Chapter IX (2)

These evidences are, to say the least, infinitely more worthy of historical credence than the one or two English chroniclers, of little comparative estimation, (such as Wike,) and the prejudiced and ignorant Norman chroniclers [295], who depose on behalf of William. I assume, therefore, that Edward left the crown to Harold; of Harold’s better claim in the election of the Witan, there is no doubt. But Sir F. Palgrave starts the notion that, “admitting that the prelates, earls, aldermen, and thanes of Wessex and East-Anglia had sanctioned the accession of Harold, their decision could not have been obligatory on the other kingdoms (provinces); and the very short time elapsing between the death of Edward and the recognition of Harold, utterly precludes the supposition that their consent was even asked.” This great writer must permit me, with all reverence, to suggest that he has, I think, forgotten the fact that, just prior to Edward’s death, an assembly, fully as numerous as ever met in any national Witan, had been convened to attend the consecration of the new abbey and church of Westminster, which Edward considered the great work of his life; that assembly would certainly not have dispersed during a period so short and anxious as the mortal illness of the King, which appears to have prevented his attending the ceremony in person, and which ended in his death a very few days after the consecration. So that during the interval, which appears to have been at most about a week, between Edward’s death and Harold’s coronation [296], the unusually large concourse of prelates and nobles from all parts of the kingdom assembled in London and Westminster would have furnished the numbers requisite to give weight and sanction to the Witan. And had it not been so, the Saxon chroniclers, and still more the Norman, would scarcely have omitted some remark in qualification of the election. But not a word is said as to any inadequate number in the Witan. And as for the two great principalities of Northumbria and Mercia, Harold’s recent marriage with the sister of their earls might naturally tend to secure their allegiance.

Nor is it to be forgotten that a very numerous Witan had assembled at Oxford a few months before, to adjudge the rival claims of Tostig and Morcar; the decision of the Witan proves the alliance between Harold’s party and that of the young Earl’s--ratified by the marriage with Aldyth. And he who has practically engaged in the contests and cabals of party, will allow the probability, adopted as fact in the romance, that, considering Edward’s years and infirm health, and the urgent necessity of determining beforehand the claims to the succession--some actual, if secret, understanding was then come to by the leading chiefs. It is a common error in history to regard as sudden, that which in the nature of affairs never can be sudden. All that paved Harold’s way to the throne must have been silently settled long before the day in which the Witan elected him unanimi omnium consensu. [297]

With the views to which my examination of the records of the time have led me in favour of Harold, I can not but think that Sir F. Palgrave, in his admirable History of Anglo-Saxon England, does scanty justice to the Last of its kings; and that his peculiar political and constitutional theories, and his attachment to the principle of hereditary succession, which make him consider that Harold “had no clear title to the crown any way,” tincture with something like the prejudice of party his estimate of Harold’s character and pretensions. My profound admiration for Sir F. Palgrave’s learning and judgment would not permit me to make this remark without carefully considering and re-weighing all the contending authorities on which he himself relies. And I own that, of all modern historians, Thierry seems to me to have given the most just idea of the great actors in the tragedy of the Norman invasion, though I incline to believe that he has overrated the oppressive influence of the Norman dynasty in which the tragedy closed.

NOTE (Q)

Physical Peculiarities of the Scandinavians.

“It is a singular circumstance, that in almost all the swords of those ages to be found to the collection of weapons in the Antiquarian Museum at Copenhagen, the handles indicate a size of hand very much smaller than the hands of modern people of any class or rank. No modern dandy, with the most delicate hands, would find room for his hand to grasp or wield with ease some of the swords of these Northmen.”

This peculiarity is by some scholars adduced, not without reason, as an argument for the Eastern origin of the Scandinavian. Nor was it uncommon for the Asiatic Scythians, and indeed many of the early warlike tribes fluctuating between the east and west of Europe, to be distinguished by the blue eyes and yellow hair of the north. The physical attributes of a deity, or a hero, are usually to be regarded as those of the race to which he belongs. The golden locks of Apollo and Achilles are the sign of a similar characteristic in the nations of which they are the types; and the blue eye of Minerva belies the absurd doctrine that would identify her with the Egyptian Naith.

The Norman retained perhaps longer than the Scandinavian, from whom he sprang, the somewhat effeminate peculiarity of small hands and feet; and hence, as throughout all the nobility of Europe the Norman was the model for imitation, and the ruling families in many lands sought to trace from him their descents, so that characteristic is, even to our day, ridiculously regarded as a sign of noble race. The Norman probably retained that peculiarity longer than the Dane, because his habits, as a conqueror, made him disdain all manual labour; and it was below his knightly dignity to walk, as long as a horse could be found for him to ride. But the Anglo-Norman (the noblest specimen of the great conquering family) became so blent with the Saxon, both in blood and in habits, that such physical distinctions vanished with the age of chivalry. The Saxon blood in our highest aristocracy now predominates greatly over the Norman; and it would be as vain a task to identify the sons of Hastings and Rollo by the foot and hand of the old Asiatic Scythian, as by the reddish auburn hair and the high features which were no less ordinarily their type. Here and there such peculiarities may all be seen amongst plain country gentlemen, settled from time immemorial in the counties peopled by the Anglo-Danes, and inter-marrying generally in their own provinces; but amongst the far more mixed breed of the larger landed proprietors comprehended in the Peerage, the Saxon attributes of race are strikingly conspicuous, and, amongst them, the large hand and foot common with all the Germanic tribes.

NOTE (R)

The Interment of Harold.

