APPENDIX. (continued 5)

This story is clearly the same as that of Henry of Huntingdon, and it even more distinctly sets forth that the victory was still uncertain when the single Northman defended the bridge. Up to that time the English had the better, but the victory was not complete, and the defence of the bridge hindered them for a while from making it complete (“ne sige gerechen”). That the fighting began on the York side, and ended on the further side, is manifest. But it might be thought from the words of the first account, “com Harold ... heom ongean on unwaran begeondan þære brycge,” that the surprise was made on the further side of the bridge; but this, in the case of an army coming from York, is impossible. We must therefore look on the expression as elliptical and in some measure inaccurate. The English came upon them unawares on the York side of the bridge, but the main fight took place “begeondan þære brycge.” In the brief language of the Chronicler these two ideas are run together.

The other accounts throw little light on the matter. The Worcester and Peterborough Chroniclers give no account of the details of the battle, though the Worcester writer becomes rather minute as to the fate of the Northmen after the battle (see p. 375). 725Florence follows Worcester. William of Malmesbury (ii. 228) gives no details except in his account of the defence of the bridge, which he introduces with the words, “Angli superiorem manum nacti, Noricos in fugam egerunt; sed tantorum et tot virorum victoriam (quod forsitan posteritas difficile credat) unus Noricus multâ horâ interpolavit.” This almost sounds as if William had read the two accounts in the Abingdon Chronicle as a consecutive narrative; his “in fugam egerunt” seems to come from the “Normen flugon þa Englisca,” followed by the account of the defence of the bridge. It is clear that it is from this account of William of Malmesbury that the idea arose that the defence of the bridge took place in the very last stage of the battle.

The three Kings whom Lambert (see above, p. 641) conceived to have been killed at Stamfordbridge must be Harold Hardrada, the Irish King (see p. 372), and, I suppose, Tostig, mistaken for a King.

I have in the text (see p. 354) suggested that the neighbourhood of Aldby may have been one of the attractions which led Harold Hardrada to Stamfordbridge. It may however be thought an objection that Aldby is on the York side of the river, while I conceive the main strength of the Norwegian army to have been on the other side. If however the bridge which now crosses the river at Aldby had a predecessor in those days, this difficulty is got rid of. But in any case I do not insist on the connexion with Aldby as any essential part of the story. It seems to me to have been a probable motive, but if it is thought inconsistent with the one intelligible view of the battle, it must be given up.

Let us now see how the great victory of Stamfordbridge looked in the eyes of Norman and Normannizing writers. It is universally looked on as a wicked fratricide. William of Poitiers (126) refers to the Northumbrian campaign only in an incidental way. William landed easily, because Harold “in Eboracensem pagum recesserat, cum fratre suo Tostillo et Heraldo, Noricorum Rege, dimicaturus.” This was a first-rate opportunity for reviling Harold, and he accordingly goes on with a fierce declamation, to some of the particular expressions of which I have already had to call attention (see above, p. 635, and vol. ii. p. 540);

726“Nec mirere quod germanus permotus injuriis, invasi honoris æmulus, arma externa adduxit in Heraldum, quem germana quoque, illi moribus absimillima, quum armis non valeret, votis impugnabat et consilio, luxuriâ fœdum, truculentum homicidam, divite rapinâ superbum, adversarium æqui et boni.”

William of Jumièges (vii. 34) thus speaks of the battle, to which by the way he gives quite a wrong date;

“In quo conflictu prædictum fratrem suum peremit ac Heraldum regem Northwegæ qui Tosticum juvare venerat. Hæc pugna nonis Octobris in die Sabbati facta est in quâ penè totus Northwigenarum exercitus ab Anglis cæsus est. Inde victor Heraldus Lundoniam rediit, sed de fratricidio diu gaudere vel securus esse non potuit, quia legatus ei Normannos adesse mox nuntiavit.”

Two chapters on (vii. 36), when he describes the battle of Senlac, he says;

“In die Sabbati mulctavit [Omnipotens Deus] multa millia Anglorum, qui longè ante innocentem Aluredum injustè necaverunt, ac præcedenti Sabbato Heraldum Regem et Tosticum Comitem aliosque multos absque pietate trucidaverunt.”

Orderic too tells us (500 C) how “Anglicus Tyrannus, effuso fratris et hostis sanguine, lætus intumuit, et peractâ multiplici strage victor Lundoniam rediit.” Presently he uses the exact words of William of Jumièges about the “fratricidium.”

Guy of Amiens also (Giles, 129) makes his elegiacs as fierce as he can. I have already (p. 373) quoted two lines of him; the whole passage runs thus;

“Rex Heraldus enim sceleratus ad ultima terræ,

Fratris ad exitium perfida tela parat.

Non modicam regni partem nam frater adeptus,

Tecta dabat flammis et gladiis populum.

Marte sub opposito currens Heraldus in hostes,

Non timuit fratris tradere membra neci.

Alter in alterutrum plus quam civile peregit

Bellum; sed victor, proh dolor, ipse fuit.

Invidus ille Caïn fratris caput amputat ense,

Et caput et corpus sic sepelivit humo.

Hæc tibi providit qui debita regna subegit,

Criminis infesti quatenus ultor eas.”

The Hyde writer has also his stone to fling at the fratricide. First we read (p. 291), “Haroldus, Rex Anglorum, in borealibus 727Angliæ partibus constitutus, atque apud Eboracum civitatem contra fratrem dimicans, fratricida infeliciter evasit.” Again (p. 293), “Haroldo itaque apud Eboracum constituto, et post multum laborem detestandumque fratricidium modicum respirante, fama Normannorum advolat.” Lastly, William of Malmesbury, who in his account of Stamfordbridge had spoken as an Englishman, turns about and muses in this fashion (iii. 239); “Interea Haroldus de pugnâ Noricorum revertebatur, suâ æstimatione felix quod vicerat; meo judicio contra, quod parricidio victoriam comparârat.”

The force of party prejudice can really not go further than this kind of talk. We can better forgive the Welsh writer who (Brut y Tywysogion, 1066) tells us how “Harold, King of Denmark, meditated the subjection of the Saxons; whom another Harold, the son of Earl Godwin, who was then King in England, surprised, unwarned and unarmed, and by sudden attack, aided by national treachery, struck to the ground and caused his death.” Still the Welshman’s notions of national treachery must have been strange, and this lament or invective is oddly thrust into the colourless narrative of the Annales Cambriæ. On the other hand Snorro is never carried away in this sort. His mythical details represent Harold as offering quarter to his brother and to his enemies over and over again. Thus even fable bears witness to the general character of our great King, and William of Malmesbury had himself once (ii. 228) praised Harold’s clemency in his dealings with his conquered enemies; “Rex Harvagre et Tostinus interempti; Regis filius cum omnibus navibus domum clementer remissus.”

And now, for the last time, we come back for a moment to our old companion, the Biographer of Eadward. His direct narrative has long since failed us, but in one of his poetical flights (p. 426) he has a very distinct allusion to the fight of Stamfordbridge. He thinks the whole thing very wicked, but the subject of William and laureate of Eadgyth takes care not to commit himself between Harold and Tostig personally. He spares the Lady’s feelings the details of the warfare between her brothers, but one or two of his expressions are remarkable;

“Quis canet æquoreo vastum fervore tumentem

Humbram congressum Regibus æquivocis?

728

Sanguine barbarico per millia multa marinos

Tinxisse fluctus, flente polo facinus,

Quis demum scribet? quo mens languescit et horret

Auditus, tanti fama pudet sceleris.”

Presently (p. 427) the Muse warns him;

“Si non describis hostilia bella Griphini,

Vel busam vetitum corporibus fluere.”

The idea that the busses or keels could not pass for the dead bodies is the same poetical common-place which we have met with several times. See pp. 351, 369. We find it also, of all places, in Arrian, ii. II. 11; Λέγει Πτολεμαῖος ὁ Λάγου, ξυνεπισπόμενος τότε Ἀλεξάνδρῳ, τοὺς μετὰ σφῶν διώκοντας Δαρεῖον, ὡς ἐπὶ φάραγγί τινι ἐν τῇ διώξει ἐγένοντο, ἐπὶ τῶν νεκρῶν διαβῆναι τὴν φάραγγα. Cf. Polybios, xii. 20, where there is something like a discussion of the subject. Grote, Hist. Greece, xii. 167.

NOTE DD. p. 411. William’s Ravages in Sussex.

The ravages of William’s army in Sussex stand confessed in the Norman writers, and there can be little doubt that they were systematic ravages done with the settled object of bringing Harold to a battle. The lasting nature of the destruction wrought at this time is shown by the large number of places round about Hastings which are returned in Domesday as “wasta.” As many of these as can be identified I have marked in the map.

On the other hand Mr. Hayley, a South-Saxon antiquary, who is quoted by Sir Henry Ellis (i. 314) and Mr. Taylor (Wace, 262), strangely attributes the harrying of those places which lie at all near the line of Harold’s march to the English, and not to the Norman army. This notion would hardly have needed any answer except from the sort of sanction given to it by the two writers who quote Mr. Hayley. I do not suppose that any army of any age ever passed through a district without doing some damage, but to suppose that Harold systematically harried his own Kingdom, and not only his own Kingdom, but a shire specially 729attached to his house and which contained a large portion of his private estates, does seem to me the height of absurdity. A King who was, as William of Poitiers tells us (see p. 412), hastening to save the country from ravage, who, as Wace tells us (see p. 437), indignantly refused to inflict the slightest unavoidable damage on any of his people, was certainly not likely to mark his course by systematic devastation. And, what is more, on such a hasty march as Harold’s evidently was, Swend himself could not have done the sort of permanent damage which is implied in the lands being returned as “wasta” twenty years after. The ravaging must have been something complete and systematic, like the ravaging of Northumberland a few years later. Such ravaging could only have been done by an army permanently encamped in the country, as William’s was at Hastings. Also if Harold had ravaged, he would have ravaged along his whole line of march, and not have waited till he was within a few miles of Senlac. But Mr. Hayley does not produce a single instance of a return of “wasta” along the early part of Harold’s march; all the points are near either to Hastings or to Senlac. I have no doubt that all these entries record ravages inflicted by the army of William.

NOTE EE. p. 425. Names of Englishmen at Senlac.

