§ 3. The First Days of Harold’s Reign. January 6–April 16, 1066

Within the bounds of his former Earldom the rule of Harold, King of the English, was simply a continuation of the rule of Harold, Earl of the West-Saxons. It is plain that no other Earl of the great southern Earldom was appointed in his place. In any view of general policy this might be looked on as a backward step. It might be looked on as again uprearing a throne which should be West-Saxon rather than English. It might be looked on as again reducing Mercia and Northumberland from integral parts of the realm into dependent provinces.^[99] But under the circumstances of the moment, it would seem to have been the wiser course. England was threatened by two enemies in different quarters, and even the energy of Harold could not personally provide for the safety of the |Necessity of confidence in Eadwine and Morkere.| land against both. It was absolutely necessary, in Harold’s position, to treat the Earls of the Northumbrians and the Mercians, perhaps already his brothers-in-law, with a degree of confidence which they certainly did not deserve. It was something that they had allowed his election and coronation to take place without any open opposition. It was something that he had received the votes of the Northumbrian Witan, and had been crowned and anointed by the hands of the Northumbrian Primate. Harold could not do otherwise than at least affect to treat Eadwine and Morkere as |Division of labour between them and the King.| loyal subjects or even as loving brothers. He was obliged to trust to them for the defence of Northern England. And, if they could be trusted for anything, they might surely, it would seem, be trusted to keep their personal enemy Tostig out of their own Earldoms. While they guarded the North against the English exile, it was Harold’s own work to guard the South against the foreign pretender. In the eastern shires, from the Wash to the Straits of Dover, he had the trustiest of lieutenants in his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine. It was clearly his own business, while not abdicating his duty of general care over the whole Kingdom, to undertake as his special work the defence of the lands which had formed his own Earldom. No one could do that work |No available candidate for the West-Saxon Earldom.| so well as himself. We can hardly see whom Harold, had he been so inclined, could have invested with the West-Saxon Earldom. Every man who could lay claim to so high a dignity on the score either of birth or of merit was already provided for. The King’s remaining brother Wulfnoth was probably a hostage in Normandy; his own sons, his nephew Hakon, were all young and untried. The representatives of the two Northumbrian families, Waltheof and Oswulf, were equally untried, and they were already invested with the government of districts with which they had an ancestral connexion. Nor can we point to the name of any West-Saxon of special personal eminence beyond the |Military policy of keeping Wessex in the King’s own hands.| limits of the great houses. It was clearly the policy of the moment, a moment when military considerations must have been supreme above all others, for the King to keep the immediate administration of the South in his own hands, availing himself only of the co-operation of his brothers the two Eastern Earls. And, after all, though Northumberland and Mercia again became in a sense dependencies on the West-Saxon Crown, the arrangement might very well suit the purposes of Eadwine and Morkere. They might deem that a step was thereby taken towards the division of the Kingdom, when its administration was practically divided between the House of Leofric and the House of Godwine, and when the King took his own share along with his brothers and brothers-in-law. A King who had his own portion of the Kingdom in his own hands might seem to be less painfully exalted over their heads, he might seem to remain more nearly on their own level, than a King who acted simply as a central power, equally controlling every portion of the realm. Harold therefore kept the West-Saxon Earldom in his own hands. But it is clear that he kept a watchful eye over his whole Kingdom, and that he was ready to act at a moment’s notice in any part of his Kingdom where his presence might be needed.

