I have gone on uninterruptedly through the Latin writers, but I must

now go back some generations to quote the very curious account given

by Robert of Gloucester (i. 354 Hearne). He is all loyalty towards the

Ætheling, and admiration towards those who supported his cause.

“Harald þẏs false erl, þo Seynt Edwarde dede laẏ,

Hẏm sulue he let crounẏ kẏng þulke sulue daẏ,

Falslẏche; vor Seẏnt Edward so wel to hẏm truste,

þat he bẏtot hẏm Engelond, þat he ẏt well wuste

To Wyllammes byof þe bastard, duc of Normandẏe.

Ac hẏm sulf he made kẏng mẏd such trecherẏe.

_Ac þe gode tryw men of þe lond wolde abbe ẏmade kẏng_

_þe kunde eẏr, þe ȝonge chẏld, Edgar Aþelyng._

Wo so were next kẏng bẏkunde, me clupeþ hẏm Aþelyng.

þervor me clupede hẏm so, vor bẏkunde he was next kyng.

Ac Harald made hẏs weẏ bẏvore, as mẏd suykedom,

Mẏd ȝẏftẏs and myd vayre byheste, and avong þe kẏnedom.

_So þat somme hẏm chose alout, and somme hem hulde stẏlle_,

And soffrede as hii noeȝt ne mẏȝte al oþeres wẏlle.

So þat Harald was kẏng, to wom þe hele þe kẏnedom.

And Seẏnt Edwardes sẏȝte bẏ hẏm to soþe come.

Vor þo bẏgan þe wow vorst, as me mẏȝte ẏse,

þat ssolde, as Seẏnt Edward seẏde, bẏ þre kẏnges day be.”

Loyalty to Eadgar and the orthodox interpretation of Eadward’s vision

of course go together.

Lastly, one step only remains to be taken, namely to make the oath and

perjury of Harold a sin, not against William but against Eadgar. We

get the first glimmering of this in a Flemish writer of the thirteenth

century, Hariulf, the author of the Chronicon Centulense or Chronicle

of Saint Riquier in the second volume of D’Achery’s Spicilegium. He

died in 1143. His account (p. 345) is as follows;

“Postquam autem mortuus est Rex Ethguardus, Herioldus quidam Comes

regnum sibi accepit contra fas, et contra fidem sacramenti quod

prædicto Regi juraverat, spondens quod pronepoti ipsius Regis, nomine

Elfgaro, regnum cederet absque ullo impedimento. At quum regni

potestate et fascibus injustè uteretur, _expulso Ethguardi pronepote

Elfgaro_, summus et super omnia potens Deus, in cujus jussu constant

regna terrarum, et qui donat ei cui vult, signo mirabili è cœlo

ostenso, destinavit Guillelmum Ducem Normannorum Anglorum Regem

fieri; et quia veraciter Dei nutu idipsum Guillelmus appetebat rei

prosperitate probatum est.”

We may mark here, First, That Harold is supposed, as indeed he is

in the story of his oath to William, to have some kind of power of

disposing of the Crown or influencing its disposal. Secondly, That no

earthly right is recognized in William; he is expressly called to the

Kingdom by a sign from heaven in the shape of the comet.

But it was reserved for an English writer of the fifteenth century

finally to put the notions of Hariulf—wherever Hariulf found them—into

shape, and that into a shape exactly suiting the English politics of

the fifteenth century. Famous John Hardyng, living so long after the

time, naturally knew things which had not been revealed to those who

lived earlier. He devotes two stanzas of his Chronicle to the matter

(p. 232 ed. Ellis). Eadward’s miracles have just been spoken of; then

“Sone after that he dyed and went to blysse;

But fyrste he made Duke Herold protectoure

Of his cousyne, to governe and to wysse,

Edgar Athelyng, full yonge a governoure,

Whom he ordeyned to be his successoure,

As very heyre to Edmonde Ironesyde;

But this Herolde then set all that asyde.

...

Herolde by strength then crowned was for kynge,

Forsworne that was upon the euangelystes

For to crowne Edgar Athelynge,

And hym protecte and defende in all wyse

Unto his age, that none the realm suppryse.

_This was his othe of whiche he was forswore_,

All yf he made Edgar an earle therefore.”

Protectors were much more familiar in the days of John Hardyng than

they were in the days of Florence and the Chroniclers. Here too is

a special revelation, that the oath broken by Harold was an oath to

Eadgar, and not an oath to William. We here get the history of the

eleventh century as it was convenient to read it in the days of Richard

of York and of Edward the Fourth. The “very heir” is wrongfully kept

out by usurpers, the strictest doctrine of legitimacy only is to be

acknowledged, and the rights of William, so sacred in the eyes of

William of Poitiers and Henry of Huntingdon, are now (234) expressly

denied. William came

“In trone royall to have the monarchye,

By his conquest and his victorye,

Withoute tytle of ryght to hym discente,

But onely of his tryumphall entente.”

Lastly, I suppose that I ought at least to mention the words in which

Harold’s accession is recorded in the Brut y Tywysogion, 1066. In the

English translation the entry stands thus; “That Harold who, at first

earl, _through cruelty_ after the death of King Edward unduly acquired

the sovereignty of the kingdom of England, was despoiled of his kingdom

and life by William the Bastard, duke of Normandy, though previously

vauntingly victorious. And that William _defended_ the kingdom of

England in a great battle, with an invincible hand, and his most noble

army.” I am sorry that my ignorance of Welsh hinders me from judging

of the accuracy of the translation of the words in Italics, which

certainly have a strange sound. The whole passage is an amplification

of the corresponding passage in the Annales Cambriæ, in which there is

nothing answering to them.

I have thus traced out the various statements with regard to the

question of Harold’s election. That it was a perfectly regular act

is asserted by two of our highest original authorities, and their

narrative is in no way inconsistent with the narratives of those

original authorities who do not directly mention the fact. The

statement of the Peterborough Chronicler and of Florence was accepted,

as preferable to the counter-statements, by some of the best and most

careful compilers of the next age. Even the Scandinavian writers and

Harold’s own local panegyrists at Waltham are at least witnesses to a

tradition. Simeon, Roger of Howden, and Ralph of Diss are something

more. They deliberately preferred Florence’s statement to any other,

at a time when other statements were much more acceptable to the

reigning powers. As the idea of elective kingship gradually died out,

the tradition of Harold’s regular election would seem stranger and

stranger, so that for a later writer to accept it really implied a

certain amount of critical and independent judgement. On the other hand

we have, first the fact that the highest Norman authority of all, the

Tapestry, though it does not directly assert the election, is quite

consistent with that version, while it is quite inconsistent with the

legend of Harold seizing the Crown by force or fraud. Moreover the

witnesses against Harold, from the very beginning, do not agree among

themselves. Some say that there was no public election; Harold, they

tell us, seized the Crown by a conspiracy with a few men, and reigned

against the will of the nation. Others complain that Harold beguiled

away the whole English people from their allegiance to the lawful heir.

All wrap up their story in vague and declamatory phrases, which may

mean anything or nothing, and which contrast forcibly with the distinct

and clear statement of Florence. Then, as we get a little further

away from the time, all kinds of new ideas come in. Each writer, from

Henry of Huntingdon to John Hardyng, tells the story according to the

political theories of his own age and his own party. When the notion of

hereditary right was gaining strength, when a family sat on the throne

who had other claims than those of the first Norman conquerors, the

supposed rights of William began to drop out of sight. From the twelfth

century onwards, we hear more and more of Eadgar, less and less of

William, till at last, in the fifteenth century, we are pointedly told

that it was not William but Eadgar to whom the false oath of Harold was

taken. Thus the true tradition of Harold’s election had to struggle

with greater difficulties in each generation, as to each generation

the ancient notion of popular election of Kings became less and less

familiar. The Peterborough Chronicler alone, in the joy of his heart,

recorded the election of the hero whom he loved at the moment when

it happened. Every other writer, from Florence onwards, who asserted

Harold’s lawful election, asserted it in the teeth of prevalent

prejudices and prevalent misstatements. From the contemporary entry in

the Chronicle to the one true jewel half hidden in the dung-heap of

Knighton, the evidence in favour of Harold’s election forms a chain

of evidence of the very highest kind, all the higher because every

statement after the first is made in the teeth of statements on the

other side.

Is then the conventional talk about Harold’s accession, the talk about

“occupavit,” “invasit,” “arripuit,” and the like, mere invention, mere

wanton slander? Or is it founded, as both legend and calumny generally

are founded, on some truth misrepresented or misconceived? I think

that in this case also the legend has a certain groundwork of truth.

The origin of this kind of talk is probably to be found in the extreme

haste with which the burial of Eadward, the election and the coronation

of Harold, were got through. There was indeed nothing illegal or

unprecedented in the matter. The first election of Eadward himself had

been made, just like the election of Harold, before the burial of the

King whose death had caused the vacancy. And, had Eadward been on the

spot, he might perhaps have been crowned, as well as elected, with

as great haste as Harold was. And the hurried election of Harold was

far more regular than the hurried election of Eadward. It does not

appear that, when Harthacnut died, any regular Meeting of the Witan was

actually in session. The first election of Eadward must have been made

only by the citizens of London and such of the other Witan as could be

got together at the moment. But the death of Eadward took place during

the Christmas Feast, so that Harold’s election was made by the ordinary

Midwinter Gemót. The thing then was done lawfully and regularly;

still it was done with a haste which might well seem strange, and it

is not wonderful that men in other lands, prejudiced against Harold,

prejudiced against England, ignorant of the Laws of England, should

look on the matter in the worst possible light. On William and his

friends the news came like a thunder-clap. They heard in the same

breath that Eadward was dead and that Harold was consecrated King.

Eadward was King on the morning of Thursday; before the evening of

Friday, Eadward was in his grave, and Harold was King, full King, King

crowned and anointed. All William’s schemes were defeated, as far as

it rested with the peaceful action of the people of England to defeat

them. Not a moment had been allowed him to press his claims. The thing

was done, and the sword only could undo it. It was no wonder then

if, in Norman eyes, the haste of Harold’s accession seemed strange,

indecent, altogether wicked. That it was thoroughly good according to

English Law was a point about which William of Poitiers and his fellows

neither knew nor cared anything. They naturally vented their wrath in

talk about “invasit” and “arripuit.” As usual, declamatory expressions

got substance. Harold was rhetorically said to have “seized” the

Crown; thence came a story that he physically seized it with his own

hands. The burial and the coronation were performed on the same day;

thence came a story that Harold seized the time of Eadward’s burial

for a sham election and coronation. Lastly, the temporary refusal of

Northumberland to acknowledge Harold, of which I shall have to speak a

few pages on, no doubt grew into the account in Orderic, copied by some

later writers, about a large part of the nation standing aloof from

Harold, or being actually hostile to him.

I have now dealt with two of the three points touching Harold’s

accession, namely, the recommendation of Eadward in his favour, and

his actual election by the Witan. The third point which remains is the

coronation. It is impossible wholly to disentangle the evidence bearing

on the coronation from the evidence bearing on the election, so that

some of the references belonging to the subject of the coronation have

been unavoidably forestalled. There remains however more than one point

to be formally discussed in another note.

NOTE D. p. 42.

THE CORONATION OF HAROLD.

There are three points for discussion with regard to the Coronation of

Harold;

First, Was Harold duly consecrated with the usual ecclesiastical rites?

Second, Who was the officiating Prelate at the ceremony?

Third, What was the place of the ceremony?

The evidence on the first point is as decisive as evidence can be. The

ecclesiastical consecration of Harold is asserted by all the three

Chroniclers. Abingdon and Worcester, with small verbal differences,

both say, “Her wearð Harold Eorl eac to Cynge _gehalgod_.” Peterborough

uses another word and gives us the date; “Harold Eorl ... wæs

_gebletsod_ to Cynge on Twelftan mæsse dæg.” Florence, in the passage

which I have throughout taken as my text, states the same fact, and

adds the name of the consecrator. Harold was “ab Aldredo Archiepiscopo

Eboracensi honorificè consecratus.” I therefore have not hesitated to

describe Harold in the text as consecrated by Ealdred, according to the

form of consecration then in use in the English Church.

The writers whom I have already quoted as following the account of

Florence with regard to the recommendation and the election, naturally

follow him also with regard to the coronation. The coronation is also

mentioned as an alternative statement by those writers who mention the

recommendation and election as alternative statements. It is somewhat

curious that Knighton, whose account is the most confused of all, seems

(X Scriptt. 2339) to have no doubt about the coronation; “Nunc Haraldus

ab Aldredo Eboracensi Archiepiscopo consecratus est.” This is the one

position which he leaves without alternative or self-contradiction. The

coronation is of course also asserted by the writer De Inventione (c.

20); “Rex igitur consecratus a Stigando Dorobernensi Archipræsule.”

According to his Norwegian admirer (263), Harold was consecrated King

and anointed (_smeared_) with holy chrism; “Hann var vigdr Kongr oc

smurdr helgum chrisma.” Snorro also (Johnstone, 192; Laing, iii. 77)

asserts that he was duly consecrated, and that on his consecration all

the chiefs and people of the land submitted to him (“Haralldr var til

konungs tekinn, oc vígdr konungs-vigslo inn xiii í Páls-kirkio. Gengo

þá allir höfdingiar til handa hönom, oc allt fólk”).

The Norman writers nearest to the time do not deny an ecclesiastical

consecration. Only they affirm that the officiating Prelate was

Stigand. “Ordinatus est non sanctâ consecratione Stigandi,” says

William of Poitiers (121 Giles); so Orderic in the passage already

quoted (see above, p. 603), who even goes further, and says that the

ceremony was performed by Stigand without the consent of the other

prelates and nobles. William of Jumièges (see above, p. 602) slurs

over the whole matter with the words “regnum invasit.” The Tapestry

distinctly represents an ecclesiastical consecration, but the Prelate

standing by the King on his throne is significantly marked “Stigant

Archiep̄s.”

It is only when we get further from the time that we find any distinct

denial of an ecclesiastical consecration of some sort. Wace, as we have

seen (see above, p. 603), is colourless. Benoît, in the passage already

quoted (ib.), distinctly denies any ecclesiastical consecration. So

does the author of the French Life; he first asserts (4079–4081) that

Harold caused himself to be elected and crowned, because no one dared

oppose him;

“Il se fist de muz eslire

E curuner; kar cuntredire

Nel osa nuls.”

He presently goes on to say, more at length, that the coronation was

done hastily by laymen without any ecclesiastical rite;

“De la Tephanie fu la feste,

Curune mise sur sa teste;

E lendemein ke rois Aedward

Muruit, ke mut li fu vis tard,

De seculers e lai gent,

Par orgoil sudéement,

Sanz sacrement de seint iglise,

Fu curunez e sanz servise.”

(vv. 4095–4102.)

The story that Harold put the Crown on his own head probably comes

from an expression of William of Malmesbury, in the former of his

two accounts (ii. 228; see above, p. 604), “extortâ à principibus

fide, diadema arripuit.” For this Roger of Wendover (see above, p.

605) substitutes the words “extortâ fide a majoribus, capiti proprio

imposuit diadema.” In this he is followed, as we have seen, by Matthew

Paris and Thomas Rudborne, but the latter adds an explanation which

I must presently examine more at length. The Hyde writer too tells

us (290), “regnum Anglorum ... usurpavit, regiumque diadema sibi

imposuit.” So the author of the Annales Regum Angliæ (in the Rishanger

volume, p. 427); “Haroldus filius Godwyni die sexto Januarii seipsum

apud Westmonasterium coronavit.” The same words occur in Brompton (958)

as an alternative. The Ramsey historian also (c. 120, p. 461) speaks to

the same effect; “Haraldus ... diademate regni sese temerè insignivit.”

In all these writers the feeling against Harold is manifest, with the

seeming exception of Thomas Rudborne. He first of all, as I have said,

tells the story in words borrowed from Roger of Wendover, including

the self-coronation of Harold, and his description as “vir callidus et

astutus.” But, as he gets on, he gradually softens. He is sorry that

Harold was guilty of perjury (Ang. Sac. i. 242), because, if he had not

been so, he would most likely have defeated William (“utinam Haroldus

non perjurus fuisset, et disciplinam Aristotelis quam dedit Alexandro

Magno sequutus fuisset; fortè Dei auxilio et non dubium, ut aliquibus

videtur, vicisset Willelmum”). He then goes on to explain how it came

to pass that Harold was never anointed, and why he put the Crown on

his own head (“Iste Haroldus, quamvis semetipsum propriis manibus

coronâsset, numquam tamen Rex inunctus erat”). Harold had scruples

about being crowned by Stigand, on account of his pluralities (“noluit

enim inungi a Stigando Cantuariensi Archiepiscopo, quia injustè duos

pontificatus, viz. Cantuariensem et Wyntoniensem, detinuit”). He wished

to be anointed by Ealdred, but that Primate was very sick at the time.