I have risked the conjecture that the Ansgardus of Guy of Amiens (690 et seq.) is no other than Esegar the Staller, the well-known grandson of Tofig the Proud. In this conjecture I find that I have been forestalled by M. de Bonnechose (ii. 287). At least I presume that he means Esegar by “le riche personnage dont le nom est accompagné du titre de Stellarius [sic] (Comes stabuli) ou connétable dans le Domesday book.” Thierry, in the second note to his fourth book, takes Ansgardus for the name of an office, the Hansward, which he fancies to be the title of some magistrate, seemingly the chief magistrate of the City of London. But I know of no municipal magistrate bearing the name of Hansward, and the chief magistrate of London in these times is always called the Port-Reeve. Ansgardus is clearly a proper name, and 730Esegar, who was evidently a man of great importance at the time, bears a name which comes nearer to the form used by Guy than that of any other eminent Englishman. Indeed in Domesday, 129 b, he appears as “Ansgarus.” Esegar moreover was Sheriff of Middlesex, which makes it still more likely that he should have been in command of the forces of London. He is addressed (Cod. Dipl. iv. 211) in a writ of Eadward for Middlesex along with Bishop William, Earl Harold, and all the Thegns of the shire. In another writ (iv. 221) his connexion with London is still more distinctly marked. “Eadward King gret Ælfwold Bisceop and Esgár Stallere and alle mine burhðegnes on Lundne freóndlíce.” He was therefore Staller, and seemingly Sheriff, as early as 1045. See vol. ii. p. 63.

The other names which I have introduced come from entries in Domesday. These entries are of course quite incidental, but, like the mention of Æthelric (see above, p. 717), they have another kind of importance which I shall discuss in another volume. Most of the men spoken of were tenants of religious houses, but this does not seem to have been the case with the two nameless Hampshire freemen, whose land at the time of the Survey was in the hands of a King’s Thegn, an Englishman named Ælfwig. The entry, as far as we are now concerned with it, runs thus (Domesday, 50); “Alwi filius Turber tenet de Rege Tederlec. Tres liberi homines tenerunt in alodium de Rege E.... Duo ex his qui tenuerunt occisi fuerunt in bello de Hastinges.”

The case of Ælfric of Huntingdonshire (Domesday, 208) is very clear; the entry is as follows; “Terram Alurici de Gellinge et Emingeforde testantur fuisse Sancti Benedicti.... Ipse autem Aluricus occisus fuit in bello apud Hastinges.” The nameless Norfolk man (Domesday, ii. 275 b) seems to have been a case of the same kind. But Breme of Suffolk was a freeman of King Eadward, and there is no mention of any connexion of his with any religious house. The entry (Domesday, ii. 409 b) is as follows; “In Dagaworda tenuit Breme liber homo regis E. qui fuit occisus in bello Hastingensi.”

Godric the Sheriff and Thurkill of Berkshire are better ascertained persons. Their deaths are recorded in the history of Abingdon (vol. i. p. 484, and again p. 490). Of Thurkill we read, “Quidam dives Thurkillus nomine, sub Haroldi Comitis testimonio et consultu, de se cum suâ terrâ quæ Kingestun dicitur, ecclesiæ 731Abbendonensi et Abbati Ordrico homagium fecit” (see vol. ii. p. 42, and on commendation vol. i. p. 129). The place is Kingston Bagpuze in Berkshire, of which we read in Domesday (60 b), “Stanchill tenuit T. R. E.,” whom Sir Henry Ellis (ii. 227) is no doubt right in identifying with Thurkill. It is singular that Thurkill should also have held of the King another lordship of the name of Kingston in the same shire (see Domesday, 61). Godric the Sheriff held various possessions in Berkshire, partly of the King, partly of the Abbey (see Domesday, 60 b, where he appears as “Godricus Vice-Comes”). He is also addressed in a writ of Eadward for Berkshire (Cod. Dipl. iv. 200) along with Bishop Hermann and Earl Harold and all the Thegns of the shire. The possession specially spoken of in the Abingdon History is Fifhide or Fifield, near Abingdon, where an ancient manor-house of the fourteenth century no doubt marks the site of Godric’s dwelling. Fifield was granted to the Abbey by King Eadgar (see the charter in Hist. Ab. i. 323), and was held by Godric on the common tenure for three lives. Domesday says (60 b), “Godricus Vice-Comes tenuit de Abbate et non potuit ire quolibet cum istâ terrâ.” As Thurkill had another Kingston, so Godric had another Fifhide, held of the King. Of another Berkshire Godric (60 b), “Godricus unus liber homo,” probably the Sheriff’s son, I shall have to speak elsewhere.

The mention of Eadric the Deacon comes from Domesday, ii. 449; “In Kanavadisc [Cavendish in Suffolk] tenet Radulfus de Limesi, unus liber homo Heroldi, quam tenuit Edricus Diaconus, qui fuit mortuus cum eo in bello.” Surely the words “unus liber homo Heroldi” ought to be transposed so as to apply to Eadric.

The presence of the Abbots Leofric and Ælfwig is well known. The following is the local account (Mon. ii. 437) of the coming of Ælfwig and his twelve monks. The first words I have quoted already in vol. ii. p. 644.

“Rex Haraldus habuit avunculum, nomine Godwynum, qui adduxit secum contra Willielmum Bastard in suo adventu in Angliam in subsidio nepotis sui Haraldi, de domo suâ duodecim monachos et viginti milites, pro servitio; quibus occisis et spoliatis, inventi sunt memorati Abbas et monachi sub armis militaribus in habitu monachili, et de Novo Wintoniæ Monasterio, videlicet de Hidâ, cœnobitas esse.”

732

NOTE FF. pp. 400, 437. The Dates of the Events between the two Great Battles.

The day of William’s landing seems distinctly fixed by the testimony of the Worcester and Peterborough Chronicles. The former says, “Ða com Wyllelm eorl of Normandige into Pefnesea on Sc̃e Michaeles mæsse æfen, and sona þæs hi fere wæron, worhton castel æt Hæstinga port.” That is, they landed on the morning of Thursday, September 28th, and, as we may suppose, reached Hastings the next day. This becomes still clearer from the words of the Peterborough Chronicler, who says, “And þa hwile com Willelm eorl upp æt Hestingan, on sc̃e Michaeles mæssedæg.” That is, he leaves out the landing at Pevensey, but brings William to Hastings on the day when he must have come there according to the other account. Orderic is therefore wrong when he says (500 B), “Normannicus itaque exercitus iii. Kal. Octobr. mare transfretavit, nocte quâ memoriam Sancti Michaelis Archangeli Catholica Ecclesia festivè peragit.” The mistake arose from some confusion between Saint Michael’s mass-day and Saint Michael’s eve.

On the other hand, there is no doubt as to the day of the Battle of Senlac. The Worcester Chronicle says expressly, “þis gefeoht wæs gedon on þone dæg Calesti pape.” So Orderic (501 A), “Bellum secundo Idus Octobr. horâ tertiâ commissum est.” It is strange that so accurate a writer as Florence should have given a wrong date, placing the battle on the 21st or 22nd, “xi. Kal. Novembris Sabbato.” William of Jumièges (vii. 36) gives the right date, “Pridie Idus Octobris.” But he makes (vii. 34) the strange mistake of placing the Battle of Stamfordbridge only one week before the Battle of Senlac (“Hæc pugna Nonis Octobris in die Sabbati facta est”). I have no doubt that Harold reached Senlac the day before the battle, that is on Friday, October 13th (see p. 446). William was thus a fortnight at Hastings, which agrees with the “quindecim dies” of William of Malmesbury (iii. 238).

Of the dates of Harold’s movements during this time our accounts are much less certain. We are told on authority which is 733not first rate that Harold spent five or six days in London whilst his troops were coming in. “Deinde per sex dies innumeram multitudinem Anglorum contraxit,” says William of Jumièges (vii. 35). So Gaimar (5257), “Cinc jurs i mist al asembler.” The statement however is probable enough, and, in default of any better authority, we may accept it. We have then to arrange the other events accordingly. We may give two days to the march from London to Senlac, making Harold leave London on Thursday the 12th. He would thus have reached London on the 5th. This puts Harold’s arrival in London exactly a week after William’s landing at Pevensey, allowing three days for the messenger’s hasty ride from Pevensey to York, and four days for the King’s somewhat slower march from York to London. Sunday, October 1, would seem to have been the day on which Harold heard the news of William’s landing. The speed with which events followed one another is almost miraculous, but that is the main characteristic of these two wonderful campaigns.

The following may serve as an approximate calendar of these events;

Wednesday, Sept. 20. Battle of Fulford.

Sunday, ” 24. Surrender of York.

Monday, ” 25. Battle of Stamfordbridge.

Wednesday, ” 27. William sets sail.

Thursday, ” 28. William at Pevensey.

Friday, ” 29. William at Hastings.

Sunday, October 1. News brought to York.

Thursday, ” 5. Harold in London.

Wednesday, ” 11. Harold leaves London.

Friday, ” 13. Harold at Senlac.

Saturday, ” 14. Battle of Senlac.

NOTE GG. p. 431. The Messages between Harold and William.

I have spoken in the text of the extraordinary confusions and contradictions which are found in the accounts of the messages which are said to have passed between Harold and William before the arrival of the English army at Senlac.

734According to William of Poitiers (128), a monk, sent as an ambassador from Harold, reached William’s camp at Hastings while the Duke was inspecting his ships (“Dum custodiam navium viseret Dux, indicatum est fortè spatianti prope navalia monachum Heraldi legatum adesse”), which therefore, it is plain, were not burned. William talks with him, and pretends to be the Duke’s seneschal, saying that the messenger cannot obtain an interview with the Duke except through him. He bids the monk tell his story to him, promising to bring it to his master’s ears. The monk obeys, and is hospitably received and lodged that night. The next day the monk is brought before a gathering of the Norman chiefs, among whom he finds the supposed seneschal of yesterday to be no other than the Duke himself. William bids him (“In crastino discumbens in medio primatum suorum, cucullato advocato dixit”) tell his story to the whole company. He then delivers Harold’s message, which is much the same as I have given in p. 432. Now, this message of Harold is obviously out of place as the first of a series. Harold would never put arguments into William’s mouth in the way in which he is made to do in this account. But it is equally obvious that the latter part of the speech is thoroughly in place as an answer to a great part of the Norman case. It is clear that the order of the messages has been transposed, and that the first message was sent by William to Harold, and not by Harold to William. And indeed, to say nothing of the particular arguments in either message, it was far more natural for the claimant to send a first message to the actual possessor than for the actual possessor to send a first message to the claimant. And this is actually the order in which the story is told in Wace, whom I have therefore not scrupled to follow. In his account (11891 et seqq.), as soon as William hears that Harold has reached London, he sends the monk of Fécamp, Hugh Margot, of whose speech I have given the substance in p. 431. Harold is represented as being kindled almost to madness at the message, and as being kept back from personal violence to the messenger only by the interference of Gyrth. This is doubtless a mere piece of Norman scandal akin to the other stories which I have mentioned in p. 436. The alleged violence is quite out of character with all that we know of Harold, and the introduction of Gyrth, to whose exaltation Wace is so strangely devoted, casts a further doubt on the story. But these 735mythical details in no way affect the probability of the order which Wace gives to the messages. When Hugh Margot is gone, Harold sends his own messenger, an Englishman who could speak French (11949);

“Donc a Heraut pris un message

Ki de France sont li langage.”

