Chapter XI: The Election of Harold.1 (2)

The funeral rites were over; but the history of Eadward, as the history of a saint, is one which reaches beyond the grave. A King at whose tomb wonders were daily wrought, a King whom two hostile races could unite to look upon with reverence, gradually filled a larger and a larger space in men’s minds. Such a King, already canonized by the popular voice, a King who had done more than any King before him to bring the English Church into close connexion with the Roman See, could not fail, ere long, to obtain, by Papal authority, a formal admission into the register of the saints. But the steps by which he won his saint’s rank were gradual. Six-and-thirty years after [Sidenote: Examination of his body by Abbot Gilbert. 1102.] Eadward’s death, a Bishop and an Abbot of Norman birth, who had most likely never seen him in the flesh, were the first whom pious curiosity led to disturb the rest of the departed. It was already whispered that the body of Eadward, the instrument of so many miracles, was itself the subject of miracle. The holy King, men said, had never seen corruption. Abbot Gilbert, one of the great Norman line of Crispin, whom Lanfranc had put in charge of the house of Westminster,[53] deemed it his duty to see whether the tale that so often met his ears were true. In company with Bishop Gundulf of Rochester, the Prelate to whose skill we owe the White Tower of London and the lowlier keep of Malling, and with other noble and pious persons, he opened the grave of Eadward. A sweet savour filled the minster; they unfolded the garments in which Eadward had been wrapped under the eyes of Stigand; the body lay as in sleep; the powers of nature had failed to do their work; the skin was still white and rosy; the limbs were still flexible; they might deem that he might again arise from his trance and again denounce the sins of England. The Bishop would fain have carried off one hair of his snowy beard to keep as a relic more precious than all the treasures of the earth.[54] But not a hair could be pulled away from the face of the sleeping saint. The Abbot, with a reverence to which those ages were commonly strangers, checked the attempt; he restored the vestments and the body to their place, and bade that the remains of the man of God should rest in peace.

[Sidenote: Attempt of Osbert to procure]

Thirty-eight years later a vain attempt was made by Osbert, Prior of Westminster, the special trumpeter of [Sidenote: Eadward’s canonization. 1140.] Eadward’s renown,[55] to obtain formal canonization for him from Innocent the Second. But a day came when the House of William had passed away like the House of Cerdic, a day when men had taught themselves to hail a stranger from Anjou as the corner-stone which united Norman [Sidenote: Eadward canonized by Alexander the Third. 1161.] and English royalty. Then, at last, the influence of a King who reigned from the Orkneys to the Pyrenees was able to procure from Rome the decree which placed the predecessor whom all his subjects agreed to reverence among authorized objects of religious honour.[56] The green tree had now returned to the trunk; it had brought forth its queenly leaves and its kingly fruit, and the day was now come to do special homage to the seer who had foretold that the good time would at last come back again. As one Pope Alexander had given the blessing of Rome to the enterprise of the Norman invader, his next successor of the same name might seem in some sort to undo the wrong by making the last King of the old royal stock of England [Sidenote: First Translation of Eadward. October 13, 1163.] an object of worship to the Church Universal. In the presence of the Angevin King, in whom men now saw the heir of Eadward, in the presence of the Norman Primate whom England learned to love as her champion and martyr, the body of Eadward was translated from his royal tomb to the shrine which was the fitting resting-place of the relics of a saint in glory. Things were not now as they were in the days of Abbot Gilbert. Then the body, entitled only to the reverence due to the remains of a departed Christian, was allowed to return unhurt and unplundered to the grave. But now that Eadward claimed the worship due to a canonized saint, whatever had touched the holy corpse became endowed with sanctity and miraculous power. The ring, the subject of so many legends, was drawn from his finger and was preserved as a wonder-working relic. The royal robes in which the body had been enfolded were borne away from the tomb and became vestments for the holiest worship of the sanctuary.[57] And the anniversary of that day still preserves the memory of Eadward in the Kalendar of the English Church. It was not without a certain fitness that the Feast of the Translation of Saint Eadward should be kept, not on the eve of the Epiphany, but on the eve of the day of Saint Calixtus. It is well that two successive days should remind us of the memory of Eadward and of the memory of him who fell on the morrow of his festival.