Here we are met by evidences of the most contradictory character. According to most of the English writers, the body of Harold was given by William to Githa, without ransom, and buried at Waltham. There is even a story told of the generosity of the Conqueror, in cashiering a soldier who gashed the corpse of the dead hero. This last, however, seems to apply to some other Saxon, and not to Harold. But William of Poitiers, who was the Duke’s own chaplain, and whose narration of the battle appears to contain more internal evidence of accuracy than the rest of his chronicle, expressly says, that William refused Githa’s offer of its weight in gold for the supposed corpse of Harold, and ordered it to be buried on the beach, with the taunt quoted in the text of this work--“Let him guard the coast which he madly occupied;” and on the pretext that one, whose cupidity and avarice had been the cause that so many men were slaughtered and lay unsepultured, was not worthy himself of a tomb. Orderic confirms this account, and says the body was given to William Mallet, for that purpose. [299]

Certainly William de Poitiers ought to have known best; and the probability of his story is to a certain degree borne out by the uncertainty as to Harold’s positive interment, which long prevailed, and which even gave rise to a story related by Giraldus Cambrensis (and to be found also in the Harleian MSS.), that Harold survived the battle, became a monk in Chester, and before he died had a long and secret interview with Henry the First. Such a legend, however absurd, could scarcely have gained any credit if (as the usual story runs) Harold had been formally buried, in the presence of many of the Norman barons, in Waltham Abbey--but would very easily creep into belief, if his body had been carelessly consigned to a Norman knight, to be buried privately by the sea-shore.

The story of Osgood and Ailred, the childemaister (schoolmaster in the monastery), as related by Palgrave, and used in this romance, is recorded in a MS. of Waltham Abbey, and was written somewhere about fifty or sixty years after the event--say at the beginning of the twelfth century. These two monks followed Harold to the field, placed themselves so as to watch its results, offered ten marks for the body, obtained permission for the search, and could not recognise the mutilated corpse until Osgood sought and returned with Edith. In point of fact, according to this authority, it must have been two or three days after the battle before the discovery was made.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Sismondi’s History of France, vol. iv. p. 484.

[2] “Men’s blinded hopes, diseases, toil, and prayer,
And winged troubles peopling daily air.”

[3] Merely upon the obscure MS. of the Waltham Monastery; yet, such is the ignorance of popular criticism, that I have been as much attacked for the license I have taken with the legendary connection between Harold and Edith, as if that connection were a proven and authenticated fact! Again, the pure attachment to which, in the romance, the loves of Edith and Harold are confined, has been alleged to be a sort of moral anachronism,--a sentiment wholly modern; whereas, on the contrary, an attachment so pure was infinitely more common in that day than in this, and made one of the most striking characteristics of the eleventh century; indeed of all the earlier ages, in the Christian era, most subjected to monastic influences.

[4] Notes less immediately necessary to the context, or too long not to interfere with the current of the narrative, are thrown to the end of the work.

[5] There is a legend attached to my friend’s house, that on certain nights in the year, Eric the Saxon winds his horn at the door, and, in forma spectri, serves his notice of ejectment.

[6] The “Edinburgh Review,” No. CLXXIX. January, 1849. Art. I. “Correspondance inedite, de Mabillon et de Montfaucon, avec l’Italie.” Par M. Valery. Paris, 1848.

[7] And long before the date of the travesty known to us, and most popular amongst our mediaeval ancestors, it might be shown that some rude notion of Homer’s fable and personages had crept into the North.

[8] “The apartment in which the Anglo-Saxon women lived, was called Gynecium.”--FOSBROOKE, vol. ii., p. 570.

[9] Glass, introduced about the time of Bede, was more common then in the houses of the wealthy, whether for vessels or windows, than in the much later age of the gorgeous Plantagenets. Alfred, in one of his poems, introduces glass as a familiar illustration:

“So oft the mild sea
With south wind
As grey glass clear
Becomes grimly troubled.”
SHAR. TURNER.

[10] Skulda, the Norna, or Fate, that presided over the future.

[11] The historians of our literature have not done justice to the great influence which the poetry of the Danes has had upon our early national muse. I have little doubt but that to that source may be traced the minstrelsy of our borders, and the Scottish Lowlands; while, even in the central counties, the example and exertions of Canute must have had considerable effect on the taste and spirit of our Scops. That great prince afforded the amplest encouragement to Scandinavian poetry, and Olaus names eight Danish poets, who flourished at his court.

[12] “By the splendour of God.”

[13] See Note (A) at the end of this volume.

[14] It is noticeable that the Norman dukes did not call themselves Counts or Dukes of Normandy, but of the Normans; and the first Anglo-Norman kings, till Richard the First, styled themselves Kings of the English, not of England. In both Saxon and Norman chronicles, William usually bears the title of Count (Comes), but in this tale he will be generally called Duke, as a title more familiar to us.

[15] The few expressions borrowed occasionally from the Romance tongue, to give individuality to the speaker, will generally be translated into modern French; for the same reason as Saxon is rendered into modern English, viz., that the words may be intelligible to the reader.

[16] “Roman de Rou,” part i., v. 1914.

[17] The reason why the Normans lost their old names is to be found in their conversion to Christianity. They were baptised; and Franks, as their godfathers, gave them new appellations. Thus, Charles the Simple insists that Rolf-ganger shall change his law (creed) and his name, and Rolf or Rou is christened Robert. A few of those who retained Scandinavian names at the time of the Conquest will be cited hereafter.

[18] Thus in 991, about a century after the first settlement, the Danes of East Anglia gave the only efficient resistance to the host of the Vikings under Justin and Gurthmund; and Brithnoth, celebrated by the Saxon poet, as a Saxon par excellence, the heroic defender of his native soil, was, in all probability, of Danish descent. Mr. Laing, in his preface to his translation of the Heimskringla, truly observes, “that the rebellions against William the Conqueror, and his successors, appear to have been almost always raised, or mainly supported, in the counties of recent Danish descent, not in those peopled by the old Anglo-Saxon race.”

The portion of Mercia, consisting of the burghs of Lancaster, Lincoln, Nottingham, Stamford, and Derby, became a Danish state in A.D. 877;--East Anglia, consisting of Cambridge, Suffolk, Norfolk, and the Isle of Ely, in A.D. 879-80; and the vast territory of Northumbria, extending all north the Humber, into all that part of Scotland south of the Frith, in A.D. 876.--See PALGRAVE’S Commonwealth. But besides their more allotted settlements, the Danes were interspersed as landowners all over England.

