memory still lives in the rude pictorial art of his time, he was
foremost alike in the active courage and in the passive endurance of the
warrior. It is plain that in him, no less than in his more successful,
and, therefore, more famous, rival, we have to admire not only the mere
animal courage, but that true skill of the leader of armies which would
have placed both Harold and William high among the captains of any age.
Great as Harold was in war, his character as a civil ruler is still more
remarkable, still more worthy of admiration. The most prominent feature
in his character is his singular gentleness and mercy. Never, either in
warfare or in civil strife, do we find Harold bearing hardly upon an
enemy. From the time of his advancement to the practical government of
the kingdom there is not a single harsh or cruel action with which he
can be charged.
Such was the man who, seemingly in the fourth year of Eadward, in the
twenty-fourth of his own age, was invested with the rule of one of the
great divisions of England, who, seven years later, became the virtual
ruler of the kingdom; who, at last, twenty-one years from his first
elevation, received, alone among English kings, the crown of England as
the free gift of her people, and, alone among English kings, died axe in
hand on her soil in the defence of England against foreign invaders.
William of Normandy bears a name which must for ever stand forth among
the foremost of mankind. No man that ever trod this earth was endowed
with greater natural gifts; to no man was it ever granted to accomplish
greater things. No man ever did his work more effectually at the moment;
no man ever left his work behind him as more truly an abiding possession
for all time. In his character one feature stands out pre-eminently
above all others. Throughout his career we admire in him the embodiment
in the highest degree that human nature will allow of the fixed purpose
and the unbending will.
We are too apt to look upon William as simply the conqueror of England.
But so to do is to look at him only in his most splendid, but at the
same time his least honourable, aspect. William learned to become the
conqueror of England only by first becoming the conqueror of Normandy
and the conqueror of France. He found means to conquer Normandy by the
help of France, and to conquer France by the help of Normandy. He came
to his duchy under every disadvantage. At once bastard and minor, with
competitors for his coronet arising at every moment, he was throughout
the whole of his early life beset by troubles, none of which were of his
own making, and he came honourably out of all.
In 1052, William paid his memorable visit to England. At that time both
Normandy and England were at rest, enjoying peace. Visits of mere
friendship and courtesy among sovereign princes were rare in those days.
Such visits as those which William and Eustace of Boulogne paid at this
time to this country were altogether novelties, and unlikely to be
acceptable to the English mind. We may be sure that every patriotic
Englishman looked with an evil eye on any French-speaking prince who
made his way to the English court.
William came with a great following; he tarried awhile in his cousin's
company; he went away loaded with gifts and honours. And he can hardly
doubt that he went away encouraged by some kind of promise of succeeding
to the kingdom which he now visited as a stranger. Direct heirs were
lacking to the royal house, and William was Eadward's kinsman. The
moment was in every way favourable for suggesting to William on the one
hand, to Eadward on the other, the idea of an arrangement by which
William should succeed to the English crown on Eadward's death. The
Norman writers are full of Eadward's promise to William, and also of
some kind of oath that Harold swore to him. Had either the promise or
the oath been a pure Norman invention, William could never have paraded
both in the way that he did in the eyes of Europe. I admit, then, some
promise of Eadward, some oath of Harold. But when the time came for
Eadward the Confessor to make his final recommendation of a successor,
he certainly changed his purpose; for his last will, so far as such an
expression can be used, was undoubtedly in favour of Harold.
There is not the slightest sign of any intention on the part of Eadward
during his later years to nominate William to the Witan as future king.
The two streams of English and Norman history were joined together in
the year when the two sovereigns met for the only time in their reigns.
Those streams again diverged. England shook off the Norman influence to
all outward appearance, and became once more the England of Æthelstan
and Eadgar. But the effects of Eadgar's Norman tendencies were by no
means wholly wiped away. Normans still remained in the land, and
circumstances constituted secondary causes of the expedition of William.