Harold therefore put off his unction till Ealdred’s recovery (“distulit

enim recipere regiam inunctionem quousque Aldredus Eboracensis

Archiepiscopus sanitati restitueretur, gravi enim infirmitate pro tunc

detinebatur”). Unluckily Ealdred never recovered during Harold’s reign,

and Harold therefore went without unction altogether (“Archipræsul verò

Eboracensis Aldredus ab infirmitate minimè convaluit usque ad mortem

seu occisionem Haroldi”). The statement of Florence and his followers

or, as Rudborne says, of Ralph of Diss and some others (“quod autem

Radulphus de Dyseto Londoniensis Decanus et quidam alii scribunt”),

that Harold was consecrated by Ealdred, he explains as meaning that

Ealdred simply consented to his consecration, not that he consecrated

him in person (“hoc intelligendum est quia Aldredus Archiepiscopus sic

consensit consecrationi, non quod egit seu dedit munus consecrationis

in actu”). How Ealdred could be said to consent to a consecration which

never took place is not very clear. For all this Rudborne refers to

“Auctor de Concordantiis Historiarum Angliæ sub literâ H.” In this

story I can see only an ingenious, but somewhat unlucky, attempt to

reconcile contradictory statements. Still there is something remarkable

in the canonical scrupulousness which it attributes to Harold, though

the form which it takes is somewhat singular. If canonical disabilities

affected one Primate and bodily ailments the other, one does not see

why, as in some later cases, Saint Wulfstan or any other Bishop in the

land might not have officiated by lawful commission.

Putting aside then the misstatements and misconceptions of other

writers as well as the ingenious explanations of Thomas Rudborne, I do

not hesitate to say that the ecclesiastical consecration, as asserted

by the contemporary writers on both sides, must be admitted as an

undoubted fact. The only question open to reasonable doubt is whether

Ealdred or Stigand was the consecrator. The Chroniclers, writing at

the time, before any controversy had arisen, did not mention the

celebrant. Florence, after misstatements had arisen, thought it right

to put on record that the celebrant was Ealdred. He is followed by

the best later compilers, among whom Thomas Stubbs (X Scriptt. 1702)

should specially be mentioned, for he writes as the historian of the

Primates of York, and, though he adopts the words of Florence, he

doubtless represents the independent tradition of the church of York.

The only strictly English writer who represents Harold as crowned by

Stigand is the Waltham writer De Inventione. The compilers, from Roger

of Wendover onwards, seem to have been more taken with the notion of

Harold’s putting the Crown on his own head. Perhaps they did not fully

understand the point of the question between Ealdred and Stigand.

On the other hand, William of Poitiers and Orderic distinctly assert

that Harold was crowned by Stigand (see above, pp. 602, 603); but

they do it in rhetorical passages, in which they go on to enlarge on

Stigand’s schismatical position. Their evident object is to represent

Harold’s coronation as uncanonical and invalid. The representation

in the Tapestry is singular. It does not show Stigand in the act of

crowning or anointing Harold. Harold is already crowned and seated on

his throne, and Stigand stands by, seemingly addressing the people.

The Tapestry always seems to me the most honest and trustworthy of all

Norman accounts; otherwise I could almost believe that there is here an

attempt to insinuate that Stigand was the celebrant without directly

asserting it.

The question is simply this, Is this Norman statement to be accepted in

opposition to the statement of Florence, evidently meant in answer to

it? The statement, very brief and casual, of the one Waltham writer,

cannot be thought to add much to the strength of the case. His notions

about Stigand are a little confused throughout his story, and he might

easily take for granted that, if a King was crowned, he must have

been crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Leaving then the De

Inventione, are we to believe William of Poitiers, supported to some

extent by the Tapestry, or are we to believe Florence? I at least have

no doubt as to preferring Florence to William. Each is undoubtedly the

champion of one side; still the position of the two writers is widely

different. The Archdeacon of Lisieux wrote as the laureate of a living

sovereign, from whose favour he had everything to hope. The monk of

Worcester wrote to clear the memory of a fallen hero from the calumnies

which were already beginning to gather round it. William of Poitiers

writes in a spirit of frantic reviling against Harold; Florence never

displays any unbecoming bitterness against the Conqueror. Besides this,

the assertion of William is simply an assertion; the assertion of

Florence has the weight of a denial. Add to this that William writes

of a transaction which happened in a foreign land of whose laws and

internal affairs he clearly knew nothing. Florence, though hardly of an

age at the time to say much from his own knowledge, was an Englishman

and a Worcester monk, a member of a body which doubtless still watched

the career of their former Bishop with interest. As far then as the

comparative value of witnesses goes, it seems to me that Florence is a

witness in every way more trustworthy than William of Poitiers.

The probability of the case lies the same way. We have seen that the

episcopal ministrations of Stigand were at this time commonly avoided

in England. Harold himself had (see vol. ii. p. 446) chosen Cynesige

and not Stigand to hallow his minster at Waltham. It is therefore most

unlikely that, on the occasion of this still greater ceremony, Harold

should run the smallest risk of awakening scandal or objection. The

custom of the time, and Harold’s own earlier conduct, show that Ealdred

would be asked to perform the ceremony, almost as a matter of course.

Lastly, if the ceremony was really performed by Stigand, the assertion

that it was performed by Ealdred must have been a deliberate falsehood

on the part of Florence or his informants. Mere mistake or carelessness

could never have led to it. But if the celebrant really was Ealdred, we

can understand that the statement that it was Stigand might get abroad

without any absolute lying on the part of any one. Let us suppose a

rumour of Harold’s coronation reaching the Norman court. Such a rumour

might well come without the name of the officiating Prelate. It would

be taken for granted that the ceremony was performed by the Prelate

whose proper function it was, the Metropolitan of Canterbury. The

natural surmise that Harold must have been crowned by Stigand would

soon grow into a rumour that he actually had been crowned by Stigand.

The consecration of the perjured King by the schismatic Primate would

lead to fresh invectives against both. Such a consecration would be

declared to be no consecration; strict churchmen, in the vigour of

their rhetoric, would say that Harold had never been consecrated at

all. In the next stage those words would be taken literally, and we

thus reach the point at which Benoît denies the performance of any

religious ceremony. This process is exactly the same as that by which

ecclesiastical writers so constantly apply the name of concubine, or

sometimes harder names still, to the wives of priests or to other women

to whose marriage there was any canonical objection. Lastly, the belief

that Harold had no ecclesiastical consecration, mixed up with the talk

about “arripuit” and “invasit,” led not unnaturally to the idea, which

seems first to appear in Roger of Wendover, that Harold put the Crown

on his own head.

There is then, I think, no doubt whatever that Harold was consecrated

King with all the usual ecclesiastical rites. That the ceremony was

performed by Ealdred may be thought one degree less certain, but that

too seems to me to be a point on which scepticism is unreasonable. One

point only remains, namely the place of the ceremony, whether Harold

was crowned in the old minster of Saint Paul or in the new minster of

Saint Peter.

Our direct evidence either way comes from quite inferior writers; those

nearest the time, both Norman and English, do not mention the place.

Some of the passages have been already quoted. We have seen that Snorro

places the ceremony at Saint Paul’s. The list of coronations in what we

may conveniently call Rishanger, followed by an alternative statement

in Bromton, places it at Westminster. So does John of Peterborough,

under 1066; “Successit in regnum Harold us Dux West-Saxonum, filius

Godwini, in crastino obitûs Regis, id est in die Epiphaniæ, apud

Westmonasterium coronatus.” On the other hand, in the Brevis Relatio

(Giles 4) we read,

“Adhuc autem erat corpus ejus [Edwardi] super terram, sicut illi postea

retulerunt qui hæc se videre dixerunt, quum Heraldus, quasi insanus

atque postponens quidquid Willelmo Comiti de regno Angliæ juraverat,

videlicet quod ei illud fideliter post mortem Regis Edwardi servaret,

consentientibus sibi civibus Londoniæ, multisque aliis insaniæ ejus

faventibus, apud sanctum Paulum in civitate Londoniæ, contra omnem

rectitudinem, coronam regni Angliæ arripuit.”

Comparing this evidence, such as it is, the balance is distinctly in

favour of Westminster. The witness of Snorro, apparently in favour of

Saint Paul’s, really tells the other way. For he had just before said

(Johnstone, 191; Laing, iii. 77) that Eadward was buried at Saint

Paul’s, whereas there is no need at all to prove that he was buried at

Westminster. Snorro most likely confounded the minsters of the brother

Apostles. But his statement distinctly is that Harold was crowned in

the same church in which Eadward was buried, that is, in Saint Peter’s.

The spirit of the Brevis Relatio, a bitter Norman pamphlet of the time

of Henry the First, is abundantly shown in my extract. The writer

professes to speak from what he has heard from those who were present.

But does his statement really assert a coronation at Saint Paul’s?

What he records is something which took place at Saint Paul’s before

Eadward’s burial. This then could not be Harold’s coronation, for that

took place after Eadward’s burial. Also he does not speak of a formal

coronation; he uses one of the set phrases of Norman declamation,

“coronam regni Angliæ arripuit.” Afterwards (p. 5) he makes William

say how “Heraldus coronam regni Angliæ sibi imposuisset.” These are

the rhetorical phrases which led to the later story of Harold crowning

himself, but they do not in themselves imply any actual coronation at

all. If the writer of the Brevis Relatio means an actual coronation,

he is at once convicted of error by his placing the coronation

before the burial. But it is just as likely that he is not talking

of the coronation but of the election. Harold seizes the Crown with

the consent of the citizens of London and many others. That is most

likely the author’s way of putting the fact that he was elected by the

citizens of London and the rest of the Witan, and it is highly probable

that an Assembly in which the citizens of London were likely to take a

prominent part might be held in Saint Paul’s.

It is therefore by no means clear that there is any evidence at all for

Saint Paul’s. The direct evidence for Westminster, though not good, is

a little better. The statement of John of Peterborough is very clear

and straightforward, but the date of his Chronicle is uncertain, and

it is in any case long after the time. His entry may be merely copied

from Rishanger, whose statement, being found in a special list of

coronations and royal burials, has a certain value, as not being a mere

_obiter dictum_, but the assertion of a man who was specially enquiring

into a certain subject.

But I rest the coronation of Harold at Westminster far less on these

late statements than on the probability of the case and on what seems

to me to be the implied evidence of earlier writers. Florence on the

one hand, William of Poitiers and Orderic on the other, seem pointedly

to connect the burial of Eadward and the coronation of Harold. In

Florence’s narrative, Eadward dies and is buried; “Obiit Lundoniæ et

in crastino sepultus regio more.... Quo tumulato,” he continues, in

the passage which I have so often referred to, “Subregulus Haroldus

... die eodem ... in Regem est honorificè consecratus.” Two great

ecclesiastical ceremonies, one immediately following the other, take

place on the same day; in the absence of any evidence to the contrary,

the presumption surely is that they took place in the same church.

William of Poitiers again (see above, p. 602) and, I may add, William

of Malmesbury (see above, p. 588), seems to complain of the indecency

of having the coronation on the same day as the burial, but they

connect the two things, and they in no way imply any difference of

place. It is only Orderic (see above, p. 603), who, by the use of the

word “furtim,” might possibly suggest that Harold took advantage of

the funeral in Saint Peter’s to be crowned elsewhere by Stigand. But

he does not distinctly say so, nor do his words necessarily imply it.

It strikes me then that Florence implies Harold’s coronation in Saint

Peter’s and that nobody else denies it.

In fact, there was every motive for Harold to be crowned in Saint

Peter’s, there was none for him to be crowned anywhere else. Eadmund

and Cnut had been crowned at Saint Paul’s, but Saint Paul’s was no

traditional crowning-place of West-Saxon royalty. Kingston had been

forsaken, and no other one spot had definitively taken its place. No

prescription was broken through by a Westminster coronation, and the

circumstances of the recent consecration of the church, the death and

burial of the Founder, would draw all men’s minds to the newly hallowed

temple, and cause it to be chosen before all others for the greatest

of national rites. To believe that the Prelates and the other Witan

buried Eadward at Saint Peter’s, and then, without any conceivable

motive, marched off to Saint Paul’s to crown Harold, seems utterly

preposterous. There is good reason to believe that the West Minster

was, from the very beginning, designed as a national crowning-place.

The assertion of the doubtful charter to that effect (see vol. ii. p.

505) is confirmed by the practice of later ages. William was crowned

at Saint Peter’s. The fact that he was crowned there is in truth no

slight argument that Harold was crowned there before him. William

had no motive to innovate on such a point. His only reason for being

crowned at Saint Peter’s must have been because Saint Peter’s had been

specially designed by Eadward for Kings to be crowned in. And that

motive would tell just as strongly with Harold as with William. William

had every motive to connect himself in every way with the memory of

Eadward, and to put himself forward in every way as the true successor

of Eadward and the faithful executor of his wishes. But Harold had

exactly the same motives to do exactly the same. A passage of William

of Malmesbury (quoted above, p. 555) which has been pressed into the

service of the other side (Stanley, Memorials of Westminster, 48) has

no reference to the matter at all. All that is there said is that

William favoured the Abbey of Westminster because he was crowned there,

and that William’s successors, out of reverence for Saint Eadward’s

tomb, were crowned there also. There is not a word, expressed or

implied, to show that William’s was the first coronation in the West

Minster.

I have then, in these three notes, gone, to the best of my power,

through the whole of the points suggested by my text from Florence.

I trust that I have shown that we have the strongest ground that

history can give us for believing that Harold the son of Godwine was

in every way a lawful King of the English, a King chosen, crowned,

and anointed, according to the ancient use of this Church and Realm.

We may quote without hesitation the words even of his own romantic

biographer, when he introduces his hero (ii. 151) as “Illustrissimus

Rex legitimus Haroldus, jam ritè ac legitimè coronatus.” The evidence

of true history, as distinguished from the voice of calumny and

misconception, sets Harold before us as recommended by the dying will

of his predecessor, as chosen to the Kingdom by the consent of a full

and regular Assembly of the whole nation, as consecrated to his kingly

office with all the rites of the Church, at the hands of a Primate

whose canonical position no man ventured to gainsay. And we may add

that there is no ground for depriving the royal Abbey of Saint Peter of

the choicest flower in the rich garland of its historic memories. There

is no ground for doubting that the spot which beheld the royal unction

of Edward and Elizabeth had already received a higher honour still, in

being the spot where, for the first and last time in English history,

an English King received the English Crown purely because he was the

worthiest of the English people.

NOTE E. p. 43.

THE ANCIENT CORONATION OFFICE.

For the details of the coronation-rite I have gone mainly to Selden’s

Titles of Honour (p. 115), to Taylor’s Glory of Regality, a very

careful and accurate work devoted wholly to the subject of coronations,

and to the third volume of Maskell’s Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesiæ

Anglicanæ. As we know that Harold was “honorificè consecratus,” the

very words in which Florence presently describes the coronation of

William, I have held myself fully justified in describing him as

crowned according to the office then in use in the English Church, that

commonly known as the Coronation Office of Æthelred. This office is

printed in full by Mr. Taylor in an Appendix. It is also printed by Mr.

Maskell, but piecemeal in the notes to a later office, which makes it

exceedingly difficult to follow.

It would seem from the rubric of this office that the coronation of the

King was intended to follow immediately upon his election by the Witan.

He was to be led by two Bishops from the meeting of the Elders to the

church (“consecrandum Regem _de conventu Seniorum_ duo Episcopi per

manus producant ad ecclesiam.” Taylor, 395; Maskell, 3). This office,

as I have said in the text, has long been a privilege of the Bishops

of the two sees of Durham and Bath and Wells. This custom, which has

lasted down to our own day (see the Coronation Office of her present

Majesty, Maskell, p. 88), dates from the time of Richard the First, who

was led (see Roger of Howden, Scriptt. p. Bed. 374 _b_) by Hugh, Bishop

of Durham, and Reginald, Bishop of Bath. But it appears from Guy of

Amiens (see pp. 556, 558) that William was led by the two Archbishops.

It is therefore probable that this privilege of the sees of Durham

and Wells is not older than Richard’s time (Maskell, xxix.; Taylor,

321, 325, et seqq.), and that his choice of Bishops for the purpose

was determined by the high descent of the Bishops of those sees at

that particular time, and that from them the right passed on to their

successors.

The election in the church by the clergy and people (“ab Episcopis et

a plebe”) is something distinct from the earlier civil election. In my

text I have simply transferred to the coronation of Harold the account

which we find given of the coronation of William. The process is much

the same in the later offices, down to the form for the coronation

of Henry the Eighth, according to a device drawn up by that prince

himself (see Maskell, 73). The hereditary doctrine is set forth in

the strongest language, but the principle of election is put forth

in language equally strong. Prince Henry is spoken of as “rightfull

and undoubted enheritour by the lawes of God and man;” but he is also

“electe, chosen, and required by all the three estates of this lande

to take uppon hym the seid coronne and royall dignitie.” The assent

of the people is asked in this form, “Woll ye serve at this tyme, and

geve your wills and assents to the same consecration, enunction, and

coronacion? Whereunto the people shall say with a grete voyce, Ye,

ye, ye; So be it; Kyng Henry, King Henry.” This is perhaps the last

very distinct case of election. Since that time the form has gradually

shrunk up into the mere recognition which is now all that takes

place. Indeed the election itself can never have been much more than

a form. Such a form allows no room for the proposing and supporting

of opposing candidates, such as we know to have sometimes taken place

at royal elections (see vol. i. pp. 291, 534, ii. p. 9). It happens

at a stage when the King is already fixed upon, and when all that is

needed is his actual admission to the kingly office. The reason for

going through such an empty form probably was that, as the coronation

was an ecclesiastical rite, it was thought fit that there should be

at least the shadow of an ecclesiastical election, an election by the

clergy, and by the people in their character, not of English freemen

but of baptized men. The King-elect had been already chosen to the

civil office; it still needed the voice of the Church, the voice of

the clergy and of all Christian people, to declare him worthy of the

ecclesiastical sacrament. This ecclesiastical election outlived the

civil one, and it is singular to trace the steps by which it dwindled

down to the present unmeaning form.