The speech put into his mouth is an answer to the Norman claims, but it takes a rather different line from the speech in William of Poitiers. While the latter chiefly deals with the respective claims of William and Harold to the Crown, the speech in Wace chiefly deals with the question of the oath, which Harold maintains to be of no force, as having been obtained by compulsion (11956);

“Se jo li ait fet folement,

Se jo unkes rien li pramis,

Por ma délivrance le fis;

Por mei délivrer li jurai,

Quant k’il me quist li otréai.

Ne me deit estre reprocé,

Quer nel’ fist nient de mon graé;

La force ert soe, si cremeie,

Se sa volonté ne faseie,

Ke jo jamaiz ne revertisse,

Et toz tems là remainsisse.”

The message winds up with the challenge for the battle on Saturday. It is added that William treated the messenger well, and gave him a horse and garments (“cheval è dras li fist doner,” 12026), on which Harold regretted his own ill-treatment of Hugh Margot.

I ought however to mention that Guy of Amiens (197 et seqq.) gives a version of these messages in which their substance differs altogether from the version either of William of Poitiers or of Wace, but which agrees in its order with William of Poitiers. Harold’s messenger is sent from York. At the meeting of the English captains, which I have described in p. 420, the King determines, as the first step, to send a messenger to William. An eloquent monk is chosen by the common voice of the assembly (203);

“Æquo consultu majorum necne minorum

Providus eloquio monachus eligitur.”

The message which he carries is simply a rhetorical demand that William shall leave the country. Peace is offered if he will go quietly, and restore his captives and plunder; otherwise Harold threatens war. The last words enlarge on the vast numbers at 736Harold’s disposal, which he could not, if he would, keep back from battle. England contained six hundred thousand fighting men (221), all eager for fight.

“Militiam vix ipse suam populumque coercet:

Gens est quæ nullum novit habere modum.

Nam, Dominum testor, bis sex sibi millia centum

Sunt pugnatorum, prœlia qui sitiunt.”

William’s answer is also little more than a rhetorical statement of his own right, and of Harold’s perjury, but it contains one expression which is worth notice. William thus (231) sets forth his rights;

“Excessi puerum, leviter nec regna petivi

Defunctis patribus debita jure mihi.”

This strong expression of William’s hereditary right may perhaps be taken in connexion with the strange boast which the poet afterwards puts into the mouth of another messenger of William (331);

“Normannos proavus superavit, avusque Britannos;

Anglorum genitor sub juga colla dedit.”

William’s answer winds up by offering mercy to Harold if he will repent and submit, and promising him his father’s Earldom on his again becoming William’s man (243);

“Si quærit pacem, si vult delicta fateri,

Indulgens culpæ parcere promptus ero;

Terram quam pridem tenuit pater, hanc sibi reddam,

Ut meus ante fuit si meus esse velit.”

Now Wace clearly distinguishes between these messages, which he describes as being exchanged while Harold was still in London, and other messages, which he describes as being exchanged after Harold had already encamped on Senlac. It is probable that messages would be interchanged at both stages; when William of Poitiers rolls the two stages into one, he only displays his usual disregard of chronology, while Guy seems equally careless of geography. Harold is first at York and then at Senlac, without a word about the march or the sojourn in London. The Archdeacon makes his monk, who is evidently the same as Wace’s Hugh Margot, go to Harold, with the statement of William’s rights which I have given in vol. ii. p. 302, and with the offer which I have given in p. 431. 737But he also offers, in the interests of humanity, a decision of the quarrel by single combat (“at si conditionem hanc repudiaverit, non duco justum ut homines mei vel sui concidant prœliando, quorum in lite nostrâ culpa nulla est. Ecce paratus ego sum capite meo contra caput illius asserere, quod mihi potiùs quam illi jure cedat regnum Anglicum”). The Archdeacon now bursts forth into a panegyric on his master’s skill in argument and on his hatred of bloodshed; he then gives us Harold’s answer. His description is certainly graphic. For a while Harold cannot speak (“stupore expalluit, atque diu ut elinguis obticuit”); when he does speak, the monk, to repeated questions, gets no answer beyond threats of immediate battle (“pergimus continenter,” “pergimus ad prœlium”). At the final offer of the single combat, Harold lifts up his face to heaven, and says that God shall judge between him and William (“tum levato Heraldus in cœlum vultu, ait: Dominus inter me et Willelmum hodie quod justum est decernat”). All this happens while Harold is not far off from Hastings (“mandata Heraldo appropinquanti per monachum sunt relata”), and the battle seems to begin almost directly after.

The same kind of confusion prevails in Guy’s account. The message which I have already quoted is sent by Harold from York; but immediately on the departure of its bearer we find a state of things implying that the English army has already reached Senlac. When the monk is gone, William makes a speech to his followers, whom he addresses (250) as

“Francia quos genuit nobilitate cluens.”

And among them, besides Apulians and Calabrians (see p. 305), he does not forget (258) the men of his great continental conquest;

“Viribus illustres Cenomanni, gloria quorum

Bello monstratur per probitatis opem.”

He expects a sudden attack of the English upon his camp, it being, according to this account, the custom of the victor of Stamfordbridge to conquer, not by force, but by fraud (264);

“Ejus enim mos est non vi, sed vincere fraude,

Spondendoque fidem porrigit ore necem.

Ergo cavere decet ne decipiamur ab illo,

Ni simus risus ludus et in populo.

Mandamus vobis quapropter castra tueri,

Irruat in castris ne malus ille latro.”

738He therefore sends a monk, seemingly half as spy, half as ambassador, who reaches the English camp just as Harold was setting out for a night attack on the camp of William (281);

“Rex acies armare jubet, Ducis atque latenter

Mandat ut invadant agmina, si valeant.

Æstimat in vigiles prosternere fraudibus hostes

Fallere dum quærit, fallitur atque ruit.”

The monk now once more sets forth to Harold how William had been appointed heir to the Crown by Eadward with the assent of the Witan, and how Harold had himself been the bearer to William of a sword and a ring as witnesses of William’s election by King and people (291);

“Hoc quia perplures testantur, et asserit idem

Assensu populi, consilio procerum,

Etguardus quod rex ut ei succederet hæres

Annuit, et fecit teque favente sibi.

Annulus est illi testis concessus et ensis,

Quæ per te nôsti missa fuisse sibi.”

Harold not unnaturally returns (301) an answer as indignant as that which Wace puts into his mouth on the earlier occasion. God shall judge between him and William on the morrow. All this is therefore conceived as happening on the night of Friday, October 13th;

“Heraldus vultu distorto colla retorquens,

Legato dixit, ‘Vade retro, stolide.

Judice cras Domino, regni pars justa patebit,

Dividet ex æquo sacra manus Domini.’”

The monk goes back to his master and gives him a report of what he had seen in the English camp, some expressions of which I have already quoted here and there. It is remarkable also (323) for speaking of the English in a contemptuous way of which there is no trace when Guy comes to the actual battle, and which oddly enough forestalls the description which we have of Norman fashions in the next generation (see Ord. Vit. 701 A; Eadmer, 23);

“Fors numerum metues: numerus sed viribus expers

Plurimus a minimo sæpe repulsus abit.

Est sibi milities unctis depexa capillis,

Fœminei juvenes Martis in arte pigri;

Et quot sunt, ovibus totidem sunt æquiparandi,

Ut vulpes pavidi fulguris ad sonitum.”

739These two descriptions of the final message and the final answer of Harold are evidently the same as those which Wace (12254 et seqq.) describes as taking place after the English were encamped on the hill. The accounts are essentially the same; both contain the same offer of single combat, which seems more appropriate now than before. I have therefore followed Wace in making two sets of messages, one exchanged in London, the other (see p. 447) on the day before the battle. William of Malmesbury also (iii. 239–240) brings in a message and an answer at this stage. But he also brings in here the proposal of Gyrth that Harold should fall back on London (see p. 434). He adds also, like Guy, some expressions borrowed from the earlier message in William of Poitiers, the talk namely about the grant of the Crown by Eadward with the consent of the Earls, and also the story of the hostages. Both Wace and William make the Duke offer Harold a choice of three things, the single combat being the last alternative. The only difference is that in Wace the offer that Harold should hold the Kingdom under William (“ut [regnum] sub eo regnaturus teneret”) is made at a second and final message, after Harold had refused any of the three alternatives. The division of the Kingdom between Harold and Gyrth, as I have described it in p. 448, is clearly marked in Wace, 12340;

“E li Dus à Heraut manda,

Se son covenant li teneit,

Northonblonde tut li donreit,

E kank ultre le Humbre aureit,

Ki à cel regne aparteneit;

E poiz donreit à Guert son frere

La terre Gwigne lor pere.”

In both accounts there is a mention of the Pope and his clergy, but with the very important difference which I have noted in pp. 449–450.

With all these contradictions before me, I do not pretend to have reached any certainty as to details; but I think that we may safely accept two sets of messages, and I hope that I have fairly given their general tenor.

740

NOTE HH. pp. 423, 438, 445. The English Numbers at Senlac.

The two passages which I have quoted at p. 445 from the Worcester Chronicle and from Florence distinctly charge Harold with fighting a battle with insufficient numbers. The passage from the Worcester Chronicle follows immediately on the words “Wyllelm him com ongean on unwær, ær his folc gefylced wære.” So the Peterborough writer, “Harold com norðan, and him wið gefeaht éar þan þe his here com eall.” Florence is still fuller;

“Licet ... bene sciret ... mediam partem sui exercitûs nondum convenisse, quam citiùs tamen potuit, in Suth-Saxoniâ suis hostibus occurrere non formidavit, et novem milliariis ab Hæstinga ubi sibi castellum firmaverant, priusquam tertia pars sui exercitûs ordinaretur ... cum eis prœlium commisit.”

So William of Malmesbury, as quoted at p. 423 (ii. 228), says that Harold had with him very few troops except the Housecarls. Presently he adds, “pauci et manu promptissimi fuere, qui, caritati corporum renuntiantes, pro patriâ animas posuere.” And again in iii. 2393 “Haroldus ... paucissimo stipatus milite, Hastingas protendit.” So the writer De Inventione, c. 20;

“Modico stipatus agmine Rex properat ad expugnandas gentes exteras, heu nimis animosus, minùs quidem quam expediret circumspectus, propriis quidem magis quam suorum confidens viribus.... Non potuit de pari contendere, qui modico stipatus agmine, quadruplo congressus exercitui, sorti se dedit ancipiti.”

