reached any certainty as to details; but I think that we may safely
accept two sets of messages, and I hope that I have fairly given their
general tenor.
NOTE HH. pp. 423, 438, 445.
THE ENGLISH NUMBERS AT SENLAC.
The two passages which I have quoted at p. 445 from the Worcester
Chronicle and from Florence distinctly charge Harold with fighting
a battle with insufficient numbers. The passage from the Worcester
Chronicle follows immediately on the words “Wyllelm him com ongean on
unwær, ær his folc gefylced wære.” So the Peterborough writer, “Harold
com norðan, and him wið gefeaht éar þan þe his here com eall.” Florence
is still fuller;
“Licet ... bene sciret ... mediam partem sui exercitûs nondum
convenisse, quam citiùs tamen potuit, in Suth-Saxoniâ suis hostibus
occurrere non formidavit, et novem milliariis ab Hæstinga ubi sibi
castellum firmaverant, priusquam tertia pars sui exercitûs ordinaretur
... cum eis prœlium commisit.”
So William of Malmesbury, as quoted at p. 423 (ii. 228), says that
Harold had with him very few troops except the Housecarls. Presently
he adds, “pauci et manu promptissimi fuere, qui, caritati corporum
renuntiantes, pro patriâ animas posuere.” And again in iii. 2393
“Haroldus ... paucissimo stipatus milite, Hastingas protendit.” So the
writer De Inventione, c. 20;
“Modico stipatus agmine Rex properat ad expugnandas gentes exteras, heu
nimis animosus, minùs quidem quam expediret circumspectus, propriis
quidem magis quam suorum confidens viribus.... Non potuit de pari
contendere, qui modico stipatus agmine, quadruplo congressus exercitui,
sorti se dedit ancipiti.”
The Norman writers, on the other hand, can hardly find words strong
enough to set forth the countless numbers of the English host. William
of Poitiers (132) rises, as might have been expected, to one of his
grandest flights; “Scribens Heraldi agmen illud veterum aliquis in ejus
transitu flumina epotata, silvas in planum redactas fuisse memoraret.
Maximæ enim ex omnibus undique regionibus copiæ Anglorum convenerant.”
A little way on (133) he talks of their “ingens numerositas.” Guy
enlarges throughout on the numbers of the English. He makes William’s
monk say (321),
“Quo graditur, silvas planis deducit adesse,
Et per quæ transit flumina sicca facit.”
And afterwards (441) we read,
“Anglorum populus, numero superante, repellit
Hostes.”
But I presume that the twelve hundred thousand men of whom the English
monk is made to speak (223) means the whole military population of
England and not the host actually encamped on Senlac;
“Nam Dominum testor, bis sex sibi millia centum
Sunt pugnatorum, prœlia qui sitiunt.”
So Orderic (500 D) and William of Jumièges (vii. 35) speak of an
“innumera multitude.”
Wace makes Harold boast (12999) that he has four hundred thousand men;
“Ke chevaliers ke paisanz
Par quatre foiz chent mil armez.”
But when he speaks in his own person (12913) he speaks with his usual
good sense;
“Heraut out grant pople è estult,
De totes parz en i vint mult;
Maiz multitude petit vaut
Se la virtu du ciel i faut.
Plusor è plusor unt poiz dit
Ke Heraut aveit gent petit,
Por ço ke à li meschaï;
Maiz plusors dient è jel di,
Ke cuntre un home altre envéia,
La gent al Duc poi foisonna,
Maiz li Dus aveit veirement
Plusors baronz è meillor gent.”
Wace here rebukes the English exaggerations; so William of Malmesbury
(ii. 228) rebukes the Norman exaggerations; “Sed mihi videntur errare
qui Anglorum numerum accumulant et fortitudinem extenuant; ita
Normannos, dum laudare intendunt, infamiâ respergunt.”
My own ideas I have set forth pretty plainly in the text. It is very
likely that Harold, by waiting longer, might have gathered a larger
army, but, as far as a civilian may venture to judge of such a matter,
it seems to me that a larger army would not have been of any use.
Harold clearly had men enough to defend the hill. If indeed he could
have exchanged his irregular levies for the Thegns and Housecarls of
Eadwine and Morkere, that might have made a difference, but that is
not a question of numbers. We must allow for obvious exaggeration on
both sides, and perhaps Wace strikes as good a balance between the two
as any. It is impossible to go over the battle-field with the Norman
accounts in one’s hand and not to feel the consummate generalship which
led Harold to the choice and defence of the post which he chose. And
this time I venture to appeal from Harold’s admirers and censurers to
Harold himself.
NOTE II. p. 428.
THE MIRACULOUS WARNING GIVEN TO HAROLD BEFORE THE BATTLE.
I have given in the text the legend of the miraculous warning given
to Harold by the Holy Rood at Waltham, because there is probably thus
much of truth in the story, that Harold really visited Waltham in the
interval between the two battles. But when the notion of a miraculous
interposition had once got afloat, the story, as usual, took various
forms. According to the legend preserved by the Hyde writer (p. 293),
Harold, on his march from London to Senlac, entered a church to pray.
As soon as he left the building, the tower fell; this of course
portended the fall of Harold’s Kingdom (“fertur etiam quod in ipso
itinere, ecclesiam illo introeunte orandi gratiâ, turris ejusdem post
exeuntem solo tenus corruit, regnumque Anglorum quam citiùs corruere
designaverit”). There is nothing to remark in this story, unless it be
that the notion of Harold entering a church on his journey may be taken
from the picture of his entering Bosham church on his earlier journey
(Tapestry, plate 1), where the church is, strangely enough, represented
without a tower.
The other version is found in the anonymous continuation of Wace’s Brut
(Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, i. 70, quoted also in Taylor’s Wace, 289).
The two armies are encamped near Hastings;
“A Hastinges sunt encontré
Li rois e li dux par grant fierté.”
Harold rises in the morning, and goes to hear mass in a church near the
battle-field (“assez près à un moster”). The priests have consecrated
the host and sung the _Pater Noster_, when a cry comes, “The Duke is
upon us!” The King at once leaves the church, and rushes to the battle.
If, the poet adds, he had waited for the _Agnus Dei_ and the _Pax_, he
would have vanquished the Duke in battle or would have held his Kingdom
in peace.
“Si le _Agnus Dei_ eust atendu
E la pais eust recéu,
Par pais eust la terre tenu
U par bataille le dux vencu.”
This story seems to come from the account of the battle of Ashdown in
Asser (M. H. B. 476 C, copied also by Florence, 871), where the Danes
attack the English while Æthelred and his brother Ælfred are hearing
mass. Ælfred rushes out at once to the battle, while Æthelred waits
for the end of the service. But the myth-maker now goes on to add the
Waltham legend itself, strangely translated from its natural place.
After the King has left the church—seemingly the church near Senlac—the
stone cross gives the same marvellous sign which it gives in the
Waltham story; and to confirm our faith in the tale, we are bidden to
go to Waltham and see the cross behind the high altar, and Harold lying
in the choir;
“Quant il issit del moster,
La croiz, ke fu fait de père,
Après le rois ad encliné
C’onques puis la teste levé.
Ki ke volt ceo saver,
A Walteham, ultre le halt auter,
Meimes cel croiz purra trover
E roi Haraud gisant en quer.”
The two stories are here very awkwardly joined together, and there
cannot be the least doubt that the version in the De Inventione gives
the legend in its earliest and genuine form.
NOTE KK. pp. 442 et seqq.
THE DETAILS OF THE BATTLE OF SENLAC.
I had hoped to deal with the great battle as I have dealt with the
other great points of my history, that is to give a narrative of
the events as I conceive them, uninterrupted by foot-notes, and to
discuss all details in a separate essay. But I found this course
impossible. My view of the battle is founded on so many minute hints
in so many different writers that I found that, if I separated my
particular statements from the evidence on which they rest, I should
be practically calling on the reader to accept the statements without
full means of testing them. To every statement therefore which seemed
open to any possibility of question, I have added the authority on
which I ground it. Each reader can therefore judge for himself how far
my narrative is borne out by my authorities. At the same time I think
that no one will be justified either in confidently accepting or in
confidently rejecting my version, unless he has himself gone over the
ground with the original accounts fresh in his memory. I have myself
visited Battle four times. The first time was as long ago as 1853, when
I was already deeply interested in the subject, but when I had not yet
planned the present work. I went more carefully over the ground, with a
special reference to this history, in July 1866, and again in December
1868. This third time I had the advantage of the company of Mr. J. R.
Green, who has a much keener eye than I have for topography, especially
for military topography. But I am happy to say that his observations
had mainly the effect of explaining and confirming the conclusions to
which I had come two years before. Lastly, in the same month I walked
specially from Hastings to Battle, a part of the process almost as
needful as the survey of the actual battle-ground.
Most of the accounts of the battle, ancient and modern, show very
little understanding of the site. Of the primary authorities, William
of Poitiers and Guy of Amiens both show by several touches that they
understood it. But Guy alone bears the position in mind throughout his
story. William begins with an excellent description, but his topography
is soon lost in his rhetoric. The local historian, the author of the
Chronicon de Bello, is still more distinct; so is the author of the
Brevis Relatio. The Tapestry gives but little idea of the general
site, though some particular incidents are displayed with wonderful
vividness. Wace, I think, could not have seen the ground. The English
contemporary writers give no details of any kind; the later writers,
as William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, give incidental
help, which is sometimes very valuable, but they seem to have had very
little notion of the general position. Henry of Huntingdon is the most
remarkable case. The latter part of his account contains a great deal
that is very much to the purpose, and we owe to him the admirable
comparison of Harold’s camp to a castle (see p. 442). Yet this follows
on a statement so grotesquely inaccurate as that Harold “aciem suam
construxit _in planis Hastinges_” (M. H. B. 762 C). It will be easily
seen that my narrative is mainly drawn from the Tapestry, William of
Poitiers, and Guy, using the other writers, Wace at their head, as
subsidiary. In no part of the enquiry does the paramount value of the
Tapestry come out more strongly. There is little contradiction among
the primary authorities as to the main facts, though they often differ
as to their order. In these cases I have had to choose according to the
best of my discretion; the reader must judge with what success.
The modern accounts, including those of Thierry, Lappenberg, M. de
Bonnechose, and Mr. St. John, seem to have been written with little
or no attention to the ground. If we learn from them that Harold’s
position was on a hill, it is as much as we do. Sir Francis Palgrave,
in his early work (Hist. Ang. Sax. 385), so completely misunderstood
the battle as to say that Harold, when struck by the arrow, “dropped
_from his steed_ in agony,” and this is actually reprinted in his
posthumous third volume, p. 317. Lord Lytton, in his romance, shows a
better understanding of the site than anybody else; he had at least
seen it; but he has unfortunately encumbered his picture of the battle
with many incidents which are imaginary and impossible. An intelligent
local antiquary of the district, Mr. M. A. Lower, has done more to
explain matters than any professed historian. His account (see Sussex
Archæological Collections, vol. vi. p. 15, and Lower’s Contributions to
Literature, p. 36) is very carefully done, and it brings out several
points which had never been brought out before. Mr. Lower evidently
knows the ground well, and he has made good use of Guy of Amiens,
to whose full value no earlier writer seems to have been alive. Mr.
Lower’s paper is on the whole very satisfactory as far as it goes, and
I shall not have to speak of many points of difference between his
views and mine. I may however mention that Mr. Lower has been misled
as to the site of the Standard. The point commonly shown as such is
plainly the site of the altar of the Lady Chapel; the site of the
Standard was marked by the high altar, which of course stood further to
the west.
Having thus, much against my will, encumbered my text with a cloud of
references, I have now only to discuss a few points which seem to call
for explanation or to be open to controversy.
1. The name of Senlac for the hill on which Harold encamped rests, as
far as I know, solely on the authority of Orderic, who seems to take a
kind of pleasure in repeating it. The spot was anciently called Senlac
(501 A); the battle was fought “in campo Senlac” (598 A); “in epitumo
Senlac” (659 B)—whatever “epitumo” may mean; the Abbey was founded on
Senlac (505 B); the battle is the battle of Senlac (“Senlacium bellum”
502 D, 504 A, “certamen Senlacium” 523 A). I do not profess to know
the etymology of the name, and Orderic’s form may possibly be corrupt.
But he cannot have invented the word, which evidently survives in
“Santlaches,” “Saintlake,” &c. (in various spellings), “the Lake,”
“Battle Lake,” and so forth, the local names for the south-eastern part
of the town. (See Lower, p. 70.) “Sanglac” or “Sanguelac” I take to
be simply a French pun on the name. On the authority of Orderic then,
I have not scrupled systematically to use the word, especially as a
name for the spot is wanted. In Domesday and elsewhere the battle is
“bellum Hastingense,” “bellum apud Hastinges,” but that is simply as
Stamfordbridge is “bellum apud Eboracum.”
2. The story of Harold and Gyrth going by night to spy out the Norman
camp (see p. 447) comes from Wace, 12120–12217. Like a good deal that
is said about Gyrth, it rests on no sufficient evidence. The tendency
to exalt Gyrth is common to several of the Norman writers, but it comes
out more strongly in Wace than anywhere else. In fact this part of his
poem is little short of a Gyrthiad. The English Earl is perhaps less
prominent than the Norman Duke, but he is more prominent than any one
else. Wace evidently takes a special pleasure in talking of him; the
conception of his character is well drawn, and his story is wrought up
with a good deal of epic skill, till he is cut down at the very end of
the battle by the hand of William himself. We may accept the valour
and wisdom of Gyrth on the witness of his enemies; but there must be
some reason for the special favour which he enjoys. Perhaps it was felt
to be necessary to the greatness of William that he should be matched
with a worthy adversary. Harold’s skill and valour are not disputed,
but the perjurer and usurper could not be painted as a hero in the
higher sense. The place was open for Gyrth, and it doubtless suited his
traditional character. But all this makes me somewhat suspicious of the
details of any story in which he is prominent.
