two banners, the Dragon of Wessex and Harold's own standard, the
Fighting Man, as they were carried south again. Nothing succeeds like
success; if Harold could conquer the great Hardrada, it were surely
not impossible to defeat the Norman duke. So the thanes and churchmen
alike rallied to the Fighting Man. The earls of the north half
promised to follow, but they never kept their word; perhaps complete
independence might follow now their half-resented southern vassalage.
At least they did not mean to fight the battles of Wessex until there
was no chance for evasion. But while Harold waited at London, men
flocked together from the west and south, and he spent some days in
his royal house at Westminster, heavy-hearted and full [Pg303] of
care in his great extremity. He was too good a general, he had seen
too much of the Norman soldiery already to underrate their prowess in
battle; he shook his head gloomily when his officers spoke with scorn
of their foes. One day he went on a pilgrimage to his own abbey at
Waltham, and the monks' records say that, while he prayed there before
the altar and confessed his sins and vowed his fealty to God, who
reigns over all the kingdoms of the earth; while he lay face downward
on the sacred pavement, the figure of Christ upon the cross bowed its
head, as if to say again, "It is finished." Thurkill, the sacristan,
saw this miracle, and knew that all hope must be put aside, and that
Harold's cause was already lost.
Next, the Norman duke sent a message to Westminster by a monk from the
abbey of Fécamp, and there was parleying to and fro about Harold's
and William's rival claims to the English crown. It was only a
formal challenging and a final provocation to the Englishmen to come
and fight for their leader, there where the invaders had securely
entrenched and established themselves. "Come and drive us home if you
dare, if you can!" the Normans seemed to say tauntingly, and Harold
saw that he must make haste lest the duke should be strengthened
by reinforcements or have time to make himself harder to dislodge.
William's demand that he should come down from the throne had been
put into insolent words, and the Kentish people were being pitifully
distressed and brought to beggary by the host of foreigners. Yet
Gyrth, the son of Godwine, begged [Pg304] his royal brother to stay
in London; to let him go and fight the Normans; and the people begged
Harold, at the last moment, to listen to such good counsel. But Harold
refused; he could never play coward's part, or let a man who loved
him fight a battle in his stead; and so when six days were spent he
marched away to the fight where the two greatest generals the world
held must match their strength one against the other, hand to hand.
The King of England had a famous kingdom to lose, the Duke of Normandy
had a famous kingdom to win.
[Illustration: A NORMAN MINSTREL.]
On the night before the fourteenth of October, the armies stood before
each other near Hastings, on the field of Senlac, now called Battle.
They made their camps hastily; for hosts of them the rude shelters
were a last earthly dwelling-place and habitation of earthly hopes
or fears. Through the Norman encampment went bands of priests, and
the Normans prayed and confessed their sins. The Bishop of Coutances
and Duke William's half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, both these
high officials of the Church were there to stay the hands of their
parishioners, and uphold the devout fighters in this crusade. Odo
made the soldiers promise that whoever survived the morrow's battle
would never again eat meat on Saturday; by such petty means he hoped
to gain success at the hands of God who rules battles on a larger
scope, and who, through the quarrels and jealousies of men, brings
slowly near the day when justice shall be done on earth as it is in
heaven. They sang hymns; the watch-fires flickered and faded; the gray
morning dawned, and there in the [Pg305] dim light stood the English
on a hillside that jutted like a promontory into the marshy plain. A
woodland lay behind them, as if the very trees of the English soil had
mustered with the men; in the thickest of the ranks was Harold's royal
banner, the Fighting Man, and Harold himself stood close beside it
with his brothers. The awful battle-axes, stained yet with the blood
of those who died at Stamford Bridge, were in every man's hand, and
every man was sheltered by his shield and kept silence. The Normans
saw their foes stand waiting all together shoulder to shoulder, yet
there was silence—an awful stillness in which to see so vast a host of
men, and yet not hear them speak. The English had feasted that night,
and sung their songs, and told the story of the northern fight. How
their battle-axes looked gray and cold as the light dawned more and
more! The Normans knew that they might feel the bitter edges and the
cleaving steel of them ere the day was spent. [Pg306]
Archers first, behind them the lancers, and behind all, the horsemen;
so the Normans were placed, high-hearted and bold with their great
errand. To gain is better than to keep; by night this England might
be theirs in spite of the battle-axes. While the day was yet young,
Taillefer, the minstrel, went riding boldly out from the ranks singing
the song of Roland and Charlemagne at Roncesvalles, tossing his sword
lightly and fast into the air and catching it deftly as he galloped
to the English lines. There sat the duke on his horse that was a
present from the king of Spain. His most holy relics were hung about
his neck; as he glanced from Taillefer along his army front he could
see the Côtentin men, led by Neal of Saint Saviour, and his thoughts
may have gone back quickly to the battle of his early youth at
Val-ès-dunes. What a mighty host had gathered at his summons! All his
Norman enemies were his followers now; he had won great championship,
and if this day's fortune did not turn against him, the favor of the
Holy Mother Church at Rome, the church of the apostles and martyrs,
was won indeed; and no gift in Christendom would be more proudly
honored than this kingdom of England made loyal to the papal crown.