The Norman writers, on the other hand, can hardly find words strong enough to set forth the countless numbers of the English host. William of Poitiers (132) rises, as might have been expected, to one of his grandest flights; “Scribens Heraldi agmen illud veterum aliquis in ejus transitu flumina epotata, silvas in planum redactas fuisse memoraret. Maximæ enim ex omnibus undique regionibus copiæ Anglorum convenerant.” A little way on (133) he talks of their “ingens numerositas.” Guy enlarges throughout on the numbers of the English. He makes William’s monk say (321),741

“Quo graditur, silvas planis deducit adesse,

Et per quæ transit flumina sicca facit.”

And afterwards (441) we read,

“Anglorum populus, numero superante, repellit

Hostes.”

But I presume that the twelve hundred thousand men of whom the English monk is made to speak (223) means the whole military population of England and not the host actually encamped on Senlac;

“Nam Dominum testor, bis sex sibi millia centum

Sunt pugnatorum, prœlia qui sitiunt.”

So Orderic (500 D) and William of Jumièges (vii. 35) speak of an “innumera multitude.”

Wace makes Harold boast (12999) that he has four hundred thousand men;

“Ke chevaliers ke paisanz

Par quatre foiz chent mil armez.”

But when he speaks in his own person (12913) he speaks with his usual good sense;

“Heraut out grant pople è estult,

De totes parz en i vint mult;

Maiz multitude petit vaut

Se la virtu du ciel i faut.

Plusor è plusor unt poiz dit

Ke Heraut aveit gent petit,

Por ço ke à li meschaï;

Maiz plusors dient è jel di,

Ke cuntre un home altre envéia,

La gent al Duc poi foisonna,

Maiz li Dus aveit veirement

Plusors baronz è meillor gent.”

Wace here rebukes the English exaggerations; so William of Malmesbury (ii. 228) rebukes the Norman exaggerations; “Sed mihi videntur errare qui Anglorum numerum accumulant et fortitudinem extenuant; ita Normannos, dum laudare intendunt, infamiâ respergunt.”

My own ideas I have set forth pretty plainly in the text. It is very likely that Harold, by waiting longer, might have gathered a larger army, but, as far as a civilian may venture to judge of such a matter, it seems to me that a larger army would not have been of any use. Harold clearly had men enough to defend the hill. If indeed he could have exchanged his irregular levies for the Thegns and Housecarls of Eadwine and Morkere, that might have made a difference, but that is not a question of numbers. We must allow for obvious exaggeration on both sides, 742and perhaps Wace strikes as good a balance between the two as any. It is impossible to go over the battle-field with the Norman accounts in one’s hand and not to feel the consummate generalship which led Harold to the choice and defence of the post which he chose. And this time I venture to appeal from Harold’s admirers and censurers to Harold himself.

NOTE II. p. 428. The Miraculous Warning given to Harold before the Battle.

I have given in the text the legend of the miraculous warning given to Harold by the Holy Rood at Waltham, because there is probably thus much of truth in the story, that Harold really visited Waltham in the interval between the two battles. But when the notion of a miraculous interposition had once got afloat, the story, as usual, took various forms. According to the legend preserved by the Hyde writer (p. 293), Harold, on his march from London to Senlac, entered a church to pray. As soon as he left the building, the tower fell; this of course portended the fall of Harold’s Kingdom (“fertur etiam quod in ipso itinere, ecclesiam illo introeunte orandi gratiâ, turris ejusdem post exeuntem solo tenus corruit, regnumque Anglorum quam citiùs corruere designaverit”). There is nothing to remark in this story, unless it be that the notion of Harold entering a church on his journey may be taken from the picture of his entering Bosham church on his earlier journey (Tapestry, plate 1), where the church is, strangely enough, represented without a tower.

The other version is found in the anonymous continuation of Wace’s Brut (Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, i. 70, quoted also in Taylor’s Wace, 289). The two armies are encamped near Hastings;

“A Hastinges sunt encontré

Li rois e li dux par grant fierté.”

Harold rises in the morning, and goes to hear mass in a church near the battle-field (“assez près à un moster”). The priests have consecrated the host and sung the Pater Noster, when a cry 743comes, “The Duke is upon us!” The King at once leaves the church, and rushes to the battle. If, the poet adds, he had waited for the Agnus Dei and the Pax, he would have vanquished the Duke in battle or would have held his Kingdom in peace.

“Si le Agnus Dei eust atendu

E la pais eust recéu,

Par pais eust la terre tenu

U par bataille le dux vencu.”

This story seems to come from the account of the battle of Ashdown in Asser (M. H. B. 476 C, copied also by Florence, 871), where the Danes attack the English while Æthelred and his brother Ælfred are hearing mass. Ælfred rushes out at once to the battle, while Æthelred waits for the end of the service. But the myth-maker now goes on to add the Waltham legend itself, strangely translated from its natural place. After the King has left the church—seemingly the church near Senlac—the stone cross gives the same marvellous sign which it gives in the Waltham story; and to confirm our faith in the tale, we are bidden to go to Waltham and see the cross behind the high altar, and Harold lying in the choir;

“Quant il issit del moster,

La croiz, ke fu fait de père,

Après le rois ad encliné

C’onques puis la teste levé.

Ki ke volt ceo saver,

A Walteham, ultre le halt auter,

Meimes cel croiz purra trover

E roi Haraud gisant en quer.”

The two stories are here very awkwardly joined together, and there cannot be the least doubt that the version in the De Inventione gives the legend in its earliest and genuine form.

NOTE KK. pp. 442 et seqq. The Details of the Battle of Senlac.

I had hoped to deal with the great battle as I have dealt with the other great points of my history, that is to give a narrative of the events as I conceive them, uninterrupted by foot-notes, and to discuss all details in a separate essay. But I found this course impossible. My view of the battle is founded on so many minute hints in so many different writers that I found that, if I separated my particular statements from the evidence on which they rest, I should be practically calling on the reader to accept the statements without full means of testing them. To every statement therefore which seemed open to any possibility 744of question, I have added the authority on which I ground it. Each reader can therefore judge for himself how far my narrative is borne out by my authorities. At the same time I think that no one will be justified either in confidently accepting or in confidently rejecting my version, unless he has himself gone over the ground with the original accounts fresh in his memory. I have myself visited Battle four times. The first time was as long ago as 1853, when I was already deeply interested in the subject, but when I had not yet planned the present work. I went more carefully over the ground, with a special reference to this history, in July 1866, and again in December 1868. This third time I had the advantage of the company of Mr. J. R. Green, who has a much keener eye than I have for topography, especially for military topography. But I am happy to say that his observations had mainly the effect of explaining and confirming the conclusions to which I had come two years before. Lastly, in the same month I walked specially from Hastings to Battle, a part of the process almost as needful as the survey of the actual battle-ground.

Most of the accounts of the battle, ancient and modern, show very little understanding of the site. Of the primary authorities, William of Poitiers and Guy of Amiens both show by several touches that they understood it. But Guy alone bears the position in mind throughout his story. William begins with an excellent description, but his topography is soon lost in his rhetoric. The local historian, the author of the Chronicon de Bello, is still more distinct; so is the author of the Brevis Relatio. The Tapestry gives but little idea of the general site, though some particular incidents are displayed with wonderful vividness. Wace, I think, could not have seen the ground. The English contemporary writers give no details of any kind; the later writers, as William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, give incidental help, which is sometimes very valuable, but they seem to have had very little notion of the general position. Henry of Huntingdon is the most remarkable case. The latter part of his account contains a great deal that is very much to the purpose, and we owe to him the admirable comparison of Harold’s camp to a castle (see p. 442). Yet this follows on a statement so grotesquely inaccurate as that Harold “aciem suam construxit in planis Hastinges” (M. H. B. 762 C). It will be easily seen that my narrative is mainly drawn from the Tapestry, William of 745Poitiers, and Guy, using the other writers, Wace at their head, as subsidiary. In no part of the enquiry does the paramount value of the Tapestry come out more strongly. There is little contradiction among the primary authorities as to the main facts, though they often differ as to their order. In these cases I have had to choose according to the best of my discretion; the reader must judge with what success.

The modern accounts, including those of Thierry, Lappenberg, M. de Bonnechose, and Mr. St. John, seem to have been written with little or no attention to the ground. If we learn from them that Harold’s position was on a hill, it is as much as we do. Sir Francis Palgrave, in his early work (Hist. Ang. Sax. 385), so completely misunderstood the battle as to say that Harold, when struck by the arrow, “dropped from his steed in agony,” and this is actually reprinted in his posthumous third volume, p. 317. Lord Lytton, in his romance, shows a better understanding of the site than anybody else; he had at least seen it; but he has unfortunately encumbered his picture of the battle with many incidents which are imaginary and impossible. An intelligent local antiquary of the district, Mr. M. A. Lower, has done more to explain matters than any professed historian. His account (see Sussex Archæological Collections, vol. vi. p. 15, and Lower’s Contributions to Literature, p. 36) is very carefully done, and it brings out several points which had never been brought out before. Mr. Lower evidently knows the ground well, and he has made good use of Guy of Amiens, to whose full value no earlier writer seems to have been alive. Mr. Lower’s paper is on the whole very satisfactory as far as it goes, and I shall not have to speak of many points of difference between his views and mine. I may however mention that Mr. Lower has been misled as to the site of the Standard. The point commonly shown as such is plainly the site of the altar of the Lady Chapel; the site of the Standard was marked by the high altar, which of course stood further to the west.

Having thus, much against my will, encumbered my text with a cloud of references, I have now only to discuss a few points which seem to call for explanation or to be open to controversy.

1. The name of Senlac for the hill on which Harold encamped rests, as far as I know, solely on the authority of Orderic, who seems to take a kind of pleasure in repeating it. The spot was 746anciently called Senlac (501 A); the battle was fought “in campo Senlac” (598 A); “in epitumo Senlac” (659 B)—whatever “epitumo” may mean; the Abbey was founded on Senlac (505 B); the battle is the battle of Senlac (“Senlacium bellum” 502 D, 504 A, “certamen Senlacium” 523 A). I do not profess to know the etymology of the name, and Orderic’s form may possibly be corrupt. But he cannot have invented the word, which evidently survives in “Santlaches,” “Saintlake,” &c. (in various spellings), “the Lake,” “Battle Lake,” and so forth, the local names for the south-eastern part of the town. (See Lower, p. 70.) “Sanglac” or “Sanguelac” I take to be simply a French pun on the name. On the authority of Orderic then, I have not scrupled systematically to use the word, especially as a name for the spot is wanted. In Domesday and elsewhere the battle is “bellum Hastingense,” “bellum apud Hastinges,” but that is simply as Stamfordbridge is “bellum apud Eboracum.”

