Meanwhile, King Harold of England had made himself dear to his people,
and been true to the fame he had won as Harold the Earl. From the
moment of his accession, "he showed himself pious, humble, and affable
[227], and omitted no occasions to show any token of bounteous
liberality, gentleness, and courteous behaviour."--"The grievous
customs, also, and taxes which his predecessors had raised, he either
abolished or diminished; the ordinary wages of his servants and men-
of-war he increased, and further showed himself very well bent to all
virtue and goodness." [228]
Extracting the pith from these eulogies, it is clear that, as wise
statesman no less than as good king, Harold sought to strengthen
himself in the three great elements of regal power;--Conciliation of
the Church, which had been opposed to his father; The popular
affection, on which his sole claim to the crown reposed; And the
military force of the land, which had been neglected in the reign of
his peaceful predecessor.
To the young Atheling he accorded a respect not before paid to him;
and, while investing the descendant of the ancient line with princely
state, and endowing him with large domains, his soul, too great for
jealousy, sought to give more substantial power to his own most
legitimate rival, by tender care and noble counsels,--by efforts to
raise a character feeble by nature, and denationalised by foreign
rearing. In the same broad and generous policy, Harold encouraged all
the merchants from other countries who had settled in England, nor
were even such Normans as had escaped the general sentence of
banishment on Godwin's return, disturbed in their possessions. "In
brief," saith the Anglo-Norman chronicler [229], "no man was more
prudent in the land, more valiant in arms, in the law more sagacious,
in all probity more accomplished:" and "Ever active," says more
mournfully the Saxon writer, "for the good of his country, he spared
himself no fatigue by land or by sea." [230] From this time, Harold's
private life ceased. Love and its charms were no more. The glow of
romance had vanished. He was not one man; he was the state, the
representative, the incarnation of Saxon England: his sway and the
Saxon freedom, to live or fall together!
The soul really grand is only tested in its errors. As we know the
true might of the intellect by the rich resources and patient strength
with which it redeems a failure, so do we prove the elevation of the
soul by its courageous return into light, its instinctive rebound into
higher air, after some error that has darkened its vision and soiled
its plumes. A spirit less noble and pure than Harold's, once entering
on the dismal world of enchanted superstition, had habituated itself
to that nether atmosphere; once misled from hardy truth and healthful
reason, it had plunged deeper and deeper into the maze. But, unlike
his contemporary, Macbeth, the Man escaped from the lures of the
Fiend. Not as Hecate in hell, but as Dian in heaven, did he confront
the pale Goddess of Night. Before that hour in which he had deserted
the human judgment for the ghostly delusion; before that day in which
the brave heart, in its sudden desertion, had humbled his pride--the
man, in his nature, was more strong than the god. Now, purified by
the flame that had scorched, and more nerved from the fall that had
stunned,--that great soul rose sublime through the wrecks of the Past,
serene through the clouds of the Future, concentering in its solitude
the destinies of Mankind, and strong with instinctive Eternity amidst
all the terrors of Time.
King Harold came from York, whither he had gone to cement the new
power of Morcar, in Northumbria, and personally to confirm the
allegiance of the Anglo-Danes:--King Harold came from York, and in the
halls of Westminster he found a monk who awaited him with the messages
of William the Norman.
Bare-footed, and serge-garbed, the Norman envoy strode to the Saxon's
chair of state. His form was worn with mortification and fast, and
his face was hueless and livid, with the perpetual struggle between
zeal and flesh.
"Thus saith William, Count of the Normans," began Hugues Maigrot, the
monk.
"With grief and amaze hath he heard that you, O Harold, his sworn
liege-man, have, contrary to oath and to fealty, assumed the crown
that belongs to himself. But, confiding in thy conscience, and
forgiving a moment's weakness, he summons thee, mildly and brother-
like, to fulfil thy vow. Send thy sister, that he may gave her in
marriage to one of his Quens. Give him up the stronghold of Dover;
march to thy coast with thine armies to aid him,--thy liege lord,--and
secure him the heritage of Edward his cousin. And thou shalt reign at
his right-hand, his daughter thy bride, Northumbria thy fief, and the
saints thy protectors."
