CHAPTER XV.----CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMANS.

At the beginning of the eleventh century, Robert, called “The

Magnificent,” the fifth in succession from the great chieftain Rollo who

had established the Northmen in France, was duke of Normandy. To the

nickname he earned by his nobleness and liberality some chronicles have

added another, and call him “Robert the Devil,” by reason of his reckless

and violent deeds of audacity, whether in private life or in warlike

expeditions. Hence a lively controversy amongst the learned upon the

question of deciding to which Robert to apply the latter epithet. Some

persist in assigning it to the duke of Normandy; others seek for some

other Robert upon whom to foist it. However that may be, in 1034 or

1035, after having led a fair life enough from the political point of

view, but one full of turbulence and moral irregularity, Duke Robert

resolved to undertake, barefooted and staff in hand, a pilgrimage to

Jerusalem, “to expiate his sins if God would deign to consent thereto.”

The Norman prelates and barons, having been summoned around him, conjured

him to renounce his plan; for to what troubles and perils would not his

dominions be exposed without lord or assured successor? “By my faith,”

said Robert, “I will not leave ye lordless. I have a young bastard who

will grow, please God, and of whose good qualities I have great hope.

Take him, I pray you, for lord. That he was not born in wedlock matters

little to you; he will be none the less able in battle, or at court, or

in the palace, or to render you justice. I make him my heir, and I hold

him seized, from this present, of the whole duchy of Normandy.” And they

who were present assented, but not without objection and disquietude.

There was certainly ample reason for objection and disquietude. Not only

was it a child of eight years of age to whom Duke Robert, at setting out

on his pious pilgrimage, was leaving Normandy; but this child had been

pronounced bastard by the duke his father at the moment of taking him for

his heir. Nine or ten years before, at Falaise, his favorite residence,

Robert had met, according to some at a people’s dance, according to

others on the banks of a stream where she was washing linen with her

companions, a young girl named Harlette or Harleve, daughter of a tanner

in the town, where they show to this day, it is said, the window from

which the duke saw her for the first time. She pleased his fancy, and

was not more strait-laced than the duke was scrupulous; and Fulbert, the

tanner, kept but little watch over his daughter. Robert gave the son

born to him in 1027 the name of his glorious ancestor, William Longsword,

the son and successor of Rollo. The child was reared, according to some,

in his father’s palace, “right honorably as if he had been born in

wedlock,” but, according to others, in the house of his grandfather, the

tanner; and one of the neighboring burgesses, as he saw passing one of

the principal Norman lords, William de Bellesme, surnamed “The Fierce

Talvas,” stopped him, ironically saying, “Come in, my lord, and admire

your suzerain’s son.” The origin of young William was in every mouth,

and gave occasion for familiar allusions more often insulting than

flattering. The epithet bastard was, so to speak, incorporated with his

name; and we cannot be astonished that it lived in history, for, in the

height of his power, he sometimes accepted it proudly, calling himself,

in several of his charters, William the Bastard (Gulielmus Notlzus). He

showed himself to be none the less susceptible on this point when in

1048, during the siege of Alencon, the domain of the Lord de Bellesme,

the inhabitants hung from their walls hides all raw and covered with

dirt, which they shook when they caught sight of William, with cries of

“Plenty of work for the tanner!” “By the glory of God,” cried William,

“they shall pay me dear for this insolent bra-very!” After an assault

several of the besieged were taken prisoners; and he had their eyes

pulled out, and their feet and hands cut off, and shot from his

siege-machines these mutilated members over the walls of the city.

Notwithstanding his recklessness and his being engrossed in his

pilgrimage, Duke Robert had taken some care for the situation in which he

was leaving his son, and some measures to lessen its perils. He had

appointed regent of Normandy, during William’s minority, his cousin,

Alain V., duke of Brittany, whose sagacity and friendship he had proved;

and he had confided the personal guardianship of the child, not to his

mother. Harlette, who was left very much out in the cold, but to one of

his most trusty officers, Gilbert Crespon, count of Brionne; and the

strong castle of Vaudreuil, the first foundation of which dated back, it

was said, to Queen Fredegonde, was assigned for the usual residence of

the young duke. Lastly, to confirm with brilliancy his son’s right as

his successor to the duchy of Normandy, and to assure him a powerful

ally, Robert took him, himself, to the court of his suzerain, Henry I.,

king of France, who recognized the title of William the Bastard, and

allowed him to take the oath of allegiance and homage. Having thus

prepared, as best he could, for his son’s future, Robert set out on his

pilgrimage. He visited Rome and Constantinople, everywhere displaying

his magnificence, together with his humility. He fell ill from sheer

fatigue whilst crossing Asia Minor, and was obliged to be carried in a

litter by four negroes. “Go and tell them at home,” said he to a Norman

pilgrim he met returning from the Holy Land, “that you saw me being

carried to Paradise by four devils.” On arriving at Jerusalem, where he

was received with great attention by the Mussulman emir in command there,

he discharged himself of his pious vow, and took the road back to Europe.

But he was poisoned, by whom or for what motive is not clearly known, at

Nicaea, in Bithynia, where he was buried in the basilica of St. Mary--an

honor, says the chronicle, which had never been accorded to anybody.

From 1025 to 1042, during William’s minority, Normandy was a prey to the

robber-like ambition, the local quarrels, and the turbulent and brutal

passions of a host of petty castle-holders, nearly always at war, either

amongst themselves or with the young chieftain whose power they did not

fear, and whose rights they disputed. In vain did Duke Alain of

Brittany, in his capacity as regent appointed by Duke Robert, attempt to

re-establish order; and just when he seemed on the road to success he was

poisoned by those who could not succeed in beating him. Henry I., king

of France, being ill-disposed at bottom towards his Norman neighbors and

their young duke, for all that he had acknowledged him, profited by this

anarchy to filch from him certain portions of territory. Attacks without

warning, fearful murders, implacable vengeance, and sanguinary

disturbances in the towns, were evils which became common, and spread.

The clergy strove with courageous perseverance against the vices and

crimes of the period. The bishops convoked councils in their dioceses;

the laic lords, and even the people, were summoned to them; the peace of

God was proclaimed; and the priests, having in their hands lighted

tapers, turned them towards the ground and extinguished them, whilst the

populace repeated in chorus, “So may God extinguish the joys of those who

refuse to observe peace and justice.” The majority, however, of the

Norman lords, refused to enter into the engagement. In default of peace,

it was necessary to be content with the truce of God. It commenced on

Wednesday evening at sunset and concluded on Monday at sunrise. During

the four days and five nights comprised in this interval, all aggression

was forbidden; no slaying, wounding, pillaging, or burning could take

place; but from sunrise on Monday to sunset on Wednesday, for three clays

and two nights, any violence became allowable, any crime might

recommence.

Meanwhile William was growing up, and the omens that had been drawn from

his early youth raised the popular hopes. It was reported that at his

very birth, when the midwife had put him unswaddled on a little heap of

straw, he had wriggled about and drawn together the straw with his hands,

insomuch that the midwife said, “By my faith, this child beginneth full

young to take and heap up: I know not what he will not do when he is

grown.” At a little later period, when a burgess of Falaise drew the

attention of the Lord William de Bellesme to the gay and sturdy lad as he

played amongst his mates, the fierce vassal muttered between his teeth,

“Accursed be thou of God! for I be certain that by thee mine honors will

be lowered.” The child on becoming man was handsomer and handsomer, “and

so lively and spirited that it seemed to all a marvel.” Amongst his

mates, command became soon a habit with him; he made them form line of

battle, he gave them the word of command, and he constituted himself

their judge in all quarrels. At a still later period, having often heard

talk of revolts excited against him, and of disorders which troubled the

country, he was moved, in consequence, to fits of violent irritation,

which, however, he learned instinctively to bide, “and in his child’s

heart,” says the chronicle, “he had welling up all the vigor of a man to

teach the Normans to forbear from all acts of irregularity.” At fifteen

years of age, in 1042, he demanded to be armed knight, and to fulfil all

forms necessary “for having the right to serve and command in all ranks.”