3. William of Poitiers (132) has a strange statement that there were
Danish auxiliaries at Senlac; “Copiosa quoque auxilia miserat eis
[Anglis] cognata terra Danorum.” There is not a word more about them
in his narrative, nor, as far as I know, anywhere else. By Danes is
possibly meant Northumbrians. The few Yorkshire volunteers who followed
Harold (see p. 424) may have got magnified into an army fresh from
Denmark. I do not understand what Lappenberg (549) means, when he says,
“die Dänen wurden unbrauchbar, da sie nicht gegen Herzog Wilhelm selbst
fechten zu wollen erklärten.” Does this come from the words which
immediately follow in William of Poitiers? “Non tamen audentes cum
Willelmo ex æquo confligere, plus eum quam Regem Noricorum extimentes,
locum editiorem præoccupavere, montem silvæ per quam advenere vicinum.”
But this simply means the occupation of Senlac by the English army in
general.
4. The order of events (see p. 482) as to the real and the feigned
flight of the Normans differs a good deal in our authorities. William
of Poitiers gives the order which I have followed. The feigned flight
is suggested to William by the fortunate result of the real flight. See
p. 489, note 1. But in Guy’s version (423 et seqq.) the feigned flight
at first succeeds; the fugitives turn and slay ten thousand of the
accursed Englishmen;
“Pars ibi magna perit, pars et densata resistit;
Millia namque decem sunt ibi passa necem.
Ut pereunt mites bacchante leone bidentes,
Sic compulsa mori gens maledicta ruit.”
(vv. 435–438.)
But the superior numbers of the English give them the advantage, and
the Normans are driven to fly in earnest;
“Anglorum populus, numero superante, repellit
Hostes, inque retro compulit ora dari;
Et fuga ficta priùs fit tunc virtute coacta;
Normanni fugiunt, dorsa tegunt clipei.”
(vv. 441–444.)
Then William recalls the fugitives; another attack is made on the
English, and Gyrth is killed. The account of William of Poitiers seems
much more natural and probable; but that of Guy may be thought to be
confirmed by the Tapestry, which places (pl. 15) the scene of William
and Odo recalling the troops both after the death of Gyrth and Leofwine
(pl. 14) and after the incidents of the ravine and the little hill (p.
490). On the whole I look on the Tapestry as the highest authority of
the three, but in the nature of things exact chronological order is not
its strongest point. See for instance the awkward shifts to which the
designer is driven in pl. 14 to express the attack of the Normans on
several points of the English position at once.
5. As to the part of Eustace in the battle (see p. 483) our accounts
are somewhat contradictory. William of Poitiers mentions only his
advice to Duke William in the pursuit after the battle (see p. 503),
but he tells us elsewhere (157) that Eustace had given his son to
William as a hostage (“filium de fide ante bellum in Normanniâ obsidem
dederat”). This may possibly imply some suspicion either of his courage
or of his good faith. Guy tells us of his giving his horse to William
(see p. 487) and of his share in the butchery of Harold (see p. 499).
In the Tapestry (pl. 15) Eustace is shown giving some piece of advice
to William at the very moment of the Duke recalling the fugitives, and
William certainly does not seem to be giving him much attention. The
nature of his advice, as I have given it in the text, comes from Benoît
(37414–37421). William has just spoken to the fugitives;
“Dunc vint poignant Quens Eustace,
Qui le Duc effreie e manace,
E dit: ‘Morz est, por veir, senz faille,
S’il ne se part de la bataille:
Nul recovrer n’a mais és suens.’
Ci pout grant ponte aveir li Quens,
Qu’à trop mauvaise e à trop fole
Fu puis tenue la parole.”
On the other hand, the local chronicler of Battle (p. 4) seems to claim
for Eustace, the only man besides the Duke and William Faber whom he
mentions by name, the main credit of the device of the feigned flight;
“Strenuissimus Boloniæ Comes Eustachius clam callidâ præmeditatâ arte,
fugam cum exercitu Duce simulante, super Anglos sparsim agiliter
insequentes cum manu validâ a tergo irruit.” This picking out of
Eustace as a special hero is significant. It is plainly meant as a
contradiction; but what is the value of the contradiction? The passage
from Benoît seems to fit in admirably with the scene in the Tapestry;
still it is possible that Eustace is giving some other advice, and that
Benoît transferred to this point the advice given in the later pursuit.
6. The death of Gyrth is told as I have told it (see p. 485) by Guy
(471–480). William kills him with his own hand;
“Nam velox juvenem sequitur veluti leo frendens,
Membratim perimens, hæc sibi verba dedit:
‘Accipe promeritam nostri de parte coronam,
Si periit sonipes hanc tibi reddo pedes.’”
In the Tapestry (pl. 14) Gyrth and Leofwine are killed at this stage of
the battle or earlier, but seemingly not by the hand of William. Wace
(13947 et seqq.) makes the fall of Gyrth the last act of the battle,
after Harold is dead; the deed is wrought by William’s own hand;
“Guert vit Engleiz amenuisier,
Vit k’il n’i out nul recovrier,
Vit son lignage dechaeir:
De sei garir n’out nul espeir,
Fuir s’en volt, maiz ne poeit,
Ke la presse toz tems creisseit.
A tant puinst li Dus, si l’ateint,
Par grant aïr avant l’empeint,
Ne sai se de cel colp morut,
Maiz ço fu dit ke pose jut.”
Wace, it will be seen, does not commit himself to Gyrth’s death, no
doubt with an eye to a legend which I shall speak of in a later note.
Of these three accounts I follow that of Guy, as the clearest in
itself, and as drawing a certain amount of support from each of the
other versions. It agrees with the Tapestry in placing the death of
Gyrth early in the battle; it agrees with Wace in making him die by the
hand of William.
The group in the Tapestry (pl. 14) representing the deaths of Gyrth and
Leofwine is well worth study. Five Englishmen are shown, two of whom
are falling dead. Of the other three, one is manfully wielding his axe,
another his spear; a third rushes up, sword in hand. Can these be the
five _Wulfnothingas_, Ælfwig, Harold, Gyrth, Leofwine, and Hakon? Might
not the Abbot, a man of a past generation, use the sword rather than
the axe? It should be noticed that it is only here, and again in the
group immediately round Harold in pl. 16, that we see the round shield
with the boss, spoken of in p. 473, either in the main picture or in
the border.
7. The part in the battle played by the small detached hill (see p.
490) has, as far as I know, never been mentioned by any modern writer.
I must leave it to the reader to judge whether the words of William
of Malmesbury and the representation in the Tapestry, when taken
together, bear out the meaning which I have put upon them. The hill is
very distinctly marked in the Tapestry, and it seems impossible that
the words “occupato tumulo” in William’s account can mean the general
occupation of the hill of Senlac itself by the English army.
8. It will be seen that I make (pp. 490, 503) two occasions when the
Normans suffered from an attack of English fugitives in marshy ground.
The scene described by William of Malmesbury, and represented in the
Tapestry as happening comparatively early in the battle, cannot be
the same as that which William of Poitiers, Orderic, and the Battle
Chronicler place at the very end of the battle. The order in the
Tapestry may not always be quite exact, but it could not go so far
wrong as this. The ground also supplies places which exactly suit both
occasions. Mr. Lower (Contributions to Literature, 54) identifies
the account in William of Malmesbury with the account in the Battle
Chronicler. But this last seems very well to describe, with some
exaggeration, the steep ground north of the hill (Chron. de Bello, 5);
“Siquidem et inter hostiles gladios miserabile quoddam, in proximo
spatiosè protentum, ex naturali telluris hiatu vel forsan ex
procellarum concavatione, præcipitium vastè patens, licet uti in
vastitate dumis vel tribulis obsitum, oculis minùs prævideretur,
innumeros et maximè Normannorum Anglos persequentium, suffocavit. Nam
dum inscii cum impetu dissilirent ibidem in præceps acti, flebiliter
contriti necabantur. Quod quidem baratrum, sortito ex accidenti
vocabulo, _Malfosse_ hodieque nuncupatur.”
This is evidently the scene of the slaughter of Normans which took
place in the dark, after Harold’s death, when the light-armed English
were flying. It lies in the natural direction for their flight; but it
does not at all suit the circumstances of the first slaughter, which
must have happened somewhere to the south or south-west of the hill.
The small ravine to the south-west seems exactly what is wanted.
9. The time at which Harold died (see p. 498) seems clear from
Florence, and with his statement most of the other accounts agree.
It is clear from the Tapestry that Harold was cut down by the four
knights almost immediately after he received the wound in the eye. Wace
(13299 compared with 13932) seems—perhaps only seems—to make a long
time pass between Harold’s first wound and his death. I need hardly
stop to refute the strange mistake of William of Jumièges (vii. 36)
followed by Orderic (501 D); “Heraldus ipse in primo militum progressu
(“congressu,” Ord.) vulneribus letaliter confossus occubuit.” Orderic
puts the death of Leofwine soon after (“deinde”), but this time he does
not name Gyrth.
The battle of Senlac seems in several points to have borne much
likeness to the battle of Aghrim, described by Macaulay, iv. 90. It is
the last battle of Saint Ruth.
“The spot on which he had determined to bring the fate of Ireland to
issue seems to have been chosen with great judgment. His army was drawn
up on the slope of a hill, which was almost surrounded by red bog. In
front, near the edge of the morass, were some fences out of which a
breastwork was without difficulty constructed.”
We read of the great difficulties which the English found in crossing
the muddy ground and attacking the hill. “Again and again the
assailants were driven back. Again and again they returned to the
struggle. Once they were broken, and chased across the morass: but
Talmash rallied them, and forced the pursuers to retire.” The battle
is decided, as evening is closing in, by Saint Ruth’s death by a
cannon-ball. The Irish breastwork is carried, and most of its defenders
slain, either on the hill or in the pursuit. “The number of the slain
was, in proportion to the number engaged, greater than in any other
battle of that age.”
I am sorry that I have not seen the ground, but when I was in Ireland
some years back, the likeness between the two battles had not struck me.
NOTE LL. p. 459.
RALPH OF NORFOLK.
I believe that I have gradually felt my way to the true history and
position of a somewhat mysterious person of whom we get glimpses in
the reign of Eadward, and who becomes prominent under William. This
is Ralph, called of Gael or of Wader, afterwards Earl of Norfolk or
of the East Angles (Fl. Wig. 1074), whom I believe to have been of
English birth, and whom I therefore have not scrupled to speak of in
the text as an English traitor. This I do on the express authority of
the Abingdon and Peterborough Chronicles (1075–1076). In recording the
famous bride-ale which led to the death of Waltheof, both Chroniclers,
with slight verbal difference, expressly say that Ralph Earl of Norfolk
was Breton indeed on his mother’s side, but that his father was an
Englishman of the same name, born in Norfolk (“se ylca Raulf wæs
Brittisc on his modor healfe, and Rawulf his fæder wæs Englisc, and
wæs geboren on Norðfolce”). William of Malmesbury indeed (iii. 255),
seemingly with the Chronicle before him, calls Ralph “Brito ex patre.”
This may be either a mistake or an intended correction, but it can
hardly outweigh the testimony of the two Chroniclers. We have another
indication of Ralph’s English origin, in an entry in the Norfolk
Domesday (131), where we find mention of “Goduinus avunculus Radulphi
Comitis.” In classical Latin the word “avunculus” would rather show
that Ralph’s connexion with England was only on the mother’s side,
but, as I have before shown (vol. ii. p. 644), “avunculus” had now
got the general sense of “uncle.” A man named Godwine must have been
an Englishman; and we thus find two brothers, Ralph and Godwine, both
of them Norfolk landowners, one the father and the other the uncle
of Ralph the Earl. Ralph as the name of an Englishman is certainly
puzzling, but as we find in England a solitary Lothar (see vol. i. p.
334), a solitary Frederick (see p. 555), and a nearly solitary Carl, a
solitary Ralph does not seem impossible. Or if any one pleases, Ralph
may have been English in the sense of being an English-born son of one
of the French followers of Emma, which would account for one of his two
sons bearing a French name and the other an English one.
The English birth of Ralph thus seems plain from the Chronicles, and
it is not set aside by the passages which, like William of Malmesbury
quoted above, speak of him as a “Breton.” He is “genere Brito” in
William of Jumièges (vii. 25; viii. 15). So Wace, 11512 and 13627,
in which latter place the words are, “Bret esteit è Bretonz menout.”
He was the son of a Breton mother; he held the castles of Wader and
Montfort (Ord. Vit. 535 C) in his mother’s country, and he appeared at
Senlac in command of a body of his mother’s countrymen. That he should
therefore be spoken of as a Breton is really not wonderful.
The evidence of Domesday also no less distinctly gives us two Ralphs
in Norfolk, father and son. The elder Ralph is clearly the same as
Ralph the Staller of Eadward’s time (see vol. ii. p. 347, and Taylor’s
Wace, 226). The number of entries T. R. E. in his name is very great,
especially in Norfolk and Suffolk. He also signs many charters. In Cod.
Dipl. iv. 121, of 1055, he signs as “Minister,” and is distinguished
from “Radulfus Dux.” In 1060 (iv. 143) he signs as “Regis Dapifer,” in
1061 (iv. 151) as “Minister,” in 1062 (iv. 159) as “Regis Aulicus,”
and in the charter of Abbot Ælfwig, quoted in vol. ii. p. 347, he
appears as “Steallere” along with Esegar and Bondig. But we can go a
little further. The signatures and the entries in Domesday belonging
to Ralph the Staller must not be confounded with those of Earl Ralph
of Hereford, King Eadward’s nephew, from whom we find him pointedly
distinguished, both in the charter just quoted, and in Domesday, 337,
where both Earl and Staller appear in the same entry. Yet the elder
Ralph of Norfolk seems to have borne the title of Earl. The many
entries of “Radulfus Comes” in the East-Anglian Domesday generally
belong to the younger Ralph, for in several of them the forfeiture of
his lands to William is mentioned. But Ralph the father is clearly
distinguished in two entries (128 _b_ and 129) as “Comes R. vetus;”
and in 194 we find “Radulfus Comes” holding land T. R. E., after which
the entry goes on to say, “postea tenuit Radulfus Comes, filius ejus,
postea Ailmarus Episcopus de utroque, postea Arfastus Episcopus.”
