers, But a 
little examination will show that the two stories, the story 
of the cairn-burial and the story of the burial at Waltham, 
are not really contradictory. And thero is a mase of 


* Puller, History of Waltham Abbey, p. 269. C& Knighton, 4343: 


518 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS. 


xv. evidence of all but the highest kind in support of the elaim 
of Waltham to have at last sheltered the bones of ite 
‘Bis bedy founder, 1 then accept the view that the body of Harold, 
os like the body of Waltheof ten years later, was removed 
Soom, from a lowlier resting-place to a more honourable one, in 
Desentet, short from unhallowed to hallowed ground. Waltheof was: 
first buried on the scene of his martyrdom by Winchester, 
‘and was afterwards removed for more soleran burial in the 
abbey of Crowland.2 Such I believe to have boom the 
case with Harold algo. This view reconciles the main 
facts as stated by all our authorities, and it falls in with 
all the circumstances of the case. With our feelings we 
might wish that the body of Harold had tarried for 
ever under its South-Saxon cairn. In William's own 
words, no worthier place of burial could be his than the 
thore which he had guarded. But even modern feclings 
would cry out at such a burial of any hero of our own 
time, And in those days the religious feeling of Harold's 
friends and bedesmen would never be satisfied till their 
King and founder slept in a spot where all the rites of the 
Church could be offered around him by the hands of these 
who were nourished by his bounty. Nor was it at all 
unlikely that William should relent, and ¢hould allow such 
honours to be paid to the memory of his fallen rival. The 
firet harsh order exactly fell in with the policy of the Bret 
moment of victory, But, before the end of the great 
year, a time came when William might well be disposed 
to listen to milder counsels, When the Conqueror had 
become the chosen and anointed King of the English, be 
honestly strove for a moment to make his rule as accept- 
* Compare the hasty burial of Pompelus by the shore, and Ils Inter tne 
lation by Corolla to hin Alban villa. Plutarch, Pomp. 89, But Lucas 

vill. 834) seems to know nothing of this story ; 

Tu noatros, Abgypte, tenes in prulvere tmanen.”” 
* There wae a twofold translation of Waltheof (soe Ord. Vit. $57 Ay 
543 A), and eoumingly of Harvld also, 


4 & al 


HAROLD'S SECOND BURIAL AT WALTHAM. 


519 


able as might be to his English tubjecte. In those milder ouar. xv. 


days of his carlicr rule, it would quite fall in with 
William's policy to yield to any petition, either from 
Gytha or from the brotherhood at Waltham, praying for 
the removal of Harold's body from its unhallowed resting~ 
place. He had then no motive for harshness. The Crown 
was safe upon his own head; he was the acknowledged 
sucoessor of Eadward, and he could now afford to be 
generous to the memory of the intruder of a moment. 


Then it was, as I believe, that the body of Harold was His burial 
translated from the cairn on the bill of Hastings to a8, 
worthier tomb in his own minster at Waltham, There and later 


the King and founder was boried in the place of hononr 
by the high altar, A later change in the fabric, most 
likely an enlargement of the choir, caused a further 
translation of bis body. On that occasion our local in- 
formant, a subject of the Norman Henry, saw and handled 


the bones of Harold.’ For his tomb we now seck in Desimc: 
vain, as we seek in vain for the tombs of most of the Yat bi 
noblest: heroes af our land, The havoc of the sixteenth © 154% 


century, the brutal indifference of the eighteenth, have 
swept over Hyde and Glastonbury and Waltham and 
Crowland and Evesham, and in their destroyed or rained 
choirs no memory ia left of Ailfred and Eadgar and 
Harold and Waltheof and Simon of Montfort, But what 
the men of his own time could do they did; the simple 
and pathetic tale of the local historian shows us how the 
fullen King was mourned by those who had known and 


4 De Tar, o, 24, “Cujus corporis translations, quuin we ae habebst wtatua 
reveruntiam carport 


‘bat his recollection was wtrongthened by hearing tho sory fram eller 
members of the house, 


Se 


520 THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS, ° 


euar. ay. loved him, and how his memory lived among those who 
shored his bounty without having een his face. ‘Their 
affection clave to him in life, their reverence followed him 
in death ; they braved the wrath of the Conqueror on his 
bebalf; they bore him first to his humble and unhallowed 
tomb, and then translated him toa more fitting resting- 
place within the walls of the noble fabric which his own 
bounty had reared, - 


de sig dupienen ripen “eropar irmeddpr’ 


"Thos was the last native King of the English borne 
to his last home in his own minster. ban d= 
that day has Waltham seen a royal corpee, but 
was one which was worthy to rest even by the 

aby Harold, ‘Pwo hundred and forty years after the 
theMme of Senlac, the body of the great Edward was borne with 
Next all royal honours to a temporary resting-place in the 
church of Waltham? Harold was translated to Walth 
from a nameless tomb by the sea-shore; Edward 
translated from Waltham to a still more glorions resti 
place beneath the scaring vault of the apse of V 
Compari- minster. But for a while the two heroes Jay side by 
Hawi and Side—the last and the first of English Kings, between 
Ein whom none deserved the English name or could claim 
honour or gratitude from the English nation, ‘The one 
was the last King who reigned purely by the will of the 
people, without any claim oither of conquest or of here 
ditary right, The other was the first King who reigned 
purely as the son of his father, the first who succeeded 
without competitor or interregnum. But each alike, ax 
none between them did, deserved the love and trust of 


* The xxiv, Boy. 

* Walt, Hom. ii, 266-267. “‘Onlinaverunt de carporw Regis quod. <— 
maneret in eocladi rvligimorum de Waltham, donee... . vaganet eis ine 
Lendere sepulturae ; factumque eat ite." 







4 & ll 


HAROLD AND EDWARD THE FIRST. 


the people over whom they reigned. With Harold our omar. xv. 


native kingship ends; the Crown, the laws, the liberties, 
the very tongue of Englishmen, seem all fallen never to 
rise again. In Edward the line of English Kings begins 
once more, After two hundred years of foreign rule, we 
have again a King bearing an English name and an 
English heart—the first to give us back our ancient 
Jaws undcr new shapes, the first, and for eo long the 
Inst, to ece that the Empire of his mighty nameenke! 
was a worthier prize than shadowy dreams of dominion 
beyond the sea, All between them were Normans or 
Angevins, careless of England and her people. Another 
and a brighter wra opens, as the lawgiver of England, 
the conqueror of Wales and Scotland, seems like an old 
Bretwalda or West-Saxon Basileus seated ence moro upon 
the throne of Cerdic and of Authelstan, The conqueror of 
Gruffydd might weleome a kindred soul in the conqueror 
of Llywelyn; the victor of Stamfordbridge might hail 
his peer in the victor of Falkirk; the King with whom 
England fell might greet his firet true suecessor in the 
King with whom she rose again, Such were the men 
who met in death within the now vanished choir of 
Waltham, And in the whole course of English history 
we hardly come across a scene which speaks more deeply 
to the heart, than when the first founder of our later 
greatness was laid by the side of the last kingly cham- 
pion of our earliest freedom—when the body of the great 
Edward was laid, if only for a short space, by the side of 
Harold the son of Godwine. 


"Phe wonderful analogy betweon tho two grent Kilwards, tho won of 
Alfred and the ron of Henry tho Third, strikes us we every stage of the 
Iistory of the two. See above, p. 37. 


i 


CHAPTER XVI. 


THE UvrennEGNum,! 
Berdber 15—Decomber 25, 1066, 


Eneuanp was thus again without a King, For the 
second time within this memorable year the throne had 
become vacant. But the yacancy of October differed 
widely in every way from the yacancy of January. Then 
a King had gone to his grave in peace, and the election 
of his suocessor could be made by the free voices of the 
English people. That sucoessor had now given his life 
for England, and, as in the days of Swegen and Cuut, 
a foreign invader was again in the land, claiming the 
votes of the Witan with a victorious army to back his 
claims. For we must remember that still, after the day 
of Senlac, William was only a candidate for the Crown. 
He claimed an exclusive right to become King, but he 
did not claim to be King as yet. One flatterer only® 
ventures to give him the kingly title before his formal 
election and consecration. Till those ceremonies had been 
gone through, William was not King de jure, and he was 
as yet very far from being King de facto, All that he 
had as yet was military possession of part of one shire. 


1 ‘The authorities for this chapter are the same aa for the last, except that 
the Bayeux Tapestry now fails us. 
* Guy of Amiens (595) says, after mentioning Harold's burial, 
“Nomine postposito Ducis, et sic Rego locato, 
‘Hin regale sibi nomen adeptus abit.” 


NO IMMEDIATE THOUGHT OF SUBMISSION. 923° 


But his work wae practically over; he had now simply to enar. avs, 
bide his time and slowly to gather in his harvest, He is success 
had already in effect conquered England, for the one certain, 
man was gone who could still huye saved her from ¢on- 
quest, With Harold the true hope and strength of 
England had fallen. 

iss ape omy Aid ibaliey Clete! Asi Gon nneene leapt Widens 
His bolief was that all England would at once submit tofu 
him? And, though he was mistaken in that belief, the mediate 
mistake was not one which carried him very far away from disap- 
the truth, He simply looked for that to happen at once, 
which was sure to happen before long, and which did 
happen within two months, But for the moment no No is of 
Englishman dreamed of submission,® Men as little thought *ubmlsion the 
of acknowledging the Norman after a single victory a Each 
their fathers had thought of acknowledging the Dane in” 
the like case. Ailfred and Eadmund had fought battle 
after battle with the invaders, and it was only after many 
ups and downs of victory and defeat that Guthrum and 
Cout had won a settlement, and after all ouly # partial 
settlement, in the land. No man therefore who was not 
actually within the reach of William's hand thonght, in 
the first days after the fight of Senlac, of submitting to 
the Conqueror. William had gone back to his camp at 
Hastings, and he there tarried, ready to receive the alle- 
giance of those whom he looked on aa his lawful subjects. 
But not a single Englishman came to his camp to bow 
to him and become his man.‘ The voice of Englishmen, 
the voice at least of all who were neither too far off to 


S Wall Malas fi, 908, “Quasi oum Haroldo omne robur deolderit 


* Chron. Wig. 1066.. “And Wyllelm corl for eft ongean to Hostingan, 
and geanhidode jor bwwSer mon him to bugan wolde.” 

* 1b. “Ac pa he ongent past ma Iki to cuman nolo," 

“WAL Plot. 141. ‘Emit videlicet eorum vati wumma non halene domi 
num quem non habuers compatriotarn,”” 


| 


omar. xvi. hear the news nor too near to be practically within Wil- 
liam's a petrang cali eather IS 
to another battle. 
‘Tho news ‘The news of the defeat of the English army and of the: 
mim, death of the King was brought to London by some of 
the fugitives from Senlac. Before long, the wounded 
Sheriff Anegar contrived to make his way thither from 
¥atwine the hill of slaughter. Meanwhile the two Northern 
Seskere Earls were on their tardy march, waiting to sec what 
how tts, course events might take. ‘The news of Harold’s full 
Samed reached them on their way. They hastened to London? 
ema and, as their first measure of preeaution, they sent their 
bs Sih cater, the Lady Ealiayth, to the distant city of Chester 
Cométin in the Esrldom of Eadwine.t Men were now flocking tr 
ire gether from the lands immediately threatened by William 
oie °f to seek for safety in the great city." It was therefore 
possible to hold a Gemét which might fairly repre- 
sent the national will. Se 
citizens of London and the sailors are 
tioned, met to choose a King.* The choice was far fromm 


‘Do si a Landres no finerent; ‘Ke li Normans pores los sugient,” 
‘He goo on to way that many were drowned through their cagerness to crows 
Sie betey: 

4 Seo above, p. 

* Flor. Wig tct6, “Cujus (Elarcldt) morte auditi, Comftes Bdwinay 
ot Morkarua. ... Londonlam venere.” William of Malmesbury, lew 
probably (ld. 247), makes thom haar the news fo Looden, “api Leonitataray 

‘udito Interitls Haroldi nuntio,” 

* See above, p. 510. 

© Will, Piet. x41. iapabrepranpestay ters 
pognalerum, quam, licet smbitu sinis ampla, nom facile oaplebot.” 
Goy of Avatena, 641 5 

+1 Hinno bello experata potit gens improba, aporane 


Comites (Ravinia ‘ot Morkarus), cum clvibus Lundoniensibus ot butaoourtie, 
Endgarun, Eadmundi Ferrel Lateris nepotem, in Regen levare 


WITRNAGEMOT OF LONDON. 525 


being so casy in October as it had been in January. omar, xvi, 
‘There wae now no cne man who could, either by his birth No qual 
or by his personal morits, command the unanimous vote dias 

of the nation. The late King had lef sons, but they i, 
were not born Aihelings, sons of a crowned King innit 
deed they were most likely not even born in lawful Talifed, 
weilock.! They had therefore no claim even to a con- 
stitutional preference, and young and undistinguished as 
they were, they could have no claim on the score of 
personal merit, There is nothing to show that the names 

of the three sons of Harold, Hadmund, Magnus, and God- 
wine, were so much as meationed* in the debates of 

the Witan. The Crown thus passed away for ever from 

the newly chosen dynasty. Had Harold's two brothers Low of 
lived, things might have gone otherwise. One eannot Gyr and 
doubt that Gyrth was in every way worthy to reign, and 

we can believe that the voice of Weeeex and East-Anglia 

at least would have been raised in favour cither of him 

or of Leofwine. But the two heroes had fallen with their 
King and brother; young Wulfnoth was personally uo~ 
distingnished and was far away in the hands of the 
enemy; no candidate from the House of Godwine was 
forthcoming. Looking to the other great: Honses, thero Walthect 
was one whose name was soon to bocome famous and iy\ 
honoured among Englishmen; but as yet Walthoof the eushed. 


* See Appendix RAR. 
® Guy of Amions (645) haa hore a vory aingular statement ; 
om ease ede Mine cae 


*Trdux Regis must mean either Godwine or Harold. In an earlier pas: 
sage (472) it means Godwine. ‘The passage thon implios that eithor a 
brvther or a von of Harvld was chosen, I do not however take thin an 
showing that therw really wax any movement in farour of one of Harold's 
i Te ee ee ee 





~~ 


cuar. xv. son of Siward had not shown himself as a | f 
and the Earldom which he roled was the sm 
a Kingdom. In the House of Leofrie indeed n 
Eadwine lack of candidates, Kadwine and ks 
=. -recoive any crowns that they could get, I ir 
Stat tory aad oe 
hands might grasp the sceptre, if possible of the 
realm, at any rate of its northern half. ‘We do 
what. arrangements were to be made 
brothers; but the two together were urgent wit 
men of London to raise one or other of them 
perial Crown? But their hopes were disappointed, 
Te is to 20 tee ag es 
appeal, The candidature of Eadwine or Morkere could 
have had no charm for the men of London, of Wessex, or 
Hiosion oof Hasl-Anglia. Ta the absence then of any better quili= 
IER. fied candidate, of any one leader on whom all could agree, 
the sentiment of hereditary descent prevailed. ‘Therevwas 
‘one in the land who, whatever else he was, was the grand- 
son of Ironside, the heir of Alfred and Kegberht, the 
last male of the stock of Cerdic and Woden. To fill 
the vacancy caused by the death of Harold, the Witan 






* Ae T before sald, there Ia no trustworthy evidence as to Waltheofs 





Waltheof Harvld’s brother, unbesitatingly takes him to the battle; “Dar 
vord p& med Harlidi bredor hans Sveinn (1) 06 Gyrdin oo Valpiiitr Sari.” 
Wohustone, p. 218; Laing, tii. 95.) Bat ho gooe on to give an sesount of 
an exploit of Waltheof after the betile, the burung of a hundred Normans 
who had taken shelter In» wood, which seems to be tranaforred from Wal- 
thoof's doings at York in 1068, See above, p. 374. On the other hand 
the Logend of Siwanl (Chronlqucs AngloNormandes, if, 111) expressly 
denies that Walthoot was at Senlac; “Comes Waldeves nom foterfialt coms 
flictai quura Dax Willelmus Bastantux Angloa oppromit ot devicit.” ‘The 
‘conflicting authorities are atout equally worthless, 

* WIL Malnm ill, 247. “\Elwinus et Morardus, snp ep ae 
trey... . urbanos sollicitermrant at 





{= a 


EADGAR CHOSEN KING. 527 


of England called on the young #Btheling Eadgar to cuar. xvi. 
ascend the throne of hie fathers.’ 

Tt i# vain to discuss the merits of the choice, Te could Mo chuiee 
‘be justified only by the ead truths that any King was unavoid- 
better than no King at all, and that at that moment no“ 
better King was forthcoming. There may ever have been 
a fhint hope that William might bo satisfied with the 
overthrow of his personal enemy, and that he would not 
press his claims against one who had nevor wronged him, 
one who might pass as the heir, who was certainly tho 
next of kin, of the deceased King for whom he professed 
#0 deep a reverence. How far thes choice was strictly 
unanimous we know not. ‘There is no doubt that Badwine Eadwine 
and Morkere, seeing: no hopes of their own elevation, gave $A Mee, 
a formal consent to the election of Badgar. On the other 
2 Sap eee cea aoe See thnrES a 
of the Aitheling.? We know not how many of the trie. 

4 See the quotation from Florence in p. 524. So Will, Plot, r4o. “Regom 
‘tateorant Edgwrum Athelinum, ex Edward! Regis nobilitate, annis puc- 
rum" Onl. Vit. 02D. ““Interemto Heralda, Stigandus Cantuantensls 


‘Forrel-Latoris, Roger statuorunt.” ‘Be again, 778 Edgarus Adelingws, 


‘post mortem reget albi frustra prefecerant,” 
‘Benolt (3742), translating William of Poitiers, says ; 
“Balen unt © fait aeiynar Hp firent rei > kar por mori 
‘Din chevalior mult jont merchin Ne porrvient il-co soffhir 
Qui ort apelé Addelin, Qu’euront ret en Engleterre 
‘Do ta Wgnée an bon Kurt ; Qu'estrafs © nox fut dvateo torre.” 


Fuut of dotance on & regnrt, 
Yet young Badyar wus hantly more than an Englishinan by courtesy, 
2 This is finpilied fn the quotation fra Flocenoe in p. § 24: 
# Will, Malina. if. 247.“ Custort procures Edgarum eligeront, of Rp 


‘noo {llud quidem offestium.” ‘The apparent disoropaniion in the soveral ac 
counts inay, I think, be reconciled by assuuniny the cours of events to have 
won as Thave given ft fa the tert. Men hanlly know haw to deseritse an 
‘lostion which was followed by an abslication of the King-slost bafore the 
day of coronation came, 


— 





a 


omar. xvi. English Bishops were at this time in 
a” certain that the two Primates, Stigand and Baldred, were 
Heigae, Doth present, and that both agreed to the election of 
Eadgar.' It would soom also that Wulfstan of Worcester 
The opp and Walter of Hereford were in the city,* Now 
Hetfy nde De sure that any influence which belonged to. the Bishop: 
eign of the diocese, the Norman William, would be put forth to 
Bishop, hinder the election of Endgar, A Norman prelate might 
now, without dishonour, recommend submission to the 
armed candidate of his own race, Even Wulfetan, the 
friend of Harold, might not focl himself equally bound 
to Eadgar, and his,later conduct may perhaps show that, 
in face of the invasion of William, he was nob unlikely 
to play the part of Jeremiah in face of the invasion of Nabu- 
chodonosor. We may suspect too that the Lotharingian 
Bishop of Hereford, and his brethren of Wells and Sher- 
borne, would not be specially zealous in the national 
cause, We need not suspect them of actual treason, but 
to exhort to submission to the Conqueror after the death 
of Harold would have quite another look from an attemp! 
to weaken the national power of resistance while the 
still lived. Even # national and patriotic writer, speaking 
with the experience of a few wocks later, argues thit an 
early submission would have been the wisest course. 
‘The minds of foreign churchmen would be specially open 








* Baldred, ax we have seen, ix mentiona’ by Florence, who, at « Wor 
oritor inan, traces his cureer with special interest; the Norman writers 
mention Stigand, naturally the more prominent of the two Primates ix their 
eyes. So Will. Pict. 140 (followed by Benoit, 37731); "Interee Stigandas 
Cantustiensis Archiprosl, qui, sicat excellobat opibus atque dignitate, ita 
consultis plurimum apud Angloe potorat, cum fillin Algardi aliiaque re 
potentibus, proilium soinantur.”” 

* They arv mentioned a little Inter by Florence among the Blahope and 
others who submitted to William at - 

* The Worcester Chroniclor, after describing the subutssfon at Berk- 

adds, “And bt woes moet unned Jot man eror awa ne dyes, 
ts hit God hetan nolde for rum synoumn,"” 


POSITION OF THE BISHOPS. 529° 


to those spiritual influences which William had learned how cnar. xvr. 
to array on his side. Nothing could be easier than to 
argue that, in the groat assize of Senlac, the judgemont of 

God had been openly given on behalf of the invader, and 

that those who continued to fight against him would draw 

on themselves the guilt of fighting against God. 

rege pear saat Stee fad i eget 
Young Eadgar was regularly elected King. Whether he fo. 
was crowned we are not distinctly told. Every motive of #8! 
policy would plead for a coronation as spoody as the 
coronation of Harold. But the election of Harold had 

taken place during one of the Church's solemn seasons, 
and it wns possible to perform the ceremony before the 
festival wae over. But, if the coronation of Eadgar was to 

take place on one of the days usually chosen for such 
solemmities, it would have to be delayed till the feast of 
Christmas. Th all likelihood the rite was fixed for that The cor. 
festival, and, when the festival came, the rite had to be MV 
done on another. Eadgar then never was full King, King {¢! 
crowned and anointed. But his authority was acknow- max 
ledged, and he did at least one kingly net, The Golden, Death of 
Borough of Saint Peter Incked an Abbot. ‘The patriot tmote, 
Leofric, wounded in the great battle, had found his way ¥° Novasiee 
home, and had died on the festival of All Suints,’ The Brot, 
monks of his house forthwith chose their Provost Brand iver 
as his successor, and sent him to Badgur for the royal jrncrty 
confirmation,’ His reception was favourable; he received Kadyur, 


* Bee above, p. 509. 

* Chom, Petrib, 1066, “Da cusan pa munecas to abbot Brand provost, 
fortian bat he wax switSe god man, and awide wie: and senden him pa to 
Hedger ASoling, fordan fet be landfole seendow unt he sooolde oyng wur'Sen.” 
‘Those words cortainly seem to me to imply that Kadyar was not “full King,” 


goes stil further, and saya “pro qua re fratus ext. nimis contra eum jam 
‘Vols 1, um 





—-r 


530 _ ‘THE INTERREGNUM, 

cuar, xvi. his staff from the hands of the Atheling.’ But we shall 
‘s00 that this acknowledgement of the national candidate 
on the part of the monks of Poterborough was a crime 
in the eyes of the invader which called for a heavy atone- 
ment. - 
‘The nation had thus chosen a successor to the King 
sad others Who had died ou Senlac. The ery of every patriot heart 
borer wus for a vigorous carrying on the war with the invader, 
battle. ‘The citizens of London, above all, were eager to hazard 
Chances of another battle? The chances of such an enterprise were 
still far from being hopeless. The elaughter of Fulford, of 
Stamfordbridge, and of Senlac had indood been frightful, 
and, as over, it had fallen most heavily on the best portions: 
of the army, on the King’s Thegns and the Housecaris, 
Still the strength of England was far from being broken, 
and we may be sure that /£lfred or Eadmund would have 
been fully ready to risk a fourth battle. But there was 
no Elfred or Eadmund now to lead the forees of England. 
‘The King-clect was young and inexperienced,? and those 
whom England looked to as her leaders again proved 
faithless, Eadwine and Morkere had consented to the 
election of Eadgar, as nine months before they had con- 
sented to the election of Harold. But of giving loyal 
support to either prince they never dreamed, The forces: 
of Northumberland were again refused to the defence of 
‘Wessex. For Wessex, for Fast-Anglis, Eadgar and 
William might strive as they would. William would 
perhaps be content with that portion of the realm which 
{nunchis Kee,” which of course i true, But the entry fa the Chroniels was 

‘evidently made later than 1066, perhaps afer tho sad evouls of £07, 
* Chron. Petrib. 1066. Aaa & nen kin a 

* Flor. Wig. 1066. "Ad pugnam desendare multi we parwvere,” “He 
hhadl just before apokon of tho cities and the "Dutaccarls.” Oh Guy of 


hil 


Atulens, 6535 
“ Spardit fama volana quod habst Landonin Rayer; 
Gandet et Anglorum qui superest pops.” - 
* On the age of Badgar ree Appendix 88, 


a k =| 


TREASON OF EADWINE AND MORKERE. 531 


formed the immediate possession of the personal foe whom omar, av1, 
he had overthrown, With the House af Leofric, with the, 
men of Northumberland, William had no quarrel. Per- 
haps he might be content not to attack them. At all 
events, the forces of Northumberland and North-western 
Meroia would bo better kept back for tho defence of their 
own homes. Kadwine and Morkere then, with the levies 
of their earldoms, withdrew to Northumberland, and left 
Eadgar and England to their fate.’ 

‘This was the consummation of the manifold treasons of Reslstance 
thexons of Blfgar. An united England might yet have tePthe 
held ont; for a divided England there was no hope. A “efeetion 
people who could not agree under any leader of their own Ea. 
ace, became of necessity the proy of the stranger.® Bat 
the fault rested wholly with the men who put their own 
selfish interests before the public welfare, The patriotic 
zeal of the men of London was thwarted by the base 
secession of the Northern traitors. By their act all was 
Jowt. After the day of Senlac William never again mot No further 
Englishmen in a pitchod battle. He met with much Sem 
gallant local resistance before his power wus fully estab- Yon sgainn 
lizhed over the whole land. But never again did he sec 
the forces of all England, or even the forces of all Wessex, 
drawn out aguinst him, Indeed it does not seem that any 
‘English weapon, save those of the great city itself, was 
again lifted against him till his formal investiture with 


* Flor, Wig. 1076. “Tidem comftes ... . eum ¢o ww prignam initures 
vod... - suum susiliom ab els retraxere ot cum suo exercitu 
dowum redicrunt.” So William of Malmesbury, ii, 247; ‘Quod [their 
own election) fruxtra conati, Northanhimbriam cliscmmerant, ex #0 con- 
jectantes Ingenio numquam illue Willelmum exe venturam,” ‘The 
‘two accounts fill up gape in each other, but there is n0 essential contre 
diction. 
* Will. Malma,u. 6. "Ths Angi, qui, in cyum cofuntes sententiams 
potuiment patio refirmaro ruinatn, dam soullum ex suis volunt, allenwia 
tnduxerunt.” This distinct amertion of the possibility of auccemful restet- 
sence afler Senlae shonlil be note. 


am 2 





= 


532 THE INTERREGNUM, | 
our. xv. th Mino, Behn eal Na a 
opposition as rebellion, 


.-- 
William While England sae thos betrayed and rained within: 
Tiwtingn, the walls of London, the Conqueror was, step by 
October 15: taking possession of the devoted land. He had 1 
as we have scen, to Hastings (October 15), in the hope 
of receiving an immediate submission.’ In that 
abode in his camp for five days.* During that time he 
also received some reinforcements from Normandy to 
supply the heavy losses which the battle had caused in 
his army.® As no English homagers came in to him, he 
now thought it time to set forth to follow up his great 
does snecoas by force of arms. But he had no intention of 
oe marching at once upon London, It again was William's 
Jondon, policy to bide his time. He no doubb fully understood the 
state of the case ; he felt certain that the divided land, shorn — 
of its one born leader, would never come together for any 
general or effective resistance. He knew that im a short 
time either he would be able to overcome local resistance: 
piecemeal, or else the English, unable to unite under a 
single native chief, would submit to him in sheer despair, 
It was thorofore his policy not to hasten, But it was 
equally his policy not to remain idle. His policy in fact 
was much the eame in England as it had been in Maine. 


a) 


* Soe above, p, $23: 
* Wid, Borjas 
Hastings ports castris tum quinque dlebus 
‘Mannit, et ad Dowermm vertlt abinde viam.!* _ 
‘Tho affair of Romney i pamed by, 
¥ Chow, Wig, 1066. “Ho fr upp mld eallon his here pe Aiew fo tafe 
wor, and him sySSan fram ofer ef c6m." See above, p. 435. The wonke 
in Ttalice maric William's loss a» more serious than might have been gathered 
from the run of the story. So Annales Altwhenses (Porta, sxe. 818); “Iter 
tolerunt oxo nobis, qui cudet bello interfusre, duodecin auillia hominum ex 
parte vinemtium cecidise. Qoand! salem x parte victorum ‘ut mori! 
hhaud facile folk numero 


a & =| 


WILLIAM AT ROMNBY, 533 


Political and military reasons alike bade him to secure ewar, xvi. 
the south-eastern portions of England before he bazarded 

any attack on the great city, Six days therefore after the 
battlo, William began his eastward march along tho south 

coast. 

The first point which he reached was Romney, where he Hemarches 
was within the borders of the ancient kingdom of Kent. Sey: 
Romney was, in those days, no less than Pevensey, o 
famous haven, but the physical agencies which have 
wrought so much change slong that whole line of coast, 
have destroyed the importance of the town by removing 
the sea from ite immediate neighbourhood,! Like moat of 
the havens of this const, it was endowed with special 
privileges, and in return for them it was bound to take 
its share in the naval defence of the land." The men of 
Romney had not been slack in the discharge of that duty. 

‘They had, as we have seen, at some time before the great Norman 
battle ent in pieces a body of Norman stragglers, for {untae 
whose blood William now came to take vengeance, Tt was Remney. 
hie policy now, ag ever, to be harsh wherever ho met with 

resistance and gentle to all who submitted easily. ‘The Witiam's 


line of his march was marked by coaveless myage,* ravage Pe, 


* Sco Harle, Parallel Chrontcles, 319-397. 

2 Domenilay, 4b. “Bex habet omne servithim ab efs, ot pel habent 

cotunen consuctudiaes ot aline forifaetas pro servitio marty, «t wunt in manu 

royin.” 

* See aboww, p. 412. 

* Chron, Wig. 1066. “Ho fe upp rid callon Dis here... and bor 

gede ealno Fone eile po he oferferde." 80 Florence; “Interea Comex 
Cantista, Suthantanensets provindam, Suth- 
Hoortfortensem 


‘many towns, or by the Inter march from Berkhampstend t» London ; but then 
it wae simply through the torror of William's ravages that the towns sur 





34 THE INTERREGNUM. 

cuar. x71. inflicted, no doubt, like the ravages before the battle, with 
‘s deliberate purpose. Before tho battle, he had wished to 
provoke Harold to come to the reeoue of his euffermg 
subject’ He now wished to etrike terror, and thereby: 
to bring about submission, Harrying then as he went, 

‘Tis veo, William reached Romney, 'The words which set forth his 

doings there are short, pithy, and terrible. “He took 

what vengeance he would for the slaughter of his men.”"* 


1 gpldocn rode with in ty park he Tal whe a 
entered.* ‘The famous cliff of Dover was already defended 
by a castle before which William might have looked for a 
wiege as Jong and as weary ax those which he had gone 
through bofore Brionne, Domfront, and Arques. ‘The town 
ef Dover lies, like that of Hastings, between two heights. 
‘The casternmost of the two hnd beon made a post of defence 
in the days of the ancient conquerors, and it had not been 
neglected either by the Kentish Kings or by the West- 
Saxon rulers who succeeded them. The tower of Roman 
work, the famous Pharos, is still there; there too is an 


renderol, Compare the surrender of London to Swogen im 1013. See 
vol b pe 388 

* See above, p. 413. 

+ Will, Pict. 139. “Humatle autem wuls, disposdtéquo eustodid Hastingss 
2 ea en ee 
pro clade suorum.” The athir of Romney seem to be mentioned by no 
‘other writer, except Kenott, who follows William of Poitiers, and thus 
(57686) tranullaten the laot works ; - 

“Por ¢'en er’ mull vers eux tf, - 
Laideraeat lor fit cotnparer.” 


* Sen vol. ip, 137, ‘The anme romark on the absence of. 
England is made by Wace (6454) when describing the conquest 
by Swegen; - 


“N'S avelt guires fortelesoe, ‘Mais li Baruns de Normendie, 
‘Ne tur de picrre we bretewe, Quant {l arent la Selgorig = 
‘Se n'esteit on vicille eité, ‘Tirent chastels & fermeter 

Ki clove fast d'sutiquits ; ‘Tare de plea, mon} Sena 


t il 


WILLIAM MARCHES TO DOVER, 835 


ancient church, lately recovered from desecration, which omar. xvt. 
dates from the earliest days of English Christianity.’ Few 
buildings in England show us so well how the first be- 
lievers of our race strove, under the guidance of Roman 
missionaries, to reprodace the works of Roman skill in 

their lowlier temples. ‘The ayo of Bar}. Harold bad marked Works of 
the importance of the site, and the spot which lay #0 Dover. 
temptingly open to an invading cnemy had been made 

sooure against all attack” It may well be that the evil 

deed of Eustace had caused special heed to be given to the 
necessity of strengthening the town, And Harold, the 
observant pilgrim and traveller, who had so carefully 
studied all that Ganl had to offer him, as he introduced 

the latest improvements of Norman ecclesiastical art into 

his church at Waltham, introduced also the latest improve- 

ments of Norman military art into his castle at Dover.’ ‘A doengih of 
fortress arose, of whose strength, both from its position and \aage 
from its defences, Norman writers speak with all respect ; 

& fortress whose fame had crossed the sea, and whose 


* "Tha history of the church in Dover Castle ix divcnmsed nt length by 
‘Mr, Puckle in his work on the Churoh and Castle of Dover (Oxford, 2864), 
Dut his anguinent is somewhat ubeoured by dreams about the ancient Dritish 
Church. I have little doubt that the eximting building dates from the tine 
‘of Kadbald, wn opinion in which {am confirmed by Sir G. G. Scott. 

* Wid. Amb. 603 5 

oat dbl inons altux, strietom mary, Wetue opacnm ; 
‘Hine hostes citine Anglion Rogna petunt, 
Sed castramn Dover pendons a vertios montis, 
Hostes rojiciens, Httora tuta facie," 
Willinm of Poitiors ale (140) enlarges on the strength of the position ; 
““Situm ost id oxstollum in rupe mari contigua, quae naturaliter acuta wndi- 
que ad hoo ferramentis claborata incisa, i specienx anuri directinima alt. 
futing, quanta sagitue jactus permetiri potent, conwaryit, quo in Iatere 
‘und sonrénd allultur.” 

* That the castle which William found wes the work of Harold sees 
Iumplied In the demand of Willian s0 described by Willisun of Pultiers (108) 
that Harold should give up to him “ Castrum Doversin, studio atque surptu 
suo coumunitam.” ‘The casilo already fortified by Harold seems to be 
‘opposed to the other castles which wure to be buils “ubl voluntas Ducis ea 
firmari juberet” 





SURRENDER AND BURNING OF DOVER. 537 


plainly his policy to show himself mild and debonair as cuar, xv1. 

it had boen his polioy at Romney to show himself beyond William's 

measure stark. The men of Dover were, according to 

William’s code, rebels who bad laid down their arms, and 

who were therefore entitled to pardon. ‘To do them any 

wanton harm was wholly against his scheme of conduct. 

Bat some of the unruly soldiers of his army felt themselves The town 

defraniled of their expected plunder, and they betook them daily” 

selves to the wonted Norman means of destraction. Fire "™™*! 

was a freely used at Dover as it had been at Mayenne ot at 

‘Dinan, but this time it was used without any order from 

Duke William for its use. A large part of the town was 

burned? But the politic liberality of the Duke made good Wilism 

their losses to the owners of the desruyed houses? and pnt be 

the offenders were only sheltered from punishment by their ome 

numbers and by the buseness of their condition. William 

remained at Dover eight days. Ho further strengthened 

‘mean that the submission was forced, and contrary to the real wishes of 

those who mado ft; he clearly does not mean to imply any tromory. 

* See vol. ih p. 167. 

2 Will, Plot. 140.“ Armiget “exercitus nov pmedie eupldine tyne 
Flamros levitsto sui volitans pleraque corripait.” Guy doos 

‘not mention the firs, but William's aosvunt ia confirmed Ly Domesday, « ; 


Procipit 
Hor intreduit per quos sibi nega «nbegit, 


OMAR. XVI. 





the fortifications af the castle,' which now received that 
Norman garrison with which Harold had failed to people 
it, The sick, who were a numerous body, were left be- 
hind, and William marched oo 
surrenders or to subdue other enemies.* 

The politic seruty. of Wiliam’ sk Remssyased eae 
leas politic lenity at Dover did their work thoroughly, 
‘There was no King, no national army, in the field; each 
town or district had to shift for itself and to defend itself 
how it could. The examples of Romney and Dover showed 
that, for each isolated place, submission was a safer course 
than resistance. The fear of William's name fell upon all 


“submission of the city. ‘They brought hostages and the 


+ Will, Pict. 140. ““Recupto cutry, qui minus orant per dies ecto 
addidit: firmament.” 
7 Th“ Cuxtestiam inité relinquens et dysonterié Ianguentes.* He had 
just bofore said,  Milites ‘io recontibux caribus ot aqui utentes, auld 
proluvio ventris exstinctt sunt, plurlani in extreanum rite dobilitasl dle- 
erlmen.” Then William ‘ail perdomandum quos deviclt profichedter,” 
> Wid. Amb. 631; 


ery one knows the lend, flow iy Thletry and, ftatingly, mao toy 
Lappenberg (208), aboat the Kentish men coming with boughs fn 
hands and wresting from Willian » confirmation of thelr rights, Ts comes: 
from William Thorn, X Seriptt. 1786, and it has, ax far ax T know, no 


Dotter treated than the rest of England ; a it wax pot under Oro, it wae 
Perhaps treated a litle worse. William no doubt promised to the Kentish 
men the preservation of tholr anclont laws, but this he did to Rnglishinen 
everywhere, This legend fs doubtless the same a the legend of Birmam 
Woed going to Danxinane. 

“ Will, Pict, 140. “Contremuit etiam potens metropolis meta, of me 
fumlitue cadoret ullatenus resistendo, maturavit impetrare statu obe- 
lend.” 


_ a 


CANTERBURY SUBMITS. 639 


tribute due by custom from the citizens to the King.’ our. xv. 
The example of the local capital was soon followed by the 

other towns of the shire. From all parts of Kent men 

eame to do their homage to the Conqueror, to offer him 

gifts, and, as his own poet adds, to kiss his feet? At He en- 
an unknown point in the neighbourhood of Canterbury, Spt Mt 
known as the Broken Tower, William pitched his camp, 
and, like his rival earlier in the year,5 he was here some- 
what checked in his progress by a severe sickness. Like His sck- 
Harold, be is said to have struggled with all his power" 
against the weakness of the flesh ; but it is plain that his 
sickness acted as a real check to his advance, for he stayed 

in the neighbourhood of the Kentish capital for a whole 
month.’ But even this time of unwilling inaction was 

not wasted. Where William could not be present in the 

fleeh, he could be present by the terror of his name and 

in the persons of his messengers. Kent and Sussex might 


‘Tower. 
Ostober 31. 


4 Will, Pict, 140. “Occurrunt ultro Cantuarii hand procul a Dovert, 
jurant fidelitatem, dant obsides.” So Guy, 613; 
“\«Nobilior reliquia urbe Cantorberia dicta, 
‘Missis legatis, prima tribute talit.” 
+ Wid. Amb. 615; 
“Post alise plures nimium sus jure timentes, 
Regi sponte suf munera grata ferunt, 


Omnes dona ferunt et sub juga oolla reponunt ; 






Flexis poplitibus oscula dant pedibus.” 
‘He likens them to flies settling on a wound. 

+ See above, p. 39. 

« Will. Pict. 140. “‘Veniens postero die ad Fractam Turrim castra 


metatus est, quo in loco gravissim& sui corporis valetudine animos fami- 
fiarium pari contulerit egritudine.” 

* William of Poitiers goes on, “‘Volens autem publicum bonum, ne 
exercitus egestate rerum necessariarum laboraret, noluit indulgere sibi 
moras ibi agendo.” But that he did not go far from Canterbury is plain 
from Guy, 623 5 

“Per spatium mensis cum gente perendinat illic, 
Post alio vadit castra looare sii.” 
Guy does not mention William's illness, but his mention of the month's 
delay quite agrees with it. 





WINCHESTER SUBMITS AND LONDON HOLDS OUT. ‘4a 


ancient ecclesiastical motropolis, and the ancient temporal enar. rv1. 
capital, were already in his hands, 


But there was ono spot where another spirit reigned; London, 
there was one city which even now had no mind to bow out, 
to the invader. The men of London, whose forefathers 
had Beaton: back Swagen and Cnut, whose brothers had 
died around the standard of Harold, were not men to sur- 
render their mighty city, guarded by its broad river and 
its Roman walls,' without at least meoting the invader in 
the field. William, master of Dover, Canterbury, and Wiliam 
Winchester, now directed his march along the old Roman fortonton, 
road, directly on the great city. He marched on, ravaging, 5?" 
burning, and slaughtering ux he went,? and drew near to 
the southern bank of the river, One account seems to 
describe him as ocenpying Westminster—therefore as 
erossing the river—as planting his military engines by 
Saint Petor's minster, and as boginning, or at least threat~ 
ening, a formal siege of the city, But nothing in the 


4 Wid. Amb, 6393 
“A beva muris, a dextris fumine tate, 
‘Hoatew noe motuit, nec pavot arte capi.” 


""Reex wic paeatus tontoria fixe rerolrit, 
Quo populosa nites Londons vertit fier.” 
* See the quotation from Florence in p. 633. 
* The exprendons of Guy (663, ot qq.) seem dotinotty to assert » slope. 
‘We read, for instance, 
 Densatis« costris @ Invi meenia elnxit.” 
And again, 


* 1b G55 


* Aidificnt moloy, vervecis commun ferro, 
Fobiricat et talpas urbis ad excidium,” 
‘Yor it i imposible to reconcile this with the acconnt in William of Poitiers. 
Gay’« desoription of Westminster (668) ia worth notice; 
“ Dimidie leuge spatio distabat ab urbe 
Rogia ante deoora nimi, 
Fortur ab entiquis qum Guest vooitata oolonis, 
Tost Petri nomen duxit ab ecclesia. 
Providus hano sexlem aibi Rex clegit ad adem, 
‘Quin wii complacuit fare noo iamerito : 


csav. xvi, Whole story is plainer than that William did not cross the 


eats 


He keops 


river till long after, A more credible version represents: 
him as sending before him a body of five hundred knights, 
whether simply to reconnoitre or in the bope of gaining 
something by a sudden attack. ‘The citizens sullicdy a 
skirmish followed; the English were beaten back within 
the walls; the southern suburb of the city, Southwark, 
where Godwine had waited in his own honse for the 
gathering of two memorable assemblies, was given to the 
flames.t The pride of the citizens was deemed to be some- 
what lowered by this twofold blow ;# but it is plain that" Wale 
liam did not yet ventnro any direct attack on the city, His 
ships were far away, and the bridge of London would have 
been a spot even less suited for an onslaught of Norman 
cavalry than the hill-side of Senlac. He trusted to the 
gradual working of fear and of isolation even on the hearts 
of those valiant citizens. He kept on the right bank of 


cathe ak the Thames, hurrying as he went, through Surrey, Hasp- 


the 
and 


shire, and Berkshire, till at Wallingford a ford and a bridge 
supplied eafe and easy means of crossing for his army# 


PAVating: The Norman invader of England had now reached a spot 


which must have played no small part in the days of the 
English invaders of Britain. As the name of the earlier 
conquerors still lives in the neighbouring Englefield, so the 
Ford of the Sons of the Welsh proclaims itself as a spot 


Nam, velutd patrum tostantur gosta priorunny 
Ex polite Reges hic diadema ferunt.” 
Guy haw a Mttle exaggerated the antiquity of Westminster se a royal 
Iwelling place. 


Molto stragl addunt thoondiom, crvenantan quidquld sedition! <tiam 
lumen invenere.” On Southwark as a dwolling-place of Gedwing, see 
vol. ii. pp. 148) 573) 324, 693+ 

* Will, Piet, 147. “Ut malo duptici superb ferocia contundazar.” 

* Tb, “Dus, progrodiens, dein quoquoveruum placuit, trananeato Bu- 
tuino Tamesi, vado abnul stque ponte ad oppidum Warengefort pervenity” 
‘Yet Wallingford! t+ om tho West-Saxon aide of the river. 


: ae! 





WILLIAM AT WALLINGFORD, os 


which placed a check in their path, and whose capture omar. xv, 
must have been marked as a bright day in the annals of 
West-Saxon victory’ Witnesses of those ancient struggles 

are still there in form of the dykes with which the Briton, 
after the model of his Roman masters, had on three sides 
fenced in his place of shelter, leaving, ae in his masters’ 

own work at Dorchester, the fourth side to be guarded by 

the river, Within those ancient defences, one of the vast 
mounds which speak of later days of English victory 
under Eadward the Unconquered stood ready to become 

at Willinm’s bidding the kernel of s stronghold from which 

the new invader might hold Englishmen in bondage. Here 

at Wallingford William was in the shire of the brave Sheriff 
Godrie, in a King’s town, part of which seoms to have 

been set aside ns w sort of special barrack or garrison for 

the King’s Housecarls,* But the stout heart of the lord 

of Fifhide had ceased to beat; Sheriff and Housecarls alike 

had dealt their last blow for England on the far South- 
Saxon hill. No force was ready on the bridge of Walling- 
ford to bar the approach of the invader, ‘There is even 
reason to think that the chief man of the place, the Sheriff 

of the neighbouring shire of Oxford, Wiggod of Walling- 
ford, favoured the progrees of the Norman. He had been 
high in favour with Eadward, and he was afterwards high 

in favour with Williem, and a son of his lived to die 
fighting for William in a more worthy canse.® However He cromes 
this may be, William passed the great border stream un- jure 
hindered, and for tho first time set foot on Mercian soil, “ri- 


+ Wallingford must have been taken in the expedition of Cuthwalfin g7t, 
wheu he crossed the Thames and took the four Beitish towns, one of which 
in the netyhbourtay Bensinyton, 

+ Domesday, 56. “In Burgo de Walingeford. . , Rex Edwardus habuit 
‘xy. aera in quibus manchant huscarlen” ‘The customs of Wallingford are 
given a¢ great longth, Another provision of the same kind fur the House 
carla is found at Dorchester in Dorset, Domesday, 73. 

* On Wigged of Wallingford, see vol. fv. Appendix C, 





ANSGAR'S DEALINGS WITH WILLIAM. BS 


of the wounded Staller Ansgar, the Shoriff of the Middlo- cnay. xvr. 
Saxons, His wound was 2o severe that he could neither Auymr 
walk nor ride, but was carried ubout the city in 6 litter." command 
But he is spoken of as being the soul of all the counsels 

taken by the defenders of London.* The defection of the 
Northern Futls had left him the layman of highest rank in 

the city, the natural protector and military adviser of the 

young King-clect. A tale is told of mossages which are Talo of his 
said to have gone to and fro between Ansgar and William, Sy™i"* 
But it is hard to know how far we ought to believe a story with 
which implies that London was besieged by William, 

which it certainly was not.” William, we are told, sent a wittiam's 
seeret message to Anegar. He asked only for a formal Sot ™™ 
acknowledgement of his right. Let William have the 

name of King, and all things in tho kingdom should be 

ruled according to the bidding of the Sheriff of the Middle- 
Saxons.* Ansgar listens; he has no intention of yielding 

even thus far, but he thinks it prudent to dissemble, He Ansar 
summons an Assembly, among the members of which we gn ame: 
may possibly discern the forerunners of the famous Alder Oy oe 
men of London.’ He sets forth the generni sad estate of 

4 Wid, Amb, 681. Sen above, pp. £01, 502. 

4 7 

a tO stn fe tatan rte poral CALLE 
‘Ejus in auxillo publioa res agitur.” 

* Tho story ix told at length by Guy of Amiens, 687 of seqq, Thos 
stories of score mesages ure always wuspicious, to may nothing of the 
uifstake of making London a besiqged town. Bat it fe not likely that Guy 
should have invented the name and the whole story of his Aumyardus," and 
“Anegardua” can (eee above, p. 427) be no one excupt the Staller and Sheriff 
Ansgar. About the siege, Guy, as before (veo above, p. $41), i# explicit. 

Ansgar is made to may (699), 
"Molle ot erecta transcendit machina turros, 
Totibas et lophdam mernia seta ruunt." 