It was in the year 1051 that the influence of strangers reached its
height. During the first nine years of Eadward's reign we find no signs
of any open warfare between the national and the Normanising parties.
The course of events shows that Godwine's power was being practically
undermined, but the great earl was still Jutwardly in the enjoyment of
royal favour, and his fast possessions were still being added to by
royal grants. But soon England began to feel how great is the evil when
a king and those immediately around him are estranged from the mass of
his people in feeling.
To the French favourites who gradually crowded the court of Eadward the
name, the speech, and the laws of England were things on which their
ignorant pride looked with utter contempt.
Count Eustace of Boulogne, now brother-in-law of the king of the
English, presently came, like the rest of the world, to the English
Court. The king was spending the autumn at Gloucester. Thither came
Count Eustace, and, after his satisfactory interview with the king, he
turned his face homewards. When a few miles from Dover he felt himself,
in a region specially devoted to Godwine, to be still more thoroughly in
an enemy's country than in other parts of England, and he and all his
company took the precaution of putting on their coats of mail.
The proud Frenchmen expected to find free quarters at Dover, and they
attempted to lodge themselves at their pleasure in the houses of the
burghers. One Englishman resisted, and was struck dead on the spot. The
count's party then rode through the town, cutting and slaying at
pleasure. In a skirmish which quickly ensued twenty Englishmen and
nineteen Frenchmen were slain.
Count Eustace and the remnant of the party hastened back to Gloucester,
and told the story after their own fashion. On the mere accusation of a
stranger, the English king condemned his own subjects without a hearing.
He sent for Godwine, as earl of the district in which lay the offending
town, and commanded him to inflict chastisement on Dover. The English
champion was then in the midst of a domestic rejoicing. He had, like the
king, been strengthening himself by a foreign alliance, and had just
connected his house with that of a foreign prince. Tostig, the third son
of Godwine, had just married Judith, the daughter of Baldwin of
Flanders.
Godwine, however, bidden without the least legal proof of offence, to
visit with all the horrors of fire and sword, was not long in choosing
his course. Official duty and public policy, no less than abstract
justice and humanity, dictated a distinct refusal. Now or never a stand
was to be made against strangers, and the earl demanded a legal trial
for the burghers of Dover.
But there were influences about Eadward which cut off all hope of a
peaceful settlement of the matter. Eustace probably still lingered about
the king, and there was another voice ever at the royal ear, ever ready
to poison the royal mind against the people of England and their leader.
It was the voice of a foreign monk, Archbishop Robert. Godwine and three
other earls summoned their followers and demanded the surrender of
Eustace, but the frightened king sent for the Northern Earls Siward,
Leofric, and Ralph, bidding them bring a force strong enough to keep
Godwine in check. Thus the northern and southern sections were arrayed
against each other.
There were, however, on the king's side, men who were not willing to see
the country involved in civil war. Leofric, the good Earl of Mercia,
stood forth as the champion of compromise and peace, and it was agreed
that hostilities should be avoided and that the witenagemot should
assemble at Michaelmas in London.
Of this truce King Eadward and his foreign advisers took advantage to
collect an army, at the head of which they appeared in London. Godwine
and his son Harold were summoned to the gemot, but refused to appear
without a security for a safe conduct. The hostages and safe-conduct
were refused. The refusal was announced by Bishop Stigand to the earl as
he sat at his evening meal. The bishop wept; the earl sprang to his
feet, overthrew the table, leaped on his horse, and, with his sons, rode
for his life all that night. In the morning the king held his
witenagemot, and by a vote of the king and his whole army, Godwine and
his sons were declared outlaws, but five days were allowed them to get
out of the land. Godwine, Swegen, Tostig, and Gyrth, together with Gytha
and Judith, the newly-married wife of Tostig, set sail for Bruges in a
ship laden with as much treasure as it would hold. They reached the
court of Flanders in safety, were honourably received by the count, and
passed the whole winter with him.