[Sidenote: Second Translation of Eadward. October 13, 1269.]

Years rolled on, and the spot to which Eadward had been moved on his first translation was now deemed unworthy of a Saint who was already looked upon as the patron of England. A King now sat on the throne of Eadward, who was in many points a reproduction of Eadward himself. The same fervent zeal for God, the same neglect of duty towards man, the same vehemence in speech and weakness in action, the same love for men of foreign lands, the same spiritual bondage to a foreign yoke, the same deep and lavish devotion to the holy house of Saint Peter, appeared in Henry the Third which had already appeared in the predecessor whom he reverenced and resembled. The King who, like Eadward, aroused the feelings of the nation by his wasteful preference for strangers of every land, chose as the special objects of his religious devotion two royal saints of English birth. Before all other saints, King Henry’s worship was paid to the East-Anglian Eadmund and the West-Saxon Eadward. By his act those kingly names again found their way into the royal house, and the name of the saint himself became the most glorious in the later history of England.[58] In honour of [Sidenote: Rebuilding of the West Minster. 1245.] Eadward the work of Eadward was destroyed.[59] The church which he himself had reared was now deemed unworthy to be the dwelling-place of so great a saint.[60] The “massive arches, broad and round,”[61] of the church which so long was the model for all England,[62] now gave way to those slender pillars and soaring arches which, alone among English minsters, go some way to reproduce the boundless height of Amiens and of Beauvais. There, alone among English minsters of its own date,[63] did the tall apse and its surrounding chapels crown the eastern end of what was now the church of Saint Eadward. But that apse was not reared, as at Amiens and at Le Mans, at Pershore and at Tewkesbury, to form the most glorious of canopies for the [Sidenote: The shrine of Eadward.] altar of the Most High. Not in any subordinate chapel, but in the noblest spot of all, in the spot which elsewhere was reserved for the highest acts of Christian worship, was the new shrine of Eadward reared. And the workmanship of that gorgeous shrine was of a type fit for him who reared it, and for him in whose honour it was reared. Among all the Kings whose tombs are gathered together in that solemn spot, two alone reveal in their style of art the work of craftsmen from beyond the sea and even from beyond the [Sidenote: Comparison of Eadward and Henry the Third.] mountains. The resting-places of the two Kings in whose heart beat no English feeling, the two Kings who loved to be surrounded by men of any nation rather than their own, the two Kings who, more than any other Kings in English history, laid England, of their own act, prostrate at the feet of Rome,[64] the shrine of Eadward, the tomb of Henry, are fittingly adorned with forms which awake no English associations, the work not of English but of [Sidenote: The Translation. October 13, 1269.] Italian hands. To that shrine, a hundred and three years after its first translation, the body of the saint was borne by a crowd of the noblest of the land.[65] Among them two Kings and two Kings’ sons bowed their shoulders beneath the hallowed weight. The two highest of earthly rulers, the continental and the insular Basileus, Richard of Germany and Henry of England, were foremost to bear the burthen to which it was deemed a holy work to stretch forth a single finger.[66] With the one English Augustus there joined in the task his nephew, the one Englishman besides himself who ever bore the titles of foreign royalty, Edmund of Lancaster, whose vain pretensions to the Sicilian crown had been already transferred to the stronger hand of the conqueror from Anjou. Fit bearers for the foreign-hearted saint were an English King who hated Englishmen, and English princes who wasted English [Sidenote: Presence of Edward the First.] treasure in seeking after the kingship of other lands. But there was one who shared in their work who might seem sent there expressly to remind us that the object of their worship was, after all, an Englishman. Among those who bent to bear Eadward’s body was the prince who was named after his name, but whose life reproduced, not the life of Eadward the Confessor, but the life of Eadward the Unconquered.[67] Those who then pressed to win spiritual blessings by touching the corpse of Eadward hardly deemed that among themselves was one who was to make his name more worthy of honour among Englishmen than the royal saint could ever make it. It was then deemed an honour and a privilege to draw near to the body of Eadward. Was it not rather the highest of honours paid to Eadward himself, that Harold stood by his side at his first burial, and that in the great rite of his translation a share was borne by him who did in truth live to wield the sceptre of the Isle of Albion, and in whom the Scot and the Briton once more bowed to an Eadward of England as their father and their lord?[68]

[Sidenote: Eadward’s shrine becomes the centre of the royal tombs.]

