Meanwhile, King Harold of England had made himself dear to his people,
and been true to the fame he had won as Harold the Earl. From the moment
of his accession, “he showed himself pious, humble, and affable [227],
and omitted no occasions to show any token of bounteous liberality,
gentleness, and courteous behaviour.”--“The grievous customs, also, and
taxes which his predecessors had raised, he either abolished or
diminished; the ordinary wages of his servants and men-of-war he
increased, and further showed himself very well bent to all virtue and
goodness.” [228]
Extracting the pith from these eulogies, it is clear that, as wise
statesman no less than as good king, Harold sought to strengthen himself
in the three great elements of regal power;--Conciliation of the Church,
which had been opposed to his father; The popular affection, on which his
sole claim to the crown reposed; And the military force of the land,
which had been neglected in the reign of his peaceful predecessor.
To the young Atheling he accorded a respect not before paid to him; and,
while investing the descendant of the ancient line with princely state,
and endowing him with large domains, his soul, too great for jealousy,
sought to give more substantial power to his own most legitimate rival,
by tender care and noble counsels,--by efforts to raise a character
feeble by nature, and denationalised by foreign rearing. In the same
broad and generous policy, Harold encouraged all the merchants from other
countries who had settled in England, nor were even such Normans as had
escaped the general sentence of banishment on Godwin’s return, disturbed
in their possessions. “In brief,” saith the Anglo-Norman chronicler
[229], “no man was more prudent in the land, more valiant in arms, in the
law more sagacious, in all probity more accomplished:” and “Ever active,”
says more mournfully the Saxon writer, “for the good of his country, he
spared himself no fatigue by land or by sea.” [230] From this time,
Harold’s private life ceased. Love and its charms were no more. The
glow of romance had vanished. He was not one man; he was the state, the
representative, the incarnation of Saxon England: his sway and the Saxon
freedom, to live or fall together!
The soul really grand is only tested in its errors. As we know the true
might of the intellect by the rich resources and patient strength with
which it redeems a failure, so do we prove the elevation of the soul by
its courageous return into light, its instinctive rebound into higher
air, after some error that has darkened its vision and soiled its plumes.
A spirit less noble and pure than Harold’s, once entering on the dismal
world of enchanted superstition, had habituated itself to that nether
atmosphere; once misled from hardy truth and healthful reason, it had
plunged deeper and deeper into the maze. But, unlike his contemporary,
Macbeth, the Man escaped from the lures of the Fiend. Not as Hecate in
hell, but as Dian in heaven, did he confront the pale Goddess of Night.
Before that hour in which he had deserted the human judgment for the
ghostly delusion; before that day in which the brave heart, in its sudden
desertion, had humbled his pride--the man, in his nature, was more strong
than the god. Now, purified by the flame that had scorched, and more
nerved from the fall that had stunned,--that great soul rose sublime
through the wrecks of the Past, serene through the clouds of the Future,
concentering in its solitude the destinies of Mankind, and strong with
instinctive Eternity amidst all the terrors of Time.
King Harold came from York, whither he had gone to cement the new power
of Morcar, in Northumbria, and personally to confirm the allegiance of
the Anglo-Danes:--King Harold came from York, and in the halls of
Westminster he found a monk who awaited him with the messages of William
the Norman.
Bare-footed, and serge-garbed, the Norman envoy strode to the Saxon’s
chair of state. His form was worn with mortification and fast, and his
face was hueless and livid, with the perpetual struggle between zeal and
flesh.
“Thus saith William, Count of the Normans,” began Hugues Maigrot, the
monk.
“With grief and amaze hath he heard that you, O Harold, his sworn
liege-man, have, contrary to oath and to fealty, assumed the crown that
belongs to himself. But, confiding in thy conscience, and forgiving a
moment’s weakness, he summons thee, mildly and brother-like, to fulfil
thy vow. Send thy sister, that he may gave her in marriage to one of his
Quens. Give him up the stronghold of Dover; march to thy coast with
thine armies to aid him,--thy liege lord,--and secure him the heritage of
Edward his cousin. And thou shalt reign at his right-hand, his daughter
thy bride, Northumbria thy fief, and the saints thy protectors.”