2. The story of Harold and Gyrth going by night to spy out the Norman camp (see p. 447) comes from Wace, 12120–12217. Like a good deal that is said about Gyrth, it rests on no sufficient evidence. The tendency to exalt Gyrth is common to several of the Norman writers, but it comes out more strongly in Wace than anywhere else. In fact this part of his poem is little short of a Gyrthiad. The English Earl is perhaps less prominent than the Norman Duke, but he is more prominent than any one else. Wace evidently takes a special pleasure in talking of him; the conception of his character is well drawn, and his story is wrought up with a good deal of epic skill, till he is cut down at the very end of the battle by the hand of William himself. We may accept the valour and wisdom of Gyrth on the witness of his enemies; but there must be some reason for the special favour which he enjoys. Perhaps it was felt to be necessary to the greatness of William that he should be matched with a worthy adversary. Harold’s skill and valour are not disputed, but the perjurer and usurper could not be painted as a hero in the higher sense. The place was open for Gyrth, and it doubtless suited his traditional character. But all this makes me somewhat suspicious of the details of any story in which he is prominent.

3. William of Poitiers (132) has a strange statement that there were Danish auxiliaries at Senlac; “Copiosa quoque auxilia miserat eis [Anglis] cognata terra Danorum.” There is not a word more about them in his narrative, nor, as far as I know, anywhere else. 747By Danes is possibly meant Northumbrians. The few Yorkshire volunteers who followed Harold (see p. 424) may have got magnified into an army fresh from Denmark. I do not understand what Lappenberg (549) means, when he says, “die Dänen wurden unbrauchbar, da sie nicht gegen Herzog Wilhelm selbst fechten zu wollen erklärten.” Does this come from the words which immediately follow in William of Poitiers? “Non tamen audentes cum Willelmo ex æquo confligere, plus eum quam Regem Noricorum extimentes, locum editiorem præoccupavere, montem silvæ per quam advenere vicinum.” But this simply means the occupation of Senlac by the English army in general.

4. The order of events (see p. 482) as to the real and the feigned flight of the Normans differs a good deal in our authorities. William of Poitiers gives the order which I have followed. The feigned flight is suggested to William by the fortunate result of the real flight. See p. 489, note 1. But in Guy’s version (423 et seqq.) the feigned flight at first succeeds; the fugitives turn and slay ten thousand of the accursed Englishmen;

“Pars ibi magna perit, pars et densata resistit;

Millia namque decem sunt ibi passa necem.

Ut pereunt mites bacchante leone bidentes,

Sic compulsa mori gens maledicta ruit.”

(vv. 435–438.)

But the superior numbers of the English give them the advantage, and the Normans are driven to fly in earnest;

“Anglorum populus, numero superante, repellit

Hostes, inque retro compulit ora dari;

Et fuga ficta priùs fit tunc virtute coacta;

Normanni fugiunt, dorsa tegunt clipei.”

(vv. 441–444.)

Then William recalls the fugitives; another attack is made on the English, and Gyrth is killed. The account of William of Poitiers seems much more natural and probable; but that of Guy may be thought to be confirmed by the Tapestry, which places (pl. 15) the scene of William and Odo recalling the troops both after the death of Gyrth and Leofwine (pl. 14) and after the incidents of the ravine and the little hill (p. 490). On the whole I look on the Tapestry as the highest authority of the three, but in the nature of things exact chronological order is not its strongest point. See for instance 748the awkward shifts to which the designer is driven in pl. 14 to express the attack of the Normans on several points of the English position at once.

5. As to the part of Eustace in the battle (see p. 483) our accounts are somewhat contradictory. William of Poitiers mentions only his advice to Duke William in the pursuit after the battle (see p. 503), but he tells us elsewhere (157) that Eustace had given his son to William as a hostage (“filium de fide ante bellum in Normanniâ obsidem dederat”). This may possibly imply some suspicion either of his courage or of his good faith. Guy tells us of his giving his horse to William (see p. 487) and of his share in the butchery of Harold (see p. 499). In the Tapestry (pl. 15) Eustace is shown giving some piece of advice to William at the very moment of the Duke recalling the fugitives, and William certainly does not seem to be giving him much attention. The nature of his advice, as I have given it in the text, comes from Benoît (37414–37421). William has just spoken to the fugitives;

“Dunc vint poignant Quens Eustace,

Qui le Duc effreie e manace,

E dit: ‘Morz est, por veir, senz faille,

S’il ne se part de la bataille:

Nul recovrer n’a mais és suens.’

Ci pout grant ponte aveir li Quens,

Qu’à trop mauvaise e à trop fole

Fu puis tenue la parole.”

On the other hand, the local chronicler of Battle (p. 4) seems to claim for Eustace, the only man besides the Duke and William Faber whom he mentions by name, the main credit of the device of the feigned flight; “Strenuissimus Boloniæ Comes Eustachius clam callidâ præmeditatâ arte, fugam cum exercitu Duce simulante, super Anglos sparsim agiliter insequentes cum manu validâ a tergo irruit.” This picking out of Eustace as a special hero is significant. It is plainly meant as a contradiction; but what is the value of the contradiction? The passage from Benoît seems to fit in admirably with the scene in the Tapestry; still it is possible that Eustace is giving some other advice, and that Benoît transferred to this point the advice given in the later pursuit.

6. The death of Gyrth is told as I have told it (see p. 485) by Guy (471–480). William kills him with his own hand;

“Nam velox juvenem sequitur veluti leo frendens,

Membratim perimens, hæc sibi verba dedit:

‘Accipe promeritam nostri de parte coronam,

Si periit sonipes hanc tibi reddo pedes.’”

749In the Tapestry (pl. 14) Gyrth and Leofwine are killed at this stage of the battle or earlier, but seemingly not by the hand of William. Wace (13947 et seqq.) makes the fall of Gyrth the last act of the battle, after Harold is dead; the deed is wrought by William’s own hand;

“Guert vit Engleiz amenuisier,

Vit k’il n’i out nul recovrier,

Vit son lignage dechaeir:

De sei garir n’out nul espeir,

Fuir s’en volt, maiz ne poeit,

Ke la presse toz tems creisseit.

A tant puinst li Dus, si l’ateint,

Par grant aïr avant l’empeint,

Ne sai se de cel colp morut,

Maiz ço fu dit ke pose jut.”

Wace, it will be seen, does not commit himself to Gyrth’s death, no doubt with an eye to a legend which I shall speak of in a later note.

Of these three accounts I follow that of Guy, as the clearest in itself, and as drawing a certain amount of support from each of the other versions. It agrees with the Tapestry in placing the death of Gyrth early in the battle; it agrees with Wace in making him die by the hand of William.

The group in the Tapestry (pl. 14) representing the deaths of Gyrth and Leofwine is well worth study. Five Englishmen are shown, two of whom are falling dead. Of the other three, one is manfully wielding his axe, another his spear; a third rushes up, sword in hand. Can these be the five Wulfnothingas, Ælfwig, Harold, Gyrth, Leofwine, and Hakon? Might not the Abbot, a man of a past generation, use the sword rather than the axe? It should be noticed that it is only here, and again in the group immediately round Harold in pl. 16, that we see the round shield with the boss, spoken of in p. 473, either in the main picture or in the border.

7. The part in the battle played by the small detached hill (see p. 490) has, as far as I know, never been mentioned by any modern writer. I must leave it to the reader to judge whether the words of William of Malmesbury and the representation in the Tapestry, when taken together, bear out the meaning which I have put upon them. The hill is very distinctly marked in the Tapestry, and it seems impossible that the words “occupato tumulo” in William’s account can mean the general occupation of the hill of Senlac itself by the English army.

8. It will be seen that I make (pp. 490, 503) two occasions when the Normans suffered from an attack of English fugitives in 750marshy ground. The scene described by William of Malmesbury, and represented in the Tapestry as happening comparatively early in the battle, cannot be the same as that which William of Poitiers, Orderic, and the Battle Chronicler place at the very end of the battle. The order in the Tapestry may not always be quite exact, but it could not go so far wrong as this. The ground also supplies places which exactly suit both occasions. Mr. Lower (Contributions to Literature, 54) identifies the account in William of Malmesbury with the account in the Battle Chronicler. But this last seems very well to describe, with some exaggeration, the steep ground north of the hill (Chron. de Bello, 5);

“Siquidem et inter hostiles gladios miserabile quoddam, in proximo spatiosè protentum, ex naturali telluris hiatu vel forsan ex procellarum concavatione, præcipitium vastè patens, licet uti in vastitate dumis vel tribulis obsitum, oculis minùs prævideretur, innumeros et maximè Normannorum Anglos persequentium, suffocavit. Nam dum inscii cum impetu dissilirent ibidem in præceps acti, flebiliter contriti necabantur. Quod quidem baratrum, sortito ex accidenti vocabulo, Malfosse hodieque nuncupatur.”

This is evidently the scene of the slaughter of Normans which took place in the dark, after Harold’s death, when the light-armed English were flying. It lies in the natural direction for their flight; but it does not at all suit the circumstances of the first slaughter, which must have happened somewhere to the south or south-west of the hill. The small ravine to the south-west seems exactly what is wanted.

9. The time at which Harold died (see p. 498) seems clear from Florence, and with his statement most of the other accounts agree. It is clear from the Tapestry that Harold was cut down by the four knights almost immediately after he received the wound in the eye. Wace (13299 compared with 13932) seems—perhaps only seems—to make a long time pass between Harold’s first wound and his death. I need hardly stop to refute the strange mistake of William of Jumièges (vii. 36) followed by Orderic (501 D); “Heraldus ipse in primo militum progressu (“congressu,” Ord.) vulneribus letaliter confossus occubuit.” Orderic puts the death of Leofwine soon after (“deinde”), but this time he does not name Gyrth.

The battle of Senlac seems in several points to have borne much 751likeness to the battle of Aghrim, described by Macaulay, iv. 90. It is the last battle of Saint Ruth.

“The spot on which he had determined to bring the fate of Ireland to issue seems to have been chosen with great judgment. His army was drawn up on the slope of a hill, which was almost surrounded by red bog. In front, near the edge of the morass, were some fences out of which a breastwork was without difficulty constructed.”