[19] Bromton Chron--via., Essex, Middlesex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Herts, Cambridgeshire, Hants, Lincoln, Notts, Derby, Northampton, Leicestershire, Bucks, Beds, and the vast territory called Northumbria.

[20] PALGRAVE’s History of England, p. 315.

[21] The laws collected by Edward the Confessor, and in later times so often and so fondly referred to, contained many introduced by the Danes, which had grown popular with the Saxon people. Much which we ascribe to the Norman Conqueror, pre-existed in the Anglo-Danish, and may be found both in Normandy, and parts of Scandinavia, to this day.--See HAKEWELL’s Treatise on the Antiquity of Laws in this Island, in HEARNE’s Curious Discourses.

[22] PALGRAVE’s History of England, p. 322.

[23] The name of this god is spelt Odin, when referred to as the object of Scandinavian worship; Woden, when applied directly to the deity of the Saxons.

[24] See Note (B), at the end of the volume.

[25] The Peregrine hawk built on the rocks of Llandudno, and this breed was celebrated, even to the days of Elizabeth. Burleigh thanks one of the Mostyns for a cast of hawks from Llandudno.

[26] Hlaf, loaf,--Hlaford, lord, giver of bread; Hleafdian, lady, server of bread.--VERSTEGAN.

[27] Bedden-ale. When any man was set up in his estate by the contributions of his friends, those friends were bid to a feast, and the ale so drunk was called the bedden-ale, from bedden, to pray, or to bid. (See BRAND’s Pop. Autiq.)

[28] Herleve (Arlotta), William’s mother, married Herluin de Conteville, after the death of Duke Robert, and had by him two sons, Robert, Count of Mortain, and Odo, Bishop of Bayeux.-ORD. VITAL. lib. vii.

[29] Mone, monk.

[30] STRUTT’s Horda.

[31] There is an animated description of this “Battle of London Bridge, “which gave ample theme to the Scandinavian scalds, in Snorro Sturleson:

“London Bridge is broken down;
Gold is won and bright renown;
Shields resounding,
War-horns sounding,
Hildur shouting in the din,
Arrows singing,
Mail-coats ringing,
Odin makes our Olaf win.”
LAING’s Heimskringla, vol. ii. p. 10.

[32] Sharon Turner.

[33] Hawkins, vol. ii. p. 94.

[34] Doomsday makes mention of the Moors, and the Germans (the Emperor’s merchants) that were sojourners or settlers in London. The Saracens at that time were among the great merchants of the world; Marseilles, Arles, Avignon, Montpellier, Toulouse, were the wonted stapes of their active traders. What civilisers, what teachers they were--those same Saracens! How much in arms and in arts we owe them! Fathers of the Provencal poetry they, far more than even the Scandinavian scalds, have influenced the literature of Christian Europe. The most ancient chronicle of the Cid was written in Arabic, a little before the Cid’s death, by two of his pages, who were Mnssulmans. The medical science of the Moors for six centuries enlightened Europe, and their metaphysics were adopted in nearly all the Christian universities.

[35] Billingsgate. See Note (C), at the end of the volume.

[36] London received a charter from William at the instigation of the Norman Bishop of London; but it probably only confirmed the previous municipal constitution, since it says briefly, “I grant you all to be as law-worthy as ye were in the days of King Edward.” The rapid increase, however, of the commercial prosperity and political importance of London after the Conquest, is attested in many chronicles, and becomes strikingly evident even on the surface of history.

[37] There seems good reason for believing that a keep did stand where the Tower stands, before the Conquest, and that William’s edifice spared some of its remains. In the very interesting letter from John Bayford relating to the city of London (Lel. Collect. lviii.), the writer, a thorough master of his subject, states that “the Romans made a public military way, that of Watling Street, from the Tower to Ludgate, in a straight line, at the end of which they built stations or citadels, one of which was where the White Tower now stands.” Bayford adds that “when the White Tower was fitted up for the reception of records, there remained many Saxon inscriptions.”

[38] Rude-lane. Lad-lane.--BAYFORD.

[39] Fitzstephen.

[40] Camden.

[41] BAYFORD, Leland’s Collectanea, p. lviii.

[42] Ludgate (Leod-gate).--VERSTEGAN.

[43] See Note (D), at the end of the volume.

[44] Massere, merchant, mercer.

[45] Fitzstephen.

[46] Meuse. Apparently rather a hawk hospital, from Muta (Camden). Du Fresne, in his Glossary, says, Muta is in French Le Meue, and a disease to which the hawk was subject on changing its feathers.

[47] Scotland-yard.--STRYPE.

[48] The first bridge that connected Thorney Isle with the mainland is said to have been built by Matilda, wife of Henry I.

[49] We give him that title, which this Norman noble generally bears in the Chronicles, though Palgrave observes that he is rather to be styled Earl of the Magesetan (the Welch Marches).

[50] Eadigan.--S. TURNER, vol. i. p. 274.

[51] The comparative wealth of London was indeed considerable. When, in 1018, all the rest of England was taxed to an amount considered stupendous, viz., 71,000 Saxon pounds, London contributed 11,000 pounds besides.

[52] Complin. the second vespers.

[53] CAMDEN--A church was built out of the ruins of that temple by Sibert, King of the East Saxons; and Canute favoured much the small monastery attached to it (originally established by Dunstan for twelve Benedictines), on account of its Abbot Wulnoth, whose society pleased him. The old palace of Canute, in Thorney Isle, had been destroyed by fire.

[54] See note to PLUQUET’s Roman de Rou, p. 285. N.B.--Whenever the Roman de Rou is quoted in these pages it is from the excellent edition of M. Pluquet.

[55] Pardex or Parde, corresponding to the modern French expletive, pardie.

[56] Quen, or rather Quens; synonymous with Count in the Norman Chronicles. Earl Godwin is strangely styled by Wace, Quens Qwine.

[57] “Good, good, pleasant son,--the words of the poet sound gracefully on the lips of the knight.”