Wid. Amb, 689 ; 

Solum Rex vooitetur, ait ; sed commode reyni, 
‘Ut jubet Anggardus, subdite euneta regat.” 
+ Th 6935 


© Natu majores, omni levitate repulsd, 
Aggregal.” 
Vor. It, Na 


LONDON AGREES TO SUBMIT, 3a7 


every ground hopeless to resist. His intentione are omar. xv1. 
friendly; he offers peace to the city ; wisdom dictates one 
course only, that of immediate submission to such o can- Submision 
didate for the kingdom,’ ‘The people applaud ; the Senate j2.N'om 
approves; both orders—their distinct action is clearly 
marked—vote at once to forsake the cause of the young 
Atheling,* and to make their submission to the conquering 
Dake. 

Whatever truth there may be in this story, it is certain 
that a resolution to the same effect as that described by the ona others 
poet was actually come to within the walls of London, wmlt ta 
While William was at Berkhampstend, an embassy came Berkhamp- 
to submit and to do homage to him, an embassy which 
might be fairly looked upon as having a right to speak 
in tho name of at least Southern England. hither came 
Eadgar, a King deposed before be was full King. ‘Thither 
came the Metropolitan of York, perhaps also the Metro- 
politan of Canterbury. Thither came at least two other 
Bishops, Wulfstan of Worcester and Walter of Hereford, 
and with them came the best men of London, and many 
other of the chief men of England.’ And on a ead and 


‘This Is of course the Norman tale of the conseut of the Witan 
given to Eadwan!’s devise of tho Crown. Seo Appondix U, and vol, i, 


B 396. 
* Wid, Amb. 7315 
“ Rox vobls pacem dict profertque ealutem, 
‘Veotria imandatis paret et nbeque dolia, 
Hoo igitur koperost, tilts xf ever vulti, 
mk Debits cum manibus reddere juz abi." 
wh *Annuit hoo vulgus, juatan probat ease sematas, 
Et pocrum Regom oxtus uterque negat.” 
This passage Is wurthy of notiee by any one who is studying the municipal 
antiquities of London. Bat it is not merely London which ix concerned. 
fe far aa the pasoge proves anything, I should mther take it aa a witmcas 


+ Chron, Wig. 1066, And jor [st Berkhampsieud] him com angean 
Ealtred arecbleceop and Eadgnr clld and Radwine oorl and Morkere oot 
Nana 





SUBMISSION AT BEUKHAMPSTEAD. ‘549 


direct invitation was not wanting. It was ‘seeclat la pce 
at Borkhampatead* that William was, as we are told, Vitis | 
prayed by the chief men of England, spiritual and sue te 
temporal, to accept the vacant Crown. They voce» Feet 
King; they had always been used to submit to a crowned Fass, | 
King and to none other.* Here we may cloarly see the moment. 
almost superstitious importance which was then attached 

to the ceremony of coronation, ‘The uncrowned Eadgar 

had been no fall King, and he had been unable to défend 

his people. The armed candidate who was encamped’ at 
Berkhampstead was no longer to be withstood by force of 

arms. The best course was to acknowledge and receive Pulley of 
him at once, and by the mystic rite of consecration to 
change him from a foreign invader into an English King. 
‘Wormust'boar in mind that amen ‘wero living” who’ could Bramle 
remember how an earliet foreign invader had been changed 
into an English King, intaa King who bad won his place 

among the noblest of England's native worthies. England 

had accepted Cuut the Dane, and she had flourished under 

him ag she had never flourished before or since. Mon 
might hope that the like good luck would follow on their 
acceptance of William the Norman. William in trath Compa 
promised better than Cnut in every way. Tnstead a 
half-heathen sea-king, he was the model prince of Europe, Wiliam, 

the valiant soldier, the wise raler, the pious son of the 
Church, the prince who, among unparalleled difficulties, had 

ruited hie paternal duchy to a etate of prosperity and good 
government which mude it the wonder and tho envy of 


* Se Appendis TT 

# Will, Plot, r41. “Orant post hice ut coronam swnat tuna pontifioos 
atque cxcteri mummates; ‘Se quidem soliter exo regi servire, regem domi: 
num habere elle.’ Onl. Vit, soy B. “Cunct prewiles regnique pro: 
cores cum Guillelime eoncordinin feoerunt, ao ut diadema rogium sutueret, 
lout mow Anglici principatds exigit, oraverunt . . . . Hoo divino autu 
miboti optabant indigene regni, qui (non) mist coronato regi servire 
hactenus erent wliti.”” 


a 


650 THE INTERREGNUM. 


omar. xvt. continental lands. The hopes of those who dreamed that 

William would prove a second Caut were doomed to be 

woofally disappointed. Bat such hopes were at the time, 

if not reasonable, at all events plausible. It is easy to 

‘understand how men may have been led away by them. 

‘Men too, especially churchmen, might easily argue that 

ory the event had proved that: it was God's willl that William 

uliam’s shonld be received. Harold had appeated to God’s judge 

‘ment upon the field of battle, and the verdict of God's 

judgoment had beon given against him. ‘Those who had 

fought under the banner of the Fighting Man against the 

banner of the Apostle were proved to have been in truth 

men fighting against God. All these arguments, bucked 

by the presence in the land of William's victorious 

army, would have their effect upon men's minds. They 

might even produce something more than a mere sullen 

submission to physical force, Men may well have 

brought themselves to a belief, unwilling indeed, but 

not cither absolutely compulsory or absolutely hypo- 

critical, that the King who had been vo visibly sent 

to them by the hand of God onght to be frankly and. 

Artificial loyally acknowledged, Wo can believe that the request 

fra’ made by go many Englishmen that the Conqueror 

Zable would at once assume the English Crown was mado in 

the time. an artificial, but not a dishonest, frame of mind. It was 

made in that state of artificial hope, even of artificial 

eagerness, which is not uncommon in men who are 

striving to make the best of a bad bargain. For the 

moment they really wished to have William to their King, 
But it was only for the moment that the wish lasted. 

‘The Crown was thus offered to William, but we are told 

that it was by no means eagerly accepted by him. He 

Sir, Summoned a Council of his chief officers and advisers'—we 


+ WHHL Piet. 142. Sprmperwiy ett iaii 
vainus prudentiatn quam fidem rpectatam habchat,” 


: i 


i 


calla a 


ia 


DEBATE IN WILLIAM'S COUNCIL, 55h 


are hardly to suppose a Norman military Gem6t—and laid omar. xvi. 
the matter before them, Possibly ho merely wished to 

prove the minds of his friends and followers ; possibly the 
arguments which they brought forward had real weight 

with him. ‘Wos'iby ho asked. expedienb for: hint tale tbsts pro 
Crown, while he was still so far from being in full posses 

sion of the kingdom ?* ‘We must remember that though (» qwrt 
the Prelates of York, Worcester, and Hereford sed tare 
William's camp, yot York; Worcester, and Hereford were 

not in William’s hands. William had actual iponsesices Eien ot 
only of the south-eastern shires. His authority reached Witien’ 
westward as far as Winchester ; it reached northward ae toy to 
far as his plunderers could go from the spot whore he was 

now encamped, Was it prudent, he argued, eo hastily to 
assume a kingship which, in the greater part of the 

Jand, would still be kingship only in name? He wished He wisher 
moreover—and here we may believe that William spoke ft 
from the heart—that whenever he should be raised i him. 
into a erowned King, his beloved and faithful Duchess 
might be there to share his honours.’ He therefore 

asked the opinion of the Assembly as to the imme- 

diate neceptance of the Crown which was preseed upon 

him. 

The military Council was strongly in favour of 
William’s acceptance of the Crown, but the decisive 
answer was given, not by any of William's native subjects, 

‘but by one of the most eminent of the foreign volunteers, 
Haimer, Viscount of Thouars, a man, wo aro told, as 

AWM, Piet 142. Patofeclt ols quid maxime sbi dimanderet quod 
Axngli orabant ; rea adhue turbides emo, rebellare nonnullos, se potlus regni 
quigtern quam coronam cupere. ,... Denique non oportere nimium 
properary, dum in alum oulmen ascenditur.” ‘The Archdeacon adds, 

“ Profecto non illi dominabatur regnandi libido,” Cxwar, we all know, 


21D. “Poeteren, sf Douk fpst hune concedit honorem, wecum valle 
eoajugem suat corunari.” The panegyrint adde—this time with truth— 
“ Sanctam caro intelloxcrat, manctoque diligobat conjogié pignur,” 


a 


552 THE INTREREGNDM. 
oar. avi. ready of spocch ns he was valiant in fights! had, om the 


‘Thouars, future King. He was not unwilling that the words 
which had then fallen from him as an omen should now 
put on fall shape and substance. The Aquitanian chief 
Degan in « courtly strain, by praixing the condescension of 
the general who deigned to take the opinion of his soldiers 
on such a point. It wae not, he said, a matter for much 
deliberation, when all were united in one wish. It waa 
the desire of every man in William's army to see his lord 
become a King as soon as might be* To make William a 
King was the very end for which all of them had crossed 
the sea, the end for which they had exposed themselves to 
the dangers of the deep and of the battle,* Ae for Eng~ 
land itself, tho wisest men in England, the highest in rank 
and character, were there, offering the kingship of their 
land to William. They doubtless knew best what was for 
the good of their own country, They clearly saw in 
William a fit man to reign over them, one under whose 
rule themselves and their country would flourish. An 
offer thus pressed on him from all sides it was clearly his 

William duty to accopt. William, we are told, weighed what was 

ema said, and determined at once to accept the Crown. He 

the Crown felt that, if he were once crowned King, the magic of tle 
royal name would have its effect. It would do something 
1 WIL Piet. 142. “Haimeriae Aquitanis, press Toarcensls, Hinged nom 
ignobilicr quam dextri.” Tho Aquitanian name still stretcher to the 
Tair, 


“1b. ee ee ee ee 
fort quam ovtesdime.” Paelrporpeticms hee c 
suarere ut totius exencitin unanim dewiderio optari 

* Ord. Vit, 603 B. “Hoe aummopern Sagitabant Normanni, qui pr 
face regal nancixoondo suo principl subterunt ingens disertimen munis o 
pli” 


“WL Piet. 142. “At prudentioimi et optim viet nequacuarn Ste 
cuperent in alto hujue monarchiw illum looari, nist precipue idoneum. per 
‘iderent, licet ipsorum commoda et honoree por Cxaltatioueus jus augert 
‘volenter.” 





4 = _l 


WILLIAM ACCEPTS THE CROWN, 553 


to damp the spirit of resistance in the still unsubdued cnar. ave 
parts of the country, Men who were eager to fight 
against. a mere foreign invader, would be less inclined to 
withstand a King formally chosen and consecrated accord 

ing to the laws of the kingdom.t The Duke of the 
Normans therefore signified to the English embassy his 
readiness at once to take on himeelf the kingship of Eng- 

land. The day for the consecration of the King-elect was The omv- 
of course fixed for the great festival of the Church which fei fir 
was drawing near. The Midwinter feast was to be again Christm, 
hold at Wostminster by a crowned King. On the fenst 

of the Nativity, within lees than a full year from the con- 
secration of the minster itself, the church of Eadward was 

to behold another King crowned and anointed within its 
walls. Events had indeed followed fast on one another 

since the Christmas Gemét of the last year had been beld 

by the last King of the House of Cerdic. 


‘The Conqueror was thus King-elect, His plans had Poaion of 
answered. His arte and his arms had been alike euecees~ 
ful. And the triumph of his subtlety had been specially of hie 
hie own. It was the chance shot of an arrow which had 
evercome the English King, but it was William’s own 
policy which had overcome the English people. King in 
truth only by the edge of the sword, he had so managed 
matters that he had now the formal right to call himself 
King, not only by the bequest of Eadward but by the 
election of the English people. But, haying won this great 
snocess of his craft, he was not minded to jeopard what 
he had won by the neglect of any needful military pre- 
caution. He did not trust himself in London till his Ho snd 
position there war seeured, till some steps had been taken OTUs 
towards holding the lofty episit of the citizeos’ fn ehiok ote. 


+ Will, Pet. 142. “Presortimn aporans, ubi regnare cceperit, rebullem 
quemuo minus anvurum ine, faciline contorendusn evo.” 





WILLIAM'S MARCH ‘TO LONDON, 565 


failed to-pmnish the criminala. We may believe that some omar. xe. 
‘thing of the same sort took place now. Systematic ravage, 
carried on by the Duke's order, doubtless stopped, but the 
excesses of his army, the amount of burning and plander- 
ing done without his order, but which be failed to check 


amount of damage done by the way, William marched on Pathe 
withont opposition.’ When all that was needed to keep 
the city in subjection had been done, William drew near 
in readiness for the great rite which was to change the 
Conqueror into a King. As to the place of the ceremony 
there could be no doubt. William was to be crowned in 
the church which had been reared by his kinsman and 
predecessor, and where his mortal remains, lifeless, yet 
undecayed, and already displaying their wonder-working 
powers, lay ua it were to weleome him.* William wae thus 
to be consecrated within the same temple where Harold 
had been consecrated less than a year before. He was to 
be consecrated with the same rites and by the same hand. 


T wish we could believe, on the report of some later Eng- Alleged 
Tih rity, that William sooght for consseration at the Sad tn 


hands of Stigand, and that the high-soulod Primate 1e- Fae 


a Thierry tells how Frithric, Abbot of Saint Athan’s, ent down trees 
‘tend put them in the way to Mock William's march. For this tale he 
refers 40 no wuthority but Speed. Tt Is not even fouml fn the Lifvy 
legendary enoogh, of Frithric in the Lives of the Abbots of Sint Allan's, 

¥ Will, Malins, Goat. Pont, Scriptt, p. Bod, 134. ‘Neo minus sed mulio 


roguaturt 

ronam.” Compare the letter of William to John Abbot of Fécamp (seeabovo, 

1p. 101), in which he sayw, “Abbatiam Sanct! Pwtri de Westmonastarlo . . 5 « 

‘in maxima veneration ot habeo, ot ox debite habere debeo. Thi enim jacet 

vir bene memorise domiaus icus [see above, p. 250) Rex Ethwardus, thi 

ccinam tumulate eat Regina Eigith uxor ojut inclita; ago ¢tiam shidem, 

‘Doi clomentiA providente, sceptrum et ocronnm totius regni Angliet #usoeyé." : 
Mabillon, Vet. Am. L, aig. 


WILLIAM CROWNED BY EALDRED. ‘Ba 


‘therefore allowed to take a part in the ceremony second omar. xv1. 
only to that of the actual celebrant. But the sacramental 

rite itself was to be performed by the hands of Ealdred. 

The Northern Primate was the only canonical Metro- ‘The actual 
politan in the realm, and he was the man who, as having’ ion por, 
Twen the leader of the embassy af Berkhampstead, might fmol by 
be looked on as having been the first Englishman to take 
formal part in making William King? The Primate of 
Northumberland had thus in one year to anoint two 

Kings, the champion of England and her Conqueror, He 

had to anoint beth far away from his own province, and to 

anoint both at a time when he could in no way pledge 
himself that the willing consent of his province should 
confirm his own formal act. 

‘The Christmas morn at last came; and once more, 8 Corona- 
on the day of the Epiphany, a King-cloct ontorod the eno 
portals of the West Minster to receive his Crown. But Decaber 
now, unlike the day of the Epiphany, the approach to the The 
chureh was kept by a guard of Norman horsemen.* Other- Hog) 
wise all was peaceful, Within the church all was in readli- Guarda by 
ness; @ new crown, rich with gems,® was ready for the horvomen, 


+ William of Newburgh, 1. 2, remarks, “Aldredux vero Ieborsconsis 
Archleplscopus, vir bonus et prudens, hoe munus implevit, acutlus in- 
telligens, codendum ewe tempori, et divine nequaquam resistendum oniina: 
oni.” Hw fx followed by Walter of Hemingburgh. William of Poitiers 
(142) takos thix opportunity to praise Raldrod na “ mquitatom valde amane, 
evo maturus, maplens, bonus, eloquens™ In Guy of Amiens too (791), 
though his name is not mentioned, he appears ax 

Prowul celeberrinus unun, 
‘Moribus insignis ot probitate clveun” 
“<Probitas” generally rofers to warlike prowou: but Ealdred's Wolih 
‘campaign (see vol, fi, p. 1x0) was not epecially glorious. 

* Willian of Poitiers (r42) speaks carually of thove “qui clros monas- 
terlum in armis e€ equis presidio disposi fuerunt.” Orderis (g03 ©) ix 
‘more expliait; “Normaunoram tur elrea toonasterum Iu armais ot equa, 
ne qoid doli et solitionts orfretur, prmaidio dixpositse fucrunt." Presently 
after he speaka of “‘armati miliver qui weteinwecns erant pro suoruin 
tuftione.” 

That i was a nurw orown appears from Guy of Amiens (76595 


= 


THE PROUESSION AND ELECTION. 


to mark the coronation of William. A King was to be omar. xet. 


crowned who spake not our ancient tongue, and, with him, 
many who knew not the speech of England stood there 
to behold the rite. It was therefore not enough for Ealdred 
to demand in his native tongue whether the assembled 
crowd consented to the consecration of the Duke of the 
Normans, The question had to be put a second time in 
Fronch by Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, one of the 
prelates who had borne his part in those rites in tho 
camp at Hastings which had ushered in the day of Saint 
Calixtus.’ The assent of the assembled multitude of both 
nations was given in ancient form, The voices which on 
the Epiphany had shouted “Yea, yea, King Harold,” 
shouted at Christmas with no loss of seeming zeal, “ Yea, 
yea, King William.” Men's hearts had not changed, but 
they had learned, through the events of that awful year, 
to submit as cheerfully as might be to the doom which 
could not be escaped.? The shout rang loud through the 


* See above, p. 453. 

7 Will. Pot. 142, Eloquutus ad Anglos... . Eborsconsis Archt- 
‘epheopus .... an consentirent oum sibi Domina coronari inquisivit. 
‘Protestat! sunt hilarem consensum univers minine husitantes, ao al colitas 
uni monte daté unique vooe, Angloram voluntati quam failiime Nor 


snum regnare super se, ot univerd consensum hilarem protestarentur, 
unk vooe, non univs Unga loquutione.” Guy of Amlons (811) ts vory 


comphintio; 
“ Normannus quidam pocsul mor pulpita scandens, 
Famonis Gulie tain verb dealt 
* Oblatux vobia xi Race placot, odite nobis ; 
Axbitrio vestrd nam deoot hoo fier.’ 
‘Convent populas, clerus favet atque senatus ; 


‘William of Poitiors distinctly counts this as an lection ; “Sic electum oom: 


WILLIAM CROWNED KING. 561 


himself was not prepared to brave. But the rite went cmar.xvn 
on; the trembling Duke took the oaths of an English Wists 
King, the oaths to do justice mercy to all within oath. 


z 


proved loyal to he would them as well as 
the best of the Kings who had gone before him. 
‘The prayers and litanics and hymns went on; the rite, 


of sacramental virtue or of ecclesiastical significance, 
‘All was done in order; while the flames were raging William 
aronnd, amid the uproar and the shouts which sur. owned 
rounded the holy plaoe, Kaldred could still nerve himselt szcatel 
to pour the holy oil upon the royal head, to place the rod 


‘The work of the Conquest was now formally com- Summury. 
pleted; the Conqueror eat in the royal seat of England, 
He had claimed the Crown of his kinsman; he had 


4 The Worcester Chronicler ix emphatic on the oath; "Ba on mie 
wintros ding hin halgode to kyngo Ealdred arcobiscoop on Wontenynatre, 
be 


Promittens, se velle manctes Dei ccclosias et rostores ilarum 

neenon ob cunctum populuan sibi mubjoctum jurte ot megali providentis, 

regen, ructain lager statuere et tonere, rapinas injustaque judicia 

penitas interdioere.” The Norman writers are silent about the oath, 
VOL, HI. oo 


~ | 


562 THE INTERREGNUM. 


omar, xvi, eet forth bis elaim in the ears of Europe; be had 
maintained it on the field of battle, and now it had 
been formally acknowledged by the nation over which 
he sought to rule. As far a8 words and outward rites 


yet to sce how gradually William won, how sternly yet 
how wisely he ruled, the land which he had conquered. 
‘We have to see bow, one by one, the native chiefs of 
England were subdued, won over, or cut off, and how 
the highest offices and the richest lands of England 
were parted out among strangers. We have to see the 
Conqueror in all his might; we have to see him too in 
those later and gloomicr years, when home-bred sorrows 
gathered thickly around him, and when victory at last 
ceased to wait upon his banners. At last, hy a cycle as 
strange as any in the whole range of history, we shall 
follow him to his burial as we have followed him to his 
crowning, and we shall seo the body of the Conqueror 
lowered to his grave, in the land of hie birth and in the 
minster of his own rearing, amid a scene as wild and awful 
as that of the day which witnessed his investiture with 
the royalty of England, 


APPENDIX. 


NOTE A. p. 3. 
‘Tux Avruorry or tux Bavsux Tarestry. 


Tr will be eeen that, throughout this volume, I accept the witness 
of the Bayoux Tapestry aa one of my highest authoritics. Ido not 
‘hesitate to say that I look on it as holding the first place among 
the anthorities on the Norman side That it is a 
work I haye no doubt whatever, and I have just os little doubt 
a6 to its being a work fully entitled to our general confidence. I 
believe that the Topestry was made for Bishop Odo, and that it waa 
‘most Ikely designed by him as an ornament for his newly rebuilt 
cathedral church of Bayeux. In coming to these conclusions T have 
‘beon mainly guided by what scems to me the unanswerable internal 
evidenco of the Tapestry itself, Of that internal evidence I shall 
presently state the more important points, but, as the age and an- 
tiquity of the Tapestry huve been made the subjects of a good deal 
of controversy, I think it right to begin by giving summary of 
tho literature of that controversy. 

‘The earliest notice of the Tapestry is to be found in a eommuni- 
cation made by M. Lancelot in 1724 to the French Academy, which 
was printed in the sixth volume of their Memoirs, p. 739 (Pari, 
1729), and which, in some sort, entitlen him to the honour of being 
looked on as its discoverer. Among the papers of M, Foucault, 
who had been Intendant in Normandy, was found what Lancelot 
calls “un Monument de Guillaume lo Conquérant.” This was no 
other than « copy of the earlier scenes of the Tapestry, us far down 
ag the coming of William's messengers to Guy, ‘The real nature of 


00% 


<a 


tho monument was quite unknown ; that it might be tapestry wna 
simply one conjecture out of many which Lancelot made before the 
truth was found out, And he not unnaturally connected his dis~ 
covery with Cacn rathor than with Bayeux, But the description 
which be gave of that part of the Tapestry which he had then 
seen, and the historical disquisition which he added, showed a very 
creditable knowledge of the original writers both English and 
Norman. His conclusion was as follows; 

“Plus fay oxaminé le monument qui a servi de sujet A ces 
remarques, et plus je me suis persundé qu'il estoit du temps pew 
pres of s'est passé I'¢venement qu'il represente; habits, armes, 
caracttres do lettres, ornoments, godt dans les figures ropresentées, 
tout sent Ie sitcle de Guillaume Ip Conquérant, ou celuy de sex 
enfant." (p. 755-) 

Lancelot then was the first to call attention to the Tapestry, but 
without knowing that it was tapostry or whoro it was to be een. 
‘This discovery was owing to the diligence of Montfxucon, who firt 
guessed, and afterwards found his guess to be right, that the frag- 
ancnt published by Lancelot was « copy of part of a roll of tapestry 
which used to be shown on certain feast-days in the church of 
Bayeux. Montfaucon gave two accounts of it in his * Monumens de 
ls Monarchie Francoise,” at vol. i p. 372, and at the beginning of 
vol. ii, He decides (ii, 2), on the evidence of the style of the work, 
the form of the armour, &c., that the work is s contemporary one, 
and he accepts aa probable, what he says was the common opinion 
at Bayeux, that it was wrought by Queen Matilda. THe thought 
that the Tapestry was designed to go on to the coronation of Wil- 
liam, and that its imperfect state was owing to the Queen's death 
in 1083. 

‘The first volume of Montfaucon wus published in 1729, the 
second in 1730, In the latter year Lancelot communicated to the 
Academy a second paper, which appesred in the eighth volume of 
the Memoirs (Puri, 1733), p. Go2, He had by that time found 
out another fact with regard to the monument, The Tapestry, 
known locally aa “‘la Toilette du Doc Guillaume," was thus men- 
tioned ip an inventory of the goods of the Church of Bayeux of the 
date of 1476; 

“Ttem. Une tente tres longue et etroite de velle & broderie de 
ymages ct eserptcaulx [escriptenulx] foisans representation du Con~ 


b <i 


THE AUTHORITY OF THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY, 565 


quest d'Angleterre, Inquelle est Undue environ ta nef de I'Exglise le. 
jour et par lea octaves des Roliques.” 

A short notice of the Tapestry in Beziers’ History of Bayoux 
(Caon 1773) is wholly founded on Lancelot and Montfancon. 


‘The first English mention of the Tapestry, as far ns T can make 
ont, it to be found in Stukeley’s Palwographia Britannica, ii, 2. An 
wbridgement of Montfancon's account, by Smart Lethicullior, FS. 
and F.S.A,, is added as an Appendix to Ducarel’s Anglo-Norman 
Antiquities, No. I, But the carliest actual writers of English 
history who dealt with the ago and authority of tho Tapestry wore 
two anthora who hold snch different places in tho estimation of 
the scholar as Lord Lyttelton and David Hume. Lyttelton (Hist. 
Henry Il. i. 353, ed. 1769) came to o conclusion unfayournble to 
tho authority of the Tapestry; but he did not como to it without 
really reading and thinking abont the matter. Hig main point of 
objection was the supposed discrepancy between the Tupestry and 
the narrative of William of Poitiers with regard to the details of 
the Broton war, an objection perfectly rensonable ax far as it goo, 
and the grounds of which I shall exnmine elsewhere (see Note X). 
Assuming, T suppose, that the tradition which ascribed the work to 
& Matilda must have some groundwork, Lyttelton “ judged” that 
‘it was made by the orders, not of William's Queen Matilda, but of 
her granddaughter the Empress, 

‘This “judgement,” it ehould be noticed, wae simply Lyttelton's 
‘own ues, thrown cut on his own responsibility. It is curious to 
mark the fato of thie guess in the hands of Hume. It is due to 
‘Hume to say that he seems to have had a clearer notion of the real 
value of the Tapestry than Lyttelton. Yet in 1762, when he pub- 
lished the first edition of his early history, he knew the Tapestry 
only as “a very curious and authentic monument lately discovered. 
It is a tapestry, preserned in the ducal palace at Roilen, and supposed 
to have been wrought by orders of Matilda, wife ta the Emperor. 
At least it is of vory great antiquity.” (i. 128.) 

When this was written, the first discovery of the Tapestry, at 
least of that part of it of which Hame was speaking, was thirty-clght 
years old, Still it was in Hume's eyes * lately discovered,” because 
he had never before beard of it, The cathedral at Bayoux and 
the ducal palace at Rouen wore all one to him, just as Milan and 


a 


566 APPENDIX, od 


Triting’ tre acigu of aderd, eden ease Olas 
‘ono Matilda from another; it clearly was quite indifferent to him 
sbich Emperor 3¢ was thal cliheriof ‘liemmmrcioden —— 
- me 

But the beginning of any really serious amd eritieal inquiry into 
‘the ago and authority of the Tapestry was reserved for the present: 
century, Attention began to be called to it during the time of the 
firt Fronch Republic, Some curious letters on the subject are 
printed in Pluguet’s “ Kasai Historique sur la ville do Bayeux,” pp. 
76-81. Tt appears that the Tapestry at one time narrowly exoaped 
being cut into shreds to adora acivic car, It afterwards actually 
underwent a fate almost av degrading, ‘The elder Buomaparte, then 
* First Consul,” carried it off to Paris, and showed it at tho Louvre, 
to stir up his subjects—“ citizens” they are still called in the: 
official lotters—to another conquest of England. But this kind of 
folly had nt loast the advantage of fixing the thoughts of learned 
‘men on the Tapestry itself. The firstfruits of their studies appeared 
in 1812, in the form of a paper by the Abbé de In Rue, Profesor 
at Caen and Canon of Bayeux, of which an English translation by 
Mr. Douce is printed in the Archwologia, vol. xvii. p. 85, M. do la 
Rue followed Lyttelton in attributing the Tapestry to the time and. 
‘the orders of the Empress Matilda. Against the tradition which 
attributed it to the wifo of the Conqueror ho brings several axgu~ 
ments. It is nowhere mentioned in the will of Queen Matilda or 
in any other wills or charters of her age or that of her sors. If it 
bad been pleced in the church of Bayeux in Queen Matilda's time, 
‘it must havo perished in the fire by which that church was destroyed: 
in 1106. Some relies were saved, but no one would haye taken 
the trouble to save the Tapestry. Some points of nom-agreement 
between the accounts in the Tapestry ond the Romen de Rou show 
that Waco had never men the Tapestry. But, as = canon of 
Bayeux, he could not fail to have seen it, if it had been there in his 
time. The work again must be later than Queon Matilda's time, 
because the border contains references to the fables of Acsop, which 
‘wore not known in the West till the time of the Crusudes, ft is 


4 & —— 


THE AUTHORITY OF THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY. 567 


shown moreover to be of English work, from the occurrence of tho 
‘This name be takes to be an English way of 


about which time Wace wrote, and 1167, the year of her own 


‘This communication led to several other papers on the subject 
in the Archmologia, and to what was more valuablo than all, to 
the pablicntion of the beautifal and accurate representation of the 
‘Tapestry iteelf, made for the Society of Antiquaries by Stothard. 
AS voll xviii. p. 369 of the Archmologin ‘iam letter written’ in 


himself, Ho argues in favour of the antiquity attributed to the 
work by the local tradition. He insists on various pointa of 
and on the evident attempt at preserving o likeness in 


j 


‘Tapestry vr on subjects connected with it, The first by Mr. 
Amyot, at p. 88, doos not deal with the question of the ago of 
the itself, but only with the evidence which it gives as 
to the cans of Harold's voyage to Normandy. ‘The second, at 
p. 184, is powerful argument by Stothurd in favour of the 
antiquity of the Tapestry, but in which he does not commit 


any connexion with Queen Matilda, Stothard was 
‘that the one proposition did not involve the other, 
‘on the costume as belonging to the eleventh century 
to the twelfth, and on the utter improbability that any 
medisval artist of later age should attend to antiquarian ac 
curacy in these matters, He remarks also on the obscure persons: 
represented on the Norman side, Turok, Vitel, and Wadard, a4 
distinct proof that the Tapestry waa contemporary Norman 


Tn the hands of Stothard the subject had for the first time 


EEGE 
i 


Ey 


i 





el 


568 APPENDIX. 


fallen into hands really capable of dealing with it ax it deserved. 
But Stothard ig well followed up in a second paper by Mr. Amyot 
in p. 192 of the same volume, in which he dispores of most of 
the arguments of M. de In Rue against the antiquity of the 
Tapestry, He still howover socms to think that, if it were 
contemporary monument, it must have been the work of Queen 
Matilda, or wrought by her order. Mr. Amyot also points cut 
‘that Wadard is not only, as Stothard had seen, a proper name, but 
that it is the name of o real man who appears in Domesday, and 
also that Wadard, Turold, and Vital were all tenants of Odo. 
Mr. Amyot very truly says that “Franci” was the only name 
which could rightly express the whole of William's mingled 
army, and that “Franci” and “Francigenm” are the words con- 
atantly opposed to “ Angli” in documents of the age of the Con- 
queror and much later, 

In 1824 M. de la Rue republished at Coen his essay in the 
Archsologia, with an Appendix containing an attempt at a refa~ 
tation of Stothard and Amyot. He was again briefly answered 
by another Norman antiquary, M. Pluquet, in hia “ Exsai Historique 
sur la ville de Bayeux (Caen, 1829).” Pluquet was the first 
distinctly to assort that the work had nothing to do with oither 
Matilda, but that it was made by order of Bishop Odo (p. 8). 
In 1840 Mr, Bolton Corney put forth a tract, in which he attempted 
to show that the Tapestry was made by the Chapter of Bayeux 
after the French conquest of Normandy. He argues that, during 
the union of England and Normandy, the conquest of England, 
which William took such pains to disguise under the semblance 
‘of legal right, would not be thus ostentatiously set forth in Nor- 
mandy, Some learned person, ho holds, was employed to keep 
the costume right, a degree of antiquarian care for which it would 
be hard to find # parallel in the middle ages 

Thierry reprinted Lancelot’s account as a note at the end of 
his first volume (p. 353, ed. 1840), ndding two notes of his owm. 
In the first he accepts the Tapestry as m contemporary work, 
designed for the ornament of the church of Bayeux, und quotes 
M. de la Rue as attributing the work to the Empress Matilda, 
‘Tn tho second he quotes him as attributing it, neither to William's 
Queen Matilda nor to Matilda the Empress, but to Eadgythe 
‘Matilds, the wife of Henry the First. Ido not know whether this 


E =| 


THE AUTHORITY OF THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY. 569 


was a confusion of Thierry's, or whether Do ln Rue ever came to 
change his opinion. At any rate Thierry successively accepts 
‘these two distinct theories as highly probable, and sees in one 
or other of them the explanation of the alleged English words 
and forms which are found in several places of the Tapestry. 

Dr. Lingard (Hist. of England, i. 547, ed. 1849) gives a note to 
the subject, for the substance of which ho professes to be indebted 
to Mr, Bolton Corooy. But he does not commit himself to the 
more grotesque parts of Mr. Cornoy's thoory. He altogether rejects 
the suppored connexion between the Tapestey and any of the 
Matildos. He holds that it was made as a decorntion for the 
church of Bayeux, and that it war designed to commemorate 
the share which the men of Bayeux bore in the Conquest of 
England, ‘This he infers from the prominence given to Odo, and 
from the appearance of his retainers, Turold, Vital, and Wadard. 
Rathor than attribute the work to Matilda, he inclines to believe 
that the Tapestry was due to the personal vanity of some of these 
men, or of their descendant 

I can hardly be expected to take any serious notice of some 
amusing remarks on the Tupostry made by Mixs Agnos Strickland 
(Queens of England, i. 65, 66), who recommends “the lords of 
the crestion” “to leave the question of the Bayeux Tapestry to 
the decision of the ladies, to whose province it belongs.” According 
to Miss Strickland, the Tapostry was “in part at loast designed for 
Matilda by Turold, a dwarf artist.” Miss Strickland speaks of a 
Norman tradition to that offuct, but perhaps even # “lord of the 
creation” may venture to ask where that Norman tradition is to 
‘be found. 

T come back into the every-day world in company with Dr. 
Collingwood Bruce, who read a papor on the Tapestry before the 
Archeological Institute at Chichester in 1853, which afterwards 
grow into a volume callod “The Bayeux Tapestry Elucidated” 
(London, 1856). Dr. Brace follows Stothard in the argument for 
the carly date of the Tapestry, drawn from the correctness of the 
costume, He argues further on the samo side from the manifest 
object of the Tapestry, namoly to aet forth tho right of William to 
the English Crown. He cleaves in a somewhat unrensoning way 
to the tradition which attributes the work to the first Matilda, 
but he fully grasps the manifest connexion of the Tapestry with 


i | 


570 APPENDIX, 


‘Bayonx and its church. He even goes so far as to altribute the tro 
or three seemingly English forms which are found in the legends 
‘of tho ‘Tapestry to the common use of the Teatonic language in 
‘the Beesin, which he supposes, without any authority that I know 
of, to have lasted as late as the reiga of William. Dr. Brace 
however thinks that the designer of the Tapestry, a distinguished 
from thoso who wrought it in the stiteh-work, was an Italian, 
Sir Francis, Palgrave, in the posthemous, part. of his works (li. 
254), has an incidental reference tothe Tapestry, in which be takes 
Senn Sah isthe ar et Sp oma 
‘that ony question has ever been mised about the motter, - 

Tastly, Mr. Planché published « paper “On the Bayeux Tapestry” 
in the Journal of the British Arehwological Association for June, 
1867 (p. 134). Mr. Planché follows M. Pluquet, and gives = 
good summary of hia argumenta; he then goes minutely through 
the Tapestry, giving his views at each stage, to some of which E 
shall have to refer again, “The report," he says, “mentioned by 
Montfaucon that it was the work of Queen Matilda and her hand~ 
maida, originated probably in the suggestion of some satiquary of 
the sixteenth or seventeenth century repeated till it assumed the 
consistency of a fact.” 


Lave, go ene Shse my even reemins Se aregee ee ee 


de Rou. Wace (x. 12628) speaks of the horse of William Fite: 
Qsbern as “all covered with iron” (see below, Note NN, andl 
Tuylor’s note, p. 162), whereas in the Tapestry “not » single horse: 
is equipped in atecl armour; and if we refer to the authors who lived 


L 
4 
z 
fe 


Bayeux. As Dr, Lingund says, it 
persons, who are of no importans 
reputation must haye been purely Jocal, 


THE AUTHORITY OF THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY. 571 


Count Eustace of Boulogne, and these three obscure rotaincrs of 
Bishop Odo. We see them here in the Tapestry, and the industry 
of Mr. Amyot and Dr, Lingard traced them out in Domesday, 
but no other mention survives of them. Ralph, the son of Turold, 
Vital, Wadard" homo episcopi,” are all to be been in Domesday, 1, 
5, % 8 8 a, 9, 10, 3% 77, 155 by 238 5, 342 D, andl in every case 
their land is held of Bishop Odo, It is plain that, in the mind 
of the designer of the Tapestry, the Bishop of Bayeux and his 
favourite followers came next after Duke William himself, This 
fact: seoms to me to be equally decisive in favour of ite belng « 
contemporary work and against its being a work of Matilda, 

Here, I think, is abundant evidence both to catablish the con- 


be iH apenas T cannot think that “at” for 
“ad” proves anything, but the form *ceastra” goes a good way 
to prove that the work was English, The notion of Dr, Bruce 
and Mr, Planché that those forms are not English but Saxon of 
Bayeux seems very fanciful. Besidos, the form “ censter" is one 
which is not Nether-Dutch in a wide sense, but distinctly and 
locally English, I know of no instance whore it is to be found 
in the Bessin, or indeed anywhoro out of 
Most of the objections made to the early date of the Tapestry 
are well disposed of by M. Pluquet and Mr, Plauch¢; but to one 
of their arguments 1 must demur, M, de la Rue (see above, 
P- 566) objected that the borders contain scenes from Asop's 
Fables, which he says were not known in the West till afterwards, 
Mr. Plonché, oddly enough, quotes (p. 136) Prooulf, Bishop of 
Lisicux, who, he tells us, “lived in the eleventh century,” ns saying 
that Endward eaused the Fablos of Hop to be translated into 
English. He goes on with a rvference to tho false Togulf, which 
T need not discuss. As for Freculf, who died somewhere about 
the year 853, if he said anything at all about our Eadward, he 
must have enjoyed a prophetic power rivaling that of the saint 


572 APPENDIX. 


himself. But it is well known that Mary of France, the poctess 
‘of the thirteenth century, professes to have mado her French 
‘version of the Fablos from an English version made by an Kngliah 
King. For the anthor of that version we have, 

to choose between Alfred and Henry the First, (Soe this matter 
discussed in the Appendix to vol. iv.) If Alfred be the right 
‘reading, there is no doubt of the early knowledge of the Fables in 
England. If Henry be the right reading, wo may be sure that 
whatever Henry translated was done into English early in life, 
and Honry was born about the time when the Tapostry must 
have been making, 

For my own part T should reverse the argument. T have that 
confidence in the Tapestry that I accept the figures wrought in its 
border as proof that the Fables were known in Normandy and 
England in the eleventh contury. 


‘The external evidence then seems to be complete. ‘The work 
murt be a contemporary one; there is no renzon to connect it 
with Matilda; there ie every reason to connect it with Odo, 
Tt was probably, but T cannot say certainly, made in England. 
T now turn to that branch of the question which to me is yet more 
‘interesting, the internal evidence for looking on the Tapestry an I 
look on it, aa a primary authority for the subject of the present 
volume, as in fact the highost authority on the Norman side. 

I ground this beliefon the way in which the story is told. It 
is told from the Norman point of view, but it is told with herdly 
any of the inventions, exaggerations, and insinuations of the other 
Norman authorities, Jn fact the material has a certain advantage. 
Stitch-work must tell ita tale simply and atrnightforwardly; it 
‘cannot loso itself in the thetoric of Eadward's Biographer or in the 
invective of William of Poitiors. And the tale which the Tapestry 
tells us comes infinitely nearer to the genuine English story than 
it does even to the narrative of the Conqueror’s laureate To 
the later romances, the tales for instance of Eadward’s French 
Biographer, it gives no countenance whatever. With regard to the 
great controversial points, those which I shall go through in detail 
in future Notes, the Tapestry nearly always agrees with the 
authentic account. ‘There is not a word or « stitch which at ll 
countenances any of the calumnious tales which were afterwards 


2 a is 


THE AUTHORITY OF THE BAYRUX TAPESTRY. 573 


current. In the Tapestry the bequest of Eadward to Harold, his 
‘orderly acceptance of the Crown, his ecclesiastical coronation, all 
appear as plainly as they do in the narrative of Florence. The 
only point of diversity is that the Tapestry seems to represent 
Stigand, and not Ealdred, us the consecrator, Now there was no 
absolute necessity for a partizan of William to deny the facts of 
‘the case. William's argument was rather to assert the invalidity 
of the bequest, the election, and the coronation, than to deny that 
the acts themselves had taken place. And accordingly, in the 
earlier Norman writers, most of the facts are admitted in a kind of 
way. Tt is not till long afterwards that we find the full develope 
ment of thoso strange fables which, in 60 many modern histories, 
have supplanted the truth, Had the Tapestry been a work of 
later date, it is hardly possible that it could have given the simple 
and truthful account of these matters which it doer give, A work 
‘of the twelfth or thirteonth century would have brought in, as 
‘even honest Wace does in some degree, the notions of the twelfth 
or the thirteenth century. One cannot conceive an urtist of the time 
of Houry the Second, still les an artist Inter than the French 
conquest of Normandy, agrecing #0 romarkably with the authontis 
writings of the eleventh century. The truth was in those days 
almost wholly forgotten, and no one would have been likely to 
represent the story with any accuracy. 

But though the Tapestry perverts the story less than any other 
Norman nccount, it ia still essentially « Norman account, One 
main object of the work is plainly to set forth the right of William 
to the English Crown, This was of course the great object of 
William himaclf and of his contemporary partizons. But it was 
not an object which greatly occupied men's minds in the days 
of Henry the Second or later. The writers of that time, as T 
shall presently show, ure as bitter, perhaps more bitter, aguinst 
‘Harold than the Norman writers of his own time; but their bitter- 
ness comes from a different source. Under the Angevin dynasty, 
sprung, aa it was, in a round-about way from Old-English royalty, 
men were beginning to look on Harold and William as alike 
‘usurpers, We now begin to hear of strict hereditary right and of 
‘the exclusion of the lawful heir, Henry the Second encouraged hie 
panegyriste to set forth his lawful descent from ancient 
Kings, without any reference whatever to his descent from the 





a 


574 APPENDIX, - 


Norman invader. It was only in the . 
cither Norman or English; in his real ancestry, ii a 
and charncter, he wax ws little of one ax of the other, 


unlikely that any one should have wrought, in the days of Henry 
or for Henry's mother, a work which throughout breathes the 
spirit of the earlicet days of the Conquest, a) 
In like manner, the representation of William's: 

the great battle could have come only from the hand of « con- 
temporary. The mere fulness of detail, the evident delight with 
which the artist dwells on all the little incidents of the campaign, 
point it out as the work of one in whose memory they all still 
lived. The notices of insignificant people, like Turold, Wadard, 
and Vital, while they point to the place for which the Tapestry 
‘was designed, point also to a time when these retainers 

Odo were still diving. In the days of the Empress Matilda | 
farue is not likely to have beens great, even at Bayeux, So again 
every antiquarian detail is accurate; the nose-picoss, the lack of 
armour on the horvcs, the care taken to represent every man 

bearded, cmaantaibel, ‘a eassahape: eo egr aie 
nation (see vol. ti. p, 27), all bespeak the work of a contemporary 
artist, The idea of Mr. Corney that the Chapter of Bayeux in the 
thirteenth contury would specially order its artiste to attend to 
such points is Iudicrous boyond measure, and it had been disposed 
of beforehand in the masterly argument of Stothard. But the 
Tapestry is equally accurate in greater matters. ‘Tho Boglish army. 
is an English army of tho oleventh century and nothing cleo, The 
two classes of warriors, the here and fyrd, the Housocarls in their 
conte of mail with their great axes, the peasantry armed almost any- 
how, are nowhere more clearly marked, ‘The utter absence of horses, 
except a8 a means, os in the days of Brihtnoth (seo vol. i. pp. 269, 
272), for reaching or leaving the field—the King himself Gghting 
on foot—the ensign of the West-Saxon Dragon—all these are 
touches from a contemporary hand, which it is utterly inconceivable 
that any artist working a hundred or a hundred and fifty years 
later could have thought of It is worth while to mark the 
remarkable contrast between the Battle of Seulac as represented 
in the Tapestry, and the Battle of Stamfordbridge as described 
by Snorro. ‘The contemporary artist represented things as he saw 
them ; the writer of the thirteenth century described things sa 


4 & sl 


THE DETAILS OP EADWARD'S DEATHBED. 675 


be saw them also; but then they did not see the same things. 
‘Tho Bayeux Tapestry shows Harold's army at Senloc as Harold's 
ormy really was, Tho narrative io the Heimskringla doscribos 
Harold's army at Stamfordbridge after the pattern of an army of 
the thirteenth century. 


‘This precious monument is now well preeerved and cared for, 
After ita ridiculous journey to Paris, it came back éafe to its Nor- 
man horns, but it was kept for a while in a way which did not tend 
much to its preservation. It was wound round o sort of windlass, 
and was unwound and handled whenever anybody looked at it, 
It is now in much better keoping, It ix kept under glass in the 
public Library st Bayeux, where it ia wtretched out round the 
room at a conyenicnt height, where it may be studied with the 
greatest case. I havo there examined it threo times, once in 1861, 
and twice in 1867, and T may say that, fully to take in its value 
and importanee, it should be seen, Stothard’s reduction is admir~ 
able in every way, and serves for every ordinary purpose of study, 
but I doubt whether any one thoroughly knows what the Tapestry 
ig til] ho has seen it with his own eyes. I had mysolf learned to 
value the Tapestry long befare 1 saw it, but my examination of it 
certainly made my confidence in it far stronger and clearer. It is 
no stall matter to spell over the details of the story in the picture 
itself, and the process reaches its height #t the last stage. T think 
that no one can see the end of the battle, the Housecarls every ave 
lying dead in his harness, while tho light-armed are taking to 
flight, some of them on the horses of the fallen, and not fool 
that ho is in the presence of a work traced out by one who 
had himself seen the scones which be thus handed down to later 
ages. 


NOTE B. p. 9 
Tae Deraus or Eavwarp's Dearn-ep. 
Is this account of Eudward's death-bed I follow the contemporary 


Life, which is closely followed by William of Malmesbury, fi, 226, 
ABthelred, or Osbert whom he copied, evidently had the Life before 





= 


576 APPENDIX. - 


him, but he thought it hia duty to expand every. 

dent. About the four persons around the King’s bed 

some of the details in which they are concerned I shall have more 
‘to say in tho noxt Note, but I may mention here that they ap 


stops to abuse Bgund; ald: vba Tei lt aoea st Dae 
(pl. vii. Bruce, p, 74) a8 T have described them. 

With regard to the prediction put into Endward’s ‘mouth 
the reader must form what judgement he pleases. Perhaps moxt 
modern readers will be inclined to be of the same mind as Sti- 
gund. But I did not think that Thad any right wholly to leave owt 
what I find in a contemporary writer, who affirms that he bad his 
information from eyo-witnesses (“sicut testantur hi qui aderant 
presentes"), that is, very probably from Eadgyth herself, Te fact 
the contemptuous incredulity attributed to Stigand is of itself 
@ strong argument that something professing to be a prophesy 
‘was actually uttered by Eadward on hin death-bed. Of course 
T do not pledge myself to the historical accuracy of the exact 
words. Eadward would speak English, or more probably French, 
and his words would doubtless gain © good deal ini the course of 
their translation into rhetorical Latin. Still one can hardly doubt: 
that there is a kernel of truth somewhere, aud that we have a 
somewhat coloured account of what was really said. 

