The history of the Norman conquest of England, its causes and its results, Volume 3 (of 6) (part 6 of 7)

Appendix

NOTE A. p. 3.

THE AUTHORITY OF THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.

It will be seen that, throughout this volume, I accept the witness of the Bayeux Tapestry as one of my highest authorities. I do not hesitate to say that I look on it as holding the first place among the authorities on the Norman side. That it is a contemporary work I entertain no doubt whatever, and I entertain just as little doubt as to its being a work fully entitled to our general confidence. I believe the Tapestry to have been made for Bishop Odo, and to have been most probably designed by him as an ornament for his newly rebuilt cathedral church of Bayeux. In coming to these conclusions I have been mainly guided by what seems to me the unanswerable internal evidence of the Tapestry itself. Of that internal evidence I shall presently state the more important points, but, as the age and antiquity of the Tapestry have been made the subjects of a good deal of controversy, I think it right to begin by giving a summary of the literature of that controversy.

The earliest notice of the Tapestry is to be found in a communication made by M. Lancelot in 1724 to the French Academy, which was printed in the sixth volume of their Memoirs, p. 739 (Paris, 1729), and which, in some sort, entitles him to the honour of being looked on as its discoverer. Among the papers of M. Foucault, who had been Intendant in Normandy, was found what Lancelot calls “un Monument de Guillaume le Conquerant.” This was no other than a copy of the earlier scenes of the Tapestry, as far down as the coming of William’s messengers to Guy. The real nature of the monument was quite unknown; that it might be tapestry was simply one conjecture out of many which Lancelot made before the truth was found out. And he not unnaturally connected his discovery with Caen rather than with Bayeux. But the description which he gave of that part of the Tapestry which he had then seen, and the historical disquisition which he added, showed a very creditable knowledge of the original writers both English and Norman. His conclusion was as follows;

“Plus j’ay examiné le monument qui a servi de sujet à ces remarques, et plus je me suis persuadé qu’il estoit du temps à peu près où s’est passé l’évenement qu’il represente; habits, armes, caractères de lettres, ornements, goût dans les figures representées, tout sent le siècle de Guillaume le Conquérant, ou celuy de ses enfants.” (p. 755.)

Lancelot then was the first to call attention to the Tapestry, but without knowing that it was tapestry or where it was to be seen. This discovery was owing to the diligence of Montfaucon, who first conjectured, and afterwards found his conjecture to be right, that the fragment published by Lancelot was a copy of part of a roll of tapestry which used to be exhibited on certain feast-days in Bayeux Cathedral. Montfaucon gave two accounts of it in his Monumens de la Monarchie Françoise, at vol. i. p. 371, and at the beginning of vol. ii. He decides (ii. 2), on the evidence of the style of the work, the form of the armour, &c., that the work is a contemporary one, and he accepts as probable, what he says was the common opinion at Bayeux, that it was wrought by Queen Matilda. He thought that the Tapestry was designed to go on to the coronation of William, and that its imperfect state was owing to the Queen’s death in 1083.

The first volume of Montfaucon was published in 1729, the second in 1730. In the latter year Lancelot communicated to the Academy a second paper, which appeared in the eighth volume of the Memoirs (Paris, 1733), p. 602. He had by that time found out another fact with regard to the monument. The Tapestry, known locally as “la Toilette du Duc Guillaume,” was thus mentioned in an inventory of the goods of the Church of Bayeux of the date of 1476;

“Item. Une tente tres longue et etroite de telle à broderie de ymages et eserpteaulx [escripteaulx] faisans representation du Conquest d’Angleterre, laquelle est tendue environ la nef de l’Eglise le jour et par les octaves des Reliques.”

A short notice of the Tapestry in Beziers’ History of Bayeux (Caen, 1773) is wholly founded on Lancelot and Montfaucon.

The first English mention of the Tapestry, as far as I can make out, is to be found in Stukeley’s Palæographia Britannica, ii. 2. An abridgement of Montfaucon’s account, by Smart Lethicullier, F.R.S. and F.S.A., is added as an Appendix to Ducarel’s Anglo-Norman Antiquities, No. I. But the earliest actual writers of English history who dealt with the age and authority of the Tapestry were two authors who hold such different places in the estimation of the scholar as Lord Lyttelton and David Hume. Lyttelton (Hist. Henry II. i. 353, ed. 1769) came to a conclusion unfavourable to the authority of the Tapestry; but he did not come to it without really reading and thinking about the matter. His main point of objection was the supposed discrepancy between the Tapestry and the narrative of William of Poitiers with regard to the details of the Breton war, an objection perfectly reasonable as far as it goes, and the grounds of which I shall examine elsewhere (see Note T). Assuming, I suppose, that the tradition which ascribed the work to a Matilda must have some groundwork, Lyttelton “judged” that it was made by the orders, not of William’s Queen Matilda, but of her granddaughter the Empress.

This “judgement,” it should be noticed, was simply Lyttelton’s own conjecture, thrown out on his own responsibility. It is curious to mark the fate of this conjecture in the hands of Hume. It is due to Hume to say that he seems to have had a clearer notion of the real value of the Tapestry than Lyttelton. Yet in 1762, when he published the first edition of his early history, he knew the Tapestry only as “a very curious and authentic monument lately discovered. It is a tapestry, preserved in the ducal palace at Roüen, and supposed to have been wrought by orders of Matilda, wife to the Emperor. At least it is of very great antiquity.” (i. 128.)

When this was written, the first discovery of the Tapestry, at least of the part of which Hume was speaking, was thirty-eight years old. Still it was in Hume’s eyes “lately discovered,” because he had most likely never before heard of it. The cathedral at Bayeux and the ducal palace at Rouen were all one to him, just as Milan and Pavia, Guelf and Ghibelin, were all one to him, when (p. 183) he turned Lanfranc into “a Milanese monk.” The tradition of Bayeux and the conjecture of Lyttelton are seemingly rolled together in the word “supposed,” and one might almost guess that Hume, while writing the reign of Eadward, had not yet learned to distinguish one Matilda from another; it clearly was quite indifferent to him which Emperor it was that either of them married.

But the beginning of any really serious and critical enquiry into the age and authority of the Tapestry was reserved for the present century. Attention began to be called to it during the time of the French Republic. Some curious letters on the subject are printed in Pluquet’s “Essai Historique sur la ville de Bayeux,” pp. 76–81. It appears that the Tapestry at one time narrowly escaped being cut into shreds to adorn a civic car. It afterwards actually underwent a fate almost as degrading. The elder Buonaparte, then “First Consul,” carried it off to Paris, and showed it at the Louvre, to stir up his subjects—“citizens” they are still called in the official letters—to another conquest of England! But this kind of folly had at least the advantage of fixing the thoughts of learned men on the Tapestry itself. The firstfruits of their studies appeared in 1812, in the form of a paper by the Abbé de la Rue, Professor at Caen and Canon of Bayeux, of which an English translation by Mr. Douce is printed in the Archæologia, vol. xvii. p. 85. M. de la Rue followed Lyttelton in attributing the Tapestry to the time and the orders of the Empress Matilda. Against the tradition which attributed it to the wife of the Conqueror he brings several arguments. It is nowhere mentioned in the will of Queen Matilda or in any other wills or charters of her age or that of her sons. If it had been placed in Bayeux Cathedral in Queen Matilda’s time, it must have perished in the fire by which that church was destroyed in 1106. Some relics were saved, but no one would have taken the trouble to save the Tapestry. Some points of non-agreement between the accounts in the Tapestry and the Roman de Rou show that Wace had never seen the Tapestry. But, as a Canon of Bayeux, he could not fail to have seen it, if it had been there in his time. The work again must be later than Queen Matilda’s time, because the border contains references to fables of Æsop, which were not known in the West till the time of the Crusades. It is shown moreover to be of English work, from the occurrence of the mysterious Ælfgyva. This name he takes to be an English way of describing the Duchess, afterwards Queen, Matilda. Wadard again, whose name he takes to be English, and the word “Ceastra” are brought as proofs of English workmanship. Another point on which he strongly insists is that the Normans are called Franci in the Tapestry, which he argues would not have been done by Norman artists. He concludes therefore that the Tapestry was made in England by order of the Empress, at some time between 1162, about which time Wace wrote, and 1167, the year of her own death.

This communication led to several other papers on the subject in the Archæologia, and to what was more valuable than all, to the publication of the beautiful and accurate representation of the Tapestry itself, made for the Society of Antiquaries by Stothard. At vol. xviii. p. 359 of the Archæologia is a letter written in 1816 by Mr. Hudson Gurney, who had seen the Tapestry for himself. He argues in favour of the antiquity attributed to the work by the local tradition. He insists on various points of costume, and on the evident attempt at preserving a likeness in the figures, especially in that of William. He concludes that it was made for Queen Matilda by English workwomen. The nineteenth volume of the Archæologia contains three papers on the Tapestry or on subjects connected with it. The first by Mr. Amyot, at p. 88, does not deal with the question of the age of the Tapestry itself, but only with the evidence which it gives as to the cause of Harold’s voyage to Normandy. The second, at p. 184, is a powerful argument by Stothard in favour of the antiquity of the Tapestry, but in which he does not commit himself to any connexion with Queen Matilda. Stothard was the first to see that the one proposition did not involve the other. He enlarges on the costume as belonging to the eleventh century and not to the twelfth, and on the utter improbability that any mediæval artist of a later age should attend to antiquarian accuracy in these matters. He remarks also on the obscure persons represented on the Norman side, Turold, Vital, and Wadard, as distinct proof that the Tapestry was a contemporary Norman work.

In the hands of Stothard the subject had for the first time fallen into hands really capable of dealing with it as it deserved. But Stothard is well followed up in a second paper by Mr. Amyot in p. 192 of the same volume, in which he disposes of most of the arguments of M. de la Rue against the antiquity of the Tapestry. He still however seems to think that, if it were a contemporary monument, it must have been the work of Queen Matilda, or wrought by her order. Mr. Amyot also points out that Wadard is not only, as Stothard had seen, a proper name, but that it is the name of a real man who appears in Domesday, and also that Wadard, Turold, and Vital were all tenants of Odo. Mr. Amyot very appositely observes that “Franci” was the only name which could properly express the whole of William’s mingled army, and that “Franci” and “Francigenæ” are the words constantly opposed to “Angli” in documents of the age of the Conqueror and much later.

In 1824 M. de la Rue republished at Caen his essay in the Archæologia, with an Appendix containing an attempt at a refutation of Stothard and Amyot. He was again briefly answered by another Norman antiquary, M. Pluquet, in his Essai Historique sur la ville de Bayeux (Caen, 1829). Pluquet was the first distinctly to assert that the work had nothing to do with either Matilda, but that it was made by order of Bishop Odo (p. 81). In 1840 Mr. Bolton Corney put forth a tract, in which he attempted to show that the Tapestry was made by the Chapter of Bayeux after the French Conquest of Normandy. He argues that, during the union of England and Normandy, the conquest of England, which William took such pains to disguise under the semblance of legal right, would not be thus ostentatiously set forth in Normandy. Some learned person, he holds, was employed to keep the costume right, a degree of antiquarian care for which it would be hard to find a parallel in the middle ages.

Thierry reprinted Lancelot’s account as a note at the end of his first volume (p. 353, ed. 1840), adding two notes of his own. In the first he accepts the Tapestry as a contemporary work, designed for the ornament of the church of Bayeux, and quotes M. de la Rue as attributing the work to the Empress Matilda. In the second he quotes him as attributing it neither to William’s Queen Matilda nor to Matilda the Empress, but to Eadgyth-Matilda, the wife of Henry the First. I do not know whether this was a confusion of Thierry’s, or whether De la Rue ever came to change his opinion. At any rate Thierry successively accepts these two distinct theories as highly probable, and sees in one or other of them the explanation of the alleged English words and forms which are found in several places of the Tapestry.

Dr. Lingard (Hist. of England, i. 547, ed. 1849) gives a note to the subject, for the substance of which he professes to be indebted to Mr. Bolton Corney. But he does not commit himself to the more grotesque parts of Mr. Corney’s theory. He altogether rejects the supposed connexion between the Tapestry and any of the Matildas. He holds that it was originally made as a decoration for the church of Bayeux, and that it was designed to commemorate the share which the men of Bayeux bore in the Conquest of England. This he infers from the prominence given to Odo, and from the appearance of his retainers, Turold, Vital, and Wadard. Rather than attribute the work to Matilda, he inclines to believe that the Tapestry originated in the personal vanity of some of these men, or of their descendants.

I suppose I am not expected to take any serious notice of some amusing remarks on the Tapestry made by Miss Agnes Strickland (Queens of England, i. 65, 66), who recommends “the lords of the creation” “to leave the question of the Bayeux Tapestry to the decision of the ladies, to whose province it belongs.” According to Miss Strickland, the Tapestry was “in part at least designed for Matilda by Turold, a dwarf artist.” Miss Strickland speaks of a Norman tradition to that effect, but perhaps even a “lord of the creation” may venture to ask where that Norman tradition is to be found.

I return into the every-day world in company with Dr. Collingwood Bruce, who read a paper on the Tapestry before the Archæological Institute at Chichester in 1853, which afterwards grew into a volume called “The Bayeux Tapestry Elucidated” (London, 1856). Dr. Bruce follows Stothard in the argument for the early date of the Tapestry, drawn from the correctness of the costume. He argues further on the same side from the manifest object of the Tapestry, namely to set forth the right of William to the English Crown. He cleaves in a somewhat unreasoning way to the tradition which attributes the work to the first Matilda, but he fully grasps the manifest connexion of the Tapestry with Bayeux and its church. He even goes so far as to attribute the two or three apparently English forms which appear in the legends of the Tapestry to the common use of the Teutonic language in the Bessin, which he supposes, without any authority that I know of, to have lasted as late as the reign of William. Dr. Bruce however thinks that the designer of the Tapestry, as distinguished from those who wrought it in the stitch-work, was an Italian.

Sir Francis Palgrave, in the posthumous part of his work (iii. 254), has an incidental reference to the Tapestry, in which he takes for granted that it is the work of Queen Matilda, without any hint that any question has ever been raised about the matter.

Lastly, Mr. Planché published a paper “On the Bayeux Tapestry” in the Journal of the British Archæological Association for June, 1867 (p. 134). Mr. Planché follows M. Pluquet, and gives a good summary of his arguments; he then goes minutely through the Tapestry, giving his views at each stage, to some of which I shall have to refer again. “The report,” he says, “mentioned by Montfaucon that it was the work of Queen Matilda and her handmaids, originated probably in the suggestion of some antiquary of the sixteenth or seventeenth century repeated till it assumed the consistency of a fact.”

I now go on to give my own reasons for accepting the early date of the Tapestry. The arguments of Stothard drawn from the accurate representation of the costume of the eleventh century seem to me unanswerable. Dr. Bruce adds a good instance of his own in a comparison of the Tapestry with a passage in the Roman de Rou. Wace (v. 12628) speaks of the horse of William Fitz-Osbern as “all covered with iron,” (see above, p. 455, and Taylor’s note, p. 162), whereas in the Tapestry “not a single horse is equipped in steel armour; and if we refer to the authors who lived at that period we shall find that not one of them mentions any defensive covering for the horse.”

Mr. Amyot’s arguments with regard to Wadard, Vital, and Turold seem to me distinctly to prove that the work was a contemporary one, and one made for Bishop Odo and the church of Bayeux. As Dr. Lingard says, it is quite inconceivable that these persons, who are of no importance in the general history, whose reputation must have been purely local, should have received such prominence in any but a purely local work. The only persons on the Norman side who appear by name in the representation of the landing and of the battle are the Duke and his two brothers, Count Eustace of Boulogne, and these three obscure retainers of Bishop Odo. We see them here in the Tapestry, and the industry of Mr. Amyot and Dr. Lingard has traced them out in Domesday, but no other mention survives of them. Ralph, the son of Turold, Vital, Wadard “homo episcopi,” all occur in Domesday, 1, 6, 7, 8, 8 a, 9, 10, 32, 77, 155 b, 238 b, 342 b, and in every case their land is held of Bishop Odo. It is plain that, in the mind of the designer of the Tapestry, the Bishop of Bayeux and his favourite followers came next after Duke William himself. This fact seems to me to be equally decisive in favour of its being a contemporary work and against its being a work of Matilda.

Here, I think, is abundant evidence both to establish the contemporary date, and to show the object of the work. It was plainly a gift from Odo to his own newly-built cathedral. But it is quite possible that the work was done in England. The evidence is certainly very slight. I believe it is wholly contained in the words “at Hastingaceastra” (pl. 11). I cannot think that “at” for “ad” proves anything, but the form “ceastra” goes a good way to prove that the work was English. The notion of Dr. Bruce and Mr. Planché that these forms are not English but Saxon of Bayeux, seems very fanciful. Besides, the form “ceaster” is one which is not Nether-Dutch in a wide sense, but distinctly and locally English. I know of no instance of its occurrence in the Bessin, or indeed anywhere out of England.

Most of the objections made to the early date of the Tapestry are well disposed of by M. Pluquet and Mr. Planché; but to one of their arguments I must demur. M. de la Rue (see above, p. 566) objected that the borders contain scenes from Æsop’s Fables, which he says were not known in the West till afterwards. Mr. Planché, oddly enough, quotes (p. 136) Freculf, Bishop of Lisieux, who, he tells us, “lived in the eleventh century,” as saying that Eadward caused the Fables of Æsop to be translated into English. He goes on with a reference to the false Ingulf, which I need not discuss. As for Freculf, who died somewhere about the year 853, if he said anything at all about our Eadward, he must have enjoyed a prophetic power rivalling that of the saint himself. But it is well known that Mary of France, the poetess of the thirteenth century, professes to have made her French version of the Fables from an English version made by an English King. Mary’s knowledge of English will be a point of some importance in the last stage of this work; at present I am concerned only with the words (ii. 401, ed. Roquefort. See Palgrave, iv. 225),

“Li rois Henris qui moult l’ama Le translata puis en Engleiz.”

Other manuscripts however read Auvert, Auvres, &c., names which of course mean Ælfred. The whole matter is discussed by M. de la Rue in Roquefort’s Preface (ii. 34). If Ælfred be the right reading, there is no doubt of the early knowledge of the Fables in England. If Henry be the right reading, I certainly think that the King meant is Henry the First, whose probable English education I shall have to discuss hereafter. I think we may guess that, if Henry translated anything into English, it was early in life that he did it, and Henry was born about the time when the Tapestry must have been making.

For my own part I should reverse the argument. I have that confidence in the Tapestry that I accept the figures wrought in its border as proof that the Fables were known in Normandy and England in the eleventh century.

The external evidence then seems to be complete. The work must be a contemporary one; there is no evidence to connect it with Matilda; there is every evidence to connect it with Odo. It was probably, but I cannot say certainly, made in England. I now turn to that branch of the question which to me is yet more interesting, the internal evidence for looking on the Tapestry as I look on it, as a primary authority for the subject of the present volume, as in fact the highest authority on the Norman side.

I ground this belief on the way in which the story is told. It is told from the Norman point of view, but it is told with hardly any of the inventions, exaggerations, and insinuations of the other Norman authorities. In fact the material has a certain advantage. Stitch-work must tell its tale simply and straightforwardly; it cannot lose itself in the rhetoric of Eadward’s Biographer or in the invective of William of Poitiers. And the tale which the Tapestry tells us comes infinitely nearer to the genuine English story than it does even to the narrative of the Conqueror’s laureate. To the later romances, the tales for instance of Eadward’s French Biographer, it gives no countenance whatever. With regard to the great controversial points, those which I shall go through in detail in future notes, the Tapestry nearly always agrees with the authentic account. There is not a word or a stitch which at all countenances any of the calumnious tales which were afterwards current. In the Tapestry the bequest of Eadward to Harold, his orderly acceptance of the Crown, his ecclesiastical coronation, all appear as plainly as they do in the narrative of Florence. The only point of diversity is that the Tapestry seems to represent Stigand, and not Ealdred, as the consecrator. Now there was no absolute necessity for a partizan of William to deny the facts of the case. William’s claim rested rather on the invalidity of the bequest, the election, and the coronation, than on any denial that the ceremonies themselves had taken place. And accordingly, in the earlier Norman writers, most of the facts are admitted in a kind of way. It is not till long afterwards that we find the full developement of those strange fables which, in so many modern histories, have supplanted the truth. Had the Tapestry been a work of later date, it is hardly possible that it could have given the simple and accurate account of these matters which it does give. A work of the twelfth or thirteenth century would have brought in, as even honest Wace does in some degree, the notions of the twelfth or the thirteenth century. One cannot conceive an artist of the time of Henry the Second, still less an artist later than the French Conquest of Normandy, agreeing so remarkably with the authentic writings of the eleventh century. The truth was in those days almost wholly forgotten, and no one would have been likely to represent the story with any accuracy.

But though the Tapestry perverts the story less than any other Norman account, it is still essentially a Norman account. One main object of the work is plainly to set forth the right of William to the English Crown. This was of course the great object of William himself and of his contemporary partizans. But it was not an object which greatly occupied men’s minds in the days of Henry the Second or later. The writers of that time, as I shall presently show, are as bitter, perhaps more bitter, against Harold than the Norman writers of his own time; but their bitterness comes from a different source. Under the Angevin dynasty, descended, as it was, in a roundabout way from Old-English royalty, men were beginning to look on Harold and William as alike usurpers. We begin to hear of strict hereditary right and of the exclusion of the lawful heir. Henry the Second encouraged his panegyrists to set forth his lawful descent from ancient English Kings, without any reference whatever to his descent from the Norman invader. It was only in the female line that Henry was either Norman or English; in his real ancestry, in his real feelings and character, he was as little one as the other. It is most unlikely that any one should have wrought, in the days of Henry or for Henry’s mother, a work which throughout breathes the spirit of the earliest days of the Conquest.

In like manner, the representation of William’s landing and of the great battle could have come only from the hand of a contemporary. The mere fulness of detail, the evident delight with which the artist dwells on all the little incidents of the campaign, point it out as the work of one in whose memory they were all vividly retained. The notices of insignificant people, like Turold, Wadard, and Vital, while they point to the place for which the Tapestry was designed, point also to a time when these retainers of Bishop Odo were still living. In the days of the Empress Matilda their fame is not likely to have been great, even at Bayeux. So again every antiquarian detail is accurate; the nose-pieces, the lack of armour on the horses, the care taken to represent every man bearded, moustached, or close-shaven, according to his age and nation (see vol. ii. p. 27), all bespeak the work of a contemporary artist. The idea of Mr. Corney that the Chapter of Bayeux in the thirteenth century would specially order its artists to attend to such points is ludicrous beyond measure, and it had been disposed of beforehand in the masterly argument of Stothard. But the Tapestry is equally accurate in greater matters. The English army is an English army of the eleventh century and nothing else. The two classes of warriors, the here and the fyrd, the Housecarls in their coats of mail with their great axes, the peasantry armed almost anyhow, are nowhere more clearly marked. The utter absence of horses, except as a means, as in the days of Brihtnoth (see vol. i. pp. 299, 301), for reaching or leaving the field—the King himself fighting on foot—the ensign of the West-Saxon Dragon—all these are touches from a contemporary hand, which it is utterly inconceivable that any artist working a hundred or a hundred and fifty years later could have preserved. It is worth while to mark the remarkable contrast between the Battle of Senlac as represented in the Tapestry, and the Battle of Stamfordbridge as described by Snorro. The contemporary artist represented things as he saw them; the writer of the thirteenth century described things as he saw them also; but then they did not see the same things. The Bayeux Tapestry represents Harold’s army at Senlac as Harold’s army really was. The narrative in the Heimskringla describes Harold’s army at Stamfordbridge after the pattern of an army of the thirteenth century.

This precious monument is now well preserved and cared for. After its ridiculous journey to Paris, it came back safe to its Norman home, but it was kept for a while in a way which did not tend much to its preservation. It was wound round a sort of windlass, and was unwound and handled whenever anybody looked at it. It is now in a much better position. It is kept under glass in the public Library at Bayeux, where it is stretched out round the room at a convenient height, where it may be studied with the greatest ease. I have there examined it three times, once in 1861, and twice in 1867, and I may say that, fully to realize its value and importance, it should be seen. Stothard’s reduction is admirable in every way, and serves for every ordinary purpose of study, but I doubt whether any one thoroughly takes in what the Tapestry is till he has seen it with his own eyes. I had myself learned to value the Tapestry long before I saw it, but my examination of it certainly made my confidence in it far stronger and clearer. It is no small matter to spell over the details of the story in the picture itself, and the process reaches its height at the last stage. I think no one can see the end of the battle, the Housecarls every one lying dead in his harness, while the light-armed are taking to flight, some of them on the horses of the fallen, and not feel that he is in the presence of a work traced out by one who had himself seen the scenes which he thus handed down to later ages.

NOTE B. p. 14.

EADWARD’S BEQUEST OF THE CROWN TO HAROLD.

At this stage of my history, I need hardly say that every point has been matter of dispute from the time of the events themselves down to our own day. I give in the text the narrative which I believe to be the accurate one, adding references to the particular authorities on which I found it. In this and the following notes I purpose to examine minutely into the different statements made at the time and soon after. I purpose also to go a little more fully than usual into the statements of later writers. Mere copyists or compilers, writing some ages after the events, are in no sense authorities; they can add nothing to our knowledge of the events themselves. But, on a point of our history of such paramount importance, and one which has been so fiercely disputed, it does in a certain way add to our knowledge of history to see how the facts of those times looked in the eyes of men of various later ages.

I need not tell any reader of mine that I hold that King Harold was a King as lawful as any King—I might almost say more lawful than any other King—that ever reigned over England. No other King in our history ever reigned so distinctly by the national will. But there is no King, there is hardly any man, in our history who has been made the object of such ceaseless calumny from his own time to ours. The hostile faction triumphed, not only on the field of battle, but in the pages of pretended history, and, for eight hundred years, the name of Harold has been constantly branded with the appellations of “perjurer” and “usurper.” My object is to do what I can to undo this great wrong, to bring back the true history of a great man and of a great time, and to set forth Harold and his acts as they appeared to his countrymen in his own days. This I have endeavoured to do in my text. In this and the following notes I intend to go systematically through all the points in which the witness of contemporary English writers on these matters has been obscured and forgotten through notions drawn from less trustworthy sources.

Of the two great charges brought against Harold, those of usurpation and perjury, both can be traced up to his own time. Both come from the tongues and pens of contemporary Norman accusers. But, of the two, the charge of perjury was the one which was the more insisted on in the times nearest to his own. In Harold’s own day, and for some generations after, the charge which told most against him was the charge of breach of faith, aggravated by irreverence to the relics of the saints. In the eyes of Harold’s contemporary enemies, and in the eyes of the later writers who look on him from the same point of view, Harold is a faithless vassal, breaking his plighted faith to his liege lord. He is something even worse; he is one who did not shrink from breaking an oath of unusual solemnity, and who thereby drew on himself the wrath of a number of holy persons whose wonder-working relics he thus set at nought. But modern writers who take a view unfavourable to Harold have commonly dwelt less on the perjury and more on the usurpation. In their eyes Harold is a violator of constitutional order, who ascended the throne to the prejudice of the lawful heir. In the one view the injured party is the Norman Duke; in the other it is the English Ætheling. The two charges, though often mixed together, are in themselves quite distinct. The charge of usurpation affects the right to the Crown; the charge of perjury does not touch it. Let Harold’s perjury have been of the blackest kind, it could not give either William or Eadgar any right to the Crown which they would not have had if Harold had not sworn at all. If the Crown was hereditary, no engagement, no breach of any engagement, between William and Harold could bar the indefeasible rights of the natural heir. If the Crown could pass by bequest, no such engagement could bar the right of Eadward to bequeath it to whom he would. If the Crown was elective, no such engagement could bar the right of the electors to choose whom they would. Nowhere is the wonderful skill of William more clearly shown than in the way in which he made men forget these very obvious distinctions. I therefore put aside the question of perjury from the present question. I have elsewhere discussed Harold’s oath at length, both as it bears on the facts of the history and as it bears on the character of Harold (see p. 240 et seqq. and Appendix R). But the oath has nothing to do with the present subject. It bears only indirectly on the rightfulness of Harold’s accession; on the facts of his accession it does not bear at all.

As to the facts of Harold’s accession, the strictly English writers make three distinct assertions;

First, That Harold was named as his successor by Eadward;

Secondly, That he was regularly elected King by the Witan;

Thirdly, That he was regularly consecrated King by Archbishop Ealdred.

These three assertions are made by the best English writers in a perfectly plain and unmistakeable way. They stand before us as assertions about which there can be no question, except the question whether they are true or false. All three are more or less directly traversed by Norman writers and by later writers who followed Norman traditions. But the contradiction is by no means so plain and unmistakeable as the assertion. The Norman writers seem afraid of looking the facts in the face. They shroud themselves in a cloud of vague and declamatory phrases. They use language which serves to put their own colour on the story, without venturing directly to deny the assertions made by the English writers. They admit some nomination, some election, some consecration; only they attach some vague epithet, they add some ambiguous qualification, insinuating rather than asserting that there was something invalid about each of the processes. I will now go through the statements on each side in detail.

I take as my text the narrative of Florence (1066), who puts forth our three propositions in the clearest and tersest shape. His account runs thus;

“Quo [Eadwardo] tumulato, Subregulus Haroldus, Godwini Ducis filius, quem Rex ante suam decessionem regni successorem elegerat, a totius Angliæ primatibus ad regale culmen electus, die eodem ab Aldredo Eboracensi Archiepiscopo in Regem est honorificè consecratus.”

This passage may be looked on as a formal manifesto on the English side. It is the most remarkable and the most important of several passages of Florence (see vol. ii. p. 607) in which he does more than merely record an event, in which he evidently has other statements before his eye, and chooses his words so as distinctly, though silently, to contradict them. Though no other version of the facts is spoken of, yet every word is evidently weighed with careful reference to other versions; every word, in short, disposes of some Norman calumny or other. Harold reigns according to the last will of Eadward; that last will therefore was not in favour of William or of any other candidate. To express Eadward’s action in the matter, a word is used (“elegerat”) which is evidently meant to express free and deliberate choice, and to exclude any tales about an unwilling nomination wrung from him in his last moments. Again, Harold reigns by the election of the chief men of all England; this excludes the stories about his seizing the Crown without election, or with the approbation of a few of his own partizans only. Lastly, Harold is crowned, on the day indeed of the burial of Eadward, but after the funeral rites are finished, and evidently in the same building, the new minster of Saint Peter. This excludes the tale of his seizing the moment when the people were intent on the burial of the late King in order to be crowned in some hasty and irregular way at Saint Paul’s or elsewhere. He is solemnly consecrated King; this excludes the stories about his not being crowned at all, about his being crowned without any religious ceremony, about his putting the Crown on his own head. He is consecrated by Ealdred, by an Archbishop to whose position there was no canonical objection; therefore not by Stigand, whom strict churchmen looked on as an usurper. Nothing can be more evident than that Florence knew all the hostile inventions and perversions, and that he framed his own narrative so as to contradict the greatest possible number of them. In the same spirit, he goes on, at this point, to give that splendid panegyric on Harold’s government which is clearly meant as an answer to Norman calumnies of another kind. No passage in any writer of any age was ever written with more scrupulous care; in none does every word deserve to be more attentively weighed.

Now for the time which we have now reached the authority of Florence is all but the highest possible. He was a contemporary, in so far as he must have been born before 1066, though he could hardly have been old enough to record the events of that year from personal knowledge. But he had every opportunity of hearing of them from eye-witnesses and actors. As a member of the church of Worcester, he had the special advantage of being able to hear the story from his own Bishop Saint Wulfstan, the chosen friend of King Harold. His testimony therefore, even if it stood alone, is of that kind which even very sceptical critics allow to be thoroughly trustworthy. His statement is clear, terse, and forcible, and evidently designed to set aside other statements which he thought untrustworthy. But this is not all. The testimony of Florence does not stand alone. It is confirmed by the absolutely contemporary Chroniclers. It is confirmed, as far as the form of his work allows, by the Biographer of Eadward. Now the Biographer was not only a contemporary, but if not himself an eye-witness, he had his information from eye-witnesses, and that, not years after, but at the very time. The testimony of Florence again is confirmed by a witness more unexceptionable than all, by the earliest and most trustworthy witness on the Norman side, by the contemporary Tapestry. By one or more of these authorities Florence is borne out in every statement but one. He affirms that Harold was consecrated by Ealdred. The Chroniclers are silent as to the consecrator; the Tapestry implies—it can hardly be said directly to affirm—that the consecrator was Stigand. On all other points every jot and tittle of his story is confirmed by authorities still higher than his own, and on this one point he is not contradicted by the highest of all. Here is evidence of an amount and of a kind which the historian is lucky when he can get.

Florence wrote with two at least of the Chronicles before him, those namely of Abingdon and Worcester. Their narratives he translated and harmonized, and, when he thought it needful, he expanded them. In this case he thought a large expansion needful, in order to contradict the misstatements of enemies. But these Chronicles themselves assert, though in a less pointed and controversial form, two at least of the facts which Florence himself asserts. The Peterborough Chronicle, which Florence most probably had not before him, is only less distinct and emphatic than Florence himself as to all three. The bequest, the election, the consecration, are all distinctly asserted by one or more of the three Chroniclers. The only assertion which rests wholly on the authority of Florence himself is the assertion that Ealdred was the consecrator.

The two Chronicles which Florence followed distinctly assert that Eadward named Harold as his successor. I have already quoted the poetical passage in full at vol. ii. p. 537 (see also above, p. 19). The words which now immediately concern us are those in which the bequest is distinctly asserted; Eadward “made fast the Kingdom to Harold the noble Earl.” Then in the prose entry which follows, both Chronicles assert Harold’s royal consecration; “Her wearð Harold Eorl eac to Cynge gehalgod.” These words would certainly not be used of any but the regular ecclesiastical ceremony. These two Chroniclers however do not distinctly speak of the election. We may perhaps say that it was quite in character with their general political views to insist more on the royal bequest than on the popular election. (See vol. ii. pp. 12, 13, 600.) But this was a point on which the democrat of Peterborough was not likely to hold his peace. His account of the reign of Harold is much shorter than those of either of the other two annalists, but his account of his accession is fuller and more emphatic. He is also, as usual, more careful than his brethren as to his dates. And his words have a sort of triumphant ring as if they were written down at the moment. The poem preserved by the Abingdon and Worcester Chroniclers shows the same feeling. It was doubtless composed soon after the death of Eadward, by a gleeman eager on behalf of the new King. But their prose entries, with their remark on the “little stillness” of Harold’s reign (see above, p. 47), could not have been made till all was over. The entry in the Peterborough Chronicle runs thus;

“On þissum geare man halgode þet mynster æt Westmynstre on Cyldamæsse dæg. And se Cyng Eadward forðferde on Twelfta mæsse æfen, and hine mann bebyrgede on Twelftan mæssedæg, innan þære niwa halgodre circean on Westmynstre. And Harold Eorl feng to Englalandes cynerice, swa swa se Cyng him geuðe, and eac men hine þærto gecuron, and wæs gebletsod to Cyng on Twelftan mæssedæg.”

Here we have bequest, election, and consecration as clearly expressed as by Florence himself. Earl Harold is blessed to King over the Kingdom of England, as the King had granted to him and—words written with delight by that patriotic pen—as men eke chose him thereto.

The further examination of the election and coronation I leave to future notes. I now go on with my more immediate subject, namely the bequest. On this point the words of the Biographer should be very carefully marked, and they should be no less carefully compared with the picture in the Tapestry. It is from these two sources that I have drawn the narrative in the text (p. 14). We cannot too often remember the Biographer’s peculiar position. He was a courtier, probably a foreigner, writing to Eadgyth under the reign of William. He could not be expected to trumpet forth the nomination and election of Harold with all the glee of the Peterborough Chronicler. On the election indeed he was not in any case likely to be eloquent; it is, as we have often seen, his invariable tendency to put the monarchical element forward on all occasions, just as the Peterborough writer always delights to dwell on the popular side of every public act. But to put even the bequest forward in any prominent way did not suit either his position or the scheme of his work. We have seen that he nowhere directly mentions the fact that either Harold or William ever reigned. William is never mentioned, never alluded to in any intelligible way. The only allusion to Harold’s reign is to be found in his mention of “Reges æquivoci” (p. 426) fighting near the Humber. One who writes in this sort of way could not be expected to insist at all strongly on Eadward’s nomination of Harold as his successor. A distinct and formal announcement that Harold was the choice of Eadward was to the Peterborough Chronicler a present fact which he delighted to record. To Florence it was a fact of national history which it was important to preserve in the face of contradictory fictions. To the Biographer it was a fact which it did not suit his scheme prominently to dwell on, while any prominent dwelling on it might not have been specially agreeable to his patroness. He therefore records the fact in a way, but he keeps it in the background; he mixes up the commendation of England to Harold with the commendation of Eadgyth, and he tries as it were to hide the Kingdom under the skirts of the Lady. Harold is, first of all, to be faithful and respectful to his sister; the Kingdom is given him as something quite secondary, perhaps as an incidental means of doing the more honour to Eadgyth. Yet the words after all really amount to a bequest. Eadward, in this narrative, enlarges on the merits of Eadgyth; he then stretches forth his hand to Harold, and says, “Hanc cum omni regno tutandam commendo.” The words alone might perhaps not strike a casual reader, but, when we read them by the light of the known facts and of the words of the contemporary Chroniclers, we at once see their meaning. The Biographer so chose his expressions as distinctly to imply a fact which it was not convenient for him directly to assert. He chose also a somewhat remarkable and a somewhat ambiguous word, “commendare.” As applied to Eadgyth and to Eadward’s Norman friends it would simply mean, “I entrust them to your protection;” but, as applied to a Kingdom, the word is a technical word, and carries a technical meaning. As a man, like the “commendati homines” of Domesday, commended himself to his lord, so the lord was often said to commend to his man the estate which he granted to him (see vol. i. p. 136). One can hardly doubt that the word was chosen on purpose. Eadward doubtless used, as I have ventured to make him in the text, some form of words, which the Biographer, even in slurring over the matter, expressed by the technical term “commendare,” and which the Chroniclers expressed by the words “geuðe”—most likely the actual word used, if Eadward spoke English—and “befæste þæt rice.” The case, under the circumstances, seems very plain, and what follows makes it plainer still. Eadward, having commended to Harold his wife and his Kingdom, goes on to make to him a series of requests (see p. 15) which imply that his own royal authority will, on his death, pass to Harold. They are requests which could be made only to a future King, or to one who was about to be clothed with the authority of a King. They would indeed be equally in place if addressed to a Regent. According to modern ideas, we should probably have expected the last wishes of Eadward to be that the young Eadgar should reign, but that Harold should govern. But such an arrangement was not in accordance with the customs of the time. A Regency seems never to have been thought of; not a word in any of our authorities leads us to believe that such a scheme entered the head of any man. The words then, if not addressed to a future Regent, must be addressed to a future King. In short, I have no doubt that the Biographer, the highest authority for Eadward’s personal acts, who had his information directly from persons who were present by Eadward’s death-bed (see p. 10, note 1), meant to imply that Eadward made a death-bed recommendation in favour of Harold. But I believe also that, partly through his own rhetorical turn, partly through the circumstances under which he wrote, he chose to wrap up his tale in a certain degree of obscurity of language.

With the Biographer before us, we better understand the Tapestry. Each explains the other; the two agree in the smallest points of detail. The Biographer describes four persons as being in immediate attendance on the King, and he gives us their names. They are the Lady Eadgyth, Archbishop Stigand, Earl Harold, and Robert the Staller. These four exactly answer to the four in the Tapestry. Of the two laymen no one can doubt that the one who is personally attending on the King is the court-officer, the Staller Robert. The other, who stands by the bed-side opposite to the Archbishop, is of course the Earl of the West-Saxons. To him, and to no one else, the King is stretching forth his hand. The action thus wrought in the stitch-work is actually recorded in the Life (see p. 14). And from the Life we know with what object Eadward then stretched forth his hand to Harold. It was not “simply to hid him farewell;” still less was it “to bid him to respect his oath to William” (see Planché, Journal of British Archæological Association, June 1867, p. 146). It was to commend to him his wife and his Kingdom; it was to make his last requests to the future King on behalf of his personal friends.

Such is the plain result of a comparison between the Tapestry and the Life. I do not think that any one who minutely makes the comparison will attach much importance to the sceptical remarks of Mr. Planché in the article to which I have just referred. But those who, with Mr. Planché, do not take in the difference between contemporary and secondary authorities, may, instead of the Life, use the account in Æthelred of Rievaux (X Scriptt. 400), who (or rather his guide Osbert) clearly copied from the Life.

Another smaller point may be noticed, namely the arrangement of the scenes in the Tapestry. It has been remarked by Mr. Planché and others that, at this point, the order of time is forsaken; the burial of Eadward is placed before his deathbed and death. On this Dr. Bruce (p. 75) says, very truly; “The seeming inconsistency is very easily explained. A new subject is now entered upon, and that subject is the right of succession. One important element in it is the grant of the King.” The designer of the Tapestry puts in close and pointed neighbourhood the last speech of Eadward, the death of Eadward, the offering of the Crown to Harold, the actual coronation. In this sort of picture-writing it would have disturbed the thread of the story if the burial of Eadward had been put in its right place, between the offering of the Crown and the coronation. The meaning of the order which is followed is plainly this; “Eadward left the Crown to Harold; he died; the Crown, in pursuance of his wishes, was offered to Harold; Harold was formally crowned.” It is hard to find any other explanation for the otherwise strange displacement of the funeral.

Explaining then, as we most fairly may, one contemporary witness by another, explaining the Tapestry by the Life and the Life by the Chronicles, we get a most distinct agreement of our best authorities in favour of the position that Eadward’s dying recommendation was made in favour of Harold. Some may perhaps be surprised to find the fact so distinctly set forth in the Norman Tapestry. But we shall soon see that all the earliest and best Norman writers fully admit the fact of the recommendation. What they do is to try to explain away its force as they best may. Stitch-work had so far the advantage over pen and ink that it was well nigh obliged to confine itself to facts, or at least to choose between facts and positive lies. The needle was a bad instrument for surmises and insinuations, and it is only once or twice in the story that it attempts them.

I now go on to the chain of later writers who repeat the contemporary English statement. They of course add nothing to its direct authority; still it is important and interesting to trace the existence of the two opposite traditions, side by side. Simeon of Durham (X Scriptt. 193), Ralph of Diss (479), Roger of Howden (i. 108, ed. W. Stubbs), Thomas Stubbs (X Scriptt. 1702), and the Ely historian (ii. 43, 44), all copy the words of Florence with regard to Harold’s accession, and most of them go on to copy his panegyric on Harold’s government. The account given by Peter of Langtoft is worth notice. He makes (i. 374 of the new ed., i. 53 of Robert of Brunne’s English version published by Hearne) Eadward settle the Crown on William in the days of the first Harold, immediately after the murder of Ælfred (see vol. ii. p. 302). Afterwards (i. 390, i. 61) he changed his mind, he forgot his promise to William, and settled the Crown on the Ætheling Eadward. So now on his death-bed, he again forgets both William and, I suppose, also forgets Eadward’s son Eadgar. He now makes a settlement in favour of Harold, nobody reminding him of the Duke’s claim (i. 398);

“Countes et barouns devaunt ly appelayt, A Harald fiz Godewyn sun regne devisayt, Le duk de Normendye ublyez avayt, Du covenaunt k’il ly fist nul ly mentyvayt.”

His English translator was a little puzzled at this, and thus sets forth his difficulty (i. 65);

“Þe barons before him kald, and said unto þam alle, ‘Tille Harald, Godwyn sonne, þe regne wille best falle.’ Me mervailes of my boke, I trowe, he wrote not right þat he forgate Wiliam of forward þat him hight.”

He then goes on to moralize out of Eadward’s speech (see above, p. 11), which is not given in Peter of Langtoft. Ralph Higden (284), after his manner, copies Florence, but copies other accounts as well.

To go back a good many generations, Eadmer (5) states the fact of the bequest in his own words; “In brevi post hæc obiit Edwardus. Juxta quod ille ante mortem statuerat, in regnum ei successit Haraldus.” He is followed by Walter of Hemingburgh (i. 8) in nearly the same words. Bromton (957) gives a most strange and confused account, made up from all manner of quarters, but in which the words of Eadmer are still imbedded. He says that some of the English wished to elect Eadgar; “Sed quia puer erat, et tanto oneri minùs idoneus, Haraldus Comes, filius supradicti Godwini, viribus et genere fretus, contra sacramentum quod Willielmo Duci Normanniæ præstiterat, regni diadema sinistro omine illico invasit, et sic perjurus Sancto Edwardo successit, juxta quod idem Edwardus, ut quidam aiunt, ante mortem suam statuerat.” He goes on to say that this bequest of Eadward was made “non obstante” two earlier bequests to William; he then mentions the alternative statements that Harold crowned himself and that he was crowned by Ealdred, and ends with Florence’s panegyric in a shortened form.

The writer whom we call Bromton was thus, it is plain, fairly puzzled among contradictory accounts. The compiler of the Waverley Annals found himself in yet greater straits. The early part of his history is formed by the process of translating the Peterborough Chronicle, and sticking in bits, partly from other writers, especially from Henry of Huntingdon, partly out of his own head. This process is indeed the same as that by which the early parts of most Annals are put together. But the odd thing is that this annalist should have chosen as his chief authorities two writers who, at this point, are so specially hard to reconcile as the Peterborough Chronicler and Henry of Huntingdon. This indeed puts him in difficulties. He translates the important sentence in the Chronicle fairly enough, but in the midst of it he sticks in an epithet of abuse from Henry of Huntingdon. This process gives us the following statement (188 ed. Luard). Eadward is buried; “Eodem die Consul Haraldus, Consul perjurus, sicut Rex ei concesserat, et etiam populi electione, [swa swa se Cyng hit him geuðe, and eac men hine þærto gecuron] sacratus est in Regem.” Somehow or other this did not seem satisfactory; so he states William’s three causes of offence out of Henry of Huntingdon (see p. 282), and then returns to give another account of Harold’s accession; “Mortuo itaque Edwardo, ut supra diximus, Rege Anglorum pacifico, Haraldus, perjurus filius Godwini potentissimi Consulis, invasit regnum Anglorum et diadema in perjurio; qui regnavit uno anno, et non pleno, quia propriâ injustitiâ regnum, quod injustè surripuit, Deo nolente, perdidit.” Here is a characteristic contrast between the clear statement of facts translated from the contemporary writer and the vague reviling and moralizing which seems to have been a necessary offering to the orthodoxy of the compiler’s own time.

We will now turn to the writers on the other side. William of Poitiers, in his actual narrative of Harold’s accession (p. 121 Giles), evades the subject of Eadward’s bequest; we get only the vague talk about “occupavit” and the like. But in two later passages he distinctly shows that he knew that a bequest of Eadward was asserted by Harold and his advocates. In his account of the messages sent between William and Harold before the battle (129), he makes Harold admit an earlier bequest in favour of William, but he describes him as going on to argue that this earlier bequest was cancelled by a later bequest in favour of himself. The passage is a remarkable one;

“Meminit quidem [Heraldus] quod Rex Edwardus te [Willelmum] Anglici regni hæredem fore pridem decreverit, et quod ipse in Normanniâ de hâc successione securitatem tibi firmaverit. Novit autem jure suum esse regnum idem, ejusdem Regis, domini sui, dono in extremis illius sibi concessum. Etenim ab eo tempore, quo beatus Augustinus in hanc venit regionem, communem gentis hujus fuisse consuetudinem, donationem quam in ultimo fine suo quis fecerit, eam ratam haberi.”

The historical value of these accounts of messages and answers I shall discuss in another note (see Appendix GG). The value of the passage for my present purpose is twofold. It shows that the Normans were thoroughly aware of the fact of Eadward’s recommendation of Harold. It shows also that the fact was one which they found it hard to get over. For, in the answer which William is made to give to Harold’s words just quoted, though he has much to say in the way of setting forth his own claim, he has nothing to say in answer to Harold’s fact or to the legal argument founded on it.

The other passage is to be found in the wild invective which William of Poitiers (139) pours forth over the grave of Harold; “Arguunt extrema tua quam rectè sublimatus fueris Edwardi dono in ipsius fine.” This is a perfectly incidental witness. It seems to imply some such story as those which I shall presently quote from Orderic and Wace.