But the posthumous history of Eadward the Confessor did not end even with this crowning triumph. His shrine at Westminster became the centre of a group of royal tombs such as gathered in earlier times in the more ancient seats of royalty at Winchester and Sherborne. Or a closer parallel still might be looked for in that renowned sanctuary of the West, the resting-place of Eadward’s nobler brother, where Briton and Englishman agreed to revere the name of the legendary Arthur, as at Westminster Englishman and Norman agreed to revere the name of the now well-nigh [Sidenote: Burial of Eadgyth, 1074;] legendary Eadward.[69] Eight years after the burial of Eadward, his widow, the loving sister of Tostig, the loyal subject of William, was laid by his side before the altar of Saint Peter.[70] The zeal of King Henry thought of her also, and her remains, translated to the chapel of her husband, were laid as near to his side as the remains of an ordinary sinful mortal might lie to those of a wonder-working saint. [Sidenote: of Eadgyth-Matilda, 1118.] To the other side of his shrine was moved the dust of another Eadgyth, disguised in history by her Norman name Matilda, her in whom the green tree first began to return to the trunk, and in whose grandson Normandy and England alike became parts of the dominions of the Angevin.[71] No legend or effigy marks the graves of these royal Ladies, but soon the choicest skill of the craftsman was lavished on the tombs of Kings and princes which crowded round the shrine of their sainted predecessor. To the north King [Sidenote: Henry the Third.] Henry sleeps in his tomb of foreign work, beneath the [Sidenote: Edward and Eleanor.] shadow of the patron whom he had so deeply honoured.[72] Worthier dust lies east and west of him. No graven figure marks the resting-place of his immortal son, but the loveliest work of all within that mighty charnel-house records the love and grief of the great King for a consort worthy of him. Succeeding ages surrounded the sacred spot with the sculptured forms of succeeding generations of English royalty. There sleeps the victor of Crecy and the victor of [Sidenote: Richard the Second.] Azincourt; there sleeps, beside his nobler Queen, the King from whom the Parliament of England, in the exercise of its [Sidenote: 1399.] ancient right, took away the Crown of which he had shown himself unworthy. Thus around the shrine of Eadward were gathered the successors who in life had sworn to keep his fancied Laws, and who deemed it their highest honour to wear his Crown and to sit upon his royal seat. At last a King arose in whose eyes the wealth which earlier Kings had lavished on that spot outweighed the reverence with which so many ages had surrounded Eadward’s name. One Henry had reared alike the shrine and the pile which held it; the word of another Henry went forth to cast to the owls and to the bats all that earlier ages had deemed holy. [Sidenote: The body of Eadward removed under Henry the Eighth,] And yet some remorse seems to have smitten the soul of the destroyer before the shrine of the royal patron and lawgiver of England. Elsewhere the shrines of more ancient saints were levelled with the ground; elsewhere the dust of Kings and heroes was scattered to the winds. The wealth of Eadward’s shrine was indeed borne away to be sported broadcast among the minions of Henry’s court, but the empty casket still stood untouched, and the hallowed remains found another, if a lowlier, resting-place within the minster-walls. And the days yet came when one translation [Sidenote: and restored under Philip and Mary.] more restored the corpse of Eadward to its place of honour. And again it was from fitting hands that he received this last act of veneration. The foreign-hearted Eadward had been first placed in that shrine by the foreign-hearted Henry, the King whose foreign marriage proved the curse of England, and whose foreign tastes made England the victim and the bondslave of Rome. Shorn of his honours by a King who, with all his crimes, was at least an Englishman, Eadward was brought back to his shrine by a Queen whose work it was to bend the neck of England beneath the spiritual yoke of the Roman See and the temporal yoke of her Spanish husband.[73] Translated first by the zeal of Henry and Eleanor, he was again restored to his old honours by the zeal of Philip and Mary. And now, while the dust of Eadmund and Harold is scattered to the winds, Eadward still sleeps in his shrine, unworshipped indeed but undisturbed; and the spot where an Englishman would best love to stand and muse in awe and wonder has become ground from which the votaries of devotion and art and history are bidden to turn away.