With regard to ihe femous predictina r almiliiads/ of O08 feat 
tree, it should be noted that the Biographer records it 
attempt to explain it. When he wrote, in the early days of Wile 
liam, a Prometheus after the fact might well put into Eadward's 
mouth a prophecy of the Conquest of England and of the general 
misfortunes of the country; he could not put into his mouth a 
prophecy in honour of Henry the Second. Either then the 
is a later interpolation, of which the Editor gives no bint, or else 
Endward really uttered some allegory, quoted some proverb, or, as 
Stigund thought, simply talkod nousenso, on which poople began to 
put a meaning forty years later. The orthodox explanation ix thar 
‘the tree removed from the root for the space of three furlongs (the 


i; _——- 


THE DETAILS OF EADWARD'S DEATHBED. 577 


words are “trium juyerum spatio,” but one can hanlly make acres 
@ measure of length) means the Crown transferred to usurpers 
during three reigns, those of Harold and the two Williams (the 
descent of William Rufus from Alfred ia forgotten, soe vol. ii. p. 
301). The tree returns to the root when Henry the First marries 
Endgyth or Matilda the daughter of Margaret ; it bears leaves at 
the births of her children, William of Malmesbury (v. 419) wit- 
nesses that the birth of the Atheling William (c. 1102) was looked 
on us the fulfilment of the prophecy, which shows thut it had 
already attracted attention, most likely at the marriage of William's 
parents. The death of the Atheling in 1119 cut off all such hopes, 
but at the same time it opened the way for a more elaborate fulfil- 
ment in the persons of his sister and her son. The tree now brings 
forth leaves at the birth of the Empress Matilda and fruit at the 
birth of Henry the Second, See Hthelred, 401, and the French 
Life, 3805 et seqq. This writer seems in v. 3846 to confound 
Henry the Second and Henry the Third. 

‘The scene which followed the prophecy is graphically described 
by the Biographer (431); “Cunctis etupentibus et terrore agente 
tacontibus, ipge Archiepiscopua, qui debuerat vel primus pavere vel 
verbum consilii dare, infatuato corde submurmurat ie aurom Ducis 
senio confectum et morbo quid diceret uescire.” He bad just be- 
fore said that Harold, Robert, and Eadgyth wero all frightoned— 
“torrentur nimium."” Bthelred (409) leaves out Harold's fears, 
and also leaves out the characteristic and trustworthy little touch 
of the Archbishop whispering in the Earl's ear, which, as they stood 
(see the Tapestry) on different sides of the bed, involved leaning 
over the dying man. In his account the details of the contempo- 
rary writer evupornte in this fashion; “Is [Stigandus] ad vocem 
narrantis obduruit, neo terretur oracula, nee fidem habuit prophe- 
tanti, sed potius Rogem confectam senio delirare submurmurane, 
ridero maluit quam lugere.” 

With regard to the warnings which the Innd was said to have 
had from the Pope, the King, and the Lady, the meaning of the 
Biographer (431-432) is peta plain; “Cognoscebant enim 


monitis ipeum Regem et Reginam ; sed divitiis ot mundani glorid 
VOL. Ir. Pp 








ciplinam ut non horrerent jam tune imminentem 
fram." That ix, the Pope, the ee 
time rebuked the English, but they were stiff-necked and would not 
hearken ; hence the divino threatenings. Athelred (400) clearly 
‘means the same; “Recordantur hme ipsa summo sepinx narnia 
Pontific, jpsumgue persespe, tum per legatos, tam per epistolas, 
eorum vesaniam inereplase, Regemque se his malis cu- 
randis diligentiam adhibuisse, sed profecisso nihil.” But his firet 
clause was liable to be mizunderstood, and the writer of the Brencty 
‘Life did misunderstand it, He mistukes the letters written by the 
Pope for letters written to the Pope to announce Budward's vision ; 


“Male M prodam U plas ons En esorft unt tus lep mote mig 


‘Unt ses dita mut mous nots; Ea PApostoiite trams, 

‘E cursumont unt entondy ‘Par opletro, © par legat.” 

‘Lodres des niote, © retenu 5 (yy. s787 hme.) 
NOTE C, p. 13- 


Baowann's Bequest or tan Cuowx ro Hanon, 


Ax this stago of my history, I nood hardly say that every point 
has beon matter of dispute from tho time of the eventa themselves 
down to our own day, I give in the teat the narrative which 
I bolieve to be the accurate one, adding references to the particular 
authorities on which I found it, In this and the following Notes 
J purpose to examine minutely into the different: statements made 
at the time and soon after. I purpose also to go w little more fully 
then usual into the statements of later writers, Mere copyists 
or compilers, writing ome agos after the events, are in ne sense 
authorities ; they can add nothing to our knowledge of the event 
themselves, But, on a point of our history of such paramount 
importance, and one which has been so ficreely disputed, it does in 
# certain way add to our knowledge of history to see how the facts 
‘of those times looked in the eyes of men of various Inter ages 

T need not tell any reader of mine that T hold that King Harold 
was King as lawful as any King—I might almost say more lawful 
than any other King—that ever reigned over Dngland, No other 
King in our history ever reigned so distinetly by the national will, 


- lll 





EADWARD'S BEQUEST OF THE CROWN TO HAROLD, 579 


But there iy no King, there is hardly any man, in our history who 
has boen made the object of such couscless calumny from his own 
time to our The hostile faction triumphed, not only on tho fleld 
of battle, but in the pages of pretended history, and, for cight 
hundred years, the name of Harold has been constantly branded as 
the name of a " perjurer” and “usurper.” My object ia to do what 
T can to undo this great wrong, to bring back the true history of a 
great man and of a great time, and to set forth Harold and his acts 
as they appeared to his countrymen in his own days. This T havo 
endeavoured to do in my text, In this and the following Notes 
L intend to go xystematically through all the points in which the 
witness of contemporary English writers on these matters has been 
obscured nnd forgotten through notions drawn from less trust- 
worthy sources, 

Of the two great charges Drought againet Harold, those of 
usurpation and perjury, both can be traced up to his own time, 
Both come from the tongues and pens of contemporary Norman 
accusers, But, of the two, the charge of perjury waa the one 
which was the moro strongly dwollod on in the times nearest to 
his own, In Harold's own day, and for some genemtions after, 
the charge which told most against him was the charge of breach 
of faith, aggravated by irreverence to the relics of the saints. In 
‘tho eyes of Harold's contemporary encmies, and in the eyes of the 
later writers who look on him from the same point of view, Harold 
is a faithless vassal, breaking his plighted faith to his liege lord. 
He is something even worse; he is one who did not shrink from 
breaking an oath of unusual solemnity, and who thereby drow on 
himself the wrath of a number of holy persons whose wondor- 
working relics he thus set at nought, But modern writers who 
tuke a view unfavournble to Harold commonly dwell less on 
‘the porjury and more on the usurpation,. In their eyes Harold 
is a violator of constitutional order, who ascended the throne to 
the prejudice uf the lawful heir. Tn the one view the injured. party 
is the Norman Duke; in the other it is the English Jitheling. 
The two charges, though often mixed together, aro in themselves 
quite diatinet, The charge of usurpation affecta the right to the 
Crown; the charge of perjury does not touch it. Let Harold's 
perjury have been of the blackest kind, it could not give either 
William or Kodgur any right to the Crown which they would 

pp2 


~~ 


580 APPENDIX. a 


‘not have had if Harold bad not sworn at all, If the Crown was: 
hereditary, no engagement, no breach of any engagement, between 
‘William and Harold could bar the indofensible rights of the natural: 
heir. If the Crown could pass by bequest, no such engagement 
could bar the right of Eadward to bequeath it to whom he would. 
Af the Crown wan elective, no such engagement could bar the right 
of the electors to choose whom they would, Nowhore ix the 
wonderful skill of William more clearly shown than in the way 
in which he made men forget these very obvious distinetions, 
I therefore put aside the question of perjury from the preset 
question. I have elsewhere discussed Harold's oath at length, both 
as it bears on the fucts of the history and as it hears on the 
charucter of Harold (see p. 241 et seqq. and Appendix J). But 
‘the oath has nothing todo with the present subject. It bears only 
indirectly on the rightfulnows of Harold's accession ; on the tacts of 
Nis accession it does not bear at all. 


As to the facts of Harold's accession, the strictly English writers 
make three distinet assertions ; 

First, That Harold was namod as his successor by Eadward ; 

Secondly, That he was regularly elected King by the Witan 5 

Thirdly, That he was regularly consecrated King by Archbishop 
Ealdred, 

‘Theeo threo assertions are made by tho best English writers 
in a perfectly plain and unmistakenble way. ‘They stand before 
us as assertions about which there can be no question, except the 
question whether they are true or false, All three are more or less: 
directly traversed by Norman writers and by dater writers who 
followed Norman traditions. But the contradiction is by no moans 
40 plain and unmistakeable ns the assertion. ‘The Norman writers 
seem afraid of looking the facts in the face. They whroud them= 
selves ina cloud of vague and declamatory phrases. They use 
Janguag which serves to put their own colour on the story, without 
venturing directly to deny the assertions made by the English 
writers, They admit some nomination, some election, some con- 
secration ; only they attach some vague epithet, they add some 
ambiguous qualification, insinuating rather than asserting that 
there was something invalid about each of the processor. fake 
now go through the statements on each side in detail, 


} as 


BADWARD'S BEQUEST OF THE CROWN TO HAROLD. 581 


T take us my text the narrative of Florence (1066), who puts 
forth our three propositions in the clearest and tereast shape, His 
account runs thus 5 

“Quo [Eadwardo] tumolato, Subrogulus Haroldus, Godwini 
Ducis filiue, quem Rex ante suam decessionem regui successorom 
clegerat, a totius Angliw primatibus nd regale culmen ¢lectus, die 
codem ab Aldredo Eboraccnsi "Archiepiscopo in regem est hono- 
vifice consecratus.” 

‘This passage may be looked on as a formal manifesto on the 
Englich side. Tt is the most remarkable and the most important 
of several passages of Florence (#00 vol. ii. p, 634) in which he does 
more than merely record an event, in which he evidently has other 
statements before his eye, and chooses his words so as distinctly, 
though silently, to contradict them. Though no other version of 
the facts is spoken of, yot every word is evidently weighed with 
careful reference to other versions; every word, in short, disposes 
‘of some Norman calumny or other, Hurold reigns according to 
the last will of Badward ; that Inst will therefore was not in favour 
of William or of any other candidate, ‘To express Eadward's action 
in the matter, a word is used (“elegerat”) which is evidently 
meant to express free and deliberate choice, and to exclude any 
tales about an unwilling nomination wrung from him in his last 
moments, Again, Harold reigns by the election of the chicf men 
of all England; this oxeludes the storiea about hie seizing the 
Crown without election, or with the approbation of « few of hix 
own partizans only, Lastly, Harold is crowned, on the day indeed 
of the burial of Endward, but after the funeral rites are finished, 
and evidently in the same building, the new minster of Saint Peter. 
‘This excludes the tale of his seizing the moment when the people 
were busy with the burial of the lute King in order to be crowned 
in some hasty and irregular way ot Saint Paul's or elsewhere, He 
is solemnly consecrated King; this excludes the stories about his 
not belng crowned at all, about his being crowned without any 
religious ceremony, about his putting the Crown on his own head, 
He is consccrated by Enldred, by an Archbishop to whose right 
there was no canonical objection ; therefore not by Stigand, whom 
strict churchmen looked on as an usurper. Nothing can be plainer 
than that Florence kuew all the hostile inventions and perversions, 
ond that be framed bis own narrative so ae to contradict the 


Fy 


APPENDIX, 


greatest possible number of them. In the same spirit, he goes on, 
at thik point, to give that splendid panegyrio on Harold's govern- 
ment which is clearly meant as an answer to Norman calumnics of 
another kind. No pastage in any writer of any ago was over 
written with more scrupulous care; in noue docs every wont 
deserve to be more attentively weighed, 

Now for the time which we have now reached the authority 
of Florence is all but the highest possible. He was a contemporary, 
in so far aa he must have been born before 1066, though he may 
not have been old enough to record the events of that year from 
personal knowledge. But he had every opportunity of hearing 
of them from cye-witnosses and actors, As a member of the charch 
of Worcester, he had the special advantage of being able to hear 
the story from his own bishop Saint Wulfstan, the chosen friend of 
King Harold. His testimony therefore, even if it stood alone, is 
of that kind which oven very scoptical crities allow to be thoroughly 
‘trustworthy, His statement is clear, terse, and forcible, and evi- 
dently meant to set aside other statements which he thought 
untrustworthy. But this is not all. ‘The testimony of Florence 
does not stand alone. It is confirmed by the absolutely contem- 
porary Chroniclors, It is confirmed, as far az the form of his work 
allows, hy the Biographer of Eadward, Now the Biographer was 
not only a contemporary, but, if he was not himself an eye-witness, 
he had his information from cye-witnesscs, and that, not years after, 
but at the very time. The testimony of Florence again is confirmed 
‘by a witness more unexceptionable than all, by the earliest and most 
trustworthy witness on the Norman side, by the contemporary 
‘Tapestry. By one or more of these authorities Florence is borne 
ont in every statement but one. He affirms thot Harold was 
consecrated by Ealdred. The Chroniclers are silent as to the 
consecrator ; the Tapestry implies—it cam hardly be said directly 
to allirm—that the consecrator was Stigand. On all other points 
‘every jot and tittle of his story is confirmed by nuthorities still 
higher than his own, and on this one point ha ie not contradicted 
hy the highest of all. Here is evidence of an amount and of a kind 
which the historian is lucky when he can get. 

Florence wrote with two ab least of the Chronicles befere hits, 
those namely of Abingdon and Worcnstor, ‘Their narratives he 
translated and harmonized, and, when ho thought it needful, he 


: il 


EADWARD'S BEQUEST OF THE CROWN 10 HAROLD, 585 


expanded them. In thie case he thought a large expansion needful, 
in order to contmdict the misstatements of enemies. But these 
Chronicles themeclves assert, though in a less pointed and contro- 
vorsial form, two at least of the facts which Florence himself 
asserts, The Peterborough Chronicle, which Florence most pro- 
bably had not before him, is only less distinct and emphatic than 
Florence himself as to all three, The bequest, the election, the 
consecration, are all distinctly asserted by one or more of the 
threo Chroniclors. The only assertion which reste wholly on 
the authority of Florence himself is tho nasertion that Ealdred 
was the consecrator, 

‘The two Chronicles which Florence followed distinctly assert: that 
Endward named Harold aa his succersor. I have already quoted 
the pootical passage in full at vol. ii. p. 536 (see also above, p. 18). 
The words which now immodiately concern us are those in which 
the bequest is distinctly asserted ; Eadward “mnde fast the king- 
dom to Harold the noblo Earl.” ‘Then in the prove entry which 
follows, both Chronicles assert Harold's royal consecration ; “ Her 
‘wears Harold eorl exc to eynge gehalgod.” ‘These words would cer= 
tainly not be used of anything but the regular ecclesiastical ceremony. 
‘These two Chroniclers however do not distinctly speak of the elec- 
tion, We may perhaps eay that it was quite in character with their 
general political views to insist more on the royal bequest than on 
the popular election. (See vol. ii, pp. 12, 627.) But this was 
@ point on which the democrat of Peterborough was not likely 
to hold his peace, His account of the reign of Harold is much 
shorter than those of either of the other two annalists, but bis account 
ef his accession is fuller and more emphatic. He is nlso, os usual, 
more careful than his brethren as to hia dates, And his words 
have a kind of triumphant ring ws if they were written down nt 
the moment. The poem preserved by the Abingdon and Wor- 
cestar Chroniclers shows the same feeling, Tt was doubtless com= 
posed soon after the death of Eadward, by « gleeman eager ow 
behalf of the new King, But their prose entries, with their re- 
mark on tho “little stillness" of Harold’s reign (exe above, p, 46), 
could not have beon made till all was over. The entry in the 
Peterborough Chronicle runs thus : 

“On pissum geore man halgode pet mynster mt Westmynstre on 
eyldammese dmg. And se cyng Kodward fortferde on twelfta 


‘eorl feng to coynerice, sie mwa se cyng 
and ene men hine porto gecuron, and wws gebletsod to cyug on 
‘twelftan maswodag," ~ 


Here we have bequest, election, and consecration as clearly 


‘The further examination of the election and coronation T leave 
to future Notes, I now go on with my more immediate subject, 
namely the bequest. On this point the words of tho Biographer 
should be very carefully marked, and they should be no less care- 
fully compared with the picture in the Tapestry. Tt is from these 
two sources that I have drawn the natrative in the text (p, 13). 
We cannot too often remember the Biographer’s peculiar position, 
He was a courtier, perhaps a +, Writing to Eadgyth under 
the reign of William, He could not be expected to trumpet forth: 
the nomination and election of Harold with all the glee of the 
Peterborough Chronicler. On the election indeed be waa not in 
any case likely to be eloquent ; it is, as we have often soon, bin 
invariable tendency to put the monarchical element forward on all 
occasions, just ns the Peterborough writer always delights to dwell 
on the popular sido of every public act, But to put even the be- 
quest forward in any prominent way did not suit either his position 
or the acheme of his work, We have seen that he nowhere directly 
mentions the fact that either Harold or William ever reigned, 
Willian in never montioned, never alluded to in any intelligible 
way. The only allusion to Harold's reign is to be found in bis 
mention of “reges mquivoci™ (p. 426) fighting newr the Humber. 
One who writes in this sort of way could not be expected to insfat 
at all strongly on Eadward's nomination of Harold as hin successor, 
A distinct and formal announcement that Harold was the choieo of 
Endward was to the Peterborough Chronicler a present fact which 
hhe delighted to record. To Florence it was a fact of national 
history which it was important to preserve in tho face of contra- 
dictory fictions, To the Biographer it was « fact which it did not 





be al 


EADWARD'S BEQUEST OF THE CROWN TO HAROLD. 585 


suit his scheme prominently to dwell on, while any prominent 
dwelling on it might not: have been specially agreeable to hia 
patroness, He therefore records the fact in a way, but he keeps * 
itin the background ; he mixes up the commendation of England 
to Hareld with the commendation of Eadgyth, and he tries as it 
were to hide the kingdom under the skirts of the Lady. Harold. 
is, first of all, to be faithful and respectful to his rister ; the king- 
dom is given him as something quite secondary, porhaps os an 
incidental means of doing the more honour to Eadgyth. Yot the 
words after all really amount to a bequest, Eadward, in this 
narrative, enlarges on the merits of Eadgyth; he then stretches 
forth his hand to Harold, and says, “ Hanc eum omni reqno tutan- 
dam commends.” The words alone might perhaps not strike o 
casual reader, but, when we read them by the light of the known 
fhets and of the words of the contemporary Chronjclers, we at once 
see their meaning. The Biographer so chose his expressions as dis- 
tinctly to imply a foct which it was not convenient for him directly 
‘to assert. He chose also a somewhat remarkable and a somewhat 
ambiguous word, “commendure."” Ax npplied to Eadgyth and to 
Eadward's Norman friends it would simply mean, “I entrust them 
to your protection ;” but, as applied to & kingdom, the word ie a 
‘technical word, and carries a technical meaning. As a man, like 
the “commendati homines” of Domesday, commended himself to 
his lord, 20 the lord was often said to commend to his mon the 
estate which he granted to him (see vol, i. p. 572), And “com- 
mendaro” is distinetly need by Boda in tho seuse of naming a 
successor tos kingdom, where he says (v. 7) of Ine, “relicto regno 
et javenioribus commentato,” So, at wn eurlior time, Trajan is 
made to say (Spartianus, Hadrian, 4)40 Neratins Priscus, * Gom- 
mendo tibi provinciny, si quid mihi fatale contigerit,” One can 
hardly doubt that the word was chosen on purpose. Eadward 
doubtless used, ax I have ventured to make him in the text, 
some form of words, which the Biographer, even in slarring 
over the matter, expressed by the technical term “commendare,” 
and which the Chroniclers expressed by the words “ geu%e "—rnost, 
likely the setosl word used, if Eadward spoke English—and “be- 
faeste pwt rice.” The case, under the circumstances, eects very 
plain, and what follows makes it plainer still, Eadward, having 
commended to Harold hie wife and his kingdom, goes on to make 





a 


586 APPENDIX. —_ 


tohima series of requests (eee p. 13) which imply that his own royal 
authority will, on his death, pass to Harold. They are requests 
which could he made only to» fature King, or to one who was 
about to be clothed with the authority of a King. They would 
indeed bs equally in place if addreaied to a Regent. According to- 
modern ideas, we should probably have expected the last wishes of 
‘Fadward to be that the young Eadgar should reign, but thas Harold 
should govera, But such an arrangement was not in acconlauce 
with the customs of the time, A regency seems never to have 
boon thought of; not a word in any of our authorities lends us to 
believe that such a acheme entered the head of any man. The 
words then, if not addressed to a future Regent, must be addressed: 
to wfature King, In short, I have no doubt that the 

the highest authority for Endward’s personal acts, who had hia 
information directly from persons who were present: 

deuth-bed (see above, p. 576), meant to imply that Eadward made a 
death-bed recommendation in favour of Harold. Bat I believe also 
that, partly through hie own rhetorical tum, partly throngh the 
cireumstances under which ha waste; bea elican/t2 sree eRe 
ina certain degree of obscurity of language, 

With the Biographer before us, we better understand the Tapestry. 
Each explains the other; the two agroo in the smallest points of 
detail, The Biographer describes four persons as being in imme~ 
diate attendance on the King, and he gives ux their names. Thay 
are the Lndy Eadgyth, Archbishop Stigand, Earl Harold, and 
Robert the Staller, These four exactly answer to the four in the 
‘Tapestry. Of the two laymen no one can doubt that the one who 
is personally attending on the King is the court-officer, the Staller 
Robert. The other, who stands by the bed-side opposite to the 
Archbishop, is of course the Earl of the West-Saxons. To him, 
and to no ono else, the King is stretching forth his hand. The 
action thus wrought in the stitch-work ix actually recorded in the 
Life (see p. 13). And from the Life we know with what object 
Eadward then stretched forth his hand to Harold. Jt was nob 
“simply to bid him farewell ;” still Ios was it “to bid him to. 
respect hie onth to William" (sce Planché, Journal of British 
Archmological Association, June 1867, p. 146). Tt wns to coms 
mend to him his wife and his kingdom ; it was to moke his lass 
roquests to the futare King on behalf of his pereonal frienda. 


cD i 


EADWARD'S BEQUEST OF THE CROWN TO HAROLD. 587 


Such is the plain result of a comparison between the Tapestry 
and the Life, Ido not think that any one who makes the com- 
parison minutely will attach much importance to the sceptical re- 
marks of Mr. Planché in the article to which I have just referred. 
But thote who, with Mr. Planché, do not take in tho difference 
between contemporary and secondary suthorities, may, instead of 
the Life, use the account in ABthelred of Rievaux (X Seriptt. 
400), who (or rather his guide Osbert) clearly copied from the 
Life. 


Another smaller point may be noticed, namely the arrangement 
of the scenes in the Tapestry. It has been remarked by Mr. 
Planché and others that, at this point, the order of time is forsaken 5 
the burial of Endward is placed before his deathbed and death, On 
this Dr. Bruce (p. 75) #ays, vory truly; “ The seoming inconsistency 
is very easily explained. A new subject Is now entered upon, and 
that subject is the right of succession. One important element in it ix 
panier oat ‘The desigacr of the Tapestry puta in close 

the last speoch of Endward, the denth 
Sonia iutionior unless earaney el coun 
nation. In this sort of picture-writing it would have disturbed 
the thread of the story if the burial of Eadward had been put in 
its right place, between the offering of the Crown and the coro- 
nation. ‘The mosning of the order which is followed is plainly 
this; “Eadward left the Crown to Harold; he died ; the Crown, 
according to his wishes, was offered to Harold; Harold was 
formally crowned," It ia hard to find any other explanation for 
the otherwise strange displacement of the funeral. 

Explaining then, as we most fairly may, one contemporary wit- 
‘ness by another, explaining the Tapestry by the Life and the Life 
by the Chronicles, we get a most distinct agreement of our best 
authoritios in favour of the position that Badward's dying recom~ 
mondation was made in favour of Harold. Some may perbaps 
be surpriced to find the fact so distinctly set forth in the Norman 
‘Tapestry. But we shall soon seo that all tho carlicet and beat 
Norman writers fully admit the fact of the recommendation. What 
they do is to try to explain away its force us they best may. 
Stitch-work had so far the advantage over pen and ink that it was 
well nigh obliged to keep itself to facts, or at least to choose 
between facts and positive lies. The needle was a bad instrament 


588 APPENDIX. 


* for surmises and insinuations, and it is only once ox twice in the 
story that it attempts them, 


T now go on to the chain of later writers who repeat the contem= 
porary English statemont, Thoy of course add nothing to ita direct 
authority; still it is important and interesting to trace the ex- 
istence of the two opposite tmditions, side by side. Simeon of 
Darham (X Scripth 193), Ralph of Diss (479), Roger of Howden 
(i, 108, ed, W. Stubbs), Thomas Stubbs (X Soriptt, 1702), and 
the Ely historian (ii. 43, 44), all copy the words of Florence with 
regard t Harold's accession, and most of them go on to copy his 
panegyric on Harold's government, The account given by Peter 
of Langtoft is worth notice, He makes (i. 374 of tho now edition, 
i. 53 of Robert of Brunne’s English version published by Hoarne) 
Eadward settle the Crown on William in the dayw of the first. 
Harold, immediately after the murder of Dlfred (see vol. ii. p 300). 
Afterwards (i. 390, i. 61) he changed his mind, he forgot his pro» 
mise to William, and settled the Crown on the A°theling Eadward. 
So now on his death-bed, he again forgets both William and, T 
suppose, also forgets Eadward's son Endgar. He now makes a 
eottloment in favour of Harold, for nobody reminded him of the 
Duke's claim (i. 998); 

“Countes ot baronna devaunt ly appélayt, 

A Harald fis Godowyn oun regno devinayt, 

Lo dak de Normendye ublyen avnyt, 

‘Du covenaunt k'fl ly fist nul ly mentywayt.” 
Tho English translator was a little puzzled at thig, and thus gota 
forth his difficulty (i. 65) ; 


pa barons before him kald, and sald unto pam alle, 
‘Tile Harald, Godwin sonne, po regue wille best fale,” 
‘Me merrailes of my boke, I trows, he wroto not right 
ot he forgate Wiliams of forward pat htm bight." 


He then goes on to moralize out of Eadward’s speech (tee abowe, 
p10}, which is not given in Peter of Langtoft. Ralph Higden 
(284), after his manner, copies Florence, but copies other accounts 
us well. 

To go back a good many generations, Eadmor (5) states the fact 
of tho bequest in his own words ;*' In bravi post hme obiit Edwardus, 


EADWARD'S BEQUEST OF THE CROWN TO HAROLD, 689 


Juxta quod ille ante mortem statuerat, in rognum ¢i mecenit 
Haroldus.” He is followed by Walter of Hemingburgh (i. 8) in 
nearly the same words Bromten (957) gives a most strange and 
confused account, made up from all manser of quarters, but in 
which tho words of Eadmer aro still imbedded, Ho says that some 
of the English wished to elect Eadgur; “Sed quia puer erat, et 
tanto oneri minus idoneus, Haraldus Comes, filius supradicti God- 
wini, viribus ct genere fretus, contra sacramentum quod Willielmo 
Duci Normannim prosetiterat, regni diacema sinistro omine illico 
invusit, et sic perjurus Sancto Edwardo successit, juxta quod idem 
Edwardus, ut quidam aiunt, ante mortem snam statuerat.” He 
goes on to say that this bequest of Eadward was made “nom ob> 
stante” two earlier bequests to William; he then mentions the 
alternative statemonts that Hoxold crowned himeelf ond that he 
was crowned by Faldred, and ends with Florence's panegyrio in 
w shortened form. 

‘The writer whom we call Bromton waa thus, it ia plain, fairly 
puzzled among contradictory accounte, The compiler of the 
‘Waverley Annals found himself in yet greater straits. ‘The enrly 
part of his history is formed by the process of translating the 
Peterborough Chronicle, and sticking in bits, partly from other 
writers, chiefly from Henry of Huntingdon, partly out of his 
own hend, ‘This process is indeed the some ax that by which the 
early parts of most annals are put together. But the odd thing is 
that this annalist should have chosen as his chicf authorities two: 
writors who, at this point, are vo specially hard to reconcile n& the 
Peterborough Chronicler and Henry of Huntingdon. ‘This indeed 
pute him in difficulties, He translates the important sentence in 
the Chronicle fairly enough, but in the midst of it he sticks in an 
epithet of abuso from Henry of Huntingdon, This process gives 
us the following statement (t88 ed. Luard), Endward ia buried ; 
“Fodem die Consul Harnldus, consul perjurus, sicut Rex ei 
concesverat, et etiam populi electione, [swa swa se cyng hit him 
geute, and cac mon hine perto gecuron] wacratus est in rogem,” 
Somehow or other this did not seem satisfactory; so he states 
William's three causes of offence out of Henry of Huntingdon 
(see p. 283), and then goes back to give another account of Harold's 
accession ; “Mortuo itaque Edwardo, ut supra diximus, Rego 
Angloram pacifico, Haraldus, perjurus filius Godwini potentissimi 


ial 


590 APPENDIX, went 


consulis, invasit regnum Angloram et diadema in perjurio; qui 
‘regnavit uno anno, et non pleno, quia propria injustitid reguum, 
quod injuste surripuit, Deo nolente, perdidit.” Here is a cha- 
ractoristic contrast between the clear statement of facts translated 
from the contemporary writer and the vague reviling and meralizing 
which seems to have been a necesunry offering to the orthodexy of 
the compiler’s own time, — 

We will now turn to the writers on the other side, William of 
Poitiers, in his actual narrative of Harold’s accession (p. 121 Giles), 
evades the subject of Eadward’s bequest; we get only the vague 
tall about “occupavit” and the like But in two later passages 
he distinctly shows that he knew that a bequost of Eedward was 
wunerted by Harold and his advocates. In his account of the 
messages sent between William and Harold before the battle (129), 
he makes Harold admit an earlior bequest in favour of William, 
but he describes him as going on to argue that this carlier bequest 
was cancelled by a Inter bequest in favour of himself. ‘The pas- 
sage ig a remarkable one; 

“ Mominit quidem (Heraldus) quod Rex Edwardus te [Willelmum) 
Anglici regni heredem fore pridem decreverit, et quod ipso in 
Normannii de hic successione socuritatem tibi firmavorit, Novit 
autem jure suum esse regnum idem, ejusdem regis, domini sui, 
dono in extremis illius sibi conccssum. Etenim ob eo tempore, 
quo beatus Augustinus in hance venit regionem, communem gentig 
hnjus fuise consuetudinem, donationom quam in ultimo fine sue 
quis fecerit, eam ratam haberi.” 

‘The historical value of these accounts of messages and answers 
I shall discuss in another Noto (ree Appendix KK). ‘The value of 
the pasiage for my prosent purpose is twofold. It shows that the 
Normans were thoroughly aware of the fact of Eadward’s recom~ 
mendation of Harold. It shows also that the fact was one whicl: 
‘thoy found it bard to got over. For, in the answer which William 
in made to give to Harold's words just quoted, though ho hay zuch 
to my in the way of setting forth his own claim, he has nothing to: 
sey in answer to Harold’s fact or to the legal argument foundext 
on it, 

‘The other passage is to be found in tho wild invective which 
William of Poitiers (139) poura forth over the grave of Harald ; 


a al 


EADWARD'S BEQUEST OF THE CROWN TO HAROLD, 691 


“ Arguunt extrema tua quam recte sublimatus fucris Zdwardi done 
‘in ipeius fine” This is @ perfectly incidental witness, It seema to 
imply some such story aa thoae whieh I shall presently quote from 
Orderic and Wace. 

William of Turitges (vii. 3t) slurs over the facta both of the 
bequest and of the election. Thoy are loat in the usual vague talle 
about “regnum invasit.” William of Malmesbury, in one of thove 
remarkable passages in which he compares two staterments together 
(ii, 228), allows that the English version of the story asserted a 
bequest in favour of Harold, Harold, he tells us in the usual 
atyle, “extort? a principibus fide, arripuit dindema” He then 
adds, “quamvis Angli dicant a Rege concessum.” He then argues 


‘cujos semper guspectarn 

“benevolentii” is of importance, as showing that, in William of 
Malmesbury’s time, English affection still clave to Harold's memory, 
in spite of all Norman calumnies. Indeed William himself, 
in thnt spirit of fairness which often pierces through all his pre~ 
judices, goes on to eay; “quamvis, ut non celetar veritas, pro 
nek en a aaa aaa 
ti 

As usual, the further we get from the time the more our ine 
formants know ubout the matter, the more new particulars they 
have to tell us. There in nothing in uny of our three Williams to 
imply ony death-bod nomination of the Norman Duke or to shut 
out a death-bod nomination of the English Earl, Tho latter is 
allowed to be at least the English vorsion of the facts There is 
nothing in any of the three to imply that the succession of William 
was #0 much as discussed by the bedside of Eadward, ‘The case 
is the reverse of the case with rogard to the oath of Harold and 
the eurlier promise to William. ‘There the Norman writers amert 
a fact which the English writers do not venture to'deny. Here 
tho English writers assert o fact which the contemporary Norman 
writers do not venture to deny, But, as we get further away from 
the time, we come, first to ingenious explanations of the fret, and 
lastly to express denials of it, 

‘Thus Orderic (492 B) admite tho fact of the bequest to Hareld, 


a 


et ae eee ee ee ee 
om fe a 6 eis et at Ss eee 
Wike- gee ee a St Set oe 
ter Wl Se ee ee ee 
feet eee fe wees ees ee 
et et to ee Se ee, ot ee 
wees scetine Te re e 

“Reo ete of ee ee 


© en So cee eae < oe ee a 

we pee ee oe oe ee 
me <meta e 
ae 

Ob mame be fee geet of See we Gee Se ee 
Ge ee we et & Se Se ess a eee 
Whe mig 2 meee See Eee oe es 
fie Core Got tei ee Ee Tes ee ics ota 
coils Gack. aed ace tom wae be es > & eet te Ee 
dem (Tee oe ee Se eee et eee 
fat fee Seine Seliewe GS bed = we EB Se) 
ering j wins Eetert: Gen © cree meni Earl 
aoe fue Ge Oreo seme Wile. foc ot ee eee te 
‘Wilimac's smeeeetio fac ie tee ue ei of ioe wah 
oe fete wom Gem ons ow new Willen sted ge 
ihm Ge foewr some wilt Se Gengine 


Tae ee eur 2 oe um Tat + eer mt oe: 
Weve vane fect: Carreme + em mt 
é Gum Wile oe Kec Con vo eee: 
Eiowcisea mee te Bi vege: 2 me cee we de 
Lem < om ie peo So ile ee oe 


Barut feet sere od he the Ge me seer wah be 
% wil ie wes fe tae eee Ge em oe of Ghee eth is 
taiaen for pened. Tamas Go nowhet Goecils wid ix Gee Feumch 
Lie feet Eacwards promise 1 Will sceme sar te tbe tale 
Ser pranet : me py sme Willer & mii 11 deve s vic amd it is 
wo: mut in Wier tec sipir: comics «Fim then i Do umemenem of 
soy Geet int, vere wy Willi, Harald. o anv else. 





EADWARD'S BEQUEST OF THE CROWN TO HAROLD, 593 


Ricakip Seed eh et dd hs story (3895-3922), 
when Endward ix on his death-bed. It is Harold who volunteers 
second mention of the matter, He says of his own free will that 
he has sworn not to disturb the succession to the Crown. The 
words put into his mouth are in some respects clearer and in 
some respects darker than the former passage, ‘The succession 
belonga to William, both by Endward’a earlier grant (“granté 
Yavex au due Willame”), and also by right of blood. But the right 
of blood is strangely enough (seo Mr. Luanl's Preface, p. xix.) 
made to belong to William's daughter rather than to William him- 
self, This cannot refer to the descent of William's children from 
ZElfred (see p. 81, and vol, fi. p. 30%), because the right is dive 
tinctly said to come through Emma, The title of Queen, given to 
William's daughter, whether given to her as William's daughter or 
a Harold's possible wife, is also very strange, The words are, 
" Droit a par Kmme te miro 
‘La reine ki an fille ere." 
Still, if William does not make over the Crown to his daughter, the 
right belongs to William himself, and that right Harold will in no 
way disturb. Still he seems to imply that he has » fair hope that 
William will give him hie daughter, and that ho may reign in her 
right. 


“Si a sa Glo ne Ie dune, De copurcr la af ex purpos 
‘Droiz ost El eit la curune 5 A Is pucele afiancé, 
Kar jo ai var diro lo on, a due sui allianod.” 
(vy. 3907-3912.) 


To this King Endward answers not a word, but Archbishop Stigani 
takes up his parable in a somewhat unexpected way, He warns 
Harold that, if he does not keep to this covenant, neither he, to 
whore office it belongs to perform the rite—it is oxprosaly called » 
sucrament—nor any other prelate of the kingdom will ever give 
him the royal unction, nor will any “man of our commons ”—the 
expression is a very singular onc—put. the Crown on his head. 


“Pur mol lo di, « it apont Bi fun {noo Ta enuinoetun 5 
A fere cou seint sacrement N’ert hamme de nostre commune, 
Nvert prolat on fa reginn Ki yne metie on chof exrune.” 


According to this view, Harold had a fair chance of a Crown matri- 
monial, and his chief fault lay in not marrying William's daughter, 
VOL, Tit. aq 





EADWARD'S BEQUEST OF THE CROWN TO HAROLD. 595 


man’s first business is to lo his duty in that state of life to which it 
shall please God to call him, and that no amount of ceremonial 
pisty will avail n King who does not make the welfare of his kiog- 
dom his first thought. 

“Bien es, tien as fot, bien forms, — Truntuit te sunt vents preter, 

‘Deus as servi 6 Dows auras, E tu lor dois bion otretr, 

Oh eat IM mndehs de too pats, Go poise nos ko ja fen vas, 

‘Tut Mi mfolx de tes amis ; ‘Se por go non ke Dens auras.” 

(rv. 1eg1g-t9926.) 

‘The prayer thns solemnly urged is that Fadward will agree to the 
unanimous wish of the mution au give them Hurold for their King. 
‘As the speaker uttered the name of Harold, every Englishman in 
tho room eried aloud that he bad well spoken, and that, without 
Harold to her King, the land could have no pence. 

© CX talt te vieguent but reyuet> Parla chaxbry ont Englels eri 
Ke Herant awit Rei de la term; ‘Ke bien parlout ) bien diet, 
‘No te avo miokx cumsillier, HU Reis orvire lo dobveit : 

‘Ne tu no pox mick expleitior, ‘Bire, dientil, #6 tu nel’ fiz, 

Dex ke off ont Herant nomé, Th en nos vies n'aron pain.” 

(rv, 10937-10936.) 

‘Tho King hesitates ; ho sita up in his bed, and reminds the Eng- 
lish lords that ho had promised hia Crown to the Duke of the 
‘Normans, and that some of themselves had sworn to that settle- 
ment, Harold then himself steps forward; he seems to use the 
same argument which ie put into his mouth by William of Paitiors 
(#00 p. 590), namely the force of the last will and testament to 
revoke all former wills. 

“ Dono dist Heron, ki fa on plot; E ko vowtre terre seit mele ; 


“Kt ke vos, alre, fot ales, Yo no quier we mats vostro drelt, 
Otrilos met ke jo Ket sole, Ja mur plus por met en fereit.’" 
(vr 1og4s-t0980.) 


‘The King then says that Harold shall have the Crown (* Heraut, 
dixt li Rela, tu Youras”); but he knows that he will die for it. 
‘He knowa the Duke and his barons and all the folk that will 
come at his bidding; God alone can guard Harold aguinst them. 
Harold is ready to run the risk; he fears neither Norman nor any- 
body else. Eadword then turns himeelf, and sayw—whother of bis 
free will or no the poet will not warrant—that the English may 
choose either Harold or William ae they will. 
eq2 


=) 


EADWARD'S BEQUEST OF THE CROWN TO HAROLD, 597 


William's daughter which was not to be found in William him- 
velf, This notion of passing crowne by the epindle-side was 
strange to Englishmen, and to Normans algo, in the eleventh 
century. The nearest approach to it is William's own half-claim, 
not exactly aa heir, but as next of kin through Emma, But, at the 
courts of the Henriee, no doctrine could be more orthodox and ac- 
ceptable, Honry the First actually did something very like what is 
here spoken of as likely to be done by his father. He endeavoured 
to settle, though not indeed in his lifetime, his whole dominion on 
hie daughter. When both Waco and the French Biographer wrote, 
tho descendants of that daughter, by male descont mere Counts of 
Anjou—more truly (see p. 180) mers Counts of the Gatinois— 
but scions through her both of Rolf and of Alfred, reigned over 
England, reigned over or claimed Normandy, a their inheritance 
by female succession. The Angevin Kings had no dislike to bo 
complimented on their descent from the old royal stock of England. 
AKthelved of Rievwux (Gea, Reg. X Seriptt. 350), tracing by the 
spindle-side only, addresses Henry the Second as the son of Matilda, 
the daughter of Matilda, the daughter of Mangarct, the daughter of 
Endmund, and so on—Normans and Angevins being kept out of 
sight—to Alfred, Cerdic, Woden, and Adam. The vision of Rad- 
ward, as explained by ABthelred and others (sce above, p. 575), 
implies the unlawfulness of the rule of Harold and both Williams, 
and gives Henry the First only a Crown matrimonial, which he hands 
on to the grandson of Endgyth-Mutilda. On all this Athelred, an 
English flatterer of Henry the Second, would naturally dwell. The 
French Biographer, writing to Henry the Third, would find the 
aame general doctrine acceptable. Still the conception of William, 
as the founder of the existing dynasty, held too firm a possession of 
men’s minds for his pretensions to be openly deuied. The direct 
assertion of the rights of Eadgar belongs to a later stage still, to. 
which we shall come presontly. Aa for Wace, he was n Norman 
‘bom, and was not likely to dwell by choice on any of these points 
As » subject of Henry the Second, he was bound to admit female 


A atill more wonderful view of the Crown matrimonial ix to, 
be found in Gervase of Tilbury (Otia Imperialia, ii, 20, ap. 
i Brunsw. i. 946); but I keep tho passage 


I 
i 
F 





EADWARD'S BEQUEST OF THE CROWN TO HAROLD. 599 


londi'"). ‘The same day a meeting in held to choose a King; 
Harold appears with his witnesses and claims the Crown by virtue 
of Badward's dying bequest. ‘The issue ix that he is choxen King: 
(“Pann sama dag var par hofiingia-stefna, var pd rett um konungs- 
tekio, let pi Haralldr bera fram vitni ein pau, er Jétyardr Konunge 
gaf hinom rikit @ deyianda degi; Iauke ava poirri stefno, at Harallde 
var til konungs tekinn"), It will be seen that, though there is 
some colouring here, there is no gross misrepresentation of fact. 
Snorro writes in the interest of Tostig, not in the interest of 
William, Of a bequest to William, of an oath of homage from 
Harold to William, he knows nothing. With him (Laing, iii. 94; 
Johnstone, 216) William's claim is derived wholly from his kindred 
to Endward, his wrath being embittered by Harolil’s breach of his 
promise to marry his daughter, 


T think then that there is no fact in history better attested 
than the fact of Eadward’s dying recommendation in favour of 
Harold. ‘The best informed contomporury writers assert it, ‘The 
most careful and judicious compilers of later days, from Florence 
and Simeon onwards, accept their statement. The hostile con- 
temporary writers never distinetly deny the fact. ‘They either slur 
the matter over, or wrap it up in vague and declamatory words, or 
else admit the fact, while they explain and colour it after their own 
fashion. The fact then T hold to be undoubted. Whatever con- 
stitutional influence the King of the English had in the appoint- 
ment of his successor, that influence was exercised on behalf of 
Harold. But we must beware of attaching any undue importance 
to Endward's nomination. It was of real constitutional value, but 
it wan not everything. It was, ufter all, a mere recommendation to 
the Witan, and Harold's real title to the Crown was that the 
Witan nccopted that recommendation. Writers who, either at tho 
time or afterwards, did not fally understand the English Constitu- 
tion, were apt to lay too much stress on the bequest to either 
candidate, Men who wrote either in times or in countries where 
the idea of elective kingship was not familiar, did not understand 
that the kingship of England was simply the highest office in the 
Jand, an office which the people gave and which the people could 
take away. To them a kingdom seemed like private cotate, 
which, in ordinary cnzes, would pass according to the laws of sue- 


THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 601 
but by the chief men of tho Iand. And he was chosen, not by this 


in the fulness of his heart; Florence wrote as a grave und judicial 
harmonizer many years later. Both tell the same story, 

‘These two authorities are to my mind quite enough to establich 
the fact of Harold’s legal and regular eleotion ; still I will go on, 
as before, to trace ont such secondary evidence as we have in its 
favour, before we see what is said on the other side. 

‘The Biographer, who formed #0 important @ part of our evidence 
for establishing the bequest of Eadward, now faila us altogethor, 
As T have before said, he doa not directly record any event after 
Eodward's death, 

‘The Tnpestry (pl. 7) contains o scene, of which I have made 
much we in the text (p. 21), in which the Crown is offered to 
Harold by two persons, This scene is highly important. It is 
of itself an answer to all the vague Norman talk about Harold 
seizing the Crown by fraud or force—all the declamation about 
“invasit,” “nrripuit,” and the like. The Crown is offered to Harold 
very quietly, and he is evidently represented ax still doubting 
whether to take it or no. The scene too is put (see p. 587) in 
position which is evidently meant to connect it with Eadwanl’s 
death-bed bequest. But in thie scene in the Tapestry, though 
there is nothing to shut out, there is nothing to assert any formal 


APPENDIX, 


602 
‘eloction. The Crown is evidently brought from the chamber of 
the dead King, and the story would run just aa well if it were. 
Drought simply in obedience to his dying orders, withont reference 
to the choice of any one elte, One can easily understand that, 


enable us to add that it was offered to Harold in pursuance of a 
vote of the Witan, 

‘The election of Harold being thus admitted, the question follows, 
Was that cloction absolutely unanimous? Were any votes given, 


years 
the time, the idea of bequest was more familiar than the idea 
of election, We have indeed the string of writers, beginning with 
Simeon, who copy the whole passage from Florence in full. Bat 
‘we have no independent witnesses to the trudition of the election 
answering to Eadmer and Walter of Hemingburgh, who assert 
the bequest in words of their own, not borrowed from Florence 
(p. 538). Tho entry in the Waverley Annals I have already 
quoted (p. 589). ‘Thore the first entry, translated from the Peter= 
borough Chronicle, asserts the election in the strongest terms, but 
it is immediately qualified by the strange Normannizing passage 
which follows, We should remerbor aleo that such an exprosion 


i ” aaa 


THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 03 


‘as that of Enadmer, who simply says that Harold “ succeeded 
nceording to Kadward’s will,” though it does not assert the 
election, yet in no way excludes it. And the uso of a word like 
“successit” is of itself important, in the teeth of words like 
“invasit" and “urripuit,” which we shall presently come to, 

Tt was, os we might have expected, in Harold's own college 
at Waltham that the tmdition of the popular clection of its 
great founder lasted longest. There, down into the thirteenth 
century, it was still a thing to be remembered and gloried in. 
And, what wo might have boen less prepared for, it comes out very 
strongly in at least one Scandinavian writer. 

Of the two Waltham books, the De Tnventione (¢. 20) asserts 
the election In the strongest terms ; 

“ Post obitum itaque sanctissimi Regis, Comes Haroldus wnenimi 
onium consenee in Regem eltgitur, quia non erat eo prudentior in 
torri, armis stronuus magis, logum torre sagacior, in omni genere 
probitatis cultior, ita ut tie electioni non possent contradicere, 
qui cum summo odio persequuti fuissent usque ad tempor illa, 
quoniam tanto operi adco insignem in omnibus non genunerit 


I do not quite understand the Inst part of the passage, which 
is perhaps purposely obscure. Tt may mean that Fadwine and 
Morkere consented to the election; when we remember what 
tho writer had said about *Normanni ct Gallic” in c. 14 (ce vol. 
i. p. 39), we may perhaps rather think that the allusion is to 
the Norman favourites. At any mte on unanimous election ix 
asserted as strongly as words can put it, 

‘The romantic biographer of Harold may be fairly quoted on such 
a matter as this, becouse he carries on the local tradition which 
we find in the writer De Tnventione, He twice mentions the 
secession of bis hero, The first time it is spokin of merely in 
general terms (Chron, Ang, Norm, ii, 167); “ Ubique fere terra- 
rum colebri sermone vulgatum est quemadmodum, Edwardo sanc- 
tissimo nd cosloste translato, in regno terreno successerit Haroldus.” 
The second passage (ii. 187, 188) is very remarkable, whethor 
anybody chootes to believe the story or not ‘The writer asserts 
fn unanimous election of Horold, and that under very singular 
cireametances. He records Harold's oath, and argues at great 
Tength that it was an oath which ought not to be kept. He then 


3 





brought about through an alleged will of Eadward, on which he seems 
inclined to throw some doubt, ‘The other Northern writer is the 
Biographer of Olaf Tryggvesson, whom I have already quoted 
(vol. ii p. 549) 08 the only writer who neoms anxious to eanonize 
Frarold, Ho says distinctly (263) that “after Eadward, Harold 
the son of Godwine, whom some call a saint, took the kingdom by 
the will of all the folk in the land” (“Eptir Jatvard kong toc 
riki, af vild ols landfolleing, Haraldur Gudina son, er sumir 
kallan helgan vera"). I shall have to quote thix writer again at 
another stage. 