The King’s lip was firm, though pale, as he answered:
“My young sister, alas! is no more: seven nights after I ascended the
throne, she died: her dust in the grave is all I could send to the arms
of the bridegroom. I cannot wed the child of thy Count: the wife of
Harold sits beside him.” And he pointed to the proud beauty of Aldyth,
enthroned under the drapery of gold. “For the vow that I took, I deny it
not. But from a vow of compulsion, menaced with unworthy captivity,
extorted from my lips by the very need of the land whose freedom had been
bound in my chains--from a vow so compelled, Church and conscience
absolve me. If the vow of a maiden on whom to bestow but her hand, when
unknown to her parents, is judged invalid by the Church, how much more
invalid the oath that would bestow on a stranger the fates of a nation
[231], against its knowledge, and unconsulting its laws! This royalty of
England hath ever rested on the will of the people, declared through its
chiefs in their solemn assembly. They alone who could bestow it, have
bestowed it on me:--I have no power to resign it to another--and were I
in my grave, the trust of the crown would not pass to the Norman, but
return to the Saxon people.”
“Is this, then, thy answer, unhappy son?” said the monk, with a sullen
and gloomy aspect.
“Such is my answer.”
“Then, sorrowing for thee, I utter the words of William. ‘With sword and
with mail will he come to punish the perjurer: and by the aid of St.
Michael, archangel of war, he will conquer his own.’ Amen.”
“By sea and by land, with sword and with mail, will we meet the invader,”
answered the King, with a flashing eye. “Thou hast said:--so depart.”
The monk turned and withdrew.
“Let the priest’s insolence chafe thee not, sweet lord,” said Aldyth.
“For the vow which thou mightest take as subject, what matters it now
thou art king?”
Harold made no answer to Aldyth, but turned to his Chamberlain, who stood
behind his throne chair.
“Are my brothers without?”
“They are: and my lord the King’s chosen council.”
“Admit them: pardon, Aldyth; affairs fit only for men claim me now.”
The Lady of England took the hint, and rose.
“But the even-mete will summon thee soon,” said she. Harold, who had
already descended from his chair of state, and was bending over a casket
of papers on the table, replied:
“There is food here till the morrow; wait me not.” Aldyth sighed, and
withdrew at the one door, while the thegns most in Harold’s confidence
entered at the other. But, once surrounded by her maidens, Aldyth forgot
all, save that she was again a queen,--forgot all, even to the earlier
and less gorgeous diadem which her lord’s hand had shattered on the brows
of the son of Pendragon.
Leofwine, still gay and blithe-hearted, entered first: Gurth followed,
then Haco, then some half-score of the greater thegns.
They seated themselves at the table, and Gurth spoke first:
“Tostig has been with Count William.”
“I know it,” said Harold.
“It is rumoured that he has passed to our uncle Sweyn.”
“I foresaw it,” said the King.
“And that Sweyn will aid him to reconquer England for the Dane.”
“My bode reached Sweyn, with letters from Githa, before Tostig; my bode
has returned this day. Sweyn has dismissed Tostig; Sweyn will send fifty
ships, armed with picked men, to the aid of England.”
“Brother,” cried Leofwine, admiringly, “thou providest against danger ere
we but surmise it.”
“Tostig,” continued the King, unheeding the compliment, “will be the
first assailant: him we must meet. His fast friend is Malcolm of
Scotland: him we must secure. Go thou, Leofwine, with these letters to
Malcolm.--The next fear is from the Welch. Go thou, Edwin of Mercia, to
the princes of Wales. On thy way, strengthen the forts and deepen the
dykes of the marches. These tablets hold thy instructions. The Norman,
as doubtless ye know, my thegns, hath sent to demand our crown, and hath
announced the coming of his war. With the dawn I depart to our port at
Sandwich [232], to muster our fleets. Thou with me, Gurth.”
“These preparations need much treasure,” said an old thegn, “and thou
hast lessened the taxes at the hour of need.”
“Not yet is it the hour of need. When it comes, our people will the more
readily meet it with their gold as with their iron. There was great
wealth in the House of Godwin; that wealth mans the ships of England.
What hast thou there, Haco?”
“Thy new-issued coin: it hath on its reverse the word PEACE.” [233]
Who ever saw one of those coins of the Last Saxon King, the bold simple
head on the one side, that single word “Peace” on the other, and did not
feel awed and touched! What pathos in that word compared with the fate
which it failed to propitiate!
“Peace,” said Harold: “to all that doth not render peace, slavery. Yea,
may I live to leave peace to our children! Now, peace only rests on our
preparation for war. You, Morcar, will return with all speed to York,
and look well to the mouth of the Humber.”
Then, turning to each of the thegns successively he gave to each his post
and his duty; and that done, converse grew more general. The many things
needful that had been long rotting in neglect under the Monk-king, and
now sprung up, craving instant reform, occupied them long and anxiously.
But cheered and inspirited by the vigour and foresight of Harold, whose
earlier slowness of character seemed winged by the occasion into rapid
decision (as is not uncommon with the Englishman), all difficulties
seemed light, and hope and courage were in every breast.