These forms were in Normandy, by a relic, it is said, of the Danish and

pagan customs, more connected with war and less with religion than

elsewhere; the young candidates were not bound to confess, to spend a

vigil in the church, and to receive from the priest’s hands the sword he

had consecrated on the altar; it was even the custom to say that “he

whose sword had been girded upon him by a long-robed cleric was no true

knight, but a cit without spirit.” The day on which William for the

first time donned his armor was for his servants and all the spectators

a gala day. “He was so tall, so manly in face, and so proud of bearing,

that it was a sight both pleasant and terrible to see him guiding his

horse’s career, flashing with his sword, gleaming with his shield, and

threatening with his casque and javelins.” His first act of government

was a rigorous decree against such as should be guilty of murder, arson,

and pillage; but he at the same time granted an amnesty for past revolts,

on condition of fealty and obedience for the future.

For the establishment, however, of a young and disputed authority there

is need of something more than brilliant ceremonies and words partly

minatory and partly coaxing. William had to show what he was made of.

A conspiracy was formed against him in the heart of his feudal court, and

almost of his family. He had given kindly welcome to his cousin Guy of

Burgundy, and had even bestowed on him as a fief the countships of Vernon

and Brionne. In 1044 the young duke was at Valognes; when suddenly, at

midnight, one of his trustiest servants, Golet, his fool, such as the

great lords of the time kept, knocked at the door of his chamber, crying,

“Open, open, my lord duke: fly, fly, or you are lost. They are armed,

they are getting ready; to tarry is death.” William did not hesitate; he

got up, ran to the stables, saddled his horse with his own hands, started

off, followed a road called to this day the duke’s way, and reached

Falaise as a place of safety. There news came to him that the conspiracy

was taking the form of insurrection, and that the rebels were seizing his

domains. William showed no more hesitation at Falaise than at Valognes;

he started off at once, repaired to Poissy, where Henry I., king of

France, was then residing, and claimed, as vassal, the help of his

suzerain against traitors. Henry, who himself was brave, was touched by

this bold confidence, and promised his young vassal effectual support.

William returned to Normandy, summoned his lieges, and took the field

promptly. King Henry joined him at Argence, with a body of three

thousand men-at-arms, and a battle took place on the 10th of August,

1047, at Val des Dunes, three leagues from Caen. It was very hotly

contested. King Henry, unhorsed by a lance-thrust, ran a risk of his

life; but he remounted and valiantly returned to the melley. William

dashed in wherever the fight was thickest, showing himself everywhere as

able in command as ready to expose himself. A Norman lord, Raoul de

Tesson, held aloof with a troop of one hundred and forty knights. “Who

is he that bides yonder motionless?” asked the French king of the young

duke. “It is the banner of Raoul de Tesson,” answered William; “I wot

not that he hath aught against me.” But, though he had no personal

grievance, Raoul de Tesson had joined the insurgents, and sworn that he

would be the first to strike the duke in the conflict. Thinking better

of it, and perceiving William from afar, he pricked towards him, and

taking off his glove struck him gently on the shoulder, saying, “I swore

to strike you, and so I am quit: but fear nothing more from me.”

“Thanks, Raoul,” said William; “be well disposed, I pray you.” Raoul

waited until the two armies were at grips, and when he saw which way

victory was inclined, he hasted to contribute thereto. It was decisive:

and William the Bastard returned to Val des Dunes really duke of

Normandy.

He made vigorous but not cruel use of his victory. He demolished his

enemies’ strong castles, magazines as they were for pillage no less than

bulwarks of feudal independence; but there is nothing to show that he

indulged in violence towards persons. He was even generous to the chief

concocter of the plot, Guy of Burgundy. He took from him the countships

of Vernon and Brionne, but permitted him still to live at his court, a

place which the Burgundian found himself too ill at ease to remain in, so

he returned to Burgundy, to conspire against his own eldest brother.

William was stern without hatred and merciful without kindliness, only

thinking which of the two might promote or retard his success, gentleness

or severity.

There soon came an opportunity for him to return to the king of France

the kindness he had received. Geoffrey Martel, duke of Anjou, being

ambitious and turbulent beyond the measure of his power, got embroiled

with the king his suzerain, and war broke out between them. The duke of

Normandy went to the aid of King Henry and made his success certain,

which cost the duke the fierce hostility of the count of Anjou and a four

years’ war with that inconvenient neighbor; a war full of dangerous

incidents, wherein William enhanced his character, already great, for

personal valor. In an ambuscade laid for him by Geoffrey Martel he lost

some of his best knights, “whereat he was so wroth,” says a chronicle,

“that he galloped down with such force upon Geoffrey, and struck him in

such wise with his sword that he dinted his helm, cut through his hood,

lopped off his car, and with the same blow felled him to earth. But the

count was lifted up and remounted, and so fled away.”

William made rapid advances both as prince and as man. Without being

austere in his private life, he was regular in his habits, and patronized

order and respectability in his household as well as in his dominions.

He resolved to marry to his own honor, and to the promotion of his

greatness. Baldwin the Debonnair, count of Flanders, one of the most

powerful lords of the day, had a daughter, “Matilda, beautiful,

well-informed, firm in the faith, a model of virtue and modesty.”

William asked her hand in marriage. Matilda refused, saying, “I would

rather be veiled nun than given in marriage to a bastard.” Hurt as he

was, William did not give up. He was even more persevering than

susceptible; but he knew that he must get still greater, and make an

impression upon a young girl’s imagination by the splendor of his fame

and power. Some years later, being firmly established in Normandy,

dreaded by all his neighbors, and already showing some foreshadowings of

his design upon England, he renewed his matrimonial quest in Flanders,

but after so strange a fashion that, in spite of contemporary testimony,

several of the modern historians, in their zeal, even at so distant a

period, for observance of the proprieties, reject as fabulous the story

which is here related on the authority of the most detailed account

amongst all the chronicles which contain it. “A little after that Duke

William had heard how the damsel had made answer, he took of his folk,

and went privily to Lille, where the duke of Flanders and his wife and

his daughter then were. He entered into the hall, and, passing on, as if

to do some business, went into the countess’s chamber, and there found

the damsel daughter of Count Baldwin. He took her by the tresses,

dragged her round the chamber, trampled her under foot, and did beat her

soundly. Then he strode forth from the chamber, leaped upon his horse,

which was being held for him before the hall, struck in his spurs, and

went his way. At this deed was Count Baldwin much enraged; and when

matters had thus remained a while, Duke William sent once more to Count

Baldwin to parley again of the marriage. The count sounded his daughter

on the subject, and she answered that it pleased her well. So the

nuptials took place with very great joy. And after the aforesaid

matters, Count Baldwin, laughing withal, asked his daughter wherefore she

had so lightly accepted the marriage she had aforetime so cruelly

refused. And she answered that she did not then know the duke so well as

she did now; for, said she, if he had not great heart and high emprise,

he had not been so bold as to dare come and beat me in my father’s

chamber.”

Amongst the historians who treat this story as a romantic and untruthlike

fable, some believe themselves to have discovered, in divers documents of

the eleventh and twelfth centuries, circumstances almost equally singular

as regards the cause of the obstacles met with at first by Duke William

in his pretensions to the hand of Princess Matilda, and as regards the

motive for the first refusal on the part of Matilda herself. According

to some, the Flemish princess had conceived a strong passion for a noble

Saxon, Brihtric Meaw, who had been sent by King Edward the Confessor to

the court of Flanders, and who was remarkable for his beauty. She wished

to marry him, but the handsome Saxon was not willing; and Matilda at

first gave way to violent grief on that account, and afterwards, when she

became queen of England, to vindictive hatred, the weight of which she

made him feel severely. Other writers go still farther, and say that,

before being sought in marriage by William, Matilda had not fallen in

love with a handsome Saxon, but had actually married a Flemish burgess,

named Gerbod, patron of the church of St. Dertin, at St. Omer, and that

she had by him two and perhaps three children, traces of whom recur, it

is said, under the reign of William, king of England. There is no

occasion to enter upon the learned controversies of which these different

allegations have been the cause; it is sufficient to say that they have

led to nothing but obscurity, contradiction, and doubt, and that there is

more moral verisimilitude in the account just given, especially in

Matilda’s first prejudice against marriage with a bastard, and in her

conversation with her father, Count Baldwin, when she had changed her

opinion upon the subject. Independently of the testimony of several

chroniclers, French and English, this tradition is mentioned, with all

the simplicity of belief, in one of the principal Flemish chronicles; and

as to the ruffianly gallantry employed by William to win his bride, there

is nothing in it very singular, considering the habits of the time, and

we meet with more than one example of adventures, if not exactly similar,

at any rate very analogous.

