with this crowning triumph. His shrine at Westminster became the centre
of a group of royal tombs such as gathered in earlier times in the
more ancient seats of royalty at Winchester and Sherborne. Or a closer
parallel still might be looked for in that renowned sanctuary of the
West, the resting-place of Eadward’s nobler brother, where Briton
and Englishman agreed to revere the name of the legendary Arthur,
as at Westminster Englishman and Norman agreed to revere the name
of the now well-nigh [Sidenote: Burial of Eadgyth, 1074;] legendary
Eadward.[69] Eight years after the burial of Eadward, his widow, the
loving sister of Tostig, the loyal subject of William, was laid by
his side before the altar of Saint Peter.[70] The zeal of King Henry
thought of her also, and her remains, translated to the chapel of her
husband, were laid as near to his side as the remains of an ordinary
sinful mortal might lie to those of a wonder-working saint. [Sidenote:
of Eadgyth-Matilda, 1118.] To the other side of his shrine was moved
the dust of another Eadgyth, disguised in history by her Norman name
Matilda, her in whom the green tree first began to return to the trunk,
and in whose grandson Normandy and England alike became parts of the
dominions of the Angevin.[71] No legend or effigy marks the graves of
these royal Ladies, but soon the choicest skill of the craftsman was
lavished on the tombs of Kings and princes which crowded round the
shrine of their sainted predecessor. To the north King [Sidenote:
Henry the Third.] Henry sleeps in his tomb of foreign work, beneath
the [Sidenote: Edward and Eleanor.] shadow of the patron whom he had
so deeply honoured.[72] Worthier dust lies east and west of him. No
graven figure marks the resting-place of his immortal son, but the
loveliest work of all within that mighty charnel-house records the love
and grief of the great King for a consort worthy of him. Succeeding
ages surrounded the sacred spot with the sculptured forms of succeeding
generations of English royalty. There sleeps the victor of Crecy and
the victor of [Sidenote: Richard the Second.] Azincourt; there sleeps,
beside his nobler Queen, the King from whom the Parliament of England,
in the exercise of its [Sidenote: 1399.] ancient right, took away the
Crown of which he had shown himself unworthy. Thus around the shrine of
Eadward were gathered the successors who in life had sworn to keep his
fancied Laws, and who deemed it their highest honour to wear his Crown
and to sit upon his royal seat. At last a King arose in whose eyes
the wealth which earlier Kings had lavished on that spot outweighed
the reverence with which so many ages had surrounded Eadward’s name.
One Henry had reared alike the shrine and the pile which held it; the
word of another Henry went forth to cast to the owls and to the bats
all that earlier ages had deemed holy. [Sidenote: The body of Eadward
removed under Henry the Eighth,] And yet some remorse seems to have
smitten the soul of the destroyer before the shrine of the royal patron
and lawgiver of England. Elsewhere the shrines of more ancient saints
were levelled with the ground; elsewhere the dust of Kings and heroes
was scattered to the winds. The wealth of Eadward’s shrine was indeed
borne away to be sported broadcast among the minions of Henry’s court,
but the empty casket still stood untouched, and the hallowed remains
found another, if a lowlier, resting-place within the minster-walls.
And the days yet came when one translation [Sidenote: and restored
under Philip and Mary.] more restored the corpse of Eadward to its
place of honour. And again it was from fitting hands that he received
this last act of veneration. The foreign-hearted Eadward had been first
placed in that shrine by the foreign-hearted Henry, the King whose
foreign marriage proved the curse of England, and whose foreign tastes
made England the victim and the bondslave of Rome. Shorn of his honours
by a King who, with all his crimes, was at least an Englishman, Eadward
was brought back to his shrine by a Queen whose work it was to bend
the neck of England beneath the spiritual yoke of the Roman See and
the temporal yoke of her Spanish husband.[73] Translated first by the
zeal of Henry and Eleanor, he was again restored to his old honours by
the zeal of Philip and Mary. And now, while the dust of Eadmund and
Harold is scattered to the winds, Eadward still sleeps in his shrine,
unworshipped indeed but undisturbed; and the spot where an Englishman
would best love to stand and muse in awe and wonder has become ground
from which the votaries of devotion and art and history are bidden to
turn away.
[Sidenote: The Coronation of Harold. January 6, 1066.]
But we must come back to the doings of the great Epiphany. The last
King of the House of Cerdic was laid in his grave; it was time for the
first King of the House of Godwine to be placed upon his throne. Short
as the interregnum had been, England could not go a moment longer
without a crowned and anointed ruler. From the burial of Eadward
men turned at once to the coronation of Harold. That great rite was
performed with all solemnity, no doubt according to those venerable
forms whose substance has been followed in the consecration of every
English King down to our own time.[74] The chief actor in that august
ceremony was one not wholly unworthy of so high a function. The Primate
of all England, while his canonical right to his see was called in
question at home and abroad, could not be allowed to discharge the
highest duty belonging to his office. The hands of Stigand might not
minister an unction which was held to confer somewhat [Sidenote: The
ceremony performed by Ealdred.] of sacramental grace and even of
priestly sanctity.[75] In his stead, the rite was performed by the
Primate of Northumberland, his marked adhesion to the new King being
perhaps taken as one pledge of the allegiance of his distant province.
No living Englishman had seen so much of other lands, none had so often
stood face to face with the rulers of other nations, as he who was now
called upon to set the English Crown upon the brow of Harold. Ealdred,
alone of living English Prelates, had gone, at the bidding of his King
or at the call of his own devotion, to the banks of the Rhine, the
Tiber, and the Jordan. He alone had stood, as the representative of
England, before the thrones of the spiritual and the temporal chiefs
of Christendom. He alone had gone, with such worship as none had gone
before him,[76] far beyond the threshold of the Apostles, to the city
where the Infidel bore sway over the very spot of man’s redemption. He
had tarried in the court of Cæsar, he had knelt at the tomb of Christ;
but in all his wanderings he had never seen such a day or such a scene
as when the Witan of all England came together to choose their Father
and their Lord, and the diadem of Ecgberht rested on the lordly brow
of the King chosen from his brethren. Could he have deemed that, at
the next Christmas Feast, he should be called upon again to repeat
that solemn rite on the same spot, under circumstances yet more new
and wonderful? In the whole range of history, it is hard to point to a
stranger fate than that of him to whose lot it fell to receive, within
a single year, the coronation-oath of Harold and the coronation-oath of
William.
[Sidenote: The King-elect led to the high altar.]