Lastly, in 409 _b_ we read of land in Suffolk; “Hanc habuit Radulfus
Stalra in vadimonio de vicecomite Toli [the Sheriff who appears in Cod.
Dipl. iv. 208, and in many other writs of Eadward] ... et tenebat die
quâ Rex E. fuit mortuus, et postea Radulfus filius ejus.”
This evidence seems quite distinct. There were two Ralphs in Norfolk,
father and son, the younger being the son of a Breton mother. The
elder was Staller, and is also called Earl; he must have held some
subordinate government under Gyrth. He was in possession of his lands
at the time of Eadward’s death, and he was succeeded in them by his
son. The elder Ralph must therefore have died early in the reign of
Harold. But as we find his son fighting among his mother’s countrymen
on William’s side at Senlac, it is plain that the younger Ralph must
have been outlawed by Harold for some unrecorded treason or other
crime. He then evidently migrated to his mother’s country and joined
himself to the Breton followers of William. One of the entries in
Domesday would almost seem to show that part of his lands were granted
by Harold or Gyrth to the East Anglian Bishoprick. Of his career in
William’s reign we shall hear in my next volume.
I can only regret that I had not fully worked out these facts sooner,
as some of them throw light on Harold’s character and position. Whether
Ralph was a partizan of William or of Tostig, or what other crime may
have led to his outlawry, I do not venture to guess.
NOTE MM. p. 512.
THE BURIAL OF HAROLD.
I have quoted in the text those passages of the contemporary writers
which distinctly assert a burial of Harold on the rocks at Hastings. I
will now quote the authorities which assert a burial at Waltham. The
full story is given in the De Inventione (c. 21). The two Canons, Osgod
and Æthelric, go to the Duke and ask for the body. William answers that
Harold, notwithstanding his crimes, shall not be deprived of burial
(“Rex vester fidei suæ religionis immemor, etsi dignas transgressionis
ad præsens exsolverit pœnas, non meruit sepulturæ beneficio privari”).
He adds that it is his design to found a church, to be served by a body
of an hundred monks, who are to pray for the soul of Harold and of all
others who died in the battle. In that church Harold shall be buried
with all honour (“paratus sum ... ipsum Regem vestrum in ecclesiâ
eâdem debito cum honore præ cæteris sublimare”). The Canons offer
William ten marks of gold that their founder may be buried in his own
church where he wished to be buried (“corpus ad locum quem instituit
ipse remittere”). William grants their prayer, but refuses the money.
They strive in vain to find the body. Osgod then goes home and brings
Eadgyth, by whom it is found. The body is then taken to Waltham amidst
a vast concourse both of Englishmen and Normans (“multis heroum
Normanniæ comitatûs honorem corpori exhibentibus”).
The story however does not rest only on the authority of the Waltham
writer. William of Malmesbury (iii. 247), after saying that the body
was given to Gytha (see p. 512), adds, “acceptum itaque apud Waltham
sepelivit, quam ipse ecclesiam ex proprio constructam in honore Sanctæ
Crucis canonicis impleverat.” Wace (14093) had evidently heard two
or three stories, and with his usual discretion he avoided committing
himself, but he distinctly asserts a burial at Waltham;
“Li Reis Heraut fu emportez,
E à Varham fu enterrez;
Maiz jo ne sai ki l’emporta,
Ne jo ne sai ki l’enterra.”
The continuator of Wace’s Brut, in the passage which I have already
quoted (see above, p. 743), buries Harold in the choir at Waltham. The
French Biographer of Eadward (4631) tells the same story;
“Le cors le roi Haraud unt quis,
E truvé entre les ocis:
E pur co ke il rois esteit,
Granté est k’enterrez seit
Par la prière sa mère.
Portez fu le cors en bère,
A Wautham est mis en carcu,
Kar de la maisun fundur fu.”
Now, in harmonizing these accounts, it is impossible to escape
the strong contemporary evidence which asserts that Harold’s body
really was buried on the coast of Sussex. The statements of William
of Poitiers and Guy, though they may differ in one or two trifling
details, must be admitted as to the main fact. But the evidence for
a burial at Waltham is almost equally strong. If it were not so, how
did the tale arise? A tomb of Harold was one which there was very
little temptation to forge. Harold was not an acknowledged saint, whose
burial-place would be a profitable object of pilgrimage. A burial-place
of the penitent at Chester might indeed become such an object, but
hardly that of the fallen hero at Waltham. The only writer who shows
any disposition to canonize Harold distinctly removes his sepulchre
from Waltham (see below, p. 759). If the Waltham tomb was a forgery,
it was a forgery older than the days of William of Malmesbury; it
was a forgery which must have been owing to motives strongly tinged
with political feelings, political feelings any such expression of
which would, we may be pretty sure, have been put down at once by the
strong hand of the Norman King. The statement of William of Malmesbury
distinctly proves that it was currently believed, not only at Waltham
but generally, that Waltham was Harold’s burying-place. And I need
not say that William of Malmesbury does not write in the interest of
Waltham or of England. He is a thoroughly independent witness; so is
Wace, who, after his manner, honestly confesses his ignorance of some
details, while he distinctly asserts the burial at Waltham. So early
and so extensive a fabrication as their narratives would imply seems
quite out of the question.
The unavoidable inference therefore is that Harold was first buried
on the rocks of Hastings under a heap of stones, and afterwards was
translated for more solemn interment in the minster at Waltham. This
view I worked out for myself in 1857 (see vol. ii. p. 428), but I
afterwards found that I had been forestalled in it by M. de Bonnechose
(ii. 283), who takes this theory for granted, without reference or
argument. On this supposition, we can easily account for all the
reports. William of Poitiers and Guy of Amiens, in recording the
fight of Senlac, recorded that burial of Harold which formed part
of their story; a later translation had no interest for them. The
Waltham writers, on the other hand, naturally dwelt only on that burial
which formed a part of their own local history. The cairn-burial was
something which they would naturally seek to slur over, and to throw
out of remembrance. In a short time it would be forgotten; the date of
the funeral at Waltham would be shifted back two or three months, and
would be held to have immediately followed the battle. Even writers
who had no connexion with Waltham, writers like William of Malmesbury
and Wace, would naturally think most of that burial which had left a
visible witness before the eyes of men, and would have no temptation
to dwell upon the hurried ceremony performed by William Malet upon the
rocks of Sussex.
And lastly, as to the details of the Waltham story, as to the
share in the transaction taken by the two Canons and by Eadgyth
Swanneshals. The story, as it stands, cannot be made to agree with
the contemporary statement as to Harold’s first burial at Hastings.
But the contradiction is little more than a contradiction as to time.
The Waltham story implies that the body was found and was buried at
Waltham within a few days after the battle. The finding and the burial
are placed, if not while William was still on the hill of Senlac, yet
at any rate before he left Hastings for Romney. This is of course
distinctly contradicted by William of Poitiers and Guy of Amiens. But
if we believe that Harold’s body was translated to Waltham at the time
of William’s coronation or later, the only error of the Waltham writer
would be that he has transposed events and given them wrong dates. The
body was found, as he states, on the morrow of the battle, or within a
few days after it, but the burial at Waltham did not take place till
two or three months later. Two petitions to William seem to be rolled
into one. The first, made on Senlac or at Hastings, was followed by the
search for the body. The second, made at a later time, was followed by
Harold’s translation to Waltham. It was then doubtless that William
offered a burial in his own Battle Abbey instead. It is on this view
that I have ventured to ground the narrative in the text. And I am
strengthened in doing so by the fact that there are several small
touches in which all accounts agree. William of Poitiers, William of
Malmesbury, and the Waltham writer all agree in making the Duke refuse
the offered gold of Gytha and of the Canons. So again the statement
of William of Poitiers that Harold’s body was recognized by certain
marks exactly falls in with the Waltham story. The Archdeacon of
Lisieux tells us that certain persons—to him it was quite indifferent
who they were—found Harold’s body in a particular way. The Canon of
Waltham tells us who those persons were, and how they came to be there.
Just so William of Malmesbury, recording the second burial only, and
placing it at the date of the first, speaks of Gytha only, just as
William of Poitiers speaks of William Malet only. If Gytha and the
Chapter of Waltham joined in a petition for the removal of the body,
it is not wonderful that a writer at Malmesbury thought chiefly of
the interposition of Gytha. Osgod, Æthelric, Eadgyth, were persons
of no interest or importance to either of our Williams; in the local
history of Waltham they doubtless filled a great place. I believe
therefore that the only mistake in the Waltham story is a mistake of
date, the mistake, natural under the circumstances, of thinking that
the charitable work of Eadgyth and the two Canons was at once followed
by the burial at Waltham. I cannot believe that their story is mere
invention; it has all that local and personal character about it which
seems to imply a ground-work of truth. The introduction of Eadgyth
is an especial mark of truth. The Waltham writers, both the writer
De Inventione and the Biographer, are clearly a little puzzled how
to describe her position. It is most unlikely that Harold’s clerical
panegyrists would either have invented an imaginary mistress for their
hero or have exalted a real one into an imaginary prominence. To
Eadgyth herself, and to the few hints that we have as to her personal
existence, I give another note.
I must quote one writer more. Benoît (37627) follows the story of the
first burial up to the point where Harold’s body is given to William
Malet, but he declines to say where William buried him.
“Li reis Herault fu seveliz;
Et si me retrait li escriz.
Que sa mère por lui aveir
Vout au duc doner grant aveir;
Mais n’en vout unques dener prendre
Ne por riens nule le cors rendre:
Mais à un Guillaume Malet,
Qui n’ert tosel pas ne vaslet
Mais chevaliers durs e vaillanz.
Icist l’en fu tant depreianz
Qu’il li dona à enfoïr
Là où il vendreit à _plaisir_.”
I now turn to the legend according to which Harold did not die at
Senlac. Of this doctrine Harold’s own romantic biographer is the great
prophet. But however much he may have embellished the story, he is not
to be charged with inventing it. It is found in several other writers,
some of whom are earlier than himself. Thus in Giraldus, Itin. Kamb.
ii. 11 (p. 140 Dimock), after a story that the Emperor Henry the Fifth
had died as a hermit at Chester, we read as follows;
“Similiter et Haroldum Regem se habere testantur: qui, ultimus de
gente Saxonicâ [_Cambrensis_ is speaking] Rex in Angliâ, publico apud
Hastinges bello cum Normannis congrediens, pœnas succumbendo perjurii
luit; multisque, ut aiunt, confossus vulneribus, oculoque sinistro
sagittâ perdito ac perforato, ad partes istas victus evasit: ubi sanctâ
conversatione cujusdam urbis ecclesiæ jugis et assiduus contemplator
adhærens, vitamque tamquam anachoriticam ducens, viæ ac vitæ cursum,
ut creditur, feliciter consummavit. Ex utriusque, ut fertur, ultimi
articuli confessione, veritas antea non comperta demum prodiit
publicata.”
So Æthelred of Rievaux (X Scriptt. 394), evidently alluding to the same
story, says of Harold, “aut miserè occubuit aut, ut quidam putant,
pœnitentiæ tantum reservatus evasit.” So Gervase of Tilbury, in the
strange story which I have already analysed (see above, p. 693), leaves
Harold’s death and escape as alternative stories. “Heraldus utrum fugâ
sibi consuluerit, an in prœlio ceciderit, adhuc dubium reliquit.”
Ralph of Coggeshall (Martene and Durand, Ampliss. Coll. v. 801) records
Harold’s defeat and death, and adds, “quamvis quidam contendant ipsum
Haroldum inter occisos delituisse, nocturnâque fugâ lapsum post multas
peregrinationes apud Cestriam eremiticam vitam duxisse, et usque ad
ultima tempora Regis Henrici Secundi in sancto proposito durâsse.” The
age of Harold in 1189 would be about 168 years.
Ralph Higden (lib. vi. p. 286, Gale) quotes William of Malmesbury’s
account of the burial at Waltham, as also the alternative statements
of Giraldus and Æthelred. To that of Giraldus he very properly, as a
Chester man, adds a bit of local detail. The scene of Harold’s penance
was “cella Sancti Jacobi, juxta ecclesiam Sancti Johannis.”
Bromton (961) quotes the accounts of William of Malmesbury and
Giraldus, without naming either. He prefers William’s account, but he
adds some details to the other story; “Cujus tumba in ecclesiâ Sancti
Johannis Cestriæ, ad dorsum crucis in medio areæ crebrò ostenditur.
Cum quo etiam, dum adhuc vixit, ut quidam volunt, Henricus Primus Rex
Angliæ de Walliâ rediens, apud Cestriam colloquium habuit. Sed quia
inde a multis dubitari solet, eâ facilitate contemnitur quâ dicitur.”
The discourse with Henry the First would be either in 1112 or in 1121,
in which latter year Harold would be about a hundred years old.
Knighton (2342) quotes William of Malmesbury, without naming him, and
Giraldus by name, with Higden’s addition about the cell of Saint James.
He adds; “De istâ opinione fiat qualiter poterit, hoc unum scio, quod
tumulatio ejus cum imagine superpositâ in ecclesiâ Abbathiæ de Waltham
videre adhuc volentibus ostenditur, ubi dicitur Haraldum humatum
fuisse.”