Two of Godwine's sons, however, sought another refuge. Harold and his
younger brother Leofwine determined on resistance, and resolved to seek
shelter among the Danish settlers in Ireland, where they were cordially
received by King Diarmid. For the moment the overthrow of the patriotic
leaders in England was complete, and the dominion of the foreigners over
the feeble mind of the king was complete. It was while Godwine dwelt as
an exile at Bruges, and Harold was planning schemes of vengeance in the
friendly court of Dublin, that William the Bastard, afterwards known as
William the Conqueror, paid his memorable visit to England, that visit
which has already been referred to as a stage, and a most important one,
among the immediate causes of the Norman Conquest.
Stirring events followed in quick succession. General regret was felt
among all patriotic Englishmen at the absence of Godwine. The common
voice of England soon began to call for the return of the banished earl,
who was looked to by all men as the father of his country. England now
knew that in his fall a fatal blow had been dealt to her own welfare and
freedom. And Godwine, after sending many petitions to the king, vainly
petitioning for a reconciliation, determined to return by force,
satisfied that the great majority of Englishmen would be less likely to
resist him than to join his banners.
Harold sailed from Ireland to meet his father by way of the English
Channel. Godwine sailed up the Thames, and London declared for him.
Panic reigned among the favourites of King Eadward. The foreigners took
to flight, among the fugitives being Archbishop Robert and Bishop Ulf.
The gemot met and decreed the restoration of the earl and the outlawry
of many Normans. The king yielded, and accorded to Godwine the kiss of
peace, and a revolution was accomplished of which England may well be
proud.
But a tragedy soon followed, in the death of the most renowned
Englishman of that generation. During a meal at the Easter festival
Godwine fell from his seat, and died after lying insensible for three
days. Great was the grief of the nation. Harold, in the years that
followed, became so increasingly popular that he was virtually chief
ruler of England, even before the death of Eadward, which happened on
January 5, 1066. His burial was followed by the coronation of Harold.
But the moment of struggle was now come. The English throne had become
vacant, and the Norman duke knew how to represent himself as its lawful
heir, and to brand the king of the nation's choice as an usurper. The
days of debate were past, and the sword alone could decide between
England and her enemy.
William found one Englishman willing to help him in all his schemes, in
the person of Tostig, Harold's brother, who had been outlawed at the
demand of the nation, owing to his unfitness to rule his province as
Earl of Northumberland. He had sunk from bad to worse. Harold had done
all he could for his fallen brother, but to restore him was impossible.
Tostig was at the Norman court, urging William to the invasion of
England. At his own risk, he was allowed to make an incursion on the
English coast. Entering the Humber, he burned several towns and slew
many men. But after these ravages Tostig repaired to ask help of Harold
Hardrada, whom he induced to prepare a great expedition.
Harold Hardrada and Tostig landed and marched towards York. A battle was
fought between the Mercians and Norwegians at Fulford, in which the
former were worsted, but Harold was marching northward. In the fearful
battle of Stamford Bridge both Harold Hardrada and Tostig were slain,
and the Viking host was shattered. The victorious English king was
banqueting in celebration of the great victory, when a messenger
appeared who had come at fleetest pace from the distant coast of Sussex.
One blow had been warded off, but another still more terrible had
fallen. Three days after the fight at Stamford Bridge, William, Duke of
the Normans, once the peaceful guest of Edward, had again, but in quite
another guise, made good his landing on the shores of England. It was in
August 1066 that the Norman fleet had set sail on its great enterprise.
For several weeks a south wind had been waited for at the mouth of the
River Dive, prayers and sacred rites of every kind being employed to
move Heaven to send the propitious breeze. On September 28 the landing
was effected at Pevensey, the ancient Anderida. There were neither,
ships nor men to resist the landing. The first armed man who set foot on
English ground was Duke William himself, whose foot slipped, so that he
fell with both hands on the ground.
A loud cry of grief was raised at the evil omen. But the ready wit of
William failed him not. "By the splendour of God," he cried, "I have
taken seizin of my kingdom; the earth of England is in my hands." The
whole army landed in order, but only one day was spent at Pevensey. On
the next day the army marched on eastward and came to Hastings, which
was fixed on as the centre of the operations of the whole campaign.