On the character of Harold’s government as King there is no need to enlarge. His government as King was, as I have just before said, simply a continuation of his government as Earl. Whatever was the character of the one was |Norman calumnies.| the character of the other. The Norman writers describe his government as stained by frightful crimes. As usual, stories grow and become more definite as they are further removed from the time. The slanderers of Harold’s own age veiled their charges in the most general terms; but the slanderers of the thirteenth century were ready with long stories of rapine and sacrilege and evil doings of every kind, and the slanderers of a still later age knew perfectly well how cruelly Harold enforced the forest laws, and how the husband of Ealdgyth remained without a wife, that he might the more easily carry off the wives and daughters |Asserted general expulsion of Normans.| of the “Barons” of the realm.^[100] A charge which better deserves serious examination is that Harold drove out of the land all the Normans who were settled in it, doubtless confiscating their lands.^[101] Now the dying charge of Eadward himself suggested the banishment, though not the spoliation, of any Normans who might refuse to become the men of the new King.^[102] The fact that the charge is brought against Harold may lead us to think that some such cases actually occurred, and that Eadward’s rule was |Some Normans at least remained in England.| put in force with regard to them. But it is quite impossible to believe that all the Frenchmen who were naturalized in England^[103] were now driven out. Some record of such a process would certainly have found its way into Domesday. And we know for certain that some |Bishop William and Robert the son of Wymarc not molested.| Normans of high rank were not driven out. William of London retained his Bishoprick. His name does not actually occur in the history of Harold’s reign, but it is quite certain that, if he had been meddled with, some Norman writer or other would have taken care to record the fact. The wrongs of the living Bishop of London would have made an excellent sequel to the wrongs of the dead Archbishop of Canterbury. And we know distinctly, from the testimony of Norman writers,^[104] that Robert the son of Wymarc was living quietly in England, as a man of wealth and importance, at the time of William’s landing. He clearly retained his lands; there is no evidence whether |Other Stallers.| he did or did not retain his office of Staller. Nor have we any direct evidence as to the position retained in Harold’s reign by Robert’s fellow-Staller Ralph,^[105] or by any other of Eadward’s Norman favourites. We cannot say whether Hugolin the Treasurer and Reginbald the Chancellor^[106] retained their offices in the Court of the English King. We can only say that, among the English Stallers employed by Eadward, three at least, Bondig,^[107] Esegar, and Eadnoth, retained their offices. Esegar and Bondig play not unimportant |Eadnoth.| parts in the great struggles of the year.^[108] Eadnoth, who held large possessions in the western shires, was probably a man who had risen by the favour of Harold during his government of Wessex as Earl. We shall hear |1067.| of him again as acting against the son of his benefactor.

In opposition to the slanders of his enemies, Harold appears in the national writers as the model of a patriot King. In the words of the splendid panegyric which became almost a set form among all true Englishmen, “he began to abolish unrighteous laws, to establish righteous ones, to be the patron of churches and monasteries, to reverence Bishops, Abbots, monks, and churchmen of every sort, to show himself pious, lowly, and affable to all good men, and to be the enemy of all evil doers.”^[109] We are told how he bade his Earls, Sheriffs, and magistrates of every kind, and generally all his Thegns, to seize all thieves, robbers, and disturbers of the public peace, while he himself laboured for the defence of the country by sea and land.^[110] That is to say, his government as King was a continuation of his government as Earl. We must not infer from the opening words of the description that Harold appeared at all as a lawgiver. Those few months of little stillness were not likely to be largely devoted either to the repeal of old laws or to the enactment of new ones. By good and bad law is meant, as usual,^[111] good and bad government. What we are to understand is that Harold’s rule continued to be as just and as vigorous as it had ever been. It would in truth be more vigorous, now that he could act freely for himself, and had no longer to take the pleasure of the wayward Eadward upon any matter. His strictness against all breaches of the peace is simply his old virtue as Earl;^[112] only we see, what of course naturally follows from the state of things at the time, that this duty was now, more than it had been before, thrown upon the King’s officers and representatives, while the King himself was mainly occupied with his military |His military preparations began early in his reign.| preparations. We see also that those preparations began from the very beginning of his reign, that there is no ground to believe that Harold despised either of his enemies, or that he failed from the first to make ready for anything that might happen. His great difficulty must have been to make others feel the importance of the crisis as he felt it himself, and at the same time to avoid anything which could dishearten men’s minds or chill the warmth of the hopes kindled by a new reign and a new dynasty. The spirit of Harold’s rule is impressed in a striking, and even touching, way on the few material monuments of his |His coinage.| short reign. The new King found time for a new coinage, and the device on Harold’s coin well spoke the longings of a King whose heart yearned for peace, though he knew that peace could be had only through war. On the one side is the simple legend, PAX, on the other side the King wears the Imperial Diadem.^[113] All that man could do for his realm and people King Harold did. The evil was that, according to the old Greek saying, even Hêraklês could not struggle with two foes at once.^[114]

