THE NORMAN INVASION.
The Normans--Their Settlement in France--Their gradual
Civilization--Richard the Good--Robert the Devil--William's
earlier years--His Consolidation of Power--Harold's Adventures
in Normandy and the Story of his Oath to William--Death and
Character of Edward--Election of Harold--William's Claims--He
obtains the Sanction of the Church--His Preparations--Proceedings
of Tostig--Harold's Forces dwindle--Invasion of Tostig and Harold
Hardrada--Battle of Stamford Bridge--Landing of William--Harold in
London--Desertion of Edwin and Morcar--Negotiations--Harold at
Senlac--Account of the Battle--Death of Harold and Discomfiture of
the English--His Burial--Legend of his Escape.
Before narrating Harold's adventures in Normandy, and the oath which he
is said to have sworn to William there, it may be well to give an account
of the rise of the formidable power of which William was now the ruler.
The Normans, or Northmen, were, when they first come within the ken of
history, bands of piratical adventurers, and were practically identical
with the Danes, the term being loosely used for the inhabitants of what
we now call the Scandinavian kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. In
the previous chapters, a description has been given of the invasions and
settlements of these barbarians in England; but England was by no means
the only country which they vexed by their depredations, and the northern
coast of France afforded an equally suitable place of debarkation for
their hordes.
Upon the French, as upon the English, the enemy at first contented
themselves with inflicting yearly raids, without any intention of
occupying the land; but in 912, Rollo the Ganger, or Walker, so called
because he was too tall to ride, a leader after the stamp of Guthrum,
seized from Charles the Simple, king of the West Franks--for France
was not as yet a united kingdom--land on both sides of the Seine, with
Rouen for its capital, and an arrangement was made between the two at
Clair-sur-Epte, which has been compared to the treaty of Wedmore. By it
Rollo promised to embrace Christianity, and to do homage to Charles. The
well-known story has it that he was too proud to go through the ceremony,
which consisted in kissing the king's feet, but deputed it to one of
his soldiers, who, by raising the royal foot to his mouth, instead of
stooping towards it, well-nigh upset his Frankish majesty. Despite his
promise, Rollo speedily relapsed into heathendom, and, together with his
son, William Longsword, proceeded to add to his territories. A large
district passed into the hands of the Normans by conquest, including
Avranches, Lisieux, and Caen.
It was some time before the Normans became French, but they were
gradually assimilated to the people round them, even as the Danes had
been in England. The change was accomplished in the reign of the third
duke, Richard the Fearless (943-996), when the whole race embraced
Christianity, and adopted the French language, Norse being the speech,
however, of the people who dwelt round Bayeux. The Normans were a very
receptive race, and wherever they wandered throughout Europe they adopted
whatever customs were best in the people with whom they came in contact.
They learned new modes of fighting; they acquired new weapons, the
shield, the hauberk, the lance, and the long-bow; they became masterly
horsemen. Further, they developed that impressive style of architecture
which is still called by their name, and built churches and monasteries,
important among which is the Abbey of Bec, whence came both Lanfranc
and St. Anselm in aftertimes; they founded bishoprics. In a word,
they transformed themselves with remarkable swiftness from a race of
depredators into one of the most cultivated of the peoples of Europe.
It was during the reign of Richard the Fearless that Hugh Capet, on the
death of the last of the descendants of Charles the Great, founded the
French monarchy by a process of conquest, and made Paris his capital. In
this great achievement he would never have succeeded had it not been for
the assistance of Richard, who was his brother-in-law. In return, the
Duke of Normandy ceased to be called by his neighbours "Dux Piratarum"
("the Duke of the Pirates"), and became the loyal vassal of the King of
the French. Normandy formed one of the noblest territories dependent on
the Capetian dynasty, but its dukes took care that their liberties were
in no degree infringed.
