Note 159 — Chapter XII · THE LATER REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY.[159] 1051–1066.

There is nothing special to remark on the authorities for this Chapter, which consist mainly of the Norman writers whose names and whose relative importance must be by this time familiar to the reader. I will only remark that it is somewhat vexatious that we have to trust almost wholly to authorities on one side. While we have full narratives from the Norman writers, we have only the most fragmentary statements from any French, Angevin, or Breton source to set against them. And, to an English writer, this is specially vexatious when we draw near to the end of the period, when we have to deal with those personal relations between William and Harold on which the Norman writers are so full, while the contemporary English writers are so completely, no doubt significantly, silent.