It is a most singular thing that a prayer in the office of Æthelred, or

rather in an English office older than that of Æthelred, should have

been copied for a King of the French in the fourteenth century, without

changing those local expressions which were suited to England only.

This curious fact was first mentioned by Selden (Titles of Honour, 177,

189; see also Maskell, 14). The form in Æthelred’s office prays that

the King “totius Regni Anglo-Saxonum Ecclesiam deinceps cum plebibus

sibi annexis ita enutriat et doceat, muniat et instruat, contraque

omnes visibiles et invisibiles hostes idem potenter regaliterque tuæ

virtutis regimen administret, ut regale solium videlicet Anglorum

vel Saxonum sceptro [sceptrum] non deserat.” In the later English

forms the old national names are left out. But in the order for the

coronation of Charles the Fifth of France in 1375 (Selden, p. 189) the

latter part runs thus, “ut regale solium videlicet Saxonum, Merciorum,

Nordanchimbrorum sceptra non deserat.” Maskell also (14) quotes another

French office, which instead of the words “totius Regni Anglo-Saxonum

Ecclesiam” reads “totius Albionis Ecclesiam.” On this he quotes Ménard

as arguing that the King of the French anciently had royal rights

over the Kingdom of England, and that he was crowned King of the

English. He suggests that these rights arose in the person of Lewis

From-beyond-Sea, who might inherit a claim to the English Crown through

his mother Ogiva (Eadgifu. See vol. i. p. 208). Nothing can be plainer

than that the French scribes in both cases copied English offices, and

seemingly two distinct English offices, of which that used for Charles

the Fifth would seem to be older than the office of Æthelred. The

formula “Saxonum, Merciorum, Nordanchimbrorum” must be older than the

simple form “Anglorum vel Saxonum.” The passage also suggests another

question. What are the “plebes annexæ,” annexed, as it would seem, to

the Kingdom of the Angles and Saxons? Surely the reference is to the

dependent members of the English Empire, a reference which had much

less meaning in later English offices and which had no meaning at all

in the French.

With regard to the unction, it strikes me that, according to the

ancient English rite, the King was simply anointed on the head. The

rubric in Æthelred’s office (Maskell, 19) copied in the French office

(Selden, 116) is simply “hic unguatur oleo.” In the later offices the

King is anointed on the hands, breast, shoulders, and elbows, and on

the head last of all. In the very ancient office printed by Maskell

(p. 76) from the Pontifical of Archbishop Ecgberht, the rubric is “hic

verget oleum cum cornu super caput ipsius,” but another rubric follows,

“unus ex pontificibus dicat orationem et alii unguant.” This may

possibly mean such a manifold unction as we find in the later offices,

but at any rate the order is different.

With regard to the regalia, the Tapestry represents Harold as holding

the orb, which at a modern coronation is the subject of a special

ceremony and is directly connected with the investiture with the

“Imperial mantle” (Maskell, 114). But I do not find any form for the

delivery of the orb in Æthelred’s office. The crown represented in the

Tapestry seems to be a crown of fleurs-de-lys, which is the form of the

crown worn by Eadward both on his deathbed and in the earlier scenes.

It differs from that which has just before been represented as offered

to Harold, it differs also from that which Harold bears on his coins,

and none of them seems to have the cross on the top to which Godwine

alludes in his speech in the great Gemót of 1052 (see vol. ii. p. 334).

NOTE F. p. 48.

THE DATE OF THE MARRIAGE OF HAROLD AND EALDGYTH.

It did not occur to me, when writing either the text or the Appendix

of my second volume, that the marriage of Harold and Ealdgyth could

be placed at any date except at some time between the death of her

first husband Gruffydd and Harold’s election to the Crown. See vol.

ii. p. 477. The different accounts which we have, not one of them of

first rate authority, all connect the death of Gruffydd and the second

marriage of his widow (see vol. ii. p. 630), as if no great time had

elapsed between the two events. There is however no direct statement as

to the date to be found anywhere, and one or two hints, none of them

perhaps of any great strength singly, but having together a sort of

cumulative force, have suggested to me that it is quite as likely that

the marriage may have taken place after Harold’s coronation.

1. One of the fullest of the Accounts of Ealdgyth, which I quoted in

vol. ii. p. 630, is that of Benoît de Ste. More, no great authority

certainly. He, it will be remembered, places the death of Gruffydd, and

consequently the marriage of his widow, after Harold’s accession. As to

the death of Gruffydd he is of course wrong, but it is quite possible

that he may have given the right date to the marriage, and may have

wrongly inferred that the death of Gruffydd must have happened a short

time before it.

2. What more immediately concerns us at this point is that none of

the accounts of Harold’s coronation contains any mention of Ealdgyth,

unless the expression of Orderic (quoted in vol. ii. p. 630), which

follows almost immediately after his account of the coronation, and

which might be understood to imply that Harold was already married,

be taken as an exception. The words of Orderic however do not seem

decisive. Neither of course is the absence of any mention of Ealdgyth’s

coronation decisive the other way, but it is worth mentioning among

other hints.

3. In none of the accounts of the messages which passed between William

and Harold after Harold’s coronation is there a single word implying

that Harold was already married, though some mention of his marriage

would have been much to the purpose. And several of the versions imply

that Harold could have married William’s daughter even after his

coronation. Wace (Roman de Rou, 11088) thus sums up Harold’s offences;

“Por li regne se perjura,

E li regne poi li dura.

A tut li regne fist damage,

E en tristor mist son lignage:

Ne volt mie fille el Duc prendre,

Ne cunvenant tenir ne rendre.”

So again in the Cartulary of Saint Bertin, p. 197 (a passage to which I

shall have again to refer), the cause of William’s expedition is said

to be “eo quod filiam ipsius Wilhelmi in uxorem accipere recusaverit

[Haroldus].” This is hardly the language which would be used of a man

who had already taken another wife. Perhaps too the words of William of

Malmesbury (iii. 238) may look the same way. He tells us that Harold

on his accession “nihil de pactis inter se et Willelmum cogitabat,

liberatum se sacramento asserens quod filia ejus quam desponderat citra

nubiles annos obierat.” This is in answer to a message of William,

which must have included a summons to marry some one of his daughters.

Harold answers that the particular daughter to whom he had engaged

himself was dead. This is not at all like the language of a man who was

already married.

In the account given by Eadmer (5), followed by Simeon of Durham

(1066), it is still more distinctly implied that Harold could have

married William’s daughter, even after his coronation. When Harold

refuses to comply with William’s first demands, the Duke sends a second

embassy, calling upon him at any rate to marry his daughter, which

Harold refuses to do (“Iterùm ei amicâ familiaritate mandavit quatenùs,

aliis omissis, servatâ fidei sponsione, saltem filiam suam uxorem

duceret.... At ipse nec illud quidem se facere velle ... respondit”).

The statements quoted in the last two paragraphs are of course very

confused and contradictory. Their evidence as bearing on the real

nature of the engagements entered into between Harold and William I

shall discuss elsewhere. But it is remarkable that, among several

passages where we should have naturally looked for some mention of

the marriage, if it had taken place, not one mentions it, while some

distinctly imply that it had not taken place.

The political motive of the marriage would be much the same, whatever

was its date. Whether it happened before or after Harold’s accession,

it was most likely an attempt to secure the fidelity of Eadwine and

Morkere. If it happened after the coronation, an obvious time for it

would be the time of Harold’s recognition by the Northumbrians (see

Note I).

I do not pretend positively to decide the question, as there is no

direct testimony either way, but I think it right to mention that I

have found what are at least hints favouring a view of the matter which

had not occurred to me when I spoke of it in my former volume.

NOTE G. p. 51.

THE CHARACTER OF HAROLD’S GOVERNMENT.

I mentioned in a former note (vol. ii. p. 538) that Florence of

Worcester, while showing a deep admiration for Harold throughout his

career, keeps back his formal panegyric till he records his election

to the Crown. Immediately after the passage on which I have commented

in three successive notes, he draws a picture describing Harold as in

every respect the model of a just, pious, and patriotic King.

“Haroldus ... ut regni gubernacula susceperat, leges iniquas destruere,

æquas cœpit condere, ecclesiarum et monasteriorum patronus fieri,

episcopos, abbates, monachos, clericos colere simul ac venerari,

pium, humilem, affabilemque se bonis omnibus exhibere, malefactore

exosos habere, nam ducibus, satrapis, vicecomitibus et suis in commune

præcepit ministris, fures, raptores, regni disturbatores comprehendere

et pro patriæ defensione ipsemet terrâ marique desudare.”

This of course is in some sense an ideal picture. That is to say, it

does not refer only to Harold’s short reign as King. What Florence

really means is that the just and vigorous government of Harold’s

earlier days was continued by him after his royal election. Florence’s

panegyric of Harold the King is in short identical in all its main

features with the Biographer’s earlier panegyric of Harold the Earl.

The words of Florence are copied by most of the writers who copy his

account of the election and coronation, such as Simeon of Durham

(1066), Roger of Howden (256 B), Ralph Higden (284), and the Ely

History (ii. 44). It seems in short to have become a sort of formula

with all writers who took the national side. The strangest thing is

when Knighton (2337) gives it in an abridged shape, as an alternative

character of Harold, after some of the most savage abuse on record,

which I shall presently have to quote.

On the other hand, the abuse which the Norman writers hurl at the

newly chosen King is something perfectly frantic. William of Poitiers,

more careful for England than England was for herself, tells us (146,

Giles) how William delivered the Kingdom which he conquered from the

proud and cruel yoke of Harold (“Profectò sustulit a cervice tuâ

superbum crudelemque dominatum Heraldi; abominandum tyrannum, qui te

servitute calamitosâ simul et ignominiosâ premeret, interemit. Quod

meritum in omni gente gratum habetur atque præclarum”). So Orderic

tells us (492 A, D) how the reign which had begun in perjury and

usurpation was carried on in tyranny and wickedness; “Heraldus Goduini

Comitis filius regnum Anglorum usurpaverat, jamque tribus mensibus

ad multorum detrimentum perjurio et crudelitate, aliisque nequitiis

pollutus tenuerat.” So, directly after; “Mox ipse regnum quod nequiter

invaserat, horrendis sceleribus maculavit.” He goes on to add how the

righteous soul of Tostig, whom he fancies to have been in England, was

vexed by the unlawful deeds of his brother (“Tosticus, Goduini Comitis

filius, advertens Heraldi fratris sui prævalere facinus, et regnum

Angliæ variis gravari oppressionibus, ægrè tulit”).

In the French Life of Eadward (4445 et seqq.) we begin to get

details. After a little moralizing, we get a long account of Harold’s

enormities, charging him with pretty nearly every vice, and telling us

how he went on sinning, and how Eadward often appeared and rebuked him

in vain. Then follows a further list of crimes, some of which are very

curious;

“Deners cum usurer amasse,

De gent reindre ne s’alasse,

_Cum vescunte al eschecker_

Set pur deners acunter;

Armes e chivalerie

Del tut despit e ublie;

_Des hestoires n’enquert, n’en ot,_

_Ne d’anciene geste un mot._

Marchand meuz ke prince pert;

K’of ses fardeus feires quert.”

(vv. 4491–4500.)

The complaint against Harold for neglect of historical study might

surely be retorted on Eadward’s panegyrists and his own calumniators.

But there is something very odd, something doubtless characteristic

of the Sheriffs of the thirteenth century, in the picture of the

King sitting “like a Sheriff” at the exchequer, counting over his

money. This charge of avarice we shall come across again, and it

perhaps contains a certain ground-work of truth. That is to say, the

threatening aspect of the times, especially after Eadward’s lavish

expenditure on ecclesiastical objects, called for a prudent economy,

which was sure to be misunderstood. I do not understand what is meant

by Harold’s contempt for arms and chivalry, which is repeated in an

earlier and shorter revilement of him (vv. 4283–4310). It cannot mean

contempt of the specially Norman chivalry, as the word is in this very

passage applied to Harold’s own prowess. For the poet goes on to set

forth Harold’s strength and courage in strong terms, though he adds

that his frightful wickedness made his “chivalry” of no use to him.

I have already alluded to Knighton’s portrait of Harold’s kingly

government; here it is in full (2339). Harold has just been crowned by

Ealdred;

“Iste devenit nimis elatus et cupidus in collectione auri et argenti

et thesaurorum, _nec aliquam uxorem ducere voluit_, sed vi oppressit

filias baronum et procerum et militum de regno, quod ipsi ægrè

ferebant. Et de forestis suis tantam ferocitatem et severitatem ergo

adjacentes nobiliores exercuit, quod quamplures adnihilavit et multos

depauperavit. Nec mirum, quamvis ex his et ex aliis nimis odiosus

devenit populis suis.”

This charge of cruel enforcement of forest laws might almost seem to

have been transferred from William to Harold. It reminds one of some

of the doings of Charles the First in Essex. It is a charge which Sir

Francis Palgrave (Hist. Ang. Sax. 346) has not scrupled to repeat, but,

as Mr. C. H. Pearson (i. 362) truly says, there is not a shadow of

evidence for it except the assertion of this writer of the fifteenth

century. On the words in Italics I shall have to speak again. In those

which follow Knighton might seem to have drawn his portrait from King

John, and, to carry out the analogy, as Lewis was then, so William is

now implored to come over to England as a deliverer.

“Et ideo pars Comitum et Baronum adinvicem conferebant, dicentes non

ipsum esse fortunæ deditum, nec verum esse Regem sed per intrusionem

erectum, et ideo infaustè regere populum suum. Et mandaverunt Willielmo

Duci Normanniæ, qui Bastardus vocatus est, eo quod ante celebrationem

matrimonii natus sit, ut in Angliam veniret eorum consilio et auxilio

jus regni prosequuturus, feceruntque ei fidelem securitatem veniendi;

et consensit.” Immediately after all this comes Florence’s panegyric,

cut a little short, as an alternative picture.

After these general charges against Harold, it is only right to extract

three entries from Domesday, all in the same shire and page (Hampshire,

p. 38), in which Harold is described as seizing the lands of two

persons after his accession to the Crown.

“Leman tenuit in paragio de Rege E. Heraldus abstulit ei quando regnum

invasit, et misit in firmâ suâ, et adhuc ibi est.”

“Leman tenuit de Godwino Comite. Heraldus _quando regnabat_ abstulit

ei, et in suâ firmâ misit, et adhuc est ibi. Ipse Leman non potuit

recedere quo voluit.”

“Godwin tenuit de Rege E. in paragio, nec alicubi poterat recedere.

Heraldus abstulit ei et in firmâ suâ misit. Adhuc est ibi.”

I do not remember to have ever seen these passages quoted in

illustration of the charge of private spoliation which is brought

among other charges against Harold in the French Life. It is clear

that they might be so used by any one who felt inclined. It is equally

clear that we do not know enough about the matter to justify us in

condemning Harold for dealings with his own tenants which may have been

perfectly legal and honest. The entry does not even venture to call the

occupation “unjust,” as it does with regard to Harold’s occupations in

Herefordshire, and also with regard to many cases where Normans had

taken lands from Englishmen and from one another. At any rate, if any

wrong was done by Harold, it was not redressed by his successor. At the

time of the Survey the lands were held, not by Leman and Godwine or by

their descendants, but by King William.

I can hardly think that these entries are enough to make us set aside

the portrait of Harold’s government given us by Florence in favour of

that given by the French Biographer and by Knighton. And I believe it

is the only corroborative evidence for that portrait that can be found.

On the use of the word “regnabat” as applied to Harold, an use unique

in Domesday, I shall have to speak in another volume.

NOTE H. p. 54.

THE COINAGE OF HAROLD.

Too much must not be made of the appearance of the word PAX on the

coins of Harold. The word in various spellings, PAX, PACX, PAXS,

appears on the coins of various Kings from Cnut to Henry the First.

Still it is remarkable that the coins of Harold are singularly common,

considering the shortness of his reign, and that, if I rightly

understand my numismatic authorities, all his coins bear this legend,

while with the other Kings it is only occasional, and with some of

them, as with Cnut, very rare. I may add that Harold seems to have been

the only King who could always spell the word right. Ingenious men

have puzzled themselves to find out some special allusion in the word,

as, in the case of the coins of Cnut, to the agreement between Cnut and

Eadmund for the division of the Kingdom, and, in the case of the coins

of Eadward and Harold, to the agreements made at the restoration of

Godwine. I do not think that the word in any case implies anything more

than the obvious religious or moral sentiment which it expresses. But

it is certainly striking to find that sentiment so constantly expressed

on the coins of the King who, above all others, needed peace, and who,

through the aggressions of others, so utterly failed to find it.

On the whole matter see Ruding’s Annals of the Coinage, i. 137–166 (3rd

ed.), and vol. iii. pl. 26. I have also to thank Mr. Leicester Warren

for some private information contained in a letter to him from Mr. John

Evans.

I am afraid of getting out of my depth when talking of either coins

or crowns, but I cannot help noticing the marked difference between

the arched crown set with pearls which appears on the coins of Harold

and the singular kind of cap which is the commonest among the many

head-pieces affected by Eadward. (See Ruding, iii. pl. 25, and Selden,

Titles of Honour, 133, 134.) Is it possible that the monastic saint

preferred the helm of the warrior, while the hero, in the same spirit

which dictated the legend on the coin, chose to appear in the garb of a

peaceful ruler?

NOTE I. p. 58.

THE OPPOSITION OF NORTHUMBERLAND TO HAROLD’S ACCESSION.