The next duke, Richard the Good, Ethelred's contemporary, has been
already mentioned in this work (_see p._ 58). His reign is chiefly
remarkable for the fact that in it we begin to hear of those noble
families which afterwards played so great a part in English history. The
marriage between Emma and Ethelred was the first link in the chain of
events which led to the conquest of England, and it was at the Norman
court that Edward the Confessor acquired his foreign sympathies. After a
reign of about thirty years, Richard died in 1026.
[Illustration: HAROLD TAKEN PRISONER BY THE COUNT OF PONTHIEU. (_See p._
77.)]
On his death the kingdom was distributed between the rival brothers,
Richard the Third and Robert. Richard, however, was regarded as duke
during the two ensuing years, and on his death, in 1028, was succeeded
by Robert. He is known to history as "the Devil," though it is very
difficult to tell why, and after a somewhat brief reign he died, in 1035,
on his way back from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
On the death of Robert, his son William was about eight years old;
moreover, of illegitimate birth, his mother being the daughter of a
tanner at Falaise. But Robert, before his departure, had caused his
nobles to swear allegiance to William, and the law of hereditary descent
was far more strictly regarded in France than in England. These facts,
joined to the consideration that possible successors of the line of
Rollo were not easily to be found, caused William's accession to be
undisputed. Nevertheless, the period of his minority was one of much
confusion, during which the boy-duke's life was in perpetual danger, and
his position was the more precarious because the King of the French began
to show signs of animosity towards the great semi-independent state to
the north of his dominions. In 1047 William began to act for himself, and
when an attempt was made by the nobles to wrest the western part of his
dominions from him, he overthrew the rebels, with the grudgingly offered
aid of Henry of France, at Val-ès-Dunes. After this crushing triumph, his
power was secure. He surrounded himself with a splendid nobility, of whom
William Fitz-Osbern and Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, his two half-brothers by
his mother's marriage with Baldwin of Conteville, and Robert of Mortain,
were to make themselves feared on the other side of the channel. The
Church was munificently rewarded for its support, and among his most
magnificent buildings was the Abbé aux Hommes at Caen. Not only did he
recover all the dominions that the Norman dukes had ever held, but he
twice defeated the French king, Henry, when he invaded his dominions, and
in 1063 made his great Continental acquisition in the conquest of Maine.
Despite the Papal inhibition, he took to wife Matilda, the daughter of
Count Baldwin of Flanders, in 1052, and endured the ban without much
inconvenience until 1060. His visit to England, and the claim, worthless
though it was, that he built upon it, have already been mentioned (_see
p._ 70). In the last years of the reign of the Confessor (the exact date
is unknown) the hazard of fortune placed his rival, Harold, in his power
for the time being, and he made excellent use of the opportunity.
[Illustration: PEVENSEY CASTLE.]
One day Harold, while sailing in the channel, was driven by tempest on
the territory of Guy, Count of Ponthieu, who, being informed of his
quality, immediately detained him prisoner, and demanded an exorbitant
sum for his ransom. Harold found means to convey intelligence of his
situation to the Duke of Normandy; and represented that he had met with
extremely harsh treatment from the mercenary disposition of the Count of
Ponthieu, who was William's vassal.
William was immediately sensible of the importance of the incident: he
foresaw that if he could once gain Harold, either by favours or menaces,
his way to the throne of England would be open, and Edward would meet
with no further obstacle in executing the favourable intentions which
he had entertained on his behalf. He sent, therefore, a messenger to
Guy, in order to demand the liberty of his prisoner; and that nobleman,
not daring to refuse so great a prince, put Harold into the hands of
the Norman, who conducted him to Rouen. William received him with every
demonstration of respect and friendship; and even persuaded him to take
part in a campaign which he was waging with Count Conan of Brittany, in
which Harold highly distinguished himself, and was rewarded with the
compliment of knighthood. In his anxiety to be allowed to return home,
Harold appears to have compromised himself by taking some sort of oath,
which William attempted to make additionally binding by a curious trick.
