HAROLD’S OATH TO WILLIAM.
A.D. 1064?
THE lord of Normandy and Maine could now stop and reckon his chances of
becoming lord of England also. While our authorities enable us to put
together a fairly full account of both Norman and English events, they
throw no light on the way in which men in either land looked at events in
the other. Yet we might give much to know what William and Harold at
this time thought of one another. Nothing had as yet happened to make
the two great rivals either national or personal enemies. England and
Normandy were at peace, and the great duke and the great earl had most
likely had no personal dealings with one another. They were rivals in
the sense that each looked forward to succeed to the English crown
whenever the reigning king should die. But neither had as yet put
forward his claim in any shape that the other could look on as any formal
wrong to himself. If William and Harold had ever met, it could have been
only during Harold’s journey in Gaul. Whatever negotiations Harold made
during that journey were negotiations unfriendly to William; still he
may, in the course of that journey, have visited Normandy as well as
France or Anjou. It is hard to avoid the thought that the tale of
Harold’s visit to William, of his oath to William, arose out of something
that happened on Harold’s way back from his Roman pilgrimage. To that
journey we can give an approximate date. Of any other journey we have no
date and no certain detail. We can say only that the fact that no
English writer makes any mention of any such visit, of any such oath, is,
under the circumstances, the strongest proof that the story of the visit
and the oath has some kind of foundation. Yet if we grant thus much, the
story reads on the whole as if it happened a few years later than the
English earl’s return from Rome.
It is therefore most likely that Harold did pay a second visit to Gaul,
whether a first or a second visit to Normandy, at some time nearer to
Edward’s death than the year 1058. The English writers are silent; the
Norman writers give no date or impossible dates; they connect the visit
with a war in Britanny; but that war is without a date. We are driven to
choose the year which is least rich in events in the English annals.
Harold could not have paid a visit of several months to Normandy either
in 1063 or in 1065. Of those years the first was the year of Harold’s
great war in Wales, when he found how the Britons might be overcome by
their own arms, when he broke the power of Gruffydd, and granted the
Welsh kingdom to princes who became the men of Earl Harold as well as of
King Edward. Harold’s visit to Normandy is said to have taken place in
the summer and autumn mouths; but the summer and autumn of 1065 were
taken up by the building and destruction of Harold’s hunting-seat in
Wales and by the greater events of the revolt and pacification of
Northumberland. But the year 1064 is a blank in the English annals till
the last days of December, and no action of Harold’s in that year is
recorded. It is therefore the only possible year among those just before
Edward’s death. Harold’s visit and oath to William may very well have
taken place in that year; but that is all.
We know as little for certain as to the circumstances of the visit or the
nature of the oath. We can say only that Harold did something which
enabled William to charge him with perjury and breach of the duty of a
vassal. It is inconceivable in itself, and unlike the formal
scrupulousness of William’s character, to fancy that he made his appeal
to all Christendom without any ground at all. The Norman writers
contradict one another so thoroughly in every detail of the story that we
can look on no part of it as trustworthy. Yet such a story can hardly
have grown up so near to the alleged time without some kernel of truth in
it. And herein comes the strong corroborative witness that the English
writers, denying every other charge against Harold, pass this one by
without notice. We can hardly doubt that Harold swore some oath to
William which he did not keep. More than this it would be rash to say
except as an avowed guess.
As our nearest approach to fixing the date is to take that year which is
not impossible, so, to fix the occasion of the visit, we can only take
that one among the Norman versions which is also not impossible. All the
main versions represent Harold as wrecked on the coast of Ponthieu, as
imprisoned, according to the barbarous law of wreck, by Count Guy, and as
delivered by the intervention of William. If any part of the story is
true, this is. But as to the circumstances which led to the shipwreck
there is no agreement. Harold assuredly was not sent to announce to
William a devise of the crown in his favour made with the consent of the
Witan of England and confirmed by the oaths of Stigand, Godwine, Siward,
and Leofric. Stigand became Archbishop in September 1052: Godwine died
at Easter 1053. The devise must therefore have taken place, and Harold’s
journey must have taken place, within those few most unlikely months, the
very time when Norman influence was overthrown. Another version makes
Harold go, against the King’s warnings, to bring back his brother
Wulfnoth and his nephew Hakon, who had been given as hostages on the
return of Godwine, and had been entrusted by the King to the keeping of
Duke William. This version is one degree less absurd; but no such
hostages are known to have been given, and if they were, the patriotic
party, in the full swing of triumph, would hardly have allowed them to be
sent to Normandy. A third version makes Harold’s presence the result of
mere accident. He is sailing to Wales or Flanders, or simply taking his
pleasure in the Channel, when he is cast by a storm on the coast of
Ponthieu. Of these three accounts we may choose the third as the only
one that is possible. It is also one out of which the others may have
grown, while it is hard to see how the third could have arisen out of
either of the others. Harold then, we may suppose, fell accidentally
into the clutches of Guy, and was rescued from them, at some cost in
ransom and in grants of land, by Guy’s overlord Duke William.