As for Harold’s devotion to the Church, which is so strongly insisted on by his panegyrist, we can see that he had every motive at this time to make friends of all classes of men, and to make friends of the clergy more than of any other class. He must have known that something like a holy war was likely to be proclaimed against him. He must have felt that he had, wittingly or unwittingly, done an act which ran counter to the religious feelings of the time. If Harold had really done despite to the bones of the Norman Saints, it was the more needful for him to show to other lands that he enjoyed the confidence of the national Church, and to show to the national Church that he was a King who did not belie the oil of his consecration. |His relations to the monks.| It is quite possible, and it may be implied in the words of the panegyric, that the founder of Waltham, the great patron of the seculars, now found it expedient to extend more of his countenance than before to the religious foundations of his Kingdom. It is certain that the few notices that we have of the reign of Harold show that more of his attention was given to ecclesiastical matters than might have been looked for in a reign so short and so |His further gifts to Waltham.| stormy. He continued his care and bounty to his own foundation at Waltham; what the Earl had loved, the |His writ to Gisa.| King could not love less.^[115] If Bishop Gisa had any fears, they were quieted by a writ securing him in all the rights and possessions of his see.^[116] The construction which we put upon this act must depend upon the view which we take of the relations between Harold and Gisa at this moment. We have seen that, according to Gisa’s own account, the King promised to restore the disputed lands, and was hindered only by his death.^[117] At any rate, Harold showed either that he was unconscious of wrong, or that, if he was conscious, he was anxious to make atonement. |His friendship with the Abbots Leofric and Æthelwig;| Among the monastic Prelates, the history will show that he could count on the loyal service, not only of his uncle at the New Minster of Winchester,^[118] but of the member of the rival house who ruled over the Golden Borough.^[119] Peterborough, it should be remembered, is the only monastic foundation of which Harold is distinctly recorded as a benefactor.^[120] The intercourse between Harold and Abbot Leofric was plainly one of mutual confidence and mutual good offices. Æthelwig also, the prudent Abbot of Evesham, stood high in the new King’s favour. The soul of the saintly Mannig had passed away at the same hour as the soul of the saintly Eadward,^[121] and the church of Evesham was now under the sole rule of the Prelate whose wisdom had already commended him to Ealdred and was afterwards still more specially to commend him to William. With Harold the influence of Æthelwig was great; the Abbot, we are told, obtained from the King whatever he asked.^[122] One would like to know more clearly the nature of the requests made by such a Prelate to such a King. |and with Saint Wulfstan.| But among the ranks of monks and Bishops there was one greater than Gisa or Leofric or Æthelwig, one whose prayers and whose counsels Harold had long learned to value. The holy Wulfstan had for years been his tried friend, and it was on the tried friendship of that true man of God that Harold chose to lean in the first of the many trials of his short reign.

There can be no doubt that the Witan of Northumberland, no less than the Witan of the rest of England, had concurred in the election of Harold. The expressions of our best authorities declare that the chief men of all England concurred in the choice;^[123] the Primate of the Northumbrians had filled the first place in the work of Harold’s formal admission to his Kingdom, and there is nothing to show that the Earl of the Northumbrians openly dissented. But a little thought will show that the real feelings of Northumberland could not be so easily tested in an Assembly held in London as the real feelings of Wessex and East-Anglia. We cannot suppose that the North was represented in such an Assembly in anything like the same proportion as the districts nearer to the place of meeting. |Working of the Witenagemót as a Primary Assembly.| This is always one of the weak points of a Primary, as distinguished from a Representative, Assembly. In a Representative Assembly, if members are fairly apportioned to districts, a part of the country far away from the place of meeting may be as well represented as one that is close to it. In a Primary Assembly the different parts of the country cannot be put on an equality except by taking the votes, not by heads, but by tribes, cities, or cantons.^[124] Northumberland might, by this means, have had an equal voice with Wessex in the national Councils, though the West-Saxons present might have been counted by hundreds or thousands, and the Northumbrians only by tens or units. But this political subtlety does not seem to have been thought of in the primitive parliamentary system of our forefathers. It follows then that, wherever a Gemót was held, some part of the country was placed at a disadvantage. East-Anglia was placed at a disadvantage when the Gemót was held at Gloucester; Western Mercia was placed at a disadvantage when the Gemót was held in London. |Northumberland never fairly represented.| And as no regular Gemót seems to have been held in Eadward’s time at any place north of Gloucester,^[125] Northumberland was always placed at a disadvantage. We may conceive that, in the Gemót which elected Harold, that is, the Gemót assembled for the consecration of the West Minster, Wessex, East-Anglia, and south-eastern Mercia were largely represented. The citizens of London were ready on the spot. But it is not likely that the Northumbrians present would be more than a mere handful. The Archbishop, the Earls, the Bishop of Durham, and a few of the leading Thegns would doubtless obey the royal summons. But it is not likely that many besides these would undertake such a journey in the middle of winter. We can therefore fully understand that the mass of the Northumbrian people might feel that an election had been made to which they had not consented. The election had been made in all due constitutional form. Still a most important step, a step affecting the whole Kingdom, a step likely to be in many ways repugnant to Northumbrian feeling, a step to which Northumberland had practically not been a consenting party, had been taken by a part of England in the name of the whole. By that step the mass of the Northumbrian people refused to be bound.^[126]