He caused Harold, when he swore, to place his hand on a chest, and then,
withdrawing the cover, showed the Englishman the relics of the saints,
which had been collected from all parts of Normandy. This device is quite
in keeping with the ideas of that time, and any breach of the engagement
would have been considered a most wicked act of perjury, even though the
taker of the oath was not aware of the solemnity of the promises he had
made.
The terms of the oath are quite uncertain. Harold remained, so far as
we know, absolutely silent on the subject, and his silence naturally
conduces to the belief that he must have made some stipulations that he
had no right to make. Professor Freeman strives hard to prove that he
only promised to marry William's daughter, and that he did homage to
him as his future father-in-law. The Norman chroniclers assert that he
did homage to William as his future king, and promised in the meantime
to deliver to him the castle of Dover, and to marry his daughter. It is
hardly credible that Harold, though his position was a very difficult
one, can have compromised himself in this manner; but it is possible that
he may have thought that no price was too heavy to pay for freedom, and
may have consoled himself by reflecting that to pledge himself to William
as his future king was perfectly illegal, inasmuch as the election lay
in the hands of the Witena-gemot. In any case, whatever understanding
was concluded, Harold made no attempt on his return to carry it out, but
continued in that line of conduct by which he accustomed the people of
England to regard him as their future sovereign; and broke one of the
conditions, at any rate, by marrying the daughter of Ælfgar, the widow of
Griffith of Wales. He was so completely successful that the Confessor, on
his death-bed (he died on January 5th, 1066) requested the Witena-gemot
to choose Harold as his successor, and said nothing concerning William of
Normandy, or any promises that had been made to him at the time of his
visit to England.
Edward, to whom the Church has given the title of Saint and Confessor,
was the last of the direct line of the West Saxon kings that ruled in
England. Though his reign was peaceable and fortunate, he owed his
prosperity less to his own abilities than to the conjunctures of the
times. The Danes, employed in other enterprises, did not attempt those
incursions which had been so troublesome to his predecessors, and fatal
to some of them. The facility of his disposition made him acquiesce in
the government of Godwin and his son Harold; and the abilities, as well
as the power of these noblemen, enabled them, while they were entrusted
with authority, to preserve domestic peace and tranquillity. The most
commendable circumstance of Edward's government was his attention to the
administration of justice; and he is said to have compiled, for that
purpose, a body of laws, which he collected from the laws of Ethelbert,
Ina, and Alfred. This compilation, if it ever existed, is now lost (for
the laws that pass under Edward's name were composed afterwards), and
it is thought that when we find the English in after-times asking for a
renewal of King Edward's laws, they do not allude to any definite code,
but simply to the old customs generally. But, while praising Edward for
his rectitude of conduct, we ought not to forget that his weak dependence
upon Norman favourites in the earlier part of the reign was the cause of
infinite disaster to the nation in the years that followed his death.
He was, in fact, as it has been often said, more fitted for a Norman
cloister than for the English throne.
The election of Harold by the Witena-gemot was duly effected on the Feast
of the Epiphany, the claims of the Atheling, Edgar, apparently not having
been taken into serious consideration, so important was it felt to be
that a capable man should have command in times when an invasion might
be expected at any moment. William, as may be imagined, was not long
in putting in his claim to the throne; and, having summoned Harold to
fulfil the promises that he had made in Normandy (to which summons answer
was returned that the promises were such as Harold could not possibly
perform), he proceeded to set out a most ingenious statement of the
rights which he asserted were his. They were absolutely worthless, but
probably produced the desired effect on the Continent--an impression that
William was the victim of fraud. In the first place, he based his claim
to the crown on his descent; he was, he declared, Edward's next-of-kin
through Edward's mother, Emma. This, of course, was not true, Edgar being
considerably nearer in relationship; and even so, it would only entitle
him to a certain amount of preference. Secondly, he declared that Edward
had left him the crown, but such a bequeathal was, as we have seen, quite
beyond the power of an English king, even if it was ever definitely made,
of which no written proof was produced. Thirdly, he told the story of
Harold's oath, which the latter had no right to take. Very few men among
the English appear to have been won over by these specious arguments, but
upon the Continent, and especially in France, where men were probably
in ignorance of English customs, it is not improbable that they carried
considerable weight, especially when backed by the authority of the
Church. For William was careful to obtain this powerful sanction, and
thereby he invested the invasion with the character of a war of religion.
