Note 36 — PART II HISTORICAL STUDIES

I need only invite attention to one more point. Mr Archer assures us that 'Wace is a very sober writer', with 'something of the shrewd scepticism' of modern scholars.36 What shall we say then, of his long story (ll. 7005-100) of the night visit, by Harold and Gyrth, to the Norman camp, to which Mr Archer appeals as evidence for the lices (l. 7010)? 'Nothing,' replies Mr Freeman (iii. 449), 'could be less trustworthy.... No power short of divination could have revealed it.'37 Mr Archer tells us he has only space for one instance38 of Wace's conscientiousness. That instance is his story of the negotiation between William and Baldwin of Flanders on the eve of the Conquest. Of this story Mr Freeman writes: