Tostig, with the ships he had gained both from Norman and Norwegian,
recruited by Flemish adventurers, fled fast from the banners of
Harold. After plundering the Isle of Wight, and the Hampshire coasts,
he sailed up the Humber, where his vain heart had counted on friends
yet left him in his ancient earldom; but Harold's soul of vigour was
everywhere. Morcar, prepared by the King's bodes, encountered and
chased the traitor, and, deserted by most of his ships, with but
twelve small craft Tostig gained the shores of Scotland. There, again
forestalled by the Saxon King, he failed in succour from Malcolm, and
retreating to the Orkneys, waited the fleets of Hardrada.
And now Harold, thus at freedom for defence against a foe more
formidable and less unnatural, hastened to make secure both the sea
and the coast against William the Norman. "So great a ship force, so
great a land force, no king in the land had before." All the summer,
his fleets swept the channel; his forces "lay everywhere by the sea."
But alas! now came the time when the improvident waste of Edward began
to be felt. Provisions and pay for the armaments failed [236]. On the
defective resources at Harold's disposal, no modern historian hath
sufficiently dwelt. The last Saxon king, the chosen of the people,
had not those levies, and could impose not those burdens which made
his successors mighty in war; and men began now to think that, after
all, there was no fear of this Norman invasion. The summer was gone;
the autumn was come; was it likely that William would dare to trust
himself in an enemy's country as the winter drew near? The Saxons--
unlike their fiercer kindred of Scandinavia, had no pleasure in war;--
they fought well in front of a foe, but they loathed the tedious
preparations and costly sacrifices which prudence demanded for self-
defence. They now revolted from a strain upon their energies, of the
necessity of which they were not convinced! Joyous at the temporary
defeat of Tostig, men said, "Marry, a joke indeed, that the Norman
will put his shaven head into the hornets' nest! Let him come, if he
dare!"
Still, with desperate effort, and at much risk of popularity, Harold
held together a force sufficient to repel any single invader. From
the time of his accession his sleepless vigilance had kept watch on
the Norman, and his spies brought him news of all that passed.
And now what had passed in the councils of William? The abrupt
disappointment which the Grand Assembly had occasioned him did not
last very long. Made aware that he could not trust to the spirit of
an assembly, William now artfully summoned merchant, and knight, and
baron, one by one. Submitted to the eloquence, the promises, the
craft, of that master intellect, and to the awe of that imposing
presence; unassisted by the courage which inferiors take from numbers,
one by one yielded to the will of the Count, and subscribed his quota
for monies, for ships, and for men. And while this went on, Lanfranc
was at work in the Vatican. At that time the Archdeacon of the Roman
Church was the famous Hildebrand. This extraordinary man, fit fellow-
spirit to Lanfranc, nursed one darling project, the success of which
indeed founded the true temporal power of the Roman pontiffs. It was
no less than that of converting the mere religious ascendancy of the
Holy See into the actual sovereignty over the states of Christendom.
The most immediate agents of this gigantic scheme were the Normans,
who had conquered Naples by the arm of the adventurer Robert Guiscard,
and under the gonfanon of St. Peter. Most of the new Norman
countships and dukedoms thus created in Italy had declared themselves
fiefs of the Church; and the successor of the Apostle might well hope,
by aid of the Norman priest-knights, to extend his sovereignty over
Italy, and then dictate to the kings beyond the Alps.
The aid of Hildebrand in behalf of William's claims was obtained at
once by Lanfranc. The profound Archdeacon of Rome saw at a glance the
immense power that would accrue to the Church by the mere act of
arrogating to itself the disposition of crowns, subjecting rival
princes to abide by its decision, and fixing the men of its choice on
the thrones of the North. Despite all its slavish superstition, the
Saxon Church was obnoxious to Rome. Even the pious Edward had
offended, by withholding the old levy of Peter Pence; and simony, a
crime peculiarly reprobated by the pontiff, was notorious in England.
Therefore there was much to aid Hildebrand in the Assembly of the
Cardinals, when he brought before them the oath of Harold, the
violation of the sacred relics, and demanded that the pious Normans,
true friends to the Roman Church, should be permitted to Christianise
the barbarous Saxons [237], and William he nominated as heir to a
throne promised to him by Edward, and forfeited by the perjury of
Harold. Nevertheless, to the honour of that assembly, and of man,
there was a holy opposition to this wholesale barter of human rights--
this sanction of an armed onslaught on a Christian people. "It is
infamous," said the good, "to authorise homicide." But Hildebrand was
all-powerful, and prevailed.
William was at high feast with his barons when Lanfranc dismounted at
his gates and entered his hall.
"Hail to thee, King of England!" he said. "I bring the bull that
excommunicates Harold and his adherents; I bring to thee the gift of
the Roman Church, the land and royalty of England. I bring to thee
the gonfanon hallowed by the heir of the Apostle, and the very ring
that contains the precious relic of the Apostle himself! Now who will
shrink from thy side? Publish thy ban, not in Normandy alone, but in
every region and realm where the Church is honoured. This is the
first war of the Cross."
Then indeed was it seen--that might of the Church! Soon as were made
known the sanction and gifts of the Pope, all the continent stirred as
to the blast of the trump in the Crusade, of which that war was the
herald. From Maine and from Anjou, from Poitou and Bretagne, from
France and from Flanders, from Aquitaine and Burgundy, flashed the
spear, galloped the steed. The robber-chiefs from the castles now
grey on the Rhine; the hunters and bandits from the roots of the Alps;
baron and knight, varlet and vagrant,--all came to the flag of the
Church,--to the pillage of England. For side by side with the Pope's
holy bull was the martial ban:--"Good pay and broad lands to every one
who will serve Count William with spear, and with sword, and with
cross-bow." And the Duke said to Fitzosborne, as he parcelled out the
fair fields of England into Norman fiefs:
"Harold hath not the strength of mind to promise the least of those
things that belong to me. But I have the right to promise that which
is mine, and also that which belongs to him. He must be the victor
who can give away both his own and what belongs to his foe." [238]
All on the continent of Europe regarded England's king as accursed--
William's enterprise as holy; and mothers who had turned pale when
their sons went forth to the boar-chase, sent their darlings to enter
their names, for the weal of their souls, in the swollen muster-roll
of William the Norman. Every port now in Neustria was busy with
terrible life; in every wood was heard the axe felling logs for the
ships; from every anvil flew the sparks from the hammer, as iron took
shape into helmet and sword. All things seemed to favour the Church's
chosen one. Conan, Count of Bretagne, sent to claim the Duchy of
Normandy, as legitimate heir. A few days afterwards, Conan died,
poisoned (as had died his father before him) by the mouth of his horn
and the web of his gloves. And the new Count of Bretagne sent his
sons to take part against Harold.
All the armament mustered at the roadstead of St. Valery, at the mouth
of the Somme. But the winds were long hostile, and the rains fell in
torrents.