However that may be, this marriage brought William an unexpected

opportunity of entering into personal relations with one of the most

distinguished men of his age, and a man destined to become one of his own

most intimate advisers. In 1019, at the council of Rheims, Pope Leo IX.,

on political grounds rather than because of a prohibited degree of

relationship, had opposed the marriage of the duke of Normandy with the

daughter of the duke of Flanders, and had pronounced his veto upon it.

William took no heed; and, in 1052 or 1053, his marriage was celebrated

at Rouen with great pomp; but this ecclesiastical veto weighed upon his

mind, and he sought some means of getting it taken off. A learned

Italian, Lanfranc, a juris-consult of some fame already, whilst

travelling in France and repairing from Avranches to Rouen, was stopped

near Brionne by brigands, who, having plundered him, left him, with his

eyes bandaged, in a forest. His cries attracted the attention of

passers-by, who took him to a neighboring monastery, but lately founded

by a pious Norman knight retired from the world. Lanfranc was received

in it, became a monk of it, was elected its prior, attracted to it by his

learned teaching a host of pupils, and won therein his own great renown

whilst laying the foundation for that of the abbey of Bee, which was

destined to be carried still higher by one of his disciples, St. Anselm.

Lanfranc was eloquent, great in dialectics, of a sprightly wit, and

lively in repartee. Relying upon the pope’s decision, he spoke ill of

William’s marriage with Matilda. William was informed of this, and in a

fit of despotic anger, ordered Lanfranc to be driven from the monastery

and banished from Normandy, and even, it is said, the dependency which he

inhabited as prior of the abbey, to be burned. The order was executed;

and Lanfranc set out, mounted on a sorry little horse given him, no

doubt, by the abbey. By what chance is not known, but probably on a

hunting-party, his favorite diversion, William, with his retinue,

happened to cross the road which Lanfranc was slowly pursuing. “My

lord,” said the monk, addressing him, “I am obeying your orders; I am

going away, but my horse is a sorry beast; if you will give me a better

one, I will go faster.” William halted, entered into conversation with

Lanfranc, let him stay, and sent him back with a present to his abbey.

A little while afterwards Lanfranc was at Rome, and defended before Pope

Victor II. William’s marriage with Matilda: he was successful, and the

pope took off the veto on the sole condition that the couple, in sign of

penitence, should each found a religious house. Matilda, accordingly,

founded at Caen, for women, the abbey of the Holy Trinity; and William,

for men, that of St. Stephen. Lanfranc was the first abbot of the

latter; and when William became king of England, Lanfranc was made

archbishop of Canterbury and primate of the Church of England, as well as

privy counsellor of his king. William excelled in the art, so essential

to government, of promptly recognizing the worth of men, and of

appropriating their influence to himself whilst exerting his own over

them.

About the same time he gave his contemporaries, princes and peoples, new

proofs of his ability and power. Henry I., king of France, growing more

and more disquieted at and jealous of the duke of Normandy’s ascendency,

secretly excited against him opposition and even revolt in his dominions.

These dealings led to open war between the suzerain and the vassal, and

the war concluded with two battles won by William, one at Mortemer near

Neuchatel in Bray, the other at Varaville near Troarrh “After which,”

said William himself, “King Henry never passed a night tranquilly on my

ground.” In 1059 peace was concluded between the two princes. Henry I.

died almost immediately afterwards, and on the 25th of August, 1060, his

son Philip I. succeeded him, under the regency of Baldwin, count of

Flanders, father of the Duchess Matilda. Duke William was present in

state at the coronation of the new king of France, lent him effectual

assistance against the revolts which took place in Gascony, reentered

Normandy for the purpose of holding at Caen, in 1061, the Estates of his

duchy, and at that time published the famous decree observed long after

him, under the name of the law of curfew, which ordered “that every

evening the bell should be rung in all parishes to warn every one to

prayer, and house-closing, and no more running about the streets.”

The passion for orderliness in his dominion did not cool his ardor for

conquest. In 1063, after the death of his young neighbor Herbert II.,

count of Maine, William took possession of this beautiful countship; not

without some opposition on the part of the inhabitants, nor without

suspicion of having poisoned his rival, Walter, count of Vexin. It is

said that after this conquest William meditated that of Brittany; but

there is every indication that he had formed a far vaster design, and

that the day of its execution was approaching.

From the time of Rollo’s settlement in Normandy, the communications of

the Normans with England had become more and more frequent, and important

for the two countries. The success of the invasions of the Danes in

England in the tenth century, and the reigns of three kings of the Danish

line, had obliged the princes of Saxon race to take refuge in Normandy,

the duke of which, Richard I., had given his daughter Emma in marriage to

their grandfather, Ethelred II. When, at the death of the last Danish

king, Hardicanute, the Saxon prince Edward ascended the throne of his

fathers, he had passed twenty-seven years of exile in Normandy, and he

returned to England “almost a stranger,” in the words of the chronicles,

to the country of his ancestors; far more Norman than Saxon in his

manners, tastes, and language, and surrounded by Normans, whose numbers

and prestige under his reign increased from day to day. A hot rivalry,

nationally as well as courtly, grew up between them and the Saxons. At

the head of these latter was Godwin, count of Kent, and his five sons,

the eldest of whom, Harold, was destined before long to bear the whole

brunt of the struggle. Between these powerful rivals, Edward the

Confessor, a pacific, pious, gentle, and undecided king, wavered

incessantly; at one time trying to resist, and at another compelled to

yield to the pretensions and seditions by which he was beset. In 1051

the Saxon party and its head, Godwin, had risen in revolt. Duke William,

on invitation, perhaps, from King Edward, paid a brilliant visit to

England, where he found Normans everywhere established and powerful, in

Church as well as in State; in command of the fleets, ports, and

principal English places. King Edward received him “as his own son, gave

him arms, horses, hounds, and hawking-birds,” and sent him home full of

presents and hopes. The chronicler, Ingulf, who accompanied William on

his return to Normandy, and remained attached to him as private

secretary, affirms that, during this visit, not only was there no

question, between King Edward and the duke of Normandy, of the latter’s

possible succession to the throne of England, but that never as yet had

this probability occupied the attention of William.

It is very doubtful whether William had said nothing upon the subject to

King Edward at that time; and it is certain, from William’s own

testimony, that he had for a long while been thinking about it. Four

years after this visit of the duke to England, King Edward was reconciled

to and lived on good terms with the family of the Godwins. Their father

was dead, and the eldest son, Harold, asked the king’s permission to go

to Normandy and claim the release of his brother and nephew, who had been

left as hostages in the keeping of Duke William. The king did not

approve of the project. “I have no wish to constrain thee,” said he to

Harold: “but if thou go, it will be without my consent: and, assuredly,

thy trip will bring some misfortune upon thee and our country. I know

Duke William and his crafty spirit; he hates thee, and will grant thee

nought unless he see his advantage therefrom. The only way to make him

give up the hostages will be to send some other than thyself.” Harold,

however, persisted and went. William received him with apparent

cordiality, promised him the release of the two hostages, escorted him

and his comrades from castle to castle, and from entertainment to

entertainment, made them knights of the grand Norman order, and even

invited them, “by way of trying their new spurs,” to accompany him on a

little warlike expedition he was about to undertake in Brittany. Harold

and his comrades behaved gallantly: and he and William shared the same

tent and the same table. On returning, as they trotted side by side,

William turned the conversation upon his youthful connection with the

king of England. “When Edward and I,” said he to the Saxon, “were living

like brothers under the same roof, he promised, if ever he became king of

England, to make me heir to his kingdom; I should very much like thee,

Harold, to help me to realize this promise; and be assured that, if by

thy aid I obtain the kingdom, whatsoever thou askest of me, I will grant

it forthwith.” Harold, in surprise and confusion, answered by an assent

which he tried to make as vague as possible. William took it as

positive. “Since thou dost consent to serve me,” said he, “thou must

engage to fortify the castle of Dover, dig a well of fresh water there,

and put it into the hands of my men-at-arms; thou must also give me thy

sister to be married to one of my barons, and thou must thyself espouse

my daughter Adele.” Harold, “not witting,” says the chronicler, “how to

escape from this pressing danger,” promised all the duke asked of him,

reckoning, doubt-less, on disregarding his engagement; and for the moment

William asked him nothing more.