That the old provincial jealousy should break out again at this moment was not wonderful. It was something strange and new even for West-Saxons to set over them a King of their own blood, who was not of the royal house. But it was something stranger and newer still for Northumbrians to be called on to acknowledge a King, who was neither of their own blood nor of the blood of their old West-Saxon conquerors, but who sprang from a West-Saxon house which, two generations back, had been undistinguished, perhaps ignoble. This feeling on the part of the Northumbrian people was short-sighted and ungenerous, but it was perfectly natural. The question is, how far the sons of Ælfgar, who had not dared to oppose Harold’s election in open Gemót, now stirred up, or took advantage of, the natural feeling of the Northumbrian people. Our evidence is very slight, but the conduct of Eadwine and Morkere a few months later makes it almost impossible to doubt that they saw, in the unwillingness of Northumberland to acknowledge the newly-chosen King, an admirable means towards carrying out their schemes for the division of the Kingdom. We have no distinct details of what actually happened in Northumberland at this moment. The one writer who tells the story wraps |The Northumbrians refuse to acknowledge Harold.| up the minuter facts in a cloud of rhetoric.^[127] It is plain however that the Northumbrians did, in some shape or other, refuse to acknowledge Harold as their King. There is nothing to show that there was any armed resistance, or that any Northumbrian Gemót took upon itself to elect another King. The resistance to Harold’s authority was probably passive, but resistance of some kind there was. |Similar position of Harold in January and of William in December.| Harold, in short, found himself in January in very nearly the same position with regard to the northern part of his Kingdom in which William found himself in December. Each alike had been elected and crowned; each had received the allegiance of the Northumbrian Earl, and had been hallowed as King by the Northumbrian Primate. But Harold and William alike found that the submission of Morkere and the benediction of Ealdred did not necessarily carry with them any practical authority over the old Northumbrian realm. And we cannot doubt that |Probable agency of Eadwine and Morkere.| the heart of Morkere went forth as little in his oath to Harold as it went forth in his oath to William. We cannot doubt that Morkere, and Eadwine also, took advantage, in the former case as in the latter, of the natural disposition of the Northumbrian people. The momentary hopes which were roused by the unwillingness of the Danish and Anglian North to acknowledge the West-Saxon King overcame the fear lest Tostig should come to recover his Earldom by force. Weighed against such hopes, the tie of allegiance, the tie of gratitude, the tie of affinity, was not likely to be strong. The claims of a King, a benefactor, perhaps a brother, would seem small compared with a chance of personal exaltation. The duty of keeping England united in the face of her foes would seem as nothing compared with the chance of gratifying a paltry provincial jealousy. I may seem to be passing a harsh judgement on the sons of Ælfgar in a matter in which their names are not directly mentioned. But I am simply supposing that their conduct now was of a piece with their conduct a few months before and a few months after. And it is hard to see what form could be taken by even a passive resistance to Harold’s authority, unless that resistance was fostered by the connivance, to say the least, of the reigning Earl.

Harold then found himself in January, as William found himself in December, King of a realm of which Northumberland constitutionally formed a part, but a King to whom Northumberland presented a front of at least passive resistance. But Harold’s way of bringing in the proud Danes of the North to his obedience was not exactly the same as William’s way. Harold knew how to win back the revolted province without shedding a drop of blood and without harrying a single acre of ground. It is small blame to William, granting his position in England at all, that no such peaceful means were open to him as were open to Harold. But, if Harold’s way of recovering rebels differed widely from William’s, it differed no less widely from that of Harthacnut, of Tostig, or of Eadward himself. Three months before, the saintly King had been eager to carry fire and sword into a province which, though it despised his authority, does not seem to have disputed his title. His good genius, in the shape of Harold, had then kept him back from a bootless war against his own people.^[128] That same province was now in revolt against Harold himself; but it was soon shown that the policy of Harold the King was in no way changed from the policy of Harold the Earl. The conqueror of Gruffydd was less eager for war and bloodshed than the King who had never grasped axe or sword except in a peaceful pageant. King Harold showed that the motto on his coin was one which he was ready fully to carry out in practice. He at least knew that, at such a moment, civil war, civil dissension, between |He determines to visit Northumberland in person.| Englishmen, was simple madness. With that noble and generous daring which is sometimes the highest prudence, Harold determined to trust himself in the hands of the people who refused to acknowledge him. Those his enemies who would not that he should reign over them, instead of being brought and slain before him, were to be won over by the magic of his personal presence in their own land. We know not whether Harold had ever before set foot on Northumbrian ground. His vast possessions indeed extended beyond the Humber. The lordship of Coningsburgh, more famous in romance than in history, together with a large surrounding territory, owned Harold as its lord.^[129] A house of Harold’s probably marked the height which is now crowned by the renowned castle of later times; but we know not whether the great Earl ever found leisure to visit a possession so far removed both from the scenes of his labours at Gloucester, Winchester, and London, and from the scenes of his pleasure and devotion in his own woods and by his own minster at Waltham. But one thing is certain, that years had |1031. Rarity of royal visits to the North.| passed since Northumberland had seen a King. Thirty-five years earlier Cnut had passed through the land on his victorious march against the Scots.^[130] Whether the first Harold, whose capital seems to have been Oxford, ever found his way to York is uncertain. But there is nothing to lead us to suppose that Harthacnut or Eadward had ever seen any part of their dominions north of Shrewsbury, perhaps not even north of Gloucester.^[131] Thus the mere presence of a King in the North of England would be something strange and exciting, and the mere presence of a King can, as we all know, often work wonders. Harold then set off for Northumberland, to win over the disaffected province, not by arms, but by the power of speech and the magic of royal courtesy. But he went |He takes Bishop Wulfstan with him.| not alone. The companion whom he chose seems to show how important a part of Harold’s policy it was at this moment to show himself as the choice and the friend of the national Church. With the King went the best and holiest Prelate in England, his old and tried friend, the saintly Bishop of Worcester. On the example and the eloquence of Wulfstan Harold relied to win over those in whose ears he might himself charm in vain.