William of Jumièges (vii. 31) slurs over the facts both of the bequest and of the election. They are lost in the usual vague talk about “regnum invasit.” William of Malmesbury, in one of those remarkable passages in which he compares two statements together (ii. 228), allows that the English version of the story asserted a bequest in favour of Harold. Harold, he tells us in the usual style, “extortâ a principibus fide, arripuit diadema.” He then adds, “quamvis Angli dicant a Rege concessum.” He then argues à priori against the English statement from the imaginary ill-will of Eadward towards Harold; “Quod tamen magis benevolentiâ quam judicio allegari existimo, ut illi hæreditatem transfunderet suam cujus semper suspectam habuerat potentiam.” The expression “benevolentiâ” is of importance, as showing that, in William of Malmesbury’s time, English affection still clave to Harold’s memory, in opposition to all Norman calumnies. Indeed William himself, in that spirit of fairness which often pierces through all his prejudices, goes on to say; “quamvis, ut non celetur veritas, pro personâ quam gerebat, regnum prudentiâ et fortitudine gubernaret si legitimè suscepisset.”

As usual, the further we get from the time the more our informants know about the matter, the more new particulars they have to tell us. There is nothing in any of our three Williams to imply any death-bed nomination of the Norman Duke or to shut out a death-bed nomination of the English Earl. The latter is allowed to be at least the English version of the facts. There is nothing in any of the three to imply that the succession of William was so much as discussed by the bed-side of Eadward. The case is the reverse of the case with regard to the oath of Harold and the earlier promise to William. There the Norman writers assert a fact which the English writers do not venture to deny. Here the English writers assert a fact which the contemporary Norman writers do not venture to deny. But, as we get further away from the time, we come, first to ingenious explanations of the fact, and lastly to express denials of it.

Thus Orderic (492 B) admits the fact of the bequest to Harold, but he has a highly elaborate way of accounting for it. He connects it with the story of Harold’s oath and of his engagement to marry William’s daughter. Harold comes back to Eadward and tells him that William has made over to him his right to the Kingdom of England as the dowry of his daughter. Eadward wonders at such an arrangement, but he believes the story, and decrees the succession accordingly. The words are as follows;

“Regem Eduardum, qui morbo ingravescente jam morti proximus erat, circumvenit [Heraldus], eique transfretationis suæ et profectionis in Normanniam ac legationis seriem rettulit. Deinde fraudulentis assertionibus adjecit quod Willelmus Normanniæ sibi filiam suam in conjugium dederit, et totius Anglici regni jus, utpote genero suo, concessit. Quod audiens ægrotus princeps miratus est, tamen credidit, et concessit quod vafer tyrannus commentatus est.”

It must be this story of Orderic which formed the groundwork of the strange tale which we find in the French Life of Eadward. The subject is mentioned twice. Eadward, in the early days of the Christmas Gemót, before his final illness begins (3615–3634), calls Harold, and asks him what he means to do about the Kingdom (“Du regne queus tis purpos?”). It must be remembered that this immediately follows the legend (see vol. ii. p. 513) according to which Eadward’s days were already numbered. Harold says that the Crown belongs to William, that he has sworn to William’s succession, that he has no intention of interfering with it or of setting up any claim of his own, unless William should give him the Crown along with his daughter.

“Unc ne me vint en curage D’aver vostre heritage; Li ducs Willame de Normendie, Ki droit i a e en mei se fie L’avra, si cum il vus plest. Juré l’ai, e il seur en est; Cuvenant e leuté tendrai, Vers vus ne trespasserai; Au regne n’ai ne cleim ne dreit, Si of sa fille nel me otreit.”

Harold then swears, and the other chief men swear with him. It will be seen that, in this account, the usual story of the oath is taken for granted, though it is nowhere directly told in the French Life. And Eadward’s promise to William seems also to be taken for granted; at any rate William is said to have a right, and it is not said in what that right consists. But there is no mention of any death-bed bequest to William, Harold, or anybody else.

The subject is introduced again later in the story (3895–3922), when Eadward is on his death-bed. It is Harold who volunteers a second mention of the matter. He says of his own free will that he has sworn not to disturb the succession to the Crown. The words put into his mouth are in some respects clearer and in some respects darker than the former passage. The succession belongs to William, both by Eadward’s earlier grant (“Granté l’avez au duc Willame”), and also by right of blood. But the right of blood is strangely enough (see Mr. Luard’s Preface, p. xix.) made to belong to William’s daughter rather than to William himself. This cannot refer to the descent of William’s children from Ælfred (see p. 81, and vol. ii. p. 304), because the right is distinctly said to come through Emma. The title of Queen, given to William’s daughter, whether given to her as William’s daughter or as Harold’s possible wife, is also very strange. The words are,

“Droit a par Emme ta mère La reine ki sa fille ere.”

Still, if William does not make over the Crown to his daughter, the right belongs to William himself, and that right Harold will in no way disturb. Still he seems to imply that he has a fair hope that William will give him his daughter, and that he may reign in her right.

“Si a sa fille ne le dune, Droiz est k’il eit la curune; Kar jo si vus dire le os, De espuser la ai en purpos; A la pucele afiancé, E au duc sui alliancé.”

(vv. 3907–3912.)

To this King Eadward answers not a word, but Archbishop Stigand takes up his parable in a somewhat unexpected way. He warns Harold that, if he does not keep to this covenant, neither he, to whose office it belongs to perform the rite—it is expressly called a sacrament—nor any other Prelate of the Kingdom will ever give him the royal unction, nor will any “man of our commons”—the expression is a very singular one—put the Crown on his head.

“Pur moi le di, a ki apent A fere ceu seint sacrement, N’ert prélat en la regiun Ki fus face la enuncciun; N’ert humme de nostre commune, Ki vus mette en chef curune.”

According to this view, Harold had a fair chance of a Crown matrimonial, and his chief fault lay in not marrying William’s daughter. This leads us into questions which I shall consider in later notes.

Wace (Roman de Rou, 10872–10970) fully admits the fact of a bequest, though perhaps an unwilling one, or rather he makes Eadward leave it to the nation to decide between William and Harold. In his account Eadward is at the point of death, and is very anxious that William should succeed him.

“Mult li fust vel se il péust, Ke Guillealme sun regne éust.”

Harold gets together his kinsfolk and friends and whomsoever he thought good, and they go into the chamber of the sick man. An Englishman, whose name is not given, but who speaks by Harold’s instructions (“Si com Herout out comandé”), makes a long speech, setting forth the merits of Eadward’s government, and also how he has no son or daughter or other natural heir.

“Vielz hoem es jà, pose as vescu, E si n’as nul enfant éu; Filz u fille ne nul altre eir, Ki por tei poisse remaneir, Ki nos gart è ki nos maintienge, E par lignage Rei devienge.”

(vv. 10899–10904.)

But a King they must have; there can be no peace in the land without one, and they have no way of getting a King but through him.

“Kar jà sanz Rei paiz n’averon, Ne Rei n’aron se par tei non.”

(vv. 10909–10910.)

He prays Eadward then, while he still lives, to give them a King, who will be able to work peace and justice in the land. The speaker gradually comes nearer to the point. Eadward’s best friends are there; they have come together to ask a prayer of him, a prayer which, if he fails to grant, holy as his life has been, he will never see the face of God. There is something comforting in these words, something which one fancies that Wace must have learned from English tradition. They are words worthy of Savonarola by the death-bed of Lorenzo. It is pleasant to hear, by the bed-side of Eadward, the doctrine that to obey is better than sacrifice, that a man’s first business is to do his duty in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call him, and that no amount of ceremonial piety will avail a King who does not make the welfare of his Kingdom his first thought.

“Bien es, bien as fet, bien feras, Deus as servi è Deus auras. Ci est li mielx de tes païs, Tut li mielx de tes amis; Trestuit te sunt venu preïer, E tu lor deiz bien otreïr, Ço poise nos ke jà t’en vas, Se por ço non ke Deus auras.”

(vv. 10919–10926.)

The prayer thus solemnly urged is that Eadward will agree to the unanimous wish of the nation and give them Harold for their King. As the speaker uttered the name of Harold, every Englishman in the room cried aloud that he had well spoken, and that, without Harold to her King, the land could have no peace.

“Ci tuit te viegnent hui requerre Ke Heraut seit Rei de la terre; Ne te savom mielx cunseillier, Ne tu ne poz mielx espleitier. Dez ke cil out Heraut nomé, Par la chambre ont Engleiz crié Ke bien parlout è bien diseit, E li Reis creire le debveit: Sire, dient-il, se tu nel’ faiz, Jà en noz vies n’aron paiz.”

(vv. 10927–10936.)

The King hesitates; he sits up in his bed, and reminds the English lords that he had promised his Crown to the Duke of the Normans, and that some of themselves had sworn to that settlement. Harold then himself steps forward; he seems to use the same argument which is put into his mouth by William of Poitiers (see p. 587), namely the force of the last will and testament to revoke all former wills.

“Donc dist Heraut, ki fu en piez; ‘Ki ke vos, sire, fet aiez, Otréiez mei ke jo Rei seie, E ke vostre terre seit meie; Jo ne quier ne maiz vostre dreit, Jà mar plus por mei en fereit.’”

(vv. 10945–10950.)

The King then says that Harold shall have the Crown (“Heraut, dist li Reis, tu l’auras”); but he knows that he will die for it. He knows the Duke and his Barons and all the folk that will come at his bidding; God alone can guard Harold against them. Harold is ready to run the risk; he fears neither Norman nor anybody else. Eadward then turns himself, and says—whether of his free will or no the poet will not warrant—that the English may choose either Harold or William as they will.

“Dunc se turna li Reis, si dist, Ne sai se par boen cuer le fist: Ore facent Engleis Duc u Rei, Herault u altre, jo l’otrei.”

(vv. 10961–10964.)

Such a licence was the same as a nomination of Harold. The poet calls it making Harold his heir, and he seems to excuse the act on the ground that the land must have some King, and that William was not at hand. Eadward therefore let his Barons have their own will.

“Issi a fet Heraut sun eir Quant Willame ne pout aveir. Rei à regne aveir estuet, Regne sanz Rei estre ne puet. A sez Barunz a graanté K’il en facent lor volenté.”

(vv. 10965–10970.)

This account does, as most of his accounts do, high honour to the honest and enquiring spirit of Master Wace. When he wrote, calumny was a hundred years old yet he is throughout far less influenced by it than party writers at the time, who had better means than he of learning the exact truth. Here is no reviling of Harold, no gross misrepresentation of facts. In opposition to the talk of William of Poitiers, and even to that of Orderic, Wace clearly understands and honestly sets forth how thoroughly Harold had the heart of England on his side. The story is well conceived and well told, and it is quite possible that it may rest to some extent on trustworthy tradition. Yet a certain amount of misconception runs through Wace’s story. He implies throughout that Eadward’s own wishes were still in favour of William, and he adds the common Norman misstatement, that the settlement in favour of William was confirmed by the Witan or, at any rate, by some of the chief Earls.

One or two smaller points may be noticed. The speaker in Wace mentions Eadward’s lack of children as a misfortune to himself and his country, not at all as the unavoidable result of a religious vow. Again, both he and the writer of the French Life evidently look on female succession as a possibility. Eadward, says the speaker, has neither son nor daughter, as if a daughter could possibly have succeeded. The French Biographer treats it as not unlikely that William will deal with England as Philip the Second did with the Low Countries, that he will make the whole Kingdom over to his daughter and her husband. He indeed almost seems, though his language is very strange and dark, to recognize some right by blood in William’s daughter which did not exist in William himself. This notion of passing crowns by the spindle-side was strange to Englishmen, and even to Normans, in the eleventh century. The nearest approach to it is William’s own half-claim, not exactly as heir, but as next of kin through Emma. But, at the courts of the Henries, no doctrine could be more orthodox and acceptable. Henry the First actually did something very like what is here spoken of as likely to be done by his father. He endeavoured to settle, though not indeed in his lifetime, his whole dominion on his daughter. When both Wace and the French Biographer wrote, the descendants of that daughter, by male descent mere Counts of Anjou—more truly (see p. 181) mere Counts of the Gatinois—but scions through her both of Rolf and of Ælfred, reigned over England, reigned over or claimed Normandy, as their inheritance by female succession. The Angevin Kings had no dislike to be complimented on their descent from the old royal stock of England. Æthelred of Rievaux (Gen. Regg. X Scriptt. 350), tracing by the spindle-side only, addresses Henry the Second as the son of Matilda, the daughter of Matilda, the daughter of Margaret, the daughter of Eadmund, and so on—Normans and Angevins being kept out of sight—to Ælfred, Cerdic, Woden, and Adam. The vision of Eadward, as explained by Æthelred and others (see above, p. 12), implies the unlawfulness of the rule of Harold and both Williams, and gives Henry the First only a Crown matrimonial, which he hands on to the grandson of Eadgyth-Matilda. On all this Æthelred, an English flatterer of Henry the Second, would naturally dwell. The French Biographer, writing to Henry the Third, would find the same general doctrine acceptable. Still the conception of William, as the founder of the existing dynasty, held too firm a possession of men’s minds for his pretensions to be openly denied. The direct assertion of the rights of Eadgar belongs to a later stage still, to which we shall come presently. As for Wace, he was a Norman born, and was not likely to dwell by choice on any of these points. As a subject of Henry the Second, he was bound to admit female succession both for England and for Normandy, but he had no special temptation to enlarge on it.

A still more wonderful view of the Crown matrimonial is to be found in Gervase of Tilbury (Otia Imperialia, ii. 20, ap. Leibnitz, Scriptt. Rer. Brunsw. i. 945); but I reserve the passage for later quotation, as it is altogether the most amazing account on record of the whole matter between William and Harold.

From honest Wace it is unpleasant to turn to the author of the Brevis Relatio (Giles, 4). In his version Harold, during Eadward’s illness, asks him for a grant of the Crown. The King, mindful of his promise to William, refuses it. This however he mentions only as a report.

“Dicunt autem quidam tunc quod Heraldus, quasi oblitus sacramentorum quæ Willelmo Comiti in Normanniâ fecerat, antequam Rex Edwardus obiret, ad eum pervenit, eumque rogavit ut ei coronam regni Angliæ concederet. Quo audito, Rex Edwardus, non immemor quod Willelmo Comiti Normannorum, cognato suo, regnum Angliæ jamdudum concessisse, respondit Heraldo nullo modo hoc se posse facere, quia Willelmum Comitem Normannorum idem hæredem fecerat.”

Lastly, the Hyde writer (p. 290) goes one step further, and makes Eadward bequeath the Crown to William by his last will; “Regnum moriens Willelmo Comiti consobrino suo reliquit.”

Among the Northern writers the only one who has anything to say about the bequest is Snorro. It could hardly be looked for in Saxo (203), who makes Harold murder Eadward. Adam of Bremen (iii. 51) has only Norman-sounding talk about “sceptrum invasit.” Harold’s one Norwegian admirer, whom I shall have to quote again, the Biographer of Olaf Tryggwesson, speaks of his election by the people, but has nothing to say about any bequest by the King. But Snorro knew more about the matter than almost anybody else. His account (Laing, iii. 77; Johnstone, 192) is short, but remarkable. It must be remembered that it is connected with Snorro’s notion about Harold being the youngest son of Godwine and the personal favourite of Eadward, and with his notion that Tostig was still in England and seeking the Kingdom by fair means. Just before Eadward’s last moments, Harold and a few other men are by him. Harold leans over the King; then he turns to his companions, and calls them to witness that the King has given him the Kingdom of England (“Þá laut Haralldr ysir Konung oc mællti; ‘því skírskota ec undir alla ydor, at Konungrinn gaf mer nu Konungdóminn, oc allt ríki í Englandi’”). The same day a meeting is held to choose a King; Harold appears with his witnesses and claims the Crown by virtue of Eadward’s dying bequest. The issue is that he is chosen King (“Þann sama dag var þar höfdingia-stefna, var þá rætt um Konungs-tekio, let þá Haralldr bera fram vitni sín þau, er Játvardr Konungr gaf hönom ríkit á deyianda degi; lauk sva þeirri stefno, at Haralldr var til Konungs tekinn”). It will be seen that, though there is some colouring here, there is no gross misrepresentation of fact. Snorro writes in the interest of Tostig, not in the interest of William. Of a bequest to William, of an oath of homage from Harold to William, he knows nothing. With him (Laing, iii. 94; Johnstone, 216) William’s claim is derived wholly from his kindred to Eadward, his wrath being embittered by Harold’s breach of his promise to marry his daughter.

I think then that there is no fact in history better attested than the fact of Eadward’s dying recommendation in favour of Harold. The best informed contemporary writers assert it. The most careful and judicious compilers of later days, from Florence and Simeon onwards, accept their statement. The hostile contemporary writers never distinctly deny the fact. They either slur the matter over, or wrap it up in vague and declamatory words, or else admit the fact, while they explain and colour it after their own fashion. The fact then I hold to be undoubted. Whatever constitutional influence a King of the English had in the appointment of his successor, that influence was exercised on behalf of Harold. But we must beware of attaching any undue importance to Eadward’s nomination. It was of real constitutional value, but it was not everything. It was, after all, a mere recommendation to the Witan, and Harold’s real title to the Crown was that the Witan accepted that recommendation. Writers who, either at the time or afterwards, did not fully understand the English Constitution, were apt to lay too much stress on the bequest to either candidate. Men who wrote either in times or in countries where the idea of elective kingship was not familiar, did not take in how completely the kingship of England was simply the highest office in the land, an office which the people gave and which the people could take away. To them a kingdom seemed like a private estate, which, in ordinary cases, would pass according to the laws of succession, and which, in case of the failure of heirs, the owner could bequeath or even sell. These notions of succeeding to kingdoms and of bequeathing and selling kingdoms like private estates gradually took root, and many of the dynastic wars of the later middle age arose out of bequests or purchases of this kind. How foreign they were to the ideas of Englishmen in the eleventh century I need not again set forth. The main value of the proofs which I have collected is as an argumentum ad hominem against William and the supporters of his claims. Against them the argument is perfect. Whatever right William might have by virtue of an earlier bequest was taken away by the later bequest in favour of Harold. Eadward then made Harold his successor as far as he could constitutionally make any one his successor; but this nomination was only a very small part of Harold’s right. The far more important examination of the evidence on the great question of Harold’s election by the Witan of all England will form the subject of my next note.

NOTE C. p. 21.

THE ELECTION OF HAROLD.

The passage of Florence which I took as my text in my last note will serve as my text in the present note also. Harold was, according to that passage, “a totius Angliæ primatibus ad regale culmen electus.” According to the Peterborough Chronicle he took the Kingdom, not only as the King granted it to him, but as men chose him thereto (“swa swa se Cyng hit him geuðe, and eac men hine þærto gecuron”). That this means a regular election by the Witan there can be no reasonable doubt. The Peterborough Chronicler, writing at the moment, without any thought of possible controversies, used the vague word “men.” Expressions of the like sort are not uncommon to express the action of a Gemót. Florence, writing when calumny was rife, and wishing to answer all misstatements of every kind, uses the most emphatic words that he could find. Harold was chosen “a totius Angliæ primatibus.” He was chosen then, and did not simply seize the Crown by force or fraud. He was chosen, not by some small or packed assembly, but by the chief men of the land. And he was chosen, not by this or that shire or Earldom, but by the chief men of the whole land. However small might be the number of Northumbrians actually present in the Assembly, Northumberland was constitutionally bound by their vote, no less than Wessex and East-Anglia. All this is implied in the weighty and carefully chosen words of Florence. Harold was elected by the only power which had a right to dispose of the Crown, by that Great Council of the Nation, which made and repealed laws, which laid on and took off taxes, which declared war and made peace, which elected and deposed Earls, Bishops, and Kings. Such is the undoubted meaning of the words of the two highest of all the authorities which mention the matter. That the Abingdon and Worcester Chroniclers, while they assert the bequest and the coronation, are silent about the election, is in no way wonderful. They do not at any time take that pleasure in putting forth the popular side of our Constitution which was clearly felt by Florence, and by the Peterborough writer still more keenly. The Peterborough Chronicler wrote at the moment in the fulness of his heart; Florence wrote as a grave and judicial harmonizer many years later. Both tell the same story.

These two authorities are to my mind quite enough to establish the fact of Harold’s legal and regular election; still I will go on, as before, to trace out such subsidiary evidence as we have in its favour, before we see what is said on the other side.

The Biographer, who formed so important a part of our evidence for establishing the bequest of Eadward, now fails us altogether. As I have before said, he does not directly record any event after Eadward’s death.

The Tapestry (pl. 7) contains a scene, of which I have made much use in the text (p. 22), in which the Crown is offered to Harold by two persons. This scene is highly important. It is of itself an answer to all the vague Norman talk about Harold seizing the Crown by fraud or force—all the declamation about “invasit,” “arripuit,” and the like. The Crown is offered to him very quietly, and he is evidently represented as still doubting whether to take it or no. The scene too is put (see p. 584) in a position which is evidently meant to connect it with Eadward’s death-bed bequest. But in this scene in the Tapestry, though there is nothing to exclude, there is nothing to assert any formal election. The Crown is evidently brought from the chamber of the dead King, and the story would run just as well if it were brought simply in obedience to his dying orders, without reference to the choice of any one else. One can easily understand that, without the least intention to falsify the story, the designers of the Tapestry, just like the Abingdon and Worcester Chroniclers, might not feel specially called upon to dwell on the actual election, a scene, one may add, which it would be by no means easy to represent in worsted work. But, interpreting one authority by another, we are fully justified in taking the scene in the Tapestry to be the result of the election spoken of by the Peterborough Chronicler and by Florence. The Crown was offered to Harold; that fact is represented in the Tapestry. Our other authorities enable us to add that it was offered to Harold in pursuance of a vote of the Witan.

The election of Harold being thus admitted, the question follows, Was that election absolutely unanimous? Were any votes given, any speeches made, any feelers thrown out, on behalf of William, Eadgar, or any other possible candidate? It is quite possible that such was the case, but the contemporary writers who mention the election do not go minutely enough into details to prove anything either way. Something like a candidature on the part both of William and of Eadgar is implied by several later writers, but not in terms which make us feel very positive about it. In any case Harold must have had a triumphant majority.

It is not so easy to put together a catena of later writers in favour of Harold’s election as it is to do so in favour of Eadward’s recommendation on his behalf. Two or three hundred years after the time, the idea of bequest was more familiar than the idea of election. We have indeed the string of writers, beginning with Simeon, who copy the whole passage from Florence in full. But we have no independent witnesses to the tradition of the election answering to Eadmer and Walter of Hemingburgh, who assert the bequest in words of their own, not borrowed from Florence (p. 586). The entry in the Waverley Annals I have already quoted (ib.). There the first entry, translated from the Peterborough Chronicle, asserts the election in the strongest terms, but it is immediately qualified by the strange Normannizing passage which follows. We should remember also that such an expression as that of Eadmer, who simply says that Harold “succeeded according to Eadward’s will,” though it does not assert the election, yet in no way excludes it. And the use of a word like “successit” is of itself important, in the teeth of words like “invasit” and “arripuit,” which we shall presently come to.

It was, as we might have expected, in Harold’s own College at Waltham that the tradition of the popular election of its great Founder lasted longest. There, down into the thirteenth century, it was still a thing to be remembered and gloried in. And, what we might have been less prepared for, it comes out very strongly in at least one Scandinavian writer.

Of the two Waltham books, the De Inventione (c. 20) asserts the election in the strongest terms;

“Post obitum itaque sanctissimi Regis, Comes Haroldus unanimi omnium consensu in Regem eligitur, quia non erat eo prudentior in terrâ, armis strenuus magis, legum terræ sagacior, in omni genere probitatis cultior, ita ut huic electioni non possent contradicere, qui eum summo odio persequuti fuissent usque ad tempora illa, quoniam tanto operi adeò insignem in omnibus non genuerit Anglia.”

I do not quite understand the last part of the passage, which is perhaps purposely obscure. It may mean that Eadwine and Morkere consented to the election; when we remember what the writer had said about “Normanni et Gallici” in c. 14 (see vol. ii. p. 39), we may perhaps rather think that the allusion is to the Norman favourites. At any rate an unanimous election is asserted as strongly as words can put it.

The romantic biographer of Harold may be fairly quoted on such a matter as this, because he carries on the local tradition which we find in the writer De Inventione. He twice mentions the accession of his hero. The first time it is spoken of merely in general terms (Chron. Ang. Norm. ii. 167); “Ubique fere terrarum celebri sermone vulgatum est quemadmodùm, Edwardo sanctissimo ad cœleste translato, in regno terreno successerit Haroldus.” The second passage (ii. 187, 188) is very remarkable, whether anybody chooses to believe the story or not. The writer asserts an unanimous election of Harold, and that under very singular circumstances. He records Harold’s oath, and argues at great length that it was an oath which ought not to be kept. He then says that, as soon as Harold came back from Normandy, he laid the case before the Witan, who declared the oath not binding, and with one consent elected him King. This would almost seem to be during Eadward’s lifetime; at least the heading of the Chapter (manifestly corrupt) contains these words, “Domino favente et faveto [sic] convivente Edwardo ipsum regnâsse affirmant.” This I do not profess to explain, unless the writer supposed some settlement in Harold’s favour to have been made during Eadward’s life-time (cf. vol. ii. p. 421 et seqq.). The actual passage in the text runs as follows;

“Haroldus ... suis demum redditus, quid pertulerit, quid egerit, cunctis palam exponit. Exponentem ut audit, universitas in irâ excandescit, initam mediante sacramento pactionem improbat, ne observeretur vehementer reclamat. ‘Absit,’ inquiunt, ‘absit ut serviamus Normannis. Absit ut fastûs Normannici jugo barbarico nobilitatis Anglicæ urbana libertas nullatenùs substernatur.’ Quid multa?

Conclamant omnes, sedet hæc sententia cunctis.

Posthabitoque juramenti, quod nullum esse credebatur, periculo, Haroldus demum unanimi omnium consensu sublimatur in Regem.”

I do not rely on this as history, though possibly the statement is not to be cast aside without thought. The main value of the passage is to show how strong and enduring the local tradition was. This account, asserting Harold’s popular election in the strongest terms, is not very many years older than the French Life of Eadward.

Later still, we have Peter of Langtoft (i. 398) distinctly asserting both the fact and the lawfulness of Harold’s election;

“Après la mort Eduuarde, Harald est elu Ray par la commune, la coroune ad resceu; En drayture et ley leaus est-il tenu.”

Again Robert of Brunne (i. 66) is puzzled, and adds a comment of his own;

“After Saẏnt Edward, Harald Kẏng þei ches, Þorgh conseile of þam alle, and he þe scheld les Right and in lawe, þe barons held him trewe. Neverles his falshed brought us sorowe alle newe.”

Of the two Scandinavian writers of whom I have here to speak, I have already quoted the passage from Snorro (see above, p. 595). He distinctly asserts an election, though he makes the election be obtained through an alleged will of Eadward, on which he seems inclined to throw some doubt. The other Northern writer is the Biographer of Olaf Tryggwesson, whom I have already quoted (vol. ii. p. 542) as the only writer who seems anxious to canonize Harold. He says distinctly (263) that “after Eadward, Harold the son of Godwine, whom some call a saint, took the Kingdom by the will of all the folk in the land” (“Eptir Jatvard Kong toc riki, af vild alz landfolksins, Haraldur Gudina son, er sumir kallan helgan vera”). I shall have to quote this writer again at another stage.

I now turn to the writers who are more or less decidedly hostile to Harold. These sometimes deny the fact of the election, sometimes they wrap up the fact, just as they do the fact of Eadward’s recommendation, in vague and declamatory phrases. I will quote first the purely Norman writers, and then those who represent a certain mixture of Norman and English traditions.

First comes William of Poitiers (Giles, p. 121), who denies that there was any election at all;

“Verus namque rumor insperatò venit, Anglicam terram Rege Edwardo orbatam esse, et ejus coronâ Heraldum ornatum. Nec sustinuit vesanus Anglus, quid electio publica statueret consulere; sed in die lugubri, quo optimus ille humatus est, quum gens universa plangeret, perjurus regium solium cum plausu occupavit, quibusdam iniquis faventibus. Ordinatus est non sanctâ consecratione Stigando, justo zelo Apostolici et anathemate ministerio sacerdotum privati.”

William of Jumièges (vii. 31) is shorter and still vaguer, but, by complaining that Harold beguiled away the whole English nation from their allegiance to Duke William, he admits that Harold had the hearts of the nation with him, and does in effect imply the election. His words are,

“Cujus [Edwardi] regnum Heraldus continuò invasit, ex fidelitate pejeratus, quam juraverat Duci. Ad quem Dux protinùs legatos direxit, hortans ut ab hâc insaniâ resipisceret, et fidem quam juramento spoponderat condignâ subjectione servaret. At ille non solùm hoc audire contempsit, verùm omnem Anglorum gentem ab illo infideliter avertit.”

Orderic (492 C), who, higher up in the same page (see vol. ii. p. 541), showed some signs of generous feeling towards Harold, becomes at this point more savage against him than anybody else. He affirms, in apparent contradiction to William of Jumièges, that Harold’s accession was against the will of a large part of the English nation. This I believe to be a confused account of the temporary refusal of Northumberland to acknowledge Harold. Orderic mentions Eadward’s death and burial, and then goes on;

“Tunc Heraldus, ipso tumulationis die, dum plebs in exsequiis dilecti Regis adhuc maderet fletibus, à solo Stigando Archiepiscopo (quem Romanus Papa suspenderat a divinis officiis pro quibusdam criminibus) sine communi consensu aliorum Præsulum et Comitum procerumque consecratus, furtim præripuit diadematis et purpuræ decus. Audientes autem [Angli, I presume] temerariam invasionem quam Heraldus fecerat, irati sunt; et potentiorum nonnulli fortiter obsistere parati a subjectione ejus omnino abstinuerunt. Alii verò, nescientes qualiter tyrannidem ejus, quæ jam super eos nimis excreverat, evaderent, et è contra considerantes quòd nec illum dejicere, nec alium Regem, ipso regnante, ad utilitatem regni substituere valerent, colla ejus jugo submiserunt, viresque facinori quod inchoaverat auxerunt. Mox ipse regnum, quod nequiter invaserat, horrendis sceleribus maculavit.”

To these we may add, as speaking in the same spirit, the Verdun Chronicle of Abbot Hugh (Labbé, i. 194);

“Etuuardus Anglorum Rex obiit, qui, quia sine filiis fuit, consanguineum suum Wilelmum Normannorum Comitem post se regnare instituit. Sed Heroldus, contra sacramentum quod Willelmo fecerat, regnum invasit.”

Of the poetical writers, Wace (10977) speaks of a coronation and of homage received by Harold. He says nothing of election; but, as usual, there is nothing in him of the brutal violence so common in the other Norman writers.

“Dez ke li Reis Ewart fu morz, Heraut ki ert manant è forz Se fist énoindre è coroner; Unkes al Duc n’en volt parler, Homages prist è féeltez Des plus riches è des ainz nez.”

Benoît (36656) is characteristically much fiercer; he distinctly denies both all election and all ecclesiastical consecration, and mixes up the supposed wrongs of Tostig with those of William.

“Heraut, de coveitise espris, Senz autre conseil qui’n fust pris, Saisi le reigne demaneis; Parjurez e faus se fist reis Eissi, senz icele unction E senz cele sacration Qu’en deit faire à rei saintement Le jor de son coronement. Eissi, senz nule autre devise, Parjur, faus, pleins de coveitise, Se fist coroner à grant tort: Por c’en fu puis destruit e mort. Ne tint envers le duc fiance Ne ostage ne covenance, De son frere ne li sovint; Eissi out le reaume e tint.”

We now come to the other class of writers, those who wrote in England under more or less of Norman influence, and who contrast remarkably with those who, like Simeon and Roger of Howden, are content to follow Florence. First comes William of Malmesbury, who gives two accounts in different parts of his work. The former passage (ii. 228) I have already quoted (see above, p. 588). At a later stage (iii. 238) he comes back to the subject again and gives quite a different account. The English were divided between Harold, William, and Eadgar; but it is now neither Harold nor William, but Eadgar, in whose favour Eadward had made his final bequest. Notwithstanding this bequest, notwithstanding a real diversity of sentiment among themselves, all give Harold an outward support, and he obtains the Crown. This is very vague and obscure. It may possibly mean that Harold was elected by a large majority, though some votes were given for other candidates. The words are,

“Rex Edwardus fato functus fuerat. Anglia dubio favore nutabat, cui se rectori committeret incerta, an Haroldo an Willelmo an Edgaro; nam et illum, pro genere proximum regno, proceribus Rex commendaverat, tacito scilicet mentis judicio, sed prono in clementiam animo. Quarè, ut prædixi, Angli diversis votis ferebantur, quamvis palàm cuncti bona Haroldo imprecarentur: et ille quidem, diademate fastigiatus, nihil de pactis inter se et Willelmum cogitabat.”

This passage of William of Malmesbury is our first distinct mention of the rights of Eadgar. It is the first hint of a doctrine whose partizans were, as time went on, largely to increase. According to this account, Eadward’s wishes are in favour of Eadgar, and his wishes are supported by a party among the Witan. This is the first setting forth of Eadgar as an actual candidate; but there is a passage of Orderic (598 A), in which he seems to think it necessary to explain why William came to the Crown rather than any one of the English royal family; “Guillelmus Dux Normannorum, deficiente stirpe Regis Edgari quæ idonea esset ad tenendum sceptrum regale, cum multis millibus armatorum ad Anglos transfretavit, et in campo Senlac invasorem regni Albionis Heraldum bello peremit.” Here we clearly see the first glimmering of the new view, which gets a little plainer in William of Malmesbury, and much plainer in those who came after him. William’s two accounts became stock passages, which were copied by the inferior writers who followed him, just as Florence’s description was copied by Simeon and other more judicious compilers. For instance, William’s description is taken as the groundwork of that given by Roger of Wendover (i. 513), which however is well worthy of notice. The hereditary right of Eadgar is now put much more prominently forward than it was a hundred years earlier.

“Defuncto, ut prædictum est, Eadwardo, Anglorum Rege sanctissimo, fluctuabant proceres regni, quem sibi Regem præficerent et rectorem. Quidam enim Willelmo Normannorum Duci, quidam Comiti Haroldo filio Godwini, alii autem favebant Eadgaro filio Eadwardi. Eadmundus verò Latus-Ferreum, Rex naturalis de stirpe Regum, genuit Eadwardum, Eadwardus Eadgarum, cui de jure regnum debebatur Anglorum. Sed Haroldus, vir callidus et astutus, intelligens quia ‘nocuit semper differre paratis,’ in die Epiphaniæ, quâ Rex Eadwardus sepultus est, extortâ fide a majoribus, capiti proprio imposuit diadema.”

This account of Roger of Wendover is followed in nearly the same words by Matthew Paris (2 ed. Wats), and in the Winchester History by Thomas Rudborne (Ang. Sacr. i. 241), who makes some most singular comments which I shall consider in another note. It implies more distinctly than William of Malmesbury does that the Duke was supported by a party—whether of native Englishmen or not—who had influence in England. But the rights of William are now much less dwelt on than the rights of Eadgar. Indeed there is another version, which leaves out William altogether, and dwells wholly on the rights of Eadgar. The nation, or a part of it, is in favour of the Ætheling, but Harold, by his wealth, his popularity, his vigour and energy, by some means of some sort, good or bad, contrives to supplant him. We first find this view where we should hardly have looked for it, namely in Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 761 D), whom we elsewhere see (vol. i. p. 332) firmly believing in the hereditary rights of William. His account is very short, but it has become, like those of Florence and William of Malmesbury, one of the stock passages for later writers to copy. The West Minster is hallowed, Eadward dies and is buried; then

“Quidam Anglorum Eadgar Atheling promovere volebant in Regem. Haraldus verò, viribus et genere fretus, regni diadema invasit.”

This is followed in one of the alternative accounts in Bromton and R. Higden (see above, p. 586), but they add a very sound reason why Eadgar was passed by, namely “quia puer erat, et tanto oneri minùs idoneus.” The means of Harold’s influence is described in different words by different copyists, but the fullest is that into which it swells in Knighton (2339). He had Higden before him, and Higden gave, as an alternative statement, Florence’s account of the recommendation of Eadward and the election of Harold. “Tradit tamen Marianus,” says Higden (284), after giving the other account, “quod Rex Edwardus ante obitum suum designaverit Haraldum Regem futurum, quem proceres mox in Regem erexerunt.” The unlucky use of the doubtful word “designaverit” instead of Florence’s “elegerat” led Knighton astray, and he turned the recommendation into a prophecy. He kept however the distinct statement of the election by the “proceres,” but mixed it up with the usual talk about “occupavit” and with the mention of Eadgar, out of Henry of Huntingdon. The result is worth giving in full;

“Tradunt quidam quod Rex Edwardus, ante obitum suum, Haroldum prædixit futurum Regem post se, quem proceres mox in Regem erexerunt. Mox Haroldus regnum occupavit, quod per novem menses circiter tenuit. Quidam enim Edgarum Adelyng, filium Edwardi filii Edmundi Ferrei Lateris, Regem constituere moliebantur, sed quia puer erat tanto regimini inidoneus et in bursâ minus refertus, Haraldus Comes, cui erat mens astutior, crumena fecundior, et miles copiosior et pompis gloriosior, sinistro omine regnum occupavit.”

This is a good specimen of the way in which later compilers put together those accounts which we often see quoted in modern books as if they were of equal authority with the Chronicles. It is amusing to see how Eadward’s recommendation of Harold, the best political act of his life, is changed, through the stages of “elegerat,” “designaverit,” “prædixit,” into an exercise of the prophetic powers of the saint. Still it is some comfort to see, standing forth in the midst of all this, the bit of true history which is set forth in the words, “quem proceres in Regem erexerunt.”

I have gone on uninterruptedly through the Latin writers, but I must now go back some generations to quote the very curious account given by Robert of Gloucester (i. 354 Hearne). He is all loyalty towards the Ætheling, and admiration towards those who supported his cause.

“Harald þẏs false erl, þo Seynt Edwarde dede laẏ, Hẏm sulue he let crounẏ kẏng þulke sulue daẏ, Falslẏche; vor Seẏnt Edward so wel to hẏm truste, þat he bẏtot hẏm Engelond, þat he ẏt well wuste To Wyllammes byof þe bastard, duc of Normandẏe. Ac hẏm sulf he made kẏng mẏd such trecherẏe. Ac þe gode tryw men of þe lond wolde abbe ẏmade kẏng þe kunde eẏr, þe ȝonge chẏld, Edgar Aþelyng. Wo so were next kẏng bẏkunde, me clupeþ hẏm Aþelyng. þervor me clupede hẏm so, vor bẏkunde he was next kyng. Ac Harald made hẏs weẏ bẏvore, as mẏd suykedom, Mẏd ȝẏftẏs and myd vayre byheste, and avong þe kẏnedom. So þat somme hẏm chose alout, and somme hem hulde stẏlle, And soffrede as hii noeȝt ne mẏȝte al oþeres wẏlle. So þat Harald was kẏng, to wom þe hele þe kẏnedom. And Seẏnt Edwardes sẏȝte bẏ hẏm to soþe come. Vor þo bẏgan þe wow vorst, as me mẏȝte ẏse, þat ssolde, as Seẏnt Edward seẏde, bẏ þre kẏnges day be.”

Loyalty to Eadgar and the orthodox interpretation of Eadward’s vision of course go together.

Lastly, one step only remains to be taken, namely to make the oath and perjury of Harold a sin, not against William but against Eadgar. We get the first glimmering of this in a Flemish writer of the thirteenth century, Hariulf, the author of the Chronicon Centulense or Chronicle of Saint Riquier in the second volume of D’Achery’s Spicilegium. He died in 1143. His account (p. 345) is as follows;

“Postquam autem mortuus est Rex Ethguardus, Herioldus quidam Comes regnum sibi accepit contra fas, et contra fidem sacramenti quod prædicto Regi juraverat, spondens quod pronepoti ipsius Regis, nomine Elfgaro, regnum cederet absque ullo impedimento. At quum regni potestate et fascibus injustè uteretur, expulso Ethguardi pronepote Elfgaro, summus et super omnia potens Deus, in cujus jussu constant regna terrarum, et qui donat ei cui vult, signo mirabili è cœlo ostenso, destinavit Guillelmum Ducem Normannorum Anglorum Regem fieri; et quia veraciter Dei nutu idipsum Guillelmus appetebat rei prosperitate probatum est.”

We may mark here, First, That Harold is supposed, as indeed he is in the story of his oath to William, to have some kind of power of disposing of the Crown or influencing its disposal. Secondly, That no earthly right is recognized in William; he is expressly called to the Kingdom by a sign from heaven in the shape of the comet.

But it was reserved for an English writer of the fifteenth century finally to put the notions of Hariulf—wherever Hariulf found them—into shape, and that into a shape exactly suiting the English politics of the fifteenth century. Famous John Hardyng, living so long after the time, naturally knew things which had not been revealed to those who lived earlier. He devotes two stanzas of his Chronicle to the matter (p. 232 ed. Ellis). Eadward’s miracles have just been spoken of; then

“Sone after that he dyed and went to blysse; But fyrste he made Duke Herold protectoure Of his cousyne, to governe and to wysse, Edgar Athelyng, full yonge a governoure, Whom he ordeyned to be his successoure, As very heyre to Edmonde Ironesyde; But this Herolde then set all that asyde. ... Herolde by strength then crowned was for kynge, Forsworne that was upon the euangelystes For to crowne Edgar Athelynge, And hym protecte and defende in all wyse Unto his age, that none the realm suppryse. This was his othe of whiche he was forswore, All yf he made Edgar an earle therefore.”

Protectors were much more familiar in the days of John Hardyng than they were in the days of Florence and the Chroniclers. Here too is a special revelation, that the oath broken by Harold was an oath to Eadgar, and not an oath to William. We here get the history of the eleventh century as it was convenient to read it in the days of Richard of York and of Edward the Fourth. The “very heir” is wrongfully kept out by usurpers, the strictest doctrine of legitimacy only is to be acknowledged, and the rights of William, so sacred in the eyes of William of Poitiers and Henry of Huntingdon, are now (234) expressly denied. William came

“In trone royall to have the monarchye, By his conquest and his victorye, Withoute tytle of ryght to hym discente, But onely of his tryumphall entente.”

Lastly, I suppose that I ought at least to mention the words in which Harold’s accession is recorded in the Brut y Tywysogion, 1066. In the English translation the entry stands thus; “That Harold who, at first earl, through cruelty after the death of King Edward unduly acquired the sovereignty of the kingdom of England, was despoiled of his kingdom and life by William the Bastard, duke of Normandy, though previously vauntingly victorious. And that William defended the kingdom of England in a great battle, with an invincible hand, and his most noble army.” I am sorry that my ignorance of Welsh hinders me from judging of the accuracy of the translation of the words in Italics, which certainly have a strange sound. The whole passage is an amplification of the corresponding passage in the Annales Cambriæ, in which there is nothing answering to them.

I have thus traced out the various statements with regard to the question of Harold’s election. That it was a perfectly regular act is asserted by two of our highest original authorities, and their narrative is in no way inconsistent with the narratives of those original authorities who do not directly mention the fact. The statement of the Peterborough Chronicler and of Florence was accepted, as preferable to the counter-statements, by some of the best and most careful compilers of the next age. Even the Scandinavian writers and Harold’s own local panegyrists at Waltham are at least witnesses to a tradition. Simeon, Roger of Howden, and Ralph of Diss are something more. They deliberately preferred Florence’s statement to any other, at a time when other statements were much more acceptable to the reigning powers. As the idea of elective kingship gradually died out, the tradition of Harold’s regular election would seem stranger and stranger, so that for a later writer to accept it really implied a certain amount of critical and independent judgement. On the other hand we have, first the fact that the highest Norman authority of all, the Tapestry, though it does not directly assert the election, is quite consistent with that version, while it is quite inconsistent with the legend of Harold seizing the Crown by force or fraud. Moreover the witnesses against Harold, from the very beginning, do not agree among themselves. Some say that there was no public election; Harold, they tell us, seized the Crown by a conspiracy with a few men, and reigned against the will of the nation. Others complain that Harold beguiled away the whole English people from their allegiance to the lawful heir. All wrap up their story in vague and declamatory phrases, which may mean anything or nothing, and which contrast forcibly with the distinct and clear statement of Florence. Then, as we get a little further away from the time, all kinds of new ideas come in. Each writer, from Henry of Huntingdon to John Hardyng, tells the story according to the political theories of his own age and his own party. When the notion of hereditary right was gaining strength, when a family sat on the throne who had other claims than those of the first Norman conquerors, the supposed rights of William began to drop out of sight. From the twelfth century onwards, we hear more and more of Eadgar, less and less of William, till at last, in the fifteenth century, we are pointedly told that it was not William but Eadgar to whom the false oath of Harold was taken. Thus the true tradition of Harold’s election had to struggle with greater difficulties in each generation, as to each generation the ancient notion of popular election of Kings became less and less familiar. The Peterborough Chronicler alone, in the joy of his heart, recorded the election of the hero whom he loved at the moment when it happened. Every other writer, from Florence onwards, who asserted Harold’s lawful election, asserted it in the teeth of prevalent prejudices and prevalent misstatements. From the contemporary entry in the Chronicle to the one true jewel half hidden in the dung-heap of Knighton, the evidence in favour of Harold’s election forms a chain of evidence of the very highest kind, all the higher because every statement after the first is made in the teeth of statements on the other side.

Is then the conventional talk about Harold’s accession, the talk about “occupavit,” “invasit,” “arripuit,” and the like, mere invention, mere wanton slander? Or is it founded, as both legend and calumny generally are founded, on some truth misrepresented or misconceived? I think that in this case also the legend has a certain groundwork of truth. The origin of this kind of talk is probably to be found in the extreme haste with which the burial of Eadward, the election and the coronation of Harold, were got through. There was indeed nothing illegal or unprecedented in the matter. The first election of Eadward himself had been made, just like the election of Harold, before the burial of the King whose death had caused the vacancy. And, had Eadward been on the spot, he might perhaps have been crowned, as well as elected, with as great haste as Harold was. And the hurried election of Harold was far more regular than the hurried election of Eadward. It does not appear that, when Harthacnut died, any regular Meeting of the Witan was actually in session. The first election of Eadward must have been made only by the citizens of London and such of the other Witan as could be got together at the moment. But the death of Eadward took place during the Christmas Feast, so that Harold’s election was made by the ordinary Midwinter Gemót. The thing then was done lawfully and regularly; still it was done with a haste which might well seem strange, and it is not wonderful that men in other lands, prejudiced against Harold, prejudiced against England, ignorant of the Laws of England, should look on the matter in the worst possible light. On William and his friends the news came like a thunder-clap. They heard in the same breath that Eadward was dead and that Harold was consecrated King. Eadward was King on the morning of Thursday; before the evening of Friday, Eadward was in his grave, and Harold was King, full King, King crowned and anointed. All William’s schemes were defeated, as far as it rested with the peaceful action of the people of England to defeat them. Not a moment had been allowed him to press his claims. The thing was done, and the sword only could undo it. It was no wonder then if, in Norman eyes, the haste of Harold’s accession seemed strange, indecent, altogether wicked. That it was thoroughly good according to English Law was a point about which William of Poitiers and his fellows neither knew nor cared anything. They naturally vented their wrath in talk about “invasit” and “arripuit.” As usual, declamatory expressions got substance. Harold was rhetorically said to have “seized” the Crown; thence came a story that he physically seized it with his own hands. The burial and the coronation were performed on the same day; thence came a story that Harold seized the time of Eadward’s burial for a sham election and coronation. Lastly, the temporary refusal of Northumberland to acknowledge Harold, of which I shall have to speak a few pages on, no doubt grew into the account in Orderic, copied by some later writers, about a large part of the nation standing aloof from Harold, or being actually hostile to him.

I have now dealt with two of the three points touching Harold’s accession, namely, the recommendation of Eadward in his favour, and his actual election by the Witan. The third point which remains is the coronation. It is impossible wholly to disentangle the evidence bearing on the coronation from the evidence bearing on the election, so that some of the references belonging to the subject of the coronation have been unavoidably forestalled. There remains however more than one point to be formally discussed in another note.

NOTE D. p. 42.

THE CORONATION OF HAROLD.

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

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

Second, Who was the officiating Prelate at the ceremony?

Third, What was the place of the ceremony?