But a few days afterwards he summoned, at Avranches according to some,

and at Bayeux according to others, and, more probably still, at

Bonneville-sur-Touques, his Norman barons; and, in the midst of this

assembly, at which Harold was present, William, seated with his naked

sword in his hand, caused to be brought and placed upon a table covered

with cloth of gold two reliquaries. “Harold,” said he, “I call upon

thee, in presence of this noble assemblage, to confirm by oath the

promises thou didst make me, to wit, to aid me to obtain the kingdom of

England after the death of King Edward, to espouse my daughter Adele, and

to send me thy sister to be married to one of my people.” Harold, who

had not expected this public summons, nevertheless did not hesitate any

more than he had hesitated in his private conversation with William; he

drew near, laid his hand on the two reliquaries, and swore to observe, to

the best of his power, his agreement with the duke, should he live and

God help. “God help!” repeated those who were present. William made a

sign; the cloth of gold was removed, and there was discovered a tub

filled to the edge with bones and relies of all the saints that could be

got together. The chronicler-poet, Robert Wace, who, alone and long

afterwards, recounts this last particular, adds that Harold was visibly

troubled at sight of this saintly heap; but he had sworn. It is

honorable to human nature not to be indifferent to oaths even when those

who exact them have but small reliance upon them, and when he who takes

them has but small intention of keeping them. And so Harold departed

laden with presents, leaving William satisfied, but not over-confident.

When, on returning to England, Harold told King Edward what had passed

between William and himself, “Did I not warn thee,” said the king, “that

I knew William, and that thy journey would bring great misfortunes upon

thyself and upon our nation? Grant Heaven that those misfortunes come

not during my life!” The king’s wish was not granted. He fell ill; and

on the 5th of January, 1066, he lay on his couch almost at the point of

death. Harold and his kindred entered the chamber, and prayed the king

to name a successor by whom the kingdom might be governed securely. “Ye

know,” said Edward, “that I have left my kingdom to the Duke of Normandy;

and are there not here, among ye, those who have sworn to assure his

succession?” Harold advanced, and once more asked the king on whom the

crown should devolve. “Take it, if it is thy wish, Harold,” said Edward;

“but the gift will be thy ruin; against the duke and his barons thy power

will not suffice.”--Harold declared that he feared neither the Norman nor

any other foe. The king, vexed at this importunity, turned round in his

bed, saying, “Let the English make king of whom they will, Harold or

another; I consent;” and shortly after expired. The very day after the

celebration of his obsequies, Harold was proclaimed king by his

partisans, amidst no small public disquietude, and Aldred, archbishop

of York, lost no time in anointing him.

William was in his park of Rouvray, near Rouen, trying a bow and arrows

for the chase, when a faithful servant arrived from England, to tell him

that Edward was dead and Harold proclaimed king. William gave his bow to

one of his people, and went back to his palace at Rouen, where he paced

about in silence, sitting down, rising up, leaning upon a bench, without

opening his lips and without any one of his people’s daring to address a

word to him. There entered his seneschal William de Bretenil, of whom

“What ails the duke?” asked they who were present. “Ye will soon know,”

answered he. Then going up to the duke, he said, “Wherefore conceal your

tidings, my lord? All the city knows that King Edward is dead; and that

Harold has broken his oath to you, and had himself crowned king.” “Ay,”

said William, “it is that which doth weigh me down.” “My lord,” said

William Fitz-Osbern, a gallant knight and confidential friend of the

duke, “none should be wroth over what can be mended: it depends but on

you to stop the mischief Harold is doing you; you shall destroy him, if

it please you. You have right; you have good men and true to serve you;

you need but have courage: set on boldly.” William gathered together his

most important and most trusted counsellors; and they were unanimous in

urging him to resent the perjury and injury. He sent to Harold a

messenger charged to say, “William, duke of the Normans, doth recall to

thee the oath thou swarest to him with thy mouth and with thy hand, on

real and saintly relics.” “It is true,” answered Harold, “that I swore,

but on compulsion; I promised what did not belong to me; my kingship is

not mine own; I cannot put it off from me without the consent of the

country. I cannot any the more, without the consent of the country,

espouse a foreigner. As for my sister, whom the duke claims for one of

his chieftains, she died within the year; if he will, I will send him the

corpse.” William replied without any violence, claiming the conditions

sworn, and especially Harold’s marriage with his daughter Adele. For all

answer to this summons Harold married a Saxon, sister of two powerful

Saxon chieftains; Edwin and Morkar. There was an open rupture; and

William swore that “within the year he would go and claim, at the sword’s

point, payment of what was due to him, on the very spot where Harold

thought himself to be most firm on his feet.”

And he set himself to the work. But, being as far-sighted as he was

ambitious, he resolved to secure for his enterprise the sanction of

religious authority and the formal assent of the Estates of Normandy.

Not that he had any inclination to subordinate his power to that of the

Pope. Five years previously, Robert de Grandmesnil, abbot of St. Evroul,

with whom William had got embroiled, had claimed to re-enter his

monastery as master by virtue solely of an order from Pope Nicholas II.

“I will listen to the legates of the Pope, the common father of the

faithful,” said William, “if they come to me to speak of the Christian

faith and religion; but if a monk of my Estates permit himself a single

word beyond his place, I will have him hanged by his cowl from the

highest oak of the nearest forest.” When, in 1000, he denounced to Pope

Alexander II. the perjury of Harold, asking him at the same time to do

him justice, he made no scruple about promising that, if the Pope

authorized him to right himself by war, he would bring back the kingdom

of England to obedience to the Holy See. He had Lanfranc for his

negotiator with the court of Rome, and Pope Alexander II. had for chief

counsellor the celebrated monk Hildebrand, who was destined to succeed

him under the name of Gregory VII. The opportunity of extending the

empire of the Church was too tempting to be spurned, and her future head

too bold not to seize it whatever might be the uncertainty and danger of

the issue; and in spite of hesitation on the part of some of the Pope’s

advisers, the question was promptly decided in accordance with William’s

demand. Harold and his adherents were excommunicated, and, on committing

his bull to the hands of William’s messenger, the Pope added a banner of

the Roman Church and a ring containing, it is said, a hair of St. Peter

set in a diamond.

The Estates of Normandy were less easy to manage. William called them

together at Lillebonne; and several of his vassals showed a zealous

readiness to furnish him with vessels and victual and to follow him

beyond the sea, but others declared that they were not bound to any such

service, and that they would not lend themselves to it; they had calls

enough already, and had nothing more to spare. William Fitz-Osbern

scouted these objections. “He is your lord, and hath need of you,” said

he to the recalcitrants; “you ought to offer yourselves to him, and not

wait to be asked. If he succeed in his purpose, you will be more

powerful as well as he; if you fail him, and he succeed without you, he

will remember it: show that you love him, and what ye do, do with a good

grace.” The discussion was keen. Many persisted in saying, “True, he is

our lord; but if we pay him his rents, that should suffice: we are not

bound to go and serve beyond the seas; we are already much burdened for

his wars.” It was at last agreed that Fitz-Osbern should give the duke

the assembly’s reply; for he knew well, they said, the ability of each.

“If ye mind not to do what I shall say,” said Fitz-Osbern, “charge me not

therewith.” “We will be bound by it, and will do it,” was the cry amidst

general confusion. They repaired to the duke’s presence. “My lord,”

said Fitz-Osbern, “I trow that there be not in the whole world such folk

as these. You know the trouble and labor they have already undergone in

supporting your rights; and they are minded to do still more, and serve

you at all points, this side the sea and t’other. Go you before, and

they will follow you; and spare them in nothing. As for me, I will

furnish you with sixty vessels, manned with good fighters.” “Nay, nay,”

cried several of those present, prelates and barons, “we charged you not

with such reply; when he hath business in his own country, we will do him

the service we owe him; we be not bound to serve him in conquering

another’s territory, or to go beyond sea for him.” And they gathered

themselves together in knots with much uproar.

“William was very wroth,” says the chronicler, “retired to a chamber

apart, summoned those in whom he had most confidence, and by their advice

called before him his barons, each separately, and asked them if they

were willing to help him. He had no intention, he told them, of doing

them wrong, nor would he and his, now or hereafter, ever cease to treat

with them in perfect courtesy; and he would give them, in writing, such

assurances as they were minded to devise. The majority of his people

agreed to give him, more or less, according to circumstances; and he had

everything reduced to writing.” At the same time he made an appeal to

all his neighbors, Bretons, Manceaux, and Angevines, hunting up soldiers

wherever he could find them, and promising all who desired them lands in

England if he effected its conquest. Lastly he repaired in person, first

to Philip I., king of France, his suzerain, then to Baldwin V., count of

Flanders, his father-in-law, asking their assistance for his enterprise.