This story is one of the best illustrations of the way in which one

authority fills up gaps in another, and also of the way in which

important facts sometimes lurk in authorities which are not of the

first rank. The Abingdon and Worcester Chronicles both begin their

account of the year 1066 with Harold’s coming from York to Westminster

for the Easter Festival (“On þissum geare com Harold cyng of Eoforwic

to Westmynstre to þam Eastran”). There is not a word about his going

to York or about the cause that took him there. This we learn only

from the account in William of Malmesbury’s Life of Wulfstan (Angl.

Sacr. ii. 253), which we thus see that we can fully trust for the main

outline of the story. The jealousy of the North against the South is

admirably described; only the narrative is confused by a notion that

Tostig had something to do with the matter. William of Malmesbury seems

never to have fully made up his mind where Tostig was at the time of

Harold’s accession. His account of the whole business runs thus;

“Quinto anno collati Wlstano Episcopatûs Rex Edwardus fato functus

ingens seminarium discordiæ reliquit Angliæ; hinc Haroldo, inde

Willelmo Comite Normanniæ, legitimo eam jure clamantibus. Et tunc

quidem Haraldus, vel favore impetratâ vel vi extortâ coronâ, regnum

paullò minus totum obtinuit. Soli Northamhumbri magnum et gentile

tumentes interim parere distulere, Aquilonalem cervicositatem

Australi, ut dictitabant, mollitiei subjugare non dignati. Animabat

eos ad tyrannidem, et insolentiâ suâ ingentes eorum alebat spiritus,

Tostinus ejusdem Regis frater, nec fortitudine degener, si ardens

ingenium tranquillis studiis applicare maluisset. Qui postmodum in

eâdem provinciâ cum Haraldo Rege Noreganorum, quem in suffragium

adsciverat, cæsus pœnas inconsultæ animositatis pependit. Sed hæc

posteriùs. Tunc verò Haraldus eo profecturus, ut contumaciam eorum

lenioribus curaret remediis, quandoquidem ferro frangere consilium

non erat, sanctum virum secum adduxit. Sic enim fama sanctitatis

ejus etiam ad abditissimas penetraverat gentes, ut nullam non

arrogantiam molliturus crederetur. Nec verò citra opinionem rei

fuit eventus. Namque illi populi ferro indomabiles, semper quiddam

magnum a proavis spirantes, pro reverentiâ in jura Haraldi facile

concesserunt. Et profectò perseverâssent, nisi eos Tostinus, ut

dixi, averteret.”

This piece of history is not only valuable in itself, but it also

helps us to the origin of a misrepresentation. We have seen Orderic

(see above, p. 603) asserting that part of the English nation never

submitted to Harold at all, while the rest submitted only unwillingly.

This misstatement is clearly an exaggeration of the fact that

Northumberland did for a short time refuse to acknowledge him. This

same fact may quite possibly be at the bottom of those other stories

about Harold’s oppression and tyranny of which we have heard so many.

Orderic goes on to tell us (492 C) that, though some powerful men

(“potentiorum nonnulli”) refused obedience, yet Eadwine and Morkere

were zealous partizans of their brother-in-law (“Eduuinus verò et

Morcarus Comites, filii Algari præcipui Consulis, Heraldo familiaritate

adhæserunt, eumque juvare toto conamine nisi sunt, eò quod ipse Edgivam

sororem eorum uxorem habebat”). There is no evidence that they were

openly concerned in the resistance of Northumberland, though one

certainly is inclined to put their names for the name of Tostig in

William of Malmesbury’s account; but we know how they acted before the

year was out.

It is doubtless on the strength of this passage of Orderic that Sir

Francis Palgrave ventured to write (Hist. Ang. Sax. 362); “Some

portions of the Anglo-Saxon dominions never seem to have submitted to

Harold. In others a sullen obedience was extorted from the people,

merely because they had not power enough to raise any other king to

the throne.” In the page before he had said, “If our authorities are

correct, Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, but who had been suspended

by the Pope, was the only prelate who acknowledged his authority.”

Now, unless Sir Francis merely meant that Harold never received the

homage of Malcolm, the only ground for saying that any part of “the

Anglo-Saxon dominions” refused to acknowledge Harold is the story

of the resistance of Northumberland given by William of Malmesbury.

But it is an essential part of that story that the resistance of

Northumberland was peaceably overcome by Harold with the help of Saint

Wulfstan. That is to say, instead of all the Prelates except Stigand

refusing to acknowledge Harold’s authority, the holiest Prelate of the

time appears as Harold’s most zealous partizan. The two parts of the

story hang inseparably together. If we believe that part of England for

a while refused allegiance to Harold, we must also believe that the

sainted Bishop of Worcester was his most loyal subject.

I should not have enlarged on any faults in a work of Sir Francis

Palgrave, written thirty years before his death, and which certainly

does not represent the latest lights of that great scholar, if

the worst portions of his early work had not been so injudiciously

reprinted as stop-gaps between the fragments of that later work of his

which every student of these times ought to have beside him.

NOTE K. pp. 67, 540.

THE POLITICAL POSITION OF THE LADY EADGYTH.

I am not aware of any mention of Eadgyth in any English writer between

the death of Eadward and her own death (Chronn. Wig. Petrib. 1076;

Fl. Wig. 1074). The accounts of the latter event however show that

Winchester was her dwelling-place, and that she was in high honour with

William.

I am now more inclined than I was in vol. i. p. 334 to look on

Winchester as the actual morning-gift, first of Emma and then (by

reversion or by the despoiling of Emma) of Eadgyth. It is plain that

the city was the usual dwelling-place of each of the widowed Ladies

in her widowhood. That Winchester was the morning-gift of Eadgyth is

distinctly asserted by Guy of Amiens (see above, p. 541).

There are several indications that Eadgyth was not thoroughly loyal

towards England. The only direct statements to that effect are

certainly to be found only in very suspicious sources, but, weighing

one thing with another, they seem not to be wholly without probability.

William of Poitiers, in the midst of his savage abuse of Harold

(126), adds, “Germana quoque, _illi moribus absimillima_, quum armis

non valeret, votis inpugnabat et consilio.... Voluit autem _virilis

prudentiæ femina_, intelligens honesta quælibet et vitâ colens,

Willelmum Anglis dominari.” So the Hyde writer (290) says distinctly,

“Haroldus, defuncto Edwardo, mox regnum Anglorum, contradicente Edithâ

Reginâ sorore suâ, usurpavit.” I do not quite understand what the

writer of the French Life means when he says (4075) that Harold

“Pur la reine Edith sa suer

Fu cremuz e amez de cuer.”

When we remember Eadgyth’s preference for Tostig and her alleged

complicity in one of his worst crimes, we may perhaps think it quite

possible that she was no loyal subject of Harold. We may even be led

to see a special meaning in the earnest request made by Eadward on his

death-bed, that she should lose nothing of her rights and honours (see

above, p. 15). And, when Tostig had fallen, it is even possible that

she may have looked to William as being in some sort his avenger. She

may also, at an earlier time, have fallen under the baneful fascination

of her husband’s foreign favourites. And the Norman account, strange as

it sounds, derives a certain corroboration from its very strangeness.

It is the sort of thing which no one would have been likely to think

of, if there had not been some real ground-work for it. And the honour

shown to her by William, and the respect with which she is always

treated by Norman writers, are in themselves suspicious. It was of

course the obvious policy of William, representing himself as he did

as the lawful successor of Eadward, to show every respect to the widow

of his predecessor. But when we remember that that widow was also the

sister of Harold, it is hardly honourable to her that William was

able to carry out a policy of this kind. The other female members of

her family found that England under William was no place for them.

But while her mother, her sister, her nieces, were all in banishment,

Eadgyth sat quietly at Winchester in all the honours of the Old Lady.

In fact her character is a riddle from beginning to end, and her

relations to her brothers are almost as mysterious as her relations to

her husband.

NOTE L. p. 68.

THE AFFAIRS OF THE ABBEY OF ELY AT THE TIME OF HAROLD’S ACCESSION.

There are several points worth notice in the condition of the Abbey of

Ely at the time of Harold’s election which it may be as well to speak

of in the same place.

Abbot Wulfric, according to the Ely history (ii. 36), was appointed

by Eadward in the year 1045, and he is described as being the King’s

kinsman. “Rex Edwardus Wlfricum cognatum suum Abbatem ad jam dictum

cœnobium apud Wintoniam assumpsit, ibique a Stigando Dorobernensi

Archiepiscopo benedici fecit, tertio Regni sui anno, ab Incarnatione

verò Domini millesimo quadragesimo quinto.” The writ then follows,

which is also printed in Cod. Dipl. iv. 226, addressed, according to a

common form, to the Bishops, Earls, Sheriffs, and Thegns generally of

every shire where the Abbey had lands. The Abbotship is given by the

King’s grant just like a Bishoprick (“Ic kýþe eów þæt ic habe geunnen

Wlfríce þæt Abbotríce in Hely on eallen þingen” &c.).

This appointment made at Winchester would probably be made in the

Easter Gemót of 1044, perhaps about the time when Abbot Siward was

appointed Coadjutor-Archbishop to Eadsige (see vol. ii. p. 68). But

there are one or two points of difficulty. That Stigand should be

called Archbishop before his time by a writer living long after is

not wonderful. But one does not see how he came to be performing an

episcopal act over an Abbot whose church was not in either of his

successive dioceses, and at a time (see vol. ii. p. 72) when it is not

clear whether he was in possession of a diocese at all. There is also

something puzzling in the description of Wulfric, as of several other

persons, as King Eadward’s kinsman. We have seen Earl Odda so described

(see vol. ii. p. 160), and Bishop Rudolf (see vol. ii. p. 120), and we

also find the same name given to no less a person than Saint Eadmund of

East Anglia himself. See Cod. Dipl. ii. 225, 226. Was Wulfric one of

the house of Æthelwine, and was that house looked on as connected with

Eadward through the first marriage of his grandmother Ælfthryth?

I infer that Wulfric died shortly before the death of Eadward from

the words “mortuo nuper Wlfrico patre” in Hist. Elien. ii. 43. The

historian gives two accounts of the appointment of Thurstan. In the

second, in c. 43, he merely says that Harold “mox accepto regno

Turstanum in Ely, mortuo nuper Wlfrico patre, ejusdem monasterii

constituit Abbatem, virum probatæ virtutis et abstinentiæ, Anglicè et

Latinè sufficienter a puero ipso in loco edoctum.” The earlier account

in c. 41 runs thus; “Post decessum vero Abbatis Wlfrici, Stigandus

Doroberniæ Archiepiscopus, Abbatiam de Ely, sed et episcopatus

atque abbatias sibi assumpsit plurimas, et gratiâ utriusque Domini

sui, Edwardi scilicet et Haroldi Regum, eas propriis pastoribus

viduatas quamdiu voluit in suâ manu tenuit, et quibus voluit personis

conferebat. Nam Wintoniensem, Glastoniensem, Sancti Albani, et Sancti

Augustini, et Elyensem ante Turstanum Abbatem, abbatias in manu suâ

receperat, et velut proprias possidebat. Ipso quoque suggerente,

Haroldus, qui regni sceptra tenebat, ipsum Turstanum ab eodem Stigando

benedici fecit.”

With this benediction of Thurstan by Stigand we may compare the

benediction of Æthelsige by Stigand in 1061 (see vol. ii. p. 454).

Compare also Æthelsige’s pluralities at Canterbury and Ramsey (see vol.

ii. p. 455), and the strange story about Stigand himself holding the

Abbey of Gloucester (see vol. ii. p. 638). Compare also the case of

Ealdred at Winchcombe (see vol. ii. p. 362), and the vast pluralities

of Abbot Leofric (see vol. ii. p. 349). Nevertheless I conceive that

there is here a good deal of exaggeration as to Stigand’s pluralities.

The Abbey of Winchester, meaning seemingly the New Minster, seems to be

confounded with the bishoprick. We know the succession of Abbots of New

Minster (see vol. ii. p. 644), among whom Stigand does not occur, and

of Saint Swithun’s he was necessarily Abbot as Bishop of Winchester.

And if Stigand ever held any of the other abbeys spoken of, it must

have been for the shortest possible time. We have seen the regular

succession of abbots at Glastonbury (see vol. ii. p. 361), and also

at Saint Augustine’s in the person of Æthelsige, mentioned just above

as blessed by Stigand himself. Neither do I find any mention of an

incumbency of Stigand in the local history of Saint Alban’s.

The detention by Stigand of lands belonging to the Abbey is asserted in

the local history, ii. 41; “Stigandus, quamvis substituto illic Abbate,

caussas ecclesiæ agebat, sed quasdam illius optimas possessiones,

sicut Liber Terrarum insinuat, ad maximum loci dispendium retinuit.”

The reference to the “Liber Terrarum,” the local Domesday, should

be noticed. I do not quite know what is meant by “caussas ecclesiæ

agebat,” unless it be that Stigand, while robbing the house himself,

defended it against other people.

The charge here brought against Stigand is the same as that which was

also brought against Archbishop Ealdred and Bishop Ælfweard. See vol.

ii. pp. 69, 467, 551. But there is an entry in Domesday which may

perhaps suggest another view of his conduct. In fol. 40 _b_ we read of

certain lands in Hampshire which “Abbatia de Ely tenuit de Stigando

Archiepiscopo T. R. E.,” but which, at the time of the Survey, belonged

to the see of Winchester. Is it not possible that these were the lands

in question, and that Stigand’s appropriation of them was simply the

resumption of a lease?

The Abbey of Ely had at this time a somewhat remarkable inmate. This

was one Osmund, who had been a Bishop in Sweden, reminding one of

Eadward’s kinsman Rudolf, who had been a Bishop in Norway, and whom

Eadward quartered on the monks of Abingdon (see vol. ii. p. 160). The

Ely historian (ii. 42) speaks of Osmund with great reverence, but Adam

of Bremen (iii. 14) calls him “acephalus” and “girovagus,” and charges

him with teaching false doctrine. He seems to have tried to set himself

up as an independent Metropolitan of Sweden in opposition to the see of

Hamburg. Refused consecration at Rome, he obtained it “a quodam Polaniæ

Archiepiscopo,” that is, it would seem, from Stephen, Archbishop of

Gnesen from 1038 to 1059. He came back to Sweden, professing to have

been consecrated by the Pope as Archbishop of Sweden. When Papal

Legates, members of the church of Bremen, came to complain, he wrought

so upon King Emund and the Swedish people, that the Legates were sent

away as not having proper credentials (“Solitis populum Regemque

impulit dolis, ut legati repellerentur, quasi non habentes sigillum

Apostolici”). At last (Adam, iii. 70) the famous Adalbert, Archbishop

of Hamburg (1043–1072), the early guardian of Henry the Fourth, held a

visitation of Scandinavia by authority of Pope Alexander the Second,

and quietly removed (“dimisit hilaris”) several irregularly ordained

Bishops, including Osmund. This must have been between 1061 and 1065.

Osmund came to England and won great favour with Eadward and with

all the great men of the land, but, charmed with the piety of the

monks of Ely and their Abbot, he retired to their house, joined their

brotherhood, and discharged episcopal functions among them—an early

case, like that of Rudolf, of a Bishop _in partibus_. He died in

Thurstan’s time, and was buried at Ely and afterwards translated.

NOTE M. p. 72.

THE COMET OF 1066.

This comet evidently made the deepest impression in every part of

Europe. It is recorded in nearly every chronicle everywhere, and it is

very generally, even by men who have no special connexion either with

England or with Normandy, accepted as a presage of the Conquest of

England. Our usual English and Norman authorities record it also; but I

have preferred to collect a few of the more remarkable entries in the

annals of more distant countries. I will give some specimens from the

writers of Germany, of Southern Gaul, and of Italy.

The Chronicle of Saint Andrew at Cambray (Pertz, vii. 537) has a most

remarkable entry;

“De bello in Angliâ facto. Anno autem Dei Christi 1066 ad occidentalem

plagam unus ex cometis admodùm visu terribilis, crinitos radios velut

flammigeras hastas emittens, vespere solem sequens per octodecim dies

apparuit. Quod genus sideris quòd erunt bella aut famem aut pestilentiam

portendere solet. Hoc regni etiam mutationem ipsâ suâ apparitione

præsignavit. Nam Wilelmus Normannorum Comes, paratâ non parvâ classe,

assumptâ magnâ militiâ, mare pertransiit.”

A short narrative of the Conquest of England follows. So the Chronicle

of Ekkehard (vi. 199) also directly connects the comet with William’s

expedition, of the results of which it gives a very exaggerated account;

“A.D. 1066. Cometes per totum orbem diu apparuit. Eodem anno Angliâ

per Willihelmum Nortmannicum miserabiliter afflictâ tandemque subactâ,

ipse Rex ejus effectus est. Qui mox omnes penè regni ejusdem præsules

exsilio, nobiles verò morti, destinavit, mediocres autem suis militibus

in servitutem, uxores indigenarum universorum advenis in matrimonium

subjugavit.”

Abbot Hugh’s Chronicle of Verdun (Labbé, i. 194) says, “Millesimo

quoque LXV. anno, Ind. iii. stella quæ cometes dicitur apparuit, et

eodem anno Etuuardus Angi. Rex obiit.” (See the rest of the passage in

p. 603.)

Still more distinct is the Chronicle of Saint James at Lüttich (Pertz,

xvi. 639; Bouquet, xi. 294); “Cometes apparuit, quæ bellum Angliæ

portendit, quam Guillelmus Normannorum Comes, ipsâ cum Rege suo Hero

[sic] gravissimâ cæde mulctatâ, vi militari corripuit, regnumque victor

obtinuit.”