To the shallow arguments about the perjury of Harold, he was cunning
enough to add others of more solid worth, namely, that he would bring
the Church of England more thoroughly under the control of Rome than
it had hitherto been, and especially would cause the Papal dues to
be more regularly paid. These last considerations could not but have
much influence with the Pope, Alexander II., and William's envoys were
fortunate to gain over the man who had the entire ascendency in the Papal
counsels, the famous Hildebrand, who afterwards became Pope Gregory the
Seventh. The Pope, therefore, announced his cordial sanction of the
enterprise, and despatched to the Norman Duke a consecrated banner, and
a ring containing some of St. Peter's hair.
William now set himself seriously to work to gain allies, and to get
an army ready. He applied in the first instance to the King of France;
but William was already too powerful a vassal, and his overtures were
rejected from policy. Nothing daunted, he next addressed himself to his
father-in-law, Count Baldwin of Flanders. Baldwin listened to him, and
helped him to the utmost of his power. His own subjects were at first
unwilling to take part in the undertaking, but William won them over
by his cajoleries. By the middle of August, 1066, the Duke of Normandy
had collected or built upwards of 900 large vessels, without counting
those destined to serve as means of transport, and had under his command
50,000 horsemen and 10,000 foot soldiers. However, he did not hurry his
preparations, for everything was turning out in his favour.
For William was not the only enemy against whom the unfortunate
Harold had to contend. His unscrupulous and selfish brother, Tostig,
also determined to make a dash for the crown, hopes of which he had
entertained previously to his banishment, since he was a favourite
with the Confessor, and the king had been very unwilling to part with
him. Early in the year he applied for assistance to William, but the
duke, although eager enough to profit by his folly, would give him no
assistance. Thereupon, having collected some ships from the ports of
Flanders, Tostig made a wild descent upon the south of England, and
plundered the coast from the Isle of Wight to Sandwich. Driven away by
the approach of Harold, he directed his forces to the Humber, but was
beaten off by Edwin and Morcar, and forced to take refuge in Scotland.
All this while Harold had been watching the south coast, daily expecting
to see the ships of William in the channel. But William never came, and
the English churls were longing for their homes and harvests, so that the
forces began to dwindle away. The English army, it should be remembered,
was a militia, serving without pay and under compulsion. Such a force was
particularly unwieldy, and particularly hard to keep together. At last,
on September the 8th, the provisions failed, and Harold was compelled to
disband his forces, leaving the southern coast bare.
Hardly had he done so, when he received tidings of a most formidable
invasion of the north. The restless Tostig, undismayed by the utter
miscarriage of his previous ventures, went in quest of allies to the
courts of the North, and after an unsuccessful visit to the King of
Sweden, obtained the powerful assistance of the King of Norway, Harold
Hardrada, one of the greatest warriors of his time. The Norwegian king
made his appearance with a powerful fleet at the mouth of the Tyne, and
there Tostig joined him with the remnants of his former expedition.
They sailed some way up the Ouse, and then struck inland towards York,
but at Fulford were met by the Earls Edwin and Morcar, at the head of a
numerous host. The earls, however, were defeated with heavy loss, and
the city of York, after a mutual exchange of hostages with the invaders,
agreed to open its gates to receive Harold Hardrada as their king, and to
join him in a war against Harold of England.