Harold and Wulfstan then set forth on their journey northward. They would probably take with them Housecarls enough for their own personal protection, but it is plain that they took with them no force capable of controlling or overawing the country. The power of speech and of reason, the example and the influence of the brightest light of the national priesthood, were the arms to which Harold trusted. |Harold and Wulfstan persuade the Northumbrians to submit.| Our narrative tells us only the result and not the process. The proud Danes, unconquerable by steel,^[132] bowed their necks to the gentle yoke of Harold and Wulfstan, and the authority of the new King was acknowledged throughout Northumberland. One could well wish to know more of the details. The biographer of Wulfstan attributes the happy result wholly to the reverence with which the Saint inspired the fierce spirits of the North. From the merits and the honour of Wulfstan, a true Saint and the chosen friend of Harold, I should be sorry to derogate one jot or one tittle. But I cannot but think that the presence, the arguments, the eloquence, of the hero-King himself must have had some share in winning over his people to his |Harold in the Gemót at York.| allegiance. In the Gemót at York, which was evidently summoned for the purpose,^[133] he might appeal to every feeling of patriotism, and conjure them, as Englishmen, not, at such a moment, to separate the cause of one Earldom from the common cause of England. If England were torn by civil war, even if England were peacefully divided, what assurance was there that Wessex alone could withstand the attacks of William, that Northumberland alone could withstand the attacks of Tostig? But if England were united—and under none but Harold could she be united—she might be able to hold up against both enemies at once. He might appeal to every feeling of personal gratitude; he might remind the Northumbrian people how lately he had sacrificed his brother to their will, how lately he had saved them from a civil war, when King Eadward was eager to march his armies against them. The personal pleadings of a King, even when they are far weaker in themselves, are seldom heard in vain; and the voice of reason and prudence, speaking from the lips of such a King as Harold, was still less likely to be without fruit. The Northumbrian Danes had received from Harold a mark of consideration and confidence such as they had hardly |Harold acknowledged in Northumberland.| received from any King since the days of Eadgar.^[134] It is no wonder then that the mission of the King and his saintly companion was successful for the moment. Harold was received as King by Northumberland, as he had already been received as King by the rest of England. Perhaps none of his exploits was more glorious than thus to win for himself a great province, an ancient Kingdom, by the mere force of reason and justice. And there is nothing to show that the Northumbrian people fell away from their loyalty, or showed themselves unworthy of the trust which |Continued dangers from Eadwine and Morkere.| their King had placed in them. But the root of evil was left behind. On the decisive step of removing the sons of Ælfgar from their Earldoms Harold could not venture. He was obliged to leave a portion of the Kingdom stretching at least from the Welland to the Tweed in the hands of rulers who could not be trusted. The very ease with which Harold had won the hearts of the Northumbrian people would be of itself a root of bitterness in the hearts of Eadwine and Morkere. They were now further than ever from any hopes of peaceful kingship. They must either be loyal lieutenants of their brother-in-law^[135] or else open or secret rebels against him. We shall see what was the fate of Northumberland and of England, when so vast a power had to be left in such unworthy hands.