The evidence on the first point is as decisive as evidence can be. The ecclesiastical consecration of Harold is asserted by all the three Chroniclers. Abingdon and Worcester, with small verbal differences, both say, “Her wearð Harold Eorl eac to Cynge gehalgod.” Peterborough uses another word and gives us the date; “Harold Eorl ... wæs gebletsod to Cynge on Twelftan mæsse dæg.” Florence, in the passage which I have throughout taken as my text, states the same fact, and adds the name of the consecrator. Harold was “ab Aldredo Archiepiscopo Eboracensi honorificè consecratus.” I therefore have not hesitated to describe Harold in the text as consecrated by Ealdred, according to the form of consecration then in use in the English Church.

The writers whom I have already quoted as following the account of Florence with regard to the recommendation and the election, naturally follow him also with regard to the coronation. The coronation is also mentioned as an alternative statement by those writers who mention the recommendation and election as alternative statements. It is somewhat curious that Knighton, whose account is the most confused of all, seems (X Scriptt. 2339) to have no doubt about the coronation; “Nunc Haraldus ab Aldredo Eboracensi Archiepiscopo consecratus est.” This is the one position which he leaves without alternative or self-contradiction. The coronation is of course also asserted by the writer De Inventione (c. 20); “Rex igitur consecratus a Stigando Dorobernensi Archipræsule.” According to his Norwegian admirer (263), Harold was consecrated King and anointed (smeared) with holy chrism; “Hann var vigdr Kongr oc smurdr helgum chrisma.” Snorro also (Johnstone, 192; Laing, iii. 77) asserts that he was duly consecrated, and that on his consecration all the chiefs and people of the land submitted to him (“Haralldr var til konungs tekinn, oc vígdr konungs-vigslo inn xiii í Páls-kirkio. Gengo þá allir höfdingiar til handa hönom, oc allt fólk”).

The Norman writers nearest to the time do not deny an ecclesiastical consecration. Only they affirm that the officiating Prelate was Stigand. “Ordinatus est non sanctâ consecratione Stigandi,” says William of Poitiers (121 Giles); so Orderic in the passage already quoted (see above, p. 603), who even goes further, and says that the ceremony was performed by Stigand without the consent of the other prelates and nobles. William of Jumièges (see above, p. 602) slurs over the whole matter with the words “regnum invasit.” The Tapestry distinctly represents an ecclesiastical consecration, but the Prelate standing by the King on his throne is significantly marked “Stigant Archiep̄s.”

It is only when we get further from the time that we find any distinct denial of an ecclesiastical consecration of some sort. Wace, as we have seen (see above, p. 603), is colourless. Benoît, in the passage already quoted (ib.), distinctly denies any ecclesiastical consecration. So does the author of the French Life; he first asserts (4079–4081) that Harold caused himself to be elected and crowned, because no one dared oppose him;

“Il se fist de muz eslire E curuner; kar cuntredire Nel osa nuls.”

He presently goes on to say, more at length, that the coronation was done hastily by laymen without any ecclesiastical rite;

“De la Tephanie fu la feste, Curune mise sur sa teste; E lendemein ke rois Aedward Muruit, ke mut li fu vis tard, De seculers e lai gent, Par orgoil sudéement, Sanz sacrement de seint iglise, Fu curunez e sanz servise.”

(vv. 4095–4102.)

The story that Harold put the Crown on his own head probably comes from an expression of William of Malmesbury, in the former of his two accounts (ii. 228; see above, p. 604), “extortâ à principibus fide, diadema arripuit.” For this Roger of Wendover (see above, p. 605) substitutes the words “extortâ fide a majoribus, capiti proprio imposuit diadema.” In this he is followed, as we have seen, by Matthew Paris and Thomas Rudborne, but the latter adds an explanation which I must presently examine more at length. The Hyde writer too tells us (290), “regnum Anglorum ... usurpavit, regiumque diadema sibi imposuit.” So the author of the Annales Regum Angliæ (in the Rishanger volume, p. 427); “Haroldus filius Godwyni die sexto Januarii seipsum apud Westmonasterium coronavit.” The same words occur in Brompton (958) as an alternative. The Ramsey historian also (c. 120, p. 461) speaks to the same effect; “Haraldus ... diademate regni sese temerè insignivit.”

In all these writers the feeling against Harold is manifest, with the seeming exception of Thomas Rudborne. He first of all, as I have said, tells the story in words borrowed from Roger of Wendover, including the self-coronation of Harold, and his description as “vir callidus et astutus.” But, as he gets on, he gradually softens. He is sorry that Harold was guilty of perjury (Ang. Sac. i. 242), because, if he had not been so, he would most likely have defeated William (“utinam Haroldus non perjurus fuisset, et disciplinam Aristotelis quam dedit Alexandro Magno sequutus fuisset; fortè Dei auxilio et non dubium, ut aliquibus videtur, vicisset Willelmum”). He then goes on to explain how it came to pass that Harold was never anointed, and why he put the Crown on his own head (“Iste Haroldus, quamvis semetipsum propriis manibus coronâsset, numquam tamen Rex inunctus erat”). Harold had scruples about being crowned by Stigand, on account of his pluralities (“noluit enim inungi a Stigando Cantuariensi Archiepiscopo, quia injustè duos pontificatus, viz. Cantuariensem et Wyntoniensem, detinuit”). He wished to be anointed by Ealdred, but that Primate was very sick at the time. Harold therefore put off his unction till Ealdred’s recovery (“distulit enim recipere regiam inunctionem quousque Aldredus Eboracensis Archiepiscopus sanitati restitueretur, gravi enim infirmitate pro tunc detinebatur”). Unluckily Ealdred never recovered during Harold’s reign, and Harold therefore went without unction altogether (“Archipræsul verò Eboracensis Aldredus ab infirmitate minimè convaluit usque ad mortem seu occisionem Haroldi”). The statement of Florence and his followers or, as Rudborne says, of Ralph of Diss and some others (“quod autem Radulphus de Dyseto Londoniensis Decanus et quidam alii scribunt”), that Harold was consecrated by Ealdred, he explains as meaning that Ealdred simply consented to his consecration, not that he consecrated him in person (“hoc intelligendum est quia Aldredus Archiepiscopus sic consensit consecrationi, non quod egit seu dedit munus consecrationis in actu”). How Ealdred could be said to consent to a consecration which never took place is not very clear. For all this Rudborne refers to “Auctor de Concordantiis Historiarum Angliæ sub literâ H.” In this story I can see only an ingenious, but somewhat unlucky, attempt to reconcile contradictory statements. Still there is something remarkable in the canonical scrupulousness which it attributes to Harold, though the form which it takes is somewhat singular. If canonical disabilities affected one Primate and bodily ailments the other, one does not see why, as in some later cases, Saint Wulfstan or any other Bishop in the land might not have officiated by lawful commission.

Putting aside then the misstatements and misconceptions of other writers as well as the ingenious explanations of Thomas Rudborne, I do not hesitate to say that the ecclesiastical consecration, as asserted by the contemporary writers on both sides, must be admitted as an undoubted fact. The only question open to reasonable doubt is whether Ealdred or Stigand was the consecrator. The Chroniclers, writing at the time, before any controversy had arisen, did not mention the celebrant. Florence, after misstatements had arisen, thought it right to put on record that the celebrant was Ealdred. He is followed by the best later compilers, among whom Thomas Stubbs (X Scriptt. 1702) should specially be mentioned, for he writes as the historian of the Primates of York, and, though he adopts the words of Florence, he doubtless represents the independent tradition of the church of York. The only strictly English writer who represents Harold as crowned by Stigand is the Waltham writer De Inventione. The compilers, from Roger of Wendover onwards, seem to have been more taken with the notion of Harold’s putting the Crown on his own head. Perhaps they did not fully understand the point of the question between Ealdred and Stigand.

On the other hand, William of Poitiers and Orderic distinctly assert that Harold was crowned by Stigand (see above, pp. 602, 603); but they do it in rhetorical passages, in which they go on to enlarge on Stigand’s schismatical position. Their evident object is to represent Harold’s coronation as uncanonical and invalid. The representation in the Tapestry is singular. It does not show Stigand in the act of crowning or anointing Harold. Harold is already crowned and seated on his throne, and Stigand stands by, seemingly addressing the people. The Tapestry always seems to me the most honest and trustworthy of all Norman accounts; otherwise I could almost believe that there is here an attempt to insinuate that Stigand was the celebrant without directly asserting it.

The question is simply this, Is this Norman statement to be accepted in opposition to the statement of Florence, evidently meant in answer to it? The statement, very brief and casual, of the one Waltham writer, cannot be thought to add much to the strength of the case. His notions about Stigand are a little confused throughout his story, and he might easily take for granted that, if a King was crowned, he must have been crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Leaving then the De Inventione, are we to believe William of Poitiers, supported to some extent by the Tapestry, or are we to believe Florence? I at least have no doubt as to preferring Florence to William. Each is undoubtedly the champion of one side; still the position of the two writers is widely different. The Archdeacon of Lisieux wrote as the laureate of a living sovereign, from whose favour he had everything to hope. The monk of Worcester wrote to clear the memory of a fallen hero from the calumnies which were already beginning to gather round it. William of Poitiers writes in a spirit of frantic reviling against Harold; Florence never displays any unbecoming bitterness against the Conqueror. Besides this, the assertion of William is simply an assertion; the assertion of Florence has the weight of a denial. Add to this that William writes of a transaction which happened in a foreign land of whose laws and internal affairs he clearly knew nothing. Florence, though hardly of an age at the time to say much from his own knowledge, was an Englishman and a Worcester monk, a member of a body which doubtless still watched the career of their former Bishop with interest. As far then as the comparative value of witnesses goes, it seems to me that Florence is a witness in every way more trustworthy than William of Poitiers.

The probability of the case lies the same way. We have seen that the episcopal ministrations of Stigand were at this time commonly avoided in England. Harold himself had (see vol. ii. p. 446) chosen Cynesige and not Stigand to hallow his minster at Waltham. It is therefore most unlikely that, on the occasion of this still greater ceremony, Harold should run the smallest risk of awakening scandal or objection. The custom of the time, and Harold’s own earlier conduct, show that Ealdred would be asked to perform the ceremony, almost as a matter of course.

Lastly, if the ceremony was really performed by Stigand, the assertion that it was performed by Ealdred must have been a deliberate falsehood on the part of Florence or his informants. Mere mistake or carelessness could never have led to it. But if the celebrant really was Ealdred, we can understand that the statement that it was Stigand might get abroad without any absolute lying on the part of any one. Let us suppose a rumour of Harold’s coronation reaching the Norman court. Such a rumour might well come without the name of the officiating Prelate. It would be taken for granted that the ceremony was performed by the Prelate whose proper function it was, the Metropolitan of Canterbury. The natural surmise that Harold must have been crowned by Stigand would soon grow into a rumour that he actually had been crowned by Stigand. The consecration of the perjured King by the schismatic Primate would lead to fresh invectives against both. Such a consecration would be declared to be no consecration; strict churchmen, in the vigour of their rhetoric, would say that Harold had never been consecrated at all. In the next stage those words would be taken literally, and we thus reach the point at which Benoît denies the performance of any religious ceremony. This process is exactly the same as that by which ecclesiastical writers so constantly apply the name of concubine, or sometimes harder names still, to the wives of priests or to other women to whose marriage there was any canonical objection. Lastly, the belief that Harold had no ecclesiastical consecration, mixed up with the talk about “arripuit” and “invasit,” led not unnaturally to the idea, which seems first to appear in Roger of Wendover, that Harold put the Crown on his own head.

There is then, I think, no doubt whatever that Harold was consecrated King with all the usual ecclesiastical rites. That the ceremony was performed by Ealdred may be thought one degree less certain, but that too seems to me to be a point on which scepticism is unreasonable. One point only remains, namely the place of the ceremony, whether Harold was crowned in the old minster of Saint Paul or in the new minster of Saint Peter.

Our direct evidence either way comes from quite inferior writers; those nearest the time, both Norman and English, do not mention the place. Some of the passages have been already quoted. We have seen that Snorro places the ceremony at Saint Paul’s. The list of coronations in what we may conveniently call Rishanger, followed by an alternative statement in Bromton, places it at Westminster. So does John of Peterborough, under 1066; “Successit in regnum Harold us Dux West-Saxonum, filius Godwini, in crastino obitûs Regis, id est in die Epiphaniæ, apud Westmonasterium coronatus.” On the other hand, in the Brevis Relatio (Giles 4) we read,

“Adhuc autem erat corpus ejus [Edwardi] super terram, sicut illi postea retulerunt qui hæc se videre dixerunt, quum Heraldus, quasi insanus atque postponens quidquid Willelmo Comiti de regno Angliæ juraverat, videlicet quod ei illud fideliter post mortem Regis Edwardi servaret, consentientibus sibi civibus Londoniæ, multisque aliis insaniæ ejus faventibus, apud sanctum Paulum in civitate Londoniæ, contra omnem rectitudinem, coronam regni Angliæ arripuit.”

Comparing this evidence, such as it is, the balance is distinctly in favour of Westminster. The witness of Snorro, apparently in favour of Saint Paul’s, really tells the other way. For he had just before said (Johnstone, 191; Laing, iii. 77) that Eadward was buried at Saint Paul’s, whereas there is no need at all to prove that he was buried at Westminster. Snorro most likely confounded the minsters of the brother Apostles. But his statement distinctly is that Harold was crowned in the same church in which Eadward was buried, that is, in Saint Peter’s.

The spirit of the Brevis Relatio, a bitter Norman pamphlet of the time of Henry the First, is abundantly shown in my extract. The writer professes to speak from what he has heard from those who were present. But does his statement really assert a coronation at Saint Paul’s? What he records is something which took place at Saint Paul’s before Eadward’s burial. This then could not be Harold’s coronation, for that took place after Eadward’s burial. Also he does not speak of a formal coronation; he uses one of the set phrases of Norman declamation, “coronam regni Angliæ arripuit.” Afterwards (p. 5) he makes William say how “Heraldus coronam regni Angliæ sibi imposuisset.” These are the rhetorical phrases which led to the later story of Harold crowning himself, but they do not in themselves imply any actual coronation at all. If the writer of the Brevis Relatio means an actual coronation, he is at once convicted of error by his placing the coronation before the burial. But it is just as likely that he is not talking of the coronation but of the election. Harold seizes the Crown with the consent of the citizens of London and many others. That is most likely the author’s way of putting the fact that he was elected by the citizens of London and the rest of the Witan, and it is highly probable that an Assembly in which the citizens of London were likely to take a prominent part might be held in Saint Paul’s.

It is therefore by no means clear that there is any evidence at all for Saint Paul’s. The direct evidence for Westminster, though not good, is a little better. The statement of John of Peterborough is very clear and straightforward, but the date of his Chronicle is uncertain, and it is in any case long after the time. His entry may be merely copied from Rishanger, whose statement, being found in a special list of coronations and royal burials, has a certain value, as not being a mere obiter dictum, but the assertion of a man who was specially enquiring into a certain subject.

But I rest the coronation of Harold at Westminster far less on these late statements than on the probability of the case and on what seems to me to be the implied evidence of earlier writers. Florence on the one hand, William of Poitiers and Orderic on the other, seem pointedly to connect the burial of Eadward and the coronation of Harold. In Florence’s narrative, Eadward dies and is buried; “Obiit Lundoniæ et in crastino sepultus regio more.... Quo tumulato,” he continues, in the passage which I have so often referred to, “Subregulus Haroldus ... die eodem ... in Regem est honorificè consecratus.” Two great ecclesiastical ceremonies, one immediately following the other, take place on the same day; in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, the presumption surely is that they took place in the same church. William of Poitiers again (see above, p. 602) and, I may add, William of Malmesbury (see above, p. 588), seems to complain of the indecency of having the coronation on the same day as the burial, but they connect the two things, and they in no way imply any difference of place. It is only Orderic (see above, p. 603), who, by the use of the word “furtim,” might possibly suggest that Harold took advantage of the funeral in Saint Peter’s to be crowned elsewhere by Stigand. But he does not distinctly say so, nor do his words necessarily imply it. It strikes me then that Florence implies Harold’s coronation in Saint Peter’s and that nobody else denies it.

In fact, there was every motive for Harold to be crowned in Saint Peter’s, there was none for him to be crowned anywhere else. Eadmund and Cnut had been crowned at Saint Paul’s, but Saint Paul’s was no traditional crowning-place of West-Saxon royalty. Kingston had been forsaken, and no other one spot had definitively taken its place. No prescription was broken through by a Westminster coronation, and the circumstances of the recent consecration of the church, the death and burial of the Founder, would draw all men’s minds to the newly hallowed temple, and cause it to be chosen before all others for the greatest of national rites. To believe that the Prelates and the other Witan buried Eadward at Saint Peter’s, and then, without any conceivable motive, marched off to Saint Paul’s to crown Harold, seems utterly preposterous. There is good reason to believe that the West Minster was, from the very beginning, designed as a national crowning-place. The assertion of the doubtful charter to that effect (see vol. ii. p. 505) is confirmed by the practice of later ages. William was crowned at Saint Peter’s. The fact that he was crowned there is in truth no slight argument that Harold was crowned there before him. William had no motive to innovate on such a point. His only reason for being crowned at Saint Peter’s must have been because Saint Peter’s had been specially designed by Eadward for Kings to be crowned in. And that motive would tell just as strongly with Harold as with William. William had every motive to connect himself in every way with the memory of Eadward, and to put himself forward in every way as the true successor of Eadward and the faithful executor of his wishes. But Harold had exactly the same motives to do exactly the same. A passage of William of Malmesbury (quoted above, p. 555) which has been pressed into the service of the other side (Stanley, Memorials of Westminster, 48) has no reference to the matter at all. All that is there said is that William favoured the Abbey of Westminster because he was crowned there, and that William’s successors, out of reverence for Saint Eadward’s tomb, were crowned there also. There is not a word, expressed or implied, to show that William’s was the first coronation in the West Minster.

I have then, in these three notes, gone, to the best of my power, through the whole of the points suggested by my text from Florence. I trust that I have shown that we have the strongest ground that history can give us for believing that Harold the son of Godwine was in every way a lawful King of the English, a King chosen, crowned, and anointed, according to the ancient use of this Church and Realm. We may quote without hesitation the words even of his own romantic biographer, when he introduces his hero (ii. 151) as “Illustrissimus Rex legitimus Haroldus, jam ritè ac legitimè coronatus.” The evidence of true history, as distinguished from the voice of calumny and misconception, sets Harold before us as recommended by the dying will of his predecessor, as chosen to the Kingdom by the consent of a full and regular Assembly of the whole nation, as consecrated to his kingly office with all the rites of the Church, at the hands of a Primate whose canonical position no man ventured to gainsay. And we may add that there is no ground for depriving the royal Abbey of Saint Peter of the choicest flower in the rich garland of its historic memories. There is no ground for doubting that the spot which beheld the royal unction of Edward and Elizabeth had already received a higher honour still, in being the spot where, for the first and last time in English history, an English King received the English Crown purely because he was the worthiest of the English people.

NOTE E. p. 43.

THE ANCIENT CORONATION OFFICE.

For the details of the coronation-rite I have gone mainly to Selden’s Titles of Honour (p. 115), to Taylor’s Glory of Regality, a very careful and accurate work devoted wholly to the subject of coronations, and to the third volume of Maskell’s Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ. As we know that Harold was “honorificè consecratus,” the very words in which Florence presently describes the coronation of William, I have held myself fully justified in describing him as crowned according to the office then in use in the English Church, that commonly known as the Coronation Office of Æthelred. This office is printed in full by Mr. Taylor in an Appendix. It is also printed by Mr. Maskell, but piecemeal in the notes to a later office, which makes it exceedingly difficult to follow.

It would seem from the rubric of this office that the coronation of the King was intended to follow immediately upon his election by the Witan. He was to be led by two Bishops from the meeting of the Elders to the church (“consecrandum Regem de conventu Seniorum duo Episcopi per manus producant ad ecclesiam.” Taylor, 395; Maskell, 3). This office, as I have said in the text, has long been a privilege of the Bishops of the two sees of Durham and Bath and Wells. This custom, which has lasted down to our own day (see the Coronation Office of her present Majesty, Maskell, p. 88), dates from the time of Richard the First, who was led (see Roger of Howden, Scriptt. p. Bed. 374 b) by Hugh, Bishop of Durham, and Reginald, Bishop of Bath. But it appears from Guy of Amiens (see pp. 556, 558) that William was led by the two Archbishops. It is therefore probable that this privilege of the sees of Durham and Wells is not older than Richard’s time (Maskell, xxix.; Taylor, 321, 325, et seqq.), and that his choice of Bishops for the purpose was determined by the high descent of the Bishops of those sees at that particular time, and that from them the right passed on to their successors.

The election in the church by the clergy and people (“ab Episcopis et a plebe”) is something distinct from the earlier civil election. In my text I have simply transferred to the coronation of Harold the account which we find given of the coronation of William. The process is much the same in the later offices, down to the form for the coronation of Henry the Eighth, according to a device drawn up by that prince himself (see Maskell, 73). The hereditary doctrine is set forth in the strongest language, but the principle of election is put forth in language equally strong. Prince Henry is spoken of as “rightfull and undoubted enheritour by the lawes of God and man;” but he is also “electe, chosen, and required by all the three estates of this lande to take uppon hym the seid coronne and royall dignitie.” The assent of the people is asked in this form, “Woll ye serve at this tyme, and geve your wills and assents to the same consecration, enunction, and coronacion? Whereunto the people shall say with a grete voyce, Ye, ye, ye; So be it; Kyng Henry, King Henry.” This is perhaps the last very distinct case of election. Since that time the form has gradually shrunk up into the mere recognition which is now all that takes place. Indeed the election itself can never have been much more than a form. Such a form allows no room for the proposing and supporting of opposing candidates, such as we know to have sometimes taken place at royal elections (see vol. i. pp. 291, 534, ii. p. 9). It happens at a stage when the King is already fixed upon, and when all that is needed is his actual admission to the kingly office. The reason for going through such an empty form probably was that, as the coronation was an ecclesiastical rite, it was thought fit that there should be at least the shadow of an ecclesiastical election, an election by the clergy, and by the people in their character, not of English freemen but of baptized men. The King-elect had been already chosen to the civil office; it still needed the voice of the Church, the voice of the clergy and of all Christian people, to declare him worthy of the ecclesiastical sacrament. This ecclesiastical election outlived the civil one, and it is singular to trace the steps by which it dwindled down to the present unmeaning form.

It is a most singular thing that a prayer in the office of Æthelred, or rather in an English office older than that of Æthelred, should have been copied for a King of the French in the fourteenth century, without changing those local expressions which were suited to England only. This curious fact was first mentioned by Selden (Titles of Honour, 177, 189; see also Maskell, 14). The form in Æthelred’s office prays that the King “totius Regni Anglo-Saxonum Ecclesiam deinceps cum plebibus sibi annexis ita enutriat et doceat, muniat et instruat, contraque omnes visibiles et invisibiles hostes idem potenter regaliterque tuæ virtutis regimen administret, ut regale solium videlicet Anglorum vel Saxonum sceptro [sceptrum] non deserat.” In the later English forms the old national names are left out. But in the order for the coronation of Charles the Fifth of France in 1375 (Selden, p. 189) the latter part runs thus, “ut regale solium videlicet Saxonum, Merciorum, Nordanchimbrorum sceptra non deserat.” Maskell also (14) quotes another French office, which instead of the words “totius Regni Anglo-Saxonum Ecclesiam” reads “totius Albionis Ecclesiam.” On this he quotes Ménard as arguing that the King of the French anciently had royal rights over the Kingdom of England, and that he was crowned King of the English. He suggests that these rights arose in the person of Lewis From-beyond-Sea, who might inherit a claim to the English Crown through his mother Ogiva (Eadgifu. See vol. i. p. 208). Nothing can be plainer than that the French scribes in both cases copied English offices, and seemingly two distinct English offices, of which that used for Charles the Fifth would seem to be older than the office of Æthelred. The formula “Saxonum, Merciorum, Nordanchimbrorum” must be older than the simple form “Anglorum vel Saxonum.” The passage also suggests another question. What are the “plebes annexæ,” annexed, as it would seem, to the Kingdom of the Angles and Saxons? Surely the reference is to the dependent members of the English Empire, a reference which had much less meaning in later English offices and which had no meaning at all in the French.

With regard to the unction, it strikes me that, according to the ancient English rite, the King was simply anointed on the head. The rubric in Æthelred’s office (Maskell, 19) copied in the French office (Selden, 116) is simply “hic unguatur oleo.” In the later offices the King is anointed on the hands, breast, shoulders, and elbows, and on the head last of all. In the very ancient office printed by Maskell (p. 76) from the Pontifical of Archbishop Ecgberht, the rubric is “hic verget oleum cum cornu super caput ipsius,” but another rubric follows, “unus ex pontificibus dicat orationem et alii unguant.” This may possibly mean such a manifold unction as we find in the later offices, but at any rate the order is different.

With regard to the regalia, the Tapestry represents Harold as holding the orb, which at a modern coronation is the subject of a special ceremony and is directly connected with the investiture with the “Imperial mantle” (Maskell, 114). But I do not find any form for the delivery of the orb in Æthelred’s office. The crown represented in the Tapestry seems to be a crown of fleurs-de-lys, which is the form of the crown worn by Eadward both on his deathbed and in the earlier scenes. It differs from that which has just before been represented as offered to Harold, it differs also from that which Harold bears on his coins, and none of them seems to have the cross on the top to which Godwine alludes in his speech in the great Gemót of 1052 (see vol. ii. p. 334).

NOTE F. p. 48.

THE DATE OF THE MARRIAGE OF HAROLD AND EALDGYTH.

It did not occur to me, when writing either the text or the Appendix of my second volume, that the marriage of Harold and Ealdgyth could be placed at any date except at some time between the death of her first husband Gruffydd and Harold’s election to the Crown. See vol. ii. p. 477. The different accounts which we have, not one of them of first rate authority, all connect the death of Gruffydd and the second marriage of his widow (see vol. ii. p. 630), as if no great time had elapsed between the two events. There is however no direct statement as to the date to be found anywhere, and one or two hints, none of them perhaps of any great strength singly, but having together a sort of cumulative force, have suggested to me that it is quite as likely that the marriage may have taken place after Harold’s coronation.

1. One of the fullest of the Accounts of Ealdgyth, which I quoted in vol. ii. p. 630, is that of Benoît de Ste. More, no great authority certainly. He, it will be remembered, places the death of Gruffydd, and consequently the marriage of his widow, after Harold’s accession. As to the death of Gruffydd he is of course wrong, but it is quite possible that he may have given the right date to the marriage, and may have wrongly inferred that the death of Gruffydd must have happened a short time before it.

2. What more immediately concerns us at this point is that none of the accounts of Harold’s coronation contains any mention of Ealdgyth, unless the expression of Orderic (quoted in vol. ii. p. 630), which follows almost immediately after his account of the coronation, and which might be understood to imply that Harold was already married, be taken as an exception. The words of Orderic however do not seem decisive. Neither of course is the absence of any mention of Ealdgyth’s coronation decisive the other way, but it is worth mentioning among other hints.

3. In none of the accounts of the messages which passed between William and Harold after Harold’s coronation is there a single word implying that Harold was already married, though some mention of his marriage would have been much to the purpose. And several of the versions imply that Harold could have married William’s daughter even after his coronation. Wace (Roman de Rou, 11088) thus sums up Harold’s offences;

“Por li regne se perjura, E li regne poi li dura. A tut li regne fist damage, E en tristor mist son lignage: Ne volt mie fille el Duc prendre, Ne cunvenant tenir ne rendre.”

So again in the Cartulary of Saint Bertin, p. 197 (a passage to which I shall have again to refer), the cause of William’s expedition is said to be “eo quod filiam ipsius Wilhelmi in uxorem accipere recusaverit [Haroldus].” This is hardly the language which would be used of a man who had already taken another wife. Perhaps too the words of William of Malmesbury (iii. 238) may look the same way. He tells us that Harold on his accession “nihil de pactis inter se et Willelmum cogitabat, liberatum se sacramento asserens quod filia ejus quam desponderat citra nubiles annos obierat.” This is in answer to a message of William, which must have included a summons to marry some one of his daughters. Harold answers that the particular daughter to whom he had engaged himself was dead. This is not at all like the language of a man who was already married.

In the account given by Eadmer (5), followed by Simeon of Durham (1066), it is still more distinctly implied that Harold could have married William’s daughter, even after his coronation. When Harold refuses to comply with William’s first demands, the Duke sends a second embassy, calling upon him at any rate to marry his daughter, which Harold refuses to do (“Iterùm ei amicâ familiaritate mandavit quatenùs, aliis omissis, servatâ fidei sponsione, saltem filiam suam uxorem duceret.... At ipse nec illud quidem se facere velle ... respondit”).

The statements quoted in the last two paragraphs are of course very confused and contradictory. Their evidence as bearing on the real nature of the engagements entered into between Harold and William I shall discuss elsewhere. But it is remarkable that, among several passages where we should have naturally looked for some mention of the marriage, if it had taken place, not one mentions it, while some distinctly imply that it had not taken place.

The political motive of the marriage would be much the same, whatever was its date. Whether it happened before or after Harold’s accession, it was most likely an attempt to secure the fidelity of Eadwine and Morkere. If it happened after the coronation, an obvious time for it would be the time of Harold’s recognition by the Northumbrians (see Note I).

I do not pretend positively to decide the question, as there is no direct testimony either way, but I think it right to mention that I have found what are at least hints favouring a view of the matter which had not occurred to me when I spoke of it in my former volume.

NOTE G. p. 51.

THE CHARACTER OF HAROLD’S GOVERNMENT.

I mentioned in a former note (vol. ii. p. 538) that Florence of Worcester, while showing a deep admiration for Harold throughout his career, keeps back his formal panegyric till he records his election to the Crown. Immediately after the passage on which I have commented in three successive notes, he draws a picture describing Harold as in every respect the model of a just, pious, and patriotic King.

“Haroldus ... ut regni gubernacula susceperat, leges iniquas destruere, æquas cœpit condere, ecclesiarum et monasteriorum patronus fieri, episcopos, abbates, monachos, clericos colere simul ac venerari, pium, humilem, affabilemque se bonis omnibus exhibere, malefactore exosos habere, nam ducibus, satrapis, vicecomitibus et suis in commune præcepit ministris, fures, raptores, regni disturbatores comprehendere et pro patriæ defensione ipsemet terrâ marique desudare.”

This of course is in some sense an ideal picture. That is to say, it does not refer only to Harold’s short reign as King. What Florence really means is that the just and vigorous government of Harold’s earlier days was continued by him after his royal election. Florence’s panegyric of Harold the King is in short identical in all its main features with the Biographer’s earlier panegyric of Harold the Earl. The words of Florence are copied by most of the writers who copy his account of the election and coronation, such as Simeon of Durham (1066), Roger of Howden (256 B), Ralph Higden (284), and the Ely History (ii. 44). It seems in short to have become a sort of formula with all writers who took the national side. The strangest thing is when Knighton (2337) gives it in an abridged shape, as an alternative character of Harold, after some of the most savage abuse on record, which I shall presently have to quote.

On the other hand, the abuse which the Norman writers hurl at the newly chosen King is something perfectly frantic. William of Poitiers, more careful for England than England was for herself, tells us (146, Giles) how William delivered the Kingdom which he conquered from the proud and cruel yoke of Harold (“Profectò sustulit a cervice tuâ superbum crudelemque dominatum Heraldi; abominandum tyrannum, qui te servitute calamitosâ simul et ignominiosâ premeret, interemit. Quod meritum in omni gente gratum habetur atque præclarum”). So Orderic tells us (492 A, D) how the reign which had begun in perjury and usurpation was carried on in tyranny and wickedness; “Heraldus Goduini Comitis filius regnum Anglorum usurpaverat, jamque tribus mensibus ad multorum detrimentum perjurio et crudelitate, aliisque nequitiis pollutus tenuerat.” So, directly after; “Mox ipse regnum quod nequiter invaserat, horrendis sceleribus maculavit.” He goes on to add how the righteous soul of Tostig, whom he fancies to have been in England, was vexed by the unlawful deeds of his brother (“Tosticus, Goduini Comitis filius, advertens Heraldi fratris sui prævalere facinus, et regnum Angliæ variis gravari oppressionibus, ægrè tulit”).

In the French Life of Eadward (4445 et seqq.) we begin to get details. After a little moralizing, we get a long account of Harold’s enormities, charging him with pretty nearly every vice, and telling us how he went on sinning, and how Eadward often appeared and rebuked him in vain. Then follows a further list of crimes, some of which are very curious;

“Deners cum usurer amasse, De gent reindre ne s’alasse, Cum vescunte al eschecker Set pur deners acunter; Armes e chivalerie

Del tut despit e ublie; Des hestoires n’enquert, n’en ot, Ne d’anciene geste un mot. Marchand meuz ke prince pert; K’of ses fardeus feires quert.”

(vv. 4491–4500.)

The complaint against Harold for neglect of historical study might surely be retorted on Eadward’s panegyrists and his own calumniators. But there is something very odd, something doubtless characteristic of the Sheriffs of the thirteenth century, in the picture of the King sitting “like a Sheriff” at the exchequer, counting over his money. This charge of avarice we shall come across again, and it perhaps contains a certain ground-work of truth. That is to say, the threatening aspect of the times, especially after Eadward’s lavish expenditure on ecclesiastical objects, called for a prudent economy, which was sure to be misunderstood. I do not understand what is meant by Harold’s contempt for arms and chivalry, which is repeated in an earlier and shorter revilement of him (vv. 4283–4310). It cannot mean contempt of the specially Norman chivalry, as the word is in this very passage applied to Harold’s own prowess. For the poet goes on to set forth Harold’s strength and courage in strong terms, though he adds that his frightful wickedness made his “chivalry” of no use to him.

I have already alluded to Knighton’s portrait of Harold’s kingly government; here it is in full (2339). Harold has just been crowned by Ealdred;

“Iste devenit nimis elatus et cupidus in collectione auri et argenti et thesaurorum, nec aliquam uxorem ducere voluit, sed vi oppressit filias baronum et procerum et militum de regno, quod ipsi ægrè ferebant. Et de forestis suis tantam ferocitatem et severitatem ergo adjacentes nobiliores exercuit, quod quamplures adnihilavit et multos depauperavit. Nec mirum, quamvis ex his et ex aliis nimis odiosus devenit populis suis.”

This charge of cruel enforcement of forest laws might almost seem to have been transferred from William to Harold. It reminds one of some of the doings of Charles the First in Essex. It is a charge which Sir Francis Palgrave (Hist. Ang. Sax. 346) has not scrupled to repeat, but, as Mr. C. H. Pearson (i. 362) truly says, there is not a shadow of evidence for it except the assertion of this writer of the fifteenth century. On the words in Italics I shall have to speak again. In those which follow Knighton might seem to have drawn his portrait from King John, and, to carry out the analogy, as Lewis was then, so William is now implored to come over to England as a deliverer.

“Et ideo pars Comitum et Baronum adinvicem conferebant, dicentes non ipsum esse fortunæ deditum, nec verum esse Regem sed per intrusionem erectum, et ideo infaustè regere populum suum. Et mandaverunt Willielmo Duci Normanniæ, qui Bastardus vocatus est, eo quod ante celebrationem matrimonii natus sit, ut in Angliam veniret eorum consilio et auxilio jus regni prosequuturus, feceruntque ei fidelem securitatem veniendi; et consensit.” Immediately after all this comes Florence’s panegyric, cut a little short, as an alternative picture.

After these general charges against Harold, it is only right to extract three entries from Domesday, all in the same shire and page (Hampshire, p. 38), in which Harold is described as seizing the lands of two persons after his accession to the Crown.

“Leman tenuit in paragio de Rege E. Heraldus abstulit ei quando regnum invasit, et misit in firmâ suâ, et adhuc ibi est.”

“Leman tenuit de Godwino Comite. Heraldus quando regnabat abstulit ei, et in suâ firmâ misit, et adhuc est ibi. Ipse Leman non potuit recedere quo voluit.”

“Godwin tenuit de Rege E. in paragio, nec alicubi poterat recedere. Heraldus abstulit ei et in firmâ suâ misit. Adhuc est ibi.”

I do not remember to have ever seen these passages quoted in illustration of the charge of private spoliation which is brought among other charges against Harold in the French Life. It is clear that they might be so used by any one who felt inclined. It is equally clear that we do not know enough about the matter to justify us in condemning Harold for dealings with his own tenants which may have been perfectly legal and honest. The entry does not even venture to call the occupation “unjust,” as it does with regard to Harold’s occupations in Herefordshire, and also with regard to many cases where Normans had taken lands from Englishmen and from one another. At any rate, if any wrong was done by Harold, it was not redressed by his successor. At the time of the Survey the lands were held, not by Leman and Godwine or by their descendants, but by King William.

I can hardly think that these entries are enough to make us set aside the portrait of Harold’s government given us by Florence in favour of that given by the French Biographer and by Knighton. And I believe it is the only corroborative evidence for that portrait that can be found. On the use of the word “regnabat” as applied to Harold, an use unique in Domesday, I shall have to speak in another volume.

NOTE H. p. 54.

THE COINAGE OF HAROLD.

Too much must not be made of the appearance of the word PAX on the coins of Harold. The word in various spellings, PAX, PACX, PAXS, appears on the coins of various Kings from Cnut to Henry the First. Still it is remarkable that the coins of Harold are singularly common, considering the shortness of his reign, and that, if I rightly understand my numismatic authorities, all his coins bear this legend, while with the other Kings it is only occasional, and with some of them, as with Cnut, very rare. I may add that Harold seems to have been the only King who could always spell the word right. Ingenious men have puzzled themselves to find out some special allusion in the word, as, in the case of the coins of Cnut, to the agreement between Cnut and Eadmund for the division of the Kingdom, and, in the case of the coins of Eadward and Harold, to the agreements made at the restoration of Godwine. I do not think that the word in any case implies anything more than the obvious religious or moral sentiment which it expresses. But it is certainly striking to find that sentiment so constantly expressed on the coins of the King who, above all others, needed peace, and who, through the aggressions of others, so utterly failed to find it.

On the whole matter see Ruding’s Annals of the Coinage, i. 137–166 (3rd ed.), and vol. iii. pl. 26. I have also to thank Mr. Leicester Warren for some private information contained in a letter to him from Mr. John Evans.

I am afraid of getting out of my depth when talking of either coins or crowns, but I cannot help noticing the marked difference between the arched crown set with pearls which appears on the coins of Harold and the singular kind of cap which is the commonest among the many head-pieces affected by Eadward. (See Ruding, iii. pl. 25, and Selden, Titles of Honour, 133, 134.) Is it possible that the monastic saint preferred the helm of the warrior, while the hero, in the same spirit which dictated the legend on the coin, chose to appear in the garb of a peaceful ruler?

NOTE I. p. 58.

THE OPPOSITION OF NORTHUMBERLAND TO HAROLD’S ACCESSION.

This story is one of the best illustrations of the way in which one authority fills up gaps in another, and also of the way in which important facts sometimes lurk in authorities which are not of the first rank. The Abingdon and Worcester Chronicles both begin their account of the year 1066 with Harold’s coming from York to Westminster for the Easter Festival (“On þissum geare com Harold cyng of Eoforwic to Westmynstre to þam Eastran”). There is not a word about his going to York or about the cause that took him there. This we learn only from the account in William of Malmesbury’s Life of Wulfstan (Angl. Sacr. ii. 253), which we thus see that we can fully trust for the main outline of the story. The jealousy of the North against the South is admirably described; only the narrative is confused by a notion that Tostig had something to do with the matter. William of Malmesbury seems never to have fully made up his mind where Tostig was at the time of Harold’s accession. His account of the whole business runs thus;

“Quinto anno collati Wlstano Episcopatûs Rex Edwardus fato functus ingens seminarium discordiæ reliquit Angliæ; hinc Haroldo, inde Willelmo Comite Normanniæ, legitimo eam jure clamantibus. Et tunc quidem Haraldus, vel favore impetratâ vel vi extortâ coronâ, regnum paullò minus totum obtinuit. Soli Northamhumbri magnum et gentile tumentes interim parere distulere, Aquilonalem cervicositatem Australi, ut dictitabant, mollitiei subjugare non dignati. Animabat eos ad tyrannidem, et insolentiâ suâ ingentes eorum alebat spiritus, Tostinus ejusdem Regis frater, nec fortitudine degener, si ardens ingenium tranquillis studiis applicare maluisset. Qui postmodum in eâdem provinciâ cum Haraldo Rege Noreganorum, quem in suffragium adsciverat, cæsus pœnas inconsultæ animositatis pependit. Sed hæc posteriùs. Tunc verò Haraldus eo profecturus, ut contumaciam eorum lenioribus curaret remediis, quandoquidem ferro frangere consilium non erat, sanctum virum secum adduxit. Sic enim fama sanctitatis ejus etiam ad abditissimas penetraverat gentes, ut nullam non arrogantiam molliturus crederetur. Nec verò citra opinionem rei fuit eventus. Namque illi populi ferro indomabiles, semper quiddam magnum a proavis spirantes, pro reverentiâ in jura Haraldi facile concesserunt. Et profectò perseverâssent, nisi eos Tostinus, ut dixi, averteret.”

This piece of history is not only valuable in itself, but it also helps us to the origin of a misrepresentation. We have seen Orderic (see above, p. 603) asserting that part of the English nation never submitted to Harold at all, while the rest submitted only unwillingly. This misstatement is clearly an exaggeration of the fact that Northumberland did for a short time refuse to acknowledge him. This same fact may quite possibly be at the bottom of those other stories about Harold’s oppression and tyranny of which we have heard so many. Orderic goes on to tell us (492 C) that, though some powerful men (“potentiorum nonnulli”) refused obedience, yet Eadwine and Morkere were zealous partizans of their brother-in-law (“Eduuinus verò et Morcarus Comites, filii Algari præcipui Consulis, Heraldo familiaritate adhæserunt, eumque juvare toto conamine nisi sunt, eò quod ipse Edgivam sororem eorum uxorem habebat”). There is no evidence that they were openly concerned in the resistance of Northumberland, though one certainly is inclined to put their names for the name of Tostig in William of Malmesbury’s account; but we know how they acted before the year was out.

It is doubtless on the strength of this passage of Orderic that Sir Francis Palgrave ventured to write (Hist. Ang. Sax. 362); “Some portions of the Anglo-Saxon dominions never seem to have submitted to Harold. In others a sullen obedience was extorted from the people, merely because they had not power enough to raise any other king to the throne.” In the page before he had said, “If our authorities are correct, Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, but who had been suspended by the Pope, was the only prelate who acknowledged his authority.” Now, unless Sir Francis merely meant that Harold never received the homage of Malcolm, the only ground for saying that any part of “the Anglo-Saxon dominions” refused to acknowledge Harold is the story of the resistance of Northumberland given by William of Malmesbury. But it is an essential part of that story that the resistance of Northumberland was peaceably overcome by Harold with the help of Saint Wulfstan. That is to say, instead of all the Prelates except Stigand refusing to acknowledge Harold’s authority, the holiest Prelate of the time appears as Harold’s most zealous partizan. The two parts of the story hang inseparably together. If we believe that part of England for a while refused allegiance to Harold, we must also believe that the sainted Bishop of Worcester was his most loyal subject.

I should not have enlarged on any faults in a work of Sir Francis Palgrave, written thirty years before his death, and which certainly does not represent the latest lights of that great scholar, if the worst portions of his early work had not been so injudiciously reprinted as stop-gaps between the fragments of that later work of his which every student of these times ought to have beside him.

NOTE K. pp. 67, 540.

THE POLITICAL POSITION OF THE LADY EADGYTH.

I am not aware of any mention of Eadgyth in any English writer between the death of Eadward and her own death (Chronn. Wig. Petrib. 1076; Fl. Wig. 1074). The accounts of the latter event however show that Winchester was her dwelling-place, and that she was in high honour with William.

I am now more inclined than I was in vol. i. p. 334 to look on Winchester as the actual morning-gift, first of Emma and then (by reversion or by the despoiling of Emma) of Eadgyth. It is plain that the city was the usual dwelling-place of each of the widowed Ladies in her widowhood. That Winchester was the morning-gift of Eadgyth is distinctly asserted by Guy of Amiens (see above, p. 541).

There are several indications that Eadgyth was not thoroughly loyal towards England. The only direct statements to that effect are certainly to be found only in very suspicious sources, but, weighing one thing with another, they seem not to be wholly without probability. William of Poitiers, in the midst of his savage abuse of Harold (126), adds, “Germana quoque, illi moribus absimillima, quum armis non valeret, votis inpugnabat et consilio.... Voluit autem virilis prudentiæ femina, intelligens honesta quælibet et vitâ colens, Willelmum Anglis dominari.” So the Hyde writer (290) says distinctly, “Haroldus, defuncto Edwardo, mox regnum Anglorum, contradicente Edithâ Reginâ sorore suâ, usurpavit.” I do not quite understand what the writer of the French Life means when he says (4075) that Harold

“Pur la reine Edith sa suer Fu cremuz e amez de cuer.”

When we remember Eadgyth’s preference for Tostig and her alleged complicity in one of his worst crimes, we may perhaps think it quite possible that she was no loyal subject of Harold. We may even be led to see a special meaning in the earnest request made by Eadward on his death-bed, that she should lose nothing of her rights and honours (see above, p. 15). And, when Tostig had fallen, it is even possible that she may have looked to William as being in some sort his avenger. She may also, at an earlier time, have fallen under the baneful fascination of her husband’s foreign favourites. And the Norman account, strange as it sounds, derives a certain corroboration from its very strangeness. It is the sort of thing which no one would have been likely to think of, if there had not been some real ground-work for it. And the honour shown to her by William, and the respect with which she is always treated by Norman writers, are in themselves suspicious. It was of course the obvious policy of William, representing himself as he did as the lawful successor of Eadward, to show every respect to the widow of his predecessor. But when we remember that that widow was also the sister of Harold, it is hardly honourable to her that William was able to carry out a policy of this kind. The other female members of her family found that England under William was no place for them. But while her mother, her sister, her nieces, were all in banishment, Eadgyth sat quietly at Winchester in all the honours of the Old Lady. In fact her character is a riddle from beginning to end, and her relations to her brothers are almost as mysterious as her relations to her husband.

NOTE L. p. 68.

THE AFFAIRS OF THE ABBEY OF ELY AT THE TIME OF HAROLD’S ACCESSION.

There are several points worth notice in the condition of the Abbey of Ely at the time of Harold’s election which it may be as well to speak of in the same place.

Abbot Wulfric, according to the Ely history (ii. 36), was appointed by Eadward in the year 1045, and he is described as being the King’s kinsman. “Rex Edwardus Wlfricum cognatum suum Abbatem ad jam dictum cœnobium apud Wintoniam assumpsit, ibique a Stigando Dorobernensi Archiepiscopo benedici fecit, tertio Regni sui anno, ab Incarnatione verò Domini millesimo quadragesimo quinto.” The writ then follows, which is also printed in Cod. Dipl. iv. 226, addressed, according to a common form, to the Bishops, Earls, Sheriffs, and Thegns generally of every shire where the Abbey had lands. The Abbotship is given by the King’s grant just like a Bishoprick (“Ic kýþe eów þæt ic habe geunnen Wlfríce þæt Abbotríce in Hely on eallen þingen” &c.).

This appointment made at Winchester would probably be made in the Easter Gemót of 1044, perhaps about the time when Abbot Siward was appointed Coadjutor-Archbishop to Eadsige (see vol. ii. p. 68). But there are one or two points of difficulty. That Stigand should be called Archbishop before his time by a writer living long after is not wonderful. But one does not see how he came to be performing an episcopal act over an Abbot whose church was not in either of his successive dioceses, and at a time (see vol. ii. p. 72) when it is not clear whether he was in possession of a diocese at all. There is also something puzzling in the description of Wulfric, as of several other persons, as King Eadward’s kinsman. We have seen Earl Odda so described (see vol. ii. p. 160), and Bishop Rudolf (see vol. ii. p. 120), and we also find the same name given to no less a person than Saint Eadmund of East Anglia himself. See Cod. Dipl. ii. 225, 226. Was Wulfric one of the house of Æthelwine, and was that house looked on as connected with Eadward through the first marriage of his grandmother Ælfthryth?