But this Chester story is not the only one. According to another
account, Harold escaped alive from the battle, but died soon after. We
find this story in the Liber de Castro Ambasiæ (D’Achery, iii. 276);
“Hæroldus vincitur, et vulneratur graviter, non multùm post mortuus
est.” So too Harold’s great Scandinavian admirer, the biographer of
Olaf Tryggwesson, whom I have already had twice to quote (see above,
pp. 601, 613, and vol. ii. p. 542), gives the story of Harold’s escape
in great detail (p. 263). On the night after the battle, a churl
(“þorpkarl”) comes to rob the dead bodies; a man lying among the dead
bodies rebukes him sharply for so shameful a deed. He goes home and
tells his wife, who at once insists on going to the battle-field with a
horse and cart. When she has got there, she asks whether there is any
living man among the bodies who can speak to her. A voice answers that
there is one who can, and one only. With much trouble she finds the
speaker among the bodies; she and her husband put him on the cart and
take him home. They wish to know who he is, but he never tells them;
they infer however from his face and from his rich garb that he must
be a man of the highest rank. The writer explains that this man was
King Harold, that he had fallen through weariness and loss of blood,
having received many wounds, though none of them were mortal. But the
weight of the dead bodies that were heaped upon him hindered him from
getting away. He is taken to the churl’s house, and there recovers. The
next day the enemy come to seek for his body, and are greatly surprised
not to find it. Harold, having recovered, determines, by the example,
we are told, of Olaf Tryggwesson, to forsake the world, and to give
himself to heavenly contemplation. He makes himself a dwelling-place
under a rock, and abides there some while. On his death King William
has his body taken to London and buried among the former Kings
(“Vilhialmur Kongur let færa lik hans i Lunduner, oc grafa veglega hia
odrum Kongum”).
In this last rather unlucky statement, the Scandinavian writer,
like Guy of Amiens (see above, p. 542), overrates the antiquity of
Westminster, which is doubtless meant by London, as a royal residence
and burying-place.
Both these versions, or one which took in both, were known to the
writer De Inventione, who indignantly rejects both (c. 21). “Quidquid
fabulentur homines quod in rupe manserit Doroberniæ, et _nuper_
defunctus sepultus sit Cestriæ, pro certo quiescit Walthamiæ.” There
are parts of the De Inventione which must have been written after 1177.
Can this have been written so late? May not the first sketch of the
work have been made earlier?
The other Waltham writer, the biographer of Harold, had the difficult
task of forcing the legend of Harold’s escape into agreement with the
fact that Harold’s tomb existed in Waltham minster, and with the local
tradition of the finding of the body by Eadgyth. He is driven to the
very awkward shift of saying that Eadgyth found, and that the Canons of
Waltham solemnly buried, a wrong body (Chron. Angl. Norm. ii. 209–212).
Eadgyth reaches the field; the Normans boast of Harold’s death; those
who had saved him also spread abroad the same rumour for their own
ends. “Inter hæc mulieris errorem non mirandum, quæ desecti, cruentati,
jam denigrati, jam fœtentis corporis speciem minùs discernere valens,
pro æstimatione publicâ truncatum cadaver, quum aliud non inveniret
quod certiùs agnosceret Regis proprium, rapuit et secum attulit
alienum.” The Canons of Waltham are equally undiscerning. “Quod
[cadaver] a canonicis reverenter exceptum, indiscussâ rei veritate,
honestè in ecclesiâ Sanctæ Crucis sepulturæ est traditum.”
This, I need not say, is neither history nor legend nor romance, but
a patched up story of the poorest kind. Of the writer’s own story I
have given a sketch in the text. The journey into Denmark is by no
means ill conceived, when we remember how important the intervention
of Swend Estrithson in English affairs soon became. The German journey
also falls in with the fact that William’s name was dreaded on the
Rhine as well as on the Thames, and that men feared that he would come
as the invader of the continental, as well as of the insular Saxony
(see Lambert, 1074). When his hopes of foreign aid are blighted,
Harold first takes up his abode on the cliff at Dover (“in quâdam rupe
secus Dovram,” p. 198), where he abides ten years. Then he goes into
Shropshire on the borders of Wales (pp. 199, 215), where, as in a land
where he was very well known, he covers his face with a cloth (200),
and calls himself by no name but Christian. He suffers much from the
“homines bestiales,” the “infidi ferinique homunculi” (202) of those
parts, and at last, under the guidance of an angel (“ductu comitatûs
angelico,” 204), he takes up his abode at Chester, in Saint James’s
chapel by Saint John’s church (220). He is often asked whether he had
been in the battle in which Harold fell, and he always answers that he
was. Sometimes he is asked whether he is not Harold himself, and he
then makes an evasive answer; “Quando apud Hastingas dimicatum est,
nullus Haroldo me carior habebatur” (206). After living several years
at Chester (220), he reveals himself, when at the point of death, to
Andrew, a priest of Saint John’s (221), from whom and from one Moses
(220), who had been Harold’s servant both in Shropshire and at Chester,
the writer heard the story. As the book was written (185) after 1206,
we here again find Harold living to a patriarchal age.
I have already spoken of the utter worthlessness of these stories as
professed matters of history. As for their details, the notion of
Harold taking up his abode on a rock at Dover or elsewhere seems to
have been suggested by his burial on the rock at Hastings by William
Malet. The way in which Harold is said to have escaped falls in exactly
with the remarkable passage of Wace which I quoted in p. 508, and it
was most likely suggested by the real escape of Esegar and Leofric, and
no doubt of others also.
According to Harold’s Biographer (211), Gyrth too escaped as well as
his brother. This tale was clearly known to Wace, who, it will be
remembered (see above, p. 749), carefully avoids committing himself to
Gyrth’s death. According to the legend, Gyrth was seen very publicly
in the days of Henry the Second (“visus est tam ab ipso Rege quam a
magnatibus terræ et populo”). He was then, as is not wonderful, very
old (“erat jam tunc grandævus valdè”), but, as those who had seen
him told the writer, very tall and handsome (“sicut eâ tempestate a
multis accepimus qui eum viderant, venustus adspectu, facie decorus,
proceritate corporis admodum longus”). Walter, the first Abbot of the
new foundation at Waltham, with certain of his brethren, met him at
the King’s court at Woodstock, and inquired most particularly whether
they were right in believing that the bones of Harold lay at Waltham
(“diligenter sciscitari studuit utrum reverà cineres germani sui in
suo, ut credebatur, monasterio servarentur”). Gyrth answered in English
that they might have the body of some churl, but not that of Harold
(“Anglicè respondit, ‘Rusticum,’ ait, ‘quemlibet habere potestis;
Haroldum non habetis’”). He even went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Cross
of Waltham, and, being shown his brother’s tomb, he again distinctly
affirmed that Harold was not there (“obliquè illud intuitus, ‘non,’
ait, ‘homo scit’—sic enim jurabat—‘non hic jacet Haroldus’”). This is
told on the authority of Michael, Chamberlain of the Church of Waltham,
who heard Gyrth say it. Here we find Gyrth, as well as Harold, living
to an age which might justify the chronology of Ivanhoe.
Lastly, the savage way in which this writer attacks William of
Malmesbury (207) is worth noticing. He remarks how the “facundissimus
Meldunensis Willelmus” professes impartiality in his judgements
(“promittit se medium inter obtrectantium necnon et commendantium
partes incessurum”). But mark how this impartial writer treats Harold
(208);
“Cæterum in aliis quæ de meritis Haroldi vel moribus, prout ani mus
tulit aut fama suggessit, aureo nunc, nunc verò piceo commentatus est
stilo, venaliùs fortè exorbitaverit a tramite veri, in ipsum verò
christum Deum [Dei?] truculentiùs deliquit. Tres enim lanceas in ipsum
violentus intorsit, quibus non tam illius personam quam ipsam contigit
impeti veritatem. Dixit enim ictu sagittæ capite vulnerato oppetisse,
dixit militem qui Regi mortuo femur inciderat Ducis censurâ victoris
ab exercitu pulsum, rettulit a matre funus regium oblatâ pecuniâ a
Triumphatore Willelmo postulatum, sed receptum absque pecuniâ, apud
Waltham tumulatum. Sic in femur, sic in caput, sic in omne hominis
corpus, lingua licentiùs debacchatur oratoris clanculò scriptitantis
quam militis armata manus in propatulo dimicantis.”
Literary controversy was at least as bitter in the thirteenth century
as it is in the nineteenth. But in contrast to the wicked monk of
Malmesbury, the Biographer gives us the praises of another writer who
left the question of Harold’s death undecided; “Temperantiùs scripsit
hujus ipsius scriptoris contemporaneus, venerabilis admodum Abbas
Edelredus.”
NOTE NN. p. 514.
EADGYTH SWANNESHALS.
Our direct notices of Harold’s mistress Eadgyth come from the two
Waltham writers, who plainly describe her as a concubine, or at most
as a Danish wife, though they evidently try to veil her position
under a mist of words. In the De Inventione, c. 21, we read, “Placuit
... mulierem quam ante sumptum Anglorum regimen dilexerat, Editham
cognomento Swanneshals, quod Gallicè sonat _collum cygni_, secum
adducere, quæ Domini Regis quandoque cubicularia secretiora in eo signa
noverat cæteris ampliùs, ad ulteriora intima secretorum admissa.” With
the _cubicularia_ of this writer we may compare Sir John Maundevile,
c. ix.; “And Abraham had another son Ysmael, that he gat upon Agar his
_Chambrere_.” The Biographer of Harold (p. 210) brings in “quamdam
sagacis animi feminam nomine Editham ... hæc enim præ cæteris femina
commodiùs videbatur ad hoc destinanda, quæ inter millia mortuorum
illius quem inquirebat eo quoque faciliùs decerneret, eo quod
benevolentiùs tractaret exuvias, quo eum arctiùs amaverat et pleniùs
noverat, utpote quam thalami ipsius secretis liberiùs interfuisse
constaret.”
A mistress of Harold (“quædam concubina Heraldi”) is mentioned in
Domesday, 2, as holding three houses at Canterbury T. R. E. See Ellis,
i. 316; ii. 81.
An Eadgyth or Eadgifu—the two names are hopelessly confounded—of the
Swan’s Neck, “Edgyve Swanneshals,” occurs in the Chronicle of John of
Oxenedes, p. 292 (cf. Ellis, ii. 81). She is mentioned in the driest
way, without reference to Harold or to anything else, in a list of
benefactors to the Abbey of Saint Benet of Holm, to which she gave
Thurgarton in Norfolk (cf. Domesday, ii. 216 _a_). Along with her are
found the names of Earl Ralph and Ralph the Staller, who are carefully
distinguished (see above, p. 753). The gifts of all these, and of many
other persons, were confirmed by King Eadward in 1046.
John of Oxenedes wrote after 1292. His authority therefore for an
historical fact would be nowhere; but when he is plainly copying an
earlier list of benefactors without any special object, his witness is
nearly equal to that of a contemporary.
I am certainly inclined to identify the swan-necked lady of the Waltham
story with the swan-necked lady of the Saint Benet’s catalogue. And
in default of evidence to the contrary, we may also identify her with
Harold’s Canterbury mistress. Eadgyth was clearly a Norfolk woman by
birth, but there is nothing wonderful in her having property within her
lover’s later Earldom. But if she was a benefactress of Saint Benet’s
in or before 1046, she was no longer young in 1066. That is to say,
Harold’s connexion with her began during his East-Anglian government,
between 1045 and 1053. This also makes it likely that she was the
mother of all Harold’s children, except Wulf, who was doubtless the
son of Ealdgyth (see p. 511). We hear nothing of any earlier wife
of Harold, and the incidental way in which Harold’s sons are first
mentioned some time after their father’s death, falls in with the
notion of their illegitimacy.
Another question is whether Eadgyth Swanneshals is the same as “Eddeva
pulcra,” “faira,” or “dives,” who appears in Domesday as holding lands
in various parts of England, East-Anglia among them. Sharon Turner
(Hist. Eng. i. 53) makes them the same, but the identity is disputed
by Sir Henry Ellis (ii. 79) and Lappenberg (556). Sir H. Ellis further
identifies Eddeva Pulcra with the Lady Ealdgyth. This last does not
seem to me at all likely; as to the identification of Eddeva Pulcra
with Eadgyth Swanneshals, there is absolutely no evidence either way.
There is also another East-Anglian Eadgyth, “Edied quædam libera
femina” (Domesday, ii. 286), who is clearly distinct from Eddeva
Pulcra, but who may or may not be Eadgyth Swanneshals. And I cannot
help noticing the will of an East-Anglian lady named Wulfgyth (Cod.
Dipl. iv. 106), in which a female name, which is evidently corrupt,
but which must be meant for Eadgyth or Ealdgyth, comes into dangerous
neighbourhood with the name of Harold. Wulfgyth leaves land to two
daughters and to various churches; then follows, “And ic ge-an Ælgyðe
mínre déhter ðæs landes æt Certæcere and æt Essetesforde and ðæs
wuda ðe ic legde ðǽrto; and ic ge-an Godwine Eorle and Haralde Eorle
Friðtúnes.” I cannot identify these places. The date is 1046. Is it
possible that Eadgyth Swanneshals was Wulfgyth’s daughter, and that her
mother’s bequest formed her benefaction to Saint Benet’s?
As to the relation between Harold and Eadgyth, it looks very much as if
it was a case of the Danish marriage. Eadgyth and Ealdgyth very likely
answered to the two Ælfgifus in the life of Cnut, and to Sprota and
Liutgardis in the life of William Longsword. Anyhow the connexion was
“ante sumptum Anglorum regimen.”
There are one or two other passages which look as if Harold’s
relations with women were known to be a weak point in his character,
in opposition to the good example set in this respect by both William
and Tostig. Thus William of Poitiers (see vol. ii. p. 540) calls him
“luxuriâ fœdus;” Guy (261) calls him “perjurus Rex et adulter,” where
however the union of the two charges makes it possible that “adulter”
is meant to stigmatize the marriage contracted with Ealdgyth by one
who was betrothed to the daughter of William. The French Biographer of
Eadward, in one of his great revilings of Harold (4460), says that he
“Gentilz femmes enbastardist;
Pur aver veut mariage.”