But for the moment King Harold was indeed King over the whole realm. He had won the hearts of the whole |over all England.| English people from Wight to Lindisfarne, as perhaps no other King had won them since England had acknowledged a single King. It may be that the holy man whom he had chosen as his guide and partner chose that moment of his highest exaltation to set before him a picture of the sins of England, and to exhort him to devote himself to their reformation.^[136] Or it may be that the warnings of Wulfstan to Harold, like the warnings of Solon to Crœsus, are merely part of a grand dramatic picture, showing how the shadow of the wrath to come was already spreading over the land. But, for the moment, all was brighter than at any other moment of the year. King Harold, full King over all England, came back in peace to his palace at Westminster.

It was there that he kept the Easter Festival, and held his Easter Gemót, the one recorded Festival and the one recorded Gemót of his short reign.^[137] But the reign of Harold, short as it was, marks an important stage in the |Increased importance of London under Harold.| gradual process by which London became the capital of England. Eadward and Harold were both, by widely different motives, drawn to Westminster as their chief dwelling-place. Eadward loved to dwell under the shadow of the church which he was rearing. Harold saw that London was the fittest spot for the ordinary abode of a King who might at any moment be called to the defence |Advantages of the position of London.| of any part of his Kingdom. Less suited than Oxford to be the gathering-place of assemblies from North and South, the great inland haven of the Thames, the city guarded alike by its Roman walls and by the strong hearts of its citizens, was the best centre for operations which might have to be carried on by land or by sea, eastward, northward, or southward. Wales was subdued; Ireland was seemingly friendly; at any rate the danger from both those quarters was comparatively trifling, and the western shore and the western frontier might be left to take care of themselves. But the whole southern and eastern coast of England was exposed to the double enemy, and for the defence of the southern and eastern coast London was obviously the best centre. For that part of England which was under the immediate rule of the new royal house, for Harold’s own Wessex, for the Earldoms of Gyrth and Leofwine, the city was almost geographically central. London then became, under Harold, a more constant royal dwelling-place |Four successive festivals at Westminster. Christmas 1065–1066; Easter 1066; Pentecost 1066; Christmas 1066–1067.| than it had ever been before. It had perhaps never before happened that four successive festivals of the Church were kept by an English King on the same spot. But such must have been the case at Westminster during this year of wonders. Gloucester had been forsaken for that great Midwinter Feast at Westminster, in which the Crown was worn by Eadward on the day of the Nativity and by Harold on the day of the Epiphany. Winchester was now forsaken for Harold’s one Paschal festival. For Pentecost Westminster was now the usual place, and if King Harold found time to hold a Whitsun Feast at all, it was doubtless at Westminster that he held it. At the next Midwinter Feast Westminster again beheld another master, and her church and palace became the scene of other crowning rites. Thick and fast indeed came the events which caused the creation of Eadward to become, from its very birth, the hearth and home of the English nation.

It is possible that Harold may have had another, a secondary, motive, which led him to hold his Festival in some other place than the capital of his former Earldom, the resting-place of his father and of his murdered cousin. Harold had faithfully carried out all the dying wishes of Eadward. Those of Eadward’s Norman friends who were willing to dwell peaceably in the land were not disturbed. Every day of Harold’s reign saw masses and prayers go up from the altars of the West Minster on behalf of the soul of its founder. And Eadward’s other request, that his widow might keep her royal rank and honours, was carried |Eadgyth at Winchester.| out no less faithfully. Eadgyth, now, in Old-English phrase, the Old Lady, withdrew to that royal dwelling-place at Winchester which seems, in this age, to have been specially reserved for the widows of Kings. There Emma had spent the last days of her life,^[138] and there now Eadgyth |Her apparent disaffection.| dwelt with all the honours of her rank, but in all probability as no faithful subject of her royal brother. Her sisterly affection was set upon Tostig, and it would even seem that, after Tostig’s overthrow, her sympathies were transferred from the brother who had overthrown him to the invader who might be looked on as his avenger.^[139] It is possible that Harold might feel inclined to avoid a city whose chief inhabitant was a sister in such a frame of mind. But it may simply be that he found London the best centre for his councils and operations. And we may add that the mere fact of Winchester being assigned as the place of dowry to the widows of Cnut and Eadward shows of itself that the old West-Saxon capital was fast yielding the first place among the cities of England to the great military and commercial post on the Thames.