I infer that Wulfric died shortly before the death of Eadward from the words “mortuo nuper Wlfrico patre” in Hist. Elien. ii. 43. The historian gives two accounts of the appointment of Thurstan. In the second, in c. 43, he merely says that Harold “mox accepto regno Turstanum in Ely, mortuo nuper Wlfrico patre, ejusdem monasterii constituit Abbatem, virum probatæ virtutis et abstinentiæ, Anglicè et Latinè sufficienter a puero ipso in loco edoctum.” The earlier account in c. 41 runs thus; “Post decessum vero Abbatis Wlfrici, Stigandus Doroberniæ Archiepiscopus, Abbatiam de Ely, sed et episcopatus atque abbatias sibi assumpsit plurimas, et gratiâ utriusque Domini sui, Edwardi scilicet et Haroldi Regum, eas propriis pastoribus viduatas quamdiu voluit in suâ manu tenuit, et quibus voluit personis conferebat. Nam Wintoniensem, Glastoniensem, Sancti Albani, et Sancti Augustini, et Elyensem ante Turstanum Abbatem, abbatias in manu suâ receperat, et velut proprias possidebat. Ipso quoque suggerente, Haroldus, qui regni sceptra tenebat, ipsum Turstanum ab eodem Stigando benedici fecit.”

With this benediction of Thurstan by Stigand we may compare the benediction of Æthelsige by Stigand in 1061 (see vol. ii. p. 454). Compare also Æthelsige’s pluralities at Canterbury and Ramsey (see vol. ii. p. 455), and the strange story about Stigand himself holding the Abbey of Gloucester (see vol. ii. p. 638). Compare also the case of Ealdred at Winchcombe (see vol. ii. p. 362), and the vast pluralities of Abbot Leofric (see vol. ii. p. 349). Nevertheless I conceive that there is here a good deal of exaggeration as to Stigand’s pluralities. The Abbey of Winchester, meaning seemingly the New Minster, seems to be confounded with the bishoprick. We know the succession of Abbots of New Minster (see vol. ii. p. 644), among whom Stigand does not occur, and of Saint Swithun’s he was necessarily Abbot as Bishop of Winchester. And if Stigand ever held any of the other abbeys spoken of, it must have been for the shortest possible time. We have seen the regular succession of abbots at Glastonbury (see vol. ii. p. 361), and also at Saint Augustine’s in the person of Æthelsige, mentioned just above as blessed by Stigand himself. Neither do I find any mention of an incumbency of Stigand in the local history of Saint Alban’s.

The detention by Stigand of lands belonging to the Abbey is asserted in the local history, ii. 41; “Stigandus, quamvis substituto illic Abbate, caussas ecclesiæ agebat, sed quasdam illius optimas possessiones, sicut Liber Terrarum insinuat, ad maximum loci dispendium retinuit.” The reference to the “Liber Terrarum,” the local Domesday, should be noticed. I do not quite know what is meant by “caussas ecclesiæ agebat,” unless it be that Stigand, while robbing the house himself, defended it against other people.

The charge here brought against Stigand is the same as that which was also brought against Archbishop Ealdred and Bishop Ælfweard. See vol. ii. pp. 69, 467, 551. But there is an entry in Domesday which may perhaps suggest another view of his conduct. In fol. 40 b we read of certain lands in Hampshire which “Abbatia de Ely tenuit de Stigando Archiepiscopo T. R. E.,” but which, at the time of the Survey, belonged to the see of Winchester. Is it not possible that these were the lands in question, and that Stigand’s appropriation of them was simply the resumption of a lease?

The Abbey of Ely had at this time a somewhat remarkable inmate. This was one Osmund, who had been a Bishop in Sweden, reminding one of Eadward’s kinsman Rudolf, who had been a Bishop in Norway, and whom Eadward quartered on the monks of Abingdon (see vol. ii. p. 160). The Ely historian (ii. 42) speaks of Osmund with great reverence, but Adam of Bremen (iii. 14) calls him “acephalus” and “girovagus,” and charges him with teaching false doctrine. He seems to have tried to set himself up as an independent Metropolitan of Sweden in opposition to the see of Hamburg. Refused consecration at Rome, he obtained it “a quodam Polaniæ Archiepiscopo,” that is, it would seem, from Stephen, Archbishop of Gnesen from 1038 to 1059. He came back to Sweden, professing to have been consecrated by the Pope as Archbishop of Sweden. When Papal Legates, members of the church of Bremen, came to complain, he wrought so upon King Emund and the Swedish people, that the Legates were sent away as not having proper credentials (“Solitis populum Regemque impulit dolis, ut legati repellerentur, quasi non habentes sigillum Apostolici”). At last (Adam, iii. 70) the famous Adalbert, Archbishop of Hamburg (1043–1072), the early guardian of Henry the Fourth, held a visitation of Scandinavia by authority of Pope Alexander the Second, and quietly removed (“dimisit hilaris”) several irregularly ordained Bishops, including Osmund. This must have been between 1061 and 1065. Osmund came to England and won great favour with Eadward and with all the great men of the land, but, charmed with the piety of the monks of Ely and their Abbot, he retired to their house, joined their brotherhood, and discharged episcopal functions among them—an early case, like that of Rudolf, of a Bishop in partibus. He died in Thurstan’s time, and was buried at Ely and afterwards translated.

NOTE M. p. 72.

THE COMET OF 1066.

This comet evidently made the deepest impression in every part of Europe. It is recorded in nearly every chronicle everywhere, and it is very generally, even by men who have no special connexion either with England or with Normandy, accepted as a presage of the Conquest of England. Our usual English and Norman authorities record it also; but I have preferred to collect a few of the more remarkable entries in the annals of more distant countries. I will give some specimens from the writers of Germany, of Southern Gaul, and of Italy.

The Chronicle of Saint Andrew at Cambray (Pertz, vii. 537) has a most remarkable entry;

“De bello in Angliâ facto. Anno autem Dei Christi 1066 ad occidentalem plagam unus ex cometis admodùm visu terribilis, crinitos radios velut flammigeras hastas emittens, vespere solem sequens per octodecim dies apparuit. Quod genus sideris quòd erunt bella aut famem aut pestilentiam portendere solet. Hoc regni etiam mutationem ipsâ suâ apparitione præsignavit. Nam Wilelmus Normannorum Comes, paratâ non parvâ classe, assumptâ magnâ militiâ, mare pertransiit.”

A short narrative of the Conquest of England follows. So the Chronicle of Ekkehard (vi. 199) also directly connects the comet with William’s expedition, of the results of which it gives a very exaggerated account;

“A.D. 1066. Cometes per totum orbem diu apparuit. Eodem anno Angliâ per Willihelmum Nortmannicum miserabiliter afflictâ tandemque subactâ, ipse Rex ejus effectus est. Qui mox omnes penè regni ejusdem præsules exsilio, nobiles verò morti, destinavit, mediocres autem suis militibus in servitutem, uxores indigenarum universorum advenis in matrimonium subjugavit.”

Abbot Hugh’s Chronicle of Verdun (Labbé, i. 194) says, “Millesimo quoque LXV. anno, Ind. iii. stella quæ cometes dicitur apparuit, et eodem anno Etuuardus Angi. Rex obiit.” (See the rest of the passage in p. 603.)

Still more distinct is the Chronicle of Saint James at Lüttich (Pertz, xvi. 639; Bouquet, xi. 294); “Cometes apparuit, quæ bellum Angliæ portendit, quam Guillelmus Normannorum Comes, ipsâ cum Rege suo Hero [sic] gravissimâ cæde mulctatâ, vi militari corripuit, regnumque victor obtinuit.”

Adam of Bremen we have almost learned to look on as a writer Scandinavian rather than German. He (iii. 50, 51) connects the comet with English affairs, but he does not give them the precedence. He first mentions the death of Godescalc (see vol. i. p. 650) and other events nearer home, and then adds,

“Et, nisi fallor, hæc mala nobis ventura significavit ille horribilis cometa qui isto apparuit anno circa dies paschæ. Eodem quoque tempore clades illa memorabilis in Angliâ facta est, cujus magnitudo, et quod Anglia Danis ex antiquo subjecta est, summam nos eventuum præterire non sinit.”

He then goes on with that short sketch of English affairs, from which I have several times had occasion to quote piecemeal.

Other German accounts which connect the comet with England will be found in the Annales Blandinienses (Pertz, v. 26), in the Annales Formoselenses (v. 36), in the Chronicle of Conrad of Ursperg (p. ccxxxiii.), and in Marianus (Pertz, v. 559), whose curious account of this year I have often had occasion to quote. See also Sigebert (vi. 361) and the Saxon Annalist (vi. 694), who oddly describes William as “filius illius Roberti quem Ricardus Comes Nortmannorum ex sorore Knut Regis Danorum genuerat.”

To these German writers I may add the Pole Dlugoss, the latest in time and also the most distant from England. He tells us (i. 260, ed. Leipzig, 1711); “Cometes stella in occidentem facem dirigens apparuit, plura mala quibus et Almaniæ et Britanniæ regiones afflictæ fuerunt designans. In Britanniâ, quæ nunc Anglia dicitur, Rex Eraldus occiditur, et in Almaniâ principes variis cædibus in se debacchantur.”

Of German writers who do not connect the comet with England I may mention Berthold (Pertz, v. 273) and Bernold (v. 428). But the most remarkable entry is that of Lambert (1066), who connects the comet with English affairs, but looks on it as presaging, not Senlac, but Stamfordbridge;

“In festis paschalibus per quatuordecim ferè noctes continuas cometa apparebat. Quo in tempore atrox et lacrimabile nimis prœlium factum est in partibus Aquilonis, in quo Rex Anglisaxonum tres Reges cum infinito eorum exercitu usque ad internecionem delevit.” (On these three Kings see Note CC.)

Turning to Southern Gaul, the Chronicle of Saint Maxentius (Labbé, ii. 211) not only connects the comet with England, but ventures to give a rash judgement in a matter of English constitutional Law. “1066. Stella cometes apparuit. Willermus Comes, filius Roberti supradicti Comitis Normanniæ, transiens mare conflixit cum Airaudo, pseudo-Rege Anglorum, quem devicit cum ipsâ gente, et terram eamdem in suam ditionem recepit.” Another Aquitanian Chronicler, William Godell, is less certain about the matter (Bouquet, xi. 284). “Hoc anno cometes apparuit in vigiliâ Sancti Marci, significans fortasse abundantiam effusi Christiani sanguinis quam terra in regno Anglorum absorbuit.” See also the Chronicle of Saint Benignus at Dijon (Pertz, v. 42), and that of the Campanian Chalons (Labbé, i. 296). The Rheims Chronicle (Labbé, i. 360) throws its notice of the year into two hexameters, which appear in a great number of forms;

“Sexagenus erat sextus millesimus annus, Quum pereunt Angli stellâ monstrante cometâ.”

Abbot Baldric, in his verses on William (Duchèsne, Rer. Franc, iv. 257), has quite a different couplet. William is one

“Indice qui cœlo, qui præsagante cometâ Anglos innumeris stragibus obtinuit.”

Getting nearer our usual beat, the Breton Chronicle of Quimperlé on the one hand (Bouquet, xi. 372), and the Chronicle of Lambert of Saint Omer (Pertz, v. 65) on the other, both bring in the mention of English affairs, though the Breton writer mixes them up with things which to him were nearer home. Lastly, one of the Angevin Chronicles (Labbé, i. 288) looks on the comet as the sign of many woes to many nations. The Conquest of England comes first, but events which more immediately touched Anjou had also something to do with it. “In hoc anno apparuit cometa terribilis, multarum calamitatum in sequentibus annis subsequutarum, ut post patuit, portentrix. Nam in ipso anno Comes Normannorum Guillelmus Anglorum regnum magno periculo aggressus impugnare, bello publico magnâ et miserabili cæde cruento expugnavit, atque in Regem levatus coronari se fecit.” He then goes on to speak of Conan’s invasion of Anjou and his death, and of the wars between the brother Counts Geoffrey and Fulk.

Of the Italian chronicles I have already quoted one, the Annals of Beneventum (see p. 71). The Annales Cavenses (Pertz, iii. 180) connect the comet only with local affairs. But at Bari the Norman name was more familiar, and Lupus Protospatarius (Pertz, v. 59) recorded William’s victory, though he did not know his name. “1067. Et hoc anno apparuit stella cometes, et Comes Normannus Robertus fecit bellum cum Araldo Rege Anglorum, et vicit Robertus, qui et factus est Rex super gentem Anglorum.”

All our usual authorities record the appearance, and all, I think, in its proper chronological order, except William of Poitiers, who brings it in afterwards (139) at the end of his apostrophe against Harold.

The different statements as to the number of days during which the comet was visible are remarkable, and I must leave it to astronomers to reconcile them. But I cannot help thinking that the time of thirty days, spoken of in two chronicles only, one of which seems evidently to copy from the other, must be an exaggeration. The fourteen days of Wace (11462) and the fifteen of William of Jumièges (vii. 31) and Benoît (36778) doubtless mean the same thing, according to the usual French idiom. And, as the seven days of the English Chronicles and Sigebert (vi. 301) would, according to the same idiom, be eight, I cannot but think that the eighteen days of the Cambray annalist are owing to a confusion between the two accounts. If so, we have only two statements, one of a week, the other of a fortnight. The latter rests on the authority of Lambert and of William of Jumièges; the French metrical writers simply follow William.

Some notice of this comet will be found in Chambers’ Descriptive Astronomy, pp. 281–3, for sending me to which, and for some other hints, I have to thank Professor H. J. S. Smith. It seems to be that which is called Halley’s Comet, which has since appeared in 1145, 1223, 1301, 1378, 1456, 1531, 1682, 1759, and 1835. The appearance in 1145 is mentioned in the Angevin Chronicle in Labbé, i. 277, and in the Tewkesbury Annals for 1144 (Luard, Ann. Mon. i. 46), where it may possibly be connected with Stephen’s wars. The appearance of 1223 is mentioned in the Rouen Chronicle (Labbé, i. 374) under 1222; “Hoc anno visa est stella circum occasum solis Decembrilis, primæ magnitudinis, ardens velut facula, radios sursum erigens, et in acutum velut in conum colligens terræ vicina videbatur, quod aliquod prodigium portendere ferebatur. Hanc dicebant esse cometam.” It must also have appeared in 912 and 989, but I do not find those appearances mentioned in our Chronicles, though comets are mentioned in 905 or 906, 975, and 995.

Dr. Bruce (p. 86) quotes Mr. Hinde for the fact, which was also mentioned to me by Professor Smith, that the comet of 1066 is mentioned in the Chinese annals. Mr. Chambers tells us that they also mention its appearance in 1378—a year, by the way, quite memorable enough for any comet. “It was equal to the full moon in size, and its train, at first small, increased to a wonderful length.”

I have no doubt at all that the group in the Tapestry which immediately follows the representation of the comet itself represents Harold as hearing of its appearance and its interpretation. I cannot think with Mr. Planché (p. 147) and Dr. Bruce (p. 87) that Harold is receiving the news of the landing of Tostig or of anything else. There is no mention of Tostig or his invasion throughout the Tapestry, with whose subject they had indeed only an indirect connexion. It is most unlikely that an incidental and most obscure reference to Tostig’s invasion should lurk in a part of the Tapestry so completely inappropriate both as to time and subject. Nor can the figure speaking to the King represent William’s ambassador or any one directly connected with William. The story of William’s expedition begins from the very beginning in the next compartment, where the ship takes the news of Harold’s accession to Normandy. The present group ends the story of Eadward’s death and Harold’s accession. It follows immediately on the Comet, and it seems connected with it. The speaker is surely the interpreter of the sign, and that interpreter a μάντις κακῶν, a Kalchas or a Micaiah. It is quite possible that what Dr. Bruce calls “the dreamy-like flotilla” in the border may be meant darkly to set forth the nature of his interpretation, and so to act as a connecting link between this compartment and that which comes next after it.

NOTE N. p. 80.

THE MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM AND MATILDA.

That William’s marriage with Matilda was forbidden by Papal authority, and that the Papal dispensation for the marriage did not issue till some years after the marriage had been celebrated, are facts which have long been known. But the remarkable paper communicated by Mr. Stapleton in 1846 to the Archæological Journal (iii. 1) threw a new light on the whole matter. The essay, like all Mr. Stapleton’s writings, is brimful of curious learning, but, as usual, his power of arranging and making use of his facts is by no means equal to his diligence and acuteness in bringing them together.

Mr. Stapleton’s propositions, as far as I can disentangle them, are three;

First, That Matilda, before her marriage with William, was mother of two children, Gerbod and Gundrada, whose father was Gerbod, known as the Advocate of Saint Bertin.

Secondly, That the ecclesiastical opposition to the marriage of William and Matilda was not owing—at least not wholly owing—to any consanguinity or affinity between them, but to the fact that Matilda, at the time of William’s courtship, had a husband still living.

Thirdly, That the delay in the celebration of the marriage was caused by the necessity of obtaining a divorce.

Of these three propositions Mr. Stapleton has, I think, convincingly made out the first; the second and third I cannot accept.

That Gundrada, the wife of Earl William of Warren, was the daughter of Matilda, but not the daughter of King William, is manifest from the language employed by Earl William in his grant to the Priory of Lewes (Stapleton, Arch. Journ. iii. 21; Monasticon, v. 12). He makes his gifts

“Pro salute animæ meæ et animæ Gundradæ uxoris meæ et pro animâ domini mei Willelmi Regis, qui me in Angliam terram adduxit, et per cujus licentiam monachos venire feci, et qui meam priorem donationem confirmavit, et pro salute dominæ meæ Matildis Reginæ, matris uxoris meæ, et pro salute domini mei Willelmi Regis, filii sui, post cujus adventum in Anglicam hanc cartam feci, et qui me Comitem Surreiæ fecit.”

It is utterly inconceivable that Earl William would have used this language, if King William had been the father of his wife. In such a case he would have described his wife as the daughter of King William. He would never have drawn the pointed distinction which he does draw between Matilda his lady, the mother of his wife, and William his lord, who has done for him such and such favours. On the other hand there is the earlier charter of King William himself to the same Priory, which is granted, according to the text in the Monasticon (v. 13),

“Pro animâ domini et antecessoris mei Regis Eduuardi, et pro animâ patris mei Comitis Rotberti, et pro meâ ipsius animâ et uxoris meæ Matildis Reginæ, et filiorum atque successorum nostrorum, et pro animâ Guillelmi de Warrennâ et uxoris suæ Gondradæ filiæ meæ et heredum suorum.”

Here William, according to the received text, certainly calls Gundrada his daughter. But the manuscript is said to be nearly illegible, and the reading to be very doubtful. Mr. Stapleton (p. 2) for the words after “Gondradæ” silently reads “pro me et heredibus meis.” Mrs. Green (i. 72) mentions that the words “filiæ meæ” are clearly in a different and later hand. This is admitted by Mr. Blaauw, in an article in the Archæologia (xxxii. p. 108), written expressly in answer to Mr. Stapleton, but he argues that the insertion represents the true reading, and objects to Mr. Stapleton’s reading on other grounds. But it strikes me that Mr. Blaauw’s text, if genuine, does not upset Mr. Stapleton’s position. The words “filiæ meæ,” taken by themselves, would of course prove the person spoken of to be William’s own daughter. But they must be taken in connexion with the other charter of William of Warren. It is far more likely that a man should use the words “filia mea” of his wife’s daughter—his own daughter for many purposes of law—than that a man should speak of his wife’s parents in the extraordinary way which we must attribute to William of Warren, if Gundrada really was William’s daughter.

Another Lewes charter (Monasticon, v. 14), in which Matilda is spoken of as the mother of Gundrada—“Mathildis Regina, mater Henrici Regis et Gundradæ Comitissæ”—is of course evidence for Matilda being the mother of Gundrada as well as of Henry, but it does not prove them to have been children of the same father. It is plain why those two only among Matilda’s children are spoken of. Henry was the reigning King, Gundrada was the local benefactress.

The documentary evidence then seems distinctly to show that Gundrada was the daughter of Matilda, but not the daughter of William. One charter plainly implies that she was so; the others do not imply the contrary. But this is not all. There are two passages of Orderic, both quoted by Mr. Stapleton, which imply that Gundrada had a brother Gerbod, and that neither of them was son or daughter of William. Mr. Blaauw answers that Orderic’s authority is weak on this point, as he stumbles, if he does not contradict himself, in his whole account of William’s daughters. Now certainly, if Orderic simply left out Gundrada in a list of William’s daughters, the omission would prove nothing whatever against the least direct proof that she was his daughter. But it proves much more, when Orderic speaks of her incidentally in a way in which it is quite impossible that he should have spoken of a daughter of William, and when he gives her a brother whom no man ever for a moment fancied to be William’s son. In one of these two places (522 C) Orderic tells us that William the Conqueror gave the Earldom of Surrey “Guillelmo de Guarennâ, qui Gundredam sororem Gherbodi conjugem habuit.” In the other place (522 A; cf. 598 A) Orderic recounts the adventures of “Gherbodus Flandrensis,” his investiture with the Earldom of Chester, his return to his own country, and his misfortunes there. It is clear that Orderic did not look on Gundrada as a daughter of William; she was in his eyes simply the sister of Gerbod. Gundrada and Gerbod were therefore, beyond all doubt, children of Matilda, but they were not children of William. But I do not understand Mr. Stapleton when (pp. 20, 25) he gives them another brother, and Matilda another son, named Frederick. He must have been thinking of the Frederick whose existence he had himself established in p. 3. But this Frederick, as appears from Domesday, 196 b, was brother, not of Gundrada, but of her husband William of Warren.

Matilda then was the mother of Gerbod and Gundrada, but who was their father? There does not seem to be any distinct proof, but the Flemish charters collected by Mr. Stapleton (pp. 17–19) show that there was a whole succession of Gerbods, holding the office of Advocate (Advocatus, Avoué) of the Abbey of Saint Bertin at Saint Omer, and who are often simply described as Gerbod the Advocate. These Gerbods range over nearly the whole of the eleventh century, from 1026 to the reign of Robert the Frisian, that is between 1071 and 1093. There is, for instance (p. 17), a charter of Baldwin the Fourth in 1026, and among the signatures is “Signum Gerbodonis Advocati.” The same signature is added to charters of Baldwin the father of Matilda in 1056 (Cartulary of Saint Bertin, p. 181) and 1067. In the later charters up to 1087 we find mention of Gerbod and his wife Ada (p. 201), and of Gerbod and his brother Arnulf. Mr. Stapleton supposes—he seems to have no evidence but that of the charters themselves—that Gerbod the husband of Ada is the Earl of Chester and son of Matilda, and that Gerbod and Arnulf were their sons. This is in every way probable, but I cannot follow him when he assumes that the signatures of 1026, 1056, and 1067 all belong to one Gerbod, the father of the Earl of Chester and, according to him, the first husband of Matilda. This assumption seems to be the only ground for the inference that Matilda’s first husband was living at the time of her marriage with William, and that therefore the delay and difficulty about the marriage was caused by the necessity of obtaining a divorce. But it is surely simpler and more obvious to take the signature of 1026 to be that of her husband, and those of 1056 and 1067 to be those of her son. With the Gerbod of 1056 or, considering how young he must have been, with those who acted in his name, the Abbey of Saint Bertin had rather fierce disputes. See the narrative in the Cartulary, p. 183, and Count Baldwin’s charter, pp. 184, 185.

I therefore accept the marriage, but the theory of the divorce seems to me quite untenable on every ground. It is remarkable enough that no hint should be found in any contemporary writer that Matilda had been married before her marriage with William, and that we are driven to infer the fact from the language of charters and from the most casual indications elsewhere. But we have more than one parallel case in Norman history. The Norman writers are absolutely silent about the marriage between Duke Robert and Estrith the sister of Cnut (see vol. i. p. 521). So again, we should never have known from the Encomiast of Emma that she ever was the wife of Æthelred. In his courtly pages the sister of Duke Richard is a virgin (see vol. i. p. 454) when she marries Cnut. So in the Norman writers Matilda is ever the daughter of Baldwin, never the widow of Gerbod. And, as Emma is called virgo, so Matilda is called puella, pucelle, demoiselle. But, if she is never called the widow of Gerbod, still less is she called his wife. In the case of Cnut and Emma, we know the real facts from the testimony of both English and Norman writers. In the case of William and Matilda, the Norman writers, in the silence of the English, have it all their own way, and we are left to the evidence of the documents. The English writers are silent through indifference; the Norman writers are silent through design. The best informed of all, William of Poitiers, leaves out the fact that there was any opposition to the marriage at all. But, if William’s marriage had been, not simply irregular or uncanonical, but a glaring act of adultery, committed in open defiance of a Papal command, it is hardly conceivable that so astounding a fact should have failed to find any chronicler.

Again, it may perhaps seem strange if William, when in search of a wife, preferred a widow with children to all the princely maidens who, we are told, were to be had for the asking. But it would be far stranger if, with so wide a field before him, his choice lighted on the married wife of another man. Would the wise men of Normandy have recommended such a step? Would Count Baldwin have consented to expose his daughter to such manifest shame? Would the Papal prohibition of the marriage have taken the form which it did take (see above, p. 89)? Would Pope Leo and the Council of Rheims have simply forbidden Count Baldwin to give his daughter in marriage to William the Norman? Would they not rather have warned William and Matilda, as later assertors of discipline warned Philip and Bertrada, against an act of shameless adultery? Can we conceive that Lanfranc would have stooped to interest himself in obtaining a dispensation for the guilty pair, or that a dispensation would ever have been granted by the most complying Pontiff? Such a dispensation could have been granted only on proof of some canonical impediment which rendered the former marriage of Gerbod and Matilda null and void. No proof of such an impediment is produced. It was a daring act on the part of William, Matilda, and Baldwin to contract an uncanonical marriage in the teeth of a direct Papal prohibition. But they would never have ventured on a step breathing such defiance to all law and morals as a marriage between a man and another man’s wife, contracted on the chance that her first marriage might be proved to be illegal.

I hold then that Gerbod was dead before 1049, and that the objection to William’s marriage with his widow was simply one of the usual canonical objections on the ground of kindred or affinity. This is asserted by all the writers who mention the subject (see above, pp. 94, 102, 106). But there is no small difficulty in making out what the nearness of kin between William and Matilda was. Mr. Stapleton (p. 22) assumes that their kindred consisted in the fact that Matilda’s “grandmother was a daughter of Duke Richard the Second of Normandy, and aunt of William the Conqueror.” If this could be made out, William and Matilda would clearly be within the prohibited degrees. But the pedigree does not seem to be at all certain. Baldwin the Bearded, Matilda’s grandfather, undoubtedly married a daughter of Richard the Good (Will. Gem. v. 13). But she could not have been the mother of Baldwin of Lisle. A daughter of Richard and Judith could not have been born before 1010 (see vol. ii. p. 586), at which time the younger Baldwin was a grown man, capable of marrying and rebelling against his father. Baldwin the Bearded must have been quite an old man when he married the daughter of Duke Richard. Moreri (art. Flandre) and the Art de Vérifier les Dates (iii. 4) both say, but without references, that she had no children, and the first wife of Baldwin the Bearded, the mother of Baldwin of Lisle and grandmother of Matilda, is called by them Ogiva of Luxemburg. This is doubtless the “Otgiva” or “Odgiva [Eadgifu?] Comitissa” who died in 1030 or 1031 (Ann. Baldinienses and Formoselenses, Pertz, v. 26, 35), only five or six years before Baldwin’s death. Oudegherst (Annales de Flandre, 63, 67, 75), who calls her Ognie and Odgona, has much to say about her, and about her son’s wonderful birth when she was fifty years old. However all this may be, it seems perfectly clear that Matilda was not the granddaughter of any daughter of Richard the Good. Failing Richard the Good, I cannot suggest any other common ancestor for William and Matilda, but it is quite possible that the marriage of William’s aunt with Matilda’s grandfather may have been held to produce some kind of affinity between William and Matilda.

Prevost, in his note on Wace (ii. 60), has a suggestion of the same kind, namely, that the canonical impediment was the affinity arising from the fact that Matilda’s mother, Adela of France, had been married, or rather betrothed, to William’s uncle, Richard the Third (cf. Palgrave, iii. 264). Again I am not canonist enough to say whether this would really have been any impediment to a marriage between Richard’s nephew and Adela’s daughter; but there seems to be no doubt that Richard the Third was married or contracted to Adela, daughter of King Robert. His marriage contract with an Adela, dated 1026, in which he endows her with large possessions, mainly in the Côtentin, is printed in D’Achery, Spicilegium, iii. 390, and Licquet, Hist. de Normandie, ii. 269 (see also Palgrave, iii. 137). M. Licquet (ii. 5) maintains that this Adela is not King Robert’s daughter, but some unknown wife of the name, whom he holds to have been the lawful mother of the monk Nicolas (see above, p. 380, and vol. i. p. 518). His chief grounds for this belief are that Adela is not described as the King’s daughter, and that the words of the deed (“annulo mihi in carnis unitate jungendam”) imply that the bride was already a grown woman, whereas Adela the daughter of King Robert was, in 1026, a babe in her cradle. Now the deed is drawn up in a rhetorical style; “Domina Adela” is once addressed in the vocative case, and that is the only mention of her name, though she is told that she is “juxta nobilitatis tuæ lineam dotata.” All this looks to me as if she was the King’s daughter, for whom the city and county of Coutances, and a good deal more, which the deed bestows upon her, would surely not be an unworthy dowry. As to her age, the statement that she was then an infant rests on the authority of William of Jumièges, which is generally very good, but which is in this case contradicted by dates. He says (vi. 6) that the elder Baldwin, at some time after the accession of Duke Robert in 1028, took away Adela as a babe from King Robert’s court, and brought her up as his son’s bride till she was marriageable (“A palatinis tricliniis adeptam tulit, et ad domum propriam in cunis asportavit, eamque usque ad annos nubiles diligenti curâ nutrivit”). But we read directly after that the younger Baldwin, puffed up by his royal connexion (“mox ut nobilis puellæ amplexibus cœpit frui”), rebelled against his father, who was restored by Duke Robert (see vol. i. p. 519). All this is said to have happened about the time of the death of King Robert (“quâ tempestate Robertus Rex Francorum moritur”), which took place in 1031. These two statements, in the same chapter, cannot be made to agree. The truth is that Adela could not possibly have been a mere baby in 1026. Her parents, Robert and Constance, were married in 998; her daughter Matilda was the mother of two children before 1049. Compare the imaginary genealogy of Herleva, vol. ii. p. 583.

Adela then, who was betrothed to Duke Richard, is the same person as Adela, daughter of King Robert, wife of Count Baldwin, and mother of Matilda. Richard’s early death seems to have hindered her actual marriage with him, but it may have been held that she had contracted an affinity with the ducal house of Rouen which made it unlawful for her daughter to marry Duke Richard’s nephew. Either then of these possible grounds of affinity, the marriage of the elder Baldwin with the daughter of Richard the Good or the marriage of the younger Baldwin with the betrothed wife of Richard the Third, seems to me far more probable than Mr. Stapleton’s theory of the divorce. It is also supported by the witness of all those writers who speak of the kindred between the parties. The expressions “cognata,” “consanguineum cubile,” &c., are indeed not strictly accurate, as the connexion was only by affinity; but it is far more likely that the writers who use them should laxly apply to affinity words which strictly refer only to kindred, than that they should speak in this way when the impediment really was that Matilda had a husband living. Mr. Stapleton’s arguments against this view seem singularly inconclusive. “The peculiarity of the birth of William the Conqueror,” he tells us (p. 22), “as being illegitimate, certainly forbids such a conclusion, coupled with the silence of the Pope at the Council of Rheims.” The Pope’s silence surely cuts one way as much as another. As for William’s bastardy, Mr. Stapleton would hardly argue that Duke Robert could have lawfully married Herleva’s mother or sister, or that William, as nullius filius, could have lawfully married his own mother or sister. William’s kindred with Eadward is constantly insisted on, notwithstanding his bastardy, and one cannot doubt that a marriage between him and one of the daughters of Emma would have been thought unlawful. Mr. Stapleton presently (p. 24) mentions the foundation of the Abbeys, and adds with some triumph that “no papal bull attests that this penance was enjoined merely for marrying within the degrees of kindred.” Still less does Mr. Stapleton produce any Papal bull attesting that it was enjoined for a shameless and obstinate course of adultery.

There is indeed one other view, that maintained by M. Licquet (ii. 131) and followed by Mrs. Green (English Princesses, i. 4), namely that there was no real impediment to the marriage from either kindred or affinity, but that Pope Leo simply forbade the marriage on political grounds. Leo, the firm friend of the Emperor, did not wish to strengthen so doubtful a vassal of the Empire as Baldwin (see vol. ii. p. 97) by so close a connexion with the Duke of the Normans. This is unlikely in itself and unsupported by evidence. Even Papal authority could hardly go so far as to forbid a marriage to which there was no canonical objection; and if Leo did so, a prohibition arising from a temporary political cause would not have been so rigidly maintained by so many successive Pontiffs. And the place which the prohibition holds among the Acts of the Council distinctly shows that it was aimed against a contemplated breach of the ecclesiastical law of marriage. It comes in the middle of a series of citations and excommunications all aimed at offenders of that class, and among which a merely political prohibition would be strangely out of place. M. Licquet, like Mr. Stapleton, appeals to the silence of the Pope as to the motive of the prohibition. This silence is a difficulty according to any view, but it is a greater difficulty according to M. Licquet’s view than on any other. The actual reason is not minutely specified, but the position of the prohibition in the Acts of the Council is enough to show its general nature.

William then, I hold, married the widow of Gerbod. In choosing a widow for his bride, he only acted like several other great men of his century. Eadmund, Cnut, Harold, all married widows. Cnut and Harold married the widows of Kings whom they had helped to deprive of their Kingdoms. But the case which most exactly forestalled William happened just before the beginning of the century, in the person of Matilda’s maternal grandfather, King Robert. That most devout of Kings uncanonically married his widowed cousin (see vol. i. p. 507), and allowed himself to be worried by ecclesiastical censures out of his wife, and well nigh out of his life also. William characteristically stood his ground, and gained his point in the end in the teeth of Prior, Archbishop, Pope, and Council.

The date of the marriage is not given by any of the Norman writers. They all do their best to slur over the delays and difficulties about the marriage, and they would fain have us believe that Matilda was won as soon as wooed. The date 1053 comes from the Tours Chronicle (Bouquet, xi. 348), and in default of any better authority, I do not see that we can do otherwise than accept it. It also falls in singularly well, as Mr Stapleton suggests, with the date of the captivity of Pope Leo (see above, p. 98). Another date, 1047, is given in the late Chronicle of Saint Bavon (Corp. Chron. Fland. i. 552, “Wilhelmus Dux Normanniæ, uxorem duxit Mathildem filiam Balduini comitis Flandriæ, quæ postea peperit ei Wilhelmum, postmodum Regem Angliæ”). But this date cannot be accepted, as it is clearly inconsistent with the prohibition of the marriage in 1049. It has been sometimes said (see Bouet, p. 8) that Orderic (484 C) fixes the marriage in 1063, and it has thence been inferred that the marriage was repeated after Lanfranc had come back with the dispensation. But the words of Orderic do not really fix the marriage to 1063. He has been speaking of the death of Geoffrey Martel and other matters, and places the death of Geoffrey in 1060 or 1061. He then, in his usual fashion, takes the opportunity to enlarge on the greatness and prosperity of Normandy and its Duke about this time, and goes on to tell us of his wife and children. But there is nothing bearing on the date of the marriage.

I ought to mention that the Chronicle of Tours, the only one which gives the date of the marriage, adds a most strange tale about William’s courtship;

“Tunc Guillelmus Dux Normanniæ Mathildem, filiam Balduini, Comitis Flandriæ, duxit in uxorem, in hunc modum. Quum ipsa a patre suo de sponso recipiendo sæpiùs rogaretur, eique Guillelmus Normanniæ a patre suo, qui eum longo tempore nutrierat, præ aliis laudaretur, respondit, numquam nothum recipere se maritum. Quo audito, Guillelmus Dux clam apud Brugis, ubi puella morabatur, cum paucis accelerat, eamque regredientem ab ecclesiâ pugnis, calcibus, et calcaribus verberat et castigat, sicque ascenso equo eum suis in patriam remeat. Quo facto, puella dolens ad lectum decubat, ad quam pater veniens, illam de sponso recipiendo interrogat et requirit, quæ respondens dicit, se nunquam habere maritum nisi Guillelmum Ducem Normanniæ quod et factum est.”—Chron. Turon. Bouquet, xi. 348.

This tale is found also in the French rhyming Chronicle of Philip de Mouskes, a writer of the thirteenth century (ii. 174, ed. Brussels, 1838). Matilda is thus described;

“... li Quens de Flandres avoit Une fille qui moult savoit, Et moult estoit biele et vallans Sage courtoise et bien parlans.”

(v. 16902.)

To the first offer of marriage her answer is thus given;

“La demoiselle vint avant Si leur respondi maintenant J’aim mious estre nonne velée Que jou soie à bastart donnée.”

(v. 16932.)

William then goes to Lille;

“Tout droit à Lille vint i jour U la puciele ert a sejour.”

Matilda is throughout called “puciele” and “demoiselle.” William then kicks and beats her, much as in the story in the Tours Chronicle, and her consent is given in much the same way.

The remarkable thing about this tale is that it is evidently a myth which has fastened itself upon William in several forms, and, I suspect, on Harold also. The story of William beating or kicking his wife is, in two accounts, transferred from the beginning of their married life to the end. William of Malmesbury (iii. 273) tells, without believing it, a tale that William in his later days forsook his old chaste manner of life (“non desint qui ganniant eum cœlibatui antiquo renunciâsse quum regia potestas accrevisset”—the same singular use of the word cœlebs spoken of in vol. ii. pp. 383, 531), and took a concubine, the daughter of a priest. Matilda, in her jealousy, had the girl ham-strung (“per satellitem succiso poplite Matildis sustulerit”), a tale apparently taken from the story of King Eadwig’s wife or mistress—(Osbern or Eadmer, Vit. Od. Ang. Sacr. ii. 84). On this Matilda is beaten to death with a bridle (“illam ad mortem fræno equi cæsam”), whether by her husband’s own hand or not is not distinctly said. Now this story is clearly the same as Snorro’s story (Johnstone, 217; Laing, iii. 94) how, when William was setting out for England, his wife came to speak to him, perhaps to detain him, on which, being mounted, he struck her with his heel, so that the spur ran into her breast, and she died (“Enn er hann sá þat, þá laust hann til hennar med hælinom, oc setti sporan fyri brióst henni, svo at á kaf stód, fell hon vid oc feck bana”). And this again, I cannot help thinking, is the same as William of Jumièges’ story (vii. 35) of Harold kicking his mother when she implored him not to go forth to battle (see p. 436). The tale of a King kicking or beating his wife or mother was afloat, and it was easy to fill the blank with the name of either William or Harold.

One more point is suggested to me by the charge against William’s chastity brought in the last paragraph. Genealogists, local antiquaries, and romance-writers are fond of calling the well-known William Peverel of Domesday a natural son of the Conqueror. For this assertion I know of no authority, except a statement in Dugdale’s Baronage (i. 436) which is said to come “ex Coll. R. Gl. S.”—that is Robert Glover, Somerset Herald. We are there told that Ranulf Peverel “married the daughter of Ingelric, founder of the Collegiate Church of Saint Martin le Grand in the city of London, who had been a concubine to William Duke of Normandy,” and that William Peverel was “begotten on her by the same Duke before the Conquest of this realm.” The uncorroborated assertions of a herald are not materials for history.

The mention of Matilda suggests the name of her supposed sister, Judith, the wife of Tostig. I have all along (see vol. ii. p. 134) doubted whether she really was a daughter of Baldwin the Fifth. She is called his daughter by Florence (1051) and twice by Orderic. In one place (638 C) he reckons the daughters of Baldwin and Adela as “Mathildis Regina Anglorum et Juditha, Tostici Ducis uxor.” Elsewhere (492 D, see p. 303) he says of William and Tostig, “duas sorores, per quas amicitia sæpe recalescebat, in conjugio habebant.” Orderic is followed by Alberic in the thirteenth century, who gives (p. 98) Baldwin and Adela three sons, Baldwin, Robert, and Philip, and two daughters, “Judith, quam nupsit Tosticus Comes Nordanubriorum in Angliâ, et Mathildem prædictam Normannorum Ducissam.” She is also called Baldwin’s daughter by two writers of the fifteenth century, who record her second marriage with Duke Welf of Bavaria. Botho in his Picture Chronicle of Brunswick (Leibnitz, iii. 325) says of Baldwin (whom by the way he confounds with his son, marrying him to Richilda instead of Adela) that he had “eyne dochter de het Jutta, de nam Konigh Heroden in Engelant, dar wart se geheten Wichanda, do nam se dar na Hertoghen Wolpy den olden in Beyeren.” The honest Nether-Dutch is pleasant to read, but it is strange to make Judith the wife of Harold—degraded into Herod—instead of Tostig. But Botho repeats the statement in p. 327, nor does he stand alone in it. In Arenpeck’s Bavarian Chronicle (Leibnitz, iii. 661) we read of Welf, how “accepit Reginam Angliæ, tunc viduam, filiam scilicet Balduini nobilissimi Comitis Flandriæ, Juditham, in uxorem.” These accounts are of course simply amusing, but we shall presently see that, as for their chief blunders, they sin in decent company.

Florence then and Orderic are the only early authorities who call Judith a daughter of Baldwin the Fifth. And the authority of Orderic is lessened by a manifest error which he has fallen into with regard to Baldwin’s family. He makes him (526 C) the father of Udo, Archbishop of Trier, who was really the son of Count Eberhard of Nellenberg (Gest. Trev. ap. Pertz, viii. 183). On the other hand, the local Chronicle of the Counts of Flanders (Corp. Chron. Fland. i. 86) distinctly calls Matilda Baldwin’s only daughter. Baldwin married Adela “genuitque ex eâ duos filios, Balduinum Montensem et Robertum Frisonem, et unam filiam nomine Mathildem.” We now fall back on our own writers and remember that the Worcester Chronicle (1051) called Judith only the “mage” of Baldwin, while Eadward’s Biographer (pp. 404, 424) distinctly called her his “soror.” We now turn to the Saxon Annalist, and, among some wild stories, we find the same relationship distinctly asserted. Judith, as before, is Harold’s widow. Welf of Bavaria (Pertz, vi. 764) “duxit viduam Haroldi Ducis Anglorum [see above, p. 226] Judihtam nomine.” But in an earlier passage we read (vi. 694), “Hujus Haroldi conjux, amita Rodberti Comitis de Flandriâ, ex cognatione beati Ethmundi Regis fuit.”

Here, comparing this passage with the Biographer, we may find the key to the whole matter. The Biographer says that Judith was Baldwin’s sister and Eadward’s niece, which last statement greatly puzzled me. The Saxon Annalist, evidently writing quite independently, calls her the aunt of Baldwin’s son Robert, and also calls her a kinswoman of Eadward (we should of course read Eth_war_di for Eth_mun_di). That is, she was a daughter of Count Baldwin the Bearded by his Norman wife, the daughter of Richard the Good. She thus exactly answers all the descriptions. She is sister of Baldwin of Lisle, aunt of Robert the Frisian, and she is, in a vague sense, niece of Eadward, that is, daughter of his first cousin. The pedigree stands thus;

Richard the Fearless. | +------+-------+ | | Æthelred = Emma. Richard the Good = Judith. | | Eadward. daughter = Baldwin = Odgiva. | | +--------+ | | | Tostig = Judith = Welf. Baldwin = Adela. | +---------+---------+ | | | Baldwin. Robert. Matilda.

Judith would thus be, not Matilda’s sister but her aunt, an aunt however possibly younger than herself. Odgiva, the first wife of Baldwin the Bearded, died in 1031. His daughter by the Norman Princess, the child of his old age, could not be born before 1032 or 1033. Matilda, the daughter of parents married in 1027, may well have been older.

We have here, I think, another proof of the accuracy of the Biographer in matters coming within his own province, and that in a case where his statement seemed, at first sight, puzzling and suspicious. I do not however know why he calls her Fausta, or why the Brunswick picture-chronicler calls her Wichanda. Judith was an obvious name for her, being that of her maternal grandmother the wife of Duke Richard. Possibly, as Miss Yonge suggests (Christian Names, ii. 345), this Hebrew name, in its form of Jutta, may have got confounded with the Northern Gytha.

NOTE O. p. 112.

THE CHILDREN OF WILLIAM AND MATILDA.

About the number and order of the sons of William and Matilda there is no doubt. They were Robert, Richard, William, and Henry. There is no doubt that Richard was second in order. He is always put so in the lists, and Orderic (573 C) expressly calls him “Ricardus, filius ejus, qui post Rodbertum natus fuerat.” Sir Francis Palgrave must have been speaking hastily when (iii. 254) he called him “the fourth son.”

But about the daughters, their number, names, and order, the statements are most contradictory. I will first of all set forth the different accounts of the early writers.

All that William of Poitiers tells us (120) is that two brother Kings of Spain sought for a daughter of William in marriage, whose name is not given, and that they greatly disputed about her. Of the promise or offer of a daughter to Harold he says nothing directly, though he alludes to it in a later passage (145).

William of Jumièges (vii. 21) only says that William had four daughters, without giving their names. His continuator (viii. 34) also enumerates four. First (“primogenita”), Cecily, Abbess of Caen. Second, Constance, wife of Alan Fergant of Britanny. Third, Adelaide [Adelidis], who was betrothed to Harold, but died unmarried (“Heraldo proditori ante bellum Anglicum sponsata, sed, illo dignâ morte mulctato, nulli nupta, virgo jam nubilis obiit”). Fourth, Adela, wife of Stephen of Blois.

Orderic gives no less than four lists. The first time (484 D) he simply gives the names of four daughters, Adeliza, Constance, Cecily, and Hadala. The second time (512 D) the number is raised to five, and the names are Agatha, Constance, Adeliza, Adela, and Cecily. The third time (573 C) he gives little biographies of four daughters. 1st, Agatha, betrothed first to Harold, then to Amfurcius [Alfonso] of Gallicia, but who died a virgin. 2nd, Adelaide [Adelidis], who lived, seemingly as a nun, under the care of Roger of Beaumont (“Adelidis pulcherrima virgo jam nubilis devotè Deo se commendavit, et sub tutelâ Rogeri de Bellomonte sancto fine quievit”). 3rd, Constance, wife of Alan Fergant [Fergannus]. 4th, Adela, wife of Stephen. The fourth time (638 D) he gives a mere list, with the same names as in the second but in a different order, Agatha, Adeliza, Constance, Adela, and Cecily. He also (511 A) says that a daughter of William, whose name he does not mention, was promised in marriage to Earl Eadwine.

William of Malmesbury (iii. 276) says expressly that William had five daughters. 1st, Cecily the Abbess, who was living when he wrote—he wrote therefore before 1126. 2nd, Constance. 3rd, Adela. Of two others he did not know the names (“duarum nomina exciderunt”), one betrothed to Harold, the second to Alfonso, but both of whom died unmarried.

Wace (9650) knows only two daughters, “Ele” and Abbess Cecily. Ele is (10821) betrothed to Harold, but afterwards married to Count Stephen.

Lastly, in Domesday (49) we find incidental mention of a daughter Matilda. Her chamberlain Geoffrey (“Goisfridus Camerarius filiæ Regis”) had lands in Hampshire, which he held “de Rege W. pro servitio quod fecit Mathildi ejus filiæ.” She is also mentioned in an Encyclic Letter of the Nuns of the Holy Trinity at Caen (Mabillon, Ann. Ord. Ben. v. 690) along with her mother Matilda and her sisters Adelaide and Constance, as one for whom the prayers of the faithful are asked.

Now of all these, Cecily, Constance, and Adela need give us no trouble here. The history of all three is well ascertained, and will come in its proper place. But about the others, the contradictions are great. The names Adelidis and Adeliza are doubtless the same. We have then these statements.

1. Adeliza was betrothed to Harold, but died unmarried. (Cont. Will. Gem.)

2. Adeliza died unmarried under the care of Roger of Beaumont. (Ord. Vit.)

3. Agatha was betrothed, first to Harold and then to Alfonso, but died unmarried. (Ib.)

4. A nameless daughter betrothed to Harold died unmarried. (Will. Malms.)

5. A nameless daughter betrothed to Alfonso died unmarried. (Ib.)

6. A nameless daughter was betrothed to Eadwine. (Ord. Vit.)

7. Matilda appears without a history. (Domesday.)

The first question is whether the daughter betrothed to Harold and the daughter betrothed to Alfonso are the same. Orderic stands alone in identifying them. On the whole, the balance of evidence seems to me to lie the other way. I am inclined to think that it was Adeliza who was betrothed to Harold, and that it was another daughter who was betrothed to the Spanish King. Indeed they cannot be the same, if we accept the statement which William of Malmesbury (iii. 238) puts into Harold’s mouth in the course of the messages which passed between him and William, namely that the maiden to whom he had been betrothed had died before his election to the Crown (“liberatum se sacramento asserens, quod filia ejus quam desponderat citra nubiles annos obierat”). I am sorry nevertheless to give up Orderic’s (573 C, D) very pretty story, which recalls (or reverses) the well-known ballad of the Spanish Lady’s Love. She had seen and loved Harold, and preferred death rather than to give herself to another and an unknown bridegroom. But there is also the difficulty of the extreme youth of any daughter of William at any time to which we can assign Harold’s visit. I cannot think, with Baron Maseres (103), that the betrothed of Harold was Cecily.