Adam of Bremen we have almost learned to look on as a writer

Scandinavian rather than German. He (iii. 50, 51) connects the comet

with English affairs, but he does not give them the precedence. He

first mentions the death of Godescalc (see vol. i. p. 650) and other

events nearer home, and then adds,

“Et, nisi fallor, hæc mala nobis ventura significavit ille horribilis

cometa qui isto apparuit anno circa dies paschæ. Eodem quoque tempore

clades illa memorabilis in Angliâ facta est, cujus magnitudo, et quod

Anglia Danis ex antiquo subjecta est, summam nos eventuum præterire

non sinit.”

He then goes on with that short sketch of English affairs, from which I

have several times had occasion to quote piecemeal.

Other German accounts which connect the comet with England will be

found in the Annales Blandinienses (Pertz, v. 26), in the Annales

Formoselenses (v. 36), in the Chronicle of Conrad of Ursperg (p.

ccxxxiii.), and in Marianus (Pertz, v. 559), whose curious account of

this year I have often had occasion to quote. See also Sigebert (vi.

361) and the Saxon Annalist (vi. 694), who oddly describes William as

“filius illius Roberti quem Ricardus Comes Nortmannorum ex sorore Knut

Regis Danorum genuerat.”

To these German writers I may add the Pole Dlugoss, the latest in

time and also the most distant from England. He tells us (i. 260,

ed. Leipzig, 1711); “Cometes stella in occidentem facem dirigens

apparuit, plura mala quibus et Almaniæ et Britanniæ regiones afflictæ

fuerunt designans. In Britanniâ, quæ nunc Anglia dicitur, Rex Eraldus

occiditur, et in Almaniâ principes variis cædibus in se debacchantur.”

Of German writers who do not connect the comet with England I may

mention Berthold (Pertz, v. 273) and Bernold (v. 428). But the most

remarkable entry is that of Lambert (1066), who connects the comet

with English affairs, but looks on it as presaging, not Senlac, but

Stamfordbridge;

“In festis paschalibus per quatuordecim ferè noctes continuas cometa

apparebat. Quo in tempore atrox et lacrimabile nimis prœlium factum

est in partibus Aquilonis, in quo Rex Anglisaxonum tres Reges cum

infinito eorum exercitu usque ad internecionem delevit.” (On these

three Kings see Note CC.)

Turning to Southern Gaul, the Chronicle of Saint Maxentius (Labbé, ii.

211) not only connects the comet with England, but ventures to give

a rash judgement in a matter of English constitutional Law. “1066.

Stella cometes apparuit. Willermus Comes, filius Roberti supradicti

Comitis Normanniæ, transiens mare conflixit cum Airaudo, _pseudo-Rege

Anglorum_, quem devicit cum ipsâ gente, et terram eamdem in suam

ditionem recepit.” Another Aquitanian Chronicler, William Godell, is

less certain about the matter (Bouquet, xi. 284). “Hoc anno cometes

apparuit in vigiliâ Sancti Marci, significans _fortasse_ abundantiam

effusi Christiani sanguinis quam terra in regno Anglorum absorbuit.”

See also the Chronicle of Saint Benignus at Dijon (Pertz, v. 42), and

that of the Campanian Chalons (Labbé, i. 296). The Rheims Chronicle

(Labbé, i. 360) throws its notice of the year into two hexameters,

which appear in a great number of forms;

“Sexagenus erat sextus millesimus annus,

Quum pereunt Angli stellâ monstrante cometâ.”

Abbot Baldric, in his verses on William (Duchèsne, Rer. Franc, iv.

257), has quite a different couplet. William is one

“Indice qui cœlo, qui præsagante cometâ

Anglos innumeris stragibus obtinuit.”

Getting nearer our usual beat, the Breton Chronicle of Quimperlé on

the one hand (Bouquet, xi. 372), and the Chronicle of Lambert of

Saint Omer (Pertz, v. 65) on the other, both bring in the mention of

English affairs, though the Breton writer mixes them up with things

which to him were nearer home. Lastly, one of the Angevin Chronicles

(Labbé, i. 288) looks on the comet as the sign of many woes to many

nations. The Conquest of England comes first, but events which more

immediately touched Anjou had also something to do with it. “In hoc

anno apparuit cometa terribilis, multarum calamitatum in sequentibus

annis subsequutarum, ut post patuit, portentrix. Nam in ipso anno

Comes Normannorum Guillelmus Anglorum regnum magno periculo aggressus

impugnare, bello publico magnâ et miserabili cæde cruento expugnavit,

atque in Regem levatus coronari se fecit.” He then goes on to speak of

Conan’s invasion of Anjou and his death, and of the wars between the

brother Counts Geoffrey and Fulk.

Of the Italian chronicles I have already quoted one, the Annals of

Beneventum (see p. 71). The Annales Cavenses (Pertz, iii. 180) connect

the comet only with local affairs. But at Bari the Norman name was more

familiar, and Lupus Protospatarius (Pertz, v. 59) recorded William’s

victory, though he did not know his name. “1067. Et hoc anno apparuit

stella cometes, et Comes Normannus Robertus fecit bellum cum Araldo

Rege Anglorum, et vicit Robertus, qui et factus est Rex super gentem

Anglorum.”

All our usual authorities record the appearance, and all, I think, in

its proper chronological order, except William of Poitiers, who brings

it in afterwards (139) at the end of his apostrophe against Harold.

The different statements as to the number of days during which the

comet was visible are remarkable, and I must leave it to astronomers

to reconcile them. But I cannot help thinking that the time of thirty

days, spoken of in two chronicles only, one of which seems evidently to

copy from the other, must be an exaggeration. The fourteen days of Wace

(11462) and the fifteen of William of Jumièges (vii. 31) and Benoît

(36778) doubtless mean the same thing, according to the usual French

idiom. And, as the _seven_ days of the English Chronicles and Sigebert

(vi. 301) would, according to the same idiom, be _eight_, I cannot but

think that the _eighteen_ days of the Cambray annalist are owing to a

confusion between the two accounts. If so, we have only two statements,

one of a week, the other of a fortnight. The latter rests on the

authority of Lambert and of William of Jumièges; the French metrical

writers simply follow William.

Some notice of this comet will be found in Chambers’ Descriptive

Astronomy, pp. 281–3, for sending me to which, and for some other

hints, I have to thank Professor H. J. S. Smith. It seems to be that

which is called Halley’s Comet, which has since appeared in 1145,

1223, 1301, 1378, 1456, 1531, 1682, 1759, and 1835. The appearance in

1145 is mentioned in the Angevin Chronicle in Labbé, i. 277, and in

the Tewkesbury Annals for 1144 (Luard, Ann. Mon. i. 46), where it may

possibly be connected with Stephen’s wars. The appearance of 1223 is

mentioned in the Rouen Chronicle (Labbé, i. 374) under 1222; “Hoc anno

visa est stella circum occasum solis Decembrilis, primæ magnitudinis,

ardens velut facula, radios sursum erigens, et in acutum velut in conum

colligens terræ vicina videbatur, quod aliquod prodigium portendere

ferebatur. Hanc dicebant esse cometam.” It must also have appeared

in 912 and 989, but I do not find those appearances mentioned in our

Chronicles, though comets are mentioned in 905 or 906, 975, and 995.

Dr. Bruce (p. 86) quotes Mr. Hinde for the fact, which was also

mentioned to me by Professor Smith, that the comet of 1066 is mentioned

in the Chinese annals. Mr. Chambers tells us that they also mention its

appearance in 1378—a year, by the way, quite memorable enough for any

comet. “It was equal to the full moon in size, and its train, at first

small, increased to a wonderful length.”

I have no doubt at all that the group in the Tapestry which immediately

follows the representation of the comet itself represents Harold as

hearing of its appearance and its interpretation. I cannot think with

Mr. Planché (p. 147) and Dr. Bruce (p. 87) that Harold is receiving the

news of the landing of Tostig or of anything else. There is no mention

of Tostig or his invasion throughout the Tapestry, with whose subject

they had indeed only an indirect connexion. It is most unlikely that

an incidental and most obscure reference to Tostig’s invasion should

lurk in a part of the Tapestry so completely inappropriate both as to

time and subject. Nor can the figure speaking to the King represent

William’s ambassador or any one directly connected with William. The

story of William’s expedition begins from the very beginning in the

next compartment, where the ship takes the news of Harold’s accession

to Normandy. The present group ends the story of Eadward’s death and

Harold’s accession. It follows immediately on the Comet, and it seems

connected with it. The speaker is surely the interpreter of the sign,

and that interpreter a μάντις κακῶν, a Kalchas or a Micaiah. It is

quite possible that what Dr. Bruce calls “the dreamy-like flotilla”

in the border may be meant darkly to set forth the nature of his

interpretation, and so to act as a connecting link between this

compartment and that which comes next after it.

NOTE N. p. 80.

THE MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM AND MATILDA.

That William’s marriage with Matilda was forbidden by Papal authority,

and that the Papal dispensation for the marriage did not issue till

some years after the marriage had been celebrated, are facts which have

long been known. But the remarkable paper communicated by Mr. Stapleton

in 1846 to the Archæological Journal (iii. 1) threw a new light on the

whole matter. The essay, like all Mr. Stapleton’s writings, is brimful

of curious learning, but, as usual, his power of arranging and making

use of his facts is by no means equal to his diligence and acuteness in

bringing them together.

Mr. Stapleton’s propositions, as far as I can disentangle them, are

three;

First, That Matilda, before her marriage with William, was mother of

two children, Gerbod and Gundrada, whose father was Gerbod, known as

the Advocate of Saint Bertin.

Secondly, That the ecclesiastical opposition to the marriage of

William and Matilda was not owing—at least not wholly owing—to any

consanguinity or affinity between them, but to the fact that Matilda,

at the time of William’s courtship, had a husband still living.

Thirdly, That the delay in the celebration of the marriage was caused

by the necessity of obtaining a divorce.

Of these three propositions Mr. Stapleton has, I think, convincingly

made out the first; the second and third I cannot accept.

That Gundrada, the wife of Earl William of Warren, was the daughter of

Matilda, but not the daughter of King William, is manifest from the

language employed by Earl William in his grant to the Priory of Lewes

(Stapleton, Arch. Journ. iii. 21; Monasticon, v. 12). He makes his gifts

“Pro salute animæ meæ et animæ Gundradæ uxoris meæ et pro animâ

domini mei Willelmi Regis, qui me in Angliam terram adduxit, et per

cujus licentiam monachos venire feci, et qui meam priorem donationem

confirmavit, et pro salute _dominæ meæ Matildis Reginæ, matris uxoris

meæ_, et pro salute domini mei Willelmi Regis, filii sui, post cujus

adventum in Anglicam hanc cartam feci, et qui me Comitem Surreiæ fecit.”

It is utterly inconceivable that Earl William would have used this

language, if King William had been the father of his wife. In such a

case he would have described his wife as the daughter of King William.

He would never have drawn the pointed distinction which he does draw

between Matilda his lady, the mother of his wife, and William his lord,

who has done for him such and such favours. On the other hand there is

the earlier charter of King William himself to the same Priory, which

is granted, according to the text in the Monasticon (v. 13),

“Pro animâ domini et antecessoris mei Regis Eduuardi, et pro animâ

patris mei Comitis Rotberti, et pro meâ ipsius animâ et uxoris meæ

Matildis Reginæ, et filiorum atque successorum nostrorum, et pro animâ

Guillelmi de Warrennâ et uxoris suæ Gondradæ _filiæ meæ_ et heredum

suorum.”

Here William, according to the received text, certainly calls Gundrada

his daughter. But the manuscript is said to be nearly illegible, and

the reading to be very doubtful. Mr. Stapleton (p. 2) for the words

after “Gondradæ” silently reads “pro me et heredibus meis.” Mrs.

Green (i. 72) mentions that the words “filiæ meæ” are clearly in a

different and later hand. This is admitted by Mr. Blaauw, in an article

in the Archæologia (xxxii. p. 108), written expressly in answer to

Mr. Stapleton, but he argues that the insertion represents the true

reading, and objects to Mr. Stapleton’s reading on other grounds. But

it strikes me that Mr. Blaauw’s text, if genuine, does not upset Mr.

Stapleton’s position. The words “filiæ meæ,” taken by themselves, would

of course prove the person spoken of to be William’s own daughter.

But they must be taken in connexion with the other charter of William

of Warren. It is far more likely that a man should use the words

“filia mea” of his wife’s daughter—his own daughter for many purposes

of law—than that a man should speak of his wife’s parents in the

extraordinary way which we must attribute to William of Warren, if

Gundrada really was William’s daughter.

Another Lewes charter (Monasticon, v. 14), in which Matilda is spoken

of as the mother of Gundrada—“Mathildis Regina, mater Henrici Regis

et Gundradæ Comitissæ”—is of course evidence for Matilda being the

mother of Gundrada as well as of Henry, but it does not prove them to

have been children of the same father. It is plain why those two only

among Matilda’s children are spoken of. Henry was the reigning King,

Gundrada was the local benefactress.

The documentary evidence then seems distinctly to show that Gundrada

was the daughter of Matilda, but not the daughter of William. One

charter plainly implies that she was so; the others do not imply the

contrary. But this is not all. There are two passages of Orderic,

both quoted by Mr. Stapleton, which imply that Gundrada had a brother

Gerbod, and that neither of them was son or daughter of William. Mr.

Blaauw answers that Orderic’s authority is weak on this point, as he

stumbles, if he does not contradict himself, in his whole account of

William’s daughters. Now certainly, if Orderic simply left out Gundrada

in a list of William’s daughters, the omission would prove nothing

whatever against the least direct proof that she was his daughter.

But it proves much more, when Orderic speaks of her incidentally in a

way in which it is quite impossible that he should have spoken of a

daughter of William, and when he gives her a brother whom no man ever

for a moment fancied to be William’s son. In one of these two places

(522 C) Orderic tells us that William the Conqueror gave the Earldom of

Surrey “Guillelmo de Guarennâ, qui Gundredam sororem Gherbodi conjugem

habuit.” In the other place (522 A; cf. 598 A) Orderic recounts the

adventures of “Gherbodus Flandrensis,” his investiture with the Earldom

of Chester, his return to his own country, and his misfortunes there.

It is clear that Orderic did not look on Gundrada as a daughter of

William; she was in his eyes simply the sister of Gerbod. Gundrada and

Gerbod were therefore, beyond all doubt, children of Matilda, but they

were not children of William. But I do not understand Mr. Stapleton

when (pp. 20, 25) he gives them another brother, and Matilda another

son, named Frederick. He must have been thinking of the Frederick whose

existence he had himself established in p. 3. But this Frederick, as

appears from Domesday, 196 _b_, was brother, not of Gundrada, but of

her husband William of Warren.

Matilda then was the mother of Gerbod and Gundrada, but who was their

father? There does not seem to be any distinct proof, but the Flemish

charters collected by Mr. Stapleton (pp. 17–19) show that there

was a whole succession of Gerbods, holding the office of Advocate

(_Advocatus_, _Avoué_) of the Abbey of Saint Bertin at Saint Omer, and

who are often simply described as Gerbod the Advocate. These Gerbods

range over nearly the whole of the eleventh century, from 1026 to the

reign of Robert the Frisian, that is between 1071 and 1093. There

is, for instance (p. 17), a charter of Baldwin the Fourth in 1026,

and among the signatures is “Signum Gerbodonis Advocati.” The same

signature is added to charters of Baldwin the father of Matilda in 1056

(Cartulary of Saint Bertin, p. 181) and 1067. In the later charters

up to 1087 we find mention of Gerbod and his wife Ada (p. 201), and

of Gerbod and his brother Arnulf. Mr. Stapleton supposes—he seems to

have no evidence but that of the charters themselves—that Gerbod the

husband of Ada is the Earl of Chester and son of Matilda, and that

Gerbod and Arnulf were their sons. This is in every way probable, but

I cannot follow him when he assumes that the signatures of 1026, 1056,

and 1067 all belong to one Gerbod, the father of the Earl of Chester

and, according to him, the first husband of Matilda. This assumption

seems to be the only ground for the inference that Matilda’s first

husband was living at the time of her marriage with William, and that

therefore the delay and difficulty about the marriage was caused by the

necessity of obtaining a divorce. But it is surely simpler and more

obvious to take the signature of 1026 to be that of her husband, and

those of 1056 and 1067 to be those of her son. With the Gerbod of 1056

or, considering how young he must have been, with those who acted in

his name, the Abbey of Saint Bertin had rather fierce disputes. See the

narrative in the Cartulary, p. 183, and Count Baldwin’s charter, pp.

184, 185.

I therefore accept the marriage, but the theory of the divorce seems

to me quite untenable on every ground. It is remarkable enough that

no hint should be found in any contemporary writer that Matilda had

been married before her marriage with William, and that we are driven

to infer the fact from the language of charters and from the most

casual indications elsewhere. But we have more than one parallel case

in Norman history. The Norman writers are absolutely silent about the

marriage between Duke Robert and Estrith the sister of Cnut (see vol.

i. p. 521). So again, we should never have known from the Encomiast

of Emma that she ever was the wife of Æthelred. In his courtly pages

the sister of Duke Richard is a virgin (see vol. i. p. 454) when she

marries Cnut. So in the Norman writers Matilda is ever the daughter of

Baldwin, never the widow of Gerbod. And, as Emma is called _virgo_,

so Matilda is called _puella_, _pucelle_, _demoiselle_. But, if she is

never called the widow of Gerbod, still less is she called his wife. In

the case of Cnut and Emma, we know the real facts from the testimony of

both English and Norman writers. In the case of William and Matilda,

the Norman writers, in the silence of the English, have it all their

own way, and we are left to the evidence of the documents. The English

writers are silent through indifference; the Norman writers are silent

through design. The best informed of all, William of Poitiers, leaves

out the fact that there was any opposition to the marriage at all. But,

if William’s marriage had been, not simply irregular or uncanonical,

but a glaring act of adultery, committed in open defiance of a Papal

command, it is hardly conceivable that so astounding a fact should have

failed to find any chronicler.