At Westminster then King Harold held his one Easter Feast, and there doubtless he wore his Crown in the same kingly state as the Kings who had gone before him. The Feast implies the Gemót, and of the main subjects of debate in a Gemót at such a moment we can have little doubt. It would be the King’s business to obtain from the assembled nation every help that was needed for the defence of the country. It would be his business to warn his people alike against unworthy fear, against unreasonable confidence, and against that mere slowness of movement, that shrinking from prolonged and wearying service, which were the besetting sins of Englishmen. It was in short the part of Harold to inspire his people, as far as might be, with that unconquerable energy which was the distinguishing feature of his own character. But of the acts of that Assembly we have no record. All that we can say is that it must have been at that Easter gathering that the two recorded ecclesiastical appointments of Harold’s reign were made. At the time of Eadward’s death the great Abbey of Ely was without an Abbot, and Harold had been only a few weeks on the throne when a vacancy also occurred in the Abbey of Abingdon. To this last house the Earl of the West-Saxons had more than once acted a friendly part, sanctioning and suggesting the benefactions of others, even if he did not directly appear as a benefactor |Death of Ordric, Abbot of Abingdon. January 22.| himself.^[140] Seventeen days after the death of Eadward Abbot Ordric of Abingdon died.^[141] The appointment of his successor, Ealdred, a monk of the house, must have taken place at the Easter Gemót. Of the new Prelate we shall hear again during the troubles of the next reign.^[142]

The appointment to Ely is of more moment, as it plainly sets forth Harold in the character of an ecclesiastical reformer. The last Abbot Wulfric, who is spoken of as |The Abbey held in plurality by Stigand.| a kinsman of King Eadward, had lately died. On his death the Abbey was given to Archbishop Stigand, as an addition to his already large stock of preferment. Neither Wulfric nor Stigand is spoken of as a good husband of his church’s worldly wealth. Wulfric had secretly conveyed some of the lands of the Abbey to his brother Guthmund, and he is described as dying of grief and shame for this sin. Stigand now, we are told, suggested to Harold the appointment of an Abbot. But, with Florence’s panegyric before us, we may be inclined to believe that Harold, now at least become the patron of monks and monasteries, was anxious that his reign should be an æra of ecclesiastical reform. It would be a good beginning to put a stop to the scandal of the Archbishop of Canterbury holding the Abbey of Ely in plurality. Possibly the exhortations of Saint Wulfstan may have dwelt upon this evil, as upon so many others. We may therefore be inclined to believe that it was Harold who suggested to Stigand, rather than Stigand who suggested to Harold, the appointment of an independent |Thurstan appointed Abbot. 1066–1076.| Abbot. At any rate an appointment was made by the royal authority, and we cannot doubt that it was duly made by King Harold and his Witan at this Easter Gemót. The new Prelate, Thurstan, whose name proclaims his Danish descent, bears a good character in the local history; he had been brought up in the house from his childhood, and had been well instructed in the learning of |He is blessed by Stigand.| the times. By the King’s order, he received the abbatial benediction from the Archbishop who had made way for him. Stigand had before been deemed fit to bless an Abbot, though not to consecrate a King or a Bishop.^[143] The new Abbot’s reign was a busy and a troubled one. We shall hear again of him and of his house in the course of the great struggle against the Conqueror. At present he had to deal |Lands of Ely detained by Stigand and Guthmund.| with adversaries on a smaller scale. Stigand, like many other Prelates on resigning one preferment for another, and especially on resigning one held in plurality, continued, so the local writers tell us, to keep a large share of the lands of Ely in his own hands. He made up however in some measure for this fault by the most splendid gifts to the church of Ely in the way of vessels and ornaments.^[144] With Stigand perhaps it might not have been prudent for the new Abbot to meddle, but he did his best to recover the lands which Wulfric had conveyed to his brother. Guthmund was brought to a compromise not unusual in such cases, by which the lands were to revert to the Abbey at his death. But the coming overthrow of England carried the stolen possessions away alike from Guthmund and from Saint Æthelthryth. In the storms which soon fell upon the monastery of Ely, the lands of which Abbot Wulfric had defrauded his brotherhood came into the hands of the Norman Hugh of Montfort.^[145]

Signs of those no longer distant days were already beginning to show themselves in the heaven above and in the earth beneath. Perhaps at that very Easter Feast, perhaps at some yet earlier moment of Harold’s reign,^[146] came the message which told him to his face, what he had all along known in his heart, that his reign over England would not be undisputed. Harold was King, acknowledged as King by every Earldom and every shire in England. He was King, alike by the will of his predecessor, by the choice of his people, by the consecration of the Church, by the homage of the Thegns and Prelates of England. But now a voice came proclaiming aloud to Harold, to England, and to Europe, that another claimed the Crown he wore, and claimed it by an earlier bequest of Eadward, by an earlier homage of Harold himself. The great enemy had at last openly thrown down the gauntlet. Duke William of Normandy had proclaimed himself to all the world as the true heir of Eadward, as the lawful King of the English. The benediction of Thurstan of Ely was the last peaceful event of Harold’s reign. Wars and rumours of wars, challenges and answers between leaders of armies, fill up the six months which still divide us from the last act of the great tragedy.