According to Wace, the Adeliza or Adelaide betrothed to Harold was the same as Adela, afterwards Countess of Chartres. The two names, both coming from the adel or æðel root, might easily be confounded, and it would not be difficult to suppose that Harold’s betrothed had been on the one hand mistaken for the betrothed of Alfonso, and on the other hand divided into two, Adela and Adeliza. But all the other accounts seem pointedly to distinguish between Adela and the betrothed of Harold, whether she were called Adeliza or not.

I need not discuss the theory according to which Mr. Blaauw and Mr. Thorpe (Lappenberg, Norman Kings, 215) identify the Matilda of Domesday with Gundrada; but a view put forth by Mrs. Green (Princesses, i. 16, 407), who has gone minutely into the matter, is better worth examining. She holds that Matilda and Agatha are the same, that the name of Agatha is a mistake of Orderic, that this is the daughter who was betrothed to Eadwine, and that the story of her attachment to Harold arose from confounding one English lover with another. Again, by gaining the three or four years between the visit of Harold and the betrothal to Eadwine, the difficulty as to age is got over. Mrs. Green’s suggestion is at least ingenious. I have little doubt, as I shall show in my next volume, that the daughter who was betrothed to Eadwine is the same as the daughter who was betrothed to Alfonso. But I do not see the evidence for calling her Matilda.

Abbot Baldric, in his verses addressed to Abbess Cecily (Duchèsne, Rer. Franc, iv. 274), speaks of a sister of the Abbess, who was, in some unexplained way, connected both with Bayeux and with Angers. Mrs. Green identifies her also with Matilda. The lines are,

“Audivi quamdam te detinuisse sororem, Cujus fama meas aliquando perculit aures. Nomen it elapsum, vidisse tamen reminiscor. Baiocensis erat, sed tunc erat Andegavensis, Quam, tibi si placeat, nostrâ de parte saluta, Atque mihi nomen rescribe tuumque suumque.”

As both Abbot Baldric and William of Malmesbury found it impossible to remember the names of William’s daughters, I may perhaps be forgiven if I leave the name of the betrothed of Harold undetermined.

NOTE P. p. 116.

THE REVOLT OF WILLIAM BUSAC.

There is a good deal of obscurity about William Busac and his revolt. The story is told by no one except William of Jumièges (vii. 20); and, as he seems to put it instead of the far better known story of the revolt of William of Arques, which he tells out of its place (vii. 7), one is tempted to suppose that he has fallen into some confusion between the two revolts and the two Williams. But he tells his tale so clearly and straightforwardly that it is hardly possible to doubt it, unless it can be shown distinctly to contradict some better ascertained piece of history.

The father and brothers of William Busac, as described by William of Jumièges, are all well ascertained persons. But William expresses himself inaccurately when he says (vii. 20) that Count William of Eu was an “uterinus frater” of Richard the Good. He must here use the word “uterinus” vaguely in the sense of illegitimate; for an “uterinus frater,” strictly speaking, of Richard the Good would mean, not a natural son of Richard the Fearless, but a son of Gunnor by some father other than Richard. The only question is as to the time when Count William obtained the grant of Eu, and whether it was granted by his half-brother Richard the Good or by his great-nephew Duke William. The following passages may be referred to on this point, which does not greatly concern my history. Will. Gem. iv. 18, vii. 2, viii. 37; Stapleton, i. lvi.; Roman de Rou, 6123–6215, where a romantic story is told, which is followed by Le Bœuf, Ville d’Eu, p. 28; and Palgrave, iii. 45.

The strange thing is that in none of these accounts is there any mention of William Busac as a son of Count William, though there is of his brothers Robert and Hugh. Still it seems hardly possible wholly to reject William’s existence and his investiture with the County of Soissons, which is so clearly asserted by William of Jumièges, and which, from the further details given in the Art de Vérifier les Dates, must, I conceive, rest on other authorities which I have not at hand. The chief difficulty in the story itself is that it seems to be implied throughout that the castle of Eu was in the possession of William Busac at the time of his revolt. If William of Jumièges did not so distinctly make William Busac the second brother—“horum medius” between Robert and Hugh—I should have been inclined to think that William Busac was the eldest brother, that he inherited the County, and that Robert succeeded to it on William’s exile. But this view seems forbidden by the words “horum medius;” and we also find Robert’s name with the title of “Comes de Ou” attached to a charter drawn up “tempore quo discordia cœpit inter ipsum [Comitem Willelmum] et Henricum Regem Francorum.” (Cart. de Saint Bertin, Paris, 1840, p. 426. The signature of “Willelmus de Ou,” attached to an earlier charter on the same page, belongs of course to the elder William.) We must suppose then that William Busac contrived to occupy his brother’s castle by some underhand means and to defend it against the Duke.

In accepting the account of this revolt given by William of Jumièges I do not profess to fix its exact date, or to add any details beyond such as are found in his narrative. From the point at which he introduces the story, it would seem to have happened between the affair of William the Warling and the marriage of Duke William, that is, between 1048 and 1053. But, as William of Jumièges puts the courtship and marriage of William together as if there had been no delay between them (see above, p. 85), it is quite possible that he means to fix the revolt to 1049 or thereabouts. At any rate, the place which I have given to it in my narrative seemed to me the natural one for it, as it is the beginning of a series of events which is carried on in the more famous revolt of William of Arques, namely insurrections in Normandy abetted by the King of the French.

The way in which the story of William Busac is treated by modern writers is curious. See Licquet, ii. 126; La Butte, Histoire des Ducs de Normandie, i. 246, 249; and the local historian of Eu, M. Le Bœuf, p. 30. A still more amazing account will be found in Mr. Roscoe’s Life of William the Conqueror, p. 89, for which it would be well to give some more definite authority than “Walsingham; Wace; Chron. Sax.; Chron. de Nor.; W. Malms.; Mazeres.”

But the aberrations of smaller writers will not seem wonderful, when we read the strange and contradictory statements made by Sir Francis Palgrave, which I feel sure would not have been found in any but a posthumous work of that great scholar. He first (p. 50) tells us of Count Robert and his services at Mortemer, and of “Robert’s son William (in France called William Busac) enriched, like his father, by the spoils of the Anglo-Saxon, and, who came to a fearful end.” William Busac is here confounded with his nephew William “de Owe,” son of Count Robert, who was blinded and mutilated by William Rufus in 1096 (see Flor. Wig. in anno, and Palgrave, iv. 420). In a later passage (iii. 224) we read, “William, surnamed Busac, second son of William, Count of Arques, now revolted against the Duke.” If Sir Francis had written or dictated in Latin, I should have thought that “Arcensis” had been substituted for “Aucensis,” by the same editorial process which took “Lagam Regis Eadwardi” to be a misprint for “legem.”

William was succeeded in the County of Soissons by his sons John and Reginald, after whom the County passed to the descendants of his daughter Ramentrude, wife of Ivo of Nesle. Another son, Manasses, was in 1092 chosen Bishop of Cambray by the citizens in opposition to the clergy, and was translated to Soissons in 1103 (see Gest. Epp. Cam. Pertz, vii. 504).

NOTE Q. p. 120.

THE REVOLT OF WILLIAM OF ARQUES.

There is a singular difference among our authorities as to the date of the revolt of Count William of Arques. William of Poitiers, Orderic, and William of Malmesbury put it at the point where I have put it in the text. But in William of Jumièges and Wace it comes much earlier, immediately after Duke William’s recovery of Falaise from Thurstan Goz (see vol. ii. p. 206), some years earlier than the battle of Val-ès-dunes. There is no doubt that the later date is the right one. In the narrative of William of Poitiers, the story comes in in what is evidently its natural order, immediately before the French invasion of 1054. The personal action of the Duke himself, now evidently in full maturity, seems inconsistent with the earlier date, as does also the prominent position of Guy-Geoffrey of Poitiers, who in 1044 (see vol. ii. p. 595) was “parvulus.” The story is also fixed to 1053 by the death of Ingelram of Ponthieu and the succession of his brother Guy. See Art de Vérifier les Dates, ii. 752. At the earlier date the elder Ingelram was reigning.

Besides this difference in date, the narratives of William of Poitiers and of Wace differ a good deal in the order of events, though I do not see any further contradiction between the two versions. I have therefore, while forming my narrative mainly on that of William of Poitiers, not scrupled to bring in some touches of detail from Wace which seemed to bear marks of authenticity.

In the order which I have followed, Duke William requires his uncle to surrender his castle, and he himself puts a garrison in it. The garrison then restore the castle to William of Arques, who openly revolts. Duke William hears the news at Valognes, he hastens to Arques, meets a party of loyalists from Rouen, fights a party of the rebels before the gates of the castle, and then blockades it. He then leaves the blockading force under Walter Giffard. King Henry comes to help William of Arques, and he falls into an ambush, where Count Ingelram is slain and Hugh Bardulf taken prisoner. The King retires; the Duke returns; William of Arques surrenders the castle, and the other posts in Normandy held by the French are surrendered also.

The accounts in William of Jumièges and in Wace leave out the occupation of the castle by the Duke and its betrayal to the Count of Arques. They say that the Duke, suspecting his uncle, summoned him to his presence, which summons he declined to obey, and openly rebelled (“Quem Dux à suâ vesaniâ nitens avellere, ad exhibendum sibi obsequium per legatos jussit eum venire. Sed ille hujusmodi legationem habens contemptui, magnâ cum fiduciâ ad resistendum se munivit et armavit.” Will. Gem. vii. 7). Wace transfers the hasty ride from the Côtentin from the first to the second appearance of Duke William before Arques. William of Poitiers again makes William reach Arques with six followers, all the others who had started from Valognes having failed to keep up with his pace. He there meets the reinforcement of three hundred from Rouen. Wace makes him reach Arques absolutely alone (v. 8699);

“Tute sa gente s’en merveilla Ke de si luing si tost vint là: Nuls ne s’en pot à li tenir, Ne nuls ne pot o li venir, De cels qui à Valuignes furent E de Valuignes od li s’esmurent.”

This is an evident exaggeration, adapted to the new order of events. Had William reached Arques absolutely alone, in the state of things conceived by William of Poitiers, he must have fallen into the hands of his enemies. But, while Wace transposes the two marches of William, Orderic (657 B) rolls the two into one. In his story William’s first appearance comes after King Henry and Count Ingelram have entered the country. He hears of them at Valognes; he sends on a picked force, and then follows himself with his main army. The former (“præcursores mei”) meet Ingelram, and defeat and kill him before William reaches Arques at all. But though I think that Wace has transposed the order of events, I have not scrupled to draw several details of the ride from him, and to accept Valognes as the starting-point. The other writers only mention the Côtentin generally. It is of course possible that Wace may have been thinking of William’s former ride from Valognes (see vol. ii. p. 247), where also the mention of Valognes is peculiar to himself. But, if William was likely to be there at one time, he was likely to be there at another.

The mention of Saint Aubin as the place of the ambush also comes from William of Jumièges, followed by Wace. (I am sorry that, when I was at Arques, I omitted to explore the spot.) I have ventured to connect this mention of Saint Aubin with that which Orderic gives (606 B, C) of Richard of Hugleville’s resistance at Saint Aubin. This comes in a genealogical passage where the campaign of Arques is spoken of only incidentally, and seems to me to be a case of quite independent testimony coinciding.

NOTE R. p. 217.

THE BEQUEST OF EADWARD TO WILLIAM AND THE OATH OF HAROLD.

The oath which, as William alleged, Harold had sworn to him, and the bequest which, as he also alleged, Eadward had made in his favour, are two subjects every detail of which is enveloped in controversy and contradiction, and two subjects moreover which cannot be kept apart from one another. I have, both in the text and elsewhere, set forth more than once what I believe to be the true history. I will now go more minutely through all the evidence which we have bearing on the matter.

I. As I have already said (see above, p. 219), there are three statements as to the object of Harold’s visit to Normandy. And two out of these statements imply different versions of the alleged bequest of Eadward to William. I have stated their substance in the text; I will now go through the evidence for and against them.

1. The first version is that of William of Poitiers. He mentions the matter twice, first in his narrative of Harold’s visit (107 et seqq.), secondly, in the account of the messages sent by William to Harold (129–30). According to this statement (129), Eadward chose William as his heir, on account of his many excellences (“quoniam omnium qui genus suum attingerent me credebat excellentissimum, qui optimè valerem vel ei, quamdiu viveret, subvenire, vel posteaquam decederet, regnum gubernare”) and as a return for the kindness which he had received from William and his predecessors during his sojourn in Normandy (“ob maximos honores et plurima beneficia quæ illi atque fratri suo, necnon hominibus eorum, ego et majores mei impendimus”). This devise of the Crown was apparently made by a decree of the Witan; at any rate it was made by the advice, and confirmed by the oaths, of Archbishop Stigand and of the three great Earls, Godwine, Leofric, and Siward (“sanè neque id absque suorum optimatum consensu, verùm consilio Stigandi Archiepiscopi, Godwini Comitis, Leurici Comitis, Sigardi Comitis”). These great leaders all agreed to accept William as Eadward’s successor on his death, and meanwhile, as the passage seems to mean, to set up no other candidate against him (“qui etiam jurejurando suis manibus confirmaverunt, quod post Edwardi decessum me reciperent dominum, nec ullatenus peterent in vitâ illius patriam hanc ullo impedimento contra me occupari”). A son and a grandson of Godwine were given by Eadward as hostages for this engagement (“obsides mihi dedit Godwini filium ac nepotem,” 130; so again, 107, “Heraldus ... cujus antea frater et fratuelis obsides fuerant accepti de successione eâdem”—Willelmi sc.). As Eadward found himself near death—it might have been added, now that the three Earls who had confirmed the devise were all dead—the King thought it good to bind Harold by the same oath which had been formerly taken by his father, with the further security that it should be taken in William’s presence, while Godwine and the rest had, on the former occasion, only bound themselves to him in his absence (“ut quod pater ejus atque cæteri supranominati hic [in England] mihi juravere absenti, is ibi [in Normandy] præsens juaret præsenti”). Eadward also, it would seem, wished to give William, before his death, a further confirmation in his own name (“graviore quam fuerat cautum pignore cavit.” 107). The importance of binding Harold to the proposed succession is strongly set forth. He alone could influence or constrain the English people, who, it is implied, were very likely to disturb the arrangement (“et eum [Haraldum] quidem prudentissimè [destinavit], ut ipsius opes et auctoritas totius Anglicæ gentis dissensum coercerent, si rem novare mallent perfidâ mobilitate, quantâ sese agunt”). Harold is therefore sent on this errand; he falls into the hands of Guy and is rescued by William, as I have described in the text. He makes his oath to William—its terms I shall discuss at a later stage of this note—and William looks on him as one who will most effectually win over the English to his cause (“quem inter se et Anglos, quibus à Rege secundus erat, mediatorem sperabat fidissimum.” 108).

This is the full account given by the contemporary panegyrist of William. Two things are to be noticed in it, as important admissions made by an enemy. First, the loyalty of Harold to Eadward, and the full friendship and confidence which existed between the King and the Earl, are implied throughout, in distinct contradiction of one form of Norman calumny. Secondly, there is throughout a recognition of the English people as a party likely to claim a voice in the matter, and one whose voice, it is expected, will not be given on behalf of William. The epithets of abuse which the Norman panegyrist hurls at the heads of the English nation are in truth a speaking witness to the popular character of the ancient English government.

William of Jumièges (vii. 31) tells essentially the same story. He says nothing about the counsel and the oaths of Stigand and the three Earls, but he tells us that Eadward, finding himself childless (“disponente Deo successione prolis carens”), sent Archbishop Robert to announce to William his intention of making him his heir (“olim miserat Willelmo Duci Rodbertum Cantuariorum Archipræsulem, ex regno a Deo sibi attributo illum statuens hæredem”). Afterwards he sends Harold, the most powerful Earl in his Kingdom, to confirm the bequest by oath, and to plight his own faith to the Duke (“deinde Heraldum cunctorum suæ dominationis Comitem divitiis et honore ac potentiâ maximum Duci destinavit, ut ei de coronâ suâ fidelitatem faceret, ac Christiano more sacramentis firmaret”). The story then goes on as before.

Orderic (492 A) tells the same story as William of Jumièges, with the addition that the devise in favour of Duke William was made with the consent of the English nation. “Eduardus nimirùm propinquo suo Willelmo Duci Normannorum, primò per Rodbertum Cantuariorum summum Pontificem, postea per eumdem Heraldum, integram Anglici regni mandaverat concessionem, ipsumque, concedentibus Anglis, fecerat totius juris sui hæredem.”

Benoît (36498 et seqq.) follows William of Jumièges, except that he does not give the name of the Archbishop, and that he seems to imply that the mission of the Archbishop and the mission of Harold happened in two consecutive years.

“L’arcevesque de Cantorbire, Li plus hauz hom de son empire, Out en Normendie tramis, Les anz avant, si cum je vus dis, Por afermer ce qu’il li done Tot le reaume e la corone.”

(vv. 36508–36513.)

It is really needless to refute this story. Some remarks on the tale will be found in Lord Lyttelton (Henry the Second, i. 351 et seqq.) and Baron Maseres (pp. 74 et seqq., 113 et seqq.) which are far above the average criticism of their age. Both writers are hampered throughout by the supposed necessity of accepting, or at least of attaching some weight to, the accounts of the false Ingulf; otherwise their line of argument is of a high order. There are also some good remarks of Lord Lytton’s in a note to his “Harold” (iii. 385), though I cannot conceive what he means by saying (iii. 386) that “the Saxon chroniclers ... unite in relating Edward’s warnings to Harold against his visit to the Norman court.” The “Saxon” Chronicles, I need hardly repeat, are altogether silent on the matter.

No one, I think, who goes carefully through the whole circumstances of the tale as told by William of Poitiers, will hesitate to say, with Baron Maseres, “there is reason to think it is absolutely false,” or, with Lord Lytton, “this appears a fable wholly without foundation.” Here is a purely English matter, an act of the English Witan, a deed confirmed by the greatest men of the Church and State of England, which rests solely on the assertion of an interested Norman writer, and of which no English Chronicle or cartulary has preserved the slightest trace. To make us believe that Leofric, that Siward, that Stigand, that Godwine, that the whole English people, agreed to the succession of William, we should need no evidence short of the document bearing their signatures, strengthened by an entry in the Chronicles to show that the document might possibly be genuine. No statement was ever weighed down by a heavier burthen of internal improbability. An act done when Stigand was Archbishop and when Godwine and the other Earls were still living, must belong to the few months between the appointment of Stigand to the Archbishopric at the Mickle Gemót of September, 1052 and the death of Godwine at Easter, 1053. It will not do to say that the title “Archiepiscopi” is simply descriptive of the person, and that the act might have been done at a time when Stigand had not yet reached the archiepiscopal rank (cf. vol. ii. p. 420). For Stigand and the three Earls are clearly mentioned as being the four greatest men in the Kingdom, which of course would not be the case at a time when Stigand was only a presbyter, or even the Bishop of an inferior see. The devise then, if it was ever made at all, could have been made only within those few months. And, except in those later years when Harold’s succession seems to have been looked upon as a settled thing (see vol. ii. p. 634), no time can be found so unlikely as those few months for any act in favour of William. No wilder assertion was ever made than that which represents the Witan of England, with Godwine at their head, as agreeing to, and even advising, the succession of the Norman Duke to the English Crown at the very moment of their great triumph over Norman favourites and Norman influence in England.

So much for William of Poitiers. William of Jumièges and Orderic, who evidently follows him, do not greatly mend matters by leaving out Stigand and the Earls, and seemingly putting Stigand’s predecessor Robert in his stead. Archbishop Robert is made to cross from England into Normandy. They doubtless had in their minds the time when Robert really did cross from England into Normandy. But that perilous passage was not made on the King’s errand or on any errand at all; it was the hurried flight of a public enemy, hastening to save himself from the vengeance of the English people (see vol. ii. p. 331). The story as regards Stigand, Godwine, Leofric, and Siward is manifestly impossible; it is no less impossible as regards Harold. We have already seen that during the whole time that Harold answered the description given of him by the Norman writers as the richest and most powerful Earl in England, the succession was, practically if not formally, determined in favour, first of the Ætheling Eadward and then of Harold himself. The tale that Eadward sent Harold, or that Harold consented to go, on an errand which shut out himself and every other Englishman from all hope of succession to the Crown, is simply absurd and impossible.

2. The second version, that in which Harold goes, not to guarantee the succession to William, but to bring back the supposed hostages, his brother and nephew, involves quite another view of the alleged bequest to William. In this account, there is no mention of any formal act of the Witan, none of any oaths of Bishops and Earls, none even of any act of the King himself, after he became King. It comes out incidentally that Eadward is said to have, years before, privately promised the Crown to William. And the only evidence for this private conversation between Eadward and William is another alleged private conversation between William and Harold. Yet this story is, as I have before said (see vol. ii. p. 302), less grotesquely absurd than the former one, and it rests on better authority. It is the version followed by two most valuable English writers of the next generation, namely Eadmer and Simeon of Durham. The narrative of Simeon, we cannot doubt, was borrowed from the narrative of Eadmer, whose exact words he follows through a great part of the story. And the appearance of the story at all in Simeon’s History is remarkable. Simeon had copied from Florence, with the change or addition of two or three words only, the narrative of the election of Harold, of the two invasions, of the two battles, of the death of Harold and the coronation of William. It then perhaps occurred to him that Florence’s narrative contained no statement whatever of any motive for William’s invasion. Simeon therefore (1066) starts as it were afresh, with the introduction, “Ut autem sciatur origo caussae quâ Willelmus Angliam bello appetiit, breviter quæ paullò ante gesta sunt repetantur.” He then goes on to the same effect as Eadmer. The hostages, Wulfnoth and Hakon (“Wlnothus filius Godwini et Hacun filius Suani filii sui”), are given by Godwine to Eadward at their reconciliation, and they are given by Eadward to Duke William for safe-keeping. Some time after Godwine’s death, Harold, now in possession of his father’s Earldom (“Godwinus ... malâ morte”—Eadmer, 4. Simeon says only “quum esset mortuus”—“post breve tempus interiit, et Haraldus filius ejus comitatum Cantiæ patri succedens obtinuit. Is, elapso modico tempore,” &c.), asks leave of the King to go over to Normandy and bring back the hostages. Eadward says that he may go, but warns him against going. He is sure that, if he goes, some harm and shame will happen to him and to England. He knows Duke William well enough to be sure that he will never let the hostages go, unless he can get some gain by so doing (“Hoc non fiet per me; verumtamen ne videar te velle impedire, permitto ut eas quo vis ac experiare quid possis. Præsentio tamen te in nihil aliud tendere nisi in detrimentum totius Anglici regni et opprobrium tui. Nec enim ita novi Comitem mentis expertem ut eos aliquatenus velit concedere tibi si non præscierit in hoc magnum proficuum sui”). Harold however thinks himself wiser than the King (“suo quam Regis consilio credens”), and sets out. He is shipwrecked, imprisoned by Guy (“pro ritu loci, captivitati addicitur”), and delivered and honourably received by William. He presently sets forth to the Duke the cause of his journey. William tells him that it will be his own fault if the matter does not turn out well (“bene quidem rem processuram si in ipso non remaneret”). After a few days, the Duke sets forth his own mind to the Englishman. When he and Eadward were living together as youths in Normandy, Eadward promised him that, if he should ever obtain the Crown of England, he would make it over to him as his heir (“Regem Edwardum, quando secum juvene olim juvenis in Normanniâ demoraretur, sibi, interpositâ fide suâ pollicitum fuisse, quia, si Rex Angliæ foret, jus regni in illum jure hæreditario post se transferret”). If Harold would swear to support this disposal of the Crown, and would bind himself by other engagements which I shall presently discuss, Hakon should be released at once and Wulfnoth as soon as William had mounted the English throne (“tunc et modò nepotem tuum, et quum in Angliam regnaturus venero, fratrem tuum incolumem recipies”). Harold, feeling himself in a strait from which he knows not how to escape, swears to all that was required of him (“sensit Haraldus in his periculum undique, nec intellexit quà evaderet, nisi in omnibus istis voluntati Willelmi adquiesceret. Adquievit itaque” &c.). He returns to England with Hakon, and tells the whole story to Eadward, who reminds him of his own warning (“nonne dixi tibi, ait, me Willelmum nôsse, et in illo itinere tuo plurima mala huic regno contingere posse”). Eadward soon afterwards dies, and Harold, according to Eadward’s own wishes, succeeds him. See above, p. 586.

I have already (see above, p. 219, and vol. ii. p. 302) made some remarks on this story, a story which is plainly of English invention. Eadward’s intentions in favour of William are cut down to a rash promise in his youth, of which no one seems to know anything except Eadward and William themselves. Eadward’s present intentions are plainly in favour of Harold, and perfect confidence and cordiality are implied as reigning between the King and the Earl. But, as I have already said, this view of Eadward’s promise will not stand the test of chronology. There was no time when Eadward and William lived together as youths of equal age. When Eadward left Normandy in 1041, William was thirteen or fourteen years old, Eadward perhaps thirty-eight. A private promise of this kind seems most unlikely to have happened between them, though, as I have already said (see vol. ii. p. 523), William’s counsellors may have been already reckoning the chances of William’s succession. The story of Wulfnoth and Hakon being given as hostages for Godwine’s good behaviour on Godwine’s triumphant return is quite inconsistent (see above, p. 221) with the true narrative of that return. Still less can we accept the story of William of Poitiers (see above, p. 668) that Wulfnoth and Hakon were given as hostages, not for Godwine’s good behaviour towards Eadward, but for the carrying out of the imaginary act of the English Witan in favour of William. My own belief is that there were no English hostages at all in the hands of William at the time when Harold came into Normandy. But I think it is not hard to see how the story of the hostages arose. It is certain that Wulfnoth was kept as a prisoner by William, and that his imprisonment began early in life. William, on his death-bed (see Florence, 1087), set free various prisoners, both English and Norman, and among them “Wlnothum Regis Haroldi germanum, quern a pueritiâ tenuerat in custodiâ.” This of course might only mean that Wulfnoth was imprisoned after William’s coming to England, as must have been the case with Harold’s son Wulf, whom Florence speaks of directly after. But it is also quite consistent with the statement that he was left behind as a hostage by Harold. That he was so left is affirmed by Eadmer and Simeon in the passage just quoted. It is also implied by William of Poitiers, when he says (111) that, of his two supposed hostages, one, namely Hakon, was allowed to return with his uncle (“quinetiam fratruelis ejus, alter obses, cum ipso redux propter ipsum redditus est”). But moreover William of Jumièges, who says nothing about Hakon or about any earlier giving of hostages, says (vii. 31) that Wulfnoth was left as a hostage; “Postremò ipsum [Heraldum] cum multis muneribus Regi remisit [Willelmus], et pulcrum adolescentem Wlnotum fratrem ejus obsidem retinuit.” In this he is followed by Benoît (36640);

“Heraut out un frere danzel, Que n’estoveit querre plus bel; Vuilnoth out non, corteis e sage; Cel laissa au Duc en ostage.”

One would certainly understand this as meaning that Wulfnoth had accompanied Harold on his voyage and that he was left by him as a hostage for his own good faith. Why should not this have been the case? If, as I have suggested, Harold was accompanied on his voyage by both Wulfnoth and Hakon, if he brought Hakon back and left Wulfnoth behind as a hostage, one can easily see how the story arose about Hakon and Wulfnoth having both originally been hostages. The Norman version would represent them, as William of Poitiers does, as hostages given for William’s succession to the Crown. English writers, knowing that this at least never happened, would find some more possible occasion for the handing over of a son and a grandson of Godwine to the keeping of the Norman Duke. Such an occasion would be found in the reconciliation between Godwine and Eadward. The interchange of hostages is mentioned more than once in the course of the story, so that the notion that hostages were given by Godwine at the final conclusion of peace, though an unfounded idea, was not an unnatural one.

These then are the two views, according to both of which Harold is made to set out for Normandy with some settled purpose, either to confirm the bequest of the Crown to William or to obtain the release of his brother and nephew. The two accounts are utterly contradictory to one another, and I do not think that either will stand the test of criticism. But before I go on to the third version, I must mention the accounts given in the Roman de Rou and in the Tapestry. Honest Wace, after his manner, knowing that there were two or three stories, allows his readers to choose between them. He first tells the story of Godwine’s return, according to his notion of it. Godwine is in banishment, and the King will not let him come back unless he gives hostages for his good behaviour. He sends his son and grandson, whom Eadward sends over to William, and Godwine then returns.

“Goigne ne l’osa néer; Tant por li Reis asséurer, Tant por sez parenz maintenir, Tant por sez homes garantir, Un soen nevo et un soen filz, K’il aveit ensemble norriz, A en ostage el Rei bailliez. E li Reis les a envéiez Al Duc Willame en Normendie Come à cil ù mult se fie: Mandé li a k’il les gart tant Ke il méisme li demant.”

(vv. 10579–10590.)

He then adds the significant remark, which seems to show that he had the version of William of Poitiers and William of Jumièges in his eye, that this looked very much as if Eadward intended the hostages who were nominally given for the good behaviour of Godwine to act practically as hostages for the succession of William.

“Ço fut semblant k’il voulsist Ke toz tems cil les retenist, Ço distrent genz, ke il péust Sun regne aveir s’il ainz morust.”

(vv. 10591–10594.)

He then goes on to describe Godwine’s death (see vol. ii. p. 612), Eadward’s vow of pilgrimage, the foundation of Westminster, and Eadward’s intention to bequeath his Crown to William, which last he describes in language which is evidently taken from the statement put into William’s own mouth by William of Poitiers (129; see above, p. 667). He then gives a description of Harold, on whose virtues, power, and favour with the King he becomes somewhat eloquent, and fully realizes his position as the practical ruler of the whole kingdom.

“En la terre out un senescal Heraut out nom, noble vassal; Por sun pris è por sa bunté Out el regne grant poesté, Li plus fort hom fu del païs Fort fu d’homes, fort fu d’amis, Engleterre out en sa baillie Com home ki a senechaucie.”

(vv. 10709–10716.)

So directly after;

“Héraut fu ben de son seignior, Ki à feme aveit sa seror.”

(vv. 10725–10726.)

The story then goes on in much the same shape as in Eadmer. Harold’s wish to release the hostages and the warnings of Eadward are given in much the same way, with the further piece of advice from the King, that, if Harold wishes for the hostages, he should send some other messenger and not go himself. Wace then adds that he has also read another story, that namely of William of Poitiers and William of Jumièges, and that he does not profess to know which is the true one.

“Issi l’ai jo trové escrit, Et un altre livre me dist Ke li Reis li rova aler Por li réalme asséurer Al Duc Willame sun cosin, Ke il l’éust emprez sa fin; Ne sai mie ceste achoisin, Mais l’un è l’altre escrit trovon.”

(vv. 10741–10748.)

So much for Wace. The Tapestry plainly shows (pl. 1) an interview between Eadward and Harold before Harold sets sail from Bosham, and another interview (pl. 7) after Harold’s return. Of these two scenes the earlier must be interpreted by the later. In that scene Harold is represented as recounting his adventures to the King with a very strange look and strange gestures, quite different from anything shown in the first interview. But Dr. Bruce’s imagination surely carries him a little too far when he says (p. 27) that “Harold comes into the presence of the Confessor like a guilty person, deploring his misdeeds and craving pardon. An axe, carried by an attendant on the left of the King, is turned towards him, apparently betokening that he has committed an offence worthy of death. The King is evidently reproving him sharply, but the attendant on the right of the King having the edge of his axe turned away from Harold, shows that the result of the interview was a pardon.” Unluckily for this ingenious theory, one of the persons who in this very plate offer the Crown to Harold carries an axe with its edge no less threateningly turned towards the person of the King-elect. Still there is no doubt that Harold enters the King’s presence with the air of one who is by no means proud of the success of his errand. His neck is stretched out in a most amazing fashion, and the whole expression is that of one whose position is exceedingly awkward. This seems to me to fit in exactly with the version of Eadmer, and I do not see how it can be made to fit in with the version of William of Poitiers. According to that version, Harold had done nothing to be afraid or ashamed of. He had simply pledged himself in a solemn way to carry out the King’s intentions. But, on Eadmer’s view of the matter, he had utterly failed, except so far as he had brought back Hakon; he had involved himself and his country in great danger, and he must have gone to the King with the unpleasant feeling that one so much his intellectual inferior had for once proved wiser than himself. This seems to me to be plainly enough expressed in the representation of the second interview in the Tapestry; I therefore accept the Tapestry as, so far, a witness in favour of Eadmer’s version, or at least in favour of some version according to which Harold went into Normandy on an errand which failed. A certain amount of confirmation is thus given to Eadmer’s statement, but I can hardly think that it is enough to counterbalance its inherent improbability in other respects.

3. I now come to the third version, that which makes Harold’s presence in Normandy wholly the result of accident. William of Malmesbury was fully aware of the version of William of Poitiers. He (ii. 228) distinctly refers to it (“ferunt quidam ipsum Haroldum a Rege in hoc”—namely to announce to William the bequest of Eadward—“Normanniam missum”), but he deliberately rejects it. The story which he prefers as nearer to the truth (“quia propius vero videtur”), and as told by those who were better informed (“alii secretioris consilii conscii”), represented Harold’s presence in Normandy or in any part of Gaul as simply caused by his being carried thither by stress of weather (“invitum, venti violentiâ illuc actum”). He set out from Bosham purely on a voyage of pleasure and for the purpose of fishing (“ut animum oblectaret suum, piscatorium conscendit navigium”). Some cause or other led him to venture to an unusual distance from land (“interim quidem longiusculo ludo in altum proceditur”), and a storm drove him to the coast of Ponthieu. According to Henry of Huntingdon, Harold was not thus merely yachting, but was going, for some cause which is not mentioned, to Flanders (“Haraldus verò transiens in Flandriam tempestate compulsus est in Ponticam provinciam,” M. H. B. 760 E). Matthew Paris (p. 1), whom I shall again have to quote, tells the tale in what, for my purpose, is the same way. Harold, still a young man, but looking forward to the Crown (“dum adhuc juvenis esset, adspirans ad regnum Angliæ”), is sailing about, and is driven by the winds to a land which he takes to be Flanders, but which proves to be Ponthieu (“sponte spatiatus, navigando raptus est vi ventorum, et dum Flandriam credidit se attigisse, compulsus venit in Pontinam provinciam”). Snorro (Johnstone, 190; Laing, iii. 75) makes Harold to have been sailing, not to Flanders, but to Wales. He seemingly looks on the voyage as part of Harold’s warfare against Gruffydd. A storm drives his ships, not to Ponthieu, but to the coast of Normandy (“þat var á eino sumri, at Haralldr Gudinason átti ferd til Brettlandz, oc fór á skipi, enn er þeir komo í hafit, þá tók þá andvidri, oc rák út í haf. Þeir tóko land vestr í Nordmandi, oc höfdo fengit storm mann-hættan”). These accounts seem independent, and of course they cannot be reconciled in detail. The important point which they have in common is that they all represent Harold’s presence in Normandy as unintentional. He is not going thither on any errand either of his own or of the King’s; he is carried either directly to Normandy, or first to Ponthieu, by a storm. If this were the true tradition, we can easily understand that various versions would soon arise as to the direction and object of his journey. Snorro’s notion, for instance, of a voyage into Wales is hardly consistent with the remarkable agreement of several versions that it was from Bosham that Harold set sail. But it is of little moment whether he was sailing to Wales or Flanders or nowhere in particular, provided he was not purposely sailing to Normandy. And that this story is the right one will, I think, appear, if we consider the way in which tales grow. They improve, they add details, they give new and fuller reasons for everything; but they seldom lop off. The fact of Harold’s presence in Normandy would call forth a thousand conjectures and speculations as to the cause of his being there. The purely negative version, which said that all these speculations were at fault, which asserted that Harold’s presence in Normandy was a mere accident, is, of all the versions, that which least bears the impress of legendary invention or adornment.

This general position is not affected by William of Malmesbury’s evident attempt to reconcile this version with that of William of Poitiers. Harold, in Guy’s dungeon, begins to devise some means of escape (“astuto pectore volvens casûs remedium”). It seems to be taken for granted that such means could come only through the help of the Duke of the Normans. He accordingly sends a man won over by great promises (“hominem promissis ingentibus sollicitatum”) with a message to Duke William. It is hard to see how a prisoner who was kept not only in ward but in fetters could have had the chance of winning over any one in this way, unless indeed the man so won over were one of his own keepers. The message is to the effect that Harold has been sent by Eadward to confirm in a more solemn way the King’s intentions in favour of William. It is assumed that Eadward had made such a disposition (see vol. ii. p. 371), and that it had been made known to William by messengers of inferior dignity; it is only the character of an ambassador which Harold is made falsely to assume for the nonce (“missum se Normanniam a Rege, ut quod minores nuntii balbutierant ipse potissimùm suâ confirmaret præsentiâ”). So Matthew Paris makes Harold falsely pretend that he was coming on an errand to the Duke’s Court, though he gives that errand a different turn from that which it takes in William of Malmesbury, one which I shall have to discuss hereafter. This is a most awkwardly devised story, even as a story, and it is of course inconsistent with the evidence by which I have shown that no disposition in William’s favour at this time can be admitted. It can only be an attempt to piece together the two versions, that of Harold’s embassy and that of his accidental presence in Normandy. He was not really an ambassador, but he pretended to be one. The attempt at joining the two stories was an awkward one, but perhaps no other attempt could have succeeded better.

The two other writers who follow a version essentially the same as that of William of Malmesbury, namely Snorro and Henry of Huntingdon, give no details of Harold’s deliverance from his prison in Ponthieu. Snorro leaves out the sojourn in Ponthieu altogether, and Henry only says, “quem [Haraldum] captum Consul Ponticus Willielmo Duci Normanniæ reddidit.” So Matthew Paris, making the act still more voluntary on Guy’s part, says, “quem captum Consul Ponticus Willielmo Normannorum Duci præsentavit.” Snorro, as I have said in the text, gives some curious details of Harold’s sojourn at Rouen; he also makes him get there in the summer, stay through the winter, and go back to England in the spring.

II. It will be seen that two distinct views as to the devise of the Crown in favour of William are involved in the first two of these three versions. According to one of them, the bequest was simply a private promise made by Eadward, when he was not yet King, that, if he ever should become King, William should succeed him. This is in itself not impossible, though it is not possible in the particular shape in which it is told us, namely as the promise of one young man to another young man. It is hardly necessary to show that such a promise as this could have no kind of force, according to the laws of England or of any other kingdom. According to the other story, the devise of the Crown took the form of an Act of Settlement, of a regular vote of the King and his Witan, confirmed by the signatures and the oaths of the four greatest men in the land. Such an act would doubtless have been valid, and it would have given William as good a claim as George the First. At the same time it must not be forgotten that all such attempts at an election before the vacancy seem to have been unpopular, and that they were very seldom carried out in practice (see vol. i. pp. 118, 533). But beyond the assertion of William’s own laureate, there is not a scrap of evidence or of probability in favour of this story, and the particular form in which it is told is chronologically impossible (see above, p. 673). William of Malmesbury, or those whom he followed, probably saw this, and therefore changed the date from some time before the death of Godwine to some time after the death of the Ætheling (see vol. ii. p. 371). He also leaves out all mention of the consent of the Witan or of the Earls, and seems to make it a purely personal act of the King. Here we get something which is barely possible, but which has no evidence and no probability in its favour. In fact neither of these statements as to the bequest to William rest on the slightest tenable ground. The third statement, that of a strictly testamentary disposal, a bequest of Eadward on his death-bed, does not appear in any writer at all near the time. The fact of the death-bed nomination of Harold was too notorious to be denied, and the adverse party generally contented themselves with asserting that the nomination was wrung from the dying King against his will. The first appearance of the notion of a death-bed bequest to William is to be found in the passage of the Hyde writer which I have already quoted (see above, p. 595), where it is said that Eadward “Regnum moriens Willelmo Comiti consobrino suo reliquit.” So the Annals of Margam (p. 3 Luard), “quia virgo decessit ... quum potiorem hæredem non haberet, Willelmo Duci Normannorum, consobrino suo, Regnum Angliæ testamento tradidit.” So Thomas Wykes, the partizan of Henry the Third, consistently enough asserts the rights of William in their fulness. He tells us (p. 22 Gale) how Eadward, “prævidens dum adhuc viveret Regnum Angliæ post mortem suam periculis et turbationibus exponendum, nobilissimum Ducem Normanniæ Willielmum le Bastard hæredem suum constituit, et Regni sui successorem, tamquam ex testamento dum adhuc viveret, assignavit ipsum.” M. Francisque Michel, in his note to Benoît (iii. 162), has collected several passages from unpublished writers taking the Norman side, which he very fairly contrasts with the genuine statements of the English writers. One only, the Chronicle of Peter of Ickham, a writer of the fourteenth century, seems worth quoting because he attempts rather ingeniously to combine two versions.

“Iste autem Edwardus, aliquando exsulatus in Normanniam, Willielmo, cognomento Bastard, Duci Normannorum, præstitit sacramentum quod si Rex, annuente Deo, foret, nullum alium præter ipsum haberet hæredem.

“Iste Edwardus, sanctus Dei confessor, absque liberis decessit quia virgo permanserat: et quum hæredem de se non haberet, Willielmo Duci Normanniæ consanguineo suo, sicut ei priùs juramento promiserat, regnum testamento dedit.”

These passages seem quite enough to show that the notion of a last will and testament in favour of William is one which was quite unknown till a later generation. I must quote one more passage in which this view is set forth, because it brings in another expression which deserves some notice. In the Chronicle of Battle Abbey (p. 2) we read, “Interea Anglicæ Regnum monarchiæ eidem Duci Willelmo, a suo consanguineo Rege Edwardo e mundo migrante, hæreditario jure delegatum relinquitur.” The expression to be noticed is that of “hæreditario jure,” which is here applied to William’s succession to the Crown. We find it also in charters of William himself and of his son William Rufus. There is one in Rymer (p. 3), where William describes himself as “Ego Willelmus Dei gratia Rex Anglorum hæreditario jure factus;” and one of William Rufus (p. 5), where he describes himself as “Ego Willelmus Dei gratia Rex Anglorum filius magni Regis Willelmi qui Regi Edwardo hæreditario jure successit.” The words “jus hæreditarium” have more than one meaning. It is possible that the Battle writer really meant to assert an hereditary right in the modern sense. He had just before said that William, “principatum proprium”—that is of course the Duchy of Normandy—“hæreditario sibi jure a patre relictum feliciter obtinuit.” And there is no doubt that William’s kindred with Eadward really was looked on by zealots in his cause as giving him some kind of hereditary claim upon England. This was certainly the belief of Henry of Huntingdon. See vol. i. p. 332. Otherwise the words “hæreditario jure” may be taken simply to mean that William was the heir of Eadward in the sense of being adopted by him. So two of the manuscript chronicles quoted by M. Francisque Michel (Benoît, iii. 163) say that Eadward “adoptavit in regnum”—“adoptavit hæredem—Willielmum Ducem Normannorum.” The words “hæreditario jure” are also used to express something which a man holds by a right which is not derived from his forefathers, but which is to be passed on to his descendants. It is even applied, as in the Cartulary of the Holy Trinity at Rouen (pp. 449 et seqq.), to property held by a corporation in absolute freehold, which will therefore pass to the official heirs, so to speak, of the existing members.

There is one more Norman version of the bequest of Eadward, which, though it rests on no early authority, is worth referring to, on account of the detail at which it is given, and because it brings in a name which we have already had occasion to mention with honour. It will be found in the History of Colchester Abbey in the Monasticon, iv. 607 (cf. Ellis, i. 415). The “internuntius” between William and Eadward was Hubert of Rye (see vol. ii. p. 249), the father of Odo, the founder of the Abbey. Eadward, finding himself sick and without heirs (“quum eò maximè cruciaretur, quod in se regium genus deficere videret”)—Eadgar is seemingly forgotten—sends Goscelin, a merchant of Winchester, who was in the habit of going on long voyages in the way of trade, on a message to Duke William. Goscelin, by his name, must have been a Norman or Frenchman, and the mention of a French merchant as settled at Winchester in Eadward’s time is worth notice. The Duke is asked to send some confidential agent (“ut aliquem dirigeret à suo latere”) to receive the King’s message for the Duke. In an assembly of Norman Barons (“facto magno procerum conventu”), the Duke seeks for some one who will go on an embassy to England. But all refuse to trust themselves among the barbarians who had wrought the death of Ælfred (“omnes recusant barbaram expetere gentem, propter illa quæ audierant facta apud Geldefordiam”). Hubert at last volunteers to go, and is thereon much praised and rewarded. He goes over in wonderful state (“cum grandi apparatu, cum pompâ magnâ, equis phaleratis et fremitu terribilibus, hominibus serico indutis et colore vestium spectabilibus”). Eadward receives him honourably, and of course gives him a grant of land (“ei primæ in Angliâ suæ mansionis villa quæ Esce dicitur, perpetuò possidenda conceditur.” The place is Ashe in Hampshire, which appears in Domesday, 47, as held by Hubert’s son Odo, but which was held T. R. E. by a tenant of Earl Harold). The business is done satisfactorily, and Hubert goes back to Normandy with the promise of the Kingdom and tokens confirming the promise (“insignia quibus Willielmus declarabatur hæres Edwardi Regis Anglorum, spatam scilicet cum capulo in quo erant inclusæ sanctorum relliquiæ, cornu de auro venatorium, et caput ingens cervinum”).

The story goes on to say that Hubert did not come with William into England because disturbances were looked for in Maine, which he was sent to quell or to hinder (“veniente Willielmo in Angliam accipere sibi regnum, quoniam a Cenomanicâ regione suspicabatur tumultus, Hubertus, quia erat promptus manu et consilio bonus, missus est illic prætendere et servare pacem”). I did not venture, without better authority, to mention this in my text at p. 384, but it is worth comparing with the seeming disloyalty of the Cenomannian knight at Senlac mentioned in p. 486.

Now, after going through all these accounts, what is the real state of the evidence with regard to the alleged promise of Eadward to William? A death-bed bequest, as we have seen, was not alleged by William or by his contemporaries. Such a bequest would be inconsistent with any of the versions of the story of Harold’s oath, all of which conceive William as asserting some right to the succession before Eadward’s last sickness. A promise made in earlier times, before Eadward’s accession, is possible, but it is by no means likely, and such a promise could not be of any legal force. An act of the King and his Witan in William’s favour is impossible in itself and is confirmed by no kind of evidence. But that there was some promise I think cannot be doubted. When I believe that promise to have been made I have already said (see vol. ii. p. 303). Here is another fact which looks the same way. In one of the manuscripts quoted by M. Francisque Michel (Benoît, iii. 164), William tells us how he reigned, “devicto Haroldo Rege cum suis complicibus, qui mihi regnum prudentiâ Domini destinatum et beneficio concessionis domini et cognati mei gloriosi Regis Edwardi concessum conati sunt auferre.” This is vague enough, but it suggests one hint. The feudal language employed, the words “beneficium” and “dominus”—the latter of which is applied by William to Eadward in other documents (see above, pp. 249, 555, and cf. ii. 18)—might suggest that, when the promise was made, William did homage to King Eadward as his lord and adopted father. There is but one time when this could have happened. We have here another confirmation of the view, supported by no direct evidence, but the only view which is not upset by opposing evidence, that the promise was made by Eadward, and that the homage, if there was any, was performed by William, at the time of William’s visit to England in 1051.