[58] A sentiment variously assigned to William and to his son Henry the Beau Clerc.

[59] Mallet is a genuine Scandinavian name to this day.

[60] Rou--the name given by the French to Rollo, or Rolf-ganger, the founder of the Norman settlement.

[61] Pious severity to the heterodox was a Norman virtue. William of Poictiers says of William, “One knows with what zeal he pursued and exterminated those who thought differently;” i.e., on transubstantiation. But the wise Norman, while flattering the tastes of the Roman Pontiff in such matters, took special care to preserve the independence of his Church from any undue dictation.

[62] A few generations later this comfortable and decent fashion of night-gear was abandoned; and our forefathers, Saxon and Norman, went to bed in puris naturalibus, like the Laplanders.

[63] Most of the chroniclers merely state the parentage within the forbidden degrees as the obstacle to William’s marriage with Matilda; but the betrothal or rather nuptials of her mother Adele with Richard III. (though never consummated), appears to have been the true canonical objection.--See note to Wace, p. 27. Nevertheless, Matilda’s mother, Adele, stood in the relation of aunt to William, as widow of his father’s elder brother, “an affinity,” as is observed by a writer in the “Archaeologia,” “quite near enough to account for, if not to justify, the interference of the Church.”--Arch. vol. xxxii. p. 109.

[64] It might be easy to show, were this the place, that though the Saxons never lost their love of liberty, yet that the victories which gradually regained the liberty from the gripe of the Anglo-Norman kings, were achieved by the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. And even to this day, the few rare descendants of that race (whatever their political faction), will generally exhibit that impatience of despotic influence, and that disdain of corruption, which characterise the homely bonders of Norway, in whom we may still recognise the sturdy likeness of their fathers; while it is also remarkable that the modern inhabitants of those portions of the kingdom originally peopled by their kindred Danes, are, irrespective of mere party divisions, noted for their intolerance of all oppression, and their resolute independence of character; to wit, Yorkshire, Norfolk, Cumberland, and large districts in the Scottish Lowlands.

[65] Ex pervetusto codice, MS. Chron. Bec. in Vit. Lanfranc, quoted in the “Archaeologia,” vol. xxxii. p. 109. The joke, which is very poor, seems to have turned upon pede and quadrupede; it is a little altered in the text.

[66] Ord. Vital. See Note on Lanfranc, at the end of the volume.

[67] Siward was almost a giant (pene gigas statures). There are some curious anecdotes of this hero, immortalised by Shakspere, in the Bromton Chronicle. His grandfather is said to have been a bear, who fell in love with a Danish lady; and his father, Beorn, retained some of the traces of the parental physiognomy in a pair of pointed ears. The origin of this fable seems evident. His grandfather was a Berserker; for whether that name be derived, as is more generally supposed, from bare-sark,--or rather from bear-sark, that is, whether this grisly specimen of the Viking genus fought in his shirt or his bearskin, the name equally lends itself to those mystifications from which half the old legends, whether of Greece or Norway, are derived.

[68] Wace.

[69] See Note (E), at the end of the volume (foot-note on the date of William’s marriage).

[70] Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

[71] Some writers say fifty.

[72] Hovenden.

[73] Bodes, i.e. messengers.

[74] Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

[75] Or Fleur-de-lis, which seems to have been a common form of ornament with the Saxon kings.

[76] Bayeux Tapestry.

[77] See note (F), at the end of the volume.

[78] The York Chronicle, written by an Englishman, Stubbs, gives this eminent person an excellent character as peacemaker. “He could make the warmest friends of foes the most hostile.” “De inimicissimis, amicissimos faceret.” This gentle priest had yet the courage to curse the Norman Conqueror in the midst of his barons. That scene is not within the range of this work, but it is very strikingly told in the Chronicle.

[79] Heralds, though probably the word is Saxon, were not then known in the modern acceptation of the word. The name given to the messenger or envoy who fulfilled that office was bode or nuncius. See Note (G), at the end of the volume.

[80] When the chronicler praises the gift of speech, he unconsciously proves the existence of constitutional freedom.

[81] Recent Danish historians have in vain endeavoured to detract from the reputation of Canute as an English monarch. The Danes are, doubtless, the best authorities for his character in Denmark. But our own English authorities are sufficiently decisive as to the personal popularity of Canute in this country, and the affection entertained for his laws.

[82] Some of our historians erroneously represent Harold as the eldest son. But Florence, the best authority we have, in the silence of the Saxon Chronicle, as well as Knyghton, distinctly states Sweyn to be the eldest; Harold was the second, and Tostig was the third. Sweyn’s seniority seems corroborated by the greater importance of his earldom. The Norman chroniclers, in their spite to Harold, wish to make him junior to Tostig--for the reasons evident at the close of this work. And the Norwegian chronicler, Snorro Sturleson, says that Harold was the youngest of all the sons; so little was really known, or cared to be accurately known, of that great house which so nearly founded a new dynasty of English kings.

[83] Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A. D. 1043. “Stigand was deposed from his bishopric, and all that he possessed was seized into the King’s hands, because he was received to his mother’s counsel, and she went just as he advised her, as people thought.” The saintly Confessor dealt with his bishops as summarily as Henry VIII. could have done, after his quarrel with the Pope.

[84] The title of Basileus was retained by our kings so late as the time of John, who styled himself “Totius Insulae Britannicae Basileus.”--AGARD: On the Antiquity of Shires in England, op. Hearne, Cur. Disc.

[85] Sharon Turner.

[86] See the Introduction to PALGRAVE’s History of the Anglo-Saxons, from which this description of the Witan is borrowed so largely, that I am left without other apology for the plagiarism, than the frank confession, that if I could have found in others, or conceived from my own resources, a description half as graphic and half as accurate, I would only have plagiarised to half the extent I have done.

[87] Girald. Gambrensis.

[88] Palgrave omits, I presume accidentally, these members of the Witan, but it is clear from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that the London “lithsmen” were represented in the great National Witans, and helped to decide the election even of kings.