And, if those days were on earth days of distress of nations and perplexity, days when men’s hearts were failing them for fear, they were days too in which the men of those times were led to deem that the very powers of heaven were shaken. Strange and awful signs, mighty storms, a horror of great darkness at noon-day, are recorded in the chronicles of distant lands among the portents of this memorable year.^[147] But there was one sign above all which struck the hearts of all mankind with awe. Men looked to the sky, and there they saw such a token in the heavens as no man had ever seen before.^[148] Not only over all England, but, as men deemed, over the whole world,^[149] the sky was ablaze with a mighty mass of flame, which no man doubted was sent to kindle a fire upon the earth. The octave of the Easter Feast had barely passed, when, on the evening of the ninth day, the hairy star, the comet as some had learned to call it,^[150] shone over the land with a fearful glare. For seven—some say for thirty—nights,^[151] from sunset to dawn,^[152] its bright orb blazed with rays like the noon-tide sun, while the vast train of light streaming behind it seemed to set the whole |Effect of its appearance on men’s minds.| southern quarter of the heavens on fire. Men gazed and wondered in every land. The appearance of that great star is recorded in chronicles written too far from our shores for the fate of Harold or of England to be deemed of any moment. But no man in any land ventured to deem that such a token came without its mission. As of old the stars in their courses fought against Sisera, so now that wondrous star was doubtless sent to fight against some one among the great ones of the earth. And in England, where men’s minds must already have been wrought up to the highest pitch, where a new native dynasty had just arisen, where two foreign invaders were already threatening, the wonder and anxiety must have been even greater than in other lands. The vulgar gazed in silence, lifting up their hands in wonder. The more learned or the more daring took on them to expound the prodigy to their fellows. One such interpreter of the future bore the news of the token to King Harold on his throne.^[153] Holy men, prophets of evil, spoke openly, in the spirit of Kalchas, of Micaiah, or of Eadward himself, of the woes which were coming upon the land. Far away in his cell at Malmesbury, an aged monk, Æthelmær by name, a dabbler in arts and sciences beyond his age,^[154] broke forth into a flood of vague and terrible prediction. The star had come to bring tears to many mothers; he had beheld the same sign in former days, but now it had come to bring a far more fearful overthrow upon his native |Comet of 975;| land.^[155] The sign was indeed one of awe and warning. Ninety years before, such another sign had been seen in the heavens, and fast on its appearance had followed the troubles of the reign of the martyred Eadward.^[156] Famines, earthquakes, civil commotions, had followed hard upon the track of the |of 989.| blazing beacon. Only a few years later, so the reckonings of astronomers tell us, the very comet on which men were now gazing must have come to herald in the great renewal |[991–994.]| of the Scandinavian invasions, the terrible invasions of Olaf and Swend, the fight of Maldon and the general ravaging of England.^[157] Still the message of warning was not necessarily a message of despair. Another such token had—not |of 1017.| ushered in but closed—the horrors of the year of strife between Cnut and Eadmund;^[158] it had come as it were to shine over the grave of the English hero, to shine as a beacon lighting the path of glory which opened before the Danish conqueror. So now, some great event was doubtless portended; some mighty ruler was soon to meet with his overthrow; but who could say whether the fiery sword which hung over the world was drawn on behalf of Harold or on behalf of William? But from that day forth no man doubted that the sword of the Lord was drawn; no man doubted that that sword could not be quiet, and that it would not return to its scabbard till it had drunk its fill.

We must now turn from that great Easter Feast at Westminster, and from the portent which must have served to light the Witan of England to their homes. We leave King Harold on his throne, the acknowledged chief of his own people, but with his right challenged by the one man among living princes who could stand forth and defy the chosen of England as an equal and worthy rival. The details and the substance of that challenge form the beginning of another portion of my tale. I reserve them therefore till we have traced out the later actions, the wars and the intrigues, of the great enemy beyond the sea. I have now to sketch the events of years neither few nor unimportant in the history of William, and therein to bring to light one page which I would gladly blot out in the history of Harold. I have now to take up the thread of my Norman history, from the day when William, the guest of Eadward, went back to his own land, already deeming himself the heir of England, to the day when, as the open rival of Harold, he put forth before heaven and earth his claim to the Crown which the choice of England had given to another.