III. The next point is as to the time, the place, and the matter of Harold’s oath. As to the time, William of Poitiers (108) distinctly places the oath, as well as the knighthood, before the expedition into Britanny. Such seems also to be the account of Orderic (492 A-B), though his way of telling the story in the pluperfect tense takes off somewhat from the clearness of his narrative; “Heraldus ... sacramentum fecerat, ... tunc etiam Dux eumdem Heraldum in expeditione secum contra Conanum Comitem Britonum duxerat, armisque fulgentibus et equis aliisque insigniis cum commilitonibus suis spectabiliter ornaverat.” The other accounts seem to place both the knighthood and the oath after that expedition. In the Tapestry (pl. 6) we read immediately after the taking of Dinan, “Hic Willelm dedit Haroldo arma,” on this follow the words, “Hic Willelm venit Bagias, ubi Harold sacramentum fecit Willelmo Duci.” So William of Jumièges (vii. 31) and Wace (Roman de Rou, 10816) place the oath immediately after the return from Britanny, though Wace (10812; see above, pp. 228, 240) seems to place the knighthood before the expedition. As to the place, there is yet more difference than as to the time. The Tapestry clearly means to place the event in its own city, for “Bagias,” curious as the form is, can mean no place but Bayeux. So does Wace, a Canon of Bayeux (Roman de Rou, 10826). But William of Poitiers (108) places it at Bonneville (“coadunato ad Bonamvillam concilio”), in which he is followed by Benoît (36594);

“Si josta li dux son concile, Ce sui lisant, à Bone-Vile. Là fu li serremenz jurez, Que Heraut meisme a devisez.”

But Orderic (492 A) places the scene of the oath at Rouen (“ipse Heraldus apud Rotomagum Willelmo Duci coram optimatibus Normanniæ sacramentum fecerat”). It is also placed at Rouen by the romantic Biographer of Harold (Chron. Angl. Norm. ii. 184 et seqq.), who adds that the oath was sworn under a very large and aged oak, which, as soon as the oath was broken, immediately lost its bark, which, as he truly adds, was “dictu mirum” and “res digna spectaculo.” He adds that he himself saw it an hundred and forty years after the event, which fixes his own date to about the year 1205.

As to the form of the oath, William of Poitiers (108) simply says, “Heraldus ei fidelitatem sancto ritu Christianorum juravit.” But, according to his manner, he implies in a later passage (131; see p. 463, note 4) that the oath was made upon relics. So Orderic (492 A); “Homo ejus factus, omnia quæ ab illo requisita fuerant super sanctissimas reliquias juraverat.” The “phylactery called ‘the bull’s-eye’” is found in the Brevis Relatio (4); “Ei, sicut multi dicunt, super filacterium quod vocabant oculum bovis quod ei fidem et promissionem quam ei faciebat bene custodiret.” The Hyde writer (290) tells us why it was called the bull’s-eye; “Infinitam sanctarum multitudinem reliquiarum deferri jussit, superque eas filacterium gloriosi martyris Pancratii, quod oculum bovis vocant, eo quod gemmam tam speciosam quam spatiosam in medio sui contineat, collocavit, certissimè sciens tantum martyrem nullâ temeritate posse deludi.” In the Tapestry (pl. 6) Harold is shown swearing between two chests or phylacteries (see Ducange in voce) of different shapes, one of which has something on the top which might fairly pass for the “gemma speciosa et spatiosa” of the Hyde writer. But in none of these accounts do we find anything about the trick played upon Harold by William. Whatever Harold swears upon, it is not at all implied that he was otherwise than fully aware of what he was doing. The tale according to which Harold is made unwittingly to take an oath of a more solemn kind than he supposed comes from Wace;

“Toz li corz sainz fist demander, Et un liu tuz asembler; Tut une cuve en fist emplir, Pois d’un paele les fist covrir, Ke Heraut ne sont ne ne vit, Ne ne li fust mostré ne dit De suz out une filatire, Tut li meillor k’il pout eslire, E li plus chier k’l pout trover: Oil de boef l’ai oï nomer.”

(vv. 10828–10837.)

So again, after the oath has been taken;

“Quant Heraut out li sainz beisiez Et il fu suz levez en piez, Verz la cuve li Dus le trait, E lez la cuve ester le fait: De la cuve a le paesle osté, Ki tut aveit acoveté; A Heraut a dedenz monstré, Sor kels cors sainz il a juré. Heraut forment s’espoanta Des relikes k’il li monstra.”

(vv. 10850–10859.)

I leave the reader to judge which of these two versions is the older. It is quite possible that the striking circumstance of the hidden relics, which is peculiar to Wace, may be merely an instance of the usual growth of legend. But it is no less possible that Wace, a very honest writer, may have preserved a fact which, as tending to the discredit of William and in some measure lessening the crime of Harold, was left out by two violent partizans. I leave the point in the same uncertainty in which I must leave all the other details of the story.

We now come to the matter of the oath said to have been taken by Harold. The fullest accounts of its terms are those which are given by William of Poitiers (108) and by Eadmer (5). I have in the text (p. 241) given its terms according to the accounts of these two writers. The oath, as given by William of Poitiers, runs as follows;

“Se in curiâ domini sui Edwardi Regis, quamdiu superesset, Ducis Willelmi vicarium fore; enisurum, quanto consilio valeret aut opibus, ut Anglica monarchia post Edwardi decessum in ejus manu confirmaretur; traditurum interim ipsius militum custodiæ castrum Doveram, studio atque sumptu suo communitum; item per diversa loca illius terræ alia castra, ubi voluntas Ducis ea firmari juberet; abunde quoque alimonias daturum custodibus.”

The terms in Eadmer take the form of a speech addressed by William to Harold. William mentions Eadward’s promise of the Crown to him, and goes on thus;

“Tu quoque, si mihi te in hoc ipso [the succession to the Crown] adminiculaturum spoponderis, et insuper castellum Dofris cum puteo aquæ ad opus meum te facturum, sororemque tuam quam uni de principibus meis dein in uxorem te ad me, tempore quo nobis conveniet, destinaturum, necne [necnon?] filiam meam te in conjugem accepturum fore promiseris, tunc et modò nepotem tuum, et quum in Angliam regnaturus venero, fratrem tuum incolumem recipies.”

In both these versions Harold binds himself in different terms to do all that he can to bring about William’s succession to the Crown; but William of Poitiers makes no mention of the engagements as to the two marriages, the marriage of Harold to a daughter of William and the marriage of Harold’s sister to one of William’s nobles. In a later passage however (p. 145), which I shall quote in another note (see Appendix U), he takes for granted both the marriage of Harold with William’s daughter, and also another stipulation of which we hear more distinctly in William of Jumièges (vii. 31). This is the important addition that Harold should have half the Kingdom as the portion of Adeliza (“deinde Dux postquam Heraldus fidelitatem sibi de regno pluribus sacramentis firmavit, Adelizam filiam suam cum medietate Anglici regni se daturum eidem spopondit”). William of Malmesbury (ii. 228) gives much the same account as Eadmer, but with the strange addition that Harold offered the oath of his own accord. His words are; “Ibi Haroldus, et ingenio et manu probatus, Normannum in sui amorem convertit; atque, ut se magis commendaret, ultro illi tunc quidem castellum Doroberniæ quod ad jus suum pertineret, et post mortem Edwardi Regnum Anglicum, sacramento firmavit: quare et filiæ, adhuc impubis, desponsione, et totius patrimonii amplitudine donatus, familiarium partium habebatur.” The words in Italics would seem to refer to some sort of commendation of Harold’s lands to William, and something of the same kind seems implied in the words with which William of Poitiers goes on with his story (109); “Dux ei [Heraldo] jam satelliti”—a common equivalent for “miles” or vassal—“suo accepto per manus ante jusjurandum terras ejus cunctumque potentatum dedit petenti.”

Wace says nothing about the castle of Dover, still less does he stoop to Eadmer’s detail about the well, but he mentions the two engagements to marry William’s daughter and to make over the Kingdom to him at Eadward’s death. He gives these terms twice;

“Entretant a li Dus parlé Tant ke Heraut li a graé, Ke Engleterre li liverra Tres ke li Reis Ewart morra; Et à moillier s’il velt prendra Ele une fille ke il a: Co se li plaist li jurera, Et Willame le graanta.”

(vv. 10816–10823.)

And again in describing the actual taking of the oath;

“Poiz a juré et a prami Si come home ki eschari: Ele, la fille al Duc prendra, Et Engleterre al Duc rendra; De ço il fera son poeir Sulunc sa force e son saveir Emprès la mort Ewart, s’il vit; Si veirement Dex li aït, E li corz sainz ki iloc sont.”

(vv. 10840–10848.)

I have discussed in the text the chief points connected with the terms of the oath, and I have put forth the view which, on the whole, seems to me the least improbable. I will now get together several passages in which the promise to marry William’s daughter becomes the chief, or even the only, engagement taken by Harold. They come from writers who had not such good means of information as William of Poitiers, but who were much less likely to misrepresent or colour the story. They show what aspect of the tale most struck those who were not immediately interested in the matter. Let us begin with Snorro. The only engagement he knows of on Harold’s part is his engagement to marry William’s daughter. The proposal, as far as William is concerned, comes from Harold himself, but seemingly from Harold talked over by Matilda. The Duke does not altogether approve of the long evening talks between Harold and his wife. Matilda tells Harold that her husband is anxious to know the subject of their discourse, so it is agreed that Harold shall tell the Duke the next day. Harold accordingly asks William for his daughter in marriage, saying that he has fully talked the matter over with the Duchess, who favours his suit (“þat er at segia ydr, Jarl, atfleira býrr í hingat-komo minni, enn þat er ec hefir enn upp borit fyrir ydr. Ec vill bidia dóttr þinnar til eigin-kono mer, hefir oc þetta máll rætt fyri módor hennar optliga, oc hefir hon mer því heitit, at lidfinna þetta mál vid ydr.” Johnstone, 191; Laing, iii. 76). The suit is accepted; Harold is betrothed to the princess, but, on account of her youth, the marriage is to be put off for a time. Harold then goes to England, and comes back no more to Welshland to marry the girl (“oc kom eige sídan til Vallandz, at vitia þessa ráds”). When Harold is elected King, William indeed bethinks himself that his kindred with Eadward gives him a better right to the Crown than Harold (“enn Vilhiálmr þóttiz betr tilkominn ríkis í Englandi, en Haralldr, fyrír frændsemis sakir þeírra Játvardar Konungs.” Johnstone, 216; Laing, iii. 94), but it is not made to appear that there was any breach of faith on this score on Harold’s part. William invades England, partly to assert his hereditary right to the Crown, partly to punish Harold for not marrying his daughter (“þat var oc med, at hann þóttiz eiga at giallda Haralldi svívirding, er hann hafdi slitit festamálom vid dóttur hans”).

So in the Cartulary of Saint Bertin, in a passage already quoted, we read (p. 197) how “Willelmus, Comes Nortmanniæ.... Angliam petiit, ac Haroldo ipsius terræ [Rege?] occiso, eo quod filiam ipsius Wilhelmi in uxorem recipere recusaverit, Anglos gravi prœlio, multorum sanguine fuso, sibi subjugavit, et utrique populo Anglico et Nortmannico regnavit.” Here the only reason given for William’s attacking England is Harold’s neglect to marry his daughter. No other was known to the author of the Chronicle of Saint Andrew’s at Cambray, who wrote in 1133. Here (Pertz, vii. 537) William is described as invading England without any apparent reason, till we reach the words “Rex Anglorum Heroldus, olim contra prædictum Comitem Willelmum perjurus, nam filiam ejus se accepturum juraverat.” The Waltham writer “De Inventione” (cap. 20) is in the like case; “Insidiantibus ei perfidis Normannorum versutiis, quia filiam Willelmi Ducis Normannorum nuptui traditam contempsit.” These “versutiæ” exactly describe the sort of constraint under which I conceive Harold to have made the whole engagement.

These accounts mention no ground at all for the invasion except Harold’s refusal to marry William’s daughter. Other accounts, without going so far as this, put the question of marriage forward in a very remarkable way, as if everything else was incidental. This is the case in the version of the messages between William and Harold which is given by Eadmer and Simeon. William’s main object is to demand Harold’s sister and to require Harold to marry his daughter. Other matters are quite secondary. “Venit nuntius in Angliam a præfato Willelmo directus, expetens sororem Haroldi, juxta quod convenerat Willelmo et illi. Alia etiam quæ, violato sacramento, servata non erant, calumniatus est” (Eadmer, 5). And afterwards, “iterum ei amicâ familiaritate mandavit quatenus, aliis omissis, servatâ fidei sponsione, saltem filiam suam uxorem duceret.” (Simeon reads, “ut quamvis violatâ fide cætera non servâsset, si tamen filiam suam duceret uxorem, leviter ferret.”) Harold, in his answer, does undoubtedly speak of the Kingdom and of the castle of Dover, but these subjects are thrust in between his answers about the two marriages, how his sister is dead—does the Duke wish for her corpse?—and how he cannot marry a foreign wife without the consent of the Witan. Throughout this story William is made much more anxious to find a husband for his daughter than to find a Kingdom for himself. This must surely come from some account like that of Snorro and the other writers quoted above, which spoke of the marriage only, and which has been mixed up with the account given by William of Poitiers.

It will be remembered that, in the wild account of Eadward’s death-bed given in the French Life (see above, p. 589), everything is made to turn on an expected marriage between Harold and William’s daughter. It is on that marriage that he is made to ground his hopes of the Crown. In the account in Matthew Paris (p. 1) again, the marriage comes first. Harold, carried to Ponthieu by accident, and handed over by Guy to William, pretends that he is come secretly into Normandy to make a league with the Duke and to marry his daughter (“Haraldus asserebat se hæc omnia sponte fecisse, ut clam veniens in Normanniam confœderaretur Duci, filiam ejus in sponsam accepturus”). This he swears to do on the relics of the saints (“quod et juravit super sanctorum multorum reliquias se fideliter ad quemdam terminum completurum”). Harold and William, hitherto enemies, now become great friends, all the more so because Harold has come secretly (“tantò igitur majori honore susceptus est quantò secretiùs adventâsset; fuerant enim ante inimici ad invicem”). Then, as something quite secondary, comes the oath about the Kingdom; “Juravit insuper se post mortem Regis Edwardi, qui jam senuit sine liberis, regnum Angliæ Duci, qui in regnum jus habuit, fideliter conservaturum.” There is no explanation of the alleged right of William, no mention of any bequest by Eadward. Matthew had surely read some account which mentioned the promise of marriage only, and he added the bit about the Kingdom in deference to the more usual statement.

Lastly, we have that most singular account in the Hyde writer (288–90), to which I have already (see above, p. 686, and vol. ii. p. 519) had to refer. According to this version, hostages, one of them a son of Godwine, were given to William for the safety of Eadward, when the English embassy came to offer him the Crown on the death of Harthacnut. If any one chooses to accept this statement, here is a ready way of accounting for the other stories about the hostages. And though I do not think it likely that a son of Godwine was given as a hostage to William at that time, it is distinctly less unlikely than that he should have been so given at the time of Godwine’s return. But in this account the hostages are not spoken of again. Harold, sailing to some place not mentioned (“quibusdam caussis navem ingressus”), is driven by adverse winds to Ponthieu; he is imprisoned by Guy, and set free at the prayer (“precibus”) of Duke William. The Earl and the Duke, according to this account, appear, not as the old enemies which Matthew Paris calls them, but as old friends (“ab eodem [Willelmo] optimè cognitus [Haroldus] in multis familiariter est habitus”). They agree at last that, as William’s cousin King Eadward has no heir, Harold shall receive the Kingdom of England on condition of marrying William’s daughter and, it would seem, of holding the Kingdom as a fief of his father-in-law. Such seems to be the meaning of the words, “Ad hoc inter eos sermo progressus est, ut quia Edwardus Rex Anglorum, consobrinus Comitis Willelmi, hæredem non habebat, regnum Anglorum Willelmus Haroldo concederet eo tenore, ut filiam ipsius matrimonio acciperet, eique per omnia fideliter [fidelis?] exsisteret.” Harold agrees so readily that William, who did not easily trust Englishmen, becomes suspicious, and binds him by an oath (“quod quum promptissimè annueret, ab eodem Anglorum fidem suspectam habente ad districta sacramenta est coactus”). The phylactery of Saint Pancras, already spoken of, is accordingly brought, and Harold swears on it “se omnia, scilicet sicut fuerat postulatus, constantissimè se servaturum et Normannis fidelem affuturum.”

Now it is singular when, after this, we read in the same account (see above, p. 595) that Eadward on his death-bed left the Crown to William, and that Harold usurped it. This hardly fits in with an agreement between Harold and William that Harold should have the Crown on certain conditions. But the account which this writer (291) gives of the messages between the two princes exactly fits in with his account of the oath. William calls on Harold to do what he has promised to do (“ut sacramentorum in Normanniâ gestorum reminiscens, fœdus quod juraverat persolveret”), that is, doubtless, to marry his daughter and do homage for the Kingdom. Harold’s answer is that he has no need of any kind of connexion or intercourse with the Normans, and will therefore not perform his oath (“remandat Haroldus Normannorum societatem non esse Anglis necessariam, et ideò nullum ei juramentum persolvere, nullum cum eo consortium habere”). Of resigning the Kingdom there is not a word.

The reader will by this time know the peculiar position of the Hyde writer. His accounts are often strange and incredible, and contradicted by better authorities. But they are always independent. The writer is no servile copyist. He followed independent traditions and exercised an independent judgement of his own. His statements therefore have a certain value. And in this case they have more value than usual, as, though his prejudices are strongly Norman, his story points to a tradition quite different from the received Norman version.

Putting then together the hints of these various writers, combined with the probability of the case, I am led to the view which I have suggested in the text. Harold’s oath was primarily an oath to marry William’s daughter, and this oath, or perhaps his knighthood, was accompanied by an act of homage to William. He became his “satelles” in the language of William of Poitiers, his “homo” in the language of Orderic. I have shown in the text how vague and lax were the obligations thereby incurred. But such an act obviously lay open to many interpretations. Harold would doubtless hold that whatever obligations were imposed either by gratitude or by formal vassalage would be amply fulfilled by his services in the Breton war and by continued friendly relations with Normandy. But nothing would be easier than for William to magnify the simple obligation of homage into a promise to hold the English Crown in fief or to make it over to William himself. Out of such a groundwork as this the elaborate Norman story could easily grow up. But if Harold expressly promised all that William of Poitiers makes him promise, it is not easy to see how the engagement to marry William’s daughter could ever, in so many versions of the tale, including some distinctly favourable to the Norman side, have usurped the place which would have properly belonged to the more important engagements about the Kingdom.

I will now, by way of relaxation, wind up this part of my subject with the most wonderful tale of all, that with which Gervase of Tilbury amused the Imperial leisure of Otto the Fourth. I will give only a summary, referring the reader to the original of the “Otia Imperialia,” Decisio Secunda, cap. xx., which will be found in Leibnitz’ collection of Brunswick historians, vol. i. p. 945.

The holy King Eadward left as his heir his nephew Harold, a prince whose virtues are set forth in the most glowing terms. In his boyhood he had been sent by his uncle for education to Normandy, according to the use of the English nobles, who commonly sent their sons into France, to learn the use of arms, and to lay aside the barbarism of their native tongue. The reigning Duke had a bastard son named William, who was brought up as his heir. The two lads formed a boyish friendship, and promised to marry each other’s sisters. King Eadward and the unnamed Norman Duke die about the same time; Harold succeeds his uncle in England, and William, after some opposition, succeeds his father in Normandy. The new Duke sends a message to the new King, calling on him to fulfil his promise by an exchange of sisters. Harold has now no mind for either marriage, but his own marriage with William’s sister is brought about by an accident. The King of the English sets out with a few companions on a yachting expedition. Stress of weather drives him to Flanders—we should surely read that, intending to go to Flanders, he was driven to Normandy—there he pretends that he is come to carry out his promise as to both marriages. He does marry the Duke’s sister, and takes her with him to England, and again promises to send his own sister to the Duke. Once at home again, he neglects his promise, and, puffed up with pride, he invades Scotland and defeats the Scots in a stoutly contested battle. Directly after this, he hears that William has landed in the south of England, and hastens to attack him. The Normans, few in number and fearing Harold’s prowess, defend themselves with a dyke. But God, who can conquer by few as well as by many, overthrows the proud English, whose King is either killed or escapes by flight. William then marches on London, marries Harold’s sister, and reigns over England by virtue of the marriage.

This is altogether the wildest of all the tales that I have come across. I need not stop to point out all its blunders, anachronisms, and confusions. The most amusing perhaps is the story of Harold’s youthful sojourn in Normandy. This is evidently a confusion between Harold and Eadward, and the reason which is given must be one which belonged to Gervase’s own day rather than to Eadward’s. But even this amazing fable is worth a moment’s thought, as it shows how strong the tradition was that some question about a marriage of some kind or other was the primary ground of quarrel between Harold and William.

IV. I have given in the text as the probable date of Harold’s visit to Normandy the only date which seems possible, namely 1064. Mr. St. John (ii. 226 et seqq.), who rejects the story altogether, enlarges on the varying statements as to the date. The earliest accounts give no date; some seem to place it very soon after the death of Godwine, others, sometimes indeed the same, place it very soon before the death of Eadward. The writers seem not to have stopped to think that these two events were thirteen years apart. Mr. St. John says, very truly, though with a curious confusion of the respective dates and values of his authors,

“Bromton, p. 947, places it in the fourteenth year of Edward, that is, A.D. 1056; Matthew of Westminster and Roger of Wendover in A.D. 1059; Henry of Huntingdon A.D. 1063; Ranulph Higden, iii. 283, in 1064; Hoveden, Malmesbury, Hemingford, Wace, Simeon of Durham, run through the whole gamut of chronology from the period immediately succeeding the death of Godwin to the period immediately preceding the death of Edward, so little possible did they find it to give any stability or coherence to their fable.”

He then goes on;

“Modern historians, discovering insuperable objections to all the earlier dates, imagine there are fewer obstacles in the way of adjudging the voyage to the last year of Edward’s reign. The selection seems unfortunate. At the time of the expedition against Conan the corn is said to have been almost ripe in the fields, which in Bretagne is never the case till towards the end of August or the beginning of September. Now from the most unimpeachable of all testimonies, we know that Harold was in Wales during the summer of A.D. 1065, overlooking the erection of the hunting-palace which he undertook to build for the pleasure of his brother-in-law. We may infer, though it is not stated, that Harold left Wales sometime before the end of August, because on the 24th of that month Caradoc, son of the murdered king Griffith, whose widow Harold had married, exterminated the earl’s workmen, and put a period to the construction of the palace. Immediately after this, that is, early in September, the insurrection took place in Northumbria, when Harold was at hand, ready at the King’s request to negotiate with the rebels at Northampton.

“From this view of the occurrences of A.D. 1065, it seems difficult, if not impossible, to imagine an unoccupied interval lying between midsummer and autumn long enough to admit of our crowding into it all the events which are said to have occurred during Harold’s imprisonment at Ponthieu and forced detention in Normandy.”

These arguments are, I think, decisive against 1065. Mr. St. John places the Northumbrian revolt in September instead of in October; still the English events of the autumn of 1065 hardly leave time for Harold’s captivity at Beaurain, his sojourn at Rouen, and his warfare in Britanny. But Higden’s date of 1064 seems open to no objection. Florence (see vol. ii. p. 474) certainly carries the Welsh war into that year; but the Chronicles leave it an absolute blank. At the same time, as I have already said, I do not commit myself to the date or to anything else. Mr. St. John’s arguments, though often expressed with needless violence, have throughout great weight as against the details of the story. But I still think that the story must have had some groundwork of truth, and I have tried to show what that groundwork may have been.

V. It would be an interesting question, how far Harold’s obligations to William, whatever they were, were known in England either before or after Eadward’s death. But this is a point on which we have absolutely nothing to guide us. I know of no writer who has anything to say on the subject, except the romantic Biographer of Harold, whom I have quoted in p. 601.

I have thus done what I could to throw light on the most perplexing question in my history, one of the most perplexing questions in all history. I shall not be surprised if I am thought to have only made what was before dark darker still. But no one can conceive how thick the darkness really is except by groping in it, as I have done, in his own person.

NOTE S. p. 221.

THE ÆLFGYVA OF THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.

There is no representation in the whole of the Tapestry which is more thoroughly puzzling than the one referred to in the text (pl. 4), with its legend “Ubi unus clericus et Ælfgyva.” Who is the lady, bearing a purely English name, who is thus suddenly introduced, seemingly at the gate of William’s palace, with no apparent reference to anything before or after? One would naturally look for the figure of William’s wife or daughter in such a position, rather than for that of any other woman. Harold’s promise to marry William’s daughter, which is so prominently dwelt upon in every other version of the story, is not once alluded to in the Tapestry, unless this place has reference to it. But how could William’s wife or William’s daughter be described by the familiar English proper name Ælfgifu? On the other hand, what chance is there that any Englishwoman, really bearing the name of Ælfgifu, could be present in Duke William’s palace at such a moment? And if any such Ælfgifu really was there, what bearing had her presence on the general course of the story, so as to account for the prominent position thus given to her?

Some of these difficulties naturally struck the very earliest commentators on the Tapestry, and from their days to ours a series of the wildest conjectures have been poured forth with regard to the “Ælfgyva” in question. The matter is treated of by Lancelot (Mémoires de l’Académie, viii. 612), by De la Rue and his translator Mr. Douce (Archæologia, xvii. 100), by Mr. Amyot (Archæologia, xix. 199), by De la Rue again in his Appendix of 1824 (Recherches sur la Tapisserie, p. 53), by Mr. Bolton Corney (p. 19), by Dr. Bruce (p. 53), and lastly by Mr. Planché (Journal of Archæological Association, 1867, p. 142). The strange thing is that several of these writers seem not to have understood that Ælfgifu is simply a very common English name, but to have fancied that it was a sort of title, meaning Queen or Princess. Their stumbling-block was the double name of Eadward’s mother, “Ælfgifu-Emma,” in which formula Lancelot argued that Ælfgifu was equivalent to Hlæfdige. Any one who turns to the passages which I have referred to will find a great number of guesses, some of which refute themselves, while others are refuted by other writers in the dispute. “Ælfgyva” has been identified with the Duchess Matilda, with her daughter Adeliza, with Harold’s sister Eadgyth and his wife Ealdgyth, while some have taken the trouble to show that she cannot be either Ælfgifu-Emma or “the other Ælfgifu” (see vol. i. p. 453). What it is that Ælfgyva and the clerk are doing no one seems to know for certain, neither can I throw any light on the matter. Out of all this mass I will only, by way of relaxation, quote Mr. Bolton Corney’s remarks, as at once the most curious and the least generally accessible.

“William promised to bestow one of his daughters on Harold. She is represented beneath the inscription ÆLFGYVA—but Elfgiva was not her name. Emma, daughter of Richard I. of Normandy, and mother of Edward the Confessor, is sometimes called by the Saxon annalists Elfgiva Emma. Elfgiva therefore, whatever we read in Florence of Worcester, seems to have been an appellation of honour, and may have been understood as such by the Saxons Bayeusains. If so, why was the name of the betrothed omitted? Could it not be ascertained, or was it deemed superfluous? I apprehend the latter to have been the case; she was the DAME par excellence—she was buried and was annually commemorated at Bayeux.”

We may infer then, First, that the Saxon language was spoken at Bayeux in the thirteenth century, the date to which Mr. Corney assigns the Tapestry; Secondly, that in the Saxon language of Bayeux Ælfgyva meant “Lady;” Thirdly, that one particular daughter of William was known, distinctively and familiarly, as “the Ælfgyva;” Fourthly, that Mr. Bolton Corney understood Old-English better than Florence of Worcester.

Now leaving all wild conjectures, let us try and see what really suggests itself about this obscure matter. The Tapestry represents a woman named Ælfgifu as being in Duke William’s palace at the moment of Harold’s coming thither. Who was she? We may put aside Matilda and all other women who never were, or could have been, called Ælfgifu. We may put aside all those women who were named Ælfgifu but who were dead and buried at the time. But of all the women named Ælfgifu who were living at the time, which could have been in William’s palace at that particular moment? Several guesses have occurred to me at different times. They are mere guesses, of no more value than the guesses of other writers. They are all, I allow, improbable guesses, but I think that they have the advantage over some other guesses of not being absolutely impossible.

1. In my second volume (p. 629) I threw out, half in jest, the suggestion that Ælfgifu, the name assumed by Emma on her marriage with Æthelred, was the name usually assumed by foreign women who married English husbands. Is it possible that there is really something in this? Is it possible that William’s daughter, if she had married Harold, would have had to change her name to Ælfgifu? Is it possible that she is here called Ælfgifu proleptically, perhaps sarcastically? This is, I grant, very far-fetched and unlikely, but it is perhaps not absolutely impossible. We should certainly expect the Tapestry to contain some reference to the intended marriage between Harold and William’s daughter. We should certainly expect to find William’s daughter, rather than any other girl or woman, represented where we find Ælfgifu represented. And here is a way, however far-fetched, in which it is just possible she might be called Ælfgifu.

2. Ælfgifu was (see vol. ii. p. 629) the name of the widow of Ælfgar, the mother of Harold’s wife Ealdgyth. According to some accounts, she was of Norman birth. Could she have been living or visiting in Normandy at this time? And can her introduction have any reference to Harold’s marriage with her daughter?

3. I have mentioned in my second volume (p. 554) the probability that Harold had a sister of the name of Ælfgifu, and that she must have been the sister whom Harold (Eadmer, p. 5; Sim. Dun. 1066) promised, as part of his oath, to give in marriage to one of William’s nobles. Is it possible that she was in Normandy at this time? If Harold’s voyage really was, as I believe it to have been, a mere yachting expedition, he may very well have been accompanied by his sister, as well as by his brother and his nephew. If it should be asked how Ælfgifu came to be in William’s palace while her brother was still a captive at Beaurain, it may be answered that even Guy may not have pressed his right of wreck so far as to imprison a woman, and that it is certain that one or more of Harold’s party escaped Guy’s clutches, if only to carry the news of his imprisonment to William (see above, p. 224). If therefore Harold was accompanied by his sister, it is quite possible she might find her way to Rouen before he did. I throw this out as a mere conjecture, and it certainly has its difficulties about it, but every explanation of this puzzling group must be mere conjecture, and it certainly strikes me that this conjecture has less of difficulty about it than some of the others.

Whomever we fix upon as the Ælfgifu of the Tapestry, it is still by no means clear what is happening between her and the clerk, or why the incident should receive so prominent a place in the pictured story. Like the introduction of Turold, Vital, and Wadard, there is evidently an allusion to some fact which was perfectly well known at the time, but of which no other record has been preserved. As such, it is another witness to the contemporary date, and thereby to the authority, of the Tapestry.

NOTE T. p. 229.

THE BRETON CAMPAIGN OF WILLIAM AND HAROLD.

Our only detailed accounts of this campaign come from William of Poitiers and the Tapestry. Between these two both Lord Lyttelton (i. 354) and Mr. Planché (145) see a distinct contradiction; only Lord Lyttelton assumes that the Tapestry must be wrong because it contradicts William of Poitiers, while Mr. Planché assumes that William of Poitiers must be wrong because he contradicts the Tapestry. But there is really no distinct contradiction between the two authorities; their accounts may easily be reconciled, if we only suppose a somewhat remarkable omission on the part of William of Poitiers.

William tells us that the object of the expedition was to deliver Dol, which was held on Duke William’s behalf by Rhiwallon, and that Conan fled on the approach of the Norman army. He gives no details of any further progress of William and Harold in Britanny, though he has a good deal to tell us as to what passed between William and Rhiwallon. He makes no mention of Rennes or of Dinan, the two other places represented in the Tapestry.

There is nothing in the Tapestry (pl. 5) which at all contradicts this account of what happened at Dol. William’s approach to the city is clearly not a hostile approach. The Duke himself and those immediately about him are not even in armour. There are no defenders on the walls, such as we presently see at Dinan. The legend is simply “Venerunt ad Dol,” while in the other case it is “Pugnant contra Dinantes.” But on the other side Conan and his host are running away—“Conan fugâ vertit.” I do not profess to explain the intentions of the man who is letting himself down by a rope from the wall.

Thus far the Tapestry and the Archdeacon exactly agree. The Tapestry also does not, as Mr. Planché understands it, make William pursue Conan to Rennes. Rennes—“Rednes”—is indeed introduced in the Tapestry, but it forms no part of the story; the city is represented on a smaller scale than the other subjects, and certainly no one is made to pursue the flying Bretons. Rennes is simply brought in as a kind of indication of the point to which Conan fled.

The story of the siege of Dinan belongs wholly to the Tapestry. It is certainly strange that William of Poitiers should leave out all mention of so considerable an exploit, but the difficulty is a good deal lessened if we accept Wace’s statement (see p. 230) that Harold accompanied William on more than one raid into Britanny. That a siege of Dinan really is intended, and not a siege of Rennes, I have no doubt at all.

NOTE U. p. 259.

THE EMBASSIES EXCHANGED BETWEEN WILLIAM AND HAROLD.

The different statements as to Harold’s oath naturally lead to statements equally different as to the messages which, after Harold’s election, were exchanged between him and William. Whatever Harold had promised, that William demanded, and whatever William demanded, that Harold refused. We thus get a set of statements differing exactly as the other set of statements differ. I have already had occasion to refer incidentally to several of them. I will now try to put them together in order.

Of the purely Norman authorities, the Tapestry is silent. William of Poitiers does not directly speak of any messages between the rivals till after William’s landing in England (128–131; see above, p. 430). But there is a passage further on which seems to imply an earlier message. This is when the Archdeacon breaks forth into that wonderful panegyric on his master (145) which follows his account of William’s coronation;

“Hic [Willelmus] ne Heraldum vellet occubuisse. Immò voluit patris Godwini potentiam illi ampliare, et natam suam, Imperatoris thalamo dignissimam, in matrimonium, ut fuerat pollicitus, tradere.”

This clearly implies that an offer of the Earldom of the West-Saxons, perhaps of something greater, together with the hand of William’s daughter, had been twice made by William to Harold. The first time is of course at the taking of the oath; the second time must be in some message sent before the expedition. For the messages exchanged after William’s landing are given at length, and they contain no such terms. And an offer of William’s daughter could then at least have been nothing but sheer mockery. By that time, at all events, Harold was married to Ealdgyth.

William of Jumièges (vii. 31) has an account which exactly agrees with the implied narrative of William of Poitiers. The Duke, as soon as he hears the news of Harold’s election, sends messengers to remind him to keep his oath. The terms of the oath, according to him, were that William should be King, Harold having half the Kingdom and William’s daughter. His words are,

“Ad quem [Heraldum] Dux protinùs legatos direxit, hortans ut ab hâc insaniâ resipisceret, et fidem quam juramento spoponderat condignâ subjectione servaret. At ille non solùm hoc audire contempsit, verùm omnem Anglorum gentem ab illo infideliter avertit.”

He then goes on with the account of Gruffydd and Ealdgyth which I quoted in vol. ii. p. 630.

Orderic does not mention the message. The Roman de Rou (vv. 11066–11075) speaks of several messages;

“Willame li manda sovent, K’il li tenist sun serement, E Heraut li manda vilment, K’il ne fereit por li néient, Ne il sa fille ne prendreit, Ne il terre ne li rendreit, Et Willéalme le desfia, E desfiance li manda; E Heraut toz tems reponeit Ke nule rien mez ne creimeit.”

Here the terms of William’s messages are not given, but they may be inferred from the terms of Harold’s answer. These terms, and also the mention of more messages than one, seem on the whole to fall in with the account given by Eadmer and Simeon, which I have already mentioned (see above, p. 671). Harold there makes this answer, of which I do not fully understand the clause about the castle and well of Dover;

“Soror mea, quam juxta condictum expetis, mortua est. Quod si corpus ejus, quale nunc est, vult Comes habere, mittam, ne judicer sacramentum violâsse quod feci. Castellum Dofris et in eo puteum aquæ, licet nesciam cui, ut vobis convenit, explevi.”

He then goes on with the passages which I have already quoted (pp. 262, 264), in which Harold declares his inability either to decline the Kingdom which was offered to him or to marry a foreign woman without the consent of the Witan. William then sends a second message (see above, p. 260), of which the tone is greatly lowered. He now only asks that, if Harold will do nothing else that he has promised to do, he will at least marry his daughter. “Alioquin,” he continues, “se promissam regni successionem armis sibi vindicaturum proculdubiò sciret. At ipse [Haroldus] nec illud quidem se facere velle, nec hoc formidare respondit.”

It will be easily seen how completely this agrees with the account in the Roman de Rou, except in the prominence given to the engagement about Harold’s sister, which Wace does not mention at all. The statement about her death seems to me to bear the stamp of genuineness, as it is not a thing which anybody would take the trouble to invent. And it has sometimes struck me that this explains the statement of William of Malmesbury, where he makes Harold say that the daughter of William whom he had promised to marry was dead (see above, p. 660). In this statement he stands quite alone, and it seems not unlikely that he confounded the two marriage engagements, and that the death of William’s daughter is really a reproduction of the death of Harold’s sister. The rest of William of Malmesbury’s story, and the constitutional doctrine put into the mouth of Harold, I have mentioned already in the text and notes. See above, pp. 262–265.

The version of the Hyde writer I have already given at p. 692.

In Benoît’s account (36732–36757) the Kingdom alone is dwelt upon. He had mentioned the marriage (36622 et seqq.), but he seems to look on the marriage of Adeliza as something volunteered by William after the oath, not as part of the oath itself.

I do not know that there is any need to quote the accounts of any later writer.

NOTE W. p. 286.

WILLIAM’S COUNCILS AND NEGOTIATIONS.

Two points of some difficulty meet us here. We have no trustworthy guide to the chronology of the different embassies and assemblies which William used to put forward his claim; doubts may also be raised as to the nature of the Norman Assemblies which he consulted. To fix the exact chronology seems hopeless; as I said in the text, several negotiations were most likely going on at the same time. And the writer who ought to be our best authority, William of Poitiers, is now, as usual, very careless about the order of events, arranging them not so much according to the almanac as according to any arrangement which may best suit his rhetoric. Two distinct questions however arise. First, Did the Assembly which William of Malmesbury places at Lillebonne meet before or after the gift of the consecrated banner by the Pope? Secondly, Was the English expedition discussed in one or in two Norman Assemblies?

On the first point, William of Malmesbury (iii. 238) distinctly puts the Lillebonne Assembly after the receipt of the banner; “Perpensis apud se utrimque partibus, Papa vexillum in omen regni Willelmo contradidit; quo ille accepto, conventum magnatum apud Lillebona fecit, super negotio singulorum sententias sciscitatus.” Wace, on the other hand (11436), places the embassy to the Pope last of all, after all the other negotiations.

On the second point, Wace (11120 et seqq.) is the only writer who distinctly marks the two assemblies, first, a small body of select counsellors who recommend the gathering of a larger assembly, and secondly, the larger assembly of the whole baronage of Normandy which is gathered according to their recommendation. The words of William of Malmesbury would seem to imply one assembly only.

Let us see whether anything can be got out of William of Poitiers to strengthen either view. Having recorded (p. 121) Harold’s accession after his own fashion, he tells us of a council held by William, in which many of his chief men dissuaded him from the undertaking as being one too great for the power of Normandy (“Dux Willelmus, habitâ cum suis consultatione, armis injuriam ulcisci, armis hæreditatem reposcere decrevit; tametsi complures majorum id ingeniosè dissuaderent, ut rem nimis arduam, Normanniæ viribus longè majorem”). He then enlarges on the number of wise and illustrious men whom Normandy then contained, and gives a list of them, which differs in one or two names only from the list which Wace gives of the former and smaller council. Then comes an account of the preparation of the ships, the pouring in of foreign soldiers, the delay at the mouth of the Dive. Then, and not before, we read of the embassies to the German King, the Pope, and the King of the Danes. Then comes the tale about Harold’s spies, which is followed by a great number of arguments against the expedition, which read very much like Wace’s account of the assembly of Lillebonne, and which I have not scrupled (see p. 294) to transfer to that gathering. One of them is that the ships, though seemingly already collected at the mouth of the Dive, could not be got together or supplied with crews within the appointed space of a year. The Duke then makes a speech in answer, and the fleet, which had been waiting in vain for the south wind at the Dive, sails for Saint Valery.

In a tale told in this way there is clearly no regard paid to chronology. The facts are much the same as the facts in Wace, but as to their order nothing can be made out. It will be remembered that several other incidents in the history, as the comet and some points in the engagements between William and Harold, are (see pp. 643, 687, 701) recorded or alluded to by William of Poitiers in places still more distant from their chronological order. The short account in William of Jumièges (vii. 31–34) proves hardly anything. The events which he records come in this order; the message to Harold; the coming of Tostig; the death of Conan; the preparation and voyage of William. Orderic (492–494) is fuller. He begins with the coming of Tostig, to whose suggestion he seems to attribute the gathering of the Assembly (see p. 303). His list of persons consulted is the list in William of Poitiers, with a few names added. Then comes the embassy to Rome and the gift of the banner. Then comes the unsuccessful enterprise of Tostig against England, followed by William’s own preparations. Orderic then, after his custom, leaves the subject to talk about quite other matters. He comes back to it after some while (499, 500), to tell of the Norwegian invasion of England, of the delay of the Norman ships at the Dive, of William’s final voyage and all that followed it.

The short and inadequate account in Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 761, 762) is of some importance, because part of it is clearly drawn from the same sources as the account in Wace. He tells us that William held an Assembly, and that his fleet afterwards met at Saint Valery. He says nothing about any embassies at all. But he is the only writer besides Wace who makes any special mention of William Fitz-Osbern, though the way in which he tells the story is not exactly the same as that in which it is told in the Roman de Rou. See p. 297.

The evidence being in this state, I thought that I might safely follow Wace. His account of the two assemblies is full and clear, and it derives a sort of incidental support from William of Poitiers and Henry of Huntingdon. The former seems in a manner to imply that there were two assemblies, though he puts the second out of its place. Following Wace thus far, I have also followed him in placing the Assembly at Lillebonne before the receipt of the banner from Rome, though William of Malmesbury asserts the exact contrary. The reader must judge for himself which order he thinks the more probable. The approval of the Pope would of course be likely to tell with great effect on the mind of the Assembly. On the other hand, it would be a great point for William to be sure of the support of his own Duchy before he applied to the Pope. It would be hardly like the wisdom of William to ask, or like the wisdom of Hildebrand to grant, a blessing on an undertaking which might easily fall through altogether. And the religious excitement would probably tell less on William’s own subjects than on the mixed multitude of Crusaders who flocked to him from all parts. But the question—not one of any great importance—must be left an open one.

As to the embassies to foreign powers, the application to the Pope is mentioned in every account which tells the story in any detail. It is in fact the centre and soul of the whole business. All accounts again agree as to the influx of foreign soldiers of all kinds. But as to the particular potentates applied to, our two fullest accounts differ. William of Poitiers speaks of the applications to Germany and Denmark, Wace of those to France and Flanders. There is here no contradiction. The object of William of Poitiers was to exalt his hero, and his own mind was deeply impressed with Imperial ideas. The distant embassies, above all the embassy to the future Emperor, were those which tended most to set forth the greatness of the Norman Duke; they were those therefore on which the loyal Archdeacon was most inclined to dwell. It was equally natural that Wace, writing at a later time, should think most of those nearer embassies which ordinary Norman tradition would be most likely to understand and to remember. His account of the dealings of William with the King of the French is straightforward and probable enough, except in the omission of all mention of Baldwin of Flanders in his character of Regent. I have therefore followed it in the text. But of the intercourse between William and Baldwin in his character of sovereign of Flanders, Wace has (11390–11432) a tale which strikes me as so purely legendary that I did not venture to introduce it into the text. The Duke sends to Baldwin, who is spoken of as his brother-in-law, not as his father-in-law (“cum od serorge”—sororius—“et od ami” in v. 11392; and again, “vostre seror et vos nevoz” in vv. 11424, 11425), and asks his help. Baldwin answers that he must first know what share of England he is to have for his pains. William, who seems to be conceived as talking with Baldwin face to face, says that he must go home and consult his Barons, and that he will then send word by letter what the result is.

“E li Dus dist k’il s’en ireit, A sez Barunz en parlereit, Et a els s’en cunseillereit, E ço ke l’en li loerreit Par son bref li remandereit.”

(vv. 11399–11403.)

No consultation with the Barons seems to follow, but the Duke does a thing which nobody had ever done before (“poiz fist ço, ke ainz ne fist nus”). He takes a small piece of parchment on which nothing is written, then seals it up with wax, and causes to be written on the outside that the Count shall have such part of England as is stated in the inside of the letter.

“De parchemin prist un petit K’il ni out leitre ne escrit, Tot voi le séela en cire, Et en la coe fist escrire, Ke d’Engleterre tant areit Comme li brief dedenz diseit.”

(vv. 11406–11411.)

The packet is sent to Baldwin by a cunning varlet (“vaslet enloçonez”); the Count breaks the seal, looks inside—seemingly he could read—finds nothing, and shows it to the varlet. The varlet then says that there is nothing there and that Baldwin shall have nothing. The honours which the Duke was seeking would belong to Baldwin’s sister and nephews. If Baldwin had joined in the enterprise no one would have gained more by it than himself. As it was, William would with God’s help conquer England for himself without help from Baldwin. Wace adds, as he so often does, that he does not know what answer the Count made.

The sort of practical joke described in this story would be quite in keeping with one side of William’s character (see p. 162) if one could only see the point of the joke. But that point is, to say the least, not very obvious, and the whole story seems quite inconsistent with the real relations between William and Baldwin. See the note of Prevost, ii. 137, and Taylor, 110.

NOTE X. p. 300.

THE MOVEMENTS OF TOSTIG AFTER HIS BANISHMENT.

The presence of Tostig in Normandy is asserted by Orderic in the passages which I have quoted in the text, and it is implied in the short narrative of William of Jumièges (vii. 32), who simply says, after describing Harold’s accession, “Porro Dux Tosticum Comitem in Angliam misit, sed militia Heraldi mare servans eum armis abegit” (see p. 304). William of Poitiers and Wace make no mention of any visit of Tostig to Normandy; they do not speak of him at all till they come to their almost incidental mention of Harold Hardrada’s invasion of England. The English writers also make no mention of any visit to Normandy on Tostig’s part. He goes to Flanders and comes on his vain expedition to England in May “from beyond sea” (see p. 324), which of course leaves the matter open between Normandy and Flanders. Snorro again knows nothing of a visit to Normandy, but takes Tostig (see p. 329) from Flanders to Denmark by way of Friesland. I do not however wholly reject the account of Orderic. The omission of Tostig’s visit both by William of Poitiers and the English writers is not at all hard to understand, while it is not easy to see why William of Jumièges or Orderic should have invented it. Its omission by Snorro is still less surprising; it is hard indeed to reconcile his version with that in the English Chronicles even on those points which are the very life of his story.

Orderic’s story however cannot be accepted in its details. First of all, it involves (see vol. ii. p. 626) the central mistake of making Tostig’s banishment follow the accession of Harold. Secondly, as a necessary consequence of this mistake, it greatly hurries Tostig’s movements, making him go to Flanders, leave his wife there, and hasten to Normandy, whereas we know that he left England on November 1st, 1065, and stayed with Baldwin the whole winter (see vol. ii. p. 501). Thirdly, it represents Tostig’s first expedition as not reaching England at all, whereas we know that he landed and harried the coast at several places (see p. 326). But, except the first mistake, which we know how to account for and to correct, these are not very fatal difficulties. Tostig did reach England, but he did nothing there of any moment, and a foreign writer might easily speak of an expedition which so utterly missed its mark, as if it had never touched English ground at all. And, small as the point is, it is worth noticing as an undesigned coincidence that Orderic makes Tostig set sail from the Côtentin, while the English Chronicler makes him land in the Isle of Wight. I have therefore not hesitated to accept the main outline of Orderic’s story, and to represent Tostig’s first expedition, in May, 1066, as undertaken with at least the connivance of William. Tostig must have had some force, Norman or Flemish, adhering to him during the whole time. The presence of Flemings at Stamfordbridge is beyond doubt. See p. 371.

What follows next in Orderic and William of Jumièges is far harder to reconcile with our own Chronicles. They both make Tostig, after struggling in vain against many winds (“Zephyro Notoque aliisque ventis alternatim impellentibus angores multos pertulit,” Orel. Vit. 593 C), make his way at last to Harold Hardrada in Norway. “Post plurimos labores ad Heraldum Regem Nortwigenarum, qui Harafagh cognominabatur, accessit,” says Orderic. So William of Jumièges (vii. 32); “At ille non valens salubriter Angliam introïre, neque Normanniam, quia ventus obstabat, redire, Heraldum Herfagam, Northwegæ Regem, adiit.” There is nothing about his going to Scotland or to Denmark. Wace indeed takes him to Denmark, but seemingly only through confounding Denmark and Norway.

“Tosti, ki mult s’en coroça, En Danemarche trespassa, Daneiz è Norreiz amena, Deverz Euroïc ariva.”

(vv. 11803.)