L now turn to the writers who are more or less decidedly hostile 
to Harold. These somotimes deny the fact of the election, some~ 
times they wrap up the fact, just as they do the fact of Rudward's 
recommendation, in vague and declamatory phrases. I will quote 
first the purely Norman writers, and then those who represent a 
certain mixture of Norman und English traditions, 

First comes William of Poitiers (Giles, p. t21), who denies that 
there was any election at all ; 

Verus namque rumor insperato venit, Anglicam terram Rege 
Edwardo orbatam ¢sse, ot ejus coront Heraldum ornstum. Neo 
sustinuit vesanns Anglus, quid eeetin publica statworet connulere ; 
sed in die Iugubri, quo optimun ille humatus est, quum gens 
univerma plangeret, perjurus regium solium cum plawru ocouparit, 
quibusdam iniquis fayentibus. Ordinatus est non rancti con- 


he complains that Harold beuiled away the whole | 
from their allegiance to Duke William, he admits that Harold had 
the hearts of the nation with him, and does in et imply the 


William of Totalages (ex) ta shestar ox AAE Wap eeEREOa 
Englieh nation 


spopondorat condignd 
piney a trmepirerereer 
gente ab illo infideliter avertit.” 

Orderic (492 C), who, higher up in the same page (seo vol. ii, 
P+ 839) showed some signs of generous fecling towards Harold, 
becomes at this point more savage against him then anybody 
elie. He wflirms, in apparent contradiction to Willium of Jumitges, 
that Harold's secession was against the will of a large part of the 
English notion. ‘This L believe to be a confurel account of the 
temporary refusal of Northumberland to acknowledge Harold. 
Onderic mentions Kadward's death and burial, and then goes on > 

“Tune Heraldus, ipeo tumulationis die, dam plebs ix exsequiis 
dilecti Regis adhne maderet fletibus, a solo Stigando Archiepiscopo: 
(quem Romanus Papa suspenderat « divinis officiie pro quibusdam 
criminibna) sine communi consensu aliorum Prosulum et Comitem 
procerumgue consecratus, furtim prowipuit diadematis ot purpures 
deous. Audicntes autem [Angli, 1 presume) temerariam invasionens 
quam Heraldus feccrat, irati sunt; ot potentioram nonmulli fortiter 
obsixtere parati o subjectione qjus omnino abstinnerunt. Alii vere, 
nescieutes qualiter tyrumidem ejus, que jam super eos nimin 
excreverat, evuderent, ob © contra considerantes quod neo illum 
dojicore, noc olium Regem, ipso regnante, od utilitatem regui 
substituere valerent colla ejus, jugo submiserunt, viresque facinork 
quod fnchoaverat auxerunt, Mox igen seguarth: Gusti 
inyaserat, horrendis sceleribus maculavit.” 

To thew aya peaking ho sare pith Verda 
Chronicle of Abbot Hugh (Labbé, i. 194); 

“Binnerdos Anglorum Rex obey gut, quia ce fits fly esa 
sanguincum suum Willelmum Normannorum Comitem post se 


cD - 





THE ELECTION OF HAROLD, or 


regnare instituit, Sed Heroldus, contra sacramentum qued Willelmo 
foverat, regnum invasit.” 

So Hugh of Floury (Ports, ix. 389); “Rex Angloram Rduardus, 
quum non haberet filium, adoptaverat prefatum Willelmum eb 
muum ci reliquerat regnum. Quo defuncto quidam comes Anglo- 
rum Hoiraldus illum sibi preripoerat.” 

Adam of Bremen (iii. 51), writing from a Northern point of 


‘Tosti, ereptum audiret,” ete. 

OF the pootical writers, Waco (10977) speaks of © coronation 
and of homage received by Harold. He says nothing of election ; 
but, as usual, thore is nothing in him of the brutal viclence #0 
common in the other Norman writers ; 

“Dez ko Ii Rola Ewart fu mors, Unket al Due 'en volt parler, 

Heraut kiert manant d fore Homagos prist 2 féoltor 
‘Be fint ¢noindre & coroner 5 ‘Dew plus riches & des ainz nex." 


Benoit (36656) i charncteristicully much flercer; he distinetly 
denies both all election and all ecclesiastical consecration, and mixes 
up the supposed wrongs of Tostig with those of William ; 


“Hernut, da coveltin pris, Eta, vot ule autrw devine, 
‘Sons axitre conmall qui'n fast pris, Parjur, fa, plains de covetine, 


‘Balad le relgne demaneds; ‘Se fixt coroner & grant tort: 
Parjures e fhun se fit rele Por den fs puls slestrult © mart. 
Kind, senz jeole unetion Ne tint onvers te duo fanos 

E eens cole sacration: Ne catage ne covenunos, 

Quien deit faire & rei mafutement De nou frere ne lf aovint ; 

‘Ta jor de on corcmernent. ‘Find out lo reastine 0 tint” 


We now come to the other class of writers, those who wrote 
in England under more or lees of Norman influence, and who 
contrast remarkably with those who, like Simeon and Roger of 
Howden, are content to follow Florence. First comes William 
of Malmesbury, who gives two accounts in different parts of bis 
work, The former passage (ii. 228) I have alroady quoted (veo 
above, p. 591) At a later stage (ili, 238) he comes back again 
to the subject and gives quite a different account. The English 





— 


in whose favour Badwand 


candidates. The words aro, -— 


an Edgaro ; nam ct illum, pro genere proximum 

Rox commendaverat, tacito scilicot menti# judicio, eed 
clementiam anime. Quare, ut predixi, Angli diversis votis fore~ 
bantur, quamvis palam euncti bona Havoldo imprecarentur: wh Wee 
aide, didnt fstiginay, wilde pets itor w et Wilt 
cogitabat,” 


TThis passage of William of Malmesbury ie our frst dstinet 
mention of the rights of Eadgar. It is the first hint of doctrine 
‘the partizans of which were, as time went on, largely to increase. 
According to this account, Eadward’s wishes were in favour of 
Endgar, and his wishes wore supported by a party among the Witan, 
‘This is tho first setting forth of Eadgar as an actual candidate; 
but there is  pasagn of Orderic (598 A), in which he seems tor 
think it necessary to explain why William came to the Crown 
rather than any one of the English royal family ; “Guillelmus Dux: 
Normannorum, deficiente stinpe Regis Edgari quae idonex extet ait 
tenendum seeptrum regale, cum multis millibus armatoram ad 
Anglos transfretavit, et in campo Senlac invusorem regui Albionis 
Heraldum bello peremit.” Here we cleurly see the firet glimmer 
ing of the new view, which gete o little plainor in William of 
Malmesbury, and much plainer in thore who eame after him, 
William's two accounts became stock pastages, which were copied 
by the inferior writers who followed him, just as Florence's descrij~ 
tion was copied by Simeon and other more judicious compilers. 
For instance, William's description is taken as the 
of that given by Roger of Wendover (i. 543), which however in 
‘well worthy of notice, The hereditary right of Eadgar is now 
put much more prominently forward than it was » hundred yours 
earl 


; le 


THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. 609 


“ Defunct, ut preedictum est, Eadwardo, Anglorum Rege eunc- 


stirpe Reguen, gonuit Eadwardum, Endwardus Endgarum, cui da 
jure regnum debebatur Anglorum. Sed Haroldus, vir callidus et 
astutus, intelligens quia ‘nocuit semper differre paratis,’ in dic 
Epiphanim, qui Rex Eadwardus sepultue est, extort’ fide a ma- 
Baga me 

‘This uecount of Roger of Wendover ix followed in nearly the 
same words by Matthew Paris (2 ed. Wats), and in the Historia 
Anglorum (i. 6), where bo says, “reguum usurpavit, diadema sibi 
sine auctoritate ecclesisetion imponendo,” [t i followed too in the 
Winchester History by Thomas Rudborne (Ang, Sacr, i. 241), who 
makes some most singular comments which I shall consider in 
another Note, It implies more distinctly than William of Malmea- 
bury does that the Duke was supported by a party—whether of 
notive Englishmen or not—who had influence in England. Bat 
the rights of William are now much less dwelt on than the rights 
of Eadgar, Indeed there is another version, which leaves out 
William altogether, and dwells wholly on the rights of Eadgar, The 
nation, or & part of it, was in favour of the Aitheling, but Harold, 
hy his wealth, his popularity, his vigour and euengy, by some meus 
of come sort, good or bad, contrived to supplant him. We first find 
this view where wo should hardly have looked for it, namely in 
Henry of Huntingdon (M.H.B 761 D), whom we elsewhero soe 
(vol. Lp. 301) firmly believing in the hereditary rights of William, 
His account is very short, but it has become, like those of Florence 
and William of Malmesbury, one of the stock paseages for later 
writers to copy. The West Minster ix hallowed, Kodward dies and 
ig buried ; then 

“Quidam Angloram Eadgar Atheling promovers volebant in 
regem, Haraldus yero, viribus et genero fretus, regni dixdema 
invusit.” 

‘This ix followed in one of the alternative accounts in Bromton 
and R. Higden (see above, pp. 588, 589), but they add a very 
round reason why Eadyar was passed by, namely quia pucr crat, 
‘et tanto oneri minus idoneus.” Tho means of Harold's influence is 

Yor. 1. ur 


| 


| 


Aoscribed in different words by different copyists, but the fullest is 
that into which it swells in Knighton (2339). He bad Higden 
before him, and Higden gave, a# an alternative statement, Plarence’s 
‘account of the recommendation of Exdwand and the election of 
Harold. “Trudit tamen Marianus,” says Higden (284), after giving 
‘the other account, “ quod Rex Edwardus ante obitum suum desig 
naverié Haraldum regem futurum, quem proceres mox in regem 
orexerunt.” The unlucky use of the doubtful word “ designaverit ” 
Instead of Florence's “elegorat” Jed Knighton astray, and he turned 
the recommendation into # prophecy. He kept however the dis- 
tinct statement of the election by the “ proceres,” bat mixed it up 
with the usual tall about “occupavit” and with the mention of 
Bih lih ly oA atop The result ia worth giving 


“Tedunh quia acoder. Rivoian ne si oo 


610 APPENDIX. 


regen 
molicbantur, sed quin puer erat tanto rogimini inidoneus ot in 
burei minus refertus, Haraldus comes, cul erat mens astutior, 
renee fendi, ot mille copesar ot posps Paco allies 
omine regnum oceupayit.” 

This 4s. «good, aptctiaen of ‘the! sp ia. inbast RNEISS 
put together those accounts which we often sce quoted in modern: 
books as if they were of equal authority with the Chronicles. — 
is amusing to sec how Endward's recommendation of Harold, the 
best political act of his life, is changed, through the stages of 
‘clegerat,” “designaverit,” “prodixit,” into an exercise of the 
prophetic powers of the saint, Still it Is some comfort to #ee, 
standing forth iu the midst of all this, the bit of true history which 
fa sot forth in the words, “ quer proceres in regem erexerant.” 

I have gone on uninterruptedly through the Latin writers, but I 
must now go back some generations to quote the very curiows 
account given by Robert of Gloucester (i. 354 Hearne), He fs all 
loyalty towards the A2tholing, and all admiration towards those 
‘who supported his cause. 

“ THaralil pie thlse eal, }o Seynt Edward ded laf, — 
‘Hym sue he lot erouny kyng pulke sulue day, _ 


rat a 





THE ELECTION OF HAROLD. Bll 


Falalyeho ; vor Safnt Radward eo wel to him trusta, 
bot ha bet hm Regu, pt be 3 wl wate 


And soffrode ai hii nosyt no mjste al oferes wile, 

‘So pat Harald was kjng, to wom pe ele pe kynedom, 
Se Ae ees water 

Vor bo bygan pe wow worst, as mo myyte. 

Jat db ej ard il re Wfag ay be” 


Loyalty to Eadgar and the orthodox interpretation of Eadwant’s 
vision of course go together. 

Lastly, one step only remains to be taken, namely to make the 
oath and perjury of Harold a sin not against William but against 
Endgur. We got tho firt glimmoring of this in a Flomish writer 
of the twelfth century, Hariulf, the suthor of the Chronicon Cen- 
tulense or Chronicle of Saint Riquier in the second volume of 
D'Achery’s Spicilegium, He died in 1143. His account (p. 345) 
is as follows ; 

“Postquam autem mortuus est Rex Ethguardus, Herioldos 
quidam Comes regnum sibi accepit contra fas, et contra fidem 
meramenti quod predicto Regi juravernt, spondens quod pronepoti 
ipsins Regis, nomine Elfgaro, regnum otderet absque ullo impe- 
dimento. At quum regni potestate et fascibus injuste uteretur, 
expulso Eduuardé pronepowe Elfgaro, summun et super omnia 
potens Dvos, in cujus jussu constant regua terrarum, et qui donat 
ef cui vult, signo mirabili e ccrlo ostenso, dostinavit Guillelmum 
Dueem Normannorum Anglorum Regom fieri ; et quia veraciter Dei 
nutu idipsxm Guillelmus appetchat rei prosperitate probatum ext." 

We may mark here, First, That Harold is supposed, as indeed he 
pp realprec 
of dispesing of the Crown or influencing its disposal, Secondly, 

That no earthly right. fe recognized in William; he is exyrosly 
called to the kingdom by a sign from heaven in the shape of the 
comet. 

Rr2 





THE BLECTION OF HAROLD, 613 


Faward unduly acquired the sovereignty of the kingdom of Eng- 
land, was despoiled of his kingdom and life by William the Bastard, 
dake of Normandy, though previously vauntingly vietorious, And 
that Willinm defended the kingdow of England ina great battlo, 
with an invincible hand, and his most noble army.” I nm sorry 
‘that my ignorance of Welsh hinders me from judging of the accu 
racy of the translation of the words in Itslica, which certainly have 
@ strange sound, The whole passage is an expansion of the 
corresponding passage in the Annales Cambris, in which there is 
nothing answering to them, 

T havo thna traced out tho various statoments with regard to the 
question of Harcli’s eloction. ‘That it was a perfectly regular act 
is asserted by two of our highest original authorities, and their 
narrative is in no way inconsistent with the narratives of those 
original authorities who do not directly mention the fact. Tho 
statement of the Peterborough Chronicler and of Florence was ac» 
cepted, a4 preferable to the counter-statements, by some of the best, 
and most carcfal compilers of the next age. Even the Seandi- 
avian writers and Harold's own local panogyrists at Waltham 
are at lenst witnesses to n tradition. Simeon, Roger of Howden, 
and Ralph of Diss are something more. They deliberately pre» 
ferred Florence’s statement to any other, at a timo when other 
atatements were much more aceoptable to the reigning powers, As 
the idea of olective kingship gradually died out, the tradition of 
Harold's regular clection would scem stranger and stranger, 80 
that for o later writer to accept it really implied a certain amount 
of critical and independent judgement. On tho other hand we have, 
first the fact that the highest Norman authority of all, the'Tapestry, 
thongh it does not directly assert the election, is quite consistent 
with that version, while it is quite inconsistent with the legend of 
Harold seizing the Crown by force or fraud, Moreover the wit- 
nesses ngninst Harold, from the very beginning, do not agree among 
themselves. Some say that there was no public election; Harold, 
they tell us, seized the Crown by a conspiracy with a few men, and 
reigned against the will of the nation. Others complain that Harold 
beguiled away the whole English people from their allegiance to 
the lawful heir, All wrap ap their story in vague and declamatory 
phrases, which may mean onything or nothing, and which contrast 


| 























THE ELECTION OF HAROLD, 615 


Harold was far moro rogular than the hurried election of 
Eodward. It door not appear that, when Harthacnut died, any 
regulur meeting of the Witan was actually in session, The first 
election of Eadward must have been made only by the citizens of 
London and such of the other Witan a» could be got together at 
the moment. But the death of Eadward took place during the 
Christmas feast, so that Harold's election was made by the ordi- 
nary Midwinter Gemét, The thing then was done lawfully end 
regularly ; still it was done with a haste which might well seem 
strange, and it is not wonderful that men in other lands, prejudiced 
bse epee ths peel a nel 

should look on the matter in the worst possible light. 
On Hes coe Rick nee Co ee ee 
They heard in the same breath that Eadward was dead and that 
Harold was consecrated King. Eadward was King on the morning 
of Thursday; before the evening of Friday, Kaiward was in his 
grave, and Hurold was King, full King, King crowned and anointed. 
All William's schemes were defeated, a3 far as it rested with the 
peaceful action of the people of England to defont them, Not » 
moment had been allowed him to pross his claims. The thing was 
done, and the sword ouly could undo it, It was no wonder then 
if, in Norman eyes, the haste of Harold's accession seemed strange, 
indecent, altogether wicked. That it was thoroughly good ao- 
conting to English law was a point about which William of Poitiors 
and his fellows neither knew nor cared anything. They naturally 
vonted their wrath in talk about “inyasit” and “erripuit.” As 
usual, doclamatory expressions got eubstance, Harold was rhetori- 
cally said to have “seized” the Crown; thence came a story that 
he physically seized it with his own hands, The buris! and the 
coronation were done on the same day; thence came a story that 
Harold scired the timo of Eodward's burial for a shan election 
and coronation, Lastly, the temporary refusal of Northumber- 
land 10 neknowledgs Harold, of which I shall hnve to speak 1 few 
pages on, no doubt grew into the account in Orderic, copied by 
some later writers, about a largo part of the nation standing aloof 
from Harold, or being actually hostile to him, 


In these two Notes I have traced out the way in which writers 
of later times spoke of the events of the eleventh century according 


; 





ay 


THE CORONATION OF HAROLD, 67 


‘Second, Who was the officiating Prelate at the coremony ? 

‘Third, What was the placo of the ceremony ? 

‘The evidence on the first point ix nx decisive ux evidence can be. 
‘The ecclesiastical consecration of Harold is asserted by all the three 
Chroniclers, Abingdon and Worcester, with amall verbal differ- 
‘ences, both say, “ Her wears Harold corl ene to cynge gehalyod.” 
Peterborough uses another word and gives us the date; * Harold 
corl ... wins gebletod to cynge on twelftan mise dey.” Flo- 
renee, in the passage which I have throughout taken as my text, 
‘etatee the eamo fact, and adds the name of the consocrator, Harold 
was “ab Aldredo archigpiscopo Eboracensi honorifico consecratus.” 
T therefore have not hesitated to describe Harold in the text an 
consecrated by Ealdrod, according to the form of consecration then 
in use in the English Church, 

The writers whom I have already quoted as following the ac- 
count ef Florence with regard to the recommendation and tho 
election, naturally follow him alto with regard to the coronation. 
‘Tho coronation is also mentioned as on alternative statement by 
those writers who mention the recommendation ond election as 
alternative statements, It is somewhat curious that Knighton, 
whose account is the most coufosed of all, seems (X Seriptt. 2339) 
t» have no doubt about tho coronation; “Nunc Haraldus ab 
Aldredo Eboracensi archiepiscopo consocratus ost.” This is the 
one position which he leaves without alternative or self-contra- 
diction, The coronation is of course also asserted by the writer 
De Inventione (c. 20); “Rex igitur consecratus a Stigando Doro- 
bernensi archiprewule.” According to his Norwogian admirer 
(263), Harold was consecrated King and anointed (smeared) with 
holy chrism ; “Hann var vigdr kongr o¢ smurdr helgum ehrisma,” 
Snorro also (Johnstone, 192; Laing, iii, 77) asserts that he was 
duly conseerated, and that on his consceration all the chicti and 
poople of the land submitted to him (! Haralldr var til konungs 
tekinn, oc vigdr konungs-vigslo inn xiii § Pals-kirkio, Gengo pi 
allir hifinginr til hands hinom, o¢ allt f6lle"), 

‘Tho Norman writers nearest to tho time do not deny an coclesi~ 
astical consecrution. Only they affirm that the officiating prelate 
was Stigand. “Ordinatus est non sanctd consecration Stigands,” 
cays William of Poitiers (121 Giles); 20 Onderic in the passage 
already quoted (e0e above, p, 606), who even goes further, and ays 


Murult, ke mut fu vis tard, Fre curunes e. 


‘Tha story that Harold put the Crown on is own | 
comes from an expression of William of Mali 
of his two accounts (ii. sab sesborn 591), 





THE CORONATION OF HAROLD. 619 


monasterium coronavit.” The same words occur in Bromton 
(958) as an alternative, The Ramacy historian also (c. 120, p. 464) 
speaks to the same effect ; “ Haraldus . . . diacetate regni sose 
temere insignivit’ 

In all these writers the feeling aguinst Harold is manifest, with 
the seeming exception of Thomas Rudborne. He first of all, an 
I havo said, tolla the story in words borrowed from Roger of 
‘Wendover, including the solf-corouation of Harold, and hit descrip- 
tion as “vir callidus et astutus.” But, ax he get on, he gradually 
softens, He is sorry that Harold was guilty of perjury (Ang. Sac. 
i, 242), boeause, if he had not been so, he would mont likely have 
defeated William (atinam Haroldus non perjuras faisset, et dis- 
ciplinam Aristotelis qaam dedit Mexandro Magno sequutus faisset ; 
forte Dei auxilio et non dubjum, ut sliquibus videtur, vicisset 
Willelmam”). He then gocs on to explain how it came to pass that 
‘Harold was never anointed, and why he put the Crown on his own 
head (“TIste Haroldus, quamvis semetipsum propeiis manibus coronfis- 
‘set, numquam tamen Rex inunctus erat”). Harold had scraples about 
being crowned by Stigand, on account of his pluralitios (“noluit 
enim fnungi a Stigando Cantuariensi archiepiseopo, quia injusto 
duos pontificatus, viz. Cantunriensem et Wyntoniensem, detinuit”). 
He wished to be anointed by Ealdred, but that, Primate was very 
tick at the time. Harold therefore put off his anction till Ealdred’s 
recovery (“distulit enim recipere regiam inunctionem quoasque 
Aldredus Eborncensis is snitati restitueretur, gravi 


Aldredus an infiemitate minime convaluit uaque ad mortem sea 
occisioncm Haroldi”), The statement of Florence and bis fol- 
lowers or, as Rudborne says, of Ralph of Diss and some others 
(“quod sutem Radulphus do Dyseto Londonionsis Decanus ot 
quidem alii seribunt”), that Harold wax consecrated by Ealdred, 
he explains ns meaning that Ealdred simply consented to his 
consecration, not that he consecrated him in person (* hoe intel- 
Hgendum est quia Aldredus archiepiscopue sic consensit eonsecra- 
thoni, non quod egit sea dedit munus consecrationis in actu”). 
How Ealdred could be suid to consent to « consecration which 
vever took place is not very clear. For all this Rudborne refers 


: 


sola, fal arlaon, sthonght sigh stayes 
celebrant was Ealdred. He is followed by. 


ve mentionod, for he writes as the historia 
York, and, though ho adopts tho words of F 


eéch Shab Enid ras tiyaod ip Banh bove, 
‘but they do it in rhetorical passages, in which they 
enlarge on Stigand’s echiamatical position, Their ey 
ig to make out Harold's coronation to have been uncan 
invalid. The representation in the Tapestry is six 
not show Stigand in the act of crowning or nr 
‘Harold is already crowned and seated on hie th 
stands by, seemingly aildressing the people. 


! i 





THE CORONATION OF HAROLD, 621 


most honest and trustworthy of all Norman necounts; otherwise 
could almost believe that there is here an attempt to insinuate 
that Stigand was the celebrant without directly agsorting it, 

‘The question is simply this, Is this Norman statement to be 
accepted fin epposition to the statement of Florence, evidently 
meant in answer to it? The statement, very bricf and casual, 
of the one Waltham writer cannot be thought to odd much to 
the strength of the caso, His notions about Stigand are a little 
confused throughout his story, and he might easily take for granted 
that, if » King was crowned, he must have been crowned by the 
Arobbishop of Canterbury. Leaving then the De Invontione, are 
we to believe William of Poitiers, supported towome extent by the 
Tapestry, or are we to believe Florencet TE at least have no 
doubt as to preferring Florence to William. Ech ix undoubtedly 
the champion of one side; still the position of the two writers 
in widely different. The Archdeacon of Lisioax wrote a8 the 
laureate of a living sovereign, from whose favour he had everything 
to hope. The monk of Worcester wrote to clear the memory of 
a fallen horo from the calumnies which were already boginming to 
gather round it. William of Poitiers writes in a epirit of frantic 
reviling against Harold ; Florence never displays any unbecoming: 
bitterness against the Conqueror. Besides this, the astertion of 
William is simply an assertion; the assertion of Florence has the 
weight of a denial, Add to this that William writes of a transac- 
tion which happened in a foreign land of whose laws and internal 
affhirs he clearly knew nothing. Florence, though perhaps not 
of an age at the time to say much from his own knowledge, 
was an Englishman and a Worcester monk, a member of a body 
which doubtless still watched the career of their former Bishop 
with interest. As far then us the comparative value of witnesses 
goes, it seems to me that Florence is a witness in every way more 
trustworthy than William of Poitiers, 

‘The probability of the caso Mes the same way. We have soon 
that the episcopal ministrations of Stigand were at this time 
commonly avoided in England, Harold himself had (sce vel, ii, 
P. 444) chosen Cynesige and not Stigand to hallow his minster at 
Waltham. It is therefore most unlikely that, om the occasion of 
this still greater ceremony, Harold should run the smallest risk of 
awakening scandal or objection, The custom of the time, and 





184 uy 533 
fy TG 





Ea 




















THE CORONATION OF HAROLD. 623 


Our direct evidence either way comen from quite inferior writers ; 
those newrest the time, both Norman and English, do not mention 
the place. Some of the pasmgen have been already quoted, We 
have seen that Snorro places the ceremony at Saint Paul's The 
list of coronstions in what we may conveniently call Rishanger, 
followed by an alternative statement in Bromton, plaoes it at West- 
minster, So does John of Peterborough, under 1066; “ Succossit 
in regnum Haroldus Dox West-Saxonum, filius Godwini, in eras 
tino obitds Regia, id cet in die Epiphanim, apud Westmonasterium 
coronatus.” On the other hand, in the Brevis Relatio (Giles 4) 
‘we read, 

“Adhuc autem crat corpus jus [Edwardi] super terram, sicut 
illi postea retulerunt qui hme se videre dixerunt, quum Heraldus, 
quasi insanus atque postponens quidquid Willelmo comiti de regno 


Comparing this eviilence, such as it fs, the balance is distinctly 
in favour of Westminster. The witness of Snorro, soomingly in 
favour of Saint Paul's, really tells the other way. For he bad just 
before said (Johnstone, 19%; Laing, iii, 77) that Eadward wos 
buried ut Saint Paul's, whereas there is no need at all to prove that 
he was buried at Westminster. Snorro most likely confounded the 
minsters of the brothor Apoetles, But his statement distinctly is 
that Harold was crowned in the game church in which Eadward 
was buried, that is, in Saint Peter's, 

‘Tho spirit of the Brevis Relatio, a bitter Norman pamphlet of 
the time of Henry the First, is fully shown in my extract. ‘Tho 
writer professes to speak from what he has heard from those who 
were present, But does hix statement really assert « coronation 
at Saint Paul's? What he records is something which took place ab 
Saint Paul's before Eadward's burial. This thon could not bo 
Harold’s coronation, for that took place after Eadward’s burial. 
Alto he does not speak of a formal coronation; he uses one of the 
set phroses of Norman declamation, “coronam regni Anglin arri- 
puit” Afterwards (p. 5) he mokes William say hpw  Heraldun 
eoronam regni Angliw sibi imposnissct." These aro the rhetorical 

















‘is that they took place in the same church, Wil 
again (see nbove, p. 6os) and, I may add, William of Mal 
(see above, p. 591), seoms to complain of the 

the coronation on tho sumo day ea tho burial, hat 

two things, and they in no way imply any di ‘ 
is only Orderic (see above, p. 606), who, by the mse 


aL 





‘THE CORONATION OF HAROLD. 625 


“furtim,” might possibly suggest that Harold took advantage of the 
funeral in Saint Peter's to be crowned elsewhere by Stigand. But 
he does not distinctly say so, nor do his words necessarily imply it. 
It strikes me then that Florence implice Harold’s coronation in 
Saint Peter's and that nobody else denies it. 

Tn fact, there was every motive for Harold ta be crowned im 
Saint Peter’s; there was none for him to be crowned anywhere else. 
Eadmund and Cout had been crowned at Saint Paul's, but Saint 
Paul's was no traditional crowning-place of Wost-Saxon royalty. 
Kingston had been forsaken, and no other one spot had definitively 
taken its place. No prescription was broken through by a West~ 
minster coronation, and the circumstances of the recent consecration 
of the church, the death and burial of the Founder, would draw all 
mon's minds to the newly hallowed temple, and cause it to be 
chosen before all others far the greatest of national rites, To be- 
lieve that the prelates and the other Witan buried Eadward at 
Saint Poter’s, and then, without any conceivable motive, marched 
off to Saint Paul's to crown Harold, scems utterly preposterous. 
‘There is good reason to believe that the West Minster was, from 
the very beginning, designed us a national crowning-place. ‘The 
assortion of the doubtful charter to that effect (see vol, ii. p. go2) 
ig confirmed by the practice of later ages, William was crowned 
at Saint Peter's. The fact that he was crowned there is in truth 
no slight argument that Harold was crowned there before him. 
William had no motiye to innovate on such a point, His only 
reason for being crowned at Saint Peter's must have been because 
Saint Peter's had been specially designed by Endward for Kings 
to be crowned in, And that motive would tell just as strongly 
with Harold os with William. William bad every motive to con- 
nect himself in every way with the memory of Eadward, and to put 
himself forward in every way as the true successor of Eadward and 
the faithful executor of his wishes. But Harold had exactly the 
samé motives to do exactly the eamo, A paseage of William of 
Malmesbury (quoted above, p. 555) Which has beon pressed into the 
service of the other side (Stanley, Memorials of Westminster, 48) 
has no reference to the matter ot all, All that is there said is that 
William favoured the Abbey of Westminster bocause he was crowned 
there, and that William's successors, out of reverence for Saint 
Eadward’s tomb, were crowned there alyo. ‘There is not a word, 

VOL. 1. ae 


| 


‘King: 
hho was the worthlest of the English people, 





NOTE F. p 43. 
‘Tae Axcresr Cononariox O 


Fon the details of the coronation-rite 1 
‘Selden's Titles of Honour (p. 115), to Tay 
‘a very onreful and accurate work devoted 
of coronations, and to the third yolume of 
Ritualia Heclesie Anglican.” As we know 
‘“honorifice consecratus,” the very words in 
sently describes the coronution of William, 1 hr 


yx. 







THE ANCIENT CORONATION OFFICE. 627 
Justified in deseribing him as erowned asconling to the office then: 


Mr. Taylor in an Appendix. It is aleo printed by Mr. Maskell, 
‘but piecemeal in the notes to a later office, which makes it ex- 
cotdingly difficult to follow. 

It would seem from the rubric of this office that the coronation 
‘of the King was intended to follow immediately upon his election 
by the Witan, ‘He was to be led by two Bishops from the meeting 
of the Elders to the church (“consecrandum Regem de comveniu 
Seniorum duo Episcopi per manus producant od ecclesiam.” 
‘Taylor, 395; Maskell, 3). This office has long been n priviloge of 
the Bishops of the two sees of Durham and Bath and Wells. Their 
right to it, which has lasted down to our own day (see the Coronn= 
tion Office of the present Queen, Maskell, p. 88), dates from the 
time of Richard the First, who was led (see Roger of Howden, 
Seriptt. p. Bod. 374 6) by Hugh, Bishop of Durham, and Reginald, 
Bishop of Bath, But it appears from Guy of Amiens (see p. 658) 
‘that William was led by the two Archbishops; and, when the 
Empress Matilda was received, though not actually crowned, in 
the church of Winchester (Will. Malms. Hist. Nov. iii, 42), she was 
lod by the Bishops of Winchester and Saint David's, though the 
Bishop of Bath and Wells was present, It is therefore most likely. 
that this privilege of the sec of Durham and Welle is not older 
than Richard's time (Maskell, xxix.; Taylor, g21, 325, et seqq.), 
that his choice of Bishops for the purpose was 
the high descent of the Bishops of those secs at that particular 
time, and that from them the right passed on to their successore, 

‘The election in the church by the clergy und poople (“ab 
episcopis et w plebe") is something distinct from the curlicr civil 
election, In my text I have simply transferred to the coronation 
of Harold the account which we find given of the coronation of 
‘William, ‘The process is much the same fa the later offices, down 
to the form for the coronation of Henry the Eighth, according to « 
device drawn up by that prince himself (see Markell, 73). The 
horeditary doctrine is set forth in the strongest language, but the 
principle of election is put forth in language equally strong. Prineo 
Henry is spoken of as “rightfull nnd undoubted enheritour by the 
lawes of God and man ;” but he is alo “ electe, chosen, and required 

as2 


already chosen to the civil office; it still 
Chureh, the voice of the clergy and of 
declare him worthy of the ecclesiastical sac 
astical election outlived the civil election, and 
the steps by which it dwindled down to th 
form. 


‘Tt is @ most singular thing that a prayer in the offi 
or rather in an Engliah office older thon that of 
have been copied for a King of the French in‘ 
tary, without changing those local formula» 
to England only. This curious fact was first 
(Titles of Honour, 177, 189; sce alvo Mankell, 






are left out. But in the order for the coron 
Fifth of France in 1975 (Selden, p. 189) the | 


Ly 


THE ANCIENT CORONATION OFFICE. 629 


“at regnle eolium, videlicet Saxonum, Merciorum, Nordanchim- 
brorum sceptra, non deserat.® Maskell also (14) quotes another 
French office, which instead of the words “totins regni Anglo- 
Saxonum ccclesiant” reads “totive Albionis ecclesia.” On 
this he quotes Ménard as arguing that the King of the French 
auciently had royal rights over the kingdom of Bngland, and that 
he was crowned King of the English. He suggests that these 
rights arose in the person of Lewis From-beyond-Sea, who might 
inherit @ olaim to the English Crown through hia mother Ogiva 
(Eadgifa). Ses vol. i, p. 183; see also Depping, Expeditions 
Maritimes dos Normands, i, 216 ; Pearson, Early and Middle Ages, 
i. 188. (Depping’s speculations are amusing enough, though he 
does not go quite so far ns Ménard.) Nothing can be plainer than 
that the French seribes in both eases copied English offices, and 
seemingly two distinct English offices, of which that used for 
‘Charles the Fifth would soem to be older than the office of Athel- 
red. Tho formula “Saxonnm, Merclorum, Nordanchimbrorum”™ 
must be older than the simple form “Anglorum yel Saxonum."" 
‘The pamage also suggests another question. What are tho “ plebes 
annoxm,” annexed, as it would seam, to the Kingdom of the Angles 
and Saxons? Surely the reference is to the dependent members of 
the English Empire, a reference which had much less meaning in 
Iter English offices and which hnd no meaning at all in the 
French, 


With regard to the unetion, it strikes me that, scconting to the 
ancient English rite, the King was simply anointed on the head. 
‘The rabric in Altholred’s office (Maskell, 19) copied in the French 
office (Selden, 116) ix simply “hic unguatur oleo.” In the Inter 
offices the King is anointed on the hnnds, breast, shoulders, and 
elbows, and on the head last of all. In the very ancient office 
printed by Maskell (p. 76) from the Pontifioal of Archbishop 

the rubric is “hic verget cloum eum cornn euper caput 
ipsins,” bat another rubric follows, “unus ex pontificibus dicat 
orationem et alii anguant.” This may possibly mean such 9 mani- 
fold unction as we find in the later offices, but at any rate the order 
ig different. 

With regard to the regalia, the Tapestry represents Harold as 
holding the orb, which at a modern coronation is the subject of a 


1 























THE CHARACTER OP HAROLD'S GOVERNMENT, 631 


coronation, such a Simeon of Durham (1066), Roger of Howden 
(256 B), Ralph Higden (284), and the Ely History (i. 44). It 
sccma in short to have become a sort of formule with all writers 
who took the national side, ‘Tho strangest thing is when Knighton 
(2337) gives it in an abridged shape, as an alternative charactor 
of Harold, after some of the most savage abuse on record, which 
I shall presently have to quote. 

On the other hand, the abuse which the Norman writers hurl at 
the newly-choron King is something perfectly frantic. William of 
Poitiens, more careful for Euglind than England was for herself, 
tells us (146, Giles) how William delivered the kingdom which he 
conquered from the proud and oruel yoko of Harold (* Profecto 
suatulit a cervice ta superbum cradelemque dominatam Hoeraldi ; 
abominandum tyraunum, qui te servitute calamitos’ simul et igno- 
miniosi premeret, interemit. Quod meritum in omni gente gratum 
hobotur atque prwclarum”). So Orderic tolls un (492 A, D) how 
the reign whieh hod begun in perjury and usurpation was car= 
ried om in tyramy and wickedness ; “Heraldus Goduini eomitis 
filius regnum Anglorum usurpaverat, jamque tribus mensibus ad 
multoram dotrimentum porjurio et crudelitate, aliieque nequitiis 
pollutus tenuerat,” So, directly after; ‘Mox ipse reguum quod 
nequiter invascrat, horrendis sceleribus maculavit.” He goca om 
to add how the righteous soul of Tostig, whom he fancies to have 
beon in England, was yexed by the unlawful deeda of his brother 
("Tostiens, Goduini comitin filins, advertens Heraldi frateis sui 
poevalere facious, ot regnum Angliw variis gravari oppressionibus, 
egretulit”), This kind of talk is followed by Matthew Paris (Hist. 
Ang. i 8), who adds a very carious comparison ; “Civos qui ab 
Harald, tyranno et improbo exactore, injustia exactionibns et an- 
guriis, yeluti ab altero Beornredo, promebantur,” No one but a 
monk of Seint Alban's would have thought of Beorured, the usurper 
of Mercia in the young days of hie own founder Offa, as the type 
ofa tyrant. 

In the French Life of Eadward (4445 et seqq.) we begin ta got 
more detaila, After a little moralizing, we get a long account of 
Harold's cnormities, charging him pretty nearly with every vice, 
and telling us how he went on ginning, and how Eadward often 
appeared and rebuked him in vain. ‘Then follows a furthor list of 
his crimes, come of which are yery carious ; 


THE CHARACTER OP HAROLD'S GOVERNMENT. 633 


a charge which Sit Francis Polgrave (Hist, Ang. Sax. 346) has 
not scrupled to repeat, but, ns Mr. C, H. Pearson (i, 362) truly says, 
thero in not a shadow of evidence for it except the assertion of 
this writer of the fifteenth century. On the words in Ttalics E shall 
hinve to speak again. In those which follow Knighton might weem 
to have drawn his portrait from King John, and, to carry out 
the analogy, ne Lewis was then, so William is now implored to 
come over to England aa a deliverer ; 


vod per intrasionem erectum, ¢t ideo infouste regere popnlam suum. 
Et mandaverunt Willielmo Daci Normannia, qui Bastardus yocatus 
est, co quod ante celebrationem matrimonii natus sit, ut in Anglian 
veniret corum consilio et auxilio jue regal prosoquaturas, fece- 
runtque ef fidelem securitatem veniendi ; et consensit.” 

‘Tmmodiately after all this comes Florence's panegyric, cut « little 
short, as an alternative picture. 

I will wind up my extrnots with  eketch of Harold's accestion, 
reign, and end, given by Matthew Paris in another work, the 
Abbrevintio Chronicorum, ili, 169; “Defunct igitur gloriosissimo 
rege ac Dei confesore Edwardo, Heraldus, Godwini comitis flius 
ignobilis et porjurus, statim regoum invasit, ecipsum corenavit, 
Qui cum anno integro nondum regnisset, ab hominibus suis morito 
Aorvlictus ot exosus, spiculo confossux in capite ultore Deo, apud 
Hostingum obiit miscrabiliter interfectus, Et spud Waltham 
traditas sopulture, quia rex qualixqualis oxetiterat, ct in armis 
strenuitsimus,” It shows how thoroughly calumny had done its 
work when so patriotic » writer could talk in this strain, 


Aftor these general charges against Harold, it is only right to 
extract some entries from Domesday, in which Harold is described 
as seizing the landa of cortain persons after hin acccasion to the 
Crown. Three of them ure in the same shire and page (Hamp- 
shirey 38) ; 

“Leman tenuit in parugio de Rege BE, Heraldus abstulit ei 
quando regnum invasit, ob misit in firmi sud, ob adhuc ibi ext.” 

“Leman tenuit de Godwino Comite, Heraldus quando regnabat 
abstulit oi, et in gud firma misit, ot adhue est ibi. Ipse Leman 
non potuit recedere quo voluit.”” 























Too much must not be made of the word rax om { 
of Harold. ‘The word in various spellings, PAX, PACK, PA3 





OPPOSITION OF NORTHUMBERLAND TO HAROLD. 635 


‘on the coina of various Kings from Onut to Henry the Firat, 
Still it is remarkable that the coing of Harold arc 
common, cousidering the shortness of his reign, und that, if 
T rightly understand my numismatic authorities, all his coins 
bear this legend, while with the other Kings it is only occasional, 
and with some of them, as with Cnut, very rare. I may add that 
Harold seems to have been the only King who could always spell 
the word right. Ingenious men have puzzled themselves to find 
‘out some special allusion in the word, us, in the case of the coina of 
‘Cout, to the agreement between Cnut and Eadmund for the division 
of the Kingdom, and, in the case of the coins of Eadward and 
Harold, to the agreements made at the restoration of Godwine. 
Ido not think that the word in any case implies anything more 
than the obvious religions or moral sontimont which it sete forth. 
But it ix certainly striking to find that sentiment so constantly 
expressed on the coins of tho King who, above all others, needed 
peace, and who, through the aggressions of others, #0 utterly failed 
to find it. 

On the whole matter see Rading's Annals of tho Coinage, 
i. £37-166 (3rd ed.), and vol. iii. pl. 26. [have also to thank Mr. 
Leicester Warren for some private information contained in a letter 
to him from Mr. John Evans. 

Tam afraid of getting ont of my depth when talking of cither 
coins or crowns, but I cannot help noticing the marked difference 
between the arched crown sct with poarle which oppoars on the 
coins of Harold and the singular kind of esp which is the com- 
monest among the many hend-pieces affected by Eadward. (See 
Ruding, iii. pl. 25, and Selden, Titles of Honour, 133, 134.) Is it 
possible that the monsstic mint preferred the helm of the warrior, 
whilo the hero, in the same spirit which dictated the legend on the 
coin, chose to appear in the garb of a peaceful ruler) 


NOTE I. p. 57. 
‘Tue Orrosition or Nortuummentaxp ro Hanotn’s 
Accesstox. 
‘Tus story is one of the best illustrations of the way in which 
‘one sathority fills up gaps in another, and aleo of the way in which 








OPPOSITION OF NORTHUMBERLAND TO HAROLD, 637 


submitted to Harold at all, while tho rest submitted only un- 
willingly. ‘This misstatement is clearly ao exaggeration of the fact 
that Northumberland did for a short time refuse to acknowledge 
him. This same fact may quite possibly be at the bottom of those 
other stories about Harold's oppression and tyranny of which we 
have heard so many. Ordoric goes om to tell us (492 C) that, 
though some powerful men ("potentiorum nonnulli") refused 
obedience, yet Eadwine and Morkere were zealous partizans of 
one whom he seems to look on as already their brother-in-law 
(“ Eduuizus vero et Morcarus Comites, filii Algari pracipui Con- 
sulis, Heraldo familiaritate adhmserunt, eumque jnvare toto cona- 
mine nisi sunt, ¢o quod ipse Edgivam sororem eorum uxorem 
habebat”). There is no evidence that they were openly concerned 
in the resistanco of Northumberland, though one certainly is in- 
clined to put their names for the name of Tostig in William of 
Malmesbury’s account ; but we know how they acted before the 
year was out. 

At is doubtless on the strength of this passage of Orderio that 
Sir Francis Palgrave ventured to write (Hist, Ang. Sax, 362); 
“Some portions of the Anglo-Saxon dominions never seer to have 
submitted to Harold. In others a sullen obedience was extorted 
from the people, morely because they had not power enough to 
raise any otber king to the throne.” In the page before he had 
said, “Tf our authorities are correct, Stigund, Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, but who had been suspended by the Pope, was the only 
prolate who acknowledged his authority." Now, unless Sir Francis 
merely meant that Harold never received the homage of Malcolm, 
the only ground for saying that any part of “the Anglo-Saxon 
dominions” refused to acknowledge Harold is the story of the 
resistance of Northumberland given by William of Malmosbury. 
But it is an casontial part of that story that the resistance of 
Northumberland was peaceably overcome by Harold with the help 
of Saint Wulfstan. ‘That is to my, instead of all tho prelates 
except Stigand refusing to acknowledgo Harold's authority, the 
holiest prelate of the time appears as Harold's most zealous 
partizan. The two parts of the story hang inseparably together, 
If we believe that part of England for a while refused allegiance to 
Harold, wo must also believe that the sainted Bishop of Worcester 
was bis most loyal subject. 























essen eee aioe eh 

date of the marriage of Harold ond Ealdgyth. 
counts which we have, not one of 

connect the death of Gruffydd and 

widow (see vol. ii, p. 630), as if 0 

‘the two events, Still there are one 


perhaps of any great strength singly, 
lative force, which make it most likely | 
place after Harold's coronation. ve! 
1, Ono of the fullest of the 
Hayes pie icine abet ee 
certainly. He, it will be rer 
and therefore the marriage of his 
cession, As to the death of Gruflydd he is of 
is quite possible that ho may have given the 
‘marriage, and may bave wrongly inferred 
‘must have happened a short time before it. 


3: In none of the accounts of the mesnges 
William and Harold after Harold's coronation 


rN 





DATE OF THE MARRIAGE OF HAROLD AND RALDGYTH. 639 


mention of his marriage would have been much to the purpose, 
And several of the versions imply that Harold could have nusrried 
William's daughter even after his coronation, Wace (Roman de 


Rou, 11088) thus sums up Harold's offences 5 
“Por Ui rogue se parjura, on tristor mist wom image : 
‘EM regne poi lidura, ‘Ne volt mio fille el Due prouilre, 


A tut li rogue fist danage, ‘Ne cunvenant tenir ne rendre.” 


‘So again in the Cartulory of Ssint Bertin, p. 197 (* passage 
to which I shall have again to refer), the cause of William's ex- 
pedition is said to be “eo quod filiam ipsius Wilhelmi in uxorem 
accipere recusnverit [Haroldus).” This is hardly the Inngunge 
which would be used of a man who had already taken another wife. 
Perhaps too the words of William of Malmesbury (iii, 938) may 
look the sume way. THe tells us thet Harold on his accession 
“nihil de pactis inter so et Willelmum cogitabat, liberatam se 
sacramento asrerens quod filia ojus quam desponderat citra nubiles 
annes obierat.” ‘This is in answer to a message of William, which 
must have included « summons to marry some one of his daughters, 
Harold answers that the particular daughter to whom he had 
enguged himself was dead. This is not at all like the language of a 
wan who was already married. 

Tn the account given by Eadmer (5), followed by Simeon of 
Durham (1066), it is stil] more distinctly implied that Harold could 
have married William's daughter, even after his coronation. When 
Harold refuses to comply with William's first demands, the Duke 
sends « second embassy, calling upon him at any rate to marry bis 
daughter, which Harold refuses to do (‘ Iterum ei amici famili- 
aritato mandayit quatonus, ‘aliis omieais, eervatd fidei eponaione, 
saltem filisi suam uxorem daceret. . . . At ipse nec illud quidens 
we facere velle . . . respondit"), 

‘Tho statements quoted in the last two paragenphs arc of course 
very confused and contradictory, ‘Their avidenco as bearing on the 
real nature of the engugements entored into betwoen Harold and 
William I shall discuss elsewhere. But it is remurkuble that, among 
reveral passages where we should have naturally looked for some 
mention of the marriage, if it had taken place, not one mentions it, 
while some distinetly imply that it had not taken place. 








~— 


AFPAIRS OF THE ABBEY OF ELY. 64 


usurpavit.” I do not quite understand what the writer of the 
French Life means when be says (4075) thot Harold 

© Pur In reine Edith se over 

Fu cremus ¢ ames de cuer." 