The whole story is eminently characteristic of William. He would be
honestly indignant at Guy’s base treatment of Harold, and he would feel
it his part as Guy’s overlord to redress the wrong. But he would also be
alive to the advantage of getting his rival into his power on so
honourable a pretext. Simply to establish a claim to gratitude on the
part of Harold would be something. But he might easily do more, and,
according to all accounts, he did more. Harold, we are told, as the
Duke’s friend and guest, returns the obligation under which the Duke has
laid him by joining him in one or more expeditions against the Bretons.
The man who had just smitten the Bret-Welsh of the island might well be
asked to fight, and might well be ready to fight, against the Bret-Welsh
of the mainland. The services of Harold won him high honour; he was
admitted into the ranks of Norman knighthood, and engaged to marry one of
William’s daughters. Now, at any time to which we can fix Harold’s
visit, all William’s daughters must have been mere children. Harold, on
the other hand, seems to have been a little older than William. Yet
there is nothing unlikely in the engagement, and it is the one point in
which all the different versions, contradicting each other on every other
point, agree without exception. Whatever else Harold promises, he
promises this, and in some versions he does not promise anything else.
Here then we surely have the kernel of truth round which a mass of fable,
varying in different reports, has gathered. On no other point is there
any agreement. The place is unfixed; half a dozen Norman towns and
castles are made the scene of the oath. The form of the oath is unfixed;
in some accounts it is the ordinary oath of homage; in others it is an
oath of fearful solemnity, taken on the holiest relics. In one
well-known account, Harold is even made to swear on hidden relics, not
knowing on what he is swearing. Here is matter for much thought. To
hold that one form of oath or promise is more binding than another upsets
all true confidence between man and man. The notion of the specially
binding nature of the oath by relies assumes that, in case of breach of
the oath, every holy person to whose relies despite has been done will
become the personal enemy of the perjurer. But the last story of all is
the most instructive. William’s formal, and more than formal, religion
abhorred a false oath, in himself or in another man. But, so long as he
keeps himself personally clear from the guilt, he does not scruple to put
another man under special temptation, and, while believing in the power
of the holy relics, he does not scruple to abuse them to a purpose of
fraud. Surely, if Harold did break his oath, the wrath of the saints
would fall more justly on William. Whether the tale be true or false, it
equally illustrates the feelings of the time, and assuredly its truth or
falsehood concerns the character of William far more than that of Harold.
What it was that Harold swore, whether in this specially solemn fashion
or in any other, is left equally uncertain. In any case he engages to
marry a daughter of William—as to which daughter the statements are
endless—and in most versions he engages to do something more. He becomes
the man of William, much as William had become the man of Edward. He
promises to give his sister in marriage to an unnamed Norman baron.
Moreover he promises to secure the kingdom of England for William at
Edward’s death. Perhaps he is himself to hold the kingdom or part of it
under William; in any case William is to be the overlord; in the more
usual story, William is to be himself the immediate king, with Harold as
his highest and most favoured subject. Meanwhile Harold is to act in
William’s interest, to receive a Norman garrison in Dover castle, and to
build other castles at other points. But no two stories agree, and not a
few know nothing of anything beyond the promise of marriage.
Now if William really required Harold to swear to all these things, it
must have been simply in order to have an occasion against him. If
Harold really swore to all of them, it must have been simply because he
felt that he was practically in William’s power, without any serious
intention of keeping the oath. If Harold took any such oath, he
undoubtedly broke it; but we may safely say that any guilt on his part
lay wholly in taking the oath, not in breaking it. For he swore to do
what he could not do, and what it would have been a crime to do, if he
could. If the King himself could not dispose of the crown, still less
could the most powerful subject. Harold could at most promise William
his “vote and interest,” whenever the election came. But no one can
believe that even Harold’s influence could have obtained the crown for
William. His influence lay in his being the embodiment of the national
feeling; for him to appear as the supporter of William would have been to
lose the crown for himself without gaining it for William. Others in
England and in Scandinavia would have been glad of it. And the
engagements to surrender Dover castle and the like were simply
engagements on the part of an English earl to play the traitor against
England. If William really called on Harold to swear to all this, he did
so, not with any hope that the oath would be kept, but simply to put his
competitor as far as possible in the wrong. But most likely Harold swore
only to something much simpler. Next to the universal agreement about
the marriage comes the very general agreement that Harold became
William’s man. In these two statements we have probably the whole truth.
In those days men took the obligation of homage upon themselves very
easily. Homage was no degradation, even in the highest; a man often did
homage to any one from whom he had received any great benefit, and Harold
had received a very great benefit from William. Nor did homage to a new
lord imply treason to the old one. Harold, delivered by William from
Guy’s dungeon, would be eager to do for William any act of friendship.