The former line may refer to Eadgyth, as the latter clearly implies a
political marriage with Ealdgyth; but the passage seems to have been
oddly misunderstood by Knighton (2339); “Nec aliquam uxorem ducere
voluit, sed vi oppressit filias baronum et procerum et militum de
regno, quod ipsi ægrè ferebant.” All this has most likely arisen out of
our one Eadgyth, but it seems to point to her as a woman of position,
possibly as “Eddeva pulcra et dives.”
NOTE OO. p. 531.
THE ÆTHELING EADGAR.
I do not know that there is any distinct evidence to fix the age of
Eadgar. I have not come across any distinct statement either as to
the date of his birth or as to the date of his parents’ marriage. His
father died in 1057; so he must have been nine years old at least in
1066, and of course he may have been much older. We have seen several
passages (see pp. 526, 527) where he is spoken of as a boy (“puer”)
and as being too young to reign. On the other hand he was able (see
Chron. Wig. in anno) to exercise a certain will of his own with regard
to the marriage of his sister Margaret in 1067. He was alive, but old,
at some time between 1106 and 1125, when William of Malmesbury wrote
his third book. See Mr. Hardy’s note, iii. 251, and Ellis, i. 409. The
former date is forty-nine, the latter sixty-eight, years after Eadgar’s
coming to England. We have therefore no certain data at all; but, on
the whole, it seems most likely that, though young, he was not a mere
child, at the time of his election in October. It was probably not so
much mere lack of years, as his incapacity, his foreign birth, his
lack of the technical position of a King’s son, which shut him out in
January, especially when put into competition with the overwhelming
merits of Harold. In October he had no competitor better than Eadwine.
Perhaps those who spoke of him as a mere child were deceived by the
ambiguous description, “Eadgar _cild_,” which is given to him in the
Chronicles, and by which he was probably known.
Hardyng (see above, p. 608) makes Harold invest Eadgar with an Earldom.
Lappenberg (532; Thorpe, ii. 274) gives him the Earldom of Oxford. No
authority is quoted, and the statement can hardly be reconciled with
the known position of Gyrth (see vol. ii. p. 561). Indeed the evidence
is against Eadgar’s holding any Earldom. All the undoubted Earls are
scrupulously called Earls in the Chronicles; Eadgar is always either
“cild” or “Æðeling.”
Our reckoning as to Eadgar’s age is further perplexed by the appearance
of a person described as “Edgar Adeling” so late as 1158 and 1167. See
Mag. Rot. Pip. Northumberland, in Hodgson’s History of Northumberland,
part iii. vol. iii. pp. 3, 11. This entry gives us a choice of three
difficulties, any one of which is somewhat alarming. Either the person
so called is Eadgar himself, in which case, like Harold and Gyrth in
the legend, he must have lived to the age of 110 at the very least.
Or it is a son of Eadgar; but we hear nothing of any wife, mistress,
or children of his; and a lawful son of Eadgar would, like Eadgar
himself, have stood awkwardly in the way of Henry the Second’s claim
to represent the Old-English royal house. Failing these two unlikely
alternatives, we have one equally unlikely, that some person not of
royal descent was spoken of as “Adeling.”
NOTE PP. p. 544.
THE SUBMISSION AT BERKHAMPSTEAD.
For once I venture to set aside the authority of the Chronicles. I do
not think that Eadwine and Morkere could have been at Berkhampstead.
Their presence there is asserted by the Worcester Chronicle and also
by Florence, but it is hard to see how it can be reconciled with
Florence’s own account of their movements just before (see p. 531).
They are not mentioned by William of Poitiers, who makes them submit
to William at Barking after his coronation (147, 148). The Archdeacon
is capable of any disregard of chronology, but he is not likely to
have cut the Berkhampstead submission into two or to have imagined a
submission at Barking which did not take place. A submission of Eadwine
and Morkere after the coronation falls in much better with the rest of
the story than a submission before. And it is less violent to suppose
that their names have got into the Chronicle in a wrong place—a process
which the likeness of the names Barking and Berkhampstead would make
specially easy—than to suppose that the story in William of Poitiers is
an invention without a motive.
Had Stigand a share in the submission of Berkhampstead? William of
Poitiers specially introduces him; indeed he is the only person whom he
mentions by name (141); but he brings him to Wallingford; “Adveniens
eodem [Wallingford] Stigandus, Pontifex Metropolitanus, manibus ei
sese dedit, fidem sacramento confirmavit, abrogans Athelinum, quem
leviter elegerat.” But the whole story is a model of geographical
confusion; Berkhampstead is not mentioned; the request of the English
that William will accept the Crown, the debate on the question, and
the speech of Hamon of Thouars, are all placed “statim ut Lundonia
conspectui patebat.” I have ventured to transfer all these events
to Berkhampstead, where it is plain from Florence and the Worcester
Chronicle that the chief act of submission took place. But the presence
or absence of Stigand is a knotty point. He is not mentioned in the
Chronicle, nor in the fuller list in Florence, which seems to be
specially meant as a complete list of the Bishops present. On the
other hand, he is the only person named by William of Poitiers, and it
is certain that he must have submitted before the coronation. Is it
possible that, when submission was unavoidable, he was the first to
submit, and that he met William at Wallingford before the others met
him at Berkhampstead? The two English writers leave Wallingford out
altogether, but William must have crossed the Thames somewhere, and
there seems no reason to reject William of Poitiers’ statement that he
crossed it at Wallingford.
Sir Henry Ellis (ii. 267) quotes a story which is said to be in
William of Poitiers, but which I cannot find there, how one Wigod of
Wallingford received and entertained William at Wallingford, till
Stigand and others came there to make their submission. Of this I can
say nothing, but Wigod of Wallingford is a real man, occurring in
Domesday (62, 150) and elsewhere. “Wigod Minster” signs a doubtful
charter in Cod. Dipl. iv. 189, and “Wigodus Regis pincerna” signs the
Waltham charter (iv. 159). In the writ (Cod. Dipl. iv. 215) addressed
to Bishop Wulfsige and Earl Gyrth and the Thegns of Oxfordshire, dating
therefore between 1058 and 1066, the King also greets “mínne léfne may
_Mygod_ on Walingeforde,” and gives him instructions which show that he
was high in the royal confidence. We should surely read “Wygod.” The
kinsfolk of Eadward are endless. Do “mage” and “consanguineous” really
mean no more than “well-beloved Cousin” when addressed by a modern
Sovereign to a modern Earl?
END OF VOLUME THE THIRD.
-----
Footnote 1
The authorities for this Chapter and for the whole of this volume may
be dealt with in a single summary. For the most part they are the
same as those which we have been using all along; but they must now
be looked at in a somewhat different way. Hitherto, except in the
Chapters specially devoted to Norman affairs, our use of the Norman
writers has been for the most part incidental. But, through the whole
of the controversies of the year 1066, we must place English and
Norman writers in a certain sense on a level. The writers of each
nation—I speak of course mainly of contemporary writers—tell the
tale from their own national points of view and in the way which is
most favourable to their own national heroes. At no time must their
statements be more carefully compared with one another, as no full
or accurate narrative could be drawn from either side by itself. The
English writers maintain a sort of sullen silence on those points on
which the Normans are naturally the most full. The Normans, on the
other hand, through ignorance, through prejudice, sometimes through
direct disregard to truth, grossly misrepresent all English affairs.
At this stage we lose the Biographer of Eadward, who ends his story
in a most significant way at Eadward’s death, and who has nothing
beyond one or two dark allusions to anything later. On the Norman
side we gain one most valuable source of help in the Tapestry of
Bayeux, whose origin and importance I shall discuss in a separate
note. (See Appendix A.) The Saga of Harold Hardrada in Snorro must
also be carefully studied. Wild as it is in many parts, it is our
most detailed account, and our only Scandinavian account, of the
campaign of Stamfordbridge, and it also shows us the way in which
English and Norman affairs were looked on in Northern Europe.
Later writers, down to as late a time as any one pleases, are, at
this time, worthy of more than usual attention. Though for the most
part of very little value in themselves, they tell us, what it is
most important to learn, the way in which different ages looked at
the greatest events in English history.
Footnote 2
See vol. ii. pp. 424, 634.
Footnote 3
Æthel. Riev. X Scriptt. 399. “Peractis itaque omnibus pro tantâ
sollennitate, quasi diceret Rex ‘Consummatum est,’ inclinat in
lectulo caput, et exhinc cœpit gravi dolore fatigari.”
Footnote 4
Ib. “Tunc mœror et luctus omnium, una vox plangentium.” This we can
well believe; but the hagiographer is plainly writing with the help
of his own fuller knowledge, when he goes on to say; “Præsentiebant
plures ejus in morte desolationem patriæ, plebis exterminium, totius
Anglicæ nobilitatis excidium, finem libertatis, honoris ruinam.” The
moment was an anxious one, but no one who had not Eadward’s own gift
of prophecy could foresee all this.
Footnote 5
Vita Eadw. 430. “Biduo vel ampliùs adeò eum languor fatigaverat, ut
vix quum loqueretur quid diceret intelligi posset.” These details
should be compared throughout with the account in Æthelred, who
developes and improves upon every touch.
Footnote 6
The Biographer (p. 431) describes those present as “Regina terræ
assidens ejusque pedes super gremium suum fovens, ejusque germanus
Dux Haroldus, et Rodbertus regalis palatii stabilitor et ejusdem
Regis propinquus (?), Stigandus quoque Archiepiscopus.” Æthelred
(400) gives the same list, but stops to abuse Stigand. The four will
be seen in the Tapestry (pl. vii. Bruce, p. 74) as I have described
them.
Footnote 7
In this account of Eadward’s death-bed I follow the contemporary
Life, which is closely followed by William of Malmesbury, ii. 226.
Æthelred, or Osbert whom he copied, evidently had the Life before
him, but he thought it his duty to expand every speech and incident.
The reader must form what judgement he pleases as to the prediction
put into Eadward’s mouth. Perhaps most modern readers will be
inclined to be of the same opinion as Stigand. But I did not think
myself justified in wholly leaving out what I find in a contemporary
writer, who affirms that he had his information from eye-witnesses
(“sicut testantur hi qui aderant præsentes,” Vita Eadw. p. 430), that
is, very probably from Eadgyth herself. In fact the contemptuous
incredulity attributed to Stigand is of itself a strong argument that
something professing to be a prophecy was actually uttered by Eadward
on his death-bed. Of course I do not pledge myself to the historical
accuracy of the exact words. Eadward would speak English, or more
probably French, and his words would gain a good deal in the course
of their translation into rhetorical Latin.
Footnote 8
Vita Eadw. 431. “Cum paucis aliis quos idem beatus Rex a somno
excitatus advocari jusserat.”
Footnote 9
Ib. 430. “Tantâ usus est loquendi copiâ ut cuivis sanissimo nihil
opus esset suprà.”
Footnote 10
The Biographer records this last famous prediction or similitude
without any attempt at an explanation. When he wrote, in the early
years of William, a Prometheus after the fact might well put into
Eadward’s mouth a prophecy of the Conquest of England and of the
general misfortunes of the country. But he could not put into his
mouth a prophecy in honour of Henry the Second. Either then the
passage is a later interpolation, of which the Editor gives no hint,
or else Eadward really uttered some allegory, quoted some proverb,
or, as Stigand thought, simply talked nonsense, on which people began
to put a meaning forty years later. The orthodox explanation is that
the tree removed from the root for the space of three furlongs (the
words are “trium _jugerum_ spatio,” but one can hardly make _acres_
a measure of length) means the Crown transferred to usurpers during
three reigns, those of Harold and the two Williams (the descent of
William Rufus from Ælfred is forgotten, see vol. ii. p. 304). The
tree returns to the root when Henry the First marries Eadgyth or
Matilda the daughter of Margaret; it bears leaves at the birth of her
children. William of Malmesbury (v. 419) witnesses that the birth of
the Ætheling William (c. 1101) was looked on as the fulfilment of
the prophecy, which shows that it had already attracted attention,
most likely at the marriage of William’s parents. The death of the
Ætheling in 1119 cut off all such hopes, but at the same time it
opened the way for a more elaborate fulfilment in the persons of his
sister and her son. The tree now brings forth leaves at the birth of
the Empress Matilda and fruit at the birth of Henry the Second. See
Æthelred 401, and the French Life, 3805 et seqq. The writer seems in
v. 3846 to confound Henry the Second and Henry the Third.
Footnote 11
Vita Eadw. 431. “Cunctisque stupentibus et terrore agente tacentibus,
ipse Archiepiscopus, qui debuerat vel primus pavere vel verbum
consilii dare, infatuato corde _submurmurat in aurem Ducis_ senio
confectum et morbo quid diceret nescire.” He had just before said
that Harold, Robert, and Eadgyth were all frightened—“terrentur
nimium.” Æthelred (400) leaves out Harold’s fears, and also leaves
out the characteristic and trustworthy little touch of the Archbishop
whispering in the Earl’s ear, which, as they stood (see the Tapestry)
on different sides of the bed, involved leaning over the dying man.
In his account the details of the contemporary writer evaporate
in this fashion; “Is [Stigandus] ad vocem narrantis obduruit, nec
terretur oraculo, nec fidem habuit prophetanti, sed potius Regem
confectum senio delirare submurmurans, ridere maluit quam lugere.”
Footnote 12
The meaning of the Biographer (431–432) is perfectly plain;
“Cognoscebant enim per sacri ordinis personas Christiani cultûs
religionem maximè violatam, hocque frequentiùs declamâsse
[declarâsse?] tum per legatos et epistolas suas Romanum Papam, tum
in frequentibus monitis ipsum Regem et Reginam; sed divitiis et
mundanâ gloriâ irrecuperabiliter quidam diabolo allecti, vitæ adeò
neglexerant disciplinam ut non horrerent jam tunc imminentem incidere
in Dei iram.” That is, the Pope, the King, and the Lady had before
this time rebuked the English, but they were stiff-necked and would
not hearken; hence the divine threatenings. Æthelred (400) clearly
means the same; “Recordantur hæc ipsa summo sæpiùs narrata Pontifici,
ipsumque persæpe, tum per legatos, tum per epistolas, eorum vesaniam
increpâsse, Regemque ac Reginam his malis curandis diligentiam
adhibuisse, sed profecisse nihil.” But his first clause was liable to
be misunderstood, and the writer of the French Life did misunderstand
it. He mistakes the letters written by the Pope for letters written
to the Pope to announce Eadward’s vision;
“Mais li prudem li plus sené
Unt ses dits mut meuz noté;
E curaument unt entendu
L’ordres des motz, e retenu;
En escrit unt tuz les motz mis,
E a l’Apostoille tramis,
Par epistre, e par legat.”