‘When wo remember Eadgyth’s preference for Tostig and her 
alleged share in one of his worst crimes, we may perhaps think 
‘it quite possible thab she was no loyal subject of Harold. We 
may even be led to sco a special meaning in the earnest request 
made by Eadward on his death-bed, that she should lose nothing 
of her rights and honours (see nboye, p. 13). And, when Tostig 
had fallen, she may even have looked to William as being in 
some sort hie avenger, She may also, at an carlier time, 
have fallen under the banefu) fascination of her husbund’s foreign 
favourites, And the Norman account, strange as it sounds, 
derives a certain support from its very strangeness It is the 
kind of thing which no one would have been likely to think of, 
if there had not been some real ground-work for it, And the 
honour shown to Eadgyth by William, and the respect with which she 
is always treated by Norman writers, are in themselves suspicious. 
It was ef course the obvious policy of William, representing him- 
self as he did as the lawful successor of Endward, to show every 
respect to the widow of bis predecessor. But when we remember 
that that widow was also the sister of Harold, it ix hardly honour> 
able to her that William was able to carry out a policy of this kind, 
Tho other fermale members of her family found that England under 
‘William was no place for them. But while her mother, her alster, 
her nieces, were all in banishment, Fadgyth sat quietly at Win- 
chester, enjoying all the honours of the Old Lady. Tn fuct her 
charactor is « riddle from beginning to end, and her relations to hor 
brothers are almost as myeterions as her relations to ber husband, 


NOTE M. p. 67. 
Tux Aweams or tux Anney or Exy av te TR oF 
Hanoy's Accrsstox. 

‘Tivere are several points worth notice in the condition of the 
Abbey of Ely at the time of Harald’s election which it may be ag 
well to speak of in the same place. 

Abbot Wulfric, according to the Ely history (ii. 36), was ap- 

VoL, I, rt 




















watt 


ii. p. 71) when {t is not clear whether he was 
diocese at all, There is also something p a 
tion of Wulfric, a¢ of several other persons, 
kinsman, We have seen Earl Odda so deeori 
158) and Bishop Rudolf (see vol. fi. p. rg), and. 


‘one of the house of Aithelwine, and was that 

connected with Eadward through the first 

mother Hlfehryth ? : 
I infer that Wulfric died shortly before the deat! 

from the words “'mortuo nuper Wifrico patre” in | 

43. The historian gives two accounts of the 


loco edoctum." The earlier account in ¢. 41 
decessam yero abbatis Wifrici, Stigandus 





AFFAIRS OF THE ABBEY OF ELY. 43 


et Horoldi regum, cas propriis pastoribus viduatas quaméia volnit 
in suf manu tenuit, et quibux yolnit personis confercbat. Nam 
Wintonicnsem, Glastoniensem, Sancti Albani, ct Sancti Augustini, 
et Elyensem ante Turstanum abbotem, abbatios in manu sui re- 
cepemt, ot velut proprias possidebut. Ipso quoque euggerente, 
Haroldus, qui regni sceptra tenebot, ipsum Turstanum ab eodem 
Stiganda benedici fecit.” 

With this benediction of Thurstan by Stigand we may compare 
the benediction of Athelsigo by Stigand in 106r (see vol. ii. p. 
450). Compare alzo Athelsige’s plaralities at Canterbury and 
Ramsey (see vol. ii. p. 462), and the strange story wbont Stigand 
himself holding the abbey of Gloucester (see vol. ii. p. 674). Com- 
pare aleo the case of Ealdred ab Winchcombe (sce vol. fi. p. 361), 
and the vast pluralities of Abbot Leofric (see vol. ii, p. 348). 
Nevertheless T conceive that there is here a good deal of exaggera- 
tiow as to Stigund’s plaralities, The abbey of Winchoster, meaning 
scomingly the New Minster, scoma to be confounded with the 
hishoprick, We know the succession of Abbots of Now Minster 
(see vol. fi, p. 682), among whom Stigand does not: occur, and of 
Saint Swithhun's he was necessarily Abbot as Bishop of Winchester, 
And if Stigand ever held any of the other abbeys spoken of, it 
must have been for the shortest possible time. We have seen the 

succession of Abhote at Glastonbury (see vol. fi. p. 360), 
and also at Saint Augustine's in the person of Althelsige, men- 
tioned just above as blessed by Stigand himself. Neither do I 
find any mention of an incumbeney of Stigand in the local history 
of Saint Alban's, 

‘The detention by Stigand of lands belonging to the abbey of 
Ely, is osserted in the local history, ii, 41; “Stigandus, quamyis 
substituto illic abbate, canssas ecclesia agebat, sed quasdam illius 
optimas posseasiones, sicut Liber Terrarum insinuat, ad maximum 
loci dispondiam retinnit,” The reference is most Hkely to Domes 
day, where we read, under Cambridgeshire (189 4), “Hoc maneriam 
[Ditone] jacuit in meclesia 8, Edeldride de Ely T. RB, sod 
Stigandus archiopiscopus eum inde sumpeit; hominos de. hun- 
dreda nesciunt quomodo.” I do not quite know what is meant by 
“ causns ecclesia agebat," unless it be that Stigand, while robbing 
the house himself, defended it against other people. 

‘Tho charge here brought aguinst Stigand is the same ox thnt 
which was also brought against Archbishop Ealdred and Bishop 

ta 


Abingdon (see vol. ii. p. 119). The 
of Oxmund with great reverence, but 





TRE COMET OF 1066. 645 


NOTE N. p. 71, 
Tux Comer ov 1066, 


‘Tits comet evidently made the deepest impression in every part 
of Europe, It is recorded in nearly every chronicle everywhere, 
and it is very generally, even by men who have no special con- 
nexion either with England or with Normandy, accepted as a 
presage of the Conquest of England. Our usual English and 
Norman authorities record it aleo; but I have preforred to collect 
a few of the more remarkable entries in the annals of more distant 
countries, T will give some specimens from the writers of Ger- 
many, of Southern Gaul, and of Italy, 

‘The Chronicle of Saint Androw at Cambray (Ports, vii, 537) has 
a most remarkable entry ; 

“De bello in Anglia facto, Anno autem Dei Christi 1066 ad 
occidentalem plagum unus ex cometis ndmodum visu terribilis, 
erinitos radios velut flammigeras hastas emittens, veepere solem 
sequens per octodecim dies apparuit. Quod genus sideris quod 
erunt bella aut femem aut pestilentiam portenders solet. Hoc 
regui etiam mutationem ips suf apparitione preetignavit, Nam 
Wilelmas Normannorum Comes, porati non parva classe, assumpth 
magna militid, mare pertronsiit.” 

A short narrative of the Conquest of England follows, So the 
Chronicles of Conrad of Ursperg (p. ccxxaili,) and Ekkebard (Perts, 
vi. 199) also directly connect the comet with William's expedition, 
of the results of which they give a very exaggerated account ; 

“A.D, 1066, Cometes por totum orbem diu apparuit, Kodem 
anno Anglif per Willihelmum Nortmarmicum miserabiliter aMiet& 
tandemque subactd, ipse rex ejus effectus eat. Qui mox omnes 
pene rojgat ejuadem presules exsilio, nobiles voro mort, deatinnyit, 
modioeres autem suis militibus in servitutem, uxores i 
universorum ndvenis in matrimonium mubjugavit” Bishop Otto 
of Freisingen (vi. 45) speaks somewhat in the same spirit; “Anno 
ab incarnstionc Domini mixvi. stella que comotes dicitur visa 
effecta non caruit. Eodem enim anno Guilhelmus Nortmannis 
comos Britanniam majorem, que nunc Anglia dieltur, ocelao rege 
ejus Heruldo, expugnavit, totaque in servitutem redacta provincia, 
ac Northmannis ibi positis, illo tempore regnayit,” 


646 APPENDIX. 


Abbot Hugh's Chronicle of Verdun (Labbé, 1. ro4) saya,“ Mil- 
Tesimo quoque txy. anno, Ind. fii. stella que cometes dicitur 
apparuit, et eodem anno Etuuardas Angl. Rex obiit” (Seo the rest 
of the passage in p. 606.) 

Still more distinct ia the Chronicle of Saint James at Litttich 
(Pertz, xvi, 639; Bouquet, xi. 294); “Cometes apparuit, quie 
bellum Augliw portendit, quem Guillehnus Normannorum Comes, 
ips cum Rege suo Hero [sic] gravissimd cwde muletatd, vi 
militari corripuit, reguumque victor obtinuit.” 

Adam of Bremen we have almost learned to look on as a writer 
Scandinavian rather than German, He (iii. 50, 51) connects the 
comet with English affairs, but he docs not give them the pro- 
cedonce. He first mentions the death of Godescale (uee vol. i. py. 
726) and other events nearer home, and then adds, 

“Et, nisi fallor, hve maln nobis ventura significavit Me horsibilis 
cometa qui isto epparuit anno circa dics paschm Eodem quogue 
tempore clades illa memorabilis in Anglifi facta ert, oujus maguitudo, 
et quod Anglia Donix ex antiquo subjecta est, summan nos 
eventuum prmterire non sinit.” 

He then goes on with that short sketch of English affairs, from 
which I have several times had occasion to quote plocomeal. 

Other German accounts which connect the comet with England 
will be found in tho Annales Blandinionaes (Pert, v, 26), in the 
Annales Formoselonses (vy. 36), in the Annales Wireiburgenses: 
(ii 245, “A. 1066. Cometa videtur; et Anglia a Normannis 
mubjicitur”), in the Annales Bosuonses (ii. 249, "A. 1066. Stella 
cometes apparnit, et co anno Rex Anglorum Haroaldus occiditur"), 
and in Marianus (Pertz, ¥. 559), whose curious account of this year 
L have often had occasion to quote. See aleo Sigehert (vi. 361) 
and the Saxon Annolist (vi, 694), who oddly describes William 
as “filias Hlius Roberti quem Ricardus comes Nortmannorum €x 
sorore Knut Regis Danorum genuerat.” 

‘To these German writers I muy add the Pole Diugoss, the latest 
in time and also the most distant from England. He tolls us (i. 
260, od, Leipzig, 1711); “Cometes stella in occidentem facem 
dirigens spparait, plura mala quibas et Almania et Britaxnia 
regiones aici fucrant desiguaus, In Britannia, que ounc Anglia 
dicitar, Rex Kraldus occiditur, eb in Almanifi principes varie 
caxlibus in se debacchantur.” 


L =" 


THE COMET OF 1066. 6a7 


Of German writers who do not connect the comet with England 
Tmay mention Berthold (Porta, v. 273) and Bernold (v, 428). 
But the most remarkable eatery is that of Lambert (1066), who 
connects the comet with English affairs, but looks on it oa pre- 
saging, not Senlac, but Stamfordbridge ; 

“In festin paschalibus per quatuordecim fere noctes continuns 
vometa upparebat. Quo in tempore atrox et lacrimabile nimis 
protium factum est in partibus Aquilonis, in quo Rex Angli- 
sexonum tres reges cum infinite corum exercitu uaque ad interne 
cionem delevit." (On these three Kings seo Note FF.) 

Tn the Annales Altahenses (Ports, xx. 817), which gives so many 
notices of English affairs, the writer seems not quite certain whether 
to connect the comet with England or not; “Tribus proximis diebus 
ante paschs per totam Ttaliam stella quedam mire mognitudinis 
apparebat, que radium unum in modum haste versus orientem 
mitiecbat. Post pascha autem in diebus rogationum, non per Italian 
solum, sed jam per totum regnum, stella cometa apparuit ot per 
qnatuordecim dies magno miraculo intuentibus fuit.” ‘The writer 
seems to connect it with the sickness of Henry the Fourth, but he 
presently mentions the Conquest of England, and adds, “ Quidam 
etiam interpretabantur, idcireo stellam crinitam tam terribilem 
pridem exarsisse, quod tot millis hominum eodem anno pericre.” 

‘Turning to Southern Gaul, the Chronicle of Saint Maxentins 
(Labbé, ii 211) not only connects the comet with England, but 
yentures to give a rash judgement in a matter of English constitu- 
tional law; “1066, Stella cometes apparuit. Willermus comes, 
filius Roberti supradicti comitis Normannim, transiens mare con- 
flixit cum Airando, psendo-regs Anglorum, quem devicit cum ips 
gente, et torram eamdem in suam ditionem recepit.” Another 
Aquitanian Chronicler, William Goilll, is less certain about the 
matter (Bonquet, xi. 284); “ Hoc anno cometes apparuit in vigilia 
Sanctd Marci, significans fortasse abundantiam effusi Christian) 
sanguinis quam terra in regno Anglorum abeorbuit." See also the 
Chronicle of Saint Benignus at Dijon (Pertz, v.42), and that of the 

Chalons (Labbé, i. 296). The Rheims Chronicle 
(Labbé, i 360) throws its notice af the year into two hexameters, 
which appear in a great number of form ; 

“Sexagenus emt rextun willeedirux annum, 

Quum pereunt Angli stellé monstrante comets,” 





THE COMET OF 1066, 649 


‘The fourteen days of Wace (11462) and the fifteen of William of 
Jumidges (vii. 31) and Benott (36778) doubtless mean the same 
thing, according to the usual French idiom. And, aa the sven 
days of the English Chronicles and Sigebert (vi, go1) would, accord~ 
ing to the same idiom, be eight, I cannot but think that the eighteen 
days of the Cambray annaliat are owing to a confusion between 
the two accounts. If 0, we have only two statements, one of a 
week, the other of a fortnight. ‘Tho latter resta on the authority 
of Lambert and of William of Jumitges; the French metrical 
writers simply follow William. ‘The poot of the Draco Normannious 
(i. 1249) cuts the time down to five days, fora reason of his own ; 
“ Hujas temporibus reeplendult ipes comuta, 
‘CujuK ah igne nove Neustris clam nitet, 
‘Nam simul hwo ratilane erines detorquot In Anghos ; 
‘Mirantur populi, Gallia Lota stupet. 
‘Nam jubarix tanti nitor arlet quinque debs, 
Ut reor hine quintas rex rudiabit ai." 


‘This is of course a compliment to Henry the Second. 


Some notice of this comet will he found in Chambery’ Descrip- 
tive Astronomy, pp. 281-3, for sending mo to which, and for somo 
other hints, T have to thank Professor H. J. 8, Smith It seems 
to be that which is called Hulle’s Comet, which has since appeared 
iu 1145, 1223, 1301, £378, 1456, 1538, 1682, 1759, and 1835. 
‘The appearance in 1145 is mentioned in the Angevio Chronicle in 
Labbé,{, 277, and in the Tewkesbury Annals for 1144 (Luard, Ann. 
Man, & 46), where it may possibly be connected with Stephen's 
wars, The appearance of 1223 {6 mentioned in the Rouen 
Chronicle (Labbé, i. 374) under 1222; “Hoo anno visa est stella 
cironm oocasum solis Decembrilis, primm magnitudinis, ardens velat 
focula, radios eurcum erigens, et in acatum velut iv conum colligens 
terme vicina videbatur, quod aliquod prodigium portenders fere- 
batur. Hane dicehant esse cometam.” It must also have appeared 
in ot2 and 989, but I do not find those appearances mentioned in 
our Chronicles, though cometa are mentioned in 905 or 906, 975, 
and 995 

Dr. Bruce (p. 86) quotes Mr. Hinde for the fuct, which waa also 
mentioned to me by Professor Smith, that the comet of 1066 ix 
‘montioned in the Chinese annale, Mr, Chambers tells us that thoy 









compartment and that which comes next after it, 


With regard to comets in general, and 
Gyented a1 25635 ea. Varo (i loa a a 
Geata Annalia, v. p. 258, ed. Sleno; “ Cometa | 
omni tempore sed maxime contra obitum rogi 
excidium apparens regionis. Cum ea cum | 
fulgens upparuerit regale nunciat letum. Si aut 








a» 


THE MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM AND MATILDA. 651 


NOTE 0. p.80. 
‘Tue Marntacy oy Wrnttam axp Maritpa. 


‘Tar William's marriage with Matilda was forbidden by papal 
authority, and that the papal dispensation for the marriage did 
not iseue till some years after the marriage had been celebrated, 
are facts which have long been known, But tho remarkable 
Paper which Mr, Stapleton wrote in 1846 in the Archmological 
Journal (iil, 1) threw a new light on the whole matter. The 
essay, like all Mr. Staploton’s writings, is brimful of curious 
learning, but, as usual, his power of arranging and making use of 
his facts is by no moans equal to his diligence and acuteness 
in bringing them together. 

Mr. Stapleton’s propositions, ax far as T can disentangle them, 
are three ; 

First, that Matilda, before hor marriage with William, was 
mother of two children, Gerbod and Gundrads, whore father was 
Gerbod, known as the Advocate of Saint Bertin. 

Secondly, That the ecclesiastical opposition to the marriage of 
William and Matilda was not owing—at loast not wholly 
—to any consanguinity or affinity between them, but to the fiact 
that Matilda, at the time of William's courtship, had o husband 
still living. 

‘Thirdly, That the delay in the celebration of the marriage wus 
caused by the necessity of obtaining « divorce, 

‘Of these three propositions Mr. Stapleton has, I think, con- 
vinoingly made out the first; the second and third I cannot accept. 


‘That Gundrada, the wife of Earl William of Warren, was the 
daughter of Matilda, but not the daughter of King William, is 
maanifest from the language employed by Earl William in bis grant 
to the Priory of Lowes (Stapleton, Arch. Journ. HL, a4; Mouas- 
ticon, v.12). Ho makes his gifts 

“Pro slate anima mew ct anime Gundrade oxoris mew et 
pro anima domini mei Willelmi Regis, qui me in Anglicam terram 
adduxit, ct por cujus licentiam monachoa venire feci, et qui meam 
Priore donationem confirmavit, ot pro salute domina mae 
Matildis Regine, matris wxoris mew, ot pro ralute domini mei 


THE MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM AND MATILDA, 653 


but it doca not prove them to have been children of the some 
father. It is plain why those two only among Matilda's children 
are spoken of. Henry was the reigning King, Gundrada wus the 
local benefiactress. 

‘Tho documentary evidence then seems distinctly to show that 
Gundrada was the daughter of Matilda, but not the daughter of 
William, Ono charter plainly implies that she was #0; the others 
do not imply the contrary. But this is not all. ‘There are two 
passages of Orderic, both quoted by Mr, Stapleton, which imply 
‘that Gundrada had a brother Gerbod, and that neither of ther 
was son or daughter of William. Mr. Blasuw answore that Or- 
deric’s authority is weak on this point, as he stumbles, if be does 
not contradict himself, in his whole account of William's daughters. 
Now certainly, if Orderie simply left out Gundrada in « list of 
William's daughtors, the omimion would prove nothing whatever 
aguinst the least direct proof that she was hix daughter. But it 
proves much more, when Orderic speaks of her incidentally in » 
way in which it ia quite impossible that he should have spoken of 
a daughter of William, and when he gives her a brother whom no 
man ever for a moment fancied to be Willinm’s son. In one of 
these two places (522 C) Orderic tells us that William the Con- 
queror gavo the earldom of Surrey “Guillelmo de Guarenna, qui 
Gundredam sororem Gherbodi conjugem habuit.” Nor does it 
make much difference that the grant of the earldom was really 
made not by William the Conqueror but by William Bufus. 
(See Orderic himself, 680 ©.) In the other place (s22 A; 
ef, 598 A) Orderic recounts the adventures of “Gherbodus 
Flandrensia,” his investiture with the earldom of Chester, his 
return to his own country, and his misfortunes thers, Tt is 
lear that Orderic did not look on Gundrada as a daughter 
of William ; sho was in his eyes eimply the sister of Gerbod. 
Gundrada and Gerbod were therefore, beyond oll doubt, chil- 
dren of Matilda, bat they were not children of William, Bat 
I do not understand Mr, Stapleten when (pp. 20, 25) he 
gives them another brother, and Matilda another son, named 
Frederick. He must have been thinking of the Frederick whobs 
existence he had himself established in p, 3. But this Frederick, 
ay uppears from Domesday, 196 }, was brother, not of Gundrada, 
but of her husband Williom of Warren, Still less is there any 


THE MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM AND MATILDA. 655 


‘of Saint Bertin had rather fierce disputes. See the narrative in the 
Cartulary, p. 183, and Count Buldwin's charter, pp. 184, 185. 

T therefore accept the murrings, but the theory of the divores 
seems to me quite untenable on every ground. It is remarkable 
enough that no hint should be found in any contemporary writer 
‘thot Matilda had been married before her marriage with William, 
and that we are driven to infer the fact from the language of 
charters and from the most casual indications elsewhere, But we 
have more than one parallel case in Norman history. The Norman 
writers are altogether eilont about the marriage between Duke 
Robert and Estrith tho sistor of Cnut (so vol. i. p. 467). So again, 
we should never have known from the Eacomiast of Einma that his 
heroine ever was the wife of Athelred. In his courtly pages the sister 
of Doke Richard is a virgin (soo vol. ip. 723) when she marrios 
Cnut. So in the Norman writers Matilda is ever the daughter of 
Baldwin, never the widow of Gerbod, And, as Emma is called 
virgo, #0 Matilda is called puella, pucelle, demoivell. But, if she 
iw never called the widow of Gorbod, still loss is she called his wife. 
Tn the case of Cout and Emma, we know the real facts from the 
testimony of both English and Norman writers, Tn the case of 
‘William and Matilda, the Norman writers, in the silence of the 
English, have it all their own way, and we are left to the evi- 
donce of the documents, The English writers are silent through 
indifference; the Norman writers are ailent through design. 
‘The best informed of all, Willlam of Poitiers, leaves out the fact 
that there was any opposition to the marriage at oll, But, if 
William's marriago had been, not simply irregular or uncanonical, 
but a glaring act of adultery, done in open dofiance of a papal 
command, it is hardly conceivable that so astounding a fact ehould 
have failed to find any chronicler, 

Again, it may perhaps soem strange if William, when in search of 
9 wife, chose a widow with children rather than any of the princely 
maidens who, we are told, were to be had for the asking. But it 
would be far stranger if, with so wide a field before him, his choice 
lighted oo the married wife of another man. Would the wise 
men of Normandy have recommended such a step? Would Count 
Baldwin have consented to expose his daughter to «ch open shame? 
Would the papal prohibition of the marriage have taken the form 

ich it did take (see above, p. 90)? Would Pope Teo and the 


THE MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM AND MATILDA. 657 


Lizelenborg.” Gen, Com, Fland,, Pertz, ix. g18. Cf. Moreri, art. 
Flandre, and the Art de Vérifier los Dates, iii 4.) This is doubt~ 
lows the “ Otgiva” or “ Odgiva comitissa” who died in to3zo or 
1031 (Ann. Blandiniensos and Formoselenses, Portz, v. 26, 35), 
only five or six years before Baldwin's doath. Oudogherst (Annales 
de Flandre, 63, 67, 75), who calls her Ognie and Odgona, has much 
to say about her, and about her son's wonderful birth when she 
was fifty years old. However all this may be, it sooms perfectly 
clear thet Matilda was not the granddaughter of any daughter of 
Richard the Good. Failing Richard the Good, I cannot suggest 
any other common ancestor for William and Motilda, but it is 
quite pomible that the marriage of William's aunt with Matilda's 
grandfather may havo been held to croate some kind of affinity 
between William and Matilda, 

Prevost, in his note on Wace (ii. 60), has a suggestion of the 
same kind, nomoly, that the canonieal impediment was the affinity 
arising from the fact that Matilda's mother, Adela of France, 
had been married, or rather betrothed, to Willinn’s uncle, Richard 
the Third (cf. Palgrave, ili. 264). Again I am not canonist enough 
to say whether this would really have been any hindrance to » 
marriage between Richard's nephew and Adela’s danghter; but 
there seems to be no doubt that Richard the Third was marrisd 
or contracted to Adela, daughter of King Robert. His mnrriage 
contract with ou Adela, dated ro26, in which he endows her with 
large possessions, mainly in the Cétentin, is printed in D'Achery, 
Spicileginm, iii, 390, and Liequet, Hist. de Normandie, ii. 269 
(see also Palgrave, iii, 137). M. Liequot (ii, §) maintains that 
this Adela is not King Robert's daughter, but some unknown wife 
of the name, whom he holds to have been the lawful mother of 
the monk Nicolas (see ubove, p. 381, and vol. i, p. 464). His 
chief grounds for this belief are that Adela is not described as the 
King’s daughter, and that the words of the deod ( annulo mihi in 
caruis unitate jungendam”) imply that the bride was already a 
grown woman, whereas Adela the daughter of King Robert was, 
in 1026, a babe in her cradle, Now the deed is drawa up in 
a rhetorical style; “Domina Adela” is once addrossed in the vooa~ 
tive case, and that is the only mention of her name, though sho 
is told that she is “Joxta nobilitatis tum linea dotata." All this 
looks to me as if she was the King’s daughter, for whom the city 

VOU, 11, va 











authority of William of Jumidges, whieh | 
‘but which is in this case contradicted by da 





THE MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM AND MATILDA. 659° 


pediment. really was that Matilda had « hoeband living. Mr. 
Stoplaton's arguments, against chia view seem: singuleriy tncom- 
clusive, “The peculiarity of the birth of William the Conqueror,” 


‘Mr, Stapleton presently (p. 24) mentions the foundation of the 
abbeys, and adds with some triumph that “no papal bull attests 
that this ponance was enjoined merely for marrying within the 
degrees of kindred.” Still less does Mr, Stapleton produce any 
papal bull attesting that it was enjoined for a shameless and 
obstinate cours of adultery. 

‘There is indeed one other view, that maintained by M. Licquet 
(ii. 132) and followed by Mrs. Green (English Princeeses, i. 4), 
namely that there was no real impediment to the marriage from 
either kindred or affinity, but that, Pope Teo simply forbade the 
marriage on political grounds, Leo, the firm friend of the Em- 
peror, did not wish to strengthen eo doubtful a vassal of the 
Empire os Baldwin (see vol. ii p. 97) by #0 close » connexion 
with the Duke of the Normans, This is unlikely in itself and 
unsupported by evidence. Even papal authority could hardly go 
so far as to forbid a marriage to which thoro was no canonical 
objection ; and if Leo did so, a prohibition arising from a tempo- 
rary political cause would not huve been so rigidly maintained by 
80 many successive Pontiffs. And the place which the prohibition 
holds among the acte of the Council distinctly shows that it was 
aimed agninst an intended breach of the ecclesiastical law of mar- 
riage. Tt comes in the middle of a series of citations and ex- 
communications, all aimed at offeuders of that class, and among 
which merely political prohibition would bo strangely out of 
place. M. Liequet, like Mr, Stapleton, appeals to the silence of the 
Pope ns to the motive of the prohibition. This silence is a difli- 

wae 


3 


acts of the Council is enough to show i 
a widow for his bride, he only acted 
men of his century, Eadmond, Cout, 
~ helped to deprive of their kingdoms. — 
exactly forestulled William happened just | 


widowed cousin (seo vol. i, p. PRY 

worried by ecclesiastical censures out: of his wife, 4 
of his life also, Cilia eee 
gained his point in the end in the tecth o 

and Council. 


‘The date of the marriage is not given 
writers, They ull do their best to elur over th 
‘ties about the marringe, and they would fain 
Matilda was won as soon as wooed. ‘The date 1 
the Tours Chronicle (Bouquet, xi, 348), and 
hotter authority, I do not eee that we can do. 
it, Ib alao falls in singularly well, as Mir. Stap 
the date of th exptvlty of Pope Tp (ede story 


do not really fix the marrisge to 1063, He has. 
the death of Geoffrey Martel and other matters, ‘Ine 
of Geoffrey in 1060 or 1061. Ho then, in his us a 
the opportunity to enlarge on the greatness and 





a, 


THE MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM AND MATILDA. 661 


Normandy and its Dako about this time, and goes on to tell us of 
his wife and children. But there is nothing bearing on the date 
of the marriage, 


Lought to mention that the Chronicle of Tours, the only one 
which gives the date of the TARAS Se SRS ates 
William's courtship; 

“Tune Guilldhnus Dux Normannioe Mathildem, fliam Balduini, 
Comitis Flandri, duxit in wxorem, in hune modum. Qnum ipan 
@ patre suo de sponso reeipiendo smpius rogaretur, eique Guillelmus 
Normanniwe # patre suo, gui eum longo tempare nutrierat, pro: nliis 
loudaretur, respondit, numquam nothum recipere se maritum. Quo 
audito, Guillelmus Dux clam apud Brugis, abi puella morabatar, 
cum paucis sccelerat, eamque regrodientem ab ecclesia pagnis, cal- 
cibus, et calearibua verberat: ot castigat, sieque ascenso equo eum suix 
in patriam remeat, Quo facto, puella dolens ad lectum decubat, ad 
quam pater voniens, illnm do sponso recipiendo interrogat: ot ro- 
guirit, qum respondens dicit, se nunquam babere maritum nisi 
Guillelmum Ducem Normannia quod et factum est.”—Chron, 
Turon. Bouquet, xi. 348. 

‘This tale is found also in the French riming Chronicle of Philip 
de Mouskos, a writer of the thirtoonth century (ii. 174, ed, Brussels, 
1838). Matilda is thus deseribod 5 

. < WQuone do Flandres avoit Et moult eatoit biele ot wallans 


‘Ue file qul moult mara Sage courtoino ct bion parlans.” 
(, 16902.) 
To the first offer of marriage her answer ix thus given ; 
“Le demabelle vint ayant Salm milous otro nonne velbo 
‘Si Jour respond! maintenant: Que jon tole i bastart donnie.” 


(y, 16952.) 

‘William then goes to Lille; 

* Tout droit A Lille vint { Jour 

U As puciete ort w sojour.” 
Matilda is thronghout called “puciele” and "demoiselle”" William 
then kicks and beats ber, much as in the story in the Tours 
Chronicle, and her consent is given in much the same way. 

‘The remarkable thing about this tale is that it ix evidently « 

myth which has fastonod itself upon William ia several forms, aod, 
I suspect, on Harold also, The story of William beating or 


‘breast, and sho died (* Enn er hann sé pat, pi a8 
‘mod hmlinom, oc setti sporan fyri bridst henni, vo 


fell hou vid oc feck bana"), And this agin, I ca 
ing, is the same as William of Jumidges’ story (vil. 31 
star i las hans eae aA ° 
(see p. 438). ‘The tale of » King kicking or beating 
mothen-was afloat, aii waa ony to AD/tbe 
of either William or Harold. 

Ono more point ia euggorted to mo by tho 





THE MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM AND MATILDA. 663 
York, wae natura} soin of the Conqueror I shall sponk in my next 
volume. 


The mention of Matilda suggesta the name of her aunt Judith, 
the wife of Tostig, who is commonly spoken of as her sister (ree 
vol. ii, p. 132). ‘The Biographer of Eadward (404) distinctly speaks 
of her as the sistor of Baldwin the Fifth, and moreover as the niece 
of Endward. “Tostinus sortitus est uxorem Juthittam, neptem 
ipsius clarissimi Regis Adwardi, et xarorem predicti Comitia 
Buldewini.” This statement is opposed to that of Florence (1051), 
who speaks of Judith as Baldwin's daughter, and two passages of 
Orderic. In one place (638 C) he reckons the daughters of Baldwin 
and Adela ns “Mathildis Regina Anglorum et Judithn, Tostict 
ducis uxor.” Elsewhere (492 D, see p. 304) he says of William 
and Tostig, “duss sorores, per quaa amicitia ampe recaleacebat, in 
conjugio habebant.” Orderic is followed by Alberic in the thir- 
teenth century, who gives (p. 98) Baldwin and Adela three sons, 
Baldwin, Robert, and Philip, and two daughters, “Judith, quam 
nupsit Tosticus comes Nordanubriorum in Anglid, ct Mathildem 
prodictam Normannorum ducitsam.” She is alvo called Baldwin's 
daughter by two writers of the fiteenth century, who recon’ her 
second marriage with Duke Welf of Bavaria. Botho in his Picture 
Chronicle of Brunswick (Leibnits, ili, 325) says of Baldwin (whom 
by the way he confounds with his son, marrying him to Richilds 
Peaster iene peers ta, 
Konigh Heroden in Engelant, dar wart se gebeten Wichanda, 
nam ¢ dar ns Hertoghen Wolpy den olden in Beyeren.” a 
honest Nether-Dutch ia pleasant to read, but it is strange to make 
Judith the wife of Harold—degraded into Horod—instead of Tostig. 
But Botho repeats the statement in p. 327, nor does he stand alone 
in it In Arenpeck’s Bavarian Chronicle (Leibnitz, iii, 66) we 
read of Wolf, how “aocopit Reginam Anglis, tunc viduam, filiam 
seilicet Balduini nobilissimi comitis Flandrim, Juditham,in uxorem.’: 
‘These accounts aro of course simply amusing, but wo shall presently 
seo that, as for their chief blunders, they sin in decent company. 

Florence then and Orderic are the only carly authoritics who 
call Judith a daughter of Baldwin the Fifth, And the authority of 
Orderic is lessened by a manifest error which he has fallen into 
with regurd to Baldwin's family. He makes him (526 C) the father 


= 


THE QUARREL OF WILLIAM AND LANFRANC. 665 


1032 or 1033, Matilde, the daughter of parents married in 1027, 
may well have been older, 

We have here, I think, ancther proof of the necuracy of the 
Biographer in matters coring within his own province, and that in 
a case where his statement seemed, ot first sight, puzzling and 
suspicious, I do not however know why he calls her Fansta, or 
why the Brunswick picture-chronioler calls her Wichands. Judith 
‘was an obvious name for her, baing that of her maternal grand- 
mother the wife of Duke Richard, Possibly, as Miss Yonge 
suggenta (Christian Namos, ii. 345), this Hebrew name, in its form 
of Jutta, may havo got confounded with the Northern Gythn. 


NOTE P. p. 103. 


Tre Quannm axp Rucoxcrtation or Winttam ax 
Lanrnaxo, 


‘Two different stories are told of the canse which led to William's 
order for the banishment of Lanfranc, which led to the cloner friond- 
ship between them, In the story in Lanfranc's Life (287 Giles) the 
story is told as I have given it in the text, The Duke's wrath 
is kindled becouse of Lanfrands opposition to his marriage ; 
“Mandat ut monasterio exturbetur, patria discedat, Lanfrancus. 
Nec motus animi sui hie vindict& sedare valens, mandavit juris 
monasterii villam, que parcus dicitur, flammis excidi.” (On the 
worl Park, eee Earle, Parallel Chronicles, p. 323.) And in page 
288 we read, “Hujus tam improvide jussionis causeom agunt, 
quod idem Lanfraneus contradicebat nuptiis filim comitie Flandriw, 
quam ipse sibi dux copulavernt in matrimonio, quia proxi’ carnis 
consanguinitate jungebatur.” (80 Chron. Bece. 198.) This story 
goes on to say how the banished Prior set out on a horse which 
went on three legs, because the house had none that was better 
(“quia melior non habebatur, tripes equas quarto pede inutili ili 
tribuitar”), and accompanied by one servant, He meets the Duke; 
“ Protinns qua ille discedebat duci obviua venienti appropinquans.” 
‘The meeting may have been accidental, or Lanfranc may have gone 
Ly a way where he was likely to meet William, but I cannot think, 
with Dr, Hook (ii. 93), that “ Lanfranc directed his steps to Rouen, 
where ho probably had been eurmoned to appear before the dake,” 





THE CHILDREN OF WILLIAM AND MATILDA. 667 


pa eda de Binet Bs ME WIS he 
him "Ricardus, filins ejus, qui post Rodbertum natus 

Bir Fras Pelgease oe? eee Wea tpmkgt anal 
(iii, 254) he called him “ the fourth son.” 

Bat shout the daughters, their number, names, and order, the 
statements are most contradictory. 1 will first of all set forth 
the different accounts of the early writers. 

All that William of Poitiors tella us (120) is that two brother 
Kings of Spain sought for a daughter of William in marriage, 
whore namo is not givon, and that they greatly disputed about. her. 
‘Of the promise or offer of a daughter to Harold he says nothing 
directly, though he alludes to it in a later parnage (145). 

William of Jamitges (vii. 21) only ayn that William had four 
doughters, without giving their names. His eontinustor (viii, 34) 
also reckons up four. First (*primogenita''), Cecily, Abbess of 
Caen, Second, Constance, wife of Alan Fergant of Britanny. 
‘Third, Adelaide [Adelidie], who was betrothed to Harold, but diet 
unmarried (“Heraldo proditori ante bellum Anglicum sponsata, 
sed, illo dign morte muletato, nulli mupta, virgo jam mnbilis 
obiit”). Fourth, Adela, wife of Stephen of Blois. 

Onderio gives no lese than four lists. The first time (484 D) he 
simply gives the names of four daughters, Adeliza, Constance, Cecily, 
and Hidula. ‘The second time (512 D) the number is raised to 
five, and the names are Agathe, Constance, Adeliza, Adela, and 
Cecily. Tho third time (573 C) he gives little biographies of 
four danghters. rat, Agatha, betrothed first to Harold, then to 
Amfarcius [Alfonso] of Galicia, but who died a virgin, anid, 
Adelaide [Adelidis], who lived, seemingly as a nun, under the care 
of Roger of Beaumont (‘“Adolidia pulcherrima virgo. jam nubilis 
devote Deo se commendavit, et sub tuteld Rogeri de Bellomonte 
wancto fine quievit”). 3rd, Constance, wife of Alan Fergunt [Fer 
gonnus]. 4th, Adela, wife of Stephen, The fourth time (638 D) 
he gives » mere list, with the eame namca na in the second but in a 
diferent order, Agatha, Adeliza, Constance, Adela, and Cecily. He 
also (511 A) says that a daughter of William, whose name he does 
nob mention, was promised in marriage to Barl Eadwine. 

William of Malmesbury (iii. 276) mys expressly that William 
had five daughters. tat, Cecily tho Abbesa, who was living 
when he wrote—he wrote therefore before 1126. and, Constance. 


5 


of Malmesbury (iii. 238) pute into Harold's 


oa Y 





THE CHILDREN OF WILLIAM AND MATILDA. 669 


of the messages which passed between him and William, namely 
that the maiden to whom he had been betrothed had died before 
his election to the Crown (‘‘liberatum se sacramento asserens, quod 
filia ¢jus quam desponderat citra nubiles annos obierat”), Fam 
sorry nevertheless to give up Onteric’s (673 C, D) very pretty 
story, which recalls (or reverses) the well-known ballad of the 
Spanish Lady's Love, She had seen and loved Harold, and pre- 
ferred death rather than to give herself to another and an unknown 
bridegroom. But there is also the difficulty of the extreme youth 
of any daughter of William wt any time to which we can assign 
Harold's visit. I cannot think, with Baron Maseres (103), that 
tho betrothed of Harold was Cecily. 

According to Wace, the Adeliza or Adelaide betrothed to Harold 
was the same as Adels, afterwarde Countess of Blois, The two 
names, both coming from the adel or eel root, might easily be 
confounded, and it would not be difficult to suppose that Harold's 
betrothed had been on the one hand mistaken for the betrothed 
of Alfonso, and ou the other hand divided into two, Adela and 
Adcliza. But all the other accounts seem pointedly to distinguish 
between Adela and the betrothed of Harold, whether she were 
called Adeliza or not. 

I need not discuss the theory according to which Mr. Blaauw 
and Mr, Thorpe (Lappenberg, Norman Kings, 215) make the 
Matilda of Domesday the same as Gundrada; but a view put forth 
by Mra. Green (Princesses, i 16, 407), who has gone minutely into 
the matter, is better worth examining. She holds thut Matilda 
and Agathe are the same, that the name of Agatha is a mistake of 
Orderic, that this is tho daughter who was betrothed to Eadwine, 
and that the story of her attachment to Harold arose from con- 
founding one English lover with another. Again, by gaining the 
three or four years between the visit of Harold and the betrothal 
to Endwine, the difficulty as to oge is got over. Mra, Green's 
suggestion is at least ingenious. But I do not see the evidenos 
for giving the name Matilda to the daughter who was promised to 
Eadwine. 

Mr. Planché (Conqueror and his Companions, i, 86) firat starts, 
and then himself answers, n theory according to which Matilda and 
Constance are the sume. He gives exnot dates for the births of all 
the daughters, which I om unable to follow. 


THE REVOLT OF WILLIAM BUSAC. 671 


following postages may be referred to on this point, which does 
‘not greatly concern my history. Will. Gem. iv. 18, vii. 2, vill. 375, 


there is of his brothers Robert and Hugh. Still it seems hardly 
possible wholly to reject William's existence and his investiture 
with the County of Soissons, which is so clearly asserted by 
William of Jumitges, and which, from the farther details given 
in the Art de Vérifier les Dates, must, I conceive, rest on other 
authoritios which I have not at hand, The chief difficulty in tho 


Robert and Hugh—I should have been inclined to think that 
William Busse was the eldest brother, that he inherited the 
county, and that Rebert succeeded to it on William's exile, Bub 
this viow seoms forbidden by the words “borum medius ;” and we 
also find Robert's name with the title of “Comes de Ou” attached 
toa charter drawn up “tempore quo discordia cenit inter ipsum 
[comitem Willelmum)] ot Henricum Regem Francorum,” (Cart, 
de Saint Bertin, Puris, 1840, p. 426. ‘Tho signature of * Willelmus 
de Ou,” attached to an earlier charter on the same page, belongs of 
course to the elder William.) We must suppose then that William 
Burac contrived to occupy his brother's castle by some underband 
‘means and to defend it against the Dake. 


Tn accepting the account of this revolt given by William of 
Tumidges T do not profess to fix its exact date, or to add any 
details beyond much as are found in his narrative. From the point 
‘at which be brings in the story, it would scem to have 
betwoon the affair of William the Warling and the marriage of 
Dake William, that is, between 1048 and 1053. But, os William 
of Jumiéges puts the courtship and marriage of William together as 
if there bad been no delay between them (gee above, p. 85, note 4), 
it ia quite possible that he means to fix the revolt to 1049 or there. 








THR REVOLT OF WILLIAM OF ARQUES, 673 


NOTE 8. p. 120. 
‘Tar Revorr or Wrertam or Argues, 


‘Tinnn is a singular difference among our authorities ax to the 
date of the revolt of Count Willian of Arques, William of Poitiers, 
Orderic, and William of Malmesbury put it at the point where 
L bave put it in the text. But in William of Jumitges and Waco 
it comes much earlier, immediately after Duke William's recovery 
of Palsise from Thurstan Gox (vee vol. ii. p. 203), some years earlier 
than the battle of Val-ts-dunes. There is no doubt that the later 
date is the right one, In the narrative of William of Poitiers, the 
story comes in in what is evidently ita natural order, immediately 
before the French invasion of 1054. The personal action of the 
Duke himself, now evidently in fall manhood, secms inconsistent: 
with the carlior date, as docs also the prominent position of Guy- 
Geoffrey of Poitiers, who in 1044 (see vol, ii, p. 622) was 
“‘parvulux” ‘The story is alto fixed to 1053 by the death of 
Tngelram of Ponthiew and the euccession of his brother Guy. See 
Axt de Vérifior loa Dates, ii. 7g2. At tho earlier date the elder 
Tngelram was reigning, 

Besides this differance in date, the narratives of William of 
Poitiers and of Wace differ » good deal in the order of events, 
though I do not sce any further contradiction between the two 
versions. I have therefore, while forming my narrative mainly on 
that of William of Poitiers, not serupled to bring in some touches 
of detail from Wace which seemed to bear marks of authenticity. 

In the order which I haye followed, Duke William requires 
his uncle to surrender hin caxtlo, and he himself puts a garrison 
in it, The garrison then restore the castle to William of Arques, 
who openly revolts. Duke William hears the news at Valognes, 
he hastens to Arques, meets a party of loyalists from Rouen, fights 
a party of the rebels before the gates of the castle, and then 
blockades it. Ho then leaves the blockading force under Walter 
Giffard. King Henry comes to help William of Arques, and he 
falls into an ambush, where Count Ingelram is slain and Hugh 
Bordulf taken prisoner, The King retires; the Duke returns; 
William of Arques surrenders the castle, and the other posts in 
Normandy held by the French are surrendered also. 

You. It. xx 


‘Rode tng tat nth: 
ale no an pot & i tonir, 


‘his is an evident exaggeration, adapted 





THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN WILLIAM AND HERBERT. 675. 


that, when I was at Arques, I forgot to explore the spot.) I have 
ventured to connect this mention of Saint Aubin with that which 
Orderi¢ gives (606 B, C) of Richard of Hugleville'x resistance 
at Saint Aubin. ‘This comes in a genealogical passage where the 
‘campaign of Arques ix spoken of only incidentally, and seems to me 
to be a case of quite independent testimony coinciding. 


NOTE T. p, 197. 


‘Tax AGRExKENT BeTWREN WIKLIAM AND Henvgar ov 
Mame 


1 nave here made some changes in the text which have been 
suggested by a tract by Dr, H, Vattelet, “Der Konilikt Vilbelms 
des Eroberers mit seinem sone Robert and di Nachfolge im Eng- 
lisch-Normiiusischen Reiche im Tare 1087" (Zlirich, 1874 ; I keep 
the writer’s own spelling), to which there ie an appondix, “Der 
Kampf um Maine und das Ferhiiltnia Orderich Vitale zu Vilhelm 
fon Poiticra.” The writer there says in a note, 

“Fon zeltgenossen vi auch fou splitern wind di genealogischen 
ferbiltnisse des hauses Maine argunter einander gevorfen vorden, 
Froeman, Hist. of the Norman Conquest, iii, 199 #qqq, mocht aus 
dén tanten Herberts schovestern desselben.” 

That is to say, I tuke Gersendis, Paula, and Marguret for 
daughters of Hugh and sisters of the younger Herbert. So 
seemingly does Dr. Vattelet himself when he says (p. 40), “ Her- 
bert hatte aber noch di unferheiratete schvester Margureta binter- 
Inssen." But his remarks have more distinctly called my attention 
to the contradictory statements on this point, and be has brought 
out another point in the agreement between William and Herbert 
which I had not noticed as I ought, namely that Herbert was to 
murry a daughter of William, 

‘That Margaret, and therefore her sisters, were daughters of 
Hugh and sisters of the younger Herbert seems plain from the 
language of William of Poitiers (105); “Germanam Heriberto 
[Hereberti 1] ex partibus Teutonum sum munificentin maximis 
impensis adductam, usto suo conjugure decrevit, ub per cam ipse 
et progeniti ex ipso, jure quod null controversiA convelli poaset vel 

xXx2 


Moreover the biographer (307%) implies that | 
children of Hugh besides Herbert, who would 
younger daughters Pauls and Margaret, ax Ger 
must have been married some time before 1049. 
‘Margaret and her sisters were daughters of the elder H 


at least twenty-six in ro61, and Gersendis, whe 
not married till rogt at the earliest, had been m 


| 
= 





THE OATH OF HAROLD. 677 


away before ro49. T have no doubt then that Margaret was a 
sister and not an aunt of Herbert. Benoit (35790) erroneously 
makes her only his half-sister ; 
“ Herbert ayeit une soror 
Devern sa mnbro; eateit Ticks." 
The “Ticiso” comes from some misunderstanding of the “'Teu- 
tonum partes” in William of Poitiers, 

T do not know why Dr. Vattelet sends Margaret, while still 
alive, to somewhat strange quarters in the monastery of Fécamp. 
“Veil aber Robert noch nicht heiriitsfihig var und damit im 
Margareta nicht ontginge vurdo si in das kléster Fécamp goschikt,”’ 
She may likely enough have lived in the palace, but hardly in the 
abbey, though she was certainly buried in its church (see above, 
p. 214). 

On tho other hand I haye to thank Dr. Vattolet for bringing 
out clearly what I ovght to have noticed, namely the promise of a 
daughter of William—far be it from me to say which daughter 
—to Herbert, This clearly comes out in the passage of William 
of Poitiers quoted in p, x99, note 2, William of Malmesbury, 
iii. 236, speaks to the samo effoct ; 

© Cenomanix dudum a Martello succensa, et domino so Hugone 
private, tune nuper aliquantulum sub Herberto Hugonis filio 
respiraycrat: qui, ut tutior contra Andegnyensem cesct, Willelmo #0 
manibus dedernt, in qjus fidelitatem sacramento juratus; prieteren 
filiam ipsius petierat et despondernt, que priusquam nubilibus 
annis matura conjugio fierit, ille morbo decessit.” 


NOTE U. p. 227. 


Tux Bequest or Eanwanp To WiLLian anp THe Oar 
or Hanotn, 


‘Tax oath which, as William alleged, Harold had sworn to him, 
and the bequest which, ax he also alleged, Eadward had made in his 
favour, are two subjects every detail of which is shrouded in con- 
troverty nnd contradiction, and two subjects moreover which 
cannot be kept apart from one another. I have, both in the text 





1 
THE OATH OF HAROLD, 679 | 
the same oath which had been formerly taken by his futher, with 
‘the further security that it should be taken in William's presence, 
while Godwine and the rest had, on the former occasion, only 
bound themselves to him in his nbsence (“ut quod pater eas atque 
caeteri supranominati hic [in England] mihi juravere absenti, is ibi 
[in Normandy] prsens juraret presenti”), Eadward also, it would 
seom, wished to give William, before hie death, a further confirma- 
tion in his own name (\ graviore quam fuerat eautum pignore 
cavit.” 107). ‘The importance of binding Harold to the proposed 
succession is strongly set forth, alone could influence or con= 
strain the English people, who, it is implied, were very likely to 
disturb the orrangement (“et eum [Harnldam] quidem praden- 
tissime [destinavit], ut ipsins opes et auctoritas totus Anglicans 
gentis disensum coerverent, si rem novare mallent perfdi mobili~ 
tate, quant seve agent"). Harold is therefore sont on this errand ; 
he falls into the hands of Guy and is rescued by William, a I have 
deserlhed in the text. Fle makes his oath to William—ita terms T 
shall discuss at « later stage of this Note—and William looks on 
him as one who will most effectually win over the Baglish to his 
canso (“quem inter so et Anglos, quibus a Rege sccundus erat, 
mediatorom xperubat fidissimum.” 108). 