William the Bastard, the dishonored, insulted grandson of a Falaise
tanner,—William, the Duke of proud Normandy, at the head of a host,
knocking at the gates of England; nay, let us set the contrast wider
yet, and show Rolf the Ganger, wet by salt spray on the deck of his
dragon-ship, steering boldly southward, and William, Duke of the
Normans, rich and great, a master of masters, and soon [Pg307] to be
king of a wide and noble land, and winner of a great battle, if the
saints whom he worshipped would fight upon his side.
Taillefer has killed his two men, and been killed in his turn; his
song has ended, and his sword has dropped from his hand. The Normans
cry "/Dex aide! Dex aide! Ha Rou!/" and rush boldly up the hill to
Harold's palisades. The arrows flew in showers, but the English stand
solid and hew at the horsemen and footmen from behind their shields.
Every man, even the king, was on foot; they shouted "Out! out!" as the
Normans came near; they cried "God Almighty!" and "Holy Cross!" and
at this sound Harold must have sadly remembered how the crucifix had
bowed its head as he lay prone before it. And the fight grew hotter
and hotter, the Normans were beaten back, and returned again fiercely
to the charge, down the hill, now up the hill over the palisades,
like a pouring river of men, dealing stinging sword-thrusts—dropping
in clumsy heaps of javelin-pricked and axe-smitten lifelessness; from
swift, bright-eyed men becoming a bloody mass to stumble over, or
feebly crying for mercy at the feet that trampled them; so the fight
went on. Harold sent his captains to right and left, and William
matched his captains against them valiantly. The Norman arrows were
falling blunted and harmless from the English shields, and he told the
archers to shoot higher and aim so that the arrows might fall from
above into the Englishmen's faces. There was no sound of guns or smoke
of powder in that day, only a fearful wrangling and chopping, and a
whir of [Pg308] arrow and lance and twang of bowstring. Yes, and a
dolorous groaning as closer and closer the armies grappled with each
other, hand to hand.
Hour after hour the day spent itself, and the fight would never be
done. There was a cry that the duke was dead, and he pulled off his
helmet and hurried along the lines to put new courage into his men.
The arrows were dropping like a deadly rain, the axemen and lancers
were twisted and twined together like melted rock that burns and
writhes its way through widening crack and crevice. The hot flood of
Normans in chain-mail and pointed helmets sweeps this way, and the
English with their leathern caps and their sturdy shoulders mailed
like their enemies, swinging their long-handled weapons, pour back
again, and so the day draws near its end, while the races mix in
symbolic fashion in the fight as they must mix in government, in
blood, in brotherhood, and in ownership of England while England
stands.