Harold Hardrada thereupon withdrew to Stamford Bridge, and it was there
that Harold found him and the traitor Tostig. He had hastily gathered
together an army consisting of his house-carls, thegns, and such men as
could be collected on the spur of the moment, and advanced northwards
by forced marches. On September the 25th he was in York, and, passing
rapidly through it, fell upon the Northmen at Stamford Bridge, before
they were aware that he was in the neighbourhood. The battle was fiercely
contested, nevertheless, and though the Northmen, on the nearer side
of the river Derwent, were driven into it and drowned, those on the
farther side put themselves in battle array, and, by the time the English
were over the bridge, were ready to meet them. After a tough contest,
however, Harold Hardrada and Tostig were slain, and the enemy completely
dispersed. According to the spirited account of Henry of Huntingdon,
there was a parley between the two hosts before the battle, in which
Harold offered Northumberland to Tostig, but to Harold Hardrada "six
feet of the ground of England, or perchance more, seeing that he is
taller than other men." This version of the story is, however, rejected
by Professor Freeman, because of its inaccuracies of detail, though the
conversation is consistent with what we know of the characters of Harold
and Tostig. Harold was no less humane than brave. Instead of putting to
death Olaf, the son of Hardrada, and the other captives who had fallen
into his hands, he allowed them to go in peace. William of Malmesbury
also relates that he offended a portion of his army by refusing them a
share of the plunder, and that many in consequence abandoned his standard.
[Illustration: WILLIAM I., SURNAMED THE CONQUEROR.]
Had it not been for the impossibility of keeping the English host
together, and for the absence of Harold in the north, it is difficult to
see how William could ever have effected a landing. As it was, however,
his course was perfectly unopposed upon the sea, and a landing was safely
effected at Pevensey on September 29th, four days after the battle of
Stamford Bridge. It is said that as William stepped on shore he fell, and
rose with a morsel of earth in his hand, whereupon one of his followers
happily remarked that he had taken seisin of the land. The investment,
or seisin, in landed property was accomplished in those days by the lord
presenting a clod of earth to his vassal, hence the remark was very
pertinent.
[Illustration: DEATH OF HAROLD AT THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS. (_See p._ 82.)]
From Pevensey, William marched to Hastings, and ravaged the country for
provisions, constructing at the same time a wooden fort as a secure basis
of operations. Harold was at York when he received the intelligence of
the landing of the Norman host, and he made hot haste to London, whence
he issued a summons to all the men of England to come to his aid against
the invader.
But in the supreme hour of the fortunes of the English kingdom, it
was found that the old disunion which the kings of Wessex had in vain
attempted to overcome, was still as potent a factor for evil as in the
days of the Danish invasions. From Wessex, and from the earldoms of
Harold's brothers, men readily came to defend the fatherland; but Edwin
and Morcar, with a short-sightedness and ingratitude which are almost
incredible, kept back the men of the North, under the expectation that
William, if he overcame, would be content with Wessex and the South, and
that so the house of Leofric would profit by the overthrow of the house
of Godwin.
Harold abode in London for six days, gathering his host together, and
entered into negotiations with Duke William. That there was any sincerity
on either side may be doubted, and probably the first proposal, which was
sent apparently by Harold, was only made to gain time. It is said that
William was offered a sum of money to depart. To this William replied
by a series of clever propositions, of which the first was that Harold
should give up the kingdom in exchange for the earldom of Northumberland,
an offer which, if made, shows that the Norman duke by no means felt the
ground to be safe under his feet. Then he is related to have appealed
to the mediation of the Pope, a tolerably safe proposal, considering
his previous dealings with the Holy See. Lastly, he is said to have
challenged Harold to single combat, an offer which the king likewise
declined, on the ground that this was not a mere personal quarrel, but a
matter in which the whole English nation was concerned.
By the end of six days, Harold had collected a considerable force, and
determined to risk a battle, and a consideration which influenced him
not a little was the difficulty of provisioning so large a host without
causing annoyance to the people. Here, as on previous occasions in his
career, Harold was actuated by motives of humanity; but it may be doubted
whether it would not have been wise to wait for more levies, and then
overwhelm the Normans, who, man for man, were far better warriors than
the English, by sheer numbers. He advanced, however, southwards, and
halted on a hill called Senlac, to the north-west of Hastings.