The King's lip was firm, though pale, as he answered:
"My young sister, alas! is no more: seven nights after I ascended the
throne, she died: her dust in the grave is all I could send to the
arms of the bridegroom. I cannot wed the child of thy Count: the wife
of Harold sits beside him." And he pointed to the proud beauty of
Aldyth, enthroned under the drapery of gold. "For the vow that I
took, I deny it not. But from a vow of compulsion, menaced with
unworthy captivity, extorted from my lips by the very need of the land
whose freedom had been bound in my chains--from a vow so compelled,
Church and conscience absolve me. If the vow of a maiden on whom to
bestow but her hand, when unknown to her parents, is judged invalid by
the Church, how much more invalid the oath that would bestow on a
stranger the fates of a nation [231], against its knowledge, and
unconsulting its laws! This royalty of England hath ever rested on
the will of the people, declared through its chiefs in their solemn
assembly. They alone who could bestow it, have bestowed it on me:--I
have no power to resign it to another--and were I in my grave, the
trust of the crown would not pass to the Norman, but return to the
Saxon people."
"Is this, then, thy answer, unhappy son?" said the monk, with a sullen
and gloomy aspect.
"Such is my answer."
"Then, sorrowing for thee, I utter the words of William. 'With sword
and with mail will he come to punish the perjurer: and by the aid of
St. Michael, archangel of war, he will conquer his own.' Amen."
"By sea and by land, with sword and with mail, will we meet the
invader," answered the King, with a flashing eye. "Thou hast said:--
so depart."
The monk turned and withdrew.
"Let the priest's insolence chafe thee not, sweet lord," said Aldyth.
"For the vow which thou mightest take as subject, what matters it now
thou art king?"
Harold made no answer to Aldyth, but turned to his Chamberlain, who
stood behind his throne chair.
"Are my brothers without?"
"They are: and my lord the King's chosen council."
"Admit them: pardon, Aldyth; affairs fit only for men claim me now."
The Lady of England took the hint, and rose.
"But the even-mete will summon thee soon," said she. Harold, who had
already descended from his chair of state, and was bending over a
casket of papers on the table, replied:
"There is food here till the morrow; wait me not." Aldyth sighed, and
withdrew at the one door, while the thegns most in Harold's confidence
entered at the other. But, once surrounded by her maidens, Aldyth
forgot all, save that she was again a queen,--forgot all, even to the
earlier and less gorgeous diadem which her lord's hand had shattered
on the brows of the son of Pendragon.
Leofwine, still gay and blithe-hearted, entered first: Gurth followed,
then Haco, then some half-score of the greater thegns.
They seated themselves at the table, and Gurth spoke first:
"Tostig has been with Count William."
"I know it," said Harold.
"It is rumoured that he has passed to our uncle Sweyn."
"I foresaw it," said the King.
"And that Sweyn will aid him to reconquer England for the Dane."
"My bode reached Sweyn, with letters from Githa, before Tostig; my
bode has returned this day. Sweyn has dismissed Tostig; Sweyn will
send fifty ships, armed with picked men, to the aid of England."
"Brother," cried Leofwine, admiringly, "thou providest against danger
ere we but surmise it."
"Tostig," continued the King, unheeding the compliment, "will be the
first assailant: him we must meet. His fast friend is Malcolm of
Scotland: him we must secure. Go thou, Leofwine, with these letters
to Malcolm.--The next fear is from the Welch. Go thou, Edwin of
Mercia, to the princes of Wales. On thy way, strengthen the forts and
deepen the dykes of the marches. These tablets hold thy instructions.
The Norman, as doubtless ye know, my thegns, hath sent to demand our
crown, and hath announced the coming of his war. With the dawn I
depart to our port at Sandwich [232], to muster our fleets. Thou with
me, Gurth."
"These preparations need much treasure," said an old thegn, "and thou
hast lessened the taxes at the hour of need."
"Not yet is it the hour of need. When it comes, our people will the
more readily meet it with their gold as with their iron. There was
great wealth in the House of Godwin; that wealth mans the ships of
England. What hast thou there, Haco?"
"Thy new-issued coin: it hath on its reverse the word PEACE." [233]
Who ever saw one of those coins of the Last Saxon King, the bold
simple head on the one side, that single word "Peace" on the other,
and did not feel awed and touched! What pathos in that word compared
with the fate which it failed to propitiate!
"Peace," said Harold: "to all that doth not render peace, slavery.
Yea, may I live to leave peace to our children! Now, peace only rests
on our preparation for war. You, Morcar, will return with all speed
to York, and look well to the mouth of the Humber."
Then, turning to each of the thegns successively he gave to each his
post and his duty; and that done, converse grew more general. The
many things needful that had been long rotting in neglect under the
Monk-king, and now sprung up, craving instant reform, occupied them
long and anxiously. But cheered and inspirited by the vigour and
foresight of Harold, whose earlier slowness of character seemed winged
by the occasion into rapid decision (as is not uncommon with the
Englishman), all difficulties seemed light, and hope and courage were
in every breast.