So Benoît, who carries Tostig to Norway in v. 36842 (“vers Northwege l’estut sigler Par merveilles orrible mer”), calls the force which he brought into England “ceus de Norwege” in v. 37065, and “Daneis” in 37103. None of these writers know anything of the double negotiation, first with Swend, then with Harold, which is so prominent in Snorro. Again, the Norman accounts take Tostig and Harold Hardrada straight from Norway to Yorkshire. The “erroneus exsul” pleads his cause before the tyrant, as Orderic (493 D) himself calls Harold, though Tostig is made to address him by many respectful titles (“Sublimitatem vestram, magnifice Rex”—see vol. i. pp. 63, 286—“supplex adeo, et me servitiumque meum Majestati vestræ fideliter offero”). He tells how his younger brother has risen against him and deprived him of the honours—whether the Earldom of the West-Saxons or the Empire of Britain—which were due to him by hereditary right (“ut possim restitui per vestrum suffragium honori ex paternâ successione debito. Nam Heraldus frater meus, qui jure mihi, utpote primogenito, debuisset parere, fraudulenter insurrexit contra me”). He goes on to enlarge on his brother’s perjury (“regnum Angliæ perjuriis præsumpsit usurpare”), an argument which, however telling with William, sounds strangely out of place when addressed to Harold Hardrada. He proposes to Harold of Norway to overthrow Harold of England, and to occupy his Kingdom, granting half of it to Tostig in fief (“proterviam perfidi fratris bello proterite, medietatem Angliæ vobis retinete, aliamque mihi, qui vobis inde fideliter serviam dum advixero, retinete”). Harold consents, he occupies six months in preparations, and sets sail in August. Orderic therefore conceived that Tostig’s banishment, his journeys to Flanders and Normandy, his attempt on England, and his escape to Norway, all took place in the course of January and February. In August then Harold and Tostig set sail together and sail straight for Yorkshire (“mense Augusto Heraldus Noricorum Rex cum Tostico et ingenti classe immensum pelagus intravit, et, Aparciate seu Boreâ flante, ad Angliam applicuit et Eboracensem provinciam primitùs invasit,” 499 D, 500 A).

It is clear that this account differs in some respects from that of Snorro, which I have given in the text. Snorro makes Tostig leave Harold in the spring (see p. 333) and go and collect English and Flemish troops in Flanders, with whom he meets Harold at some point of his voyage. The stoppage in Orkney again (see p. 344) is left out by Orderic, which is not very wonderful.

When we turn to our own Chronicles, we see that whatever amount of truth the stories of Orderic and Snorro may contain, their chronology at least is wholly wrong. Tostig’s first expedition to England, which Snorro leaves out, and which Orderic places at some time in January or February, did not happen till May (see above, p. 708). After its failure, Tostig went, not to Denmark or Norway, but to Scotland, and stayed there all the summer (see p. 327). The question now comes, which I left doubtful in the text, whether he ever went to Norway at all. Let us look at the different accounts.

The Abingdon Chronicle, which is followed by Florence, having mentioned the summer sojourn of Tostig in Scotland, the preparations of Harold of England in the south, and the return of his fleet to London (see p. 338), goes on; “þa ða scipu ham coman, þa com Harold cyning of Norwegan norð into Tínan on unwaran ... and Tostig eorl him com to mid eallum þam þe he begiten hæfde, eallswa hy ær gesprecen hæfdon” (“ut priùs condixerant,” Fl. Wig.).

The Worcester and Peterborough Chronicles record the flight of Tostig to Scotland, and at once connect it with the Norwegian invasion. “And he [Tostig] for to Scotlande mid xii. snaccum, and hine gemette [hine gemette þær. Wig.] Harold se Norrena cyng [cyng of Norwegon. Wig.] mid ccc. scipum; and Tostig him to beah [him to beah and his man wearð. Wig.], and hi bægen foran into Humbran oð þæt hi coman to Eoferwíc.”

This version is followed by William of Malmesbury (ii. 228); “Tostinus ... versus Scotiam vela convertit: ibi Regi Noricorum, Haroldo Harvagre, obvio manus dedit, qui cum ccc. navibus Angliam aggredi meditabatur. Ambo ergo consertis umbonibus terram Transhumbranam populabantur.”

These two accounts are clearly independent. Abingdon puts the meeting of Harold and Tostig in the Tyne. Worcester and Peterborough seem to put it in Scotland. But their words might be taken as leaving the place uncertain. Nor is there any contradiction in the more important question whether the expedition had been already planned between Harold and Tostig. This is directly asserted by the Abingdon Chronicle. The two others would certainly, taken by themselves, be understood to imply that Harold Hardrada had already set out on his own account, and that his meeting with Tostig was not the result of any agreement. This appearance becomes still stronger in William of Malmesbury, from his use of the verb “meditabatur.” But there is no word exactly answering to this in the Chronicles, and the difference in the two accounts may be simply one of omission. The words “eallswa hy ær gesprecen hæfdon” may in themselves mean anything, from a mere agreement to join forces in the Tyne made after an unexpected meeting in Scotland up to the voyage to Norway spoken of by Snorro and Orderic. The question is whether the chronology will admit of that voyage. Snorro and Orderic, as we have seen, place it early in the year. If we give up the story of Tostig’s journey to Normandy and his concert with William, it would be easy to take Tostig into Norway before his first attack on England, at any time between January and May. But it is plain that he did not go to Norway immediately on the failure of that expedition, for he went to Scotland and stayed there all the summer. And it is hard to find room between the end of summer and September 25th for a voyage of Tostig to Norway, for the preparations of Harold Hardrada, and for his voyage. A communication by messengers is more possible, as that may be spread over all the time from May to September. But, if we make Tostig visit Norway so late in the year, it could not have been his visit which first suggested to Harold to invade England. Indeed the invasion could hardly have been first suggested by letters or messages sent so late as May.

We must then either reject the partnership between William and Tostig in the May expedition and carry Tostig into Norway early in the year, or else we must suppose that Harold Hardrada was already planning an attack on England, and that all that any visit or message of Tostig did was to strengthen and hasten a purpose already formed. On the whole I incline to this last view, because I cannot see why any Norman writer should have invented a connexion between Tostig and William, if it never happened. But if we reject the Norman story, we can accept nearly the whole tale in Snorro. Tostig goes to Denmark and Norway early in the year; he then returns to Flanders and collects a force. Snorro does not say what he did with it till he met Harold in the autumn. The gap will thus be filled by the May voyage to England and the summer in Scotland. I am quite content to leave the point open, but I would remark that it is at least as hard to reconcile the Norman and Norwegian accounts with one another as to reconcile either with the English account.

The Hyde writer, as usual, gives (292) an independent account which is worth a passing notice.

“Frater ejus [Haroldi], nomine Tostius, genere et animo temerarius, mox ut fratrem regium honorem usurpâsse vidit, nutu Domini, qui perjurium undique persequebatur, quâdam simultate inter eos ortâ, Angliâ discessit, atque cum multâ manu et thesaurorum suorum copiâ multitudinem Flandriam ad Sanctum Odmarum, ut aiunt, devenit, ubi commendatâ thesaurorum suorum copiâ navem ascendens insulam Norweiam, quondam Scanciam dictam, et ut Gothorum historia testatur, multarum gentium officinam, petivit; quam ingressus, Regem ejus Haroldum, cognomento Hervard [Harfragi], id est, crine formosum, erat enim et staturâ corporis et formâ decorus, tum precibus tum promissionibus ita illexit, ut congregato exercitu et classe paratâ, cum eodem Angliam ad debellandum Regem Haroldum festinus adveniret. Denique Angliam ingressi, Eboracam opulentissimam civitatem et archiepiscopatûs sedem obsidione cingunt.”

We have already (see vol. ii. p. 231) seen this writer talking about the “Isle of Norway,” when, by the way, he really meant Denmark. We here see where he found it, namely in the opening chapters of Jornandes, especially the well-known passage in c. iv. (Muratori, i. 193); “Ex hâc igitur Scanziâ insulâ, quasi officinâ gentium, aut certè velut vaginâ nationum, cum Rege suo nomine Berig, Gothi quondam memorantur egressi.”

NOTE Y. p. 313.

ARNOLD OF ARDRES.

I get the account of these adventurers from the “Historia Comitum Ardensium” in Bouquet, xi. 305. The office held is described as the “villicatura sive præpositura Sancti Bertini in terrâ Ghisnensi,” which had been held “hæreditario jure” for some generations. Arnold came “opitulante Boloniensi Comite Eustachio,” and Geoffrey seems to follow him at William’s own summons—“vocatus ab eodem Rege Willelmo.” Their rewards are thus described; “Servientes igitur ambo fratres, Arnoldus videlicet et Gaufridus, jam dicto Regi, tantam ejus adepti sunt gratiam quod, præter quotidiana stippendia et munuscula, quæ ipsis contulit innumerabilia, contulit etiam eis et in perpetuitatis concessit feodum, Stebintoniam et pertinentias ejus, Dokeswordiam, Tropintoniam, Ledefordiam, Toleshondiam, et Hoilandiam.” All these, as far as I can identify them in Domesday, are possessions of Eustace, but in two cases only do I find Arnold as under tenant. These are at “Dokeswordia,” in Domesday “Dochesuuorde” (196), and Trumpington (ib.), both in Cambridgeshire. In the former we read, “hanc terram tenet Hernulfus de comite Eustachio,” and under Trumpington we have still more distinctly, “tenet Ernulfus de Ardâ sub Comite.” Stebingtonia, in Domesday (205) Stebintune, is held of Count Eustace by Lunen, and the lands in Essex, Selefordia, Hoilandia, and Toleshondia, in Domesday Toleshunta, now Tolleshunt, are held of Eustace (Domesday, ii. 32, 33) by Adelolfus. This may be an English Æthelwulf; but, as the name also occurs in Flanders (see Cart. S. Bertin, 142, 153 et al.), he may equally well be a foreign follower of Eustace. Arnold however appears again as Ernulfus de Arde, as a tenant under Count Eustace of various places in Bedfordshire (211), and one might almost guess that he is the same as Arnulfus de Hesding (no doubt Hesdin in Ponthieu) who holds (205 b) Upford in Huntingdonshire of the King. Arnold and Arnulf are, I need not say, names whose various forms are often and easily confounded. This is a fair specimen of the way in which men came to William from all parts of the world for whatever they could get.

NOTE Z. p. 315.

THE DEATH OF CONAN.

The only place that I know of where William is directly charged with poisoning Conan is in the speech (Ord. Vit. 534 B) at the bride-ale of 1076, where the charge is coupled with the kindred charge of poisoning Walter and Biota (see p. 207). The revellers are made to say, “Conanum quoque, strenuissimum Consulem, veneno infecit, quem mortuum Britannia tota pro ingenti probitate ineffabili luctu deflevit.”

The text of William of Jumièges (vii. 33) is as follows;

“Tempore quo Willelmus Dux disponebat Angliam adire, et armis eam sibi vendicare, audax Chunanus Comes Britanniæ nisus est eum, missâ legatione hujusmodi, terrere: Audio te, inquit, nunc velle trans mare proficisci, et Angliæ tibi regnum nancisci. Inde multum gaudeo, sed ut mihi Normanniam reddas obsecro. Robertas autem Dux Normannorum, quem tu fingis esse patrem tuum, iturus in Hierusalem, Alanno patri meo, consobrino scilicet suo, commendavit omnem suam hæreditatem. Tu autem cum complicibus tuis Alannum patrem meum apud Winmusterium in Normanniâ veneno peremisti, et terram ejus, quam ego quia puer eram possidere nequibam, invasisti; et contra fas, cum sis nothus, hucusque tenuisti. Nunc igitur aut mihi debitam redde Normanniam, aut ego tibi totis viribus bellum inferam. His auditis, Willelmus Dux aliquantulum territus est. Sed mox eum Deus, frustratis inimici minis, eripere dignatus est. Unus enim ex proceribus Britonum, qui utrique Comiti juraverat fidelitatem, et hujusmodi legationem inter eos ferebat, lituum Chuningi, et habenas, atque chirothecas intrinsecus livit veneno. Erat quippe cubicularius Chuningi. Tunc idem Comes Britonum in Andegavensi Comitatu Castellum-Guntherii obsederat, et oppidanis militibus sese illi dedentibus suos intromittebat. Interea Chuningus chirothecas suas incautè induit, tactisque habenis, manum ad os levavit. Cujus tactu veneno infectus est, et paullò post omnibus suis lugentibus defunctus est. Hic multum sagax fuit et probus, ac amator justitiæ. Qui si diu vixisset, multa bona ut fertur fecisset, ac ad regendum honorem utilis fuisset. Proditor autem conscius sui reatûs, mox de expeditione aufugit, et mortem Chuningi Willelmo Duci mandavit.”

This story, in the way in which it is brought in, looks very like an interpolation, and the message of Conan sounds very like a romance. And it is certainly most remarkable that it seems to be a purely Norman story. At least I have not been able to find it in such Breton and Angevin chronicles as I know anything of. The Breton and Angevin writers record Conan’s war with Anjou and also his death, and they place both in 1066. But they say nothing which at all lays his death to the charge of William. Of three Breton chronicles in the collection of Morice (Mémoires pour servir de Preuves à l’Histoire de Bretagne), the first in the collection says merely, “1066. Cometa apparuit. Obiit Conanus Dux Britanniæ filius Alani. Normanni Angliam ceperunt.” Another, the Chronicle of Saint Brieuc (p. 36), mentions the war with Anjou. Conan “quum territorium Andegavense devastâsset, in eodem territorio, paullò ante destructionem Heraldi Anglorum Regis, sine liberis morte præventus est anno Domini 1066.” A third Chronicle (p. 102) tells us how, in “1066, Comes Britannorum Conanus juvenis et malitiosus, Andegavorum terram adorsus, superbæ pervasioni suæ in ipsâ Andegavorum terrâ morte subitâ præreptus est.” The Angevin Chronicle which I have quoted at p. 642, after its account of the Comet and of the invasion of England, mentions the death of Conan in nearly the same words as the third Breton Chronicle just quoted. These accounts connect the death of Conan in some way, if only by way of coincidence, with the Conquest of England, yet not one of them breathes the least suspicion against William. Conan’s death was sudden; but a sudden death need not be a death by poison, and a death by poison need not have been brought about by the devices of William. I cannot think that we have evidence enough to charge the great Duke with so infamous a crime.

NOTE AA. p. 338.

THE OPERATIONS OF THE ENGLISH FLEET IN 1066.

Did the English fleet, or any part of it, ever encounter the Norman fleet or any part of it? The general run of our narrative would lead us to say, No; but there are some passages which look the other way. Thus the Peterborough Chronicler, immediately after describing Harold’s election, says, “And þy ylcan geare þe he cyng wæs, he for út mid sciphere togeanes Willelme, and þá hwile com Tostig eorl into Humbran míd lx. scipum.” And this seems to be followed by Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 762 A); “Quod audiens Rex Haraldus, vir bellis acerrimus, cum navali exercitu contra Willielmum Ducem in mare profectus est.” These expressions do not necessarily imply a battle, but they seem to point to some operations beyond merely watching the coast.

Of the entries in Domesday referred to in the text, one, that about Æthelric of Kelvedon, distinctly asserts a battle, but without mentioning its date. It occurs under Essex, ii. 14 b. Æthelric held Kelvedon T. R. E. The Survey adds, “Hic supradictus Ailricus abiit in navale prœlium contra Willelmum Regem.” This seems to imply an actual engagement, though of course it need not have been a general engagement between the whole of the two fleets, which seems quite impossible. The entry goes on to say that Æthelric on his return—when the fleet returned to London in September?—fell sick, perhaps from a wound, and left his lands at Kelvedon to Saint Peter at Westminster. “Quum rediit, cecidit in infirmitate, tunc dedit Sancto Petro istud manerium.” The words which follow in Domesday have an importance of another kind, which I shall discuss in a future volume.

The other Domesday entry referred to is less distinct than that of Æthelric, but it looks the same way. In Norfolk, ii. 200, we find mention of one Eadric, described as “Rector navis Regis Edwardi.” On William’s accession he was outlawed and fled to Denmark (“postquam Rex W. venit in Angliam fuit iste Edricus exlex in Daciam”). One may guess that Eadric commanded in the engagement or skirmish in which Æthelric was concerned. And in connexion with this East-Anglian entry, we may take the statement of John of Oxenedes (293), about Ælfwold, Abbot of Saint Benet’s; “Huic a Rege Haraldo marina committebatur custodia.”

There are some other passages which might seem to imply naval operations at a later time. Of the losses of William’s fleet during the voyage, and of the affair of Romney, whenever it happened, I have spoken in the text, pp. 410, 534. A deed in the Cartulary of the Holy Trinity at Rouen (pp. 453, 454) looks the same way. One Roger, the son of Turold, who was going to join William’s expedition (“ultra mare cum Willelmo Comite navigaturus”), gave lands to the monastery, but died on the voyage before the gift was complete (“in eâdem navigatione morte præventus, hoc confirmare non valuit”). We must also remember the account given by William of Poitiers (131), where he describes Harold’s march into Sussex, and says that an English fleet of seven hundred ships was sent somewhere or other to cut off the Norman retreat (“ne perfugio abirent, classe armatâ ad septingentas naves in mari opposuerat insidias”). Guy of Amiens (319) puts nearly the same statement into the mouth of one of the messengers between William and Harold;

“Per mare, per terram, prœlia magna parat. In mare quingentas fertur misisse carinas, Ut nostri reditûs præpediatur iter.”

But there is no sign of this great fleet doing anything, and William and Guy are so careless of chronology that they are quite capable of meaning the fleet which went back to London in September. As for the affair of Romney, it is not likely that Thegns from Norfolk and Essex would be concerned in an action so purely local. And the story of Æthelric would seem to imply that he died before the end of Harold’s reign.

NOTE BB. p. 357.

THE MARCH OF HAROLD TO YORK.

The words of some of the Chroniclers, taken literally, might imply that the first news of the landing of the Northmen was brought to Harold of England after the Battle of Fulford. The Peterborough Chronicle describes that battle, and adds “and se Norrena cyng ahte siges geweald.” It then goes on, “And man cydde Harolde cyng hu hit wæs þær gedón and geworden, and he com mid mycclum here Engliscra manna, and gemette hine æt Stængfordes brycge.” So too the Worcester Chronicle describes the battle, and adds “ac þa Normen ahte sige.” It then goes on in the same way; “Man cyðde þa Harolde Engla cynge þæt þis wæs þus gefaren; and þis gefeoht wæs on Vigilia Sc̃i. Mathei. Ða com Harold ure cyng on unwær on þa Normenn, and hytte hi begeondan Eoforwic æt Steinford brygge, mid micclan here Englisces folces.”

The literal meaning of these accounts would certainly be that the news of the defeat of Fulford was the first news of the Norwegian invasion which reached Harold, and that he started for his Northern march on hearing it. But this is simply impossible. The Battle of Fulford was fought on Wednesday, and the Battle of Stamfordbridge was fought on the Monday following. As the Worcester Chronicler emphatically says, “þas twa folcgefeoht wæron gefremmede binnan fif nihtan.” Now for news of a battle fought close to York to reach London, for an army, including men from distant shires, to be collected and to march to Stamfordbridge, and all in the space of five days, would need an age of railways and telegraphs. The news must have been brought, and the march must have begun, before the Battle of Fulford was fought. In fact our remaining Chronicle gives us a hint that that battle was fought while Harold was already on his march. The Abingdon narrative runs thus;

“And foran þa begen [Tostig and Harold Hardrada] mid eallum þam liðe andlang Use up to Eoferwic ward. Ða cydde man Harolde cynge be suðan, þa he of scipe cumen wæs, þæt Harold cyng on Norwegan and Tostig eorl wæron up cumene neh Eoferwic, þa for he norðweard dæges and nilites, swa hraðe swa he his fyrde gegaderian mihte. Þa ær þam þe se cyning Harold þyder cuman mihte, þa gegaderode Eadwine eorl and Morkere eorl of heora eorldome swa mycel werod swa hi begitan mihton.”

Then follows the Battle of Fulford. The same account is followed by Florence;

“In loco qui Richale dicitur applicuerunt. Quod ubi Regi Haroldo innotuit, versus Northhymbriam expeditionem properè movit. Sed priusquam Rex illuc veniret, duo germani Comites,” &c.

Here it is not the news of the Battle of Fulford, but the news of the landing at Riccall, on hearing of which Harold sets forth. This is at least possible, as we have no distinct statement how long a time passed between the landing and the battle. But the story certainly reads as if the battle followed very fast upon the landing, and as if Harold must have been on his march, not only before the battle but before the landing. And indeed some news must have reached him of the approach of the Norwegian fleet, of the muster in the Tyne, and of the ravage of the Yorkshire coast. One cannot help thinking that the Chroniclers, even the Abingdon Chronicler, have fallen into a certain inaccuracy of expression, and that Harold must have known of the approach of the Northern enemy at a much earlier time than their words would imply. And yet, after all, the inaccuracy is hardly a literal one. News both of the landing and of the battle would reach the King on his march and would stir up him and his army to still greater exertions. The great march of Harold is in itself one of the most wonderful things in our wonderful history. But, if we take the words of the Worcester and Peterborough Chronicles in their literal and grammatical sense, the march becomes not only wonderful but miraculous.

NOTE CC. p. 363.

THE DETAILS OF THE BATTLE OF STAMFORDBRIDGE.

Years ago, when I first began these studies, one of my greatest difficulties was that Harold of England is described, in all the ordinary histories, as furnished with a strong force of cavalry and archers at Stamfordbridge, while he was utterly destitute of both arms at Senlac. The haste of his march southwards would not of itself account for the difference; for if he could have collected cavalry and archers for the one campaign, he could doubtless have collected them again for the other. I soon saw that the only authority for the usual description of the fight at Stamfordbridge was the Saga of Harold Hardrada, and I gradually came to the conclusion that that part of the Saga was mythical. The whole conception of the English army was clearly taken from an English army of Snorro’s own age, of which horsemen and archers undoubtedly formed the most important part. That is to say, the English had by that time adopted the Norman tactics. Indeed some of the incidents in Snorro’s account of Stamfordbridge seem very much as if they had been transferred thither from Senlac. The defeat of the Norwegian army, just like that of the English army at Senlac, is owing to their breaking the line of the shield-wall, and Harold the son of Sigurd is killed by the chance shot of an arrow, just like Harold the son of Godwine. But though the account of the Battle of Stamfordbridge is clearly mythical, the like is not the case with the whole of the story. The writer shows a knowledge of the Yorkshire coast, and his narrative seems quite trustworthy up to the Battle of Fulford. His account of that battle quite agrees with the appearance of the site (see p. 350). He seemingly confounds Waltheof with Eadwine (see p. 351), but then he utterly confounds all English genealogies and personalities (see vol. ii. p. 553). It is only when he gets to Stamfordbridge that he begins wholly to break down. For instance (see p. 354) he fancies that place to be close under the walls of York, whereas it really is eight miles off. May not the difference in value between these two parts of his narrative be explained by the circumstances of the case? A division of the army remained at Riccall (see p. 348), and never went to Stamfordbridge at all. All the men of this division (see p. 375) went back safe to Norway, while hardly any fugitives escaped from Stamfordbridge. It was therefore only natural that the story of the former part of the campaign, taking in the Battle of Fulford, should be much better known in Norway than the details of the greater battle itself. The Saga-maker therefore had trustworthy tradition to go by for one part of his story, while for the other he had to draw largely on his imagination.

I have drawn my own ideas of this, as of other battles, from an examination of the ground compared with the accounts of the original writers. I have twice visited the field of Stamfordbridge, in July and in December 1867, the former time in company with Archdeacon Jones and Mr. J. R. Green, when I also examined the site of Fulford with the Archdeacon. In December I also visited Aldby and the ground between Aldby and Stamfordbridge. I have compared the impressions thus formed with the short accounts in the Chronicles, and with those in Henry of Huntingdon and William of Malmesbury. The narrative of Henry has a special value. As soon as he reaches the actual fight, his narrative, hitherto meagre and inaccurate, suddenly lights up, and becomes minute, poetical, and evidently founded on an accurate knowledge of the spot. That is to say, his description here, as in so many other cases, is founded on contemporary and local ballads, of whose words distinct traces may be recognized in his narrative. An English ballad of Stamfordbridge must have been absolutely contemporary with the event—made perhaps to be sung at King Harold’s feast of victory. Such a relic, did we possess it in full, would be almost more precious than the songs of Brunanburh and Maldon.

The accounts in Lappenberg, Thierry, and St. John seem to have been written without any knowledge of the ground. Lappenberg puts the single-handed defence of the bridge quite at the end of the battle. This is perhaps merely an attempt to patch on this incident to the account in the Saga, or it is perhaps because the story comes at the end of the Abingdon Chronicle. But it comes at the end of the Chronicle, simply because it is an addition by another hand, and the words in which the anecdote is told show that it did not take place at the end of the battle. Any one who compares the ground with the account in Henry of Huntingdon will easily see that the defence of the bridge was more than a mere incident after the battle was decided. It is, I feel sure, the central point of the whole fight. Henry’s account begins (M. H. B. 762 B);

“Pugna igitur incepta est, quâ gravior non fuerat. Coeuntes namque a summo mane usque ad meridiem, quum horribiliter ruentes utrimque perseverarent, maximus numerus Anglorum Norwagenses cedere sed non fugere compulit. Ultra flumen igitur repulsi, vivis super mortuos transeuntibus, magnanimiter restiterunt.”

Then follows the defence of the bridge, as I have quoted the account in p. 370, and the narrative goes on thus;

“Transeuntes igitur Angli Haroldum Regem et Tosti occiderunt, et totam Norwagensium aciem vel armis straverunt vel igne deprehensos combusserunt.”

Here are two distinct acts of the battle, fought on opposite sides of the Derwent. As the English were coming from York, the first act must have been on the right bank of the river, and the second on the left. The crossing of the Derwent is the main point, and the crossing of the Derwent was for a while hindered by the valour of this single Northman. And the most hard-fought and decisive part of the battle is clearly placed on the left bank, after the defender of the bridge was slain. Up to that time the Northmen, in Henry’s words, “gave way, but did not fly.” It was after the crossing of the river that the great slaughter took place; but this was not a mere slaughter of flying men, but the most stoutly contested part of the battle. For it was then that Tostig and Harold Hardrada were slain, and they assuredly were not slain flying. There was fighting then on both sides of the river, but the great and decisive struggle took place on the left side, the further side from York. We must here take into account the statements of so many writers, from the Chroniclers onwards, that the English came on the Northmen “unawares,” that the Northmen were without their breast-plates, and the like (see p. 369). This has to be reconciled with the fact of the hard fight which was kept on for so many hours. When we once understand the topography, the explanation is easy. The events naturally arrange themselves as I have given them in the text. The Norwegian army is spread abroad on both sides of the river, Harold Hardrada and Tostig with their main strength being on the further side. The English come “unawares” on the unprepared division on the right side, and drive them back. The single hero defends the bridge, and gives time for the main army beyond it to form. Then comes the great fight in which the two leaders are slain and the whole Norwegian army is at last cut to pieces.

The only point on which I have any doubt is as to the hours of the day. Henry of Huntingdon makes the battle begin in the early morning, “summo mane;” the first fight lasts till noon; the defender of the bridge withstands the passage of the English till three in the afternoon. Then comes the second fight, and, after all this day’s work, Harold of England is back at York the same evening, and the same evening hears at dinner—or rather supper—of the landing of William (see p. 376). The reckoning of time is in itself suspicious, and it is clearly not without a reference to the sacred hours of the Church. The first and last reckonings can be shown to be wrong. It is possible that Harold may have returned to York on the night of the battle. But he certainly did not hear that evening of William’s landing, because William had not yet landed (see p. 400). Neither could the battle have begun very early in the morning. The English army got no further than Tadcaster on the Sunday evening (“com Harold ... on ðone Sunnandæg to Táða” Chron. Ab.). On Monday morning they marched from Tadcaster, through York, to Stamfordbridge (“fór þa on Monandæg þurh ut Eoferwic”). A march of about seventeen miles, with doubtless some, though not a very long, halt in the city, could not be accomplished so as to make the battle begin very early on a September morning. Then it is quite inconceivable that the resistance on the right side lasted from early morning till noon, and the defence of the bridge from noon till three o’clock. A three hours’ defence of the bridge by one man is impossible. The affair was probably an affair of minutes, though at such a moment minutes would seem like hours. Most likely the hours have got into the wrong places. From noon till three would be a very likely amount of time for the whole of the actual fighting. The march and the pursuit have to be added at each end to make up the whole day’s work.

But this mistake as to the mere reckoning of hours need not throw any doubt as to the main facts of the one intelligible and consistent account of the battle. Henry’s account also exactly agrees with the two accounts in the Abingdon Chronicle. These two accounts must not be read as a consecutive narrative. They come from two different hands (see p. 369), and they contain an apparent, though not a real, contradiction. The first tells the story in general terms;

“Ða com Harold Engla cyning heom ongean on unwaran begeondan þære brycge, and hi þær togædere fengon, and swyðe heardlice lange on ðæg feohtende wæron. And þær wæs Harold cyning of Norwegan and Tostig eorl ofslagen, and ungerim folces mid heom, ægðer ge Normana ge Englisca, and þa Normen flugon þa Englisca.”

This is a complete story by itself; then comes the supplement;

“Ða wæs þer an of Norwegan þe widstod þet Englisce folc, þet hí ne micte þa brigge oferstigan ne sige gerechen. Þa seite an Englisce mid anre flan, ac hít nactes ne widstod. And þa com an oþer under þere brigge, end hine þurðstang en únder þere brunie; þa com Harold Engla chinge ofer þere brigge, and hys furde forð mid hine, and þere michel wel geslogon, ge Norweis ge Flæming, and þes cyninges sunu Hetmundus let Harold faran ham to Norwéie mid alle þá scípe.”

This story is clearly the same as that of Henry of Huntingdon, and it even more distinctly sets forth that the victory was still uncertain when the single Northman defended the bridge. Up to that time the English had the better, but the victory was not complete, and the defence of the bridge hindered them for a while from making it complete (“ne sige gerechen”). That the fighting began on the York side, and ended on the further side, is manifest. But it might be thought from the words of the first account, “com Harold ... heom ongean on unwaran begeondan þære brycge,” that the surprise was made on the further side of the bridge; but this, in the case of an army coming from York, is impossible. We must therefore look on the expression as elliptical and in some measure inaccurate. The English came upon them unawares on the York side of the bridge, but the main fight took place “begeondan þære brycge.” In the brief language of the Chronicler these two ideas are run together.

The other accounts throw little light on the matter. The Worcester and Peterborough Chroniclers give no account of the details of the battle, though the Worcester writer becomes rather minute as to the fate of the Northmen after the battle (see p. 375). Florence follows Worcester. William of Malmesbury (ii. 228) gives no details except in his account of the defence of the bridge, which he introduces with the words, “Angli superiorem manum nacti, Noricos in fugam egerunt; sed tantorum et tot virorum victoriam (quod forsitan posteritas difficile credat) unus Noricus multâ horâ interpolavit.” This almost sounds as if William had read the two accounts in the Abingdon Chronicle as a consecutive narrative; his “in fugam egerunt” seems to come from the “Normen flugon þa Englisca,” followed by the account of the defence of the bridge. It is clear that it is from this account of William of Malmesbury that the idea arose that the defence of the bridge took place in the very last stage of the battle.

The three Kings whom Lambert (see above, p. 641) conceived to have been killed at Stamfordbridge must be Harold Hardrada, the Irish King (see p. 372), and, I suppose, Tostig, mistaken for a King.

I have in the text (see p. 354) suggested that the neighbourhood of Aldby may have been one of the attractions which led Harold Hardrada to Stamfordbridge. It may however be thought an objection that Aldby is on the York side of the river, while I conceive the main strength of the Norwegian army to have been on the other side. If however the bridge which now crosses the river at Aldby had a predecessor in those days, this difficulty is got rid of. But in any case I do not insist on the connexion with Aldby as any essential part of the story. It seems to me to have been a probable motive, but if it is thought inconsistent with the one intelligible view of the battle, it must be given up.

Let us now see how the great victory of Stamfordbridge looked in the eyes of Norman and Normannizing writers. It is universally looked on as a wicked fratricide. William of Poitiers (126) refers to the Northumbrian campaign only in an incidental way. William landed easily, because Harold “in Eboracensem pagum recesserat, cum fratre suo Tostillo et Heraldo, Noricorum Rege, dimicaturus.” This was a first-rate opportunity for reviling Harold, and he accordingly goes on with a fierce declamation, to some of the particular expressions of which I have already had to call attention (see above, p. 635, and vol. ii. p. 540);

“Nec mirere quod germanus permotus injuriis, invasi honoris æmulus, arma externa adduxit in Heraldum, quem germana quoque, illi moribus absimillima, quum armis non valeret, votis impugnabat et consilio, luxuriâ fœdum, truculentum homicidam, divite rapinâ superbum, adversarium æqui et boni.”

William of Jumièges (vii. 34) thus speaks of the battle, to which by the way he gives quite a wrong date;

“In quo conflictu prædictum fratrem suum peremit ac Heraldum regem Northwegæ qui Tosticum juvare venerat. Hæc pugna nonis Octobris in die Sabbati facta est in quâ penè totus Northwigenarum exercitus ab Anglis cæsus est. Inde victor Heraldus Lundoniam rediit, sed de fratricidio diu gaudere vel securus esse non potuit, quia legatus ei Normannos adesse mox nuntiavit.”

Two chapters on (vii. 36), when he describes the battle of Senlac, he says;

“In die Sabbati mulctavit [Omnipotens Deus] multa millia Anglorum, qui longè ante innocentem Aluredum injustè necaverunt, ac præcedenti Sabbato Heraldum Regem et Tosticum Comitem aliosque multos absque pietate trucidaverunt.”

Orderic too tells us (500 C) how “Anglicus Tyrannus, effuso fratris et hostis sanguine, lætus intumuit, et peractâ multiplici strage victor Lundoniam rediit.” Presently he uses the exact words of William of Jumièges about the “fratricidium.”

Guy of Amiens also (Giles, 129) makes his elegiacs as fierce as he can. I have already (p. 373) quoted two lines of him; the whole passage runs thus;

“Rex Heraldus enim sceleratus ad ultima terræ, Fratris ad exitium perfida tela parat. Non modicam regni partem nam frater adeptus, Tecta dabat flammis et gladiis populum. Marte sub opposito currens Heraldus in hostes, Non timuit fratris tradere membra neci. Alter in alterutrum plus quam civile peregit Bellum; sed victor, proh dolor, ipse fuit. Invidus ille Caïn fratris caput amputat ense, Et caput et corpus sic sepelivit humo. Hæc tibi providit qui debita regna subegit, Criminis infesti quatenus ultor eas.”

The Hyde writer has also his stone to fling at the fratricide. First we read (p. 291), “Haroldus, Rex Anglorum, in borealibus Angliæ partibus constitutus, atque apud Eboracum civitatem contra fratrem dimicans, fratricida infeliciter evasit.” Again (p. 293), “Haroldo itaque apud Eboracum constituto, et post multum laborem detestandumque fratricidium modicum respirante, fama Normannorum advolat.” Lastly, William of Malmesbury, who in his account of Stamfordbridge had spoken as an Englishman, turns about and muses in this fashion (iii. 239); “Interea Haroldus de pugnâ Noricorum revertebatur, suâ æstimatione felix quod vicerat; meo judicio contra, quod parricidio victoriam comparârat.”

The force of party prejudice can really not go further than this kind of talk. We can better forgive the Welsh writer who (Brut y Tywysogion, 1066) tells us how “Harold, King of Denmark, meditated the subjection of the Saxons; whom another Harold, the son of Earl Godwin, who was then King in England, surprised, unwarned and unarmed, and by sudden attack, aided by national treachery, struck to the ground and caused his death.” Still the Welshman’s notions of national treachery must have been strange, and this lament or invective is oddly thrust into the colourless narrative of the Annales Cambriæ. On the other hand Snorro is never carried away in this sort. His mythical details represent Harold as offering quarter to his brother and to his enemies over and over again. Thus even fable bears witness to the general character of our great King, and William of Malmesbury had himself once (ii. 228) praised Harold’s clemency in his dealings with his conquered enemies; “Rex Harvagre et Tostinus interempti; Regis filius cum omnibus navibus domum clementer remissus.”

And now, for the last time, we come back for a moment to our old companion, the Biographer of Eadward. His direct narrative has long since failed us, but in one of his poetical flights (p. 426) he has a very distinct allusion to the fight of Stamfordbridge. He thinks the whole thing very wicked, but the subject of William and laureate of Eadgyth takes care not to commit himself between Harold and Tostig personally. He spares the Lady’s feelings the details of the warfare between her brothers, but one or two of his expressions are remarkable;

“Quis canet æquoreo vastum fervore tumentem Humbram congressum Regibus æquivocis? Sanguine barbarico per millia multa marinos Tinxisse fluctus, flente polo facinus, Quis demum scribet? quo mens languescit et horret Auditus, tanti fama pudet sceleris.”

Presently (p. 427) the Muse warns him;

“Si non describis hostilia bella Griphini, Vel busam vetitum corporibus fluere.”

The idea that the busses or keels could not pass for the dead bodies is the same poetical common-place which we have met with several times. See pp. 351, 369. We find it also, of all places, in Arrian, ii. II. 11; Λέγει Πτολεμαῖος ὁ Λάγου, ξυνεπισπόμενος τότε Ἀλεξάνδρῳ, τοὺς μετὰ σφῶν διώκοντας Δαρεῖον, ὡς ἐπὶ φάραγγί τινι ἐν τῇ διώξει ἐγένοντο, ἐπὶ τῶν νεκρῶν διαβῆναι τὴν φάραγγα. Cf. Polybios, xii. 20, where there is something like a discussion of the subject. Grote, Hist. Greece, xii. 167.

NOTE DD. p. 411.

WILLIAM’S RAVAGES IN SUSSEX.

The ravages of William’s army in Sussex stand confessed in the Norman writers, and there can be little doubt that they were systematic ravages done with the settled object of bringing Harold to a battle. The lasting nature of the destruction wrought at this time is shown by the large number of places round about Hastings which are returned in Domesday as “wasta.” As many of these as can be identified I have marked in the map.

On the other hand Mr. Hayley, a South-Saxon antiquary, who is quoted by Sir Henry Ellis (i. 314) and Mr. Taylor (Wace, 262), strangely attributes the harrying of those places which lie at all near the line of Harold’s march to the English, and not to the Norman army. This notion would hardly have needed any answer except from the sort of sanction given to it by the two writers who quote Mr. Hayley. I do not suppose that any army of any age ever passed through a district without doing some damage, but to suppose that Harold systematically harried his own Kingdom, and not only his own Kingdom, but a shire specially attached to his house and which contained a large portion of his private estates, does seem to me the height of absurdity. A King who was, as William of Poitiers tells us (see p. 412), hastening to save the country from ravage, who, as Wace tells us (see p. 437), indignantly refused to inflict the slightest unavoidable damage on any of his people, was certainly not likely to mark his course by systematic devastation. And, what is more, on such a hasty march as Harold’s evidently was, Swend himself could not have done the sort of permanent damage which is implied in the lands being returned as “wasta” twenty years after. The ravaging must have been something complete and systematic, like the ravaging of Northumberland a few years later. Such ravaging could only have been done by an army permanently encamped in the country, as William’s was at Hastings. Also if Harold had ravaged, he would have ravaged along his whole line of march, and not have waited till he was within a few miles of Senlac. But Mr. Hayley does not produce a single instance of a return of “wasta” along the early part of Harold’s march; all the points are near either to Hastings or to Senlac. I have no doubt that all these entries record ravages inflicted by the army of William.

NOTE EE. p. 425.

NAMES OF ENGLISHMEN AT SENLAC.

I have risked the conjecture that the Ansgardus of Guy of Amiens (690 et seq.) is no other than Esegar the Staller, the well-known grandson of Tofig the Proud. In this conjecture I find that I have been forestalled by M. de Bonnechose (ii. 287). At least I presume that he means Esegar by “le riche personnage dont le nom est accompagné du titre de Stellarius [sic] (Comes stabuli) ou connétable dans le Domesday book.” Thierry, in the second note to his fourth book, takes Ansgardus for the name of an office, the Hansward, which he fancies to be the title of some magistrate, seemingly the chief magistrate of the City of London. But I know of no municipal magistrate bearing the name of Hansward, and the chief magistrate of London in these times is always called the Port-Reeve. Ansgardus is clearly a proper name, and Esegar, who was evidently a man of great importance at the time, bears a name which comes nearer to the form used by Guy than that of any other eminent Englishman. Indeed in Domesday, 129 b, he appears as “Ansgarus.” Esegar moreover was Sheriff of Middlesex, which makes it still more likely that he should have been in command of the forces of London. He is addressed (Cod. Dipl. iv. 211) in a writ of Eadward for Middlesex along with Bishop William, Earl Harold, and all the Thegns of the shire. In another writ (iv. 221) his connexion with London is still more distinctly marked. “Eadward King gret Ælfwold Bisceop and Esgár Stallere and alle mine burhðegnes on Lundne freóndlíce.” He was therefore Staller, and seemingly Sheriff, as early as 1045. See vol. ii. p. 63.

The other names which I have introduced come from entries in Domesday. These entries are of course quite incidental, but, like the mention of Æthelric (see above, p. 717), they have another kind of importance which I shall discuss in another volume. Most of the men spoken of were tenants of religious houses, but this does not seem to have been the case with the two nameless Hampshire freemen, whose land at the time of the Survey was in the hands of a King’s Thegn, an Englishman named Ælfwig. The entry, as far as we are now concerned with it, runs thus (Domesday, 50); “Alwi filius Turber tenet de Rege Tederlec. Tres liberi homines tenerunt in alodium de Rege E.... Duo ex his qui tenuerunt occisi fuerunt in bello de Hastinges.”

The case of Ælfric of Huntingdonshire (Domesday, 208) is very clear; the entry is as follows; “Terram Alurici de Gellinge et Emingeforde testantur fuisse Sancti Benedicti.... Ipse autem Aluricus occisus fuit in bello apud Hastinges.” The nameless Norfolk man (Domesday, ii. 275 b) seems to have been a case of the same kind. But Breme of Suffolk was a freeman of King Eadward, and there is no mention of any connexion of his with any religious house. The entry (Domesday, ii. 409 b) is as follows; “In Dagaworda tenuit Breme liber homo regis E. qui fuit occisus in bello Hastingensi.”

Godric the Sheriff and Thurkill of Berkshire are better ascertained persons. Their deaths are recorded in the history of Abingdon (vol. i. p. 484, and again p. 490). Of Thurkill we read, “Quidam dives Thurkillus nomine, sub Haroldi Comitis testimonio et consultu, de se cum suâ terrâ quæ Kingestun dicitur, ecclesiæ Abbendonensi et Abbati Ordrico homagium fecit” (see vol. ii. p. 42, and on commendation vol. i. p. 129). The place is Kingston Bagpuze in Berkshire, of which we read in Domesday (60 b), “Stanchill tenuit T. R. E.,” whom Sir Henry Ellis (ii. 227) is no doubt right in identifying with Thurkill. It is singular that Thurkill should also have held of the King another lordship of the name of Kingston in the same shire (see Domesday, 61). Godric the Sheriff held various possessions in Berkshire, partly of the King, partly of the Abbey (see Domesday, 60 b, where he appears as “Godricus Vice-Comes”). He is also addressed in a writ of Eadward for Berkshire (Cod. Dipl. iv. 200) along with Bishop Hermann and Earl Harold and all the Thegns of the shire. The possession specially spoken of in the Abingdon History is Fifhide or Fifield, near Abingdon, where an ancient manor-house of the fourteenth century no doubt marks the site of Godric’s dwelling. Fifield was granted to the Abbey by King Eadgar (see the charter in Hist. Ab. i. 323), and was held by Godric on the common tenure for three lives. Domesday says (60 b), “Godricus Vice-Comes tenuit de Abbate et non potuit ire quolibet cum istâ terrâ.” As Thurkill had another Kingston, so Godric had another Fifhide, held of the King. Of another Berkshire Godric (60 b), “Godricus unus liber homo,” probably the Sheriff’s son, I shall have to speak elsewhere.

The mention of Eadric the Deacon comes from Domesday, ii. 449; “In Kanavadisc [Cavendish in Suffolk] tenet Radulfus de Limesi, unus liber homo Heroldi, quam tenuit Edricus Diaconus, qui fuit mortuus cum eo in bello.” Surely the words “unus liber homo Heroldi” ought to be transposed so as to apply to Eadric.

The presence of the Abbots Leofric and Ælfwig is well known. The following is the local account (Mon. ii. 437) of the coming of Ælfwig and his twelve monks. The first words I have quoted already in vol. ii. p. 644.

“Rex Haraldus habuit avunculum, nomine Godwynum, qui adduxit secum contra Willielmum Bastard in suo adventu in Angliam in subsidio nepotis sui Haraldi, de domo suâ duodecim monachos et viginti milites, pro servitio; quibus occisis et spoliatis, inventi sunt memorati Abbas et monachi sub armis militaribus in habitu monachili, et de Novo Wintoniæ Monasterio, videlicet de Hidâ, cœnobitas esse.”

NOTE FF. pp. 400, 437.

THE DATES OF THE EVENTS BETWEEN THE TWO GREAT BATTLES.

The day of William’s landing seems distinctly fixed by the testimony of the Worcester and Peterborough Chronicles. The former says, “Ða com Wyllelm eorl of Normandige into Pefnesea on Sc̃e Michaeles mæsse æfen, and sona þæs hi fere wæron, worhton castel æt Hæstinga port.” That is, they landed on the morning of Thursday, September 28th, and, as we may suppose, reached Hastings the next day. This becomes still clearer from the words of the Peterborough Chronicler, who says, “And þa hwile com Willelm eorl upp æt Hestingan, on sc̃e Michaeles mæssedæg.” That is, he leaves out the landing at Pevensey, but brings William to Hastings on the day when he must have come there according to the other account. Orderic is therefore wrong when he says (500 B), “Normannicus itaque exercitus iii. Kal. Octobr. mare transfretavit, nocte quâ memoriam Sancti Michaelis Archangeli Catholica Ecclesia festivè peragit.” The mistake arose from some confusion between Saint Michael’s mass-day and Saint Michael’s eve.

On the other hand, there is no doubt as to the day of the Battle of Senlac. The Worcester Chronicle says expressly, “þis gefeoht wæs gedon on þone dæg Calesti pape.” So Orderic (501 A), “Bellum secundo Idus Octobr. horâ tertiâ commissum est.” It is strange that so accurate a writer as Florence should have given a wrong date, placing the battle on the 21st or 22nd, “xi. Kal. Novembris Sabbato.” William of Jumièges (vii. 36) gives the right date, “Pridie Idus Octobris.” But he makes (vii. 34) the strange mistake of placing the Battle of Stamfordbridge only one week before the Battle of Senlac (“Hæc pugna Nonis Octobris in die Sabbati facta est”). I have no doubt that Harold reached Senlac the day before the battle, that is on Friday, October 13th (see p. 446). William was thus a fortnight at Hastings, which agrees with the “quindecim dies” of William of Malmesbury (iii. 238).

Of the dates of Harold’s movements during this time our accounts are much less certain. We are told on authority which is not first rate that Harold spent five or six days in London whilst his troops were coming in. “Deinde per sex dies innumeram multitudinem Anglorum contraxit,” says William of Jumièges (vii. 35). So Gaimar (5257), “Cinc jurs i mist al asembler.” The statement however is probable enough, and, in default of any better authority, we may accept it. We have then to arrange the other events accordingly. We may give two days to the march from London to Senlac, making Harold leave London on Thursday the 12th. He would thus have reached London on the 5th. This puts Harold’s arrival in London exactly a week after William’s landing at Pevensey, allowing three days for the messenger’s hasty ride from Pevensey to York, and four days for the King’s somewhat slower march from York to London. Sunday, October 1, would seem to have been the day on which Harold heard the news of William’s landing. The speed with which events followed one another is almost miraculous, but that is the main characteristic of these two wonderful campaigns.

The following may serve as an approximate calendar of these events;

Wednesday, Sept. 20. Battle of Fulford. Sunday, ” 24. Surrender of York. Monday, ” 25. Battle of Stamfordbridge. Wednesday, ” 27. William sets sail. Thursday, ” 28. William at Pevensey. Friday, ” 29. William at Hastings. Sunday, October 1. News brought to York. Thursday, ” 5. Harold in London. Wednesday, ” 11. Harold leaves London. Friday, ” 13. Harold at Senlac. Saturday, ” 14. Battle of Senlac.