Vv. 3787 et seqq.
Footnote 13
Vita Eadw. 430. “Funeribus exsequiis attitulat se commendatione et
precibus summorum Dei fidelium.” As might be expected, he recurs more
than once to the subject. See pp. 433, 434.
Footnote 14
See vol. ii. p. 531.
Footnote 15
I think, comparing the evidently cautious expression of the
Biographer with the outspoken words of the Chronicles and Florence,
that I am justified in putting this meaning on the words (433),
“Porrectâ manu [the very gesture is shown in the Tapestry] ad
prædictum nutricium suum fratrem Haroldum, ‘Hanc,’ inquit, ‘_cum omni
regno_ tutandam commendo.’” See Appendix B.
Footnote 16
See Appendix I.
Footnote 17
Vita Eadw. 433. “Hanc ... tutandam commendo, ut pro Dominâ et sorore,
ut est, fideli serves et honores obsequio, ut, quo advixerit, a
me adepto non privetur honore debito.” _Fideli_ must agree with
_obsequio_, not with _sorore_.
Footnote 18
Ib. “Commendo pariter etiam eos qui nativam terram suam reliquerunt
caussâ amoris mei, mihique hactenus fideliter sunt obsequuti.”
Footnote 19
Ib. “Ut, susceptâ ab eis, si ita volunt, fidelitate, eos tuearis
et retineas, aut tuâ defensione conductos, cum omnibus quæ sub me
adquisierunt, cum salute ad propria transfretari facias.”
Footnote 20
Vita Eadw. 434. “Fossa sepulcri mei in monasterio paretur, in eo loco
quo vobis assignabitur.”
Footnote 21
Ib. “Mortem meam quæso ne celetis [the plural is used in these
general directions, while the political requests are addressed in the
singular to Harold], sed celeriùs circumquaque annuncietis, ut quique
fideles pro me peccatore deprecentur clementiam Dei Omnipotentis.”
Compare the excitement caused by the suspicion that the death of
Edward the Sixth was concealed. Froude, Hist. Eng. v. 514.
Footnote 22
Ib. “Ne timeas; non moriar modo, sed bene convalescam propitiante
Deo.”
Footnote 23
Ib. “Sumpto a cœlesti mensâ vitæ viatico.” There is no mention
whether the Communion was in one kind only. Communion in both kinds
was certainly usual at this time (see Will. Pict. 113, 131), but it
is not likely in the case of a dying man.
Footnote 24
Vita Eadw. 434. “Erat tunc videre in defuncto corpore gloriam
migrantis ad Deum animæ, quum scilicet caro faciei ut rosa ruberet,
subjecta barba ut lilium canderet, manus suo ordine directæ
albescerent, totumque corpus non morti sed fausto sopori traditum
signarent.”
Footnote 25
See vol. ii. p. 70.
Footnote 26
See vol. ii. p. 382.
Footnote 27
Chronn. Ab. Wig. 1065.
Footnote 28
Ib.
“Þah he langa ǽr,
Landes bereafod,
Wunoda wreclastum
Wide geond eorðan,
Seoðþan Knut ofercom
Cynn Æðelredes,
And Deona weoldon
Deore rice
Englalandes
xxviii.
Wintra gerimes
Weolan brytnodon.”
Footnote 29
Ib.
“Wæs á bliðe mod,
Bealeleas King.”
See vol. ii. p. 531.
Footnote 30
Chronn. Ab. Wig. 1066.
“Weold wel geðungæn
Walum and Scottum,
And Bryttum eac,
Byre Æðelredes.
Englum and Sæxum
Oret mægcum.
Swa ymbclyppaþ
Cealda brymmas,
Þæt eall Eadwardæ
Æþelum Kinge
Hyrdan holdelice
Hagestalde menn.”
The Welsh, who are thus coupled with Scots, and distinguished from
the Britons, can mean only the Welsh of Strathclyde.
Footnote 31
See Appendix B. and vol. ii. p. 537.
Footnote 32
“Le Roi est mort; vive le Roi”—the exact opposite to old Teutonic
feelings.
Footnote 33
Hen. Hunt. M. H. B. 761 D. “Quidam Anglorum Eadgar Atheling promovere
volebant in Regem.” Will. Malms. iii. 238. “Anglia dubio favore
nutabat, cui se rectori committeret incerta, an Haroldo an Willelmo
an Edgaro ... Angli diversis votis ferebantur, _quamvis palam cuncti
bona Haroldo imprecarentur_.” This is an important admission.
Footnote 34
Would the course of the election have been in any way different, if
the Gemót had been held in Oxford?
Footnote 35
Fl. Wig. 1066. “A totius Angliæ primatibus ad regale culmen electus.”
See Appendix C.
Footnote 36
See the Waltham writer’s character of Harold, vol. ii. p. 540.
Footnote 37
See vol. ii. p. 334.
Footnote 38
Tapestry, pl. 7. Bruce, p. 80. “Hic dederunt Haroldo Coronam Regis.”
It is worth remark that the crown which is here represented as
offered to Harold is of a different and simpler form from that with
which Harold is represented as being crowned the next day. This
last is the same as that which Eadward is always drawn as wearing,
even when supported in the arms of Robert on his death-bed. This
last representation is of course merely symbolical; it is simply as
much as to say, “This is the King.” This latter crown is doubtless
the crown used at the actual coronation, and also on the great days
when the King “wore his Crown” publicly. On its form cf. vol. ii.
p. 334. But this simpler crown, borne, it would seem, immediately
from the chamber of the dead King, suggests that such a crown was
commonly kept at hand near the King’s person. Compare the well-known
story of Henry the Fifth trying on the crown which was kept by his
father’s bed-side (Monstrelet, i. 163 _b_), a story which may pass as
authority for the custom, whether true or not as to the fact. This
crown, as easier of access, would be the one symbolically offered to
the King-elect, while the crown of greater ceremony would of course
be used in the great rite of the morrow.
Footnote 39
The Danish Kings, though not of royal English blood, were of royal
blood in their own land. With the exception of them, the Crown of
Wessex, and of England as the developement and continuation of
Wessex, had never gone out of the West-Saxon royal house. I cannot
answer for all the momentary Kings in Northumberland or in the last
days of Mercia.
Footnote 40
See below, Chapter xii. § 4, and Appendix R.
Footnote 41
See vol. ii. p. 190.
Footnote 42
“Die quâ Edwardus Rex vivus fuit et mortuus” is a common form in
Domesday. So in Cod. Dipl. iv. 233; “To þám timan ðe Eádward cing was
cucu and deád.”
Footnote 43
This is well put by Dr. Bruce, p. 79.
Footnote 44
The Tapestry (pl. 7) significantly puts together, in one compartment,
one over the other, the nomination of Harold by Eadward (“Hic
Eadwardus Rex in lecto alloquit fideles”) and the preparation of
Eadward’s body for burial (“Hic defunctus est”). Now the churchman in
attendance on the death-bed must surely be the same as the churchman
who is helping at the preparation for burial. Now the former can only
be Stigand, and the latter is still more distinctly marked with the
archiepiscopal pallium, the unlucky gift of Benedict.
Footnote 45
Bayeux Tapestry, pl. 7. Bruce, p. 74.
Footnote 46
In the coronation-offices of different ages, mention is often made
of the weariness of the sovereign, caused, according to Mr. Maskell,
by his obligation to receive the Communion fasting. In this case
therefore, when the burial had to take place before the coronation,
it would be specially necessary to begin the ceremony early in the
day.
Footnote 47
Vita Eadw. 434. “Coram altare beati Petri Apostoli conditur corpus.”
The Chronicles simply mention the burial in the minster; “He
forðferde on Twelftan æfen, and hyne man bebyrigde on Twelftan dæig
on þam ylcan mynstre” (Ab. Wig. 1065)—“innan þære niwa halgodre
circean on Westmynstre” (Petrib. 1066).
Footnote 48
The general sorrow has quite witness enough in the Life, 434, 435.
Æthelred (402) uses stronger expressions, but which still perhaps
do not go beyond the facts of the case; “Dici non potest quantus
mox omnes timor invaserit, occupaverit mœror, quomodo totam quoque
insulam tenebrosus quidam horror impleverit.”
Footnote 49
See the Poem in the Chronicles, above, p. 18.
Footnote 50
Vita Eadw. 434. “Totum quoque a primo die tricesimum celebratione
missarum, decantatione prosequuntur psalmorum, expensis pro
redemptione ipsius animæ multis auri libris in sublevatione diversi
ordinis pauperum.”
Footnote 51
Ib. 435. “Ibi illuminantur cæci, in gressum solidantur claudi,
infirmi curantur, mœrentes consolatione Dei reparantur.”
Footnote 52
At this point we lose the contemporary Life of Eadward. He speaks of
no event later than the funeral, except in an allusion to the Battle
of Stamfordbridge (426);
“Quis canet æquoreo vastum fervore tumentem
Humbram congressum _Regibus æquivocis_?”
He declines entering on the subject for fear of wounding the
feelings of Eadgyth. Except from this one place, and from the dying
recommendation of Eadward, which last he makes as dark as possible
(see Appendix B), we should never learn from him that Harold ever
reigned at all. William is never mentioned or alluded to. It is clear
that, writing as he did for Eadgyth, under William, he could not
write as he would, and, courtier as he was, he was not willing to
write in the way that might have been most acceptable.
Footnote 53
“Gillebertus cognomento Crispyn,” says Æthelred (408), who calls
this examination “prima translatio.” His appointment by Lanfranc is
mentioned in the Tract on the Crispin Family, Lanfranc, ed. Giles, i.
343.
Footnote 54
Æthel. u.s. “Non tamen conatum hunc meum præsumptioni deputes sed
devotioni, quum relliquiarum ejus vel modicam portionem, si mihi
copia præstaretur, Crœsi opibus prætulissem.”
Footnote 55
See Hardy’s Catalogue of English History, vol. i. part 2. p. 642.
Several letters on the subject will be found among the letters of
Osbert published (along with those of Herbert Lozinga) by Colonel
Anstruther (Brussels 1846), numbered 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 in the series.
Osbert writes on behalf of the canonization to the Pope’s Legate,
Alberic Bishop of Ostia, and to Henry, Bishop of Winchester, whose
somewhat remote kindred to the saint is enlarged on. Bishop Henry,
the Chapter (Conventus) of Saint Paul’s, and lastly King Stephen,
write letters which Osbert carries to the Pope. Lastly comes
Innocent’s answer to the Convent of Westminster, asking for further
proof of Eadward’s miracles, &c. There is nothing of special interest
in the whole series.
Footnote 56
See the opening of Æthelred’s Life of Eadward (370. Cf. Geneal.
Regg. 350); he calls Henry “lapidem angularem Anglici generis et
Normannici.”
Footnote 57
See Dart, Westmonasterium, p. 53. He quotes from a seemingly
unpublished manuscript.
Footnote 58
Edward the First was baptized on the day of the Translation of
his earlier namesake the “Martyr.” See Matt. Paris, 488. But
it is distinctly said that his name was given him in honour of
the Confessor. Flores Hist. 1239; “Est Eadwardus vocitatus. Qui
denominationem accepit a glorioso Rege et Confessore Eadwardo, cujus
corpus gloriosum in basilicâ S. Petri Westmonasterii requiescit.”
So N. Trivet, in anno (p. 225 ed. Hog); “In honorem gloriosissimi
Confessoris et Regis Edwardi Edwardum vocavit.” But Matthew Paris
(u.s.) seems, oddly enough, to make him be called Ed_ward_ after the
contemporary Archbishop Saint Ed_mund_; “Archiepiscopus Ædmundus
Cantuariensis ipsum confirmavit, et, Rege sic volente, aptatum est ei
nomen, scilicet Ædwardus.” The important point is the re-appearance,
from any cause, of the royal English name.
Footnote 59
Matt. Paris, 661. “Eodem anno [1245] Dominus Rex, devotione quam
habuit adversus sanctum Ædwardum submonente, ecclesiam Sancti Petri
Westmonasteriensem jussit ampliari. Et, dirutis antiquis cum turri
muris partis orientalis, præcepit novos, videlicet decentiores ...
construi.”
Footnote 60
T. Wikes, 1269 (Gale, ii. 89). “Ecclesiam ... Rex opere
sumptuosissimo fabricatam, _amotâ prorsus veteri_ [this is not
true, see M. Paris, u.s.] _quæ nullius omnino valoris exstiterat_,
de propriis fisci regalis exitibus [Simon and the Parliament had
something to say on that head], a fundamentis construxit, quæ quidem
sumptibus pariter et decore sic cæteris per orbem ecclesiis præponi
decernitur, ut videatur comparem non habere.”
Footnote 61
Marmion, ii. 10.
Footnote 62
Matt. Paris, 2. “Ecclesia, quam ... post multi ecclesias
construentes, exemplum adepti, opus illud expensis æmulabantur
sumptuosis.” See vol. ii. p. 508 for the passage of William of
Malmesbury on which this is founded.
Footnote 63
I know of no other English church of the thirteenth century which
exhibits the French arrangement of the apse and surrounding chapels.
It may be seen at an earlier date at Norwich and in the ground-plan
of the destroyed monastic church at Leominster, and at a later date
at Tewkesbury, the example most like Westminster, though on a much
smaller scale.
Footnote 64
John’s submission to Rome was more ignominious in point of form than
anything done by Eadward or Henry, but it was not in the same way the
act of his own free will.