Again, it may perhaps seem strange if William, when in search of a

wife, preferred a widow with children to all the princely maidens

who, we are told, were to be had for the asking. But it would be far

stranger if, with so wide a field before him, his choice lighted on

the married wife of another man. Would the wise men of Normandy have

recommended such a step? Would Count Baldwin have consented to expose

his daughter to such manifest shame? Would the Papal prohibition of

the marriage have taken the form which it did take (see above, p. 89)?

Would Pope Leo and the Council of Rheims have simply forbidden Count

Baldwin to give his daughter in marriage to William the Norman? Would

they not rather have warned William and Matilda, as later assertors

of discipline warned Philip and Bertrada, against an act of shameless

adultery? Can we conceive that Lanfranc would have stooped to interest

himself in obtaining a dispensation for the guilty pair, or that

a dispensation would ever have been granted by the most complying

Pontiff? Such a dispensation could have been granted only on proof of

some canonical impediment which rendered the former marriage of Gerbod

and Matilda null and void. No proof of such an impediment is produced.

It was a daring act on the part of William, Matilda, and Baldwin

to contract an uncanonical marriage in the teeth of a direct Papal

prohibition. But they would never have ventured on a step breathing

such defiance to all law and morals as a marriage between a man and

another man’s wife, contracted on the chance that her first marriage

might be proved to be illegal.

I hold then that Gerbod was dead before 1049, and that the objection to

William’s marriage with his widow was simply one of the usual canonical

objections on the ground of kindred or affinity. This is asserted by

all the writers who mention the subject (see above, pp. 94, 102, 106).

But there is no small difficulty in making out what the nearness of kin

between William and Matilda was. Mr. Stapleton (p. 22) assumes that

their kindred consisted in the fact that Matilda’s “grandmother was a

daughter of Duke Richard the Second of Normandy, and aunt of William

the Conqueror.” If this could be made out, William and Matilda would

clearly be within the prohibited degrees. But the pedigree does not

seem to be at all certain. Baldwin the Bearded, Matilda’s grandfather,

undoubtedly married a daughter of Richard the Good (Will. Gem. v. 13).

But she could not have been the mother of Baldwin of Lisle. A daughter

of Richard and Judith could not have been born before 1010 (see vol.

ii. p. 586), at which time the younger Baldwin was a grown man, capable

of marrying and rebelling against his father. Baldwin the Bearded

must have been quite an old man when he married the daughter of Duke

Richard. Moreri (art. Flandre) and the Art de Vérifier les Dates (iii.

4) both say, but without references, that she had no children, and the

first wife of Baldwin the Bearded, the mother of Baldwin of Lisle and

grandmother of Matilda, is called by them Ogiva of Luxemburg. This is

doubtless the “Otgiva” or “Odgiva [Eadgifu?] Comitissa” who died in

1030 or 1031 (Ann. Baldinienses and Formoselenses, Pertz, v. 26, 35),

only five or six years before Baldwin’s death. Oudegherst (Annales

de Flandre, 63, 67, 75), who calls her Ognie and Odgona, has much to

say about her, and about her son’s wonderful birth when she was fifty

years old. However all this may be, it seems perfectly clear that

Matilda was not the granddaughter of any daughter of Richard the Good.

Failing Richard the Good, I cannot suggest any other common ancestor

for William and Matilda, but it is quite possible that the marriage of

William’s aunt with Matilda’s grandfather may have been held to produce

some kind of affinity between William and Matilda.

Prevost, in his note on Wace (ii. 60), has a suggestion of the same

kind, namely, that the canonical impediment was the affinity arising

from the fact that Matilda’s mother, Adela of France, had been married,

or rather betrothed, to William’s uncle, Richard the Third (cf.

Palgrave, iii. 264). Again I am not canonist enough to say whether

this would really have been any impediment to a marriage between

Richard’s nephew and Adela’s daughter; but there seems to be no doubt

that Richard the Third was married or contracted to Adela, daughter

of King Robert. His marriage contract with an Adela, dated 1026, in

which he endows her with large possessions, mainly in the Côtentin,

is printed in D’Achery, Spicilegium, iii. 390, and Licquet, Hist. de

Normandie, ii. 269 (see also Palgrave, iii. 137). M. Licquet (ii. 5)

maintains that this Adela is not King Robert’s daughter, but some

unknown wife of the name, whom he holds to have been the lawful mother

of the monk Nicolas (see above, p. 380, and vol. i. p. 518). His chief

grounds for this belief are that Adela is not described as the King’s

daughter, and that the words of the deed (“annulo mihi in carnis

unitate jungendam”) imply that the bride was already a grown woman,

whereas Adela the daughter of King Robert was, in 1026, a babe in her

cradle. Now the deed is drawn up in a rhetorical style; “Domina Adela”

is once addressed in the vocative case, and that is the only mention of

her name, though she is told that she is “juxta nobilitatis tuæ lineam

dotata.” All this looks to me as if she was the King’s daughter, for

whom the city and county of Coutances, and a good deal more, which

the deed bestows upon her, would surely not be an unworthy dowry. As

to her age, the statement that she was then an infant rests on the

authority of William of Jumièges, which is generally very good, but

which is in this case contradicted by dates. He says (vi. 6) that the

elder Baldwin, at some time after the accession of Duke Robert in 1028,

took away Adela as a babe from King Robert’s court, and brought her up

as his son’s bride till she was marriageable (“A palatinis tricliniis

adeptam tulit, et ad domum propriam in cunis asportavit, eamque usque

ad annos nubiles diligenti curâ nutrivit”). But we read directly after

that the younger Baldwin, puffed up by his royal connexion (“mox ut

nobilis puellæ amplexibus cœpit frui”), rebelled against his father,

who was restored by Duke Robert (see vol. i. p. 519). All this is said

to have happened about the time of the death of King Robert (“quâ

tempestate Robertus Rex Francorum moritur”), which took place in 1031.

These two statements, in the same chapter, cannot be made to agree.

The truth is that Adela could not possibly have been a mere baby in

1026. Her parents, Robert and Constance, were married in 998; her

daughter Matilda was the mother of two children before 1049. Compare

the imaginary genealogy of Herleva, vol. ii. p. 583.

Adela then, who was betrothed to Duke Richard, is the same person as

Adela, daughter of King Robert, wife of Count Baldwin, and mother

of Matilda. Richard’s early death seems to have hindered her actual

marriage with him, but it may have been held that she had contracted

an affinity with the ducal house of Rouen which made it unlawful for

her daughter to marry Duke Richard’s nephew. Either then of these

possible grounds of affinity, the marriage of the elder Baldwin with

the daughter of Richard the Good or the marriage of the younger

Baldwin with the betrothed wife of Richard the Third, seems to me

far more probable than Mr. Stapleton’s theory of the divorce. It is

also supported by the witness of all those writers who speak of the

kindred between the parties. The expressions “cognata,” “consanguineum

cubile,” &c., are indeed not strictly accurate, as the connexion

was only by affinity; but it is far more likely that the writers

who use them should laxly apply to affinity words which strictly

refer only to kindred, than that they should speak in this way when

the impediment really was that Matilda had a husband living. Mr.

Stapleton’s arguments against this view seem singularly inconclusive.

“The peculiarity of the birth of William the Conqueror,” he tells us

(p. 22), “as being illegitimate, certainly forbids such a conclusion,

coupled with the silence of the Pope at the Council of Rheims.” The

Pope’s silence surely cuts one way as much as another. As for William’s

bastardy, Mr. Stapleton would hardly argue that Duke Robert could

have lawfully married Herleva’s mother or sister, or that William,

as _nullius filius_, could have lawfully married his own mother or

sister. William’s kindred with Eadward is constantly insisted on,

notwithstanding his bastardy, and one cannot doubt that a marriage

between him and one of the daughters of Emma would have been thought

unlawful. Mr. Stapleton presently (p. 24) mentions the foundation of

the Abbeys, and adds with some triumph that “no papal bull attests

that this penance was enjoined merely for marrying within the degrees

of kindred.” Still less does Mr. Stapleton produce any Papal bull

attesting that it was enjoined for a shameless and obstinate course of

adultery.

There is indeed one other view, that maintained by M. Licquet (ii.

131) and followed by Mrs. Green (English Princesses, i. 4), namely that

there was no real impediment to the marriage from either kindred or

affinity, but that Pope Leo simply forbade the marriage on political

grounds. Leo, the firm friend of the Emperor, did not wish to

strengthen so doubtful a vassal of the Empire as Baldwin (see vol. ii.

p. 97) by so close a connexion with the Duke of the Normans. This is

unlikely in itself and unsupported by evidence. Even Papal authority

could hardly go so far as to forbid a marriage to which there was no

canonical objection; and if Leo did so, a prohibition arising from a

temporary political cause would not have been so rigidly maintained

by so many successive Pontiffs. And the place which the prohibition

holds among the Acts of the Council distinctly shows that it was aimed

against a contemplated breach of the ecclesiastical law of marriage. It

comes in the middle of a series of citations and excommunications all

aimed at offenders of that class, and among which a merely political

prohibition would be strangely out of place. M. Licquet, like Mr.

Stapleton, appeals to the silence of the Pope as to the motive of the

prohibition. This silence is a difficulty according to any view, but

it is a greater difficulty according to M. Licquet’s view than on any

other. The actual reason is not minutely specified, but the position

of the prohibition in the Acts of the Council is enough to show its

general nature.

William then, I hold, married the widow of Gerbod. In choosing a

widow for his bride, he only acted like several other great men of

his century. Eadmund, Cnut, Harold, all married widows. Cnut and

Harold married the widows of Kings whom they had helped to deprive of

their Kingdoms. But the case which most exactly forestalled William

happened just before the beginning of the century, in the person of

Matilda’s maternal grandfather, King Robert. That most devout of Kings

uncanonically married his widowed cousin (see vol. i. p. 507), and

allowed himself to be worried by ecclesiastical censures out of his

wife, and well nigh out of his life also. William characteristically

stood his ground, and gained his point in the end in the teeth of

Prior, Archbishop, Pope, and Council.

The date of the marriage is not given by any of the Norman writers.

They all do their best to slur over the delays and difficulties about

the marriage, and they would fain have us believe that Matilda was

won as soon as wooed. The date 1053 comes from the Tours Chronicle

(Bouquet, xi. 348), and in default of any better authority, I do

not see that we can do otherwise than accept it. It also falls in

singularly well, as Mr Stapleton suggests, with the date of the

captivity of Pope Leo (see above, p. 98). Another date, 1047, is

given in the late Chronicle of Saint Bavon (Corp. Chron. Fland.

i. 552, “Wilhelmus Dux Normanniæ, uxorem duxit Mathildem filiam

Balduini comitis Flandriæ, quæ postea peperit ei Wilhelmum, postmodum

Regem Angliæ”). But this date cannot be accepted, as it is clearly

inconsistent with the prohibition of the marriage in 1049. It has

been sometimes said (see Bouet, p. 8) that Orderic (484 C) fixes the

marriage in 1063, and it has thence been inferred that the marriage was

repeated after Lanfranc had come back with the dispensation. But the

words of Orderic do not really fix the marriage to 1063. He has been

speaking of the death of Geoffrey Martel and other matters, and places

the death of Geoffrey in 1060 or 1061. He then, in his usual fashion,

takes the opportunity to enlarge on the greatness and prosperity of

Normandy and its Duke about this time, and goes on to tell us of his

wife and children. But there is nothing bearing on the date of the

marriage.

I ought to mention that the Chronicle of Tours, the only one which

gives the date of the marriage, adds a most strange tale about

William’s courtship;

“Tunc Guillelmus Dux Normanniæ Mathildem, filiam Balduini, Comitis

Flandriæ, duxit in uxorem, in hunc modum. Quum ipsa a patre suo de

sponso recipiendo sæpiùs rogaretur, eique Guillelmus Normanniæ a

patre suo, _qui eum longo tempore nutrierat_, præ aliis laudaretur,

respondit, numquam nothum recipere se maritum. Quo audito, Guillelmus

Dux clam apud Brugis, ubi puella morabatur, cum paucis accelerat,

eamque regredientem ab ecclesiâ pugnis, calcibus, et calcaribus

verberat et castigat, sicque ascenso equo eum suis in patriam remeat.

Quo facto, puella dolens ad lectum decubat, ad quam pater veniens,

illam de sponso recipiendo interrogat et requirit, quæ respondens

dicit, se nunquam habere maritum nisi Guillelmum Ducem Normanniæ quod

et factum est.”—Chron. Turon. Bouquet, xi. 348.

This tale is found also in the French rhyming Chronicle of Philip de

Mouskes, a writer of the thirteenth century (ii. 174, ed. Brussels,

1838). Matilda is thus described;

“... li Quens de Flandres avoit

Une fille qui moult savoit,

Et moult estoit biele et vallans

Sage courtoise et bien parlans.”

(v. 16902.)

To the first offer of marriage her answer is thus given;

“La demoiselle vint avant

Si leur respondi maintenant

J’aim mious estre nonne velée

Que jou soie à bastart donnée.”

(v. 16932.)

William then goes to Lille;

“Tout droit à Lille vint i jour

U la _puciele_ ert a sejour.”

Matilda is throughout called “puciele” and “demoiselle.” William then

kicks and beats her, much as in the story in the Tours Chronicle, and

her consent is given in much the same way.

The remarkable thing about this tale is that it is evidently a myth

which has fastened itself upon William in several forms, and, I

suspect, on Harold also. The story of William beating or kicking his

wife is, in two accounts, transferred from the beginning of their

married life to the end. William of Malmesbury (iii. 273) tells,

without believing it, a tale that William in his later days forsook his

old chaste manner of life (“non desint qui ganniant eum _cœlibatui_

antiquo renunciâsse quum regia potestas accrevisset”—the same singular

use of the word _cœlebs_ spoken of in vol. ii. pp. 383, 531), and

took a concubine, the daughter of a priest. Matilda, in her jealousy,

had the girl ham-strung (“per satellitem succiso poplite Matildis

sustulerit”), a tale apparently taken from the story of King Eadwig’s

wife or mistress—(Osbern or Eadmer, Vit. Od. Ang. Sacr. ii. 84).

On this Matilda is beaten to death with a bridle (“illam ad mortem

fræno equi cæsam”), whether by her husband’s own hand or not is not

distinctly said. Now this story is clearly the same as Snorro’s story

(Johnstone, 217; Laing, iii. 94) how, when William was setting out

for England, his wife came to speak to him, perhaps to detain him, on

which, being mounted, he struck her with his heel, so that the spur

ran into her breast, and she died (“Enn er hann sá þat, þá laust hann

til hennar med hælinom, oc setti sporan fyri brióst henni, svo at á

kaf stód, fell hon vid oc feck bana”). And this again, I cannot help

thinking, is the same as William of Jumièges’ story (vii. 35) of

Harold kicking his mother when she implored him not to go forth to

battle (see p. 436). The tale of a King kicking or beating his wife or

mother was afloat, and it was easy to fill the blank with the name of

either William or Harold.

One more point is suggested to me by the charge against William’s

chastity brought in the last paragraph. Genealogists, local

antiquaries, and romance-writers are fond of calling the well-known

William Peverel of Domesday a natural son of the Conqueror. For this

assertion I know of no authority, except a statement in Dugdale’s

Baronage (i. 436) which is said to come “ex Coll. R. Gl. S.”—that is

Robert Glover, Somerset Herald. We are there told that Ranulf Peverel

“married the daughter of Ingelric, founder of the Collegiate Church of

Saint Martin le Grand in the city of London, who had been a concubine

to William Duke of Normandy,” and that William Peverel was “begotten

on her by the same Duke before the Conquest of this realm.” The

uncorroborated assertions of a herald are not materials for history.

The mention of Matilda suggests the name of her supposed sister,

Judith, the wife of Tostig. I have all along (see vol. ii. p. 134)

doubted whether she really was a daughter of Baldwin the Fifth. She

is called his daughter by Florence (1051) and twice by Orderic. In

one place (638 C) he reckons the daughters of Baldwin and Adela as

“Mathildis Regina Anglorum et Juditha, Tostici Ducis uxor.” Elsewhere

(492 D, see p. 303) he says of William and Tostig, “duas sorores,

per quas amicitia sæpe recalescebat, in conjugio habebant.” Orderic

is followed by Alberic in the thirteenth century, who gives (p. 98)

Baldwin and Adela three sons, Baldwin, Robert, and Philip, and two

daughters, “Judith, quam nupsit Tosticus Comes Nordanubriorum in

Angliâ, et Mathildem prædictam Normannorum Ducissam.” She is also

called Baldwin’s daughter by two writers of the fifteenth century, who

record her second marriage with Duke Welf of Bavaria. Botho in his

Picture Chronicle of Brunswick (Leibnitz, iii. 325) says of Baldwin

(whom by the way he confounds with his son, marrying him to Richilda

instead of Adela) that he had “eyne dochter de het Jutta, _de nam

Konigh Heroden in Engelant_, dar wart se geheten Wichanda, do nam se

dar na Hertoghen Wolpy den olden in Beyeren.” The honest Nether-Dutch

is pleasant to read, but it is strange to make Judith the wife of

Harold—degraded into Herod—instead of Tostig. But Botho repeats the

statement in p. 327, nor does he stand alone in it. In Arenpeck’s

Bavarian Chronicle (Leibnitz, iii. 661) we read of Welf, how “accepit

Reginam Angliæ, tunc viduam, filiam scilicet Balduini nobilissimi

Comitis Flandriæ, Juditham, in uxorem.” These accounts are of course

simply amusing, but we shall presently see that, as for their chief

blunders, they sin in decent company.