[89] By Athelstan’s law, every man was to have peace going to and from the Witan, unless he was a thief.--WILKINS, p. 187.

[90] Goda, Edward’s sister, married first Rolf’s father, Count of Nantes; secondly, the Count of Boulogne.

[91] More correctly of Oxford, Somerset, Berkshire, Gloucester, and Hereford.

[92] Yet how little safe it is for the great to despise the low-born. This very Richard, son of Scrob, more euphoniously styled by the Normans Richard Fitz-Scrob, settled in Herefordshire (he was probably among the retainers of Earl Rolf), and on William’s landing, became the chief and most active supporter of the invader in those districts. The sentence of banishment seems to have been mainly confined to the foreigners about the Court--for it is clear that many Norman landowners and priests were still left scattered throughout the country.

[93] SENECA, Thyest. Act ii.--“He is a king who fears nothing; that kingdom every man gives to himself.”

[94] Scin-laeca, literally a shining corpse; a species of apparition invoked by the witch or wizard.--See SHARON TURNER on The Superstitions of the Anglo-Saxons, b. ii. c. 14.

[95] Galdra, magic.

[96] Fylgia, tutelary divinity. See Note (H), at the end of the volume.

[97] Morthwyrtha, worshipper of the dead.

[98] It is a disputed question whether the saex of the earliest Saxon invaders was a long or short curved weapon,--nay, whether it was curved or straight; but the author sides with those who contend that it was a short, crooked weapon, easily concealed by a cloak, and similar to those depicted on the banner of the East Saxons.

[99] See Note (K), at the end of the volume.

[100] Saxon Chronicle, Florence Wigorn. Sir F. Palgrave says that the title of Childe is equivalent to that of Atheling. With that remarkable appreciation of evidence which generally makes him so invaluable as a judicial authority where accounts are contradictory, Sir F. Palgrave discards with silent contempt the absurd romance of Godwin’s station of herdsman, to which, upon such very fallacious and flimsy authorities, Thierry and Sharon Turner have been betrayed into lending their distinguished names.

[101] This first wife Thyra, was of very unpopular repute with the Saxons. She was accused of sending young English persons as slaves into Denmark, and is said to have been killed by lightning.

[102] It is just, however, to Godwin to say, that there is no proof of his share in this barbarous transaction; the presumptions, on the contrary, are in his favour; but the authorities are too contradictory, and the whole event too obscure, to enable us unhesitatingly to confirm the acquittal he received in his own age, and from his own national tribunal.

[103] Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

[104] William of Malmesbury.

[105] So Robert of Gloucester says pithily of William, “Kyng Wylliam was to mild men debonnere ynou.”--HEARNE, v. ii. p. 309.

[106] This kiss of peace was held singularly sacred by the Normans, and all the more knightly races of the continent. Even the craftiest dissimulator, designing fraud, and stratagem, and murder to a foe, would not, to gain his ends, betray the pledge of the kiss of peace. When Henry II. consented to meet Becket after his return from Rome, and promised to remedy all of which his prelate complained, he struck prophetic dismay into Becket’s heart by evading the kiss of peace.

[107] SNORRO STURLESON’s Heimskringla.--Laing’s Translation, p. 75-77.

[108] The gre-hound was so called from hunting the gre or badger.

[109] The spear and the hawk were as the badges of Saxon nobility; and a thegn was seldom seen abroad without the one on his left wrist, the other in his right hand.

[110] BED Epist. ad Egbert.

[111] TEGNER’s Frithiof.

[112] Some of the chroniclers say that he married the daughter of Gryffyth, the king of North Wales, but Gryffyth certainly married Algar’s daughter, and that double alliance could not have been permitted. It was probably, therefore, some more distant kinswoman of Gryffyth’s that was united to Algar.

[113] The title of queen is employed in these pages, as one which our historians have unhesitatingly given to the consorts of our Saxon kings; but the usual and correct designation of Edward’s royal wife, in her own time, would be, Edith the Lady.

[114] ETHEL. De Gen. Reg. Ang.

[115] AILRED, De Vit. Edward Confess.

[116] Ingulfus.

[117] The clergy (says Malmesbury), contented with a very slight share of learning, could scarcely stammer out the words of the sacraments; and a person who understood grammar was an object of wonder and astonishment. Other authorities, likely to be impartial, speak quite as strongly as to the prevalent ignorance of the time.

[118] House-carles in the royal court were the body-guard, mostly, if not all, of Danish origin. They appear to have been first formed, or at least employed, in that capacity by Canute. With the great earls, the house-carles probably exercised the same functions; but in the ordinary acceptation of the word in families of lower rank, house-carle was a domestic servant.

[119] This was cheap. For Agelnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury, gave the Pope 6000 lb. weight of silver for the arm of St. Augustine.--MALMESBURY.

[120] William of Malmesbury says, that the English, at the time of the Conquest, loaded their arms with gold bracelets, and adorned their skins with punctured designs, i.e., a sort of tattooing. He says, that they then wore short garments, reaching to the mid-knee; but that was a Norman fashion, and the loose robes assigned in the text to Algar were the old Saxon fashion, which made but little distinction between the dress of women and that of men.

[121] And in England, to this day, the descendants of the Anglo-Danes, in Cumberland and Yorkshire, are still a taller and bonier race than those of the Anglo-Saxons, as in Surrey and Sussex.

[122] Very few of the greater Saxon nobles could pretend to a lengthened succession in their demesnes. The wars with the Danes, the many revolutions which threw new families uppermost, the confiscations and banishments, and the invariable rule of rejecting the heir, if not of mature years at his father’s death, caused rapid changes of dynasty in the several earldoms. But the family of Leofric had just claims to a very rare antiquity in their Mercian lordship. Leofric was the sixth Earl of Chester and Coventry, in lineal descent from his namesake, Leofric the First; he extended the supremacy of his hereditary lordship over all Mercia. See DUGDALE, Monast. vol. iii. p. 102; and PALGRAVE’s Commonwealth, Proofs and Illustrations, p. 291.