This ix the fall account given by the contemporary pnnegyrist 
of William. ‘Two things are to be noticed in it, us important 
admissions made by an enemy. First, the loyalty of Harold to 
Eadword, and the full friendship and confidence which existed 
between the King and the Earl, are implied throughout, in distinct 
contradiction of one form of Norman calumny. Secondly, there is 
throughout o recognition of the English people as a party likely to 
claim @ voice in the matter, and one whose voice, it is expected, 
will not be given on behalf of William. The epithets of abuse 
which the Norman panegyrist hurls at the heads of the English 
nation are in truth a epeaking witness to the popular character 
of the ancient Englieh government, 

‘William of Jumidges (vil. gx) tells essontinlly tho sume story. 
He says nothing about the counsel and the oaths of Stigand and the 
three Earls, but he tells us thet Eadward, finding himself childless 
(“disponente Doo successione prolis carens”), sent Archbishop 
Robert to announce to William bis intention of making him his 
heir (“olim miserat Willelmo duci Rodbertum Cantuariorum 





650 APPENDIX. 
archiprosulom, ex regno a Deo sibi attributo illum statuens 
hhwredom"). Afterwards he sends Harold, the most powerful 
Farl in hiv Kingdom, to confirm the bequest by oath, and to 
his own faith to the Duke (“deinde Heraldum cunctorum sus 
dominationis comitem divitiis et honore ao potentifi maximum 
duci destiziavit, ut el de corona suf fidelitatem faceret, ac Christiano 
‘more sacramentis firmaret”), The story then goes on as before. 
Orderic (492 A) tells the same story as William of Jumitges, 
with the sddition that the devise in favour of Duke William was 
made with the consent of the English nation; “ Eduardus nimirum 


secms to imply that the mission of the Archbishop and the mission 
‘of Harold happened in two consecutive years ; 
“Viarcovesque de Cantorbire, Zea uns avant, st cum je vus dis, 
14 plus haus hom de son empire, Por afarmer o» quit Ki done 
Out on Normendio tramis, ‘Tot le reautne @ 1s eorone.” 
vv, 36508-36883-), 
The poet of Draco Normannicus (i. 1295) must have had the 
same story in his head, only he somewhat strangely make William: 
say that Harold was sent to announce a dying bequest of Eadward ; 
4 EAwardus morlens mntht rox regui diadoms, 
Sivit ut heredi, juribus idque peto, 
Haraldum mist, firmanvur finders : earns 
Ponit onns, seoptrum parfdis isto eaplt.” 


It is really needless to refute this story. Some remarks on the 


nota to his "Hareld” (ii. 385), though I cannot conceive whatihe . 
means by saying (iii, 386) that “the Saxon Chroniclors ... unite 


tb | 


‘TARE OATH OF HAROLD. 6st 


Sn: relating Héwand’s warnings to\Hareld agaloet hia visit to the 


No one, I think, who goes carefully through the whole circum- 
stances of the talo as told by William of Poitiers, will, horitate to 
say, with Baron Masores, “there is reason to think it is'absolutely 
false,” or, with Lord Lytton, “this appears « fable wholly without 
foundation.” Here is a purely English matter, an act of the 
English Witan, o decd confirmed by the greatest mon of the 
Church and State of England, which reste solely on the assertion of 
an interested Norman writer, and of which no English chronicle or 
cartulary has preserved the slightest trace. ‘To make us believe 
that Leofric, 4hat Siward, that Stigand, that Godwino, that the 
wholo English people, ngreod to tho succession of William, we 
should accept no evidence short of the document bearing thelr 
signatures, strengthened by an entry in the Chronicles to show that 
the document might possibly be genuine, No statement was ever 
weighod down by » heavier burthen of internal improbability, An 
act done when Stigand was Archbishop and whon Godwine and the 
other Earls were atill living, must belaug to the few months between 
the appointment of Stigand to the archbishoprick at the Mickle 
Gemét of September, rogz and the death of Godwine at Koster, 
1053. It will not do to say that the title “archicpiseopi” is 
simply descriptive of the person, and that the act might have been 
done at a time when Stigand had not yet reached the archiepiscopal 
rank. For Stigand and the three Earls are clearly mentioned as 
being the four greatest men in the kingdom, which of course would 
not be the case at a time when Stigund was only a presbyter, or 
‘even the Bishop of an inferior se. ‘The devise then, if it was ever 
made at all, could have been made only within those few months, 
And, excopt in thoso later years when Harold's succession seems to 
have been looked upon as a settled thing (see vol. ii p. 663), no 
time can be found so unlikely as those few months for any act in 
favour of Willinm. No wilder assertion was ever made than that 
which represents the Witan of England, with Godwino at thoir 
head, a8 agreeing to, and even advising, the succession of the Nor- 
man Duke to the English Crown at the very moment of their great 
triumph over Norman favourites and Norman influence in England, 

So much for William of Poitiers. William of Jumitges, and 


BS> 























poople (tee vol. ii p. 329). ‘The story ax regards 
Teofric, and Siward is manifestly impossible ; 
‘porsitile as regards Harold. We have already: 
by the Norman writers as the richest and m¢ 


England, the sucecrsion waa, practically if 1 

in vor, int of the Atng Bawa od 
himself, The tale that Eadwant sent Han 
Gormley b s“eeratet TSG GER 
ie agian Sen eee N 
simply absurd and impossible. 

2 The second version, that in which 
guarantee the succession to William, but 
supposed hostages, his brother and nephew, ite 
view of the alleged bequest to William, In this acco 
ri se merctiarsm ti Hoe n 

Crary abbas nde he a 
after he became King. It comes out inci i 
mil are a em rly rene he rm 
And the anly evidence for this private eonve 
ward and William is another alleged private 
William and Harold. "Wot thie tory Seas Eb 
(sce vol. ii, p. 299), less grotesquely abeurd then th 
and it rests on better authority. It is the version | 
most valuable English writers of the next ; 
‘Esdmer and Simeon of Durham. ‘The narrative « 
cannot doubt, was borrowed from the narrative of Ea 
‘exact words he follows through » great part of the : 
appearance of the story at all in Simeon’s H 
‘of two or three words only, the narrative of the el 





THE OATH OF HAROLD. 683 


of the two invasions, of the two battles, of the death of Harold and 
the coronation of William. It then perhaps struck him that 
Florence's narrative contained no statement whatever of any motive 
for William’s invasion, Simeon therefore (1066) starts os it were 
afresh, with the introduction, “ Ut autem scintur origo ennsae qua 
Willelmus Angliam bello appetiit, breviter que paullo ante geste 
sunt repetantur.” He then goes on to the same effect as Eadmer, 
‘The hootages, Wulfnoth and Hakon (* Winothus flius Godwini ot 
Hacun filius Suani filii sui"), are given by Godwine to Radward 
at their reconciliation, and they are given by Eadward to Duke 
William for sake-keeping, Some time after Godwine's death, 
Horold, now in posseseion of his father's Earldom (“Godwinus . . « 
mali morte”—Eadmer, 4. Simeon saya only “quam eset mortaua”” 
—" post brave tempus interiit, et Haraldus Alive ejux comitatam 
Canticn patri succedens obtinuit. Is, clapso raodico tempore,” &e.), 
asks leave of the King to go over to Normandy and bring back the 
hostages. Eadward says that he may go, but warns him against 
going. He ix sure that, if he goes, some harm and shame will 
Happen to him and to England. He kuows Duke William well 
enough to be sure that he will never let the hostages go, unloes 
he can get some gain by #o doing ("Hoo non fiet per me; veram~ 
tamen ne videar te velle impedire, permitto ut eas quo vis ac 
experiare quid possis, Pnesentio tamen te in nihil aliud tenders 
nisi in detrimentum totius Angliei regni et opprobrium tui, Noe 
eniva ita novi comitem mentia expertem ut coe aliquatenus velit 
concedere tibi si non prascierit in hoc magnum proficuum sui”). 
Harold however thinks himself wiser than the King (“suo quam 
Regis consilio eredens”), and sets out, He is shipwrecked, im- 
prisoned by Guy (“pro ritu loci, captivitati addicitar”), and do~ 
livored and honourably received by William. Ho presently tells 
the Duke the cuuse of his journey. ‘William tells him that: it will 
bo his own fwalt if the matter docs not turn ont well (“bene 
quidem rem processuram si in ipso non remancret"). After few 
days, the Doke sets forth his own mind to the Englishman. When 
ho and Eadward were living together as youths in Normandy, Bad- 
wand promised him that, if he should ever obtain the Crown of 
England, he would make it over to him as his heir (“ Regem 
Eawardum, quando secom juvene olim juvenis in Normannia 
demorarvtur, sibi, interposit fide sui pollicitum fuime, quin, si 


tions aro plainly in favour of Harold, and. por 
cordiality are implied as reigning between the 
‘But, as I have already said, this view of E 
not stand tho test of chronology. hore was no 
ward and William lived together ns youths of equ 
Endward left: Normandy in 1041, William waa ¢ 


though a healed aid 8 wl: 8) 
nellors may have been already reckoning the <i 
succession. The story of Wulfnoth and Hake 
hostages for Godwine's good bebaviour on Godwin 
return is quite inconsistent (00 abovo, p. 22+) with the 
tive of that return, Still less can wo accept the ston 
of Poitiers (400, above, jy) 679) tint Wallan tial 
given as hostages, nob for Godwine’s good b 
Mal Tea Ese seat ying en} of the Seegtansi 
Witan in favour of William. My own beliof is 


=a 





THE OATH OF HAROLD. 685 


English hostages at all in the bands of William at the time when 
Harold came into Normandy. But it is not hard to see how the 
story of the hostages arose. It is cortain that Wulfucth was kept 
as @ prisoner by William, and that his imprisonment begun carly 
in Mfe. William, on his death-bed (see Florence, 1087), set free 
various prisoners, both English and Norman, and amoug them 
“ Winothura Regis Haroldi germanum, quem « pueritia tenuerat in 
custodif.” This of course might only mean that Wulfuoth was 
imprisoned after William's coming to England, as must have been 
the caso with Harold's son Wulf, whom Florence spenks of directly 


after, But. it is also quite consistent with the statement that he ~ 


was left behind as a hostage by Harold. That ho was so left is 
affirmed by Eadmer and Simeon in the passage just quoted. It 
is also implied by William of Poitiers, when he says (111) that, of 
his two suppored hostages, one, namely Hakon, was allowed to re= 
turn with his uncle (“quinetiam fratruelis ejus, alter obses, cum 
ipso redux propter ipsum redditus est"), But moreover William 
of Jumibgen, who says nothing about Haken or about any earlier 
giving of hostages, says (vil. 3) that Walfnoth was lef, as a 
hostege ; “Postremo ipsum [Heraldum] cum multis muncribus 
Regi remisit {Willamas), et pulcrum adolescentem Winotum 
fratrem ¢jus obsidem retinuit.” In this he is followed by Benoit 
(36640); 

“ Heraut out an froro dangel, ‘Vailnoth out non, cortaia o «age ; 

Que n’estovelt quoere plus bel; Cel lalase au Duo en antago.” 


One would certainly understand this as meauing that Wulfnoth 
hud accompanied Harold on his voyage and that he was left by 
him os a hostage for his own good faith, Why should not this 
have been the casot If, aa I havo suggested, Harold was acoom- 
Janied om bis voyage by both Wulfnoth and Hakon, if he brought 
Hakon back and left Wulfuoth behind as « hostage, one can easily 
see how the story arose about Hakon and Wulfnoth baving both 
originally been hostages. ‘The Norman version would represent 
them, us William of Poitiers does, as hostages given for Willinm’s 
succession to the Crown. English writers, knowing that this at 
least never happened, would find some more possible oceusion for 
the handing over of a gon and ® grandson of Godwine to the 
koeping of the Norman Duke Such an occasion would be found 


THE OATH OF HAROLD. 687 


see above, p. 678). He then gives a description of Harold, on 
whose virtues, power, and favour with the King he becomes some- 
what eloquent, and fully understands his position as the practical 


"En Ia terre out wn senoseal Li lus fort horn fa de 
Heraat out nom, noble vassal; — Fort fu homes, fort fu d'amia, 
Por sun pris ® pore bunté Enpleterre out en aa bailite 
Out ol rogne grant poosts, Com home Ki « seneachaucie.” 
(ry, 10709-10716.) 


(ev. 10725-10726.) 

‘The story then goes on in much the eamo ghape as it takes 
‘in Eadmer, Harold's wish to release the hostages and the warnings 
of Ewlward are given in much the same way, with the further 
picee of advico from the King, that, if Harold wishes for the 
hostages, he should send some other messenger and not go himself. 
‘Wace then adds that he hns also read another story, that namely of 
William of Poitiers and William of Jumidges, aud thut he does not 
profess to know which is the true one, 


+ Taat Yai jo trows esorit, Al Do Willazne «un corin, 
‘Et un altre livre me dist Ke [éust emprez ea fing 
Ke li Reis li rova aler ‘Ne sal mie coste schoisin, 
Por Ii rialme aaaéurar ‘Mais fun 2 Taltre exerit trovan.” 
(ov. 19741-10748) 


So much for Wace. The Tapestry plainly shows (pl. 1) an 
interview between Eadward and Harold before Harold sets sail 
from Bosham, and another interview (pl. 7) after Harold’s roturn, 
OF those two scones the earlicr must be interpreted by the later, 
Tn that scene Harold is represented ax recounting his adventures 
to the King with a very strange look and strange gestures, quite 
different from anything shown in the first interview. But Dr. 
Bruce's imagination surely carries him a little too far whon he 
says (p, 27) that “ Harold comes into the presence of tho Confessor 
like a guilty person, deploring his misdeeds and craving pardon. 
An axe, carried by an attendant on the left of the King, is turned 
towards him, apparently betokening that he has committed an 
offence worthy of death. The King is evidently reproving him 


THE OATH OF HAROLD. 689. 


actum"). He sot out from Bosham purely on a voyage of pleasure 
and for the purpose of fishing (“nt animum oblectarct suum, 
plscatorium conscendit navigium”). Some cause or other led him 
to vonture to an unusual distance from Jond ("interim quidem 


which is not mentioned, to Flanders (“Haraldas vero tranoleas 
in Flandriam tempestate compulsus est in Ponticom 

M. HB. 760 B). Matthew Paris (p. 1), whom T shall sgain have 
to quote, tolls the tale in what, for my purpore, is the same way. 
Harold, still a young man, but looking forward to the Crown 
(“dum adhus juvenis ceset, ndspirans ad rognam Anglim"), is 
sailing about, and is driven by the winds to a iand which he tnkes 
to be Flanders, but which proves to be Pouthieu (“sponte spatiatus, 
nayigando raptus ost vi ventorum, ob dum Flandriam credidit se 
attigisse, compulsus venit in Pontinam provinciam"), Snorro 
(Johnstone, 190; Laing, iii, 75) makes Harold ta have been 
sailing, not to Flanders, but to Wales, He seemingly looks on 
the voyage as part of Harold's warfore against Graffydd, A storm 
drives his ships, not to Ponthiea, but to the coast of Normandy 
(‘pat var @ eino sumri, at Haralldr Godinason atti ford til Brett- 
Janda, 00 for & skipi, cnn or peir komo § hafit, pi tok pa andvidri, oc 
dk it { haf. Peir téko land yestr { Nordmandi, oc béfdo fengit 
storm mann-hmttan”). These accounts seem independent, and of 
course they cannot be reconciled in detail The important point 
which they have in common is that they all represent Harold's 
proaence in Normandy as unintentional, Ho ie not going thither 
on any errand either of his own or of the King’s; he ig carried 
either directly to Normandy, or first to Ponthion, by a storm. Tf 
this were the true tradition, we can easily understand that various 
‘versions would soon arise as to tho direction and object of his 
journey. Snorro's notion, for instance, of a voyage into Wales is 
handly consistent with the remarkable agreement of several versions 
that it was from Bosham that Harold sct sail, But it is of little 
moment whether ho was aailing to Wales or Flanders or nowhero 
in particular, if only he was not purporely uniling to Normandy. 
And thnt this story is the right one will, I think, appear, if we 
consider the way in which tales grow. They improve, they add 
vor, 111, yy 





THE OATH OF HAROLD. 691 


‘The two other writers who follow a version essentially the same 
as that of William of Malmesbury, namely Snorro and Henry 
of Huntingdon, give no details of Harold’s deliverance from his 
prison in Ponthieu, Snorro leaves out the sojourn in Ponthiow 
lomltess so) Ber mirave:taven |eaisan) ean moel 

Ponticus Williclmo Duci Normannim reddidit,” So Matthew Paris, 
making the act still more voluntary on Guy's port, says, “ quem 
captum consul Ponticus Willielmo Normannorum Duci prmson- 
tavit.” Snorro, ax I have mid in the text, gives some curious 
details of Harold's eqjourn at Rouen ; he also makes him get there 
in the summer, stay through the winter, and go back to England 
in tho spring. 


IE. It will be seon that two distinct views a8 to the devise of 
the Crown in fayour of William are involved in tho first two of 
these three versions, Acconding to one of them, the bequest was 
simply a private promise mude by Eudward, when he was not yet 
King, that, if he ever should become King, William should euceeed 
him, This is in itself not impossible, though it is impossible in the 
particular shape in which it is told us, namoly as the promise of 
one young man to another young man, It is hardly necessary to 
show that such a promise ox this could baye no kind of force, 
according to the laws of Englond or of any other kingdom. Ae- 
cording to the other story, the devise of the Crown took the form 
of an Act of Settlement, of @ regular vote of the King and his 
Witan, confirmed by the signatures and the oaths of the four 
groatest men in tho land. Such an act would doubtless have been 
valid, and it would have given William as good a claim as George 
the First, At the same time it must not be forgotten that all such 
attempts at an election before the vacancy seem to have been un- 
popular, and that they were very seldom carried out in practice 
(see vol. i. pp. 107, 477). But boyond the amertion of William's 
own Iaurente, there ix not scrap of evidence or of probability 
in fayour of this story, and the particular form in which it is told 
is chronologically impossible (seo above, p. 684). William of Malmes- 
bury, or those whom he followed, probably saw this, and they there- 
fore changed the date from some time before the death of Godwine 
to some time after the death of the Autheling (sve vol. ii. p. 370) 
‘William aleo Ieaves out all mention of the consent of the Witan or 

vy2 




















THE OATH OF HAROLD, 693 


a lust will and tostament in favour of William is one which was 
quite unknown till a later generation, I must quote one more 
passage in which this viow is set forth, because it brings in another 
expression which deverves some notice. In the Chronicle of 
Battle Abbey (p. 2) we rewl, “Interea Anglica regnum monarchies 
cidem Duci Willelmo, a suo consanguineo Rege Edwardo, e mundo 
migrante, hareditario jure dclegetum, relinquitur.” ‘The expression 
to be noticed in that of “ bmreditario jaro,” which is here appliod 
to William's succession to the Crown. We find it alzo in charters 
of William himself and of bis son William Rufus, There is one 
in Rymer (p. 3), where William describes himsclf as “Ego Wil- 
Ielmus Dei gratia Rex Anglorum hareditario jure factusj” and 
‘one of William Rufus (p. g), where he describes himself as “Ego 


hhureditarium” have more than one moaning, It is possible that 
the Battle writer really meant to assert an hereditary ri, 

the modern sense, He had just before said that William, “prin- 
cipatum proprium”—that is of course the Duchy of Normandy 
—" hwroditario sibi jare a patre relictum feliciter obtinuit.” And 
there is no doubt that William's kindred with Badward really 
was looked on by zealots in his cause as giving bint some hereditary 
claim upon England. This wos certainly the beliof of Henry of 


iii, 163) say that Endward “ adoptavit in roguum”—* adoptavit 
heredem—Willichoum Ducem Normannorum.” The words “hare- 
ditario jure” are also used to express something which o man holds 
by a right which is not derived from his forefathers, but which 
is to be passed on to his descendants, ‘Thus Waltham was 

to Harold by Eadward “Iiereditario jure” (soe vol, Hi. p. Gyx), 
and thus Endmer (Hist. Nov. 20) says that the lands of the 


“illis ipsin horeditario jure tenendm” It i even applied to 
property held by w corporation in absolute freehold, which will 
therefore pass to the official heirs, so to speak, of the existing 
members, ‘Thus Saint Wulfitan, writing to Anselm (Eadmer, Hist, 














seamingly forgotten—sends- 
‘Wincheater, who was in the habit of going’ oti ot 
way of trade, on a message to Duke William, — 


for the Duke. bth pt allen m 
procerum conventu”), the Duke seeks ] 

















THE OATH OF HAROLD, 695 


‘The story goes on to say that Hubert did not come with William 
into England because disturbances were looked for in Maine, which 
‘he was sent to quell or to hinder (“venients Willielmo in Anglin 
aceipere sibi regnwm, quoniam a Cenomanie& regione suspicabatur 
tumultus, Hubertue, quia erat promptus manu ¢t consilio bonus, 
missus est illic prwtondere et gervare pacom”). I did not vonture, 
without better authority, to mention this in my text at p. 386, but 
it is worth comparing with the seeming disloyalty of the Ceno- 
mannian knight at Senlac mentioned in p. 485. 


Now, after going through all these accounts, what is the real 
atate of the evidence with rogard to the alleged promise of Eadward 
to William? A doath-bed boquest, as wo haye seen, was not 
alleged by William or by his contemporaries. Such a bequest 
would be inconsistent with any of the versions of the story of 
Harold's oath, all of which conceive William as asserting some 
right to the succession before Eudvwrard’s last sickneas. A promiso 
made in much earlier times, before Kadwant’s accession, is possible, 
but it is by no means likely, and such a promise could not be of any 
legal force, An act of the King and his Witon in William's favour 
is imponsible in itsclf and is confirmed by no kind of evidence, 
But thnt there was some promise made by Eadward in William's 
favour I think cannot be doubted. When I believe that promise 
to have been made I haye already said (wee vol. ii. p. 296). Hero 
ia another fact which looks the samo way, In a Wostminster 
charter quoted by Ellis (i. 312) and M. Francisque Michel (Benott, 
iii, 164), William tells us how he reigned, “devicto Haroldo Regs 
cum suis complicibas, qui mihi regnum prudentit Domini deo- 
tinstum et bengficio concessionis domini et cognati mei gloriosi 
Regis Edwardi concessum conati sunt auferre.” This is vague 
cuough, but it suggests one hint. The feudal language employed, 
tho words “beueficium” and “dominus"—the latter of which is 
applied by William to Eadward in othor documents (see above, 
PP. 250, 655, and ef, fi, 17)—might suggest that, when the promise 
was made, William did homage to King Eadward as his lord 
and adopted father. ‘There is but one time when this could have 
happened. We have here another confirmation of the view, sup- 
ported by no direct evidence, but the only view which is not upset 
by opposing evidence, that the promise was made by Eadward, 








THE OATH OF HAROLD, 697 


forty years after the event, which fixes hin own dute to about the 
year 1204. 
As to the form of the oath, William of Poitier (108) simply 

says, “Heraldus ei fidelitatem sancto ritu Christianorum 
Bat, according to his manner, he implies in @ later passage (131; 
m0 p, 464, note 2) that tho oath was made upon relic So Orderie 
(492 A); “Homo ejus factus, omnia quae ab illo requisita fuerant 
super sanctissimas reliquias juraverat.” The “phylactery called 
‘tho bull’eeye’” is found in tho Brovin Relatio (4); “Ei, sicut 
multi dicunt, super filactoriam quod voeabant oculum bovis quod 
ei fidem et promiasionom quam ei faciebat: bene custodiret.” (For 
another oath taken “supra philacteria reliquiarum,” see Dudo, 
126 ©.) ‘The Hydo writer (290) tells us why it was called tho 
bull’s-eye ; “Infinitam sanctarum moultitudinem reliquiarum deferri 
Jossit, superque eas filacterium glorlosl martyris Pancratii, quod 
oculum bovis vocant, co quod gemmam tam specioram quam 
spationam in medio sui contineat, collocavit, ccrtissime sciens tan~ 
tum martyrom nulli temoritate posse deludi.” In the Tapestry 
(pl. 6) Harold is shown swearing between two cheats or phylacteries 
(eee Ducange in voor) of different shapes, one of which has some~ 
thing on the top which might fairly poss for the “gemma speciosa 
ot spatiosa" of the Hyde writer. But in nono of these accounts do 
we find anything about the trick played upon Harold by William. 
Whatever Harold swears upon, it is not ot all implied that ho was 
otherwise than fully aware of what he was doing, The tale accord- 
ing to which Harold is made unwittingly to tale an oath of a more 
solemn kind than he supposed comes from Wace ; 

+Toa i core exins fist demander, Ne no I fust mostré no dit 

‘Et un liu tus asecobler 5 De sux out une filatine, 

‘Tut uno cuve en fit eaplix, ‘Put Ii melllor k's} pout ealine, 

Pole d'un pacle ten fiat cover, Ef plus chlor k'll pout trower ; 

Ke Heraut ne wut ne ne vit, Oil de boef Pal of nomer.” 

(rv. 10828-10837.) 

Bo ngnin, after the onth has been taken ; 


“Quant Heraut out li maine beides Ki tut avell acoveté j 


Et il fu sa loves en pies, A Herant a dedens monstré, 
Vers la cure li Dus Jo trait, Sor kele com maine i a juré, 
E Jes Ta cuve eestor le fait = Homat formment s'eopoanta 

De la uve a To paolo oxté, Des relikes Kil W monatea."* 


(rr, 108g0-10859,) 





=. 














Crown to him, and goes on thus; 

“Tu quoque, st mihi te in hoc ipso [the 
Crown] adminiculaturum spoponderis, et insuper 
cum puteo aque ad opus moum to facturum, 





to do all that he can to bring about William’s s 

Crown; but William of Poiticrs makes no mention 
monts as to the two marriages, the marriage of 
daughter of William and the marriage of Harold’a si 


patrimonié 

‘The words in Italics would seem to refer to some sort of commen- 
dation of Harold’s lands to William, and somothing of tho came 
kind seema implied in the words with which William of Paitiera 
goes on with his story (109); “Dux ei [Heraldo] jam satelliti"— 
© common equivalent for “miles” or vasal—‘sue acoepte pee 


‘Wace aiyit nothing) shock thn Gtstlbal Dovetail! Setar esa 
he stoop to Exdmer’s detail about the well, but he mentions the 
two engagements to marry William's daughter and to make over 
the Kingdom to him at Eadward’s death, He gives these terme 
twice; 


“ Ratretant a li Dus parlé Rit Ab moillier wit volt promt 

‘ant ke Horst lim grad, ‘Elo uno fille kee il a: 

Keo Engleterre li liverra Go ve li plsiot ti jurors, 

‘Tres koi Rein Ewart morra;] Et Willame le graauta,”” 

(vy. 10816-10823.) 

And again in describing the actual taking of the oath; 

“Pols « jurd ets promi Suilime ¢s foros ¢ son savelr 

‘Si come home ki esohari = Hanprie la mort Kerart, #1 wit ; 


Elo, ln fille al Duo prendre, Si voirement Dux Ii ait 
Et Engleterro al Duc rendra; 6 U core salnz il foc sont,” 
De go fl fors son poste (ve. 10840-10848.) 


THE OATH OF HAROLD. 71 


we read (p. 197) how * Willelmus, Comes Nortmannim . .. . 
Angliam potiit, ac Haroldo ipsins terre [Rege 1] occiso, ¢0 quod 
Stiam ipsius Wilhelmi in weorem recipare recusaverit, Anglos gravi 
pralio, multoram sanguine fuso, sibi subjugavit, eb utrique populo 
Anglico et Normannico regnavit." Here the only reason given 
for William's attacking England is Harold’s noglect to marry his 
daughter, No other was known to the author of the Chronicle of 
Saint Androw’s at Cambray, who wrote in 133. Here (Pertz, vii. 
537) William is described os invading England without any 
upparent reason, till we reach the words “Rex Anglorum Heroldus, 
olim contra predictum comitem Willelmum perjurus, nam filiam ejus 
se accepturum juraverat.” ‘Tho Waltham writer “ De Inyentione” 
(cap. 20) is in the like case; “Insidiantibus ei perfidis Norman- 
noram versutiis, quia filiam Willelmi Ducis Normannorum nuptui 
troditam eontempsit.” ‘These “ versutiae” exactly describe the sort 
of constraint under which I conceive Harold to have made the 
whole 

‘These accounts mention no ground at all for the invasion exeapt 
Harolil's refusal to marry William's daughter. Other accounts, with 
out going so far as this, put the question of marriage forward in 
avery remarkable way, a8 if everything else was incidental, This is 
tho caso in the version of the messages between William and Harold 
which is given by Eadmerand Simeon. William's main object is to 
demand Harold's sister and to require Harold to marry his daughter. 
Other matters are quite secondary. “Venit nuntins in Angliam a prw= 
futo Willelino directus, expetens sorarem Hurolii, juxta quod con- 
venorat Willelmoet ili, Alia etiam quer, violato sacramento, servatt 
non evant, calumniatus est” (Eadmer, 5). And afterwards, “iterum 
oi amicA familiaritate mandavit quatenus, allis omissis, sorvatd fidel 
sponsione, saltom filiam suam uxorem duceret.” (Simeon roads, 
“ut quamvis violata fide extern non serviasct, ai tamen filiam 
suam duceret uxorom, leviter ferret") Harold, in his answer, doca 
undoubtedly speak of the Kingdom and of the castle of Dover, but 
these subjects are thrust in between his answers about the two 
marriages, how his sister is dead—doca the Duke wish for her 
corpee 1—and how he cnnnot marry o foreign wife without the 
consent of the Witan.” Throughout this story William ix made 
much more auxious to find a husband for his daughter than to find 
a kingdom for himself, This must surely come from ome account 


| 





THE OATH OF HAROLD. 703 


hostages are not spoken of again. Harold, sailing to some place 
not mentioned (“quibusdam caussis nuvem ingressus"), is driven 
by adverse winds to Ponthicu; he is imprisoned by Guy, and set 
free at tho prayer (“precibus”) of Duke William, ‘Tho Barl and 
the Duke, according to this account, appear, not as the old enemies 
which Matthew Paris calls them, but as old frieads (“sb eodem 
{Willelmo] optime cognitus [Haroldus] in multis fomiliariter est 
habitus”), They agreo at last that, a» William's cousin King Ead- 
ward has no heir, Harold sball receive the kingdom of England 
on condition of marrying William's daughter and, it would seem, 
of holding the Kingdom as « fief of his father-in-law. Such seems 
to be the moaning of the words, “Ad hoc inter eos sormo progrossus 
et, ut quia Edwardus Rex Anglorum, consobrinus Comitis Willolmi, 
iueredem non habebst, reguum Anglorum Willelmas Haroldo con- 
cederet co tenore, ut filiam ipsius matrimonio acciperet, cique per 
omnia fideliter [fidelis 1] exsiateret.” Harold agrees #0 readily that 
‘William, who did not eacily trust Englishmen, becomes suspicions, 
and binds him by an oath ("quod quum promptissime annueret, 
ab codem Anglorum fidem euapectam Aabente nd districta sacra- 
menta est conctus”). ‘The phylnctory of Saint Pancras, already 
spoken of, is nccordingly brought, and Harold swears on it “se 
omnis, scilicet sicut fuerat postulatas, constantissime ee servaturam 
et Normannis fidelem affuturum.” 

Now it is strange when, after this, we road in the ame account 
(seo above, p. 598) that Eadward an his denth-bed Ieft the Crown 
to William, and that Harold usurped it. This hardly Gts in with 
an agreement between Harold and William that Harold should 
have the Crown on certain conditions. But the sccount which this 
writer (291) gives of the messages between the two princes exactly 
fits in with his account of the outh. William calls on Harold to 
lo what he has promised to do (“ut sacramentorum in Normannifi 
gestorum rominiscens, fadue quod juraverat persolverst”), that is, 
doubtless, to marry his daughter and do homage for the kingdom. 
Harold's answer is that he has no need of any kind of connexion or 
intereouree with the Normans, and will therefore not perform his 
oath (“remandat Haroldus Normannorum societatom non case 
Anglis necessariam, et ideo nullum ci juramentum persolvere, 
oullum cum ¢o consortium habere”), Of resigning the kingdom 
thore in not a word, 





THE OATH OF HAROLD. 705 


The hely King Eadward left as his heir his nephew Harold, w 
prince whose virtues are eot forth in the most glowing terme, 
In his boyhood he had been sent by his uncle for education to 
Normandy, according to the use of the English nobles, who com 
monly sent their sons into France, to learn the use of arms and 
to lay aside the barbarism of their native tongue, ‘The reigning 
Duke bad a bastard son named William, who was brought up ax 
his heir. ‘The two lads formed a boyish friendship, and promised 
to marry each other's sisters, King Eadward and the unnamed 
Norman Duke die about the same time ; Harold succeeds his uncle 
in England, and Willian, after some opposition, succeeds his fathor 
in Normandy. The new Duke sends a message to the new King, 
calling on him to fulfil his promise by an exchange of sisters, 
Harold has now no mind for cither marriage, but his own mar- 
riage with William's sister is brought about by an accident, ‘The 
King of the English sets out with a few companions on a yachting 
expedition, Stress of weather drives him to Flanders—we should 
surely read that, intonding to go to Blanders, he was driven to 
Normandy—where he pretends that he is come to carry out hin 
promise as to both marriages. He does marry the Duke's sister, 
and takes her with him to England, and again promises to send 
his own sister to the Duke, Once more at home, he neglects his 
promise, and, paffed up with pride, he invades Scotland and de- 
feats the Scots in  sloutly contested battle. Directly after this, 
he hears that William bas landed im the south of England, and 
hastens to attack him. Tho Normans, few in number and fearing 
Harold's prowoss, defend themselves with a dyke. But God, who 
can conquer by few as well as by many, overthrows the proud Eng- 
lish, whose King is cither killed or eseapes by flight. William then 
marches on London, marrica Harold's sister, and reigns over Eng- 
land by virtue of the marriage. 

‘This is altogether the wildest of all the tales that I have come 
across. I need not stop to point out all its blunders, anachroniams, 
and confusions, Tho most amusing perhaps is the story of Harold's 
youthful sojourn in Nermandy, This is evidently a confusion be- 
tween Harold and Eadward, and the reason which is given must be 
one which belonged to Gervase's own day rether than to Kadward’s, 
though we may compare the strange statement of the Enoominat 
(seo val. i. p, 717) about the Athelings Eadwart and Alfred being 

You, 1, Le 


period immediately 
Title possible did they find it to give a 
‘thoir fable.” 

‘He then goes on; 

“Modern discovering r 
earlier dates, imagine there idee foe 
adjadging the voyage to tho laat yeor 
selection seems unfortunate, Atthe time. 
Conan the cara is sid to have been a 
which in Brotagne is never the case | d 
or the beginning of Septomber, Now from | 
blo of all testimonies, we know that Harold 
the summer of A.n. 1065, overlooking the on 
palace which he undertook to build for the 
in-law. We may infer, though it is not 
‘Wales sometime before tho end of At a 
that month Curados, son of the murlered | 
‘widow Harold had married, exterminated the 





— 


THE OATH OF HAROLD. 707 


put a period to the construction of the palace. Immediately after 
this, that is, early in September, the insurrection took place in 
Northumbria, when Harold was at hand, ready at the King’s 
request to negotiate with the rebels at Northampton. 

“From this view of the occurrences of A.p. 1065, it seems diffi- 
cult, if not impossible, to imagine an unoccupied interval lying 
between midsummer and autumn long enough to admit of our 
crowding into it all the events whieh are said to have ocourred 
during Harold’s imprisonment at Pouthiew aud forced detention in 
Normandy,” 

‘These arguments are, 1 think, decisive agninst 1063. Mr. St. 
John places the Northumbrian revolt in September instead of in 
October ; still the English events of the autumn of 1065 hardly 
leave time for Harold's captivity at Beaurain, his sojourn at Rouen, 
ond his warfare in Britenny, But Higden’s date of to64 seems 
‘open to no objection. Florence (soe vol. ii. p. 471) certainly carries 
the Welsh war into that year; but the Chronicles leave i¢ an abso- 
Jute blank, At the same time, as I have already eid, 1 do not 
commit myself to the date or to anything else. Mr, St. John's 
arguments, though often expresesd with noodles: violence, have 
throughout great weight aa against the details of the story. But 
Instill think that the story must have had some groundwork of 
truth, and I haye tried to show what that groundwork may have 
beens 


V. It would be an interesting question, how far Harold's obli- 
gations to William, whatever they were, were known in Englund 
either before or after Eadward's death. But this is a point on 
which we have absolutely nothing to guide as. T know of no 
writer who has anything to say on the subject, except the romantic 
Biographer of Harold, whom I have quoted in p, 604. 


T have thus done what T could to throw light on the most 
perplexing question in my history, one of the most perplexing 
questions in all history. I ehall not be eurprived if lam thought 
to have only made what was before dark darker still. But no one 
can know how thick the darkness really is except by groping i 
it, as I have done, ia his own person. 


fez 








question. 
(dnote do Lt teatas oil aye De ; 
Intor Mr, Douce (Archmologia, xvii. 100), by Mr. 
xix. 199), by De La Rue again in hie Appendix of 
sur la Tapisterie, p. 53), by Mr. Bolton C 
‘Bruce (p. 53), and lastly by Mr. Planché (J 
Association, 1867, p. 142). The strange thing 
these writers seem not to haye understood that 2 
‘very common English name, but to have fancied 
of title, meaning Queen or Princess. Their 
the double name of Endward's mother, “ 22 
Any one who turns to the passages which I 
find a great number of guesses, some of which refi 


a 





THE MLFGYVA OF THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY. 709 


while others are refuted by other writers in the dispute. “EMfigyva"” 
has been identified with the Duchess Matilda, with her daughter 
Adelixza, with Harold's sister Eadgyth and his wife Ealdgyth, while 
some have taken the trouble to show that whe cavnot be cither 
lfgifa-Emma or “the other Ailfgifa” (see vol. i. p. 714) of Crt’ 
time. What it ie that Adifgyva and the clerk are doing no one 
seems to know for certain, neither eam I throw any light on the 
matter. Ont of all this mase X will only, by way of relaxation, 
quote Mr, Bolton Corney’s remarks, as at once the most curious 
and the lesst generally accessible, 

“William promised to bestow one of his daughters on Harold, 
Sho is ropresonted bonoath the inscription «exroxva—but Elfgiva 
was not her name. Emma, danghter of Richard T, of Normandy, 
and mother of Edward the Confessor, is sometimes called by the 
Saxon annulists Effyiva Emma. Effgiva thensfore, whatever we 
read in Florence of Worcester, seems to have been an of 
honour, and may have been understood as auch by the Saxons 
Bayousains. If so, why wae the name of the betrothed omitted ? 
Could it not be ascertained, or was it deemed superfluous? I 
apprehend the latter to have been the case; she was the psn 
par excellence—vhe was buried and was annually commemorated 
at Bayeux." 

‘We may infor then, First, that the Saxon langunge was spoken’ 
at Bayeux in the thirteenth century, the date to which Mr. Corney 
assigns the Tapestry; Secondly, thet in the Saxon language of 
Bayeux Alfgyva meant “Lady ;" Thirdly, that one particular 
doughter of William was known, distinctively and familiarly, as 
“the Ailigyva ;" Fourthly, that Mr, Bolton Corey understood Old- 
‘English better than Florence of Worcoster- 


Now leaving all wild conjectures, let us try and see what really 
suggests itself about this obscure matter, ‘The ‘Tapestry represents 
n woman named Alfgifa as being in Duke William’s palace at the 
moment of Hurold’s coming thither. Who was she} We may put 
aside Matilda and all other women who never were, or could have 
been, called Atlfgifu. We may put aside all thone women who 
were named Alfgifu, but who were dend und buried at the time, 
But of all the women named Zlfyifu who were living nt the time, 
which could have been in William’s palace at that particular 


4 

















sly 
A Ha 
Bj 


rt 
i. 


i 
i 


th 
EH 


i 
B 
i 
i 


possible she might be called Alfyifu. 
2. Allfgifu was (ace vol. ii. p. 658) the 
Aiifgar, the mother of Harold's wife Ealdgyth. 





=<—> 


THE BRETON CAMPAIGN OF WILLIAM AND HAROLD, 711 


Harold was accompanied by his sister, it is quite powibln she might 
find ber way to Rouen beforo he did. I throw this out ox a mere 
conjecture, and it certainly hes its difficulties about it, but every 
explanation of this puzzling group must be mere conjecture, and it 
certainly strikes me that this conjecture has leas of difficulty about: 
it thon some of the others. 

Whomever we fix upon an the Ailfzifa of the Tapestry, it is still 
by no means clear what is happening between her and the 
clerk, or why the incident should receive so prominent n place 
in the pictured story, Like the introduction of Turold, Vital, and 
Wadard, there is evidently an allusion to some fect which was 
perfeetly well known at the time, but of which no other record has 
been preserved. As auch, it is another witness to the contemporary 
date, and thereby to the authority, of the Tapestry. 


NOTE X. p. 230. 
Tur Brerox Camparox oy Witttan axp Hanoi. 


Ov only detailed accounts of this exmpalgn come from William 
of Poitiers and the Tapestry. Between theae two both Lord 
Lyttelton (i. 354) and Mr. Planché (145) sce a distinct contra- 
diction ; only Lord Lyttelton assumes that the Tapestry must be 
wrong becanse it contradicts William of Poitiers, while Mr. Planché 
assumes that William of Poitiers must be wrong because he con- 
tradicts the Tapestry, But there is no real contradiction between 
the two authoritios ; their accounts may casily be reconciled, if wo 
only suppose a somewhat remarkablo omission on the part of 
William of Poitiers. 

William tells us that the object of the expedition was to deliver 
Dol, which won held on Duke William's behalf by Rhiwallon, 
and that Conan fled on the approach of the Norman army. Hoe 
gives no details of any farther progress of William and Harold 
in Britanny, though he has # good deal to tell us ax to what passed 
between William and Rhiwallon, He makes no montion of Ronnes: 
or of Dinan, the other two placer represented in the Tapestry. 

There is nothing in the Tapestry (pl. ) which xt all contradicts 
this account of what happened at Dol. William's approach to the 


EMBASSIES BETWEEN WILLIAM AND HAROLD. 713 


above, p. 432). But there is a passage further on which accms to 
imply an earlier message, This is when the Archdeacon breaks 
forth into that wonderful pancgyric on his master (145) which 
follows his account of William's coronation ; 

“ Hic [Willelmus] ne Heraldum vellet occubuisse. Immo voluit 
patris Godwini potentiam illi amplinre, et natam euam, Impera- 
toris thalamo dignissimam, in motrimonium, ut fuerat pollioitus, 
tradere.” 

‘This clearly implies that an offer of the Earldom of the Weet- 
Saxons, perhaps of something greater, together with the hand of 
William's daughter, hud beon twice made by William to Harold. 
‘The first time is of course at the taking of the oath ; the second 
time must be in some message sent before the expedition. For 
the messages exchanged after William's landing are given at length, 
‘and they contain no such terms, And an offer of William's daughter 
could then at least have been nothing but sheer mockery, By that 
time, at all eveuts, Hurold was married to Euldgyth, 

‘William of Jumitges (vii, 31) has an account which exactly 
agrees with the implied narrative of William of Poitiers. The 
Duke, as soon as he hears the news of Harold's election, sends 
messengers to remind him to keep his oath, The terms of the 
cath, according to him, were that William should be King, Harold 
hoving half the kingdom and William's dooghter. Hin words 
are, 


“Ad quem (Heraldum) Dux protinus legutos direxit, hortans ut: 
ab hic invanid resipisceret, et fidem quam juramento spoponderst 
condignii subjectiono servaret. At illo non solum hoc audire 
contempait, verum omnem Anglorum gentem xb illo infideliter 
avertit.” 

He then goes on with the account of Gruffydd and Baldgyth 
which I quoted in yol. ii. p. 659. 

Orderic does not mention the menage. The Roman de Row 
(vv. 11066-11075) speaks of several messages ; 


“Willame Ii manda sovent, Ne il terre no Ii rendreit, 
K'Ml i tentat oun serement, Et Willéalme le doafia, 
‘E Heraut li manda vilment, E deafiance li manda ; 
‘K'll ne fereit por li ndiont, E Herant tox tems reponeit 
Ne il ss fillo ne prendreit, ‘Ke nule rien mex no oreimeit.” 


Here the terms of William's meseages are not given, but they may 

















stamp of genuincnoss, as it is not o thing y 
take the trouble to invent. And it has som 
this explains the statement of William of 
makes Harold say that the daughter of Wi 
promised to marry wae dead (m0 above, p. 666 
2 ee oe ee 
confounded the two marriage engagements, 
Lapecetinrter an 
ister, Tho reat of William of Mulmosbury’s story, : 
stitutional Goetrine put into the mouth of Harold, 
already in the text and notes, 
‘Tho version ef the Hyde writer I have already gi 
In Benolt'e account (36732-36757) the ki 
welled upon. He had mentioned the marriage 


=z 





WILLIAM'S COUNCILS AND NEGOTIATIONS. 715 


but he seems to look on the marriage of Adoliza a9 somothing 
volunteered by William after the oath, not as part of the oath 
itself. 

Matthew Paris (Hist. Angl, i. 6) makes William send » 
mestage before Eadward’s death. Harold having got smfe home, 


him against the wrong-doer, Eadward dics; Harold seizes the 
crown without ecclesinstica) conseeration (see nbove. p. 618), and so 
wdds the Pope to his enemies Then come the two invasions 
of Harold Hardrada and of William, 

T do not know that there is any neod to quote the accounts of 
any later writer, 


NOTE Z. p. 287. 
Wittian's Couxens axn Negotiations. 


‘Two points of some difficulty meet us here. We have no trust~ 
worthy guide to the ebronology of the different embassies and 
amwomblics whieh William used to put forward his claim ; doubts 
may also be mised an to the nature of the Norman assemblica 
which he consulted. To fix the exact chronology seems hopeless ; 
ns [eid in the text, several negotiations were most likely going 
on st the same time. And the writer who ought to be our 
best authority, William of Poitiors, is now, an usual, very carclore 
about the order of events, arranging them not so much according 
to the almanac as according to any arrangement which may best 
ouit his rhetoric. Two distinct “questions however arise. First, 
Did the assombly which William of Malmesbury places at Lille- 
bonne meet before or after the gift of the consecrated banner by 
the Pope? Secondly, Was the English expedition discussed in one 
or in two Norman assemblies ? 

On the first point, Willinm of Malmesbury (iii. 238) distinctly 


WILLIAM'S COUNCILS AND NEGOTIATIONS. mr 


chronology. The facts are much the same as the facts in Wace, 
but a8 to their order nothing ean be made out. Tt will he remem- 
bered that several other incidents in the history, as the comet and 
some points in the engagements between William and Harold, are 
(seo pp. 648, 698, 713) recorded or alluded to by William of 
Poitiors in places still more distant from their chronological ordor, 
The short account in William of Jumikges (vil. 3x34) proves 
hardly anything. The events which he records come in this order; 
the message to Harold; the coming of Tostig; the death of Conan; 
the preparation and voyage of William. Orderio (492-494) lt 
faller. He begins with the coming of Tostig, to whose suggestion 
he swems to uttribute the gathering of the assembly (see p. 304). 
His list of persons consulted is the list in William of Poitiera, with 
8 fow names added. ‘Then comes the embassy to Rome and the 
gift of the banner, ‘Theo comes the unsuccessful enterprise of 
Tostig against England, followed by William's own proparations, 
Orderio then, after his custom, leaves the subject to talk about 
quite other matters. He comes back to it after some while (499= 
600) to tell of tho Norwegian invasion of England, of the delay of 
the Norman ships at the Dive, of William's final voyage und all 
that followed it. 

‘Tho short and inadequate account in Henry of Huntingdon (M. 
HH, B, 761-762) is of some importance, because part of it is clearly 
drawn feom the same sources as the accuunt in Wace. He tells as 
that William held an assembly, and that hin flect aftcrwarda mot 
at Saint Valery, He says nothing about any embassies at all. But 
he is the only writer besides Wace who makes any special mention 
of William Fitz-Osbern, though the way in which he tells the 
story is not exsctly the same as that in which it is told in the 
Roman de Kou. Seo p. 298. 

