[Illustration: PLATE VI.]
features of the castles which have been presented to our view. All of
them are built upon elevated mounds. This was certainly one of the
characteristics of an early Norman fortress. Further, we see that they
were surrounded by a fosse, the section of which, in the Tapestry, is
very boldly marked. In the case of Dinan, we have a barricade on the
outside of this entrenchment. Besides these outworks, the castles
consist of an outer fortification, or bailey, and of an interior
building, or keep. The colouring of these structures may be purely
fanciful, but I am disposed to think that the vertical stripes which we
see upon some of them represent timber. The remains of some castles in
Cornwall incontestably prove that, occasionally at least, the outside of
the walls was braced with timber.[53] The walls of Guildford Castle are
pierced with holes, which we are told were made for the scaffolding, and
in order to hasten the drying of the mortar were left unfilled, and have
since remained so. Is it not more likely that these cavities were
formerly occupied by bolts for fastening an outside timber-casing to the
walls?
But to proceed with Queen Matilda’s narrative. The campaign in Brittany
being brought to a satisfactory conclusion, the honours of knighthood
awaited the Saxon Earl. William himself confers upon him the envied
dignity. The superscription is HIC WILELMUS DEDIT HAROLDO ARMA--Here
William gave arms to Harold. Both parties are shown in the Tapestry
armed cap-a-pie. Harold holds in his hand the banner which, by virtue of
the rank now bestowed upon him, he is entitled to bear. William is seen
placing with one hand the helmet on Harold’s head, and with the other
bracing the straps of his hauberk.
The Norman Duke, in conferring the honour of knighthood upon his adopted
son in arms, doubtless exhorted him to fight valiantly in the cause of
God and the ladies, and especially to bear himself gallantly against any
one who should disparage the beauty of that one lady to whom he had
plighted his troth. In this way William strengthened the meshes which he
had already cast over Harold.
It has been noticed that the mode of conferring knighthood used on this
occasion is a compromise between the Norman and Saxon methods. Ingulphus
tells us that the ministrations of a priest were required when
knighthood was conferred among the Saxons, but that the Normans regarded
it entirely as a military ceremony.[54] Further, whilst the Normans,
whose military strength lay in cavalry, performed the ceremony on
horseback, the Saxons, who had no cavalry, always performed it on foot.
In the case before us the ceremony is performed on foot, but without the
agency of a priest. According to Wace, the ceremony of knighthood took
place before the commencement of the campaign in Brittany. This is one
of those variations which prove the independence of each authority.
William and Harold, who had been sojourning so long together, fighting
side by side, living in the same tent, eating at the same board, now
came to Bayeux (WILLELMVS VENIT BAGIAS--William came to Bayeux), and
here the Saxon Earl came under that obligation the breach of which
filled men’s minds with horror and indignation. William could not but be
aware that Harold intended to seize the crown of England on the death of
the Confessor; he resolved therefore to avail himself of the present
opportunity of throwing as many obstacles in his path as possible.
Considering that Harold had come over professedly to announce to William
that he was to be the successor to the Confessor, considering the very
friendly terms on which they had now for some time been, and the very
great obligations under which the Norman Duke had laid him, he could not
refuse to take the oath. He no doubt felt, moreover, that he was in
William’s power, and knew full well that unless he complied with his
demand he would not be allowed to return to his native shores. He
therefore swore to support his rival’s claims to the English throne. As
the perjury of Harold was one of the pleas most successfully urged by
William against his opponent, it invites our careful attention. Our
faithful chronicler Wace gives us a full account of the transaction.--
“To receive the oath William caused a parliament to be called. It is
commonly said that it was at Bayeux that he had his great council
assembled. He sent for all the holy bodies thither, and put so many of
them together as to fill a whole chest, and then covered them with a
pall; but Harold neither saw them, nor knew of their being there; for
nought was shown or told him about it; and over all was a philactery,
the best that he could select.... When Harold placed his hand upon it,
the hand trembled and the flesh quivered; but he swore and promised upon
his oath to take Ele to wife, and to deliver up England to the Duke; and
thereunto to do all in his power, according to his might and wit, after
the death of Edward, if he should live, so help him God and the holy
relics there! Many cried ‘God grant it!’ and when Harold had kissed the