We read of the great difficulties which the English found in crossing the muddy ground and attacking the hill. “Again and again the assailants were driven back. Again and again they returned to the struggle. Once they were broken, and chased across the morass: but Talmash rallied them, and forced the pursuers to retire.” The battle is decided, as evening is closing in, by Saint Ruth’s death by a cannon-ball. The Irish breastwork is carried, and most of its defenders slain, either on the hill or in the pursuit. “The number of the slain was, in proportion to the number engaged, greater than in any other battle of that age.”

I am sorry that I have not seen the ground, but when I was in Ireland some years back, the likeness between the two battles had not struck me.

NOTE LL. p. 459. Ralph of Norfolk.

I believe that I have gradually felt my way to the true history and position of a somewhat mysterious person of whom we get glimpses in the reign of Eadward, and who becomes prominent under William. This is Ralph, called of Gael or of Wader, afterwards Earl of Norfolk or of the East Angles (Fl. Wig. 1074), whom I believe to have been of English birth, and whom I therefore have not scrupled to speak of in the text as an English traitor. This I do on the express authority of the Abingdon and Peterborough Chronicles (1075–1076). In recording the famous bride-ale which led to the death of Waltheof, both Chroniclers, with slight verbal difference, expressly say that Ralph Earl of Norfolk was Breton indeed on his mother’s side, but that his father was an 752Englishman of the same name, born in Norfolk (“se ylca Raulf wæs Brittisc on his modor healfe, and Rawulf his fæder wæs Englisc, and wæs geboren on Norðfolce”). William of Malmesbury indeed (iii. 255), seemingly with the Chronicle before him, calls Ralph “Brito ex patre.” This may be either a mistake or an intended correction, but it can hardly outweigh the testimony of the two Chroniclers. We have another indication of Ralph’s English origin, in an entry in the Norfolk Domesday (131), where we find mention of “Goduinus avunculus Radulphi Comitis.” In classical Latin the word “avunculus” would rather show that Ralph’s connexion with England was only on the mother’s side, but, as I have before shown (vol. ii. p. 644), “avunculus” had now got the general sense of “uncle.” A man named Godwine must have been an Englishman; and we thus find two brothers, Ralph and Godwine, both of them Norfolk landowners, one the father and the other the uncle of Ralph the Earl. Ralph as the name of an Englishman is certainly puzzling, but as we find in England a solitary Lothar (see vol. i. p. 334), a solitary Frederick (see p. 555), and a nearly solitary Carl, a solitary Ralph does not seem impossible. Or if any one pleases, Ralph may have been English in the sense of being an English-born son of one of the French followers of Emma, which would account for one of his two sons bearing a French name and the other an English one.

The English birth of Ralph thus seems plain from the Chronicles, and it is not set aside by the passages which, like William of Malmesbury quoted above, speak of him as a “Breton.” He is “genere Brito” in William of Jumièges (vii. 25; viii. 15). So Wace, 11512 and 13627, in which latter place the words are, “Bret esteit è Bretonz menout.” He was the son of a Breton mother; he held the castles of Wader and Montfort (Ord. Vit. 535 C) in his mother’s country, and he appeared at Senlac in command of a body of his mother’s countrymen. That he should therefore be spoken of as a Breton is really not wonderful.

The evidence of Domesday also no less distinctly gives us two Ralphs in Norfolk, father and son. The elder Ralph is clearly the same as Ralph the Staller of Eadward’s time (see vol. ii. p. 347, and Taylor’s Wace, 226). The number of entries T. R. E. in his name is very great, especially in Norfolk and Suffolk. He also signs many charters. In Cod. Dipl. iv. 121, of 1055, he signs as 753“Minister,” and is distinguished from “Radulfus Dux.” In 1060 (iv. 143) he signs as “Regis Dapifer,” in 1061 (iv. 151) as “Minister,” in 1062 (iv. 159) as “Regis Aulicus,” and in the charter of Abbot Ælfwig, quoted in vol. ii. p. 347, he appears as “Steallere” along with Esegar and Bondig. But we can go a little further. The signatures and the entries in Domesday belonging to Ralph the Staller must not be confounded with those of Earl Ralph of Hereford, King Eadward’s nephew, from whom we find him pointedly distinguished, both in the charter just quoted, and in Domesday, 337, where both Earl and Staller appear in the same entry. Yet the elder Ralph of Norfolk seems to have borne the title of Earl. The many entries of “Radulfus Comes” in the East-Anglian Domesday generally belong to the younger Ralph, for in several of them the forfeiture of his lands to William is mentioned. But Ralph the father is clearly distinguished in two entries (128 b and 129) as “Comes R. vetus;” and in 194 we find “Radulfus Comes” holding land T. R. E., after which the entry goes on to say, “postea tenuit Radulfus Comes, filius ejus, postea Ailmarus Episcopus de utroque, postea Arfastus Episcopus.” Lastly, in 409 b we read of land in Suffolk; “Hanc habuit Radulfus Stalra in vadimonio de vicecomite Toli [the Sheriff who appears in Cod. Dipl. iv. 208, and in many other writs of Eadward] ... et tenebat die quâ Rex E. fuit mortuus, et postea Radulfus filius ejus.”

This evidence seems quite distinct. There were two Ralphs in Norfolk, father and son, the younger being the son of a Breton mother. The elder was Staller, and is also called Earl; he must have held some subordinate government under Gyrth. He was in possession of his lands at the time of Eadward’s death, and he was succeeded in them by his son. The elder Ralph must therefore have died early in the reign of Harold. But as we find his son fighting among his mother’s countrymen on William’s side at Senlac, it is plain that the younger Ralph must have been outlawed by Harold for some unrecorded treason or other crime. He then evidently migrated to his mother’s country and joined himself to the Breton followers of William. One of the entries in Domesday would almost seem to show that part of his lands were granted by Harold or Gyrth to the East Anglian Bishoprick. Of his career in William’s reign we shall hear in my next volume.

754I can only regret that I had not fully worked out these facts sooner, as some of them throw light on Harold’s character and position. Whether Ralph was a partizan of William or of Tostig, or what other crime may have led to his outlawry, I do not venture to guess.

NOTE MM. p. 512. The Burial of Harold.

I have quoted in the text those passages of the contemporary writers which distinctly assert a burial of Harold on the rocks at Hastings. I will now quote the authorities which assert a burial at Waltham. The full story is given in the De Inventione (c. 21). The two Canons, Osgod and Æthelric, go to the Duke and ask for the body. William answers that Harold, notwithstanding his crimes, shall not be deprived of burial (“Rex vester fidei suæ religionis immemor, etsi dignas transgressionis ad præsens exsolverit pœnas, non meruit sepulturæ beneficio privari”). He adds that it is his design to found a church, to be served by a body of an hundred monks, who are to pray for the soul of Harold and of all others who died in the battle. In that church Harold shall be buried with all honour (“paratus sum ... ipsum Regem vestrum in ecclesiâ eâdem debito cum honore præ cæteris sublimare”). The Canons offer William ten marks of gold that their founder may be buried in his own church where he wished to be buried (“corpus ad locum quem instituit ipse remittere”). William grants their prayer, but refuses the money. They strive in vain to find the body. Osgod then goes home and brings Eadgyth, by whom it is found. The body is then taken to Waltham amidst a vast concourse both of Englishmen and Normans (“multis heroum Normanniæ comitatûs honorem corpori exhibentibus”).

The story however does not rest only on the authority of the Waltham writer. William of Malmesbury (iii. 247), after saying that the body was given to Gytha (see p. 512), adds, “acceptum itaque apud Waltham sepelivit, quam ipse ecclesiam ex proprio constructam in honore Sanctæ Crucis canonicis impleverat.” Wace 755(14093) had evidently heard two or three stories, and with his usual discretion he avoided committing himself, but he distinctly asserts a burial at Waltham;

“Li Reis Heraut fu emportez,

E à Varham fu enterrez;

Maiz jo ne sai ki l’emporta,

Ne jo ne sai ki l’enterra.”

The continuator of Wace’s Brut, in the passage which I have already quoted (see above, p. 743), buries Harold in the choir at Waltham. The French Biographer of Eadward (4631) tells the same story;

“Le cors le roi Haraud unt quis,

E truvé entre les ocis:

E pur co ke il rois esteit,

Granté est k’enterrez seit

Par la prière sa mère.

Portez fu le cors en bère,

A Wautham est mis en carcu,

Kar de la maisun fundur fu.”

Now, in harmonizing these accounts, it is impossible to escape the strong contemporary evidence which asserts that Harold’s body really was buried on the coast of Sussex. The statements of William of Poitiers and Guy, though they may differ in one or two trifling details, must be admitted as to the main fact. But the evidence for a burial at Waltham is almost equally strong. If it were not so, how did the tale arise? A tomb of Harold was one which there was very little temptation to forge. Harold was not an acknowledged saint, whose burial-place would be a profitable object of pilgrimage. A burial-place of the penitent at Chester might indeed become such an object, but hardly that of the fallen hero at Waltham. The only writer who shows any disposition to canonize Harold distinctly removes his sepulchre from Waltham (see below, p. 759). If the Waltham tomb was a forgery, it was a forgery older than the days of William of Malmesbury; it was a forgery which must have been owing to motives strongly tinged with political feelings, political feelings any such expression of which would, we may be pretty sure, have been put down at once by the strong hand of the Norman King. The statement of William of Malmesbury distinctly proves that it was currently believed, not only at Waltham but generally, that Waltham was Harold’s burying-place. And I need not say that William of Malmesbury does not write in the interest of Waltham or of England. He is a thoroughly independent witness; so is Wace, who, after his manner, honestly confesses his ignorance of some details, while he distinctly asserts 756the burial at Waltham. So early and so extensive a fabrication as their narratives would imply seems quite out of the question.

The unavoidable inference therefore is that Harold was first buried on the rocks of Hastings under a heap of stones, and afterwards was translated for more solemn interment in the minster at Waltham. This view I worked out for myself in 1857 (see vol. ii. p. 428), but I afterwards found that I had been forestalled in it by M. de Bonnechose (ii. 283), who takes this theory for granted, without reference or argument. On this supposition, we can easily account for all the reports. William of Poitiers and Guy of Amiens, in recording the fight of Senlac, recorded that burial of Harold which formed part of their story; a later translation had no interest for them. The Waltham writers, on the other hand, naturally dwelt only on that burial which formed a part of their own local history. The cairn-burial was something which they would naturally seek to slur over, and to throw out of remembrance. In a short time it would be forgotten; the date of the funeral at Waltham would be shifted back two or three months, and would be held to have immediately followed the battle. Even writers who had no connexion with Waltham, writers like William of Malmesbury and Wace, would naturally think most of that burial which had left a visible witness before the eyes of men, and would have no temptation to dwell upon the hurried ceremony performed by William Malet upon the rocks of Sussex.