Philip gave a formal refusal. “What the duke demands of you,” said his

advisers, “is to his own profit and to your hurt; if you aid him, your

country will be much burdened; and if the duke fail, you will have the

English your foes forever.” The count of Flanders made show of a similar

refusal; but privately he authorized William to raise soldiers in

Flanders, and pressed his vassals to follow him. William, having thus

hunted up and collected all the forces he could hope for, thought only of

putting them in motion, and of hurrying on the preparations for his

departure.

Whilst, in obedience to his orders, the whole expedition, troops and

ships, were collecting at Dives, he received from Conan II., duke of

Brittany, this message: “I learn that thou art now minded to go beyond

sea and conquer for thyself the kingdom of England. At the moment of

starting for Jerusalem, Robert, duke of Normandy, whom thou feignest to

regard as thy father, left all his heritage to Alain, my father and his

cousin: but thou and thy accomplices slew my father with poison at

Vimeux, in Normandy. Afterwards thou didst invade his territory because

I was too young to defend it; and, contrary to all right, seeing that

thou art a bastard, thou hast kept it until this day. Now, therefore,

either give me back this Normandy which thou owest me, or I will make war

upon thee with all my forces.” “At this message,” say the chronicles,

“William was at first somewhat dismayed; but a Breton lord, who had sworn

fidelity to the two counts, and bore messages from one to the other,

rubbed poison upon the inside of Conan’s hunting-horn, of his horse’s

reins, and of his gloves. Conan, having unwittingly put on his gloves

and handled the reins of his horse, lifted his hands to his face, and the

touch having filled him with poisonous infection, he died soon after, to

the great sorrow of his people, for he was an able and brave man, and

inclined to justice. And he who had betrayed him quitted before long the

army of Conan, and informed Duke William of his death.”

Conan is not the only one of William’s foes whom he was suspected of

making away with by poison: there are no proofs; but contemporary

assertions are positive, and the public of the time believed them,

without surprise. Being as unscrupulous about means as ambitious and

bold in aim, William was not of those whose character repels such an

accusation. What, however, diminishes the suspicion is that, after and

in spite of Conan’s death, several Breton knights, and, amongst others,

two sons of Count Eudes, his uncle, attended at the trysting-place of the

Norman troops and took part in the expedition.

Dives was the place of assemblage appointed for fleet and army. William

repaired thither about the end of August, 1066. But for several weeks

contrary winds prevented him from putting to sea; some vessels which made

the attempt perished in the tempest; and some of the volunteer

adventurers got disgusted, and deserted. William maintained strict

discipline amongst this multitude, forbidding plunder so strictly that

“the cattle fed in the fields in full security.” The soldiers grew tired

of waiting in idleness and often in sickness. “Yon is a mad-man,” said

they, “who is minded to possess himself of another’s land; God is against

the design, and so refuses us a wind.”

About the 20th of September the weather changed. The fleet got ready,

but could only go and anchor at St. Valery at the mouth of the Somme.

There it was necessary to wait several more days; impatience and

disquietude were redoubled; “and there appeared in the heavens a star

with a tail, a certain sign of great things to come.” William had the

shrine of St. Valery brought out and paraded about, being more impatient

in his soul than anybody, but ever confident in his will and his good

fortune. There was brought to him a spy whom Harold had sent to watch

the forces and plans of the enemy; and William dismissed him, saying,

“Harold hath no need to take any care or be at any charges to know how we

be, and what we be doing; he shall see for himself, and shall feel before

the end of the year.” At last, on the 27th of September, 1066, the sun

rose on a calm sea and with a favorable wind; and towards evening the

fleet set out. The Mora, the vessel on which William was, and which had

been given to him by his wife, Matilda, led the way; and a figure in

gilded bronze, some say in gold, representing their youngest son,

William, had been placed on the prow, with the face towards England.

Being a better sailer than the others, this ship was soon a long way

ahead; and William had a mariner sent to the top of the mainmast to see

if the fleet were following. “I see nought but sea and sky,” said the

mariner. William had the ship brought to; and, the second time, the

mariner said, “I see four ships.” Before long he cried, “I see a forest

of masts and sails.” On the 29th of September, St. Michael’s day, the

expedition arrived off the coast of England, at Pevensey, near Hastings,

and “when the tide had ebbed, and the ships remained aground on the

strand,” says the chronicles the landing was effected without obstacle;

not a Saxon soldier appeared on the coast. William was the last to leave

his ship; and on setting foot on the sand he made a false step and fell.

“Bad sign!” was muttered around him; “God have us in His keeping!” “What

say you, lords?” cried William: “by the glory of God, I have grasped

this land with my hands; all that there is of it is ours.”

[Illustration: Normans landing on English Coast----353]

With what forces William undertook the conquest of England, how many

ships composed his fleet, and how many men were aboard the ships, are

questions impossible to be decided with any precision, as we have

frequently before had occasion to remark, amidst the exaggerations and

disagreements of chroniclers. Robert Wace reports, in his Romance of

Rou, that he had heard from his father, one of William’s servants on this

expedition, that the fleet numbered six hundred and ninety-six vessels,

but he had found in divers writings that there were more than three

thousand. M. Augustin Thierry, after his learned researches, says, in

his history of the _Conquest of England by the Normans,_ that “four

hundred vessels of four sails, and more than a thousand transport ships,

moved out into the open sea, to the sound of trumpets and of a great cry

of joy raised by sixty thousand throats.” It is probable that the

estimate of the fleet is pretty accurate, and that of the army

exaggerated. We saw in 1830 what efforts and pains it required, amidst

the power and intelligent ability of modern civilization, to transport

from France to Algeria thirty-seven thousand men aboard three squadrons,

comprising six hundred and seventy-five ships of all sorts. Granted that

in the eleventh century there was more haphazard than in the nineteenth,

and that there was less care for human life on the eve of a war; still,

without a doubt, the armament of Normandy in 1066 was not to be compared

with that of France in 1830, and yet William’s intention was to conquer

England, whereas Charles X. thought only of chastising the dey of

Algiers.

Whilst William was making for the southern coast of England, Harold was

repairing by forced marches to the north in order to defend, against the

rebellion of his brother Tostig and the invasion of a Norwegian army, his

short-lived kingship thus menaced, at two ends of the country, by two

formidable enemies. On the 25th of September, 1066, he gained at York a

brilliant victory over his northern foe; and, wounded as he was, he no

sooner learned that Duke William had on the 29th pitched his camp and

planted his flag at Pevensey, than he set out in haste for the south.

As he approached, William received, from what source is not known, this

message: “King Harold hath given battle to his brother Tostig and the

king of Norway. He hath slain them both, and hath destroyed their army.

He is returning at the head of numerous and valiant warriors, against

whom thine own, I trove, will be worth no more than wretched curs. Thou

passest for a man of wisdom and prudence; be not rash, plunge not thyself

into danger; I adjure thee to abide in thy intrenchments, and not to come

really to blows.” “I thank thy master,” answered William, “for his

prudent counsel, albeit he might have given it to me without insult.

Carry him back this reply: I will not hide me behind ramparts; I will

come to blows with Harold as soon as I may; and with the aid of Heaven’s

good will I would trust in the valor of my men against his, even though I

had but ten thousand to lead against his sixty thousand.” But the proud

confidence of William did not affect his prudence. He received from

Harold himself a message wherein the Saxon, affirming his right to the

kingship by virtue of the Saxon laws and the last words of King Edward,

summoned him to evacuate England with all his people; on which condition

alone he engaged to preserve friendship with him, and all agreements

between them as to Normandy. After having come to an understanding with

his barons, William maintained his right to the crown of England by

virtue of the first decision of King Edward, and the oaths of Harold

himself. “I am ready,” said he, “to uphold my cause against him by the

forms of justice, either according to the law of the Normans or according

to that of the Saxons, as he pleases. If, by virtue of equity, Normans

or English decide that Harold has a right to possess the kingdom, let him

possess it in peace; if they acknowledge that it is to me that the

kingdom ought to belong, let him give it up to me. If he refuse these

conditions, I do not think it just that my people or his, who are not a

whit to blame for our quarrel, should slay one another in battle; I am

ready to maintain, at the price of my head against his, that it is to me

and not to him that the kingdom of England belongs.” At this proposition

Harold was troubled, and remained a while without replying; then, as the

monk was urgent, “Let the Lord God,” said he, “judge this day betwixt me

and William as to what is just.” The negotiation continued, and William

summed it all up in these terms, which the monk reported to Harold in

presence of the English chieftains: “My lord, the duke of Normandy

biddeth you do one of these things: give up to him the kingdom of

England, and take his daughter in marriage, as you sware to him on the

holy relics; or, respecting the question between him and you, submit

yourself to the Pope’s decision; or fight with him, body to body, and let

him who is victorious and forces his enemy to yield have the kingdom.”