It was a hard lot for the English king to be compelled to hasten
southward to dislodge the new enemy, after scarcely a moment's rest from
the toils and glories of Stamford Bridge. But the heart of Harold failed
him not, and the heart of England beat in unison with the heart of her
king. As soon as the news came, King Harold held a council of the
leaders of Stamford Bridge, or perhaps an armed gemot. 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 loud
shout of assent rose from the whole assembly. Every man pledged his
faith rather to die in arms than to acknowledge any king but Harold.
The king thanked his loyal followers, and at once ordered an immediate
march to the south, an immediate muster of the forces of his kingdom.
London was the trysting-place. He himself pressed on at once with his
immediate following. And throughout the land awoke a spirit in every
English heart which has never died out to this day. The men from various
shires flocked eagerly to the standard of their glorious king. Harold
seems to have reached London on October 5, about ten days after the
fight at Stamford Bridge, and a week after the Norman landing at
Pevensey. Though his royal home was now at Westminster, he went, in
order to seek divine help and succour, to pray at Waltham, the home of
his earlier days, devoting one day to a pilgrimage to the Holy Cross
which gave England her war-cry.
Harold and William were now both eager for the battle. The king set out
from London on October 12. His consummate generalship is nowhere more
plainly shown than in this memorable campaign. He formed his own plan,
and he carried it out. He determined to give battle, but only on his own
ground, and after his own fashion. The nature of the post shows that his
real plan was to occupy a position where the Normans would have to
attack him at a great disadvantage.
William constrained Harold to fight, but Harold, in his turn,
constrained William to fight on ground of Harold's own choosing. The
latter halted at a point distant about seven miles from the headquarters
of the invaders, and pitched his camp upon the ever-memorable heights of
Senlac. It was his policy not to attack. He occupied and fortified a
post of great natural strength, which he speedily made into what is
distinctly spoken of as a castle.
The hill of Senlac, now occupied by the abbey and town of Battle,
commemorates in its later name the great event of which it was the
scene.
The morning of the decisive day, Saturday, October 14, at last had come.
The duke of the Normans heard mass, and received the communion in both
kinds, and drew forth his troops for their march against the English
post. Then in full armour, and seated on his noble Spanish war-horse,
William led his host forth in three divisions. The Normans from the hill
of Telham first caught sight of the English encamped on the opposite
height of Senlac.
First in each of the three Norman divisions marched the archers,
slingers, and cross-bow men, then the more heavily-armed infantry,
lastly the horsemen. The reason of this arrangement is clear. The
light-armed were to do what they could with their missiles to annoy the
English; the heavy infantry were to strive to break down the palisades
of the English camp, and so to make ready the way for the charge of the
horse.
Like the Normans, the English had risen early. The king, after exhorting
his troops to stand firm, rode to the royal post; he there dismounted,
took his place on foot, and prayed to God for help. The battle began at
nine in the morning--one of the sacred hours of the church. The trumpet
sounded, and a flight of arrows from all three Norman divisions--right,
centre, and left,--was the prelude to the onslaught of the heavy-armed
foot. The real struggle now began. The French infantry had to toil up
the hill, and to break down the palisade, while a shower of stones and
javelins disordered their approach, and while club, sword and axe
greeted all who came within the reach of hand-strokes.
Both sides fought with unyielding valour. The war-cries rose on either
side. The Normans shouted "God help us!" the English called on the "Holy
Cross." The Norman infantry had soon done its best, but that best had
been in vain. The choicest chivalry of Europe now pressed on to the
attack. The knights of Normandy and of all lands from which men had
flocked to William's standard, now pressed on, striving to make what
impression they could with the whole strength of themselves and their
horses on the impenetrable fortress of timber, shields, and living
warriors.