[123] AILRED de Vit. Edw.

[124] Dunwich, now swallowed up by the sea.--Hostile element to the house of Godwin.

[125] Windsor.

[126] The chronicler, however, laments that the household ties, formerly so strong with the Anglo-Saxon, had been much weakened in the age prior to the Conquest.

[127] Some authorities state Winchester as the scene of these memorable festivities. Old Windsor Castle is supposed by Mr. Lysons to have occupied the site of a farm of Mr. Isherwood’s surrounded by a moat, about two miles distant from New Windsor. He conjectures that it was still occasionally inhabited by the Norman kings till 1110. The ville surrounding it only contained ninety-five houses, paying gabel-tax, in the Norman survey.

[128] AILRED, de Vit. Edward. Confess.

[129] “Is it astonishing,” asked the people (referring to Edward’s preference of the Normans), “that the author and support of Edward’s reign should be indignant at seeing new men from a foreign nation raised above him, and yet never does he utter one harsh word to the man whom he himself created king?”--HAZLITT’s THIERRY, vol. i. p. 126.

This is the English account (versus the Norman). There can be little doubt that it is the true one.

[130] Henry of Huntingdon, etc.

[131] Henry of Huntingdon; Bromt. Chron., etc.

[132] Hoveden.

[133] The origin of the word leach (physician), which has puzzled some inquirers, is from lids or leac, a body. Leich is the old Saxon word for surgeon.

[134] Sharon Turner, vol. i. p. 472.

[135] Fosbrooke.

[136] Aegir, the Scandinavian god of the ocean. Not one of the Aser, or Asas (the celestial race), but sprung from the giants. Ran or Rana, his wife, a more malignant character, who caused shipwrecks, and drew to herself, by a net, all that fell into the sea. The offspring of this marriage were nine daughters, who became the Billows, the Currents, and the Storms.

[137] Frilla, the Danish word for a lady who, often with the wife’s consent, was added to the domestic circle by the husband. The word is here used by Hilda in a general sense of reproach. Both marriage and concubinage were common amongst the Anglo-Saxon priesthood, despite the unheeded canons; and so, indeed, they were with the French clergy.

[138] Hilda, not only as a heathen, but as a Dane, would be no favourer of monks; they were unknown in Denmark at that time, and the Danes held them in odium.--Ord Vital., lib. vii.

[139] Chron. Knyghton.

[140] Weyd-month. Meadow month, June.

[141] Cumen-hus. Tavern.

[142] Fitzstephen.

[143] William of Malmesbury speaks with just indignation of the Anglo-Saxon custom of selling female servants, either to public prostitution, or foreign slavery.

[144] It will be remembered that Algar governed Wessex, which principality included Kent, during the year of Godwin’s outlawry.

[145] Trulofa, from which comes our popular corruption “true lover’s knot;” a vetere Danico trulofa, i.e., fidem do, to pledge faith.--HICKE’s Thesaur.

“A knot, among the ancient northern nations, seems to have been the emblem of love, faith, and friendship.”--BRANDE’s Pop. Antiq.

[146] The Saxon Chronicle contradicts itself as to Algar’s outlawry, stating in one passage that he was outlawed without any kind of guilt, and in another that he was outlawed as swike, or traitor, and that he made a confession of it before all the men there gathered. His treason, however, seems naturally occasioned by his close connection with Gryffyth, and proved by his share in that King’s rebellion. Some of our historians have unfairly assumed that his outlawry was at Harold’s instigation. Of this there is not only no proof, but one of the best authorities among the chroniclers says just the contrary--that Harold did all he could to intercede for him; and it is certain that he was fairly tried and condemned by the Witan, and afterwards restored by the concurrent articles of agreement between Harold and Leofric. Harold’s policy with his own countrymen stands out very markedly prominent in the annals of the time; it was invariably that of conciliation.

[147] Saxon Chron., verbatim.

[148] Hume.

[149] “The chaste who blameless keep unsullied fame,
Transcend all other worth, all other praise.
The Spirit, high enthroned, has made their hearts
His sacred temple.”

SHARON TURNER’s Translation of Aldhelm, vol. iii. p. 366. It is curious to see how, even in Latin, the poet preserves the alliterations that characterised the Saxon muse.

[150] Slightly altered from Aldhelm.

[151] It is impossible to form any just view of the state of parties, and the position of Harold in the later portions of this work, unless the reader will bear constantly in mind the fact that, from the earliest period, minors were set aside as a matter of course, by the Saxon customs. Henry observes that, in the whole history of the Heptarchy, there is but one example of a minority, and that a short and unfortunate one; so, in the later times, the great Alfred takes the throne, to the exclusion of the infant son of his elder brother. Only under very peculiar circumstances, backed, as in the case of Edmund Ironsides, by precocious talents and manhood on the part of the minor, were there exceptions to the general laws of succession. The same rule obtained with the earldoms; the fame, power, and popularity of Siward could not transmit his Northumbrian earldom to his infant son Waltheof, so gloomily renowned in a subsequent reign.

[152] Bayeux Tapestry.

[153] Indeed, apparently the only monastic order in England.

[154] See Note to Robert of Gloucester, vol. ii. p. 372.

[155] The Saxon priests were strictly forbidden to bear arms.--SPELM. Concil. p. 238.

It is mentioned in the English Chronicles, as a very extraordinary circumstance, that a bishop of Hereford, who had been Harold’s chaplain, did actually take sword and shield against the Welch. Unluckily, this valiant prelate was slain so soon, that it was no encouraging example.

[156] See Note (K), at the end of the volume.

[157] The Normans and French detested each other; and it was the Norman who taught to the Saxon his own animosities against the Frank. A very eminent antiquary, indeed, De la Rue, considered that the Bayeux tapestry could not be the work of Matilda, or her age, because in it the Normans are called French. But that is a gross blunder on his part; for William, in his own charters, calls the Normans “Franci.” Wace, in his “Roman de Rou,” often styles the Normans “French;” and William of Poitiers, a contemporary of the Conqueror, gives them also in one passage the same name. Still, it is true that the Normans were generally very tenacious of their distinction from their gallant but hostile neighbours.