Harold replied, “without opinion or advice taken,” says the chronicle, “I

will not cede him the kingdom; I will not abide by the Pope’s award; and

I will not fight with him.” William, still in concert with his barons,

made a farther advance. “If Harold will come to an agreement with me,”

he said, “I will leave him all the territory beyond the Humber, towards

Scotland.” “My lord,” said the barons to the duke, “make an end of these

parleys; if we must fight, let it be soon; for every day come folk to

Harold.” “By my faith,” said the duke, “if we agree not on terms

to-day, to-morrow we will join battle.” The third proposal for an

agreement was as little successful as the former two; on both sides there

was no belief in peace, and they were eager to decide the quarrel once

for all.

Some of the Saxon chieftains advised Harold to fall back on London, and

ravage all the country, so as to starve out the invaders. “By my faith,”

said Harold, “I will not destroy the country I have in keeping; I, with

my people, will fight.” “Abide in London,” said his younger brother,

Gurth: “thou canst not deny that, perforce or by free will, thou didst

swear to Duke William; but, as for us, we have sworn nought; we will

fight for our country; if we alone fight, thy cause will be good in any

case; if we fly, thou shalt rally us; if we fall, thou shalt avenge us.”

Harold rejected this advice, “considering it shame to his past life to

turn his back, whatever were the peril.” Certain of his people, whom he

had sent to reconnoitre the Norman army, returned saying that there were

more priests in William’s camp than warriors in his own; for the Normans,

at this period, wore shaven chins and short hair, whilst the English let

hair and beard grow. “Ye do err,” said Harold; “these be not priests,

but good men-at-arms, who will show us what they can do.”

On the eve of the battle, the Saxons passed the night in amusement,

eating, drinking, and singing, with great uproar; the Normans, on the

contrary, were preparing their arms, saying their prayers, and

“confessing to their priests--all who would.” On the 14th of October,

1066, when Duke William put on his armor, his coat of mail was given to

him the wrong way. “Bad omen!” cried some of his people; “if such a

thing had happened to us, we would not fight to-day.” “Be ye not

disquieted,” said the duke; “I have never believed in sorcerers and

diviners, and I never liked them; I believe in God, and in Him I put my

trust.” He assembled his men-at-arms, and setting himself upon a high

place, so that all might hear him, he said to them, “My true and loyal

friends, ye have crossed the seas for love of me, and for that I cannot

thank ye as I ought; but I will make what return I may, and what I have

ye shall have. I am not come only to take what I demanded, or to get my

rights, but to punish felonies, treasons, and breaches of faith committed

against our people by the men of this country. Think, moreover, what

great honor ye will have to-day if the day be ours. And bethink ye that,

if ye be discomfited, ye be dead men without help; for ye have not

whither ye may retreat, seeing that our ships be broken up, and our

mariners be here with us. He who flies will be a dead man; he who fights

will be saved. For God’s sake, let each man do his duty; trust we in

God, and the day will be ours.”

[Illustration: William the Conqueror reviewing his Army----357]

The address was too long for the duke’s faithful comrade, William

Fitz-Osborn. “My lord,” said he, “we dally; let us all to arms and

forward, forward!” The army got in motion, starting from the hill of

Telham or Heathland, according to Mr. Freeman, marching to attack the

English on the opposite hill of Senlac. A Norman, called Taillefer, “who

sang very well, and rode a horse which was very fast, came up to the

duke. ‘My lord,’ said he, ‘I have served you long, and you owe me for

all my service: pay me to day, an it please you; grant unto me, for

recompense in full, to strike the first blow in the battle.’ ‘I grant

it,’ quoth the duke. So Taillefer darted before him, singing the deeds

of Charlemagne, of Roland, of Oliver, and of the vassals who fell at

Roncesvalles.” As he sang, he played with his sword, throwing it up into

the air and catching it in his right hand; and the Normans followed,

repeating his songs, and crying, “God help! God help!” The English,

intrenched upon a plateau towards which the Normans were ascending,

awaited the assault, shouting, and defying the foe.

The battle, thus begun, lasted nine hours, with equal obstinacy on both

sides, and varied success from hour to hour. Harold, though wounded at

the commencement of the fray, did not cease for a moment to fight, on

foot, with his two brothers beside him, and around him the troops of

London, who had the privilege of forming the king’s guard when he

delivered a battle. Rudely repulsed at the first charge, some bodies of

Norman troops fell back in disorder, and a rumor spread amongst them that

the duke was slain; but William threw himself before the fugitives, and,

taking off his helmet, cried, “Look at me; here I am; I live, and by

God’s help will conquer.” So they returned to the combat. But the

English were firm; the Normans could not force their intrenchrnents; and

William ordered his men to feign a retreat, and all but a flight. At

this sight the English bore down in pursuit: “and still Norman fled and

Saxon pursued, until a trumpeter, who had been ordered by the duke thus

to turn back the Normans, began to sound the recall. Then were seen the

Normans turning back to face the English, and attacking them with their

swords, and amongst the English, some flying, some dying, some asking

mercy in their own tongue.” The struggle once more became general and

fierce. William had three horses killed under him; “but he jumped

immediately upon a fresh steed, and left not long unavenged the death of

that which had but lately carried him.” At last the intrenchments of the

English were stormed; Harold fell mortally wounded by an arrow which

pierced his skull; his two brothers and his bravest comrades fell at his

side; the fight was prolonged between the English dispersed and the

Normans remorselessly pursuing; the standard sent from Rome to the duke

of Normandy had replaced the Saxon flag on the very spot where Harold had

fallen; and, all around, the ground continued to get covered with dead

and dying, fruitless victims of the passions of the combatants. Next day

William went over the field of battle; and he was heard to say, in a tone

of mingled triumph and sorrow, “Here is verily a lake of blood!”

There was, long after the battle of Senlac, or Hastings, as it is

commonly called, a patriotic superstition in the country to the effect

that, when the rain had moistened the soil, there were to be seen traces

of blood on the ground where it had taken place.

Having thus secured the victory, William had his tent pitched at the very

point where the standard which had come from Rome had replaced the Saxon

banner, and he passed the night supping and chatting with his chieftains,

not far from the corpses scattered over the battle-field. Next day it

was necessary to attend to the burial of all these dead, conquerors or

conquered. William was full of care and affection towards his comrades;

and on the eve of the battle, during a long and arduous reconnoissance

which he had undertaken with some of them, he had insisted upon carrying,

for some time, in addition to his own cuirass, that of his faithful

William Fitz-Osbern, who he saw was fatigued in spite of his usual

strength; but towards his enemies William was harsh and resentful.

Githa, Harold’s mother, sent to him to ask for her son’s corpse, offering

for it its weight in gold. “Nay,” said William, “Harold was a perjurer;

let him have for burial-place the sand of the shore, where he was so

madly fain to rule.” Two Saxon monks from Waltham Abbey, which had been

founded by Harold, came, by their abbot’s order, and claimed for their

church the remains of their benefactor; and William, indifferent as he

had been to a mother’s grief, would not displease an abbey. But when the

monks set about finding the body of Harold, there was none to recognize

it, and they had recourse to a young girl, Edith, Swan’s-neck, whom

Harold had loved. She discovered amongst the corpses her lover’s

mutilated body; and the monks bore it away to the church at Waltham,

where it was buried. Some time later a rumor was spread abroad that

Harold was wounded, and carried to a neighboring castle, perhaps Dover,

whence he went to the abbey of St. John, at Chester, where he lived a

long while in a solitary cell, and where William the Conqueror’s second

son, Henry I., the third Norman king of England, one day went to see him

and had an interview with him. But this legend, in which there is

nothing chronologically impossible, rests on no sound basis of evidence,

and is discountenanced by all contemporary accounts.

