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);

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

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.

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,

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.