Florence then and Orderic are the only early authorities who call

Judith a daughter of Baldwin the Fifth. And the authority of Orderic is

lessened by a manifest error which he has fallen into with regard to

Baldwin’s family. He makes him (526 C) the father of Udo, Archbishop of

Trier, who was really the son of Count Eberhard of Nellenberg (Gest.

Trev. ap. Pertz, viii. 183). On the other hand, the local Chronicle of

the Counts of Flanders (Corp. Chron. Fland. i. 86) distinctly calls

Matilda Baldwin’s only daughter. Baldwin married Adela “genuitque ex eâ

duos filios, Balduinum Montensem et Robertum Frisonem, et unam filiam

nomine Mathildem.” We now fall back on our own writers and remember

that the Worcester Chronicle (1051) called Judith only the “mage” of

Baldwin, while Eadward’s Biographer (pp. 404, 424) distinctly called

her his “soror.” We now turn to the Saxon Annalist, and, among some

wild stories, we find the same relationship distinctly asserted.

Judith, as before, is Harold’s widow. Welf of Bavaria (Pertz, vi. 764)

“duxit viduam Haroldi _Ducis Anglorum_ [see above, p. 226] Judihtam

nomine.” But in an earlier passage we read (vi. 694), “Hujus Haroldi

conjux, _amita Rodberti Comitis de Flandriâ_, ex cognatione beati

Ethmundi Regis fuit.”

Here, comparing this passage with the Biographer, we may find the key

to the whole matter. The Biographer says that Judith was Baldwin’s

sister and Eadward’s niece, which last statement greatly puzzled me.

The Saxon Annalist, evidently writing quite independently, calls her

the aunt of Baldwin’s son Robert, and also calls her a kinswoman of

Eadward (we should of course read Eth_war_di for Eth_mun_di). That is,

she was a daughter of Count Baldwin the Bearded by his Norman wife,

the daughter of Richard the Good. She thus exactly answers all the

descriptions. She is sister of Baldwin of Lisle, aunt of Robert the

Frisian, and she is, in a vague sense, niece of Eadward, that is,

daughter of his first cousin. The pedigree stands thus;

Richard the Fearless.

|

+------+-------+

| |

Æthelred = Emma. Richard the Good = Judith.

| |

Eadward. daughter = Baldwin = Odgiva.

| |

+--------+ |

| |

Tostig = Judith = Welf. Baldwin = Adela.

|

+---------+---------+

| | |

Baldwin. Robert. Matilda.

Judith would thus be, not Matilda’s sister but her aunt, an aunt

however possibly younger than herself. Odgiva, the first wife of

Baldwin the Bearded, died in 1031. His daughter by the Norman Princess,

the child of his old age, could not be born before 1032 or 1033.

Matilda, the daughter of parents married in 1027, may well have been

older.

We have here, I think, another proof of the accuracy of the Biographer

in matters coming within his own province, and that in a case where

his statement seemed, at first sight, puzzling and suspicious. I

do not however know why he calls her Fausta, or why the Brunswick

picture-chronicler calls her Wichanda. Judith was an obvious name for

her, being that of her maternal grandmother the wife of Duke Richard.

Possibly, as Miss Yonge suggests (Christian Names, ii. 345), this

Hebrew name, in its form of Jutta, may have got confounded with the

Northern Gytha.

NOTE O. p. 112.

THE CHILDREN OF WILLIAM AND MATILDA.

About the number and order of the sons of William and Matilda there

is no doubt. They were Robert, Richard, William, and Henry. There is

no doubt that Richard was second in order. He is always put so in the

lists, and Orderic (573 C) expressly calls him “Ricardus, filius ejus,

qui post Rodbertum natus fuerat.” Sir Francis Palgrave must have been

speaking hastily when (iii. 254) he called him “the fourth son.”

But about the daughters, their number, names, and order, the statements

are most contradictory. I will first of all set forth the different

accounts of the early writers.

All that William of Poitiers tells us (120) is that two brother Kings

of Spain sought for a daughter of William in marriage, whose name is

not given, and that they greatly disputed about her. Of the promise

or offer of a daughter to Harold he says nothing directly, though he

alludes to it in a later passage (145).

William of Jumièges (vii. 21) only says that William had four

daughters, without giving their names. His continuator (viii. 34)

also enumerates four. First (“primogenita”), Cecily, Abbess of Caen.

Second, Constance, wife of Alan Fergant of Britanny. Third, Adelaide

[Adelidis], who was betrothed to Harold, but died unmarried (“Heraldo

proditori ante bellum Anglicum sponsata, sed, illo dignâ morte

mulctato, nulli nupta, virgo jam nubilis obiit”). Fourth, Adela, wife

of Stephen of Blois.

Orderic gives no less than four lists. The first time (484 D) he simply

gives the names of four daughters, Adeliza, Constance, Cecily, and

Hadala. The second time (512 D) the number is raised to five, and the

names are Agatha, Constance, Adeliza, Adela, and Cecily. The third time

(573 C) he gives little biographies of four daughters. 1st, Agatha,

betrothed first to Harold, then to Amfurcius [Alfonso] of Gallicia,

but who died a virgin. 2nd, Adelaide [Adelidis], who lived, seemingly

as a nun, under the care of Roger of Beaumont (“Adelidis pulcherrima

virgo jam nubilis devotè Deo se commendavit, et sub tutelâ Rogeri de

Bellomonte sancto fine quievit”). 3rd, Constance, wife of Alan Fergant

[Fergannus]. 4th, Adela, wife of Stephen. The fourth time (638 D)

he gives a mere list, with the same names as in the second but in a

different order, Agatha, Adeliza, Constance, Adela, and Cecily. He

also (511 A) says that a daughter of William, whose name he does not

mention, was promised in marriage to Earl Eadwine.

William of Malmesbury (iii. 276) says expressly that William had five

daughters. 1st, Cecily the Abbess, who was living when he wrote—he

wrote therefore before 1126. 2nd, Constance. 3rd, Adela. Of two others

he did not know the names (“duarum nomina exciderunt”), one betrothed

to Harold, the second to Alfonso, but both of whom died unmarried.

Wace (9650) knows only two daughters, “Ele” and Abbess Cecily. Ele is

(10821) betrothed to Harold, but afterwards married to Count Stephen.

Lastly, in Domesday (49) we find incidental mention of a daughter

Matilda. Her chamberlain Geoffrey (“Goisfridus Camerarius filiæ

Regis”) had lands in Hampshire, which he held “de Rege W. pro servitio

quod fecit Mathildi ejus filiæ.” She is also mentioned in an Encyclic

Letter of the Nuns of the Holy Trinity at Caen (Mabillon, Ann. Ord.

Ben. v. 690) along with her mother Matilda and her sisters Adelaide and

Constance, as one for whom the prayers of the faithful are asked.

Now of all these, Cecily, Constance, and Adela need give us no trouble

here. The history of all three is well ascertained, and will come in

its proper place. But about the others, the contradictions are great.

The names Adelidis and Adeliza are doubtless the same. We have then

these statements.

1. Adeliza was betrothed to Harold, but died unmarried. (Cont. Will.

Gem.)

2. Adeliza died unmarried under the care of Roger of Beaumont. (Ord.

Vit.)

3. Agatha was betrothed, first to Harold and then to Alfonso, but died

unmarried. (Ib.)

4. A nameless daughter betrothed to Harold died unmarried. (Will.

Malms.)

5. A nameless daughter betrothed to Alfonso died unmarried. (Ib.)

6. A nameless daughter was betrothed to Eadwine. (Ord. Vit.)

7. Matilda appears without a history. (Domesday.)

The first question is whether the daughter betrothed to Harold and the

daughter betrothed to Alfonso are the same. Orderic stands alone in

identifying them. On the whole, the balance of evidence seems to me to

lie the other way. I am inclined to think that it was Adeliza who was

betrothed to Harold, and that it was another daughter who was betrothed

to the Spanish King. Indeed they cannot be the same, if we accept the

statement which William of Malmesbury (iii. 238) puts into Harold’s

mouth in the course of the messages which passed between him and

William, namely that the maiden to whom he had been betrothed had died

before his election to the Crown (“liberatum se sacramento asserens,

quod filia ejus quam desponderat citra nubiles annos obierat”). I am

sorry nevertheless to give up Orderic’s (573 C, D) very pretty story,

which recalls (or reverses) the well-known ballad of the Spanish Lady’s

Love. She had seen and loved Harold, and preferred death rather than

to give herself to another and an unknown bridegroom. But there is also

the difficulty of the extreme youth of any daughter of William at any

time to which we can assign Harold’s visit. I cannot think, with Baron

Maseres (103), that the betrothed of Harold was Cecily.

According to Wace, the Adeliza or Adelaide betrothed to Harold was the

same as Adela, afterwards Countess of Chartres. The two names, both

coming from the _adel_ or _æðel_ root, might easily be confounded, and

it would not be difficult to suppose that Harold’s betrothed had been

on the one hand mistaken for the betrothed of Alfonso, and on the other

hand divided into two, Adela and Adeliza. But all the other accounts

seem pointedly to distinguish between Adela and the betrothed of

Harold, whether she were called Adeliza or not.

I need not discuss the theory according to which Mr. Blaauw and Mr.

Thorpe (Lappenberg, Norman Kings, 215) identify the Matilda of Domesday

with Gundrada; but a view put forth by Mrs. Green (Princesses, i. 16,

407), who has gone minutely into the matter, is better worth examining.

She holds that Matilda and Agatha are the same, that the name of Agatha

is a mistake of Orderic, that this is the daughter who was betrothed

to Eadwine, and that the story of her attachment to Harold arose from

confounding one English lover with another. Again, by gaining the

three or four years between the visit of Harold and the betrothal to

Eadwine, the difficulty as to age is got over. Mrs. Green’s suggestion

is at least ingenious. I have little doubt, as I shall show in my next

volume, that the daughter who was betrothed to Eadwine is the same

as the daughter who was betrothed to Alfonso. But I do not see the

evidence for calling her Matilda.

Abbot Baldric, in his verses addressed to Abbess Cecily (Duchèsne, Rer.

Franc, iv. 274), speaks of a sister of the Abbess, who was, in some

unexplained way, connected both with Bayeux and with Angers. Mrs. Green

identifies her also with Matilda. The lines are,

“Audivi quamdam te detinuisse sororem,

Cujus fama meas aliquando perculit aures.

Nomen it elapsum, vidisse tamen reminiscor.

Baiocensis erat, sed tunc erat Andegavensis,

Quam, tibi si placeat, nostrâ de parte saluta,

Atque mihi nomen rescribe tuumque suumque.”

As both Abbot Baldric and William of Malmesbury found it impossible to

remember the names of William’s daughters, I may perhaps be forgiven if

I leave the name of the betrothed of Harold undetermined.

NOTE P. p. 116.

THE REVOLT OF WILLIAM BUSAC.

There is a good deal of obscurity about William Busac and his revolt.

The story is told by no one except William of Jumièges (vii. 20); and,

as he seems to put it instead of the far better known story of the

revolt of William of Arques, which he tells out of its place (vii.

7), one is tempted to suppose that he has fallen into some confusion

between the two revolts and the two Williams. But he tells his tale so

clearly and straightforwardly that it is hardly possible to doubt it,

unless it can be shown distinctly to contradict some better ascertained

piece of history.

The father and brothers of William Busac, as described by William of

Jumièges, are all well ascertained persons. But William expresses

himself inaccurately when he says (vii. 20) that Count William of Eu

was an “uterinus frater” of Richard the Good. He must here use the

word “uterinus” vaguely in the sense of illegitimate; for an “uterinus

frater,” strictly speaking, of Richard the Good would mean, not a

natural son of Richard the Fearless, but a son of Gunnor by some father

other than Richard. The only question is as to the time when Count

William obtained the grant of Eu, and whether it was granted by his

half-brother Richard the Good or by his great-nephew Duke William.

The following passages may be referred to on this point, which does

not greatly concern my history. Will. Gem. iv. 18, vii. 2, viii. 37;

Stapleton, i. lvi.; Roman de Rou, 6123–6215, where a romantic story is

told, which is followed by Le Bœuf, Ville d’Eu, p. 28; and Palgrave,

iii. 45.

The strange thing is that in none of these accounts is there any

mention of William Busac as a son of Count William, though there is of

his brothers Robert and Hugh. Still it seems hardly possible wholly

to reject William’s existence and his investiture with the County of

Soissons, which is so clearly asserted by William of Jumièges, and

which, from the further details given in the _Art de Vérifier les

Dates_, must, I conceive, rest on other authorities which I have not

at hand. The chief difficulty in the story itself is that it seems to

be implied throughout that the castle of Eu was in the possession of

William Busac at the time of his revolt. If William of Jumièges did

not so distinctly make William Busac the second brother—“horum medius”

between Robert and Hugh—I should have been inclined to think that

William Busac was the eldest brother, that he inherited the County, and

that Robert succeeded to it on William’s exile. But this view seems

forbidden by the words “horum medius;” and we also find Robert’s name

with the title of “Comes de Ou” attached to a charter drawn up “tempore

quo discordia cœpit inter ipsum [Comitem Willelmum] et Henricum Regem

Francorum.” (Cart. de Saint Bertin, Paris, 1840, p. 426. The signature

of “Willelmus de Ou,” attached to an earlier charter on the same

page, belongs of course to the elder William.) We must suppose then

that William Busac contrived to occupy his brother’s castle by some

underhand means and to defend it against the Duke.

In accepting the account of this revolt given by William of Jumièges I

do not profess to fix its exact date, or to add any details beyond such

as are found in his narrative. From the point at which he introduces

the story, it would seem to have happened between the affair of William

the Warling and the marriage of Duke William, that is, between 1048 and

1053. But, as William of Jumièges puts the courtship and marriage of

William together as if there had been no delay between them (see above,

p. 85), it is quite possible that he means to fix the revolt to 1049

or thereabouts. At any rate, the place which I have given to it in my

narrative seemed to me the natural one for it, as it is the beginning

of a series of events which is carried on in the more famous revolt of

William of Arques, namely insurrections in Normandy abetted by the King

of the French.

The way in which the story of William Busac is treated by modern

writers is curious. See Licquet, ii. 126; La Butte, Histoire des Ducs

de Normandie, i. 246, 249; and the local historian of Eu, M. Le Bœuf,

p. 30. A still more amazing account will be found in Mr. Roscoe’s Life

of William the Conqueror, p. 89, for which it would be well to give

some more definite authority than “Walsingham; Wace; Chron. Sax.;

Chron. de Nor.; W. Malms.; Mazeres.”

But the aberrations of smaller writers will not seem wonderful, when

we read the strange and contradictory statements made by Sir Francis

Palgrave, which I feel sure would not have been found in any but a

posthumous work of that great scholar. He first (p. 50) tells us of

Count Robert and his services at Mortemer, and of “Robert’s son William

(in France called William Busac) enriched, like his father, by the

spoils of the Anglo-Saxon, and, who came to a fearful end.” William

Busac is here confounded with his nephew William “de Owe,” son of Count

Robert, who was blinded and mutilated by William Rufus in 1096 (see

Flor. Wig. in anno, and Palgrave, iv. 420). In a later passage (iii.

224) we read, “William, surnamed Busac, second son of William, Count

of Arques, now revolted against the Duke.” If Sir Francis had written

or dictated in Latin, I should have thought that “Arcensis” had been

substituted for “Aucensis,” by the same editorial process which took

“Lagam Regis Eadwardi” to be a misprint for “legem.”

William was succeeded in the County of Soissons by his sons John and

Reginald, after whom the County passed to the descendants of his

daughter Ramentrude, wife of Ivo of Nesle. Another son, Manasses, was

in 1092 chosen Bishop of Cambray by the citizens in opposition to the

clergy, and was translated to Soissons in 1103 (see Gest. Epp. Cam.

Pertz, vii. 504).

NOTE Q. p. 120.

THE REVOLT OF WILLIAM OF ARQUES.

There is a singular difference among our authorities as to the date of

the revolt of Count William of Arques. William of Poitiers, Orderic,

and William of Malmesbury put it at the point where I have put it in

the text. But in William of Jumièges and Wace it comes much earlier,

immediately after Duke William’s recovery of Falaise from Thurstan

Goz (see vol. ii. p. 206), some years earlier than the battle of

Val-ès-dunes. There is no doubt that the later date is the right one.

In the narrative of William of Poitiers, the story comes in in what is

evidently its natural order, immediately before the French invasion of

1054. The personal action of the Duke himself, now evidently in full

maturity, seems inconsistent with the earlier date, as does also the

prominent position of Guy-Geoffrey of Poitiers, who in 1044 (see vol.

ii. p. 595) was “parvulus.” The story is also fixed to 1053 by the

death of Ingelram of Ponthieu and the succession of his brother Guy.