‘The evidence being in this state, I thought that I might safely 
follow Wace, His account of the two assemblies ix full and clear, 
ond it derives a sort of incidental support from William of Poitiers 
and Henry of Huntingdon, The former seems in a mannor to 
imply that there were two assomblies, thongh ho puta the second 
out of its place. Following Wace thus fur, 1 have also followed 
him in placing the acembly at Lillebonne before the receipt of the 
banner from Rome, though William of Malmesbury asserts the 
exact contrary. The reader must judge for himself which order he 





WILLIAM'S COUNCILS AND NEGOTIATIONS. 719 


help. Baldwin answers that he must first know what share of Eng- 
land he is to have for his pains. William, who seems to be con- 
ceived os talking with Baldwin face to face, says that he must 
go home and consult his barons, and that he will then send 
word by letter what the result is. 


EM Dus dist k'il o'on ireit, E go ke I'en Ii loerreit 
‘A ex Barunz on parlereit, Par on bref li remandereit.” 
Et a els s'en cunseillereit, (vv. 11399-11403.) 


No consultation with the barons seems to follow, but the Duke 
does a thing which nobody had ever done before (‘“poiz fist co, ke 
ainz ne fist nus”). He takes a small piece of parchment on which 
nothing is written, then seals it up with wax, and causes to be 
written on the outside that the Count shall have such part of Eng- 
land as is stated in the inside of the letter. 

“De parchemin prist un petit Et en Ia ove fist excrire, 

K'il ni out leitre ne eacrit, Ke d'Engloterre tant areit, 

Tot voi le séela on cire, Comme li brief dedenz diseit.” 

(we. 11406-11411.) 

The packet is sent to Baldwin by » cunning varlet (“vaslet 
enlogonez”); the Count breaks the seal, looks inside—seemingly 
he could read—finds nothing, and shows it to the varlet. The 
varlet then says there is nothing there and that Baldwin shall have 
nothing. The honours which the Duke was secking would belong 
to Baldwin's sister and nephews. If Baldwin had joined in the 
enterprise, no one would have gained more by it than himself. As 
it was, William would, with God’s help, conquer England for himself 
without help from Baldwin. Wace adds, as he so often does, that 
he does not know what answer the Count made. 

The sort of practical joke described in this story would be quite 
in keeping with one side of William's character (aee p. 162) if one 
could only see the point of the joke. But that point is, to say the 
least, not very obvious, and the whole story seems quite inconsistent 
with the real relations between William and Baldwin. See the note 
of Prevost, ii. 137, and Taylor, 110, 





MOVEMENTS OF TO3TIG AFTER HIS BANISHMENT. 721 


Hardrada in Norway; “Post plurimos labores ad Heraldum 
Regom Nortwigenarum, qui Herafagh cognominabatur, accessit,” 
aays Orderic, So William of Jumibges (vii, 32); “At ille non 
valons salubriter Angliam introire, neque Normanniam, quia ventus 
obstabat, redire, Horaldum Hoerfagam, Northwege Rogom, adit.” 
There is nothing about his going to Scotland or to Donmark. Wace 
indeed takes him to Denmark, but scemingly only through cou- 
founding Denmark and Norway. 
“Tostl, ki mult een coreg, Danelz ¢ Norrelz amen, 
‘En Danemarche trespass, Devers Kurvte ariva.” 
(wv, £1803.) 

So Benoit, who carries Tostig to Norway in y, 36842 (“vers North- 
wege lestut sigler Par mervoilles orrible mer"), calla the force 
which he brought into England “cous de Norwege” in v. 37065, 
and “Daneis” in 37103. None of those writers know anything of 
the donble nogotiation, first with Swogon, thon with Harold, which 
ix so prominent in Snorro. Again, the Norman uccounts take 
Tostig and Harold Hurdrada straight from Norway to Yorkshire. 
‘Tho “crroncus exsul” pleads his couse before the tyrant, as Orderio 
(493 D) himoclf calls Harold, though Tostig is made to address 
him by many respectful titles (“Sublimitatem vestram, magnifice 


VOL. 1. 3A 





MOVEMENTS OF TOSTIG APTER HI8 BANISHMENT. 723 


text, whether he ever went to Norway ut all Tet us look at the 
different wecounts. 

‘The Abingdon Chronicle, which is followed by Florence, having 
mentioned the summer sojourn of Tostig in Scotland, the prepara- 
tions of Harold of England in the south, and the return of hiv 
Aleot to Tondon (see p. 339), goes on; “pa Ya selpu ham oman, px 
com Harold cyning of Norwegu nor’ into Tinan on unwaran . . . 
and Tostig corl him com to mid eallum pam pe he begiten hefde, 
callawa hy ar gesprecen hofdon" (“ut prine condixerant,” Fl. Wig). 

‘The Worcester and Peterborough Chronicles record the flight of 
‘Tostig to Scotland, and at once connect it with the Norwegian 
invosion. “And he [Tostig] for to Scotlande mid xii, snaccum, 
and hine gemette [hine gomette par. Wig.] Harold so Norroua 
eyng [cyng of Norwegon. Wig.] mid cce. scipum ; and Tostig him 
to beab [him to beah and his man weart, Wig.), and hi bmgen 
foran into Humbran* o% pest hi coman to Eoferwic.” 

‘This version is followed by Williom of Malmesbury (ii. 228); 
“Tostinus . . . versus Scotinm vela convertit: ibi Reg! Noricorum, 
Haroldo Harvagre, obvio manus dedit, qui cum cee. navibus Angliam 
aggredi meditabatur, Ambo ergo consertis umbonibus terram 
Transhumbrmnatn populabantur,” 

‘These two accounts are clearly independent, Abingdon puts the 
meeting of Haroli and Tostig in the Tyne. Worcester and Peter 
borough seem to put it in Scotland. But their words might be 
taken as leaving the place uncertain. ‘Nor is there any contradic- 
tion ag to the more important question whether the expedition had 
been already planned between Harold and Tostig. This is directly 
asserted by the Abingdon Chronicle, ‘The two others would cer- 
tainly, taken by themselves, be understood to imply that Harold 
Hardrada bad already net out on his own account, ond that his 
meeting with Tostig was not the result of any agreement. This 
appearance becomes still stronger in William of Malmesbury, from 
his use of the verb “meditabatur.” But there is no word 
answering to this in the Chronicles, and the difference in the two 
acconnts may be simply ono of omission. ‘The words “ eallewa hy 
wr gesprecen hefilon” may in themselves mean anything, from a 
mere agreement to join forces in the ‘l'yne made after an unexpected 
meeting in Scotland up to the voyage to Norway spoken of by 
Snorro and Orderi¢, The question is whether the chronology will 

gaa 





ARNOLD OF ARDRES, 725 


faurorum suorum copi multitudine Flandriam ad Sanctum 
Odmarum, ut slant, devenit, ubi eommendeta thevsuroram suorum 
copi navem ascendens insolam Norweiam, quondam Scancinm 
dictam, et ut Gothorum historia testatur, multarum gentium 
officinam, petivit ; quam ingreseua, Regom ojus Haroldum, cogno- 
caants (lerard (Hartagl} 1 aol Nets feet eck ta i 
statura corporis et form decorus, tum preefbus tam promissionibas 
ita illexit, ut congregato exercitu et classe paratd, cum eodem 


We have already (see vol. ii. p. 350) seen this writer talking 
about the “Isle of Norway,” when, by the way, he really meant 
Denmark. We here eee where he found it, namely in the opening 
chapters of Jordanes, especially the well-known passage in e. iv. 
(Muratori, 1 193); “Bx hae igitur Scansid insulé, quasi offcind 
gontium, aut corte yelut vagind nationum, eum Rego suo nomine 
Berig, Gothi quondam momorantur ogressi.” 


NOTE BB. p. 314. 
ARNOLD OP ARDRES, 


T ort the account of these adventurers from the “Historia 
Comitum Ardensium” in Bouquet, xi. 305. The office held hy them 
is described as the “villicatura sive prespositura Sancti Bertini in 
torri Ghisnensi,” whieh had been held “hireditario jure” for 
wome generations, Arnold came “opitulante Boloniensi comite 
Eustachio,” and Geoffrey seems to follow him at William's own 
summmons—“ yooutus ab eodem Rege Willelno.” Their rewards are 
thus described ; “ Servientes igitur ambo fratres, Arnoldus videlicet 
ot Gaufridus, jam dicto Regi, tantam ejus adepti sunt gratiam 
quod, protor quotidiana stippendia et manuscula, qua ipsia con- 
tulit inumerabilia, contulit etiam cis ct in perpetuitatis concessit 
foodum, Stcbintoniam ct pertincntias jus, Dokeswordiam, Tropin- 
toninm, Ledefordinm, Toleshondiam, et Hoilondinm.” All these, 
us far ox T can identify them in Domesday, are possessions of 
Eustace, but in two cases only do T find Arnold as under tenant. 





THE DEATH OF CONAN, 727 


suo, commondavit omnem suam hareditatem. ‘Tu autera cam com- 
plicibus tuis Alannum pateem meum spud Winmusteriam in Nor 
mannifi veneno peromisti, et terram qjus, quam ego quio puer cram 
poswidore noquibam, invasieti; et contra fas, cum eis nothus, hucus- 
que tenuisti, Nune igitur aut mihi debitam redde Normanniam, 
aut ego tibi totis viribus bellam inferam, His auditis, Willelmus 
Dux aliquontulum territus ost, Sed mox eum Deus, frustratis 
inimici minis, oripero dignatue cat, Unas enim ex proceribus 
Britonum, qui utrique comiti juraverat fidelitatom, et hujaamodi 
legationem inter cox ferebat, litaum Chuningi, ct habenas, atque 
chirothecas intrinsecus livit yeneno, Emt quippe cubicularius 
Chuning?, Tune idem Comes Britonum in Andegavensi comitatu 
Castellum-Guntherii obsederst, et oppidanis militibus res ili 
dedentibus suos intromittebat. Interea Chuningus chirothecas 
suas incaute indult, tactisque hebenis, manum ad os levavit. Cujus 
tactu veneno infectua est, et poullo post omnibus suis Ingentibus 
defunctas est. Hie multum ragax fuit et probus, ae amator jur- 
titi. Qui si din vixieset, muita bona ut fortur focisset, ac ad 
regendum honorem utilis fuisset, Proditor gutem conscius sui 
reatile, mox de expeditione aufugit, eb mortem Chuningi Willelmo 
‘Duci mandavit.” 

This story, in the way in which it is brought in, looks very like 
un interpolation, and the message of Conan sounds very like 
romance. And it is certainly most remarkable that it seems to be 
 porely Norman story. At least 1 have not been able to find it in 
such Breton and Angevin chronicles as I know anything of, The 
Breton and Angevin writers record Conan's war with Anjou and 
also his death, and they place both in 1066, But they say nothing 
which at all lays his death to the charge of William, Of three 
Broton chronicles in the collection of Morice (Mémoires pour pervir 
de Preuves & I'Histoire de Bretagne), the first in the collection says 
merely, “1066, Cometa apporuit. Obit Conanus Dux Britannie 
filiua Alani. Normanni Auglia coperunt.” Another, the Chronicle 
of Suint Brieus (p. 36), montions the war with Anjou. Conan 
“quam territorium Andegavense devastisset, in eodem territorio, 
poullo ante destructionem Heraldi Angloram Regis, sine liberis 
morte proeventus est anno Domini 1066." A third Chronicle (p. 
102) tells us how, in 1066, Comes Britannorum Conanus juvenis 
et malitiosus, Andegavorum terram adorsus, superkue pervasioni 


OPERATIONS OF THE ENGLISH FLEET IN 1066. 729 


in September !—fell sick, perhaps from a wound, and left his 
jands at Kelvedon to Saint Peter at Westminster,“ rediit, 
cecidit in infirmitate, tune dedit Sancto Petro istud manerinm.” 
The words which follow in Domesday have an importance of 
another kind, which I eball discuss in » future volume, 

Tho other Domosday ontry referred to ia leas distinct than that 
of Athelvic, but it looks the same way. Tn Norfolk, ii, 200, we 
find mention of one Endeic, described as “rector navis Regis 
Edwardi," On William's accession ho was outlawed and fled to 
Donmark (*postquam Rox W. venit in Angliam fuit iste Edrieus 
oxlex in Daciam"). One may guess that Endric cornmanded in 
the engagement or skirmish in which Althelric was concerned, In 
connexion with this Enat-Anglian entry, we may take the statement 
of John of Oxenedes (293), nbout AElfwold, Abbot of Saint Benet’s ; 
“ Hie « Rege Haraldo marina committebatar custodis.” And we 
might ask whether any trace of these naval operstions Turks in the 
wild story in the Annales Altahenses (Porta, xx. 617); “Hac matato 
Aquitani cum Anglo-Saxonicis navali prolio pugnaverunt, cosque 
victos suo dominio suljugaverunt.” 

‘There are some other passages which might soem to imply naval 
operations at a later time. Of the losses of William's flect during 
the voynge, ond of the affair of Romnoy, whenever it happened, 
Thave spoken in the te®t, pp. 412, 533. A dood in the Curtulary 
of the Holy Trinity at Rouen (pp. 453, 454) looks the same way. 
One Roger, the son of Turold, who was going to join William's 
expedition (“ultra mare cum Willelmo comite navignturue”), gavo 
lands to the monastory, but died on the voyage before the gift was 
complete (in eidem navigatione morte preventus, hoc confirmare 
non valuit”), We must also remember the account given by 
Williom of Poitiers (131), where he doseribes Harold's march into 
Sussox, and aye that an English let of sovon hundred shipa 
was sont somewhoro or other to cut off the Norman retreat (!* ne 
perfugio abirent, classe armati ad septingcntas naves in mari oppo- 
suerat insidias"). Guy of Amions (319) puts nearly the same 
‘statement into the mouth of one of the mesmengers between William 
and Harold ; 


“Per mare, por terran, provia magna parst, 
Ta maro quingentas fertur mixdeo carinas, 
‘Ve noatri reditOs proepodintur iter.” 





THE MARCH OF HAROLD TO YORK. 731 


and the march must have begun, before tho battle of Fulford was 
fonght, Tn fact our remaining Chronicle gives us a hint that that 
battle was fought while Harold was alrcady on his march. The 
Abingdon narrative runs thus; 

© And foran jo bogon (Tostig and Harold Hardrada] mid ealfum 
jam lite andlang Uso up to Hoferwic wud. Da eydde man 
Harolde cynge be susan, pa he of scipe cumen was, pict Harold 
‘eyng on Norwegan and Tostig corl weron up cumene neh Eofer- 
wic, pa for ho nor¥weard dager and nihtes, ewa hrote swa bo hig 
fyrde gegaderian mihte. Pa sr pam pe se cyning Harold pyder 
coman mihte, pa gegaderode Eadwine eorl and Morkere eort of 
heora eorldome swa mycel werod swa hi begitan mihton.” 

‘Then follows the battle of Fulford. The same account ia fol- 
Towed by Florence 5 

“In loco qui Ricbale dicitar spplicuerant. Quod ubi Regi 
Haroldo innotuit, versus Northhymbriam expeditioncm propere 
movit, Sod prinsquam Rex illuc veniret, duo germani comites,” &e, 

‘Here it is not the nows of the battle of Fulford, but the news of 
the landing nt Riceall, on hearing of which Hurold sets forth. This 
is at least possible, as we have uo distinct statement how long a 
time paseed between the landing and the battle. But the story 
certainly reada as if the battle followed very fast upon the landing, 
and as if Harold must have been on his march, not only before the 
battle, but before the landing. And indeed some news must have 
reached him of the approach of the Norwegian fleet, of the muster 
in the ‘Tyne, and of the ravage of tho Yorkshire coast. One cannot 
help thinking thot the Chroniclers, even the Abingdon Chronicler, 
have fallen into « certain inaccuracy of expression, and that Harold 
must have known of the approach of the Northorn enemy at a mach 
carlicr time than their words would imply, Aud yet, after all, the 
insecuracy is hardly a literal one. Nows both of the landing and 
of the battle would mach the King on his march and would stir 
up him and his army to still greater exertions. ‘The greot march 
of Harold is in itself one of the most wonderful things in our won- 
derful history. But, if wo take the words of the Worcester and 
Peterborough Chronicles in their literal and grammatical sense, the 
march becomes not only wonderful but miraculous. 


all 








DETAILS OF THE BATTLE OF STAMPORDBRIDGE, 733 


Riccall (ree p. 350), and never went to Stamfordbridge at all. 
All the men of this division (gee p. 376) went back safe to Norway, 
while hardly any fugitives escaped from Stamfordbridge. It was 
therefore only natural that the story of the former part of the 
campaign, taking in the battle of Fulford, should be much better 
known in Norway than the details of the greater battle itself, 
‘Tho Sagu-maker therefore had trustworthy tradition to follow for 
cone purt of hia story, while for the other he had to draw largely on 
his imagination, 

I have drawn my own ideos of this, as of other battles, from an 
examination of the ground compared with tho accounts of the 
original writers. T have twico visited the field of Stamfordbridge, 
in July and in December 1867, the farmer time in company with 
Archdeacon Jones (now Bishop of Saint Davids) and Mr. J. K. Green, 
when I also examined the site of Fulford with the Archdeacon, Ln 
Docember I also visited Aldby and the ground between Aldby and 
Stamfordbridge. Ihave compared the impreseious thus formed with 
the short accounts in the Chronicles, and with those in Henry of 
Huntingdon and Willism of Malmeebury, The narrative of Honry 
has a special value, As soon as he reaches the actual fight, his 
narrative, hitherto meagre and inaccurate, suddenly lights up, aad 
becomes minute, poetical, and evidently founded om an accurate 
knowledge of the epot. ‘That ie to say, his deseription hore, ae in 
#0 many other cases, is founded on a contemporary and local ballad, 
of whose words distinct traces may be seen in his narrative, Au 
English ballad of Stamfordbridge must have been absolutely con- 
temporary with the event—made perhaps to be sung at King 
Harold's feast of victory, Such a relic, did we possess it in full, 
would be almost mor precious than the songs of Brunanburh and 
Maldon. 


‘The accounts in Lappenberg, Thierry, and St, John scem to have 
been written without any knowledge of the ground. Lappenberg 
pate the single-handed defence of the bridge quite at the end of the 
battle. ‘This is perhaps merely an attempt to pateh on this incident 
to the account in the Saga, or it is perhaps because the story 
comes at the end of the Abingdon Chronicln But it comes at the 
end of the Chronicle only because it js an addition by another hand, 
and the words in which the anecdote is told show that it did 
not take place at the end of tho battle Any one who compares 





DETAILS OF THE BATTLE OF STAMFORDBRIDGE, 735 


with their main strength being on the further side, The English 
come “unawares” on the unprepared divieion on the right side, 
and drive them back, The single horo defends the bridge, and 
gives time for the main army beyond it to form. Then comes the 
great fight in which the two leaders are slain, and the whole Nor- 
wogian army is at last cut to piccos, 

The only point on which Ihave any doubt is ax to the Hours 
of the day. Henry of Huntingdon makes the battle begin in the 
carly morning, “summo mane;” the first fight lasts till noon ; the 
defender of the bridge withstands the passage of the English till 
three in the afternoon. Then ¢omes the second fight, and, after 
all this day's work, Harold of England is back at York the same 
evening, and the same erening he hears at dinner—or rather 
supper—of the landing of William (see p. 377). Tho reckoning of 
timo is in iteelf suspicious, and it ie clearly not without a reference 
to the sacred hours of the Church. The first and Inst reckonings 
can be shown to be wrong. It is possible that Harold may have 
gone back to York on the night of the battle. But he certainly did 
not hear that evening of Willinm's landing, because William hod 
not yet landed (see p. 402). Neither could the battle have began 
very early in the morning. The English army got no further than 
Tadesster on the Sunday evening (“com Harold... on Sone 
Sunnandeg to Tia” Chron. Ab,). On Monday morning they 
marched from Tadeastor, through York, to Stamfordbridge (‘fir 
po on Monandeg purh ut Eoferwic”), A march of about seventeen 
miles, with doubtless some, though not a very long, halt in the 
city, could not be gone through so as to make the battle begin 
very early on a September morning. Then it is quito inconceivable 
thot the resistance on the right side lasted from early morning till 
noon, and the defence of the bridge from noon till three o'clock. 
A three hours’ defence of the bridge by one man is impossible, 
‘The affair was probably an affair of minutes, though at such a 
moment ininutes would seem like hours. Most likely the bours 
have got into the wrong places, From noon till three would be 
a vory likely amount of time for the whole of the actual fighting. 
‘The march and the pursuit have to be added at each end to make 
up the whole day's work. 

But this mistake as to the mere reckoning of hours need not 
throw any doubt as to the main facts of tho one intelligible and 





DETAILS OF THE BATTLE OF STAMFORDBRIDGE, 737 


Worcester and Peterborough Chroniclers give no account of the 
details of the battle, though the Worcester writer becomes rather 
‘minute as to the fate of tho Northmen after the battle (eve p. 376). 
Florence follows Worcester. William of Malmesbury (ii, 228) gives 
no details except in his account of the defence of the bridge, which 
he introduces with the words, “Angli superiorem manum nacti, 
Noricos in fugam egerunt ; eed tantorum et tot virorum viotoriam 
(quod forsitan postoritas difficile credat) unus Noricus mult bord 
interpolavit.” This almost sounds a if William hud read the two 
accounts in the Abingdon Chronicle as a consecutive narrative ; his 
“in Fugam egerunt” seems to come from the “ Normen flogon pa 
Englises," followed by the account of the defence of the bridge. 
Tt is clear that it ts from this account of William of Malmesbury 
that the ides arose that the defeuce of the bridge took place in 
the very last stage of the battle, 

‘The three Kings whom Lambert (s00 above, p.647) conceived to 
have been killed at Stamfordbridge must be Harold Hurdrada, the 
Trish King (sce p. 373), and, I suppose, Tostig, mistaken fora King. 


T have in the text (see p. 355) suggested that the neighbourhood 
of Aldby may have been one of the attractions which ed Hurold 
Hardrads to Stamfordbridge. It may however be thought an 
objéttion thot Aldby is on the York side of the river, while 
T conceive the main strength of the Norwegian army to have 
‘been on the other side. But if the bridge whieh now crosses 
the river at Aldby bad « predecessor in those days, this difficulty 
is got rid of. But I do not at all insist on the: connexion 
with Aldby as any osvential part of the etory, It seema to me 
to have been a probable motive, but if it is thought inconsistent 
with the one intelligible view of the battle, it must be given up. 


Let us now see how the great victory of Stamfordbridge looked 
in tho oyen of Norman and Normannizing writers. Tt is universally 
looked on ns a wicked fratricide. William of Poitiers (126) refers 
to the Northumbrian campaign only in an incidental way, William 
landed casily, because Hareld “in Eboracensem pagum rocesserat, 
cum fratre suo Tostillo et Horaldo Noricorum Rege dimicaturus,” 
‘This was n first-rate opportunity for reviling Harold, and the 
Archdeacon accordingly goes on with # fierce declamation, to some 

Yor, M1, 3B 





DETAILS OF THE BATTLE OF STAMPORDBRIDGE. 739 
The Hyde writer has also his stone to fling at the fratricide, 


Lastly, William of Malmesbury, who in his account of Stamford- 
bridge bad spoken as an Englishman, turns about and muses in 
this fashiou (iii, 29); “Tnteren Haroldus de pugnt Noricorum 
revertebatur, sui imatione felix quod vicerat; meo judicio 
contra, quod parricidio vietoriam comparirat.” 

‘The force of party prejudice ean really not go further than this 
kind of talk. We can better forgive the Welsh writer who (Brut 
y Tywysogicn, 1066) tells ue how “Harold, King of Denmark, 
moditated the subjection of the Suxons; whom another Harold, the 
son of Earl Godwine, who was then King in England, surprised, 
unwarned and unarmed, and by a sudden attack, aided by national 
treachery, struck to the ground and caused his death." Still the 
Welshman’s notions of national treachery must haye been strange, 
and this Iamont or invective is oddly thrust into the colourless 
narmtive of the Annales Cambri#. On the other hand Snorro ix 
never carried away in this sort, His mythical dotaila represent 
Harold aa offering quarter to his brother and to his enemies over 
and over again. Thus even fable bears witness to the general 
character of our great King, and Willinm of Malmesbury had him- 
elf once (ii. 228) praised Harold's clemency in his dealings with 
his conquered enemies; “Rex Harvegre et Tostinus interempti ; 
Regis filius cum omnibus navibus domum clementer remiss,” 








And now, for the last time, we come back for a moment to our 
old companion, the Biographer of Eadward, His direct narrative 
has long vince failed us, but in one of his poetical flighte (p. 426) 
be has a very distinct allusion to the fight of Stamfordiridgo, He 

gn2 





WILLIAM'S RAVAGES IN SUSSEX. 74L 


NOTE GG. p. 413. 
Wriuors Ravaons m Stssex. 


‘Tie ravages of William’s army in Sussex atand acknowledged in 
the Norman writers, and there can be little doubt thnt they were 
systematic ravages done with the settled object of bringing Harold 
too battle. The lasting nature of the destruction wrought at this 
time is shown by the large number of places round about Hastings 
which are retarned in Domosday as “wasta,” As many of these 
as can be identified I have marked in the map. 

On the other hand Mr. Hayley, # South-Saxon antiquary, who is 
quoted by Sir Henry Ellia (i, 314) and Mr, Taylor (Wace, 262), 
strangely attributes the hurrying of thore places which lie at all 
near the line of Harold's march to the English army, and not to 
the Normans, This notion would hardly hare needed any answer 
except from the sort of sanction given to it by the two writers who 
quote Mr, Hayley, I do not believe that any army of any age 
ever passed through a district without doing some damage, but to 
suppose that Harold systematically harried his own kingdom, and 
not only his own kingdom, but a shire spocially attached to his 
house and which contained a large part of his private estates, 
does seem to me the height of absurdity. A King who was, as 
William of Poitiers tells un (me p. 414), hastening to save tho 
country from ravage, who, as Wace tells us (ses p. 439), indignantly 
refused to inflict the slightest unnyoidable damage on any of his 
people, was cortainly not likely to mark his course by systematic 
harrying. And, what is more, on such a hasty march as Harold's 
evidently was, Swegen himself could not have done the sort of lasting: 
damage which is implied in the lands being returned os “waste” 
twenty years after, The ravaging must have been something 
thorongh and systematic, like the ravaging of Northumberland a 
few year later, Such ravaging could only have been done by an 
army which had taken up ite quarters in tho country, as William's 
had at Hastings Also, if Harold bad ravaged, he would have 
ravaged along his whole line of march, and not have waited till he 
was within a few miles of Senlac, But Mr, Hayley does not produce 
tingle instance of & return of “wasta” along the early part of 





NAMES OF ENGLISHMEN AT SENLAC. 743 


dos not seem to have been the enze with the two nameless Hamp- 
shire freemen, whose land at the time af the Survey was in the 
hands of a King’s Thogn, an Englishman named Zilfwig, The 
ontry, as far as wo are now concerned with it, runs thus (Domes> 
day, 50); “Alwi filius Turber tonot de Roge Tederlee, ‘Tres liberi 
homines tenerunt in alodium de Rege E. . . . . Duo ex his qui 
tenucrunt occisi fuerunt in bello de Hastinges.” I know not 
whethor I ought to have added to my list two other Hampshire 
Thegns of small estate, Kadnoth and Eadwig, who appear in the 
same page of Domesday; “Sudberie temerunt Fdnod et Rawi in 
alodium de Rege E. et post mortem ¢jus ipsi quoque sunt mortui, 
Quidam yero proximas corum Cola redemit terram de Willelmo 
comite.” ‘This doot not positively show that Kadnoth and Eadwig 
died at Senlac, but the time of their death and the seeming con- 
fixcation of their lands look like it. 

‘The caso of Ailfric of Huntingdonshire (Domesday, 208) is very 
clear ; the entry is a follows; “Terram Alurioi de Gellinge et 
Emingeforde testantur fuigse Sancti Benedicti, . . . . Tpae autem 
Aluricus occisus fuit im bello apud Hastinges,” The nameléss 
Norfolk man (Domesday, ii. 275 6) seems to have been a case of 
the same kind, But Brome of Suffolk was a freeman of King 
Eadward, and there is no mention of nny connexion of his with any 
religious houso. ‘The entry (Domesday, ti. 4o9 6) is am follows ; 
“Tn Dagaworda tennit Breme liber homo regis E. qui fait oocisus 
in bello Hastingensi.” 

Godric the Sheriff and Thurkill of Berkshire are better ascer~ 
tained persons. Their deaths are recorded in the History of Abing- 
don (vol. i. p. 484, and again p. 490). Of Thurkill we read, 
“ Quidam dives Thurkillua nemine, sub Haroldi comitis testimonio 
ot consulta, de Be cum euf torrid qua Kingostun dicitur, ecclesia 
Abbendonens! et abbati Oririco homaginm fecit" (seo vol. il. p. 42, 
und on commendation vol. i, p. 89). ‘The place is Kingston Bagpure 
in Berkshire, of which wo read in Domesday (60 5), “Stanchill 
tenvit T. R, E,,” whom Sir Honry Ellis (ii, 227) is no doubt right in 
identifying with Thurkill. It ix singular that Thuricill should also 
have held of the King another lordship of the name of Kingston in 
the same shire (sco Domesday, 6), Of Godric the Sheriff 1 shall 
gpeak more in vol. iv. Appendix B. 

‘The mention of Kadric the Descon comes from Domesday, ti. 





DATES OF EVENTS BETWEEN THE TWO BATTLES, 745 


On the other hand, there is no doubt as to the day of the Battle 
of Senlac. The Worcester Chronicle says expresily, “pie gefoobt 
wwe gedon on pone dig Caleeti pape.” So Orderic (gor A), 
“Bellum secando Idus Octobr. hori tertid commiasum est.” Tt 
is strange that 80 accurate a writer as Florence should have given 
@ wrong date, placing tho battle on the 21st or 22nd, “xi, Kal, 
Novembris sabato.” William of Jumidges (vii. 36) gives the right 
dato, “ Pridie Idus Octobrix” But he makes (vii. 34) the strange 
mistake of placing the Battle of Stamfordbridge only one week 
before the Battle of Senlac (“Hie pugna Nonis Octobris in die 
sabbati facta est”). So Adam of Bremen (iii, gr); "Vix, ut 
niunt, dies octo transierunt, et ecee Willehelmus ... a Gallia 
transfretans, in Angliam lasso victori bellum fntolit.". T have 
no doubt that Harold reached Senlac the dsy before the battle, 
that is on Friday, October 13th (see p. 443). William was thus 
a fortnight at Hastings, which agrees with the “quindecim dies” 
of William of Malmesbury (iif, 238.) 

Of the dates of Harold’y movements during this time our ac- 
counts are much less certain. We are told on authority which 
is not first rate that Harold spent five or six days in London 
‘whilst his troops were coming in. “Deinde per sex dies innu- 
meram multitudinem Anglorum contraxit," mys William of Ju- 
anieges (vii. 35). So Gaimar (5257), “Cine jurs i mist al asembler.” 
‘The statement however is probable cnough, and, in default of any 
better authority, we may accept it, We have then to arrange the 
other events accordingly. We may give two days to the march 
from London to Senlac, making Harold leave London on Thure- 
day the r2th. He would thus have reached London on the gth. 
‘This puts Harold's coming to London exaetly a week after William's 
landing at Pevensey, allowing three days for the mexsenger’s hasty 
ride from Pevensey to York, and four days for the King's some- 
what slower march from York to London, Sunday, October 1, 
would seem to have been the day on which Harold heard the news 
‘of William's landing. The speed with which events followed one 
another is almost miraculous, but that is the main characteristic 
‘of these two wonderful campaigns, 


‘The following may serve a8 an approximate calendar of there 
events ; 


THE MESSAGES HETWEEN HAROLD AND WILLIAM. 747 


plain that the latter part of the spooch is thoroughly in place as 
‘an answer to a great part of the Norman case. It is clear that 
the onder of the messages has heon transposed, and that the first 
message wus sent by William to Harold, and not by Harold to 
William, And indced, to say nothing of the particular anguments 
in either messago, it was far more natural for the claimant to 
send a first message to the actual possessor than for the netunl 
possessor to send o first message to the claimant, And this ix 
actually the order in which the story is told in Wace, whom [ 
have therefore not ecrupled to follow, In his account (11891 et 
seqq,), 26 soon as William hears that Harold has reached London, 
he sends the monk of Fécamp, Hugh Margot, of whose speech T 
have given the substance in p. 433. Harold is represented as 
being kindled almost to madness at the meseago, and as being 
kept back from personal violence to the messenger only by the 
interference of Gyrth. This is doubtlest a mere piece of Norman 
scandal akin to the other storics which I have mentioned in p. 
438, and with the story from Matthew Paris quoted in p. 71g. ‘The 
alleged violence is quite out of character with oll that we know 
of Harold, and the introduction of Gyrth, to whow exaltation 
Wace is 20 strangely devoted, casts a further doubt om the stary. 
But these mythical details in no way affect the probability of the 
order which Wace gives to the meszages, When Hugh Margot 
ix gone, Hareld sends his own messenger, an Englishman who 
could speak French (11949); 
“Done a Eleraut prin un momage 
Ki do Franco sont li langage.” 

‘Tho gpeech put into his mouth i an anawer to the Norman claime, 
but it takes a rather different line from the speech in William 
of Poitiors, While the latter chiefly deals with tho respective 
claims of William and Harold to the Orown, the speech in Wace 
chiefly doals with the question of the oath, which Harold maintains 
to be of no force, aa having been sworn under compulsion (11956) ; 


“(Se jo Ui ait fot folemnent, ‘Quer nal’ fat sfemt do mon gra 5 
Se jo unkes rien if prams, La force ert woo, al erem cle, 
Por tan dilivranco lo fa; ‘Seas volontis no fasclo, 

Dor mel délivrer H jurai, ‘Ke jo jamais no revertiase, 


Qoant k'fl me qaist I otndal. Bt toa toms Ub rvinainaionc,” 
No mo det ostre roproot, 





THE MESSAGES BETWEEN HAROLD AND WILLIAM. 749 


William's answer winds up by offering mercy to Harold if he 
will repent and submit, and promising him hie father's earldom on 
‘his again becoming William's man (243); 
“(Si quamrit pacem, al vul delicta Sater, 
‘ndulgens culpa parcere promptus ero; 
‘Termam quam pride tenult pater, hnne sli reddam, 
‘Ut mous ante fuit ai mous eave wolit.”” 

Now Wace clearly distinguishes between these messages, which 
he describes as being exchanged while Harold was still in London, 
and other meseages, which he describes as being exchanged after 
Harold had already encamped on Senlac. It ie likely that 
messages would be interchanged at both stages; when William 
of Poitiers rolls the two stages into one, he only displays his usual 
disregard of chronology, while Guy seems equally careless of 
geography. Harold is first ot York and then at Senlac, without 
® word about the march or tho sojourn in London. The Arch- 
deacon makes his monk, who is evidently the same as Wace’s 
Hugh Margot, go to Harold, with the statement of William's rights 
which I have given in ‘Vol. ii. p. 299, and with the offer which 
I have given in p. 433. But ho alzo offors, in tho intcrosts of 
humanity, a decision of the quarrel by single combat (“at si 
conditionem hane repudiaverit, non duco justum ut homines mei 
yel sui concidant prelinnde, quorum in lite nostré culpa nulla est. 
Ecce paratus ego sum capite meo contra caput illiua exeerore, quod 
mibi potius quam ili jure cedat regnum Anglicum”). The Arch- 
deacon now bursts forth into a panegyric on his master’s skill in 
argument aud on his hatred of bloodshed; be then gives us 
Harold’s answer. His doseription is cortainly graphic. For 
while Harold cannot speak (“atupore expalluit, atque dia ut 
elinguis obticnit”); when he does speak, the monk, to 
questions, gets no answer beyond threats of immediate battle (“per- 
gins continonter,” “ pergimus ad prelivm”). At the final offer of 
tho single combat, Harold lifts up his face to heaven, and says that 
God shall judge between him and William (tum levate Hersldus 
in colum vultu, ait; Dominus inter me et Willelmum hodie quod 
justum est decernat”), All this happens while Harold is not far 
off from Hastings (“ mandata Heraldo appropinquanti per mona- 
chum sunt relata), and the battle seems to begin almost dirsetly 
“after. 





THE MESSAGES BETWEEN HAROLD AND WILLIAM, 751 


Harold not unnaturally returns (301) on answer aa indignant as 
that which Waoe pute into his mouth at the earlier time. God 
shall Judgo between him and William on the morrow, All this 
is therefore conceived as happening on the night of Friday, 
October 13th 5 
*«Heraldas vult distorto cota retarqnons, 
‘Legnto disit, “ Vaile roteo, atolide. 
Sudios cras Domino, reyni pare juste patebit, 
Dividet ex mquo snore ante Domini,’ 
Tho monk goes back to his master and gives him a report of what 
he had seen in the English camp, some words of which I have 
already quoted here and there, It is remarkable also (323) for 
speaking of the English in m scornful way of which there is 
no trace when Guy comes to the actual battle, and which oddly 
enough forestalls the description which we bave of Norman 
fashions in the next generation (see Ord, Vit. jor A; Eadmer, 23); 
“Pore numerum motuor > numarus wed viribus oxpore 
Plurimus @ minimo spe repulsus ablt. 


Uh vulpes pavidi fulguri ad sono.” 
These two descriptions of the final message and the final anewer 
of Harold ore evidently the same as those which Wace (ra25¢ ob 
veqq.) describes as taking place after the English were encamped 
on the hill. The accounts are essentially the same; both contain 
the same offer of single combat, which seems more appropriate now 
than before, I have therefore followed Wace in making two sets 
‘of messages, one exchanged in London, the other (see p, 449) on 
the day before the battle, William of Malmosbury also (iil, 239— 
240) brings in @ message and an answer at this stage. But he 
alao brings in here the proporal of Gyrth that Harold should fall 
baok on London (see p. 436). Ho adda also, like Guy, somo ex- 
pressions borrowed from the earlier message in William of Poitiers, 
namely the talk about the grant of the Crown by Eadward with 
the consent of the Earls, and also the story of the hostages. Both 
Wace and Willinm make the Duke offer Harold « choieo of threo 
things, the single combat being the last alternative, The only 
difference is that in Wace the offer thut Harold should hold the 





THE ENGLISH NUMBERS AT SENLAC. 753 


“Modico stipatus agmine Rex properat ad expugnandas gentes 
exteras, hou nimis animosus, minus quidem quam expediret cir- 
propriis quidem magis quam suorum confidens viribus, 

. Nan potuit de pari contendere, qui modico stipatus sgmine, 

(quadruplo congresras, cxereitad, sortl on'dellt axclpith Comparo 
the History of Abingdon, & 483, 

The Norman writers, on the other hand, can hardly find words 
strong enough to set forth the countless numbers of the English 
host, William of Poitiers (132) rises, as might have been expected, 
to ono of his grandeat flights; “Scribons Heraldi agmen illud 
Telcom acl La shen ae a eae 
redactas fuisse memorarct, Maximm enim ex omnibus undique 
gionibus copim Anglorum convenerant,” A little way on Gate 
talks of their “ingens numerositas,” Guy enlarges throughout on 
the numbers of the English. He makes William’s monk eny (321), 

“Quo greditur, sllvas planis deduclt adeso, 
Bt per que transit fluming sicos tacit.” 
And afterwards (441) we read, 
“Anglorum populus, numero saperante, repllit 
Hostor." 


But T presume that tho twelve hundred thousand mon of whom the 
English monk is made to speak (223) moans the whole military 
population of England snd not the host actually encamped on 


Sonlac ; 
” «Nam Domfaun teator, bis eux albl millla centum 
Sunt puynatorum, pruilia qui aitfuos.” 
So Orderic (500 D) and William of Jumidgoa (vii. 35) speak of 
an “innumera multitudo.” Adam of Bremen (iii. 51) makes « 
hundred thousand English die in the battle, and the Draco Nor- 
mannicus (i. 1325) makes William say, 
©" Millibua Haraldua confidit, nom feritato; 
Prealia non numero sed foritate vigemt.” 
Wace makes Harold boast (12999) that be has four hundred 
thousand men 5 
© Ke chevallors ke paisanx 
‘Par quatre fois chent mil armex.” 
But when ho speaks in hia own person (t2913) be spenke with his 
‘usual good sense 5 
VoL. UL. ge 





MIRACULOUS WARNING GIVEN TO HAROLD, 755 


NOTE MM. p. 430. 


‘Tax Mmmacutovs Warxixe aivex To HAxony neous 
cus Barris, 


T mave told in the text the tale of the miraculous warning 
given to Harold by the Holy Rood at Waltham, becauso there is 
probably thus mach of truth in the story, that Harold really visited 
Waltham in the interval between the two battles But when the 
notion of a miraculous interposition had once got afloat, the story, 08 
usual, took various forms, According to the legend preserved by 
tho Hyde writer (p, 293), Harold, on his march from London to 
Senlac, entered a church to pray. As soon as he left the building, 
the towor fell; this of coure foretold the full of Harold's king- 
dom (““fertur etiam quod in ipso itinere, ecclesiam illo introeunte 
regnumque Angloram quam eitins corruere designaverit”). ‘Thera 
is nothing to remark in this story, unless it be that the notion of 
Harold entering a church on his journey may be taken from the 
picture of his entering Bosham church on his carlier journey 
(Tapestry, plate 1), where the church is, strangely enough, repre- 
sented without a tower. 

‘The other yersion is found in the anonymous continuation of 
Wace's Brut (Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, i. 70, quoted alo 
in Taylor's Wace, 289). The two armies are encamped near 
Hastings; 


A Hastinges cunt encontré 
Li role ¢ Mi dux par grant florté,"* 
Harold rises in the morning, and goes to hear mass in « church 
near the battle-field (‘assez prés i un moster"). ‘The priests havo 
consecrated the hort and sang the Pater Voster, when a ery comes, 
“The Duke is upon ug!" The King at once leaves the church, 
and rushes to the battle. Tf, the poet adds, he had waited for the 
Agnus Dei ond the Paw, he would haye vanquished the Duke in 
battle or would have held hip Kingdom in peace; 
“Si le Agnus Def oust atendu Par pal cust Is terre teow 
E Is pais oust reosu, U par bataillo to dus: venou,” 
This story seems to come from the account of the battle of 
Bceedun in Aseor (M.H. B. 476 C, copied sluo by Florence, 871), 
302 





‘THE DETAILS OF THE BATTLE OF SENLAC. 767 


company of Mr, J. R. Groen, who hat a much keener eye than 
I have for topography, especially for military topography. But 


Toasn huppy to say that his oborvations hud muinly tho effect of 


explaining and confirming the conclusions to which I had come 
two yearn before, In the same month I walked specially from 
Hastings to Battle, a part of the procom almoxt as needful as the 
survey of the netual battleground, and Instly came my final visit 
in Tune, 1869, which T have mentioned in the Preface, 

Most of the accounts of the battle, ancient and modern, show 
‘very little understanding of the site, Of the primary authorities, 
William of Poitiers and Guy of Amiens both show by several 
touches that they understood it, Bat Guy alone bears the position 
in mind throughout his story. William begins with an excellent 
description, but his topography is soon loot in his rhetoric. ‘The 
local historian, the author of the Chronicon de Bello, is still more 
distinct; so is the author of the Brevis Relatio. The Tapestry 
gives but little idea of the general site, though some particular 
incidents are shown with wonderful vividness, Wace, I think, 
conld not have seen the ground. The English contemporary 
writers give no details of any kind ; the later writers, as William 
of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, give incidental help 
which is sometimes very valuable, but they scem to have bad 
very little notion of the general position. Henry of Huntingdon 
is the most remarkable case, ‘Tho latter part of his account con 
tains a great deal that is very much to the purpose, and we owe to 
him the admirable comparison of Harold's camp to a cantle (ece 
P. 444). Yet this follows on a statement so grotesquely innceu- 
rate as that Harold “nciem sunm constraxit in planis Hastinges" 
QL H. B, 762 C). It will be easily seen that my narrative is 
mainly drawn from the Tapestry, William of Poitiers, and Guy, 
using the other writers, Wace at their hoad, ag subsidiary. In no 
part of the inquiry does the paramount value of the Tapestry come 
out more strongly. There js little contradiction among the primary 
authorities as to the main facts, though they often differ aa to their 
order, In these caves I haye had to choose according to the bert 
of my discretion ; the reader must judge with what success, 

Most of the modern accounts, including those of Thierry, Lappen- 
berg, M, de Bonnechose, and Mr, St. John, seem to have been 
written with little or no attention to the ground, If we learn from 





THE DETAILS OF THE BATTLE OF SENLAC. 759 


“the Lake," * Battle Lake,” and so forth, the local names for the 
south-eastern part of the town. (See Lower, p. 70.) “Sanglac" or 
“Sanguelac” I take to be simply a French pun on the name. On the 
authority of Orderic then, I have not scrupled systematically to use 
the word, especially as a name for the spot is wanted. In Domes 
day and elsewhere the battle is “ bellum Hastingense,” “bellum 
apud Hastinges,” but that ia simply as Stamfordbridge is “bellum 
apad Eboracarn.” 

2. The story of Harold and Gyrth going by night to spy out the 
Norman eamp (soe p. 449) comes from Wace, 12120-12217. Like 
a good deal that is suid about Gyrth, it rests on no sufficient evi- 
dence. ‘The tendency to exalt Gyrth is common to several of the 
Norman writers, but it comes ont more strongly in Wace than 
anywhere else. Tn fuct this part of his poem is little short of a 
Gyrthind, ‘The English Earl is less prominent than the Norman 
Duke, but he is more prominent than any one else, Wace evi- 
dontly takes a spocial pleasure in talking of hins; the conception 
of his character ia well drawn, and his story is wrought up with a 
good deal of opic skill, till he ix cut down at the very end of the 
battle by the hand of William himsclf. We may accept the yalour 
and wisdom of Gyrth on tho witness of his enemies; but there must 
be some reason for the special favour which ho enjoys, Perhaps it 
‘was felt to be necessary to the greatness of William that he should 
be matched with a worthy adversary. Harold's skill and valour were 
not disputed, but the perjurer and usurper could not be painted as 
a hero in tho higher sense, ‘The place was open for Gyrth, and it 
doubtless suited his traditional character. But oll this makes me 
somewhat suspicious of the details of any story in which he is 
prominent, 

3+ Williara of Poitiers (132) has a strange statement that there 
were Danish auxiliaries nt Senlne; “Copiosn quoque anxilia miserat 
eis (Anglis) cognata terra Danorum.” ‘There ix not a word more 
about them in his narrative, nor, as far as I know, anywhere else. 
By Danes is poesibly meant Northumbrions, ‘The fow Yorkshire 
volunteers who followed Harold (seo p, 426) may have got magni~ 
fied into an army fresh from Denmark, I do not understand what 
Lappenberg (549) means, whon he mys, “die Dien wurden 
unbrauchbar, da sie nicht gogen Herzog Wilholia selbab fechten xu 
wollen erklirten,”" Docs this come from the words which imme- 





THE DETAILS OF THE BATTLE OF SENLAC, 761 


Bishops, and on the devotions of the army, both during the night 
and on the morning before the battle. The vow is thus described 
(12485-12490) 5 
Por go ke samedi extelt, Bi com li cler l'orent lod, 
Ke In bataille eeteo debveit, Ke A ovt jor mox wil voekoient, 
‘Unt Normans pramis § vos, ‘Char no sauno ne maingereint,” 


In the analogous cage, the picty of the English on the night before 
Azincourt is strongly insisted on in some of our accounts, Tuke 
Elmham for instance (479) 3 
“ Nox pluvialis ti plobem eine pane madebat : 
Ad Doutiowm vigiles quique dedere preoes."" 
So Walsingham, ii, gro, ed, Riley; Monstrelet, vol. ic. 146, 
p. 227, What the French are chiolly charged with is playing at 
dice for English raneoms, Soo Redman, p, 45, ed, Cole, ‘This is 
the point chiefly brought out by Shakespeare, Henry V, Act iv. 
Chorus, With this we ay compare the account given by Plutarch 
(Lue. 27) of the conduct of the army of Tigranés before the battle 
with Lucullua; ol pdr Zenumror, of & imip riov Aaipar dy maiBid (Bad~ 
Aevro xAjpov. Compare also the accounts of the night before Lewes, 
the picty of the patriots and the foul excesses of the royalists. 
Risbanger, Chron, p. 25; Chron, Lancrcost, 75; Political Songs 
(Camden 80e.), p, 80. 
5. hotel BOM De a 
William of Poitiers (132), Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 762, 
763), and Wace (12531 et eqq.). William candidly says, “Bx 


ol fiesta ae ‘The two chief points in his sum- 
mary aro the glories of the Normans in earlier warfare (‘com- 
monuit Normannos quod in multis atque magnis periculia victores 
tamen se duce semper exatiterint. Commonuit omnes patrim sum, 
nobilium gestorum magnique nominia”) and the small renown of 
the English (“sepenumero Anglos hostili ferro dejectos cecidiae, 
pleramque superatos in hostis venisso deditionem, numquam gloriit 
militios laudatos”), Henry of Huntingdon, allowably enough, bas 
worked up these two pointa into an elaborate harangue, which 
amounts to » sort of panegyrical history of Normandy, in which 
he enlarges on Mortemer, but says nothing about Varaville, But 





THE DETAILS OF THE BATTLE OF SENLAC. 763 


‘This sceno is evidently tho same as that which ia represented in the 
‘Tapestry (plate 12); “Willem Dux interrogat Vital si vidiswet 
exercitum Haroldi.” This Vital, it will be remembered (soc Ap- 
pendix A), was a dependant of Odo, and the mention of # person 
otherwise unknown, but who held much land in Kent under his 
patron, ix one of the proofs of the connexion of the Tapestry with 
the Bishop of Bayeux. 