saints and had risen upon his feet, the Duke led him up to the chest and
made him stand near it, and took off the chest the pall that had covered
it, and showed Harold upon what holy relics he had sworn; he was sorely
alarmed at the sight.”[55]
In this account there is a little inconsistency. We are told of Harold’s
amazement when he had seen the relics, but we were previously informed
that when he first placed his hand upon the chest “the hand trembled and
the flesh quivered.” If he did not know that dead men’s bones were under
the pall he must have suspected it; he must have known that this was the
customary mode of taking an oath.[56]
In the Tapestry, Harold stands between two objects. One of them is a
reliquary of the usual form, to which two staves are attached for the
purpose of carriage. This reliquary has, however, a _superaltare_
attached to it, such as is usually placed upon altars for the purpose of
containing the consecrated wafer. The other object is an altar of the
usual form and character. There does not seem to have been much
temptation to William to practise a trick upon Harold, for he had so
completely committed himself to the Duke that he could not avoid taking
the oath, even though no covering had concealed the bones. But whether
William did or did not practise this base artifice upon the Earl, it was
natural that the Tapestry, being the work of Matilda, should endeavour
to throw a veil over it. He is certainly in the Tapestry exhibited as
swearing by the relics in the chest and by the host upon the altar, and
he evidently touches them as if he knew they contained something very
dreadful--he could not approach red-hot iron much more charily. We can
readily conceive that after the ceremony William, by way of making as
lively an impression as possible upon the mind of his victim, displayed
the bones to him in all their sepulchral hideousness, and told them out
in full tale before him. In such a case Harold might readily shrink from
the exhibition, and be surprised at the number of martyrs which
William’s diligence had brought together. William was too brave a man to
attempt the mean artifice which historians ascribe to him. Harold never
accused him of it. When reminded before the battle of Hastings, by a
messenger of the Duke’s, of the oath he had taken, he sent this answer
back, “Say to the Duke that I desire he will not remind me of my
covenant nor of my oath; if I ever foolishly made it and promised him
any thing, I did it for my liberty. I swore in order to get my freedom;
whatever he asked I agreed to; and I ought not to be reproached, for I
did nothing of my own free will.”[57]
But after all, this oath of Harold’s was not in the estimation of the
men of that day the serious thing that has been represented. Men whom an
oath taken in the name and in the presence of the living God could not
bind, were not to be restrained by any moral influence. A little
ingenuity only was requisite to release a man from an oath taken upon
the relics. In the _Roman de Rou_ we have a case in point.[58] At Val de
Dunes the rebel lords of Normandy appeared in arms against the Duke.
Before the opposing hosts joined, Raol Tesson, who was arrayed against
William, was seen to act with hesitancy. His men besought him not to
make war upon his lawful lord, whatever he did, reminding him that the
man who would fight against his lord had no right to fief or barony.
Raol could understand this argument, but what was he to do? he “had
pledged himself, and sworn upon the saints at Bayeux to smite William
wherever he should find him.” The difficulty was however got over.
Ordering his men to rest where they were, “he came spurring over the
plain, struck his lord with his glove, and said laughingly to him, ‘What
I have sworn to do that I perform; I had sworn to smite you as soon as
I should find you; and as I would not perjure myself, I have now struck
you to acquit myself of my oath, and henceforth I will do you no farther
wrong or felony.’ Then the Duke said, ‘Thanks to thee!’ and Raol
thereupon went on his way back to his men.” Success attended the side
which Raol thus espoused, and we hear nothing of his perjury. Harold
fell on the hard-fought field of Hastings, and heaven and earth
resounded with cries of horror at the foul sin. Had he won, a new abbey,
or the re-imposition of Peter’s pence, would have cleared off the score.
Harold was now permitted to return home. The ship in which he sailed is
represented in the Tapestry. Over the scene is the inscription, HIC
HAROLD DUX REVERSUS EST AD ANGLICAM TERRAM--Here Harold the Earl
returned to England. His approach to the shore is anxiously looked for
by a watchman on the top of the gate-tower of his palace at Bosham. On
reaching the land of his nativity Harold lost no time in repairing to
court--ET VENIT AD EDWARDVM REGEM--And came to Edward the King. At the
beginning of Plate VII. we see him in the presence of his sovereign, who
reprimands him, as we have already observed (p. 28), for the miscarriage
of his Commission.