The rite began. Earl Harold, the King-elect, was led by two Bishops,
with hymns and processions, up to the high altar of the minster. Later
usage assigned that honourable function to the Prelates of Durham
and of Wells.[77] It may then well be that Gisa, the supposed victim
and enemy of Harold, really discharged one of the chief parts in his
admission to his kingly office. The hymn sung by the choir in that
great procession prayed that the hand of Harold might be strengthened
and exalted, that justice and judgement might be the preparation of his
seat, that mercy and truth might go before his face.[78] Before the
high altar the Earl of the West-Saxons bowed himself to the ground, and
while he lay grovelling, the song of Ambrose, the song of faith and
of victory, was sung over one whose sin at Porlock, whose atonement
at Waltham, might well make him seem another Theodosius.[79] The Earl
then rose from the pavement, and for the last time he looked on the
crowd [Sidenote: The Ecclesiastical Election.] around him, the Prelates
and Thegns and the whole people of England, as still one of their own
number. Their voice had already named him as their King, but a still
more solemn election before the altar of God was needed before the
Church admitted him to the sacramental unction. Once more the voice
of Ealdred demanded of the English people, in ancient form, whether
they would that Earl Harold should be crowned as their Lord and King.
A loud shout [Sidenote: The Coronation oath.] of assent rang through
the minster. Chosen thus by Prelates and people,[80] the King-elect
swore with a loud voice his threefold oath to God and to all his folk.
Kings swore in after days that they would observe all the rights and
liberties which the glorious Eadward had granted to his clergy and
his people. The oath of the prince who had so lately renewed the Laws
of Cnut was of a simpler form. Earl Harold swore to preserve peace
to the Church of God and to all Christian people. He swore to forbid
wrong and robbery to men of every rank within his realm. He swore to
enforce justice and mercy in all his judgements, as he would that God
should have mercy upon him. And all the people said Amen. The Bishops
then prayed for the ruler whom they had chosen, for his guidance by
the Spirit of wisdom in the government of his realm, for peace to his
Church and people, for his welfare in this world and in the next.[81]
Then a yet more solemn prayer from the lips of Ealdred followed. In
that ancient English form, which other nations have been fain to borrow
of us,[82] the God who had wrought His mighty works by the hands of
Abraham and Moses and Joshua and David and Solomon was implored to
shower down all the gifts and graces of those famous worthies upon him
who was that day chosen to be King of the Angles and Saxons. Ealdred
prayed that Harold, faithful as Abraham, gentle as Moses, brave as
Joshua, humble as David, wise as Solomon, might teach and rule and
guard the Church and realm of the Angles and Saxons[83] against all
visible and invisible foes. With feelings too deep for words must that
prayer have risen from the hearts of all who could already see the
gathering storm, which was still but like a little cloud out of the
sea. The Primate prayed that their chosen King might never fail the
throne and sceptre of the Angles and Saxons, that for long years of
life he might reign over a faithful people, in peace and concord, and,
if need be, in victory. Christ Himself was prayed to raise him to the
throne of His kingdom, and to pour down upon him the unction of the
Holy One.
[Sidenote: The Unction.]
“The oaths were said, the prayers were prayed.”[84] And now came the
sacramental rite itself which changed an Earl into a King, and which
gave him, so men then deemed, grace from on high to discharge the
duties which were laid upon him. The holy oil was poured by Ealdred
upon the head of Earl Harold.[85] And while the symbolic act was in
doing, the choir raised their voices in that glorious strain to which
the noblest music of later times has given a still higher majesty. The
walls of the West Minster echoed to the anthem which told how Zadok the
Priest and Nathan the Prophet anointed Solomon King, and which added
the prayer of England that Harold might live for ever.[86] Again the
Primate prayed that, as of old Kings and Priests and Prophets were
anointed with oil, so now the oil poured on the head of God’s servant
might be a true sign of the inner unction of the heart, a means of
grace for His glory and the [Sidenote: The Investiture.] welfare of
His people.[87] And now King Harold, the Lord’s Anointed, the chosen
of the people, the consecrated of the Church, vested in the robes of
royalty and priesthood,[88] received in due order the insignia of his
kingly office. The sword was placed in his hand, with the prayer that
he might therewith defend his realm, and smite his enemies and the
[Sidenote: The Crowning.] enemies of the Church of God.[89] The King
then bowed his head, and the Imperial diadem of Britain was placed by
the hand of Ealdred on the head of the King of the Angles and Saxons,
the Emperor of the Isle of Albion.[90] God was again implored to crown
His Anointed with glory and justice and might, and to give him a yet
brighter Crown in a more enduring Kingdom. Then the sceptre crowned
with the cross, and the rod crowned with the holy dove, were placed,
one after the other, in the royal hands. Prayer was again made that the
sceptre of Harold’s Kingdom might be a sceptre of righteousness and
strength, that he who had been anointed with the oil of gladness above
his fellows might through all his days be a lover of righteousness and
a hater of iniquity.[91] Further prayers, further blessings, followed;
the prayers and merits of all the saints, of the Virgin Mother of
God, of the Prince of the Apostles, and of his successor the special
Apostle of the English nation,[92] were [Sidenote: “Hic residet Harold
Rex Anglorum.”] implored on behalf of the crowned and anointed King.
And now King Harold of England sat on his royal throne, the crown
upon his brow, in his right hand the sceptre, in his left the orb of
Empire,[93] the proud badge which belonged of right to the Cæsar of
another world. Two chiefs, perhaps his faithful brothers, bore the
sword at his side; his people stood and gazed upon him with wonder and
[Sidenote: Import of the ceremony.] delight.[94] The day at last had
come for which Harold and England had looked so long. The reward of
thirteen years of loyal service had been given by the nation to her
noblest son. And the die too had been cast; the danger was now to be
faced in common; King and people were pledged to stand by one another
in the struggle which was to come. And King and people did stand by
one another, and, if they both fell, they both fell gloriously. The
rite of that great day gave Harold, instead of the long and peaceful
reign prayed for by his consecrator, a reign of nine months of little
stillness.[95] Then England was given over to bondage, and the name of
Harold was given over to the voice of slander. But in the eye of truth,
those nine months of little stillness, spent in the cause of England,
were better than long years of inglorious ease and luxury, better than
long years of hardly less inglorious sloth and superstition. As the
momentary glory of Eadmund follows on the weary years of Æthelred, so
the momentary glory of Harold followed on those years of Eadward which
Harold alone had saved from being as weary as those of his father.
And, in the eye of authentic history, never was crown more lawfully
won, more worthily worn, than that which Ealdred placed that day on
the head of him whom calumny marked so long as Harold the Usurper.
If there ever was a lawful ruler in this world, such of a truth was
Harold, King of the English and Lord of the Isle of Britain—King, not
by the mouldering titles of a worn-out dynasty, not by the gold of the
trafficker or the steel of the invader, but by the noblest title by
which one man can claim to rule over his fellows, the free choice of a
free people.
[Sidenote: Was Ealdgyth crowned?]
The rite was over. Earl Harold was now King; but we cannot help asking
whether he stood alone in the great ceremony which had made him so.