‘Then comes tho vow, which we get from the Battle Chronicle 
(g), where it immodiatoly follows the story of the hauberk ; “Unde 
et nunc, do ejas [Creatoris) auxitio securns, ad vestray qui mei 
gratil hoc initis eertamen corroborundas manuy nc mentes yotum 
facio, me in hoe certaminis loco pro salute cunctorum, ct hic nomi- 
natim oecumbentium od honorem Dei et eanctorum ejus, quo servi 
Dei adjuventur eongraum, cum clignd libertate fundaturam monas 
terium." The words in Italics come, I suepect, from the Chroniclor, 
not from the Duke. The vow at such a moment is in every way 
likely, but William was hardly already thinking of the exemp- 
tion of the abbey of Battle from the Jurisdiction of the Bishop of 
Chichester. Cf. the Charter in the Monastioon, ili. 244, 245. 

7. That William would be armed with the mace only and with no 
other weapon seems strange, but it clearly is no in the Tapestry, 
‘That the weapon which he there bears is the mace I have no 
doubt. In pl. 13, where William is addressing his army, it might 
be a mere baton of command (see vol. ii, p. 253), but in pl. 14 be 
is shown wielding the same weapon in the very thickest of the 
battle, William's weapon is also exactly the same aa the “baculus” 
(Tapestry, pl 1g) or “baston" (Romar de Rou, 13259) of Odo, 
William of Poitiers arms William with the sword (“fulminans 
ense”—like Eodmund at Agsandan, seo vol. i p. 389—"stravit 
advorwam. gontem” 134), 60 docs Guy (469 “abstracto gladio,” 
483 “devorat ense"), The point is that all agree in arming him: 
with a weapon of close conflict, not with the lance, which, as we 
shall soo, he uses only to drive back the fugitives to their duty. 
Ho may vory well have carried both mace and sword, but the sword 
dows not appear in the Tupeatry: 

8, Of the array of the shield-wall we have often heard already, as 
at Maldon (seo vol. i. p. 271), but it is at Scnlac that we get the fullest 
descriptions of it, all the better for coming in the mouths of ene- 
mies. Wace gives his description, 12941; 


y 


THE DETAILS OF THE BATTLE OF SENLAC. 765 


nomo de Fuge cogitarct,” ‘These last words come from William of 
‘Malmesbury’ description of Harold at Senlac (vol. i. p. 270). 

9. L have followed the Tapestry throughout as to the equipment 
of the two clusses of English, the heavy-armed, armed largely with 
the sword or more commonly the axes, and the light-armed, armed 
in various ways. One only of the light-armed, in plate 15, seems 
to carry the axe, Waco is therefore hardly uecurate when he 


pee “"Geldons Englelz haches portoant, 
 glevrines ki bien trenchoont.* 


Ho hnd before maid (12839), 


“Td vilain dew viles aplouent, ‘Machues portent & gras pel, 

‘Tels armes portent com {ls trovent, —_-Farhos ferrées ® tinels.” 

Tho effoct of tho axe in battle ix vividly brought out by Wace in 
many places. Thus, when (13400) he describes the exploits of an 
English warrior ; 

“Aun Normant sen vint tot droit, La bache kei mult tien trencha s 


Ki armé fa yor un dostrior; ‘Li ool del cheval en teavees 
Od In hache ki fa acter, Colpa i's terre vint I fora, 
1 helme firir le kaida, Ell cheval chat avant 

‘Mais Ii colp ultro eeaolorja 04 tot son mateo & torre jus.” 


Par dovant Parcon glactia 


Many groups in the Tapestry fully bear out this description. Doce 
the special mention of “acier” imply that the Danish axe was, wo 
late aa this time, evor made of bronze? I believe that, vividly as 
the great axes of tho oloventh century live in description and in 
stitch-work, no antiquary has ever lighted on a specimen, In 
another passage (13733) Wace points out the weak side of this 
terrible weapon ; 


“Englois ne waveient joster, Od wos dous maine Yeutuot tonir, 
Ne A cheval armen porter ; ‘Ne pot entondre & sci covrir, 
‘Haches ® glsarmes tonslent, Bil volt firir do grant ates 


Od tals armes se cumbateiont. Bien farir } oovrir ensemble 
‘Toom ki od hache volt férir, No pot I’en faire, go me eemblo,” 


‘This remark of Wace is well illustrated by many of the figures in 
the Tapostry, 

I have described Harold, while waiting for the attack, as resting 
his axe on his shoulder. “Granz haches tindrent en lor cols,” says 





THE DETAILS OF THE BATTLE OF SENLAC. 767 1 


William of Poitiers, 144 ; “Memorabile vexillum Heraldi, hominis 
armati imaginem intextam babens ex auro purissimo.”” So Wil- 
linm of Malmesbury, iti, 2g; “Vexillum. .. . erat in hominis 
pugnantis figuri, auro ct lapidibus arte sumptuost intextum.”” 
And in the Roman de Rou (12975); 

“Li gonfanoo fa molt raillana, 

Dior 8 de plerres reluisanz.” 

14. The action of William, described (see p. 481) most accurately 
probably in the Tapestry, has ite parallel in that of Germanicus in 
‘Tacitus, Annals, ii, at, though Germanicus had not exactly the 
fame reason; “Germanicus, quo magis agnosceretur, dotraxerat 
tegimen capiti, orabatque insisterent cxedibus :” where Lipsivs com- 
pares the account of Cyras the Younger in Xenophon, Anab, i, 
8. 45 Kipos, pin Exar viv aetbaiy, els paxqy xaBloraro, which does 
not seem to be much to the purpose, Compare also the account 
of the danger of Severus at the battle of Lyons, Dion. Ixy. 6; 
alrds by Tawar daoBahiw deurdireuaer dbp Nv ee dutyorrus xérrag robs 
daurei, viv xhapida. nepibinbluares nal rh Sipor ewariueron, de vate det 


equi casu adit, ita ut mortuus ictu plumbew erederetur.” 

12, The order of events (see p. 481) a8 to the real and the feigned 
flight of the Normans differs » good deal in our authorities William: 
of Poitlers gives the order which T have followed. The feigned 
flight is suggested to William by the fortunate result of the real 
flight, See p, 488, note 1, But in Guy’s version (423 eb seq.) 
‘the foigned flight at first succeeds ; tho fugitives turn and slay ton 
thousand of the accursed Englishmen ; 

«Pars ibi magna porit, pars ot densata rovintit; 
‘Millia namque deoem sunt ibi para nese. 
Ut perount mites inechante Leone Lidentes, 
‘Sic compulaa mari gens maledicta rit,” 
(rv 435-438) 
But the superior numbers of the English give them the aivantage, 
and the Normans are driven to fly in oarnest 5 z 
“ Anglorum populus, numero superante, repellit 
‘Fontes, inque retro compulit ora dari; 
Hit faga ficta priv fit tano virtate coacts 
‘Normanni fajiunt, dorea togunt ctipel.” 
(vv. 4 tgae) 





THE DETAILS OP THE BATTLE OF SENLAC. 769 


with the scene in the Tapestry; still it fa possible that Eustace ia 
giving some other advice, and that Benolt transferred to this point 
the advice given in the later pursuit, 

‘One or other of these stories about Eustace, it is hard to see 
which, seema to be darkly alluded to by William of Malmesbury 
(iii. 244). After mentioning how William had three horses killed 
under him (see p. 484, note 1), he adds, “Porstitit tamen magnanimi 
ducis ot corpns et animus, quamvis familiar’ susurro a custodibus 
corpori# revocaretur; perstitit, inquam, donee victoriam plenam 
supervenions nox infunderet.” 

14 The death of Gyrth is told as I have told it (see p. 484) by 
Guy (471-480), William killa him with hia owa hand ; 

“Navn velox javenom sequitur voluti feo frendenx, 
‘Membratin perimens, twee xibi verbs dodit: 
* Aovipe promeritam nostri de parte corona, 
Si pertit sonipes; bane titi reddo poles’ ® 
In the Tapestry (pl, 14) Gyrth and Leofiwine are killed nt this stage 
of the battle or earlier, but seemingly not by the hand of William. 
Wace (13947 et seqq.) makes tho fall of Gyrth the Inst act of the 
battle, after Harold is dead; the deed is wrought by William's own 
hand ; 
“Guert vit Englolz amenulsier, Ke Ta promo to berms oreineit. 


‘Vit kill n'ont nul reoorrier, ‘A tant poinst li Dua, # Tateint, 
‘Vit son lignage dochacie Pax gront atr avant Vempeint, 
De sci garie n'out wal espetr, ‘Neal se de cal onlp morut, 
Fur wen volt, maiz no poolt, ‘Maiz go fh dit ke pose jut.” 


Wace, it will be econ, doos not commit himself to Gyrth’s death, 
no doubt with an eye to @ legend which I shall speak of in a 
later Note, 

OF these three accounts I follow that of Guy, as the clearest in 
itself, and as drawing a certain amount of support from cach of the 
other versions. It agrees with the Tupestry in placing tho death of 
Gyrth early in the battle; it agrees with Wace in making him dio 
by the hand of William, 

‘Tho group in the Tapestry (pl. 14) which represents tho deaths 
of Gyrth and Leofwine is well worth study. Five Englishmen are 
shown, two of whom aro falling dead. Of the other three, one ia 
manfully wielding his axe, another his spear; a third rushes up, 

VOL, tl. 3D 





THE DETAILS OF THE BATTLE OF SENLAC. 771 


flight ; but it does not at all suit the circumstances of the first 
shiughter, which must have happened somewhere to the south 
or south-west of the hill. ‘The mall ravine to the south-west 
seems exactly what is wanted. 

17. The time at whieli Harold died (seo p, 497) woome cleur from 
Florence, and with his statement most of the other accounts agree. 
It is clear from the Tapestry that Harold was cut down by the four 
knights almost immodiately after he received the wound in the eye, 
Wace (13299 compared with 13932) sesme—porhapa only seoms— 
to make a long time pass between Harold's first wound and his 
death, I need hardly stop to refute the strange mistake of William 
of Jumidges (vii. 36) followed by Onderic (50x D); * Heraldus 
ipse in primo militum progressa (“congressu,” Ord.) vulneribus 
letaliter confosss oceubuit.” Orderie puts the denth of Leofwine 
soon after (“deinde”), but this time he does aot name Gyrth. 

Mr. Planché (Conqueror and his Companions, i, 158) objects 
altogether to the account given by Guy of Amiens of the action of 
the four knights, Guy, according to him, is a" Latin lbeller”™ 
who “ flings bis wretched calumnies on noble and distinguished 
warriors.” Walter Giffard especially could have had no hand in so 
brutal an action, becanse he had “bald hair and white locks.” (See 
Wace, 12743.) But Guy docs not attribute the act to the old 
‘Walter Giffard, but to the younger ; 

 Quartas Gilfardus, patria a eognomine dictus ;~ 
a way of eponking which he would hardly use of the futher. Ho 
objects also that there was no one who answers the description 
“Pontivi nobilis hires,” though he ullows that Guy had a son 
named Ivo, (See Art de Vérifier les Dates, ii. 753.) There is no 
contradiction between Guy, Wace, and the Tapestry. ‘Tho twenty 
knights come from Henry of Huntingdon, the four who are among 
the twenty come from Guy, as be says, 

“Ast alii plares ; nilis sunt hi meliores.” 


Of these again Wace and the Tupestry represent the actions of 
some only, not of all four. When Wace says (13938), 
© Vint un armes par le bataillo, 
‘Herant fori sor la veutaille, 
A torre le fit tresbucbier,” 


gpa 








RALPH OF NORFOLK, 773 


Regom, qui com prope nates pene pravcisd, letaliter vulneratas post 
modicum tempus interiit, Compertt Regis niorte dilapwus eat ejiyx 
exorvitus, fere omnibus qui fugere nou poterant interfectis,” 


18, The battle of Senlac sccms in several points to have borne 
much likeness to the battle of Aghrim, described by Macaulay, iv, 
90. It is the last battle of Saint Ruth. 

“The spot on which he had determined to bring the fate of 
Ireland to issue seems to have been chosen with great judgment. 
His army was drawn up on tho slope of a hill, which was almost. 
surrounded by red bog, In front, near the edge of the morass, 
were some fences out of which « breastwork was without difficulty 
constructed.” 

Wo read of the great difficulties which tho English found in 
crossing the maddy ground and attacking tho hill. “Again and 
again the assailants were driven back, Again and again they 
returned to the struggle. Once they were broken, and chased 
norows the morssé: but Talmash rallied them, and forced tho 
pursuers to retire.” ‘Tho battlo is decided, nx evening is elosing in, 
by Saint Ruth's death by a cannon-ball. The Irish breastwork 
is corried, and most of its defenders slain, either on the hill or 
in the pursuit. “The number of the slain was, in proportion to 
the number engaged, greater than in any other battle of that age.” 

T am sorry that I have not seen the ground, but, when I was 
in Ireland some years back, the likeness between the two battles 
hod not struck mo, 


NOTE 00. p. 460. 
Raurn oy Nonvorx, ~ * 


I nexmvx that I have gradually felt my way to the true history 
and position of a somewhat mysterious porson of whom we got 
glimpses in tho reign of Eadward, and who becomes prominent 
under William. This is Ralph, ealled of Gael or of Woder, after 
wards Earl of Norfolk or of the East Angles (FI. Wig. 1074), 
I believe him to have been of English birth, and I therefore 
have not scrupled to speak of him in the text as an English traitor. 
Thia T do on the express authority of the Abingdon and Petar. 








RALPH OP NORFOLK. 75 


of Malmesbury quoted above, speak of him asa‘ Breton.” He is 
“genere Brito” in William of Jumidgen (vii. 29; viii rg). So 
Wace, 11512 and 13627, in which latter place the words are, “Brot 
estelt t Bretonz menout.” He was the son of a Breton mother ; 
he held the castles of Wader and Montfort (Ord. Vit. 535 ©) in his 
mother’s country, and he appeared at Senlac in command of a body 
of his mother’s countrymen, That hoe should therefore be spoken 
of ax a Broton ix really not wonderful. 

‘The evidence of Domesday also no less distinctly gives us two 
Ralphs in Norfolk, father and son. ‘The elder Ralph is clearly the 
same as Ralph the Staller of Kadward’s time (see above, p. 51, and 
‘Taylor's Wace, 226). The number of entries TR. B. in his name 
is very great, especially in Norfolk and Suffolk. He also signs 
many charters. In Cod. Dipl, iv. 121, of rogg, be signs as 
vanbniten?” and is distinguished from “Radulfus dus.” In 
ro6o (iv. 143) he signs as “Regis dapifer,” in 1061 (iv. 151) as 
“minister,” in 1062 (iv, 159) a8 “Regis sulicus,” and in o charter 
of Abbot Aliwig af Bath, Cod, Dipl. iv. 172, he appears as “ Roulf 
Steallere" along with Ansgar and Bondig, But we can go a little 
further. ‘The signatures and the entries in Domesday belonging to 
Ralph the Staller must not be confounded with those of Earl Ralph 
of Hereford, King Endward’s nephew, from whom wo find him 
pointedly distinguished, both in the charter just quoted, and in 
Domenday, 337, where both Karl and Staller appear in the samo 
entry. Yet the elder Ralph of Norfolk also bore 
Earl, The many entries of “ Radulfos comes” in the 
Anglian Domesday gonorally belong to the younger Ralph, 
in several of them the forfeiture of bis lands to William is mene 
tioned. But Ralph the father in clearly distinguished in other 
entries (128 3 and tag) 08 “Comes R. vetas ;” and in 194 wo 
find * Radulfus comes” holding land T. R, E., after which the 
entry goes on to gay, “ psten tonnit Radon comes, finn em 
Posten Ailmarus episcopus de utroque, postea Arfastus episoopus.” 


409 } we read of land in Suffolk ; “Hane habuit Redulfus Stalea in 
vadimonio de vicecomite Toli [the Sheriff who appears in Cod. Dipl, 
iv. 208, and in many other write of Kadward) . . . et tencbat die 





THE ENGLISH CONNEXIONS OF WILLIAM MALET. 777 


first hasty burial, and the man to whom the Conqueror entrusted 
Harold's body wns, according to Guy of Amiens (588), 


“.. . Quidwn parsin Normannus et Anglun, 
Conipntar Hera” 


(On the reading, sco M. H. B, 867 D.) The obvious meaning of this 
would be that William's mother was an Englishwoman, and that 
be and Harold had contracted the tie of spiritual brotherhood 
by standing godfathers to the same child. (On compater, see Earle, 
Parallel Chronicles, p. 318.) Thia might casily have beppened 
during Harold's stay in Normandy, but the words of the episcopal 
poct might almost imply that the two ties which bound William 
Malet to England had something to do with one another, At 
all events we have to seek for the English mother of William 
Malet. The profetsed goneslogista gave us very little help. L 
can make nothing of the pedigmes given by Sir Alexander 
Malet in his Translation of Wace, pp. 268-9, Sir Alexander 
makes William Malet uncle to the Lady Kaldgytb, calling her 
mother Alfgifu a sister of William Malet. (See vol. ii, p. 658.) 
‘This would make nn affinity between William Malet and Harold, 
but it would not account for William being called Harold's com- 
pater, nor would it make him “partim Normannus eb Anglus” 
Nothing surely but an English mother could make him that. ‘The 
pedigree-makora give him, sometimes a mother, sometimes a wife, 
described as Hesilia of the house of Crispin, But this seems to come 
from « confusion with another person of the same name. There 
was a William Malot whose mother’s name was Hesilia of tho 
house of Crispin (De Genere Crispinorum, Giles, Lanfranc, i. 341)3 
but he died a monk at Bec, and therefore he canot be our William 
Malet, who, as I hope to show in my next volume, died fighting 
in the marehes of Ely. ‘Tho wifo of William Malet is mentioned 
several times in Domesday (ii. gos, 317 5, 323 4, 324, 326); but 
the is described only ax the mother of hee son Robert, without her 
name being given, Still less does the Survey give us any direct 
account of William Malet’s English mother, nor do I profoas to havo 
found her ; still thero are some indications both in Domesday and 
clagrbiie! icv pen ici aatad to hell cenaieanr ork ate a 
to look for her, and which may serve to set professed genenlogiste 
on theright track, 1 have been led to put two or three things together 








THE ENGLISH CONNEXIONS OF WILLIAM MALET. 779 


‘a brother of Godgifu. Add to this the notion of the pedigree- 
makers, whoncesoever it may have come, that ADlfgifu the wife of 
lfgar was a sister of William Malet, None of there indicntions 
proves much hy itself; still perhaps all of them put together may have 
some cumulative force, ‘They all point to Thorold asa kind of centre. 
Let us suppose that he was the brother of Godgifu, that another 
sister—married, we must suppose, to a foreign husband—was the 
mother of William Malet, that Aulfred of Lincoln was the sou of 
another brother or sister, Let us suppose further that the nameless 
widow of William Malet—by the help of a dispensation if neoded— 
married Alfred of Lincoln and was the mother of Alan, and that 
the elder Lucy was hor daughter by either of her husbands, There 
is no ovidence for any of these suppositions, but there is nothing 
to contradict any of them, and they would explain all our facts. 
ilfred of Lincoln would be the nephow of Thorold; Alen and 
Robert would be, as thay were, the uncles of the Counters Lucy; 
William Malet would be © partim Normannus eb Anglus," and we 
could see the origin of the statementa, inaccurate as thoy ore in 
the abupo in which we have thom, which connect both Luey and 
William Malet with the House of Leofric. 

In the thirty-fifth Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public 
Records, p. 8, there is a summary of another document which 
throws yet further light on the English kkindred of the Countess 
Lucy and thereby, ne I think, on that of William Malet ; but it ta 
truly astonishing to find the Editor at this time of day describing 
the younger Lucy as “daughter of Algar, Earl of Chester." ‘Thin 
is a grant by William of Romare, the son of the Countess by 
her first husband, “to Robert, nephew or grandson (‘ nepoti’) of the 
Countess, of the land of Tyo and Colsuenas, uncles of the maid Robert, 
held of the said William's mother.” There is @ certain risk in 
making infercnces from a description of this kind without secing 
the documont itself, but we soem to have here a most important 
of evidence which may connect all the persons of whom we have 
just been speaking with another famous Englishman of Lincolnshire, 
of whom I have somewhat to say in my fourth volume, Cole- 
swegen and Ivo—that is doubtless Ivo Taillobois—are spoken of as 
uncles of a nephow of the Countess Lucy. If we take uncle to 
mean great-uncle, we might suppose Coleswegen to have been a 
son of Allfred of Lincoln; he would thus be an uncle of Lucy and 








780 APPENDIX. 
great-uncle of her nephew ; but if by Ivo is meant Ivo Taillebois, it 


in the city of Lincoln, in Domesday 336. This can hardly be 
‘tho same ss the Sheriff, even if wo take the Sheriff to be either 
a Norman favourite of Eadward or « Sheriff of William's who 
died early in his reign. It is surely much more easy to suppose 
that Alfred was the nephew of the Sherif, aud we may fairly assume 
the Sheriff, even if wo reject his alloged kindred to Godgifu, to have 
been an Englishman, unless thore is some distinet proof to the eon- 
trary, The examples of Thurkill of Warwick, Wiggod of Walling- 
ford, and Coleswegen himself show that it was perfectly possibile 
for an Englishman to keep a large estate, to have Norman tenants, 
snd, unhappily, to reccive the forfeited estates of other Englishmen, 
‘The conjecture that the mother of Robert Malet was niko the 
tmother of Alan of Lincoln by a second marriage is Mr. Stapleton’s 
Bat if Alfred was an Englishman, Alan is mare likely to have been. 
his son than, as Mr. Staploton suggests, bis brother, ‘The forcign 
name Alan would be most unlilely to be borne by an Engtishman of 
Ailfred’s generation, while for the son of an English father after the 
Conquest to bear a Norman name is what we meet with at every step. 
If Coleswegen was the son of Alfred, it would follow further thet 
Eilfred gave hia elder son, born before the Conquest, an English or 
Danish name, while his other sons, who were most likely born after 
the Conquest, bore foreign names. For besides Alan, whom T have 
assigned to him by conjecture, Alfred undoubtedly had a eon Reberty 
who appears in the ware of Stephen (Ord, Vit, 917 A) as * Rodbertus 
Alveredi de Lincoli filiux” Both Alan of Lincolo and Robert af 
Lincoln appear in the great Roll of the Pipe of Henry the First, 
Man in his own county in p. rt, and Robert in Dorset in p. rf. 
In tho opposite page to Alan ure several ontrica of the Countess 
Lucy and her son Randolf. 


" <li 


THE BURIAL OF HAROLD, 731 


‘One of the entries in Domesday about Alfred is worth noticing; it 
ia in the “ Clamores in Chetateven,” 377 6. Hore he in represented 
ae making « claim on Count Alan, “wnam earacatsm terre in 
Quedhaveringe clamat Aluredus de Lincolif super Alanum comitem, 
Homines de THoilant concordant eidem Alveredo quia ct ante~ 
comaoris sui fuit, ot ipso saisitus inde fuit tempore Radulfi comitia” 
—that is of courso the elder Ralph, We hear of Alfred again in 
ths Clemo afm Saad 18 Bs sand agnin in Bedfordshire, 215 b, 
where he makes a claim upon Walter of Flanders: He also makes 
# claim for a wood upon Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances. 


NOTE QQ. p. §12. 
Tux Bunrar or Hanow. 


I wave quoted in the notes those passages of the contemporary 
writers which distinetly assert a burial of Harold on the rocks at 
Tastings. I will now quote the authorities which assert a burial 
at Waltham, The fall story is given in the Do Inventione (¢, 2x). 
‘The two canons, Oagod and Athelrie, go to the Duke and ask 
for the body. William answers that Harold, notwithstanding hia 
crimes, should not be deprived of burial (“Rex vester fide sum 
religionis immemor, ctsi dignas tranggressionis ad preeens exsol- 
verit poxnas, non meruit sepulturw beneficio privari”). Hoe adds 
that it is his design to found a church, to be served by a body 
of » hundred monks, who are to pray for the soul of Harold and 
of all others who died in the battle. In that church Harold shall 
bo buried with all honour (“paratus sum . . . ipsum Regom ves- 
trum in ecclesif edidem debito eum honore pris ewteris sublimars"). 
‘The canons offer William ten marks of gold that their founder 
may bo buried in his own church where he wished to be buried 
(“corpua ad locura quem instituit ipse remittero”). William 
grants their prayer, but refuses the money, They strive in vain 
to find the body. Osgod then goes home and brings Endgyth, 
by whom it is found. The body is then taken to Waltham amidst 
‘a vast concourse both of Englishmen and Normans (“ multis heroum: 
‘Normannia: comitattis honorem corpori exhibentibus”). 


‘The story however does not rest only on the authority of the 
Waltham writer. William of Malmesbury (iii, 247), after saying 





THE BURIAL OF HAROLD, 783 


doce not write in the interest of Waltham or of England. He is a 

independent witness ; so ls Wace, who, after his manner, 
honestly confesses his ignorance of some details, while he dis- 
tinctly asserts the Lurial at Waltham, So carly and so extensive 
a fabrication as their narratives would imply seems quite out of 
the question, 

‘The unavoidable inference therefore ix that Harold was first 
buried on the rocks of Hastings under a heap of stones, and after- 
wards was translated for more solemn burial in the minster at 
Waltham. This view I worked out for myself in 1857 (see vol. li. 
p- 428), but I afterwards found that I had been forestalled in it by 
M. de Bonnechose (i. 283), who takes this theory for granted, 
without reference or argument, On this supposition, we can easily 
account for all the reports, William of Poitiers and Guy of Amiens, 
in recording the fight of Senlae, reconted that burial of Harolit 
which formed purt of their story; # later translation had no interest 
for them. The Walthany writers, on the other hand, naturally 
welled only on that burial which formed a part of their own local 
history, ‘The caimn-burial was something which they would natu- 
rally seck to slur over, and to throw out of remembrance. In a 
abort time it would be forgotten; the date of the fancral at 
‘Waltham would be shifted back two or three months, and would be 
held to have immediately followed the battle. Even writers who 
had no connexion with Waltham, writers Tike William of Malmex 
bury and Wace, would naturally think most of thet burial which 
had loft a visible witness beforo the oyos of mon, and would have 
no tamptation to dwell upon the hurried ceremony performed by 
William Malet upon the rocks of Sussex. 

And lastly, as to the details of the Waltham story, as to the 
sbaro in the transaction taken by the two canons and by Eadgyth 
Swanneshals. The story, as it stands, cannot be made to agreo 
with the contemporary statement ux to Harolid’s first burial at 
Hastings. But the contradiction is little more than a contradiction 
a to timo. ‘Tho Waltham story implios that the body was found 
and was buried at Waltham within a fow days after the battle. ‘The 
finding and the burial are placed, if not while William was still on 
the hill of Senlac, yet at any rate before he left Hastings for 
Romney, This is of courye distinctly contradicted by William of 
Poitiers and Guy of Amiens, But, if we beliove that Harold's body 





THE BURIAL OF HAROLD, 785 


clerical panegyrists would cither have invented an imaginary 
mistress for their hero or havo exalted a real one into an imaginary 
prominence. To Eadgyth herself, and to the few hints that we 
have as to her persanal existence, I give another Note, 

1 must quote one writer more. Benoit (37627) follows the 
story of the first burial up to the point where Harold's body ia 
given to William Malet, but he declines to say where William 
‘buried hin. 


(Li rele Torault fu sevelle ; ‘Male b un Gulllousne Malot, 
Lt ad me retrait Ht eseris, ‘Qui n'ert tovel pas ne yaslet, 
Que x mire por lui avoir Mais chownliora dure @ vaillanz. 


‘Vout au due doner grant avelr 5 Toist Ton fa tant depreians: 

‘Mais n'en yout unques dener prendre Quill i done ih enfite 

Ne por ens nule la cors rendre: LA ob fl vondreit & plaisir.” 

1 now turn to the legend according to which Harold did not die 
at Senlac, OF this doctrine Horold’s own romantic biographer ix 
the great prophet, But, however much he may have embellished 
‘the story, he is not to be charged with inventing it, Tt is found in 
several other writers, some of whom are carlier thon himself. ‘Thus 
in Giraldug, Itin, Kamb, ii, 14 (p. 140 Dimock), after a story that 
the Exnperor Henry the Fifth had died os a hermit at Chester, we 
read 28 follows ; 

“ Similiter et Haroldam Regem se habere testantur: qui, ultimus 
de gente Saxonied [Cambrensts ia speaking) Rex in Anglii, publico 
apud Hastinges bello cum Normannis congrodiens, panas suecurn> 
bendo perjurii luit; multisque, ut aiunt, confossus vulneritus, 
oculoque sinistro sagittd perdito ac perfornto, ad partes istas vietus 
cvasit : ubi sancti conversatione cujusdam urbis ecclesia jugix ob 
assiduus contemplator adherens, vitamque tamquam anachoritioam 
ducens, vim nc vitw cursum, ut ereditur, feliciter consnmmayit, 
Ex utriusque, ut fertur, ultimi urticuli confessione, veritss antes now 
comperta demum prodiit publicata.” 

So Aithelred of Rievaux (X Script. 394), evidently alluding to 
the same story, says of Harold, “ant misere occubuit aut, ut quidam 
putant, penitentia tantum reservatus evasit.” So Gervase of Til- 
bury, ia the strange story which I have already analysed (sce above, 
P. 705), leaves Harold's death and eacape aa alternative storica; 
 Heraldus utram fugit sibi consuluerit, an in protic ceciderit, adhue 
dubinm reliquit.” 

VOL. 1. ge 


| | 





THR BURIAL OF HAROLD, 787 


edecd. He goes home and tells his wife, who at once insists on 
going to the battle-ficld with a horse and cart, When she has got 
there, she asks whether there is among tho bodies any living man 
who can speak to her. A. voice answers that there is one who can, 
and one only, With much trouble she finds the speaker among 
the bodies; she and her husband put him on the cart and take him 
home. ‘They wish to know who he is, but he never tells them ; they 
infer however from his face and from his rich garb that he must 
bea man of the highest rank. ‘The writer explains that this man was 
King Harold, that he had fallen through weariness and lors of blood, 
having reccived many wounds, though none of thom was mortal. 
But the weight of the dead bodies that were heaped upon him hindered 
him from getting away. Hs is taken to the churl’s house, and there 
recovers. The nextday the enemy come to seek for his body, and aro 
greatly surprived not to find it, Harold, having recovered, deter- 
mines, by the example, we are told, of Olaf Trygzvesson, to forsake 
the world, und to give himself to heavenly contemplation, He makes 
himself a dwelling-place under » rock, and abides there some while. 
On his death King William has his body taken to London. and 
buried among the former Kings (“Vilhialmur kongur let, feera lik 
hans { Lunduner, oc graf veglega hia udrum konguia"). 

To this last rather unlucky statement, the Scandinayian writer, 
Tike Guy of Amiens (see above, p, 541), overrates the antiquity of 
‘Westminster, which is doubtless meant by London, ax a royal resi- 
dence and burying-place. 

Both these versions, or one which took in both, were known to 
the writer De Inventione, who indignantly rejects both (e. 21) ; 
“ Quidquid fabulontur homines quod in rupe mansorit Dorobernie, 
ot nper defunetus sepultus sit Ceatrim, pro corto quicacit Walt- 
hamiw.” There are parts of the De Inventione which must have 
been written after 1177. Cnn this have been written so late? 
May not the first sketch of tho work have been made carlicr ? 


Tho other Waltham writer, the biographer of Harold, hnd the 
difficult task of foreing the legend of Harold's escape into agree- 
meut with the fact that Harold's tomb existed in Waltham minster, 
ond with the local tradition of the finding of the body by Eadgyth. 
He i driven to the very awkward shift of saying that Eadgyth 
found, and that the canons of Waltham solemnly buried, a wrong 

3Rn2 


ry 





THE BURIAL OF HAROLD. 789 


(285) after 1206, we here again find Harold living to 0 patriarchal 
nae 


T have already spoken of the utter worthleasness of thege storion 
‘as pretended mutters of history, As for their details, the notion of 
Harold taking up his abode on a rock at Dover or eleewhere seems 
to have been suggested by his burial on the rock at Hastings by 
William Malet. ‘The way in which Harold is enid to have escaped 
falls in exactly with the remarkable passage of Woce which T 
quoted inp. go7, and it was most likely suggested by the real 
escape of Ansgar and Leofric, and no doubt of others alta 


Accoriling to Harold's Biographer (211), Gyrth too escaped as 
well as his brother, This tale was clearly known to Wnee, who, it 
will be remembered (see above, p. 769), a avoids committing 
himself to Gyrth’s death. According to the legend, Gyrth was 
veen very publicly in the days of Henry the Second (*visus est 
tam nb ipso Rege quam a magnatibus ter et populo”). He 
was then, us is not wonderful, very old (“ erat jam tune grandevus 
valde”), but, es those who had seen kim told the writer, very tall and 
handsome (“sicut ef tempestato a multia accopimua qui eum 
viderant, venustus adgpectu, facie decorus, proceritate corporis 
admodum longus”). Walter, the first Abbot of the new foundation 
at Waltham, with certain of his brethren, met him at the King’s 
court at Woodstock, and inquired most perticularly whether they 
were right in believing that tho bones of Harold lay at Waltham 
(“diligenter sciscitari studuit utrum rovera cineres germani sui in 
sno, ut eredebatur, monasterio servarentur”), Gyrth answered in 
English that they might have the body of some churl, but not that 
of Harold (‘ Anglice reepondit, ‘Rusticum,’ sit, ‘ quemlibet habere 
potestia; Haroldam non habetis’"), He even went on a pilgrimage 
to the Holy Cross of Waltham, and, being shown his brother's 
tomb, he again distinctly afirmed that Harold was not thers 
("oblique illud intuitus, ‘non,’ ait, ‘homo ecit’—sie enim jurabat 

non hie jacet Haroldus’”). This is told on the authority of 
Michael, Chamberlain of the church of Waltham, who heard Gyrth 
say it, Here we find Gyrth, as well as Harold, living to an age 
which might justify the chronology of Ivanhoe, 

Lastly, the savage way in which this writer nttacks William 
of Malmesbury (207) is worth noticing. He remarks how the 








EADGYTH SWANNESHALS, 791 


Aue hhis chambrere.") The Biographer of Harold (p. ee 
iu “‘quamdam sagacis animi feminam nomino Editham . . . 
Se ae eee eee 
que inter milli mortuoram illins quem inguirebat eo quoque 
facilius decerneret, eo quod beneyolentius tractaret exuvias, quo 
cum areting amaverat et pleniag novernt, utpote quam thalami 
ipsius secretis liberius interfuirse constaret.” 

A misteoss of Harold (“qu«dam coneubina Heraldi”) is men- 
tioned in Domesday, 2, a8 holding three houses at Canterbury 
T.R.E. Seo Ellis, i. 316; i. 81. 

An Esdgyth or Endgifu—the two names are hopelessly con- 
founded—of the Swan's Neck, “ Edgyve Swanneshals,” {s found in 
the Chronicle of John of Oxeneiles, p. 292 (ef. Ellis, i, $1), She 
is spoken of in the driest way, without reference to Harold or to 
anything else, in a list of benefactora to the abbey of Saint Benet 
of Holm, to which she gave Thurgarton in Norfolk (cf. Domesday, 
ii, a16a). Along with hor are found the names of Barl Ralph ond 
Ralph the Staller, who are carefully distinguished (see above, 
P 775). The gifts of all these, and of many other persons, were 
confirmed by King Eadward in 1046, 

Jobn of Oxenedes wrote after 292, His authority therefore 
for an historical fact in worthlees ; but when he is plainly copying 
an earlier list of benefactors without any speci! object, his witness 
is noacly equal to that of contemporary. 

Tam certainly inclined to look om the swan-necked lady of the 
Waltham story an tho samo with the swan-necked lady of tho Saint 
Benot's entalogue. And in default of evidence to the contrary, we 
may also identify her with Harold's Canterbury mistress. Endgyth 
was clearly a Norfolle woman by bixth, but there is nothing wonder- 
ful in her having property within her lover's later carldom, But, if 
she was a benefuctress of Saint Benet’s in or before 1046, she was 
no longer young in 1066. That is to sny, Harold's connexion with 
her began during his East-Anglian government, between 1045 and 
1063. This also makes it likely that sho was the mother of all 
Harold's children, except Wulf and Harold, who were doubtless 
‘the sons of Ealdgyth (see p. 510). We hear nothing of any carlier 
wife of Harold, and the incidentel way in which Harold's sons are 
first mentioned some time aftor thoir father’s death, falle in with 
the notion of their illegitimacy. 





THE -STHELING EADGAR, 793 


“ Gantila fornmes enbaatardiet j 
Pur over veat mariage,” 
‘The former line may refer to Endgyth, ne the Intter clearly implics 
‘ political marriags with Ealdgyth ; but the passage seems to have 
‘been oddly misunderstood by Knighton (2339); “Nee aliquam 
uxorem ducore voluit, eed vi oppressit filiss baronum et procerum et 
militum de regno, quod ipsi mgre forebant.” All this has most 
likely arisen out of our one Eadgyth, but it seems to point to hee 
‘as a woman of position, possibly as “Eddeva pulera et dives,” 


NOTE SS. p. 532 
Tux AraxuexG Eavoan, 


1 vo not know that there is any direct evidence to fix the age 
of Edgar, Tbave not come across any distinct statement either 
as to the tine of his birth ons to the time of his purente! martinge. 
His father died in 1057 ; 20 he must have been at leash nine years 
old in 1066, and of course he may have been much older, We 
have soen several passages (see p. 527) where he is spoken of 
asa boy (“pner”) and as being too young to reign, On the 
other hand he was able (see Chron, Wig. in anno) to exercise a 
certain will of his own with regard to the marriage of his sister 
Margaret in 1070, He was alive, but old, at some time betwoon 
1106 and 1195, when William of Malmesbury wrote his third book, 
See Sir TD. Hardy’s note, ili, 2g1, and Ellis i409. The former 
date is forty-nine, the latter sixty-eight, years after Eadgar’s coming 
to England. We havo therefore no certain dota at all ; bat, on the 
whole, it seema most likely that, though young, he was not a mero 
child, at the time of hia election in October. Tt was probably 
not so much mere lack of years, as bie incapacity, his foreign 
Lirth, his lack of the technical position of a King’s son, which shut: 
him out in January, eapecially when put into competition with the 
overwhelming merits of Harold. Tn October he had no competitor 
hotter than Eadwine, Perhaps those who spoke of him as a mere 
child were deceived by the ambiguous description, “ Eadgar eifd,” 
which is given to him in the Chronicles, and by which he was 
probably koown, 





THE SUBMISSION AT BERKUAMPSTEAD. 796 


of the story than a submission before. And it is lean violent to 
suppose that their numes have got into the Chronicle in a wrong 
place—a process which the likeness of the names Barking and 
would muke specially easy—thon to suppose that 
the story in William of Poiticrs is an invention without a motivo. 
Had Stigund o shore in the submission of Berkhampstead 
Willian of Poitiers specially introduces him ; indeed he is the only 
person whom he mentions by name (141); but he brings him to 
Wallingford ; “Adveniene codem [Wallingford] Stigandus, pontifex 
motropolitanus, manibus ¢i aese dedit, fidem sacramento confirma- 
vit, abrogans Athelinum, quem leviter elegerat.” But the whole 
story isa model of geographical confusion ; Berkhampstead is not 
mentioned ; the request of the English that William will accept the 
Crown, the debate on the question, and the epecch of Haimer of 
‘Thouars, are all placed “statim ut Lundonia conspectui patebat.” 
T bave ventured to transfer all these events to Berkhumpstend, 
where it is plain from Florence and the Worcester Chronicle that 
the chief act of submission took place, But the presence or absence 
of Stigand is a knotty point. He is not mentioned in the Chronicle, 
nor in the fuller list in Florence, which seems to be specially meant 
as complete list of the Bishops present. On the other hand, he is 
the only person named by William of Poitiers, and it is cortain that 
he must have submitted before the coronation. Is it porsible that, 
when submission was unavoidable, he was the first to submit, and 
that he met William at Wallingford before the others met him 
at Berkhampstend ! The two English writers leave Wallingford out 
altogether, but William must have crossed the Thames somewhero, 
and there seems no reason to reject William of Poitiers’ statement 
that he crowed it at Wallingford. 
‘On the story of Wiggod of Wallingford and the notices of him 
in Domosday and elsewhere, see Appendix C, in the fourth volume, 


INDEX. 


A Eaop, sis. represented in the 
Anixavox ences ot ih cf Malmesbay, his ablemph 
B 736. te ft 2 
“Archbishop of, ‘of Kelvedon, his naval wersicos 
iat ‘Bremen, 309 > tose: 





et 


2. 
nea of Ns munler Ali oly Matos, 3581 cou 
made isthe a8 “tert ; 
lel, King bie Mloged teslation st Alezandee the Second? one 
pe =P Le ee ‘Alaxander the i 
nexionn, 778: hls children, Ealwand, 
Mitte "ot illed af Seulso, Alfio, King of Galicia, givon Wile 
attide of G1 diy Sitings: ok “Aintree Rete btm al lage log 
“peta with ie andy 166-41 at 
tig Ab of Sow aster iia ar, 68. a F 
ihe i ding 4935 faking af, by le and Com 
Aiifwig' of Hampshire, notion of hin to Pulk Rechin, 316. 
pee era “ot of ths wort G4 











‘tion office, 628. Dive, 
ompital ty 107~ ‘Norman flout at, 

Chester, rent to, §19, $245 for Williain, 239 ; history and 
legend of spenane al oa of, 3; ar ee Or 
ah 515 785. Witla, 2387 Wiliams ecooud 

Chiada, 'Geolfrey the Bearded im. 








TSDEX, 


and 


Poli al Sn a 


Falford, battle of, 
Bull tho Laano, Me Soutrbutton of hip, 


80, 
"isa om of gales tis dnt 


rales 


cofiny, ma of Thureyl at the aloge 
133. 
ca at me 
wrilars, 4 


he Seca, bis contribution 


ig 
ut 
i 


i 
al 
“ 
j 
# 


i 
i 


of Kadlwrant, 36) 
a Bip of We : 


Gell of find joing Hard Han: 
‘Bs 















mee id pak 

ha Wi ia ei in 
real sie SEEN 
fat Te ADE 
itt ee es Hid hia 
rer 

ile a ae Pe ay it 2 a ‘i 
ah Gh i! an i dia 
Atal flan cua i Hil 
ine duit 








Fy ee ae Pade 2 alk ili eat | uF ‘ ia 
ee th 
i aft i a 4 Hat 
HE iti He tail. pa 
eee read cae nee 

Ff Fe Lee he 
; a 4 Hai i tea li al Het ias 
feilite Hal Hdiglfee iii plea 








PL iets ad HT ain 
ail Be ce ae aiid ia getl 
i ne i im Hea 

‘ if ue ii Le all fuvideal 

* apa Busia La Das 

tide aM Uy ae 
* is) ae Sage Seuraes: 
ot i aoe re tut ill if La 
ae Bat if Huei 





INDEX. 808 
‘Tostiy, som of Godwing, his wchemes after — Walter, his Lethe 
Tavlie election, 5017 socks wat tala Ans 
= 5! Attends Willants Coal 288 
with William's sanction, 054 Tande Ne 
in Wight, 325 ; bik ravages, a7 et con 
Serial eit mt Brogan sat ope refures to Gre — 
ecromega 2 hme 
i falter Gifaed tho In share 
be i fn tha death of Maro, 98. 
temaiee Walter, Count of Mantes ciitma the 
burial at York, 374: 375: Con — he 
on oreetaes, Tea eee 
bend crest Witio's “age Sanh a7 St, a 
‘Rommel tie via ch gy eatin of Tawar the Flt at, 4205 lool 
over Lamia ettnng oh Sie coronation, 603 Goa a 
= J » Meieed Seta Botan gc pats aoe 
Totport, foundation ofthe Abbey, 118 bape aera! nt Ben 
poker Waray, Nera a Bay 45 
cas: Ws, nti of Suman, Tats 
Wao, Arch oer, saves 
lming Lat Woemex, Kept io own aude, 
Vv. Wietisinter, the church eebails by 
‘Velapumy 7th’ ibe Yet, ene thw TR a ea ot 
Vinstlle doweption of, 1795 batts of pape] + paalioes ELE 
vai Dr,, hls soovunt of the Counta wit PPS, 
wuss of, (te deseont from thre by Wir tee 
Varma Hts of ite a Py hie = 
. bests) let of Wi favours Wi 
4887 eee . ¢ 
op of Le Mans his lla, his description 
“Ee ie s  eede eae 
o 5 ‘a 
w. wae tain, 
Whee, valu of his Histry, 9785; hin elds Moa gna of 
account of Godwine’s return, 686, ae 2 ane 
Wanita Donsteys7a se? "Gumdarae Dosis ttf Meso 
Waleran. 2 ict, killed at Mor- pees tl leaves 
tomer, 147. a Ie . 
ington Was will Vent of ry 129; the 
bafrreicc or, e Ke eautlo' of Arques to him, 
Walter aye, his spich ifr the 40, ae ay 
Walter of Flanders, joins 283 Mon nod Danidhuwent, 118, +49, S16, 
VOL. III, 





Hy ai 
flu ue ue En fialal ‘dl 
© ieee nse ara 
ti nite at iat Hh Niase peal 
i a lal (diet i cee a 
Unite S8LES bole ida ae HE ui eal 


810 








INDEX. 


‘William, Count of Eu, his foundations 
and children, 116-118, 
‘William of Evreux, his contribution of 





the dedication 


William’ Fits-Osbern, his advioo to 
Duke William, 260; attends William's 
council, 287; his in the 
Assembly at)’ Lillebonne, 296-298 ; 
his contribution of ships, 380; his 

afte at Senlae, 461. 
iiliam, Bishop of London, keeps his 
bishoprick under Harold, 51. 

William Malet, bis placo at Senlac, 
495; buries’ Harold at Hastings, 
513; his connexion with England, 


777- 
Willinm Malet, monk of Boe, 777; 
William of Malmesbury, his habit of 
comparing different statements, 591 5 
tho first to mention the rights of 


Eadgar, 608. 

William Patry, his place at Senlac, 466. 

William Peverel, alleged natural son of 
‘William the Conqueror, 662. 

William of Poitiers, character of his 
History, 378; his treatment of the 
bequest of Hadward to Harald, 5905 
his Imperial ideas, 716. 

William of Warren, rocivee the castle 
of Mortemer, 158 ; attonds William's 


sil 


council, 288; his charter to Lewes, 
651, grant of the Earidom of Surrey 
to, 653. 

‘Wimund, betrays Moulins to the French, 


137. 
Winchester, dwelling-place of . 
66, 540, 640; submits to William, 


5 

Winn, eloct Harold King, 18, 20. 

‘Witenagemst, its working ss « primary 
assembly, 56, 

Wreck, right of, 223. 

‘Wulfgest, history of his grant to Eves- 
ham, 362. 

Waltot, son of Godwine, axid to have 

en given as a hostage to William, 
219; probable ‘of the story, 
243, 683-686 ; his captivity, 685. 

Wolfrlo, Abbot of Ely, his alienation of 

lands, 68; his appointment and writ, 
2. 

Walfstan, Saint, Bishop of Worcester, 
his friendship with Harold, 55, 6373 
helps him to win over the Northum- 
brians, 61-64. 

y. 

‘Year 1066, its special character and 
importance, 3-5. 

York, surrenders to Harold | Harden, 

receives Harold of Ei 3643 
Mey of William’s landing brought 
to, 377+ 


END OF VOLUME THE THIRD.