[Sidenote: The Coronation of Harold. January 6, 1066.]

But we must come back to the doings of the great Epiphany. The last King of the House of Cerdic was laid in his grave; it was time for the first King of the House of Godwine to be placed upon his throne. Short as the interregnum had been, England could not go a moment longer without a crowned and anointed ruler. From the burial of Eadward men turned at once to the coronation of Harold. That great rite was performed with all solemnity, no doubt according to those venerable forms whose substance has been followed in the consecration of every English King down to our own time.[74] The chief actor in that august ceremony was one not wholly unworthy of so high a function. The Primate of all England, while his canonical right to his see was called in question at home and abroad, could not be allowed to discharge the highest duty belonging to his office. The hands of Stigand might not minister an unction which was held to confer somewhat [Sidenote: The ceremony performed by Ealdred.] of sacramental grace and even of priestly sanctity.[75] In his stead, the rite was performed by the Primate of Northumberland, his marked adhesion to the new King being perhaps taken as one pledge of the allegiance of his distant province. No living Englishman had seen so much of other lands, none had so often stood face to face with the rulers of other nations, as he who was now called upon to set the English Crown upon the brow of Harold. Ealdred, alone of living English Prelates, had gone, at the bidding of his King or at the call of his own devotion, to the banks of the Rhine, the Tiber, and the Jordan. He alone had stood, as the representative of England, before the thrones of the spiritual and the temporal chiefs of Christendom. He alone had gone, with such worship as none had gone before him,[76] far beyond the threshold of the Apostles, to the city where the Infidel bore sway over the very spot of man’s redemption. He had tarried in the court of Cæsar, he had knelt at the tomb of Christ; but in all his wanderings he had never seen such a day or such a scene as when the Witan of all England came together to choose their Father and their Lord, and the diadem of Ecgberht rested on the lordly brow of the King chosen from his brethren. Could he have deemed that, at the next Christmas Feast, he should be called upon again to repeat that solemn rite on the same spot, under circumstances yet more new and wonderful? In the whole range of history, it is hard to point to a stranger fate than that of him to whose lot it fell to receive, within a single year, the coronation-oath of Harold and the coronation-oath of William.

[Sidenote: The King-elect led to the high altar.]