And lastly, as to the details of the Waltham story, as to the share in the transaction taken by the two Canons and by Eadgyth Swanneshals. The story, as it stands, cannot be made to agree with the contemporary statement as to Harold’s first burial at Hastings. But the contradiction is little more than a contradiction as to time. The Waltham story implies that the body was found and was buried at Waltham within a few days after the battle. The finding and the burial are placed, if not while William was still on the hill of Senlac, yet at any rate before he left Hastings for Romney. This is of course distinctly contradicted by William of Poitiers and Guy of Amiens. But if we believe that Harold’s body was translated to Waltham at the time of William’s coronation or later, the only error of the Waltham writer would be that he has transposed events and given them wrong dates. The body was found, as he states, on the morrow of the battle, or within a few days after it, 757but the burial at Waltham did not take place till two or three months later. Two petitions to William seem to be rolled into one. The first, made on Senlac or at Hastings, was followed by the search for the body. The second, made at a later time, was followed by Harold’s translation to Waltham. It was then doubtless that William offered a burial in his own Battle Abbey instead. It is on this view that I have ventured to ground the narrative in the text. And I am strengthened in doing so by the fact that there are several small touches in which all accounts agree. William of Poitiers, William of Malmesbury, and the Waltham writer all agree in making the Duke refuse the offered gold of Gytha and of the Canons. So again the statement of William of Poitiers that Harold’s body was recognized by certain marks exactly falls in with the Waltham story. The Archdeacon of Lisieux tells us that certain persons—to him it was quite indifferent who they were—found Harold’s body in a particular way. The Canon of Waltham tells us who those persons were, and how they came to be there. Just so William of Malmesbury, recording the second burial only, and placing it at the date of the first, speaks of Gytha only, just as William of Poitiers speaks of William Malet only. If Gytha and the Chapter of Waltham joined in a petition for the removal of the body, it is not wonderful that a writer at Malmesbury thought chiefly of the interposition of Gytha. Osgod, Æthelric, Eadgyth, were persons of no interest or importance to either of our Williams; in the local history of Waltham they doubtless filled a great place. I believe therefore that the only mistake in the Waltham story is a mistake of date, the mistake, natural under the circumstances, of thinking that the charitable work of Eadgyth and the two Canons was at once followed by the burial at Waltham. I cannot believe that their story is mere invention; it has all that local and personal character about it which seems to imply a ground-work of truth. The introduction of Eadgyth is an especial mark of truth. The Waltham writers, both the writer De Inventione and the Biographer, are clearly a little puzzled how to describe her position. It is most unlikely that Harold’s clerical panegyrists would either have invented an imaginary mistress for their hero or have exalted a real one into an imaginary prominence. To Eadgyth herself, and to the few hints that we have as to her personal existence, I give another note.

758I must quote one writer more. Benoît (37627) follows the story of the first burial up to the point where Harold’s body is given to William Malet, but he declines to say where William buried him.

“Li reis Herault fu seveliz;

Et si me retrait li escriz.

Que sa mère por lui aveir

Vout au duc doner grant aveir;

Mais n’en vout unques dener prendre

Ne por riens nule le cors rendre:

Mais à un Guillaume Malet,

Qui n’ert tosel pas ne vaslet

Mais chevaliers durs e vaillanz.

Icist l’en fu tant depreianz

Qu’il li dona à enfoïr

Là où il vendreit à plaisir.”

I now turn to the legend according to which Harold did not die at Senlac. Of this doctrine Harold’s own romantic biographer is the great prophet. But however much he may have embellished the story, he is not to be charged with inventing it. It is found in several other writers, some of whom are earlier than himself. Thus in Giraldus, Itin. Kamb. ii. 11 (p. 140 Dimock), after a story that the Emperor Henry the Fifth had died as a hermit at Chester, we read as follows;

“Similiter et Haroldum Regem se habere testantur: qui, ultimus de gente Saxonicâ [Cambrensis is speaking] Rex in Angliâ, publico apud Hastinges bello cum Normannis congrediens, pœnas succumbendo perjurii luit; multisque, ut aiunt, confossus vulneribus, oculoque sinistro sagittâ perdito ac perforato, ad partes istas victus evasit: ubi sanctâ conversatione cujusdam urbis ecclesiæ jugis et assiduus contemplator adhærens, vitamque tamquam anachoriticam ducens, viæ ac vitæ cursum, ut creditur, feliciter consummavit. Ex utriusque, ut fertur, ultimi articuli confessione, veritas antea non comperta demum prodiit publicata.”

So Æthelred of Rievaux (X Scriptt. 394), evidently alluding to the same story, says of Harold, “aut miserè occubuit aut, ut quidam putant, pœnitentiæ tantum reservatus evasit.” So Gervase of Tilbury, in the strange story which I have already analysed (see above, p. 693), leaves Harold’s death and escape as alternative stories. “Heraldus utrum fugâ sibi consuluerit, an in prœlio ceciderit, adhuc dubium reliquit.”

Ralph of Coggeshall (Martene and Durand, Ampliss. Coll. v. 801) records Harold’s defeat and death, and adds, “quamvis quidam contendant ipsum Haroldum inter occisos delituisse, nocturnâque fugâ lapsum post multas peregrinationes apud Cestriam eremiticam vitam duxisse, et usque ad ultima tempora Regis Henrici Secundi in sancto 759proposito durâsse.” The age of Harold in 1189 would be about 168 years.

Ralph Higden (lib. vi. p. 286, Gale) quotes William of Malmesbury’s account of the burial at Waltham, as also the alternative statements of Giraldus and Æthelred. To that of Giraldus he very properly, as a Chester man, adds a bit of local detail. The scene of Harold’s penance was “cella Sancti Jacobi, juxta ecclesiam Sancti Johannis.”

Bromton (961) quotes the accounts of William of Malmesbury and Giraldus, without naming either. He prefers William’s account, but he adds some details to the other story; “Cujus tumba in ecclesiâ Sancti Johannis Cestriæ, ad dorsum crucis in medio areæ crebrò ostenditur. Cum quo etiam, dum adhuc vixit, ut quidam volunt, Henricus Primus Rex Angliæ de Walliâ rediens, apud Cestriam colloquium habuit. Sed quia inde a multis dubitari solet, eâ facilitate contemnitur quâ dicitur.” The discourse with Henry the First would be either in 1112 or in 1121, in which latter year Harold would be about a hundred years old.

Knighton (2342) quotes William of Malmesbury, without naming him, and Giraldus by name, with Higden’s addition about the cell of Saint James. He adds; “De istâ opinione fiat qualiter poterit, hoc unum scio, quod tumulatio ejus cum imagine superpositâ in ecclesiâ Abbathiæ de Waltham videre adhuc volentibus ostenditur, ubi dicitur Haraldum humatum fuisse.”

But this Chester story is not the only one. According to another account, Harold escaped alive from the battle, but died soon after. We find this story in the Liber de Castro Ambasiæ (D’Achery, iii. 276); “Hæroldus vincitur, et vulneratur graviter, non multùm post mortuus est.” So too Harold’s great Scandinavian admirer, the biographer of Olaf Tryggwesson, whom I have already had twice to quote (see above, pp. 601, 613, and vol. ii. p. 542), gives the story of Harold’s escape in great detail (p. 263). On the night after the battle, a churl (“þorpkarl”) comes to rob the dead bodies; a man lying among the dead bodies rebukes him sharply for so shameful a deed. He goes home and tells his wife, who at once insists on going to the battle-field with a horse and cart. When she has got there, she asks whether there is any living man among the bodies who can speak to her. A voice answers that there is one who can, and one only. With much trouble she finds the speaker among the bodies; she and her husband put him on the 760cart and take him home. They wish to know who he is, but he never tells them; they infer however from his face and from his rich garb that he must be a man of the highest rank. The writer explains that this man was King Harold, that he had fallen through weariness and loss of blood, having received many wounds, though none of them were mortal. But the weight of the dead bodies that were heaped upon him hindered him from getting away. He is taken to the churl’s house, and there recovers. The next day the enemy come to seek for his body, and are greatly surprised not to find it. Harold, having recovered, determines, by the example, we are told, of Olaf Tryggwesson, to forsake the world, and to give himself to heavenly contemplation. He makes himself a dwelling-place under a rock, and abides there some while. On his death King William has his body taken to London and buried among the former Kings (“Vilhialmur Kongur let færa lik hans i Lunduner, oc grafa veglega hia odrum Kongum”).

In this last rather unlucky statement, the Scandinavian writer, like Guy of Amiens (see above, p. 542), overrates the antiquity of Westminster, which is doubtless meant by London, as a royal residence and burying-place.

Both these versions, or one which took in both, were known to the writer De Inventione, who indignantly rejects both (c. 21). “Quidquid fabulentur homines quod in rupe manserit Doroberniæ, et nuper defunctus sepultus sit Cestriæ, pro certo quiescit Walthamiæ.” There are parts of the De Inventione which must have been written after 1177. Can this have been written so late? May not the first sketch of the work have been made earlier?

The other Waltham writer, the biographer of Harold, had the difficult task of forcing the legend of Harold’s escape into agreement with the fact that Harold’s tomb existed in Waltham minster, and with the local tradition of the finding of the body by Eadgyth. He is driven to the very awkward shift of saying that Eadgyth found, and that the Canons of Waltham solemnly buried, a wrong body (Chron. Angl. Norm. ii. 209–212). Eadgyth reaches the field; the Normans boast of Harold’s death; those who had saved him also spread abroad the same rumour for their own ends. “Inter hæc mulieris errorem non mirandum, quæ desecti, cruentati, jam denigrati, jam fœtentis corporis speciem minùs discernere valens, pro æstimatione publicâ truncatum cadaver, quum aliud non inveniret 761quod certiùs agnosceret Regis proprium, rapuit et secum attulit alienum.” The Canons of Waltham are equally undiscerning. “Quod [cadaver] a canonicis reverenter exceptum, indiscussâ rei veritate, honestè in ecclesiâ Sanctæ Crucis sepulturæ est traditum.”