Did the Lady Ealdgyth, once again the wife of a King, share in the
consecration of her husband? Her coronation is nowhere distinctly
spoken of, but our ancient ritual provides a form for the anointing
of the King’s consort, and for her investiture with the ring and
crown.[96] There is no reason to suppose that the wife of Harold,
the grand-daughter of Leofric, would be debarred from any honour
befitting the wife of a King, the mother of future Æthelings. But,
in the absence of direct testimony, I do not venture to affirm the
fact. Indeed I must confess that I feel less certain than I did when
writing my last chapter, whether the marriage of Harold and Ealdgyth
may not have followed his election to the Crown.[97] Whether then the
new King had a consort to share in his honours is a point which I must
leave uncertain. But, according to all precedent, on the coronation
followed the mass, with prayers and collects appropriate for the great
solemnity.[98] At that mass the King partook of the holiest rite of
Christian worship. On the mass followed the banquet, and there, on the
last day of the Christmas Festival, we cannot doubt that King Harold,
in all the glory of his new dignity, wore his Crown with all kingly
state in what was now his Palace of Westminster. The old dynasty had
passed away; the new dynasty had taken possession; but not many days
had gone before voices of warning came which showed that King Harold
of England would soon have to do battle for his Crown.
§ 3. _The First Days of Harold’s Reign. January 6–April 16, 1066._
[Sidenote: No new Earl of the West-Saxons appointed.]
Within the bounds of his former Earldom the rule of Harold, King of
the English, was simply a continuation of the rule of Harold, Earl of
the West-Saxons. It is plain that no other Earl of the great southern
Earldom was appointed in his place. In any view of general policy this
might be looked on as a backward step. It might be looked on as again
uprearing a throne which should be West-Saxon rather than English. It
might be looked on as again reducing Mercia and Northumberland from
integral parts of the realm into dependent provinces.[99] But under
the circumstances of the moment, it would seem to have been the wiser
course. England was threatened by two enemies in different quarters,
and even the energy of Harold could not personally provide for the
safety of the [Sidenote: Necessity of confidence in Eadwine and
Morkere.] land against both. It was absolutely necessary, in Harold’s
position, to treat the Earls of the Northumbrians and the Mercians,
perhaps already his brothers-in-law, with a degree of confidence
which they certainly did not deserve. It was something that they had
allowed his election and coronation to take place without any open
opposition. It was something that he had received the votes of the
Northumbrian Witan, and had been crowned and anointed by the hands of
the Northumbrian Primate. Harold could not do otherwise than at least
affect to treat Eadwine and Morkere as [Sidenote: Division of labour
between them and the King.] loyal subjects or even as loving brothers.
He was obliged to trust to them for the defence of Northern England.
And, if they could be trusted for anything, they might surely, it would
seem, be trusted to keep their personal enemy Tostig out of their own
Earldoms. While they guarded the North against the English exile, it
was Harold’s own work to guard the South against the foreign pretender.
In the eastern shires, from the Wash to the Straits of Dover, he had
the trustiest of lieutenants in his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine. It
was clearly his own business, while not abdicating his duty of general
care over the whole Kingdom, to undertake as his special work the
defence of the lands which had formed his own Earldom. No one could
do that work [Sidenote: No available candidate for the West-Saxon
Earldom.] so well as himself. We can hardly see whom Harold, had he
been so inclined, could have invested with the West-Saxon Earldom.
Every man who could lay claim to so high a dignity on the score either
of birth or of merit was already provided for. The King’s remaining
brother Wulfnoth was probably a hostage in Normandy; his own sons, his
nephew Hakon, were all young and untried. The representatives of the
two Northumbrian families, Waltheof and Oswulf, were equally untried,
and they were already invested with the government of districts with
which they had an ancestral connexion. Nor can we point to the name
of any West-Saxon of special personal eminence beyond the [Sidenote:
Military policy of keeping Wessex in the King’s own hands.] limits of
the great houses. It was clearly the policy of the moment, a moment
when military considerations must have been supreme above all others,
for the King to keep the immediate administration of the South in his
own hands, availing himself only of the co-operation of his brothers
the two Eastern Earls. And, after all, though Northumberland and Mercia
again became in a sense dependencies on the West-Saxon Crown, the
arrangement might very well suit the purposes of Eadwine and Morkere.
They might deem that a step was thereby taken towards the division of
the Kingdom, when its administration was practically divided between
the House of Leofric and the House of Godwine, and when the King took
his own share along with his brothers and brothers-in-law. A King who
had his own portion of the Kingdom in his own hands might seem to be
less painfully exalted over their heads, he might seem to remain more
nearly on their own level, than a King who acted simply as a central
power, equally controlling every portion of the realm. Harold therefore
kept the West-Saxon Earldom in his own hands. But it is clear that he
kept a watchful eye over his whole Kingdom, and that he was ready to
act at a moment’s notice in any part of his Kingdom where his presence
might be needed.
[Sidenote: Character of Harold’s government.]
On the character of Harold’s government as King there is no need to
enlarge. His government as King was, as I have just before said,
simply a continuation of his government as Earl. Whatever was the
character of the one was [Sidenote: Norman calumnies.] the character
of the other. The Norman writers describe his government as stained
by frightful crimes. As usual, stories grow and become more definite
as they are further removed from the time. The slanderers of Harold’s
own age veiled their charges in the most general terms; but the
slanderers of the thirteenth century were ready with long stories of
rapine and sacrilege and evil doings of every kind, and the slanderers
of a still later age knew perfectly well how cruelly Harold enforced
the forest laws, and how the husband of Ealdgyth remained without a
wife, that he might the more easily carry off the wives and daughters
[Sidenote: Asserted general expulsion of Normans.] of the “Barons” of
the realm.[100] A charge which better deserves serious examination is
that Harold drove out of the land all the Normans who were settled in
it, doubtless confiscating their lands.[101] Now the dying charge of
Eadward himself suggested the banishment, though not the spoliation,
of any Normans who might refuse to become the men of the new King.[102]
The fact that the charge is brought against Harold may lead us to think
that some such cases actually occurred, and that Eadward’s rule was
[Sidenote: Some Normans at least remained in England.] put in force
with regard to them. But it is quite impossible to believe that all
the Frenchmen who were naturalized in England[103] were now driven
out. Some record of such a process would certainly have found its way
into Domesday. And we know for certain that some [Sidenote: Bishop
William and Robert the son of Wymarc not molested.] Normans of high
rank were not driven out. William of London retained his Bishoprick.
His name does not actually occur in the history of Harold’s reign,
but it is quite certain that, if he had been meddled with, some
Norman writer or other would have taken care to record the fact. The
wrongs of the living Bishop of London would have made an excellent
sequel to the wrongs of the dead Archbishop of Canterbury. And we
know distinctly, from the testimony of Norman writers,[104] that
Robert the son of Wymarc was living quietly in England, as a man of
wealth and importance, at the time of William’s landing. He clearly
retained his lands; there is no evidence whether [Sidenote: Other
Stallers.] he did or did not retain his office of Staller. Nor have we
any direct evidence as to the position retained in Harold’s reign by
Robert’s fellow-Staller Ralph,[105] or by any other of Eadward’s Norman
favourites. We cannot say whether Hugolin the Treasurer and Reginbald
the Chancellor[106] retained their offices in the Court of the English
King. We can only say that, among the English Stallers employed by
Eadward, three at least, Bondig,[107] Esegar, and Eadnoth, retained
their offices. Esegar and Bondig play not unimportant [Sidenote:
Eadnoth.] parts in the great struggles of the year.[108] Eadnoth, who
held large possessions in the western shires, was probably a man who
had risen by the favour of Harold during his government of Wessex as
Earl. We shall hear [Sidenote: 1067.] of him again as acting against
the son of his benefactor.
[Sidenote: English descriptions of Harold’s good government.]
In opposition to the slanders of his enemies, Harold appears in
the national writers as the model of a patriot King. In the words
of the splendid panegyric which became almost a set form among all
true Englishmen, “he began to abolish unrighteous laws, to establish
righteous ones, to be the patron of churches and monasteries, to
reverence Bishops, Abbots, monks, and churchmen of every sort, to show
himself pious, lowly, and affable to all good men, and to be the enemy
of all evil doers.”[109] We are told how he bade his Earls, Sheriffs,
and magistrates of every kind, and generally all his Thegns, to seize
all thieves, robbers, and disturbers of the public peace, while he
himself laboured for the defence of the country by sea and land.[110]
That is to say, his government as King was a continuation of his
government as Earl. We must not infer from the opening words of the
description that Harold appeared at all as a lawgiver. Those few months
of little stillness were not likely to be largely devoted either to
the repeal of old laws or to the enactment of new ones. By good and
bad law is meant, as usual,[111] good and bad government. What we are
to understand is that Harold’s rule continued to be as just and as
vigorous as it had ever been. It would in truth be more vigorous, now
that he could act freely for himself, and had no longer to take the
pleasure of the wayward Eadward upon any matter. His strictness against
all breaches of the peace is simply his old virtue as Earl;[112] only
we see, what of course naturally follows from the state of things
at the time, that this duty was now, more than it had been before,
thrown upon the King’s officers and representatives, while the King
himself was mainly occupied with his military [Sidenote: His military
preparations began early in his reign.] preparations. We see also
that those preparations began from the very beginning of his reign,
that there is no ground to believe that Harold despised either of his
enemies, or that he failed from the first to make ready for anything
that might happen. His great difficulty must have been to make others
feel the importance of the crisis as he felt it himself, and at the
same time to avoid anything which could dishearten men’s minds or chill
the warmth of the hopes kindled by a new reign and a new dynasty. The
spirit of Harold’s rule is impressed in a striking, and even touching,
way on the few material monuments of his [Sidenote: His coinage.] short
reign. The new King found time for a new coinage, and the device on
Harold’s coin well spoke the longings of a King whose heart yearned
for peace, though he knew that peace could be had only through war.
On the one side is the simple legend, PAX, on the other side the King
wears the Imperial Diadem.[113] All that man could do for his realm and
people King Harold did. The evil was that, according to the old Greek
saying, even Hêraklês could not struggle with two foes at once.[114]
[Sidenote: Good position of Harold towards the National Church.]
As for Harold’s devotion to the Church, which is so strongly insisted
on by his panegyrist, we can see that he had every motive at this
time to make friends of all classes of men, and to make friends of
the clergy more than of any other class. He must have known that
something like a holy war was likely to be proclaimed against him.
He must have felt that he had, wittingly or unwittingly, done an act
which ran counter to the religious feelings of the time. If Harold had
really done despite to the bones of the Norman Saints, it was the more
needful for him to show to other lands that he enjoyed the confidence
of the national Church, and to show to the national Church that he was
a King who did not belie the oil of his consecration. [Sidenote: His
relations to the monks.] It is quite possible, and it may be implied
in the words of the panegyric, that the founder of Waltham, the great
patron of the seculars, now found it expedient to extend more of his
countenance than before to the religious foundations of his Kingdom.
It is certain that the few notices that we have of the reign of Harold
show that more of his attention was given to ecclesiastical matters
than might have been looked for in a reign so short and so [Sidenote:
His further gifts to Waltham.] stormy. He continued his care and
bounty to his own foundation at Waltham; what the Earl had loved, the
[Sidenote: His writ to Gisa.] King could not love less.[115] If Bishop
Gisa had any fears, they were quieted by a writ securing him in all the
rights and possessions of his see.[116] The construction which we put
upon this act must depend upon the view which we take of the relations
between Harold and Gisa at this moment. We have seen that, according to
Gisa’s own account, the King promised to restore the disputed lands,
and was hindered only by his death.[117] At any rate, Harold showed
either that he was unconscious of wrong, or that, if he was conscious,
he was anxious to make atonement. [Sidenote: His friendship with the
Abbots Leofric and Æthelwig;] Among the monastic Prelates, the history
will show that he could count on the loyal service, not only of his
uncle at the New Minster of Winchester,[118] but of the member of the
rival house who ruled over the Golden Borough.[119] Peterborough, it
should be remembered, is the only monastic foundation of which Harold
is distinctly recorded as a benefactor.[120] The intercourse between
Harold and Abbot Leofric was plainly one of mutual confidence and
mutual good offices. Æthelwig also, the prudent Abbot of Evesham, stood
high in the new King’s favour. The soul of the saintly Mannig had
passed away at the same hour as the soul of the saintly Eadward,[121]
and the church of Evesham was now under the sole rule of the Prelate
whose wisdom had already commended him to Ealdred and was afterwards
still more specially to commend him to William. With Harold the
influence of Æthelwig was great; the Abbot, we are told, obtained from
the King whatever he asked.[122] One would like to know more clearly
the nature of the requests made by such a Prelate to such a King.
[Sidenote: and with Saint Wulfstan.] But among the ranks of monks and
Bishops there was one greater than Gisa or Leofric or Æthelwig, one
whose prayers and whose counsels Harold had long learned to value. The
holy Wulfstan had for years been his tried friend, and it was on the
tried friendship of that true man of God that Harold chose to lean in
the first of the many trials of his short reign.
[Sidenote: Formal concurrence of Northumberland in Harold’s election.]