The rite began. Earl Harold, the King-elect, was led by two Bishops, with hymns and processions, up to the high altar of the minster. Later usage assigned that honourable function to the Prelates of Durham and of Wells.[77] It may then well be that Gisa, the supposed victim and enemy of Harold, really discharged one of the chief parts in his admission to his kingly office. The hymn sung by the choir in that great procession prayed that the hand of Harold might be strengthened and exalted, that justice and judgement might be the preparation of his seat, that mercy and truth might go before his face.[78] Before the high altar the Earl of the West-Saxons bowed himself to the ground, and while he lay grovelling, the song of Ambrose, the song of faith and of victory, was sung over one whose sin at Porlock, whose atonement at Waltham, might well make him seem another Theodosius.[79] The Earl then rose from the pavement, and for the last time he looked on the crowd [Sidenote: The Ecclesiastical Election.] around him, the Prelates and Thegns and the whole people of England, as still one of their own number. Their voice had already named him as their King, but a still more solemn election before the altar of God was needed before the Church admitted him to the sacramental unction. Once more the voice of Ealdred demanded of the English people, in ancient form, whether they would that Earl Harold should be crowned as their Lord and King. A loud shout [Sidenote: The Coronation oath.] of assent rang through the minster. Chosen thus by Prelates and people,[80] the King-elect swore with a loud voice his threefold oath to God and to all his folk. Kings swore in after days that they would observe all the rights and liberties which the glorious Eadward had granted to his clergy and his people. The oath of the prince who had so lately renewed the Laws of Cnut was of a simpler form. Earl Harold swore to preserve peace to the Church of God and to all Christian people. He swore to forbid wrong and robbery to men of every rank within his realm. He swore to enforce justice and mercy in all his judgements, as he would that God should have mercy upon him. And all the people said Amen. The Bishops then prayed for the ruler whom they had chosen, for his guidance by the Spirit of wisdom in the government of his realm, for peace to his Church and people, for his welfare in this world and in the next.[81] Then a yet more solemn prayer from the lips of Ealdred followed. In that ancient English form, which other nations have been fain to borrow of us,[82] the God who had wrought His mighty works by the hands of Abraham and Moses and Joshua and David and Solomon was implored to shower down all the gifts and graces of those famous worthies upon him who was that day chosen to be King of the Angles and Saxons. Ealdred prayed that Harold, faithful as Abraham, gentle as Moses, brave as Joshua, humble as David, wise as Solomon, might teach and rule and guard the Church and realm of the Angles and Saxons[83] against all visible and invisible foes. With feelings too deep for words must that prayer have risen from the hearts of all who could already see the gathering storm, which was still but like a little cloud out of the sea. The Primate prayed that their chosen King might never fail the throne and sceptre of the Angles and Saxons, that for long years of life he might reign over a faithful people, in peace and concord, and, if need be, in victory. Christ Himself was prayed to raise him to the throne of His kingdom, and to pour down upon him the unction of the Holy One.

[Sidenote: The Unction.]

“The oaths were said, the prayers were prayed.”[84] And now came the sacramental rite itself which changed an Earl into a King, and which gave him, so men then deemed, grace from on high to discharge the duties which were laid upon him. The holy oil was poured by Ealdred upon the head of Earl Harold.[85] And while the symbolic act was in doing, the choir raised their voices in that glorious strain to which the noblest music of later times has given a still higher majesty. The walls of the West Minster echoed to the anthem which told how Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet anointed Solomon King, and which added the prayer of England that Harold might live for ever.[86] Again the Primate prayed that, as of old Kings and Priests and Prophets were anointed with oil, so now the oil poured on the head of God’s servant might be a true sign of the inner unction of the heart, a means of grace for His glory and the [Sidenote: The Investiture.] welfare of His people.[87] And now King Harold, the Lord’s Anointed, the chosen of the people, the consecrated of the Church, vested in the robes of royalty and priesthood,[88] received in due order the insignia of his kingly office. The sword was placed in his hand, with the prayer that he might therewith defend his realm, and smite his enemies and the [Sidenote: The Crowning.] enemies of the Church of God.[89] The King then bowed his head, and the Imperial diadem of Britain was placed by the hand of Ealdred on the head of the King of the Angles and Saxons, the Emperor of the Isle of Albion.[90] God was again implored to crown His Anointed with glory and justice and might, and to give him a yet brighter Crown in a more enduring Kingdom. Then the sceptre crowned with the cross, and the rod crowned with the holy dove, were placed, one after the other, in the royal hands. Prayer was again made that the sceptre of Harold’s Kingdom might be a sceptre of righteousness and strength, that he who had been anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows might through all his days be a lover of righteousness and a hater of iniquity.[91] Further prayers, further blessings, followed; the prayers and merits of all the saints, of the Virgin Mother of God, of the Prince of the Apostles, and of his successor the special Apostle of the English nation,[92] were [Sidenote: “Hic residet Harold Rex Anglorum.”] implored on behalf of the crowned and anointed King. And now King Harold of England sat on his royal throne, the crown upon his brow, in his right hand the sceptre, in his left the orb of Empire,[93] the proud badge which belonged of right to the Cæsar of another world. Two chiefs, perhaps his faithful brothers, bore the sword at his side; his people stood and gazed upon him with wonder and [Sidenote: Import of the ceremony.] delight.[94] The day at last had come for which Harold and England had looked so long. The reward of thirteen years of loyal service had been given by the nation to her noblest son. And the die too had been cast; the danger was now to be faced in common; King and people were pledged to stand by one another in the struggle which was to come. And King and people did stand by one another, and, if they both fell, they both fell gloriously. The rite of that great day gave Harold, instead of the long and peaceful reign prayed for by his consecrator, a reign of nine months of little stillness.[95] Then England was given over to bondage, and the name of Harold was given over to the voice of slander. But in the eye of truth, those nine months of little stillness, spent in the cause of England, were better than long years of inglorious ease and luxury, better than long years of hardly less inglorious sloth and superstition. As the momentary glory of Eadmund follows on the weary years of Æthelred, so the momentary glory of Harold followed on those years of Eadward which Harold alone had saved from being as weary as those of his father. And, in the eye of authentic history, never was crown more lawfully won, more worthily worn, than that which Ealdred placed that day on the head of him whom calumny marked so long as Harold the Usurper. If there ever was a lawful ruler in this world, such of a truth was Harold, King of the English and Lord of the Isle of Britain—King, not by the mouldering titles of a worn-out dynasty, not by the gold of the trafficker or the steel of the invader, but by the noblest title by which one man can claim to rule over his fellows, the free choice of a free people.