NOTE GG. p. 431.

THE MESSAGES BETWEEN HAROLD AND WILLIAM.

I have spoken in the text of the extraordinary confusions and contradictions which are found in the accounts of the messages which are said to have passed between Harold and William before the arrival of the English army at Senlac.

According to William of Poitiers (128), a monk, sent as an ambassador from Harold, reached William’s camp at Hastings while the Duke was inspecting his ships (“Dum custodiam navium viseret Dux, indicatum est fortè spatianti prope navalia monachum Heraldi legatum adesse”), which therefore, it is plain, were not burned. William talks with him, and pretends to be the Duke’s seneschal, saying that the messenger cannot obtain an interview with the Duke except through him. He bids the monk tell his story to him, promising to bring it to his master’s ears. The monk obeys, and is hospitably received and lodged that night. The next day the monk is brought before a gathering of the Norman chiefs, among whom he finds the supposed seneschal of yesterday to be no other than the Duke himself. William bids him (“In crastino discumbens in medio primatum suorum, cucullato advocato dixit”) tell his story to the whole company. He then delivers Harold’s message, which is much the same as I have given in p. 432. Now, this message of Harold is obviously out of place as the first of a series. Harold would never put arguments into William’s mouth in the way in which he is made to do in this account. But it is equally obvious that the latter part of the speech is thoroughly in place as an answer to a great part of the Norman case. It is clear that the order of the messages has been transposed, and that the first message was sent by William to Harold, and not by Harold to William. And indeed, to say nothing of the particular arguments in either message, it was far more natural for the claimant to send a first message to the actual possessor than for the actual possessor to send a first message to the claimant. And this is actually the order in which the story is told in Wace, whom I have therefore not scrupled to follow. In his account (11891 et seqq.), as soon as William hears that Harold has reached London, he sends the monk of Fécamp, Hugh Margot, of whose speech I have given the substance in p. 431. Harold is represented as being kindled almost to madness at the message, and as being kept back from personal violence to the messenger only by the interference of Gyrth. This is doubtless a mere piece of Norman scandal akin to the other stories which I have mentioned in p. 436. The alleged violence is quite out of character with all that we know of Harold, and the introduction of Gyrth, to whose exaltation Wace is so strangely devoted, casts a further doubt on the story. But these mythical details in no way affect the probability of the order which Wace gives to the messages. When Hugh Margot is gone, Harold sends his own messenger, an Englishman who could speak French (11949);

“Donc a Heraut pris un message Ki de France sont li langage.”

The speech put into his mouth is an answer to the Norman claims, but it takes a rather different line from the speech in William of Poitiers. While the latter chiefly deals with the respective claims of William and Harold to the Crown, the speech in Wace chiefly deals with the question of the oath, which Harold maintains to be of no force, as having been obtained by compulsion (11956);

“Se jo li ait fet folement, Se jo unkes rien li pramis, Por ma délivrance le fis; Por mei délivrer li jurai, Quant k’il me quist li otréai. Ne me deit estre reprocé, Quer nel’ fist nient de mon graé; La force ert soe, si cremeie, Se sa volonté ne faseie, Ke jo jamaiz ne revertisse, Et toz tems là remainsisse.”

The message winds up with the challenge for the battle on Saturday. It is added that William treated the messenger well, and gave him a horse and garments (“cheval è dras li fist doner,” 12026), on which Harold regretted his own ill-treatment of Hugh Margot.

I ought however to mention that Guy of Amiens (197 et seqq.) gives a version of these messages in which their substance differs altogether from the version either of William of Poitiers or of Wace, but which agrees in its order with William of Poitiers. Harold’s messenger is sent from York. At the meeting of the English captains, which I have described in p. 420, the King determines, as the first step, to send a messenger to William. An eloquent monk is chosen by the common voice of the assembly (203);

“Æquo consultu majorum necne minorum Providus eloquio monachus eligitur.”

The message which he carries is simply a rhetorical demand that William shall leave the country. Peace is offered if he will go quietly, and restore his captives and plunder; otherwise Harold threatens war. The last words enlarge on the vast numbers at Harold’s disposal, which he could not, if he would, keep back from battle. England contained six hundred thousand fighting men (221), all eager for fight.

“Militiam vix ipse suam populumque coercet: Gens est quæ nullum novit habere modum. Nam, Dominum testor, bis sex sibi millia centum Sunt pugnatorum, prœlia qui sitiunt.”

William’s answer is also little more than a rhetorical statement of his own right, and of Harold’s perjury, but it contains one expression which is worth notice. William thus (231) sets forth his rights;

“Excessi puerum, leviter nec regna petivi Defunctis patribus debita jure mihi.”

This strong expression of William’s hereditary right may perhaps be taken in connexion with the strange boast which the poet afterwards puts into the mouth of another messenger of William (331);

“Normannos proavus superavit, avusque Britannos; Anglorum genitor sub juga colla dedit.”

William’s answer winds up by offering mercy to Harold if he will repent and submit, and promising him his father’s Earldom on his again becoming William’s man (243);

“Si quærit pacem, si vult delicta fateri, Indulgens culpæ parcere promptus ero; Terram quam pridem tenuit pater, hanc sibi reddam, Ut meus ante fuit si meus esse velit.”

Now Wace clearly distinguishes between these messages, which he describes as being exchanged while Harold was still in London, and other messages, which he describes as being exchanged after Harold had already encamped on Senlac. It is probable that messages would be interchanged at both stages; when William of Poitiers rolls the two stages into one, he only displays his usual disregard of chronology, while Guy seems equally careless of geography. Harold is first at York and then at Senlac, without a word about the march or the sojourn in London. The Archdeacon makes his monk, who is evidently the same as Wace’s Hugh Margot, go to Harold, with the statement of William’s rights which I have given in vol. ii. p. 302, and with the offer which I have given in p. 431. But he also offers, in the interests of humanity, a decision of the quarrel by single combat (“at si conditionem hanc repudiaverit, non duco justum ut homines mei vel sui concidant prœliando, quorum in lite nostrâ culpa nulla est. Ecce paratus ego sum capite meo contra caput illius asserere, quod mihi potiùs quam illi jure cedat regnum Anglicum”). The Archdeacon now bursts forth into a panegyric on his master’s skill in argument and on his hatred of bloodshed; he then gives us Harold’s answer. His description is certainly graphic. For a while Harold cannot speak (“stupore expalluit, atque diu ut elinguis obticuit”); when he does speak, the monk, to repeated questions, gets no answer beyond threats of immediate battle (“pergimus continenter,” “pergimus ad prœlium”). At the final offer of the single combat, Harold lifts up his face to heaven, and says that God shall judge between him and William (“tum levato Heraldus in cœlum vultu, ait: Dominus inter me et Willelmum hodie quod justum est decernat”). All this happens while Harold is not far off from Hastings (“mandata Heraldo appropinquanti per monachum sunt relata”), and the battle seems to begin almost directly after.

The same kind of confusion prevails in Guy’s account. The message which I have already quoted is sent by Harold from York; but immediately on the departure of its bearer we find a state of things implying that the English army has already reached Senlac. When the monk is gone, William makes a speech to his followers, whom he addresses (250) as

“Francia quos genuit nobilitate cluens.”

And among them, besides Apulians and Calabrians (see p. 305), he does not forget (258) the men of his great continental conquest;

“Viribus illustres Cenomanni, gloria quorum Bello monstratur per probitatis opem.”

He expects a sudden attack of the English upon his camp, it being, according to this account, the custom of the victor of Stamfordbridge to conquer, not by force, but by fraud (264);

“Ejus enim mos est non vi, sed vincere fraude, Spondendoque fidem porrigit ore necem. Ergo cavere decet ne decipiamur ab illo, Ni simus risus ludus et in populo. Mandamus vobis quapropter castra tueri, Irruat in castris ne malus ille latro.”

He therefore sends a monk, seemingly half as spy, half as ambassador, who reaches the English camp just as Harold was setting out for a night attack on the camp of William (281);

“Rex acies armare jubet, Ducis atque latenter Mandat ut invadant agmina, si valeant. Æstimat in vigiles prosternere fraudibus hostes Fallere dum quærit, fallitur atque ruit.”

The monk now once more sets forth to Harold how William had been appointed heir to the Crown by Eadward with the assent of the Witan, and how Harold had himself been the bearer to William of a sword and a ring as witnesses of William’s election by King and people (291);

“Hoc quia perplures testantur, et asserit idem Assensu populi, consilio procerum, Etguardus quod rex ut ei succederet hæres Annuit, et fecit teque favente sibi. Annulus est illi testis concessus et ensis, Quæ per te nôsti missa fuisse sibi.”

Harold not unnaturally returns (301) an answer as indignant as that which Wace puts into his mouth on the earlier occasion. God shall judge between him and William on the morrow. All this is therefore conceived as happening on the night of Friday, October 13th;

“Heraldus vultu distorto colla retorquens, Legato dixit, ‘Vade retro, stolide. Judice cras Domino, regni pars justa patebit, Dividet ex æquo sacra manus Domini.’”

The monk goes back to his master and gives him a report of what he had seen in the English camp, some expressions of which I have already quoted here and there. It is remarkable also (323) for speaking of the English in a contemptuous way of which there is no trace when Guy comes to the actual battle, and which oddly enough forestalls the description which we have of Norman fashions in the next generation (see Ord. Vit. 701 A; Eadmer, 23);

“Fors numerum metues: numerus sed viribus expers Plurimus a minimo sæpe repulsus abit. Est sibi milities unctis depexa capillis, Fœminei juvenes Martis in arte pigri; Et quot sunt, ovibus totidem sunt æquiparandi, Ut vulpes pavidi fulguris ad sonitum.”

These two descriptions of the final message and the final answer of Harold are evidently the same as those which Wace (12254 et seqq.) describes as taking place after the English were encamped on the hill. The accounts are essentially the same; both contain the same offer of single combat, which seems more appropriate now than before. I have therefore followed Wace in making two sets of messages, one exchanged in London, the other (see p. 447) on the day before the battle. William of Malmesbury also (iii. 239–240) brings in a message and an answer at this stage. But he also brings in here the proposal of Gyrth that Harold should fall back on London (see p. 434). He adds also, like Guy, some expressions borrowed from the earlier message in William of Poitiers, the talk namely about the grant of the Crown by Eadward with the consent of the Earls, and also the story of the hostages. Both Wace and William make the Duke offer Harold a choice of three things, the single combat being the last alternative. The only difference is that in Wace the offer that Harold should hold the Kingdom under William (“ut [regnum] sub eo regnaturus teneret”) is made at a second and final message, after Harold had refused any of the three alternatives. The division of the Kingdom between Harold and Gyrth, as I have described it in p. 448, is clearly marked in Wace, 12340;

“E li Dus à Heraut manda, Se son covenant li teneit, Northonblonde tut li donreit, E kank ultre le Humbre aureit, Ki à cel regne aparteneit; E poiz donreit à Guert son frere La terre Gwigne lor pere.”

In both accounts there is a mention of the Pope and his clergy, but with the very important difference which I have noted in pp. 449–450.

With all these contradictions before me, I do not pretend to have 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.”

Footnote 218

Ord. Vit. 566 D. Michael was, when Orderic wrote, an old man in great honour with Henry the First. He was “probus miles et legitimus.” Wace (9707) gives him several children, and seems to make them born after his deposition. Michael is “hom mult énorez, Michiel de Baines [al. Bayeux] apelez.”

Footnote 219

Will. Pict. 116. “Sæpenumero monitus atque castigatus privatim atque publicè domini sui, juvenis et laici, sapiente diligentia.” So Will. Malms. iii. 267; “Crebrò conventus, expostulante nepote patruelis [patrui?] offensas.”

Footnote 220

Ib. “Sequuntur multoties largitionem rapinæ. Præterea molestus infamiæ ejus odor diffundebatur ob alia crimina. Sed a ratione alienum ducimus in vitiis publicandis immorari,” etc.

Footnote 221

Ib. “Pallio numquam est insignitus quod ... manus Romani Pontificis, mittere [?] solita, ei denegavit ut minus idoneo.” So Will. Malms. u. s.

Footnote 222

Ib. 117. “Apostolici mandato sæpiùs ad Romanum concilium accitus, renuit ire.” William is just now very zealous for the Holy See, quite unlike the Gallicanism of Rudolf Glaber. See vol. ii. p. 275.

Footnote 223

Ib. “Sane pigebat Rotomagum, pigebat cunctam Normanniam, archipræsulis.”

Footnote 224

Will. Malms. iii. 267. “Quum iræ adolescentis uxoriæ querelæ accederent, excogitatas occasiones quibus persequutor peccati sede pelleretur.” It is clear that Malger had partizans.

Footnote 225

William of Poitiers (117) does not name the Legate. He says only “Princeps ... deposuit patruum in publico sanctæ synodi, Apostolici vicario cunctisque Normanniæ episcopis, juxta canonum auctoritatem, sententiam dantibus unanimi consensus.” The List in Mabillon (Analecta, ii. 439) names Ermenfred (see vol. ii. p. 461), and mentions the place, Lisieux. William of Jumièges (vii. 24) makes Malger resign his see; “Eo tempore Malgerius Archipræsul Rotomagensis desipere cœpit, et insipientiâ ductus Archipræsulatum Duci reddidit.” The strong regale, or rather ducale, of all our accounts should be noticed. See vol. ii. p. 209.

Footnote 226

William of Poitiers does not mention the banishment of Malger, but it is spoken of by most of our other authorities. Will. Gem. vii. 24. “Dux autem Malgerium in insulâ quæ dicitur Ghernervia retrusit.” The list in Mabillon (ii. 439) says, “Dedit postea illi quamdam insulam in Constantiniensi pago in mari sitam.” Roman de Rou, 9703;

“Es isles vint de Costentin, Là fu è vist tresqu’ è la fin.”

On the “Isles of the Côtentin” see vol. i. p. 211 et seqq.

Footnote 227

Mabillon, u. s. “In quâ [insulâ] pluribus annis, non quidem ut decuit, vixit.” Wace, as a Jersey man, is much fuller on this part of the story.

Footnote 228

Roman de Rou, 9714 et seqq. He has “un deable privé” called Toret or Toreit, who was always at his beck and call. What is Toret? Pluquet makes it a diminutive from Thor. Sir F. Palgrave (iii. 276, 277) speaks of French antiquaries “who discover in the name Thoreit the exclamation Thor-aie, an invocation of Thor the Hammerer.” Pluquet at least does not. (On Thor-aie see vol. ii. p. 257.) Sir Francis goes on, “But the vocable is pure hoch deutsch, and however gained or bestowed, simply signifies Folly.” Of two improbable explanations Pluquet’s seems to me the less improbable. See Mr. Thorpe’s amazing note to Lappenberg, Norman Kings, p. 86, where he mixes up Malger’s familiar spirit with Ralph of Tesson’s war-cry. See vol. ii. p. 257, and Taylor’s Wace, p. 20.

Footnote 229

Histoire des Archevesques de Rouen (Rouen, 1667), p. 253. The author, a Benedictine father, is disposed to let Malger off more easily than most people.

Footnote 230

Mabillon, ii. 439. “Postea verò, quo autem divino judicio ignoratur, in mari submersus est.” Wace tells the story at length, 9727 et seqq. But there must, as Prevost says, be some mistake in the name Winçant, which suggests the Picard Witsand rather than any haven of the Côtentin.

Footnote 231

See vol. i. p. 170. Will. Malms. iii. 246. “Omnium gentium benignissimi advenas æquali secum honore colunt.”

Footnote 232

Mabillon, ii. 439. “Nobili prosapiâ ex Remensi pago exortus, et in ejusdem civitatis ecclesiâ educatus, inde in Leodicensi ecclesiâ omni liberalium artium peritiâ imbutus.” Orderic (567 C) calls him “genere Maguntinus.” He must have confounded the birthplace of Maurilius with the place of his preferment, Halberstadt being, at all events, in the province of Mainz.

Footnote 233

Mabillon, ii. 440. “Halverstatensis [mark the Low-Dutch form] ecclesiæ Scholasticus effectus est, qui locus in Saxoniâ ditissimus habetur.” On the office of the Scholasticus, compare Adelard at Waltham, vol. ii. p. 443.

Footnote 234

This first profession at Fécamp rests on the authority of the list in Mabillon. Orderic (u. s.) mentions only his second sojourn there. But does not a profession at Fécamp under the Italian Abbot William form a kind of transition between Halberstadt and the Italian hermitage?

Footnote 235

I reserve some notice of the history of Fécamp (see vol. i. p. 218), and of the connexion of the monastery with England, for a more appropriate place in the fourth volume.

Footnote 236

The profession of Maurilius at Fécamp would naturally come within the time of Abbot William, 1001–1031. After so varied a career, we can hardly fancy him less than fifty at the time of his appointment to the Archbishoprick, and we want several years for each of his metamorphoses between Halberstadt and Rouen. His first sojourn at Fécamp, his hermit life, his Abbacy at Florence, his second sojourn at Fécamp, might well take up twenty-four years among them.

Footnote 237

See vol. ii. p. 226.

Footnote 238

Mabillon, ii. 440. “Eremi cultor solitariam vitam ducens opere manuum vixit.”

Footnote 239

Mabillon, u. s. So Ord. Vit. 567 C, who adds a characteristic Italian trait; “In urbe Florentiâ monachili cœnobio Abbatis jure præfuit, et exosus transgressoribus pro rigore disciplinæ venenum in potu sibi propinato deprehendit.”

Footnote 240

Ord. Vit. u. s. “Tempore Johannis Abbatis compatriotæ sui Fiscannum venit.” But the local accounts make John a Lombard. Orderic might have assumed that an Abbot at Florence must be an Italian, but how could this be reconciled with his description of Maurilius as “Maguntinus”? Cf. Neustria Pia, 223.

Footnote 241

Bessin, 47–49. Pommeraye, 71. Mabillon, ii. 441. “Adstante Willelmo Normannorum Duce, postea Anglorum Rege, cum omnibus suffraganeis suis, concilium in Rothomagensi ecclesiâ de castitate conservandâ et cæteris sanctorum patrum institutionibus, pastorum incuriâ negligenter postpositis, viriliter restituendis religiose celebravit.” Everything bears witness alike to the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Norman Dukes and of the personal zeal of William in all ecclesiastical matters.

Footnote 242

See vol. ii. p. 181.

Footnote 243

See vol. ii. pp. 213, 214.

Footnote 244

Vit. Lanfr. ap. Giles, i. 287. “Ad administranda quoque totius patriæ negotia summus ab ipso Normannorum Duce Willelmo consiliarius assumitur.” Allowing for the natural exaggeration of a panegyrist, there seems enough to imply a very close relation between William and Lanfranc. See vol. ii. p. 227.

Footnote 245

Vit. Lanfr. i. 288. “Hujus tam improvidæ jussionis caussam agunt, quod idem Lanfrancus contradicebat nuptiis filiæ Comitis Flandriæ, quam ipse sibi Dux copulaverat in matrimonio, quia proximâ carnis consanguinitate jungebatur.” So Chron. Becc. 198.

Footnote 246

Ib. “Unde auctoritate Romani Papæ tota Neustria fuerat ab officio Christianitatis suspensa et interdicta.” So Chron. Becc. u. s. Wace (9659) makes Malger pronounce the interdict;

“Maugier ki tint l’Arceveskie Mist Normendie tute en uie Sor Willame è sor sa moillier. Andui les fist escumengier.”

Footnote 247

See vol. ii. p. 169.

Footnote 248

See vol. ii. p. 287.

Footnote 249

Vit. Lanfr. 287. “Quorumdam etiam accusationibus delatorum Dux in eo vehementer amaricatus.”

Footnote 250

See vol. ii. pp. 218, 236.

Footnote 251

Vit. Lanfr. 287. “Mandat ut monasterio exturbetur, patriâ discedat, Lanfrancus. Nec motus animi sui hâc vindictâ sedare valens, mandavit juris monasterii villam, quæ Parcus dicitur, flammis excidi.” On the word Park, see Earle, Parallel Chronicles, p. 323.

Footnote 252

In the story in Lanfranc’s Life (287 Giles), the banished Prior sets out on a horse which went on three legs, because the house had none that was better (“quia melior non habebatur, tripes equus quarto pede inutili illi tribuitur”), and accompanied by one servant. He meets the Duke; “Protinus quà ille discedebat Duci obvius venienti appropinquans.” The meeting may have been accidental, or Lanfranc may have gone by a way where he was likely to meet William, but I cannot think, with Dr. Hook (ii. 93), that “Lanfranc directed his steps to Rouen, where he probably had been summoned to appear before the duke.” The lame horse—the narrator quite enters into the joke—bows its head, and his rider salutes the Prince; “Equo per singulos passus caput ad terram submittente, dominum salutat.” William at first turns away, but presently listens. Lanfranc begins with a joke; he is obeying William by going out of his dominions as fast as he could; he would go faster, if the Duke would give him a better horse. William laughs, and asks whether any criminal before had ever ventured to ask a present of his judge. The Duke is fairly won over, Lanfranc makes his speech, and all is soon settled.

Footnote 253

Vit. Lanfr. 287. “Gratissimi mox succedunt amplexus et oscula.”

Footnote 254

Vit. Lanfr. 287. “Multo etiam cum augmento restituenda promittuntur quæ Dux nuperrimè devastari jusserat.”

Footnote 255

See this point discussed by Dr. Hook, ii. 94. A quite different account of the reconciliation of Lanfranc to the Duke, or rather of his first introduction to him, is given in two passages of William of Malmesbury, De Gest. Pont. 116 b and 136, one in the Life of Lanfranc himself, the other in that of Herfast, afterwards Bishop of Thetford. William’s Chaplains excite him against Lanfranc, because he had mocked the ignorance of one of their number. The Duke orders him to leave Normandy, but he goes to Court, obtains an interview with the Duke, and speedily wins his favour. In the second account it appears that the Chaplain mocked at was Herfast himself, who came to Lanfranc’s school with great pomp. Lanfranc then makes a mock of his ignorance; “Ex primâ colloquutione intelligens quàm prope nihil sciret, abecedarium ipsi expediendum apposuit, ferociam hominis Italicâ facetiâ illudens.” The order for banishment then follows. Lanfranc, somewhat oddly, goes to court to ask for provisions for his journey (“Quum ad curiam commeatum petiturus venisset”). Then comes the story of the lame horse, and the Duke is won over to Lanfranc, mainly through the intercession of William Fitz-Osbern. There is no mention of Lanfranc’s opposition to the marriage.

This story about the Chaplain may be true; but it can hardly be doubted, first that Lanfranc was already known to the Duke, secondly that the main ground of offence was the opposition to the marriage.

Footnote 256

Vit. Lanfr. 289. “Lanfrancus ... Romam venerat ... ut ageret pro Duce Normannorum et uxore ejus apud Apostolicum.”

Footnote 257

See vol. ii. p. 458.

Footnote 258

Ib. 431.

Footnote 259

Ib. 116.

Footnote 260

He however retracted back again. Vit. Lanfr. 289. See Milman, iii. 51.

Footnote 261

See vol. ii. pp. 116, 227.

Footnote 262

Vit. Lanfr. 289. “Nam Dux puellam [Gerbod is, as usual, forgotten] quam acceperat nullo pacto dimittere vellet.”

Footnote 263

Ib. “Loquutus cum Papâ Nicolao ostendit quia ejus sententia illos tantùm gravabat, qui eos nec conjunxerant nec separare poterant.”

Footnote 264

Will. Gem. vii. 26. “Willelmus Dux, dum à quibusdam religiosis [no mention of Lanfranc personally] sæpiùs redargueretur, eò quod cognatam suam sibi in matrimonium copulâsset, missis legatis, Romanum Papam super hâc re consuluit. At ille sagaciter considerans quòd, si divortium fieri juberet, fortè inter Flandrenses et Normannos grave bellum exsurgeret, maritum et conjugem à reatu absolvit.” Vit. Lanfr. 289. “Hoc audiens et verum esse advertens summus Pontifex, dispensatione habitâ, conjugium concessit.”

Footnote 265

Will. Gem. u.s. “Eis pœnitentiam injunxit. Mandavit enim, ut ab eis duo cœnobia conderentur, in quibus pro ipsis ab utroque sexu Deo sedulò preces offerentur.” Vit. Lanfr. 289. “Eo tamen modo quatenùs Dux et uxor ejus duo monasteria construerent, in quibus singulas congregationes virorum ac mulierum coadunarent, qui ibi sub normâ sanctæ relligionis, die noctuque Deo deservirent et pro salute eorum supplicarent.” William of Malmesbury (iii. 267) would almost seem to have looked on the foundations as a voluntary expiation, like the pilgrimage of Swegen; “Postmodùm, provectioribus annis, pro expiatione sceleris, illum sancto Stephano Cadomis monasterium ædificâsse, illam beatæ Trinitati in eodem vico idem fecisse, utroque pro sexu suo personas habitantium eligente.”

On the history of Saint Stephen’s, I must refer to two excellent local works, “L’Abbaye de Saint-Etienne de Caen, par C. Hippeau,” Caen, 1855 (M. Hippeau is also known as the editor of the first complete edition of Garnier’s Life of Saint Thomas), and “Analyse Architecturale de l’Abbaye de Saint-Etienne de Caen, par G. Bouet,” Caen, 1867, a book distinguished by the writer’s characteristic caution and minute accuracy.

Footnote 266

Roman de Rou, 9665;

“Li Dus por satisfacion, Ke Deus l’en face veir pardon, E ke l’Apostoile cunsente Ke tenir poisse sa parente, Fist cent provendes establir A cent povres paistre è vestir, As meshaigniez, as non poanz, As langoros, as non véanz, A Chiéresborc et à Roem, A Baieues et à Caem; Encore i sunt et encor durent Issi come establies furent.”

On the blind hospital at Caen, see Hippeau, p. 4. Were persons admissible whose eyes had been put out by the Duke’s own authority?

Footnote 267

In William’s charter of 1066 (Gallia Christiana, xi. 59–61. I have to thank M. Châtel, the Archivist of the Department of Calvados, for the reference), he distinctly says that “honestissima conjux mea Mathildis, nobilissimi Ducis Flandrensis Balduini filiam ... construxit basilicam,” and goes on to record its consecration on June 18th. The charter in Neustria Pia, 658–661, is of 1082. He there says “ecclesiam ... coædificavimus.” Either it was still unfinished, or the nave has been rebuilt. It is only the eastern part which can be Matilda’s work.

Footnote 268

This was the great year of consecrations in Normandy. See vol. ii. pp. 212, 222. The consecration of Saint Stephen’s is distinctly placed in this year by Orderic, 548 D. At Bec Lanfranc himself officiated (Will. Gem. vi. 9), but at Caen the ceremony was performed by the Metropolitan John. I gather from what goes before in Orderic that William was present at Caen, though he was not at Bec. But the Chronicle of Saint Stephen itself (Duchèsne, 1018) places the ceremony in 1073. Other dates given are 1081 and 1086 (see Neustria Pia, 625, Bouet, 15, 16). One cannot doubt that 1077 is right date for the main consecration, and that the other dates, if correct, refer to some smaller ceremony. The western towers (of course not the upper portions) must have been added soon after the church was finished. Their style is that of the church, and the masonry shows that they were designed from the first, though not built at the same time as the nave. This would quite agree with the date of 1086. For the consecration of a steeple see vol. ii. p. 437.

Footnote 269

See vol. ii. p. 222, and the verse of Abbot Baldwin in Duchèsne, Rer. Franc. ii. 257; “Qui Dux Normannis, qui Cæsar præfuit Anglis.”

Footnote 270

Allowing, of course, for the reconstruction of the clerestory and the addition of the vault.

Footnote 271

See vol. ii. p. 442.

Footnote 272

Will. Gem. vi 9. “Tam domini quam Normanniæ primatum supplicatione coactus.” I accept Orderic’s date, but the Chronicle of Bec (Giles, 197) places the appointment in 1062.

Footnote 273

Chron. Bec, 197 Giles.

Footnote 274

Will. Malms. iii. 273. “Tulit ex Matilde liberos multos, quæ, et marito morigera et prole fecunda, nobilis viri animum in sui amoris incitabat aculeum.” He then goes on with the story of the bridle (see Appendix N) and the account of the difference about Robert and of William’s grief at her death.

Footnote 275

On William’s children see Appendix O.

Footnote 276

Chron. Petrib. 1135.

Footnote 277

See Appendix O.

Footnote 278

Monstrelet, i. 324 b (ed. Paris 1595). “Vous charge,” says Henry the Fifth, “sur tant que vous povez mesprendre, que tant que vous vivrez, ne souffrez à faire traicté avecques nostre adversaire Charles de Vallois, ne autres pour chose qu’il advienne, que la Duché de Normandie ne luy [to his son] demeure franchement.”

Footnote 279

Phil. Comines, i. 15 (vol. i. p. 71, ed. Godefroy 1723). “La chose du monde qu’il desiroit le plus, c’estoit de voir un Duc en Normandie; car par ce moyen il luy sembloit le Roy estre affoibly de la tierce partié.” See the whole history of the grant and reconquest of Normandy, cap. xii-xv, and Kirk, Charles the Bold, ii. 338 et seqq.

Footnote 280

Ib. i. 13 (vol. i. p. 64). “Et a tousjours bien semblé aux Normands, et fait encores, que si grand’ Duché, comme la leur, requiert bien un Duc; et, à dire la verité, elle est de grand’ estime, et s’y leve de grands deniers.” So, in the same chapter, Lewis says, “que de son conseulement n’eust jamais baillé tel partage à son frère, mais puis que d’eux mesmes les Normands en avoient fait cette nouvelleté, il en estoit content.”

Footnote 281

Phil. Comines, ii. 9, 15 (vol. i. pp. 116, 137). Kirk, i. 272, 334, 525.

Footnote 282

Arist. Rhet. iii. 10. Καὶ Περικλῆς τῆν Αἴγιναν ἀφελεῖν ἐκέλευσε, τὴν λήμην τοῦ Πειραιέως.

Footnote 283

See Hist. Fed. Gov. i. 621.

Footnote 284

See Appendix P.

Footnote 285

See vol. ii. p. 290.

Footnote 286

See vol. i. p. 198.

Footnote 287

See the charter in Neustria Pia, 694.

Footnote 288

See above, p. 92.

Footnote 289

Will. Gem. vii. 22. Neustria Pia, 496.

Footnote 290

Will. Gem. vii. 22. “Monasterium Sancti Michaelis Ulterioris Portûs ædificavit.” See the charter in Neustria Pia, 587.

Footnote 291

Will. Pict. 118. The Archdeacon of Lisieux is longer and louder in the praise of his own diocesan than in the praise of any one except the Duke himself.

Footnote 292

Ib. 119. “Ipse profectò, quum deponeretur Archipræsul Malgerius, vox justitiæ sonora fuit, constanter permanens in parte Dei, propter Deum damnans filium patrui.”

Footnote 293

Will. Gem. vii. 20. “Ducatum sibi volens vendicare, cœpit contra Ducem minis et infestationibus cervicem erigere.”

Footnote 294

Ib. “Fortis Princeps, nolens ei cedere, exercitum congregarit, et castrum Oucis, donec illud caperet, obsedit.”

Footnote 295

Ib. “At ille Henricum Regem Francorum expetiit, cui quid sibi contigisset flebiliter retexit. Rex verò ipsum, utpote nobilem genere et formâ militem, benignè suscepit, et infortunio ejus condolens Comitatum Suessionis ei cum quâdam nobili conjuge tribuit.” The Vermandois family was descended from King Bernard of Italy, son of Pippin, son of Charles. See Art de Vérifier les Dates, ii. 700, 727. The supposed treason of Bernard seems to have shut out his descendants from the Imperial and royal succession.

Footnote 296

See Appendix P.

Footnote 297

See vol. ii. pp. 243, 244.

Footnote 298

See vol. ii. p. 181.

Footnote 299

See vol. ii. pp. 242, 243.

Footnote 300

Ord. Vit. 657 B (in the death-bed speech). “Patrui mei Malgerius Rothomagensis Archepiscopus, et Guillelmus frater ejus, cui Archas et comitatum Calogii gratis dederam, me velut nothum contempserunt.” So Roman de Rou, 8565;

“Ki clamout dreit en l’éritage; Pur ke il esteit nez de muillier.”

And 8583;

“Jamez li Dus ne servireit; Normendie à grant tort teneit, Bastart esteit, n’i aveit dreit.”

Footnote 301

Orderic (657 B) adds, after the words last quoted about Malger and William of Arques; “Henricus Regem et Engelrannum Comitem Pontivi contra me accerserunt.”

Footnote 302

Will. Pict. 91. “Is ab ineunte pueri principatu infidus ei et adversus, quamquam fidelitatem juratus et obsequium, hostilia agitabat, modò temeritate non latente resistens, clandestinis interdum dolis.”

Footnote 303

Ib. 92. “In supradicti Danfronti oppugnatione quasi desertoris furtivo more discessit, nequaquam petitâ missione; satellitii debitum, cujus antea nomine hostilitatem utcumque velabat, jam omne detrectans.” This can hardly mean that he openly renounced his allegiance so early as the siege of Domfront.

Footnote 304

Ib. “Ob hæc et alia tot ejus et tanta ausa, Dux uti res monuit, suspiciens plura et majora ausurum, receptaculi, quo plurimum confidebat, editius firmamentum occupavit, custodiam immittens, in nullo ampliùs tamen jus ejus imminuens.”

Footnote 305

On the history of Arques and Talou, see M. Deville’s Histoire du Chateau d’Arques, Rouen 1829; Stapleton, i. cxxiii.

Footnote 306

See vol. i. p. 240 et seqq.; Flodoard, 944; Richer, ii. 42.

Footnote 307

See above, p. 117.

Footnote 308

Will. Gem. viii. 36. “Haud procul ab oppido Arcarum, villâ quæ dicitur Schechevilla (Equiqueville).” See vol. i. p. 279.

Footnote 309

On the Viscounts of Arques, see Deville, pp. 9, 13, 19, 87; Stapleton, i. cxxiii.; Will. Gem. viii. 36. See the lands of Willelmus de Arcis in Suffolk, Domesday, 431 b. An Osbern de Arcis also occurs in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.

Footnote 310

Ord. Vit. 657 B (see last page). So Roman de Rou, 8568;

“Pur honur de sun parenté, E pur aveir sa féelté Li ad li Dus en fieu duné Arches è Taillou li cunté.”

Footnote 311

Will. Pict. 92. “Nempe eas latebras, id munimentum initæ elationis atque dementiæ ipse primus fundavit, et quam operossissimè extruxit in præalti montis Arcarum cacumine.” Will. Gem. vii. 7. “Nobilitate verò generis elatus, castrum Archarum in cacumine ipsius montis condidit.” So the Chronicle of Saint Wandrille in D’Achery, ii. 288. “Willelmus videlicet qui postea Arcas castrum in pago Tellau primus statuit.” The building was clearly something novel, and it struck people in Normandy almost as the building of Richard’s Castle (see vol. ii. pp. 138–143) struck people in England. I see no reason to doubt that the ruined keep is part of the original work. As to the gate, and the other parts assigned to the same date by M. Deville, I am not quite so certain.

Footnote 312

See vol. ii. p. 191.

Footnote 313

See vol. ii. pp. 176, 177.

Footnote 314

His admirers however need not have carved him in bas-relief over a gate which may belong to the days of William, and which is at any rate much older than the days of Henry.

Footnote 315

All these points are gone into minutely by M. Deville. I went over the castle minutely in May, 1868, with M. Deville’s book in hand, and I can bear witness to the accuracy of his description, though I cannot always accept his inferences.

Footnote 316

Both William of Poitiers (92) and Orderic (657 B) place William “in Constantino pago.” The special mention of Valognes (see vol. ii. p. 247) comes from the Roman de Rou, 8698 et seqq.

Footnote 317

Will. Pict. u.s. “Malefidi custodes non multo post castri potestatem conditori reddunt, munerum pollicitatione, et impensiùs imminente variâ sollicitatione fatigati subactique.”

Footnote 318

On the order of events in this revolt, see Appendix Q.

Footnote 319

Will. Pict. 92. “Nam festinantem ut contrairet injuriæ suæ ampliùs incitaverunt audita mala provinciæ suæ. Ecclesiarum bona, agrestium labores, negotiatorum lucra militum prædam injustè fieri dolebat. Miserando planctu imbellis vulgi, qui multus tempore belli aut seditionum oriri solet, advocari se cogitabat.” The mention of merchants as a numerous and important class marks the growing civilization of Normandy under its great ruler.

Footnote 320

See vol. ii. p. 249.

Footnote 321

Odo could not have been now above seventeen years old (see vol. ii. p. 210), nor William himself above twenty-six.

Footnote 322

See vol. ii. p. 240.

Footnote 323

Caudebec = Cold Beck. The arms of the town are appropriately three fish.

Footnote 324

See Appendix Q.

Footnote 325

I here follow the narrative of William of Poitiers (93), trying to make it intelligible by borrowing some hints from William of Malmesbury.

Footnote 326

Will. Pict. 93. “Nihil quidem rebelles in se, quum præsentem conspexerint, ausuros.”

Footnote 327

See the spirited illustration in Deville, p. 282.

Footnote 328

Will. Pict. 93. “Dein potiri volens munitione, jussu propere contracto exercitu circumsedit. Fuit difficillimum quos ea natura loci maximè defensabat expugnare. Sanè more suo illo optimo, rem optans absque cruore confectum iri, efferatos et contumaces obice castelli ad montis pedem exstructi ciausit.”

Footnote 329

See vol. ii. p. 264.

Footnote 330

Roman de Rou, 8610;

“Li mielx de la chevalerie I mist de tute Normendie.”

Footnote 331

The presence of Walter Giffard comes only from a late Chronicle (Bouquet, xi. 330), where he is prematurely called Count. But, as his lordship of Longueville lay hard by, nothing is more likely than that he should be there. He was the son of Osbern of Bolbec—a little town at the foot of a hill on the way to the more famous Lillebonne—by Avelina, one of the sisters of Gunnor (Will. Gem. viii. 37). A brother of Osbern was Godfrey, “pater Willelmi de Archis,” that is, of the Viscount. See Deville, p. 19. On Walter Giffard, afterwards Earl of Buckingham, see Ellis, i. 424, and Taylor, Wace, 169.

Footnote 332

This tower, doubtless of wood, is described as a “munitio” in the extract from William of Poitiers given above. So Will. Gem. vii. 7; “Erectis aggeribus ad radicem montis castrum stabilivit, quod fortium virorum robore inexpugnabile reddidit, et sic inde abiens vallatum alimoniis reliquit.” So Will. Malms. iii. 232; “Obfirmato contra Archas castello.” Wace (Roman de Rou, 8600) says that the Duke

“De fossez è de heriçun E de pel fist un chasteillun, El pié del teltre en la vallée, Ki garde tute la cuntrée; Ne pristrent paiz cels del chastel Ne bués ne vache ne véel; Li Dus tel chastelet i fist, Tant chevaliers è tel i mist, Ki bien le porreient desfendre Ke Reis ne Quens ne porreit prendre.”

Cf. vol. ii. pp. 139, 264.

Footnote 333

Will. Pict. 94. “Præsidio imposito, aliis postea negotiis invitantibus, ipse recessit; ut, dum ferro parceret, fame vinceret.” So Wace, 8612;

“Le Dus s’en est parti atant, Sez busuignes ailleurs quérant.”

This is by no means clear. William of Malmesbury (u. s.) is rather more definite; “Obfirmato contra Archas castello, ad alia quæ magis urgebant bella conversus est.” It was therefore a military operation in another direction which called William off. We shall see directly why he avoided personally conducting the blockade.

Footnote 334

This feudal scruple, which really seems the only intelligible explanation of William’s conduct in leaving the most important operations to others, comes from William of Malmesbury (u. s.); “Simul quia sciebat Regem Francorum, jampridem, nescio quâ simultate, sibi infensum, ad opem obsesso ferendam adventare; namque prædicandi moderaminis consilio, quamvis justiorem caussam habere videretur, cum eo decernere ferro cavebat, cui et pro sacramento et pro suffragio obnoxius erat.” Henry the Second felt the like scruple at the siege of Toulouse in 1159, but Thomas of London, then the worldly Chancellor, thought otherwise; “Vanâ superstitione et reverentiâ Rex tentus consilio aliorum, super urbem, in quâ esset dominus suus Rex Franciæ, irruere noluit; dicente in contrarium Cancellario, quod personam domini Rex Francorum ibi deposuisset, cò quod supra pacta conventa hostem se ei opposuisset.” (Will. Fil. Steph. p. 200, ed. Giles.)

Footnote 335

We learn the spot of the combat from Wace, Roman de Rou, 8622 et seqq.;

“Jà ert li Rei à Saint-Albin,” &c.

And this agrees with the description of Richard of Hugleville given by Orderic (606 B), where he sets forth the pedigree of the family; “Tempore Guillelmi juvenis filii Rodberti Ducis, Guillelmus de Archis contra Ducem rebellavit, et penè omnium Calogiensium parilis defectus nothum principem deseruit; solus Ricardus contra rebelles in castello suo secus ecclesiam Sancti Albini perstitit, et pro fidelitate Ducis contra discursus Archacensium provinciam circumjacentem defensare curavit.”

Footnote 336

See Ord. Vit. 606 D. It is with a thrill of sympathy alike for the hero and for his chronicler that an Englishman reads the passage, which I shall have to refer to again.

Footnote 337

Ord. Vit. 606 C. “Hugonem cum omnibus suis Archacenses apud Moriummontem repente circumdederunt, seseque viriliter defendentem interemerunt.”

Footnote 338

See vol. ii. p. 246.

Footnote 339

Ord. Vit. u. s.

Footnote 340

Roman de Rou, 8620;

“La sur d’Arches voleit garnir, Kar li blé lur debvait faillir, Jà ert li Rei à Saint-Albin, Asez portout è blé è vin; Là les fist li Rei arester, E lur garnisun aprester Sumiers ki lur herneis portassent, E chevaliers k’il convéiassent.”

So Will. Gem. vii. 7. “Exercitum castra metari apud Sanctum Albinum jussit.”

Footnote 341

See Appendix Q.

Footnote 342

Roman de Rou, 8628;

“Cil del chastel oïrent tost La garnisun è li grant ost.”

The “tur” is the castle of Arques; the “chastel” is the wooden castle of the besiegers.

Footnote 343

Will. Gem. vii. 7. “Cujus [Regis] adventum milites Ducis comperientes, de suis miserunt, si quos fortè hostium à regio cœtu abstraherent, quos illi in latibulis degentes incautos exciperent. Quò dum venissent, non minimam exercitûs partem inde protraxerunt, et fugientes in insidias induxerunt. Statim verò qui videbantur fugere, versâ facie cœperunt eos acriter cædere.” So Roman de Rou, 8632 et seqq. Less fully Will. Pict. 94; “Adducti in spem memorandi facinoris quidam ex eo numero qui in præsidio Ducis relicti custodiunt, Francorum adventantium itinera explorata insidunt. Et ecce numerosa pars minus cauti excipiuntur.”

Footnote 344

Will. Malms, iii. 232. “Quorum astutiâ insidiis exceptus, Isembardum Pontivi comitem coram se obtruncari, Hugonem Bardulfum capi, meritò ingemuit.”

Footnote 345

All our accounts speak of the capture of Hugh Bardulf as of an event of at least equal importance with the death of the Count of Ponthieu. William of Poitiers (u. s.) says, “Hugo Bardulfus ipse item, vir magnus, capitur.”

Footnote 346

“In the roll of Norman fees in the red book of the Exchequer, we find Doon Bardulf returned as one of those ‘qui non venerunt, nec miserunt, nec aliquid dixerunt.’” I copy this from Taylor’s Wace, p. 44. The name of Bardulf, including several Doun Bardulfs, occurs constantly in the Exchequer Records both of Normandy and of England (see the Indexes to Madox and Stapleton), but I have not lighted on the particular story referred to by Mr. Taylor.

Footnote 347

See vol. i. p. 227 et pass.

Footnote 348

Chron. Centul. iv. 21 (ap. D’Achery, ii. 343). “Attamen huic numquam Comitis nomen accessit, sed erat illi insigne quod Sancti Richarii vocabatur Advocatus.” On Saint Riquier see vol. ii. p. 535.

Footnote 349

Ib. “Ablatis monasterio Centulo tribus oppidis, Abbatis-villâ, Sancto Medardo, et Incrâ, et his castellis effectis, in eorumque stippendia multis aliis Sancti Richarii villis et reditibus ab Hugone Rege prærogatis.” Cf. iv. 12.

Footnote 350

See Chron. Centul. ii. 7. Sir Francis Palgrave (iii. 226), by one of the slips so natural in a chapter not revised by the author, confounds father and son.

Footnote 351

I find that in my second volume I have written this name Ingelram in the text (p. 217) and Enguerrand in the Appendix (p. 587). Such accidents will happen, especially with foreign names. Ingelram (whence Ingram) is certainly the English form, though the name was never common in England; I therefore prefer it, as does Sir F. Palgrave.

Footnote 352

Hariulf (Chron. Cent. iv. 21) calls the elder Hugh “Hugo Abbatensis,” and the Ingelram slain at Saint Aubin is by William of Jumièges (vii. 7) called “Abbatis-villæ Comes.” Ingelram, according to Hariulf, took the title of Count (“Dei gratia Comes”) on slaying Baldwin Count of Boulogne and marrying his widow Adelaide. Chron. Cent. iv. 12.

Footnote 353

See vol. ii. p. 217.

Footnote 354

William of Jumièges (vii. 7) calls the wife of William of Arques “soror Widonis Comitis Pontivi.” That is a daughter of Hugh. Why is Ingelram called “Comes Abbatisvillæ,” and his brother “Comes Pontivi,” in the same chapter?

Footnote 355

See vol. ii. p. 587.

Footnote 356

The death of Ingelram is mentioned in all our accounts, like the capture of Hugh Bardulf.

Footnote 357

This is Guy who imprisoned Harold. His uncle, another Guy, son of Ingelram the First, was Bishop of Amiens (see Chron. Cent. iv. 36. p. 355), and wrote the famous poem “De Bello Hastingensi.” See Will. Gem. vii. 44.

Footnote 358

The other daughter married Odo of Champagne. See vol. ii. p. 588, and below, p. 142.

Footnote 359

William of Poitiers (94) calls him “nobilitate notus ac fortudine,” and William (or Orderic) in the death-bed speech (657 B) says “præcursores mei præoccupaverunt Engelrannum Comitem in castrum intrare festinantem, ipsumque fortiter pugnantem, quia miles erat asperrimus, occiderunt, et agmina ejus fugaverunt.” Hariulf, in the Chronicle of Saint Riquier (iv. 21), calls him “homo formæ mirabilis.”

Footnote 360

Will. Pict. (u. s.) “Perveniens tamen quo ire intenderat, Rex exacerbatissimis animis summâ vi præsidium attentavit: Willelmum ab ærumnis uti eriperet, pariter decrementum sui, stragem suorum vindicaret. Sed ubi negotium difficile animadvertit, quippe inimicos impetus facilè toleraverunt castelli munimenta et militum virtus æque validæ ... abire maturavit.”

Footnote 361

So I understand the not very clear statement of William of Poitiers that the King went away.

Footnote 362

Will. Pict. 96. “In ipsâ morâ obsidionali Normannorum aliquanti potentiores ab Duce ad Regem defecerunt, quos jam antea conspirationis rebellantium occultique fuisse adjutores opinabile erat. Malevolentiam, quâ olim contra infantem fuerant inflati nondum evomuere totam. Eorum eo consortio Guimundus præsidens munitioni quam Molendinas appellant in manus Regis eam dedit.” William of Malmesbury seems to make the movement a popular one; “Hujusce obsidionis intervallo populus castri quod Molendinis dicitur, exolescens, ad partes Regis incentore quodam Galterio transiit.” Is this Walter the same as the Wimund of the other William?

Footnote 363

See Stapleton, i. cxxxiii. et al.

Footnote 364

Will. Pict. 96. “Guido frater Comitis Pictavensis Willelmi atque Romanæ Imperatricis.” So Will. Malms. This Guy (see Art de Vérifier les Dates, ii. 356) is the same as the Geoffrey whom Geoffrey Martel established in Gascony. See vol. ii. p. 595.

Footnote 365

Chron. Maxent. 1058 (Labbé, ii. 210). “Willermus, qui et Petrus cognomento Acer.”

Footnote 366

See vol. ii. p. 373.

Footnote 367