Footnote 65
T. Wikes, p. 88. Henry moved the body “non patiens ulteriùs
venerabiles relliquias beatissimi Regis Edwardi Confessoris, quem præ
cæteris sanctis speciali quâdam veneratione dilexit, locello quodam
humili recubare.” The ceremony was done “convocatis universis Angliæ
prælatis et magnatibus, necnon cunctarum regni sui civitatum pariter
et burgorum potentioribus.” The Witan, in short, buried him and the
Witan translated him. Then follows the list of the Kings, Princes,
and nobles who bore the body.
Footnote 66
T. Wikes, p. 89. “Quotquot manus apponere poterant ad onus tam nobile
supportandum in adjutorium evocatis.”
Footnote 67
See vol. i. pp. 58, 63.
Footnote 68
See vol. i. pp. 60, 611.
Footnote 69
See vol. i. p. 440.
Footnote 70
Fl. Wig. 1074.
Footnote 71
Ord. Vit. 843 B. “Mathildis Regina, quæ in baptismate Edit
dicta fuit, Kal. Maii [1118] obiit, et in basilicâ sancti Petri
Westmonasterio tumulata quiescit.”
Footnote 72
Charter of Henry, printed in Stanley’s Memorials, p. 504. “Ob
reverentiam gloriosissimi Regis Eadwardi, cujus corpus in monasterio
Westmonasterii requiescit, nostri corporis sepulturam ... eligimus in
eodem.”
Footnote 73
One would have inferred from the account in Dart, Westmonasterium (i.
56), that the body of Eadward was never disturbed. But the testimony
of Henry Machyn seems explicit; “The xx day of Marche [1556–7] was
taken up at Westmynster agayn with a hondered lyghtes King Edward the
confessor ... it was a godly shyte to have seen yt how reverently
he was cared [carried] from the plasse that he was taken up wher he
was led [laid] when that the abbay was spowlyd and robbed” (p. 130,
Camd. Soc. ed.). The shrine was set up on the 5th of January 1555.
Chronicle of Grey Friars, p. 94, Camd. Soc. ed., where the day is
called Saint Edward’s day. Stanley, Memorials of Westminster, p. 412.
Footnote 74
I discuss the circumstances of Harold’s coronation at length in
Appendix D. But all that is needed is expressed in the decisive
words of Florence, “Ab Aldredo Archiepiscopo Eboracensi honorificè
consecratus,” and in the picture in the Tapestry, pl. 7, erring only
in making Stigand the consecrator.
Footnote 75
See Maskell, p. xv. Some canonists seem even to have held, with a
special reference to the Emperor John Tzimiskês, that the unction,
like baptism, washed out all earlier sin.
Footnote 76
See vol. ii. p. 437.
Footnote 77
See Appendix E.
Footnote 78
Maskell, 3, 5. “Chorus decantet antiphonam ‘Firmetur manus tua et
exaltetur dextera tua; justitia et judicium præparatio sedis tuæ,
misericordia et veritas præcedent faciem tuam.’”
Footnote 79
Ib. 5. “Perveniens Rex ad ecclesiam, prosternat se coram altare, et
hymnizetur, ‘Te Deum laudamus, Te Dominum confitemur.’ Quo fini tenùs
hymnizato, Rex erigatur de solo.”
Footnote 80
See Appendix E.
Footnote 81
See the Prayer, Maskell, p. 6, note.
Footnote 82
See Appendix E.
Footnote 83
“Totius regni _Anglo-Saxonum_ ecclesiam cum plebibus sibi annexis.”
(Selden, 116.) This is one of the rare cases in which this word
is used; but it will be easily seen how completely its use agrees
with the rule given in vol. i. p. 608. “Anglo-Saxonum” is simply an
abbreviation of the form “Anglorum vel [= et] Saxonum” used before
and after.
Footnote 84
Marmion, ii. 28.
Footnote 85
On the unction, whether on the head only, see Appendix E.
Footnote 86
Selden, 116. “Hic unguatur oleo, et hæc cantetur antiphona, ‘Unxerunt
Salomonem Sadoch sacerdos et Nathan propheta Regem in Gion, et
accedentes dixerunt, Vivat Rex in æternum.’”
Footnote 87
Selden, 117. “Sacratissima unctio super caput ejus defluat, atque ad
interiora descendat, et cordis illius intima penetret.”
Footnote 88
On the royal vestments, see Taylor, 79 et seqq.
Footnote 89
Maskell, p. 27. “In quo per virtutem Sancti Spiritûs resistere et
ejicere omnes inimicos tuos valeas, et cunctos sanctæ Dei Ecclesiæ
adversarios, regnumque tibi commissum tutari, atque protegere castra
Dei.”
Footnote 90
On the Crown and the other regalia used, including the orb, see
Appendix E.
Footnote 91
Maskell, pp. 33, 34.
Footnote 92
Ib. 35. “Sanctæ Mariæ ac beati Petri Apostolorum Principis, Sanctique
Gregorii Anglorum Apostoli atque omnium sanctorum intercedentibus
meritis.”
Footnote 93
See Taylor, p. 70, and Appendix E.
Footnote 94
See the Tapestry, pl. 7.
Footnote 95
Chronn. Ab. Wig. 1065. “And her wærð Harold eorl eac to cynge
gehalgod, and he lytle stilnesse þæron gehad, þa hwile þe he rices
weold.”
Footnote 96
See the form, Selden, 117. Maskell, 51. Taylor, 307 et seqq. and 403.
Footnote 97
See Appendix F.
Footnote 98
Maskell, p. 39. Taylor, 404.
Footnote 99
See vol. i. p. 470; ii. p. 355.
Footnote 100
On these charges, see Appendix G.
Footnote 101
Roman de Rou, 11076;
“Normanz ki el païz maneient
Ki fames et enfanz aveient,
Ke Ewart i aveit menéz,
Et granz chastels è fieux dunez,
Fist Heraut del païz chacier,
N’en i volt un soul lessier.”
But he does not speak of their expulsion till after William had
challenged the Crown and defied Harold.
Footnote 102
See above, p. 15.
Footnote 103
See vol. ii. p. 358.
Footnote 104
We shall find him in Sussex at the moment of the landing at Pevensey.
See below, Chapter xv. Robert the son of Wymarc must be distinguished
from another Robert who was also high in Eadward’s favour, namely
Robert of Rhuddlan, sister’s son to Hugh of Grantmesnil (Ord. Vit.
669 C); “Hic Eduardi Regis armiger fuit [a sinecure office, one would
think], et ab illo cingulum militiæ accepit.”
Footnote 105
See vol. ii. p. 347.
Footnote 106
See vol. ii. p. 359. Reginbald signs many charters.
Footnote 107
There were several Stallers at a time. Besides Robert and Ralph, we
find under Eadward, Esegar (see vol. ii. p. 63, and Hist. Elien. ii.
39, where he seems to be confounded with Earl Ælfgar), Lyfing (Cod.
Dipl. iv. 291; vi. 198), Eadgar (iv. 148), Ælfstan (Thorpe, Dipl.
Ang. 356), Harold (Domesday, 337), and Bondig (Cod. Dipl. iv. 172,
281; Domesday, 148 _b_, 218 _b_). The deposition or banishment of
Ralph is more likely than that of any other favourite of Eadward. On
the other hand his foreign birth is less certain.
Footnote 108
See below, Chapp. xiv. xv.
Footnote 109
Fl. Wig. 1066. See Appendix G.
Footnote 110
Florence mentions his orders as given “Ducibus, Satrapis,
Vicecomitibus, et suis in commune Ministris.” What were the exact
functions of the “Satraps,” put thus in a marked way between Earls
and Sheriffs?
Footnote 111
See vol. i. pp. 244, 463; vol. ii. pp. 336, 481, 499.
Footnote 112
See vol. ii. pp. 34, 40.
Footnote 113
On the coinage of Harold, see Appendix H.
Footnote 114
Plat. Phæd. c. xxxviii. ἀλλὰ πρὸς δύο λέγεται οὐδ’ ὁ Ἡρακλῆς οἷός τε
εἶναι.
Footnote 115
De Inv. c. 20. “Rex ... quod prius dilexerat non potuit odisse.
Verumtamen ecclesiam Walthamensem, amplori quam priùs amplexatus
dilectione, multâ donariorum venustate cœpit eam ampliare, ita ut
postea nullatenus sine multorum munerum oblatione vellet etiam illam
sedem visitare.”
Footnote 116
Cod. Dipl. iv. 305, perhaps the only surviving writ of Harold’s
reign. It is addressed to Æthelnoth, Abbot of Glastonbury (see vol.
ii. p. 361) and the Sheriff Tovid or Tofig. See vol. i. p. 590.
Footnote 117
See vol. ii. p. 639.
Footnote 118
See vol. ii. p. 467.
Footnote 119
See vol. ii. p. 350.
Footnote 120
See vol. ii. p. 42.
Footnote 121
See vol. ii. p. 438. Cf. p. 462.
Footnote 122
Hist. Eves. 88. “Defuncto nempe Rege isto [Æduuardo] et Haraldo
regnum accipiente, quidquid volebat ab eo impetravit [Ageluuius].”
Footnote 123
Harold was “a _totius Angliæ_ Primatibus ad regale culmen electus.”
Fl. Wig. 166.
Footnote 124
See Hist. Fed. Gov. pp. 211, 270.
Footnote 125
I except of course the irregular Gemót of Northampton in 1065. See
vol. ii. pp. 491, 492.
Footnote 126
See Appendix H.
Footnote 127
Will. Malms. Vit. S. Wlst., ap. Ang. Sacr. ii. 253.
Footnote 128
See vol. ii. p. 495.
Footnote 129
Domesday, 321.
Footnote 130
See vol. i. p. 499.
Footnote 131
See vol. ii. p. 484. Eadward, born at Islip, is said (Hist. Eli. ii.
33) to have been presented by his parents on the altar at Ely; I know
not whether he ever repeated the visit.
Footnote 132
Vit. Wlst. 254. “Illi populi ferro indomabiles, semper quiddam magnum
à proavis spirantes.”
Footnote 133
The matter could only have been decided in a Gemót, and Harold’s
presence at York is implied in the Chronicles.
Footnote 134
See vol. i. p. 67.
Footnote 135
On the possibility that Harold’s marriage with Ealdgyth took place at
this point, see Appendix F.
Footnote 136
Vit. Wlst. 254. “Multa et illo itinere et aliàs crebrò præscita et
prænuntiata sunt. Denique Haraldo palàm testificatus est, quanto
detrimento et sibi et Angliæ foret, nisi nequitias morum correctum
ire cogitaret. Vivebatur enim tunc penè ubique in Angliâ perditis
moribus, et pro pacis affluentiâ deliciarum fervebat luxus.”
Footnote 137
Chronn. Ab. Wig. 1066. “On þisum geare com Harold kyng of Eoforwic to
Westmynstre, to þam Eastran, þe wæron æfter þam middanwintran þe se
kyng forðferde.”
Footnote 138
See vol. ii. p. 62.
Footnote 139
See Appendix K.
Footnote 140
See vol. ii. p. 42.
Footnote 141
Hist. Ab. i. 482. Cf. the writs in Cod. Dipl. iv. 200, 228. On the
affairs of Ely, see Appendix L.
Footnote 142
See Hist. Ab. 482 et seqq. There is something singular in the way in
which the local writer couples the advancement of the new Abbot with
that of Harold—his own local Earl. “Tunc duo subrogati sunt, Haroldus
comes scilicet in Regem Anglorum; et Ealdredus, hactenus exteriorum
præposituram Abbendoniæ agens, inibi in abbatem monachorum.” He had
(p. 486) two names (binomius erat) Ealdred and “Brichwinus.”
Footnote 143
See vol. ii. p. 454.
Footnote 144
Hist. Elien. ii. 41. See Appendix L.
Footnote 145
Ib. 40. “Citiùs [before the death of Guthmund] Normannis regnum
obtinentibus, miles illorum quidam Hugo de Mumford easdem terras
invasit, et hactenus ecclesiæ detenuit.” I cannot however identify
the lands in Domesday.
Footnote 146
I know of no authority for the date of William’s first message,
except the assertion in Bromton (958) that it was on the tenth day
after the death of Eadward. I cannot look on this as enough. I shall
therefore treat of the message in connexion with those events to
which it belongs in order of subject, if not of time.
Footnote 147
Annales Benevent. ap. Pertz, iii. 180. “Sexto decimo Kalendas Maii
apparuit stella comet_i_s [the Greek κομητής]. Tertio die stante
mense Februarii factæ sunt tenebræ horâ nonâ et permanserunt horæ
tres; postea subsequuta est pluvia rapida nimium.... Et Nortmanni
bella crudelissima fecerunt cum Britannis in terrâ Anglorum et
Saxonum.”
Footnote 148
Chronn. Ab. Wig. 1066. “Þa wearð geond eall Englaland swylc tacen on
heofenum gesewen swylce nan man ǽr ne geseh.”
Footnote 149
Flor. Wig. “Stella cometes non solùm in Angliâ, sed etiam, ut fertur,
per totum mundum visa, per vii. dies splendore nimio fulgebat.”
Footnote 150
Chronn. u. s. “Sume menn cwædon þæt hyt cométa steorra wære, þone
sume menn hatað þone fexedon steorran. And he æteowde ærest on þone
æfen Letania Major, þæt ys viii. Kal. Mai.” [Monday, April 24.]
Footnote 151
See Appendix M.
Footnote 152
Ann. S. Germani, Pertz, iv. 4. “A vespere usque ad gallicinium.”
Footnote 153
Tapestry, pl. 7. “Isti mirant stellam.” See Appendix M.
Footnote 154
Will. Malms. ii. 225. Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, 1066. Æthelmær, it
seems, was a man of mechanical skill, who in his youth had attempted
to make himself wings like Daidalos, but who had been hardly more
successful than Ikaros, though from another cause. “Ipse ferebat
caussam ruinæ suæ quod caudam in posteriori parte oblitus fuerat
adaptare.” He remained lame for life.