But all was in vain. The English had thus far stood their ground well
and wisely, and the tactics of Harold had so far completely answered.
Not only had every attack failed, but the great mass of the French army
altogether lost heart. The Bretons and the other auxiliaries on the left
were the first to give way. Horse and foot alike, they turned and fled.
The whole of William's left wing was thrown into utter confusion.
The strong heart of William, however, failed him not, and by his single
prowess and presence of mind he recalled the fleeing troops. Order was
soon restored, and the Norman host pressed on to a second and more
terrible attack. The duke himself, his relics round his neck, sought out
Harold. A few moments more, and the two might have come face to face,
but Gyrth, the noble brother of the English king, hurled a spear at
William. The missile narrowly missed the duke, but slew the Spanish
steed, the first of three that died under him that day. But William
could not fight on foot as well as on horseback. He rose to his feet,
pressed straight to seek the man who had so nearly slain him, and the
earl fell, crushed beneath the blow of William's mace. Nor did he fall
alone, for his brother, Earl Leofwine, was smitten to the earth by an
unknown assailant.
The second attack, however, failed, for the English lines were as
unyielding as ever. Direct attack was unavailing. In the Norman
character fox and lion were equally blended, as William now showed. He
ventured on the daring stratagem of ordering a pretended flight, and the
unwary English rushed down the slope, pursuing the fugitive with shouts
of delight. The error was fatal to England. The tide was turned; the
duke's object was now gained; and the main end of Harold's skilful
tactics was frustrated. The English were no longer entrenched, and the
battle fell into a series of single combats. As twilight was coming on
an arrow, falling like a bolt from heaven, pierced Harold's right eye,
and he sank in agony at the foot of the standard. Round that standard
the fight still raged, till the highest nobility, the most valiant
soldiery of England were slaughtered to a man.
Had Harold lived, had another like him been ready to take his place, we
may well doubt whether, even after Senlac, England would have been
conquered at all. As it was, from this moment her complete conquest was
only a matter of time. 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 the land of English blood, till all were brought
down to bondage and sorrow, till it was a shame to be called an
Englishman, and the men of England were no more a people.
* * * * *
JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE
History of England
James Anthony Froude was born at Darlington, England, April
23, 1818, and died on Oct. 20, 1894. He was educated at
Westminster, and Oriel College, Oxford. Taking Holy Orders, he
was, for a time, deeply influenced by Newman and the
Tractarian movement, but soon underwent the radical revolution
of thought revealed by his first treatise, the "Nemesis of
Faith," which appeared in 1849, and created a sensation. Its
tendency to skepticism cost him his fellowship, but its
profound pathos, its accent of tenderness, and its fervour
excited wide admiration. Permanent fame was secured by the
appearance, in 1856, of the first two instalments of his
magnificent work, "The History of England, from the Fall of
Wolsey to the Defeat of the Armada," the last volume appearing
in 1870. This treatise on the middle Tudor period is one of
the most fascinating historical treatises in the whole range
of literature. It is written in a vivid and graphic prose, and
with rare command of the art of picturesque description.
Froude never accepted the doctrine that history should be
treated as a science; rather he claimed that the historian
should concern himself with the dramatic aspect of the period
about which he writes. The student may disagree with many of
Froude's points of view and portraitures, yet his men and
women breathe with the life he endows them, and their motives
are actuated by the forces he sets in motion. Of his
voluminous works perhaps the most notable, with the exception
of the "History," are his "History of Ireland in the
Eighteenth Century," 1871-74, and his "Short Studies on Great
Subjects," the latter aptly exhibiting Froude's gifts of
masterful prose and glittering paradox.
_I.--The Condition of England_
In periods like the present, when knowledge is every day extending, and
the habits and thoughts of mankind are perpetually changing under the
influence of new discoveries, it is no easy matter to throw ourselves
back into a time in which for centuries the European world grew upon a
single type, in which the forms of the father's thoughts were the forms
of the son's, and the late descendant was occupied in treading into
paths the footprints of his ancestors.