[Sidenote: Was Ealdgyth crowned?]

The rite was over. Earl Harold was now King; but we cannot help asking whether he stood alone in the great ceremony which had made him so. Did the Lady Ealdgyth, once again the wife of a King, share in the consecration of her husband? Her coronation is nowhere distinctly spoken of, but our ancient ritual provides a form for the anointing of the King’s consort, and for her investiture with the ring and crown.[96] There is no reason to suppose that the wife of Harold, the grand-daughter of Leofric, would be debarred from any honour befitting the wife of a King, the mother of future Æthelings. But, in the absence of direct testimony, I do not venture to affirm the fact. Indeed I must confess that I feel less certain than I did when writing my last chapter, whether the marriage of Harold and Ealdgyth may not have followed his election to the Crown.[97] Whether then the new King had a consort to share in his honours is a point which I must leave uncertain. But, according to all precedent, on the coronation followed the mass, with prayers and collects appropriate for the great solemnity.[98] At that mass the King partook of the holiest rite of Christian worship. On the mass followed the banquet, and there, on the last day of the Christmas Festival, we cannot doubt that King Harold, in all the glory of his new dignity, wore his Crown with all kingly state in what was now his Palace of Westminster. The old dynasty had passed away; the new dynasty had taken possession; but not many days had gone before voices of warning came which showed that King Harold of England would soon have to do battle for his Crown.

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

[Sidenote: No new Earl of the West-Saxons appointed.]

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 [Sidenote: 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 [Sidenote: 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 [Sidenote: 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 [Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: Character of Harold’s government.]

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 [Sidenote: 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 [Sidenote: 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 [Sidenote: 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 [Sidenote: 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 [Sidenote: 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 [Sidenote: 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 [Sidenote: 1067.] of him again as acting against the son of his benefactor.

[Sidenote: English descriptions of Harold’s good government.]

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 [Sidenote: 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 [Sidenote: 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]

[Sidenote: Good position of Harold towards the National Church.]

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. [Sidenote: 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 [Sidenote: His further gifts to Waltham.] stormy. He continued his care and bounty to his own foundation at Waltham; what the Earl had loved, the [Sidenote: 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. [Sidenote: 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. [Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: Formal concurrence of Northumberland in Harold’s election.]

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. [Sidenote: 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. [Sidenote: 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]

[Sidenote: Harold’s election naturally repugnant to Northumbrian
feelings.]

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 [Sidenote: 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. [Sidenote: 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 [Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: Harold’s way of recovering the disaffected.]