There can be no doubt that the Witan of Northumberland, no less than
the Witan of the rest of England, had concurred in the election of
Harold. The expressions of our best authorities declare that the chief
men of all England concurred in the choice;[123] the Primate of the
Northumbrians had filled the first place in the work of Harold’s formal
admission to his Kingdom, and there is nothing to show that the Earl of
the Northumbrians openly dissented. But a little thought will show that
the real feelings of Northumberland could not be so easily tested in an
Assembly held in London as the real feelings of Wessex and East-Anglia.
We cannot suppose that the North was represented in such an Assembly
in anything like the same proportion as the districts nearer to the
place of meeting. [Sidenote: Working of the Witenagemót as a Primary
Assembly.] This is always one of the weak points of a Primary, as
distinguished from a Representative, Assembly. In a Representative
Assembly, if members are fairly apportioned to districts, a part
of the country far away from the place of meeting may be as well
represented as one that is close to it. In a Primary Assembly the
different parts of the country cannot be put on an equality except by
taking the votes, not by heads, but by tribes, cities, or cantons.[124]
Northumberland might, by this means, have had an equal voice with
Wessex in the national Councils, though the West-Saxons present might
have been counted by hundreds or thousands, and the Northumbrians
only by tens or units. But this political subtlety does not seem to
have been thought of in the primitive parliamentary system of our
forefathers. It follows then that, wherever a Gemót was held, some
part of the country was placed at a disadvantage. East-Anglia was
placed at a disadvantage when the Gemót was held at Gloucester;
Western Mercia was placed at a disadvantage when the Gemót was held
in London. [Sidenote: Northumberland never fairly represented.] And
as no regular Gemót seems to have been held in Eadward’s time at any
place north of Gloucester,[125] Northumberland was always placed at
a disadvantage. We may conceive that, in the Gemót which elected
Harold, that is, the Gemót assembled for the consecration of the West
Minster, Wessex, East-Anglia, and south-eastern Mercia were largely
represented. The citizens of London were ready on the spot. But it is
not likely that the Northumbrians present would be more than a mere
handful. The Archbishop, the Earls, the Bishop of Durham, and a few of
the leading Thegns would doubtless obey the royal summons. But it is
not likely that many besides these would undertake such a journey in
the middle of winter. We can therefore fully understand that the mass
of the Northumbrian people might feel that an election had been made
to which they had not consented. The election had been made in all due
constitutional form. Still a most important step, a step affecting
the whole Kingdom, a step likely to be in many ways repugnant to
Northumbrian feeling, a step to which Northumberland had practically
not been a consenting party, had been taken by a part of England in the
name of the whole. By that step the mass of the Northumbrian people
refused to be bound.[126]
[Sidenote: Harold’s election naturally repugnant to Northumbrian
feelings.]
That the old provincial jealousy should break out again at this
moment was not wonderful. It was something strange and new even for
West-Saxons to set over them a King of their own blood, who was not
of the royal house. But it was something stranger and newer still for
Northumbrians to be called on to acknowledge a King, who was neither
of their own blood nor of the blood of their old West-Saxon conquerors,
but who sprang from a West-Saxon house which, two generations back,
had been undistinguished, perhaps ignoble. This feeling on the part of
the Northumbrian people was short-sighted and ungenerous, but it was
perfectly natural. The question is, how far the sons of Ælfgar, who had
not dared to oppose Harold’s election in open Gemót, now stirred up, or
took advantage of, the natural feeling of the Northumbrian people. Our
evidence is very slight, but the conduct of Eadwine and Morkere a few
months later makes it almost impossible to doubt that they saw, in the
unwillingness of Northumberland to acknowledge the newly-chosen King,
an admirable means towards carrying out their schemes for the division
of the Kingdom. We have no distinct details of what actually happened
in Northumberland at this moment. The one writer who tells the story
wraps [Sidenote: The Northumbrians refuse to acknowledge Harold.] up
the minuter facts in a cloud of rhetoric.[127] It is plain however that
the Northumbrians did, in some shape or other, refuse to acknowledge
Harold as their King. There is nothing to show that there was any
armed resistance, or that any Northumbrian Gemót took upon itself to
elect another King. The resistance to Harold’s authority was probably
passive, but resistance of some kind there was. [Sidenote: Similar
position of Harold in January and of William in December.] Harold,
in short, found himself in January in very nearly the same position
with regard to the northern part of his Kingdom in which William found
himself in December. Each alike had been elected and crowned; each had
received the allegiance of the Northumbrian Earl, and had been hallowed
as King by the Northumbrian Primate. But Harold and William alike
found that the submission of Morkere and the benediction of Ealdred
did not necessarily carry with them any practical authority over the
old Northumbrian realm. And we cannot doubt that [Sidenote: Probable
agency of Eadwine and Morkere.] the heart of Morkere went forth as
little in his oath to Harold as it went forth in his oath to William.
We cannot doubt that Morkere, and Eadwine also, took advantage, in
the former case as in the latter, of the natural disposition of
the Northumbrian people. The momentary hopes which were roused by
the unwillingness of the Danish and Anglian North to acknowledge
the West-Saxon King overcame the fear lest Tostig should come to
recover his Earldom by force. Weighed against such hopes, the tie of
allegiance, the tie of gratitude, the tie of affinity, was not likely
to be strong. The claims of a King, a benefactor, perhaps a brother,
would seem small compared with a chance of personal exaltation. The
duty of keeping England united in the face of her foes would seem as
nothing compared with the chance of gratifying a paltry provincial
jealousy. I may seem to be passing a harsh judgement on the sons of
Ælfgar in a matter in which their names are not directly mentioned. But
I am simply supposing that their conduct now was of a piece with their
conduct a few months before and a few months after. And it is hard to
see what form could be taken by even a passive resistance to Harold’s
authority, unless that resistance was fostered by the connivance, to
say the least, of the reigning Earl.
[Sidenote: Harold’s way of recovering the disaffected.]
Harold then found himself in January, as William found himself in
December, King of a realm of which Northumberland constitutionally
formed a part, but a King to whom Northumberland presented a front
of at least passive resistance. But Harold’s way of bringing in the
proud Danes of the North to his obedience was not exactly the same
as William’s way. Harold knew how to win back the revolted province
without shedding a drop of blood and without harrying a single acre of
ground. It is small blame to William, granting his position in England
at all, that no such peaceful means were open to him as were open
to Harold. But, if Harold’s way of recovering rebels differed widely
from William’s, it differed no less widely from that of Harthacnut, of
Tostig, or of Eadward himself. Three months before, the saintly King
had been eager to carry fire and sword into a province which, though
it despised his authority, does not seem to have disputed his title.