Harold has fallen, the gleaming banner of the Fighting Man, with its
golden thread and jewelry, is stained with blood and mire. An arrow
has gone deep into the king's eye and brain; he has fallen, and
his foes strike needless blows at his poor body, lest so valiant a
spirit cannot be quieted by simple death. The English have lost the
fight, there is a cry that they are flying, and the Normans hear it
and gather their courage once more; they rally and give chase. All
at once there is a shout that thrills them through and through—a
glorious moment when they discover that the day is won. William the
Bastard is William the Conqueror, a sad word for many [Pg309] English
ears in days to come; to us the sign of great gain that was and is
England's—of the further advance of a kingdom already noble and
strong. The English are strongest, but the Normans are quickest. The
battle has been given to Progress, and the Norman, not the Saxon, had
the right to lead the way.
[Illustration: SOLDIER IN CLOAK.]
But the field of Senlac makes a sad and sorry sight as the light of
the short October day is fading and the pale stars shine dimly through
the chilly mist that gathers in from the sea. It is not like the
bright Norman weather; the slow breeze carries a faint, heavy odor
of fallen leaves, and the very birds give awesome cries as they fly
over the battle-field. There are many of the victors who think of the
spoils of England, but some better men remember that it is in truth a
mighty thing to have conquered such a country. What will it mean in
very truth that England is theirs? [Pg310]
Later, William the Conqueror and his knights are resting and feasting
and bragging of their deeds, there where Harold's standards were
overthrown and the banner of the Three Lions of Normandy waves in the
cool night wind. The living men look like butchers from the shambles,
and the dead lie in heavy heaps; here and there a white face catches
a ray of light and appeals for pity in its dumb loneliness. There are
groans growing ever fainter, and cries for help now and then, from a
soldier whose wits have come back to him, though he lay stunned and
maimed among those who are forever silent. There go weeping men and
women with litters—they cannot find the king, and they must lead the
woman who loved him best of all the earth, Edith the Swan-throated,
through this terrible harvest-field to discover his wounded body among
the heaps of slain. He must be buried on the sea-shore, the Norman
duke gives command to William Malet, and so guard forever the coast he
tried to defend.
The heralds of victory set sail exultantly across the brown water
of the Channel; the messengers of defeat go mourning to London and
through the sorrowful English towns. Harold the son of Godwine, and
his brother, Gyrth the Good—yes, and the flower of all Southern
England; no man of Harold's own noble following lived to tell the
story and to bewail this great defeat. There were some who lived to
talk about it in after days;—and there was one good joy in saying that
as the Normans pursued them after the day was lost, they hid in ambush
in the fens and routed their pursuers with deadly, [Pg311] unexpected
blows. But the country side looked on with dismay while William fought
his way to London, not without much toil and opposition, but at last
the humbled earldoms willingly or unwillingly received their new lord.
Since Eadgar the underwitted Atheling was not fit for the throne,
and the house of Godwine had fallen, William the Norman was made
monarch of England, and there was a king-crowning in Westminster at
Christmas-tide.
[Illustration]
[Pg312]
[Illustration]
XVI.
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.
"Then in his house of wood with flaxen sails
She floats, a queen, across the fateful seas."
—A. F.
Rather than follow in detail the twenty-one years of William's English
reign, we must content ourselves with a glance at the main features
of it. We cannot too often remind ourselves of the resemblance
between the life and growth of a nation and the life and growth of
an individual; but while William the Conqueror is in so many ways
typical of Normandy, and it is most interesting to follow his personal
fortunes, there are many developments of Norman character in general
which we must not overlook. William was about forty years old when the
battle of Hastings was fought and won; Normandy, too, was in her best
vigor and full development of strength. The years of decadence must
soon begin for both; the time was not far distant when the story of
Normandy ends, and it is only in the history of France and of England
that the familiar Norman characteristics can be traced. Foremost in
vitalizing force and power of centralization and individuality, while
so much of Europe was [Pg313] unsettled and misdirected toward petty
ends, this duchy of Rolf the Ganger seems, in later years, like a
wild-flower that has scattered its seed to every wind, and plants for
unceasing harvests, but must die itself in the first frost of outward
assailment and inward weakness.