[Illustration: Edith discovers the Body of Harold----360]

Before following up his victory, William resolved to perpetuate the

remembrance of it by a religious monument, and he decreed the foundation

of an abbey on the very field of the battle of Hastings, from which it

took its name, Battle Abbey. He endowed this abbey with all the

neighboring territory within the radius of a league, “the very spot,”

says his charter, “which gave me my crown.” He made it free of the

jurisdiction of any prelate, dedicated it to St. Martin of Tours, patron

saint of the soldiers of Gaul, and ordered that there should be deposited

in its archives a register containing the names of all the lords,

knights, and men of mark who had accompanied him on his expedition. When

the building of the abbey began, the builders observed a want of water;

and they notified William of the fact. “Work away,” said he: “if God

grant me life, I will make such good provision for the place that more

wine shall be found there than there is water in other monasteries.”

It was not everything, however, to be victorious, it was still necessary

to be recognized as king. When the news of the defeat at Hastings and

the death of Harold was spread abroad in the country, the emotion was

lively and seemed to be profound; the great Saxon national council, the

Wittenagemote, assembled at London; the remnants of the Saxon army

rallied there; and search was made for other kings than the Norman duke.

Harold left two sons, very young and not in a condition to reign; but his

two brothers-in-law, Edwin and Morkar, held dominion in the north of

England, whilst the southern provinces, and amongst them the city of

London, had a popular aspirant, a nephew of Edward the Confessor, in

Edgar surnamed Atheliny (the noble, the illustrious), as the descendant

of several kings. What with these different pretensions, there were

discussion, hesitation, and delay; but at last the young Edgar prevailed,

and was proclaimed king. Meanwhile William was advancing with his army,

slowly, prudently, as a man resolved to risk nothing and calculating upon

the natural results of his victory. At some points he encountered

attempts at resistance, but he easily overcame them, occupied

successively Romney, Dover, Canterbury, and Rochester, appeared before

London without trying to enter it, and moved on Winchester, which was the

residence of Edward the Confessor’s widow, Queen Editha, who had received

that important city as dowry. Through respect for her, William, who

presented himself in the character of relative and heir of King Edward,

did not enter the place, and merely called upon the inhabitants to take

the oath of allegiance to him and do him homage, which they did with the

queen’s consent. William returned towards London and commenced the

siege, or rather investment of it, by establishing his camp at

Berkhampstead, in the county of Hertford. He entered before long into

secret communication with an influential burgess, named Ansgard, an old

man who had seen service, and who, riddled with wounds, had himself

carried about the streets in a litter. Ansgard had but little difficulty

in inducing the authorities of London to make pacific overtures to the

duke, and William had still less difficulty in convincing the messenger

of the moderation of his designs. “The king salutes ye, and offers ye

peace,” said Ansgard to the municipal authorities of London on his return

from the camp: “‘tis a king who hath no peer; he is handsomer than the

sun, wiser than Solomon, more active and greater than Charlemagne,” and

the enthusiastic poet adds that the people as well as the senate eagerly

welcomed these words, and renounced, both of them, the young king they

had but lately proclaimed. Facts were quick in responding to this

quickly produced impression; a formal deputation was sent to William’s

camp; the archbishops of Canterbury and York, many other prelates and

laic chieftains, the principal citizens of London, the two brothers-in-

law of Harold, Edwin and Morkar, and the young king of yesterday, Edgar

Atheling himself, formed part of it; and they brought to William, Edgar

Atheling his abdication, and all the others their submission, with an

express invitation to William to have himself made king, “for we be

wont,” said they, “to serve a king, and we wish to have a king for lord.”

William received them in presence of the chieftains of his army, and with

great show of moderation in his desires. “Affairs,” said he, “be

troubled still; there be still certain rebels; I desire rather the peace

of the kingdom than the crown; I would that my wife should be crowned

with me.” The Norman chieftains murmured whilst they smiled; and one of

them, an Aquitanian, Aimery de Thouars, cried out, “It is passing modest

to ask soldiers if they wish their chief to be king: soldiers are never,

or very seldom, called to such deliberations: let what we desire be done

as soon as possible.” William yielded to the entreaties of the Saxon

deputies and to the counsels of the Norman chieftains but, prudent still,

before going in person to London, he sent thither some of his officers

with orders to have built there immediately, on the banks of the Thames,

at a point which he indicated, a fort where he might establish himself in

safety. That fort, in the course of time, became the Tower of London.

When William set out, some days afterwards, to make his entry into the

city, he found, on his way to St. Alban’s, the road blocked with huge

trunks of trees recently felled. “What means this barricade in thy

domains?” he demanded of the abbot of St. Alban’s, a Saxon noble. “I

did what was my duty to my birth and mission,” replied the monk: “if

others, of my rank and condition, had done as much, as they ought to and

could have done, thou hadst not penetrated so far into our country.”

On entering London after all these delays and all these precautions,

William fixed, for his coronation, upon Christmas-day, December 25th,

1066. Either by desire of the prelate himself or by William’s own order,

it was not the archbishop of Canterbury, Stigand, who presided, according

to custom, at the ceremony; the duty devolved upon the archbishop of

York, Aldred, who had but lately anointed Edgar Atheling. At the

appointed hour, William arrived at Westminster Abbey, the latest work and

the burial-place of Edward the Confessor. The Conqueror marched between

two hedges of Norman soldiers, behind whom stood a crowd of people, cold

and sad, though full of curiosity. A numerous cavalry guarded the

approaches to the church and the quarters adjoining. Two hundred and

sixty counts, barons, and knights of Normandy went in with the duke.

Geoffrey, bishop of Coutanees, demanded in French, of the Normans, if

they would that their duke should take the title of King of the English.

The archbishop of York demanded of the English, in the Saxon tongue, if

they would have for king the duke of Normandy. Noisy acclamations arose

in the church and resounded outside. The soldiery, posted in the

neighborhood, took the confused roar for a symptom of something wrong,

and in their suspicious rage set fire to the neighboring houses. The

flames spread rapidly. The people who were rejoicing in the church

caught the alarm, and a multitude of men and women of every rank flung

themselves out of the edifice. Alone and trembling, the bishops with

some clerics and monks remained before the altar and accomplished the

work of anointment upon the king’s head, “himself trembling,” says the

chronicle. Nearly all the rest who were present ran to the fire, some to

extinguish it, others to steal and pillage in the midst of the

consternation. William terminated the ceremony by taking the usual oath

of Saxon kings at their coronation, adding thereto, as of his own motion,

a promise to treat the English people according to their own laws and as

well as they had ever been treated by the best of their own kings. Then

he went forth from the church King of England.

We will pursue no farther the life of William the Conqueror: for

henceforth it belongs to the history of England, not of France. We have

entered, so far as he was concerned, into pretty long details, because we

were bound to get a fair understanding of the event and of the man; not

only because of their lustre at the time, but especially because of the

serious and long-felt consequences entailed upon France, England, and, we

may say, Europe. We do not care just now to trace out those consequences

in all their bearings; but we would like to mark out with precision their

chief features, inasmuch as they exercised, for centuries, a determining

influence upon the destinies of two great nations, and upon the course of

modern civilization.

As to France, the consequences of the conquest of England by the Normans

were clearly pernicious, and they have not yet entirely disappeared. It

was a great evil, as early as the eleventh century, that the duke of

Normandy, one of the great French lords, one of the great vassals of the

king of France, should at the same time become king of England, and thus

receive an accession of rank and power which could not fail to render

more complicated and more stormy his relations with his French suzerain.

From the eleventh to the fourteenth century, from Philip I. to Philip de

Valois, this position gave rise, between the two crowns and the two

states, to questions, to quarrels, to political struggles, and to wars

which were a frequent source of trouble in France to the government and

the people. The evil and the peril became far greater still when, in the

fourteenth century, there arose between France and England, between

Philip de Valois and Edward III., a question touching the succession to

the throne of France and the application or negation of the Salic law.

Then there commenced, between the two crowns and the two peoples, that

war which was to last more than a hundred years, was to bring upon France

the saddest days of her history, and was to be ended only by the inspired

heroism of a young girl who, alone, in the name of her God and His

saints, restored confidence and victory to her king and her country.

Joan of Arc, at the cost of her life, brought to the most glorious

conclusion the longest and bloodiest struggle that has devastated France

and sometimes compromised her glory.