The position was a very strong one, and Harold, with great military
skill, fortified it with a palisade, thereby making a most formidable
barrier against the Norman cavalry. The battle of Senlac, or Hastings,
as it is popularly called, was fought on the 14th of October, and the
evening before it was spent, it is said, by the Normans in prayer, and by
the English in drinking and the singing of songs.
The battle began about nine o'clock. The English host was marshalled
behind the palisade, all on foot, for they, unlike the Normans, were
never fond of fighting on horseback, and Harold, with his brothers Gurth
and Leofwine, stood under the royal standard. Against them the Normans
advanced in three divisions, of which William commanded the centre. On
the left was Alan of Brittany, with a force of Bretons, and troops from
Maine and Poitou; on the right was Roger of Montgomery, at the head of
the mercenary troops, whom William had hired from wherever they could be
collected. The first attack failed completely, and the Normans, after a
vain attempt to break down the palisade, were driven back in confusion,
the Bretons being the first to fly. Unfortunately, in their excitement,
some of the English soldiers pursued beyond the palisade, and were easily
cut down in the plain. In the second attack, William of Normandy was
unhorsed by Earl Gurth, but went against him on foot and cut him down;
about the same time Leofwine was also slain.
Still, the English barrier was intact, and it seemed as if the Normans
must withdraw in discomfiture. But William's generalship was equal to the
occasion. He had seen how helpless the English were upon the open plain,
and he resolved, therefore, to lure them from behind their defences by a
feigned flight. The ruse was successful, and a considerable portion of
the English army suffered for disobedience of Harold's orders by being
compelled to make their escape as best they could to the broken ground to
the back of the hill.
Still Harold fought on, and as evening was coming on, it seemed as if
he might even yet be able to hold the field. Then William bethought him
of another plan, and ordered his archers to shoot into the air, whereby
the English were seriously incommoded. One of the falling shafts pierced
Harold through the eye, and he was mortally wounded. The battle was to
all intents ended when he died; his house-carls were killed at their
posts, the light-armed troops fled into the rocks and swamps, inflicting
severe losses upon such of their enemies as ventured to pursue them.
Thus did William of Normandy win the great battle of Hastings, which
lasted from sunrise to sunset, and which, for the valour displayed by
both armies and their leaders, was worthy to decide a contest for a
crown. William, in the course of the battle, had three horses killed
under him, and lost nearly fifteen thousand men; the loss of the English
was probably considerably more.
William, at the height of his success, gave orders for the whole army to
fall on their knees, and return God thanks for so signal a victory; after
which he caused his tent to be pitched on the field of battle, and spent
the residue of the night among the slain. Not less perhaps in gratitude
for the past, than in the hope that such a work would procure him
heavenly favour for the future, he solemnly vowed that he would erect a
splendid abbey on the scene of this his first victory; and when this vow
was accomplished, the altar of the abbey church stood on the spot where
the standard of Harold had been planted. The holy house thus founded was
called Battle Abbey.
On the morrow, he ordered his own dead to be buried, and gave the English
peasants leave to do the same office for the others; but William refused
to give up Harold's body to his mother, Gytha. An ancient manuscript
in the Cottonian library, apparently written at Waltham Abbey about a
hundred years after the battle, relates that two monks were deputed
by William to search for the body of the king. Unable to distinguish
it among the nameless dead by which it was surrounded, they sent for
Harold's mistress, Edith, called "The Swan-necked," whose eye of
affection was not to be deceived. It was buried under a heap of stones,
whence William afterwards permitted it to be removed to Waltham.
There is a story related by Giraldus Cambrensis, that Harold, after
receiving his wound, escaped from the field, and lived several years an
anchorite in a cell near St. John's Church, in Chester. This account
is, however, in the highest degree improbable, and there is no reason
to doubt that the last of the Saxon kings died a soldier's death on the
field of Hastings.