* * * * *
The march to London had been any thing but a triumphant progress, and
the subjects of the new king were very sullen and vindictive. England
was disheartened, her pride was humbled to the dust, and many of
her leaders had fallen. In the dark winter weather there was sorrow
and murmuring; the later law of the curfew bell, a most wise police
regulation, made the whole country a prison.
A great deal of harrying had been thought necessary before the people
were ready to come to William and ask him to accept the crown. William
had a great gift for biding his time, and in the end the crown was
proffered, not demanded. We learn that the folk thought better of
their conqueror at last, that Cnut was remembered kindly, and the
word went from mouth to mouth that England might do worse than take
this famous Christian prince to rule over her. Harold had appealed
to heaven when the fight began at Senlac, but heaven had given the
victory to other hands. The northern earls had forsaken them, and at
any rate the Norman devastations must be stopped. If William would
do for England what he had done for his own duchy and make it feared
for valor and respected for its prosperity like Normandy, who could
ask more? So the [Pg314] duke called a formal council of his high
noblemen and, after careful consideration, made known his acceptance!
There was a strange scene at the coronation in Westminster. Norman
horsemen guarded the neighboring streets, a great crowd of spectators
filled the church, and when the question was put to this crowd,
whether they would accept William for their king, there was an eager
shout of "Yea! yea! King William!" Perhaps the Normans had never heard
such a noisy outcry at a solemn service. Again the shout was heard,
this time the same question had been repeated in the French tongue,
and again the answer was "Yea! yea!"
The guards outside thought there was some treachery within, and
feared that harm might come to their leader, so, by way of antidote
or revenge, they set fire to the buildings near the minster walls.
Out rushed the congregation to save their goods or, it might be,
their lives, while the ceremony went on within, and the duke himself
trembled with apprehension as he took the solemn oath of an English
king, to do justice and mercy to all his people. There was a new crown
to be put on,—what had become of the Confessor's?—but at last the rite
was finished and William, king of the English, with his priests and
knights, came out to find a scene of ruin and disorder; it was all
strangely typical—the makeshift splendors, the new order of church and
state, the burning hatred and suspicions of that Christmas-tide. Peace
on earth, good-will to men! alas, it was any thing but that in the
later years of William's reign. [Pg315]
No doubt he built high hopes and made deep plans for good governance
and England's glory. He had tamed Normandy to his guiding as one
tames a wild and fiery horse, and there seemed to be no reason why
he could not tame England. In the beginning he attempted to prove
himself lenient and kind, but such efforts failed; it was too plain
that the Normans had captured England and meant to enjoy the spoils.
The estates belonging to the dead thanes and ealdormen, who fought
with Harold, were confiscated and divided among the Normans: this
was the fortune of war, but it was a bitter grievance and injustice.
O, for another Godwine! cried many a man and woman in those days. O,
for another Godwine to swoop down upon these foreign vultures who
are tearing at England's heart! But even in the Confessor's time
there was little security for private property. We have even seen the
Confessor's own wife banished from his side without the rich dowry she
had brought him, and Godwine's estates had been seized and refunded
again, as had many another man's in the reign of that pious king whom
everybody was ready to canonize and deplore.
After the king had given orders to his army to stop plundering and
burning, there was a good deal of irregular depredation for which he
was hardly responsible. He was really king of a very small part of
England. The army must not be disbanded, it must be kept together
for possible defence, but the presence of such a body of rapacious
men, who needed food and lodging, and who were not content [Pg316]
unless they had some personal gain from the rich country they had
helped to win, could not help being disastrous. Yet there is one
certain thing—the duke meant to be master of his new possessions,
and could use Englishmen to keep his Norman followers in check,
while he could indulge his own countrymen in their love of power and
aggrandizement at England's expense. There are touching pictures of
his royal progress through the country in the early part of his reign;
the widows of thanes and the best of the churls would come out with
their little children, to crave mercy and the restitution of even
a small part of their old estates to save them from beggary. Poor
women! it was upon them that the heaviest burden fell; the women of a
war-stricken country suffer by far the most from change and loss; not
the heroes who die in battle, or the heroes who live to tell the story
of the fight, and who have been either victors or vanquished. Men are
more reasonable; they have had the recompense of taking part in the
struggle. If they have been in the wrong or in the right, great truths
have come home to them as they stood sword in hand.