His good genius, in the shape of Harold, had then kept him back from a
bootless war against his own people.[128] That same province was now in
revolt against Harold himself; but it was soon shown that the policy
of Harold the King was in no way changed from the policy of Harold the
Earl. The conqueror of Gruffydd was less eager for war and bloodshed
than the King who had never grasped axe or sword except in a peaceful
pageant. King Harold showed that the motto on his coin was one which
he was ready fully to carry out in practice. He at least knew that,
at such a moment, civil war, civil dissension, between [Sidenote: He
determines to visit Northumberland in person.] Englishmen, was simple
madness. With that noble and generous daring which is sometimes the
highest prudence, Harold determined to trust himself in the hands of
the people who refused to acknowledge him. Those his enemies who would
not that he should reign over them, instead of being brought and slain
before him, were to be won over by the magic of his personal presence
in their own land. We know not whether Harold had ever before set foot
on Northumbrian ground. His vast possessions indeed extended beyond
the Humber. The lordship of Coningsburgh, more famous in romance than
in history, together with a large surrounding territory, owned Harold
as its lord.[129] A house of Harold’s probably marked the height which
is now crowned by the renowned castle of later times; but we know not
whether the great Earl ever found leisure to visit a possession so far
removed both from the scenes of his labours at Gloucester, Winchester,
and London, and from the scenes of his pleasure and devotion in his
own woods and by his own minster at Waltham. But one thing is certain,
that years had [Sidenote: 1031. Rarity of royal visits to the North.]
passed since Northumberland had seen a King. Thirty-five years earlier
Cnut had passed through the land on his victorious march against the
Scots.[130] Whether the first Harold, whose capital seems to have been
Oxford, ever found his way to York is uncertain. But there is nothing
to lead us to suppose that Harthacnut or Eadward had ever seen any
part of their dominions north of Shrewsbury, perhaps not even north
of Gloucester.[131] Thus the mere presence of a King in the North of
England would be something strange and exciting, and the mere presence
of a King can, as we all know, often work wonders. Harold then set off
for Northumberland, to win over the disaffected province, not by arms,
but by the power of speech and the magic of royal courtesy. But he went
[Sidenote: He takes Bishop Wulfstan with him.] not alone. The companion
whom he chose seems to show how important a part of Harold’s policy
it was at this moment to show himself as the choice and the friend of
the national Church. With the King went the best and holiest Prelate
in England, his old and tried friend, the saintly Bishop of Worcester.
On the example and the eloquence of Wulfstan Harold relied to win over
those in whose ears he might himself charm in vain.
Harold and Wulfstan then set forth on their journey northward. They
would probably take with them Housecarls enough for their own personal
protection, but it is plain that they took with them no force capable
of controlling or overawing the country. The power of speech and
of reason, the example and the influence of the brightest light
of the national priesthood, were the arms to which Harold trusted.
[Sidenote: Harold and Wulfstan persuade the Northumbrians to submit.]
Our narrative tells us only the result and not the process. The
proud Danes, unconquerable by steel,[132] bowed their necks to the
gentle yoke of Harold and Wulfstan, and the authority of the new King
was acknowledged throughout Northumberland. One could well wish to
know more of the details. The biographer of Wulfstan attributes the
happy result wholly to the reverence with which the Saint inspired
the fierce spirits of the North. From the merits and the honour of
Wulfstan, a true Saint and the chosen friend of Harold, I should be
sorry to derogate one jot or one tittle. But I cannot but think that
the presence, the arguments, the eloquence, of the hero-King himself
must have had some share in winning over his people to his [Sidenote:
Harold in the Gemót at York.] allegiance. In the Gemót at York, which
was evidently summoned for the purpose,[133] he might appeal to every
feeling of patriotism, and conjure them, as Englishmen, not, at such
a moment, to separate the cause of one Earldom from the common cause
of England. If England were torn by civil war, even if England were
peacefully divided, what assurance was there that Wessex alone could
withstand the attacks of William, that Northumberland alone could
withstand the attacks of Tostig? But if England were united—and
under none but Harold could she be united—she might be able to hold
up against both enemies at once. He might appeal to every feeling
of personal gratitude; he might remind the Northumbrian people how
lately he had sacrificed his brother to their will, how lately he had
saved them from a civil war, when King Eadward was eager to march
his armies against them. The personal pleadings of a King, even
when they are far weaker in themselves, are seldom heard in vain;
and the voice of reason and prudence, speaking from the lips of such
a King as Harold, was still less likely to be without fruit. The
Northumbrian Danes had received from Harold a mark of consideration and
confidence such as they had hardly [Sidenote: Harold acknowledged in
Northumberland.] received from any King since the days of Eadgar.[134]
It is no wonder then that the mission of the King and his saintly
companion was successful for the moment. Harold was received as King
by Northumberland, as he had already been received as King by the rest
of England. Perhaps none of his exploits was more glorious than thus
to win for himself a great province, an ancient Kingdom, by the mere
force of reason and justice. And there is nothing to show that the
Northumbrian people fell away from their loyalty, or showed themselves
unworthy of the trust which [Sidenote: Continued dangers from Eadwine
and Morkere.] their King had placed in them. But the root of evil was
left behind. On the decisive step of removing the sons of Ælfgar from
their Earldoms Harold could not venture. He was obliged to leave a
portion of the Kingdom stretching at least from the Welland to the
Tweed in the hands of rulers who could not be trusted. The very ease
with which Harold had won the hearts of the Northumbrian people would
be of itself a root of bitterness in the hearts of Eadwine and Morkere.
They were now further than ever from any hopes of peaceful kingship.
They must either be loyal lieutenants of their brother-in-law[135] or
else open or secret rebels against him. We shall see what was the fate
of Northumberland and of England, when so vast a power had to be left
in such unworthy hands.
[Sidenote: Harold King]
But for the moment King Harold was indeed King over the whole realm. He
had won the hearts of the whole [Sidenote: over all England.] English
people from Wight to Lindisfarne, as perhaps no other King had won
them since England had acknowledged a single King. It may be that the
holy man whom he had chosen as his guide and partner chose that moment
of his highest exaltation to set before him a picture of the sins of
England, and to exhort him to devote himself to their reformation.[136]
Or it may be that the warnings of Wulfstan to Harold, like the warnings
of Solon to Crœsus, are merely part of a grand dramatic picture,
showing how the shadow of the wrath to come was already spreading over
the land. But, for the moment, all was brighter than at any other
moment of the year. King Harold, full King over all England, came back
in peace to his palace at Westminster.
[Sidenote: Harold keeps Easter at Westminster. April 16.]