See Art de Vérifier les Dates, ii. 752. At the earlier date the elder

Ingelram was reigning.

Besides this difference in date, the narratives of William of Poitiers

and of Wace differ a good deal in the order of events, though I do

not see any further contradiction between the two versions. I have

therefore, while forming my narrative mainly on that of William of

Poitiers, not scrupled to bring in some touches of detail from Wace

which seemed to bear marks of authenticity.

In the order which I have followed, Duke William requires his uncle

to surrender his castle, and he himself puts a garrison in it. The

garrison then restore the castle to William of Arques, who openly

revolts. Duke William hears the news at Valognes, he hastens to Arques,

meets a party of loyalists from Rouen, fights a party of the rebels

before the gates of the castle, and then blockades it. He then leaves

the blockading force under Walter Giffard. King Henry comes to help

William of Arques, and he falls into an ambush, where Count Ingelram

is slain and Hugh Bardulf taken prisoner. The King retires; the Duke

returns; William of Arques surrenders the castle, and the other posts

in Normandy held by the French are surrendered also.

The accounts in William of Jumièges and in Wace leave out the

occupation of the castle by the Duke and its betrayal to the Count

of Arques. They say that the Duke, suspecting his uncle, summoned

him to his presence, which summons he declined to obey, and openly

rebelled (“Quem Dux à suâ vesaniâ nitens avellere, ad exhibendum sibi

obsequium per legatos jussit eum venire. Sed ille hujusmodi legationem

habens contemptui, magnâ cum fiduciâ ad resistendum se munivit et

armavit.” Will. Gem. vii. 7). Wace transfers the hasty ride from the

Côtentin from the first to the second appearance of Duke William before

Arques. William of Poitiers again makes William reach Arques with six

followers, all the others who had started from Valognes having failed

to keep up with his pace. He there meets the reinforcement of three

hundred from Rouen. Wace makes him reach Arques absolutely alone (v.

8699);

“Tute sa gente s’en merveilla

Ke de si luing si tost vint là:

Nuls ne s’en pot à li tenir,

Ne nuls ne pot o li venir,

De cels qui à Valuignes furent

E de Valuignes od li s’esmurent.”

This is an evident exaggeration, adapted to the new order of events.

Had William reached Arques absolutely alone, in the state of things

conceived by William of Poitiers, he must have fallen into the hands

of his enemies. But, while Wace transposes the two marches of William,

Orderic (657 B) rolls the two into one. In his story William’s first

appearance comes after King Henry and Count Ingelram have entered the

country. He hears of them at Valognes; he sends on a picked force, and

then follows himself with his main army. The former (“præcursores mei”)

meet Ingelram, and defeat and kill him before William reaches Arques at

all. But though I think that Wace has transposed the order of events, I

have not scrupled to draw several details of the ride from him, and to

accept Valognes as the starting-point. The other writers only mention

the Côtentin generally. It is of course possible that Wace may have

been thinking of William’s former ride from Valognes (see vol. ii. p.

247), where also the mention of Valognes is peculiar to himself. But,

if William was likely to be there at one time, he was likely to be

there at another.

The mention of Saint Aubin as the place of the ambush also comes from

William of Jumièges, followed by Wace. (I am sorry that, when I was

at Arques, I omitted to explore the spot.) I have ventured to connect

this mention of Saint Aubin with that which Orderic gives (606 B,

C) of Richard of Hugleville’s resistance at Saint Aubin. This comes

in a genealogical passage where the campaign of Arques is spoken of

only incidentally, and seems to me to be a case of quite independent

testimony coinciding.

NOTE R. p. 217.

THE BEQUEST OF EADWARD TO WILLIAM AND THE OATH OF HAROLD.

The oath which, as William alleged, Harold had sworn to him, and the

bequest which, as he also alleged, Eadward had made in his favour, are

two subjects every detail of which is enveloped in controversy and

contradiction, and two subjects moreover which cannot be kept apart

from one another. I have, both in the text and elsewhere, set forth

more than once what I believe to be the true history. I will now go

more minutely through all the evidence which we have bearing on the

matter.

I. As I have already said (see above, p. 219), there are three

statements as to the object of Harold’s visit to Normandy. And two out

of these statements imply different versions of the alleged bequest of

Eadward to William. I have stated their substance in the text; I will

now go through the evidence for and against them.

1. The first version is that of William of Poitiers. He mentions the

matter twice, first in his narrative of Harold’s visit (107 et seqq.),

secondly, in the account of the messages sent by William to Harold

(129–30). According to this statement (129), Eadward chose William

as his heir, on account of his many excellences (“quoniam omnium qui

genus suum attingerent me credebat excellentissimum, qui optimè valerem

vel ei, quamdiu viveret, subvenire, vel posteaquam decederet, regnum

gubernare”) and as a return for the kindness which he had received

from William and his predecessors during his sojourn in Normandy (“ob

maximos honores et plurima beneficia quæ illi atque fratri suo, necnon

hominibus eorum, ego et majores mei impendimus”). This devise of the

Crown was apparently made by a decree of the Witan; at any rate it was

made by the advice, and confirmed by the oaths, of Archbishop Stigand

and of the three great Earls, Godwine, Leofric, and Siward (“sanè

neque id absque suorum optimatum consensu, verùm consilio Stigandi

Archiepiscopi, Godwini Comitis, Leurici Comitis, Sigardi Comitis”).

These great leaders all agreed to accept William as Eadward’s successor

on his death, and meanwhile, as the passage seems to mean, to set up

no other candidate against him (“qui etiam jurejurando suis manibus

confirmaverunt, quod post Edwardi decessum me reciperent dominum, nec

ullatenus peterent in vitâ illius patriam hanc ullo impedimento contra

me occupari”). A son and a grandson of Godwine were given by Eadward

as hostages for this engagement (“obsides mihi dedit Godwini filium

ac nepotem,” 130; so again, 107, “Heraldus ... cujus antea frater et

fratuelis obsides fuerant accepti de successione eâdem”—Willelmi sc.).

As Eadward found himself near death—it might have been added, now that

the three Earls who had confirmed the devise were all dead—the King

thought it good to bind Harold by the same oath which had been formerly

taken by his father, with the further security that it should be taken

in William’s presence, while Godwine and the rest had, on the former

occasion, only bound themselves to him in his absence (“ut quod pater

ejus atque cæteri supranominati hic [in England] mihi juravere absenti,

is ibi [in Normandy] præsens juaret præsenti”). Eadward also, it would

seem, wished to give William, before his death, a further confirmation

in his own name (“graviore quam fuerat cautum pignore cavit.” 107). The

importance of binding Harold to the proposed succession is strongly

set forth. He alone could influence or constrain the English people,

who, it is implied, were very likely to disturb the arrangement (“et

eum [Haraldum] quidem prudentissimè [destinavit], ut ipsius opes et

auctoritas totius Anglicæ gentis dissensum coercerent, si rem novare

mallent _perfidâ mobilitate, quantâ sese agunt_”). Harold is therefore

sent on this errand; he falls into the hands of Guy and is rescued

by William, as I have described in the text. He makes his oath to

William—its terms I shall discuss at a later stage of this note—and

William looks on him as one who will most effectually win over the

English to his cause (“quem inter se et Anglos, quibus à Rege secundus

erat, mediatorem sperabat fidissimum.” 108).

This is the full account given by the contemporary panegyrist of

William. Two things are to be noticed in it, as important admissions

made by an enemy. First, the loyalty of Harold to Eadward, and the full

friendship and confidence which existed between the King and the Earl,

are implied throughout, in distinct contradiction of one form of Norman

calumny. Secondly, there is throughout a recognition of the English

people as a party likely to claim a voice in the matter, and one whose

voice, it is expected, will not be given on behalf of William. The

epithets of abuse which the Norman panegyrist hurls at the heads of the

English nation are in truth a speaking witness to the popular character

of the ancient English government.

William of Jumièges (vii. 31) tells essentially the same story. He says

nothing about the counsel and the oaths of Stigand and the three Earls,

but he tells us that Eadward, finding himself childless (“_disponente

Deo_ successione prolis carens”), sent Archbishop Robert to announce

to William his intention of making him his heir (“olim miserat

Willelmo Duci Rodbertum Cantuariorum Archipræsulem, ex regno a Deo

sibi attributo illum statuens hæredem”). Afterwards he sends Harold,

the most powerful Earl in his Kingdom, to confirm the bequest by oath,

and to plight his own faith to the Duke (“deinde Heraldum cunctorum

suæ dominationis Comitem divitiis et honore ac potentiâ maximum Duci

destinavit, ut ei de coronâ suâ fidelitatem faceret, ac Christiano more

sacramentis firmaret”). The story then goes on as before.

Orderic (492 A) tells the same story as William of Jumièges, with the

addition that the devise in favour of Duke William was made with the

consent of the English nation. “Eduardus nimirùm propinquo suo Willelmo

Duci Normannorum, primò per Rodbertum Cantuariorum summum Pontificem,

postea per eumdem Heraldum, integram Anglici regni mandaverat

concessionem, ipsumque, _concedentibus Anglis_, fecerat totius juris

sui hæredem.”

Benoît (36498 et seqq.) follows William of Jumièges, except that he

does not give the name of the Archbishop, and that he seems to imply

that the mission of the Archbishop and the mission of Harold happened

in two consecutive years.

“L’arcevesque de Cantorbire,

Li plus hauz hom de son empire,

Out en Normendie tramis,

_Les anz avant_, si cum je vus dis,

Por afermer ce qu’il li done

Tot le reaume e la corone.”

(vv. 36508–36513.)

It is really needless to refute this story. Some remarks on the tale

will be found in Lord Lyttelton (Henry the Second, i. 351 et seqq.) and

Baron Maseres (pp. 74 et seqq., 113 et seqq.) which are far above the

average criticism of their age. Both writers are hampered throughout

by the supposed necessity of accepting, or at least of attaching some

weight to, the accounts of the false Ingulf; otherwise their line of

argument is of a high order. There are also some good remarks of Lord

Lytton’s in a note to his “Harold” (iii. 385), though I cannot conceive

what he means by saying (iii. 386) that “the Saxon chroniclers ...

unite in relating Edward’s warnings to Harold against his visit to

the Norman court.” The “Saxon” Chronicles, I need hardly repeat, are

altogether silent on the matter.

No one, I think, who goes carefully through the whole circumstances of

the tale as told by William of Poitiers, will hesitate to say, with

Baron Maseres, “there is reason to think it is absolutely false,” or,

with Lord Lytton, “this appears a fable wholly without foundation.”

Here is a purely English matter, an act of the English Witan, a deed

confirmed by the greatest men of the Church and State of England, which

rests solely on the assertion of an interested Norman writer, and of

which no English Chronicle or cartulary has preserved the slightest

trace. To make us believe that Leofric, that Siward, that Stigand, that

Godwine, that the whole English people, agreed to the succession of

William, we should need no evidence short of the document bearing their

signatures, strengthened by an entry in the Chronicles to show that

the document might possibly be genuine. No statement was ever weighed

down by a heavier burthen of internal improbability. An act done when

Stigand was Archbishop and when Godwine and the other Earls were still

living, must belong to the few months between the appointment of

Stigand to the Archbishopric at the Mickle Gemót of September, 1052

and the death of Godwine at Easter, 1053. It will not do to say that

the title “Archiepiscopi” is simply descriptive of the person, and

that the act might have been done at a time when Stigand had not yet

reached the archiepiscopal rank (cf. vol. ii. p. 420). For Stigand and

the three Earls are clearly mentioned as being the four greatest men

in the Kingdom, which of course would not be the case at a time when

Stigand was only a presbyter, or even the Bishop of an inferior see.

The devise then, if it was ever made at all, could have been made only

within those few months. And, except in those later years when Harold’s

succession seems to have been looked upon as a settled thing (see vol.

ii. p. 634), no time can be found so unlikely as those few months for

any act in favour of William. No wilder assertion was ever made than

that which represents the Witan of England, with Godwine at their head,

as agreeing to, and even advising, the succession of the Norman Duke to

the English Crown at the very moment of their great triumph over Norman

favourites and Norman influence in England.

So much for William of Poitiers. William of Jumièges and Orderic,

who evidently follows him, do not greatly mend matters by leaving out

Stigand and the Earls, and seemingly putting Stigand’s predecessor

Robert in his stead. Archbishop Robert is made to cross from England

into Normandy. They doubtless had in their minds the time when Robert

really did cross from England into Normandy. But that perilous passage

was not made on the King’s errand or on any errand at all; it was the

hurried flight of a public enemy, hastening to save himself from the

vengeance of the English people (see vol. ii. p. 331). The story as

regards Stigand, Godwine, Leofric, and Siward is manifestly impossible;

it is no less impossible as regards Harold. We have already seen that

during the whole time that Harold answered the description given of him

by the Norman writers as the richest and most powerful Earl in England,

the succession was, practically if not formally, determined in favour,

first of the Ætheling Eadward and then of Harold himself. The tale that

Eadward sent Harold, or that Harold consented to go, on an errand which

shut out himself and every other Englishman from all hope of succession

to the Crown, is simply absurd and impossible.

2. The second version, that in which Harold goes, not to guarantee

the succession to William, but to bring back the supposed hostages,

his brother and nephew, involves quite another view of the alleged

bequest to William. In this account, there is no mention of any formal

act of the Witan, none of any oaths of Bishops and Earls, none even

of any act of the King himself, after he became King. It comes out

incidentally that Eadward is said to have, years before, privately

promised the Crown to William. And the only evidence for this private

conversation between Eadward and William is another alleged private

conversation between William and Harold. Yet this story is, as I

have before said (see vol. ii. p. 302), less grotesquely absurd than

the former one, and it rests on better authority. It is the version

followed by two most valuable English writers of the next generation,

namely Eadmer and Simeon of Durham. The narrative of Simeon, we cannot

doubt, was borrowed from the narrative of Eadmer, whose exact words

he follows through a great part of the story. And the appearance of

the story at all in Simeon’s History is remarkable. Simeon had copied

from Florence, with the change or addition of two or three words only,

the narrative of the election of Harold, of the two invasions, of the

two battles, of the death of Harold and the coronation of William.

It then perhaps occurred to him that Florence’s narrative contained

no statement whatever of any motive for William’s invasion. Simeon

therefore (1066) starts as it were afresh, with the introduction, “Ut

autem sciatur origo caussae quâ Willelmus Angliam bello appetiit,

breviter quæ paullò ante gesta sunt repetantur.” He then goes on to

the same effect as Eadmer. The hostages, Wulfnoth and Hakon (“Wlnothus

filius Godwini et Hacun filius Suani filii sui”), are given by Godwine

to Eadward at their reconciliation, and they are given by Eadward

to Duke William for safe-keeping. Some time after Godwine’s death,

Harold, now in possession of his father’s Earldom (“Godwinus ... malâ

morte”—Eadmer, 4. Simeon says only “quum esset mortuus”—“post breve

tempus interiit, et Haraldus filius ejus comitatum _Cantiæ_ patri

succedens obtinuit. Is, elapso modico tempore,” &c.), asks leave of

the King to go over to Normandy and bring back the hostages. Eadward

says that he may go, but warns him against going. He is sure that, if

he goes, some harm and shame will happen to him and to England. He

knows Duke William well enough to be sure that he will never let the

hostages go, unless he can get some gain by so doing (“Hoc non fiet per

me; verumtamen ne videar te velle impedire, permitto ut eas quo vis

ac experiare quid possis. Præsentio tamen te in nihil aliud tendere

nisi in detrimentum totius Anglici regni et opprobrium tui. Nec enim

ita novi Comitem mentis expertem ut eos aliquatenus velit concedere

tibi si non præscierit in hoc magnum proficuum sui”). Harold however

thinks himself wiser than the King (“suo quam Regis consilio credens”),

and sets out. He is shipwrecked, imprisoned by Guy (“pro ritu loci,

captivitati addicitur”), and delivered and honourably received by

William. He presently sets forth to the Duke the cause of his journey.

William tells him that it will be his own fault if the matter does not

turn out well (“bene quidem rem processuram si in ipso non remaneret”).

After a few days, the Duke sets forth his own mind to the Englishman.

When he and Eadward were living together as youths in Normandy, Eadward

promised him that, if he should ever obtain the Crown of England, he

would make it over to him as his heir (“Regem Edwardum, quando secum

juvene olim juvenis in Normanniâ demoraretur, sibi, interpositâ fide

suâ pollicitum fuisse, quia, si Rex Angliæ foret, jus regni in illum

jure hæreditario post se transferret”). If Harold would swear to

support this disposal of the Crown, and would bind himself by other

engagements which I shall presently discuss, Hakon should be released

at once and Wulfnoth as soon as William had mounted the English throne

(“tunc et modò nepotem tuum, et quum in Angliam regnaturus venero,

fratrem tuum incolumem recipies”). Harold, feeling himself in a strait

from which he knows not how to escape, swears to all that was required

of him (“sensit Haraldus in his periculum undique, nec intellexit

quà evaderet, nisi in omnibus istis voluntati Willelmi adquiesceret.

Adquievit itaque” &c.). He returns to England with Hakon, and tells the

whole story to Eadward, who reminds him of his own warning (“nonne dixi

tibi, ait, me Willelmum nôsse, et in illo itinere tuo plurima mala huic

regno contingere posse”). Eadward soon afterwards dies, and Harold,

according to Eadward’s own wishes, succeeds him. See above, p. 586.