The Norman barons, who had followed their leader beyond the Channel,
had been won by promises, and these promises must be kept. They were
made rich with the conquered lands, and given authority, one would
think, to their heart's content. They were made the king's magistrates
and counsellors, and as years went by there was more and more
resentment of all this on the part of the English. They hated their
Norman lords; they hated the [Pg317] taxes which the king claimed.
The strong point of the Saxon civilization was local self-government
and self-dependence; but the weak point was the lack of unity and
want of proper centralization and superintendence. William was wise
in overcoming this; instead of giving feudalism its full sway and
making his Norman barons petty monarchs with right of coinage and full
authority over their own dominion, he claimed the homage and loyalty,
the absolute allegiance of his subjects. But for his foresight in
making such laws, England might have been such a kingdom as Charles
the Simple's or Hugh Capet's, and hampered with feudal lords greater
than their monarch in every thing but name.
In England, at last, every man held his land directly from the king
and was responsible to him. The Witanagemôt was continued, but turned
into a sort of feudal court in which the officials of the kingdom, the
feudal lords, had places. The Witan became continually a smaller body
of men, who were joined with those officers of the royal power higher
than they. It must be remembered that the Conqueror did not make his
claim to the throne because he had won his right by the sword. He
always insisted that he was the lawful successor to Eadward, and the
name of Harold the Usurper was omitted from the list of English kings.
Following this belief or pretence he was always careful to respect the
nationality of the country, and made himself as nearly as possible an
Englishman. His plans for supplanting the weakness and insularity of
many English institutions by certain Continental [Pg318] fashions,
wrought a tremendous change, and put the undeveloped and self-centred
kingdom that he had won, on a footing with other European powers. The
very taxes which were wrung from the unwilling citizens, no doubt,
forced them to wider enterprise and the expansion of their powers of
resource. Much of England's later growth has sprung from seed that
was planted in these years—this early springtime of her prosperity,
when William's stern hands swept from field and forest the vestiges
of earlier harvests, and cleared the garden grounds into leafless
deserts, only to make them ready for future crops.
The very lowest classes were more fortunate under William's rule
than they had been in earlier times. Their rights and liberties
were extended, and they could claim legal defence against the
tyrannies of their masters. But the upper ranks of people were much
more dissatisfied and unhappy. The spirit of the laws was changed;
the language of the court was a foreign language; and the modified
feudalism of the king put foreigners in all high places, who could
hold the confiscated estates, and laugh at the former masters now
made poor and resourceless. The folk-land had become /Terra Regis/;
England was only a part of Normandy, and the king was often away,
busier with the affairs of his duchy than of his kingdom. Yet, as
had often happened before in this growing nation's lifetime, a
sure process of amalgamation was going on, and though the fire of
discontent was burning hot, the gold that was England's and the gold
that was Normandy's were being melted together and growing into a
greater [Pg319] treasure than either had been alone. We can best
understand the individuality and vital force of the Norman people by
seeing the difference their coming to England has made in the English
character. We cannot remind ourselves of this too often. The Norman
of the Conqueror's day was already a man of the world. The hindering
conditions of English life were localism and lack of unity. We can see
almost a tribal aspect in the jealousies of the earldoms, the lack of
sympathy or brotherhood between the different quarters of the island.
William's earls were only set over single shires, and the growth of
independence was rendered impossible; and his greatest benefaction to
his new domain was a thoroughly organized system of law. As we linger
over the accounts of his reign, harsh and cruel and unlovable as he
appears, it is rather the cruelty of the surgeon than of a torturer
or of a cut-throat. The presence of the Normans among the nations of
the earth must have seemed particularly irritating and inflammatory,
but we can understand, now that so many centuries have smoothed away
the scars they left, that the stimulus of their energy and their hot
ambition helped the rest of the world to take many steps forward.