The homage would be little more than binding himself in the strongest
form so to do. The relation of homage could be made to mean anything or
nothing, as might be convenient. The man might often understand it in
one sense and the lord in another. If Harold became the man of William,
he would look on the act as little more than an expression of good will
and gratitude towards his benefactor, his future father-in-law, his
commander in the Breton war. He would not look on it as forbidding him
to accept the English crown if it were offered to him. Harold, the man
of Duke William, might become a king, if he could, just as William, the
man of King Philip, might become a king, if he could. As things went in
those days, both the homage and the promise of marriage were capable of
being looked on very lightly.
But it was not in the temper or in the circumstances of William to put
any such easy meaning on either promise. The oath might, if needful, be
construed very strictly, and William was disposed to construe it very
strictly. Harold had not promised William a crown, which was not his to
promise; but he had promised to do that which might be held to forbid him
to take a crown which William held to be his own. If the man owed his
lord any duty at all, it was surely his duty not to thwart his lord’s
wishes in such a matter. If therefore, when the vacancy of the throne
came, Harold took the crown himself, or even failed to promote William’s
claim to it, William might argue that he had not rightly discharged the
duty of a man to his lord. He could make an appeal to the world against
the new king, as a perjured man, who had failed to help his lord in the
matter where his lord most needed his help. And, if the oath really had
been taken on relics of special holiness, he could further appeal to the
religious feelings of the time against the man who had done despite to
the saints. If he should be driven to claim the crown by arms, he could
give the war the character of a crusade. All this in the end William
did, and all this, we may be sure, he looked forward to doing, when he
caused Harold to become his man. The mere obligation of homage would, in
the skilful hands of William and Lanfranc, be quite enough to work on
men’s minds, as William wished to work on them. To Harold meanwhile and
to those in England who heard the story, the engagement would not seem to
carry any of these consequences. The mere homage then, which Harold
could hardly refuse, would answer William’s purpose nearly as well as any
of these fuller obligations which Harold would surely have refused. And
when a man older than William engaged to marry William’s child-daughter,
we must bear in mind the lightness with which such promises were made.
William could not seriously expect that this engagement would be kept, if
anything should lead Harold to another marriage. The promise was meant
simply to add another count to the charges against Harold when the time
should come. Yet on this point it is not clear that the oath was broken.
Harold undoubtedly married Ealdgyth, daughter of Ælfgar and widow of
Gruffydd, and not any daughter of William. But in one version Harold is
made to say that the daughter of William whom he had engaged to marry was
dead. And that one of William’s daughters did die very early there seems
little doubt.
* * * * *
Whatever William did Lanfranc no doubt at least helped to plan. The
Norman duke was subtle, but the Italian churchman was subtler still. In
this long series of schemes and negotiations which led to the conquest of
England, we are dealing with two of the greatest recorded masters of
statecraft. We may call their policy dishonest and immoral, and so it
was. But it was hardly more dishonest and immoral than most of the
diplomacy of later times. William’s object was, without any formal
breach of faith on his own part, to entrap Harold into an engagement
which might be understood in different senses, and which, in the sense
which William chose to put upon it, Harold was sure to break. Two men,
themselves of virtuous life, a rigid churchman and a layman of unusual
religious strictness, do not scruple to throw temptation in the way of a
fellow man in the hope that he will yield to that temptation. They exact
a promise, because the promise is likely to be broken, and because its
breach would suit their purposes. Through all William’s policy a strong
regard for formal right as he chose to understand formal right, is not
only found in company with much practical wrong, but is made the direct
instrument of carrying out that wrong. Never was trap more cunningly
laid than that in which William now entangled Harold. Never was greater
wrong done without the breach of any formal precept of right. William
and Lanfranc broke no oath themselves, and that was enough for them. But
it was no sin in their eyes to beguile another into engagements which he
would understand in one way and they in another; they even, as their
admirers tell the story, beguile him into engagements at once unlawful
and impossible, because their interests would be promoted by his breach
of those engagements. William, in short, under the spiritual guidance of
Lanfranc, made Harold swear because he himself would gain by being able
to denounce Harold as perjured.
The moral question need not be further discussed; but we should greatly
like to know how far the fact of Harold’s oath, whatever its nature, was
known in England? On this point we have no trustworthy authority. The
English writers say nothing about the whole matter; to the Norman writers
this point was of no interest. No one mentions this point, except
Harold’s romantic biographer at the beginning of the thirteenth century.
His statements are of no value, except as showing how long Harold’s
memory was cherished. According to him, Harold formally laid the matter
before the Witan, and they unanimously voted that the oath—more, in his
version, than a mere oath of homage—was not binding. It is not likely
that such a vote was ever formally passed, but its terms would only
express what every Englishman would feel. The oath, whatever its terms,
had given William a great advantage; but every Englishman would argue
both that the oath, whatever its terms, could not hinder the English
nation from offering Harold the crown, and that it could not bind Harold
to refuse the crown if it should be so offered.