Chapter XI: The Election of Harold.1 (3)

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

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

[Sidenote: Harold King]

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

[Sidenote: Harold keeps Easter at Westminster. April 16.]

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

[Sidenote: Did Harold avoid Winchester?]

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

[Sidenote: Easter Gemót at Westminster. April 16–23.]

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

[Sidenote: Wulfric Abbot of Ely. 1044–1065?]

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

[Sidenote: The Crown challenged by William. [January 15?]]

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

[Sidenote: Appearance of the Comet. April 24–30.]

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

[Sidenote: Summary.]

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