Footnote 155
Will. Malms. ii. 225. “Venisti, inquit, venisti, multis matribus
lugende; dudum est quod te vidi; sed nunc multò terribiliorem intueor
patriæ hujus excidiùm minitantem.”
Footnote 156
Chronn. Wig. Petrib. Cant. 975.
Footnote 157
See vol. i. pp. 296–319.
Footnote 158
Alb. Trium Font. 51. “Anno 1017. Cometes solito mirabilior in modum
trabis maximæ per quatuor menses apparuit.” He then goes on to speak
of the reign of Cnut.
Footnote 159
There is nothing special to remark on the authorities for this
Chapter, which consist mainly of the Norman writers whose names
and whose relative importance must be by this time familiar to the
reader. I will only remark that it is somewhat vexatious that we have
to trust almost wholly to authorities on one side. While we have full
narratives from the Norman writers, we have only the most fragmentary
statements from any French, Angevin, or Breton source to set against
them. And, to an English writer, this is specially vexatious when we
draw near to the end of the period, when we have to deal with those
personal relations between William and Harold on which the Norman
writers are so full, while the contemporary English writers are so
completely, no doubt significantly, silent.
Footnote 160
See vol. ii. p. 293.
Footnote 161
See St. John, ii. 225 et seqq. But I would not, as I shall presently
show, be thought to share Mr. St. John’s extreme scepticism on the
whole matter.
Footnote 162
It is indeed quite possible that the mass of people in England knew
nothing about the matter. The only statement implying that they did
is that of Harold’s romantic biographer (Chron. Ang. Norm. ii. 187,
188) which I have quoted and discussed in Appendix C.
Footnote 163
See vol. ii. p. 293.
Footnote 164
Ib. p. 289.
Footnote 165
Will. Pict. 90. “Reges de longinquo suas unicè caras filias huic
marito voluntariè locarent.”
Footnote 166
Ib. 89. “Adeo ut et ejus sobolem, quam solâ tum spe fovebant, dominum
sibi concordi votorum electione creare certarent.” He goes on to
speak of the debates on the subject, “res ponderosa” as he calls it,
and how it was discussed “in frequenti curiâ.” So Will. Gem. vii. 21
“Jam Duce juvenili robore vigente, transcensis annis adolescentiæ,
cœperunt optimates ejus de successione prolis cum eo attentiùs
tractare.”
Footnote 167
Will. Malms. iii. 273. “Præter cæteras virtutes, præcipuè in primâ
adolescentiâ castitatem suspexit, in tantum ut publicè sereretur
nihil illum in feminâ posse. Verumtamen ex procerum sententiâ
matrimonio addictus, ita se egit ut pluribus annis nullius probri
suspicione notaretur.” He then goes on to mention, without believing,
an absurd story which I shall have to speak of elsewhere. I do not
know on what authority genealogists and antiquaries call the famous
William Peverel of Domesday a natural son of William: I know of
nothing to that effect in any ancient writer. See Appendix N.
Footnote 168
Will. Pict. 90. “Consiliis itaque de matrimonio discrepatur ... ac
affines habere quos confines potissimùm placuit.”
Footnote 169
See vol. ii. p. 304.
Footnote 170
Among the many foreign brothers-in-law of Æthelstan, it is certain
that the two most prominent, Otto the Great and Duke Hugh of Paris,
left no posterity by their English wives. But a search among the
princes of the time might have revealed some descendants of Eadgifu
and the other sisters. The line of the Karlings of Laôn was not
extinct.
Footnote 171
Will. Pict. 90. “Uti à Satrapis Morinorum, quos moderni Flandros
appellant,” &c. This is somewhat in the style of Richer, our
classical companion in my first volume.
Footnote 172
See vol. i. 278. Cf. ii. 272, 273.
Footnote 173
The first Count Baldwin married Judith, daughter of Charles the
Bald, widow of our Æthelwulf; Baldwin the Second married Ælfthryth,
daughter of Ælfred; Arnulf the Old married Adela of the Carolingian
house of Vermandois; his son Baldwin married Matilda, daughter of
King Conrad of Burgundy; Arnulf the Young married Susanna, daughter
of King Berengar of Italy; but the mother of the reigning Count,
though of princely, was not of royal birth. William of Poitiers (90)
is therefore justified when he says that Baldwin “à Regibus Galliæ
atque Germaniæ natales deducebat;” but I cannot follow him when
he goes on to add, “nobilitatis etiam Constantinopolitanæ lineam
attingentes.”
Footnote 174
Will. Pict. 90. “Stupuerunt mirantes eum Comites, Marchiones, Duces,
tum Archipræsulum alta dignitas, si quando præsentiam ejus, rari
hospitis, Imperatoria cura promeruit ... nomine siquidem Romani
Imperii miles fuit, re decus et gloria summa consiliorum in summâ
necessitudine. Reges quoque magnitudinem ejus et venerati sunt et
veriti.”
Footnote 175
In the Annales Blandinienses and Formoselenses (Pertz, v. 26,
36), the Count of Flanders appears as “Balduinus potentissimus,”
“potentissimus Marchisus.”
Footnote 176
Will. Pict. 90. “Vigebat eo tempore Teutonibus collimitans ac
Francis, eminensque potentiâ, præcipuus eorum, Flandrensis Marchio
Baldwinus.”
Footnote 177
The Free Cities of Germany obtained a higher degree of independence
than those of Flanders, and those of them which became members of the
Swiss League of course became more independent still. Yet, except
the Hanseatic towns, none of them rested their greatness so purely
on commerce as the Flemish cities, and the Flemish cities were
distinctly more democratic in their spirit than any others. Ghent is
something quite different either from the Teutonic Rome at Bern or
from the Teutonic Carthage at Lübeck.
Footnote 178
See vol. i. p. 227. Cf. 548.
Footnote 179
In the Chronicle of Lambert of Saint Omer, 1067 (Pertz, v. 66) he is
distinguished as “Baldwinus Comes Insulanus” from his son “Baldwinus
Montensis.” So in the Continuation of Sigebert, vi. 433.
Footnote 180
See vol. i. p. 519.
Footnote 181
See vol. ii. p. 97 et seqq.
Footnote 182
See the passage quoted in vol. ii. p. 99.
Footnote 183
He rebelled again in 1054 (Herm. Cont. in anno, Pertz, v. 133.
Bernold, ib. 427). On the War, see Annales Elnonenses Majores (Pertz,
v. 13). The reconciliation by the agency of Pope Victor is asserted
in the Chronicles of Sigebert (Pertz, vi. 360) and Ekkehard (vi.
198); on the terms see Art de Vérifier les Dates, iii. 4.
Footnote 184
See vol. i. pp. 519, 562. I shall have to speak of this marriage
again.
Footnote 185
See Will. Pict. 90, and below, § 3.
Footnote 186
On their history see Lambert, 1071 (Pertz, v. 181). Will. Malms. iii.
256; iv. 373.
Footnote 187
See vol. ii. p. 134, and Appendix N.
Footnote 188
“Corpore valdè elegantem animoque liberalem,” says William of
Jumièges (vii. 21). So Wace, who wrongly calls her mother Constance
(9640–9642); “Mahelt out non, mult bele è gente.” William of Poitiers
attributes her excellences to the good training which she had
received from her mother Adela; “Enutrierat autem prudens et sancta
mater in filiâ quod muneribus paternis multuplo præponderaret.” He
then goes on to extol the royal family of France, to which he is not
always so loyal, and he commits the blunder of calling Robert “filius
et _nepos_ Regum.”
Footnote 189
See vol. i. p. 454.
Footnote 190
On this discovery of Mr. Stapleton and on other points connected with
the marriage, see Appendix N.
Footnote 191
William of Poitiers indeed would almost make one think that Baldwin
set off with his daughter to meet William as soon as he heard that
William wanted a wife, and that they were married without more
ado. William of Jumièges (vii. 21) seems to make the marriage
follow immediately on the embassy, though he afterwards mentions
the objections made on the ground of kindred, on which William of
Poitiers holds his peace.
Footnote 192
See the tale in the Continuator of Wace, ap. Ellis, ii. 55. The only
groundwork for the story seems to be the fact that Matilda held
certain lands which had belonged to a Brihtric—there were several of
the name.
Footnote 193
Ord. Vit. 522 A, 598 A. His description is “Gherbodus Flandrensis.”
Footnote 194
See Ellis, i. 507. The inscription beginning “Stirps Gundrada Ducum,”
has often been copied, and has no doubt misled many. The “Duces” are
of course the Counts of Flanders, not those of Normandy.
Footnote 195
She is assumed to be such even by Sir Francis Palgrave (iii. 254),
after the appearance of Mr. Stapleton’s paper.
Footnote 196
See Appendix N.
Footnote 197
Her parents, Baldwin and Adela, were married about 1027. See Appendix
N.
Footnote 198
See vol. ii. p. 112.
Footnote 199
Ib. p. 113.
Footnote 200
Ib. p. 184.
Footnote 201
Ann. Divionenses, ap. Pertz, v. 41. Labbé, Concilia, xi. 1407 et
seqq. Chron. of Auxerre, ap. Labbé, Biblioth. i. 293.
Footnote 202
Labbé, Concilia, xi. 1412. The two canons run; “xi. Ne quis
incestuosæ conjunctioni se copularet. xii. Ne quis, legitimâ uxore
derelictâ, aliam duceret.” Presently comes the passage quoted by Mr.
Stapleton; “Excommunicavit etiam Comites Engelrannum et Eustachium
propter incestum, et Hugonem de Brainâ, qui legitimam uxorem
dimiserat et aliam sibi in matrimonio sociaverat. _Interdixit et
Balduino Comiti Flandrensi ne filiam suam Willelmo Nortmanno nuptui
daret, et illi ne eam acciperet._ Vocavit etiam Comitem Tetbaldum,
quoniam suam dimiserat uxorem.” I do not know what were the offences
of Ingelram (who was not yet Count) or of Eustace. Theobald had put
away Gersendis, daughter of Herbert Wake-the-Dog of Maine, of whom
we shall hear more anon. In the Art de Vérifier les Dates, ii. 615,
Theobald’s wife Gersendis seems to be confounded with his sister the
wife of Hugh son of Herbert.
Footnote 203
See Appendix N.
Footnote 204
The whole story is given in the hexameters of William of Apulia,
Muratori, v. 259 et seqq. Cf. Milman, iii. 35 et seqq.
Footnote 205
William’s lines on the stature of the Germans are well known as being
quoted by Gibbon (x. 257 ed. Milman). His description of their swords
and manner of fighting is less familiar, and is worth quoting, as
showing how much the Teutonic warfare was the same everywhere (p.
260, C, D);
“Nam nec equus doctè manibus giratur eorum,
Nec validos ictus dat lancea, præminet ensis,
Sunt etenim longi specialiter et peracuti
Illorum gladii, percussum à vertice corpus
Scindere sæpe solent, et firmo stant pede postquam
Deponuntur equis, potiùs certando perire
Quam dare terga volunt, magis hoc sunt Marte timendi.
Quam dum sunt equites; tanta est audacia gentis.”
This exactly describes an English army before Cnut introduced the axe
instead of the sword (see vol. i. pp. 300, 430, 577), and the implied
panegyric of William is the parallel of the implied panegyric of Guy
of Amiens. See vol. ii. p. 128.
Footnote 206
See vol. i. p. 171. So Will. App. 261 D;
“Robertus et ingeniosus
Semper celsa petens, et laudis amans et honoris.
Si contingebat sibi palma vel arte vel armis,
Æquè ducebat, quia quod violentia sæpe
Non explere potest, explet versutia mentis.”
Compare the wild account of Robert Wiscard in Benedict of
Peterborough (ii. 200 Stubbs), where he is transferred to the reign
of Henry the First.
Footnote 207
See vol. i. p. 171.
Footnote 208
On the Counts of Eu, see below, p. 117.
Footnote 209
Thirty-six years if we count from the death of William’s grandmother
Judith in 1017; twenty-seven if we count from the death of Richard
the Good in 1026. The question turns on the position of Richard’s
second wife Papia. See vol. ii. p. 181.
Footnote 210
See vol. ii. p. 210.
Footnote 211
Will. Malms. iii. 267. “Ferunt quidam esse arcanam depositionis
caussam; Matildem, quam Willelmus acceperat, proximam sibi
sanguine fuisse. Id, Christianæ fidei zelo, Malgerium non tulisse,
ut consanguineo cubili fruerentur, sed in nepotem et comparem
excommunicationis jaculum intentâsse.”
Footnote 212
William, or Orderic, in the death-bed narrative (657 B), puts the
two together; “Non multò post alia mihi gravissima adversitas oborta
est. Patrui namque mei, Malgerius Rothomagensis Archiepiscopus et
Guillelmus frater ejus ... me velut nothum contempserunt,” etc.
Footnote 213
See the passage of William of Malmesbury just cited.
Footnote 214
Will. Malms. iii. 267. “Is erat litteris quidem non mediocriter
cultus.” This is admitted even by William of Poitiers, 116;
“Scripturarum arcana intelligentiæ literalis oculo colligere non
indoctus fuit.”
Footnote 215
Ib. “Pro natalium conscientiâ professionis oblitus, venationibus et
avium certaminibus sæpiùs justo intendebat.”
Footnote 216
Ib. “Gazas ecclesiasticas conviviis profusioribus insumebat.” So
Will. Pict. 116; “Mensas equidem nimiùm sufficientes, nimiùm nitidas,
præbere.”
Footnote 217
Will. Pict. 116. “Quam pietas plurimorum ornando ditavit, ille
spoliando attenuavit ecclesiam; non sponsus ejus vel pater dicendus,
sed gravissimus dominus vel rapacissimus prædo.... Largiendo laudem
emere amabat, specie liberalitatis prodigus.... Nec enim modum posuit
largitioni donec sedes metropolitana omni fere ornamento caruit et
thesauro.”