[158] The present town and castle of Conway.

[159] See CAMDEN’s Britannia, “Caernarvonshire.”

[160] When (A.D. 220) the bishops, Germanicus, and Lupus, headed the Britons against the Picts and Saxons, in Easter week, fresh from their baptism in the Alyn, Germanicus ordered them to attend to his war-cry, and repeat it; he gave “Alleluia.” The hills so loudly re-echoed the cry, that the enemy caught panic, and fled with great slaughter. Maes Garmon, in Flintshire, was the scene of the victory.

[161] The cry of the English at the onset of battle was “Holy Crosse, God Almighty;” afterwards in fight, “Ouct, ouct,” out, out.--HEARNE’s Disc. Antiquity of Motts.

The latter cry, probably, originated in the habit of defending their standard and central posts with barricades and closed shields; and thus, idiomatically and vulgarly, signified “get out.”

[162] Certain high places in Wales, of which this might well be one, were so sacred, that even the dwellers in the immediate neighbourhood never presumed to approach them.

[163] See Note (L), at the end of the volume.

[164] See Note (M), at the end of the volume.

[165] The Welch seem to have had a profusion of the precious metals very disproportioned to the scarcity of their coined money. To say nothing of the torques, bracelets, and even breastplates of gold, common with their numerous chiefs, their laws affix to offences penalties which attest the prevalent waste both of gold and silver. Thus, an insult to a sub-king of Aberfraw is atoned by a silver rod as thick as the King’s little finger, which is in length to reach from the ground to his mouth when sitting; and a gold cup, with a cover as broad as the King’s face, and the thickness of a ploughman’s nail, or the shell of a goose’s egg. I suspect that it was precisely because the Welch coined little or no money, that the metals they possessed became thus common in domestic use. Gold would have been more rarely seen, even amongst the Peruvians, had they coined it into money.

[166] Leges Wallicae.

[167] Mona, or Anglesea.

[168] Ireland.

[169] The Welch were then, and still are, remarkable for the beauty of their teeth. Giraldus Cambrensis observes, as something very extraordinary, that they cleaned them.

[170] I believe it was not till the last century that a good road took the place of this pass.

[171] The Saxons of Wessex seem to have adopted the Dragon for their ensign, from an early period. It was probably for this reason that it was assumed by Edward Ironsides, as the hero of the Saxons; the principality of Wessex forming the most important portion of the pure Saxon race, while its founder was the ancestor of the imperial house of the Basileus of Britain. The dragon seems also to have been a Norman ensign. The lions or leopards, popularly assigned to the Conqueror, are certainly a later invention. There is no appearance of them on the banners and shields of the Norman army in the Bayeux tapestry. Armorial bearings were in use amongst the Welch, and even the Saxons, long before heraldry was reduced to a science by the Franks and Normans. And the dragon, which is supposed by many critics to be borrowed from the east, through the Saracens, certainly existed as an armorial ensign with the Cymrians before they could have had any obligation to the songs and legends of that people.

[172] “In whose time the earth brought forth double, and there was neither beggar nor poor man from the North to the South Sea.” POWELL’s Hist. of Wales, p. 83.

[173] “During the military expeditions made in our days against South Wales, an old Welchman, at Pencadair, who had faithfully adhered to him (Henry II.), being desired to give his opinion about the royal army, and whether he thought that of the rebels would make resistance, and what he thought would be the final event of this war, replied: ‘This nation, O King, may now, as in former times, be harassed, and, in a great measure, be weakened and destroyed by you and other powers; and it will often prevail by its laudable exertions, but it can never be totally subdued by the wrath of man, unless the wrath of God shall concur. Nor do I think that any other nation than this of Wales, or any other language (whatever may hereafter come to pass), shall in the day of severe examination before the Supreme Judge answer for this corner of the earth!’”--HOARE’s Giraldus Cambrensis, vol. i. p. 361.

[174] Gryffyth left a son, Caradoc; but he was put aside as a minor, according to the Saxon customs.

[175] Bromton Chron., Knyghton, Walsingham, Hoveden, etc.

[176] Bromton, Knyghton, etc.

[177] The word “decimated” is the one generally applied by the historians to the massacre in question; and it is therefore retained here. But it is not correctly applied, for that butchery was perpetrated, not upon one out of ten, but nine out of ten.

[178] The above reasons for Harold’s memorable expedition are sketched at this length, because they suggest the most probable motives which induced it, and furnish, in no rash and inconsiderate policy, that key to his visit, which is not to be found in chronicler or historian.

[179] See Note (N).

[180] Faul was an evil spirit much dreaded by the Saxons. Zabulus and Diabolus (the Devil) seem to have been the same.

[181] Ygg-drassill, the mystic Ash-tree of Life, or symbol of the earth, watered by the Fates.--See Note (O.)

[182] Mimir, the most celebrated of the giants. The Vaner, with whom he was left as a hostage, cut off his head. Odin embalmed it by his seid, or magic art, pronounced over it mystic runes, and, ever after, consulted it on critical occasions.

[183] Asa-Lok or Loke--(distinct from Utgard-Lok, the demon of the Infernal Regions)--descended from the Giants, but received among the celestial Deities; a treacherous and malignant Power fond of assuming disguises and plotting evil-corresponding in his attributes with our “Lucifer.” One of his progeny was Hela, the Queen of Hell.

[184] “A hag dwells in a wood called Janvid, the Iron Wood, the mother of many gigantic sons shaped like wolves; there is one of a race more fearful than all, named ‘Managarm.’ He will be filled with the blood of men who draw near their end, and will swallow up the moon and stain the heavens and the hearth with blood.”--From the Prose Edda. In the Scandinavian poetry, Managarm is sometimes the symbol of war, and the “Iron Wood” a metaphor for spears.

[185] “Wolf Month,” January.

[186] Bayeux tapestry.

[187] Roman de Rou, see part ii. 1078.