Such events, even when they are over, do not cease to weigh heavily for a

long while upon a people. The struggles between the kings of England,

dukes of Normandy, and the kings of France, and the long war of the

fourteenth and fifteenth centuries for the succession to the throne of

France, engendered what historians have called “the rivalry between

France and England;” and this rivalry, having been admitted as a natural

and inevitable fact, became the permanent incubus and, at divers epochs,

the scourge of French national existence. Undoubtedly there are, between

great and energetic neighbors, different interests and tendencies, which

easily become the seeds of jealousy and strife; but there are also,

between such nations, common interests and common sentiments, which tend

to harmony and peace. The wisdom and ability of governments and of

nations themselves are shown in devoting themselves to making the grounds

of harmony and peace stronger than those of discord and war. Anyhow

common sense and moral sense forbid differences of interests and

tendencies to be set up as a principle upon which to establish general

and permanent rivalry, and, by consequence, a systematic hostility and

national enmity. And the further civilization and the connections

between different people proceed with this development, the more

necessary and, at the same time, possible it becomes to raise the

interests and sentiments which would hold them together above those which

would keep them asunder, and to thus found a policy of reciprocal equity

and of peace in place of a policy of hostile precautions and continual

strife. “I have witnessed,” says M. Guizot, “in the course of my life,

both these policies. I have seen the policy of systematic hostility, the

policy practised by the Emperor Napoleon I. with as much ability and

brilliancy as it was capable of, and I have seen it result in the

greatest disaster France ever experienced. And even after the evidence

of its errors and calamities this policy has still left amongst us deep

traces and raised serious obstacles to the policy of reciprocal equity,

liberty, and peace which we labored to support, and of which the nation

felt, though almost against the grain, the justice and the necessity.”

In that feeling we recognize the lamentable results of the old historic

causes which have just been pointed out, and the lasting perils arising

from those blind passions which hurry people away, and keep them back

from their most pressing interests and their most honorable sentiments.

In spite of appearances to the contrary, and in view of her future

interests, England was, in the eleventh century, by the very fact of the

conquest she underwent, in a better position than France. She was

conquered, it is true, and conquered by a foreign chieftain and a foreign

army; but France also had been, for several centuries previously, a prey

to conquest, and under circumstances much more unfavorable than those

under which the Norman conquest had found and placed England. When the

Goths, the Burgundians, the Franks, the Saxons, and the Normans

themselves invaded and disputed over Gaul, what was the character of the

event? Barbarians, up to that time vagabonds or nearly so, were flooding

in upon populations disorganized and enervated. On the side of the

German victors, no fixity in social life; no general or anything like

regular government; no nation really cemented and constituted; but

individuals in a state of dispersion and of almost absolute independence:

on the side of the vanquished Gallo-Romans, the old political ties

dissolved; no strong power, no vital liberty; the lower classes in

slavery, the middle classes ruined, the upper classes depreciated.

Amongst the barbarians society was scarcely commencing; with the subjects

of the Roman empire it no longer existed; Charlemagne’s attempt to

reconstruct it by rallying beneath a new empire both victors and

vanquished was a failure; feudal anarchy was the first and the necessary

step out of barbaric anarchy and towards a renewal of social order.

It was not so in England, when, in the eleventh century, William

transported thither his government and his army. A people but lately

come out of barbarism, conquered, on that occasion, a people still half

barbarous. Their primitive origin was the same; their institutions were,

if not similar, at any rate analogous; there was no fundamental

antagonism in their habits; the English chieftains lived in their domains

an idle, hunting life, surrounded by their liegemen, just as the Norman

barons lived. Society, amongst both the former and the latter, was

founded, however unrefined and irregular it still was; and neither the

former nor the latter had lost the flavor and the usages of their ancient

liberties. A certain superiority, in point of organization and social

discipline, belonged to the Norman conquerors; but the conquered Anglo-

Saxons were neither in a temper to allow themselves to be enslaved nor

out of condition for defending themselves. The conquest was destined to

entail cruel evils, a long oppression, but it could not bring about

either the dissolution of the two peoples into petty lawless groups, or

the permanent humiliation of one in presence of the other. There were,

at one and the same time, elements of government and resistance, causes

of fusion and unity in the very midst of the struggle.

We are now about to anticipate ages, and get a glimpse, in their

development, of the consequences which attended this difference, so

profound, in the position of France and of England, at the time of the

formation of the two states.

In England, immediately after the Norman conquest, two general forces are

confronted, those, to wit, of the two peoples. The Anglo-Saxon people is

attached to its ancient institutions, a mixture of feudalism and liberty,

which become its security. The Norman army assumes organization on

English soil according to the feudal system which had been its own in

Normandy. A principle of authority and a principle of resistance thus

exist, from the very first, in the community and in the government.

Before long the principle of resistance gets displaced; the strife

between the peoples continues; but a new struggle arises between the

Norman king and his barons. The Norman kingship, strong in its growth,

would fain become tyrannical; but its tyranny encounters a resistance,

also strong, since the necessity for defending themselves against the

Anglo-Saxons has caused the Norman barons to take up the practice of

acting in concert, and has not permitted them to set themselves up as

petty, isolated sovereigns. The spirit of association receives

development in England: the ancient institutions have maintained it

amongst the English landholders, and the inadequacy of individual

resistance has made it prevalent amongst the Norman barons. The unity

which springs from community of interests and from junction of forces

amongst equals becomes a counter-poise to the unity of the sovereign

power. To sustain the struggle with success, the aristocratic coalition

formed against the tyrannical kingship has needed the assistance of the

landed proprietors, great and small, English and Norman, and it has not

been able to dispense with getting their rights recognized as well as its

own. Meanwhile the struggle is becoming complicated; there is a division

of parties; a portion of the barons rally round the threatened kingship;

sometimes it is the feudal aristocracy, and sometimes it is the king that

summons and sees flocking to the rescue the common people, first of the

country, then of the towns. The democratic element thus penetrates into

and keeps growing in both society and government, at one time quietly and

through the stolid influence of necessity, at another noisily and by

means of revolutions, powerful indeed, but nevertheless restrained within

certain limits. The fusion of the two peoples and the different social

classes is little by little attaining accomplishment; it is little by

little bringing about the perfect formation of representative government

with its various component parts, royalty, aristocracy, and democracy,

each invested with the rights and the strength necessary for their

functions. The end of the struggle has been arrived at; constitutional

monarchy is founded; by the triumph of their language and of their

primitive liberties the English have conquered their conquerors. It is

written in her history, and especially in her history at the date of the

eleventh century, how England found her point of departure and her first

elements of success in the long labor she performed, in order to arrive,

in 1688, at a free, and, in our days, at a liberal government.

France pursued her end by other means and in the teeth of other fortunes.

She always desired and always sought for free government under the form

of constitutional monarchy; and in following her history, step by step,

there will be seen, often disappearing and ever re-appearing, the efforts

made by the country for the accomplishment of her hope. Why then did not

France sooner and more completely attain what she had so often attempted?

Amongst the different causes of this long miscalculation, we will dwell

for the present only on the historical reason just now indicated: France

did not find, as England did, in the primitive elements of French society

the conditions and means of the political system to which she never

ceased to aspire. In order to obtain the moderate measure of internal

order, without which society could not exist; in order to insure the

progress of her civil laws and her material civilization; in order even

to enjoy those pleasures of the mind for which she thirsts so much,--

France was constantly obliged to have recourse to the kingly authority

and to that almost absolute monarchy which was far from satisfying her

even when she could not do without it, and when she worshipped it with an

enthusiasm rather literary than political, as was the case under Louis

XIV. It was through the refined rather than profound development of her

civilization, and through the zeal of her intellectual movement, that

France was at length impelled not only towards the political system to

which she had so long aspired, but into the boundless ambition of the

unlimited revolution which she brought about and with which she

inoculated all Europe. It is in the first steps towards the formation of

the two societies, French and English, and in the elements, so very

different, of their earliest existence, that we find the principal cause

for their long-continued diversity in institutions and destinies.

“In 1823, forty-seven years ago, after having studied,” says M. Guizot,

“in my Essays upon a Comparative History of France and England, the great

fact which we have just now attempted to make clearly understood, I

concluded my labor by saying, ‘Before our revolution, this difference

between the political fates of France and England might have saddened a

French-man: but now, in spite of the evils we have suffered and in spite

of those we shall yet, perhaps, suffer, there is no room, so far as we

are concerned, for such sadness. The advances of social equality and the

enlightenments of civilization in France preceded political liberty; and

it will thus be the more general and the purer. France may reflect,

without regret, upon any history: her own has always been glorious, and

the future promised to her will assuredly recompense her for all she has

hitherto lacked.’ In 1870, after the experiences and notwithstanding the

sorrows of my long life, I have still confidence in our country’s future.

Never be it forgotten that God helps only those who help themselves and

who deserve his aid.”