But from that date changes, slight, yet noticeable and important, were
at work both in the conduct and character of the great Earl.
Hitherto he had advanced on his career without calculation; and
nature, not policy, had achieved his power. But henceforth he began
thoughtfully to cement the foundations of his House, to extend the
area, to strengthen the props. Policy now mingled with the justice
that had made him esteemed, and the generosity that had won him love.
Before, though by temper conciliatory, yet, through honesty,
indifferent to the enmities he provoked, in his adherence to what his
conscience approved, he now laid himself out to propitiate all ancient
feuds, soothe all jealousies, and convert foes into friends. He
opened constant and friendly communication with his uncle Sweyn, King
of Denmark; he availed himself sedulously of all the influence over
the Anglo-Danes which his mother's birth made so facile. He strove
also, and wisely, to conciliate the animosities which the Church had
cherished against Godwin's house: he concealed his disdain of the
monks and monkridden: he showed himself the Church's patron and
friend; he endowed largely the convents, and especially one at
Waltham, which had fallen into decay, though favourably known for the
piety of its brotherhood. But if in this he played a part not natural
to his opinions, Harold could not, even in simulation, administer to
evil. The monasteries he favoured were those distinguished for purity
of life, for benevolence to the poor, for bold denunciation of the
excesses of the great. He had not, like the Norman, the grand design
of creating in the priesthood a college of learning, a school of arts;
such notions were unfamiliar in homely, unlettered England. And
Harold, though for his time and his land no mean scholar, would have
recoiled from favouring a learning always made subservient to Rome;
always at once haughty and scheming, and aspiring to complete
domination over both the souls of men and the thrones of kings. But
his aim was, out of the elements he found in the natural kindliness
existing between Saxon priest and Saxon flock, to rear a modest,
virtuous, homely clergy, not above tender sympathy with an ignorant
population. He selected as examples for his monastery at Waltham, two
low-born humble brothers, Osgood and Ailred; the one known for the
courage with which he had gone through the land, preaching to abbot
and thegn the emancipation of the theowes, as the most meritorious act
the safety of the soul could impose; the other, who, originally a
clerk, had, according to the common custom of the Saxon clergy,
contracted the bonds of marriage, and with some eloquence had
vindicated that custom against the canons of Rome, and refused the
offer of large endowments and thegn's rank to put away his wife. But
on the death of that spouse he had adopted the cowl, and while still
persisting in the lawfulness of marriage to the unmonastic clerks, had
become famous for denouncing the open concubinage which desecrated the
holy office, and violated the solemn vows, of many a proud prelate and
abbot.
To these two men (both of whom refused the abbacy of Waltham) Harold
committed the charge of selecting the new brotherhood established
there. And the monks of Waltham were honoured as saints throughout
the neighbouring district, and cited as examples to all the Church.
But though in themselves the new politic arts of Harold seemed
blameless enough, arts they were, and as such they corrupted the
genuine simplicity of his earlier nature. He had conceived for the
first time an ambition apart from that of service to his country. It
was no longer only to serve the land, it was to serve it as its ruler,
that animated his heart and coloured his thoughts. Expediencies began
to dim to his conscience the healthful loveliness of Truth. And now,
too, gradually, that empire which Hilda had gained over his brother
Sweyn began to sway this man, heretofore so strong in his sturdy
sense. The future became to him a dazzling mystery, into which his
conjectures plunged themselves more and more. He had not yet stood in
the Runic circle and invoked the dead; but the spells were around his
heart, and in his own soul had grown up the familiar demon.
Still Edith reigned alone, if not in his thoughts at least in his
affections; and perhaps it was the hope of conquering all obstacles to
his marriage that mainly induced him to propitiate the Church, through
whose agency the object he sought must be attained; and still that
hope gave the brightest lustre to the distant crown. But he who
admits Ambition to the companionship of Love, admits a giant that
outstrides the gentler footsteps of its comrade.
Harold's brow lost its benign calm. He became thoughtful and
abstracted. He consulted Edith less, Hilda more. Edith seemed to him
now not wise enough to counsel. The smile of his Fylgia, like the
light of the star upon a stream, lit the surface, but could not pierce
to the deep.
Meanwhile, however, the policy of Harold throve and prospered. He had
already arrived at that height, that the least effort to make power
popular redoubled its extent. Gradually all voices swelled the chorus
in his praise; gradually men became familiar to the question, "If
Edward dies before Edgar, the grandson of Ironsides, is of age to
succeed, where can we find a king like Harold?"
In the midst of this quiet but deepening sunshine of his fate, there
burst a storm, which seemed destined either to darken his day or to
disperse every cloud from the horizon. Algar, the only possible rival
to his power--the only opponent no arts could soften--Algar, whose
hereditary name endeared him to the Saxon laity, whose father's most
powerful legacy was the love of the Saxon Church, whose martial and
turbulent spirit had only the more elevated him in the esteem of the
warlike Danes in East Anglia (the earldom in which he had succeeded
Harold), by his father's death, lord of the great principality of
Mercia--availed himself of that new power to break out again into
rebellion. Again he was outlawed, again he leagued with the fiery
Gryffyth. All Wales was in revolt; the Marches were invaded and laid
waste. Rolf, the feeble Earl of Hereford, died at this critical
juncture, and the Normans and hirelings under him mutinied against
other leaders; a fleet of vikings from Norway ravaged the western
coasts, and sailing up the Menai, joined the ships of Gryffyth, and
the whole empire seemed menaced with dissolution, when Edward issued
his Herr-bane, and Harold at the head of the royal armies marched on
the foe.
Dread and dangerous were those defiles of Wales; amidst them had been
foiled or slaughtered all the warriors under Rolf the Norman; no Saxon
armies had won laurels in the Cymrian's own mountain home within the
memory of man; nor had any Saxon ships borne the palm from the
terrible vikings of Norway. Fail, Harold, and farewell the crown!--
succeed, and thou hast on thy side the ultimam rationem regum (the
last argument of kings), the heart of the army over which thou art
chief.