[188] Belrem, the present Beaurain, near Montreuil.

[189] Roman de Rou, part ii. 1079.

[190] William of Poitiers, “apud Aucense Castrum.”

[191] As soon as the rude fort of the middle ages admitted something of magnificence and display, the state rooms were placed in the third story of the inner court, as being the most secure.

[192] A manor (but not, alas! In Normandy) was held by one of his cooks, on the tenure of supplying William with a dish of dillegrout.

[193] The Council of Cloveshoe forbade the clergy to harbour poets, harpers, musicians, and buffoons. [194] ORD. VITAL.

[195] Canute made his inferior strength and stature his excuse for not meeting Edward Ironsides in single combat.

[196] Odo’s licentiousness was, at a later period, one of the alleged causes of his downfall, or rather against his release from the prison to which he had been consigned. He had a son named John, who distinguished himself under Henry I.--ORD. VITAL. lib. iv.

[197] William of Poitiers, the contemporary Norman chronicler, says of Harold, that he was a man to whom imprisonment was more odious than shipwreck.

[198] In the environs of Bayeux still may perhaps linger the sole remains of the Scandinavian Normans, apart from the gentry. For centuries the inhabitants of Bayeux and its vicinity were a class distinct from the Franco-Normans, or the rest of Neustria; they submitted with great reluctance to the ducal authority, and retained their old heathen cry of Thor-aide, instead of Dieu-aide!

[199] Similar was the answer of Goodyn the Bishop of Winchester, ambassador from Henry VIII. to the French King. To this day the English entertain the same notion of forts as Harold and Goodyn.

[200] See Mr. Wright’s very interesting article on the “Condition of the English Peasantry,” etc., Archaeologia, vol. xxx. pp. 205-244. I must, however, observe, that one very important fact seems to have been generally overlooked by all inquirers, or, at least, not sufficiently enforced, viz., that it was the Norman’s contempt for the general mass of the subject population which more, perhaps, than any other cause, broke up positive slavery in England. Thus the Norman very soon lost sight of that distinction the Anglo-Saxons had made between the agricultural ceorl and the theowe; i.e., between the serf of the soil and the personal slave. Hence these classes became fused in each other, and were gradually emancipated by the same circumstances. This, be it remarked, could never have taken place under the Anglo-Saxon laws, which kept constantly feeding the class of slaves by adding to it convicted felons and their children. The subject population became too necessary to the Norman barons, in their feuds with each other, or their king, to be long oppressed; and, in the time of Froissart, that worthy chronicler ascribes the insolence, or high spirit, of le menu peuple to their grand aise, et abondance de biens.

[201] Twelve o’clock.

[202] Six A.M.

[203] A celebrated antiquary, in his treatise in the “Archaeologia,” on the authenticity of the Bayeux tapestry, very justly invites attention to the rude attempt of the artist to preserve individuality in his portraits; and especially to the singularly erect bearing of the Duke, by which he is at once recognised wherever he is introduced. Less pains are taken with the portrait of Harold; but even in that a certain elegance of proportion, and length of limb, as well as height of stature, are generally preserved.

[204] Bayeux tapestry.

[205] AIL. de Vit. Edw.--Many other chroniclers mention this legend, of which the stones of Westminster Abbey itself prated, in the statues of Edward and the Pilgrim, placed over the arch in Dean’s Yard.

[206] This ancient Saxon lay, apparently of the date of the tenth or eleventh century, may be found, admirably translated by Mr. George Stephens, in the Archaeologia, vol. xxx. p. 259. In the text the poem is much abridged, reduced into rhythm, and in some stanzas wholly altered from the original. But it is, nevertheless, greatly indebted to Mr. Stephens’s translation, from which several lines are borrowed verbatim. The more careful reader will note the great aid given to a rhymeless metre by alliteration. I am not sure that this old Saxon mode of verse might not be profitably restored to our national muse.

[207] People.

[208] Heaven.

[209] Omen.

[210] The Eastern word Satraps (Satrapes) made one of the ordinary and most inappropriate titles (borrowed, no doubt, from the Byzantine Court), by which the Saxons, in their Latinity, honoured their simple nobles.

[211] Afterwards married to Malcolm of Scotland, through whom, by the female line, the present royal dynasty of England assumes descent from the Anglo-Saxon kings.

[212] By his first wife; Aldyth was his second.

[213] Flor. Wig.

[214] This truth has been overlooked by writers, who have maintained the Atheling’s right as if incontestable. “An opinion prevailed,” says Palgrave, “Eng. Commonwealth,” pp. 559, 560, “that if the Atheling was born before his father and mother were ordained to the royal dignity, the crown did not descend to the child of uncrowned ancestors. “Our great legal historian quotes Eadmer, “De Vit. Sanct. Dunstan,” p. 220, for the objection made to the succession of Edward the Martyr, on this score.

[215] See the judicious remarks of Henry, “Hist. of Britain,” on this head. From the lavish abuse of oaths, perjury had come to be reckoned one of the national vices of the Saxon.

[216] And so, from Gryffyth, beheaded by his subjects, descended Charles Stuart.

[217] Brompt. Chron.

[218] See Note P.

[219] It seems by the coronation service of Ethelred II. still extant, that two bishops officiated in the crowning of the King; and hence, perhaps, the discrepancy in the chronicles, some contending that Harold was crowned by Alred, others, by Stigand. It is noticeable, however, that it is the apologists of the Normans who assign that office to Stigand, who was in disgrace with the Pope, and deemed no lawful bishop. Thus in the Bayeux tapestry the label, “Stigand,” is significantly affixed to the officiating prelate, as if to convey insinuation that Harold was not lawfully crowned. Florence, by far the best authority, says distinctly, that Harold was crowned by Alred. The ceremonial of the coronation described in the text, is for the most part given on the authority of the “Cotton MS.” quoted by Sharon Turner, vol. iii. p. 151.

[220] Introduced into our churches in the ninth century.

[221] The Wyn-month: October.

[222] “Snorro Sturleson.” Laing.