This, I need not say, is neither history nor legend nor romance, but a patched up story of the poorest kind. Of the writer’s own story I have given a sketch in the text. The journey into Denmark is by no means ill conceived, when we remember how important the intervention of Swend Estrithson in English affairs soon became. The German journey also falls in with the fact that William’s name was dreaded on the Rhine as well as on the Thames, and that men feared that he would come as the invader of the continental, as well as of the insular Saxony (see Lambert, 1074). When his hopes of foreign aid are blighted, Harold first takes up his abode on the cliff at Dover (“in quâdam rupe secus Dovram,” p. 198), where he abides ten years. Then he goes into Shropshire on the borders of Wales (pp. 199, 215), where, as in a land where he was very well known, he covers his face with a cloth (200), and calls himself by no name but Christian. He suffers much from the “homines bestiales,” the “infidi ferinique homunculi” (202) of those parts, and at last, under the guidance of an angel (“ductu comitatûs angelico,” 204), he takes up his abode at Chester, in Saint James’s chapel by Saint John’s church (220). He is often asked whether he had been in the battle in which Harold fell, and he always answers that he was. Sometimes he is asked whether he is not Harold himself, and he then makes an evasive answer; “Quando apud Hastingas dimicatum est, nullus Haroldo me carior habebatur” (206). After living several years at Chester (220), he reveals himself, when at the point of death, to Andrew, a priest of Saint John’s (221), from whom and from one Moses (220), who had been Harold’s servant both in Shropshire and at Chester, the writer heard the story. As the book was written (185) after 1206, we here again find Harold living to a patriarchal age.

I have already spoken of the utter worthlessness of these stories as professed matters of history. As for their details, the notion of Harold taking up his abode on a rock at Dover or elsewhere seems to have been suggested by his burial on the rock at Hastings by William Malet. The way in which Harold is said to have escaped falls in exactly with the remarkable passage of Wace 762which I quoted in p. 508, and it was most likely suggested by the real escape of Esegar and Leofric, and no doubt of others also.

According to Harold’s Biographer (211), Gyrth too escaped as well as his brother. This tale was clearly known to Wace, who, it will be remembered (see above, p. 749), carefully avoids committing himself to Gyrth’s death. According to the legend, Gyrth was seen very publicly in the days of Henry the Second (“visus est tam ab ipso Rege quam a magnatibus terræ et populo”). He was then, as is not wonderful, very old (“erat jam tunc grandævus valdè”), but, as those who had seen him told the writer, very tall and handsome (“sicut eâ tempestate a multis accepimus qui eum viderant, venustus adspectu, facie decorus, proceritate corporis admodum longus”). Walter, the first Abbot of the new foundation at Waltham, with certain of his brethren, met him at the King’s court at Woodstock, and inquired most particularly whether they were right in believing that the bones of Harold lay at Waltham (“diligenter sciscitari studuit utrum reverà cineres germani sui in suo, ut credebatur, monasterio servarentur”). Gyrth answered in English that they might have the body of some churl, but not that of Harold (“Anglicè respondit, ‘Rusticum,’ ait, ‘quemlibet habere potestis; Haroldum non habetis’”). He even went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Cross of Waltham, and, being shown his brother’s tomb, he again distinctly affirmed that Harold was not there (“obliquè illud intuitus, ‘non,’ ait, ‘homo scit’—sic enim jurabat—‘non hic jacet Haroldus’”). This is told on the authority of Michael, Chamberlain of the Church of Waltham, who heard Gyrth say it. Here we find Gyrth, as well as Harold, living to an age which might justify the chronology of Ivanhoe.

Lastly, the savage way in which this writer attacks William of Malmesbury (207) is worth noticing. He remarks how the “facundissimus Meldunensis Willelmus” professes impartiality in his judgements (“promittit se medium inter obtrectantium necnon et commendantium partes incessurum”). But mark how this impartial writer treats Harold (208);

“Cæterum in aliis quæ de meritis Haroldi vel moribus, prout ani mus tulit aut fama suggessit, aureo nunc, nunc verò piceo commentatus est stilo, venaliùs fortè exorbitaverit a tramite veri, in ipsum verò christum Deum [Dei?] truculentiùs deliquit. Tres enim lanceas in ipsum violentus intorsit, quibus non tam illius personam quam 763ipsam contigit impeti veritatem. Dixit enim ictu sagittæ capite vulnerato oppetisse, dixit militem qui Regi mortuo femur inciderat Ducis censurâ victoris ab exercitu pulsum, rettulit a matre funus regium oblatâ pecuniâ a Triumphatore Willelmo postulatum, sed receptum absque pecuniâ, apud Waltham tumulatum. Sic in femur, sic in caput, sic in omne hominis corpus, lingua licentiùs debacchatur oratoris clanculò scriptitantis quam militis armata manus in propatulo dimicantis.”

Literary controversy was at least as bitter in the thirteenth century as it is in the nineteenth. But in contrast to the wicked monk of Malmesbury, the Biographer gives us the praises of another writer who left the question of Harold’s death undecided; “Temperantiùs scripsit hujus ipsius scriptoris contemporaneus, venerabilis admodum Abbas Edelredus.”

NOTE NN. p. 514. Eadgyth Swanneshals.

Our direct notices of Harold’s mistress Eadgyth come from the two Waltham writers, who plainly describe her as a concubine, or at most as a Danish wife, though they evidently try to veil her position under a mist of words. In the De Inventione, c. 21, we read, “Placuit ... mulierem quam ante sumptum Anglorum regimen dilexerat, Editham cognomento Swanneshals, quod Gallicè sonat collum cygni, secum adducere, quæ Domini Regis quandoque cubicularia secretiora in eo signa noverat cæteris ampliùs, ad ulteriora intima secretorum admissa.” With the cubicularia of this writer we may compare Sir John Maundevile, c. ix.; “And Abraham had another son Ysmael, that he gat upon Agar his Chambrere.” The Biographer of Harold (p. 210) brings in “quamdam sagacis animi feminam nomine Editham ... hæc enim præ cæteris femina commodiùs videbatur ad hoc destinanda, quæ inter millia mortuorum illius quem inquirebat eo quoque faciliùs decerneret, eo quod benevolentiùs tractaret exuvias, quo eum arctiùs amaverat et pleniùs noverat, utpote quam thalami ipsius secretis liberiùs interfuisse constaret.”

A mistress of Harold (“quædam concubina Heraldi”) is mentioned in Domesday, 2, as holding three houses at Canterbury T. R. E. See Ellis, i. 316; ii. 81.

764An Eadgyth or Eadgifu—the two names are hopelessly confounded—of the Swan’s Neck, “Edgyve Swanneshals,” occurs in the Chronicle of John of Oxenedes, p. 292 (cf. Ellis, ii. 81). She is mentioned in the driest way, without reference to Harold or to anything else, in a list of benefactors to the Abbey of Saint Benet of Holm, to which she gave Thurgarton in Norfolk (cf. Domesday, ii. 216 a). Along with her are found the names of Earl Ralph and Ralph the Staller, who are carefully distinguished (see above, p. 753). The gifts of all these, and of many other persons, were confirmed by King Eadward in 1046.

John of Oxenedes wrote after 1292. His authority therefore for an historical fact would be nowhere; but when he is plainly copying an earlier list of benefactors without any special object, his witness is nearly equal to that of a contemporary.

I am certainly inclined to identify the swan-necked lady of the Waltham story with the swan-necked lady of the Saint Benet’s catalogue. And in default of evidence to the contrary, we may also identify her with Harold’s Canterbury mistress. Eadgyth was clearly a Norfolk woman by birth, but there is nothing wonderful in her having property within her lover’s later Earldom. But if she was a benefactress of Saint Benet’s in or before 1046, she was no longer young in 1066. That is to say, Harold’s connexion with her began during his East-Anglian government, between 1045 and 1053. This also makes it likely that she was the mother of all Harold’s children, except Wulf, who was doubtless the son of Ealdgyth (see p. 511). We hear nothing of any earlier wife of Harold, and the incidental way in which Harold’s sons are first mentioned some time after their father’s death, falls in with the notion of their illegitimacy.

Another question is whether Eadgyth Swanneshals is the same as “Eddeva pulcra,” “faira,” or “dives,” who appears in Domesday as holding lands in various parts of England, East-Anglia among them. Sharon Turner (Hist. Eng. i. 53) makes them the same, but the identity is disputed by Sir Henry Ellis (ii. 79) and Lappenberg (556). Sir H. Ellis further identifies Eddeva Pulcra with the Lady Ealdgyth. This last does not seem to me at all likely; as to the identification of Eddeva Pulcra with Eadgyth Swanneshals, there is absolutely no evidence either way. There is also another East-Anglian Eadgyth, “Edied quædam libera femina” (Domesday, ii. 286), who is clearly distinct from Eddeva Pulcra, but who 765may or may not be Eadgyth Swanneshals. And I cannot help noticing the will of an East-Anglian lady named Wulfgyth (Cod. Dipl. iv. 106), in which a female name, which is evidently corrupt, but which must be meant for Eadgyth or Ealdgyth, comes into dangerous neighbourhood with the name of Harold. Wulfgyth leaves land to two daughters and to various churches; then follows, “And ic ge-an Ælgyðe mínre déhter ðæs landes æt Certæcere and æt Essetesforde and ðæs wuda ðe ic legde ðǽrto; and ic ge-an Godwine Eorle and Haralde Eorle Friðtúnes.” I cannot identify these places. The date is 1046. Is it possible that Eadgyth Swanneshals was Wulfgyth’s daughter, and that her mother’s bequest formed her benefaction to Saint Benet’s?

As to the relation between Harold and Eadgyth, it looks very much as if it was a case of the Danish marriage. Eadgyth and Ealdgyth very likely answered to the two Ælfgifus in the life of Cnut, and to Sprota and Liutgardis in the life of William Longsword. Anyhow the connexion was “ante sumptum Anglorum regimen.”

There are one or two other passages which look as if Harold’s relations with women were known to be a weak point in his character, in opposition to the good example set in this respect by both William and Tostig. Thus William of Poitiers (see vol. ii. p. 540) calls him “luxuriâ fœdus;” Guy (261) calls him “perjurus Rex et adulter,” where however the union of the two charges makes it possible that “adulter” is meant to stigmatize the marriage contracted with Ealdgyth by one who was betrothed to the daughter of William. The French Biographer of Eadward, in one of his great revilings of Harold (4460), says that he

“Gentilz femmes enbastardist;

Pur aver veut mariage.”

The former line may refer to Eadgyth, as the latter clearly implies a political marriage with Ealdgyth; but the passage seems to have been oddly misunderstood by Knighton (2339); “Nec aliquam uxorem ducere voluit, sed vi oppressit filias baronum et procerum et militum de regno, quod ipsi ægrè ferebant.” All this has most likely arisen out of our one Eadgyth, but it seems to point to her as a woman of position, possibly as “Eddeva pulcra et dives.”