It was there that he kept the Easter Festival, and held his Easter
Gemót, the one recorded Festival and the one recorded Gemót of his
short reign.[137] But the reign of Harold, short as it was, marks
an important stage in the [Sidenote: Increased importance of London
under Harold.] gradual process by which London became the capital of
England. Eadward and Harold were both, by widely different motives,
drawn to Westminster as their chief dwelling-place. Eadward loved to
dwell under the shadow of the church which he was rearing. Harold saw
that London was the fittest spot for the ordinary abode of a King who
might at any moment be called to the defence [Sidenote: Advantages of
the position of London.] of any part of his Kingdom. Less suited than
Oxford to be the gathering-place of assemblies from North and South,
the great inland haven of the Thames, the city guarded alike by its
Roman walls and by the strong hearts of its citizens, was the best
centre for operations which might have to be carried on by land or by
sea, eastward, northward, or southward. Wales was subdued; Ireland was
seemingly friendly; at any rate the danger from both those quarters was
comparatively trifling, and the western shore and the western frontier
might be left to take care of themselves. But the whole southern and
eastern coast of England was exposed to the double enemy, and for the
defence of the southern and eastern coast London was obviously the best
centre. For that part of England which was under the immediate rule of
the new royal house, for Harold’s own Wessex, for the Earldoms of Gyrth
and Leofwine, the city was almost geographically central. London then
became, under Harold, a more constant royal dwelling-place [Sidenote:
Four successive festivals at Westminster. Christmas 1065–1066; Easter
1066; Pentecost 1066; Christmas 1066–1067.] than it had ever been
before. It had perhaps never before happened that four successive
festivals of the Church were kept by an English King on the same spot.
But such must have been the case at Westminster during this year of
wonders. Gloucester had been forsaken for that great Midwinter Feast
at Westminster, in which the Crown was worn by Eadward on the day of
the Nativity and by Harold on the day of the Epiphany. Winchester
was now forsaken for Harold’s one Paschal festival. For Pentecost
Westminster was now the usual place, and if King Harold found time to
hold a Whitsun Feast at all, it was doubtless at Westminster that he
held it. At the next Midwinter Feast Westminster again beheld another
master, and her church and palace became the scene of other crowning
rites. Thick and fast indeed came the events which caused the creation
of Eadward to become, from its very birth, the hearth and home of the
English nation.
[Sidenote: Did Harold avoid Winchester?]
It is possible that Harold may have had another, a secondary, motive,
which led him to hold his Festival in some other place than the capital
of his former Earldom, the resting-place of his father and of his
murdered cousin. Harold had faithfully carried out all the dying wishes
of Eadward. Those of Eadward’s Norman friends who were willing to
dwell peaceably in the land were not disturbed. Every day of Harold’s
reign saw masses and prayers go up from the altars of the West Minster
on behalf of the soul of its founder. And Eadward’s other request, that
his widow might keep her royal rank and honours, was carried [Sidenote:
Eadgyth at Winchester.] out no less faithfully. Eadgyth, now, in
Old-English phrase, the Old Lady, withdrew to that royal dwelling-place
at Winchester which seems, in this age, to have been specially reserved
for the widows of Kings. There Emma had spent the last days of her
life,[138] and there now Eadgyth [Sidenote: Her apparent disaffection.]
dwelt with all the honours of her rank, but in all probability as no
faithful subject of her royal brother. Her sisterly affection was set
upon Tostig, and it would even seem that, after Tostig’s overthrow, her
sympathies were transferred from the brother who had overthrown him to
the invader who might be looked on as his avenger.[139] It is possible
that Harold might feel inclined to avoid a city whose chief inhabitant
was a sister in such a frame of mind. But it may simply be that he
found London the best centre for his councils and operations. And we
may add that the mere fact of Winchester being assigned as the place of
dowry to the widows of Cnut and Eadward shows of itself that the old
West-Saxon capital was fast yielding the first place among the cities
of England to the great military and commercial post on the Thames.
[Sidenote: Easter Gemót at Westminster. April 16–23.]
At Westminster then King Harold held his one Easter Feast, and there
doubtless he wore his Crown in the same kingly state as the Kings who
had gone before him. The Feast implies the Gemót, and of the main
subjects of debate in a Gemót at such a moment we can have little
doubt. It would be the King’s business to obtain from the assembled
nation every help that was needed for the defence of the country.
It would be his business to warn his people alike against unworthy
fear, against unreasonable confidence, and against that mere slowness
of movement, that shrinking from prolonged and wearying service,
which were the besetting sins of Englishmen. It was in short the
part of Harold to inspire his people, as far as might be, with that
unconquerable energy which was the distinguishing feature of his own
character. But of the acts of that Assembly we have no record. All
that we can say is that it must have been at that Easter gathering
that the two recorded ecclesiastical appointments of Harold’s reign
were made. At the time of Eadward’s death the great Abbey of Ely was
without an Abbot, and Harold had been only a few weeks on the throne
when a vacancy also occurred in the Abbey of Abingdon. To this last
house the Earl of the West-Saxons had more than once acted a friendly
part, sanctioning and suggesting the benefactions of others, even if
he did not directly appear as a benefactor [Sidenote: Death of Ordric,
Abbot of Abingdon. January 22.] himself.[140] Seventeen days after the
death of Eadward Abbot Ordric of Abingdon died.[141] The appointment
of his successor, Ealdred, a monk of the house, must have taken place
at the Easter Gemót. Of the new Prelate we shall hear again during the
troubles of the next reign.[142]
[Sidenote: Wulfric Abbot of Ely. 1044–1065?]
The appointment to Ely is of more moment, as it plainly sets forth
Harold in the character of an ecclesiastical reformer. The last Abbot
Wulfric, who is spoken of as [Sidenote: The Abbey held in plurality
by Stigand.] a kinsman of King Eadward, had lately died. On his death
the Abbey was given to Archbishop Stigand, as an addition to his
already large stock of preferment. Neither Wulfric nor Stigand is
spoken of as a good husband of his church’s worldly wealth. Wulfric
had secretly conveyed some of the lands of the Abbey to his brother
Guthmund, and he is described as dying of grief and shame for this
sin. Stigand now, we are told, suggested to Harold the appointment
of an Abbot. But, with Florence’s panegyric before us, we may be
inclined to believe that Harold, now at least become the patron of
monks and monasteries, was anxious that his reign should be an æra of
ecclesiastical reform. It would be a good beginning to put a stop to
the scandal of the Archbishop of Canterbury holding the Abbey of Ely in
plurality. Possibly the exhortations of Saint Wulfstan may have dwelt
upon this evil, as upon so many others. We may therefore be inclined
to believe that it was Harold who suggested to Stigand, rather than
Stigand who suggested to Harold, the appointment of an independent
[Sidenote: Thurstan appointed Abbot. 1066–1076.] Abbot. At any rate an
appointment was made by the royal authority, and we cannot doubt that
it was duly made by King Harold and his Witan at this Easter Gemót. The
new Prelate, Thurstan, whose name proclaims his Danish descent, bears
a good character in the local history; he had been brought up in the
house from his childhood, and had been well instructed in the learning
of [Sidenote: He is blessed by Stigand.] the times. By the King’s
order, he received the abbatial benediction from the Archbishop who had
made way for him. Stigand had before been deemed fit to bless an Abbot,
though not to consecrate a King or a Bishop.[143] The new Abbot’s reign
was a busy and a troubled one. We shall hear again of him and of his
house in the course of the great struggle against the Conqueror. At
present he had to deal [Sidenote: Lands of Ely detained by Stigand and
Guthmund.] with adversaries on a smaller scale. Stigand, like many
other Prelates on resigning one preferment for another, and especially
on resigning one held in plurality, continued, so the local writers
tell us, to keep a large share of the lands of Ely in his own hands.
He made up however in some measure for this fault by the most splendid
gifts to the church of Ely in the way of vessels and ornaments.[144]
With Stigand perhaps it might not have been prudent for the new Abbot
to meddle, but he did his best to recover the lands which Wulfric had
conveyed to his brother. Guthmund was brought to a compromise not
unusual in such cases, by which the lands were to revert to the Abbey
at his death. But the coming overthrow of England carried the stolen
possessions away alike from Guthmund and from Saint Æthelthryth. In the
storms which soon fell upon the monastery of Ely, the lands of which
Abbot Wulfric had defrauded his brotherhood came into the hands of the
Norman Hugh of Montfort.[145]
[Sidenote: The Crown challenged by William. [January 15?]]
Signs of those no longer distant days were already beginning to show
themselves in the heaven above and in the earth beneath. Perhaps at
that very Easter Feast, perhaps at some yet earlier moment of Harold’s
reign,[146] came the message which told him to his face, what he had
all along known in his heart, that his reign over England would not
be undisputed. Harold was King, acknowledged as King by every Earldom
and every shire in England. He was King, alike by the will of his
predecessor, by the choice of his people, by the consecration of the
Church, by the homage of the Thegns and Prelates of England. But now
a voice came proclaiming aloud to Harold, to England, and to Europe,
that another claimed the Crown he wore, and claimed it by an earlier
bequest of Eadward, by an earlier homage of Harold himself. The great
enemy had at last openly thrown down the gauntlet. Duke William of
Normandy had proclaimed himself to all the world as the true heir of
Eadward, as the lawful King of the English. The benediction of Thurstan
of Ely was the last peaceful event of Harold’s reign. Wars and rumours
of wars, challenges and answers between leaders of armies, fill up the
six months which still divide us from the last act of the great tragedy.
[Sidenote: Appearance of the Comet. April 24–30.]
And, if those days were on earth days of distress of nations and
perplexity, days when men’s hearts were failing them for fear, they
were days too in which the men of those times were led to deem that
the very powers of heaven were shaken. Strange and awful signs, mighty
storms, a horror of great darkness at noon-day, are recorded in the
chronicles of distant lands among the portents of this memorable
year.[147] But there was one sign above all which struck the hearts of
all mankind with awe. Men looked to the sky, and there they saw such
a token in the heavens as no man had ever seen before.[148] Not only
over all England, but, as men deemed, over the whole world,[149] the
sky was ablaze with a mighty mass of flame, which no man doubted was
sent to kindle a fire upon the earth. The octave of the Easter Feast
had barely passed, when, on the evening of the ninth day, the hairy
star, the comet as some had learned to call it,[150] shone over the
land with a fearful glare. For seven—some say for thirty—nights,[151]
from sunset to dawn,[152] its bright orb blazed with rays like the
noon-tide sun, while the vast train of light streaming behind it seemed
to set the whole [Sidenote: Effect of its appearance on men’s minds.]
southern quarter of the heavens on fire. Men gazed and wondered in
every land. The appearance of that great star is recorded in chronicles
written too far from our shores for the fate of Harold or of England to
be deemed of any moment. But no man in any land ventured to deem that
such a token came without its mission. As of old the stars in their
courses fought against Sisera, so now that wondrous star was doubtless
sent to fight against some one among the great ones of the earth. And
in England, where men’s minds must already have been wrought up to
the highest pitch, where a new native dynasty had just arisen, where
two foreign invaders were already threatening, the wonder and anxiety
must have been even greater than in other lands. The vulgar gazed in
silence, lifting up their hands in wonder. The more learned or the more
daring took on them to expound the prodigy to their fellows. One such
interpreter of the future bore the news of the token to King Harold
on his throne.[153] Holy men, prophets of evil, spoke openly, in the
spirit of Kalchas, of Micaiah, or of Eadward himself, of the woes
which were coming upon the land. Far away in his cell at Malmesbury,
an aged monk, Æthelmær by name, a dabbler in arts and sciences
beyond his age,[154] broke forth into a flood of vague and terrible
prediction. The star had come to bring tears to many mothers; he had
beheld the same sign in former days, but now it had come to bring a
far more fearful overthrow upon his native [Sidenote: Comet of 975;]
land.[155] The sign was indeed one of awe and warning. Ninety years
before, such another sign had been seen in the heavens, and fast on
its appearance had followed the troubles of the reign of the martyred
Eadward.[156] Famines, earthquakes, civil commotions, had followed
hard upon the track of the [Sidenote: of 989.] blazing beacon. Only a
few years later, so the reckonings of astronomers tell us, the very
comet on which men were now gazing must have come to herald in the
great renewal [Sidenote: [991–994.]] of the Scandinavian invasions,
the terrible invasions of Olaf and Swend, the fight of Maldon and the
general ravaging of England.[157] Still the message of warning was not
necessarily a message of despair. Another such token had—not [Sidenote:
of 1017.] ushered in but closed—the horrors of the year of strife
between Cnut and Eadmund;[158] it had come as it were to shine over
the grave of the English hero, to shine as a beacon lighting the path
of glory which opened before the Danish conqueror. So now, some great
event was doubtless portended; some mighty ruler was soon to meet with
his overthrow; but who could say whether the fiery sword which hung
over the world was drawn on behalf of Harold or on behalf of William?
But from that day forth no man doubted that the sword of the Lord was
drawn; no man doubted that that sword could not be quiet, and that it
would not return to its scabbard till it had drunk its fill.
[Sidenote: Summary.]
We must now turn from that great Easter Feast at Westminster, and from
the portent which must have served to light the Witan of England to
their homes. We leave King Harold on his throne, the acknowledged chief
of his own people, but with his right challenged by the one man among
living princes who could stand forth and defy the chosen of England
as an equal and worthy rival. The details and the substance of that
challenge form the beginning of another portion of my tale. I reserve
them therefore till we have traced out the later actions, the wars
and the intrigues, of the great enemy beyond the sea. I have now to
sketch the events of years neither few nor unimportant in the history
of William, and therein to bring to light one page which I would gladly
blot out in the history of Harold. I have now to take up the thread of
my Norman history, from the day when William, the guest of Eadward,
went back to his own land, already deeming himself the heir of England,
to the day when, as the open rival of Harold, he put forth before
heaven and earth his claim to the Crown which the choice of England had
given to another.